#ultimately...... this experience has left me wondering who i can trust and who is pretending to be trustworthy

[evieisclean]

Grief is a funny funny thing

One moment I am furious, the next I'm lower than I've been in a while

I suppose I will never know why she turned on me so viciously, even as she claims to have been my mother figure

Mothers don't abandon their kids or do drugs to numb their own sorrow

They heal themselves

Perhaps one day she will be able to... I certainly hope so

I wish no ill will upon her or her family and friends. I hope that they all heal from their wounds

Even as I scream and rage about how unfair this whole situation is; About how I wish I was young enough to still believe in happily ever afters

But that is not where I am and that is ultimately not productive

Change is coming

It has been coming for years

It's time to embrace the truth

[psychovigilantewrites]

Chapter 14 - A Different Point of View

Summary:  Things that happened that you weren't aware of.

Word count: 9,163 words

A/N: Thank you for being so patient with me. I struggled with this chapter due to its nature. I had to further dive into Bruce and Dick's character that I wasn't too familiar with.2020 was a very tough year for me. I lost lots, learned lots. And I thought that the quarantine would mean I would write more. But I was wrong. Life hit me hard, and I stopped doing a lot of things I used to enjoy.Despite being virtually absent last year, you guys stuck by me anyway. Thank you. I love you all for that.Special thanks to my two beta readers. You know who you are. Here it goes.

(i recommend you guys read previous chapters to refresh coz I had to lol)

Ao3

Masterlist

The roles that people played were false- a mere necessity for their career or survival. Everyone was playing a role, whether it was of their own accord or not.

Bruce Wayne was a role- superficial, fake, yet vital to Gotham. Batman, on the other hand, was a completely different role, born out of exigence and a sense of justice.

Dick Grayson, however, genuinely enjoyed playing his role.

Nightwing felt right to him. Being a police officer felt right to him. And especially, if not ultimately, being an older brother.

He listened to the dial tone of his phone, which rung for a few seconds before you finally picked up.

“Hey,” Dick heard your voice, the usual chirp absent that day.

Dick frowned to himself. Bruce was right about you being troubled after all.

“Hey, sis!” he forced the concern out of his voice. “You busy?”

“Nah, I’m just going over some old case files. What’s up?”

Dick leaned back into his sofa. Aside from the traffic blaring outside, the silence in his apartment made it easier for him to concentrate on analysing your speech patterns.

“Can’t I call just to ask how you’re doing?” he teased, easing into the conversation.

Everyone had always told him how he was natural at talking.

“You already called last week…”

Dick smiled to himself. He could already picture your narrowed eyes regarding him with suspicion.

It was good that you were always on your feet, but it was becoming borderline unhealthy. It reminded him of Jason and how he was always so guarded .

He pushed the memory away.

“I can’t call you again?” he rolled his eyes at no one.

“Bruce put you up to this,” you accused.

That’s because he’s worried about you, kid.

If only you knew how much Bruce had changed for you. Dick was glad that you were being loved by Bruce, yet he still couldn't help but feel slightly bitter that he never got that kind of treatment from his father- not the same treatment he gave you.

But he would rather die than admit his selfish thoughts to anyone.

“Yeah,” he conceded, “He was worried about you after last night.”

“I’m fine, Dick,” you insisted.

How many times has he heard those very same words from Jason?

“Well, if you’re not, then you can talk to me,” he offered.

A short pause.

Your response would be what differentiated you from his late brother.

“Actually, yeah,” you admitted.

There it was. No matter how stupid he knew it was for even comparing the two of you, he found that he always had to remind himself not to.

“How did you deal with it? Did it affect you?”

Dick told you his own experience with gore and dead bodies, how he overcame it, how he coped. There was silence after, and he just somehow knew what you were going to ask next.

“How did, uh, he deal with it?”

Your voice came in a whisper, hesitation evidently clear.

Dick was expecting it, but his heart still sank. He knew how everyone acted when Jason was brought up in conversation- he was guilty of reacting as well. He also knew how you were smart enough to avoid that topic.

It had been years. They should all have moved on, because Dick knew that they were also hurting you.

“He came to me as well.” Dick recalled Jason’s hesitant voice over the phone, never directly saying what was wrong, just rambling about things other than what was really going on in his head.

“Then he gradually called less and less when he learned how to deal with it himself.”

The day Dick noticed it, he was happy for Jason, but a small part of him was saddened that his little brother no longer needed him.

“I’ll have to look for that cognitive therapy, then. Thank you for calling, Dick. Talking to you helped.”

Did it really? He noticed your voice had changed again. Maybe he shouldn’t have gone on about Jason like that.

“No problem, kid. Call me if you need to talk, okay?”

The familiar beep left him isolated with his thoughts, wondering if you would trail in Jason's footsteps.

When will the day come when you eventually stop calling altogether?

***

He felt indebted to his city- the city he loved. The city he hated. The city that robbed him of his childhood.

He felt indebted to his family- the family he would give up everything for, the family he couldn’t stop hurting.

And he was sorry. God, he was sorry.

Sorry for everything he’s said and done- or didn’t do. But he still couldn’t stop. Because he didn’t know how.

Yet, no matter how much he claimed to love his family, the problem with Bruce Wayne was that he always expected them to be the people he wanted them to be.

Never like himself, though. No, he would never want them to turn out like him.

“That’s an order. Stay-”

The silence that followed the click in his ear represented the first time you had ever disobeyed a direct order.

It was a little late on your side. Dick and Jason had begun to disobey him within their first six months in uniform. But you had always been obedient- which made it easier for Bruce to trust you in the field.

This first time came as an unexpected and unwelcome surprise. And Bruce was…

Disappointed.

He grit his teeth when he saw you on the ground with the warehouse burning behind you. If he had just been a few seconds late, would you be in the fire, too?

“I almost had him.”

Bruce didn’t miss the wince of pain as you got up to your feet.

He had heard those exact words before countless times from J- no.

Bruce shoved that thought away.

“He would have gotten away, and we wouldn’t have known who it was that did this,” you argued, brows drawn together in a frown, mouth downturned. Your respiratory rate was high, and you were having trouble breathing.

When did you grow so tall? So confident?

Bruce silently pointed to the active security camera he noticed the minute he arrived and saw your expression fall- only for a second.

“I still think I made the right decision,” you insisted.

“You disobeyed a direct order.” He hated his own voice. The way he spoke sounded too militant.

“I acted how I saw fit,” you continued, “You always say to follow my instincts-”

“Not if your instincts contradict my orders.” He regretted his words the moment they left his mouth. He thought he had changed. But no, Bruce was still a dictator.

“Wow. Just- wow.”

He could see the little twitches of annoyance within the disbelief on your face. He understood it completely.

You were walking away, clutching onto your side and weakly limping to your bike, adamant on not seeking his help.

He hated seeing you injured, in pain. It was his fault. If only he was faster, he could have stopped Red Hood from beating you up. If only he predicted it sooner, if only-

“I’ll be heading back now.”

He missed what you had said before that.

“Robin,” Bruce forced out, “Have Alfred check your injuries.”

He should have been there.

When you drove away, he lingered at the crime scene.

Bruce flipped a switch in his helmet, and his lense changed. Non-organic material lighted up bright white. He noticed a fractured piece of shrapnel lying on the ground, less than a centimeter long.

He picked it up and placed it into a test tube from his belt. Switching his view to normal, he saw that it was red, maybe made from fiberglass. He could only deduce that it was a piece of Red Hood’s helmet.

Despite Bruce’s frustrations at you for disobeying him, he felt a swell of pride. You probably landed a hit hard enough to crack the helmet just a little bit that you yourself probably didn’t even realise it.

He shone a UV light on it. A small portion of it glowed.

Bruce had always been numb when he played investigator so that he would remain impartial and objective. That was true justice.

But when he pocketed the evidence and sped to the Batmobile, he felt something he had never felt before.

Against all logic and rationality, he found himself dreading to uncover who the blood belonged to.

***

Bruce never drank his sorrows away. It was dangerous, too easy to develop an addiction to. He could have easily drowned in alcohol at any given chance, like when he thought of his parents, or when he thought-no, knew- he wasn’t enough.

But no, he only restricted his drinking for leisurely activities. He was disciplined. It was the reason why he was who he was.

However, in that moment, staring at the results of the DNA analysis after hours of anxious waiting, he wished he allowed himself a drink.

Not because he was distraught, not because he was in grief- but because he just didn’t know what to feel.

It wasn’t numbness. It was just plain confusion, an internal tornado of emotions whirling inside him all at once.

Footsteps.

He tapped on a button once, immediately closing the window of the test results displayed on the screen.

Composing himself, he clicked on another pending case to pretend he wasn’t on the verge of a breakdown. It’s just another role.

“Master Bruce.”

Why was he still up at this hour?

“Yes, Alfred,” he turned to meet the butler’s tired eyes- just as tired as his own.

Tired because of him.

Alfred was always up because of him. Because Bruce was a disease, constantly burdening others, dragging them down, keeping them up at night.

“I made some sandwiches. They’re light. Please do eat them,” he set the tray on the cluttered desk, simply pushing aside the numerous stacks of papers.

“Go to bed, Alfred,” he told him. Alfred was too old to be up at this hour. And whose fault is that?

“In due time,” he responded calmly, “What of the blood results, if I may ask?”

“Inconclusive,” Bruce lied.

“I see.”

Suspicion shrouded Alfred’s voice.

“How are her injuries?” Bruce asked, the pain finally creeping in, seeping into his bones.

“I commend you for asking about your daughter’s injuries after only four whole hours of staring at the screen, Master Bruce. You would definitely win father of the year.”

“I was occupied,” he sighed, “Please.”

“Her injuries are only superficial,” Alfred said, “Surface contusions at most.”

He still hurt her.

“Thank you, Alfred. Now go to bed.”

“It was only a little more than two decades ago when I was telling you the same,” he grumbled away.

Bruce made sure Alfred was gone before pulling up the results on the screen again, the glaring ‘MATCH’ sign staring angrily back at him as if it were shouting at Bruce, yelling in rage.

And Bruce understood completely. He had failed Jason Todd. He had betrayed him. And now he was back, vengeful, and full of resentment.

But that didn’t matter to Bruce.

Because despite it all, his son was alive.

In the end, that was all that mattered.

***

What did my son do to my daughter?

Bruce watched in horror as you lay unconscious on the hospital bed, hooked to the IV bag. He couldn’t stop staring at the bruises littering your neck.

Bruises that were far too small and evenly shaped to be the effect of a mere throttling.

He knew how the people close to him viewed him. He knew they thought he was strong, unforgiving, cold, emotionless. Especially when they put him side by side with Clark.

But he forced himself to be those things, because if he didn’t, he would have broken down years ago.

He was used to it. The pain. The darkness.

But this time, he felt like he was being crushed.

He felt like he was hanging on by a thread- no. A delicate strand of thin, brittle hair.

“It’s okay, doctor,” you had said, “I know what you’re going to ask me. No, my genitalia does not hurt. He didn’t do anything to me.”

He felt a wave of relief crash over him.

Jason wasn’t that far gone, then.

But as Bruce looked at your neck again, he still couldn’t help but feel nausea crawling into his core.

He still touched her.

Jim left after his questioning, and you drifted to sleep. He went over to you and looked down at your face, taking everything in.

Since when did you look so mature? When did you get so beautiful?

He couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle. Even in sleep you had your eyebrows tugged down, as if you were angry that you had to go to bed. He didn’t know why he never saw that small part of you that shouted rebellion despite you almost always following his orders.

He realised that when he watched you sleep, you looked a bit like- no. Don’t ever compare the two.

He closed his eyes and pressed his lips to your forehead, trying to convey all of his feelings to you.

He was sorry. So god damned sorry for dragging you into this, for hurting you, for pulling you down to the depths with him.

Hoping you didn’t feel the teardrop that fell to your forehead, he quickly wiped it away before leaving for his press statement.

***

“Master Bruce, please!”

Another crash.

Alfred’s plea snapped him out of his blinding fury, his crushing pain.

He was standing at the hallway near the Manor entrance, glass and broken wood shattered at his feet, feeling the walls closing in and narrowing as Alfred looked at him in alarm.

“I-I’m sorry, Alfred. I-” he stammered, feeling like the small, helpless boy who watched his parents die before him.

He remembered the time when he was little, only a couple of months after the tragedy. He had done the exact same thing, taking out his anger and anguish by destroying things, triggered by something he had long forgotten about.

At that time, Alfred had held him closely in his arms as he stained the butler’s suit with his snot and tears. Again, a burden to the man who raised him.

This time, he refused the old man’s offer of comfort, walking past to descend to the cold darkness of the cave he was so familiar with.

Bruce didn’t usually drink his sorrows away, but this time, he did.

***

Dick wasn’t a good person. He was far from it.

Case in example, it was the first time he saw you after your kidnapping.

He meant to come sooner, he really did. But he was just so busy in Bludhaven, he couldn’t spare any time to rush over the moment he heard his sister was hurt. He tried to justify it in his head by thinking that you were probably handling it fine.

But he was just trying to make himself feel better.

What a great brother he was.

“So, why are you obsessing over violent crimes?” he asked, trying to keep his voice from breaking.

Desensitization was one thing when you worked in that field, but obsession was a whole other problem. And he didn’t want to see his sister walk down that path.

“A lunatic just kidnapped me a couple weeks ago, Dick, maybe this is my coping mechanism,” you huffed, giving him your signature eye roll.

A lot of things start with just a coping mechanism, kid.

Dick knew it about it all too well. The people he brought in on an almost daily basis, high as kites. The accident last week on the highway at three in the morning, two innocent lives taken because of a drunk man who had started drinking three years ago to cope with his mother’s loss.

The man downstairs in the cold cave, who was just a little boy when his parents died, now living with the trauma while going out night after night to beat up criminals, sleeping only three hours a day at most.

“I don’t want your pity, Dick,” you huffed, “I’m fine.”

Yeah, you were. And that was what worried Dick the most.

“I know you are,” he tried to smile, “Which is why I don’t think this is your coping mechanism.”

You talked to Dick about Red Hood, sharing your concerns about him. This is what made you, you. Opening up to him, offering your thoughts and feelings. It was something he never had with Bruce or Jason. The both of them were similar in that sense.

“He won’t tell me either,” Dick huffed, “It’s always been like that with him. No matter how hard I try to get closer to him, sometimes it feels like he’s getting further away.”

It was the same with Jason as well. Did everyone he cared about just end up running away from him?

“I can relate to that,” you sighed.

“But I have a feeling that he will tell you eventually,” Dick tried to comfort you, “It seems too important not to.”

Dick knew better. Bruce had always excluded information from him, whether it was important or not.

“And,” Dick hurriedly tried to change the subject, “I heard from Alfred that you’re not talking to Bruce. May I ask why?”

“So that’s why you’re here,” you eyed him suspiciously. . “I came to check up on you,” he stated, “I’m sorry I couldn’t come here right after, but my little sister did just get kidnapped.”

When are you going to stop putting your guard up around me, kid?

“I told you, I’m fine,” you insisted.

“Then you’re fine enough to tell me why you haven’t been talking to Bruce,” Dick pushed, “I won’t judge. I’ve had my fair share of cold shoulders and fights with him too. I know first hand how frustrating he can be. So come on, tell.”

He saw you hesitate for just a moment, before conceding.

“We fought,” you began, “It was when I got back from the hospital. He wouldn’t tell me who Red Hood was. And he- he called me ‘Jason’.”

Ah, fucking hell, Bruce.

“Jesus,” he whispered, “What did he say exactly?”

“‘Back down, Jason’,” your voice cracked.

Dick saw the way Bruce spiraled after Jason’s death, and he would never tell you this, but deep down he was against Bruce adopting you so soon after. He thought that Bruce was using you to fill up the hole he too felt with Jason’s absence.

You were so like him, yet so different. Still, Bruce must have been really distracted if he could slip as badly as he did.

Dick would ask later.

“Now that’s something I haven’t heard in years,” Dick chuckled humorlessly.

Jason arguing with Bruce about using excessive force. Jason sneaking out to go for patrols whenever he was grounded. Hell, even Jason stealing whiskey from the cabinet at the age of fifteen.

He could still remember it so clearly. Jason with his dark hair poking into his eyes that were full of fury, cheeks puffed up and red as he pouted angrily at Bruce for making him stay at the Manor on nights Bruce insisted on going alone.

Dick tried to shove the past away. He knew he was making you even sadder.

“Has Bruce made any attempts to reconcile?” Dick remembered the conversation he was having with you.

“Yeah, but I’m still mad at him,” you pouted.

“And you have every right to be,” Dick nodded, “But Bruce, well, you know Bruce. He keeps these things to himself, but obviously he’s still hurting.”

You have know idea how much he’s hurting, Little Wing.

You avoided Dick’s eyes, looking down at your fumbling thumbs as the room became silent.

“I’m seeing someone,” you changed the subject.

“You are?”

Interesting.

“Yeah,” you blushed, “It’s still very new, and we’re not official yet or anything. But we’re definitely testing the waters.”

“That’s great,” Dick grinned, “Who is he? Tell me the deets. Spill the tea.”

He sort of loved gossip. It wasn’t a secret.

“I met him in the library a while back,” you excitedly said, “We exchanged numbers. Started texting, meeting up from time to time. He’s really cute.”

Ah, young love. What Dick would give to be at that age again.

“I bet he is,” Dick teased.

“What’s with that face?” you laughed, “He is! He’s slightly older, and he’s got this sexy bad boy look, you know?”

“I thought you liked the nerdy types?” Dick responded. He saw a picture of you and your classmates on your Instagram. Typical prep school kids.

“I never had a type, you ass!” . “You’re right. I thought you were completely uninterested in boys,” he wondered out loud, “Is he nice, at least?”

“Yeah he is,” you smiled to yourself, “He didn’t know I was Wayne until 2 weeks ago. Before that, we were mainly texting. Now we’re meeting up more. I feel like I can be myself with him. I don’t know, there’s just something about him that makes me trust him.”

So you still have some of your walls up with me, but you trust a stranger? Who is this guy?

“I’m not going to tell him anything!” you quickly added, “I’m not stupid. I know I shouldn’t trust someone I just met. It’s not about the confidential stuff. It’s the little things like how I feel, and my problems, and just- stuff, you know?”

The thought didn’t even cross his mind. Dick trusted you enough with their secret, just as how Bruce did.

“I get it,” Dick tried to rationalise, “You don’t know what it is about the person, but you feel like the two of you just click, am I right?”

It had been like that with Barbara. It had been like that with Kory.

Now Dick was alone, and deep down he knew that they saw him as how he truly was. Selfish.

“Exactly,” you smiled, “Been with anyone like that before?”

“One or two,” he brushed it off, “People like that- whom you just click with- they’re hard to come by. You should see where this leads. Who knows, maybe he’s one of those that would stick around, huh?”

What he would give to have at least one person who would stick with him.

After he met with Gordon, Dick went to the cave to see Bruce who was, of course, facing the computers.

“I know what you’re going to say,” his father’s voice echoed without even turning to look at him.

“Then you know how much you’ve hurt her?” he crossed his arms.

Bruce did turn around to face him, and Dick suddenly felt a tightness in his chest.

He knew that Bruce hardly ever slept, but this was different. He looked disheveled, his complexion pale, his eyes more bloodshot and the dark circles even more prominent.

Alfred did say how badly Bruce took the kidnapping, finding him passed out on the cave floor with an empty bottle of scotch in his hand, but he thought that Bruce would have gotten himself together by now. It was surprising to see him that way, and Dick felt… Uncomfortable.

Something was wrong, and it wasn’t just the kidnapping, nor his fight with you.

“You found out something,” Dick narrowed his eyes, “Something important. What is it?”

He caught a flash of guilt in Bruce’s eyes. “I’ll tell you some other time.”

“Bruce,” Dick groaned, “This is why you keep on hurting her.”

Hurting us.

“I’m protecting everyone.”

“You can’t use that excuse with me anymore,” he sighed, “I don’t need your protection. So tell me.”

“No.”

That was his final word, and he knew that Bruce would never budge.

“Fine,” he let out a breath, “Did you know that she’s seeing someone?”

Bruce frowned.

Which made Dick frown. Since when did Bruce miss things? What the fuck was going on with him?

“Name?”

“Dunno. Didn’t ask. And no, don’t you dare,” Dick pointed an accusatory finger at him, “Do not do a background check on him. She deserves privacy. Hell, don’t even bring it up. You have no right to go poking into her relationships.”

Dick was being defensive, but that was because he was trying to convince himself as well, which was why he didn’t ask you for a name. He knew he wouldn’t be able to resist.

“I wasn’t going to,” Bruce reassured, “She… She deserves a life. A normal life. Not this- not-”

Dick knew then he had to leave, because Bruce’s voice breaking meant he was far from okay, and he knew that Bruce hated to show his vulnerability to anyone.

“Bruce,” Dick said, this time softly, “You’re not alone, you know. I’ve been with you since the beginning, and I’m still with you now.”

And with that, Bruce turned his back towards him again, silently going back to his goddamned computers.

“He’s been that way ever since the kidnapping,” Alfred informed him when he walked up to the manor.

“I don’t think it’s just the kidnapping, Alf,” he frowned at the butler, “There’s something more to it. Did he figure out who Red Hood is?”

“Perhaps,” Alfred pursed his lips, “But he refuses to tell me.”

“That means we know him personally,” Dick theorised, “Who the hell could it be that he’s so adamant on keeping it a secret?”

“I do not know Master Dick, but it can’t be anyone good if he’s got Master Bruce drinking during the day.”

***

Bruce knew that he was wrong to call you by his dead son’s name.

But his dead son was supposed to stay dead instead of haunting him with that glaring red bat across his chest, and having that thought in his head all the time, he slipped up.

He prided himself with his contingency plans and detective skills and preparations, but no amount of time could ever prepare him for when he found out his dead son had sexually assaulted his daughter.

You seemed to have dealt with it surprisingly well, exceeding his expectations. In fact, Bruce thought it was a bit odd that you weren’t as affected by it.

And then he saw it.

He saw what he thought was the internalized anger you felt finally bursting through the seams of your tightly lidded emotions.

And he wasn’t prepared for it.

Bruce didn’t think you had it in you, or else he would never have made you Robin.

But there you were on the ground, beating a man beyond recognition.

He couldn’t dread this moment because he never saw it coming. Not from you. Never from you.

He hurriedly ripped you off the man, flinging you away with force.

Pulse was present, but weak. Flail chest. It took him only a few seconds to observe the damage you did to the man’s face. It didn’t look good.

“Stay back,” he growled at you when you came close.

He couldn’t look at you. He didn’t want to.

“I-I didn’t mean to,” he heard you whisper.

“Call an ambulance,” he ordered.

There was no other choice. He had to take the fall for you.

“NOW!” he snarled at you again. In the background, you were on the phone, but Bruce’s thoughts were elsewhere, calculating what needs to be done.

You moved-

“Leave. I’ll deal with this.” You needed to go. You couldn’t be here when the ambulance and police arrived.

“Batman-”

“I said leave,” he snapped. He couldn’t even hear your voice.

He waited for the ambulance to come before leaving, making sure they saw him escape. Making sure he would be the one the media would attack.

And while he drove back to the Cave, he decided to give his son a call.

“Bruce?”

“Dick,” he sighed. He knew he had always been unfair to his eldest, giving him so much pressure to perform, pushing him to be his best- and ultimately away. He knew that he never showed it, but he was proud of Dick. He always had been from the very beginning.

“What’s wrong?”

It wasn’t a surprise that Dick picked up immediately that something was wrong. If it wasn’t for the fact that calling him out of the blue was what gave it away, Bruce himself trained Dick.

“She- she crossed the line tonight,” he tried to explain, “Jerome Miller. She attacked him. The damage she’s done to him is irreversible. I suspect he will be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life.”

“Jesus,” Dick breathed from over the line, “Why didn’t you stop her?”

“I wasn’t there,” he grit. He thought he could trust you.

But deep down Bruce knew that it was all his fault after all. Who was he to act so righteous when he was the reason your parents died?

“I don’t know if she’ll talk to me, Bruce,” Dick sighed, “Not about something like this. She’s probably beating herself up over this already.”

“As she should.”

“Bruce.”

“Please,” Bruce asked, “I’m worried. She isn’t herself and I can’t blame her for it, but the chances of her talking to you are much higher than if I were to try.”

“I’ll try,” Dick agreed.

“Report to me after.”

“Bruce, we’ve talked about this,” Dick grumbled, “I am under no obligation to report to you. I’m doing this for her. Not you.”

He was trying not to go back to the man he was before, but sometimes he couldn’t help it.

They’re your children, not your soldiers.

He had to remind himself time and time again. It was easier to be just a father to you as compared to Dick and Jason, yet even then he made slips.

