calvinbox | open post | 4

ooc; So this is for Hermes, and I used this for some prompt ideas. I got:

The story is set during a war. The story takes place in the late evening. During the story, there is an argument.

The story ends on a glacier. During the story, someone is framed for a crime they didn't commit.

Maybe something during the Gigantomachy, with someone trying to frame Hermes and Zeus falling for it?

[ Once upon a time, Hermes had been the youngest of Zeus' children, but they all had once, before their father found another happless woman, be they mortal or goddess or nymph, to harass. An older sister chose to be a patron of justice and of wisdom, an older brother of the sun, another of war, another of love. They had the pick of their lot and left Hermes with slim pickings. He had, at the time, taken what he could get and left only the vices of alcohol for the next to come. There was a kinship that he found in those on who ran, who played games are lured others through the crossroads. He loved them, his miscreants and his keepers of coin, his travelers, his messengers, his runners and his talkers with a quick turn of phrase. He embraced his outsiders, but he had never intended to be one, not truly.

He had never intended to be anything less than trust-worthy; he had only been joking, about the cow, about any of it.

Not about Persephone though, never about her.

Lightening cracks above him and he skids to a stop on the ice, staring up at the sky in fear. Why was he running, he had to ask himself. He hadn't done anything wrong. Not that Zeus would believe him, his father, king, God the hottest temper. He was trying to find the one who started the rumor that he, in his love for Persephone, had suggested to Gaia to create the giants. He hadn't, he would never, but with Gaia herself refusing to talk, refusing to listen, who would believe him?

He was trying to stay alive, but the lightening had caught up with him. ]

[ Hermes had never been around to see the horror of the War against the Titans, the war that turned Zeus from the carefree godling roaming the wilds of Crete like some young bull, into the hardhearted creature of wrath that was willing to drown worlds and reduce offenders to ash. In some ways, this war against the Giants was worse - these monstrous, deformed creatures actually had the power to snuff out the Olympians and turn the world into something far different from what it was.

To think that Hermes had some hand in their creation? It made that sly little serpent a threat to them all - it made Zeus regret ever sleeping with Maia, crafty creature of shadows that she was - it made Zeus regret letting that charming little child that Apollo had brought before him join their ranks, knowing what deception he was capable of. He'd end Hermes if he had to - he would go beyond the crimes of his father if he had to.

Perhaps this glacier would be a grave. Maybe it would serve them both - the Furies would not let him survive this, by the laws he had created. Zeus threw one final bolt of lightning, more furious than all the others, and traveled with it to touch down upon the ice, pinning Hermes toward the edge. His eyes were aglow with his power, an his features were drawn into a hideous scowl. ]

Don't think you can run anymore, Hermes - you might be faster than the lightning; you might not. I wouldn't bet on you.

[ One doesn't need to be part of a war to know the terror of it. Perhaps that knowledge, that understanding is reserved for the witty, the intelligent, for Athena and himself only, the ones who could think outside their comfortable box. Never inclined towards fighting himself, he can imagine all too clearly the wrath of his blood at arms.

He can imagine that wrath turned upon his own being with a clarity that adds swiftness to those wings flapping with all their might at his feet.

When one of those hard working digits is so suddenly pinned to the glacier, the shock of it causes feathers to jump and scatter, falling singed against the ice. He almost falls himself, being jerked back in spite of his need to move forward. Two feet back on that massive heap of ice that he fears might be his final resting place, he stares over the edge. Of all the possibilities, of all the things he could do, only one option seems in his favor.

It's all in or fold, and he never folds.

Turning around with his hands up, evident that he has no tricks up his sleeve, only genuine fear in his eyes, he can't even muster half of a smile. This is it, isn't it? ]

Hey, I wouldn't bet on me either, and you know I don't put my coin on a lame horse.

[ The words come out as a meager attempt to ease the tension, and he licks his lips before continuing, without nearly enough of a pause for the joke to land. ]

I didn't do it. I swear, I had nothing to do with any of this.

Edited 2015-07-30 02:14 (UTC)

[ It was perhaps some inborn trait of Hermes that he could manage to tease out the traces of a smile from Zeus' mouth. He had done it as a child, and he was doing it now - the only problem was that the last time Hermes said "I didn't do it" as well, and that had turned out to be a lie.

Zeus couldn't afford to let him slip by this time.

With a flick of his wrist, lightning shot down from the sky and hit the ground several yards away from Hermes. ]

Why am I not believing you? [ He should have believed his own son, another Olympian. For just a moment, the thought that he had been potentially betrayed crossed his features before it was hidden behind a mask of rage again. ]

[ He flinched--of course he flinched. Who wouldn't flinch at the sound and sight of a heat and light that could have very easily been aimed to kill? It's a rare occasion when humor doesn't slip through the cracks; what a terrible time to comment on Zeus' aim this would be.

