January, 1972

Summary: In Paul's first interview since the breakup of the Beatles, things go slightly awry when a nosy reporter gets more out of him than she bargained for.

Part 1/3 (2, 3)

Paul flashed a blinding grin at the camera, hoping none of the looming anxiety beneath the surface would read. He quickly seated himself in the plushy chair, running his fingers up and down the smooth red velvet of the arms a few times to soothe his nerves. A tad self-consciously, he scratched his jaw, fingers twitching with unfamiliarity against the now smooth skin. This was his first interview in nearly two years.

He had been in a bad way since the breakup. It did no good to mull over it now, but it was hard to stop the same intrusive thoughts from popping into frame—the fuck-all, nothing-matters-anyway attitudes; the gnawing sensation of his own incompetency at the bitterness of feeling utterly lost; the desire to waste his fucking life away drunk out of his mind so he didn’t have to wake up in the morning and remember. What now?

Paul sighed inadvertently, ignoring the curious way the interviewer’s eyes danced over his form. What now? Now, this interview. One day at a time. A nice, simple discussion about the past year—about the success of RAM topping the charts in the U.K. and the slow but steady promise of Wild Life. Family and new beginnings. Peace.

Getting better all the time, right? His stomach did a violent flip at the thought.

Paul jumped a bit as the interviewer leaned forward, brushing a tentative hand across his knee. “Paul? Are you all right?”

Paul blinked. “What?”

She lowered her voice a bit, eyes flicking in the direction of the cameraman. Paul felt dizzy as the red light blinked back at him. “Should we—should we cut?”

Shit. Already off to a poor start.

Slowly, Paul came to his senses, breathing returning to normal (though he hadn’t realized it had been erratic). His chest felt tight as he gave a curt, polite nod, forcing a smile that, to him, felt borderline grotesque.

“No, love. Everything’s fine. Just a bit distracted, is all.” He shot her a wink, hoping to assuage her. Maybe a bit of flirting would do the trick.

He sighed in relief as the reporter flushed, a pleased grin sneaking onto her otherwise hard features. “Right. Well, if you’re ready, we can begin.”

“In earnest,” he beckoned, waving an inviting hand in her direction.

—

Half an hour later, Paul’s face felt utterly plastic from faking so much interest and expression. The poor girl was trying, for Christ’s sake, but Paul had to actually hold back groans at some of the painfully bland questions. Every goddamn thing reminded him of the Beatles, anyway, even if it had nothing to do with them. He felt surrounded by ghosts: the echo of George’s laugh, a flash of fangs; the dissipating vision of the way Ringo bit his lip real hard and furrowed his brow when asked any remotely difficult question; the trace of John’s fingertips on his arms or lightly thumping the back of his head. Things hadn’t been the same for a while, now, as far as those things went; but it was almost like they’d never changed. Everything was rushing back to him as if he’d just woken up from a long nightmare. Only to find that the nightmare was more pleasant than reality, of course.

Paul swallowed hard, fighting the urge to be sick. He wasn’t ready for this.

He wished Linda was there. Paul nearly kicked himself for agreeing to do this alone—he wasn’t sure why they had requested that, anyway, if they were just going to make him repeat the conception of “Yesterday” all over again. He needed her there, needed to distract himself by caressing her and leaning on her and whispering subtle inside jokes in her ear at inappropriate times. He needed to have her, just like—just like he needed—

“On your newest record with Wings, you have a particularly interesting track I’d like to touch on,” the reporter was saying, bearing down on him with a sudden insatiable gaze that should have been frightening, if Paul had literally cared one bit.

“Hmm?” He replied, noncommittedly.

“’Dear Friend’. It’s about John, no?”

Paul tensed.

The interviewer stared back at him, daring him to speak, the lust for truth plainly evident in her eyes, and Paul swiftly understood. Everything had been mere formalities or trust-building exercises up to this point. Everything to get him here: trapped, with nowhere to go, no one to turn to. His mind worked quickly, frantically, pushing the blossoming anger aside to make room for the desperate bid to save himself. He could only think of one solution, and one he was king at.

Paul began to laugh. Not loudly, not absurdly; just casual enough to where the audience would soon be able to read the feigned perplexity in his tone. “John?” He practically scoffed, cocking an eyebrow at the woman with a look that bordered on condescending. “No, love, it’s not about John.”

“Who’s it about, then?” Came the follow-up.

Paul answered too quickly. “Linda.”

“Ah,” the interviewer affirmed, leaning back in her chair slightly. “I see. So the bit about throwing the wine—”

“Celebration!” Paul interjected, his voice much too shaky for it to ring true. “Throw back the wine. Congratulations, and all that.” He mimicked a drinking glass. “Young and newlywed.”

“Mm.”

Paul’s heart was hammering in his chest, so violently he was sure the cameras could see it. He never should have put out the song. He had knownit was too transparent, but had convinced himself it was his own paranoia. The public was desperately searching for anything to drive the wedge between him and John deeper—even if the song really wasn’t about him, they would have found a way to make it so.

So, that’s what the story was. He felt a sudden angered hopelessness, offended by the audacity of the reporter. To coax him out of practical hiding, persuade him to do this huge press event for the “good of his album”, to pull him from Linda and thrust him into the spotlight he tried so desperately to escape, all so they could catch a hope of getting Paul to contradict and expose himself? Like she was some kind of Pharisee?

He could see her eyes working coldly, calculatedly, and he felt the sudden urge to run. His mouth felt sour, tongue acidic against his teeth that were clenched far too hard to be healthy. He had to get out of here.

“You say friend,” the interviewer started, almost cautiously.

“She’s my best friend,” Paul argued.

“What about the fear? What is Linda afraid of?”

“It’s a general fear,” Paul retorted, almost pouting, feeling more than fed up with the increasingly dangerous questions.

“Is what ‘true’, then?”

“All the things he said, of course,” he snapped.

It wasn’t until she responded that he realized his mistake. “He?”

Shit! Paul’s eyes shot wide as he stumbled for an answer. “I-what?”

The reporter narrowed her eyes. “You said ‘he’. All the things he said.”

Paul’s heart was in his throat. He struggled to breathe, mimicking the feeling of having your head barely above water as the ocean closes around your neck. “I most certainly did not.”

“But you did. You said, ‘all the things “he” said’. I presume you’re referring to Lennon’s more public digs, especially in response to RAM. He's far less subtle than you, you know. ‘Too Many People,’ though, that one’s about him to anyone who has ears to hear it and a brain to really listen. So he comes back with ‘How Do You Sleep’, and though you’ve been sitting on this one for quite some time, it feels right to put it out, a spitball to his face, an olive branch in the face of his fire. It doesn’t matter that it sounds like it’s to a lover. Because, in a way, it is—"

“No!” Paul all but cried out, wanting to press his palms so far into his ears that it would crush his skull. The beginnings of desperate tears well up inside of him. “No, that’s not—I’m not—”

“What happened in India?”

Paul froze.

The reporter simply stared back at him, almost expressionless. Paul’s brain had short-circuited at the question, leaving behind nothing but a dull buzz, his thoughts as comprehensive as television static. The buzzing of the studio lights was the only sound for a long time, save the soft pants escaping Paul’s lips as his chest constricted with the effort of not hyperventilating. When he finally spoke, his voice was dripping with a malice that shocked even himself.

“What the fuck do you know?”

Even the interviewer looked momentarily taken aback. She licked her lips almost hungrily. “Is there something to know?”

“No. It’s—nothing happened, all right?”

“That’s the trouble, isn’t it?”

“What? No!” Paul was astounded, flabbergasted, so far past the point of shock he no longer had control over his ramblings. “Or—no. I don’t know. Nothing happened, it couldn’t—”

“Did you want it to?”

“He wanted—”

“What did Lennon want, Paul?” There was an edge to the reporter’s voice, a twinge of excitement at what may be perhaps the biggest story since their breakup.

Paul said nothing. He couldn’t trust himself to speak. A cloud came over him, blurring all thoughts of past and future. All implications and consequences. He was blissfully, numbly empty.

“Paul McCartney, were you in a… a physical relationship with John Lennon?”

The question went unanswered. He simply stared at the woman opposite him, cool and stony. He could tell by the slight waver in her expression that his intent was evident. It was a dare—turn the fucking interview off, or sit here in silence for the remaining half-hour. Give the viewers quite a special.

Her choice.

Eventually, the woman cleared her throat and shuffled the stack of notecards in her lap that Paul hadn’t noticed until now. He let his gaze trail over her lazily as she made to signal the camera cut. As soon as the little red light went dead, she shot Paul an aggravated glare and shuffled off the set.

