#(remember when way way later danny tells steve about how he used to have a partner who was his best friend) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

raineydays411 · 4 years ago

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So warm and tender

Tony Stark x Daughter!reader

A/n: Hello! finally the last part of Ember. I hope you guys like it and sorry for making y’all wait so long for the confrontation lol)

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Y/n’s POV

“Aunt Pam?!” you say in shock as you stop struggling against the vine wrapped around your body.

“Y/n, is it really you?” your aunt said as the vine loosened its grip and gently lowered you on the ground. “ Where have you been? Everyone has been going crazy looking for you”

You don’t answer as you look at your aunt. You didn’t realise you missed her as much as you did but now all you want to do is throw yourself in her arms. So you did.Pam, sensing you needed comfort rather than an interrogation, wrapped her arms around you. “I missed so much my Petal.”

With those five words, all the hurt and pain you bottled up came out. and you cried.

As you cried, your aunt looked at the girl she hasn’t seen in eight years, and wondered what she’s been going through and if she did the right thing by giving you to your father all those years ago.

“Petal, I think you need to explain what’s going on”

You look up and sniff, “ Yeah, i think an explanation is well in order.” and you tell her everything. From the years of being ignored by your father, your last argument, the two weeks you spent in captivity, and your new powers.

“ And that’s when I found you.” You finish looking at the grim faces of Pam and the other woman, who now that you think about it looks really familiar.

“Oh, you poor puddin’!” you found your face being squished between two ands and then you were comically pressed against a body in a tight hug.

“Don’tcha worry bout a thing, me and Pammy will take care of everything, you just sit here and---” This seems familiar...

“ Harley, I don’t think she can breathe.” “Oh right, now you remember, it the blonde woman who used to sneak into the apartment”. You think to yourself as you struggle to get loose from her grip. You hear someone snicker and see Danny looking at the commotion.

“ Shut up Danny, where have you been?” You say, forgetting that you’re the only one who can see him.

“Exploring, do you thing she could hug me like that too?”

“ If you weren’t already dead, I’m sure they would kill you for that comment”

Pam and Harley look at each other in concern as it seems like you’re talking to yourself.

“ Hey kid, if you’re gonna talk to yourself, try an’ do it when other people can’t see you, like me.” The blonde says as if someone talking to themselves was a daily occurrence for her. You explain that with your powers, you were basically dead and can speak and see other dead people. Hearing that, Pam’s expression darkened

“He let you die?” she said in a grim tone. All the vines and plants in the room started whipping around angrily as if they were looking for the person who wronged you. It was then when you realized it wasn’t your Auntie Pam who taught you how to plant petunias you were looking at, this was Poison Ivy.

“ Men, you can never trust em’. Well, whadda say little flower, ya up for a little premeditated murder?” and that was the infamous Harley Quinn.

“ It would’ve been nice to know that you’re related to scary criminals y/n....” Danny said in a fearful voice. And if you were being honest you just found out that your aunt Pam was also the Poison Ivy but to be fair you haven’t seen her since you were like eight.

“I don’t want to kill him” you finally say. “ I don’t want anything to do with him. Nor his precious Spiderling.” The plants calm down as Ivy calmed down and was your aunt Pam again. “ What do you want to do?” she asks.

You think to yourself and say,” I want him to know how he made me feel, and then I want to stay with you.” Your aunt and Harley froze when you said that.

“Petal, there is nothing I want more than for you to stay with me again,” She started, “ But it isn’t safe for you to stay.” Your eyes started to water

“But I-I have powers now, I can defend myself! I won’t be any trouble, it’ll be like I’m not even here” At this point, anything was better than going back to being invisible. “Please...I don’t want to go back...”

Hearing the desperation in your voice broke Pams, Harleys, and Danny's heart. Pam because this was the daughter of her closest friend. She vowed to protect you from anything the day you came to her after losing your mother. Seeing you like this just reminded her how she, in her mind, has failed you. Seeing you so desperate to get away from the man who broke your heart reminded Harley of herself. The nights she would sneak into the tiny apartment you shared with Pammy, in hopes of escape only to get drawn back with empty promises. So yeah, she had a small soft spot for you. And Danny, you were the only person who saw him after months of being invisible. He felt like he needed to help you in your mission to get your father regret ignoring you.

“Hey Pammy...maybe we should call him...” Harley started to suggest.

“NO, I’d rather drink weed killer than go to that...orphan collector for help.” the red head spat. “ No. We’ll figure it out but she can stay here for now.”

Hearing that you had a place to call home now, gave you the motivation to go and confront your father. Not only for ignoring you, but for leaving you in that..cell for two weeks. He didn’t even attempt to look for you as far as you knew. You’d have thought at least one of the other Avengers would have came to save you. But no one came. After all those years, no one came.

“Y/n.. your eyes” Danny whispered, his cold hand touching your arm snapped you out of your mind. The neon glow of your eyes faded to your normal e/c.

“ Aunt Pam, Harley is there any way you guys can get me to New York and back?” You ask, finally ready to confront your father.

