On another note

I just found out that literally ALL OF MY FILES have been corrupted in my art app, I'm coping surprisingly well ngl, normally this would upset me vv much, but honestly? Half of them were old, finished things that i just didn't delete the file of, and the rest were either abandoned or a work in progress that i wasn't extremely into.

There's literally only one drawing in there that i have saved screenshots of that i want to save, lol

Peepaw is the only art thing important to me, apparently

okay. for some reason mob boss tony kidnaps peter and it turns out peter is a little. (he gets so scared and couldn't help but get into the littlespace as a defence mechanism???) and tony freaks out because he doesn't know how to take care of a little.

This is literally so funny to me. Like just the thought of Tony going from “You belong to me now, baby boy” to “oh God why is it making that noise, Happy make it stop” is so fucking hilarious?? But damn if I’m not intrigued.

…

......am I doing it?

…….fuck me I’m doing it. Damn you, anon.

Warnings: mentions of human trafficking and abuse, ageplay, underage (but Peter’s age is unspecified and can be envisioned however you’d like).

The compound crumbles in less than an hour.

For all his bravado, Justin Hammer goes down almost too easily. Tony feels tempted to whistle as he walks through the compound’s warehouse, stepping over the slain bodies of Hammer’s underpaid cronies.

His team is just finishing up the last of the clean-up. The occasional gunshot echoes off the walls as Tony takes stock of all the merchandise he just inherited, debating what to do with Hammer once they get home. It almost feels like a waste of effort and time to torture the man before killing him, even with all the trouble he stirred up with the police. Tony’s tempted to just put a bullet in his brain and be done with it.

But, well. He isn’t called The Merchant of Death for nothing, and he does have a certain image to maintain. Plus, with Hammer keeping him company tonight, he’ll at least be partially spared from the usual tedium that comes with being the biggest mafia don on the east coast.

It’s as he’s wondering just what exactly he should do to Hammer first that Happy finally arrives, looking a little disheveled, but no worse for wear. “Boss,” he says, stumbling over the array of corpses with a muted curse, “compound’s clear. We’re ready to pack this all up and move out.”

Tony wipes the toe of his shoe off on some unnamed man’s bullethole-patterned sleeve. “Good. And Hammer?”

“On his way back to base as we speak, sir. I’ll have him ready for you when you arrive.”

Tony nods in approval, then notices the pronounced, telltale crease in Happy’s brow. Always a good sign.

“Something else you wanna tell me, Hap?”

Happy grimaces, deepening his forehead wrinkle. “There was an unexpected...uh...hiccup, sir.”

Tony lifts an eyebrow at the other man, equal parts curious and incredulous. “A hiccup,” he repeats, slowly, watching Happy’s face grow increasingly sour. “What sort of hiccup?”

“The, um...the teenaged boy kind?”

---

There are only two bodies littering the floor outside Hammer’s office: his enforcer, and his bodyguard. Happy scowls at the sight and starts clumsily rolling them out of the way, glaring at Bucky while he does.

Bucky smirks at Happy, pointedly not moving to help clear away the bodies lying between them. “Kid hasn’t stopped crying since you took Hammer,” he says to him, standing in the doorway like a sentry.

“Probably in relief,” Tony says, straightening his tie as Happy finishes kicking over the second body. “Who is he? Do we know?”

“My guess is a trafficking vic,” Bucky says with a shrug. “He’s got bruises. Seems kinda...out of it.”

Tony hums. “Well, I suppose we’re about to find out.”

Bucky steps aside and Tony strolls into the room, sparing a disinterested glance at Hammer’s shameful choice of interior decorating. The throw pillows are haphazardly strewn across the floor from the sofa; one of the grommet drapes is missing from the window. It’s a mess, but that’s not entirely unexpected.

Happy follows close behind him as he makes his way to the corner of the room, where the soft sound of pitiful sobs is coming from underneath the large desk. Tony peeks his head beneath the desktop just enough to confirm the kid doesn’t have a loaded weapon before he crouches down.

The little thing is balled up tight, wrapped in the missing window drapery and clutching one of the stolen throw pillows like his life depends on it. He seems naked underneath it, which confirms Bucky’s human trafficking theory and gives Tony almost an instant headache. There are bruises spanning the boy’s wrists and ankles that look new and swollen, standing out brightly against the boy’s very pale skin.

Tony clears his throat. “As comfortable as that looks, perhaps I could convince you to stand up so we can chat face to face, hm?”

The kid flinches, whimpering into the pillow he has pressed over his face. Tony sighs like an overburdened parent and says, “I don’t have all day. You have till the count of three to come out on your own before I come in there and make you. You hear me? One. Two…”

The boy’s soft-looking head of curls slowly lifts, and the next thing Tony knows, he’s staring into the biggest pair of honey-brown eyes he’s ever seen. They’re red-rimmed and brimming with tears, swollen from how long the kid’s been crying, but they stay obediently and nervously fixed on Tony as the boy slowly uncurls his limbs and crawls out from under the desk.

Tony’s somewhat surprised that the boy clings to his pillow religiously enough to let the curtain slip down to his waist, held up by only a single tiny, shaking fist. The boy won’t spare either hand to hold the drape up properly so it pools around his hips, revealing his slim, narrow torso, his perfectly unblemished skin.

There aren’t any other bruises, though more could be hiding under the curtain. Tony appraises the kid for a long, tense moment before he asks, “What’s your name?”

Thin arms squeeze the throw pillow tight enough to strangle it. The boy is still looking up at him with that damned pair of Disney eyes. He hasn’t stopped crying.

“‘m Peter,” he mumbles, sniffling.

His voice is cute. A little high for a kid his age, but in an endearing way. “Peter.” Tony nods, pleased. “I’m Tony. Tell me, Pete, how long have you been here?”

Peter glances at Happy, then at Bucky in the doorway, before shyly lowering his gaze to the pillow in his arms. He hugs it tighter and says, “Um...don’t...don’t know what day it is.”

“It’s Tuesday,” Happy says, sounding put out in that wonderful way he always does. “June 16th.”

The boy blinks, looking nervous and unsure as he says, “Since...two days.”

“Okay,” Tony says, “And where were you before that?”

Peter’s shoulders droop. He looks down at the floor with wet eyes, mumbling, “With bad guys.”

It takes everything Tony has not to smirk. “Bad guys? Worse than these ones?”

Peter nods. “They took me,” he says, his little voice completely heartbroken, “from Miss Jones’s place. They waited till she was asleep and they took me. S’been…” Confusion washes over his face, like he’s trying to access some memory that isn’t there. “It was winter. There was still snow outside.”

Before Tony can decide how to respond to that, Happy tactfully pipes up with, “Who the hell is Miss Jones?”

“Michelle Jones Adoption Center,” Bucky says, reading aloud as he stares down at his phone. “Looks like a non-profit adoption agency. Website says the founder also runs a foster home. Is that the one?”

All three men turn to look at Peter, who nods, staring at Bucky hopefully. “Uh-huh. They sent me there when my aunt and uncle died.”

Part of Tony is scared to ask. “What happened to your parents?”

“They died when I was little.”

“Yikes,” Happy says quietly under his breath, though not quietly enough. Tony gives him a reproachful look, then turns back to the boy, whose face is once again soaked in tears, clinging to his throw pillow like it’s a teddy bear.

Tony bites the bullet and says, “I hate to be the one to tell you this, kid, but now that you’ve seen our faces, I can’t let you go back to Miss Jones’ place.”

If the kid’s surprised, he doesn’t show it. He just keeps staring down at his pillow, letting his tears drip down off his cheeks and soak into the fabric. “I just...I want…” His lower lip wobbles, and then the sobs come. “I don’t know. I don’t know. ‘m so - so c-confused. I just want my D-Daddy.”

For the first time in longer than Tony can remember, he’s at a loss for words.

“Want Daddy,” Peter says again, babbling, like a child. The crying is really doing nothing for Tony’s budding headache. “‘m scared.”

“I��m praying this isn’t what it sounds like, but, please tell me Justin Hammer wasn’t your Daddy. Ugh, Jesus, I’m never going to get the taste of those words out of my mouth. Blech.”

