#2econdlead

[fatescattered]

staying the night after a hook up was hardly brooke davis's m.o., always careful not to cross that line should the other person get the wrong idea -- but a little bit of flirting with billy hargrove quickly turned into a lot of flirting, and before she knew it, they were making out in the back of his car. she should've said no when he suggested going to his place - not because she didn't want to, but because it meant she was now dependent on him to get back home. he was nowhere to be found when she woke up the next morning, probably off to work or god knows where, while her own car was still in the school parking lot. great.

so now she's standing awkwardly in the hallway, wearing yesterday's clothes and feeling ridiculous. if billy thinks they're gonna see each other again, he's dead wrong.

seeing no car on the driveway, brooke assumes his parents already left as well, so she gives herself permission to stomp around the house as she desperately tries to find a phone to call someone to pick her up.

she's in the kitchen, a stolen cookie from the pantry in her mouth, when the sound of footsteps makes her jump in place. oh, shit. she forgot billy had a sister.

"uh... hey!" brooke puts on her best winning smile, hoping her casual demeanor will hide how much she wants the ground to split open and swallow her whole. "max, right?" the kid had an unusual name, so thankfully brooke had been quick to memorize it.

"soooo your brother kinda left me stranded here with no ride back." smile turns just a little sardonic. no point in covering for him, she guesses. "any chance you have a phone around here to call for rescue?"

@2econdlead / b davis starter call

[fatescattered]

‘now is not the time. stay close.’ - 2econdlead, daredevil!matt @ dawn !

@2econdlead / resident evil requiem meme

the protest she had ready to fire dies out on her lips, mouth closing in reluctant defeat. she knows he's right. as much as dawn doesn't want to be saved by a vigilante, there's only so much she can do here. a black belt in karate seems like child's play in comparison to the person chasing them, and she'd likely get injured trying to prove a point.

"fine." there's still a bite to her tone, even as she concedes, frustrated with the situation and how helpless she feels. so much for a safer city. what was she even fighting for, day in and day out?

arms cross to her chest as she takes a tentative step towards him, gaze lingering as she tries to study his features. even if she did manange to see his face, dawn may not be able to recognize him. that was the thing with these vigilantes. it could be anyone under the mask. someone with good intentions but little else to go by.

"so, what's the plan?" she quirks an expectant brow. "and how many laws are you planning on breaking in the process?"

[gloriousxdarkness]

WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU // accepting // @2econdlead sent (for Matt) — i ask, you answer. that's how this works.

Everything is where it should be. No alarms going off, no overturned chairs, no plaster broken by gunfire. Even the guards are still at their posts. They're just not alive.

Two at the entrance, two at the back, three on patrols, and one on the roof. There's been no hesitation in these attacks, no wasted motion, no anger behind the precise strikes. This place has been solved like a puzzle, and solved in just the same way Elektra would have done, had it been her task.

She walks each room expecting and meeting no one until she sees the body. A small part of her considered he might simply have been extracted for questioning, but no. Marco Derveni, the protected witness, the latest in a chain of killings that look exactly like this. Like her.

The air shifts behind her before the thought fully forms, enough to know that the safehouse is no longer empty.

She turns and dodges Matt’s strike before it lands, but in the breath of surprise at his presence, she doesn’t escape the tackling grapple that follows, nor the binding of his billyclub cable as it locks around her and anchors her to a metal support beam at the ceiling.

His breath is hot with familiar, heart-racing anger, and Elektra bares her teeth right back at him. "Matthew—"

"I ask, you answer. That's how this works."

Interrogation. She'd laugh if the lives of four people, including a journalist from a staged overdose, hadn't led her to this location to discover the fifth.

The cable bites into her skin as she tests its strength. "Then ask."

[fatescattered]

@2econdlead / continued

the refusal isn't taken to heart - in hindsight, lucy's not sure she's ever seen samira eat a proper meal, but then, they so rarely have the time for that - yet there's no deying she had hoped they could share the food. she'd even gotten a big enough quesadilla portion from the food truck a block away for the two of them with that in mind.

"so do you," she gently reminds, brows raising as lucy's gaze rests on samira. "your shift started earlier than mine, you must be exhausted." not that she was in much better shape, really, after a surgery that ended up taking twice as long to finish up. "though i guess this is the best place to be at if you pass out." lucy ventured a joke, the corners of her lips curling up.

[pittresilience]

"You're enough." - samira @ jack (2econdlead)

The on call room is almost completely dark when the door eases open, the faint light from the hallway spilling across the floor for half a second before it disappears again behind Samira. Jack is sitting on the edge of the narrow bed, elbows braced against his knees, still in his scrubs with his head tipped forward like the weight of the shift finally caught up to him the second he got somewhere quiet. He looks up when she steps inside, tired eyes finding her immediately. There’s no surprise in it. Just exhaustion. The kind that settles deep enough to hollow someone out from the inside.

