#and damn tumblr for the bullet point limit
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5x15 - FOMO - The Setup for Eddie's Coming Out
I just have to start out with this: this is purely speculation and I could be completely wrong but the way this episode played out immediately had my Eddie bells going off. I know that the episode was FOMO-themed and it applied to all of the characters but where it applies to Eddie...there is so much gold. Also, I hope I don't offend anyone with this post, that's never my intention.
So first, we have the conversation between Eddie and May in the beginning of the episode, about the influencer Selene aka Rebecca. Where Eddie mentions “A high price to pay for living a fake life.” I found this particular line interesting because technically, in a way, he's been doing just that. Not that he's fake but he's been suppressing the trauma and his emotions/dealing with it for so long that in a way, yes he is faking a smile and moving forward, always for Christopher's sake and because he doesn't know anything different thanks to Ramon's teachings (though he is definitely learning, the fact that he mentions he's in therapy to May this episode is phenomenal progression he has made; can you imagine s3 Eddie admitting this to someone who isn't Bobby or Buck?). The conversation continues about how Rebecca's regular life wasn't enough and then boom, Eddie says the kicker once May mentions FOMO and explains it: "You make it sound like some kind of sickness."
Immediately my head snapped up from my notes and I did a double take, then jumped for the remote to rewind it to make sure I heard him right.
When I heard this line one more time, my instincts kicked into high gear and I was like, 'oh!'
They're literally playing on the word "FOMO" for something else, in his case, holy shit! So I rewatched the scene again with this in mind, and sure enough it made total sense.
So I continued watching the episode (which was really good btw!) and several other things popped out at me:
1) Reality Show Emergency: When this happens, the guy passes out at the altar and sure enough, the 118 show up. (I would also like to point out that this is the SECOND time we've seen Buck happily soaking up the attention and Bobby shooting him down to remain professional, while this is on point for Buck's character and funny as hell, Oliver is hysterical, there is a reason for this, especially since Lucy was filling into Eddie's role more this episode, this emergency relates to Eddie, and so did the quinceanera emergency a few episodes back, the one of the guy not landing on his feet properly & getting hurt) So then Hen takes front and center (more on that in a bit) and she finds out that the heartbeat is muffled (interesting) and that pressure is keeping his heart from beating fully, and the organs in his body are on the wrong side. The writers couldn't have laid this out any more perfectly if they tried. We already know one of this season's themes is heart, especially when it comes to Eddie. But here we have yet another heart not possibly working right or being prevented from operating as the norm (i.e. Eddie thinking he's having a heart attack when really it's a panic attack, the felon's heart needing to be pumped even though he shot himself so it can be kept alive for the transplant).
So we have a performative marriage for a reality show, where the bride was worried that she wouldn't get married before reaching a certain age and she doesn’t want to be alone, and the groom passes out because of a heart issue where it's not working at 100%. Hmmm 🤔
Then Buck confirms to Lucy that the show is a sociological experiment, based on compatibility. Oh-kay... Then the groom gets disqualified from the show due to his “undisclosed medical condition” even though his "heart was in the right place, well maybe not yours specifically" and the bride gets married to someone else. Who else do we know who always has his heart in the right place when making decisions for Christopher for example? Exactly. -> This emergency was meant to show us that something is off and meant to start subtly suggesting (though again I'm not sure they're really being all that subtle at this point) that this is in relation to Eddie (and when I say off, I don't mean who Eddie is as a person or his sexuality, I meant they are trying to hint at that Eddie is being performative when it comes to women/the idea of marriage, that's all I meant)
2) Social Influencer Emergency Ending: At the end of the episode, we have 100%Rebecca saying she was afraid of who she really was, that it’s always better to be yourself, that family is important. “I guess it took a near death experience for her to actually appreciate her life” (4x13 shooting anyone? while Eddie may not be as traumatized by that particular event, I don't think it's any coincidence that what made him explode a couple of episodes ago was the knowledge that everyone in his unit that he saved is now dead). Then Eddie and May have this closing conversation: she's wondering if she’s living her life for herself (Eddie; that age old question of when he will follow his own heart), her choosing to look out for Athena after Athena almost died (Eddie; wanting to resume marriage with Shannon for Christopher's sake, always making decisions for Christopher but not for himself like Ana, etc).
Then:
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Eddie: “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to protect your family” -> 'There's nothing wrong with me making decisions that I think are best for Christopher and for me to try to keep giving him the life I think is best for him and want for him'
May: “But before all that I wanted to be someone, a very specific someone, and I think I’m losing that person”
Eddie: “Trauma often causes us to turn inward”
May's reaction here:
Because that wasn't what she was saying at all. While Eddie is right and this is a profound way of looking at it, this isn't exactly what May was saying. Yes, she was traumatized by Athena's attack and took the job in order to make sure it didn't happen again, possibly a trauma response (I'm not a mental health professional or trauma expert so I don't want to say that too definitively) but what May did wouldn't really be considered 'turning inward'. (not the context Eddie is putting it in) She is speaking along the lines of the theme of the episode: FOMO. She made a decision based on her family and wanting to protect them, a decision that set her on one path, away from what she originally planned for herself. But because this episode relates to Eddie so strongly as well, this particular piece of the conversation makes it more than evident to me that this word FOMO (and the feeling that comes with it) actually represents something different for him.
And sure enough:
Eddie: “Guess therapy’s rubbing off on me." (he laughs it off after seeing May's reaction and because he does, so does she) Then: "You hid in a place you knew, where you could feel safe and keep your family safe, I understand the motivation.” May: “Does that make me a coward?” -> interesting phrasing here, again this is definitely about Eddie, on the surface it's about May and her story line, deeper than that it's about Eddie and his internal conflicts this season, exactly why they had this Eddie and May interaction happening not only here but also in the beginning of the episode
Eddie: “I don’t think cowards usually ask that question.” -> while this is a great line (and he's right) it also pertains to Eddie; if he's doing what he needs to do to keep Christopher safe, to make him happy, can he really be considered being a coward for doing that? And for someone to question the status quo, that's incredibly brave and he knows it, but he's not ready yet himself
May: “So how do I get back to that person I wanted to be?” Eddie: “I’ll let you know when I figure that one out” (he smiles and gets up) -> this is Eddie's whole arc this season, trying to figure himself out and who that person is
And the writing of this is so brilliant that it's also done in a way that it also relates to one of Eddie's surface issues: choosing what he thought was best for Christopher by leaving the 118 but he desperately misses his 118 family, his job as a firefighter, and wants to get back to it but isn't able to yet. I was so glad they didn't have Josh there this episode (after that whole exchange with Eddie, I also liked how the contrast was set up here with May, showing that she was accepting of Eddie assistance in an emergency) but I think they did that because it would have been too on the nose had Eddie and Josh had this conversation instead, and the show is trying to build up to this big reveal about Eddie.
3) Hen and Karen: Going back to Hen and Karen, I don't think it's any coincidence that Karen took front and center this episode along with Hen. Especially considering we haven't seen too much of Karen (or their relationship; btw where is Denny???) this season before this. Or that Karen was the one who was experiencing FOMO and "feeling old". And I especially don't think it's a coinkydink that Hen was the one who took center stage with the reality wedding emergency (while Chim was almost subdued and to the side) or that Hen and Karen were watching that show at one point in the episode.
And what kills me even more is that during that viewing scene you have Karen stating the couple will never last and Hen mentioning their compatibility is off the charts (a la Buck at the emergency scene). And after this, we see on the tv that the bride hits the groom and storms off with the groom looking after her, seeming surprised and worried slightly. Then when Karen suggests they watch the finale to find out who is right, Hen shuts the tv off and turns over saying she wants to sleep.
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Because when you peel back the layers, in actuality, this is about the idea of not only Eddie but also slightly Buck and Eddie. I know that people have noticed the parallels between Buck and Karen before but if I had to take a guess with this episode, I would say Karen represents Eddie here (the FOMO feeling) and Hen is Buck (not only in similar dialogue and of course Buck looking to fix things for Eddie, Hen wanting to fix this for Karen). Not to mention that Karen refers to her job and her co-workers being younger than her (when Eddie is missing the 118 and is bonding with May at his new job who is younger than him & who is feeling FOMO herself that he's talking to her about). "You know what I was like at that age. It was work hard, work harder." (Eddie to a T)
And while we don't see resolution for Eddie here (because it's a major plot point this season that requires this big build-up/reveal), we do see resolution for Karen. While Hen didn't "fix it" for her, Karen finds a happy middle ground and the last time we see them, Karen and Hen are happily dancing at a club after catching the credit card thief.
4) Chim's quote (as well as Maddie's FOMO about Jee-Yun's firsts moment): "There’s no such thing as making up for missed time" -> This is true and such a contrast to what he told Maddie about her catching up on Jee-Yun's moments with his photos and videos. But he's saying it after Hen has spoken to the 118 about Karen's FOMO & it's an unfortunate truth that all of the characters experiencing it have to realize. Yet we also see Maddie's FOMO resolved by her being there for another first for Jee-Yun and telling Chim not to record it, to just enjoy the moment. (something that Eddie will also have to come to realization with for himself, because once he has his moment of self-realization his FOMO is going to be incredibly strong)
5) Alleged upcoming interaction with Ramon and Eddie going back to Texas (his original home) to do it: It makes absolute sense that the show is sending Eddie back to where it all began for him: Texas. And it makes even more sense that Eddie is going to try to "resolve" things with Ramon, the man who taught him to keep moving forward no matter how hard it was, basically to suppress his emotions/traumas, etc. The guy who was more focused on the medal Eddie got for his service and showing it off than on how it affected Eddie himself or how he got that very medal. Personally, I am very anti Diaz parents (because they're greedy manipulative fucks for parents) but I do sincerely hope that Eddie is able to resolve whatever he is going there to resolve, and if that makes things better with his parents then I am all for it.
That being said, I have a sneaking suspicion (and I could be wrong but this is just my opinion) that either Eddie is going to have his self-realization in this episode while he's dealing with Ramon in Texas or he's going to have self-acceptance (meaning he's already aware of who he is and how he feels but has been fighting it). "Inward" -> internalized. I just hope for his sake that his parents somehow become better people and love and accept him for who he is. (but I know this is more of a naive hope sadly, based on their characterizations set up already in the story)
Going back to Buck in those emergencies:
Here's what I think: this isn't Buck being performative or attention-seeking. The attention is on him and he's enjoying it but not because he craves it or expects it. To me, while these are both hilarious, are indicative of Buck's character in a couple of different ways. One, this is Buck, genuine Buck. Two, he is not shying away or being grumpy or ignoring the limelight. If we go with the theme of this meta, then I would venture to say that since both emergencies feature Eddie in some way (without him actually being there), this shows two things: 1) Buck is not going to think differently of Eddie once Eddie has his self-realization or treat him any differently (which I personally think Eddie somewhat fears, he doesn't want to lose Buck or his close friendship/family with him), he will be full on accepting and won't even bat an eyelash & 2) Buck is very confident in who he is...on some level. Meaning that while Buck has his own issues and background, as we've seen in Buck Begins and with his relationships, there is something Buck is very confident in and doesn't shy away from or have any doubts about. And it doesn't bother him if any attention comes to that something about him.
I also think it's interesting that both times Bobby had to be the one to get Buck to knock it off and leave, get back to work basically. Not that Bobby would have an issue at all if Eddie and/or Buck were gay, bisexual, or any other sexual identity, but it does make me wonder at the work aspect of it:
And I also think it's very interesting that this is the first time that we've seen Buck be a bit more open and comfortable around Lucy, the very first episode that we see her definitely stepping into Eddie's role in their work partnership, being a (temporary) replacement for him. While things may be okay with Taylor right now, I doubt that is why we see this friendly demeanor all of a sudden spark up. Especially in that moment above where both Bobby and Lucy tell Buck no (as Eddie would have done had he been there) before Buck says it himself and leaves. Especially with them showing us in framing just how comfortable Buck has gotten with Lucy (with the seating in the firetruck) and even Lucy's response to Buck's when discussing the Karen situation with Hen and the rest of the 118.
I also think once Eddie has this self-realization moment (or self-acceptance) this is what will help him eventually come back to the 118. (I don't think it's going to magically happen the very next episode, but the show is certainly building up to this and keeping him separated from the 118, minus Buck and Bobby, for a reason)
So basically tl;dr: Eddie Diaz is coming out this season y'all. And this will be yet another benchmark on the path to long range Buddie. Buck realizing things about Eddie (and possibly himself) will be next, mark my words.
#eddie diaz#buddie#buck x eddie#evan x eddie#buddie meta#kind of?#eddie diaz meta#911 fox#911posts#and damn tumblr for the bullet point limit#really tumblr?#911 5x15#911 speculation#metaposts#eddieposts
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Hi! Just moved to tumblr here and I wanted to tell you how much I love your story. I saw A LOT of kny roleswaps cuz I love this trope so damn much. There’re many good ones but it’s rare to find one that hits me right in my kokoro like yours did. Since the first chapter, the way Nezuko repeatedly thought “Takeo was dead… Mom was dead… Rokuta was dead… But Tanjiro was still alive” was so haunting yet beautiful in such a heartbroken way. It hurts even more when you realized Nezuko was only twelve when her whole world was shattered in blood, and not to mention the amount of feels that is Zenitsu. I’ll admit that the rollercoaster of emotions it gave me was what got me so invested in your fanfic to the point of keeping on coming up with one theory after another though.
But one question first, I saw you saying Tamayo’s husband will be an OC, does that mean her three children are OCs too? Their no-nonsense attitude and the cold glares they gave Genya really remind me of the certain someone though*stares at the girl with plum red eyes*
And before I delve into my theories, remember when I brought up Dabi’s infamous quote? Let me tell you I honestly didn’t expect Kai and Zen’s development to be actually inspired by Endeavor and Dabi’s storyline here. It’s does make a lot of sense though as your Kaigaku really has many things in common with Endeavor now that I think of it, especially with how they thoroughly ruined someone’s life out of their own selfishness and the way it’s gonna come back to bite them HARD later. And the fact that I was today years old when I found out Dabi and Zenitsu have the same VA*surprised Pikachu face*
Wait, does that mean Nezuko’s gonna be Shoto in this scenario?
Regardless, while I admit that my knowledge of MHA is limited since I didn’t really watch the show, I have watched enough clips scattered all over YouTube to get the gist of it. So, if Endeavor’s reaction to Dabi’s reveal is anything to go by, I’m so looking forward to how Kaigaku and Zenitsu’s “Dabi’s Dance” will go. Even more so if you decide to throw in the Hashira’s reaction when/if they also learn of Kaigaku’s crimes. And if he still did what he did to Himejima and other kids, I honestly can see a few of them straight up calling for Kaigaku’s execution right then and there.
As for my Upper Moon guesses, the angry male demon, I saw a few comments saying that it was Sanemi but I doubt it. The meeting occurred ten years ago so Sanemi would still be a kid back then. So nope, not him for me. Therefore, I’m gonna go for unconventional choice and guess that it was Hairo, former Lower Moon 2, as he’s legit the only character whose rage surpasses Sanemi’s. And since Gyokko was downgraded into a common demon, I’m crossing my fingers that there’ll be a canon lower moon who got upgraded into an Upper Moon here.
But other UMs’ identity aside, Upper Moon Two gotta be Shinobu. Something about Koku and the DK asking for UM Two’s opinion about the chance of reanimating Zenitsu’s corpse just screams Shinobu to me. And for that reason, I’m gonna guess that Kanae is in Tamayo’s place judging from her character tag. It would put the Kocho Sisters in the opposite side of the war but what can I say, I’m always in for Sibling Drama*evil cackling*
Hi! Welcome to Tumblr! And thank you so much!
Honestly, role-swaps are one of my favorite fanfic tropes to read, and there were just so many goods ones within the KNY fandom that I decided to bite the bullet and try my hands at it. I've been having a lot of fun with it and the direction it has been going, so hearing that readers have been enjoying it never fails to make my day!
I honestly didn't even expect it to turn out this angsty in the beginning (lol). The main goal I had when initially writing the first chapter was just to capture how tragic/horrifying the attack on the Kamado family would be from Nezuko's POV, while making it unique compared to what must have been going through canon Tanjiro's mind. Twelve and thirteen are really young ages to experince so much trauma, and then having to uproot your entire life to find a way to protect your remaining family is a heavy burden to bear.
The same goes for Nezuko's interactions with Zenitsu, as both of them were barely even teenagers when so much happened to them. I definitely think underlying tragedies with character relationships and confrontations of the past are going to become more prominent themes than I initially intended, and I'm excited to show those as I continue to write more of the series.
(Slight Manga Spoilers Ahead)
But to answer your question, yes, I do plan on making Tamayo's children OCs for now. Like her husband, we only got a brief mention of them by Muzan and Tamayo during their final confrontation in the Infinity Castle Arc. I wasn't able to find anything on what their canon appearances/personalities would be, so I figured unless more information comes up about them, I'll make them OCs. I suppose one benefit of this is it gives me a little more room to plan out how they will impact her role/arcs as leader of the Corps in this AU (oh, and more info will be given on the girl with the red eyes later...because I do have plans for her...).
In terms of the Dabi & Endeavor similarities between Kaigaku & Zenitsu, it sort of just started happening as I was planning out that specific storyline. Sometimes my writing unintentionally picks up things from shows and books I've read in the past, and I think it was around the time that the Dabi v. Endeavor & Shoto fight was animated that I began to see the potential similarities between the encounters.
I've had many conversations with friends about MHA's take on the Todoroki family drama, especially in regard to Endeavor's character development and change from his negative actions toward his children and wife to being a better father/hero. And one of the things that I've come to understand coming out of those discussions was that although forgiveness and forgetting aren't satisfying solutions in moving past that part of his character, there are still ways to make things at least a bit better by striving for atonement and mitigating what damage has already been done by taking responsibility for it without any excuses.
As I've said in posts before, the one thing I definitely wanted to make clear early on is that it is totally up to readers to decide if Kaigaku is worth rooting for. He's done terrible things and hurt a lot of people, but he's trying to make a change for the better. But doing that isn't as putting the past behind him, especially since there are characters who do know the bits and pieces of some of the damage he's done (such as Kuwajima and, very soon, Nezuko).
So as predictable as it may be at this point, there definitely will be a Kaigaku v. Zenitsu fight in the late future, which will be one of several major confrontations of Kaigaku's past coming back to haunt him and the people he's learning to become closer to. Kaigaku will have gone through a lot of change by then, along with us getting a closer look at his past (as I have ideas to fill in the gaps of his early life that the manga didn't really touch on yet, though that may change depending on how much the anime decides to add when Infinity Castle gets animated) and understanding a bit better the motive behind some of his actions. It won't be an excuse for what he's done, but a build-up to him learning to take responsibility for what he's done, and what he can do now to fix the damage he's done.
So I guess that would make Nezuko the Shoto of this confrontation, being caught in the middle of the conflict, but knowing that this is still a fight she has to take part in to put Zenitsu to rest.
(Also yeah I was shocked when I found out both Zenitsu and Dabi share a Sub VA (lol). You'd be surprised how many VAs share roles in MHA and KNY. I think one of my favorites is the fact that Genya's Sub VA voices Bakugo and his Dub VA also voices Hawks!)
I will say this, almost all of the bad stuff Kaigaku did in the manga is canon in this series. And I can confirm that at least THREE of the hashira know some of the terrible things Kaigaku did in the past (with at least one of them knowing EVERYTHING about his past). But as for if more hashira will find out about his past, that is yet to be confirmed...
And regarding your guesses on the Upper Moons...I will say those are some VERY interesting theories that I can't wait to confirm if they are correct or not...
Also, in case anyone was curious or confused about demons being Kizuki, the canon Lower and Upper Moons aren't guaranteed to be Moons in this AU unless they are explicitly stated to be ones. For example, Wakuraba (the winged demon Nezuko and Tanjiro ran into in Chapters 3-5) was Lower Three in canon, but was just a regular demon in this AU. And Gyokko, who was Upper Five in canon, was also a regular demon that took the place of the Hand Demon from Final Selection in canon. Some of the Moons MAY change ranking in the AU, but if they aren't stated to be Kizuki, then they are just regular demons.
But I'll definitely will give the canon Lower Moons some chances to shine since they didn't get much of a chance in canon. Who knows, maybe the next demon Nezuko meets will have been a Lower Moon in the canon timeline...
Thank you so much for commenting!!! I hope you have an awesome day!!!
#demon slayer#kimetsu no yaiba#ask#ask me questions#demon slayer fanfic#children of fuchsia light and demon fire#kaigaku#tamayo#twelve kizuki
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ladies and gentlemen, we got him.
did you know tumblr has a text limit on posts? well, it does for specifically when you do the bullet indented format. the way i see it, if i can't have it that way. i'll just do it paragraph style. i WAS going to fucking use pastebin dot com, but for whatever reason, their filter wouldn't let me post it due to potentially having "offensive" material in it. is a man not allowed to use the word gay anymore without the sanitized internet trying to censor me? 1984, etc. etc.
anyways, look at that turn recipe. LOOK AT IT. astute and observant and smart and swag people might notice one thing: there's no RNG advancing. well, there's ONE part where i advance with heath, but that was ex post facto because i had accidentally advanced and wanted to preserve it in case i died. but notice my verbage. . . the second i started writing down my moves, i got it on the first try. i did not even have to reference these directions once, thankfully. i stopped taking notes by turn 11 because the bad part was basically over and any and all movement could be improvised + that was when i started accessing the arena.
but let this good news not mislead you: this chapter was a challenge. a very big one. linus himself is not the boss of this chapter, as many people will tell you. he does have threatening stats, but he doesn't move and is on the entire other side of the map (the same could not be said of lloyd if you did his FFO). no, the unit who qualifies as the boss of this chapter is that god damn sage that's right by linus. he has a bolting and is doing 32 damage (before resistance). he is capable of wrecking ASS and he will move if a unit manages to land in his attack range that spans legitimately 2/3s of the map. the biggest issue with that is you basically have to draw him out in some capacity. i forget if you could theoretically reach him if you used a promoted mounted unit (in my case, sain, but more preferably florina/fiora) and used a 2-range weapon to rush him, but doing so early on is a huge risk, and waiting until all the WKs are gone is impractical because you're looking at reinforcements until turn 18 (read: 4 turns before you're losing rank in tactics). so, the safest and most logical way to proceed is to bait him out. 32 might is very scary, but by this point, i have a decent amount of units who can at least take one of those boltings; even relatively resistance starved units like kent and heath can handle it if they're at full HP and not in immediate danger of being rushed by other units.
still, you do need to be exceptionally careful because this map is flooded with units, most of which are WKs that will break through holes in your defense and annihilate anyone who can't dodge tank or (in someone like heath's case) tank. so, in actuality, units like ninian and priscilla are relatively safe, especially if planted on a forest square, meanwhile it's units like fiora and bartre that you need to be careful with. even worse still is that you need dart to recruit geitz, and, sure, you don't HAVE to recruit geitz, but you absolutely want to. he comes with a killer axe, which by itself justifies trying to recruit him. combine that with the fact that he's an already good unit that gets made better because of HHM bonuses and recruiting him suddenly becomes non-negotiable. i mean, my goal with this playthrough was to recruit every character i could, but you get my point.
so, with all that in mind, the units i took were priscilla + serra (it's absolutely mandatory to bring them; healing is vital in this chapter, especially for the fliers, who are doing the lion's share of combat.), dart (he's there to recruit geitz, plus this was a golden opportunity to capitalize on feeding him some kills and bolstering the experience rank. am i using him beyond this chapter? absolutely not, but WKs and pirates aren't too scary for him if he plants his ass on a forest tile and the pirates in this chapter generally have terrible hit rates regardless.), bartre (similar to dart, i wanted to get him some experience. it's more important with bartre because i am using him long-term and i wanted to use this chapter to catch him up. both him and dart aren't dodge tanks by any means, but WTA against WKs while being on a forest tile puts the WKs' hit rates at a generous 30ish% at most. i slapped two 3 use vulneraries between the two of them and was able to keep them alive without chaining one of the healers to them.), florina (she's arguably my best unit for this chapter if not just also generally being one of my best units period. using her is non-negotiable.), fiora (well, she's not florina, but she's sure trying, isn't she?), heath (he's another unit that's vital to my success in this chapter. he's one of the few units capable of tanking the hits from WKs while also being able to occasionally dodge, and i needed him to run interference against the tidal wave of WKs that spawn. it also helps that he gains experience fast due to being considered "low level", even though his stats tell a different story. most importantly: my heath is doing great, so i have even more reason to want to use him.), rath (it might sound like crazytalk to field rath in a chapter where WKs will tapdance on him, but he's not that difficult to shield with better units that WKs piss themselves over like hector, and, much like dart, he's got a great opportunity to pick off some weakened units to gain experience quickly. the only real risk for him is the bolting one-shotting him, but that's relatively easy to manage. again, not planning on using him long-term, but i could see myself using him in potentially another chapter with weak enemies. besides, the emblem bow being free is a nice incentive to do gold-free attacks with him, combat rank be damned.), kent (all around good unit, if a little lacking on stats by this point of the game. i fielded him so i could get some experience on him. the thing about cavs is that you usually need very little reason to field them, but it also helps that he was very helpful for making optimal use of the arena.), raven (going in at level 18 and change, i definitely wanted raven to promote sometime during this chapter, and with a plethora of enemies and an arena in this chapter, i have ample opportunity to do so.), and ninian (as mentioned in previous updates, she is essentially a must-use unit whenever possible.)
the basic strategy was this: divvy my team up into 3 different squads: the landlubbers (kent, raven, hector, raven, rath), the crow's nest (heath, florina, fiora), and the seadogs (bartre, dart, geitz). priscilla and ninian oscillated between the latter two groups to help when necessary. the villages in this chapter look scarier to save than they are. in fact, you're given plenty of time to reach them. the one on the right isn't in real danger until around turn 6, where you need to have someone either already at it or within range of the pirate that can reach it (any time a brigand/pirate has the choice between a village or attacking a unit, they always will go for the unit, thankfully.). the two villages in the upper left area are very far away from the pirates, and the pirate closest to land is stationary, so you have plenty of time to deal with the hordes of mercenaries that will be rushing you before having to deal with the pirates.
i ended up fortifying a chokehold with the landlubbers to keep the mercenaries one at a time. this is where rath spent most of his time after killing an errant WK or two when possible. in spite of me saying that using the emblem bow would be ideal, i used the short bow a fair amount to roll for crit kills. i don't think i ended up getting any, but such is life. the seadogs had an initial challenge of recruiting geitz, because geitz needs to be baited out and, as mentioned, he has pretty respectable stats. i ended up going with the strat of using nini's grace on bartre and just having him tank two steel bow hits from geitz. even if he hits with both, bartre'll live, and that section of the map isn't too scary if you do it before it starts getting swarmed with WKs. to wit, that meant that the crow's nest was in the scariest and most vulnerable position of having to deal with all the WKs that spawned. priscilla was a literal lifesaver for this part, because if i didn't have her using a physic to heal (usually twice a turn with ninian's assistance), even heath would've eventually fallen.
going through this chapter, i came to the unfortunate conclusion that fiora is just not pulling her weight in the way i need her to be doing. sure, a bad flier is still usually a good unit overall due to the multitude of things they can do for you, but with florina and heath both outclassing her in basically both polar directions, she's kind of just average. i'm not necessarily benching her, but i'm considering it. that said, i did manage to get her and florina a C rank support, so i'm hoping that'll give me incentive to keep using her. C rank gives +1 attack and +5 crit, which isn't stellar, but it's something. B rank will give double that + 1 defense, so it's something to try to do if possible.
anyway, florina and heath absolutely FUCK right. they've both gotten great level ups, and the only real distinguishing feature in their utility is that where florina can dodgetank more, heath can just outright tank more due to his great defense. heath ended up being more useful due to having the great defense to fall back on in tandem with his occasional dodges, whereas florina could only realistically take 1 hit from a WK before being in kill range. i also generally didn't want to use her too much because she came into the chapter at level 18 compared to heath's 12, so getting heath the experience was much more efficient, not to mention economical. it's not wholly possible to keep your units' levels pancaked, but whenever you can balance it out, it pays off.
so, once the seadogs recruited geitz, the plan was to get geitz to the village and have bartre + dart plant their asses on those forest tiles and collect autowin i mean collect experience. again, it sounds dangerous in theory to roll all those 30%s, especially because i am notoriously an accident magnet in these games (in one attmept of this chapter, i had a 93% miss and then an 18% chance for priscilla to get hit happened (both before true hit)). but, considering that both of them have over 30 HP + were steadily leveling up and increasing their speed and luck stats, thereby increasing their avoid, it was a much less dangerous endeavor for them than i was worried it would be. no, the one who got put into danger was fucking geitz of all people. i expected him to be better at dodging than he was with a bow, which, in retrospect, was very silly to think. he got as low as 7 HP at one point, but fortunately slapping his killer axe back on and sitting him on the third forest square made him unkillable. even still, i did use the vulneraries on him to cover my ass, and it worked out. i'm most impressed that bartre did as well as he did. he didn't get stellar level ups iirc, but i think he leveled up speed just enough to consistently double the WKs, so that's all i can ask for. my standards for bartre are rock bottom, but the emblem seal helps shore up his hit rates, and having 11 or so speed (i forget how much he has currently) is honestly good enough. again, extremely low expectations, but considering i only ever throw him intentionally at lance users or (weak) axe users, he does his job relatively well. or, at least, better than i could've asked for.
once the mercenaries were out of the way, the landlubbers and crow's nest needed to team up to take out that bolting sage. my plan was thusly: use raven as bait to draw the sage as close as possible to heath or florina (i had both waiting in ambush just outside of his attack range.), and then strike. it worked out very well! he missed raven, heath was able to kill and milk that promoted unit udder of experience, and we got the deadliest part of the chapter dealt with. i cannot overstate how large that fucker's range is. i lost track of how often i'd accidentally set heath or florina in his range and suddenly have an aggro'd long distance 32 might to worry about. anyways, with him dead, the chapter was essentially over, so i took that opportunity to do a shitload of arena grinding. i needed the gold and more experience could only be a good thing. i won't go into extreme details, but all you need to know is that using kent, florina, and fiora, i was able to get a minimum of two units per turn in that arena. i got very good luck in that i only had to back out of around 2 or 3 fights, though it's absolutely worth mentioning that i made it to this point in the chapter and lost heath due to a miscalculation on my part. nothing kills your soul quite like something like that.
anyways, all this is to say: i got raven to 20 and promoted him, i got heath to 20 and promoted him (he was honestly the safest unit to use in the arena due to his combination of high defense, access to lances, and relatively high speed.), and i even used rath a little! i can't say rath was exceptionally great but. . . he did things! this was the chapter that i learned ninian's ring buffs will persist in the arena, so i tried to take full advantage of that (along with the rescue-buff glitch that makes buffs persist more than one turn) to get rath in the arena. the results were. . . a little underwhelming, but he did get some wins and experience, so i can't be unhappy with that. everyone else was either too far away to put in the arena (the seadogs), a healer, or a mounted unit that i needed to utilize to rescue chain multiple units hitting the arena. all of this was instrumental because not only did i need gold for grocery shopping (as you can see in the bottom of turn directions, i needed lances badly.), but i also needed 20k so i could get farina by next chapter. this is why i ultimately sat on FFO for 25 turns instead of finishing early. yeah, farina is optional and basically nothing but a detriment. but i like her and want to recruit her. plus, in a weird way, i feel like i have to recruit her, because it would balance out the funds advantage i got from early access to a silver card. i've already tried to counterbalance against that by using the boosters on eliwood, but i think this would almost certainly put to bed the advantage i gained from that. or, at least, it will make annoying nerds less inclined to speak up. besides, looking at it in a positive light, farina is another unit i could get some experience on and potentially she could help my experience rank. cog of destiny has only magic units (besides lloyd and vaida's group), so if i give her a javelin, maybe i can get her some action. i'm already planning on using nino that chapter as well, so it's something to consider.
anyways, end of chapter time. raven went to linus and his two hero friends with the silver sword equipped. they aren't necessarily trivial, but considering raven had 20/20/20 stats and pretty good defense before promotion, they got decimated by hero raven. you almost have to feel kind of bad for the dude, because he's so much more imposing when he's sitting on a throne but trivial otherwise. meanwhile, lloyd is always scary to fight despite swordmasters being generally less useful than heroes. i guess that can be attributed to him being both aggressive and having good crit. ah well. bye linus. it's weird that your name is linus, you strike me as more of a zeke or a derek. something with a k.
next chapter is crazed beast. having a good turn buffer for this one is great, because it means that i don't have to feel super duper pressured about finishing it asap (though i still plan to). and with all the bad units in it, i'm thinking i could potentially get some more growth units in the fray. if nothing else, that southern fort with all the axe users has guy's face painted on it. maybe i'll even field lyn or eliwood for shits and giggles. you never know.
if you read all of this you are gay btw.
