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strawbeerossi · 10 months

Text

Heartless

Pairing: Unsub!Fem!Reader x Spencer Reid

Part Description: With an old foe breaking out of prison, there are complications when Y/N is left alone with them, exposing her secret to Spencer about just who she is.

Content Warnings: Coarse language, there’s spoilers for season 12 and prison Reid, mentions of drugging, mentions of death, use of a knife, use of a gun, violence, death.

Word Count: 4.4K

Part one || Part two || Part three

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Confusion had set in the minute that Y/N had gotten to Spencer’s car, watching the clumsy man nearly trip over his own two feet as he was pulling open the passenger side door, his tender touch against her lower back as he was so lovingly nudging her so she’d get in the car. “I thought you said this killer killed men. Why am I going to the office? Her MO isn’t women.” She tried, her boyfriend’s head shaking.

“Just listen to me!” Spencer snapped, bringing his hands to his hair while drawing in a breath. Trying to compose the very overwhelming emotions that seemed to be taking control. After prison, Spencer became more irritable. It was harder for him to control his emotions, he had major tunnel vision, and he was in a post traumatic stress state that wouldn’t ever leave him. Sure, things got better, in spurts. Therapy did so much for him, his girlfriend could only do so much, it was like his mind was against him.

“We need to get to the office now, okay? I promise you that I will explain everything in vivid detail but I need you in the fucking car! You’re gonna get hurt and I can’t lose someone else. Please just get in the car..” Watching Spencer panic and grow fearful was enough to make Y/N’s heart shatter. Her poor baby. In order to fulfill the man’s wishes, she was pressing a soft kiss against his cheek before climbing into the car, the seatbelt being snapped into place as soon as she was settled. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

Who the fuck was trying to take Y/N’s position? To claim all her hard work as their own? There was no doubt those men, no, those dirty pigs deserved to die. However, she was the one doing it. She was delivering justice to women who were failed by the system, by the courts, even by their spouses. What she did was vigilantism, doing what the law couldn’t. Even if her boyfriend was part of that same very law and would look down upon her choices. She had to keep it under the radar. She knew what would happen if her boyfriend was to find out.

She’d have to kill him.

It was almost a little laughable how naive Spencer was with the whole situation with his girlfriend, the way she would come over at all hours of the night, the way she’d always be tightly wound up. However, working in customer service for all shifts was a good excuse for that.

Spencer, the genius FBI profiler who had so much under his belt, had no idea he was in bed with a woman who he wanted to strangle. She’d like to think that he loved her, that he was overlooking everything just because he found solace in her arms. It was something that he told her, saying he needed her, that she made him sane after all the hell that he’d been put through.

Deep down, she knew that he was one of the good ones. The ones who deserved a loving relationship, a woman willing to take care of him, willing to deal with the long nights, days, even weeks when Spencer was off on a case. That was why she was there. To give a man who was the most deserving of love the very thing that he craved, needed. It wasn’t even just the sex that kept her there. It was that studious, lovable dork who always had so much to say, so much to teach her.

“There’s this woman, a woman who has been messing with me for years. I outsmarted her.” Spencer answered, one hand coming up to rub his right eye, the tunnel vision setting in as he was growing more overwhelmed. “Cat Adams. She-“ He let out a low sigh. “She drugged me, she framed me for murder, had me incarcerated, she.. She..” He was taking in a shaky breath while Y/N was reaching over to let her hand rest on his upper arm.

“You don’t have to say it right now, okay? I promise that it’s alright. I’m here for you.” Y/N assured her boyfriend, a weak smile on her face. Oh, she was gonna kill this bitch, for sure. She felt like this was going to be a bigger fight than it needed to be. Way too big.

Spencer was pulling in the parking garage soon after that, sitting in a deafening silence while he tried collecting himself the best that he could. He had to think clearly. Not only was he at risk but his girlfriend was too. Cat had so many people to do her dirty work outside of prison, he knew that. This was her handiwork. He didn't know how he didn't see it before.

Cat made the most sense. She was a 'Black Widow' killer. She used her seduction and charm to lure men in. She saw all men as threats, considered them all as evil and dark as the next. She never spared a thought for most of them. Spencer though.. Oh, Cat was infatuated. He was the only man to ever outsmart her, to arrest her while winning the game that she rigged against him. That woman wouldn't ever leave him alone, not until she was dead.

Being locked in a maximum security prison didn't deter her. Instead, it fueled her. It drove her to dig up every piece on Spencer that she possibly could. Hell, she had him drugged and imprisoned all the while blaming Mr. Scratch.

Emily Prentiss, the unit chief of the Behavioral Analysis Unit, was the one who greeted Spencer and Y/N by the elevator. "I'm glad you could make it. I know you've been busy with your personal investigation." She hummed, turning her attention to Y/N. "I had a suspicion our beloved Dr. Reid had a secret girlfriend." She joked, holding a hand out. "I'm Emily."

Y/N did her research on the BAU leader. She was strong willed, determined, and loyal to her work family. However, the mommy and daddy issues were apparent in her work ethic. The way she took on a more demanding tone, the way she looked at Y/N with that hint of mistrust. It was enough to make the other woman almost respect her. Emily was definitely going to make things difficult if she didn't play things smart.

The leader gets suspicious, and the team turns against her. No thanks.

"I'm Y/N. It's nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you." Y/N greeted, a smile gracing her features while her hand was reaching out to hold Emily's, the two shaking hands before their hands were falling back to their usual places.

"Spencer. If you wouldn't mind taking Y/N somewhere she can get comfortable, everyone else is waiting on us." Straight to business.

"I know it's not really work appropriate," Spencer began, his gaze falling on his girlfriend before he was taking her hand. "I'd really appreciate it if she came in too. She's been my rock throughout all of this and I don't think I can even talk about.." He paused briefly, making Emily look at Y/N before letting out a sigh.

"Alright. If you would feel more comfortable with her there, she can sit in. However," Now her attention was on Y/N. "I don't know what Spencer has told you but this is a violent case. We are going to be talking about a lot of dark subject matters." She spoke, a warning to the very woman who was behind every single murder except the most recent one.

"I understand. I think that I can handle it. If I can't, I'll quietly excuse myself." Her tone was soft as she offered a gentle smile.

Following close behind her boyfriend and his boss, Y/N was looking around the bullpen. There was a lot of structure and order, yet a hint of chaos judging by the piles of files and other papers on certain desks. She could already guess which one was Spencer's, which made her smile.

Inside the conference room though, the talking was coming to a halt when a new woman was stepping in the room, hand tucked in Spencer's.

There was a blonde woman that was speaking up first, a wide smile on her face. "Who is this?!" She asked, the case at hand almost being forgotten by the woman with purple framed glasses, a dress that was littered with unicorns amongst other fantasy style items. She didn't look like someone who would willingly choose this career, seeming very overjoyed and kind, too kind for the world.

"I'm Y/N. You must be Penelope." Y/N spoke up, the woman perking up even more if it was possible. "You've been talking about me!" She laughed, putting her hands together. "Is this your girlfriend? Oh! Spencer she's so-"

"Garcia."

Emily's voice was bringing the woman back to the heavy reality of the situation, making her smile fall as she nodded. "Sorry, sorry. Um," She began while grabbing the remote on the table. "We have Matthew Thornton." She began, clicking a button on the remote to pull up the crime scene.

Whoever was trying to take Y/N's thunder didn't even do it right. They stabbed the body about seventy times, which was far too much work for her to even attempt. Besides that, she'd never think to leave behind a note taunting anyone. However, this wasn't her. With the way she could feel her boyfriend tense up, she knew this was the work of the woman he told her about in the car.

"She ended up being a part of a well coordinated prison break." Tara was speaking up, her gaze looking over the files in hand while frowning. "How did the guards not notice?" She asked while Matt was looking over at the woman's direction. "Guards were in on it. It doesn't help that some of those same guards were killed while on their shift once the break happened and their clothes were stolen. Makes it easy to scan an ID and open the doors for everyone."

"So, wait," Y/N interjected herself into the conversation, however nobody seemed against her speaking her thoughts out. "With the break and how it flew under the radar for so long, do we know how long they've been out?" She asked, her eyebrows raising in curiosity. Maybe blaming this on Cat Adams could potentially get her fully off the suspect list.

"According to reports, this went on months ago." David responded, making Luke nod. "Meaning, Cat has been fighting for Spencer's attention in the only way she could. It looks like the killings led up to Spencer's apartment at one point but they stopped, now they are back on track."

Oh. Blessing in disguise maybe?

"What do we know?" Spencer finally broke his silence, his hand reaching over for one of the files before he was opening it, although it was almost like he had it to where Y/N could see too. Was she unknowingly getting signed up to help?

"She was seen in a convenience store security footage." Penelope answered, quickly pulling up the files. As they went through the footage a couple times, the blonde was pausing it on Cat's face. There was no doubt about it being her. Why was she playing the long game though? When Y/N found someone she wanted dead, she got on with it. There wasn't any doubt going through her mind.

"She's taunting us. We could be walking directly into a trap." Emily pointed out the obvious, her hands resting against the tabletop while keeping a sharp eye on the screen ahead of her. "I think it's time for us to go off of our leads. Garcia, send us coordinates for her last known locations. Judging by how recent this footage is, she's close. I’m pairing all of us off. We need to play this safe.”

Emily just didn't know how close Cat really was.

◆:*:◇:*:◆:*:◇:*:◆

Cat had successfully evaded police capture for months now, keeping her eyes on one specific person. She saw Y/N approach Spencer in a bar a few months ago, getting cozy with him before going back to his apartment. So.. Cat did what she did best, digging.

She followed Y/N around on her nights of leisure, watching her use her intoxicating voice and seduction to lure unsuspecting men back to shitty motels and other discreet places just to kill them. Yet, after all that, she’d made sure to not leave a trace of evidence behind before she left.

Going straight home to her boyfriend, an FBI agent who would no doubt kill her if she found out.