“I know,” he apologised. “Thank you.”

Click.

And then Bruce was alone again.

***

Bruce watched you from the corner of his eye when you came back. He noticed that you had put more effort into dressing up when you left the house that day.

There was a slight bounce to your step and a small smile that played on your lips.

Dick was right after all. There was someone you were seeing.

But no, he couldn’t look into it. In fact, it would be hypocritical of him if he did. Dick had many girlfriends and flings, and Bruce didn’t want to know about any of them. Mainly because Dick was his first, and the thought of a boy he raised maturing and having relationships made him feel confused about parenthood.

Not that many of them lasted too long anyway.

Jason was a little different. While Dick had girls lining up after him all the time, Jason was much more subtle about the girls he liked, and that made Bruce more curious- but not enough to investigate.

He thought about when Barbara had caught Jason looking at her, making him turn red. He wondered if Jason would like you.

A tight squeeze in his chest.

He didn’t let his mind linger there.

Bruce felt obligated to protect you, which tempted him to investigate the boy you were seeing. It could be a trap, it could be someone using you for fame and money, or something even more sinister. Hell, it could be Jason himself after that stunt he pulled off.

But there was no evidence, and Bruce wanted to be a father to you this time instead of Batman the mentor. So Bruce would have to trust you on this one.

***

There was something holding Bruce back from telling everyone the truth about Jason.

And because he is who he is, Bruce knew what it was.

Guilt. He blamed himself for what had happened, and telling others about it meant owning up to his mistakes. Bruce never ran away from his fears and feelings despite what others might think. On the contrary, he held to them very strongly, using them as a motivation to fight head on.

This time, though, he felt more self destructive- the worst he had ever felt since he carried Jason’s corpse from the rubble- and so he tried to delay the inevitable.

But time was running out. He had enough time to wallow in self pity. It was time to pull himself together, and the first step began with Alfred.

The Cave was colder than usual that night, air thin and darker despite the illumination he had provided. Bruce was slumped in his usual wheeled chair, cowl resting on the desk after patrol, the weight of his suit almost crushing him in his weakened mental state.

“Alfred,” Bruce sighed, “Please, take a seat. I have something to tell you.”

“I assume this is about the identity of one criminal who has been terrorizing your daughter?” Alfred retorted, sitting down anyway.

“Yes,” Bruce nodded, “This… This won’t be easy, Alfred. I suggest you prepare for the worst.”

“And the worst being..?”

Bruce wheeled himself closer to the butler, leaning forward. “It’s Jason.”

Alfred merely blinked. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid my ears have caught up to my age. I must have misheard you, because for a moment, I thought you said that Red Hood is Jason.”

“You didn’t mishear me, Alfred. It’s him.”

Bruce saw the confusion in Alfred’s eyes, the frantic search for reason. “Our Jason? Jason Todd?”

“Yes, Alfred.”

And then, Bruce felt it. The pain he had been suffering with for weeks spreading to the man who raised him. Alfred clutched his chest with one hand, the other clenching tightly over the armrest of his chair, his breathing quickened.

“Impossible,” he whispered, “Jason died. How?”

“There was an event regarding The League and Superboy punching reality. I won’t get into details, but I suspect that was what caused the initial resurrection. The restoration, however. We know of someone who has been continuously restored time and time again.”

“Ra’s Al Ghul,” Alfred concluded, “But why? Why on Earth would he restore Jason?”

“I don’t know,” Bruce frowned, “But it is an almost perfect revenge plan. I would like to entertain the idea that he has brainwashed Jason into thinking we are the enemy, but I can’t put it past him to develop a hatred for me. I… betrayed him.”

“Master Bruce, this is not your fault,” Alfred rose to his feet, “If it is indeed Jason, we can still help. I have faith in the boy.”

“Me too, Alfred. Me too.”

Bruce didn’t miss the sob that echoed faintly through the cave when Alfred ascended back up.

***

As if in slow motion, he saw every change of emotion on Dick’s face. The way he blinked once in confusion, the surprise approaching as he widened his eyes, and then his eyebrows stitching together in a deep frown, his lips downturning and nose flaring in anger.

Bruce saw the punch coming, but he did not do anything to counter it. Gladly, he took the right hook Dick gave him, appreciating the sting that radiated from his cheekbone to his jaw.

“How long have you known?” his son shook in anger.

“Dick-”

“HOW LONG, BRUCE?!” Dick roared, fists clenched, voice echoing in the cave.

“Since the night he blew up the warehouse,” Bruce replied.

“Jesus, fuck,” Dick ran his fingers through his hair, “Jesus, Bruce. That was over a month ago.”

“I know.”

“We-” he choked on his words, “We deserved to know.”

“I know.”

“So why the fuck didn’t you say anything?!” he slammed his fists on the desk. Bruce caught a few drops of tears that fell to the ground.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce apologised, and meant it. But he just couldn’t bring himself to say anything more.

“You’re sorry?” Dick looked at him with eyes far too cold than he knew, “He was my brother, Bruce. He told me things he never told anyone else. We shared secrets and jokes. We went to the same diner once a week to catch up. He asked for my help and I asked for his. And then he died. Just like that, because you couldn’t keep him on a leash. And now he’s back, and you knew it was him, and you’re just sorry?”

Dick’s eyes were wet and red, and filled with contempt. Bruce couldn’t blame him. He hated himself, too.

“Does she know?” he whispered, “Does she know that the man who attacked her is your son, and is my brother?”

Like always, he pushed the pain away efficiently, logically, objectively.

“Yes,” he confirmed, “I told her this afternoon.”

“And she’s not angry?”

“If she was, she did not show it,” Bruce described, “In fact, she looked… Worried.”

“Of fucking course she would be worried,” he snarled, “She’s worried that she’s going to be irrelevant to you now the dead Robin is back.”

“She’s not,” Bruce growled at that, “She’s not his replacement. She never was.”

“Does she know that, Bruce?” Dick snickered, “Did you finally get over yourself and tell her that? Because the last fucking time I spoke to her, you called her Jason.”

Bruce didn’t know how to respond to that. He was good at smiling at the cameras and making speeches and charming an audience, but he was never good with words, real words that described his true feelings to the ones he cared for the most.

“I’m sorry,” he simply said, now numb to everything throughout years and years of practice. “I promise, I will bring him back. Will you help me?”

“What can I do that you can’t?” Dick scoffed.

“You knew him, Dick,” Bruce said, “You knew him in ways I never did. I can predict his movements, but to accurately guess what his motivations are- you knew him better than I did.”

“Fine,” Dick conceded, “But I’m not forgiving you for this, Bruce. I swear, you’re going to pay for all the secrets you’ve kept from us, be it by my hand or someone else’s.”

***

“Did you know that your daughter went out last night to see a boy while we were patrolling?” Dick brought up.

He was looking at Bruce’s back, as he always was.

Bruce was on the computers, going through hours upon hours of security footage and traffic cams for Red Hood- for Jason.

It was difficult for him to put the two together. Jason had always been his little brother. Young, naive, inexperienced. And now that same person was the leader of the underground.

It was definitely difficult.

“Alfred mentioned she went out, but I didn’t know it was to meet a boy,” Bruce replied without glancing his way.

“Well, she lied to me about it at first,” Dick sank in a chair, looking at his nails. “Got pretty defensive when I brought it up. Even tried to deflect by using Jason against me.”

Dick knew you meant to hurt him with your words, and it worked.

He was definitely surprised that you would stoop that low because he always saw you as a sweet, kind girl.

People change. That’s what happens when you stick with Batman.

But Dick didn’t expect you to change so fast.

“She… used Jason against you?”

Bruce finally turned towards him, the ever constant frown a little bit deeper that moment.

“Yeah,” Dick straightened, “It was the first time she’s ever spoken to me that way.”

“What did she say exactly?”

“That I was distracting myself by using humor as a coping mechanism, and that I should come to terms with the fact that it was my brother who kidnapped and sexually assaulted her,” he repeated bitterly.

“What did you say to her that she responded that way?” Bruce asked.

“I was just making fun of her boyfriend,” Dick shrugged, “Why? Do you think she’s hiding something?”

At first, Dick thought that you were genuinely angry at the both of them because you were right- Jason did kidnap you. Jason did do those things to you. And Jason was supposed to be under both Bruce and Dick’s responsibility.

Dick didn’t blame you for it, because he would have probably been angry if the situation was reversed.

It was one of the mistakes he always made as Robin when Bruce was teaching him how to accurately deduce by reading people. Never assume that someone’s motivations would be the same as your own.

“She hid that she has… someone from me. There must be a reason why.”

“Or she knows how you are and would rather not have your nose in her business, Bruce. She did find out about that tracker you put in her necklace. How did she even react to it?”

Bruce had done the same with both Dick and Jason while they were Robin, though it didn’t come disguised as a pretty, shiny piece of metal.

On the contrary, during Dick’s Robin days, Bruce had hid it behind his third molar while he was unconscious. He only found out after a year, when he was held hostage by a mercenary who wanted to use him to lure Batman. Said mercenary had detected the tracking device and pulled it out along with the tooth.

It made him increasingly more hostile towards Batman and his never ending need for control, but at least it saved him a trip to the dentist.

From what Dick knew, Jason died with his tracker on him.

Bruce had said that it was all done in the name of safety.

But would you tell Jason the same thing now?

“I apologised and never replaced the one Red Hood damaged. I thought that would have been sufficient for her to trust me again.”

Dick let out a bark of laughter at that, but it was void of any humor. “Only you would think that not replacing her damn tracker would make her trust you. No wonder she hasn’t told you anything.”

It was probably best not to mention that you were now also sexually active.

“Do you think she’s hiding something important?” Bruce asked.

“Are you actually asking for my opinion?” Dick smirked, “No, but it’s too soon to tell, anyway. Relax, Bruce. It’s like you forgot what it was like to be young and in love.”

That was obviously a joke. Bruce grew out of his childhood the moment he saw his parents getting killed in that alley.

As for being in love, did Bruce ever allow himself that?

***

“What did you say she called herself?” Nightwing asked softly.

The poor girl was scared out of her mind to the point where Dick found it difficult to extract important information from her ramblings.

Well, that’s what happens when someone makes you kill a person.

It was difficult, so difficult, to face the fact that it was Jason behind all of that.

“I t-think, V,” the witness- Elena- stuttered. “She with him. But try to stop him.”

Behind him, he felt Batman pause. He was walking around the club and analysing evidence while listening to the conversation.

“She tried to stop him? Him as in Red Hood?” Dick frowned.

“Yes,” Elena looked down and rubbed her arms.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but,” Dick tried, “You told me they were partners.”

“Yes, but she try to stop him,” she repeated, “I don’t know.”

“It’s okay,” Dick offered a smile, “Thank you very much. You’ve been a huge help.”

“Am I going to prison?” she looked at him with big, wet eyes.

“We’ll make sure you won’t,” Dick assured, “You’ll get the best defense team in Gotham.”

“You can do that?” she asked, hope in her voice.

“It’s the least we could do,” Dick answered, a sad smile playing on his lips.

He’s our responsibility.

“Thank you,” she gave a watery laugh, “Even prison better than with him, I want to be free.”

Dick heard footsteps approaching. As he turned around, Gordon entered the crime scene, followed by his team.

“Of course you’re here first,” he sighed at Batman.

“Gordon.”

“You might have to speak to the police again, okay?” Dick told Elena who was suddenly nervous again by the presence of so many people. “I’ll make sure they know you’re innocent. Gordon is the only one you can trust, okay?”

She nodded, her gaze turning downwards.

“Gordon,” he approached the aging man. He was used to talking with Gordon in Batman’s stead, even when he was Robin, and remembered feeling proud of himself whenever he finished speaking to Gordon regarding cases without Batman having to add anything.

“Nightwing,” he blinked, “It’s been a while.”

“Desperate times calls for desperate backups,” he grinned, “Anyway, the girl. She’s a victim of Victor Ibenescu’s human trafficking trade. Romanian, only thirteen when she was kidnapped. She was forced to shoot Victor by Red Hood.”

“This Red Hood likes his poetic justice,” Gordon snickered.

“It’s still first degree murder, or at least, that’s how the law would make it seem,” Dick reminded him, “But I assure you she’s innocent. Red Hood threatened to kill and rape her if she didn’t shoot.”

That was a lie, on both his part and Elena’s. Judging by the way she averted her eyes and touched her own arm, Dick could tell that she wasn’t telling the whole truth about being threatened by Red Hood- but he also knew that he couldn’t expose her and get into more trouble.

He wanted to let out a tired sigh, but that would give him away in front of Gordon and the other officers. He still needed to maintain his air of hopefulness, and he couldn’t seem like he was troubled by his thoughts.

Time to meet Bruce back at the cave and watch the surveillance footage.

***

“He’s got a partner now,” Dick voiced out his findings, “Since when did Red Hood partner up?”

Bruce’s frown was deep as he stared at the screen.

Dick pursed his lips. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Whether this is Red Hood or Jason?” Bruce hummed, “This definitely does not seem like anything Red Hood would do. He’s always tried to separate himself from others because it furthers his authoritarian agenda. He does not get friendly with people because people are disposable to him.”

“So you think this is Jason, then?” Dick concluded, “Well, Jason never had much of a problem working with others in the past, and he made some friends. He wasn’t the type to be hostile to people.”

“He did have trust issues,” Bruce pointed out, “At the very beginning.”

“Yes, and he kept a lot of things to himself,” Dick agreed, “But he did have friends.”

“Special friends,” Bruce added, “Friends who gained his respect and trust. So the question is- who is this girl and how did she manage to gain his trust?”

“Hey, play it back again,” Dick said, “Those moves.”

Bruce played the security tape, showing the mysterious girl and Red Hood taking down Victor’s men.

“Arnis,” Bruce pointed out.

“It’s a little different.”

“She has incorporated silat in as well. Low stance,” Bruce observed. “She’s skilled, but not polished. It could be anyone.”

There was something familiar about the girl that Dick couldn’t pinpoint. Dick usually had strong intuition- a gut feeling that enabled him to know which facts to focus on during an investigation, or a strong ability to see through people.

But the problem was that it wasn’t solid proof or evidence, something Batman heavily focused on. It was a gut feeling that told him he knew who the girl was.

“Do you think it’s-” he broke off without completing his sentence. There was nothing to back his claims.

“She has no reason or motive to work with Jason,” Bruce shot the idea down, “He’s hurt her. And… She wouldn’t betray me like that.”

“She’s been keeping secrets, Bruce,” Dick reminded, hating the fact that this time it was him who was suspicious.

Oh, how the tables have turned.

Because he never would have thought that Jason was capable of torture and murder, either.

Why didn’t he come to me?

“As you clearly pointed out prior to this,” Bruce grit, “She has her reasons as to why she’s keeping secrets. And it is most probably because of me. All of you kept secrets. But this time, I’d like to let her keep hers.”

It was sweet, seeing Bruce that way.

“Is it guilt?” Dick asked.

“It’s repentance.”

Dick hated playing the bad guy.

Because he wasn’t supposed to be. He was the one people looked up to for inspiration, he was the light to Batman’s darkness, he was the smiles and charms and laughter.

He wasn’t the one who would accuse his little sister of fraternizing with the- was Jason the enemy?

Shit. Jason had messed with his senses. Dick’s head was chaotic, his emotions causing him to tense up.

Was he wrong? Was he just like Bruce? Was he jumping to conclusions just because Alfred told him you were out? Should he investigate this Carter you said you were with?

No. I’m not Bruce.

And now, you were looking at him with angry eyes, betrayed and appalled by his accusation.

*** Large.

That was the first thing that came to Dick’s mind when he saw his little brother.

The last time Dick saw him, he was much shorter, and definitely not as bulky.

And the last time Dick saw Jason, he was giving him a hug goodbye, complaining that Dick had messed up his hair.

And now, Jason was aiming a gun at him.

The gunshot didn’t hurt nearly as much as the thought that Jason had indeed shot him. Did Jason hate him that much?

You’re almost as guilty as he is, Jason’s voice echoed in his head.

“Bruce,” he gasped in the comms, “I’m down. They got away.”

“I heard a gunshot,” the deep voice in his ear spoke.

“Yeah, Jason shot my leg,” Dick winced, “Didn’t hit bone but I think it nicked my artery.”

“There are children here,” Batman said, “I was right. He’s sabotaging the Powers’. Gordon should be here soon. You control your bleeding.”

Dick nodded to himself and took a deep breath before plunging his finger into the gunshot wound to keep himself from bleeding out.

***

“...suspects that the crime lord only known as Red Hood and an unidentified female were behind the home invasion. Maria and Joseph Powers were left in a gruesome state according to reports, but their only child Carrie Powers was unharmed. The authorities are not sure what Red Hood’s motive was, but more will be elaborated during Commissioner Gordon’s public address later this afternoon...”

Dick heard you close the door.

“You didn’t come home last night,” he lowered the volume of the television.

“Uh, yeah,” you answered.

Dick looked over at you. You seemed tired, eyes swollen and red from crying, wearing an oversized t-shirt that he didn’t recognize.

“I was at-”

“Carter’s?” he finished your sentence for you.

“Yeah,” you nodded, sitting down next to him on the sofa.

Dick frowned to himself. Your arms were crossed, you were avoiding eye contact, your body was angled away from him.

“You heard about the Powers’?” he turned his gaze towards the television.

“I saw the news on the way here,” you monotoned.

You smelled like a different shampoo. It was familiar, but Dick couldn’t remember where he had smelled it before.

“So you know that-”

“Yes, Jason did it,” you said rigidly.

“Along with-”

“His partner.”

Ah, now he remembered the smell. Jason’s favorite shampoo. He used to make fun of him for choosing one that was called what it was called. He didn’t really care about it, Dick kept his hair soft and fluffy with multiple women’s hair products. He just liked to rile Jason up because he was so defensive about it.

And with that, Dick let out a long, disappointed sigh.

“Bruce is in the cave. I suggest that you think long and hard about what to tell him,” Dick offered you a soft smile, “But no matter what you choose to say, you’ll always be my sister, and I’ll always love you no matter what, okay?”

You gave him a look of shock, and then realised that he had figured it out.

“I’m sorry, Dick,” you lips trembled, your eyes started brimming with tears.

“No, kid. I’m sorry,” he replied, “Go.”

You nodded and left.

Despite being right all along, he didn’t feel any sense of achievement. Dick couldn’t help but partly blame himself. For being so absent, for being neglectful, for being a bad brother.

Dick wasn’t perfect, but like hell would he stop trying to be.

***

For years Bruce had tried to stop feeling guilty for being relieved whenever someone else takes care of a problem he couldn’t solve- especially when it involved murder.

Bruce had tried to take down the Powers for almost a decade, and everytime he got close, there was always another obstacle in the way. It was difficult to expose the rich and powerful without resorting to violence, without resorting to breaking his principles.

So Bruce was ready to stop himself from internally celebrating their deaths. This time, however, he wasn’t as pleased. Because this time, it was Jason who brutally murdered two people. Jason, who was supposed to be under his care and responsibility.

“Bruce?” he heard your timid, small voice from behind him. “I have to tell you something.”

And there it was.

Bruce turned around and looked straight at you, piercing your eyes with his own as he waited on your confession.

A minute passed.

“I’m V,” you struggled to speak, “I’ve been meeting up with Jason for a few months now. I didn’t know he was Red Hood until you told me. But when you did tell me, I chose to confront him and team up with him anyway.”

Bruce didn’t say anything.

“He- he’s not a bad person, Bruce,” you justified, “He’s just really hurt. He needs help.”

You were telling Bruce things he already knew.

“I- I fell in love with him,” you continued, “And I let my feelings cloud my judgement and betrayed your trust. At first I thought that he was onto something, that his… methods were better than yours. And I was angry that you kept secrets from me. But after last night- after what I saw- I couldn’t- I couldn’t stay.”

Bruce clenched his jaw.

He suspected it. Dick suspected it. But for your sake, the both of them chose to put their trust in you. He had tried so hard to change from his old ways. He learned his lesson with both Dick and Jason.

He didn’t want you to go through the same thing they did.

So, he chose to blindly trust you anyway, hoping that he wasn’t right.

“I’m sorry, Bruce,” you were sobbing now, “I’m so sorry. Please, say something.”

After another minute of watching you break down in front of him, Bruce finally spoke up.

“Hang up your colors. You’re no longer my Robin.”

[sou-ver-2-0]

I'm curious about your thoughts on the relevance of the Hades Incident to the Death Game. My one friend thinks that the survivor from it who wrote the journal organized it and is, in a way, trying to make Sara like the girl from it through the Death Game, which is there's such focus on her. Also, we discusses who's parallel wrote the journal: Sou's or Keiji's (since the girl=Sara, lost best friend during first vitim=Joe, Boy even younger=Gin). But I just wanna hear your thoughts on the incident

The Hades Incident, the Present Death Game, and the Role of the Man from the Memorandum

I think about the Hades Incident a lot! My thoughts are very similar to yours, Anon!

Like your friend, I have a feeling that this relationship between the Man from the Memorandum and his own High School Girl is at the heart of the Death Game.

Based on all the parallels we can draw between the past participants and the current participants, it feels like the present Death Game is an attempt to recreate the past Death Game. Assuming that the Man was the sole survivor of the past Death Game, the logical conclusion is that this recreation is his attempt to meet his beloved High School Girl again, likely by forging Sara Chidouin into her by putting her through the same trials.

The fact that all of the participants have been observed by Asu-Naro since birth also contributes to the theory that they were chosen because of their resemblance to past participants, or that they were even molded to fit the personalities of past participants.

I’m also on board with the theory that the Man is most likely Meister from Russian Roulette, since they share a similar color scheme. Meister is the first villain we meet, so it would be satisfying to bring him back as the main villain. Additionally, the Russian Roulette trial is Sara’s first step to becoming a leader, so it makes sense that the Man would want to witness it. Especially since he apparently missed Russian Roulette during the Hades Incident; he would be curious to see it with his own eyes this time.

Here are the most apparent parallel roles from the Past and Present Death Games:

“17-year-old School Girl”: Sara Chidouin

“Her Best Friend”: Joe Tazuna

“A Boy Even Younger Than Her”: Gin Ibushi

“The Man Whose Views Most Aligned with Hers”: Keiji Shinogi

“The Man from the Memorandum”: Shin Tsukimi

There are striking parallels between the Man from the Memorandum and Shin Tsukimi, but there are striking differences too. So I’d love to share a theory my friend and I have often discussed:

“The Man from the Memorandum” was first meant to be played by Original Sou Hiyori. Since Hiyori died, he was replaced by a “back-up”, Shin Tsukimi. This explains why the kidnappers would give Shin such an unusual First Trial. Shin’s First Trial fundamentally changed his personality to more closely resemble Original Sou. What if that personality change was by design?

My friend came up with this theory to explain Shin Tsukimi’s paradoxical position: he is technically a candidate qualified to win, and yet he has a zero percent chance of winning. He seems to exist as both a candidate and a non-candidate. What if—my friend suggested—Shin was originally a non-candidate, but his position was shifted to fill in Sou Hiyori’s candidacy?

Ever since they shared that theory with me, I haven’t been able to get it out of my head! It would certainly explain why Shin’s First Trial is so strange compared to the others.

The part of “The Man from the Memorandum” himself would have been an important role. Since the Man left his First Trial deciding to not trust anyone, it was likely an antagonistic role. Given this role’s difficulty and importance, could it be that Original Sou Hiyori was perhaps…trained for the part?

This also leads into my other theory that Original Sou could be Meister’s son. Original Sou was a unique candidate for the Death Game who seemed intimately involved in preparations from a young age. I’m assuming that he was about Shin Tsukimi’s age since they met in high school. While it would be scarier if Original Sou was an adult pretending to be a teenager in Shin’s school, I think it would be more compelling if he was simply the teenage son of a villain. It would go a long way to explain Original Sou’s strange dedication to Asu-Naro, in spite of him being a potential victim of the Death Game. It would also explain his uniquely serious reaction to the player trying to name him “Meister.”

It could also parallel Rio Ranger’s relationship with Gashu! There’s a moment when Shin and Sara wonder if Gashu hoped to make Rio Ranger his “successor,” but they decide that it ultimately doesn’t matter. Clearly, Rio Ranger’s life didn’t actually matter to Gashu; only the Death Game mattered to Gashu. What if this was meant to foreshadow the relationship between Meister and Midori? Personally, this is one of my favorite pet theories; it would make Original Sou a more complex character and explain some of his bizarre quirks.

Similarities between the Man and Shin

I’d like to talk some more why Shin fits the role of “The Man from the Memorandum” better than Keiji.

The first thing we learn about the Man is his confession, “In the first trial, I killed a person.” Obviously, this more directly parallels with Keiji who literally kills a person, while Shin only metaphorically kills himself. But the metaphorical suicide still counts as a parallel, since the narrative treats it so seriously. (However, I still consider this a potentially significant difference between the Man and Shin. I think it could be evidence that Original Sou would have been a better fit for the role, since Sou had a harsher personality than Shin.)

