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spiderbussy · 11 months

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The Hating Game

Dylan O’Brien x Reader

WARNINGS: mentions of sex, steamy moments (but no smut), swearing, lots of anger/hatred, i think that’s all??

i wrote this a whole year ago and dug it up from deep in the drafts and it’s not entirely awful so i figured i might as well publish??? also edited whilst watching some killer shark movie LMFAOO so it might be a lot worse than i think jshsjs,, quick PSA tho: i dont rlly feel comfy writing for real people anymore, and i don’t like writing smut, so whilst this is relatively steamy there’s no actual smut in it :) hopefully someone enjoys lmfao

there is also a high likelihood that i will be deleting this soon bc i am Embarrassed

Being mortal fucking enemies with your co-worker is not exactly what you envisioned your first serious acting job to entail, but no one can have everything, you suppose. Like, it makes sense, from a realistic (OK, pessimistic) standpoint that getting hired to be a main character on a popular teen TV show with little to no acting experience and the only thing to your name being an apartment you’re about to get evicted out of for not paying your bills is exceedingly lucky. Like, come on, what are the fucking odds? And everyone knows that something so good is bound to be followed by something bad. In your case, something you consider the worst thing that could possibly happen to a person, and his name is Dylan O’Brien.

First off, you know. Dylan O’Brien. Every teenage girls wet dream. He’s a conventionally attractive white guy who respects women because he doesn’t actively spit on them! (You’re not saying he’s sexist, because you’re pretty sure that’s not why he hates you, it’s just because he’s tasteless and a dick.)

Here’s the thing, though. Ever since you started this job, he’s had it out for you. Like, genuinely, he’s fucking evil and is trying to ruin your life. Why is this? You have no clue, only that you hate him back equally as much, if not more.

What really sucks, though, is that this is the guy who’s playing your love interest. At first, this wasn’t even really a problem for you (only to your controlling ex-boyfriend — good fucking riddance, by the way), but it became one when you overheard Dylan actively begging the shows head writer and producer, Jeff, to cancel that plot and then storming off like a complete and utter wankstain when he was denied.

Your character's first kiss scene has had to be filmed at least a million times by now, and the crew is starting to really get pissed off by it, which, like, fair enough, you are too, but it’s not your fault you and Dylan can’t even pretend to be romantically interested in each other for five minutes! The scene itself isn’t even the problem, you’ve nailed that, it’s the kiss. The gentle, loving kiss your characters are supposed to share, and Jeff is an asshole and every time he’d yell at you and Dylan you’d both just get more and more pissed at each other, and the kiss would get progressively more and more heated and angry with every retake.

That’s where you’re at now, bordering on eating each other’s faces (excuse you while you yack!) as Jeff yells “cut!” for the fifty-millionth time. You and Dylan instantly spring apart, awkwardly avoiding eye contact as Jeff sighs. Using the back of your hand, you wipe your mouth, only to pull it back to find blood. Literal fucking blood.

“Did you bite me, you fucking pervert?” you whisper-yell at Dylan so that the crew aren’t prone to any more unprofessional behavior you exhibit. The stinging in your lip grows more profound, and you scoff. “Oh my fucking God, you bit me.”

Dylan smirks, shrugging his shoulders as he glares back at you tenfold. He’s oozing this nonchalant smugness, and you feel more pissed at him than ever.

“How the hell was that ‘gentle’ or ‘loving’!?” you continue quietly yelling at him as Jeff talks with the rest of the crew, his hands rubbing over the creases on his forehead.

Dylan’s smirk falls, as he glares at you with incredulity, “How was pulling my hair like, five minutes ago, any more ‘gentle’ or ‘loving’?!” he spits back.

Part of you wants to admit that that was genuinely an accident, but, like, whatever. Dylan would probably take it the wrong way, interpreting it as you being kinky and attracted to him. “OK,” you say instead, “act like you didn’t moan when I did that, you freak.”

“I moaned in pain,” he argues, eyebrows scrunched and a fire in his eyes as he unconsciously steps towards you.

You open your mouth, ready to retort with another remark with the intent to insult him, but Jeff’s voice quickly cuts the two of you off. “OK, guys, it’s been a long day but we’re gonna try it again,” he breathes out, rubbing his hands together before he suddenly stops, eyes narrowing in on your lip. “Jesus, OK, what the hell, your lip is bleeding Y/N.”

“Sorry about that,” Dylan smirks, poorly feigning being apologetic. And this guy’s supposed to be an actor, Jesus Christ.

“Right,” Jeff sighs, so obviously done with the both of you as you glare daggers at Dylan, which only seems to widen his smirk. “Um, OK, so this time… Dylan, try not to eat Y/N, OK? And, guys, try not to step on each other’s feet… or kick each other… the camera may not be able to see down there, but it shows, and we cab. Um, so, both of you…. just… gentle and loving, OK? This is supposed to be a sweet moment, your characters are comforting each other…. God, OK, let’s just try and get this over with.”

Admittingly, when Jeff speaks, you aren’t even really listening. You’re trying your best to hide the fact that you’re elbowing Dylan behind your back, and he’s aggressively standing on your toes. The both of you are glaring at each other from the corners of your eyes, paying Jeff little attention.

“And, reset!” Jeff calls, the both of you getting back into position. Dylan seemingly can’t help himself, though, because he steps on your heel as you walk away from him. Fucking asshole. You curse him out in your head as you try to hide your wince and sit on Stiles’ bed. He just always has to have the last word. It’s fucking childish.

You’re not paying attention as Jeff continues to call to the crew, ready for a retake. Instead, you’re glaring straight ahead, and Dylan is glaring back. The tension between the two of you dissipates quickly as Jeff yells “Action!” though, and you pretend to be upset as tears fill your eyes. You sniffle and Dylan walks over, slowly sinking himself down next to you. There’s a palpable distance between the two of you, one that’s closing slowly as Dylan, in character, awkwardly shuffles towards you, fidgeting all the while.

“What are you doing?” your character asks, looking at Dylan (Stiles) with soft, furrowed brows.

“Uhhh,” he stutters, “I just—trying to comfort you?”

“Oh,” your character says. “Right. I’m OK, though. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize. It’s alright.”

There’s silence for a moment, enough to be considered a moment too long, one that makes the air awkward. You aren’t looking at Jeff but you assume he’s relatively pleased, although this isn’t the part you and Dylan have been struggling with. It’s coming up, though.

Your breath audibly halters as Dylan’s tender fingers brush your hair out of your face, tucking it behind you ear. His character is closer than you thought, as you turn to face him. His fingers are lingering in your hair, coming to hesitantly cup the side of your face as you meet his gaze. There’s barely even three centimeters between your faces, and your character's eyes are flicking down to his lips constantly, as though she can’t help herself.

“Can I…” Dylan‘s charachter trails off, gulping. “Can I—is it alright if I kiss—?”

You cut him off, quickly leaning in to place a peck on his lips.

“…You,” he breathes out, his eyes widened as he looks thoroughly perplexed.

Your character bites her lip, looking down at her hands before shooting up. “Sorry. I’m—I probably shouldn’t have done that. Sorry. I’ll go.” As quickly as you stand up, though, Dylan grabs your hand.

“Don’t be sorry,” he says, and when you turn around to face him his hands are cupping your cheeks again and you’re kissing. It’s gentle and soft until his finger tugs a strand of your hair, and then all of a sudden your hands are in Dylan’s hair roaming through them and tugging and, next thing you know, you’re tonguing and Dylan’s hand is wrapped around your throat.

“OK, cut!” Jeff screeches, and the two of you practically scramble away from each other. “What the hell, guys? You were doing so well until then. I just… Let’s take another five, I guess. No, actually, screw it, we’ll pick this back up tomorrow.”

Jeff storms off, and not only are you pissed at Dylan now, you’re ashamed. The both of you have been acting unprofessional all day, just because Dylan is a fucking child. If he gets you fired… You’re gonna kill him. Fucking murder him. Shit on his mutilated corpse.

Glaring at him, you shove his side as you storm off to go back to your trailer and calm down. You need to sleep because tomorrow is an early shoot and it’s already late, and now you probably won’t be able to because you’re pissed and stressed and worried.

Unfortunately for you, there’s a pattern of thudding footsteps on the ground before Dylan catches up to you. “Jesus, can you slow down?” he rasps. “What the hell did I even do now?”

“Are you fucking serious, O’Brien?” you whirl around, only to be met with him much closer than you anticipated. “I could get fired ‘cause of your immature ass.”

“Oh, my immature ass?” he scoffs. “Do you even hear yourself?”

With a roll of your eyes, you turn around and continue on your merry way to your trailer. You want to get away from Dylan, desperately, before you end up punching him, but he doesn’t seem to be getting the hint and is hot on your heels.

“You’re the one always calling me a dick and shit, insulting me, starting stuff. I mean, I have bruises on my back from you elbowing me just a minute ago.” You’re at your trailer now, after blocking out Dylan’s ranting in your ear, but you only just open the door before he continues, “What, you mad ‘cause no one else ever dishes back what you put out? Sorry not everyone just accepts your word as gospel, princess.”

“First of all, fuck you,” you spit. You’re giving him the attention and reaction he wants, but you don’t even care. You’re that pissed off. “Second of all, me, the princess? Holy shit, O’Brien, you’re delusional. You had a go at me today because I ate the last mac ‘n cheese, even though your name wasn’t on it. You think everything belongs to you because everybody loves you. News flash, it doesn’t, and they don’t. They just suck up to you because you’re a rich white guy with an army of teenage girls behind you.”

“Sounds like you’re just jealous to me,” Dylan shrugs, trying to pretend he’s unaffected but the stiffness in his shoulders is entirely obvious. “I mean, come on, let’s be honest here, you’re used to getting everything, to being the favourite, but the moment someone else gets attention you go fucking haywire. Or maybe you’re just in love with me. You say you hate me but, come on, everyone knows there’s a thin line between love and hate.”

“Me? Love you?” You scoff, laughing aggressively. “Only one of us choked the other as they shoved their tongue down their throat today.”

“Choked you?” Dylan snorts. “You wish. I merely placed my hand in the wrong place. It was an accident, Y/L/N. You know, like you.”

“Oh, good one. You really got me there, Dyl.” The sarcasm is practically oozing out of your every pore at this point. “And your hand was around my neck. How do you accidentally do that?”

“I was aiming for your other cheek, but you were tugging on my hair so much I could barely fucking see,” he retorts.

“Oh, sure. You were aiming for my cheek and you just accidentally slipped your hand right like this,” you say, sliding your hand around Dylan’s throat to demonstrate, lightly pushing him against the wall.

“Yeah, maybe like how you accidentally kept going like this,” Dylan says, his eyes narrowed into slits as he stares straight into yours, his fingers sliding through your hair before gripping and yanking.

“I hate you,” you breathe, your gazes re-aligning. The distance between the two of you is minimal at this point, and there’s an angry hornets nest in your stomach that you blame on your insatiable anger and hatred of this man in front of you.

“Fight me,” he spits, eyes boring into yours and not breaking contact for even a second.

“Oh, you wanna fight?” You challenge, mocking him.

“Fuck you,” he spits again, violently frustrated.

“Oh, you wanna fuck?” You were supposed to say it with a laugh, but the distance between the two of you is so small, and your voice sounds so quiet, and his eyes are looking at yours like that, and it suddenly sounds so reasonable… The two of you are kissing, but it doesn’t feel like kissing. It feels like more. It doesn’t start gentle and slow, like the ones you were doing for the camera earlier, it starts violent and angry as you communicate every ounce of hatred from one body to another.

Dylan’s foot juts out, his hands sliding down your body as he kicks the door to the trailer shut. Immediately, you push him up against the closed door, hands sliding into his hair as his hands come up to cup your cheeks with vigor.

“I knew you were into that,” he groans, smirking.

“Shut the fuck up,” you retort, forcing his head back down to yours so your lips can re-meet. His laugh cuts off into a moan as you pull his hair, and he suddenly flips the two of you around, parting your legs with his foot as his hands cup your ass.

The next day, you drag yourself into hair and makeup, ashamed. You know Sam, your makeup artist, is gonna want to kill you for all the goddamn hickies on your neck. Honest to god, it looks like you’ve just crawled out a leech-infested lake.

“Jesus Christ, girl,” Sam gasps as you take your usual seat. “You get mauled or something?”

The woman lifts your hair as she peers at your marked-up neck, assessing the damage. She seems more amused than pissed off, thankfully, but it does nothing to quell your embarrassment. You just hope you didn’t mark Dylan up as much as he did you, or else someone might just put the pieces together. You do not want people thinking your standards are low enough to sleep with him—they might think you’re some sex-crazed satanist if they know you fucked the devil last night.

“Yeah, something like that,” you sigh, irritation lining your tone. It just so happens that, at that moment, the trailer door opens and in comes Dylan. Your eyes meet immediately, just as they always have done when the two of you have found yourselves in the same room. You glare, but you find it’s half-hearted and, unlike usual, he looks away and goes over to his own seat, seemingly searching for something.

Huh.

“You gotta tell me who did this to you,” Sam whistles, still in shock, apparently. “Slip ‘em my number, maybe.”

You can’t see Dylan entirely, his back half-turned to you, but you see the corner of his lips turn up as he tries to suppress a smirk.

“You know what they say about guys who put on a show,” you shrug, eyes narrowed in Dylan’s direction. He’s pretending to search for his phone still, but you saw him slip it into his pocket already. Nosey fucker. “It’s a little somethin’ called overcompensation.”

Sam lets out a loud cackle, turning to grab something out of her bag, and Dylan, done with pretending to look for his phone, whirls his head around to give you a subtle glare and a raised eyebrow, a smug look on his face like he knows you’re lying. (Which you, very begrudgingly, have to admit to yourself that you are.)

You hate Dylan. Despise him, even. More than you’ve ever hated anyone; you can rationalize why last night happened easily enough. The amount of hatred and tension and the pressure from Jeff to get that scene right all blew up. That much emotion had to be exhausted somewhere, and, well, it was. It was a blip in the timeline, some kind of glitch in the matrix, but it happened and there’s an easy explanation. What there’s not an easy explanation for, however, is why you liked it so much. Why you’re lying, trying to pretend it wasn’t nearly as good as it was, trying to pretend you’re not still thinking about how it felt to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him… There is no logical explanation for that.

In fact, it’s entirely illogical, the mushy way you feel inside when you met his eyes, covered with a glare that you wish had half the hate in it that it normally does. It’s weird and it’s wrong, because you’re not supposed to have butterflies when you think of the way his hand had caressed your face, the way he ran his fingers through your hair, the way his arms felt, wrapped around you. You’re supposed to be revolted.

He’s smug and he’s pompous and you cannot stand him, let alone stand the thought of kissing him. And yet, although you hate the fact that the thought exists, you yearn for it. You find yourself excited, even, to go to set and get yelled at by Jeff because you simply cannot help yourselves when it comes to one another. You hate it, every second of it, every second of him. You think you hate him so much you might actually love him. And with the wink he sends over his shoulder as he leaves the trailer, eyes dark as they peer at the hickies Sam is frantically trying to cover up, you think he does, too.

#dylan obrien #dylan obrien imagine #dylan obrien x reader #stiles stilinski #teen wolf #dylan o'brien #dylan o'brien imagine #dylan o'brien x reader

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makeste · 3 years

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BnHA Chapter 294: A Half-Assed Escape

Previously on BnHA: Mirio was all “SURPRISE I’M BACK THANKS TO OUR RESIDENT SEVEN-YEAR-OLD WHO RECENTLY EARNED HER BACHELOR’S OF BEING A TOTAL BADASS.” Kacchan was all, “you know what, Dabi’s been trending long enough, time to remind the fandom what a real G looks like,” and he blasted his little bleeding body back into the fray and was all “FROM HERE ON OUT CALL ME DYNAMIGHT!!” Mirio was all, “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... oh, you’re serious,” and Kacchan was all “!!”, and so that’s the story of how my son got murdered twice in one day. Meanwhile in the Todoroki Drama Zone, Deku was all “STOP MURDERING MY FRIEND” and Dabi was all “THAT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS” and fandom had a whole big debate about Whether Or Not Dabi Trying To Murder Deku’s Friends And Mentors Is Any Of Deku’s Business, which went exactly how you think it went. Anyway, so then Deku yelled at Dabi, and Endeavor was all moved by his manly words and randomly went to go uppercut Machia in the chin. And, seeing as how the Momoserum finally chose that exact moment to kick in, Machia is now down for the count.