#fire emblem#this post took literally 2 hours to type. well more like an hour and a half. but i started it at 11 and i'm only just posting it.#i am your mutual.
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Nitpick November, Entry #2: Power Scaling
We're not even going to approach the absolute mess that is Cinder and Neo, especially in Volume 8, today. It's basically just about the Grimm. Because every Grimm shown is either chump change or completely insurmountable depending on what is needed of them at the time.
The opening fights of Volume 7 show this off pretty well.
The Grimm completely fail to react to any of the bullets being fired by these robots, which for some reason look back at their fallen ally in shock like a human would (a nitpick within a nitpick--why would they do that? They're robots) as is pretty much the norm. This is in spite of the fact that these robots are made of metal much harder than flesh and use the same types of ammo that the heroic cast use.
This comes after two very important things: one, robot soldiers shown being at least moderately effective against the Grimm in earlier volumes,
and two, Grimm apparently just not being able to even see you if you aren't radiating emotions.
That really was a stupid way of playing that aspect of Grimm lore.
I don't think it's likely that these Sabyrs are just really really strong, these Grimm morphs apparently being weak enough that Oscar, himself a newbie to fighting, can apparently kill one by smacking it hard enough with a cane.
Conversely, if a Grimm is shown alone? It's absolutely the most dangerous thing ever, and it will present a huge threat no matter how easily our well-established heroes should be able to carve them apart by this point.
The Nuckelavee is a great example of this--it's mostly unarmored and is fairly small, yet Nora's grenades, instead of splattering it across half of Kuroyuri, burst into harmless smoke against it, despite the fact that it has freaking wooden arrows in its back.
Before that, there was the Beringel, and this issue does not get better as we go. Volume 5's trailer shorts give us Yang fighting...
(gif absolutely butchered because of Tumblr file size limitations).
...an Ursa. One of those things she literally killed casually on her first day at Beacon--which is only weeks away from this point. And damn near losing, too.
Volume 7? Please refer to that one 'Alpha' Megoliath, that requires teamwork from Penny and Ruby to kill.
Keep in mind, Penny's bigass death laser literally carved two airships in half the last time we saw her use them. And then she pulled down a third airship as it was trying to leave, with strength alone. Yet this thing is somehow able to shrug off both those methods of attack, and no one thinks of just cutting away at its unarmored legs.
Volume 8? The Cenitaur is able to beat Blake, despite the fact it's largely unarmored, can only attack from one direction, and is facing a girl with an assload of experience killing these creatures by this point.
And the less said about the Hound, the better.
The Grimm have no aura and thus have to obey normal physics and combat rules. If you want them to be sufficiently threatening, you have to give them some sort of edge in other ways. All it takes is a little imagination--and when you try, you get creatures like the Geist, which is smart enough to avoid combat until it can possess inanimate objects to make itself stronger, or the Apathy, which sap energy and willpower and have powers that make them difficult to fight.
If you're going to model new Grimm for the purpose of upping the ante, at least bother to write in some abilities that make them suitable opponents, it's not that hard.
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The last unified exam was a while ago n a new one is upcoming on the horizon which means I'm here to ask the beloved mods help again~~ In advance this time! (or really late depending on how you look at it dlkjfks)
I was actually sOOO close to SS last exam ahhhhh ;; 89599, just a few points away aaaaaaa ;;;; I wasn't as diligent on that last exam for battling sadly but hoping I can finally break that barrier with this upcoming one!
I know test types are prolly gonna change again but maybe I can use any help you can give me for future team comps to try or general help or just things to keep in mind for next time, or whenever I come across those types of tests again (the regular tests/non unified exams ones) esp since we now have Magic 3 as well bc as always teambuilding is not my strongest djkfkd
These were from the prev exam, n my teams were something like this:
FIRE BASIC-16328
Dorm Jade LV 80, 7/10, max buddies
Bday Floyd LV 80, 5/5 , max buddies
Union Jade LV 80, 6/5, max buddies
FG Silver LV 40
Camp Trey Support
I did also try with
Robe Riddle LV 40, 5/5
Dorm Deuce LV 80, 6/6, max budddies
Dorm Jade LV 80, 7/10, max buddies
Union Floyd LV 80, 6/5, max buddies
Dorm Azul Support
WATER BASIC-19501
Robe Vil LV 50, 5/5
SM Jade LV 85, max magic/buddies
Robe Azul LV 80, 5/5, max buddies
Bday Riddle LV 80, 5/5, max buddies
Dorm Leona Support
FLORA DEFENSE-19107
Beans Floyd LV110, max magic/buddies
Beans Jade LV 80, 8/5, max buddies
Beans Vil LV 60, max magic/buddies
PE Floyd LV 70, 10/5, max buddies
Dorm/Beans Floyd support
I did also try that team with replacing PE Floyd with SM Lilia LV80, 5/5, max buddies
NULL DEFENSE-16648
Dorm Jade LV 80, 7/10, max buddies
Beans Floyd LV110, max magic/buddies
Dorm Trey LV 80, 5/5, max buddies
NY Kalim LV 80, 8/5 (at that time), max buddies
Dorm Floyd support
OMNI BASIC-18015
Beans Floyd LV110, max magic/buddies
Dorm Jade LV 80, 7/10, max buddies
Camp Ruggie LV 80, max magic/buddies
Dorm Leona LV 74, 3/7, max buddies
Dorm Vil support
I did also try that team with Camp Ruggie being replaced with Camp Trey LV 80, 6/10, max buddies
n another team of Beans Floyd, Dorm Jade, Camp Ruggie, Robe Vil, Dorm Leona support
SSRs still these-
https://twstgameplay.tumblr.com/post/693573389429932032/unified-examssss-which-means-im-here-to-ask-the
with a few new additions!
https://64.media.tumblr.com/9493a77b11994c6c3b587c72ec79657b/009cf42f15f18cb8-6f/s2048x3072/927b84ccff9122334efe05f6779301e2d683f7df.pnj
Dorm Rook spooked again to another limit break, so he's now at LV 90
Camp Trey, Bloom tweels are all LV 80
Dorm Jamil has not been leveled yet jldfks
managed to max out NY Kalim's M1
Beans Floyd is the only SSR with M3 unlocked n currently working on maxing it out right now
SRs still mostly the same as in the prev ask above-
-all perm SRs except Lab Jamil
-all event SRs except Beans Jack, GM Epel, DW Ortho, Silk Malleus, MC Trey/Kalim, Masquerade Jamil/Epel/Sebek, Beast Kalim (Kingly Garb? ??? idk how to refer the card, basically from the last event Tamashina Mina)
If it also helps, I do plan on getting Club Floyd. Still debating on whether to try n get Dorm Floyd on his pick up banner or if I should save those pulls for his club card instead
As always, thank you for any help you can provide n sorry bout it being a mess again! (tumblr removed links for anon asks, sorry bout there being more text dkjdfkfd) Always appreciate yall n this blog! Also, no rush in answering this, feel free to take your time!
Hi~
Damn, you were really close to SS last time! I totally feel you on that, my very first Unified Exam I ended up 800 points away from SS and on the last one it was 700 from SSS :))))
Congrats on the new cards and don’t worry about the text wall, at least it was organized! Fr, thanks for using colors and bullet points for the teams, it helps a LOT.
As you said, the elements are definitely going to change, but some of them should still be the same. So I’ll comment on your teams and suggest some for the other exam type.
Ngl, your first Fire Basic team confused me and I thought you wrote your Fire team against Flora instead. The first one has too much Fire, better stick to the second one, you could also use TsumTsum Riddle instead of Robe for more DMG depending on the levels.
I wasn’t gonna suggest a whole new team here, but I saw you got Broom Jade + Dorm Scarabia and couldn’t resist- So another team you can try is:
Dorm Kalim
Dorm Jamil (if you can level him up)
Broom Jade (DUO boosted by Kalim’s M1)
Lab/TsumTsum Riddle (higher ATK than Robe) or Union Riddle (possible 5th DUO, even if it’s Flora)
Support Dorm Azul (preferably maxed as your finisher DUO)
As for Fire Defense, you could still stick to the previous team we suggested in that other ask you linked, but if you got more SRs leveled up, you could also go for:
Dorm Deuce
Lab Ace
Lab Idia
Dorm Trey or Robe Ortho
Support Dorm Azul
Water Basic is great, but one thing you could try if you max your own Dorm Leona is aim for 4 DUOs with:
Dorm Leona
Camp Ruggie
Beans Floyd
Dorm Jack or Bday Riddle
Support Dorm Vil
As for Water Defense, maybe like this with 3 healers:
Dorm Trey
Beans Floyd (M1/M3)
Lab Cater
Union Epel
Support Dorm Trey
Or a Treyless option with only 2 heals, but way more buddies:
Beans Floyd (M1/M3)
TsumTsum Leona
NY Kalim
SM Jade
Support Dorm Vil
Your Flora Defense team is perfect and I’m so proud of you for using PE Floyd!
Alsklakss this hurts me to say, but since we’re trying to increase scores, something you can try is keep the Beans trio and replace the 2 other Floyds with Lab Kalim and a support SM Silver. That’s one less neutral hit, you still get a heal and Kalim has a 3T DMG down debuff.
As for Flora Basic, if your Rook is maxed:
Beans Floyd
Robe or Beans Vil
SM Lilia
Dorm Rook
Support Dorm Epel
If he isn’t, you can replace your own for Robe Epel and choose a maxed Dorm Rook from support instead (you lose a DUO though). Or you can also go for a Dorm Riddle finisher:
Union Azul
Dorm Ace
Robe Cater
Robe or Dorm Deuce (if you wanna add a 4th DUO)
Support Dorm Riddle
Cosmic Defense looks good to me, just replace the extra Floyd support with Dorm Cater if you can find one. As for Cosmic Basic, you can keep the team from the other ask or maybe:
Beans Floyd (finisher will probably be him as he’s Lv.110 fully maxed)
Union Epel
Dorm Rook
Dorm Leona
Support Dorm Vil
Your Omni Basic teams looks a little too Flora-heavy, but it isn’t bad with 5 DUOs available (you only get to use 4 though). I’d say to replace Jade or Ruggie since they both DUO with Floyd, you could try replacing both and use Broom Jade with Dorm Kalim to add more Water and remove one Flora.
As for Omni Defense:
Dorm Trey
Beans Floyd (M2 or M3 depending of if you need more Water or Fire)
Lab Ace
Beans Jade
Support Dorm Cater
And if you can’t find a Dorm Cater support, you could go for Dorm Azul and replace Lab Ace with Robe Idia.
~ 🦈
#twst#twisted wonderland#twst strategy#mod furoido#not me crying because the battery died in the middle of the draft and I lost half of it
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This is a different post from my usual content. And that's because I've been meaning to get my voice heard on something that's been bothering me for... ages.
I recently hit 1K, and as """a big blog""" why not bite the bullet and try and use it for good?
Let me cut Right to the chase—
Stop darkening Quackity.
"But Tea!" I hear you cry— "But Quackity's Mexican! He's latino! How else would we draw him?"
It is taking me All Of My Strength to not wack you across the head with a newspaper. /j
Pull out some chairs ladies, gents and everything in between because ya boi has reached her god damn limit.
Allow me to elaborate:
.
.
Usually when people make "callout posts" about incorrectly portraying a ccs skin tone, it's usually pointing out white washing a POC like Skeppy.
That is not the case here, and it never seems to be.
Quackity is a light skinned POC that consistently gets drawn FAR darker than what he is.
As a light skinned POC (specifically a latina. double whammy.) it's.... incredibly uncomfortable and jarring.
Don't believe me?
This is Quackity! Love him! Funny man!
Seems to me that he's a pretty pale guy right?
Ah.
Do you see the issue here?
One could make the argument that it's from his avatar.
...You're joking.
Do you like. Purposely choose the darkest option? ://
That's lazy.
Have you ever watched a Quackity stream. Or looked at pictures of him. Or even— Have you even looked at that man.
Another point I'd like to bring up.
This was taken from a skin tone guide. And This was Quackity's and Karl's.
Okay. Now here's a picture of Quackity and Karl themselves!
...
Dsmp fandom I think you all need an eye doctor appointment.
.
I have several questions. I'm being genuine here.
Why. Why do you do it fanartists?
Is it just because he's mexican? That's insensitive my dude.
Are you doing it because it's so normalized?
I'm so genuinely fucking baffled that people look at Quackity and make him so dark.
It's come to a point I don't even recognize him!!
EVEN HIS MINECRAFT SKIN IS LIGHT???????
And why does NO ONE talk about this? I haven't seen a single post!! GUYS. PLEASE.
So that's why I'm here today.
Change doesn't fall out of the sky like rain. It starts with someone who says— "hey, this is wrong."
I have a platform. It's a niche tumblr blog, but it's something.
SO HEAR ME WHEN I SAY:
A light skinned POC is still a POC. A light skinned POC should be respected. A light skinned POC being drawn with the wrong skintone is a sign that you aren't paying attention to their features beyond their ethnicity – and that's both lazy and disrespectful.
And if this post causes at least ONE fanartist to change their ways, or encourages ANY other POC to speak up, or any POC who felt discomforted, or simply be seen— Then I'll be thrilled.
.
.
.
For my send off, here's what my friends— two other light skinned POCs— had to say. Because it's not a me problem.
Listen to us.
#if this doesn't get notes I'm gonna steal your cat (threat)#seriously. i want this post to do as good— preferably better— than my usual.#please please PLEASE. RB THIS#THIS AIN'T OKAY SHAWTY!!!!#🗞 AYO 🗞 LISTENNNNNN 🗞🗞🗞🗞🗞🗞#dream smp#dsmp#mcyt#mcytblr#quackity#dream smp quackity#tea posts#important#tea heritage posts
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hunger, guilt, and cross-sections of the heart: an outline
almost all of this is the asks, cut to easy-to-process bits, occasionally rearranged. there's still some rearrangement needed and details filled in. discussion, input, and commentary welcome
things to be aware of: discussions of weight and what amounts to a metaphysical eating disorder. take care of yourselves, please.
also tumblr lowkey murdered my bullet point formatting but i can't bother caring rn
Din who's always been hungry finally getting what he needs and being safe and getting pampered by his mates.
so once it's revealed that Din is a Cubi, and he's getting the nourishment and sex he's been craving his entire life, does that mean that he starts to put on weight? Like his mates realize that Din is finally losing the kind of gaunt, underfed, half-starving look he's had his entire life and is finally filling out and looking healthy. Paz is especially emotional? obsessed? horrified-fascinated? bc he's known Din as just a weirdly scrawny runt who punches above his weight class for decades.
• Din
• always been just on the wrong side of lanky
○ plenty strong, stronger than he looks like he should be
○ but he can never quite keep any weight on
○ very bony teenager but no one thinks too much of it; plenty of the teenagers in the fighting corps are, between how hard they train and the limited food, etc.
• gets a little better when he becomes beroya
○ can slip off into a bar after a job and find someone to fuck him in an alley
○ verbal abuse for being "so damn easy"
○ eventually abandons the random encounters except for when 'the itch' becomes too much
§ becomes delirious-horngry several times, resulting in bad situations
eventually recognizes 'the itch' before delirium kicks in
• always comes away from time in the covert feeling better
○ surely it's just that he's finally had a chance to rest and relax and feel safe
○ he feels even better when he's had a chance to spend some time with the foundlings
§ kids hanging off him, asking about his adventures, telling him they want to be big and strong and cool like him when they grow up
§ surely it's just the reminder of what he's working so hard for
• Din and Paz: very emotionally complicated shared childhood in the fighting corps
○ encouraged healthy competition
§ these idiots don't know the meaning of healthy
○ Some resentment on Paz's part that Din's beroya
○ Some resentment on Din's part that Paz can stay with the covert and care for them directly
○ They try to care for each other and be soft but Paz's temper flares and Din withdraws
§ often they wind up having a quick, angry fuck before Din leaves immediately for the next job
○ Din later wonders if those were sometimes all that kept him from real starvation
○ They don't learn to love each other properly until they're out of the covert and have space to work out how they fit
• starts wearing extra layers to look more intimidating, less breakable. also skinny bitches always be cold, and so is space travel 🥶
• all money goes to the covert, he buys the bare minimum for himself, so surely a level of less-than-full nourishment is unsurprising, the tribe thinks; he must be giving as much as he can, subsisting on ration bars which everyone knows aren't as good as really food
○ horngry din saves back a lil clink over a long period and buys himself a couple toys; they do not help
§ actually more horngry
§ young adult Din first year hunting breaks down sobbing in his cot on the Crest
• He only really questions it when he starts staying with Boba and Fennec
• after he wakes up to rough fingers tracing gently over the too-sharp knobs of his spine; Fennec's sharp fingers dancing over his too-prominent ribs
○ Boba and Fennec have hushed conversations abt Din's lack of healthy mass over his sleeping form, behind his back
○ they actually talk to the palace kitchen staff who are all horrified and make it their mission to Put Weight On That Man(do)
• after all the meals and snacks and treats he's still too thin
• he's started to look bare-minimum healthy, finally, but it's just not enough, his ribs are still like a xylophone
• but no matter how much he eats he's still so hungry
• and maybe it's not as normal as he's always thought
• Paz feels especially angry and useless after all those years trying to help Din
• because here's Boba and Fennec
○ it takes them no effort at all
○ Din just THRIVES under their care (physically) by accident of being dumb, Dom, and horny
○ Paz only sees them treat Din like he's a pretty plaything; he's jealous, defeated and guilty
§ (they don't know Din, how much he's sacrificed, how hard the whole tribe struggled to return Din's care for them)
• the ball and chain situation: Boba's worried about an external threat
• (maybe it's rumors of the Pykes gearing up for another move, maybe it's another syndicate looking to try their luck)
• Boba's worried, he's withdrawing
• Paz and Fennec start spending more time working outside of the palace
• they all spend less and less time with Din
• the banquet:
○ they've all been away for a week or so
○ Din is... Not Doing Well
§ on the verge of monster puberty; appetite starting to ramp up--
§ and then his mates left
○ lost all the weight he'd managed to put on,
§ he's starving and so horny it hurts
○ doesn't show up during the banquet
• Negotiations go well
○ Boba, Paz, and Fennec feel awful and grimy after that much schmoozing
○ they've secured a deal that should keep them and their little family safe
• And then they get back to their rooms
○ find Din fucking himself on one of the biggest of Fennec's toys, sobbing
• And then: monster puberty Hits
• so confused and guilty going through his monster puberty
○ Extra Guilty abt the worry & distress caused by his weight loss leading up to the banquet
• couldn’t understand why he was so insatiable; saw that he was tiring people out but he couldn’t help it
• like all the years of suppressing his instincts were catching up to him at once
• everyone’s reactions once they brought him to a medic & properly identified as Cubi?
○ Boba is absolutely delighted when Din starts to properly fill out; Fennec loves how soft he becomes; Paz is utterly fascinated by this soft creature that has grown from the sharp and bony thing he had tried so hard to offer comfort
○ He looks sturdier, becomes bulkier
○ there's a gentle softness to his belly that Boba's a little obsessed with and Fennec likes to nip at
○ he's always been strong but now he's got the broad chest and thick thighs to match it
○ his partners love how he fills their groping hands
• realizing he's tiring people out he probably tries to withdraw
• his mates are all going on a mission and he'll be fine without them, he's lived most of his life without them.
• He tells them goodbye, not to worry about him, to come back safe.
• The hunger pangs start a couple hours later and he doesn't know why
• He eats, but it's not satisfying or good
○ (the kitchen staff always has food for him anyways)
• he thinks of the toys Fennec had used on him last night
○ "better than being empty"
§ (the very idea of feels like torture)
§ they're awful, worse than Din could imagine, cold and plastic and unfulfilling
□ (budding Force-sense pinging back just voidvoidvoidvoidVOID)
§ keeps going though because his body is screaming at him that he needs to
§ (he's so hungry)
• when his mates return the next day Din his half delirious and practically throws himself at them
○ at first they think he dosed himself with something as a treat for their hard work & first night all together in months
○ becomes evident this level of horny delirium is not the result of any substance known to Boba or Fennec
§ they notice the returned sallow gauntness
§ Din's condition is markedly improved with every orgasm
□ (and touch & kiss & show of affection, etc etc)
○ convinces them all to have him checked by medical as soon as he wakes up
§ (they only wait because he's calmed down a bunch after they really work him over)
• Diagnosis: Surprise, It's A Cubi!
• makes his mates hesitant to leave him
○ sometimes business calls and they have to leave
§ it's Fennec's idea the first time. She takes him to Garsa's, drops him at her feet, says "feed him" and goes to intimidate the idiot loan shark who's started taking bodies as collateral
□ When Fennec was called last minute to go after that loan shark, Din looks at her with big guilty eyes and she knows he's hungry. "You know we love you, don't you, pet?" She asks, and he nods and leans into her touch, shuddering. Garsa is happy to take him for the night. His hesitancy goes out the window once she coaxes him between her thighs.
○ Din learns to ask Garsa to set up a nice buffet for him; she might have him leashed by his anchor, kept in place
§ The glory hole at the back of her club is about as reputable as one can get, and she hand picks the clients sent to him
□ Din's happy to spend an evening kneeling, waiting for Garsa to send another visitor back to feed him.
• once his mates all realize that he literally needs sex they've been giving it to him happily
§ Din's incubus traits start manifesting
• Din finally gets to talk to another Cubi
• they talk through what his diet would have been for most of his life and like...
○ Paz saving up extra food for him probably did so much to keep him alive (not because of the food itself but because it's one of the most effective ways Paz had of conveying love)
○ when they talk abt his diet for most of his life? that other Cubi is like "...dude" absolutely horrified and gobsmacked and amazed Din survived not only that but ALSO giving up his child not long after losing his entire already-limited support network
§ Din's still struggling with his internalized slut shaming at this point
§ "Yeah, bud, if you weren't having those back alley hookups you 100% would have died."
§ "Possibly one of the only times anonymous unsafe back alley hookups ever saved a life."
• learns Cubi can sustain themselves--not enough to thrive or develop their more non-human traits, but enough to survive--on love/emotions directed at them
○ They gravitate towards tight-knit communities
§ feeds their children while they grow up (and how ace & elderly Cubi live!)
§ as beroya Din wasn't part of a community where he could make those kinds of connections/pick up the ambient energy
○ Maybe Paz, Boba, and Fennec all learn that the same time
§ earns Paz some poorly hidden side glances because Din said he'd always struggled to put on weight, despite the tribe's efforts and Paz's personal attention
□ The knowledge earns an unspoken undertone: they didn't love him enough, either
□ Paz loved him but didn't know how to express it well enough to feed Din/bottled it up and turned it into anger which to a Cubi is,, like,,,, moldy-maggoty-rancid food
® Later, Paz will learn yes, they did, it's all that kept Din alive, but until then...angst
• Cobb hasn't seen Din in a while before diagnosis
• Cobb walking in and din is lounging in a position not possible for most humans
○ teeth sharp
○ horns poking out, starting to curl
○ casually stuffed full, sucking his sippycock of juice
○ perking up when Cobb walks in
still shy about his changes
#monsterfucker au#pazbobadinfennec#ask&answer#cubi din#outline#horngry din#cw eating disorders#cw discussion of weight#cw verbal abuse
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For the Lobster of Loki
Summary: Exposure to terrigen mist during a mission-gone-wrong results in you developing some newfound aquatic abilities. Unfortunately, this opens the door for your Avengers teammates to make use of the bane of your existence: fish puns.
Word Count: 2,850
Pairing: Loki x Fem!Reader (first person)
A/N: I can’t believe I actually wrote this.
For those of you wondering what the hell this is: a few weeks ago, I had autocorrect change the word "love" to "lobster" while writing a fic. I found this hilarious and made a joke about it on Tumblr and it kind of turned into a meme on my blog. A couple of my friends told me I needed to turn this into a story and so now I present to you the stupidest thing I have ever spent precious time creating. Also, I usually don't like writing in first person at all, but my go-to third person limited just did not feel right with this nonsense, so I decided to experiment with a different style
Thanks for reading! :)
Tags: @lucywrites02 @gaitwae
If you want to be tagged, feel free to send an ask/message :)
Read it on Ao3!
I was going to murder Tony Stark. I was going to murder all of them, but I was going to murder him first because he was the one who started this nonsense and now it had been going on for two weeks and I was one fucking smirk away from scalping myself.
It all started when I woke up with gills. Waking up with gills is a strange experience. Don’t get me wrong—I realize all things considered, I had it pretty good. I’ve heard about some really horrific transformations since I experienced my own— people who came out of the midst having lost their eyes or their limbs or their minds. There have been people who came out of the mist looking, sounding, and feeling like completely different creatures than when they went in. And there have been people who don’t come out at all.
No, I know damn well I was lucky to come out of the experience with nothing more than a pair of gills stuck in my neck. Still, it was an odd feeling—there was a heightened awareness every time I breathed in, pinprick chills trickling across the newfound ridges as I exhaled. It didn’t feel right, but it didn’t feel wrong either—it was a stiff feeling, a bit like putting on a new pair of shoes for the first time, if that makes sense. I didn’t know what to make of it.
When I woke up, there was about a hundred doctors hovering around me, each with some new sterile terminology to throw my way about my condition, none of which made anything close to sense. I was losing my mind until Bruce showed up. He was able to put it simply: during the mission, I had been exposed to terrigen mist. Instead of killing me, it triggered a transformation in my DNA. I was inhuman.
My inhuman gift, it seemed was the magical blessing from the Black Lagoon. I had gills now—that was the most immediate realization—but there was also the fleshy webbing between my fingers and a weird film over my eyes that I didn’t notice until I tried to rub them with the heel of my palm. All of these wondrously fishy attributes added up to one glorious result: I could swim like a fish.
That was the first thing they tested. As soon as the doctors said I was good to go, SHIELD dumped me in a pool and told me to have fun. And I did. I had never been a fantastic swimmer or anything—the extent of my swimming knowledge came from the lessons my mother had forced me to take as a kindergartener because she was afraid I’d fall into the pond at the park down the street from our house and just die, which … fair. I still hated those classes. But now, now—oh, it was a completely different experience! I cut through that water like a knife, like Michael Phelps who? I was a bullet, shooting back and forth across the pool and just hanging water for as long as I liked.
Because I could breathe underwater now. That’s what gills are for, I guess, although it doesn’t really feel like breathing. Like, I’m not inhaling water while I swim. I’m just … I don’t know, my lungs are still filling with air, my chest is still going up and down, but it’s not through my nose. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s weird. But it’s really fucking awesome.
The team was very supportive of everything. I had only been living at the Tower for a little while, so I had still felt like something of an outsider—I didn’t have powers, and I certainly didn’t have the years long rapport that they had with each other. But they were really cool! Tony designed me a sleek new suit that was able to move well in water while still offering protection, and everyone had the time of their life trying to think up a pithy new code name for my newfound superhero status (we still haven’t quite decided, but I’m leaning towards Torpedo, because isn’t that the coolest thing you’ve ever heard?). Everything was great.
Well, almost everything. There was one thing that was kind of bothering me. Loki hadn’t talked to me since I got hit with the mist. That might sound like a weird thing to get hung up on—oh no, the psychotic extraterrestrial terrorist is ignoring me!— but Loki’s not really like that. He doesn’t really talk about the whole New York thing much, but he’s said enough to make it clear that it’s not something he did of his own volition. If you saw it you’d understand what I meant, the way he tenses up whenever someone brings up the Chitauri and his eyes go all glassy like he’s not really there behind them. You can just tell that whatever had been waiting for him on the other side of that portal, it wasn’t good.
We never talked about New York, but we talked about other things. I’m not really sure how that happened. He does this thing where he acts all annoyed with everyone, like he’s just so over everything, and it irritates everyone so much that they all avoid him like the plague, which of course is what he wants. I guess I just didn’t avoid him when I arrived—I was too busy avoiding all the other superheroes who made me nervous to bother trying with him—and he grew to tolerate my presence.
We started talking about stuff one day, random shit like the purpose of nutritional facts on the side of poptart boxes and the boiling point of water on Earth vs on Asgard because apparently that’s different. And then we’d do things like make fun of the way Steve talks because he’s just so easy to make fun of, and Steve would overhear and tell us to knock it off and that would just make the whole thing funnier and Loki would mimic his voice and say something stupid like “I can feel the righteousness surging!” and Steve would just shake his head and walk away while we laughed like idiots. So yeah. We were friends. Or at least, I thought of him as a friend.
But I was starting to think that maybe he didn’t see me in the same way. We had been partners on the mission where I got hit with the terrigen mist, but he didn’t even come to visit me while I was still in the hospital. And literally everyone came to visit me. Friggin’ Director Fury came to visit me, although I’m pretty sure that was more because he wanted to see what my transformation had entailed and not because he had any particular interest in my wellbeing, but still. And then when I got out, he never said a word to me and everyone else wanted to talk to me so I didn’t say anything to him, but I was worried about him just the same. He was avoiding me too—he wouldn’t ever look at me when I was looking at him, and a lot of times he’d get up and leave the room if I came in. And I didn’t know what was going on.
I probably should’ve asked, but I don’t know … I was afraid, I guess. Like, what if he was really mad at me for something, and just me trying to talk with him would make him upset? So I just didn’t say anything—went through my day pretending everything was normal and ignoring the ache in my chest constantly reminding me that it had been weeks since I got my powers and Loki still hadn’t asked me if I was okay.
But I kind of forgot about all that when Tony started this bullshit. Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t start it sooner, because it was the type of low hanging fruit that had his name written all over it, but once he started it there was no going back.
He started it one day when we were in the kitchen. I had been making a sandwich (tuna fish, because I’m a cannibal) and Tony was leaning over the counter watching me, and we were just talking about my general fishiness.
“I’m jealous, really,” he was saying. “It’s definitely something that would come in handy. You need to get something underwater, you just dive down—no tanks, no masks, no suits. Very sophisticated.” His eyes lit up, which is never a good thing. “Sofishticated!”
I groaned. “Stop it.”
But Tony was cackling. “Sofishticated! That’s rather gilliant, if I do say so myself.”
“Tony …”
“It doesn’t get any betta than this!”
I waved the bread knife in his face. “I will throw this at you.”
