#well. okay. i have a bullet now. i guess. that’s neat. and my partner in crime and punishment is impressed with my skills

[chtoyalt]

woah... they weren’t joking about exploration of crime scenes in their mature content description… i just… entered a corpse… with my hand… through its mouth… into its brain…. and then kim looked me in the eyes and called me Detective… anything for you kim kitsuragi……

[torreshalstead]

It Seemed Like a Good Idea - Chapter 18

Summary - Hailey’s US visa was due to expire, which normally wouldn’t be an issue as the CPD would get it renewed but due to a backlog of paperwork, this wasn’t possible. This meant Hailey was faced with the real possibility of having to leave the country, her job and everything she held dear. That was until Jay offered up a solution which would allow her to stay in Chicago, in Intelligence, with him - they could get married. Getting married was a good idea, right?

Chapters - 18/21

Chapter Title - The Divorce

Notes - I’m sorry for last weeks cliffhanger and I guess I’m sorry about this weeks chapter too… but I promise next week will be good! See the AO3 notes at the end for a teaser ❤️ AO3 Link

‘Jay Halstead,’ Hailey said breathlessly to the first person in scrubs she came across. She didn’t know the nurse who was glancing at her with a puzzled expression but when she saw the distress on Hailey’s face she offered her a warm smile.

‘Let’s see if we can find him, hey,’ she said kindly, leading Hailey over to the desk in the middle of the Emergency Department. ‘Who did you say you were looking for?’

‘Jay Halstead,’ Hailey said, only a fraction more in control of her breathing now than she had been a moment ago. Her heart was still racing and she could feel beads of sweat running down her back underneath her shirt.

‘And your relation to the patient?’ The nurse behind the desk asked as she typed away, glancing up at Hailey in between keystrokes.

‘He’s my…’ calling Jay her partner didn’t seem right anymore, not in a situation like this anyway. ‘He’s my husband,’ Hailey said clearly, ignoring the tingle that shot through her at the word.

‘Okay, Mrs Halstead. Mr Halstead is currently under observation for a suspected concussion but you are welcome to go up and see him,’ the nurse said. Her tone was so calm it was like a breath of fresh air.

Hailey took her first proper breath since she had had a call from Adam to say that Jay had been taken to hospital. She should have asked him more questions, learnt the extent of his injuries before she came barging into Med, but with Jay’s prior history of being a bullet magnet, she didn’t waste any time.

She had jumped in her car, apologising profusely to the cadet she had been meeting for a coffee who wanted to learn more about the Intelligence unit - Platt had set it up. Hailey made a mental note to apologise to the desk Sergeant as well. She was certain she had broken a dozen traffic laws but hearing that Jay was in the hospital and she hadn’t been there to have his six, it was like ice water in her veins.

All she could think about was their conversation that morning, and everything that still remained unsaid between them. And how if something had happened to him, it would stay unsaid.

Jay had disappeared after shift, Hailey didn’t know where and she no longer felt like she had a right to ask. Yes, they were still married but that was on crumbling foundations right now. Hailey returned home alone to an empty apartment, glancing around and taking in all the elements of the place that had made it theirs. Her chest tightening unpleasantly as she looked at the photographs, the ones they had staged for her visa application but where her smile was real. His and hers mugs were sitting on the draining board, they both drank so much coffee they never made it back into the cupboard - even Jay’s neatness let that slide.

Without her realising it, their lives had become intertwined and she didn’t know what she would do when they called it quits. That’s what she needed Jay home to discuss. What happens next.

Her conversation with Will floated through her mind.

‘Talk to him’

And she wanted to. God, she wanted nothing more to talk to Jay and tell him how she felt, how he made her feel. But it wasn’t that easy, no matter Makayla had said.

She didn’t know how long she sat in the apartment contemplating her future without Jay. Though that wasn’t the truth, even if, when, their marriage ended, she wouldn’t lose him. Sure, he wouldn’t be there to crawl into bed with her. Wouldn’t be there in the middle of the night as a physical reminder that she wasn’t alone. But she’d still be his partner. He’d still be her best friend.

That would be enough.

It had to be enough.

She barely registered when a key turned in the lock and Jay entered the apartment.

‘Hails,’ Jay said and when Hailey turned to look at him she could tell it wasn’t the first time he had called her name but she had been so lost inside her own head that she hadn’t heard him.

‘Hey,’ she said. It was awkward. They hadn’t even had the conversation yet but it was already awkward.

‘We should talk,’ Jay said and Hailey felt a lump grow in her throat.

‘Yep,’ she said, swallowing it down with a small nod. It was on the tip of her tongue. I love you. It was only three little words, surely she could say three little words. They could change her life for the better.

‘I’ve done the research,’ Jay said, taking a seat on the couch. Hailey noticed he sat further away from her than he normally did. She frowned a little but Jay didn’t seem to notice as he carried on. ‘An annulment is unlikely given our prior history. No judge is going to believe it was a spur of the moment marriage when we’ve been partners for the last three years. So divorce is our only option.’

It was like he was reciting out of a textbook for a test, his tone was flat and empty and although he was sitting just inches away from her, it felt like he was speaking down the phone from miles away. It wasn’t like Jay. Not like her Jay.

‘Oh,’ she said blankly. He wanted a divorce.

She had been mistaken.

He didn’t want her.

‘A divorce,’ she said, blinking harshly to prevent any tears from forming and giving her away. Ignoring the fact it felt like her chest had been wrenched open, her heart open to the harsh elements. ‘Then…ummm… we should probably get the paperwork for that sorted.’

‘I called by my lawyer's office on the way home, he said we should fill in these and then he can start the process,’ Jay pulled a stack of papers out from where Hailey didn’t know. She hadn’t noticed him bringing anything in with him, she had been too preoccupied by the possibility of telling him how she felt. Like an idiot. An idiot in love with her best friend. Her best friend who clearly didn’t love her back.

‘Right,’ she nodded. He had a lawyer. He wanted a divorce, and he had a lawyer. This really was it.

‘I mean we don’t need to fill them out now,’ Jay said but Hailey shook her head. If it’s what he wanted, she loved him too much to not let him go.

‘No, we can do it now,’ she said with a forced smile. ‘No reason to put it off is there?’ She asked, it was a rhetorical question but one she desperately wanted an answer for. But when Jay responded, it was not what she had hoped to hear.

‘No, I guess not,’ he said quietly. Laying out the paperwork on the coffee table in front of her, he handed her the pen.

She didn’t ask him to get into bed with her that night and he didn’t offer. They both walked to their own rooms, leaving the signed paperwork sat on the table. He was called into work early the next day and she had a meeting with a cadet that Trudy had set up. Hailey didn’t notice if the paperwork was still on the table when she headed out the door, her head was all over the place which hadn’t been helped by the inability to sleep the night before.

Her head had been swimming with images of Jay and her and the life they could have had together but all the images were blurry, as if the photographs had gotten wet or fire damaged. For every happy moment she experienced with her eyes closed, one where Jay handed her divorce papers or told her he’d never loved her echoed back to her.

So many people experienced unrequited love, it was the subject of numerous books and movies and nobody ever died of heartbreak. But how many of those people, fictional or not, had to divorce from the person they were in love with? How many had to sleep alone in a bed they had shared with them the previous night, when it felt like everything was falling into place? How many of those people could survive that?

She followed the nurse through the corridors of the hospital, the events of the night before still replaying through her mind like a bad tv show. Even though the nurse had said he was okay, just being monitored, her heart was still heavy and her palms were still sweaty. She wouldn’t be okay until she saw him with her own two eyes, and then probably until she smacked him for scaring her.

The nurse gestured to a closed door up ahead, ‘your husband is in there,’ she said with a smile. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she winked and then left Hailey alone.

Her hand was shaking as she opened the door and was greeted with one of her least favourite sights - Jay in a hospital bed. Throughout their partnership they had already been through this too many times. But thankfully this time he was sitting up in bed and appeared to be fine, at least from the outside.

Hailey almost choked back a sob, she hadn’t realised just how worried she had been about him until she had seen him just then. Knowing it was probably inappropriate, probably crossed some kind of line that she no longer cared about, she crossed the room in just three steps and threw herself into his arms, burrowing her face into his neck and letting the tears spill. She might be holding him too tightly, might be causing him pain but she didn’t care, she just needed to feel him under her hands to know it was real and he was okay.

‘Hey Hails,’ Jay said concerned, wrapping an arm tightly round her back and smoothing her hair out of his face with the other, ‘I’m okay. I’m okay.’

Logically she knew that if that wasn’t the truth there would be a doctor here or a nurse, but logic was not the thing at the forefront of her mind. Her concern for him was overpowering any other thought.

Jay continued to murmur words of affirmation into her ear, that he was sorry, that he was fine, there were no bullets involved as Hailey continued to hold him tightly. She felt him press a kiss to her hair, like he had done when they had fallen asleep together.

Gathering herself she pulled back, standing up right and quickly wiping away any rogue tears that were marking her cheeks.

‘Have they done a CT?’ She asked, remembering that the nurse had said he was under concussion watch.

‘No but I’m fine, I promise,’ Jay said brushing off her question.

‘Unfortunately you are not the Halstead with a medical degree,’ Hailey said with a forced smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She didn’t feel in the mood to joke right now. ‘I’m going to speak to your doctor,’ she said and not giving him a chance to respond or argue with her, she exited the room in search of a doctor.

——————————————————————————

By the time Hailey returns to the room, unsurprisingly Jay had gotten back into his street clothes and seemed to be making a bid for freedom.

‘The doc says you don’t need a scan yet because you don’t have any of the necessary symptoms but if your head starts to hurt or anything else changes, we bring straight back to the ED and they’ll get you one,’ Hailey said, frowning slightly. She had had to argue with the doctor who had insisted that Jay would be fine and would remain under observation for the next 24 hours, he clearly had never met the stubborn Halstead before. There wasn’t a chance Jay was staying in this hospital for a minute longer than he needed to, doctors orders or not.

‘Great, so we can go home?’ He asked with a grin, but his use of the word home pricked at Hailey’s skin. How long would it be their home with divorce hanging over their heads.

‘We can,’ she said with a little smile. ‘I saw Will too and he’s going to give you a call later.’

‘To check up on me?’ Jay scoffed lightheartedly.

‘Because you always follow the doctor's orders?’ Hailey sassed back.

‘Touché,’ Jay chuckled lightly.

‘You going to make it to the elevator okay?’ Hailey asked, knowing there was no way Jay was going to say he needed help even if he had a limb hanging off.

‘I’ll be alright,’ Jay winked at her before heading to the door. ‘After you,’ he said with a smile, letting Hailey exit the room with him in her wake.

——————————————————————————

The car ride home was quiet and Jay couldn’t tell if Hailey was mad at him for getting injured, happy that he hadn’t been shot or if it was just the looming divorce affecting her emotions. Anyway, he was glad when they finally parked up and headed up to the apartment.

The divorce papers were still sitting on the coffee table, unmoved and untouched from where they had left them last night. He had thought Hailey would be happy when he returned with them, hadn’t she been the one to say there was no reason for them to be married anymore. He had thought letting her go was what was best. But as he remembered the way she had flung herself onto him at the hospital and he had felt her tears on his neck, he wondered if he had gotten the wrong end of the stick. Could he really have misread the situation that badly?

‘I’ll go pick us up some lunch,’ Hailey announced, not a moment after they had entered the living room. ‘I won’t be long,’ she said and headed back out the door before he had a chance to say anything.

Jay slumped down on the couch, thankful that the headache the doctors had mentioned may appear was still being kept at bay. His eyes kept being drawn to the stack of papers. They were papers that were going to change the course of his life and although he knew he didn’t want that course amendment, was perfectly fine, happy even with Hailey remaining his wife, he didn’t want her to be lumbered with a husband she had never wanted in the first place.

But then the memory of them in bed together floated to the forefront of his mind. She had kissed him hadn’t she? Sure, she had wanted him to support her, hold her close because of a bad case, those things could be attributed to friendship, a close friendship, but friendship nonetheless. But you don’t kiss your friends.

Before he could have another thought and risk actually succumbing to the concussion with the melay of thoughts floating round his head, his phone rang.

‘Hey Will,’ he said after swiping to answer the call.

‘Hey, how you feeling?’ Will asked, his concern evident even with the distortion down the phone.

‘I’m fine, no headache, no blurred vision, no residual pain at all,’ Jay reeled off, closing his eyes at the expected lecture that would undoubtedly follow.

‘That’s good,’ Will said and Jay was perplexed.

‘What, no you need to look after yourself lecture?’ Jay asked curiously.

‘I assumed Hailey would already have given you that,’ Will responded, his tone thick with sarcasm.

‘What? No, she drove me home and we didn’t talk, think she’s probably mad at me for getting hurt again,’ Jay sighed.

‘Well you do get hurt a lot Jay, can you blame her?’

‘Guess not,’ Jay ran a hand over his head, maybe he did give Hailey too much stress with his antics.

‘You should have heard her go off at the doctor though,’ Will chuckled.

‘Really?’ Jay sat up a little straighter, eyes wide open. That didn’t sound like something Hailey would do, out of the pair of them she was far more likely to stay calm and collected in a high pressure situation. She’d stepped in front of him on multiple occasions to prevent an altercation when he got too heated.

‘Yeah something along the lines of you don’t know my husband, that level of care won’t suffice. Seriously bro, she went full protective wife mode,’ Will said proudly. Jay hesitated, she had called him her husband, voluntarily? The day after they had agreed to divorce?

‘Wow…’ Jay tailed off.

‘I mean are you surprised?’

‘A little yeah, more that she called me her husband than anything else,’ Jay said a little bashfully.

‘Well you are her husband, idiot.’

‘Only until I file the papers,’ Jay said deflatedly.

‘What papers?’

‘For the divorce.’

‘Did she not talk to you about that?’ Will asked quickly and Jay could hear something else in his voice, concern perhaps? He couldn’t place it.

‘No, I came home with the papers last night and we signed them,’ Jay said.

‘Oh brother, you really are an idiot sometimes,’ Will huffed. ‘I’m going to say this once. You have had your fair share of accidents at work and as such I have seen Hailey more times than I would like speaking to your doctors. And not once, in three years, have I ever seen her more protective, more concerned or more on your side than I saw her today.’

Jay went to interrupt but Will continued on in earnest. ‘And today was probably your least serious ailment. But seriously. It was different today, and I don’t know if that’s ring on your finger, the fact that you two slept together-’

‘We didn’t-‘ Jay interjected but it didn’t stop Will’s verbal barrage. ‘Or the fact you’re both clearly in love with each other or what. But you cannot divorce her Jay.’

‘But it’s what she wants,’ Jay said flatly, ignoring the pain in his chest at Will’s words.

‘And you know that how?’ Will said angrily.

‘I just do,’ Jay said.

‘I think you need to consider that you might not be the only one with hidden feelings in this relationship, Jay. And consider it quickly. She won’t hang around forever.’ And with that Will hung up the call and Jay was left staring at a pile of papers that he suddenly had the most burning desire to set a light and pretend never existed.

[silverstarssart]

The Owl House Incorrect Quotes

Eda: I feel so burnt out. Luz: Don’t worry, it'll be over soon. Eda: Are you gonna… assassinate me? Luz: Well not if you’re expecting it.

———

Hunter: I'll offer you some friendly advice- Gus: I don't want your advice. Hunter: Well, then consider it unfriendly advice.

———

Gus: Just be yourself. Hunter: Really? Gus, I have one day to win over Willow’s parents. Hunter: How long did it take for you guys to like me? Willow: Couple of weeks. Luz: Six months. Amity: Jury’s still out. Hunter: See Gus? ‘Just be yourself,’ what kind of garbage advice is that?!

———

Luz: Hold on, I can explain! Eda: Really? Can you now? Luz: I can if you give me a minute to think of a convincing lie.

———

King: Guess what I'm about to get! Eda: On my nerves.

———

Hunter: I can never give Luz shit because I’m jealous of them. They look at their life and say, “Sweet! This is perfect!” Hunter: I look at my life and say, “Welp. Time to get drunk.”

———

Mattholomule: I have a new hoodie. Gus: Wrong. Gus: We have a new hoodie.

———

Willow: Is something burning? Hunter, leaning seductively on the counter: Just my desire for you. Willow: Hunter, the toaster is literally on fire.

———

Luz: Eat the rich!

Amity, internally: PLEASE do

———

Camilla: Wow, great work on the Halloween decorations. Where did you get the fake skeletons? Gus: Fake?

———

Luz: So, Amity, do you have a crush on anyone? Amity, sweating bullets: The only crush I have is this crushing anxiety.

———

Hooty: honk. Gus: WHAT. Hooty: HONK. Gus: WHAT DOES HONK MEAN THIS TIME YOU WHIMSICAL PIECE OF SH—?????

———

Eda: What should I do? Lilith: holds out hand May I suggest dinner with a friend? Eda: Well, none of my friends are available, so I guess I'll have to go with you.

———

Luz: When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons, what the hell am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Luz lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the person who's gonna burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm gonna get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house down!

———

Eda: I don’t know the first thing about clothes. Pretty much all I can do is look at something and tell you if it’s clothes or not. This chair? Not clothes.

———

Raine: I’m genuinely surprised you haven’t gotten arrested, let alone gotten a felony yet. Eda: Nat 20 Charisma. Raine: That is NOT how that works-

———

Gus: We all have our demons. Gus, grabbing Mattholumule: This one’s mine.

———

Hunter: Willow, is that legal? Willow: When there's no cops around, anything's legal!

———

Mattholumule: I love you. Gus, not paying attention: What was that? Mattholumule: I said I’m selling you to the zOo-

———

Eda: I’m in love with you. Raine: We called off the prank war last night at midnight, dork. Eda: I know. Raine: Ah. Okay. Um. Cool. Neat. Very cool. Cool. Cool. Coolcoolcool-

———

Willlow: Since we're in a relationship now, your clothes are my clothes too. Don't ask me why I have your shirt on, this is our shirt. Hunter: Fine, but when I come strutting in with your fuzzy socks I don't want to hear shit.

———

Raine: We’re getting married, b*! Eda: And we're about to make it everybody else's problem.

———

Willow: My future partner must be brave, strong, intelligent, successful and organized. Hunter: steps on a caterpillar and proceeds to drop to their knees, apologizing profusely Willow: That one. I want that one.

———

Amity, watching Hunter stare at Willow: Why don’t you go talk to her? Hunter, sarcastically: Oh. Yeah, sure. Gus, joining in: What? So you go tell her she’s cute, what’s the worst that could happen? Hunter: She could hear me.

———

Raine: How many children do you have? Eda: Biologically, legally, or emotionally? Because there is a difference.

———

[fandom-monium]

i finished for the holidays and i just *chefs kiss* beautiful talented amazing sajkgdkj no words i love that romance wasnt even the main point 🥺💘 anyway i love how you write reader and i wondered between her and spencer who gets jealous???

Unrivaled

Summary: In which you seem pretty close with the new intern, and Spencer is not happy about it. (ft. one of my fave white bois) “Have I ever told you how much I value your friendship?"

WC: 3.6k

Tags/Warnings: Spencer Reid x GN!Reader, fluff, cussing, Jealous!Spencer bc id like to see that, established relationships (blegh), Garvez if you squint, the lightest implication of smut ever, points to yall who can guess who the intern is before reading the end or the tags 😉

—

Spencer is not jealous. He’s not.

Why would he be? 

He has no reason to be jealous, Spencer chants to himself as he sits at his desk. Even from across the bullpen he still manages to hear your voice, and while normally it’s music to his ears, even better than Mozart, now it just feels like nails against a chalkboard. Grating his eardrums, making him wince.

