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queenxxxsupreme · 3 years

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There Comes Bad News (dad!Arthur Morgan)

A/N: This belongs in my dad!Arthur Morgan AU so if you haven’t read any of those fics, it might be best to read those. You can find my masterlist here!

Warnings: anxiety attack, language

Word Count: 2.0k

Summary: John visits Lupine Valley Ranch to warn Arthur of an impending threat.

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You moved around the kitchen, humming as your eyes glided over the window behind the kitchen sink. You spotted Daisy in the temporary corral with Piper. The corral had been placed in the front yard where you would have a clear sight to Daisy as she spent time with the foal. Though Arthur could watch her since he was outside tending to a few chores with Charles’ help, you liked to be able to see Daisy while you were inside.

“You reckon that filly will make it?”

You jumped, turning to look at Hosea. He stood at the edge of the kitchen with a coffee cup in hand.

“Christ, Hosea. You scared me.”

He chuckled.

“Piper seems to be gettin’ stronger.” You wiped your hands off on a rag. “And she’s not missing a meal, that’s for sure. So I suppose I’ve got some hope.”

“Just hate to see the little one with her heart broken.”

“I know.” You nodded in agreement.

“It’ll be a shame if I have to beat Arthur’s ass for getting her a lame horse.”

You smiled at him, knowing he was half teasing and half being honest.

The sound of Carson barking caught your attention. He was alerting the family to someone coming down the road that led to the house.

“Who could that be?” You thought out loud, moving towards the front windows.

“Is that Carson barking?” Hosea asked as he followed behind you. “He sounds angry.”

You spotted John getting down from his horse before it even came to a full stop just in front of the house. Behind him was a cloud of dirt and dust he must’ve kicked up on his way in.

“Something ain’t right. Why’s he in such a hurry?” Hosea headed for the front door. You were right behind him, going out on to the front porch.

Your eyes flickered over to your husband, who was crossing the yard with Charles to see what John was doing.

“What’s got you runnin’ like you’re bein’ chased, Marston?”

“I saw Micah in Blackwater yesterday.” John held on tightly to the leather reins. He appeared tense and nervous, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as his eyes flickered around as if he was taking count of everyone there. “Is Lucy here with you?”

“She’s home.” Charles shook his head. “Wasn’t feeling well this morning.”

“Wait a damn minute. You what?” Hosea rubbed his eyes.

“I saw that bastard. He was in Blackwater yesterday.”

You looked to Arthur, your stomach churning. His eyes very briefly met yours before he returned his gaze to John.

“I was runnin’ errands with Jack and Grace when I saw him. He was on a horse across from the bank with a couple other fellas.”

“How are you sure it was him?” Your voice was quiet as you spoke.

“Micah’s voice ain’t easy to forget.” John met your gaze.

“Did he see you?”

“Course not, Hosea. Got my kids outta there before he could see them.” John ran his hand along the shoulder of his horse. “I can’t stay for long. Gotta get back to Beecher’s. But I wanted to let y’all know he’s around.”

“Do you think he’s going to start looking for us?” Charles asked. Arthur shook his head, running a hand over his face. Even from across the yard, you could see the anger on his face.

“It’s hard to tell with Micah Bell.”

“At the very least, he’ll try to find Hosea.” Arthur spoke up, voice low and heavy with the weight of all the fears he’d carried for so long. “Hosea’s the only one who knows about where that Blackwater money is. The only other person who knew about it was Dutch and well….”

You looked down at your hands, taking a deep breath.

“Micah would do anything to find us. That includes goin’ to you, John.”

“I ain’t tellin’ him shit, Arthur.”

“I never said he’d ask nicely. Micah’s a sick bastard. He’ll go through Jack and Grace to get to you, to get to me and there’s no tellin’ what he’d do-,”

“Arthur.” You cut him off firmly. His eyes shot over to you. “Stop right now. There’s no sense filling John’s head with that. He doesn’t need to worry any more than he already does, I’m sure.”

Silence filled the air.

“Why don’t you bring Abigail and the kids up here, John?” Hosea suggested, moving to sit down on the front steps. “That way you all aren’t alone down there.”

“I couldn’t do that, Hosea.”

“Nonsense.” You shook your head, directing John’s attention to you. “We’ve got plenty of room. Daisy can stay in our room. That way you and Abigail can have your own room and Jack and Grace can have Daisy’s room.”

“I don’t want to crowd nobody. We aren’t a little family.”

“No, but you’re our family.” Arthur sighed. “It’s safer for you all to be up here with us and Charles and Lucy, John. You know that.”

John looked between you, Arthur, Hosea, and Charles for a few moments before nodding.

“I’ll talk it over with Abigail when I get home. Only problem would be Roxy and our livestock.”

“Roxy can come up with you. Carson gets along with her just fine.” You smiled.

“And if it’s just temporary, leave the livestock down there at Beecher’s. Me and you can go down every day or so to check on ‘em.” Arthur rubbed the back of his neck.

“Alright. I’ll see you guys soon.”

You waved goodbye to John and watched him disappear down the drive.

As he left, the weight in your stomach seemed to shift to your chest.

“Why don’t we take a little break, Charles?” Arthur told him, giving him a pat on the arm. Charles nodded and began to move towards the house.

“Maybe you and Uncle can share a room, Hosea.” Charles teased as he passed Hosea on the stairs.

“Bullshit. I’ll be sending Uncle over to your house. You and Lucy have too much room in that house of yours.”

Your eyes followed Arthur as he stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Your hands were folded at your waist, thumb rubbing against your skin as you bit the inside of your cheek.

“What?” He asked you.

“Why did you have to go put all those thoughts into John’s head?”

“I wasn’t tryin’ to scare him, Y/N. I was just tellin’ him the truth. Micah is relentless. He’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants. He’ll go through anyone and anything.”

“But you didn’t have to put thoughts into John’s head about what that bastard could do to his kids, Arthur.”

“Hey, sweetheart!” Hosea greeted Daisy loudly as she approached the porch from behind Arthur. She carried a handful of wildflowers in one hand. “Where’d you get those pretty flowers, Daisy?”

“From the yard!”

Arthur turned his attention to her, smiling as she offered him a portion of the bundle.

“Here.”

“Thank you, sweetpea.”

The next bundle went to Hosea. He began to tell her of the different kinds of flowers she had picked up, and she gladly absorbed the information like a sponge.

As you watched her, you couldn’t help but think of Micah. Arthur was right. The man would stop at nothing to get answers, to get what he wanted. It would be nothing for him to kill an entire family just to get the answers he was looking for.

The more your mind lingered on the possibilities, the more the thoughts spiraled. The weight on your chest worsened and you suddenly gasped for breath, unable to breathe. Tears sprung to your eyes and you turned away, not wanting to ruin Daisy’s moment with Hosea.

But everyone heard your gasp and saw you turn away so suddenly.

Arthur moved up the front steps, brows furrowing together slightly.

Daisy tried to move past him to get to you but Arthur caught ahold of the material of her shirt, quickly stopping her.

“Daddy-,”

“Just give me a minute, sweetpea.” He cut her off gently. “Go back to Papa or Uncle Charles, okay?”

“Is momma okay?”

“She’ll be just fine.” Arthur kissed the top of Daisy’s head before moving towards you.

Since Hosea was still sitting on the front step, Charles moved towards Daisy, holding his hands out for her.

“What’s wrong with her, Uncle Charles?” Daisy opened her arms for him to pick her up but her eyes remained on the back of your head.

“Mommy just needs a minute with daddy.” Charles explained. “What kind of flowers do you have there, Daisy?”

While Charles had Daisy somewhat distracted, Arthur was able to tend to you.

His hand found the small of your back.

“You okay, pumpkin?” His voice was quiet and gentle.

You couldn’t speak. You knew the words would become jumbled in your throat or come out all too quickly.

He kissed your shoulder.

“M’sorry if…. if what I was sayin’ scared you.”

“It’s not….” You shook your head. “Just…. Just me.”

“Is it him that’s got you this scared?”

You nodded, closing your eyes as you turned to face him. In the same instant, you were able to tuck your nose into the front of his neck.

“Pumpkin, you know I ain’t gonna let a damn thing happen to you or to Daisy. He’ll have to get through me to-,”

“Don’t.” You cut Arthur off, pulling away so that you could look him in the eyes. “Don’t you-Don’t you dare say that Arth-Arthur Morgan. I-I can’t lose you.”

He brushed the tears from your cheeks then pushed your hair back out of your eyes.

“I love you.”

You nodded and leaned forward to press your forehead against his lips. His hand rubbed up and down your back as you tried your best to take even breaths.

“Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen to either of you. I’ll keep you safe, pumpkin.”

Hosea stood up from the steps and began to make his way towards the front door. He looked to Charles and nodded for him to come inside.

“She can go. Y/N’s probably gonna want her near.”

Charles nodded and placed Daisy on her feet.

“Behave out here.”

Daisy giggled, curious eyes watching her uncle disappear into the house. Then she looked to her parents.

You lifted your head and sniffled. Arthur wiped your cheeks again.

“That’s enough thinkin’ about all the bad. We’re about to have a busy house.” He told you. “What kind of things do we need to get done before they get back here?”

You said nothing, unable to shift your thoughts to something else.

There was a tug on your skirt. You looked down to see Daisy looking up at you.

“You okay, momma?”

“Yes, love.” You nodded, moving to sit down in a chair on the porch. This allowed her to climb into your lap.

“Why are you crying?” She reached up with her free hand to wipe your tears away.

“Because…. Well, ‘cause I just have a lot on my mind right now.”

“What do you got there, sweetpea?” Arthur knelt down beside you. “Did you pick those flowers yourself?”

“Yeah! Papa said they are cornflowers, poppies, and daisies.”

“Daisies are momma’s favorites.” Arthur leaned in to whisper to her. “You think those might cheer her up?”

You smiled as Daisy handed you the bundle of flowers.

“Thank you, honey.” You leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “Those cornflowers look like daddy’s eyes, don’t they?”

Daisy looked from the flower to Arthur, then back to the flower, and finally back to Arthur. She giggled and nodded her head.

“They do.”

“Don’t you think daddy’s got pretty eyes?”

“He does!”

“You girls are gonna make me all red in the face.” Arthur muttered, a shy smile coming to his lips as he stood up. “Is your room all cleaned up, sweetpea? Uncle John’s coming up here and Grace’s is gonna need somewhere to sleep.”

“A sleepover?” Daisy excitedly jumped down from your lap.

“Only if your room is clean.”

“I’ll go check!”

Your eyes followed her as she ran into the house. Then your eyes flickered down to the flowers.

“We’re gonna be alright, Y/N.” Arthur held his hand out for you.

“I know. We always are. It just…. It never comes easy.”

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#arthur morgan x reader #dad!arthur morgan x reader #dad!arthur morgan #dad!arthur morgan fic #arthur morgan #arthur morgan rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 fic #oneshot #queenxxxsupreme

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randomvarious · 3 years

Video

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SWV - “Right Here” 18 Top Hits 1/94 Song released in 1993. Compilation released in 1994. R&B

The first wave of R&B girl groups in the 90s was dominated by three separate entities: first, there was En Vogue, who were responsible for starting the whole craze, and then came TLC, who were then followed by SWV. And since this is a post that’s gonna be littered with a bunch of fun, little trivia nuggets, here’s your first one: SWV, which is an acronym for Sisters With Voices, originally wanted to call themselves TLC, based on the first initials of their three members, Tamara, Leanne, and Cheryl. But they received a cease & desist letter from Epic Records, who had the TLC name locked up for the soon-to-be sensational Atlanta trio that was on their own roster. And so, Tamara, Leanne, and Cheryl begrudgingly settled on calling themselves SWV instead.

They began in 1988 in New York with two members, Leanne and Cheryl, who both sang at church, and were in search for a third girl to finish out the group. After going through auditions, they chose Tamara, who, according to a Rolling Stone article, was really shy and originally would only sing with the lights off. The three girls also donned stage names. Leanne would be Lelee, Cheryl would be Coko, and Tamara would be Taj. As a quirk, they sent out demo tapes with bottles of Perrier because they couldn’t afford to send champagne. They would end up catching the ear of legendary producer, as well as the father of the new jack swing fad, Teddy Riley (more on him later), and he would end up getting SWV inked to a ridiculously terrible eight-album contract, which the group never completely fulfilled. But at least they got themselves signed to a major, right?

