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Sticky: m u s e l i s t ;

a c t i v e;

Grant Douglas Ward
MARVEL'S AGENTS OF SHIELD

SHIELD Trash, and HYDRA trash. Basically just trash.

Lindsey McDonald
Angel the Series

Wolfram and Hart's golden boy, lots of issues.

Mike Munroe
Until Dawn

the jock archtype

a v a i l a b l e;

Scott Lang (Antman)
Marvel's Ant Man

Robin hood and his merry ants.

John Garrett
Marvel's Agents of SHIELD

110 percent grade - A hydra asshole.

Howard Stark
Marvel's Agent Carter

Howard Hughes meets Walt Disney

B2407883 "BLUE"
Jurassic World

I'm just a dinosaur, I like to stomp and roar.

i n f a m o u s f o r;

Clint Barton
Marvel's The Avengers

Just a guy with a bow and arrow;

Peter Jason Quill
Guardians of the Galaxy

biggest kevin bacon fan in the universe.

Det. Mark Hoffman
SAW III-VII

You might say that I'm the last man standing

Nathan Wallace
Repo! The Genetic Opera

crazed medic.

v o i c e t e s t i n g

Title: Like kids playing king's cup.
Characters: Daisy Johnson and Grant Ward.

[This playlist and a wing and a prayer.]

I've got a taste for the sweetest of things
And now you're fighting with my board
Fighting with my chase
I'm living on the edge of whatever I create.

[He has built hydra into something incredible. Something strong, retooled it from the ground up and there is nothing - nothing that John could have done, or his brother, or even Coulson and the woman curled, crouched in front of him.

They're tied together. That's what will forever throw him. He can't escape her, that weird twist of love and the desire to pin her beneath him and wrap his hands around her throat and watch her die.

It's more, more then he could have even dreamed of. One piece of bad goddamn fish and the thing that he'd put Alex through (to help him become better, to help him become himself) it turns out he was connected to him. Connected to her too. The pain of transformation, the weeks of frustration, of driving himself as hard as others. He's half a god to them.

Never mind he feels like his body is no longer his and that his biggest bargaining chip, the young doctor Lincoln Campbell - adopted out at 2, formerly Thomas Ward -

His hands flame of their own violation but he's still trying to process what Cassandra said before she'd thrown herself off the balcony. Skye - (no it's Daisy, Daisy now.) has watched her fall. Cassandra the former pastry chef, the woman who lost her fucking eyes but gained a new sight of the world.

I saw it. You were fighting earth, battling earth and growth and flowers. She sent rocks against you but you knocked it away with wind because you're Skye - The other half of Daisy Johnson - and you pushed it into the water and you poisoned it! It was you! YOU RELEASED THE TERRIGEN INTO THE WATER!

Ward is still trying to process that, still trying to wrap his mind around what it means. The magnitude is ...off the charts. what happened to him, what he did to Alex, what the ACTU did to the other inhumans What happened to him, what he'd done to Lincoln -

None of it would have been possible without her and Cassandra had sobbed and jumped over the side into the water.

He calmed the fire in his hands. Full circle. someday you'll understand. What it's like to betray people, to hurt the people you love. She loved everyone, humanity, and she'd fucked them over.

He watched the flames lick at his fingers. Meltdown was staring at her in horror, everyone watching their supposed queen.]

...I told you.

[He's surprised that when he speaks he can't summon up any of his calm. The past six months were some of the worst of his life. They made him into a god but after Lincoln - no Thomas what did God matter?]

...Someday you'd understand.

(no subject)

[A girl does not suit his needs.

Not if he's honest with himself. He wants a weapon, not a fucking hooker in training, not a barbie doll but -

The more time he spends with her, lost and alone the more there is a degree of affection. The aim was to take back a sense of self. Senator Ward's best friend's daughter, Kara Lynn Palamas - who knew that someone like Ward would be so pro spending time with a fucking-

Didn't matter. None of it mattered. A girl does not suit his needs but he wonders if she thinks of herself as a girl at this point. Oh she looks like one, acts like one. He tells himself if he were still whole that would be more of a cause for concern but she's like the daughter he never had. You can either come with me or stay here. Here, a juvie prison, risk being tried as an adult. Here, a life without meaning, without purpose.

