#what would the agency do if they were forced into hiding? if they lost their best agent the second they realized they even HAD one?

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

the thing about the death engine that people don't think about enough was just how uncompromising it was. it was more than a mission. it was more than a life threateningly dangerous mission. it was a fork in the road for both the agency as well as zoraxis.

the death engine remains as, in the agency's own words, one of "the most powerful weapons known to humanity". if it was left to ravage every known agency base on the face of the planet, the results would have been cataclysmic. likewise, the agent destroying it was the first real domino in the toppling of zoraxis' empire. it would go on to cement one solitary operative as zor's personal enemy.

the agency and zoraxis' fates were thoroughly intertwined the day of the death engine mission. but so were the agent and solaris'.

saying that out loud, it may sound horribly obvious. the two of them were in a situation where neither of them expected to survive. of course their fates were intertwined. what else could they have been? but as much as the mission was a crossroads for their respective corporations, it was equally as important for their own futures.

one of them was bound to win, and the other bound to lose. even if both of them died. even if- as we've seen- neither of them died.

"there's only one agent who could have pulled that off, and they died on the death engine". have you ever thought about that? even before phoenix got their name- even before zoraxis knew they were still alive- they were already reveling in the infamy they gained from that moment. even when zoraxis thought they died, the phoenix still won. they destroyed the death engine, and even after their 'death', they continued to haunt everyone who worked there. a cautionary tale. a legend.

do you not think that if solaris succeeded- killed the agent in some way, or let them kill themself with their ineptitude- she wouldn't have been heralded as a hero to zoraxis? not as though she's particularly loyal to the company, but it's clear that even at the position she's in now, she still is at zor's mercy in regards to what she's allowed to design and create.

if the agent died- if the death engine destroyed every known agency base- she would be one of, if not the most lethal operative zor has. that would have come with power, prominence, the freedom to truly do what she wants… and really, that was the only reason she decided to work with zoraxis in the first place.

there was only one way the death engine could have played out. one of them would succeed where the other would fail. one of them was doomed to be a stepping stone for the other's success.

in that regard, from a narrative perspective, the phoenix and solaris are not foils, but mirrors of one another. they have their very stark differences in loyalty and morality, true, but in those ten or so minutes up in the death engine, they may as well have been one and the same. fighting against the same fate, whether they knew it or not.

to this very day, the phoenix's success is propped on top of solaris' bowing spine. it didn't have to be this way.

[judasgot-it]

Hold Me Tight (and Don't Forget Me)

Scenario: Dazai takes you out on a date the day he's arrested. Slight Warning for Jouno being an ass.

Hold Me Tight - BTS

Pt. 2

1.3 k word count

Blue skies and perfect weather - the worst, because that meant that today would be the perfect day before Dazai would ruin it once again.

It was a strange feeling to have. It was too peaceful, like a flock of seagulls waiting to be chased.

There was nothing wrong. And that was what was wrong with it.

"Dazai. Did you do something?"

You knew it was impossible to ask Dazai these questions and get an honest answer - your ability didn't work on him, so it was only a force of habit to want to interrogate him.

In response, he only smiled, like a cat that was too high for the barking dog. It made your skin bristle every time, but today he was handsy - he smoothed down your sleeves, easing your nerves with a gentle touch.

"I didn't do anything that you need to worry about. We're supposed to be focused on us, remember?"

His grin was honest, almost charming. He sipped his coffee rather loudly to make his point, drinking as if to remind you with force that you were in a diner, not at the Armed Detective Agency.

"Well, yes. But I know you, and you're only hiding the inevitable. You can tell me Dazai, we are dating."

It was weak to pull a card like that with him, but it was always worth a shot anyway. As if dating would make a difference in how Dazai acted.

The man was a mystery, sitting in front of you in his casual attire - nicer because for once, he had washed them for this occasion. He looked put together as well, hair nicely done and his face looking as a man in his younger 20s should.

He typically looked a little disheveled, hidden behind his charisma but noticeable with anyone who cared for appearances. A good smile managed to hide a lot of things, and for once you didn't need to think about it.

In your mind, you knew that something was wrong from this. The last time he had taken you out like this, he had known he would almost die from an ability user, and it was his apology beforehand.

The strange sense of doom was disconcerting; but so was Dazai's cold skin. He was always bouncing so quickly between temperatures as if he were a broken heater - but being cold? On such a warm day?

"I know we are. Just enjoy yourself babe, can't you do that for me?"

His smile was warm, enough to reach his chestnut eyes - treated with a light varnish from the sunlight penetrating the windows. Whatever warmth his body did have, he must have given it to you through that smile, because now you felt just a little hot.

"I don't like you sometimes."

You averted from his gaze, still holding onto his hand despite this. Dazai didn't say anything, his fingers gently tracing patterns along the hair on your wrists.

"Your face says otherwise. Looks like you're loving my company."

He leaned in closer, careful of your plates, pulling your face to match his. It was easier to kiss him than to say you had lost.

But still, something was wrong.

Dazai kissed you as if he would walk out like this was his last dinner. It wasn't hungry and yet it wasn't polite - it was desperate and it felt like an apology for a crime he hadn't even committed yet.

Or maybe one he already had.

-

It was only the middle of the day when Dazai had decided that a good way to spend your time would be horse betting.

Gambling seemed like an odd place to have a date, but it hadn't been the worst one of his ideas. At least it was outside, and it made for good conversation - even as he insisted on staying as close to the crowd as possible.

Dazai had thrown around some big money - enough to make you worried he was going to actually kill himself tonight.

He was just...strange. As the races had gone on, he had become more and more nervous, fumbling with his pockets and becoming a sort of weird handsy with you - as if you wouldn't notice the strange clamminess his skin had become.

Cold and sweaty, a strange feeling on Dazai.

You were left stuck in deep thought as you stared at the pale white horse Dazai had bet on, a bold '9' staring right back at you.

"Excuse me"

A soft and polite voice had broken you out of your thoughts, forcing you to look away from the race - you had won, and a little bit of relief was felt knowing that Dazai was at least lucky enough to have not blown his last three paychecks on horse racing.

"Would either of you happen to know who won this race?"

His eyes were closed, while his smile seemed...off. Your ability was near constant in your mind, and you could feel how wrong this man was. He didn't really care which horse won that race.

"Number 9 won." In your silence, Dazai responded for you, smiling as if this were an idle conversation. He hadn't seemed to notice the scheming mask the man wore, like a fox ready to jump for the canary.

"So you won then, right? You seem quite pleased with yourself after all."

"Wow! How'd you know all of that?"

You tried to lean closer to Dazai, almost feeling how wrong the man was. It was almost like he knew something you didn't, and it was disturbing to you. His smile practically was still friendly, nothing wrong. But it felt almost as cutting as a knife.

"After I had lost my sight, I had gained new senses - I can hear your heart rates, smell your fear, and even feel your future in my back pocket."

Swiftly, the man had handcuffed himself to Dazai, revealing a pair of sharp canines behind his wicked smile.

"And I know that you, Osamu Dazai, are going to be arrested for 138 counts of conspiracy to murder, 312 counts of extortion, and 625 counts of assorted fraud. I could keep going, but I feel like your fiancé has heard more than enough."

Dazai turned to you, his face paler than the cumulonimbus clouds that towered the sky behind you. By his expression alone, you could tell he had no idea that this would happen.

"Wait, hold on-"

You held onto Dazai's arm desperately, reaching for the handcuffs that were beginning to tear him apart from you. This felt like a dream turning into a nightmare, and that you were running too slow.

"I'm a Hunting Dog. I know more than enough about you as well, and your ability should have told you that I'm not a liar like Mr. Dazai here."

Maybe that was why he felt so off. It was more than just the way he said horrible things - over 100 counts of murder, with complete and utter truth.

"Y/n."

Dazai looked back at you with a solem look. There were so many emotions in your head, that you could only focus on the words that had come out of his mouth.

"I love you. Don't forget that, okay?"

Abruptly, you felt him pry your fingers off of his jacket, and look back to the Hunting Dog who had arrested him.

"There's no chance of escaping you, is there?"

"Even if you're hiding in the crowd, I would just kill them. I can take liberties with human life. I can kill your darling too, if you don't start walking."

Numbly, you watched as Dazai left. As if it were a dream, you were stuck in place, unable to chase after him and tell him to stop and even explain how the hell he had gotten into this situation.

You hadn't even gotten the other man's name, not so you could curse him out for taking your love away. There wasn't even the chance to scream.

It was a horribly numb feeling, stuck there in that moment, watching as Dazai walked further and further away from you.

Sorry, had this idea for a while. I was gonna use this song for Jouno, then Nikolai, then GOJO but ended up being a depressing Dazai fic once again....sigh.

[lit3rallyll0yd]

Haii! :D may i please request chuuya, dazai and any characters of your choice; with an s/o who is super quiet and socially awkward unless they’re alone?

Like, they barely say anything in public or when there’s other people around, but when they are alone with their partner they are very talkative and open,

๋࣭ ⭑ socially awkward. bsd x reader

gender: gender neutral

type: headcanons

warnings: lowercase writing

characters: dazai and chuuya

๋࣭ ⭑ dazai osamu 🩹

doesn't try to get you to open up to others

however, that doesn't mean he won't tease you about being like this.

he realized this as you two were talking alone, until the rest of the agency walked by and you suddenly went quiet. others kinds butted in on your guys conversation.

he didn't mention it to you, but he had it on his mind for a while.

real quick he realized you were socially awkward...and thats okay!

he actually loves how open you are with him and that your comfortable to talking to him.

when your in big crowds you tend to stay close to him.

teases you and calls you, "lost puppy trying to find its master"

you had a blush on your face everytime you were in the same room with him for the past four days...

if anyone else were to get to close to you face, or to try and force you to talk, he's stepping in and dragging you away from the drama.

you both have your own inside jokes because of how much you talk to him, leaving others in utter confusion.

"what if i talk to them with you? would that help?"

no matter what you said, he's willing to hep<3

ends with you kinda hiding into his jacket, or straight up leaving without him noticeing...

lets be real, he notices but doesn't have enough energy to run after you, so he strikes up a conversation with said person.

in the end, he finds you in the room...writing, reading, watching tv, whatever you may be doing- dazai kisses your forhead and praises you from trying you best...although, he kinda was just trying to make you feel better

๋࣭ ⭑ chuuya nakahara 🍷

noticed how quiet you get when others are around you almost instantly, which made him question how you got into the port mafia in the first place

you must'v sparked someone's eye...because damn your shy!

to his surprise, you confess your love to him first, which wasn't a surprise you were barely trying to hide it.

hiding your face around him, running away, or straight up ghosting him.

when you started to tak to him more..more laugh, to joke, to yell with him more..it made him feel like you two had something special.

however, i feel like he would 100% try to help you speak more around other people.

no matter how much you try to run away from others, he is stubborn and won't stop...

if you get too overwhelmed and panicked when he keeps doing this, he will stop.

last thing he wants is to make you mute around him, or worse...leave him.

which, can we be honest, will you ever?

if you don't really feel upset when he does this, he will literally lock you in a room with two people, lets say these two people would be tachihara and gin.

you were just...silent.

you didn't even say hi, you were kinda shaken...they tried to strike up conversations with you, but you ended up running away.

"Y/N- ug- BABE! I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU- DON'T YOU DARE LOCK YOURSELF IN THE BATHROOM- uuuuuugg- you're lucky i love you-"

dude can easily just use his gravity to open the door, but he thinks its best for you to let yourself out when your ready.

throw's people into space if they think they can force you to talk by grabbing you, hitting you, or yelling at you.

they've had a death wish.

he's willing to be patient with you, as long as you don't give up so easily.

man, i guess he would lose patience with me reeeeal quick- LOL

[raineandsky]

The Villain's Housekeeper

#73.2 (part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6) (part 7) (part 8) (part 9) (part 10) (part 11)

“It’s looking a little dusty on the mantelpiece,” the villain comments brightly from the comfort of the sofa.

The hero huffs in annoyance but ambles over to the fireplace anyway, waving a feather duster over the surface.

It’s been a week since the villain found the hero hiding out in their pantry—and not to worry, the villain made them clean up all the blood in the kitchen once the police were lost to the city. “It’s my blood,” the hero had pointed out in a desperate attempt to stir sympathy. “I’m hurt.”

