TO ALL MY GUEST REVIEWERS: HI! I'm not ignoring you! I'm so happy you like the fics and drabbles! I love you all and hope to keep you guys happy with more! :D

(A/N: So, I figured I'd dump on the parade and toss out my headcanons on ages since I get a little grump when I see the wiki putting Dante at 28 and Zhalia at like…18 or something.

Personally, I usually peg Dante {…I chuckled a bit, bad Ket} at about 25-26. With Metz's illness, which we don't know when it set in but going by Hippolyta's appearance probably ten-ish years ago, Dante probably had to grow up fast, never mind being a bloody Seeker fighting a secret war against evil or whatever. So he's worldly, chock full of pessimistic optimism and very capable, but still young, spry and hey, he'll still act a little childish and goof a bit.

Zhalia is anywhere from 23-25, because fuck if we'll ever get timelines right since there are conflicting scenes and years when we get her flashbacks. My mom did some work with children who had been abandoned/neglected/malnourished, and when I would wait in her office after school I'd see kids who were supposed to be 10-12 look like they were 6-7, so size and whatnot is no good indicator. Plus, I'm of the opinion, which will be further explained in a drunk tumblr dump, that Klaus found Zhalia when she was probably around 7 or 8, and took pity on her. Klaus has reasons {that aren't his own} to act the we see in the show, again to be dumped in tumblr, so to me it makes sense.

So there! Insert blown raspberry here and grumpy crossed arms. Enjoy your drabbles!)

Long Night (Mid S1)

Dante Vale stared down into his bathtub.

Oh, man. He was so not awake enough for this. Part of him questioned if he really was awake, his mental image of reality not totally lining up with what he was seeing.

But no, he was awake. The clock was correctly flashing his brutal Monday morning five AM wakeup time. He even pinched himself, and that was before closing his eyes, turning a full circle, then opening them to make absolutely sure this wasn't some off the walls, cracked out trick of the light. He was totally awake, no question there.

He blinked again.

Ugh, yeah. Still awake. Had to be doubly sure.

No other way to explain it besides it being the truth. So, yes, that really had to be Zhalia Moon sleeping fully clothed in his upstairs bathtub, possessively curled around a nearly empty bottle of vodka like it was a childhood teddy bear.

Dante mulled over what to do as he quietly pulled his sweatpants back on under the fluffy towel that was currently protecting his modesty. He needed to shower, but he wasn't going to use the downstairs guest washroom. Lok had taken over that one and left his boxers in unpredictable places. And shaking the woman awake would be a bad idea, a lesson the Lambert boy had managed to teach the entire team after Zhalia literally kicked him out of her tent when he tried to rouse her after a particularly harrowing mission. The poor kid had a footprint bruise on his chest for nearly a week.

Dante had no urge to see her reaction to a simple hand on her shoulder while coming out of a drunken stupor. He liked his arm too much to lose it that way.

He was about to give up and just start his morning workout without a shower when his eye caught on the detachable showerhead.

The sight of it seemed to bring up repressed memories of sleeping in a car…and being awoken with a particularly violent pothole….

Ah, hell. She'd probably try and kill him for this at some point. Hopefully she would still be too drunk to remember it.

It took about half a second for Zhalia to register the icy water spraying her in the face. The woman jerked, whacking the back of her head against the wall of the bath as she let out a startled yelp and flailed a bit as she got her bearings. She could hear laughter as she sputtered and scrabbled around before managing to claw her way over the side of the tub and land soaking wet on the floor, spitting water and sodden hair out of her mouth.

"Good morning, sunshine." Dante choked out through his mirth, dropping the still-running shower wand into the bathtub as Zhalia lay in the cold puddle that had collected on the tiles. "Did you have a long night off?"

His words seemed to snap the Foundation spy out of her confused state. "Fucking hell, Vale. Couldn't have just tapped my shoulder?"

"You're the one that fell asleep in the bathtub. My bathtub. You really should have expected this." He couldn't stop the broad smile from splitting across his face. "Would you like a towel?"