He only winked, feeling much more hollow inside than before.

Got Your Six | Tom Holland | pt 11

series masterlist found here

general masterlist found here

pairing - mob!Tom x reader word count - 3,763 warnings - swearing, oral (m and f receiving), guns, drinking, knife usage

summary - Tom prepares (Y/N) for the gala, but things at the event don’t go to plan.

(previous) (next)

By the time the gala came, Tom and I had already gone out to get a dress. Now, here I was, zipping up the back of the most gorgeous black gown I had ever seen. I was in my room with April, both of us doing our hair and makeup. While my dress was black, April’s was white with a tan underlining. I straightened my hair, and she curled hers in a half up-do. I wore striking makeup with red lipstick, while she went with a more subtle look. My heels were red, hers were tan. By the time we were both ready, Tom was knocking at my bedroom door. He cracked it open and stuck his head in, his hand covering his eyes.

“Everyone decent?” he asked.

“Yes, weirdo,” April said with a smile. Tom opened his eyes, and his smile faltered for only a moment as his eyes scanned over me.

“Wow,” he said. “You look stunning.”

“Thanks,” April said sarcastically before I could even open my mouth.

Tom chuckled. “You look beautiful, April.” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said with a teasing roll of her eyes. “I’m going to go find Harrison.”

When April left the room, Tom shut the door behind her and locked it. I felt myself blush as he walked over to me. He tugged his lower lip between his teeth and shook his head at me. “I have no words,” he said, brushing some hair behind my ear when he approached me. “Stunning actually isn’t good enough.”

“Shut up,” I said, biting my own lip. I awkwardly folded my arms across my stomach. “I don’t even feel like myself.”

“You look like a new version of you,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“You just like when I look like this,” I said.

“That’s not fair,” Tom said. “I like when you’re wearing sweatpants too.” He put his hands on my waist, pulling me close to him. “Or nothing. I like when you wear nothing, too.”

“Are you ever not horny?” I teased, slapping his chest before nibbling my lip again.

“Stop biting that fucking lip,” Tom laughed lightly. He ran his thumb over my lower lip and smiled at me. For the first time since our relationship began, I decided to take things into my own hands. I put my hands on his chest and pushed him onto the bed. He fell back with an oof and looked up at me, amused.

Tom looked especially attractive in his black slacks and white button up. He had on a black tie, and his hair was done perfectly. Tom sat at the edge of the bed while I kneeled at the end, unbuckling his trousers and tugging them down a bit. I pulled his dick out, and he immediately groaned. I licked my palm and rubbed him slowly, feeling him getting hard in my grasp. Eventually, Tom’s breaths started to turn to slight whimpers just at the movements of my hand, so I ran my tongue from the base of his cock to the tip before wrapping my lips around his cock and starting to suck. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” he groaned. I could tell he wanted to put his hands in my hair, but I appreciated the way he respected my perfectly done hairstyle. He, instead, gripped the sheets in his fists and tossed his head back. I hollowed out my cheeks and relaxed my throat so I could take him all the way. My nose brushed against his pelvis, and Tom groaned, his hips lifting slightly. “Just like that, petal,” he moaned. “Look so pretty, sucking my cock like that.” He groaned as I sped up my pace, moving my hand to cup his balls. I felt him start to twitch in my mouth. “‘M gonna cum,” he muttered. “Fuck, babe-” He cut himself off with a moan as he came in my mouth. As much as I disliked the taste, I didn’t want to get my face or dress messy, so I swallowed. When I pulled away from him, wiping some saliva off the corner of my lip, Tom let out a heavy breath and fixed his pants. I stood up and turned to face the mirror, making sure I still looked gala-ready.

Just when I turned to look at Tom, he grabbed me and brought me over to the bed, laying me down on my back. He smirked up at me as he pushed my dress up a bit before disappearing underneath the skirt. He tugged my black panties down my legs but didn’t bother taking them off all the way.

Tom kissed up my thighs before attaching his lips to my core. He licked a strip along my slit, and I sighed contently and gripped the sheets in my hands, much like Tom had done only minutes before. I felt him tease my core with his finger as he sucked my clit between his lips. I moaned at his slow movements, lifting my hips in an attempt to get more. Instead, he continued pushing his finger in me, knuckle by knuckle, before pumping it slowly. “More,” I whimpered, fighting the urge to close my eyes, knowing he would tell me otherwise. He looked up at me through hooded eyes, pulling his lips away from me and continuing to move his finger. “Please,” I said, “sir.”

Tom grinned and moved his face again, adding another finger and quickening their thrusts. He kept flicking my clit with his tongue, and when his fingers hit that spot inside me, he sucked it harshly between his lips. “Right there, Tom!” I moaned. “Yes!” I could feel him grin against me, and my thighs squeezed against his head as I came.

Tom stayed between my legs, licking me until I physically started to wiggle away from him. He moved out from under my skirt, wiping his mouth against the back of his hand. He was grinning at me as he tugged my panties back up my legs. I brushed some hair away from my face and sat up, bringing his lips up to mine. We kissed slowly, Tom’s hand gently holding the back of my neck.

When he pulled away from me, Tom gave me another smile. “I have something for you,” he said. I cocked my head to the side and looked at him.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Something better than that?” He chuckled before he stood up and walked over to my dresser, and I realized there was a box there I hadn’t seen before. He must’ve just brought it when he came in the room. He handed the box to me, and I eyed him suspiciously.

“Open it,” he said, nodding his head at the box. An amused smirk grew on my face as I did as he said. However, the smirk immediately disappeared when I saw what was inside.

“A gun?” I hissed, my eyes growing wide. I stood up from the shock, almost letting the box fall from my grasp.

“And a thigh holster!” Tom said, motioning to the bit of fabric that laid inside the box. I could tell he was trying to keep his tone light. “I thought you could wear it to the gala.” I eyed him suspiciously before picking up the gun.

“Am I supposed to be worried about tonight?” I asked, turning the pistol over in my hands.

“No,” Tom said. He grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him. “Nothing bad is gonna happen, alright? Tonight is gonna be fun and we haven’t heard any talk of threats.”

“Then why are you giving me this?” I asked. “If you’re so sure, why are you giving me a gun?”

Tom sighed and hung his head before looking at me again. “Because losing you isn’t something I can handle, okay? And if I’m wrong and something goes down tonight, I'd rather you be armed and ready than unprepared because I told you you’d be fine.”

I understood what he was saying, but the worry stayed in my chest. Everything was fine when he was teaching me to shoot at the range or boxing in the ring, but the idea of me having to put it all to use made it too real. Tom took the gun and thigh holster from me and got on his knees in front of me. I put my hands on his shoulders as he lifted my leg, kissing up my calf. He slid the holster up my leg and secured it around my thigh. I felt him nuzzle his face against my skin and press his lips to my inner thigh before he set my leg back on the ground. He grabbed my gun and sat back on his heels. He ejected the magazine and showed me that it was loaded. “Fifteen bullets,” he said before clicking the magazine back into place. “With your shot though-” He smirked. “-you should only ever need one.”

“Ha ha,” I said with a roll of my eyes. He chuckled and showed me that the safety was on before sliding the pistol into place in my holster. He let the skirt of my dress fall back into place before he stood up and put his arms around my waist.

“I’ve got your six,” he whispered, brushing his nose against mine.

“And I’ve got yours.”

Tom and I walked out of my room and met the others at the bar. Harrison was making some drinks for us to pregame before the gala. None of us were planning on getting trashy. This was, after all, a gala. Not some college frat party. Still, I was nervous and wanted to be a little buzzed before I was in public. I jumped onto the counter and took the moscow mule that Harrison had made me. The six of us chatted and drank for about an hour before Tom announced it was time to leave. He and Harrison both opted out of drinking, deciding to remain completely sober for the night. I knew it was part of their constant need to stay on their toes.

We got to the gala about fifteen minutes after it started which was perfect. Fashionably late. We found our table and sat, waiting for a waiter to come and bring us the food we had ordered beforehand. Tom was more handsy than he had been in a while, constantly having his hand on my thigh or rubbing the back of my neck. From time to time, he’d lean close to me and whisper something dirty in my ear. Important people were making speeches and I was getting filled up with champagne. We were all having a blast, and I even started to forget about the pistol pressed against my thigh.

“Mm, I have to go to the bathroom,” I whispered to Tom, pressing a kiss to his cheek after another speech.