This isn't the time for it, and definitely not the place. His eyes linger at the melted crater where lightning had just struck for only a moment, before returning up to face his maker.

(Hermes knows liars, he knows all their tricks. This isn't one, he meets him eye to eye, as honest as one could possibly be. ) ]

Because you've never been able to tell when I'm telling the truth? I'm telling it now, Father, I swear it. What do you need me to swear upon for you to believe me? I've got nothing--If you could get Gaia to talk to you she would tell you. I would never do this.

Why, why would I?

[ To say that he would never understand women would be a disservice to himself. Grantaire does understand, all too well, why anyone would do anything self-sacrificing for the sake of being appreciated. He gets it, even if he basks in his hypocrisy and calls a spade a spade; in this case, a stupid action is a stupid action. The stupid action in question? Wearing heels anywhere. Sure, they make your ass look great but talk about that chance of tripping and breaking every bone in your body or spending the whole night complaining about blisters while being unable to stand for extended periods of time.

But then again, dat ass, right?

They missed a cab because Fabienne was running for it in her heels. He could have run for it, beaten her to it, but instead he followed in his usual manner of dragging his feet with a cigarette hanging from lazy lips and watching the world turn three steps ahead. ]

Fuck fuck fuck, [Fabienne swore under her breath, wrinkling her nose in dispare as the taxi wheeled away. There hadn't been any for what felt like miles. With a heavy sigh, she dropped her arm at the elbow, touching the top of her cloche.

She stopped walking, her balance on the balls of her feet, on top of the platforms.]

This is miserable. I'm calling an Uber. [Reaching into her purse pocket, she fished for her phone, long nails against books, lipstick containers, papers.] Grand R, do you have your phone on you?

[ Sometimes, it's like he can see himself from the outside, moving in slow motion and yet the tape keeps going forward with no pause, no stop, no rewind. He can see the path he's diving down but he can't stop it, can't stop his feet sliding down that hill; the momentum has already been built. His fate has already been decided by the progression of his own actions. He can't help himself, tumbling forward from his mouth onto the floor. That's love, isn't it? That uncontrollable emotional gagging that prevents any air from getting in? There is no gas mask to put on yourself first in love, he's gotten that much.

God, he's such a fucking idiot.

The panic had passed, the time when he was sitting on the stoop of Enjolras' building with his head in his hands considering whether or not jumping face first into traffic was a viable option. He remained seated there though, not unlike romeo at the balcony, watching the rain clouds gather.

He's too smart too be Romeo, and Enjolras is no one's Juliet. ]

[He's too smart. Eponine is too stupid, too impulsive to be anyone from that cast of characters.

No. No, she knows exactly who she is. Who she wants to be, and who she's stuck as.

But she's not smart enough to be Mercutio. Hell, she doesn't exist to Marius. She doesn't exist to anyone when they don't see her. Object permanence doesn't apply to Eponine Thenardier.

And why should it? She wasn't permanent. If drugs or alcohol didn't kill her, the rest of her life would.

Thunder rolls in the distance and she pulls her brown, thread-bare cardigan tighter around her frail form as she takes a long drag from her cigarette in order to keep hunger-pains at bay. When she goes home (if she goes home) she knows there's no food in the cupboards, there's no heat, nothing.

It isn't by any means, a home, in that regard.

Eponine was content to keep shuffling her worn-out boots along the pavement, smoking her cigarette till the filter, till the cherry burned the tips of her fingers and they became stained with nicotine. She had no direct goal in mind when she wandered, as was almost always the case. Maybe, like the man she was passing just now on the stoop, she'd walk into traffic.

Another rumble in the distance has her stopping and looking to the noise, her eyes falling on Grantaire as she did so. Without waiting for an invitation, she sits next to him.]

I know you.

[Contrary to popular belief, Teddy does not always leave the house attached to his boyfriend, even if it's a little harder than usual after the mess of the break-up and the Mother thing and the finally, finally getting back to something almost normal.

With Tommy, though? It's easier if it's not Billy-and-Teddy, no feelings in Tommy's face to make him uncomfortable. And now Tommy is finally a little more settled into Billy being his brother, there's some topics that automatically seem to be awkward around Billy that don't cause quite the same issues with Teddy. David. Heroing. Billy, sometimes. Teddy is safe as someone to talk to, though, and he's offered to be a sounding board for Tommy before. He's always a little surprised when it actually happens, intermittently, but he always makes the time for it, too.

