#[[ Also why the hell is he concerned about cliches when he should be more focused on whether she might want to cover up a murder? ]]

[something-fanfiction-ie]

24 Hours

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Warnings: You get buried alive and uhm... I think a curse word or two?

A/N: So, before you notice, yes this is largely based on season two episode nine of Bones, Aliens in the Spaceship. Also, yes this is a criminal minds imagine and yes I’ve hopelessly and irrevocably fallen in love with Matthew Gray Gubler. Please like, comment, reblog, and send me asks, I love that shit. Also, if you’ve never seen criminal minds, you should watch it. Even if only for Dr. Spencer Reid aka Matthew Gray Gubler. You’re welcome in advance.

___

“Hey Spenny, I’m going out to get some coffee. Do you want anything?” Your voice echoed around in Spencer’s head, the image of you waving at him from the door as you walked away imprinted into his mind. Would it be the last time he would ever see you?

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N) has been buried alive,” Hotchner stood in the front of the room with Spencer’s phone on speaker. The whole team sat around the table with varying degrees of horror displayed on their faces as the realization dawned on them, “Wire transfer five million dollars to the following Grand Cayman account.” Spencer buried his head in his hands, his fingers tangling into his hair.

Your eyes were on him as you waved over your shoulder, stepping through the door with just a glance and a smile. He kept playing it through his mind in slow motion. Now you were underground, running out of air and running out of time.

“Upon receipt of the wire transfer, I will provide you with Agent (Y/L/N)’s GPS coordinates. You have 24 hours. This will be my last communication.” The BAU jumped into action, people pulling the files from the previous abductions and swapping theories.

“Where in the hell are we going to get five million dollars? The FBI has a strict policy about not paying ransoms.” Morgan slammed a fist on the table, gritting his teeth as his mind raced.

“Her parents.” Spencer looked up, pulling himself out of his head. He needed to be actively helping. They had twenty four hours and sitting at the table with his head in his hands wouldn’t help anything.

Pushing away from the table, the young doctor stood up to look at Agent Hotchner.

“When her parents died they left everything to her. She’s never touched it, said it felt too much like blood money.” Hotchner nodded, looking across the room to Garcia who looked as shell shocked as Spencer felt. Not only had her dear friend been abducted and buried alive, but she had been telling secrets about her parents to Reid and not her?!

“Garcia I need you to find out who she banks with, JJ get them on the phone and see what you can do. If we can pay the ransom we will. If not, we’ll have to figure where she is.” Both women nodded, rushing back to Garcia’s office. The remaining agents started to map the location of every burial site.

“Well, at least we know she’s in Virginia.”

...

When you woke up, rolling into the leather backseat in you car, your brain felt like it was exploding. Your entire body ached, and for a minute, too focused on the pain, you didn’t realize where you were.

It hurt to sit up, to breathe, to look around, and when your brain connected every dot it hurt to think.

“I’ve been buried alive.” You said it aloud, staring at the rocks and dirt that pressed against every window. Thinking felt like walking through sludge, but why?

You’d been working on a case. Four victims in four months, all buried alive, all coming from wealthy backgrounds. Every victim varied in age, race, and sex. It appeared you were number five. There would be a call, maybe two hours after you’d been buried. It would be the only means of communication, there would be a high ransom.

None of this information could help you though. You were underground, what is around you, (Y/N)?

In your glove compartment was a small digital camera, a pen, and some napkins. In your center console was a bottle of water, a small tube of sunscreen, and some loose change. Your phone was on the floor but the battery had been taken out, and sitting in the backseat was a box with a book delicately placed inside.

A first edition copy of Sonnets from the Portuguese, the pages yellowed with age. To just anyone, it was an old book with some poems inside, but you knew that Spencer would understand the moment he opened the box. Elizabeth Barrett Browning had written the series of sonnets to her husband as they were courting. Inside was a poem you had confessed to Spencer was your absolute favorite.

“I’m kind of a cliche hopeless romantic,” you laughed, afraid to look at him for the fear that he would think you were just a silly girl. “But my favorite poem is How Do I Love Thee?”

“By Elizabeth Barrett Browning?” When you looked at him, his expression hadn’t changed from that of a simple curiosity. You relaxed a little, glad to reveal the intimate detail about yourself without backlash.

You had spent such a long time trying to bury the persona of a teenage hopeless romantic underneath the facade that you were only concerned for logic, knowledge, and psychology. You’d never understood why wanting to love and be loved made you any less intelligent.

“I’ve dedicated that poem to the man I hope to marry one day.” A small smile twitched at the edges of his lips as you looked down at your nails, picking at the dirt underneath them. Your face felt like it was on fire. Why had you told him that?

In an uncharacteristic display of affection, Spencer reached across the divide between your desks and put his hand over yours. He squeezed, his expression gentle when you met his gaze.

“He will be a lucky man.”

Tears pricked at the back of your eyes at the thought of Spencer. Would you ever see him again? Would you even be alive in twenty-four hours?

Panic seemed to take control, propelling forward. You screamed, crying hysterically as you pounded against the windows.

“Help me! I’m in here! Please!” You didn’t stop until your hands were bruised, not caring about the amount of oxygen it had taken from your already limited supply. After the panic came a numbness that spread through your body and mind. You weren’t sure how long you stayed staring into your hands, sitting cross-legged in the front seat, but when you finally came back to yourself you knew you had to truly fight.

Gathering everything you’d found in your car, you started to think of what you could do. A camera, a phone, a pen, a napkin, some change, a book, sunscreen, a bottle of water.

Think, (Y/N), think. What is around you?

“Dirt.” Then you gasped, scrambling back to the front of the car. Using the window crank, you let bits of the dirt fall inside before rolling the window back up and grabbing a handful.

Just by looking you could tell there was ash, a couple of sniffs told you there was nitrogen and sulfur. You spit into the dirt. Coal rich soil. But that was all of Virginia, that didn’t tell you anything.

Think, (Y/N), think.

A camera, a phone, a pen, a napkin, some change, a book, sunscreen, a bottle of water. A camera, a phone, a pen, a napkin, some change, a book, sunscreen, a bottle of water.

“That’s it!” Carefully, you shifted the dirt to the top of the center console. Mixing a dab of sunscreen into the dirt, you powered on the camera and grabbed the pen which, conveniently, had a laser on the end.

Just like that you knew where you were. You just had to find a way to tell the others.

...

“We can’t get the money from the bank, she has it completely closed off from anyone touching any of that money. They won’t even tell us how much she has.” JJ ran her fingers through her hair, turned in her chair to face the team that had gathered into Garcia’s office.

“It was a long shot anyways, you typically have to have your name on the bank account to be able to withdraw any money.” Hotchner looks to the rest of the agents clustered next to him, hoping that one of them would have something.

“Did we get anything from the geographic profile?” He made direct eye contact with Reid, watching as he stepped forward and nodded for Garcia to pull up a map. Red lines popped up at each of the four crime scenes, connecting to the location the victim lived. Salem to Lovingston. Stuart to Winchester. Boydton to Marion. Louisa to Yorktown.

“Each of the burial sites is two to four hours away from where the victims lived which would put (Y/N) in this general vicinity.” Using his finger, Reid circles an area on the map around Quantico. No one mentions the shaking of his hand.

“There’s nothing else to narrow down the search.” His voice cracks at the end and no one can meet his eyes. JJ flinches at the sound, tightening her hand around the edge of the desk. It isn’t until Hotch goes to send the team back to work that a chime breaks the silence in the room.

Reid scrambles for his phone, fishing it out of his pocket and flipping it open.

“Who is it from? The Gravedigger? What did he say?” Everyone crowds around him, trying to get a peak at the message.

“It’s from (Y/N).”

6 7 16 M1.4

“What the hell does that mean?” Penelope says.

...

You’re not sure how long its been, but you can feel the oxygen getting low. Your eyes feel heavy, like you’re tired, and if you move just a little too fast the world shifts and sways like you’re on a boat.

After hot wiring the phone to the car, you’d leaned against the horn and typed the shortest message you could as fast as possible. When the phone sparked and died, you weren’t even sure if the messsge had gone through. You could only hope.

For now, you’ve crawled into the back, opening the book to read through it. If you’re going to die, at least you can read your favorite poems one more time. With every sonnet comes a memory of Spencer.

“Actually,” Spencer begins, stepping forward to point out something no one had even thought of, gesturing between pictures and referencing something only he could see in his mind. You’d worked a couple of cases with the team at this point, getting to know each individual who sat at this table with you.

Spencer turned back to the group and there it was, for just a fraction of a second he looked at all the older people at the table like a little boy looking for acceptance and recognition. Looking for approval. Your heart flipped over itself and your crossed your arms, hoping this wasn’t the start of a silly crush.

You flip to the next sonnet, reading it in a whisper as another memory hits you.

“I’m scared, Spencer.” You met his eyes, heart hammering in your chest as JJ strapped a mic to your bra strap. You were going undercover in an attempt to lure out the unsub, and although you knew every single one of your team members would be ready to have your back at a moments notice, you couldn’t shake the fear.

“Why?” It wasn’t harsh the way he said it, looking at you from the desk he was sitting on as JJ stepped away and out of the room to give the two of you some privacy. You started to button up your shirt, trying to breathe away the shaking of your hands.

“I’m afraid something is going to go wrong. That I’ll say or do something that will tip him off and he’ll kill me.” Spencer stepped forward, not touching you but looking into your eyes as you smoothed your hands down your sides.

“I’ll be there before he has the chance. I’ll take that shot. But I don’t believe I’ll have to do that because I know you have the ability to do this without a hitch. You’ve got this.” He raised his eyebrows, waiting for you to be okay. He wouldn’t let them send you in if you didn’t give him the okay. You could see that in the way he positioned himself between you and the door, ready to take the brunt of any frustration in order for you to feel safe.

“Okay. I trust you.”

And you did trust him. That’s why you were saving your last trick, waiting for him to put together the last of the puzzle piece he needed in order to save you. Spencer was going to find you, you had no doubt.

You just weren’t sure if you would survive the trick or not.

...

“Six, seven, sixteen, M, one point four.” Spencer stood staring at the board where they had copied the text, going over every possible meaning he could think of.

A book? No.

A math problem? No.

Coordinates? No.

Theories were being thrown across the room at rapid fire, everyone trying to think of the meaning to the cryptic message. They were all still huddled into Garcia’s office, so the voices echoed and bounced around the room.

“She’s been down there for fourteen hours, we’ve got nothing! She’s already running out of oxygen, I’m honestly starting to doubt it means anything.” Derek passed a hand over his face, patting at his cheeks as his eyes grew heavy.

“No. She’s highly intelligent and extremely resourceful, the message means something but wh-” Reid froze. In his mind he could see the periodic table.

“What is it, Reid?” Gideon looked at him, watching as his brain started to fly.

“Garcia pull up a map of Virginia.” She did as she was told, pulling up the map with one point in Quantico.

“Six on the periodic table is carbon, seven is nitrogen, sulfur is sixteen. She’s telling us the dirt she’s in.” Quick to catch on, Garcia zoomed the map onto coal rich soil in Virginia. It wasn’t enough.

“Coal can’t be distinguished by mineral composition, it’s all the same. However, macerals are unique in that they flouresce at different levels. In this case, 1.4, which is rare. It only occurs when there are high concentrations of inertinite.” The map zoomed, Penelope’s fingers flying across the keys as Spencer spoke.

“Got her.”

...

Settling your napkin letter atop the book, you nestled the lid to the gift box back on top. You tied the bow tight before tucking the whole thing into the waistband of your jeans. There was no guarantee it would make it, there was no guarantee you would make it, but you had waited long enough.

Grabbing both ends of the wires you’d stripped, you climbed into the back, hands shaking at the thought of what you were about to do.

“I’m scared.” You said. You heard Spencer, saw him leaning against a window seal in your mind. He looked at you from behind those glasses that always reminded you of a 60’s NASA engineer. His hair was pushed back, the ends curling around his ears in a way that made you itch to loop them around a finger.

Why?

“What if I never see you again?” Tears you hadn’t even known were in your eyes spilled over onto your cheeks, dripping onto the thighs of your pants. He changed now, taking on various Spencer’s from your past.

Spencer looking up from paperwork to listen to a question, eyebrows raised and eyes wide. His lips parted ever so slightly while a piece of his hair dangled out of place on his forehead.

Spencer leaned against the bar, waving down the bartender mid laugh. His tie is loose and his shirt is untucked, his hair is adorably disheveled and his eyes are crinkled around the edges.

Spencer asleep on the jet home, his cheek cradled in one hand, his elbow propped on the armrest. His long legs are stretched out, his other hand splayed on top of his chest which rose and fell with each breath.

Spencer standing in the elevator, the surprise of someone calling his name turning into a small smile when he recognizes you racing to the doors. He reaches out to press a button before using both hands to grab onto the strap of his bag. He looks down at you as you enter with a look in his eyes you’ve never been able to identify.

And the Spencer you’ve only ever dreamed about.

His eyes fluttering open after a long night spent proving his love, the sun filtering through the window and reflecting on him in such a way that it makes you wish you could paint. The sheets are bunched around his waist, his chest is bare, and his smile is so sleepy that it swells your heart to ten times it’s normal size.

We’ll see each other soon. You’ve got this.

“Okay,” you say it with conviction, forcing your hands to stop shaking, “I trust you.” And then without a moments hesitation, tears still running down your face, you touch the wires together.

The world explodes.

“There!” Spencer races for the place he saw the puff of dirt, nearly tripping over himself as he runs faster than he’s ever run before. Everyone follows, dropping to there knees with Spencer as he starts to push at the stone and sand at his feet.

“Please be here. Please be here.” He keeps saying, his heart climbing into his throat with every passing second he doesn’t find you. That is, until his fingers brush across an arm. He shoves down into the dirt, ignoring every instinct that tells him to stay clean. It’s you, it’s your arm. Then it’s your head, your shoulders and chest, your stomach, your legs, and then it’s you.

He pulls you on top of him, laying in the dirt with you pulled so close that you could meld into one person. You groan into his ear, pushing up just a little to get a better look at the man under you.

“I forgot your coffee.” He laughs, tears spilling onto the sides of his face as he wraps his arms back around you.

...

It’s late by the time you’ve been seen by what feels like every doctor and psychologist in the state. There’s bruises on your wrists and ankles you hadn’t noticed during your time underground and a cut on the back of your head where you’d been hit in order to be knocked unconscious. Not to mention the tiny cuts all over your arms and face from crawling through a shattered windshield and up through rocks and dirt.

You stood in the conference room, arms crossed as you leaned against the table and stared. Staring back at you was your own face, tacked to the evidence board with four other victims.

“I tried going to your apartment, but nobody answered the door.” Spencer is standing in the doorway of the conference room, holding a box in his hands. You look down at it before looking back at him. Try as you might, you can’t tell if he’s opened it or not, either you aren’t a good profiler or you were just really tired.

“You left this at the hospital. I figured it was important if you brought it up with you from the car.” Moving into the room, he holds the box out for you to take from him. The ribbon you tied around it is still tightly knotted, the ends shredded from being dragged above ground. There’s specks of dirt that you reach out to brush to the floor before looking back at Spencer.

“It’s yours.” You reply, scooting back to sit on the table, watching curiously as he looks back down. Pulling the box back to his chest, he slips the ribbon off in one fluid motion. The lid is next and you watch as he reaches in to pull out what you had believed to be your last words.

It isn’t much, and there’s a possibility you don’t feel the same way, but I’ve realized that I’m hopelessly and irrevocably in love with you. I trust you with my life and my heart. I’m only scared now of losing you. -(Y/I)

He doesn’t look up at you and he doesn’t set the napkin aside, only moves his hand so the note is out of his line of sight as he sees the book inside.

“‘I love thee with all the breath, smiles, tears of all my life.’” He says it almost in a whisper before setting the note back in the box, and the box on the table.

“How long have you been waiting to give this to me?” When he looks at you, finally, there is wonder in his eyes, amazement.

“I bought the book last month, but I’ve known how I felt about you for six months.” You pick at the edge of the table, swinging your legs ever so slightly. Spencer moves in front of you, blocking your view of the evidence board.

“I don’t believe in love at first sight. Robert Sternberg developed the theory that love is made of three components; intimacy, passion, and commitment. None of which can be present during a first meeting. But I think I knew that I would love you. I knew from the very first time you walked in those doors and you bumped into me.” He reaches his hand out, only hesitating for just a moment before he takes you cheek in his hand.

“Can I kiss you?” He leaned so close that if he were just a hair closer, you lips would brush together as he spoke. You’ve already closed your eyes, every nerve lit up like the Fourth of July in anticipation.

“Yes.” You barely get it out before his lips collide with yours, you can feel every emotion from the last twenty four hours being poured into this kiss; fear, anxiety, sadness, confusion, anger, relief, love, safety.

You reach out to loop your arms around his neck, the kiss deepening as he grabs your hips to slide you closer. When he finally breaks the kiss, his chest heaving and his cheeks flushed, it takes him a minute to open his eyes.

“Why aren’t you at home?”

“I’m scared.”

“Why?” You loop the hair that curls against his neck around your index finger, licking your lips before responding.

“Because I’m afraid this will all be a dream and I’ll wake up back in that car.” Your breath hitches in your throat, the panic grabbing at your heart and lungs and barely leaving you anytime to process the plethora of things that have happened to you in the last thirty minutes.

“Come sleep at my place, that way you wake up with me by your side.” He steps away from the table, reaching out a hand for you to take. It takes you no time at all to make your decision, grabbing his hand and sliding off the table.

“Okay, I trust you.”

[peachy-inserts]

alright, here we go; long post coming up y’all

(sorry for any errors, or for too much repetition. i am incredibly tired today)

tdlr; bakugou is angry and deserves love and patience

the name thing is what bothers me the very most about fanon bakugou. he frequently calls people by insults, but even lately in canon has shown to use them less and less, and with people he personally knows, or someone who’s being a dick

and for someone who has so much trouble opening up and developing close relationships in the first place, why the hell would he ever choose to call an s/o by these names? it’s an abusive behavior to do that; i know it’s fictional but could you imagine if your boyfriend called you a ‘fucking dumbass’? ‘endearingly’ or not, i just don’t see how some people could characterize bakugou like that and find it appealing

about showing respect by using names, notice how he hardly calls midoriya anything other than ‘damn deku’, but has rarely slung dumbass or idiot into the mix. he also would never adress his teachers or idols by those things, even though we all know he’s got enough balls and anger to

granted, he doesn’t spare this courtesy with his friends, but speaking realistically i think i say bitch and whore more times a day when talking to my friends than i do their names. i think platonically, with the right context, bond, and tone you can certainly use names like this to show affection. but never to hurt them with

bakugou is definitely incredibly insecure, which of course we saw in the deku vs kacchan 2 fight when all might broke them up. he’s just a messed up kid with a warped perception of reality (which we’ll go more into on in the next part) a lot that goes into making bakugou the personality he is on fanon is this in the works, and yet it’s completely ignored and excused as an extremely confident dude who shows affection through violence and insults/threats. like, what? you can’t play that off as ‘haha he means well’ like no, no. any perosn with an inkling of sense knows you don’t act like that to people you care about

going off of him being insecure, you’d have to have to be forceful with him to get him to open up, as well as showing him a little bit of tlc because it’s not like literally anyone has ever offered that to him. deku has definitely tried to be close with him, but i don’t think he’s going as deep as he should and to no fault of his; his history with bakugou and bakugous feelings of inferiority prevent that from happening on his end. i don’t think bakugou would be able to be vulnerable to somebody unless they opened up to him first, and had written a reliable history with him. he’s someone who could stand to learn by example

still yet though, a lot of what i see with him on the other side of fanon (him not, y’know, basically being abusive) is that he’s a mellowed out fellow, doesn’t let things bother him, is super sweet. even without everything making him him the way that he is, that’s still his personality. even if he were to overcome all of his issues, that doesn’t mean his entire personality would change. he’s certainly aware of how he presents himself, and how people shy away from him, but as of currently where the anime left off (i’m not caught up on the manga) is okay with that. he focuses on his goals to distract himself from those matters weighing down on him but i think in the future as he had more time to bond with others he’d definitely try to make an effort to change, and from that point is where i tend to write him from. he can still be brash, confident, and teasing all while showing kindness to others, it’s just gonna take time

mitsuki is, if you ask me, the root of his problems. for real. mitsuki literally criticizes him for the way he handles being kidnapped, makes him feel guilty for it, treats him as if he should have been able to solve everything in his own, shouldn’t have been there in the first place if he was really strong enough, and reinforces this idea in him that a hero should be able to work completely alone. she gives him the idea that needing help or asking for help is weak and he should be ashamed for ‘inconveniecing’ everyone, despite him literally being her 15 year old son kidnapped by the most notorious and dangerous group of villains in the country

that’s not tough love, that is emotional abuse. mitsuki and bakugou’s relationship is more than them both simply being rough around the edges, she sets out to degrade him and knock him down every time he shows an ounce of confidence. it is extremely toxic, and caused him to develop this inferiority complex that we see (only to be amplified by the one person he could confidently assert himself over becoming the all powerful successor to his idol)

if she would have showed him a little bit of weakness, a little bit of the motherly love expected of her, i don’t think he’d be nearly as insecure as he is now. his flashy quirk would still play into his personality, what with adults fawning over him and saying he should be a hero (seen in the beginning of the series) but i think more than anything it would be a not so intense fear of failure. if he had his own mother backing him up, it wouldn’t be nearly as bad

mitsuki has lead him to believe that unless he’s the best and achieves his goal without any help whatsoever, that he should be disappointed, pitied, and seen as a loser

finally touching the lighter side of things, bakugou would be absolutely hilarious the first time he ever committed himself to a relationship. he’s genuinely never been interested in it, and the few crushes he’s had were completely ignored to fulfill his goals. so far we’ve established that he’s insecure, feels inferior, and has trouble expressing his emotions unless the right person caters to him patiently. there is absolutely NO way that he could go into a relationship confidently, he’d be completely flustered and nervous as hell. i think bakugou is definitely the type to play into cliche romance standards all while pretending he’s too cool to care, and it’s whimsical to say the least

all he cares about is being a hero, so unless someone willing to work with him slowly and show him kindness latches into him and cracks him open, i don’t see him starting a relationship in high school. he wouldn’t be concerned with those matters until he’s finally settled down into a routine work life, and even then wouldn’t be able to develop a good romantic relationship with someone he wasn’t already friends with

as for pda, his flashy show off style and embarrassed ‘never dated anyone and is terrified’ ordeal would clash and leave him wanting to be able to indulge in pda, but far too flustered to go through with it. he’ll hold hand with you, yeah, maybe leave a hand on your waist when you’re idle, but a kiss is taking it outside of his comfort zone. once he’s adapted and overcome these, he’s all over it though. so long as it doesn’t get gross, you know?

i think he would mimic his parents in one sense, that being banter. he’d argue with his s/o, but not in the aggressive manner you’d expect; more so, arguments are a way to exercise his mind and keep him entertained? so i think he’d need an s/o who can keep up with him and playfully bounce back and forth with him over useless things. he’d never take it to the point of anyone being hurt or actually angry, although there would be a couple times he’d lose his temper over something and start an ACTUAL argument that has the potential to escalate. after doing this once or twice though i think he’d work extensively on keeping his cool and having a peaceful albeit tense discussion

otherwise though, i don’t think he wants to be anything like them, and consciously works toward providing a relationship for his s/o much much different from theirs, once that’s open and nurturing

so sorry for the repeated thoughts and spelling mistakes, but those are my thoughts! feel free to add on anymore or elaborate on what’s here so far, and thank you for sending these in babe 😍

[starlordsandrockets]

Gold Dust Woman: Ch. II

semi-warning: soon to be smut

summary: (Star-Lord x reader) While on the Milano you meet the interesting company Peter surrounds himself with.

Ch. I | Ch. II | Ch. III | Ch. IV | Ch. V | Ch. VI  GDW masterlist

GDW: the compendium

Entering the large ship you touched the cool metal, it tickled your warm skin. Peter lead you, hand in hand, to the center of the ship. The room was cluttered with spare parts and tools. The atmosphere amazed you and Peter watched you spin around, taking the space in completely. You never had the chance to own your own ship. You planet hopped, finding your next destination from kind strangers who let you stow away in their small ships or pods. But you had never been in a ship this big, “Speechless, I see,” Peter spoke, letting go of your hand to retrieve some frozen food they kept in the compacted freezer. He placed the bag on his face with a groan.

You turned your head, following the sound that passed through his lips. The noise was so raw it embarrassed you, but you still approached him as he leaned against the large, cluttered table. His elbows rested behind him on the metal surface, propping himself up as his hips swung loosely, placing his weight on the table and off of his tired feet. You studied his face as his eyes were closed, almost fully covered by the frozen food package, and almost making you smile. You studied the stranger before you silently. Peter looked to be in his early thirties, his dirty blond hair was the perfect length, along with his beard. His closed, blue eyes charmed you along with his sense of humor. You could not help but be enchanted by this man, who moments before, was hired to attack you, let alone possibly kill you. He was in it for the money and by the sight of his ship, you could tell he was a man driven by personal gain, “Quill,” your voice was soft, not wanting to startle him. Your fingers peeled the cold package off his sensitive skin, “Do you know nothing about after battle care,” you interrogated, “Where’s your first aid,”

Peter raised two fingers, pointing to the nearest compartment, “Maybe not after ‘battle’ care,” he spoke slyly, putting emphasis on the word ‘battle’ that passed through his smirking lips. His claim made you pause, your back facing him, Peter Quill was going to be the death of you. After a moment, you turned back towards him, taking in his smiling face and slightly swinging hips, making you swallow. Placing the metal kit down on the table beside his right arm, you stood before him, the tips of your round-toed boots touching his dark, sharp toed ones. You looked into his eyes, both of you knowing you would have to get closer to inspect his wounds. Placing your hand lightly under his jawline, you tilted his head up from where it fell from when he looked at you. Your eyes studied his throat as he swallowed hard, his eyes inspecting your gaze that fell on his neck, “My cut’s up here, sweetheart,” his voice was raspy as you watched his adam’s apple bounce with each word. His claim made your gaze immediately meet his eyes. His blue eyes studied your (y/e/c) ones as his bloody lips formed a pleased smirk.

Your heartbeat rose to your ears as you dug through the metal box, pulling out cotton and a glass bottle of hydrogen peroxide. You dampened the soft cotton, applying it roughly to his cut lip.

“Ow,” he almost yelled at you for getting your revenge, “Alright, alright,” he spoke quickly, almost pleading you to relieve him of his punishment.

