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thetriggeredhappy · 3 years

Note

in the dadspy au, what if jeremy was just going to be an assistant/cook/janitor at the base while his dad was being the mercenary (since spy didnt want him to follow the "career" but didnt want to be separated from him), but then jeremy turned out to be even better than the hired scout so they promote him to that position and spy is not happy with this at all

ok i was gonna put this in the queue to post but im impatient because im happy with this one. only thing i didnt have was spy being upset by this development

(warnings for canon-typical violence, discussion of mercenary-type things, paranoia, alcohol, and exactly one proper fight scene. consider this pg-13)

“Would you prefer the good news first, or the bad news?” Dad asked.

Jeremy looked up at him from where he’d snatched up the sunday comics from his dad’s newspaper and was doodling little hats on the characters while they waited for their food to arrive. “Uh,” he said, “good news first.”

“Alright. The good news is, do you remember that line I’ve been tailing? The one in New Mexico?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jeremy said, then nodded a little more confidently. “Immunity, safehouse, somethin’ like that, right?”

“...Something like that,” Dad agreed carefully, and that made him raise an eyebrow. “It went well, and I think there’s the very real possibility that I’ve all but closed the deal, all they want now is an interview.”

“...Interview, singular,” Jeremy said slowly.

“That’s where the bad news begins. Unfortunately... merde, how to phrase this?” He drew a hand down his face. “They’re fully willing to hire me on, but this is a more... corporate affair than I’m used to. They have rules, stipulations. Long story short, they will not hire you as a mercenary on the basis of your age.”

Jeremy tensed. “What?” he demanded. “That’s stupid, I’m old enough to drive and buy guns and whatever the hell else.”

“But not rent a car, at least in many places in the United States.”

“But—“ he started, and remembered they were in public, and lowered his voice to a hiss, leaning in. “We’re hired killers, thieves, criminals. Do they really think we’re above having fakes? False documentation?”

“Actually, that is one of their requirements,” Dad said dryly, taking a paper from his jacket and consulting it. “I’m not happy about it either, mon lapin, but those are their rules. Already they have slightly bent them for one individual, and already I am on thin ice. But I may have a way to manage this.”

“Yeah?” Jeremy asked, nervous now.

“I know the woman responsible for new hires and managing the team I’ve applied for. She owes me a favor—a fairly hefty one. When I go in for the interview, one of my demands will include you being hired on, not as a mercenary, but for... for custodial purposes, something like that. Cook, janitor, security guard, secretary—whatever job there is that needs doing there, and I am sure that there will be one. Something to allow you to live there. Pay will likely be her stipulation, and the play I hope to make is that really, you’re overqualified for the position and she’s lucky to have someone so competent available, and in the worst case scenario, the pay is still good enough even for just one of us that we will not cut too deeply into the savings.”

The savings. That made Scout blink, because they only ever brought up the savings when—

“You think this could be it?” he asked quietly. “Like, it it?”

A hard exhale, and he leaned his cheek on his hand. “Potentially,” he finally said. “I don’t want to get your hopes up, but the job promises a variety of things. Medical attention available, extremely low levels of danger, and most of all, confidentiality. The only people who will know any name we give them would be the woman in charge of hiring us and their singular medical professional. There is no mode of communication to or from the compound outside of emergency lines to the organization and a single secure payphone located two miles away, there is no civilization within a twenty-five minute drive minimum, and this operation has been going long enough that the local authorities have long since grown used to being paid off, and likely don’t even remember what for anymore. I cash in a few valuable favors and ask this employer to turn a blind eye, we’d have somewhere remote and secure to spend our time after our deaths are faked and once the contract is over, we can start over. No ties to the past.”

“Freedom,” Jeremy marveled.

Silence for a few seconds, broken only by the quiet chatter of the rest of the diner. “I want to warn you, this work may not be glamorous. It may not even be particularly easy. I’m giving you the option of saying no,” Dad said.

“What?! Yes, hell yes, are you joking? To get us to living like normal people? Steady work? Livin’ in one place? Count me in!” he laughed.

“What if the job is something you won’t enjoy? Long hours, boring work?” Dad asked, entirely serious.

“I’m still on board.”

“What if the other people working there are rude to you? Disrespectful?”

“Well most of the people I meet through our job now try to kill us, so really it’s an upgrade.”

“What if there’s no diner nearby?” he asked, and there was a glint of humor in his eye.

“Damn, sorry, that’s the dealbreaker,” he joked right back, and that made him snort, shake his head, greet the waitress as she came back with their coffee and soda and then informed them that their food would be out shortly.

“I’ll ask,” was what Dad said once she was gone again, and that was that, and they started driving to New Mexico two nights later.

“—A warm welcome to our two newest recruits. This is the Spy, and this is the Guard.”

“Guard?” asked one of the men at the table, his accent thick and distinctly Russian. It made Jeremy tense slightly, but he didn’t let it show.

“Night Guard,” Jeremy answered, voice clipped.

“He’s not technically hired on as a mercenary like you all, he won’t be joining you on missions,” the short woman apparently named Miss Pauling (Jeremy was fairly sure it was a fake name) said, hands folded in front of her neatly. “He’s here to work security. Keep an eye out during the night, filter through the camera footage, handle the archiving, things like that.”

“We’re hiring on a civvie now?” asked another man, thick Scottish accent a little harder to digest than the eyepatch and the grenade he was in the process of fiddling with the internal mechanisms of.

“He’s combat ready, and will still be armed. His job is to essentially make sure you’re all safe enough to sleep through the night,” Miss Pauling said.

“I’m not some chump,” Jeremy agreed. “I know my stuff.”

“How old is he?” another man asked, this one in a hardhat with a heavy drawl, looking concerned.

“Twenty, for your information,” Jeremy said, a little sharply, eyes narrowed.

“If you have any other questions, there’ll be time later on. For now, I do need to show our two newest recruits where they’ll be staying,” Miss Pauling cut in.

There was an audible scoff from one of the men at the table, a dramatic rolling of eyes. Jeremy glared at him. He unfolded and refolded his extremely tattoo’d tree-trunk-like arms, tugging the visor of his hat between. “Sorry,” he said, accent thick and distinctly Californian. “I just don’t have the most trust for some scrawny kid in slacks and creep in a ski mask.”

“Scout, don’t start,” Miss Pauling warned.

“Just saying,” this man, apparently called Scout, muttered under his breath regardless.

“Don’t,” she said again, more firmly, and ignored the second eye roll she got for the trouble. “If you two would follow me.”

And they were shown around the base, and Jeremy in particular was shown into a room stuck behind three locked doors, where he found camera feeds and recording equipment. She gave him a basic overview and a thick packet of instructions and policies labelled ‘highly classified’ and a phone number to call if he had any further questions, and a set of hours that were apparently meant to become the new standard for him (with the quiet addendum that if he finished early that was alright, and that technically he could turn in early if two or more members of the team were already awake for the day and he was caught up on the archiving of old tapes).

Then he was left to “get used to the equipment”, which he assumed meant his dad was getting a similar rundown of his job, and it took a pretty quick glance through the packet to understand that clearly this place ran on an extremely secretive and closely monitored series of systems. In the packet, between the sections on camera maintenance and operation hours, were a few sheets detailing what were apparently the movement patterns of the various members of the team, including frequented locations and previously recorded large-scale infractions (mostly on the part of the Soldier, the Medic, the Scout, and one from the Demoman).

He wasn’t the one with the title Spy, but fuck, it seemed like he might as well have it. His entire job wasn’t even necessarily to keep the team safe overnight—he was just meant to watch all of them to make sure nobody was anywhere or doing anything out of the ordinary.

The next time he saw his dad, waiting outside the infirmary to get some sort of physical evaluation, his face was arranged carefully enough that he could tell he’d figured out something was up, too.

“Got your job assignments?” he asked quietly in French, glancing towards the door into the infirmary.

A nod, a glance. “I’m intrigued by the methods used in employee evaluation,” he deadpanned. “Especially the fact that apparently, they’re willing to assign employees for the explicit task of doing them.”

“How often?”

“Weekly.”

“Thorough,” Jeremy deadpanned, and glanced towards the hall at the distant sound of laughter, echoing from somewhere else on the base. “That’s basically mine too.”

There was a long silence, and when Jeremy looked back over, his dad was giving him an almost expectant look, waiting. All he had to offer him was a shrug, which was returned after a moment with a vague shake of the head. “I don’t believe it will be a problem,” his dad said simply. “Not for us, at the very least.”

Jeremy nodded. “Yeah. Uh, anyways, good luck with the… physical, or whatever,” he said, and received a pat on the shoulder before he walked back off down the hall, hoping to figure out what exactly he was supposed to do with an entire room all to himself. He’d almost never had one before.

He was used to time changes and jet lag, to needing to switch his sleep schedule on the regular, but the switch to a straight up night shift was a rough one.

His nine-to-five was actually a ten-to-six, as in 10 PM through 6 AM. This meant that, assuming he managed to get his schedule in order, he’d be able to join in on the team dinners if he woke up early and could eat breakfast with them before he went to bed.

Very quickly he realized that going to dinner and breakfast with the team was going to become a staple part of his routine, because it didn’t take long before he began to feel extremely lonely all of the time. In a dark little room, everyone else asleep, scrubbing through tapes from during the day while half keeping an eye on the live feed from around the base that never showed much of anything, it was brutal. It was suffocating.

It was easy, at least. It didn’t take long before he got efficient at it and could start zoning out, and it wasn’t like he was under much pressure. His was the only room without any cameras in it. Security risk, apparently.  And to be honest, what small amount he and Dad interacted with mercenaries and other criminal types, Jeremy didn’t really tend to like them much. A lot of them were loud and rude and had the potential to turn around and try and kill them whenever they felt like it. He didn’t expect that he’d like the team as much as he did. He especially didn’t expect to like them so much without ever really talking to them.

But watching the camera feeds from throughout the day, seeing what they were up to, they were just... nice people. Soldier out by the dumpsters practicing rocket jumps and wrangling raccoons and apparently trying to learn how to spin a rifle, Pyro’s regular minor explosions in the kitchen while cooking and the surprised and frantic way they cleaned it up every time, the Demoman’s tendency to whistle wherever he went, watching through the feed as they all played cards and argued and jostled each other. They all seemed really nice. Really cool. Really dorky, too, but mostly just really nice and really cool.

And there were a few of them he was less sure about—he couldn’t get eyes on the Medic most of the time, what with the one camera in the Medbay being tilted down at an angle that made it hard to see much of anything but the occasional bird (probably by those same birds). The Heavy tended to just sit and read, and was pretty much silent most of the time otherwise. The Scout tended to leave the base pretty often. And the Sniper didn’t even live on base, he had a van outside that he could only occasionally see movement in when he squinted at the far edge of the camera leading outside. But even then, Heavy and Sniper mostly just seemed quiet, and Medic just seemed busy, and the Scout just seemed like a little bit of a dickhead.

But then one day when Jeremy was at breakfast the Heavy caught him leaning to try to get a look at the cover of the book he was reading, and he blurted that he was just wondering what book was so great that he’d stay up until like four in the morning reading, and then the entire team was gawking at him and asking questions and insisting that it was insane that there was someone actually watching all those cameras, and he shrugged and said there was always supposed to be someone watching the tapes back it was just usually some office worker type a hundred miles away. And they seemed almost... upset with him. And maybe that was fair, it wasn’t like he ever talked to any of them much, mostly he just spent breakfast and dinner half-asleep and listening to their chatter. And Demoman admitted that he’d honestly assumed that Jeremy slept his entire shift, he just always looked so tired at breakfast. There was almost this discomfort. This distrust.

And so, now that the jig was up, he made it a point to say some things to certain members of the team. To tell the Medic that his camera was tilted down so that he couldn’t see most of the room, and to very pointedly say that it was weird how that happened and that he didn’t know why they set it up like that in the first place, but it was really none of his business. Made it a point to warn the Engineer in the morning that the previous night, Soldier had been doing something in the fridge for a while, and to maybe check the labels before he made breakfast. Made it a point to tell the Demoman that the camera in his workshop was right in plain sight, and that if he moved one of his blackboards an inch or two to the left, it would obscure the room a pretty hefty amount. Made it a point to tell the Sniper that the camera on the rooftop seemed to be glitching out, and it’d just sort of lost the tapes of the previous two nights, and that it was really unfortunate since for all he knew there might have been someone ignoring the signs about there being no personnel allowed up there.

In return, he found that Pyro would sometimes make little sparkly notes with smiley faces on them and stick them to the door to the security room. That Sniper started tipping his hat at the camera above the door into the base from the garage. That on occasional drinking nights, the team would suddenly turn and start waving at the camera, laughing the whole way. On one night in particular he could hear through the low-quality and tinny speakers that they were trying to cajole him into leaving the security room for a while to join them for cards, and god, but he wanted to.

And he noticed more things. Soldier walking with a slight limp some days when rocket jumps had rough landings. Being able to count the doves in the infirmary and even tell them apart to some extent through blurry close-ups. The Engineer making it a point to sweep really regularly regardless of what project he was working on.

And then he noticed a weird thing.

It took him a long time to get used to the patterns of hallways, the cameras not really lined up linearly after a while, too many branching paths. He learned to follow progress, to flick from one camera to the next as someone walked around corners. And for a while he thought maybe he wasn’t very good at it.

Until he realized two things. First of all, that in a hallway where he knew there were five doors, he could only see four—apparently the door to Pyro’s room was just barely out of sight of the camera. He only figured it out because one day it swung open wide enough to almost bang against the wall.

And then, when he realized there was somehow that massive blindspot, that there was a corner with a blindspot too. One where that Scout kept disappearing.

He watched a few more times to make sure, and yep. He’d see the Engineer walking around the corner, flick to the next screen, and there he was, continuing down the hallway. And then later that same day, the Scout, walking, and flick to the next camera, and he wasn’t there.

One of the worse parts of the job was that he never got to see Dad anymore, never got to just sort of hang out the way they did all the time when he was growing up, and he knew he would miss it but he didn’t know how much. And he found it was even worse when he had something important to say, doubly so when he had something important to say but no idea if it was actually important.

He tried to bring it up casually, in the like ten minutes of time he ever got alone to talk to Dad. Dad was fighting the kettle trying to make some tea and he was trying to stay awake long enough to figure out how he was going to say this.

“Uh,” he said, and Dad looked at him. “So, uh, what’s the read you’re getting on that Scout guy?”

“Lazy,” Dad shrugged, looked back at the kettle. “Arrogant. He seems to care very little about doing his job correctly and has horrible communication on the field.”

“Right, right,” he nodded, fought a yawn down. “Uh. So like, kind of a dickhead.”

“Indeed,” Dad said, nodding vaguely.

“So uhhh... not the best.”

“Where are you going with this?” Dad asked, arching an eyebrow at him.

“I, I dunno, the guy just likes hanging out in this one blindspot in the cameras, and it’s kinda freaking me out,” Jeremy said, scratching at the back of his neck.

Dad frowned. “Strange. I wasn’t aware that there were any blindspots in the cameras.”

“There’s only a few, and only for pretty small spaces I think? But apparently he just likes hanging out in one of them.” Jeremy scuffed his shoe on the ground, glancing over as voices started echoing down the hall towards them. “Just thought it was weird.”

“I’ll look into it,” Dad muttered, voice quiet, and then raised it again slightly. “I refuse to keep up with sports.”

“C’mon,” Jeremy said, knowing this game well, changing subjects into something more normal as people entered earshot. “I’m not even asking you to keep up with sports, I’m just saying, I’d kill to go to a baseball game right about now.”

“The American Pasttime!” Soldier called from the room over.

“Exactly,” Jeremy agreed, nodding at Soldier as he also entered the kitchen, a half-asleep Demoman in tow.

“Any ghosties or ghoulies on the cameras last night, lad?” Demo had enough energy to ask, blinking blearily at the contents of the fridge.

“Oh, a billion,” Jeremy said.

“Guard!” Soldier barked, the most awake person in the room. “Should these ghost-ghouls appear again, don’t be afraid to point me in their direction! I have significant experience with them already and do not fear the likes of them!”

“Yeah sure,” Jeremy shrugged.

“You’re a champion, Guard,” Demo said with what was either a really disoriented blink or a wink, slugging him on the shoulder and wandering back out into the common room with the entire carton of milk in his other hand. Jeremy gave him a mock-salute that Soldier copied with absolute conviction. He and Dad shared a glance after the two of them left, and Jeremy was the first one to break, snickering under his breath.

“I’ll look into it,” Dad said, and also left the kitchen, and Jeremy nodded and started trying to remember what else he’d been planning on doing before bed.

“So,” Dad said a few days later, materializing next to Jeremy when he was in the middle of his jog and making him almost jump out of his skin, skidding to a stop.

“You’re enjoying that new watch way too much,” Jeremy panted, out of breath and still very much startled.

“Maybe,” Dad said, and he was smiling. “But as I was saying.”

“All you said was ‘so’,” Jeremy pointed out, giving him a look.

“There’s a juvenile joke here about how I’m your father and so of course I say ‘so’, but if you wouldn’t mind it, I did have something important to say, mon lapin,” Dad replied, and Jeremy rolled his eyes hard at the horrible joke and cheesy name, fighting back a smile of his own.

“Go for it,” he said, and took the opportunity to bend and tighten his shoelaces.

“So. Regarding that Scout and his habits. You mentioned he spends time in blind spots of the cameras, oui?” Dad asked.

“Yeah. Keeps, uh, I guess he keeps getting infractions for going off base too much, too. I’ve logged him leaving like three times this week already,” Jeremy nodded.

“Indeed. Well, considering how new we are to the team, I did not want to jump to conclusions, and so contacted Miss Pauling and asked on your behalf for any older records, and I found out something very... intriguing.”

Jeremy looked up at him, blinking. ‘Intriguing’, historically, had always been a very, very bad thing.

“Apparently, it has been two years since they last had a Guard situated on base. The previous one was a much older gentleman, retired from being a full member of the team due to health complications but not entirely ready to part with the company. The previous guard was somewhat strict, and the Scout—the same as we have now—very much disliked the man. He continued acquiring near-constant infractions under the man’s watch for leaving when he was not meant to, so much so that the previous Guard proposed enstating trackers on the team when they went off-base. And before this policy could take hold, the previous Guard left the base one day and did not return, and finally was found dead a state over, one month later.”

Jeremy blinked once, twice. “Holy shit,” he said, and took note of the wary look on his face. “Okay. So we’re thinkin’ the same thing, right?”