Fuck the Russians had been doing it for years.

He parks the truck and notes a campsite, an actual goddamn campsite complete with a firepit, clothes drying on a line, and buddy. The dog was a stray same as the girl. The dog was important but this...

I leave her alone for six months. And she puts up all this. He stepped out of the truck.]

Nice, very nice.

When all else fails, we call in the best worst option we have. ~ Thunderbolts

Here are the facts

In the aftermath of the civil war between Captain America and Iron Man, the US government has dictated that a team of "reformed" super villains will be responsible for acting as a superhero US marshals. Teaming up and funded by the initiative, these men and women are the best of the worst - enemies of the avengers, assassins, former HYDRA agents, Asgardian Gods, mutants and monsters. Their mission? Under the directive of Norman Osborn they will hunt down individuals unwilling to register with his superhuman registration act - but is everything what it seems? Can they get along?

And can SHIELD get over the fact that this might have been a really really bad idea?

RULES

- Rules are easy. AU your character into the setting and recognize there is an over-arcing plot to it.

- There will be missions set up by three characters (Scott, Tony Masters, and Mercedes Merced.) They will range from drug lords to interacting with heroes to interacting with other villains, to beating shit up and taking shit out. The enemies will be NPC'd by me your friendly neighborhood spidermod.

- Possible death is a thing! You want to die AWESOME. You want to die and get Tahiti'd back to life or deal with Terry's type of bringing back ALSO COOL.

-Dick around on the TFLN post, post your own missions - it's all good. Want to play a post CW hero and get some feelings out? Want to play a villain that you want to get redeemed? This is your game! Just stick to Marvel characters.

SOUNDS TO SAVE THE W O R L D to.

OPEN POST 2.0

OPEN POST 2.0

A V A I L A B L E for:

TFLN
Smut (although if you want hardcore smut hit up

hatboxes)
AUS
Actual Canon
Canon Divergence.

HYDRA meme.

NO SHIELD NEED APPLY

SW!AU: Amor Fati - Love of One's fate.

[It was a rather dramatic end to the fight. Ward's attempt at restoring the empire was thwarted by his own ally Lash - a soldier from the same world that Raina had inhabited. She was dead, sacrificing herself to save Skye who she'd apparently had a vision as the chosen one, the savior of the galaxy.

It did not change Ward and what Ward had done. After the death of the woman he loved he'd thrown himself to the darkside like a sailor from a drowning ship but it had never felt entirely secure which had led to the end of the fight and Kara-

Beautiful blue spectral Kara.

Don't listen to the lies careless love. My poor sweet careless love. Listen. Do you remember on Endor? When you told me to tell you all the stories I loved best?

His mouth opened and there were no words. Lash was screaming, talking about how only the worthy would inherit the galaxy.

The stories I loved best all had a happy ending. You told me your own. All happy. You wouldn't let me down with sadness here and now would you careless love?

"...You didn't have a happy ending."

My ending comes when you come back to me. But the time isn't yet. We are joined in the force, but you have to do the things I wanted to do. Not lie to yourself my love. My poor careless love. Give me a happy ending.

Resentment coiled in his hands and he'd thrown lightning, all the lightning he could manage into Lash as he jumped from behind and dueled with the Jedi lord. Clawed raked at his face and something tore at his arm but he held onto Kara's lightsaber and used it with the air of a master at last.

Lash fell, the ship would have been his and Grant's tune if Kara had not thrown her arms around him, the ghost she always was.

"I want to go. I want to go with you Kara -"

The story isn't over. Go. Live. Love for me.

"...Kara no don't leave me."

That's what he said over and over again to the point that Coulson and Mack had been the ones to carry him out. Don't leave me.