“Gross,” the villain had replied with exactly zero sympathy stirred. “Be a darling and disinfect it before I get hero cooties.”

The hero has also been unfortunate enough to discover exactly what the villain expects of a so-called maid. The villain’s getting a wonderful view of those world-famous heroic legs from here, the dainty maid’s dress riding up dangerously as the hero reaches up for the mantlepiece.

They’re also getting a fascinating look at the haphazard bandage on the hero’s arm, deep crimson soaking through the pristine white.

“[Superhero] already got his hands on you before you appeared in my kitchen?” they ask nonchalantly, and the dusting pauses momentarily.

“A bit,” the hero says unhelpfully. The superhero got them a bit? “I got away before he did any real damage, thankfully.”

“What’d you do then?”

The dusting starts again, though it seems more like an idle animation—thoughtless. Not really doing anything. “Something bad.” Also unhelpful. “I– I shared things with people I shouldn’t have.”

“Ooh, how juicy.” The villain chuckles, adjusting themself on the sofa to look at the windowsill behind them. “There’s dust on my vase, by the way.”

The hero glides across the room like some domestic ghost, all worried frowns and mindless motions. They pick the vase up and carefully brush over it with their duster.

The hero hasn’t really felt like sharing much, no matter how much the villain presses for some gossip. It’s only a matter of time before the villain inevitably dangles the hero’s stay here over them in a bid for information. 

-

“Make me a coffee, would you?” The villain’s voice isn’t demanding, but the lack of pleasantries still makes the hero frown in annoyance. Would it kill them to say please?

They do it though, because they have to, in the way the villain’s demanded they do. Almost black, a sugar and the tiniest bit of milk. They’re not sure what the literal thimble of milk adds besides making it a quarter of a shade lighter, but they’ve never brought it up.

“It’s 11pm,” they comment when they appear in the villain’s bedroom doorway. They’re in the midst of preening in the mirror, smoothing over their coat.

“And I have a busy night ahead of me.” They take the cup from the hero with the faintest of smiles. “I’ll be out until early morning. Hold down the fort, and remember what I said.”

The hero can’t help but scowl. “Obviously.”

“What did I say, [Hero]?”

“No snooping.”

The villain positively beams. “Very good,” is all they give that as they turn for the door, forcing the hero to sidestep for them. “I don’t have much for you to do whilst I’m gone. Arrange the bookshelf, maybe? I don’t know.” They pause on the top stair. “Remember to get eight hours of sleep though, darling. You can’t work well when you’re tired.”

The hero nods shortly and then the villain’s on their way, traipsing down the stairs and casually slamming the front door. 

Finally.

The hero darts back to the villain’s bedroom, taking some clothes from their wardrobe and shoving them on—they deserve to give back a little for how they’ve been treating the hero recently. Then it’s to the villain’s office.

It’s hard to take in the sheer amount of information at their fingertips from the doorway. There’s a lot of fuel in here—for the agency and the villains alike. It's a goldmine.

The hero hauls the nearest drawer open and starts rummaging, their ear trained on the door downstairs. There’ll be something in here they can hold over the villain. They know it.

(Next part)

[anneapocalypse]

I have joked before that Stormblood feels like the writers thought they maybe went too hard on Major Character Death™️in Heavensward and so almost nobody gets to die. But looking back over the arc of the Scions as a whole, I think Stormblood through Endwalker are really the Scions learning (if slowly) that Heroic Sacrifice is not always the answer, and also growing closer to one another as people as a result. Especially for those of us who didn't play 1.0, I think it's so easy to forget sometimes that these characters just survived an apocalypse--and lost the guy who was the glue holding them all together. I think a lot of what feels like the Scions being cavalier with their comrade's life in ARR is the fact that they are all waiting, consciously or unconsciously, for their own Louisoix Moment, and they're so deep in that mindset that they probably don't even realize how it feels to an outsider, that understanding that they're all ready to die. Because when that moment does come, they all take it. Moenbryda takes it, Minfilia takes it, Papalymo takes it... and the rest are left to pick up the pieces.

And what do they do with those pieces? After Moenbryda's death Urianger goes on a very long arc where he starts mired in isolation and self-flagellation, but ultimately comes to see that turning to his friends for help is better than suffering alone. Alphinaud faces down the arrogance that made him so easy to manipulate and becomes better at working with others and not over and around them. Alisaie comes to terms with her grandfather's death and pushes those around her to see alternatives to sacrifice. Lyse decides to stop hiding, to live as herself, and to fight for what she believes in, ultimately becoming a leader in her newly-freed homeland. Thancred learns to better respect the agency of the people he loves while still acting as a protector. Y'shtola begins--slowly, and haltingly, but she does begin--to share her struggles with her friends instead of keeping everything to herself. G'raha, after years of secrecy and preparing to sacrifice himself, finds himself given a second chance and a new life to share with the people he loves. Estinien finds deeply meaningful friendships with people he would have once considered his enemy, and lets go of a life of solitude in favor of joining the Scions.

There's a reason the Scions don't really feel like a family in ARR. There's a reason that, to me, they do feel like one by Endwalker. Sometimes media will try to force a found family dynamic between a group of characters who don't even necessarily like each other very much; FFXIV lets the cracks in the Scions show early and then shatters them, then brings them back together in a long journey of reforging those bonds and making them stronger than they ever were.

[dazaisms]

❀°:.• BRING HIM BACK !

synopsis. how the ada would react to dazai's death.

characters. atsushi, kunikida, ranpo, kyouka, yosano, kenji, tanizaki & fukuzawa.

cw. main character death, angst, making the sillies suffer again.

atsushi nakajima

Atsushi would lock himself away in his room at the news of Dazai's death. He wouldn't leave his room. Not for food, not for anything. He's always looked up to Dazai, admittedly, he shouldn't because he isn't the best mentor. But Dazai was the one to save him from starvation at that river, him and Kunikida. They saved his life. He'd feel really fucking guilty that he couldn't return the favour and save Dazai's life, too.

It would take months until he finally emerges from his room, pale as the moonlight and evident signs of hunger. But he didn't eat for weeks before, so he could do it again. Which is exactly what he did. Because the guilt and the sadness were constantly eating away at him.

After he left his room, he took on cases and such all the time to distract his mind. He always took them on with someone else, because if it was just him, he would be dead by now. He even ran into Akutagawa and Chuuya once, and he could tell the impact that Dazai's death had on them, too.

✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽:ﾟ･⋆｡✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽:ﾟ･⋆｡✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽

kunikida doppo

Unlike Atsushi, he would not lock himself away. He'd find ways to keep himself busy. Especially because the death would mean such a big change in his life. He wouldn't have Dazai's constant wittering and whining in his ear, he wouldn't be scolding him 24/7 or chastising him because he wasn't working. Honestly, he was going to miss it.

It had managed to embed itself into his routine, he doesn't know what he's going to do to make up for the loss of it.

But he distracted himself constantly, working until late hours of the night and taking on cases everyday just to distract his mind from the thought of it all.

✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽:ﾟ･⋆｡✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽:ﾟ･⋆｡✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽

edogawa ranpo

Personally, I think Ranpo would feel rather guilty. Even though none of them should be feeling this way, he just would. How is he the greatest detective, but he couldn't even tell that Dazai was going to die? And he couldn't do anything to stop it?

I think there would be a noticeable change in his behaviour, and he's now using the sweets and snacks as a way to try and find a least an ounce of comfort. Because everything had changed with the news of his death.

He couldn't even say nor do anything to cheer people up, because everyone was quiet. It had impacted the ADA that much, that they all worked in dead silence.

✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽:ﾟ･⋆｡✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽:ﾟ･⋆｡✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽

kyouka izumi

Kyouka didn't know Dazai on the level that the rest of the agency did, but she knew he meant a lot to everyone, especially Atsushi. Obviously, she would still be hurt by it, because they've lost a friend. Kyouka rarely wore a smile, anyways, but if you looked close enough, you could see the slight downturn of her lips that she couldn't fight to hide.

But what would hurt her the most is the state Atsushi is in, especially because he locked himself away, she'd be worried that he might be the next one they lose.

So, she probably forced herself into his room just to make sure he's eating, drinking, sleeping and just taking care of himself overall. Because she cannot lose him next.

✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽:ﾟ･⋆｡✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽:ﾟ･⋆｡✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽

yosano akiko

Much like Ranpo, she would be overwhelmed with guilt. And she feels like it's eating away at her.

There was a desperate attempt from her using her ability to at least try and bring him back. Even though she knew she couldn't, it was worth a try, right? So, when she couldn't do it, the guilt broke her and started eating away at every little part of her.

Why? Why wasn't her ability good enough to bring him back? So, she made sure she was helping the rest of the agency everytime they were injured, even if it was just a small paper cut, or some small injury, she couldn't afford to lose another one.

✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽:ﾟ･⋆｡✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽:ﾟ･⋆｡✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽

kenji miyazawa

The smile is gone. It occasionally returns when he's thinking about the good times in the ADA that they all had with Dazai. But it's gone just as quick as it came when he remembers that Dazai is actually gone and they can't get him back now.

He's probably out all the time, saving animals and such. Because if he can't save Dazai, he can at least save the animals, right?

He'd keep a smile on his face when doing so to make sure others around him still have hope and such, because he would hate for them to lose hope because he's not smiling.

✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽:ﾟ･⋆｡✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽:ﾟ･⋆｡✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽

junichiro tanizaki

I believe he's a rather quiet person anyways, but after Dazai's death, the amount he speaks reduces even more. Surprisingly, Naomi isn't all over him and he appreciates it.

Because they've just lost a friend, and he couldn't cope with her being all over him for awhile. I can't say much for tanizaki because I don't know enough about his character, but he is obviously impacted by it.

✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽:ﾟ･⋆｡✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽:ﾟ･⋆｡✰⋆｡:ﾟ･*☽

fukuzawa yukichi

Another one that would feel guilty. Especially because he is supposed to be the one taking care of the agency and ensuring their safety. Their safety was supposed to be his top priority, and he let Dazai die just like that?

After Dazai's death, he'd be a lot more careful with the other members of the agency. Especially people like Atsushi, who seemed to spiral into a depression after Dazai's death.

But he had to make sure everyone else was safe. Even before his own safety. He could not lose another agency member.

toby's notes ;

@rheeeeeeeesiees <- your tag, pookie :3

this is a rather long one, sorry about that.

[swappingbryn]

It Was Never Enough

There was no doubt, Justin had gone through drastic changes over the years. From his squeaky clean image as a barely legal new comer to the pseudo thug tough guy he is today. But few people know the (main one of many) reason for his change was actually due to his poor financial management, coupled with gambling.

Few people recognize that many of his tattoos were the result of lost bets with friends or private auctions with fans to select tattoos (with an extra premium on special places). As a way to hide those tattoos, he had to get more just to make them look normal.

As soon as his popularity skyrocketed after turning 21, as more and more money came rolling in, his spending increased, quickly outpacing his earnings. By 25, he had no choice but to churn out more music because he had taken massive advances from the studio and had to pay them back.

And his money problems only got worse when he got married. He refused to curb his spending and refused to let his wife know how bad their situation was. Despite hemorrhaging money, he still threw it around. He even chartered a plane for a week to bring them on vacation for $100,000, a two hour car ride away, when first class tickets on a commercial plane round trip would have only been $1,000 total.

Live Shows

Finally his financial manager put his foot down and made Justin cut spending slightly and find new income streams, which resulted in private live shows for high paying clients. But it was never enough. After even private shows (with increasingly provocative content) wasn’t enough, his finance manager came to him with a possible solution, renting out his body.

Justin was reluctant but gave in when he saw how much high profile people were renting for. He once again (stupidly) refused to be represented at the meeting, choosing to represent himself. He felt like he had reached an amazing deal and thought he’d be debt free in no time, not realizing how bad his situation was. This poor (obscenely wealthy) guy was paying him $100,000 per day to use his body, until Justin was debt free.