Today on BnHA: The Miriosquad handles the Nearly High End Noumus, freeing up Jeanist to jasphyxiate (okay that one doesn’t really work so well) the rest of the League. Compress is all “TIME FOR THIS MILD-MANNERED SIDE CHARACTER VILLAIN TO SHINE”, except that by “shine” what he actually means is “use his quirk to punch a literal hole right through his own ass to free himself.” The rest of the chapter is basically just a back and forth between him and Jeanist, with Jeanist trying to recapture him, and Compress repeatedly thwarting him by chopping more holes out of himself because HE’S FRESH OUT OF FUCKS, AND THE ONES AT THE STORE ARE ALL SOLD OUT, MOTHERFUCKERS. Anyway, so with Compress basically dying and all, Horikoshi is all “you know what that means”, and delivers a freshly-baked villain flashback revealing that Compress is a descendant of Harima Ouji, a.k.a. the Peerless Thief, a.k.a. some famous guy whom Gentle mentioned this one time for like two seconds back in the day. The chapter ends with Compress finally demasking himself and dumping Tomura back onto the ground, a.k.a. The Worst Possible Place For Tomura To Be. ( •﹏•)

WHY IS CRUST HERE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD

-- OH WAIT, SHIT. OH

AIZAWAAAA you’re alive and receiving medical help thank GOD. HOW MANY EYES DO YOU HAVE. AND MIRKO!! HOW MANY LIMBS DO YOU HAVE, OMG

so is this Aizawa dreaming about Crust’s final moments, then?? jesus. with All Due Respect to Crust’s memory, does Aizawa not already have enough misplaced guilt on his conscience as it is?? “nope, we’re gonna keep piling it on. that’s all he is now. three limbs, an indeterminate number of eyes, sexy hair, and Guilt” well shit

motherfucker y’all really out here placing an oxygen mask on Gran Torino’s corpse. fucking shounen characters. each one comes with a lifetime warranty

DAMN YOU HORIKOSHI WHY DO YOU KEEP SHOWING THESE CLOSE-UPS OF HAWKS’S UNCONSCIOUS FACE ALL WHUMPED OUT AND EXHAUSTED. HOW MUCH MORE OF THIS ARE WE GOING TO GET. ARE YOU PLANNING ON KILLING ME WITH THE UPCOMING CONVALESCENCE ARC, BECAUSE IF SO, AT LEAST HAVE THE DECENCY TO TELL ME AHEAD OF TIME SO I CAN MAKE A WILL

for a moment I considered going back and checking my previous recaps to count how many times I’ve already made a joke about Dabi’s fire incinerating Hawks’s wings but not touching so much as a hair on his five o’clock shadow, so that I could calculate whether or not I could possibly get away with making that same joke one more time. but then I realized I could just do it in this kind of roundabout way I’m doing right now instead. so there you have it

FFFFFFFMT LADY AND MIDNIGHT NOOOOO

PLEASE BE ALIVE. PLEASE RESPECT THE SIGN ON THE FRONT OF THE BUILDING. THE ONE THAT SAYS “NO LADY CHARACTERS ALLOWED TO DIE”, WITH THE FINE PRINT AT THE BOTTOM “AT LEAST NOT UNTIL HORIKOSHI GIVES US LIKE TWENTY-SIX MORE OF THEM FIRST IF THAT’S THE WAY HE WANTS TO PLAY IT.” IT’S A GOOD SIGN, PLEASE RESPECT ITS WISHES!!

so anyway though, Jeanist is giving a speech about how god knows how many people all worked together to bring Machia down. and now RHA is getting in on those fabric puns too, I see. “A SINGLE STRAND MAY BE THIN BUT TOGETHER THEY FORM A STRONG ROPE” oh so you think you guys are funny eh? I’m a frayed knot

MEANWHILE EXCUSE ME BUT WHY ARE YOU FUCKING CRYING BLOOD, HOLY SHIT

fffffff. so much for him taking over as the Number One once all this is over. so let’s just recap real quick, because Horikoshi has long since made it clear that one of his plot goals for this arc is to wipe out every single member of the Billboard Top Ten. so how we doin?

Endeavor - was just figuratively eviscerated in front of the entire nation by his homicidal zombiepunk son. also burnt half to death and possibly down a lung. will almost certainly be forced to retire after this one way or the other

Hawks - lying prettily in a medical tent. wings status: gone. hair status: still perfect

Jeanist - WELL I THOUGHT HE WAS FINE BUT APPARENTLY HE’S OUT HERE DYING, JESUS CHRIST

Edgeshot - MIA, last seen fighting Re-Destro. I really want him to have kicked RD’s ass because fuck that guy, but realistically they probably fought to a draw at best

Mirko - alive but in critical condition and missing something like 1.5 limbs

Crust - dead, currently haunting Aizawa’s traumatized dreams. now he’s gonna be triggered the rest of his life by people giving him the thumbs up, THANKS A LOT

Kamui Woods - was set on fire which is His Weakness. thoughts and prayers

Wash - last seen floating hospital patients to safety as Tomura’s wave of decay descended towards him. probably dead ffff

Old Man Samurai - haven’t seen this fucker in a hot minute, who even knows where he’s wandered off to

Ryuukyuu - currently being treated for her wounds, looked pretty bad off. but it’s hard to tell how hurt she is since most of the injuries were acquired in her transformed state. SHE BETTER GET WELL SOON

anyways, so yeah. so much for the top ten. guess that’s another reason Horikoshi brought Mirio back now, huh

so there’s a big panel of everyone fighting the Noumu while Machia lies there all “blurgh.” good riddance my dude. it took like twenty chapters and a hundred people to stop this guy so I really fucking hope he stays down. you’ve had your fun

anyway so Jeanist is sending another steel thread towards Dabi! and he’s all “just a bit more!!” fklklj this is gonna go real well isn’t it

meanwhile Mirio’s fighting a Nearly High End with all of these weird rock formations jutting out of its skin. go on and kick his ass then, Mirio

“each of these guys is probably just as strong as the Noumu from Kyuushuu” hold on I thought Ujiko or Tomura or someone said that wasn’t the case? not that Mirio would know I suppose. anyways let’s just hope he’s wrong cuz if not these kids are probably screwed

kLSDKFHLSKHGLKLK OH MY GODDDD

IIDA FUCKING TENYA YOU’RE A PEACH. THINKS THE NAME IS OUTRAGEOUS, CHECK. USES IT ANYWAY, CHECK. “JUST BECAUSE I DON’T UNDERSTAND DOESN’T MEAN I CAN’T BE SUPPORTIVE.” WHAT A CLASS ACT

AND KACCHAN IS RESPONDING WITH AS MUCH DIGNITY AS HE CAN MUSTER

WOW, SON. IT’S ALMOST AS THOUGH YOU HAVE A HOLE IN YOUR TORSO, OR SOMETHING!! although listen up, real talk, the fact that Kacchan of all people can’t muster the energy to yell at someone questioning his ability to kick ass is HIGHKEY troubling and we may be in need of an intervention here soon :/

now Jeanist is finally turning his attention to the League! was... was it not already on the League. omg

ACTUAL SCREAMING AHHHHHH FUCK FUCKLK LK AHHLKHKFFFF

hey so um. what the actual fucked up hell. my soul left my body. imagine if you saw the reflection of this panel on your bedroom window. you would never sleep again

OKAY RHA TRANSLATORS ARE YOU HAVING YOURSELF A LAUGH AGAIN

THIS CANNOT BE WHAT HE’S ACTUALLY SAYING RIGHT. BUT IT’S RIGHT IN THAT UNCANNY VALLEY OF NOT BEING QUITE SURE, THOUGH... (　ﾟдﾟ)

(ETA: just a next-day clarification here, apparently my sleep-deprived ADHD word-skipping brain completely skipped right over the “a” in that last panel, so what I read was, “and Shigaraki’s limp noodle.” so yeah, the moral of this story is always read the speech bubble carefully before you start making running jokes throughout the rest of your post, folks.)

oh wow he’s really freaking out lmao

to be fair though, I’d argue that Dabi has gotten pre-tty close at this point :’) thrilled for him, really I am

but anyway, well then figure something out you big dramatic robot-armed fiend. didn’t you just say you could touch your own ass? can you not just Compress yourself to break free?? does it not work on you? or would you be stuck afterwards lol

(ETA: I was picturing him compressing his entire body at once, not just chunks of it. ghhhlkh.)

holy shit Jeanist. are you stupidly trying to cut off their air, or are you going for more of a sleeper hold (jleeper hold??) thing instead. the latter would be way smarter and faster and probably safer as well just saying

but unless Spinner is just being super dramatic, it sure looks like he’s fucking strangling them djslkjlk. this will certainly cement his popularity among the villain stans. good thing you’re not running for office any time soon bud

anyway so I have no idea what these guys are trying to do now. what is this

do you even have till the count of 5 at this rate. I mean

OH MY GOODNESS

HE’S REALLY FUCKING DOING IT!! HE’S COMPRESSING HIS BUTT!! OMFG. TOMURA HIDE YOUR NOODLE!!!

WHAT THE FUCK

DID YOU COMPRESS A PIECE OF YOUR OWN ASS. FUCKING WHAT. PUT THIS MAN’S PICTURE IN THE DICTIONARY NEXT TO THE WORD “LOYALTY”, HOLY CRAP

HOLY SHIT COMPRESS

“HOLY SHIT DID THAT GUY JUST PUNCH A HOLE THROUGH HIS OWN ASS IN ORDER TO SAVE HIS VILLAIN PALS. FUCK IT, HE DESERVES TO ESCAPE”

jeez, talk about... A HALF-ASSED ESCAPE ATTEMPT :D :D :D hahaha. but real talk though, Horikoshi has clearly never tried to leap twelve feet straight up in the air multiple times in succession with only half his glutes though. everyone, I regret to inform you that this panel right here on the left may be slightly unrealistic

also where the hell is he going to go?? did you pack a jetpack away in one of those little marbles sir. and what about Dabi?? and Skeptic too, I guess, but we don’t really care about Skeptic

(ETA: at this point I had to stop reading for about two hours because I had to go out and take care of something; that’s also why this is being posted later than usual lol. anyways so where were we.)

oh my lord

the existence of a translator’s note here implies that the earlier line about Compress being able to reach Tomura’s junk was not, in fact, ad-libbed. hmm. hmmmmmmmm

anyway so now he’s grabbing Compress again because OF COURSE HE IS, so now we’re right back to square one! except now Tomura and Spinner are secured inside of little marbles, and presumably Compress is the only one who can release them

oh nevermind he’s just maiming himself again instead, SHEESH

Skeptic a man is dying please have some goddamn respect

so, uh. is he gonna die, though??

I really can’t tell wtf is going on here, this is the most confusing the art has been in a while. Horikoshi put all of his spoons into that creepyass close-up panel earlier, that bastard

OMG WHAT ARE YOU SERIOUS

DON’T FUCKING TELL ME THE “COMPRESS IS RELATED TO THIS THIEF GUY FROM OLDEN TIMES” THEORY IS ACTUALLY TRUE WHAAAAAAT. OH SHIT

so apparently Harima was a Robin Hood type guy who stole from... heroes?? wtf. are heroes the 1% in this scenario. y’all didn’t have any Fortune 500 CEOs to steal from?

THAT’S THE BLOOD THAT FLOWS THROUGH YOU, OH SHIT. and in a related oh shit, the fact that we are getting a Compress flashback now of all times doesn’t bode super well for him. ffff

MEANWHILE THE TODOROKIS ARE STILL TODOROKI-ING

listen here boy if you touch one freaking hair on Shouto’s candy cane head I swear to god --

WHAT DID I FUCKING SAY!!!

SHOUTO NOOOOOO. WTF YOU’RE LITERALLY THE ONE GUY WHOSE WEAKNESS IS ABSOLUTELY NOT SUPPOSED TO BE FIRE. DABI YOU SHIT, YOU BETTER WATCH YOURSELF!! I’M PRINTING OUT A COPY OF THAT COMPRESS PANEL!!! KEEP AN EYE OUT ON THAT BEDROOM WINDOW YOU PUNK!!!

SO NOW POOR SHOUTO IS UNCONSCIOUS AND FALLING!! SOMEONE SAVE HIM!! WHO CATCHES THE CATCHER

COMPRESS LITERALLY HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE RIGHT NOW, WHAT IS HAPPENING

PLEASE DON’T CALL TOMURA LEADER OF THE “PLF” YOU KNOW I CAN’T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY WHEN YOU DO THAT. ARE YOU DYING. ARE YOU JUST A FUCKING HEAD NOW WTF

(ETA: “masks are removable, makeste” you know what it’s been a long day okay lmao. or I suppose Compress is really the one who is lmao.)

GASPPPPPP

okay. okay. looooool okay then

WHY WERE YOU COVERING THIS SEXY MOP OF HAIR UNDER THAT HOOD YOU TOOL. IT WOULD HAVE LOOKED SO GOOD WITH THE TOP HAT. I’M SO MAD AT YOU RIGHT NOW

as if it wasn’t enough for him to demask himself, he also had to get all shirtless and then do this weird attempt at a sexypose too huh

hard to say exactly how much of his torso is currently missing, but safe to say that’s proooooooobably not good. :///// fuck

on the other hand, Kacchan also has a torso hole and he’s still flying around like he just drank a dozen red bulls, so

this man lost his ass and he’s still out here monologuing like it’s the last two minutes of The Prestige. one might say he is monologuing his ass off

so he let Spinner and Tomura free, but is Dabi still trapped in his marble?? wasn’t he all on fire and stuff?? hopefully he can still turn off his quirk in there because if not that’s a pretty fucked up way to die. somewhere out there Snatch’s ghost is all “YEAH I’LL SAY.” oh how the turntables

last but not least, sooooooo. Tomura. back on the ground. that’s. um. ...shiiiiiiiit

#bnha 294 #mr. compress #...and actually that's pretty much it lol #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #sorry this is up later than usual (and mostly unedited as well)#just one of those days

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heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon · 3 years

Photo

Alright, so once again, this is the most recent post I could find vague blogging about me on her tumblr in regards to this specific issue so I don’t know where all the “Wow! heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon DID THAT?!” Anons are coming from here, or how those anons are aware that you even tried to submit me something, unless you’re just sending them to yourself to try and stir more trouble but just ....

Leanne, Leanne, Leanna Leanne.... I feel as though I must para-quote Gene Wilder’s character in Young Frankenstein here because just what is the matter with you? Like do you not understand the concept of hyperbole at all? Don’t you know a joke when you read one?

The entire reason I screenshot that ask this way was to show case the fact that color and formatting of the ‘t”, on what I didn’t know happened to be goth day just happened to match both the obnoxious eye sore color palette and theme of your tacky little blog, Princess.

The whole coincidence gave me the willies, so I was just making a funny, honey.

Although, apparently, you can’t comprehend my humor or my kindness because now isn’t that part of what got you into this mess in the first place?

“Luna” is for long time mutuals only. Don’t pretend like we’ve ever spoken more than twice, and don’t pretend like you ever gave a damn about my well being when you can’t even get my disability right. My correct name and minority status is written all over my blog. And to think you’re the one who bitched and complained to me about being called “Honey”.

I only found this on your blog because I have no way of responding to your original Submission even if I wanted to now because Tumblr seems to have eaten it (which, to that I say good riddance) and the only reason I found your Twitter is because it’s exactly the same as your gmail address due to the fact that you’re that basic. There wasn’t anything “random” about it.

“I would never send hate for no fucking reason...” Ah, but by that logic you would dish back hate to someone if you had a reason. So why would you like, concern troll me and chastise me for hate trolling someone when they gave me a reason?!

“And then to say that you that I would hack into your account? WHY??????? Why would I do that? I dont even know HOW to do that! YOU ARE TEARING MY HEART EMOJI APART LUNA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Again, honey, please calm down and teach yourself how to form a coherent sentence, learn the concept of what a hyperbolic joke is, leave your fandom(s) and get a freaking life.

I thought you were my friend too until the night you pulled that shit with me, respect that I blocked you and frick off.

And for the love of God, stop “joking” about writing smutty fanfics between you and Al and getting “married” to him and delete all of Angel’s pictures from your blog why don’t you!

Your obsession with all of us is beyond unhealthy.

“I know that you have reason to listen or believe me...” Honey, I know that when you were typing this your little crocodile tears were hitting the keyboard so hard that you couldn’t even form a coherent sentence and you need to shut the fuck up. (Also SIDE NOTE of how Cletus and Striker are like, the worst Helluva Boss characters to have “taste” in: Some sleazy little man baby and an ever only slightly cooler and more tolerable Wild West Reincarnation of Toffee, I should have known you were like this. Oh and that Vampire Chick from RE7 everyone including yourself is into right now is like if Eclipsa was a freaking Fairly Odd Parents Pixie and Meteora would have her daughters for a snack, both figuratively and literally. Die Angry About it.)