“I would assume so. And…” Dad hesitated, moved to fidget with his cufflinks. “And I would not be particularly concerned about this, as I’m confident that you wouldn’t have gotten his attention from what you’ve been up to lately, and therefore wouldn’t be in danger yet should history attempt to repeat itself, but… he’s already taken a disliking to you.”

“What?” he asked, eyebrows shooting up.

“I believe it’s something as simple as some sort of shallow jealousy. Another American on the team, also relatively young, filling the position of someone he disliked previously. He regularly complains about the fact that you don’t need to go do the same job as the rest of us.” Dad shrugged, glanced over at him. “That, combined with the fact that you have somewhat conflicting duties, well, he tends to rather tetchy. He claims that considering he’s meant to be the first line of defense, they shouldn’t also need a guard at night.”

Jeremy had a number of opinions about that, but he stuck to the most relevant ones. “I really don’t like this guy,” he said. “Might be, uh. Worth keeping an eye on.”

“Agreed.” Dad glanced back over his shoulder towards the base, then at his watch. “Enjoy the rest of your run. Don’t forget to eat.”

“Yeah yeah yeah, hit the bricks already, old man,” Jeremy scoffed, waving him off, and Dad rolled his eyes, disappearing again in a cloud of smoke. “You’re gonna be using that thing all the damn time now, aren’t you?”

“Oui,” came a voice from nowhere, and Jeremy huffed a laugh, meandering his way back into the rest of his jog.

Jeremy hummed along to the radio, flicking between cameras on autopilot and wondering when exactly to take his lunch break.

He didn’t face the clock or anything, so he wasn’t sure, but he thought he had a pretty solid rhythm at that point. Click, click, click, between the camera to the road, the camera to the main entrance, and the camera in the hall towards the middle of the building, for about one second each. At just about any time after 11 or 11:30, those were the only three in real time that he needed to keep an eye on, mostly for people coming back late from bar hopping or if Miss Pauling was rolling in on a delivery. All the other cameras he could see out of the corner of his eye, and any movement he’d pick up on pretty quick, even if it was usually just the doves fluttering on the camera to the Medbay. After he cycled through those (and there was almost never anything there) he’d cycle back through to the tape he had in, put it on high speed, and watch it for about two or three minutes, get through a chunk of that time. Mostly he’d just be making sure nobody had been in the base while the team was away ni o(which indeed there never was), so there wasn’t much of a reason to take it off high speed, and the second part of the night would be watching the tapes for the time the team was back on base.

Movement on a camera made him click the pause, and he glanced off to the side. One of the doves had shuffled to face the other direction. He rolled his eyes, looking back at the bigger monitor again and pressing play.

The second half of the night was a little more interesting. He just had to look at the tapes for the time the team was there, check for discrepancies that might point to Dad messing with the disguise technology off-the-clock or the enemy Spy having infiltrated. For the most part things were straightforward, but he at least got to see his teammates up to funny things sometimes. Pyro’s antics were usually entertaining. Soldier he only caught some of, on the basis of him often walking off out of range of the cameras when he went on his excursions. Demo was funny sometimes. Honestly, just seeing the Sniper anywhere but as a fuzzy distant shape was interesting.

Movement on a camera. Same dove. He ignored it. Click, click, click, all three cameras clear, back to the fast-forward of the same empty hallway as before.

He really needed to figure something out, for the Scout. Maybe he and Dad were just being paranoid. It would be insane for him to try to outright kill anyone who inconvenienced him, not to mention reckless, and stupid to boot. Acting like that in their line of work would make him a lot of enemies extremely quickly. It would make more sense for the old Guard disappearing to be unrelated, to be honest.

Yeah. Hell, he barely knew the guy, and here he was assuming he’d straight up whacked a guy for getting a little too on his case about something. Maybe they were wrong.

Movement on a camera. He glanced over and froze outright.

It took him five seconds to come to his senses enough to pause the playback on his screen.

Figures. Shapes. Not at the front entrance, in the hallway, there next to the back way, by the garage. At least three, moving carefully, hard to make out in the darkness.

Okay. Okay, don’t panic, focus.

Jeremy ran through a few things in his head. He’d already done a headcount, the only people he wasn’t sure about were the Sniper and the Medic, but he hadn’t seen the Medic in any of the hallways out of the infirmary. Three figures were two too many to be any of the team, and besides that, they didn’t look like the Medic. Too short to be the Sniper, moving differently. Different clothes.

Three people. He hopped up, rushed over to the wall, yanked open the panel he had there. Three buttons, which he needed to hit in order. The first would send an alert to Miss Pauling, the second to whoever was assigned to be on alert that night, the third would set off the alarm.

He hit the first, hit the second, and hesitated on the third.

Okay. Technically if he didn’t hit that third button, he’d be breaking protocol, which was, according to the manual, ‘grounds for termination’. He was pretty sure that meant a long swim with some concrete shoes. And it was apparently recorded every time he hit these buttons, so they could deduct from his pay on false alerts. So they’d know if he didn’t hit this third button. He needed to think fast.

This was a different button than the alert button. The alert was more subtle, set for just one person. The alarm was throughout the entire base, over every loudspeaker. Louder than a fire alarm. If he hit this one, these intruders would hear that there was an alarm going off. Anyone smart would book it, high tail it the hell out of there. But he still didn’t know where they came from.

There hadn’t been movement on any of the screens, and he looked at the camera feed facing the road already, a few times even. He should’ve seen them. And if they found their way in once, they could do it again.

If he didn’t hit the button, on the other hand, whoever was on alert would wake up and wonder why they’d gotten an alert but the alarm wasn’t going off. If they were clever, which they probably were if they’d lasted this long, they’d come to the security room to see what was up and they could work from there.

He closed the panel again and moved to wait.

A minute later, still no movement from the hallway where most of the rooms were. That was fine, they’d just woken up, and probably needed to get dressed and grab their guns.

Another minute later, no movement, which was fair, they just needed a second to get their bearings. The intruders, meanwhile, were just lurking, slowly making their way down the hall.

Another minute later, no movement, and he opened the panel to press the button again before he continued waiting. Maybe they didn’t hear him the first time.

Another minute later and he took to standing next to the panel, mashing the button rapidly, eyes on the screen where the intruders were passing the kitchen, starting to get pretty far into the building.

Another minute later and he stomped his way into his sneakers, grabbing his flashlight and gun and guard cap from where they were hung on the wall. “Fine, I’ll fucking do it myself,” he grumbled, and carefully shouldered open the door, taking one last glance at the camera before he shut the door behind himself.

He kept his footsteps quiet, squinting into the darkness, waiting for his eyes to finish adjusting as he crept towards where he’d last seen the figures. It was near-silent in the base at night except for the distant, quiet hum of generators and occasional shift of plumbing. It was getting more and more familiar, and he found himself able to tune it out somewhat, instead listening intently for footsteps besides his own, making sure to click the safety off his gun while he was still alone and not when he was close to whoever had decided to break in.

Okay. Dad did this all the time. He could handle this.

He slowed as he approached the corner near the kitchen, peering around as carefully as he could, tugging down the brim of his cap to try and hide any potential shine from his eyes. He caught sight of a vague shape standing near the doorway, hesitating before it crept inside, into the common area.

Not ideal, on the basis of that being their goddamn kitchen, but at least there would be cover.

By the time he managed to sneak up to the doorway, he could make out the sound of vague whispering. It was far enough that it gave him the boldness to peer into the room, and just slightly lit by the glow of the clock on the oven he could see two shapes there in the kitchen, the third lingering nearer to him, there by the table.

Jeremy was only just starting to make a plan, relieved to have the jump on them, when there was the distant sound of a generator humming to life, and all the figures stopped, paused for a moment.

“Fucking spooky here,” one whispered, barely audible.

“Calm down,” another whispered. “What, scared of ghosts?”

Jeremy inhaled, exhaled, shifted onto the balls of his feet and started creeping a little further into the room. If he could just get all three of them to one side, so he wouldn’t need to pivot so much…

“You don’t know, maybe there’s ghosts here,” the first protested, and swore quietly at what sounded like their winging their elbow against the corner of the tale, and Jeremy tried to stick near the wall, managed to creep half-behind one of the chairs, trying to keep his silhouette indistinct. “These guys kill people.”

“So do we,” the third mumbled, moving out of sight in the kitchen, and Jeremy bit down on a swear, starting to inch behind the couch. “Don’t be a coward. And stop making so much noise.”

“You can’t shoot a ghost,” the first pointed out, moving a bit closer to the kitchen, giving the table a wide berth now. “Or punch it.”

“I can try,” the second said, and stopped at the sound of a rustle.

Jeremy held his breath, weight half-balanced against where he’d tried to step, newspaper trapped beneath his foot.

“That one wasn’t me,” the first whispered. There was another, more significant rustle throughout the room, and Jeremy could see a glint as the intruders drew their weapons.

Jeremy inhaled, exhaled, and just barely managed not to swear out loud.

The first one was the closest by, lingering beside the arm of the couch Jeremy was crouched in the shadow of. “Do they have a cat here?” they asked, voice quiet.

The second was approaching into the main room more carefully. From the sound of the footsteps, trying to keep a shoulder closer to the wall, clearly paying more attention to the door. “Are you stupid or something?” was the reply, voice also quiet.

The third didn’t speak, but huffed out a laugh, which was enough to tell Jeremy that he was out of the kitchen.

Jeremy inhaled shakily, exhaled shakily, shifted his grip on his handgun and flashlight, and took a split second to think. Inhaled one more time.

He leapt to his feet, swinging his flashlight like a billy club and clobbering the first figure across the side of the head, sending them tumbling to the ground. From the sound of the impact, a dislocated jaw at the very least. One down.

A shout from the other side of the room, arms moving to try to aim, clearly struggling to see him, but that third figure was in the doorway, silhouetted against the faint light from the oven’s clock, and that was enough to figure out where the head and chest were. He aimed, fired, got what he was pretty sure was the neck considering the brief spray of blood that splattered against the oven, darkening the room completely.

A swear from the second figure, and Jeremy wanted to swear too, because he’d hoped that second figure would be stupid and try and charge him, but now he was ten steps away and didn’t have time to fiddle with and cock the gun again, other hand full with a flashlight and no way to—

Oh, duh.

“Stay where you are,” the second figure ordered, but Jeremy’s eyes were a little better adjusted and besides that, he wasn’t the one talking. He lifted his flashlight and clicked it on.

The second figure cried out, recoiling at the sudden blindingly bright light in what had been near-darkness, and Jeremy had time to finagle his thumb up to cock his gun again, now able to aim with absolute accuracy, this shot connecting with the figure’s head.

He exhaled.

It took Jeremy two minutes to remember to fire a bullet into the chest of the unconscious guy, and another minute for the other mercenaries to start showing up, half-dressed and armed. Dad, presumably to prove a point, showed up pretty close to the middle of the pack almost fully dressed. Jeremy wasn’t entirely sure how long it took before Miss Pauling showed up, but he wasn’t even halfway through their questions by that time.

“Guard, headcount?” she asked before she even bothered saying hello, still wearing her motorcycle helmet and looking more than a little bit miffed.

“Uh,” he said, eyes drawn away from where Medic was assessing the bodies on the kitchen table, “seven present and accounted for. Sniper’s probably out at his van, don’t know about the Scout.”

“Alright. Pyro,” she said, and Pyro stood at attention, bunny slippers squeaking at the movement. “go wake up Sniper and get him in here.”

Pyro nodded, handing their weird unicorn plushie thing to Jeremy as they passed by, giving him a solemn nod before hurrying away.

“Okay. Guard, hit me with a rundown, then,” she said, and shot a glance around the room. “No peanut gallery needed. And Medic, please don’t take them apart too much. I gotta get rid of those later.”

“Uh. Spotted these guys on the cameras, hit the first and second alerts,” Jeremy said.

“And not the third?” she asked pointedly.

“They were, like, right next to the door, and—here’s the thing, Miss P, is I dunno how the hell they got in here,” he said, and there was a general balk from the room. “No, seriously. They didn’t come in on the main road, they were in one of the back hallways by the garage. There’s gotta be a hole in the cameras or something, because I seriously don’t know where they came from. And if they booked it, they’d take whatever vehicle they used to get here, too, and we might not figure it out. Thought I’d just wait for whoever the hell was supposed to be on alert so we could… I dunno, at least see which way they went.”

“Guard,” she admonished, and he shrank a little bit. “That was incredibly reckless. What if nobody had shown up to help you?”

“Uh,” he said, blinked, “but… nobody did show up.”

A pause. She blinked. “What? You’re the one who did that?” she asked, entirely shocked, pointing towards the three bodies on the table.

“Uh, yeah? Isn’t that my job?” he asked carefully, shifting the stuffed animal under his arm.

“No, you’re—you’re just supposed to be the Guard, you’re supposed to watch cameras, not—“ She paused, taking a second to push up her glasses and rub at the bridge of her nose, inhaling, exhaling. “Okay. Points for… going above and beyond, here, but Guard, don’t do that again.”

“Sure thing, Miss P,” he mumbled, tugging on the brim of his guard cap, and sighed to himself as Miss Pauling moved away to try and stop Medic from attempting to covertly steal a few organs from the corpses. Dad clapped him on the shoulder supportively, and that did make him feel a little better. He wasn’t expecting a clap to the other shoulder, and looked up, surprised to see Heavy there, looking just slightly less grim than usual.

“Little Guard man is credit to team,” he said simply, solemnly.

Jeremy straightened up slightly. “Oh. Hey, thanks,” he said. Heavy nodded at him.

“It’s true,” Demo called, and he looked over, got another approving nod. “Really saved the lot of us, lad.”

“I, I mean, hey, it’s… what I’m here for. Or, uh. I thought that was it, anyways,” he shrugged, glancing away. “I mean, yeah, I’m pretty cool, though.”

Dad bumped his arm for the last part, and he snickered. “My question,” Dad continued, doing his best to ignore him, “is primarily regarding who, precisely, was supposed to be present to help Guard with this. Who is meant to be on alert?”

“It’s meant to be Scout, ain’t it?” the Engineer asked from nearby, frowning. A general murmur of agreement. “Could he have slept through it?”

“Heavy doubts this,” Heavy grumbled, looking troubled.

“Why’re we awake?” asked Sniper from the doorway, and various teammates called out a greeting. Sniper seemed half-gone, and completely grumpy, but not as grumpy as Pyro, and not nearly as gone as the man leaning heavily against Pyro’s shoulder.

“Hey,” the Scout managed, grinning, speech garbled, visibly sloppy and unbalanced. “What’s up, guys?”

Groans from parts of the room. “Drinkin’ again, Scout?” the Engineer drawled, visibly irritated.

“That’s my trademark, lad, go on,” Demo laughed, but the enthusiasm wasn’t entirely there.

“Scout,” Miss Pauling said, voice firm in a way that made Jeremy almost flinch in sympathy. “Are you aware that we’ve had a situation here while you’ve been sleeping?”

“Weren’t sleeping,” Sniper murmured, and eyes turned to him. He scratched at the back of his neck. “Came stumbling in ‘round when I was heading in. He was out for the night. Bar, looks like.”  “What?” Jeremy demanded. “Why the fuck didn’t I see him leave on the cameras?”

“Alright,” Miss Pauling said, and Jeremy looked at her. Her expression was hard to read. “It’s possible he went through the back tunnel.”

“Back tunnel?” Jeremy asked, and glanced around. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who hadn’t heard of it.

“For emergencies only. Scout’s the only one who I’ve given a key card to. I have one too. It’s supposed to be used for transporting especially sensitive information, most of the team isn’t supposed to even know it exists. If there’s a gap in the cameras around the back of the building, he might have been using it to… sneak out to go to town, even though he knows he’s already in hot water for leaving the base so much,” Miss Pauling said, glaring at Scout, who was looking increasingly annoyed.

“Whatever, it’s not a big deal,” he protested, scoffing.

“That tunnel is for emergencies only,” Miss Pauling stressed. “I trusted you with the privilege of knowing about it account of having worked here for so long, and you’re using that privilege and key card to mess around?”

“He was coming back from around the front of the building, at least,” Sniper chimed in, and Pyro nodded. “Not that I’d understand the point of sneaking out if he’s going to just walk back in the front door.”

“Key card?” Medic repeated from near the table, eyebrows furrowed.

“Yeah, it’s, it’s a magnetized card, that can be read by a card reader, used like a key,” Miss Pauling explained, deflating a little bit.

His eyebrows furrowed further. “Would it happen to look anything like this?” he asked, picking up a lanyard from the table and holding it up, showing the room the card clipped onto the end of it.

Two beats of silence. “Spy, would you mind?” Miss Pauling asked politely, nodding towards the Scout, who had gone pale.

“Not at all,” Dad said just as politely, and walked over towards the Scout and Pyro, then circled around behind them, and sank a blade into the Scout’s spine. He promptly crumbled to the floor, dead.

“Well. At least that’s that mystery solved,” Miss Pauling sighed, and rubbed at the bridge of her nose again. “Now I’ve gotta block off time tomorrow to get rid of three bodies, and then hopefully that’s the last we’re gonna hear of this or else the Administrator is gonna kill me.”

“What about the Scout?” Heavy rumbled.

“…Scratch that. Four bodies,” she mumbled, face dropping into her hands. “And then I need to find his replacement. Ugh.”

“Can’t imagine you’d need to go far,” Demo said, and Jeremy looked up, and Demo was very obviously tilting a thumb in his direction.

“He’s proven himself to be better at this job,” Dad agreed, shrugging. “And I would say on a bad day he’s still a better runner than the previous Scout on a good one.”

“He can clearly handle a firearm well,” the Engineer noted, looking over one of the bodies.

“And a blunt object,” Medic chimed, just a bit too pleased. “This jaw is almost completely shattered!”

“Okay, okay, fine, sure,” Miss Pauling waved off, one hand still pressed to her face, clearly overwhelmed and tired. “We’ll get his paperwork in tomorrow. Congratulations, you’re the new Scout, any questions? Can the questions wait until morning? Great, thank you. Good night, everyone. Medic, have the bodies in bags for me at least, okay?”

A distracted thumbs up from Medic, and Miss Pauling was groaning, wandering back out of the room, and most of the team followed, yawning amongst themselves. Sniper half-attempted to ask again why the hell any of them were awake, but gave up halfway through. Pyro, for one, made sure to at least retrieve the plushie from Scout’s arms before wandering off, giving him an appreciative pat on the shoulder.