Because you’re laughing. Not with Spencer though. Not at his obscure references or lame jokes.

With the new intern.

Why did Emily have to put you in charge of him? She could’ve chosen anyone on the team to have him shadow, but it had to be you! Not that you’re incapable or unqualified; you’re experienced, talented, and the best person he knows. 

… Okay, he can see why she picked you.

Why do they even have interns? Unnecessary, really, when the BAU has you and him and he guesses the other teams too (it’s weird, he’s never actually interacted with them but whatever). Maybe it’s time to start making budget cuts. He’ll discuss this with Emily when he gets the chance. He’s got some influence, working at the BAU as long as he has.

But he’s not jealous. 

Logically, jealousy (like an intern) is unnecessary. The green-eyed monster (like an intern) is ugly and contributes nothing productive, and if Spencer’s being honest, the world (like an intern) would be much better off without it.

At least that’s what he keeps telling himself as he downs his coffee like a shot of whiskey, trying to quell the squirming beast in him. Despite 90% of it being sugar, it still tastes bitter. He sets his mug down with a thud, and it’s loud enough to make Luke, Garcia, and JJ turn their heads, exchanging concerned glances when he slumps back in his chair.

Spencer doesn’t care. The world’s ending; you’re apparently into younger guys, with neat dark hair and forearms that can probably snap someone’s neck, and he can’t do anything about it. What does it matter if his best friends catch him in a sour mood, right?

“Hey, Spence,” JJ's tone is soft as they slink over, Garcia and Luke leaning against the edge of his desk and JJ flanking the other side. “You alright?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Spencer gazes past them, his eyes never leaving you. He deflates; your stance is relaxed, completely open as you nod at whatever Intern is saying, his hands gesturing spastically. It must be interesting, the way you listen with rapt attention and respond just as enthusiastic.

Spencer scoffs. Not like that’s anything special. You do the same for him. And the rest of the team.

...What the hell are you guys talking about? 

“Well, you look like you’re about to throw your mug across the room. Or at an intern.”

Spencer blinks, finally breaking away from you long enough to eye the ceramic octopus. “That’s a good idea actually.”

“Don’t,” Garcia and JJ both shoot him a warning and he huffs, resting his chin in his hand. Garcia looks horrified, betrayed even while JJ has that expression on, the one she gives when she scolds Henry and Michael.

Whatever. It’s not like he’d ever sacrifice Mildred. Garcia entrusted her to him, after all. 

Unless...?

No, he couldn’t… Maybe.

“You know, Reid, if you’re jealous—”

Spencer snaps his head to Garcia, eyes wide and darting to you like you have super-hearing, “Jealous? Who’s jealous? Not me.” He cringes, his voice octaves higher and cracking like a prepubescent boy.

Garcia snorts, “Okay, sure. But if you are jealous, I was going to say you have no reason to be. You wanna know why?” Spencer raises an eyebrow at her and she continues, “Sure the guy’s smart enough to get a full-ride scholarship at GWU, and he’s top of his class at the academy—”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?”

"And he’s one of the most good looking guys I've ever met—”

"How is that relevant—"

Luke frowns at her. "And have you met me?"

“My point is,” Garcia’s red lipstick curls into the most reassuring smile, “that you have nothing to worry about because (Your Name) loves you. A lot.” 

Spencer perks up. “You really think so?”

“I know so. I see the way they look at you, and if that’s not love I don’t know what is," She shrugs, "And just because they’re talking doesn’t mean they’re into him.”

There's a collective nod of agreement and Spencer sags in relief. Of course they're right. He knows they are. 

If you think about it, technically, he's got the advantage. You've known each other longer, bonded and shared experiences together good and bad, and you’re emotionally and even physically intimate with each other (something he's especially proud of, considering how long it takes you both to warm up to others).

And who knows? This is probably temporary! Whatever this is, the connection you seem to instantly make with Intern (faster than when you two had met, he realizes with a needle to his heart) is short-term at best. It'll peter out eventually, like most friendships do.

It’s sad, but a cruel fact of life.

(Is this selfish, wishful thinking? Nah.)

They’re right, there is no need to worry, Spencer thinks as a weight lifts off his chest, finally able to breathe. You love him and he loves you and eventually, everything will go back to normal. 

There’s nothing to worry about.

—

The world’s ending.

“It’s really not.”

Yes, it is.

“Doc, come on.”

“Do not ‘Doc’ me,” Spencer grumbles, lifting his head from the comfort of his arms. He grimaces at Luke. “You didn’t see the way they looked at him. The way they talk about him.”

Two weeks. It’s been two weeks since you’ve taken Intern under your wing, and he’s had enough. If Hell is real, this is it. For days, he’s tried to resume some form of normalcy, and he was never one to be bold but desperate times call for desperate measures as he asks you out for lunch or invites you out on dates, even stuff he wouldn’t normally do because they’re more your thing. Something, anything to get you away from Intern. But...

At work: “Hey Spence, I'm teaching Intern (menial task that a 4 year old could do). Would you like to help—”

During break: “I’m taking Intern out for lunch. He’s still new to town, and I thought he could use a tour—”

In bed: “Did you know Intern’s a huge fan of Star Wars—”

Snap, and there went his patience.

Intern this, Intern that. 

Spencer could tolerate this at work. At least he’s saving lives, being productive, getting paid. But under his roof? In his bed? 

That was the last straw.

Spencer's not one to wish ill on another, he's not like that. But if something happened to the guy, say, get injured in the field, perhaps from a "stray" bullet, he'd be intern-ally grateful. Heh. 

"Hey, you good?"

Spencer sighs, swiping a hand over his face and turning back to Luke. "Yeah, why?"

Luke waves a hand at his face, eyebrow raised, "For a second there, you kind of had a scary look on your face."

"Did I? Weird."

"Right," Clearly unconvinced, Luke brushes it off, deciding to get to the root of the matter. "As I was saying, I still think you have nothing to worry about. Although, I do think it's a little weird that (Your Name) is talking about Intern as much as you say they are." He offers Spencer a little smile, his hand falling heavy on his shoulder. It's the most comforting touch he's had in two weeks. "I'm not one to talk, but I suggest you speak to them. I'd also be uncomfortable if my partner were talking up someone else."

Spencer blinks, squints at Luke, before gripping his hand and standing up. "Have I ever told you how much I value your friendship?"

"You can stand to mention it more often," Luke shrugs, eyes crinkling with amusement as Spencer lets go and heads for the door. 

"Noted."

—

Spencer nearly goes feral when he finds you.

Of course you're with him.

He searched the floor like a bloodhound, discovering you've been on your feet almost the entire day, running around the office, up and down the elevators, finishing your work and helping around. You must be exhausted. It's because of this he tracks you to your favorite break room, mostly quiet save for the buzzing drip of the old coffeemaker. He knows you need to be alone sometimes, recharge those social batteries.

So when he bursts into the room like he would hunting an unsub, eyes quickly scanning the immediate space, he expects nothing less but you. What he did not anticipate was to find you, just as soft and pretty as ever under the fluorescent lighting, leaning against the counter and sipping daintily at your favorite mug. 

With Intern standing a little too close to his liking.

“Hey, Spencer,” You chirp as you lower your coffee mug, lips glossy from your drink. Spencer's quick to shake his stupor―he can’t afford to be distracted, but it’s difficult when you’re beaming at him, clearly excited. You nod at the home-wrecker, “Me and Intern here were just talking about demonology and he’s got this interesting theory on werewolves―" Lycanthropy? Are you fucking kidding him right now? 

Just when he thought he couldn't hate the guy any more.

"CanItalktoyou?" It comes out rushed as Spencer gasps between breaths, leaving no room to second guess himself.

"Sure," You blink at his urgent tone.

For a second, you watch him expectantly, and Spencer's gaze darts between you and Intern. "Alone?"

"Oh! Okay. Be gone," You wave Intern off, and when you place a hand on his shoulder, Spencer sees red. Or green in this case.

Intern doesn't resist, but the noise Spencer releases is animalistic because the guy can’t seem to read the room, questioning you as you gently shove him towards the door. "What about the thing―"

"We'll talk about that later."

"But you still need to show me how to―"

"Don't worry, Intern. Just wait for me, I'll show you once the adults are done talking."

"You know at some point you're gonna have to call me by my name." 

"Nah. If we get to call Luke a newbie, we get to call you Intern. Also I do not know how to say your first name."

 "You could just call me St―"

Enough of this. Spencer closes the last stretch of distance, batting your hand away from Intern’s shoulders as he kicks him out himself, slamming the door in his face. Spencer turns on his heel to face you, caging you both. “You―” He pants, chest heaving for air.

“Me?”

“You-him-we―”

You’re unfazed, simply nodding at him and his odd behavior. If anything, you’re enjoying this as your lips twitch in a poor attempt to withhold your amusement, trying to cover it with a slurp of your cup. Then again, it’s not everyday you get to see Spencer, face flushed from exertion, speechless as he gasps for breath.

(At least not at work… In the break room specifically.)

It takes a minute as Spencer swallows a few times, but his heart’s erratic and it’s not just from running through the entire building. When he’s got enough air, he blurts out, “Did I do something?”

Your brow shoots up. “What?”

“Did I forget something important? Upset you in some way?”

“No? I don’t think so?” You frown at him, your answers more like questions. 

It only spurs him on, and though his tone is frantic and his eyes just as wild as his hair, you’re more intrigued than frightened. Definitely confused.

“Okay, but you know I love you, right?”

“Yes and I love you too but Spence, what’s this about?" Setting down your mug, you look at him like he's grown another head.

Spencer sighs, "I just… you…" He frowns, glancing between you, the floor, and the empty space between you. 

Spencer Reid is a man of words. Many, many words, according to all his friends and his coworkers. Mainly knowledge―he's never been great with feelings―but as you gaze at him, patiently waiting for him to gather his thoughts, he wants to melt into the floor. There's not a hint of annoyance on your features, your eyes warm and inviting. 

He's so in love with you.

Then like scripture the words come, natural without much stuttering or hesitancy. He recounts the last two weeks. The internship so far, the times you've left Spencer behind for him, the times you just talked about him, like the guy (practically a stranger) is your new best friend. Usually, pretty people make him tongue-tied and you do―god, you do―but at the same time only you make it so easy. Talking, expressing without fear of―

"Pfft―"

―Judgement. Pausing mid-sentence, Spencer gawks as your nose twitches and your blink rate increases. You purse your lips, a hand slapped over your mouth as it threatens to break out into a grin.

"Are you-are you laughing right now?" When he just poured his feelings out to you? 

That does it. You keel over, peels of laughter coming like a tsunami, crashing into him and Spencer loves your laugh but not when it's at him. 

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I shouldn't be laughing," you wheeze, gripping your stomach. Spencer pouts. There's even tears in your eyes. "But you're telling me this is all because you're jealous?"

He stutters, "Well-I-no-It’s just…" He wants to say ‘you're mine’, but as your eyes crinkle he knows there’s no need.

"That's kinda hot."

"Wha-really?" Wide-eyed, Spencer squeaks as you step closer to him, backing him into the door. His hands come up to his chest in a kitten-like manner yet at the same time protective―you'd never hurt him and you both know that―but you admit your initial reaction was poor when he laid his feelings bare. 

“Ahhhh Babe, you know there’s no one else for me but you.” Spencer blushes and you chuckle, taking his hands in yours. He let's you. “Also, as adorable as Intern is, one, I think I’d be able to tell if he was hitting on me, and two, he’s not really my type.”

Spencer swallows, “And what exactly is your type?”

“Hmm, let’s see,” Looking him up and down, you step closer, enough that your breath puffs against his chin. You smell like cheap coffee. “Tall, handsome doctors with messy, brown hair―” You lightly tug at one of his stray curls and he bites back a smile. 

“―and a cute nose―” Your hand moves to cup his cheek, bringing him down to peck the tip of his nose. It scrunches as Spencer breaks out into giggles. 

“―Who can recite classic literature. Who can bake like he belongs on The Great British Baking Show but can’t cook for shi―”

“Okay! Thank you, I get it,” Spencer says, almost completely relaxed now.

“Good,” You nod with finality. “And for your information, I wasn’t trying to make you jealous."

He raises an eyebrow. "So you just abandoned me and talked about another guy for the hell of it?"

Spencer's tone is casual, joking even but you know better. There's underlying bitterness and hurt and your heart squeezes because you did that. "No, of course not. There is a reason behind all that.“

“What could possibly excuse you going above and beyond your job as a mentor―”

“I was trying to set you guys up.”

Spencer deadpans. “Set me up? With him?” Oh god, he knows you’re weird, but he’s never considered you to be outright insane (is it weird he still loves you?).

As if reading his thoughts, you roll your eyes, “Spencer, how many friends do you have outside the team?”

“Not a lot.” No hesitation, but he accepted the fact a long time ago. 

“Yeah and that’s okay. But if you’d talk to Intern, you’ll find you two have a lot in common. I know he’s younger than us, but he’s a good kid, real smart,” You give him a meaningful look and shrug, “Not like IQ 187 smart but he could definitely hold a conversation with you.”

Spencer murmurs, pulling you in so you're chest to chest, “This entire time, you were really trying to make us friends?”

You nod, your expression a mix of giddiness and hope that makes whatever feelings he felt before, the confusion and―yes, fine―the jealousy, dissolve like sugar in water. Spencer sinks into you, burying his face into the crook of your neck and inhaling your soap. Of course you had good intentions. Of course you wanted to do something nice for him.

Fuck, he loves you.

“So… we good?”

Spencer huffs, “I hope you realize how much I suffered the past few weeks.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“Then yes, we’re good,” He mumbles into your shoulder, “I appreciate what you were trying to do.”

“And?”

His brow furrows and he pulls back, meeting your eyes. “And what?”

“Will you try to be friends?” You look at him expectantly.

Spencer opens his mouth to answer, a definitive no on his tongue, but then you’re giving him puppy-dog eyes and before he realizes it, “Okay.”

Wait, no. That is not what he meant to say.

“Yeah!” You throw your arms around him, and Spencer can’t stop you, grunting as you basically swing him around like a rag doll. But he finds he doesn’t care when you set him back down because you’re happy, happy for him, grinning ear to ear as you babble, “I can already tell you two are gonna be the best of friends! You guys have so much to talk about, all that nerdy stuff. Maybe even debate! And we could play chess and―”

There’s a knock and you both turn, a voice muffled by the door, “Hey, guys? I don’t want to interrupt in case you’re boning, but you didn’t exactly tell me where to wait for you? God, I hope you guys aren’t boning. Please tell me you’re not boning right now.”

You groan, “No Intern, we’re not boning! Right-uh-go ahead and meet me back at the office, I’ll be right with you.” You turn back to Spencer, sending him an apologetic look. “I will see you later, okay? And since you’ve been such a patient and understanding partner,” You plant him one last kiss before patting his cheek, and his eyes widen as your voice lowers in the way you know drives him crazy, your eyes glinting with mischief, “I’ll make it up to once we get home. Bye, love you!”

Before Spencer can fully register your words, you're out the door, cackling as you leave him to compose himself, his face beet red from running the possibilities. By the time he emerges from the break room, you’re long gone.

“Hi, Dr. Reid?”

Spencer almost snarls, cursing under his breath. Just when he thought the day was getting better. He turns back. 

Intern stands tall, relaxed and shoulders back, black tie loose and cheap white-collar button up slightly wrinkled. No doubt from working hard and following your instructions throughout the day. Spencer respects the work ethic at least. Meanwhile, the younger man eyes him, and he’s certain it’s not from intimidation but with curiosity.

Spencer doesn’t linger on that. He’s used to it, not being intimidating to others.

He continues, “It’s nice to finally talk to you, one on one I mean. I’m a fan of your work. Seven degrees, huh?”

“Yeah,” Spencer says curtly. Recalling the earlier conversation with you, he stamps down his irritation and tries to extend an olive branch. “How did you know?”

“It’s the internet, sir,” Intern raises an eyebrow, offering an innocent smile. 

“Right,” Spencer returns it with an awkward one of his own, “Hey, sorry for... literally kicking you out before. That was completely unprofessional.”

Intern waves him off, “No, it’s cool. I totally get it. I’m flattered, by the way.”

Spencer frowns. “Flattered?”

“Well, it’s not everyday you find out your superior’s jealous of you.”

Spencer blinks, and it takes all his experience as a profiler to mask his embarrassment. “You heard that.”

“The FBI’s got thin walls,” Intern shrugs and steps towards him. “Although I have to say, Agent (Your Last Name) is wrong about one thing.” Stopping short in front of him, for the first time Spencer is close enough to note the moles dotting his face. “They can’t tell that I’m flirting with them.” 

He starts down the hall after you, and Spencer’s eyes trail after him as his brow furrows, until realization slams into him and his jaw drops. “Wait, you...”

“Oh and since (Your Last Name) wants us to be friends, I think we could be on a first-name basis,” He pauses to look back at Spencer, watching with a crooked smile as the older man sputters. 

“So, you can call me Stiles, sir.”

Then once again, Spencer is left behind, frozen in the hallway as he processes what just happened.

And the next time he finds you and Special Agent Stilinski in the same room, whether it’s crowded or not, Spencer does not hesitate to cling to your side, putting as much distance between the intern and you as he can. Spencer’s grateful you don’t question it.

There may not be anyone else for you, but that doesn’t mean no one will try.

―

AN: ahhhhh thanks anon!! There was a similar request then i saw this tiktok (and listened to this tiktok the entire time) and i combined them. Id also like to emphasize that my version of reader is neutral across the board, race, gender, etc.

Yes, i have a type. No, i will not be taking criticism. 

Been hella overwhelmed with classes and work so here’s my way of destressing. Also suggest checking those tiktoks if you wanna understand me :))) also you mean to tell me i have to write the threesome myself?? Bs tbh 😔

watched 15x4 and i was so sad when Spencer addressed Luke as his coworker like no bitch hes your new bro stfu

and i have no doubt that stiles and spencer would be one of the best crossover duos given the chance 

[lynxgriffin]

Straight Outta Monster Narnia

HEY HEY I WASN’T EXPECTING TO DO THIS EVER AGAIN BUT WE’RE BACK

I’M GONNA PLAY ME SOME DELTA RUNE HERE

THOUGHTS AS I GO! ARE UNDER THE CUT!

Here we GOOOOOOO~!

Survey Program! Nice! Ominous!

I am here yes!

Truly excellent dude

OH MAKING A VESSEL NOW what are we Xehanort

NEATO I can pick Chara or Frisk heads or others…

Let’s do someone new. This kinda longish hair head.

STRIPES FOR DAYS! Longish sleeves, methinks

The legs are almost all the same LMAO

This is so friggin creepy I l OVE IT

Favorite food is PAIN nah it’s soft

BLOOD TYPE D. D for DOGGO

You have been gifted with kindness, not-XionFrisk

Pain AND seizure. Kinda wonder what happens if you say no tho…

But I don’t want to start over so let’s go with yes

OH FRIGGIN BUUUUURNED BY THE GAME, HAHAHA

Hi Toriel, you’re looking nice!

That’s a lot of friggin trophies over there

Also Kris, you need some eyes

RELIGIOUS SKA

So we have overachieving perfect child and sad boring child, okay

Awww Gerson wrote a book! How neat

It’s only you…..FOR NOW!!!!

It just isn’t home without white fur stuck in the drain, is it

CHAIRIEL’S RETURN!!!!