That was when Cat decided to make her escape known, attracting the attention of the BAU in order to throw this woman under the bus. Cat’s obsession with Spencer knew absolutely no bounds. She would do what she could to make him suffer, all the while managing to keep him all to herself.

He didn’t deserve to be happy. No, he deserved to be with someone who was meant for him. She knew from the moment she met Spencer that he was an evil person, harboring a dark side that only she had managed to bring out after being part of completely breaking him down, making him crumble into a form of himself that he would never fully recognize.

She knew they’d be catching on soon. The BAU never disappointed her, she was going to one place where they wouldn’t be looking. In fact, it was the place where Y/N was sent after Emily was making the woman leave due to the fact that no normal civilian needed to be part of this. Spencer was against the idea entirely but at the promise of an agent going to guard his girlfriend, he had to deflate and accept she needed to go home, where she was safe.

So, as she was being ushered home by some big agent to keep her safe, Y/N could help but frown. They thought she needed a man to protect her?? She knew what she was doing. If Cat even showed up on her radar, it’d be easy to kill her. No guard would be able to hold her back either. She’d pieced together every horrible thing that Cat coordinated against Spencer, the way she pulled the strings in an elaborate plan to completely break him.

There was going to be a long, painful death in store for the notorious escaped convict, that was all she knew.

“You don’t have to be here you know.” Y/N murmured to the man beside her, her hand reaching in her purse so she could unlock her front door. “Sorry, ma’am. Orders.” He wasn’t gonna let up. It was enough to get under her skin, wanting to grab her blade tucked away in her bag and slit his throat. However, she wasn’t going to fully incriminate herself after seemingly getting away with murder.

As soon as the door was unlocked, she stepped inside and closed the door behind her. Thankfully, the man outside would just be standing guard, which was a shitty decision if Cat was as good as they said she was.

Y/N had gotten her shoes off before heading to her kitchen, flipping on the light before raising an eyebrow as she saw Cat Adams, the woman the whole team was looking for, at her kitchen table. She had a folder resting on the table, labeled for Spencer. “You’re home! Thank god, I was worried I’d have to go find you!”

“What the fuck are you doing in my apartment? How did you get into my apartment?”

“I have my ways! Now, why don’t you sit down?”

The way that this woman was talking to her had Y/N rolling her eyes. “I think I’m gonna have to ask you to leave before I shove a knife in your throat. I mean, it would be self defense, after all. You broke into my home, you’re a convicted murderer.”

“Ah. You’re a murderer too though.” Cat stated, opening the file in front of her to reveal the prints linking Y/N with each victim. The same bar where she met Spencer, the same drink, the same body language. “I mean.. This is plenty of evidence. The cameras may not work there but people have their eyes open. Always. I know so many people around here, you’d be surprised.”

Cat didn’t give Y/N time to ask any questions. “Now, what I wanna know is, what are you doing with Spencer Reid? Your whole crusade is to kill men who have gotten away with violence against their partners and/or their children. Men who are violent, harboring dark thoughts and using their strength to either take life away, or to try and end it.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with Spencer.”

“You don’t? You do know that Spencer murdered a woman, correct? In cold blood, might I add. She was trying to help him and he returned the favor by stabbing her to death.”

“Because you drugged him, Cat. I’m not fucking stupid, I’ve already been made aware.”

“Were you aware that after his release from prison, he came to visit me? He had to talk with me about my involvement, which I’m sure you know that I had his precious mommy under my lock and key. Do you know what he did to me? What he said?”

There was silence from Y/N’s end. That was something she hadn’t heard yet.

“You see, I was pregnant in prison. Spencer had come to question me, asking me all sorts of bullshit questions. So I answered. He got impatient with me. Started yelling, threw a table out of the way, and slammed me against a brick wall. He was going to choke me to death, Y/N. I had bruises for months after that. I even miscarried. If JJ hadn’t been there, I would’ve been dead.” The story wasn’t as tragic as Cat believed it to be. She deserved it.

“You fight for women and children who have been fucked over by the crooked structure of law enforcement. The same law enforcement that your sweet boyfriend is a part of. Killing all of those men was a waste of time. If you truly cared about those people who you claim to be fighting for, Spencer would’ve been dead a long time ago. I respected your choices leading up to that moment. The moment that you grew weak. The moment you betrayed every single thing you were fighting for.”

As if right on cue though, there was the sound of banging right outside the front door, Spencer’s voice being muffled by the front door as he called out to his girlfriend. He willingly sent her home, thinking she’d be safe. All the while, Cat left plenty of clues as to where she was. “Right on time! I knew Spencie wouldn’t fail me.” She grinned.

“Go be a good girl and unlock the door. I think you and him need to have a long talk about what you did.” She spoke, leaning back in her chair while nodding towards the front door, where Spencer was still yelling for his girlfriend. If she didn’t open the door soon, he’d have to pull a Derek and kick the wooden door clean off its hinges.

This was where Y/N’s heart fell into her stomach. Realization was setting in. Spencer was going to know. He was going to see the incriminating bullshit that Cat had in front of her. Everything was going to fall down to Y/N killing Spencer. This was what Cat needed her for. What she used her for.

She quietly approached the front door, unlocking each individual lock before pulling it open. “Oh thank god!” Spencer croaked, his arms wrapped tightly around his girlfriend while he held her flush against his chest. The comfort of knowing she was okay was enough to have him sobbing in her arms, unaware of what darkness was looming in the kitchen. “She’s on the way here.” He spoke, him against her shoulder while his eyes were closed.

The moment was gone in an instant. “I’m already here, Spencie. It’s so nice to see you again. I bet that you thought you were doing justice here,” Cat smirked, body leaning against the kitchen archway as she let an eyebrow raise. “I suggest you come inside, sit with us in the kitchen. We both have a lot to discuss with you.” She began, causing the couple to break apart from the hug as Y/N grabbed her boyfriend’s hand. “Come on.” She whispered, tears rolling down her pale cheeks as she led him into the kitchen.

“Now, I think you guys should recruit me into the fbi. Because I solved this case for you!” Cat grinned, pushing the closed file to Spencer. “Your killer, the one you’ve been searching for, has been right under your nose this whole time. It’s not even me!” She had a wicked smile on her face. This was another shot to Spencer’s heart, making him go through pain all over again. As long as she was alive, Spencer wouldn’t ever escape her.

You could hear a pin drop the minute that Spencer opened the file, his eyes staring at the pictures inside while his mouth ran dry. That was Y/N. His girlfriend. With the men who were murdered, the same bar they met in and everything.

“What the fuck is this?” There was anger in his voice, betrayal. “You’ve let me nearly kill myself from lack of sleep and bringing me to near heart attack level because of you?!” The venom in his voice had Y/N flinching upon impact, her eyes squeezing shut. “You don’t understand-“ She began, though it wasn’t long before Spencer was throwing the file down and standing.

“Was I another victim?! Were you playing the fucking long game with me? You wanted to catch me fully off guard?” He growled, the woman being backed up to the wall. Y/N felt powerless, her heart beating out of her chest as the man she loved was towering over her, keeping her trapped between himself and the wall.

However, once his back was to Cat, it was almost like something else flashed in his eyes. There was anger but now there was something else. Encouragement? She didn’t think much about it until Spencer was reaching over to take a knife out of the knife block, holding it out to his girlfriend. “Do it then. Go for it.” He growled, though there wasn’t fear behind his eyes. No.. There was a fucking smirk on his face, egging her on to make a move.

Y/N was slowly taking the knife once Spencer backed up, this time sitting in a chair. There were a few moments of silence while Y/N was looking at her reflection within the blade of the knife, something ticking inside of her. Something she’d been waiting to act on for a while. “I’m sorry.” She whispered, looking over at her boyfriend who seemed unbothered. “I don’t wanna fucking hear it. Just hurry up. We don’t have much time.”

The way she was encouraged made her face Cat, then everything went black.

The first thing she did was charge the other woman, knocking her out of the chair. The air was thick with adrenaline as the woman was wrestling the other to the ground. This was a long time coming. However, cat put up one hell of a fight, the woman ending up getting a good hit on Y/N and knocking her to the ground, which had Cat be the knife wielder.

As the woman was climbing on top of the other, she was pushing the knife deep into Y/N’s shoulder, the woman letting out a loud cry. “You’re pathetic, you know that? All that promise? All that strength. He was going to take it away from you anyway. You never loved him and he never loved-“

BANG

Blood was splattered all over Y/N’s face, the sound of a gunshot echoing through the apartment. The deadweight of Cat falling on top of her was enough to shock her. Did Spencer just.. There were a few moments where Y/N used the adrenaline coursing through her veins to shove the dead weight off of her.

“How dumb do you think I am?” Spencer asked after a moment, using a lighter to light up the incriminating evidence in the sink to let the pictures burn completely. “I’ve known the whole fucking time. You’re not exactly subtle. Be real. I was in that bar on a stakeout.” He continued on while looking back at Y/N.

“I was supposed to go in, do my job, and get out. However, you sat beside me. The way you were talking to me, touching me, and your body language gave you up immediately. However.. Against my better judgment, I had some sort of trust in you. I took you home with me.” He began while turning on the water to put out the fire from the burning evidence before grabbing the unidentifiable pictures and throwing them in the trash.

“I fell in love with you. Even if you didn’t deserve that love. Quite frankly, you still don’t.” He was taking off the purple scarf around his neck, wrapping it around her bleeding wound while he was moving to grab his microphone, putting a finger up. “Prentiss, send up medics. Cat’s down and Y/N is wounded.” He sent off the message while letting his arms cross as he looked over his girlfriend.

“I’m not gonna say a word about any of this. I told you that I refuse to lose you and I mean that. You’re not going to be locked up in a jail cell the rest of your life or mine. But you have to promise me that you’re not gonna fuck around and keep doing this bullshit. I mean it, if I feel like you are killing anyone else..” He was grabbing her chin by making her look up at him.

“I’ll kill you myself. Now, go get stitched up before you bleed out.” There was a soft kiss pressed against her lips while he was standing straight again, walking out of the apartment to greet the other team members downstairs.

