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twdmusicboxmystery · 2 years

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TWD 11x17: Lockdown - Analysis

***Spoilers abound below! Don’t read until you’ve watched!!!***

Okay, how did everyone like 11x17? I actually loved it. It's one of those episodes that's very action-packed, which means it's fast-paced, but has less TD and Bethyl symbolism than we would like. There were still lots of good things though.

First off, there's Judith's voiceover at the beginning. From what I understand, they’ll be doing this at the beginning of every episode in 11c. We see flashbacks and scenes from previous seasons, which is fun. In this episode, the biggest thing that stood out to me was her last line. She says, "will it be tomorrow?" That's important because the “tomorrow” symbolism always foreshadows the CRM.

When Judith talks about having "found families," it shows a scene from 5×10, Them. Even though Beth isn't in it, any scene from Them always catches my attention.

This is a small thing, but I also like that when it talked about those who gave into darkness, it shows the obvious villains like the Governor, Shane, Alpha, etc. But it also shows Leah at the end. Even though it was always obvious to us, it's good to have even more confirmation that Leah was meant to be a villain.

There are also some differences in the opening credits. We see the Commonwealth flags draped over the fence in this shot.

And then near the end, we see both a bird’s eye view of Hilltop and then Alexandria. And at the end, when we circle around the walkers, we see an orange—almost pink—sun in the sky above.

The logo is all white. Except for some blood on one letter. But I noticed in episode 18, there was blood on two or three letters. So, I think the blood on letters is going to progress throughout the season.

Okay, then we get into the action of the episode. Negan and Annie join Daryl, Maggie, Gabriel, and Aaron. They put together a plan to take down Hornsby. First, Negan ambushes is a couple of CW soldiers and takes their car. It's a black SUV. Just before he does, he throws a gun and walkie talk to Daryl, who’s hiding in the back of white minivan.

I thought this car chase scene was probably important, and it was. But I had to watch a few times to take in all the details. The important thing here is that Daryl was hiding in the back of a minivan, waiting for Negan throw him weapons. It's not exactly the same thing as being left for dead in the back of the car, but remember that back in 4B, there is a small, nuanced scene with Abraham, Rosita, and Eugene, after they split up from Glenn and Tara, where they found a minivan that they decided to take to continue their journey to DC.

There was a female walker in the back that Abraham had to kill. It always felt like it was a death foreshadowed to me, but it was so small and seemingly insignificant that I haven't connected it to many things over the years. But I feel like the symbolism of Daryl being back this minivan might be the same as in that episode. The point is, he was somewhere people didn't expect him to be. He was hiding from the CW soldiers.

Then Negan threw him some weapons, which in the long run, allowed him to save Negan from the CW soldiers. And in turn, Negan would go to the Commonwealth to help save their people there. So, it feels similar to me to when we say that Beth survives so she can be a weapon to help save TF overall.

Then we see Hornsby get out of his car and he's yelling at people on the radio to find the car Negan took. Daryl starts shooting at them, drawing them in.

Daryl opens fire on Lance and his officers. He kills a bunch of them, and they continue to fire at the white van he's hiding behind. When Lance and the officers get close, Daryl has disappeared. He obviously ran around behind them and took their car. It's interesting to note that the SUV he gets into happens to be green.

Meanwhile, a black SUV full of CW soldiers is chasing Negan. The colors of the cars they are in are interesting. The CW soldiers are in a black SUV. Negan’s is dark blue. As they’re chasing him, Daryl comes from a side street in the green SUV and T-bones them, allowing Negan to get away.

Again, this is important because the person in the green SUV, who was hiding in the white van and was given the weapons, save Negan, which allows him to go back to the Commonwealth and save people there. It just feels like a great big template to me.

At the end of this, after he T-bones the Commonwealth soldiers, Daryl even has a wound on his forehead from the crash. We see it in the scene, but we don't see it again after that.

I also noticed that there were a lot of blonde female walkers in this episode. It’s not uncommon for us to see a few pretty much any time they're out fighting walkers, but I felt like there were a lot more in this episode than normal.

Back at the Commonwealth, people are protesting about Sebastian and Pamela is doing damage control. Per the plan, they send Negan into the CW as though he's just a new guy who wants to come in. He asks for Mercer and gives Mercer a message from Daryl. Mercer, being buds with most of TF, lets Negan into the CW.