“I’ll go with you,” he said, starting to stand up from the table.

“No, sit,” I said . “I’ll be back in a hot second.”

“Just let me walk you,” he said.

“I know what let me walk you means,” I teased. “It means I’ll sneak into the bathroom with you for a quickie.”

“And what’s so wrong with that?” Tom asked, kissing the back of my hand. I laughed and gave his face a playful shove.

“Be back in a minute.”

I left Tom and headed to the bathroom, quickly using the restroom and fixing up my hair. The smile on my face was almost permanent, my cheeks hurting from how hard I was grinning. The night was going perfectly.

Until I stepped out of the bathroom and everything went black.

When I opened my eyes again, my ankles were duct taped to a chair, my arms were duct taped behind the seat, and there was duct tape over my mouth. I tugged at the restraints and tried to shout, though it obviously came out muffled behind the duct tape. I was doing my best not to panic, but I felt tears coming to my eyes.

“Good luck getting out of those.”

I looked to the direction of the voice to find a man I had never seen before. He had his hand on his chin as he looked at me. I fought against the restraints even more, still knowing it wasn’t worth it. The guy crouched in front of me, a grin growing on his face.

“You really are pretty, aren’t you?” he said, a laugh following his words. I jerked my face away from his hand that was coming up to stroke my cheek. “Mm. Feisty too.” He grabbed the corner of the duct tape and ripped it off my face, causing me to cry out in pain.

“Where the hell am I?” I asked when I recovered.

“Oh yeah, good try,” he laughed.

“What’s going on?” I pressed. “Who the hell are you?”

“Hasn’t your boyfriend told you anything about me?”

And it clicked. Mackie.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” I said, “but I don’t have anything for you.”

“Oh, I know that,” he said. “But you can bring something to me. Or someone.”

“Tom isn’t stupid enough to fall into your trap,” I said.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Mackie said. “Usually, you’re right. I can never get him where I want him. But you-” He stroked my cheek again, then gave it a slap. I winced. “I think he’d cross mountains and rivers for you.”

“Bullshit,” I spat. Mackie clenched his jaw and slapped me again.

“Swearing is not becoming of a lady,” he said.

“Fuck you.”

And that earned me another slap across the face.

“If you’re going to keep me here,” I said, shaking my head like that would move the pain away, “I at least want to know how you’ve been following me. How you knew about me at the club. How you did any of this.”

“The Hollands never know how to spot a rat,” Mackie said. Mackie whistled, and three guys came into the room. One was Liam, the guy I met at the bar on my night out, one was Stan, the guy Tom had warned me about at the club, and the other was James. James, who inappropriately touched me. James, who called me a prostitute. James, who Tom almost shot. James. James, the fucking rat.

“You fucking dickhead,” I said, my eyes narrowing at James. Mackie grabbed my hair and yanked my head to force me to look at him.

“Watch your tongue,” he said. I clenched my jaw before spitting in Mackie’s face. He closed his eyes, let out a heavy sigh, and delivered the harshest slap to my cheek. Sebastian reached into the waist of his pants and pulled out a gun, pointing it at my head.

This was not the first gun I had pointed at me, but did it ever get easier? Less scary?

“We’re not shooting her,” Mackie said, raising a hand up at Sebastian without even looking at him. With his other hand, he reached into his pocket and whipped out a knife. “There’s other things though, that we can do.”

That’s when I felt him tear the fabric of my dress and cut into my arm. I let out a scream of pain, tossing my head back and squeezing my eyes shut. “Liam, phone, now.”

Liam pulled out his phone and presumably started recording. Mackie grabbed my chin in his hands and forced me to look at the camera. Tears were streaming down my cheeks, but I refused to make any more noise. “I told you to take better care of her, Holland,” Mackie said, a grin on his lips. He dug the knife deeper into my arm, causing me to actually cry out in pain. “Come to the address within the hour, alone, or-” He held the knife up to my neck now. “-she gets it.”

“Don’t, Tom!” I called out. Mackie gripped my hair and cut slightly against my jaw. I whimpered and closed my eyes.

“God, she sure has a mouth,” Mackie laughed, dragging his hand from my hair to my lips, tracing his finger across my lower lip. “I get why you like her so much.” Mackie cut my dress a bit, exposing some of my chest. “You’ve got an hour, Holland.”

When Liam stopped filming, I allowed more tears to fall from my eyes, a few broken sobs escaping lips. “You’re a fucking dickhead,” I said to Mackie.

“And you don’t learn,” he said, slapping me across the face again. He, Liam, James, and Sebastian all left me alone again, which forced me to further evaluate the situation. I felt weak, the blood from my arm dripping and the blood from my jaw moving down to my dress. If I moved too much, I got dizzy, but I tried to stay coherent enough to figure out what to do next.

-

“There are three likely ways you’ll ever be restrained,” Tom said as he bound my wrists with duct tape and Harrison tied April’s with ropes. “They tend to use ropes, duct tape, and zip ties.”

“Zip ties are probably the hardest to get out of,” Harrison said, “so we’ll practice with those next.”

“With duct tape,” Tom said, “you want to try and get a tear in the tape.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well,” Tom said, “you’ll likely have your arms behind your back-” Tom had bound mine in front of me so I could see what was happening. “-and probably behind a chair. You’ll want to see if you can find a sharp edge of the chair and start rubbing the tape against it. If your hands are in front of you, you can probably just rip it with your teeth. Once you get a tear, it should be easier to just break out of it.”

-

I moved my wrists, trying to see if I could find a sharp edge on the chair to rub the tape against. I felt something that might work -maybe a broken part of the chair- so I allowed myself a sliver of hope that I could get out before Tom got there. I just wanted to help him, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do so held up like an idiot. I could tell as soon as I walked in that my gun wasn’t in its holster. Upon further inspection, I saw it on a table not too far away from me. I couldn’t reach it bound to the chair, but if I could just get myself out of the binds-

Mackie and his guys burst in, guns at the ready, pointed in the direction of the door Tom would likely be coming in through. I turned my head and saw Tom coming in, his hands in the air. “I just want to talk, Mackie,” Tom called. “You let (Y/N) go.”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to make commands right now,” Mackie called back.

“She’s not involved in this,” Tom said. “You let her go, and we can sort this out. Just you and me. You send your boys off, and we can work this out. No one else has to get involved.”

“You got your girl involved as soon as you met her,” Mackie said. “That’s on you.”

“I know,” Tom said. “You’re right. This was my fuck up. But you just send your boys out and let her go.”

“Not happening,” Mackie said. “She’s the only thing keeping you here. I know you’ll start shooting the minute she’s gone.”

“At least send your boys out,” Tom said. “Four on one isn’t exactly fair, is it?

“Who said I want to play fair?”

Tom shrugged. “I guess no one. If your really think you need three other guys to beat me, that’s on you.”

Mackie’s shoulders dropped slightly, and he turned to his boys. “Go,” Mackie said.

“Boss-”

“Fucking do as I said!” Mackie said, cutting off Liam. None of them looked pleased, but all of Mackie’s boys left the room. The three of us were alone. I wiggling against my restraints, trying not to move too much so Mackie wouldn’t notice.

“What’s this about, Mackie?” Tom asked, continuing to approach us.

“You fucking know what this is about,” Mackie said. “You’re moving in on my turf, and I’m done letting it slide.”

“We can work something out,” he said. “Just let her go.”

“I’m done working shit out with you, Holland!” Mackie shouted. “You make deals with me, and three days later you’ve moved in again. Your word is crap to me, and I’m done.” Tom was in front of me now, standing between me and Mackie. “So I’m gonna kill your girlfriend,” Mackie said. “And after I kill her, I’m gonna kill your boy, Harrison. And the rest of your fucking family. And you’ll have to suffer through all of that before I finally kill you. I’m done letting you control any part of this city.”

“You want to kill me?” Tom said. “Kill me. That’s fine. I’ve been ready for death for my whole life. I’ve faced it more times than I can count. The idea of it doesn’t bother me anymore. But what I don’t like is when the people I care about are put in danger because of me. So if you want to shoot me, then shoot me. No one’s stopping you. But you let, (Y/N), go.”

“You’re not going to talk your way out of this one,” Mackie said. “Not this time. I’m done falling for this shit.”

The next few things happened in slow motion. Gunfire rang outside, and Mackie lost focus for a moment. That was when Tom made his move, knocking the gun out of his hand and punching him in the face. I wondered then if Tom even had his gun on him, or if the idiot had come in unarmed. Before I knew it, the two of them were on the ground, pounding each other in. Tom seemed like he was winning for a moment, but then Mackie was on top of him, punching his face in.