He'd lost an arm at the elbow and he's missing his left eye with scars that he'll carry for the rest of his life, but he lies there. In the hospital bed, a husk of a man.]

(no subject)

[He is learning to love violence. Before it was just a thing he did. It was a thing that he engaged in. Now he is learning to rejoice in slaughter, in the pain that it brings others because it soothes his own. Let the true believers move forward and do slaughter, the screams and fire are his lullaby. He wants to bottle it, record it and send it up to heaven to Kara. Revenge for you baby.

but he has more pressing options. He found one of whitehall's prototypes, one of his pieces of alien technology. He feels stronger then he's ever been, clad head to toe in towering green and black armor he feels like a giant with a giant's strength.

Let it all slide. Rejoice in the slaughter.

Love violence.

There's the sound of a tower falling when a voice in his ear tells him that the other HYDRA team has arrived and that the SHIELD agents in charge of the base have been captured. Perfect. Turning away from the carnage the Kraken allows himself a smile. Breaking him out wasn't easy. He sent some of his (his, yes indeed) inhumans to take him out. The hideous ones, the ones that SHIELD won't bother with.]

Crossbones.

Hail HYDRA.

[The other guards offer a chorus of hail hydra, but the Kraken ignores it. In a room with three agents, two male one female who have been beaten senseless. Flanking guards. Welcome back Crossbones.]

OFFICIAL JEDI PSL POST.

[timeline to make fancy:

- The fall of the Jedi temple, Kara goes off with Garrett and Ward, Coulson takes FitzSimmons

- years pass. Coulson discovers Skye and makes her his padawan

-Death of Miles / Re-introduction of Ward

- Attempted stealing of Avery's Jedi Holocron by Kara "Masked woman".

- Ward and Kara are revealed to be working together/working for the darkside.

- Garrett is revealed as the puppetmaster.

- Garrett enlists Raina to pursue members of her criminal faction to fight against Coulson's team.

- Garrett and Skye talk about the force.

- Kara is killed by Ward in pursuit of Bobbi.

- Ward vows revenge against the Empire.

- Darkside convinces him it's actually Skye/co's fault.

- Birth of Darth Hydraus.

- Ward meets up with Raina again.

no reprieve for the wicked and the damned ; vampire AU masterpost.

rebirth;

[This is what Grant Ward knows. He's still alive.

Alive is a small word though because though he is alive he registers three new things. He's in a bed - all silk - black and red. He's shirtless and there are healing clawmarks on his neck and shoulders, across his chest and back. He traces one with his fingers before he tries to sit up and falls back. Everything is...

Sharper? Clearer? Alive is such a small word.

Because he knows that he's naked now and everything feels sensual and dark and perfect but...

He's seen the signs. He knows. There was Garrett - Coulson's friend and the whole damn reason Fury used the sign of the eye (a spell, a terrible spell) to bring him back. He remembers pleasure, then pain, then screaming and...

Bodies flung across the room, limbs ripped away and thrown - spirals of gore course through the air -

He feels sated.

For the first time in his life (Grant Ward's a wild card), for the first time ever he feels sated (Stick in the mud but it's like he's looking for something...) He has to wonder if that's a truth or a lie before he tries to get to his feet again and put the pieces together. That deliciously pleasurable sated feeling, that sense of power...

At that he remembers - vivid and strong and sure why he felt so secure. Why he felt so free. His team. Eight different people cut to ribbons. Marquez drained of blood while she smiled and stroked his hair. They made love across the corpses and that was because, all of this was because.

She might notice something twitching on the bed beside her, angry and grim. One hand clutches at the sheets before he bares his teeth and frowns. Fangs because-

Of her. He twists in the bed and turns to face her. How the hell was he awake first? The blood he drank? Snarling, he moved to wrap his hands around her throat.]

Fic - and in the end we were just reality TV.

( Amor Fati )

I sit at my table (Big dark love)

[Once upon a time Grant Ward was -

No. Start again.