Then we moved to Carol and the kids. Carol has pictures that show Sebastian heading into the train station. That becomes important when they go looking for his hiding place.

I did notice that Carol was making blueberry pancakes and burning them. I had to sit and think about this for a minute, because pancakes are definitely something that we’ve seen as a symbol before.

There are two times that I can think of that the pancake symbol was used prominently. The first was in season four when Rick was talking to Carol about how Lori used to make pancakes on Sunday morning. And they were really awful, but she kept at it because she felt like they were the kind of family who should have pancakes on Sunday morning. The other time was Abraham's funny metaphor when he asked Glenn, when he was pouring the Bisquick, did he mean to make pancakes? So, especially per Abraham's example, pancakes mean children. And that works for Rick and Lori example, because it was about their next family, including Carl.

So, I think pancakes generally represent children, but also a happy togetherness family kind of thing. Anyway, Lori making terrible pancakes was almost a sign that something was wrong in their family. She was trying to force it to be okay and for them to be happy, but we know their marriage had problems.

So, in the scene, everything seems like it's okay and the kids are having some normalcy. Carol is taking care of them and they're doing some crafts and some schoolwork. The fact that she burns the pancakes is probably a signal that things are about to go terribly awry, and by ep 18, they do. The normalcy of the Commonwealth is about to be shattered forever.

Anyway, Carol sees Shira and the plumber guy come toward the apartment. She hides outside and puts the kids in the cupboard to hide. Shira and the plumber come in and snoop around, and they clearly looking for the children. They take a picture of Daryl and the kids from the refrigerator. This was interesting to me because it specifically, shows Daryl, Judith, and RJ. Which means they know that Judith and RJ are the children associated with Daryl. Before that, they might not have known which kids were his, but now they do. That's probably going to be important to the future.

After that, Jerry sees Negan, who is looking thoroughly weirded out by the Commonwealth, LOL. I thought his expression was really funny. Jerry takes Negan to Carol, and Negan says something super interesting. He's just explaining their plan to Carol, but he says (paraphrasing), "Hornsby interrogated Herschel to get to Maggie, and the thought is that they'll try to use the kids to draw our people out." Now, that's exactly what's happening here, but as I think it's a foreshadow of something CRM is going to do. The kids are going to be taken in some way, which will probably lead to the spinoff.

Soon enough, a horde of walkers is coming toward the CW and has mysteriously gotten inside there are parameters. Earlier in the episode, we saw Pamela get on the radio and order someone to, "do it now." It's clear that Pamela unleashed walkers so that she would have a reason to lockdown the people and stop the protests. Jerry takes the kids and hides them in an attic space as Carol told him, and Carol and Negan go looking for the blueprints to union station so they can figure out where Sebastian's hiding place is.

There's a quick but sweet scene between Daryl and Maggie where she references the fact that he had to kill Leah. She says, "I know Leah meant something to you. I'm sorry." The reason this dialogue is important is that it calls back to what Rick said to Daryl in 5×10. He says, "I know you lost something back there." It just feels very similar to what Maggie said here. Daryl then replies that Glenn would've wanted him to watch out for and protect Maggie. He says, "you don't have to ever say you're sorry. Not to me.”

It occurred to me that this actually might be a call back to the old movie, Love Story, which features a famous line about love meaning never having to say you're sorry. I'm not sure if that's what they were going for, but AK said at the end that Daryl still feels like he owes Maggie something because of Glenn. So, he's always going to choose for above others. It was a very sweet and loaded moment between them that I enjoyed.

When Gabe, Aaron, and Annie arrive, they decide to go into the sewer to try and get underneath and ahead of Lance. Once there, they fire shots, hoping that Lance and his men will come down to them in the sewer.

Meanwhile, Negan and Carol find Sebastian's hiding place. The tell him they're going to take him back to Pamela. Negan has a funny line about Carol being a magician, and pulling bunnies out of her ass. Even Carol seemed to find that funny, but bunnies have been an important symbol that we've seen since S4. And of course the magician element suggests an illusion of some kind.

The people in the CW are rebelling and hold a midnight vigil for Sebastian's victims. When CW soldiers show up and try to break things up, someone sees Sebastian and all hell breaks loose. The CW soldiers throw teargas into the crowd. Clearly Pamela is losing control of the situation.