I had two whole interactions with you and I wanted to beat that bunny fursona of yours down with a tree branch Lilo and Stitch style the second you hopped into my ask box that night and 4 days later you gave me an excuse to. I only found out about the shit that you were putting my friends through when Orn started vague blogging to me about what you were doing to them after I exposed you as a snake in the grass arse little bitch and they had no reason to try and White Knight you.

In starlatte27’s case she was just tagged to help attack me by the same stalker that you were going out of your way to defend and latte blocked me before I could even so much as figure out who she was, meaning we didn’t even have an “altercation”, her existence to me personally at that point was merely a blip that served to cause me more disorientation and stress, but I knew she was just as much of a bitch as you were before my friends did and now you’re both causing them immeasurable harm in comparison to what I was put through and you both need to delete your blogs after you apologize. NOBODY WANTS YOU TWO IN THIS FANDOM!

I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in reading you reiterate your excuses for your racism and gross mistreatment towards my friends to me, nor do I care for your off putting arse attempting to have some sort of petty, infantilizing, paternalistic, para-social relationship with me!

Angel and Al, may I add, haven’t been online in weeks because of you and starlatte27, and now you’re only trying to get to me because I’ve still been available online and you’ve been bored. And if I had the capability and privilege of doing anything other than sitting, I can tell you that I certainly wouldn’t be in front of a computer right now if I actually even had the option not to be ether.

And for your information, being able to meet Angel and Al, at least out of all this mess in the first place, has been the only good experience that I’ve had within in this fandom thus far and their presence on my dashboard only makes my day brighter, I willingly shared my experiences with them to let know they’re not alone in all this shit.

Stop being a sleaze to Angel just because he’s more attractive than you and clearly not white passing, and delete all his photos from your blog.

Stop being a skeeve to Al and stop making “jokes” about marrying him and your jokes about smut because that’s actually beyond the conception of “cringe”.

Stop infantalizing me and acting as though you have some weird parental para-social relationship over me or some shit when I’m freaking three years older than you are, apologize to all three of us before deleting your accounts and dropping off the internet why don’t you and then leave all three of us the fuck alone!!!

I can tell how the little twit whom said this to me the other day has certainly never met you.

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lyrasilverspring · 4 years

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Aren

CW- some gender dysphoria stuff, not explicit

After her parents had died- been killed, Valkyrie had been sent to live in a peacekeeper’s observational house of care. There were very few in the district, and due to district two’s firm belief in the importance of family and lineage, they weren’t good places to end up. The carers didn’t know how to feel about her- to stand against one’s own family was taboo, but to do so in the name of the capitol demonstrated strength. As such, they tended to avoid her. She was discarded, but had potential. District two was not a good place to be a grey area. From the adults, the other children learned to avoid her, to be distrustful, and from them, Valkyrie learned to be distant. As she fuelled all her time into her studies, she began to overtake the other children in her class, and so her peers moved from avoidant to resentful. And she got used to having no one around.

When she was fifteen, she got her first job. She knew she would be kicked out of the home at eighteen, and that no one would be bending over to help her out. The peacemakers had signed her up for tribute training from a young age, and she continued it so as not to further hurt her reputation, but there were still a few hours outside of education and training that she could fill with work. So she did. She began at the lowest levels, carting building materials around sites. She was younger and smaller and more vulnerable than any of the other staff, but she learned how to stand her ground. Learned to walk the line of obedience versus submission. It was in her fourth week, after her third fight that she met Aren.

They’d strolled up and offered a clean cloth for her to wipe the blood off her fists.

“That was pretty impressive, Igor’s been asking for a beat down since the day he started here,” they grinned, seemingly unperturbed by the death glare Valkyrie was giving them, “I’m Aren, by the way.”

They stuck out their hand, and dropped it comfortably when it became clear that Valkyrie wasn’t going to reciprocate. They shrugged and began walking alongside her.

“They don’t like me either,” Aren offered, “Say that I think above my station as a lowly district two peon. Especially since I’m a no name.”

Valkyrie couldn’t help but stiffen at those words- she’d generally avoided learning anything about anyone, figuring it was mostly just distraction. But a no name? That meant their family had kicked them out, and they were no longer allowed to use their surname. It was essentially the worst thing that could happen outside of the peacekeeper’s rulings. To be a no name was to be no one. Meaning it was a bad idea for Valkyrie to be talking to them.

Aren must have seen the thoughts in her eyes, or perhaps just known from experience how people responded, “Look I’m not a bad person. My family kicked me out because I told them I wasn’t a boy or a girl, that’s all. It’s not that big a deal!” they kicked some debris angrily, “The Capitol accepts stuff like that, it makes no sense that it would be such a big issue.”

Valkyrie frowned, “Well that wouldn’t work for tribute selection though. You have to be picked as a boy or a girl, so obviously the districts can’t have that form of identity.”

Aren shrugged, momentarily surprised by the fact Valkyrie had spoken, “Well I’ll get my name put into both. Who cares. Besides, they’ll have to put in my surname even though I’m a no name- reapings are for the Capitol, not us.”

Valkyrie stopped suddenly. She hadn’t heard someone talk about the Capitol so dismissively in seven years. It was shocking, and uncomfortable, but familiar.

****

Aren had remained in Valkyrie’s life long after that day. Despite her coldness, they’d been happy to just fill the awkward silence with small quips and observations. Almost four years later, Aren was the closest thing Valkyrie had to a friend, and Valkyrie was the only person who would talk to them in more than curt and aggressive instructions. They were the only ones who would tolerate each other, and so each became the other’s entire support system. They lived in different houses of care, but had become old enough to go wherever they wanted, whenever. They found spots of abandoned building sites, edges of the district that were uninhabited. They would sometimes spend entire nights out in the open, choosing to brave the cold and watch the stars over returning to the suspicious, sometimes disgusted looks waiting for them at their respective homes.

Valkyrie wasn’t in love with Aren. She wasn’t sure that that was an option for her anymore. But she loved them. There was an unwavering certainty that they would have each other, in spite of anything that might come their way. It was a small comfort, but one she could cling to when she heard someone sneer under their breath about her parents, or watched them choose a less qualified strong blood for a position based on name alone.

One night Aren was late to their favourite spot, and when they showed up, they were so drunk that Valkyrie smelt them before she saw them.

“Valkyrie!” they stumbled down next to her, spilling some sort of spirit onto her leg, “My favourite person!”

“Aren?” she frowned, “Since when do you get this drunk?”

They’d drank a bit through the years, but never this much. They weren’t safe enough to be found this drunk- no one would care enough to help them, and many would jump on the choice to hurt them, physically or in reputation.

“Well, my love,” they drawled, “It has been quite the day,” they took another swig, spilling more onto their front, “Guess who walked back into my life today?”

Valkyrie opened her mouth to answer but Aren spoke before she could, “My dearest mother! My father died, it turns out. No one told me, but now I know, and guess what? She always disagreed with me being sent away- she always thought it would be better to keep me locked away in the house,” they began to imitate a high, foreign voice, “After all, anything Aren does out in the world might get back to the family!”

Valkyrie blinked, “Aren this is… a big fucking deal.”

Aren grinned lazily, eyes slightly unfocused, “That it is Valkyrie my dear, that it fucking is! Because my mother,” they spat the word, “Has already been speaking to the house of care, and I absolutely will be returning to them. And I will be kept within the walls of the family house and kept as the girl I was always supposed to be,” they laughed miserably, “She was very clear about that. They ‘will not be entertaining my fantastic ideas of grandeur’ anymore.”

Valkyrie just watched them for a second, noting the shaking hands holding the bottle, “Well… you’re going to turn eighteen in just a few days, right? Then you can leave them, and we can get that place we were looking at- you’ve been a no name this long, and you never thought they’d take you back, it’s kind of no different, right?”

Aren’s laugh was bitter, “Oh Valkyrie. Little Miss Maddox. You know as well as I do that there’s no choice in this. I’m going back to them because they want me, and the minute I cross that threshold I’m never seeing the light of day again.”

Valkyrie’s face dropped, “Why- I understand that,” she began slowly, “But what I don’t understand is why you’re giving in so quickly. You’re strong and smart, and I know you could get out if you wanted to. Why are you so accepting of what’s going to happen?”

“Valkyrie,” Aren’s hands came up to grasp her face, and she felt the spit slick bottle against her cheek, “No names don’t get second chances. This is literally my best chance, it’s a fucking act of god.”

Valkyrie felt her stomach fall. Aren was choosing this. It was a shitty position, but Aren was still making that fucking choice.

“You would rather live your life locked up with them than with me?” she whispered, their faces close enough that they would feel her breath on their cheek.

Aren threw her head back, “You’re making this about you? How fucking self-absorbed can you be? They’re taking me back, Valkyrie! And you know that if your parents were still here you’d make the same fucking choice!”

Valkyrie let her head drop, wrapping her arms around her knees, “You’re just drunk. You’re just saying this because you’re drunk. Please, just put the fucking alcohol down, and then you’ll sober up, and then we can have an actual conversation-“

Aren laughed again, angrier this time, “There she is! The strong, brave, untouchable Valkyrie Maddox, ladies and gentlemen! Still the same lost, unloved seven year old begging for someone to take care of her!” they took another swig, “Do you know what they say about us? Do you?”

Valkyrie just shook her head. She had always avoided listening to the others and kept her head down.

“They say,” Aren’s voice dropped into a low sneer, “That you may have traitor parents, but it was insane that you would waste your time with a disgusting no name like me. They say that you’re so brave and strong and could be so much more without someone like me holding you back. But what they don’t know,” they crouched down to whisper into her ear, “Is that deep down, you’re just that same pathetic child who couldn’t convince her family to care about her.”

Valkyrie reared back, getting to her feet, “Aren, your family don’t want you! I don’t understand why you would choose them and the prison they have planned for you!”

Aren watched her as they took another lazy swig, “Valkyrie this whole district is a fucking prison, we just get to choose our cell. And this?” they looked around the exposed, dusty site they were in, broken tools left to rust, “This just isn’t good enough for me.”

Valkyrie didn’t wait to hear what else they had to say. She began to walk home, and for the first time in four years, Aren didn’t follow. And Valkyrie didn’t return. To any of their spaces. A week after Aren’s eighteenth birthday, she heard a coworker whisper about the unfortunate accident in the Castell family. A fire. Everyone had made it out but the returned no name. ‘Good riddance’ they’d said.

She didn’t react. That night she’d gone home to her new single room, paid for with her own money, and waited for the tears to come. They didn’t.

#cgtaskthree #whoops #very sad #as per #apologies for the ridiculous length

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mycenacommenta · 5 years

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I'm so disgusted with this community.

In the past few months, members of this community have lied to me, insulted me, thrown shade at me, literally stolen real-life money from me, tricked and gaslit me, and so much more that I'm not even going to go into right now. I've met like one or two good eggs, but everyone else on Mycena Cave just seems so incredibly self-centered, entitled, and toxic that I can't stand it anymore.

There are so many problems with the way the queues are run, with staff favoritism (I got word they're hiring someone who was publicly a jerk to people who disagreed with the old queue system), and with the cliquiness of staff and their friends in general. You can't criticize a single thing on the site without being accused of bullying staff or their favorites, and the people who suck up to staff get to say whatever they want to the people who criticize staff just because staff likes them. I've never seen the level of vitriol slung at staff that I've seen thrown at people who criticize staff, despite what some people would claim.

Even worse are the people who have serious problems with the way the site is run but who stay on the site anyway, even continuing to throw money at it. Did you know there's an entire Discord server now that was made exclusively for crapping on Mycena Cave? And most of the people there are active and involved members of the MC community. It's not even just legitimate complaints that are being aired there (though there are some of those as well); it's literally trashing the artists and their art, the staff members, and people who defend staff. The things people are saying there would absolutely be considered bullying, not just criticism, if they said it to the faces of the people they were gossiping about. One of the people in this server stole the aforementioned money from me; the other exploited Mycena Cave's lack of a block feature to attempt to give back a gift I had given them after I cut them off for participating in toxicity.

And the worst people? The worst people are the ones who've quit the site, but instead of severing ties with it, they come back occasionally just to make vagueposts, insults, or or accusations about the way the site is run. I distinctly remember an occasion where one of these people sent their customs to friends before making a callout post for staff members so that if they got banned, their customs wouldn't be trapped on their account. Fortunately, I haven't run across that many of these people, but one of the ones I did encounter harassed and vagued me on multiple occasions through Discord servers and DMs.

I can't get back the years I wasted thinking this site was some sort of safe haven from the gossip and bigotry I face in everyday life. I can't get back the energy I spent trying to upkeep friendships with the people here that were destined to fail. I can't get back the pixel money I sunk into pretty pixel dress-up items for pretty pixel pets. I can't get back the real money I threw at the site or, hell, even the money I lent in good faith to a "friend" who stole it without a second thought. What I can do is quit the site and not waste any more time, energy, or money on it or its userbase.

Mycena Cave was a huge part of my life for several years, and I'm ashamed of that. I'm ashamed to have shared such a huge chunk of my time with such petty, shallow, hateful people. I'm ashamed of the community, and even more, I'm ashamed of myself for ever trusting anyone here to be kind or helpful or to reciprocate the energy, good faith, and care I invested in my relationships with them, whether they were an administrator, acquaintance, or friend.

Goodbye, Mycena Cave, and good riddance.

#mycena cave #submission

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foxydivaxx · 5 years

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Bad Blood Chapter 1

Originally, this was meant to be connected to Young Justice: Demigods Arising but I have decided to tweak it a bit and make it the true Demigods Arising story of sorts. This is connected to the Osiris fic and whilst it is kinda Cassie-centric, it also focuses on other characters too.

"Any news about Cassie?"

"Nah. No one has found her yet."

Tim sighs. It has been a month since Cassie disappeared after her humiliating defeat to Vanessa for the Wonder Girl title. Part of her regrets that decision to have said duel take place. She made that decision not considering what Cassie was going through then. The poor girl lost her then boyfriend Conner Kent and later got dumped by him. Sure, Conner returned but their relationship soon turned toxic to the point where the two engaged in a physical altercation in the School Hall that caused Cassie to get suspended for two weeks. As a result of this, Diana decided to punish her not taking into consideration Cassie’s physical and mental exhaustion at that point. According to Tatiana, Cassie overtrained herself and that led to Cassie’s humiliating defeat.

And now it is too late, Cassie has gone and would never return and if she ever returns, the girl would have joined the Dark Side which should not surprise anyone given her heritage and the negative influence of people like Ares. As if that wasn't bad enough, Cassie's younger twin sister Tatiana also followed suit.

Adding more to the Cassie mystery is that she immediately deleted all her social media accounts on the same day as her defeat. That alone alarmed everyone as it is a well-known fact that Cassie loved taking selfies and playing around on social media and often talks to fans on there. But now that her presence is no longer felt, many began to panic, feeling that the poor girl might have committed suicide. This naturally led to the #JusticeForCassie campaign and #WonderWomanCancelled movement.

Please let Cassie not be dead.

Meanwhile in her room, Barbara was going through some files that she managed to dig up about HIVE case. So far she had managed to find some leads. Heck she can even say that she is far more competent and smarter than the entire Team as they are all a bunch of little kids. What was Batman thinking of putting little kids on a superhero team? Ok they are young kids, but they still could qualify for a wannabe superhero team since they all wear stupid outlandish costumes and use silly codenames, themselves and the so-called adults that call themselves Justice League. Seriously, what the fuck is that fucked up shit? Worst of the bunch as far as she is concerned is none other than Wonder Woman's little sidekick Cassie Sandsmark better known as Wonder Girl.

That girl is such a tragic trainwreck and a bitch. What did Tim and Conner ever see in her? What really pisses her off about the brat is that the girl reminds her of the stupid alien that Dick dated years ago. What was her name again? Oh yes Starfire. More like Hofire. Both of them are disgustingly beautiful. Starfire is a bit better because at least she can kick some ass. Cassie is completely useless that one forgets that she is supposed to be a fucking demigoddess yet someone like Damian can whoop her ass. She should even be able to go toe to toe with Supergirl and give her a nasty beatdown but nope, she gets her ass handed to her. Plus she dared to steal her Dickie from her.

Where did Diana find this child again? Oh yes, Diana did not find her instead the child fucking inserted herself into the Wonder Woman narrative just like Damian forced his way into the Robin title and never once earned nor deserved a single shit till recently. When will those brats learn? No wonder some people wished for Vanessa to take over as Wonder Girl. Ironically said girl is now Wonder Girl now how hilarious.