The house is right out as a meeting place between Billy and the slightly over-enthusiastic welcomes of the Kaplan parents, so coffee it is; the place Teddy always goes to, because no matter how far it is from where Tommy happens to be right now he'd be there in fifteen minutes no matter what and probably consider it slow. Teddy's already there, ten minutes early just in case same as always, so Tommy doesn't have to wait for him, coffee already ordered and on the table.

And speaking of Tommy, that's some very distinctive hair suddenly stood inside the door, and Teddy waves him over.]

Hey. Long trip this time?

[One day you're on top of the world ,you're in the midst of destroying everything and finding the closure and healing you so desperately need and the world throws you a curveball.

He was tired of curveballs. Tired of things changing. The loss of his men to Skye's crystals and then what happened to him (dreaming of the stone, breaking out of it and what he could do afterwards...)

The former head of HYDRA. and what was worse, he'd promised. He'd promised to Kara's memory. He'd swore on Kara's grave she'd be revenged and he'd finally be able to take care of someone and honor their memory. He'd be the hero she deserved in death and make her enemies pay.

Now he's just a sad homeless man in upstate new york, scratching a thick beard and trying to train himself to heat up his coffee. Well, he was a sad homeless man in upstate new york trying to heat up his coffee.

Now he's part of a milling crowd watching the fire burn feeling like shit for doing so. It's not SHIELD. It's not a real enemy. They were just people.

He drags his hands over his face and steps away.]

[Merlin's been gone for what feels like weeks. Intellectually, Eggsy knows it's only been a few days, and he's even seen him for brief snatches of time in the corridors or across the conference room table, but Merlin'd been so busy with acting as handler for Bedivere and Kay all the way in fucking Malawi, of all places, that he hadn't even been home to change his clothes for the duration of the mission. (Not that most people would notice; even rumpled and tired and running solely on caffeine, Merlin manages to make a sweater and slacks look criminal. It's ceased to be obnoxious and is now just the way things are, and Eggsy finds it almost comforting in its familiarity.)

What he's definitely noticed, though, is how bristly Merlin looks when he finally walks through the front door. He's all but grown a full beard in the time he's been shackled to his desk, and the salt and pepper band of stubble around the back of his skull looks less like re-growth and more like a buzz cut. It's a little alarming to see that Merlin, fastidious about his appearance as he is, has let himself get so shaggy.

Naturally, Eggsy decides to do something about this.

Once Merlin's been fed and watered, he bullies him into the upstairs bathroom, telling him to take a shower and under no circumstances was he to start shaving before Eggsy returned. Honestly, he's surprised when he climbs back up the stairs with his secret kit not five minutes later and finds Merlin has obeyed his instructions; surprised and very pleased none the less. Once Merlin is bundled up in his robe, Eggsy pushes him down onto a chair and whips out the towel he carefully carried up the stairs in a bowl with near-boiling water and a few drops of essential oils.]

Tilt your head back.

Edited 2016-01-18 22:19 (UTC)

[ He'd slept in his office before, that was nothing new. A cot hadn't been moved into the extension of his office until he asked for one; he was lucky enough to have a bed with his name on it elsewhere in the manor. Not something most Kingsman agents could claim, but most of them didn't spend the majority of their waking (and what should be non-waking) hours devoted to the job. Other agents had lives, a luxury reliant on his ability to keep them that way in the field. Sometimes he could take advantage of the proper bed, if the mission had stretched far longer than intended or into the wee hours of the morning, but this was different. Cases like these that lasted a few days, missions where he had to be alert with only short periods of sporadic down time, with these he couldn't slip away to tuck in upstairs.

So the cot had been is friend as of late, though just too short to stretch out on properly and only for handful of full REM cycles.

Merlin is used to the cot though, and he can function perfectly well on little sleep. Every single time, what really starts to get on his last nerve is that itch of unshaven hair, when it's not short enough to really qualify as a stubble and not quite long enough to be soft. Down his chest the itching starts, then under his neck, and at the very base of his skull where his head hadn't quite decided to go properly bald. He scratches, he curses under his breath, and he lets leading Bedivere through a Malawian refugee hospital distract him from his far less life threatening problems.

He hadn't seen himself in a mirror until after dinner was thrust upon him, and lord did he look a right mess. The instinct to shave as he runs his hand over his jaw and around the back of his head is strong, but his curiosity is stronger. He was getting the impression that Eggsy had a kink, the way he keened when when a twelve o'clock shadow grazed against his inner thigh, or pressed harder against his lips when he hadn't had the chance to shave in the morning. He half expected Eggsy to join him as he washed and let the glancing heat wake him up, but he didn't.

What Merlin didn't expect was the shaving kit.

He cocks a questioning eyebrow, not yet leaning back in his seat. ]

A cutthroat razor isn't a toy, please tell me you know how to use that.