At one point, Mercer and Rosie go out together toward the perimeter. They have a really nice exchange where it's clear that Mercer trusts her. And she's very honest with him about not wanting to defend the corrupt people back at the Commonwealth, though she will always help him take out walkers.

Two CW soldiers get into trouble when they crash their vehicle. Mercer and Rosita go out to try and save them. It doesn't entirely work, and they lose one of them. Clearly, Mercer is disturbed by this.

What's really interesting is that we get a bird’s eye view of what's happening. Mercer and Rosita’s vehicle goes one way and the second vehicle with some more of Mercer's men goes another way. And we see the walker horde divide in the center to go after the two different vehicles. I just thought it was an interesting detail to put in and one they would have had to purposely shoot from above. It's probably a foreshadow of some kind. Dividing a walker heard by having vehicles go in two different directions.

Carol brings Sebastian back to Pamela, who first hugs him and then hits him. Carol brokers a deal for TF.

So, back in the sewer, two CW soldiers start looking around, and Aaron and Gabe jump out and kill them. When that happens, Lance shows himself with a bunch more of his men, but Daryl was expecting that comes up behind him, taking Lance hostage and putting a knife to his throat. But after that more and more CW soldiers jump out and it looks like TF is completely surrounded and in trouble.

The episode ends there. This cliffhanger will pick up in episode 18.

So again, not a boatload of TD symbolism, but I do feel like there are some templates going on here. Next week's episode will have a lot more TD stuff in it.

Still, this episode is very satisfying, and we get lots of action and lots of Daryl. So, I'm happy. How did everyone else like it?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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lespetitesmortsde · 6 years

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neighbor au list LISTEN BUDDY. I KNOW YOU SNOOP THROUGH MY MAIL. I SAW YOU. rizzles though maybe

Jane, to put it mildly, was pissed. This was the third time this week, the seventeenth time this month, that she’d noticed someone had gone through her mail before it even arrived in her mailbox.

But how, you ask, could Jane tell?

Well, given her extensive background in police and detective work, and a better-than-average understanding of forensic science, Jane realized that someone was going through her mail, diligently, to bend every single envelope in three.

Is it weird? Yes. Does Jane understand why? Not on your life. Is she still certain it’s happening? Absolutely.

So, after more than a month of this weird occurrence, Jane decided to use one of her rare days off to stakeout the mailboxes. She wanted to know how and why this person was digging through her mail.

She couldn’t tell if bending her mail was all the perp did, of course, because it’s hard to recognize the absence of something, particularly if you don’t know it’s there to begin with. She hadn’t missed any bill payments or wedding invitations though, as far as she knew.

After speaking to the building manager, she’d discovered that the mail was delivered daily around 8 a.m., which partially explained why she never got it before she got home from work. She was in the office by eight, and if she had a day off, she didn’t rise before noon. Also, she generally forgot the mail, opting instead to stay inside almost all day on the couch, or make a rare appearance at her mother’s house when Frankie was also a free bird.

The only problem was that, given the layout of the building’s lobby, there really wasn’t anywhere for Jane to hide. There was a potted plant, but not big enough to hide behind, and she was no longer a delusional six year-old. Two chairs were there, but they were too far into the open. As she evaluated the options, the manager seemed to take pity on her and offered her the mail room. She could hide in there, peek through the little window, and wait there for the culprit. The only catch was that he wouldn’t give her a key, so there would be no in-out privileges.

She could live with that, and shook his hand in thanks, before stepping through the door he opened.

It was… not great. It was kind of a trash heap with junk mail scattered all over the cracked tile floor. But she could see through a scratched little plexiglass window and that was all she needed.

She set up shop around 7:30, sipping her large coffee as she alternated between pacing the small room and peering into the lobby. A woman came down the stairs around 7:45, picked up a newspaper from the pile, and sat in one of the comfy chairs.

Eight o’clock came… and went. No mail, and Jane hasn’t seen anyone but the woman who sat down fifteen minutes ago. She finished the paper she selected a couple of minutes ago. Jane wondered if the lady had even read it, or if she was one of those smarty-pants who read faster than the general populous. Instead, the woman—she was blonde, maybe mid-thirties, hair just past her shoulders—pulled out a small sheaf of papers from her messenger bag with the fancy logo.