Once upon a time there was a man. He wasn't a good man or a bad man, and in a world where gods wield weapons and beings from the stars make monsters he was a man who ended up trying to find his place in the world at the point of a gun instead of safety. You warp something enough it stays broken.

That doesn't mean it doesn't still work.

The scene's set. It's dramatic and terrible and terrific-

There's gunfire and the sound of something exploding in the distance. It's not really something that Coulson wants to see. It's not something that anyone wants to see really because he's frozen to the spot and something hitches in his chest and stomach and bones, his very atoms.

Skye looks terrified. Her new collected playmate (what did he call himself? Who he hell cared?) looks horrified. There's a word bandied - "Terragenesis" "weaponized terragenesis" and Ward realizes he's not the only one. There's a woman across the street blonde hair flapping in the breeze who's mouth is open in a silent scream, there's a fat man across the street who's fallen to his knees and time moves slow...

But it doesn't. Not really because he's seeing Skye but he's not really seeing her. There's her and Coulson and Garrett and they all fade in and out of reality before she stares at him - everything muffled.

You have passion Grant Ward.

"...That's what I keep telling people."

The not!Skye laughed aloud, Passion's dangerous. It can burn people if it's not used properly but you know about that don't you.

"Loyalty's worse."

You could be loyal. That's the trick to it." The not!skye shrugs her slim shoulders, "She's grounded in reality, you go everywhere and hurt everything you touch - but fire's when the newest growth happens in a forest. It keeps people warm. It can protect. It can save.

"I can save myself."

That's what every character thinks until they turn the page.

The world drowns in fire and he screams just in time for something to burn away in his vision and Coulson to point the gun at him, eyes wide before fire flares out from him - from his hands.

Coulson has his hands full with the fat man who's suddenly all weight - literally a human blob - and the blonde woman who's sprouted angel wings and is screaming, trying to tear the feathers off with her fingers like pulling out strands of hair.

He and Skye lock eyes as he bolts. There's no trust to this and soon it's everywhere Massive Evolutionary Event. NuHumans, rumors of alien experimentation, what is SHIELD hiding? We must have control.

It's 33 that really helps him, 33 that finds him, that makes him practice, that makes him try and practice those abilities. It takes some robbery but she can be any person she wants to be and he...well. He can light fires. He can spread fire too across weapons and some days it feels like it's burning (she says he's hot. That he's warm, that he's constantly burning.)

So he's inhuman. Ironic.

That's maybe what makes him seek out Skye. 33 is investigating rumors of magical artifacts the first time he tries to find Skye and show her the things that he can do now. Sure it's not magical electroshock waves but she's never been a girl for boys, she's a girl for men. He knows that.

In this case however he has to wonder if he'll run into lincoln as he picks the lock on her door and lets himself into her apartment waiting for either her to show up in the area or for her to appear behind him at the door gun drawn.

Either way he's got a manila folder in his hands.]

Someone order HYDRA intel?

(no subject)

[Ward doesn't like the idea of "transferring custody" of agent 33 to them. This is for her benefit not for any other reason. She's a threat to herself and she deserves...what? She deserves to have a part of her soul back. A part of herself back and he would have brought her back sooner except...

Except before, before Everything he had been desperate, lonely and scared and she somehow had come through all of the pain and horror that HYDRA (and himself, he admitted that. By being a part of HYDRA he was responsible) had put her through to emerge as a decent person who had encouraged him to help SHIELD out after...

He's been shot before. Nearly died before. Nothing like this. Something punctures his chest and he slams to the ground with a gasp and there's nothing - nothing but a swirling inky dark and a voice out of the void.

Son.

His father is a non-entity, a thing that does not exist a thing that shall not be - a cold and cruel politician who kills when he can't get caught just like his son but this...this thing is old and he knows it. Blood calls to blood.

My son.

He returns from the dead with two bullet holes in his chest and only her to lead him out as firmly as she can. You came back. That's what needed to happen.