After the swap, Justin saw his body walking out of the building thinking how he’d be himself again in no time. The only problem was Justin was so in debt that even at $100,000 per day, $3,000,000 month, $36,500,000 per year, it would take at least five years to repay what was owed. His former finance manager came up to his now old, obese body and told him “I can’t believe you accepted that offer, it will take years to repay at this rate.” Justin was astounded, he fought and raged. After a month of his new prison cell of a body he even set up a meeting with the agency and demanded the swap end. They were very polite and said “of course, we can end the swap right away,” “oh thank god, when can we do this?” “Immediately sir, as soon as the payment clears, the swap will occur.” Justin was confused, “what payment?” “Sir, the contract you signed, the contract you negotiated, specified that the swap would only end when the debt was repaid. Until that time, only the new Mr. Bieber can decide to break the agreement by agreeing to accept what has been paid already as payment in full. I take it you are not ready to make payment now?” Justin was forced out of the office as he tried to fight.

Justin tried to FaceTime his body, and when it connected, he saw it was smoking a cigar. Justin started to yell again but the call disconnected. He tried to call back but was greeted by an error message. Then a call came in from an unknown number, “Hey MITCH, sorry bro, but I don’t want you calling me directly. I just blocked you from MY phone. This is a pay phone, I didn’t know these still existed haha. Don’t try to contact me until you’re ready to pay me everything you owe to swap back. I don’t have time to deal with you.” And the number disconnected.

Month after money, he watched his balance owed decline slowly. He owed so much that even the astronomical payments mostly covered interest. It took 15 years to finally be repaid. Justin’s body was not past his prime and had lost most of its earnings potential.

@mr2swap

[he13na]

help me move out of my controlling parents' house

hi, everyone. i'm a 29 year old autistic woman and i need help moving out of my toxic parent's household in order to live a normal and healthy life. in no way am i intellectually impaired, my mother uses my neurodivergence to infantilize me. she has always been controlling, but her grip is tightening and the demands she's placing on me are unreasonable. not only that, but she's violating my boundaries by telling her customers at work my personal business and seeking their opinions on what i should and shouldn't be allowed to do. i'm having to lie about going on dates with my friend who's also a love interest because she doesn't want me to have a boyfriend. she literally sat down next to me and made me friendzone him over instagram DMs so she would be more comfortable about a day trip we were planning, even though that was a lie and i have romantic feelings.

she's forcing purity culture on me, an adult woman, and making it so that i have no choice but to maintain my virginity with threats and a bizarre obsession with it, telling me not to be "giving anything away" when i'm just going out for coffee or a picnic, i'm having to lie about where i am because she'll cause trouble even though i'm not doing anything wrong, she's accusing me of being "up to something" and it's uncomfortable around the house when she tells me i'm being too quiet and i've "changed". i haven't "changed", and i just think she's afraid of losing control over me, so she's treating me like a teenager. she keeps demanding info about my dates with the same person, where i'll be, what time, what i'm wearing and getting too involved, then proceeding to guilt me into not engaging in any kind of sexual activity when that's not even on the table and i'm terrified of losing my virginity because of the consequences should she find out (and she will in one way or another). i don't have agency over that and it's not a choice i "get" to make, and i'm scared that if that moment comes, it's not going to be about me or my partner. it's going to be about her and the guilt and fear i've been conditioned with, and paranoia. i'm not allowed to go to another adult man's house unless his mother is home. these rules are reasonable for an adolescent or a high schooler, but this is just ridiculous and she insists i need to be chaperoned on dates. i'm not allowed to go out at night, even though i'll be with an absolute sunshine of a guy who promised to protect me and i can trust. my mother is getting other people involved in my love life and i'm living on eggshells, finding that i have to hide parts of myself and my identity because she's blowing everything out of proportion and criticizing my fashion choices and what i can/can't wear.

earlier this summer, she had her coworker besties and familiar customers weigh in on whether or not i should be "allowed" to go to the beach with my friend and she put a tracker on my phone. at 29 years old. i became so ill with severe anxiety that i lost weight, fell into depression, felt nauseous and developed a habit of shaking when i'm nervous.

i don't have any other friends or family to live with (he lives with his parents too and is also ND) and she's holding money over my head to keep me indebted. i owe her $3500 for helping me fix my car because i accidentally dented it getting too close to our gate trying to make room in the driveway for my dad's car and she wouldn't let me park in the garage, aka what it's there for. she charges me $500 rent per month and on top of my phone and car insurance bill, i have nothing left to give her or save to pay her back.

i'll never be able to move out with this financial obligation or even save up, and i really need help because this is unhealthy and her imposed rules, spreading my personal business, disrespect and exertion of control and manipulation over me is escalating. i have a job and it's not enough, barely covers my bills and rent. please help me because i'm beginning to feel like there's no way out and i need to get free. if you have some extra money to spare and you're feeling kind enough to help me, my paypal is:

thank you so much, and please spread this so that others may see it and help me. <3

[scoobydoodean]

regarding jesse and dean saying they could use him in a fight… do you think maybe dean’s motivations are two fold in the sense that he is thinking about how useful jesse could be but also thinking about being able to protect jesse better if he’s just already with them? somewhat like sam’s initial motivations regarding jack if that makes sense

Context

Sam and Dean definitely wanted to protect Jesse—there's no question about that one. They both burst into Jesse's house after Cas flies away to kill Jesse when Sam and Dean refused to go along with it. Even Cas didn't want to kill Jesse—he just thought it was what was necessary (and Cas's ruthlessness in these sorts of circumstances is also a through line—all the way to the Rosemary's Baby storyline in season 12 where he goes behind Sam and Dean's backs to kill Kelly). But the actual plan to take Jesse with them was born out of an argument with Cas where Sam and Dean were trying to keep Jesse alive while being realistic about the fact that demons would continue hunting him.

When Cas first arrives in the motel and opens with "We should kill Jesse", Sam and Dean let him explain, but then Dean tries to reason Cas toward the solution being, "We should just leave him the hell alone":

DEAN Well, if Jesse's a demonic howitzer, then what the hell's he doing in Nebraska? CASTIEL The demons lost him. They can't find him. But they're looking. DEAN And they lost him because? CASTIEL Because of the child's power. It hides him from both angels and demons. For now. DEAN So he's got, like, a force field around him. Well, that's great. Problem solved.

Cas insists that Jesse is growing stronger because of Lucifer's rise, and something he does will draw the demons attention and he'll be found. This crushes Dean's "Just leave him alone with his parents" angle, and Sam interjects to tell Cas that they aren't killing a child not matter what. Dean backs Sam on this, while pushing a new solution that takes Cas's concerns into account:

Okay. Hey, look, we are not going to kill him. All right? But we can't leave Jesse here either. We know that. So...we take him to Bobby's. He'll know what to do.

Cas objects to this too, saying they have no way to actually get Jesse to come with them to Bobby's, much less stay with them. So Sam pushes another solution, which is to tell Jesse the truth. This does the opposite of placate Cas, and he flies off to kill Jesse without their support.

So Sam and Dean both wanted to protect Jesse. They didn't want to kill him. They tried to compromise with Cas by saying they'd take Jesse to Bobby's where he'd be safe.

Nobody was talking about Jesse actually helping them in a fight until Sam and Dean rushed over to the house, and Dean, who never said he was onboard with telling Jesse the truth, tries to get him to come with them somewhere safe without telling him the truth, because (as he says at the end of the episode) he wishes his own dad had lied to them when they were kids. Jesse's become aware of his own powers though, so what Dean comes up with is that Jesse is a superhero.

DEAN You're a superhero. JESSE I am? DEAN Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who else could turn someone into a toy? You're Superman—minus the cape and the go-go boots. See, my—my partner and I, we work for a secret government agency. It's our job to find kids with special powers. In fact, we're here to take you to a hidden base in South Dakota, where you'll be trained to fight evil. JESSE Like the X-Men? DEAN Exactly like the X-Men. In fact, the, uh, guy we're taking you to—he's even in a wheelchair. You'll be a hero. You'll save lives. You'll get the girl. Sounds like fun, right?

Much of season 4 is about the inevitability of hunting from Sam and Dean's perspectives—that at a certain point, you are in the life too deep to get out. Sam and Dean never had a choice in this life and now it's too late and they have to make the best of it. In season 4, Sam mainly talks about it as something he wouldn't change anyway (until the end) but Dean pretty consistently grieves (4.04, 4.08, 4.12, 4.12, 4.19, 4.21). Jesse is similarly already trapped in the life by the circumstances of his birth and the fact that demons are looking for him.

So what Dean does here is a reflection of his own coping skills with being trapped in hunting when he was a kid. This is a Dabb and Loflin episode, and what Dean does here mirrors Dean's childhood romanticization of hunting according to their previous episode, 4.13 "After School Special", where it's obvious that in order to cope with the weight of John's neglect and the stress of responsibility to the family and being trapped in the life, a young Dean pushes himself to focus on the fact that they're a family of heroes, that they have a sweet setup at the motel with free ice, and being left there for weeks in charge with no curfew is fun and not stressful and soul-crushing at all. Dean talks about a similar narrative from around that age in 2.03 when he describes to Gordon how he embraced the life as a teenager by telling himself he was seeing things other kids his age never got to see, and we later contrast this with "Bad Boys".

Adult Dean's feelings are very different from the feelings of that kid who was just trying to cope. We see this starting in 2.10 and 2.11 when Dean refers to John's last words as "Screaming in his head all day" and says "I wish to god he never opened his mouth" and "Well Dad's an ass! He never should have said anything. I mean, you don't do that, you don't, you don't lay that kind of crap on your kids!" Then at the end of 5.06:

DEAN You know, we destroyed that kid's life by telling him the truth. SAM We didn't have a choice, Dean. DEAN Yeah. You know, I'm starting to get why parents lie to their kids. You want them to believe that the worst thing out there is mixing Pop Rocks and Coke—protect them from the real evil. You want them going to bed feeling safe. If that means lying to them, so be it. The more I think about it...the more I wish Dad had lied to us. SAM Yeah, me too.

Dean wishes John had protected them. He didn't want to be left with the weight of Sam's demonic destiny on his shoulders (that also signified Dean's own potential to become a monster he didn't want to be). So at first, Dean tries to fill Jesse's head with vague ideas that he's a hero and destined for good. Then when Sam tells Jesse the truth, Dean urges Jesse to come with them somewhere safe, where he can train and "you'd be handy in a fight, kid". I don't know—I think it's hard to say whether Dean really meant he'd ask Jesse to fight side by side with them in the apocalypse, and also how far that would go even if they did end up asking Jesse to use his powers to assist them. Like Dean is pretty consistently against involving kids in the life. I do think at the very least, Dean was trying to instill a sense of heroism into Jesse to reinforce that he doesn't have to be evil just because he's half demon and some demons want him to help them kill people. Sam also doesn't object because he also sees Jesse having to come with them as inevitable. After Jesse says "What if I don't want to fight?" Sam tries to talk him through it (he also suggests Jesse has to abandon his parents to protect them). The thing is, Jesse proves all of them wrong. He proves Cas wrong by never doing what he was foretold to do, and he proves Sam and Dean wrong about the inescapability of hunting by flying off to Australia never to be seen again.

[jesse-pinko]

ALASKA MIKE AND JESSE CONTENT. NOW!!!!!!!!!!!

Off the top of my head…

- Going off my own fic they go to Alaska together after Mike, who was injured instead of killed by Walter’s bullet, rescues Jesse from the compound after he basically stumbles on him months later while trying to track down Walt

- Mike knows it’s unwise for them to keep traveling together, much less settle down anywhere, but one night when they’re holed up in a motel and Jesse has just had a night terror and Mike has spent a good five minutes trying to convince the kid that they’re not even in New Mexico anymore and Jesse asks where they’re going and Mike says he isn’t sure yet- Jesse looks up at him, his eyes huge and lost and looking for anything concrete to anchor him to reality and asks if they could go to Alaska- well, Mike can’t think of anywhere else to go

- They live together at first because Jesse isn’t physically or emotionally in a place where he can take care of himself. The aftereffects of his night terrors can last for hours, which is confusing and terrifying, and could create situations in which he might feel he was justified in doing something drastic. Slowly, these become less frequent and for the most part less severe, he sees doctors and specialists (Mike is surprised that Jesse has the wherewithal or the knowledge to take charge of these appointments himself, and they end up discussing his Aunt Ginny and his interest in sports medicine) and he offers to move out, like he thinks Mike has just been putting up with him all this time. Mike agrees because he thinks it’s good for the kid to have his own space, but Jesse is surprised when Mike’s joke about being glad about getting some peace and quiet sounds even more doleful than he’d expected. The next time he calls Mike, Mike immediately asks him what’s wrong like a dad whose teenager just left for college

- When Jesse gets His Dog the one we all agree he has it’s because he picked it up as a stray on the side of the road while they were still living together and then he tries to hide the dog from Mike like a ten-year-old would from their parents and Mike is like. Do you think this is my first rodeo. I know you’re hiding some sort of animal from me. When did I say we could get a dog.