“No more talking,” you spoke softly as you removed the cotton, blood turning the pure cotton a subtle, raw pink, “for my sake,” you rose on the tips of your toes, getting a closer look at Peter’s cut. Tilting his jaw, catching his rough skin in the soft natural light that found its way in through the ships many windows. Your eyes searched for a reflection of any glass that could possibly be in his lip. Not catching any reflection, you retired your hand that sat on his jawline. Taking the same steps with his bloody nose, your touch was much more gentle now that Peter was keeping his mouth shut, “You’re prettier when you don’t talk,” you joke as you closed the metal box.

“Really,” Peter smiled, “because, I think you’re prettier when you talk,” he joked, his claim laced with a genuine tone, catching your (y/e/c) eyes.

You took a step forward, beginning to cross the room to return the first aid kit, when the echo of footsteps bounced off the Milano’s metal walls, “You didn’t tell me other people were on the Milano,” you yelled, your words whispered, “What the hell Quill,”

Peter threw up his hands, his brow furrowed, “It’s not like you asked me, and why does it matter,” you sat down the metal box, heading towards the door, “Hey, hey,” Peter spoke, his voice sounded concerned, “Y/N,” his strong hold wrapped around your wrist as his hushed words were interrupted by a loud claim.

“Damn Quill, I’m sick of you bringing girls back here,” quickly, your eyes searched for where the voice came from. Your gaze fell to a racoon that sat no taller than your knees, “never mind that, what happened to your face,” he laughed.

“Rocket that is not nice,” a woman’s soft voice echoed from the hallway. She entered the room quickly, eyes alert, “Peter, are you in pain,” the woman asked as you focused on her black eyes before your gaze traveled to her anteni.

“Oh, yes Mantis,” Peter played along, trying to appease the two interesting characters that now occupied the room, “Y/N helped though, so,” he watched as Mantis approached him, her hands extended, “I’m fine, really,” but Mantis’s hands sat flush against Peter’s face, “okay,” Peter almost sighed as you watched the show unfold. You were at a loss for words, amused yet equally confused at the company Peter kept aboard his ship.

Mantis’s anteni began to glow a soft hum of white, somehow sending warmth throughout your body, the sight was almost calming, “You do not feel pain,” she spoke, her broken english hinted confusion, “you feel, desire,” the previous calmness you felt now slipped through your fingers and was replaced by your accelerating heartbeat, “for her,” Mantis’s words were deadened by Peter’s large hand that found its way over her mouth.

Your eyes found Peter’s as he studied your blushed skin. His hold on Mantis’s mouth weakened as he searched for any words that could make the situation at ease. Instead, he watched as Mantis approached you, hands cautiously outstretched.

“May I,” her words were soft as she studied your face. She looked at your untamed (y/h/c) hair that added to your hell and back exterior. You were mysterious, yet still approachable, your large eyes almost doe like. Your brown smokey eyes were someone smudge from the countless times you rubbed your eyes, the planet’s air drying them, “You are beautiful,” Mantis spoke as her hand rested on your arm softly.

Her white glow illuminated your face as you watched her eyes flutter shut, “Thank you,” your voice strained, your mind overstimulated.

Mantis quickly removed her hand, eyes connecting once again at your steady gaze, “I am sorry,” she whispered, “You feel discomfort, overwhelmed,” she stumbled as she attempted to take small steps away from you, the floor was cluttered with unnecessary scrap, “I hope that you stay,” she smiles, her claim attracting the eyes of everyone who stood in the large room.

The woman’s face was soft and kind, a bright smile occupied her lips, “Thank you,” the same words once again passing through your bruised lips, “Mantis,” you added, with a small smile. Your hands crossed over your chest, resting on your biceps. 

With a nod Mantis turned, taking Rocket’s small hand, “Come on, I think we should leave them alone now,” she spoke as Rocket almost hissed at being dragged off, his constant bickering echoed through the room until you and Peter were once again left alone.

Your eyes slowly found Peter’s feet as your hands danced along the fabric of your jacket. Slowly, your gaze traveled up Peter’s body, taking him all in. With a swing of his arms, he removed his worn, red jacket. A long sleeve, cool-grey shirt hugged his toned torso making your heart flutter. Finally, you met his smiling blue eyes.

“Look,” his words quiet at first, were replaced with a laugh, “I’m sorry about that,” Peter studied you as you stood across the room. You were beautiful, but not a cliche beautiful like in fairy tales. The way you held yourself gave you a layer of mystery and allusiveness that Peter hungered to pervade. He wanted to get to know you. Although the two of you only met, he felt as if it would torment him to watch you leave his side, “I hope that didn’t turn you off,” he spoke after a few minutes of silence.

His comment made your shoulders stiffen. After Mantis’s bold claim of attraction, you began overanalyzing Peter’s words. You knew nothing about empaths, but you were feeling exactly what Mantis described. Your heart skipped a beat wondering if Peter actually felt desire for you.

“No, no, not like that,” Peter spoke, quickly approaching your side, “I mean, what Mantis said,” his eyes caught a flicker of embarrassment in your eyes, “not, not that,” Peter stumbled over his words as his fingers ran through his hair. His blond locks were no longer damp, but still smelled of cheap beer, “I also want you to stay,” the words flowed through his parted lips as he looked into your eyes.

You smiled as he stumbled over his words, inches away from you. Your heart pleaded for you to close the few inches that stood between you, the scent of beer and cologne drawing you in like a moth to a flame, “Quill,” you whispered.

Peter swallowed. Hearing his name leave your lips made his breath catch in his throat, “Please,” his voice practically begged, catching himself off guard.

You studied Peter, he almost seemed closer now, and your fingertips longed to once again be pressed against his rough skin. You have never been bold, but there was something about Peter that changed that, and so you reached towards him. Your fingertips grazed the soft fabric of his shirt, “I’ll stay, but only for awhile,” your quiet words brought a smile to his face.

Peter’s hand rested on yours as your fingertips danced against his chest. Withdrawing your touch, he took your hand and led you down the long hallway that Rocket and Mantis walked down minutes before. You made your way down the long hall that was lined with doors, some open while others closed. Reaching a dead end, Peter typed a code into the door’s key pad. Your eyes met those of a captivating, green woman who stood in the doorway to your right. She studied you as you stood behind Peter, as if you were his shadow. Unaware of your actions, you squeezed Peter’s hand as the woman continued to study the two of you as Peter began to pull you into his room.

Feeling your hold tighten on his hand, Peter turned his head, unable to meet your eyes. Your (y/e/c) eyes were focused on Gamora’s as her gaze rose, meeting Peter’s blue eyes, “Gamora,” her name left Peter’s lips, feeling as if all the air escaped from his lungs, “This is Y/N,” he swallowed as he watched the girl that turned him down over and over continued to break his heart. Gamora’s stare cut Y/N like tiny daggers, somehow making Peter’s heart hurt even more.

“Bold move, Quill,” Gamora smiled at him, eyes fixated on your crumbling posture. You felt yourself retreat into your oversized jean jacket, almost as if you were her prey trying to camouflage yourself, “Nice to meet you, Y/N,” lowering her gaze, the dark eyes of the vixen released you from her hold. Turning, she entered her room as the door closed behind her.

“I can’t shake the feeling that my company isn’t wanted,” you spoke quietly, meeting Peter’s eyes, “Maybe it’s best if,” your words were cut off by Peter’s tightening hold on your hand, mirroring your previous actions.

“I want you here,” Peter spoke with a smile, “and I’m the leader,” his warm smile grew into a cocky grin, “so everyone has to do what I say,”

Your eyes closed into a sliver as a smile played on your lips, “Everyone,” you joked as he pulled you into his room, the automatic door slid closed quickly.

“Especially you,” Peter spoke, barely audible as he approached you. His large hands wrapped around the fabric of your jacket collar. Sliding the fabric off your neck, a hiss of pain passed through your lips. You were suddenly reminded of the burn that was left on your skin. The golden chain was replaced with its crimson imprint on your sensitive skin, “Hey,” his words were soft as his hands roughly removed your jean exterior, “what’s wrong,” his eyes found your fingertips that touched your burning skin, “Lemme take a look,” he calmed you as you lowered your hand while your gaze lifted, meeting his eyes.

Peter’s hands found their way to your stiffened shoulders, turning your back towards him. Brushing your slightly matted hair over your shoulder, he exposed the heated skin of your neck, “shit,” you whispered as his slightly calloused fingers touched the burning surface. Although you were in pain, you could not help but melt under Peter’s cautious touch. Feeling his breath on the back of your neck you shudder.

“You were so set on fixing me up,” Peter smiled as his eyes trailed along the imprint of your gold chain, “You’re damn stubborn,” his eyes found your old Led Zeppelin shirt. It looked as if it was being held together by a few threads. Holes from many battles peppered the once thick fabric. The holes exposed your soft skin underneath. Skin that Peter wished to study, “and really pretty,” he spoke, a breath hitched in his throat. Acknowledging his daring claim, he raised his gaze to find you sneaking a glance at him over your shoulder.

Your ears were blocked by the sound of your rapid heartbeat as you met Peter’s eyes, his compliment catching your heart off guard. You parted your lips, longing to find something to say to him, but he left you speechless. Peter slowly closed even more space between the two of you, making you turn your head away out of embarrassment.

You felt Peter’s breath on your neck, its heat burning your already irritated skin. A groan passed through your lips, embarrassing you even further. You heard Peter laugh as his lips tickled the skin of your neck, peppering it with gentle kisses, “Why won’t you stay,” Peter muttered in between kisses. His lips met your skin more harshly and feverish as you felt a breath catch in your throat, making you whimper, “Come on,” he almost commanded as his hand found its way to the front of your neck, “tell me sweetheart,”

The truth is you were scared. You could count on one hand how many times men like Peter took advantage of your trusting, submissive nature. But for the first time, you did not feel the need to fight back. Peter’s kisses did not feel lustful but caring, making you crave them more than you were willing to admit. Cursing under your breath, you realized that you wanted him to care for you.

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER PRE-GAME 9/30/2020: 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE/CONFESSIONAL (2019)

Spoiler alert. Or whatever. It’s not going to matter, you don’t care.

So, I've been away for a minute. Just about any reason to be away from Tumblr is probably a good reason, but I have an especially good one. I'm finally working on a "real" writing project, which demands, and deserves, all of my attention. My social media abstinence isn't just a matter of time management, though. Once I had a long term obligation on my plate, I became very aware of how the short term satisfaction I get from posting mindless rants was eating away at the fuel I have available for sustained efforts. When I wind myself up with a 500-1000 word blog post, it generates a lot of electricity, but I blow it all as soon as I experience the catharsis of posting it, and I'm further pacified by ego-stroking likes and reblogs. Not to sound like a sanctimonious luddite--I mean, I'm still here, after all!--but it turns out that the staying focused on the long haul has been surprisingly revivifying. In fact, I haven't been talking about my big fancy project for the same reason; I don't want to lose any of the juice I've been storing up by wasting it on the shallow pleasure of describing it. Also such things should probably be somewhat confidential until they're approaching the publishing stage, but I digress! There is an actual reason I'm saying all this, that has more to do with this blog.

(Don’t get all excited, I’m not doing EVIL ED right now, I just need a relatable image.)

As I got deeper into my experience of "real" film writing, I started to reflect on the meaning of my personal writing. Like, the point of it. I tend to write in a sweaty, compulsive, sadomasochistic haze, in which I'm sometimes hyperbolically generous, and sometimes--perhaps more often, unfortunately--as nasty as humanly possible. Sometimes the movies deserve it, when they're lazy, pretentious, or otherwise demonstrate an open contempt for the audience aka ME. Often, though, I'm just creating an opportunity to vent my generalized rage and frustration. That can be very entertaining for myself and (hopefully) my teensy-but-devoted readership, but lately I've asked myself whether there isn't some negative tradeoff for all this amusement. In this phase of my life, it's reasonable to assume I'll make more and more friends and acquaintances who create things I don't always care for, but I don't necessarily think they deserve to be abused for it. As much as I have a right to say whatever I want, technically, I'd be embarrassed if I were caught just jacking myself off by making fun of their work in public. And more to the point, I don't necessarily want to contribute to the growing atmosphere in which people feel more afraid to try and fail, because the public so commonly misidentifies sarcasm and mean-spiritedness as intelligence and superiority, and that form of petty darkness spreads across the internet a lot faster than a movie can reach a wider audience. After all, I'm in the process of potentially turning myself into one of those well-meaning failures right now. I could stand to be a little more deliberate about how I speak, and about what, in general.

My father is an art critic, and once in an extra petulant moment, teenage-me asked him in an accusative tone what he thought the point of his profession was. He replied calmly that he wouldn't publish any comment that he didn't think the artist could make use of somehow. I don't know if he always stuck to that policy, but the thought sure stuck with me.

So anyway, over the last few months I've been giving myself a bit of an attitude adjustment, through a combination of personal reflection, and hard work on something meaningful/not for the internet. I've been feeling all proud of myself and shit, but today reminded me that any path to enlightenment is always marked by setbacks, doubt, and temptation. For today, in complete innocence (or at least a melange of innocence and ignorance, as I very much invite this type of problem), I managed to watch TWO (2) movies about an academic film-cum-psychology project, focused on a gang of college buddies who inevitably reveal what bad people they are under the unique conditions of the project, and then the project turns out to be run NOT by its presumed-dead originator, but by the originator's even-crazier lover. It's amazing how particular something can be, and still be utterly obvious and cliche. In my defense, I really tried to turn the second movie off, because it was...just instantly terrible, but the seed of suspicion had taken root--is this randomly selected movie ACTUALLY EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE PREVIOUS MOVIE?--and I just had to find out if this could be true. I suffered, deliberately, for another hour and a half, to confirm my awful hunch. I don't know how I would have felt if I had turned out to be wrong (better? worse?), but I don't have to worry about that now. Now I just have to worry about my overpowering impulse to be as ugly as possible about what I have personally subjected myself to.

(The completely deceptive poster for our not at all witchy or eerie opening feature.) 

In need of a passable time-waster this afternoon, I put on 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE. Released in March of 2019, Caitlin Koller's claustrophobic black comedy feels oddly like a product of 2020. A group of estranged, middle-aged college pals of the BIG CHILL ilk--which one of the characters calls out, out loud, just so ya know--come together for a fallen comrade's funeral, only to find themselves trapped in his widow's increasingly creepy cabin in the woods. Said comrade was driven to suicide by the failure of a psychological experiment he conducted that plunged its subject into madness, and if you don't realize right away that the obnoxious and unstable cast are the new subjects of their not-quite-dead friend's renewed project, then you're firing a lot slower than 24 frames per second. The dialog is often decent, aiding a handful of funny, natural performances...but it's hard to forget that you're just waiting for the conspicuously crazy widow to reveal that the "unexplained events" in and around the cabin are part of a controlled attempt to get the guests to devolve into their worst selves, which isn't such a difficult task considering the undesirable state they all arrive in.

It just made me ask myself, what was the point of this? Why do people make movies that are entirely predicated on the shock of the twist, knowing that if the twist isn't so shocking--or is baldly obvious from the start--then the whole experience just falls apart? Why not hedge your bets with a little more depth, or purpose, or style, or really anything more reliable than a smug attempt to prove that your script is smarter than your audience? Even if you do manage to pull off this dubious accomplishment, it reduces your movie to something like the experience of having somebody jump out of a closet and scream in your ear to "get" you. I've always felt concerned that if somebody ever tries to "get" me like that, I might just automatically punch them in the face. But anyway, whatever shred of good will this movie could have accrued with its plucky performances is blown away by the final insult, when the cops arrive to clean up the inevitable bloody mess. The responding officers are hilariously unimpressed and unsurprised by the byzantine scheme that has resulted in a shocking act of violence, because the cabin's "guest book", which our heroes all filled out, was actually the signatory page of a complicated waiver form granting full permission to the hosts to, like, do whatever the hell they want to everybody. Presumably this shit just goes on all the time, leading the local law to shrug off anything that happens to or because of the dumbassed lab rats who frequent the cabin? I dunno. I mean, what can I say? ACAB, I guess!

At the time, I managed to resist the urge to take to the internet and decry the crimes of this lame-o party joke. I really don't like the sensation that a movie is just trying to trick me into thinking something that isn't true. But, this isn't, like, an affront to cinema. People make annoying, below average movies all the time, and maybe you kinda have to, if you eventually want to make better movies. I imagine myself in the shoes of the people who actually put some elbow grease into this production, having to wade through the rantings of internet ghouls like myself while they're trying to see how their efforts are paying off. Making a movie is probably a lot harder than I think it is.

But that's part of the point I'm heading toward. I'm always amazed by people's willingness to pour huge amounts of energy and capital into something to which there is ultimately very little point. I mean, I have bad, unoriginal, boring ideas every single day of my life. But I almost never DO any of them. I have a hard enough time convincing myself to just get out of bed in the morning, let alone devote blood, sweat, and money to deliver unto the world material evidence of my personal mediocrity. I can't imagine thinking it would be worth it, for myself or the unfortunate people who are subjected to my project, to actually execute on my bad ideas. I'm being judgmental, but honestly, I don't even know if my attitude makes me better or worse than someone who accomplishes the task of completing and selling a movie that's mainly a waste of time. Movies are so complicated, and realizing them requires the consensus of so many people, that it's sort of incredible that there are people capable of making one that doesn't have a powerfully compelling motivation behind it. People who are able to do such a thing obviously have something that I don't, and it isn't just "consideration for the audience."

So, I could probably stand to be more forgiving--or just, less eager to absolutely flay someone alive on my dumb little blog because they so opened themselves up to my arsenal of elaborate insults. But like...not all the time. Sometimes, a movie really fucking asks for it, and in revealing itself to me, it has effectively signed a waiver giving me patent freedom to do whatever I want to it. CONFESSIONAL is the latest movie to give me such a gift. After the final credit rolled in 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE, I looked for a little palate cleanser. As little as I like movies that put their single egg in the motheaten basket of a "shocking twist", I also have a problem with what I identify as canned theater. Not that I think all movies have to be lavish productions, but I think they should try to do something that is natively cinematic. It's very rare that I'm impressed by anything that is literally all talk. So, I went in search of some more familiar form of trash to help me recallibrate, and trash is definitely what I got.

(Me crying over my own bad decisions.)

To be fair, I kind of should have known that I was in for a challenging experience. The 2019 found footage thriller CONFESSIONAL is more or less based on the "confessional" part of sleazy reality TV shows, isolating each cast member in a soundproof stall so they can spill the rotten contents of their guts. Unfortunately, I spotted a review suggesting that the movie succeeded, against all odds, at remaining visually dynamic despite the unchanging scenery, and I was intrigued. The reviewer was correct, impressively; the monotony of the coffin-like environment with its dark foam walls was the least of my concerns. Other problems superseded that threat, immediately. The plot concerns a group of college pals who come together to remember a recently deceased friend--a filmmaker who expired mysteriously while completing a psychology-tinged project in which she recorded all of her friends' most shameful personal secrets. Now, somebody else has taken over the project...someone who "has never been identified", according to an early title card in this movie-within-a-movie (EVEN THOUGH THIS PERSON WILL BE EXPLICITLY IDENTIFIED AT THE END OF THE MOVIE SO LIKE WHY), but who seems likely to be the decedent's ex-lover...who continues to expose their subjects' most shameful secrets on film. I mean, what the fuck? Did I somehow manage to pick a second movie with almost the exact same plot??? I couldn't believe it. I didn't know if I could take it. My prospects only got worse when the cast showed up and started talking. I tried to turn the movie off. I backed out and walked away from it, twice. But I couldn't leave it alone. I had to know if it was really the same movie.

CONFESSIONAL concerns characters who are contemporaneously in college, which actually goes a long way to making everything worse. Each of these walking cliches is connected in some way to Amelia, a film student whose mysterious death has created a campus scandal, leaving shattered hearts and lives in its wake. The living have each received a blackmail-flavored invitation to speak about the deceased in a tiny "confessional booth" somewhere on campus, where, predictably, they find themselves locked in until they confess whatever they know about Amelia, and their classmates. I don't know why practically every single movie about young people has to be so miserable, but this is one of those. I assume that it has something to do with the fact that youth is simultaneously so desired and so ignored. People in their teens and early 20s are so sexually coveted, yet so easily dismissed as individuals, that we wind up with all this media that panders to them relentlessly (or at least, panders to the legions of ticket-buying perverts who enjoy watching them prance around), without almost any consideration of how they actually think and act, and look. Movies like FAT GIRL and  WELCOME TO THE DOLL HOUSE may be accused of their own form of pandering, a venal form of voyeuristic schadenfreude, but at least they reflect something of the awkwardness, isolation, and incompleteness of adolescence; something more than the dissociated, pornographic fantasies of adults who have long since forgotten what it was like to be powerless and ignored, or desired by people who don't even like you.

Not that CONFESSIONAL is supposed to be a work of grim realism, but it is most definitely rooted in a fantasy about college life that makes its contrived, message-y plot a lot harder to take. With almost the sole exception of "the nerdy one", every single character looks like a Bratz doll, oozing an exaggerated indecency that belies the movie's pretentious insistence on addressing the sex & gender Issues of the Day. What you get is a really good example of what happens when millennial characters are modeled, not on any actual millennials, but on other forms of marketing that are aimed at millennials, which are themselves just based on other preexisting youth-targeted commercials, et al ad nauseam. Even setting aside the deliriously slutty wardrobe choices, makeup appears to have been laid on with a trowel, coating each actor in a thick creamy layer of spackle that only makes any scars, pits, or other evidence of individuality look utterly bizarre. Accordingly, everybody preens, pouts, and generally behaves as if they're about to take off their clothes, which might be a huge relief given the profusion of chafing, cheapo mesh and straps they're laboring under.

So, ok, not every movie can have a great costume department, but the dialog here is a perfect match for the disastrous aesthetic decisions. Actually, this is the real reason I almost walked out on CONFESSIONAL. If I may ramble briefly, without substantiating any of my broad-ranging claims: Sometime in the late 90s/early 00s, horror cinema seemed to suffer a degenerative slide away from genuine thrills and chills, and into a version of the genre that is best characterized as the Slutty Halloween Costume approach. Any sense of existential dread, revulsion, or bodily vulnerability was widely replaced by a cutesy, Hot Topic-y preference for fast fashion and sex appeal, in which bloodshed more facilitated an informal wet teeshirt contest than any real fear induction. Horror's new mall goth look came with an equally shallow, boring verbal affectation: a sullen, sleazy, tooth-sucking sarcasm, that ushered in a new era in which, instead of making fun of the scummy coked-out dialog in porno movies, we now expect everybody to just talk like that, because it's hot. There's probably a line to be drawn between this unfortunate development, and the boneheaded real-world trend of identifying "sarcasm" as an important personal selling point on dating sites, but I won't try to prove that here. For now, I will just say that as soon as I heard the CONFESSIONAL characters start to speak, with their sneering, insinuating tones, with the vocal fry, with the head wagging, the jutting jaws, the smoldering gazes, the juvenile dragging-out of horny grownup words like de-bauch-er-y...I almost lost my nerve. Listening to these little creeps hissing and spitting for 84 minutes is a lot like being hit on by some barfly who continues to bludgeon you with his hot breath and corny lines without ever noticing that you've thrown up into your pint.

Uh, anyway. So what actually happens in the movie. Why would anyone ever allow someone to record video of them revealing the ugliest, most embarrassing parts of themselves? Especially a kid, for whom popularity and reputation are often a matter of life or death--literally and specifically, in the case of this story. The flimsy reason is that the late filmmaker, Amelia, was the most awesomest girl ever. Everybody loved her, because she was so sweet, and so smart, and so cool, and so nice, and so deep, and so original, and so talented, and so sexy, and just like, the bestest most perfectest girl in the whole wide world. N.B. "The greatest of all time" is, perhaps counter-intuitively, a really bad quality that makes for really shitty, boring characters. For better or worse, Amelia is rarely on screen (and when she is, she's no Laura Palmer, frankly), so it's up to the viewer to just sort of imagine a type of person who could make you act against your best interests on account of you just like them so much. After all, so many of the characters were obsessed with her in some way, that it's like they're here to help you clap your hands and believe in this seductive, compelling part of the movie, that just isn't actually there on the screen. The anonymous antihero behind the confessional booth scheme slowly extracts from each character the selfish, destructive behavior that in some way contributed to the tragic loss of the most amazing person of all time--and part of the result is, if not a very interesting excuse for Amelia's death, then a story so wacky that I really wish they had centered the movie on it, instead of on the tawdry soap opera we're locked into. Even if that imaginary movie had been really bad, and it probably would have been, at it would at least have been entertaining.

Part of what leads up to the death of Amelia is the existence of a secret school fight club, led by a stereotypically sleazy gender studies major, named Major, who is out to prove men's inherent superiority. The club is called CFB, or Cock Fights Back, which is somehow a garbled pun relating to cock fights, and Trump's famous line of "locker room talk": "grab'em by the pussy" > "pussy grabs back" > "cock fights back". CFB is different from your ordinary fight club in that the fights are always between girls and boys, and the boys are always blindfolded, in order to prove that a fully-abled female is no match for even a handicapped male. To complicate things, a new designer amphetamine is gaining popularity on campus, called "odds-on", meaning that it makes you the odds-on favorite in your CFB fight. As awkward as that is, it also seems that men are never the guaranteed winners of these fights, which makes you wonder why Major insists on continuing to host them. As much as I would have preferred to watch a stupid movie about this stupid idea, I'm stuck instead with a movie in which Major is such an aggressive MRA because he's secretly gay, and he thinks that hating women is a great way to hide that...as if that isn't what we all openly suspect about aggro MRAs. Secret gayness is a big part of this movie, involving multiple characters, although it amounts to very little other than the perpetuation of some stale, harmful cliches about how unfulfilled homosexual urges lead to suicide, sexual abuse, and murder. CONFESSIONAL is just as reliant on this grim vision of gay life, as it is on its weirdly obtuse discussion of drug addiction, for the suffocating sense of self-importance that it uses to try to elevate itself above its porn-y trappings. None of the movie's hot button issues are given any real thought, but are only dragged through the mud to create the illusion that there's a point to all this, thus relieving the film of any sense of innocence that could have made its condescending sleaziness forgivable.

Admittedly, I can't really remember all the details of the film's tortured intrigue anymore, even though I basically just saw it. A lot of its meandering revelations just left me thinking, "Why did I need to know that? Why should I care?" I do know that about half way through this ordeal, I became really anxious about whether it would turn out that CONFESSIONAL did NOT have exactly the same plot as 30 MILES FROM NOWHERE after all, and I put myself through all this for nothing. But no, I was right to begin with. The wonderful Amelia's ethically dubious film project has been picked up by the unhinged lesbian character who loved her so much she wanted to become her, and killing Amelia and usurping her confessional project was apparently the best way of doing that. I guess exposing all the dark, violent secrets of all these tangentially involved characters was just an added bonus, or whatever. Ultimately, this ugly, ignorant PSA about something-or-other only deals itself further damage by relying so heavily on the potential of its clumsy twist to blow your mind, which it does not at all.

