#(his drafts are just... harder to work on. Because more deep and elaborate.)

[respondedinkind]

|| Happy sunday, everyone! I apologize for being a bit slow; I shall work on my drafts here as soon as I am able to. ♥ My brain is a bit lazy and many of my drafts are currently just a lot to take, and I want to give them my best so I may take a bit longer for most things. Some things just come easier to me than others.

I hope you all are doing well, and I'm sending you good vibes and positive energy! ♥

[starrybethany]

I’m Sure - Adam Boqvist Imagine Part 1

Word count: 3.3K

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

I heard about Adam before I met him. The guys had hung around my office, claiming they wanted to catch up with me, but I really know it’s just because they want to gossip. Hockey players are like that. We were catching up on how their summers went.

“Hey, did you see who was drafted, Y/N?” Dylan asks, wandering around the small room and staring at various objects.

“Nope,” I pop the ‘p’, scanning over the email recently sent to me. “Who was it?”

“This Swedish kids with sick hands,” Alex gushes.

“Really? Is he gonna be the next Patty Kane?”

“Please, like anyone could be like Showtime,” he scoffs.

Dylan pulled up some videos of his highlights, showing them to me.

I nod in approval. “Looks like hockey.”

They give me unamused looks.

We’ve had this talk plenty of times- they think that since I work at the United Center, I should understand hockey more, I think that since I work for United Center and not for the Blackhawks, it really doesn’t matter.

Adam had spent that season in London with the Knights. I had heard about him sprinkled into conversations here and there but really, I just focused on my work as being the suites advisor and making sure everything went smoothly. It was a great year for bookings, and apparently a great year for him.

Alex tried explaining the kid’s talent to me when we were on a double date with our partners, but I still couldn’t understand hockey that well, so I just smiled and nodded. He let that slip by.

It wasn’t until he was here in Chicago that I got it.

For some reason I had been down at the rink, watching practice take place. He had spent a few weeks with the Hawks- weeks that I had taken off to take care of my boyfriend after his knee surgery- and was sent down to Rockford almost as soon as I had returned.

The boys were really upset that I hadn’t met their new friend, Kirby especially, who was a new addition to our group almost as soon as Dominik introduced him to me.

But then there he was, back on the ice. I squinted my eyes, not remembering a ‘27’ on the team. The last name clicks, and I watch as he flies around on the ice, joking with the guys and passing the puck skillfully.

I got it. I understood then why the boys thought he was so talented and why he was back in the NHL at the mere age of nineteen. He played with confidence and speed, a conscious defenseman- something the boys tell me they’ve been struggling with.

Then I un-got it.

Alex had invited a couple of us over for drinks one night and my boyfriend, as he did often, accompanied me.

“Oh, you guys haven’t met yet,” Alex comments, pouring glasses of wine for all of us. “Y/N, this is Adam, the defenseman we’ve been telling you about. Adam, this is Y/N, she works as a suites advisor for the UC.”

“Nice to meet you,” I reach out, shaking his hand. I thought he was attractive, I won’t lie. From the detailed tattoos to the messy hair, he was just my type. But my boyfriend was sitting right next to me, so that was a line I didn’t want to cross.

It didn’t matter to Adam, though. He winked at me as we shook hands, which I found distasteful, but allowed myself to send him a tight-lipped smile.

“And this is my boyfriend, Steven,” I emphasis, resting my hand on Steven’s thigh.

“Oh yeah,” Alex mutters.

Alex always tended to forget about Steven. In fact, everyone seemed to forget about Steven.

“So, suites’ advisor?” Adam questions, ignoring the man sitting next to me. I could feel my boyfriend freeze up at the clear dismissal.

“Yep.”

“What do you do? Just say hello to all of the rich investors?” By the smirk on his face and the small sip of wine, I can tell the dig is intentional.

He knows there is much more that goes into this job than that, so I don’t know why he’s trying to get under my skin. Especially when we just met.

“Um, no, actually, I schedule who books suites for when, what suites are available, who caters what suite. A lot goes into it, actually,” I send him a fake smile.

His smirk just widens, digging under my skin even more.

Steven and I had left early that night.

~

I ungot it again at the family skate. I’ve never learned how to skate- the guys tried to teach me, but I get frustrated easily so they stopped attempting. I’m stumbling around on the ice by myself, the boys stopping by once and a while to check on me but quickly rushing off to be with their significant others. Steven has work today and we had an argument a few days ago, so I didn’t even bother inviting him to the family skate.

A hard body runs into me from behind, causing me to become unbalanced and hit the boards, catching myself before I fall right onto the ice.

“Ow,” I turn around to glare at the person who pushed me, narrowing my eyes even more when I see the familiar blonde boy and the smirk that he’s always wearing. “What’s your problem, dude?”

“What do you mean?” His accent is thick with his words, making my stomach flutter but the irritation replaces the fluttering quickly.

“You’ve just been rude to me for no reason. What’s up with that?”

He gives me a surprised look, like he didn’t expect me to confront him on it. But I don’t know why he would think that- if you’re going to be a dick, I have a right to call you out on it.

He scoffs quickly, an annoyed expression quickly replacing his surprised one. “You’re overthinking everything.”

I watch as he skates away in annoyance, Kirby replacing his spot next to me.

“You two are close, right?” I question.

He nods.

“Why does he hate me so much?”

He laughs at that and I’m the one who’s shocked now. “Isn’t it obvious? He likes you.”

I give him an unimpressed look. “You’re saying he’s acting like an asshole because he likes me?”

“Hey, I didn’t say it was logical,” he puts his hands up in defense, skating away.

I’ve always thought that was ridiculous. If you like someone, just tell them. And if you don’t, just avoid them. There is no reason that meanness is needed, especially if it’s because you really like that person.

I try to avoid Adam after that.

~

It doesn’t last long. About a week of avoiding him goes by before I find myself out at a bar with him and a few other players. I had just broken up with Steven, discovering that I no longer did my ‘in love’ giggle with him or smiled when I saw his name pop up on my phone.

But just because I fell out of love with him didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt. It hurt. It really hurt. So that’s how I found myself one, two, three, four drinks in at the bar, too drunk to remember what I was saying and too drunk to care about how I might feel the next day.

I went on the dance floor to blow off some steam, swaying along to pop songs and screaming the lyrics.

Arms wind around my waist and I look down at them, spotting a familiar sleeve. I turn around in his arms, careful to not move my hands. I’m worried of what I might do if that happens- even though Steven and I had just broken up, I’ve been touch-deprived for weeks.

“What are you doing, Adam?” I question, leaning closer so that he can hear me.

“You’re single now, right?”

“Yes, but did I give you permission to touch me?” I raise my eyebrows.

He takes a step back with amusement, raising his arms defensively to show me that he’s respecting my boundaries.

Then I can’t help but think: fuck it. After being in a committed relationship for years, why not mess around with some guy I have intense sexual chemistry with? He’s hot, he’s sexy, sure he’s an asshole but I’m sure that confidence would do wonders in bed.

So, I throw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his neck and tangling in his blonde locks as I pull him as close to me as he can get. One of his hands rests on my ass while the other rests on my hip, tugging me closer and closer to him.

He’s staying with Alex and Lyndsey, so we end up at my apartment in my bedroom. And when I wake up in the morning, I don’t regret it.

I regret it when I go to work the next day. He gives me a knowing look every time he passes me in the hall and even Kirby sends me a look or two.

It happens for a couple more days until one day he finds himself in my office with Dylan and Alex Nylander, another young rookie.

I’d been struggling with work all day, people bitching at me on the phone and numbers not adding up so all I really wanted was to finish the last hour of work and go home.

Then Adam gives me a look.

“What’s your problem?” I snap.

He gives me a confused expression, causing me to elaborate. “We slept with each other once and now you think you know so much about me? Do you think you can hold this over my head or something?”

Dylan chokes on his spit and Alex stifles his laughter, Adam flustering with words.

I organize a stack of papers on my desk, not even bothering to make eye contact with any of them. “I think it’s best if you three leave.”

They respect my wishes. An hour later I lock my door with a deep sigh, turning to make my way towards the parking lot. A body pushes me up against my door suddenly, causing me to gasp and dart my eyes up to see who my attacker is.

My eyes meet familiar blue ones and my body relaxes at the sight, then freezes up again when I realize I’m stuck in between his arms.

“You know, I didn’t really like that stunt you pulled earlier,” Adam breathes out, breath fanning over my face. His head leans down and he nibbles at the skin on my neck teasingly.

I hold back a moan at the action. “You didn’t?”

“No,” he bites down a little bit harder, causing me to wince. “I think you’re going to have to be punished for that.”

“You think so?” I whisper out.

“I think so.”

“Then I think we should get started on this now, don’t you think?”

“I agree.”

~

And that’s how I began sleeping with Adam Boqvist. Neither of us are looking for anything serious- I want to live the single life after being in a committed relationship for so long and he wants to enjoy his single, youth years in the great city of Chicago.

Plus, he would be the last person I would date.

He’s cocky, selfish, obnoxious, loud- I could keep going.

But either way, the relationship between us, or whatever you want to call it, isn’t end game. He isn’t the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. He’s not the one I want to raise children with or sit with on rocking chairs on the porch.

He’s just a guy I want to have sex with until I find the right person for me.

So, tell me why I’m sitting in my shitty apartment bathroom with two pregnancy tests sitting on the small basin of the sink.

I crisscross my legs on the toilet, fiddling with my fingers anxiously. They have to be negative. They have to be.

I can’t have a child right now. I want to focus on my career and build my reputation in the field. I don’t want to have a baby just a couple years into starting this job. I can’t afford a baby anyways; Chicago is an insanely expensive city and I can barely afford to live by myself.

Hell, I live in a loft.

Besides, I can’t be connected to Adam for the rest of my life. I can hardly stand the guy as it is.

As the minutes slowly pass by, I convince myself that I’m not actually pregnant. The ache in my ankles and lower back are due to stress from work and the vomiting is because my eating habits haven’t been as consistent as they usually are.

I’m just going to completely ignore the fact that I let Adam have sex with me without a condom while I was off my birth control for a while due to the weird side effects it was giving me.

It’s like I’m watching from outside of my own body as I reach forward, grabbing the sticks and holding one in each hand.

Positive. Positive.

My heartbeat fastens and I can feel my breath getting shallow. I try to focus my breathing, counting to four over and over and it slowly helps.

My eyes open back up as I ground myself and I can’t help but just stare at the sticks, switching between the two. I’m pregnant. I’m having Adam Boqvist’s baby.

~

I really didn’t prepare myself for the next time that I’d see him. I’ve already prepared myself to deal with this on my own- whichever way I decide to do that. I haven’t really decided that yet either.

“Hey,” he grins at me as he enters my office, shutting the door behind him. “I have about ten minutes before Kirby starts to look for me, let’s have a quickie.”

“No, Adam,” I sigh, swallowing the lump in my throat. The words are just begging to come out. I’m pregnant. You’re going to be a dad.

“Why not? Is it because we’re at work? We’ve done it in your office before,” he protests.

I set the pen down next to the pad of paper gently, crossing my hands on the top of the desk and turning to focus him with a serious expression. His mischievous grin fades when he notices that I’m not in the playful or teasing mood that I’m usually in when I see him.

“What’s up?” He questions.

“Adam, I’m pregnant.”

His reaction is not one I expect. His face turns to one of confusion, like he’s genuinely unsure why I would be telling him this.

“Congratulations?” He says it more like a question.

My eyes narrow into a glare at the word. He doesn’t believe that it’s his child. I feel hurt, disrespected, and angry. Who does he think I am, the type of girl who has unprotected sex with everyone who walks?

Not that there’s anything wrong with those girls, more power to them, it’s just- he knows me. We’ve been in each other’s beds most of the time for the past couple of months. I spend practically every night with him, and he has the nerve to doubt paternity?

“It’s yours, idiot.” I can’t help but let that dig slide.

“Well how do you know that?”

“Because if I’m not working, I’m having sex with you,” I say slowly, like I have to spell it out for him.

“Well how do you know it’s not- uh- what’s that guy’s name- Steven’s kid?” Adam inquires, his eyes showing that he’s searching hard for an excuse to not take responsibility.

I scoff, leaning back in my chair. “Whatever, Adam, I don’t care if you believe me. I’m going to figure it out.”

“You better.” And by the way he says it, I know what he wants me to do. I know that he doesn’t want to be a father- although actions do have consequences, there is a reason that abortion and adoption are options.

I can also tell that now he knows for sure that he is the father. And he sure as hell doesn’t want to be the father.

~

I don’t know why I’m so nervous. It’s just scheduling an appointment- I can always cancel or reschedule.

But my finger rests over the call button for a long time, ‘Planned Parenthood’ looking up at me, mocking me, taunting me.

Do you want an abortion or not? Do you want to be a mother or not? Do you want to go through this pregnancy or not?

There are so many questions flashing through my head. Quite frankly, I don’t know what I want to do. I have no one to turn to- as much as I love the team, I don’t want to cause a rift between them and Adam, and I don’t want to think that we’re closer than we actually are.

I cut out my family years ago.

My friends are all party girls, they wouldn’t know the first thing about a baby if it hit them.

Everything is telling me that I shouldn’t do this. I shouldn’t want to raise a baby on my own, I shouldn’t want to be a single mother.

But why do I so desperately yearn for it? Why did I feel joy when I looked at those sticks and why do I get excited at the thought of little footsteps running around on hardwood floors?

I press the call button.

It gets two rings in before I end it, knowing I’ve made my choice despite all odds.

I need to keep this baby. I know Adam won’t be there for me, but he doesn’t need to be. All this baby needs is to feel love and support and it’ll get that from me and me alone. I need to start fresh, though, to make sure that I’m the best mom that I can be.

~

“I can’t believe you quit, just like that,” Alex states with a disappointed tone.

I told the guys I quit because I want a change in scenery. That’s not a lie, I’m excited to be moving to the beautiful state of Colorado to start new. But I also hid the news about the baby. They don’t follow me on social media, so they’ll never know- unless Adam says something to them about it. But I doubt he will.

“We’ll miss you,” Dylan adds.

“I’ll miss you guys too,” I respond, closing the cardboard box containing all of my office supplies. Picture frames, pens, cool knick-knacks. All packed into a box ready to be shipped to the mountain zone.

“Hey Adam, Y/N was just getting ready to say goodbye,” Alex says, making me look up from taping up the box with wide eyes.

Sure enough, the blonde is leaning in the doorway, looking unsure for the first time since I’ve met him. It’s weird to see him so hesitant. It’s not him.

But I also don’t feel bad for him. A real dad would step up and want to be there for their kid. A good dad would do that. But clearly, and unfortunately, I was right. Adam Boqvist is and always will be selfish.

I say my goodbyes to Alex and Dylan, the box in one arm while I lock the office with the other hand.