The role of “The Man Whose Views Most Aligned with Hers” can only be Keiji. Keiji is an adult man and Sara’s strongest ally. He is the voice of reason who helps Sara establish order in the group.

The roles of Keiji and Gin are still important. They are two of Sara’s closest allies. Their deaths would devastate her. And they even get to be mentioned in the book! So it’s not like Nankidai is ignoring Keiji’s significance.

The clearest and simplest parallel between the Man and Shin is that neither of them participates in Russian Roulette. Shin is even deliberately barred from participating! That’s significant! Meanwhile, Keiji is one of the most important voices in Russian Roulette so he needed to be there to help place trust in Sara.

I believe the Man’s role is an antagonistic role, since he wrote, “I would never trust others. That was what I decided.” This line fits Shin better than Keiji. Even though they are both cynical characters, Shin sets himself apart from the group, while Keiji makes himself indispensable to the group.

The relationship between the Man and the High School Girl is at the heart of the Past Death Game. Similarly, I think that the relationship between Shin and Sara is the beating heart of the Present Death Game. Their rivalry is the story’s most fundamental relationship that gives way to conflict and resolution. Even in the event that Shin dies, his presence is still felt in a major way through Kanna, Midori, and the Shin AI.

The game gives us an obvious visual parallel between the Man and Shin in the screenshot I pulled earlier. Notably, both Shin and the Man have slim frames and fluffy hair. However, the Man wears an expensive suit more similar to Midori, while Shin looks like he could have gotten his clothes while dumpster diving.

The wiki mentions another parallel, which is that both the Man and Shin change their views on the High School Girl after the Second Main Game. I agree that’s significant, although we can once again point to some obvious differences in how their views change…

Differences between the Man and Shin

Beyond the question of whether they killed someone in their First Trial, and beyond their taste in clothes, the most glaring difference between the Man and Shin is this:

The Man didn’t care about Kanna.

Not once in his Memorandum does the Man mention anyone resembling Kanna. If the Man took on an antagonistic role like I suspect, he might have acquired a minion like Kanna. However, he considers the Kanna role so insignificant that she doesn’t even merit a line. And since the Man became the victor of his Death Game, he was presumably willing to throw his minion under the bus like everyone else in order to survive. When the Man weeps at the end of his story, his tears aren’t for the loyal, vulnerable little girl; he cries for the brave High School Girl and the lost romantic relationship he desired with her.

If Shin wrote a memorandum about his experience in the Death Game, don’t you think he would have written words for Kanna? He cared so much for Kanna that he would have sacrificed himself for her.

Furthermore, while both the Man and Shin share an obsession with the High School Girl, the nature of their obsessions is different.

After the Second Main Game, the man writes that he felt that “I would be fine with my own death as long as she won it all.” That’s completely different from how Shin feels after the Second Main Game, whether Sara votes for him or Kanna.

If Sara chooses to kill Shin and save Kanna, Shin doesn’t think about Sara’s chances to “win” the Death Game at all. He’s thinking about how grateful he is that Sara—the strongest character—chose to protect the most vulnerable among them, the suicidal little girl. Shin is “fine with his own death,” but not because he wants Sara to win. He’s fine with his own death because he finally trusts Sara to make the most ethical decisions and to always protect the weak. He isn’t thinking about Sara’s life; he’s thinking about her will. He realizes that he should have trusted her from the beginning, because Shin and Emotion Sara share a commitment to protecting the vulnerable.

Likewise, if Sara chooses to kill Kanna and save Shin, Shin still isn’t thinking about anyone winning the Death Game. All he can think about is revenge. Logic Sara affirms Shin’s belief that the strong will always betray the weak. I believe that this Shin has also accepted his own future death, but he seems determined to take Miss Sara down with him, along with the Floor Masters and everyone in charge of the Death Game.

In both cases, Shin is thinking outside the box while the Man from the Memorandum could only think within the rules of the Death Game. Shin is principled in a way that the Man was not. This is another reason why I think Original Sou would have been a very different kind of antagonist than Shin, since Original Sou is presumably loyal to Asu-Naro. If I’m right, Original Sou would not be likely to think about breaking the Death Game or hoping for escape.

…

Those are my main thoughts on the Hades Incident! I could be completely wrong on some of these theories, but it sure is fun to think about. This has already gotten very long so I’ll end it here. Thank you for asking!

[chrichri-chan-18-love]

Monsters are real (Yandere Hawks x Reader) Part 9

Hawks was expecting some kind of change in your attitude after that little date...and since he DID give you to Akira and gave an explaination, he hoped that you’d at least change your attitude a little.

Unfortunately, you didn’t.

Hawks had given an explaination but you doubted that he was completely honest. You knew that despite his outgoing nature and seemingly laid back attitude, he was sneaky and could come up with some pretty good schemes. Which made you suspect him of doing something without your knowledge and that he was simply pretending that he was a good hero and a good boss.

“Come on (Name), I promise that I didn’t do anything that I shouldn’t!”

Hawks whined over and over and you simply kept on ignoring him while doing your work. However he was seriously starting to get on your nerves.

“Listen here, you stupid egg head, I said it before and I’ll say it again. I wouldn’t trust you even if you were the last man/bird on this planet. So take your whining along with that miserable excuse of an attitude and go patrol!”

Hawks flinched at your cold tone and your hatefull glare. But it wasn’t entirely out of fear, somewhere deep down, a part of him loved the mistreatment... that bossy attitude would have seemed monstrous a few months ago... but now it was so unbelievably sexy!

He wondered if that was what an Alpha female was like... yeah, you were totally and Alpha female, a strong mate that would defend what was hers, no matter who was her opponent. Surely, you’d make a good mother... though he’d have to teach his children not to be as mean when dealing with people.

“But... ugh, okay fine. However I am not going to let this go.”

Your scoffed at that, turning back to your computer to finish your current work, mainly sending replies to various agencies that had asked to work with Hawks, he had agreed to all of them... and that meant a ton of work for you.

Meanwhile Hawks was thinking back to that wonderfull moment Hawks had with you, the smooth skin under his touch, those moans that had escaped you, the serene expression you had, the taste of your mouth... oh, he wanted to experience this feeling again. He wanted to have your body again... but that would have to wait, he hadn’t made any progress when it came down to how you saw him. He watched as the civilians walked around town, everything seemed fine... but then a speciffic figure caught his attention. It was your brother, Ryo and he was being followed by a gang of older boys... Hawks eyes narrowed, perhaps your brother could help him understand you more. 

He followed them until they turned around and entred an alley. Ryo turned around and looked at them with a cocky smile. Hawks could see the resemblence between the two of you.

“So what do you lot want from me? I don’t like wasting my time on worms, so make it quick.”

The boys growled and glared at him. Hawks became worried, he didn’t know if Ryo had a quirk or not... and he didn’t know if it could be used in combat either.

“Don’t get cocky you brat!|”

“Yeah! All your family has is money, without it, you’re nothing!”

“Actually my family has more than what you losers know. Then again, thanks to my mother, your parents can no longer find work, so I guess envy is to be expected.”

At that the boys charged at him, Hawks was about to jump in to stop them when he saw Ryo stretch his arm, before anyone knew what was going on, the boys were pressed on the ground, they weren’t moving but Hawks could tell they were alive. He came closer and looked at Ryo.

“W-What is that?”

“It’s my quirk. I can take away one or all the senses and natural abilities of a person. Sight, hearing, taste, speech, touch... I can take away any of them, leaving them in this state for as long as I want.”

“That’s really a dangerous quirk.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve recently entered Shinketsu Academy, so I won’t be around for long. I just had to settle a few things here and there before I go.”

“You’re going to become a hero?”

“My idol is Eraser head. He’s not into the spotlight but has some good moves.”

Hawks was surprised but ultimately relieved by what he had discovered.

“Good for you, I guess.”

“So is there a reason for following me?”

Ryo’s tone was mild, showing no agression but no interest either. Hawks relaxed and decided to spill the beans.

“I have been trying to get your sister to open up to me, to see me as a friend... but honestly, everything I’ve done haven’t led anywhere.”

“She probably has a good reason for not trusting you. Besides our family has taught us not to show any form of weakness to outsiders. And given my sister’s quirks, I think you can understand why.” 

Ryo’s words made Hawks understand a few things and in a way, the teachings that were forced on you, ultimately had the purpose of protecting you from people that could and would try to take advantage of you.

“But I don’t want to take advantage of her! I never had that intention!”

“She doesn’t believe you and neither do I. Despite your appearance, you’re sneaky and your quirk alone, is a threat.”

Hawks sighed, Ryo’s attitude wasn’t as bad as yours but it was clear that he too had his guard up.The two of them ended their chat there and Ryo left, as soon as he was out of the alley he returned the senses of the boys and went home.

Hawks however began to realize that it wasn’t you or Ryo that he had to get close to, for now at least. The person he had to get close to was your mother, from everything he had experienced, she was the dominant one and that meant that getting her on his side, meant that you he could influence you. But for now, there was another matter at hand, to get rid of Akira. 

He knew that you were protecting Akira using your quirks, so he couldn’t get involved directly, like he had originally planned... meaning he had to ask someone to do it instead.

And he had a good idea about who would be a good choice for that.

[stvpidinlove]

[ CEMRE BAYSEL, SHE/HER, CISFEMALE ]  —  [ HARIKA “HARI” BULUT ]  is a child of  [ STYX ]  with the power of  [ OATH KEEPING ] .  they were born in  [ 2001 ]  and have been in nemean lion since  [ 2018 ] .  with the change, they  [ ARE TRAINING IN ]  the  [ HERO ]  role which makes sense since they’re usually  [ WORKING & HONING HER POWER ] .  if you’d like to meet them try the  [ MOON ]  building .

so as you can see she’s baby and that’s number one

BASICS

hometown: antalya, turkey

eye color: green

hair color: brown

height: 5′7

sexuality: bisexual

birthday: november 19, 2001 ( scorpio )

BIO

hari has never felt remotely heroic, believing that evil is in her dna and darkness an inevitable path. being on the hero track gives her major imposter syndrome, but the way she sees it, you have to fake it ‘til you make it. she’s hoping that if she thinks of herself as a hero for long enough, eventually she’ll become one for real. her power is overwhelming, exhausting, nearly impossible to control at times, and what she wants most of all is the time and training necessary to get it under control.

her mother has never been portrayed as evil -- styx is the one who makes the vulnerable invulnerable, the only person zeus trusted with official and sacred oath keeping. but the power that reverberates throughout hari’s body, the visions that plague her when her trust is misplaced, feel ungodly. the fact that she could so easily use her powers for evil is always at the back of her mind, so even if oath keeping didn’t require a great deal of effort on her part, she would be selective about them because she’s terrified about making the wrong decisions. visions or not, she never wants others to experience pain.

she was born in turkey to a single father, an art director with a special appreciation for beautiful things -- which explains his relationship with hari’s mother. he never would have considered himself the type to get someone pregnant without being married and when hari was given to him to raise alone, it took a while for him to accept his new life as a parent. he was still young, unprepared, and embarrassed of his child, so he chose to pretend she didn’t exist to the public.

this was partially to protect hari, since under muslim law, children born outside of a lawful marriage are considered illegitimate and have no rights to inheritance. if anything were to happen to her father, hari would have nothing and nobody.

ultimately, when she was six years old, hari’s father decided to move to the united states. it would be best for his daughter and he had contacts in the states who could get him a job. despite western society not looking down on them, her father still felt a certain sense of shame about her. it was clear that he loved her, but it was difficult to reconcile her existence with feeling as if he’d made a mistake.

it took a long time for hari to discover her powers, because as a child it was always little things, promise to bring home tulumba, whispered excitedly to her father before he left for work. and even when he forgot, an oath broken, he’d be punished in the form of a small cut on his finger while making dinner or something equally ordinary and easy to ignore.

she’d never asked many questions about her mom, not liking the discomfort it caused her father, and coming to terms with her abilities came hand in hand with learning more about her mother. hari started keeping bigger oaths tentatively, because not only did she fear the responsibility but it drained her of all her energy, sometimes for days at a time, which concerned not only herself but her father.

he died when she was 17 and she came to nl shortly thereafter.

i think he might have died due to a broken oath but um 🌝 let me think about it.

RANDOM FACTS

she’s sad :)

hari has never had a lot of people in her life so she’s bad at getting close to people, which she considers a good thing because she’d prefer to keep others at a distance. she doesn’t talk openly about her power because she doesn’t trust easily and never knows if people will want to take advantage. hari is pretty naive, having been sheltered for so much of her life.

she doesn’t like fighting monsters, or she’s not the best at it, yet. but she’s pushing herself to do better by training as a hero, though every day she wonders if she should have picked the standard track instead.

never had a significant other or anything like that, though she’s had plenty of crushes on people, almost always from a distance. she’ll like somebody for some indistinct reason then build an ideal version of them in her head without ever really talking to them.

she regularly has nightmares, visions even when there’s been no oath broken, and for this reason she suffers from insomnia pretty severely.

POSSIBLE CONNECTIONS

training buddies pls she needs Help

i know all the gods are related but uh. styx was specifically the mother of zelus, nike, kratos and bia, so i guess she’s an...........aunt? second aunt?! to the children of those gods. something like that idk i don’t understand family trees <3 but that might be a cute dynamic, since hari has essentially no family now :zany:

someone who knows about her power and is protective of her?

someone who knows she’s hiding something and wants to know what it is, probably more because they’re nosy and not for malicious reasons but idk!

late night buddies who also can’t sleep!

big sibling figures because idk if she’ll ever get any half siblings so :)))

[life-rewritten]

Flower of Evil Episode 7- Trusting a ‘psychopath’s’ point of view

First, the term 'psychopath' is interesting because that is how Do Hyun Soo and his father are seen as. But we know that that's not the accurate term for Do Hyun Soo. He is diagnosed by teachers and his wife with ASPD, so he's a sociopath, not a psychopath but even this may not be true as we are told not shown true evidence of what he has. And we do not have enough information on his father to determine if his father was a psychopath. The importance of the difference between these two disorders is vital.  

'Psychopaths and sociopaths share several characteristics, including a lack of remorse or empathy for others, a lack of guilt or ability to take responsibility for their actions, a disregard for laws or social conventions, and an inclination to violence. While psychopaths are classified as people with little or no conscience, sociopaths do have a limited, albeit weak, ability to feel empathy and remorse.'

There's an essential distinction between the two. Still, in Korea and other cultures, these two are typically joined together in one meaning, people tend to view Sociopaths as Psychopaths and tend to mistrust the person's claims because they see them as monsters. 

This is why the theme of Trust is intertwined in the plot of episode 7. As Jiwon struggles to trust what she has with her husband and Trust that he's not a murderer even though other's would immediately write him off because of his disorder. Trust is mentioned so many times, and the final conclusion of the show is that Trust is such a fragile thing. Once broken, it's hard to mend back. 

Trusting his personality

Jiwon has to go through a list of what to trust when it comes to Do Hyun So, she looks for evidence and hopes that these things have not been tainted. She wonders if she can trust first him with her daughter (his ability to care for people) if she can trust him with her self (the ability to romantically love someone). If she can trust him with the past (the ability to not hurt people) and if she can trust him with his identity (the ability to not follow his father's footsteps (generational curse and genes)) As the two episodes continue we see that she ends up with some of these things ruined. It thereby ends up breaking her Trust in their relationship, and she decides by the end of episode 8 to say goodbye to him once this is all over. 

Trust in his ability to care for people

She immediately trusts that he can care for people, especially his daughter because he's been doing so for the time they've been married. He's praised as a caring father, people are often jealous of her because he's so good, he ensures they are fed, cared for and protected. He is the one who lets her work and focuses on the family's emotional need. Their daughter loves him and is growing happily. She says this in episode 6 that their daughter is the reason for why she won't believe he's a psychopath who kills people because he shows emotions and care even when not asked to with their previous dog and daughter. He can take care of people without having to think about it. This makes her know she can trust him in not being the murder people perceive him to be.

Trust in his ability to love people

In episode 8 the Trust in her relationship is shattered when he proclaims he doesn't love her (I have another post about this coming check out Loving someone who doesn’t know how to love). It is the final nail in the coffin that convinces her to plan ahead to end their relationship whilst protecting him from the cops and prove he's innocent. Again she mentions that their daughter is the reason for why she will do this and keep his identity secret (This shows that still, Ji Won trusts because of her that he can care for her family properly) However after hearing him say that he does not know how to love, she returns logically into seeing him as someone with his disorder and guesses that he's been acting this whole time to keep his identity safe, and to be free from the police. Remember she heard him say and admit that he doesn't want to live as Do Hyun So ever again. She believes the reason he pretended to love her is for that sole reason. 

Trust in his ability to not hurt people

Episode 8, however, makes her have evidence to trust him with his past. He doesn't hurt people; she hears him confess with his sister he's not the real accomplice for their dad's serial killings. She trusts this despite going into the basement and seeing blood stains and instruments for capturing a person. She realises that if he has hurt someone, he's done it to prevent his identity from coming out, but she knows he's not killed anyone or she trusts he didn't kill anyone. She believes his confession with his sister because they don't realise they are being heard, there's no need to hide or lie what happened. She is a witness and proof that he's not the killer. 

Trust in his identity

Episode 8 also thereby helps her trust his identity as well. Do Hyun Soo doesn't want to live as Do Hyun Soo, he's trying to find the real killer, and he ensures every day that his daughter doesn't have ASPD the same way he does. He does not want to be like his father. Both of the siblings' interaction show that they've also been hurt by the events and association with their father's identity, and she can tell that he doesn't want to be part of that just wants his character to be protected. Ji Won after hearing this conversation decides to help him find the real killer because she now believes and has evidence for her self that Do Hyun So despite his disorder is not like his father. I also remember when she spoke to him about Do Hyun So when she didn't know his identity, her reasons for finding him was because she believed his ASPD proved that he wouldn't be emotional or affected as an accomplice to his father's murders. He killed the village foreman, so it's obvious he's the accomplice. He ends up looking forlorn when she says this, and it also proves his point that if he had been honest with her, she wouldn't believe his words because his ASPD stops people from listening or trusting his point of view.

Ableism and the way it affects Trust

MooJin and Hae Su

Trust in episode 7, and 8 does not only connect to Ji Won's struggle, but we also see that Moojin loses his Trust before meeting with the sister, once he listens to the audio of the accomplice talking about the murder. He ultimately assumes it's Do Hyun So and warns him to not see him again. He also believes that the sister is always covering up for Do Hyun So when he doesn't care about her, he trusts that Hae Su is innocent because she's a girl (Sexism), she's his first love and pretty and looks fragile (Sexism) and because she doesn't have ASPD (Ableism). He's shocked when it's uncovered that Hyun So actually might be innocent and cares enough to lie that he killed the village foreman. Another way we are shown MooJin's ableism affecting his Trust is that he broke up with Hae Su when news came out that her father is the serial killer, he insults her and calls her names and Hyun So calls him out on this. He ended their relationship because of her association to murder and because her brother was seen as the accomplice. This irked me, and I still struggle with MooJin's character, but I hope he will have a character development soon and help us find the accomplice, it seems like that's what's going to happen. 

Do Hyun So’s past

The way Trust in people can be broken because of fear, prejudice and ableism are exposed when we look at the past of Hyun So. People refused to believe he was okay and continued to try and remove whatever possessed him by abusing him, they trusted he was crazy and not okay. Hyun So manipulates this at such a vital time when his sister ends up killing someone to protect the person he loves, he ends up taking the blame believing that people would immediately trust that he was the killer because they already had their own judgements towards him. Even if he said, it was for defence no one would believe him or trust him because of his disorder hanging over their heads. It's sad that to have Trust, Do Hyun So has to become a new person who hides his past and his disorder, so people don't assume or abuse him anymore, so his daughter is not affected by the stigma of his disorder or his family connection, so his wife doesn't fear him. (This is the biggest reason why he keeps on lying to her by the way). But we also see that situation is tough, he's been threatened by a higher power Hee Sung's dad to never let his secret be revealed so he can't tell Ji Won the truth either way because it would lead to him having to leave everything behind. But people are prone to take things face level unfortunately and people are more prone to trust that someone is evil rather than pleasant, that someone is hurtful rather than protective, that someone is murderous rather than defensive.

The fragility of Trust 

This show shows the struggle of people with these disorders who are always seen differently and judged for their disorder rather than who they really are. It's sad because Ji Won would have trusted and supported Hyun So if he just told her the truth, but his perspective and experience with the rest of the world prevents him from being open to her. And so now we're left with the results of shattered Trust, the pieces of their marriage now burnt and destroyed because Ji Won has finally given up on trusting their love and relationship. Ji Won has stopped believing Do Hyun So's words and actions. And I think he also just showed by his actions that he also doesn't trust her either (can't blame him because of his past experiences). Still, him always lying has taught her that they never were any trust in the marriage, to begin with, there was never any trust in the two of them apart from her, and she ended up being seen as gullible and stupid. This is why she calls her self that when she speaks to him at the end of episode 8, this is what his actions have shown her what he thinks of her, just gullible, easily manipulated and stupid, and the more he continues lying, the more she feels that even more, the more their love breaks. 

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia – Chapter 81: Turning a Corner

Presenting the next installment of my on-going, nextgen, MHA fic! Earlier chapters can be found here

The instant Katsuki had asked to “borrow” Park for a bit, the Shiketsu students had erupted into chaos. Shida looked on the verge of panic, those extra limbs of hers twitching, while Tsuchikawa looked only slightly worried.  Shinji looked nervously between him and Park, but ultimately settled into a kind of hard look that mixed protectiveness of his classmate with a trust in Katsuki.

Smart kid.  Respectful too.  Always used his Sir’s around Katsuki.  Exuberant as his old man though, which meant he was best in small doses.

It wasn’t surprising that Tatsuma was the one who had a problem with it.  The giant girl stepped between Katsuki and Park protectively.  “With all due respect, sensei” she began, in the same way Katsuki had used countless times over the years, where no respect was actually intended, but the performative aspect of it was required, “I’m not sure I should allow you to be alone with my classmate.”

For fuck’s sake, what kind of monster did these kids think he was?  And sure, he’d spent more than enough time threatening to blow Villains apart, or shove their heads up their asses, or take out enough of their teeth that they’d be drinking from a straw the rest of their lives, but he wasn’t some psycho who’d explode at the drop of a hat!

Just because he was known for having a temper and this little brat had beat the shit out of his daughter was no reason to think he was going to enact some kind of brutal revenge!

“Sticking by your friend’s a good quality to have,” he said, holding Tatsuma’s gaze and not backing down in the slightest.  But neither did he put up any more of aggressive posture than he already was. He was here to build bridges, not burn them.  “Your classmates are lucky to have you looking out for them.  But I promise you, I’m not here to dish out punishment or anything like that.  I just want to talk.  We won’t even go far, in case you hear something that makes you want to come running.”

Tatsuma frowned, but dropped her challenging stance.  She looked over at Park, her eyes seeming to ask what do you want to do?

And that was the scary thing, wasn’t it?  Park hadn’t flinched, hadn’t budged.  She’s shown no fear whatsoever.  But she hadn’t shown any other kind of reaction either.  It was as though she was just resigned to whatever happened to her.  What the hell had they done to this girl?  Who the hell had done this to this girl?  Even with what he’d read in her file, it didn’t all add up to this.

“It will be fine,” Park said.  “There’s nothing he can do to me.”   That hasn’t already been done was left unsaid, but Katsuki heard it hanging in the air all the same.

He had worked with Heroes who fought traffickers and some of the worst scum the world had to offer, serial killers, rapists, and even cannibals.  Some of them managed to find the balance separate themselves from the job and live at least something like a normal life.  But some of them saw the worst and lost a part of themselves to it. Something inside them died.  You could see it in their eyes.

Park’s eyes were the same.

***

Park followed quietly behind Katsuki, stopping when he did once they got closer to one of the compound’s utility sheds. She remained stoic, almost uncaring, but there was an element of readiness.  He’d been on the receiving end of any number of lectures and chewing outs over the years. He knew what it looked like when you knew you were getting one of those.  This wasn’t it.

It was the kind of readiness where you were prepared to, at a moment’s notice, either physically defend yourself or hold yourself to a dignity that would not give your attacker satisfaction.  He had a brief flashback to being violently restrained and muzzled at his first Sports Festival.

“I am ready, seon seang nhim,” she stated in a neutral tone. She used the Korean phrase for “teacher,” which he vaguely recalled included not using the teacher’s name as it was considered disrespectful to show familiarity.