Jane twirled the empty coffee cup in her fingers. She didn’t think anyone would notice if it joined the dumpster that was the floor, but she was never one to litter. She put it down on the sill beneath the mailboxes, making a mental note to dispose of it.

Just when she was wishing she’d brought a book or a magazine, or something aside from spam mail postcards, the mailman walked in. Jane hunkered down in front of the window, making sure to keep her eye trained on him.

The blonde woman jumped up when she saw him, and thankfully the walls were thin, so Jane could listen in on their conversation.

“Hello, Ken!” the woman greeted, her back to Jane.

“Well, hi, Jane,” the mailman replied, handing over a stack of envelopes.

“Thanks very much!” she said, rifling through the letters as the mailman kept going toward Jane and the mailboxes.

Jane watched just long enough to see the mailman leave, and for the lady to bend the first letter, before she darted out of the back room.

“Hey you!” Jane called loudly, striding toward the woman with purpose. The woman looked up, shocked, and looked side to side as if trying to find someone else Jane could be addressing.

Jane walked right up to her, looking down sternly into, honestly, some very nice hazel eyes, “Listen buddy, I know you snoop through my mail. I saw you. I just watched you. What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

The woman didn’t move.

“Did you know it’s a federal crime to tamper with mail?” Jane pressed on, getting even closer to the woman.

“And fraud is also a crime? You know, pretending to be someone you’re not? Like how that mailman seems to think you’re Jane Rizzoli, which I know for a fact isn’t true because, guess what, I’m Jane Rizzoli!”

“I’m sorry!” The woman finally said. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t stolen anything of yours, you get all the mail that comes in!”

“Then what the bloody hell are you doing?” Jane almost yelled.

“My daughter!” The woman blurts out, clearly panicked, before the explanation comes out. “We live in the building, she’s seen you around, she wants to be police officer, a detective really, and she figured out that you’re, you know, Detective Jane Rizzoli. She didn’t mean any harm in it. We just moved here. But she subscribed to a police procedural periodical, only she’s not old enough for it, and doesn’t have a credit card to pay for it. So she put it under your name hoping they’d send her a free copy because, you know, you’re you. It comes with a membership card. I already got her to cancel the subscription and apologize to the company, but they said they’d already mailed out the card, and I didn’t want to bother you by explaining all of this, so I thought I could just try to find it without you knowing about it.” She pauses for breath.

“She really didn’t mean to commit fraud. She’s eight. We haven’t yet discussed the criminal code of the commonwealth of Massachusetts. I was saving that for ten, but I might have to reconsider.” The last comment was said almost as an aside and Jane had to blink a couple of times to figure out that this woman was serious. She was actually going to teach a kid the criminal code.

“And I’m sorry about the mail, really I am, but when I met Ken for the first time and he asked me whose mail I was looking for, I said your name, and he assumed it was me, and now it’s a whole thing, but I still haven’t found the membership card. Maybe it actually got lost in the mail and all of this has been for nothing,” The woman sucked in a breath, clearly still agitated and more than a little scared.

Jane sighed quickly. “Okay, okay, take a breath.” She shook her head. “This is all because of your daughter?”

The woman nodded.

“What’s her name?”

Without hesitation, the woman replied, “Margaret.”

Jane nodded. “And what’s your name?”

Jane expected some sort of pause, but none came. “Maura Isles.”

Jane’s expression turned shocked. “The new chief medical examiner?”

Maura almost grimaced. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

Jane evaluated the doctor, giving her the once-over. “Nice to meet you, Doctor Isles.”

Stunned, Maura took a moment to respond. “You too, Detective Rizzoli.”

Stepping back from the doctor, Jane said, “Okay, I’ll forget about this entire thing…” Jane stared seriously into Maura’s eyes, “but on a couple of conditions.”

Maura nodded.

“First, don’t ever do anything like this again. If you explain what happened, like you just did, not a lot of people are going to be upset that an eight year-old messed up. It happens.”

“Oh, never again, I swear,” Maura agreed at once.

Jane smiled a little. “Second, then, is stop going through my mail. If I get the card, I’ll get rid of it.”

Maura blushed and nodded again.

