been drowning inside out

hi. this is my being gay and doing crime sideblog. about ♦ my art ♦ my drabbles ♦ my ocs.

[mindfights]

if i had a nickel for every time my favorite vigilante sidekick tragically died, secretly resurrected, and came back with a ends-justify-the-means mentality and a plan that pit them against their former allies, i'd have two nickels. which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

[villainsidestep-deactivated2023]

[mindfights]

my little penance for dragging @morealark into the swamp.

[mindfights]

Tell me, are you Lucifer? Masks are off and bridges burned.

[mindfights]

we got time until the next alpha. i can keep layering post-retribution chargestep drabbles right in between those epilogue slides for years.

For as clever and dangerous as you've come to realize Ortega is, he makes mistakes. Well. You've both made mistakes, but he gave you access to the delivery services and his money.

Not that you couldn't easily bankroll the nefarious idea being cooped up in his apartment inspired yourself, but that could give the game away.

So could answering the door, you think bitterly, anxiety digging in its claws, before shaking the thought away so thoroughly your neck is a bit sore.

No, this is a calculated risk.

Ortega is enough of a clotheshorse that you can pad your physique in his oversized, designer sweatshirt from his closet. Cover up the tattoos, pilfer a pair of his sunglasses, broadcast don't look at me far and wide... it'll work.

It does work.

The delivery guy walks away with the impression he got the signature from one Ricardo Ortega's chunky uncle, and that he narrowly escaped a long, long bout of chit-chat. He walks down the hallway from Ortega's door cloaked in relief.

Once you unpack the box it's an extended game of hobbling around Ortega's apartment, putting back dress shirts and sunglasses and his extended collection of Charge merchandise through the ages, smoothing them down the best you can, stowing parts of the delivery in the fridge and others carefully hidden behind the one picture he has of you all together.

It's clearly a stillframe from a broadcast, Marshal Charge at the front projecting confidence in his more-than-a-little roughed up state while Steel glowers down at you and Anathema in the back for not taking getting patched up seriously. Off regulation. It makes you smile a little sadly as you position your secret weapon behind the cracked and plainly repaired frame.

Then it becomes a waiting game.

Ortega has been trying not to maintain a strict return schedule — one more attempt to keep you hidden — but you've worked out the pattern he's unwittingly created for his Mondays through Fridays, so you know roughly when his keys should open the lock.

You make sure the refridgerated components are ready and prepared just in time, though you admit it was more of a challenge than it would have been on healed legs.

When he comes in, you're seated at the counter with your back to him, looking over your shoulder, wearing one of his dress shirts you couldn't fully unwrinkle with your hair pulled up.

Ortega closes the front door instinctually before greeting you with the single-most uneasy, "Hello?" you've ever heard from him.

"Hi, Richie."

That does nothing to relax his stance, but it does get a lopsided smile, and a questioning, "What are you doing, Ains?"

You can't exactly keep the blush from starting to rise on your face, thinking about actually enacting your plan. It's stupid, incredibly stupid, but you want it to mean something. You want him to see it means something. It's effort you didn't bother with where he could see in the old days. It wouldn't go anywhere, couldn't be anything, after all.

You take a breath and try that ridiculous communicating honestly thing. "You know how you always took me out?"

He kicks his shoes off and braves walking further into his apartment. "Yeah?"

You swallow. nod sharply to the kitchen. Refuse to meet his eyes. "I thought I could return the favor? Like a, uhm..." Motherbitch, it sticks in your throat as he steps closer to peer into the kitchen, curiosity plain on his face. "A date."

If the familiar scent combination of garlic, cumin, pork and peppers wafting from the pot on the stove didn't make his eyes widen, it was definitely you willingly calling this a date.

"¿Una cita?"

You bite down the reflex to be snappish and nod, finally looking up at him from under your bangs, mumbling, "I made... Tía Elena's chili verde." She had taught the recipe to you on one visit to the ranch while Ortega did chores too difficult for his mamá. You had been looking down then too, embarrassed by why you asked. She had only laughed and lifted your chin, thinking so loud and warmly, sweet girl, like she saw your entire agenda.

You slide off your chair with less grace than you want, the skin of your thighs making the softest friction squeak as you go, taking up your crutches to navigate to the fridge and pull out — with a little trouble and careful juggling — the cheap plastic pitcher containing the sangria you made. Not a Tía Elena recipe, but good enough to be served beside one unless your taste buds are as faulty as the rest of you.