“Alright, alright.” Even as he held his hands up in surrender, he was giggling like a child. “I’ll stop.”
He did not stop.
The next morning, it was fish puns. Everywhere you turned, it was fish puns.
“Can you get that report back to me soon, or do you need more time to mullet over?”
“Just let minnow when you’re ready to try on the new suit.”
“Don’t trout your abilities, we all know you’re fintastic.”
It was only breakfast and I was inches away from crushing my face against the china cabinet.
Natasha raised her eyebrows. “What the hell have I walked into?”
Tony grinned. “It’s fish puns!” he said. “Because, you know—” he gestured vaguely in my general direction. “It’s her brand.”
I moaned, face in my hands. “Just kill me now.”
Clint perked up. “Don’t you mean krill me now?”
Laughing, Tony gave him a high five over my head as I writhed in pain. “That’s the spirit.”
I don’t know how he did it, but in the matter of hours Tony had the whole damn tower on the pun train. Natasha was joking about how she was having a whale of a time with this new game. Clint was telling me to clam down and enjoy the fun. Steve asked me if I could get kraken on my o-fish-al business. Even Bruce—Bruce, who always made a point of staying out of Tony’s nonsense—even he was coming up to me with shit like “Cod you come help me with somefin in the lab?”
I glared at him. “Why would you ask me that?”
He hesitated for a moment. “Well …” Bruce inhaled. “Salmon had to.”
I stormed off as Tony roared with laughter from behind the corner.
It was inescapable. Wherever I went there was someone armed with some new fishy atrocity. You’d be surprised at how many fucking fish-related words exist in the English language. JARVIS was so overloaded with the amount of Internet searches for “fish puns” that he started bookmarking lists for easy access. It was an absolute nightmare.
“Don’t play koi, sweetheart,” Tony teased one night while we were waiting for Clint to choose a movie. “We know you lobster it.”
“Lobster?” I scoffed. “That doesn’t even make sense!”
“You just don’t appreciate my ingenui-sea.”
“OH MY—”
“Ignore them, my lady.” Thor smiled gallantly “They are only jesting. You should just relaks.” He grinned, stepping back as he waited for a reaction. We all just blinked at him. He frowned. “You understand, yes? Re-laks? Laks? That’s a fish!”
“Lak is not native to Midgard,” Loki interjected without looking up from the book he was reading. I jumped. He had been so quiet I had forgotten he was in here too. “Their oceans are too warm.”
Thor was surprised. “Truly? But I thought we’ve tasted lak since we’ve been here!”
Loki rolled his eyes, still without looking up. “That’s salmon. It tastes similar, but it’s much smaller.” He turned the page, muttering something that I didn’t quite catch. I was suddenly struck by the fact that it was the closest we had come to talking since before the mist, and that ache came back, gnawing at the edges of my heart. He didn’t look at me. I didn’t say anything.
About a week later, it was my birthday. I don’t really like birthdays in general, but I had really been bracing myself for this one all week because there was no way in hell these morons weren’t going to something infuriatingly stupid to mark the occasion. I guess I didn’t do enough bracing, because when I walked into my bathroom that morning to find a big fat lobster scuttling around in my sink I nearly had a fucking heart attack.
Across the mirror, someone had scrawled a message in red lipstick.
Sending you birthday fishes and lots of lobster!
And that was the moment I decided I was going to murder Tony Stark.
I stormed out into the hallway with no weapon, no plan of action, nothing except the pajamas on my back and the lobster in my hand. Additionally, this was the moment I decided that I hated lobsters more than any other creature on this earth. This thing looked like something from outer space, with its antenna and its bulging eyes and its spindly spider legs—that what it was, an overgrown spider in a slimy red shell. It was disgusting.
I was on my way to Tony’s floor, so engrossed with this half-baked notion of busting down his door and throwing this extraterrestrial arachnid on his face while he snored in bed, that I didn’t even see the Asgardian prince until I walked right into him.
Luckily, Loki grabbed me before I stumbled backwards, because I recoiled so quickly I probably would’ve gone flying. He raised his eyebrows as he took in the sight.
“I assume there’s a reason for the crustacean?” he asked.
There was something ever so slightly condescending about his tone, and I bristled. “They left this thing in my room! I swear, I’ve had it up to here with this fish bullshit—”
He hushed me, pulling the lobster from my grasp. With a wave of his hand, it was gone.
I inhaled. “You didn’t kill it, did you?”
“Oh no. I merely moved it to a more preferable location.” He frowned at the moisture left on his palm, conjuring a handkerchief to wipe it off with. “You know,” he said slowly. “The more visibly upset you allow yourself to become over this, the more encouraged they’ll feel to continue.”
“I know, I know. I just—” I sighed. “It’s so annoying. It’s been going nonstop, for two damn weeks! Puns are the absolute lowest form of humor, it’s just obnoxious.”
Loki only nodded as he turned to make his way down the hall. “I’ll take your word for it.”
And just like that, it was back to ignoring me. I watched his retreating form, the ache in my chest quickly bursting in to flames.
“Why are you avoiding me?” I snapped.
He froze, slowly turning around. “Pardon?”
“Why are you avoiding me?” I repeated. “You won’t talk to me anymore, you barely even look at me— did I do something wrong?” Maybe the fish jokes really had fried my brain, because I was dangerously close to tears. “I don’t get it Loki, I thought we were cool and now you just hate me!”
“I don’t hate you!” he said. “I just—”
“Just what? What is going on with you?”
“You could’ve died!” Loki yelled. I had never heard him speak that loudly before, and guess I was shocked into silence. “With the mist, on the mission. It was only pure chance that you didn’t.”
“I—I don’t understand.”
“I was supposed to cover you. I should’ve realized sooner that they were using terrigen crystals. Instead I miscalculated and you nearly died.” He let out a shaky breath. “I thought you were dead. When I found you, enveloped in that shell …” His voice trailed off and I realized with a start that his eyes were glistening with tears.
“Loki …” My gills tingled on my neck as I reached out for him. Is that what this was all about? Guilt? “Loki, you can’t blame yourself for that. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. And besides, I’m fine now. It all worked out in the end.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. You didn’t see yourself. You were gone, I was certain you were gone—”
I griped his hand. “I’m here now though. I’m here and I’m fine. Stop beating yourself up about it. I want to be friends again. I—” For a moment, the words caught in my throat. “I missed you.”
He gulped. “Truly?”
“Of course! Besides, I need your help getting back at these idiots.”
He smirked. “Oh, I’ve already started on that.”
A high-pitched scream broke out across the floor. “How did the fucking lobster get in my shower?” Tony bellowed from his bedroom.
We exploded into laughter.
“Oh,” I wheezed. “That was fucking perfect!”
Loki grinned, squeezing my hand. “Only the best for you, my lobster.”
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I'm Gonna Crawl: Post 1
(Divided because of length)
Post 2
Summary: Five years. That's how long the reader and Bucky have been apart (although for him, it was only five minutes) Now with Thanos defeated and both of them taking up the mantle of Avengers, can their relationship return to what it was? Or will they have to discover a new normal?
Pairings: Bucky Barnes x fem! enhanced! super-soldier! Reader (Reader can see pieces of the future in visions as well as speak every language)
Warnings: Angst, fluff, language
Author's note: Tumblr is being a poo-poo head and won't let me post the whole fic because it's too long, so this is a two parter.
*************************************************
The text comes when she’s in the middle of teaching English feminine and masculine pronouns. Immediately, she knows it’s something important. There’s a very limited amount of people she’s allowed to filter through the “do not disturb” status she sets her phone in while she’s in the classroom. Her first though is Barnes, but at this point, he’s memorized her schedule even more thoroughly than she has, so it’s unlikely he’s responsible for the disturbance. Pepper, maybe? But no, she’s a powerful enough woman that if she needed anything, she could simply ask and it would be hers. Peter? It’s within normal high school hours, so if he’s messaging her, she’ll give him a lecture next time she sees him for texting in class. That only leaves one person, or rather, organization. As she instructs her students to come up with a few examples of common words which can be said different ways to demonstrate masculine and feminine, then takes a moment to check her phone, her suspicions are confirmed. Rhodes. The Avengers.
“You guys keep working. That’s an example of an English masculine. Now what would the feminine be?” A chorus of ‘gals’ follows her out the door. Once she’s rounded the corner, she dials the number, completely skipping the texting process. The line only rings once before Rhodey answers.
“Hello?”
“Soothsayer. What is it?”
“You need to come in. We’ve got a mission, and it has to be you.” She lets out a silent groan before asking,
“How much time have I got to square things away at work?”
“Wheel’s up in ninety minutes. You need to be here at least fifteen before to read over your orders.” Her boss isn’t going to be happy, but it’s doable.
“Right. I think I just got a crippling migraine. I’ll call you back later.”
“Thanks. I owe you one.”
“You’re damn right.” She mutters it as the line goes dead.
Thirty minutes later, she’s on her way after giving the sub her notes and her boss a bullshit excuse. So far, no one’s worked out that she’s one of the people who fought in the battle against Thanos, and she hopes to keep it that way.
She speeds across the city, driving a little faster than is responsible, but her reflexes are fast enough to cover for it. If this is going to be the sort of mission where they need her brawn as well as her brains, she’d like a few minutes to warm up before she has to hop on a quinjet. Grabbing her go-bag (complete with weapons, her suit, and a set of spare cosmetics), she jumps out of the car as soon as it’s parked in front of the newly rebuilt Avengers compound. Warm up, and make a call to-
“Well, look who the cat dragged in.” She turns her head towards the voice, catching sight of Sam and-
“What’d you tell them? Stomach flu?” Barnes. Okay, maybe she won’t have to call him after all, but that brings up more questions than answers.
“Migraine.” She falls into step next to him while Sam rushes on ahead. “They called you too, huh?”
He nods, grimacing. “Looks like it’s something big.” Obviously. If they’ve called in both him and Sam, not just one or the other, then it’s a guarantee the situation is FUBAR. Plus her? She’s usually in the background. If she’s being pulled then-
“You alright?” She nods, smiling with more confidence than she feels.
“Yeah. Just wish I knew what we were getting into. If they want both unstable super soldiers-” It’s a joke, which thankfully, he gets.
“Then the situation must be pretty hairy.” That’s putting it lightly. They’ve never been called up together before. Never.
If the mounting evidence weren’t enough to clue her in that this is going to be major, the final factor would be, after Rhodes explains to all three of them that with the return of so many people to Earth, a former dictator who disappeared in the snap has gathered up his forces and is attempting to usurp a now-peaceful democracy in hopes of using the territory to levy compliance from surrounding nations. Usually that wouldn’t be their thing, but when the words “dirty bomb” and “gamma radiation” are brought into play, it’s no mystery as to why they’re being called in.
It’s about what she expected. Falcon is running point, Winter Soldier is the man on the grassy knoll (she shudders when Rhodey goes with that particular descriptor because of a confession several years back just after he woke up in Wakanda; “I really hope I’m remembering this wrong and it was just a dream, but I think I was behind what happened to the president.”), and she’s on evac and rescue, making sure there’s as few civilian casualties as possible. However, when the briefing is called to a close, it’s a total shock that Sam is let go while she and Barnes are told to stay back.
Rhodes sits at the edge of his desk, arms crossed, wearing his most serious expression. “You two have completed the appropriate training hours together, correct?”
“Yes.” They say it at the same time, and she has to bite her cheek to keep from yelling out, “Jinx!” It was a requirement after the defeat of Thanos that the two of them specifically learn how to work together as a team, play off of each other’s strengths, just in case something truly catastrophic happened. She also trained with Bucky and Sam as their third. What she’s wondering is, why ask a question Rhodes clearly knows the answer to? He’s the one who set up the training, after all.
“And you’re comfortable working as a squad?” She catches Bucky’s eye, and it’s clear that he’s come to the same conclusion as her: this isn’t what Rhodey is really after.
“We’re fully capable, yes.” He’s the one that answers, while she reaches out into the unknown, hoping for a vision. No dice.
With a sigh, Rhodey stands.
“What I mean is, can you be objective out there on the battlefield? Can you work together like anyone else?” This time, she’s the one to speak up.
“Can we be objective? Yes. Can we work together like anyone else? No, but that was your goal with the training program.”
“You wouldn’t have called the two of us up if you didn’t need what we can do together.”
For a moment, she feels sympathy for Rhodes. The poor man is clearly struggling to make a point. That’s when it hits her, a vision of what he’s prepared for them to do. As soon as it passes, she kicks Barnes’ chair leg lightly, which is enough that he gets the message.
“Just say it, because she’s already seen it.” She wouldn’t want to be in Rhodes’ position for the world right now with the news he’s about to deliver.
“Fine.” Rhodey nods. “If we get in a tight spot, someone is going to have to draw fire. It can’t be Barnes for obvious reasons.” Part of their mission is to obtain stolen scientific data located deep inside enemy lines. She’s smaller and therefore faster, can fit into tight places more easily, but he’s been trained to go unnoticed, and what’s more, to incapacitate anyone who sees more than they should. It’s an obvious choice. She’s in essence the diversion, the boy crying wolf while the real thief makes off with the shepherds’ wallets. Her size and speed will work to her advantage, as well as the fact that they won’t recognize her, so they won’t know right away that she’s the decoy, whereas the second they have eyes on him or Sam, they’ll know to batten down the hatches.
She doesn’t have to look beside her to know what he thinks of that idea. She can practically feel him seething. But, it’s a scenario that, along with Sam, they’ve trained for.
“What I need to know is that, once the bullets start flying, you won’t fall back on instinct and run to protect each other. Out there, you are not a couple. You’re teammates, fellow soldiers, nothing more. Got it?”
She keeps her eyes focused on Rhodey’s face as she nods, otherwise hers will show what she’s feeling. “Agreed.”
“Barnes?” There’s a pause, so long she’s about to kick his chair leg again just to get a reaction.
“Understood.”
“Good.” Rhodes’ posture immediately changes. “Now, suit up. Quinjet is leaving at 1300 hours.”
___________________________________________________________________________________
“Oh!” Bucky looks up from the building schematics he’s studying at the surprised noise from the woman next to him. “This one’s actually not bad.”
“Which one?” He leans towards her, scanning the house listing on her phone. “Nah. I don’t like the look of that roof.”
“True, but it says here they’re willing to knock some off the asking price if we’re willing to do our own repairs-”
A groan issues from the other side of the jet.
“Are you two really searching realtor.com while we’re on our way to save the world?” Sam asks, scowling.
“No, of course not.” She shakes her head, smirking. “It’s zillow.” That reminds him-
“Scroll down. Let’s see when it was built.” It looks like… ah. “Hard no. That thing’s older than me.”
“And like you, it has character.” It’s too good of an opportunity to pass up. He sees an opening, and he’s going for it.
“Did you just compare me to a house?” She snickers.
“Now that you mention it, there are some similarities. Good bones, had some renovations done, could use some landscaping-”
“You know, you could’ve just said ditch the beard.”
She gasps, clutching a hand to her chest. “I would never!”
“Alright, I’m gonna stop you there.” Sam holds up a hand. “If you’re gonna talk about his hair anywhere below the neck, I’m gonna open up the hatch and jump out.” It would be a more effective threat if he wasn’t already wearing his wings.
“Mind out of the gutter, Sam.” She half-heartedly scolds before returning to examine her phone. “The market is just shit right now but there’s got to be something listed that’s less expensive than renting an apartment in the middle of Brooklyn…” That’s what all of this is about, really. After the snap (at least from what he’s read) the price of renting was lower than it had been since the fifties. Now that everything is back to normal, everyone and their mother is looking for a place to rent. Not that he can blame them. He’s one of the returned, after all.
“I guess we could move into the complex once it’s repaired. Just for a little while-”
“Nope.” Sam cuts them off. “Hell no. It’s enough that I gotta deal with you and Judge Dredd here being all domestic on missions. If I have to hear you two going at it, I’m gonna lose my shit.”
He may not understand the pop culture reference, but he caught the sexual one. The truth is, they haven’t slept together since he returned. It’s not like things have been platonic; they shower together, cuddle, and make out like teenagers walking down lovers’ lane. However, five years is a long time (even if for him, it was barely more than an instant), and while he’s ready to resume their sex life, he’s not going to push in case she’s not there yet.
Before he can go too far down that rabbit hole, the intercom crackles to life and their pilot announces that it’s time for the drop. He’s not a huge fan of parachuting (falling to his near death and losing an arm sort of took the magic out for him), but he calls on what remains of his training now that HYDRA’s brainwashing has been deactivated and puts on an emotionless front.
“Com links on.” As Sam speaks, he activates his own com. “Everyone getting a signal?” He is, and if the face she just made is anything to judge from so is she. “Okay. I drop first, then on my mark, Winter Soldier drops; five seconds later, Soothsayer follows. Copy?”
“Copy.”
“Copy.”
Sam shoots them a grin that doesn’t completely hide his nerves. “Good luck.”
As soon as his partner’s exited the plane, he catches her eye. “Love you. See you on the other side.”
“Love you. Come back in one piece.”
___________________________________________________________________________________
Even before Sam hits the ground, he knows it’s going to be a shit show. Even though he doesn’t activate his com to tell them as much, it’s obvious as the super soldier plummets past him that his chute didn’t open. Sam might worry about this if it weren’t for the fact he saw Steve jump out of many a plane without anything to keep him from free falling. Their tag-along, however? She has activated her coms (either that or she forgot to deactivate them) and she lets out a gasp. That’s all, a gasp, but it’s enough to put Sam on edge. This is why coupling up is dangerous in this line of work. Your affection can work to your disadvantage.
Because he can’t have his team scattered, worrying about each other, he asks, “Barnes, do you copy?”
“Copy, Falcon. Don’t think I’ll be doing that again.”
“Oh, you are so getting shit for that when we get home.” He rolls his eyes.
“Let’s cut the chitchat. We have a mission. On my mark, Soothsayer heads into the encampment to lead any P.O.W.s and civilians away. Copy?”
“Copy.”
“Copy.”
He lands just before she does, and as soon as she’s detached her shoot, he gives her the go ahead.
Any thought that they might have succeeded in having the element of surprise on their side goes out the window when a shot whizzes past his head.
“Barnes, cover me.”
“Copy.”
Even with the rain of bullets from his own personal sniper, he barely gets past the first defensive line in one piece. He takes out at least a dozen hostiles, incapacitating when he can, eliminating where he must. Just outside the main fortress, he asks,
“Come in, Winter Soldier. How many hostiles between you and my position?”
“Eighteen.” A muffled shot follows the statement. “Seventeen.”
“Alright. Clear a path. Let’s show these sons of bitches what they get when they threaten innocent lives.”
He thinks that maybe they’ll be able to turn it around when they find their human target fairly easily and are able to capture and incapacitate. The orders, however, were not just to bring him in alive but also to seize the assets they’ve lost before a bomb squad and team of radiation specialists comes in and sweep the place. The only way he’ll be able to get their target back to the jet unharmed (not to mention survive himself) is if they do the one thing he was hoping it wouldn’t come to.
“Soothsayer, this is Falcon. Come in. Over.”
“Copy, Falcon.”
“Winter Soldier is going in. Deploy “big bad wolf” initiative.” In other words, go get shot at while at the same time covering me.
“Copy. Be advised, there are hostages in the building. I repeat, hostages in the building. Over.” For a moment he wonders if she saw it in a vision or if one of the people she’s just helped escaped has started talking out of gratitude, but pushes it to the side. He has biggest issues.
“Winter Soldier, Soothsayer, get into place. On my signal, we move.”
“Copy.”
“Copy.”
“Three… two… one… go!”
Sam kicks off into the air, thanking whoever the hell out there invented this tech that he doesn’t have to fly with an extra 250 pounds of dictator in his arms (Redwing is handling that). Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Soothsayer making a run for it, shooting as she goes. Where the hell did she get the gun? Problems for later.
He’s just about to radio into the jet to see if the ‘package’ was delivered when the shots turn in his direction. He returns fire at the same time a dagger flies past his head.
“Throw it a little closer next time Soothsayer. I dare you.” It’s muttered under his breath.
“So you wanted a sniper’s bullet in your back?” Damned super hearing.
“Aren’t you supposed to be causing a distraction?”
“I am. Close your eyes and cover your ears.” He complies just in time for the flashbang to go off over his head.
“Fuck! You could’ve told me that’s what you were doing!” There’s no reply. “Soothsayer?” A grunt followed by the sound of impact comes over the com.
“Little busy. Hold up.” Hand to hand, if he had to venture a guess. More shots are fired, and he flies lower, returning them, kicking a few assailants in the head as he goes.
“Winter Soldier, this is Falcon. Come in.”
“I read you.”
“Do you have eyes on the target?”
“Almost there. There’s a few more obstacles than we thought.”
“Copy. Over and-” He doesn’t get to finish the sentence as a yell of “Get down!” pierces the night.
It all happens in slow motion. He reaches for the shield, but he can already hear the gun discharge. A force runs into him, knocking him to the ground. Realization hits him: it’s her. He doesn’t see the bullet impact, but he hears her cry out. On instinct, he covers both of their vital organs with the shield, and that’s when he sees the splotch of red blooming from her right shoulder, which so happens to have acted as a human barrier, blocking what would have most assuredly have been a kill shot to the head for him.
“Falcon, Soothsayer, come-” There’s a muffled shout over the com, followed by more sickening thuds and a few shots.
“Barnes?” He hears a whisper of movement from behind him, and without looking, fires. “Barnes, do you copy?” As he speaks, several hostiles gang up on him at once. Using the shield to it’s full advantage, he knocks two off their feet, kicks another in the gonads, then chin, and punches two more’s lights out. He starts on the one that’s left, but out of nowhere, the hostile’s legs go out from under him. What-
“This is Barnes. I have the target. Moving hostages out now.”
Sam opens his mouth to speak again, but a tug at his ankle draws his attention. She’s sitting up, features drawn in pain and still bleeding, her fist bloody from the last hostile’s face.
“Don’t tell Barnes.”
Internally groaning, he speaks again. “Copy. Meet us back at the ship. Over and out.” Grabbing her good arm, he hauls her to her feet and drapes her body over his shoulder. “Pretty sure the blood’s gonna tip him off. And the bullet hole.”
___________________________________________________________________________________
“It’s not that bad.” This has to be the tenth time she’s repeated that sentiment in the past five minutes since arriving back at the quinjet, and yet it’s still not making an impression. As she stands yet again, Sam gives her good shoulder a hard push.
“Sit your serum-ed up ass down. You’re gonna bleed out if-” She narrows her eyes at the man with the shield. “Fine. You’re still dripping blood everywhere.” Yeah, well, it’s not like it hit a major vein or artery. She saw it coming, after all. Still… it fucking hurts.
“Shouldn’t you be hailing Barnes again?”
“Who’s in charge here? You or me?” She thinks about snapping back with something truly brutal, but bites her tongue. “Only thing you should be worrying about is how we’re gonna get that slug out of you.”
“Give me a pair of pliers and I’ll do it myself.”
“The hell you will.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! It’s-” Before she can repeat herself again, the door opens. Her breath seizes in her throat a she takes in Barnes’ appearance. Dear God.
“Target acquired?” Sam nods and motions towards the back of the plane.
“What about you? Package secure?” With a thump, a black bag is dropped onto the floor between them. Sam opens his mouth (more than likely to make a sarcastic remark about being careful with the brain child of at least a dozen scientists worldwide), but before he can-
“You’re hit.” He’s in front of her, crossing the narrow space in just two strides.
Biting back a wince, she stares pointedly at the oozing bullet wound in his thigh. “So are you.”
“It’s nothing.” She’s about to call bullshit (that’s a fuck ton of blood, and also she doesn’t remember that cut on his forehead last time she saw him), but he turns away, fixing Sam with a hard stare. “Why didn’t you say we had a man down?”
“Not a man-” She starts.
“And technically, she never went completely down. Plus-” She knows what he’s going to say, and mouths a silent ‘Don’t’, which Sam ignores. “-she told me not to.” There it is. She’s never gonna hear the end of this.
Returning his gaze to her, he asks, “You told him-”
“It wasn’t a big deal. Can we talk about this later?”
“I second that.” Sam nods. “Preferably when you’re not both about to bleed out in the air.” Bucky’s lips twitch momentarily, and she barely contains her own smirk. They’re not about to bleed out. Still-
“You want to go first with the pliers, or do you want me to?”
“For the last time, no one is using pliers to go spelunking for bullets. Aren’t you two supposed to be smart?” She raises an eyebrow in Bucky’s direction, and he smirks.
“Technically, I think the serum just turned us into better soldiers. Not geniuses.”
“Right, and since it would take us what?” She glances at her phone, checking the time. “Five hours to get home? More than likely we would’ve already started to heal pretty significantly around the bullet and would have to disrupt that so they could dig them out.”
“So, pliers.” She nods.
“Pliers.”
With a groan, Sam stands and, digging around in the compartment overhead, produces a first aid kit.
“Fine, but if either of you starts to hemorrhage, don’t come crying to me.”
Rolling her eyes at his retreating back, she asks, “The question still stands. You want to be the surgeon first or the patient?”
“That depends.” Bucky motions to her own bullet wound. “Is that as bad as it looks, or worse?”
She attempts a shrug, but the motion makes her wince. “It’s just a scratch.” The look on his face tells her he’s not convinced.
“Then I guess I’ll dig yours out first. If push comes to shove, I can fix myself up.” This time, she’s with Sam. The hell he will. She’ll just power through.
“Alright.” She motions to the few members of the TACK team still hanging around. “If you don’t want to see me shirtless, I’d suggest you find somewhere else to be, or at least look away.” Shockingly few heads turn at her words. “Okay smart-asses. What I mean is give a lady some privacy and avert your eyes.” There. That’s more like it.
She’s kinda pissed off that she’ll have to junk the suit. It was a new one. Even more infuriating is that when she goes to unzip it, thanks to her injured shoulder she can’t manage it, and what’s worse, she lets out a groan of pain.
“Easy. Let me help.” If they were alone, she’d make an off-colored joke (something along the lines of “any excuse to get me undressed”), but she swallows it down and grits her teeth as the material tugs at her wound. She’s just going to have to toughen up and rip it off like a band-aide.
“I think there’s a water bottle somewhere, so we could soak-” Bracing herself, she gives the material a sharp tug, completely exposing herself. “-or you could just do it the hard way.”
“After all these years, why would I start doing things the easy way now?” She feels more than hears the short intake of breath that signals a laugh.
“Good point. Hold tight while I check the kit.” Taking advantage of the brief lull, she closes her eyes. She’s not exactly squeamish, but there’s something about seeing a bullet lodged in her shoulder that’s somewhat unsettling. “Alright. This is gonna sting, and then it’s gonna hurt like a son of a bitch.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” That one earns her an actual snicker.
Sure enough, it does sting. That is, if by “sting” you meant “feels like I scrubbed myself with a sandpaper washcloth and then rinsed off with vodka.” Still, she manages to keep still and wipe any expression of pain from her face as the disinfectant is poured on, completely soaking her.
“Sorry.” She shakes her head.
“Nothing a towel won’t take care of.”
He’s in front of her now, so she opens her eyes, concentrating hard on his face so she won’t look down.
“You alright?” It’s completely false, but she pastes on a smile.
“Splendid. Thinking of taking this up as a hobby, actually.” He frowns.
“You couldn’t just take up embroidery like a normal person?”
“No one-” Her breath catches as he starts to probe for the bullet. It was a distraction. “-takes up embroidery as a hobby anymore.” Deep breaths. She needs to take deep breaths.
“Shit.” Shit? That’s not comforting. “Do you want the good news first or the bad news?”
“Dealer’s choice.”
“Good news, it’s in one piece. Bad news-” He looks up, holding her gaze. “It’s lodged pretty far in there, Doll.” Of course it is. Just her luck. “Do you want to wait ‘til we get home, or-”
“Just do it.” Once more, she closes her eyes. “Sooner we get it out, sooner the super soldier mojo can do it’s thing.”
“You sure?” She nods.
“Just do me a favor. Don’t tell me when you start pulling it out. I don’t want to know.”
It’s silent, no one saying a word. Still, she clings to the little sounds she can make out in order to keep herself occupied. The engine running. The air filtration system. Her own jagged breaths and his measured ones. Despite her attempts at distraction, she can feel it the moment he starts easing the bullet out of her shoulder. On instinct her body seizes up, and she has to force herself to relax each muscle. It’ll only be more painful if she’s tense.
“Do you want something to squeeze? Maybe a hand to hold?”
Taking a slow, deep breath, she answers.
“That depends. How much do you like that arm?” If she takes out the pain on anything else, she’s almost certain she’d crush it.
“I’m sort of attached to it, so-” She chuckles, and that’s when the bullet slides free. “And, next time you make fun of my corny jokes, I get to remind you of this.”
The patching up process is simple from there. The bleeding is easily staunched and although it’s in an awkward place, they manage to bandage her without much trouble. She’s so nervous, she expects her hands to shake as she takes her turn and, with her good arm, digs the bullet out of Barnes (his is in fragments but luckily, a vision hits and shows her the shards’ locations), but surprisingly, her hands are steady. She glances up at his face just as she pulls the last shard out, but of course, he’s shut down, completely expressionless.
Finally, the quinjet touches down outside of what used to be the Avengers’ compound. Normally they would disembark, then head straight off to a debriefing, but under the circumstances, Sam calls it a night and tells them to get some rest, then come in tomorrow to go over mission reports. As they watch Falcon climb into his car and drive away, it hits her how terribly exhausted she really is. Between her bum shoulder and his bum leg, neither of them is really fit to drive home, so-
“Think we can get a cab this time of night?” Great minds think alike, it seems.
“I don’t know, but I’m willing to give it a try.��
It’s only once they’re home safely and she’s climbed into bed that she allows herself to wonder if they’re ever going to talk about today.
#marvel#captain america#the winter soldier#bucky x reader#fanfiction#bucky x y/n#bucky fic#post endgame#part 1
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One Hundred Seconds to Midnight: Chapters 1-8
"All Roman wanted to do was take Logan on a Doctor Who LARP within the Imagination.
But with Thomas's Sides at their figurative breaking point after the disastrous wedding, the Imagination may just have a few ideas of her own..."
Hello, Tumblr fanders, it has been a while since I've poked around in here...mostly because, I've been writing another story!
Do you like Sanders Sides? Do you like Doctor Who? Do you like the idea of the Sides playing Doctor Who characters? If so, this story was written especially for you.
I found that the process of cross-posting Mahogany and Teakwood across three platforms, one chapter at a time, involved a lot of me spending too many hours squinting at html code. Not especially fun. This time around, I've only been posting on AO3 and Wattpad.
But I wanted it to exist here as well.
So! Today I'm going to post the first half (in two posts, because apparently Tumblr has a post size limit, who knew?), all the chapters that are up so far. Then, when the whole story is up on the other platforms, I'll post the other half.
Of course, you could head to either AO3 or Wattpad, if you want to read as the chapters go up.
But if you're like me, and like to read stories in nice, big, juicy chunks...here you go:
One Hundred Seconds to Midnight
Chapter 1- The Eleventh Hour
“Who are you?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m still cooking.”
Midnight.
The witching hour.
Or was that 3AM? Roman wondered. No, that’s the devil’s hour…damn it, Virgil! You had to get them all mixed up!
It was nearly midnight on the Imagination’s border.
Moonlight, pearlescent and brighter than it could ever shine in the real world, streamed feather-light through the tall windows on Roman’s side of the Dream Palace. It made patterns of light and shadow over the black marble floors, made nighttime caricatures of the white ivory statues that lined the corridor.
Roman’s heeled boots echoed in the silence; Logan’s dress shoes, in comparison, were whisper-quiet.