Edited 2016-01-20 02:05 (UTC)

[It's true, Eggsy likes Merlin when he gets a little bristly, when his chin is rough against Eggsy's skin, when the rasp of his stubble brings a dull red flush up along his neck and down his chest, but he knows full-well that Merlin has a wildly different opinion about his beard growth. So he's decided to shave him, to show off the skill he decided randomly to cultivate, the skill he'd spent the past three days shadowing barbers all around London to learn.

Hey, if he wasn't assigned a mission and Merlin wasn't around to convince to have sex with him, what else was he going to do?

He huffs a little sulkily and rolls his eyes, whipping out the razor he'd bought from one of the barbers he'd spent nearly nine hours with on the first day and flipping it back and forth across his knuckles in a show of dexterity that is supposed to translate to skill.]

Shut up and do as you're told. [He softens that remark with a kiss dropped to the top of Merlin's head before he meets his eyes in the mirror.] I swear on my mum I won't cut your throat.

[He sets the razor down and picks up the towel again, shaking it out pointedly.] Now lean your head back, the towel's getting cold.

[ Merlin's eyebrows shoot up at Eggsy's response, a silent acknowledgement that he's impressed. There is something undeniably sexy about the competence with which Eggsy handles the blade, coupled with his young boyfriend's promise on his mum to not kill him with a swift ease. (Well, one doesn't become a spy in their day and age without getting some sort of thrill out of that sort of thing.) He resigns himself with a nod to lean back and relax, leaning his head back as he's told.

Never let it be said that Merlin can't follow orders, even with his eyes remaining momentarily fixed on Eggsy. ]

Alright, have at then.

[Now that he's been given permission, Eggsy picks up the hot towel and wrings it out one last time to make sure he won't drip too-hot water down Merlin's neck, before carefully draping it. One fold at the neck, another over the upper lip, and the ends folded up and over to meet above the eyes. He fixes the bottom fold so it covers the jut of Merlin's chin, and then gently presses the towel into his skin before stepping away to get started making the lather.

Merlin's shaving kit is luxe without being ridiculously fancy or opulent. The thick badger hair brush makes a lovely, thick lather in no time, and so Eggsy is left waiting around for a moment, twiddling his thumbs, waiting for the hot towel to soften his stubble so that when Eggsy sets to lathering him up, he won't dull the blade too quickly on his beard.]

You know... [He slowly peels the towel off Merlin's face, smirking at him and leaning down to kiss the top of his head again.] I kinda like this new agreeable side of you.

[He flings the towel into the sink before picking up the brush again, swirling it firmly against Merlin's cheeks and chin to work the soap in against his skin. When he finishes, he grins at Merlin and snaps the razor open.] Anything you wanna say? Better get it out now before I start working...

[ Admittedly, Merlin doesn't have very many outlets for relaxation. He doesn't take long baths, he doesn't take vacations, and he doesn't meditate. He drinks tea, he distracts himself with personal projects, he goes to the gym or goes for a walk. Relaxation in Merlin terms isn't particularly relaxing at all, and is hell on his muscles. Harry used to insist that he get a massage at least once a year, but now that Harry's gone that year has come and went. A hot towel shave, though, is a short and efficient enough luxury that he does try and get one once a month. It's a short break with a sharp edge, and having Eggsy doing it instead of his barber in the comfort of his own home is an added bonus.

Frankly, he fucking needs it after the last few days, and he's never been as relaxed with the lingering threat of an open blade to his neck as he intends to be now.

(Even if Eggsy does nick him, there isn't much chance of that lingering awareness of his own mortality under the hands of someone he genuinely trusts. )

He hums in acknowledgement when the towel is removed from his face, and he shifts his head back slightly against the cushion, tilting his chin further up. If the motion is to chase after Eggsy's lips, it's minuscule at best. ]

I've no idea what you're on about, I've never been disagreeable in my life.

[ He's shut up then, by Eggsy's lathering, and his deadpan is only accompanied by a chuckle of a glance. He doesn't say another thing, only shakes his head gently in response to Eggsy's question. ]

I • II • III • IV

[ Jim considers himself among the lucky these days. He'd gotten into Oxford in spite of his expatriate family and their seeming disregard for their extended roots in the lesser English aristocracy. He was doing well in his classes according to his tutors, and the cricket season had begun with a series of small victories. Still his luck had been better still; Jim Prideaux had found love. He won't say the word aloud, and hasn't yet in the dead of night when they could only make the excuse of a long night nose-deep in books, but he knows it to be true. He's read the French Romantics, the degenerate artists of forty years past with whom he won't admit his singular similarity. Oscar Wilde had gotten one thing right about it at the very least: the sort of love he felt not only dare not but didn't need to speak it's name to be known and understood entirely. He looks at Bill Haydon, with his sparkling brilliance, and he knows.