- Side tangent I’ve seen a lot of heated debates over the years as to what breed Jesse’s dog should be but I work with dogs so I have seniority over all of you and I’ll decide. I love huskies, I do, but Jesse has had enough crazy in his life without adding a husky to the mix. The right answer is Fat Old Lady Staffordshire Terrier, which is a Whole Other Breed, as the kids say. Every time I meet an old lady staffy it’s like meeting a spunky little grandma who goes to pride parades and hits rude people with her handbag. He needs that in his life

- Jesse started having seizures not long after his rescue, and even after it looks like he’s out of the woods they keep happening. He’s not allowed to drive, obviously, until they know the medication the doctor prescribed him works, and Mike is initially put off by him sulking about it when he’s the one who has to drive the kid everywhere after all. But Jesse is actually comfortable enough to open up to him about how it’s more about his fears around being stripped of agency and feeling trapped and they actually have like a genuine discussion about it it’s nice :)

- When Mike gets older and does eventually start having memory problems they essentially switch roles from when he first rescued Jesse from the compound… Jesse does exactly what Mike did when he isn’t understanding what’s happening in the present moment; trying to follow whatever his line of thinking is to a nonthreatening conclusion instead of trying to force a new reality on him, answering the same questions over again patiently, sometimes deflecting with something else he thinks might catch his attention or at least disrupt a distressing train of thought. Sometimes, Mike calls him Matty by mistake. If he doesn’t notice, Jesse doesn’t remark on it. Sometimes Mike will ask if he’s feeling alright, at random, like when they first got there and he was still in recovery, or will swear up and down that he’d come into the room because he heard Jesse calling for his help.

- Jesse’s kid gets them matching BFF bracelets from Claire’s that they have to wear at least once because if you don’t show enough gratitude for the presents kids give you it hurts their feelings :)

[jaredxenoengage]

Veyle’s other self: the difference between the altered mind and the other self.

When we look at the aspect of Mind Control as a whole, it is the simple act of altering one’s thoughts to perfectly align with the controller’s wishes. While Fire Emblem itself usually voluntarily just uses mind control to get a (usually female) character to do what the bad guy wants them to do, the mind control trope itself is actually far more variable and complex than what you may think https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MindControl.

Beyond just that, the case of a certain Fire Emblem Engage character is a more interesting case than what some may say. Enter Veyle, who is my personal favorite Fire Emblem Engage character. A lot of people have complained that her evil personality in the words of TVTropes “cheaply removes agency from the real Veyle so she can be entirely sympathetic.” To that I say, what if I told you that that’s the point?

When it comes to Veyle’s story of abuse and control, there are three things we need to take into consideration: 1. Sombron’s control over Veyle’s life. 2. How the other Veyle is supposed to work and 3.(very important) Veyle’s accountability.

The best place to start talking about Veyle’s life of oppression is with the oppressor himself. The Fell Dragon Sombron, Veyle’s (and Alear’s) biological father. In case if it wasn’t obvious from his introduction in Chapter 10, to Sombron, everyone that he comes across (his children, the Four Hounds, and even his followers) are nothing more than pawns at best and tools at worst. Once Sombron has no use for you, you’re just deadweight (emphasis on the dead part). The end of chapter 24 also displays how he sees his children:

So right from the start, of course Veyle was stripped of her agency; she was living under a jerk that only saw his children as worthless slaves. Why would Sombron allow someone he considers to be a pawn to be allowed the chance to decide their own lives? Remember how Sombron rewarded Hyacinth for aiding his revival? He was eaten alive for it…

As a matter of fact, when it comes to Sombron’s control over others, it also foils how Sombron strips an Emblem of their free will when using an invocation on them. This represents the dominance he has over his children just for simply being their father.

This isn’t helped by the fact that the Four Hounds are all followers of the Fell Dragon (Sombron). This is especially the case of Zephia and Griss. Their reasons for treating Veyle as a “defect” is because she lacks the qualities they expected from someone who is Sombron’s child. In other words, they see Veyle as an extension of Sombron.

Zephia (Sombron’s most devoted follower) and Griss (who follows Zephia) only act nice to the good Veyle in order to keep her trapped. So that once Zephia’s spell takes full effect, the real Veyle would be erased and the other Veyle would take her place.

Griss really followed Veyle (EVeyle) so that he could get pain as offering to the Fell Dragon. It now makes sense why he was following Veyle and considers her good side to be a defect. Just Sombron and Zephia, Griss was forcing his expectations onto her.

The mere fact that the Hounds were followers of her father Sombron means that Veyle was going to be trapped by him no matter how many times she tries to run or defy his orders. Sombron will have control over Veyle’s life one way or another. For Veyle, there was never such a thing as being able to control her own life (no agency). Because Sombron is the one who had control over it. The Four Hounds exist to keep her trapped under the rule of her abusive father.

Like I said before, just simply being the daughter of the Fell Dragon allows Sombron to have control over Veyle even when not directly there. As Veyle lost her mother and was forced to go into hiding because of the persecution she suffered from the humans.

This leads into Veyle’s other personality EVeyle. This is not just another mind control situation. EVeyle is her own person with her own thoughts and feelings. She isn’t just some mindless robot who can’t think without someone else doing the thinking.

EVeyle feels more like a Shadow from the works of Carl Jung (referenced in the Persona series, 2 and 4 more specifically). A shadow is the innermost emotional cores that lie deep within our psyche. Often representing the sides of ourselves we wish to hide from others.

EVeyle represents Veyle’s inner hate for humans, her innate desire for Sombron’s acknowledgement, and her fear of becoming a monster. Zephia uses her power to tamper with her heart to create her other self. The other Veyle is the embodiment of Sombron’s will.

Even EVeyle says that she is “the real Veyle.” This is a common word choice for shadow archetypes. Representing the darker paths that we as individuals are at risk of taking.

Yu's vocals: You and I we ain't so different

I guess I had more blessings

Without it, got belligerent

But I totally understand

Glass was half full for mine

Adachi's vocals: And it looked half empty for me

Both: Maybe that one glass made the path we took, who knows?

— "Yin Yang", Persona 4: The Golden Animation

As Zephia’s actions with tampering with her Draconic Impulses implies, Zephia was just stimulating the feelings that Veyle held inside of her. EVeyle’s hatred towards humans, her desire to please her father, and her fear of what she would become as a result, etc.

Terra: What did I do? What did YOU do?

Maleficent: You speak as if I pulled some invisible strings. No, you couldn't be further from the truth, child. I simply whispered to the darkness you already held inside.

— Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep

As for EVeyle having a personality, Veyle’s supports with Ivy and Hortensia confirm that Evil Veyle liked Sweets. While the real Veyle likes Spicy foods. This is the moment where Hortensia truly begins to accept the real Veyle as the true Veyle.

In the case where this was a similar situation with Hortensia or Invoked Emblems, EVeyle would be a mindless husk incapable of having the capacity for liking or disliking anything. She would have no emotions whatsoever. Would a mindless person have the ability to beg for their life and say “I don’t want to die” with such emotions? I don’t think so.

But the most important aspect about Veyle’s character comes after she finally wins her agency back: her desire to atone for her (EVeyle’s) sins. A choice that she is making for herself. Not because anyone is asking/forcing her to do it.

Veyle’s supports and the rest of the game are focused on her atoning. Veyle could have just blamed all of the bad things that happened onto Sombron, Zephia and/or her evil self. But when it comes down to it, Veyle chooses to atone.

One could say that it’s out of self hatred, and while this may be true, this is another reason why I compared EVeyle to be a shadow. She still treats EVeyle as her own weakness. Something that, if it didn’t overcome her, then everything that happened could have been avoided.

The puzzling question is can one still be hold accountable for circumstances they have no control over? The circumstances may vary, but in the case of Veyle, because EVeyle is the darkness in her heart, she has to make the choice to fight to prove she is more than what others say.

In fact, Veyle was very close to choosing the easy way out and accepting death just to be with her sibling Alear who just died protecting her. And even then, she didn’t blame the world, Sombron or Zephia for the suffering she endured.

It isn’t until Alear (who also suffered from Sombron’s abuse) faces his own struggles that he learned to understand and accept Veyle. And this act of forgiveness would be the first step in saving the world and (more importantly, in that moment) mend their broken relationship.

Regardless if Veyle deserves credit for all that has happened or not, it’s as Sigurd said to Alear and Seliph; truth is subjective and there can’t be one single truth either. We have to see the bigger picture in order to truly understand each other.

If Lumera was in her right state of mind at the time and knew the full truth about Veyle, I’m sure Lumera would have forgiven Veyle without a second thought. And I’m sure Alear forgiving Veyle is what the real Lumera would have wanted too.

Veyle doesn’t deserve forgiveness for being a victim of Sombron’s abuse. Veyle deserves it because she herself made the choice and effort to make things right, to atone, to change… even before chapter 22, she already had the potential to be a hero…

And that’s more than I can say for Sombron and Zephia, who made no effort to repent whatsoever and continued to live in their selfish ways until the very end. In the words of Ike: “they’ll get no sympathy from me.”

So overall, I say screw TVTropes take here. Veyle fighting to get her agency back is the point, EVeyle actually has more depth than you think, and above all else, she’s sympathetic because she chose atonement when she could have hid behind her excuse. That’s just my opinion though.

[forthewinn]

@trcstme

"They won't hurt me if they see value in me." Winn wished that sentence were true. More than that, he wished that they didn't see any value in him at all. He wished that he could be at home with Sarah, not trapped in this hell. Not spending days tied to a chair and nights locked in a cell.

He couldn't tell where he was, just that he was clearly in some base of operations. Parts of it reminded him of Castle, at least the parts of it he got to see. Kami had dragged him into a windowless room, clearly having been used before. Winn barely noticed as she pushed him forward, stumbling into the chair before she pulled him down and started on his restraints. Another parallel to his first capture, handcuffs and zip ties biting into his skin.

"One day, you are going to learn you can't escape me Agent Schott." Her voice was soft, even as she finished tightening the cuffs. "You should really just learn to accept that I'll always find you. And it's an honor really." It took him another moment to focus, to really try and get himself grounded in the moment. "The Ring has found you to be a valuable asset. After we were able to test our last project on you, we have decided that we once again need your mind." Winn tried to hide the fear that showed on his face at the thought of everything he lost after his most recent encounter with Kami. The memories that were taken, the pain that came with them erasing them. How he almost didn't get them back. "Oh don't worry, we aren't going to do that again. No, what we need is your knowledge. I understand you work closely with the FBI, CIA, and NSA. What we need from you is simply to get into their systems for us, we have a present to give them."

He felt his heart almost stop. At the thought of what they wanted him to do. They wanted his help on a cyber attack on government agencies. He knew that this would be the start. That if they could they would force him to hack over and over, to get into any system so they could take over. "N-no. I'm not going to get into anything for you." He finally met her eyes, bringing his chin up as he looked at Kami.

"I was hoping you would say that. I would love to persuade you."

The words seemed to live in his mind, ringing as they dragged him back to his cell. His body barely moved as they threw him onto the ground after yet another encounter with Kami. He didn't register the 'click' from the shackle that they locked around his ankle, keeping him far enough away from the door that Winn couldn't override any of their security systems.

And so it continued. Kami trying to break Winn, pulling out new ways to get inside his head. New ways to break him. A taser crackled as he was thrown into another flashback. Winn on his knees as Kami watched a taller man shove Winn's head underwater, just to bring him back up gasping for air. Part of him wondered if giving in would even change anything. It was pretty clear Kami was enjoying this, watching as every morning she opened his cell door and smiled at his broken figure. After a while, he figured out the pattern. Kami decided that she was going to re-create their previous encounters. The taser left burn marks, similar to the scars on his temples. A reminder of when he lost his memory. Bruises from the beating that mirrored their first encounter, Tobais trying to break Winn down.