Thankfully, Peter shakes his head no, looking just as disgusted as Tony feels. Thank God. “I don’t...I don’t think so. I-I don’t know. They said I had to be good for Daddy. They said I couldn’t go home unless it was with h-him.”

Bucky jokingly says, “I’ll be his Daddy,” but he mutes himself when Tony lifts a hand to silence him, before turning to give Happy a helpless look. The man stares back, then silently gestures to his gun, the question clear as day on his face. Tony immediately shakes his head, waving the man’s hand away from his holster with a steely glare.

Okay, so. That’s interesting. Apparently mercy-killing the boy isn’t an option. Giving him back to gentle-hearted, law-abiding-citizen Miss Jones isn’t an option, either.

So where does that leave him?

Tony watches the boy cry a moment longer before resignedly asking, “Peter, how old are you?”

Peter wipes his wet face on the pillow, refusing to let neither it nor the curtain go long enough to use his hands. “Don’t...know,” he says, after a moment, his brows furrowed like he’s thinking it over hard. “They s-said that was up to my Daddy.”

Stellar. Great big help, that is.

Sighing, Tony rubs his temple to soothe his headache, taking a moment to really look at the boy in front of him. Peter is...well. It’s fair to say he isn’t unattractive. Hammer’s poor taste in interior design apparently doesn’t extend to sex slaves.

Tony’s done horrible, truly vile things in his career, but children are usually where he draws his thin, arguably nonexistent moral line. They’re rarely intelligent enough to interest him in any fashion, but Peter - for what it’s worth - has managed to pique his interest just enough that he finds himself actually opening his mouth and saying:

“Peter. Since I can’t let you go back to your foster home, tell me: would you rather come home with me instead?”

He lets the ‘instead of killing you’ go unsaid, since the boy is already having trouble wiping away his tears. Peter stares up at him with a frightened, mistrustful look that makes Tony’s hands twitch. There’s innocence in those eyes, sure. But there’s brightness too. For all the babbling and childish baby-speak Peter’s given him, Tony gets the very distinct impression that he’s far from stupid.

“With you?” the boy asks, hardly louder than a whisper. His tone is soft and wary, sounding every bit the child he believes he is. “You...you’ll be my Daddy?”

It’s a strange thing, to be fifty years old and still learning such intimate things about himself, like how fucked up he is for liking it when this sweet, baby-faced teenage boy calls him Daddy in his soft, childish little voice. Part of him can’t wait to turn around and see the looks on Happy and Bucky’s faces; the rest of him doesn’t want to take his eyes off Peter for even a moment.

He nods, giving Peter what he hopes is a reassuring smile as he steps forward, offering his hand for the boy to take. “That’s right, honey,” he says, his tone syrupy sweet. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Daddy’s here now.”

Peter looks between Tony’s outstretched hand and his smiling face, deliberating on what they both know is his only real option. Finally, he lets the curtain drop from around his hips to pool at his feet, revealing his slender legs and freshly-shaven pubic area. Tony’s brain momentarily goes white and fuzzy until Peter’s slim, soft hand hesitantly takes his own, still clutching that hideous throw pillow to his chest like a teddy bear.

Tony grants himself another long look over Peter’s gorgeous frame as he slips his suit jacket off and drapes it over the boy’s shoulders. Peter smiles gratefully and pushes his arms through the sleeves, his face darkening with a blush as Tony starts fastening the buttons. “Thank you, Daddy.”

Fuck. Forcing himself to swallow the growl building in his throat, Tony takes the boy’s hand again and leads him to the door. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s get you home.”

Peter clings to him as they step through the threshold. Well, Tony thinks to himself, his hand tightening around Peter’s own, at least things won’t be boring from now on.