The Easter holiday had just begun and more than half of the student body had gone home to spend the season with their families, but not Bill, and not Jim. If Jim had a choice he would never leave England again. Instead they were rowing a boat through the Cherwell Water Meadows, letting the hanging willows that weren't so low as to swat the taller of the two in the face shade them from the new sun.

Well, Jim was rowing, pushing the oars through with ease. He didn't mind the work, never particularly bothered by an opportunity to put himself to good use. He's among the lucky now after all, just to be where he is, at tow with Bill. ]

You have got to give him this, Joyce does have a way with the language at the very least--Watch your head.

Peggy Carter doesn't really have a habit of announcing herself. It might not be protocol to go storming off into the office of the chief of the LA SSR, but she's never let that be of concern to her before, and she's certainly not about to start now. So in she storms, with a file full of paperwork in her hands, a file that as soon as she's in front of his desk, she throws unceremoniously down in front of him.

Both hands transfer to her hips, and she shoots him a glare that even the most hardened of Nazis would have been fearful of.

"What the bloody hell do you think you're playing at, Daniel?"

Now that Daniel's gotten his office back, he's gotten used to being able to close the door and get things done with a bit of peace and quiet. Peace and quiet, though, doesn't stick around long when Peggy Carter is involved. Maybe, just maybe, he likes it that way. One can have too much peace and quiet after all.

He's not surprised when she bursts into his office, and less surprised when she stops the file on his desk. He opens his mouth to answer, only to close it in order to lean over and open the file to check that it was actually what he thought it was. He glances up at her, full of doubt that anger is really the right reaction here.

"I'm not playing at anything. We need someone like you here in the LA branch, and there's no guarantee that Jack's going to put you back on the ground if you go back to New York." He pauses for a moment, for gravitas. "If you don't want the transfer request to go through, Peg, you don't have to sign a thing."

If looks could kill, Peggy would likely have a warrant out for her arrest. She isn't comforted by Daniel's words, just keeps staring at him, eyes ablaze and hands firmly in their place.

"Oh and you didn't think to ask me first?" she protests. "Really, Daniel, I'd have thought better of you than for you to think you can move me around like some piece of meat!"

Well no, he isn't treating her like that at all, but she's irate, and sometimes a little hyperbole never hurt anyone.

If anything at all can be said for Daniel Sousa, its that he's very good at learning from his mistakes where his status as a white man in a white man's world is concerned. For a moment hurt flashes across his features. It sits in his lips, and his head tilts in a plea for some understanding, with a hint of apologetics.

Hyperbole hurts plenty, but they're resilient.

"Did you, in the march from your desk to my office, stop to think that maybe this was me asking? It's not like anything goes forward without your signature."

[ Being a juvenile offender in the suburbs of New Jersey meant spending your free time in one of two places: at raves or smoking weed and setting off fireworks in a Wawa parking lot. He'd done the parking lot thing with Lisa, but with what he was told at the time must be ADHD and not just a side effect of his X-Gene manifestation, raves had been more his thing. He could distract himself from how much he hates everything with party drugs and alcohol, with no feelings and maximum exertion of energy. Parties and Tommy went well together, all things considered, but then life happened. Well, Tommy happened and life sort of crumbled, along with a few walls in his high school. Then there was the maximum security fascist hellhole, and then a real life worth living. For a little while, he almost felt like maybe he didn't need a distraction anymore.

But then, like everything else he ever made the mistake of getting his hopes up for, that fell to shit too. He was on his own again because everyone had given up, and so parties were back on the menu.

He'd been hassling David to come out clubbing with him sometime for ages now. It'll be fun, he'd say, I bet you picked up some great moves from Dazzler. It would be nice, he thinks but doesn't say, to have someone to have a good time with again. He's not sure what he said to finally get through, but there they are, weaving through the crowd towards the bar with fluorescent stamps on their hands and glowsticks that Tommy had whizzed around to grab from the unsuspecting and already blitzed. Finally at the bar, he orders them shots. One for David, three for himself. As they wait for the glasses to be filled, he props himself up to get a good look at the dance floor. ]

What's your type again? I'll see if I can keep a look-out.

Edited 2016-03-24 03:15 (UTC)

[Type. David doesn't have a type. If he was being honest with himself he supposed his type would be Unavailable. His hook-ups always seemed to have that one pesky problem of having an overprotective significant other. Maybe he was a masochist.

This would explain his friendship with Tommy.