He left Y/N to stand there, mostly in shock.

What the fuck just happened?

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aziraphales-library · 4 months

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Hi! I'm very new to reading GO fics and was looking for recs.

I just finished reading "Demonology and the Tri-Phasic Model of Trauma: An Integrative Approach" by Nnm, and it left me on such a fic high I need more. I'd love reading Crowley centered fics with a dash of nutmeg (therapy/emotional introspection), some heart wrenching bits and also a happy ineffable husbands ending. I was wondering if you could point me towards something of the sort?

Thanks in advance, and also thank you for your service to the fandom!

Hello and welcome! If you're new you might want to check out our #fandom favourites tag (of which Demonology and the Tri-Phasic is one). We also have #therapy and #crowley-centric tags, which you may be interested in. Here are some Crowley-centric introspection fics for you that I personally love...

Do You Feel Loved? by mikripetra (T)

Crowley’s smile twists downwards. “So…still in favor of ‘the Great Plan,’ then?” “Exactly!” beams Aziraphale. “She never meant for us to go through with the Apocalypse. She planned it this way from the very Beginning, don’t you see? Everything we’ve done, everything that’s happened- every bit of it was what She intended.” Crowley swallows reflexively. His mouth tastes like ash.

this message is a warning about danger (about love) by darcylindbergh (E)

He knows Aziraphale wonders about it, sometimes. The snake. Crowley’s always careful with it. He’s always careful to make it seem like it should be impressive, to posture and pose and tease; or else he’s careful to make it seem like a joke, to fill it to the brim with bravado and confidence until it’s practically sour on his own tongue, laughing and showing off. He doesn’t ever say that he’s afraid, afterwards, and there’s not really much else to be said.

Sin Pays But Botany Doesn’t by Anonymous (G)

After averting the apocalypse, Crowley is living in his car with a lot of free time on his hands. He posts a YouTube video talking about plants as a joke but finds internet famedom where a punchline should be. Being a YouTube botanist agrees with him, though. He likes talking about plants, and he usually doesn’t find many opportunities to do that outside of YouTube. So, Crowley adopts traveling the world in search of plants to film as a new hobby. Kept in the dark about this new hobby, Aziraphale, who is used to being Crowley’s sole object of attention and is unused to having to compete with anything for Crowley’s time, is curious about where Crowley goes when he’s not in London.

Crowley and His Army of Grandmothers by burnt_oranges (NR)

Crowley had impulsively stopped by Artisan Du Chocolate, the next place on Aziraphale’s meticulously ordered list of chocolatiers to sample, and now Crowley wonders--is it too much? He had bought a hundred fucking pounds’ worth of chocolate, of course it’s too much, but would Aziraphale notice that it was too much? That is the question.

I Only Have Eyes For You by Twilightcitysky (M)

After narrowly escaping execution, Aziraphale and Crowley want to fly under the radar for a while. Worried that performing miracles will reveal their location to their former bosses, they relocate to the country and stop using their powers. Meanwhile, Aziraphale is ready to start moving faster... and Crowley has a secret. Can he keep Aziraphale from realizing what's changed while juggling moving trucks, furniture assembly, inquisitive mediums, attacks of Feng Shui, and the mortifying ordeal of grocery shopping? A fic about moving in together, finding yourself, and finding one another.

- Mod D

#good omens #ineffable husbands #crowley-centric #introspection #mod d

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horizoncollective · 2 months

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Hey.

You guys find and break into secret stuff all the time, right? I might be in big trouble with my boss if I don't get this sorted out.

So, I might have lost this super-secret prototype stealth frame. Long story short: I put a cloak on the frame, turned it on, went to have lunch, and now I can't find my mech anymore. I really don't want to call back to base (I'd never live it down) and SSC's customer service for these kinds of things sucks. (it's one of their cloaks)

Would you happen to have any ideas to find this frame without running around swinging a stick around until I hit something? It's not like I'm on base right now; currently out doing all-terrain testing, in fact... but there's got to be a better way to find it than checking literally everywhere.

Thanks...

These mech systems are so advanced at hiding from decent electronic equipment (LIDAR and RADAR and all the other acronyms like that just miss 'em) that you need really top of the line searching gear to find them. It ends up that swinging the stick around is actually a really good way of finding shielded stuff, but a paintball gun will have the same effect at greater distance.

You can also wait for rain or snow.

When you find it, you might want to put a comp/con in there that will walk to locations you tell it to come to in case this happens again.

#asks

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octopiys · 8 months

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A lil bit of a started story based off of a comic by: @aidenlydia thank u for letting me write about it just in time for spooky season!!

every dream that shatters (another one comes true)

He had to get out. He had to clear his head. His shoebox of a house was too cluttered, too stuffed, and he couldn't breathe in there. Too many eyes watched him, too many eyes worried and never said a thing.

He had to go for a ride.

The bike was right under the tarp where he had left it, settled under half an inch of dust. He wasn't even really sure if his mum knew he had it.

He knew she wouldn't say anything, even if she did know. Her eyes only watched.

A gift to himself when he enlisted, the bike was just as beautiful as he'd first bought it.

Built in 2000, the gloss on his Harley Softail was just as polished, like a mirror. He smudged his hand on the black, before pulling on his gloves. The twin engine was still in perfect condition, after all, the bike was only a few years old. When he got back from Mexico, he buried himself in upgrading the bike. A radio modification or two, a compartment in the front, hiding a few secret things, a few close objects to him. Dog tags, a photo of the rest of his team, a letter that he wouldn't bother to rewrite until he got back home... He hitched up the wheels, buffed them out just a little bigger. They were more stable, and he couldn't help but puff up at the thought of how nice they fit the bike. He had to clean off the leather of the seat as he tugged it out of the shed in the backyard.

If his mother didn't know he had it before, she surely did now.

He needed to drive.

The radio station switched on, the gauges twitching as he kicked the bike on. Some rock band was playing. One of the newer ones he liked. Linkin Park. The engine revved, purred, and he felt slightly soothed. The sound scraped against his ears, grinding away the thoughts that berated him.

It felt like flying, strangely, and he'd been in his fair share of helicopters. The service granted him that much, at least.

He had decided not to bring his helmet, the one that was emblazoned with a bones of a skull. It would be a short trip. Just to clear his mind.

The house was deadly silent behind him, but for once he'd swear he'd never felt more alive.

Captain John MacTavish, or as his friends liked to call him, Soap, was going to go insane. His current mission had been completed, and since he was technically considered part of a private military company, all he had to do was wait for the next one.

The issue at hand, however, is that there wouldn't be another one for months, and he was tired of routine.

Strange, saying that as a Captain. Sure, he'd built himself a title through routine, and sure, he'd earned himself one by breaking it. He'd tell his team to take a break, but that didn't necessarily mean he himself would follow through with that.

But it was autumn, and apparently terrorists wanted to carve pumpkins or something like that because there was no threat on their radars, and it pissed him off.

He needed something to do. Something to get his hands working with, something to get his pent up aggression out. Drawing wasn't working as well as he'd wanted it to, and now he had filled journals of dead teammates that he'd drawn up in their honor. He'd probably burn them later, like a sacrificial pyre in memoriam.

There was a soft thud at his front door and his head shot up in reflex, shoulders hunched, prepared for a fight. But there was no knock, no sudden burst of entry. His hand had twitched for a gun that he didn't currently hold.

Creeping up to the front door, Soap checked through the peephole in the center of the wood. No one was there, much to his relief. Just the morning mail.

After he opened the door and seized the paper for himself, he saw the mailboy ride past on his bike with an armful of other newspapers to deliver.

Soap deemed it safe to take into his home.

He was so utterly bored, he thought he'd might explode. At least that would bring some kind of interest into his life.

His mother prayed that he'd find someone of interest before she died, and believe him, she wanted to die knowing that her son wouldn't be alone. That he had somebody to come home to.

The Captain, however, never found much interest in women. Or men, for that matter. Not that he didn't find them attractive! In fact, Sergeant Garrick often teased him for the way he'd be caught gazing at a bartender at a pub after a mission, or a nurse who'd had the misfortune of being assigned to their task force during a particularly nasty mission. But his field of work never allowed much time for a relationship anyways. Too much time apart, too much risk, and not nearly enough risque.

Most of the time, it'd be a quick fuck, and he'd be off on his way.

But this wasn't that kind of frustration, it was something else. Understimulation, if you will.

He was four pages through the paper before it occurred to him that he hadn't actually read anything since he opened it up. So he zoned back in, and started from the beginning.

Most of it was a few standard ads, some news articles, a morning prayer that he mumbled aloud. But something had caught his eye. An opportunity.

In basic print, on basic background, was a local advertisement from some old woman selling a wrecked out motorcycle. She stated that the condition was very poor, and it would require a lot of work to get it fixed up. However, she left a line to call beneath the brief description.

Before he knew it, he was dialing the digits into his phone.

It rang thrice before it got picked up.

"Hello...? This is Sara." The voice of an older woman answered, and from the way she spoke it didn't seem like she was expecting a call.

"Hi there, ma'am. My name is John, ah was callin' aboot yer ad in the paper?" He winced internally, having not prepared a proper greeting.

"Oh!" Was all he heard. There was some shuffling on the other end of the line. "Yes, I- yes, of course.... I'd assume you'd want to check it out before you buy-?" She seemed hesitant. Almost sad, even.

"If yer offerin', ma'am, I'd love ta." He straightened on his worn out couch, reaching to the nearby side table to grab a pen and the pad of paper.

She told him the address, and he wrote it down. It would be a decent drive, but the morning was nigh. He'd be able to get there and back by nightfall easily, even if it would take much more time to get there than to actually assess the bike.

He hated driving in Britain. He hated it. The traffic was horrible, why didn't he ever account for-

"Oh God dammit pick a fuckin' lane ye wee bastard!" He shouted at the car in front of him that could not hear, due to the fact that the windows of his truck were rolled up, and the car was in fact, just a car.