Phoenix Point and why I want it to live

No TLDR this time. I said in the past that I could write pages over pages about this. I guess its time to see how many pages we are actually talking about here. Phoenix Point is currently rather mediocre. From the soundtrack to the many bugs and rather rough implementations, the missing features that were envisioned in the kickstarter campaign, the 5 scheduled DLCS, the epic store exclusivity, the inferior graphical polish in comparison to Firaxis’ XCOM reboot, the inferior complexity in comparison to Longwar, probably even the inferior Idontknow in comparison to the very first XCOM games from way back when, I didnt play those. If you are looking for something to hate in this game, you dont have to look too hard, there is something here for everyone. The reason Ive been a determined defender of Phoenix Point is not simply because I have a different taste in games than the mainstream however, but because I feel there is a way deeper underlying problem at work here. I’ll come back to that later. Btw starting now, when I say XCOM, I mean Firaxis’ XCOM. Personally I want more games like XCOM. More games like Battlebrothers, Mordheim: City of the Damned, Invisible Inc, hell, even Bloodbowl, even though I dont dig the sports angle. Games with permadeath, nameable characters, dynamic overworld systems and missions and situations that are created ideally by circumstance, not by simply playing mission 1, then mission 2, until you reach what the devs decided to be the last one they would make for the game. I thoroughly enjoy that concept of progression and many turnbased strategy titles just dont do it for me because they are too linear, even when they are otherwise nicely crafted experiences. Druidstone: The Secret of the Menhir Forest is a nice example of this, the game looks nice, sounds nice and is very well made, but it lacks the one thing I enjoy most in all the games I mentioned earlier. Along comes Phoenix Point and the moment I look at this game I know that it is all about scratching that specific itch. Not only that, it also brings with it a variety of creative features to even improve the established turnbased squad tactics formula. I didnt lie when I said I think that it is in many ways better than XCOM. Just that... WHAT?!?! ...the overall game doesnt compare well if we look at the sum of their parts at the moment. YOU CANT BE SERIOUS!!!!! About Phoenix Point being better in many ways? Sure, let me make a list. 1) Aiming In XCOM you aim, you have an x% chance to hit, you either hit or you dont. While widely accepted because of the quality of the overall games, its a pretty simple system that becomes especially frustrating when your guns model on screen is touching the enemies forehead and you still manage to miss. Or when a flashbanged and suppressed sectoid crits you in full cover after rolling a natural 20. In Phoenix Point bullets get simulated and trace a path from the barrel of your gun to a target that they then either hit or miss. Smaller enemies in Phoenix Point are hard to hit not because the game designers arbitrarily decided so, but because smaller enemies are simply smaller. In comparison, in XCOM you roll dice. 2) Modular enemies Similar to Battlebrothers, Phoenix Point has you encounter the same brigand thug (crabmen) over and over again. The enemy itself doesnt matter as much, its more about the number of different variations you can encounter. Brigant thugs can come equipped with simple helmets and/or armor as well as different weapons that have different abilities. They also have different faces on top of that. They are by far not the only enemy in the game, but even if they were, by the time you encounter the exact same thug a second time you wont be able to tell anymore because you have seen so many others inbetween. The same goes for most enemies in Battlebrothers (with a few exceptions), it becomes way more about your opponents equipment than about his actual type or class. Phoenix Point goes for the very same approach, but falls short because of  a variety of reasons. To name just one, the first time you encounter New Jericho as a faction, you fight four New Jericho soldiers and all four of them have the same armor, the same weapon and even the same face. To hammer it home the mission also always takes place on a variation of the exact same map. It is an absolute travesty. The ambition is there and in random encounters on the map you can see where it is supposed to go, with every enemy type in the game being designed in a way that allows for as many variations as the devs can think of, from paralysis tentacles and bloodsucking arms to mist generators and everything inbetween. The possibilities are endless and from the standard crab to the giant bosses every enemy is designed with this modularity in mind. In XCOM in comparison, you have a variety of different enemies, but for the entirety of the first month (what is that, 3-7 missions?) you only fight the sectoid. Or maybe the drone too, I havent played vanilla in forever. Longwar tries to spice that up by using preexisting models and assigning new abilities to them, making some models bigger and giving others new abilities, but at the end of the day the sectoid looks the way the sectoid looks. I love what it looks like btw. But modular enemies are decidedly cooler. 3) Scale In XCOM you control 4, later up to 6 soldiers at the same time. In Longwar it goes up to 8, or 12 in that one mission. In Phoenix Point you start out the same way, but to my knowledge you can bring as many soldiers to any mission as you can get there via aircraft. Meaning that as soon as you get a second manticore you can theoretically have up to 12 soldiers in a mission, or 18 with a third. Naturally you would probably want to split your forces instead and be in 3 places at the same time (and you can), but this sort of thing being possible, both the 18 soldiers in one mission as well as the 3 different squads doing missions in 3 different places of the planet, is something XCOM simply does not offer.  4) Other features Be it vehicles, giant enemies, diplomacy or the amount of control you get on the overworld map, Phoenix Point does (or attempts to do) a huge number of things that in XCOM are simply nonexistant. In XCOM you dont get to decide were to fly, missions are simply spawned in popup fashion, the skyranger is on autopilot, “diplomacy” is managed by talking to top secret bald guy representing the council and by sometimes fulfilling a councilrequest. The only opposing faction apart from the aliens is EXALT which can be regarded as more of a separate mission type with human enemies and not really as a faction that contributes in any diplomatic way. Dont get me wrong, I dont think XCOM needs diplomacy in order to be good. XCOM is already good, fantastic in fact. But if we compare based on features alone and not the quality of their implementation, then Phoenix Point is doing A LOT of things that XCOM never even touched. This is in no way me trying to trash XCOM. I love XCOM, especially Longwar. However for the sake of an at least somewhat fair comparison the only games we should compare Phoenix Point to at this Point are XCOM Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2, both at launch. Bringing Longwar into the mix is something I do for the sake of providing a third angle, not because I am blind to the fact of how ludacris it would be to compare a newly launched game with an extensive overhaul mod that was in the making for years after the vanilla game and even its expansion were already released. As I was saying, along comes Phoenix Point doing all those very ambitious things. And it gets DESTROYED. To quote Beaglerush, the probably best known XCOM streamer out there: “But honestly, for anyone with experience in the XCOM genre, anyone who likes XCOM games, and anyone particularly who likes XCOM games at a harder difficulty or likes to obviously, like, play well, I do not think it is possible to enjoy this game unless you are getting a big paycheck and you are a good actor.” To be clear, I didnt watch the entire footage that made him come to that conclusion and I dont want to comment too much on what “playing well” means, but i have played Longwar on the highest difficulty in ironmanmode for 2000 hours (without beating it, but also always with Training Roulette active) and I have beaten XCOM 2 on highest difficulty in ironman mode. I do consider Longwar as one of my favourite games of all time and I do consider myself as someone who has experience with the genre, likes games and likes to play them “well”, or at least on highest difficulty. I dont agree with Beagle (duh), but I can of course see where he might be coming from. In its current state Phoenix Point is not finished. Playable, but even for an early access game its still pretty rough, with many mechanics not or only sometimes working (leanout, aim and aimsnapping, end turn, details, you get the point), features missing, performance issues, lackluster soldier customization, lackluster diplomacy options, a rather simple skilltree, questionable balance, etc. Don’t look at me like that, if I wanted to I could jump that hatetrain any time! But if I was to do that, where would that leave us? The XCOM genre, as Beagle calls it, is a niche genre at the best of times. Not only regarding the playerbase but also regarding game developers willing to invest time and money into creating something new. Xenonauts 2 is a year or more behind its originally panned release date with not much news to speak of, Terra Invicta is a distant memory of a game that will maybe one day still be released and Im still waiting for the XCOM 3 announcement and who knows if it will even come. Especially after we, the players, completely demolish Phoenix Point to the point where I would just cancel the 5 planned DLCS right now if I was in charge of the devteam. The main reason I defended Phoenix Point was not because of what the game currently is but because of what the game could be after 5 more DLCs. Ive played every backerbuild of the game and statements like “the game is still what it was 2 years ago” are simply and factually false. Especially between backerbuild 4 and 5 there was a huge jump in quality and between 5 and the release version that same jump has ocurred again - with an entire game that is now playable and completable. Yes, it could have more voiced lines instead of text, yes, it doesnt have the sexy “alerted sectoid” animation sequence when you run into a new enemy pod (pods dont exist in PP but you get me) and sure, the epic exclusive sucks I guess and I dont care much for the soundtrack. But after Backerbuild 5, who knows where the game will be after the next DLC? And the next? If you compare XCOM Enemy Unknown with XCOM Enemy Within, the difference was breathtaking. And here we have a game that has so much work already done, so many assets created, so much code already in place, and we, the players, punch them in the face and shout “NOT GOOD ENOUGH!”. You wanna go back to the drawing board, have somebody else start fresh on something that could be better in a year or two if we are lucky? Ive been looking for a game like XCOM for literally years. Battle Brothers was the closest I found. Tens, if not hundreds of others inbetween failed hard, from “Warhammer 40k: Mechanicus” to “Legends: Viking” to “Wildermyth” and basically everything inbetween. And here we have a game that seems to have the right idea, the right amount of ambition and a good amount of the work already done and we are bitchslapping them left and right just so we can go back to getting hyped about the next mediocre linear story experience. Sure, them releasing already is a shame. But if I was the one to decide, I would give them the same amount of money again and triple it and tell them to finish the job instead of spitting in their face when they come to us and lowkey tell us that they ran out of money. And I would send them flowers and tell them that Im sorry. Anybody can polish a game with extra cash, but getting the core idea right is something that even Firaxis almost failed to do with XCOM 2, as far as Im concerned. I said earlier, that there was a deeper underlying problem here and that I would come back to it and here it is, ladies and gentlemen. Modernday gamers are an ungrateful, hateful bunch of whiny spoiled brats, who think they are entitled to only the best of the best while in fact they “deserve” nothing. The entire concept of a kickstarter campaign is that you provide funds and trust so a bunch of people can try to realize their vision. If you dont like the outcome, then that doesnt mean they betrayed you, it means you have poor judgement. Notice how I say judgement and not taste. You dont have poor judgement because you dont like the outcome, but because you gave them money in the first place. I should maybe add at this point that my anger is mostly directed towards the public reaction and the phoenix point subreddit and not towards my own viewership. (hello) Phoenix Point is not the first game that has had me feel like the entire gaming landscape is slowly spiraling out of control. 5 years ago I thought quality means sales. At this point Im worried that a high marketing budget means sales. And I dread the possibility that 5 years from now I might be convinced that a high marketing budget means quality. Some of the best games this year were literally destroyed by players. Artifact wasn’t only boykotted, but actively brutalized, with people at some point purposefully streaming porn and torture under the Artifact tag on Twitch. Pathologic 2 had the devteam almost go bankrupt after poor sales and unfavourable reviews by people that barely grasped the basics of the game. All the while people feed money to the ginormous immortal that is Magic The Gathering and praise Hideo Kojima for his “unique vision” for Death Stranding. I didnt play Death Stranding and Magic can be pretty fun, but does nobody see the smothering double standards in play here? Im not saying that Phoenix Point has no problems right now in terms of quality. Some of the issues player encounter are in fact inexcusable, at least longterm. But XCOM 2 also had a bumpy launch with long loading times and tons of bugs and then they were fixed and today there are people that think XCOM 2 is better than Longwar. Incomprehensible to me how anyone could think that, but time and some postlaunch fixes did clearly change peoples minds. I think the main reason Phoenix Point got so much hate on launch in comparison to XCOM 2 (which also released 3 DLCs ,or was it more) is because its drastically different and more ambitious in many ways, not because it is half as bad as people make it out to be. XCOM is just like Phoenix Point, just dumbed down I guess. Kappa. (I hate it when people use the term “dumbed down”. This is a joke. Ffs why do I have to explain this)

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Summary: You fall in love with Castiel, an Angel you happened to stumble upon one night in the woods; you fall in love, eventually facing the trials of a relationship with an Angel. Based of the ballad written by: John Keats

This is fairly long, as I didn’t break it up into sections, but I’ll do that as I go, hopefully with chapters so, I hope the length doesn’t deter you.