In 1992, SWV released their debut album, It’s About Time, with most of the production coming from a guy named Brian Alexander Morgan. Morgan has gone on to produce, remix, write, and arrange for a bunch of music superstars, including Usher, Drake, Wu-Tang Clan, Mariah Carey, and Ariana Grande. But his first big opportunity came from...right here...with SWV’s debut album.

In fact, it was “Right Here” that would kick things off for SWV, becoming the group’s first single, before their debut album ended up hitting the shelves. But here’s where it might get a little confusing. That first single isn’t the version of “Right Here” that everyone would end up remembering SWV for. Actually, almost no one remembers the original version of “Right Here,” which is an excellent song on its own. Morgan laced his new jack swing beat with organ, electric guitar, and ringing bells that remind us of Run-D.M.C.’s “Peter Piper” and Snap!’s “The Power,” which both trace back to Bob James’ “Take Me to the Mardi Gras”. And Taj raps, too!

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The original version of “Right Here” would peak at #92 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #16 on the R&B/Hip Hop chart. The next pair of SWV singles, “I’m So Into You” and “Weak” would fare much better, both reaching the top ten on Billboard’s Hot 100, with “Weak” going all the way to #1. These singles would then set the stage for the release of a new version of “Right Here,” the one everyone knows and loves, which is credited as a Teddy Riley remix, and was fresh for the summer of 1993. It’s commonly dubbed as the “Human Nature Mix” because of its liberal sampling of the Michael Jackson song off Thriller. That particular mix would also feature on the Free Willy soundtrack, which would also contain and lead with Michael Jackson’s “Will You Be There”.

(Another famous sampling of “Human Nature” would happen in 1994, too, with Nas’ “It Ain’t Hard to Tell,” which was produced by Large Professor. Now, you could be thinking that the “Human Nature Mix” might’ve provided some inspiration for Large Pro to conjure up that particular beat, but as it turns out, “It Ain’t Hard to Tell” was actually recorded in ‘92.)

So here’s the coolest piece of trivia you’ll run into today. Know who’s delivering that catchy “ess, double, you, vee” line throughout the “Human Nature Mix”? Pharrell. And it’s his first vocal credit, ever! One day, he was performing in a high school talent show with his R&B group, The Neptunes (not his production project with Chad Hugo), and guess who was in the audience? Teddy Riley! Riley’s studio just so happened to sit next to Pharrell’s high school. How’s that for luck? Pharrell would end up writing Riley’s verse on Wreckx-N-Effect’s old school hip hop summer classic, “Rump Shaker,” and the following year he was on the “Human Nature Mix”. There’s also a captivating, “give-it-some-time-to-work-itself-out” kind of “UK Remix” of “Right Here” on which Pharrell raps, and in 1996, The Neptunes (now just Pharrell and Hugo) would receive their first production credits for two songs (and an interlude) on SWV’s second album, New Beginning.

And now for something probably even less people know about. Although the “Human Nature Mix” is credited to Teddy Riley, it’s not his work. It’s Brian Alexander Morgan’s, the guy who also produced the original version. Riley’s name was merely attached for marketing purposes only. The label probably thought that if they sold the single as a remix that was made by a production superstar who was using a Michael Jackson song(!), it would move more units than if they said it was by Morgan, which is a name that barely anyone knew. And it seems like the label was correct in its calculus. Even though it didn’t end up hitting #1 (it hit #2), the “Human Nature Mix” remains SWV’s most remembered song, and you can credit it for leading to a re-release of SWV’s debut album, which at that point would add the remix, and would help generate over two million copies sold.

And come to think of it, how many songs can you name in which the remix ended up becoming far more popular than the original version? Before the advent of EDM, anyway. And “Ignition (Remix)” doesn’t count, by the way. That totally misunderstands what a remix is. There’s like a handful of tracks that come to mind: a pair of Amber remixes by Hani and Thunderpuss (”One More Night” and “Sexual (Li Da Di),” respectively), another Thunderpuss remix of “It’s Not Right But It’s Okay” by Whitney Houston, a Latin house remix of Madonna’s “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” by Pablo Flores and Javier Garza, and of course, Todd Terry’s remix of “Missing” by Everything But the Girl. But the “Human Nature Mix” of “Right Here” might be at the top of the list. Lots of people aren’t even aware of the original’s existence. When you say the words “’Right Here’ by SWV,” everyone just assumes you’re talking about the “Human Nature Mix”. When the song is included on compilations, a lot of times the words “Human Nature” aren’t anywhere to be found, like on this random German comp I have that gathered 18 of the top songs from January of 1994. That’s how much more popular the “Human Nature Mix” is than the original. Let me know if you can think of any other remixes that hold a similar status.

One more thing before I get to the music video. This mix is so different from the original. The original version has a much harder edge and clearly took way more thought and effort to put together than the “Human Nature Mix” since the “Human Nature Mix” primarily just coasts off of the Michael Jackson sample. It doesn’t mean the original’s better though. It’s definitely great, but it’s trapped in the new jack swing era, and for that reason, it doesn’t have the staying power of the “Human Nature Mix”. Sometimes a producer finds something that’s easy enough to cobble together and it just manages to hit really good. That’s definitely the case here. The “Human Nature Mix” is just so fluffy; it was perfect summer radio then and it’s perfect summer radio now. It’s like an R&B counterpart to DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s “Summertime,” which came out a couple years beforehand. In fact, if I were doing a nostalgic 90s summer mix, I would probably line those tracks up back-to-back (”Rump Shaker” would be somewhere in there, too). There’s just a super relaxing, enjoyable airiness that both songs seem to possess. Oh, and speaking of DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, you know who provides the background vocals on Will Smith’s “Men in Black” song? Coko from SWV. Wild, right?

So, anyway, the video. It sucks. It just does. It’s not memorable at all, besides the awkward, intermittent slip-ins of footage of Michael Jackson performing “Human Nature” from his Dangerous tour and some clips of Free Willy swimming and breeching. It’s really a missed opportunity for the group. Apparently, there’s another video without Michael and Free Willy, too, but I can’t find it. It sounds like it’s boring though. Oh well.

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The first single off of SWV’s next album (”You’re the One”) would do very well for itself, too, and that album would manage to go platinum. But they’d get lost in the fold soon after, while En Vogue and TLC would end up building much more on their prior success. And TLC would come out on top for the late 90s with songs like “No Scrubs” and “Unpretty”.

SWV made good songs, but they weren’t marketed well, at all. Case in point, your last bit of trivia: Taj was a contestant on Survivor in 2009. No, not Celebrity Survivor. Just regular-ass Survivor. No one knew she was Taj from SWV and she didn’t tell anyone on the show either. This lady helped sell millions of records for fuck’s sake. I guarantee you every contestant on that show knew an SWV song and they had no idea who this woman even was. Isn’t that kind of insane? I mean, SWV were by no means one-hit wonders, and they weren’t super popular for that long, but they were definitely an early 90s R&B staple. Anyway, for what it’s worth, Taj ended up finishing in fourth on Survivor. She’s also married to soon-to-be Hall of Fame running back Eddie George.

So, there it is. One of the greatest and most popular tunes of the 90s. A song everyone likes that has a lot of fun, interesting facts that surround it. Shame that these girls couldn’t sustain their success for the remainder of the decade, but at least they and Brian Alexander Morgan gave us this indomitable classic.

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angst-fairygodmother · 4 years

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On Her Father’s Wings (The Umbrella Academy S2 Fic)

CHAPTER 2: FATHERS

What if there was one more thing left in Five’s care at Hazel’s untimely passing? Something more precious than a briefcase, more useful than a tape, and infinitely more infuriating. A smart-mouthed girl determined to pick up where her father left off and help save the world, whether the Hargreeves like it or not.

Word Count: 5230 Rating: T for canon-typical violence, swearing

Warning: this chapter contains major spoilers for both S2:E2 (The Frankel Footage) and plot twists later in the season. Read at your own risk.

Cross-posted to AO3: here Previous Chapter: New Sidekick

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“So that went well…” Piper drawled, leaning back against her elbows on the edge of the bar.

Five startled, causing her to snicker.

“How did you get in here?” he asked, sounding less surprised or impressed than she’d hoped and not even bothering to look up from his drink.

“Fun fact, they’ll let anybody in when you’re dressed like a cigarette girl,” she said wryly. “So what are you going to do now? Besides mope into a whiskey?”

I don’t know,” he admitted with a sigh. “I’ve struck out with both siblings I’ve been able to find.”

“So far. But you all landed in the same place, and Elliot said they all went back to the alley looking for the rest of you, so odds are these two aren’t the only ones that stuck around Dallas. Just have to keep looking.”

“And what if I say no?”

“Then I’ll kick your scrawny ass and do it myself.”

He looked up at her finally, surprised by her determination, only to quickly look away again, blushing from her sequined and very revealing outfit.

“Do you want me to stick around, keep an eye on this brother and see if he leads us to the rest?” she asked, tilting her head to one side.

“No need. He said he thought we were all dead.”

“Cheerful. Could he be lying? I mean he wasn’t exactly thrilled to see you from where I was standing. Maybe he thinks he’s protecting them?”

“Protecting them? From me?”

She shrugged. “Anything’s possible. I mean you are a time-travelling assassin. And I don’t know what family Christmases are like at your house.”

Five sighed in exasperation. “Stay if you want. I’m going back to Elliot’s. He’s still, unfortunately, my best lead.”

He continued to sip his drink. She rolled her eyes, not liking the feeling of being dismissed. Still, she decided, she may as well spy on his brother and Jack Ruby while she had the opportunity.

Just as she was about to walk away, Five finished his drink, muttering about how their father should have left Luther on the moon as they both watched the larger man “escort out” a drunk. Then he stood, the pocket of his jacket catching on the back of the chair and tearing away to reveal a bulky yellow box. He took it out, staring at it, puzzled.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked her almost absently, voice sounding like his mind was far away.

“No idea,” she answered, eyes fixed on the label, on handwriting as familiar to her as her own. “It was in your pocket. Why would I know about it?”

“I think Hazel put it there. When he saw those goons get off the bus.”

“Well, it’s probably important then. You should go figure out what it is. I’m going to stick around here and see if I can’t find out a little more about your brother problem.”

Five frowned, glaring as she turned the tables, dismissing him for once, but she was already walking away, a cheerful smile plastered on her face as she held out her cigarette tray in question to one of the other club patrons.

Not long afterward, Piper watched as Luther exited through a back door, and followed, keeping far enough back that he wouldn’t notice, or at least she hoped not. He seemed to freeze, staring as he watched a mystery woman climbed into a car near the payphone out front. Piper couldn’t see his face, but she didn’t really need to to recognize the shock written across his entire body. The woman stared back for just a moment, confusion on her expression evident.

“Vanya,” she heard Luther whisper as the woman shut the car door and drove away.

Luther turned, watching her go, and Piper caught a glimpse of his distress before she ducked back inside to avoid getting caught tailing him. Back inside, she leaned against the wall, biting the nail of her thumb as she debated sticking around to see what other events unfolded for the night and reporting back to Five that she had at least some idea of where another sibling was.

Her decision was made for her though, when an unnervingly large arm pressed across her, pinning her to the wall by her shoulders.

“Who the hell are you?” Luther asked, face mere inches from hers and twisted into a scowl.

“Relax, there’s no need for violence here,” she said, trying to placate him.

“Why are you following me?”

“I’m not. I mean I was. Sort of. I mean it was more general surveillance than ‘following.’ Although it did…also involve following…”

“Shut up and answer my questions.”

“Um, which of those would you like me to do? Because I can’t simultaneously shut up and…speak, which I need to do to answer your questions.” She tilted her head questioningly to one side and put on her most charming smile.

He pressed his arm harder across her collarbones, shaking her, the pressure making it momentarily harder to breathe until she adjusted to it.

“Quit playing games. Who. Are. You?”