“ Well....” Harley say as with a smirk

~~~~~~~~~one terrifying ride on a stolen batplane later~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Upon arriving to New York you made Pam and Harley wait a few blocks away from the tower, as you really didn’t want the Avengers to find out your aunt was a wanted criminal. You “went ghost” as Danny like to call it and snuck into the Tower with ease. You then snuck into your room, seeing everything covered in a layer of dust as no one has been in there for over two weeks. You packed a bag and filled it with some clothes, books and a picture of you and your mother. You took that bag and walked to the door, looking around at the room that was both you prison and safe space. It was decorated with multiple trophies, medals, and ribbons all from the multiple sports and clubs you joined to impress your father. Not like that ever happened. Danny wander around looking at the multiple teams photos you had hung up.

“ You’re a volleyball girl?” he said, “ Huh. I’d never have had guessed.”

You rolled your eyes as you finished packing. “ Hey I have a job for you.” you say turning to him. “ I need you to go to the control room and turn off the power for thirty minutes. Then turn it back on and come find me in the common room.”

“ Yes ma’am” Danny says, saluting and disappearing through the wall before he comes back. “Ummm, wheres the control room?”

You roll your eyes and explain how to get to the control room and wait. When the lights go out and you’ll make your move. Your father would have to pass through the common room to get to the control room from his lab, which you assume he’ll be. There you’ll be waiting for him.

The lights go out. It’s showtime.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tony's POV

The team spent three more days searching for you. They followed every lead and half of the team even flew out to the building that collapsed an hour ago. Tony, Steve, and Natasha stood behind to look at more clues. It was a little past midnight, and both Steve and Natasha went to bed leaving Tony to tinker in his lab. Tony was making improvements to a certain spider suit as he thought about what his daughter said to him before she went missing.

“Sir, there seems to be someone in Y/--” FRIDAY started to say when the power cut out.

“FRIDAY??” Tony questioned as he walked out to check the control room, making sure to get his nano bracelet just incase. As he walked down the hallway he thought about waking up Steve and if he was brave enough to wake Natasha when he heard it.

“Hi daddy.”

Tony stopped dead in his tracks as he looked up in disbelief. The lights turned back on to reveal his daughter. Wearing a black halter top, spandex leggings, grey boots with elbow length gloves. She looked skinny, as if she hadn’t had a proper meal in the weeks she was gone. And for some reason the air was cold in the room. But there she stood.

‘Y/n” Tony said breathlessly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Y/n pov

As you wait for Tony to walk in,you look around the common room and reminisce. You think about the time when you first moved in, and you got lost trying to find the bathroom and accidently walked into Natashas room. YOu thought she was going to kill you but ended up walking you to the restroom and back to your room. Or when you made the volleyball team way back in eighth grade, and you ran home to tell your dad but ended up telling the whole team, who were rarely all together, and they all took you out to get ice cream, minus Tony. You had to admit, even though your dad didn’t pay attention to you, Nat and Steve did. As well as the whole team, but those two really became the parental figures in your life. That’s why it hurt when not even they came for you. Even they had forgotten you.

“Hi daddy” you said in a mocking voice. Your father stopped dead in his tracks, as he looked you over in disbelief.

“Y/n”, he said in a breathless voice.

“Oh, you remember my name?” You say in an sarcastic tone. “ Didn’t seem like you did when you left me in a hydra cell for two weeks.”

Hearing that you were a prisoner of Hydra made Tony’s blood freeze.

“Hydra? Oh Y/N are you okay? What did they do to you?” He asked frantically as he walk towards you with the intent of checking if you were injured. You jerk away from him, avoiding his touch and say

“ Oh, I’m wonderful. Just so fucking fantastic. I was just experimented on and injected with various liquids that caused excruciating pain. No big deal”

“ Y/n..we spent days trying to look for you. Me and the team--”

“You and the team what Tony? I was there for two weeks. TWO WEEKS I WAS POKED AND PRODDED. I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE.” You scream, anger filling your heart as you remember the agony you went through. You think about the scratches on the wall of the cells, the taunts from the guards, and screams of the undead.

“ You have no idea what I went through. What I’m going through.” You say, feeling your body grow colder as you lose control and start to shift. “ You don’t care about me. If I were Parker, you would have saved mem within SECONDS.”

“That's not true. Y/N you have no idea how much I love you.” Tony tries to say. He’s filled with the need to tell you everything he didn’t tell you before. “I know I haven’t always been the best father. Trust me I know that now. But if you give me a chance, I want to make everything right. Please.”

You didn’t think it would go like this. In fact you were not at all prepared for Tony to say this. You expected to walk in on him continuing his life as normal, tinkering in his lab and such. You had always yearned to hear him say those words to you. But now, they just fill you with anger.

“You think you could just tell me what I want to hear and what? I’ll just act like nothing happened?? I know you’re not that stupid.” You spit, the room growing colder as you get angrier. “ It’s too late for all that Tony. I’m not the same girl i was two weeks ago.i won;t take it any longer.”

“Y/n..your eyes” Tony says as he slowly starts to put his gauntlet bracelet on, realising that you are becoming a threat.

“ Oh do you like them?”, You ask “ This is what happened when they injected me. I can also do this.” You shift, shades of blue taking over brown skin. Tony stared at you in awe and a bit of fear.

“ Y/n this isn’t you. I know you’re angry but--” “ Isn’t me?” You interrupt.” You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’m like. And even if you did the old me died in that cell. Literally I died” You and Tony stared at each other. and that's when you heard the doors open. Two sets of footsteps started rushing to the commotion.

“Y/N some red head and beefy blonde are on their way” You hear Danny say as you realize you had to wrap it up. If anyone can convince you to stay, it’s Steve and Nat.

“ It doesn’t matter anymore Tony.” you say as you start walking to the window. “ I can’t stay here anymore. There’s nothing for me. You win. Peter can be the child you always wanted cause from now on, consider me dead.” and with that, you phase threw the window and let yourself fall, knowing that you won’t actually fall as you can fly.