Warnings: Drinking, Mentions of Drugs, Parties, Absent Family, Injuries, 

Word Count: 2,718

Author’s Note: Sometimes English class can be useful :) (there’s also a quote from Moby Dick if you’ve read it) This is only the first chapter, btw.

At the time I was young and sure, along with that came a slew of stupid decisions- including the one that let me to finding Him. He was my true love, that one love that all those stupid Nicholas Sparks novels talk about never forgetting: the love of your life. Two very big words- Love and Life- I personally used to feel that those two words shoulder never go together, but of course that was before I met the Him.

The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing.

It was the end of fall, I had just started my last year as a teenager- I was finally going to graduate high school. “Y/N, do you wanna go down to the lake tonight? There’s gonna be a big bonfire!” Tony- my close friend- from my high school- invited me to the ‘first senior hurrah of the year party’. to which I of course told him ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’ 

It was already a quarter till six. I had just changed out of my work uniform- dress, knee socks and apron- into a cute yellow polka-dotted bikini, topped with a loose grey shirt and jeans. It’s true you never know what to expect at a party, and this was definitely one of those nights considering I could go swimming, but it was also starting to get really chilly, so I come prepared. Perfect I thought to myself as I inspected my outfit in the long mirror at the end of my hallway, ready to go I hopped down the stairs two at a time before grabbing my small, lacy leather pale yellow backpack and toss it over my shoulders tucking my phone into my back pocket as I race out the door and down the steps of my Aunts house. I pick up my old-fashioned blue basket bike and throw one leg over the side to start riding down to the lake, where I knew the party was.

The town was dull, as it was the end of November and most people were away on vacation due to it being close to Thanksgiving and people usually go visit family. My family is small, it’s just my little brother- who’s nine- my two Aunts and me of course! The sky was a cloudy pallet of swirled greys mixing together; the appearance and smell that it might rain was continuously in the air as the willow trees wept tremendously, going into their hibernation state for the winter. No birds sang today, leaving the scene very ominous and gloomy- a drizzly, dark November in my soul.

The party was great, I instantly was greeted by friends- eventually leaving them when they all got drunk enough to strip and skinny dip in the lake; I did do some of the reckless things that most teenagers engaged in, and probably shouldn’t do: I’ve drank, tried drugs, have had sex, etc... Yes I’m not proud of all those things, but I did enjoy drinking, and although I’ve never gone overboard I still partake in their shenanigans. My mind hazy from a few drinks, I decided that it’d be fun to go exploring through the woods, taking a short walks, not tracking too far from the party so I won’t get lost.

The woods were a place that I had a variety of emotions about: sometimes I felt uneasy, sometimes I felt it was magical, sometimes I felt scared, frightened and alone. The woods were a place to get easily lost in- especially at night- though they were also a place of comfort, and daring to be brave in the sense that when you’re in the woods you have to be alone- with yourself- and that can be scary for some people. I personally didn’t mind being alone with my thoughts, I often pictured my future, or got frightened of not knowing what was to come, but I also was one of those people who could easily entertain themselves and I felt that was a plus.

The stars were out tonight; being father away from the town and closer to the more rural side of my town the stars shown bright and clear. The night sky only complimenting the stars for their  decorative beauty: each small diamond in the sky. As I continued to walk I eventually stumbled upon a small clearing- the size of probably a small meteor if a meteor had fallen and hit here. The clearing was empty, though it was nice- it was like a small cradle. Grass grew wildly along the edges and there was a boulder I found could make a nice seat to the side of the clearing. I sat and looked up at the stars, feeling an occasional breeze tickle my neck and play with my hair, tossing it in the wind. I heard a groaning noise which made the hairs on my forearms stick up.

I became more aware of my surroundings, figuring I could see the other kids who might’ve been trying to make fun of me. Groaning was heard again as I looked in the direction it came from, but didn’t notice anything unusual. Maybe it’s a tree I tried to rationalize my thoughts,c calming my nerves as the noise was heard again; then out of the corner of my eye I spotted a shadow moving on the ground. Maybe it’s just someone who walked off, was drank and passed out! Nothing to be worried about... Panic was slowly filling my gut, drop by drop I began to feel he weight before I decided for some stupid reason that maybe I should help this person.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering?

The moonlight began to shine brighter as the night progressed and the clouds moved in front of the moon causing more moonlight to be shed onto the Earth. I could now see what was before me: a man in a costume, lying against a stump seemingly hurt. “A-are you okay?” I asked quietly, my voice almost a whisper in the wind. I received another bout of groaning and a small ‘No’ in response to my question. The man was almost in fetal position against the trunk of the tree.

I walked over and tried to help him sit up, trying not to hurt him. “What’s your name?” I asked him assertively, knowing that I was in my panic mode and couldn’t just leave this man here to die! The man looked onto my face and eyed me over once before responding. 

“Castiel” He whispered with a small wince, his speaking obviously affecting some hurt part of his body, I sighed, brushing a few locks of hair behind my shoulder as I was crouched next to this man, looking down upon him.

“Okay Castiel, I know you’re in pain, but I need you to tell me- what hurts?” I quickly asked, looking him over briefly to check for any obvious damage.

“I- it’s nothing, you should leave. If someone comes after me..” He didn’t finish his sentence before I started to help him to his feet; I pulled with all my might on the man to get him standing slightly upright before he almost collapsed onto my chest. I pulled his arm over my shoulder and practically carried him back towards the party to get more help.

Eventually I had reached the party, where almost everyone was swimming, passed out or completely doped up to the point where they were pretty much nonexistent. “Y/N? Y/N! What happened! Who is this?!” My friend Rob asked as he ran over to me- obviously still one of the few sober people at the party. “Do you need help? God, he looks terrible- let me get my truck.” Rob rushed off, not needing any prompting from me as he did exactly what I would’ve asked him to do anyways.

“This- you need, you can’t take me to the hospital!” Castiel grumbled into my neck as I kept him propped up; he slightly groaned in my hear, and if I was to say this didn’t turn me on in the tiniest way- despite it being the wrong place and wrong time and definitely the wrong situation- I’d be lying. I focused not he situation at hand as I responded.

“Yes, I can, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t unless you tell me what’s wrong with you.” I chastised him like a mother telling their kid why they were being illogical. Rob eventually drove up and parked at the edge where the woods and sand met the concrete. “We just need to make it over there, okay?” I encouraged Castiel as I continued to carry most of his weight.

“Wait” Castiel quietly whined before taking in a huge breath to speak. “I, can;t go to the hospital because I don’t need to. I just need rest and time to heal. They are simply minor wounds, simple scratches that are already healing. If I told you what happened you wouldn’t believe me.” Castiel explained thoughtfully, using lines I would guess he picked up from some sic-fi- judging by his clothing choices I’d dare say he did.

“Let’s just get you in the truck” I commanded before I even bothered to start questioning him; luckily getting him to the truck wasn’t too hard, and Rob helped me put Castiel in the bed of the truck before he closed it and walked towards the drivers side then stopped. Despite my feeling that Castiel needed to go to the hospital I still somewhat believed his words deep down.

“Where are we going? Hospital?” Rob asked, before I quickly replied with a ‘just drive, yeah, sure- drive towards the hospital’ I offered, betting I’d have enough time to decide whether or not Castiel really needed medical attention.

Rob instantly got into the driver’s side and started the car. “Don’t- take me t” I didn’t let Castiel finish his sentence as I placed my fingers over his mouth.

“Stop talking” I demanded “you’re wasting your breath. I’m not taking you to the hospital, I just needed time.” I explained as I began to tug his trench coat off. Odd choice I thought to myself as I noticed his costume- or outfit, maybe he just had a different taste. Castiel was wearing a tan trench coat which I had earlier assumed was a mere costume, bust maybe it wasn’t- I tossed the trench coat behind me further into the bed of the truck. Underneath he was wearing a button-up shirt though I couldn’t tell you what color from the moonlight. I noticed it was soaked with blood as so I told him I’d have to make sure the wound wasn’t still bleeding as I began to unbutton his shirt; the blood from his shirt stained my fingers crimson as I opened the bottom of his shirt, where he was cut on the side of his stomach.