“My name is Piper Rofa. I’m with your brother, Five. A fact that he’s not super thrilled with because of his whole grouchy loner thing, but I’m not about to let that stop me. I stayed behind to keep an eye on you in case there was more you knew or something, even though he’s willing to write you off as a lost cause. Because I’m not about to let the world end based on the fact that your asshole family can’t get their shit together.”

His hold on her slackened, though the arm was still large enough that even slight pressure kept her in place. “I don’t know anything. Until Five showed up, I thought everyone was dead.”

“So that wasn’t your sister in the car?”

“It…was. But tonight was the first time I’d seen her since…”

“Since she blew up the moon and tried to kill you all? Or was that the other sister?”

“No…that was Vanya. How do you know so much about us?”

“It’s a long story. One I’ll happily tell to all of you once you’re rounded up in the same room but I really don’t want to have to keep going over.”

“I’m done with that life.” By now he had released her completely, but she remained rooted in that spot anyway.

“But they’re still your family. Don’t you want to see them?”

“Are they?” his voice was soft, pained. “All I’ve ever done is push them away and hurt them. It’s better for everyone if I just…don’t go back.”

“Bullshit. Family’s hard, but also family’s family. Whatever you’ve fucked up, they still love you. Or at least, the one I’ve met does. You should have seen his face…”

He stared at her, mouth open in shock, face twisted in uncertainty. “How…how many of them are together right now?”

“None. But we can make it at least three, possibly four if you give me that address, and you come with me back to our makeshift base of operations. We still haven’t found Allison or Klaus?” she hesitated, unsure she had the names right. “And the other brother is locked up in an asylum which Five for some reason decided not to spring him from, but that’s…fixable.”

“I’m not going to give you this address. I don’t even know if Vanya actually lives there, but if she does…I don’t know you, no matter what you claim. And I need to talk to her first. Alone.”

Piper rolled her eyes. “Fine, suit yourself. Just, when you’re done, both of you should come to Morty’s Television and Radio.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“I guess that’s all I can ask,” she shrugged. “Now unless you’re planning any other secret sibling reunions or interesting events, I should probably be off.”

She gave him a wink and wave as she sauntered away.

“I can’t tail a car on foot!” she shouted in frustration as Five raged. “And what else was I supposed to do? Fight your brother for the wallet? He could snap me in half like a toothpick!”

“You incompetent…useless…” his face was rapidly reddening. “What is the point of you if you can’t even do a simple task?”

“Hey!” she glared, folding her arms over her chest. “At least we can confirm that she’s still in Dallas. And that she’s either a very good actress or didn’t recognize your brother. Neither of which we’d have without me sticking around, which you called a waste of time. Besides, Luther all but said he was going after her, so we can tail him there.”

“Don’t bother. Let’s just focus on this tape from your father and hope it’s more helpful than you are.”

She bit back the first retort that came to mind, sticking her tongue out petulantly. “Do you have the magic power of film development now too?”

His jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth angrily. “No. I don’t have the power to develop the film. But I’m sure I will find someone who can.”

“Some stranger? When there could be signs, clues, or references to the apocalypse? Great plan. Definitely won’t lead to panic or getting arrested as a terrorist or anything. Especially if you drag them out of bed to do it.”

He sighed angrily. “What would you suggest then?”

“Wait until morning, see where these came from,” she gestured to the photos around the loft. “Until then, do some more research through all this junk to see if we can find where the last two siblings are?”

She watched him struggle with himself, not wanting to admit that she was right.

“Now pass me that box,” she gestured to a large cardboard box overflowing with sheets of paper and newspaper clippings, clearly things that Elliot thought were important but hadn’t gotten around to sorting into his desk or “conspiracy wall.”

Hours later, Elliot shuffled out of his bedroom, setting up a pot of coffee before noticing that the two time-travelers were there, each wrapped in their own heads and oblivious to the world.

“Do…do you like eggs?” he asked them, stammering out an offer for breakfast, cutting through their thoughts. “Or cereal?”

Piper looked up, smiling politely as she accepted and Five waved him off, muttering about “just needing coffee.”

As the girl and Elliot ate, Five looked around again, eyes falling to focus on some of the strange images on the walls.

“Elliot, did you develop these photos yourself?” he asked, leaning in to look closer at one of them.

“Of course. Can’t exactly drop that stuff off at the neighborhood Fotomat,” Elliot stood, walking across the partition with his bowl of cereal. “Government has eyes everywhere.”

Piper rolled her eyes, half listening as they discussed the lack of darkroom and Five asked him to develop the footage her father had slipped him.

As Elliot began listing supplies and excuses for why they were difficult to get, she rose, moving to lean in the doorway, arms folded.

“Elliot,” Five said, face taught with frustration.

“It’s like five, maybe six hours.”

“Would it go any faster with a sweet ride?” she asked, spinning her keychain, complete with neon orange rabbit’s foot, around on her finger.

Elliot’s eyes lit up at the prospect and Five became distracted by the call over the radio.

“The hell is a code 3-15?”

“Fugitives on the run,” Piper and Elliot said at the same time, glancing at each other in surprise before focusing back in on the rest of the call.

“Oh, Diego,” Five sighed, pressing his lips together and turning his eyes toward the ceiling as if to ask God ‘why?’

“Who’s Diego?” Elliot asked and Piper gave him a puzzled look.

Hadn’t they talked about it the day before, when he’d shown Five the mugshot? Or was the at least 30 hour day starting to mess with her memory? She shook it off, surreptitiously pinching the flesh of her own upper arm, the quick, sharp pain waking her up some.

“Imagine Batman, then aim lower,” Five explained before turning away from the radio.

She snorted at the description, which just about matched up to what her father had told her.

“You get started on that film,” he told Elliot. “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

“Actually, it’s probably faster for you to go alone,” she pointed out with a shrug. “I mean you can just pop to him and sort things out without…awkward introductions or sidetracking. Plus, I can get the supplies, help Elliot here; we’ll know what’s on that tape a lot sooner.”

Five hesitated. She flashed him a reassuring smile.

“I promise,” she said. “We’ll play nice. I mean, I can only hope the feeling’s mutual but I like Elliot, and this is something actually useful I can do. Now go teleport after your crazy-escapee brother.” She waved her hands in a shooing motion and Five rolled his eyes, heading for the door.

“Alright, Elliot,” she said, turning back to the man and planting her hands on her hips in an exaggerated, almost-superhero pose. “Hope you’ve got a shopping list and some cash because I have neither. But I’ll drive.”

Several hours later, she sighed, brushing hair out of her face as she bent to the task Elliot had given her, focused intently as they neared the finish line. Suddenly, something heavy clumsily smashed into the side of her head and she staggered away from it, dropping her tools and turning, shifting instinctively into a defensive stance to face her attacker.

“Elliot?! What the hell are you doing?” she shouted, watching the nervous little man drop the lamp he had swung moments earlier.

“I saw the footage!” he shouted. “I know what you are!”

Her head throbbed from the blow.

“What are you talking about?” she asked, frowning. “What exactly did you see?”

“I saw enough! And I won’t let you get away with it!”

She sighed, uncoiling her fists and trying to be as nonthreatening as possible. Holding up her hands, palms flat and facing him, she locked eyes with Elliot.

“Calm down Elliot, please,” she said, voice trembling almost imperceptibly. “I don’t know what you think is going on, but I promise there’s an explanation.”

“I’m not going to let you warp my mind!” he shouted. “You’re some sort of demon or alien or…or Russian spy!”

“What?”

Rather than responding, Elliot charged at her and swung a wild haymaker, so unexpected (and surprisingly quick) that it caught her off-guard. Striking on the same side he had already hit her, it drove her to her knees, vision swimming. The last thing she noticed as the world fell away were hands on her wrists and her only thought was that she had failed.

When Piper woke up next, she was somewhere completely dark. She could feel that her wrists and ankles had been bound together, trapping her in a hunched over position. Luckily, her captor (Elliot she suspected) made the mistake of putting the ropes in front of her, and probably didn’t know about her training in escape artistry. Gritting her jaw against the waves of pain and nausea that her movements triggered, she set to work, among other things discovering that she was in the darkroom closet.

Outside, she could hear shouting, and then, worryingly, the blast of a gunshot. Elliot wouldn’t actually shoot Five…she hoped. Though she also didn’t expect him to knock her out cold and tie her up, so maybe she didn’t know the nutter as well as she thought. And even if he wouldn’t really shoot Five, she couldn’t say the same in reverse if Elliot threatened him.

Finally, she felt the ropes go slack and stood.

“Where is she Elliot?” she heard Five ask through gritted teeth.

Her hand stilled momentarily on the doorknob, curious to hear where this would go.

“The one you left here to kill me when I found out the truth?” she heard Elliot snap. “I took care of her. Bet you weren’t expecting that.”

She rolled her eyes. So dramatic.

“I swear, if you hurt her…”

“Who are you talking about Five?” she heard another voice ask. “Is Allison here? …or Vanya?”

So that must be Diego then. Before things could go any further, she decided to make her grand entrance.

“Christ,” she said loudly as strode casually out of the converted closet, shaking the remaining ropes off her wrist. “That was uncalled for.”

Elliot stared. Diego and the mysterious woman with him stared. Five pointedly avoided looking at her, but she thought she might have caught a flash of relief cross his face.

“Seriously,” she smiled at Elliot who she now noticed was pinned down by the one she assumed was Diego. “That was an impressive punch from such a wimpy-looking guy,” her face fell into disappointment and she held out the rope, “but it was super unnecessary.”

“He managed to take you out with one punch?” Five asked, tone somewhere between mockery and incredulity.

“I mean, there was the element of surprise. And I think a lamp?”

“I had to do it! You people are dangerous! I know!” Elliot shouted, trying and failing to struggle as the strange woman tied his legs together.

Piper rolled her eyes. “You don’t know shit, Conspiracy Brain. Which would have been obvious if you let me explain instead of giving me a migraine. Now you had better have aspirin somewhere or I am going to be very annoyed.”

“Who the hell is this girl Five?” his brother asked.

“I like her,” the woman chimed in, earning her a glare from both Hargreeves and a smirk from Piper.

“My name is Piper Rofa, it’s really nice to meet you,” she called as she rooted through the bathroom medicine cabinet. “Do you want to explain the rest, Old Timer, or shall I?”

“Rofa…why does that name sound familiar?” Diego muttered.

Piper caught sight of Lila’s eyes, narrowed and studying her shrewdly. Something about her calculating look put the younger girl’s nerves on edge and she looked back with the same faux-casual inspection.

“Let’s just watch the film, see what’s got Elliot all worked up, and we can do introductions later,” Five said, brushing aside Diego’s curiosity.

They tied Elliot more securely, to one of the dental chairs he had inexplicably laying around. Lila dug out an old bottle of sickly green nail polish and began doing her fingernails and the captive man’s toes. Piper couldn’t help but chuckle from where she sat with her boots resting up on the corner of the kitchen table; the other woman was really doing a bang-up job of playing the loon.

They all sat in silence as the tape began. And then, realizing what it was, Diego leaned forward with a new intensity of focus.

‘He really is obsessed with JFK,’ she found herself thinking. ‘Professional interest or crush?’

“How do you have this?” Diego asked his brother.

“Hazel died to get me this footage,” Five explained, eyes flickering to his brother, and then to Piper who tried to hide her distress behind a blank mask, before turning back to the projector screen. “It must be the key to stopping doomsday.”

“It had better be,” Piper muttered.

“Hazel?” Diego said with an accusatory frown.

Piper stiffened, swinging her legs down to the floor. She did not want to deal with a confrontation right now when her headache was finally going away, but she wasn’t going to stand for anyone disparaging her father’s memory either.

“Long story,” Five said dismissively, still focused ahead of him.

“What’s doomsday?” Lila asked, looking pathetically up at Five from her seat.

“Longer story.”

“What exactly did he say to you?” Piper’s eyes flickered to Five’s face, equally curious for his answer as his brother was.

“Well he was killed before he could explain. But whatever he wanted us to see, it’s on this film.”

Her teeth found the middle knuckle of her thumb, biting down on it gently while she wracked her brain for something her father might have told her that could help, feeling useless. How could she claim to have known him, to be his protégé or fill his shoes if she didn’t even know what he died for?