Tony freaks out and calls for his suit, only to see a blue blur shoot up and across the sky. Then he just sits there and stares. The footsteps reach the common room and he hears someone ask

“ Stark..what was all the yelling. What's going on?”

“she's gone” He says, and that's when he truly realizes his mistake. He became what he never wanted to become. He became his father. And now you were gone.

Taglist: @vxidsti1es @big-galaxy-chaos

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mrvdocks · 4 years ago

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Plus One Finale

Summary: You and Steve make up. Steve plans for the future ahead.

A/N: We finally made it to the end, thanks to everyone who read it and liked it and reblogged it. :))

@mochminnie, @80strashbag, @artsymaddie, @har-rison-s, @theblueslytherin, @prettysbliss, @deliberatequeen, @fl0ating, @crystalyn-aurelia, @itsbabybat, @bellasymph, @hawishima, @hvtelcalifornia, @stevexharringtonx, @fisherbrookphotos, @revangeline

He paced back and forth in the hallway of the animal clinic, somehow both muttering to himself and racking his head for some way to reply other than the incredulous reaction he just gave you.

You squeezed your eyes shut and shook your head. You knew it, you knew it was too soon to say.

You cross your legs in an attempt to stop the distracting bouncing of your leg and ease your nerves.

Sure he just confessed he loved you and apologized, but now that you could possibly be pregnant? What if that was the dealbreaker?

“Steve.” You call, attempting to break him from his trance.

He mutters more, going much too fast for you to understand.

“Steve!” You exclaim, unable to take the suspense.

He stops and turns to face you, visibly shaken. You exhale shakily, trying to keep yourself steady emotionally.

“Listen, if what you said earlier is true, then this is nothing.”

“This is nothing? (Y/N) we’re bringing someone else into our messed up lives. What if we’re terrible parents?”

You stand and take his worrisome hand in yours, “So we don’t have the best model. That’s fine! They’re not the ones raising this kid, it’s us. It’s you and me.”

He bites his lip in thought, eyes falling to his feet. You felt your heart race as you tried to decipher his emotions. You loved Steve, kid or no kid. But this was something you two needed to face.

“I don’t know. I - ” he shrugs.

You try not to remember the last time he shrugged and what followed.

“You and I don’t need to make a decision so quickly. We can sleep on it. Alright?” You try to be comforting, smoothing out the lines on his disheveled shirt.

He seems to relax at this and nods. You nod in conclusion.

“I’ll be back.” He says, letting go of your hands and walking down the dimly lit corridor.

“Where are you going?”

He won’t leave you, right?

“I have to do something. I’ll see you back home.”

He leaves in a rush. It hit you then. Home. You were dreading returning to the apartment all this time because you were afraid of the confrontation.

You had planned on coming back sure, maybe yell at him or take Mickey as you’d promised, but the thought of having to confront his issues and your own made your stomach do somersaults. And not in the good way.

But it seemed to turn out fine. You sighed.

You and Steve barely got by as it is. Robin’s leave put more strain on both of you to come up with rent money. Neither you nor Steve were too content in your career choices, and God knows the place would get cramped with a kid.

It was hard to be an optimist in these trying times but you tried to hold out hope. Maybe things would get better. After all, you had new friends, you’d made new connections. Who knows where that would take you.

You wondered what your sister would say. For once, you valued her input in this.

Honestly, the thought of the future from this point on made your heart race.

Steve was capable of growth…..right?

Once Mickey was cleared to go home, you let out a breath of relief you didn’t realize you were holding. Things felt a lot lighter, it was a weight off of your shoulders. Though a tiny pebble by the name of Steve remained.

You carried your dozed pet out in your arms in the early hours of the morning, choosing to walk it home and avoid another Danny encounter.

It was a chilly week in November. The crunch of the leaves under your feet wasn’t enough to rouse Mickey awake but you kept count of how many you stepped on.

You don’t recall how long it took you to get home. It was most likely the autopilot in you flipping on, your head just too worried about other things at the moment.

You just know you’d made it home without a scratch. You kick away the pile of mail at the foot of your doorstep and take the extra key under the mat. Once you’re inside, the warmth of the radiator kicks in, letting your body relax after the tensing up of your muscles to keep warm outside.

You lay Mickey down in his makeshift bed, the foot tub with a mix of yours and Steve’s old shirts. He grumbles in his sleep, his tiny tongue peaking out in lazy and unconscious movement.

You shake off Jonathan’s coat and drape it over your body like a blanket and collapse onto the couch, too lazy to curl up into your own bed.

You shiver as you run your hands over your arms and cup your hands together to blow air into them. The tiredness from walking and overall excitement of the day weighed over you from the way you felt your eyelids start to fall.

You blink once, twice, and then fall asleep just in time to see Mickey kick and stretch his paws in his sleep.

Steve pants as he reaches the door of the room at the hotel his father’s staying at. He’d been too hasty to berate his future stepbrothers once he saw what they’d done to Mickey.

He knocks rapidly on the door, seeming like a madman to the couple who’s just leaving their own room and staring at him. He composes himself, zips his jacket up, and gives a faint nod as they pass him.

His dad opens the door a second later. “Hey kiddo, what’s with the commotion?”

“She’s pregnant.” Steve regurgitates your confession to his father. Don’s mouth falls open slightly.

He closes it and stammers. He turns to check on the kids in the room, seeing them preoccupied with the tv. When the coast is clear, he closes the door behind him and stays with Steve outside in the hallway.

“I - that was fast.” Don chuckles, feeling flustered for his son. “What did you tell her?”

“I ran here to tell you!”

Don’s hand comes up to pinch the bridge of his nose in disappointment.

“So you’re telling me, the girl of your dreams, the one you’ve been miserable over breaking her heart, just told you she’s pregnant and the first thing you do is leave her and run to me??”

Steve understands the gravity of the situation but he is stuck on the thought that he needed all the advice he could squeeze out of his father.

“Basically.” He says simply.

Don sighs. “What’s the problem, then?”