He was only ten minutes out, but traffic in Manchester was just not pleasing him at the current moment.

But soon enough he was driving down a free road to a residential area of more run down houses. He wasn't one to judge, having come from a place similar, but the GPS stopped him in front of a light blue house. The garage door was open, and a few shingles were missing from the roof. There were a few children's toys in the front yard, the weeds overcrowding the driveway.

Soap pocketed his wallet and locked his car as he approached the front door. There were a few flower boxes, and the paint was peeling. The flowerbeds held a few dying sweet pea plants.

He wasn't sure how he recognized the plant. Symbolism of some sort he was sure.

He knocked quietly on the door and waited patiently, pushing strands of his overgrown mohawk out of his face.

There was a bit of a scuffle behind the door before it opened, revealing an older woman with graying blond hair and soft wrinkles around her eyes. She was older like he'd thought, probably around the same age as his own mother, and she had the same kindness in her eyes that he missed.

"Are you John?" She asked, her hands finding purchase on the door.

"Aye, but ye can call me Soap if ya'd like." It was a force of habit, introducing himself. Everybody knew him as Soap. Wasn't that big of a deal.

The woman pursed her lips, but opened the door. "I'd let ya around the side o' the house, but my son's mowin' the lawn now. It's in the back shed, hon, follow me." She said, deciding that he was well enough on his word to come into the house.

The walls of the interior were light purple, and in the corner of the living room sat an old box television, smothered by two couches. There was a baby play pen near the kitchen, and some music that played somewhere deeper in the house. He could see the shed through the back windows, overgrown with ivy, and there was a pang of sadness in his heart that he could not place.

"My son was a lieutenant." The woman said suddenly, as they crossed through the living area. Soap hummed in response.

"What force?" He asked, not bothering to question how she knew. He chose to slightly overlook the use of past tense.

"S.A.S. His father hated it." She breathed a laugh to herself as she opened up the back door. "But he wasn't in it for the Queen. He wanted to help people, truly."

"Aye, ma'am, most of us aren't fans of the Queen." He scoffed, and the woman looked back at him with a soft twinkle in her eye, like she knew more than he did.

They were quiet as they walked out to the back shed. He heard the mower going as it turned around the backyard, before it appeared. A young boy was operating it, with shoulder length blond hair, and he paused, staring at them for a moment, before pushing the mower back towards the front of the house.

The woman had unlocked the shed, but she didn't open the doors just yet. She glanced at him, looking almost hesitant. "Its.... It's really just scrap metal, hon. It'll be a lotta work to fix up, if that's what you're lookin' for. He made a few modifications to it, but- well...." She pushed open the door, and he smiled at her, trying to mask the realization that this bike *was* her son's.

"Don't worry ma'am, I like a good challenge." Soap murmured, glancing in as she opened the door.

The shed was lined with shelves, most of them holding gardening tools or the like. Near the back corners was, well, what he figured she'd be talking about. He could see the scratched polish glinting in the soft sunlight that caught the dust mites. The front wheel had been completely torn off, the bike bent almost in half around the leather seat. A few wires hung loose, and the radio modification was shattered almost completely across. Whatever had happened to it, and it's owner, must've been a grizzly scene. He didn't want to think the two were interrelated.

"I'll take it." He said in a hushed voice, before clearing his throat. "Uh- I'll take it, ma'am. I'll fix it right up." Soap promised, and he knew he would.

"I'll have my boy help it out to the car." She responded, and turned away.

He ended up getting the bike for very cheap. Her other son, Thomas, had done well on her word, having gotten out a transport tarp and helped him drag it out to his truck. He looked much like the boy he saw earlier, the one who was mowing the lawn. Must've been his father.

"Mum says you're in the military." Thomas huffed. "Not a Queen's bitch, though."

"Nae, I kill terrorists." Soap said, tipping his head.

"You make good on that?"

"I do."

"You'll like the bike. It was practically new when 'e got it. I was the only one he told 'bout it." Thomas puffed slightly at the memory. "A 2000 Harley Softail... God, she was a beaut. I helped 'im put in the radio too."

Soap smiled, but it might've looked more like a grimace. He couldn't lie and say he didn't feel bad.

He handed Thomas the money, and thanked him. Thomas wished him luck.

Before he got into his truck, Ms. Sara hurried out with something in her hands. It was a black and white helmet. Even if the paint was fading, he could still see the slight tracing of the skull-and-crossbones patterning. It looked edgy. Soap thought it was cool.

"If... If you do get the bike fixed up, use the helmet for me, son. It'll be the best decision you make, y' best believe." She said thickly, setting it in the bed of his truck alongside the twisted metal.

His throat felt tight as he smiled at her once again. "Thank ye." He said sincerely, and he found himself strangely choked up. He didn't know these people, but yet there was something so familiar about them.

Thomas stood next to his mother, almost towering over her.

"Good luck." He said stiffly, and Soap thanked him quietly once again.

The family turned into the house, and he hopped into his truck. The door slammed loudly behind him, and he swore, just another thing he had to fix.

As Soap drove off, what was left of the bike rattled securely in the bed of his truck.

Behind closed doors, a tear slipped down Ms. Riley's face. She pressed her forehead to the cold wood as the Captain drove away and whispered,

"Goodbye, Simon."

#call of duty #cod mw2 #john soap mactavish #modern warfare 2 #simon ghost riley #ghostsoap #incorrect quotes #captain john price #alejandro vargas #alerudy #kyle 'gaz' garrick #soap x ghost #ghost x soap #modern warfare 3

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raaorqtpbpdy · 2 months

Text

Valerie the Spy

When Danny started acting weird... well... weirder than normal, Valerie sought to find out why, and to do that, no matter how much she regretted it, she enlisted the help of school conspiracy theorist Wes Weston to get to the bottom of it.

Written for the prompts:

Danny slowly discovers he has space powers, which mainly means control over gravity. But we all know what his powers are like when they're fresh and he's still learning. What kind of angsty, scary or hilarious shenanigans ensue? [from Deathcomes4u], and Valerie, fed up with Danny's suspicious activity, reluctantly teams up with Wes to get to the bottom of whatever's really going on. Wes is just excited that someone's listening to his theories. [from @46-reasonable-hamsters]

Read also on AO3

[Warnings for stalking and invasions of privacy]

It was common knowledge at Casper High—maybe even throughout Amity Park, that Danny Fenton was something of a freak. He was banned from all sensitive lab equipment, he learned how to communicate with a gorilla for extra credit, his bladder could predict ghost attacks with greater accuracy than the ghost detectors his parents had installed all over the school.

He'd been that way since he started high school, if not longer, but now that he was a sophomore, and they'd all been going to school with him for a while, more people had taken notice. Still, no one cared much. That was just Fenton. He was like that, and everyone seemed content to accept that without any further explanation—with two exceptions.

Wes Weston, the school's resident conspiracy theorist; and Valerie Gray, former A-lister turned wallflower and secret vigilante ghost hunter extraordinaire. Wes had never been willing to accept Fenton's weirdness at face value, and had developed multiple theories attempting to provide an explanation for it. Valerie had been... until recently.

But recently, the local freak had been even freakier than usual. In the past two weeks, people who passed by him would trip and fall with startling regularity. There had been numerous scraped knees, and even a few broken noses. The other day, Valerie had seen him in the quad, hugging a tree with a dead-eyed expression while his goth friend laughed at him until she, too, face-planted on the grass.

Danny had always been weird, and for the most part, Valerie had been willing to roll with the punches of his slowly but steadily increasing weirdness, but this was the last straw. Clumsiness, savant-syndrome, and IBS not withstanding, Valerie couldn't think of anything that could explain away this latest uptick in weirdness, and she was going to get to the bottom of it.

Valerie was a lot of things, but patience wasn't her strongest suit. Her strongest suit was black and red and packed to the brim with the latest in anti-ecto technology. After two days of investigating Danny—or attempting to, at least—and finding zilch, her frustration was mounting beyond her tolerance for it. She'd didn't really have any idea how to research or investigate someone that she couldn't track with her ghost hunting gear.

She followed him after, but didn't see anything noteworthy, didn't know what to even look for. Then, when she got a ping on her ecto-radar watch, Danny disappeared in the moment she looked down to see what direction the ghost was coming from.

After two days and zero headway, Valerie knew it was time to employ some back-up. Although she could not stress enough how much she definitely did not want to, she simply didn't have the relevant skill-set to investigate a regular human on her own. And as it happened, there was someone at school who had already 'investigated' this particular human pretty thoroughly.

With the utmost reluctance, Valerie sought out one Wesley Weston to help her figure out the truth of what was really going on with Danny. She found him at lunch and dragged him out behind the cafeteria to enlist his services.

"Wow, the elusive Red Huntress wants my help?" he said sarcastically. "I'm honored."

"I-I'm not the Red Huntress!" Valerie balked. How could he possibly know that? Was it just a lucky guess?

Wes rolled his eyes. "Sure you're not," he agreed unconvincingly. "This is a prank, right? You ask me to help you investigate Fenton, and then I get all excited and your friends show up and make fun of me for thinking you were serious? I'm not dumb."

"I know you're not," Valerie said, trying to remain civil, which was no easy feat when faced with someone as insufferable as Wes. "This isn't a prank. Something's up with Danny, something different than his usual weirdness, and I want your help to figure out what and why."

Wes narrowed his eyes in suspicion and crossed his arms.

"Why me? I know you don't believe my theory about Fenton secretly being Danny Phantom."

"Yeah, because it's ridiculous," Valerie scoffed before she could stop herself. She tensed and tried to think up some way to save face before Wes blew her off for being rude to him. "Uh... I mean... I don't believe that, but I do believe that you've found a lot of evidence by investigating Danny. I don't think that evidence points to him being dead, but it does show that you can put in the legwork."

She hadn't recovered fast enough to prevent Wes from scowling at her, but he pursed his lips in consideration and slowly started to nod.