Except he feels different, felt different, and that's when his connections and hers revealed the ether. The astral plane. While others ran roughshod towards the stars something had lurked alongside mankind for centuries. Not creatures from another planet but creatures from another dimension entirely. They call themselves worshippers of Dormammu. A demon (Demon? Please. Extra-dimensional being.) and his mother had apparently offered up her soul and his father's for political power and personal gain. all the Wards had done it.

That was then and this is now however. Grant Ward, son of Caroline Gracelaw-Ward and the demon Dormammu (apparently not the only one in the family either). Grant Ward who's propensity to burn had been a biological instinct. One made easier thanks to that which he'd taken as his codename. Hellfire.

The thing was, demons (extra-dimensional beings) are not kind. He can still shoot (hell if he plays his cards right he can shoot hellfire out of his damn gun) but he can't run a mile in another person's shoes and his search to find out his true parentage has left some of his skills to rust but in the end when you can light things on fire with your mind (demonic fire, fire that burns only who you want it to burn) does it really matter?

He shouldn't have given himself a name.

He shouldn't have. It was a gag, a joke, but he worked for HYDRA and he paid the price - the one person who had never judged him was fighting for her life upstairs and facing a long and painful road to recovery and for what? Trying to repair some of the damage he'd done? Hey Grant go and get yourself some powers now you can maybe help out and ...what? Make it easier to sleep better at night? Stop dreaming of Fitzsimmons? Garrett with his hands covered in blood? wandering through SHIELD's hallways listening to Buddy howl?

He has helped. They both have. Helped and vanished into the night and over time (It's been years) the pain has lessened and people don't greet him with "Ward!" and guns. Coulson doesn't forgive. He doesn't say anything but he does let him do his thing and Ward doesn't look back while he takes 33's arm and they run off into the night. It's almost fun fighting beside Skye again.

The irony of it all was sickening. Hilarious. Skye who had been the newcomer teaching him, insisting that he learned control. His agreement, his pulse quickening when she'd come close before pulling away and agreeing to submit himself to this under the condition that he be allowed to assist. Never mind it was getting worse. Never mind that the things he'd done when he was angry were coming back to haunt him.

And so he writes. He writes down everything he can remember about Madame HYDRA. Everything he can remember about the serpant society, about Modok and AIM, everything that he can think of from that all too brief time he spent as a mercenary before he returned - through a trial by fire - to SHIELD. In his quest he'd encountered people shield KNEW. People he considers appealing to now since he's been told the following:

He can't help until he learns control.

Once he learns control he'll be allowed to leave.

He doesn't believe that one iota but he has to wonder if it was purely because he insisted on not taking 33 with him. She needed help, medical help, mental help and Madame HYDRA's shot through the heart - he was literally to blame.

(You give love a bad name Grant ward)

This is an alliance of convenience not support. He plays it in his head and wonders if maybe it couldn't have gone differently if he'd been honest about Garrett in the first place.

That makes him want to weep. Weep and give in to the ancient emotion in his blood. That disconnect between reality and a deep abiding desire to retreat from humanity and burn this place to the ground.

He can't do that.

What he can do is pace his room (they've given him his old cell but this time there's a book on a table and he has to wonder who left it there, Charles Dickens "Bleak House") there's a pen and paper but being down there with Skye has driven home just how much of a monster he's become. He can't say nuhuman. He's something older. Something he wonders if Strange really understood, if SHIELD really wanted to help.

That makes him stop and stare at the woman who's entered, quietly. He stops pacing, dropping his hands at the sides. If he makes one wrong move the place will be doused with chemical foam.]

...This is literally the last thing I ever expected.

[Except then - because he has to wonder-]

...33.

[Is she still alive. Is she all right.]

Dinner for Two at Three in the Morning.

[Grant Ward has never not eaten well. It's unintentional honestly. Even in his darkest moments he's always made sure he had a balanced diet of some quality. Either in terms of protein, greens or carbs. It's a throwback to his old life and even in the moments of having nothing he always takes the time to eat right.

Or if not right then perhaps well.