Another day Kami came in. He didn't register the metal pipe that was in her hand, the one injury that Kami directly caused. "Do you remember what Tobias did with one of these?" She asked as she held it up, the light dancing on the metal. "Because I remember how you screamed." And then he felt it, the pain he wished he would never have to feel again. The metal connecting with his knee, not even trying to hold back the scream that the impact had caused. "It sounded just like that."

His entire body protested as Kami came in, Winn unable to move. He had given up on anyone finding him. He was pretty sure that he really did belong to Kami and The Ring. Winn groaned as she moved him, propping him up against the wall as she handed him a bottle of water. He could tell that it had already been opened, and maybe that should have worried him. But he knew they weren't going to kill him, Kami needed him. "Drink it." She ordered, setting down the box that she brought with her. He recognized the clothes he wore on his wedding night. The ones that he was wearing when she took him. On top of the clothes she placed a few photographs, Winn looking long enough to recognize that they were ones she had taken over the past few weeks. All of them from different points in their torture sessions. His head was feeling heavy, Winn looking up at Kami for a moment. "The drugs must be hitting you. Don't worry, it's just trazodone. You'll be asleep within the next 20 minutes. We've been compromised. But don't worry, I'll find you again."

[arealphrooblem]

A Favor for a Favor Part 6

Part one here

CW for the fic overall: kissing/fade to black off screen sex, mentions of non-consensual drugging, non-graphic wound care, off screen murder mention

Synopsis:

When Roxanne -- Agent name Rocket -- is back-stabbed by a friend and given a serum that drains her of her powers and leaves her helpless, she has no choice but to turn to the one person she can't trust: Her nemesis -- a politician and king of the underworld. With her powerless and in the palm of his hand, what he decides to do with her is greatly influenced by their chance meeting as teenagers that neither of them have been able to forget.

The Present

His soft footsteps  crunched over the gravel path. She didn’t look up from her huddled form on the deck chair. A blanket dropped over her shoulders, smelling powerfully of his soap.

“Did you ever find out why he did it,” she asked softly. 

“Will you believe me if I tell you?”

“I don’t know what else to do. You’re all I have right now.”

“It’s terrifying , isn’t it? Having to trust the unknown.”

He sat down on the chair next to her, legs stretched out. 

“You are eating this role reversal up, aren’t you?”

He paused for a moment. “I don’t like seeing you this way. I much prefer you obnoxious and sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

She snorted at that.

“For someone so active in the Agency, your arrest record is relatively small. The criminals you catch serve community service hours or house arrest or time in mental hospitals and rehab centers more than jail.  Why is that?”

She looked up at him finally, brow furrowed. What did that have to do with anything?

“Just answer the question,” he said softly. 

“My mom,” she answered. “You know she was a defense attorney. She always told me that the systems we have help a select few and hurt the rest. She saw more people trapped and desperate, people who never stood a chance, than people who were just malicious. I never forgot that. And I never forgot you. You were living proof of that. At least, until you became this.”

She waved a hand over his designer clothes and at the penthouse terrace. 

“That’s what he hated,” John told her. “He considered you unfit because you were too soft. Crime would only increase under you because you never made an example of anyone. They didn’t fear you. He acted on his own to solve the problem because the Agency refused to hear his concerns. I won’t get into the particulars of how he discovered my serum. But rest assured it won’t happen again, by him or anyone else.”

“That fucking bastard,” she whispered. 

He had been the loudest voice about civilian safety, cleaning up neighborhoods, fighting gang activity. Sometimes it bordered on the insensitive, the oblivious and childish idea of black and white morality. She never thought he would stoop to this.

“He still should have had a trial,” she said, but the bitter part of her heart didn’t believe it anymore. 

“I can’t have anyone else knowing what I created. I don’t feel guilty about it.”

“If it's such a risk, why the hell did you even make it? As far as I know, I’m the first Agent to get hit with it. You could have dismantled the whole Agency. Or sold it to the highest bidder who would do the same.”

“You love your power. I can tell how lost you are without it even without reading your mind. I depend on mine and it protects me. But there are people who have powers that do nothing but cause them misery. People whose powers make them a target everywhere they go. People who can’t hide. I made it for them.”

“Oh.”

It sounded too magnanimous to be true. 

“They pay for it,” he assured her. “A favor for a favor.”

That sounded more like him.

“Can it . . .be reversed?” She forced herself to ask it. The answer terrified her. 

“Theoretically. I have an antidote. It’s just never been tested before. It will be here tomorrow.”

Hope exploded, bright and overwhelming, in her chest. 

“Are you serious?” she squealed. “Tomorrow?”

She launched herself at him, crawling in his lap and wrapping her arms around him, with a force strong enough to push them both back against the chair. He made a small oomph beneath her, arms flailing awkwardly at his side. Her ribs protested painfully but she didn’t care. She pressed her face in the juncture of his shoulder and neck and squeezed him. 

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said grimly. “There’s no guarantee it will work. We may have to experiment with it. You may need to stay at the lab for a while.”

“I don’t care! Oh my God!”

She pulled back enough to look down at him. He could still be lying. It could still be a trick. But she decided to choose hope instead. 

Slowly, ever so slowly, his arms came up to cradle her back. His hands bled warm through the thin t-shirt. She realized, suddenly, that she was almost straddling him. Face growing hot, she started to get up when his hands tightened their grip. 

His gaze bore into her, dark and inscrutable. John Park was an untrustworthy, manipulative selfish bastard and she wanted nothing more in that moment than to kiss him.

“You should do it,” he whispered.  

She didn’t need any further encouragement. Her hands fisted in the front of his shirt and she kissed him fiercely. To her surprise, he kissed her back with equal enthusiasm, rising up to meet her. His hands slid up her spine to cup the back of her head, fingers tangling into her hair. She nipped at his bottom lip, grinning against his mouth when she felt his fingers tighten in her hair. 

For years, Roxanne never saw John without his mask fixed perfectly in place. He was always collected, always in control, always unaffected. He walked into every interaction holding all the cards and he knew it. 

Which was why every hitched breath, every beat of his thundering pulse under her roaming fingers, every bold, desperate slide of his tongue, felt like a victory. In the court of desire, it was undeniable proof that he felt something back. Every scrap of her yearning, attraction, fascination with him burned through her blood as pure, unfiltered need and he matched her with equal ferocity.

His hand crept under her shirt (his shirt), the feather light trace of his fingertips up her spine at odds with the sharp, sting of his lips sucking a bruise in her neck. His teeth dragged up the column of her throat to latch around her earlobe. A whine tore from her throat. 

“This, Roxanne,” he breathed against her ear, “this is where I want you: fierce and needy and begging for me to touch you.”

 He brushed over her ribs like a gentle breeze and she shuddered against him. 

“Just like that.”

His other hand caressed up her thigh, stopping just short of its apex, and squeezed. She bit back a protesting groan.

“Can I have you, Roxanne?”

It sounded almost innocent, like she was a lollipop he plucked at the check out register. Except for the ragged edge of his voice, as if his self control was moments from slipping through his grasp. Or for the way his fingers swirled infuriatingly against her inner thigh, just the barest inch away from where she needed them most. 

Her fingers clenched in his shirt. She had never been more turned on in her life. “Yes. Yes. Oh my God, please.”

A long time later, as she drifted in and out of sleep against his chest, he whispered something to her. 

“What?” she murmured.

“It’s Ji-won,” he repeated. 

“What is?”

“My name. My birth name.”

“Ji-Won,” she repeated, smiling sleepily against his chest. 

The Past

Halfway through dinner, Roxanne dropped her fork and shouted, 

“Oh shit!”

Cornelius jerked to his feet, gaze darting around. 

“What?” he demanded, hand wrapped around his steak knife.  

“My project,” she shrieked. “I forgot all about it! It’s due tomorrow and it’s almost my bedtime!”  

“ . . .okay? What’s the big deal? Can’t you type that out in like thirty seconds?”

He slowly sat back down, glowering at her. She probably gave him a heart attack. And she’d be a little sympathetic to that if she wasn’t harboring her own heart attack right now.

“Yeah but I don’t think fast. I still have to finish the research, organize everything, get all the labels . . .”

The weight of all that work felt crushing. She thought she’d have two days -- not a few hours!

“Then skip school.”

She gasped, horrified. “I’ve never skipped school in my life.”

“Why am I not surprised?” he muttered. “Guess you’re pulling an all-nighter.”

She groaned, fingers threading nervously through her hair.“I’m not a night owl. I’ll crash by midnight, no matter what. I’ve never even seen the ball drop for New Years.”

“How old are you -- five?”

“Shut up, Cornelius. Having a consistent sleep schedule is good for you.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he said. 

“Yeah that much is obvious from the raccoon eyes you always have.” She fought the urge to cry. “Dude, I am so screwed. This is worth so much of my grade!”

Silence stretched out taut as a bow string between them. Then Cornelius sighed and stood up with his plate in his hand.

“No you’re not. I’ll help you. Finish your dinner and let's get this over with.”

Roxanne tried her best to hold out, but even with coffee she found herself nodding off just before one AM. Eventually she woke up to a hand gently shaking her shoulder. 

“Go to bed,” came Cornelius’s voice softly by her ear.

“I can’t,” she mumbled. “I have to finish . . .the . . .thing.”

“It is finished.”

That jerked her awake. “What?”

She lifted her head off the kitchen table and peered around. While she slept, Cornelius had painstakingly drawn and labeled the majority of her project. It stretched out beautifully on the poster board, looking like it came from a professional. 

“You did all that?” she gasped. 

“Who else?”

“It’s gorgeous! You should be an artist!”

“You don’t have to pander to me to say thank you,” he said, arms crossed tightly against his chest. 

“I’m not!” She leaned in to get a closer look at  the poster. “This is detailed and so neat. Seriously, you should go to art school!”

He let out a bark of bitter laughter. “Yeah, okay.”

Her smile faded as she straightened back up. “Well, what is your grand plan, Cornelius? If art school is out of the question, what are you going to do with yourself?”

“If I tell you that, you’ll probably become an accessory to a crime.”

“I’m serious,” she said. 

“So am I.” He gave her a half-hearted smirk. “Don’t worry about what I’m going to do. Worry about yourself. You clearly need to,” he added, gesturing to the poster board.  

“How can I not worry about you?” she demanded. “You know, I could talk to my parents. We have that spare bedroom, we could --”

“Don’t even go there,” he said. “Your family is not going to adopt me or take me or what the fuck ever.”

“Yes, they would! My mom is a defense attorney -- she meets kids like you all the time. And you’re like, what, a senior by now? We could get you enrolled in my school; they have credit recovery programs and --”

He stepped forward and wrapped his fingers around her wrists. The sudden proximity, the pressure of the pads of his thumbs resting right against her pulse, the dark wells of his eyes, caught her voice in her throat. 

“It’s very . . .kind of you to think about that,” he said stiltedly. “No one’s ever .  . .but it’s not possible. It’s just not possible.

She swallowed, trying to find what would break through his thick, edge-lord,  I Have To Suffer skull.

“It’s possible, you know. Lots of things are possible for you. You just have to let yourself believe you can have it.”

“Maybe for you. Not so much for me.”

She yanked her hands from his grip. “And why not? Lots of people who were born poor go to art school! Or law school. Or whatever else they want.”

“It’s not just about being poor, Roxanne.” He looked at her as if she was so painfully naive. “ I’ve already made certain choices, started down certain paths. There is no going back. There is no do-over.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“It doesn’t matter if you do or don’t. The world is the way it is regardless.”

“It’s not fair,” she cried, petulant, like a little child. 

“Life is never about being fair. Whoever told you that lied.”

“Well, I hate it.” Her throat grew tight, eyes stinging. “You deserve to have everything I have. Better, even. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t have it.”

A stray tear fell, and then another. Roxanne bit her lip against them, feeling every bit the naive kindergartner in a PBS cartoon. Her parents never told her the world was fair. They knew it wasn’t. But it felt different, now, when she could see it in front of her, instead of just hearing about a statistic on the news. 