I sucked in a breath of air through my teeth in grimace as I didn’t really like the whole guts and gore thing- especially not in horror movies. “Well, it’s not bleeding anymore” I say surprised, seeing as how much blood he had on his shirt and trench coat; I could also plainly see that the cuts and bruises on his face were slightly healed from even the time I’d found him, which truthfully surprised me as it hadn’t been even probably an hour age.

As we approached the hospital Castiel begged me once again to not take him inside- “Why? Why should I trust you when you’ve obviously been hurt and are still in pain?” I ask out of mere curiosity, having made up my mind almost ten minutes prior to what decision I was actually going to make.

“Trust me” Castiel says looking into my eyes as he grabbed my hand, squeezing it. I stare into his hurt blue eyes, a shimmer of hope seeming to plead into my own, asking me not to do this.

“Rob?” I yell to the front of the truck where Rob’s window was open and he stuck his head out.

“Yeah?” He yells, probably hoping that I wasn’t going to say Castiel had died in the back of his ‘baby’ or something along those lines. I tell him to turn around and just drive me home, to which he then asks if Castiel died- Of course, always expecting the worst.

“No, he didn’t die! I think I just over exaggerated- just, drive me home Rob, please?” Rob obliges to my request and soon we’re parked outside my house,t he clock in the front of the truck says 2:45AM. “Look, I don’t know where you live, but I can drive you home, okay?” I passively ask where Castiel lives, but of course I’m only greeted with a weird response.

“No- I, we’re too far. You can’t drive me all the way there tonight... I, I’ll be fine.” Castiel tries to get up and slide off the back of the truck; I tell Castiel to stop, knowing he’s going to injure himself even more.

“Fine- if I can’t drive you home, then, I don’t know” I silently curse myself for even thinking of offering him something that I might regret, “will you at least sleep on my couch? I can at least watch over you then!” Castiel seems to think about it for a second, but before he can even say no- which I know he would have- I interrupt him, “I’m not taking no for an answer- come on!” I grab Castiel’s arm again and throw it over my shoulder once more to silently drag him through my house.’”Thanks Rob” I call back to Rob, who just gives us a weird look and mumbles something about ‘if it only took getting injured’ which I didn’t pay much mind to. “Because it’s almost three am, please, just try to be quiet, okay?” I plead with Castiel, hoping he’d understand the situation we’re in now. He solemnly nods his head as I unlock the door with my spare keys and lead him up the stairs slowly. Castle winces every few steps and we have to take a break before we get to the top and I lead him to my room, opening the door and gently lying him on my bed.

“This isn’t your couch” Castiel states bluntly as he stares at the ceiling of my bedroom. I close my windows to ease the cold night air wafting in; I close the hallway door, noticing that Castiel didn’t even seem remotely tired.

“Yeah, it’s not” I sigh, running a hand through my hair as I start to take off Castiel’s shoes for him as he seemed to not bothering trying to get comfy. “Look, I don’t think you should be sleeping on the couch- you’re hurt Castiel and I’m going to make sure you’re okay before I take you home, alright? Plus I thought about it and I didn’t want me Aunts to wake up and find some strange man on our couch and freak out.”

“It’s late. If you need something, I can get it, but you’re not going home tonight, alright? You should get some sleep.” I help him remove his trench coat which somehow got back on him and set it on the ground next to him. 

“You don’t need to-” He starts before I interrupt, “But I want, to. Don’t worry about it... It’s fine.” I look into his deep blue eyes which I can hardly see in the dark before I cover him up, making sure he’s okay. I left to go grab him a glass of water before returning to find him asleep; I smile and go to the bathroom to take off my swimsuit and put on pajamas so I can sleep too. I didn’t want to sleep on the floor, but I also didn’t want to necessarily scare Castiel. I decided for my bed, but scooted all the way to the other side, almost falling off the bed.

Two Irons (Part 2.)

In a progressive gradient of pale yellow to pink, a single wave of spark broke through into your peripheral vision. Hundreds of tiny flashes, bursting and burning like micro-fireworks, washed over you. The sparks, falling through the air and creating fragile ribbons of light, had escaped the antechamber that Matt had only just disappeared into while in pursuit of Nines, with the matched enthusiasm of a flame chasing a fuse. FN-2199 had indiscreetly been the cause of antagonism, fully oblivious to what his antics set in motion and the impossibility of being followed by the crimson plasma blade.

To the best of your understanding, prior to ignition, there had been confrontational voices and a short, heated exchange. You had picked out the sound of both Nines and Matt, as the two likely had a word with each other. Although, as you went to move your head, to tilt your ear in the direction of the employee common room out of equal parts curiosity and panic, you found it remained stationary against your will. Blinking, unnerved for a good moment or two at the alien sensation, you tried once again. It was only then in testing your range of motion were you aware that your entire being had become unresponsive. After a number of other failed trials, you established that the extent of control you still retained had been in your capacity to blink, otherwise, your limbs had felt present but your muscles nonexistent.

For no discernible purpose or reason, Matt had had immobilized you. Simply because your body, hardwired to either fight or flee, was frozen solid, you began to feel all the unpleasant manifestations of fear. Matt— Kylo Ren— was living up to his legend.

No one could deny what the Commander was capable of. How he was able to bend the very air around his opposition, without so much as lifting a finger. For what rare information the First Order would disclose, it was made abundantly clear to you to stay out of his way. On no circumstances were you do something as heinous as purposely provoking his senseless temper, as there was no guarantee that any salvageable part of you would be left for a proper burial. Likewise, if you were to ever find him, already caught in a fit of rage, you were conditioned to immediately retreat and inform your superior officer. The broken equipment, as expensive as it was, could be shredded as easily as a body, regardless of stormtrooper fortifications. You tried to eschew and discard the notion of Matt completely and publicly gutting Nines, only through denial that he would blazon his identity.

And while you pushed the visual of carnage to the back of your brain, the appropriate rationale to absolve yourself of guilt began to work its way through you. Of course, from the warnings you had accumulated, there was no curiosity or existing capacity for you to test the Commander’s patience. You didn't need to see or feel his might to believe he could live up to his allegory. If anything, you were happy to avoid him completely; a quiet relief fell upon all of Starkiller when he had left the premise.

Nines had been the one to provoke him, sure, but even then it was unintentional and therefore the blame you wanted to place on him fell through the cracks of reasoning. You couldn't look at your friend and find responsibility for your current situation; Nines was a lot of things, but he wasn't stupid. He, nor the collective population or the Order, had enough backbone to knowingly haze the Commander.

Well— there was only a singular instance of someone intentionally trying to get a rise out of Kylo Ren. The incident was one that you hadn't been witness to, but didn't need to be in order to understand the impact of it all. Each person who offered a retelling to you would inflate the story with different details, yet, all ended in the same gruesome fashion. You understood that subsequently there had been a turbulent disagreement between what the General and Captain believed, versus Commander Ren. It seemed that both General Hux and Captain Phasma still placed value on human lives, whereas Kylo Ren saw nothing. Lieutenant Colonel Zack, arguably affected the most in the matter, was still struggling with the loss of his son and would become difficult to locate when the Commander would make a routine patrol through the winding complex.

Though you had been told countless times, none had hinted what you should do if ever faced with his pure, unfiltered rage. None had explained the helplessness, vulnerability, or even hinted the way your mind would inevitably spiral once he had you. And here you were now, despite having followed each instruction as you had been given, you were unable to tear your eyes away from staring down the barrel of a loaded blaster. Faced with it all, the surprising impact of imagining the red plasma blade colliding with soft skin, you began to bleed with suspicion to your commitment regarding the First Order. And not just a slow bleed out, like a harmless or accidental cut or scrape- it was a loss of swift and lethal proportions.