Well, that wasn't really fair. Tommy wasn't the problem. David was the problem - always would be the problem - and he knew that. It was why he'd put off this night out. One night stands with "normal" people were easy. A drink at a cafe. A taxi ride to their apartment. A good fuck - or semi-decent, at least - and then done. Back home before the taxi's filled with the drunks still buzzing from last call.

Easy. Simple. Boring as hell. But David deserved boring after the wreck from the past year. He didn't like it but it was all that was left. Everyone pretty much left him alone except for Tommy.

Tommy got under his skin in ways David couldn't describe. Definitely not his type and yet, here he was, at a flashy, glitzy nightclub that younger David may have enjoyed once. A shot in front of him and a flash of white hair with a dazzling smile.

Not his type.]

Pretty. Dark. Top Heavy. I don't think it will be too difficult to find someone matching that description.

[David took the shot and slid the glass back across the bar.]

I'm going to need another of those if you want to see any sort of 'moves' from me.

[ Tommy grins and waves the bartender down, ordering two more shots for both of them and handing over his debit card to keep the tab open. A fucking debit card, him, like a fucking adult. He'd been technically some sort of unofficially emancipated minor before he even turned 18, but the idea of being an actual adult still seemed to damn far away. In spite of everything, in spite of the amount he drinks (illegally), in spite of having saved lives and holding the burden of legitimate responsibility, he's just 19. 19 with an income all his own, and a life all his own too.

It's great, all things considered. Old enough to know what he's doing, and young enough to get away with it.

He looks at David after he took both shots maybe longer than he should have, though perhaps for people who live at a normal speed it wasn't long at all. Then he's craning his neck again to look into the crowd, beginning to feel the buzz of 5 shots of tequila that won't last as long as he wishes it could. ]

Dark like goths who look like they'll stab you in your sleep or dark like black?

[ Neither are anything like Tommy himself, he think quickly in the back of his head at lightning speed. It's a thought gone fast enough to be easily dismissed, just like every other confusing and complicated thought he's had about his new best friend. ]

[ Not a lot brings Frank back to Hell's Kitchen these days. There's a whole city of crooks, five boroughs full and this square mile was well enough defended in his book. The sooner he didn't have to cover Red's ass and the further he kept his distance from one strawberry blond legal assistant turned amateur reporter the better. His intel drags him all around the big apple, and this time it happened to sit him down on a rooftop in a familiar neighborhood. The sun went down and he climbed on up.

What would you say if I told you there is a woman in Hell's Kitchen who murdered an innocent woman, then tortured and tried to kill a man she had seduced into living with her? Is that someone worth putting in the ground?

I'd say she's as good as gone.

Assembling his .300 Win Mag in the dead of night if only the endless city lights below him for company is down to muscle memory. He'd found her address easily enough, one Jessica Jones in apartment 5D. Normally he'd background check with Micro with a tip off like this one, but his usual paranoid suspicion sat to the wayside. He didn't even wonder why, the fact that he was so sure of this one woman's guilt didn't give him pause for a damn second.

Then trust me. If you're looking for bad guys, I can help with that.

And he did trust him in that moment, completely. Funny, that.

P.I. Jones was going to get what was coming to her, hell rained down from above with a sniper's precision. He set his rifle up, took aim, and waited for his target to get home. He's patient, he can wait. ]

Edited 2016-04-07 00:47 (UTC)

[ kevin's in the wind and it wreaks havoc on her goddamn ptsd. trish is holed up in a safehouse and checks in hourly, leaving messages if jess doesn't pick up. she does, every time, and cuts the hours apart by the appearance of trish's name on her phone rather than any number on the screen. first thing she did when she got home the afternoon kilgrave escaped was draw her blinds to block as much of the sun as possible, like she could ignore the passage of time completely if she could form and find a corner dark enough to drink in and gather her thoughts.

jess falls in and out of sleep with her back to the wall and her ass on the floor, draining a bottle of wild turkey. at times, she shakes herself awake consciously, and at others she's shocked into alertness by dreams slipping to the forefront of her brain: kilgrave waltzing through the door, or her phone buzzing to life with an unknown caller. every time she opens her eyes, she's alone.

enough calls from trish pass by that jess stops counting. she disappears to sleep and checks in several hours later. 5:56am. their conversation is curt, mostly on jess's end; trish tells her she'll figure out a way to get cash out and to jess by noon so she has the funds to track kilgrave down. which means packing. when they're done, jess swears and drags herself to her feet and to her bedroom, flicking the light on and squinting as her eyes adjust. first things first: she crosses to her night stand to hook her phone up to her charger, her silhouette bleeding crosswise onto the blinds. ]

[If Scott had a belt to scratch notches into for every time he'd saved the world, he'd have two on there now. Two. For a relatively small number, for a guy that shrunk down to make himself strong, for an ex-con, that was a pretty big accomplishment.