And alas, poor Cassie has disappeared and is nowhere to be seen. Well GOOD FUCKING RIDDANCE! Barbara cackles evilly as she still plays around on her system.

Meanwhile at Gateway city, Tatiana was in her room with tears in her eyes whilst Donna comforts her. Cassie disappeared immediately after that defeat. One could understand why because that sort of defeat is very humiliating especially when the very girl that caused most of the unneeded drama in your life is responsible for it.

Making matters worse is the fact that many thought that Cassie was an irresponsible person and therefore unworthy to be Wonder Girl. This has been an ongoing debate for the past couple years. Sure Cassie has a temper but she can actually control said temper for the most part. The only reason that said rage has become more pronounced is as a result of Ares’ evil manipulation of his sister; something Diana and Zeus himself warned Cassie about.

Cassie naturally took the bait since she had lost her powers during that time, not like anyone could blame her. Still the fact that many people bashed her for this, Diana included was horrible. Now after years of hypocrisy on the side of the heroes, no one should be surprised if Cassie suddenly and openly denounces them and exposes all their secrets or even goes all Superboy Prime on them or worse commit suicide.

Donna sighed. Sure Cassie has some shortcomings but Diana herself is a hypocrite, in fact everyone has been hypocritical when it comes to Cassie. A lot of the criticism being leveled upon the girl might as well be applied to other heroes as well like Conner or Tim for instance.

Ironically said hypocrisy has been thrown at Amon aka Osiris several times which is why said boy has distanced himself from the superhero community recently. Black Adam openly lambasted the League and everyone else for that and rightfully so.

I hope you find happiness and peace Cassie.

Just then Donna’s phone rings. She checks the phone and discovers that it is Kori calling her. She then answers the call. “Hi Kori.”

“Donna....you have to come down here quick!!”

A couple miles in New York, Cassie is standing on top of a rooftop, preparing to throw herself down and commit suicide. Now one would find it laughable since she is meant to be a demigoddess, until they realize one disturbing detailing: Cassie lost her powers yet again during the duel and has remained powerless ever since.

The rest of the Team bursts through the door. “CASSIE DON’T!!” Conner shouts. Cassie turns around with tears in her eyes. The others begin to feel guilty for making her feel that way.

“There is nothing left for me here. You have all made it clear that I do not belong here. So why waste my time when I can just elsewhere and find peace. Heck even Hell is more peaceful than here. I cannot stay with the gods because of they are going through their own drama and are killing each other anyway.”

She takes a couple steps back. “Cassie I understand why you are mad at us and you have every right to hate us. But I want you to know that there are people that still love you regardless.” Kori says in the most gentle way possible.

It was at that moment that Cassie literally explodes. “LIES!! PURE UTTER LIES!! IF YOU ALL REALLY CARED, YOU WOULD HAVE ALLOWED ME TO PROPERLY EXPLAINED MYSELF!! YOU WOULD NOT HAVE ENCOURAGED TIM OR ANYONE TO BE ABUSIVE TO ME!!! YOU WOULD HAVE STOPPED BABS WHEN YOU SPREAD HER FILTHY GOSSIP ABOUT ME AND ALL OF YOU JOINED IN TO SLUTSHAME ME FOR YOUR PLEASURE!! YOU ARE AS BAD AS THE MEDIA!! PURE UTTER HYPOCRITES WHO ONLY CARE ABOUT HOOTING THEIR HORNS!! NOW I CAN SEE WHY PEOPLE LIKE JASON TURNED THEIR BACKS ON HUMANITY AND CHOSE TO DO HARDCORE JUSTICE!! YOU MOTHERFUCKERS ARE NOT SO DIFFERENT FROM THE VERY FOOLS WE HAVE BEEN FIGHTING FROM YEARS!!”

Everyone keeps quiet. Cassie clearly had been waiting for this moment and she has now gotten an audience. “Oh and speaking of failures, how many times have we been supposedly, not I used supposedly in quotation marks here because that shows how stupid you all are, were ahead of the bad guys only for them to outsmart us and somehow win?”

Dick and Kaldur exchange looks. “You know, had it not been for my father, I would have rotted in jail. Oh and special shoutout to the Black Adam family, the only family that ever truly cared about me. Plus of course Donna and Tatiana. The rest of you can go fuck yourselves and leave me be!!” She turns her back to them and ignores them as she walks over to the edge.

“Cassie wait...”

She stops and turns around as Vanessa walks in. “Cassie, listen I know you are mad. If you want to lash out. Take it out on me.” she says calmly, hands raised. Before anyone could say anything, Cassie stomps towards her so-called rival and aims a punch at Vanessa who does nothing to stop her.

Fortunately for her, Cassie stops mid-punch and drops to her knees and begins to break down in tears. Vanessa bends down and hugs her predecessor. “Listen Cass. No matter what anyone else says, you will always be Wonder Girl. In fact you are way better than I am. I do not like the great divide that Diana has created. There are other ways this could have been done.” she says. Cassie simply sobs, feeling very bad for lashing out.

“I...I’m so sorry...”

Vanessa smiles softly. “You do not have to apologise. We are both victims in this. Besides, I told Diana that I quit.” Cassie stares at her in disbelief. ”You did not have to.”

“Yet I did.”

Cassie shakes her head. “No. You remain Wonder Girl.” Cassie then smiles. “Besides, you earned it anyways.” Vanessa giggles and hugs her back. Everyone heaves a sigh of relief.

Osiris who had just arrived makes a slow descent next to them. “Cass, I understand you hate everyone and whatnot but if you throw yourself down there, chances are you might end up worse than Todd the moment they choose to bring you back from the dead. Or if you choose down a dark path now, you might end up the way Adam did years ago.”

The girl simply nods. “ I might as well go clear my mind of things for a while.”

He comes closer to her. “You know, you could have simply asked and I would gladly take you home with me so that you can get some breathing space since quite frankly, you need some of that.’ She rolls her eyes. “Fine. Let’s go.’ She wraps her arms around his neck with him wrapping his arms aorund her securely and together they fly away.

“Wait....that was it?“ says Garfield, earning a smack across the head from Raven. “Oww!!” he grumbles. Tim meanwhile stares up at the sky with jealousy in his eyes which is funny considering his relationship with Stephanie.

So she has choosen him hm? This whole shit was a setup to make that announcement.

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mergatroid-jones-blog · 5 years

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Twin Mickey

(A short story)

* 1 *

I don't have a name. That's because there's nobody to give me one. There's nobody to call me by it either, due to the nature of my particular birth defect. I'm three eighths of one inch tall. Not only that, I don't have my own body. Not exactly. I live in my brother's head. We're twins I guess. Some kind of conjoined twins--only instead of being conjoined on the outside, I live inside his head. He doesn't know I exist. Nobody does.

For all I know I'm a very common medical phenomenon. Micky's never had a brain scan-- maybe I wouldn't even show up. That's my brother's name: Micky Van Buskirk. It's sort of my name too, since I don't have one. I stole a little piece of my brother's name. I steal a little piece of everything he has. I'm a parasite. That's what I've decided. Or maybe I'm cancer. I certainly don't do anything to help him. All I can do is sit around his head and complain. He can't hear me, no matter how loud I shout. You aren't designed to hear from the inside. I figured that out.

But that doesn't matter. I still scream about everything. What else do I have? It's like I'm chained to the floor in front of the worst TV show, and I can't reach the remote. Forever. My brother really might be king of the idiots. Like all the best idiots, he's just clever enough to convince himself that he's being awfully rational in any given situation. He's convinced himself that everything he's ever done was absolutely the only thing he could have done. He probably thinks he's had a really hard time of it. He hasn't.

I know literally everything about him, but his motives are a mystery to me. Like when he stole Jacob Yockey's jacket in high school. It was sitting there, all lime green and fake-leather, and he just put it in his backpack like he'd been planning it all along. He didn't need the jacket, and he wasn't some kind of kleptomaniac. That was the only time he did something like that. He put it in the back of his closet and there it sat. He didn't wear it, and he didn't have anything against Jacob Yockey either. Jacob Yockey never hurt anybody. One day, Jacob mentioned that his jacket was lost, and my brother was there. Micky laughed, and he said “Soggy pickles.” What the hell is that??

That night, he actually put the jacket on for the first and only time. He was still wet and naked from the shower. He posed and made faces at himself for at least three minutes. My brother is barely five feet tall, quite fat, and covered in thick, curly, black hair. He's not physically attractive. I heard Jacob Yockey lives in Toronto now, and he's gay and breeds expensive dogs. Good for Jacob Yockey I guess. He sure was funny looking in high school.

* 2 *

You would think that self-loathing and egotism would contradict one another, but they make surprisingly genial bedfellows. My brother will be convinced that he is worth less than the scum under a pretty girl's fingernail. Then in the same hour, he'll realize once again that the world is almost entirely idiots, and that he miraculously isn't one. If they'd just ask the non-idiots, the world would get along better. Again, these sentiments seem like a contradiction, but my brother has never noticed the inconstancy. Most people don't seem to notice inconsistencies like that.

Perhaps they would notice if they spent a day as a pimple. That's how I think of myself: a brain-pimple. Like when you get a pimple on the inside of your nose, but deeper. My brother is always picking his nose, and he's not subtle about it. He used to eat his boogers, and he didn't stop until he was sixteen. He really is a disgusting shit. One time when we were about seven, he took off his pants, crawled under the bed, and peed into the carpet. For no reason. What reason could he have possibly had? He just did it to test his body? To test the carpet? That carpet is still there by the way, and I doubt anybody has ever shampooed it. I think I really hate him.

If I had to live in somebody's head, it didn't have to be such a boring nincompoop. Mickey Van Buskirk has never done anything I would care to watch. Weird stuff sure. Gross stuff, definitely. But nothing good. Once he spent a whole day sorta following around this old man who carried a trombone. I guess he thought the guy was a creep, but who's the creep when you're stalking some old guy all day? Weird stuff, he does. Gross stuff he does. I've seen him lick a banister after a pretty girl touched it at least nine different times. Nasty.

* 3 *

What a miserable little shit. Here's what happens every time: he gets a shitty job and he hates it. And he hates it more and more for a whole year. Then he throws a fit, quits, and gets a new shitty job. He's like clockwork. After high school, he told our mom he was going to be a pharmacist. Whatever happened to that? He was never going to be a pharmacist and he probably knew it. I'm sure Mom wasn't fooled. She's not stupid like Mickey.

My brother has only ever had one girlfriend that lasted, and that's because she's an even bigger idiot than he is. Angela is her name. They've broken up four times. They broke up again last week. He made out with her sister Kara. She did it to piss Angela off. He just did it because it was on offer. Fucking idiot. The thing was Angela wasn't actually all that mad about it. Kara was getting revenge for previous transgressions. But it brought up all this drama, and everybody hates each other now.

Good riddance. I hope I never see those two again. Talk about entitled. Not one of the three of them can form a cogent thought. Angela literally sets fires and puts them out for fun. But Mickey can't find words to voice this legitimate concern other than “You're a psycho-bitch.” That doesn't tend to help. But who cares? She walked out and maybe it'll stick. Mickey got good and drunk after that. He got high on pills too. Good. I can share in that. Then he looked at a bunch of “furry” porn. Disgusting. I really hate him.

* 4 *

He had hated his job at the print shop for almost a year, so I wasn't surprised when he threw a tantrum at work. My brother has always been able to throw a tantrum for what seems like no reason. I think he must plan it in advance. The printer was being crap, and Annie was blaming him for it as usual. So he started throwing boxes everywhere and screaming “It's fucking bullshit, and I can't fucking bullshit!” He said the word “bullshit” twenty-seven times in total. I counted. He ripped off his Clayborn Printing shirt, threw it at Annie, and walked out. She didn't say a word. I don't know if she was angry or amused. At least she had to deal with the printer herself. Horrible woman.

Then what did he do? He called Angela crying and babbling incomprehensibly. I was surprised she hung up on him. Good for her. Then his classic pity party. I've seen it a thousand times. He buys a fifth of Wild Turkey and gets some pills. Angela is kind of a pill head and he's kinda one too when he's with her. Then he rolls down the windows (even if it's winter) and blares Linkin Park at full volume all the way to Foy Point in the national forest. It's isolated. It's also incidentally where he lost his virginity to Sarah Spiller who later turned out to be somehow related to us. Good going.

He did what he normally does. He drank as much of the fifth as he physically could. He smoked every cigarette he had. He used his lighter to blow a fireball with the bourbon, then he threw the bottle (still one third full) into a tree. All that was normal. Then he went for the pills, and I noticed he had brought every bottle that Angela had stored at his house. Most of them were almost empty, but it was quite an array. He dumped them all out into a Halloween candy-pile on the picnic table. He was going to kill himself! I screamed at him “YES! Do it! Finally, I'm done with you! I'm fucking done, you piece of living shit-fucking shit!” I really was excited.

* 5 *

He looked at all the pills, and he shuffled them around. There would have been enough to kill ten Mickey Van Buskirks and a thousand brain-pimple brothers. Then he arranged them by color. Then he shuffled them again. Then he took a little yellow one. Then he took a handful. No good. He couldn't swallow them all. He didn't have any water, and the bourbon was all over a tree. He puked. Now there were two Halloween candy-piles.

Foy point overlooks a creek, and it's not all that far down if you go through the brambly parts. Mickey did. He really wanted to die. I was proud of him. He took a Styrofoam cup from Frosty Time, and filled it in the creek. The brambles cut him up, but he was too drunk to care. He took two handfuls of random pills, and swallowed them with creek water. Then he screamed “I did it!”

He had. I've never wanted anything more than to die. I would have been jumping up and down if I had legs. But then, Mickey Van Buskirk had an attack of cowardice. He was too much of a coward even to take the coward's way out. He clutched at his uvula for dear life, and life it gave him. He made himself puke. Then again. Then again. More candy-piles. It was horrible to watch. He was covered in it. If he had waited just five minutes, I bet he would have been too far gone. What a failure.

* 6 *

He woke up the next day, sunburned and thirsty. He was covered in little cuts, and vomit, and Wild Turkey. I woke up too. Alive. I really hate him. Before he drove home (well below the speed limit) he produced his pocket knife. It always makes a satisfying click when he takes out the blade. A lot of things were carved into the picnic table. A crude owl. A penis. A fancy heart. One message said “Be happy.” Another said “Smoke a fat blunt biotch 420!” Another said ambiguously “Is waterlogged and so am I.”

It was important for Mickey to carve something into that table. It must have been important for him to stare at it so long. Something big had happened there, and he needed to commemorate it. He needed to write a message of his own: to speak and be heard. After at least three minutes of staring, he carved his statement on the table very large above the owl. Here's what it says:

“Fuck”

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riskeith · 3 years

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aside from that, ur graphics must look incredible! i’ve seen some comparison pics and pc graphics are God Tier. help the second lowest being “high”... good riddance. 😶

summer 2016! it seems so long ago like a whole different universe. everything was so beautiful back then.. everybody was out and about hunting pokémon’s... that zine is so cute! i wouldn’t say main i actually only got into them a little while ago and i’m still mostly tddk and kiribaku but bkdk is interesting.. to say the least. i haven’t seen what happens in the manga (only a bit of spoilers especially that cover...) and s4 didn’t give us That many scenes with them but i’m keeping my eyes open... wbu?

IDK like their descriptions make it seem like they might help you find some specific treasures??? like the gold seelie giving you fortune aka mora? not sure tho hehe... YEAH THAT FANART!!! so cute i wanna eat them all.. forbidden snack. 🥺 omg funny you mention that... i met xiao just earlier for the first time and when i saw his entire outfit i was like.. hm i wonder what he would look like in darker clothing HAHA. but yeah skins would be awesome!!!! like a clothing shop or smth somewhere????? anyway when i saw him i was like HEY that’s cluna’s boy!