Four sets of eyes flickered determinedly over the screen as chaos unfolded, only Lila looking away, confusion and fear on her face as she instead watched the watchers. Suddenly, Five muttered something under his breath and moved to rewind the tape, shifting the projector around to change the focus. Whatever he saw, Diego noticed the second time around, hesitantly unfolding himself from the countertop, mouth hanging open as he approached the screen in shock to get a better look. Elliot meanwhile, was thrashing about and struggling in his chair as if he still thought he could get away. It was distracting, and for a brief moment, Piper considered the lamp and returning the favor just to get him to calm down.

“This can’t be,” Five said, his focus fixed.

“Okay are you going to fill me in now?” Lila snapped. “What the hell is this shit we’re watching?”

“No that’s impossible,” Diego’s statement might have been a denial but his face seemed to say that whatever the realization the two Hargreeves had come to, it was as plain as the hair on their heads now.

“Clearly it’s not.” At least Five had the decency to sound awed at the new information.

Information Piper still didn’t understand.

“What…what is it?” Elliot asked from around the makeshift gag in his mouth.

The two remained transfixed on the grainy image in the center of the room.

“I gotta say I’m with Lila and Elliot on this one. You two might recognize the mystery blur, but the rest of the team’s,” she gestured around, “in the dark.”

“Dad…” they both said softly.

“Oh shit.”

To call what followed a discussion would have been giving far too much credit to the participants, and vastly underplaying the childishness of their sniping at each other.

“No, you’re jumping to conclusions,” Five said, pacing back and forth.

“What the hell else is he doing standing on the grassy knoll, holding an open black umbrella, on a sunny day, in Dallas, the exact same moment the president gets shot?” Diego shouted, gesticulating wildly at the screen.

“It doesn’t look good, I admit,” Five snapped back.

“I mean your father clearly had a thing for umbrellas, given the academy, tattoos, etc. so that could be nothing,” Piper drawled, inspecting her nails as the brothers went around and around in circles, physically and metaphorically. “Or it’s for shade, and maybe he’s there to watch or meet the president, like everyone else in Dallas? He’s not a supervillain, right?”

“You think it’s a coincidence? No. He’s the signalman for the whole goddamn thing.” Diego turned to face her, eyes ablaze. “And what would you know anyway? Who the hell are you?”

“I told you. Piper Rofa. I’m…a friend.”

“Bullshit.” From seemingly nowhere, he had drawn a knife, pointing it at her threateningly. “I saw your face while we were watching the footage. You know something.”

“I wish I did! I wish I could answer your questions or villain monologue or whatever it is you’re looking for. But I don’t know jack, except that the world is ending. It might be connected to Kennedy, it might not.” She shrugged, slapping her hands back down to her sides. “My father is dead, and he told me that The Umbrella Academy were the best chance at saving the world. So get your stupid knife out of my face, and figure it the hell out.”

“Who…?” Diego looked momentarily taken aback. “Who’s your father? How does he know about us?”

“Piper, don’t,” Five cautioned. “Now is not a good time to be bringing that up.”

She sighed, turning away from both of them and folding her arms around herself. “Hazel,” she admitted softly, almost apologetically.

She thought she heard Lila gasp and frowned at that, but there wasn’t time to address it as Diego seized her shoulder and slammed her into the nearby doorframe.

“Your father killed my…friend,” he hissed through clenched teeth, knife pressed to her throat and face in hers.

She rolled her eyes, undaunted. “Oh cry me river. Good people die all the time. Besides, that’s in the past…or the future? And I’m not him. Nor will killing me do anything, other than make a mess of this lovely apartment and delay what’s important. So can we focus back on your dad, who you apparently think is just as bad or worse than mine?”

He growled, pressing the blade harder into her neck, enough that she felt a thin trickle of blood, clearly not taking kindly to her opinion on the matter.

“Easy Diego,” Five interrupted, placing a hand on his brother’s arm and drawing him away.

Piper rubbed at her neck and shoulder where the majority of Diego’s weight had been, adding them to her growing catalogue of bruises to expect.

“Seriously,” Five sighed in exasperation.

“No, it makes sense,” Diego insisted, shifting instantly back to the topic of Reginald Hargreeves and JFK as if there had been no interruption at all. “This is what Hazel was obviously trying to tell you.”

His eyes flickered over to Piper and she shrugged. Lila stood up, offering to help her with the wound and hesitantly she accepted, both women leaving the brothers to argue.

“We have to stop dad from killing the president,” Diego declared dramatically.

Piper rolled her eyes and caught Lila doing the same. She frowned. There was something about this woman…something that set her teeth on edge but felt very familiar.

“Do I know you?” she asked.

“No. I don’t think we’ve met,” Lila answered with a smile that seemed to waver uncertainly. “But I can tell we’re gonna be good friends.”

Piper bit her lip, wanting to say more when Five’s voice cut through again.

“Dad’s clearly in Dallas, right? Let’s just go talk to him. Maybe he can help us fix the timeline.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea,” Piper muttered, brushing aside the rest of Lila’s first aid to return to the main room in case she had to referee between them.

“Dallas is a big place,” Diego pointed out. “We need to find him first.”

“Gee, if only we had some magical, old-timey way of finding people and their addresses.”

Piper tossed the October 1963 phone book at Five, “Or should I pull another fast one on the 911 operator?”

He dropped in on the table. “Let’s start simple, his name.”

Before he could, Diego had already opened the book and bent over it, scanning for ‘Hargreeves’ with increasing frustration. When they didn’t find it, Five suggested looking for his company instead.

“D.S. Umbrella Manufacturing Co.”

“Yeah, I know the name,” Diego shot his brother a look.

“Seriously, more umbrellas? I think it’s time to consider it was a fetish,” Piper joked, drawing a laugh from Lila and a disgusted shudder from Diego.

When they found what they were looking for, the two almost immediately turned to go, rolling up the screen and heading for the front stairs down into the showroom.

“He okay to leave here like that?” Diego asked quietly.

“Yeah, he’s fine. What about the girl?” Five answered.

Both men looked behind them to find Elliot, still tied and gagged, and Piper flipping aimlessly through a magazine, once again leaning back in a chair and resting her feet on the table, making it all to obvious that she was eavesdropping. There was no sign of Lila.

“Shit,” Diego muttered, turning back.

Five sighed. Piper pointed over her shoulder to the darkroom closet Lila had scurried off to as soon as their backs were turned. He sat down across from her while Diego went to check on the other girl.

“Are you coming with us?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

“No. I think I’m going to stay here. We still need to find the rest of your family as fast as possible, and I have a few ideas. Plus something’s not quite sitting right with me that I want to follow up on. And I don’t think your brother likes me much.”

Five chuckled. “Diego doesn’t like many people.”

“He likes Lila a hell of a lot. You sure that’s not going to be a problem?”

“No, I’m not. But it’s one we can deal with later.”

She sighed, fidgeting with her hands on the table. “You wanna take my car?”

His expression softened, understanding the gesture of trust it was meant to be.

“No, I don’t want to draw attention.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“It’s a very flashy car, Piper.” The tone of his voice sounded almost like a scolding father, or like her mother’s not-quite-disapproval when she’d cut the picture out of a magazine and pinned it to her corkboard at fifteen. It made her smile sadly, rubbing at the sting of loss she hadn’t let herself feel completely yet.

Diego emerged from the cupboard, Lila following behind a few moments later.

“You three play nice now,” Five said, faux-sternly. Diego turned to him, surprised, but his face was blank, showing no sign that he might have just made a joke. “We’ll be back soon.”

Piper waited until Five and Diego had been gone for some time, and until Lila had finished painting Elliot’s nails, in case things went south – it would be rude to leave him with only two thirds of a mani-pedi after all.

“We need to talk,” she said sternly, setting aside the article she had been reading and sitting up to face the other woman, arms folded across her chest.

“About what?” Lila’s tone was the epitome of innocence and Piper found herself impressed. She was one hell of an actress.

“You’re Commission right?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lila frowned in confusion.

Piper scoffed. “Oh please. My father was a Field Agent til he met Mom and settled down. But you knew that.” She cocked her head to one side in question, inviting Lila to deny it again. “He taught me how to spot another agent, in case they ever decided to use us to force him into un-retirement or something.”

Lila tensed, body movements subtle but still there, noticeable to a trained eye like Piper’s as she got ready to attack.

“You can relax,” Piper sighed, waving a hand in the air dismissively. “You don’t get in my way, I won’t get in yours. Or rat you out.”

“And what if our missions are incompatible?” Lila’s eyebrow quirked, finally dropping her ‘scared little crazy girl’ act completely.

“Still no reason to bring extra parties in. If it comes to that, we settle things the old fashion way, and may the best woman win.”

The two women locked eyes, sizing each other up, baiting each other. The air practically crackled with electricity. Elliot, still bound and gagged and distinctly uncomfortable, tried to mumble something as his eyes flicked frantically from one to the other. Surprisingly, Lila broke the stare first.

“Yeah sure, I’ll agree to that, at least for now.”

“Excellent,” Piper smiled wryly. “Like you said, I can tell we’re gonna be good friends.”

#On Her Father's Wings #The Story of Hazel and Agnes's daughter #The Umbrella Acadmey fic #TUA season 2 spoilers #The Umbrella Academy season 2 spoilers #season 2 canon-alteration fic #I feel like it's been 84 years since I published the first chapter #but I finally finished this one #purely platonic Hargreeves/OC relationships #also: it should be obvious by now but (despite me not being a car buff or really having any knowledge) loving her car is a personality trait

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neshabeingchildish · 4 years

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Hensley & Char: Friends or Whatever || Part 6

I have to warn y’all, this chapter has some sadness in it. I tapped into 15 year old me and how I was trying to navigate what I thought back then was me being bi, which IF someone calls me bi, I am not opposed to the able, even being technically ace, but for that time and for my feelings/experience and the language I had access to, that’s what I was considering myself as, but nobody knew that (though I was rumored gay by several people in high school, despite never seeing me in any relationships and me only ever speaking about male crushes to others) LOL, yes, Mama used to have male crushes irl, when I was a kid. But, I tapped into some of myself, but made it more Charlotte-like and leaned on the gay. Idk how well it will or won’t resonate, but I hope that I at least did Charlotte justice in her experience with looking inward, though her results may be disappointing, I hope that they at least come across as realistic, if not relatable or understandable. @just-a-j-reallly @junknstu1f @henryharts I’m not in a rush for feedback, as I know everybody has things going on. Hopefully my tags work out. A lot of people never get notified of them.

Also, as a heads up, the next chapter, whenever that might come, might also be sad too. I’m so sorry.

The Jasper Juxtaposition

They had been trying to get Jasper into the fold of their outfit for a while. Ray wasn’t having it. Even whenever Charlotte basically throw her pride into a burning bin, seeping with trash juice, to pretend that she was secretly dating Hensley, but that they couldn’t tell anyone because, “Charlotte’s not out of the closet.” At this point, Charlotte was very heavily debating this ruse.

There was an element of “people shouldn’t lie/joke about being in the closet,” which she strongly and firmly believed in… But… She went along with it anyway, because as she did her backstory for this test on Jasper, she found that she comfortably created the guise.

“I can say that I’ve been curious about my sexuality for a while, and seeing you out of the closet, living your best gay life inspired me to come to you for advice on how to navigate figuring it out and in the process, we fell for each other and started dating secretly.”

Hensley laughed in her face and said, “It’s Jasper, Char. You don’t have to say all of that. Just be like, “We’re gay together, Dude.” He’s gonna accept it and be super chill about it. I’m not convinced there’s a pile of homo rattling around in him, if we’re being honest. PLUS, he thinks we’re both hot. He’s gonna get a kick out of us kissing and stuff.”

“I’m not kissing you!” Charlotte squealed.

Hensley turned up her nose, “What? Ew. No! Of course not. Ugh. This incites disgust, to think of it.” She shook her head, “Kissing a straight girl… in the mouth? I don’t know where your mouth has been. On boys, probably. I don’t want boy kiss transfer.”

“You kissed Chloe all the time!” Charlotte argued, unsure of why that was her response instead of arguing that she didn’t want to kiss Hensley (and hadn’t been kissing any boys, unless you counted kissing Jack Swagawitz at camp… which… she didn’t), and furthermore…

“Chloe was different, though. I really liked her,” Hensley said.