Never had you once questioned their methods. And this was your first indication of chaos inside the First Order. Kylo Ren was held in such esteem, such terrible reverence, that it only managed to poison your faith in the entire system. He was one of the very triumvirate that you worked so diligently to satisfy— what was his purpose, to dress up and terrorize his subordinates? It felt beyond hypocritical, a reflexively bitter on your tongue, at the though of "Matt" occupying himself by stirring up trouble. You believed you had left that taste behind in the dust of your home planet. In the still-budding fear of your subjection to his ability, there also came a burgeoning anger that you had become his mark. In this, a friction existed between the two, the fear and anger. You grit your teeth and began trying to pull yourself free.

Kylo Ren works against the enemy, so, what does that make me?

Your consciousness, to the point of wavering at best, warned you of your home planet. Savage and sudden reminders of those dying in the streets, paralyzed by the government. You thought of a group of people you had seen as you left home for the last time, lazing in the sun, with rosy faces and dry cracking lips from dehydrated and hunger. For the sake of them, you had to set aside your internal panic. You would be no good to the cause, or yourself, if you let Kylo Ren's game rule you. You thought back to the face of the officer who had inspired your confidence in the First Order to restore political power to your home planet. They would end needless casualties, as you had witnessed time and time again, with the lives of your people shuffled around as the senate argued and argued but never budged.

Bandaging up the skepticism, creating a mental tourniquet, you had to allow that the actions of this one could not reflect the choices of the others. The gleaming base as it shuttered with life and hopefulness was the First Order. The Finalizer, drifting and skimming the skies above, was the First Order. The metallic trooper, the captain of many, was the First Order. You and Nines were the First Order.

Kylo Ren was a splinter; you decided there and then that he was not, and could never be, the First Order. Not to you.

Matt, now standing parallel to where you were frozen, dipped his face in close to yours. Too close. You noticed a bead of sweat drip down his temple as tension fixed across his forehead. The wrath in his glare would burn into your memory. This was the face of the Commander of the First Order. Even with the disheveled blond, cupid-curled wig, he was an epithet of consequence and power. The eyes staring into you, fully bypassing the glasses as if they hadn't been there at all, had been spectator to awfulness so far beyond your understanding of the galaxy you would have felt holes in your very heart to recognize.

He appeared to be holding himself back, trapping his primal nature under twitching skin and muscle. His bridle was rapidly deteriorating, if any of it had ever existed at all. With the way that his eyes fixed upon you in such sickening concentration, you considered praying.

Widening his eyes at the supposition, his clenched jaw relaxed just enough to growl, “I see his death.”

There was no debating who he had meant, being that there had only been one other person who had wandered into his domain of influence.

Nines.

The words had the equivalent blow of a shock-wave; one great sting, washing through your nerves and bones, followed by a complete lack of sensation. Everything went numb at the sound of his voice, be it that there was truth behind his claim or not. You had become paralyzed both inside and out, with grief quietly causing certain devastation. It didn’t make sense for you to feel so intensely to hear it; perhaps it was the tone or who the mouth was attached to, rather than what was truly being said. You were sorely aware of the stormtrooper's rate of survival, being that it was a measurement required for your to complete your assigned duties.

Unblinking, Matt watched your pupils dilate, the physical response of the weight of his words. The corner of his mouth twitched, over and over in confinement of a malicious smile. Maybe he found compensation in seeing you wince.

You can hear me?

The tension on his forehead released. His face relaxed enough for you to understand that he was shifting through your head as you thought. As you made the connections and realizations, he was right there watching you figure it out. Bringing a hand up, it hovered over the side of your face, shy of your hair. “Yes,” he brought his palm forward, as if about to stroke you, but refused to make contact.

You still would have recoiled provided you were able to move.

"I hear them too... Should I tell you what they're hiding?” He sounded blithe. You knew there was certain madness there. He was playing with you.

None of this is real. You can't be in my head, that isn't possible.

But he answered your thoughts, "It isn't? I'll show you."

Your heart lurched into your throat as each following beat became excruciating to bear like a caged animal trapped in your ribs, beating itself against the wall your chest built around it. Blood rushed around your system, hot to cold to hot again. Searing then freezing. Everything you had meant to burry in your mind, condemn and forget, began scratching its way to the surface. Your gaze darted about his face as the abstract feeling of panic filled your lungs at each increasingly broken inhale, expecting for something less-than-human to have replaced him. The singular bead of sweat on his face fell down his cheek, much like a tear which only served to feign a look of strain that did not exist. His evil gold-flecked eyes, burning, released a further cursive pain down your spinal cord, flowing without stinting. A moment more of his torture and your mind would collapse into itself.

But liberation can look like various things to various people. At that moment, relief was speckled with muffin crumbs from her lunch break. Your rescuer, the floor supervisor, called out from the end of the hallway with her demand entirely puncturing his concentration. “HAVE YOU RE- WIRED THE CALCINATOR YET, MATT?” She hadn't realized your distress as you had been completely, helplessly motionless through it all; her annoyance to find that Matt had not completed his duty had saved you.

He waved his outstretched hand in a wiping motion all as he turned away from you to return to his original task. No further words or glares, the pain had instantly dissolved. And even as your movements were restored, fully able to pilot your own body again, your mind however needed more time to recuperate. Before Matt would be left unsupervised, once again, you would be the first to move.

You spent most of your free time, meager as it was, in the common area of your sector. You volunteered to unofficially supervise, which included breaking up the occasional argument between hungry troopers and making sure meals came out on time; anything to keep the schedule running optimally. Although your allotted responsibility had been concerning data entry, the requirements had tapered down to a minimal, shifted to automatic means. You busied yourself with supervising, primarily to keep your superiors from retraining you for other duties. You had become particularly wary of the increasing demand and associated horrors of the financial sector.

Returning to your regular haunt, you found FN-2199 with his helmet removed, howling with laughter. Bright eyes, gleaming teeth, and hair redder than red. He was the first you could recognize as you entered the room, finding him with his head tipped back and both hands splayed over his ivory chest plate. Others encircled him in a mishmash of helmets, on and off, with their exposed faces matching his expression. Once the handful of others dispersed, he bounded over to you, bright eyes impossibly turning brighter. There was unspoken appreciation for your presence, he had a story for you he knew you wanted to hear and was excited to share.

Amusement was still present in his voice, pulling back loose strands of grenadine hair from out of his face as he whirled about to face you, “You should have seen it... If I didn't see it for myself, I don't think I would believe it... This new guy is— a total nerve burner!" Speaking as if he had just ran laps around the perimeter of the room, he dissolved into a snort which was closely followed by a look of partial embarrassment.

Kylo Ren: the nerve burner.

A juvenile comment, true, but no less valid. You knew your friend was about to grace you with a retelling of all that you had missed, while being held by invisible hands, in the way his commentary was practically bursting out of him.

“He really is,” you quickly agreed. Your reasons for approving were emphatically different, but shared a conclusion all the same. Remembering the rage in his eyes, you were suddenly overcome with the suspicion that you were being watched. Peering over your shoulder to confirm Matt’s absence, you breathed a sigh of relief.

“He threw Ren’s light sword thing– right at the wall... Right there,” he pointed, “I mean, look at that shit... Now, I'm no scientist but that's solid durasteel. Durasteel. This new technician is a new level of crazy, really.” As mentioned, there was a clearly identifiable dent in the wall next to the workplace incident counter, which seemed to be permanently set at 0 days. Typically, the irony of the visual would have inspired a smile or laugh on your part, but under the circumstances, comedy was unable to get through to you.

A knot formed in your stomach at the recognition that the deactivated lightsaber, the cause of commotion, had been seized by your friend and was wrapped up in his glove. "Who's idea was it to give the galaxy's most temperamental butcher a thing like this?"

"Matt?"

His voice sharpened, given the impression you hadn't been listening, "What? No, I was talking about Kylo Ren."

"Same thing."

He scrunched up his nose at you before he carried on speaking, still enchanted by the previous moment and buzzing, "It's kind of hard to believe this thing can cause so much damage, especially when you see it up close like this. It looks poorly made, right? When it's activated, I mean. It's like a little kid built it."

He held it up to his eye for closer inspection. The emitter fell perfectly in line with his brow. One wrong move or any pressure on the switch and he would have rendered himself blind.

Nines. Really?