Also there’s some weird graphical flicker going on when I move and I wonder if it’s not because I’m playing full screen here

“Spray For The Boys, Flamin’ Hot Pizza Flavor” Damn Toby I missed your incredible sense of humor

DOES TORIEL USE PET SHAMPOO please say yes

ASRIEL’S AT COLLEGE AND UNDYNE’S A POLICE MONSTER, PERFECT

PROFESSOR ALPHYS IMMA GET AN A+ IN ANIME CLASS

DAMN who do I pick as my partner

Like…I really want Temmie…but also Snowdrake…

Random snake is also very good…

Ahhh I see this is gonna be pre-determined

HAHAHAHA FUCKIN BURNED AGAIN BY THIS HORRIBLE BLUE DUCK

Thank you cool snake I love your origin story

Oh this reindeer girl is very cute

MOTHA. FOKKIN. SUSIE

I instantly love her, goodbye

Oh Alphys you’re so not good at putting anyone in trouble

I JUST REALIZED TEMMIE HAS HER EGG ON THE DESK

Susie are you eating chalk

Oh sheet I like Susie less now

GAH DAMN THIS ESCALATED QUICKLY

Susie, Kris doesn’t even HAVE a face

Haha totally cut off my answer there

Hmm. I sense…a theme here.

Wow this really is putting on the restrictive aspects here

Now that’s a spooky face

Oh it ain’t gonna be that simple, mean girls

Well, this sure seems like an underground! Also…Kris is green now, okay

Hi there creepy waving things!

To reiterate: this is soooo creepy AND I LOVE IT

Puzzles! We got puzzles again! CREEPY PUZZLES

Whelp, we found Susie, just kinda hiding out in a…dead dust bunny thingie

LOL so much for a party member following you around

Well this is a new and interesting take on the bullet hell mechanics

Such interesting and different architecture

THE KINGDOM OF DARKNESSSSS

Yes let’s take a sudden HARD SHIFT into Final Fantasy

THE QUEST OF THE DELTA KNIGHTS that was an MST3K ep you know

About like…Leonardo da Vinci actually. Except he was a whiny bitch

LMAO Susie just “nah destroying the world sounds neat”

JOKESTER SANS GLIDES IN A FLAMING TRICYCLE SURE WHY NOT

VERY DIFFERENT COMBAT SYSTEM

“Dunno how I got an ax but like, that’s cool”

CAN’T WAIT FOR THE REMIXES OF THIS BATTLE MUSIC OKAY

Dunno if there’s a pacifist version of this game but I stick to tradition so I’m gonna try it

RALSEI. I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE

THE POWER OF FLUFFY BOYS SHINES WITHIN YOU it sure as hell does, game

The heckin heck Ralsei is so cute

Yup yup we gonna try pacifist this first time!

“If you’re reading this…I guess you’re dead.” Fair enough.

Gaster noises when trying to use the cell phone, hmmmm…

It’s an inverse papou fruit!

Susie just up and attacks this cake, all right

Battle is cool but it’s gonna take some getting used to, think I accidentally used both of my items

YOUR SENSE OF DIRECTION WON’T SAVE YOU NOW

“It’s like a dinner made out of three glasses of milk” Ralsei you’re SO CUTE

Now to see if TP stays leveled between battles…

“I thought you were running away.” / “Yeah, I finished.”

Fugdamn I want —pictures of Spiderman— remixes of this music ON MY DESK TODAY

FRIGHTENING FANFARE

Damn that puzzle still is tricky

Gah damn that was hilarious but also terrifying

We have the power of FLUFFY BOYS and MEAN GIRLS we are UNSTOPPABLE

Ohhh so that’s what the heart outline does!

Now that is a coooool cat and I like him already

Awww I don’t have enough money for the spooky sword

Susie just roastin’ everybody left and right

THEY GOT BARRY

These mechanics continue to be interesting and a bit more complex

“Damn, didn’t get to impale myself” I’m sure you’ll get your chance Susie

It’s really interesting how we’re basically group-battling to PREVENT the tank from beating the crap out of everyone

Oh now that light trick is weird

They keep throwing the usual chess and playing card guys at us and somehow I’m Suspicious

Is that a bucket. ARE Y’ALL HOMESTUCKING AT ME AGAIN

LMAO did Susie call us the Fuckboys or something

Oh, the Shit Squad, I guess!

THE POWER OF THE SHIT SQUAD SHINES WITHIN YOU HECK YESSSS

“I, Mr. Society, am far too intelligent to ever bow down to such a tyrant!” Hmmm.

Oh, it’s Sir Lion Plateface again

L E G S

THE BOSS JUST DRINKS A GALLON OF MILK THAT’S FINE

Well Ralsei got kinda junked there but WE DEFEATED SIR LION PLATEFACE

Cakes…are also my enemy…

Yeeeeah kinda saw that one coming

Susie I get the feeling you’re not going to enjoy being a bad guy either

Dang son I have no clue what’s going on anymore WE JUST HAD SOME SALSA IN A TREE STUMP

This jack’s got my number

That sure is a three-eyed three-headed cat thingamajig

Awww I like Clover

“All proceeds go to kicking your ass” CAN I USE THIS LINE IN REAL LIFE PLEASE

Hot damn we just squeaky hammered our broken cake into ULTIMATE CAKE

Why does a sweet little boy have a mustache indeed.

Create a machine to thrash your own ass, nice

It’s my beautiful death laser duck! Tops in GUN’S

Man Susie and Lancer are just having the time of their lives here

Finally, respect for pinecone-eaters!

Awww Susie, are you actually starting to worry about someone who respects your eating of chalk and pinecones

Oh thank goodness, got through that maze thing

Yes, finally, it’s our DUCK TANK LASER

Why does it say Tuna on it

“Your design sucked so we blew it up” This is like that one Berlin tour guide I had

GANGED UP ON THEM WITH KINDNESS, HA

Whelp, back to telling enemies that Susie will kick them in the shins I guess!

YES LANCER JOIN THE SHIT SQUAD

OMFG THAT FAAAAACE WHAT IS THAT FACE

Hey we’ve got a full Final Fantasy team now! Neat

STOOL FORME

I like how Lancer just sliiiiiides around outside the party instead of walking with

Hmmm well that friendship feeling didn’t last long

You done got locked in the dungeon

Yup sure did eat that jail moss two minutes in

HUH, we’re controlling Susie now

In which choices do not matter…

SUSIE’S FOKKIN PISSED

And we can’t control her actions…but why controlling the human soul?

A pair of eyes got arrested?! What IS the world coming to?!!

Oh dear, we found a bunch of kings in baby jail

Why are these filthy cages so happy-looking

Awwww Susie joined the party for realizes!

So, this about final boss point for this business?

Why are you guys just sitting on a pile of loot

And just who is this sassy lost child?

BAAHAHAHAAA

HECK YEAH WE GET TO FLIRT AGAIN

I am now BED INSPECTOR yes

Hello again fancy blue boy

“Can…can we see it” / “No.”

This sure is a jammin party with CLUB MUSIC OH HO HO HO

Awww he put his bicycle to bed

‘Welcome to my shop, you ungrateful worms” HELL YEAH

I do not wisheth to hear your MP3s! I would rather listen to the sweet song of Death!

Prepare for a battle with…WHATEVER THIS IS!!!!

JUST FUGGIN CHUCK RALSEI AT SIR LION PLATEFACE, I LIKE IT

Six dollars, for all of that?! Geez

WHELP this looks like final boss time…

Hiiiii there Lancer

Oh dang is gettin serious now

Oh woooow that’s…someone’s fetish right there

HOKAY that was tricky but! Having the defense abilities certainly helped with pacifism through that…

Despite ending this peacefully, I don’t think this scene is gonna end on a happy note…

W H E L P

DAYUM that face from Susie!!

Awwww poor Ralsei

We only have BAD-byes WUAH WUAH WUAAAH

DAWWW lil’ Asriel-lookin dude with glasses (and YES I see that anagram there)

LMAO Susie’s face

EPIC ROCK MUSIIIIIC

Also I’ve really been enjoying the color effects

Awww look at this epic adventure you two had in the closet

So basically we went to Monster Narnia, neat

Awww Susie likes Monster Narnia

Oh no we worried Toriel! THE WORST

LIBRARBY

YOU STUDY THOSE HOT DEMON COMICS FOR COLLEGE, TEMMIE

Hiiii Toby you busy makin’ something!

ALPHYS NO, YOU BETRAY MEW MEW KISSY CUTIE

OFFICE UNDYNE, DOn’T ARREST ME

I like reindeer girl’s rowdy hospitalized dad

PARTY ANIMAL TORIEL CONFIRMED

I like how there’s just a poster on the wall in this room that reads PAIN

The police tape simply reads NGGAAAAAHHHHH!

Good grief there’s SO MUCH STUFF TO EXPLORE HERE BUT I HAVE TO KEEP GOING

Snowdrakes don’t have arms, oh no!!!

“Does it hurt to be made of blood??” ….Yes. Yes it does.

HIIIIIIIII SANS

Woah woah woah WOAH WOAH SANS

Everyone is here! Even Ice Wolf!

Yes I’ll take a Double Ice Pizza you weirdos

OH MY GOOOOOOOOOD IT’S BURGERPANTS

10 OUT OF 10 GAME NOW

HIS FACES!!!! “C H I C K S”

That was brilliant, Burgerpants, thank you for existing

Catty!!! Hey where’s Bratty!

Noooo you gotta be besties with Bratty!

Brother Doug…?

Oh no, Mettaton, come out and talk to us!

ASGORE, HELLO

OMG Asgore hugs

Soul flowers….???

Awwww got some flowers for Toriel

THE GAY GUARDS IN THEIR GAY FLANNEL, YAY

It’s so late but I can’t stop until I’ve talked to LITERALLY EVERYONE

Thaaaat’s politics! …Rarely.

Comes to church for the fruit juice, sounds about right

DOG GRAVE, NO

Let’s go into the woods…what could go wrong…

Why can’t I get into the creepy shed…

Well, I think I got everything, so let’s go home now…

ASRIEL MAINS YOSHI IN SMASH CONFIRMED

Awwww Toriel is not big on Asgore’s bouquet!

OKAY decided to go to sleep here.

…Well that didn’t work out great

UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

UUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

WHAT??????????

WHAT????????????

WHAT?????????

HAHA I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT THE FUK HAPPENED IN ALL OF THIS BUT UH. WHEN’S CHAPTER TWO??

THAT SURE WAS A HELL OF A THING

No really Toby please WHAAAAAAATTT

OKAY I HOPE I DIDN’T MISS ANYTHING IMPORTANT BYYYYEEEE

[tisfan]

Add Three Eggs

Title: Add Three Eggs Square: S4 - learning to cook Warning: domestic assassins Pairing: WinterIronWidow Summary: After a mission, the Hydra team regroups in the safe house and spends a little bit of downtime… just being together. Link: A03 for @tonystarkbingo

A/n - Sequel to Sleeper (some time has passed, Tony and Nat are in their early 20s.)

The safe house was boring. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room and television, kitchen. Dining room with horrible chairs and a table shivved up on a couple of matchbooks to keep it from shaking.

Typical Hydra bullshit.

“I am taking the shower, Tosha,” Natasha said, throwing her bags near the sofa. The sofa was very ugly, some late seventies patterned scratchy plaid with thick wooden supports. A box, with cushions, really.  “You patch up.”

“I can do it myself,” James snarled, and Tony was tempted for a moment to drop the Winter Soldier on his self-reliant ass. He didn’t, because James had been shot, and what’s more, Tony was pretty sure that bullet said Stark on it. In more ways than one.

“Of course you can,” Tony said, easing James onto one of the rickety dining room chairs. The light was better. And linoleum was easier to clean blood stains off of. “But I can do it faster.”

James made another unpleasant noise, and Tony ignored it, because James was probably in pain. It didn’t matter, really. There should be-- ah, there it was, under the kitchen counter, next to the dishwasher. A first aid kit.

“Here,” he said, dropping the kit on the table. “Get out of your shirt and let me see. I’ll secure the location--”

(more under the cut)

Tony scrambled around in the kitchen, finding the stash of guns and knives, bullets and money, putting all their new resources on the counter where they could see it and get to it, easily. There was a packet of false IDs just waiting for them, frozen inside a chunk of ice. Tony threw that in the sink, stopped moving long enough to help cut James out of his armor and clothing, until he was stripped to the waist. The shot was clean, in through the shoulder, out the chest. Missed anything major and didn’t break his collarbone, so all that was good.

“Just cauterize it,” James told him.

“Don’t be stupid,” Tony told him. “It’ll scar that way, and then everyone will know when they see you that you’ve been shot. Who knows, you might need to be the Summer Soldier and take a target out on a nude beach.”

James actually barked out a laugh. “Okay, okay, you win. Just make it neat.”

“Tosha does the best stitches,” Natasha said. She was wrapped in a thin towel, her hair piled wet and dripping over her head. She went to her bags and started rummaging around in them, looking for clothes.

They’d all seen each other in various states of undress a hundred times or more during training. But Tony never failed to notice how beautiful his partners were. He wondered, sometimes, if they thought he was beautiful, or only just useful.

He’d even caught them kissing, a few times, and once was pretty sure he’d heard more than just kissing. There were strict protocols in Hydra against fraternization. Tony knew they were aware.

Neither of them had ever offered to kiss him.

Tony did the best stitches because he completely ignored most of the items in the Hydra standard medikit. He’d made his own stitches, part nano-tech, part miniature ziplocks. His efforts to submit those to Hydra’s research and development, or field teams, had been lackluster.

He cleaned the wound, then laid the lock-stick material over the hole. “It won’t hurt long,” he told James.

“Tony-- thank you,” James said. He put his hand over Tony’s for a moment, the touch doing things to Tony’s mid-section. Even after James had moved his hand away, Tony could feel it, the weight of his fingers, the heat of his skin. He wondered what it would be like to kiss James. He wondered if James would let him. He wondered if it would make Natasha angry, if he did.

He’d meant to say anytime, a casual. Blow it off. No problem. And he found himself looking into those blue eyes. “Anything--” he said, then coughed. “Anything you need. You know that.”

“I do,” James said. “We both do.”

There was nothing to eat in the safe house. Not even protein bars. Which meant someone had to go for a store trip.

“Does it have to be me, because I am the girl?” Natasha demanded. Hydra trained her to be a Widow, sexy and deadly and female. And even in Hydra, who thought themselves so much better than the rest of the world, they looked down on women; women seldom made command roles, no matter how useful or skilled. Look at Hale. She was smart and strong and well-trained, highly placed in the US military. And her secret role in Hydra? Was to be a damn incubator.

Natasha put her hand to her stomach, uneasily. At least they wouldn’t do that to her.

“It has to be you because I’m Tony Stark,” Tosha said. “I can’t walk into a damn grocery store in the States and not be recognized.”

That would serve Hydra well, later. Now, Tosha’s role was mainly backup and support. Repair of the Asset. Computer infiltration, electronics, and driver.

“You will drive me,” Natasha said. She didn’t like driving.

“Of course,” Tosha said, easily enough. “What do we need for food, I’ll get you a card ready.”

“We should learn how to cook,” James spoke up, suddenly. “Not eating out of crinkly packages all day. I would kill someone for a meatloaf and gravy.”

Natasha didn’t laugh; she’d seen James kill a man for less.

Tony pulled out his pocket secretary, a device about the size of a scientific calculator, that Tony had adapted as some sort of electronic paper, phone link up, and micro computer. “What’s in it?”

James shook his head. “I don’t know. But there’s a bookstore on the way--” He unfolded the map, which had the town laid out for them in neat, Hydra code. Places to hide, switching stations for the power company, sewer lines, shops. A gun store. “Here. Get a cookbook.”

“Really?” Tony’s eyebrow went up.

“Why not,” James replied. “We will be here weeks at least, on this mission. We should have something to occupy our down time. We will learn to cook. All of us. We will eat together, at the table. As if we are a family. We may be called on, someday, to pose as simple citizens. We should know how.”

He’d expected the team to rebel against it. Cooking, cleaning. Pretending. But James had to admit, Tosha and Natasha surprised him.

Even if it took them four attempts to make anything remotely resembling meatloaf.

Natasha was a dab hand at cutting vegetables, and Tosha was slowly figuring out what instructions in the cookbook meant. Since neither of them had done more than sometimes pour boiling water into a cup of noodles, they’d had to start at the very beginning.

Tony was already up, nursing a cup of coffee and staring at the table aimlessly when James walked in.

“Do you-- I can’t figure out how to… my dad’s butler used to make eggs, not scrambled, or anything like what’s in this book, but he cut a hole in toast and they tasted like butter, it was amazing.”

“Eggs in a basket,” James said, slowly. Sometimes, he would get flashes of a life, before Hydra. A life he had once loved. A boy, he had once loved.

Now, he was Hydra, and that man was forgotten. Mostly.

But there was a boy he loved, right there, looking into his cup of coffee.

“I know how, Tosha. Would you like me to show you?”

“Yeah-- er, no, not really,” Tosha admitted. “I just want you to make me eggs. Pretend like I matter, we’re doing that, right, pretending to be a family. Dad and mom, and completely unwelcome child.”

“What?”

“I just-- I’ve lived this before, James,” Tosha said. “At home, all the time. I don’t-- I won’t tell, I promise, but I… would like to be reassigned.”

“You won’t tell who what?” James knew. Of course Tosha knew. Tosha was very smart, even if it wasn’t always obvious how observant he was.

“Look, you like her, I get that, who wouldn’t like Nat? She’s beautiful and perfect and competent, and… everything. So, so much everything. And so are you. I understand. It’s dangerous, and you’ll get caught, but-- hey, I would totally do it.”

James let himself smile. “Would you? Totally do it?”

“In a heartbeat,” Tosha admitted.

“You do not need to be reassigned,” James said. “The team would suffer in your absence.”

“There are other techs,” Tosha said. “And then I wouldn’t-- look, it’s just hard, okay.”

“We would suffer,” James promised, going to Tony and taking his hand. “Because we love you, and we would miss you.”

“What--” Tosha actually recoiled, as if love was not something he was even remotely prepared to accept.

“We’ve spoken of it, Nat and I, wondering if you would ever do more than look,” James said. “We didn’t want to scare you, or upset you. You sometimes love your machines more than anything else.”

“That’s a lie,” Tosha said, and suddenly James found himself with an armful of shaking, shivering Tosha. “That’s a lie. I know-- I know how it looks, but.”

James lifted Tosha’s chin. “But you do love us, which is good. You do not need to be reassigned.”

“No, I guess not,” Tosha said. “But we’re going to get caught.”

Natasha leaned against the door in the kitchen, her bathrobe loose and open in the front, showing off the gap between her breasts, and her tiny little underwear. “You will not let that happen.”

Tosha stiffened, swallowed, stiffened in yet another way that James could feel. “Uh, no, I guess I won’t.” 

[journeysintowebcomics]

Worm Liveblog #92

UPDATE 92: Daughters

Last time Taylor and Rachel started fixing their relationship somewhat, and Taylor proposed to the rest of the Undersiders the rather daunting task of fighting Coil. They have one week, maybe one week and half to succeed. Let’s continue!

And here it is, it has started: the interludes in the middle of the story, brought by the generous souls who donated to the author. This is one of them. To be honest, I’m not very sure about this...it feels kind of disjointed. I have liveblogged a few webcomics and since then something that’s starting to tick me off is intermissions happening in middle of the story. By now I can only sigh with annoyance every time they happen. More often than not it feels like it breaks the storyline. In this particular case it didn’t really do that because the arc was just starting, but in the future I hope these bonus interludes don’t happen in middle of the arc unless it’s like...another point of view or something like that.

It’s not clear right away who is the protagonist of this interlude. Seems to me it’s a young girl in...a cell, perhaps? A dungeon? It’s a dark place she can’t leave by their own will, seems to me. There’s also another young girl in here – a fellow prisoner? This is confirmed further when a man enters with a plate of food, giving it to them. The point-of-view girl thanks him, he hesitates but doesn’t let that stop him from closing the door and leave them still locked inside.