“Okay, and third, I want to meet her.” Jane said, pushing her hands into the pockets of her slacks.

Maura tilted her head, taken aback. “You want to-”

Jane nodded. “Yeah, I want to meet the little rascal.”

“Margaret.”

“Yeah, Margaret.”

“When?” Maura asked.

“Uh, well, today’s my day off. And my next one is Thursday. I don’t know about the week after yet.”

“Would you like to come over for dinner? Tonight, I mean.”

“Oh no, no need to go to any trouble on my part,” Jane said, pulling her hands from her pockets and holding them up in front of her to say ‘we’re good.’

Maura took hold of Jane’s hands. “Please, it’s the least we could do, considering all the trouble we’ve caused you.”

Jane looked down into those intense eyes. “I mean, it was no trouble.”

“Detective Rizzoli, please let me and my ‘little rascal’ as you call her feed you.” Maura said. Jane didn’t need to know Maura in order to tell that the invitation didn’t really leave any room for refusal.

“Okay, sure, that’d be great, thanks.”

Maura smiled. “Excellent. Number 1103, seven o’clock?”

Jane nodded. “I’ll be there.”

#anon #ask #rizzles #ficlet #fic request #lespetitesmortsde #maura isles #jane rizzoli #stolen mail au #fanfic

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johnandrasjaqobis · 7 years

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Guess who finally finished a happy thing. Listen fluff does not come easily for whatever reason, the fact that there’s over 2k of it is a major accomplishment for me. This is all under the assumption that the ‘Wealth as a whole hasn’t hung onto Valentine’s Day like they did with Christmas and Halloween. Some smaller stuff has gotta slip through the cracks. I couldn’t pass up that opportunity

Enjoy my dumb little rarepair even though I am bad at fluff.

After she had missed Christmas the previous year, Carly always made a point of keeping an eye on the date on her Pip-Boy. A lot of the time she seemed confident enough without checking it constantly, but after a week or so of trudging across the Commonwealth without any set schedule, she’d suddenly flick through the dials to make sure.

It happened again when they were camped out in northern Cambridge. The night was cold and Deacon was too focused on stealing as much heat as possible from where he was leaning against Nick’s side to immediately notice when Carly swore quietly. Nick tilted his head a little to one side.

“Somethin’ up?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“Nothing serious. Just didn’t realize it was the 13th already.” She flipped off the Pip-Boy’s light and leaned closer to the small fire they had started. “I’m gonna make a quick detour to Diamond City in the morning, see Piper.”

Deacon did look up curiously then. “Bit of a hike,” he said. “Sure you don’t want to wrap up out here first?”

“Nah,” she said, waving one hand, “we’re not on a really strict time crunch. Won’t be too long, anyway, probably just grab dinner, but I can’t skip out on Valentine’s Day too.”

Nick felt something like dread hit him square in the chest as Deacon sat up quickly, glancing between the two of them.

“Can’t miss out on what?” he asked, and Nick saw Carly raise an eyebrow before his head was buried in his hands.

“Valentine’s Day, the 14th, it’s --” She paused and then let out a quick breath of a laugh. “What, that didn’t stick around?”

Deacon was shaking his head mutely, some kind of wicked joy growing on his face when Nick looked up again. “Y’know, I can’t say I’ve heard of it before now, which is a damn shame given present company.” He elbowed Nick in the arm quickly. “What, you famous enough to have a whole day named after you?

“Believe me when I say it’s a terrible, horrible coincidence,” Nick muttered, and he shot a pointed glare at Carly. “One I had hoped to never be reminded of again.”

She had the decency to look at least a little apologetic, but it fell apart a moment later when she laughed again. “Y’know, I remember hearing one of the cops in court mentioning that he had to remember to get a valentine for Valentine, that makes sense now.”

“What the hell was this?” Deacon demanded. “Something as weird as that hedgehog day you were telling me about?”

“Groundhog Day,” Carly corrected, “and people took it a bit more seriously for the most part. It was just…” She hesitated, her expression thoughtful, then shrugged. “Celebrating relationships, I guess. Marriages, dating, whatever. Kind of an excuse to do something over the top for whoever you were with.”

“It got ridiculous,” Nick said. “I mean the concept was fine, but some of the elaborate set-ups I saw people do -- and pay for, I mean how the hell did anyone have the extra money for a crate of doves? Someone legitimately got arrested for letting doves lose in his girlfriend’s office.”