“Why are you holding that thing?” You took a step back as if the lightsaber was cognizant and opportunistic, able to switch itself on.

He spoke on top of you, not with the intention of being rude but only carried away by his access to the fabled weapon, “I wonder how Matt got a hold of it in the first place. I can't believe anyone would test his patience after—” His voice faded out, receding into a swallow.

“—Then think about it, Nines! What is the only reasonable explanation?” Not that Occam's razor would help, seeing that Kylo Ren pretending to be a radar technician was certainly not the simpler explanation. However, unknowing how Matt would react if you revealed his identity, you felt it necessary to least express caution to your friend given that the radar technician had a penchant for hurling his defective glow stick at walls and force-freezing innocent bystanders. Of course, you still considered yourself innocent. Even if on a technicality of ignorance.

FN-2199 ignored your warning, passing his eyes across it as he turned it over in his hands. You were almost nervous at his uncharacteristic fixation upon it. Was it that he could feel the power? Could he imagine how many had perished, ripped apart or otherwise, human flesh being tremendously softer than durasteel? Could he imagine all the devastation?

A shrug followed, allowing for it to drop to his side with a slow rattle of his head. Nines was ambivalent to the Commander’s prop. And it was so like him to have moments, of obvious weight and magnitude, fly over his head. “We should put it in the trash compactor...” His voice broke into a snort again.

Apparently way, way over his head.

His expression made it shockingly difficult to deny, being all teeth and dimples and flaring nostrils. Shaking your head for a definite no, he shook a yes back before continuing, “Imagine the Commander looking all over this frippin' base for this thing..."

In a scolding tone, you tried to allude to the serious nature he couldn't pick up on, "Nines."

"No, wait... Imagine him eventually finding it in the garbage.” Disintegration into snickering, pressing his free hand to his face. There was no one he could make laugh harder than himself.

FN-2199’s taste for hue and cry had only intensified with FN-2187 going AWOL. They were a tight-knit group and his divorce from the Order had changed everyone, but no one more than Nines. The sheer fact that he was entertaining the lightsaber-in-the-trash-compactor scheme was evidence enough. As the saying goes, there’s a first and last for everything. You understood this was not the case for practical jokes on Matt; no first or last anything for it would be a death wish. And you did not want to imagine a day without Nines on Starkiller, as much as he could be cause for nervous tension. Bold and loyal, the ideal companion, he would risk his hide to save yours. It was unspoken, mostly as you avoided letting conversations spike in that direction, but he would make sure that you were okay; he would put your life before his own— and not because he was programed to.

"You will definitely not be throwing Kylo Ren's lightsaber in the trash."

Nines, your recklessness is going to be the end of us both.

Your scolding, the impossible arrangement of words that rolled off your nervous tongue, only made him laugh louder.

The Lieutenant Colonel was a good-natured man, if not melancholic recently. He had a young face which had begun showing signs of aging since the devastation of his son. Sadness hollowed out his expression, tethered with sleeplessness and heartache. Still, he kept his uniform without creases and wore an approachable look at all times. He was always affably composed, even in the days within the shadow of the incident. You were positive that he kept his good nature about him for the great number of troopers that looked up to him as a surrogate parent. So many leaned on him for support and stability that even the most thorough psytech would fail to discern. His were qualities that could not be taught or replicated.

You wondered how truly exhausted he was underneath it all.

And as stillness overtook the room, the Lieutenant Colonel Zack was first to notice the approaching authority. He just about doubled over himself all to properly salute whoever it was that had approached the common area. The Lieutenant Colonel's sudden marvel caused all eyes in the room to pull towards the figure, whose very presence had swept through into the chamber like a cold, arctic Starkiller wind.

“Ah! General Hux. What brings you to our sector?”

Legion of Spoilers - Chapter 1

This past Wednesday, FX finally premiered the long-awaited Legion, written and produced by Fargo’s Noah Hawley. Although the show is based on the lesser-known character from the X-Men universe, Hawley has described it as an adaptation built on the same foundation as the original’s volatile powers and identity.

Chapter 1 opens with a montage of scenes of David Haller's (Dan Stevens) childhood. The sequence starts innocently enough, with moments that could have been plucked from any family album in mid-century middle America, before progressing through increasingly chaotic scenes that hint at the scope of David's powers and instability. The series appears to have taken a page from Breaking Bad, adopting a saturated and vivid palette in which each color has its own significance. Take the opening two scenes: the montage and the hospital visit. David's early childhood is rendered with the nostalgia of sepia and pastels. As his powers grow and the whispers grow louder, everything darkens, the lighting deepening to more ominous shades that culminate in his attempted suicide. He vanishes downward, leaving only darkness bisected by an orange electric cord.

In the next scene, David has risen from the bottom of the frame and is dressed in a lighter palette, the earth tones that recur throughout the psychiatric hospital where he is being treated for paranoid schizophrenia. Even his hair is lighter. Sitting opposite him is a woman later identified as his sister, Amy (Katie Aselton), clad in bright green and navy blue that pop incongruously against the wan décor of the visiting room and David’s more muted shades. She offers him the saddest birthday cupcake of all time, which becomes improbably sadder when a guard denies David even a taste of chocolatey goodness. The visit ends abruptly when an orderly announces it's time for his next pill, and before he leaves the table, David mutters to his bewildered visitor, "Something new needs to happen soon."

And then it does: David spots a new inmate. Sydney Barrett (Rachel Keller) picks her way through the ward, anxiously and assiduously avoiding physical contact. Smitten immediately, he offers her Twizzlers stolen from his (understandably miffed) ward buddy Lenny (Aubrey Plaza). Thus begins a charming and innocent courtship conducted over evening skylines and cherry pie. But the time is already out of joint: One moment David is standing to receive his pill, and the next an orderly is pushing him along in a wheelchair. It's unclear how much time has passed between those two shots, or since his sister's visit. The transition – so seamless I initially missed it – sets up a series of cuts worthy of Billy Pilgrim’s Tralfamadorian time-jumps.

By his own admission, David is an unreliable narrator. Dogged by voices and visions of a creepy Humpty-Dumpty demon (The Devil with Yellow Eyes), his grip on reality is tenuous at best. That he is aware of this does nothing to help ground him or viewers. The first chapter doesn’t so much play out as it assembles a disorienting collage of non-linear moments. It’s nearly perpetually unclear whether we're seeing the present, a flashback (that is, an accurate depiction of a past event), a memory (an event as recorded by the notoriously unreliable human brain), a hallucination or dream, an alternate timeline, or some cocktail of all of the above. I have a theory about what happened but you probably have one too, and it’s anybody’s guess how well that squares with David Haller’s (or Noah Hawley’s) chronology.

One moment David and Sydney are sharing a quiet evening, and the next David is hunched over a candy-apple red table in a very white room. Now in civilian clothes, he’s being questioned by a polished official in a brown suit (Hamish Linklater) while a sinister whittler with a weird eye (Mackenzie Gray) lurks at the edges of the room. By degrees, the interrogation – intercut with what we'll call flashbacks – reveals that David possesses telepathic and telekinetic powers, that the latter tend to manifest spectacularly in moments of great stress, and that something very bad happened at the hospital. That incident – which coincided with Sydney's discharge from the hospital – killed Lenny, shook the building to its foundation, and sealed every patient behind doorless walls.

Only it wasn’t Sydney who was discharged: When they kissed each other goodbye, Sydney and David switched bodies, and David's mind emerged from the hospital in Sydney's body. Several scenes later, David's body somehow catches up while "Sydney" is sitting in an outdoor café. He makes his way to his sister's place on what turns out to be Halloween and eats every waffle in the house before retiring to the basement to apologize to a hallucination of his former ward buddy. At least, you assume it's a hallucination until David's sister pops in to check up on him and the camera shows Lenny’s reflection in a nearby mirror. Silent and motionless, Lenny watches as David crouches over the fragments of a (telekinetically) shattered lamp and his sister absconds with every nearby sharp implement as diplomatically as possible.