ALBEDO IS A BAD BITCH. his hair is perfect perfect perfect. actually everything about him is so perfect he’s just a delicate little guy... 🥺 dude us talking about albedo and opening up the game and seeing his banner is like... 👀 temptation.

with venti??? i’m not sure which quest you mean i did the archon one with him though and it was awesome. does he have more? I DID LOOK IT UP AND MURASE IS MAKING HIS VOICE EVEN HIGHER AND IT’S SO CUTE I WISH I KNEW IT BEFOREHAND SO I COULD’VE HEARD HIS VOICE WHILE DOING THE MISSION. 😭 oh well 😭

hopefully there are some good 4 stars too. who are you wishing for? anyone special? imagine having xingqiu and chongyun.... that’s like the dream. and bennett and razor and you have the boy scout party haha!! do you have mostly claymore users?

i remember you mentioning you don’t like book users but i’ve actually really grown to love them hehe. their long range attacks are so nice and handy! KAZE DA! 😭 bro stop i literally have a crush on venti it’s ridiculous.. imagine closing ur eyes and talking and it’s his voice.... (OR HINATA!!!) murase is so lucky... he seems like such a great guy too ajsksjdk..

ok friends to lovers goodness! 🥺 i’m considering getting twitter just to see fanart... maybe.. o.o

ooooo that’s so thorough! in all caps caught my attention, why do you do that? personally, if it’s something longer i write bulletpoints of the concept but never like... actual plot yk? i’ve tried before but i doesn’t work for me very well. so.. i wing it! and like you i just get inspired randomly, it could be from song lyrics or thinking about tropes i enjoy. 😜

loona is cool! they have this whole story about their group. i highly recommend checking them out! i wonder if they kept it up though lmao. oh yeah everyone loves hozier he just speaks to the soul.. LOVELY IS MY FAVORITE SONG!!!!! LIKE EASILY TOP SONGS OF MY LIFE!!! it makes me so happy that you like it even if you skip it lmaojsjdjsjsjdk and i like billie a lot!! ariana too she has great music.., idk if you’ve heard of the group the neighborhood but i like them too. lana del rey as well! haha guess it’s super basic stuff tbh. all of them with mostly slow songs.. sorry 😭

OK GOOD. all nighters are honestly horrible. i don’t get how people can pull them off and get things done... (hopefully you never have to either!) YEAH haha 8 am is my favorite hour i think... that and 9 pm. they’re just special. what’s your favorite time of day? listen if you stay up to read fics that’s valid. midnight up is like the perfect time to read fics it makes them appear more magical sjdkdhdk.

i hope i caught you today but if not, hope you’re sleeping well babe! ♥️

sorry i was playing genshin! JFKSNXKSNKSJ i started before 12am and before i knew it it was already 1am… my goodness

and yeah i watched this vid comparing the graphic quality settings (i play on the default one) and i was like??? people really be playing like this? LOL can’t relate

edit: missed this paragraph oops but yeah what a time 2016 was! (lmao voltron started that year iirc) i remember we had an athletics event and legit everyone was on their phones jfksnfksnd. oooo! nice tddk and krbk are very good very nice. and also yeah that cover lol i love that you didn’t even have to specify which one i just Know. hmm i think rn bkdk would be one of the top ships i’m interested in aside from todobaku? they just have so much history ya know? and they have a lot of moments in the second movie! oh wait did you know that there are movies? two of them in fact!! the kiribaku is pretty strong in the first one (but there are some todobaku moments too lol). and there are a few OVAs too. WAIT are you all caught up with the anime? can’t rmemeber if you’ve told me or not 😫

oooo if that were the case tho what would the others give? i did like the “sea blue” description or something of the blue one tho 😩 YOU WANNA EAT THEM FJDJCJSKNCSKJCKSNXJS NO!!! but i can understand.. they look very squishy. THAT’S MY BOY!!!!!! honoured you thought of me <33 yo i was also wondering what chongyun would look like in darker clothes too HDKSKDN see this is why i need to learn how to draw.… gotta put them in the clothes i want since we can’t do that in game!! but a shop would be so cute omg

JFKSKSKAKS i’ve legit been staying away from opening the wish menu as much as i can.… it’s too tempting i can’t!!

yeah the archon one is what i meant sorry! forgot the name for it lol. and yes there is! once you reach AR 35 or something you can unlock story quests and venti is one of them 👀👀 RIPPPP BUT AT LEAST YOU KNOW NOW 😭😭

i think just xingqiu rn!! i’ve been holding off ascending barbara in hopes of getting him, bc i grinded some oceanid (literally the worst fucking boss ever) before i ascended so i’m just hoarding those materials rn fjskdnd. yesss the boy scouts 😭🥺 but i heard chongyun and razor’s elemental skills cancel each other out so rip.. hmm i did a count and i think i have 3 each of claymore and catalyst users! hbu?

omg nooooo betrayal 😭 tho ngl i’m considering using ningguang bc i see people play her so well.. so i’m just carrying her around in my team hoping to passively level her up HAHAHA. i def appreciate their long range attacks too, lisa’s burst especially is quite nice. CHJDKSKD that’s so cute but also very relatable 😭😭😭🥺🥺🥺🥺 also did you know murase is like tall af it’s kinda crazy lol

there’s /so/ much good fanart!!! it’s where i’m getting a taste of all the ships too lol but yeah there’s angst and fluff and just charas looking s*xy they’ve got it all 😩 but that also reminds me, like most other big fandoms genshin fandom is kinda fkn shit 😔 once again i’m thankful to myself for keeping such a small circle lmaooooo

honestly i don’t know either?? i think it helps me distinguish between what i’m actually writing vs what i’m planning like if i do something like “JUMPS OFF PLATFORM, LANDS IN FRONT. so, are you going to introduce me or do i have to do it myself ETC THEN THEY TALK SUDDENLY there’s the sound of a windchime, and VILLAINS HERE GOTTA FIGHT” it’ll look something like that jdjsndkskd where the lowercase is exact dialogue I wanna write in but the caps is just planning

but winging it ey that’s hot of you 🤪 god do you ever just like thinking about potential ideas before falling asleep but then your phone is far away/you don’t wanna hurt your eyes looking at a screen but then you’re also afraid you’ll forget the idea DJKSXKSK

:o! i think i stayed away bc of the whole “stan loona” thing DHSKKS but i might give them another shot! therefore i am is one of my go to songs rn hehe i really like the beats she uses they’re so funky. i don’t really like ariana sorry FJDJKSKS but she does have a lot of bangers!! side to side… 😘👌 and i do know the neighbourhood! sweater weather is so iconic but lately i’ve been skipping that too aahah. but have you heard daddy issues slowed? oh my god. that singlehandedly started my obsession with slowed songs (ironic isn’t it when you consider i don’t listen to normal slow songs fjsjdj) i like summertime sadness from lana! and young and beautiful too (the radio songs AHAH) but yeah.. they’re slow fjdkksks. how do you feel about halsey + melanie martinez + bastille? (i’m always paranoid about listing artists bc so many get cancelled or what other and i feel like randos are gonna come for me too JDKSKSKA.) oh and troye sivan!! and pentatonix if you’ve heard of them? i was obsessed with those two back in 2015 ahaha

omg crazy.. how!! hm my favourite hour is maybe 12pm? or 2pm? just some time in the afternoon i like when it’s still light outside but it’s also like “after school” time kinda .. and yesss reading fic at late hours… gets me crying more easily 🤪

i don’t think i’ll catch your next reply so goodnight in advance!! hope your day is great <3

#marriage anon #wowclunaanswers #long post #can’t tell if it should have a ‘read more’ or not bc i’m on mobile LOL #can’t insert one even if i wanted smh tmblr make your app better

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womanwiththepoppytattoo · 4 years

Text

The choice

Aug. 16 2020

I briefly dated a guy about 15 years ago who was physically abusive. Nothing too extreme: he busted my lip once, that sort of thing. Mostly he liked to terrorize me. This relationship was not terribly important in the scheme of things, and it does not, as two of the three therapists I've fired concluded, establish a pattern of "codependency" (insert eyeroll). The only reason it took me a few months to end it is that I was really fucking pissed off that I always get screwed out of my happy ending, and I wasn't ready to accept another loss yet. But I stray from my point. Most domestic violence victims fight back, I later learned. I did not. I think it's because I grew up without siblings (until I was 12) and I had never been in a fight in my life, not even a play-fight. I literally just did not know how to physically defend myself. But that doesn't mean I was a complacent victim. I didn't do the "I walked into a cabinet" thing. When someone asked me afterwards what happened to cause my minor but visible injuries, I would say "this SOB hit me," and the repentant boyfriend would be appropriately ashamed of himself. I might tolerate a lot of shit that I shouldn't, but you will not make me lie about it, blame myself, or cover for the abuser.

Knowing that, it probably won't surprise you that I can't talk about Rey, even at his memorial service, without alluding to the fact that he hurt me really badly. I think I've alienated most of the people who knew him by doing this. It just feels dishonest to omit this fact. It feels disrespectful to myself. Maybe I don't have quite enough self-respect to just say "good riddance," and move on with my life, but I do have enough to speak my truth.

I've had another really rough patch lately. A lot of it is about feeling unseen by the people around me, and feeling like I cannot relate to any other human being and never will again. Anyone who understands psychology at all will know that the latter is fatal - a human animal will do anything to avoid feeling excluded from the society of other humans. We are not self-sufficient; we need other people, or at least a mental representation of other people, like we need oxygen. My theory is that our reality is something that we co-create in the space between us; in the absence of other humans, or when we feel exiled or self-exiled in some way from our fellow humans, we will use our memories and ideas of people as stand-ins to reflect what we project and create the universe. So, guess which mental representation is always present in my mind? The memory of the person who hurt me the most in my entire life, and who clearly did not love me at all. And when I feel alone and depressed is when I tend to dive into those memories and recall the specifics - the lies, the manipulations, the gaslighting, the exploitation, the mind games and power plays. I guess I figure, I'm already down here, I'll do a little tidying up while I'm here. I have the idea that I need to face these memories and catalog them and analyze them and neutralize their power with daylight. The problem is that when I do this, I get the worst version of Rey in the forefront of my mind, and it pushes out the good version.

I know that Rey did not love me when he was alive. He was not capable of that emotion. But I believe - or I mostly believe - that he came back to visit me after his death, that he gave me lovely dreams to try to make it right, that he gifted me a life-changing understanding of how the universe works, and that my love for him is a bridge that could connect us for the rest of my life. But it is really hard to reconcile this Rey with the one in the text messages and my journals. The one that was undeniably real, flesh and bone, documented fact, will always win. Every time I reconnect with the memories, they pull me down into darkness, and it takes days for me to come back up to the light. And it doesn't really seem to accomplish anything. The triggers lose some potency with repeated exposure, but the pain of the overall experience never heals. There is just too much damage.

I want the good Rey in my life, and I need him. I need to feel his love because he is the person with whom I co-create my reality, and that is not likely to change. I have tried for over a year to get him out of my head and it is impossible. There isn't anyone or anything else capable of filling the chasm he left behind. I want my heart to be full of love, not pain and resentment and hate. When I feel Rey as a loving presence, it changes everything - my mood, my self-esteem, my optimism, my generosity towards others. And FFS, after everything I’ve been through, don’t I deserve the version that makes me happier?

So this is the choice I have to make: I can keep my spiritual gifts or I can hold onto my truths. I cannot have both.

It's no contest, right? I burn the journals and delete the texts and pour a concrete cap over the dark well of memories. Borrón y cuenta nueva, a clean slate, as I offered him so many times in life. (Could I actually have held up my end of that bargain if he ever did?) Whatever the consequences of entombing those memories inside of me, it can't be worse than what I've been going through lately. But somehow this is really hard for me. I feel afraid when I think about closing the book and not looking back. Afraid of what exactly, I don't know.

#grief #loss of a child #narcissim #narcissistic abuse #psychological abuse #spiritual connection

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qqueenofhades · 7 years

Text

The Rose and Thorn: Chapter XIV

summary: Sequel to The Dark Horizon. The New World, 1740: Killian and Emma Jones have lived in peace with their family for many years, their pirate past long behind them. But with English wars, Spanish plots, rumors of a second Jacobite rising, and the secret of the lost treasure of Skeleton Island, they and their son and daughter are in for a dangerous new adventure. OUAT/Black Sails. rating: M status: WIP available: FF.net and AO3 previous: chapter XIII

Flint was confined to bed for the rest of the week. As he was well aware that he was extremely lucky to be alive, even he did not complain – at least any more than usual. He did try to get up and carry on as normal on Wednesday morning, which led to him almost falling down the stairs and otherwise causing a disruption, and he was packaged straight back to bed with considerable scolding. After that, it was somewhat easier (if only somewhat) to convince him that a few more days of rest and recuperation were in order, and by Saturday, he was almost feeling his old self, albeit with a nasty, still-knitting gash that would require close minding. They had had to cut his hair on that side of his head to tend it, which gave him a slightly mangy look that he disliked, so Miranda fetched the shears and evened it out. “There,” she said dryly, with a final snip. “I’m not certain that our most pressing concern is your vanity, my dear, but there you are.”

“Better.” Flint inspected his new trim critically in Violet’s hand mirror. It had been a long week for everyone – needing to take care of him, wanting to further their investigation into Gold but also wanting to stay close to home in the event of another attack, and waiting tersely for another potential instruction or complication from Gideon – and tempers, while holding reasonably well given the strain, were still fraying around the edges. No constables had beaten down the door to accuse them of collaboration with the Jacobites, at least, so that seemed to remain secret enough, and perhaps the tip that David had given the redcoat captain had led the authorities to nab some of the conspirators. Flint had not wanted them to question Charlotte without him, so Violet and Lucy had been over at the Bell household for most of the week, to keep up a casual, unsuspicious conversation and otherwise not startle Charlotte into running if she thought they were onto her. What there was to be “on” to, if there was anything at all, they still had no idea.

“I don’t think you’re ready to jump back into full action quite yet,” Emma said, as Flint appeared to leap out of the chair and do just that. “You might be able to go visit Charlotte with us, but even then, we’re not getting information out of her if you just – ”

“If he behaves like himself, you mean,” Miranda supplied briskly, unscrewing a small tin of liniment, dabbing up a few fingers, and carefully applying it to Flint’s wound. “Do you suppose you could possibly manage not to, James?”

Flint hitched his face up into a hideous simulacrum of a friendly smile. “Does that help?”

“Not at all, really.” Miranda continued her examination to see how the flesh was granulating, seemed moderately satisfied by what she found, took the fresh-boiled cotton wool and clean bandages from Emma, and began to tie up the new dressing. “As an old friend once told you, you will need to keep your temper for the duration of the meeting, not merely its inception. One hole in your head is quite enough for you to be getting on with.”

Wisely warned by the shortness in her tone not to make any more remarks of his own, Flint held his tongue and sat still until his wife had finished her work, was then not pleased by his resulting partial resemblance to an Egyptian mummy, and sought about for a hat to disguise the infirmity. The only one he could find was a battered old tricorne of Henry’s, that when he put it on made him look rather like a villainous highwayman (this impression being, after all, not entirely inaccurate) and which was strengthened when he shrugged on his cuffed black cavalier’s coat and slung his pistol bandolier over his shoulder. “I swear, I won’t shoot unless someone shoots at me first,” he said, in response to Emma and Miranda’s renewed askance glances. “But I’m still not walking in unarmed.”

Sensing that this was clearly the best they were going to get, the women fetched their own cloaks and shoes and made ready to go. They had decided that it should be the three of them to question Charlotte, as they knew the most about Gold and any link she might have with him, and if it did go sour, it could be blamed on them without tainting Charlotte’s friendship with Henry and Violet. Flint, of course, was of the opinion that if this was the case, good riddance, but Emma and Miranda hoped that they could restrain it from undue manifestation. Henry had tentatively gone back to the print shop, as he needed to work to support his family, so David was left in charge of protecting Violet and the children. He had taken quite well to his role as surrogate grandfather; he and Mary Margaret had no children of their own, and he was to be observed playing with Lucy and Richard in the back garden as they left. Flint shot him a very dark look over his shoulder, but for once, did not comment.

It was a pale, breezy, early-September day, the very slightest edge taken off the worst of the summer heat. As they set off down the lane, it only being a brief walk to the Bells, Flint said abruptly, “It’s Sam’s birthday tomorrow, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Emma had not forgotten that tomorrow was the seventh, as she had not forgotten Killian’s birthday a fortnight ago, and her heart twisted. It was getting harder and harder to repress the unbearable thought that she might never see her younger son again. “We. . . we should have supper. To mark the occasion.”

“You don’t think – ” Flint started, then stopped. “Never mind.”

“No. What?”

“You don’t think a young man of Sam’s. . . talents, who traipsed off to fight with overheated notions of chivalry and gallantry, who has been getting into trouble before he could walk, and cannot tell a lie to save his life, might have become embroiled in some other mess apart from just the war? If someone in the army worked out who he was, if they found themselves in need of an assistant or an underling for some excursion or endeavor or what have you, is there not a chance they’d settle on Sam? I’d pick the boy from the notorious family of pirates, since I’d know there was a nearly unlimited supply of ways to ensure his compliance. Sam could never resist an adventure, no matter how hare-brained. So. . .?”