I had been working to get a tear in the duct tape for a while, and I finally felt it give. Using all my strength, I ripped the tape from my wrists and moved just as quickly to free my ankles. I stumbled over to the table where my gun was just as I heard Mackie grab his.

Bang

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Everyone is familiar with the sorts of jobs whose purpose is difficult to discern: HR consultants, PR researchers, communications coordinators, financial strategists, logistics managers. The list is endless. In 2015, YouGov, a polling agency, asked Britons whether they believed their job made a “meaningful contribution to the world.” More than a third—37 percent—believed it did not. (Only 50 percent said that it did; 13 percent were uncertain.) A more recent poll conducted in the Netherlands found that 40 percent of Dutch workers felt their job had no good reason to exist. Our society values work. We expect a job to serve a purpose and to have a larger meaning. For workers who have internalized this value system, there is little that is more demoralizing than waking up five days a week to perform a task that one believes is a waste of time. It’s not obvious, however, why having a pointless job makes people quite so miserable. After all, a large portion of the workforce is being paid—often very good money—to do nothing. They might consider themselves 
fortunate. Instead, many feel worth-less and depressed. In 1901, the German psychologist Karl Groos discovered that infants express extraordinary happiness when they first discover their ability to cause predictable effects in the world. For example, they might scribble with a pencil by randomly moving their arms and hands. When they realize that they can achieve the same result by retracing the same pattern, they respond with expressions of utter joy. Groos called this “the pleasure at being the cause,” and suggested that it was the basis for play. Before Groos, most Western political philosophers, economists, and social scientists assumed that humans seek power out of either a desire for conquest and domination or a practical need to guarantee physical gratification and reproductive success. Groos’s insight had powerful implications for our understanding of the formation of the self, and of human motivation more generally. Children come to see that they exist as distinct individuals who are separate from the world around them by observing that they can cause something to happen, and happen again. Crucially, the realization brings a delight, the pleasure at being the cause, that is the very foundation of our being. Experiments have shown that if a child is allowed to experience this delight but then is suddenly denied it, he will become enraged, refuse to engage, or even withdraw from the world entirely. The psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Francis Broucek suspected that such traumatic experiences can cause many mental health issues later in life. Groos’s research led him to devise a theory of play as make-believe: Adults invent games and diversions for the same reason that an infant delights in his ability to move a pencil. We wish to exercise our powers as an end in themselves. This, Groos suggested, is what freedom is—the ability to make things up for the sake of being able to do so. The make-believe aspect of the work is precisely what performers of bullshit jobs find the most infuriating. Just about anyone in a supervised wage-labor job finds it maddening to pretend to be busy. Working is meant to serve a purpose—if make-believe play is an expression of human freedom, then make-believe work imposed by others represents a total lack of freedom. It’s unsurprising, then, that the first historical occurrence of the notion that some people ought to be working at all times, or that work should be made up to fill their time even in the absence of things that need 
doing, concerns workers who are
 not free: prisoners and slaves. Historically, human work patterns have taken the form of intense bursts of energy followed by rest. Farming, for instance, is generally an all-hands-on-deck mobilization around planting and harvest, with the off-seasons occupied by minor projects. Large projects such as building a house or preparing for a feast tend to take the same form. This is typical of how human beings have always worked. There is no reason to believe that acting otherwise would result in greater efficiency or productivity. Often it has precisely the opposite effect. One reason that work was historically irregular is because it was largely unsupervised. This is true of medieval feudalism and of most labor arrangements until relatively recent times, even if the relationship between worker and boss was strikingly unequal. If those at the bottom produced what was required of them, those at the top couldn’t be bothered to know how the time was spent.  Most societies throughout history would never have imagined that a person’s time could belong to his employer. But today it is considered perfectly natural for free citizens of democratic countries to rent out a third or more of their day. “I’m not paying you to lounge around,” reprimands the modern boss, with the outrage of a man who feels he’s being robbed. How did we get here? By the fourteenth century, the common understanding of what time was had changed; it became a grid against which work was measured, rather than the work itself being the measure. Clock towers funded by local merchant guilds were erected throughout Europe. These same merchants placed human skulls on their desks as memento mori, to remind themselves that they should make quick use of their time. The proliferation of domestic clocks and pocket watches that coincided with the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century allowed for a similar attitude toward time to spread among the middle class. Time came to be widely seen as a finite property to be budgeted and spent, much like money. And these new time-telling devices allowed a worker’s time to be chopped up into uniform units that could be bought and sold. Factories started to require workers to punch the time clock upon entering and leaving. The change was moral as well as technological. One began to speak of spending time rather than just passing it, and also of wasting time, killing time, saving time, losing time, racing against time, and so forth. Over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, an episodic style of working was increasingly treated as a social problem. Methodist preachers exhorted “the husbandry of time”; time management became the essence of morality. The poor were blamed for spending their time recklessly, for being as irresponsible with their time as they were with their money. Workers protesting oppressive conditions, meanwhile, adopted the same notions of time. Many of the first factories didn’t allow workers to bring in their own timepieces, because the owner played fast and loose with the factory clock. Labor activists negotiated higher hourly rates, demanded fixed-hour contracts, overtime, time and a half, twelve- and then eight-hour work shifts. The act of demanding “free time,” though understandable, reinforced the notion that a worker’s
time really did belong to the 
person who had bought it. The idea that workers have a moral obligation to allow their working time to be dictated has become so normalized that members of the public feel indignant if they see, say, transit workers lounging on the job. Thus busywork was invented: to ameliorate the supposed problem of workers not having enough to do to fill an eight-hour day. Take the experience of a woman named Wendy, who sent me a long history of pointless jobs she had worked: “As a receptionist for a small trade magazine, I was often given tasks to perform while waiting for the phone to ring. Once, one of the ad- sales people dumped thousands of paper clips on my desk and asked me to sort them by color. She then used them interchangeably. “Another example: my grandmother lived independently in an apartment in New York City into her early nineties, but she did need some help. We hired a very nice woman to live with her, help her do shopping and laundry, and keep an eye out in case she fell or needed help. So, if all went well, there was nothing for this woman to do. This drove my grandmother crazy. ‘She’s just sitting there!’ she would complain. Ultimately, the woman quit.” This sense of obligation is common across the world. Ramadan, for example, is a young Egyptian engineer working for a public enterprise in Cairo. The company needed a team of engineers to come in every morning and check whether the air conditioners were working, then hang around in case something broke. Of course, management couldn’t admit that; instead, the firm invented forms, drills, and box-­ticking rituals calculated to keep the team busy for eight hours a day. “I discovered immediately that I hadn’t been hired as an engineer at all but really as some kind of technical bureaucrat,” Ramadan explained. “All we do here is paperwork, filling out checklists and forms.” Fortunately, Ramadan gradually figured out which ones nobody would notice if he ignored and used the time to indulge a growing interest in film and literature. Still, the process left him feeling hollow. “Going every workday to a job that I considered pointless was psychologically exhausting and left me depressed.” The end result, however exasperating, doesn’t seem all that bad, especially since Ramadan had figured out how to game the system. Why couldn’t he see it, then, as stealing back time that he’d sold to the corporation? Why did the pretense and lack of purpose grind him down? A bullshit job—where one is treated as if one were usefully employed and forced to play along with the pretense—is inherently demoralizing because it is a game of make-­believe not of one’s own making. Of course the soul cries out. It is an assault on the very foundations of self. A human being unable to have a meaningful impact on the world ceases to exist.

David Graeber 

Rambly not-review of QOAAD

Lol so tumblr is on fire and so am I so here’s Some Thoughts on QOAAD, mostly about the not-crispy boy, not as annoying and bitter as I usually am:

Bottom line: CC did right by me, y’all. Whether or not she did right by everyone else I can’t really say, but half of the time reading this book I felt she was catering to me personally, and y’all know how esoteric ‘catering to me personally’ is. There is some Wild Fuckening Shit in this book, and I for the most part loved it. A lot of my old gripes still apply, but tbh? for a kid’s book CC has really delivered some absolute gems and as critical as I often am, I really enjoyed reading this book.

Spoilers for the entire TDA trilogy, especially QOAAD, below.

Okay so for those of y’all who have read the book: let’s just get that whole thing out of the way. Yes she did in fact write three chapters of an AU where Sebastian won, is shacking up with a deeply unhappy Jace, and yes, I did in fact die irl. Like honestly I understand that’s problematic, and that the whole situation was about as fucked up as it gets, but honestly? I don’t give a shit. I was Thriving and even though I had to read Seb’s dumb ass dying again it was totally worth it 10/10.