Really though, if he's honest with himself this isn't just about habits. This about him earning it. He nearly died today. He nearly died today and if he stops and lets himself think about any of this he'll go crazy so...

It's about three in the morning that he calls the kitchen (this is a good hotel) and orders steak and salad. Food and drink and sex. It could be a perfect day and he could swallow his emotions down about his partner, rolled over in bed - asleep? Waiting?]

I ordered dinner.

[What is this? What even is this between them? He manages a tentative smirk.] You wore me out.

YOU'LL FIND YOUR TRUTH IN THE WOODS ~ MEME.

Into the woods,
It's time to go,
I hate to leave,
I have to, though.
Into the woods-
It's time, and so
I must begin my journey...

ONCE UPON A TIME there was and is a wood between the worlds. A place where skeletons walk and look for holidays and answers to their empty souls, a place where people stop and run from monsters, a place of fairies and magic for some and carefully constructed bogs and traps for others. A place of hedge mazes and lost boys and boys that live forever and t r u t h.

but really it's just an ordinary wood full of animals (that sometimes come when called), occasional earthquakes (there might be giants about) and the occasional sounds of ghosts, forgotten promises, and ideas because the woods are the w o r l d and into the woods you have to go and face yourself and who you are. We all come to the woods at some point or another in our lives, and while many sing and dance, some do not.

THESE ARE THE RULES
A. the woods reveal truth. Everyone has lies that they tell themselves throughout their life. When you are in the woods, your ability to lie to others has been stripped out of you and you don't know it.

Inevitably you are wiser in the woods then you would be outside of them. A man who thinks he is generous and good would confess that he is secretly vain and greedy for praise. A woman who thinks she is strong and knows no fear would confess that she does fear - she's afraid for her loved ones and sometimes afraid for herself.

YOU CAN ARRIVE WITH WHATEVER YOU'D LIKE. except your lies, and your ability to lie to others and possibly yourself.

B. There is a way out of the woods. You leave the woods when you realize a great personal truth. Inevitably that you can't lie to yourself any longer and that it's time to go and your journey is over. You may find a clearing, you may find a pathway out, or...you may fall off a cliff, fall into rushing rocks, or be eaten by the wolf.

C. Your character may feel compelled to break out into song about their great learned truth, or not. They may encounter others, they may have a sense of someone or something watching, or they may see a flash of a massive gray tail or hear and feel the sound of an earthquake. You can investigate the tail, you can investigate the sounds, but you will see and hear nothing.

perhaps.

OPEN POST ; ACTIVE, INACTIVE, AND VOICE TESTING.

Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope / Being had to triumph, being lacked to h o p e.

won't you come and j o i n u s?

Entry tags:

PRE-SHIELD DAYS. 002

[John Garrett. 25 years old.

John Garrett, military drop out (could that even be called a thing? He was pretty sure it was a thing.) Drinking cheap champagne and trying not to squirm in an ill fitting suit. Day one at SHIELD academy.

He would killed for a denim jacket and a beer. All these people were way better educated then he was (seemingly. I mean hell just because he had a lack for languages what did that even mean?) he chews on something in his cheek. Meet and greet my ass.

The life of the party. Way to go Johnny Boy..

He nodded at a few people trying to find one person to sidle up to. The one guy he picked, a young guy - That's it. That'll be him.]

....Some shindig huh?

Entry tags:

PRE-SHIELD DAYS. 001

You're going to die. You're going to be dead. It could be 20 years, it could be tomorrow, anytime. So am I. I mean, we're just going to be gone. The world's going to go on without us. All right now. You do your job in the face of that, and how seriously you take yourself you decide for yourself.
- BOB DYLAN

SHIELD ACADEMY. late-eighties

[John Garrett has had crappy COs before. His brief stint in the military left him with a degree of respect for them. The kind of respect that meant you put dog shit in their locker when you couldn't get caught, when you were abandoning any area they might be in for the foreseeable future and wouldn't be available for punishment. Nick Fury is...not a crappy CO. Sure "Go out and run until you pass out" wasn't the most prudent order and not something anyone in their right mind would want to do but...but...