“You’re really leaving?”

“Let’s just get this over with, Adam,” I start, turning to him. He winces when I look him in the eye, seeing all of the resentment and anger I feel towards him. “I’m keeping the baby. I’m raising the baby on my own. Don’t worry, I won’t put you down on the birth certificate. You’ll never see us again.”

His mouth opens then closes. “Are you sure?”

I scoff at the question, shaking my head in disbelief. I go to push past him. “Oh, trust me, I’m sure.”

[multisfabulis]

Land’s Trust in Light

Arrival in Thornewind (Chapter 1/6)

Word Count: 4090

Oh, look, a new Corona's Shadow entry that doesn't feature Verreth? That's possible?!

I kid but it honestly feels good to not be writing Verreth for CS for a little bit. CS was never meant to be a Verreth love story, it only ended up like that because I went straight into writing "The Road to Forgiveness Be Damned" after finishing "A Single Ray of Light in a Sea of Darkness" because I simply wanted to write more Ven and I started to regret my decision around the time I wrote the rough version of the third chapter. Obviously, I stuck with that decision to the end but it was throughout that time I had wants to write Verreth and I wrote those as well. However, all the Verreth segments are what I consider to be side stories, which I know may be hard to believe but trust me, because Ven and Ferreth are not the main protagonists of CS. Eric, if anyone remembers him, is. The Verreth segments were only added to the CS series because I didn't want to make a whole new series entirely focused on Verreth and take them out of something they are main characters of.

Does this mean I'm done writing Verreth? For now, yes. Outside of occasional updates to "Only Through Acceptance Will Love Find Us", I wanna focus on both this and other smaller projects, like RLD and fanfics. Just in case anyone's lost hope, the next big project is Verreth-related, with Ferreth taking the protag role a la TRFBD. Let's just say we're finally getting a look at his backstory and a reason as to why he has self-worth issues.

God, it feels great to be writing in Eric's POV again. It's been over 2 years since I finished ASRLSD so I am making the most of this!

Surprisingly enough, there wasn't much change during the transition from rough draft to publication, which actually made this harder to write. I'm so used to there being at least one major change that I got tripped up by this. The only major change here is the addition of descriptors and needed elaboration and those, I feel like, are key to "beautifying" writing so I don't count those.

One last thing is the "flirting" present in here. I honestly don't know if that can be considered flirting because I'm not someone who flirts or is flirted with on a daily basis. I'm pretty much the dense harem anime protagonist so please forgive me for the terrible flirting.

Read on AO3 | Read on DA | Support me on Ko-fi!

     Thornewind was gorgeous. Sure, Eric was looking at it from a distance atop Asha, but it made one hell of a good first impression. Thornewind seemed colorful and vibrant and he wanted to explore every last inch of it. He gently kicked Asha’s side and she began walking at a slow, leisurely pace.

     Thornewind was a town nestled in the mountains north of Aurora Zenith. The tiny glimpse he saw of it left him awestruck, from its tall, rich buildings packed closely together to its bright windmills scattered across its many open fields. Then there was the sight that awaited him over the ridge, stealing his breath away.

     There were tulips that stretched as far as the eye could see. A sea of blue, red, orange, pink, and yellow blossoms swayed in the summery breeze. It was strange how all these tulips were in bloom when Augvesta had just rolled around but he didn’t put much thought into it. Botany was more of Ven’s expertise and she would be positively thrilled upon seeing this.

     It was soon after crossing the garden he arrived at the entrance. It surprised him to see how lax security was if they let a complete stranger in without so much as a request for papers. He didn’t mind it, though; it just struck him as odd since no one was allowed entry if they weren’t deemed trustworthy back in his childhood home. He and Asha passed through the threshold and was rendered speechless.

     Towering brick buildings loomed over him while a rainbow of others stood further ahead of him. Paths of smooth stone ran in every direction, the opposite of Aurora Zenith’s dirt roads that swept up dust with enough energy behind it. He could hear the tinkling of wind chimes and the fervor of voices all around him. Thornewind certainly had Brinegarde beat in its lively atmosphere.

     He hopped off Asha, making sure to keep the reins in a firm grip. Her deep brown eyes met his as he slowly put a hand on her face and stroked. She didn’t flinch, which was a good sign of progress.

     “You’re such a good girl, Asha,” he murmured, moving his hand down to stroke her neck. “Let’s find a place for you to rest, hmm?”

     It didn’t take long to find a stable. He led her into one of the empty stalls and fed her a couple sugar cubes as a reward for all the hard work she’d done over the past two weeks. The last thing he did was tell the stableman how to care for her during her stay and that he’d be checking up on her daily. Waving goodbye to Asha, it was time to explore Thornewind.

     With it being mid-afternoon, it was pleasantly warm as people crowded the streets on their day-to-day routine. The sound of the wind chimes grew louder and the scent of delicious meals made his mouth water in anticipation. Thank god his anxiety wasn’t ruining this for him. He could hardly contain the bounce in his step as he excitedly toured around the busy thoroughfares. It was rare for him to see and visit new places so he wanted to make the most of this trip.

     There were two things he noticed. First was that most of the people he saw weren’t humans nor were they elves. Their ears were similar to Ven’s and they had what seemed to be like fangs sticking out from their upper lips. What really threw him off, though, were their sizes. Many of them were easily a foot or so taller than him just from a distance and were definitely well-built. Whatever these people were, they’ve caught his eye and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t enticed.

     Then there were the stares. He initially thought they were wondering what a human was doing here till he realized it was what he wore. It wasn’t like he was wearing an extravagant suit but he still clearly looked like a noble, or so he assumed. He wasn’t trying to show people up. He was just taught to always dress his best for important events and he considered his reason for being here to be one such.

     Now came the realization he was lost. He had become so engrossed in his surroundings, an hour flew by without him noticing. He needed to find the lord of this town and talk with them about the relationship between them and Aurora Zenith. Allies were essential in political affairs, after all. The bad part was, he had no idea on where to start looking.

     Well, as much as he hated to, he had to ask someone for directions. It couldn’t be that hard, right? All he’d have to do is go up to a random person, ask them on how to get to the lord’s house, and that’d be it. Simple and easy!

     He felt a hand touch his shoulder and heard a voice ask, “Hey, are you okay?”

     He let out a startled shriek and turned to face the stranger. There was a man in front of him with his hands up in a conciliatory manner towards him. One of the first things he noticed was just how big he was.

     He’d never seen anyone taller than Alek before and it honestly unnerved him. The man had the same pointed ears and fangs as everyone else so he must’ve been one of the not-human, not-elf people. He had dark brown skin, messy brown hair with a small braid that reached his shoulders, and bright green eyes. What was really peculiar about him were the bandages starting from the middle of his arms and ending all the way down to his fingertips. He was definitely hiding something underneath those but Eric could care less about what right now.

     “Hey, hey, hey, calm down, okay?” the man said in a soothing tone. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

     “I would hope not!” Eric breathed in, placed a hand on his chest, and breathed out. “It’s not every day some random stranger walks up, claps a hand on my shoulder, and asks if I’m okay right in my ear.”

     “Well, you seemed troubled so I thought you might’ve needed help,” the man replied, putting his hands down.

     Feeling rather embarrassed with himself for that pathetic display, he cleared his throat and asked, “As a matter of fact, I do. Could you please tell me where the lord of this town is, I need to speak with them right away.”

     “You wanna talk to Bris?”

     “If that’s their name, then yes. I have some important business to discuss with them.”

     “He’s not far from here, I can take you to him if you want.”

     That would probably be the best course of action. He was never good at memorizing directions and reciting them to himself only confused him more. He had no one to blame but himself for being in this situation to begin with so…

     “Sure, that’d be great,” Eric conceded. At least this guy was kind and generous enough to show him the way there.

     “All right, let’s make our way over there.” The two men began walking down a street that wasn’t as busy as before. “By the way, my name’s Ferreth.”

     “I’m Eric, it’s nice to meet you,” he said, flashing him a friendly smile.

     “So what brings someone like you to our fair town of Thornewind?” Ferreth asked. “I thought I’d recognized all our visitors since those don’t come by very often.”

     “It’s as I said. I’ve traveled a long way to see Bris in the hopes of discussing important business with him.”

     “What kind of business? Are you an important person?”

     “I’d say being lord counts as pretty important. I’ve come all the way from Aurora Zenith to see if our two towns could potentially become allies.”

     “Oh, wow. I, uh, didn’t think someone as cute as you could be lord.”

     He tilted his head in both curiosity and confusion. “I don’t see what my appearance has to do with anything but I can assure you I wasn’t lying.”

     “I didn’t think you were. I just wasn’t expecting a man in your position to be so…good-looking.”

     “So what were you expecting?”

     “You know, somebody the complete opposite. I mean, I’m figuring you’re, like, smart, charismatic, kind, and everything else Bris is like.”

     Ah, that’s what was happening here. He had an inkling of it the first time Ferreth mentioned his appearance but now he was sure. Alek had never done it with him and there wasn’t really a need for him to. As flattered as he was by it, his heart was and always will be Alek’s.

     Chuckling, he said, “Well, I think my boyfriend would agree with you on some of those things but I’m more modest about them.”

     “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Ferreth had a defeated smile on his face, gracefully accepting his loss. Eric liked how easygoing he was.

     “So what’s your relationship with Bris like?” he asked.

     “Oh, me and him are best friends. We’ve known each other since childhood but I’d say we’re more like brothers than friends by this point.”

     “Sounds like you get along with him really well.”

     “Don’t get me wrong, Bris and I have had our fair share of arguments but what friendship hasn’t? We have each others’ backs and no fight’s ever gonna change that.”

     Ferreth had a certain fondness in his voice when he spoke about Bris. It was easy to see the love and devotion he held for Bris and it warmed Eric’s heart. He was admittedly envious of their friendship. He never had any friends as a child aside from Alek and, while Alek’s irreplaceable, he wished he was able to make some back then. At least that seemed to be changing with him befriending Ven during his trip to Brinegarde so maybe he still had a chance to form everlasting relationships.

     “Here we are!”

     The two stopped before a giant windmill. Dark red brick made up the exterior and the blades turned gently in the breeze, creaking ever so slightly. There were hardly any windows aside from the two in front and there was a wraparound balcony set up just below the wooden roof. Eric didn’t know windmills could be habitable, which made him want to live here if only a little.

     “Wow…”

     “Let’s go on up, shall we?”

     They climbed up the stone steps leading to the front door. It was a tall, dark wooden door stretching up towards the wraparound balcony, with a black, wrought iron ring on the side as its knocker. Before he could think of a script in his head, Ferreth grabbed the ring and hit it against the door a few times.

     Almost immediately after, a woman answered. She wasn’t much taller than him, though he figured the top of his head would be just scraping her chin, and the slim blue dress she wore did little to hide her defined muscles. She had porcelain skin, long, wavy rose pink hair flowing down to her waist, and sandy brown eyes, reminding him of the shores of Aurora Zenith’s beaches. She was stunningly beautiful and his throat felt suddenly dry.

     “Ah, Ferreth, are you here to see Master Brirsyrun today?” she asked. Her voice sounded soft and airy like a lovely breeze.

     “Hey, Aissyl, I’m actually here because my new friend wanted to speak with Bris regarding some important matters, right?” Ferreth put a hand squarely on Eric’s back and pushed him forward slightly.

     “Oh, uh, yes!” he spoke quickly. “My name is Eric Travere and I’m the lord of Aurora Zenith. I’m here today because I needed to talk to Brirsyrun about improving the relationship between our two towns.”

     “I see. I shall ask Master Brirsyrun if he’ll see you now, please wait a moment.” She closed the door.

     That could have gone a little better, he thought as he released a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding in. He heard Ferreth trying to stifle a laugh from beside him and promptly wanted to die. Guess he wasn’t the only one she had that effect on, if this has happened before.

     “She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Ferreth asked, pretending like he didn’t know the answer.

     “Yes, well, I can’t deny that she’s quite beautiful,” he replied, clearing his throat. “Have you tried anything with her?”

     “When I first met her, yeah, and she swiftly turned me down.” He clicked his tongue, as if remembering the memory wasn’t pleasant. “Let’s just say she’s not interested in men like us. Or any man, really.”

     Before he could say any more, the woman known as Aissyl opened the door and invited them inside. The room he entered seemed to be what he’d liken to a waiting room or lounge. What little of the walls he saw that weren’t decorated in exquisite murals were painted a warm honey color. There were a couple of cushioned chairs sitting by the small window and a low table set in front of them. He didn’t have time to check out much more before Aissyl led them through an arched threshold into another room he presumed to be Bris’ office.

     It wasn’t terribly big but it worked fine for its purpose. Unlike the lounge, the walls were a cerulean blue, similar to the sky at dawn before the sunrise. There were tall bookcases standing on one side of the room and a spiral staircase leading up to the second floor on the other. A leather chair sat behind a pine desk atop a nondescript forest green rug. He figured the unusual empty space in front of the desk was for additional chairs if they had guests over. They must not get many of them if they hadn’t gotten a chair specifically for this room. A man was sitting at the desk when he looked up and Eric believed him to be Bris.

     The first thing he noticed was the cream-colored scarf worn around his neck, which he found odd since it was late summer. He looked to have a lean yet muscled body and, when he stood up, seemed to be just shy of Aissyl’s height. He had sun-kissed skin, cropped blond hair, and cloudy gray eyes. A smile broke out across his face upon seeing Ferreth and he walked around his desk.

     “Hey, I was wondering when I’d see you,” said Bris.

     “Well, I was planning on coming by here anyway but my new friend here--” Ferreth wrapped an arm around Eric’s shoulders, making him jump slightly-- “needed help finding you so why not save a trip?”

     “Right.” Bris walked up and offered a hand. “I’m Brirsyrun, son of Nulzrot and Tallo of the air.”

     That was a…unique way of introducing himself, he thought curiously as he put his hand in Bris’ and said, “I’m Eric Travere, lord of Aurora Zenith.”

     “Aissyl said you had some important matters to discuss?”

     “Yes, well, I wanted to talk with you regarding the relationship between Thornewind and Aurora Zenith.” He took a step forward, shrugging off Ferreth’s arm. “You see, I’m planning on going to the rest of the major cities and asking them for their cooperation. In simpler terms, I’m in want of allies. I already have the town of Brinegarde as one so Thornewind’s my second stop.”

     “I see. Well, I’d like to talk more of this tomorrow morning because I have some things that need attending to today. Will that be all right with you?”

     “No, that’s good, that’s great! I’ll be here tomorrow morning.”

     Wow, a guaranteed meeting? No waiting for someone because they were fooling around instead of doing work in their office? This trip was already leagues better than Brinegarde’s and it was all due to Bris being a responsible adult. That pompous jackass Lianthorne could take some pointers.