“So,” Dad said, and when he looked over, he was smiling. “A promotion, mon lapin. Congratulations, new Scout.”

“Do I gotta wear that stupid outfit he always wears?” Jeremy asked, entirely serious. His reply was a laugh and a pat on the shoulder before he disappeared in a puff of smoke. “Pops, I’m serious. Do I? Dad!?”

“—So that’s why I figured, y’know, might as well tell you guys,” Jeremy finished rambling, hands in his pockets, continuing down the hallway. “Because… I dunno. I could tell Miss P, but it’s nice having secret stuff, y’know?”

“You think this is how they actually got in?” Demo asked, looking dubious. “Little blind spot in the cameras?”

“Only a couple feet wide, you said?” Sniper grumbled.

“Sounds possible,” Heavy said hesitantly.

“I dunno. Maybe. But if I tell Miss P about it, they’re gonna fix it,” Jeremy shrugged, turning the corner and stopping. “There. I knew it.”

They stopped with him, following his line of sight. “You’re takin’ the piss, mate,” Sniper deadpanned. “You want to tell me he’d been climbing out a window like a teenager?”

Jeremy shrugged, moving to open the window in question. It swung open easily, just large enough to push through with only a little bit of a problem, barely needing to turn his shoulders. “He’s not much bigger than me, and what the hell else would he be doing here?” he pointed out.

“Heavy cannot fit through that window,” Heavy deadpanned.

“Yeah. Sorry, big guy,” Jeremy apologized, leaning back inside and closing it again. “But hey, mystery solved, right?”

“Well, if I ever need windows to climb out of, now I know just the lad for the job,” Demo said, nudging him. “Thanks, Guard. Or, er, Scout. Och, now that’s going to take getting used to, aye? Might just stick to calling you ‘laddie’, laddie.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he laughed, nudging him right back. And as much as they ribbed him for it, he did see a kind of appreciation there. Just like he’d figured, they seemed to take note of him taking their side and not just Miss Pauling’s.

Now he just needed to switch back over to the day shift.

#father-son bonding au #dad!spy #tf2 #team fortress 2 #shut up me #my fanfiction #everybody talks #really happy with this one even if it took Way Too Fucking Long

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fruitcoops · 3 years

Text

Pat Down

The first of the short fics, for the lovely @awanderingdeal, who has been writing some killer fics from this same list recently! SW credit goes to @lumosinlove, of course.

#45: "How about you don’t touch me and you have somebody else pat me down instead?"

TW for creepy vibes, mild abuse of power at an airport, and nonconsensual staring/ flirting

The agent’s gaze prickled the back of Logan’s neck, and his face heated. She wasn’t even trying to hide it. “She’s still watching, isn’t she?” he murmured, hardly moving his lips.

Sirius nodded, touching the side of his hand for any semblance of comfort, then went rigid. His eyes were thunderclouds. “She’s biting her lip again.”

Logan let out a slow breath through his nose and tried to calm down. He had tried to justify it as some starstruck fan, but the suggestive lip bites, winks, and leans over the table with the top two buttons of her uniform shirt undone were too much to explain away. “How much more time?”

“Six more people, then us.”

“Can we leave?”

“Yes.”

Logan gave him a look. “Sirius.”

“No,” he admitted. “They need us.”

He clenched and unclenched his fists to relieve some of the tension building. “I’ll be fine. It’s just staring, and then we’re gone.”

His phone lit up with a message from Leo; the sight of their smiles in his screensaver soothed his nerves. Soon, he told himself. I’ll see them soon.

They made it through passport checks without an issue, and their bags went through the scanner easily. Shoes off, belt off, metal detector—

“Excuse me,” an eager voice chimed in. “You’ve been chosen for a random routine pat down. Please step aside.”

Logan’s throat constricted and he made eye contact with Sirius as he moved to the side, shaking his head. They wouldn’t cause a scene. It wasn’t worth it.

Sirius didn’t look like he believed him.

“Please raise your arms. This will only take a second.” The agent batted her eyelashes at him, and Logan’s instincts got the better of him.

“How about you don’t touch me, and you have somebody else pat me down instead?” he snapped, crossing his arms over his chest. The queue fell silent.

She blinked in shock. “Excuse me?”

“I’m not comfortable being patted down by you.”

“Well, I don’t think—”

“It’s well within his rights to request that,” Sirius interrupted, pointing to a small sign next to the metal detector. His voice was soft, but harder than granite as he watched her; Logan relaxed by a few degrees.

The agent looked between them, struggling for words, before she slipped back behind her kiosk to make room for a young man in the same blue uniform. He patted Logan down in three seconds flat, called ‘clear!’, and sent him on his way just like everyone else.

Familiar weight fell over his shoulders as Sirius wrapped an arm around him. “Ca va?” he asked under his breath while they waited for their luggage. Logan nodded. “Once we’re out of here, I’ll call the front desk and let them know what happened, d’accord?”

“Merci.”

Sirius gave him a light squeeze and snagged a waterbottle from the side pocket of his backpack, pressing it into Logan’s hand without a thought for their bags. “Drink. Breathe. You’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” he repeated, taking a large gulp of water. “I’m okay.”

His phone lit up again as he grabbed it off the belt.

(3) New Messages From: Clown Car

Miss you baby! Call us when you land!

Lo you have to get here he’s making fire soup again I’m gonna cry

Shut up Harzy

Logan laughed quietly and tapped out a short response; his stomach settled with each deep breath. “Ready?” Sirius asked.

New Message To: Clown Car

See you soon loves <3

“Ready.”

#logan tremblay #sirius black #oknutzy #sweater weather #my fic #fanfic #lumosinlove #short fic #airport

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neverdoingmuch · 3 years

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Wangxian prompt: They see each other constantly. Like, maybe they're neighbors, or is a "my kid's teacher" situation. Maybe they meet at the bus stop, or work in the same company but different offices. So they're aware of each other and they exchange glances, maybe little inside-joke smiles about things they both notice. They see each other being brave, competent, kind, so so handsome. And when they actually talk to each other months later the first thing they say is "Marry me" and "Yes"

ooh!! this sounds like a lot of fun, i love it so much. i think office workers would be the best bc then we can contrast the banality of the rest of their lives to the quirkiness of their relationship so to speak.

okay so it all started when lwj decided that he wanted to eat breakfast on his apartment balcony

he takes his bowl and goes to sit in the chair outside and he’s prepared to just enjoy the cool morning air but when he looks up he sees a man sitting on the balcony exactly opposite his

wwx, by some strange luck, has the apartment across the street, and always goes outside to try and wake up bc he is not a morning person at all and the 9-5 job is killer for someone who likes to go to sleep at like three in the morning

anyway, lwj looks up and sees this kinda cute guy just sitting on the floor miserably blinking at the rising sun and is like oh weird and tries not to stare too much

but after that first time lwj sees him, he starts seeing mystery balcony dude everywhere, like everywhere and no amount of not staring is gonna save him

he goes down to his favourite cafe to get a cup of tea after breakfast and while he’s enjoying his tea and reading the newspaper he hears someone laugh loudly and glances over to the muffin display to see balcony man chatting with one of the staff as he orders his own coffee

balcony man must have noticed his attention because he looks over and for a moment he looks confused but then he’s smiling brightly at lwj and it’s this absolutely amazing smile and he’s even hotter when he’s not sitting in a ratty t-shirt across the street and lwj panics, chugs the rest of his tea, and immediately leaves

he ends up arriving at the train station fifteen minutes early and is stuck awkwardly waiting while avoiding the grandma who likes showing men pictures of her granddaughter who is very beautiful and very single apparently

the train arrives and lwj gets on, finds a seat and pulls out his phone to respond to emails. then, just as the doors are about to shut, who should rush in but balcony man

he’s kinda sweaty and red but the guy makes it look good and he ends up sitting down a few metres from lwj, not that lwj notices because he’s very busy responding to his emails about how one of the teams in sales is having difficulties with one of their projects, so busy that he spends the next thirty minutes staring at the email unable to get past the second line

lwj and wwx end up getting off at the same stop and to lwj’s absolute horror they end up going to the same building

lwj tries to do the thing where you speedwalk past the person so they don’t think you’re following them but then wwx did the same thing to him so they end up arriving at the same time

they get in the elevator together, lwj near the door off to the left and balcony man in the far corner, leaning against the wall and looking down at his shoes

it’s kind of awkward but thankfully wwx gets off at the fifteenth floor - software design and tech support or something while lwj gets off at the twentieth floor - sales maybe?

he doesn’t see the man again until the end of the work day when they get into the elevator at the same time and go back down. they’re the only two people in there bc they’re working late or the stars aligned or something

and that’s just the first day. after that, every day the same thing happens and they keep seeing each other as they’re going to and from work.

but also lwj goes to do the grocery shopping and when he’s paying wwx is in the next line across and when he goes to buy new strings for his guqin wwx is already in the store buying a new mouthpiece for his dizi

this goes on for a few weeks and then one morning, while wwx is trying to shock his system into waking up and lwj is just enjoying breakfast, they hear familiar shouting: the couple downstairs is breaking up again

lwj rolls his eyes, aware that come next week they’ll be dating again, and just blocks it out when the boyfriend comes stumbling out of the building with his shirt half on and the girlfriend still yelling

he looks across the street to see what balcony man thinks of it all and sees that he’s mouthing along to the argument (it really is exactly the same speech every time but it’s incredible that he’s memorised it). lwj snorts. it’s unseemly and rude but balcony man is over there acting out the break up as well as mouthing along and it’s the funniest thing lwj’s seen all week.

wwx notices him laugh and decides to wave at him. lwj tentatively waves back and with that the magic of their relationship sets in

now when lwj goes to the cafe in the morning wwx will look around the store until he spots lwj and wave at him, and lwj will lift his mug up in greeting which always make wwx laugh

then when they get on the train, they always get seats opposite each other and while they never actually say anything, sometimes lwj will glance over to see wwx sneaking a look at him. they both blush and look away but moments later they’re doing it again

when they walk to work, lwj crosses the street so they can walk at the same pace and not have to actually be right next to each other and despite having to cross back over, wwx is always still waiting to catch the elevator with him.

now when they go up, they still don’t talk to each other but wwx always hums and lwj taps along with whatever tune he’s picked.

same thing when they go back down in the evening and catch the train back

over time it starts to become more than just staring and smiling, now when the couple downstairs breaks up, wwx will hold up like three fingers and lwj understands that balcony man thinks they’ll get back together within three days

(wwx’s always right btw)

when they go to the cafe lwj will send wwx a thumbs down if the sports mum with eight kids gets in queue first and wwx will always make hearts with his hands whenever the baristas start flirting.

when they get in the train and hear the angry businessmen argue they’re sitting there making funny faces at each other,, well wwx does and lwj just tries to keep his face blank. he usually succeeds but sometimes he smiles and wwx will always do a little victory wiggle which is honestly so cute lwj is dying

the elevator? they don’t even have to say anything. whenever a coworker they don’t like hops in they just find subtle ways to explain why they don’t like them and how

the best time was when lwj saw su she get in and immediately pulled a face like he sucked a lemon and had to try and mime “he always takes really long lunches and is really bad at sales but we can’t get rid of him because he’d whine too much and no one wants to put up with that” but he’s lwj and doesn’t really do miming. in contrast, when wen chao gets in wwx just holds up his thumb and pointer finger like he’s measuring something, and holds them only a few centimetres apart.

they both get really good at reading each other like that

when they catch the train back home it’s always really late so lwj ends up reading a book while wwx sketches and, just as lwj always holds up his books so wwx can see the cover, wwx will show lwj whatever he’s drawn

at one point in time lwj comes home and sees a stray kitten hiding in a box near the entrance to his building but he can’t take it in bc of his rabbit so instead he goes out onto his balcony and just points straight down and holds up a cardboard box he has in his own apartment

without even hesitating wwx goes downstairs and crosses the street, still dressed in his pyjamas, and takes the kitten home.

lwj kinda expected wwx to take the kitten to a shelter or something but within a month their morning routine changes to allow a kitten to climb all over wwx as he tries to wake up and it’s ridiculously adorable but also lwj is sitting there in absolute awe of how good balcony man is to just take in a stray like that

there’s probably a few other scenes, like wwx and lwj going out to a dinner with their teams and they get seated at nearby tables and end up sending each other commiserating smiles whenever the conversation gets particularly dull and the time when lwj gets caught by the well-meaning grandma who always tries to set people up with her granddaughter on the train and he taps out sos in morse code and wwx just replies rip and stares out the window for the rest of the trip

anyway this is getting a bit long so im going to say jump forward a year (doesn’t have to be a year i guess). they’re still enjoying this whole thing they’ve got going on and they know each other so well that when lwj sees wwx some mornings he knows to go to the cafe early and order an extra strong coffee for wwx and wwx will sometimes sketch pictures of rabbits when lwj seems a bit annoyed after work

(wwx will fold them into paper aeroplanes and throw them across the train to lwj and lwj always takes them home and flattens them back out and then shows them to his rabbit before before putting them up on the fridge)

one day the trains break down and they’re stuck waiting at the station in the morning and for once lwj feels genuinely sad that he might not get to work on time. like work is whatever but he doesn’t want to miss out on the half an hour on the train with balcony man and the way they speedwalk to see who can get to the office first and the awkward waiting outside the elevators where wwx bounces up and down and lwj taps out a rhythm against his thigh until wwx notices and starts humming along

but then he notices wwx walking over to him. he seems kinda nervous, hesitating at first but he puts on a confident smile and saunters over and lwj is panicking because they haven’t done this before and he doesn’t know what to do

wwx opens his mouth - he’s going to make the first move and ask out his mystery man, but then lwj takes one look at wwx, who’s standing right next to him and it feels different to all the other times they’ve been together, and he panics

wwx barely manages to open his mouth to say good morning when lwj blurts out will you marry me?

wwx blinks, blushes bright red, and immediately goes yes! (it’s a bit too loud and people around them turn to stare but neither of them notice)

lwj immediately whips out his phone and sends in an email saying that he’s taking a sick day and after he sends it off, he slips his phone back into his pocket, takes wwx’s hand in his and asks him what’s your name?

it takes wwx like fifteen minutes to stop laughing by which time they’re back at their cafe and this time, they both sit down at a table after ordering their drinks and it’s the baristas making hearts with their hands at them

#Anonymous #wangxian #wei wuxian #lan wangji #mdzs #modao zushi #mo dao zu shi #asks #my aus #cql #the untamed #anon i hope this turned out alright!!#i loved your prompt so much and i wanted to do justice to it #i was thinking it was gonna be short but it ended up being really long too ):#or not a sad face if you like long answers?#who knows!!#but i had a lot of fun!#i didnt get much into the brave & competent thing bc i wanted to create a disconnect between their normal jobs and these moments they share #also?? they'd probably have to talk if they saw each other up close so rip the logistics

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wisehq · 3 years

Text

Mission Debrief: Chapter Forty-Seven

...Right through the goddamn door!

Annnnnnddddd turns out it was option 2 behind the door. Endo went the cliche route and had the ol’ “bad guy disguised as room server” schitck, but considering we got a wicked assassination from Yor out of it I’m definitely not complaining (guess it was a good thing it wasn’t Loid and Anya!) This was probably the most action packed chapter since Loid took on Edgar’s men way back in the first chapter, and I am living for it. So let’s talk about it!

(Also just a quick shout out to @tare-chan and @musiciati for their awesome analyses. Check them out if you haven’t already!)

Okay, like I said already, the room service guy. It’s cliche. It’s obvious. It’s overdone- but I think that was kind of the point. The moment we saw this guy we already knew what was gonna happen, and yet it was still exciting seeing everyone pop off and Yor impaling the guy with her dagger (with a little help from McMahon and his darts, of course.) It quickly becomes apparent that plot isn’t the main focus of this chapter- rather it’s the action. We’ve had exposition. We’ve had buildup. The last three chapters were mostly talking, and now we’re getting into the actual fun part of this arc.

Endo has been building Yor up this whole time, and now we’re finally seeing everything come to a head as if the manga were this big, blockbuster summer movie about an army of assassins out for blood on a cruise liner. We’ve got all the tropes; an evil man-behind-the-chair, the eclectic group of cutthroat criminals, and a well-composed leader to reign them all in...

...For the most part.

The kill count is climbing fast, which I suppose is to be expected when you’re in Yor’s line of work. Still, it’s interesting- and a little bit concerning- how readily these guys are willing to turn on each other. We see that more as the chapter progresses and things devolve into essentially chaos. Everyone knows that Olka and Yor know they’re being targeted, so it becomes a rat race to see who can kill the former first.

Queue the masquerade scene (which funnily enough a lot of people were hoping would happen at some point, though not quite in this way). Yor is perfection in this whole sequence. Her assassin instincts are on full display, able to recognize the subtle feeling of killing intent even among an entire ballroom full of people. She has her eyes on everyone in there, including her charges, and despite her being nervous she invariably has everything under control.

First taking out a hitman with a button from across the room, and then leading a man twice her size out on the dance floor. I just have to reiterate that everything about this was so slick and smooth. Yor’s killer accuracy. The ease she takes this man with her insane strength. That little bit at the end where she reveals she’s married and tells him “it isn’t right”- god, move over Twilight. Your wife is the real smooth one in the family xD

Speaking of, it was only a matter of time before Anya got involved. It was kind of obvious that she’d be the first one to be clued in on Yor’s work, since she already knew the set-up for everything anyway. Now Anya knows the true extent of the trouble she’s in, even more so since we as the reader now know how much money is actually on the line here. Pulling out the math we did to figure out the cost of Handler’s coat, we know that Dalc= 3.16 to the U.S dollar. That means the combined bounty for both Olka and her son comes out to $2,528,000- an amount sizeable enough to make a boat full of eager assassins do anything to obtain.

Luckily- as expected- Loid is no slouch in keeping tabs on the boat-goers. Of course he’s not privy to the potential slaughter happening on in the background, but he does immediately recognize all the wires and bugs hidden everywhere on the ship. I’m glad Endo pointed this out because a) I knew Loid would sniff them out eventually and b) It gives Loid the excuse as to why he won’t draw attention to himself through out all this. Evil-franky (the intelligence guy) is listening to everything going on in the ship. If he hears any little detail that might point him to Yor and Olka, he’ll seize it...though good luck getting anything out of Loid when he’s on his best behavior. He won’t accidentally let anything slip out now that he knows people are listening, allowing him and Anya (and by extension Yor) some degree of anonymity-

-Assuming Loid can figure his daughter out. Poor guy just can’t catch a break, especially when Anya has no idea how to help her mama out. I know people were feeling bad that Anya has this recurring fear of Loid leaving her and Yor (frog hater), but honestly I was too busy laughing to care. Also I just have to appreciate Loid trying to be a good dad (FoR dA mISsuN.) Let him worry about that while his wife takes on an army. Y’know, typical Forger stuff.