Steve’s shoulders slump. “I don’t know how to be a dad. In case you haven’t noticed I didn’t have the best model.”

Don nearly rolls his eyes.

“Is that really the reason, or is there another?”

Steve stays silent, contemplating while his eyes scan every inch of the hallway from the detail on the carpeting to the colors.

“I guess….I’m not happy with where I am right now. I’m pushing thirty in two years, I’m a bartender, everyone I know got married and I just feel like I’m out of time. But Dad, this girl. She - she’s everything I’m not. She’s spontaneous and funny and sarcastic and - I don’t know, sometimes I just feel like she could be doing so much better than me.”

Don places a hand on Steve’s shoulder and gently shakes him. “Hey, don’t say that. You’re a Harrington, you’re a catch!”

Steve half smiles at the encouragement.

“Steve, everyone progresses through milestones differently. No one knows what they’re doing. And if we’re being honest, I think you just have to find what you like and hold onto it. Something that makes you want to get out of bed every day and just take all of the bull that life throws at you because, at the end of the day, that something is always going to be there. Have you found something to do that for you?”

Steve nearly dissociates altogether as he falls deep in thought as his father speaks. His mind reeling the montage of memories his brain concocts like film.

He sees you the day you walked into the apartment and into his life, covered in dirty water from being sprayed by a taxi on the curb and taking it in stride and making jokes about it. He sees you dancing in the kitchen to god awful music he’d grown to love in a big shirt and long socks. He sees the way your eyes crinkle when you laugh hysterically at the prospect of trying to help him find dates. The image of you sitting near the radiator with a book in hand and your thinking face.

He thinks these past few months might’ve just been the best ones he’s ever had. Before he went and ruined it.

He didn’t think he would experience something like this after Nancy. He thought he could just run away from Hawkins and leave the bad memories there, but they crept up on him when he least expected it. His fear was not your fault.

He was done running and he was ready to grow.

“Yeah,” he nods. “I think I do.”

The phone ringing off the hook startled you awake. You sit upright, finding Jonathan’s coat at your feet and Mickey pawing at the phone cord. He wriggles his head side to side when he finally gets the cord in between his teeth.

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” You mutter to yourself. You pick Mickey up with swift ease and pull the cord out of his mouth to pick up the phone.

“I’m up.” You announce somewhat sleepily into the phone.

“Good! I have news!” Nancy’s rapid-fire voice comes through and alerts you awake.

“Wait! I did it, Nance! I told him!”

“Oh, what did he say?”

“He….kind of took off.”

“He what?!”

“Okay to be fair, a lot has happened in the past,” you glance at your wrist to see you’ve been asleep for a while. “Five hours? Geez.”

“Okay, okay. Well, we don’t have to worry about this anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“The tests! They’re faulty! They’re recalling them for false positives or something. I don’t know but Kali just called to tell me.”

“Oh….” You trail off.

In a way, you're very relieved. And yet also a little disappointed. But very relieved.

“What’s wrong?” Nancy senses something’s off. “I figured you’d breathe a little better if you knew the truth.”

“No I am,” you say, cradling Mickey in your arm like a mom with a baby on her hip. “I don’t know, I guess I kind of made my peace with it.”

“Oh, well hey, maybe it’s a good conversation starter for both of you.”

You lean against the wall where the phone hangs, letting your furry son sit on the counter. “Yeah maybe. I mean, it was all too fast anyways.”

“Yeah! You have lots of time. Just take baby steps. I think slow and steady would put yours and his mind at ease.”

You had to agree. Time had to heal all wounds. You two had to start again, without interruptions.

You finish talking to Nancy, reassuring her that you’d need to get over the first wave of shock and tell him when he turned up. She offered to go over but you’d declined. When everything’s over, you collapse onto the couch again, slumping as far as your back would let you. Your stomach protruding a little from under your tee. You roll up the lower half of your shirt and let it sit above your belly button.

You prod your fingers at nothing, feeling odd and a little bit silly at the thought that there would be a little person in there.

Mickey whimpers.

“Looks like you’re the baby still.” You chuckle, scratching behind his ears.

The peace and silence are broken by the door swinging open to reveal an out of breath Steve. You straighten up immediately and pull your shirt down.

“Are you okay?” You ask, making a pass to reach for him but he sticks a hand out for you to wait as he regains his composure.

“I’m….fine…..just have to….talk...holdonaminute.”

He’s visibly sweating, beads of sweat on his forehead. He looks like he just ran track. His pants come to a slow until he’s back to normal. He puts his hands on his knees and it takes everything in you to not make an old joke for the sake of the seriousness of the situation.

He stands up straight, keeping his eyes trained on you, and with a softness in them, you feel at ease.

“I quit my job.” He says finally.

Your eyes widen. “You what?”

The confession hung in the air, settling in like the warmth of the radiator. He rushes to you and kneels before you can leap up off the couch and takes your hands in his.

“Hear me out. Before you get mad, just hear me out.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve done a lot and I mean a lot of reassessment about you, me, everything. If we’re going to do this, I want them to be proud of me. I want to be there for them as much as I can be. I’m starting over. At 28.”

You stifle a laugh but release it when Steve takes the initiative to laugh at himself.

“So….what are you going to be doing now?” You give his hands a squeeze, utterly terrified at the plunge he’s taking.

He looks as if he hasn’t planned that far ahead besides quitting. “I….don't know. But it’s, um, kind of cool. I get to see a bunch of different jobs. Find out what I really like.”

“And, what’s that?”

“You.” He smiles, the sight of it sending butterflies free in your stomach. “I like you. So, so much. You’re not hard to get at all, you’re hard to earn. I’d take that over any messy, drunk bridesmaid.”

You tilt your head, feeling the corners of your lips lifting and before you know it, you’re grinning like an idiot.

“And that’s why,” he says, his right hand leaving yours and digging into his pocket to bring out a plastic ring from the bubble gum machines in the laundromat downstairs, “I’m jumping in, all the way.”

“Steve…” You’re nearly speechless. “Oh my god, what are you doing?”

“I know it’s not perfect or big or shiny. But this is just a placeholder for now. I’m all in if you are.” He holds the ring with the pink gem in his fingers, waiting for you.