Logan himself had been uncharacteristically quiet since they entered this place, Roman noted, glancing back. Normally by now the logical Side would have asked a million questions, made a million plans, or be several bullet points into a lecture about palace construction or the history of measurement units or some other nerdy, obscure subject.
And Roman would either pretend to be annoyed, or would interject witty counterpoints to make Logan stop and bluster and…
But not tonight.
Maybe he’s nervous about being here, Roman told himself, smoothing a hand over his red sash. He’s only pointed out a million times that Logic and the Imagination are anathema to one another. Maybe I should have planned something else…
Or maybe he’s just annoyed at you for dragging him out of bed in the literal middle of the night, a more insidious inner voice whispered. When you know he likes to keep a consistent sleep schedule.
Roman pressed his lips together, lifted his chin…he might be a mere facet of a single personality, but he was also a Prince, and Princes do not listen to inner demons. However, he also looked back for the dozenth time to make sure Logan was actually still following.
That was the only reason Roman kept looking back.
It had nothing to do with the way the translucent moonlight caught the other Side’s dark, immaculately kept hair, or glinted off his glasses.
In the real world, of course, and whenever they manifested near their Source, the Sides all had precisely the same face and body as Thomas. But deep inside the mind, where physical appearance was an illusion anyway, the Sides exercised much more control.
Thomas remained their base template, but each Side also tended to portray himself with features that Thomas associated with their core function. Like Patton’s fluffy curls and childlike freckles, or Virgil’s anxious, ever-changing eyeshadow, or Remus’s abominable comic-book villain mustache.
Like Deceit’s…no, Janus’s very real scales.
Damn that snake. Why did I have think of him now?
Hopefully the lying bananaconda had better things to do than pop up and spoil things tonight. Because tonight, Roman was finally fulfilling a longtime promise to Logan, and taking him on a grand adventure.
The thought made his heart flutter in anticipation, and he looked back again.
Logan within the mindscape was leaner than Thomas, an inch or two taller, and his neatly trimmed hair and intelligent eyes were almost black in the low light. His face was narrow and intense, the nose more aquiline, and he had a habit of standing straighter than any of the rest of them.
(A habit which constantly showed off his trim waist and chest muscles…not that Roman paid any attention to that…)
Roman, by contrast, was a bit shorter, but his shoulders were broad and he was more muscular, due to all the questing and sword fighting he did here in the Imagination. He wore his hair in longish disarray that paired devastatingly with his clean, square jawline; hair that could be turned loose and wild on quests, or pulled neatly back as befitted royalty. His hands were strong; with long, artistic fingers, as skilled at wielding pens and paintbrushes as they were at wielding swords.
He liked to think he was handsome.
He was also painfully aware of how little it mattered when a certain someone…ehem…never seemed to notice.
“Roman, I confess to still being a bit lost as to the purpose of this journey,” Logan said at last, breaking the high-ceilinged silence. “You said you were taking us on a…’lark’? If so, why are we wandering around the Dream Palace?”
“LARP,” Roman corrected, flashing him a smile. “L-A-R-P. It stands for live action role play, Specs.”
Logan’s nose wrinkled at the words “role play”, and Roman’s stomach lurched. He hates it, he hates the very idea of it, you haven’t even started yet and you’ve already failed…
“Oh, don’t make the scrunchy face!” he added, a bit louder than necessary, and waved a hand. “At least wait until you’ve seen it.”
Roman had only been planning this for weeks.
“You know, when you promised to take me on one of your ‘adventures’,” Logan said, making finger quotes. “I was not expecting to be roused from bed in the middle of the night.”
“That’s because this isn’t your average adventure.” Roman gestured around them. “I constructed a special dreamscape to get all the details right, and we can only use the Dream Palace when Thomas is asleep.” He turned and dared a wink. “Only the best for you, my detail-oriented friend.”
Logan adjusted his glasses.
“Let it be known that I am indulging your antics right now because you have, on occasion, had some good ideas. You will, in turn, have to indulge my skepticism.”
“I have no idea what you just said, but I’m gonna pretend it was a compliment,” Roman said with a wink, which Logan rolled his eyes at.
“Ah ha, here we are!”
Roman stopped at a set of iconic blue doors, nearly vibrating in excitement as he waited for Logan to recognize them.
The nerd did not disappoint.
“Roman…” Logan murmured, stepping forward to touch the white PULL TO OPEN sign. “They look just like the doors to the TARDIS. The attention to detail is exquisite. But why?”
“Because I’m taking you on a Doctor Who LARP!” Roman exclaimed, flapping his hands. “All we have to do is step through, and the Imagination will make us Doctor and companion, and whisk us away through all of time and space!”
Logan’s face was a mixture of confusion and curiosity. “Again…why?”
“Because it will be fun?” Roman bit his lip, looking at his toes. “I…I know you aren’t into swords and sorcery and dragon-witches and whatnot. I wanted this to be something you might actually enjoy.”
Logan’s brow furrowed, as it often did when he tried to process something that didn’t fit neatly into his graphed, notated, logical worldview.
Usually, it was an emotion.
“But won’t us enacting such an intense scenario at this time of night negatively affect Thomas’s sleep?” Logan asked.
“That’s the genius of adventuring in the Dream Palace,” Roman explained. “You can do hyperreal, immersive stuff, and if Thomas does happen to remember anything, he’ll just think he had a weird dream. The worst that could happen is he might post about it on Twitter.”
“Hmm. I can see you’ve thought this through. I am…flattered that you went to all the trouble,” Logan said in a quiet voice.
Roman had to bite back an ecstatic giggle.
Not…not because of the way his nerves skittered below his skin when his gaze caught Logan’s black eyes and soft expression. No, Roman was merely…excited! That someone like Logan appreciated his hard work!
It wasn’t like he was trying to impress anyone, like some middle school boy with, you know, a crush or whatever. For the last, well…two years.
…and then some.
Ugh. There was little point in denying his feelings; he’d only accidentally summon Janus and his oily smirk, and if that happened, Roman would most certainly die of embarrassment and that was not a lie, thank you very much.
The truth was, ever since Thomas had placed that jar of Crofters into Logan’s hands and inspired him to sing…not just rap, or begrudgingly harmonize, but actually sing…Roman had fallen, and fallen hard.
How could he not?
Logan’s words and ideas had always challenged him, pushed him to be smarter, sharper, better, just to keep up. Logan was the grounding anchor to his sails, the clarity to his excess. It used to infuriate Roman, the way he and Logan always came at problems from opposite sides and fought, sometimes bitterly, over the best way to meet in the middle.
But now?
Now Roman relished the way they traded words in a good fight, like blades in the hands of expert swordsmen. Logan, despite his dislike for anything fanciful, was a natural wordsmith…and Roman was a great lover of poetry. Even better, it seemed like Logan was also starting to enjoy their verbal sparring matches…
And then these last few months had happened.
The Decision, and Deceit, and the way that snake had let Remus out of the shadows to wreck havoc, and then the disastrous wedding itself…and Roman knew that Logan, through all of it, had been feeling pushed aside.
Goodness knew the logical Side hadn’t deserved to be shoved to the back of a courtroom, or relegated to a pixel-y shadow of himself before being removed from the discussion entirely. Worse, in both of those scenarios, Roman had either done nothing…or actively made things worse.
Roman knew he was guilty of letting his mouth run wild in his zeal to solve Thomas’s dilemmas…or in desperately hiding his true feelings. He knew his nicknames often came with barbs, his insults sometimes hit too close to home, that he often ignored or dismissed Logan’s cool, much-needed perspective.
He knew he needed to be better.
I’ll make it up to him tonight, Roman told himself as he laid a hand on the rough wooden blue doors and glanced back at Logan. The logical Side nodded, giving Roman a tiny burst of confidence.
He’ll get to play his favorite character and be his best nerdy self. This is going to be great!
Roman took a breath, and shoved open the TARDIS doors.
Chapter 2- Human Nature
“It’s all becoming clear now. The Doctor is doing the things you’d like to be doing.”
The blaring of a dozen sirens burst in Logan’s ears.
He was yanked across the threshold, Roman’s hand practically a vice around his wrist. Logan inhaled the sharp scent of metal and warm electronics, and a million figurative lights went off in his brain.
Being the physical incarnation of Logic, this wasn’t an entirely unfamiliar sensation.
The TARDIS shuddered…wait, TARDIS? We’re actually on the TARDIS?…under impact. Lights flashed; reds and greens over an ambiance of steely blue-gray, and Logan knew exactly what to do.
He shook free of Roman’s grip and strode to the center console…console, how do I know this is a console?…flipping several switches and turning the green dial to precisely 3.56 degrees to offset the radiation sheer from the M-class star they’d just spun past.
Because naturally they happened to be careening through an asteroid field.
The time rotor rose and dipped, Gallifreyan symbols whirling overhead; Logan adjusted shields and dodged rocks, striding confidently from station to station. He guided his TARDIS around the last large asteroid, one that easily could have smashed his beloved ship to bits, and then they were clear.
The TARDIS chimed reassuringly under his hands, relieved to be in empty space again.
Roman screamed.
The sound echoed off the metallic walls, causing Logan to whip around and nearly lose his balance.
“What happened?” he said sharply, leaving the console. The creative Side stood near the railing, staring down at himself in obvious dismay. “What’s wrong?”
“Look at me, Logan!” Roman said shrilly and gesturing at his body. “Just look!”
Logan examined his fellow Side. There were no obvious injuries he could see, no blood, no bruising, nothing that would merit a scream. There was just Roman, unfairly handsome as always.
(He still wasn’t sure how Roman managed that feat when they all literally, at least some of the time, had the same face.)
“I…don’t see a problem?” Logan asked slowly.
“I meant, look at what I’m wearing, Calculator Watch,” Roman snarled, and turned to yell nonsensically at the ceiling. “Am I a joke to you? When I said I wanted to be a companion, this is not what I meant!”
Logan focused on Roman’s clothing, which had shifted rather drastically since passing through those doors. His normal princely attire was replaced by a denim cutoff skirt, overalls, pink leggings, and a tight pink blouse that clung to his muscular chest and arms...
“I look ridiculous, don’t I?” Roman murmured, scuffing a combat boot against the metal grated floor. The motion drew Logan’s gaze again to the way the cutoffs hugged his hips and wow, that skirt was really short, wasn’t it?
And those tights, the way they accentuated Roman’s legs...
Logan frowned, his face feeling unusually warm. Why did he keep noticing these things? Of course Roman was more fit than the rest of them.
Perhaps it was simply that Logan didn’t usually see the evidence of it so…plainly.
Stop, Logan told himself sharply. You might be gay and allosexual, but that is no excuse to be disrespectful.
He cleared his throat.
“If I may, Roman?” he said, approaching, and made a closer examination of Roman’s outfit.
“I gather from your earlier ranting that you instructed the Imagination to cast you as one of the Doctor’s companions for the duration of this scenario?”
“Well, yeah,” Roman admitted, “but I was thinking someone like Jamie McCrimmon, or Rory Williams, or maybe even Jack Harkness!”
“You know there is some debate over whether Jack Harkness would be considered a proper ‘companion’, as he was never full time on the TARDIS,” Logan argued absently, still eying Roman’s ensemble.
It was attractive but also familiar; he just couldn’t quite place it…
“Neither was Clara Oswald at first, but nobody had a problem handing her that label from the start!” Roman folded his arms and Logan had to look away because wow, short sleeves and arms…
“Just because she was a girl and the writers obviously intended for her to be a love interest—”
“A girl, of course!” Logan snapped his fingers. “Roman, you are a companion. Specifically, you are Rose Tyler.”
“What?” Roman frowned, smoothing the overalls across his middle. “I…Hmm. You might actually be right.”
“Of course I am right.”
The creative Side scoffed at that, but continued to frown.
“I think it’s a good choice,” Logan added. “Rose is arguably one of the most beloved companions in new Who; bold, kind, and intelligent in her own way. She was pivotal to the Ninth, Tenth, and arguably the War Doctor’s character arcs.”
He laid a hand on Roman’s shoulder. (To convey reassurance, of course. Not because he suddenly wanted to touch…)
“Hers are not the worst shoes you could be given to fill,” Logan said, “idiomatically speaking.”
“Only you would drop a word like ‘idiomatically’ in everyday conversation,” Roman grumbled, but some of the spark returned to his caramel eyes.
“But look at you!” Roman said in a brighter voice, gesturing. “All proper and Doctor-ish. At least the Imagination let you keep your tie, or, whatever that thing is around your neck.”
Logan glanced down at himself for the first time.
His sensible polo and jeans had become a clean-cut black suit, with a warm grey waistcoat, a crisp white undershirt, and a silver pocket watch. A navy cravat was knotted around his throat.
His knee-length suit jacket was also black, with a striking cerulean lining.
He retrieved a slender, metallic something from the jacket’s inner pocket: of course, the Doctor’s signature sonic screwdriver. Specifically, the Tenth Doctor’s screwdriver.
Logan chuckled, remembering all the times he’d ranted to Roman about how impractical and flashy Eleven’s screwdriver became, and don’t even get him started on Twelve’s, it was practically a lightsaber…
“Interesting,” he murmured, stretching his arms to turn in a slow circle, letting the jacket flare. “Fashionably, I appear to be a cross between the Eighth and Twelfth Doctors, which I appreciate, as they are the two most sensible dressers of the bunch. And by the way, Roman, this is a called a cravat, not a tie…”
He’d lifted hands to his neck but the words died on his tongue.
Roman had summoned a mirror and was, quite literally, checking himself out. He swayed his hips, tilted one toward and then away from the mirror, pouted, did a tongue smile, and…and Logan realized he had been watching for more than a socially acceptable length of time.
He swallowed hard and cleared his throat again. But he was saved from having to speak by a loud crackling at the center console.
Both Sides rushed over, Logan seizing the TV screen and pulling it down. Gray static skittered over the polished surface. He flipped two switches and turned a dial, trying to zero in on the signal.
“I meant to ask earlier…how do you know what to do?” Roman asked, tilting his head. “You were piloting before I think you even realized we were on a TARDIS in the first place.”
Logan froze in the middle of winding one of the cranks.
“I…I really do not know.” In fact, the more he thought about it, the less sense any of the controls made. “Now that you’ve drawn my attention to it, you are correct: rationally, I should not know the function of any of these…gizmos.” He gestured at the crank he’d been winding.
“Yet somehow my hands just…know.”
Roman leaned casually onto the console.
“When I built this LARP, I gave the Imagination quite a bit of leeway in how it wanted to construct our characters,” he said. “I’m thinking it took things a step further than costume changes, like making me the companion it thinks I most resemble instead of the companion I wanted to be.”
Roman bit his lip as though troubled, then clearly shook himself out of it.
“And it must have imparted some of the Doctor’s knowledge upon me.” Logan added, not sure how he felt about the Imagination having such a direct influence over his mind. He supposed if it didn’t get too invasive, and was confined to this one night, he could deal with it.
It had proven useful so far, after all.
Roman shot Logan a fierce grin.
“Indeed! So engage that big Doctor brain and let’s see who’s trying to call us. Allons-y, adventure awaits!”
“You know ‘allons-y’ is my line, right?” Logan said dryly.
He had to use his screwdriver on the screen before the picture came clear. The stream of static acquired the cadence of a voice…and then a disturbingly familiar face stared back at his own, looking equally shocked.
Roman, for the second time since entering the TARDIS, let out a bloodcurdling scream.
Chapter 3- The Witch’s Familiar
“If you’re going to take my stick, do me the courtesy of actually killing me. Teamwork is all about respect.”
Janus had just settled into his favorite chair with a mug of chamomile tea and a political science book when he was yanked…rather rudely, he might add…onto the deck of a spaceship.
He sighed, and dismissed his drink.
When one lived in the same mindspace as the literal embodiment of chaos, one unfortunately learned to expect such interruptions.
“REMUS!” he roared, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Did I not specifically ask to be LEFT ALONE tonight?”
Silence.
Deeply annoyed now, Janus took a moment to look around himself. This was not a normal spaceship; no windows, for one, and it was laid out in levels around a translucent column at the very center. His mismatched eyes followed the center rotor up and down, his mind almost placing it…
Something clumsily rose up from the deck with a clatter, causing Janus to summon his crook with a yell.
Only…the object that dropped into his hand wasn’t smooth wood, but a slender metal instrument just barely longer than his hand. A…sonic screwdriver? What the actual heck?
Well. It was what he had.
“Get back!” He pointed the instrument at the…figure…who still slowly climbed to its feet. It was an android or robot of some sort; humanoid, and the same kind of weirdly familiar as the ship.
“Janus?” the robot said, tilting its head.
Janus froze, all the scales standing up on his body. That was…that was Patton’s voice. Flat, mechanical, but unmistakable.
After all, Patton was the only Side who consistently called Janus by name.
“Patton?” Janus whispered.
“Oh, that was so weird-feeling! Thank goodness I’m not all by myself,” Robot-Patton said, putting a hand over his…well, where his heart should have been…in obvious relief. “But why are we both suddenly on the TARDIS?”
Janus drew in a sharp breath.
Of course, he should have recognized the stupid time rotor immediately. He’d never admit it to any of them, but he was as much of a Doctor Who nerd as Logan or Roman, sometimes going so far as to spy on them when they argued over episodes together.
To learn their arguing styles, of course.
Not because he had any desire to join those discussions.
And now, looking at Patton with a sinking feeling in his stomach, Janus deduced exactly what he was: a Mondasian Cyberman. They were older and cruder in design than the reboot versions…no wonder he hadn’t put a finger on it right away.
That wasn’t really the issue.
“REMUS!” Janus shouted again, more angrily this time. Bad enough his pleasant evening of solitude had been interrupted by…whatever this was. But putting the sweetest, most emotional Side into a canonically unemotional shell, a robot?
That was cruel. That was insulting.
It was too far, even for Remus.
“Janus, is everything okay?” Patton asked, coming closer. Janus shivered at the sound of that warm voice coming from a blank metallic face with empty eyes.
“Do you…feel all right?” Janus said in a hesitant voice.
“I’m a little chilly, but otherwise I’m in ship shape!” the other quipped, giggling. “Get it? Cause we’re on a ship?”
Is it…is it possible that he doesn’t know?
“Hilarious,” Janus deadpanned, but inside his thoughts spun.
He sensed they were in a dream construct within the Imagination, which meant this had to be Remus’s doing. Remus, who reveled in gore, despair, disturbing imagery, angst, and who was in charge of Thomas’s nightmares.
Remus could…and would, given the chance…recreate the experience of being a Cyberman down to the Last. Grim. Detail.
Maybe he hadn’t meant to ensnare Patton specifically to fill this role…Remus didn’t generally pull other Sides in for nightmares, come to think of it…but meanwhile, Janus didn’t want to find out what this might do to Patton’s head.
Worse, it was becoming clear that Patton was somehow oblivious to the state of his own body; he’d used his metallic hands to clutch at his metallic chest and found nothing wrong with either. He couldn’t hear the electronic rasp in his own voice, or the heavy clanging of his steps on the grated floor.
Should Janus say something?
Would Patton believe him if he did?
Ever since Thomas’s near mental breakdown after the disastrous wedding, Patton and Janus had orbited around each other in a state of tenuous truce. They talked now, sometimes, and those talks didn’t always end in arguments. Patton began to leave space for him by Thomas’s blinds when he was called up, and he…and by extension Thomas…occasionally actually sought his input.
But Janus, well.
Janus was still a liar.
The others still called him Deceit, either by accident (Logan) or out of spite (Virgil). Then there was Roman, who invented a colorful, wounding ego-jab for him every day, and Remus, whose fond nicknames tended to double as sex jokes.
Having no other real allies in the mindscape, Janus really, really didn’t want to screw up his tenuous alliance with Patton. Why sabotage his figurative “seat at the table” over one of Remus’s stupid nightmares?
Patton would assume Janus was slipping back into his old ways, lying just because he could, and Janus would never be able to prove otherwise. And later Patton would make that sour, pinched face he always made when he was disappointed, the one that made Janus want to crawl into a hole…
So.
Best to keep his observations close to the chest, for now.
“Do you have any idea what we’re doing here?” Janus asked, striding to the center console. True to dream logic, the controls made no sense and simultaneously made perfect sense.
Patton shrugged; a strange, clanky motion of his shoulders.
Janus sighed. “Although Remus has dragged me into dreams before, even he generally understands the concept of consent.” He casually flapped a hand. “And he always leaves you ‘light sides’ alone.”
“Honestly, this doesn’t feel like a nightmare to me,” Patton said, nearly making Janus choke. The Cyberman clanked over to stand by the console.
“It’s too clean,” Patton added. “Roman let me glimpse Remus’s side of the Imagination once, not long after he showed himself to Thomas, and it was…”
Patton trailed off.
“Fragmented? Chaotic? Disturbing?” Janus supplied.
“Sure, we’ll go with that,” Patton said quietly. “This,” he waved a hand around, “feels more like Roman’s work.”
“I suppose you would know.” Janus ran a thoughtful thumb over his face, tracing the ridge that ran from the corner of his mouth to his ear.
“And I would almost have to agree,” he added slowly. “If this was a nightmare, surely something ghastly would have happened by now. But my being pulled into one of Roman’s creations makes even less sense. He literally cannot stand me.”
“Maybe this is one of those dreams Thomas has sometimes after binge watching a show?” Patton suggested. “When there’s enough material in short term memory that the twins don’t get much input? Did Thomas binge a season of Doctor Who yesterday or something?”
And to think the others still view you as stupid, or slow-witted.
Janus bit back a smile.
“It’s a good theory, Patton, but no,” he said. “Thomas hasn’t really binged on much of anything lately.”
Patton ducked his head.
“You don’t…you don’t have to rub it in, you know,” he said lowly, the metallic rasp grating on Janus’s ears. “You and Logan have both made it pretty clear that I’ve been too strict with Thomas’s time.”
Janus fought to keep his expression neutral, but his stomach twisted.
Damn it.
Leave it to Patton to find guilt where none was meant. Even if Janus claimed he hadn’t meant it like that, Patton would probably not believe him.
Patton tilted his metal head as he examined Janus’s face.
“Did you know you have a mustache now? And a little goatee?”
“I have a what?” Janus felt at his face and groaned, his gloved fingers tugging at hair that most certainly did not belong on his face; with the scales, it probably looked hideous.
His entire outfit had altered in subtle ways, he realized. His usual plum tunic and trousers were now a brown suit and waistcoat ensemble, crossed with yellow pinstripes, with a black collared undershirt. A brown, knee-length suit jacket replaced his caplet, with subtle gold trimming. His yellow gloves were unchanged, thank goodness, and his hat…?
His hands flew up to his head and found something perched over his hair, sitting at an angle. Janus yanked down a screen at the console and stared. His beloved bowler had shrunk into a tiny, flat, rakish thing with a wide brim, festooned with a cluster of yellow rosebuds and black beads.
“What on earth, Remus?” he grumbled, turning his head from side to side. Well, if he had to be honest, pinstripes and a hatinator weren’t a terrible look.
“Well, if we’re on a TARDIS, I guess you’re supposed to be the Doctor,” Patton pointed out. “Which would make me your companion.”
Janus stroked his goatee and examined their surroundings in more detail. But am I a Doctor? he wondered. And if so, which one?
And whose TARDIS is this?
Because while it was clear they were on a TARDIS…what other class of spaceship had a time rotor?…he wasn’t almost certain this was not the TARDIS.
Every corner of the Doctor’s ship, no matter which face it belonged to, tended to overflow with bright, shiny, eclectic whimsy. By contrast, this one was plain, stark, with exposed metal beams and sharp angles.
Too dark, too full of shadows.
An awful suspicion rose up in his mind.
He crossed to one of the bookshelves, ignoring Patton’s soft inquiry, and his jaw clenched. There was the Necronomicon, shelved between the Liber Inducens in Evangelium Aeternum and The Black Scrolls of Rassilon, Book of Vile and its Black Appendix, The Ambuehl Lores and the Insidium of Astrolabus.
Janus finally looked at the sonic device he’d been holding all this time; seeing now that it wasn’t a screwdriver at all, and thanked every god he knew that he hadn’t tried to use it on Patton earlier.
It was a sonic laser.
Once again, even in a stupid, nonsensical dream, Janus had been cast as the villain.
His fist had collided with the bookshelf before he even realized he was moving, books falling to the floor. He punched it again, and again, until a cool rigid hand closed around his wrist and yanked him back.
“Janus, Janus, stop!” Patton yelled in his ear.
Janus wrenched his arm away and stalked back to the console, running gloved fingers over his scales, pushing them up and smoothing them down. The familiar sensation grounded him.
“You were right, Patton,” he threw over his shoulder. “This is definitely one of Roman’s dreams, and he definitely fucking hates me.”
Patton’s heavy footsteps clattered behind him.
“Language. And how do you know that,” he asked. “…Doctor?”
Janus whirled, lips curled in a snarl.
“I am not the Doctor, Patton, and we are not on the TARDIS.” He spread his arms to encompass them both, gesturing to the dimly lit spaceship. “Look around. Look at me!”
He turned, slowly, and eyed his mustached visage in the dark view screen.
“Clearly, I am the Master.”
Chapter 4- Nightmare in Silver
“You think he knows what he’s doing?”
“I’m not sure I’d go that far.”
Patton rested his arms against the console and sighed.
Once again, someone I care about is upset, and I don’t know what to do. I guess I should be used to it by now.
It didn’t help that it was so cold in this TARDIS. He folded his arms around his middle, which felt strange and heavy, to combat the chill that seemed to have settled deep in his bones.
Janus stalked past again, grumbling to himself.
“Of course the Prince would pull me into one of his little ‘adventures’ without my consent. He probably needed an antagonist. And naturally the slippery snake would have been the first person to come to mind!”
Patton opened his mouth…though he had no idea what he was going to say…but Janus drowned him out.
“Come on, Roman!” he shouted, throwing his yellow-clad hands up. “You’ve had your fun. Yes, I’m evil, I’m the villain, I’m the bad guy, blah blah. Let’s have our epic confrontation or whatever nonsense you have planned, as I would very much like to get back to my reading sometime tonight.”
Silence.
Patton didn’t know what Janus was expecting.
“Look, maybe we should just play along for now?” Patton said aloud, wincing when Janus turned his murderous expression on him. The deceptive Side had such deep, cutting golden eyes, the human one so much darker than the other…cynical eyes that were, ironically, almost impossible to lie to.
They’d see straight through it.
“It takes a liar to know a liar.”
The glare quickly softened, though, which in Patton’s opinion said a lot about how far Janus had come.
“And how do you propossse we ‘play along’?” Janus said, hissing his s’s in frustration.
“Well, we’ve kinda decided this is Roman’s dream, right? And since we’re in his part of the Imagination, we know he won’t let anything bad happen to us…”
Patton trailed off at Janus’s pained expression, reminded of just how badly Janus and Roman’s last encounter had gone.
“What are you, a middle school librarian?”
“Thank god you don’t have a mustache.”
And I just stood there and did nothing…no, I can’t dwell on that right now. Patton shook himself out of the memory.
It was surprisingly easy; even his emotions felt a little heavy and muted. He supposed he wasn’t used to being in a dreamscape; unlike Roman, who played in them all the time.
I know Roman, Patton reasoned. He might hold a grudge for a while, but he wouldn’t actually be out to hurt Janus.
Right?
“So, if we’re on a time ship, on some kind of adventure leading up to a confrontation like you said, the first thing we’d have to do is figure out where we need to go,” Patton finished, shrugging.
Janus pursed his lips…which looked downright weird with a mustache and goatee, almost making Patton giggle…and began pushing buttons on the console.
“You are definitely incorrect, Patton,” he said, pulling up another screen and flipping a few switches. “If I have been cast as the villain in this ridiculous charade, that means Roman is likely prancing around as the Doctor right now, on the proper TARDIS. Which, as the Doctor’s nemesis, I should be able to contact…ha!”
The screen burst into static.
“Doctor, oh Doctor, do you read me?” Janus crooned, and if Patton hadn’t known just how angry he was in that moment…well, he would have never known.
Janus had tucked it away entirely, in half a second's time.
That’s the scary thing about him, Patton realized uneasily. He’s smart, nearly as smart as Logan. Smart enough to run circles around me, that’s for sure. And he’s easily as good an actor as Roman.
Those attributes, combined with his naturally manipulative nature, made it difficult to trust him.
Patton was trying.
He’d been trying since the wedding, and well, since everything else that had happened. (Patton still cringed when Thomas encountered even a picture of a frog.) He’d done a lot of thinking and growing that day (in more ways than one!), and he’d come to a disturbing, but inevitable conclusion.
Janus wasn’t evil.
He never had been.
Just like Virgil had never been evil. Mean, sure; and sarcastic, and spiteful…but at his core, Virgil had wanted what was best for Thomas.
They all did.
And then there was the uncomfortable corollary to that: Patton, despite his best efforts, despite his core Purpose…Patton wasn’t entirely and automatically good.
Two weeks ago, Janus had proven beyond a doubt that Thomas needed him…ruthlessly, cuttingly, but no one could say he hadn’t made his point. It had been Patton who’d inadvertently pushed Thomas to the brink of a breakdown, and Janus who had to pull them all back.
Despite Patton’s unease, and the little voice in his head telling him that Deceit couldn’t be trusted, could never truly be trusted because it was in his nature to deceive…Patton remembered how they’d pushed Virgil so hard he decided to duck out, and how much of a tragedy that could have been if they hadn’t all intervened to bring him back.
With a pang of guilt, he pictured Thomas lying on the floor, crushed under the metaphorical weight of everything Patton needed him to do to keep from being a bad person…
He would not make those mistakes again.
If Virgil could learn to work with them instead of against them, so could Janus. If Patton could learn to recognize when his own Purpose did more harm than good, so could Janus.
Patton had to believe that.
He’d made too many mistakes lately to believe otherwise.
The screen in Janus’s hands cleared to reveal…
“What? Logan??” Janus exclaimed, as a scream echoed somewhere in the background.
“D—Janus?” Logan countered, then looked over his shoulder. “Roman, for the love of Archimedes, will you stop shrieking? I cannot hear.”
The screaming cut off and Roman’s fuming face squished into the frame with Logan.
“Deceit! I should have known you would show up to ruin this!” he managed to shout before Logan shoved him away.
“Ruin…I’m sorry, what?” Janus glanced at Patton, looking honestly confused. “Is he roleplaying right now? We assumed this scenario was Roman’s creation.”
Onscreen, Logan placed his whole hand against Roman’s mouth to prevent him from interrupting.
“It is. But to my understanding, it was only supposed to involve myself and Roman, and…wait. You said ’we’.” Logan peered around. “Who else is with you?”
Patton started to wave, but his view was blocked by Janus bending close to the screen to whisper something. Suspicion flared in Patton’s stomach; old, familiar, but after the talk he’d just given himself, he purposefully pushed it down.
I won’t assume he’s being shifty unless he actually gives me a reason to.
Lifting his chin, he crept forward until he was next to Janus’s shoulder.
“Hey, Logan,” he said brightly, waving.
“Ah…hello, Patton,” Logan squeaked after a moment, his eyes still wide.
“Wait, Patton’s there? With the snake?” Roman’s voice yelled from the background, and then there was Roman’s face again.
“Patton?” Roman said, narrowing his eyes. “But why are you—?”
Both faces disappeared for a moment as Logan yanked Roman out of frame. Patton thought he heard a rapid, hushed conversation. He glanced at Janus, who only shrugged, looking at puzzled as Patton felt.
Roman’s face reappeared, solemn and deeply annoyed.