He's on his shit list, but if John Garrett was brutally, brutally painfully obvious he might have deserved it. Might. He'd always had something of a wild streak.

(That's what his mother had called it, a wild streak. The judge had disagreed and the military had settled it out.)

Mainly because here was structure, here was ideals, and they made it interesting. Not to mention that Fury insisted upon each recruit considering themselves an individual while still being willing to teach them.

This was heavily on his mind today and it was a fitting sort of scourge. He hadn't meant to be out as late as he had been but the waitress at the bar had heard "Government Agent" and had practically fallen into his lap and what the hell was he supposed to do? He was only human and she was blonde with fantastic breasts.

The only thing was, he was really against the idea of making it a long term thing mostly because she was vapid and shallow and had kept saying stupid stuff and while that was fine and dandy like sour candy he really would have preferred...

Someone interesting.

Which was why he was putting himself through his paces, round and round the track, sometimes timing himself, sometimes adding well placed leaps and kicks and punches just like the instructor had been drilling them in over the past week and a half. Women at SHIELD were interesting and he was almost positive, eighty nine to ninety percent positive that one of them would come and offer to lick his wounds and then...

They could have some fun. If he didn't kill himself first.

I wouldn't be happy if I wasn't setting myself to this with a will. He thought, I wouldn't be happy if I didn't feel like this would be worth it, fuck I'm being punished and I'm happy.

Happier then he had been, and it only increased when he spotted a familiar face striding across the green of the track, focused and determined. Melinda May.

Oftentimes he wondered if he had a shot with Melinda May. Oh she wasn't his typical type really, truthfully (although she met most of the requirements. Female, breathing and now a disturbing new one, able to hold a decent conversation.) It was mostly Phil that kept him from making a move. The younger man was rather fond of staring off in May's direction, of pairing himself up with her for exercises that required two people (and he ended up with Carolyn Ferrerah thank you very much Phil freakin' Coulson.) it was either puppy love or respect.

Respect was something that John had for her in spades. In a drunken boast after Fury had announced including women in operations that "Fuck all if I'm going to be holding their purse when I should be holding my gun." (he'd been drunk as hell, and he'd spent the entire evening convincing himself that it had nothing to do with the letter from his father telling him that his mother had passed away.) apparently he'd said other things, worse things. He'd awoken taped to the flag pole - in only his boxers, squinting into the sunlight.

Even if May hadn't done it (he could put two and two together - Phil glancing in her direction despite May's passive looks) he'd changed his tune.

Dare he say it? John Garrett was growing up. Screw the judge in Sussex county.

Which did not preclude the occasional childish behavior. Such as making a beeline for May in an effort to knock her to the ground with a childish grin on his face.]

Entry tags:

You lack the season of all natures, sleep ;

Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

Ready to drop upon me; that, when I wak’d I cried to dream again.
-Shakespeare "The Tempest"

[This is what happens when he crawls in like a stray cat. Kara lives in a simple apartment, a far cry from their old haunts but she's back with SHIELD and he...he is somewhere in between. Still thinking about her offer, about selling himself back to the organization and maybe that's what brings back the memories.

Memories of assistant director Johnson back when she was just a girl named Skye and he was just a boy named Grant.

Memories of his different choices.

The things he has done since then. No thoughts no images just feelings.

Really the question becomes did I ever sleep this badly before? and the answer I don't know fills him with an emotion that makes him want to scream and rip apart her apartment. This was a mistake. Coming here to her is always a mistake, he should leave her alone. He has tried. Tried and tried again only to fail abysmally. He should use his powers and forget them all and go back to an empty existence filled with mercenary work. With lost women and broken souls and everything else, the dregs of humanity that's where he belongs.

Powers that he wouldn't have if not for her, if not for that wild desperate bid to save his life, to heal him faster.

It's never been so close. He wants nothing more then to run away.