Maybe it’s the fact that ever since you started to see him in a different light since the start of the year, you’d determined that you’d follow him anywhere. Whether he’d have you or not. Even with his moods and awkwardness and clumsiness. He’d been scored on your heart. You’d marry him with paper rings.

“I’m not pregnant.” You reveal.

His face softens. “What?”

“Nancy called earlier before you came. The tests were faulty. I just wanted you to know that so that wasn’t the only reason you decided to do this.”

It was and wasn’t the reason. But in all honesty, he didn’t think he could bear to stomach the idea of not being with you or the image of you with someone else. He also doesn’t think starting over with someone else was the best idea, you two had been through so much in two years. You shared a particular connection. One that he now realizes he had been looking through seas of beige and silvers and golds.

“It’s not,” he titters, “I don’t care that we don’t have the meet-cutes or the chance run-ins. That’s not what love really is. I thought it was more complex but it’s so - simple. It’s about being comfortable with someone and wanting to hang out with them as long as it’s humanly possible….and just not trying to mess it up the way I did.”

Your heart swells. This is love for him. This is him planting his foot in the sand and not running away when the sea rushes for him. Anyone else would’ve ditched him the moment things got ugly. But you were nothing if devoted.

“Yes, Dingus. I’m in too.” You nod, overjoyed as you feel your eyes get watery.

Don & Mary’s Wedding

December 25, 1994

Hawkins, Indiana

“Okay, okay, how does this look?” Steve asks, fixing his tux for the fifth time that day.

You roll your eyes. “You look fine babe, honestly. We’ve ironed the jacket out twice. Any more and I think you’re going to set it on fire and then you’ll upstage the bride.”

Steve snorts, fixing the knot on his tie. “I’m sorry. I’m just so nervous. I can’t mess up the speech.”

You fix the starchy collar of his shirt. “I’ve heard it many times and I think you’ll do great. Just don’t think too much about it.”

“You don’t think it’s too late to back out?”

“I think,” You pull him by his tie close to your face to tease him. “If you can get through this, you can either have the best after-party experience or you can get the new fridge.”

Steve purses his lips, conflicted. ��We do need a new fridge.”

You playfully smack his arm as you feign offense.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” He repeats, enveloping you in a hug.

“Whoa, whoa, easy on the goods.” You say, smoothing out the easily crinkled fabric of your dress.

“I’m always easy on them.” He jests, slipping in innuendo that you still find yourself blushing to.

“Alright, alright. Let’s go before they start guessing why we’re late.”

You climb onto his back and ride him piggyback all the way to the elevator. He goes over his speech one more time as you descend and tries to tell a joke at the end that doesn’t stick the landing.

You arrive just in time, settling at the table next to the newlyweds. You pat Steve on the shoulder, give him a glass, and wish him good luck. “Go get ‘em.”

He kisses you tenderly before he goes up on stage, feeling like a teen again the way his senses go crazy when he kisses you. He fumbles his way up the stairs to the microphone making you hold back a laugh. He composes himself a second later.

“Hey everyone! Thanks for coming. I’m Steve. Most of you know me as Don’s son. And if you’re wondering why I’m up here giving his best man speech, so am I.”

The crowd of family and friends laugh in unison.

Steve fixes his footing and his grip on the champagne glass tightens.

“The truth is, I put up a pretty big stink about all of this. I didn’t want to do it. To me, a second marriage was ill-advised. I mean, my parents’ divorce was pretty hard to swallow. But also, I just didn’t get it. I believed in things like fate and love at first sight, that once you found the one, that was the ballgame.”

He scans the crowd, passing familiar faces like Jonathan and Nancy, Dustin and Suzie, Robin and Kali, each one helping take the pressure off just a bit. He stops when he lands on you, your warm smile and thumbs up making him feel better.

“But the truth is, if you spend your whole life looking for something perfect, you wind up with nothing. See, there are many innings in this ball game and I don’t think it's about good timing or fate. It’s about trying not to mess up.”

He locks eyes with you for the last part.

“But you will mess up. No matter how hard you try, you’ll get in your own head. But if you can learn from your mistakes, you might just end up with something...even better.”

“I’d like to raise a glass,” He says, raising his cup along with everyone else. “Dad, Mary, congratulations.”

The guests applaud as Don is overcome with emotion and wipes at his happy tears and takes his son in a bear hug. Steve is taken aback by the sudden strength of his father and nearly drops his glass.

The party goes off without a hitch. Steve actually partakes in the festivities with pride and even makes an attempt to get to know his stepbrothers. He laughs at their awful attempts at jokes and bestows some girl advice when they ask him about you. Jonathan, Nancy, Robin, Kali, Dustin and Suzie all congratulate Steve when they find out what the pink stone on your finger means. You meet Steve’s mom for the first time, a charming and lovely woman who is eager to show you loose baby pictures in her clutch and embarrassing stories.

You wait on the sidelines watching as the new Harrington family take their family photos. Mary and Steve talk in what seems to be a sincere and sweet conversation. Don is trying to bribe the rambunctious kids with sweets if they can sit still for the photo. Jonathan glances from them to you.

“Hey,” He asks from behind the camera. “Why aren’t you in there?”

You open your mouth to justify it until Don speaks up.

“He’s right. What are you doing there? Come in! Come in!” He waves you over with encouragement until the entire Harrington gang begins to beg for you to jump in.

“Come in sweetie!” Mary cheers.

You’re about to make your way until Steve leaves the group and carries you over his shoulder. Jonathan smirks as he takes multiple photos, taking advantage of the candid moment. Steve’s stepbrothers singsong about you two kissing in a tree. The Harrington party make a mixture of sounds and cheers as Steve puts you down and wraps his arms around you in a prom pose. You go with it, feeling like you belonged in this crazy puzzle with other people. The little kids make a disgusted sound when you peck Steve on the cheek.

He kisses the top of your head in return and gives you a squeeze.

For the first time in his life, Steve’s not afraid of the future.

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington imagine #stranger things imagine #joe keery x reader #joe keery imagine #aaaaannndd fin