You heft it toward Ortega for inspection and that finally seems to knock him out of the odd stupor he's been hovering in. The smile that breaks out could be the last thing you see and you'd be fine with that.

Ortega comes at you like he's going to hug you, pauses, plucks the pitcher of deep red wine and marinated fruits from your hands to set on the counter, and then resumes his approach, wrapping his arms tightly around you and nestling his face against your neck.

"You made me dinner? Not just dinner, my mamá's cooking? You must love me, Ains."

You swallow hard, relaxing in the hold and resting your hands against his lower back, whispering, "And be crazy enough to try recreating her cooking?"

He laughs so warmly against your skin before it turns into a gentle kiss at against your pulse. "Maybe a little crazy, but it smells good. You did all this because you felt guilty about all those greasy burgers I bought us?"

Now or never. You take a breath and manage to keep nerves out of your words. "I did more."

That separates you both just enough to be faced with the full force of the tenderness written on Ortega's features. Because of you.

"Look behind that awful shot of you and some hooligans," you instruct, and follow behind him as he goes digging.

Polaroid cameras aren't inexpensive, but it was a necessary splurge. Certainly one he'll enjoy more than the designer pajamas he decided to get you. And the likely survival rate in the one and only Charge's hands is higher than any other sort.

Ortega turns it over in his hands a couple of times, experimental, curious, before looking back at you for an explanation. You don't really think he needs your help to work it out, but you're not going to deny him. Not tonight. Not when you're hopelessly soft.

"You don't have any good photos of us together, right? I thought... you should have some. Now that you know."

Another risk, but one you can control.

The smile drops from his face at that and for a moment you start rethinking every step in your little plan, wondering where you fucked up. Then he's glassy eyed and pulling you into a one armed hug, raising the camera and pressing a kiss to your cheek.

The shutter noise overlays Ortega's delighted, "This will be a perfect date, chaparrita."

[mindfights]

another little chargestep drabble, post-retribution. further into recovery, further into acceptance.

The therapeutic casts and crutches are an upgrade. More manueverability, less dependence on Ortega helping you — carrying you, mostly — hither and to. No more suspicious buckets set just on the edge of your reach without a word. Less indignity, mostly. It's refreshing.

You can perch on the kitchen counter beside him while he makes you both breakfast and — vital to your continued recovery — you can control how the coffee is brewed. No more watching him disappear down the hallway only to reappear sometime later with food and painkillers.

It almost feels like old times, but that was always dinner. Breakfast is still new to you both. He likes making pancakes entirely too much for his vanity and ego, you like complaining about his hot sauces not being spicy enough for your eggs and laughing while he curses at you. You also like watching him stuff his face and just seem... happy.

It's so weird. Domesticity. Eating breakfast together, legs as gently tangled as your casts allow. Drying dishes and him pressing his hip against yours, a comforting presence, a clue with how he's feeling now that he knows how his static wears on you. Him making sure you're hidden so no one passing by his door can get a peek — his paranoia working for you for once — before kissing you as he heads out, long, and soft, and with a smile in it that breaks you down. He's doing everything to make you feel safe, so you play along as best you can. He's seen the nightmares now, bundled you into his arms while your body trembles from old memories, but he has not seen the anger and frustration and tears that accompany you trying to reach your puppet.

You want to keep it that way. You want to lose yourself in this little stage play you're both cast in.

No.

You want it to be real.

Can it? If your body recovers before they find you, you can disappear, slip into the guise of Frenzy. You can go back to your plan. You can burn their atrocities into the minds of every person breathing the polluted Los Diablos air. The Rangers already know. You've shared more through Ortega while convalescing. Trusted — trusted as much as you can — him and Argent's tech support to keep it quiet during ranger hq show-and-tell.

Would that make Frenzy's re-emergence all the more obvious? Their actions all but a lit up billboard of what you've told them.

Motherbitch.

You think back to Herald on the ground, Ortega's devil-may-care smile you beat off his face, Argent taking a dive off that bridge. You think back to Steel seeing Frenzy take charge in an emergency to save people. You think about Ortega pulling you onto his lap and kissing the ugly orange lines tainting your bare shoulder.

You can almost hear what Themmy would say and your shoulders sag.

"I have to tell them, don't I?"