Cornelius slowly cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs swiping away a stray tear.

“Go to bed, Roxanne,” he murmured. “And stop worrying so much about me. I will have the future I want. And I will be okay.”

Part 7 here

[rocoutlaststuff]

So I’ve got a request a Franco Barbi x reader where they were his lover from before he was captured but now they’ve ended up in the trials as a reagent (assuming they can even remember each other) maybe some angst/hurt/comfort as a imagine or one shot whatever would be better for you!! ♥️♥️♥️

One request coming up! I got carried away with this, and you've officially turned me into a bit of a Franco fan which I did not expect. That's what listening to dialogue for an hour straight will do to a person, I guess. Regardless, I hope this is what you were looking for!

Presently in the Past (Franco x Reader) [Requested]

🐑 ♡ I lost the footage to make a Franco gif, anyone wanna play to get it back ♡ 🐑

You can't remember anything about your past, but your past remembers you.

Explicit, Graphic Violence, F/M, M/M, Other/M, Tag(s): Trauma, Human Experiments, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Drug Use, Needles, Memory Loss, Angst, Hurt/Some Comfort, Blood, Violence, Death, Explicit Language, Obsessive Behaviour, Possessive Behaviour, Pet Names, Cuddling, Flashbacks, Oneshot, Ambiguous Gender Reader, POV Second Person

Find it on ao3 ♡ WC: 6,432

Disclaimer: Easterman's introduction to the trial, and the first paragraph of the story were written by Red Barrels. I recommend reading Barbi's comic first if you haven't already!

Thank you to an anonymous user for requesting this! This is very much my first time writing Franco - hope he's written well ♡

CIA ASSET AT A BAR SOUTH OF MIAMI CONFIRMED FRANCO BARBI'S INVOLVEMENT IN AGENCY ACTIVITY IN CUBA. FRANCO DEEPLY ENTWINED WITH EXPAT/COUNTER-REVOLUTONARY CUBAN COMMUNITY IN FLORIDA.

STATEMENT FROM LAST KNOWN FROM CUBAN-COUNTER REVOLUTIONARY ASSOCIATE CONFLICTS WITH CIA ASSET. FRANCO IS HINTED AT LEADING DOUBLE LIFE BETWEEN ROMANTIC INTEREST AND CAREER.

ATTEMPTING TO CONFIRM.

“Maybe he didn't expect someone to like him,” Clyde muttered. 

His attention hadn't left the shot of Wolf’s Milk that had been made for him. The mere thought of sickly sweet taste forced his insides to turn. Like the wild goose hunt he was on, he wasn’t about the forget it any time soon. And just when he thought he had some semblance of understanding, it had come out that Franco was attempting to hide his involvement with a potential lover. 

He had done a good job too, despite him running his mouth in supposed privacy.

Finding said lover was useful if they could, yet Clyde was close enough to Franco that he preferred the time and resources went towards his target. 

“You can say that again. Looking like that I'd give up, but that man… He's got tenacity. If you want to call it that, anyway.” The agent put down the freshly cleaned glass with a sigh, and he waved off a patron. 

“I can chase up that lead for our mystery friend if you need, but the shop’s closing soon, so it's best that you're leaving. Good luck finding your guy. Nasty piece of work that one.” 

Atropine. Benzedrine. Chloropromazine. LSD. Nitric acid. Glass. Knives. Needles. Drills. 

So many things had dowsed, punctured, and been absorbed by your skin.

If you could take stock of how much abuse your body had suffered, you would have died many times over. Yet the cocktail of drugs that flowed through your veins mixed with the very same abuse to create a near perfect blank slate. 

You knew who you were. You were one in the same with the person in the mirror. You shared your history with that reflection and no one else. 

Yet sometimes when you looked at yourself, you felt like someone else. It was only ever a brief flicker of emotion - a feeling that you replicated in the decor of your space - but you held onto it when you felt it. 

Hell, you encouraged it when you could. 

Waiting to go into a trial was not one of those times. 

Your focus remained on the reagent who sat in the lobby with you. Whereas you sat on one of open tables, he sat on the floor by the stairwell. His hands flit about his body which rocked back and forth from the repetitive tapping of his feet on the ground. The cries of other unfortunate souls beyond your rooms sent him further beneath the stairwell to the point that he was nothing but a shadowy figure. 

You suspected he was new.

It was a horrible fate for someone new to be stuck with you too. While the others took their sweet time waking up, you had checked every room. There were four of you in total still within your lobby. The other twelve had left to go to their own trials. So you were left to decide whether you asked the newcomer if he wanted to follow you into the depths of Hell. 

Doing trials alone was not the answer. It was rarely the answer in the facility, and the people you saw alone were alone for a reason. They scared you more than some of the freaks they released into the trials.

Your trio was one man short.

Yet you were experienced, and experience meant more pain.

“Hey,” you called out. 

A muffled yelp. 

“Hey, it's okay,” you soothed as you rose from your table. Each movement was slow, and you held up your hands. Before you even reached the stairs, you crouched to make yourself smaller to him, skirting your hand along the floor to steady yourself. 

“Who are you?” the stranger barked at you. His voice was fractured. It never settled on a pitch, nor could one emotion truly determine the tone.

Even in the darkness, enough light reached him to caress the edges of the tears that fell down his face. 

You told him your name then asked for his while you sat beside the stairwell. With your hands crossed over your knees, you hugged them tight and waited for him to respond. He eyed you from his hiding spot perfectly still as opposed to how he had been a few short seconds ago.

“I don’t remember-” he choked. “I don’t remember my name.” 

There was not much you could do except watch him repeat that statement over and over again in floods of tears. When he started to hyperventilate, you guided him with his breathing to the beat of your fellow reagents coming down the stairs. When they saw the scene, they agreed to take him with you. 

Sure, it took a lot of convincing to have him step into the shuttle with you, but he did.

And you gave him a nickname: Franco.

He seemed happy with it, and you were grateful to get the name out of your head. The others knew that was what you called the soft toy you kept on your bed, but you didn’t care. It was one of those silly things you fixated on - one that was better than some of the things other reagents found comfort in. 

Like cattle, you were herded into the chairs without any other thoughts about what you should have been doing. It was a routine. One that you explained to Franco. You warned him about the clamps on the chair. Then you warned him about the TV and the gas. 

How could you tell someone to brace for the torment you were about to endure though?

"You are the surgeon's knife, and where you meet flesh, blood and pain must follow. We are the surgeon's medicine, who regulate pain and death. Poison the supply of those who would ease pain, and we will let you out."

There were no words shared between the group, only the terrified whimpers of Franco beside you. He cried out at the images that manifested in the fog. The suffering was unique to the reagent, and you stared forwards in disgust with bile in your throat. It was impossible to drown out the sheer panic beside you. 

Instead, it became part of your nightmare. 

A woman staggered towards you. Her body was outlined in the needles that clothed her skin. They touched every part of her, bouncing to the irregular rhythm of her steps. She tripped, tumbled, and fell into your lap - your eyes shut in an instant to block out the sensation you knew wasn’t there. You told yourself that the weight that hit you wasn’t real. 

It wasn’t real. 

It wasn’t real.

She wasn’t really there.

Franco’s cries were a white noise that tore through your skull like the nails that dug at your tattered slacks. It was too much. Unable to help your morbid curiosity, you allowed your eyelids to flutter open. 

The pulse that pounded within your chest threatened to cease. Tension gripped at your body, and a man held your legs with a similar zeal. Chipped nails belonging to the pasty skin sunk into you. Bloodshot eyes met yours, yet they didn’t seem to hold any hatred. They watched you with a warmth you hadn’t seen since you entered the facility and a smile to match.

You felt like you were looking in the mirror again. Familiarity swelled within your chest, and frustration compelled you to tears the second your wrists crashed against the metal restraints. 

He was gone in a blink. 

The shuttle stuttered and ground against the rails, coming to stop. You mustered up a brief smile for one of your fellow reagents at the concerned look she shot you. She still asked you if you were okay though while the other checked in with Franco. 

“I'm fine.” 

You were. If you didn't know why you were so upset by your vision then there was no reason why you couldn’t be fine. If anything you were good. Maybe even great. 

Despite the way your guts churned, and a dull ache beat against your head, you were exhilarated. 

You recognised that man. You didn't know who he was, but you recognised him, and he was a part of whoever you were before. 

He was your answer.

The first thing you noticed was the water. Amid the boxes and televisions, you were lost to the sound of water lapping against something. It seemed you weren’t the only one who noticed it too. 

“What is that?” your friend asked. There was no telling if he was talking to himself or not as he passed by you. Franco lingered by your side while your group headed to a nearby set of railings.

“I knew it!” your friend exclaimed. “It’s water. They got water in here.” He proceeded to laugh at the sight before him when he turned to see a pier extending beyond you. 

“Fuck - this is…” you watched as he looked around the walls plastered in the image of a distant city, and you noted the way his expression strained under the weight of his thoughts. “It’s too real.”

Nothing else was said. He continued onwards past the viscera not a few steps ahead of him. You allowed yourself the chance to peak over the railings, and the water seemed hypnotising in the way it calmed to near stillness. Something must have fallen in seconds prior to your arrival for it to have made a sound. 

You decided you weren’t going to stick around to find out what that something was.

Franco twitched when your body collided with his. He’d frozen. Fight or flight’s third sibling had no place in the trials, however, and you felt your heart sink at the sight of his vacant stare. You weren’t sure if he had clocked out for good already when he probably hadn’t seen a dead body up close yet.

A once over of his attire led you to almost regret bringing him along as you leant down to remove your shoes. The action caused Franco to return from the depths of his mind, and he watched you with intense focus. 

“Put these on,” you told him. 

With two shoes placed before him, he did so with ample tenderness. Maybe he'd suffered from splinters already. It was a thought that repulsed you given you now had no protection against that fate. 

“Thanks.” 

You nodded at him and took his hand to guide him along. 

“Ignore what you see. Focus on what we're doing,” you said. 

Enforcing this yourself, you closed yourself off to the world around you. It didn't matter that the wood bit at your soles, nor did it matter that blood that wasn't your own caressed every pinprick sized wound you endured down there. There was no face you made when you felt something compress under your weight and burst with a squelch. 

You continued - plain and simple.

There was little in the way of danger along the pier. Just a couple of stragglers that muttered to themselves. Nobody disturbed them. When you drew near the gate, things changed, and your steel willed determination waned at the sound of nearby pleading. 

“Salvatore Cargo,” you parroted from a sign in a bid to soothe yourself subconsciously. 

The pleading only grew louder as the gate was lifted. One by one, you slipped underneath to find the source of the cries. Two men hung above you like the countless decaying fish strung out to dry long ago. Except they were very much alive and terrified. 

Their fear was your own as you knew the sound likely drew attention, and sure enough a shoulder connected with you. 

So it began. 

Your friend collided with you to prevent an ex-pop from gutting you on long talons. You were forced back into a crate, and you acted on impulse. Around you, your friends scrambled to fend off the attacker. Franco froze once more. 

Taking his hand, you snatched a bottle from a shelf and launched it at the ex-pop to distract them. It gave your friends enough time to run, something that was feral and frenzied when lives were on the line. 

Your heart pumped. Unable to keep up with your pace, Franco staggered behind you. Directions and quick observations sounded out from your friends like gunfire. 

Without them, you would have missed the safe zone. 

You threw Franco into a slot and pushed your way into another. As the click resounded, you nearly fell out the other side. Franco knelt on all fours beside you, and you wrapped your hands around him to pull him up. There wasn't anything going through your head as you dragged him to his feet towards the nearest desk.

All you wanted was for him to be okay. You pulled him down into the cramped space beneath the desk on instinct. He was hyperventilating again. The sounds of movement around you let you know that the others were on their way upstairs. 

Meanwhile, you held Franco close to your side. 

Each shudder of his body shook your own. ‘Calm’ wasn’t exactly the state you could describe him falling into, but he fell silent soon enough. It was just in time for you to catch the latest disturbances upstairs. 

A voice different to your friends sounded over the now frantic cries of the hung men. The first gunshot made Franco smack his head against the table in fright. The second was cause for concern as you realised that you had in fact heard a gun. 