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benka79 · 4 years ago

Text

"That's a lie too, you love me."

Or how Steve dragged Danny to their first date again, and the flirting started one more time.

McDanno meta. 2x17 meta. H50.

Another quick observation, I feel I could explode if I don't share this with all of you, but...

In the car scene...

Gif set credit @indiguus

I want you to pay attention to the second gif, Danny's reaction here is of someone that is recalling something in that precisely moment, and then when he remembered, he looks back at Steve surprised, amazed because is Steve referring to this? Because, whene did Danno said that? Oh right!

Gif credit @mcdannowave

So! When Steve says that so sure, Danny tries to recall when did he said that, that's the face, and then he remembers their first date, and how flirty they were with each other, and then he looks back at Steve like 'Really? Are you talking about that time? Okay, let's come back to the flirt game!'

So... From that moment on, Danny starts using the word 'buddy' several times, but painting it with flirty tone.

(Yes, please go rewatch this, because there's a huge change on their behavior after Steve says "You love me.")

After this, we have Steve, trying to caught Danny's attention, while spreading his macho energy, and flirting with him with smooth and cool movements in this scene...

Gif set credit @tissueoflies

'Look how cool and sexy am I while i use a very exagerated way to capture a guy, are you watching Danno?'

'I'm right here babe, and you look good.'

Tell me if that's not the script right there in their faces.

Steve flipping the can, then up the roof giving such a show to Danny, who's just watching him pleased. Oh yes don't forget Steve checking if Danno is staring at him.

Huge Flirting Show.

Then we have Danny, using the word buddy for the second time, mocking his man, and Steve is just...

Gif credit @tissueoflies 👇

... pleased.

And don't forget the last exchange of words in which Steve makes Danny recall the frittata.

Okay, now I time for Danny to tease...

Gif credit @acceptanceispending

Pic credit @joji387

And the smiles, and the mocking, and the flirty quote 'Book me a towel.'

But this doesn't end here... Because Danny invited all the crew... Because he followed Steve's advise about Gaby and Gracie, and he needed support... But...

Why is Steve looking so flirty with his friend, he unbuttoned TWO BUTTONS in his shirt, and the heart eyes and smiles are out of control.

Yes... All of that... just needed to point and scream about this...

They're loudly in love. But in this season, they're in the first stage of how dummy you can act around your crush. And I love it.

I will continue later, of course.

Ja nee!

Oh, if you want to be tagged in these thoughts I'm having, just let me know.

#mcdanno #mcdanno meta #2x17 meta #h50 #h50 meta #danny williams #steve mcgarrett

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 4 years ago

Text

Eccentricity [Chapter 9: Now I Love Your Shadow And I Love Your Curls]

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make. Potentially a better love story than Twilight.

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: “Til I Die” by Parsonsfield.

Chapter Warnings: Language, references to sex, violence, and drug use.

Word Count: 7.6k.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii @bramblesforbreakfast @maggieroseevans @culturefiendtrashqueen @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @escabell @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee @deacyblues @tensecondvacation @brianssixpence @some-major-ishues @haileymorelikestupid @youngpastafanmug @simonedk

Field Trip

“You want to go to Chicago with me?”

I coughed, having almost inhaled a chunk of pineapple off my slice of GrubHubbed pizza. We were sitting on the grass outside Forks And Spoons under the shade of the maple trees, which were turning from jade to ruby to amber to fool’s gold, rejoining the earth they once rose from one fallen leaf at a time. It hadn’t rained in almost four days—was that some kind of record?!—and the leaves littering the ground crunched when I stepped on them, which I did purposefully and often. The breeze was soft and whispery and temperate. I could get used to this whole having actual seasons thing. “What, in like a hypothetical, at some point in my life kind of way?”

Joe smiled. His U Chicago hoodie of the day was black. “No, as in this weekend.”

“Really?”

“The Cubs have a game on Saturday, and it’s supposed to be rainy and overcast the whole time, and I just thought...” He shrugged, toying with a piece of pizza crust before tossing it to the squirrels. He’s nervous, I realized. How the hell do I have the ability to make the sexy undead Italian man nervous? “It might be nice for us to be able to get away for a few days. Away from my family. Away from Charlie. Not that I don’t appreciate the ambient noise of his snoring from the living room couch, it’s super endearing, I seriously consider dating him instead of you at least twice a week.”

“Go for it. Charlie could use a rich husband. His pension is pathetic.”

“You wouldn’t miss me?”

“I am not necessarily opposed to clandestinely seducing my sugar daddy stepdad should the occasion arise.”

Joe crossed himself like a nun passing tattooed, cursing, lip-pierced teenagers on the sidewalk. “Lord, protect me from this harlot.”

A weekend away. No Charlie, no constant and chaotic whirlwind of Lees, no Ben. I hadn’t spoken to Ben since our misadventure in the Lee kitchen; if he wasn’t avoiding me of his own volition, he was following orders to stay away. Joe claimed that they’d talked it out. I wasn’t sure if I believed him. “I accept your invitation. Although, truthfully, I’d rather get hit by a bus than watch an entire real-life, no-commercial-breaks baseball game.”

“I accept your acceptance. And I’ll throw in a visit to the Shedd Aquarium, just for you. They have baby sea otters.”

“Sweet.” I checked my iPhone. “I’m gonna be late for Chemistry.”

“Anything fun planned?”

“We’re doing a lab involving hydrochloric acid. I’m highly concerned that Ben will accidentally spill some on himself. The miraculous instantaneous healing thing might raise a few questions.”

“Hm,” Joe replied. But he wasn’t looking at me; he was looking at my bandaged hand. And he wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Joe, I’m fine.”

“Yeah.” He took a preoccupied swig of his Dr. Pepper. Solemnity never seemed right on him; it was like he was wearing somebody else’s skin. “You’ve mentioned that.”

“Hey. Mob guy.”

Now his eyes flicked to mine.

“No more sad spaghetti.”

“Okay.” He surrendered, took my face in his hands, gave me a kiss on each cheek and then one quick parting peck on the forehead. “You win. I’m not sad. I’m ecstatic, actually. I’m gonna be eating my weight in hotdogs and mustard-slathered pretzels on Saturday. What’s there not to be ecstatic about?”

“The fact that your license says you’re only twenty and consequently can’t get a beer?”

Joe blinked, remembering. “Fuck.”