"Alright, I'll help," he agreed, and his lips split into a grin. "Maybe working with me will be just the push you need to realize I've been right all along."

Valerie smiled to hide the fact that she was gritting her teeth against a groan. She was already regretting this team-up, but as long as he did what she needed him to, that was all that mattered. She could do this. She could work with Wes Weston... hopefully without strangling him.

"I have basketball practice after school, and I know you're working today so—"

"How do you know that?!" Valerie asked, a little alarmed.

"I know everything," Wes replied with a sly smile and a lift of his eyebrows. "Anyway, meet me on the corner of Annabelle and Stine at 10pm."

"Why there and then?"

"It's an unsuspicious corner with a clear view of Fenton Works right at Danny's curfew," Wes explained. "We'll be able to see if he makes it home in time, and if he doesn't, it gives us the chance to figure out what held him up."

"You know... it's pretty creepy that you know all this, Weston."

"Yeah, I know," he acknowledged, cringing. "But hey, that's why you asked for my help, isn't it? You need me to be creepy so you can get the four-one-one on your little crush."

"I don't have a crush on Danny!"

Wes raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. "Right, sure you don't."

"Well... I don't anymore," she insisted, and no, she was not pouting about it. Wes didn't really know everything, no matter what he might claim.

"If you insist," he said. "Now if you'll excuse me, you dragged me out of the lunch line, and I would actually like to eat today." With that, he turned and headed back into the cafeteria.

As he walked away, Valerie thought that Wes had actually played it pretty cool, despite the fact that she was probably the first person who'd actually wanted to talk to him about this weird fixation of his. She'd halfway expected him to be bouncing off the walls when she asked for his help, but he hadn't.

She didn't see the giddy grin that rose on his face the moment she couldn't see it anymore.

—

The corner of Annabelle and Stine was the edge of the park. Just as Wes had said, there was a clear view of Fenton Works, but a handful of trees obscured them from being seen easily. Technically, the park closed at sundown, so when Valerie arrived at the meeting place, having gone there directly after work, she expected that she and Wes would be alone.

However, there was someone out for a late night walk with their dog, some kind of large, herding breed, Valerie guessed from the silhouette against the street lamps. They were a good ways away, and likely didn't even realize the two teenagers were there, though, so she wasn't worried about it.

Wes, of course, was already there and staring intently at the Fenton Works building, but she'd expected that. He'd probably been there watching for hours already by this point, since basketball practice ended around five—she knew because she'd briefly dated another guy on the basketball team. That relationship had only lasted a week, courtesy of the guy being a bit of a chauvinist who treated her like some kind of fragile flower, as if she wasn't a ninth degree black-belt who could dead-lift her body weight.

Man, what a jerk. She'd almost let herself forget about him completely. Maybe there were upsides to not being an A-lister anymore, like not being expected to date misogynist jocks.

Anyway, putting that aside for now, Valerie approached Wes, walking slowly and quietly in the hopes of startling him. She wasn't usually the type to play that kind of prank on people, but she couldn't pass up the opportunity. She got right up behind him, only inches away. And then—

"Hey Valerie," Wes greeted.

Valerie started. She was sure he hadn't seen her, and she could be pretty damn silent when she wanted to be, but even though she'd been trying to sneak up on him, he'd been the one to surprise her instead. Maybe Wes deserved more credit than she gave him... no, it was probably just a lucky guess. Wes didn't deserve that kind of credit.

"See anything so far?" she asked, rather than acknowledging her shock?

"It's 9:54 and no sign of Danny yet," Wes replied. "He usually cuts it pretty close, though, so that's no surprise."

Now that she was this close to him, in the darkness and the shadows of the trees, she could see that he wasn't just watching, he had a pair of binoculars held up to his face. And they looked like pretty high quality ones too, heavy-duty. Like cops and dedicated bird-watchers might use. She wondered if he'd bought them specifically to watch Danny or if he'd already had them for some reason, and where he'd even bought them in the first place.

"Hey, where did you get those?" she asked. "I've been thinking about getting a pair to keep an eye on... uh... I mean, for no reason."

"Shh!" Wes hissed. "I can see him coming." He did decide to answer her question though. "And I bought 'em online. They're 8 by 42 HD Vortex Diamondbacks, if you're curious, and they're great for keeping an eye on ghosts."

"Who said anything about ghosts?" she asked.

He merely sighed in exasperation and shook his head. "Danny's riding in on his scooter today, rather than flying."

"Flying?"

"As a ghost, obviously," Wes replied. "Sometimes, when he's coming in really close to the wire, he'll fly in as Phantom and transform in the bushes before going in."

"Riiight," Valerie said slowly. "But he's just on his scooter today, so is there anything to actually justify us being here watching him?"

"Sure is," Wes said. "Look at his leg, at the way he moves it."

Valerie took the binoculars and looked at whatever Wes was talking about. It didn't look like anything worth looking at for a moment, but when she paid attention, she was pretty sure she could see his foot stuttering a bit when it hit the pavement to propel him forward, and lift quickly. It wasn't very efficient and slowed him down, and she knew Danny rode his scooter enough that he would have known that.

"He's injured," Wes said. "You can tell, can't you? There's something wrong with his leg. I'm thinking twisted ankle, or broken toe, what do you think?"

"I think you're very observant—but how does this help us?"

"Everything can be evidence, you just have to compile it properly before you can see what it's evidence of," Wes told her. "Danny's not very athletic, doesn't do any sports or anything, right? So how did he get hurt?"

"Maybe his scooter hit a bump earlier and threw him," Valerie suggested, trying not to sigh in her annoyance. "People can twist their ankles just walking, that doesn't prove anything."

"Not on its own, but no single piece of evidence proves anything on its own, you have to look at the whole picture. You have to make a note of everything you see, because if you don't, you might miss the key detail that makes everything come together."

Valerie looked at him blankly and handed back his binoculars. Danny had already made it home while they were talking and gone inside, so he was no longer visible to them.

"Can we get back to what the benefit of meeting here was?" Valerie asked. "All we got to see was him going home. Not exactly groundbreaking."

"Sure, but now we know he's at home."

"So what?"

"So, all locations related to Danny besides his home are free game for us to search," Wes told her. "His locker, for example."

"You want us to break into the school at ten pm to go through Danny's locker?"

Valerie was unimpressed.

"Okay, so I was kind of hoping he would be flying home and I could show you that as proof he's Phantom, but since he didn't, yes, we're going to break into the school and go through his locker."

"Sounds like a stupid plan," Valerie said.

"A lot of plans seems stupid until they work."

Kinda like Valerie's own plan to enlist Wes' help sating her curiosity, she thought. Valerie groaned. She just couldn't hold it in anymore. This was so stupid, and such a waste of time. She could be out hunting ghosts right now instead of indulging Wes' fanaticism, but she'd made her bed and now she had to lie in it. God she wanted to be lying in bed right now. Still, she indulged.

During the walk he... enlightened her about another theory of his, about ghosts drawing power from emotions and obsessions. It sounded pretty ridiculous. It even seemed to imply that the Box Ghost became more powerful the more boxes he accrued, which almost made Valerie laugh. If that were the case, he'd be the most powerful ghost in Amity Park. But Wes' explanation was enthusiastic and passionate, so she just let him go. There was no real point shutting him down, and at least the theory was funny.

At least Fenton Works wasn't too far from the school, though it was farther than Valerie really wanted to walk when it was cold and dark and late. When they got there, Wes easily picked the lock to let them in.

"Where'd you learn how to do that?" she asked.

"Who wants to know?" he replied, handing her a spare flashlight to see by.

She just rolled her eyes in response and pushed past him to where she knew Danny's locker to be. The school was eerie at night. She knew the place by heart, and was sure she could navigate the linoleum halls in her sleep, but somehow, being there in darkness, with all the lights off and no one around except her and Wes... it sent a creeping feeling down her spine. She walked quickly and didn't delay as she made a beeline for Danny's locker.

It was, predictably, locked when they got to it, but that didn't even give Wes a moment's pause as he pressed his ear to the back of the combination lock and started twisting the dial.

"So what exactly are we supposed to be looking for in Danny's locker?" she asked.

"We'll know if we see it," he said. "Now shush, I gotta start over."

She huffed once, but otherwise waited in silence for him to finish.

With a click, the lock opened and the door swung wide. Wes turned to her with a triumphant smile.

"Congrats, you've unearthed a bunch of textbooks and crumpled up papers," she said sardonically.

"Crumpled papers are the best kinds of papers!" Wes declared. "You don't crumple papers if you want people to read them you know. Crumpled papers can hold all kinds of juicy secrets. I once found a crumpled paper where Star had doodled the name Mrs. Star Sanchez all over it with little hearts and flowers. Don't tell her I told you."

"No way."

"Yes way. Now let's get to snooping." Wes uncrumpled the first piece of paper. "Alright, failed history test, understandable but not what we're looking for."

Valerie uncrumpled the second one. "Unflattering doodles of... Mr. Lancer... I think? He's not much of an artist, is he?"

"Oh for two," Wes said, uncrumpling the third piece of paper. He grinned. "But it looks like third time's the charm!"

"What is it?" Wes handed her the paper and she shined her flashlight on it to see a list.

What's Happening? was written at the top in Danny's slanted chicken-scratch handwriting.

- floating randomly/uncontrolably - making people trip and/or fall - spontaneously crushing paper cups and soda cans - things randomly breaking - Tucker says he felt lighter - Sam says she felt heavier (Powers affecting weight??) - Also noticed some pebbles floating around my ankles earlier

Conclusion: gravity powers???

Is that even possible? Why would I have them and how did I get them? Also how am I supposed to get them under control when I don't know how I've been activating them in the first place?

"It's a creative writing project," Valerie said.

"It's Danny Phantom discovering a new power and trying to figure out what it is and how to use it," Wes disagreed. "People falling, feeling lighter, things getting spontaneously crushed or broken? You can't tell me that doesn't sound exactly like all the weird stuff that's been happening around Fenton lately! It's exactly the kind of thing you enlisted my help to look into!"