He hadn't liked being back in another cell, even if that one had been fancy, and he'd been surrounded by other enhanced individuals. But Steve Rogers, Captain Freaking America, had broken them out and set them up in his own private base.

All in all, it wouldn't bother him so much if he could just see his daughter and Hope. He'd known being a superhero would come with some not so good things, and this was one of them. Joining the fight meant leaving them behind, but staying behind meant not doing everything he could to keep them safe.

He missed his daughter, but she was safe because of him.

Hope, on the other hand, she had to know. She was smart and strong and he waited every day for some kind of contact. An email. A letter in a bottle. Skywriting that says something mean, which tells Scott that she's actually missed him. Anything. But as much as he hopes for it, he doesn't expect it to come, and he really doesn't expect it to be her in person.]

Hope?

[He'd been told when the helicopter showed up on radar that he had a guest, and as the helicopter dies down, the door opening, he throws his arms wide and walks towards her.]

[ Safe is relative. Safe doesn't always mean alive and well, and if anyone spent a minute of their time to actually ask Hope, she wouldn't consider what Scott did keeping his daughter safe. For all of attempts at being a hero, for all of his attempts at standing for what he believed was a good cause, Hope found that Scott could be painfully idealistic. It's that same streak that got him tossed in prison the first time, that need to do what he felt was right without regard for the consequences.

But there were always consequences. Shortsightedness isn't something she considers to be particularly heroic.

Hope isn't sure what happened first, but she knows that Scott's family was brought in for questioning about his whereabouts and so were she and Hank. From what she could tell, Cassie was going to spend the rest of her life on a watch list. They would watch her too, but it was different, as an adult, as someone who wasn't Scott's family. For all that Hope has difficulty with her father she had to be grateful that she wouldn't share a similar fate. She'd watched him talk his way out of full military overhaul of their laboratories, but the process had been strenuous on both of them. Hours being questioned, separated and brought together again, always being asked if they knew where the terrorist Scott Lang was, if they knew he was going to do this, if they really had the right to their property.

Terrorist they called him, what a nightmare.

She got the call from Steve Rogers on a burner phone to her office, because that wasn't incriminating at all. Told her the coordinates of where to find them, having the audacity to apologize to her on a recorded message like that was enough to put out all the fires he'd started. While the idealists went into hiding, it was the rest of them that were on fire duty. She had to thank Hank though, for getting the military off of their asses for a short while at least, otherwise she would have never been able to manage the flight and then the helicopter ride into Wakanda without starting an international incident.

She'd been angry on the flight into Wakanda, all of her worry having burnt out in the heat of it over the last few weeks. Seeing Scott though, standing on front of her in one piece, is something different. Something that pricks at the back of her eyes and throat. It's a few quick clicks of her heels against the tarmac until she's within arms length of him--

--and then she's swinging with all of that pent up anger, her fist slamming into the side of his face. ]

[ Hikaru Sulu: Decorated Starfleet pilot, Astrophysicist, amateur Botanist, father of the smartest little girl in San Francisco and a loving husband. See also: a lousy piece of human garbage.

It started four months ago. No, that would be a lie, to himself more than anything else. It started over a year ago, when the Enterprise glided into position over Titan and, while Captain and First Officer beamed off to risk their lives to save billions, Lieutenant Sulu glanced over at his navigator and though Good. They worked well together and he thought, in that moment, that he'd like to keep working with him if he could, if they survived. He'd gotten his wish, and he doesn't regret it for a moment. Not even after kissing his daughter and husband goodbye for five long years did he regret it, because being in space was his calling. Being out there at the helm of a starship was what he needed to do, and he couldn't be the best pilot he could be without a navigator whom he fit with nicely. He doesn't regret wanting to work with Pavel because Pavel is the best, and his friend to boot. They click, with Pavel's unending zeal and Hikaru's ability to balance that out with optimistic calm. With his focused dedication to work, with his tireless ability to be his own person and not simply an officer all day every day, with the way his hair curls around his ears, and the way he glances over at Sulu when they need to make hard choices, and they both know that the hard things need to be done though neither of them need to enjoy it. The way he bites his lip when he's charting trajectories instead of sleeping, the way he lights up when he has a chance to take credit for mother Russia, the way his long fingers twitch when he's annoyed.

They should have just fucked earlier, maybe then none of this would have happened the way that it did.

The real trouble started four months ago, when they did start sleeping together. The more that he thinks about it, the more Hikaru knows that the feelings that he can't tuck away had long since developed before he decided to bite the bullet and carefully slide into conversation that You know that my marriage is open, right? (Pavel had to know. He was sure everyone did, given that he had been having fairly regular sex since about two months into the mission.) Something had been building between them that he should have pushed away, locked the door and never opened. He never should have thought that sleeping with his best friend would be simple, but then he never thought that he would be capable of loving anyone but David.