     “I think, with that being settled, we’re done here.” Bris gestured towards Ferreth. “Ferr, could you show Eric to the Dravitae Inn so he’ll have a place to stay during his time here?”

     “Of course, my lord,” Ferreth replied with a joking smile.

     “Don’t call me that, even if it’s a joke,” Bris protested, despite his own grin.

     Aissyl led the two men outside with Bris following behind. Eric and Ferreth gave a short wave goodbye and they were off. He made sure to remember any and all distinctive markers on the roads as they walked. He didn’t want to be late for the meeting tomorrow because he was lost again.

     “So, how was your first impression of Bris?” Ferreth asked, folding his hands behind his head. “Pretty nice guy, right?”

     “Yeah, he seems like a really decent person--” he let out a chuckle before sighing wearily-- “which is a lot more than I can say about Brinegarde’s lord.”

     “I’m guessing they weren’t as nice.”

     “God, you would not believe. They’re probably the most arrogant and pretentious asshole I’ve ever met.”

     “At least Bris isn’t like that, thankfully.”

     “Yeah, thank god.”

     Despite his complaining of it, he didn’t regret his trip to Brinegarde. It was a beautiful town, like many other coastal towns, and the sweets were to die for. Meeting and becoming friends with Ven, however, was easily the best part of that trip. No beauty or tasty treats will come close to the joy having her in his life brought. She was Brinegarde’s saving grace.

     “You know, I’m curious…” He put a finger to his chin as if thinking about something before continuing. “What do you do around here, Ferreth? It must be a job that gives you a lot of free time if you’re allowed to cart me around all day.”

     “Oh, I guess I’m what you’d call a handyman,” Ferreth replied. “I do general repairs wherever they’re needed and I basically do work people don’t wanna do themselves.”

     “So it’s like you’re an errand boy, then?”

     “I’d say handyman’s an upgrade from that but yeah. It may not be the most ideal job but it lets me help people and it doesn’t pay so bad, either.”

     “No offense and all but…isn’t there something you’d rather be doing than being a handyman? I mean, I guess I don’t really understand it but still… Do you have something to aspire to?”

     He swore he saw him tense up and a glimmer of something he couldn’t quite detect before it disappeared as he answered with, “Not really.”

     That was most definitely a lie. He couldn’t figure out why Ferreth would lie to him over an innocent question like that but it was none of his business. There might’ve been more going on underneath the surface and they had only just met earlier today. No sane person tells a complete stranger their entire life story hours after meeting them. He was entitled to his secrets, as was he.

     It was soon after they arrived at the Dravitae Inn. It was a simple four-story building, with pale green walls, a dark red shingled roof, a pair of large double doors serving as the entrance, and windows on either side that allowed passersby a peek inside the establishment. On the corner was a hanging metal sign that had the name of the inn inscribed on it with a sleeping dragon below. It seemed like a good enough place to stay in during his visit.

     “Here we are.” Ferreth turned towards him. “You gonna need help getting to Bris’ tomorrow?”

     “No, I should be good. Besides--” he placed a finger to his temple-- “I have a pretty good memory so I think I have the path there memorized.”

     “All right, well, good luck tomorrow,” he said, gesturing his hand in a motion reminiscent of a salute. “Enjoy the rest of your stay.”

     He began walking back the way they came. Eric watched his figure shrink smaller and smaller before he was out of sight completely. He hoped he’d have a chance to talk with him more throughout his stay here in Thornewind. He had questions he wanted answers to, such as the nature of the people here and what he was like. For now, though, it was time to check in.

     A quick chat with the innkeeper later and he had his room. It was slightly smaller than his room back at home but it brought some comfort. A queen-sized bed sat on the right side of the room and an average cupboard opposite it. The armoire was tucked away into the upper left-hand corner while a small table and chairs were in the upper right-hand corner. A single window was set at the back, which gave him a decent view of Thornewind in the late afternoon.

     He set his bag and key down on the table before flopping onto the bed. God, he wanted nothing more than to lay there for a minute or hour. He still wasn’t used to walking and talking by himself so he was thankful for the short rest. Hey, maybe by the time he goes to Emberranth, he’ll have the skills of a functioning human being and not that of an introverted shut-in.

     He sat up, reached into his pocket, and took out his pendant. The crystal inside the bottle glinted slightly upon being held up to the light. He smiled as he brought it close to his chest, hoping his mother was watching over him.

     Tomorrow was his meeting with Bris. Other than that, he had a few days to spend time doing whatever he wanted. Sightseeing, buying souvenirs, trying out Thornewind’s cuisine, he may as well treat himself as a tourist more than a visitor. He never got to do these things before now so he wanted to make the most of it.

     May he leave Thornewind with an unforgettable experience.

[messedupessy]

omg ok im sorry i was meant to send you an ask earlier but lkjhjk - pls can we have some headcanons of your swapfell bois?? if you havent talked about them already!

Finny, finny my sweet lovely friend there is no need to apologize! There is never a need to feel bad for not sending me asks when I ask for them it’s ok my dude fkjnjerkegkj I am just really needy at times gjekgnke xD ❤❤ but bless yeess here’s some various headcanons/facts about my swapfell bros yo, prolly will just do the one’s you suggested tho because they are all good! 

Also sorry for taking so long this kind of got lost deep in my drafts gekjgnkej

And also WARNING for maybe some minor triggering stuff, because my Rus boy is trash and just a disaster of a skeleton boi 

Sleeping habits:

Scratch: 

He sleeps pretty well actually, he got a set schedule when he tries to go to sleep and when he should get up, getting into bed is easy, falling asleep a bit harder but he most of the time succeeds in falling asleep quickly, waking up is another story.

He is so not a morning person, and have destroyed countless of alarm clocks in his life which annoys him to no end, as he wants to get up but mornings are just bad for him, and his mama have to get up and kick him out of bed almost every morning. 

But overall so do he have pretty good sleeping habits, for the most part there are nights when sleeping is avoiding him af, especially when he is distressed over things, but overall so do he sleep pretty well. 

Rus:

He rarely sleeps, he usually stays up at days on end and only falls asleep by pure exhaustion for like 2 hours before getting up again, he just can’t stay asleep for longer than that, it’s a miracle he hasn’t dusted since it’s been like that for most of his life.  

But he can’t really help it, since he is haunted by constant night terrors and nightmares, he also usually sits up while sleeping as well, so yeah his sleeping habits are shit and he haven’t gotten a proper nights sleep for many, many years, but he do get better after post pacifist but it will probably always be pretty bad.  

Fave food:

Scratch:

I am really bad at saying specifics when it comes to these things, but Scratch do have a massive sweet tooth, which he denies he have, so foods that are very sweet would be his go to. 

He is pretty picky what he likes to eat though, but he have a habit of forcing himself to eat things he don’t like anyway because he can’t appear to be weak or a coward, and he got to eat his greens even though he isn’t big on them at all.

Except for cooked carrots, those he likes allot. 

Rus:

This trash of a man is a literal trash can, he pretty much eats anything and everything he doesn’t care, he pretty much got no tastebuds so anything goes for him, he do like to eat like really bad combinations like raw ravioli with BBQ sauce and mayo, have also eaten rotten food because food is food and he is just trash. 

But he do prefer fast food like burgers, pizza, fries etc all that extremely unhealthy stuff, the weirder the better, he probably would love eating surströmming that whole rotten fish thing we got here in Sweden, horrible af of him. So he don’t really have a fave food. 

Fave hobbies:

Scratch:

He likes to make elaborate plans, making diagrams and stuff, and while his plans are usually very thought out so do they way too often fail thanks to himself getting too worked up and anxious about things. But one of his other hobbies is crafting, he is really good at making cosplay which his armor kind of is it’s like made with worbla and other cosplay materials, not real armor but sure do look like it. 

Also a big fan of gothic lolita and other such fancy more cute looking clothes, and cute stuff overall, though this is also something he will be denying that he likes. He also likes so sit and research various things as he has a serious need to be knowledgable about all the things even when he doesn’t understand or like it, which is why he has a habit of using old and complex insults. 

Rus: 

Been trash and ruin his life. No? That’s not a hobby? Ok then pft. 

But joking aside Rus’s hobbies that aren’t of the extreme self-destructive variety so do he enjoy picking apart various machinery and then put them back together. 

He also enjoys listening to asmr and various hard metal etc songs, the more growling in them the better.  

[letterboxd]

More Foghorn: The Robert Eggers Q&A.

“I wanted to be able to laugh at misery.” —The Lighthouse director Robert Eggers answers your questions and ours about what he’s wearing on Hallowe’en, being cool with memes, and paying homage to Mary Poppins.

The Lighthouse, out now in select US cinemas and opening nationwide this weekend, is the follow-up to Robert Eggers’ feature debut The Witch, one of our highest-rated films of 2016 and the third highest-rated horror of that year.

Similarly, The Lighthouse is firmly in our top ten narrative features of 2019 and is absolutely tearing up the Letterboxd reviews section with reactions like “Eggers holds nothing back in this film. He takes things far past okay and doesn’t apologize for any of it,” (Logan) and “If a bearded, bulging-eyed Willem Dafoe talking like a pirate for one hundred and ten minutes, shot on high-contrast orthochromatically filtered high-resolution black-and-white celluloid that brings out every follicle and pore doesn’t deserve five stars, I simply don’t know what does” (Jonathan).

The film’s success lies in a combination of obsessively detailed production design, singular technical choices (“a black-and-white movie in a stupid aspect ratio”, as Eggers told Filmmaker magazine), the superb acting partnership of Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as lighthouse keepers on a far-flung rock, a borderline-ridiculous amount of foghorn in the soundtrack, and—in spite of the characters’ miserable circumstances—a hysterically funny script.

When we spoke to Eggers’ brother and co-writer Max at TIFF, he told us that the writing partnership was “a perfect fit; we trust each other, and I think that’s the big thing about writing teams is you gotta trust each other”. Their brotherly relationship naturally enabled the film’s dialogue to head into comedic territory, even as the story itself descends into hallucinatory horror. “Comedy is about that. You’ve gotta be able to be honest and trust yourselves. We didn’t know how it was going to play but, thankfully, I think the fart jokes work.”

Not only do the fart jokes work; the poetically trippy 1890s dialogue became instantly meme-able. It was no surprise, then, that when we invited the Letterboxd community to contribute questions for this interview, many of them dwelled on the script. But first, with Hallowe’en fast-approaching, we needed to know what Eggers had planned.

A24 has put out a helpful guide for those who want to do Hallowe’en as a 19th-century lighthouse keeper. You’re in the middle of The Lighthouse promo tour, but have you managed to plan yours? Robert Eggers: Hallowe’en was my favorite holiday growing up and I made many elaborate costumes, but now that I’m doing this, I will agree with Marilyn Manson where he says: “Hallowe’en is my day off”. It’s time for everyone else to catch up!

At TIFF, we spoke with your co-writer and brother Max about your collaboration. Letterboxd members Kevin and MrRabbit7 are interested in what the writing process was like with Max. Does that relationship allow more of an ‘anything goes’ approach? I know my brother, so it’s easy for us to write together. My movie that was leaked in the trades a couple days ago [The Northman] I also wrote with another writer. I’m finding, as much as I like writing scripts on my own, it’s fun to collaborate. It’s actually joyful to pass the drafts back and forth and see how you’re lifting each other’s work up.

We had many questions (including from John, Austin and Tyler) about The Lighthouse’s dialect and vernacular. Can you tell us about the work you did in constructing dialogue in unfamiliar languages, including the sources you consulted? It’s a lot of research and there is some quoting the sources directly. There’s much more of that in The Witch, where sentences remain intact. There’s very few intact sentences from the research in this film. There’s certainly many turns-of-phrase. When I’m looking at my primary source material from the period, I’m writing down vocabulary words in my own thesaurus that I can turn to.

I tend not to write in modern English and then translate the dialect. I try to write in the dialect even as I’m learning to do it, so the thesaurus is organized more [as] moods and ideas. I’m washing my eyes with words and hoping something turns up that works as I’m moving forward. You’re studying the sentence structure and trying to find the rules.

Thankfully with The Witch, because it was written in early modern English, which was a golden age of English writing, there were plenty of books available to teach me what the rules were. In studying the various Puritans, I could find how different people broke the rules and did things their own way. With this film it was much harder to find that, but eventually my brother came across the work of Sarah Orne Jewett. She was writing in coastal Maine dialect, interviewing working people to get their dialect. My wife found a thesis written by Evelyn Starr Cutler where she provided rules for different dialects—where are ‘r’s omitted and where are ‘r’s added, so on and so forth—so we could create consistent dialects for both characters.

“Why’d ya spill yer beans?” “Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?” Everyone—even A24’s marketing team—has taken to the film with meme-able gusto (exhibit A: these goofy Lighthouse emoji). How does it feel to have your deeply researched script torn apart in this affectionate, ironic way by internet culture? Does it make you hesitate in your approach to writing and directing these types of lines? (This question brought to you by those who quoted those infamous questions in response to this AMA.) No, it’s cool with me. The Lighthouse was designed to be a black comedy and not just have moments of black comedy. The Witch takes itself very seriously, but I think that there’s something kind of film student-y about how serious it takes itself. I’m glad that people can make PlayMobil and Lego playsets as jokes. You need to be irreverent, and with The Lighthouse I was exploring misery again but I wanted to be able to laugh at misery. Werner Herzog talked about it like, you’re on the floor laughing, you know?

You and your brother both have deep roots in theater. After listening to your A24 podcast with brother-in-arms and Midsommar director Ari Aster, Solly F wants to know which playwrights you look up to, and who was particularly useful in your approach to The Lighthouse? I like Shakespeare [laughs]. I don’t know if he was particularly helpful for this, but he’s pretty good! Clearly [Harold] Pinter, Sam Shepard, and evoking the name [Samuel] Beckett is almost worse than evoking the name Shakespeare, but you know, they’re good at what they do, and for this two-hander about identity it was impossible not to think of those playwrights.

Many members are curious about the films that inspire you and, more specifically, your most influential Ingmar Bergman films. So, which Bergman were you looking at for The Lighthouse? Also, Evan McKenzie dares to ask, “Given the chance, which Bergman film should you like to remake?” Well, I would not remake a Bergman movie because that’s just insanity! Even though I dared to talk about remaking Nosferatu—which also probably does not need to be done—so I guess, yes, I am insane. Fair enough question. Obviously Persona and any of his chamber dramas would be the ones I would be thinking about here.

There’s a shot where Willem is knitting and Rob is smoking in the foreground, which Jarin [Blaschke, The Witch and The Lighthouse’s director of photography] and I referred to fondly as our Hour of the Wolf shot. Of course we’re using a much wider lens than Bergman ever would have done and had a different approach to lighting than he did, so it doesn’t seem all that Bergman-esque in the end, even though it was our homage.