Also Ash? Dark Jace? Biggest nut.

Basically, my criteria for liking the book were: (1) Ash can’t be a carbon-copy of Sebastian (2) Kieran doesn’t die and gets with Mark/Cristina (3) Diana and Gwyn stay together and (4) Kit and Ty keep being adorable. Bonus points were for (1) Dru and Ash interaction (2) more Dru content in general (3) Aline and Helen (4) that hint of Sebastian content she kept teasing that I never believed would actually materialize and (5) Julian and Emma breaking up so I never had to read another word about their “true love” at age 16 ever again (I’m a bitter asshole).

I honestly expected to get pretty much none of these and I was shocked to get everything except (5) from the list and so much more. So without further ado:

The whole Thule thing was a lot, tbh, starting with Maryse’s execution (I won’t lie, when Sebastian says “I killed my mother for Jace, and now he can return the favor” my dumb ass did in fact squeal out loud in a public bookstore) and ending with Sebastian’s really, really, really bad parenting skills. As a side note, the show must have had an advance copy of the book, because you may recognize the song little Jace sings with Izzy in....whatever episode they go into Jace’s head as the song Maryse sings before she dies. As far as I recall, that hasn’t been mentioned before (as well as the Malachi Configuration) so clearly the show got confused with the book release date. I’m sure that made CC very happy.

Like honestly Thule!Seb is just COHF!Seb taken up to 11, which is honestly a terrifying and hilarious thought, complete with a still-kicking designer clothes fetish and an inability to dream up a setting that isn’t a club. Sebastian’s designer suit fetish never really made much sense to me in terms of his personality--it always seems to remind me that I am, in essence, reading The Draco Trilogy with the names changed. But there are a lot of little details that recall COLS, which is always a plus for me, but also seem to indicate that he’s never really progressed or ‘matured’ beyond that. The return to the club setting as a callback to club in COLS, dressing Jace like a paper doll. While Thule itself is an imaginative setting, Sebastian’s presentation and behavior hasn’t changed at all, which shows that ultimately CC’s view of him is one of being completely static and inhuman.

I always really hated that, but here it works--it gives the impression that even though he’s won and destroyed the world, he’s living in the past, attempting to recreate COLS best he can. That mind-controlling Jace, going for a romantic murder or two with him, and chatting with Clary about how much she hates him is the happiest he’s been, the closest thing to family he can conceive of.  I think one of the most fucked up parts of COLS, and one of my favorites, is that the Magic House is a darkly genteel reflection of the warped view of family Valentine has, that Sebastian has symbolically completed.

Valentine’s wardrobe full of clothes he’s bought for Jocelyn for “when she returns,” all with the tags still on, is possibly the most chilling part of the entire book. He views his family--Jocelyn, Jace, Clary, as a thing to accomplish, to control, to collect and arrange in a seemly manner. He truly seems to think, or at least want to believe, that after he’s destroyed the entire downworld and the entire shadowworld government that they can all go play happy families. That his family would want to play happy families with him, or even be anywhere near him. It’s both terrifyingly cruel and self-aware and completely naïve, that he believes he can make his family love him, or at least pretend.

It’s that same mindset that Sebastian inherits--“I will bend him to my will and teach my sister to love me” pretty much sums it up, although he manages to be a bit more petulant about it. Although he seems to emphatically reject Valentine, he’s become Valentine, inherited his sword, his ring, his creepy shrine-to-Jocelyn house and his mindset and view of family. The same entitlement and sense of ownership Valentine displays to Jocelyn (and in a different way, Jace), Sebastian shows to Clary (and again, to Jace).

Valentine never saw his “vision” through, but Sebastian symbolically completes his father’s vision of their family, not as a son but by becoming his father, and Clary her mother. CC emphasizes and repeats this over and over, how Clary looks like her mother and Sebastian like his father, exactly like his father. Sister Magdalena even comments on it (“Why, you look just like your parents,” when Clary expects her to comment on their difference or wonder why Clary is in the company of a murderer). One can suppose that given his feelings towards Valentine and how he always resented Valentine’s lack of approval towards him, Sebastian craves “love” more than anything--or at least, his conception of love, which we all can agree is pretty fucked up. The completion of the “family” is thus probably what Sebastian sees as fulfilling, that control and coercion is as close to love and belonging as he can understand, or that he’s experienced.

There’s a very interesting sense in which in creating the Endarkened and going on a path of world destruction, Sebastian himself loses all sense of self or free will. It always bothered me that Lilith’s blood is used to abnegate free will in the Endarkened when Lilith herself is often interpreted as a symbol of free will (and feminism--that’s a rant for another day). But there is very much a sense that the Battle of Burren is Sebastian’s moral event horizon, that in trying to rape Clary or force all free will out of her and others he cements himself as ultimately irredeemable. I’ve often complained that his motivation for destroying the world is...well, non-existent, but in a sense it reflects an erosion of person-hood, that he is less a person in himself with his own self-directed wants and goals than a shadow or echo of Valentine embracing senseless (demonic?) destruction.

I know I’m going completely off the deep end, but I recently studied Milton and although it seems pretty clear that CC is more a Virgilian than a Miltonist (tbh I really don’t think she’s read Paradise Lost because if she had, she wouldn’t stop quoting it), Milton’s conception of Lucifer is really a prototype here. One reading of Satan in PL is that the personified Sin and Death (his “offspring” so to speak) are really just solipsistic echoes of himself and his hubris, and I think there’s a very interesting sense in which Sebastian could be read in a similar way to Valentine. In many respects, to me, Jonathan represents a sum of Valentine’s greatest sins--bigotry, hatred, cruelty, pride, and really bad use of the experimental method.

I get the impression that CC struggled with Seb’s characterization in COHF, and in large part that’s because he has no character, no motivation beyond destruction and a certain rapaciousness towards Clary. As I’ve derisively said before, wanting to fuck your sister is not a sound core personality motivation for a character. The way he’s written in the books, there’s not a lot of poignancy in his character, and although people do seem to feel sympathy for “green eyed Jonathan” (uwu), he doesn’t really exist any more than Sebastian does. Although CC claims through Clary that Sebastian wants to destroy the world to make it something that can love him, what she misses is that Sebastian in COHF is not really a character but an Endarkened version of himself--a shadow. He doesn’t seem to be much of anything.

Thule is the result of that hollow destruction, an Endarkened shadow of canon, and for that reason it completes COHF in that we truly see what CC means when she says there wasn’t enough good in him left for him to live--what I think she could also mean is that there isn’t enough of Jonathan left, or there never was. Valentine aborts his development (in...many ways: stay tuned for reports from the frontlines of developmental psychopathology, which I am taking) and what’s left is a solipsistic reflection or echo not of Jonathan’s demonic parentage but of his human father. And there’s something understatedly tragic about that cycle coming to a close with Ash, with Sebastian behaving the same way towards his son as his father did to him--with callousness and a desire to exploit. CC explicitly calls this possessive, which is of course a callback to how he treats Clary, but I think he’s more reflecting the father role he inherited from Valentine.

And Ash closes that cycle by killing Sebastian--just as, I would argue, that Sebastian in some sense wanted to kill Valentine. More and more I’ve been leaning towards a reading (and I hope with absolutely no confidence that the show leans towards this reading as well) where Sebastian’s obsession with Clary is at least partly due to the fact that she has done the thing that would symbolically complete him--kill Valentine. Sebastian hasn’t killed Valentine, literally or symbolically, and the cycle repeats; in this way, Ash as a Morgenstern takes more after Clary than he does his father.

Is this edgy, pseudo-academic, piss-poor, completely incoherent bullshit? Absolutely. The point is, god is dead and if I want to compare Paradise Lost, one of the eminent works of the English canon to a YA series based on fanfiction I can. Also, Thule may suck but Sebastian did canonically destroy the world financial system so is he really that bad? (Yes).

BASICS

NAME: Adam Nicholas Haley

NICKNAMES: Ads, Dickhead, various curse words, Little Hay Hay

AGE: 67, appears roughly 25

BIRTHDAY: July 28th, 1950

SPECIES: Werewolf

GENDER: Male

PRONOUNS: He/Him

FAMILY

MOTHER: Eilene Haley (née Dewitt)  

FATHER: Peter Jackson Haley

FAMILY: Adam doesn’t know anything else about his other family besides the fact that they died. His parents never talked about them, he couldn’t tell you the names of his grandparents even if he wanted to and Adam only asked a small handful of times. With his family, he learned it was better not to ask.