The screams were silenced, and the voice was too muffled for you to make out what was being said. 

It belonged to a man. That much you knew.

You peered over the table to survey the scene. The safe zone was still in tact. The lockers beside you didn’t seem disturbed, and the partition was still up. A third and fourth gunshot rung out, however. 

Whatever was happening wasn’t finished. 

The shill scrape of metal on metal filled you with dread - the partition nothing but a memory in the span of a second. You were being told to continue.

“Come on, hey. We’re going to make it through, but we need to move,” you told yourself as you grabbed Franco’s arm and pulled him from his hiding spot. Your friends all but fell down the stairs in their panic to tell you what you already knew: whoever was stuck in the trial with you had a gun.

It was a point of debate as you manourved through the environment towards the next stage of the trial. Even as you hauled pounds of drugs from a cart between one another - the gun outweighed any opinions or thoughts on your given task. How did you combat a gun? Could you take it from the unknown assailant? Were the ammo stashes anywhere?

Nothing useful came of your frantic whispers to one another, and while you took time to search for resources, you decided to help Franco out. It changed the subject at least to something more productive. 

“Battery packs go in like this,” you explained, showing him how to work his ESOP. “As for this, if you ever step on a mine and there’s gas - or you’re gassed because it can happen, one puff. That’s all you need. It’ll take it all away.” 

You snatched a brick for safekeeping, but no explanation was needed for Franco. He understood its use the second it was in your hand. It seemed he learnt quick too, repeating back what you’d said to him on the way back to your rendezvous by the drug cart. 

“I’ve got this,” your friend said. He took out a thin tube you recognised all too well and placed the needle to the edge of his arm. It sunk beneath the surface. You were ready to move again.

Things were going smooth for such an advanced trial. 

That’s what you thought as the cart was heaved along at a brisk jog. You eyed the surrounding area from the boat to the fish market, and you agreed with your friend. It was getting very real. 

Too real, in fact. 

The stench of rotting fish and past reagents left you nauseous. 

“Right this way, please.” The mannequin pointed you in the direction of a weird tool, and the group immediately fell into disarray. 

“No - geez, another fucking thing we can’t deal with right now,” one of your friends hissed. The other picked up the unfamiliar device. She pressed the switch on the side, yet nothing happened.

“Symbol decoder, it says - look,” Franco managed, “aim it at the uh, at uh-” he trailed off as he waved his hand in the direction of yellow paint nearby. The first attempt didn’t work, but as you crammed around the corner, everything became clear. You had to line up the image. 

The device whirred as the roulette of potential combinations locked in far too slow for the sense of urgency you all felt. 

Eight, seven, four.

You were left with Franco as the other two rushed over to the vault and input the code. Nothing could have prepared you for what happened next though. 

“It’s mine. It’s God damn mine, and I’ll skin, salt, and fuck any ruptured scumbag who tries to take it!”

You weren't in the trial. For a second too long, you were somewhere else. In your head, on a dock, you didn't fucking know. All you knew was that the voice stirred something within you. Somewhere - you'd heard it somewhere before. Where? You couldn't remember. Maybe you hadn't even recognised it, but the strength of the familiarity was enough to shake you. 

Somewhere. Someone. 

In the blank space of your head that you could feel, you knew he was there. It made you want to claw at your scalp and peel back the flesh. If you shattered your skull then everything would spill out. Or would you end up dying in a disappointing pool of black tar instead?

What if you forgot everything? 

“-you alright?” Franco asked, and your attention snapped towards him. 

What did you do to deserve to be taken away from everything you knew? 

You didn't say anything, nodding instead. A hand wrapped around yours, and he gave you the best smile anyone could muster in your circumstances. Fake and pained. 

“Let's go,” he said. You nodded again. 

Your friends caught up, and you were given an extra decoder. The space before you led to multiple darkened passageways. 

Cattle cars displayed the symbols you needed to find like some sort of messed up children's game, and you were left with Franco. It was decided as a team. You went left. They went right. With a mental note made of the symbol you needed, you beckoned to Franco to follow. 

So began your search.

All the while, you searched your mind for memories attached to that voice.

Franco gasped from the pain his night vision goggles caused him when he pulled them over his eyes. Thankfully, it was a pain you had forgotten, but you could sympathise with him. The section beside the train was incredibly narrow with no visibility. He had no choice but to wear them if he wanted to see.

You navigated around a corner with no luck finding a star. Then you navigated around another corner to find nothing useful either. But then a light from another cattle car caught your eye. Yellow paint lit up like fireworks the second you lifted your goggles.

The star was there. Part of it anyway. Both of you moved towards the part of the puzzle you had found, and you glanced around for its missing half. It had to be in front of you if needed to line them up, but where?

The answer was on a barrel. 

“Got it-” you breathed, holding up the decoder. It sprang to life, and you jolted when Franco bumped into you. 

You were going to ask if he was okay when he told you he had heard something. Against the buzz of the device, you had failed to listen for anything else. How could you when your attention was divided between some stupid star and fragments of your past? But when you focused you could hear it too. 

Breathing. It was heavy. Strained. It had to be him. Unless it was another ex-pop there was nobody else it could be.

He wasn’t getting any quieter either, and you looked back at the decoder to see it had stopped on one number. You waved it in front of you, desperate for it to work. You were so close to being able to leave - you could get it before whoever it was making their way towards you reached you.

They could turn and leave. It was a gamble that you were willing to take. 

If you stayed you could see him.

“Go hide-” you snapped, and Franco hesitated. “Go.” 

“Who is that?” That voice. You froze when Franco finally moved, and he brought you with him onto the car much to your dismay.

“My dad send you? Think I'm fuckin' scared of you?” Franco guided you to a barrel and instructed you to get inside. 

You did, albeit you were slow. The voice lulled you into a trance, and you wanted to know who it was. His face was all you needed. Just one peek. That was it. Fingertips rounding the edge of the barrel, you peered over the top to see Franco cross the train towards a barrel on the other side. 

He ran right past the opening and fell in unison with a bang. 

The sound of the gunshot continued to ring in your ears, and you stared in horror at Franco. He was alive -  a strained groan spilled from his lips as he rolled over to grip his leg. The bottoms he wore were red already, but the blood began to seep from between his fingers. 

“Found you, fuckin’ rat-” the voice cooed. “Try fuckin’ runnin’ now, cocksucker.” 

The stranger came into view. As he stepped into the light you could see everything. It was him. 

He was the man in your vision.

Your answer.

And still nothing made sense. Even as you took him in, you couldn't place him in your memory. But you could see the situation was dire. 

“Gonna cry? What a fuckin’ coward,” the man said, and you shot up from the barrel. With a blind rig, you weren't much use, but the brick in your pocket was. 

“Franco - move!” you cried out. Both men looked at you, and you launched the brick at the stranger. 

It was a perfect shot. 

“Shit - my fuckin’ head!” 

You leapt from the barrel and almost careened over with it as Franco threw himself to his feet. He cried as he did - falling down when he tried to make the jump from the car. 

When you landed beside him, you didn't get very far. A hand snatched at your neck, and your body was pulled back against the car floor behind you. 

“Must be one of those roaches - the fuck do you think you are usin’ my name like that? You-”

He was Franco.

You let out a whimper at the sensation of your spine being pulled against the car's floor and upwards. As if it couldn't get any worse, a gun pressed to one side of your head, and a face the other. The proximity forced you into stillness at the feel of the real Franco’s breath against your ear. 

“Ain't no fuckin’ way,” he huffed beside you, and you looked at the Franco on the floor who was trying to crawl beneath the car.  

“One of a God damn kind,” your assailant said. 

The aggressiveness he held in his voice shifted into something more joyous. He carried an excitable air around him as he let go of your neck, and he jumped from the train. The mood was shattered when he landed on an injured leg, and the shriek that erupted from beneath the train must have been heard trial wide. 

“Shut your whore mouth!” 

What were you meant to do? 

As two shots fired off into the Franco beneath the train, you were faced with the Franco who had inspired the nickname. And he had killed a man. There was nothing else you could have done but run. You were a credit to your own survival as you did, but you mourned two losses. 

One of which tailed after you.

“Where do you think you’re goin’? Are we playin’ games? Kiss and chase?” 

You sped towards the drug cart at breakneck speed. It seemed Franco had a hard time keeping up with you as his breathing became more laboured. He shouted after you and began to talk to himself when he lost sight of you.

There wasn’t any time for you to explain as you crashed into your friends. 

“Did you get the drugs?” one of them asked, and everything came crashing down around you. They asked about Franco. You felt yourself slipping as the thoughts struggled to form on your tongue.

“Gone, no - he’s gone. Franco got him.”

“What do you mean Franco got Franco?” You didn’t have a response to the question as you fumbled for anything. Each word that unceremoniously left your mouth felt like chewing on dirt. Franco killed Franco. Franco was the name of the ex-pop they had seen. 

The silence that fell after you finished spoke volumes. 

You could see it in their body language. The way that they didn’t move, yet their eyes danced across you. Muscles tightened like coils ready to spring. They didn’t say anything, but you felt their judgement. 

While you tried to convince yourself it was just guilt, you knew why they would take suspicion with you.

You understood why. 

“C’mon out, orsacchiotto, I wanna make sure it’s really you,” Franco called out. His tone was playful despite the weasely undertone of something else that dripped through. Whatever it was was primal. “You got more friends you want to introduce me too? I’ve somethin’ for ‘em too.” 

A metallic bang erupted from one of the trains as if something hit a wall, and you flinched. 

“I know where the code thing is, I got one of the numbers before Franco appeared - I can lead you to-” you were cut off by a hand against your mouth. Your friend had lunged forwards and covered it with his head turned. He let it slide down, and ran a hand over his own face, refusing to step back.

Then he gestured behind you. “Go on, lead the way.” 

You did - going back in the way you came. At the same time, it seemed Franco hadn’t given up his search, and his words damned you beyond the judgement you had already suffered. 

“D’ya remember those cold, cold nights when I used to keep you warm?” You weren’t sure if you wanted to remember.

“I’d give anythin’ if you’d come cuddle up to me. Baby’s lonely.” Whatever you were to him was more than a friend.

“I know what you want - zuccherino for my zuccherino - too bad it’s locked away. I thought your mommy taught you good manners… All you gotta say is please…” Yet there was a bite of hostility in his voice. 

“Don’tcha miss me?” 

You did. Deep down inside, despite the way your body screamed at you in all the confusion and pain, you missed him. 

You wanted to stop running.

With a shaky hand, you held the decoder up to the star symbol. 

Nine, three, zero.

You stared at the void between the floor and the cattle car knowing there was a fresh corpse there. Your friend went to the vault to open it up, and you waited beside the edge of the car. 

But it wasn’t silent.

Your name spilled from nearby. Close. It was close, yet you couldn’t see anything. The sound of shuffling and debris being pushed out the way forced you back into the cool steel of the cattle car. From the safety of your light, darkness opened up before you. So you let the goggles slide over your eyes. 

There, opposite you, was Franco. You were witness to him as he crawled through an opening in the wall on all fours. He was swift to his feet and quicker to train both barrels of his shotgun on you. A broad smile decorated his sunny expression, and laughter bubbled from his throat at your reaction to him.

“Bang!” he exclaimed. “Caught you.” 

There was movement inside of the car.

“And another fuckin’ rat,” he muttered. “Am I not enough? You gotta bring these dumb fuckin’ fucks into my work? My house?” 

Your heart was in your throat, and the lack of sound from the train alerted you to the fact that your friend had stopped moving. He was playing it safe. He wasn’t going to leave you was he? He was going to leave you with Franco. 

Regardless of if your friendship still existed or not, you were going to try at the very least to let him do that.

You were fine. 

“Wait,” you blurted out. “I don’t remember Franco, I don’t remember anything at all.” He stopped dead in his tracks. You glanced at the way his finger toyed with the trigger on his shotgun, and then you met his eyes.

“I don’t remember anything at all,” you repeated as everything began to unwind into sadness. “They put this fucking thing on my head, and they force me to do things I don’t want to do.” 

You gripped at your night vision goggles, the bolts embedded in your skull. Franco’s head lolled to the side with narrowed eyes, and you had his full attention.