It’s gonna be a whole month before the next chapter, but that doesn’t mean a lack of SxF! Endo’s been leaking out panels from his new novel and it’s looking fantastic. Also we’ve been seeing a lot more fan artists and writers popping up lately, so kudos to them for keeping us sated until chapter 48 drops! Ya’ll are the best!

Also, BONUS

BEBE BIRB

#spy x family #loid forger #yor forger #anya forger

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lawschoolruinedme · 3 years

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Tonight we talk The Last Namsara by Kristin Ciccarelli

In hindsight I should have looked at when Maas was releasing her next book before putting tonight to just a few days later so if you’re still reading ACOSF, put it down for one night and NO SPOILERS while we gush about bad ass fighting women and the dragons they ride.

Don’t Forget to Give Your Input on Next Book Club Here

Please feel free to reblog, comment, or submit your answers to me directly, and I’ll be online tonight around 8:00pm to moderate the discussion. For those of you in a different time zone, feel free to post your thoughts now or queue them up for later, and if it’s easier to think and come back on it, we have alllllll month until next book club.

Don’t feel obligated to answer all of them, just the ones you want to chime in on, and they are numbered for reference.

Please remember to tag all posts #Lawblr Book Club so our friends can blacklist us, if necessary

Got your own question? Ask Away!

General Questions:

1 - What did you like best / least?

2 - Would you read more by this author?

3 - For someone who liked this book - what other titles would you recommend?

4 - If this story followed a different character’s POV, who would you pick and why?

5 - What scene stuck with you the most?

6 - What kind of lingering questions were you left with?

7 - Could you relate to the characters & their story arcs?

8 (a) - How do you feel about how we left each character?

8 (b) - Do you like books like this that are written about the time a king is overthrown, and leave the ~messiness~ of the socioeconomic fallout out of the final chapters?

9 - Were there times you disagreed with a character’s actions / would have done something different in their shoes?

10 - Were you rooting for any character or pairing in particular?

11 - Do you picture any specific fancasts when reading the book?

Story Specific Questions:

12 - Do you enjoy the mini chapters? The “stories within stories”?

13 - How did you feel in the beginning (before the reveal of what really occurred) when the story of Jarek the brave child turned into Jarek the man we’d like to throat punch?

14 - In many stories with the theme of oppressor / oppressed, we (the reader) enter hundreds or thousands of years into slavery. But in TLN, we come in after only two generations. How do you think this affects the story?

15 - There are little bits and pieces that remind me of past book club books - the black dragon, the slave neck collars, and the family deception. How do you think TLN compared to the stories that inspired these themes?

16 - How do you think someone like Asha - who has killed more dragons that anyone - can turn around to be a hero?

17 - Did you foresee the twist of the bone ring? The king’s deceptions?

18 - How believable was it for you that a world in which women can be married for alliance and politics co-exists with female soldiers and dragon killers? Can it?

#lawblr book club #the last namsara

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etoileholland · 3 years

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wrapped in red | chapter 2; a wonderful Christmastime

word count; 3k

warnings; none

a/n; ah the Christmas dinner scene :) this chapter takes place immediately after where the first one ended, which was right when you met Tom, which is still two years ago (if you read the first chapter you’d know what I mean) anyway here it is!

When the Uber pulled up to Tom’s family home, you noticed how modest it seemed, even though you knew he was famous. You didn’t dare point out that you knew he was a somebody, the poor kid was already stressed out enough, and he should have one day where he doesn’t feel obligated to be “Tom Holland”

He got out of the car first, before jogging over to your side to open the car door for you. He wished the Uber driver a happy Christmas, and then closed the car door.

“Tom,” you turned around to face him, “are you sure your family won’t mind me being here?”

“Trust me, they can’t stand the idea of someone spending Christmas alone.” When you scoffed lightly, he continued talking. “No, seriously. One year, my mum had to make a last minute Tesco run for some cranberry sauce, and when she was waiting in the queue to check out, she started talking to an older woman who told my mum she was spending the holiday alone. When my mum heard that, she invited the woman over for Christmas dinner right on the spot.”

Tom held out his hand, and led you closer to the front door.

“Okay, but that’s seriously dangerous. What if she was a killer?”

“I’m starting to think everyone to you is a murderer until proven otherwise. I think you’ve been watching too much true crime.” He joked. “But if it makes you feel any better, my dad said the same thing.”

You rolled your eyes playfully at his first comment. “He has a point.”

“True.” Tom clicked his tongue, “but then on New Years, as a gift to us, the woman gave us our dog Tessa. So it worked out well in the end I suppose.”

“That was nice of her.” You responded as you watched Tom walk up the small steps in front of the door.

“You ready?” He asked you, and even though you were beyond nervous, you gave him a thumbs up.

You stood next to Tom as he knocked on the door. He shifted his weight from his left leg to his right leg, and when nobody answered the door right away, he raised his hand to knock again. Just before he was about to, the door swung wide open.

“I can’t believe you’re here!” A woman, whom you presumed to be Tom’s mother exclaimed. She quickly embraced him, squeezing his torso lovingly. As you watched the display of familial love, you felt a pang of sadness inside you. It quickly dispersed when the woman looked over at you.

“And who is this beautiful angel with you, love?” She asked politely. “I didn’t know you were bringing a guest, actually I didn’t even know you were flying in.” She stretched out her hand for you to shake. “I’m Nikki, Tom’s mum.”

“Y/N.” You answered back, gently shaking her hand.

“Well come in love.” She stood back and ushered the both of you into the house.

Upon entering the house, the first thing you noticed was how warm and inviting it was inside. From the entryway of the house, you could see into the living room. The fireplace was lit, setting a lovely ambiance to the room, and the Christmas tree in the corner of the room was beautifully decorated. Some jazzy Christmas music was playing from another room, it sounded like Bing Crosby, but nevertheless filled the air with cheer.

Nikki looked at you fondly for a second, and then beamed a smile back at her son. “So, how did you two meet?” She inquired.

“Well, it was serendipitous.” Tom lightly bumped his shoulder with yours, getting a small smile from you. “I bought some presents last minute in Spain while my flight was laid over, and when I finished, I got a text saying that my flight was going to board soon. So I quickly left the mall and made my way back to the airport in the nick of time. But then as I arrived here, I realised the gifts weren’t wrapped, so I looked up gift wrapping places and that’s how I met Y/N.”

You listened as they spoke, and followed them into the dining room. There was someone setting the table, from the looks of it, he also looked around your age.

“That’s so adorable, it’s almost like out of a Hallmark movie.” Nikki commented while she adjusted one of the table settings.

“And then, as I was talking to Y/N, she told me she was going to spend the holiday alone-”

“Oh dear.” Nikki exclaimed as she placed her hand over her heart, nearly dropping the fork off the table she was straightening in the process.

“So I invited her over to dinner.” Tom finished, glancing back over at you.

“I am so happy you invited her,” She looked at her son, “and I’m happy you made it.” She glanced at you, smiling once more. Before anything else could be said, a dog came running up to you and Tom eagerly.

“Tessa, love!” Tom exclaimed, kneeling down to hug her, while also petting her. “Y/N, this is Tessa.”

“She’s adorable.” You commented as Tessa licked the snow off your boots, while she wagged her tail eagerly.

“Tom, son, is that you?” A man who donned an apron popped his head out of the kitchen. When he saw his son, his face lit up.

“Yes dad, it’s me.” Tom stated as he went to hug his father. A few more people emerged from the kitchen, plus a pair of boys who looked similar to each other.

Must be his twin brothers, you thought.

“Love, let me introduce you to everyone.” Nikki placed her hand on your shoulder softly. She proceeded to introduce you to Tom’s father, and his little brothers. As she pointed out who was who, it was nice to put a name to a face.

“And that’s Paddy, our youngest.” She gestured to the young boy with many freckles, the same curly hair as his eldest brother.

“You’re very pretty.” Paddy commented, his cheeks turning red. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Thank you, you too.” You smiled.

One of Tom’s little brother, whom you learned was named Sam, popped back into the kitchen. “Dinner will be ready in 10.” He hollered from the room.

“Make yourself comfortable in the living room, love.” Nikki tugged lightly on the sleeve of your jacket, and when you realised she wanted you to take it off, you nodded. Shimmying it off, you gently handed it to her.

You made your way into the living room, which smelled like sugar cookies. They had a beautiful house, no doubt about that, but something about it felt so homey. Yet, it made you remember how cold and clinical your childhood home felt, a thought that you kept trying to suppress.

Out of the corner of your eye, a red bauble on the Christmas tree glistened in the light. You lightly shuffled over to the corner of the room to look at the decoration. On it, was Tom’s name in glittery paint, and the year 2001 painted on it. It looked like one that you made in primary school, the kind that parents loved to receive. Sadly, the same couldn’t be said about your parents, since anytime you brought some artwork home that you lovingly made in school, it was always discarded in the trash.

While you were in the living room, Tom was met with many questions regarding you as he helped Sam in the kitchen.

“She’s pretty.” Sam commented while concentrating on perfecting the Christmas pudding for dessert.

“Yeah, she is.” Tom added, leaning back against the countertop.

“There’s something about her that I really like.” Sam remarked.

“Like what?”

“She seems nice, and down to earth. I think she would be good for you.” Sam spun around to look at Tom.

“True, but I don’t know much about her. She could be in a relationship with someone else for all I know.” Tom crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“If she was in a relationship with someone else, she sure as hell wouldn’t be here.” He wiped his hands on a tea towel. “I know you like her too.”

The corner of Tom’s lip turned up into a small smile. “I do, you’re right. I just don’t want to get my hopes up already.”

Sam knew his brother enough to know that his heart has been broken many a time, and it made sense that he was hesitant to like someone new. However, Sam was blessed with great intuition about people, and so for him to say that he liked you already meant a lot. He walked over to his brother and placed his hand on his shoulder. “She seems really nice, so far mum likes her, and so does Tessa, and you know she’s picky about people. Well, they both are.” He patted his brother's shoulder, taking a step towards the door.

“Dinner’s ready.” Sam stated to his family, and went into the living room. He saw you admiring the Christmas tree, a small tear landing down your cheek. He watched as you wipe it away, and then turned to face him before he said anything.

“Sorry,” you sniffled, “I’m fine.” You answered half convincingly.

“Dinner’s ready.” He said softly, leaving the room. You followed him into the dining room, where everyone else was already sitting. There was a seat open next to Tom, and his mum.

After a prayer, the food was being dished up. There was a roasted turkey, some vegetables, cranberry sauce, roasted potatoes, and of course the Christmas pudding, all of which looked delectable.

As you ate into the turkey, you now knew why Tom loved Sam’s cooking, it was superb.

“Sam, you’re an excellent chef.” You mentioned once you finished chewing.

“Why thank you, Y/N.” He nodded his head to you, and continued to eat.

“So, love, not to sound intrusive-”

“You already do.” Tom muttered under his breath.

“Why were you going to spend Christmas alone?” She asked concernedly.

Everyone looked up from their plates to you, eyes wide in curiosity. You gulped before answering. Even though Tom’s family was more than gracious for having you over for dinner, you still didn’t know them enough to tell them your whole life’s story. And, considering how depressing the truth was, you didn’t want them to think differently of you. So, you decided to tell them a half truth.

“Well,” you gulped, “my parents are out of town.” It wasn’t entirely wrong, but it sure as hell wasn’t entirely right.

“I’m sorry, what for?”

“Mum.” Tom interjected. You looked over at him, noticing that his jaw was a bit clenched.

“Sorry, darling.” She said to you, “it’s just a shame that they would leave you alone on Christmas.”

“Tell me about it.” You muttered under your breath, mindlessly poking at the food on your plate.

The rest of the dinner went along well; it was mostly questions about yourself, the usual ones such as “what are you studying?” and “what’s your favourite artist?” you know, the usual questions. When his family wasn’t asking about you, they were asking Tom questions about how filming went, and how Spain was.

Right before dessert was served, the Christmas crackers were popped. Once people started to read the jokes, you laughed at how bad most of them were.

“I’m not even going to read this one aloud,” Dom commented, “It’s bloody rubbish.”

“Oh come on, it can’t be that bad darling.” Nikki replied as she peered over his shoulder to read it. “You weren’t kidding, it’s not even funny.”

“Told you.” Dom dramatically tossed the joke behind him. “Someone hand me a piece of paper and a pen, stat!”

Once dinner was finally over, and much funnier jokes were written for the crackers, the family made their way into the living room to open their presents. They have a tradition to open the gifts after Christmas dinner, so even though Tom missed most of the day, he made it home in perfect timing to open his gifts.

“Love, I’m sorry that we’re going to open our gifts in front of you.” Dom said with a frown. He looked over at his wife, his eyebrow raising slightly.

“We should probably open our gifts tomorrow, yeah?” Nikki asked the boys collectively, “It’s impolite to open them in front of guests.”

“Oh, no. Don’t worry about that at all.” you reassured his family. “You should open them.”

They all looked at you once more to judge your facial expression, but when you gave them a smile, they began to distribute the gifts.

Gifts were exchanged, to each other, and even though you weren’t part of the family, you felt as though you were.

You saw Harry’s eyes well up with tears when he opened up the camera that Tom bought him, and him immediately snapping pics of everyone and everything.

Tessa loved her little sweater, and Dom and Nikki loved their matching sweaters.

As you sat there on the sofa, hot cocoa mug in hand, you broke out into a smile the whole time, so much in fact that your face hurt from smiling.

So this is what a loving family is like, you thought to yourself.

Shortly soon after, Paddy began to grow tired. He was rubbing his eyes, a yawn escaping his lips every other minute.

“Love, let’s go to sleep.” Nikki helped Paddy stand up. He leaned against her, he was about ready to fall asleep standing up.

“Goodnight Y/N, happy Christmas.” Paddy yawned once more.

“Goodnight little one.”

You watched the young boy and his mum walk towards his room. Looking up at the wall clock that hung near the mantle, it was nearly 10pm. You could’ve swore that the clock was wrong, clearly you haven’t been there for four hours, but once you checked your phone you realised it was indeed 10pm. You were having so much fun that the time got away from you, which wasn’t something you were complaining about. However, you didn’t want to overstay your welcome, so you were about to call an Uber for yourself when Tom offered to drive you home.

Everyone told you goodbye and wished you a happy Christmas, Tom’s mum even kissing you on the cheek.

“Happy Christmas love, thank you for having dinner with us.” She placed a hand on your shoulder and leaned in to whisper, “I hope you come spend more time with us soon.”

“I will.” You whispered back, smiling to her. She handed you your coat, helping you put it on even, and watched you and Tom leave to take you back home.

The ride home back to your apartment was quiet, but a comfortable silence. Tom, intently paying attention to the icy road ahead, would often sneak little glances over at you when he thought you weren’t paying attention. About 15 minutes later, he had pulled up right in front of your apartment complex. You lived right around the corner from the gift wrapping shop, so you weren’t kidding when you said you literally lived down the way.

“You live in a nice home.” He commented as he opened the car door for you. It was a home on N Audley Street, in Mayfair, which is one of the more expensive places in London to live. Very posh, he thought to himself.

“Thank you.” you kicked a small mound of snow over that had accumulated on the ground by the front step of your porch. “But I’m actually in the process of moving out to a uni apartment. It’s kind of a shame, really. This apartment is worth a small fortune, and I almost feel bad for wanting to sell it, but it’s not the same apartment as I remember, if that makes any sense.”

“No, no. it makes complete sense. Sometimes there’s a lot of memories attached to a particular place.”

You hummed in agreement to what he had just said, glancing over at him once more before making your way to the front steps.

“So, where are you going to Uni at?” Tom asked curiously, doing so as he brushed a bit of snow off his coat.

Without missing a beat, you answered, “Oxford.”

“Wow,” he breathed out, “that is kinda far. I can see why you’re selling the place now.” Tom followed you up the stairs and stood beside you on the stoop. A voice in his head told him to at least give you a kiss on the cheek, but he decided against it as he didn’t want to potentially ruin his chances later on down the road.

It wasn’t until you took a step closer to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek that he began to blush profusely.

“Whoa-”

As if you knew what he was going to say, you pointed up towards the top of the door where a piece of mistletoe hung. “That’s why I did that.”

“Oh.” He answered almost disappointingly, “makes sense.”

Trying to hide the fact that you were flustered after kissing Tom on the cheek, you unlocked your front door and opened it slightly ajar. You placed a hand on the doorknob, and the other on the door itself. “Thank you for everything.”

“You’re welcome.” He replied, still beaming from the kiss. He took a step back and headed down the steps towards his car.

You turned around to look at him, noticing how handsome he looked from behind. “Happy Christmas Tom.” You called out to him.

“Happy Christmas to you too.” He smiled, waving as he got into his car. You watched him as he drove off, waiting until he was around the block to go into your own home.

The apartment was dark and nearly empty, with a few boxes piled up near the door. Any other time this would have made you feel depressed, but not tonight. You were still glowing from the wonderful Christmas you spent with Tom and his family. As you made your way inside to get ready for bed, the memories were replayed in your mind. And for the first time in a long time, you could finally understand why Christmas was as adored and cherished as it was.

the third chapter comes out next week! please let me know if you’d like to be tagged in it ❤

#tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #tom holland x reader #tom holland x fem!reader #tom holland x female reader #tom holland #tom holland imagines #tom holland and y/n #tom holland and reader #tom holland and you #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fluff #tom holland series #tom holland christmas #mine

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trappedinyellow · 2 years

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Mobile Verses

The canon verse for my William follows his bio in the About link.

Unless tagged otherwise I follow that timeline.

The Mustard Man - This is an inversion of events where Henry Emily became the murder after discovering William was having an affair with his wife and Murdered Charlotte thinking the twins were Williams. William was able safe Sammy from him but Henry's wife was scared after that and left both of them with Sammy. Much of the events after with William's wife and children dying remain unchanged but it was accidental and of Henry's tampering with the Funtime Animatronics.

In this verse, Henry ended up in Fredbear/Golden Freddy but Spring Bonnie remains in Williams care. A replica was made for Michael but was decommissioned and stored away after what happened to Elizabeth. In this timeline Michael used the damaged Replica of Spring Bonnie years later to hide from Henry which lead to MikeTrap in this verse.