Emma glanced at Flint with one eyebrow raised in the way that Killian did so well, as she thought it was a bit rich of him to be casting stones at anyone else for their proclivity toward hare-brained adventures. Still, the rest of what he was saying made a certain amount of sense, both oddly reassuring and further worrying. If Sam had been recruited into a side job or personal favor for someone, that could indeed be the reason he had not come home, rather than that he was badly injured or dead. However, it also meant that he could be literally bloody anywhere in the New World, in God knew what circumstances, with God knew which consequences for failure (or, for that matter, success). There was always the possibility that he had made it back to Savannah with the English army’s retreat, been extremely puzzled to find his entire family gone with not even a note, and settled in to wait until they got home, but that was most unlike him. He’d set out to look for them at least, and something else, that lingering sense that Emma could only categorize as motherly intuition, continued to tell her that this was not the case. She didn’t think he was dead, or simply could not seriously entertain the possibility and stay sane, but she didn’t think he was safe, either. Oh God, where are you?

“I don’t know,” she said heavily, after a moment. “We still can’t find out right now. Come on.”

They reached the Bell residence in a few more moments, went up the front steps, and knocked. All of them were doubtless wondering if there would be some excitement in its answering, but after a moment, the latch clicked, and Charlotte opened the door. “Yes, can I – oh.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Bell.” Emma tried to make her voice as polite and pleasant as possible. “Could we by any chance have a word?”

Charlotte’s eyes flickered warily to Flint’s guns. “Is something wrong?”

“No. We’d just. . . well. Only a few questions, I promise.”

Charlotte considered for a moment, then stepped back and beckoned them inside more or less graciously. The house was smaller than the Swans’, and nearly devoid of possessions; it was very clean and well kept, but sparsely furnished and lightly lived in. Charlotte led them through to a sitting room with a threadbare divan and one armchair; Cecilia was playing on the floor with a rag doll, but glanced up in startlement at the adults’ entrance. “Run upstairs to your room, Ceci,” Charlotte said firmly. “Go on, hurry.”

“But Aunt Charlie – ”

“Room. Now. Off with you.”

Cecilia picked up her doll and scuttled out, not without a frightened look at Flint. At Charlotte’s gesture, he, Emma, and Miranda squashed themselves onto the divan, and she herself sat neatly in the armchair, smoothing her skirts. As if anticipating what they were going to ask, she said, “I did not send that man after you.”

“I believe you,” Emma promised. “But it’s possible you know something that can help us find who did. Did you speak to anyone about anything you might have heard – or inferred – from Violet?”

“I was asking a few questions at the docks,” Charlotte said, after a pause. “It could be that some of the men I approached were connected to the ones dealing with you, but I did not explicitly say anything about you, or tell them where to find you.”

“And yet they knew exactly how to thwart our plan,” Flint said coolly. “Why is that, would you suggest?”

“I don’t know.” Charlotte glared at him, and Emma could not help but be impressed that this young, pretty, brown-haired girl was managing to hold her own against a man who had terrified many other full-grown, much older men. “They made a lucky guess.”

“I don’t believe in lucky guesses.”

Miranda cleared her throat. “Might I point out,” she said, “that the success of the stratagem did not necessarily rest on intimate knowledge of ours. Of course they would have the wits to carry out their illicit activities as normally and unsuspiciously as possible, not because they were craftily suspecting us of some devious attempt to ambush them. The events at the rendezvous point itself can be entirely explained by a drop of common sense on their part – a quality I note to be rather lacking among certain other participants in them – so the only question we would have genuine need to clarify Mrs. Bell’s role in is whether she sent the assassin. And as she herself killed the man, I for one concur with Emma that this is signally and insultingly unlikely!”

Despite himself, Flint’s mouth twitched. “It’s a pity they don’t let women be barristers,” he remarked. “I’m fairly sure you would put the fear of God into the lot of them.”

“Perhaps I should start by putting some into you.” Miranda clearly had still not forgiven him for his near-death capers. “Now, shall we continue the conversation constructively, or do you have something else to divert us with, my dear?”

“No,” Flint said politely. “Please, proceed.”

Miranda gave him one last extremely pointed look, then turned back to Charlotte. “Excusing my husband’s rudeness,” she said, “we have had a difficult fortnight. And we also think we may have an inkling as to who was potentially responsible for at least some of it. Have you ever, by chance, met a Lord Robert Gold?”

All of them watched Charlotte’s face very hard at that, but there was not even a flicker of momentary recognition. “No,” she said, baffled. “I recall the name from somewhere, but I’ve never met him. Besides, isn’t he dead?”

“That is what we would like to know,” Emma said. “He was considerably dangerous to us in the past, and I doubt his opinion has improved at all. On that note, I do have to ask if you could help us in some way, and what brought you to Philadelphia. Who exactly is Jack?”

Charlotte hesitated, as she always did when the subject arose. Finally she said, “Oh, very well. He’s my husband.”

“Is there some reason you couldn’t tell us that before?” Flint asked, somewhat less sarcastically than he otherwise might have.

“It’s – never mind.” Charlotte sighed. “Anyway, yes. Two years ago. We escaped England, but couldn’t bring A – my friend. Believe me, we had tried.”

“All right,” Emma said, trying to keep them on course. “What does Jack do?”

“He’s a – he’s a soldier.”

“And where is he presently?”

“Somewhere in the Caribbean. He was taking a job to make us some money and help liberate my friend. As you can see – ” Charlotte gestured at the shabby, bare sitting room – “we are hardly living in the lap of luxury. I still have a little money left, but that’s not much, and I don’t expect it will stretch beyond another few weeks. Otherwise, I’ll have to think of something else.”

“I have some money.” Emma remembered painfully well what it was like to struggle to feed yourself and a young child, and the constant worry that it would run short. “I’ll see you and Cecilia taken care of.”

Charlotte looked at her awkwardly, surprised but not unwilling. “I – that would help. Thank you.”

“That is all very well and good.” Flint clearly thought that all this tender concern for women and children was rather sorely beside the point. “Why don’t you know where Jack is? Who is his commanding officer? Why all this secrecy about who he is and what the both of you are doing? Why are you so determined to get this friend of yours out of France? Is it possible, say, that you and Jack are not married at all, and this is some clever deception in service of – I don’t know what, exactly, would you care to fucking enlighten us?”

Both Emma and Miranda started to say something at once, outraged, but Charlotte held up a hand, white-faced, eyes snapping. Then she whirled around and marched out of the sitting room, leaving Flint to be thoroughly glared at by his womenfolk. “If I ever get my hands on this Jack,” he muttered, “we will see who thinks they’re the clever little – ”

For a moment, they thought Charlotte had simply stormed out and put an end to the visit (Emma could not exactly blame her if so) but then they heard angry footsteps on the stairs again, and Charlotte returned with a neatly folded piece of paper, which she unfurled and took the liberty of thrusting directly under Flint’s nose. “Does that,” she enquired, with truly impressive icy courtesy, “possibly answer some of your questions?”

Flint, Miranda, and Emma looked down at it. It was a marriage certificate from the city of London, issued by a parish church in Marylebone, confirming that on 21 May 1738, Miss Charlotte Goode and Mr Jack Howe had been joined in the bonds of Holy Matrimony. It was duly signed by the priest, Charlotte, a bold black scrawl that must have been Jack’s, and two witnesses; by the looks of things, their surnames were Goode as well. This did shut Flint up for a few moments as to whether the marriage was real, but he quickly found another thing to harp on about. “Jack Howe? Haven’t you been telling us that his name – your name – is Bell?”

“It is his name,” Charlotte snapped. “Howe was his father’s name, and his father is – was – a monster. He uses his mother’s name now instead. Any other questions?”

“Oh, plenty.” Flint started to get to his feet. “And if you don’t feel in the mood to provide some actual substantive answers – ”

Emma and Miranda both grabbed at his arms, but Charlotte was faster. Evidently the marriage certificate was not the only thing she had gone upstairs to fetch, and she plunged a hand into her skirt pocket, whipped out a pistol, cocked it with an expert flick of her thumb, and pointed it directly at him. “Believe me,” she said. “I don’t want this at all. But you know how good a shot I am. Try to hurt me or Ceci, and I will do it, I swear.”

Concerned though she was that Flint might get another perforation in his already aired-out skull, Emma could not help but further admiring this – as a former female pirate captain, she was quite sure that Charlotte would have made an excellent one. If Jack was anything like her, no wonder they were such a formidable match. Nonetheless, despite the strong possibility of him deserving it, Emma could not let her aged father suffer a second serious injury in a fortnight, and she got to her feet, moving between them with hands outstretched, as if to separate a young lioness from tackling a grey-maned elder statesman of the pride. “Everyone, take a breath and sit back down. Especially you, James.”

Slowly, not taking their eyes off each other, Flint and Charlotte backed to their respective items of furniture and did as ordered. Charlotte put the gun back, but her hands remained tightly knotted in her lap, her eyes flickering to the ceiling in clear alarm that Cecilia had heard the uproar. “I don’t know what else you can get from me,” she said. “I don’t know where Gold is. I don’t work for him. I didn’t send the assassin.”

“All right,” Flint said grudgingly, surprising everyone. “But if so, one last question. You know who I am, don’t you? You said so, when I caught you snooping. You called us pirates.”

“I. . . guessed a few things, yes.” Charlotte’s lips tightened. “You have been plastered over half the broadsheets and bill-papers in London, you know. And given what Henry’s said about his family, I. . . read between the lines.”

“Clever girl.” Flint likewise had to recognize a display of skill from a rival, however unwillingly, and he raised a gingery eyebrow. “But then, if we’re taking you at your word, you didn’t rush to alert the authorities about us. Did not tell them that the fearsome Captain Flint was strolling in their very midst. Even expressed your interest in having me potentially work for you – in a rather unorthodox fashion, but never mind. So could we perhaps infer in reverse that you and your husband are no allies of the English crown, and that whoever Jack is working for in the Caribbean, even if not Gold, is bloody well not King George?”

Charlotte blinked. Then she wet her lips, clearly taking a moment to think about her answer. Remarkably skilled as she might be at this game, Flint had been playing it since before she was born, and Emma herself was a step behind him on this; she had not realized that he had put the pieces together to turn the question on its head. There was a silence in which the only sound was the ticking of the carriage clock on the mantel. Then Charlotte said reluctantly, “No. It’s not King George.”

“So you two are Jacobites, then?” Flint moved to the next most logical option on the list with surgical precision. “Part of the network here, so you might hear things about what we were doing – and what Gideon Murray wanted – whether or not we told you?”

“No,” Charlotte said. “We’re not Jacobites.”

“So. . .” Flint considered, for a long, fraught moment. “That leaves. . . who, exactly?”

“He’s a free agent,” Charlotte said, almost defiantly. A brief gleam of pride lit her eyes. “He works where the money takes him.”

“A mercenary?” Flint’s lips went thin. Not necessarily due to any moral objection to the vocation, but because the last mercenary they had tangled with was Henry Jennings, a prospect to chill the very soul. “Who’s he working for now?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because,” Flint said. “I think you know that we’re more your folk than the mindless, loyalist sheep of His Majesty’s Britannic Government. Your choice. I could be wrong.”

Charlotte considered them closely. She opened her mouth, shut it, and started again. Then at last she said, “Jack works for the Spanish. He has since we came here. It was the best way to get close enough to France, and there were other attractions. With the war, there’s been plenty to occupy hm. So there. Are you going to turn me in as a traitor?”

“You know I won’t, or you wouldn’t have told me.” Flint shrugged. The two of them were once more staring intently at each other, locked in a high-stakes chess match, testing the other’s gambits and defenses. “Well. That does explain your secrecy, I will grant you. And why you felt comfortable with Violet, once you’d worked out who we were – there was at least a better-than-even chance that you would not be hanged as the result of an unguarded comment. But if Jack works for the Spanish, while originally an Englishman, he must be a quite convincing actor himself, as well as having several interesting connections. What if we were in fact to strike a bargain? If you were to help us find Robert Gold, we would rescue this friend of yours from France. Depending on where my son-in-law has ended up, it might be on the bloody way anyway. What do you say?”

A brief, vulnerable, desperate hope flickered in Charlotte’s eyes at this, as much as she tried to hide it. “Oh?”

“Can you help us find Robert Gold?”

“I know a few of Jack’s contacts,” Charlotte said cautiously. “Only by name, we’ve never actually met. He was working with Governor Montiano in Florida, I know that much. There was some traffic with Governor Güemes of Cuba, as well.”

Everyone’s eyebrows went up at this, as these were some of the highest-ranking Spanish officials in the New World – no wonder Charlotte had been closed-mouthed, if anything, any word she did not consider carefully might lead hostile parties down this dangerous path after her. “If this Gold is who I think he is, though, he won’t be hiding among the Spaniards. He’ll have some base in an English territory. The obvious starting point might be Antigua, but – ”

Flint grimaced. “We’d all rather avoid Antigua if we could help it.”

“I don’t think he’d be there,” Emma said. “It would be too obvious. He prefers to lurk in the shadows, just off the side of things, and if he returned to Antigua, the word would be out at once. He needs secrecy to operate, it’s where he thrives. Jamaica, likewise, is too high-profile. We know he’s not on Nassau, we’d certainly have heard, and he’s not remotely foolish enough to try his luck there. Much too dangerous.”

“So that leaves what, only a few dozen islands to narrow it down to?” Flint scowled ferociously. “Perhaps if we sail around to each of them, hat in hand, we’ll have gotten half done by Christmas? If we’re not dead, that is?”

“Well,” Charlotte said. “Some of them are out. A man like that needs at least some structure to operate, doesn’t he? No good to have cunning plots if you’re in the middle of nowhere and can’t do anything about them. So somewhere lower-profile, but with enough connections to run his empire. That would rule out the smaller islands or places that are too far off the beaten path. That still leaves a list, yes, but a shorter one.”

Flint looked at her appraisingly. “Are you coming, then?”

“I can’t leave Cecilia,” Charlotte said, “and I am not sure I could justify bringing her into danger. Jack’s last assignment was supposed to be finished weeks ago, though, and he’s not been this late before. He was planning to bring back the money for us before he took a new posting, and. . .”

“Well,” Emma said. “It happens we have a few family members likewise unaccounted for, and we can’t leave Henry and his family alone here either. If you were to bring your niece with them. . . my brother Charles works on Nassau, and has plenty of connections there. Besides, it was our home, a long time ago. I think we could find something for Violet and the children.”

“You do remember what happened when we let Thomas and Jenny go there?” Flint demanded.

“Of course I remember,” Emma said, a bit shortly. “But at least Silver isn’t there anymore, is he? Not to mention, Nassau would be the best place for us to start our hunt for Gold. It has its ear to the ground on most, if not all, of the Caribbean’s sordid gossip. If there is any whisper of some shadowy deal broker, anything like that, any hint of Gold doing what he does, if we are in fact chasing the real man and not just the ghost, someone on Nassau will know. Besides, I thought you wanted to go back?”

“I – ” Flint struggled visibly. “I said I couldn’t go back, that Captain Flint once more setting foot on Nassau’s shores would set off a total fucking firestorm. Of course they would know something, they always know something, but is it worth the risk? And not just me, but all of us.”

“I think we’re rather past such calculations, aren’t we?” Miranda looked weary. “I can’t say I’m particularly eager to see the place again either, but if it is what will give us what we need, we shall have to simply grit our teeth and do it. You know we will never be truly safe again, if Robert Gold is alive and has once more made himself a position in which to interfere with our lives. If he is not, and it is only conjecture and baseless fear, we are reprieved, we can return to our other difficulties. But I do think it would explain a great deal if many of those difficulties were discovered to originate from Gold, and that we could douse the bonfire itself, rather than dashing about in a vain attempt to smother each ember.”

Flint, Emma, and Charlotte looked back at her with a variety of expressions. Finally Flint said softly, “My sweet, you shouldn’t have to – ”

“I’ve made it this far – in better shape than you, I might add – and someone has to be the voice of reason, James.” Miranda got to her feet with only a slight wince. “You yourself already noted that it would be quite relevant to our present entanglement with Lord Murray if we were to find his father. And perhaps you and I always knew that we would have to face Nassau once more in our lives. If we already managed Charlestown, perhaps this is not so terrible – at least we were happy there, once, perhaps. So if Mrs. Bell and her niece are willing to accompany us, then yes, I say we go. Emma?”