So that was it, that's how I burned a whole afternoon allowing my mind to implode-not-explode under the ponderous force of TWO (2) movies about exactly the same exhausted cliche that is still being peddled by certain pretentious assholes as fresh and exciting, and beyond the capacity of the audience to anticipate. There's probably a whole slew of other movies that employ this overly familiar "surprise", but I don't have it in me to dig them out of my long-suffering brain. Feel free to contribute in the comments. For now, I must prepare myself for the ordeal of Blogtober, during which I will *hopefully* choose my screening selections and words more thoughtfully than I have in previous years, when this blog was motivated by just as much abject misanthropy as these movies, which do nothing but willfully insult the audience's intelligence. Maybe today's detour into degradation will help me go forth toward more additive experiences, having purged several lungfuls of meaningless venom from my system, and this season will bring with it more interesting, provocative posts than the last. Or maybe not! In any case, I promise to keep trying my hardest to make it funny.

PS I actually love both FAT GIRL and WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE. I’m “just saying”. 

[always5hineee]

Hell and Back- Chapter 30: Explosive Decisions (Trials 45-46)

Word count: 1407

Chapter warnings: Mild language

-----

       "Can we please do a truth challenge this time?" Kyungsoo asked. "It doesn't make sense to keep on risking our lives. If we just do the truth ones, this will be a walk in the park."

       "We completed two challenges in one thanks to the dare, though," Sehun pointed out. "That's faster."

       "And life threatening!" He exclaimed in exasperation.

       "It's fine, we'll try a truth one." Suho said in a monotone voice, nodding to her as if to allow her to go. Well, if anything had improved throughout the course of this event, it was their ability to not spend four hours discussing when to start a trial. Clicking the truth button, the familiar script appeared.

       [Truth] 45: Everyone must name one time in which they lied, causing another player to suffer.

       "Woah, uh," Xiumin laughed awkwardly, trying to bring up the mood. "That's a little heavy. Who wants to go first?" Everyone was silent. Some of them obviously had things on their mind, while other were internally scrambling for answers. Not only that, but no one was sure exactly how serious they were meant to get. It would be a little weird if the calibers of these lies were too different.

       "Um, well," Sehun coughed. "One time I told Chanyeol that his hair looked good, since he asked. It was actually the worst hairstyle I'd ever seen, and I'm pretty sure he got clowned for like, a week." Chanyeol glared over at him.

       "I liked that haircut."

       "My point exactly."

       "Are you sure that wasn't this week?" Chen asked with a snicker, looking over to his shaven head. Chanyeol didn't seem to think it was as funny as everyone else, rolling his eyes.

       "Oh yeah? Well, I lied about having a girlfriend. So when Baekhyun went for her, he got rejected, and he never knew why." Baekhyun's eyes widened.

       "Why wouldn't you tell us?!" Kai asked incredulously. "You? With a girlfriend??"

       "More importantly," Baekhyun huffed, "Why would she pick you over me?"

       "I didn't keep it a secret from everyone," Chen tried to calm them down, "I told Kai and Kris because I needed relationship advice. And it doesn't matter now, because that's... since been over."

       "Oh, about that," Kris laughed, "Since we're exposing lies and all, remember when Kai and I caught her cheating, and you broke up with her?" Chen raised an eyebrow, a little unhappy that he would just release that little bit of information out of nowhere, but he was curious as to what they were going to say.

       "...Yeah?"

       "Yeah, we uh, we just didn't like her, that never happened." The room fell silent. While he had said it in the same lighthearted tone as everyone else, it was sinking in for everyone that it... it was actually kind of really shitty. Kai, obviously, was mortified, having never consented to Kris revealing that detail as well. He'd felt bad about it when it had happened- to be fair, they had caught her talking about him behind his back, but they may have taken things into their own hands.

       "Are you serious?" Chen was obviously infuriated. "You have about five seconds to say you're kidding." Kris very quickly realized his mistake- basically as soon as it had left his mouth.

       "Hey, man, that was like... years ago, it's over."

       "And you never told me?"

       "I mean, I knew you'd be mad-"

       "Of course I'd be fucking mad! You had no right-"

       "It's long gone, though! Plus, it was basically Kai's idea!"

       "Hey-" Kai tried to argue, but Chen was still focused on the one actively fighting with him.

       "Yeah, but who knows what other shady things you're up to now!"

       "Don't be like that, you're acting like a baby-"

       "Who cares? You're acting like a dick!" Chen looked like he was about to physically get up and rip Kris's head off. As thin as Chen was, no one doubted he had the ability. He wasn't physically lacking.

       "Chen, calm down," Y/N muttered under her breath, grabbing his elbow, "We can work it out later. We can't afford to be fighting over silly things right now." Chen looked unsure of what to do, but finally sat down, not before shooting Kris the death glare of his life. Swallowing awkwardly, she indicated for the rest of the circle to go around. The rest were minor things that were annoying, but not devastating. Still, it made everyone realize that they all told a few white lies here and there. While this should have been calming, as it made them all relatable, it honestly just shook everyone's trust a bit. Truth had not been as good of an option as they had originally thought.

       "We're picking dare next." Kris muttered under his breath as they completed the trial, glaring at Kyungsoo. The latter had no complaints. Even if he didn't agree, he wouldn't have said anything. She was fine picking that as well- after all, at least the dares brought them closer together rather than drive them apart. She didn't know how to remedy the situation with Kris and Chen, or how it was going to blow up as soon as he was controlled enough to bring Kai into it as well. It was bound to happen... They'd been friends long enough, they'd come around.

       As she hit dare, though, she nearly immediately regretted her actions. She should have known that they'd get increasingly harder, but she obviously didn't know by what caliber. In that case, would selecting truth also become harder? It didn't matter to her now, though, as she was staring at the new text on the screen.

       "What, what does it say?" Lay asked with concern, having seated himself on the floor, resting his head on his lifted knee.

       "It, uh..." She swallowed, throat suddenly drying up. "We have to defuse a bomb."

       "What?" She wasn't sure who said it- it was definitely several of them.

       "It says that there's an explosive somewhere in the sound equipment, and that we have to find it and keep it from going off!' She commented, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

       "Does it give us a time limit?" Suho asked, glancing around nervously.

       "Uh, no? But I don't really want to be lazy with this one. The limited power is Chen."

       "Probably so he can't short circuit it." Kyungsoo reasoned.

       "Uh, guys?" Sehun called, pulling on the back panel of a speaker to check inside. "Less theorizing, more finding the fucking bomb!" He wasn't wrong, they needed to locate it, and quickly. Thankfully, since they were given the tip that it was hidden within the sound equipment, there were only so many places it could be. This included inside of speakers and soundboards, as well as in hollow instruments, like the drums and guitars. Kai was the one to discover it, hidden underneath the cables of their large, plastic equipment box.

       "Here."He held it up. It was certainly a cliche looking piece of machinery; a dark green box made of some unidentifiable metal. There were several wires connecting different pieces of it, lights blinking with very faint beeps audible from where they were standing.

       "Shit, is this one of those 'cut-the-wire' things?" Xiumin groaned.

       "In movies, it's always the red one." Chanyeol offered.

       "That's definitely not what actual bombs are like." He argued.

       "Well, we don't really have many options here!"

       "So one of your options is dying?!"

       "Fixed it." Baekhyun said. Looking down, Kai saw that the cables were fraying as they dangled from the box, pieces of them dropping to the floor.

       "Baekhyun!" Nearly everyone yelled at him simultaneously.

       "What?" He complained. "Look, it stopped flashing and beeping and stuff!"

       "You could have-"

       "Killed us, yeah, yeah, I heard that the last time." He stuck his tongue out. "These trials suck, and there's no reason to sit around and pretend like we're going to get blown up. We haven't died yet!" She almost wanted to remind them that they had in fact had more than a few deaths, and just because they were able to undo them didn't mean they hadn't happened. "Can we please just move on? Honestly, this is getting a little predictable." He laughed. They didn't know exactly what to say. He had saved them a lot of trouble, but still... He couldn't keep doing this. She looked to Suho, who nodded. It was fine to continue.

Go to Chapter 31

[livsoulsecrets]

Incantava AU - Chapter 2: Though she be but little, she is fierce!

Masterpost

Previous Chapter

Summary: Eleonora is in London for some days for her brother’s photograph exposition. In her last night in the city, she is convinced by her friends to go out by herself and have some fun. Unexpectedly, she meets other Italian there, a charming boy named Edoardo. Not knowing much else about him, she takes her friends’ advice and has a one night stand with him, not expecting to see the boy after that. Little did she know they were bound to meet each other again.

August 22nd

📲 Edoardo’s Instagram Post

📲 Eleonora’s Instagram Story

20:47

Ele took a deep breath as soon as she stepped into the street after leaving the hotel.

Her phone was buzzing, probably with the girl’s texts from the group chat. She decided not to take it out her pocket, instead focusing in what was around her while she walked to the pub Filo said she had to visit. Knowing better than taking her brother’s word for it, Ele also sneaked the book she was currently reading in her bag, just in case the place turned out to be boring.

When she got to the bar some minutes later, Ele sat down at the table around the corner and ordered some tea and took A Midsummer Night's Dream out of her bag, being fully aware she was being away too much of a cliche tourist drinking tea and reading Shakespeare. She regretted nothing, though. Filo was, like usual, wrong and the place proved itself to be quite boring, being mostly empty except for Ele and a couple standing in the bar’s balcony, so reading is probably her best option. Her tea is served after a while and she continues to read the book, thinking she would probably be better off leaving soon, since nothing interesting is happening there anyway.

That is when she caught eye of a boy that was sitting by the bar. He had dark curls falling in his eyes and, even from that distance, Ele couldn’t help but lose her breath with how soft his brown eyes were. He was staring already when she looked up and, unlikely what she would have expected, he didn’t break eye contact.

He was so gorgeous that Ele felt her face burning with his eyes on her.

The girls’ words keep coming back to her mind, telling her to get out there, live a little, have fun. It wouldn’t hurt to give it a shot… Maybe he is not even trying to flirt with her and all of this is a product of her bored mind.

Either way, Eleonora decided that, tonight, she was going to be brave.

Until that moment, Ele was trying to not stare too much, keeping a bit of her focus on the book at hand. So when she put the book down, the boy crooked an eyebrow in her direction, intrigued. Despite her many doubts about her impulsive decision, she didn’t look away and smiled.

The boy gets up from where he is sitting and suddenly the almost empty place seems too small for the two of them. For a second, it almost looks like he may come her way, but a man suddenly appeared next to him. The other guy seemed to be concerned for something when he got there, but, the more they talked, the more the man relaxed. The boy that was staring at her before put his hand in his friend’s shoulder and talked softly, calming him down.

Ele was tempted to keep staring at him, but she didn’t want to look like a crazy stalker, so she resumed reading her book, trying to focus again.

— Uh… Well, hi, I’m Edoardo. — Ele shut the book away too fast when she heard the voice that was coming from the little stage in the corner of the bar.

Somehow, she just knew who that voice belonged to.

She wasn’t surprised when her eyes were met with the scene of the boy with dark curls, Edoardo, holding a guitar in his hands and staring at the few people who were in the bar.

— Alright… The singer Leo hired for today is going to be a bit late, so, I will just fill up some of your time until he gets here. — Edoardo explained, a bit of shyness leaking through his words. He recovered quickly though, starting to play the first chords of a melody Ele felt like she knew from somewhere. — When you were here before… Couldn’t look you in the eye, you’re just like an angel, your skin makes me cry.

Eleonora always prided herself in being able to stay focus on what she wanted no matter what.

And yet, here she was.

She can’t take her eyes off of him. Maybe it’s the way he closes his eyes when he sings or how soft his voice sounds in English, with the hint of an accent she recognizes. Maybe it’s the moments where he opens his eyes just for a bit and they seem to find their way back to hers.

Whatever the reason is, Ele can’t tell herself to go back to her book and stop paying attention to Edoardo.

Perhaps it’s because she simply doesn’t want to.

— But I'm a creep... I'm a weirdo, What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here. I don't care if it hurts, I wanna have control, I wanna a perfect body... I wanna a perfect soul.

Either way, the songs seems to end just as abruptly as it began and Ele is brought back to reality with a bit of a shock.

Edo plays another two songs until the hired singer shows up in a rush, but Eleonora has to admit she didn’t really listen to anything after the first song, too focused in analyzing the boy while he wasn’t able to take notice of it.

So when Edoardo leaves the stage to go get some water, Eleonora thinks he won’t pay much attention to her again.

She is quickly proved wrong when he walks right in her her direction.

Surprised and speechless, Ele waits.

He gets closer, the water bottle on his hand, the playful smile he had all the time while singing not going anywhere.

— A Midsummer Night’s Dream? — Edoardo asks, pointing at her book, forgotten at the table.

Perhaps confirming his brown eyes were just as soft standing this close as they were all the way across the room does something to Eleonora’s insides, but she will not be the one to admit it either way.

— Yes… It seemed like the right place to read it again, as cliche as it sounds. — Ele answers, still unsure of what she is doing. He turns his eyes to the empty seat across from her and it is like he is asking if he can sit.

Ele has never been very good at flirting, but she likes the little game they have going on, so she bends her neck, silently telling him to give her a good reason to let him stay.

— “Though she be but little, she is fierce.” — Ele doesn’t know what she was expecting as an answer to her silent question, but that was not it. — That is my favorite quote of this book. Guess I’m a bit of a cliche too. — Ele smiles without even taking notice of it and indicates the chair in front of her with her head. The boy sits down, a playful smile on his face, and she tries not to freak out too much over talking to a complete stranger.

Well, that is why she carries a pepper spray around: preparing for the risks.

After living such a carefully calculated couple of years, she can’t help but feel like she deserves one night of carefree decisions.

— I’m Edoardo. — He says, extending his hand across the table. — But I guess you know that already.

— Indeed. I’m Eleonora. — She answers, taking his hand and shaking it. — You are not from here, are you?

— No, but I have lived here for a year now. The accent is not going anywhere though. I’m from Italy. — He explains and Ele wonders if destiny is playing with her somehow.

— Oh, really? I’m from Italy too!

— We are everywhere, aren’t we?

— We really are! It is insane. — She stops for a second, considering what to do next. — Do you always quote Shakespeare to random girls? — Ele asks, wondering what made he pay such a close attention to her.

— Oh, you caught me, that is all I ever do of my nights. — And it is a dumb answer, of course, but that doesn’t stop Ele from laughing.

— Why did you move here?

— You make a lot of questions, you know?

— And you are not very good at answering them. — Eleonora says back easily and Edoardo nods, agreeing with her, the same playful smile resting in his face, making it harder for Eleonora to look him in the eyes without feeling her face getting hot.

— Fair enough. — He complies. — Let’s switch it, then, why did you come here?

— My brother had a photography exposition in a gallery over here, it ended today.

— You are leaving soon, I assume?

— I’m going back home tomorrow.

— I’m going back in a week. For good, I mean. As much as I love London, it isn’t home. — Edoardo reveals.

— I understand, London is awesome, but I don’t think I could give up on Rome for any other city. — Ele agrees.

— Oh… So you going back to Rome, too? That is where I’m moving back to.

Ele almost looks around the place to see if this isn’t a prank Filo is playing on her because it sounds insane that she ended up flirting with the one italian boy in a bar located in the middle of London.

— Guess we will have to make the most of the time we do have left here. — Edo says and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Ele the way he bites his lip after suggesting it. — What do you want to do in your last night?

— I barely know you. — Ele says back, trying to stop herself from laughing and sound as serious as possible. — What if you are a serial killer trying to abduct me?

— Abduct? What am I, an ET? — This boy definitely has no regard for Ele’s heart. If he keeps smiling like that, she may do something dumb like giving in to his suggestion. — But, okay, okay, that is a honest doubt. — He seems to recover himself a bit from Ele’s answer to look her in the eyes again. — Alright, then! We can let destiny decide it for us.

— Destiny will decide if you are a serial killer or an ET? — Ele grins when he rolls his eyes at her, as if they are old friends with an inside joke.

— Of course not… Destiny will decide what we should do. — He says, as excited as a little child about to get a candy with his new idea. Ele is not sure why she is so easy to trust him, but she nods, indicating she may agree with him.

— Okay… And how do we do it?

— Reading, of course. — He says, as if it is obvious. Ele feels halfway between annoyed and flustered with the way he looks at her after saying such thing.

— Are you going to elaborate on that or…

— It is simple: you open the book in the page you were reading and we do whatever it is telling us to do.

— Well… Guess we’re lucky I wasn’t reading Romeo and Juliet or we would have some serious issues. — Ele whispers just loud enough so he can hear it and it’s adorable how he grins back to her. — Can’t believe I’m doing this, but, here we go: the last sentence I read was “My soul is in the sky”.

Edo stayed silent for some seconds until a smile tugged at his lips. It was a good look on him. But, if she was going to be honest, everything seemed to be a good look on that boy.

— That means we should… Look at the sky? — Eleonora wonders, a little too involved with Edo’s suggestion to her own liking.

— Yes! I mean, if you are sure I’m not a serial killer…

— Or an ET.

— Of course, how could I forget the other hypothesis? If you are convinced I’m not a serial killer nor an ET, then, I may know the perfect place to do that.

She tried to resist, God knows she did.

— Okay, guess I’ll have to trust your word.

— Promise you won’t regret it. — Ele hoped he was right.

— Considering I met you some minutes ago, I might. You are a stranger, after all.

— You keep insisting on that, but it is not true! You know my name and watched me singing. I know which book you are reading and where you are from. I have gone to high school with people I knew less about! — Ele laughs, unsure if there is any logic to his thought process.

— If you say so, Edoardo… — Ele trails off.

— You can call me Edo. — It is all he answers, his eyes never leaving hers.

— Not sure if we are this close yet. — Ele mocks and he only shakes his head in disapproval as response while laughing.

Still, she accepts his crazy idea.

And, what is even more surprising, when Edo heads to the restaurant’s exit, she follows.

Next Chapter

[zuwritesstuff]

When You Try To Write a Candlenights Oneshot but it Turns Into a Multichaptered Adventure

Tw: Minor character death, injuries, prosthetics, slight angst, implied betrayal?

A/N- Hiya! This is chapter one in a (hopefully) multichaptered series and I have a lot to say but mostly I wanna thank @anonbeadraws because their Magnulia comic, (which you can see here if the link works lmao), which inspired a real cute scene in here, thanks so much to them and to YOU for reading this, have fun ;) (and please, I don’t mean to sound Desperate but reblogs > likes) also, you can find this on ao3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/22352998 and find the companion piece that you should really read if you want this whole Universe to make sense ijsdkncjfjdlnd right here https://archiveofourown.org/works/22228207

Chapter Title: Something To Come Home To

3 months, 2 weeks and 5 days ago

“And then she said-”

“‘I like you and I love you.’” Everyone in the breakroom chimed in, including those just passing by. Magnus beamed, proud of the fact that he had told this story so many times everyone in the room knew what he was gonna say. He was currently recounting the story of his wife’s confession of love and was draped over a chair dramatically, swooning. 

“Isn’t it romantic?” He said, grinning upside down at Merle and Taako. Taako scoffed and went back to drinking his coffee, rolling his eyes. Merle threw his hands up, shaking his head.

“I’m aromantic, leave me out of that.” 

“And I’m not, but you’re such a sap, it almost disgusts me.” Taako said, patting Magnus’s shoulder. 

“Hey, don’t be mean. Emotions are good, and being a sap is a good look on you, Maggie.” Carey Torres said, next to Magnus. Killian Alvarez and Noelle Nelson were also sitting at the table sharing a look.

“Is it?” Noelle said, stifling a laugh with her prosthetic arm, red and cyberpunk-esque. “Cause it kinda looks like he’s gonna explode.” Magnus sat back up, shaking his head as the blood that rushed into his head flowed back down. They all chuckled, and Killian, feet up on the table, (despite Merle’s protests), looked over at Carey.

“Being a sap is good, yeah?”

“Uh, yeah. Being emotionally forward is...good…” Carey said, blushing and looking away. Killian did the same, and everyone else at the table mentally groaned. The tension between them was, frankly, killing everyone who witnessed it. The two, plus Noelle, were a lean, mean, terrifying machine, and had been together for so long everyone who met them were, frankly, surprised that they weren’t a couple.

Killian took her feet off the table, leaned forward and said, “Well, uh, if that’s the case-” But whatever Killian was gonna say was drowned out by the loudspeaker above them.

“Dr. Highchurch and Agent Burnsides, to Wing F, ASAP. Repeat, Dr. Highchurch and Agent Burnsides to Wing F, ASAP.” Merle and Magnus looked at each other with concern. Wing F was the hospital wing, where Merle worked on their team’s, (Merle, Magnus and Taako’s), off days. 

“Mag, uh, not trying to worry you, but didn’t….didn’t Julia and Steph go on a mission today?” Carey asked gently. Magnus’s eyes went wide. He pushed his chair away and rushed out, with Merle close behind. 

                                                      ~

                      3 years, 3 months, 1 week and 6 days ago

Magnus took a deep breath and stepped in. Director Austen had just called him into her office. He had just finished his formal training with the Bureau of Benevolence and was waiting to be assigned a mentor, like most of the rest of his class. He had spent the last week fooling around with a few of his classmates, like Taako and Lup Enno, a pair of twins that were trouble personified, or Barry Bluejeans, a soft-spoken nerd who was supposed to be a scientist but ended up becoming a full agent. 

“You will train with Agent Waxman, here.” An older man stood next to Director Austen, looking down imposingly. He was built sturdily, even at his age, with a crooked nose and rough and calloused hands, with a small goatee and scar next to his right eye. Magnus stuck out a hand towards him, looking Waxman straight in the eyes.

“Magnus Burnsides, pleased to meet you.” Agent Waxman chuckled, shaking Magnus’s hand firmly.

“Call me Stephen, alright? Lucretia is one for formalities, for sure.”

“Her name is Lucretia?” Magnus whispered, horrified but amused.

“Thank you very much, Agent Waxman. That’ll be all.” Lucretia said, a ghost of a smile on her face. 

Magnus and Stephen walked out of Lucretia’s office chatting idly. Magnus learned Stephen had worked at the B.O.B for a very long time- almost 25 years, which is very long for a job that gets people killed almost regularly. He had a daughter, who had also had recently joined B.O.B, and just gotten her mentor; she was actually in Magnus’s class, but alas, apparently they had never interacted. Stephen was also nearing retirement- Magnus was the last recruit he was taking on, he told Lucretia, then a few more years and he was out. 

“Man, I never thought that far. Getting out? Nah, I’ll die before that, I think.” Magnus said casually. “I’m more of action first, get hurt, think after that kind of guy. Or don’t think at all, that works too.” He added, shrugging.

Stephen laughed and shook his head. “You know, I was wondering why Lucretia assigned me to you and now I know why. I used to be just like you, hot head and ready to give my life before anything ever happened.”

“Used to?”

“I found something worth coming home to, kiddo, but I suggest finding one soon cause the missions I go on? You’re gonna need it.”

“Alright, old man, whatever you say.”

“Ya know, you say that like its an insult. If I wasn’t old I wouldn’t have lived- trust me kiddo, living comes after everything you thought was worth doing. Then you’re cruising and focusing on the little things, all the good things.” Stephen said lightly, not looking at Magnus. He scanned the base, looking around as Magnus considered this. He had always been, not to be cliche, known to rush in. Protect, don’t think, get the mission done. If he got through it, great, if he didn’t, whatever, but if his friends got hurt, or didn’t complete what was needed? Failed. Living after the mission wasn’t all that high in his priorities, but the Director saw potential in him- she had to since he passed and she gave him a mentor, he reasoned. 

“Ah, there she is.” Stephen said, waving over two silhouettes in the distance. As they approached, Magnus’s jaw dropped as he saw the prettiest woman he had ever seen in his life, and one of the hairiest men he had seen, though he wasn’t paying much attention to him. The woman was tall, pretty much rivaling his own height, with long, curly hair wrapped into a braid behind her. Her skin was dark and glowing, with soft brown eyes that made you feel like you were wrapped up in the comfiest blanket under a beautiful night sky. She was, to be crude, buff as hell, with broad shoulders and a broader smile, Magnus noticed as she smiled at him, sticking her hand out.

“Julia Waxman. I see you’ve met my dad.” Magnus said nothing, just managing to close his mouth and shake her hand. He stared as Stephen laughed at him, patting his back.

“Julia, love, this is my apprentice, Magnus, and this is the first time he’s been quiet since I met him. What’s up, Errol?”

One of the hairiest men Magnus had seen smiled at Stephen, with a thick scruff and a long ponytail, shrugging his broad shoulders. “Not much, Steph, knew I had to come to find you once I got little Jules here as my apprentice.” Julia scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“Errol, you’re like five years older than me, at most, shut your damn mouth.”

“Yeah, you’re a baby, that's what I said.”

“Fuck off.”

“Language.” Stephen said, almost instinctively. 

“Magnus!” Magnus suddenly announced, eyes lighting up and grinning at them all. “My name is Magnus. Burnsides. I’m a new recruit, but I’m made of legend material, that’s for sure.” He said, rambling. “I’m, uh, Hamilton-esque, not throwing away my shot but actually, fuck Hamilton, cheating on his wife I trusted him, I thought he drunk respect women juice when actually-”

Errol burst out in laughter out of nowhere, holding his sides. “Oh Lord- I’m sorry Magnus but that is the funniest shit- man, why’d you have to get the funny recruit, Steph-”

“Hey what the-”

“Julia Bernadette Waxman when I say watch your language I mean it, thank you.”

“Oh god Dad, why’d you have to expose me like that,” Julia said, burying her face in her hands. Errol, laughing even harder, clutched at his sides. “There was absolutely no reason to do that, why?”

“Bernadette, oh lordy lord, I can’t-” he said, wheezing, using Stephen as support. Julia rolled her eyes and looked at Magnus.

“I’m sorry about those two, they’re kindred spirits, Errol had my dad as his mentor, and both of them are idiots.” She said, directing the last part towards the two laughing men.

“I'm...Magnus.” Magnus said, looking right into Julia’s eyes and short-circuiting again. Julia gave him a slow, confused smile and laughed a little.

“Yeeah, yeah alright, Magnus. I’ll see you around, alright?” She looked at her dad and said, “I’m going to meet some friends; you two do whatever. Bye, Maggie.” She waved and walked away, leaving Magnus staring at the spot she was at.

“Julia…” he whispered to himself, a blush and grin growing wider and wider, shaking the hand that shook Julia’s as if to regain feeling back into his lovestruck self.

                                                      ~

                            3 months, 2 weeks and 5 days ago

Magnus ran like his life depended on it, almost shoving other agents out of the way as he ran, only thinking of Julia and Stephen. He skidded to a halt at the start of the wing; Merle crashed into him as he abruptly stopped, but he didn’t care. He stepped forward into the wing, but Merle’s hand stopped him.