For a fleeting moment Dinah came to mind, but unless Coil recently kidnapped another girl for whatever reason and also stopped drugging her, it’s unlikely the girl this interlude is about is Dinah. Haven’t ruled out the other girl being Dinah, though. Very low chance but it’s there.

The other girl can’t believe POV girl thanked the man. Why’d she do such a thing to her captor? Hard to think it’d be just politeness.

She couldn’t justify it.  Her heart was pounding.  She stared at the plate.  Soup and bread: enough food for one person, barely enough for two.  She could have said she did it in the hopes that he would feed them more often, but she wasn’t sure she would be telling the truth.

“Let’s… let’s just eat,” she spoke.

It’s still too early to know for sure what to think about this girl, but she seems...I’m not sure what’s the word. Kindhearted? Naïve? I don’t know. She’s a nice girl, that’s what I’m trying to say.

There’s no time for that because the scenario changes to a different person. It’s Alan and Carol...it took me a moment, but I think they’re Panacea and Glory Girl’s parents? No, wait, it was Mark. I think Carol – Brandish – is the mom, but I’m not sure who Alan is.

Carol is dealing with the possibility of closing the office because of the city getting condemned. Right, she’s a lawyer. She’s gathering files and getting busy, but she’s not okay. She has stuff to be worried about, since this is clearly the present, unless Brandish had been in another condemned city before.

Yup, this is the present. I bet she’s worried about Glory Girl. She must be missing right now, after all. But nope! Looks like it’s not that. It’s less motherly and more frustrated reasons to be distracted.

Line by line, Brandish talks about how things led to her husband getting a brain injury that led to a very sad situation we readers are very aware about. We all know how it ended:

Carol smiled, but it wasn’t a happy expression.  “So imagine my surprise when, after weeks of taking care of my husband, wiping food from his face, giving him baths, supporting him as he walked from the bedroom to the bathroom, Amy decides she’ll heal him after all.”

I imagine how it was like for Carol, yeah. There’s this healer in her family who ironically isn’t able to heal him, because she can’t heal brains. Weeks later, you find out that was a lie, and the healer sat on her hands for all these weeks before finally deciding to help. Of course we all know it wasn’t like that! We know about Panacea’s plight. However, Carol doesn’t. To her it looks pretty awful, leaving aside her husband’s recovery, and now, she’s going to spread the word about this to other people, causing damage to Panacea’s reputation. Great, as if that girl didn’t have enough problems in her life. With some luck her stained reputation won’t reach wherever she’s going to go after Glory Girl is healed.

The Slaughterhouse Nine’s visit to Panacea also doesn’t help. Mark must have told her about how that visit went, right? So she must be aware he was healed at their behest. If so, then the impression she has of this is even worse, because it took a supervillain coercing her to finally heal Mark, meaning she didn’t do it willingly. Of course she’d be upset!

Victoria went looking for her after she ran away, returned home empty-handed.  I think she was even more upset than I was, with Amy taking so long to heal Mark.  She was almost inarticulate, she was so angry.”

“Your daughters are close.  The sense of betrayal would be that much stronger.”

So far from the truth. I don’t doubt Glory Girl maybe felt confused and all, but she was very willing to forgive her at first. If it wasn’t for Panacea losing control of her powers because of her emotions for a moment, things may have ended in a much more peaceful manner.

And now, like I said earlier, Glory Girl is missing. She was thinking about joining the Wards, so this mission alongside them may have been her way to prove herself. It...didn’t go like expected at all. Welp! While Glory Girl isn’t anywhere in my list of characters I like, I feel bad for her. I hope Panacea removes from Glory Girl the love she hastily had implanted in her and then goes away. Glory Girl will be majorly upset with that, but it’s for the better to do that anyway, I think.

They know the Undersiders took her for medical attention, but apparently Brandish doesn’t know where in the city the Undersiders are at. Huh. Battery knew where Skitter was, at least. I doubt she kept that to herself, so the Protectorate must know what territories the Undersiders have taken – at least some of them, right? Kind of surprising Carol hasn’t been able to get any leads. So now she’s distraught and came here to get herself busy and calm down. I can relate to that. Pretty normal reaction, yup.

Alan tries to offer help but it’s not that simple. There’s nothing they can do other than continuing the search...

“Welcome back to Brockton Bay, Mr. Barnes.”

Oh! I remember now! I think. Wasn’t Emma’s father a lawyer named Alan? I think it once was mentioned Barnes is her last name? I don’t really remember, but yeah, I think this is Emma’s father. Emma and family must be back in Brockton Bay.

Some time later, Carol seems to have fallen asleep, presumably not in her office. Back at home, most likely. She woke up because a stranger has arrived.

It took me like a dozen lines to realize this is the past, with the girls trapped. My bad. Anyway, these are Carol and Sarah. Now that I think about it, this may be how Photon Mom and Brandish met, right? Because New Wave is a group where two families decided to leave aside any ‘secret identities’ stuff and just admit what their real identities are. I don’t think a pair of random families without any sort of ties would agree to shake the status quo like that. The other possibility is that Carol and Sarah are family. I don’t remember if Carol and Sarah were related, honestly.

These girls have been trapped here for quite a while, it seems they were held as ransom or something, because now a man comes to kill them, saying time’s up. This is the moment Sarah has her awakening. Neat! And like anyone would do in her situation, she uses her newfound powers to fight back against the man threatening them, and it’s pretty bloody. Yikes.

She couldn’t bring herself to protest.  For the first time in long weeks or months, she felt a flicker of hope.

Weeks or months?! I did think it had been a couple weeks, at least, but I didn’t think it could potentially be months! That must have been quite a nightmare for them.

Speaking of nightmares, heeeeere is the other guy! The man who had been bringing them food. This time no amount of ‘thank you’ would make him hesitate, I suppose because his partner in crime’s battered corpse must still be around, so he raises a gun and shoots.

He’d tried to attack them?  Carol couldn’t understand it.  He was the one who’d taken care of them.  When he’d appeared, she’d been happy.  And now it felt like that had been ruined, spoiled.

She felt betrayed and she couldn’t understand why.

Okay, now I know the word I’m looking for is ‘naïve’. I guess it’s not out of the question a criminal can change their mind and all that, but it sounds like Carol took for granted he’d help them. True, he did show some hesitation that one time, but unless he showed hesitation every single time or other signs he was reconsidering this all he wasn’t going to switch sides just like that. Also, there’s a bloody battered body on the floor. Can’t have appealed to his good side.

The man shoots and heeeeere comes the trigger. This is the moment Carol gained her powers. I must say, I really like there has been parts where people other than Skitter have been shown gaining their powers. It has really driven home how traumatic it is to be in the kind of situations that’d get them their powers.

In this case, the vision Carol is having is of an egg opening and a lot of creatures bursting out of it, taking partners and flying away. Quite the vision! So far it had been visions of much older creatures, ones that were dying. I wonder if this is meaningful in some manner, if the vision depends on the person or something like that.

When the vision is over, Carol found herself on the floor. Sarah had tried to defend them, but I suppose the bullets were a lot to protect themselves from, and now that Carol had her trigger event, it’s her turn to fight back. She makes a weapon and attacks, it’s like a laser sword. The man’s limbs are cut and soon, well, he’s dead. That’s the end of this kidnapping and it’s pretty clear this is going to have some nasty psychological trauma on her.

You know, with all these traumatic situations required to have trigger events, it’d be great for new parahumans to consult a psychiatrist. It’s a shame so few have the chance to do so, I suppose.

Back in the present, Lady Photon is here to see her. She brings what could be interpreted as good news: they made contact with Tattletale and struck a deal. Good! If there’s someone who can deduce Glory Girl’s location it’s her. Maybe not with precision but she could perhaps say the general area? Where would Panacea take Glory Girl, anyway? Not a hospital, because she needed to work on her.

The information wasn’t free, of course.

“She wanted a two-week ceasefire.  The Undersiders won’t give any heroes or civilians any trouble, and we ignore them in exchange.”

“That gives them time to consolidate, get a firmer hold on the city.”

“Maybe. I talked to Miss Militia about it, and she doesn’t think they’ll accomplish anything meaningful in that span of time.  The Undersiders have their hands full with white supremacists and some leftover Merchants, the Protectorate and Wards aren’t part of the ceasefire and they’ll be putting pressure on the Undersiders as well.”

Ah, clever. She bought the Undersiders enough time to be able to focus on Coil without any other distractions. I have to wonder if, when Coil is defeated – because I think it’s a foregone conclusion they will! The enigma is how they’ll achieve it – the heroes will find out the Undersiders did it. That’ll make them even more dangerous in the eyes of the heroes.

Indeed, what Tattletale gave them in exchange was the location of both Glory Girl and Panacea. It’s time to go see them! I hope Glory Girl is almost healed by now, so Panacea can get on their good graces before she leaves. Some good reputation even in a place you’re not going to return to is always good, after all.

This interlude is jumping everywhere in the timeline. Back in the past, it’s Brandish in the Brockton Bay Brigade, confronting Marquis – Panacea’s father. They cornered him in his expensive house, Marquis isn’t worried at all. Hm! Is this going in the direction I think it’ll go! I hope it is! It would show how Panacea was adopted by Carol.

Looks like Marquis’ power is to manipulate bone. In a moment many bone spears erupt through his body in what must be a really weird thing to see, but it’ll be effective nonetheless. Bone is kind of a weird material, sometimes it’s depicted as brittle, other times as rather sturdy. I’m guessing Marquis would be able to control the density and hardness of the bone, right? In that case, he could make it as sturdy or as fragile as he wants.

The bone spears weren’t to impale anyone, instead they break off and are transformed into shapes that’d leave open wounds if the heroes get careless. It was to get bone exposed, I think. One of them’s bones in his foot break.

Alright! The heroes’ strategy is to attack constantly. Hit hard and hit often! It’d work better if Marquis couldn’t make a shield of bone, expanding it until it was larger than him, protecting him from Lady Photon’s blasts. I was already thinking ‘could they attack his back somehow?’ when Brandish thinks about how Marquis’ usual strategy is to get out of sight and then burrow to somewhere else.

Marquis emerged from the floor a short distance away, driving a spike of bone up through the ground and then deconstructing it to reveal himself.

I can imagine him encased in a drill made of bone, spinning through the floor and all, haha! But yeah, I must say, this power is pretty interesting, from what I have seen. It’s kind of quirky but also quite fearsome in the right hands.

Apparently he’s trying to protect something and he’s not being straightforward about it. Protecting his daughter, perhaps? It’s an anomaly in his behavior, one that puzzles Brandish.

His power let him manipulate bone.  If it was his own, he could make it grow or shrink, reshape it and multiply it.   It made him, in many respects, a competent shapeshifter.  His abilities with the bones of others were limited to a simple reshaping, and there was a nuance in that the longer his own bone was separated from his body, the less able he was to manipulate it.  Every second he was wasting talking was a second that the bone splinters he’d spread over the area would be less useful to him.  He was putting himself at a disadvantage.

I’m not certain, but I think Marquis has a finite amount of material to work with. Otherwise it wouldn’t be that much of a problem, he’d make more bone spears and replenish the bits of bone he’s not able to control so well. Also, now I see the purpose of the bone spears was for them to break and scatter around. Clever!

So yeah, Marquis is usually known for turning everything around to his advantage, and that isn’t happening here even though he put two of the heroes out of commission in like five seconds flat. Something is distracting him, Carol thinks. In the moments the narration takes to tell all this stuff, Brandish is blindfolded with bone and Lady Photon is imprisoned in a column. Only Manpower and Brandish are available right now, and they’ll try the plan the heroes had agreed all along.

The plan is charging straightforward and even lunging at the weapons Marquis makes. Luckily for them, Marquis is focused on making things as nonlethal as possible, instead trying to imprison them and even undoing a scythe of bone when there’s a chance it can kill Brandish.

Kind of a random thought right now, but I can kind of see how Panacea and Marquis are family, in terms of powers. Panacea has biological manipulation as well, just that instead of just bone like Marquis, she can handle pretty much the entirety of a living being’s biology. The similarity is faint, but it’s there. Must say, the topic of parents and children’s powers being related in some manner is pretty interesting to me.

Anyway, Marquis tries to get away, chance Brandish uses to slash the protection there’s over a closet, which she then tries to impale. Marquis emerges in middle of them and gets stabbed in the shoulder. Ouch!

“What were you so intent on protecting?” Manpower asked.  “This where you stash your illegitimate gains?”

Marquis chuckled.  “You could say that.  The most precious treasure in the world.”

It definitely is Amy. Pretty sweet of him to say such a thing of her. Seems like a sincere remark...it’s a shame things are like this and, well, Marquis had to be taken away. Leaving aside that he’s a villain and therefore does pretty awful stuff, seems to me he genuinely loved Amy. Amelia.

But Lady Photon was already reaching for the door, pulling it open.

A girl. A child, not much younger than Vicky. The girl was brown hair, freckle-faced, and clutched a silk pillow to her chest.  She wore a silk nightgown with lace at the collar and sleeves.  It looked expensive for something a child would wear.

“Daddy,” the girl’s eyes were wide with alarm.  She clutched the pillow tighter.

I wonder if the reason why Amy was hidden in the closet, if it was to protect her or if he also intended to hide her for some reason. Doesn’t seem like the heroes knew he had a daughter.

“I have enemies.  Would you like to see her fall into their hands?  It wouldn’t be pretty.”

I’m not surprised a parahuman would hide the existence of their family, especially if you’re a villain with lots of powerful enemies. Of course if the heroes found out, then the enemies could find out too. He really was trying to hide her, not just protect her. And now that he has been captured, it’s up to the heroes to decide what to do with her.

“The motherfucker has a kid?” Lightstar muttered the question, as if to himself. “And she’s, what,  five?”

“Six,” Marquis answered.

Six. Vicky’s age, then.  She looks younger.

Six years...I’m a bit surprised Amy didn’t remember her father. Six year-olds are self-aware and it’s possible to remember stuff from back then. Faintly, but it’s possible. It’s not out of the question Amy may have forgotten Marquis, but yeah...it’s surprising to me. Well, there are other factors that cause memory loss, such as intense trauma. That’d depend on if Marquis getting arrested was intensely traumatic for Amy, though.

While Marquis talks about what happened to Amy’s mother and about how he enjoyed a lot his life with Amy, Brandish hates everything. Something about Marquis makes her remember the moments back from when she got her power. I don’t...really see the similarities, honestly.

That cultured act, the civility that was real.  Marquis was fair, he played by the rules.  His rules, but he stuck to them without fail.  It didn’t match her vision of what a criminal should be.  It was jarring, creating a kind of dissonance.

This kind of character is interesting, but I feel he’d have more impact if this was explained in some more detail. True, we already know one of his rules, and we can kind of deduce others from the fight, I guess, but I think there’s a chance to go deeper into this. Although...there wouldn’t be much of a point, I guess. Marquis isn’t going to appear again after this – most likely.

Young Amy doesn’t want them to take her dad away, she wants him to stay and rejects any consolation. The heroes can’t do anything but call the PRT and just take Marquis away. Later, Lady Photon has Amy by the hand and seats her in a car. Hm! Amy was calmer than I thought she’d be, if she accepted to get on the car so easily.

Leaving the girl in foster care is not a good idea because if anyone finds out she’s Marquis’ daughter, she’ll be targeted, kidnapped, and exploited for her powers. Brandish gets a bad feeling and asks Lady Photon to adopt her, proposal that is rejected because they already have two children and no possibility of having another. Instead, Lady Photon suggests Brandish adopts her. So that’s how Amy got into this family! And Brandish didn’t want her at all. I think that had been said before, but it sure hits harder when you see it happen.

Brandish doesn’t want Amy, and her husband may have clinical depression. It’s not an ideal family for an adopted daughter, especially one who just saw this bunch of strangers take away her father. She had even shouted at them she hated them. It really is a tragic there were no better options for Amy, because this is far from ideal.

“It’s not just that,” she said.  “You know I have trouble trusting people.  You know why.”

The change on Lady Photon’s face was so subtle she almost missed it.

“I’m sorry to bring it up,” Brandish said. “But it’s relevant.  I decided I could have Vicky because I’d know her from day one. She’d grow inside me, I’d nurture her from childhood… she’d be safe.”

That perceived betrayal scarred her much more than I expected. Maybe it was Stockholm’s Syndrome? The term gets thrown pretty lightly in some stories, so I don’t really how grave it is in reality. From what I read here in a rather superficial research I just made, it’s pretty rare but it’s generally positive emotions and thoughts towards people who have wronged you, as illogical as it can be. Not sure if that fits, though. The cases I read about here indicate those feelings stayed for a very long time, unlike in this story, where Carol felt betrayed pretty quickly. I don’t dare to just call it naiveté, though.

Nothing else to be said here. Brandish will take Amy, even if she doesn’t want her. Nobody else can do it. And that’s the story behind this family. Goodness gracious!

Back in the present, Carol isn’t full of joy when she encounters the daughter she didn’t want. Yup, they found Panacea and therefore Glory Girl must be around too. Brandish immediately asks where’s Glory Girl; Amy’s response is that she’s sorry. Sorry for having kept her and made everyone worry the Undersiders had kidnapped her or something, I guess.

The location is a ruined neighborhood, possibly a random abandoned house. When Carol had arrived, Amy rushed outside to block the door – and yield at the first push once they try that, because compared to Brandish and Lady Photon, Panacea isn’t an obstacle at all. They ask for explanations, giving her the chance to say what’s going on.

“I didn’t want her to fight.  And I didn’t want her to follow, or to hate me because I used my power on her again.”

Again?

“So I thought I’d put her in a trance, and make it so she’d forget everything that happened. Everything that I did, and the things that the Slaughterhouse Nine said, and everything that I said to try to make them go away.  Empty promises and-“

So she did manipulate her memory again. She did break her own rules again and did what she thought was best. Erasing the memories of what Jack had said and everything Amy replied is more than I expected, but maybe it’s for the best. How will Brandish and Lady Photon react at these news? I doubt they’ll approve Panacea modified someone’s memory, but will they become angry?

They didn’t have much of a reaction to that. Alright.

Something in Amy’s voice alerted Brandish something was wrong, so she forced her way in and rejected Panacea’s hand when she tried to stop her. Amy was fearful, both staying against the wall and pleading her to stop going further into the house, while Brandish got upstairs and saw the only open door around, entering without hesitation. When Brandish stops, Panacea hurries to get there to explain.

You know, nothing good happens when someone has to say ‘please, let me explain’. I already dread what I’m going to read.

Amy kept talking, her voice strangely monotone after her earlier emotion, as if she were a recording.  Maybe she was, after a fashion, all of the excuses and arguments she’d planned spilling from her mouth.  “I wanted her to be happy.  I could adjust.  Tweak, expand, change things to serve more than one purpose.  I had the extra material from the cocoon.  When I was done, I started undoing everything, all the mental and physical changes.  I got so tired, and so scared, so lonely, so I thought we’d take another break, before I was completely finished.  I changed more things.  More stuff I had to fix.  And days passed.  I-“

Brandish clenched her fists.

“I lost track. I forgot how to change her back.”

...you know, the more I read this, the more I felt this...strange sensation inside me. It was the same weird sensation of nervousness, like intense dread, I even had goosebumps. I reread it all when I pasted it here and I still felt that. Guess that means it’s pretty effective writing, eh? I can say without exaggeration this is the most...nervous, I guess...I have felt reading Worm so far.