"It's not real proof! It's just a piece of crumpled up paper."

Wes stared at her silently for a long moment, looking betrayed.

"Why did you even ask for my help if you're just gonna dismiss everything I say?" he asked.

She didn't answer. She didn't really know.

"Come on, it's late," she said. "We should get out of here and head home."

"You go on ahead. I want a photo of this list, and then I've gotta lock everything back up. You can return that flashlight tomorrow."

At his behest, she left him behind in the school.

—

The next day, Wes pulled her aside after second period. Apparently her lack of faith in him couldn't keep him down for long.

"I found something else in the locker last night, after you left," he told her. "A scrap of notebook paper taped to the inside said 'Don't forget! Meet at Sam's for testing @4pm Fri.'"

"So?"

"So today's Friday, and I know where Sam Manson lives," Wes said. "We can go there and see what exactly it is they're testing, because I'm pretty sure they won't be drilling vocab. Whenever they meet at Manson's place it's almost always because she has the biggest backyard."

"Okay, first of all, why do you know where she lives?"

Wes shrugged. "I told you, I know everything."

Valerie sighed and shook her head. "Second of all, I have a shift at four. Sorry, but you'll have to go without me."

"You can't call in sick?" he asked. "Come on, if you don't come with, you'll never believe my report about what happened."

"I... well..." technically Valerie could call in sick. She'd never taken a sick day in the year she'd worked there, so it wouldn't do too much damage to her reliability—although she had cut out during work hours to fight ghosts a couple of times, she didn't usually get caught, though. "Alright, fine. I'm curious about it too. I know Danny's not usually big on tests."

"Great! Meet me after school by the auto shop, and I'll lead the way so we can get there without intercepting Danny and his friends."

Wes didn't wait for an answer before heading off to his next class.

"Casper High has an auto shop?" she wondered aloud.

Wow, she really didn't know anything about this school that didn't align with her own interests. Not that she really wanted or needed to. As soon as her four years were up, she'd be gone, and she couldn't wait to get out of here. Her ultimate goal would be to forget what her high school mascot even was before her class' ten year reunion. Jury was still out on whether she'd actually go. Maybe, if she was wildly successful by then, she'd deign to come back and rub it in everyone's face for the way they treated her when her family fell on hard times.

That wasn't important right now, though. She had the rest of the day to figure out where the auto shop was to meet Wes, which would be no problem, but also she didn't think she knew anyone who was taking auto shop, so maybe a little more difficult than she would have liked.

It was 3:30 pm when she finally found it. In the end, everyone she'd asked where the school auto shop was had had the same reaction as her.

"Casper High has an auto shop?"

Not a single person could even point her in the right direction.

At the end of the day, she'd just walked circles around the school until she caught sight of Weston's tell-tale red hair. Of course, he didn't have to know that.

"What took you so long?" he asked when she finally arrived.

"None of your business."

"Couldn't find it, huh?" he guessed.

She huffed. "Nobody I talked to even knew we had an auto shop, let alone where it was. Why does the school offer a class if, apparently, not one person takes it?"

"They don't." Wes laughed. "Casper High stopped offering auto shop when the last teacher died of a stroke six years ago. They never found a replacement, and enrollment in the the class was declining anyway, so they dropped it from the curriculum, but the classroom's still here 'cause they're a public school and couldn't afford to allot funds for it.

Valerie stared openly when Wes finished his explanation.

"You're making that up, aren't you?"

"No! What is up with nobody ever believing me about anything?" he complained. "What reason could I possibly have for making all that up?"

"Well what reason would you have for knowing it?" Valerie shot back.

"Like I keep telling you, I know everything," Wes insisted. "Look, it's simple. When I get curious about something, I get answers. I found the auto shop freshman year, and I wanted to know why it was there when there was no auto shop elective, so I did some digging, asked some of the teachers, and figured out why. It's really not that unbelievable."

"Okay, okay, chill," Valerie said. "Are we going or not?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Wes grumbled. "Come on."

He led the way down the side street that passed behind the school and along a very roundabout path to the area just south of Polter Heights. The walk was pretty quiet. It seemed Wes didn't feel like expounding on yet another of his inane theories after being made fun of for something so trivial as knowing where the auto shop was.

That was fine. It gave Valerie the time to mull some things over without his voice overlaying all her thoughts.

She'd written Wes off before, just like everyone else had. His claims that he knew everything were obviously pure arrogance, and his theories was completely absurd and impossible. But he knew where the auto shop was. He knew where Valerie worked, and what time her shift ended. He knew how to pick locks. And he knew where Sam Manson lived. Valerie didn't even know that, and she and Sam had been kinda-sorta friends for a while freshman year. There was no way to know everything, but... maybe Wes did know some things.

"We're here," he said, stopping in front of a huge, looming brick building with crown molded detailing and pillars in front.

"Sam lives in a mansion?" Valerie couldn't help gawking.

"Yup," Wes said. "The Manson's are stupid rich. Cellophane tipped toothpick empire, if you can believe it. Come on, we can't go in the front, but I know where we can get a good view of the backyard."

Valerie nodded silently, her mouth still agape as she stared up at the Manson house. But she followed Wes as he led her around the corner and through a narrow, wooded path behind the houses to a tall, white fence with hedges jutting over the top every few feet. There was a large boulder near the fence, and Wes climbed on top of it. Standing on it, he was just tall enough to look over the fence, his head above the nose clearing the top of it easily.

That was all well and good for a gangly basketball player, but Valerie was a good six to eight inches shorter than him, and there was no way she'd be able to see over.

"What are you waiting for," Wes whispered, fishing his binoculars out of his backpack. He gestured to the spot next to him. There was more than enough room for another person to stand on the boulder, but that wasn't the problem.

"I'm not as tall as you are," she whispered back.

"Oh..."

He stepped down off the boulder and looked around for something. A few minutes later he came back carrying a smaller rock—though it was still pretty large, his face was all red from the exertion of carrying it. He placed the smaller rock on top of the boulder, turned it until he felt it was secure, and gestured for her to climb on.

"That doesn't seem safe," she said.

"Do you want to see or not?"

She stood on top of the rock, and Wes stepped up after her, back into his initial place, and finally pulled out his binoculars. Valerie was going to ask if he really needed those just to see what was going on in one backyard, but then she actually looked over the fence and saw how expansive that backyard actually was. The Mansons were obviously way richer than Valerie's family had ever been. Probably even richer than Paulina's family.

"They usually work on that side of the yard," Wes told her, pointing discretely to the north fence. He checked his watch. "It's almost four. Remember to keep quiet and duck below the fence or behind the hedge if they look this way, got it?"

"Got it," Valerie said.

Normally, she would have resented being told what to do, but in this case, Wes was obviously much more experienced in the situation than she was. And, to be honest, she was kind of getting into all this sneaky detective-type stuff. It was actually pretty fun, like they were spies or something. Back when Valerie was little, she'd always thought it would be super cool to be a spy, like Jason Bourne, or Mata Hari. Since her dad worked in security, he would tell her all kinds of stories about spies and famous heists, and she always asked for the former. It was why she'd started taking karate.

But then she'd learned that most of what a spy does actually isn't intense action scenes and fighting bad guys, and more secret snooping to get information, and at the time, that part hadn't really appealed to her. Now that she was older, and actually doing some snooping of her own accord, she was beginning to rethink that. Maybe she would try to become a spy after all.

"Here they come," Wes said, pulling her from her thoughts.

She zoned back in the see the back door opening—the service entrance—and Sam, Tucker, and Danny all walked out into the backyard. From a distance, it was impossible to hear what they were saying, but Valerie could tell they were talking. They put their backpack's down in the grass. Tucker took out his PDA, and Danny started stretching. After a couple of minutes, Danny shouted, loud enough to be heard at the fence.

"I'm goin' ghost!"

Valerie gasped and nearly fell off the boulder in surprise as she saw Danny transform, his black hair turning shock white, his street clothes exchanged for a black and white jumpsuit, and his ice-blue eyes glowing green.

Danny Fenton... was... Danny Phantom.

"I told you so," Wes said smugly.

"Sh-shut up."

This changed everything. Suddenly, Valerie's entire world was shifting, her life's purpose, he understanding of life and death. She didn't know what to think, or how to feel. It was impossible. But... it explained so much. But there was no way it could be true. She knew Danny. She'd dated him for a little while. Longer than she'd dated that basketball player, but not as long as Dale from the football team. She'd held his hand and laid her head against his chest. She knew him.

"But... Danny's alive," she said breathlessly. "He breathes, he blinks, his heart beats, I've heard it."

"You have?" Wes asked excitedly. "How many beats per minute? Because I've never gotten close enough to test it, but I theorize that his heartbeat should be slower than average. What about his body temperature? Is it normal, or is his skin cool to the touch?"

"He just... has poor... circulation," Valerie said, the realization dawning on her. "Oh my god.... you're right. His skin is cold. His heart beat is slow. He's alive but he's...."

"He's only half alive," Wes confirmed. "I used to think he was just a regular ghost disguising himself as a human, but I've since amended my theory. He is alive, just like everyone so helpfully points out whenever I suggest he's Danny Phantom, but it's only halfway. He's somewhere between life and death."

"Like Masters," Valerie breathed. "Phantom is like Plasmius... and his cousin too. Oh my god how did I never see it?"

"I don't know, girl, it was obvious to me," Wes told her, with absolutely no sympathy for the existential crisis she was having. "Now shush, they're getting to the good part."

Valerie straitened sharply to look back over the fence. One of them had set out a line of empty soda cans on the patio near the north fence, Sam and Tucker had moved a safe distance away, into a position where Valerie and Wes would probably be able to hear them when they next spoke. And Danny... Phantom was holding his hand out as if trying to move them telepathically.

"It's not working!" Danny shouted to them, the ghostly tremble in his voice making it carry farther than it probably should.

"Rather than picturing a flat can, try focusing on the gravity aspect!" Sam called back. "You said that was your most likely theory, right?"