Youssef asks: which foreign-language films are your favorites, or provided you an entry point into the non-English language arthouse? The arthouse films that I saw in high school were ones that just happened to be in my local video store. Only one of them is foreign language, The City of Lost Children, but that, Eraserhead, and Brazil were three movies that I can think of that made me ask: “Oh you can do that? Wow!” Julie Taymor’s Titus also was another film from high school that made me realize that there was something other than—and not to speak disparagingly—Spielberg and Tim Burton and whatever was more easy to see in rural New Hampshire cinemas.

Robert Pattinson and Robert Eggers on the set of ‘The Lighthouse’. / Photo: Chris Reardon

The Lighthouse has an ambiguity that has led to many of our members questioning its genre. Even Ari Aster wasn’t sure when he mentioned the film in his Q&A, and you’ve referred to it as a black comedy here. But we have to ask, for the sake of our community’s sanity: is The Lighthouse a horror movie? I don’t see it as a horror movie. But I’ve definitely spoken to people who get my intentions that think it is. So maybe? I don’t care what people call it.

It’ll probably make our top horror lists, if that’s okay. That’s fine.

Let’s not tease too many hypotheticals, since this question is based only on your two-feature output so far, but there is significant interest in whether you’ll branch out into other genres, specifically sci-fi, and other time periods, specifically the future. Well again, pointing to the leaked Viking movie, that ain’t a horror movie. And I’ve written other movies that aren’t horror movies. It’s just The Witch and everything that I’ve actually gotten made so far have been horror or horror adjacent. That’s just how it’s been—fine, happy about it.

Never say never because I am interested in sci-fi. I feel like generally when people are trying to ask big questions and challenge current philosophies, to look at things that are bigger than ourselves today, it’s always done with sci-fi. So for me, I’m enjoying doing that kind of stuff in the past just because that’s not how people often use historical movies today.

Writer-director Robert Eggers.

We love asking filmmakers this and Filbert wants to know: what are your go-to comfort films? The movies you’ve seen the most? Anything that could surprise us? The Big Lebowski I’ve watched a lot. We have a little bit of a nod to it in The Lighthouse when [Pattinson] throws their shit off the cliff and it hits him in the face. It’s pretty damn close to the ashes of Steve Buscemi. I think it’s not going to surprise anyone that I’ve seen The Shining a zillion times. I’ve seen Mary Poppins a lot, and we have a little nod to it with our weather-vane shot.

By the way, when I’m writing it I’m not thinking ‘this is the Big Lebowski scene’ or ‘this is the Mary Poppins scene’. I’m just kind of writing and you say, “well, I know where that came from.”

Finally, the 2010s are drawing to a close and many of us, including Max and John, would like to know: what are your essential films of the decade? I’d have to think about it more, but recently I thought Trey Edward Shults’ Waves is great, Hereditary is great, Parasite’s great… I’m sorry, I haven’t seen Parasite [laughs]. That’s a microaggression, I meant to say Burning is great. Anything by Ciro Guerra [director of Embrace of the Serpent and co-director of Birds of Passage] is great. Yeah, there’s a few.

‘The Lighthouse’ is in US cinemas now. All images courtesy of A24.

[space-unicorn-dot]

7 Facts About Izzy + 1 About her Soul Steed

@daine-s-adventures tagged me to do this 8 facts about thing that I know nothing about beyond what was posted, so random 8 facts about my SSO character, here we come! Well, 7. And the last one relates more to Copper because I couldn’t think of another one for Izzy.

1. She was raised by her single father and paternal grandparents.

I know I’ve mentioned her father before in the majority of things I’ve written regarding her history because they were very close, but to restate and elaborate, Izzy was raised by her father and her grandparents, on his side of the family, and they all lived on a ranch in SW Florida where they raised, bred, and trained mostly American Quarters and Paints. Her father is a rider and trainer of some renown that has traveled the country to show at the national level and to do clinics on the family’s way of working with horses. Her mother’s relationship with her father was relatively short-lived; she liked him and he liked her, but, ultimately, their passions were just too different, so she moved on, and wasn’t quite prepared to be a mother. Thus, the tight-as-glue relationship between her and her father, Remy, was born. She writes regular letters home to him to keep him posted on her Jorvegian adventures, though they’re grown a bit more few and far between in pressing times, and she’s done her best to shield him from the reality of the events she has found herself in... Though it’s getting harder to pretend like she’s just been leading a normal, horse-oriented life considering so many of her adventures are of the more magical and mysterious type.

2. She wears her heart on her sleeve, but romance is a bit complicated to her.

Maybe it sounds a little cliche or dramatic to say just about everything changed when Izzy moved to Jorvik to experience the island’s connection and way with horses, and possibly to attend the riding academy, but it pretty much did. Magical adventures aside, she also wound up with feelings for one particular circus master. And Izzy’s the kind of person that wears her heart on her sleeve and looks for the best in people, especially people she cares about. And he was charming and she ended up spending a lot of time around him after initially helping set up his circus. Some of it struck her as odd, but she was also being pulled into the middle of a centuries old battle between good and evil, so a lot seemed odd. Maybe part of her problem now is that she’s never exactly been in a relationship, so, for a while, she wasn’t sure how to or if she even wanted to label her relationship with Ydris. And now she’s torn between what everyone else is calling the inevitable (insert, curse your inevitable but hurtful betrayal meme here) and a deep sympathy for someone who’s cause is just, even if his methods are far from what everyone would prefer. For someone in their first relationship, she certainly had to go and fall in love with a right complicated bastard, didn’t she? Oops. >.>

3. She probably gets along best with Linda.

I imagine Linda as perhaps the most understanding and in-tune with Izzy’s position and feelings about things of the three Soul Riders we currently have met. Lisa’s anger over Anne stung more than Izzy would like to admit, and she doesn’t quite feel her to be completely approachable for it. Alex, on the other hand, is approachable and amicable as well, but Linda and Izzy share a passion and fascination for reading and learning about their adventures and the island. Meteor’s also pretty humorous, too.

4. The Druids, on the other hand? O o f. Except Evergray.

The longer she has been on Jorvik, the more her faith in trusting the Druids has been tested. She’s seen her fellow Soul Riders struggle with it, too, and, considering everything, she’s not sure she likes how little they tell sometimes. While she’s not quite sure how her feelings are working out about Ydris, his point of view certainly didn’t help her trust, and Evergray’s been to Pandoria, too. She sees him as far more open-minded about things and trusts his judgement, whereas she’s feeling more and more that the Druids are maybe a bit too stuck in their ways. She’s experienced frustration with the figuratively closed doors in her face, the lack of answer, and still being treated like she doesn’t know enough. But the problem is she doesn’t, and no one is helping her with that on this side.

But her and Evergray clicked quickly. He’s perhaps the only one with a solid relation to the Druids that she really trusts. And he’d be a damn cool uncle to have, no lie. Uncle Everett can visit her anytime.

5. She wants needs to save Pandoria.

Circling back to her deep sympathy and bleeding heart, Ydris’s story has given her an undying need to find a way to save both Jorvik and Pandoria, and that plays a role in how frustrated she is now with the Druids. To her, there has to be a way, if only the Druids would look past the narrow thought that Pandoria is dangerous and something to be feared. Fear clouds judgement, and she happens to believe now more than ever that the Druids suffer from a decent amount of skewed judgement. She can’t quite understand why she feels so strongly about it internally - the idea that they might not be able to do both even brings up some anger and rage for the unjustice of it, but some pieces of the “goddess reincarnate” puzzle may or may not be clicking into place somewhere in her mind’s subconscious.

6. I don’t necessarily think she’ll have Pandoric scars. But “tattoos.”

But she will have something. Since it’s highly likely, and basically all but confirmed in my head, that she’s the reincarnation of Aideen, I think that power will override the effects of Pandoria on an otherwise human body. But I think it would be cool if, when she tapped into her full potential and powers, she had something like the Will Tattoos form like in the Fable franchise, only in runic designs and Pandoric pink in color. In Fable, they’re basically glowing, scar-like features that glow and appear stronger the more you use Will (which is the magic in the game) and they look like this (x) (the blue glowy stuff). They fade over time if you use less Will, and can eventually disappear, but I think in Izzy’s case, they’d remain as faint lines, almost like scars, but more “tattoo”-esque in nature. I’ve felt for a long time that Goddess!Izzy fully awakened would be massively pissed that her beautiful island and horses are under such great threat, that her Soul Riders have been so thoroughly tested and battle-worn, that Pandoria is suffering... And she’d totally fucking wear pink war paint and you can’t change my mind.

7. On that note, she is capable of Soul Rider powers, but also more Pandoric-style magic.

She can use healing abilities of the Star Circle, foresee things like the Moon Circle, travel to and survive Pandoria in a way akin to powers of the Sun Circle, and use offensive attacks like those of the Lightning Circle, but I also imagine her maybe more as a traditional spell slinger, without the need for incantation or wand or rune stick - capable of the more unknown Pandorian magic style that I’m pretty sure at this point fuels a lot of the power and magic of Jorvik. But, since I’m starting to see Aideen as maybe one of these mysterious Pandoric figures like Fripp and Ydris, she can naturally tap into this potential, if any of that makes any sense? xD

She can kick ass and take names at the height of her power, is basically what you need to know. But, of course, since the Druids have been so damn tight-lipped, she’s got a ways to go before she’s understood and realized all of this potential hiding away in her.

8. SPOILER IF YOU HAVEN’T FINISHED THE NIGHTDUST STORYLINE. But Copperflame doesn’t change colors, necessarily, like a Jorvik Wild Horse...

Or Nightdust. While my first reaction to Nightdust’s new look post the quests, I think what I’d really imagine for Copper is “Will Tattoos” for him, too, mimicking the kind of runic designs on the statues in Guardian’s Dale, and a sort of glowing aura like Concorde has in SSL 3, with a Pandoric pink glow to his eyes, his wings, and maybe glowing hooves. Maybe this is simply because I have no idea what color he should change into if they did something like Nightdust’s coat because even though gold is what we traditionally associate with Aideen, I don’t think Copper should be gold. But, I mean, I’m also imagining him rn as a big, fluffy painted draft cross, soooo... I would be happy with some glowing eyes and updated, more permanent/usable wings. xD @SSO, pls let me have a draft build for my starter pon? Can you imagine how cool? How more customizable it would be if we could choose a build type for our starter on top of more customization of their coats? Skreeee???

It’d require a lot of work, obvs, that whole ordeal, but it’d make for some really snazzy cutscene moments and cool game play akin to the excitement of rescuing Justin and figuring out we could fly. Just sayin’.

[planetsam]

pretty please with a cherry on top: a mileven fic (maybe aged up a little but) where some boy hits on el and mike goes into jealous but also protective boyfriend mode pls

“What was that?!”

Mike turns as El stares him down, air rushing through him at the furious look on her face. She’s mad at him and he feels like he’s waking up from a dream. He’s not afraid of her abilities, hasn’t been for a long long time but he’s afraid of the look on her face. He opens his mouth to explain but El jumps on it before he can.

“I said I was handling!”

Mike winces, not because of the tone but because of the missing word. Great bouts of emotion reduce her speech, this is no exception. But the emotion isn’t from the Neanderthal off a jock who touched uhh her knee during class, no, it’s from him cornering the guy and telling him to keep his hands off his girlfriend. If things were bad before, they’re worse now. He hates upsetting her.

“I know,” he says, looking down only to have her turn their height difference on him as she stares up at him.

“No, you forget, I said I was handling it. You’ll get hurt!”

“Hey!” He objects. He might not be telekinetic but he’s not useless, “that’s not fair.”

“You always fighting for me isn’t fair,” she objects, fixing him with a glare, “you never let me talk to the bullies.”

“Your talking isn’t the problem,” leaves his lips.

He’s fucked up.

Bad.

She reels back with a gasp and when Mike opens his mouth to explain or just apologize, he finds himself quite stuck where he is. It’s not painful, but it’s like the universe has collapsed upon him and is strongly suggesting he reconsider moving. It’s not a negotiation. She’s furious and upset, he feels like complete crap even though the current situation is more or less proving his point. He won’t risk her using her powers on anyone who doesn’t have her best interest at heart—unless it’s a permanent thing. He might have fantasies about killing anyone whose ever hurt him, but they aren’t things he’d act upon. There’s been enough suffering and death in his lifetime already.

El grips her schoolbag and bounces on the balls of her feet, torn between huffing off and not leaving him alone. She doesn’t exactly want to let him go though. Like they’ve practiced a million times she closes her eyes and takes three measured deep breaths, but unlike those practices the vice around him doesn’t let up. Doesn’t change at all, actually, and a part of him wants to congratulate her the separation from her emotions.

“I’ll let you go when I am at the station,” she informs him, “I will talk to you Monday,” she continues , “Monday,” she repeats, “you think about being my boyfriend and figure out how to handle it.”

Then, just because the universe is especially cruel today, she kisses the corner of his mouth and runs off. Twenty minutes later her power releases him and he barely catches himself from dropping to the ground. He doesn’t catch himself from swearing loud enough that the vice principal gives him three days of detention. It rains on the way home, just because. Even though it’s only four, Mike drops face first onto the bed and decides not to chance it.

He has the same nightmare.

They’re younger again and instead of hiding for good reasons she’s hiding because she doesn’t want to see him again. He’s weak, he didn’t protect her. He wasn’t strong enough. Her head’s shaved always, but sometimes she’s also hurt. Sometimes she isn’t, but there’s a hollow look to her that he feels sick at. Her voice echos back to him, colder than he ever remembers.

‘Goodbye. Mike.’

He bolts up in bed, sheets tangled and shirt wet with sweat. He gasps unsteadily in the darkness, stupidly looking for El even though she swore they weren’t going to speak until Monday and she is good at keeping her promises. That doesn’t mean he’s alone though. Holly’s sitting at his desk, what he assumes is his dinner near her elbow. She isn’t watching him, she’s reading. He isn’t stupid enough to think she’s not aware of him though.

“Thanks,” he mumbles as he changes his shirt.

“You look terrible,” she says, “not just nightmare terrible. Did El dump you?”

“No!” He says, “we had a fight.”

“Oh,” she says, “what did you do?”

“I yelled at someone who touched her.”

Holly nods and flips the text book page.

“She’s probably just worried like you are,” She says cutting through to the core of it, “Jonathan and Nancy used to fight about that too.”

Mike looks surprised on purpose but Holly rolls her eyes. She talks anyway though.

“Nancy said he was a Neanderthal and he said he wanted her to be safe. She told him to shove it and kicked him out.”

“Yeah, but—“

“Well then he came back and said that they should work together because they would both be safe then. That’s why she agreed to marry him.”

Mike looks over at the card he’s got pinned up, reminding them that the wedding is taking place in a few months. They’re both in the respective wedding parties. El’s going to be his date and Will’s told him that there’s an early draft of Jonathan’s vows that involve the words ‘bear trap’. His sister doesn’t have super powers, but she definitely is the type to not stand for the kind of shit he pulled.