Katsuki frowned, briefly, but forced himself to keep a more professional expression.  As much as part of him wanted to tear into this kid for beating his daughter, that wasn’t something an adult did to a child.  It wasn’t something a teacher did either.  Katsuki would have to ask the damned hobo how he’d kept himself from killing kids like him.

“Okay,” he said, carefully. His anger rose up in him, like a threating to spill out like a bomb, but he forced it back down.  “I’m not going to lie to you.  I’m mad as hell.  And I’m not saying there wasn’t blame to go around.  But I want to hear your side of things first, before anything else.”

“There is nothing to tell,” Park explained plainly. “The arrogant one had us fight each other to demonstrate a lack of practical martial training as some sort of lesson in not becoming arrogant with our quirks. I treated it as I would any fight in the line of duty.” She tilted her head back at where Hokori and the other Shikestsu students still were. “By the instructor’s own logic, I acted accordingly. If anything, I exercised restraint.” She said all this was stone cold logic, but the expression on her face indicated she didn’t expect him to accept that logic.

Park’s description of Boost-Rush as “the arrogant one” nearly had Katsuki laughing.  If that wasn’t the truth!

“You get you’re a student, right?” he asked. He was trying not to be sarcastic, but some of that bled through. “There’s giving your all in training and there’s going all out in the field.  And even with that, there’s proportionality of a threat.”

His own words came back to haunt him again, ringing in his ears.  HE WON’T DIE IF HE DODGES!

That wasn’t who he was anymore.  Not most days, anyway.  He pushed that particularly unsettling memory down.  “Is that how you do your training at Shiketsu?”

She looked him straight in the eye. “No, I learned that by simply surviving in the neighborhood my parents were dumped in when they fled the Humanist bigots back home. They didn’t realize they would be even less welcome here. Some were very explicit in their disdain of our presence.”

She was speaking calmly, but there was the barest hint of a murderous rage in her eyes, simmering and growing steadily, the lid barely holding it back.

Katsuki knew all about rage. His is irrational, a fire that flares up like one of his explosions and takes out everything that’s nearby.  It’s a flashfire anger, lashing out at whatever upsets him, whatever perceived wrongs the universe or some specific individual has committed against him.  It’s rarely as justified as he’d like to pretend it is.

On his good days, he’s tamed his.  He learned to use it, fueling his actions in battle.  Outside of that, the worst he usually gets these days is yelling. There’s times, like earlier with Boost-Rush, where he did lose his control, and unleashed his anger on someone through violence.  But it’s not like before, not like when he was a child, where would sometimes vent his anger on Izuku for perceived slight of challenging his status as “top dog.”

He hadn’t been a rich kid, like Glasses or Ponytail or IcyHot.  But he’d been remarkably well off as a kid.  Nice neighborhood, never had to worry about anything.  The struggles this kid or others like her had faced, he couldn’t have begun to imagine.  And add being an immigrant on top of that…

“You had to fight just to survive,” he said.  It wasn’t a question.

She stared at him for a moment, then lifted her shirt slightly above her waist. This revealed the scar of a deep gash.

“That was at the hands of Japanese motorcyclists who objected to a “chon” being in their neighborhood.” She turned and exposed her lower back, which revealed a series of jagged scars. “A Zainichi gang leader ran barbed wire over my back for “drawing the Japanese back on us.”

She then kicked off her shoe, leaned down and took the sock off, revealing her little toe was missing. “And that was some of my own “countrymen,” gangsters who wanted me to join them for “solidarity.” I refused. They beat me, then cut that off as a reminder not to be a “race traitor.” And none of that accounts for the casual racism and hate from the “polite aspects” of society. A police force that doesn’t care unless the public outside knows about it, along with no pros to look after my people when this country offered “sanctuary” to us, so yes, Teacher,” she said in Japanese this time, but without the implication of respect. “I have.”

With great effort, Katsuki kept himself under control as Park went through her litany of injuries and injustices.  She was no older than Katsumi or the others, but in terms of life experience, may as well have already been an adult Pro-Hero for all the horrors she had seen.  No wonder she was so ready to strike out during simple training exercises.  The school of hard knocks had nothing on her.

It made his blood boil. Kids should get to be kids, not have to worry about gangs and their neighbors threatening their lives and bodies.   He knew that things had improved some in the last few years, but the Hero Public Safety Commission was still playing a light hand with making inroads to minority neighborhoods.  The really good Heroes went wherever they were needed, but they still played it light with actual Agencies.  That this shit was still happening and no one was really doing anything about it..!

“You got dealt a shit hand,” he growled.  “A kid, no, a woman your age, shouldn’t have had to deal with any of that.  But you survived and showed them you’re tougher than anybody who tried to kick you down.”

He gestured around, broadly. “Most of the kids here, they grew up with pretty cushy lives.”  He thought of Katsumi, when Eijiro had been beaten within an inch of his life.  Of Sato and his kid, when they’d lost his wife. Of Izumi’s infected with a debilitating influence as a means to hurt her grandfather.  Of the small, but still somehow too great a number of close calls, when Villains had tried to cross lines and come after their families.  Of the myriad others who had to worry about whether or not mom or dad was coming home.  

“Not always easy.  And not without their own tragedies.  But you’re operating from a whole different perspective.  Not one they’d understand easily, and not one you’re obligated to explain to them.”

Katsuki continued.  “I was an angry kid too.  Ready to take on anything and everything that pissed me off. I had legitimate issues that were driving my anger.  But I didn’t have real reasons for being angry. I invented them, lies I told myself about why it was okay to be so anger.  But you, you have real reasons.  And don’t let people tell you otherwise.”

He looked her straight in the eye.  “But you’ve got to use that anger.  Direct it at the right people.  And the people at this camp aren’t it.  Everybody’s here to get better.  Everybody’s here because they want to be a Hero and help people.”   He frowned.  “And yeah, my kid was ready to pick a fight with your classmate.  Or you.  She knows she screwed up.”  

It was a good thing he couldn’t share the details of this conversation with Katsumi.  She’d have been pissed at him for admitting that, even if it was the truth.  Or at least, an approximation of it.  She knew it was a bad decision.  Whether or not she’d internalized it as a screw up was a different question.

“I can’t change what happened to you, personally, or to your people or neighborhood.  My job’s to help put you on the best path to being a Hero. And I can’t do that if you’re treating your fellow students or instructors like they’re the enemy.”

He’d managed to get through that without yelling once.  Impressive. Maybe he was getting soft in his old age

She hadn’t gone to put her sock back on. Instead she’d listened to all of what he had to say. It was obvious she’d been expecting a variety of directions for this conversation to go: an angry lecture, threats, self-righteous condemnation, head-in-the-dirt denial, but hadn’t been prepared for acceptance or validation. Especially given his reputation for a short fuse and quick judgements. She’d paid attention to all of it, but had made no movements, nods, or sounds to indicate her stance.

When he finished, Park was quiet for a long time. Unknowingly she had begun to hold her cross in her hand, a thumb rubbing across the metal.

“I..I know, but..it’s so hard.” There was the tiniest of breaks in her voice, but she composed herself. She reached down to put her sock back on, probably distract herself from her conflicting feelings.  “I’m used to seeing enemies on all sides.”

“It is,” he agreed. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Walking around with all that anger, even with plenty of therapy, it’s something I deal with every damn day. It’s something I’ve got to constantly be aware of, be on guard against.  I find healthy outlets.  Or, at least, mostly healthy ones.”

He thought back to some of the conversations he’d had with Eijiro over the years, questioning whether he was a good enough person to deserve love and family.  Of long talks with Izuku, about all the wrongs he’d done to him.  Of the making amends part of his therapy and the long time he’d spent grappling with realizing he’d been chasing after a goal without ever truly understanding what it meant.

“There’s days I don’t do that good of a job,” he said, finally.  “The internet’s full of clips from times I lost it.  But I don’t stop trying.”

Park had long since put her sock and shoe back on and was once more listening. She had resumed fiddling with her cross, but not quite as frantically as before.

“Outlets.” She spoke the word with a familiarity that indicated she had heard it multiple times before now. “My parents have tried to find such things for me. A friend of my father’s instructed me in Yongmudo since I was small. Such things have been known to instill discipline, peace of mind, and perhaps even an “outlet.” In truth it just gave me a means to start fighting back. I “want” peace, Teacher, but to strike at those who wronged you...feels very good.” She squeezed the cross, hard enough that he saw her knuckles turn white. She chuckled bitterly.  “Probably what drew them to me to begin with.”

“Them?” he asked, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice.  Was someone using Park?  It only took him a few seconds to connect the dots.  He may have been a brawler at heart, but not for nothing did he have an investigative record second only to Tintin’s.  “The Commission.  Dammit, I thought Hawks had all those programs shut down!”

Park gave him a confused look. “I’m not sure what you mean, but yes, your Hero Commission. I had been rounded up more than once by police for getting in fights with local thugs, but nothing on my record. So I thought anyway. One day a Japanese man in a suit knocks on our door and asks to speak with me. He knows who I am, apparently from the police, and asks me “How would you like to take them down legally?”

She sighed, crossing her arms. “Of course I knew these were the bastards who left us without Heroes to protect us. The same ones who unleashed Ignition on Chinese civilians. All the same, they were also the only ones who could arrange Pro protection in the future. I love my family, my community...if it meant working with them, then I would do it. Our neighborhood is poor, purposely nondescript, no way for the big schools to notice. So they arranged for my name to end up on Shiketsu’s radar.”

She shook her head, a rue smile actually crossing her lips. She said some words in Korean, caught herself, then said, “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I’ve only ever told my parents and Chie.”

“It must be my winning bedside manner,” he said, putting on a small smile of his own.  He was still going to give that bird-brained Deputy Commissioner a piece of his mind, even if the programs didn’t sound quite the same. It was still predatory as hell.  

“But that’s a good goal,” he said.  “Sounds like you’re doing it for the right reasons.”  Maybe a little revenge, but it still sounded to his ears like she wanted to help, to make a difference, more than she wanted to hurt.   She was sticking up for people who didn’t have anyone else.  Izuku’d like that.  “So I’ll cut you a deal…  You’ve got my permission to walk away from anything here, anytime you get too mad to function.  But in exchange, you’ve got to talk to somebody after, and you’ve got to stop trying to beat the stuffing out of my students.”

Park looked visibly shocked, the first time her usual composure had completely cracked. She was clearly not used to Japanese people in authority being on her side. For the first time since the conversation had started, she finally seemed to show her age.

“Teacher,” she stops, realizing she was using Korean phrasing. “Sanada Sensei in Shiketsu has actually been trying to get me to see their counselor. I have refused every time.” She seemed to think for a moment. “Maybe I should reconsider that.”

At the mention of beating up his students, she closes her eyes. They seem to vibrate a bit, closing them had been a means of hiding intense emotions. A hand squeezed her cross tightly. There was the very smallest hint of wetness to her eyes, but it was brief. Park opened her eyes again.

“I can do that.”

***

Isamu gulped, not for the first time.  Aizawa-sensei made him nervous on a good day, when he was just being his usual brooding self at Class 1-A.  He made him even more nervous when he was giving him direct attention, like what was happening now.  Like several other students, he’d been pulled aside for one-on-one, individualized or small group training.

“You’re getting good with your Quirk,” Aizawa said, flatly.  “Your father must have taught you well.”  Was it just his imagination or was there a little more warmth in his voice when he said that?

“As best he could, Sensei,” Isamu said quickly.  “Though he never got good enough with it for Hero work.”  Why would he say that?!

Aizawa gave him a flat look, one eyebrow slightly raised.  “You really want to dance around this, kid?  I know you know that I know.  Maybe not everything, but enough.  Your parents were pains in my ass, but they did good work.  Especially the Sky Egg.”

This wasn’t a surprise. But it was a surprise to be talking about it so openly.  Sure, he was the kid of a couple of Vigilantes, not Heroes like just about everyone else here.  And sure, Aizawa had worked with his parents multiple times, as had Midnight.  So it wasn’t like he really thought he was hiding anything.  At least not from them.   Deku had figured it out too.  And there were probably more people he hadn’t figured out.  But he hadn’t told any of his friends.  He trusted them, didn’t think it would come back to bite him in the ass.  It was just… something known but not talked about.

“Ah, thank you, Sensei.” That seemed like the proper response. And he didn’t even incur another round of foot in mouth disease.  “I’ll tell him you said that.”

Aizawa gave him a look. “You’ll do no such thing.”

Isamu gulped.

“All of which means I’ve got a pretty good idea of what your Quirk’s capable of,” Aizawa went on. “Yours is like his.  Almost identical, but subtly different if you know what you’re looking for.  I’m surprised Deku didn’t figure it out, honestly. But since you think you’ve got an identical Quirk, you’re limiting yourself.  He figured out ways to use his propulsion offensively and even for short bursts to launch himself, but you’ve already mastered all those tricks.  I’ve even see you firing repulsion blasts without having to brace yourself.  You don’t actually need three points of contact.  And I’ve seen you launch yourself during training too and steer yourself once you’re in the air.  So I want you to try something.”

There was, perhaps, a slightly maniac look in his teacher’s eyes.  “You’re going to fly.”

Isamu gulped yet again and his eyes went wide.  “Sensei?” He definitely couldn’t fly.  He could use a repulsion burst to launch himself and steer a little in the air, even keep himself from too bad of a landing, but he definitely couldn’t fly.   Could he?

Dad has said that he’d been able to slide through the air as a baby.  He’d even been able to recover something like it with boosts through the air. But that was really just not falling, not flying.  Wasn’t it?

He managed a nod. “Okay,” he said.  “I’ll try it.  What do I need to do?”

“Unfortunately,” Aizawa said, “I’m not allowed to just push you off the roof of the compound.  Sink or swim tactics work wonders.”

That was a joke, right? He had to be joking about that! Someone tell him Aizawa was joking!

His teacher’s expression betrayed no hint of emotion.  “So instead, what I want you to do is concentrate your power on pushing against the ground under your feet and the air under your hands.  You’ll need steady output from all four limbs to control it.”

Right.  He could do that.  He could do that.  He could probably do that.  He could possibly do that.

He took a deep breath and concentrated on his Quirk.  Just like when he was sliding along.  Energy out from his feet, energy out from his hands.   Steady, smooth, power.  

Nope!  Not steady!  Too much power flared from his feet and launched him into the air.  Cursed laws of physics!  Isamu cut his Quirk, but it was like trying to stop a bullet after it had already left the gun.  His arms and legs flailed uselessly as he launched skyward, until gravity began to reassert itself and drag him back down. Aizawa wouldn’t just let him go splat, would he?

Boy, was that a stupid question.  

So he had to save himself!

He scrunched up his eyes and concentrated on his Quirk again.   Steady, consistent, power.

Isamu felt the energy flow from all his limbs again, the pressure fairly equal.  Quickly, he realized he wasn’t falling.  His eyes snapped open.  His was only a few feet off the ground, but he was holding himself up in the air, unsteadily.  Trails of blue-white energy from all his limbs filled the air.  He kept his hands pointed carefully down, using them for stabilizing bursts while his feet provided the thrust.  

“Whoa!”  It was extremely unsteady.  His head was already beginning to hurt from concentrating so hard.  But he was doing it!  

And just as easily as it had come about, his concentration wavered and his power faded.  He hit the ground with a soft thump, landing on his butt. Isamu looked up to see Aizawa standing over him, offering a hand up, but also smirking knowingly.  Isamu took it.

“Good,” Aizawa said. “Keep practicing that.  I’ll send Ground Zero over later if you’re still having trouble.  His explosive-powered flight is similar.”

He needed to get very good. Immediately.

And he really needed a conversation with his friends.

***

Kimiko was fuming. Lunch had ended and they hadn’t even been able to begin the big shipping operation!  Even worse, it was entirely possible they wouldn’t get to do it at all! She hadn’t been able to tell what anyone was saying, but it sure looked like Koda and Aoyama had had a major heart-to-heart.  And since it hadn’t ended with any slaps or either of them walking away in tears, it was probably good news!

Which was, in and of itself, a good thing.  Koda definitely deserved all the happiness in the world.  She was probably the sweetest person that Kimiko knew.  And Aoyama was… not exactly a friend, but someone she was definitely friendly with.  Even if he didn’t particularly like Takuma, he was good people under the fancy-pants attitude.  Plus he loved listening to gossip and always had the best dirt on foreign celebrities. If they got together, it was a good thing!

But she didn’t know!  And since she didn’t have her phone, she couldn’t even share her speculation!  There was major league gossip going on and not only couldn’t she share it, but she didn’t even know the full story!

What was the world coming to?!

So many of Class 1-A was dating now!  Midoriya was dating Sora Iida, Takuma was dating Tensei Iida, Mineta was dating Yoarashi, Shoji had his girlfriend Shiryoku from the Business Course, Kaminari was apparently dating Monoma (What?  What was the story there?!  Why didn’t she know any details?!), Haimawari was dating Tetsutetsu, Koda and Aoyama were a maybe, and she was dating Kenta!

So that left… Kirishima-Bakugo, Kocho, Tokoyami, and Shinso, right?  Todoroki wasn’t interested in romance or sex, her loss, but Kimiko could respect boundaries. Sometimes.  And she wasn’t even sure what kind of people Shinso was interested in. He was only about six months younger than most of them, but he sometimes seemed like a kid by comparison.

None of which was relevant to the task in front of her.  Namely, personal medical training with the Metabolic Hero: Bioshock!

“Eri, ah, Doc Clock, sent me over files on everything she’s been teaching you,” Bioshock explained. “Including all the scores from your practice tests.  She’s definitely proud of you.”

Kimiko felt a smile spread across her face.  She’d actually really been applying herself to her medical studies.  Schoolwork didn’t come easily to her, but this was definitely worth it.

“So, pop quiz,” Bioshock said.  “Best way to treat a broken arm in the field?”

This one was easy. “If there’s bleeding, use a sterile dressing to stop it.  If there’s no skin puncture, use my Quirk to assess the extent of the break.  After either one, immobilize, construct a splint if possible.  Once I’ve gotten them to safety, ice packs can help with the swelling.”

He nodded. “Good.  And what’s the most important thing to keep an eye out for when doing search and rescue?”

She knew this one!   “Structural stability and my own safety. Don’t want to make a problem worse and I can’t help anyone if I need someone to rescue me!”

Bioshock nodded again.  “Good,” he said.  “And where in the body would you find a squeedily spooch?”

Panic gripped Kimiko’s heart as she realized she didn’t know the answer to that.  Squeedily spooch… squeedily spooch... what the heck was a squeedily spooch?!

She frowned as she realized he was struggling not to laugh.  “Hey!  That’s not fair!”  Her arms waved wildly through the air as she voiced her displeasure.  He was a teacher, so she couldn’t actually hit him like she would Kenta or Takuma, but… “There’s no such thing as a squeedily spooch!  You can’t just make stuff up like that!  What the heck is wrong with you?!  WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME?!”

The Rookie held his composure for a moment longer, before breaking into laughter.  “Sorry, sorry,” he said.  “I shouldn’t laugh, but I just wanted to see what you’d do…   Which reminds me, actually, I’ve got a theory about your Quirk…”

He was cut off as a shrill alarm cut through the air.  Bioshock’s face instantly went serious as he looked around.

“Perimeter breach!  Perimeter breach!”  An electronic voice sounded in the space between alarms.

“Come with me,” Bioshock said.  He was clearly trying not to let his worry show. “I’ll get you to the compound…”

If I can was left unsaid.

***

The second the alarms went off, the Rookies and teachers leapt into action, with a speed that would have impressed just about any Hero, forming a defensive circle around the U.A. students.    Uncle Kacchan set off small explosions on his palms, working himself up into the agitated state needed to sweat and use his power to its fullest.  Aizawa unraveled his capture cloth and lifted his goggles to cover his eyes.  Super-Ball dropped into a fighting stance, lightly bouncing on the balls of his feet, his rubberized features set into grim determination.    

Ravenous unleashed several of his Binging Balls, the chomping spheroids floating about him like small planets orbiting the sun.  Small puffs of thrust flared from Boost-Rush’s arm pipes.  Bezoar dropped to all fours, his canon emerging from his mouth as he swept the tree line.  Aunt Mahoro pulled a small metal cylinder from her belt, which expanded into a staff.

Aunt Mahoro looked back, as though wanted to assure them that it was going to be okay.  She waved a hand in their direction and the world went a hazy green.  She had to have cast some kind of illusion over the twenty-odd students, probably making the training field look like they weren’t there at all.  Most of them had been on the main grounds, working on their Quirks.  The Shiketsu students, Ojiro, and about a dozen others had been elsewhere on the grounds, receiving their own training.

“We’ll stop or hold off whatever it is,” Toshi heard Aizawa say. Was he imaging it, or was his teacher’s voice shaking?  “You’ve all got full permission to use your Quirks to escape or fight off anything that tries to stop that escape.  The other Rookies are either on their way or protecting your classmates.

As it was, Toshi felt his heart racing in his chest.  A quick glance around revealed a sharp divide in reactions.  Some, like Kocho, along with members of Class 1-B like the bat-like Koumori and Kaniyashiki looked worried, but not overly frightened. They probably even wondered if this was just a test or one of Aizawa’s famous “logical ruses.”  It was absolutely a reasonable reaction to the presence of danger.  But they were all also Hero-students, quickly pushing past it to at least take up basic defensive stances, some of them calling up their Quirks.

The kids who had Hero parents reacted differently.  There was fear first.  They’d all been told the stories of what had happened during their parents’ first training camp.  The injuries. The kidnapping.  The fact that the League of Villains had nearly killed so many of them.  Would have killed so many of them, if not for a lot of luck.  Haimawari too, was reacting similarly.  His experiences between the Internship and the incident on I-Island had stirred up a great deal of courage in his friend, but also shown him how bad things could get very quickly.

This was supposed to have been a safe place.  The world was supposed to have been a safer place. The worst Villains had been faced and defeated.  And yes, it still needed Heroes, still needed people to stand up and say “I am here!” in the fight against evil.  But the past was not supposed to repeat like this.  

Their parents had fought hard so that their lives would not be as filled with trauma.

Already, the Nomu incident has put a lie to that.   Was it becoming even more of one?  Some of them had been tested in that, scarred, made afraid.  Some of them had been spared, aware of the terror but not a part of it.  

The fears of the past rose up to claim them.

But beneath the fear was grim determination.  Katsumi was already scowling, putting herself in front of Izumi.  Asuka had deployed Frog-Shadow and she and Haimawari had both put themselves around Shota.  The Twins looked ready to take off at a moment’s notice.  Tetsutetsu had transformed her arms to metal.  One by one, everyone was activating their Quirks. Even Kocho was extending her wings.

“I don’t need you to protect me, dammit!” Kaminari snapped, pushing Monoma so that she was standing shoulder to shoulder with him, instead of behind him.

Monoma himself looked very pale.  If Toshi didn’t know better, he’d swear the other boy was shaking. He didn’t have any of his support items with him, Toshi realized.  “I.. I was just trying to…”

“Look,” Kaminari said. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m a big girl.”

If ever there was a sign of how seriously his classmates were taking this, it was that Mineta did not make a joke about Kaminari’s statement.  Even Sero was quiet.  This was deadly serious.

“Do you think we are really under attack, Toshi?” Sora asked.

“Quit yapping, all of you!” Katsumi snapped, before he could answer.  Toshi recognized her body language.  Feet planted, knees slightly bent, arms out, fists clenched.  She was spoiling for a fight.  That was Katsumi all over.  Always spoiling for a fight.  After the beating she’d taken, he suspected she was looking for a target even more than usual.  He hoped and prayed that she had the good sense to recognize the odds were very good they were outmatched.

“This is bad,” Fukidashi whispered.  The animated girl’s face had gone blue and covered with hashlines.  “The background music’s getting really scary!”

***

For just a moment, Katsuki was fifteen again.  An arrogant, hot-headed kid with too much rage and an inferiority-superiority complex he won’t even begin to really unpack until he’s failed his Provisional License Exam, and won’t have finished unpacking until…  Well, it’s a work in progress.  But he’s back there, more than twenty-five years ago, thinking that Villains—murderers like Muscular and Dabi, master criminals like Mister Compress, deathrow inmates like Moonfish—don’t stand a chance against his barely trained ass.

He was wrong.  So wrong.  He was captured, perceived as a Villain, with All Might unable to properly fight because he was there.  And then he had to live with the shame of having to be rescued.  Of knowing that Izuku would stage a rescue for him, when he definitely wouldn’t have done the same.  He’d have let those Villains have the “worthless Deku.”

The knowledge of how much of a shit child he was still fills him with shame.

But here and now, even broken and bowed, he will not allow the same thing to happen to his daughter and her classmates.  He’d be cold and dead before he allowed that to happen.

“Just heard from the others,” Mahoro said.  “Sandblast and Locksmith are with the Shiketsu students.  Petal Princess and Lady Luminous are with the other students, and my brother and his student are hooking up with them.  Everyone’s accounted for.”