"How exactly am I supposed to visualize gravity increasing?"

"I don't know, just imagine yourself and everything around you growing heavier!" Sam suggested.

"Imagine there's a black hole under the concrete and it's pulling you down!" Tucker added.

Sam turned to him and asked. "A black hole?"

Tucker shrugged. "I don't know, Danny's really into space stuff, maybe it'll help."

Right before Valerie's eyes, all ten of the empty soda cans were smashed flat against the patio simultaneously, without anyone or anything touching them.

"You did it!" Tucker cheered.

"Now you've just gotta work on doing it in a smaller area," Sam said. "You don't want to accidentally crush a bunch of bystanders when your just trying to pull a ghost to the ground or something."

"Heh, good note," Danny told them. "I'm gonna try reversing gravity next."

"We should go," Wes whispered.

"What? Why?" Valerie asked.

"If he couldn't control the range on increasing gravity, there's a chance when he tries reversing it, we'll both get dragged into the sky and exposed," he explained. "You wanted to know what was up with Danny, now you know. Let's not risk the restraining orders, okay? All the information in the world is no good if we go to jail for stalking."

"Right..." Valerie agreed absently. "Right, you're right. We should go."

They both hopped down off the rock and headed back down the wooded path that separated this neighborhood from Polter Heights.

"You were right the whole time," she told Wes.

"Yup."

"And if you were right about this... what else are you right about?"

"Literally everything," he said casually. "I'm right about everything. Fenton is Phantom, you're the Red Huntress, ghosts gain power from obsessions and emotions, Star has a crush on Paulina, Kwan secretly hates football and he wants to become an artist, Lancer goes to Chicago on long weekends to do drag performances, and Mayor Masters is in love with the Wisconsin Ghost."

"Ha! Maybe not everything," Valerie disputed. That one mistake actually made her feel a little less like the Earth had shattered. "Mayor Masters is the Wisconsin Ghost. He's like Danny, I saw him transform once."

"Really?" Wes asked, obviously more excited about the truth than he was disappointed about being wrong. "Oh awesome! That's one more source for researching half-ghosts. Thanks for the tip, Valerie!"

Valerie laughed. "Out of curiosity, what's your grade point average."

Wes blushed and looked away before mumbling a shy, "two point eight."

Valerie laughed louder.

#dp #danny phantom #valerie gray #wes weston #danny fenton #phic phight #phic phight 24 #fic #things i wrote

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lucygart · 1 month

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The Twins "Jezebel and Jasper"

Another of my vampire designs for last year's Halloween event. I was thinking Team rocket, Jesse and James as a dark vampire assassin twist.

They are secret service agents for the head vampire coven. The ones you call when things need to get messy but need to fly under the radar.

#vampire #twins #redhead #assasin #oc art #character art #characterdesign #vampy #dark fantasy

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proffbon · 5 months

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I don't remember if there are any references to how Durge and Gortash actually met in-game, but I myself imagined something like this for my Fawn:

At some point, Gortash started noticing that certain patriars and nobles would show up to a party or a ball with some new arm candy. Not a particularly shocking or interesting thing for a high society, so everyone largely ignored that, but Gortash still kept some tabs in case it could be used as blackmail or some sort of leverage. Only after some time did Gortash realize that all these nobles ended up dead days or weeks later. They all died in different ways and at different times, and people suspected different motives for each murder. Only Gortash seemed to notice that all of them were close with the same dark-haired half-elf. He looked quite unassuming except for a pair of blood-red eyes he had, so he must've gone under most people's radar. At one party, Gortash actually decided to corner the half-elf because he was kinda curious what his deal was; maybe he would be able to find out who he worked for or buy out his services. Little did Gortash know that he actually stumbled on a whole ass Bhaalist cult leader. He didn't expect that because they're not exactly known for subtlety, and he said so to Fawn. Fawn felt kinda insulted, he put a great deal of care into his assassinations, after all, but he couldn't say so because Gortash was kinda right and Fawn was actually behind on his murder quota. Fawn managed to twist the matter into a "well, I could murder you right now if you're so eager to see me make a specticle out of it" and he was ready to gut the man, but Gortash made him a proposition: he knew that the noble Fawn was after was going to meet for a secret nagotiation with a rivaling arms dealer, all this was hush-hush, so no one besides Gortash knew about it. So why not take the opportunity to kill both the noble and the arms dealer and stage it as nagotiotions gone wrong? Twice the victims + a perfect cover-up. And as Gortash benefited from the whole ordeal, he and Fawn wouldn't owe each other anything. Fawn didn't give him any concrete answers, but he didn't kill Gortash, said he was "amusing" and that he "felt somehow different from everyone else and yet familiar" and left the party. Soon enough, news about the aforementioned noble's illegal dealings came out, as their corpse as well as the corpses of their bodyguards, the arms dealer, and the dealer's entourage were found on the scene of a bloody battle.

Since then Gortash and Fawn would 'bump into each other' more and more often.

#I don't know if this makes sense timeline-wise but if I spend any more time figuring out bg3 lore I'd probably go insane #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 durge #bg3 dark urge #proffbon oc fawn #enver gortash #durgetash #durge x gortash #bg3 spoilers

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mst3kgifs · 6 months

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Why don't they look?

#mst3k #mystery science theater 3000 #mike nelson #last clear chance #radar secret service

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kinard-buckley · 5 months

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How do you feel about Hugh possibly killing Lacey? I don’t think the show will go that dark either but it would be a great season opener!

well that would definitely be an interesting way to kick off the second season, and i can see the appeal of bumping off a main cast member, but i do agree with you that i don't think they'd do it. they actually seem pretty averse to the darker or grittier stuff.

i don't even think you'd need to kill lacey off for lacey-in-danger to be an interesting storyline. like... if i was writing it i'd have lacey disappear (i mean found itself kind of forgot she was on the show at some point and she and the actress deserve something to do....). i'd have her disappearance be the overarching case of the second season, with the cases of the week paralleling lacey's disappearance, i'd throw in flashbacks to gabi and lacey's immediate post-kidnapping relationship and how it developed over the years, perhaps even flashbacks of sir following both of them as they grow up to show that he was never fully out of their lives. someone continues to drop clues about lacey's disappearance and of course everyone assumes sir is behind it except gabi (let's say gabi and sir have been in contact through social media or secret meetings or something, and gabi's reasonably sure he didn't take lacey).

the truth about lacey's disappearance and ultimate fate is resolved in the finale, with annie lopez as the kidnapper (because i refuse to believe annie is actually dead). annie--who faked her death a few years earlier--has been obsessed with finding sir, and kidnapped lacey due to her connection to him. she's been trying to lure sir into the open and believed kidnapping a surviving victim would get his attention. annie gets taken in and eventually committed to a mental health facility.

the team is still fractured but with lacey back, things look hopeful for the first time all season. gabi has slowly begun to win back the trust of her team members, and she and trent have grown closer. but she still has that problem of sir to iron out. they arrange a clandestine meeting for gabi to inform him that lacey was found. sir figures the gig is up and gabi will be turning him over to trent, but gabi surprises him by saying she isn't going to immediately give him up to the police. he helped get lacey back for her and she feels some gratitude toward him. the season ends with them striking an uneasy truce; sir will keep assisting M&A from the shadows and gabi will keep sir off the radar as long as he keeps his nose clean.

the final scene of my imaginary s2 would be them sitting on the balcony of a hotel with a tea service. gabi pours the tea and sir looks at it and wonders if she's poisoned it to finally get rid of him once and for all. but gabi makes a show of taking his cup and drinking from it to reassure him she has no murderous plans (for now). they sip their tea together. you can hear police sirens in the distance. they look at each other over their cups. a tentative truce has been struck. end scene.

(you could either end the show on that final scene OR set up a deeply weird, personal, complicated partnership for s3 too!)

#anonymous #replies #ask box #lacey quinn #gabi mosely #hugh evans #found nbc #nbc found #found spoilers #long post #text

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hexfloog · 1 year

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One menacing little meitantei I finished back in September for a contest at Nan Desu Kan 2022 :3c He both lights up (shoes and glasses) and has secret definitely not evil details which can only be revealed under black light. He placed second in the "figurine" category!!

Base kit is this Bandai Entry Grade Conan Edogawa that can be bought very cheaply and assembled without any hobby-specific tools. But I am a hobbyist and I do have a lot of tools on hand so I went a little nuts (below the break):

Base is scratch-built from black acrylic and real brick and mortar (these little slips are the kind made for cladding dollhouses). Since the brick material is real, it's heavier than it looks. Box was designed to have a removable door on the bottom in order to access the custom LED wiring and the on/off switches. It's just a door with a notch in it that you pry off with any tool that will fit, as it's only being held in place with double-sided tape.

There are two custom LED circuits wired into the figure. One circuit controls the LED in his glasses and runs all the way from a tiny spot just above his left eye (the LED is very small! just .6mm) down through his body, to his feet, and into the base. The other controls the ones in his shoes. The wires are not visible except behind the door in the base, they are routed through many a hand-drilled hole.

The wires are incredibly fragile since they're so tiny... pieces fatigued off when I was putting this together since I was handling them too much trying to figure them out. I definitely could have done a better job here but I've given myself a pass since it's my first foray into this kind of stuff. It also works, so I can't ask for more, really.

The blue color in his eyes is hand-painted. The kit provides a sticker sheet for the details (below) but instead I opted to paint them in with my smallest brush because I'm a masochist I guess

For what it's worth, I think it paid off lol. I did try to apply at least one of these and I thought it looked incredibly jarring, plus I didn't really trust the strength of the adhesive to stick well while I hauled him around.

Similarly, the sticker that is used for the homing glasses radar on the lens that lights up is custom-made. The kit does not come with this detail and I wanted something to justify the trouble of wiring up his glasses. A custom waterslide decal would have been ideal, but the issue with this one would've been finding a vendor that can print white (most run-of-the-mill custom services can't).