SIBLINGS: Jack Haley

APPEARANCE

FACE CLAIM: Zac Efron

RACE/ETHNICITY: Caucasian

HEIGHT: 6′0″ (taller than zac cause my guys gotta be at least 6)  

WEIGHT: roughly 165 lbs

BUILD: athletic, he’s ripped and he loves to show that off. Dude has worked hard for his 6-pack to be perfectly well defined so he must share his effort with the world.

HAIR: he keeps his hair short, normally with the sides cut shorter to give it a cleaner look while the top is a bit longer and wispier and can be styled into soft but defined spikes or a modified quiff.

FACIAL HAIR: he switches between clean-shaven and light stubble, but doesn’t normally go beyond that and grow a beard.

HAIR COLOR: light brown

EYE COLOR: blue

SKIN COLOR: light, in the summer he gets more tan but he white.

DOMINANT HAND: right

ANOMALIES: he’s got a thin scar going through his left eyebrow near the end of it closer to the corner of his eye (like so), it’s from a fight he got in when he was eleven and he’s always been proud of it because he won the fight against an older teen.

SCENT: Creed Aventus Cologne, not like overkill choking to death from cologne but he wears it. Also alcohol especially after 5 o’clock (or earlier depending when he starts drinking)

ACCENT: General American accent

PHYSICAL DISABILITIES: None

LEARNING DISABILITIES: None

ALLERGIES: He used to have seasonal allergies but since he triggered his change he hasn’t had them anymore

DISEASES: None

DISORDERS: Probably Alcohol use Disorder aka he’s an alcoholic but it’s not diagnosed

BLOOD TYPE: A-

FASHION: Abercrombie Model

TATTOOS: On his inner right bicep he a small mountain like this (minus the bird), he got it drunk off his ass one night not long after running away from home as his way of reminding himself where he came from. He spent his life under Morgan’s thumb in the view of Mt. Rainier and his tattoo serves as his reminder of that and his life from before. His cynical drunk ass knew he wanted to disappear and forget everything he had done and the person he was before, this tattoo is his painful reminder to himself that he’ll never escape his past. He wasn’t about to get Morgan’s name tramp stamped on himself so this was the way he chose to give himself a rude awakening.

PIERCINGS: None, he’s gotten drunk piercings but thankfully they heal

JEWELRY: There’s nothing he really wears often. Sometimes he’ll have on a simple leather bracelet. Normally he has nothing. He does have his father’s wedding ring and wears that on his right ring finger.

NERVOUS TICS: Bites his lips, rubs the back of his head, he taps his feet, talks even more than normal. 

HOME LIFE

HOME ADDRESS: 1905 Tree Hill Circle

RESIDES: Hollow Grove, Massachutes

BORN: Eatonville, Washington, United States

RAISED: Eatonville, Washington and then Olympia, Washington as the pack took over more land and Morgan moved them outside of the small town to avoid attention.

VEHICLE: 2015 Honda Shadow Phantom VT750C2B

PHONE: Black Samsung Galaxy s6

LAPTOP/COMPUTER: Asus Zenbook

PETS: None. Don’t trust him to keep one alive tbh.

EDUCATION AND SPECIALIZATIONS

HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION: Graduated

COLLEGE EDUCATION: Didn’t attend

MAJOR: None

MINOR: None

CAREER: Master Handy Guy at The Harbor Inn (thanks to Ade being the best and indulging him)

EXPERIENCE: He’s been doing odd jobs for thirty years, it’s how he pays for alcohol without having an actual career.

EMPLOYER: Adelaide Beauchamp

YEARLY SALARY: Roughly $14,000

WEAPONS: Never give him any weapons.

TRAINED IN: Morgan trained the young wolves of the pack like they were his own personal army. Adam received all of that training. He was built to be as deadly and destructive as possible. Before the threat of war Morgan never focused their training on guns or other weapons though they did learn how to use them. Their focus was on their powers to emphasize that werewolves were the superior species. Any other weapon was seen as nothing more than an additional tool used to win their battles. Morgan wanted them to be deadly without any aid. If they weren’t deadly without a weapon, they weren’t worth his time. Once they could effectively kill without a gun or a knife, he started their training with weapons but only then. In preparation for the war they all improved their skills using guns, then it became about killing the most humans possible. Adam was a skilled sharpshooter but hasn’t touched a gun in 30 years. Another thing he hasn’t done in years is using psychological manipulation. Controlling others through fear tactics was also part of their training. Those techniques were used on other wolves to get them to submit to Morgan. 

LANGUAGES: English, Spanish, German, some Russian

BELIEFS

POLITICAL AFFILIATION: He doesn’t give a fuck

RELIGION: Atheist

BELIEFS: When you die nothing happens, you better live life to the fullest now!

MISDEMEANORS: Public intoxication, disorderly conduct, trespassing, vandalism, simple assault from bar fights.

FELONIES: None

TICKETS AND/OR VIOLATIONS: He’s made a scrapbook of the tickets that Jack has given him. He doesn’t even read them when he gets home he puts them in the collage. Once a month he leaves Jack the collage he made.

DRUGS: Yes. He’s tried everything under the sun. Ecstasy was his favorite, LSD wasn’t too bad most of the time, the crash from cocaine was not enjoyed even though the high was, the things he saw on shrooms made him decide not to take them anymore, heroin has been tried but is largely avoided so he doesn’t become addicted (Adam likes fun, he doesn’t want his life to fall apart because of a drug). He doesn’t take drugs as often as he drinks but he’s not the type to turn it down when they’re offered. Right after the war was his worst stretch when he spiraled completely.

SMOKES: Not cigarettes, but weed yes all the time.

ALCOHOL: every day for thirty years, every night until he’s drunk. If he wasn’t a werewolf, he’d be dead.

DIET: Not healthy, thank god for werewolf metabolism

RELATIONSHIPS

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Heteroromantic

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Heterosexual

MARTIAL STATUS: Never been married, never wants to be

CHILDREN: Honestly, probably out there somewhere. Thirty years of partying with many of those nights ending in a one night stand can create little Adam’s.

AVAILABILITY: Open to sleep around

LOOKING FOR: A fun night

PERSONALITY AND INTERACTION

PHOBIAS: Facing his past is the big fat #1 fear, he’s spent three decades running from it. Talking about feelings. He’s not a fan of earwigs or centipedes and calls them unnatural demon creatures but he can be near them without freaking out. 

HOBBIES: Drinking, annoying Jack, taking care of the plants in Ade’s greenhouse, sex

TRAITS: Flirtatious, childish, a risk taker, adventurous, alcoholic, king of denial, stereotypical frat boy, probably going to get himself killed young, never thinks before he acts, no impulse control, should be kept on a child leash most of the time, compulsive liar (or as he likes to call it an extravagant storyteller) but does know how to have fun and is loyal to his friends. Deep down there’s a more responsible being. Very deep down.

QUIRKS: Can’t seem to keep a shirt on. He also loves conspiracy theories. Adam doesn’t believe any of them but he could watch endless documentaries on them, they entertain the shit out of him.

SOCIAL MEDIA: He’s got it all. Facebook, instagram, snapchat, twitter. Nightly drunk snaps are always sent. Always. His instagram is mainly made up of his own shirtless pictures.

FAVORITES

LOCATION: A club with loud music, lots of alcohol, and beautiful women

SPORTS TEAM: New York Rangers

MUSIC: Anything he can dance to when he’s drunk

SHOWS: The Walking Dead, House of Cards

MOVIES: The Bourne Series, he’s a sucker for spy thrillers

BOOKS: He doesn’t read often but Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels  

FOOD: Steak

BEVERAGE: Everclear

COLOR: Dark Blue

MISCELLANEOUS

MORAL ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Good

MBTI: ENFP

MBTI ROLE: The Campaigner

ENNEAGRAM: Type 7

ENNEAGRAM ROLE: The Generalist

TEMPERAMENT: Sanguine

WESTERN ZODIAC: Leo (Leo by birth as well)

CHINESE ZODIAC: Tiger

PRIMAL SIGN: Wolverine

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Gryffindor

ILVERYMORNY HOUSE: Wampus

TAROT CARD: The Sun

TV TROPES: The Sidekick

The Dark Half (1/20)

Disclaimer: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were created by Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird and are owned by Viacom. Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, Psychological horror, Character death Rating: T   Summary: For years Leonardo has vowed to protect his family, but how is one supposed to protect their family from something that no one can see? And how can you tell whether or not the worst danger to your family is yourself? [TMNT 2k3]

A/N:  Of my surviving earliest fics, there was probably nothing that carried the amount of ambition with it that The Dark Half did purely because here I was, some thirteen year old who read way too many Stephen King novels, deciding I was going to completely go against all genre conventions I’d worked with before and make a horror story. And I’m honestly still proud of a lot of the ideas that came out of that. Though, it’s a little embarrassing looking at the past. 