Queue Pizza Simulator events. Miketrap works with William to put and end to it all but refuses to escape the fire to ensure Henry doesn't escape. Help wanted: Henry basically is Glitchtrap in this verse and things proceed as normal. Security Breach: William started the Mega pizza plex and started to withdraw from people to rely on machines while secretly digging up the old pizzeria to have his kids properly buried, unaware of what is actually happening behind the scenes.

Multiversal Ballpit - Basically any Time or multiversal stuff that happens involving William uses this convenient scapegoat. Unless otherwise stated, William will be from his canon verse for these.

Restored Spring Bonnie/ w illusion disk - This is a post Security Breach verse were it's the best case scenario for William. He as a newly restored Spring Bonnie body with Glamrock animatronic upgrades. and illusion disks that allow him to make him like a realistic Anthomorphic rabbit or like his former human self prior to death. What he does in this state depends on my rp partners.

MikeTrap! Verse - This verse is open on whether Michael was hunting his father to kill him or if they were a killer duo. What is set is that William is on the run and changed his name to Dave Miller... A security guard. He is still the CEO of Afton Robotics though and has people on the inside helping him pull the strings in the company and even a few in Fazbear entertainment. All of which are a secret sect that are researching remnant.

Everything is fine! - In this verse, the murders never happened. Mrs. Afton never got cancer and the only bad thing that happened is William can't cook anything but pizza to safe his life.

Spring Bonnie Forever - This is a pure Animatronic Spring Bonnie verse. No darker William counterpart, just Spring Bonnie and the Persona that William uses for him as animatronic.

#OOC #Verses page #Mobile

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fandom-necromancer · 3 years

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‘You come here often?’ ‘Well I work here.’ Part 4

This was prompted by the lovely AO3 user LoafofCat! Enjoy!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900 [Read complete on AO3]

‘You know, if you just wanted to see me, there would be easier ways.’ ‘Bold of you to assume I come here only to see you.’ Nines smiled looking up to Gavin, who was just untying his apron and sitting down in front of him with a coffee of his own. ‘Am I wrong then?’, the human asked and Nines huffed, letting his head fall. ‘No’, he admitted. ‘Okay, so let me get this right’, Gavin laughed. ‘I had to propose to my boss to get thirium drinks on the menu as a “costumer asked for it” and it might help us crank those numbers up, just so you could plant your ass here in your break?’ ‘It did get you more costumers though’, Nines shrugged pointing to the other tables. ‘That’s not- Nines, do you think I care about this shop? I just work here; I don’t care if… You know what? Screw it. Nice to see you, Nines.’ ‘Nice to see you too’, the android chuckled. ‘How are you?’ ‘Can’t complain. What do you have there?’

Nines looked down on the tablet in his hands. ‘Oh, just work. A case.’ ‘You are on your break and brought work?’, Gavin asked, looking at him sceptically. ‘Tina was right, you really are me just with a little less personality.’ ‘Being nice and polite doesn’t mean not having a personality. You were just an asshole.’ ‘What technically is a personality trait’, Gavin argued, taking a sip from his coffee. ‘Now come on, tell me about your case!’ Nines frowned. ‘I really can’t tell you, it’s-‘ ‘Confidential, I get it. But come on, I’m a former cop I can keep a secret. For old time’s sake.’ The android eyed Gavin and how he looked so eager to get information. It was cute in a way, how he looked in between his eyes and the tablet in his hands. Maybe that’s why Nines showed weakness and caved in.

‘Okay, but you really keep this to yourself. We are investigating a series of murders. They don’t have anything in common in regard to victims or how the deed was done or staged, but at every crime-scene we found the picture of this man.’ Nines flipped through the pictures of the different crime-scenes until he reached a few portraits. They weren’t really the kind of pictures you would expect of a cold-blooded serial-killer. Not after the few flashes of gruesome staging, Gavin caught a glimpse of as Nines had searched for these. They all portrayed a middle-aged man with a small belly you could easily get if you worked long hours in the office and were too exhausted afterwards to do sports. The pictures looked like they were ripped right out of a family photo-album. The guy was at the beach smiling at the camera with a cocktail in hand. The next one showed him in what Gavin supposed to be his home with a small dog on his lap. Then next to a ridiculously oversized barbeque grill all shiny chrome and reds.

Gavin lifted a brow at Nines. ‘Yeah, sorry Nines, but no way this is your killer.’ ‘I ruled it out as unlikely, too’, the android nodded. ‘Although you can never know with people. At the very least it’s a lead. Maybe the killer knows this man. As much as this is a lead, it is also our only link.’ Gavin shrugged, leaning back. ‘Well, why haven’t you solved it then? I mean, you can scan his face and get a name, age, address, likely even social media as creepy as they designed you and Connor. No offense there.’ Nines sighed. ‘As creepy as I might be designed, my scanner has its limits too. I can’t get a name to this man, not even an age. Scanning him just returns an error. Manual research in the police databanks also hasn’t brought up anything yet. We also can’t exactly go around asking for this man. If he is the serial killer, as unlikely as it might seem, we would only alert him.’ Gavin nodded absent-mindedly, staring at the photo, pulling the tablet closer to zoom in on some details. ‘Honestly?’, Nines said frustratedly. ‘We’re all currently waiting for the forensics to find more evidence on the bodies. It’s quite frustrating, but at the same time no one really minds if I spend a bit longer on my break with you.’

Gavin couldn’t help but let out an exaggerated ‘Awww’ at that, Nines reprimanded with an annoyed but amused look. ‘Nah, really thanks, looking at your tablet for what, ten minutes? This was already more exciting than the whole damn month. The most action I had was a drunk guy I had to escort out because everyone else was too chicken shit to risk getting vomited on.’ ‘Understandable.’ ‘Not the point. I mean, I’m happy here, I guess. It is decent money and I have more time for my cats at home. Also, maybe not being confronted with what humans are capable of is nice for a while. But I can basically feel my brain rot here.’ ‘That is also understandable’, Nines huffed. ‘Maybe search for some outside work activity? Something new to learn and keep you active mentally?’ ‘Like what? Knitting?’ ‘If you want that?’ ‘You know what? Maybe not the worst idea. I’ll see if I can find anything and when I have I will-‘

Nines never got to find out what Gavin would do afterwards, as his colleagues called him, pointing at the growing queue. The human sighed. ‘Well, my call to duty’, he announced and walked over to press a quick kiss to the android’s temple. ‘Was nice chatting with you, babe. Good luck with your case.’ ‘Yeah, you too.’

It was a slow Tuesday, without many costumers coming in. The rush of office workers in their break had already stormed the small shop and rushed back to their workplace and now it was mostly a few students and the regular old granny circle in the front judging people and eating cake. Living the life. Gavin had already washed the entire stack of mugs twice now and was out of work, except for manipulating the radio until his co-workers began to wonder why the last song had been so long and found him messing with the system. Then he walked around, collecting discarded newspapers and cleaning the tables while his co-worker told him she would be out for a cigarette. He nodded and continued working until a sole costumer entered. Gavin quickly rubbed the table dry and hurried over, throwing the man an extra smile just in case he wanted to complain about having to wait a few seconds. ‘What can I do for you?’ ‘I’d like a coffee, please. Medium, to go with cream but no sugar.’ ‘Coming right up.’ Gavin was already going through the motions of preparing the coffee and turned around to hand it over. ‘Anything else…’ He trailed off, as he saw the man’s face, but he seemingly hadn’t noticed his slip. ‘No, thank you, that would be all.’

Gavin watched him leave again and was trying to decide what to do next. He couldn’t just leave; he was at work after all. But he couldn’t do nothing either. Frantically he looked through the shop and, in the end, shook his head, rushing past the counter. Outside his co-worker stopped him. ‘Gavin? What are you doing?’ Gavin blinked, but came up with an excuse fast enough: ‘Dude forgot his wallet. Can you take over for a moment? Sorry!’ ‘Sure, no problem. Just hurry, he’s already behind the corner.’

Gavin did hurry. But not to run after the man, but to pull out his phone. ‘Nines? Yes, hi babe I know you are at work, shut up, this is work. Li-Listen, yes. Shut up for just a second! I’m pursuing your office killer. Ye-Yes, exactly, the beach holiday photo model with the ugliest dog I’ve seen in my life. Now will you phcking get your ass here? I will pursue him you can track my phone. Wh- come on, it can’t be that dangerous, I’m still well trained now stop worrying and move your ass!’

He had become louder than he wanted and had caused the man he wanted to follow inconspicuously to turn around. He wasn’t really unsuspicious though, dressed in the silly coffee-shop apron and shouting at someone on the phone. Trying to play it down, Gavin instead tried the open approach: ‘Hey, you forgot your wallet!’ It only caused the man to bolt. So much for being a friendly, costumer-orientated employee. Gavin pushed it all to hell, lifting up his apron and running after the man. So, he did had dirt on him. Gavin followed him down the street and used a streetlight to take the corner with more speed. A mistake he later would regret as he ran face first into a fist that definitely wasn’t human. Seeing stars, he looked up from where he had fallen against the building. The chubby man was surprisingly agile and fast, unfitting to his overall completely average looks. And Gavin saw why: The skin where the man had punched him had retracted to show stern white underneath. The man was an android? Where the hell did he get all these modifications from? Cyberlife had designed all androids to be phcking inhuman models. But maybe that had been the plan. Being as inconspicuous as possible. Remembering the brief flashes of crime-scenes that made him pale. Oh no.

‘How the hell did some barista recognise me, huh?’, the android asked, holding Gavin by the throat, his toes barely touching the ground. ‘You are all over the news!’, Gavin tried. ‘I’m not. None of my doings have even been published yet.’ ‘Well, I was a cop once.’ ‘Were you? Well, who is your contact then? If you were a cop once.’ Gavin really hoped someone would turn the corner and see this to help him. Because the way the android’s hand clenched around his throat, lack of oxygen could soon be his least concern. ‘My boyfriend, okay? But I will never tell you his name!’ ‘Your boyfriend? Alright, thank you. After I killed you, I will go to him next. See if I can’t keep this information from spreading.

The pressure on his throat became almost unbearable, as Gavin saw a flash of white behind the man. ‘I highly doubt that’, Nines voice sounded through the alley and Gavin could see the gun aimed at his head. ‘Now let him down and go.’ The android in front of Gavin cursed, but complied. ‘You are arrested for the suspected murder of three people, as well as the attempted murder of this man. Turn around, hands behind your back.’ Nines handcuffed him, reading him his rights before making the call to the station to send a car.

‘Gavin, that was extremely reckless of you.’ ‘Hey, I got your killer, right?’, Gavin croaked with a cocky grin while rubbing his throat. ‘I solved a case you would have waited weeks on before even getting close to the guy.’ ‘Oh, please, I’m the most advanced android there is. I would have gotten him.’ ‘Yeah, but it was the ex-detective they threw out to replace with you that caught him in the end. Please, rub that into Fowler’s face for me, would you?’ ‘I most certainly won’t’, Nines stated. ‘I will emphasize your involvement in this case though, what at least should keep your employer off your ass.’ ‘Oh, what would I do without you?’ The android in Nines grip struggled against him, causing Nines to return his attention to him. ‘Urgh, get a room, you two!’ ‘Excellent idea actually. Gavin, how about after our shifts ended, we meet at my place? You know? To celebrate.’ ‘Oh, I’d love to’, Gavin grinned and winked the RK900.

The captive criminal got a glimpse of the gesture and regretted it deeply. ‘Oh, please, just kill me, would you?’

#detroit become human #dbh #Reed900 #RK900 #Gavin Reed

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spacehologramcollection · 4 years

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The Kombat Kast and Music.

A nice fluffy post. As it appears all I’ve been writing recently is smut and Fujin smut at that. One fine man there. A finely aged wine if ever there was one. I’m not even sure what to call this. I guess it’s like The Kombat Kast and your song. Do people still have songs? (Like this is such a 00’s thing: ‘OH MY GOD THIS IS OUR SONG SHUT UP LET ME RECORD IT ON MY PHONE!’)

I don’t own any of the songs. Didn’t link anything in because I’m sure Tumblr wouldn’t be happy with that. Under the cut for slight NSFW and because it’s a looooong post. I’m going to do a part 2. This was so long.

Enjoy!

Warnings: Slight NSFW below the cut so 18+, little bit of angst, lots of fluff. Mentions of Kano, slight shitpost, it’s at the bottom, because the tea has been spilled.

Songs don’t belong to me.

· Kabal. Song: Morocco

Artist: Moon Taxi. Lyric: Running in circles I was losing my mind, when you found me and you led me to the water just in time, Reasoning: Okay. So, this may just be a self-insert fantasy of mine. But I can imagine this song playing in the background after you get caught in a thunderstorm, you’re drying his hair off and you’re cuddled up in your dimly light apartment. I also think the lyrics speak to your relationship. The verse is talking about been lost and someone finding someone. Post-burn Kabal is very lost, unsure, confused. So, I feel the lyrics really speak to your relationship. Because he literally was running in circles, he had lost his mind little, and you kind of helped. When you tell him ‘This is our song’ he fucking loves it instantly. He doesn’t give a shit if it’s not his style of music. If you say it’s your song, then it’s your fucking song. Will. Put. It. On. In. the. Car. Stryker is done listening to it. When he hearts it, he thinks of you, which always bring about a goofy smile on his face. Pre-burn: I also feel this applies to pre-burn, he was running around with the Black Dragon, slightly lost in life, and like (AU where his shit storm story in 11 doesn’t happen) you pulled him out of that shit just in time.

· Raiden. Electric Love. Song: Electric Love. Artist: Børns Lyric: And every night my mind is running around her. Then it's getting louder and louder and louder… Baby you're like lightning in a bottle, I can't let you go now that I got I, All I need is to be struck by your electric love, Baby, your electric love Reasoning: Raiden gets two. Lucky bastard. This song has two lyrics that speak to your relationship with the God of Lightening. He’s literally like lightening in a bottle, well in a man, and you got hit by his electric love. It’s an obvious choice. The whole song could be attributed to his feelings towards you, or your feelings towards him. You’re in love with the thunder and lightening itself. It’s a very sweet song. One that you’ve caught him humming along to. Once you tell him, ‘This is our song’ he loves it. Such a cute fucking song for the both of you.

· Dark!Raiden. Song: Electric Feel. Artist: MGMT. Lyric: Baby girl, Turn me on with your electric feel… You can feel it in your mind Oh you can do it all the time, plug it in, change the world Reasoning: Need I say more? Probably another obvious choice for yours and Raiden’s song. This one has less of a romantic feel, the beat really gives me power/sex vibes when associated with him. So, it suits Dark!Raiden more. He’s more dominant and more in control. He’s also my likely to use his powers to get you going, if you’re into that sort of thing. You’ve probably fucked to this song too. When you tell him it’s your song, he becomes obsessed with it. And whenever he comes on, he’s reminded of that first sinful time he heard it. Your body is electric to him and he loves it.

· Fujin. Song: Rather Be,

Artist: Clean Bandit. Lyric: We're a thousand miles from comfort, we have travelled land and sea But as long as you are with me, there's no place I'd rather be I would wait forever, exalted in the scene As long as I am with you, my heart continues to beat Reasoning: Okay guilty pleasure song, but it fucking bops. This sums up your relationship because your relationship was not only a shot in the dark, because you’re falling in love with a God. You’re unsure if it’s going to work. It’s more than just a long-distance relationship, you’re falling in love with someone who could be in a different realm to you. Literally a thousand miles from you. When he returns, he finds great comfort with just hanging out with you, taking walks, and enjoying your company. There really is no place he’d rather be or anyone he’d rather be with. You wait for him, completely taken back when he arrives. As long as you’re with each other, you’re content and at ease. He misses you a lot but knowing he’s returning to you makes it easier. When you tell him about the mortal custom of having a song with the one you love, he wants to know what yours is with him. You two love this song. He really vibes with it. You have gotten a little drunk and sung/butchered the song together. Good times.

· Smoke. Song: Ophelia. Artist: The Lumineers. Lyric: Oh, Ophelia, you've been on my mind girl like a drug…Oh, Ophelia, you've been on my mind girl since the flood, Oh, Ophelia, heaven help a fool who falls in love. Reasoning: I totally changed my mind with this one, I originally thought it suited Kabal. But it fits way better with Smoke and your relationship. Smoke is a giant Hipster, and no one can argue with me on this one. So, he loves the band. He’s the one that comes up with the idea for this been your song. He’s unsure of himself. He’s not fully human anymore, love isn’t his forte either. So, it literally is heaven help a fool who falls in love. When you first listen to it, you’re unsure. But when he explains that your constantly on his mind, and he constantly thinks about you. You kind of get the meaning more. That, and it’s a very catchy song. He’ll also, on occasion, sing it to you whilst he twirls you around your apartment.

· Cassie Cage: Song: Jenny. Artist: The Studio Killers. Lyric: I wanna ruin our friendship, we should be lovers instead, I don't know how to say this 'Cause you're really my dearest friend. Reasoning: The reasoning for this song been your song with Cassie, is mainly due to the fact that you’d always listen to it in her car. No matter the trip. She and you would sing it and vibe to it. You always did wonder with the lyrics if it had another meaning, you hoped it did. So, it comes to no surprise when you share your first kiss to this song. You’re both driving home from the movies, and she’s about to drop you off, the songs just ended and you’re both giggling and the adrenaline is high. Queue a soft kiss between the two of you. Cassie does admit she hopes the song kinda gave it away, she was being very forward, but wanted to like you give you time to see if you felt the same. Que it becoming your song, whenever it comes on in the club, you’re ready to get up and dance. Jacqui is requesting it so she can watch you two groove!

· Jacqui Briggs. Song: What We Live For. Artist: American Authors. Lyric: We look up at the stars, a perfect night to dream with you Got nineties retro on the radio, our favourite tune I put the pedal to the metal just to laugh with you It's interstellar when it's just us two Reasoning:

This is such a cute song. The two of you live and love 90’s songs and retro music. You both love cute dates involving star gazing, going for drives and your dates are always filled with laughter. It’s your jam. You also love road trips, planning them, talking about them and obviously going on them. Jacqui literally also has the best music taste. It came on your first road trip as a couple. You both kind of looked at each other, your mouths sort of mouthing the lyrics, not wanting to admit it your guilty pleasure song. When you both catch each other singing it, you both smile, and then you turn your solo mumbling act; into the best operatic duet the car has ever seen! Your relationship is also interstellar. You both live life to the maximum and you’re living life to the full. When you ask what your song should be, you both agree on this one instantly. You trust each other both so much, as long as you’re together, you’re prepared for anything including the great unknown.