A caricature. A twisted reflection of how Amy saw Victoria, the swan curve of the nape of the neck, the delicate hands, and countless other features, repeated over and over again throughout.  It might even have been something objectively beautiful, had it not been warped by desperation and loneliness and panic.  As overwhelming as the image and the situation had been in Amy’s mind, Victoria was now equally imposing, in a sense.  No longer able to move under her own power, her flesh spilled over from the edge of the mattress and onto the floor.

...

...

...

...well then.

I’m glad I’m having a very hard time picturing this. Usually when I read something, I imagine it pretty vividly, but here I’m having some trouble picturing Victoria’s current state. Just from the description here it’s horrifying. I’m glad I can’t process just how awful it is.

...but dang, I’d have never thought something like this would have happened to Glory Girl. I didn’t like her, but that doesn’t mean I thought she’d have such a...I don’t even have words to describe it well. If Jack heard about what Panacea once she broke her own rules did...well, he’d be pleased he managed to push her towards doing something like this, even if it was pretty much an accident.

Last time these two had appeared in the story Glory Girl was recovering and Panacea was...not completely stable, but she seemed to be okay enough. What’ll Skitter think of this? Will the Undersiders find out?

Now what? What’s going to happen to them? No way anyone will let Panacea get anywhere close to Glory Girl again, and there’s not an abundance of parahumans with healing powers or the ability to manipulate someone else’s body. And Panacea...no way the heroes are going to just brush this aside. Is she going to be prosecuted for this? Sorry for the rambling, I guess I’m at a loss for words.

Obviously, Brandish isn’t taking this well. Her first thought is that this is a betrayal, and she was about to hit Panacea with her weapon when she finally took a good look at her.

The girl was so weak, so powerless, a victim.  A victim of herself, her own nature, but a victim nonetheless.  A person sundered.

Yeah, that’s...an apt description. Goodness, all this is pretty messed up. It takes all the fighting will out of Carol.

Some time later, Dragon and Carol are talking.

Carol stared as Amy shuffled forward.  The cuffs weren’t necessary, really.  A formality. Amy wasn’t about to run.

She’s going to the Birdcage, isn’t she. Geez, what an unfortunate end for her character arc. Unless there’s an arc happening in the Birdcage or something – a viable possibility, given how dangerous the Undersiders will be known as if their plans work! – Panacea isn’t going to appear again.

Just...just some recognition for how complicated Panacea is. I find that appealing and also very pitiable.

The armed escort would be waiting.  No court- Amy had volunteered, asked to go to the Birdcage.

No surprise there, she must be feeling a horrifying amount of guilt, so intense only going to the Birdcage will be a step towards getting rid of it. I don’t think she ever will. This isn’t the kind of thing you ever forgive yourself for.

Surprisingly, Carol gives Amy a rather tight hug. I don’t think there’s any love, but she’s sorry. Amy gets into the truck and off the transport goes towards the Birdcage, to never leave that place ever again.

Carol nodded. “Two daughters gone in the blink of an eye.”

“Your husband decided not to come?”

“He exchanged words with her in her cell this morning.  He decided it was more important to accompany Victoria to Pennsylvania.”

What I do find surprising is that Carol was the one to stay with Amy instead. She never wanted her, after all. I thought she’d want to avoid being anywhere close to Amy after...after what she did to her daughter. Guess the defenseless, hopeless and desperate Amy did strike a chord in her, enough to sympathize with her enough to stay and say goodbye to her. Too little, too late, though.

“You didn’t want to see Victoria off to the parahuman asylum?”

“Victoria is gone.  There’s nothing of her left but that mockery.  Mark and I fought over it and this was what we decided.”

Maybe it’s unkind of me to say such things, but with this it seems like she refused to say goodbye to Victoria because in Carol’s eyes she doesn’t exist anymore – all that’s left is whatever was the result of Amy’s mistakes. In contrast, Mark still thought of her as a daughter and wanted to see her off. Am I being too harsh with Carol by thinking like this? Maybe. But that’s what comes to mind.

Amy is gone, but Carol doesn’t leave yet. Instead she requests to watch Amy’s arrival to prison. Dragon has no problem allowing that, so after a few hours of waiting, Carol finally gets to watch it. Amy arrives, Dragon turns on the sound so Carol can hear what happens inside.

A second later, the sound cut in.  An announcement across the prison PA system: “-one-two, Amy Dallon, AKA Amelia Lavere, AKA Panacea.  Cell block E.“

You know, this must be quite a shock for anyone who knows who Panacea is. I bet many will be wondering how the hero who went around healing people in hospitals and stuff was sentenced to spend the rest of her life in the Birdcage. I imagine there’ll be lot of questions, and Amy will refuse to answer every single one of them, I bet.

Or maybe not, because Marquis enters the scene. With his protection, Amy will be left alone. Lung is behind him and is blocked so Marquis approaches Amy alone.

“I’ve been waiting,” he spoke.

Welcome home, Amy? I’m not sure if meeting Marquis again is good or bad for her. I just hope it’ll be good. At least she’ll have someone to trust in here – if she trusts him, that is.

This is the end of the chapter; Carol goes away after seeing Marquis meet his daughter again. Before I stop writing, though...

The day I cease seeing her as his daughter and see how she could be mine, he takes her back, she thought.

I understand how Carol feels – I think. I understand the traumatic reasons behind her complexes, I understand it’s very difficult for her to trust anyone, and I understand in her eyes Amy was a walking reminder of Marquis.

But, despite all that, I’m having a pretty hard time sympathizing with Carol. I just...can’t, for some reason. It’s tragic, pitiable, some would even say pathetic, but despite all that I just am unable to sympathize with her. Maybe because the thought of a small child being blamed for something out of her control rubs me the wrong way. It’s the kind of thing that’s very unfair, you know?

But even though I don’t sympathize with Carol I can’t despise her. Maybe precisely because of how pitiable she is. I’m not sure what kind of emotion Mr. Wildbow was aiming for, but I’m sure he managed to tug the right heartstrings in a lot of people, even if in me it may not have the right effect.

Also, I’ll miss Panacea. I warmed up to her throughout the story, maybe because she was a complicated character. Oh well. She had a good run.

Guess next update the arc will continue? We’ll see next time!

Next time: in six updates

[fallenesspoetry]

As Hot As You Can Go (full text)

AO3 FFN FICBOOK (RUS)

Rating: Explicit/NC-17

Pairing: Donald Ressler/Jessie Brooks (OFC)

Warnings: Nudity, Swearing.

Summary: Donald Ressler doesn’t expect someone to take care of him.

"Who's there?" Donald asked as someone knocked in his door outside.

It was a sheer luck he decided to check if the door was locked otherwise he wouldn't have even heard the tap. His doorbell was dead, and, frankly speaking, he had no desire or time to fix it. He wasn't expecting anyone to come over, anyway.

Even if someone was interested in stopping by, it wasn't the best time to visit—Donald had been recovering from a nasty shot in the leg for almost two weeks and he wasn't in the mood of welcoming any late night guests.

The cane and painkillers were his best pals, because the slightest movement echoed with excruciating pain.

In spite of his condition, Donald insisted on coming back to work, agreeing to the desk duty. His job had been everything for him, whatever grunt and dangerous it sometimes might have been.

He heard a muffled voice outside.

"It's me, Jessie."

It was his colleague, Jessie Brooks.

Quietly cursing, Donald hung his black coat back on the rack. He also put his car keys and the badge which said Special Agent Donald Ressler in the drawer underneath the rack, and hurried to open the door. It took him a minute longer than usual.

"Hey, Don, sorry to drop by like this," Jessie blurted as if someone was after her.

Agent Brooks had been recently transferred from New York to Washington, and at first Donald saw her as a younger sister who needed to be looked after.

At the office she was a disaster: always late with the reports, almost as stressed as the suspect when it came down to the interrogation, and nearly dozed at briefings.

Donald tried hard to look for an explanation, but since Jessie was great in the field and had had his back so many times he'd lost count, he helped her with the paperwork. Unexpectedly for them both, but mostly for Ressler, they became best friends. They covered each other if needed, and hang out till dawn in bars.

At first it seemed odd for Donald his partner wasn't eager to go home (he thought Jessie was seeing someone). It turned out she'd rather spend time with him scolding at their boss, drinking and talking than coming back to an empty apartment.

It was out of question for them both to fool around to blow some steam off since they could get their asses in a big trouble. Not mentioning the overall morning after awkwardness.

Three weeks ago the blacksite they operated from was under siege, resulted in the worst nightmare of any operative: a clash in a closed area, outnumbered, communications jammed. Somehow the terrorists had learned about the blacksite's location, infiltrated it and took its personnel hostage.

Jessie was late at work on that day, but managed to sneak in unnoticed. She disabled the jammers, and slipped out to come back with the cavalry later. But Donald hadn't been that lucky: he caught a bullet in his leg, trying not to give up the warehouse with explosives.

However, when it was over, Jessie was back to her usual absent-minded self, and Don tried his best to help her.

That's what friends do, right?

Now Jessie, a short, strongly built woman, nervously tugged the zipper of her rain-soaked leather jacket. When Donald first met her he thought she looked, at best, eighteen. She was almost the same age as him, though. Few years younger, give or take.

A couple of curly dark-brown strands broke out of her red cap. She had a shy look on her almost childish, round face. There was a pair of bags from the supermarket.

"I thought, you know, you're here, all alone… Damn, it's not what I meant," she stammered, her cheeks blushing.

Donald didn't get where it was all coming from given the countless times they would talk about occasional one-night stands or cracked dirty jokes.

It was the first time they met like this, since Don had never been at Jessie's. They both preferred not to mix their private life and work.

And, to be honest, Donald didn't think of himself as a charmer. Of course, there were some lucky nights here and there, with no names or calls after, but that was it.

"Yeah, of course," he curved his lips in a sly smile. "Come on in already."

The bags looked heavy, but in his condition…

"I wish I could—"

"Nah, I'm cool," Jessie interrupted him, sounding less tense. She lift the bags and sauntered inside.

Donald locked the door, his eyes kept on Jessie's back. It was kinda unexpected that someone had actually bothered to check on him... Unlike those "friends" at Quantico who hadn't even called over these years.

Meanwhile, Jessie hung her leather jacket and a cap on the rack, and took off her sneakers. She was wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a plaid shirt, almost matching his own home outfit, except the shirt. That seemed odd, since she must be just from work. You couldn't walk into the office like that unless you were going undercover.

"I thought you're free at ten," Donald wondered as they walked to the kitchen, passing a small living room where the faded wall paint asked to be refreshed, and it'd be nice to replace a sofa, too.

There was a neat pile of The Washington Post on the table. A just opened bottle of Heineken loomed lonely on the scratched surface.

"I left earlier. You should see Cooper's face when I told him that," Jessie giggled. "He couldn't forbid me to use my overtime, so here I am. Oh, and if he asks, I had some "family matters", alright? My nephew or what-not… What's so funny?" she broke off, seeing Ressler slyly crinkling his eyes and grinning widely.

"'Family matters', huh? You prefer what, 'sweetie' or 'honey'?"

"Shut up or I'll feed you this carrot. And not in the mouth."

Jessie washed her hands, dried them with the towel and started going through the groceries, putting them either on table or in the fridge.

Suddenly a very strange thought, given their relationship with Jessie, appeared in Donald's mind.

What if every evening could be like that?

Hadn't he wanted at times to leave the job, sell the apartment, empty all the savings and buy some nice house far away from here? Somewhere near the lake or river. To have a life, a family of his own, and a kid or two.

He forced his thoughts back to the present.

"Don't get me wrong, but how do you expect me to eat all that?" Donald sighed, pretending to sound annoyed. He placed himself comfortably in the chair, putting his cane away.

"Who knows, Don, maybe 'honey' will stay here till morning."

Their looks met.

Donald couldn't read anything in her hazel eyes, resembling now spilled amber ink.

Couldn't one just screw all these rules and do what they want?

On one hand, he didn't want to ruin their friendship with a short moment of weakness. On the other hand…

Actually, if she brought this thing up, could that mean she also wanted it?

…Or maybe, it was just another joke.

"So, how you want it?" Jessie asked, looking him straight in the eye, her voice calm and crisp.

"Want what?"

He completely lost the direction this conversation was going to.

"The steak, Ressler. Rare, medium-rare, medium, well done?"

Jessie grinned and took a massive cut of beef from the fridge, and laid it on the chopping board. A moment later she opened the exact drawer where he kept the knives.

"I guess, medium is okay… Listen, you need a hand or something?"

Jessie put away the knife she was sharpening and opened the cupboard. She took a few plates, two glasses, two forks and two butter knives.

"Here," Jessie gave him a dish towel, and went back on to cutting the meat. Finished, she soaked it with oil, seasoned it with salt, pepper and also added a few other spices he had no slightest idea of.

Donald didn't remember having anything else than salt and pepper.

Jessie noticed his confused look.

"These are mine. I wasn't sure you had something."

"You don't live in here, right?” Donald joked, drying the dishes, as he watched Jessie seasoning already peeled potatoes in salt and flour.

"Sorry, what?" Jessie asked, turning the stove on, and leaving the potatoes to roast.

"I said, you look like you've lived here forever."

"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?"

She licked a drop of the barbecue sauce from her finger.

"It's just I remembered something," Donald said, trying to ignore a totally inappropriate thought crossing his mind. He blamed the painkillers for it.

"Ah, I see. Who knows Don, who knows…"

Jessie resisted an urge to laugh, seeing how Donald's features changed: his green eyes widened, and it seemed that even his bright ginger hair had lost a shade or two.

She chuckled. "For the record, you did nothing inappropriate." The look on his face told her he didn't believe it, so she added, "Relax, Don, we were off the minute we got into your bed."

She put the steaks in the pan, and leaned to do a raincheck on the potatoes.

Donald was staring at her back, thinking. She seemed different. Not her straightforward, arrogant, sharp-tongued self.

She was… cozy. It's a weird comparison, but that's the closest one he could find to express what he felt right now.

"Stop staring at me like that, Ressler."

She kept grilling the steaks, flipping them.

"I'm not staring, I'm watching. Just in case."

"Just in case?" Jessie wondered, serving the hot steaks on the plate and covering them with foil. Next, she turned the potatoes off.

Turning her face to Donald, she caught a sliding dish towel from her shoulder, and tucked a loose curly strand behind her ear.

Something had changed in her as she approached him.

Her T-shirt clung to her body and her tight jeans embraced the curves of her hips. She came so close her knees were touching his.

At this moment Donald deeply regretted that first of all, Jessie was his friend, and only then—a very attractive woman.

"Maybe, that night I couldn't help but…" Jessie whispered into his ear. She almost breathed the words out, her voice low and deep.

He knew that voice—she occasionally used it over the phone when they needed to smoke the guy out.

Jessie took a long pause. Her uneven breath tickled his ear. Her body was in a very dangerous proximity to his.

"…grab a beer from your fridge."

Damn it!

He got played like some fucking teenager.

You won't get away with it.

"I found your bra in the morning."

Jessie froze, baffled, like a typical straight-A college girl, caught off guard with a question she had no answer to.

Donald struggled to hide a winning smile, watching her.

She hadn't noticed him grinning, her thoughts back to that particular night at Ressler's place.

Both of them were so hammered, that even if something did happen, it wouldn't really matter. She hoped it hadn't. She really liked her job.

And then it came down to her. 

The smile Donald had right now on his face would make Cheshire cat green with envy.

"Ressler! You sly ginger ass!"

Donald acted on instinct: he ducked from the blow and clenched her wrist, pulling Jessie closer.

Her wrist was still damp from water. She had firm, strong hands, but one wouldn't tell that at once. Donald had seen quite often the marks her punches left. No, he wouldn't want to piss her off.

Well, this steak is definitely a turn-on.

This thought had almost made him laugh.

Or was it something else?

At this job you couldn't even remember when it was the last time someone took care of you. The FBI had been everything for him—his wife and his mistress.

And there was that night. Donald's rational self preferred to think nothing happened, but the irrational—wished it woud.

It was super easy with Jessie. She was a great listener and would always find a joke to lighten the mood. However, when you gave her a headstart, she'd talk you to death.

For a moment Donald felt sorry for all those times she had to listen to him bragging about this or that girl he'd got laid.

Suddenly, his left hand acted on its own, sliding a few inches down Jessie's waist.

Totally shocked by his own audacity, Donald yanked it away and loosened his grip.

But Jessie wasn't rushing to step back.

Donald couldn't even say a word, when the dish towel slightly swatted him.

"Sit down and eat."

Her calm and a bit tired voice gave him hope she wasn't angry.

Jessie turned her back from him, grabbing beer from the fridge.

Sure, she must be thinking what a jerk he was.

Or worse.

Things were complicated, because Donald was in charge of the taskforce. And that meant he was her boss. They would always laugh at Jessie, who ignored any kind of subordination. It constantly got her into a lot of trouble. On top of that, her rank was lower than Donald's, and she had been also granted only level two clearance, while Don had level four. Jessie had to wait for half a year to take an exam to upgrade her rank.

Donald, on the other hand, did his best to keep both of them out of trouble.

He and Jessie were very different: she could spark with anger faster than one could lit a match, but she cooled off fast; Don was cold-blooded and reasonable, not letting his emotions to stand in his way.

"Jess, listen..."

Jessie silently cut the roasted potatoes in half, adding a small piece of butter inside, and put them on his plate.

A card player couldn't do a better poker face she was having right now.

Of course, she was ignoring him.

Who wouldn't?

"Jessie..." Donald was almost pleading.

Not uttering a word, Jessie opened the beer, pouring first a glass for him, then for herself.

"Let's blame it on painkillers," she said, her voice flat.

Donald wanted to apologize, yet all the excuses seemed so dumb and lousy...

"Just eat already. Or I'll change my mind."

How come he had never noticed what a radiating smile she had?

*

"…and he choked on his joint when you told him that."

Donald laughed almost to tears. It was one of their night shifts—they were surveilling some junkie whose drug dealer was a subject of their murder investigation.

Jessie, chuckling, opened another beer. Pouring Donald a glass, she suddenly frowned her face.

"You had your meds today?"

"I think I did. Or not. Not sure, really. Actually, it's on you."

"We can always refresh your memory," Jessie pointed at the dish towel behind her back on the chair. "When?"

"In the afternoon, I guess."

"Ressler!"

Donald noticed that the strange mix of anger and worry made her face even more attractive.

"No, it's okay, really. For the first time in days."

He wasn't lying, because for the past few hours the leg indeed didn't hurt at all. And he completely forgot about taking his meds throughout the day.

Jessie's gaze faded a bit. She looked anxious. And sad.

"You okay?" Donald wished he could stand up quickly and hug her. "Thank you," he gently squeezed her hand.

If this gesture confused her somehow, she hadn't shown it.

"No big deal. I don't have anyone to cook for anyway."

Jessie sounded cheerful, but one could hear a trace of longing in her voice.

Don knew that feeling too well. He hadn't gotten to say a word to comfort her, as the phone rang somewhere in the hall.

"It's mine," Jessie blurted, rising herself from the seat. A moment later, she disappeared in the hall.

Don, pouring himself another glass, was thinking what a great evening it had been. It was actually the first time he ate something home-cooked, because usually he picked some Chinese to save time.

His apartment wasn't spacious, so one could hear everything, even if one talked quietly. However, quiet was not Jessie's style. She swore loud and dirty, like a sailor on the ship.

Don didn't care about swearing as he would do the same once or twice. In the end, everyone blew their steam off any way they could, right?

"…No, I fucking can't!"

Jessie came back looking like she could choke anyone who's going to ask her if she's okay. Donald had no intention to see it come true, so he refilled her glass and prepared to listen.

"You wouldn't believe it!"

"Try me."

"Apparently some jerk decided it's a good idea to cook meth in the building I'm fucking living. Of course, a moron he is, this idiot screwed up." She gulped her beer. "The police asked everyone to crash someplace else for the night."