“Patton,” he said, and hesitated. “D—Janus. You two…well, you’re not supposed to be here.”
“Very reassuring,” Janus quipped.
“This was only supposed to be a two-person adventure: Doctor plus companion. I have no idea why the Imagination brought you both in as well; I certainly didn’t tell it to.”
“Aw, that’s okay, kiddo,” Patton started gently. “It’s not your fault—”
“Oh, sweetie.” Janus folded his arms. “I’m sorry, but that’s bull. Putting me in the Master’s shoes? Are we seriously going to pretend the Side who unashamedly hates me had nothing to do with that?”
“I didn’t!” Roman argued, his voice going high. “You really think I wanted you here, in any capacity?”
“Deceit…er, Janus, you are being unnecessarily antagonistic, and as such, unhelpful,” Logan cut in with his low, reassuring voice. “But Roman, it might behoove us to consider the role of subconscious influence. You may not have intended to pull the others in, and yet here they are.”
Roman looked at Logan, aghast, and Patton almost flinched at the raw hurt in his caramel eyes. The creative Side backed out of frame.
“So you’re on his side, too,” his voice said quietly. “Is that how it is?”
“I am not on anyone’s side,” Logan argued, raising his hands. “We are all currently in this situation together, and as such—”
Whatever he’d been about to say was cut off by another garbled transmission, taking over the screen and blocking out Logan’s face with crackly, purple static. A gray, snarling face flashed out of the haze, making Patton shriek in surprise and even Janus took a step back.
Then it was gone, dissolving back to static…and the sound of someone laughing filled the connection.
“Hellooooo, nurse,” a familiar sing-song voice crooned. “Did you miss me?”
Chapter 5- The Long Game
“You can’t just read the guide book, you’ve got to throw yourself in. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers. Or is that just me?”
Logan sighed.
He knew that voice; they all did. Even Thomas, unfortunately.
“Remus,” Roman hissed.
The mustached Side filled the screen, grinning madly. “Boo!”
“Get out of my scenario,” Roman said, his eyes flashing. “If you know what’s good for you.”
“Your scenario?” Remus echoed, faux-outrage in his expression. “Yours? The Dream Palace is my domain, too, brother, whether you like it or not.” He leaned closer, letting his nostrils and a single radioactive green eye fill the screen. “Did you really think you could keep me out?”
Roman made a sound of disgust deep in his throat.
“Am I to assume, then, that you are responsible for bringing in the other Sides?” Logan asked, careful to keep his voice even. Remus thrived on getting a rise out of people.
“Of course he is!” Roman snapped, throwing up his hands. “He loves to ruin things, especially my things.”
“Now why would having the others here ruin anything, brother?” Remus asked in a sickly sweet voice, propping his head on his hand. “Unless you intended for this nighttime romp between you and Logan to be private?”
Roman sputtered and glanced at Logan, red-faced, as Remus giggled.
“It was meant to be so, yes,” Logan supplied, unsure why Remus would find that funny…or why Roman would find it embarrassing.
“As amusing as this all is—” Janus’s crooning voice cut through the speaker.
“Great. You’re still here, snake?” Roman snarked, his arms folded around himself.
“We’re all listening, kiddo,” Patton’s metallic voice said.
Roman’s lips always curl into a pout when he is angry, Logan thought, eyeing him without turning his head, and he gets a little wrinkle between his eyebrows. Why…why am I noticing such things all of a sudden?
Maybe it was the stress, or the unfamiliar environment.
Or maybe it was the Rose Tyler outfit.
That skirt ought to be illegal.
Logan deliberately focused on the screen, his cheeks warm.
“So this is kinda new,” Patton went on, “all of us actually talking—”
“If Remus is responsible,” Janus cut in again, “then perhaps he would be so kind as to explain the objective of this late night group therapy session?”
Despite the biting sarcasm, Logan did appreciate Janus’s insistence that they get to the point, even if it did mean talking over Patton…
Speaking of, why would Remus have paired Patton with Janus?
Surely he should have grouped Patton with Logan and Roman, and put Virgil with Janus? Or…maybe not, given how Virgil hisses if Janus so much as enters the same room.
Ugh. Interpersonal drama. Logan was thoroughly sick of trying to keep track of who carried a grudge against whom, especially when it seemed to change from day to day.
And on top of that, why would Remus make Patton a Cyberman? None of these decisions make any sense…
“Right?” Roman agreed softly next to him, and Logan realized he’d said that last bit out loud.
“If anything, I should have been the unfeeling killer robot,” Logan murmured.
“You don’t give yourself enough credit, Specs.” Roman shot him a strange look, both warm and troubled. “And frankly I don’t give a stinky rat’s ass about my stinky rat brother’s sick thought process. What I want to know is why Deceit doesn’t want us to mention it around Patton?”
Logan, who was still mentally stuck on rodents and donkeys…Roman’s metaphors were always something else…shook his head slightly.
“There’s no logical way Patton is unaware of his condition,” Logan pointed out. “So I can only guess he wishes to protect Patton’s feelings on the matter, by not allowing us to talk about it in front of him.” He shrugged when Roman’s frown deepened. “Those two have been getting along much better these last few weeks.”
“I think you’re giving the snake too much credit,” Roman muttered. “Even after he impersonated you, Logan? C’mon. It has to be something else.”
Logan bit back a sigh.
He doesn’t understand, he thought guiltily. Because he doesn’t know what really happened…
#
“This is unacceptable, Deceit,” Logan snapped, flinging the crook away from his body. “I was in the middle of a discussion—”
“He won’t listen to you,” Deceit had said, and there was no sarcasm or snark in his voice.
“Patton asked for my opinion!”
“And he dismissed you from the conversation the moment that opinion went against his preconceived notions!” Deceit snapped back.
Silence.
Logan could hear the others still talking, out in the real world…without him…as the misty dregs of subconscious curled around their feet.
“You tricked him.” Logan folded his arms. “He was scared and off balance and you gave him an out.”
“I didn’t make him take it!”
Deceit sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Logan. You know he is wrong on this. You know what this is doing to Thomas. His unquestioning, black-and-white, juvenile morality; it’s not working anymore. Thomas needs to grow up, and Patton is not letting him.”
Logan bit his lip.
“Logan.” Deceit moved closer, dismissing his crook into mist and setting both gloved hands on Logan’s shoulders. Logan stiffened.
“Logic. Please. I am…no good at this.” Deceit dropped his head, his hat obscuring his eyes. “I operate through deceit because that is the only way I can make them acknowledge me.”
“They don’t acknowledge you because you operate through deceit,” Logan pointed out.
“A perfect catch 22.” Deceit let out a bitter laugh. “But a snake cannot change its scales and I don’t…I have tried everything I know. I cannot fix this from the shadows. I am out of ideas.”
A strange thought entered Logan’s mind.
“You care. You care what happens to Thomas.”
Deceit looked up, his mismatched eyes glittering with stinging intensity. “I am the literal representation of selfishness. Why the hell else would I go to all this trouble if I didn’t care?”
“Well…” Logan trailed off, troubled.
He’d let the others get to him, he realized in that moment. He’d let Roman get to him, with his talk of evil and Dark Sides and how they were always trying to tempt Thomas off the right path.
But…they were all part of Thomas, even the so-called “dark sides”.
Of course they wanted what was best for him…well, what Remus wanted at any given moment was debatable…even if they didn’t always go about it in the healthiest of ways.
Deceit had laughed then, high pitched and bitter.
“Really? Really? Even you think so low of me?”
“You are manipulating me right now.” Logan frowned. “You are using my concern for Thomas to make me trust you.”
“Yes! I am!” Deceit got in his face, fangs flashing. “I am a manipulative bastard because that is the lens through which my Source perceives me. But that doesn’t matter because you, Logic; you see through me, always have. And you know perfectly well that logically, any objection you have to my personality or my methods does not change the fact that I. Am. Right.”
He punctuated each word with a poke to Logan’s chest.
“Deceit—” Logan started.
“Janus.”
“What?”
Deceit sighed. “My name. My…real name. It’s Janus.”
Logan blinked. He knew the mythology, of course: Janus, keeper of doorways and thresholds, looking simultaneously to the past and future. Two faces. Seeing things from every angle.
Self-preservation.
“It suits you,” Logan said quietly.
Tension bled out of Janus’s shoulders, a stiffness Logan hadn’t even realized was there until it was gone.
“Thank you.”
“Why am I here…Janus?” Logan asked, glancing away. “What do you need from me?”
Janus looked at him intently.
“Let me speak to them as you.”
Logan raised an eyebrow, and Janus sighed, waving a hand.
“I know, I know, more deceit, more lies, but—”
“No, it’s…” Logan pressed his lips together. “You already pointed it out. They don’t listen to me, either.”
The bitter twist that accompanied those words was becoming an all too familiar sensation in Logan’s chest.
Janus snorted.
“Oh, they do. Eventually. They heeded your advice on how to deal with Remus.”
Logan shrugged uncomfortably.
“Look,” Janus added, “honest people know how to tell the truth, but liars…” he smirked, not especially nicely. “We know how to wield the truth to accomplish an end. I can pull Thomas and the others out of this rut, but they have to be receptive to my tugging on the reins.”
Logan pursed his lips.
“You won’t fool them. If you recall, you tried to impersonate me once already and barely lasted two minutes.”
“I didn’t have your blessing.”
Janus fixed Logan with his intense mismatched eyes again, and held out a hand.
Logan stared at it, torn.
This was Deceit, the master liar: Thomas’s entire capacity for deception condensed into a single, snake-faced Side. How could Logan possibly trust him to not make things worse, after all the falsehoods, the impersonations, how he’d manipulated them all in one way or another to get his way?
But…as much as Logan, personally, didn’t understand why that callback had been so important to Thomas…he could not dismiss the fallout Thomas had suffered as a result of missing it. The decision to attend the wedding had turned out to be a bad one.
Patton had been wrong to insist upon it over Janus’s objections, and over Roman’s.
Those were just the facts.
Janus sighed.
“I’ll unmask myself when an opportunity arises, if that would help,” he offered, and to Logan’s shock, slowly tugged off a glove. “I won’t…I won’t let it go on as long as it did with Patton.”
He offered his now bare hand to Logan again.
Out in the real world, Logan could hear Patton’s increasingly desperate and ridiculous responses to Thomas’s and Roman’s questions, and winced. Janus did the same.
“Please,” was all he said.
Logan sighed…it really couldn’t get any worse, could it?…and shook Janus’s hand.
#
In his TARDIS, Logan let out the sigh he was holding back.
He might have personal, concrete evidence that Janus wasn’t evil, but he also knew Janus had wounded Roman, badly, that day. The creative Side was simply not currently capable of viewing any situation involving Janus with any sort of objectivity.
Passionate, sensitive people like Roman tended to have an unfortunate habit of hanging onto grudges.
As Logic, Logan needed to remember that.
“Oh, all right,” Remus said, his voice crackling over the connection. “Since you’re all here—”
“Actually, Remus, we’re not all here,” Patton’s voice pointed out. “You all know perfectly well who we’re missing; we’ve done this before.”
Logan’s eyes widened. “‘Where is Anxiety?’” he quoted.
“You mean Tickle Me Emo isn’t with one of you?” Remus asked, looking delighted. “Oh dear, oh dear. Is he lost?”
“I mean, TARDISes are huge,” Roman pointed out. “He could be somewhere on one of our ships.” His voice dropped again. “I’ll bet Deceit stashed him away, because we all know how he hates Virgil.”
“Excuse you,” Janus’s voice interrupted, annoyed. “It is Virgil who hates me, not the other way around.”
“Let’s both scan our ships,” Logan suggested, hoping to head off an argument. Honestly, if Roman and Janus didn’t stop picking fights with one another, he was going to lose his marbles.
The scans pulled up nothing.
“Oh well,” Remus said with a shrug. “Guess the emo gets to miss out.”
Janus grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “lucky”.
“All right, here’s what’s going to happen.” Remus leaned close to the screen. “I’ve crash landed on a lovely snowbound planet that’s crawling with psychotic tin cans who like to roll around yelling ‘exterminate’.”
“Daleks? A snowbound planet, so not Skarro, but where else…” Logan narrowed his eyes.
“He’s on the Dalek asylum,” Roman said lowly. “That was one of the episodes I had in mind when I plotted this adventure.”
“Very good, brother.” Remus clapped his hands. “And up there in orbit is a ship full of people who’d really like to blow up the whole planet. Oh, woe is me, whatever shall I—”
“Save it,” Roman snapped. “You’d probably enjoy getting blown up.”
“Hmm, true.” Remus’s green eyes sharpened. “Think of the mess! Little bits of intestines floating through space, long pink ropey—”
“Or?” Logan interjected, before Remus gave Patton nightmares.
“Or you have to come rescue me!” Remus’s teeth flashed as he grinned. “Because otherwise it’s nighty-night for me and all the other aliens in the asylum.”
There was a beat of silence.
“As terrible as that sounds,” Janus drawled, sounding anything but worried, “given that none of this is real, and at least one of us would very much rather not be here at all…why exactly should your plight concern us?”
Logan secretly agreed, but felt his stomach clench when he glanced at Roman’s troubled face. None of this was real…right? Would something concretely bad happen to Remus if the planet he inhabited was blown up?
Surely not.
This was only a dream. Perhaps, then, Roman was merely upset that his twin had usurped his adventure for the night?
“Also.” Remus buffed his fingernails. “You should know that the Imagination will only release us if we complete the objective. In other words,” and he sneered, purple-shadowed eyes glittering, “we’re all stuck in this scenario until we’re all reunited.”
Remus giggled as Logan exchanged a shocked look with Roman.
“I don’t believe you. This was my dream,” Roman said darkly. “And I’ve just about had enough of all this!”
He stepped back and snapped his fingers with a flourish. Frowning, he did it again, and again, his face growing paler with each try.
“Roman, what—” Logan started.
“I can’t end it,” Roman whispered, still snapping. “He’s right. He’s…he’s sealed off the dream’s boundaries somehow. Remus!”
This he roared at the screen.
“Keeping Thomas trapped in a dream state is going too far, Remus!” he yelled. “I don’t care what kind of demented game you want to play with us, but we don’t bring Thomas into it.”
“Oh, you think I created an unbreakable dreamscape?” Remus snapped. “You let the Imagination have too much reign, my dear brother, and now neither of us have the power to end the dream ourselves. I estimate we have about ten hours before Thomas wakes up.”
For a moment, all Logan could hear was the soft whoosh of the time rotor, and Roman’s shallow, angry breathing at his shoulder.
“So I suggest you all pilot your ships to these coordinates,” Remus added, and a series of numbers and strange symbols flashed up on one of the smaller console screens. “And get started.”
The main screen blipped, and Remus’s face was replaced by an expressionless Cyberman and a snake-faced Side who looked extremely pale under his scales.
“Well,” Logan stated. “This is a problem.”
Chapter 6- Asylum of the Daleks
“You’re going to fire me at a planet? That’s your plan? I get fired at a planet and expected to fix it?”
“In fairness, that is slightly your M.O.”
“Don’t be fair to the Daleks when they’re firing me at a planet.”
The familiar wheeze of the TARDIS materializing filled Roman’s ears as he waited by the doors. Logan joined him a moment later.
“Ready?” he asked, smoothing a hand over his cravat.
He looks good as the Doctor, Roman thought, eying the slimming black and navy, the graceful arc that hand made as it adjusted a pair of glasses…
He shook himself out of his distraction. “Let’s do this, nerd.”
Logan opened the doors and the two stepped out…not onto the asylum, but onto a spaceship. Shiny copper terraces lined the vast walls in curving rows, leading the eye up to a domed ceiling with a clear view of black, star-studded space. Like a huge amphitheater, or stadium. Even Roman had to admit, the Imagination had really outdone itself on the realism.
Of course, given that the ship was filled with hundreds upon hundreds of Daleks calling for violence…realism wasn’t exactly comforting at the moment.
“Surprise, surprise, I don’t see my stupid brother,” Roman commented over the dull roar of the crowd.
“No. But I recognize where we are.” Logan waved a hand. “You were right about Remus’s location; this ship is from the episode ‘Asylum of the Daleks’, in Season 7. If we are following the basic plotline, Remus is likely somewhere down on the planet below, and we will be sent to him in due course. However…I am curious as to why all the other aliens are here.”
Roman looked around again, seeing that Logan was right. Daleks formed the majority of the crowd, but he also spotted Zygons, Sontarans, Silurians, other Cybermen, Ice Warriors…and quite a few aliens from older seasons he couldn’t remember the names of.
(Logan probably could.)
A second TARDIS materialized near their familiar blue box: plain, gray; a squat column of a ship. Janus emerged first, a silver instrument gripped in one gloved hand, followed by an old-school Cyberman…Patton. Roman frowned. Seeing that metal…being…and having to remember it was actually his friend was going to be difficult now that there wasn’t a screen separating them.
“Nice work, Roman,” Janus said, sidling up next to him and faux-clapping his hands. “A ship full of aliens who want us dead; always an excellent starting point for an adventure.”
“This is how the episode starts, Mr. Oh-I’m-Such-an-Expert-in-Doctor-Who,” Roman retorted. “Accuracy is important.”
“But this isn’t accurate,” Logan pointed out. “There should only be Daleks here.”
Roman folded his arms, stung.
Damn Logan and his damned need to be right all the time.
“I…well, I didn’t model this adventure after just one particular episode,” Roman admitted. “I wanted it to be a challenge, and it wouldn’t be if Logan and I already knew the ending. So no, I can’t exactly explain why all the other aliens are here, okay?”
Logan sighed.
“I was not criticizing you, Roman,” he said in a gentler voice. “As this has apparently become as much Remus’s and the Imagination’s handiwork as it is yours, it would be unreasonable to expect you to know what comes next.”
“THE DOCTOR AND THE MASTER WILL APPROACH THE SUPREME DALEK,” a grating robotic voice boomed across the ship, making them all whip around. A large white Dalek with an antenna on its shell loomed on a raised stage near the center of the amphitheater.
“They were expecting me, too?” Janus raised an eyebrow. “Interesting.”
The lights on the Dalek’s head flashed as it spoke again.
“THE DOCTOR AND THE MASTER WILL APPROACH WITH THEIR COMPANIONS.”
The four Sides exchanged a glance, and weaved through the assembled Daleks to the raised stage. The White Supreme Dalek was not the only occupant; it was flanked by an Ice Warrior, an Emojibot (which made Patton giggle), and…
“Look, a Janus,” Roman chortled, nudging the snake-faced Side in the ribs and pointing out the two-faced alien.
“You are all nerds and my logo is a two-headed snake,” Janus complained, rolling his eyes. “I literally do not know how all of you missed that obvious clue to my name.”
“DOCTOR,” the White Dalek said as they climbed the dais. “MASTER. WHAT DO YOU KNOW OF THE DALEK ASYLUM?”
“I’m just impressed my rat-faced brother wasn’t lying about his location,” Roman grumbled, and sputtered when Logan placed a hand over his mouth.
“According to legend,” Logan said, “you have a dumping ground, a planet where you lock up all the Daleks that go wrong.”
“The battle-scarred, the insane. The ones even you can’t control,” Janus clarified. His voice dropped to a hiss. “No wonder they ssstuck Remus there.”
Roman covered his mouth to keep from snorting.
The snake would not make him laugh.
“CORRECT.” The Dalek pushed a button and a hole opened in the middle of the floor. A snow-covered planet lay below them, pristine from this high up.
“Ooh, that’s,” Patton started, and let out a metallic gulp. “That’s quite a drop. Do we, ah, have to go down the same way? Cause I remember that part, and—”
“How many Daleks are down there?” Logan asked.
“A COUNT HAS NOT BEEN MADE,” the white Dalek said.
“Millions, certainly,” a new voice chimed in. The tall, robed, dark-skinned Janus stepped forward, their front face addressing them. “But they will not be your only concern. The population of the planet consists of more than just Daleks.”
Roman exchanged a suspicious glance with Logan. This wasn’t in the episode. This is new.
“What do you mean?” Janus, their Janus, asked.
The alien Janus turned to a nearby monitor, pulling up some information. The backward-facing face continued to address them.
“Some time ago, the Daleks began noticing a curious phenomenon,” they said. “Random people, from all different races and species, started turning up on various planets in this quadrant of space, including the asylum. No ships, no technology, and no knowledge of how they’d gotten there. At first the imprisoned Daleks on the asylum simply killed them off as they appeared—”
Patton visibly winced, even with his metal body, and Logan’s eyes grew flinty.
“—but the new arrivals eventually became too many to exterminate,” the alien Janus went on, unconcerned. “By now we suspect the planet has a population of over a billion, far too many for its automated systems to handle.”
They turned their forward face to the four again.
“THE ASYLUM IS COMPROMISED,” the Dalek Supreme proclaimed. “IT MUST BE CLEANSED.”
“Hang on, you’re still going to blow the whole planet up?” Roman protested. “A billion people?”
“To be fair, that is what they did in the original episode,” Logan pointed out quietly.
“But that was just Daleks!”
Janus rolled his eyes. “Ah, so genocide is fine when it’s only the evil aliens getting blown up?”
“You know, somehow I’m not surprised to hear you defending the bad guys!” Roman snapped.
“That is enough!” Patton snapped in his robotic voice, stepping between them and raising both his hands. Laser pistols popped out of both of them, making both Roman and Janus step back in alarm.
After a tense moment, Patton lowered his arms again; the guns clicked and vanished into their casings.
“Uh, sorry kiddos, I don’t know what came over me,” he said in a sheepish, more Patton-y voice. “Can we please not fight? It…it kinda makes me feel weird and jittery when you do.”
Roman stared at Patton’s blank Cyberman face and armored Cyberman body and swallowed, hard.
Their Patton would never deliberately aim a gun at anyone, let alone his family. But Cybermen were created to eliminate…or rather, delete…anyone who got in their way.
Did Patton even realize what he’d almost done?
What would happen, if and when he was forced to confront the reality of his body in this realm? What if he didn’t figure it out until he accidentally did something terrible? It wouldn’t be real, of course, but to Patton…that wouldn’t matter.
If his Cyberman programming forced or tricked him into hurting someone, the guilt of it would devastate him.
All I wanted to do was take Logan on an adventure, Roman thought bitterly. A fun little dream adventure where he could play one of his heroes. Was that too much to ask, Imagination?
He folded his arms and glared around the Dalek ship, anywhere but at his fellow Sides.
Whatever the hell this has turned into, I want no part of it anymore.
“In order for us to destroy the planet, we will need you to disable the planet’s forcefield—” The alien Janus started, but Logan held up a finger.
“Excuse you,” he said sharply. “We have not agreed to do anything, least of all help you murder a billion people whose only crime is to have accidentally turned up in your prison. Have you even attempted to solve that mystery?"
"And why do you care what happens down there?" Roman added, sneering. "If the insane Daleks are armed—”
“DALEKS ARE ALWAYS ARMED,” the white Dalek proclaimed.
“—then why can’t they defend themselves?” Logan finished, shooting Roman a questioning glance.
Roman huffed, and looked away.
“At first they did,” the Janus explained. “But as I said, the automated systems cannot keep up with the influx. Wars are being fought over food and other resources as we speak. A starliner crashed on the surface mere days ago, and—”
“Ah,” Logan said slowly. “You’re afraid, with all the shifting alliances and new activity, that the mad Daleks will escape in the confusion.”
“We do not know who or what is behind the influx,” the Janus said. “But eventually, they will start coming with ships, or they will build them on the surface, or reach out to those who could attempt a rescue.”
“‘If sssomeone can get in, everything can get out’,” their Janus quoted darkly.
The other Janus nodded. “Even the Daleks agree, their mad brethren cannot be allowed to escape. We, of this assembly—”
They waved to the assembled crowd of aliens, who observed in eerie silence.
“—have decided that one planet must be sacrificed for the greater good of the universe.”
Roman slowly and deliberately drew his sword (which the Imagination had kindly left as part of his outfit). It rasped as it emerged, the sound hair-raising in the sudden lull.
Instantly every Dalek gunstick and alien weapon on the ship was primed and pointed at the four Sides.
“And if we refuse?” Roman said evenly.
“THE DOCTOR AND THE MASTER WILL COOPERATE,” the Supreme Dalek warned, its lights flashing balefully.
“COOPERATE! COOPERATE!” the cry was echoed by the other Daleks, filling the ship with a cacophony of robot voices.
The alien Janus shrugged, spreading their hands.
“You don’t really have a choice. If you want to live, that is.”
“Is that so.”
Roman tensed and sprang at the white Dalek, not giving himself time to think. He dodged a blast from its gunstick and leaped, bringing his sword down hard. This being the Imagination, the katana cut through the Dalek’s metal armor like butter, and it clattered to the deck in two pieces.
There was a shocked silence…but no retaliation.
“Well?” Roman shouted, spreading his arms and turning in a slow circle. “This is me, not cooperating. What are you waiting for? Are you really going to shoot us?”
If they all died on this spaceship…the worst that would happen is they’d be kicked from the Imagination, and that was what they wanted, anyway.
“Roman,” Logan warned quietly, pointing.
Roman looked.
The white Dalek’s shell was…laughing?
“Oh, Roman,” Remus’s crackly voice emerged from the fallen Dalek’s casing. “Roman, Roman, Roman. My poor brave brother who thinks he can solve all his problems with steel and bravado. Did you really think it would be that easy?”
Each word bit like sandpaper against Roman’s ears.
He growled, and stalked to the Dalek’s top half, snatching it up and quickly locating a tiny speaker.
“C’mon, Remus. End this stupid charade,” he said quietly, holding the casing to his face so he could speak quietly. “You’ve had your fun at my expense. Go back to your pile of severed limbs and gloat if you must, but end this. For Patton’s sake, if nothing else.”
“I’ve already told you, it’s out of my hands,” Remus responded; typically, annoyingly casual. “If you want to end the game, you have to come down here and find me.”
Roman exhaled, resting his head against the cold, bumpy metal for a moment. His eyes burned, but he was Prince; he wouldn’t cry, not here.
“Why must you make everything difficult?”
“Roman, in all seriousness,” Remus’s voice dropped. “I didn’t know you were taking Logan on a date tonight—”
“It’s not a date,” Roman hissed, glancing at the other Sides…one in particular.
“The Imagination brought me into this without asking, just like it pulled the others in,” Remus went on. “I am aware of what has to happen, but I did not cause this.”
“You’re lying,” Roman said tonelessly.
Remus’s whiny voice grew hard.
“I don’t lie, and you despise that about me. You hide so much shit from yourself that it baffles you when I refuse to do the same.”
“Look,” Remus added when Roman didn’t respond. “The Imagination is clearly trying to get our attention. Sure, it usually goes through one of us first, but it doesn’t have to. When it comes down to it, Thomas’s mind answers only to Thomas. ”
“How are you so sure?” Roman frowned.
Was Remus seriously suggesting the Imagination they both oversaw had gone rogue somehow?
“Because I don’t curate my side as meticulously as you do, brother.” Remus chuckled. “I listen. I let the Imagination do as she pleases, free from all those pesky ethics and morals and other boring boxes you always force her into, so that our sweet Thomas doesn’t fear the contents of his own head.”
“You expect me to believe that you know what’s going on because,” Roman let every ounce of disdain seep into his voice, “the Imagination talks to you, and not me…because you don’t make her behave?”
“You should try letting her loose sometimes,” Remus drawled, “or you’ll end up with a cane up your butt like Nerdy Wolverine over there.”
“Don’t call him that,” Roman spat.
“What you so-called ‘light sides’ always get wrong,” Remus went on, “is that the juicy stuff, the gruesome and grim, the ‘bad’ thoughts that filter up from the subconscious; they can’t all be locked away and ignored.” His voice dropped ominously. “Repression can be very bad indeed, you know.”
Roman’s reasonable nature knew that his brother, despite his infuriating attitude, was actually making some good points. Thomas had been dealing with a lot lately; the tension in the mindspace felt like a ticking clock, counting down to the next disaster.
But at that moment, Roman had no desire to humor his twin.
All he wanted to do was lock himself into his own room in the Dream Palace and spend the rest of the night writing sad poetry about love, or listing his mistakes to himself until he fell asleep.
“I just wanted to show Logan a good time,” he said aloud.
“And oh dear, apparently you couldn’t even manage that correctly,” Remus said, implacably. “So maybe you should use this opportunity to get your head out of your poopy ass, and reevaluate yourself.”
Roman slammed the Dalek shell against the floor.
It cracked upon impact, the wiring inside sparking and finally flickering down to darkness. He ran his hands through his hair, reminded, once again, why he hated talking to his brother.
Like looking in a funhouse mirror…
“Roman…” Patton sidled up behind him, laying a cold hand on his back. Roman shoved the metal arm away and stalked back to the others.
“Let’s just get this done,” he said in a low voice.
“You will need these,” the alien Janus said, pushing a button on a nearby console. A translucent vertical tube rose from a gap in the floor, holding three bulky black bracelets.
“Ah yes, I remember this,” Logan said, striding forward and taking a bracelet.
“They will prevent—” the Janus started.
“The nano cloud from converting us into Dalek puppets, yes?” Logan interrupted, snapping the bracelet onto his wrist and handing another to Roman.
The nerd is getting into this, Roman thought as he put it on. I guess that’s something.
“The cloud is only active in certain areas of the asylum,” the Janus warned them again. “And those change as different factions seize control of different areas and weaponize them.”
Patton hesitantly raised a hand.
“Um, Mx. Alien, I can’t help but notice that there are only three bracelets, and four of us?”
Logan frowned. “But Patton, why would you—?”
“I’m sure it’s because I’m part snake, Patton,” Janus interrupted smoothly, swooping in to grab the last bracelet and snapping it onto Patton’s arm.
Roman exchanged an alarmed look with Logan; that was the last bit of confirmation he needed. Patton really was unaware that he was a Cyberman.
But why on earth would Janus go to such lengths to keep him in the dark about it? Even leaving aside the fact that Patton was a walking weapon; being a machine, he didn’t need protection from the nano cloud at all.
Whereas Janus…probably did.
But when Roman opened his mouth, Janus shot him a look full of daggers and promises of pain, and shook his head. Roman rolled his eyes and mentally washed his hands of the situation.
Typical Deceit. Protecting his lies.
At least Patton would be twice-protected. If the snake wanted to risk his life for a lie, let him.
“The gravity beam will convey you close to the crashed starliner,” the alien Janus said, and then there were Dalek blasters being shoved into their backs, propelling them toward the hole in the floor.
“Oi,” Roman protested, “get your freaky little eggbeater appendages away from me, you AAAAHHHH!”
There was a push, and they were falling.
Chapter 7- Oxygen
“Look at this. Classic design. Pressure seals. Hinges. None of that ‘shuk shuk’ nonsense.”
“Space doors are supposed to go shuk shuk.”
“Are you gonna be like this all day?”
Janus was done.
He sat up with a groan, brushing snow from his jacket and vest, making sure his hat and gloves were still in place. Everything ached. Bad enough he never wanted to be part this stupid dream game in the first place; now he was probably going to literally turn into a Dalek.
All because the Imagination is being a dick and Patton doesn’t know he’s a killer robot.
Wind gusted around him, making Janus glad that the Master, like the Doctor, usually preferred long sleeves and a coat. He stood, turning in a slow circle as he took in the lay of the land. Nothing but snow and rocks; true to the episode, still.
The gravity beam had split into four as it hurled them at the planet, but Janus was reasonably sure at least one of the others had landed nearby.
He hoped it was Patton.
Not because he was concerned or anything. It was just that either of the others would be absolutely insufferable company, that’s all.