Which is why I wanted the chance to finally go back and revise this old story that honestly did a lot of things for my growth as a person. 

And I’ll also be making fun of mid-2000s A/N’s along the way because hot damn are these hilarious

[[Original Author’s Notes circa 2005] Turtlefreak121: Alrighty, I've been plotting this one for quite some time, so if you would please, this is The Dark Half and I'm not sure how good this story will eventually end up, but I know I have quite the tendency to use cliffhangers (evil snicker)]

Bragging about cliffhangers and using the term ‘evil snicker’. Oh boy. This is going to be a trip haha

Chapter One: Murder in the Big City

Waiting for the night brought Leonardo to the surface at dusk.

Dusk. He always found that word to have a dry, unappealing sound to it that caught in the back of one’s throat. Nothing like the actual atmosphere it portrayed, this beautiful calm better suited by twilight, nightfall, sundown. And dusk certainly didn’t speak to the pleasure and ease that the time brought to Leonardo in particular.

For him, it was the start of his true day, the beginning of the nighttime freedom only granted to him and his family in darkness.

Being the oldest brother, being the chosen leader of their family clan, Leonardo had pressed himself to perform the part of the oldest brother, to be the fastest, the strongest, the most graceful. He had to push himself as the best in every possible way because he honestly didn’t know how else he could be a leader to his equally — or perhaps even more — gifted brothers.

At fifteen, Leonardo’s shoulders were tense and heavy with an unseen weight. He had to seek perfection in the almost futile attempt to earn respect from a gaggle of less self-important, less serious teenagers.

But if he didn’t have his brothers’ respect, if he didn’t lead them correctly, he couldn’t protect his family.

The price of failure was death for them. Leonardo found that unacceptable. Especially in a world where they were absolutely unaccepted.

Even with exceptions — friends who were as close as family, like April and Casey, or allies who they had earned respectful silence from — Leonardo was constantly aware that their enemies and those who did not and would not understand them far outnumbered them. That night alone, Leonardo as leader needed to maneuver his brothers’ surface exercises around the ever changing movements of the rival Foot ninja clan, the Purple Dragon street gangs which had splintered and expanded, and the generally unexpected that they always seemed to fall into.

As Leonardo looked over the peaks of rundown buildings and billow of occasional smoke, he could hear the soft patter of his three brothers landing not far behind him. He could almost anticipate that Raphael would be the one to step up next.

“What’s your call, fearless one?” Raphael joked, joining Leonardo in watching the distant cityscape. “You already rethinking topside training?”

“No,” Leo answered without even looking to the others. “I want us to take about a three block round of shadow tag. No weapons — palms only.”

He could all but feel the eyes rolling behind him.

“Oh pah-leese,” Michelangelo snickered.

“Even Master Splinter would let us use weapons,” Donatello pointed out with a sigh.

“Yeah, extreme rules or no rules,” Raphael sneered. He pulled his sai from their holster and quickly began spinning them while looking at Leonardo challengingly.

“We don’t need them out here. We need to work on speed, not weapon finesse. It’ll make keeping to the shadows less of an option—“ Leonardo began to list off his reasoning before his shoulder was whipped by the broadside of Raph’s sai. “Raph!”

“Guess who’s it,” Raphael chuckled before trust falling backward into the alley below.

Michelangelo and Donatello quickly followed, laughing among each other.

With a deep breath, Leonardo resisted rubbing at his temples before joining his brothers in the game of shadow tag.

Three blocks was nothing for them. Child’s play for ninja of their caliber.

Even though Leonardo was the only one to stick to the no weapons rule, there was little to no maliciousness involved between the four of them. A rarity for teenage brothers.

They danced through the shadows, around one another, each faltering in the slightest of steps and leaving an opening. It was constructive, a way of safely identifying weaknesses in their forms and guard. They all needed it, needed the challenge from one another.

Once he was free of it status, Leonardo knew his best plan was to pull ahead and put as much distance between himself and the others as he could. He twisted himself in a leap over Donatello, landing his palms on Don’s shoulders before pushing off and blasting forward. He could hear his brother’s groan of frustration.

His plan was working, Leonardo pulled far ahead from his brothers and reached the designated corner with feet between them. He enjoyed the bit of competitive edge, the rush, the feeling that he could still pull ahead.

Catching his breath, Leo began to turn to face his brothers as they slowed in approach, but raised voices put him on guard.

Ducking back deeper into the shadows, Leonardo watched steadily over the edge of the building where the voices were coming from. He waved to his brothers, almost instantly silencing them.

They followed his lead, falling into line into the shadows.

“Trouble?” Donatello asked in barely a whisper.

“Don’t know,” Leo said, trying to make sense of the distant, but loud, words. He was unsettled, though he couldn’t imagine why. These sorts of issues were not exactly uncommon on their night runs. But there was something about this, it didn’t sit well deep in his guts, where he was beginning to feel hollowed out and strange.

“Uh, Leo?” Mikey stage whispered, a little too loud for Leo’s liking. “You alright, dude? You look… pale.”

“What?” Leo answered defensively raising his shoulders. “No. No, I’m fine. Just… Trying to read the situation.”

Without a second to breathe, the air was interrupted with an ear piercing noise — the firing of a gun.

Raphael spun his sai a last time before holding them ready. “Looks like time’s up for that, fearless.”

Leonardo felt the same sickly, gut wrenching feeling that had suddenly overcome him from before. There was something not right about the situation.

His thoughts didn’t carry for long, however, as a second shot was already filling the air.

“Go!” Leonardo ordered, though all of them were already in motion, and his stomach was completely cold with a dread he couldn’t place.

Big Tony was, admittedly, not the most original monicker.

Perhaps it was all he had earned from one of the least original ways to direct the small block of Queens that had been left over after the fall of the ninja clan and its vice grip on all underground activities. Ruthless, but not particularly ambitious. And so long as he and his crew maintained the hold that they had, he was going to be as ruthless as possible inside of his territory. It was a doomed strategy, especially among mobs and especially in New York, but there wasn’t a soul left in Tony’s operation who would oppose him on it.

That left the bloated, greased up man to smile with veneers to cover his rottenness, and his many stolen rings and medallions to flash to the public at large. He looked like a Dick Tracey villain in his dark purple pinstripe suite, and yet he terrified those underneath the heel of his snakeskin boots into silence.

Dressed as he was, Big Tony looked out of place in a darkened alleyway. But it was his most secure path for himself and his closest working confidante, Weasel — a man who more than fit his own monicker in appearance — to reach the dubious looking former pharmacy that acted as the most recent office for their empire.  

Still, it was a bad time of night, especially when a failed cover up involving a journalist had come to bite them in the ass so recently.

At least that event had taught Tony to no longer leave loose ends. Which was his intention that night before he ended up being on the receiving end of a surprise.

On the other end of the alley, in the shadows by the thick plated door that served as Tony and Weasel’s preferred entrance, stood the pudgy man of the hour.

“The hell,” Weasel muttered, hand already by his secured arm.

“You told him about our door?” Tony snarled, already feeling heat rising to his face.

“No way, Boss,” Weasel answered. “But, you know this guy. He never does anything right. Guess he forgot how to use a front door in between missing his payments.”

A growl rolled its way between Tony’s gnashed teeth, but he was not a man known for his restraint after all. So with bluster and confidence, remembering the sniveling pencil pusher he was dealing with in the first place, Tony began to push his way to the strange man in the bowler hat. “Erlinger! First you have the nerve to demand a meeting with me, and now you’re trying to show your disrespect by not even coming by my terms? The hell’s the matter with you? Do you need reminding of where your place is? Who’s the man that you keep the damn books for? Do you?”

Weasel snickered from behind and lessened the tension that had been built.

They knew this nobody of an accountant, after all.

“Disrespect?” Erlinger answered with a strange lack of stammering. He didn’t so much as flinch, obscured by the overcast shadows. “No, sir. Of course not, sir. A lack of respect for superiors is not one of my vices.”