· Sub Zero (Kuai Liang):

Song: Almost (Sweet Music) Artist: Hozier. Lyric: I wouldn't know where to start, "Sweet Music" playing "In the Dark", Be still "My Foolish Heart," Don't ruin this on me. Reasoning: A pretty cute reasoning. Why this is considered your song. You chose it because of how he often referred to love as foolish prior to your relationship. That, and when you had your first romantic moment, he did utter the phrase ‘Be still my foolish heart’ and it did make you giggle in the moment. It’s such a Kuai way of saying ‘What the fuck is going on?’ he’s basically a window error noise when it comes to romance. When you tell him this is your song, he’s confused and wants to know what you mean. Once you tell him, he’s kind of into it. It’s a happy sounding song, with a nice beat, and he kind of looks at you when listening to it. If it was to come on shuffle and you were in private, he would remark on it. Smoke once played it and he ended up blushing a little too much. Don’t let Bi-Han know, he’ll never hear the end of it.

· Scorpion (Hanzo Hasashi.)

Song: Would that I

Artist: Hozier.

Lyric: The whole song. Just the whole song. But specific lyrics: With the roar of the fire my heart rose to its feet… I fell in love with the fire long ago … So in awe there I stood As you licked off the grain Though I've handled the wood I still worship the flame As long as amber of ember glows All the wood that I'd loved is long ago… Oh, let it blaze alright (ooh) Oh, but you're good to me

Reasoning: This whole song screams what a relationship with Hanzo would be like. And it’s just not because of the fire theme either. His heart has been dormant for a while, but when he sees you, it literally rose up and got life back to it. It speaks to your relationship in terms of you too, you’d fallen in love with him a long time ago and had fallen in love with the fire a long time ago too. He’s always in awe of you and you’re always good with him. Your patience is never ending, and he burns bright in your life. You’re falling in love with fire, the warmth, the crackle and familiarity when you love him. When you tell him, this is your song and you’re both listening to it. You swear you see the smallest smile. He pretends like it’s not a big deal. Music is not his jam, not modern music anywhere, but he finds the lyrics soothing and accurate with your relationship. Cuddling with this in the background too.

· Erron Black.

Song: Home. Artist: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Lyric: Girl, I've never loved one like you

Ah, home, let me come home Home is wherever I'm with you Ah, home, let me come home Home is wherever I'm with you Reasoning: So, it’s not a proper country song. But the lyrics have meaning, and it’s kind of got a folk/country vibe to it. This song fits your relationship, just because the lyrics suit his kind of way speaking. It reminds you of him when you listen to it. Erron hasn’t had a fixed home so to speak of in a while. He’s a drifter, has been for a long time. Until he came to Outworld, he hasn’t really had fixed location. Nothing to come back to. It’s a lifestyle he’s grown accustomed to and used to. If you’re going to be with him, it’s kind of a life you’ll have to either grow used to too or be prepared to wait for him. Either option you choose, this song fits that relationship. Either his feelings towards coming home to you, or you travelling with him and home being wherever you are as long as you’re with him. When you admit this is the song you’ve got in mind for the two of you. He kind of furrows his brow. He listens to it and he can vibe with it. It’s got a certain country style jam to it; he loves the whistling and he definitely can do the whistle part perfectly. He’s also started affectionately referring to you as ‘the apple of his eye’. You two also have a bit too much whisky and end up singing this. Confusing the fuck out of Kotal and Jade, who are trying to figure out which realm this song has come from.

· Bi-Han.

Song: I think We’re Alone Now. Artist: Tiffany. Lyric:

Look at the way we gotta hide what we're doin' 'Cause what would they say If they ever knew Reasoning:

Ever since watching the Umbrella Academy, I can imagine Bi-Han, Smoke and Kuai just dancing TERRIBLY to this song. But I digress. This song started as your song as joke. He caught you singing it, he thought it was a jam. Queue you both getting a little tipsy at the Lin Kuei temple and fucking belting the fuck out of the song. You’re both hammered, Smoke isn’t sure how to react, Kuai is dying on the inside. You’re having a great time. You drunkenly both agree this is your song. Purely because, you constantly have to hide what you’re doing, because what would Kuai and the Clan say? Frost couldn’t give a fuck. She just wants to be left out of this. You have had to run hand in hand outside, because he really wanted to fuck you, but they had a full temple. So that wasn’t happening. And in his absolute adrenaline fuelled state, he may have started singing it. He’s not sure if it was out of nerves or if he wanted to make light of the situation .

· Sareena. Song: Trust. Artist: Martha Bean. Lyric: Don't let history haunt you, just let the mystery guide you I'm telling you now, there's a way (Close your eyes and let me guide you Take you to a place where love can find you) You gotta liberate Find your freedom… Reasoning: So this song is more geared towards personifying Sareena. It’s a song that makes you think about her. She has a pretty shitty backstory and she’s also a fair bit of mystery around her. She’s haunted slightly by her past, has regrets, and in the end found her freedom. She just needs some love guys. That’s all she needs. Love literally helped her find her way and freedom. It’s such a powerful emotion. When you tell her, this song reminds you of her, she doesn’t know how to react. She’s not exactly clued up on pop culture, so you play it to her. She loves it. She suggests it represents both of you. You both heal and guide each other, when you’re together it’s a place of love, and a place you both found together. Who would have thought it?

· Kano.

Song: Lonely Together. Artist: Rita Ora featuring Avicii. Lyric:

Oh Lord, here we go

I might hate myself tomorrow but I'm on my way tonight At the bottom of the bottle, you're the poison in the wine And I know I can't change you and I, I won't change Let's be lonely together

A little less lonely together Reasoning: Okay. This was going to be a major shitpost. But I thought I’d use this to let people know why I don’t think Kano is like ‘marriage material’ on a serious note. At the bottom so you can skip. The lyrics sum up the relationship pretty well. Kano isn’t the type of guy to actually give us a fuck. You can’t change him, and you never will change him. But at the time you can both feel like you have someone, I guess. I was going to just put ‘fucked with an anchor’ because he can actually fuck himself with an anchor.

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walkwithheroes84 · 4 years

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Lucifer: Season 5, Part 1 Thoughts

Part 1 of Season 5 of Lucifer came out on Netflix on August 21. And you bet your bottom dollar that I binged all 8 episodes. I stayed up until 2 am on August 22, but it was worth it. I’m not sure if the cast, crew, writers, and producers went into this season thinking it was their last (It’s not, Part 2 of Season 5 is rumored to be out in February of 2021, with the final season, Season 6, rumored to be released in early-mid 2022.) or what, but they really brought their A game for the first 8 episodes of the season.

What follows are some random thoughts I have on the season. Yes, there may be spoilers!

- I really like that the last couple of seasons have explored the supporting cast more. Maze, Ella, Linda, Dan - they are being fleshed out a lot and I am living for it.

- Seeing more of Linda’s backstory was great. And, I liked the way it tied into Maze’s own feelings regarding Lilith and abandonment. I am here for Linda x Maze, may that be a deep friendship or something more. I always love them together.

- Speaking of Maze - it is getting repetitive to see her be pissed at Lucifer (who really needs to step up and see that she is her own demon with thoughts and feelings.) or being down on herself for not being able to make solid connections. Maze, you have connections: You have a best friend in Linda, friends in Chloe, Ella, Amenadiel, Trixie, Charlie. These people are your found family! They love you, Maze. But, Maze has to learn to love herself. Stop betraying them because she’s upset. All that said, Lesley-Ann Brandt always brings her A-game.

- I didn’t care for Lilith. I get what she was trying to do and that, in the end, she wanted mortally and love, but even she couldn’t find it. But, she abandoned her children. :( I’m thinking her ring will play a key role down the road: either to give Maze mortally/a soul, give Eve immortally (so she and Maze can be together?), make Lucifer human, save Chloe, something! That ring is coming back into play.

-Amenadiel worrying about being a good father to baby Charlie. It was really cute, as is his friendship with Dan. The scenes with Dan, Amenadiel, Lucifer, and Jed trying to calm the baby were comedy gold. I also really loved seeing Amedadiel working a case with Chloe. He’s just grown so much as a character during the last five seasons and I’m here for it.

- Dan finding out about Lucifer was a bit of a surprise. Poor guy. He’s been lost since Charlotte’s death and all this new age stuff seems to be his way of trying to find meaning in his life. And, now he has to deal with the fact that EVERYTHING is real and his ex-wife/friend is in love with the actual Devil. And, he has this great fear that he’ll go to Hell, because of all he’s done - and knowing the Devil is real - of course that is going to mess with his mind! And, Michael - playing on fears - knew just want to do with that. I’m interested to see where Dan goes during Part 2 of the season.

-I felt so bad for Ella. She decided that she wasn’t going to go for the “bad boys” and that she was going to look for a nice, normal man for a normal romance and what does she find? A freaking serial killer! Who was using her and planning to kill her! Like, Ella, girl, take a break from dating for a while. She either dates men with no futures, serial killers, or Dan.

- I have to give it up to Tom Ellis in his portrayal of Micheal. So twisted and cowardly and yet weirdly I get it? From what the show has told us or implied - before his fall, Lucifer was one of their parents favorites, made Michael miserable, was a favorite of some of the other siblings. I can see a twin becoming jealous and causing issues. It’s interesting that Michael straight out stated he planted the idea of rebellion in Lucifer’s head. Michael planted the idea of causing Eve to sin. Of coming to Los Angeles. I’m wondering how much of it is true and how much was Michael just speaking nonsense. And, what else has Michael planted in Lucifer (or anyone else’s) head? Did he plant Chloe in God/Dad’s head? Did he pretend to be God/Dad and tell Amenadiel to bless the Decker’s with a baby? Oh, the possibilities.

-While I didn’t love episode 4 (it felt a bit like filler) - it was so good to see Tricia Helfer, back on the show. I miss Mom and Charlotte.

-Chloe finding out she was a blessing/gift from God/Dad? I am so thrilled they didn’t get too angsty with it and played it perfectly. Yes, she had every right to be confused and upset. But, thank goodness they didn’t drag that out! The writers really hit a lot of great beats with Chloe this season.

- I have read that some viewers were annoyed that Chloe was/is worried that Lucifer doesn’t lover her back - when he has shown his love via actions - but, I get it. Lucifer is Lucifer. He self sabotages, he refuses to deal with issues, and he tends to pull away. He become invulnerable - right after it was more or less agreed by everyone that Lucifer chooses to be vulnerable around Chloe because of his love for her. She might be thinking: “Okay, will he get bored? Is this real? Will something else happen that makes him pull away?” Chloe needs to have a solid talk with Lucifer, and it’s a talk that he may not be ready to have. As a show-runner hinted: “You can’t fully be in love with someone until you fully love yourself.” And, we all know that Lucifer is still working on loving himself.

- I was really proud of Lucifer during the first half of the season. He stayed in Hell to protect Charlie, Chloe, and the world. He only left to deal with Michael and he was smart enough to leave Amendadiel in charge. He was honest with Chloe, he tried (in his own way and to the best of his abilities) to give her space, he bonded with Dan, he got jealous (that was hilarious), he moved forward with Chloe, he tried (again in his own way and to the best of his abilities) to not freak out over losing his “mojo”, he admitted (to others and himself) that he NEEDS Chloe, he found Chloe. He showed some nice growth. He’s by no means a mature and fully realized “person” yet, but it’s clear he is trying.

- When Dad/God showed up? I had no idea Dennis Haysbert had been cast in the role, so I was so excited. He’s a great choice. I love that he came down from the Silver City to break up a fight between some of his children. His ex walking around Earth? Demons coming to Earth? A half-angel being born? Eve coming down? Cain and Lucifer fighting? Dad/God’s not bothered by that. He’s not coming down for that. But, his children fighting? Yeah, he’s physically and completely coming down to break that stuff up. I’m excited.

- So, 5A mentioned the Silver City and some of the other angels often. We learned that many of Lucifer and Amenadadiel ‘s siblings are praising Lucifer for going back to Hell to protect Earth. Something which Michael can’t stand. We also learn that Dad/God has locked himself away and that Michael is the only one he speaks to. You guys - I NEED to see some of the other angels or at least hear about them. Maybe even hints of what the Silver City looks like? Uriel may be dead, but Azrael and Remiel are still in the Silver City. And, the show has mentioned a Castiel, who enjoys music. We’ve also heard about Gabriel and Raphael, who are apparently proud of Lucifer for being mature enough to return to Hell on his own. I’m actually wondering how many children Dad/God and Mom actually had together? So far we have nine angels/children. Did they have hundreds? Thousands? Just those nine?

- Let’s talk Deckerstar. If you are a fan of Deckerstar, as I am, then you were loving 5A. There was awkwardness, angst, cuteness, sweetness. They were flirty and playful. When they FINALLY had sex? Linda and Ella weren’t the only one celebrating. And, I loved that it really seemed that BOTH Chloe and Lucifer spent 5A trying to be honest and straight forward with one another. They seem to have realized that they’ve wasted too much time and they have to try and be honest with one another, even if it is very hard.

- Overall, I LOVED Part 1 of Season 5 and CANNOT wait for Part 2. 2021 cannot come soon enough!

-And, I’m sorry, but Lucifer gifs are lined up in my queue for days to come.

#Lucifer #lucifer on netflix #Lucifer Morningstar #Chloe Decker #dan espinoza #ella lopez #linda martin #amenadial #mazikeen smith #Deckstar #tom ellis #lauren german #kevin alejandro #d.b. woodside #lesley-ann brandt #rachel harris #aimee garcia #tricia helfer

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valwrite · 4 years

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O1 pride / shock; andre layton series

general masterlist

series masterlist

series taglist: @gollyderek @fanfic-addict-98 @lets-love-little-me

summary: hell has frozen over and, in it’s place, snowpiercer has emerged. it’s many carriages carry secrets: affairs, murders, betrayals. and that’s only mentioning andre layton’s secrets. when a serial killer appears, detective layton is called on to the case. though reluctant at first, he agrees to take on the case when he discovers the first victim is rumored to be a once Tallie, an ex-coworker, an ex-lover: Y/N L/N. what starts as a hunt for her killer quickly becomes a hunt for the truth behind her suspicious death. the tail is uprising; his ex-wife is back in his line of sight; all eyes of the train are on him; and all andre layton can focus on is finding Y/N L/N’s body.

series warnings: angst, character death, smut, infidelity.

chapter warnings: mentions of suicide, details of murder.

fic style: series.

word count: 4292.

author’s note: apologies for the delayed posting of this, i was on holiday and forgot to queue this post. the first chapter follows very closely the actual series but, the following chapters deviate and will follow their own plot, whilst still maintaining some of the show’s main plots. as always, any feedback is welcomed.

Of all the things Andre Layton had thought about when it came to life further up the train, smell was the last thing he'd ever considered.

Crouched over on the floor, he takes in a whiff of the air. There's no thickness to this air, unlike the Tail's air. There is no stench of sweat; or blood; or tears mixed in with the breath he takes. The air in the Tail tells a story of it's inhabitants struggle for survival, all the daily hardships they endure leaving behind a foul stench the Tailies had grown to find comforting. This air is clean. Perhaps a little too clean, the faintest hint of bleach is tickling at his nose. He knows from experience what the smell of bleach could be covering up but pushes those thoughts to the side, preferring to live in blissful ignorance for just this one breath.

His head is pounding, the very first headache he's had since, well, he's forgotten how long it's been, actually. There's always the thought of how maybe the headache is chronic in the Tail, never ending and, therefore, never beginning, bringing Andre to a numbness when faced with such pain. But it's been hours now since he had been forced out of his home, perhaps the quiet consumed him enough to remind him of a life without noise and headaches, only to snatch the rug out from beneath his feet and hand him the worst one he'd dealt with.

Andre's in disbelief still. He knows the Tail is in chaos. The chaos is what kept them all alive, what will continue keeping them all alive. But, uptrain? He's always assumed they were tranquil. What he's quickly discovering is that, while tranquility may have been the surface layer, if someone even begins to dig just slightly, they'd very easily stumble upon savage beasts wearing sheep's clothing. The Tail may very well be a dark and difficult place to live but all of it's travelers had learnt long ago to find empathy in each other, working together rather than just for themselves.

A murder has taken place. Well, actually, two. Possibly three, from the way Officer Till had been arguing in hushed whispers with her superior earlier on, after Andre took a few beatings from the British officer, who's name began with O and ended in asshole. The death tally isn't his main focus either way, rather the job they are attempting to enforce on him is.

It's not like he doesn't understand why or how they came to the decision of requesting - he believes they were more demanding - his services. They have a potential serial killer on the loose and they claim he's the only one on the train with experience in such a field. Of course they were going to come knocking on his door. Only, he's not technically the only one on board with familiarity of crime scenes, just the only detective. And, see, if it weren't for the fact he'd spent however many years has passed watching how the upper class men on the train came and stole food, medicine, life from the Tail, then maybe he would have been a little more giddy about stepping back into Detective Layton's shoes. Alas, they'd made their beds and it was about time they started to lay in it, because they weren't about to get any help from him.

For all he cared, the killer could have at them all till there was no one left but the Tailies. They were the only ones good for anything on Snowpiercer.

"So, you got a body?" Andre stares up at the Brakeman- Doshe? No, no, Roche! - and the voice of the train, the woman who'd introduced herself but he'd tuned out her name. He doesn't need to know the name of the woman who spoke for Mr. Wilford. It was bad enough the man had been too coward to ever properly address the Tail by making a physical appearance, never mind the fact he won't even speak to them over the announcer. He sometimes imagined Mr. Wilford, with a pot belly and a whitened beard, surrounded by nothing but lavish. "Good for you, keep it for yourself, like everything else you lot have."

"This killer is taking lives on board this train." The train's voice starts up again, staring down at him with not a wrinkle of emotion behind her callous eyes. He's met a few women like her in his life, who's eyes remained devoid and near lifeless even when faced with some of the most horrific acts a person could do. "Like it or not, you're a member of this train and-"

"That's the problem with your lot, the Tail's only part of the train when it's convenient to you."

"The tail was always part of the train, just not it's inhabitants." Roche fires out, his brows furrowed and he uncrosses his arms. "The rest of us payed to be here, as workers or as passengers."

"That means my people deserve to pay with their life?" He can feel himself becoming more riled up by the minute, the pain from his previous beating being pushed to a side as he contemplates the repercussions of brawling with the older man.