“Janus!” a metallic voice called, and Janus breathed a sigh of relief.
Patton’s Cyberman body clattered awkwardly down a nearby snowbank, sliding the last few feet to land in a heap.
“It is all kinds of chilly down here.” Patton stood, and waved rather nonsensically. “Hullo there, Janus, so ice to see you.”
Janus rolled his eyes. (He would deny to his dying day that the corner of his mouth twitched at the ridiculous pun.)
“If this scenario is consistent with its source material,” he said, gesturing to the closest ridge, “there should be an escape pod from that crashed ship nearby. Come on.”
He set off across the snow, Patton following in his wake.
“Say, what do snowmen call their offspring?”
Janus exhaled carefully. Hoo, boy, maybe Logan wouldn’t have been so bad…
“I haven’t the faintest.”
“Chill-dren!” Patton chortled at Janus’s grimace. “What did one snowman say to another?”
“St. Genesius spare me,” Janus grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What, pray tell, did one snowman say to another?”
“‘Do you smell carrots?’”
Janus quickly covered his mouth.
“You smiled,” Patton crooned.
“I most certainly did not.”
“Okay, okay, one more.” Patton scurried ahead and turned around, so that he was walking backwards. “Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?” Janus said flatly.
“Snow.” Patton hooked his thumbs into the metal rim at waist, like one might on a pair of pants. Janus swallowed and looked away.
“Snow who?”
“Snow laughing matter, Janus, I don’t know why you’re smiling.”
Janus snorted before he could hide it, and cleared his throat.
“I am not smiling, how dare you.”
“That’s twice now!” Patton cackled, the sound coming out all distorted. “Admit it.”
“I refuse,” Janus said, drawing himself up. “You won’t make a liar out of….”
Liar.
He felt the joke fall flat and cringed. Even though Patton’s metal face couldn’t react, those metal shoulders visibly stiffened.
Too soon.
Liar.
Too much history between them.
Besides, you are a liar, his mind whispered. Lies of omission are still lies, Deceit, and you’re doing that right now.
Janus gritted his teeth. They topped a ridge; the expected escaped pod lay half-buried near another ridge, across a flat stretch of snow. The two Sides glanced at each other and continued their journey in silence.
Patton seemed disinclined to continue his little pun war.
Janus badly wanted to say he hadn’t minded the punning, but truthfully, keeping silent was easier. Patton’s baffling ignorance over the state of his own “flesh” was starting to wear on Janus’s conscience. He knew the longer he kept it secret, the worse the fallout would be when Patton finally learned the truth.
The urge to come clean was an unfamiliar one for him, and extremely uncomfortable.
Ironic, the master liar, conflicted about maintaining a lie.
The old him would have laughed, but…the old him hadn’t heard the sincerity in Patton’s voice, when he’d spoken Janus’s true name aloud for the first time. The old him had assumed Thomas would reject him forever…because of Patton.
And then, with Janus still smarting from the sting of Roman’s mockery, Patton had said his name.
Patton had trusted him to take care of Thomas in his stead, when the moral Side knew he had failed at it. The memory still made all Janus’s scales tingle and his heart beat a little sideways.
The new him…this him…couldn’t find it in his small, shriveled, but very much present heart to risk pushing Patton away.
They reached the pod.
Muffled shouts and something that sounded like blaster fire filtered up from inside, making them exchange another glance.
Janus set a hand on the ice-crusted latch.
“Remember, we’ll have to fight our way through a bunch of dead Dalek puppets,” he reminded Patton.
“That’s a lot of noise for just a few puppets,” Patton said softly. “That canonically shouldn’t even be awake yet.”
“I know, and that is strange,” Janus agreed. “Maybe someone got here before us. But we won’t know exactly what to expect until we get down there.”
Patton sighed, a cloud of frost puffing out of his small, rectangular mouth.
Janus pushed the latch, popped his head in, and was met with a scene of utter chaos.
About six or seven human-Dalek puppets, with stalks sticking out of their heads and blasters sticking out of their hands, were locked in a fire fight with a horde of robotic humanoids that looked like they came from the Fourth Doctor’s era, if Janus remembered correctly. Round, bulky shoulders and faces that looked like metal sunbursts.
Both puppets and robots were using the seats as cover, blaster fire zinging back and forth and exploding against the walls in little showers of sparks. Janus and Patton would be directly in the blast zone when they jumped down, a little closer to the robot side.
“Well, someone definitely got here before us,” Janus muttered.
He withdrew his head and studied Patton. Honestly, with his metal body he’d be in far less danger, and those guns in his arms would actually be useful in this situation…but telling Patton he was a walking weapon, now, would definitely not go over well.
“The hatch down into the asylum should be in the cockpit of this thing,” he informed Patton. “There’s a lot of blaster fire, though, so—”
“—don’t get cold feet and hesitate?” Patton finished.
Something in Janus’s heart twisted…something he didn’t dare examine too closely.
“Say, Patton,” he said softly, looking away.
“Yes?”
“What did the hat say to the scarf?”
Patton turned his black Cyberman eyes on Janus.
“What?”
“‘You hang around, and I’ll go a-head’.” Janus let a smirk curl his lips.
Patton was silent for a moment, but then he began to giggle, covering his mouth.
Janus pulled out his sonic laser.
He dropped into the pod with a swing of his legs, catching one of the robots in its metal chest. It fell with a screech, careening into another of its kind, but by then Janus had gained his feet and ducked behind a seat. Patton clattered down behind, with less grace and far more noise…and a random Tivolian tumbled in directly after him.
Patton caught the rodent-faced alien with a startled shout, immediately dropping them again when they screamed and struggled. Janus blinked; where the hell did they come from?
The Tivolian tumbled across the pod’s floor, only making it a few feet before getting cut down with blaster bolts. Janus saw Patton cry out, and caught the Side before he could leap out and draw more hostile fire.
“It’s too late!” he shouted over the noise.
“I should have hung on!” Patton, if he’d had a proper face, would probably be in tears. He hated death. “I don’t know why they were so scared of me!”
Janus could answer that…
“I’m more curious about where they came from,” he said instead, frowning. “They surely weren’t up on the surface with us. It’s like they just teleported in, but Tivolians don’t teleport. They don’t have the technology—”
A blaster bolt exploded across the top of the seat they were hiding behind, showering them in sparks and forcing them both to duck.
“Janus!” Patton snapped. “We need to get out of here!”
“Right.” Janus brandished his sonic. “We’ll just have to run for it.”
He leaped out, activating his weapon, and discovered that a sonic laser had a very satisfying range and kickback. Forget the Doctor’s screwdriver, he thought, blasting a Dalek puppet aside and ducking another gun blast. I wonder if the Imagination will let me keep this…
A cold, dead hand seized the collar of his jacket, yanking him back.
Then there was a yell, a clatter, and Janus turned in time to see Patton blast a puppet with a fire extinguisher. The moral Side chuckled at Janus’s shocked expression.
“I’ve seen this episode too, you know,” he pointed out.
Janus huffed.
The two dodged and fought their way to the cockpit; Janus used his laser to seal the door behind them. For a moment they simply stood there, catching their breath.
(Well, Janus caught his. Did Patton even breathe, in that form?)
“Unauthorized personnel may not enter the cockpit.” Remus’s high-pitched voice came over the speaker system. “Unless it’s an actual pit full of cocks, in which case, where’s my invitation?”
Janus was going to need something a lot stronger than tea, once they finally got out of this mess.
“Remus, for god’s sake,” he grumbled.
“God has nothing to do with my cock, but if that’s how you want to roll…” One of the cockpit screens flickered to life, and there was Remus in all his ruffly, sparkly, mustached glory. Clara’s warm, messy cove spread out behind him, reds and yellows clashing horribly with the green of his sash.
Janus moved so that his chest and shoulders blocked the screen, to prevent Remus from catching sight of Patton. If Remus saw Patton as a Cyberman, Janus would never be able to convince him to keep his mouth shut.
“All right then, where do we find you?” Janus said. “And where did the others land? Not to mention our dear missing ball of anxiety.” He leaned forward, putting on his trademark smirk. “Come on, Re. You must know. One Other to another, you can tell me.”
“Aww, Jan Jan,” Remus crooned, also leaning forward. “You care.”
“I most certainly do not!” Janus sputtered, and cleared his throat. “Patton was worried about Virgil, that’s all.”
“I was?” Patton asked from the other side of the space. “I mean, of course I am, but—”
“But surely you can at least tell us why this scenario isn’t playing out quite like the episode it comes from,” Janus interjected smoothly. He didn’t want Remus to notice the metallic quality of Patton’s voice.
“Sorry to disappoint, but I’ve already told you everything that I know.” Remus shrugged. “Roman really did give the Imagination too much freedom.”
Janus frowned.
“Then how do you know the scenario will end when we find you?”
“I actually don’t! Isn’t it great?” Remus crowed, clapping his hands. “I love stories where anything could happen. We could all get vaporized, or have our flesh eaten by—”
“Remus, focus.” Janus pitched the bridge of his nose. “So, given what we know of this particular episode, you’re assuming that our main tasks are to come get you, and to drop the forcefield on the planet so the Daleks can blow it up.”
“That’s the idea, Double Dee!”
Behind him, Janus heard Patton make a weird, choked noise, and grimaced.
“By the way, Roman and Logan are already inside the asylum.” Remus grinned, the whites of his eyes flashing. “So if you want to catch up, you’d better scute those scaly asscheeks along. Check the floor for a breach; that will be your way out. A breach, ha! Like a butth—”
Janus pointed his laser and fired on the screen, cutting the transmission and sending sparks flying all over the cockpit. An awkward silence fell in which he turned to face Patton, who of course wore no visible expression.
This, and all the reasons for it, annoyed him further.
“I swear if you ask one question about scutes or scales,” he warned, holding up a finger.
“I wasn’t…going to.” Patton held up his hands. “Logan kind of taught us how to tune out the more, er, naughty things Remus says. But I am wondering,” he added hesitantly. “Are you…feeling okay?”
“Fabulous. Peachy,” Janus said flatly, kneeling to feel around on the floor. “Fantastic, allons-y, geronimo, what have you.”
“It’s just, you seem a little angry,” Patton went on. “And you remember, that’s, that’s the first step in being converted. Maybe you should wear the bracelet for a while? We can trade on and off…”
Patton’s fingers went to his wrist, but Janus stopped him with a gloved hand on top.
Tell him, an inner voice whispered. Tell him now, before this gets any more awkward.
“That’s sweet of you, but no, I’m merely frustrated,” Janus admitted. “I would very much like to get out of here, so I can return to the pleasant evening I was having before all thisss.”
He gestured irritatedly around them.
Patton joined him on the floor and together they found a person-sized hole, with a rope ladder hanging down.
“Hey, Janus,” Patton murmured, as they were about to start the long climb down. “Can I ask you something?”
“Why do I have a feeling you’re going to ask no matter what I say?” Janus said wryly.
“Do you remember when that puppet attacked you in the main part of the ship, and I fought it off with the fire extinguisher?” Patton ducked his head.
Janus raised an eyebrow.
“They hesitated, when they saw me.” Patton’s unnaturally black eyes met Janus’s. “That’s why I had time to grab the extinguisher.”
Janus swallowed, his heart starting to pound.
“Well, I’m sure they aren’t used to anyone fighting back—”
“No, they hesitated like…like I scared them or something,” Patton pressed. “It was weird, Janus. Please. If there’s something you need to tell me…you know you can.”
Janus’s mouth compressed into a flat line and he looked away, bitterness welling up inside him.
“Can I, Patton?” he asked softly, holding up a gloved hand. A yellow indictment of everything he was. “Can I really?”
Patton sighed, long and deep.
“Touché.”
Chapter 8- Extremis
“Something’s coming. And I’m blind. How can I see them when I’m lost in the dark?”
Logan awoke to someone shaking him.
He opened his eyes to an expanse of blurry blobs and color splotches, and Roman’s sharp, frantic face very close to his. His eyes have amber flecks, his brain noted inanely. But why is he clear when nothing else is…?
Roman threw his head back and exhaled in obvious relief when Logan groaned, blinking rapidly to clear his vision.
“Singing chimeras, Specs, I was starting to worry.”
Logan sat up and touched his bare face. Ah, there’s the problem.
“Where are my glasses?”
Roman was quiet.
Logan leaned closer to the other Side, squinting. Bad eyesight was such an annoyance. If only Thomas’s developing brain hadn’t decided early on that “smart and logical” also meant “stereotypically nerdy”, and pigeonholed his own sense of Logic into actually requiring corrective eyewear.
“Roman?” Logan tried again.
“Um. About that.”
Roman bit his lip, and handed over a smashed set of frames. Logan’s stomach sank as he examined them; the lenses were shattered beyond repair.
“I found them next to you like that, when I woke up,” Roman explained. “I’ve been trying to summon another pair, but for some reason the Imagination won’t let me!”
Logan pushed down a growing sense of dread, that he’d have to navigate the rest of this adventure half-blind.
“My glasses getting broken is obviously not your fault. We did fall down a rather deep hole,” he pointed out. “But what do you mean, the Imagination isn’t letting you?”
“I mean it’s not letting me!” Roman threw up his hands. “I could summon things on the TARDIS just fine, but now…” He sighed. “I am Creativity, right?”
Logan tilted his head and frowned.
“Is that…Roman, that is a nonsensical question. Of course you are.”
“So summoning a tiny object in my own dream scenario should be easy.” Roman hung his head.
“How long have you been trying?”
“Twenty minutes, maybe?” Roman shrugged, still not looking at him. “All that time, and yet still I fail.”
Logan resisted the urge to point out that twenty minutes should be long enough to realize a thing might be outside of one’s control, and to start brainstorming other options.
Stubborn fool.
“Maybe it’s just as well we picked the wedding over the callback,” Roman added darkly, an uncharacteristic glower twisting his face. “When Thomas’s Creativity apparently can’t even control his own dreams.”
Oh…this isn’t about glasses at all, is it? Logan swallowed around an achy sensation in his chest; the one he always got when something was wrong and Roman made that face and he just…needed to fix it.
Native English speakers have a passive vocabulary of around forty thousand words, he thought, frustrated. So why, in situations like this, am I constantly struggling to find the right thing to say?
The resigned set to Roman’s jaw prompted Logan to try.
“Your inability to summon things may not be your doing,” Logan said, laying a hand on Roman’s knee. “Perhaps the Imagination is attempting to impose a sense of realism on this adventure.”
“Realism,” Roman echoed flatly. “In Doctor Who.”
Logan huffed. “You must admit, summoning objects out of thin air does defy even time-traveling alien logic.”
Roman’s face twitched in the tiniest of smiles. “So why did it work before, Teach?”
“Maybe it only worked on the TARDIS because the ship already defies every known rule of physics.” Logan shrugged. “I admit I cannot possibly intuit the inner workings of the Imagination; I can only theorize from what I have observed thus far.”
Roman chuckled softly to himself, and bumped Logan’s shoulder.
“Aww, Nerd, I’m touched. You’re trying to logic me into feeling better.”
“Is it…working?” Logan asked.
“Kind of?” An unreadable expression flitted over Roman’s face. “At least one of us is still grounded in reality.”
“Where else could one possibly be grounded?”
Roman laughed outright at this.
“Oh, Logan. Never change, okay?”
He stood up, and pulled Logan to his feet as well.
“Where are we?” Logan asked, squinting.
He could tell they were in some large, open space; all blacks and browns and dull grays. Blurry domes of copper were scattered amongst what could be bits of fallen scaffolding or machinery.
Logan was also hyperaware of Roman’s warm arm pressed against his, and his own hand clasped tightly within the Prince’s larger grip. With everything else blurry, physical sensations were all the more distracting.
“Don’t panic, okay?” Roman started.
Logan scoffed.
“You are fortunate that I am not Virgil,” he commented wryly. “Because starting a sentence like that would almost certainly have caused him to panic.”
“Well, it’s just, do you remember that scene in the Dalek asylum episode where Rory wakes up in the hanger full of dead Daleks who turn out to be not actually dead?” Roman said in a rush. “Because…yeah.”
Oh. Logan swallowed.
“So, I am guessing that those copper domes are actually Daleks?” he said softly.
Roman snorted.
“Copper domes? Jeesh, your eyesight sucks.”
“I am aware,” Logan said flatly. “Which means you will have to guide us out. If I remember correctly, as long as we are quiet and don’t kick any pipes on the ground, we won’t wake them up.”
Roman let go of Logan’s hand… and replaced it with an arm wrapped around his waist. Logan only held back a squeak because it would have been extremely undignified.
“Hey, relax, I got you, Specs.” Roman’s breath ghosted over Logan’s ear. The Prince’s shorter stature allowed him to fit snugly against Logan’s side; if Roman turned his head, he could comfortably tuck his face into the crook of Logan’s neck.
Not…not that Logan imagined him doing any such thing.
Roman drew his sword with a metallic rasp, prompting Logan to pull out his screwdriver, and they set off across the floor.
It was a strange, vulnerable sensation, Logan thought, being this close to another, being forced to rely on him for direction…or maybe it was just that Roman’s Rose Tyler outfit left so much more skin on display than his usual royal attire…
To be fair, Roman’s bare arms and short skirt and leggings were the only non-blurry things in Logan’s line of sight at the moment.
“You know, I am not sure how much good a sword will do against a Dalek now,” Logan said dryly (to distract himself). “Since it would seem that the Imagination is now attempting to be realistic.”
“It’ll be a lot more useful than a screwdriver,” Roman retorted. “Honestly, the War Doctor had a point. The later seasons really do start to treat the sonic like a weapon, and it looks ridiculous. There’s an oily-looking puddle to your left.”
They dodged around it.
“The sonic screwdriver is an ingenious, multipurpose tool,” Logan argued. “Fitting for a character who is, at heart, a pacifist. In the right hands, it most certainly could serve as a weapon. For example one could scramble a Cyberman’s circuits, short out fuses, or calculate the precise amount of blunt force needed to take down an enemy.” Logan waved the hand with the screwdriver around them. “All things that a sword could not accomplish.”
“Sure,” Roman drawled, leading them around one of the still, silent Daleks, “but you don’t point a sonic at an oncoming Dalek and expect to survive. Even the Doctor had more sense than to try that. At least a sword could cut off its blaster arm.”
“We don’t know how strong Dalek amor is down here,” Logan pointed out. “You could end up breaking your sword and then where would we be?”
“Better off than we’d be while you assembled a cabinet at them!”
Logan’s foot collided with a metallic something that made an awful CLANG and went skittering across the floor. Roman pulled them up short, his face going pale.
All around them, round blue lights began to flicker on, one by one.
“I kicked the pipe, didn’t I?” Logan said, his heart starting to pound.
“You kicked the pipe,” Roman confirmed in a sick voice.
“EGGS…!” a crackly Dalek voice next to them stuttered, making them jump. “EG-EG-EG-EGGS…!” Its twin lights flashed erratically as it spoke.
“Roman,” Logan started.
“‘Eggs, you may laugh and that’s great…’” Roman sang in a wavering voice. “‘Your smiles are what make my day’…”
The Dalek rolled toward them creakily. “EEEEEGGS!”
Logan’s breathing sped up. Another Dalek rolled in from the other side, causing him to stumble. All around them, mechanical creaks and groans and a chorus of digitized voices rose up…
“EG…EG-EGGS…TERM…”
“Roman, I believe we need to run.” Logan could see the Dalek almost clearly now, its eyestalk glowing, its gunstick rising up.
“…IN…ATE…”
Blurry, flashing lights closed in.
“‘My self-worth’s fragile like an egg,’” Roman sang. The hand gripping Logan’s middle tightened painfully. “‘When it breaks it’s tough to put together again…’”
“EX…TERM…IN…ATE!”
“Roman!” Logan shouted. “Get us out of here!”
“EXTERMINATE!”
A blaster bolt warbled past and exploded over their heads.
Roman shuddered and seemed to snap out of it, seizing Logan’s arm and pulling him so hard he nearly fell. Logan staggered, hanging onto Roman’s hand for dear life as they ran, and ran, and blaster bolts burst at their feet and shattered around them.
“This way, boys and boys,” Remus’s voice sing-singed across the room. Roman yanked them hard in that direction.
“REMUS!” Roman shouted as they ran, and Logan was impressed he had the breath for it. “Remus, you better open that door like you’re supposed to or we are DEAD!”
“Oh, keep your pants on, brother,” Remus snarked, sounding a little closer. “Although maybe Logan would prefer that you didn’t—”
Whatever else he said wasn’t audible over a hanger full of jabbering Daleks and firing blasters.
They reached a wall and Roman shoved Logan down.
“Straight ahead, crawl. Go, go, go!” he said, turning and brandishing his sword.
Bless that Prince and his stupid, stupid bravery.
Logan went, nearly tripping over his coat as he crawled under the barely lifted hatch door. Once he was past the threshold Roman flung himself under and through, knocking into Logan and sending them both sliding across the floor.
There was a hiss and a heavy thud that Logan hoped was the door shutting behind them, and finally, blessed silence. They both leaned against the wall for a moment, catching their breath.
Roman thunked his head back.
“Jesus Christ Superstar,” he muttered.
“Your welcome.”
Remus’s voice crackled through the hallway. Roman growled and sat up straighter, looking around as if his brother would magically appear.
“I did just save your lives,” Remus added. From the direction of the sound, Logan guessed he was talking through a speaker somewhere on the far wall.
“Yeah, and I’m still gonna whip your butt when this is all over,” Roman groused.
“Oooh, do I get to choose the instrument?”
Roman sputtered, but Logan grabbed his arm before he could yell back.
“You know he just likes to get under your skin,” he murmured, and raised his voice. “Thank you for opening the door, Remus. We are grateful for your help.”
There was a silence on the other end, with a quality that Logan would have described as shocked.
“Well. You two lovebirds better move along,” Remus drawled finally, shrill as ever. “Before the Silurian army shows up.”
“Excuse me, the WHAT?” Logan exclaimed.
No answer.
“Remus!” Roman clambered to his feet and helped Logan up.
Nothing.
Except now that Logan was listening for it, he definitely heard approaching footsteps and murmuring, heavily-accented voices. And they were getting closer.
“That dick,” Roman grumbled through gritted teeth.
“To be fair, I think he is trying to help,” Logan pointed out. “In his own way.”
“Don’t be fair to my brother when he’s just led us out of the frying pan and into the fire.”
“We are neither in a pan nor on fire, Roman; I have never understood that saying—”
The lights dimmed and flashed an eerie purple; Roman silenced him with a hand over his mouth. There was a voice…not Remus’s, not alien, not like anything Logan had ever heard. It chanted something, over and over again, before fading out.
The lights flared back to normal.
Logan waited, counting Roman’s shallow breaths against his neck.
Nothing.
“What was that?” he asked softly.
“Beats the hell out of me,” Roman responded. “But I guess that’s our cue to go. Stay close, Mr. Magoo.”
Logan grumbled, but allowed Roman to recapture his hand and lead them in the opposite direction of the approaching footsteps…which had resumed the moment the purple light vanished.
Next time Roman asked him to come on an adventure, he was bringing a spare set of glasses.
#sanders sides#sanders sides fanfiction#ts fanfic#ts fanfiction#doctor who#thomas sanders#canon compliant#action#adventure#romance#roman sanders#logan sanders#deceit sanders#patton sanders#remus sanders#virgil sanders#ts sides#ts roman#ts logan#ts deceit#ts patton#ts remus#ts virgil#logince#moceit#sympathetic deceit#sympathetic remus#bickering#enemies to friends#rivals to lovers
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LIGHTS ON PARK AVE! WE’RE OFFICIALLY A ONE-YEAR-OLD BABY (our birthday was on the 22nd). Join the celebrations by submitting a work! There’s one week left until Round 12 closes on August 31, and you have 80 prompts to choose from. There are no minimum work requirements or limit to how many works you can submit.
Not sure you can finish your work in time? Little messages are great presents too. What has the past year of Lights on Park Ave been like for you? Do you have a favorite prompt or round? A favorite LoPA work? Want to make a rec list of your favorites or wax poetic and show some love for a specific work and/or creator? Go for it. Let the Steve/Tony community know! The LoPA askbox is open or if you want to make your own Tumblr post or tweet, you can mention @lightsonparkave or tag #lightsonparkave. Whatever method you choose, I’ll make sure to share your message/post on here and Twitter.
Or maybe you’re not up to making anything this time. In that case, let’s take a walk down memory lane. Here are all 46 Lights on Park Ave works for previous rounds.
ART
3490 & 616
A comparison between 616 Civil War and universe 3490 where the war was averted by the marriage of Steve Rogers and Natasha Stark - @jarvisuanddumetoo
ANY UNIVERSE
A framed portrait of a smiling Tony, drawn and signed by Steve - @hundredthousands
Steve steals his husband’s helmet and gives his king a springtime crown - @starksnack
AU
Tin soldier Steve and ballerina Tony dancing - @jarvisuanddumetoo
BATTLEWORLD
Steve watching Tony flying in on the battlefield - @thingexplainer
MCU
Old Steve holding flowers and seeing a blue butterfly after Tony’s death - @hundredthousands
So much of life feels like drowning... but when I’m with you my troubles recede like waves on the shore - @jarvisuanddumetoo
Stranger Things AU where Steve is the one who was experimented on in a lab and doesn’t understand pop culture and Tony is the guy with no powers who is still doing his best to fight these weird new aliens - @jarvisuanddumetoo
Steve and a dandelion that represents him weathering all his hardships over the years - @jarvisuanddumetoo
Tony on fire and Steve’s reaction - @jarvisuanddumetoo
Steve crying while holding Tony’s helmet after Tony’s funeral - @noririna
I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. You’re a hero. - @starksnack
ULTIMATES
Steve and Tony leaving marks on each other’s bodies that are only visible in the dark - @sirsapling
Ults Steve and Tony are tragically bound to one another. They can always feel the trace of each others hands, it leaves an invisible mark they will cary with them till there is nothing left. Only a ghost of something lost in the chaos of the past.
FIC
1872
Say My Name - @citsiurtlanu
Steve reminds Tony that there's more to him than the war his weapons were used in.
616
Snow Day - @captainneverever
The Avengers think that Steve and Tony got engaged at the annual holiday party. It’s news to Steve and Tony.
Kiss me rough before you go - erde
Tony is dying. His life is slipping away and Steve wants to be better than this, but he can't quite manage the feat. Tony's war has made a bitter man out of him, a lesser man.
Boys, boys, boys - Missy_dee811 (@viudanegraaa) (AU)
Steve keeps putting off his oil change. Finally deciding to see the mechanic in town.
Without the rusty music of my machine - Missy_dee811 (@viudanegraaa)
Tony was lying on the hood of his car. He had taken off his leather jacket, gently folded it in half, and draped it across the windshield so he could rest his arms on the supple leather.
Muddy Waters - RossKL (@but-damn-is-he-lovable) (also on Tumblr)
Tony bleeds. It's not real.
ANY
(A Dream is) A Wish Your Heart Makes - @helovedyou
Cool evenings together and laughing free and all the nice things Tony never thought he’d get
Afternoon Off - Neverever (@captainneverever)
Freedom is just another word for getting with your boyfriend on the downlow during a mission.
BULLET POINTS
Those We Were (For A While) - sadisticsparkle
The blueprints hadn’t prepared Tony for the light bouncing off the battered metal, for the empty stare of its empty eye sockets or the dim circle in the middle of the chest. He traced its lines with his gaze, remembering every day he had spent hunched over the schematics picking its inner workings and every night he had spent sprawled under its pilot letting him take Tony apart.
MCU
border state - @areiton (also on Tumblr)
They exist in the in between.
star crossed - @areiton (also on Tumblr)
"The gods made the stars,” you whisper, a lifetime ago, a heartbeat ago, now, “and they were so bright, so beautiful and strong, that they ripped them in two. And half of ‘em fell to earth, and woke from the dust and walked as men.”
this is how - @areiton (also on Tumblr)
This is how the world ends:
Gaps in the code.
kiss me hard before you go - duckmoles & starxreactor (AU)
“I love you, you know that?” Tony says just after popping another grape into Steve’s mouth. He watches as Steve’s jaw works, chewing and then swallowing.
Steve smiles up at Tony with a bright, toothy grin. “I love you, too.”
“I’m going to miss you,” Tony continues. “I’m going to call you everyday, okay? And—and, during the holidays I’ll show up at your house and we can—we can—sit together on the balcony, and—”
The last day of summer, and it's time to hold on to what you might lose.
No Winter Lasts Forever - Fluffypanda (@ayapandagirl)
Steve stopped, white breath clouding the air around him, to look at the little shoots of green and purple peeking out from the scant layer of snow left on the ground.
snippet of a post-apocalyptic A/B/O AU WIP - Fluffypanda (@ayapandagirl)
Steve’s fingers traced the bite, a half-moon of red marks, from in front of the largest mirror he’d ever seen.
the first blush of morning - Fluffypanda (@ayapandagirl) (AU)
The sun rises on the Atlantic ocean and Steve isn't alone - or is he?
Santa Paws - @heartsandmuses
[I]f there were two things the public couldn’t get enough of, it was cute puppies and shirtless Captain America — and Tony, ever the philanthropist, decided to give the people exactly what they wanted, right on Christmas morning.
Philautia - @helovedyou
Tony dies and Steve keeps on living. Well. He doesn’t die. Living might be a bit of a generous term
To the Victor - @helovedyou
There are rainbows flying and people hugging and others ranting and raving, spittle flying, he thinks this. We have won this, this tiny victory.
Snippet of a WIP set post-IW - @ishipallthings
The numbers keep climbing, for hours, in the aftermath.
Shuffle Off This Mortal Coil - jellybeanforest (@jellybeanforest-a-go-go) (also a Cap-IM Bingo 2020 round 1 fic)
Tony hadn’t been a cruel man, but he had been a practical one.
Or: In his twilight years, concerned about how his slow-aging possibly-immortal husband will adjust to his death, Tony builds an AI version of himself that he updates nightly, intending for it to keep Steve company after he’s gone. When the inevitable comes to pass, Steve doesn’t know what to make of the AI or whether its presence lessens his grief or makes it significantly worse.
He’s leaning towards the latter.
Five Bells - @lazywriter7 (also on Tumblr)
After returning the Stones, Steve takes a detour through time.
if we’re gonna heal, let it be glorious - @littlemissstark
forgiveness.
The salty air was intense enough to wake Steve up completely, snapping any left over drowsiness away. He was alert despite the sky still being a shade of navy that tapered into a purple at the sea’s horizon. The world was still dormant, but Steve couldn’t stay asleep – not when he woke to coldness on the right side of the bed and empty arms.
In My Hands and Gone Again - @nostalgicatsea (also on Tumblr)
Memories were like fish, Tony had explained, or the tease of one. A flash of silver, and his hands would plunge down. Sometimes he would catch one; other times, it would dart out of reach. He wouldn’t be sure whether it had been real or just a trick of the light, after.
Leaving You Forward - @nostalgicatsea (AU)
It would be easy, staying here like this with Tony. But Steve knew he couldn't—because he had never taken the easy way out and because he loved Tony.
i choose: me, you, us - @onlymorelove (also a Cap-IM Remix Madness 2020 fic)
“We, uh. We’ve been together five years, and you’ve never— I’ve never let you see it. I told you I’d let you see it on our wedding night.”