Emma hesitated. To her, this felt as if it might take attention away from the job of finding Killian, even as she agreed with Miranda that none of them would be safe as long as Gold lived. But she could not deny that there seemed to be a slow-moving avalanche pushing them further and further in the direction of the Caribbean. Nassau, Skeleton Island, Gold’s possible hideout – and, if Flint’s earlier speculation was anywhere close to accurate, her son Sam could be somewhere down there as well. That alone was reason enough to agree, and Emma had a feeling that if either Gold or Killian caught the slightest whiff of the other’s presence, they would go to any length to pursue a confrontation. Killian had never forgiven the man for destroying his life, and Gold was likewise the sort to hold grudges until Judgment Day, especially considering the ruin of his schemes – he would want to force a reckoning. As much as the prospect frightened her, if she found Gold, she very well might also find Killian.

“Aye,” Emma said, and set her shoulders. “I say we go.”

It was after dusk when Killian and Regina finally left the Admiralty, faced with the prospect of either rushing to the docks to arrange passage to Barbados immediately, or spending what was sure to be an extremely chilly night in some cut-rate Covent Garden lodging house (which, if Killian knew Covent Garden at all, would come with at least three floozies eager to help him warm things up). Both of them were extremely hungry, having not really eaten since yesterday morning in France, so they stopped long enough to buy a pasty from a food seller on her way home for the evening. Killian wolfed his down in about three bites, and even Regina did not manage to be much more dignified. There was nearly a moment where they smiled ruefully at each other, but awkwardness reasserted itself almost at once. The damp wind whisked at Killian’s jacket and Regina’s skirt, reminding them that they should see about accommodation one way or the other, and they made their way to one of the many public houses along the docks, which catered to sailors and merchants and passengers about to embark. It was dark and grimy and smelled as if something had long ago died in their attic kingdom, but at least it was a roof to keep the rain off, and they’d trawl the ships at first light tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.

Killian, however, barely noticed. He once more could not sit or rest, possessed of a manic energy that translated even less well to a tiny garret than it had to the Navy record office. Finally Regina, having had more than her utmost limit, exploded, “Bloody hell! If you don’t sit down right now, I swear I don’t care what Liam would think, I’m killing you!”

Killian, who had been in the middle of running through a feverishly detailed fantasy of how slowly was too slowly to strangle Gold (a question of exceptional mathematical precision, especially when you only had one hand) whirled on her. He was more than ready for her to actually try something, not that he thought she would give him the satisfaction. “Oh, as if you have ever cared what Liam would – ”

“I’ve been his wife for twenty-two years. I do care what he thinks.” Regina stared him down. “And for all you claim that you’re doing this to protect your family, I’m not the one who has been spiraling uncontrollably down a black hole of vengeance this entire time. You’re doing exactly what you hold against Liam. You’re not taking responsibility for what you want, and are disguising it in some grander purpose of sacrifice for your loved ones.”

That, despite himself, hit Killian hard. “I’m not – ” he said, somewhat less than certainly. “You already agreed that we should go to Barbados, that we – ”

“I have to admit,” Regina said, cutting over him, “I’m not a selfless person. That is how I’ve managed to keep your lunkhead brother alive all these years, because he genuinely never thinks of himself. But he’s not really living. He gets through the days, he manages them, he endures. He’s not happy, he’s not unhappy, he just is. For all you used to think that you needed him, that you couldn’t live without him, he’s had a far harder time living without you than you have without him. I know you’re a grown man, can’t go back and be his little brother again, and he would not want that for you. Now you’re asking me to give up the one thing I have, asking Liam to give up the one thing he has, and seeming to enjoy how much it hurts both of us. And after everything he’s done for you, no matter your opinion of its morality or necessity or methods, and after I have watched him struggle for over twenty years with what he’s done for you and your family and what happened that last night in Charlestown, when I tried everything I know to save Miranda McGraw, after I thought Jennings was going to kill Liam, rape me, desecrate Miranda’s body, and do God alone knows what to Henry and Geneva, after Liam finally, finally killed him but part of him died for good as a result – how dare you talk about what Liam feels. How dare you mock me for it. How dare you.”

Killian felt as if she had swung something very heavy into his face. He tried to speak, but only a faint croaking noise came out. He was tempted to reach down and feel if he still only had one arsehole. “I. . .” he managed at last. “Regina, I. . .”

She held up a hand. “Save the speeches for Liam. If we ever find him, or if it’s just more important to do anything else but. In which case, be so good as to tell me. You have the right to do whatever stupid thing you want, I can’t take that away from you. But I want to know, so I can leave before it’s too late. If you truly think that I might find him by going to Barbados with you, I’ll go. Otherwise, I’ll make my own arrangements. My concern for you on Liam’s behalf extended as far as getting you out of France. Now that’s done. I have no obligation to save you from another reckless revenge quest, and neither does he. But he wouldn’t share that opinion, would once more twist himself in half trying to stop you, and he can’t do that again and survive. So. What’s the truth?”

“You were. . . right,” Killian said, after a moment. “With what you said earlier, about me punishing him. I have, for a long time, and. . . I’m not proud of it, but I have. But remember, Lady Fiona is Gold’s sister. If she is anything like him, she’ll want to gloat, she’ll want to rub it in. I don’t know if they’re working together, but I doubt it. Power is never absolute as long as someone else has any of it, after all, and those two would never play nice together. Liam is nearly as delicious for Gold to torment as I am, so of course Lady Fiona would want to dangle him under her brother’s nose and then jerk him back. If nothing else, she’ll want to eliminate him as a rival and competitor. If she knows he’s in Barbados, and I am betting you anything he does, she’ll go.”

Regina considered this. “Take your brother to settle scores with her brother?” she said. “How. . . symmetrical. I don’t deny it’s the sort of thing to appeal to a certain kind of twisted mind. And that is a better argument than anything you gave me in the Admiralty. But if you’re wrong – ”

“Then I’m wrong, aren’t I? That happens. There would be nothing else I could do about it. I’m not going to deny I want to get to grips with Gold. I want it very badly. And I also think that my family is in danger as long as he lives. But I also think there is a very good chance that Liam will, in fact, be involved somewhere in this. Bloody hell, they can’t have left that far ahead of us, and if they are going to Barbados as well, we could catch them up. Come on, love. Trust me. Just a little. I know I don’t deserve it, but. . . we have to start somewhere.”

Regina looked at him uncertainly. He could tell that, significantly against her natural instincts, she almost wanted to. That, however, would also involve Killian trusting himself to deal with this logically, not keep pushing and pushing just in the name of getting to Gold, and not to completely lose the forest for the trees. He knew himself well enough to admit that this would be difficult for him, and he had already made a fine start at flying off the handle, but nothing had not yet been done that could not be taken back. He could calm down, take a deep breath, try to rid himself of that nearly mystical madness that the mere mention of Robert Gold’s name had the power to conjure over him. Both he and Regina held grudges sometimes past all sense or justification, to the point the ones they were hurting the most were themselves, and yet, if they were to make any success of this, those painful, decades-old resentments would have to be chipped at, loosened, shifted somehow. And in the question of who Killian wanted hurt for old sins more, Liam or Gold, it was not even remotely close to a contest. The silence lingered.

“Fine,” Regina said, breaking the spell. “We should get some sleep.”

This was easier said than done, as they were kept awake half the night by the creaking of the stairs, the boom of a nearby church bell relentlessly sounding the hours, and the nonstop wheezing of the bloke on the other side of the thin plaster wall, who was apparently dying of consumption on the instant (at least if he did, it might be quieter). They finally dropped off for a few hours, were rattled awake by the dawn carillon, and got dressed. There was still a lingering stiffness in the air, but they seemed slightly more cordial than yesterday, and they managed to collect their things, head out, and obtain breakfast without a major argument.

This accomplished, then began the unappetizing prospect of searching the docks for a captain willing to take them to Barbados on Regina’s limited remaining funds, and not ask too many questions about their names and business. Some of the merchants were planning to return to the West Indies for the winter, but did not want to put themselves to the trouble of passengers, and Killian felt an instinctive revulsion at the idea of approaching any of the vessels flying the distinctive ensign of the East India Company, red-and-white-striped with the Union Jack in the upper left corner. On the one hand, the Company was not hand in glove with the British government, as they hated Westminster’s constant attempts to tax their lucrative proceeds and interfere with their independent bylaws. On the other hand, they for obvious reasons regarded pirates as the scum of the earth, and all it took was one of them to have heard of Captain Hook to blow the whole thing sky-high. Gold probably had all manner of friends in the Company as well, who would be more than happy to drop his mortal enemy in his lap, trussed up like a chicken.

After they had been turned down half a dozen times, Killian was starting to get desperate. There were not terribly many vessels left to try, and it was either the last sailing of the season or close to it; it was this or nothing. He had just started to wonder what the odds were of swimming to Barbados when a voice called, “Sir? Madam? Are you in need of something?”

Startled, Killian and Regina turned to behold a handsome older gentleman of possibly Indian appearance, with a shaved head, keen dark eyes, and a navy-blue, gold-trimmed caftan and polished boots. “My apologies for surprising you,” he said. “I could not help but notice that you have been canvassing the docks for some time. What is it you are in search of?”

“Ah, well. We’re in search of passage. To the Caribbean, actually, but it doesn’t seem there’s anything bloody left.”

“I am sailing for the Caribbean in two days.” The gentleman raised an eyebrow. “Have you asked me yet?”

“Wh – you have a ship?”

“I do, yes. Where are you wishing to go?”

“Barbados,” Killian said, watching the gentleman’s face closely. “Bridgetown.”

There was no particular knowing look or flicker at that, and the gentleman nodded. “That is not far from where we are bound. If you are willing, I can take you.”

Killian was about to accept, then stopped. He could not help but wonder if such a generous offer, the apparent answer to their prayers, came with some nasty strings attached. “What does it cost? Exactly?”

“I am a wealthy man. I do not have particular need of money. If you wish to pay me, of course I shall accept, but it is not necessary.” The gentleman inclined his head. “Captain Nemo, at your service.”

“Ah – Killian Jones, at yours.” Perhaps he should have tried harder to think of an alias, but the truth occurred to him too instinctively. He took Nemo’s offered hand, and they shook. “This is my sister-in-law, Regina.”

“Madam.” Nemo took her hand in turn, and kissed it. “If you would follow me, I can show you the ship. Then you can decide if you wish to take passage.”

Cautious, but curious, Killian and Regina followed him to the eastern end of the docklands, the less desirable spaces where foreign merchants without London connections or regular bribes paid to the port authorities were sequestered. Nemo led them across the labyrinth of quays to the place where a large three-masted junk, built in the Chinese style with angular, pleated sails, rode at anchor. The hull was varnished in smooth black lacquer, the name inscribed on the high stern in polished red letters, both in English and what Killian thought was one of the South Asian languages, which he could not be sure. NAUTILUS/நாட்டிலஸ்.

Nemo was watching them avidly, as if waiting to see if the sight of such a decidedly non-European ship would shock their delicate sensibilities beyond all speech, but he seemed somewhat pleased when it did not. “If she is to your satisfaction,” he said, “we depart two days from now, on the morning tide. Do you agree?”

“Ah – yes. Yes, thank you. It’s just – I’m grateful, mate, believe me. But why are you helping us?”

Nemo smiled faintly. “Perhaps I felt you needed it.”

“We – well, we do. But. . .” Killian wasn’t even sure why he was pushing so hard, but to say the least, he had had enough of voyages under unexplained circumstances, with unknown masters. “What do you want? Really?”

Nemo considered for a moment. Then he said, “Did you know a man named Edward England?”

“Er – yes, I did.” Killian blinked. Edward England had been Charles Vane’s quartermaster after Jack Rackham vacated the post, a genial, gentlemanly Irish rascal whom Killian had worked with during the defense and battle of Nassau, and who had invited Killian to come with him to continue his pirate escapades in the Indian Ocean. “I’m going to guess you met him. What happened to him?”

“He died. Quite a while ago. He was marooned on Mauritius with a few of his men, after he refused to kill the captain of a ship his crew had taken. They mutinied and stranded him. After a few months, they managed to sail to St. Augustine’s Bay in Madagascar, which was where I met him. He was deathly ill of tropical fever, and indeed he passed away just a few days later. But he had much to say. The natural wish of a man facing mortality and wishing to have his life remembered, his conscience cleared. I myself had recently traveled from Philadelphia, where I had taken another man of England’s old acquaintance. We spoke at length. The conversation has stayed with me.” Nemo shrugged. “You are the Killian Jones, yes? Captain Hook.”

“I. . . yes.” Killian blinked again. “Wait – another man of England’s acquaintance? Another pirate, you mean? Who did you take to Philadelphia?”

“When we picked him up in his makeshift ketch,” Nemo said, “he called himself only Odysseus. Like England, he had too had been marooned on a small island for some time, and had been without human society for at least a year. As he returned somewhat to his wits, he told me that his real name was James. It had once been Flint. He was no longer certain if it still was.”

“Y – ” Killian’s jaw dropped. “Bloody hell! You were the one who rescued Flint from Skeleton Island?!”

“You know him too, I assume?”

“Aye, he’s my father-in-law! He and his wife adopted my wife as their daughter a long time ago. We’ve never known how exactly he escaped, or what happened there. Did he. . . did he tell. . .?”

“That was over twenty years ago,” Nemo said. “And what he did say was often less than coherent. I remember nothing that would be particularly enlightening to you.”

“Oh.” Killian could not help a slight disappointment, even as he wondered if Nemo was being entirely truthful. “Well. You’ve certainly already done a great service to our family, then. We would be even further indebted for another.”

“It is no trouble,” Nemo repeated. “Truly. Two days from now?”

“Aye. Two days.”

Said two days were less than enjoyable, not least because it rained without cessation and they were trapped in the upstairs room of another dubious lodging house, but it finally cleared the night before, as they went aboard so as to be ready to leave with the ship at dawn. They scarcely had much luggage, though Killian had at least managed to acquire one other set of clean clothes, and the junk was large enough, with multiple small bamboo-walled cabins, that he and Regina could have their own apiece, which was a bloody relief. Everything was crisp and tidy, with a berth and desk of teakwood, a painted screen covered with whimsical designs from some Chinese tale, and small books of fine onionskin paper, calligraphed in elegant characters.

Nemo’s crew looked to be of the same pastiche, some Chinese and Japanese, some Ceylonese or Indian like their captain, others North African Mussulmen, still more with the look of Pacific islanders from even more far-flung places. There were at least a dozen languages spoken on board, though Tamil was the lingua franca, and the language in which Nemo gave his orders and communicated decisions; those less fluent got a friend to translate into their particular tongue. Several of them also spoke English, until Killian – himself a reasonably multilingual man, who could count reading of Greek and Latin, and a bit of spoken French and half-remembered Irish to his credit – was thoroughly impressed at their versatility. If he was going to have some time on his hands during the voyage, he should try to pick up at least one.

Killian slept, to his considerable surprise, well that night, and awoke before sunrise, rolling out to dress and ready himself for departure. He was unlikely to be any use to the Nautilus’ general functioning, but he was understandably not keen to spend any extra time belowdecks, and emerged topside to watch the crew check the tide, unfurl the sails, and set course. The Chinese method of navigation was via astrolabe, rather than by compass and chart, and Killian watched interestedly, he of course being a connoisseur of all things nautical and navigational. The junk moved away from the quay, beautifully out of place among the drab grey rooftops of London, and down the Thames, with a smoothness like silk or polished glass. Mist rose in ethereal silver vapor from the surface of the river, creating the impression that they sailed within a fine crystal orb, forever seeking the edge but never quite reaching it, doubled back again, circled upon itself. The distant black specks of seabirds winged overhead as the stars began to fade, the smell of the air changing as they reached the estuary and prepared to enter the Channel. Killian supposed he could wave at France again as they went by.

The golden horizon was behind them as they pointed west, the rising sun slowly spilling over the high deck. Still conscious of staying out of the crew’s way, Killian could nonetheless not help but investigate further. The Nautilus carried a full complement of cannon, the mouths of the guns carved like roaring dragons so that they would breathe flame when fired, and to judge from the speed they were already making, she could easily outstrip heavier, slower square-riggers. Killian wondered what exactly it was that Nemo did; surely it was not merely charity errands for stranded pirates? The ship bore signs of far travel and hard use, and he felt a brief, unexpected pang of nostalgia, of jealousy. Not that he would trade his family and his settled life and home for anything, but Nemo must have traveled the entire world, to far uncharted lands, to places that one could only dream, seen sights beyond imagination, had grand and thrilling adventures. Some part of the temptation remained in Killian too, the ever-constant lure of the sea and everywhere it could carry you. I chose, though. And I am choosing again.

“Do you like what you see, Captain Jones?”