“You went out with Bianca as soon as you had a window,” Charlotte muttered.

“You told me to go for it! What? Now, I gotta stop listening to my smarter half?”

They bickered up until the moment that Jasper came over for them to feed him the lie. Whoa, were they bad at lying together… Fortunately, it was Jasper. Who, Charlotte was very disturbed by his fascination with the thought of them kissing. “Jasper is fetishing us, and I don’t like it,” she told Hensley.

“He’s not fetishizing you. He’s fetishizing fake lesbian you. It’s different.”

“Yeah, but… He’s… fetishizing lesbians!”

“He’s a dude. Dudes do that,” Hensley said, waving a hand. Charlotte didn’t like that explanation and it was often Hensley’s excuse for a number of sexist and problematic things that happened on her watch. Maybe it was for the best that Jasper didn’t pass the test. Then she’d have a problematic Hensley, and ANOTHER problematic guy at work. Ray was alright. He was nice, enough, but he said stuff sometimes that made her uncomfortable and he didn’t really listen whenever she pointed these things out. (Something that she had no idea would get worse over time, but that’s another subject.

Currently, the subject is Jasper.

It took a while before Jasper came on board with the team. It took a while before he was ready for this secret. From the time that Hensley and Charlotte “broke up” until then, there were a lot of adventures that Hensley and Char saw together that made them really close in a way that Charlotte and Jasper were not, and even that Jasper and Henry were not. And in a way, for Charlotte, it was a lot like the fabricated story that she had spun - their secret involvement and the connecting together that nobody knew about… Also, since then, she had really been thinking about how easy it was for her to think of that, and how… relatable it felt, how natural it was to even imagine herself, keeping that sort of secret because she couldn’t tell people that she maybe… well… she didn’t really think it was so much a maybe these days… liked girls.

More specifically, she maybe (and this WAS still a maybe), liked Hensley. Her hopeless heroine who she helped on a daily basis, and loved being so close to, even when she complained and fussed at her about the things that she deserved to be fussed at about. She would probably NEVER let her live down almost getting killed by Jasper’s crazy ex girlfriend, and she was so tired of Hensley always coming to her to get her out of stuff that she warned her about prior to the decision - like when she tried to go to the dance with Chloe as Kid Danger and Bianca as herself… STUPID HENSLEY! Charlotte decided, right around Jasper Dunlop Day that she wasn’t doing this anymore. She was going to explore her options and see what felt right.

She bought a project board, some cards, and a science journal and she set up, literally in her closet, a little experiment center. She decorated the board, and across the top, had lettered, “Am I Gay?” Her hypothesis?: “I might be gay.” Procedure: Well, she supposed, she had to talk to some people, go on some dates, maybe kiss somebody? She shuddered. The amount of germs in saliva was terrifying to her. In fact, whenever she kissed Jack, she had threatened, “If you slip me any tongue, I’ll slip my fist right into your ribcage!” Needless to say, he slipped her no tongue.

But, her “experimentation phase” generally was not very successful for a number of reasons.

First and foremost… meeting people? She wasn’t a fan. She joined the Student Council as a means to help her with a bit of self diagnosed social anxiety, but cared a lot about issues, so that she genuinely stayed in it to do community stuff and be a helpful member of the club. She met cool people, too! It was one of her things away from Hensley and away from Jasper, and wasn’t primarily academic, so she held it close to her heart as something for herself and decided against using it, and the fine people she met in it as lab rats for her orientation exploration.

Then, there was the little problem of personal space and unnecessary touching. There were very few people that she allowed into her bubble. Her parents, Uncle Roscoe, Hensley, Jasper, Piper, and Ray, and even with Ray, she tensed up for the longest time whenever he entered her bubble without warning. Even with that select amount of people who could be in her bubble, the only people that could casually touch her were her parents and Hensley. Sometimes Piper, but Piper had the respect to not touch her for no good reason. Unlike Hensley, who she simply had to get used to the fact that the girl was simply GOING TO just stand close, throw her arm around her, hug her, pick her up, play with her hair, tug on her backpack, or whatever she felt like doing at the time, and saying, “You should get permission before touching people,” just became background noise for Hensley, after a while, so Charlotte simply stopped saying it and adjusted.

Jasper still sometimes got elbowed. It just wasn’t the same thing when a dude just touched you casually, she had initially thought. Maybe that wasn’t it at all and she just didn’t mind girls touching her as much, because she liked them? But… in order to figure that out, she’d have to let people in her bubble and let people casually touch her and see how she felt about it.

So often, when it looked like somebody was getting too close, she stepped away, creating the distance of comfort for her and also, very clearly letting them see where it was. To the point that everybody who knew her knew not to get too close and everybody in her extracurriculars always did stuff like, “Hey Charlotte, I’m gonna take this lint off of you, okay?” (to which, she’d tell them to show her where it was and get it herself) or “Hi, Charlotte, do you mind if I sit here, or is that too close for you?”(To which she’d tell them to go ahead, but she’d move over more). She’d have to start telling people that being near her was okay, if she wanted to see her reactions to boys and girls and others in her proximity… And nowadays, they didn’t even ask anymore.

Even Mitch Bilsky would take one look at her and say, “UGH. The only space is by the queen of “don’t stand so close to me?” He’d then still do it, and even purposefully make her squirm, but she would resolve to ignore him and he’d get bored and move along.

But, she didn’t have very many times to test this out, and had to eventually rule out trying to get close to people (or let them get close to her) to see if she might feel a little flutter or not.

Lastly, in addition to not being a people person and not wanting anybody in her personal space, The Man Cave was a whole ass full time job to maintain. She began to wonder what happened to people who previously worked for Ray/Captain Man? Even the ones that were there when she got there, and ones that would pop in and out for little assignments… after a while, she just didn’t see them, and she either was assigned their jobs, or took it upon herself to do them for worry of things going terribly wrong if she didn’t. Things went wrong in general, and she often felt like if she didn’t step in whenever she did, they could be downright disastrous. This job basically became her life. She never signed up for another marathon after dropping out whenever she thought the Super Volcano would kill them. She still had StuCo, but that was school related and when push came to shove, she only forsook the Man Cave for educational purposes, unless it was an extreme emergency.

In fact, she completely gave up on testing it all out and just let it bother her beneath the surface. Her conclusion: I’m more confused than ever, but technically… going to consider myself in the closet.

Imagine if I was as comfortable with myself as Jasper is…

You couldn’t tell that boy nothing. He protested stupid Swellview laws, jumped into hero mode to get his own hero day, wore belly shirts to everyone’s chagrin, was willing to go to tremendous lengths - sometimes extremely embarrassing ones - to get girls, and he overshared weird facts about his body with great excitement that just let you know that he adored these things about himself…

She couldn’t even with certainty say that she MIGHT like girls, which, she was sure that she absolutely did, but she could hardly admit it to herself, much less out loud. What if it hurt her? What if it affected how she was seen by people on college boards or in the job field, once she left Swellview. Sure… there were YEARS before this happened, but Charlotte had been thinking ahead since she was small, and the moment she felt an inkling that her feelings may be… counterculture, she began to research related laws and statistics.

Swellview didn’t have a big Black population. In fact, the demographics indicated that there were a lot more lgbt citizens than there were people who weren’t white, period. So, in Swellview, perhaps it wouldn’t be anything to be open about her sexuality… but… what if it was different for her, like a lot of things were. It was often different for her as a girl to be accepted in some spaces, to be listened to, to be respected. And it was frequently double different for her as a Black girl. Even the “good” people made her feel things that she often didn’t want to complain about, because they ALREADY thought she was an angry girl, when she couldn’t think of very many instances in which her anger was not justified. Research told her that was a common issue for Black girls and women. She didn’t have enough around her to touch base with, and was frustrated that she had to consider all of these intersections to even consider whether she would be free enough to have a sexual identity.

Even with her academic record, immaculate articulation, and non-threatening appearance, Charlotte didn’t have many friends and didn’t have the best reputation. She was a nerd, but also, unfriendly. A Black girl in a male dominant world, in a white dominant city, and to possibly also be gay… she just… she couldn’t just toss that out there and have it attached to her name without knowing, and she felt like a coward for feeling like that.

What would be the big deal, Charlotte? If that’s who you are… what would be so wrong about that? People be gay all over Swellview… but then again… everyday, she would see people be able to freely do things that she previously thought she WOULD never do, but as she got older realized that she wouldn’t do certain things, because she COULD never do them… not without possibly losing something. Chances? Respect? Heck, in certain areas of the world, her life. But, thinking this hard about it and not coming up with anything to push her to believe that she was indeed a straight girl, despite all of the reasons that it would be SO easy, and she loved easy things, despite her knack for tackling hard things. Why wouldn’t she just accept that she was straight, if that would make all of this anguish and confusion go away? She could just tell herself that she was straight and get it over with and move on… IF she was indeed straight. And if she wasn’t, no matter how much “experimentation” and hypothesizing she did, nothing would make her feel those feelings that she sometimes felt around Hensley, for some boy.

So… She just sat with it. In her closet. She didn’t experiment and she didn’t hypothesize. But, in her science journal that she had previously been writing all of these things in, she scratched out her conclusion and wrote.

Conclusion: I’m gay.

But, she tore the page out and wadded it up. Then, she felt bad, straightened it back out, and slid it back into it's space. She tucked her cards into it and stuffed it into a lock box where she kept keepsakes and stuff, locked it in and got rid of her project board in the Junk n Stuff dumpster.

She had been handling Kid Danger’s secret for a couple of years now and planned to hold on to it forever. She had time to figure out what to do with her own.

Besides… by the time Jasper got in on the secret… Things changed a lot, anyway.

#Friends or Whatever #Hensley and Char: Friends or Whatever #Hensley Hart #Girl!Henry wlw AU #Henry Danger #Nesha HD Fics

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takaraphoenix · 4 years

Note

Dr who for the ask game

Thanks for playing! This is also a big, fun one! :O (I do love that the majority of these asks hit target on my own biggest obsessions x3 We checked off like all the live action shows at this point, I think, the only things left are anime/animated xDDD)

Again with a cut due to the sheer size. ^^°°°

Top 5 favourite characters: CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS, Martha Jones, Donna Noble, The Doctor, Yasmin Kahn

Other characters you like: Rory Williams Pond, Graham O’Brien, Mickey Smith, Bill Potts, Sarah Jane Smith, Craig Owens

Least favourite characters: Rose Tyler by a landslide

Otps: not realy any actual OTPs but ships I guess I’m fond of would be Vasta/Jenny and Rory/Amy

Notps: every ship involving the Doctor, because I just honestly find it weird and uncomfortable to look at the Doctor as a romantic or even worse yet sexual being, but most of all Doctor/Rose and Doctor/River, also Jack/Ianto

Favourite friendships: I am living for the current team dynamic, 13-Yaz-Graham-Ryan are really good but my forever favorite is the Doctor and Jack, also the best team-up was the Doctor with Donna and Martha, that was perfect

Favourite family: THE FAM! 13′s team

Favourite episodes:oooh mmh, I do have multiple favorites, so let’s do this!

Blink: it is such a good episode, there was a time I just popped that one in when I had 40 minutes to waste

Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords: for me personally, this is where Doctor Who peaked. My absolute favorite storyline and episodes and team-up - my favorite Doctor with BOTH my favorite companions in an episode with my favorite Master as the enemy. Amazing. There was a time when I would regularly rewatch this, just these three

Turn Left/The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End:Suuuch a satisfying conclusion for a four series plotline, all of the companions coming together like that? It was so good

The Lodger & Closing Time: I love Craig and I love how these two episodes switch things up!

Favourite season/book/movie: Rather obviously, series 3 - the return of Jack, the series where Martha is the companion, a series with my favorite Doctor and four of my favorite episodes in it!

Favourite quotes:THE ANGELS HAVE THE PHONE BOX! xD And the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff! I got that one on a necklace even! *laughs*

Best musical moment: uuurgh the soundtrack of this show is actually so good? I listened to it on a loop for years. Series 3 and 4 being my favorites, they make you feel things, man.