I drained my Diet Coke, flung my pizza crust to the skittering grey squirrels—no eerie albino forest friends today—and pulled on my backpack. “See ya. Have an awesome time in Game Theory.”

“Thanks, I probably won’t!” he chimed, waving, grinning compliantly; and yet did I still sense some lingering menace of disquiet, of fear? I suspected I did. Chicago would cure everything.

Ben tensed when I walked into Professor Belvin’s classroom, ran his fingers through his unruly blond hair, peered fixedly down at his notebook and feigned obliviousness. There was already a metal tray of Erlenmeyer flasks, labeled bottles of solutions, burettes, goggles, gloves, and an unassembled ring stand crowding our small table by the open window. Autumn air poured in like seawater through cracks in the hull of a ship.

“Guess who’s gonna see the Cubs play up close and personal this Saturday?” I announced.

He pretended to have just noticed me. “...You...? But that doesn’t sound like you.”

“It was Joe’s idea. I’m acting like I’m not totally thrilled and freaking out about it, but I am. Don’t tell him.”

Now Ben was the one staring at my bandaged hand. His green eyes were large and unfocused.

“I’m fine,” I insisted.

“Sure,” Ben returned noncommittally.

I started skimming through the packet of lab instructions and setting up our titration experiment as Professor Belvin circulated through the classroom, observing, commenting, offering suggestions and critiques. My wounded hand—still sore in the lull between Advil doses and relatively useless—was quite the embarrassing hinderance; I fumbled with a large glass flask and almost dropped it.

Ben shook his head and reached out to stop me. “Here, oh my god, this is so pitiful, sit down. Please sit down. I’ll set it up. It’s the least I can do.”

“Thanks.” I peeked at his notebook. “Your handwriting is atrocious. Haven’t you had like a century to work on that?”

“Penmanship was never at the top of my to-do list, tragically.”

“What language is that, anyway?” The phrases scrawled in black ink in Ben’s notebook definitely weren’t English. Or Italian. “Elvish? Are you a lowkey Lord Of The Rings fan? Magic and self-sacrifice and nearly insurmountable evil, I could see that being your thing.”

He smirked, struggling with the ring stand. “It’s Welsh.”

“Welsh,” I repeated, perplexed. “Welsh...like how Gwil is Welsh?”

“Precisely.”

Professor Belvin checked in on us, nodded in approval, reminded me that I was always welcome to stop by at bowling league activities, and resumed his wandering.

“Gwil still speaks it,” Ben continued. “The rest of them speak it too. At least enough for basic communication.”

“I didn’t know,” I said, fascinated, examining the long, unfamiliar words riddled with Ls and Ws and Cs. “But that must be very useful.”

“It is. Welsh is nearly a dead language at this point. It’s like talking in code. I always refused to learn it on principle...or maybe I was just being difficult. I would study other languages, Arabic, Japanese...but not Welsh. That was always Gwil’s language. Their language. It was a Lee thing. But now...”

“Now you’re sort of a Lee too,” I finished for him, smiling.

“Whatever,” Ben said, hiding behind his bangs.

I watched him as he at last tamed the ring stand, secured the burette, placed the Erlenmeyer flask. Then he began reading the labels on the solution bottles. “Guess what else.”

“What, Baby Swan?”

I grinned, showing off my unremarkable, entirely benign human teeth. “I’ll bring you back your very own U Chicago hoodie.”

That night, after a pleasantly prosaic dinner with Charlie—burgers, one veggie and one of the conventional variety, and milkshakes at Danny’s Diner—I started packing a small, Arizona-sky-blue suitcase as sparse raindrops pattered against the roof and moonlight streamed in through the open window. Then I ticked off my mental inventory.

“Jeans, sweaters, pajamas, socks...”

I pawed through the top drawer of my old, scratched dresser—the same one that had once upon a time been Renee’s—and contemplated the bra and panty options. Would my theme be comfort and practicality, or feral impenitent seductress? Friday and Saturday in Chicago would be our first nights alone together. That had to be significant, right? After some deliberation, I gathered a handful of lacy, transparent, and/or exceptionally skimpy lingerie from Victoria’s Secret that Jessica had more or less forced upon me during a shopping trip in Port Angeles last month. As I dropped them into the open suitcase, I glanced up to see the albino owl outside my open bedroom window.

“You never know,” I told the owl, shrugging.

It leered judgmentally back at me with those gory red eyes.

“Oh shut up. How many eggs have you laid in your lifetime, Casper The Unfriendly Ghost? Probably like a bazillion. Freaking feathery trollop.”

The owl had nothing to offer in its own defense.

“Why don’t you ever come around when Joe’s here? I’m sure he’d love to meet you. He’s pale and weird too. Although I like his eyes a little better than yours. No offense, Snowflake.”

The owl blinked, tilted its gaze at me, ruffled its feathers and sent the raindrops that had gathered there flying in every direction.

I slid my iPhone out of my back pocket, spun around, and snapped a quick selfie with the owl in the background. “Say cheese, Marshmallow!”

The owl immediately unfurled its wings and flapped off into the trees, vanishing.

“Huh. I guess homegirl is camera shy.” I texted my selfie to Archer, typing out with my thumbs: I am the Steve Irwin of Forks. Behold, one of my many forest friends.

Archer replied a few minutes later: WOW! Pasty and mildly disturbing. Exactly your type. :)

“Yours too, apparently,” I murmured, smiling in my empty room.

I went to my full-length mirror with the plastic, teal-colored border, briefly appraised my reflection, felt a dull swell of approval for what I saw there. The version of myself that had once been so consumed by fears of inadequacy seemed impossibly far away, maybe even fictitious, a dream so vivid I could mistake it for truth. Three things were taped across the top of the mirror: Joe’s Official Citation!! No More Sad Spaghetti!! post-it, his Official Whatever You Want Pass, and a photo of us dressed up together and standing in front of the limo in the Lees’ driveway just before the Calawah University Homecoming dance. I peeled off the Official Whatever You Want Pass, carefully folded it into a neat little square, and tucked it into my wallet.

When the rain began to pour and thunder rolled in off the Pacific Ocean, I closed my bedroom window; but I remembered to leave it unlocked for Joe.

Departure

“Got your license?”

“Yes, Dad,” Joe sighed.

“Got your airport snacks?”

Joe held up the gallon-sized Ziploc bag filled with pumpkin and white chocolate chip cookies. “We’re ready to rock.”

“Call me when you get there safe,” Mercy fretted, hugging me and then Joe. “And Joseph, sweetheart, you make sure you keep an eye on her. She’s never been to Chicago before, it’s a big city, and O’Hare is an absolute nightmare, it’s so easy to get lost...”