Carly snorted. “You get crazies everywhere, that’s not going to change for a holiday. Nate was usually pretty cliche with the dinner and flowers, but he did send a singing telegram to work once. Laughed his ass off about it until I could actually get home and hit him.”

Deacon was still looking some mixture of dumbfounded and thrilled. He seemed to roll the idea around for a second before looking between both of the others. “You’re telling me there was an entire holiday specifically designed for embarrassing loved ones, and,” he zeroed in on Nick, and his eyes were wide behind the glasses, “this is a day you’re named after?”

“Hey,” Nick said immediately, “the name’s coincidence. The day was named after a Valentine, not the other way around. He was a saint, or something, I actually think he got beheaded.”

“Still, that is…” Deacon let out a breathless laugh, leaning to rest his arms on his knees. “Oh my God, that is the best thing I’ve learned about the old world, nothing’s gonna top that.”

Nick groaned, rubbing one hand over his face before giving Carly another weary glare. “You know, the one good thing about this whole damn apocalypse was that all of the shitty jokes had finally stopped. It only took a full-on nuclear war, but they had finally stopped.”

“C’mon, Nick,” she said, “you use a bright red heart in front of your door.”

“Because no one got it! It’s a simple logo, easy to remember, but no one would connect it to the name except some pre-War ghouls, and they usually just didn’t care enough.”

“Is that what the heart’s about?” Deacon asked. “I’d always wondered, it seemed so arbitrary.”

Carly nodded, ignoring Nick’s long-suffering sigh. “The whole stylized heart thing was like, iconic, they were everywhere. Practically started the day after New Years, whole thing lasted a month and a half.”

It was clear Deacon had some kind of idea brewing, and that never boded well. He shot Nick another shit-eating grin before shifting to focus on Carly. “And this is tomorrow?” She nodded and Deacon gave what was probably supposed to be a thoughtful hum. “Alright, give me the details, this sounds like a brilliant opportunity.”

She was more than happy to oblige, of course, and it was almost impressive to see Deacon listening that intently with no interruptions. Nick didn’t put up any resistance when Deacon, seemingly unconsciously, reached to find Nick’s hand, but he did try to make the quick squeeze a warning one.

Not that it would do a damn bit of good.

All three of them went separate ways when they got to the city the next day. Carly split almost immediately, slipping into Piper’s office as soon as they got down the ramp. Deacon wandered into the market, and Nick went down the small set of stairs into Fallon’s. Becky didn’t seem in the least bit surprised when he pulled his coat off and showed her the newly acquired hole, but she did roll her eyes briefly before starting to rummage for the closest matching fabric.

He probably could manage patching things well enough on his own, but Becky always did a much neater job of it than anyone else Nick had met. He figured paying a few caps was worth keeping up a good relationship with one of the more prominent stores in town.

It also didn’t take Becky nearly as long as it would have taken him. Nick was back in the chill of the early afternoon quickly, and there were still very few people in the market. Most residents tended to do any necessary business once the day had warmed up, and since the nearest trading hub of any size was Goodneighbor, any caravans from there were still traveling.

He didn’t expect to see Carly for the rest of the day. Deacon had vanished, but that wasn’t surprising -- Nick knew there was some Railroad agent in the city, even if he didn’t know who they were, and it made sense that they’d check in with each other on occasion.

He headed for his office, making a mental note to look into giving Ellie some kind of raise to try to make up for how often he was gone these days. She handled things just fine, taking down the information of anyone who came in and starting to investigate where she could until Nick came back. She’d ended up solving two missing-persons cases herself when both turned out to be the rebellious type running off to Goodneighbor. Nick had insisted she keep the full pay for those.

Nearly running into Ellie when he turned the corner down Third Street was surprising -- or it was, at least, surprising for him, she just grinned.

“Heard you were back in town,” she said. “Headed home?”

“Yeah, I was going to…” Nick hesitated, abruptly suspicious. With Carly occupied there was only one other way she would’ve heard they were in town. “Figured I’d check through the files, see if there’s anything I can look into before we leave.”