David snaps back to the interrogation to find he's been moved to a filled swimming pool rigged with high voltage cables. In true Bond villain fashion, his interrogator looms over him brandishing a kill switch; and in true Bond villain fashion, he and all his henchmen are incinerated in a near-cosmic conflagration that leaves the building (and of course David) untouched. The explosion announces the arrival of a rescue team led by (who else?) Syd Barrett, who takes them to a boat launch where Melanie Bird (Jean Smart) awaits. After one last leer from the Devil with Yellow Eyes, David takes Ms. Bird's hand, and – what do you mean the next episode isn’t for another week?!

Show runner Noah Hawley is in his usual fine form, with every line, shot, cut, and costume composed with the rigor of Fargo and the panache of The Unusuals. Catchy and eclectic soundtracks are another Hawley trademark, and here as well Legion lives up to its predecessors. The aesthetic genuflects to Pink Floyd even as the show defies viewers to place it in a recognizable historical moment. This appears to be intentional as well, both as a world-building and thematic choice: Asking when all this happens or whether it even happens in our universe distracts us from the more material how. Unfortunately every potential answer to the latter is terrifying; sharing David’s sense of dislocation is less frightening than considering he is in possession of an immense power that he cannot control.

We all construct our own realities, but what happens when you can bend reality – whether you want to or not? What happens when you can’t know whether your delusions manipulate your perceptions or the actual fabric of space-time? David’s power unmoors him from every dimension we rely on to make sense of our experiences – but of course, that’s the point. The combination of his power and mental illness keep him at a remove, inspiring a fear that reaches past allies and enemies into the world we like to call real. I wouldn’t want to have his power, but I can’t wait to see what he’ll do with it next.

QUOTES

"My 260th Thursday as a passenger on the cruise ship Mental Health."

"Do you...wanna be my girlfriend?"

"Okay. But don't touch me." "Okay." "Yeah?" "Yeah." "Okay."

"If he so much as farts too loud, we're moving to Level Two."

"Don't give a newbie a bazooka and then act surprised when she blows shit up."

"What's so funny?" "I'm insane, you idiot. This is my delusion."

ODDS & ENDS

Full disclosure: I haven’t read the Legion comics, although I have done some Internet research in preparation for the series. Any references to the comics will be sourced and linked for comics fans who care to check my work. If you haven’t read the comics either, CBR has a pretty good primer.

Hawley has said the show won’t be a blow-by-blow recreation of Legion’s history or arcs, but he is trying to do justice to Sienkiewicz’s signature visual style. (Related: The Hair has been promised.)

So far, the only nod to the X-Men aside from the X in the show's title card is the yellow and blue color scheme of David’s pajamas. Hawley has suggested that the show takes place in one of X-Men’s alternate universes, but the title card suggests that the two worlds will eventually collide.

I will not pretend to have any idea what was up with that dance sequence, but if you’re interested, it was set to “Pauvre Lola” by Serge Gainsbourg.

The other two songs featured prominently were The Who’s “Happy Jack” (the opening montage) and The Rolling Stones’ “She’s a Rainbow” (David and Syd’s courtship). And yes, Sydney is named after Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett.

Legion opened with several Hawley show alum, and I’m hoping for more. The most notable appearances in this chapter are Jean Smart and Rachel Keller, who starred in Season 2 of Fargo as Floyd and Simone Gerhardt. Mackenzie Gray and Brad Mann have also appeared in Fargo and Hamish Linklater is slated for Season 3.

Other notable cast members: Aubrey Plaza and Dan Stevens. Stevens played Matthew Crawley on Downtown Abbey. Plaza is probably best known for April Ludgate in Parks & Recreation and Daria in a briefly viral CollegeHumor trailer, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn she also voiced deadpan creepytwin Eska on The Legend of Korra.

Hawley is a fan of Kurt Vonnegut and is also working on adapting Cat’s Cradle for FX.

The ambulance parked in front of Clockworks after the incident bears the name Calvino, no doubt a nod to postmodern novelist Italo Calvino. My eyes are now peeled for a sly reference to The Nonexistent Knight.

The character debuted in 1985, written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz. In the comics, David Haller/Legion suffers from multiple personality disorder – his name is based on the biblical story in which a group of demons possessing a human identify themselves as Legion – and each personality controls a different power. I think something similar is going on in the show (more on that in Fan Theories).

FAN THEORIES, or WHAT THE HELL I THINK IS GOING ON

I don’t believe Sydney Barrett is real. Ditto for Rudy (Brad Mann) [I may have gotten the name wrong, but the telekinetic dude in black tactical wear]. My theory is that Sydney is a psychokinetic projection of one of David’s latent personalities, and that Rudy is either psychokinetic or hallucinatory projection of another latent personality. This would explain why Lenny and Dr. Kissinger both see Sydney, why David kissing her generates a concussive energy wave (as David suddenly adopts Sydney’s body and leaves a psychokinetic projection of David behind), and how David finds himself – body and mind – sitting in a chair previously occupied by “Sydney.” Both Sydney and Rudy demonstrate powers we already know David to possess – telepathy and telekinesis, respectively.

The nature of David’s illness prevents him from recognizing these projections as aspects of his own mind.

I’m on the fence about Ptonomy (Jeremie Harris) and Kerry (Amber Midthunder). It’s 50/50 between them being additional latent personalities OR employees of Melanie Bird (whose existence I’m buying for the time being). They don’t seem to possess any mutant powers, but they do speak in a slightly stilted manner that seems more imagined than natural.

At least some of David’s hallucinations aren’t hallucinations. He possesses the ability to reach into parallel universes (mentally if not physically) and what looks like unreality to viewers and squares is actually David accessing a world of (if you will) alternative facts. That Lenny’s reflection appears in a mirror that is out of David’s line of sight suggests to me that her existence is not a quirk of rogue brain chemistry.

Chronology: David is sharing a house with girlfriend Philly and several housemates. After a bad fight, Philly storms off and David retreats to the kitchen, where his tumultuous emotions manifest in a poltergeist-type phenomenon that gives us a glimpse of The Devil with the Yellow Eyes. Shortly afterward he laces up an electric cord and tries to hang himself, which leads to his six-year occupancy of the Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital. The cupcake visit occurs in the fifth year of his tenure; after a time jump of less than a year he meets and befriends Syd Barrett. In the latter’s form he eventually convinces Dr. Kissinger to discharge them, performs the psychokinetic switch described above, and escapes the facility in year six. Nevertheless, the stress of Syd’s “departure” provokes the incident that kills Lenny and seals the ward. After approximately a week of freedom, David calls the hospital hoping to talk to Syd, only to be told that they have no record of any such patient. Ptonomy and Kerry try to pick him up, only to be intercepted by The Eye and his SWAT minions. David comes to in the interrogation room, vanishes his lunch tray, blows shit up, and gets knocked out and removed to the pool. From there he musters some nasty pyrokinesis and makes his daring escape.

Every color signifies something. Pastels and sepia tones are childhood memories. Earth tones (muted oranges, yellows, and dull greens) recur throughout Clockworks, both on the inmates and in the décor. Syd’s overcoat and kerchief are also orange, suggesting she is inextricable from Clockworks even after she leaves. However, she carries a bright green suitcase which echoes the lime and then Kelly greens sported Amy Haller; these shades only appear on those free to leave the hospital. David is wearing gray when he loses control, first in the shared house kitchen and again during what I affectionately call the InterroBang. Fittingly, his latent personalities wear black – Sydney’s track jacket is black, as are the clothes she’s wearing the day she leaves the hospital. Dead Lenny is wearing a black tank top under beige overalls, a manifestation that he didn’t create from whole cloth because alive Lenny was real. The last colors that jumped out at me are also the hardest to parse: white and red. Both the interrogation room and the orderlies’ uniforms include broad, geometrically rigid blocks of white. I have no idea what this means. And when David exercises his power with great force, a lurid red glow suffuses the screen. This red glow also silhouettes the dog(?) sitting in a kennel in the government facility where David is interrogated, implying an as-yet unrevealed connection. Red also seems to accompany moments of profound anxiety, reverie, or dislocation: It features prominently in the house kitchen counters, the café tables and chairs, and of course the table in the interrogation room.