"Roche, that's enough." Melanie interrupts them, stepping in the way of Roche and giving Andre no choice but to stare back at her empty eyes. Upon further observation, he catches the first sign of humanity in her. The bags under her eyes, subtle yet there. Dark, wrinkled, pillowy. It seems that exhaustion unites them both, even if their reasons for it are worlds away from similar. "The people on this train need security, Layton. If they found out there's a serial killer on board, the classes would break out in chaos-"

"You seem awfully sure there's only one killer and not just a copycat." A serial killer requires a minimum of three bodies. They has two. Andre wonders if this Melanie woman is unaware of such a technicality and had used the term flippantly, or if there is another body, a third body, he's being kept unaware of. If so, who? And, why?

"All of this, everything Mr. Wilford has worked so hard to keep in order and working, will have been for nothing if we can't maintain the peace. I'm not going to beg for your help, Layton, but just know you'd be saving us all. Including the Tail. You're the only one on board experienced with this."

"Guess the rich didn't consider the fact they'd start killing their own."

"So, will you help?"

This was the question Andre has been asking himself from the moment they'd stripped him away from the Tail; from his people; from his family. He knew, from the second the blonde haired woman had called out his name and butchered their plans for attack, that there was something they wanted from him. It was the same for anyone else who got called up train, there was something needed from a Tailie and it was never something good.

He can perfectly picture the faces of the Tail all staring back at him as he demanded to be taken back, armed men using all the strength they could summon to pull him out of the way of the closing doorway. Some looked on in horror, fearing for his life under the watchful eyes of the rich. Others gave him nothing but betrayal and anger in their eyes, as if they seemed to believe he'd orchestrated everything to have himself rescued from the Tail. Maybe, Andre wonders, some of them believe Zarah had it planned out, especially after leaving the Tail herself. Perhaps there was someone else they thought had saved him, someone who'd only recently left the Tail.

If Andre were to choose between being rescued by Zarah or her, Zarah's name wouldn't even begin to cross his mind.

The Tail is angry with him, he knows that for sure. By pure luck, they'd seemed to elect him as their leader, even if they worked as a united force and not an army. If he wants a chance to repair any damage caused to his people, his only real hope is to find his way back home and stay there, until he can charge onward with the Tailies and claim the train for themselves. Leaving the killer out in their playground of terror may just assist him in collapsing the fragile system of the train.

"No." Finally, he has his answer and it pleases him to hear the confidence in his voice, the pride he has for his status as a Tailie shinning brighter than ever before.

"No?" The train's voice echoes as Roche simply shakes his head behind the woman, muttering some intangible curse under his breath.

"You heard me. Solve your own shit."

She pulls back from him, turning her back to now face Roche and though Andre can hear both their voices speaking in whispers, he can not make out exactly what they are saying. She'd walked out of the small room before he can even register what's happening and Roche has him standing back up onto his feet, a hand firmly grasping at his forearm whilst he carelessly shoves him back into the hall of the train.

The quiet settles in again and Andre's fleeting attention sinks into memories from life before the cold, a fairly common habit of his which seems to be happening more than usual as of late, since she'd left the Tail much like she'd left him at the park, and the sight of the mutilated body he'd been brought out to investigate which brought back every memory of every case he'd taken on.

In this current memory, Andre walked into an apartment.

The room was trashed, with smashed glass and flipped furniture scattered all over the place. Upon first look, he suspected a robbery gone wrong. All around him, officers pulled him each and every way, all sharing their tid-bits of information regarding the on-going investigation, from suspects to who'd discovered the body to begin with.

The body. God, he hadn't even seen it yet but there's already that sinking feeling settling in his gut, the feeling that arrived every time he witnessed another crime scene. It was comforting to him, though disturbing, that such a thing could still rattle his bones and disturb his soul, the overexposure to it not making it any easier to deal with. Andre enjoyed the fact he had an emotional response still, the very thing that proved he was very much human beyond his detective work.

The sinking feeling grew when he saw the victim. A young woman, probably no older than his Zarah, who he liked to think was smiling; or laughing; or simply breathing and alive as he viewed the sight of that deceased woman. There were marks all down her left arm and blood on her fingertips, suggesting a chance that the victim struggled and fought for her right to live. It' was only one bullet wound, right between her eyes, yet that one simple wound ended an entire life. Killed any future, diluted any past and destroyed any present the victim had.

But there was someone else in the room with him, another woman, though that one was breathing. Her hands were covered by medical gloves and she was crouching by the victim, a pair of tweezers in her hand as she picked at something in the victims hand.

"Who are you?" She jumped at the sound of his voice, staring up at him with a look of discontent and frustration.

"You made me drop the DNA sample, dude. Not cool." She went back to her tweezers work. "I'm the department's new forensic scientist, Y/N L/N. I take it you are detective Layton?"

"I am." He nodded his head once, taking out his notepad and pen as their task at hand came barreling to the front of his mind, reminding him of the fact there was a very clear murder victim between the two of them. "What do we know of the victim so far?"

They had made their way down a hatchet hole, with Roche in the lead and Andre a few steps behind, cuffed and with his head held high. His hair brushes gently against his back, a strangely comforting repeat of motion that accompanies his less than pleasant travels throughout the train's cabins.

"You gotta take me back to the Tail, man." He pleads after Roche announces he's not heading home but, rather, to the man's holding cell. There was a time where it was Andre Layton who would be the one dumping someone in a holding cell whilst proclaiming he would be returning home to his wife, but now he had no wife; and no cell; and no badge that mirrored his past. "The Tail's all I got in the world."

The lead Brakeman does nothing but shake his head in response and Andre sighs, tired of fighting but nowhere near ready to give up.

They're plunged into chaos suddenly, sirens echoing up the train as Andre feels himself be stripped away from Roche and slammed full force into the metal caging surrounding him. The fresh bruising on his ribs screams in pain but Andre only hisses, his teeth clenching to bite back the grunt of anger begging to escape him. A man, around the same age as Roche and the same stature as himself, stares back at him with pure hatred. He's dressed in blue armor gear and his knuckles are turning whiter as his grip on Andre's collar tightens. And when he speaks, he spits every word out: "Now we've got a hostage, too."

Even in times of utter devastation, mankind finds a way to create division between themselves. In his life before the weather changed, he was targeted for the color of his skin. Now, he's also chased after for his status on the train. A filthy Tailie.

"Commander! Let him go." The voice of the train comes from nowhere and everywhere all at once, and Andre is actually glad to see her when he feels the grip on him dissappear.

"The Tailies have revolted again." The small mouthed women, who Miles refers to as the Executioner but is actually named Ruth, speaks next.

"Yes. Mr. Wilford is aware."

"Look, whoever they are, I know 'em, okay?" He steps in, hoping to bargain with them. This may be his only chance to both save the Tailies and prove his loyalty to them. "I can help."

"Things are going too far with him-" Ruth's irritating voice pipes up again.

"Please." He continues nonetheless, focusing only on the voice of the train, who he'd heard be referred to as Melanie. "They'll listen to me."

The Commander is the one to lead him to the Tailies. His grip on Andre is tighter than before and it feels purposeful when he shoves his side into the wall. His Irish accent is distinct enough to remind Andre that he and this man have history, from the initial revolts started by the Tailies, where they fought to keep the very small space of the Tail. Many were lost in the war but it wasn't in vain, it helped the Tailies learn to rely on each other and be a family.

"You've got three minutes." The Commander gives him one last shove, right into a masked soldier's shoulder.

He's only in the doorway and already Andre can see just how much damage his people have done. It's what they'd been training and waiting to do for so long, he never imagined they'd fail. Bodies lay all over the place, some of Tailies but most of them soldiers. Blood splatter paints the wall in red and lights are flickering at the end of the hall. His people had fought hard. They'd now need to fight harder, once he revealed his very hazy plan to them.

"Tailies! Who's left?" He listens to his own voice echo down the train. "It's Layton."

It takes no more than a second for a familiar voice to chime in, calling back to him: "Layton, you're a coward!"

It's Pike, which doesn't really surprise him at all. The man had always questioned Andre, always been ready to point out his mistakes and share his wrongdoings.

"Pike?" He says, after a sigh and an eye roll.

Andre finally steps into the bloodied carriage, carefully placing each step on the ground as quietly as possible. So far, all he knows is that Pike is there. And there's no guarantee that man wouldn't try take Layton down given the chance, meaning he had to be subtle and careful in his approach. He steps over arms; and legs; and torsos, the stench of blood so thick in the air he can almost choke on it.

"We don't want you here!" Pike speaks again.

"I'm coming in."

"No, you're not!"

"Who's with you?" No matter what, Andre tells himself that finding out who remains is his top priority. And keeping Pike talking may just distract him long enough for Andre to disarm him in a sudden approach.

There's three of them on the other side of the cabin. Pike's at the front, blood drying on his hands and a makeshift weapon clasped in one of them. He's stewing in his own anger, on guard each step Andre takes. The other two are pretty much in the same positions, only the biggest of them all has a familiar, though terrified, woman captured in his arms: Till, one of the brakemen who'd been with Andre earlier on that day.

"How's it going?" He's trying his best to calm them down.

"Yo, Layton, where you coming from, man?" But the betrayal is already so evident in their eyes, their voices, their body language. To them, Andre is looking less like a Tailie than when he was dragged out of there.

"Uptrain, man." Honesty may be his best policy, if he plays his cards right. "Yo, they pulled me up to solve a murder. You believe that?" He sure as hell still didn't. "They're doing us a favor and killing each other up there."

"Bullshit." Pike is still angry but what's new? Andre knows he needs to redirect his anger off of himself and back onto those who are the real enemy. "You're a traitor! This will only end one way."

"Yeah." Andre's hand comes down on Pike's weapon, clasping it in his own strength and pulling it out of Pike's shaking arms. "They're gonna storm in here, and they're gonna butcher us. Everything we've fought for, everyone who's lost their life for this to even be achievable, it will all have been in vain."

"Two minutes!" The Commander's voice yells down the hall and suddenly they're all on edge again.

"I got a family, man. I can't die like this."

"Shut the fuck up, Z!" Pike's grip has returned to the weapon, widening Andre's eyes as he fears the man may strike him down in irrational anger.

"I got a wife and a kid on this train, Pike." Z fights back, enunciating each word with the passion of a devoted husband and a loving father. "Old Ivan offed himself, man. We're dong this for him. He hung himself with an electrical cord. That's what sparked this whole thing."

"Pike," Andre wants to grieve and break down, the loss of Ivan, a gentle soul in a world of unkindness, shaking him to his very core. But he can't. There's no time. "whatever happened between us, we're brothers." Pike's breathing slowly begins to deescalate. Andre loosens his grip on the spear between them both. "I think I got a way for us all to get outta this alive." At last, Pike lowers his weapon, his head shaking as he fights back his emotions. Andre seizes onward, making eye contact with the woman. "Hey. Till, It's okay. It's okay." It doesn't take long for him to convince the Tailie holding her captive to lower his weapon and, with an abrupt apology he wishes was sincere, Andre punches her in the face and watches how she falls down.

There's commotion straight away, with all three Tailies bringing their weapons back up and pointing them at Andre, the fire returning to their blood as they look at the man they would call traitor.

"What the hell, Layton!?"

"You need to surrender yourselves to the drawers!" He rushes out, before any of them can harm him.

"No way!" Pike says.

"It's like sleep! They put you to sleep!" He'd seen them himself, zombiefied in the drawers as different wires and tubes kept their bodies alive whilst their minds slept away the revolutions the train done around the frozen landscape.

"Okay. For how long?" Z seems more willing to cooperate.

"It's a goddamn coffin, Layton!"

"Listen to me! By my count, I went uptrain 130 cars today, okay? I seen shit none of us could've imagined, alright?"

"What? You seen your traitor wife!? Or your traitor girlfriend?"

"Pike, Old Ivan dreamed of this! I can piece together floor plans, maps, security details. Everything we could ever need to properly storm uptrain, all the way to the engine."

It's in utter tears that all three men throw down their weapons, Pike the most exhausted of all. "Look at the blood!" He cries, crouching on his knees. "I'm done, Layton! I'm done."

"One Tail, remember? It's only a matter of time until the day we take that engine, we're gonna need you waiting uptrain." Andre watches as the other man nods, standing up straight again and clearing his throat.

With the Tailies now in agreement, Andre finds himself stuck between the Commander, Ruth and Melanie, all demanding and fighting over what the fate of the Tailies should be. There's only one thing left for Andre to do, one last sacrifice of his pride to make.

"I'll do it." He speaks only to Melanie really, the others being drowned out in the sound of the train's wheels turning against the frozen track below. "I'll solve your murder. I will get your order back, and in exchange, you'll give mercy to the train."

"Mr. Wilford demands justice. But we can't afford to lose another life. Ruth will take an arm from a Tailie tomorrow."

Hours have passed since the agreement was made and in a small holding cell lays Andre, his muscular build uncomfortably fit onto a small cot. He misses his bed in the Tail, the bed in his house, the bed in room 322 of the Marigold hotel just down the road from the station. It was the luxury of feeling refreshed every morning; of having a cup of coffee placed on his desk, her familiar handwriting across the attached sticky note that he'd taken advantage of for years. Now, he never even sees her face outside of his own memories.

For the past half hour, he's been feigning sleep. Roche has been sat guard near his cell the whole time, though he believes the man should be on his way home soon, to his own bed and his own wife. The voice of the train interrupts this though, sneaking her way into the room so quietly Andre nearly opens his eyes and blows his cover.

"Nice work on getting him to cooperate." Roche is the first to speak. "How'd you know he would?"

"I could see it in his eyes. He'd do anything for the Tail, even if it means helping us." He hates the way Melanie speaks about him, like she understands every little thought in his head, every action he makes. Like he's a puppet and she's the puppeteer, moving him around with the strings she'd tied onto his limbs. "We'll get him started tomorrow with the proper investigation. I'll send you a list of anything and anywhere Mr. Wilford deems off limits."

"And what about the victims? Is he gonna get the full rundown or?"

"There's things he doesn't need to know about."

"Like the fact the first one was a Tailie?" Roche asks matter-of-factly and Andre swears he can see him cross his arms, that smug look across his face.

When the voice of the train speaks again, it knocks the wind out of Andre's lungs; stops the beating of his heart; freezes every thought in his head.

"The body of Y/N L/N is to be kept top secret.Detective Layton is not to even hear about her. Understood?"

He hasn't heard her name, her full name, in so long. He knows it's wrong but he loves to hear them call her by her maiden name, instead of by her married name. It's as if, on the moving life of the train, her husband doesn't exist, never existed. Perhaps reality would have been better that way, perhaps they could have survived longer to become more than dirty secrets reserved for nights of pleasure and mornings of ignorance. To even begin to fathom that she was no longer alive, on board the train, feels like more of a betrayal than when he'd last seen her walk out the doors of the Tail. He can remember it now, the anger he'd felt the next day when she'd never returned. It had stung more than when Zarah had left. To think he spent so long resenting her for abandoning them, when there's now the fact she's nothing more than a body in a serial killer case brings bile up Andre's throat.

There are secrets haunting the train. Between the murders and the politics, Andre begins to fear he's now stuck in the mess of it all, swimming blindly in a sea of lies and being expected to be an honest man. He knows his only hope is to tear the train apart, limb from limb, and peak into the darkness it's trying to cover up.

If that means uncovering Y/N L/N's fate along the way, so be it.

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igglemouse · 3 years

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Writers Q&A !!!

Thank you @whyhellosims , @1o8percent , @mysimsloveaffair and anonymous for the questions!

2. Have you already planned everything or do you just let things go?

Ooh, yes, so right now episode 6 is posting for this week but episode 7 and 8 I have a good idea of what will happen. After that, I don’t know. Since it is a legacy and not just a story it’s not planned too much. Isidora picks who she wants to be with, I let the game systems decide that but I throw people in her way to see...to make things interesting...and the same for friendships and everything really. It being a legacy IMO means the game should have some say in the story and I can get creative around that.

6. Who is your most favourite(s) character(s) and your least favourite(s) ? Why ?

Ooh this might be the hardest one but I’m going to go back a little for this one and say Dulce! I loved Dulce first of all because it’s such a great name, once she was born I pictured her and then she had a really interesting story going on. Her mother being a pornstar and all and her father a famous musician and if there is one sim heir I wish I played through it would have been hers.

My least favorite would be a very old 2nd gen heir, Clemente Diaz. Clemente was the father of Ben Diaz and he hated children and never liked Ben but I also just didn’t have much for him story wise either.

7. Can you give me some random facts about Karver?

Sure! Karver is an only child and as of right now running EAA is his full time job. You can say it’s been his only job too, he’s completely committed to it! He’s usually pretty cheerful as well and would like to have a nice big family!

11. Did you find any difficulties while writing ?

Nope! Writing has always just been my thing, I’ve enjoyed it since being a little kid and I write a lot and read a lot so it’s a passion! The writing comes easy, I’m not saying it’s good or bad (you be the judge!) but it is always the easiest part to telling sims stories. I could sit down and plot a story all day and enjoy it.

12. How would you describe your story to someone who’s never read it ?

I’d say it’s a story about generations of a family and anything could happen. The characters are not usually good or evil but all have their flaws and it’s definitely an adult story and something I write for fun!

14. Is there any special relationship you like in particular? Which one if yes?

I do like the relationship between Orlando and Isidora, it’s obviously not in a good place and one thing I try to do is write about flawed relationships because nothing is ever perfect and it’s rare I write a perfect ‘true love’ kind of story but between these two there was something there and they kind of got what they wanted and needed from the relationship and moved on. At least, one person has moved on.

The one true love kind of relationship that I did have was Dulce and Alejandro, it was love at first sight and a lot bonus going on there lol.

15. Do you have a favourite scene ? Why ?

My favorite scene hmmmm, so far, the EAA induction ceremony, although Elsa and Izzy never stated for the full induction, it was fun setting it all up. There is the other EAA scene that will post tomorrow that was also a lot of fun to shoot.

If we go further back, my previous favorite scenes were dealing with Marta, when she poisoned a man and also the shootouts. I also enjoyed the raunchy Dulce scenes XD I do like turning up the XXX rating on my stuff a lot. I try not to do it too much but when I do, it’s a lot of fun.

Oh yes! The witch scene where they summoned something from another realm. I made a gif for that I was so happy for it! I also enjoyed a small sci-fi scene regarding Lul’xuv intended alien husband on his spaceship and how he was on his way to come get her. Never finished that story either >.<

A lot of my Carnage scenes I really enjoyed too. Especially a scene where she broke up a vampire orgy and massacred a bunch of people...you guys might be seeing Carnage and her universe again soon...maybe :P

So yea, a lot of the more set up scenes I enjoy doing!