Not thinking twice, Donald suggested, "You can stay here."

Jessie studied him for a moment with her eyes. They grew few shades darker, now resembling a strongly brewed coffee.

"You won't hit on me, right?"

"You want me to?" Donald raised his brow. "I can take the couch," he added.

Well, he couldn't blame her for the remark—she had her reasons. It made him upset somehow. He couldn't get why, though.

"And kill me the next morning? First, your leg, then your back." Jessie took the last bite of the steak. "The couch is okay, thanks."

Don went to look for the quilt and a spare pillow. When he came back, Jessie was doing dishes.

"Go and rest, now," she scolded him like a mother.

He put away his cane, took a dish towel and leaned against the table.

She gave him another angry look.

"I'm not a kid, Jess..."

He didn't finish because in an instant sharp, unbearable pain pierced his leg. It was as if someone tied a knot with his muscles and nerves, tying it tighter and tighter, twisting and pulling, the pain resonating all over his body.

"Fuck!"

He would have fallen but for Jessie's instant reaction. She caught him in a field nurse manner, placing his hand across her shoulder, embracing his waist with her other.

As Donald was taller than her, he occasionally buried his face in her hair, smelling the scent of spices she used cooking.

"Can you walk?"

Don shook his head. He wished he could have cut his leg, if only it would stop aching.

"No offense, but my shoulders getting numb. Where are the pills?"

"My pocket." But as Jessie's hand reached the side pocket, he added, "No, at the back. You have to—"

"I got it," Jessie hissed, trying not to think that he actually had quite an ass. She sometimes checked it out when he, acting bossy, ran here and there in the office. More than she cared to admit it became the reason of misspelled words and missing chunks in her reports.

Muttering, Jessie slid her hand into Donald's back pocket. "And here I thought this couldn't get any more awkward."

"You say like you've never seen my… Ouch!"

Boy, that hurts. Why would she pinch him?.. Yeah. Right. The bra joke.

"Keep quiet, Ressler... It's empty."

Don wanted to joke but another round of pain got the best of him. Burying his face again in Jessie's hair, he groaned through his clenched teeth.

Jessie gently stroked his back, embracing him tighter. A lot of thoughts were drumming in her mind now.

What could possibly ease his pain? An abrupt change of sensation?

Okay. Let's assume it could work. But what exactly?

Suddenly she got an idea. The most crazy and worst idea ever, but if it could help…

"Try to lean against the table with your back."

He didn't really believe it would make any difference.

"Don, just trust me, okay?"

And he did as she asked.

"Close your eyes," Jessie's surreal voice coated him in warmth.

His mind, exhausted from the pain, didn't even bother to pose a question 'what for'.

In less than a second Donald felt her small, slightly wet, warm lips pressed against his own.

It indeed felt much better.

Unexpectedly for himself Donald answered her gentle and unsure kiss with aggressive persistence. His hands slid under her T-shirt. She shuddered, but hadn't broke the kiss.

But he did.

"You sure?" Donald asked, his voice resembling an aroused cat in heat purring.

"Yes," Jessie breathed out, kissing him again, this time much harder, running her fingers through his hair, tugging on it.

She wanted to learn each inch of his lips by heart, as those were changing their mood—gentle at first, yet demanding, and then—as hungry as her own.

Donald's hands possessively slid under her T-shirt again. Jessie, taking the hint, freed herself from both shirt and the tee. A moment later her bra joined the rest on the floor.

Kissing Donald again, she pressed her body against his.

Don, gently breaking the kiss, ran his fingers over her breasts. When he lightly grazed her nipples, unsure of how she wanted it, rough or gentle, Jessie, catching her breath, wondered, what for to have such experienced hands if not using them with proper pressure?

Grinning at this remark, Donald complied. His touches got harder. Jessie groaned. She kissed him again, this time impatiently, digging her nails into his cheekbones.

Donald got his finger wet with saliva and caressed her hardened nipples, watching her body grow more and more supple. She melted into his lightest touch, breathing out something incoherent.

He slid his right hand down to her jeans.

Out of sudden, her thighs slammed his hand shut like a trap.

Well, this was unexpected.

"I need this hand, Jessie," he purred almost in a cat-like manner, kissing her in the neck.

Jessie, still not sure how she felt about what was happening, tried to ignore how quickly his soothing voice turned her on.

It turned out Donald wasn't to give up that easily: the things he was doing with his lips on her neck made her feel like a horny college girl. Her thighs had treacherously opened.

At some point he had hungrily sucked on her neck, almost biting it.

"Jeez, Don, it's not a steak."

Ressler softly nibbled her neck with small, light kisses. She wrapped her arms around him, clinging her body against his. He wasn't overly fit or too lean, just somewhere in between.

"Feeling… better?" Jessie wondered, catching her breath again.

It should have been one fucking kiss!

"I'm not sure," Donald grinned. Now he reminded her of a well-fed ginger cat, content and sly. "It's much better than the pills."

"Don't get too comfortable. It's a one-time offer."

"Don't you like it?" Donald reached to the fly of Jessie's jeans, pretending to be hurt by her words. Unzipping it, he stripped them down a little.

"No, not even—"

The words got lost a halfway through her throat, when Jessie felt his left hand roaming her breasts, this time grazing them harder than before. His right hand slid down beneath her jeans and he pushed aside her underwear with his finger.

Her jeans didn't actually prevented her from getting high on his touches. Yet without them it would be a thousand times better. With this thought in mind, Jessie hastily pushed them down along with the underwear.

"You still don't like it?" Donald wondered, his voice suave and lower then before.

Not giving a damn he could lose his balance, he licked Jessie's hardened nipple with the tip of his tongue, simultaneously caressing her damp, warm flesh with his fingers. He wasn't in a hurry to slip them inside, taking pleasure in driving her crazy.

"R-ressler… we... will… fall..." Jessie was almost growling, aggressively tugging on his hair, breathing unsteadily.

When his fingers caressed her clit, her bizarre, dirty whisper turned into a pleading moan.

His touches were knowing and precise.

He rubbed. Circled. Stoked. Pressed.

Rough. Light. Rough. Light. Up-and-down. Less rough. Lighter. Almost weightless. A bit harder. Harder. Rougher. Slow. Slower. Almost idle. Quick. Quicker.

And then he would start over again.

Jessie's body shuddered, and he knew her release was close.

Unfortunately, given his condition, multitasking was difficult: it became harder to keep his balance and caress Jessie, so her orgasm had to be delayed till better times.

The tip of his tongue toyed with her nipples one last time, and he leaned back against the table.

"I know it, I'm not an idiot," Donald whispered huskily, struggling to keep his balance.

"I highly d—" Jessie didn't finish, because he pressed his lips against hers.

The kiss turned out to be a lot more intense than he expected to. Jessie answered him, digging her fingers fiercely into his jaw. Her tongue delved into his mouth.

"We… can't… keep it… like this," Jessie said, panting, like she had just run a marathon.

But for his leg he was guaranteed to have fucked her right here fifteen minutes ago. And thinking about it had turned her on even more.

Where the fuck those damn painkillers are?

"Something's on your mind?" Donald asked, keeping himself cool as if they were discussing another ongoing case.

Jessie was looking unthinkably hot at this moment: her dark curls, coiled in a snake-like manner, fell loosely on her shoulders; red cheeks resembled two ripe apples, skin reddened from his touches.

Acting like she hadn't heard his question, Jessie turned, kicking her piled clothes aside with her foot. She left the room, not even bothering the neighbors might see her naked shape in the window.

Five minutes passed. Though it felt like forever.

Donald carefully stretched his numb back.

"I'm still here, Jess."

Nothing.

"Listen, I get it if you're on your own. But at least let me watch."

What was she thinking, leaving him all hard up like this? To put it mildly, it's at least not fair. Well, she must be feeling not that great too, given the fact he...

And then it occured to him: she must be looking for his painkillers.

"Shut up, Ressler, if you don't want to be up like that all night," Jessie hissed angrily from the bathroom, going through his meds in the drawer.

What a fucking mess!

Jeez, one could jack up half a block with these. Well, it was the same way at her place. Stress relievers, antidepressants… You name it.

"I'm up anyway."

"Yeah, I can see that," Jessie smirked, coming back in the kitchen.

She gave him one snow-white pill and a glass of water.

"Thanks."

The minutes had never dragged for so long.

Don was devouring Jessie with his eyes, contemplating.

What for to look for something far and unreachable, if everything you ever needed was right by your side?

"Better?" she asked, her crisp voice filled with sincere worry and something else he couldn't make yet.

Donald nodded.

Jessie hadn't gotten a chance to say something else. In an instant she found herself sitting on the dinner table.

"I hate to be a buzzkill..." Donald approached her. His hands stroke her thighs, and those spread at his touch.

Jessie grabbed him by his belt and pulled him closer to her. Rapidly undoing it, she hastily unzipped his fly.

"Woah, easy there. I'm gonna need it."

"Shut up already and fuck, Ressler."

[queen-of-deans-booty]

Heart- Part 1

Pairing: Dean x Reader

Word Count: 2,383

Warnings: Typical Supernatural violence, language, angst, minor character death, blood, you know the usual

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Supernatural. All credit goes to their respective owners. If you’re a junkie for this sort of thing, then a tag list is the right thing for you! If you want to be a Queen, I’ll add you to that list too! Any and all comments on these are appreciated. I really want to hear what you guys think about this one!

Feedback is the glue that holds my writing together.

Tags at the bottom

There wasn’t a lot you didn’t believe in. You knew a ton of monsters existed and you killed a shit tone of monsters in your days. The one monster who you didn’t like at all were werewolves. Those dogs were nasty and one bite from them meant you got turned and there was nothing you could do about it.

“How is your ankle doing?” Dean asked.

“Dean, that was a week ago. It has healed by now.” You said with a smile.

“I know, still.” Dean said with a shrug. You giggled and couldn’t help but think he was so damn adorable like that.

“You’re so cute.”

“Hey, I am not cute.” Dean said as if cute was a disgusting word.

“To me, you are.” You said with a smile, your mind wandering to the case you were currently on.

“I am not cute.” Dean grumbled.

“This better not be a fucking werewolf.” You said, helping Dean clean the guns that he was going to be using. The thing with guns, just like everything else, they needed to be taken care of and cleaned. You found it relaxing to do so, knowing what you were doing and also knowing you couldn’t get it wrong.

“Why not? Those monsters are awesome. They’re badass.” Dean said, looking at you.

“One bite from them and you’re basically dead. What if I was one?” You asked.

“Don’t do that to me.” Dean said, shaking his head.

“What if I was a monster? I mean, I may as well be. I’m a freak with now visions who can move shit with her mind.” You said, blowing inside the barrel of the gun to make sure you got everything out.

“No, you’re not a monster. You don’t kill people. You can’t be a hunter and be a monster at the same time.”

“Then what is Gordon?” You asked, thinking of the horrible man who is still, hopefully, locked up.

“Don’t remind me of him.” Dean said with a shake of his head.

“You know, I think there are good monsters out there. Ones that remember what’s it’s like to be human and that know what is right and wrong.” Your mind immediately went to the Trickster but you didn’t know why. He was dead. But why didn’t it feel like it?

“Yeah? Well, we haven’t met any that wanted to just hang out with us.”

“Yet.” You said with a smile, grabbing another gun to clean. Dean chuckled and didn’t say anything else for the rest of time it took Sam to come back from the morgue. This case you got wind of was screaming werewolf to Dean but you hoped it wasn’t.

Sam was checking the morgue to see if the latest victim had his heart missing. Now, multiple monsters go for the heart but until Sam came back from the morgue and give you his opinion on the matter, then you wouldn’t know for sure. You actually didn’t have to wait long because Sam came through the door shortly after.

“So, is this lawyer guy the first heart-free corpse in town?” Dean asked, looking at Sam while he cleaned his guns.

“Actually, it’s the first man. Over the past year, several women have gone missing. Dead bodies all washed up later in the bay, too deteriorated to draw firm conclusions.” Sam said, sitting at the table.

“But no hearts?” You asked.

“No hearts. They were all hookers working Hunter’s Point. Now, cops are trying to keep things under wrap, but they’re looking for a serial killer.”

“What about the lunar cycle?” You asked, scared of the answer.

“Mm-hmm. Yeah, month after month, all the murders happen in the week leading up to the full moon.” Sam said with a sigh.

“Which is this week, right?” Dean asked.

“Right, hence the lawyer.”

“Awesome.” Dean said with a smile.

“No, Dean, this isn’t awesome.” You said with a roll of your eyes.

“Dean, could you be a bigger geek about this?” Sam teased.

“I’m sorry, man, but what about “a human by day, a freak animal killing machine by moonlight” don’t you understand? I mean, werewolves are badass. We haven’t seen one since we were kids.” Dean said, grinning.

“Okay, Sparky. And you know what? After we kill it, we can go to Disneyland.” Sam enhanced the teasing.

“You know what the best part about it is? We already know how to bring these suckers down,” Dean said, holding up a silver bullet. “One of these bad boys right to the heart. So, what’s our next move?”

“We talk to the girl who found the body.” Sam said, getting up again, still in his Fed suit. You nodded and finished up the final touches on the gun and got up, walking over to your bag. You got out your Fed clothes and quickly put them on while Sam was busy reading something on his phone.

Dean did the same but didn’t care if his brother saw anything of Dean. You loved the brothers but they’re closeness sometimes scared you.

Soon, you three were over at the woman’s apartment. Her name was Madison and you heard she was pretty shaken up about it. You knocked on her door and she was the one to open it with a confused look.

“Hi, I’m Agent Wilson and these are my partners Agent Landis and Dante,” You introduced Dean and Sam respectively.

“Come on in,” Madison said, letting you in her apartment. Immediately upon entering, you got a bad vibe through the whole place and saw a bearded man sitting on the couch. Something wasn’t right here. “I don’t understand. I already gave my statement.”

“Right, well, we just need to verify a few things.” Sam said with a smile.

“This is my neighbor, Glen. Glen, these are Agents Wilson, Landis and Dante.” She said, introducing her neighbor. Glen smiled and stood up with a nod.

“Well, I guess I’ll leave you to it.” Glen said, looking at you and the brothers.

“Okay, well, thanks for the casserole.” Madison said with a smile.

“Anytime, just call if you need anything.” Glen said, leaving the apartment.

“He’s sweet. He came over to check on me. Have a seat.” She said with a smile, motioning to her kitchen table. You nodded and walked to the table, taking a seat in between the brothers.

“You must be pretty shaken up. You were Nate Mulligan’s assistant, right?” Sam asked gently.

“Yah, for two years.” She nodded.

‘So, you knew all about him?” Dean asked.

“Probably knew more about him than he did. Nate was… he was nice.” Madison said with a soft smile.

“But…?” Sam asked, expecting a but at the end of the sentence.

“Nothing, really. He had a few scotches in him, and he'd started hitting on anyone in a five-mile radius. You know the type.” Madison said with a few chuckles.

“Yeah, I do actually.” You and Sam both said, looking at Dean who just shrugged, not denying it. You felt his hand on your thigh and you snapped your head to him but he didn’t pay any attention to you.

“Did, uh, did he have any enemies?” Dean asked, serious as can be as he slid his hand further up your thigh.

“What do you mean? It sure looked like an animal attack.”

“No, yeah, we’re just covering all the bases. Anyone that might have had a beef with him? A former client or an ex?” When Dean got dangerously close to the one place that was craving him, you slapped his hand away and he chuckled lowly. You looked at Madison who looked to be in deep thought.

“What is it?” Sam asked, noticing the same thing.

“Well, this is embarrassing, but my ex-boyfriend, Kurt Mueller, after we broke up, he went kind of nuts. He’s… well, he’s kind of been stalking me. He got it in his head that something was going on between Nate and I. He showed up at my office.”

“What happened?” You asked her.

“Kurt got into it with Nate and threw a few punches before security could get a hold of him. I was lucky that I got to keep my job.”

“When was the last time you saw Kurt?” Dean asked.

“A few nights ago. Actually, the night Nate died. We were all grabbing drinks at this bar, and Kurt showed up. Nothing happened but it was like he was watching me. Then he was gone. But, to tell you the truth, he scares me.” She said, worry in her eyes.

You looked at the brothers and you were sharing the same thought that they were. Kurt seemed like a prime suspect in the killings but you didn’t want to be too sure. This place still gave you the bad vibes. After a few more questions, you left her apartment.

“So, what do you guys think?” You asked the brothers.

“Stalker ex-boyfriend? He hates the boss and he was there that night.” Sam said, thinking it over.

“Think he’s our dog-faced boy?” Dean asked as he walked to the Impala.

“Well, it’s a theory.” Sam said with a shrug.

“We’ve had worse.” You said, getting inside the car.

“What do you say we pay Kurt a visit?” Dean said, getting behind the wheel. Once everyone was in, he took off to Kurt’s apartment which you got from Madison. You thought it might be bets to do this at night when you thought he most likely would be out.

Agreeing with you, Dean waiting until nightfall to check out Kurt’s apartment. Once he picked the lock, you walked inside, looking around the neat apartment. Looks could be deceiving so you walked around a bit more going inside the kitchen.

“Anything?” Sam asked from another room. Dean checked the fridge but he sighed when he didn’t see anything worth checking out.

“No, nothing but leftovers and a six-pack.” Dean said, looking at you but you shrugged.

“Check the freezer. Maybe there’s some human hearts behind the Haagen-Dazs or something.” Sam informed.

“Wow, you know the brand of ice cream. Has someone been a bit lonely?” You teased, grinning when Sam rolled his eyes.

“Shut up.” Sam said. Dean chuckled and as he was about to open the freezer, you heard a door open and close, followed by a crash outside. You looked at the brothers and rushed to the sliding door that led to the balcony.

You looked outside and noticed claw marks in the concrete wall, sliding to the ground. You were about to call for Sam and Dean but they beat you to it, seeing what you were seeing. You sighed and didn’t noticed a wolf come in or out so you had no idea where Kurt could be, if it was him, which you weren’t thinking it 100%.

You were about to say something but you three heard a gunshot come from the streets and that is all it took for you to be running out of the building with the brothers. You rushed to the source of the sound but gasped as you saw what was in front of you.

There was a policeman who was dead, his body completely mauled by most likely the werewolf. Damn, you hated these creatures.

“I’ll call 911.” Sam said, taking his phone out. Dean bent down and examined the corpse with a sigh.

“I’d say Kurt’s looking more and more like our Cujo.”

“Dean, if he’s out here, we better check on Madison.” Sam said, worried about the girl you knew he liked. You could always tell when Sam liked a girl. You heard it in his voice when he talked about Jessica and you saw it in his eyes when he met Sarah.

He liked Madison a lot.

You three rushed over to her apartment, it still being the middle of the night. You rushed to her front door and knocked on the door, hoping she was home. Across the hall, Glen opened his door and frowned when he saw you.

“What’s going on?”

“Police business, Glen.” You said, looking at Madison when she opened the door.

“What is it?” She asked, concern on her face.

“Can we talk privately?” Sam asked, noticing Glen still watching them.

“Yeah, of course, come on in.” She said, let you and the Winchesters inside her apartment. She went to the kitchen and immediately got the coffee brewing, thinking you might need it. As good as coffee sounded, you had more pressing matters to deal with.

“Has Kurt been here?” Sam asked as Madison started pouring the coffee.

“Not exactly.” She said gently.

“What does that mean?” You asked.

“Well, he was outside last night. Just… looking. Just looking at me. Has he done something?”

“We’re not really sure, yet.” Sam said truthfully.

“It’s probably nothing, but… we just don’t wanna take any chances. In fact, one of us should probably stay here with you? Just in case he stops by. Where does he work?” Dean suggested. She didn’t seem to reject the idea and you grinned, thinking this was Sam’s opportunity.