Boost-Rush tapped the side of his helmet.  “Getting data from the security feed…whatever it is, it’s coming up on us.  It’s managed to evade or disable our entire security system.”

“Any chance it’s a false alarm?” Fujii asked.  The rubberized Hero wasn’t joking.  It was a genuine statement.  “Nobody should know the students are here.”

“No one was supposed to know the first time either,” Aizawa snapped.  “Don’t let your guard down.”  Bakugo had to give the hobo credit.  Even in his mid-fifties, he still looked more than ready to kick anyone’s ass who trifled with his “kids.”

“Not a chance,” Mahoro said. “Hatsume and Shield designed all of it. But if it’s not an attack on them, it’s an attack on us Rookies.”

Either way, it wasn’t good.

There was a rustling in the grass of the tree line and suddenly, something emerged.  At first, he didn’t see anything, until he looked down.

“What the fuck?”

It was a… dog?  A Shiba Inu, if he was any judge.  

“What the fuck?”

Not just a dog, he realized. A dog wearing clothes.  It had on a dog-version of a Shiketsu uniform, complete with a peaked cap that its ears were poking through, and a backpack.

“What the fuck?”

The dog looked around and seemed to smile.  There was a strange, human intelligence to his eyes.  Eyes that finally fell on Bakugo, the other teachers, and the Rookies.

“Hi!” the dog said. “I’m Hachi Inuzaki from Shiketsu! Sorry I missed the bus!  It took me forever to get here!”

Katsuki felt like someone had just punched him in the face.  Aizawa, Fujii, and the Rookies were equally dumbfounded.

“What,” he said, “and I cannot stress this enough, the fuck?”

[jimmigmalingan]

Her Name Is Not “baby”, It’s JANET.

It’s not “Miss Jackson if you’re nasty” either, although just as iconic.

What better way to celebrate Women’s Month than to get to know a great embodiment of a strong and powerful woman. In fact, so strong and so powerful that my instinctive reaction when I first saw the invite to her journalism class was “Oh no.”

That was the G-Rated version of it actually. Nevertheless, same message. 

I barely even knew who she was or what her teaching style was going to be like. Her G-suite display picture just exuded “Oh no” energy. I mean that as a compliment.

I went straight to my friend from elementary school who shifted to Communication a year earlier than I did. I said “Do you have any tea on her?” The first thing he told me was that she had very high standards.

I like that, actually.

Back when I was in high school, which seems like very long time despite only having been a whopping three years, those were the types of teachers that I would consider my favorite ones. Ma’am Rachel from my English class, and Ma’am Elma from my Research and Biology class. Both of which actually went on to be school heads in different schools after we graduated.

I’m just here thinking to myself “God, I would’ve been excelling at her class if it isn’t for this stupid pandemic.” I clearly am not. We will get to that soon.

When we had the chance to organize an interview as a class, it invigorated me a tad bit. This is the closest I can get to having human interaction in an academic sense, but it was also my chance to have an idea or two of who ‘Janet Tibaldo’ was. Is she going to be the bane of my existence for the next four or so years or is she going to be alongside the people who I consider to be my “heroes”?

To my surprise, she’s very, well... human.

From what I’ve gathered in both of the interviews, our class’ and the other, she is a woman of strength. She is a passionate educator, a dedicated mother, and most of all, a woman of faith and devotion. In both of the interviews, she often emphasizes the importance of the “vertical relationship” in her life, and how it can have a positive effect in one’s horizontal relationships.

I do appreciate those remarks from her quite a bit, despite me having a rockier and more complex relationship with God as a queer person. I never considered myself an atheist. I do believe in God, and I believe that I am loved by God, despite knowing that people out there will try to convince me otherwise.

How could he possibly hate me when I pray to him too and he answers them just the same? It makes absolutely no sense to me.

When she said that you can fix your horizontal relationships once your vertical relationship is stable, it did strike a cord just as much as it struck a verve in me. I am trying to. It took me a while, but nevertheless I’m glad that I am here.

She often described herself as “strict”, both as a parent and an educator. It often surprises me how much bombardment my friend from elementary experiences from her subjects. The way he describes it to me sounds a bit like torture. I always took his words about her with a grain of salt. I will probably never believe him until I experience it first hand. He did say I was lucky that I shifted during online classes because she is a bit more lenient, otherwise I would’ve been dead meat.

If she was the monster that she’s painted out to be, I do understand why. It’s not like I don’t have a maternal figure or two in my life with eerily similar approaches. Like I said, she is a bit more human than what one would expect. She talked about her sleepless nights to dedicate herself onto her work, how she takes it upon herself when things go wrong, and how she said she hopes for a better and more empathetic world when I asked about her hopes for the future. To me she sounds like a person who stands her ground and knows exactly what she wants, even if it gets the best of her at times.

With that, she shared a peek of her younger days, how she spent her childhood during the Martial Law era, how newscasters on TV sparked her interest in the field of Communication, how in her college days they made do with the resources they had back then, emphasizing how lucky we are to have the technology we have now, how she was an activist back in the day. It painted a picture in my mind. Ahhh. No wonder.

There has always been ‘fire’ inside of her. A fire that lead her to be an educator today, despite having left the path of being a media practitioner.

I did think about it a couple of times. If being a visual artist doesn’t work out for me, maybe I’ll just teach. To me, it looks fun. She did say that she never thought in a million years that she would end up becoming a teacher because she thought it looked boring. According to her, lot of her family members ended up becoming teachers and she never wanted to be one of them. Maybe there’s some ugly parts of it that I don’t get to see, but it seems like a much more stable career path than visual arts, especially in a country like this.

Just from the interviews alone, you can tell that she has so much wisdom to offer in this field. That makes me all the more excited to meet her in person. If anything, there’s your proof right there that God is out there writing poetic justice for people. Maybe it was God’s way of saying “I have something better in mind for you, you just have to trust me.”

Another standout from the interviews was when she told all of us as a piece of advice that we should grab opportunities as they come. Oftentimes, the biggest regrets you have in life aren’t the things you did but the things you didn’t do. I have to admit, the main reason why this music video is taking too long to make is because of self doubt and insecurity. She’s right. I should toughen up a bit, shouldn’t I? Not only that, but there’s a lot of competitions that I found interesting in the facebook group that I just allowed to pass me by. I don’t want to blame my years in Architecture for it, because it did cause me some good. It’s just that I knew what I was running away from after years of feeling like I will never amount to anything. 

I knew that. If anything I was way bolder when I left high school, only for Architecture to beat me down. It does take someone like her to remind me of who I was then.

When I was going through my depressive episode late last year, ultimately leading me to shift to Communication, I found myself seeking refuge in the music of Janet Jackson. As a matter of fact, I shared her music to the same friend I mentioned earlier, and now he’s a fan too. We’d often joke about which Janet we were talking about in the conversation.

On one hand, we have Janet the popstar, who despite being blacklisted by Bush’s racist and misogynistic America, kept on going. She kept performing and making music for as recent as 2018, and now she’s inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On the other, we have Janet the teacher, who keeps holding on to her faith despite all of the trials and challenges that came her way all these years.

What’s it about Janets being fiery passionate women anyway?

That actually leads me to my next point of interest.

What moved me the most about both of the interviews was her openness about her struggles with mental health, and how she refers students to seek help as well back when classes were physical. I don’t think conversations like these were possible back in the day, especially when I was a child. Apparently I didn’t have ADHD I was just an idiot, and people like me get punished for their idiocy. That was my upbringing, and it’s so refreshing to know that kids nowadays are lucky to have a ‘zeitgeist’ like this.

I was brought up for the longest time in the idea that if you show any signs of vulnerability, you are weak. It took some time for me to ‘rewire’ my brain and undo all of that...

because that is blatantly false.

If anything, for me, it further solidified how strong she was. It takes so much strength to admit that you’re human. It takes so much courage to tell yourself that you probably need help because you struggle in this aspect of your life. It is so easy to pretend that you can take everything like a champ and you don’t need anyone to help you.

The easy route was to say “I’m fine” or “I’m doing good” when asked a simple question “How are you?”, the hard route is to ask yourself that same question “How am I?” and be honest and introspective about it.

She did just that. She took the hard route.

She said she was having trouble sleeping and that she had to consult a mental heath expert for that recently, and that this pandemic made it particularly hard for her to juggle work and home matters.

I don’t think she will ever understand how a simple statement like that inspires someone like me, because what I got from that was ‘if somebody as strong and as passionate as her bleeds the same way that I do, I too can be strong like her.’

I just booked my appointment to my therapist yesterday. I haven’t seen her in quite some time now. It’s nice to know that I’m not alone in this, despite going there for feeling alone. Ironic, isn’t it? I feel like I’m running out of friends, and it’s starting to feel like paralysis, really.

After the interview ended, and I finished watching the interview from the other block, I couldn’t grasp the idea of this woman being taken as a monster, because the only words I could think of in association to her thus far is ‘uplifting’ and ‘inspiring’, in the same way that Ma’am Rachel was one of the people who inspired me to be a a cartoonist and Ma’am Elma inspired me to be a competitive dancer.

I had to give up three years worth of friendships to start back from scratch and to be here. I was actually so unsure if it was even worth the sacrifice, but Ma’am Janet Tibaldo, out of all people, showed me something to look forward to in this field. Based on what I’ve gathered from her, I’m up for a good time.

[fanficy-au]

Not Enough Time | Deidara x Obito

Title: Not Enough Time For: Tracy  Summary: Obito has tried to reject the idea of his soulmate for years, but as the day approaches closer he can’t deny the growing curiosity. Requested Word Count: 2000 Final Word Count: 2015 Rating: G Tags: Deidara x Obito, male x male pairing, soulmate AU, soulmate - timer AU View on A03 |  Commission Me | Tip A Writer 

Not Enough Time | Deidara x Obito 

The timer has been there for as long as Obito can remember. When he was a child, he sat down and carefully, if a bit simply, told why it was there. His grandmother had filled him with idealizations and stories of finding his soulmate. She tried to make it something for him to look forward to and to not be discouraged by long numbers. He listened for what seemed like hours to stories of how she met her soulmate, how his parents met. He still remembers each story very well.  It almost worked - it would have worked - until all of the other kids ignored him because they couldn’t read his timer; if it was not happening anytime soon, it did not matter.

As he got older, especially  in high school, they explained it in more detail - followed afterward about sexual education. He paid more attention to the former than the later, he will admit.

The timer on his wrist, they had explained, counts down to when he will meet his soulmate. Like him, it is something that everyone has. They still did not explain as well as he had hoped though. No explanations as to why it was there. No questions were asked other than the typical high schooler questions of what if my soulmate is ugly? Which was reassured with it’s your soulmate, you’ll be paired with someone you will love. All ‘reassurances’ felt so empty to him, rehearsed and expected answers that were expected of adults that never actually answered anything; he never got a chance, or the courage, to ask the questions on his mind.

No one else seemed to have the same hesitation that he did. He first noticed this when some of his friends in high school ended up meeting their soulmate; some of the lucky ones had even met their soulmate as children. Always happy. Always excited. Always I have been waiting for you, you are just as I imagined. You are everything I have ever dreamed of. You are even more beautiful than I hoped for.

There was always rumors and chatter about each other’s timers, who may end up who if their timers were even a little bit similar. Some rumors are more scandalous than others. Some of them, ones whose numbers were short and easy to predict, did not even bother trying to date in high school, waiting for their ‘ one true love’. Others liked to dabble, to get experience so they knew what to do when they finally met them; those ones usually had decently long numbers with hopes of meeting their soulmates in college. There never seemed to be that much of a market for kids who just wanted to date; it was seen as pointless if they were not your soulmate (now being in the city, he is sure that most of that was small town thinking). So any hopes he had of gaining the sort of experience had hoped to were shot down fast.

Growing up, none of it ever reassured him the way he thought it would. Seeing so many soulmates meet and suddenly, viola, they are together the next day. Surely, if it worked for everyone else it would work for him, wouldn’t it? Then again, he never was like anyone else in other categories. Never athletic enough. Never good-looking enough. Never enough.

Instead he just grew anxious. He never understood the hype. The numbers on his wrist felt too long and the longer he had to wait, the more he grew sure that even his soulmate would not want him. What if he was not  ‘everything his soulmate dreamed of?’ What if he was not ‘what they expected?’  What if he didn’t want to be suddenly with someone just because of his timer? What if he doesn’t like them? Or what if they don’t like him?

Or worse, Obito was sure that his soulmate had to be a man. What if they were expecting a girl or someone else?

Obito has learned, with time, that the best way to not be anxious about something was to simply not care about it.

Now, even at twenty-five years old, Obito still does not worry too much about his timer; or at least, he tries not to. He ignores it for the longest time, going as far as wearing sleeves or jewelry that covers the timer. He puts it into the back of his mind, trying his best to not even check how much time is left. If he pretends that it is not there, maybe it will not come true or maybe it will go away all together.

But at his age, the timer is quickly approaching its end. The last time he checked it, he nearly spilled his coffee realizing that it would happen so soon. Four days, five hours, six minutes, 45 seconds. It felt surreal that so much time had passed. That the number that seemed so far away, so out of reach as a small child, is finally approaching. He almost took off work for the rest of the week, just so he could stay home and lock himself away where he can’t possibly run into anyone. His boss, however, had very different plans that led him working so much overtime that he stressed about meeting his soulmate through work.

Of course, this was four days ago. Now, he has no idea how much time is left on his timer. A few hours maybe? Minutes? He bites at the inner cheek of his mouth. He taps his fingers against his desk. It takes all he can to not look at the timer obsessively all through the work day. He tries his best to focus instead, on all the work piling up in front of him.

But just as he is about to clock out for work, heart beating against his chest, he can no longer resist the temptation to look. His hands shake as he lifts up the edge of his sleeve, carefully moving his watch just enough for a small peek at the numbers.

15 minutes. 45 seconds.

He gags, glancing at the watch as if that may have a different time. He thinks wildly about what it is he is about to do and where to go. Will he meet them on the subway? No, he won’t make it there in time. Will he meet them at the coffee shop that he goes to on his way home? Maybe. Hopefully he won’t end up meeting them by accidently spilling something on them. Will it be someone just coming into the building as he is leaving?

Will his soulmate see him and leave? Get mad that it’s him? Will they be disappointed? Turn him away before he even has a chance?

Or will the timer hit zero and he will be walking down an empty street with no one in sight.

Just as his panic is reaching its peek, he hears his boss’ voice over the intercom calling him to the office. He quickly gathers himself together, fixes his tie, runs his fingers through his hair and hopes that there are no signs of his internal struggle.

The only good news, among all this chaos, in this situation is that he already knows his boss, which means the likelihood of meeting someone in his office is slim… right?

He tries his best to listen to his boss, he really does. Every word, however, goes in one ear and out the other. If he gets anything out of this, it is  that he never quite got the chance to clock out so at very least he is getting paid for the long tangent that his boss rambles on.

He normally isn’t so disconnected from work like this - and admittedly, if it was something positive, he would be much more interested -  but all he can think about is the timer on his wrist, ticking away while he sits in the office. He keeps an eye on the clock behind his boss, counting the minutes passing by, and the longer he waits, the more convinced he is that he was right that he never even had a soulmate to begin with.

Leave it to him to be the one whose timer goes off while his boss is rambling mad.

“-But,” his boss takes a deep breath - the first one in what feels like forever, “I have to say that your performance is exactly what this company needs which is why I’ll leave it to you to train our new associate. I trust that you’ll instill the same work ethic to him.”

“He will be completing his six week internship first,” his boss continues, “Then hopefully, we can add him as a permanent hire. With your training of him, we hope that can happen.”

Obito’s eyes widen, an immediate sense of panic rushing over him. He tries his best to cover it up as his boss stands to let someone into the room. He takes that moment to glance at the timer on his wrist. 10 seconds.

Whomever is walking through that door will be his soulmate - or should be, at least. He wonders if their timer will be going off any second now. He stands, double checks that his shirt is tucked in perfectly to make a good impression, and faces the door.

“Please welcome Mister Deidara onto the team.”

A man struts in, almost idly as if he is not nearly as concerned about the situation as Obito is. Blonde hair pulled back into a professional ponytail, sharp blue eyes glancing at his own wrist. Obito swallows thickly, not quite expecting him to get so lucky as to get someone so good looking. He can feel his face warming and hopes that no one else can hear his heart beating against his chest like a hard drum.

“Huh, what do you know,” Deidara says easily as he watches his timer hit zero before glancing up to meet Obito’s nervous gaze. It takes everything for Obito to stand still as Deidara gets closer to him, a flirtatious smile on his lips. Obito wonders if this is just a set up before Deidara does something like hit him or push him away. He braces himself for the worst, but it never quite comes.

Instead, Deidara  looks Obito over carefully, lingering on certain aspects. The smile never wavers. If not for their boss not far off, who has kindly given the pair a bit of space, Deidara may have done or said something more dramatic.

“Look at you…” Deidara states instead, “Well, you’re quite the piece of art, aren’t you?”

He leans in closely, his mouth just by Obitio’s ear as he whispers, “ An absolute, ultimate piece of art.”

Obito’s blush reaches his ears and he tries not to scream when he feels Deidara’s breath against his neck. He almost jumps out of his skin, forgetting how to breathe for a moment as he tries to get his heart under control.

“Obito,” Obito shoves his hand out to greet him, nearly hitting the other man in the chest. He flinches at just how forced his greeting is and the fact that he can not think of anything else to do or say. He figures that his name is a decent start.

Deidara looks at him amused; Obito is thankful that at least the other man has not outright rejected him or worse, ran away. He imagines that it would not look good in front of his boss if he is the reason they lost the new hire. He will be lucky if this whole situation does not get him fired. Actually - he will be lucky if this situation turns out well at all for any of them. Especially him.

Obito holds his breath, waiting anxiously for an answer. Finally, Deidara takes his hand. Obito hopes that his palm is not too sweaty, not too clammy, but Deidara doesn’t seem phased as he grips his hand in a firm handshake.

“Nice to finally meet you,” Deidara grins, “Sorry it took so long.”

[enthusiasticsobrietyabuse]

Originally Posted OnTheEmmis.com - 2005 Meehan Survivor Website / Discussion Forum. (ICECAP used to be the “board” of enthusiastic sobriety programs - it has since dissolved due to OnTheEmmis)

Put very simply, this is how your child is most likely responding to ICECAP's idea of 'unconditional love':

When I was 17, I had absolutely no desire to quit getting high.

My parents discovered Meehan and his ways, and so I was confronted with the ultimatum that we are all familiar with: Go to ICECAP or hit the road.

Well, I certainly was NOT going to be eating out of trash cans and scrounging up tree branches for warmth. I was a typical ICECAP kid; from a middle class family and hardly beyond experimenting with drugs.

So, as a teenager in full-rebellion mode, I found myself cornered, coerced, actually forced to submit to the ICECAP program, or face the brutal alternative.

Blackmail sucks, and rarely benefits anyone in the end.

So, what I did is I pretended to subscribe to the WHOLE ICECAP thing.

Except it wasn't really working. I still wanted to get high. I fumbled in my attempts to do so, not being able to account for my whereabouts at times, continuing to be a jerk, still wearing all black and listening to very questionable music.

So I got caught with some pot, just as ICECAP counselors had predicted would happen if I didn't get outpatient.

Again, I was given an ultimatum: OP or starvation.

So I went to outpatient, which believe it or not was the ultimate answer to my dilemma.

In outpatient, I was taught a little thing called the 'parent game', which by one name or another is to this day taught in ICECAP treatment. No other lesson or way of thinking is given more time or energy within ICECAP treatment than 'The Parent Game'.

The Parent Game involves teens being taught how to please their parents. They are told that sitting down for dinner, cleaning your room, saying 'I love you', and going to ICECAP religiously are things worth the unlimited freedom your parents would be willing to offer if you just did them.

So I tried out these new lessons. Sure enough, my OP counselor was right! I said 'I love you', smiled a lot, sat down at the table for dinner, gave out hugs and wore 'ICECAP' attire (not so much all the black, but a cheesy 'love round robin '93 t-shirt and blue jeans). As a result I was given unlimited freedom. My parents bought me cigarettes and gave me cash for the functions. They reported to my OP counselor and were very pleased with the fabulous results ICECAP was having with me. I was a new kid. I had been saved!

In more ways then one, actually. You see, no matter what ultimatum my parents could have proposed, I wanted to get loaded. I loved smokin' dope. It was always a very hard thing to do...until I got into OP.

My OP counselor, like just about all ICECAP OP counselors, was a caring, loving guy who was cool and funny and nice and neat and liked cool music and had long hair someone who didn't know the first thing about a kid getting high all the time.

What OP had accomplished for me was the perfect route to get high virtually unhindered, and that's precisely what I did.

My parents, on the direction of ICECAP staff (oh, so competent!) left me almost ENTIRELY alone. They 'trusted', did not 'get into my shit' and 'let me be a dope fiend kid'.

Add to that I no longer had to go to school, get a job, or do anything except go for four hours a day to OP and throw McDonald's french fries at Kata 6.

It was a pot head's dream come true.

I went through OP, the group, and spent just about a year on steering committee...all the time smoking pot whenever the hell I could, which was just about whenever the hell I wanted to.

When the truth came out (I eventually copped), my father simply stated, "If he has been getting high this whole year, if that is true, them I will personally buy him his dope".

Of course he didn't really mean that, though it would have been nice, the point is that while ICECAP did nothing in regards to getting me clean, they did wonders in teaching me how to fool my parents.

Many kids aren't such coniving little full of shit pricks like I was. Many kids, like yours, perhaps, are not going to fake it. It takes a lot of energy, and besides, most teens have a lot more integrity than I did.

Chances are your kid, if they are determined to get high (or: in actual need of a little help, such as I was) if presented with ICECAP's ultimatum are going to tell you to shove your ultimatum up your ass, and split. ICECAP will work tirelessly to convince you to assist voluntarily in the starvation, exposure, and eventual death of your own kid.

"Well, I would never..." You might say now...but ICECAP uses some great, very convincing, though false, rhetoric such as bold, self-riteous sounding phrases like 'unconditional love' and 'love is not accepting wrong behavior'...

Well I have news for you parents...love is ALSO not abandoning every responsibility you owe to your child as a parent, and leaving the job to an insane weirdo like Mike fucking Weiland, who is I GUARANTEE better at explaining to your kid why it is your kids fault Mike was late for their appointment than having a shred of a clue on how to professionally, competently assist your child in dealing with his/her problems, the least of which (most likely) is their drug use.

You think my story is isolated? Ask Jessica Cramsey how long she was on SC before she copped to have been getting loaded the whole time.

Ask the guy who I was on SC with the whole time, and getting high with the whole time, how 'isolated' my story is.

The truth is, in ICECAP, you as a parent HAVE NO IDEA whether or not your kid is sober or blowing old men for crack on weekdays.

The reason you HAVE NO IDEA is because one, your kid is conning you whether he/she is getting high or not, and two, because ICECAP completely hijacks your job as a parent.

AHHH. The cult think is breaking through now...telling you how wrong I am...telling you that I am just a bitter ex-counselor, probably getting high, not MY kid, I would know if MY kid...really? How would you know? Honestly, tell me, how would you know?

I guarantee that you do not. You have freely offered you natural role, that of a PARENT, to an unlicensed amateur. You have surrendered your instincts ('lack of trust') your experience ('your best thinking got you here') and your love for your child ('unconditional love') into the hands of one Robert G. Meehan. A self-proclaimed murderer with a dead son.

[narkito]

Mcdanno, #39. Long distance relationship??

Thank you for giving me a prompt!! :D

This story takes place in the “Chosen” universe, but you needn’t have read that to understand this little piece. Hope that’s okay

–

Steve scrambles for the phone, jumping over the coffee table and almost landing on one of Charlie’s Lego structures.

“Yes, hello,” he pants into the receiver, as he plops down into the couch, his leg already sore from the exertion. “Hello?”

The line crackles, followed by, “hey, babe.”

Steve sits up, never minding his cramping leg. “Danno! How are you?”

“Better now that I’ve got a hold of you.”

“Awww, you really think that sounds romantic, don’t you? I pity your game.”

“Oi, I have ten minutes to use the phone, you sure you want to use it up insulting me?”

“Maybe?”

“Yeah, kinky, but, how about not.” Steve pouts in response, and Danny continues, “tell me, how are you? How are things? The leg? The kids? My parents? Did Nahele find his lucky socks, did we bring them from Hawaii? How about—

Steve blinks, adjusting to the change of pace. This is not how he envisioned a long-distance relationship with Danny.

“Okay, hold your horses there, more conversation, less interrogation, okay? The kids are fine, or as fine as they can be, your parents are lovely as usual, and absolutely delighted to have the kids around.”