For a moment neither of them says anything. Then she tells him softly, “You’re enough.”

Jack goes completely still.

His jaw tightens faintly as he looks away first, one hand dragging over his face before settling against the back of his neck. A quiet breath leaves him, uneven around the edges. “Samira…” he says under his breath, like hearing it out loud physically hurts a little. Not because he dislikes it. Because he wants to believe it. He stares at the floor another second before finally looking back at her, eyes red rimmed with exhaustion and something more vulnerable than he usually allows people to see.

“You know the messed up part?” he asks quietly. “I can talk patients through panic attacks, grief, trauma… all of it. I can convince strangers to stay alive for another day.” A humorless huff escapes him as he shakes his head slightly. “But when it comes to me, it’s like there’s always this voice saying I should’ve done more. Been more. This is no different."

@2econdlead

[pittcynical]

continued from here {x}

Robby’s eyes slide sideways at the voice, irritation flickering sharp for half a second before it settles into something more familiar—resigned, tight-edged. “Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, the words lacking real bite as Shen comes into view. “Always nice when the attending reads off the script I’ve been reciting in my own head.” His jaw shifts against the collar, a subtle wince he doesn’t quite manage to hide as fingers move in to start assessing him.

He exhales slowly through his nose, forcing himself to stop tracking every hand that comes near him, every movement he can’t control. “Car blew a light,” he says after a beat, voice steadier than he feels. “Came out of nowhere. I tried to lay the bike down, didn’t have the angle.” His fingers twitch faintly against the board, restrained more by position than anything else. “Took the hit on the side. Helmet held.” A pause, then, quieter, stubborn even now, “I told you—no LOC.”

His gaze drifts up to the lights again, unfocused for a second as the adrenaline continues to ebb, leaving the ache behind in sharper detail. He swallows, then adds, almost like an afterthought, “Ribs are gonna be pissed. Shoulder too.” Another breath, tighter this time. Then, because he can’t quite help himself, because it matters—“I had the right of way.”

There’s a beat before his eyes cut back toward Shen, something wry tugging faintly at his mouth despite everything. “And if Ellis won rock, paper, scissors, you can tell him I expect a better victory speech than that.”

@2econdlead

[spiritmarking]

forgetting is much easier than people say. - qwerty @ ragatha! (watch him about to delete a super important file skfjkf)

It’s easy to forget that these aren’t people. Not people like Kinger, or herself. Caine’s NPCs are so weirdly human sometimes, in all of their eccentricities, when they aren’t plain bizarre. She finds questions on the tip of her tongue, all of the polite getting to know you’s she’d pull out when meeting someone, until they ultimately take a hard turn down a predetermined path, spitting what sounds so much like video game dialogue.

@2econdlead is there, just enough. It’s like talking to a friend liable to forget you at any moment, whispers of connection slipping through your fingers. After Abel, she carries a suspicion that this all could be futile too. That Caine will pull another rug out from under her and throw confetti in her face for the progress. Progress he’ll sweep away like it all really is just a big game.

“Wait,” Ragatha flaps her hands in a stop! motion, hoping her habit of being too easily read won’t come back to bite her. Her eyes caught the words C&A and abstract. It’s a long shot, but there has to be something there. “I, um, wanted to read that one if you don’t mind.”

meme.

[spiritmarking]

how do you run from something that doesn't exist? - pomni @ ragatha!

Ragatha laughs. Not because anything’s particularly funny, or that she’s even laughing at Pomni’s audacity in the way Jax does (that HA HA HAH!, wracking his chest — as if she would ever.) Ragatha laughs because it’s like @2econdlead dug right into her thoughts and scooped them out for her to see. Every yarn-made worry built up from years and years of circus life.

Her hands come up to cover her mouth, instinctively apologetic; Ragatha’s eye creases, softening her features. She carries herself with the weight of every answer the circus could ever need, but so much of it is hot, empty air. She just wants to help. Helping feels good, gives her purpose, makes her feel a little less lost in the grand scheme of things. If she can’t get her [%$!#] together, she can help others with theirs.

From the start, Pomni’s journey has been trial by fire. Ragatha has little to compare it to, watching Gunmigoo be deleted before her eyes, a thread ripped straight from the seams, other than watching the light return to Kinger’s when he caught her her first day. As if he’d begun to remember he was alive. “It’s hard sometimes, remembering what it’s like to be human. All the mundane stuff you took for granted. Making coffee so you don’t fall asleep at work. Traffic jams. Bills.”

Ragatha holds out the fabric doll she’s been working on, a miniature version of a memory that won’t quit. She doesn’t mean for it to look like Queenie, just as much as she wants to give it to Kinger sometimes — all of his stories about her made manifest. “Do you… want to talk about it? I know I was kinda out of it during Spudsy’s, but I remember him. Seeing the bandits at the register.”

meme.