Moment that made you fangirl/boy the hardest: Just this series when Jack returned. And let me elaborate to just convey how hard I fangirled at that, because it wasn’t just “oh a fave!”.

You see, Jack is... kind of why I’m here? I watched the first series with my mother back when it started airing in Germany. But they kind of... stopped dubbing it and it stopped airing in Germany and eh, I was okay with it because this show seemed weird like they just switched out the actor of the MAIN CHARACTER who does that what the fuck and I really liked Jack but he was gone now too so oh well.

However, then I read online about how Jack was in series 3. So... I went online and Doctor Who is genuinely the first TV show I ever watched in English, because I wanted to see Jack but there was no dub.

Then series 3 ended and both Jack and Martha left and I was very meh because I remembered that this is the show that constantly replaces its whole cast.

You can probably guess what happened next, but Jack was in the finale of series 4. So I went back into Doctor Who, rewatched what there has been so far all the way up to the series 4 finale - and that was when I was sold, because holy shit even with the switching of companions, they just bring them back! They just brought them all back! That was such a good pay-off.

Ironically, that was when I actually stuck around and started watching the show in real time instead of waiting for the next Jack appearance to bring me back from hibernation. Ironically because - well, that was the last we saw of anyone. (Aside from 10 in the 50 year special.)

That hard, hard cut from 10 to 11, no return of any companions...

Needless to say that when 12 came and went with no care for anything pre-11, I kind of... came to accept that this was it. Especially when they announced yet another hard cut - as in Moffat would finally be replaced and with the new era, both a new Doctor and new companions - I was so sure we’d never get to see anyone from the old crew again.

So when, after literally ten years, Jack Harkness returned and was so... so... Jack, I made the loudest, most unholy sound and the excitement of them actually acknowledging that he would be back for more and he would be there when the Doctor needs him? Tears of joy.

(but aso pls #LetMarthaMeet13 okay? Okay)

When it really disappointed you:YOU’RE MAKING A 50 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL. YOU HAVE SOOO MANY GOOD COMPANIONS. BUT. BUT YOU BRING NONE OF THEM BACK. ONLY ROSE TYLER’S FACE. OF ALL OF THE FACES. OF EVERYONE I COULD HAVE SEEN AGAIN IN THAT SPECIAL, IT HAD TO BE BILLIE PIPER’S MEDIOCRE ACTING. REALLY? REALLY??

Saddest moment: When 10 regenerated

Most well done character death: Surprisingly enough, this show makes me care even about the one episode characters to the degree that I find their deaths frustrating. It’s pretty good at character deaths overall

Favourite guest star: Does Craig Owens count? Because he only had two appearances in total. And the second one was genuinely a surprise to me; I was sure that The Lodger would be a stand-alone, never to be seen again kind of deal

Favourite cast member: John Barrowman! David Tennant! Freema Agyeman! I love all three of them and seeing them in other things always makes me really happy!

Character you wish was still alive: I mean, Bill. Can you imagine if the lesbian companion had gotten to meet 13?? Death :D

One thing you hope really happens: Martha. I mean, come on. Jack is back, Jack warned the Doctor, promised to be there when needed. There’s no way Jack lost contact with Martha and Mickey, even with those two off in space fighting aliens alone. I’d love for this... very, very big plotline that is currently happening to include the Doctor’s old friends coming back once more to help.

Most shocking twist: I mean... I mean it’s gotta be this series’ Surprise Origin Story. Like, I still can’t quite comprehend that one.

When did you start watching/reading?: As mentioned above, when it first started airing in Germany

Best animal/creature: Does the TARDIS count as a creature? Because then Sexy wins!

Favourite location: THE TARDIS. I wish they’d show it more often just casually. I wanna see the companions hang out in there, I wanna see their rooms, see that indoor pool and stuff

Trope you wish they would stop using: "OH NO THE DALEKS ARE STILL ALIVE AFTER THE LAST TIME I TRIED GENOCIDE ON THEM *gasp*”... Like. The very first time they brought them “back from the dead”, it was really cool because as a newbie you never met them before but you get they are important. Then they were wiped out. And then they returned again. And okay, sure. So they were wiped out again. And miraculously survied again.

Look, I get it. Doctor Who has three recurring entities in the villain gallery who are like... obligatory - the Master, the Daleks and the Cybermen. But for the love of everything, stop trying to show it as a “surprise twist” that the bad guy is a Dalek like we all knew they’re coming they’re the cockroaches of the universe, they ALWAYS surprise, stop acting like we should be shocked that they’re back again.

Every time, the Doctor goes Pikachu meme but with sad eyes and like just... have the Doctor groan, kick a Dalek and go “not you again”, instead of “how did you POSSIBLY survive THIS? :O” because after the sixth miracuous survival of a genocide, it stops being a surprise twist... -_-

One thing this show/book/film does better than others: Clearly something, because it has me come back for more like a masochist despite me being a character-driven viewer - me, abandoning the show after the first series was very in character, because I’m attached to characters and if you routinely replace all the characters, that’s... not really my thing. Somehow, this show defies the odds there

Funniest moments: JACK FLIRTING WITH PEOPLE AND THE DOCTOR GOING “NO STOP THAT!” xDDD

Couple you would like to see: NONE. NO ROMANCE. KEEP THAT SHIT OUT OF MY DW!!! Urgh. Just give me fun found family space adventures. I swear ever since the cast announcement I have had a twitchy eyebrow waiting if they’ll push for Ryan/Yaz and so far I am sooo glad they are NOT. I just... want friendship and space adventures, no fucking romance. At all. Not with the Doctor, not between companions. No drama

Actor/Actress you want to join the cast: ...to stay in character, I have to say Dominic Sherwood. Partially because I am obsessed with him, but also because I WANNA HEAR HIS BRITISH ACCENT FOR A WHOLE ASS SERIES PLEASE

I would also like to see the return of James Marsters though. Time Heist teased by showing his face and acknowledging his existence in Doctor Who (it’s not like DW has acknowledged a whole lot of Torchwood canon so far, considering the catastrophic events TW has dealt with without the Doctor...), so that had me kind of hopeful he may at least cameo for an episode...

Favourite outfit: I looove Martha’s red leather jacket and Jack’s coat

Favourite item: The chameleon device

Do you own anything related to this show/book/film?: *clears throat awkwardly* ...Yes?

a metro card holder thingy with the TARDIS on it,

an I pin I have on my pencil case,

a necklace with a miniature TARDIS,

a necklace with the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey quote in a swirl on it,

a necklace with a Weeping Angel pendant,

a mug with the 10th Doctor as a cat on it,

a lanyard with Police Call Box written all over and a miniature TARDIS dangling on it

a TARDIS dress,

a whoosh-sound making door opening TARDIS with size-fitting figures of the 10th Doctor, Jack, Martha, K9, Idris, 11, Rory and John Hart (it’s James Marsters’ pretty face, okay?),

a Funko Pop 10th Doctor,

another TARDIS but this one is smaller and can’t open,

a larger TARDIS that can open (and is the right size for my Doctor Whooves),

a Doctor Whooves (if that counts since he’s technically My Little Pony but also he’s the Doctor so like...),

a TARDIS-blue stuffed owl with Police Owl written on it,

the first four series on DVD,

a poster from the 50th Anniversary with the War Doctor walking away from an explosion and 10 and 11 on either side of him,

a pocket watch that is the chameleon device

What house/team/group/friendship group/family/race etc would you be in?: Mmmh I would like to be on the current team the most, I think? Generally speaking, their adventures were less intense than most others and I dig the family vibe

Most boring plotline: Boring, huh? There are always a couple stinkers, at least one in each series, but a really boring plotline was... Clara’s post-Impossible-Girl one. I LOVED her as the Impossible Girl, she was so interesting and I think that after she went into the Doctor’s timeline, the character should have been retired. Have her, I don’t know, dissolve there, since she is spread out through time. But that she stuck around was... not good, for her character? Her love drama with Danny was incredibly boring and not fun to watch (especially when she tried to kill the Doctor :D)

Most laughably bad moment: THAT FUCKING MOON EPISODE. THE FUCKING EPISODE WHERE THE FUCKING MOON TURNED INTO A FUCKING EGG AND AN ALIEN HATCHED TO THEN LAY A NEW MOON EGG IMMEDIATELY AFTER BEING BORN AND HUMANS JUST FUCKING SHRUGGED THAT SHIT OFF. Urgh. There are a lot of cringey things happening on this show, but this takes by far the crown. It was so stupid, so dumb, so ridiculous

Best flashback/flashfoward if any: Every time we learn more about the Doctor’s past *^*

Most layered character: I... I mean the Doctor. So many layers, so many lives, so many years

Most one dimensional character:Mh, this is harder... Among the not one-episode-off characters? I guess Nardole. Like, sure, good guy, but... not really all that deep that one

Scariest moment: Blink with the Weeping Angels. They lost A LOT of their scariness the more they were used - Moffat really overused them, in my opinion; they would have done better only appearing very rarely. But that first episode with them was just daaamn

Grossest moment: Cassandra?? Woman only made of skin?

Best looking male: CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS

Best looking female: MARTHA JONES

Who you’re crushing on (if any): Martha Jones

Favourite cast moment: John and David being cute behind the scenes is always amazing, but the bes moment is definitely the 500 Miles video!

Favourite transportation: The TARDIS, that’s not even a question!

Most beautiful scene (scenery/shot wise): Whenever we get to see (not destroyed) Gallifrey? It’s so gorgeous??

Unanswered question/continuity issue/plot error that bugs you:SO MANY AFTER THAT LAST SERIES. But also things like: Where did Clara fuck off to in her flying diner? What exactly is Jack doing now that there is no Torchwood anymore? How in the world did Torchwood ever even work like how was the Doctor just never around during these gigantic problems?? WHO WAS THE DOCTOR’S FIRST WIFE? And what was the Doctor’s child like? Because the only one ever even mentioned is the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan, but a granddaughter implies one more generation between. WHERE IS JENNY? Since she is also the Doctor’s daughter but also just fucked off into space and like why is she not trying to track her parent down??

Best promo: I mean, it clearly works when they show me Jack’s face so that’d be it for me :D”

At what point did you fall in love with this show/book: At the series 4 finale, as above more elaborately explained

IN DEPTH FANDOM QUESTIONS

#Doctor Who #In-Depth Fandom Ask Game #send me asks #fantasylover16

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captainsbabysitter-blog · 5 years

Text

Drunk and Disorderly

Pairing: Always McKirk

Rating: Explicit/NSFW

Summary: A drunken one night stand brings some unwelcome thoughts and questions.

Length: 1748 words

Warnings: None, really.

Notes: Okay, so after weeks of saying this was in the works, I finally found the ambition to finish the damned thing. Once again, un-beta’d, unedited, and flashed through at the speed of goddamned sound so mistakes are likely.

We shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be doing this. That’s the thought Leonard had as he and Jim stumbled through the door of their dorm. Hands groped, lips and tongues met, and there was a groan that Len’s mostly sure was Jim. I should stop this.

Then he felt Jim’s lips on his neck. Shit.

“C’mon, Bones…”

Is he sauntering or stumbling? Either way, Len followed the pied piper that Jim has always been over to the bed. That’s when things got fuzzy. It was a mess of clothes flying, a hitch in Jim’s breathing when Len found just the right spot on the hollow of his throat to suckle a mark into the skin, and the electrifying sensation of Jim’s hips bucking up into Len’s as the doctor’s famed hands explored every inch of skin as it’s exposed.

“God, kid you’re gonna kill me,” he couldn’t stop the awe in his voice as he looked down at Jim sprawled out on the sheets, not a scrap of cloth left to hide him from Len’s hungry gaze.

Jim stretched out over Len’s bed with a lazy smile and hooded eyes, the usually brilliant blue darkened with obvious lust. “Then maybe you should hurry up, old man. You’re wearing too many clothes.”

Len released a controlled breath through his teeth before he finally stripped himself down. He leaned over Jim to rummage through the bedside table for the lube he knew Jim kept on hand for just this reason. When he had the tube in hand, Len pressed a kiss against Jim’s temple and trailed them down his chest. Jim spread his thighs to give him more room to work. The hiss against the chilled gel was quickly replaced by some wordless sound of approval as Len worked him open with expert fingers.