“He owns a body shop. I have the address here somewhere.” She said, leaving the room.

“Alright, Sam, you stay here and Dean and I will check out the body shop.” You said, looking at Sam.

“And what if I wanted to stay?” Dean asked, looking at you.

“You want to stay? Fine, don’t be with me. I was kind of feeling a little hot myself but I can always take care of that myself without your help.” You said with a smirk.

“Alright, so you’ll stay?” Dean asked, looking at his brother. You smirked and grinned in triumph. Madison came back and handed you a piece of paper with the address on it.

“Thank you, Madison, Sam will be staying with you, if that’s alright.” You asked. She looked at Sam and had a small smile on her face. She nodded and looked at you with a firmer nod.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” You nodded and smiled, leaving her apartment with Dean.

“So, you were joking about taking care of yourself, right?” Dean asked you as you walked to the car. You smiled and shook your head lightly, not answering him as you got in the car.

The Queens:

@maddieburcham1 @ginamsmith  @mogaruke @whit85-blog @inlovewithbja @spn67-sister @kdfrqqg @jarpadandjensenaremyheroes @roxyspearing @supercalifragilistic26 @mishamigose @cobrakai1967 @essie1876 @wishedworld @crispychrissy @laqueus-ludovicus @nostalgic-uncertainty @jerk-bitch-and-an-angel @potterhead1265 @starswirlblitz @untitled39887 @ta-n-ja @deans-fallen-angel-boy @scarletluvscas @notnaturalanahi @tahbehonest @stay-in--place @dreaminofdean @posiemax @donnaintx @mikey1822 @alexandriajanae4 @li-ssu @just-another-winchester @obsessivecompulsivespn @emoryhemsworth @newtospnfandom @mizzezm @goldenolaf25 @jessikared97

The Dean Beans:

@akshi8278 @mega-mrs-dean-winchester @winchesterandpie @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @carribear31 @tacklesackles @oreosatmidnight @not-naturalfangirl @missselinakitty @iam-a-cutiepie  @kristendansmith @milo-winchester-4ever @jensenackesl @codyshany316 @pheonyxstorm @helllonearth @juniorhuntersam @pouterpufftrain @ruprecht0420 @shut-ur-face-and-get-in-the-car @carriemichelle2012 @aubreystilinski

Series Rewrite Junkies:

@helllonearth @amyisabellal @deanwnchstr @caseykitten6 @quixoticcat @supernaturalblogging @notmoose45  @crowleysminion @mina22 @tahbehonest @hadleymcallister2177 @destielsangels @spnhybrid @oreosatmidnight @valerieshubin @seninjakitey @flyonlittlewinchester  @aubreystilinski @rocketqueeens @emilygracespellins

[rxanizmm]

TouchFIVE markers review!

Okay, since I said I’d do a small review, here it is. Hopefully it’ll help some people!  TouchFive Markers from aliexpress aka copic alternative More under the cut!

I ordered them on saturday, 4th March, and they arrived on 21st, so for an aliexpress order, that’s pretty decent shipment time. 60 markers, animation set, for... (drum rolls) 37$. USD. d o l l a r s. thirty-seven. That’s ~62 cents per marker. The markers arrived nicely packet, wrapped in a bubble wrap for extra security I guess. Once opened, I saw a pretty cool black zipped bag.

It was full of markers!! how unexpected Seriously though, inside I found not only markers, but a white gel pen, a black gel pen that looks hideous but is actually pretty nice and a sakura micron 0.3mm that i noticed makes way thicker lines than I’d expected.  Upon closer inspection, I think it bleeds a bit too much? I have a micron 0.25mm and the lines are so much thinner.  But maybe it’s just mine. Anyway, they were a free gift to the set. From what I remember, you can tell the seller that you want a colourless blender instead of a micron, so there’s also that. I didn’t need a blender because I like to suffer. Okay, now about the actual markers.

I’m pretty sure those are a rip off of TOUCH markers that I heard are super good and pretty close to copics. Except TOUCH markers still cost a lot.  These cost not a lot. At least for a poor student who considers a bottle of water too expensive. They have a bullet nib and chisel (broad) nib. No brush nibs here, sorry. They have this rectangular shape with rounded corners, which is pretty neat because they don’t f u c k i n g roll off your desk. Fit in hand nicely. The entire plastic thing that I don’t remember the english word for is ...well white. And plastic. Some markers had those darker smudges or other shit on them, like the pencils that you keep in a pencilcase for a long time and they just dirty each other. But I could easily wipe that off so bullet dodged.  Overall the plastic thing doesn’t feel very professional, sometimes the letters are scrapped off somewhere and all that. But it’s not something that would really affect using them so?  Oh, the caps. Some come off pretty easily, but some seriously challenged my biceps to a showdown. Results = my left hand is covered in marker ink. I have no idea why some of them just had to show me the attitude and play hard to get. Another thing. The caps have those colour indicators with a name and number printed on them. Cool. They don’t always match the actual colours, so don’t trust them though. That’s one. Two. I honestly had a good time laughing my ass off at some of the names. 

dark blue light and his partner in crime - ViVd red

by the way, dark BLUE light, that has a pretty light almost white cap, is actually this purple-gray thing. Well done.

But okay, just make a chart and you’ll be safe. 

Next, the actual performance.  Now, don’t take me wrong, I’m no expert when it comes to markers. I’ve only held a copic in my unworthy hand like twice (what a blessing), I own 4 promarkers that I got as a gift aaaaand a bunch of zig art&graphic ones, but they’re water based so they don’t count.  Those babies are alcohol based, so the same stuff as copics. They smell of alcohol, but not TOO strongly. So hopefully you don’t need to excuse yourself when your parents walk into the room and everything reeks of good ol’ vodka. I only used them on my winsor&newton 170gsm paper, so I’m not sure how they’d behave on a marker paper, but on mine they bleed through the page, which is... probably something I should’ve predicted, but I didn’t and I’m fucked. Learn on my mistakes. ALCOHOL MARKERS BLEED.  unless your paper is thick like my man pride The colours are overall rich and pretty.  Now you’ll ask, but Oya, do they blend?  The answer is: I don’t know, I have no idea how to blend markers. Ask someone better at markers than me. I gueeeeeess? Kind of???

I made myself a chart to see what I’m dealing with, don’t judge my handwriting. Also used that black fashion-disaster gel pen, so you know what it looks like in action. 

If you go over it again, It’ll get darker. Oh, and the ink flows differently depending on how fast you make the stroke. Slow = more ink = darker colour, quick = less ink = lighter colour.  Overall, if you’re new to markers and don’t have high expectations of full professionalism or hate copics because you can’t afford them therefore they suck (like me), I guess these markers are a pretty good shot. ...Honestly, 62 cents per marker, think about it. And a cool ass bag you can show off! 

Here’s an overfiltered instagramed first use of the markers. as you can see, I mostly have no idea what I’m doing but it still doesn’t look half bad, especially in the sketchbook. Or maybe I’m just telling that to myself, it’s ok.  Oh, also I tried using the white gel pen here, so there’s that too.  I guess if you have questions feel free to send them my way, I’ll try to answer them all! This post is totally not sponsored (fuck i wish it was), so no bias here, just my honest rookie opinion on something I have no idea of but I pretend I do.

[dreamscript]

HEY IT ME AGAIN-- LITERALLY SAME I GOT SICK AND LIKE IM STILL COUGHING AND I WANT IT TO STOP. LIKE. RIGHT. NOW. I hope you feel better soon! I can only imagine how bad you're suffering! Make sure to get lots of rest and binge watch Naruto hehehehe// I got sick around Christmas so it's kinda just here// But yeah lol just excuse me late responses (; 7 ; ) and yas girl just embrace you're inner otaku its okay xD (i wanna re-read Naruto actually//) OMG YES PLZ I LOVE YOUR FICS AND-

{CONT} YO HOW DARE YOU WRITE THAT JUNGKOOK FIC IM SHOOKED JKSDFNKJD// LMAO IF THAT AINT ME IN ANY MATH CLASS FUKFFKFKKFKF BUT ITS OKAY YOU CAN DO IT I BELIEVE IN YOU! There was freezing rain here a day or so ago. That was fun . u . (sobs) IF YOU COULD TWEEK MY BLOG OMG ID LOVE THAT. But the theme isn’t originally mine and I’d assume the original owner wouldn’t want the original code changed?

{CONT} IDK I wanted to change my theme for a while now // Something not endless scroll but just boxes for previews? Also I wanted a minimalistic theme based with pastel colours and black and white hehe/ ANYWAY NO NO WORRIES SOMETIMES IM JUST HERE WONDERING IF YOONGI SUED BIGHIT FOR DYING HIS HAIR TOO FREQUENTLY AND NOW HE BALD (LOL) BUT YEAH APPARENTLY THEY ARE SUPPOSE TO HAVE A COMEBACK IN FEBRUARY AND MY WALLET IS UPSET. I ALSO WANT THE NEW ARMY STICK FOR NO GOOD REASON AT ALL LOL

{CONT 3 xD} I’ve only read Naruto Manga so if you wanna screech with me about that lets do it ahaha/ HECK YES I WILL READ THEIR FIC- I WILL NOT STUDY JAHAJSDSDKJF Shout out to Cat and Fae too like i seriously love their fics- your Christmas series had me shooked!! Anyways I have so much work to do and so i will bother you later :) - Sakura !

IM HEALED AND BETTER NOW THANK YOU I HOPE YOU’RE FINE NOW TOO??!?! but i remember my doctor telling me once that if you’re still coughing like a month later you should get it checked out or something D:

and oh. my. god.

naruto.

LISTEN I LITERALLY CRY EVERYTIME IT MAKES ME SO EMO. I WATCHED NARUTO THE ROAD TO NINJA MOVIE LIKE TWO NIGHTS AGO AND I CRIED LIKE A BABY WATCHING HIM INTERACT WITH HIS PARENTS AND ALL LIKE D’:: highkey still hated on sasuke though

but yeah no it’s okay! i have super late responses as of late…. and it’s really only because i’ve been too emotionally spent by the end of the day or tired or busy or just “not feeling it”

idk, but i hope to get back into being more active. i miss this place. i miss interacting with others, as little of it i seem to be doing right now (guh _ _)

LOL I HAVE SO MANY SEX SCENES ALREADY PREWRITTEN OUT FOR HTE JUNGKOOK FIC AND SO NOW THAT I’VE GOT THE HARDEST PARTS DONE, IT’S JUST DOWN TO FILLING IN THE PLOT AND SUCH. aaaand that’s kinda hard too, but i think i’ll manage. hopefully.

(help)

dude it was rainy and windy and cold today and i had to go outside and the entire time i was walking/running/dying to class i was thinking a) why b) this was a Mistake

ah well in regards to your theme, usually the theme makers are okay with minor changes (sometimes major ones too) as long as you keep the credit and the changes are for personal use (as opposed to commercial use/redistribution, etc). just to be sure, you can just check their rules. they usually have that whole page/pop up or will simply include it in their theme code.

hmm what do you mean by boxes for previews? i don’t think i’ve ever seen such as thing. it sounds interesting, though. are they previews for like posts or…?

YEAH OMG I’M REALLY EXCITED BECAUSE FEBRUARY IS BOTH MINE AND ALSO @taesthetes​‘ BIRTHDAY MONTH SO ITS LIKE A BIRTHDAY PRESENT WOOHOO

thank you for loving our collaboration! i’m still amazed on how quickly we got things put together and everything… honestly… cat and @zephyoongist​ are so talented i don’t know what i’m doing here :’) (or where i would be without them)

and now finally…

(for the maaaain event)…

okaY OKAY I WILL SCREECH WITH YOU ABOUT NARUTO. RIGHT HERE. RIGHT NOW. just under the cut because spoilers:

I’M SUCH AN EMOTIONAL WRECK OVER NARUTO THE ONLY BEST WAY I CAN TRULY EXPRESS MY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS AT THE MOMENT IS JUST THROUGH BULLET POINTS SO:

i love kakashi

i also love gaara. i can’t choose between the two, but lately i’ve been more biased towards kakashi. i blame it on my sister because she’s always had a thing for him

(i still love you gaara its okay my sand child)

kakashi’s backstory had me in tears… like… with obito died and he’s telling kakashi he’ll give him his sharingan (the sharingan that he’d always been talking about that would get him to hokage) to be his eye to see the future…

i just..

fucking broke down man like dude… stop… you’re killing me here… and then how kakashi really changes afterwards

(okay but listen child kakashi was savage as fuck though and it was hilarious)

(also i know it’s a filler but that one episode in which it showed guy and kakashi comparing dick sizes as kids….,,..,.

….,,..i wasn’t expecting that at all but i don’t mind the info heheheheh heh /dies)

OKAY BUT THEN RIN DIES WHY

literally if she hadn’t died a lot of the issues in naruto wouldn’t have occurred but they fucking did

no i’m not blaming her she died for a noble reason okay it just makes me really sad i’m sorry

AND FINALLY MINATO DIES TOO AND KAKASHI IS THE LAST OF HIS TEAM IM EMO

on a side note minato and kushina were cute as fuck

ANYWAYS GAARA OH MY OH MY GOD MY POOR BABY as a kid he was so cute and just wanted some friends and was out helping all those villagers and such but then his damned dad just had to go and screw those things up like STOP IT HE;S MY CHILD

even though i love those two, my favorites are actually the akatsuki

like. they hate each other but istg they secretly love each other like have you seen kakuzu and hidan’s interactions??? they tease and insult and threaten (and have killed) each other but kakuzu is actually patient with hidan’s rituals and such, and hidan will still accompany kakuzu to the collection centers

also, when he sees asuma’s guardian shinobi thing the first thing that comes to mind is kakuzu and how he’d want him for the money and he’s like u gh but like !!!

and AND when hidan at first thinks he’s accidentally killed kakuzu in his fight with shikamaru & co., he has that look of panic ooooh my god I JUST GASHUDFJSDIJASD

also hidan is just hilarious. like when they go to recruit him he’s like “who are you guys, all wearing the same clothes?? are you guys an orchestra or band or something?”

/points at kakuzu/ bet you play the bass

/points at konan/ bet the girl does vocals and keyboards

/points at itachi/ …or do you do vocals…?

and then the first thing hidan and kakuzu do to each other is kill each other

the look of utter disbelief on both of their faces

“what the–why aren’t you dead?”

“bitch that hurt–wait. why aren’t you dead?”

but anyways we can’t forget about itachi and kisame either, now can we?? like. they are actually like the only partner group that openly got along with each other, and they were sad oh my god they were sad upon realizing each other’s death’s

and idk just the way kisame says “itachi-san” does something to me

 i t a c h i

oh boy i have so much to say about this kid

but before i move on i must! address! the others!!

okay so like deidara is actually op as fuck and sometimes idk i feel like he doesnt get enough credit?? idk.

BUT LIKE LISTEN OKAY HE GOES THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS TO SEAL THE ICHIBI AKA SHUKAKU AKA GAARA’S TAILED BEAST and then immediately after decides to take on naruto (and kakashi)

AND HE ONLY HAD ONE ARM AT THE TIME HAVING JUST LOST ONE IN HIS FIGHT WITH GAARA LIKE WHAT IS THIS STAMINA AND HOW DOES HE NOT BLEED OUT THIS KID IS FUCKING AMAZING WHAT THE HELL

and he’s 19 like lol what bye

but anyways, after his “fight” he loses his other arm because kakashi and now he’s armless BUT THIS KID STILL HOLDS HIS OWN though completely on the defense AGAINST TEAM GAI LIKE WHAT THE FUCK HE’S AMAZING and then he manages to create a bomb without using any sort of handseals and fools them all into thinking he’s dead

like

i love this boy give him a metal why did he have to die so early why (yet another reason why i dislike sasuke lmfao)

black zetsu scares the fuck out of me (esp when i learned of his true past and intentions) but white zetsu!! he’s such a sweetie holy shit

I JUST REALLY LIKED THAT TIME WHEN HE BURSTS INTO THE 5 KAGE SUMMIT AND HE’S LIKE “HALLLLOOO!!!!!!” WITH THE ARMS AND EVERYTHING DAW OMG

and also unlike so many others he actually likes everyone and when he saves deidara he’s like “you’re a fun guy to be around” and then and then later when he’s talking to tobi he reveals that he’s sad that so many of the akatsuki members died like D::

let’s not forget when black zetsu called him weak (they had split in two at the time) and white zetsu just kind of D: and wilts a little like ooHH NO oo baby it’s okay it’s okay

ahem

konan is so strong… holy crap… like… her ultimate attack? with the bajillion paper explosive tags disguised as a lake?? that go off for 10 minutes? holy fuck.

yahiko’s pretty damn hot if you ask me (yes i know he’s a cadaver in the main time period but listen)

idk my favorite arc of the entire thing was pain’s invasion of konoha… like from the moment jiraiya’s message arrived to when everyone got revived…. and then kakashi almost became hokage…

it was fantastic

i think it’s mainly because it was a mystery, race against time, battle thing all in one and it was so neat i guess

also you could see everyone in the village working together, fighting their hardest, showing their potentials for like, the first time ever

um um um okay sasori mentally scarred me as a child, and now whenever i hear the rattling puppet noises i immediately think of these scary nightmares i had after watching his fight with sakura… yeah, puppets scare me a lot now

orochimaru is a creep ‘nuff said moving on

tobi! i love this alternate ego of obito/”madara” like idk he’s so jumpy and honestly it’s fucking hilarious watching him because he’s so secretly op certain people underestimate him at first (and then others overestimate him because of his association with akatsuki)

like. when he was warding off konoha from itachi vs sasuke’s fight (which i am still emo about) he was just like playing whack-a-mole with them and then he’s like lemme use this ability! frill-necked lizard!

and they all kinda stand and stare at him intensely execting something legit

but in reality that’s it. the extent of htat ability is just him hanging upside down with the cloack falling behind him to look like a frill-necked lizard

and it’s fucking hilarious

i also thought it was fucking adorable when he and deidara first confront sasuke

and the little bitch goes ahead and slices through him

literally through him

and HE MAKES THE MOST ADORABLE NOISE BEFORE FALLING FLAT ON HIS FACE GAH

but sasuke thinks that he actually killed him and sasuke’s all like “one down”

and deidara just kinda

ugh this kid

and tobi gets up and brushes himself off like wow that was rly fast!!! and sasuke just >:/

URM OKAY ENOUGH ABOUT THE AKATSUKI MEMBERS

sorry i thought i should make this clear but i lowkey highkey have this vendetta thing against sasuke like this little shit

i mean ofc i know the reason for his disillusionment really isn’t all his fault like @ itachi really?

like really when he goes back to konoha and sasuke tries to kill him… he goes and easily breaks his wrist

and he kinda just considers him for a moment like

…hm

how about i….. make his situation even worse…?

and then traps him in a genjutsu that forces him to relive their parents death for 24 hours like why the fuck this is literally all your fault

and also on a side note, fuck danzo. why the fuck did the 3rd not kill him when he was supposed to. why. all the wrong people lived for far too long.

anyways

but yeah no idk i just really don’t like sasuke after he defected and became a Vengeful Teen

AND ITACHI’S STORY MAKES ME CRY EVERY TIME HOLY SHIT IT MAKES ME SO SAD WHY DID THIS BOY HAVE TO SUFFER SO MUCH and then mess up his little brother’s psyche to the point in which he starts killing like everyone wtf

AHEM

another favorite moment arc of mine is the very beginning

like the first 15ish episodes

IRUKA SENSEI

he’s such a blessing. he’s literally one of those crucially important side characters and i appreciate him and i love him and it would’ve been nice to see more of him, but hey, that’s okay too.