David who is lightyears away, taking care of their daughter by himself. Dammit, Hikaru.

Two weeks ago, after an adrenaline filled away mission, pavel had dragged him into the communal decontamination showers post-dismissal with a mid-makout shout of Sorry it is out of order! to some poorly-timed engineer who tried to get in. They laughed as they fucked, and as his breathing came down and his nose pressed against Pavel's, the dreaded thought I love you came creeping down from brain to the back of his tongue. He caught it before it escaped and he made quick work of doing the same.

Two weeks of avoidance and frustration lead him here, straddling Kirk's hips as he comes down from his orgasm with Jim's cock still all the way inside him. He's been here plenty of times before, in fact this is where he had been the first time two months into the mission, because Jim isn't Hikaru's best friend, but he's something else. He's reliable, he's someone Hikaru trusts indiscriminately. He's not Pavel who has a grip on something deeper inside of his chest, and he's not Nyota with whom he can recall the ease of their academy days. He's simply Jim, flying parallel to Hikaru and ready to take the jump into warp to meet him at a moment's notice. Jim's good people, all things considered, which Hikaru can't really say the same for himself right now.

Eyes closed, Hikaru releases a long breath and runs a sweaty hand through his hair. He doesn't say anything, where he might have had a comment to throw down before. He doesn't really feel up to being funny, even if this had been a distraction. ]

Edited 2016-07-10 00:36 (UTC)

[Well, he didn't call him Pavel. So he's not the ultimate piece of trash in the universe. Just like number six.

Jim Kirk is probably both the worst and the best person to have a casual fling with. He won't cause any drama about it. He doesn't make a big deal about it because sex is awesome and should be a fun, consensual thing for everyone involved. Sometimes he gets caught by a nice smile or an even nicer ass but nothing's really stuck long term since he was eighteen. Hell, he's even met David. He likes David. He doesn't want to steal Hikaru from him except to use him as a pilot for five years but whatever. That's different. That's purely professional and sometimes he and his pilot have sex on the side.

There's (probably to some) surprisingly few people on the ship that Kirk has slept with and if the opportunity presented itself, that he would fuck. He's the captain. He can separate it in his head, but a lot of people can't and he gets that and he has a self imposed rule: no one beyond the senior crew on the ship. Sulu's easy (jokes aside) and he's not worried about drama coming to bite them in the ass down the road. His own regs rules two of them out automatically and Chekov is more like a little brother to him and Scotty is insane in a not hot way and that leaves Bones which is--

well--

It's Bones.

Bones is Bones is Bones. It isn't just that Jim is the captain and McCoy is his CMO. It isn't just that they've been friends for years, suffered the Academy together. It's not even that if it weren't for Bones, Kirk would never have been on the Enterprise in the first place and everyone would have died. It's that Bones is his best friend. Actually the only best friend he's ever had. The longest friendship he's had. The longest anyone's been in his life that's not family or ended up in his bed.

And he doesn't want to ruin it. Not because of his dick. He could talk to Bones about all those messy feelings rolling around his brain but that's just too damn logical.

So he and Sulu has some pretty awesome sex. They've both come. No one's going home crying. He's about two seconds away from high fiving his pilot and suggesting a shower and then getting some dinner. The only thing that stops him is the look on Sulu's face and the lack of any sassy comment. So he taps the other man's hips instead, a silent cue to both get off him and he notices that Sulu is being weird.]

What's up?

[ For a few seconds, Hikaru isn't thinking. It's a relief to just be in a state of post-orgasmic blankness. Without his own mistakes hanging over him, without trying to map the mess that he's in. He'd like to stay there as long as possible, quiet, undisturbed, but the tap on his hip brings him crashing back down to the Captain's quarters, with his knees pressing into the mattress and Jim Kirk's cock softening in his asshole. ]

Huh?

[ He sighs again, lacking the lightness of release that came with the last, and moves off of Jim to drop down onto the bed. He's usually in a better place than this when they've finished; Now he can't help but notice the lukewarm viscosity of Jim's cum between his cheeks. Another thing he's ruined. When it rains, it pours. ]

It's nothing, I'm alright.

open post | 4 | general

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yessss that works for me!

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R

R

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also r

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for Tommy

Hope | watch me voice test.

Grant Ward | Inhuman/hellfire!AU | for Charles

yaaas merlin yaaaaasssss

o 3 o

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The Thing.

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Sousa or die.

No one is dying today.

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for david

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castle.mp3

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staggers late season developments willy nilly or post s2 kevin gets away whocares

for getweird > post CACW

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talking boy problems

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