“Give me a minute, kiddo. Let me see what happened, you don’t- we need to know first.”

“No, Merle. I can’t. No.” Magnus kept walking, but Merle stood in front of him, stopping him.

“Hey, hey, hey- this is my job, let me do it.” Merle said, looking up at Magnus. “Let me see what happened, and then I’ll come to get you, you don’t know what happened yet.” Magnus looked down at Merle and saw the sincerity in his eyes. He nodded and collapsed into a nearby chair, head in his hands, as Merle rushed off, talking to another doctor as they sped towards wherever they were. He, for once, sat quietly. Honestly, he didn’t know what to do. Stephen’s words from so long ago echoed in his mind. The something to come home to had turned into him, and Julia, and the rest of his team, and if something bad happened then-no. Nothing bad happened, Magnus reasoned. It couldn’t have, but there was no way. It was Stephen, for god's sake. There was no way.

After what seemed like an eternity, Merle came back, looking grim. Magnus stood up, searching for any sign of good news in his face. 

“I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, it’s bad.” Merle said, gesturing forward. “We don’t...well we don’t know for sure how it’s gonna turn out, Magnus. I-I’ll do everything I can, but you need to know, we don’t know yet.” He took a deep breath and opened the door, leading Magnus in. 

Julia and Stephen lay on two hospital beds. Errol, more shaven and well kept than he was two years ago, sitting by Julia’s side, looked up at them both. Magnus immediately rushed to Julia’s side, hovering over her, not sure where to start. Her face was cut up and blooded, only emphasized by her ragged breathing. The blanket that Wing F gave covered her up, but not enough to obscure her newly amputated right arm and leg, from the elbow and knee down. Magnus looked at Merle, silently, for any kind of explanation.

“There was an explosion, the whole building came down, and the way Julia was caught...she was probably right next to the blast, and the rubble...she's lucky to be alive Mag.” he said, looking down at her sadly. “She's on heavy anesthesia right now, they had to do a field amputation just to get her out; she was just….crushed, and there was just no time. It's looking like she’s gonna have some hearing issues on her right side as well, and there weren’t any issues of much heavy brain trauma, but we have to wait for her to wake up. And, well, Stephen…” he trailed off, looking at the man lying next to her. He was hooked up to an oxygen machine, it breathing for him. “Comatose. We don’t...god, Magnus, we don’t-” 

“He’s gonna wake up, Merle.”

“Kiddo-”

“Damn it, Merle, he’s gonna wake up! He has to- he c-” Magnus’s voice broke, and he angrily wiped tears from his face. “He’s got things worth living for and he’s gonna wake up, alright?”

“Alright, alright.” Merle said gently, touching Magnus’s shoulder. “I’m gonna go talk to whoever was on duty when they were found, you’re gonna stay here?” Magnus nodded, sitting heavily down next to Errol. Merle walked out, and the two men were silent for a moment, only listening to the beeping of the heart monitors and breathing, both artificial and otherwise.

“Man, I was just near here, Wing E, visiting a friend and I saw them wheel them in.” Errol said, breaking the silence. Magnus said nothing, not even acknowledging his presence. He just stared out to Julia, barely even breathing. Errol sighed and asked, “You know what she’d say about this?” Magnus didn’t respond, so he continued. “She’s left-handed.” Errol looked at Magnus seriously. “And she wouldn’t want you to act like this is the absolute end of the world.”

“You heard Merle,” Magnus said softly. “Julia...and Stephen is...he’s…”

“Not gonna give up without a fight. And if he goes, then, well…” Errol looked up at the ceiling, stretching out, settling in, clearly preparing for a long wait. “I’m gonna find the bastard that did this and make him suffer.”

                                                      ~

                           2 years, 7 months and 3 days ago

“Alright buddy, now’s the time.” Aubrey Little said, slapping Magnus on the back. “You’re gonna ask that girl out, and she’s gonna say yes, and if she doesn’t, you’re gonna respect her boundaries.”

“Hell yeah, I am.” Magnus said, standing in front of his mirror, making one last check to his appearance. Littered around the apprentice boy’s dorm was Taako, Barry, Aubrey, and Jake Coolice, all there to hype up Magnus. He, (and Julia), had been pining for a hot minute- everyone in their “class” was very ready for all of them to get together, so the 5 of them had gotten together to keep Magnus from chickening out, (he loved the friendship that had grown between him and Julia, and didn’t want to mess it up for the world), and to give themselves peace of mind. The rest of their class did their own thing, usually, but rest assured, everyone knew the dance Julia and Magnus kept around each other. 

“Alright, let’s get this thing going.” Taako said, standing and clapping his hands together. “My mentor wants to meet up and spar a little, and I can’t wait to beat his ass.”

“That’s mean, T,” Aubrey said, scrunching her face up, looking at him through the mirror. “Duck’s a nice dude.”

“One, he will not tell me his real name, does anyone even know it?” he asked nobody in particular, “two, he can’t lie for shit, so when he tried to fake compliment my sparring skills, it just, just didn’t work.” He shook his head, sighing. “He has so much to learn.” 

“My mentor is a doctor, technically an agent but he works mostly as a doctor; he’s super interesting.” Barry chimed in. “A little weird, kinda hippie-ish, but cool.”

“Nerd.”

“Thanks, Takoda.”

“Barold, don’t start with me, I will fuck you up, I know you have a crush on my sister, I can and will use this to my advantage. And, also,” he turned to face Barry, “You’re bi, and we’re twins, why not me? I’m clearly the superior twin.”

“Huh, I wonder why…” Barry said sarcastically, blushing at Taako’s accusation. “And I don’t have a crush on your sister, I’m dating your sister.” He mumbled.

“Excuse me, you’re fucking WHAT?”

“Hey, bi twins!” Aubrey said, going over and high-fiving Barry as Taako threw his hands up, super done.

“I think we’re losing focus here, guys. Also, bi-pan solidarity.” Jake said, finger gunning at Aubrey. She gasped excitedly and then shook herself, turning back to Magnus.

“Right, yes, Magnus, come on, you’re meeting Julia at the coffee shop and asking her out, let’s go!” Aubrey said, spinning on her heels, pointing and walking to the door. Magnus scratched the back of his neck, walking slowly and then stopping. 

“Uh, guys, maybe this is-”

“Alright, enough of this- Magnus, you’re gonna ask Julia out cause you are so, so head over heels for her. Isn’t that true?” Taako said, clapping Magnus’s shoulders and looking into his eyes.

“I mean…”

“Magnus, yes or no?”

“Its, uh, complicated-”

“Magnus, bud, answer the question.” Barry said, looking at him sympathetically.

“Yeah...yeah, I’m super gone for her. I like her so, so much, I just wanna hold her all the time and be with her ‘cause I just, she’s so nice and funny, so fucking funny and beautiful, so so beautiful, inside and out, and she’s got such a good heart and all that but I don’t want to ruin our friendship because it’s super amazing and she’s super amazing and-”

“Magnus?” A voice said from the doorway, soft and quiet. There stood Julia, slack-jawed, looking around like she was trying to grab words from the still air around them, but she found none. Aubrey stood to the side, looking back and forth between the two of them. 

“Lets, uh, go guys. Somewhere…” She said, slipping out of the door, turning around and giving Magnus a thumbs up as she did. Taako patted Magnus’s shoulder reassuringly and walked out with Barry, who waved at Julia but didn’t get one back, and Jake, who threw up a peace sign at Magnus, trying to reassure him as well. 

Magnus, face burning, looked to his shoes and said, “Hey, Julia…”

“Did you mean it?”

“W-what?”

“Did you mean what you said?” Julia asked, walking close to Magnus, looking him right in the face. “Don’t pretend like you didn’t say it, ‘cause I heard you, but did you mean it?”

Magnus looked at her, locking eyes with her, and took a deep breath. “With all my heart.”

Julia bit her lip, looking away as a slow smile spreading on her face. She covered her mouth, looked back at Magnus as she put her hands on her hips, looking a bit contemplative before saying, “Can, uh, can I kiss you?”

“Uh,” Magnus laughed a little nervously, stepping towards her shyly, “that would be nice, yeah.” Julia grinned and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him. Magnus wrapped his hands around Julia’s waist, lifting her up and kissing back with a fierceness that kind of surprised him. They swayed for a bit, staying together for as long as their lungs could let them, and upon hearing the wolf whistles from their friends outside, they broke apart, giggling at each other. Magnus put Julia down gently, stepping a little away, still shy, blushing even harder. Julia chuckled a little, stepping close enough to put her right hand on Magnus’s cheek.

“You are, no doubt, adorable.”

“Oh?” He asked, snaking an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. “Do tell…”

“Maybe after you’ve taken me on our coffee date? You gotta explain how you got from ‘I’m Magnus’ to this.”

“Is this..is this not good?” Magnus asked worriedly, biting his lip, standing up straighter as if to put a little distance between them.

“No, no, this is good- hey, Magnus?” Julia said, looking in his eyes, putting her other hand on his cheek and stepping closer. “This is so, so good.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “Good...I just don’t wanna mess this up, you know?”

“You won’t- you’ve already got me, hook line and sinker.”

Magnus smiled, kissing her forehead, then the tip of her nose, and then her lips, softly, before backing up and holding out a hand for her to hold. “Coffee date, then.” Julia smiled and took his hand, squeezing it tight before leading him outside. 

                                                        ~

                                    2 months and 2 days ago

Julia gripped the parallel bars, sweating, walking clumsily. Merle stood next to her, ready to help when needed, and Magnus stood at the end, offering encouragement.

“Come on, you’re so close, you got this love.” He said as Julia approached the end. She gritted her teeth and shook her head, trembling with effort, slowing. “No, no come on baby,” Magnus stepped closer but Merle held a hand out, signaling for him to wait.

“She can do this, hold on lovebird.”

“I-I can’t, Merle,” Julia said, looking down at her right arm, fitted with a temporary prosthetic. “It’s not strong enough.” She had decided to train one limb at a time, leg first, so her right leg was was fitted with a black, wired, titanium leg, hollowed out to look like geometric art, snaking up Julia’s right thigh, printed to match the size and shape of her other leg. She looked up at Magnus, clearly using all her strength to hold herself up.

“Merle, come on man, let me-”

“No, Magnus, hold on.” 

Merle walked right up to Julia, looking up at her, seeing her welled up eyes, her still slightly scarred face, straining with effort, he pulled down his right sleeve, exposing his prosthetic. It was made to look like it was carved out of wood, with smooth, ringed patterns flowing down his arm. He held it up for her to see and then pointed at her with it.

“You’re right. It isn’t strong enough, but you are. You can do this. This,” he pointed to his own prosthetic, and then hers, “is a part of your body now, use it to your advantage. You are strong enough, Julia; you need to trust yourself- now come on.” He stepped away, waiting for her to follow. She looked to the sky, blinking away tears, and leaned forward, shifting the weight onto her prosthetic leg, stepping forward. She shook, almost falling, but managed to get to the end. Magnus walked forward quickly, and this time, Merle didn’t stop him. Julia collapsed into his arms, and he held her upright, stroking her hair.

“You did it, see? Was that so hard?” Julia laughed a little, wrapped her arms around his waist, and buried her face into his neck, nodding. Magnus chuckled a little, kissing her hair. “It’ll get easier. And hey, now you know exactly what you need to beat in terms of prosthetic coolness.” Magnus looked over to Merle, grinning a little. Merle rolled his eyes and smiled, shaking his head.

“I think we’re done for today. When are you gonna send for a permanent arm, Jules?” She pulled away from Magnus a little, still using for him for support and shrugged. Merle sighed and stroked his beard. “It’d be better to get it sooner, rather than later if we’re being honest. You need to get used to them both. And, seeing as you’ve got almost no wait time here, as opposed to a regular hospital, it could be really quick.”

“I know, I know, but…” Julia closed her eyes and shook her head. “I just...I need time, I just need some time.” She looked back up at Magnus, and then away, who realized she wasn’t just talking about recovering physically- she was talking about Stephen, who didn’t make it. They realized he just wasn’t going to wake up, that the machine was just keeping his heart pumping for him, and pulled the plug. During his funeral, about the entire B.O.B. came, and just about all the seasoned agents, including Merle, talked about him. They laughed, they cried, and Julia, who sat in a wheelchair for the funeral, not having recovered physically or mentally enough to start her prosthetics, didn’t speak the entire week. 

Merle, having just connected the dots, sighed. He walked to Julia, put a hand on her shoulder, and said, “I miss him too kiddo. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“1 pm sharp.”

“Yeah. And, Magnus.” Merle said, turning to him, “I think we’ve got a mission coming up, I talked to Cretia, she said shes found something we gotta look at.”

“When? I gotta…” Magnus looked at Julia, who rolled her eyes at him. 

“I don’t need protecting, Magnus.”

“No, I know that, but, uh,” 

“Alright, Merle, could I talk to my husband for a second?” Julia said, starring daggers at Magnus who, actually, felt good about it. If Julia could get mad at him, she was...making progress. Not just sad, but mad, he reasoned, is progress. Merle took the hint and skedaddled out of there, and Julia just sighed. 

“Magnus, hon, I am so, so grateful for you, you know that, right?”

“Mhm, I am aware.”

“I just...I’m gonna be okay if you go out and do your job, you know? It’s just for a little, and I’ll probably stay in and chill, maybe call some people over to visit.”

“Yeah, but,” he grimaced a little and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, I just wanna make sure you’re okay, you know?”

“Magnus…” She said softly, shaking her head. “There are more than enough people making sure I’m okay right now- I just want you to be you, please? Don’t treat me different because,” She looked down at her leg, sighing, “because of this. I want the Magnus that thinks going to the store is a grand adventure, not the one that treats me like a fragile thing. I’m not fragile, and I don’t need...you know?”

“Yeah. Yeah, no, I get it.” He said, nodding. “I just gotta be there for you, but I can do that while...being me, but I gotta say, this is hard, you know? I know its infinitely harder for you, just, watching you try to walk, I just feel like I should be there more. I just need to do more.”

“Magnus.” She put her hand on his cheek, her left hand, her gold wedding band glinting in the light, and he nuzzled into it, sighing and closing his eyes. “You staying by my side? That’s all I need. Something to come home to.” He opened his eyes, searching her eyes for the recognition that was there, she knew she was channeling her dad, and she smiled sadly. Magnus leaned down slightly and kissed her, softly and sweetly. Julia stood on her tiptoes, instinctively, barely aware that her prosthetic was as well, to meet Magnus’s lips. He pulled back and nodded.

“Then that’s what I’ll do, love. I’m gonna stay right here, with you.” He grabbed her hand on his face and kissed it, and then grabbed her right hand, putting his arm on her waist to keep supporting her, and kissed her prosthetic as well. She sighed with happiness and kissed his forehead. 

“Come on, let’s go home…” She said as Magnus helped her walk to the wheelchair she used for long distances, for now. Magnus helped her wheel out of the room, chatting idly as a shadowy figure nearby looked on. 

                                                   ~

                                                Today

 Julia walked, slightly unsteadily, to the door. She cracked it open, and then smiling wide, opened it fully, revealing one slightly timid Angus McDonald.

“Hello, ma’am! It’s nice to see you up and about!”

“Aw, thanks, Angus- it’s nice to be up and about, but you know you can call me Julia, yeah?”

“Yes, I know ma’am.” Angus grinned up at her as she laughed, shaking her head.

“Well, come on in, kiddo.” She said, gesturing for him to come in with her right arm, specifically, which looked like her leg- black titanium, geometrically arranged but, the fingers and wrist were jointed, allowing free movement. Angus was, understandably, amazed; they talked about the specific mechanics of it as Angus walked inside, (the doctors and scientists of the Bureau of Benevolence had been working on neurally controlled prosthetics that worked the same way actual limbs did- nerves sending messages to muscles to contract and move, but instead of going to the muscles, it travels down wires to wherever it should have gone if the limb was still there. This lets the user control their new arm as if it was still flesh, and the Bureau scientists were looking for someone to test it on when the accident happened), sitting at a dining table, directed by Julia, as Magnus came out of the kitchen, holding a platter of grilled cheese sandwiches in one hand and a pitcher of lemonade in another. 

Angus looked surprised as Magnus put these down on the table and went back to the kitchen. “Did...were you expecting someone?”

“Oh hon, there’s either always someone at the house or someone to give food to,” Julia said as Magnus put plates and glasses down, kissing Julia’s hair as he passed by.  “we kinda just make food to prepare for both now.” 

“Mmm, nothing to do with the fact that you said, and I quote, ‘I want nothing but a shitload of grilled cheese and lemonade for lunch’ huh?” Magnus asked, chuckling as Julia gasped and pushed him playfully.

“Magnus, there’s a child!”

“To be fair to Magnus, ma’am, I am 15, and I train with Taako too, he has more of a sailor’s mouth than Mr. Keene and he was an actual sailor.”

“I’ll talk to him about that…” Julia muttered, grabbing a sandwich, scowling.

“Wait, why do you call Argo ‘Mr.Keene’ but me Magnus?”

“I haven’t spent a lot of time with Mr.Keene, and I have spent a lot of time with you.”

Julia chuckled at her husband’s offended expression, sipped her lemonade and smiled at Angus, who smiled back, though his grin faded into a more serious expression in a moment. He seemed to be considering something for a few moments, before looking up at Magnus grimly.

“Sir, do you remember what we talked about the other day- at Taako’s apartment?” He, of course, was referring to last weeks incident- essentially, Kravtiz Ajal, Taako’s boyfriend, had gotten stabbed based off of some bad information, and had barely gotten out with his life, but Angus had suggested the traitor might have come from closer to home since this was the second time in months that a worker of the B.O.B. had gotten hurt, or killed, based off of some bad information. Magnus nodded, grimacing down at his plate. Julia put a hand on his shoulder and turned to Angus, confused.

“What’s happened, Angus?”

“Well, after Kravtiz got hurt, I got to thinking- this isn’t the first bad incident that the Bureau has had, clearly, but it was the second time in a few months that someone had gotten severely hurt off of bad information, is that correct?”

Julia sighed, nodding. “The tip we got was on the inside, it seemed solid, but…” She trailed off and now Magnus took her hand, squeezing it slightly.

“I know you must have heard this a lot, ma-” Angus sighed, looking up at her. “Julia. But I am very, very sorry for your loss. And I’d like to help you get to the bottom of this.” Julia looked up curiously at him. “I don’t think it was a coincidence that these incidents happened so close to each other. Someone has an agenda- I don’t know what, but something is going on.”

“Well, what do you think, Ango?” Magnus asked, sitting back. “I’m sure you’ve got some ideas.”

“I do…” Angus said, looking directly at Julia. “I think its time we questioned your partner, Kalen.”

                                                To Be Continued

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[crqstalite]

SHADOW OF THE SITH. Ch. 5.

NAJI._RAIDER'S_COVE.

Anger wasn't an unusual feeling that radiated from her Sith partner. Over the last month or two, it seemed that was the only thing the now fully-clothed in all black woman ever really felt. Anger, or at times when they were alone, nothing. Nothing to grasp at, only the unexplainable void that she tried to make sense of. Then, one day after their excursion to the slaver's island, her mind was closed off again. Since then, it was only ever red-hot anger that seemed as if it would explode at any given time, and there was a firm wall in place behind that. She wondered why, it wasn't as if she'd ever been good at deciphering her moods, but this was odd in itself.

Naji wouldn't call them friends (stars, she was a Sith Lord, a Darth!), but it put her at a major disadvantage to even list her as an acquaintance, anything more than just the Sith I'm Forced To Work With For The Good Of The Galaxy.

But, she's surprised now, and not in a good way. Lana has delivered the news - Theron is gone, and has been captured while they were away. And all she can feel from the Wrath -Tri'ama, as she's been made privy to- is roiling regret. Distressed, as she's unable to even make eye contact with either other blonde woman. There wasn't any anger to be found, but she's regretful. Maybe for not being here when Theron had been captured, maybe for another reason she didn't understand at that very moment. Her sadness is evident for just a second, before she turns her attention back to Lana, the wall put back in place and less than boiling anger at the surface. Naji steps in, trying to throw a comforting nod at the woman before she blows her metaphorical top, "Whatever happened, we'll learn the story from Theron himself when we get him back, right Lana?"

"I'd rather we not impede upon his abduction, he'll be able to do what he does best, but yes. I suppose we will." the Sith says, as Jakarro and C2-D4 make their return to the safehouse. The Wrath's left eye twitches at Lana's unflappable feelings towards Theron's abduction (Naji can't blame her, she also thought the woman would be much more concerned about her partner), though she isn't sure if it's a trick of the eye. It's good to see the Wookie starship captain and his droid again, as they've been invaluable to their mission on Rishi thus far. Even Tri'ama's knitted eyebrows lift for just a moment, halfway in between a wave and contemplation.

"Where I come from, we value our allies! We do not let them become imprisoned!" Jakarro roars before C2-D4 can manage a greeting to the women present, and Naji's jaw drops unintentionally as she translates, covering her mouth in shock.

"What did he say?" Tri'ama asks a little too quickly to be purely for analytical reasons before she can even begin to process what Jakarro was alluding to. A visible grimace is painted across her face as a fire burns beneath her previously cerulean blue eyes. They've faded into a piercing yellow again, as they often do when she's angry, "You know good and well I don't speak Wookie."

"I-" Naji is unsure of whether to tell her or not, afraid of the coming storm that will surely blow through the safehouse if she does, before sighing (might as well get it over with and let her take out on those more responsible than Lana), "Jakarro is alluding to that Theron wasn't simply...taken without outside assistance."

Tri'ama seems a tad confused, raising an eyebrow in mild confusion before her force signature becomes white-hot, scalding if it had been a physical representation of it. She's realized, and she's rather upset about it as well.  A scowl replaces her previous compliance, and she balls her gloved hands into fists, "Lana..." she growls, "You had something to do with this!"

"Theron has his job, as do we." Lana responds, almost coldly as she deflects the accusation, her golden tinted eyes hardening behind her gaze, "There's more to be gained from his abduction than you think, Wrath."

Tri'ama wants to say something else, something with a bite behind it, but she deflates as she looks around the room. She moves her head too quickly for Naji to figure what her eyes landed on that made her less frustrated with the situation. Tri'ama is unsure, no longer sure-footed on her next move as she seemed to always be. It's a tad frightening if she's being entirely honest. But the impregnable wall remains up in her mind as she runs a hand through her hair, "Then what in the stars do you suggest we do next?"

"Our next move is to interrupt the Revanites to the best of our abilities, if not stop them outright. There's a Rishii village on the outskirts of the Cove. I suppose that would be our next stop." Lana says, not an ounce of emotion filtering into her voice. Jakarro says something else, and though Tri'ama looks about five seconds away from crushing the droid with the Force, she listens intently. Through the exchange of plans, Naji is suddenly very aware that she's working with two Sith lords, one with a roaring flame and the other with an iceberg. Tri'ama is for someone reason very worked up over this (she'd make it a point to ask about this infatuation with Theron that had been rather evident at another time when it wouldn't get her stabbed), and Lana is not (she'd rather not ask anything from her, as polite as she seemed, now that she knew what she was capable of...), "Jakarro and I will join you there."

"Thank you." Naji is unable to steel her own voice to bid her goodbye, but Tri'ama grumbles a few curses as she disappears out of the safehouse. The Barsen'thor wants to say something else, maybe even a scalding remark if she's feeling particularily cold about this, but can't find anything to say to Lana. Her mind goes absolutely blank as she regards her. The woman had allegedly allowed her partner, her friend (if she were being generous) to be captured by the enemy. As cliche as it was, with friends like her, who needed enemies?

Was this how all Sith were?

Maybe she should learn this Sith mind trick of closing off her mind to her allies. It seemed to be rather effective for these two, and when on Nar Shaddaa, do as the Nar Shaddaains do.

If she'd ever been to Nar Shaddaa for something other than hunting down Children of the Emperor. Spoilers, she hadn't.

-

TRI'AMA._RISHII_VILLAGE.

It would be an understatement to say she was angry. Hell, it would be even worse to say she was simply pissed with the current state of affairs.

The whirling of the blades around her as she cut down Revanite after Revanite didn't sate her bloodthirst, and even shoving one through a communications unit couldn't kill this burning frustration building inside of her. Later, her Jedi companion would make note that her eyes had gone a shade of red that she and her new Twi'lek companion had never seen before. She would also go on to say she wasn't just radiating anger in her force signature (she had left the floodgates in her mind wide open), the pure distress that the Barsen'thor had picked up on was terrifying to admit to.

Tri'ama had been thinking so much of just being so appalled by Lana's gall to just let Theron go that she hadn't even called Pierce back to continue on to the Rishii village (though he chose not to rejoin her on the trip through the base after she'd realized and called him, and for someone reason she had reacted by just hanging up the holo). Not feeling his presence behind her at all times was a new feeling, not to mention the Barsen'thor's sniper was a little too crafty at times. They tripped over one another, and though his emotions were also well repressed, his fear was small, but still there when a blaster shot grazed her cheek. An accident, maybe, but Tri'ama wasn't taking any chances with him. Republic soldiers rarely could be trusted to work with Sith and not throw a fit. He was much more precise with his shots after her force powers lost control for just a moment (she didn't remember it through her seeing-red-haze, but she'd cracked the base of the tree he'd been perched in when another shot got a tad too close to taking her out along with the enemy she was fighting), though they didn't exchange a word until they arrived at the village. Very curt, Zenith had been introduced into her codex of the Barsen'thor's companions.

It seemed that working alongside her own people would have to have reservations now as well.

She couldn't even muster up the energy to report properly to Lana after they'd arrived in the small hut that was now their base of operations. It'd been decided that since they were from opposing factions, they'd work on opposite sides of the Revanite factions as well. She'd be heading in alone on the Imperial side of the Revanite camp, while the Barsen'thor and Zenith would continue onto the Republic side. Tri'ama and Lana had agreed it would be best to cause as much chaos as humanely possible instead of waiting for the two factions to tear each other apart on their own. Neither of their Republic allies seemed particularily ready to agree wholeheartedly, but as soon as she had allegedly threatened to do it on both sides herself, the Barsen'thor quickly made her choice.

Stars it was odd to have had such an out of body experience. Having done things that other people clearly remembered, but something she had no recollection of ever doing herself. To say the least, when she did eventually reach the Imperial bunker, the body count had grown astronomical. There was no one to report to the leader (later she discovered it was a Sith Lord she had convinced) and he fell to her plans rather quickly.

But, when she moved onto the Republic bunker to cause a bit more chaos, it was evident her rage was beginning to wane. The Captain was on edge, and even more when a few warning shots made their way to nearly taking her out if she hadn't been focusing properly. Those few were deflected readily and back into the chests of some surrounding soldiers. If it hadn't been evident to the Captain before, she meant business. She had demanded where Revan was, and had apparently force choked the man while he was being particularily stupid by not outright answering her.