“I’d be honest,” Holly advises.

“Thank you for that,” Mike says sarcastically, “would you wait for Monday too?”

“Only if I didn’t want to be single,” she says and flips the page.

He drive to El’s cabin early Monday morning. He isn’t surprised to find Jim Hopper out there, a pack of cigarettes in a tiny ball in his hand. He looks up at Mike who prepares himself for whatever comes next. Hopper just shakes his head and tosses the ball away, managing to swear only once when it smacks him in the back of the head.

“I live in a convent,” he complains, “no smoking, no littering,” he raises his voice, “am I allowed inside, Mother Superior?”

“No!” Comes the reply, “Mike first!”

“You have fifteen minutes before I bring down the wrath of God,” he says and the door swings open. Mike goes inside. The cabin is much cozier and seems to get more so every time he visits. He knows which seat is his and takes it. El appears with waffles and sets them down before sitting across from him. She’s dressed nicely and Mike is torn between appreciating the view and bracing himself for the hurricane that might follow. Too many soap operas have made her firmly hold to fights happening when she’s dressed up, but there aren’t any sparkles so he thinks he might have a shot.

“I want to keep you safe,” she says in a measured tone.

“I want to keep you safe,” he says emphasizing it, “El you’ve got powers but that doesn’t mean—“

“Not powers,” she cuts in, “I want to keep you safe here too,” she says pointing at her chest, “dating me is hard.”

“El—“

“Let me finish,” she says and he presses his lips together, “dating me is hard, it will get harder. You have to give up things. More than most,” she looks at him, “I love you, but if you need to go you can.”

He waits for her to continue but she looks down, signaling him that she’s finished. He’s immediately up and coming around the table, kneeling near her so that she doesn’t get up. She looks at him, struggling to close off her emotions. Struggling to look strong. She is strong in so many ways, she might be strongest in ways like this.

“I would give up everything to be with you,” he says firmly, “Hey—hey you know that,” he reminds her, “it hasn’t changed. I don’t just want to keep you safe, I want you to be happy. I thought I could take on just this one thing,” his heart aches as a tear trickles down her cheek, “don’t cry,” he pleads, “El I was being dumb. I will let you handle it next time. El—“

“I put gum in Cindy’s hair!” She confesses, “she said you were dreamy and I—I put gum in her hair. You were right!”

He sighs her name and pulls her into his arms right before the guilty tears come out. She clings to him tightly as he whispers nonsense and kisses the top of her curls. The hard thing, they’ve learned, isn’t just that he sacrifices. It’s that sometimes she feels like the monster and doesn’t understand how he can be okay with it. She doesn’t understand how he stays past her mistakes and shortcomings, doesn’t understand that he has them too. That her humanity is what he fell in love with. She’s half in his lap and he stays on the floor until the torrent of emotion ebbs.

“You know I don’t care about Cindy,” he says and she nods.

“You know I didn’t care about Matt,” she says and he frowns, “the boy in the lab, his name was Matt,” she elaborates.

“Oh,” he says, he didn’t know that and didn’t care. El rolls her eyes at him, “Okay we both have to work on this,” he realizes aloud. El looks up at him hopefully, “we’ll do better ok? We’ll try.”

“Promise?” She says. He nods.

“Promise.”

She helps him up as she wipes her cheeks and opens the door for Hopper. He appraises her outfit and sighs that there’s no glitter.

“I put gum in Cindy’s hair,” she says and he nods.

“Yeah, but I already talked to your principal about it,” he says. She looks surprised, “I caught Cindy smoking behind the school. She dropped it.”

Mike grins before Hopper glares at him and he goes back to his waffles. Under the tiny table, he feels one of El’s feet hook around his ankle. He softens at the weight of it.

“You’re still grounded though,” Hopper adds.

“Fine,” El huffs, knowing she got off easy all things considered.

[fanficsofmine]

The War - Chapter 3

Plot: The country has been separated into Divisions for population control. An unruly leader dictating everybody’s lives. Families are separated. A group forms an uprising to make a change. It ends up being a darker and harder change than anybody could have anticipated.

Characters: Kim Minseok, Kim Junmyeon, Zhang Yixing, Kim Jongdae, Byun Baekhyun, Park Chanyeol, Do Kyungsoo, Kim Jongin, Oh Sehun, (OC to be announced later)

Disclaimer: This story is going to have a lot of violence.

The War: Chapter 1, 2

Kyungsoo POV: I stared at the road intently. I chewed at my bottom lip, a bad habit that I’ve had for as long as I could remember. It was tied to my nerves. I wish that I knew how to shake it, however, nothing really ever helped me break the tick.

We were nearing the division that Yixing was at. The rest of his family had been put here, and his aunt had grown ill. He had been granted permission to come see her due to the likelihood of her passing soon. He had mentioned in calls and text messages that he had become a part of something big, but he had never elaborated. We knew that calls were monitored, so he remained vague. 

I was not sure that I wanted to be involved in an uprising. It was unnerving to anticipate what expect next. 

We arrived at the coordinates that Yixing had texted us and all flew out of the car. 

We all stretched after the long, overnight car ride. 

Sehun let out a big yawn and asked, “why would he send us to the middle of the damn woods?”

“Because texting you the coordinates of the location of the actual base of operations would be stupid, moron.”

We all spun and saw Yixing standing there, arms open and a wide smile on his lips

We all ran over and took turns embracing Yixing.

He had been gone for a very long time. It was good to see his face again.

“How are you,” Junmyeon asked him, patting his back while he hugged him.

Before he was able to answer, Minseok’s cell phone rang.

He showed us the screen. It was his girlfriend, Sarah, calling. He took a deep breath before swiping the call button to answer.

“Babe…” but I could hear her voice cutting him off. She sounded angry. Minseok quickly flipped the call to speakerphone.

“…got a call that you just didn’t report to your military base?! Minseok! Where in the fuck are you? What is going on? They’re saying we’re about to be in a god damned war, and you’re AWOL.”

“Baby, please,” Minseok started, but she interjected again.

“Do you know how much trouble you’re in?! Like, you could go to jail for a very fucking long time for this.”

A knot tightened in my throat. I had not considered that as a repercussion.

Yixing marched over and took Minseok’s phone from him.

“Sarah. This is Yixing.”

“Yixing?! What? What is Minseok… You’re in division… what is happening?” She could not fully formulate a sentence.

“Something is happening. Minseok and the rest of the guys are with me. Please tell Min that you love him, because I’m about to destroy his and everybody else’s phones. We can’t have them tracked.”

All of us became stark still. Yixing handed Minseok his phone back, and Minseok stared at him blankly.”

“Baby, I’m sorry. I have to go. I love you so much, okay?” His voice was strained. It hurt to listen to.

Sarah was crying now, “I love you too, Minseok. Whatever you’re doing, please make the right choices and come home to me.”

They ended the call, and Minseok handed his phone to Yixing.

Yixing walked around the circle and took all of our phones from us. Jongdae resisted the most.

“I can’t disappear on Veronica,” he snapped, “she’s pregnant, Yixing. What happens if she needs me?”

“She wouldn’t be able to get to you in training. It would be the same thing. Text her. Tell her that you’re okay, and the moment we are somewhere that it’s safe to call her, that you will. But I either need your phone or I need you to get in that car and leave.”

Yixing had never been this firm with us. He was usually the comfort of all of us. He maintained his composure constantly. This was a side of him that was, quite frankly, intimidating.

Jongdae, reluctantly, sent his text message and then handed Yixing his phone.

We cringed as we saw Yixing smash each of our phones against the gravel beneath the heel of his boots.

I took this time to observe him.

At quick glance, he looked the same. Under a heavier stare, I took notice of the bags residing under his eyes. They were dark circles that, I assumed were a new, permanent feature of his face. His smile from the initial greeting now seemed forced, as the grimace attached to his lips crossed his face more naturally.

There was mud caked along certain parts of his skin. His hair was longer and unkempt. Stress lines rested next to his eyes and in his brow.

He also appeared stronger. It was impossible to not notice his arms had grown bigger. HiS shoulders were broader. It was apparent that he had been working out, or doing something that was making him bigger.

He was Yixing, but he wasn’t.

He guided us through the forest. We ducked around tree branches and swatted at bugs flying in our faces. Little by little, we shed layers as the sun began to beat down on us through the trees.

Junmyeon’s flannel now rested wrapped around his waist. Chanyeol and Jongin had completely shed their shirts, dipping them in a river that we passed and then laying them across their shoulders as to keep them cool.

We took turns glancing at each other as we expected an explanation. We did not get one, however, none of us felt comfortable asking anything either.

I took a glance up. High in the canopy, I took notice of a white fabric tied to a branch. I glanced both ahead and behind us, and saw this every few trees. My eyes drifted to Yixing, and saw him glance up occasionally. This must be how he was able to find his way.

I smirked. It was conspicuous. It was not an obvious marking like a carving in a tree. I caught up with him and nodded up.

“Good eye, Soo,” he grinned, “ definitely still the quick guy you were when I left, huh?”

“You come up with that,” I asked.

“Yeah. We kept losing men. It wasn’t even to the opposing side, just a general lack of direction,” Yixing rolled his eyes, “I had to come up with something that people wouldn’t exactly expect.”

He pat me on the shoulder and pointed up at another white sheet of cloth slightly to the left.

Eventually, we were able to hear voices ahead of us. We broke through the forest line to a field.

Lines of tents rested along the ground.

It grew silent immediately as everybody around us took notice to our presences. It was uncomfortable as an air of suspicion swam around us. Yixing raised a hand and called out, “I’ll explain later. They’re with me.”

We followed him to the outmost tent at the back of the camp. Eyes skimmed over us with scrutiny. Whispers met our ears, none audible enough to understand the words, just the tones. The tones were bitter; confused.

Yixing opened the tent flap and we all stepped in and took seats on the ground. It was not the most fancy meeting hall, but it would have to do.

“I know you have questions,” Yixing said as he moved to the middle of the semi-circle we formed, “but if you would please let me speak, maybe I can answer some of them outright.”

He proceeded to explain how he had caught wind of the uprising when he first returned to visit his aunt. Initially, he had done everything in his power to avoid it.

“I just wanted to lay low. I could not be drafted while I was on a family emergency.

He broke to grin slightly, “then I came across a group of guys at a bar one night. I overheard them mention a supply of weapons being smuggled from a couple of divisions over in a few days. It caught my attention.

“I asked if they needed help. I was tired of sitting around at home with my family in silence as we waited for my aunt to either pass or heal.

“They didn’t let me in quick,” he continued, “I faced a fairly rigorous initiation for them to trust me. Once they did, I quickly proved myself capable. I ranked up fast.”

He took a break to see if any of us would ask anything, and, when we did not, he kept taking.

“I’m so glad you showed up. Honestly. I could use more men to get this going.”

Finally, another voice filled the space.

“Get what going,” Chanyeol asked, “what exactly are you trying to rope us into?”

“We’re going to kill this dictator. We are going to take control of our lives back.”

There was a beat of silence and shock. It did not last long before voices overlapped each other’s.

Jongdae silenced and overpowered all others when he jumped to his feet and got directly in Yixing’s face.

“You think that we are just going to follow you blindly?” His tone was harsh and loud.

I felt a bit of anger well up in my chest and I stood as well.

“Yixing, I understand what you’re trying to do, but this is a lot to ask of us. Jongdae has a son on the way. Minseok has a ring in the trunk of his car that he was going to give Sarah. We all have lives to get back to! You can’t ask us to just throw everything away for this… this…”

I was cut off by Baekhyun, “this god damned suicide mission! I can’t believe that your group hasn’t been caught and executed already.”

“Kyungsoo, Jongdae, sit down…” Junmyeon was trying to calm us down. He reached for my wrist but I ripped it away from his reach.

I had never witnessed Yixing let go of his temper before, but he unleashed it.

“You want to go back? Fine! Go back,” he was screaming, “but you’ll be drafted and you’ll be fighting against the wrong side.”

He took a step toward me and our faces were only inches apart as he said, “you’ll be fighting against me.”

Yixing turned back to Jongdae, “you’re right, Kyungsoo,” he put a hand on Jongdae’s shoulder, “Jongdae has a son coming. A son that, one day, could be ripped away from him like some of us were from our parents.”

He threw a finger in Sehun’s direction.

“Sehun and Jongin weren’t even legally adults yet when they were ripped from their families and thrown in with strangers. Are you ready for that to be Jongdae’s son when one of the dispersion years come?”

Neither Dae or I protested. Nobody else had any other words to say, either.

“And Minseok,” Yixing was on a roll and was not going to stop now, “Minseok. are you ready to create a life where you and Sarah aren’t able to work jobs that you actually want and aren’t even capable of a sustainable income because you live on a minuscule, unrealistic fixed income? A life that you could struggle to feed your wife some weeks?

“That’s what I’m fighting for,” his voice started to raise again, “I’m fighting for us to live the lives that we want. A life where we can live and do what we want without the fear of being told that we’re going to be punished for doing something different.

“A life away from a dictator.”

His final sentence drew cheers from the outside of the tent. We all jumped slightly, unaware that we had drawn an audience.

The energy in the room was palpable. It was a static that flowed through all of us. My heart raced.

Yixing was not wrong.

Nobody moved initially.

I finally took a step forward. Yixing’s face was cautious as he turned to me.

I reached out my hand.

“What can I do?”

He beamed and pulled me in by our handshake for a hug.

When he let me go, I turned back to Jongdae, who was staring at me in disbelief.

“I’m doing this for your son to have a better future than the life we have now. We’ve been forced to live this way. He doesn’t have to be.”

Tears brimmed his eyes.

He nodded and skimmed all of the faces in the room. Everybody met him with a similar nod.

“Okay, Yixing,”Jongdae said with a shrug of his shoulders, “what do we do.”

Yixing smiled and said, “it’s time for you to meet our General.”

[queenmabscherzo]

DVD commentary - Targeting, Ch. 26

this is the second part of the chapter. i didn’t want to do all the post-game interviews and stuff, i mean, that is what it is. but i really like talking about the boys :’) so for the anon who requested chapter 26, here’s most of it:

Winning is a hell of a drug. And the crash? That's apocalyptic.

It starts during the trip to the hotel, the mundane reality of a bus ride that reminds Steve—it's not Hollywood, here. (obv this is a reference to big sports movies, which would end with the championship or whatever, but also any time i can make an MCU reference and like tap on the 4th wall, that’s fun.)