“Jesus, Bones!” Jim’s back arched up from the bed as he adjusted to the intrusion only to have a second and third finger follow the first. “Just get on with it!”

“Don’t be such an infant and be patient,” he grumbled back before distracting Jim with a sucking bite into his thigh. The moan he received in response sent shocks of arousal through his system.

When he was satisfied, Len slicked himself and tossed one of Jim’s legs over his shoulder. He kept his eyes trained on Jim’s face for any sign of excess discomfort as Len began making shallow thrusts, inch by inch, until he bottomed out. It struck him again that this was actually happening; everything between them was officially changed. If I’m going to Hell, might as well enjoy the ride.

After a few more moments to collect himself and every ounce of restraint he had left, Len gave an experimental roll of the hips. He was treated to a sort of strangled noise of surprised pleasure from Jim. It undid everything he’d done to keep control of his own actions. The next thrust drove into Jim like a piston, and Len was driven further and further from his senses by the litany of pleas and moans spilling from Jim’s lips.

“Bones! God, you feel so good.” His fingers flexed on Len’s shoulders and his back arced off the bed when Len’s hand wrapped around his neglected cock. “Shit!”

Len leaned down to capture Jim’s lips with his own, smirking a little to himself as the kiss muffled a few curses when he gave his wrist a little twist on the upstroke. He wished he could still say all of this was from the alcohol, but his drinks had started wearing off a while ago now.

Instead, he just enjoyed the feeling of Jim’s muscles clenching around him, the feeling of Jim’s nails digging into his shoulders, the sight of the younger man meeting him thrust for thrust with sweat-slicked skin and pleasure-glazed eyes. He logged every gasp, every moan, every stuttered plea for more, harder, please! Every time Jim dropped a ‘Bones’ with that pleasure-wrecked voice, Len could feel another shot of arousal send him higher and higher, closer to his own climax.

Afterward, when they were laying in a tangled mass of limbs and sticky sheets, Len decided to let the complications of what happened that night be a problem for future Leonard. He found an unsoiled area of the sheet and cleaned the both of them off before he settled in to sleep. Jim was already dozing and offered him a lazy smile of thanks before reattaching himself to Len’s torso and slipping off to sleep.

Dammit… Len carded his fingers through Jim’s hair and tried to calm himself enough to sleep, but that little voice was back with a vengeance. Just wait until morning. He’ll pretend it never happened and you’ll have the memories to jack off to the rest of your life.

Morning came all too soon. The clock read 0800, and Len hadn’t slept a wink. Nightmare scenarios had played through his mind one after another long after Jim had drifted off to dreamland. Would they be able to just forget this all happened? Would Jim even remember? He’d only had a few drinks that Len had seen, but there’s no telling how many the kid might’ve had before he’d gotten off shift.

The hardest question for him to answer was whether he could even go back to what they were now that he’d had a taste of more. Now that he knew what Jim’s skin tasted like, how he smelled when he was aroused, how he sounded when… I’m so fucked. The realization was almost painful.

He managed to escape Jim’s grip and stumble into the bathroom for a much-needed shower. A silent prayer went up to whatever deity might still bother listening to him for Jim to still be asleep when he emerged. Someone must have taken pity on him, because Len managed to dress and book it out the door for the library before Jim even twitched a muscle.

‘Where’d you take off to so early?’ The com message came less than 30 minutes after Len made his escape.

‘I got a call from the clinic.’ A bold face lie, but he didn’t think he could even look at Jim without vivid memories of the night before clouding his mind. ‘I’ll be on shift until sometime tonight.’

‘Kick some ass and save some lives, Bones.’

The next few days were a test of his minimal evasive training. He’d be up, showered, clothed, and out the door before Jim every morning and he’d pick up extra shifts or put in hours of extra studying to avoid going home before he knew Jim should be fast asleep. It meant running himself ragged on less sleep, and the clinic had started denying him the extra clinic hours citing fatigue limitations, but it was nothing he wasn’t used to from his days in residency.

Every time Jim tried to pin him down for dinner or drinks, Len had another excuse. ‘Sorry, test tomorrow. Got a lot of studying to do’ or ‘Can’t. Picked up extra clinic hours. Damned xeno studies is kicking my ass.’ All plausible excuses that he knew Jim probably wouldn’t think twice about. At least he thought so.

About half way into the second week of avoiding Jim, Len came back to the dorm at nearly 0130 to find the source of all his problems sitting awake and waiting for him to walk through the door. He ran his eyes over Len warily before he finally broke down and asked, “Why’re you avoiding me, Bones?”

“Don’t be such an infant. I’m not avoiding you, I’m busy.”

That lie went over about as well as he thought it would. Jim gave him a hard stare that quickly broke into resigned acceptance. His next words came out in a rush and hit Len like a speeding bus, “You haven’t been at the clinic nearly as much as you tell me you are, you sure as hell aren’t studying in the library, and if you need my word that I’ll never bring up what happened last week I’ll give it I just… Miss you. Shit, I shouldn’t have let it get that far I’m sorry Bones.”

“You’re… Sorry? About what?” He couldn’t keep the incredulity from his tone. “I’m the one who should’ve stopped things.”

He swore that the wheels were a little too damned greased in Jim’s head. Len could see them turning and could see the instant Jim seemed to realize what went on. “Then why didn’t you?”

If he could fold in on himself and disappear to avoid answering the question, he would. For the briefest second, Len debated bolting back out the door and just requesting a room transfer so he could pretend until the end of his days that this whole thing never happened. Instead, he took a shaky breath and focused his eyes on anything but Jim.

“Because I wanted it and I was just drunk enough to excuse taking the opportunity when it was presented to me.”

“And why’d you take off instead of sticking around to talk to me?” Jim pushed, almost seeming to enjoy the uncomfortable shift in who had control over the conversation.

Fear twisted itself in Len’s gut for probably the millionth time since that night. “If I talked to you, I couldn’t pretend you didn’t remember. If you remembered, I couldn’t say it was all just some drunken mistake because you know me better than that.”

“Yeah… I do. You’d think you’d know me better than that, too.” Bones finally chanced a look at Jim and frowned to find that damned self-satisfied smirk. “So, Bones… Wanna date?”

There was half a second where Len was sure his heart had stopped. He stared dumbly at Jim for a minute or two before taking the few strides over to the couch and pulling the infuriating future captain into a demanding kiss that knocked the breath from them both.

When they pulled back, Jim gazed up at him with a quirk of his lips and mirth dancing in his eyes. “I’ll take that as a yes, then?”

“Yeah, kid, that’s a yes,” he mumbled against Jim’s lips. “You got some free time tomorrow? We skipped the whole first date when we jumped into bed.”

“I can squeeze you in, I think.” The double entendre wasn’t lost on Len. “But only if you’ll actually stick around until I wake up in the morning this time.”

“I think I can do that.”

#mckirk #jim kirk #leonard mccoy #tia writes

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avengers-nextgen · 6 years

Text

The Year Between VII

Traveling was always hard. One would finally settle in one place only to move on, and while it allowed avenues for exploring-it grew tiring. At first, Piper was more than happy with the arrangements. Nice plane, nice food, nice people, and of course the recognition wasn’t bad.

She was finally having her work acknowledged rather than doing school projects or keeping things locked up in the lab. The papers were more than happy to scoop up the information, but with the glory came the tiring work.

Meetings did little to hold her attention, and it was a good thing Gen was with her through it all because she actually remembered what the hell was going on. Half the time Piper just asked for the run down version from her friend and found it was much more entertaining.

During one particular meeting, Piper had busied herself with a rubic’s cube. She knew the formula, and she knew how to solve it, but it was hilarious watching everyone else try to focus. When she grew bored of that she began to play with the pens. It was moments like that, that reminded everyone how young Piper really was.

She was charismatic on stage for presentations, adept at press conferences, and charming during interviews. Still, there was something lacking. It’d have been much more of a success had she been able to celebrate it with her family.

Piper checked up on them from time to time, she called her parents every night, and she found Enzo’s emails funny enough to indulge in them. But away from the cameras or the media Piper was just tired. She lounged around in pajamas all day, didn’t bother doing much of anything really, and had way too many naps.

Currently, Piper was laying upside down on the couch with her legs propped up on the back and her hair sprawling into the floor.

“Channeling your inner bat,” Gen remarked as she tossed one of Piper’s shoes at their owner, “you left this one in the bathroom.”

“Oh darn, I always forget something after showering.” Piper sighed and regarded the shoe now resting next to her head. “Stupid shoe.”

“It’s just a lost sole.” The pun was horrible but it was enough to make Piper laugh.

“So, what’s the upcoming schedule?” Piper frowned. “How bad is it?”

“Actually, you’re in luck. I just got off the phone and as it turns out-they already have someone for the job.”

“How is that lucky?” Piper snorted. “I was replaced.”

“It’s lucky because you have two days to yourself before we fly out to Texas. So you can stop moping and live a little.” Gen plopped down onto the couch next to Piper and whacked her on the stomach. Groaning, Piper rolled onto the floor before sitting up. Her hair was a mess, her face was bright red, and her expression of betrayal looked ridiculous.

“I don’t mope,” Piper insisted. “I think.”

“If that’s what you want to call it. Point is, the vibrant Piper Stark has become a gloomy little couch potato and it sucks ass.” Gen held up her hands as if what she’d said wasn’t her own words. “You gotta get out of this funk.”

“There’s nothing too do. Literally, the rules were that I stayed in this hotel so I don’t get taken or kidnapped or robbed or some crazy shit.” Piper spluttered trying to blow a strand of hair out of her face. “I am not going to find fun like Cinderella did and clean this place.”

“You’re so dramatic it’s ridiculous.” Gen gave her friend a mocking look of pity. “You have a big brain. Use it. What can you do in this big old penthouse? I can think of exactly thirty two and a half ideas.”

Piper sighed and contemplated Gen’s words seriously for a moment. “Well, Alex and I would sometimes wear socks and do a dance party. Some of the others would join in. One time James fell on his face and got a bloody nose! It was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. One moment he was jamming out to Journey and the next he was crying.”

“You were a cynical child.”

“I was...still am actually.” Piper winked. “Shoes off.”

“On it already.” Gen promised as she kicked off her shoes.

“What music are we going with?” Piper asked walking over to the speaker system equipped with ‘The world’s best surround sound!’.

“Anything you want. I honestly don’t care-actually that’s not true-I hate country music. Don’t play that.” Piper nodded and flicked through the channels in search of a song she actually liked, and hadn’t heard a trillion times.

“Bingo.” Piper pumped her fist in excitement. “Nothing like that dramatic Celine Dione for Titanic. Dumbest movie I’ve ever seen. Get ready for the best acting of the century.” Piper’s eyes lit up with a mischievous look.

— — —

And that was what started it all. The two recreated the most iconic movie scenes of the century. From Piper laying on the coffee table yelling ‘I’ll never let go Jack!’ to Gen impersonating Robin Williams in Jumanji.

“This was the best idea I’ve ever had!” Piper wheezed as Gen held up a sock.

“I’m a free elf!”

“You’re welcome you elven turd!” Piper threw another sock at the girl.

“That’s not in the movie!” Gen scolded, playfully whacking Piper with a pillow.

After completing all of the Harry Potter cinematic moments worth caring about Piper concluded the mess with the classic: Footloose.

“Kevin Bacon is in everything,” Gen remarked.

“That’s because everyone loves bacon. So, you put bacon on everything and in everything.” Piper’s logic was extremely hard to argue with. She was certain Thalia would’ve agreed with her whether she knew Kevin Bacon was an actual person or not. “Bottom line...I’m tired.”

“Already?”

“What do you mean already? We’ve done at least twenty movies! I do not have the stamina of Orion or Alex or James or-to be honest-anyone really.” Piper admitted. She’d never really thought about it but she was the most out of shape in the group. “Holy shit I have to work out more.”

“You are one character Piper, that’s for sure.” Gen laughed, resting her hands on her hips and shaking her head.

“So I’ve been told.”

“But you really miss your family don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Piper nodded, “don’t you miss yours?”

“Eh,” Gen shrugged.

“What’s that mean?” People frowned, finally straightening from her bent over position.