"The...valley...stronghold," He gasps for air as she tightens her grasp on his windpipe, finally complying with her request for information, "It's-It's where....they took Theron..Shan."

Theron.

He falls to the ground in a heap, wheezing as he gasps for air as her anger finally disappates into fueled determination, "And what did they do with him?"

"I-I don't know." He breathes, picking himself up a healthy ways away from her and her still-lit lightsaber, "That's all I know, I swear. I know the Imperial forces are headed this way to try and kill us though, a Jedi just came through to warn us."

His hand gets a little too close to his discarded blaster. Though, before he can even draw his blaster, she throws her blade in a wide arc, and he barely lifts the weapon high enough to fire when the red blade slices him in half on the return trip to her hand. He dies, collapses for real this time as his blood pools beneath him on the floor. It's satisfying if she's being truly honest, and she can see a singular living survivor hiding just behind the holoprojector. Bloodlust sated for the moment, she sheathes her weapon, "I don't intend to kill you. If there are more of you hiding within the bunker, I'm not here for you."

One pair of Mirialan lavender eyes pop out from behind the projector. Mistake number one, and from their demeanor as they stand and shakily reholster their holdout blaster, they hold eye contact with her before running further into the bunker. Mistake number two.

But she really isn't here for them. Nothing could be further from her true objective here in the heart of Republic operations. If the Barsen'thor had done her job properly, then the Revanite camps would be destroyed in the next few days once all the inevitable mistrust rose to the surface. Stepping closer to the projector herself, she tries to make sense of the map. Tri'ama can see where the camp is, and makes a mental note of every other base present in the dim blue light. The stronghold that the Captain had told her about was a few klicks the opposite direction, and her heart skips a beat. Once, for just thinking about what wrath she could unleash on the Republic and Imperial soldiers alike for taking her teammate, but again because it's Theron. She was going to get him back.

This is for the good of the Empire, the Republic and the galaxy. Her first thought is that Theron is an ex-SIS agent first and foremost. He sympathizes with his home faction first. He'll be grateful for his rescue, especially from those who surely destroy every living being within that base, but most likely would work with Naji first to warn the Republic. She and Lana would be responsible for the Imperial side of rallying forces.

At the end of the day, they were still technically enemies, just working towards a similar goal. The Revanites never changed that. She flew the red and black, he flew blue and white. She was the Empire's Wrath, he was the Grandmaster's son. The Sith and the SIS Agent.

They were about as opposite as you could get.

What did that botched outing mean to him anyways? Her thoughts are racing as she downloads the map onto her holocom, the jacket, the almost shooting a man for touching her like that?

Does his heart skip a beat everytime her name is mentioned? Does he try to act more confident when she's around?

The friendly banter he and Naji had when they were working alongside each other, the disposition was always kind, if not also rather protective. Of course, she was one of the most powerful Jedi alive, no wonder they would be close.

The download had been complete for sometime, and something cracks in the holoprojector just as she has that thought, sparks flying as she covers her face with her arms for protection. It takes a bit for it to calm down enough for her stand as if she hadn't nearly fallen to a piece of machinery, and she frowns. Was Naji interested in Theron? Jedi didn't marry, much less have romantical ties (as far as she was concerned), but being so far away from the Jedi for so long, something must've given.

Her holocom rings, and she begrudgingly picks up. The Barsen'thor's lithe frame appears,  "Did you finish with the Republic? The Imperials are rather upset with my presence-" A blaster shot in the background, "Zenith and I are headed back to the Rishii village, and the Imperials are beginning to rally in the valley. I suggest getting out of there before you get caught in the crossfire."

"Don't tell me what to do." Tri'ama barks back, and the Barsen'thor raises an eyebrow. In all seriousness, she didn't deserve to be yelled at. Nothing was official between Tri'ama and Theron anyways, and Naji seemed like the kind of person to stay quiet for just about everything anyways. They wouldn't stay up late at night and scour through reports and stay together until they couldn't keep their eyes open...

Gah! With that criteria, she wouldn't even be able to trust Lana!

Well, it wasn't as if she could right now anyways.

"Well...", Naji clears her voice as she looks back towards the holocom in mock indifference (she had zoned out), "I'm heading back. It's inevitable, but try not to kill too many of my people. It seems yours are ready for a war, try not to add to the casualties." her voice softens as she pleads with the Sith.

"No promises." Tri'ama answers. The other woman offers her a weak farewell, and just like that, she's left in the darkness of the sparking holoprojector.

What does she want?

Does she even know anymore?

Revving the engine of her speeder bike and riding back through the jungle, she can't even focus on the way back until she's lost, wholely and truly lost. She's frustrated, with Naji for being the perfect Jedi, the perfect woman. With Lana, for seeming so kind but then doing a 180 and letting Theron be captured. With Theron, for being such an alluring prize that she can't even have.

With herself, for letting herself fall so hard, and so fast.

"I wish to forever be your loyal servant." That voice pops into her heads, unnecessary and unwanted, "If you will have me."

Snapping her head up from her hands, she makes the realization that this isn't about her holodrama worthy love. It's not about Naji, it's not about Lana and it's sure as hell not about Theron. It's not even about her. There's an insane cult that she's in the midst of that left unchecked, would lay waste to the Republic and Imperial factions. And she can't be defeated just because of one person. She won't be.

Pulling out her holocom, she inputs the directions back to the village and is back on her way, hair flying behind her and eyes narrowed against the wind. Usually she doesn't drive this fast...

Quinn always had something to say about her driving. But she never let him take the reins, not really. It was always her bike, not his. She would drive as fast as she liked.

That should've been how her emotions were as well. But it wasn't, and she paid dearly for it. First it was Ka'el, then Quinn, then Pierce. Now Theron. And she'd killed more people than she could count for every man on that list. Today alone was worthy evidence.

But if she was going down, the Revanites had better believe that she would go down swinging.

-

ka’el basically replaced quorian dorjis, which will be covered in a later oneshot of shadow of the sith!

[awesomenightfall]

[the wicked & the divine]

part of the "dragon age protags are terrible adults" modern!AU [Cassandra/Varric (eventual), humor, modern!AU, no tw, mild language, super unfinished] -- Seekers/Templars are pretty much police in this world and someone has it out for Cassandra (surprise, surprise). Varric gets a very unwelcome visit from Leliana (who wants to cash in a favor, natch) and an injured Cassandra.

---

In retrospect, the whole premise was so cliche that, as a writer who had built an entire career on delivering the unexpected, Varric almost laughed himself sick at the irony.

Cliche #1: It was, of course, a dark and stormy night. The place was Kirkwall-- The Hanged Man, to be more exact. The pub was one of Varric’s more profitable business ventures. For a crime ridden, dirty, rundown town, there had been a surprisingly lack of places for local degenerates to get wasted before Varric stepped in.

He was a very hands off owner that preferred to let management run the show. Still, Varric liked to frequent the bar to see his friends, play cards, but mostly to make sure Hawke wasn’t pissing away all of the profit by doling out free drinks to men and women she wanted to sleep with.

He trusted Hawke with his life, but with his wallet? Not so much.

The bar had closed for the night and Varric was reconciling the books. It was terribly monotonous but it was a nice break from his usually hectic life filled with a ridiculous amount of dramatic extraverts that demanded pretty much all of his attention. He also tended to get his best ideas at The Hanged Man late at night when he was decompressing from the day.

Then again, he had written his tawdry, bodice ripper Swords & Shields at this very barstool, so he had to concede that maybe not all of his ideas were very good.

Cliche # 2: The quiet was interrupted by a sharp, somewhat mysterious knock at the door. There were only two types of people who came by this late at night -- robbers or booty calls. Robbers didn’t usually knock and Varric had indulged in all of zero booty in Maker knows how long, so he was intrigued. And maybe a little afraid.

Please don’t be demons or bill collectors or ex-girlfriends, for the love of all that is good and holy, please don’t be a possessed ex-girlfriend looking to cash in on a debt...

It felt very dramatic, very film noir-esque, and Varric could almost hear the saxophone music queuing up in the background as his internal monologue began.

“‘Okay Tethras,’” Varric narrated, “‘I said to myself, ‘“You’re a tough guy. You’ve been shot at, possessed, faced down the Carta, forced to go to Bertrand’s social gatherings.” Now let’s see you do something really tough—like answering the door.’”

With a deep sigh and ignoring that niggling little thing called self preservation that was screeching at him not to do it, Varric walked over to the door. His hand hovered over the knob. “Any chance you’re selling cookies for charity and not here to mug me and/or rope me into some hairbrained scheme?”

“Varric,” a familiar, accented voice replied. “It’s Leliana. Open up.”

Crap. “So no cookies, I’m guessing,” Varric said as he unlocked the door against his better judgment. “Nightingale, if you wanted to have a private tête-à-tête, did you really need to wait until the asscrack of --?”

In Leliana’s arms was one Cassandra Pentaghast, currently white as a ghost, hunched over, and bleeding out from her skull.

Plot twist.

“What the hell happened?” Varric ushered them inside, wincing at the amount of blood dripping on the dingy bar floor. He had very little lover for the Seeker (and the feeling was undeniably mutual, for so many reasons, but mostly because he prided himself on being a fabulous liar and her job was to literally seek out the truth), but that didn’t mean he wanted her to die inside of his bar.

Then again, it might do something to add to the intrigue of The Hanged Man…

No, Varric decided, he didn’t need any more death on his hands. He might have had a little bit of a hate-on (“It’s like a hard on,” Isabela had said wisely, “but for someone you want to hate-bang right through the floor”) for Cassandra since the time she took him in for a grueling six hour interrogation concerning Hawke’s whereabouts, but he wasn’t a monster.

Besides, Cassandra would just haunt him from beyond the grave and did he really want to risk having to spend eternity listening to her make that little disgusted noise she always made when he spoke?

“Ugh,” Cassandra grunted when her eyes focused on Varric. “It’s you.”

And there it was. Cassandra was nothing if not dependable and predictable.

Leliana hefted Cassandra up on the chair; no easy task, considering how tall (unnecessarily so, in Varric’s completely unbiased opinion-- what does a woman need with that much leg?) and well muscled the Seeker was. Cassandra groaned, hazily blinking blood out of her eyes. She looked… well, she looked like complete and utter shit, Varric thought, and that was being charitable.

“Assassins,” Leliana confirmed. “We’re looking into it.”

“And no doubt you’ll find them.”

“By hook or by crook,” Leliana said simply and Varric shuddered. Leliana was sweet and pretty and it was easy to forget that she was a powerful spymaster with a whole network of followers at her disposal. But when she got that look, well… Varric didn’t envy the person who had been stupid enough to go after one of Leliana’s people.

Varric grabbed his first aid kit -- always fully stocked, thanks to Hawke’s penchant for getting into fights -- and set it down on a wooden table. “So. What’d the Seeker do to get the attention of assassins?”

“I imagine it’s some kind of personal grudge.” Leliana pulled on some latex gloves and got to work on the gash on Cassandra’s forehead.

“Wow,” Varric said, voice chalk full of exaggerated surprise, “imagine that. Someone doesn’t like the Seeker? Nightingale, call the presses. The world needs to know.”

Cassandra glared at him and hissed as Leliana pressed on the wound above her eyebrow. “Such a comedian, dwarf,” she drawled, voice slightly slurred from what Varric imagined was excruciating pain. He winced in sympathy and grabbed some ice from behind the bar, wrapping it in a towel and leaving it as a peace offering. Cassandra looked surprised and suspicious, not making a move for it just yet.

“Surprised you let them get a hit in,” Varric said, leaning back in his chair dangerously. “I thought you slept with your sword under your pillow.”

He might have imagined it, but for a moment it looked like Cassandra actually blushed. Must have been a trick of the light. “I-- I was indisposed.”

“Indisposed,” Varric echoed.

“Shut up. It was nothing.”

His thoughts raced. Indisposed? The Seeker? What did that even mean? Varric imagined -- not that he thought about her that often, because that would be weird -- that she spent 24/7 in her stiff, buttoned up uniform, sword at her side, vigilant and composed as she chased down criminals and ne'er-do-wells.

She was horribly embarrassed about it, whatever it was, and that only further fueled Varric’s curiosity.

“Well now I have to know. ‘Indisposed.’ How indisposed are we talking about here? Where does it rank on a scale from 1 to Hawke, Zevran, and a team of double jointed Antivan contortionists?”

Varric was rewarded with Cassandra’s patented disgusted noise and it was music to his ears. And that’s one win for the dwarf.

Leliana tried to hide a grin and failed miserably. “She was in the shower,” she loudly whispered.

Varric nearly tipped back in his chair but caught himself before he fell. “They attacked you in the shower?”

He had so many questions like:

Did she fight naked?

Did she bring the sword into the shower?

Wait, if she was in the shower then that meant that she wasn’t wearing --

For fuck’s sake, don’t. Don’t even go there.

“Ugh,” Cassandra groaned. “Be quiet, Leliana. And don’t you even think about telling anyone about this.” She shoved a finger into Varric’s chest, each word punctuated with a strong poke. “Not. One. Word.”

“Perish the thought, Seeker,” Varric said, moving out of reach before she gouged his heart out. “Would I ever tell anyone about you fighting assassins au naturel?”

“Yes,” Cassanda and Leliana said in unison.

He waved his hand. “Your secret’s safe with me.” Cassandra snorted again. “So, you were in the shower and assassins attacked. What happened next? Did you defend yourself with a loofah? Rubber ducky? Leave no detail out. Hard in Hightown has been missing bathroom shenanigans and honestly, this is just the inspiration I need.”

“Varric.”

“What? I said I wouldn’t tell anyone, I never said I wouldn’t write about it.”

“Varric!”

Andraste’s blessed ass, was it fun to mess with her.

Leliana cleared her throat politely. “Varric, you may be wondering why we’re here.”

“I, too, would like to know why we are here, Leliana.” Cassandra’s voice was as cold as the ice starting to melt on the table.

And here it comes, Varric thought. Should he just resign himself to whatever favor Leliana was going to cash in? Beg for mercy? Skip town for a bit so he could finally get some writing done? “You want me to find the attackers?”

“Well, since Cassandra’s apartment is currently being searched and it’s not quite safe for her to return, I thought, since you have a few extra rooms upstairs, you could let her stay here.”

“What.” Cassandra’s fury was palpable and it sent a shiver down Varric’s spine. He wondered who would win in a fight between Cassandra and Leliana. He wondered if the staff would be able to get all the blood out of the carpet. Mostly, he wondered why he always got caught up in all of this shit.

Leliana looked at Cassandra evenly. “There is a hole in your roof, Cassandra. How are you supposed to stay there?”

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself--”

“You have a concussion and possibly a broken arm, along with a few ribs,” Leliana said. “Not to mention there is a group of people who want you dead. Until we isolate the threat, you shouldn’t be there, Cassandra. You know that.”

“Ugh. Do not baby me, Leliana, I am a grown woman who--”

The bickering continued in the background as Varric thought deeply on the newest crisis foisted upon him.

Varric wasn’t angry, per se, but he wasn’t jazzed at the thought of having Cassandra as a temporary roommate, either. This bar was his oasis, his anchor in the sea of chaos known as his life. Now he was supposed to let Cassandra “I’m going to tie you up and not in the fun way” Pentaghast stay there?

But then again, if her life really was in danger… and while they weren’t best friends, they were still acquaintances that had worked together… and she wasn’t completely awful when she wasn’t preaching or yelling or shoving him into walls...

… shit, he hated having a conscience.

“It’s fine,” Varric conceded. “Stay. You’ll be safe here.”

Cassandra opened her mouth to retort, but Varric got there first. “Hope you’re not a light sleeper.” He tapped his broken nose. “Deviated septum. Possible sleep apnea. So much snoring.”

“Ugh.”

Two wins for the dwarf.

[violetlunette]

Tropes/Cliches I Hate

So there are a lot of lists stating cliches people hate and this is another one. If you like these, that’s fine, I just get irked when I see them myself and want to rant a little. This isn’t a top ten list, just a list of things I dislike. There won’t be any romance tropes here as they deserve and have their own list. Also, most of these are story telling tropes, so just a heads up. Anyway, let me know what you personally think and tropes you hate and why. Oh, and SPOILERS! Before warned.

Tropes/Cliches I Hate

Too Much Drama/Unearned Drama: My most HATED trope. Don’t get me wrong; I like drama okay, but if it’s over loaded or feels like it was just thrown in for by the writers I get frustrated. Yes I know that writers do that to keep people interested, but can’t they make it feel natural or earned?

I liked “Finding Carter’s” drama; This is a story about a girl who discovers she was kidnapped as a toddler by the woman she called mother all her life and being reunited with her birth family. The drama makes sense and is earned by the whole family; (SPOILERS)

Carter’s whole world is turned upside down so her attitude, while mean at times is understandable.

Taylor has spent her whole life terrified of disappearing like her sister and has had her fear fed by her parents, so has lived a sheltered life.

Their mom lost a kid which has affected her marriage so she started to sleep with her partner and was even planning to leave, however when she found Carter she didn’t want to break her family again. Hell, even the drama with the villain is understandable as Carter and Taylor came from her eggs/she was a surrogate mom who was sleeping with the father at the time. You can see why she might think the twins were hers and that she had a right to take one. This is great drama and I would have loved it, but then they had to give the side characters the angstiest backstories they could which distracts from the family at times and felt unneeded.

And I know; that what drama are about. Angst central, I know, but that’s why I don’t watch a lot of drama. At the very least I want it to be earned an in character or story.

The fifth book of Harry Potter did this fairly well as all the drama came from the characters and their actions. Sirius died due to Harry’s impulsive actions and Dumbledore want to keep Harry in the dark to “protect him.” And the drama hits all the harder because it’s something that could happen in real life (minus the magic stuff.).

A bad example is Gilmore Girls where they force the character April in with a bunch of random drama just to keep Luke and Lorelei apart. There was a legitimate way to put off the wedding; have Luke be afraid of rushing things and feeling like he’s the one who has to make all the compromises and give up things and he runs away for awhile. Hell, they could have kept the plot line of her jumping into bed with Christopher because as terrible as that was it was still a very Lorelei thing to do. But the plot with April and everything after? UNNEEDED AND UNWANTED.

We’re not together, but I’m Pregnant/The Baby Plot: Okay, I love babies—when I don’t have to change them or be woken up at 3:00 in the morning. They’re soft, cute, adorable, and squishy! However in TV the baby is usually born to a “will they won’t they” couple as a way to force them together when the writers made the audience believe they were separating them or for drama. News flash writers; if the only way you can keep a couple together is to throw a baby in the mix, then just give up on the pair!

Babies are used for like one arc to cause drama, then are tossed to the side with maybe a passing mention so it’s like what’s the point?

It’s a cheap way to keep a couple together. A child should NOT be a plot deceive to keep a couple together or create drama. Ross and Rachel were the worse along with Belle and Rumple; Ross and Rachel had fallen into a slump and the audience were starting to move on and look at other options for them so the writers thought they could yank us back by revealing they had sex and Rachel was pregnant. All this led to was the same slapstick they went through when they were together before and they never worked through the issues they had before, mainly that they were jealous, possessive, and vindictive except now they had a BABY.

With the Rumbelle the writers couldn’t decide what the hell they wanted with Rumple (did they want him to be evil or a hero), but knew his actions were pushing Belle (and the fans) away. So what did they do? Threw a baby into the mix with a whole contrived plot that was just—what? I mean, it COULD have worked, but not the way the writers did it.

Writers, people; IT IS NEVER A CHILD’S JOB TO FIX A COUPLE. A baby is not a plot device they are people and deserve more respect than they get. If a couple can’t stay together by themselves, then a baby is not going to help. All it does is trap two people and why would want a couple that’s forced together that way?

“We’re trying to protect ya so we ain’t telling ya shit” and Bad communication skills: How many problems in stories could be solved if two people just sat down and talked instead of keeping secrets. Like “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” If Dumbledore had told Harry that Voldemort could get into his head and could hurt people Sirius might be alive. And in a couple? I don’t need to list an example. You’re already thinking of a moment where a couple got into a fight because they didn’t just sit down and talk.

That being said I do like this trope as a potential reason for a hero being ignorant of their past at the beginning of a series as I like the hero from a muggle world. At the very least I want the person keeping the secrets to be called out on it.

Insane maniac pixie girl: This a low one as there are some I like, however I feel this character is over done lately and honestly I can only take so much of the personality. They’re always so loud, screaming all the time, squeaky, and have no sense of personal space. I mean, I like Webby and Mabel, but even then I can only take so much squealing. (I dunno, maybe I have sensitive ears.)

I’m not dead!: Disney gets away with this because the brought backs happen towards the end of the film and isn’t done time and again in the same movie. Compare to the Dragon Ball series were death is like a mosquito bite. Why should I care if they get hurt or the world dies? Just wish them back and everything is fine! Seriously, is anyone who watches DBZ concerned when a character gets hurt or dies still? It’s a cheap trick that feels like a “ha! Fooled you!” moment.

High school drama / Skewd Priorities: Okay when I say high school drama I mean focusing on a school dance when the world is at stake or worrying about whether or not a boy likes you when a murder is on the loose, or focusing on school junk when we as the readers want tto focus on the fantasy elements. This is mostly in YA dealing with kids, so some of this is understandable, but even so it’s not fun to read and even teenagers hate being portrayed like this (at least the one or two I know). When I  was teenager I liked the prom and stuff for quiet moments in stories, but NOT when there was a villain loose or danger was coming. Whenever that popped up I was like, ‘bitch wtf is wrong with you! Who cares about a zit when you have super magical powers.’ When I read a fantasy I want to focus on the fantasy elements, not school! School is boring.

Too Easily Forgiven: Forgiveness is wonderful thing, however it should be earned and you know some things can’t and shouldn’t be forgiven. For me it’s murder. Now if it’s between two warriors in a fight that’s one thing, but hurting or killing innocent civilians? No. No, no. Or hey, what if a person has been horribly bullying you or making your life miserable? Do you have to forgive, fuck no. Now I’m not saying you should seek revenge, but I’d rather they just choose that they don’t want to be angry and anymore and decide to move on.

Forgiveness should be earned when they’ve truly hurt someone and even if they feel remorseful, characters still have the right to be angry when they’ve been hurt or had someone they love taken from them.

All humans /muggles are bastards / idiots: Yeah, humans are assholes. We get it. No one knows how bad humans are than other humans, but you know what? Humans have done amazing things to conquer natural selection and the fact that other humans is humanity’s greatest enemy shows just how powerful the human race is. And not everyone wants to blow up shit, some of us work VERY hard to help and save everything we can and the rest are just trying to live our lives without hurting anyone. We may not be top dog, but we’re not bottom of the barrel either. And why should other races get put on pedestal as the woobie race or holier than thou? That doesn’t make them more interesting it just makes them annoying. I see this trope in almost every fantasy, can’t we switch it up a little?

magical speciesism / the blood must remain pure: Ignoring the real life implications this trope’s just been over done. Can’t we turn this around and have it that cross breeding between a magical and a human is considered the norm or a good thing? Switch it up a bit?

Ron the death Eater and Draco in Leather pants: This annoying enough in the fandom where we like to exaggerate and things we like and dislike, but in the actual show it’s insulting to the character AND the fans. If there’s something wrong with the character then the writers should make an arc to improve them, not drag the character through the mud.

On the other end if a character is an asshole you can’t just make them a hero suddenly and expect the audience to buy it. The characters have to earn their redemption.

And those are ten tropes I hate. How about you guys? What’s your thoughts? Do you hate them or am I alone? And what do guys hate to see in stories?

[northsidersnotebook]

NSFW Alphabet: Reggie Mantle

As ever, dear readers, the ‘NSFW’ label in the title of this post should probably be indicative that the contents are going to be not safe for work. Below the cut is an A-Z of sweet, delicious sin concerning everyone’s favourite jerk, Reginald Mantle. You’ve been warned. 

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Reginald Mantle is basically a puppy dog. He’ll grin at you and hold you close, maybe make some jokey and flirty comment as he gently strokes your skin, directing your fingertips to either trace shapes against his chest or brush through his hair while he basks in your attentions. He’ll murmur into your hair to make sure you’re okay, placing lazy kisses there as you both drift off to sleep. 


B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Reggie loves your legs: the way they look in short skirts, the way they feel wrapped around him and pinning him against you, the way your thighs feel under his fingertips, the way they clench together when he teases you in public, and the way they tremble under his kisses. 

He’s proud of his whole body. He works hard to keep himself in shape, to be the best there is, and he certainly isn’t afraid to show that off. He’s especially proud of his arms (how you look wrapped up within them, how your eyes map his biceps when he flexes), and his torso (he high key loves the feeling of you mapping out his muscles with your fingertips, with your lips, and with your tongue). 


C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

One of Reggie’s favourite sights is the sight of your body covered in his cum: your face and chest after you go down on him, your stomach and thighs when he pulls out of you... With your eyes hooded, your lips swollen, and your breathing heavy, you have never looked more deliciously his. 


D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Reggie doesn’t really have a dirty secret. He’s not shy about his relationship with you, teasing you in public and dragging you off for a quickie when he can, so it’s all pretty much on the surface. He’s got a very visual kink, loving to watch your bodies when they’re joined together, but that’s about it. 


E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Reggie’s had his fair share of fun. It’s mostly been just that though: fun. He’s not been one for the whole ‘relationship’ thing, not really. But he knows what he wants, and as long as that’s you, he’ll pull out the stops to make sure he’s the one making you happy. 


F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

You on top of him, the feeling of your nails raking down his chest and torso as you bounce, the sight of your bodies joined together in full view. 


G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

With a smirk, a wink (or a blink disguised to look like a wink ‘cause he can’t actually wink - and he over exaggerates this because he knows it’s oddly endearing), and a few well chosen words, Reggie isn’t afraid to be a little goofy as he talks you into bed with him. When it gets down to it though, he’s quite serious, focused on how good you feel together. 


H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

He’s proud of his body and he’s not afraid to flaunt it - not only to you, but when he works out or plays sports too - so he keeps himself pretty trimmed and tidy. 


I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

Reggie’s not afraid of being romantic - after all, that’s just another way to show you off as his, right? From him, it’s a showy kind of romance: throwing his jacket over your shoulders, cliche gifts of flowers or chocolates, being overly protective when he knows full well no one else is a threat to what you have together - all just for an excuse to put an arm around your shoulder, hold you close, and kiss you in public. 

In private, it’s like he lets everything else go and just relaxes. He’s not romantic, as such, but more intimate. He’ll hold you close, revel in the feeling of skin on skin, drinking in every sight and sound of your bodies joined together. 


J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

He’s certainly not adverse to it. Of course, sex is better, but he’s a practical guy. If he can’t have you, his hand will do - he’ll just make up for it with you later. 