Ellie chuckled, shaking her head, and that pretty much just confirmed his suspicions immediately. “Nah, I closed up early. Take a break for once.” She patted him on the shoulder as she passed on her way to the market, adding, “It is a holiday, after all,” over her shoulder.

Well, shit.

Nick took a second to steel himself before walking the remaining distance to the small alley. He shot the neon sign a baleful look and then determined that putting it off wouldn’t help and pushed the door open.

Nothing happened.

The suspicions grew a little as Nick stepped inside, spotting Deacon immediately in one of the chairs in the far corner with his feet propped up on a filing cabinet. He looked up as the door shut and Nick was surprised to see that the sunglasses were off.

That didn’t happen. There had been plenty of times when they’d fallen off or a pair had been broken, but Deacon only really removed them willingly when he slept. It wasn’t like Nick had never seen his eyes, but the circumstances were strange enough that he wasn’t entirely sure how to react to any of it.

“What,” Nick said after a moment as Deacon pushed himself up and crossed the small room, “no singing brahmin or a mess of hubflower petals or --” He glanced around with a quick laugh. “I gotta admit, I was expecting something...ridiculous.”

Deacon’s hands swung out uncertainly. “Even if I had the caps to manage something ridiculous...I mean you get ridiculous every day -- you’re with me -- and Carly said it was some kind of special occasion.”

“Well,” Nick said, “the whole thing was pretty commercialized, so it was hit or miss. No one really --”

“I love you,” Deacon interrupted, and the complete certainty in his tone would have been enough to make Nick’s heart skip a beat, if he’d had one. “I know I probably don’t say it often enough, but the whole...the lying thing, it makes words seem kind of pointless sometimes. But that much is true. That much has been true for ages.”

Nick was quiet at first, surprised less by the words themselves than by the fact that they had been said without any attempted diversions or jokes thrown in to lessen the seriousness. He could see the moment the uncertainty really set in, the slight tensing in Deacon’s shoulders and the way he started to look down -- and it was impressive that he could see that so easily, the glasses usually hid it, and come to think of it that was probably the point of taking them off to begin with...

“I know,” he murmured, and Deacon looked up again when Nick put both hands on his shoulders. “Not like I’m gonna complain about hearing it, but I know you, so I don’t have to hear it to know it’s true.”

Deacon nodded with a soft huff of breath that might have been a laugh. “I mean the fact that this kind of conversation can actually happen in the first place is entirely your doing, the whole emotions thing, having any sort of attachments at all…” He hesitated and swallowed once before pressing on. “You’re making me a hell of a lot better of a person, and I just needed to thank you for that.”

It was harder than Nick expected to respond to that. Honesty from Deacon was a little less rare than it had been when they’d met, but not by much, and this sudden burst of it was as surprising as it was it was touching. Nick slid his hands down to take both of Deacon’s, careful as always to watch the pressure from the metal one.

“That as tough to get out as I imagine?” Nick asked after a moment, pleased when it got a genuine laugh.

“You’ve got no idea, I was practicing for hours. Any chance I can go back to the bad puns about your name now?”

“In a minute, give a guy the rare chance to be sappy.” There wasn’t even the half-expected eye roll, just something of a tentative smile. That was more than enough incentive for Nick to lean down to kiss him, quickly and lightly, but enough to bring out the full grin. “You’re not the only one who’s better,” Nick said. “Waking up in this place, lookin’ like this, I never expected…” He hesitated. It was easy to see why Deacon had practiced. “This here is something of mine, not some remnant of a guy who’s been gone for centuries. I never expected to get that, let alone something this good. And that’s all you.”

Deacon didn’t bother retorting, though Nick was pretty certain there’d be a debate on that at some point since they were both entirely convinced the other had started things. He just held Nick’s eyes a few seconds longer before freeing one hand, reaching up to hook a finger behind the exposed metal jaw to pull Nick closer, and kissed him again. There was an unspoken meaning behind it that just proved what Nick had said:

He didn’t need to hear it to know.

“I mean just so we’re clear,” Nick said after a moment, pulling back just far enough to speak, “you know I love you too, right?”

Deacon laughed. “I’d kinda figured. And you do know I’m pullin’ out all the stops next year -- making it as ridiculous as physically possible.”

Nick gave a conceding nod. “Let’s just make it there first, huh?”

“Deal.”

#otp: something i can call my own #fanfics

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