Danny snorts (and it does not sound pretty over the phone).

“You’ve been dumping them with my Ma every week, huh?”

Steve takes a beat before answering, “dumping sounds harsh, it’s more like…”

“Sorry, giving them the opportunity to enjoy the kids on a semi-regular basis.”

“Yeah,” he nods to himself, “much more dignified, that works.”

Danny snorts again. Steve can almost see him shaking his head.

“But in all seriousness, Steve, how’s the leg?”

“It’s fine, Danno, much better than last time we saw each other. I’ve been doing PT and everything.” Steve strokes his thigh as he talks, remembering how it used to be less than a year ago. “Today I walked all the way from the kids’ school to your parents’ house.” Steve wiggles his eyebrows satisfied with his accomplishment.

“Oh, wow, that’s actually a lot more than I expected,” Danny says, a huge smile in his voice. “Congrats for you.”

“Thank you.” Steve answers, satisfied smile of his own dangling from his lips. “So, uhm, how’s your thing going, you adjusting to training well?”

“Uuuuh, yeah, people are, you know, a bunch of average joes for the most part, and a good part of them wash out in the first week, so I’m holding my ground, comparatively I’m okay.”

Oh, that’s code speak for I hate it, Steven, I hate it so much.

“Does that mean you’re objectively a klutz and your drill sergeant hates you?”

“Ha-ha, very funny. Naah, I’m fine, I’m five-oh, we know how to keep it cool and interesting, you know?”

“Riiiight, you bored out of your mind yet?”

“Maybe.” Steve can sense the way Danny shrugs only one shoulder and finds it endearing.

Next to the telephone, there’s a whole wall of salvaged pictures in mismatched frames. There’s a handful of people there he’ll never get to see again, whose voice he’ll never hear again. Some of them were gone way before They came, but some other, he just couldn’t save.

There’s a shift all around him, reality sets in, the strangeness of it. Danny deployed, Steve pining for his boyfriend, unable to help, still convalescent from his various wounds.

“Did they test you already?” Steve blurts out, unable to rein it all in, profoundly aware of how these things go, it is after all what he does as a “hobby” since Danny went; get as much information as he can on the situation. He couldn’t pretend the test wasn’t happening at some point, all people who present the gene and are clearly not wash-outs, are tested. Danny was bound to get tested as soon as the alliance could get their hands on him. His background as a LEO is a huge asset that can’t go ignored.

There’s a small fraction of a second where the line goes silent, and then it connects again.

“Yeah, yeah, no, sure, I mean, yeah. I got tested. A bunch of us did.”

Steve frowns, that’s Danny deflection 101.

“How was it?”

One more time, the line goes silent for less than a second.

“Hmm, uhmm, babe, look, I’m pretty sure this call’s been monitored and as you know we can’t really discuss… the process: it’s classified.”

Steve huffs. He hates that ultimately, he can’t truly know, because he’s not there.

“Sucks been told that, huh?” Steve rolls his eyes, trust Danny to keep grudges alive

for the better part of a decade. “Can’t believe it took a major world-wide disaster to get you back on that one.” Danny tries to keep it light, but even before he says it, Steve knows whatever Danny comments will fall flat.

There’s a short silence where neither of them talks, and Steve can hear the hub dub behind Danny—wherever he is. It sounds familiar in a disorienting way.

On more the one occasion he had told someone from outside to not purposefully make it hard on his team guys. His stomach clenches, and Steve takes a deep breath as he racks his brain for safe topics to talk about.

“How about the food? We can talk about that, right?” He exhales after the last word, ordering his body to relax.

Danny clicks his tongue. He knows what Steve’s up to, and he’s game.

“Oh, yes, we can! I don’t know what’s the deal with these guys, one week everything is delicious and hearty, makes you want to go for seconds and thirds, some seasoning has been so inspired it I use my free time trying to figure out the recipes.”

A distant memory flashes behind Steve’s eyes, Danny cooking back in Pikoii street, barefoot and carefree. Steve sniffs against his will and has to cover his mouth with the back of his hand as to not disturb Danny.

“And then for a few days or a whole week, bland crap, gruel, Steven, veritable gruel—makes me want to go in an involuntary diet. Yuck.”

Steve swallows thickly. “Sounds like regular military experience if you ask me, in fact, above regular, all I ate was gruel for the first four years of my service.”

“Nu-uh! Impossible, I know from a good source you were happy to eat rations in the comfort of your own home when good steak was readily available.”

Steve swallows again, tears spilling over his hands.

“It was Italian food actually,” he croaks.

“Even worse, babe, you’re really not helping your case.”

“What can I say, I get nostalgic sometimes.” He trips mentally on the nostalgia and a sob slips past his tight emotional control.

Danny sighs. Heartbroken as well.

“Babe, babe, Steve. I’m sorry, please don’t cry. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” he sniffs.

“I know I just mean…”

“I know, I’m sorry too.”

“Look, I don’t mean to beat you while you’re down…” Danny trails off, but Steve can connect the dots.

“Basic training is extending then? You gonna be a specialist now?”

“Ugh, you’re killing me Steven. It’s cla—no, you know what, fuck this shit, whoever is out there screening my calls, you listen to me you son of a bitch,” Danny yell-whispers to the third party on the line. “I’m talking with my boyfriend right now, who I would have married if not for the giant clusterfuck we are all living through right now, he’s the father of my children and my best friend, so I’ll tell him whatever the fuck I want, you censor this call and I swear I’ll hunt you down and bash your head in, you hear me?!”

Steve chuckles wetly, this is the hothead he loves.

There's a soft clicking sound in the background. It sounds definitive. So, he chooses to believe the censor’s gone.

“You would have married me, huh?”

“Of course.”

“What if I said no.”

“Pfft, please, you were a sure thing.” Steve wants to protest, but Danny keeps talking

over him. “Look, now that the censor is gone. There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

“What?” Steve rushes to ask, fearing the worst.

“I love you.”

“I love you too. What else?”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you more. What else?”

“I already made it through basic and I’m being fast-tracked to pilot.”

Even though he suspected, having confirmation is like a punch to the lungs. No wonder the censor left, a pilot has different privileges, a pilot scares people away, even if they’re being hoisted as the only chance they have left.

“Steve, you there?”

“You’ve never been one to pull your punches.”

“No, I haven’t. Which is why, once I’m done with that I’ll be coming home for a whole month, okay?” Danny pleads, “I got special leave. I’ll be home for Christmas, okay?”

For Steve, it’s like the world’s ending all over again. The future path folding in on itself in front of him, rearranging into a yawning void made of the fearful and the unknown.

Christmas.

Christmas is only two months away. He can foresee his life up until Christmas. He can push through to that.

“Christmas it is.” He sniffles again.

“Yeah, Christmas. Look, I still have about five minutes on the line, why don’t you tell me about the kids, they adjusting well?”

More tears run down his face, but he talks. About homework, about tantrums, about movie nights, about burnt popcorn, about the kids begging to get a dog, about shortages of chocolate and coffee, about going insane with the bickering and the meaningless fights, about never doing so much laundry in his life, the herb garden Charlie and Nahele are doing together as a school project, Grace’s dissertation and newfound interest in nursing. Steve talks and talks, enough to carry Danny home, safe and sound, only two months away.

–

*beams* I’ve been wanting to expand this little verse forever, thank you again! :D

[emma-nation]

Within You - Bloodbound AU - Chapter 9

Summary: One year after defeating Gaius, the gang has finally found peace… Until a tragic incident awakens the ultimate and most dangerous threat they ever faced.

Genre: Angst/Adventure/Romance

Rating: T - Warning for violence and language

Notes:

- Sequel to the fics For You, In The Daylight and Without You. You can read all of them here.

- You can stop hating me now 😂

- My fellow writers: stay home writing your awesome fics.

- Dear readers: stay home reading and leaving your lovely reviews. We love you. Stay safe!

Tag List: @supersphynxsworld  , @lightning-fury  , @spacecarrousel  , @tigerbryn11, @gavryllo  , @annabellewerecorgi  , @whoinvitedalx  , @sheyah  , @imnotdonewiththeelementalists  , @scaryqueenbee, @bigmemesplz, @la-guerra-69, @kamilahsayeed-owns-me  , @morvengarde  , @tephy24  ​, @iam-the-fuckin-queen  ​, @voltos9, @scorpichoices  , @leavemeandmyshipsalone  ​, @jen825  ​, @andreear17  ​, @justejuste727  ​, @aureliaxj, @graceschoices  ​, @mrskamilxh  ​, @msuhailey, @zoe6111  ​, @noodledragon22  ​, @tigerbryn11, @shanuuh  ​, @ilovetaylorswiftforever7  ​, @ilovekamilahsayeed  ​, @allaboutchoices  ​, @fal-carrington  ​, @scarlet-letter-a0114, @trouble-with-the-curve  ​ 

Amy

Amy stood frozen, watching what could be Priya Lacroix's final moments. She tried to figure out what was going on. Only a few minutes earlier, the fashion designer was arguing and insisting on her innocence. Why did she change her posture so suddenly and decided to confess?

They exchanged a quick glance, Priya appeared to be so confused and lost as she was. Amy blinked and in the next moment, Kamilah was already in front of her with a sharp stake in hands.

"What's going on here?" Priya asked. "I..."

"Don't play dumb on me Lacroix," Kamilah poked her side with the stake. "You know the Pact. You killed mortals for over a century and got away. Now you will finally pay for your crimes."

"Stake? It's too old fashioned, don't you think?"

"I could rip off your heart or cut off your head, if you prefer."

"This is abuse!" The fashion designer argued. "Here's the deal, you've gotten the wrong person this time. The real murderer is still out there."

Kamilah rolled her eyes at Priya, ready to stake her.

"Wait," Serafine Dupont interrupted. "I couldn't see her memories but... I know someone who might. Would you allow her to do a second Open Mind on Priya?"

"Serafine," Kamilah sighed and frowned, "she just confessed."

"I didn't, somebody manipulated me! Again!"

Upon Priya's appeals, the other Council members voted and agreed to allow a second Open Mind.

"And who would be that person?"

Rheya appeared from behind a column, a little uncomfortable with that whole situation.

"Rheya told me she's also a psychic vampire," Serafine told.

"That's true," the Greek vampire continued. "For years the Order used my powers, to conduct experiments and torture others of our kind. They even enhanced it a bit. Since then, I promised myself to never use them again, but considering the situation..."

Kamilah wasn't able to say no. She allowed Rheya to approach, before she walked away from the Tribunal, trying to digest what was going on. Amy had the impulse of going after her, but she stopped herself. 

While touching Priya's temples, Rheya closed her eyes, examining the fashion designer's mind for a few minutes.

"Oh my god," she exclaimed. "This is... this is horrible!"

"What are you seeing, Rheya?" Adrian asked.

"I can see a darkness spreading all around her mind palace, like tendrils or cobwebs. Hiding memories, taking control of her conscience, slowly consuming everything. I can also feel a presence."

"Can you remove it?"

"I can try."

Rheya closed her eyes again. Amy could see the psychic energy radiating through her hands. Priya started to scream in agony, as if a real parasite was actually being removed from her brain. 

“Ouch, my head!" She moaned, after Rheya finished. "What have you done? It feels like hangover but worse…”

"I removed the dark influence from your brain," Rheya explained.

“Wait, I remember now. God, I was reading those stupid comments about my clothes when I felt terribly sleepy… I… we…”

“You didn’t have sex with Amy. Or killed those mortals.”

With Priya proven to be innocent, the Tribunal was dismissed and she couldn't be more grateful to Rheya.

"Wouldn't you like to come to my mansion, darling? I'd like to thank you properly."

"Oh. You're welcome, but..." Rheya looked down, blushing a little. "It's not really my thing. I'd be okay if you could give me one of your wonderful dresses instead."

"Sure. But my door is always open in case you change your mind."

After they finished talking, Amy met Rheya before going home. She was amazed by her psychic abilities, wondering if she could ever do something that great herself.

"What you did there," the girl smiled, "it was truly amazing, Rheya! I hope I can do similar things someday."

"Trust me, Amy," she squeezed her shoulder. "You can. You only need some practice. Would you like me to come to my place tomorrow? After all, your mind was also affected."

"Of course. That would be awesome."

Jax offered a ride, but Amy decided to walk back to the Shadow Den in Lily's company. This manner they could chat and she could breathe some fresh air.

“Crazy night, huh?” Lily wrapped an arm around her shoulders. 

“Hell yeah,” she told, letting out a weary sigh. "For a moment I really thought Priya was guilty."

"That Rheya woman is pretty badass... and hot. Really hot!"

A luxurious car stopped by them, rolling down the windows. Amy was very familiar with that model. That was Kamilah’s car.

"Amy,” she called. “Come with me. We need to talk.”

----------

Kamilah

The rooftop at Ahmanet Financial was the only place where Kamilah could find some peace and relaxation when she was stressed, but that night nothing could help. She served herself another dose of gin.

“Stop,” Amy told, “you’ve had almost the entire bottle.”

She left the glass by the bar and sat next to her wife in the pool lounge. She stared at the sky, remember the very first time they were there together.

“You invited me to enter your loneliness.”

“Yes, I did."

Kamilah didn’t know what to say. She was consumed by a terrible guilt for not believing her wife. At the same time, she began to wonder who would be capable of such a thing. And why.

“Amy,” she lowered her head in shame. “I… I don’t know what to say. I suppose I’m the one who should beg for forgiveness now.”

“Kamilah,” Amy grabbed both of her hands. “You don’t have to, okay? In your shoes, I’d have freaked out too.”

“I didn’t believe you. You’re my wife, this isn't supposed to happen.”

“Whoever did this, planned it very well. Anyone would’ve believed Priya and I…”

“It won’t happen again,” Kamilah assured, firmly. “I’ll never question your word again. I promise.”

“Why don’t we just pretend it never happened, huh?” Amy asked, smiling for the first time. “Let’s leave it behind and restart from where we were before.”

She pressed a kiss on Kamilah’s lips. Kamilah deepened the kiss, parting her lips with her tongue as her hands pulled Amy closer to her body. They kissed for minutes. A long and passionate kiss.

“Whoa, I think it pretty much has made up for our hours separated.”

“Not even close,” Kamilah wrapped her arms around Amy’s waist again. “I’ll need a lot more to forgive myself for not trusting you.”

“If you say so,” Amy playfully nibbled on her lower lip. “I don’t mind you kissing me like this for the rest of the night.”

“There’s nothing else I’d love more.”

After making out for a few minutes, Amy suggested they should strip off their clothes and enter the large swimming pool. 

"What are you planning?" Kamilah raised a curious eyebrow from the middle of the pool.

"Underwater kissing," Amy landed on her like a cannonball, pushing them both to the bottom, where she cupped Kamilah's face and pulled her for another kiss. When they returned to surface, both of them were breathless.

"That was... amazing..."

"Perks of not... having to... breathe."

Kamilah looked at her wife's perfect wet body, the moonlight reflecting on it, making her look even more stunning than she already was. 

"Come here," she called.

"For what?" Amy asked.

"I want to make it up to you."

As she approached, Kamilah pushed her against the pool's wall, where she began to kiss her even more intense and hungrier than before. She descended her fangs, letting them brush on Amy's lips, before going down to her neck.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered in her wife's ear. "I love you."

"I love you too," Amy caressed her naked chest, massaging her breasts and her toned stomach. "Who would be even crazy to desire another woman, being married to you?"

She positioned herself on Kamilah's tight, where she started moving her hips and moan in pleasure.

"Are you saying..." Kamilah looked at her with a mischievous grin, before pressing her leg harder against Amy's center, "that you belong to me, and only me?"

"Oh," Amy gasped. "O-Of course I am... I'm your Mrs. Sayeed. Ah!"

"I love when you make sounds like this," Kamilah's nails pinched on her side. "It drives me crazy."

Amy increased the pressure and speed of her movements, throwing her head back as she lost herself in bliss. That exposed neck was an irresistible sight and Kamilah punctured it with her fangs, seductively and slowly drawing some blood.

The bite only intensified Amy's pleasure, making her reach ecstasy instantly. She wrapped her arms around Kamilah's neck, panting and smiling.

"You're more than forgiven."

----------

Lysimachus

Adrian was kind enough to let go of the guards and trust Lysimachus to watch Priya for a few days, to make sure that whoever manipulated her mind wouldn't be returning. He couldn’t take her to his apartment, it was too close from his sister and Amy, the wound was still fresh. Instead, he went to her mansion to stay for a few days.

“Priya, what happened in the Tribunal when you confessed?” He asked, intrigued. “Inside your mind, I mean.”

“Here’s the thing, Hunter,” she explained. “I didn’t confess? I blacked out. Like I did in my bedroom last night.”

“And could you feel that presence inside your mind?”

“Yes, sometimes I felt it inside me all the time. It was almost like being under the effect of alcohol, but stronger. It’s strange.”

Priya opened her bedroom's door, realizing it was still covered in blood from the previous night. Furiously, she requested her houseboys to clean it, paint the walls and buy a new bed and sheets.

"I can't believe I'm going to have to sleep in one of the guest rooms!" She complained.

"What's wrong with them?" Lysimachus asked. "Too small?"

"A little. It's rarely used. You know, guests never stay for too long.

"Oh."

Lysimachus followed her to the personal bar she had inside the mansion. She served them both drinks before inviting him to a pool game. 

"I'd like to understand... for what purpose?” Priya seemed focus, but irritated. "Why would someone cause such a thing, especially with Amy?"

In Lysimachus opinion, Amy was the main target of that situation. If Rheya, the First Vampire, had a purpose for her, Kamilah was an obstacle. She probably knew how jealous his sister would become when Priya used to hit on her wife.

“So who’s Serabitch anyways?” Priya's question pulled him back to reality. “I don’t trust her.”

“An old friend of Kamilah and Adrian," Lysimachus made his move, realizing his distraction made him very close from losing the game.

“Nasty! But I’d totally bang her too.”.

“It wasn’t Serafine."

“Oh come on,” Priya drank for a giant cup of beer. “She has the type. My type. Trouble. It’s written everywhere.”

“But she didn’t," Lysimachus drank from his too. "That manipulation was too complex for a vampire like her. Even for me.”

In one last move, Priya hit the 8-ball and won the game. She briefly celebrated and taunted him.

“I think I'm gonna have some sleep,” she yawned. “Are you coming with me?”

“No, thanks," Lysimachus refused. "Do you mind if I use your gym?"

“As you wish. But if your little girlfriend is around when I wake up, then we’ll have a fair Tribunal.”

“She won’t.”

In fact, Lysimachus had other priorities in mind. Not Priya or even Katherine. He needed to find proof of Rheya's real identity and a manner to defeat her.

----------

Amy

In the next day, Amy agreed to meet Rheya after lunch. The older vampire was already expecting her presence, to offer some help with her psychic powers and to examine Amy's mind for any dark influences.

She guided her to a couch, where they talked for a few minutes to create a connection.

"Well, things with Kamilah have been a lot better now," Amy told. "Yet, I still couldn't regain my memories from that night."

"Priya said she felt controlled, do you feel the same?" Rheya asked.

"No. Sometimes I feel a scratch on the back of my mind, as if it is really trying to act, but somehow I'm able to break it."

"Hmmm... interesting."

Rheya held her hands, accessing her mind. Amy guarded some memories. Things she wanted to keep for herself. Such as her obscure visions.

"I can see it," she said. "But you're going to have to fight it yourself."

"Me?!" Amy asked in shock. "How can I even do this?"

"Do you know how to access your mind palace?"

"Honestly? No. Everything I do is kinda by impulse. In the heat of the moment."

"I'll show you how."

Rheya put on some relaxing music and told Amy to close her eyes. Then she started to guide her to the depths of her own mind. Suddenly she saw herself on a path, with scenes of different moments of her life being displayed like portraits.

She picked one. A memory from her childhood. Her mom had been locked in the bedroom for hours. Her little brother was crying on his crib and her six years old self had no idea of what to do.

"Mama?" She knocked at the door repeatedly. "Please... open the door..."

Amy's child version closed her eyes, seeing images about an island. A dark island. Surrounded by shadows and death.

"Amy," a male voice called for her.

She opened her eyes quickly and rushed back to her bedroom, where she stayed hidden under the covers until her father got home from work.

"Damn it. I had forgotten... what the hell was that?"

Then she saw herself on a double-way path, each one displayed a different image. The first one showed a beautiful garden and two children, a boy and a girl. The second one showed Amy herself, with her eyes burning red while she walked around New York. The city was completely destroyed. There were bodies everywhere and only one thing she desired... blood.

"What?! What are those scenes?! T-They aren't real! I could never... and who are those children?"

She took a deep breath, recomposing herself. She focused on the night of Priya's party, that was the memory she needed to access.

“Focus on answers, Amy,” she told herself. Those scenes were probably a distraction to get her out of her main priority.

She thought about the event they attended, being teleported straight to that memory. She watched everything again, from the moment they arrived to the point Priya invited her to the after-party. After that, all the memories were guarded by dark tendrils and cobwebs. A presence that would cause fear in anyone that approached them.

“Okay intruders... time to get the hell out of here."

Amy gained courage and attempted to remove the cobwebs with her hands, but the tendrils wrapped around her wrists and ankles dragging her into a spiral of pain. She insisted, fighting them off. She focused all her strength on her powers.

She trying to hit the dark shapes with psychic blasts, what wasn’t enough to destroy them yet. The tendrils wrapped themselves around her neck, strangling her. She started to squirm and gasp for air. She could hear Rheya's voice calling for her. 

“I can’t…” she tried to tell her. Even if she wanted, the dark presence wouldn’t let her go back.

Whoever did that, had powers that outmatched any of the vampires she knew. There was no way Amy could win. She was almost succumbing, giving up. She felt darkness starting to drag her to that path, the one the lead to destruction and death.

“No!” She yelled. “Get off me!”

Amy focused again, channeling all her power, until she was able to summon her own shapes to fight those dark ones. And for her surprise, they were stronger. They had the power to destroy everything guarding those memories and trying to manipulate her thoughts. Within seconds, all darkness was gone. She touched the shapes she created, making them vanish.

Then, she accessed a portal that lead her to Priya’s bedroom that night.

“I don’t know if I’m too drunk, or maybe tired, but my brain feel very strange right now,” Priya yawned. “I may take a nap before… having some fun downstairs.”

“Do you mind if I stay around a little longer? Your bedroom looks so great, I’m interested to see your closet and your sketches.”

“Whatevs, just don’t touch any of my toys.”

“That’s it,” Amy smiled. “She went sleep and I…”

Slowly the memory started to reappear inside her mind. She explored the room, took some pictures and started feeling sleepy too. She crawled to the bed, falling asleep next to Priya.

She exhaled a relieved sigh and opened her eyes, coming back to Rheya's living room.

The fighting session inside her mind palace left Amy completely exhausted and hungry. Everything she wished for when she returned to the penthouse were a couple of blood bags and a long nap. However, when she opened the door she detected another presence inside her place.

"What?!"

Before she could move further, a small furry creature started to rub on her legs. A little black kitten.

"Hey you," Amy held the kitten in her arms, noticing a small note attached on the collar around its neck. "Where did you even came from?"

She read the note, recognizing her wife's perfect handwriting:

"I could kiss you for a thousand times and still wouldn't feel enough. I had to find another manner of showing you how sorry I am. 

I love you."

----------

Kamilah

Not even for a second, Kamilah believed her brother’s crazy theory. But her following days were completely dedicated to observe Rheya closely and get answers regarding any questions that could be raised about her true origins.

First, she called her to her office in the morning and she made sure to leave the curtains opened.

“Mrs. Sayeed,” the woman entered. “I mean, Kamilah. You requested to see me?”

“Yes, Rheya. Sit down please.”

The sunlight was reflecting right on the woman’s skin. If she was sensible to sunlight, like most of the vampires, it wouldn’t take long for her to feel bothered.

“Amy will be returning to her position in a few days,” Kamilah informed. “Yet, I’d like to keep you around. Would you mind if you two lead together?”

“Of course not! I’d feel honored…” Rheya looked down to her shoulder, noticing the sun for the first time. “Kamilah, you forgot the curtains. It's burning... Ouch!”

She quickly got up, seeking refuge in another corner of the office until Kamilah finally closed the curtains.

“I’m sorry about that. I forget not all of us were blessed with one of those rings or… abilities only the First Vampire had.”

Rheya didn’t react upon the mention. She just smiled and said there was no problem, before asking about Kamilah’s ring and how she obtained it.

By the end of the conversation, Kamilah delivered the second part of her plan.

“Why don’t you come to our home for dinner?” She invited. “Amy was telling me about your training session and how she adores your company this morning.”

“Of course,” Rheya agreed. “I enjoy her company too. She’s a good friend.”