It all feels so big when you're standing in the middle of the stadium, in the middle of 70,000 fans and 4000-watt LEDs (i looked up “stadium lights” btw, which is one of those dumbass things that you feel like you have to research and then reread it a year later and ur like “oh ok lmao”), but when you drive away, when you watch the horizon and the dark night sky swallow that stadium right up, it doesn't feel as big anymore. It already feels like two lines of text on the NCAA Wikipedia page. (the best moments always go by too fast, don’t they, Steve) (luckily he’s got more best moments yet to come)

And now that his mind is reeling back to the dirt and the desert, all Steve can think about is Bucky's glassy eyes. He wracks his brain, running through their conversation over and over so he won't forget: something about hurting Steve, something about forgetting phone numbers, checking on Sam Wilson, (bucky rly cared a lot about sam, ngl. Protective Bucky Barnes made it a personal goal not to let freshman phenom Sam Wilson get hurt IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER)

I love you.

Steve taps his foot incessantly through the drive to the hotel. (in retrospect i should have made a parallel between this bus and the high school bus hnng) The rest of the bus rocks with three different group chants and a tuneless rendition of "We Will Rock You" that the white boys must have started. (mannnnn i remember sports buses ……. I remember in middle school one of our fav bus songs was “stacy’s mom” …)

Steve texts Bucky a simple You okay?, but doesn't expect a response and doesn't get one.

When they finally reach the hotel, Steve's internal systems are going haywire. The euphoria of victory has nosedived, but he started so high in the atmosphere it's becoming hard to breath—the imbalance of oxygen—all the meters in the cockpit spin out of control—(speaking of mcu references) he just wants to know if Bucky is okay. He just wants Bucky to be okay.

So Steve's pretty much delirious when they enter the hotel, split into groups, and go their separate ways. He drifts onto an elevator with Sam and the Bradleys. When they reach their floor, Steve turns down the hall for his room on autopilot—then stops in his tracks.

There is a man in black leaning against his doorframe. The corridor is empty except for this dark motionless figure with a duffel bag strapped to his back. Steve is suddenly very conscious of his breathing.

(in early drafts of targeting, i sent bucky to the hospital at the end of the game. Not like in a Serious way, just in a precautionary way. he just hurt his head so they might as well get it checked out, right. in the early drafts, i had steve and his teammates visit bucky IN the hospital. i considered Rumlow being there, or pierce being there. I also considered Steve punching Rumlow for being gross. But yeah. Hospital. That lasted in the drafts for a long time, actually. It’s not a bad idea, but it’s logistically hard wrt getting him out of the hospital, and like, has more serious implications than necessary. I’m all about hurt/comfort but i didnt wanna beat bucky up too bad.)(and obviously the hotel room is ……. GREAT)

A voice sounds from behind Steve: "Did Eli lock himself out again?" (AGAIN!!!) (I wanna know that story lmfao)

Steve's friends all laugh. (steve does not laugh. He knows who it is already. nerd.)

"I'm right here!" Eli protests from the back of the group.

"That's not Eli," Steve whispers, pace accelerating—heart accelerating. He breaks away from his teammates and strides down the hall, like tripping, like falling, like pointing the nose of the plane straight toward the earth. Like plummeting forward and just barely catching himself with every step. (one time i had a coach describe “running” as “falling forward and catching yourself” and idk how i feel about that metaphor in practicality but it sure works right here lmao)

The dark figure looks up as Steve approaches, but doesn't move.

Steve wraps his arms around Bucky's waist and kisses him on the lips. (we all KNEW who it was right? It’s one of those surprises u know is gonna happen but you still can’t wait to see it)

Numbness starts to creep up his limbs—probably from the buckets of adrenaline careening through his bloodstream, a fire and flood (thank u @ vance joy) every fifteen minutes since the game started. But God, his heart is so big, right now, so loud and so real. If any heart could take it, it's Steve's.

What kind of kiss.

Steve has never kissed anyone like this. A direct line to all the empty spaces in his chest.

(this is the third time they’ve kissed, now. The first time being when bucky was freaking out in his hotel room a couple weeks ago, and pretended it didnt happen. The second time was in millenium park, aka steve’s christmas present to bucky lol. And of course, a lot happened between that kiss and this one. I’d like to think they both changed, as people, even.)

(have you ever been caught off guard by an incredible kiss when you were the one giving it???? Maybe that’s just me, because i’m so casual and careless at all times. But have you ever gone in for a kiss and Meant it, but still the other person doubles down and gangs up on you somehow? That’s this kiss. That’s this kiss for steve. Steve is like, “there’s nothing left to say, i just have to show him”; and bucky is like … still kind of thinking every kiss with steve could be his last. So he gives it all he’s got. I guess. Idk if i’m describing it v well but. What kind of kiss.)

All of Bucky is so strong: (OH YEAH that’s also rly important, i cannot stress how fucking Strong bucky is and how much i love him for it) (besides the fact that he’s been through so much and survived it all …. He’s still GOOD.) (STOP im gonna cry about bucky barnes for a bit) Steve can feel it under his lips and under his fingertips, the molten resilience warm and dormant under Bucky's skin. Steve presses harder and leans closer. He can't get close enough. His hands press into Bucky's spine, and he still can't get close enough. He opens his mouth and Bucky sighs and draws him in and he still can't get close enough.

One of his teammates whistles. Steve and Bucky don't let it stop them, this time. (oh don’t worry, i did not forget about the other boys, those poor poor babies. Isaiah is probably like :o and Eli is probably grinning and like smacking his brother on the arm until it bruises. Sam is prob the one who whistled.)

Steve's body systems are all rebooting. He can't feel anything that isn't in contact with Bucky—which is fine—that's perfect, he doesn't need anything else—

Then Bucky touches him, and Steve sucks in a sharp breath through his nose. (have you ever kissed someone and just forgot they had hands until they USE THEM??) (anyway) Bucky's hands come to rest on his face, leaving fingerprints on Steve's jaw, like lavender and cirrus clouds. His hands slide behind Steve's neck, and his fingers thread through his hair. He finds the dimple at the base of Steve's skull and whimpers.

Steve has no idea what his own hands are doing. (LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!) (they on bucky’s butt!!!!!!! I’m joking, they’re WHEREVER YOU WANT THEM TO BE.) He can't focus on more than one thing, and right now, that one thing is the feel of Bucky's bottom lip under his own.

He can't get close enough. He presses in for more contact, from knees to navel to sternum. He backs Bucky into the wall, and he can feel the jolt when his fingers are trapped between Bucky's jacket and the wallpaper. (a jolt!!! He prob was a little forceful …………… *eyes emoji*)

Bucky breaks the kiss and hisses and presses both hands to Steve's chest.

Horror washes over Steve. "What's wrong?!"

Bucky grimaces. "Sorry," he pants, eyes fixed on Steve's mouth.

"What—no, don't be—what's wrong?" He steps back, but keeps his hands on Bucky's waist in case he needs—anything. Support? What's wrong?

"Sorry. It's…" Bucky swallows. His eyes flicker. Steve can see the faint green of a lingering bruise near the bridge of his nose. "Dislocated shoulder." (in early drafts, this was a collapsed lung. In retrospect, that’s prob because it might have required the hospitalization. I think the shoulder injury is more … symmetrical, tho.)

Beat.

"You—you have a dislocated shoulder?"

"Wait, you what?" That would be Eli, stepping closer, eyes wide. (athletic trainer eli!)

"Well." Bucky looks down again. "It's relocated now." (thanks buck. Thank you for that elaboration.)

"When did it happen?" Steve asks.

"That—when me and Wilson went up for that deep pass. And landed on top of each other."

(“Bucky and Sam both go up for the ball; it twirls off their fingertips; they tangle in mid-air, and they both go down hard. Steve jogs toward them, heartstrings strumming dominant chords in his bloodstream.

Sam Wilson gets up first, moving stiffly, both hands on his lower back. When Steve offers him a hand, he waves it off even while he winces. Steve glances downfield. Bucky's teammates are helping him to his feet and stuffing his shoulder pad back into his uniform.”)

Steve wracks his brain. "On the last play?"

"No," Bucky says. His eyes dart between Steve and each of his teammates. "Before. We were winning. It was a go route."

It's all kind of a blur in Steve's memory: images of Sam Wilson in deep coverage, Bucky lining up as a safety, zone reads, go routes, post routes, slant routes. He can remember Sam tumbling down on the sidelines, and something occurs to him: "Was it the fight?"

"No," Bucky answers, and Sam speaks at the same time: (<3)

"No," Sam says, staring at Bucky, a nauseated expression curling his lip. (because that play was … A LONG time ago) "No, it was in the third quarter. Right after halftime," he clarifies, and everyone knows he is right.

Steve begins to feel a strange, localized ache in the hinge of his jaw. "You played the whole second half with a dislocated shoulder?"

Bucky shrugs. And then winces. (he’s sO CUTE. and dumb. BUT CUTE.)

"Holy shit," Isaiah breathes.

"I mean, we popped it back in, first," Bucky backtracks.

"Still," Eli hisses, then leaps into action. "No wonder it hurts—Steve Rogers and the kiss of death, over here." (tbh i thought of this joke before i even decided on an injury lmfao.)(i am not funny.)

Steve opens his mouth to protest, but Eli talks over him. "Come on, come inside, I have a couple ice packs in the freezer." (ELI IS SUCH A DAD™!!!!!) Eli fumbles with the key-card and shepherds Bucky into their room. Once they're inside, he relieves him of his duffel bag—working carefully around his left shoulder—and shoves it at Sam without looking, then guides Bucky onto the end of a bed. Once he is settled, Eli turns to rummage through their mini-fridge. "Steve, grab me one of our hand-towels, yeah?" he orders.

Steve does so. When he returns from the bathroom, he stops in his tracks. Bucky is perched on the edge of Steve's bed, a little wide-eyed, but calm. Eli hovers over him, inspecting Bucky's shoulder. Sam sneaks the duffel (i only included this fucking duffel bag so bucky could sneak his Secret Documents into Steve’s room lmfao)(and so Sam could make the “overnight bag” joke tbh.) next to the TV, then catches Steve's eye and shakes his head, clearly trying not to smile.

The entire tableau punches all the air out of Steve's lungs. (same) (obv i really wanted steve’s friends to accept bucky, and i’m nothing if not Dramatic. so. Here we are)

Steve eases onto the corner of the empty bed. Eli doesn't even acknowledge him, his focus trained on Bucky. "They check you out?" he asks as he prods the left side of Bucky's back with well-trained fingers.

Bucky nods. He gazes at Eli the way you might gaze at someone who speaks to you in a different language, but nevertheless does so very earnestly. (i mean it’s safe to say bucky NEVER expected a reaction like this, not only because his own coaches/staff aren’t this nice, but also bc like, these guys are his rivals, lmao) (and he also is prob thinking about what a dick he was to Steve a week ago)

Eli tugs at the collar of Bucky's windbreaker and asks if he can remove it. Bucky lets him help without speaking and without moving his left arm much. Once the jacket is gone, Eli has better access to Bucky's torso.

"Hospital?" Eli asks.

Bucky shakes his head. (LOL)

"Broken ribs, too?"

Bucky nods. (ok ok ok . i worked very hard not to let eli fall into a trope where he just existed to “take care of bucky”. Because i wanted him to rly be the character who cared about sports medicine and … about PEOPLE. So i established it earlier, with steve, with sam, with his major, with his brother, with his kids, everything. And he really knows what he’s DOING. he sat down with bucky for like a single minute, and could tell he had loose tissue and broken ribs around the relocated shoulder. And he’s made something of himself, here, of caring about people. He’s cared about his brother for years, when no one else cared, and now he’s gonna make a living taking care of hurt athletes. I also think it … kind of fits with comics!eli, who was such a sweet bean and just wanted to be a good superhero and live up to his grandpa. I rly rly rly absurdly love eli bradley, guys.) (also contrast him with steve, who wants to take care of people but has no idea what he’s doing; isaiah, who has a good heart but isn’t good at showing it; and sam, a good friend who’s a big goof.)

"Did they scan you?" Eli goes on, and doesn't wait for an answer. "There's loose tissue, I think. Can you lift your arm?"

"Not really," Bucky says, and proceeds to lift his arm (LMAO YOU ASS). He almost makes a ninety-degree angle.

"I mean, I haven't seen the scans or nothing," Eli says, and sounds genuinely sorry for it, "But I think there's some kind of tissue damage. Maybe not torn, but ... Can't believe they didn't take you to the hospital."

"We have doctors," Bucky says dumbly.

Eli dismisses that with a wave. "Did they give you anything?"

Bucky blinks.

Eli beckons for the towel, which Steve hands over. "Any drugs?" Eli clarifies.

Bucky huffs, a small sour sound that could be laughter. "You'll have to be more specific."

Steve, Sam, Isaiah, and Eli all stare at Bucky.

Steve thinks back to the NAC Championship Game. "Pump me with enough drugs, and even I can't tell I'm injured." It could mean so many things. Even at American State, players take shots to stave off the pain long enough for a football game. Sam Wilson comes to mind, and his small doses of painkillers and muscle relaxants to alleviate the back spasms. (if you’re into that kind of thing, meaning semi-unpleasant-medical-commentary, look up “toradol shots” and “football” and some articles are more biased than others but yeah, it’s sketchy either way.)

But Bucky sounds so angry. It's the tone of voice that draws Steve's imagination to dark places.

Eli is the first to recover. He holds up the ice pack, now wrapped in a towel. "I mean anti-inflammatories," Eli explains, "or something to knock you out overnight."

Bucky accepts the ice pack. He turns it over between his hands. He looks thoughtful. He picks at a stray thread on the towel. He doesn't speak.

Sensing the toxic discomfort in the room, Steve is about to step in when Isaiah clears his throat.

"So his arm's not gonna fall off or nothing?"

Eli blinks, then ducks his head. "I mean, he said it hurt," he says sheepishly.

"You ain't have to assault him and force him to strip," Isaiah points out. (isaiah is really a big sweetheart, he just doesn’t express himself well lol.)

"I don't mind," Bucky mumbles.

Sam interrupts, then. "So what do we call you?" (and sam is ……  sam.)

Bucky and Steve both stare at him, mouths open.

"You know," Sam explains. "Do you go by … James? Or Barnes? Can I call you Bucky, or is that like a pet name? 'Property of Steve Rogers' or whatever?" Steve blushes. "Or do you prefer the Winter Soldier?"

"Anything but that."

"Bucky Bear?"

Bucky snorts. "Nice ring to it."

"But really," Sam says, smiling now. "I'm gonna hack into Steve's phone and steal your number so I can send you a ton of pictures of me with the trophy. (this is true, and definitely definitely happens.) (except the part where sam hacks into steves phone. He just gets buckys number. Hes not shy, pls.) So. What name do I save you under?"

"... Bucky's fine," he replies with a bemused half-smile.

Steve gazes at him. There is a perfect ache in his chest, like too much color bursting inside and not enough space.

"… out of it. Earth to Steve Rogers." (ISAIAH!!!!)

He snaps back to the present when he hears Isaiah speaking. "I'm—what?"