[mindfights]

a little chargestep drabble, post-retribution. drips and drabs of intimacy in recovery.

You brace for it, wait for it, want it; Ortega's condemnations, his revulsion, the little tells on his face that confirm everything you feared for years in stereo.

It doesn't come.

It takes time, but you both to settle into some kind of normalcy. It's incremental, the little intimate moves Ortega makes. Fingers lacing with yours, climbing onto the bed beside you — careful not to jostle you, naturally, kisses when you're willing. He doesn't want to spook you, not when you're healing and cornered, and that's perhaps the most obvious and honest read you've ever managed of him.

When they return, the flirtations are less speculative. He's touched your bare skin, run his mouth down the inside of your thighs. He's heard how his name drips off your tongue as all strength in those thighs give out, and he has kissed you, proud and heated.

He develops a habit in your established routine. Helping you dress around the restricting plaster was practical, but this is indulgent. Ortega brushing your hair — an act you repeatedly tell him you're capable of doing yourself to hushed admonishments — and without fail pressing kisses to the back of your neck. Then down. Right to the crown of the tattoos that other you. Whispered insinuations against the flesh you've hated and fought to conceal your whole life about what you could get up to if he just took the day off.

He likes asking you if you want to make up for lost time with a smile that's too soft for the suggestive tone.

You wish the 'idiot' you shoo him off with was sharper.

It's impossible to be sharp with him when you're swimming in one of his undercover sweatshirts, smelling him, smelling like him, legs frighteningly exposed. To vent heat, you justified. You're not ready to say he makes you almost believe you're safe.

Eventually, he provokes you enough with that charming smoothness of his that grates, and you snap at him. Call him an idiot and tell him he has to use the three brain cells that villains haven't beaten out of him yet to see the logistical problems with all his come-ons.

He laughs until he's breathless. "Ains, you're turning me down over logistics?" It's a non-issue, one he's glad to prove, scooping you up like it's nothing. "You know I like challenges."

[mindfights]

‣ "You're thinking about it, aren't you?" ‣ "About what?" ‣ "About going further than just kissing me."

[mindfights]

tfw you reveal one of the numerous really shitty things you’ve done to one of your boyfriends and start trying to work out the perfect killing ratio of coffee, monster, and 5 hour energy on a barstool in hoots

[mindfights]

me in 2019: i’m going to do a full character sheet for ainsley. me in 2023: [half-dead, nerves in hand fucked up from a surgery] me in 2023: what if i finished this ancient wip?

[mindfights]

Are the borders between you and your puppet starting to get muddled? ▶ Yes, sometimes it’s hard to remember the difference.

[mindfights]

I'm a lover not a fighter and I don't want to have to get rough I'm just warning you ahead of time I can be a bitch when it comes to my stuff

[mindfights]

this is my cosmic morosexual from @the-passenger-if‘s game. she’s 6′2″ in this form (and a giant lisa frank-colored evil bag in true form) and her gender is best described as, “girl, but weaponize it”. template by @plushchimera. ♥

[abyssalhandmaiden]

Defective

One person’s broken tool is another nonperson’s comfort.

CW: drugs, institutional abuse, sexual assault

Notes: Blame @mindfights for asking me, “What if Ainsley and Serafina were friends back at the Farm?” Serafina is pre-transition and uses he/him pronouns.

Keep reading

[antisocialxconstruct]

I’m utterly convinced that they tried to deliver that line with a bad southern accent and the vocal filter ruined it.

[abyssalhandmaiden]

Serafina: I told Ainsley after I rescued her that I'm not interested in redemption. I don't deserve it. It's too complicated. I'm not looking for it. And she was like, "You're saying you won't ever try to fix things and live a good life?" And I was like, never! Count on it! It's not happening. I'm just here to kill people and destroy Los Diablos. And she was like, "I'm gonna redeem you." And I was like, no, you're not. And she was like, "I am. I am, and you're gonna turn back from your self-destructive path or you're gonna disappoint your oldest friend." And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll see. And she's FUCKING DOING IT.

Rosie: And you're not gonna disappoint her, because...

Serafina: Well, I was like, I will totally shut you out in the cold. I will blockade your ass quicker than you can spell... parfait. And what does she do? She brings stray cats and love--and love!--into that shit! That's not fair!

[comtesseadaar-deactivated202510]

this is my new oc their name is evon and they’re kind of a shithead