In which Tony and Steve marry, but Tony hasn't let Steve see the arc reactor—and the scars around it. Yet.
best of summers gone - rosycheeked (@lovelyisthedawn)
Tony's favorite month has always been August.
when we all fall asleep - rosycheeked (@lovelyisthedawn)
Tony wakes up and questions why Steve loves him. It's a surprisingly complex question for such a simple answer.
you anchor me (back down) - rosycheeked (@lovelyisthedawn)
Steve still loves Tony, no matter what mask he’s wearing. He’ll never tell Tony that, though. He’s read enough books and watched enough movies to know that it only ends well when it’s just a story.
Or, everyone needs an anchor sometimes, and Steve and Tony just happen to be each others’.
take me to the feeling - smalltonystark (@theotherwasdeath)
Steve looks gorgeous in the lights. He always looks stunning, but here, late at night, in the faint glow from the streetlamps underneath them and underneath the stars, he looks magnificent.
POETRY
A Toast to Cold, Hard Facts - @onlymorelove (also on Tumblr)
The world is brutal and coarse, but...
Love was fading stars - @onlymorelove (also on AO3)
Blackout poetry based on “Failing and Flying” by Jack Gilbert on top of an original print.
not married - @onlymorelove (also on Tumblr)
Grief works in mysterious ways.
#lightsonparkave#announcement#stevetony#stony#superhusbands#if anything looks wonky or is missing Tumblr has been acting up#every time I fix something it erases something else#so please know that I didn't intentionally leave you off if your work is missing or miscategorize you#if your universe disappears! :(
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I saw a post the other day lamenting that Din probably hasn’t felt the sun on his skin in years, and it reminded me that I never did share a tumblr version of this fic.
So, here's part III of my series On From Here. In which Din moves some rocks, eats some cake, and sits in a sunbeam.
Honest Work
The inn has a mechanical lift. It’s a small square box that lowers on a pulley. A thin cable rises from its roof and disappears into darkness above. Din looks at it skeptically and then takes the stairs. They’re narrow and dark, the treads shallow.
“Leave the key!” the innkeeper calls after him, as he strides across the dimly lit lobby toward the exit.
Making an enemy of his host here is not a good idea.
He pauses to lay the key on the counter. The dull brass shank of it clinks against its worn metal fob. There’s nothing in the room to steal, anyway.
-
The town center consists of a handful of low-slung buildings, all with the same tile roofs. Din pauses at the window of a repair shop. Everything inside looks old, mechanical, un-streamlined. They’d probably know exactly how to fix up the Razor Crest, with its pre-Imperial control system and antique wiring. If there were still a Razor Crest to fix.
Next is a general store, with bolts of fabric, tools, and fresh produce all for sale together. There’s a four-legged riding beast tied outside, a simple saddle on its back. A woman is choosing meemfruit from a bin near the door. She turns to watch him walk by.
There doesn’t seem to be a proper drinking establishment. At the end of the row is a small cafe, with a handful of tables and a bar at the back. Several of the tables are occupied. Some people on their own, some groups of adults, a couple of families. Most have plates of food in front of them. A shelf above the bar holds an assortment of liquor bottles.
This place will have to do.
He orders a glass of whiskey, for the sake of manners, and settles in at the bar to wait. The armor serves as its own advertisement.
"You're not going to find what you’re looking for here."
He turns toward the voice. The words are from a grizzled man seated at a corner table.
Din doesn’t bother answering, just squares his shoulders back toward the bar again. Every place has someone who’s hiding. And someone else who wants them found.
The man has come over to the bar, now, and is sliding onto the stool beside him.
Great.
"This is not that kind of town."
"Every town is that kind of town."
"Not here." The man signals to the waiter, who pours something from a spigot and sets it down. Tiny bubbles break its surface, making a faint sound of static. He takes a drink. "We didn't hold with the Empire. We don't hold with the New Republic. We live and let live, around here."
"Fine." Maybe if Din agrees, this man will go away.
"You try to bring somebody in, the whole town's going to stop you."
"Look," says Din, "I have no quarrel with anyone here. I'm just looking to earn a few credits."
The helmet’s interface lets him know that someone’s taken the barstool on his other side. The screen fills the gaps in his peripheral vision. It’s a woman, long hair in a braid, sleeveless top and arms of solid muscle.
“Not here,” she says.
The other tables are emptying, more townspeople coming to form a semicircle behind him. Even the children are glaring at him.
Damn.
“All right.” He knows better than to move his hands without a warning. “Let me pay for my drink, and I’ll be on my way.” He reaches slowly for the pouch at his waist, keeping his hand well clear of his blaster. “What do I owe you?”
The bartender names a figure. Din doubles it, setting down the small stack of credits before rising to leave.
The bartender tries to give the extra back. “That’s too much.”
“You keep it,” Din says. “Payment for the trouble.”
“Hold on.” It’s the man on the barstool beside him again. “You really just looking for work?”
Din waits, standing there by the bar. The townspeople stay there in their circle, but hands are starting to drift away from holsters. The weapons here seem to be mostly slugthrowers. Mechanical things, not blasters with their circuitry and electrics. Interesting.
“Any kind of work?” the man asks.
There are limits, even for someone like Din. “Honest work.”
The man grins at him, white teeth flashing through his unruly beard. “You look strong enough,” he says. “If it’s not beneath you, in your fancy armor there. I need somebody to move some rocks."
-
The job is not at all what Din had in mind, but it does, indeed, sound like honest work. And he’s not in a place to be picky.
He’s sitting next to the bearded man on a plank across the front of a high-wheeled wooden cart. The cart is pulled by two solid-looking beasts, four-legged and shaggy. Their pace is sedate and steady, the cart rolling easily over grassland. They’re headed toward a row of trees in a valley, between rolling hills.
The trees mark a stream, the man says, and on that stream is an old stone dam that diverts the water. “We’re opening up new farmland. Need to get that water back in its proper course. Get it down to the right place on the land. My regular crew could do it, but it’s heavy work. They’re not itching to volunteer.”
“Why not use an antigrav lifter?” Why pay a man for a whole day’s work, when a simple machine would cut that down to a couple of hours.
“We’re not big believers in tech around here. Parts have to be imported. Electric’s complicated to repair. We don’t care to be dependent on anyone, any more than we have to.”
That explains the shop in town, then, with its antique machinery in the window. And the hotel lift, and the drying jets that don’t work anymore.
“That’s why the slugthrowers?"
-
“You noticed. That’s right.” The man chuckles. “Keeps things calmer, too. If you have to forge a new bullet every time you use one, you’re a little less likely to draw.”
The cart trundles along. The sky overhead is a clear blue, the sun warm. Din nudges up the cooling system in his armor.
They go along a little way among the trees, until they’re beside a narrow stream of clear water. It emerges from a low pile of stones at the edge of a pond.
From his seat on the cart, the man points to a smaller valley that runs off to the right. “The pond drains over that way, now. Pull the dam out, and it’ll run the way it should again.”
Din takes in the clear stream, the small oval pond, the branching valley. “Who’s using that water now?”
“The folks over yonder were a little too friendly with the Empire,” the man says. “Town asked them to leave.”
“Did they leave?”
“I thought you bounty hunters had a rule about asking questions.”
“This isn’t a Guild job,” Din says.
“Suppose not." The man turns to reach toward the back of the cart, and Din tenses. But he’s just picking up a wooden box by its leather handle. He hands it to Din. "Here's lunch. We're not fancy but our crew eats well. Water in the stream's safe to drink. And don’t worry, there’s no one left to come bother you.”
He waits while Din climbs down from the cart. “You could walk out when you’re done, but it's a long way after a day's work. I'll be back to get you at sundown."
Din watches the cart make its sedate way back through the trees, the shaggy beasts pulling at their traces, the man humming off-key as he goes.
He finds a flat rock to put the lunch box on. It contains a dented metal cup, a stack of wrapped sandwiches, some pieces of a fruit he doesn’t recognize, and a generous slice of cake that smells of ginger and dark sugar.
He closes the box back up again and goes over to inspect the dam.
This certainly isn’t his usual kind of work. But a ship needs fuel and a man needs food, and pushing on to the next port with just the credits he has on hand feels reckless. Unwise. Plus, being in debt to Boba Fett is like a deep itch under his skin. It’s not comfortable. He wants it gone.
Din is no engineer, but piloting a ship means he’s used to thinking in three dimensions. He considers the shape of the dam, the way the rocks are stacked atop one another, the chinks where the water flows through. The thing looks like it was hand-built, the stones large enough not to move with the water but small enough to be picked up. The original stream cut a gully into the soil, but it’s shallow, the dam itself only a bit over knee-high.
The forest floor here is carpeted with broad, leathery leaves. Wide-trunked trees are spaced far apart, with little undergrowth between them. Their canopies cast shade across the ground. Here and there, a few sunbeams find their way through.
If he starts at the far side, removing the rocks in vertical columns, the stream should come slowly back to life. His gloves will protect his hands from the roughness of the stone. His boots are already sticking in the mud at the edge of the water. They’re water-resistant, good for a while in a rainstorm, but they’re going to be soaked through by the time he’s done.
At first, muscles complain at being asked to move in ways they’re not used to. This steady pattern of bend, lift, bend is very different from the sudden, sharp quickness of a fight. His daily workouts are rigorous but they’re precise, prescribed patterns. Each of these stones has a different shape, a different weight. Keeping his feet out of the water, keeping his balance on the slight slope makes each one its own physics problem, its own little challenge.
Soon enough, though, he’s settled into the rhythm of it. He remembers to use his legs when lifting, to save strain on his back. He kicks up the cooling system again, as sweat begins to gather under the armor.
The armor’s physiological monitors are simple, but they register heartbeat, breathing, temperature. Normally, he ignores the ping that says it might be time to take a break, to drink some water and catch his breath. Because normally, when that ping goes off, taking a break would either be desperately stupid--in the middle of a firefight?--or stupidly desperate, like during the hours walking the Tatooine desert back to Mos Eisley, carrying the wreckage of a speeder bike, no water at all on board.
This time, he gets the dented cup from the wooden box and carries it over to the stream. It’s already flowing faster, but his work has kicked up sediment. Din goes back to the box, grabs one of the wrapped sandwiches, and sets out to find the pond’s other outlet.
It’s not far. The other stream burbles over a few rocks at the edge of the pond, then curves through another shallow gully and off down a gentle slope and away. One of the great trees rises nearby, a couple of its wide roots undercut by the water.
He’s starting to feel chilled as the cooling system interacts with sweat-dampened clothing, so he switches the cooling circuits off. The helmet’s interface tells him the air outside is still warm.
Din considers, sandwich in one hand, cup in the other. There is a sunbeam crossing over the tree roots, making the water sparkle.
The forest around him is quiet.
Decision made, he dips the cup in the stream, then chooses a spot to sit on one of the wide tree roots, back against the trunk. He balances the cup on the leaf-covered ground, sets the sandwich down beside it. Then he lifts the helmet from his head, setting it in his lap as he rests his head on the tree’s rough bark, eyes closed against the brightness of the sun.
When did he last feel sunlight on his skin? It’s been a while. Before he picked up the child, surely. It hasn’t been safe to let his guard down. How long before that, though? He thinks back, but it’s a blur of work, the halls of the Nevarro covert, the streets of strange towns.
Din knows better than to stay in the sun for long. Skin that’s always covered has no defense against UV rays. After a few minutes he shifts to the shade, sitting crosslegged on the forest floor. The water from the stream is sweet, with a slight mineral taste underneath. The sandwich isn’t bad either, fresh bread dotted with different kinds of grain, slices of some kind of tender meat and crisp green leaves with just a hint of bitter.
He makes his way back around the pond to continue the work. Wiggle each stone free. Lift, carry. He’s building a sort of stone cairn, setting each one down neatly, just because it feels good to see the thing take shape.
His gloves are soaked by now, as he has to reach into the water to get at the lowest rows of stones. The water can’t be good for the circuits in the vambraces so he sheds those, too, setting them down on the flat rock beside the wooden lunch box, where his helmet already sits.
He could keep the cooling system running, but it’s not designed for this kind of exertion. The constant movement will keep the power cell charged, but he’s sweating in spite of it, and the chill from the beskar is a distraction instead of a comfort.
He’s already vulnerable without the helmet and the vambraces. He lays out cuirass, pauldrons, hip and thigh plates on that flat stone. His hand pauses on the blaster, but if it’s waterlogged it’s not going to work at all.
He looks down at the thick fabric of the flightsuit, already wet at wrists and ankles. He's got another layer underneath it. May as well leave that too.
He makes a detour through another sunbeam on the way back to the dam.
Without the armor to filter the outside world, he’s aware of the warmth of the sun on his back. Of the change in temperature between sun and shadow.
Without the helmet’s interface, he marks time by how the patches of sun creep slowly across the forest floor.
When a rush of water takes him by surprise, soaking him from elbow to wrist and chest to hip, he sheds his shirt, laying it out on the stone cairn to dry.
The air is still warm. The water that splashes his wrists is cool. He pauses again for food, then sets back to work. At one point he cups his hands in the running stream and drinks, then runs wet hands through his sweat-soaked hair.
Clearing the last few stones means sinking his hands into mud to wrest them free. When he’s carried them over and set them atop the neat pile, he looks down and finds he’s covered in mud from chest to waistband.
His employer said he’d be back at sunset. Din looks up, judging the height of the sun in the sky. Late afternoon, he guesses, edging into evening. It’s unpleasant fitting the helmet back on over wet hair, his face still damp with sweat, but he does it. The chrono built into the interface tells him there’s a good two hours until sundown.
He turns a slow circle, heat and motion sensors overlaying his vision, sound turned up high. There’s birdsong high above him, but otherwise the forest is still.
He fetches his shirt, piles the armor and flightsuit into his arms and carries it all to the edge of the pond. Then, thinking what the hell, he shucks boots, socks, and leggings and wades on in.
Din doesn’t know how to swim. It’s not a skill he normally needs in his work. It’s not a skill he particularly needs now, either. But the mud is pleasantly soft against his feet, the water soothing to tired muscles. He ducks his head under, scrubs at the dirt on his chest, rinses away sweat.
For the second time today, he uses his shirt to dry off. The approach of evening is bringing a slight chill to the air, so he pulls his other clothes back on, fastening the flightsuit over his bare chest this time before setting the pieces of his armor in place.
Back at the flat stone he considers another sandwich, decides on the cake instead, and then sits there a while, licking sugar from his fingers and watching the stream at its full strength now as it sparkles its way down the valley.
True to his word, the man is back with the wagon just as the sunbeams finish fading. He takes note of the neat cairn, and of the unfettered stream. “I wasn’t sure you’d really do it,” he says. “Guy like you. Work like this.”
Din just looks at him, impassive behind the helmet. He’s pretty much done with dignity these days, but this man doesn’t need to know it.
“Well,” the man says. “We’re clearing more land tomorrow. If you want another day’s work.”
“I’ll take my pay for this one.”
“Of course.” He counts out the amount they agreed on and drops it into Din’s hand. “I mean it. We can always use a strong set of hands.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Where are you staying?”
Din names the inn.
The man nods. “I’ll drop you there?”
“That would be fine.”
-
The first stars are out by the time Din steps down from the wagon, credits in his pocket and the last two sandwiches in his hand. He picks up the key from the innkeeper, climbs the narrow stairs, locks the door of the room behind him. He hangs his wet shirt in the shower room, lays out his wet gloves and socks to dry, strips off the armor and sets it carefully on the floor. His skin smells faintly of mud and minerals, but he can’t be bothered to shower. He sits by the window to eat, watching more stars emerge from the clear, dark sky.
The money in his pocket won’t buy much. It’s a little more fuel, another day or two of getting by.
He’ll leave in the morning. Probably.
He still has no idea where to go.
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** Writing Challenge **
I know, I know, my next one isn’t quite wrapped up yet, buttttt this idea came to me when my cousin and I were taking a walk down a ridiculous part of Memory Lane and I got excited. I’m guessing this has been done before at some point -- that’s not stopping me from presenting to you:
I love fluff. And I wanna see more of it!
Below the cut you will find some prompts that, in the context of Twilight, are absolutely cringe-worthy. My challenge to you is to take that prompt and make it something we can love.
Disclaimer: I’m not Twilight-shaming ANYONE. I literally sat and watched all of Eclipse and now want to watch both Breaking Dawns. It’s more about sentiment, and the occasional girly giggle for me, but ... yeah. No judgement here, friends.
Guidelines, prompts, and tags are below the cut! (Yes, I copied and tweaked from my last writing challenge. I’m being efficient, thank you! :P )
Please read all of the information carefully!
Rules, Guidelines, Important Dates:
Sign-Ups start when this post is live and will go through to December 30, 2020. I will accept two people for each prompt, one prompt per author.
Please send your sign-ups to my ask box so they’re easier to keep track of. I will answer them privately so I’m not flooding anyone’s dash!
In your ask, please include your preferred prompt and a backup option, as well as your pairing (so I don’t take the same pairing for the same prompt). Also, please let me know if you’ll be posting from a URL other than one you’re asking from.
To be included in the challenge masterlist, please post your fic (or the first part, if it’s a series) by Decemeber 31, 2020.
Please include an author’s note tagging me and mentioning the challenge in your fic post; include #BetterThanTwilightWC in the first five tags. If the tag doesn’t work, you may DM the link to me, also. If you decide to write a series, please tag me in the masterlist.
Please give me up to 48 hours to read your fic before checking if I have seen it. If I have not liked it after 48 hours, please DO check. (You know, since we’re all aware of how unreliable tumblr is. And how unreliable my mind can be. Yikes.)
The challenge masterlist will be posted between January 1 and January 4, 2020.
There are no word count limits, but please use the Keep Reading feature if your story goes beyond 500 words. Additionally, if your fic goes beyond 5000 words, please consider splitting it into multiple parts. This is not a requirement, only something to think about.
Yes, this is a FLUFF challenge, so you MUST have fluff as your main genre. You’re more than welcome to include other genres, but you MUST have a happy and/or hopeful ending.
You’re welcome to think outside of the box! Just because I’m talking Twilight and love stories, doesn’t mean there has to be romance! Give me amazing friendships or strong family bonds or self-love. Or romance! Whatever you’d like.
You're welcome to change pronouns in the prompt as necessary! Heck, I tweaked a few of ‘em so they’re not Twilight-specific.
For personal reasons, I do not read and will not accept into the challenge (which means I will not reblog or add to the masterlist) stories that include: non-con/dub-con, underage sex, adult-child romantic/sexual relationships, spouse-bashing, child abuse – I could go on, but I think you get the idea. If you’re not sure about something, I’m always happy to answer questions!
Bring on the ships, OC’s, reader pairings – I’m trying to be more open-minded as of late, but I can’t promise that I will read everything. Again, for personal reasons. But I will reblog everything!
Characters and RPFs from Marvel/MCU are both welcome.
If you need an extension or need to drop out, please know that I am extremely flexible when it comes to that deadline/due date. In the words of Captain Barbosa, “It’s really more of a guideline.” Just shoot me an ask or a message and we’ll work something out, no worries!
Prompts:
1. “I have always loved you, and I will always love you.”
2. “The clouds I can handle. But I can’t fight with an eclipse.”
3. “I know what you are.”
4. “You held out your hand and I took it without stopping to make sense of what I was doing.”
5. “You have a connection with her that I’ll never understand.”
6. “I’m glad she has you.”
7. “It will be like I never existed. I promise.”
8. “I knew who I wanted to be. I wanted to help people. Brings me happiness.”
9. “That will take a while to get used to.” “We have a while.”
10. “What if I’m not the hero? What if I’m the bad guy?”
11. “I’d rather hear your theories.”
12. (sarcastically) “Super. That makes me really happy.”
13. “You’re like my own personal brand of heroin.”
14. “Maybe I shouldn’t be dating such an old man. It’s gross. I should be thoroughly repulsed.”
15. “It’s an extraordinary thing to meet someone who you can bare your soul to and they’ll accept you for what you are.”
16. “I’ve been waiting for what seems like a very long time to get beyond what I am.”
17. “I feel like I can finally begin.”
18. “He’s totally gorgeous, obviously. But apparently nobody here is good enough for him.”
19. “He did say I couldn’t step inside the door. I came in through the window.”
20. “I know things. Like how to hunt somebody to the ends of the earth. And I know how to use a gun.”
21. “Now I’m afraid.” “Good.”
22. “I’m not afraid of you. I’m only afraid of losing you.”
23. “About three things I was absolutely positive ...”
24. “You’re so stubborn.”
25. “Do you know how worried I’ve been?”
26. “I can’t even think about someone hurting you.”
27. “The only thing that can hurt me is you, and I don’t have anything else to be afraid of.”
28. “Don’t antagonize her. She’s the strongest one in the house.”
29. “All right. That’s enough experimenting for one day.”
30. “It never made sense for you to love me.”
31. “I wish there had been someone to vote no for me.”
32. “It’s just a little baby.”
33. “How strongly are you opposed to grand theft auto?”
34. “I’m not missing another fight!”
35. “No one can hide like me.”
36. “If I asked you to stay in the car, would you?”
37. “I have one condition, if you want me to do it myself.”
38. “I had an adrenaline rush. It’s very common. You can Google it.”
39. “How did you get in here?” “The window.”
40. “I love a happy ending. They are so rare.”
41. “You should put your seatbelt on.”
42. “Can you talk about something else? Distract me so I won’t turn around.”
43. “I can’t live in a world where you don’t exist.”
44. “After all the thousand times I’ve told you I love you, how could you let one word break your faith in me?”
45. “Maybe that’s why they kicked me out.”
46. “All of my best nights have happened since I met you.”
47. “You know everybody’s staring?” “Not that guy ... no, he just looked.”
48. “She wishes she was that awesome.”
49. “Does he visit often?” “Yeah, all the time.”
50. “Lie ... Lie better.”
51. “I’m Switzerland.”
52. “That should have been our first kiss.”
53. “Would you like to hear my story? It doesn’t have a happy ending -- but which of ours does?”
54. “Another party?” “It’ll be fun.” “Yeah. That’s what you said last time.”
55. “You are the only one who has ever touched my heart. I will always be yours.”
56. “The way he watches you. It’s like he’s willing to leap in front of you and take a bullet or something.”
57. “Kill me! Not him!”
58. “Stay.” “Give me one good reason.”
59. “Yeah, it’s and off day when I don’t get somebody telling me how edible I smell.”
60. “Damn it! You’ll be the death of me, I swear you will.”
61. “If I could dream at all, it would be about you. And I’m not afraid of it.”
62. “Do I dazzle you?”
63. “I’m tired of trying to stay away from you.”
64. “Bring on the shackles, I’m your prisoner.”
65. “You are my life now.”
66. “And then we continued blissfully into this small, perfect piece of our forever.”
67. “Nobody’s ever loved someone as much as I love you.”
68. “I don’t know what happened.” “You love him.”
69. “All of sudden it’s not gravity holding you to the planet, it’s her. Nothing else matters. You would do anything, be anything for her.”
70. “You really love her?”
71. “I don’t see the whole point of the rest of the world without her.”
72. “Then I found a promising site ... I waited impatiently for it to load, quickly clicked closed each ad that flashed across the screen. Finally, the screen finished -- simple, white background with black text; academic-looking. Two quotes greeted me on the homepage:”
73. “I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.”
74. “I’ll be fighting for her, too, and I’ll be fighting twice as hard as you will.”
75. “It’s always been him.”
76. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for you.”
77. “They’re coming for her.” “They’re not gonna touch her.”
78. “Doesn’t he own a shirt?”
79. “You know, if it weren’t for the fact that we’re enemies and that you’re also trying to steal away the reason for my existence, I might actually like you.”
80. “You have disappeared. Like everything else.”
81. “The absence of him is everywhere I look.”
82. “I don’t have the strength to stay away from you anymore.”
83. “Your number was up the first time I met you.”
84. “We all like to drive fast.”
85. “It’s too easy to be myself with you.”
86. “I’ve never given much thought to how I’d die, but dying in the place of someone I love seems like a good way to go.”
87. “Don’t tempt me too far. My patience isn’t that perfect.”
88. “His tone questions my sanity, but it only made me more suspicious. It was like a perfect delivered line by a skilled actor.”
89. “What’s he mad about?”
90. “No measure of time with you will ever be enough.”
91. “I promise to love you forever, every single day of forever.”
92. “We’re gonna be great friends!”
93. “If I had my way, I would spend the majority of my time kissing him.”
94. “Until your heart stops beating.”
95. “I touched the cool miracle of his ski, and I was home.”
96. “Forbidden to remember, terrified to forget; it was a hard line to walk.”
97. “This isn’t the time to make hard and fast decisions. This is the time to make mistakes.”
98. “Leave it to you ... you have to start hanging out with the first weirdos you can find.”
99. “I love him much more than I should, and yet still nowhere near enough.”
100. “I refuse to be affected by territorial disputes.”
Tags for possible interest/signal boosting (if you’re so inclined):
@captain-s-rogers @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @hurricanerin @horsesandbandsforlife @im-not-an-armrest-im-short @captain-rogers-beard @shynara51 @sea040561 @pinknerdpanda @xtina2191 @jackryanplz @beakami @heartsaved @fullprunerebelstatesman @blackwidowismyhomegirl @the-murder-strut-murdered-me @shield-agent78 @jennmurawski13 @okay-maybe-i-like-marvel-too
#betterthantwilightwc#twilight writing challenge#prompt list#queue and i remember budapest very differently
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Hi Vespertine. Sorry to add to the pile, I promise I will send in some writing related things to compensate later. I also misgendered that user in a comment by accident with she/her. I blocked them, but they still looked at my blog, and they made a post that said by using the wrong pronouns, which they thought was intentional and meant to hurt them, I purposefully called them a hysterical woman stereotype. Obviously that wasn't true. I was just going off a comment someone else made on my blog where they used she/her, and I thought I had to correct myself. It was a case where good intentions, even if I was not happy with the user's behavior or expected to talk to them again, I was still going to use the right pronouns, but my intentions were warped by someone with an agenda. I'm sorry to hear you're getting the same heat. I didn't use my rp blog to interact with the user or talk about them because I was sure something like this would happen, either by them or other people like that callout blog, and I think other people had the same idea. I dodged a bullet there, but I'm still paranoid. I'm paranoid I'll hear a notif and see my rp blog in a callout for this, because someone hunted it down, or a callout for trying to talk to the person who started all the drama. Nobody should be scared to talk about someone on their own blog. Nobody should be scared to talk openly, in general. Nobody should be called out for trying to talk with someone either. This culture of fear is so disturbing to me.
Hey there, Anon!
Oh, I would love that, but you totally don't have to, of course. Don't feel bad for adding on, I'm here for anything at all, and honestly, with the job I'm doing IRL right now, it's really hard for me to concentrate well enough on finishing any of the advice posts (at least, to be the quality y'all deserve). It's a hot topic, it's included so, so, terribly many people in the RPC. It's also one that's generating some great, needed conversations. So, it isn't like you're adding to anything bad, annoying or distracting me, or contributing to the inflammatory side of this.
Hell, it's got to be really nice for some of the people in messages I've received to see proof that they weren't alone in this experience. I can keep publishing the hate anons for exactly that reason, and I can promise people they aren't the only ones (in this or in any such horrible behavior), but it's different to see it coming from a third party! So, thank you for that.
Though, I am deeply sorry that you were treated to more than a ringside seat in this debacle.
It's not very encouraging to be thoughtful and respectful of other people when literally nothing you can say or do will result in anything other than more twisting of your words, and that's a big problem I have with this shit. Things like actual transphobia, intentional misgendering, actual infantalization and shit treatment of ND people, actual harassment, etc. etc. etc. matter. It's just more trivializing of real problems for the sake of blowing nonexistent bullshit up, and that is immensely disgusting to me. The fact that you damn well know someone out there has had the reaction to this behavior of, well, fuck you then, fuck trans people is really upsetting.
Like, yeah, let's be real, if you require social rewards to do the right thing, you have some problems lol but at the same time, you know who does require social rewards to develop themselves? Young people. And the RPC is largely comprised of people in their early twenties who, for a variety of possible reasons, are still at that point
Furthermore, no, it's not anyone's job to be good representation at all times, especially when that performance comes at a cost to themselves, but maybe don't go out of your way to be the person that is the necessary push in the wrong direction of someone's formative experience with people of your community. If it's costing you nothing to not clown on serious issues, but is costing the entire world another bigot for you to clown on serious issues, the choice should be a bit obvious here. Whenever you're in a safe place - physically, emotionally - and capable of that kind of logic, exercise it, damn.
It's definitely a better course of action than playing out skewed activism by vilifying innocent people, more worthy of one's effort than losing their collective shit over a very easy mistake. One that I'd say was even less avoidable in your case. AGAIN, how, exactly is anyone supposed to know this shit when they're blocked? When they aren't subverting the blocks they, themselves, put in place? I know for a fact none of them are looking at the information of the people they choose to try to drive out of the RPC, but everyone else is supposed to make zero reasonable assumptions, check and recheck blogs they have made an effort not to visit for good reason. Sounds absolutely reasonable and sane!
So, you know what? I'm going to be even more offensive here and talk for a moment about why these mistakes are reasonable.
When we see a post and reblog it, it's not unreasonable to assume that the OP had knowledge we didn't. Since we blocked the offending party, but they're discussing them. OP uses the incorrect pronouns, we end using the incorrect pronouns as well. This is not malicious intent. It isn't intentional at all, it's just having a discussion. A discussion that wouldn't have even transpired if they hadn't taken it upon themselves to (what a coincidence) take personal issue with a RPer they repeatedly took out of context and decided to shame for it, before proceeding to get an even bigger stick and pot.
When we decide to block a blog, it's our responsibility to stay off of it. Not go looking at it for any reason. That is now off-limits. When someone blocks us, it's also our responsibility to respect that decision, no matter how outrageous it was, no matter what we might need to verify. That's the issue with blocking when we don't exploit how easy it is to get around blocking on tumblr; we've cut ourselves off from any further meaningful communication, including passive communication like rules and posts. Kind of like how you cannot expect an apology to mean a damn thing when you've blocked everyone you harassed, then made that apology in a post on your blocked blog. Don't put up walls you expect people to see through, then get upset when they can't see through them.
As a community, the RPC is primarily afab. That's never a problem to bring up when someone wants to be angry about their female muse not getting equal attention and so on, but it's a problem to discuss any other time, about any other problem. Dealing with the things that we're socially raised to ascribe to as afab people is that problem. It's reflected in our behaviors, interests, and speech. We may not want to live in a gendered world, we may eschew that, but we were raised in a gendered world and it shows. One which has a lot of complications for being that, like almost everyone feeling safer around afab people by default of the All Men Are Bad, All Women Are Harmless bullshit.
We not only know that the RPC is primarily afab, we tend to assume comfort, especially in hostile situations, by assuming those pronouns in others.
And it so does not matter how much any of us like it, some people have more masculine or feminine tones. Even in text. That means neither that someone's gender identity should be disregarded nor that this text-based presentation is correct, but like every other unfair thing that exists, it's a thing. Like you, Anon, you genuinely come across in tone as primarily neutral, slight lean toward masculine. Even if I wasn't inclined to do so, not knowing you and all, I'd use they/them for you instinctively because that's what your speech is giving me. That isn't any more unreasonable than ascribing another set of pronouns based on the same information.
Oh yeah, I know, lurkers, the difference is that they/them is the appropriate choice when one does not know. I know that logically, but people aren't always operating like robots, weirdly enough. We default to a lot of instinctive behaviors, and we aren't always operating at the top rung of cognition either. Being human works like that, it's really that simple and not malicious if you're not reading that into it.
As we're all aware, it is being read into, and your experience is exactly why; you now feel worried every time you get a notif, you've been outed as a supposed transphobe, and while it is incredibly fortunate you stopped this from transpiring on your RP blog, it still transpired somewhere and has had a negative effect. If they find they correct thing or set of things, they can get so many more people to dogpile you over it. Get enough people to do that, make someone miserable enough, especially people who are already going through a hard enough time already, they'll leave.