(his part in the naruto road to ninja movie had me in tears. like at the end. fucking tears.)

like naruto and kakashi may be super close and stuff, but when he needs someone as a guardian, naruto turns to iruka and idk i feel that says a lot about their relationship and it makes me cry all the fucking time

um anyways yes i also love zabuza

he’s so strong and empowered

AND THAT WHOLE ARC MADE ME CRY A LOT TOO AND THE FACT THAT IT BECOMES SUCH AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE STORY MAKES ME SO FUCKING HAPPY

i have a lot more the say probably but it’s getting late and i need to take a shower and sleep and get up early in the morning to make food so i’ll just leave it at that

(i wrote a lot i know i’m sorry)

(hope i didn’t blow you away with any spoilers D:)

[morfiction]

END GAME

END GAME

by

Michael Woodard

Welcome to Ultimate Quest IX!  

Press Start.

“Wow, uh, now what?” Shirley asks. She is in her room at her parent's house.  

“You make a character,” Tyler says. He is hunched under a blanket in the pick up parked in Shirely's parent's driveway. He is using his laptop.  

“I feel so stupid! There's no START button!” Shirley objects.

“Its a push button screen. Just press the word 'start,'” Tyler tells her.  

'So there's nine UltiQue games?” Shirley asks.  

Tyler chuckles. “Only five were released, out of order, in the USA,” he tells her.

“You PIRARED this game?” Shirely squirms and tosses her headset on the desk, looking panicky around the room to make sure she isn't watched. “I don't want to do anything illegal!”

“Don't worry, Shirl,” Tyler says.

'What?” she says as she puts the headset back on.

“--- I got it from the official translator of the project.”

“Cool! Who was that?”

“Cave Girl,” Tyler brags.

“WHO?” Shirley don't get it. “Strange name.”

“It's a pseudonym. Not even the game's programmers know her real name but she rakes in a fortune.”

“An ex-girlfiend of yours,” Shirley wants to know.

“I made a male barbarian named Claude.” Tyler says. “And, no, she is a famous recluse. She says she literally lives in a darn cave.” Tyler makes a hush noise. “In the UK somewhere is the rumor. Not a fact.”

“Bonnie!” Shirely says. “I can't decide from all of these jobs but I'll make a female named Bonnie.”

“Just push the randomizer button if you want,” Tyler sighs. It's freezing out here.”  

“I'm sorry, my dad knows you're out there but he still doesn't trust you.” Shirely glances at a shadow behind her. Her dad was walking past when he heard the remark.

“Okay, Kiddo! Claude can play from the living room couch while you play in your room. Alone. With the door locked. Alone.” Her father laughs. “Did I say 'alone' enough times.”

“Yes, dad,” Shirely says.  

The front door bangs shut. “Ooops! Just me!” Tyler says from the living room. “Tyler! Not Claude.”

Shirely's dad sticks his head over the bannister. “Get me all of the UltiQue games that are out now,” he says while looking Tyler in the eye.  

“There's twenty five, sir!” Tyler whines. He puts his laptop on the coffee table.

“Sir was my dad,” says Shirely's dad. “Call me Danny.” He whistles. “Twenty five?”

“What can I say? Cave Girl programmed the Amateur versions!” Tyler gloats. “Poor Imagineer doesn't know how she did it but she finished two or three of the company's projects all alone, even releasing the MMO teased three and six years back respectively.”

Danny sighs. “I would never afford all those games.” His cell phone rings. “Hello? … You're who? … and you what?  Listen, if you're some hacker I'll....!”  

Tyler shows his hands, palms out. “Cave Painting Studio?”

Danny nods. “Yah, she introduced herself as Tiffany and the voice is.... electronic?”  

Danny's phone beeps in his hand. “I'm shy! Think of me as mostly mute, sir... I mean Danny.” There's a groan. “Hope you don't mind I pushed your speaker button.”

Danny shrugs. “I sorta wish the games were playable on phones.”

“DONE!” Tiffany says. “Ooops, I mean I've already done that. Ignore the previous email.”  

Danny's phone starts to play a special synth version of what sounds like classical music.  

“Holy crap, who are you?” comes Shirely's voice from behind her locked bedroom door.

“Tiffany,” says Tiffany.

“Go away!” shouts Shirley. There's sounds of struggle afterward.  

Danny tosses his phone over the bannister at Kyle before turning to face Shirely’s door which is now slightly ajar for some reason. “You better not have anything to do with this!” he hisses at Tyler.

Tyler rushes up the stairs, dropping the phone in his pocket.  

“I can’t see what the hell is going on!” complains Tiffany from the phone in the pocket. Tyler ignores her.  A security camera at the top of the stairs swivels to watch as Tyler hits the second floor landing. “This feels so skeezy!” says Tifany’s voice from the camera.

Danny is the first into the room followed by Tyler. They collide in the middle of the room and stumble to make sense of what they are looking at. It’s Dylan, back again from who knows where. He is forcing Shirley to lay in the bed beneath him, his one hand over her mouth and the other on a shoulder.  

Shirley screams but the sound is muffled. Sitting on the window sill is one other guy Tyler hadn’t seen before but it is obvious he is an accomplice. There is a ladder pushed against the window from the outside and “Troll Girl” is at the bottom, holding it up.  

Tyler cannot see her just yet, but he can hear her whispered questions and complaints from where he stood.  

“You said you just wanted to talk to her!” complains Troll Girl. Behind her the siren of a police car can be heard. She panics, but holds onto the ladder for dear life anyway.  

Danny finally gains his voice: “What the hell are you doing back here to my daughter, you prick?”  

Dylan laughs. He raises his face to look at Shirley’s father. His eyes are glassy, not dilated. He squints at the light but his face has a grim smile on it. There’s blood on his lips which he licks at. “This tasty bitch thinks she can get away with carrying my child into the loving arms of some shit heel loser?  I don’t think so!” He glances at the lamp lighting the room and spits at it. His buddy kicks at it, knocking the lamp down, but it doesn’t break when it hits the floor.  

“That’s strange, I didn’t contact the police just yet,” says Tiffany. All at once a mechanical dog stands up from the corner amongst the other forgotten toys. Its fur is ragged & dirty. “Oh neat! I’m embodying a Doggerella doggie!” Tiffany comments before shutting herself up again.  

The police officers enter thru the front door of the house which nobody had bothered locking. “We have or orders,” one of the three men says to his fellows.  

Danny turns to them. “Arrest these fools!”  

The cop who had been speaking pulls his weapon and points it at Danny. “Those aren’t the orders, asshole.” Dylan laughs again.  

The mechanical doggie leaps at the one cop who had drawn his gun.  

The cop isn’t concerned. He fires at the small autonomaton. This proves a mistake as it manages to dodge the bullet and chomps hard onto the cop’s crouch. “Haha,” laughs the cop. “It doesn’t have teeth.”  

But that doesn’t matter as Cave Girl somehow modified it to emit an electric shock much like that of a taser, zapping the cop in his privates. He drops his gun and falls to the ground. Dylan’s friend grabs the gun from the floor.  

Troll Girl finally makes an appearance by climbing the ladder although there was no on to hold it for her. “Oh shit, I got to record this for the interwebs!” she says, holding her phone up to attempt a video recording. “Shit! What’s wrong with the phone?” she complains. “I can see their uniforms but not badges or faces at all thru this thing!”

“Sorry, young lady,” says one of the other cops. He draws his weapon and shoots at the camera on the phone, causing the bullet to pass through the viewfinder and strike a hole in Troll Girl’s head thru the eyeball. The mess is repugnant. “No witnesses, order said.”

Her body goes flying out the window. Dylan looks over his shoulder as it falls backward, muttering a curse. “Don’t shoot me!”  

“I’m not going to, boss,” says the second cop. “Though I might shoot yer buddy for holding a gun in my face.” He kicks at the toy doggie to dislodge it from his partner. Without wasting another bullet he stomps it.  

“I might as well go all out!” exclaims Cave Girl’s voice. Nearly a dozen household objects suddenly come to life and begin to harass the cops. From an electric toothbrush to the accessories for Shirley’s computer to less wholesome objects... The power cords attempt to constrict their legs while the blunt parts of the objects dive-bomb at them.  

“Get out of the house!” Cave Girl shouts. “You two dudes I mean, now!”  

“Not without Shirley!” exclaims Tyler.  

Dylan just laughs another time, but starts to scream as the waffle maker slams shut on his face and the flying coffee maker spills hot coffee in his eyes.  

Shirley squirms from his grip and trips to the floor trying to step over one of Dylan’s flailing legs. Dylan’s friend had picked that exact moment to shoot at her, but misses as he was aiming at where she was standing just as she fell beneath his aim.  

He doesn’t get a second shot as the mirror on the bureau explodes into his face. Tyler

& her father scramble to grab her from the floor and drag her from the bedlam.  

Just as they get her to the hallway and cross the threshold into her room, the door slams shut. “Get downstairs in a hurry! And leave the house. Take your phones and the laptop with you,” orders Cave Girl.  

“You are not kicking me out of my own home,” protested Danny even as he stepped down a few stairs, bringing up the rear because Tyler had scooped Shirley up off the floor and carried her like a bride sa he ran down the stairs two at a time.  When Danny was halwfway down the stairs and Tyler was a the fornt door, there was an explosion from upstairs.  

Danny was thrown over the bannister and fell into the middle of the couch. He wasn’t fazed one bit by the fall because he got up immediately and grabbed at Tyler’s laptop and both cell phones.  

Tyler had fallen backward with Shirley landing in his lap. She quickly got up since Tyler had accidentally lost control of his bladder due to fright.  “EW! Dad, my phone is in my room!” she said even as the sprinklers came on.  

“Get out! Ger out!” shouts Cave Girl. “I don’t think you will survive if you went back in there now.” She sighs. “I guess I took it a little too far in evacuating you from there, but it is important for you to escape these evil bastards.” Ding. “I just copied all your phone’s contents to a folder. I’ll download the stuff into a new one if you want, but... RUN!”  

One of the crooked cops had emerged from the smoking remains of Shirley’s room and started to fire at them. He didn’t hit any of them because as of yet his face was a bloody disfigured mess, but he was sure to be lucky soon enough.  

Tyler fumbled to pick Shirley up again but she fought her way to her feet and ran out the front door ahead of him and her father. A fire engine sounded its horn but only once. It was also making slow progress towards the burning house.  

The three of them ran in the opposite direction.  

[stompsite]

indie bundle cruft deathmatch volume 3: ex box

So normally, I wouldn’t do so many of these in such short order, but I’m moving at the end of the month, and I’m moving to a place where the internet’s gonna be wonky, so I’m trying to store as many games on my hard drives as I can. As a result, I’m going through my “definitely not gonna play these again” games as quickly as possible. So, hey, here’s another one.

LOVERS IN A DANGEROUS SPACETIME is a 2d metroidvania, I guess? Except you pilot a spaceship with a partner. It’s fun enough, but metroidvanias and I don’t get along super good. It looks nice and plays okay, but I feel like it’s meant to be played with multiple people, rather than solo. I played it on Xbox, since I got it free on Xbox Live at some point. NAH.

MAX: THE CURSE OF BROTHERHOOD is a sidescrolling platformer about a boy who wishes his brother away. Kinda like Labyrinth, but, as far as I’ve played, without the brilliance of Henson or Bowie present. This isn’t to say it’s a bad game at all, but it’s not really gripping me. But it is a platformer, and I’m someone who’s been trying to figure out why I don’t like platformers for a long time.

I think I’ve figured it out.

One of my least favorite things to do in a video game are forced racing sequences. In these sequences, you mostly have to learn where everything is, memorize it, and repeat. I’m not one for memorization. It’s fundamentally uninteresting to me on a basic level. A good racing game involves some degree of skill; most races in games not meant to be racers rely more on simply memorizing the track.

Most platformers I’ve played don’t involve any kind of interesting or meaningful decision making. Sometimes you’ll get some puzzle solving, which can be enjoyable, but more often than not, platformers are about simply reacting to what’s there, and nothing more than that. See the path, follow the path. The enemies aren’t super intelligent; Goombas march back and forth, and that’s about it. These are games about memorizing the path and timing your button presses perfectly.

In a Sonic game, you might get a few choices, but that’s about it. Played a bit of Mario 3D Land lately and it’s the same thing; at its most difficult, it’s just a game about memorization.

I value a game like DOOM or Halo, where you get to look over the environment, plan your route, and act accordingly, reacting to changes in the situation as they arise. There’s a nice mix of “doing interesting things” at work in these kind of games.

I value improvisation. 

That’s why platformers aren’t very interesting to me.

Oh, and Max has a magic marker that changes the environment. It’s a rule that all platformers have to have A Gimmick, and that’s what Max’s gimmick is. SEE YOU IN ANOTHER LIFE, BROTHER.

SPEEDRUNNERS, because it’s a platformer (a racing platformer, but a platformer nontheless), definitely can be SENT TO LIMBO.

SUPER DUNGEON BROS: claims, on its store page, that it is a rock-themed dungeon brawler. Basically it’s kinda like Diablo, I guess, except that I wasn’t really having much fun, and I forgot to take a screenshot. I DECIDED TO PASS ON IT.

BONEBONE: RISE OF THE DEATHLORD sure seems like a mobile port to me. You shoot arrows at skellingtons. YAWN.

BRINE seems like one of those Fallout mods you get for someone who offers “realistic nights,” but it’s so dark that you begin to wonder if the person making the claim suffers from severe night blindness. Seriously, the ground is just, like... totally black.  It’s some kind of survival game with a 24% positive rating on Steam. I’M STEERING CLEAR.

BROADSWORD: AGE OF CHIVALRY is like, I don’t know, if Civilization were incredibly low-res? I’ve really struggled to enjoy hex-based 4X games. For some reason, Stellaris is my drug of choice, but even games like Civ are hard for me to enjoy. AWAY WITH YOU.

This is what screenshots from BULLET LIFE 2010 look like. Yes, they did misspell “Resume.” Reviews are about half and half positive/negative. I’m surprised there are positive reviews at all, but what do I know? It’s a 3D bullet hell shooter that doesn’t feel super... bullet... hell-y. But I didn’t spend a lot of time with it because the controls were a nightmare. Took way too long to discover that “W” was the interact button and “X” was fire. Oh, and by switching to full screen in the pre-load options menu, I booted up the game. Here I thought I’d be able to edit multiple settings. Silly me. DUMPED.

BULB BOY is an aesthetically wonderful point and click adventure game, which I may come back to some day. The problem is that, well, it’s a point and click adventure game, another one of those genres I really struggle with. If platformers bore me because it’s about reaction time and memorization, point and clicks bore me because they’re about clicking on everything you can until you figure out in what order a bunch of interactive objects are supposed to be placed. It’s a genre that can be brute forced in a way I personally find dissatisfying.

But.

Don’t let this dissuade you from checking out Bulb Boy, a game that has a 91% positive rating on Steam, which, last I checked, is the same as DOOM. So, if you’re into the genre, you’re probably in for a treat. DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS.

What did I just say, CAPTAIN MORGANE AND THE GOLDEN TURTLE, about adventure games? Also, I have no idea what’s going on in the graphics here, but this sure doesn’t look like a three year old game. Also, it runs awfully on my GTX 1070, and there’s a review on Steam that makes the same complaint, but for a 1080. NOPE.

I was bummed out that Steam wouldn’t let me take screenshots of CARRIER COMMAND: GAEA MISSION. It’s not a great game from what I’ve played so far, but it’s interesting. Lots of little tweaks that Bohemia Interactive could do to make it play way better than it does. Maps feel huge. It’s neat. Obviously ARMA is their bread and butter, but... this has me intrigued. FINALLY, A GAME THAT STAYS.

Apparently there are earlier Deponia games, so I probably shouldn’t be testing CHAOS ON DEPONIA right now, but I went through the tutorial. Seems like an adventure game, made me chuckle. I’LL KEEP THIS ONE AROUND. FOR NOW. 

CITIES XL PLATINUM is a city builder, so you’d think it would stay on my list, but it won’t, and here’s why: city builders come in two varieties. There’s the Extremely Popular SimCity style, where you just kinda build a town and keep things running and that’s that, and then there’s the Less Popular But The Kind I Like games, like Tropico, The Settlers, and Anno. These games take you to different maps where you have specific objectives you need to complete. I find operating within those constraints much more enjoyable than the open-ended sandbox creation aspect of things. That’s just not my thing.

Cities XL Platinum is in the former style, unfortunately, which means I’m... like, I’ll give it a shot, but I’m not super into it. The performance issues I experienced weren’t great either, and Cities Skylines, which is from the Cities in Motion developers, is a much better game in this specific city-building subgenre. Forgot to screenshot. KICK IT TO THE CURB.

CLOUD CHAMBER is an online game that was, as best I can tell, removed from Steam. If you have it, you can... like, click on stuff, but you can’t play it, because apparently it, whatever it was, was an online game. WHAT’S THE POINT?

CONTAGION sounds cool, but I didn’t really enjoy the time I spent with it. A review says “it’s like No More Room in Hell, but costs money, and is worse,” and that seems about right. PASS.

COGNITION: AN ERICA REED THRILLER is a game I took a screenshot of, because I hadn’t been doing it or it hadn’t been working in the past few games. Apparently I ended up in Episode 2 even though I told it to go to Episode One. As you can see, people’s faces look... odd.

It’s a point n’ click where you spend like ten minutes in three different camera angles (one shot of two people talking, two closeups of their faces) where they mostly just talk about things that could’ve been said in far less words. It has 199 reviews on Steam, and the reviews are mostly stellar, so... hey, make of it what you will. The genre’s not for me, so I’M BANISHING IT TO OBLIVION.

DEADBOLT reminds me of Gunpoint. Like... uncannily so. This is fine, though, because I really liked Gunpoint. Now, you might be going “hey, Doc, I thought you hated sidescrolling games as evidenced by your above remarks about platformers!” Well, kinda. Deadbolt, like Gunpoint, keeps me engaged by letting me plan things. Observe. Strategize. Engage. That’s what makes it such a fun game. Best way I can describe this is if Gunpoint and Hotline Miami had a baby. The game wears its influences on its sleeves. I LOVE IT.

Word of caution: it gave me a black screen on Windows 10. I had to edit the ini, then it worked properly. Solution was located in the Steam Discussions.

BROKEN DREAMS wouldn’t let me take screenshots of it, probably because it was running in flash. It’s a quirky indie puzzle platformer, with an art design that I find distinctly off-putting. NAH.

DRAKENSANG refused to boot up at first, which is a bad sign, but I finally got it to work, and I was rewarded with a nice classic 3D PC RPG. It feels great to play, very Dragon Agey, if you’ve played that, though it’s got less “AAA Bioware” vibe and more of a “mid-00s German RPG” thing going on. Cool stuff. I had to reinstall the directx executable that came with the game and add “-windowed” to the launch options to make it work. NEAT STUFF.

I’m genuinely unsure where or when I acquired CLOSE YOUR EYES, but it’s definitely not my thing. It’s one of those games where the default controls are Z/X and Arrow keys. Close Your Eyes claims to be a horror game, but this RPG Maker-esque game did nothing to evoke any response in me as I played. I have no idea if it’s good or bad, but the genre and gameplay did nothing to draw me in. I was bored. AWAY WITH YOU.

Well, that’s 20 games. Of those 20 games, 4 of them stayed on the backlog.

The main thing I’m getting here is that genre’s pretty important to me, especially when it comes to being able to make plans. Adventure games and platformers tend not to emphasize strategizing, which is something that’s important to me when playing games. So games where you don’t do that, where you just react to stuff, that’s not as interesting to me.

Until next time.