K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Reggie has a very visual kink. He loves to watch your bodies as you fuck, to see himself as he pushes into and pulls out of you. 


L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

Anywhere. Anytime. There’s something about the risk of being caught, of being seen with you giving yourself over to him so completely, that turns Reggie on to no end. The locker room is a personal favourite: after a win he waits impatiently for the rest of the team to leave, then he’ll have you up against the lockers or in the showers in mere moments. Why just have one victory when you can have two? 


M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

It’s no secret that Reggie Mantle can be a little vain on occasion (to put it nicely). The thrill of a football win, the exhilaration of a fight survived, all send him gleefully into your arms, craving the celebration of skin on skin. 

Then there’s you. You in general turns him on, but when you’re at your most spirited - standing up for something you both believe in, or standing up for him (because Lord knows he can be an idiot and you’ve had to defend his attitude / behaviour / actions a few times) - there’s something about seeing you so dominant that makes him crave the sight of you submitting to him, and only to him, which you’re more than willing to do. 


N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Sharing: he might enjoy the risk of being caught with you, but the thought of anyone else actually stepping up to you, coming between you, is an absolute no from him. If you’re together, you’re his, and only his. 


O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

Receiving: the sight of you trailing your lips down his ever so toned torso, placing your kiss swollen lips around him, on your knees worshipping him and doing everything you can to make him feel good, his cum dripping from your lips or splattered all over your chest, God, the thought of it is enough to make him come undone right there and then. 


P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

Neither. Hot and heavy sex is great, if that’s what the situation or the setting calls for. He’s not particularly into teasing or foreplay (unless it involves you going down on him because oh boy will he do anything to get you on your knees), but he likes to enjoy the moment, taking it steady rather than fast and rough or slow and sensual. 


Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

Oh God yes. The risk makes everything so much hotter. Sliding his hand under your skirt when you’re sat next to him or in his lap when he can feel your thighs clench together from the tension, then emerging from wherever the hell you hid yourselves away this time with a beaming grin and hickies on your neck... He makes zero attempt to hide it, and the sight of your cheeks flushing with embarrassment is enough to get him going all over again. 


R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

Reggie’s pretty vanilla when it comes to experimentation. Sure, he’s game to try anything once (when you look at him, cheeks rosy with a nervous embarrassment, biting your lip in want, yeah, homeboy will pretty much do whatever you suggest), but for him, sex is the two of you making each other feel good and you don’t need anything else. 


S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

With all that time he spends staying in shape and competing at sports, Reggie is fit as fuck. Honestly though, he’d rather take his time with you, enjoying every moment you spend joined together once, than go for several rounds. 


T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

No. Just, no. If things get kinky and he wants to restrain you, or keep you quiet, he’ll use a hand - the feel of you desperate to touch him or the vibrations of your muffled moans against his skin let him know he’s doing a good job and is a turn on in itself. When he’s with you, he wants it to be only him that makes you feel good. 


U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Reggie is a little shit - but only in public. He loves to tease you, to make you crave him, to see the affect he has on your body, until you can’t take it anymore and drag him away from everyone else (him throwing a wicked grin to whoever you’re separating yourselves from) so he can have his way with you. In private though, he pretty much gets straight down to business. 


V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

Reggie is a little shit (part ii) - he’s vocal as sin. He’ll whisper against your skin how good you look, how good you feel. He’ll ask you how he feels, basking in any praise you throw his way. He’ll ask you what you want from him, waiting for you to beg a little (not much, he’s as impatient as you are to get to the good stuff), while he tells you exactly what delicious things he wants from you in that moment. Dirty talk aside, he’s not usually particularly loud, letting out curses, grunts, moans, and his cute-as-fuck only-used-in-bed pet name for you as he gets closer to orgasm. When he gets you on your knees though, his volume is a completely different story...


W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Picture the scene: Reggie’s got the house to himself for a few days. You put on your favourite lingerie set, fasten your coat tightly over the top, and make the journey to his (probably giggling the whole way at the ridiculousness of wandering the streets on your own without any actual clothes on). You get to his and you let yourself in with the spare key he’s told you is under the plant pot. You’re making your way upstairs when a groan catches your attention. A blush instantly floods your cheeks, and you shake your head to dismiss the sinful connotations from your mind. But sure enough, when you get to his bedroom doorway, you’re met with the sight of Reggie naked on his bed, eyes scrunched closed as he pleasures himself. You bite back a breathless giggle as heat floods all through your body, and you quietly step inside the room. You lean against the door to close it. Reggie’s eyes fly open at the sound, and he stares at you with a mix of shock, horror, and embarrassment. You bite your bottom lip, and never taking your eyes from his, untie the belt on your coat and let it fall to the floor. His eyes widen (if that’s possible, poor boy already had an expression resembling a deer in headlights) as he drinks you in, watching as your hands caress your almost bare body while you walk towards him, positioning yourself at the opposite end of his bed. He begins to sit up to crawl over to you, but you kick him back down, dipping a hand into your underwear to touch yourself as you instruct him to finish what he started without you.

Since then, seeing you get yourself off (under his direction, of course: boy has to regain some degree of control) has become something of a turn on. There was one time you did it in the bathroom of Pop’s, his chest pressed flush to your back as he held you up in front of the mirror, littering your neck and chest with small hickies as he directed your hand to touch yourself and your face towards the mirror to watch. Spinning you around and lifting you onto the counter to fuck you himself, homeboy never came so fast in his life.


X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants)

Homeboy’s on the larger size of average. 


Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

Honestly, he gets of on the thought of you, on flirting with you and teasing you, on knowing he can have you. When he actually does have you that’s great, of course, but his sex drive is no higher than any other horn dog. 


Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

After sex Reginald Mantle is a puppy dog. He just wants to curl up next to you, gently stroke your skin, feel your fingers on his chest or in his hair, place lazy kisses to the top of your head, and sleep. Chances are he’ll fall asleep quicker than you do, but that’s fine, because he’ll wake up before you too, and wake you up with gentle kisses, soft touches, and teasing innuendos in case you’re game for a morning round. 

[jeonginnied]

my safe place

requested

tagged road trip au, fluff, angst, college au

pairing bang chan x reader

mini note tHIS IS BARELY EVEN A ROAD TRIP AU AND ITS MENTIONED LIKE ONCE AKSJSJSJ IM SORRY,, but besides this i actually kinda like this, so i really hope you enjoy anon!!

to put it simply, you didn’t want to see your family.

in a much more non-simple way, you wanted nothing to do with your parents, siblings, or any of your relatives in general. sure, about four months ago, you wouldn’t have felt this way, but things do change, so you’ve learned. maybe if you hadn’t moved across the country—well, no, out of the country, actually—to pursue a college experience, you may have mended your relationship with your family.

but that’s not what happened, not at all. you made a decision, and you went through with it. and ever since, (even if it’s only been a few months so far) you’re still quite confident in your choice. moving to korea for school has, by far, been the best decision you’ve ever made. not only that, though, but this place also gives you a passageway to finally do the thing that you’ve always wanted to, that thing being dancing.

the first half of your freshman college year was great, honestly. you were doing what you loved, and that was what mattered. (you still haven’t reached the time of finals yet, though, and from what you’ve heard, that’s usually when the thought of dropping out appears and seems to never leave. but, you’re good for now, at least.)

the schooling was basic, you weren’t exactly fond of it, nor did you hate it, but there was one thing you liked about your classes. well, not exactly a “thing,” as the happiness source you’re referring to is a living, human being. (a very beautiful and talented one, at that.)

ah, christopher bang. or bang chan, as he usually goes by, considering it’s korea. you can clearly remember the day you first laid eyes on him. it was your literature class, and chan had showed up just about thirty seconds before the lecture began. luckily for him, there was still a good seat left, and luckily for you—the seat was next to yours.

your professor was quite boring, to say the least. but, you kind of owe mr. min, considering that he was what led to chan secretly scribbling a note to you in the middle of class, passing it casually as his eyes stayed focused on the front of the room. you remember the smile that fell onto your lips at some stupid joke he made, and thus began the great note-pass of your literature course, as well as a great beginning to a great friendship.

“y/n? hello, you good?”

at the sound of a heavy australian accent, you snap out of your thoughts. “huh? what happened?” you ask aloud, glancing to chan in confusion. he chuckles softly, dimples crinkling in an incredibly cute fashion. “you just, like, completely zoned out on me.” you roll your eyes, punching his arm jokingly. “no shit, sherlock. thanks so much, captain obvious.” chan‘s lips fall into a shit-eating grin as he responds, “well sorry, what i meant to say was that we were talking about your family when you started staring into the distance suddenly.”

a small sigh falls from your lips. “right. um, well basically, they didn’t support my dancing. like, ever. i used to do shows at school and things like that, but none of them ever showed up to cheer me on. and that sucked, obviously, but i just assumed that they were always busy, y’know?” you explain, and chan slowly nods, a small frown forming on his lips. “well.. when it came around to start thinking about college, i suggested going to a dance school. everyone just.. they all laughed at me. they all thought i was joking for a while, but when they realized i wasn’t, well...

“i was grounded for months. i know, i didn’t really do anything, but my grandparents wouldn’t even speak to me at family events. they always mumbled about me failing them, but never once was anything said to me specifically.” you pause for a moment, looking down with a sad look. you only glance back up when you feel chan’s right hand holding onto yours. “take your time, alright? i’m here the whole time, and i’ll wait to listen, okay?” your cheeks go a slight pink color as you give him a sad smile, faintly nodding at his words.

okay, so maybe you have a tiny bit of a crush on chan. (tiny? that’s a lie.) okay, that‘s slightly an understatement. you may or may not have a crush on chan. (may or may not? yeah, and that may or may not be a huge fib.) okay fine, you definitely have a crush on chan. but can you really blame yourself? first of all, his accent is just—yes. secondly, he has dimples, enough said there. and, just, he’s an amazing person? seriously, you’re pretty sure there’s not a single person on the earth that wouldn’t love him.

(honestly though. how don’t you love an angel?)

the only flaw regarding your crush is the fact that he’s kind of your best friend, and you’ve seen what happens in those movies. sure, most of the time the couple does get together in the end, but it’s never without an awkward few months without talking to one another. as cliche as it may sound, chan’s like your other half. you can barely live when he misses a lecture because he’s sick, much less months? not only that, though, but you’re not even sure that he likes you back in that way. your other friends, however.. they seem to think a tad differently.

(especially minho. within a week of meeting that boy, he was already sure that “you and chan would be married within the next five and a half years.” his words, not yours.)

“y/n?”

you snap out of your own head once again, jumping slightly from shock. you place your head in your hands for a moment as you realized that you zoned out once again. “i.. i’m sorry, chan. where was i again?” chan only shakes his head, insisting that you’re fine, and you continue with your story.

you explain how you actually ended up sneaking out one night, after months of being shunned, basically. how jung jaehyun, a close friend of yours at the time, suggested that you should just leave. he was planning to leave for korea that next morning, as he would be attending a college there. how you were skeptical at first, but jaehyun helped you realize that if you didn’t leave and go for your dream now, you would probably never get the chance to. how you crawled from your window that night, leaving nothing but a note for your family as you fled from the country with your friend.

the air is soon filled with a tense silence after you finish your story. your eyes are brimmed with tears after reminiscing that sensitive topic for you, but you push down your emotions as you stare forward at the road. (was it not mentioned that you and chan are on a road trip for winter break? whoopsies.) “so uh.. yeah. that’s why i wanted to take this trip, i guess. i just—i can’t face them all again. i can’t.”

chan seems to sense the waviness in your tone as he glances at you from the driver’s seat. nearly immediately, he goes into his protective mode the moment he sees the tears in your eyes. chan pulls over the the side of the road so he can stop the car before unbuckling himself and turning to you. “y/n..” he murmurs quietly, and you sniffle lightly, trying to hold back. “come here.” chan whispers, opening his arms wide, and you break instantly. in seconds you’re basically jumping into his arms, head resting on his shoulder as you break into tears.

with an assist of reassuring back rubs from your best friend, you make it to slow your tears after about three or four minutes. you slowly pull away from chan, who’s staring at you with a caring look in his eyes. “m’ sorry about that, i just–“ you start to say, but the aussie boy before you shushes you quickly. “don’t apologize, y/n. it’s completely normal to feel like that, and i’m here for you, always.” chan shoots you a soft reassuring smile at the end of his words, and you internally scream.

you sigh at the thought that you’ll probably never get the chance to be with him. chan’s a great guy, of course, but he’s just too great for you. there’s no way, hell, he probably has eyes for someone else anyway. there’s not even the slightest possibility that he reciprocates your feelings.

“whatcha’ thinking about?” chan asks cutely, and you look back down at your lap. you fiddle with your fingers nervously, letting out a small sigh. “y/n?” chan questions, clearly concerned. you let out a breath once again. it wouldn’t hurt to just feel his lips once.. it’s just a kiss, right? you’re internally battling with yourself, until you realize that your best friend seems pretty lost over what you’re doing. you sigh again, taking a deep breath. you then look up so you’re making direct eye contact.

“fuck it..” you murmur quietly as you lean over the driving console, grabbing chan’s face in your hands as you press the each of you guys’ lips together.

chan’s the first to pull away, his face red and flushed with embarrassment. “wh–what was that for? y/n?” your eyes go wide. did i seriously just—? “oh my god, chan, i... i thought it wasn’t a bad idea, that it would just be one kiss, but—shit. i’m so sorry, chan, i know i made things awkward between us now, and.. i get it if you don’t wanna continue this trip with me.” you get quieter as you speak, worry taking over the tone in your voice while you panic inside of your head. what the hell was i thinking?

“i’ll be honest, i didn’t think i had feelings for you, y/n. i mean, yeah, i’ve pondered over that thought before, but i just always assumed i was looking too far into things.” you nod slowly, looking down. well, there goes your best friend. nice going, self! “but.. after that kiss, i.. y/n, you’re a great person, okay. i’m just—“ you’re quick to cut chan off. “you’re just not into me like that, right? it’s fine, don’t worry about it. i’m the stupid one here, anyway.”

chan taps your chin, causing you to look up at him, trying to hide that you’re clearly hurt, even if you probably shouldn’t be. “y/n.. that’s not what i was gonna say at all, you know. in fact, what i was going to say was that i’m not sure. you’re amazing, and if i’m honest, i never thought i would be enough for you. that’s why i always pushed the thought of having feelings away.” you open your mouth to respond, but you can’t seem to find the words to say. “um,” chan starts again, nervously. “i don’t want any labels yet, just because. they’re not important anyway. just.. all i know is that i feel something in my heart for you, y/n, and it’s a lot farther than thinking of you as my best friend.”

chan lets out a nervous breath before he continues on, “so um.. can i kiss you? for real this time?”

of course, who are you to resist the bang chan?

and so, with a happy smile, your lips meet again.

[hydrospanners]

A-Z on the writing meme because I need to know absolutely everything immediately.

WELP okay but just remember you asked for what’s about to happen. meme is here. most of this is under a cut cause i’m longwinded as hell.

A. If you could rec a piece of music to accompany one of your fics, what would you pick? Why?

Um I absolutely was vibing to Lips by The xx when I wrote a wish your heart makes and you should too.

B. Who’s your favorite side-character from something you wrote?

I feel like the answer here is supposed to be Doc because he is not The Main Character in the game but also I have written about him and from his POV so much it feels unfair to call him a side character at this point. So instead I’m going to say this random woman named Cherita who was just trying to make a midnight snack for her pregnant wife from a little eggstra. I thought she had a lot of character for someone I pulled out of my ass for the sake of an outside perspective.

C. Get any good comments on your stuff this year?

I am thirsty for praise and I feel every single comment is a good comment but I think the one that sticks out to me is when I wrote a wish your heart makes someone said something like “if you like doc at all you have to read this” and I don’t remember who it was or where they said it but it really stuck with me!!! If that was you, thank you!!!!

D. Any drawings or pictures that had a big influence on your writing?

No!!! I feel guilty about this answer somehow but it’s true. I think it would be a fun challenge to try to write a piece of fic inspired by someone’s art so I may play with that idea next year (Editor’s Note: it was still 2k18 when I wrote the answer for this one) but for 2k18 the answer is no. :(

E.  Who’s your favorite main character you’ve written?

I feel like this answer is obvious but it’s my girl Rea. I’ve reincarnated her as an Inquisitor and a Pathfinder but the OG Jedi Knight is still my fave.

F. What stories are you planning for the future?

I won’t pretend that a lot of planning goes in to my fic. I normally only write short bits so it kind of goes like this: I have a concept, I write the bit I fixate on, and then it sits in my WIPs for five years until I get motivated during some Fictober or something to finally finish it.

I will say I do have serious designs to finally finish the second chapter of the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one as that one is a little more complex than stuff I usually write. I have plans to do some kinda flashback-y thing that finally lays out The Velaran Backstory in clear and obvious terms after years of hints and tidbits I’ve been peppering through my fic. I also have a thing planned and kinda partly written about the first instance of horrific violence in the lives of all the Knight’s companions. Also I have a long series of AU vignettes that glimpses into universes where Rea is a Sith or Kira never made it off Korriban or Rusk remained a pacifist or where Rea never joined the Jedi after losing her family the second time. Stuff like that.

G. Where do you think you grew the most this year?

Structure? I’ve been really working on trusting my reader to bridge some gaps and not letting myself get caught up in details that are important for me to know to write the next part but that don’t necessarily need to be in the story. I think I’ve really tightened up my game where trimming the fat and staying focused are concerned.

H.  How do you write? Paper, pen, computer? Music, no music?

My fic writing process is very different from when I am trying to write original stuff and is even kind of different depending on the mood I’m going for? I always write fic in Google Drive cause I write fic from a lot of different machines and need the easy cloud saving.

My ideal condition for fic writing is listening to instrumental music or ambient sounds playing through headphones either in a coffeehouse or the library or when I am at home completely alone. Angst and smut are best written at night with the lights low and warm. Comedy and fluff are best written in the late afternoon/early evening after one single alcoholic beverage (any more than and one I am drunk and no longer capable of writing).

Realistically though, I usually write in whatever time I have. Mostly at work. My job requires me to sit at a desk and wait for things to happen. Since I start work at 5am, things usually aren’t happening. Even with me going out of my way to create new work for myself and excel at what work I do have, I have a lot of downtime. I spend it writing fic. I get interrupted too much to have the focus I need for original writing, but fic writing is much easier so mostly I write my fic at this bland little desk under the terrible fluorescent lights with lots of noise and interruptions, occasionally playing a thematic playlist very quietly in the background.

I.  What’s your favorite work you did this year? Why?

This is a very tough question. Surprisingly, I published a lot of things that I really liked? ([not pictured: me high fiving me for finally allowing myself to state that I like my own writing]) I think I’ll go with when the wicked play if I have to pick just one. Relative to my other work I think it’s very structurally sound and thematically focused and pretty efficient with its characterization and imagery without ever getting too sparse. Also I’m a slut for examining the commonplace nature of violence and brutality in the Star Wars universe.

J.  What are the best jokes you told this year? Any jokes you thought were funny that people didn’t catch? Vice-versa?

I’m gonna say the pun I used as the title for bars and stripes. Honestly the whole fic is a joke and I like it and I don’t care if anyone catches it or not because I know that I am hilarious and no one will ever convince me otherwise.

K. Who have you killed this year? Why did they have to die?

No one, I think? I don’t think I even mentioned any specific off-screen deaths except for shit from the decades old Tragic Backstories. Not even Valkoriate. I’m not an especially murderful writer, maybe because I haven’t had to deal with a lot of that kind of loss in my own life. Mostly I write about things that are somehow adjacent to my own emotional state/journey. That’s why I fixate a lot on the weight of duty and moral philosophy and the nuances and complications of relationships, of how you can hurt someone and be hurt by them and still love them and how messy yet fulfilling the whole thing is. Thankfully--for me--not a lot of grieving the dead in there yet.

L.  Which character did you most write about this year, and why do you like ‘em?

Pretty sure it’s Rea. Maybe Doc because of the Docember thing I squeezed in at the last second but I’m still pretty sure it’s Rea. Pretty sure it always is.

There’s a particular kind of release I get from writing her because her whole sloppy person is a part of me that doesn’t often see the light of day. I won’t say she’s aspirational because I like who I am and I don’t have any special destiny or Force powers or anything to save me when the consequences of living like she does catch up. But there are pieces of her that I admire, pieces that are still part of me that I have a hard time expressing, and spending time with her gives me a little more strength to unlock those dark musty corners of who I am, I guess? Writing Rea makes me a little more bold, a little less apologetic, a little less prone to overthinking and anxious fretting and a little more prone to doing. She makes me feel strong enough to ask for the things I want and confident enough to feel like I deserve them.

Also she is a damn good time, even when she’s falling apart.

M. Meta! Have any meta about a story you’re dying to throw out there?

Of course I do. I could ramble for hours about the story behind any single one of my stories. Aren’t all of us creative types like that??? Don’t we all love to talk about what we were going for and why we made the choices we did??? What we liked and what we think needs improvement??? Why we wanted to make the thing we made in the first place???

I could ramble about this for hours and honestly the possibilities are overwhelming so I am not going to go into any detail and just say yes. Obviously I am willing to ramble about the story behind every single story I’ve published but there’s 63 of them so if there’s something specific you want to hear about you’ll have to ask about the specific one!!!

N. Anything you were planning to write that never got written?

Nothing will ever be “never got written” until I am dead and unable to write. I am still going back to WIPs from 2014. I am rewriting garbage exercises I wrote in 2013. I like to think everything in my WIP folder will eventually be moved to my Published folder and I am going to keep thinking that until I am physically incapable of writing.

O. Do you believe in outlines? Show us one!

I believe in them very much and yet I do not practice them usually. I rely on them more with my original work which is longer and more involved and doesn’t already have a convenient structure to follow in the form of 300000 hours of video game. Most of my fic is really short, just a single scene or so. I usually start out by writing the moment that inspired me to write the fic and fill in the before and after. I do have an outline for the second half of the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one but I don’t really want to share it for something that isn’t written yet!

P. What are your pet peeves in other people’s work?

This question makes me kinda uncomfortable so here we go with some disclaimers: I write the stories that I want to read or that I really need to tell to satisfy something inside of me and I assume other authors do the same. I don’t want to say anything here that might have a chilling effect on someone exploring some idea they really need to explore, even if it’s tired or cliche or offends my own tastes. Writing is very personal and I think everyone should tell the stories they want to, whether anyone else likes them or not.

That being said, I am always desperately wishing for more media about close, intimate friendships and familial bonds. As someone who isn’t interested in sexual or romantic relationships, it makes me weep basically every time I read a story about characters who are friends or family that give that kind of relationship all of the value and weight and nuance that you see romantic relationships getting. It is a very special kind of feeling to see that it is possible for people to value what I have to offer them as much they might value someone who will romance them and sleep with them. It is very validating to see the possibility of emotional intimacy with people outside of romantic/sexual partners.

But I would never want anyone to feel bad about or stop writing their romances and their smut. That stuff speaks to people and that’s what fic is about. Telling the story that speaks to you. I want everyone to write what they want to write and if that leaves gaps, well that’s why I started writing fic in the first place. There was a story I needed to read and no one had written it yet, so I did it myself.

TL;DR Genfic & friendfic & familyfic is the greatest gift anyone could ever give me, but no one should write to satisfy other people. Always write for yourself first and foremost.

Q. Quote three bits of writing you read his year. Can be your writing, or not.

I keep little quotes everywhere--index cards and sticky notes scattered among all my belongings, snippets on my phone, untitled documents on every cloud service there is, random word docs hidden amongst my many hard drives--but the only ones I can find right now are from @meonlyred‘s Dark Horse so please enjoy three bits from that fic that I loved:

They remained sitting on the floor, Rossa leaned against him, eyes staring into the distance. Her silence might as well have been weeping.

I just love how I can feel the vacant, numb quality of her despair in this line. How it feels more poignant for its lack of drama.

“You're an idiot and I hate your hair,” Jonas said over the rim of his glass.

I mean.... Do I need to explain this?

He had never believed in happily ever afters. Not for him, at least. But the cruelest thing about being with Rossa was that he had begun to believe that maybe, just maybe, it was possible.

Closing his eyes, Theron didn’t expect to open them again.

This little snippet still punches me in the gut no matter how many times I read it. It’s so relateable and so Theron and so painful.

R. If you had to rewrite one of your stories from scratch, which one would it be? What would you do to it?

I don’t think I’d rewrite any of them? At least half of my fic has been completely rewritten once or twice before it ever gets published so I mostly have it out of my system before anyone else sees it.

S. What’s the sexiest thing you wrote this year?

a wish your heart makes. It may also be the saddest thing I wrote this year which I consider an achievement. (I was asked for smut but I literally do not know how to write just smut without anything else going on in the story.)

T. Themes, motherfucker, do you have them? What are they?

The importance and nature of family (it is what you make it and not what you were born with! but sometimes you get lucky and get to choose the one you were born with!)! The cost/impact of violence and war! Failure and coming back from failure! The nature of what is right and what is wrong and how much responsibility any one individual bears for the moral direction of their society!!!!

I don’t think I’ve ever written anything that didn’t include at least one of these concepts and most of my stuff deals heavily in at least two of them.

U. Any stories that took a abrupt u-turn from where you thought they were going?

Yep! I was trying to make a stupid joke about a haircut when I started making take back what the kingdom stole but in working my way backward from the joke I ended up with a heartfelt exploration of my character’s past emotional trauma, her character growth, and the nature of friendship and forgiveness.

V. Which story was the most viscerally pleasing to write? Tell us your narrative kinks.

I don’t know that I would necessarily call the sensation pleasing but, once again, the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one was probably the story that made me feel the most, that I was the most connected to. It hit on every single one of the themes I find compelling and I really got to play with telling the story in the white spaces, which is something I really love. I’ve been working a lot on trusting my readers and not over-explaining and I think this story really saw the impact of that work, stylistically. It’s peak self-indulgence honestly.

W.  Who are your favorite writers?

Does this mean like authors of original published works or fic writers????? How am I supposed to choose???!!!! Either way my reading habits this year have been abominable. I have really been going through some shit, lifewise, (not bad shit but emotionally consuming and time consuming nonetheless) and I had to let the reading go a little bit.

I have been really into NK Jemisin though. Her stories are complex and challenging and there is so much poetry and power in the straightforward way she tells them. I also was obsessed with the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. The characters were so textured and real with such clear voices and the relationships and ideas were so complex and compelling, yet the story never got weighed down by the heft of the subjects. She has a very light touch as a storyteller that makes her work so easily digestible without making her tale any less impactful or profound.

As for fic…. I’ve got about forty million fics bookmarked, waiting for me to get around to reading them and I am the worst kind of person because I have not yet read any of them. I’m behind on reading one of my very favorite fics right now. I think I’ve read a total of like ten fics this year and straight up probably only read that many because I was doing a bit of beta’ing.