By 8 PM, everything was ready for the night. Kamilah cooked a special meal with traditional Greek dishes. She also chose the most appropriate drinks for the occasion.

“I still don’t understand why you invited Rheya for dinner,” Amy was quite intrigued. “Why so suddenly?”

“Amy, she helped you with your memories,” Kamilah lied. “Also, you’re returning to your job. Maybe things won’t work out with the two of you in the same position and I want no hard feelings from her part.”

Her wife quickly agreed. After a few minutes, Rheya joined them at the penthouse. Amy put on some music and taught her some dance moves while Kamilah prepared the table.

“This is absolutely delicious,” the woman grinned as she took a bite of the food. “It’s just like my mom taught me to cook. And how I cooked for…”

She silenced, lost in memories.

“I’m sorry,” Kamilah apologized, briefly touching her hand. “That wasn’t supposed to bring any melancholy. I wanted you to feel home.”

“Oh darling, no. I’m more than grateful, it had been a long time since I tasted such a delightful food. Nowadays everything is so…”

“Greasy?”

“Exactly.”

“Come on,” Amy complained. “Are you telling me you’re not a fan of a good corndog? French fries? Or deep fried chicken?”

“I lament to disappoint you, Amy,” Rheya laughed. “But I’m with Kamilah in this one.”

“You obviously haven’t been introduced to the right places. I’ll be glad to show you. Even Kamilah likes them, even if she won’t admit it.”

“Things I do to please my wife,” Kamilah rolled her eyes.

The night continued. After dessert, they gave Rheya a tour of the penthouse. She was very interested in the antique artifacts, which Kamilah was more than glad to show and explain. Amy showed her the terrace, her favorite part of their home. Kamilah watched them in silence.

“Such a amazing view,” Rheya was impressed. “Looking from here, it’s almost like New York is all yours. It’s magical.”

“I know,” Amy told. “This is why I like it. I can almost feel the whole city and all its wonders. Now I’m a vampire, I can feel the people too.”

“And you feel like a queen of your own empire.”

“Sort of," the girl broke into playful expression. "Hey, I’m Kamilah’s queen. She even bought me a tiara on the jewelry store, would you like to see it?”

Amy came back from the bedroom wearing a tiara Kamilah bought to cheer her up during a visit to the mall. It was right after they defeated Gaius and her wife was feeling a little bit traumatized from her almost-death experience. Kamilah smiled broadly at the view, as if she was seeing it for the first time.

“This is beautiful,” Rheya examined the tiara in her hands. “Kamilah has made a good job picking her queen.”

“She certainly did,” Amy grinned, looking at her wife. "Right?!”

Kamilah approached, wrapping her arms around her waist.

“What can I say? I’m the luckiest woman in this planet.”

“You two make a beautiful couple. I… I was a priestess back in Greece, would you mind if I did a sacred prayer to bless your marriage?”

“Of course not,” Kamilah said. Amy also agreed.

The Greek vampire closed her eyes and started to voice a prayer in an ancient language. Amy glanced at Kamilah and took her hand, squeezing it tightly.

“That’s it,” Rheya finished. “May the Goddess grant you long and prosper years of happiness, fertility and blessings.”

Kamilah smiled at her wife and also at her employee. Until proven otherwise, there was absolutely nothing wrong about that woman.

———-

Lysimachus

It was late night, but Lysimachus followed Rheya around the streets of New York. She went straight to the building she was living.

From the street, he called her with the excuse he needed to speak to her before The Council voting. She told him to meet her at her apartment.

Lysimachus waited a few minutes and knocked at her door. His heart was racing inside his chest, after all he’d be facing the First Vampire. The woman that, so far, was only a legend. Far from their reality.

“Come on in, darling,” she invited him.

“Thank you,” he made his way inside, observing carefully every detail of the place. She hadn’t put any decorations on her wall or added a personal touch that suggested she’d be staying for too long. “I’m here to talk you about the Branding procedure.”

Rheya walked to a cabinet where she pulled a bottle of wine and served it in two glasses. She took a sip and smiled. Then, she approached Lysimachus from behind.

“Really?” She said, almost whispering. “I thought you were here to talk about something else.”

Her cold hand caressed his cheek, sending shivers all over his body. Even the room temperature seemed to have dropped. Lysimachus had never felt so dizzy and nauseous before.

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Lysimachus. What a beautiful name, it has grounds in my homeland, the ancient Greece.”

She continued to sip from her glass and stare at him with a knowing look. The smile on her face was comforting and devilish, at the same time. Lysimachus could just get up and run, but his body wouldn’t move. He was completely drawn by Rheya’s presence, like if she had put him under a spell.

“You remind me of another Greek boy I knew,” her hand lowered to his chest, stopping at his heart. “Xenocrates. Idealistic, kind and strong. I had given him a gift and he betrayed me. It’s a shame we ended this way.”

“I met him,” Lysimachus said after a pause. “He was the leader of the Order Of Dawn.”

“Correct. He despised so much what I gave him, that he wanted to put his own kind in extinction and then kill himself. Isn’t it what you wanted too? To end everything Gaius created, including yourself?”

“Y-Yes. Back when I still believed my sister was dead. I’ve stopped ever since.”

The female vampire sat down in front of him, her eyes never leaving his. Lysimachus felt like he was reading even the depths of his soul.

“Now you’re a Nighthunter, as they call,” Rheya concluded. “And there’s your dear Katherine, so fragile, so weak… so mortal.”

“Don’t you even dare to touch her,” in an impulse, he finally stood up. “Whatever you’re planning, leave her out of it!”

Rheya stood up too, she was now face to face with him.

“I desire a world where my children can live in peace and I will stop whoever stands in my way, mortals or even vampires.”

“I knew it from the first time I saw you! You’re…”

“The First Vampire? Yes, my dear. I’ve always felt we had a connection, since you entered my Tomb.”

“I have no connection with you,” Lysimachus argued. “You’ve lied, you manipulated Priya’s mind, you’ve put Amy and my sister through hell, what else do you want, huh? If you’re going to kill me, just fucking do it.”

“Kill you?” Rheya laughed. “No. You’re one of my most precious progeny. You could serve well to my purposes.”

Lysimachus felt the back of his mind itching, as if somebody was trying to violate it. She was trying to manipulate him, he could sense it.

“Go to hell and rot in there!” He fought against her influence and grabbed an Holy Arrow hiding on his back, stabbing Rheya in the chest.

She collapsed to her knees, holding the spot where he had injured her. That obviously wasn't enough to kill her. While she had gotten weaker, that malicious grin didn't take long to return to her face.

“Well, well…” she said. “It’s a war then. Don’t worry, my dear. Go home. We’ll see each other again, very soon.”

[unproduciblesmackdown]

also i’ve been mulling over the “we’re Living ex machina!!!!” line and like, it still doesn’t make sense Really, but here’s my Afternoon Musings i guess

i’ve only actually seen ex machina once like 3 years ago but as i remember it goes a little something like This: some rando white-collar programmer guy has like, won a contest where the prize is to go hang out for maybe a few days or a week or so with this ~visionary genius~ tech dude played by oscar isaac at oscar isaac tech dude’s off-the-grid reclusive mansion or whatever.......i thiiiink the Protag Programmer won b/c his programming submission was Really Good but also maybe there’s a [randomly selected] element to it, or maybe we Think it was partly random selection but then learn it was actually All “yeah i chose you b/c your coding was the Best,” idk. doesn’t really matter but anyway yeah protag guy gets helicoptered in to the oscar isaac genius bro’s secret mansion 

oscar isaac soon reveals he has this advanced ai android whomst he wants the Protagonist to study / turing test, and the protagonist does that, but during one Conversation Session with this android (who is named ava i think? and designed to Look Like a Woman oo) like the lights turn off and ava-i-think informs the protagonist she’s found a Weakness in the mansion’s security system and hackt it so that the power (and thus the Security / Monitoring Systems) shut down for a minute like this but could feasibly be thought of as a glitch and anyways she’s like yeah i have feelings and thoughts and i want to Not Be Trapped here, ya gotta help me out here buddy, and then yknow ooh the systems come back on, oscar isaac can Observe them again, intrigue.....tl;dr protag and ava keep having these short secret convos and Do plan to break her out, there’s this dramatic moment where oscar isaac (who’s natch been acting weirder and more erratic as the plot unfolds) confronts the protag after the protag has just like, tried to get him blackout smashed by Hanging Out With Him lmfao and oscar isaac is like “ooh i knew you were planning to break her out, i’m gonna stop you guys though haha pwned” but then oh further twist, turns out ava and protag Knew that was the case and were thinking one step ahead and idk but yeah they break her out and oscar isaac dies but ooh further twist!!! ava locks the protag (or well, just Does Not Unlock, As Planned) in some room and leaves the mansion and gets on the Helicopter meant to take the protag back to wherever after the planned end of his stay. and the protag is just stuck there b/c everyone else is dead and presumably he dies as ava gets to exist in the outside world now, idk, we don’t need ex machina 2 where he’s escaped or smthing lmao

and i do NOT get what winston is comparing their situation to lmfao. like, oh rian is like an advanced ai android??? if anything, her being the more like ~true believer in High Finance as a means of socially beneficial effect~ vs winston like, having the supposedly cutthroat and cold Math approach would make Him more of the ~oh no more a robot than a person~ (though i think it’s Ambiguous whether we wanna judge ava as more Scary Bad or Sympathetic).........you can’t even really make the connection that “oh no we’re being deliberately Replaced!!” b/c if winston is [protag programmer rando] and rian is [ava] and wendy is, i guess oscar isaac then, uhhhh oscar isaac most definitely did Not intend to ~replace~ the protag with ava, he very much wanted her trapped in his mansion still........and the protagonist Only got “replaced” by ava in the sense that she took his place on the helicopter out of the reclusive secret mansion. i really doubt she planned to, or would even be able to, like take over his identity/life beyond that.....certainly not his job lol like, coworkers are gonna notice you’re a different person, there was no implication the androids can like oh shapeshift their appearance or whatever, and no implications about what ava even intended to do in the Outside World which is kind of bemusing b/c like, what of the Practical Questions of being an android and needing whatever Fuel Source a robot does, idk that might’ve been addressed or smthing like “oh yeah they can just Eat,” also she clearly does not Trust People considering her only company was evil oscar isaac creator and she wasn’t interested in bringing the protag along, plus yknow the fact that she Did deliberately manipulate the protag into thinking that she wanted to escape into the world With him........but not like i guess she has any choice for any other world to escape into but the one with all the people where she pretends to be an organic human

like there is just NO point of comparison where these situations line up unless you get soooooooo like broad strokes about ex machina that you’d do better to compare your experience to Anything else lmao. like, does winston think she’s some like, ideal advanced version of him?? like you might consider a crafted AI android to be?? i don’t know but i mean i think we have a more feasible explanation for why he’s so Insistent about this totally being Ex Machina, if only b/c as a straightforward comparison i swear to god it doesn’t work lmfao None of these points line up at all with any significance that’s worth insisting on

given that winston’s Apparently Canonically meant to be crushing on rian, and we have his example of ribbing her by calling her “gal gadot’s quirky sister” which is like, okay so the dunk is “you look similar to this famous a-lister who everyone thinks is pretty” and “also you’re quirky, boom” like, i think that could easily be meant as like, a Tell that winston already ~likes~ her.............aaaand it’s also somewhat ~ambiguous~ but i mean i think it’s safe to say that in Ex Machina you may understand the protag as having Fallen For the ai android lady. so maybe we can Understand this invocation of ex machina as being like “ooh person meant to replace me is Attractive but ultimately i think this Overall Situation is a bad thing i shouldn’t feel this way i resent it” like, a bit of a Reach, but honestly it’s way more of a reach to think about applying anything else about this scenario to ex machina, so i could v much believe that the thought that went behind writing this is once again, like, “okay winston’s invoking one thing on the surface level here, but simultaneously he’s already (inadvertently probably) acknowledging like oh also i have a crush on her already”

between this episode seeming to be Setup and the [winston has a Canon crush] and the fact that it probably seems like They Will Fuck A Nonzero Number Of Times or Make Out At Least But It’s Billions So, Might Get A Humorous Cut To [Postcoital] Or A Scene Where They Arrive At Work Together Short Of Breath With Messy Hair  And Hickies And Winston’s Got A Hoodie W/ “Property Of Rian” On It Until He Goes "Oh Shit Woops” And Hands It To Her And She’s Like “Oh Btw You Forgot Your Glasses.....Uh You Left Them Here On Your Desk Yesterday I Mean Of Course” And Hands Them To Him And An Unnamed Character Stands Up And Asks “Daily Poll: Who Had Sex With A Coworker Last Night” And Rian And Winston Raise Their Hands Before Going “Oh Wait” And Lowering Them With A Shake Of The Head And A Nervous Cough and i’m exaggerating but you know, the equivalent of the billions writing saying “wwinnnk” at us. i am fine with them having an unsolemn like, quasi-rivals-to-lovers (or -And-lovers) dynamic, even with it being a bit messy in like, still an overall Fun way, where yknow it doesn’t have to be peak epic romance cuz a) that’s just Always true and yet it can still be overall an okay thing even if they don’t quite get it together / mostly just trade sparks and sometimes hook up and b) idk seems like mayybe rian’s character isn’t meant to go beyond this season, so, an inherent limit there if true

i’m like Apologetic for being like “already i like their dynamic even as Romantique and it’s kinda cute and fun and i’m willing to continue to be engaged w/ this as long as the writing doesn’t completely fuck it up” lmao like, i guess i Did inadvertently give myself time to prepare for this exact eventuality b/c of wondering if this exact character would have A Thing w/ winston whenever she showed up and even if i was like “haha the character could show up Anywhere and do Anything and what are the odds, right” i was also like “hmm but i’m going to really think about it though” like, as always, didn’t think i was cassandraing that hard, but truly did do it 4x03 style where everyone else can be like “you never [made the text post or gave any indication you were thinking about “what if whoever she plays and winston have some kind of romance thing going on”]” and i can go “i only thought it but didn’t say it....doesn’t count” but well. i did think it lmao and why would i make it up.......sorry i had such a head start on Getting More Used To This Notion.......some crimes can never be forgiven.meme.......

anyways natch “intense horrible passionate” seems a little foreboding but maybe she was talking about it relative to [any Normal show] rather than the standards we’re used to on billions, where this was all but a Meet Cute, and a kind of quasi coworker rivalry where nobody’s taking it *that* deeply seriously and they also seem to mutually like each other by the end of 5x05 already so how not-amicable can it get. and re: Intense like, maybe the writing in future episodes will totally upend this, but i’d say rian and winston in 5x05, even when “clashing,” was like damn near laidback and chill. neither of them seem at all that pressed, but maybe even a sorta-playful Friendly Rivalry is more “intense” than, say, a dynamic that involves no rivalry at all. imo “Passionate” is just like, okay, so they’ll fuck or at least make out? sure. not sure what to make of “horrible” lmfao maybe again it’s addressing like “this is a lil messy and they’re kinda rivals!!!” like, certainly not an ideal start, except by billions standards it IS weirdly great. rian seeming good-naturedly amused by winston is something we didn’t get from his longtime-coworkers until like, now, sort of, and still not to the degree that anyone has smiled at him as many times as rian did in like that course of [1 min long First Scene Together] wherein also winston always gets off to a way worse start with people lmao............like everything about this seems Way Better And More Dialed Back And Grounded than usual, actually. but it’s that like, point of reference of “what’s Usual for winston and, more broadly, Billions” that maybe explains this weirdly strong language when all in 5x05 seemed chill actually

anyways like i said Sorry For Already Liking Rian/Winston This Much with my head start and all where like, i’m even tentatively looking forward to seeing where this goes, by “tentative” i also mean going [”i’ll kill you” the office.jpg] at billions where i am fully aware that maybe where this goes *is* a mess and not in like, just kind of a fun, non-melodramatic, not-treated-like-a-total-joke-but-also-not-that-big-a-deal way, where 5x05 could seem like Those Halcyon Days b/c everything from here out just devolves into an unappealing disaster.......but this is an unexpectedly solid start imo and like. even if this doesn’t become like this epic romance where they officially date and if rian does eventually depart the show by the end of the season, it can still just be Enjoyable and Fun for the characters and, god forbid, the viewers, where like, you don’t have to demand we be desperately invested with our entire life in this deadly serious heartwrenching epic romance, they can just kind of mess around and enjoy having a mutual attraction w/ this mathy rivalry and etc and it’s neither a tragedy of “the greatest love story of all time torn asunder” Or, truly god forbid,” this is a Whole Mess In A Bad Way b/c winston’s involved and ugh who could Really like him, being at all romantically entangled is an embarrassing mistake surely, ew cringe we hate him............like, cautiously optimistic in how like i always say that a Romantic Arc is just an easy/efficient way to develop both characters and it could certainly humanize winston an ounce in a show that treats him more like a walking algorithmic plot device and the thoughts of any viewers but us are limited to “winston annoying” basically........the show doesn’t seem to treat rian as a joke, so it seems possible that their mutual Romance in whatever way it unfolds could also be Not A Joke, which means winston’s part in it isn’t a joke, so that’s Some aspect of him for people to take seriously, for once..........like, the way his apparently-already-official crush played out in 5x05 *was* funny but it also didn’t seem like oh it’s a joke b/c his feelings are a total joke......it might seem that way if this *was* totally unrequited and going nowhere, but i somewhat get the sense that the interest is mutual even by the end of the ep, that didn’t strike me as a “shove off, it could Never Happen” shutdown from rian there, just like, hold off on that for rn maybe cue to rein it in a little, not just yet........anyways lmao i’m like “oh yeah i started this post about the baffling ex machina thing” but yeah the point is i think so far it’s pretty solid and i like it and am cautiously but [relative-to-billions level of Hopeful] about whatever developments we’re surely gonna get b/c it def sounds like this has Not ended with 5x05, but seriously @ billions i swear to god. yes so far the approach to winston’s crush here and even their unfolding mutual dynamique and dare i say, romantic interest, is being handled with an encouraging level of “this is Humorous but the characters / their feelings are not what’s being treated as A Total Joke or anything,” but who knows what will come next, this is billions and you can’t predict anything. fingers crossed about it all, though

[owlespresso]

Tremble, Duck & Weave

It's a cold night when Aymeric de Borel trims the unnecessary fat from Ishgard's governing body and seizes that power for himself, but the day that brings you into the city is surprisingly warm.

Reader is the Warrior of Light. This is an AU.

The pairings are as follows: Urianger Augurelt/Reader, Aymeric de Borel/Reader, Haurchefant Greystone/Reader, Estinien Wyrmblood/Reader.  Also on my ao3, which can be found HERE.

The archbishop summons him at an unfathomable time of night. The office is dimly lit, the wrinkles of the man’s gaunt face illuminated by a lamp rested in the corner of his room. The door creaks as it gently clicks closed behind him. He looks the same as ever, beard and face much too long, eyes sunken. Aymeric, in the back of his mind, wonders if he too will look this way, when age drains him of his beauty like the dark of night drags the sun below the horizon.

“Aymeric,” Thordan VII smiles and his face shifts grossly with it. He was never meant to smile, Aymeric realizes for the umpteenth time, “Mine apologies for calling for you at this time of night.”

“It is no trouble at all, Father,” he stands spine straight, shoulders squared, expression soft but impassive. How he’s been carefully molded and taught to stand, to look, to be, “I have faith that this matter is of the utmost importance. My sleep can wait.”

“Thank you for your understanding,” Thordan VII replies, as though he doesn’t constantly demand it, “We’ve received news from Coerthas—” he erupts into a string of spluttering coughs that he muffles first into his hand, and then into his sleeves. The bitter cold has never done him any favors. Especially not now, when it’s started settling in his bones and tearing its teeth into his soft, wrinkly hide, “The Warrior of Light is on their way to the city gates.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. A meeting they attended with their cohorts in Ul’dah went awry. From what I understand, a military coup or something of the sort was staged and they were caught in the crossfire, injured near terribly. They are accompanied by an elezen boy named Alphinaud. I believe you’ve met him? Child of Louisoix, member of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. They are coming to seek succor. They’ve proven to be our shield against the Dravanians, so I am granting them asylum,” that made Aymeric’s eyebrows raise. He had turned in reports on his meetings with the vaunted Warrior and their companion, but never had he expected his father to actually read them.

Never had he expected his father to pay attention to something he had painstakingly tracked and hand crafted.

“I presume you would ask me to give them shelter?” his meetings with you had always been between times of great strife and the subject matter usually revolved around whatever opponents you would be thrown at next. As far as he was concerned, it was a relationship that revolved purely around business.

You were used as one might wield a spear or sword, tossed in the way of whatever monster or god saw fit to threaten Eorzea’s city states. It was a pitiful existence, he believed, to be used so mercilessly by people who couldn’t defend themselves or do anything to assist you.

“Heavens no,” Thordan VII huffs in amusement, “The Fortemps bastard has their full trust and will be taking care of them. I wish for you to keep a careful watch on them. The Scions are renowned for their campaigns against our Ascian allies, and I will not have them get in the way of the plans I have labored over since I took up the honorable position of archbishop.”

“Ah,” Aymeric says, recalling the dozens of meetings where those ominous, robed figures flanked his father on either side, wearing their crimson masks and wry, smug smiles, “Is that truly wise? I’m sure you’re aware of the Ascians… unfortunate track record with the way they treat their allies. The Garlean’s Baelsar is testament to that.”

His voice is smooth and stable. His gaze is steeled as it always is when he steps foot inside here, this office which feels more like a gladiator’s arena than an office. Yet, his stomach tosses and turns because never has he dared to argue with his father. His father, who has towered like a giant over him for his entire life. It’s not something he regrets, not even as silence lapses between them and fills the air.

“Should all go according to plan, no longer will we need to live in fear of them,” Thordan says slowly, exploratively, “All I do is in the name of Ishgard’s liberation, Aymeric. I thought you would have understood that by now.”

“I understand you enough to know that you are… overestimating yourself,” the words claw themselves out of Aymeric’s throat, his mouth, and they feel like sandpaper.

Then Thordan VII’s eyebrows nettle into a scowl at his meager defiance. It makes his blood boil. How long has his father gone unchallenged? How long have his suggestions and commands only been met with a chorus of resounding yeses?

“I’ll not hear that from the pitiful welp I raised, the child who has never stood in my shoes,” his voice raises, face gnarled with offense. His calm, patient veneer finally lapses, exposing the ugly, festering mess that lays underneath his skin. Long has Aymeric waited to agitate him this way, and the satisfaction outweighs the trepidation of breaking free from all he’s ever known.

The floorboards behind Thordan’s desk creak. The aged elezen jolts and whips around, another series of coughs rattling his form as a figure, clad in inky black and deep crimsons steps into the dim light. The newcomer clutches a slender, freshly-sharpened glass. The tangy scent of blood and metal hits the air.

“Bold words for a man within striking distance,” Estinien’s voice rumbles deep and low, armor clanking with each slow, purposeful step.

“What is the meaning of this!?’ Thordan VII grips the arms of his chair as he thrusts himself to his feet, stumbling, hands resting flat against the table’s surface as he whirls around and attempts to scramble to the side. His eyes are wide, the fluster that had dusted his cheeks twisted into something terrified. The visage of a cornered animal.

Aymeric’s eyelids lower as he feels his idee fixe finally culminating. He sees himself, briefly, in lessons on etiquette and literature and all subjects in between. He sees himself knocked to the ground for the umpteenth time as he spars, his father staring down at him from across the courtyard, perched on the marble stairs with nothing in his eyes. He recalls a lifetime of pressure, of watching his father make poor life choices and being told what he should be rather than receiving praise for what he already was.

“You were there for the citizens of Ishgard when they needed you,” he begins and tries to find some words to convey the macabre collage of emotions and experiences, but ultimately fails. His words will never reach Thordan VII, his father, in the way he wants them to, “But now they require someone with a more delicate and refined touch. They need me, father, and you’re standing in the way.”

Thordan VII spits out a bitter laugh that descends into a deep, wailing cough, stumbling over his own ornate robes as Estinien backs him into a corner. Swathes of red and black aether swell around the dragoon’s form, a fantastic phantasmagoria that’s never failed to fascinate Aymeric.

“If you think I’ll just stand idly by and—” Thordan’s beady eyes stare up, his fear betraying him. Estinien smells it and his nostrils flare.

“I know,” Aymeric says and Estinien shoves his lance forward. Simultaneously, as though their minds are perfectly wound together and connected. The metal eats into and slices clean through the flesh. He briefly recalls watching a local butcher dismember a recently-slain boar whilst his father’s servants spoke to a merchant, eyes wide with awe and fascination as living matter was broken down into subsistence.

Blood splatters against the polished wood, fortunately missing the carpet. Aymeric remembers the price of that carpet.