Taken aback by the words and the sultry confidence Erlinger had in presenting them, Tony stopped mid stride and looked back to Weasel. Weasel seemed as confused by the scene as Tony was.

“The  hell are you talking about?” Tony said flagrantly instead. “You on something? You call this so that we can straighten you out? Because with the heat on me like it is, Erlinger, you better believe that I’ll lay you out as I do it. I don’t need any whack job fucking up my books while I’m still lucky to be on bail, you worm!”

Rather than coil back in fear and regret as most would under the duress of being in Tony’s direct line of sight, Erlinger stood his ground, clicking his tongue. “Wrath. Avarice. Vanity. I see them all so clearly now. How was I ever so blind to the sin that ooze through that gluttonous body. Everything is so much… clearer now. So much… better now that I have been granted his sight.”

“What?” Tony balked, so off guard there was almost nothing else he could have said.

“Hey! You can’t talk to the boss like that!” Weasel cried out indignantly, pressing up ahead of Tony. He was pulling out his gun, face already covered in pure disgust.

From the darkness of the shadows, a simple smile seemed to almost glow. “And there is envy. What sins we wear right on our sleeves.”

“Boss,” Weasel muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “he completely lost it.” Training his firearm on Erlinger. “The only thing I’m seeing on your sleeves, Erlinger, is that same ugly as hell blue suit you’ve had for as long as we’ve known you.”

“What did you want all this for?” Tony snapped. “You called this meeting for a reason. What is it? Stocks down? Pigs banging on your doors already? What brought you here?”

“Land acquisition,” the man responded simply. “An expansion of territory, if we’re going by your rudimentary terms.”

“Hey, Tony’s business is his own business, you pen pushing cockroach! Keep your noses in the books!” Weasel ordered harshly.

“I don’t have any investment in your crude criminal dealings anymore,” Erlinger clarified coldly. “I’m speaking of my own territory.”

That actually made Tony laugh. The man had surely reached some sort of psychotic break. “You ain’t got no territory, stooge. I own you, remember?” He chuckled and looked to his loyal lieutenant. “The nards on this guy, am I right? Who’s got envy and greed now?”

Weasel placated Tony with an immediate laughter, true if not bolstered for emphasis a bit.

“You laugh at my sins,” Erlinger said almost somberly, “but I wouldn’t. There isn’t any shame in sin. Those of us involved with the more nefarious side of life should know that. Accept that. What we should allow ourselves to do is bathe in it. To accept it and live by it. I hear that calling now. I know it to be something that will last beyond any mortal, beyond any means. It’ll have the most lasting impacts, the greatest legacies.”

“What a whack job,” Weasel muttered in astonishment.

“Putting it lightly, Weasel,” Tony responded, brows reaching for his hairline.

“I’m speaking of greed, gentlemen,” Erlinger elaborated more. “Greed, something the three of us are no small strangers too, of course. Greed… and its stupendous possibilities once we’ve given ourselves over to it. Over to him.”

“Him? The hell you talking about?” Tony tried again.

“You see, he understands greed, is avarice. And I say that with no small amount of exaggeration. And, because of that, because of that need to grow and to be taken care of so that the empire may continue to grow, I must provide to him territory. Land acquisition, after all, was the first greed of all. The one that built his empire to begin with. That’s why he calls me. And he calls me to do this.”

Before the bizarre rant could even sink in, there was an earsplitting pop, and Tony felt a numbing cold in his chest. He began to sink just as a second bang echoed and it could truly set in that he was shot. Weasel was shot.

And he laid on the floor of a dark alley in the small bit of the Queens he had loved to rule aggressively so much. And he did so until darkness consumed everything around him.

When they landed in the alley there was nothing. Wisps of gun smoke were still in the air, two fresh bodies on the ground — but there was no life. Leonardo somehow sensed that the instant his feet touched the ground.

Somehow, impossibly, the shooter was not there in an instant after shooting two victims.

Raphael passed them all in order to be closer to the two fresh bodies, watching the blood pool between them. “Hey, I know these lowlives — they’re those mob doofuses from a while back. We saved that kid’s mom, the reporter, from them.” He sneered at the men. “Couldn’t have been to two nicer guys—“

Judgment.

“Raph,” Leo said in a warning voice.

“What do you think? This one’s got a gun by him, think they shot each other?” Mikey asked. “Case closed?”

“No, case definitely not closed,” Donatello corrected, squatting down to his haunches to examine the scene better. “They are both l saying on their backs and facing the direction of their entrance wounds. Which means they were both shot from the same direction…” He looked over his shoulder toward the end of the alley where Leonardo was currently standing. “The shooter would have to have been right there.”

Leo squinted and looked around him for a hiding spot, high in alert with his twin swords readied in each hand. There was no dumpster, no pile of debris — nothing for someone to hide behind. Just a large, metal door. He walked toward it and tested the knob. It was locked up tight.

“There’s nowhere for the shooter to have gone,” Leo confirmed out loud.

“Oh, sweet! Are we about to play detective on this? I totally call being Batman,” Michelangelo said exuberantly. “Donnie, you’re Robin. Raph, you’re Alfred. Leo’s Commissioner Gordon.”

“Knock it off already, will ya?” Raphael snapped.

“Okay, Batman,” Don humored, “if the shooter was where Leo is now, and isn’t there by the time we jumped down here, who did it?”

“Don’t play along, that’s only going to encourage him,” Raphael admonished Donatello. “Leo, wrangle everybody up like you usually do. Y’know. Do your Leo stuff.”

“Huh, would Leo stuff include shooting gangsters in an alleyway? Because that’d make this case way easier to solve,” Mike joked with a shrug.

Immediately, every muscle in Leo’s body tensed up. He turned and looked in offense toward his brother. “Why would you say that? I didn’t do anything. Why would you even joke about that?”

The panic built and built through his body, Leonardo could feel it choking him, clawing at his every nerve. The mere thought of being suspected, the coiling distrust, the hateful injustice. And then beneath it all, most hauntingly, a slight tinge of guilt. From nowhere, from nothing. Leo felt it all the way down to his own bones.

“Whoa, bro, I’m only kidding, calm down!” Mike laughed awkwardly, holding up his hands defensively.

“Leo’s right, we should be treating this situation with more respect,” Don huffed, standing back up.

Raphael was staring at Leo in confusion and suspicion. “We were with you the whole time, Leo, calm your tail.”

“I know that,” Leo snapped.

The defensiveness in Leo was only building and his brothers were beginning to look at him in more concern. After all, this wasn’t the first crime scene they had come across. Which was also why, when they heard the sirens nearing, they knew to leave.

“Quick! To the sew…er…” Leo ordered, pausing as he glanced to the nearby manhole.

His brothers caught on rather fast.

“I’m popping it open, you guys be ready to duck if someone’s sitting down there with a revolver, alright?” Raph volunteered, readying his sai as he came to the manhole then swiftly slipping the blade between the cracks and cracking it open.

Leo, with the rest of his brothers, were at the ready.

But, nothing happened. Raphael opened the rest of the manhole and even stuck his head in before giving the all clear.

“I don’t get it,” Mikey said, hopping down into the sewers in line with the others.

Leo hung back to close the cover behind them. His whole body still felt unsettled. “You don’t get what, Mikey?” he pressed.

“Where’d the killer go?” Michelangelo asked, scratching at his cheek in thought.

“Not our problem anymore,” Raph shrugged off in disregard.

“The police will figure it out,” Donatello answered confidently.

“Maybe,” Leo said lowly from the back. It didn’t feel like it wasn’t their business, Leo couldn’t shake it for some reason.

Especially the admittedly comedic suggestion that it was somehow Leonardo himself responsible.

The others mostly overlooked Leo’s comment and overall dour change in disposition.

“Man, I’d at least like to know why, that’s the question that always is the most interesting on Forensic Files and stuff,” Michelangelo continued to push.

“They were mobsters, dude,” Raph snapped. “What’d’ya think was the cause?”

“Simple,” Leo said, getting his brothers’ attention unintentionally. He blinked as he caught all of their looks, and then cleared his throat to clarify. “It was probably greed.”

Raph rolled his eyes and Don nodded slightly before looking forward. Mikey took a breath and sighed but none of them really reflected on the sentiment.

But Leonardo did. Because it felt so unnatural on his own tongue.

Like the guilt that had been building strangely within him managed to evaporate in an instant as he was overcome with a sense of rightness to that blame, a questioning of ethics that poured out from between his own teeth.

It didn’t necessarily feel bad.