Sam cackles, which Steve thinks is pretty unfair, since it's his fault Bucky just knocked all the air out of Steve's lungs.

"Maybe we should go," Eli says gently.

"Hell yeah it's time to go," Sam says, rubbing his hands together. "We're going out, right?" He grins at Steve. (sam …… is too young to legally drink. I’m crying. i mean not that it’s hard for young people to get alcohol but he’s literally 19 and asking to go out. He’s so full of life and he’s so RIDICULOUS!!!!!!!!!)

Everyone in the room stares at him, shifting awkwardly.

"I don't think they're coming," Eli says.

Isaiah takes Sam by the elbow and steers him toward the door. "We can still go out."

"Wait." Sam plants his feet. "Steve, you …" (like sam’s not CLUELESS here, he just saw them make out for crying out loud. He’s just got so much energy and they just won a BIG GAME okay, it just takes him an extra second to process things. Which, i mean, is relatable.) He looks at Steve, then—looks at him—and seems to see something new; then he looks at Bucky, then Steve again, back and forth. "Oh."

"Sam—" Steve tries, but Sam interjects.

"Holy—okay, okay, I mean, he did bring an overnight bag and shit," Sam says, gesturing towards Bucky's duffel.

Bucky's face turns an impressive shade of crimson. "What." (he most certainly did not. Well, staying-overnight wasn’t the primary function of the duffel bag. He was maybe hopeful. maybe.)

"Sam—"

"I think you just took their relationship to the next level," Eli cuts in with a sly look.

Sam, on the other hand, has gone from mortified to elated in the span of about four seconds. "What's in the bag, Soldier?"

Bucky levels him with a scowl to match the nickname. "Toothbrush and a box of condoms." (LIIIIIES. There’s only like 3 condoms. And they’ve been in there for months. but still.)

Beat.

Sam is the first to laugh; Steve joins in, but it's weak because he's reeling with embarrassment. And distantly, definitely turned on.

"Right. We're leaving," Isaiah says pointedly. (poor frikin isaiah puts up with SO MUCH!!!!! His roommates are so ridiculous and horny and he never asked for this except he totally moved in with them and knew full well what he was getting into and is maybe into it, but anyway, anyway.) (housewarming didn’t come out of the blue that’s all i’m saYINg.) (isaiah’s BLUSHING.) Sam Wilson is laughing too hard to protest.

After a small commotion ("There's Advil in my bag!" Eli says, just as Sam calls, "Always use protection!"), and the hotel door latches with a heavy bang. Steve can still hear his teammates in the hallway, but they are muffled and unintelligible, and they fade away fast, leaving Steve alone with Bucky.

Neither of them speaks right away. Bucky is still sitting quietly on the end of Steve's bed, staring, unfocused, into the middle distance. Steve takes the opportunity to look at him. Properly, and all, without sticking his tongue down his throat or bashing his injured shoulder into a wall.

(fun fact: the following transition is a fucking bitch. I don’t think it’s great but i’m an awkward loser, so i was like ok, how do i get them to say i love you and fuck already? Like in a Realistic Fashion. Realistic for dumb jocks.) (rolls eyes forever)

Bucky is in black sweatpants and black Nikes with red soles. The back of his white T-shirt has a list of dates—probably a catalogue of Southeast State National Championships—while the front bears the Southeast logo: a red elk skull with wicked hooked antlers. (check out the “targeting art” tag, a couple people have drawn this and i love them for it) (what else would make a “tundra” logo”...? idk) His face looks better than it did a week ago. Just a little swollen. Steve probably wouldn't even notice if he didn't know to look. There's a string of bruises on Bucky's arm and his knuckles are tore up and there's still dirt clinging to his nails, but all that's just standard football wear-and-tear. He's got a couple days' worth of stubble, and there's a little crescent patch on his jaw where nothing grows; a small white scar from God knows where, God knows when. His lips are parted. Steve wants to kiss him again. But between the corridor and now, this moment with silence and an ice pack wrapped in a crisp white towel, it doesn't seem so easy, anymore.

"You doing okay?" Steve asks.

Bucky's eyes snap back to life and he looks at Steve. (bucky is so spacy lmao awww) (honestly bucky is a lot like me. I think of all the characters in this story, he’s the most like me.) "Yeah." Just yeah.

"You want to use that ice pack, or stick it back in the freezer?"

Bucky looks down at the bundle in his lap, like he forgot it was there. His chest rises and falls.

"Here," Steve says, and stands up slowly so he can slide onto the bed next to Bucky's bad shoulder. He gently takes the ice pack and folds it against his arm, the outside of the ball-and-socket joint, right along the seam of his sleeve. "Good?"

"I dunno," Bucky croaks. "You don't have to—I should probably go." (like seriously, second guessing wild, impulsive decisions? Assuming people don’t care as much as you care? That’s just relatable, man.)

A knot twists in Steve's stomach. He presses into the ice pack a little harder—not too hard—just enough to feel present.

"Why did you come, anyway?" Steve asks.

Bucky's eyes track to his duffel bag, (he came because he wanted to bring steve those documents that incriminate Pierce. He came because he wanted someone to validate him. To validate how bad he felt. To validate the abuse he’s gone through. To tell him he’s not imagining things. He came because he likes steve and he misses him. He came because his sex drive is wild. He came because if he stayed in his hotel room, he would lose his mind.) then back to Steve. "I wanted to say I'm sorry."

"Sorry? For what?"

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut. "I'm sorry I hit you," he mumbles. (and he came to say that, too. he’s been feeling bad about that for a long time.)

Oh.

How ridiculous, Steve thinks. What a small, silly thing, now. He's sitting here with an ice pack to Bucky's mangled shoulder, counting the bruises up Bucky's arms and his face, and that's just the ones Steve can see. He's sitting here in good health and a golden haze of victory, and Bucky is apologizing to him. How absurd. "Oh—Buck, don't worry about that."

"No, look, I'm obviously … messed up and all," Bucky launches into a stammering speech. "I'm sorry I hit you, and yelled at you, and … kissed you. (sorry about the mixed messages, to be specific) I guess. I'm—I just—I want you to know I didn't mean all those shitty things I said. And the game today, I didn't want to hurt anyone. I don't want to hurt you."

"I'm fine," Steve assures him. "I promise."

"Right." Bucky cracks his knuckles. He doesn't look convinced. "Anyway. I've been fucking with you for weeks now, (by “fucking with you” he means stringing steve along and then pushing him away. Toying with him. Which is how it looks, from certain points of view. It’s not how steve felt, but it certainly could be read that way.) so it's cool if you don't believe a word I say." (bucky was 100% lying in chapter 23 when he told steve “I was messing with your head” [with regards to kissing steve]. At the time, he was in a really dark, messed up place, and he was really angry with steve, and thought they would both be better off apart. They couldn’t mess each other up anymore if they were apart.)

Steve gapes at him. "Buck … You were mad. You had a right to be mad." (for the record, i PERSONALLY don’t condone bucky punching steve. But steve is more forgiving than i am, and more deeply [and unhealthily] attached to bucky)

The look in Bucky's eyes is so specific. Such a localized pain. From a distance he seems hard, and strong, towering marble, but if you look from the right angle you can see the anguish buried in the rock. The fear and sorrow in David's eyes, despite the calm repose of his limbs. (as in michelangelo’s david. I kind of get michelangelo vibes whenever i watch TWS, the scene with bucky in the bank vault.) (but i knew him.) (from the right angle, David looks very scared. And it’s the same with bucky, i feel.)

"I'm real fucked up, Steve." He sighs quietly. "I should go."

Bucky lowers his shoulder to wriggle out from under the ice pack. Steve lets it fall to the bed—instead, he grabs Bucky's knee.

"Don't go."

"I shouldn't have come. Steve ... I don't want to keep hurting you."

Steve has never been able to deny Bucky anything, but this—he read this wrong, before. (when he just let bucky go after hitting Steve) Bucky begged Steve to leave him alone, and Steve has let him go too many times. He'd thought he'd been doing what was best for Bucky. All this time, Bucky thought he was doing what was best for Steve. (isn’t that kind of the point. Of the story. Of them.)

"You won't hurt me," Steve promises. "You haven't hurt me. None of that was your fault."

"I hit you."

"You think I can't take one lousy punch?"

Bucky snorts; he doesn't smile, not quite, but he looks amused, and Steve counts it as a win. "Wasn't lousy. (BUCKY IS BIG) I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for. You were hurting too." He pauses there, feeling sober again, and he braces himself. "Bucky, can I ask you something?"

"What."

"Who gave you the black eye?"

He scoffs. "You were on the field. You saw. Wasn't it Creed's elbow?"

"Bucky," Steve scolds him gently. "I mean last week."

He ducks his head and doesn't answer.

"At my house," Steve prods. "Bucky?"

"It's not a big deal."

"Was it Rumlow?"

Bucky laughs, low and bitter.

"It was, wasn't it?" (steve has probably been thinking this ever since he saw it, considering he also overheard rumlow being an ass in bucky’s hotel room a few weeks ago)

"No. It … wasn't Rumlow."

Steve's not sure he believes him, (did you guys believe him?) but doesn't press the issue. He owes Bucky a little privacy. Just asking is what matters, for now.

Bucky looks up at him through long, long lashes; the same way he has always looked at Steve, (LIKE ON THEIR BUS IN HIGH SCHOOL) a bright blue, the hottest part of a flame.

"Quite a pair, aren't we?" Steve says through a watery smile.

"What's that mean."

(means we’re both selfless shits and we both know it. means no matter how bad we’re hurt, we both still want to take care of other people first.)

"Means I'm here for you, Buck," he says, soft and insistent. "I'm not going anywhere."

Bucky shakes his head. There might be a smile leaking through his granite mask.

Now or never.

"About what you said," Steve says carefully. He squeezes Bucky's knee and rubs small circles into his thigh. "You know, after the game?"

Bucky cringes. "Oh, god. I'm sorry about that too." (NOOOOOO--)

"Don't be sorry," Steve whispers—begs, even. Please don't be sorry. Not for that.

"I shouldn't have said anything," Bucky says. The muscle of his thigh twitches under Steve's grip. "I was caught up in the moment, you know, and it just came out, and it was totally wrong-place-wrong-time, I'm sorry."

"Did you mean it?" Steve breathes, almost inaudible, because he can feel the cracks under the surface.

Bucky covers his face with both hands. "It's—yeah, Steve, yeah I meant it. I just … shouldn't." (FUCK SPORTS AND TOXIC MASCULINITY AND HOMOPHOBIA AND FUCK IT ALL and give bucky a hug 2kforever.)

"Oh, Bucky."

When he looks at Steve again, his eyes are red. "You don't have to say it back."

"Are you kidding me?"

Bucky blinks. "Um."

"Listen to me, Buck." Steve sinks to his knees between Bucky's feet and looks up at him. It's dizzying. It makes his head ache just to think of it: all the years, all the football games, all the doodles passed back and forth in class, all the times Bucky treated Steve's injuries with ice and stupid jokes. He reaches up to take Bucky's face in both hands. "Listen to me," Steve says again. "For as long as I can remember, every single day of my life, you were the most important thing in it. The best thing. Bucky, I was in love with you before I even knew what that meant."

"Steve—"

"And then you were gone. Just gone, and I felt so … much. There was so much, and I didn't know where to put it all." Bucky is crying openly, now, his nose red and his eyes shining. "God, I don't want to feel that way ever again," Steve whispers. "So yeah, I do have to say it back." He smooths the tears from Bucky's cheeks. "I love you," he says. He says it out loud for the first time in his life as he looks into Bucky's eyes, the eyes he has known and for years, for decades, for centuries upon centuries. "I love you, Bucky."

(i practiced that love confession during my Long Commute for months before i ever published it.) (such a balancing act, making it sound like something a person would say, and also make it very very meaningful. And like ….. Adequate for these 2.)

Bucky's lips blossom for him, parting like the gentle pink petals of morning. At first, all that escapes is a sob. He blinks, hard, and tries again:

"You're a punk." (bucky’s response was not a balancing act and did not take nearly as much effort, it’s the most in-character thing i’ve ever written lmfao)

Steve grins. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. You are such a punk."

There is water gathering in the creases of Steve's palms. "Is this okay?" he asks, wiping away more tears.

"This is the worst." Bucky sucks in a breath, and then grabs both of Steve's wrists and squeezes. "Yeah it's okay."

"Okay," Steve says. He feels his own throat growing hot. They're both going to end up crying, probably. He gazes at Bucky's lips, the chapped creases and the swollen spot where he always bites down on it. Steve smiles. "I'm kind of afraid to kiss you again."

"Afraid."

"Well, yeah, Buck, it always seems to go wrong. (I MEAN HE’S GOT A POINT!) I try to break your arm, or you end up puking everywhere—" (a stranger whistles at us in millenium park--)

"Shut the fuck up," Bucky demands, and pulls Steve in for a kiss.

It is stiff at first—more overwhelmed than anything—their noses and their lips crushed together because they need it so bad. Because if they didn't kiss right now they would probably both erupt into color and flame and leave a crater behind in the Arizona desert. After a moment of desperate contact, after the reassurance that this is real, this whole night has been real, Steve relaxes. He strokes Bucky's jaw and parts his lips. (i wrote this sex scene between a dress rehearsal and a concert. A pretty major gig actually with a big symphony in a decent-sized city. I don’t LIVE in that city, so i had nothing to do between the rehearsal and the show, so i sat in a philly cheesesteak bar and wrote smut.) (i was also very anxious about the gig at the time.)

Bucky's hands are restless. They flutter like sparrows from Steve's wrists to his face and his elbows and finally, the fabric of his shirt, where they cling tight and pull him closer. He drifts back, stretches onto the mattress and pulls Steve on top of him. Not that it takes much coaxing. Steve goes hungry and willing. He wraps an arm around Bucky's waist and helps him shift farther onto the bed. Steve nudges a knee between Bucky's thighs, and that doesn't take much, either; Bucky's legs spread easily, (*eyes emoji*) and draw Steve in, and how absurd is this, now. It's phenomenal, the goosebumps that break out at the base of his spine and sweep straight to his skull.

Bucky kisses like an ocean. Writhing and fluid and breathless, pulse as natural and magnetic as the tide. He wraps Steve in white foam and surges against him. (this metaphor, for example, gives me vivid deja vu for that restaurant where i wrote it.)

Steve's left arm is trapped between Bucky and the mattress. With his right, he gropes for Bucky's hand and tangles their fingers together. Bucky's heel hooks behind his knee and he smiles, but doesn't break the kiss.

Steve grinds against Bucky's hip bone. That earns him a delicious groan.

Bucky gasps softly as he breaks the kiss. "I should probably be careful, you know," he whispers.

"You—? Oh," Steve says, scrambling up onto his elbows. "Sorry! Are you okay? Does this hurt?"