16. How long does it take you to post this story (considering the writing/editing/”playing”/posting part) ?

It depends. So a regular normal day in which Isidora does nothing doesn’t take long at all but a more set up kind of scene, like the EAA ceremony, took a lot more time. I’d say two days but in hours maybe 2-3 hours. I do the pictures first and that’s the longest part. The writing is something I can do easily. I have 24 posts in queue right now, half of them need writing, I can write for them in an hour or so and have something to post for a few days as I work on the next set of content I need.

17. What is scaring you the most about this story ?

I wouldn’t say anything scares me about the story as I have it well handled. I know when I did Dalton and Telah’s stories I thought of scenes and the idea of like...portraying a massive magical battle against Lovecraftian army sounds fun in my head but doing so in game? Yeah, that scared me!

With this legacy right now I more worry that someone won’t get it or...I don’t know. My heirs are not meant to be good or bad and I know some people don’t like stories without a clear good guy v bad guy. There’s Isidora in my mind and the people that could hurt Isidora mentally/physically but Isidora is the protagonist. I take pride in sort of making a flawed person seem like they are right. Marta, she was a great example of this. She was a killer and heartless but people still rooted for her. So I worry more about how someone might perceive how I tell my stories or try to tie in my beliefs with those of my characters.

18. What do you enjoy the most about this story ?

Ooh, a lot! That it evolves with each episode and that I get to write about something perhaps taboo or unusual. The whole nature loving group that might be more of a cult is cool! I’m not sure how far I’ll get into it but I enjoy writing about it...along with the interesting past of Isidora that will slowly be unveiled and then you mix in the potential of her just having a somewhat normal life as well! I also just enjoy focusing on this one thing right now and not having to switch focus.

Thank you all for the questions!

#replies #reply

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fmfinley · 3 years

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* hi guys ! it's pheeb , finally rolling in with an intro ! i did write this with major brain fog from my new meds so if it's shit we'll pretend it's not <3

❛ ♫ · » lorenzo zurzolo, cis gender, he/him « wow … finley monaghue just told me that their band, cold stare, got accepted into that battle of the bands thing. wait, you don’t know them? i could’ve sworn i saw you two together at keith’s pub. well, nevermind. they’re twenty four, and they’re the vocalist of the band. when they’re not playing music, you can usually find them unsubtly sleeping at the back of the humanities lecture hall. i think you’d like them— they’re so equable, but … also kind of negligent, i suppose. you’ll know it’s fin if you ever meet them, because they’re the walking embodiment of tripping over your shoelaces but never taking the time to retie them, sullen eyebags paired with a mismatched beaming grin, & falling into infatuation with a stranger on the train.

𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ;

while i can by keaton henson .

to feel good by swim deep .

momentary bliss by gorillaz , slowthai , & slaves .

boys don’t cry by the cure .

tescoland by jamie t .

snap out of it by arctic monkeys .

how soon is now by the smiths . ( we don’t stan morrissey )

laid by james .

list of people ( to try and forget about ) by tame impala .

bad contestant by matt maltese .

𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 ;

full name : finley joseph monaghue. nickname/s : fin. age : twenty - four. dob: dec 5th. zodiac: sagittarius. gender & pronouns: cismale & he/him orientation: no labels.

𝐟𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 ;

he's barely one years old when he’s faced with his first goodbye . of course he doesn't remember it - the raw pleas from a fragile woman bargaining with her father before she does something she'll regret . he'll never see or hear from the woman again - but he likes to imagine she's somewhere nice , that she's happy .

for sure , he is far more optimistic about the whole abandonment thing than his grandfather - a stern man that rarely produces a smile , who he has never seen crumble ( or at least finley will allow him to believe so ) . in all truth , leonard monaghue was far past the age in which raising a child came smoothly . in fact , he barely resembles a grandparent as it is - he’s sharp tones & rough edges , and he certainly didn't have the patience for a rambunctious blur of curls . even now , affections & i - love - yous don't come easy for the pair ( with leonard often fondly referring to finley as 'shitbag' ) , but they know they're all each other has - and finley is eternally grateful for the huge sacrifice his grandad took just to give him the life he has now .

ultimately , family for finley is something that is chosen rather than a birth right . it’s his friends , his bandmates , those that somehow still haven’t grown tired of him .

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 ;

finley's aura is one that initially appears wholly unapproachable , but once he cracks his killer smile , its evident that he's utterly harmless . he's quite the social butterfly - the kind of person to hold up a queue in tesco because he wants to hear about the cashier’s day , or to have a long list of friends yet still remembering each and every birthday . he loves to hear about peoples' stories & dreams , always finding inspiration from the smallest of things .

he may have a major slight ego issue - especially when it comes to the band . he fancies himself a younger alex turner ( the delusion ... anyway ) , & has long idolised the big names in the alternative / indie music scene ( why do i imagine him trying to pull a spike island esque stunt ) .

finley's biggest downfall is his restless nature . his mind is a constant whirlwind of about a hundred thoughts balled into one . he's 100% an insomniac , & can be spotted wandering around the streets at god knows what time in the morning . he's awful when it comes to jobs - has probably been sacked from more 9-to-5 jobs than you can count on both hands . in his view , what's the point of doing something if you're not passionate about it ? he’s , unfortunately , the same in relationships - falling in & out of love with worrying ease - but love & heartbreak make for amazing music , right ?

although he’s a big mouth approximately 99% of the time , he’s not the most open of books emotionally . he’s the type of person to evade all forms of confrontation , choosing rather to run away from his problems . the best way to decipher how he’s feeling is through his music , but there’s some songs he’s written that still feel too raw to put out there . he has a lil journal filled with lyrics & doodles that he’s carried around with him since he was around seventeen years old ; despite the jam - packed & tattered pages.

#bandsintro

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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The Jeffersons: Sorry, Wrong Meeting (Comission by WeirdKev27) (Black History Month)

Welcome on up! HAPPY BLACK HISTORY MONTH! Yup i’m going to spend a good chunk of the month celebrating the best and brightest in black characters in animation, amid valentine’s coverage in the first half and a few bits of the usual stuff throughout. But i’m still throughly dedicated to showing off some of the finest media about black struggles and starring black characters, and going through it the best I can as a white dumbass. If I slip up or misinterpret something, never be afraid to call me on it, but I feel I can still try my best to honor these amazing characters who’ve brought such joy to my life and these wonderful stories. So starting us off is a commission from Kev that’s been sitting in the queue for far too long. And it’s not due to lack of intrest: While before today I’d never seen an episode of the Jeffersons, I had seen the live performance of an episode done for that live with norman lear thing nbc did in 2019, and it was excellent and piqued my intrest. But with me never thinking to get the dvd’s, and not having Starz nor really wanting starz, there was no real easy way to stream it. But a few episodes were on DailyMotion, so I was fine with reviewing it for Kev and giving this series an honest try and the fact the episode dealt with white supremacy, at a time where we’d JUST gotten rid of a bigoted, white nationalist backing, piece of shit president, I was naturally all for it, I just never thought to clear space on my schedule and by the time I was scheduling things better, I purposfully saved it for this month as while the Klan isn’t as prominent, assholes like them sure are. And given the Captial Riots last month with sedionsits shitheads proudly waving the confederate flag around, I’d say this episode is even MORE relevant than ever.

But before we can dive into why this one is so good, yeah i’m not going to hide it this is a really fantastic episode of television, we have to talk about the series itself. The Jeffersons was created by Norman Lear, a progressive and prolific television writer and producer who is a legend in the business for damn good reason. He created All in the Family, which shattered norms and standards for the time, and would go on to create Sanford and Son, Maude and Good Times, all to massive sucess. However this show came about because the Black Panthers showed up one day at his office to raise a valid point: While he did have black characters in his tv shows they were mostly poor and barely scraping by, with his two black lead sitcoms dealing with characters in object poverty. And while this was still a worthy subject to tackle.. they were absolutely right there should be a counterbalance to that, to show the obvious truth black people CAN be successful. Norman agreed and set to work. Norman already had the perfect lead for that: George Jefferson, an opinnated dry-cleaner with several sucessful stores. George was, and still is, a fascenating character with lairs: being cranky and curmodgenly as you’d expect with some fairly average sitcom quirks: He loves money, often overspends on flashy stuff to revel in his sucess, snarks at his maid and likes to scheme as a sitcom character can. He’s also in the early seasons a bigot himself, not really fond of white people or interacial marraige, which naturally makes living next to an interacial couple and their daughter marrying his son thorns in his side. But as far as I can tell from looking on wikipedia he does soften with time and grow as a person and by this episode he’s fine putting up with both his neighbor Tom, said guy married to a black woman and his goofy british neighbor, if snarky as hell because hey, that’s who he is. I bring this up for reasons related to the climax, trust me.

So eventually the Jefferson's moved on up to that deluxe apartment in the sky, hell of a theme song, and got into their own adventures with the aforementioned supporting characters.. and so here we are. And after the cut we’ll take a look at just why this sitcom is awesome, why I desperately want to get some dvds for it at some point now or a starz trial, and how much the klan sucks.

We open at the Jefferson’s Deluxe Apartment in the Sky. where his wife Wheezy and aforementioned maid Florence are preparing to take a CPR class.. which were that possible I certainly would after this episode, as I feel Florence is right in stating it’s a skill everyone should have. She also remarks that George had every employee at his drycleaners take it, even if it was because he got an insurance writeoff. But hey, doing something that can help your workers and customers in an emergency even if i’ts just to save money is sitll better than MOST businesses these days so props to him. There’s also naturally some banter and it’s really damn funny. As with my Darkwing Duck reviews,, I won’t be going into it bit by bit, but it’s good stuff and holds up REALLY well. To me that’s the mark of a good sitcom, one that can show it’s age.. but still make you laugh, think or cry all the same. So yeah in less than a scene the show had won me over. So as the ladies depart for CPR class, George’s peace is soon interupted by Harry Bently, british person and wacky neighbor. Aka me if I were british and lived in the 70′s. He returns a tv guide, last weeks hence why he’s done with it, and ther’es some schtick and what not before Tom Willis runs in, upset because he’s been robbed. They took all his stuff, and while he’s thankfull his wife’s gone for the week so she didn’t have to be there for this, he’s obviously worried and suggests forming a building watch to prevent this, with Harry on board. George.. has no time for this nonsense, and after making a joke about Florence in curlers scaring them of, bredguringly agrees to attend if someone else starts it then slams the door on them once their out the door. At CPR, our heroines volunteer enthusastically and meet the cpr dummy. resuscannie.. I don’t know how to spell that and frankly I don’t wanna because she is FUCKING terrifying.

She looks like she’s going to come to life and strangle me. She looks like a hollowed out corpse doll a serial killer makes. She looks like something Charles lee ray would rnasfer into. She looks like Micheal Meyers grandmother. She looks like the corpse of Jason’s mom come back for revenge. She looks like sue sylvester transferred herself into an auton. Look I could go on, but the series does make jabs at the thing and most cpr dummies are objectively terrifying, so fair play to them. After some more gags, things.. take a turn. Part of what makes this episode so effective to me is this turn. It starts with, and even goes back to after this for a bit, some sitcom gags and cliches.. but it lulls you into thinking this will be an average episode... so when the instuctor asks two men to go next, an older man and his college age looking son refuse to participate.. and their reason is he refuses to touch anything tha’ts been touched by a ... well he uses a certain word and let’s just say you know what it is, I know what it it is and if I could’ve reached inside my computer and choked the life out of hte man, I fucking would’ve.

Yeah turns out these two are KKK, with the older asshole leading the local chapter and their about as reasonable or likeable as you’d expect with Wheezy BARELY holding Florence back from giving them a well deserved thrashing, and only doing so because it’d both sink to their level and because they’d just use it as more fuel for their racist bullshit. And that’s WHY this works so well: It seems excactly like a normal episode.. until it suddenly isn’t. Until suddenly things are a lot darker, a lot more tense, but the easing into it means it still feels like the same unvierse. To me the good “very special episodes”, are the ones that use this: that ease into the heavy topic before punching you in the face with it and tackle it with nuance and skill. A Diffrent World has a TON of episodes like this, and it’s why it’s one of my faviorite sitcoms: it tackles a lot of really heavy topics with a steady brush and while it can be heavy handed, sometimes heavy hands are necesary to carry a heavy topic. The racists showing up suddenly also fits because Racists hide in plain sight. You don’t know someone you know is prejudice or some stranger is till they reveal themselves. They could show up any time anywhere and you can’t be ready. And I cant possibly claim to know what that’s like, but I’m sad that in this nation of ours this shit has never, and probably will never go away. So it fits that our antagonist shows up out of nowhere, having until now perfectly blended in with the other suited white guys in the class. Naturally, the instructor orders them to fucking leave and naturally klan monster makes some big white suprimacist speil. And being a sitcom he runs into Tom, with Tom mistaking him for talking abotu the crime and White Supremacist mistaking Tom for a fellow racist. Tom decides to invite george.. and while it’s clumsily framed as a wacky sitcom misunderstanding.. it’s very clear things just got VERY dangerous.

Speaking of George he’s awoken from his nap by the ladies who are both still worried and while he goes into his usual digs on florence, and questions why she needs her bat... he instnatly sides with her and prepares to go kick some racist ass once he finds out what happened. It’s a nice shift, as it once again breaks the tranquil normalcy of this sitcom with the violence of racisim. And while there was no phsyical violence form the asshole.. to me racisim itself is still a form of violence. Thinking you are suprerior to another race just because your skin’s a diffrent color and wanting them gone or not to be near you is in itself violent to me. And while Wheezy again has good reason for holding George back, tihs is just what the fuckers want, Geroge is also right: right NOW it’s talk.. but how long before they start burning stuff on thier balcony or come for htem in the night? there’s.. no easy answer her, no easy solution.. just a man fearing for his life justifably whose probably been through this time, and time, and time again, dealt with his buisnesses being vandalized and his life being threatend and probably been beaten some too JUST for being a black business owner. So it’s understandable he’s fucking fed up and just wants them gone. Tom naturally invites him to the meeting., and harry agrees, botht hinking i’ts just a floor meeting and not a disguised KKK Rally.

So at the meeting, the KKK Fuck does his spiela nd tries to assure them that “what you’ve heard about us is wrong”. And again this si part of what makes the episode resonate: guys like this try to make themselves seem resonable. THat “Their not racist” their the right ones and your wrong for wanting equality. It’s why these movements gain traction, they tap into people’s inner ugliness and disastifaction with life and give them an easy target for it. It’s what the president did for four years, i’ts what his sycophants at fox news CONTINUE to do: try and present being a racist, homophobic, xenophobic peace of shit as a viable and stable option when all it makes you is a racist , a coward and a dinosaur who can’t accept change or things difffrent than you. When this guy eventually goes into a rant, as George showing up triggers it and Tom and Harry dont’ take his shit for as econd, with tom proudly mentioning his black wife, and both holding George back for the same reasons Wheezy did with Florence, he talks abotu them “taking our property and destroying our homes”.. and it all sounds EERILY like when Tucker Carlson went on about property damage during the black lives matter protests last year... and as a wise tucan in a suit once said, fuck you tucker. And as John didn’t say but I certainly will, I Hope you choke on your own spray tan you racist seditionist prick. My point is this sort of rhetoric, trying to frame black people as the enemy.. never fucking went away and is on cable news every night. It was in our white house for four long years. It won’t go away and probably never will and everyone of every race has to be on guard to find these pricks and make sure their message is drowned out with love. And that’s what makes this whole thing relevant: that these pricks hide in plain sight and mask their arugments with civlities.. but at the end of day are just hateful monsters who just want a scapegoat for their problems or even may just hate because it’s easy, or because they just wnat to and don’t need an excuse to be the worst human garbage imaginable.

It makes what happens next all the better: Asshole has a heart attack, HORAY, and no one knows CPR since the kid walked out on the class with his dad before they actually learned it. George relucntantly sighs.. and knows what he has to do. He goes and saves the fuckers life. And that, friends, is why I brought up George’s racist past and i’m glad I knew about it giong in: because it shows how far he’s come. From hating white people.. to saving the WORST of the WORST of white people. He regrets it of course, saying the guy should’ve died, and that he won’t be greatful and he’ll just keep on hating.. but his friends point out the truth: George was the bigger man. He saved the life of a man who hated him just for existing and who’d gladly have him lynched if he could and was trying to run him out of his rightful place in the building, because it was the right thing to do. Because that fucker sure as hell wouldn’t. Because despite being a monster.. it’s still a life.. and he can waste it however he pleases.. but he’ll now ALWAYS know a black man saved it. George may regret his decison.. in the dark, where no body would blame him for letting the fucker die or even know he could’ve saved him until he got home, and his wife would’ve barely blamed him, he still choose to save the worst of humanity proving depsite his curmodgnley nature, he’s some of the best of it. It dosen’t change the asshole, he leaves on a gurney telling his son “You should’ve let me die”. George is unsuprised and leaves with his friends. And I do like this: the racist dosen’t MAGICALLY change because he’s saved by a black man, he’s still a fucking monster. And that is what sets him apart from George: Whiel George was a bigot, he not only never went as far as this monster, but he changed. He learned to let go of his hate as it was eating him alive, and while he certailnly and rightfully won’t let go of his resintment for white people, he’s accepted he can’t hate ALL of them for what some did to him. This asshole has no such excuse and no such growth, he probably died being the same miserable piece of shit he was , resenting forever a black man saved him. And that’s hwo it should end.. youc an’t save everyone and you can’t change a person that dosen’t want to. George changed only because he wanted to and he realized he was wrong evne if he’s loath to admit it. This guy wont’ and never will becuse some racist pieces of shit just will never accept the truth that all people were created equal.

His son though clearly has, thanking George before he leaves, and later as the rest of the meeting, realizing what these people are and what they plan on, leave as the assholes right hand man tries to continue said son refuses to acknowlegde him rips up the poster and leaves. See the old man not changing worked.. but so too does this.. showing some simply dont’ know better and some CAN change.. but like George.. they have to WANT to change. Only you can change you. And hopefully it’s for hte better.

This episode was excellent as i’ve made clear, and I don’t have honestly much to add to it. It was a pleasure and black lives matter.

#the jeffersons #george jefferson #wheezy jefferson #black lives matter #black history month #norman lear

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