Under black light, Conan is knee-deep in UV-reactive paint splatter. I wanted to mimic the look of a luminol reaction on blood. Yeah this might've been an extremely self-indulgent decision because the shine in his eyes glow with this same paint too LOL but there was no way I wasn't completing the look by going for some evil eyes >:) Makes him look like an animal at night and I'm very here for it and also tagging this as Evil Conan now hehehe

With the exception of his glasses, and his eyes, the entire kit is finished with a matte topcoat. Without it, he's got a very plastic, glossy shine to him. The topcoat protects the black light paint, too.

Anyway I'm quite proud of this and I'm glad I finally took good pics ;0; It's very different from my usual gunpla-adjacent stuff (Zoids) and because the kit is so affordable I was more comfortable with experimenting. I'm delighted to have placed at all in the contest, and now I have unwavering confidence I can carry this experience to other kits I have on backlog >w<

#art #dcmk #detective conan #edogawa conan #conan edogawa #evil conan au #model kit #kit #model #figurine #figure #custom #custom lighting #black light art #queue

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mysterious-animated-skulls · 1 month

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I like to imagine that Vivi navigates around people disbelieving in the supernatural. She believes even before she has concrete proof - the cave, Mystery, Shiromori, Lewis, etc. - and has no interest in arguing. People will believe what they want to believe.

Which doesn't annoy her any less, however.

Applying this to crossovers can be very funny. Let's take Detective Conan for example. The titular Conan doesn't believe in ghosts. Yes, he has some good instincts which I can accept.

But he's also got a death radar. And 'bad things are happening' radar. Conan has the argument on his side that bad things tend to happen. But with how he homes in on the location and the exact moment?

That's definitely a sixth sense, not investigative work or instincts.

And just the way his luck works, he and associated civilians regularly encountering murders and other crimes. But no, Conan claims it's nothing special.

Vivi would side-eye Conan so much for that. She knows by this point that a toxin reverted a 16-years-old teenager by ten years to a grade schooler. She has investigative knowledge coupled with an untainted perception of him and knowing stranger things have happened. Apparently to him, however, science is enough to explain even that.

But eeh, not her problem. If he thinks her silly or naive for her belief in the supernatural, not her problem. She's here for visiting her family and enjoying a vacation. Hot springs, haunted sites, and hot food are calling her name!

If there's anything she's judging Conan for, it's what he's doing to Ran and everybody else around him. But especially Ran. He has been lying to her for months and deceived her several times, to "protect" her. Made her doubt her own mind, when she should know what danger he and SHE is in.

Vivi has a visceral, hateful reaction to discovering that secret.

(She's still struggling with the consequences of Lewis' magic altering her memories. People indirectly lied to her about him, which was understandable because any memory of him used to hurt her. But they still lied. And Mystery hid an important secret with the intention to protect her, only for that secret to blow up in their faces.)

She understands why Conan is keeping that secret. She would be more sympathetic if not for how many people that are not Ran know it by now.

Some of the ghosts following Conan claim that he has connections to U.S.A. secret services. Some of them have been helping him maintain the ruse that he's not Kudo Shinichi (deceiving people included). They're hunting for the same organization.

First, what the fuck?

Second, no chancing to get the kid's deeper attention. He's curious. Vivi approves of that in a detective, but not here, not from him.

Okay, she's biased. Who can blame her?

She mentions the events of the Cave, around the cover story she's developed. She leans into her love for the supernatural to have people dismiss her. She can't do anything if Conan wants to investigate the Mystery Skulls, but she'll definitely make it more difficult. She'll also make fun of him the entire time.

Of course, it's at this point that a murdered pins their deed on Vivi.

Said murdered happens to push all of her issues and she tears verbally into them. (And maybe with her bat.) If said rant also indirectly calls out Conan and everybody covering for him?

Well, only she knows.

#mystery skulls animated #vivi yukino #msa vivi #msa crossover #mystery skulls animated crossover #mystery skulls vivi #detective conan #mystery skulls

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pareidoliaonthemove · 9 months

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Thunderbird Green

In many ways, Jeff Tracy often thought, it was his middle son who was the easiest to deal with. The least likely to kick up a fuss, the most likely to calm down an oncoming tantrum.

Which meant that when Virgil decided to dig his heels over something, it was always unexpected, and always difficult for his family to cope with.

But, to be fair, of all the problems, Jeff had envisaged in setting up a top-secret, state-of-the-art rescue service, this one was never on the radar.

“It’s not right!” Virgil was almost in tears staring at the test panels.

“But it’s …”

“It’s not right!” Virgil turned on his hapless elder brother, who really should have had more sense than to protest. “It has to be right!”

“But …” Scott tried again to make his point, before hastily shutting his mouth as Virgil visibly squared up to him.

It was John who headed off the disaster, “It’s okay, Virgil. We understand, we’ll help you get it right,” he soothed, eyeballing his father and other brothers behind Virgil’s back. Daring them to disagree.

None accepted the challenge.

“But you’re tired, Virgil; and hungry, how about we go and get something to eat, yeah? And then you can tell us what’s wrong, and we’ll figure out how to fix it.”

Virgil mumbled something that must have been agreement, because John carefully led his younger brother away, and towards the house.

John was back twenty minutes later, his Grandmother in tow.

“Virgil’s asleep,” she retorted. “Jeff, if you think these boys are going to work the crazy hours you’ve got them working now, you’ve got another think coming, my son.”

“We won’t be building three Thunderbirds in one go again, Mother,” Jeff reasoned.

Sally frowned. “And what about rescues? And maintenance? If you’re not putting any extra staff on …”

This was an old argument. Jeff went to speak, when Brains hesitantly spoke. “N-Ninety-n-nine perc-cent of the m-m-maintenance will b-be comp-pleted by m-me and M-M-MAX.” He gestured his robot assistant, hovering at his heels like a dog.

Personally Jeff wasn’t sure MAX’s new configuration would be up to the work, the ‘head’, where the main computer and visual input sensors were located was the same, and ‘he’ now had a pivoting, stick-like ‘torso’ under, with two ‘arms’ terminating in pinchers, the torso was attached to a small sled on tracks that provided both locomotion, and allowed the robot to carry tools and parts that might be needed.

Sally sighed, “None of you will ever listen to reason, don’t know why I bother trying.” She looked around the hangar, frowning. “So what has Virgil so upset?”

Jeff answered with a sigh of his own, and gestured towards the test panels. “The colour’s not right.”

There was a long moment as they all considered the five panels sitting innocently side by side, propped against a scaffold.

“Are they …?” Sally asked hesitantly, “All different?”

Gordon shrugged. “Virgil says so …”

Eventually the right colour – but still indistinguishable from the other test shades to anyone but Virgil – was found, and Thunderbird Two acquired her final coat of paint.

The exact nature of the colour was a mystery to Jeff, one that he often pondered on the long waits when he didn’t accompany his boys on a rescue, and was waiting for another update. Or quiet moments when he assisted with her maintenance. When he had a sneaky read of the sensationalist tabloid coverage of the activities of International Rescue.

When he was stranded billions of miles from home in the Ort Cloud.

There were days – so many days – when he dreamed of the green of his son’s craft, a desperate link to home. All the other colours were here: the silver of the Zero X, the blue of the twilight light, and his flight suit, yellow and orange lights warning of the failure of systems that would never work again … the red of blood.

Only green was missing. Only green meant home. Meant ‘safe’. And only one shade would do: the green of Thunderbird Two.

It had been an awful rescue. Avalanches always were, but the sheer number of people involved had meant deaths, and that always necessitated down time.

It had taken two days, but Jeff had finally hunted his middle son down from where he was hiding, and had held him as he wept out his grief and guilt and frustrations, before getting him fed and safely asleep in his bed.

It was then, with Gordon ‘helping’, that Jeff finally noticed what Virgil had been wearing.

“I haven’t seen this in years,” Jeff whispered. “I’d thrown it away. How is it here?”

Gordon’s frown intensified. “What’s with the snow jacket?”

“I was wearing it the day …” Jeff’s voice trailed off. He tried again. “It was brought for that holiday … Your mother …” He stared at the jacket. “I couldn’t stand to see it after … the memories were too much.” He stared again. “But I threw it out. I put it in a pile to go on one of the bonfires … I know it did.”

Gordon frowned. “Virgil must have ‘rescued’ it.” Suddenly he stared, something about one of the sleeves caught his eye, it was inside out obviously having been hastily removed and discarded. “Dad …” he reached out and hesitantly touched the fabric, suddenly as reverent as his father.

Suddenly Jeff refocused on the son in front of him. “Gordon? What is it? What’s wrong?”

Gordon smiled suddenly. “Nothing’s wrong.” He laughed relieved, “I hadn’t noticed it before, the outside is faded, but look, Dad!” He held up the turned inside sleeve. “Look familiar?”

Jeff stared, perplexed, “Yes, I recognise the jacket …”

“Recognise the colour?”

Jeff stared blankly at the jacket again, a slow realisation finally dawning. “He was so particular about the colour … It had to be right … Near drove me mad.”

“John asked him about it once, he said it meant ‘safe’,” Gordon said quietly.

“This was the jacket I grabbed when I run out the door to look for them,” Jeff breathed. “This was the jacket I was wearing when I carried Virgil to the ambulance. I had him half jammed inside this jacket to try and warm him up.” Jeff stared in wonder. “It means safe …”

For a long moment they both stared at the jacket. Neither of them knew what the colour was called when the jacket was sold all those years ago, but to them, now, and to the world at large, the colour had one name: Thunderbird Green.

And it meant ‘safe’.

Notes:

The standard disclaimers, I do not own Thunderbirds, either the Original Series, the Movies (both Supermarionation and Live Action), or the Thunderbirds Are Go Series. (Although I do own copies on DVD.)

I do not do this for money, but for my own (in)sanity and entertainment.

#thunderbirds #thunderbirds are go #fanfiction #my fanfiction #virgil tracy #jeff tracy #gordon tracy #scott tracy #john tracy

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