Zhalia staggered upright, glaring at the detective through narrowed eyes. "I'm going to kill you one day, Dante Vale." She shoved past him out into the hall, ignoring the offered towel in favor of leaving a wet trail of petty vengeance through his house.

Dante just chuckled. "Yeah, I'm sure you will, Zhalia." He glanced back at the tub. "Hey! You forgot your vodka!"

"Drink it yourself! It'll put some fucking hair on your chest, Chippendales!"

The detective looked down at his hairless chest, then at the vodka in his hand.

He shrugged and took a hit.

Anomaly

"It's not dyed."

"That's impossible." Sophie rolled her eyes and playfully flicked a bunched up little bit of takeout napkin at Zhalia from across the coffee table. The elder Seeker flinched at the motion, batting it away instinctively and nearly losing her hold on the suspiciously thick magazine she was reading. "Blue hair isn't a natural color."

"I never said it was natural, I just said it wasn't dyed."

Lok, Cherit and Dante had all elected to take a shift guarding the Venice Safehouse for a few nights. It put Cleese at ease after the fiasco with the Professor, especially since the magical defenses hadn't been fully patched up yet. Their absence, however, left their two female teammates alone in Dante's house.

Sophie grinned and grabbed another tortilla chip from the shared bag on the table. A tiny little Tex-Mex place had opened in a scruffy alleyway a few blocks down. Zhalia had apparently found it during one of her late night walks and since then had introduced the rest of the team to its surprisingly healthy and admittedly delicious takeout meals. Even Le Blanche had approved of the place. "So, what, are you wearing a wig or something?"

"Why are you asking me about my hair?" It was Zhalia's turn to roll her eyes skyward, giving up on reading her 'magazine' while Sophie pestered her with questions. "Seriously princess, I have way better secrets than why my hair is fucking blue."

"Fine. Where did that scar on your neck come from?" The Casterwill toed dangerous territory with that one, but she knew if she pushed one issue enough, it would eventually wear the former spy down to reveal some info on less touchy subjects.

"And now we're back to the hair." Zhalia shot Sophie a scathing glare. "It's an anomaly."

"Oh, come on. You'll have to do better than that to get rid of me, Zhalia." Sophie jabbed her chip at the tiny container of guacamole she had ordered and admitted, "It's too quiet without the guys around here. And I'd usually enjoy that, but after all the fights over the last few weeks…" she trailed off, not able to put her feelings into words.

"Whatever. But I'm not kidding. It's an anomaly." Zhalia put her reading material down and sat up from where she had sprawled across an armchair. "There's spotty bits in my genetic code. Lots of Seekers have them." She gestured to her companion's bright green eyes. "Your eye pigmentation is probably one. Santiago's chakra mark, Lok's little glowing thing when he gets pissed, Dante's adaptability and strength. Sure, some of them show up in regular people, but in Seekers these sort of things appear much more often."

The Casterwill Heiress slowly lowered her chip. "…You're serious, aren't you?" The former spy nodded. "You've put some thought into this."

Zhalia was silent for a long moment. "You, uh…" She paused, rubbing the back of her neck. "You're a bookworm, right? Got any love for the sciences?"

Sophie shrugged. "I enjoy learning. Sciences aren't my strong point, but I do like the topic. Why? What's this have to do with the anomaly subject?"

"Come on. I'll show you."

Seconds later found them in Zhalia's guest room, a beaten and thick square of paper in the former spy's hand. A short Bubblelift unfolded the paper, soon revealing exactly why Zhalia had to use a spell to spread it out onto the empty wall across from her bed.

It was nearly as long and tall as the wall itself, pieces of printer paper, cardboard, even what looked to be shreds of vellum all taped and tacked together. There were obvious coffee mug rings on plenty of the pieces, scribbles of tight notes and bits of maths scattered all over the margins of the apparent main features, which were odd circles made up of lines and codes and letters.