I’m gonna do better in 2019 and I’ll get back to you on all the good shit I’ve read then.

X.  What’s your least favorite work of this year?

crapshoot. It was a really old concept that probably would have been better as visual art than a fic but my artistic talents were too limited so I wrote it instead. It could probably stand a little more meat and a lot more polish, but I don’t have the time to try and turn every goofy image in my head into a fictional masterpiece.

Y. Why did you write? For fun, for a friend, for acclaim?

For fame and fortune obviously. It’s why most of my fic is about a super popular ship in an enormous fandom.

Or, y’know… not. I write for fun and because I have to. Because there are stories inside of me I want to tell, ideas I feel compelled to explore, things I need to say. It doesn’t matter if anyone else hears them or likes them; I need to get them out of me. Also it’s a really great way to work through my own emotional turmoil at a safe distance, so I can engage with what vexes me without being consumed by it.

Z. If you could choose one work and immediately finish it, what would it be? How would you end it?

the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one. It’s the most self-indulgent thing I’ve written probably but it means a lot to me and if I knew how it ended I would have finished it months ago. D:

[stillthewordgirl]

LOT/CC fic: Somewhere on Your Road Tonight (ch. 4)

Sara and Leonard made a life for themselves, together in 1958, after the Waverider left them, Ray and Kendra behind. But now they're back on the ship, Mick has been twisted into Chronos, Kendra is pregnant, and Savage is still out there. They'll deal--together. (Sequel to "Chances Are.")

Takes place during the first half, more or less, of "The Magnificent Eight." Many thanks to @larielromeniel for the beta and great suggestions!

Can also be read here at AO3 and here at FF.net.

Rip doesn’t warn them about just how long their next time jump is going to be—or about the increased side effects. That’s irritating…but that irritation is quickly swept away as Kendra gasps right after the jump, hands going to her abdomen as Rip brings the Waverider down to land.

“Ow,” she says, closing her eyes. “Ray…Rip, this hurts. I…oh!”

Whatever the others’ own side effects, they’re swept away in concern for their teammate. Ray, who’s sitting right next to his wife, falls over his own feet as he rises, immediately getting back up to his knees to reach for her.

“You said it was safe to time jump when pregnant!” he yells at Rip, sounding more pissed off than Sara’s ever heard him before. She shakes her head, trying to get rid of the vestige of dizziness and nausea, and glances at Leonard, who looks relatively unfazed—at least by the jump.

“It is! Even longer jumps.” Rip hurries over to them. “Gideon?”

“From what I can tell from here, Ms. Saunders’ life signs—and those of the baby—are perfectly within normal range,” the AI says after a moment. “I can do a few more checks in the medbay. But there seems to be no reason to worry.”

Ray sighs in relief, and he’s not the only one. Rip looks nearly as relieved as the parents-to-be, leaning against the jump seat and rubbing his eyes.

“Perhaps it is just that Ms. Saunders is, after all, nearly at term. I remember…” He stops what he’s about to say, abruptly, and looks ill. Sara can’t help feeling a bit sympathetic, given that he’s almost certainly thinking about his wife and their son, but she’s more worried about her pregnant friend.

She rises nearly in unison with Leonard, who’s actually remarkably gentle as he reaches out and pulls the unsteady Ray to his feet. Kendra’s biting her lip as Sara touches her arm, but she gives the other woman a wry smile.

“Contraction, I think,” she says. “Rip might be right. I almost remember…it doesn’t have to be active labor…”

Sara’s not sure what to do with that. “Um,” she says. “Well. Even if it’s normal, that doesn’t mean you want to have the baby right now, right?”

“True.” Kendra gasps again. “Damnit,” she murmurs after a long breath. “After all this time, why don’t we have a better way to deal with this?”

“I’d do it if I could,” Ray tells her in distress, reaching out to help her up, Leonard offering an arm on the other side until she’s sure she’s steady.

“Medbay to her get,” he says, then turns and glares at Rip, who gives him an apologetic shrug.

“Linguistic dysplasia; that should pass shortly,” the captain offers.

“Better hell as sure it,” Leonard mutters, and Sara has to stifle a laugh at his surly tone.

As the initial worry about their teammate subsides with Gideon’s reassurance, concern about the time-jump symptoms becomes more audible.

“I can’t feel my face,” Jax says, turning from side to side, hands tracing his jaw. “Am I the only one who can't feel their face?”

“I can't feel my...” Ray lets his voice trail off as they start for the medbay, glancing at Kendra, who’s feeling better enough to roll her eyes at him. “I better not say.”

“Mr. Rory appears unaffected,” Stein comments, eyeing Mick…who apparently to be asleep.

At that comment, though, the former bounty hunter opens an eye. “What's going on? We time jump?”

“Yeah, we time jumped,” Sara says with some amusement, turning back. “But ‘where to?’ is the better question.”

Rip lets out an almost wistful sigh, turning around. “The town of Salvation,” he says, “the Dakota territory, 1871.”

Ray stops dead in his tracks, looking over his shoulder. “I can't believe it...” he breathes. “The Old West.”

“Ray, I swear…”

“Right! Medbay! On the way!”

“Kendra’s fine. And so is the baby.” Raymond’s voice holds so much relief and happiness that even Leonard, experienced cynic and hardened thief (or so he tells himself), can’t help but smile. He hears Sara’s sigh of relief from where she’s leaning next to him, feels the relaxation in the shoulder that’s brushing his, and gives her a sideways smile. They’d all pretty much known, thanks to Gideon, but it’s good to hear.

“You were right,” the father-to-be tells Hunter, who again looks almost as relieved as he does. “It was just a few, err, ‘practice’ contractions, so to speak. Gideon says maybe it’s best if she rests a bit.” He shakes his head. “She’s not real happy about that. And I feel bad. She’s going to have to miss the Old West.”

Rip starts to respond, but Mick cuts in then. The team’s accepted him back without much of a ripple, much to Leonard’s surprise and pleasure, but Mick seems a little discomfited by that. Not enough to go back in the brig, of course, but enough that he’s mostly kept quiet and to himself since his first warning about the Hunters.

“This isn't going to work,” he tells the captain flatly.

“It'll buy us time,” Rip returns, leaning against the table. “We can hide out here while the Hunters search the other Fragmentations.”

Mick crosses his arms and glowers. “What if they decide to check this place first?”

“Fragmentations?” Leonard asks sharply, while Stein makes a somewhat sardonic comment about communication and Raymond wanders over to join them.

The captain and Mick--sounding enough like Rip himself with the timey-wimey jargon that Leonard shakes his head in bemusement—explain the notion of the temporal blind spots, “specific places and times the Time Masters can't see,” a thought that Leonard files away to examine later for potential usefulness.

“So, basically,” he drawls, rising from his seat and facing Mick, “we're hiding out in the Old West and hoping your boogeymen don't find us here.”

Mick frowns at him. They’re on better terms than Leonard would have thought possible during most of the stint in 2147, but…things are different now.

“The Hunters are not boogeymen,” he says shortly. “And you better hope they don't find us.”

Raymond is babbling something about Westerns in the background, but Leonard’s more focused on Mick as they face each other down. They’re both different now too, Leonard thinks almost wistfully as they study each other. There’s an edge of seriousness to Mick that he’s rarely seen before, and the man who’s always been the brawn of their little operation—and actively avoided any possible part of being the brains—is rattling off Time Master rigamarole like Hunter himself.

And Leonard himself…well. He’s knows he’s gone what he once would have considered soft. He’s made his peace with that, with caring, for the team and for Sara and those left behind in 1958.

And for Mick.

Mick’s studying Leonard in return, a frown on his face, but it’s more puzzled than angry. They’ve both, in different ways, lived lifetimes while they’d been separated, Len thinks suddenly. They’re new men now.

For better or worse.

“Oh, come on,” Sara says then, the words directed at Rip but drawing Leonard and Mick’s attention back to the others. “What's the harm in us just taking a look around?”

Rip looks skeptical, and Stein chuckles.

“With this group?” he asks. “Clearly, you haven't been paying attention.”

“If I'm in the Old West and I don't get to look around,” Ray interjects plaintively, “I'm going to kick myself. And I promised to tell Kendra all about it.”

“I could help with the kicking,” Leonard mutters, getting an almost unwilling laugh from Mick.

“I'll keep an eye on them,” the former bounty hunter promises the former Time Master. “Don't worry. I'll be a good boy.”

“So. Stuck here, huh? At least it’s not 1958.”

Kendra looks up as Leonard saunters into the medbay, where she’s trying to get comfortable in one of those ridiculous beds. They’re more comfortable than they look, which doesn’t really say much, but she’s still quite grateful for the distraction, from the surroundings and from her circling thoughts.

Apparently he’s picked up on her discontent with remaining behind. It is, perhaps, a surprise that it’s the team’s master thief who realized it so instinctively. But that’s unfair. Kendra had been in 1958. She knows quite well that Leonard Snart is far more than he seems.

“Yeah,” she sighs. “That’s true. I can imagine what giving birth back then would have been like. But I’m actually tired of reading and…” She shrugs and holds up her empty hands. “I don’t know how to crochet or knit and it’s cliched as hell anyway, but, damn, I’d like something to do with my hands.”

Leonard stops and regards her a moment, long enough that Kendra starts to wonder just what he’s thinking. Then he nods.

“Be right back,” he says solemnly. “OK?”

What else to do? Of course she nods.

Leonard’s not gone long, and he doesn’t extend a book to her on his return, as she’d somewhat expected despite her earlier words. (Another thing she’s learned—he’s a reader, is Leonard Snart.) Instead, he holds out an array of silver tools, which Kendra blinks at even as she reaches out to take them. Then, he reaches into a pocket and pulls out a few more items, which he drops onto the table at her side.

Kendra looks at them, then him.

“Are you seriously trying to teach me how to pick locks?” she asks.

Leonard smiles at her, and it’s not quite a smirk. There’s something…real…about it, Kendra thinks, wrapping her fingers around the slim silver tools. Something that harkens back to what she’d seen of him in 1958, the man who’d done what he had to to survive but still had a true core of humanity underneath, despite all her expectations.

“What?” he says after a moment, the drawl like armor. “It’s something to do with your hands. And it’s a useful skill.”

Kendra regards him, just long enough that he seems to be uncomfortable under her direct gaze.

“You like to pretend to be so cold,” she marvels, then, “but you’re full of shit. You care, Leonard, you care enough that it hurts to pretend otherwise. Even though you do it anyway.”

His chin comes up, although he doesn’t directly argue with the words. He regards her a moment, obviously uneasy, but not backing away despite that. “This is practical,” he insists. “You never know when it will come in handy. And you can keep practicing here. Even while we’re all out…roping dogies or keeping Raymond from going full John Wayne or whatever.”

Kendra eyes him a moment longer, then nods.

“OK,” she says. “Just promise me you won’t rustle any cattle.”

It gets a chuckle…and no promise. But he reaches for the picks, and she lets him take them, watching him pick up a particular lock from the table as well.

“Well. The pin tumbler is the most common…”

Sometimes the fabrication room is more fun than others. This, Sara thinks, clapping her cowboy hat on her head with a grin, is one of those times.

“I look just like Wyatt Earp,” Ray say happily, turning away from inspecting himself in one of the mirrors and heading out, presumably to show Kendra what a fine figure he cuts in the garb. Rip watches him go with a sigh, then extends an unfamiliar gun to Sara, hilt first.

“Now, the fabricator can make clothing, but you're also going to need era-appropriate protection,” he tells the room at large. “This era can get a little, uh, rough. Now, this should go without saying, but considering this group, I am going to say it... only use these weapons in the case of extreme emergencies.”

“Six-shooters?” Jax asks, grinning, reaching for one himself. He’d had some very reasonable qualms about the time period, but between Gideon’s reassurances about the historical diversity of actual cowboys and the others’ promises that they’d kick the ass of anyone who got certain ideas about the youngest Legend and his right to be there, he was starting to allow some excitement for the idea.

“Are you not coming with us, Captain Hunter?” Stein inquires, turning his own newly acquired hat over in his hands. “From your duster and revolver, I'd imagined you as much an Old West aficionado as Dr. Palmer.”

The captain inclines his head in a way that looks almost bashful to Sara. “Indeed I am,” he allows. “But my time is best spent back here on the ship, plotting our next move against Vandal Savage.” He sighs. “And despite his eagerness, Dr. Palmer would only accompany you if I promised to alert him to any changes in Ms. Saunders’ condition—and I, quite frankly, do not wish to listen to him complain about missing this chance for the rest of this mission.”

“Takin’ one for the team, Rip?” Leonard drawls from near the doorway, although Sara, inspecting her gun, can’t see him from her current position. “Even I gotta thank you for that.”

“Yes, well, besides, as Mr. Rory says, it's only a matter of time before the Hunters find us here.” Rip sighs again. “Please…take care. “

“We'll stay out of trouble,” Sara assures him, then (ignoring the captain’s response) gives her six-shooter one more spin. She holsters the gun and turns, just in time to see Leonard slowly incline his head to deposit his night-black cowboy hat on it, looking up at her with a smirk that’s wicked as hell and twice as sexy.

She saunters over, giving him a thorough once-over while he returns the favor (who is she kidding? He’s probably been staring at her ass the whole time), then reaches out to place her hands on his belt, black leather over black pants and shirt and under his black coat.

“You,” she says with amusement, licking her lips and gazing up at him, “look like sin.”

Leonard’s lips twitch as he studies her in her own western garb, and while Sara’s pretty sure she’s not really pulling off “wicked” or “intimidating” or even anything more than “cute,” he seems to find it attractive nonetheless.

“Well,” he drawls, leaning toward her a little, eyes hooded and dark and promising the very best kind of trouble, “good thing you’re a sinner, then.”

He dips his head as she goes up on her toes to kiss him, a kiss that starts to heat up despite their surroundings, a room full of their teammates and the knowledge of trouble on the way. The rest of it starts to fade away, Mick’s snort and Stein’s chuckle and Rip’s sigh, and despite Leonard’s noted distaste for feelings on display, it’s Sara who finally smiles against his lips and starts to pull back.

“You two really have to do that?” Jax groans, grinning as they break the kiss. Sara turns to whack at his arm in a sisterly fashion, Leonard laughing quietly in the background.

“Yes,” she tells him, “we do.”

There’s something satisfying, to Leonard’s admittedly…well-developed…sense of drama, about strolling into Salvation with the others, the townsfolk turning to watch, the normal noises of the town seeming to mute and still at their entrance.

Leonard’s seen a western or two in his day, and though he’ll never, ever admit it to Raymond, he’s a bit of a fan. The nobler outlaws of the genre had appealed to the boy trying to make sense of the “jobs” his father had dragged him along on from an all-too-early age, and the gunslingers had seemed heroic after the first time Lewis had put a gun into his hand and told him to point it at someone else.

It’d been a tool to Lewis, no more, just like Leonard himself, but young Leo had reacted to the unfamiliar weight and danger of that weapon by doing what the boy and later the man always did—learning as much about it as possible. Within a few handfuls of years, he not only knew everything he could about every variety of sidearm he could lay his hands on, he was a damn good shot with most of them.

And if he’d practiced with an unloaded gun to get a smooth quick draw just like he’d seen in those old movies…well, no one else really needed to know that.

The saloon they find almost immediately looks like trouble to Leonard’s practiced eye, but he has no problem with that. Mick heads for the bar, and Sara gives Leonard a teasing wink and follows him. Leonard smirks as he watches them go, but he has no interest in the rat piss they’re probably serving in such a fine establishment.

Raymond and Jax are gawking a bit but seem likely to be in no danger. Stein…

Well. Go figure.

“Didn't know you played cards,” he tells the older man, dropping into a seat at Stein’s right, getting a slightly surprised glance and a rather unSteinlike smirk.

“Like you, Mr. Snart, I am an enigma,” Stein tells him with a mixture of solemnity and humor, then turns back to the game.

Leonard is duly impressed, and eventually says so. The professor knows how to play and he’s unexpectedly talented at bluffing.

Stein chuckles a little (to the evidence annoyance of the other men at the table, something Leonard also notes) and regards him with a sidelong smile.

“My father was what some might call a degenerate gambler, others would say criminal,” he says conversationally. “When I was old enough, he'd pull me in on some of his schemes. I picked up a thing or two at a few of the card tables he frequented.”

Leonard considers that. “Hmm,” he says after a moment. “Well. You never know when something will come in handy, right, professor?”

“Indeed, Mr. Snart.”

Of course, then it all goes downhill.

From the moment Stein’s angry opponent snarls at him (and honestly, before), Leonard’s watching him carefully, his hand dropping to his own gun. This might look like an old western come to life, but it’s very real, even if some of the others have lost sight of that. He tries to defuse the situation, but he knows his business, too, and when every sign—the look on the card player’s face, the way he moves, all the clues big and small—say that he’s going to fire…

Well. He might have struggled with the question of Per Degaton, but a clear and present danger (and a full-grown thug) is something completely different.

And, really, he’s somewhat smug that his quick draw is just as good as he thought it was.

Stein, hand still clapped to his own chest, turns and gapes at him after the thug hits the floor. “You killed him!” he stammers.

“You're welcome,” Leonard returns, then looks at the rest of the men who’ve jumped to their feet around the saloon.

He may be attempting to trend toward the hero side of things, but he’s not going to apologize for being what he is and being good at it. These men, dirty and rude and reeking of stale beer and cheap liquor…they remind him of Lewis.

“Your friend drew first, got put down,” he sneers, rising smoothly to his feet. “It was a clean shot.”

It goes pretty much like he should have known it would go.

Sara’s been expecting a good bar brawl from the moment they walked in the door here, although she’s a little surprised that it’s Leonard who touches it off. (She’s been planning to start one herself, honestly.) Mick, for all his fine words, hadn’t downed many of the vile shots before he’d simply lowered his head to the bar and started to snore, and he doesn’t even twitch when the shot echoes throughout the saloon.

She whirls, gets a glimpse of Leonard rising to his feet, Stein staring at the fallen man, and then the other thug firing a punch at Leonard’s head. He ducks, then swings, and the place erupts.

Sara can’t help it. She laughs out loud, diving into the fray, working her way over to Leonard, where they fall into a position more or less back to back.

“You all right?” she yells, ducking the chair a man a good 10 inches taller than her aims at her head.

“Peachy!” he yells back, driving a fist into the nose of the first man who’d attacked him, back for more. “The professor apparently cheats at cards.”

“I do not!” Stein’s yell echoes back at them from he’s taken covered behind an overturned table.

“It’s OK, professor!” Sara shouts back, grinning and flashing Leonard a smirk that he returns, even as he sidesteps another blow and kicks a man in the shins before tripping him to the floor. “So does Snart!”

They have a good ol’ time until a gun fired toward the ceiling brings everything to a stop, Legends and locals looking toward the tall, scarred man in the center of the saloon.

And that’s how they all meet Jonah Hex.

“You think you're the first time travelers I've ever come across?” their would-be rescuer says later, outside the saloon, as the Legends blink at him. Leonard (who hadn’t particularly wanted the bar brawl to end yet) frowns at him, trying to put pieces he doesn’t have together. Ignorance is not an appealing feeling. Never has been.

“Uh, yes,” Stein returns when no one else speaks.

Hex ignores him. “Where is he? I got some words that need saying.”

“Where is who?” Sara speaks up suspiciously.

“Rip Hunter.”

It seems there are even more details their good captain hasn’t been telling them.

Raymond and Jax take Hex to see the captain, and although Leonard will admit to a good deal of curiosity about the history there, he’s also not horribly eager to get scolded for his part in the festivities at the saloon. He steps away as Sara steers Mick toward his quarters (and Gideon’s intoxication remedy), heading for their own room, and his own thoughts.

It’s not that he feels bad about the incident at the saloon, really. He’d done what he had to do. And, sure, it’d caused trouble, but the man would have fired at Stein at close range, and even with all the resources of the medbay not too far away, that would have been catastrophic.

But even as he’s staring off into space, mulling the incident over, the door slides open behind him. Only one other person could come in here without asking. He hears Sara’s thoughtful hum even he turns around, smiling as he sees her still in her own Old West gear, hat and boots and holster and all.

Sara, for her part, looks up at him, smiling back, a sight that would be adorable (not that he’s going to tell her that, ever) if the expression wasn’t so openly...well, lascivious.

“I was sort of hoping that I’d get back here and find you waiting,” she says in a low, slightly husky tone. “Wearing that hat, and nothing else.”

Oh, yeah? Leonard can work with that. He steps closer and matches both tone and expression, grateful for any distraction, let alone such an alluring one. (And he’s pretty sure Sara knows that.). “I thought you liked the outfit.”

“I do.” Sara looks up at him through her lashes, smiling a very sultry smile. “But…” She goes up on her toes, wrapping her fingers around the black silk scarf at his neck and putting her mouth very close to his ear, so close that her lips brush his earlobe, warm breath distracting and arousing…but not as much as the frankly rather filthy suggestion she breathes into it.

Leonard clears his throat, shifting a little, then smirks back down at her.

“Ms. Lance, I may, as you say, look like sin, but you sound like it,” he drawls, letting his hands settle at her waist, over her gun belt.

“Mmm.” Sara’s still on her toes, fingers running over the lapels of his black duster, down under it to his vest, and the collar of his shirt, then along under his suspenders. “How about we both act like it?”

“That...could be arranged.”

Leonard dozes a bit, but eventually finds himself awake, wondering what the others might be up to in the time period...and more about the mystery posed by Jonah Hex. He rolls over with a sigh, annoyed at the impulse, wondering if Sara also wants to go explore a bit more.

But she’s sound asleep, her cowboy hat partially still on her head and partially crushed beneath her —wearing nothing else, except for the sheet that’s wrapped around her, barely. He smiles a little, tucking one errant piece of blond hair behind her ear and out of her face, and she sighs a little, shifting but remaining asleep.

But something’s still pushing him. An itching under his skin like the one that’d sent him out of the Waverider to meet Sara and the others back in 1958, and one that, to a lesser extent, has been responsible for a few other impulsive decisions he’s made since. Nothing truly uncharacteristic, not really, but just...almost spontaneous, far more spontaneous than he usually allows himself to be.

Still. His curiosity eventually gets the better of him, and Leonard rises with a sigh, swinging his feet over the edge of the bed and reaching for the tangle of black clothing that’d been discarded off to the side of the room. He’s rather fond of all the layers this time calls for (although Sara hadn’t been, a bit earlier) and it still doesn’t take him long to dress. He quietly leaves the room, turning his hat over in his hands and frowning a little to himself.

A query to Gideon gains him the information that Raymond, Mick and Jax are gathered just outside the ship. Leonard had been considering seeing if Kendra wants any new locks to work on but decides that trio is far more likely to need supervision of some sort.

He’s not wrong.

“There you are!” the scientist greets him with an air of relief as Leonard saunters out of the Waverider’s hatch. “We kinda need you or Sara for this, but Gideon said she wasn’t going to disturb either of you.” He looks momentarily perplexed. “For some reason. What were you doing?”

Leonard sighs, putting his hat on and rolling his eyes. “How did Kendra manage to get pregnant, again?” he mutters.

Jax snickers and Mick chokes, but the comment sails over Raymond’s head. The man is evidently focused on some grand plan, based on the gleam in his eyes and the eager grin on his face, but he needs to slow down and...wait.

“Where’d you get that?” Leonard frowns at the silver star on the inventor’s coat, interrupting the headlong explanation again.

Raymond looks down at it, then beams at him. “I’m the sheriff,” he says proudly. “The sheriff of Salvation.”

“Seriously? Who gave you that?” Leonard eyes him. “It didn’t come out of a cereal box, did it?”

The other man gives him a woebegone look as Mick snorts again. “The former sheriff.”

“Who...?”

“...decided to get out of town. Suddenly.”

“Uh huh.” Leonard looks at Mick, who’s smirking, and Jax, who looks like he’s going to lose control of a fit of giggles. “Because that’s not suspicious.”

“It’s OK,” Raymond tells him seriously, drawing himself up importantly. ““We’re going to take on the Stillwater gang.”

“The who now?”

“The guys we were fighting back at the saloon,” Jax cuts in. “You, uh, sort of shot one of them.”

“I’m not shedding any tears,” Leonard retorts, but Raymond is pontificating again.

“Mr. Hex said Jeb Stillwater and his gang have been raiding this town for the past three months,” he said seriously. “A real reign of terror. And I aim to do something about it.”

Mick snorts yet again at the response, and Jax buries his head in his hands. “Ray, man, please stop,” he says, voice muffled, as Leonard stares at the inventor.

“And you want me to what...?” he drawls after a moment. “Speak sternly to them? Take over?”

“What? No!”

“Then spit it out.”

Leonard’s not there when Sara wakes, but she’s not too surprised. He may have tried to act all blasé about being in the Old West, but she knows him, and she knows he’s enjoying this foray, from the Man in Black attire to the bar brawl to the six-shooters.

Plus, that quick-draw trick back in the saloon wasn’t, the assassin knows, the sort of thing one can just pull off without copious amounts of practice. But she won’t tell everyone his secret if he doesn’t.

When asked, Gideon reports that only Rip and Kendra are on the ship at the moment, so after a few minutes, Sara stretches and gladly puts on a pair of shorts and a tank top instead of the annoying multiple layers of western wear. Then she goes to the medbay.

“Hey!”

Kendra looks up, smiling, as she sees her friend. “Hey.”

“I thought I’d drop in and see how...wait.” Sara stops and studies the tools in Kendra’s hands, then the items on the table next to her before blinking back up at her. “Are those lockpicks?”

Kendra chuckles. “They are,” she says, waving two of the picks. “Apparently, this is the Leonard Snart answer to being cooped up and bored. I will admit, I’m enjoying the puzzle.” She leans over and sets the tools down. “And who knows? It might come in handy someday.”

“Huh.” Sara reflects that Leonard, no matter how well she gets to know him, may always be a surprise in some ways. The thought is appealing. Then she shakes her head and focuses on Kendra. “How are you? How’s Junior there?”

The other woman’s smile is fond. “We’re both fine. No more contractions.” Her smile grows. “Ray keeps coming by to check on me and tell me all about the Old West, including bar brawls and quick-draw Snart.” She winks as Sara chuckles. “I think he’s having fun. I just hope the others can keep him out of trouble.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine.” Sara tilts her head and studies Kendra again. “What’s bugging you?”

Kendra glances away. It’s a pretty clear tell. “What do you mean?”

“You’re edgy. And I don’t think it’s just Junior’s impending arrival.” Sara leans back in her chair. “You don’t have to tell me. But you might feel better if you do.” She frowns. “Everything OK with Ray?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s good, it really is. It’s just…” Kendra stops.

Sara waits.

Then the other woman sighs, looking away again. “I keep feeling like I should leave the ship,” she murmurs. “I don’t know why. Just that there’s something out there I should see.”