"No, not really," Bucky says, adjusting his left arm. (a resounding “yes” if i ever heard one) (he’s fine tho, he’s fine. just. you know.)

Steve can't imagine—just—at all. He just can't imagine. He can't picture hurting until it doesn't matter anymore. He wants to fix it so much. He wants to take away all of Bucky's hurt. "Is—? We can take it slow, if you want. I'm sorry. Is this—"

"Steve." Bucky spreads his fingers through Steve's hair and smiles. "I said careful, not abstinent." (if you could not tell after reading targeting, i really wanted to attack the stereotype where bucky is a wilting flower who needs to be coddled by Everyone. including but not limited to their Bedroom Activities)

He leans up to plant a soft kiss on Steve's chin.

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh."

"I'm not trying to pressure you though," Steve shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts. (but also, i mean, steve is very very very sweet and i love that about him. It’s not offensive. it’s seriously fucking sweet.) "We can stop if you want."

"Steve Rogers, so help me, if you fucking stop now, you'll—I'll—I will … I'll do something. I can't think. But I'll do something. And you won't like it." (tbh i couldn’t think of something clever to say, and you know what? that seemed like the most accurate depiction of bucky’s state of mind)

Steve couldn't argue if he wanted. "Oh yeah?"

"Fuck."

"You don't want me to stop?"

"I don't want you to stop."

(at this point, i was picturing like, bucky hasn’t actually Had Sex in awhile. Like a year, even. he’s probably made out with someone in the dark corner of a bar or maybe fooled around in a bathroom at a frat party. which, getting a half-assed hand job 2-3 times a year is nice but it’s not exactly intimate. actually, it’s not even nice. anyway. bucky might be .. even more sensitive than usual. Especially since it’s….. steve.)

Steve leans in for a kiss again, a rich slide of lips against teeth. He tugs gently at the hem of Bucky's shirt and drags his fingernails across the ridges of his stomach.

The noise Bucky makes is sunset and surf and sin. Steve kisses that sound. He slides his left hand out from under Bucky's back and into the front of his pants. (STEEEEEEVE!!!!!!! GET IT STEVE!) That's a good reaction, too: Bucky's hips jump, as if jolted by an electric current.

Steve wants to know every single one of Bucky's reactions, wants to learn every perfect way to make Bucky squirm. He fumbles with Bucky's waistband, and that is fingernails against Steve's scalp; he wraps a hand around Bucky's dick, and that is a hiss of air through teeth; he strokes once, up and down, and that is a low whine in Bucky's throat. He tightens his hold, and that is Bucky's hand slipping into Steve's pants, grasping him and caressing him in return, which—damn, you know. (YEAH DAMN!!!)

Steve trails kisses along Bucky's jaw until he finds the soft spot under his ear. Bucky's pulse speeds up, his breath speeds up, and his hand speeds up.

"Oh, God, Bucky," Steve groans.

That's all it takes. Bucky arches his back, spilling over Steve's fist, gasping for air. (bucky came SO fast in this scene lmfao i’m dyin. I still am not sure if it’s like …. TOO fast. Like unrealistically fast. Or … unkind of me. But i just. he hasn’t done this in awhile, he’s with STEVE, steve just confessed his LOVE, all the game day adrenaline--yeah i mean, at the end of the day? same, bucky. same.)

As Bucky spirals back to earth, his grip on Steve's cock tightens and his pace quickens. Steve grinds down into his hand, desperate and fevered, and it doesn't take long for him to come, too. (i mean i guess it’s been a few months for steve too……...lmao ….)

And that—God Almighty—that doesn't feel like a small thing. That feels like a great deal more than two lines of text on a Wikipedia page. (SWEETHEARTS!!!!) (they’re so corny. STEVE is so corny.)

Steve tries to catch his breath, panting hard against the hollow of Bucky's shoulder, leaving a warm, damp patch in the fabric of his shirt. Bucky twitches under him. Static currents and shallow breath. The dappled violets and whites and yellows of the sea at sunset.

Steve is careful not to crush Bucky underneath him. Even in the dense fog of sex and happiness, he is so, so conscious of Bucky's hurts. If anything, Bucky is more delicate, this way; supine and pale and fragile under the tips of Steve's fingers.

Steve traces the lines of Bucky's abs—Jesus—he would count them if he could see straight. He wipes his hand on Bucky's hip bone and asks, "You want to clean up, or anything? You're welcome to use the bathroom."

"You hinting?"

"Am I—? No, it—I just—"

Bucky is grinning, though. (if you know me at all, you know i can’t write a whole sex scene of like, ocean tides and starlight and fragile hearts or whatever. There’s gonna be a joke about a condom or like, the realistically gross follow-up. I AM WHO I AM.) His stomach shakes with laughter, and Steve gapes at him—miles of smooth skin, threads of cum shining on his stomach. It's terrific and terrifying and it's obscene. (terrific AND terrifying!!! Steve, sweetheart!!!) Steve can't even think in words.

Bucky pokes him, hard, right near the collarbone. "You want me to clean up?"

"… I don't ever want you to leave this bed again," Steve breathes. (STEVE, on the other hand, is a much bigger sap than me.)

Bucky just laughs some more.

"What are you giggling at?"

"I ain't giggling." (oh texas boy)

"Oh yeah?"

"I don't giggle."

"What do you call it?" Steve says, running a fingertip from Bucky's sternum to his bellybutton, a slow, subtle trail.

Bucky covers his eyes so all Steve can see is his smile and the way his throat bobs when he swallows.

He can't get enough. He drinks Bucky in like a drug, every detail, every little meaningless deed. The way one side of his smile is higher than the other; the fine hair on his arms; the mess on his stomach, drying and tacky and glistening in the lines that define his abs; the way his knee sways back and forth; the T-shirt bunched up under his armpits.

"I don't giggle," Bucky repeats. Then he uncovers one eye to look at Steve. The tip of his tongue peeks between his teeth. Steve wants to kiss it. He wants to kiss it all.

"Okay," he whispers. "You don't giggle." He kisses Bucky's elbow, which is the nearest thing within reach.

It must tickle, because a noise escapes Bucky's lips. A noise that is absolutely a giggle. (i don’t think he’s laughing because he’s ticklish, at least not 100%. ;) ) "Shut up," he says before Steve can even open his mouth.

"Not a word."

[recentanimenews]

Silver Spoon, Vol. 1

The title of Hiromu Arakwa’s latest series is a pointed reference to Kansuke Naka’s The Silver Spoon: Memoir of a Japanese Boyhood. First serialized in the pages of the Asahi Shimbun in 1913, The Silver Spoon documented Naka’s journey from childhood to adolescence through a series of vignettes that recalled turn-of-the-century Tokyo in vivid detail, describing first the bustle of its modern neighborhoods, and then the rustic isolation of its western regions, a contrast emphasized by one of the book’s most important events: his move to rural Tokyo. “For me to be born in the midst of Kanda was as inappropriate as for a kāppa to be hatched in a desert,” his narrator declares, viewing the country as a place of rebirth.

Yuugo Hachiken, the fictional protagonist of Arakawa’s Silver Spoon, also moves from Tokyo to the country — Hokkaido, to be exact, where he enrolls at at Ooezo Agricultural High, a small boarding school. Though his peers chose the school for its curriculum, Hachiken chose it to escape the college prep grind — cram schools and high-stakes tests — and his parents, who seem indifferent to his misery. His competitive streak remains intact, however; he assumes that he’ll be the top student at Ezo AG, sizing up his classmates’ mastery of English and geometry with all the condescension of a prep school boy in a backwoods schoolhouse.

Hachiken’s path to redemption predictably begins with a rude awakening: there’s no spring break and no sleeping in at Ezo AG, where students rise at 4:00 am to muck stalls and harvest eggs. Adding insult to injury, his cosmopolitan prejudices are challenged by his peers, who are more ambitious, motivated, and knowledgable than he is; in one of the volume’s best scenes, Hachiken’s elation turns to despair when he overhears his classmates discussing the transformative effect of somatic cell cloning on the Japanese beef market. “Are they speaking in tongues!!?” he fumes, rivers of sweat pouring down his ashen face. “Are you guys smart or stupid? Make up your minds!!”

After a series of humiliating trials, Hachiken makes tentative steps towards fitting into the community and finding his purpose. His incentive for trying a little harder — making nice with the chickens, joining the equestrian club — is, unsurprisingly, a girl. Aki Mikage is yin to his yang, a pragmatic, cheerful soul whose horse-wrangling skills, can-do attitude, and endless patience for Hachiken’s questions make her a little too saintly to be believed. Her main role in volume one is to help Hachiken overcome his sentimental ideas about farm life, encouraging him to see the farm more as an elaborate ecosystem or factory than a collection of cute animals.

This bracing dose of reality is one of the manga’s strengths, preventing the story from devolving into a string of sight gags and super-deformed characters screaming and flapping their arms at the sight of poop. Near the end of volume one, for example, Mikage invites Hachiken and fellow classmate Ichirou Komaba to the Ban’ei Racetrack to watch a draft horse pull, an outing that quickly turns somber when they stumble upon a horse funeral in progress. “Some souls are thrust into a cruel existence where there are only two options, life or death, simply because they happen to be born livestock,” Mikage’s uncle observes — a statement that makes a deep impression on Hachiken, who’s just beginning to realize that many of the piglets and chickens he’s raising will be on someone’s dinner table in a matter of months.

The racetrack episode also highlights Silver Spoon‘s other secret weapon: its terrific supporting cast. Though Hachiken, Komaba and Mikage’s more serious conversations dominate the chapter, two of the series’ most memorable personalities — Tamako Inada, a steely business major, and Nakajima, the equestrian club supervisor — make cameo appearances. Nakajima, in particular, exemplifies one of Arakawa’s greatest talents as a writer: creating visually striking characters whose goofy, exaggerated appearance belies their true natures. Nakajima has the face and disposition of a classical Bodhisattva everywhere but the race track, where a maniacal gleam creeps into his eyes, drawing his brows and lids into a state of terrifying arousal. Tamako, by contrast, looks like Tweedledee, enduring rude comments from her male classmates about her shape, weight, and brusque demeanor. She proves sharper and more ruthless than her peers, however, channeling Monica Seles in a heated ping-pong match with Komaba, and making a killing at the racetrack with carefully calculated bets.

As these comic interludes suggest, the twists and turns of Hachiken’s evolution from sullen teen to happy young man are dictated more by shonen manga convention than fidelity to Naka’s The Silver Spoon — there are 200% more jokes about cow teats and chicken anuses — but the sincerity with which Arakawa captures the emotional highs and lows of adolescence shows affinity with Naka’s writing. Hachiken’s mopey interior monologues and fumbling efforts to connect with his classmates are as authentic as Naka’s own reminiscences; both convey youthful angst without irony, embarrassment, or “the layered remembrances of adulthood” (Kosaka). But don’t worry: Hachiken spends as much time hanging out with ornery ruminants as he does ruminating, thus ensuring that volume two will also yield a bumper crop of manure gags. (Yes, I went there.) Highly recommended.

Works Cited:

Arakawa, Hiromu. Silver Spoon, Vol. 1, translated by Amanda Haley, Yen Press, 2018.

Kosaka, Kris. “A misanthropic memoir from Meiji Era Tokyo.” The Japan Times, 26 Sep. 2015, https://ift.tt/2IQRrDb. Accessed 24 Mar. 2018.

By: Katherine Dacey

[cwba2a]

First draft 500 words: Split into two

He stood at the cross roads torn. His eyes desperately dashing from one side to the other trying to decide. The winter air was getting colder as the early morning wind began to increase. It would be the opportunity of a life time, but he had a thought of doubt upon his mind. “Will I ever think that I'm good enough?” he thought to himself. “Will I ever brake free of this horrid life?

He reached into his bag to gaze upon the leaflet once more. A fine job opportunity it had written on the top. It was an email that he had printed. Someone was looking for his creative talent and wanted to interview him for a professional position at their company. The new art building was on the far side of town, and his current job, the other.

He closed his bag and threw it back onto his back. He gave a large, deep breath and he could see such as the warm breath caused the cold air to react. Yet he did not move, still frozen by the crossroads.

“Do I go to work, or do I try for my dream?” he thought to himself. “What if I'm not good enough for them? What if it's a trick? What if They think to highly of what I can really do?”

“What if I'm just not good enough?”

He looked back for a moment to see what was behind him. Several people passed him as they strolled down both sides of the roads. One mother and her daughter went to the right of him, a girl wearing a bright red backpack and a yellow winter coat holding her mothers hand, who was wearing a long purple jacket with a flower in her long flowing hair to match. He smiled at the creativity of it all, the colours aroused his senses. He turned to his other side to see a man walking next to his son, almost behind him so that he could push his back whenever he began to slow. The young boy had a grey trench coat and what looked like very formal attire underneath. His father wore the same. The boy did not look happy. They turned to the left.

He was still torn, still standing at the crossroads that could divide his future.

“There's no shame in playing a safe game” he thought to himself, “but what if I would be happier though it may be harder?”

He continued to stare into the divide until he could bare it no longer. His shoulders drooped and his eyes closed firmly as he said “How could I ever follow my dreams?” He looked into the left road, “This is what my life is now”.

He turned left, his shoulders still hanging down, his back slightly hunched. He felt the cold more than ever now as the harsh winds began to soar over his head and down his back. For one last moment he thought it would be OK to look at that road again, and play in the imagination of how his life could have been different. He looked up at the now opposite road, and something shocked him so.

He could see a man he had not seen walk past him before. This man looked courageous, his back facing up towards the sky, his bag hanging confidently on one shoulder, his eyes fixed dead ahead. This was a man who would never look back. But this was no ordinary man. This was him.

He couldn't believe his eyes. Another version of himself had appeared from thin air. He began to stumble, about to scream with shock.

Then he understood what it was that he had just witnessed. It was him alright, but the him that took the other road. The him that would go to that interview with his head held high and get his dream job. He would probably live of off a lower pay check, a tighter schedule, and have more difficult working hours, but he was sure that man would know all of this already, for he was him. He also knew something else. He knew this man would be happier with his decision to take the right road and follow his dream.

The man had now disappeared out of sight, up the left road leading to the other side of town. He was stunned, but he knew what had happened. He turned to face up the left road again, and walked on. His shoulders drooped and back hunched once again.

When writing the story I had no idea what it was that I was actually going to be writing about. I couldn’t decide on where the action was going to take place or what was going to happen. I decided to start the story off with a decision to build tension, and as I wrote on I planned to have an elaborate story with lots of detail about the mans job and him eventually seeing his other self already in the life of his new job some time in the future. However because of the word count limit of 500, that would have been impossible if not a very rushed story. Even describing the incident at the crossroads alone took me 260 words over the limit we were assigned, but we were told not to worry about such right now.