Instead he stands, shaking. Shirtless and dressed in his shorts he pads into her kitchen and digs - every cupboard, every hidey hole until he finds that one requirement for every spy, for every other broken soul. What's the difference between the dregs of society and the politicians? Timing and lies. Whiskey.

No shot glasses.

his hands are shaking so badly he nearly drops the bottle before he pours himself a quarter of a glass...

And drops it.

The glass shatters. Fuck and he has no idea where the brooms are or the dustpan is or all those normal stupid domestic things. All he wants to do is drink himself into enough of a stupor so he can run from that decision she might ask him about again. So he can try and be strong enough to say yes or no to Skye - Johnson. Decide if he's a hero or a villain, a coward or a liar.

He just wants the feelings to stop.

So he sits and flips on her TV as silent as it can go. Frasier, some old 90s sitcom. He parks it there with her whiskey, her broken glass. Trying to feel less but seemingly heedless of waking her.

That thought hits him about ten minutes in. He turns the television down and wraps the blanket she'd given him around himself.]

Entry tags:

I didn't mean to leave you behind (sometimes we get left out or forgotten)

[John Garrett had few pleasures in life.

Few things to lead him back to calm and pleasing memories, few ideals to hold close to himself at night. Mostly he burned for revenge. Yearned for it, swam in it, mostly just to get off scott free because trust will get you killed motherfucker and that...is what today's exercise is all about.

Okay maybe it's not an exercise. Maybe they are on the ass of the world (no really, the world has an ass) also known as the sandbox, also known as the middle east and fuck all if the only place who's water supply he was sure of was the local MacDonalds. Oh sure it lacked the artery clogging goodness that was a staple of the place, one of the few things he looked forward to during his trips but damn it all...

He's handed four grilled chicken patty sandwiches a shake, and a soda before he eyeballs the cashier.]

Milkshake.

[The cashier shrugs his shoulders. Milkshake. Here and now. Frowning he collected his purchases before pointing back at him and speaking in Arabic.]

Don't try and cheat me shithead.

[Watch the kid discreetly flip him the bird made him smile. Children were all the same.

He wasn't going back to a child, not now (not anymore) but there were some thoughts you never lose, some things you always believed in. Sitting behind the wheel of the worn SUV and leaning over his thoughts turned to Grant Ward who would no doubt be waiting dutifully in his safe house. Specialist and operative, trainer and trainee, father and son, brother and brother, words that amounted to the same thing.

Placing emotion on them, in them, around them would get you killed.

Still, as he was discovering lately the older he got, you couldn't keep it out. Like delicious artery clogging goodness, like the taste of bad hamburger, you couldn't keep out affection and he did have a degree of it for the boy (never a man, always a boy). His thoughts so occupied he failed to notice the soda spilling out across the back of his car until he'd driven off into traffic. The thud made him jump and draw his gun, pointing it back behind him until the telltale liquid fell across the back of the window.

It was so mundane he could almost laugh. Standing there, gun drawn and pointed at the fucking back window. I left it on top of the car.

Of course it was Grant's but he wouldn't comment. He wouldn't say anything and thinking about that...

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

In four hours they would break up a weapons dealer's private crack house, save some lives, discreetly recruit the dealer's son for a more noble cause, steal their stash, and John Garrett would deliver his news. In eight hours (or thereabouts) Grant would be winging his way back to the states just in time for recruitment to the team of recently returned from the dead hail mary pass Phil Coulson.

And what he realized, parking at the shitty little apartment above where they would eventually do murder and horrors, was that he was worried about it. Worried about Grant Ward, worried he might say something or do something and fuck it up and get killed. Or worse, share their secrets.

He felt alone with this worry, it was a new feeling, one that lodged in his chest and made him rub at his eyes with exhaustion. For the first time in a long time he felt old and saw death like a lion on the horizon. And thereupon replies...That his hair is beautiful. Cold as the March wind his eyes.

Where had that come from?

He knocked twice, paused, then knocked a third time.]

...Pizza man.