Killian turned with a start, having been examining the star chart (at least so he thought it was) carved into the main mast, to see Nemo regarding him with an expression of gentle amusement. “Oh no, you do not have to apologize,” he said, as Killian straightened up hastily. “Your interest, as a seagoing man yourself, is natural. What do you think?”

“She’s beautiful,” Killian said honestly. “Made me miss my old girl – the Jolie Rouge. You haven’t run across her, have you?” It was worth trying, if Nemo had made inadvertent acquaintances of several other old colleagues. “Formerly the Imperator, captained by Rackham and Bonny?”

“Not that I know of, no,” Nemo said. “But some part of a captain’s heart always belongs to his ship. This is not the first one I have sailed to bear the name of Nautilus, and I remember those as well, for different reasons. Would you like to walk with me?”

“I. . . yes.” Killian was unexpectedly touched. He had of course been wishing he had someone to talk to, missing Sam, needing an equal, a sympathetic outsider who was not his family and was not beholden to that inner circle, but in whom he could confide, and he already felt that he might be able to do so with Nemo. He followed the captain up to the sterncastle, his hair whipping in the fresh breeze. After the dark, cramped, starving hell of his month aboard the Pan, it felt like a gift never again to be taken for granted. They came to a halt at the rail, surveying the goings-on below, and Killian asked, “So how many other Nautiluses have there been?”

“Two,” Nemo said. “The first was the Indiaman that I served on, when I led the crew in an uprising, took over the ship, and set them all free, and we sailed as our own men thereafter. That, I think, is something familiar to you?”

“Aye.” Killian laughed in rueful acknowledgement. “How did that happen? If you don’t mind my asking?”

“Not at all.” Nemo did not seem offended by his curiosity. “My father was the captain of a Barbary corsair, and my mother was one of the many daughters of the Mughal emperor. They were married as part of an attempt between the Ottoman and Mughal courts to form an alliance against their common enemy, the Persians – indeed, Nadir Shah sacked Delhi with tremendous ferocity just last year, and I fear it may be a blow from which my mother’s people cannot recover, especially with Britain eyeing it like a hungry wolf. In any event, in retribution for my father’s many successful raids – nobody took more slaves for the Ottomans than he – I was captured by the same British at the age of nine, and raised in service. That the son of such a prolific slave master should become shackled in bondage himself – it is perhaps only justice, though I certainly did not feel that way at the time. I was recognized to be intelligent and talented, and was placed on one of the East India Company’s ships at sixteen. I was twenty-three when I overthrew her command and became captain instead. That was my first Nautilus. I sailed her for twelve years.”

Nemo hesitated for a long moment. Then he said, “Soon after we took the ship, I fell in love with a young woman we rescued. She loved me as well, and we were married. We had a son. She wanted to leave the sea, to make a real home. I told her that we would, soon. But the East India Company did not forget that I had captured one of their ships so egregiously, dared to revolt, set a dangerous example. They viewed me as little better than an upstart pirate and a Barbary monster myself for those twelve years, and finally they caught up to me. There was a battle. We were outgunned. My Nautilus was destroyed and sunk. My wife and son drowned.”

“I. . .” Killian recoiled from even trying to imagine it. “Christ, I’m sorry.”

“I survived, obviously,” Nemo said, “and became consumed with the desire for revenge. So if you follow, I wished revenge for their revenge for my revenge on their revenge on my father, at least. I captured my second Nautilus, a Spanish man-of-war, and gathered to me anyone who would help me in such an aim. If they promised me my objective, I listened, no matter how dangerous or forsaken such men might be, how empty their promises, or how little it would ultimately satiate me. This, I think, you will also recognize?”

“Aye,” Killian said, much more slowly. He was unsettled for obvious reasons, given how he had spent the vast majority of his time since discovering Gold was alive, and the circumstances that had first precipitated his descent into Hook. He almost wanted to walk away before finishing this conversation, but he had a feeling that Nemo, however gently, was not going to let him. “And?”

Nemo shrugged. “It ended as it must. We attacked and destroyed a British ship near the coast of Norway, which we had mistaken for a Company vessel, hunting and pursuing many weeks to get it alone and without hope of aid. It was not. We realized that only when we had left no survivors. In my greed and blindness, we had drawn too near the dangerous water there, the place the locals call the Moskstraumen – the Maelstrom. It drew in the ship and pulled her under. For a second time, I survived the destruction of my Nautilus, but was left with nothing. Neither family nor revenge, neither pride in the past nor hope for the future.”

He paused again, looking over the sea. “This is the third Nautilus,” he said at last. “She sails as a free ship with free men, with those I have found in chains of one sort or another. We do not seek for anyone’s revenge, or speak of our pasts, or bow to any country or crown – or hold them as our enemy. We fight only if attacked, and not before, nor for personal gain or worldly enrichment. This is the place where men come when they have put aside such old things.”

Killian opened his mouth, then shut it. He reckoned that he and Nemo had to be nearly the same age, the other man perhaps three or four years older, and that perhaps their lives were bending on eerily similar trajectories, parallel and yet opposite. At last he said, “Which Nautilus did you rescue Flint with?”

“The first,” Nemo said. “The Indiaman. The one I sailed as a younger man, the one I took from my captors with the strength of my own hands, with my wife and then my son at my side, when I still envisioned a home away from the sea. I took him to Philadelphia because I pitied him, this man so broken by the world as to barely recall his own name, so harrowed by revenge and grief and guilt that only a shell of him remained, and all had to be learned anew. I thought, then, the worst fate in the world would be to end up like him, and vowed that I never would, that of course I could prevent it by my efforts and worthiness. I was, of course, quite naïve.”

Killian was quiet. It was clear to him that Nemo was a name chosen anew for this man as Hook had been for him, as Flint had been for James, but to quite the opposite purpose. He wanted to say something, but did not know what, especially when Nemo turned to him and said calmly, “So. Why is it that you and your sister-in-law are traveling to Barbados?”

“We. . .” Killian hesitated. He did not want to lie, especially after Nemo had just been so honest with him, but nor did he feel quite up to the truth. “I thought there might be an. . . old friend of mine there. I. . . it’s been complicated.”

“Of course,” Nemo said courteously. “Life is scarcely anything less. The prospect of seeing an old friend, however, would normally make a man much more joyful.”

Killian squirmed again. “Not a friend, exactly.”

Nemo’s expression said that he had suspected this, but he did not rub salt in the wound. He once more turned to regard the sea, until he said, “I imagine Captain Hook must have several such men, that he has darkly dreamed of seeing again. Would this be Robert Gold, then?”

“How did – ” Killian stared at him, wondering if Nemo had also concealed a talent for reading minds, before it struck. “Ned England told you about our battle against him in Nassau, and his particular grudge against me. Didn’t he.”

“He did,” Nemo said. “And I have heard other rumors, but never mind that. It must truly be an outstanding grudge, that it weighs so heavily against all else. Your sister-in-law. . . would that be your wife’s sister, or your brother’s wife? I suspect the latter.”

“You suspect correctly.” Killian stared down at his hand and hook on the railing. With that, since he could no longer help it, he told Nemo about Liam, and his resistance to seeing him again, and how long he had stayed away, and what Regina had said to him, and his own dawning, uncomfortable realization that she was right. That while constantly acknowledging and dwelling on his own flaws and failures, he had nonetheless become comforted by the idea that he was still better than Liam at grappling with them, that he was somehow more honest, more self-aware, braver. Had his own family now, and was determined, beyond all reason, to prove it.

Nemo did not interrupt as Killian spoke, listening politely until he was certain that he had finished. Then he said, “That is a sad story. I am sorry for both of you, that it has been this way.”

“Aye.” Killian found that his voice came hard, scraping in his throat. “Do you. . . do you think he’s right? Or that I am?”

“I suspect it is altogether more complicated, as you yourself pointed out earlier.” Nemo inclined his head. “But let me tell you – if you will indulge me once more – a story. Only a brief one, and this time not about myself. It is a story about when the Spanish conquistadores first arrived in the New World, several hundred years ago, and found a beautiful, glittering, advanced civilization. The Aztecs and the Incas had pyramids, had cities, had calendars and science and clean running water, had maps of the stars, had art and literature, had myths and legends, had – as all men do – their own bloodthirstiness and war. And what did the conquistadores see? What did they dream of? Gold. There must be mountains of it, they thought. There must be gold. They looked at the Aztec temples and saw the mosques of the Mussulman, the ever-present enemy of Christendom reborn, and so they called the men they met Turks. They judged them worthy to live, or not, depending on how much they thought they were like the Turks. Gold and savages. That is what they saw. Not what was there, but gold and savages. And so they destroyed everything, and set up the cross instead, and blessed themselves for a job well done. That is what happens, that is the damage that is done, which can never be taken back, when all a man sees is Gold.”

Killian could not help but admire the elegance of this turn of phrase, even as he also could not miss the underlying warning. “So what? You think Regina’s right? We should just go back to searching for Liam, and not – ”

“You and your brother have had a long struggle,” Nemo said. “I understand that. But I must ask what you are so frightened he can possibly take from you. You have parents-in-law, wife, sons, a daughter, grandchildren, friends, a long and rich life. Your brother and his wife have not. Not by your fault, but not by your innocence, either. You do not owe him anything, of course, nor does he to you. Yet I would have thought you might have found it in your heart to open the door you have so long held shut, just a crack, and see what light shone through.”

“I thought – ” Killian started, then stopped. He was grateful for the spray that blew on his face as he looked away. Finally he said, “I’m. . . I’m sorry.”

“It is not your apology which I need,” Nemo said. “Nor do you need my forgiveness. I note, however, that my crew, who have often lost their entire families, been torn from the land of their birth, who have served years or decades as slaves under white men, would think you exceptionally fortunate to have the dilemma of deciding whether or not to return to the bosom of the man who loved you first, and raised you as best he could. I do not recall the name my mother gave me. There must have been one, and sometimes if I strain, I can just remember the shape of her smile. But I do not remember what she called me. Nor I will not call myself by the name the British gave me, for that was never me, but an artifice of my overseers. I chose Nemo long ago, and it has served me well enough. But I would give anything in the world, journey anywhere, sacrifice anything, to hear my mother speak to me, and have her whisper my name once more, my true name. Yet you spurn your brother, when he lives still and wishes nothing more than to see you, and have done so for years, with no cost to you and much to him. As before, I understand why you stayed away. But it is my most honest verdict that it is an act of immeasurable and, one hopes for your sake not unforgivable, selfishness.”

“I. . . always have been.” Killian took a slow breath. “Selfish. In one way or another, and then I loved Emma, and married her, and had my children, and they were my world instead. I had no need for my own self anymore, not when I could give them everything, and see them happy. Perhaps I feared that if I looked again – and now I have – that I would discover that old selfish soul still lurking beneath. With Liam, with facing it, I. . . I did. I was.”

“We are all terribly tender and torn-apart creatures,” Nemo said. “It is to your great credit that you know so, as many selfish people never once do. I will not counsel you what to do one way or another. If you still wish to go to Barbados and confront Gold one last time, I will take you there. I only ask that you think, and think well, on what you mean to do, and if it is remotely worth what it will cost you.”

Killian nodded, at a loss for words, and Nemo clapped a hand on his shoulder. Then, leaving him there with his thoughts, the captain turned and walked away.

They sailed steadily for the next several days. The Nautilus continued to make surpassing speed, and Nemo told Killian about the Chinese admiral Zheng He, the fifteenth-century explorer, soldier, and sailor who had been to Arabia, Africa, Java, and the Indian Ocean, with a vast fleet of over three hundred junks and thirty thousand men. He had made seven fabled voyages, rather like the fictional hero Sinbad of A Thousand and One Nights, the stories of which Nemo also knew well. He spoke at least eight languages, and seemed to be genuinely loved by his men; if he had plucked them from dire situations, perhaps that explained it, but Nemo said that he had never forced anyone to join or to stay. “If you found that you wished to serve with us for a time,” he said, the fifth evening out, having invited Killian and Regina into his cabin for supper, “we would of course welcome you.”

“I’m fifty-three and I’ve got one hand,” Killian said wryly. “I’ve enjoyed this journey far more than my last one, but I’m not sure what use I’d be to you. Besides, either way, I have to get home to my family. I can’t just run off for a lark without telling my wife.”

“Of course,” Nemo agreed. “In any event, the offer stands. What of your sons? Are they sailors too?”

“No. It’s my daughter, Geneva, who’s the captain in the family, and a damned good one.” Killian grinned with pride. “My elder son – stepson, but no matter – Henry, is a teacher and printer, has a wife and two children. My younger son, Sam, he’s. . . well, he’s still making his way.”

At that, he glanced sidelong at Regina, suddenly aware that it might be delicate to talk about his children in front of her, but she was perched almost on the edge of her seat, as if hungry to hear as much about them as she possibly could. Killian himself missed the lot of them so agonizingly that he would have happily held forth for hours, told both Regina and Nemo far more than they ever wanted to know, but at that moment, they were unexpectedly interrupted by a knock on the cabin door. Nemo called, “Come in.”

It opened, and the first mate entered with a look of some anxiety. He crossed the floor, bent down, and spoke to Nemo in low-voiced Arabic, to which the captain listened with a slight frown. Then he stood up. “Excuse me,” he said to Killian and Regina. “Mr. Rahman is of the impression that we are being pursued.”

Both Killian and Regina stood up as well, as anyone on their tail was unlikely to be good news, and hastily followed Nemo out onto the deck. The late-evening gloaming had almost, but not quite, deepened to true black, and several crewmen were gathered on the stern, pointing at the sea behind them, as Nemo and his guests hurried up the stairs to look. One of the sailors handed his captain the spyglass, and Nemo peered at the darkening sea, as Killian strained his own eyes, not quite as keen as they had been. There was a low-lying fog bank about a thousand yards astern, in which could possibly – but not certainly – be discerned the outline and movements of what looked like another ship. If so, they were clearly trying to approach in secrecy, and for that matter, doing a good job of it. The lanterns were doused, and it was taking care not to sail ahead of the fog – a maneuver which required a skilled captain to pull off, well aware of the confluence of current, wind, and the ship’s capabilities. Killian had a brief memory of a battle during the war of the Spanish succession, almost forty years ago now, when he and Liam had surprised and defeated a French fifty-gunner by concealing the Imperator with a similar move. For a moment, he had an utterly absurd idea, then stopped. Bloody hell, of course not.

Nemo shut the spyglass. “Load the cannons,” he ordered. “It could be nothing, and we will not engage if they do not, but I prefer to be prepared, just in case.”

He turned to repeat the order in Tamil, as the first mate gave it in Arabic, and another man in Chinese. The crew dispersed like a well-oiled machine, more sail was loosed, and the Nautilus moved so quickly over the choppy water that it felt as if they had wings, but the other ship – she was starting to become clearer, it was not their imagination – was still gaining. Now she was eight hundred yards astern, now only five hundred, and then the long nines boomed and flashed, the shot whistling and splashing into the water barely shy of the Nautilus’ keel.

“We are not flying British or Spanish colors,” Nemo said. Considering that his ship had just been fired on, he still sounded remarkably calm. “Neither nation should have cause to attack us, thinking us an agent of the other. Mr. Rahman, what is their ensign?”

“British, I think.” The first mate opened the spyglass to look again. He added something else in Arabic that made Nemo frown again and turn to order the crew for more speed, and perhaps a warning shot of their own. Even in wartime, there were codes of conduct that governed firing on another ship unprovoked, especially with no enemy flag to justify a first attack, and these ill-behaved newcomers were flouting them, which was good as flying a red streamer to signify no quarter. The Nautilus’ stern guns thundered and flashed in response, throwing an eerie orange glow against the sky long enough for them to get half a glimpse of the oncoming ship. It looked like a brigantine, slender and two-masted, built for speed. For another wild instant, Killian thought that Emma’s old ship, the Blackbird, had been resurrected from the watery grave where Henry Jennings had sent it long ago, but of course that was not the case. But if he could just figure out what was putting his hackles on such edge about this, apart from the obvious fact of being fired on, and to do so in time to –

The other ship was still closing on the Nautilus’ starboard aft quarter, running hard with the wind, almost a match in speed. In another few minutes they would be level enough to try a broadside, and Nemo barked at his crew to man their own guns in the case of such an eventuality. But Killian, following an instinct he had no time to explain, took the spyglass from Mr. Rahman, balanced it in his hook, and fiddled the lens with his hand. Pointed it at the deck of the other ship, at its captain, the man by the helm, the –

In that moment, the shock completely stopped his heart.

In the next, the world exploded.

#captain swan #cs ff #cs au #cs next gen #the jones brothers #the rose and thorn #treasure island #black sails

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