“Who?” he asked.

“Who what?” 

“Who the fuck is making you do anythin’? Is it those scumbags that are runnin’ around?” You shook your head. “Nobody fuckin’ tells you what to do. You’re not some fuckin’ whore…” 

Franco’s expression contorted as his fist tightened in on itself. He shook his head and strode over to the car. You watched as he slammd the butt of his shotgun against the train, cursing each time. Each sound sent shockwaves through your poor nervous system, and you felt feint from the amount of adrenaline that coursed through your body.

“Fuck!” Franco repeated. “Why the fuck is nothin’ makin’ sense today? Shit’s so confusin’. Give me strength, somebody.” The gun was pointed at you in a casual gesture far too dangerous for your liking.

“Baby’s got to put on his big boy pants. I’ll be comin’ back for you, oh, don’t you think I’ll forget, but first…” 

You couldn’t stop him from leaving. He hopped onto the train, and when he left it, it wasn’t long before you heard the gun go off.

Lupara. 

That was what he called it. You remembered.

Unable to control your tears, you let them stream down your face like you fell to the floor. When there was a scream from near the drug cart, you cried out louder in unison. Knees brought up to your chest, you buried yourself into your own makeshift darkness. 

Nothing could reassure you as your head pounded from the memories that tried to break through into your conscious mind. 

It hurt. All your friends were dead. 

And the man who murdered them came back to you with a spring in his step.

Apparently, one summer before Franco had to leave for Cuba, in the light of the rising sun you’d both gone to the docks together. Nobody else was really up at the time, and only the waves disturbed you both. Nothing had been planned, it was more of a spur of the moment thing, but you enjoyed it none the less according to him. 

He explained to you in great detail how you’d made plans together to get ice cream and spend the whole day lounging there. Nobody was going to move either of you unless you decided to go yourselves. It was something you wanted to do, and he was happy to oblige since you were willing to give him everything he wanted in return. 

You would hold his hand and drag him around to show him all the things you loved, and he would tell you that he loved you. 

Love was a word that felt like choking up sawdust when he said it. Love never worked out for him. It wasn’t his thing, but he said it anyway. He recounted how you were so innocent to him. 

He never told you how he pictured the shoreline coated in red. Intrusive thoughts flashed the image of you lying before him all mangled and pretty with your face stained in blood. You never needed to know because he couldn’t do it.

No, you were different. 

There was nothing but joy on your face as he’d followed you along that beach. It was hard for him to explain, but ever since you had settled into something together, he’d chased after that feeling of being wanted like he chased you along the sand. 

You humiliated him in your own way by making him think he truly belonged.

And you’d done it again.

Still in the same spot that you had fallen to beside the car, Franco sat with you. He waved his feet back and forth, swaying his body side to side while he looked at you. You hadn’t come out of your self imposed cocoon yet, but you had a single eye on him too.

Things had been ironed out to some degree. 

Obviously he’d asked you what you remembered before he told you a few bits about your past, and while you couldn’t be certain what was true or not, you wanted to believe him. At the point you were at, you prayed that it was true. Something about him soothed the ache in your head.

He was undeniably charismatic, and you weren’t going to deny the fact that you felt drawn to him. 

Then the important question of what you were doing in his territory with the others came up again. There was little he could have done to hide the irritation in his voice as he spoke about you being around them. He wanted to know why you were helping them. If you were anybody else he would have killed you, yet you had a chance to explain.

Franco understood to some extent, despite being frustrated.

He told you that he felt great - better than he’d ever been - but things were off. Seeing you made everything that much sweeter, yet that didn’t change the fact that he too was having issues with his memory.

Déjà vu he called it. It felt like the same shit everyday with different faces.

When you’d told him you were kept by faceless men in laboratory coats and given orders, he mentioned he’d seen some people like that behind glass. It was clear the worlds you were living in were very different. To him, the docks were real. To you, it was an experiment.

Things had gone quiet after that while you pieced together the shards of your past until a hand found your arm. Fingers walked up it and poked at your cheekbone. Franco shifted himself into a kneeling position with his body turned to you, and you lifted your head at the way he searched your soul with his gaze. Without even speaking, he was searching for something in you.

“Not gonna leave, are you?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to leave, but I’ve never tried to stay in a trial before without doing what I’m told. What if they come to get me?” 

“Then they’re fuckin’ dead. Think they got a chance against my Lupara?” Each word was spat with pride like he could see them cold already. “Hey-”

Your pulse quickened as Franco pulled your arm from your leg. He supported it in between his hands, and he brought your knuckles to his mouth.

“You’d never leave me,” he hummed against your skin. “No - no, I knew you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t abandon your baby.” 

The contact left you flustered as your mind raced over the implications that you were very much his old partner. You didn’t even know if you’d ever separated. Most likely not, if he was going to treat you the way he was. It was strange to feel his kiss against your hand. Not unwelcome, but it was strange.

As he told you that he wanted to feel your arms around him, you crossed your legs and opened yourself up to him. Surreal was an understatement to have him crawl onto your lap without the need to be prompted, and you were delicate in the way you pulled him towards you. 

When his head rested on your shoulder, you decided to stop trying to process everything. 

“Back where I belong…” you heard Franco sigh. 

The weight of his body kept you grounded in the moment. An overwhelming sense of comfort washed over you at the contact - something you had sorely missed - and you let it happen. There was so much you wanted to ask Franco, but for the time being, you savoured the affection he showed you.

He made everything feel better.

“Well shit,” Clyde sighed as he placed down Easterman’s report. He bet Avellanos was going to have a field day with the information they had been given. It was a small world, but even he hadn’t been able to track down Fraco’s supposed partner in the height of his investigation. 

Turns out all they had to do was pick up people from the streets, pluck them from their homes, and they’d get lucky.

THE PREMATURE END OF THE TRAIL WHICH RESULTED IN THE DEATH OF THREE REAGENTS WAS BOTH DUE TO FRANCO’S OWN AGGRESSION AND THE NATURAL FLOW OF THE TRIAL. YET THERE WAS A CATALYST. 

WE FOUND HIS OLD FLAME. THE FOURTH REAGENT BEING FRANCO’S ROMANTIC PARTNER CAME AS QUITE A SURPRISE, AND I THOUGHT YOU’D BE INTERESTED IN SEEING OUR FRIEND IN THE FLESH. I HAVE RECONSIDERED THEIR POSITION AS REAGENT MOVING FORWARDS, BUT WOULD LIKE TO INVITE YOU TO DISCUSS THESE OPTIONS FACE TO FACE. 

UNTIL THEN, FRANCO AND THE REAGENT HAVE BEEN SEPARATED.

[howlingday]

I have an idea of how Materia could work in your Strife AU. Materia is the condensed form of the lifestream that allows people to use the powers and abilities of those from the past. so you could have the lifestream be the combined aura of everyone who has ever lived. with magic being semblances and the reason they are no longer common is it's now illegal to mine the lifestream leaving only the natural way which take alot of time to make so they cost alot to get making them very rare just a idea

Jacques Schnee growled as he looked over the reports his mining crew delivered. Thanks to the efforts of Shinra Electric, a subsidiary company of Schnee Dust Company, they were able to avoid a lawsuit from the locals and the agencies working under the Remnant Environment Protection Act. In doing so, however, they also lost a significant profit potential as the mining crew was forced to refrain from operating further due to the potential "hazard" to the life-stream.

He signed the acknowledgement and plqced it in his out-box, before he turned away from the paper to hide his boiling rage from the ever watching cameras of his own home. He growled some obscenities under his breath as he balled up his fists.

A knock from the door cut his aggression short, protecting his life-span from shortening any further. With an exhale, he turned to the door and allowed the guest to enter. His son Whitley peered through the frame.

"What is it, Whitley?" He grumbled.

"Er, Klein has asked me to inform you-"

"Instead of doing the job himself?" Jacques growled as he stood from his seat. "And what excuse could that bumbling oaf of a servant have that would save him from my terminating of his employment?"

"Um, he said he was too busy with a guest at the door."

"A guest?" Jacques quirked a brow. "At this time?"

"Y-Yes, father. I-It's-"

"Quit your stammering before I correct it for you!" Jacques barked.

"Yes, father! I'm sorry, father!"

"Do not apologize, Whitley!" Jacques shouted louder. "If you choose to speak of something, then you choose to do so with confidence!"

"Of course!" Whitley nodded.

"Now who is this damned guest at our door?!"

"Rufus Shinra." Jacques looked beyond his son to see his 'loving' wife, her face flushed with her afternoon wine. "If you're going to speak to our son so aggressively, then you should redirect it at our 'gracious guest' who chose to visit us."

"Shouldn't you be entertaining him?" Jacques asked.

"Oh, my apologies, Mr. Schnee," she replied, voice dripping sarcasm, "but my husband has warned me to refrain from speaking to guests when I've had too much to drink."

"And how much have you had, my dear?" Jacques asked, already knowing the answer.

"Not enough to bear looking at you." Willow sneered. "Come along, Whitley."

She walked away, her son following close behind her. Jacques flared his nostrils before shutting the door behind him to greet his sudden guest. His old friend and mentor, Rufus Shinra.

[haggishlyhagging]

At Albany, New York, in 1827, Jesse Strang was hanged for shooting John Whipple with a rifle, but the victim's wife, Elsie Whipple, charged as an accessory, was speedily acquitted at the judge's instructions. She had had an affair with Jesse Strang and gave him the money to buy the gun, but the judge found no evidence that she was involved in the killing. In Harpswell, Maine, in 1863, a young man named Thorn was convicted of murdering Elisha Wilson in his bed. Mrs. Wilson, Thorn's lover and accomplice, was not prosecuted. And in Rochester, New York, in 1857, twenty-year-old Sarah Littles escaped murder charges in the death of her estranged husband, Charles, a man described by all as a drunken, blasphemous, unfaithful, syphilitic ne'er-do-well. Sarah, who had been walking out with a new gentleman friend, led her husband to the deserted cliff above the Genesee Falls where the murder took place: afterward she apparently helped push the body over the edge, falling herself and acquiring some telltale injuries in the process; and then she helped carry home and hide her husband's hat and the bloody hammer. With that kind of evidence against her (plus a probably false but alarming rumor of incest), the court couldn't just let her go. She was convicted of second-degree manslaughter and sentenced to seven years in prison. Her brother, ex-convict Marion Stout, who had wielded the hammer, was hanged at Sing Sing, cursing her for "falsehood, contradiction and imbecility."

These cases were signs of things to come. The double standard of "justice," reinforced by the double standard of conventional morality, grew more entrenched as the century wore on. Radical feminists found themselves oddly aligned with conservative legal theoreticians in demanding equal justice, but their reasoned arguments were lost on high-minded and chivalrous patriarchs. Favoritism toward women under the criminal law was the trade-off men made for stripping women of rights under the civil law. Criminal Marion Stout might cry out against inequitable "justice" and find support from Susan B. Anthony, but the lawmakers—patriarchs all—seemed content with the bargain they had made. They rested comfortably in the knowledge that few men of the class that designed the criminal-justice system would ever fall under its wheels.

Always their question was the same: What motive could any woman have for killing her husband? The answer, for the typical nineteenth-century trial lawyer, was hard to come by, for he was doubly deluded. In the first place, the term "motive" was routinely taken to mean "cause." Inquiring into motive, lawyers sought the immediate event that had caused a woman to react by committing murder. Properly understood, however, a motive is not the cause of the homicide, but the cause for the sake of which the homicide is committed. In other words, a wife does not poison her husband because he is drunk, as lawyers would argue; she poisons her husband for the sake of a future life in which she will no longer have to contend with his habitual drunkenness and domination. Motive so conceived was particularly difficult for nineteenth-century lawyers to understand because of their equally mistaken notions about woman's nature; they did not take women to be reasoning, planning beings, able to act for the sake of some future state of affairs. That women might be capable of such self-determination and control was simply unthinkable. Assuming that women were passive creatures, lawyers usually looked for "motives" outside the woman's volition, in some other agency or force that caused her to behave as she did. They put the blame on menstrual tension, hysterical (ie., womb-centered) disease, insanity, or a male accomplice. And over and over again they blindly asked: What motive?

-Ann Jones, Women Who Kill