“Nothing, just that my parents love their work more than me.” Gen shrugged. “Why else would I be all over the country?”

“Because they let you?”

“Nah, gives them the lab to themselves. For people who always wanted a science daughter they kind of regretted it. You’re pretty lucky with your dad and all.” Gen smiled happily. “He’s really cool. You guys share pretty much everything.”

“Well, yeah...he’s my dad. He’s supposed to-“ Piper didn’t finish what she was going to say. “Do they not even talk about normal stuff?”

“Nope.” Gen shook her head as if it were a normal thing for parents to do. “Just work stuff. They get bored when I talk about school. Or personal stuff...really just anything they don’t find interesting.”

“That sucks,” Piper breathed, “I’m sorry.”

“Eh, don’t be. My counselor’s taught me some stuff. She’s really cool. And that’s why I’m so chill all the time. No use in getting worked up over everything you know?” For someone who was Piper’s best friend, Piper was surprised she didn’t know this aspect of the other girl’s life. “This was fun though. Definitely going to do this again if you’re down for it.”

“Uh, yeah...” Piper nodded, “yeah I wouldn’t mind. It was fun.”

— — —

Then everything went completely off the rails. Piper woke up at three in the morning still tired, and completely panicking. She remembered everything that had happened and it hit her like a truck. “I am exactly like my father.”

One night stands seemed to run in the family as it turned out. Piper concluded that it was all probably Alex’s fault. She spent too much time with the squishy hearted girl and it had led to this. This feeling of sadness for a friend that turns into one hell of an evening.

The conversation the previous night hadn’t ended as briefly as either wanted. They’d spent some time talking about deep rooted childhood issues. Where one moment Gen was talking about her eighth birthday and the next they were kissing. Sure, it was foggy in Piper’s memory, but she coldly grassland why she hadn’t stopped. She could have. But she didn’t. Now, her clothes were in a chaotic halo on the floor and she was very aware of the chill in the air.

Shortly after recollecting the events, Piper’s first instinct was to yell and probably cry. Then she contemplated calling her parents. Her dad wasn’t an option, he would probably just congratulate her. That was not the needed response at the moment. Her mom would just freak out so that wasn’t an option either. Piper ended up calling the very person she was trying to despise: Alex.

“Piper? It’s like one in the morning here. What’s the issue. Please tell me you didn’t drink ten cups of coffee again?” Alex sounded half asleep and dead to the world.

“This is a bit worse than ten cups of coffee.”

“Okay, I’m listening now.” That seemed to wake Alex up.

Once the conversation was over Piper was too tired to even think. She decided the best course of action was just to go back to sleep, and sort it all out in the morning. That was almost a worse idea because Piper found out she didn’t quite mind what had happened, and frankly-she was fucking confused!

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ruffsficstuffplace · 7 years

Text

The Keeper of the Grove (Part 72)

The dining hall of Manor Schnee had been temporarily turned into a combination situation room/planning area/mess hall for the space and the slapdash nature of their operations.

Among other Queensguard, Agent Gumshoe waited there, pulling out a Fizzle Stick from her breast pocket, putting it into her mouth, and lighting it with her antique Zippo. The tip of the candy started to crackle, the sugar inside it melting and pouring out the other side, and she began to chew.

“They say we were all lucky that we came when we did, guns blazing and putting all kinds of holes in the plans of the Heralds and whoever the hell the ‘Council’ are,” she said. “Poor bastards don’t realize we Queensguard didn’t have the winning numbers on our tickets, and probably never will.”

Used to it, and with their own eccentric quirks beside, none of the other agents commented.

“It’s a hard life, being a Queensguard.

“You got your personal issues, your awful pasts, and your honest desire to make a difference in this world and help people out by putting holes in others, wondering if you’re a fuckin’ hero who deserves a parade, or just a gun with two legs someone else is throwing into the fray for them.

“Then you join the program, and everything goes to even deeper shit.

“Physical training that’ll make the Old World’s Marine Corps weep. School, the kind of eyebrow burning usually done by people lookin’ to tack some fancy letters to their name, have people callin’ em Dr. Whoever-The-Fuck. And don’t get me started on the third part of our training…

“Psychological Conditioning’ they call it, if only because ‘Mental Torture’ doesn’t sound as nice.

“They build us up, then seni through straight through hell and back, then send us back for however many go-arounds it takes before we break. Then they pick the pieces up, glue ‘em all back together best as they can, rinse and repeat, until they either wash out, or they come out the other side one certified Badass Motherfucker who can take on goddamn anything.

“You can’t do something like that without leaving plenty of scars, though, some of them more obvious than others.

“Take Agent Qi, here. Fuckin’ obsessed with the number 7, and his fancy revolver.”

“Seven is life,” Agent Qi said. “Six bullets, one barrel—seven.”

“Won’t say no to a mission that doesn’t have anything—and I mean anything—about it that is or adds up to seven, be it the time the shit’s going down, the letters in the name, or even the coordinates on the map.

“But if it does, you can be sure as shit he’s going to coast through all that with a smile on his face, like he’s the luckiest man in all the realm.”

“Then there’s Agent Gwendolyn, AKA ‘The Knight.’

“Lost her whole team in a mission where she was shadowing all the other functioning nutcases we call ‘Queensguard Agents.’ Almost died along with them—had actually, for a few seconds before her suit’s revival protocols kicked in and zapped her brain back to life, but either something went wrong in the process, or it was that particular moment that she cracked like the rest of us Rank 7’s did, got it in her head that the only way she was going to get through this and more if Gwendolyn died, and was reborn as someone better.

“So now she goes around narrating everything like me, except she calls herself ‘The Knight.’”

Everyone stopped as a new agent walked in, carrying a tray of food in her still armoured hands.

“Hello everyone,” Winter said.

Gumshoe pulled out the free seat next to her.

“Thank you,” Winter said as she sat down, and began to eat.

“You’re welcome, doll. If’n you don’t mind, I’m gonna continue my whole shtick with you.”

“Go on ahead, Gummy, it’s not like it isn’t all over the Info-Grid,” Winter replied.

“Thanks, doll.” Gumshoe replied. She chewed what remained of her fizzle stick for a few moments, then continued.

“And then there’s Winter.

“You’d think the name was her call sign, seeing as she’s got a reputation for keeping her cool through everything; melting her walls and becoming the warmest damn person you’d ever met in your entire life if it’d serve her mission well to butter you up before she cut straight to your heart like a hot knife; and being more than a little bit of a bitch, but no:

“That’s what her grandma named her, like she could see in the future and decided to save a future lover the trouble of nicknaming her their own version of ‘Frosty the Snowbitch.’

“So what’s wrong with someone who sounds like the mythical Queensguard Agent that makes it through training completely intact? Even someone who looks about as well-put together as can be like Ironwood has got his issues.

“Five words: The Keeper of the Grove.”

Winter choked on her food. Gumshoe picked up her drink for her, she took a long swig then sighed in relief.

“You need me to stop, sweetheart?”

“I’m fine...” Winter whispered.

“If you say so. Anyway...

“As Fear is a pretty helpful emotion for getting your ass in gear when you need it to, she didn’t beat it out of her so much as she made it so that she was scared of as few things as possible. Maybe she might get startled or uneasy, but never shitting-your-pants terror.

“It had seemed like a good idea at the time: she was already pretty well and tramautized from a horror show way back when she was still a sweet and innocent kid, and what would be the problem with being scared exclusively by someone that only existed in myth, pop culture, and really bad costumes on Eve of the Ether?

“When it turns out they live in Reality too, that’s what!

“As the Keeper was terrorizing her and her little sis in this very mansion, us crazies in the Queensguard thought Winter had finally broken for good, that this time, there would be no picking the pieces back up and gluing them back together. All we thought we were doing when we hauled her conked-out ass back to base was fix her as much as possible before we set her up for a nice, quiet civilian life with a hefty pension and a whole lotta perks beside.

“Then we all watched the Keeper 86 her sister on live holovision, and it turned out that the only thing in little tiny pieces that couldn’t be put back together was what we thought was reality.

“Nothing new, really, considering all the other crazy shit that happens in Avalon that necessitates an even crazier bunch of loons willing to protect it—AKA the Queensguard—but it still caught us all off guard.

“By the time we realized our big mistake, her sister was dead, the rest of her whole family was in the ground or may as well have been, and since she only ever kept working for us to keep her sister safe, she had pretty much lost everything she ever gave a fuck about.

“And what do you do with someone with nothing to lose?

“Give them everything to gain—namely, the Shepherd Suit Mk. IV, the latest in the line.

“First, Piper’s gearheads strapped guns and sturdy pieces of scrap metal to exo-suits originally made for hauling boxes around, then we started slapping armour and weapons designed specifically for getting shot and shooting right back, and then we shrank it down so you if you wanted to enter a building, you’d only have to duck to avoid banging your head, than break down the door and take a good chunk of the wall while you were at it.

“So where do we go from there?

“You make it smaller, faster, and strap some wings and the very cutting edge in energy-weapons to it, is what you do.

“There’s only three things that are keeping the Big Guys Upstairs from equipping every single trooper with these:

“One, it’s expensive as hell to mine, refine, and use this much Exanite and a shit-ton of other super-rare metals that all the armour, the weaponry, and the wiring needs.

“Two, it eats up power like a bus full of relapsed alcoholics at last call for Happy Hour, which is why it’s a damn good thing it can take out entire armies in the blink of an eye.

“And three, once you put it on, you can’t ever take it off—unlike its older siblings, the spine-jack on this thing becomes part of your actual spine.

“We thought we were just making the best of a very bad situation like usual, squeezing out some more use out of someone we thought we were going to have to put out to pasture, and who didn’t want to go there yet, either.

“But it turns out, the timing couldn’t have been better, because now the little sister turns out to be a whole lot less dead than we thought, we’ve got a messiah gone missing and possibly rogue, and a whole bunch of loonies with alien magitech and animal ears running about the whole realm causing hell and talking about something they call ‘The Truth.’

“You could be blind, and still read all the signs pointing to the one place that has the answers to all the latest mysteries Avalon is throwing at us:

“The Viridian Valley.

“So how many of us loons are going with you out there, soon as it gets dark and we don’t get turned to people-jerky soon as we step out the barrier?” Gumshoe asked.

“None,” Winter replied. “I’m going in with two Tinmen, and that’s mostly for recharging my core.”

Surprise came over all the agents faces.

“Seriously, doll?” Gumshoe asked.

“Yes, seriously,” Winter replied, her serious expression the most serious the others had ever seen.

“Sure you won’t end up putting your waste-management subsystems on overdrive when you eyeball her?” Gumshoe continued.

“I’m sure,” Winter replied. “I may have been absolutely terrified of the Keeper for almost all my life, but that ends now, because the face of my nightmares has kidnapped my little sister, brainwashed her, and seduced her.”

She raised her fists to the sky and started screaming.

“DO YOU HEAR ME, KEEPER?!

“YOU SEALED YOUR FATE WHEN YOU ‘KILLED’ MY LITTLE SISTER ON LIVE HOLIVISION, AND I’M ONLY MORE DETERMINED TO UTTERLY ANNIHILATE YOU NOW THAT YOU’VE KISSED HER ON LIVE HOLOVISION, TOO!

“I’M SCORCHING YOU WITH MY LASERS LIKE BOTH THOSE SCENES WERE SCORCHED INTO MY BRAIN—ESPECIALLY THE SECOND ONE!

“SERIOUSLY! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!”

Winter sighed and got up from her seat. “Excuse me, everyone, I need to go get some last-minute repairs and upgrades before my big mission...”

“You do that!” Gumshoe yelled, as she and all the other agents were gathered up at the furthest corner away from Winter as possible, holding up their guns and projecting shields.

Winter left the dining hall, the agents slowly returned to their seats.

“Turns out there’s a fourth downside to the Mk. IV!” Gumshoe muttered as she chewed the last of her fizzle stick, pulled out a new one with shaking hands. “If it turns out the person you put it in is STILL pretty batshit insane, getting them out of the suit is going to be a LOT harder than putting them in…

“Like I said: we thought it was a good idea at the time...”

#rwby #fanfic #the keeper of the grove #white rose

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