“Maybe you could at least take a walk,” Sara offers. “We could ask Gideon; I could go with you…”

“No.” Kendra sounds frustrated. “Farther out. I don’t know.” Her hands tighten into fists. “It’s a pull. I don’t like it.”

Sara hesitates. “Maybe there’s a…a Carter…here?” she says after another pause, trying to identify the thought Kendra’s so uneasy with. Her friend’s glance tells her that she’s on to something. “You think?”

“Hmmm.”

“Well, then, he’d have his own Kendra, right? And you have Ray.”

“Yes.” Kendra stares off in the distance a moment, then shakes her head, a smile crossing her face. “I do. And I’m happy. It’s just...” She sighs, then gives Sara a wry smile. “Carter seemed convinced we could only wind up together. I keep...waiting for something to go wrong.”

Sara smirks at her. “I think Carter was just confused by the fact that you’re the only one who’d put up with him.”

“You might have a point about that.”

Leonard’s part in the initial confrontation is a bit more than just sniping a gun out of Jeb Stillwater’s hand, no matter what Raymond thinks. If the father-to-be is going to stand out there and make a target of himself in the Old West, then the least Leonard can do (more for Kendra than for Raymond, he tells himself) is make sure he’s covered.

And it’s a damn fine shot, if he does say so himself. He smirks a little at Raymond’s assertion that he has “sharpshooters all around” instead of one crook with a rifle, but it does the job, and as the Stillwater gang rides off, he withdraws back into the building where he’d been perched. Ready, for once, to join the others in some celebration, instead of a postmortem of how things had gone wrong.

For now.

[a-splash-of-stucky]

A Messed Up Place | One

Pairings: Bucky x Reader

Summary: How it all started out

Warnings: Bucky’s self-hatred is through the roof, suggestions of masturbation

Notes: For @hellomissmabel’s writing challenge, using the prompt Lacanian Love. Didn’t really do my final checks on this one properly, so lmk if you spot any errors. 

AMUP Masterlist

Love has a lot of cliches.

In fact, ‘a lot’ might even be an understatement. ‘A lot’ is a gross underestimate of the number of cheesy one-liners, overused phrases and endless passages made up of empty promises and meaningless words that couples in love throw around haphazardly. The thing is, there has to be some element of truth behind them. These cliches must have come about for a reason, no?

Bucky Barnes thinks that that reason might be you. He doesn’t believe in soulmates, but whatever the hell you are to him — well, it’s pretty goddamn close, that’s for sure.

The two of you are sat in the compound’s shared kitchen, about to have dinner together. Well, perhaps more accurately, you’re sat on one of the barstools by the kitchen island, whilst Bucky is stood by the stove, manning the stir-fry. You’d offered to help, but after almost slicing off the tip of your finger (you’d think a trained super-spy would have better knife-wielding skills, right?), Bucky had given you a stern glare and shooed you away. He’d chuckled at your pouting and now watches you from the corner of his eye as he stirs the vegetables about.

“Still sore?” Bucky asks, noticing the way you’re absentmindedly massaging your calf.

“Yeah, a little,” you sigh, “Nat went a little overboard with the leg training today, I think,”.

“Or maybe you’re just a wuss,” Bucky teases, snorting when you narrow your eyes indignantly at him.

“Excuse me, Barnes,” you retort, “I’d like to see you try keeping up with Nat’s leg routine. She’s gotten it straight from the devil, I swear,”.

Bucky laughs, shaking his head as he turns his attention back to the wok, adding in a handful of beansprouts. The fragrant smell of coconut oil and garlic permeates the air, making his stomach growl impatiently. “Nah, I’d rather not,” he drawls, “Steve’s hard enough to keep up with, thanks,”.

“Oh, don’t remind me,” you groan, face contorting into a grimace at the memory. “I trained with him once and that was more than enough for me, thank you very much!” you giggle. Bucky’s heart does a little excited flutter at the sound. He can’t help but admire the way your eyes crinkle at the corners, the way you throw your head back slightly, baring your neck in a most—

Barnes, he reprimands himself, subtly shaking his head to rid himself of those kinds of thoughts.

They’ve been springing up on him more frequently, as of late, creeping up on him from out of nowhere. ‘Distracting’ is one way of describing them, but they’re more than that, he knows. Those thoughts are but the smallest symptom of a problem so enormous, Bucky has no desire to even think about it anymore than he has to.

He sighs internally as he switches off the stove and crouches down, opening one of the cabinets to retrieve a couple of bowls. With his back turned to you momentarily, Bucky allows himself a second to collect his thoughts, whilst also mentally berating himself for losing control of the situation like this.

Emotions were the big no-no of your agreement.

————————————

Bucky is sitting in one of the smaller meeting rooms in the compound, reading over the mission briefing pack he’d been given a couple of hours ago, in preparation for his and Natasha’s trip to Austria. He looks up when the door creaks open. You poke your head around the edge, flash him a wry smile and sidle in.

“Hey…” you murmur, sliding into a seat on the other side of the oval table. Bucky’s eyes flicker warily over your expression, trying to figure out what it is you want from him. The two of you haven’t made much contact with each other ever since he moved into the compound a few months ago, and he’s struggling to figure out why you could possibly be wanting to talk to him, of all people, all of a sudden.

“Hey,” Bucky replies, voice clipped and curt.

The smile you give him seems a little forced around the edges, as if you’re trying to mask your discomfort. It’s the kind of smile that immediately sets Bucky on edge. Already, he can feel the cogs whirring in his mind, trying to figure out what it is he’s done to upset you. Was it the fact that he ate the last slice of chocolate cake last night? Damn it, he knew you’d been eyeing it up, he should’ve saved it—

“I—have something to talk to you…about…” you say slowly, keeping your eyes trained on your fingers. You must be nervous, given the way you’re picking anxiously at your nail polish.

“It’s…not…easy to say—like, there’s no delicate way to put it,” you continue, eyes briefly darting up to catch his gaze, before just as quickly shifting their focus away again. You’re driving him insane with this beating around the bush business. Bucky can feel his brain kicking into overdrive, reading too much into the situation, just as coils of fear tighten in his gut, like a nest of snakes slithering around in a sickening manner.

You clear your throat nervously, straighten up and flash him another smile as if to say, fuck it. “I heard you. Last night. And…all the nights before that, actually,”.

“Huh?” Bucky grunts, brows pulling together in confusion. You heard him? Last night? Doing what? Bucky went to bed late last night, so he made sure to be pretty quiet except for—

“Oh my god,” he groans, slumping forward and resting both elbows on the table as he covers his face with his hands. Bucky can heel the hot flush of shame creeping across his cheeks and down his neck. He hasn’t felt this embarrassed in a long while. The last time…was probably back in Brooklyn, when Steve unexpectedly came home early and walked in on Bucky with a girl he’d brought home, what was her name again? Daisy? Dorothy? Something along those lines.

Even so. The rush of embarrassment he felt then is almost nothing compared to the utter mortification he feels now.

“I am so, so sorry you had to hear that,” Bucky croaks, “I—I’ll promise to be quieter, next time, I—,”

“Bucky,” you interject smoothly. Your tone is neither reprimanding nor upset — it’s actually a little bit amused, strangely enough. Tentatively, Bucky lowers his hands, peeking over his fingers to study your expression. From the way you’re biting the inside of your cheek, he can tell that you’re desperately trying to hold in your laughter.

“You’re…not mad?” Bucky asks slowly.

“No, I’m not,” you reply, shaking your head, “It’s natural, Bucky—I…we all do it,”.

Bucky throws his hands over his ears like a little five-year-old, because he most certainly does not want to be having this conversation right now, least of all with you. “Look, forget about it, ‘kay?” he manages to grit out, “I’ll…fuck, let’s not talk about this, alright? I don’t need you…concerning yourself with my sex life,”.

You snort. “More like, ‘lack thereof’,”

“Oh my god!” Bucky groans, narrowly resisting the urge to bang his head on the table repeatedly, until he passes out. “Alright, you know what? I’m leaving—,”

“No! Wait, Bucky, sit down—,”

“Y/N, I said drop—,”

“Please, would you at least listen to what I—,”

“No I won’t, because I don’t—,”

“James Buchanan Barnes,” you growl, narrowing your eyes threateningly and crossing your arms over your chest, pinning him to his seat with the intensity of your gaze. “Would you listen to me?”

Bucky swallows nervously and, despite the fact that every muscle in his body is screaming at him to do otherwise, nods his head in ascent and forces himself to slump back into his chair. He makes sure to keep his gaze downcast, focused on the hem of his hoodie. This conversation is embarrassing enough without having to look you in the eye as the two of you have it.

“Look, we all have desires, okay?” you begin, your voice taking on a more placating tone.  “We’re all human, and we all have bodily…urges, that can’t always be controlled. And I’m just saying…instead of having to stew in a soup of sexual frustration, why not…find other outlets?”

“Other outlets?” Bucky echoes, voice dubious. “Are you—what’re you saying?”

“Why don’t you…y’know…” Bucky looks up as your voice trails off. Your hands are gesturing wildly as you search for the right words. “Like, find someone? A girl—or a guy, if that’s your thing,” you add hastily.

“A girl?” Bucky repeats dumbly, “I don’t follow,”.

You groan, pinching the bridge of your nose as your eyes screw shut. “I’m saying…why don’t you go out there and find someone to bring home. I’m sure you still know how to woo a woman, Barnes,” you tease, smiling impishly at him.

As lighthearted as your tone may be, all Bucky can focus on is the heavy bitterness settling in his chest. “You think a girl’d want me, Y/N?” he says harshly, his words laced with venom.

Something in his tone makes your head snap up, alarm flaring in your eyes. “Bucky, I didn’t—,”

“Because why would anyone ever want me, Y/N?” Bucky snarls, voice dripping with self-hatred. “I’m fucked up, is what I am. And ‘sides, even if I could’a gotten a girl — which is a fat chance, by the way, ’cause look at me,” Bucky says, gesturing towards his metal arm, “I wouldn’t trust myself ‘round her. I’m too strong. I could hurt her,”.

“Bucky,” you murmur, and something in your voice — something tender and sympathetic and gentle — makes his heart twist like someone’s jamming a knife between his ribs. Bucky Barnes knows that he doesn’t deserve gentle, knows that he is unworthy of your kindness. All he’s ever been in his life is cruel and unforgiving, why should he expect himself to be treated any differently?

“Hey, Bucky, hear me out, okay?” you say softly, getting out of your seat and coming around the table to stand beside him. Your hands hover momentarily, as if you’re about to touch him, but then you seem to think better of that idea, letting your hands drop to your sides. He’s thankful for that. Bucky doesn’t think he would’ve been able to handle your touch — not because he doesn’t want your hands on his body, no, but because he knows your touch would have been soft where all he’s known is rough, brusque and clinical.

Bucky doesn’t know how to handle soft.

“I know you think you don’t deserve this,” you say gently, “But you do. No matter what you’ve done, no matter what you’ve been through…Bucky you do,”. Bucky goes to open his mouth but you plough on, “Look, I know you might not believe me, might not believe any one of us, no matter how many times we say it…but the thought is there, ‘kay? You deserve to be loved, Bucky,”.

Bucky feels like his heart has been through a hyper-accelerated spin-and-rinse cycle in a washing machine in the space of the last five minutes. First the whole shock of discovering that you’d overhead him doing unspeakable acts in the bedroom, and now this? Are you trying to give him a heart attack or something? He’s a senior citizen, for goodness sake, you should know better.

Yeah, don’t let Wilson hear you saying that, Barnes, he thinks ruefully.

Bucky sighs heavily. “Okay. I’m listening to you,” he says quietly.

A moment of silence passes. From the corner of his eye, Bucky can see you opening and closing your mouth several times, as if you’re figuring out the best way to phrase your next words.

“Look, okay, here’s the thing,” you say, keeping your gaze trained on your feet, “The world has changed a lot since you were around. And…sometimes…people, a pair of consenting adults, that is…well, I guess you could say that they have an arrangement. A…no-strings-attached arrangement,”.

With every word that comes out of your mouth, Bucky feels himself getting progressively more confused. “Ohhh…kay?” he says slowly.

“Basically, what I’m suggesting is that we have sex, without getting into a relationship,” you say, the words coming out in a sudden gush, stumbling over themselves in their hurry to leave your mouth. “Like I said, it’s a thing, nowadays. We’d be friends who fuck each other, completely casual,”.

If it were physically possible for jaws to hit the ground, Bucky is certain that his would be trailing on the floor behind him. The notion is so completely foreign to him, that he has no idea where to even begin asking questions. People do that now? Bucky already knew that attitudes towards sex had changed since the 30s, but he hadn’t expected them to have changed this drastically.

Admittedly, the idea does have it’s appeal. You are, after all, a beautiful woman. If there’s one thing Bucky Barnes hasn’t forgotten how to do, it is to appreciate a beautiful woman when he sees one, and you are definitely one of the most stunning people he’s ever set eyes on. And not just on a material level, either. Bucky knows beyond a shadow of doubt that your beauty is something a part of every cell in your body, inside and out.

But as much as he wants you, a part of him feels guilty — and not just because he knows that he doesn’t want to taint your glory with his darkness.

“I can’t just—use you like that, Y/N!” Bucky protests, “I—that’s so wrong!”

“You’re not using me,” you explain patiently, “If I want this — want you — and am completely okay with doing things with you…well, then, what’s wrong with that? It’s consensual, right?”

Bucky’s heart stops. “You want me?” he echoes quietly, not daring to meet your eyes. Why would anyone want him? Bucky knows that he’s messed up — a patchy, busted-up excuse of a human being. He finds it impossible to comprehend what someone as perfect as you could ever see in him.

“Yes, Bucky,” you reply, in a tone that makes it seem as if the fact were completely obvious. “I do want you. You’re a good man, Buck. We’d be helping each other out by doing this,”.

Bucky is torn. His heart wants to say yes, but the rational, logical side of himself knows that saying yes would be a terrible idea. You just don’t get it — you don’t realise how dangerous Bucky is. His arm was created as and still is, a highly precise weapon, perfectly capable of hurting you if Bucky lost control of himself in the moment. “But…why? I—I could hurt you,” Bucky says weakly, his rational mind trying valiantly to dissuade you, even as a larger part of him yearns to say yes.

You shrug nonchalantly. “I’ll heal. I’ll heal within seconds, remember? Accelerated healing, and all that good stuff. You might hurt me, but I can guarantee you, I’ve been hurt worse,”.

Bucky groans internally. It seems you’ve been spending too much time with Steve, lately, and his stubbornness and disregard for personal safety seems to have rubbed off on you. “Y/N!” Bucky cries in frustration, “Just because you have super-human healing abilities, or whatever—that doesn’t mean that you should be throwing yourself into dangerous situations!”

“But it’s not danger!” you protest, voice rising in response to Bucky’s tone, “It’s only you, Bucky, I trust you—,”

“You shouldn’t,” Bucky growls, even though it pains him to admit it, how evil he really is. He hastes that he can’t trust himself enough to be around you, but the risk is not worth it. Bucky would never hurt you. He would never be able to live with himself if he did.

Your jaw snaps shut. “Fine,” you huff, “If you don’t want me, I can’t force you,”

And right there is where you’re wrong.

Because Bucky does want you, wants you in every way imaginable. Your face is the one he sees when he closes his eyes, your name is the one on his lips as he strokes his hand over his cock. He’d never admit these desires to you, though. You’d probably think he was a freak, or something.

“But before you make a decision,” you continue, stepping into his space and letting your hand rest on his shoulder, “Before you tell me what your answer is, I want you to think about it, okay? I’m not gonna break, Bucky. I can handle this. I want this, if you’ll let me have it,”.

Those three letters balance precariously on the tip of his tongue. From the way you’re looking at him, from the unrelenting fire behind your eyes and the defiant set of your jaw, Bucky knows that you know this too. But, instead of giving in like he wants to, all Bucky does is nod curtly and force his mouth to say, “I’ll think about it,” in a tight voice.

————————————

A week later, Bucky finally caved in.

With the power of hindsight on his side, he can look back on those seven days between you propositioning him and him finally giving into his desires with a sort of bemused fondness. Why did he ever believe that his will was strong enough to withstand your alluring pull? How could he resist someone so pure and beautiful and radiant in every way possible? It’s an infeasible task; Bucky never stood a chance against someone like you. You’d had him hooked from the day he first met you, and you’re practically all he’s ever thought about since then.

Over the last seven or so months, the two of you have developed an interesting relationship. The colloquial term, as Bucky’s come to learn, is ‘friends-with-benefits’. You and Bucky will fuck every week or so, depending on stress levels and libido, plus the general state of things at the time. The rest of the team has thus far remained unaware of the little arrangement Bucky has going on with you. That’s not necessarily because he thinks they’ll disapprove, it’s more to do with the fact that he doesn’t need the rest of the team prying on his — fairly active — sex life. The gang has a reputation for being rather nosy when it comes to that sort of stuff.

In between your mind-blowing fuck sessions, Bucky will hang out with you and do the things that any normal pair of friends would.

Except.

Lately, the feelings he’s been harbouring towards you are definitely something beyond the level of ‘just a friend’. He cares for you in a way he thinks a lover would care for their partner. The thing is, as part of your agreement, feelings were supposed to be out of the equation entirely. This was supposed to be a strictly platonic relationship, with a helping of sex on the side.

To be fair, Bucky had gone into the aforementioned agreement with more than a little crush on you, so he knew that he was laying down in his grave before it’d even been fully dug. He was doomed from day one, but what a sweet, sweet torture it has been. He never meant for things to get where they are now. Congratulations Barnes, he thinks dryly, you just went and screwed things up, like you always do. Why couldn’t you keep your stupid little heart in check?

But what really hurts — the thought that keeps him awake at night — is that Bucky knows in his heart of hearts that you could never feel the same way, despite how much he wants you to do just that. He wants you to want him. Oh, how desperately he craves to hear those words spill from your sinfully soft lips. But why would you settle for someone like him? A monster, an abomination, an incomplete creation? He wants you to want him, even though he knows that such a future is never possible.

It’s a depressing truth, really.

You are the perfection to his destruction, the angel to his demon. The two of you are polar opposites and there is no way Bucky could ever hope to be with you the way he wants to be with you.

“Hey, Bucky?” you call, drawing him out of his thoughts, “You’ve been staring at those plates for a while now, you okay there?”

“Um, yeah,” he says hastily, shaking his head to re-centre his mind. “Just…are plates or bowls better, do ya think?”

“Meh, I’d go with bowls,” you reply.

Bucky nods, takes a deep breath to steady himself, then retrieves two bowls from the back of the cabinet, setting them on the kitchen counter so that he can serve up the stir-fry.

Your chatter has picked up again, and Bucky lets your soothing, melodious voice float through his head as he chews over his situation. This needs to end, somehow, Bucky knows that. If he can’t keep his runaway emotions in check, then the best thing for him to do — the healthiest thing for him to do — would be to cut you out of his life completely. Rip the band-aid off and embrace the pain.

Not tonight, though, he decides, because damn it, Bucky can never show any self-restraint when it comes to you. He wants to be selfish, needs to be selfish, just one more time.

[reptilerach]

“Rejection”; Chapter Twenty-Five

NOTES: Sans is rather protective, isn’t he?

(Also working my ass off to catch up on Inktobers. Hopefully I get some more of ‘em done tonight. :) )

________________________________________________________________

Sans clicked on the messaging app, and read what the jerk had sent her. He narrowed his pupils menacingly at the screen, as if the phone were this (Ex’s Name) himself.

The first text read,

-Hey, (Y/N)… Are u mad at me? I’m sorry that I declined your offer… plz don’t hate me.

Sans clenched a hand into a fist, and scowled at the second text even more than the first.

-(Y/N), talk to me. U haven’t text me in days… r u ok? If this is about asking me out, I really am sorry. I just don’t think of u like that… u aren’t my type. But it’s fine, because I still love u! Let me know if I can do anything… i love u sweetheart.”

“Uh, Sans? Can I have my phone back?” (Y/N) asked politely across the room from where Sans was, and he snapped back to life. Undyne, Papyrus, and Alphys were all staring at him in fear; realizing the awkward silence, he took a step backwards in the opposite direction of the group. “sure thing, sorry. i forgot my number there for a second.” He lied, and tossed the device back to her. Then he teleported up the stairs, and into his room.

                                                            ***

He wanted a few minutes to himself. Just for a few minutes... he wanted to think.

Pacing around his bed, he let his emotions completely overtake his mind; with a growl, his left eye flared to life. how dare that douchebag ask for (y/n)’s forgiveness… how dare he give her a pet name, only to deliberately crush her heart after toying around with it. how dare he tell her that he loves her, when he clearly didn’t if he turned her down-!

Sans was growing angrier and angrier by the second, the magic seeping from his eye socket burning a brighter teal with every pulse of fury in his skull. you can’t just reject someone’s proclamation of love like that and ask if they are okay. especially someone like (y/n)… no wonder why she’s an emotional wreck! the dude won’t leave her alone, even after the stab he delivered to her soul. a wound that is now my job to fix.

Sans clenched his fist, and punched his pillow with so much force that the entire bed sunk to the ground and popped an inch off the floor. i swear to asgore, if he ever falls into the underground i will dunk him so hard that his grandkids will feel it. i’ll knock his ass all the way to hotland and into the lava pits, where he’ll burn in hell-

A knock on his door startled him rang aloud, and he flinched. Hesitant to answer it, he asked who was there. “It’s just me...” Called the voice, and he instantly recognized it as (Y/N). The blue flame in his eye socket faded away, and he calmed down enough to meet her face to face. She had this look of intense worry, and Sans sighed. He couldn’t tell her that he’d been snooping through her messages; that’s invasion of privacy.

“May I come in?” She asked quietly, and he stood aside quickly. “yeah, sure thing.” He said non-enthusiastically, and she made her way past him. He flicked on the lights, and grimaced. He hadn’t cleaned his room in weeks; or whenever the last couple of resets was. It didn’t look like she minded, which slightly relieved him.

“what’s up?” He asked, sitting down on his messed up bed. She crossed her arms, brown hair bouncing. “I should be asking you the same.” He chuckled, but it was void of any real humor like before. “nothing. just was feeling a little tired, and wanted to take a quick nap before we got back to our games downstairs.” He lied once more, but (Y/N) didn’t buy it.

“And I suppose that explains why my messages from Arman were read as soon as I got the phone back from you?” Sans froze, his breathing hitching. dammit. she knows. Sans groaned, and rubbed his skull. “nothing gets past you, huh?” He smiled, but it was stressed and fake. She shook her head, and took a seat next to him.

“Are you upset?” She asked bluntly, watching his every movement like a hawk. He glanced at her, and saw that she wasn’t angry at all. “what makes you think that?” He answered her question with one of his own, and she chuckled. The noise helped lighten his spirits. “I saw you glaring at my phone like it committed murder.” He chortled under his breath, sheepishly rubbing his wrist.

“i was just a little aggravated that someone had the audacity to tamper with the names of your contacts, that's all.” Sans shrugged, giving a playful wink. It was obvious it took all of her willpower to not check that very second and stay focused on the task at hand. Her eyes searched his face wildly; after some inspection, she frowned. “I can't tell if you are lying, but I do know that my texts were read. And you're the only one who knows about…”

Her voice trailed off, as did her gaze. Sans looked away as well, not knowing what else to say. She had him cornered; an occurrence that happened very rarely. He felt a warm hand rest on his upon his shoulder, and he jumped at the touch. Looking over at (Y/N), he saw that she was smiling with what appeared as a pained grin.

“It's just like what you said to me in Grillby's, Sans. He doesn't matter now; not while I'm in this... game. Not while I'm here in the Underground, living a happy and peaceful life. Not while I have friends here like Papyrus, Frisk, Toriel, and you.”

Sans smiled, but still felt a bit angry towards the stupid human boy who dared to rip (Y/N)’s heart in half. “that was an excellent speech, your honor.” He snickered, and got a punch to the shoulder. She giggled, and brushed back some of her long hair. Sans watched as she adjusted her glasses like a nerd, and ceased the anxious fiddling that was his fingers. She stood up, with Sans following, and shoving his hands into his black basketball shorts.

A moment of silence fell between the two of you, and you gave him a weak smile. “In all seriousness Sans, I thank you for your concern. It’s really admirable, but I don’t want my personal problems being tacked onto yours. What you have to deal with is enough. I understand that.” Giving a curt nod, you turned to leave through the door. However, Sans held you back by suddenly reaching out and grabbing your wrist.

You whipped your head around, and stared at his hand. A ghost of a flush crawled across your cheeks, and you glanced back up to the skeleton. His head hung low, feeling hopeless. “kid... i want to be involved.” He whispered, not looking at you. You cocked your gaze sideways in confusion, not understanding what he meant..

“Why? That’s so much more unnecessary drama being placed upon your shoulders-” “i know.” He replied simply, but did not let go. You gulped, and waited for him to continue. “i just… i dunno. it feels… right. in a way.”

She snickered, and shifted her hand so that it held his reassuringly. “That was an excellent and totally not cliche response, your honor.” Sans smiled, picking his skull up to see her cheerful grin.

“someone’s being sassy.” “Someone’s being overprotective.” Sans raised a brow and chuckled. “overprotective?” She nodded, and fold her arms. His hand dropped back to his side,to which he returned to his pocket. “i’m not being overprotective.” “Yes you are.” “how?” (Y/N) smirked, and held out her phone. It was on the contacts list, more specifically (Ex’s Name)’s number. Sans glared at it, not noticing anything wrong.

“‘Dirty Heartbreaker’?” She sneered, sticking out her tongue. Sans squint closely, and snatched the phone from her grasp. “oh...guess the universe has spoken. it’s time for you to delete his number.” She shot out a hand in an attempt to take back the device, but he teleported away to his bedside before she could get even an inch near him.

He snickered, hiding the phone behind his back. There was no point trying to use height as an advantage like he would normally do with Frisk when he teased her; (Y/N) was practically a foot taller than him. She leapt after Sans, towering above his mattress. She gave a playful snarl, and once again tried to take back her phone. She missed, and fell on the bed.

You collapsed haphazardly onto the very soft mattress- the blankets that were once sprawled out underneath you flipping up, hiding your sense of sight. The material smelled just like Sans; a mix between ketchup and heavy cologne. It was pleasant; however, the sensation of being pinned against the bed by the skeleton’s blue magic was not. You struggled to lift the sheet off your face; when you did, you saw the skeleton sneering with such a evil grin that it your concern transformed to fear.

“i told you i’d get revenge earlier when you attacked me with your bombardment of tickles.” He hinted tantalizingly, and your face went pale.

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Chapter Ten (Where all the chapters before that are)

Chapter Twenty (Links for Chapters 11 --> 19)

Chapter Thirty (Links for Chapters 21 --> 29)