Zhalia stepped back and observed the paper monstrosity, hands in her pockets. Sophie was surprised to see that she looked rather…shy. "This is…well it's something I've been working on."

"It's certainly impressive." Sophie raised her eyebrows and jabbed the former spy with a good natured elbow to the ribs. "Tell me what it really is, Zhalia."

"They're Seeker genomes. I coded a program to map them out from blood samples I put into the Technomicon." It took a moment for the words to sink in. "It's like a hobby, I guess. I wanted to know what makes us tick. Seeker powers, our ability to bond with Titans, our Anomalies…Casterwill kicked it off, but what predisposes some of us to becoming Seekers and others to remaining powerless? It's got to be the genetics, right?"

Sophie took a moment to pick her jaw up off the floor. "You…you did all this?" Again, Zhalia nodded. "Zhalia, you're a bloody genius aren't you?"

The woman scoffed. "I'm not telling you my IQ, princess. That doesn't matter." She scuffed her boot on the floor, shoulders hunching up. "It's just a stupid little hobby, really. I don't tell people about it. They think I'm crazy enough as it is with all the spying and subterfuge and shit."

"No! No, Zhalia, this is absolutely incredible…." The Casterwill leaned closer to the ragtag document, examining the highlighted codes that seemed to repeat in nearly every genome map. Somewhere in that code was the key to what made Seekers what they are. As she did, a thought struck her as odd, and she straightened to voice it to her teammate. "Why show this to me? I mean, I know we're getting along better, and I count you as my friend, but…"

Zhalia just shrugged. "You've got a good brain, princess. If anyone would appreciate it in the Foundation, it'd be you. This stuff goes all the way back to Casterwill. Who the hell knows, maybe we could find some family for you in all these little genomes."

Sophie grew suspicious at the impish grin that began slowly appearing on Zhalia's face. "Oh, and also because I can point out on here the Anomaly that gives Seekers blue hair. It was either that or strip to prove to you that yes, the carpet matches the drapes."

"Oh, bloody hell!" Sophie spun on her heel and marched out of the room, face flaming scarlet as Zhalia's laughter followed her down the hall.

Logosbook

Day 42

(Spiral Shenanigans #1)

'Red dearest, what's the weirdest shit you've had to deal with today?'

Dante raised an eyebrow at the question scrawled in his Logosbook. This was one of the latest messages sent from their spy behind the lines, the report of her group of Spirals moving around a city in Montana of all places having ended an hour before this last snippet came through.

'Probably Den giving Lok a vicious wedgie while we were supposed to be out doing scouting runs. What's happened?'

The book was silent for a long moment. Dante figured she needed the time to stare at the response in flabbergasted surprise, though it wasn't that much of a surprise considering that the perpetrator was Den. Then:

'I have no fucking idea who did it, but one of these Spiral brats ordered 22 pizzas for delivery to our warehouse base.

Do you know what a 19 year old Domino's driver looks like when he realizes he's bringing food to either a fucked up costume party complete with frothing at the mouth teenagers or a satanic cult sleepover with matching pajamas? He looks like he's about to piss himself in a combination of fear and laughter.'

Dante had to put the book down and brace himself on his knees. The Blood Spirals were suddenly feeling way less threatening. He managed to wipe a tear from his eye before he doubled over in laughter again.

'Dante? You better not be ignoring this. I'm getting close to tossing some of these kids into a fucking lake. Tantras gave me the idea with what he did to the delivery guy.'

(A/N: Guess who got their back fixed up? This crazy lady! Much relief, much sitting. Much typing.

That last one was just me spitting things onto the page. No idea where it came from. But come on. A handful of 13-14 year old cultists with a few adults to add to the mix plus a pissy bodyguard and a fanatic old man? Of course someone would prank call a pizza delivery.

I think I got my Tumblr thing fixed, or at least the ask stuff. So hit me up, mates! Cheers!

And no. No, I did not reread these to check for errors this time. Thhbbt!)