It is a terroristic act, and it has the effect of all terroristic acts; people are afraid to exist outside of shifting bounds (that shifting is a part of the terrorism). They can't have an opinion, write any muse/topic they wish, be honest on their own blogs, support the "wrong" topics, muns, or blogs. Attacking people for a mistake, not allowing them to address it either, just furthers all of that. It's showing the community what happens when you aren't on the "right" side, even if that isn't even the case. They certainly turn on their own quickly enough.
So, of course, it's a culture of fear and it is disturbing as hell. No one has any right to make someone feel unsafe over fiction or a hobby or a difference of opinion. Everyone has the right to say whatever they want on their own blogs, to talk openly, and yes, to try to talk to others without feeling at risk.
Even if what someone says is genuinely unpleasant. This isn't the way one handles it. By all means, have a problem with something, have a problem with someone, but grow up and talk to them openly, without bringing everyone you can dredge up to join in. I have no issue with people arguing, I have an issue with bullying. If it's your whole goal to harass people without consequences to the end result of deactivation and lockstep behavior from everyone else, that's what you're doing, folks. Bullying.
If you can't win an argument, especially one your own ass began, in any other way than this, you're not engaging in an argument.
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WELCOME BACK ONE AND ALL!
Welcome back to MY take on Toppat!Charles, the series that gives you... angst and cliffhangers in every chapter, just like Game of Thrones😅.
In case you haven't read them yet here are links to the first three parts, which I recommend you read because the brief recaps don't do them justice.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
BRIEF RECAP AND HEADCANON TO FOLLOW FOR THE POST TIME!
After his attack on Burt, Charles has caved and is now open to what Right has to say and vice versa. Henry and Gerneral Galeforce, more Galeforce, have been contacted by the Center for Chaos Containment and offered their men for one Henry Stickmin. Ellie has been good emotional support, but Henry goes against Galeforce and Ellie in order to save his friend.
Got that? Great!👍
So what's the headcanon this week? Well, @triple-threat-toppats and @azuri-the-imperfect-artist have AU's/headcanons that Toppat-ing is in Henry's blood, whether that be biological or otherwise, and we'll be meeting a new character this chapter who ties this all together perfectly😈.
We all good? FANTASTIC!
LET'S DIVE IN!!
We pick up where we left off with Henry outside as a receptionist, of sorts, freaks out that he called, telling everyone on the floor and shouting for an official to take the call.
Through this entire exchange, Henry rolls his eyes at how much of a fan boy the receptionist is, groans that no one can find an official at two' in the moring, and eventually takes a seat and listens as a few mid-ranking officials argue about who gets to talk to him; 10.6 anomaly, he's a pretty big deal to them.
They all fall silent when a man shouts, "Hand 'im over to me."
Henry should be scared, but he's glad that FINALLY someone is on the other end to talk to.
"Mr. Stickmin," says the official. "Nice of you to call."
"Who am I speaking with right now?" Henry asks as he stands up, not at all interested in playing games. (The irony that hit me after I typed that🤦♀️😂😂)
The official scoffs, "Not one for banter. I respect that. Son, name's Corporal Bill Bullet, leading official of the Center for Chaos Containment. How can we help you at this hour?"
Henry paces as he continues talking. "You talked to General Rupert Galeforce, right?"
"We did, actually. About you, but you probably already guessed that."
Henry looks back at the toppat orbital station, staring at it as he stays silent. Again, he is not in the mood for games.
Bullet sighs on the other end of the phone. "Guess you calling means you've made you're choice?"
Henry is quiet for a second and swallows a lump in his throat. "What happens if I agree to the terms?"
"Take a guess, kid."
Henry sees flashes of his life if he is in the CCC's custody and groans at the migraine said flashes give him.
"You're quite the interesting person, Henry. Robbing a bank with a bag, breaking out of prison by dogding and throwing bullets before stealinga police car, stealing a diamond by pushing yourself off a bridge, taking down the toppats, and escaping a maximum security complex with barely even a scratch."
Henry bites his tongue as he remembers those moments and their alternative paths INCLUDING the fails.
"But you didn't just get a few scratches, you did? 10.6 is a pretty high rating on our meter. Can't imagine what would happen to a person who causes as much chaos as you."
Henry shakes his head and snaps, "Just tell me!"
Bullet is silent once more, disappointed at how he can't at least tease what is essentially a rabbit walking right into an easily seen trap.
"We'll study the source of your... ability. How one person can live one life before jumping to the next, but existing like he did before that life ended.
"You may be a young man, Henry, but you've probably lived longer and died more than the rest of us put together. Why is that? How, excatly?"
Despite the knot forming in his stomach, Henry nods and hums to let Bullet know he's listening.
"There's also a certain balance to the world, one that shouldn't be bothered, 'less we want to cause A LOT of collateral damage. Lead to a lot of people getting hurt, cause a lot of casualties. You already lost one person you care about. What if you lost all of them?"
Henry gulps as he remembers the complex riot and how a robot was sent to tear down the museum he stole the Tunisian Diamond from.
Any of those people could've easily been Ellie or the General or, if he'd gone down the Toppat route, the entire clan.
Bullet may be manipulating emotionally, but he kind of has a point.
The chaos Henry causes is extremely dangerous, if what we've seen in StD, ItA, FtC, and CtM are any examples. Imagine if he had caused that sort of chaos in a major city, like real world New York or Detroit.
I don't know about you guys, but if something like any of the games happened IRL, all caused by Henry, there would easily be cities flattened to the ground with COUNTLESS fatalities.
"Helloooo? You still with me, Mr. Stickmin?"
Henry snaps out of his stupor and takes a deep breath before talking again. "Promise me you'll help. I want your honest word."
"Which I'll stay good on as long ad you keep your end of the bargain," Bullet retorts. "A quarter of our forces at your disposal to help you get your friend back as long as you turn yourself in to our facility. Deal?"
Henry is silent again, but when he speaks again, he tries something:
"Will I still talk to anyone outside? Send them any letters?"
"Not really. Think the government would handle our research well? Or what you can do?
"Last chance, deal or no deal?"
Henry stares up at the sky, counting the stars and moon, and then watches orbital station drift across the sky, covering part of the moon.
"Sir, we have a situation!" Someone yells on the other end.
Bullet does one if those angry growls or snarls. "Don't keep me waiting on your answer, Henry. Our resources are limited, too. Make your decision and call me back the second you do."
"Sir-"
"I'M COMING!"
The call ends and Henry lets out a sigh as he drops to his knees and then hugging them to his chest, shaking and now doubting whether or not he's making the right choice.
Unbeknownst to him, however, Ellie had followed him when he walked out and is struggling very badly with hiding her tears and sobbing from Henry, who is over a few feet away.
JUMP TO SOME FAN SERVICE!!😍🤩
Er, Charles. Jump to Charles. I SAID CHARLES!!!!!
Charles is mostly done showering, mostly because he's done washing and cleaning himself up, even shaving because he looks better without facial hair, and is now simply standing in the shower and letting the water fall on him.
He can't exactly remember how long it's been since he showered last, but he doesn't bother trying to because it only makes him think about how the government destroyers were blown up and anyone who managed to get on the station was killed as a message to the government and Henry and Ellie, and as an example for Charles, in case he gets any ideas.
He keeps thinking about how Henry looked at him before he went unconscious, how Henry did nothing to help him even though HE could've done something. He had before on missions, so what had stopped him then and there?
"I was wondering the same thing," Right says, though Charles doesn't hear him over the water running.
Charles gasps as he slips to the ground and realizes how he's thinking about his friend, forgetting Right was standing on the other side of the wall and curtain to keep an eye on him, just in case.
"N-no," Charles says to who he thinks is himself. "He... He wouldn't just leave me. None of them would."
Right rolls his eyes at this and steps closer to where he's in front of the curtain, though he does grab a towel. "You know, you talk to yourself a lot. 'S kind of freaky."
Charles curls into himself and into the corner of the shower and covers his ears. "Shut up! Just shut up and leave me alone!"
"How long have you been here?" Right asks as he looks up at the ceiling. "And why isn't Henry here to get you out? Aren't you two supposed to be friends?"
"Stop it!" Charles cries, curling into himself further.
Right smirks and decides to twirs the knife. "He helped that Ellie girl, didn't he? When she needed his help? I wonder if what they say is true? Birds of a feather flock together? They're both criminals, so I wouldn't really blame them for teaming up."
"SHUT YOUR STUPID MOUTH!" Charles screams. "YOU'RE WRONG! ALL OF YOU ARE WRONG! HE'S COMING TO SAVE ME, THEY ALL ARE!"
Right's smirk drops and he raises and eyebrow before drawing back the curtain.
Charles flinches back, covering his head and waiting for the strike.
But it never comes.
He looks up at Right, who's standing and giving him a look that says very clearly, 'I'm getting sick of your shit, stop.'
The two stare at each other for a bit, Charles wide eyed and scared before glaring as hard as he can.
Right keeps his bored expression because while he's probably in the best shape he's been in in a WHILE, Charles has lost at least twenty-five pounds and is cowering in the corner of a shower with long hair and clean shaven face; one lesson they teach you: you don't always need a mirror to shave your face.
The two continue their staring contest until Right slings the towel over his shoulder, takes off his top hat, and reaches into the shower with his cybernetic hand and turns off the water, flicking any off his fingers before stepping back and putting his top hat back on, Charles staring the whole time in case Right attacks him.
Right doesn't, of course, and tosses Charles the towel before pointing to a set of clothes hanging behind him and , just something neat but comfortable, not exactly a sweater and sweat pants, but close enough.
He then walks away until he's facing the door, his back to Charles.
"Hurry up and get dressed. Your room's ready."
Charles dries off and does get dressed, but he's careful to not take his eyes off Right.
First this guy got Charles captured and isolated him from everyone else, and now he's letting Charles shower and have his own room?
What's he up to?
Don't worry, he doesn't talk to himself this time.
Charles finishes putting on the clothes Right gave him, and looks at the towel he'd just hung on the hanger that held his clothes. Then he looks at Right, who's back is still turned.
You know EXACTLY where this is going.
Charles takes down the towel, careful that it doesn't hit the wall, and starts twisting it up as he sneaks up to Right, who either looks down at a wrist watch or checks a pocket watch because now he's getting a little bored.
Just as Charles is about to get the jump on him, Right pivots to face him.
"Good. You're done. It took you long enough."
Charles is absolutely speechless as he goes completely pale his face drops.
"Here, let me take that for you." Right pulls the towel out of Charles's hands and unwinds it. "Shouldn't do this to a wet towel. Could get moldy."
Right nods his head as a 'follow me' and leaves the showers.
Charles remains shell shocked for a minute and tries not to burst into tears at how his plan blew up his his face, but ultimately walks after Right, who strides ahead with a smile on his face.
Think Henry got away with that call? Weeeeeeeelll...
CUT TO THE GOVERNMENT
Galeforce SLAMS his hands on his desk, making Henry jump slightly in his chair and Ellie flinch against the wall, her arms crossed and shoulders hunched.
"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND!? ACCEPTING THE DEAL MADE BY THOSE NUTJOBS!? WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?"
Henry's sign is sloppy and fast, but the general still understands it. 'Wanted Charles safe.'
"So do we, Henry, but not by selling one of our best!"
Henry shakes his head and signs again, this time more clearly. 'You can't make me change my mind.'
Ellie speaks up after being silent for so long: "Henry, think about what you're doing."
'Already did. Made up my mind.'
"Son, it's not worth it."
Those words hit Henry harder than they should, making him grit his teeth.
"Trust me. Those CCC guys are nothing but trouble. We can't accept their help."
Henry shoots up to his feet. "I DON'T CARE!" He screams. "CHARLES IS TRAPPED IN SPACE WITH NO ONE TO HELP HIM AND IT'S MY FAULT HE'S UP THERE TO BEGIN WITH, SO LET ME FIX THIS!"
No one talks as Henry pants, falling back into his chair and holdong his head in his hands, pulling slightly at his hair and shaking.
"It's all I can think of doing. It's our only option. I can't think of anything else."
Ellie and Galeforce exchange glances before turning back to Henry, who leans heavily on one hand or arm as he meets their gaze.
"You're sure you know what you're doing?"
Henry looks at them both for a moment while not speaking before nodding slowly. 'I can't think of anything else. The corporal hung up before I could say yes. Someone talked about a 'situation.''
Ellie and Henry stare at each other, the former more puffy eyed than she was last night because this could very well be the last time she sees her friend.
She doesn't want him to leave, but if it's really his choice, who is she to not support him after all he did to help her?
"When do you-"
'I'm going in to visit later. Called back and told them I'd gove my answer AFTER I talked to someone.'
Both look at him incredulously.
"Talk to who?" Galeforce asks as he turns his head to look at Henry through the corner of his eye.
Henry takes in a deep breath through his nose and holds either of his hands at the top of his head, raising them up and down, gesturing a top hat to them.
BACK TO CHARLES
Right leads Charles to the room and watches him walk inside and look around, almost confused because it's been so so long since he'd last been in a normal bedroom. And because there's a chance this could all be a trick.
"Been a while since you had a decent room. Prob'ly nicer than what you're used to."
Charles takes a seat on the bed and keeps his head down, confused and tired of Right's games.
"You don't really believe Henry's gonna save you, do you? It's been a while since the last destroyer was sent and the government has more pilots. You military people are pretty easy to replace. You are just a pilot, after all."
Charles keeps his head down and lets his hair hang; it's obviously grown longer and Right gave him a razor but no scissors.
"Why are you doing this?" Charles asks. "What do you want from me?"
Right fights a smile and approaches Charles, taking a knee infront of him and waiting for the pilot to acknowledge him, which Charles does by picking up his head and meeting his eyes.
BACK TO THE CCC HEADQUARTERS!!!!!
Henry is being led by four guards and Bill Bullet. He hasn't gotten a lot of sleep, but he's good at not showing it.
"Weird request to visit someone before you make your decision. Usually we don't allow visitors." Bullet turns and sees Henry keeping up behind him, zoning out slightly but snapping out of it when he sees him looking. "You're not as talkative as you were on the phone the other night."
'Only way to contact you,' Henry signs.
Bullet smirks a little bit. "You deaf in one of your ears?"
'If I need to, I'll talk. Otherwise, I'll sign. Now where is he?'
Bullet sighs stops at an acrylic wall, seeing a doctor talking to a man.
Henry bristles slightly before calming himself back down.
"Guessing you two haven't talked in a while. I love reunions."
Henry narrows his eyes at Bill and gestures to the room. 'Private?'
"Enough. Don't worry, we won't listen in." Bill then grabs Henry by his jacket lapel and shoves him against the wall, catching the attention of doctor and occupant. "But I'm warning you right now," Bill growls as he leans close to Henry's face. "Try anything funny while you're in there, and I'll make you regret ever being born."
Henry nods and Bullet backs off him, letting him collect himself as the doctor walks out.
"Sir? He's done with his tests. His vitals and mental state are stable. He's also ready to see his visitor."
Bullet sweeps a gesture to the door. "He's all yours, Mr. Stickmin."
Henry nods and enters the room, his eyes on its occupant.
The two stare at each other for a bit, taking in each other's features.
"Hello, Henry."
The man in this room used to be moderately fit, and a REAL charmer, but years spent in the CCC's facility have taken their toll. He's gotten skinnier, his face is wrinkled and sunken in, and his hair, while it's slightly longer than Henry's, is greying and becoming thin. He doesn't look terrible by any means, but he has definitely seen better days.
He has cybernetics for both his arms and one leg, along his spine, neck to tailbone, and in part of his jaw. Where his left eye used to be, the eyelids are closed and flat; he's not even allowed to have a glass eye.
Being overthrown by Reginald Copperbottom, both literally and figuratively, forever left him with a permanent reminder.
The two stare at each other for a little while longer before Henry replies to the notorious worst leader in the toppat clan's history.
"Hi, Dad."
The two continue staring, Henry shuffling in place and Terrence rubbing his neck.
Henry signs, 'How is it here?'
"A hell hole. Nothing to do, no one to talk to, and you only get something when they say you can. Other than that, it's peachy."
Terrence's eye darts to the guards and Bill before moving back to Henry. "Guess what they said was true. You're actually coming here so you can save your friend."
"Yeah," Henry replies after a second.
I know I'm putting in a lot of pauses, but these two don't even send letters to each other, so sharing a room and having a conversation for them is awkward and extremely uncomfortable.
Back on track, Terrence scoffs at Henry's line of thinking, commenting, "And I thought these doctors were crazy. Let me guess: Reggie decided to take something from you because you took something from him? He always was a child."
'Reginald's been in prison since I arrested him.'
"You arrested him?" Terrence repeats as he stands. "The leader of the toppat clan, the most infamous group of bandits and thieves, and you just turned him in to the government? Why didn't you join him, you would've been perfectly fine!"
'Right hand man has my friend, I need to get him back. That's why I'm here.'
Terrence puts his hands on his face and groans. "No. Do not tell me I'm hearing this." He meets eyes with Henry, who nods with a shrug.
"You broke out of prison with a bar from your own cell, stole a diamond on a scooter, and escaped a maximum security prison, but you arrested the leader of the toppat clan, the son of a bitch of did this to me-" Terrence holds his arms out to gesture to his cybernetic body. "- and gave him to the government, but didn't see his lap dog wanting to settle the score or even the odds with you!?"
'A lot goes through my head on missions, okay!?'
Terrence nods, humming cheekily. "I'll bet. Think it would've gone better if you'd used that gun you had? We both know he wasn't going to do anything."
Henry sees himself charging at Right rather than throwing away his gun, but signs back, 'You don't know what he would've done. You haven't seen him.'
Terrence points to a tv in the corner of the room, one right next to the camera. "Saw how he got an upgrade. You can groom and pamper a dog all you want, its bark will still be worse than it's bite."
Henry spots Bill talking to the guards before waving at him and tapping on his wrist, more specifically on a watch. 'Don't take long.'
"Saw their orbital station, too. Like hell you're getting your friend out of space. And like hell sunglasses over there is gonna let you out of his sight if you're serious about that deal."
Henry looks Terrence directly in the eye and nods. 'I know.'
Terrence's face drops as Henry continues.
'During the mission, I hesitated because I was scared he'd kill Charles, my friend. I helped the government by giving them plans, but nothing worked. This is my last option. You are my last option. You weren't around then to tell me what to do, but I need you now because for once I have everything I could ever want, and I'm about to lose it all for being a coward. I know you're not going to like it, or even care, but I just need you to be here when they bring me in. Just be there and tell me I did enough for once, when you're really around. That's all I need right now.'
It's this that makes Terrence drop the "tough loving father" act and makes him realize that this is for real. This is not his son saying, "I made a mistake, fix it for me." This is his son telling him that this is his plan and he needs support to know he's doing the right thing.
Henry is extremely shaky because this is something he does not do with his father. They aren't usually open with each other, as in they do get emotional; toxic masculinity at its finest... and daddy issues.
Regardless, Henry collects himself before signing again.
'I'm going to agree to the terms. If they can send a piece of the ground to space or erase the universe, then they can help me. It's all I can think of doing that'll work.'
Terrence is quiet for a moment, looking at Bill and the guards as they gossip about something before turning back to Henry.
"Are you absolutely sure about this?"
Hebry nods. 'It's all that I can think of that's going to work. Again, if they can send a chunk of land of space or erase the universe, then they can help me.'
Terrence steps back and shakes his head.
"You're going to die here. You know that, right? I'm telling you now it's not worth it."
Henry's face drops.
"Look, I get it. You never were good at keeping friends, but, Henry, I'm telling you, just let this guy go. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life locked in a cage?"
Henry shakes his head as he signs. 'No, but I'm not going to abandon my friend like you abandoned us.'
"I had a clan to run, Henry!" Terrence snaps. "I wanted you to stay, have an easy life, but no. You two just ran off on me!"
'Just because something's easy doesn't always make it right,' Henry signs. He begins signing something else, but stops before continuing. 'Look. I'm accepting the terms. I wanted to tell you now ao you're not disappointed later.'
Henry holds up a hand in farewell and turns to leave, ready to get back to the base and start forming a new plan.
"Henry?"
He turns to see Terrence staring once again, but also sees his throat bobbing, like he's coughing or about to be sick.
"Good... Good luck. Getting your friend back."
Henry's eyes widen and he shakily nods. 'Thanks.'
The two stare at each other like before, but this time they slowly advance towards one another, maneuver their arms until they're in an admittedly awkward, uncomfortable, but welcome embrace; again, emotion is not their strong suit.
"You're going to regret it. Turning yourself in. Life's for living, and you're throwing it away."
Henry pulls back and waves 'goodbye' once more and leaves the room.
"Took you long enough," Bill says as Henry rejoins him. "Have a nice visit?"
Henry narrows his eyes.
"Well, you got your visit. Hope you know how to get into that station."
Henry takes one last look at his father before nodding.
'The terms-'
"Same as advertised," Bill interrupts. "A quarter of our forces as long as you come quietly so we study your ability."
'AFTER my friend is rescued and safe.'
Bill waves him off. "Fine, yes. After your friend's back home and safe." He holds his hand out infront of him and Henry. "What do you say, Henry? Do we have a deal?"
Behind the acrylic, Terrence watches the two of them, his hands against the wall and his eyes on his son.
Henry keeps his eyes on Bill's hand before looking into his eyes. With a mental push, he claps his hand into the corporal's and shakes it, nodding.
"Deal."
Terrence bumps and shakes his head against the wall. "You idiot," he murmurs. "What are you doing?"
AND THAT'S A WRAP ON PART 4!!!!! Oh my goodness, did I enjoy writing this one! A lot of twists and turns and opportunities to just leave you all hanging, I'm not even joking. I haven't really written manipulation or character dynamics like Henry's and Terrence's before, and I think I did pretty well.
Again, check out @multiverse-madness and @azuri-the-imperfect-artist for their Terrence Suave AUs because they are both amazing artists and, honestly, do better with the character than me.😅
For real, all of you, thank you, thank you, thank you, so much for your patience with this one. Like I said in my update post, I have a lot going on in my personal life and just couldn't get in a good creative mindset to do this.
I know we didn't see a lot of Charles this time around, but that's gonna change in Part 5😈
ANYWAY, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!
#henry stickmin#angst tw#mild swearing tw#slight abuse tw#absent father#terrence suave#charles calvin#ellie rose#mental manipulation tw#emotional manipulation tw#completing the mission
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Group Texts Are Ridiculous (Or, Five-0 Starts a Group Text)
Somehow I managed to post Chapter 2 on A03 a few days ago without posting on tumblr... I’m not sure how many people actually depend on tumblr for fic these days, but in case you do, here you go!
McDanno, T, A03
Summary: After 10x22 when Steve leaves Oahu to go find himself, Five-0 starts a group text to keep in touch while Steve’s away. Picks up after the end of Season 10.
Chapter 2
May 20, 2020
SM: Hey, where’s Danny?
LG: With Tani, I think, heading to a crime scene on the north shore. Sure glad to have him back. Otherwise it would have been me getting up at the ass crack of dawn when Duke called.
SM: Does Danny seem ready?
LG: Ready to come back to work? Sure. Shirts are crisp, slacks nicely pressed, hair sprayed firmly in place. Your boy looks great.
SM: Ribs not hurting him anymore?
LG: Maybe a little, but it’s not slowing him down much.
SM: He hasn’t been answering my texts.
LG: Did you do something to piss him off?
SM: Probably. I usually do. Not sure what this time, though.
TR: Don’t stress, boss. Danny’s right here, looking sharp as always. we’re in the car.
SM: Tani, what have I said about no driving and texting?
TR: I’m not - Danny’s driving.
SM: Can I talk to him? Put it on speaker.
TR: That would require you to actually call him. Maybe give it a few minutes though? We’re a little busy right now.
SM: What, he can’t drive and talk on the phone at the same time?
TR: It’s the dodging of bullets that might make that challenging. Not that Danny isn’t a great multi-tasker, but it seems like an unnecessary risk.
SM: Tani, what the hell is going on?
LG: Damn. On my way.
SM: Tani, report, now.
JR: What just happened?
SM: Junior, why aren’t you with Danny? And where’s Quinn?
JR: Day off, sorry sir.
SM: Someone call HPD, why don’t you have any back up?
TR: No worries, the perp’s not chasing us anymore. His car flipped over and sort of slid down the dunes. Probably not good for the birds. But he definitely stopped shooting, so it’s all good.
<i>DW has changed the name of the group text to</i> <b>My Camaro has another bullet hole and it’s Steve’s fault</b>
<b>May 21, 2020 </b>
SM: We have to talk about yesterday.
DW: Everything’s fine, Steve.
SM: It didn’t sound like it.
DW: We had it under control.
SM: Why was Tani texting when people were shooting at you? She should have been covering you, or calling for back up. She should have seen it coming. You should never have been in that position in the first place.
DW: One, Tani did nothing wrong, and two, mind your own beeswax.
SM: Mind my own – what’s that supposed to mean?
DW: Think about it for a minute, you’ll figure it out.
SM: Are you even recovered enough for active duty?
DW: Oh, now you’re interested in my health?
SM: Danny, Five-0 is still my team, my responsibility.
DW: Is it, now? Funny, because I’m pretty sure the governor told me I’m in charge.
SM: Temporarily.
DW: Indefinitely. Or have you booked a flight home that you haven’t told us about?
SM: Danny, we’ve been over this.
DW: Don’t I know it.
SM: I’m just concerned about all of you.
DW: Great. Come home and take your job back. Otherwise keep your mouth shut.
SM: I’m not criticizing, it’s just that it doesn’t seem like yesterday went exactly according to plan.
DW: According to plan? Since when have you ever done anything according to plan? You are the head of not having a plan, the Czar of plan-less-ness, the President of who needs a fucking plan.
LG: You guys do remember this is a group text, right?
<b>June 2, 2020</b>
JR: Do any of you know what was in the package Danny got today?
TR: You could just ask him.
JR: I would, but he opened it up and then locked himself in his office and he’s been on the phone for half an hour.
QL: Might be a sign that he wants some privacy.
TR: You think?
JR: So I shouldn’t ask him?
TR: No, you should definitely ask him. But maybe bring him some malasadas when you barge into his office, it might soften the blow.
LG: Or distract him enough that he doesn’t hit your head when he throws something at you.
DW: It’s kind of late for malasadas, but I’d love a sandwich from Machete’s. Turkey and salami, Italian dressing instead of mayo.
JR: Yes sir.
LG: You’re enjoying this boss thing, aren’t you, Danny?
DW: It’s good to be king. At least where lunch is concerned.
TR: So are you going to tell us what was in the package?
DW: Will you do my paperwork for the week?
TR: Yesterday you said I was worse at paperwork than Steve.
DW: Good point. Will you get Junior to do my paperwork?
JR: Hey, wait a minute, I’m getting the sandwiches.
TR: Deal. Don’t worry Junes, I’ll make it worth your while.
LG: TMI, children.
…
LG: Tani, spill. What was in the package?
DW: A stuffed squirrel. A stuffed animal. Not, like, a once was alive squirrel, like a toy.
QL: Who sent it to him?
TR: Apparently that piece of information wasn’t part of the deal.
JR: It’s from Steve.
TR: Danny told you?
JR: No, I looked at the return address. He put the package in the recycle bin in the break room.
DW: At least someone here has some detective skills.
LG: Okay, I’ll bite. Danny, why did Steve send you a squirrel? Is it for Charlie?
DW: Nope, it’s mine. And anyone who touches it is dead.
JR: So… who’s gonna grab it?
LG: Junior, I’d think twice. Danny’s got the power to assign you to walking the beat for the rest of the summer. I think that squirrel looks great right there where it is on Danny’s desk.
TR: He can be our honorary Five-0 mascot.
DW: Exactly. The very first Hawaiian squirrel.
DW: But let me reiterate, you may not touch him. If I see a tiny aloha shirt or a lei on my squirrel, heads will roll.
TR: I like this side of you, Danny. Very authoritative.
DW: The children do not respect me, Lou.
LG: Didn’t the governor say he needed extra security at that concert Saturday night?
DW: The heavy metal battle of the bands? The one that lasts for five hours, and features not just professional bands, but appearances from some of the most popular amateur head-banging groups around? Hm, I think he did. I was going to check with HPD to make sure it was covered. Do you think they need personal attention from Five-0?
TR: Danny, you might notice that a note has just been slipped under your door. It’s from me and Junior, attesting to our sincere understanding that the squirrel is off limits. Just in case you were wondering.
DW: And all is right with the world again.
LG: Amen, brother.
TR: But just out of curiosity, what are you going to name your apology squirrel? Pineapple?
DW: Thin ice, my friend, thin ice.
<i>TR has changed the name of the group text to</i> <b>First Hawaiian Squirrel Fan Club</b>
<b>June 20, 2020</b>
JR: Anyone want to come over and watch Jurassic Park with me and Charlie? We went a little overboard with the snacks.
LG: What kind of snacks?
JR: Primarily pretzels. For some reason I had never really looked that closely at the pretzel aisle at Foodland before. We got chocolate covered pretzels, pretzels stuffed with peanut butter, honey garlic pretzels, and probably some others too.
TR: What brought on this pretzel craving?
JR: Actually Charlie wanted pineapple pretzels.
LG: There is no such thing.
JR: That’s what I thought too, but it turns out I was totally wrong. The ABC store on my block has them.
LG: You are shitting me.
JR: They’re called Pretz. Pineapple flavor. They’re actually pretty good.
LG: Okay, I’m coming over just to taste those. Renee’s out tonight anyway.
TR: You’ll have to save me some. I’m hanging with Koa tonight.
LG: And what does our fearless leader think about pineapple pretzels?
JR: He probably won’t like them, but he’s not home.
TR: Babysitting, Junes?
JR: Charlie’s my pal, he’s not a baby. But yeah.
TR: Where’s Danny?
JR: On a date.
TR: That seems unlikely.
JR: That’s kind of harsh, isn’t it? Danny’s a good looking guy.
TR: Of course he is, that’s not what I meant.
DW: Thanks.
TR: Fuck I keep forgetting we’re all on this text.
JR: Danny, how’s your date going?
DW: It would probably be going better if I wasn’t texting you guys.
SM: Learned that lesson finally, did you?
DW: Steve, isn’t it a little late where you are?
SM: Never too late to help out a friend. Are you wearing the French blue button-down?
DW: No, it got ruined. I’m just wearing a black polo.
SM: Too bad, that’s a great shirt.
DW: I’m going to the mall tomorrow, there’s a sale at Lord & Taylor, I need new shirts. For some reason mine keep getting blood stains on them.
SM: Wish I could go with you, you do better with a wingman.
DW: It’s true, you talked me into buying two of those slim fit dark blue ones, and those are some of my favorites.
SM: Don’t be afraid to try darker shades, Danny. You resist it but in the end you look great.
DW: I did like the dark gray one you made me try on. But not the purple one. It made me look like a gigolo. Anyway blue’s still my favorite.
SM: It’s true, nothing makes your eyes sparkle like a blue shirt.
DW: And good company, of course.
LG: I feel like this thread has been hijacked by aliens.
TR: Aliens who like menswear. Danny, isn’t your date annoyed that you’re spending all this time texting?
DW: Oh, she left. I’ll be home soon, I’m just picking up some ice cream for the Jurassic Park marathon.
JR: I’m so confused.
SM: Don’t overthink it. But make sure Danny tries the pineapple pretzels.
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