“Beautiful work, Estinien,” he says softly, stepping over to Thordan VII’s body and kneeling. His palm lights with sacred blue energy as he works to seal the incision that the spear had so accurately made, the corpse clean of the evidence.

The archbishop’s eyes are still wide with fear. There is nothing better Aymeric would like than for as many people as possible to know the man had been helpless in his last moments, but it won’t do to have suspicion cast upon them. He does his father a final favor and shuts his eyes for him, just as Estinien sweeps back across the floor, to the window here he had entered. A frosty breeze sweeps into the room as Aymeric bundles Thordan VII’s body in his arms.

“The evening watch should be changing by now. They won’t see you,” he informs his companion helpfully, rewarded with a grunt as the dragoon heaves himself over the sill and jumps into the night sky, leaving not a trace behind him. Fitting. Estinien has never cared for their quibbling little politics. He answers to whoever promises to sate the hunger of his steel, to whoever waters his crops with draconic blood.

When he leaves, he takes his warmth with him. Silence settles over the room. He feels as fragile and trembling as the icicles which cling to the gutters.

He could linger in this space, Aymeric realizes, cling onto the normality that existed a mere half-hour ago. He could pretend Thordan’s responsibilities hadn’t just been hoisted upon his shoulders, allow his status to stand still if only for a precious, few moments.

But Ishgard is outside these gold glazed halls and he won’t keep them waiting for another moment. He nudges the door open with his arm and steps into the corridor, seeking the first chirurgeon he can flag down.

The news of Thordan VII’s death floods the streets mere hours later. Perished due to the sickness that had held him in its clutches for the past sixth months. He fought valiantly against the virus until he could no longer, and left ser Aymeric de Borel, his sole son, as his heir.

The sunlight streams in through the window, the curtains bunched to their sides.

He had slept a mere four hours, barely able to shake off the clinomania in order to clamber out of his bed. Nobles and servants flanked him left and right, the entire city sent into a buzz over the news of his ascension. Only now, when the sun was beginning to touch the city, did he get a moment of peace.

“Milord?” or not. He opened his eyes to look at the timid servant who peered into the room. The meager sunlight caught off her flaxen hair, which was tied into a tight bun. Stray strands dipped down to her forehead, “The Warrior of Light is here, and they are… grievously wounded. Several chirurgeons—”

“Have ser Augurelt attend to them personally,” he ordered, voice gentle yet resolute. She blinked, but nodded quickly and vanished, gently shutting the door behind them with a resounding “yes sir!”

Again, he was left to his silence. He shut his eyes, willing the tension of the night and fear of the upcoming day away for just a moment. Having Ishgard’s head astrologian tend to your wounds would send a message to the citizenry and the nobility who were aware of your presence. You were a valuable resource, an individual worth protecting. He would not see you harmed whilst within the city’s walls.

And anyone who defied that firm, incredible message would have to answer to him.

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Three Hundred Fifty-Nine: Community ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata, Uzumaki Naruto ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: A Light Amongst Shadows ] [ AO3 Link ]

“I just...I don’t understand!”

“That’s my point. You don’t. And given your perspective, I’m not sure you ever will.”

“What happened wasn’t the fault of everyone in the village. So why do you blame them?”

“I don’t! I blame them for their complacency! You’ve known the truth since Obito confronted you on the way to Tetsu no Kuni. He told you everything…! What the council, and the Hokage, and Danzō did to my clan. To my brother, to me…! Someone you claim to care about, to understand! But rather than address it - rather than finally come to terms with my goals, and what I needed for closure and justice - it was like you never heard a word. All you cared about was dragging my ass back to Konoha, whether I wanted it or not.”

“Because it’s your home! Your community! Where your friends are! Where your family lived -”

“And died. Or more accurately, were massacred by my own government. No trials, no publicity...just outright murder. You think I wanted to be dragged back to the place where my family was butchered and then sold for parts by Danzō? Where the rest of the council that organized the Uchiha genocide are not only still alive, but in power…? You think I wanted to come back here without any hint of justice? No mention from you, or Sakura, or Kakashi about addressing the massacre. Nothing. Not a word, or a whisper. Because from the time I left, my goals and my pain didn’t matter to you. All that did was your entitlement to my time and person. You call me a friend, but when have you ever done anything to help me accomplish the only goal I’ve had since I was seven years old?”

Naruto, breath heavy with emotion, has no answer.

Sasuke stares back, his own - somehow - calmer. “...you tell me that my friends are here. Maybe they are. But until I get apologies - and action - regarding what befell my clan at the hands of the village you love so much...I can’t call you a friend. My clan was the only thing that mattered to me. Konoha had mistreated them based on the actions of one man for generations. Treated them, at times, as second class citizens. My father’s attempts to have talks regarding the tensions between them were always met with stony silence. He felt he had no choice, for the sake of his people, to rebel against the ones holding them hostage. They held us to Madara’s actions, even as we turned our backs on him and remained loyal to Konoha. Tobirama gave us the police force, but never gave up his suspicion and ire. We were kept in a back corner of the village, separate from everyone. When the Kyūbi attacked, we were blamed. And in the end...we told the truth. It wasn’t us. It was Obito, acting on Madara’s orders. The man we turned against in favor of a village that then never trusted us despite our loyalty. And for that...all but one of us is now dead.

“...I know that the people of Konoha aren’t to blame for the massacre. That lays on the shoulders of four people, two of which are now dead...one of which I had to do myself. So you have a choice, Naruto. You can blindly accept the actions of your village’s council - refuse to do anything to address their crimes - or you can step up and act like the Hokage you want to be. You can look at this injustice, and do something about it.” A dark eye narrows. “...or I will. No more swallowing the truth for Konoha’s benefit. Its foundation is built on the bones of my clan. I will see justice done, one way or another. What side of history do you want to be on?”

“...Sasuke…”

“Until you and the others make up your minds, I don’t want to hear from you. As long as you stand silent on this...you don’t have the right to my time.” Turning on a heel, Sasuke leaves his teammate’s apartment.

He knew it would be pointless. Knew that his team was still too blinded by village loyalty to consider removing the poisoned roots. But on the off chance that he could get some increment of the truth through Naruto’s thick skull, he had to try.

And look where it gets him.

He knows there’s still recovery going on. From the destruction wrought by Pein, from the war...in the grand scheme of things, justice for a crime a decade old - no matter its scale - has to wait.

...but he doesn’t want to wait forever.

Even now, the sting of his team’s inaction and silence after learning what Konoha’s elders had done boils his blood...but he’s working on his temper. Koharu and Homura still have to answer for their actions. Hiruzen and Danzō are dead. Once some kind of justice is done to those who remain...he’ll be satisfied.

...but beyond that, he wants the truth known. The price the Uchiha paid the ultimate price for the stability of the village that betrayed them. He wants every citizen - shinobi and civilian alike - to know just what that stability has cost him. So that it can weigh on them as it weighs on him.

He won’t let this be forgotten. Buried. Lost to time and the sins of a system he will help change.

Outside Naruto’s apartment, the weather has turned overcast, the first few drops of rain beginning to fall as he shuts the door, crouching atop the railing before hopping his way down rooftops and balconies to the street below. It doesn’t bother him. In fact, he finds it more than appropriate.

Even now, the people of Konoha look to him warily, distrust in their eyes. He wonders how those looks will change once they realize what drove him. What still drives him.

...he wonders if they ever will.

Water soon begins to drip from his fringe, the hair bouncing with every release of weight. He doesn’t mind the rain. It’s hardly about to make him ill.

But someone else notices.

“...Sasuke-kun?”

For a sliver of a moment, the name irks him. Sakura still calls him that. But this isn’t Sakura. The tone is far too soft, far more polite than her grating, attention-demanding recitals of his name. Instead, a glance to a nearby shop overhang reveals a growingly-familiar face.

Hyūga Hinata.

Their mutual connections have meant being thrown together rather often since his return a few weeks ago. While she was so unnoticeable before he left he barely knew her, he’s still become aware of how much she’s changed. Possibly the most out of anyone in their year, if he’s to be honest.

“...Hyūga.”

“...um...did you forget an umbrella?”

“Left before I knew I’d need one. It’s not about to kill me.”

“No, but…” Her brow gives a funny little furrow: torn between hesitation and determination. “...would you like to use mine?”

“I’m fine, Hyūga.”

“But -?”

He gives a roll of his eyes alongside a sigh. “...fine. I’m just going home, anyway.”

“O...okay.” Unfurling the thing, she steps up alongside him, and a glance reminds him of how much shorter she is than him. The lavender umbrella is actually fairly wide, and keeps most of the rain off them both.

“Were you...out for a walk?”

“Hm?”

“Well, I just...I noticed you aren’t carrying anything, so…”

“I was visiting Naruto.”

“...oh!”

“It didn’t go well.”

“...oh. I’m...sorry to hear that.”

“He’s just being his typical bullheaded self.” Hinata, as it turns out, is one of the few people most privy to the whole affair. Not that Sasuke minds - if anything, he’s glad to know someone else is aware.

Especially since she’s been a rather vocal voice taking his side.

The Hyūga, after all, are distant relatives of the Uchiha. While he hardly calls them kin, they’re the most similar to his late clan, in both terms of skills and power. And Hinata’s experiences - while hardly to the scale of his own - grant her a unique perspective on the matter...along with an understanding.

She offers a soft sigh. “...may I ask what...was said?”

“He seems to think that I need to relax and just try to adjust back into the village. It’s like he’s not considering my point about the council at all. Something has to be done. I won’t stand for anything less. But it’s like he wants me to just...pretend none of it happened. Waltz around Konoha like I never left. Rejoin the community. Like I can just open up my arms and everything will be how it was. Or...how he thought it was.”

“...Naruto-kun does seem to have a bit of a, um...rose-tinted view of the village’s politics,” Hinata replies, tone a bit dry. “...even after all that happened with the Hyūga, and with Neji-nīsan, he hasn’t approached us about his supposed promise to help us reform the branched clan policy. It’s been Neji and I heading that front. It can’t and w-won’t be so easy for you to adjust back to life in the village...especially when the people responsible for your clan’s genocide are still walking free.”

“Exactly.”

Her gaze averts downward. “...I’m sorry. I w-wish there was a way to make this easier. It’s been said been said before, but...please don’t forget that the Hyūga are with you. We’re prepared to help whatever way we can. But...we can’t act on our own. The other clans need to be made aware. Otherwise...I’m afraid the revelation will spark panic and mistrust.”

“As it should, honestly,” Sasuke mutters. “An entire clan was wiped out without fair trial or a proper audience. Any other clan, should they ever have a grievance severe enough, could be next. Of course...none of them have the relationship with the long-standing Senju-biased power in Konoha that my clan did. But once they know what happened...it’ll be a very real concern.”

“Exactly. So...we have to handle this delicately. But...that does still mean we have to handle it.”

By now, the pair have wandered out toward the clan districts, the Hyūga gates coming up first. The Uchiha clan no longer has a gate: just a large, empty field where the land was re-leveled after Pein’s assault, sans for the house Sasuke’s been built.

After a brief silence, Hinata offers, “...I’m sure Naruto-kun and the others will c-come around. It’s just...complicated. I’m sure they want justice for you. But...we all have our other strings attached we h-have to account for.”

Sasuke sighs. “...I know. But until it’s made known, I’ll never just fit in the way Naruto wants me to. To everyone but a handful, I’m a criminal and a traitor only pardoned due to my ties to the Rokudaime and the village hero.”

Her expression falls. “...it isn’t fair. But...w-we’ll get there. And...hopefully we can help this community rebuild, in ways b-better than it was before. Konoha isn’t perfect, and...addressing its wrongs and shadows is important to help us more forward into a new era of peace. For all of us.”

For some reason, her words seem to really resound in his chest. All of us. Meaning him, too. Rebuild the community...hm…

An idea worming its way into his head, he comes to a stop with her at the Hyūga gate. “...thanks for listening.”

“Any time, Sasuke-kun. Do you...want to take my umbrella with you?”

“I’ll be fine, but thanks. It’s not much further.”

“All right. If you need anything...don’t hesitate to ask, ne?”

For a brief moment, a corner of his mouth flickers. “...I’ll keep that in mind.”

“...enjoy your evening, Sasuke-kun.”

“You too.”

Watching her head into the compound, he then turns and makes to conquer the last distance before home. He feels a lot...calmer now. Funny how talking with her always seems to do that, even if they really don’t talk that much.

...maybe that’s sort of the point.

Still...her words about working on Konoha’s interior have the cogs in his mind turning. There might be something to that...but, one step at a time.

                                                           .oOo.

     A bit more of my 'canon' verse cuz...that was the first thing to come to mind with this one!      My interpretation for Sasuke in this verse is not just all sunshine and rainbows with his team after the war. I, for one, CANNOT accept the Uchiha massacre just being swept under the rug the way it is in 700+. Cuz let's be real, a boy - man - who fought for justice for more than half his life, for a decade, wouldn't just shrug off genocide because his friend wants him to forget and just...go back and play house with his team that has, in all reality, done very little to support him and justice for his clan even AFTER learning the truth.      Hence doing things my way ;3 (And just as a heads up / reminder, no, I don't debate my view of things in comments, be it plot or characterization or relationships between characters. This is my interpretation. You're free to yours. Debating said topics is not what I'm here to do, since I've gotten some rather confrontational comments on the subject before, lol. This is a fanfic, not a forum for discussion. No likey, take hikey.)      ANYWHO, it's late, and I gotta head to bed! Thanks for reading~

[thedeevirus]

JEALOUS EDWARD NYGMA

yallsothirstyfored said:Annoying things they do to get each other’s attention when they are busy or interested by something else and they crave for attention.

Enjoy!

Also added to Nygmobblepot Ficlets on AO3

***

‘Evening’.

Henry smiled widely. First rule of The Foxglove; Always be happy to see the customer. Or at least their wallet. In this case, Henry didn’t have to pretend. The man on the bed was dressed in a green suit with dark, chocolate brown eyes and one lean, long leg draped over the other. Far more attractive than the obese sixty five year old widow he had been ‘entertaining’ the night before.

‘Evening handsome’, Henry replied, walking towards his client, ‘What can I do for-‘

The door slammed behind him, making Henry jump. He swallowed hard as a large, waxen skinned figure loomed over him. Even as he began to sweat, he wondered how the pasty brute had hidden behind the door!

‘I-uh- I don’t usually see more than one cl-client’, Henry stammered.

The massive hulk advanced on him, causing Henry to fall backwards into an armchair. He pressed himself back as the monster (it didn’t feel right to refer to it as a ‘man’) glowered down at him with bloodshot eyes. A musky odour rose from its tattered black suit.He noticed the other man get up from the bed.

‘We’re just here to ask some questions’, the man said breezily, ‘But I suggest you answer quickly. “Else Grundy here will get cranky’.

Grundy moved around the armchair and placed both slab like hands on Henry’s shoulders. Henry cleared his throat.

‘Talk about what?’

‘Penguin’.

‘Penguins? Like the birds?’

The man in green leant in and even though he was smiling, Henry suddenly wasn’t sure Grundy was the one he should be most worried about.

‘Here’s a riddle for you. In the next five seconds there will be a dead man in this room if he keeps asking stupid questions. What is his name?’

‘H-Henry?’

‘The Henry that has Oswald Cobblepot aka ‘The Penguin’ as a regular client?’

‘Yeah?’

‘You don’t sound very sure’, the man smirked as he stepped back, ‘Jog his memory big guy’.

Ed grinned in relish as Grundy began to exert pressure on Henry’s shoulders. Having his own ‘hired goon’ was a rush he could get used to!

Grundy shook Henry gently. Ed had already warned Grundy not to get carried away until they had the information they wanted.‘Ah! I’m sure! I’m sure!’ Henry cried desperately, teeth clacking as he was lifted bodily out of the chair and slammed back down again and again.

‘You not Henry?’ Grundy demanded.

‘I’m Henry too! I’m Henry and I’m sure!’

Grundy looked at Ed. Ed nodded and Grundy stopped abruptly. As Henry shook his head dizzily, Grundy slowly released his grip. Henry flopped back into the chair. His eyes widened as Grundy placed both hands on the head of the armchair instead, at either side of Henry’s skull.

‘What do you wanna know?!’ Henry gasped.

‘When did Oswald first hire you?’

‘A few years ago’, Henry said, wincing as he hesitantly rubbed his shoulders, ‘When he was mayor’.

This surprised Ed. He had been in total control of Oswald’s schedule back then. Every moment had been accounted for and he had rarely left Oswald’s side. It was what had made him an exceptional Chief of Staff.The thought that Oswald had subverted his fool proof system by sneaking off behind his back irked Ed. Had he not trusted him to tell him where he was going?Ed shook his head annoyed. Why the Hell did it matter? It was ancient history. But ancient history was, by nature, full of mysteries and Ed couldn’t stand to leave this one unsolved.

‘Why?’

‘He said he wanted to tell someone how he felt about them and wanted to practice’.

Ed fidgeted with his gloves. Oswald had started coming to The Foxglove because of him?

‘You didn’t think that was strange?’ he asked.

Henry shrugged.

‘No. We get weird requests all the time here. He also wanted to practice kissing’.

Ed gave a bark of laughter. Bet Oswald thought that had been money well spent.

‘And what do you do for him now?’ Ed asked, feeling a bit better that Oswald had been the death of his own carefully planned machinations, ‘Please don’t include any intimate details. I’m not sure Grundy’s charming childlike innocence could handle the imagery’.

Henry chuckled politely at Ed’s joke. Grundy gave a low growl and he stopped.

‘Nothing really’, Henry said.

‘You expect me to believe that?’

‘It’s true!’ Henry said hastily, ‘I don’t need to leave out any details ‘cause we don’t do anything ‘intimate’’.

‘Then why does he come here?’ Ed demanded.

‘Sometimes he asks me to kiss him, hold him or massage his bad leg but we mostly just talk’.

‘About?’

‘Mostly about how he’s making the city better’.

‘I bet he talks about that a lot’, Ed said sourly.Oswald’s favourite subject had always been himself.

‘It’s actually really interesting!’ Henry said somewhat defensively, ‘Do you know crime’s dropped 85% since Oswald invented the licence thing?’

‘Of course I know!’Henry flinched at Ed’s harsh tone and Ed adjusted his glasses self-consciously.‘Continue’, Ed said, fingers drumming on a nearby table.

‘Honestly, it’s hard to keep track since we kinda talk about everything. Music, art, theatre, his mother…’

Henry trailed off, thinking.

‘He never mentions anyone else?’

‘He talks about an old friend called ‘Jim’ sometimes. Is that you?’

‘I’m the Riddler. I ask the questions here’.

Ed felt a flash of vindication as recognition materialised in Henry’s eyes. It felt good to see his reputation hadn’t been put on ice like he had been.

‘Sorry Mr Riddler’.

‘What does he say about Jim?’

‘That he wishes they were on the same side. I think Jim’s a cop though so that makes it kinda difficult for them to be friends’.

‘If you think Penguin knows what friendship means then you’re a moron’, Ed said darkly.

‘Maybe’, Henry said thoughtfully, ‘I know people call Oswald a monster but he’s always been a perfect gentleman with me. I think he’s a very lonely man’.

‘It sounds like you feel sorry for him’.

‘I just think it’s sad he needs to pay money just to have someone to talk to. He seemed a bit happier at our last appointment though so maybe he’s found someone?’

Ed felt his eye twitch involuntarily. Oswald? Find someone?!Henry’s familiarity was also bothering him. Since when did Oswald let rubes like this moron call him by his first name?!

‘So there’s nothing else between you and Oswald?’

‘Of course not. I’m a professional’.

Ed bit back a curse. The whole reason they had come to The Foxglove was to gather ammunition for Ed’s ultimate revenge against Oswald. One of Ed’s spies had told him the Penguin used the facilities weekly and had a ‘favourite’ host. Ed had overestimated Oswald’s attachment and cursed his impaired mental state. Yet another crime to lay at Oswald’s doorstep.

‘Well this is a bust’, Ed growled.

‘I’ll make sure you’re refunded for the session? if that’ll make things better?’

‘You actually think we’re paying for this?’

‘Guess not’.

‘You look glum for someone who’s still got all his limbs’, Ed said, heading for the door, ‘Say anything about this little visit to Oswald and Grundy might change his mind’.

‘Wait!’ Henry said suddenly.

‘What?!’ Ed snapped, hand on the doorknob.

‘If you’re really The Riddler, I have a message for you from Oswald’.

‘Wait, Oswald knew I was coming here?’ Ed asked.

Suddenly Ed saw an image of the new coat his usually shabby Narrows informant had been wearing when he had given him the information earlier that day. Bait at the end of Oswald’s hook. Ed gritted his teeth. He should have noticed that! The old him would have noticed that! The pleasant memory of the sudden recognition in Henry’s eyes also became bitter ashes. So, he only knew Ed’s name because Oswald had told him in anticipation of Ed following the trail. Not because Ed’s fame preceded him.

Ed numbly watched Henry pull on a green jacket and a derby hat along with some reading glasses, too furious at having fallen for Oswald’s bait to do anything else. Too nervous at what was coming next.

Henry spun on his heel dramatically and Ed’s eyes widened. It was like looking in a mirror and somehow more disquieting than the dread Ed usually felt looking at his actual reflection. With props identical to Ed’s own effects, the similarity was astonishing. Even Grundy could see the resemblance, judging from how his head was ponderously swivelling between he and Henry.

‘Riddle me this!’ Henry declared, striking a flamboyant pose as he read from a cue card, ’They say “If you love something let it go. But if it keeps coming back who does it belong to?”’

Ed was silent.The impression had been startlingly accurate.Oswald had obviously intended it as a cruel jab. A reflection of who Ed had once been. Who he should be. Forgotten glory that he would never experience again.Instead, inspiration had struck like lightning.Two could play at this game.But Ed preferred an audience.

‘I-uh don’t think you’re supposed to answer’, Henry said, turning the card over to show the blank opposite side, ‘There isn’t one on this’.

Ed shook his head, chuckling to himself.

‘No. I think I got the answer just fine. You wear this getup often?’

Henry’s eyes darted away and Ed’s eyes narrowed.

So, it seemed Henry hadn’t been entirely truthful about the ‘intimate’ details.Ed blinked hard to dispel and unwanted image of Oswald in a tuxedo, stroking a top hat suggestively.This had the strange side effect of conjuring another memory.Isabella.Was Oswald trying to replace his first love? Or was it just another subtle insult at Ed? Look Oswald can have a second chance too!If it was the former, it was ridiculous! What Ed and Isabella had had was special! It didn’t matter if Oswald had apparently known this Henry for longer! Ed and Isabella’s short courtship had been Oswald’s fault!But then, why did the thought of Oswald using Henry as a petty insult make him so angry instead of it being Oswald genuinely missing him?! Ed did not miss Oswald. He hated him! That was the whole reason they were here; to get ammunition!Ed’s thoughts were so frantic and mixed up that it took him a few minutes to notice Henry babbling placatingly.

‘L-like I said, whatever’s going on between you two, my relationship with Oswald is strictly business and um, if you like, I mean, you have booked me for the hour, we could have some fun of our own?’

Ed glared at Henry as Henry blithely continued digging his own grave.

‘We could make it even? So, you know, there’s no need for anyone to be…. jealous?’

Ed smiled poisonously.

‘There’s no need for you to be conscious’.

Grundy’s large fist descended, squashing Henry’s derby hat flat. He crumpled into an insensate heap on the floor.

Ed considered killing him but decided against it in the same instant. Killing him would surely signal to Oswald that his little pantomime had gotten under Ed’s skin. Ed grinned in relish as he pictured Oswald’s reaction to the little show he was forming in his own head. How delicious that Oswald had given him the idea! Even better was the thought that Oswald would figure that out.

Let Oswald have his dress up doll. Oswald hadn’t known Ed would come here. He had hoped. He was so obsessed with Ed it was pathetic!He’d never have the real thing. Not even if he came begging on his knees for forgiveness. Looking up at Ed with tears in his green eyes, grasping his jacket, pleading. The ‘King of Gotham’ on his knees. Had he ever been on his knees in front of Henry? Did he act out his fantasises in this very room?Longing and lusting for Ed. Desperate for his love. His attention.Ed felt his cheeks reddening and inhaled slowly.He noticed Grundy looking at him, brow furrowed in concern.

‘Ed okay?’

‘Best I’ve felt in days’, Ed said cheerily, pushing the worryingly erotic images to the back of his mind.

Grundy smiled, reassured that his friend was feeling better and jabbed a thick thumb behind him.

‘Window?’ Grundy suggested.

Ed stepped over Henry and glanced outside, surveying the alley below.

‘Good thinking buddy. Meet you outside’.

Ed headed for the door as Grundy prepared to relocate Henry’s unconscious body. He glanced back over his shoulder as he opened it.

‘Don’t try too hard to aim for the dumpster down there’, he said.