“I don’t think he needs any reminders, love.” Dr. Lee laid a hand on her shoulder, stroked his neatly-trimmed beard with the other, watched us with a vague and wistful smile.

Mercy went back to trimming the flowers she had spread out across the kitchen countertop, white calla lilies that she threaded one by one into a translucent sapphire blue vase. “Now don’t forget to say goodbye to your brother. He’s out back feeding the new ducks. And I expect these ones to stick around for a while, thank you very much.”

“Mom, I don’t need to say goodbye to Rami. I’ll just think it. Really loudly.” Joe rubbed his temples with his fingertips and squeezed his eyes shut. “Peace out, you nosy bastard.”

“Joseph,” Mercy pleaded.

“Okay, okay, I’ll go say goodbye. Don’t get all aggressive. Don’t take it out on the flowers.” Aggressive...what a joke. I doubted that Mercy Eleanor Lee, formerly Martin, had a single aggressive bone in her immortal body; not even the infinitesimal stapes of her inner ears or the sesamoids of her feet.

“They’re calla lilies,” she replied dreamily, tending them like children. “And they symbolize love, and beauty, and fidelity...”

My nostrils itched and burned faintly in dissent. “I think I’m allergic to them.”

“You’re allergic to fidelity?” Joe asked, raising his eyebrows. “That’s it, now you’re definitely not getting my reclaimed virginity. No ma’am. I am not hit-it-and-quit-it material.”

“Oh sweet baby Jesus,” Mercy murmured.

“I’m going,” Joe said, showing his palms in capitulation and disappearing out the back door. I dragged my suitcase to the front one, politely declining Mercy and Gwil’s offers to help.

Lucy—her bleached hair in a high half-ponytail and wearing polka-dotted black tights, combat boots, a plaid miniskirt, and an extremely Octoberish orange sweater—was sitting cross-legged on the roof of Gwil’s Volvo. God, he’s such a dad. “Have a nice time,” she chirped artfully.

I opened the hatch of Joe’s Subaru and threw my suitcase inside. “Why do you sound like you already know I will?”

“I might have some relevant clairvoyant insight.”

“No way.” I stared up at her, stunned, my hands on my waist. “But you can’t see me, right...?”

“True. But this vision wasn’t of you. It was of Joe. You just happened to be there.”

Interesting. Very interesting. “And what transpired in this vision?” A night full of hot, steamy, blissful vampire sex? A girl could dream.

Lucy closed her eyes, recalling it fondly, maybe even cherishing it. “You were sitting in the stands of a professional baseball game. I could hear the crowd roaring, the umpire’s trumpeting interruptions. Blue and white...everyone was wearing blue and white. And you were there together—Joe a vampire, you human, side by side, almost entwined—shouting to each other over the thunderous noise and laughing and pushing nuggets of soft pretzels into each other’s mouths. So happy. I’d never seen Joe so happy.” Her striking pale eyes came open. “And he’s someone who’s already rather prone to happiness, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“I have,” I agreed.

“He’s never been serious about anybody else. I hope you know that.”

“I know that’s what he tells me.”

“It’s the truth,” Lucy insisted. “I would know if it wasn’t. Rami would know, Ben would know. Joe...he’s kind of the opposite of you. He’s always been the easiest to read. He’s the one Rami hears most loudly, the one who shows up most often in my visions. He’s clear, you know? Uncomplicated. Authentic. And what you mean to him...it’s something everybody sees. It’s a contagious sort of lightness, of joy. So thank you for that.”

And if whatever mysterious genetic switch that renders me immune to your talents wasn’t flipped, I’m pretty sure I’d look the same way. “I should definitely be thanking you,” I said. “You guys have a pretty cool existence going on here. And I’m so grateful to be invited into it.” For however long this lasts, anyway.

“None of us really invited you,” Lucy demurred. “We just let it happen.”

“So everyone knew I was coming? Because you saw it?”

“Everyone but Joe.”

“You never told him?”

“No. Not even now.” Lucy turned sharply towards the trees, as if she heard something in the soaring western hemlocks that swayed drunkenly in the wind. After a moment, she continued. “I’m not sure if I can even explain why. It wasn’t that I feared changing the timeline or something...my visions always come true regardless. Always. But I guess...” She tugged on her short half-ponytail, pondering. “I guess I didn’t want to cloud any of his decision-making, any of his emotions with the specter of the inevitable. I wanted whatever he felt for you to be completely organic. And it is.”

I considered her. “You are extremely thoughtful for someone who spends as much time shopping as you do.”

Lucy laughed in a high-pitched, almost juvenile trill, netting her fingers beneath her chin, her elbows resting on her bent knees. “I do like to shop. I didn’t always though.” She peered off into the trees again, this time pensively. “Did Joe tell you anything about my life before Gwil saved me?”

“Aside from the copious hippie jokes, not really.”

She nodded, her eyes far-away and still lost in the forest. “Gwil and Mercy are inordinately wonderful people. My biological father and mother, unfortunately, were not. And maybe they couldn’t help it, because from what I understand their parents were monsters too. I don’t think of them very often now, not even to resent them. But when I was alive I burned with it, with all that hatred, with all that bitterness. Every bruise was another log on the fire. Every screaming match or hurled plate was a splash of gasoline. So I ran away and found what I fancied to be a new family, and I lived on basement couches and out of vans and in abandoned buildings, and I explored increasingly inventive ways of putting that fire out.”

The October breeze cascaded through the trees, carrying echoes of birdsong and disembodied distant voices and the scent of pine. It reminded me of Joe.

“Chemically speaking,” Lucy said, “that first hit of heroin, that first high...it’s the best you’ll ever feel in your entire life. Nothing else will ever compare. Not skydiving, not backpacking through Southeast Asia on some Pulitzer-prize-winning journey of self-discovery, not winning the lottery, not the births of your children, not falling in love. And once you accept that, what’s the point in stopping? Everything you ever experience will live in the shadow of that needle. You’re twenty-five and you’ve already seen the endgame. You’re born, you suffer, you catch a glimpse of paradise, you pay bills and push shopping carts down the aisles of grocery stores and insipidly smile your way through your husband’s work parties until you die. What’s the fucking point? So I didn’t stop shooting heroin. And the whole time, I knew it was killing me. That’s what they don’t tell kids when they force them to make those idiotic classroom promises to never do drugs. You know it’s killing you, but you don’t care. Because it feels so goddamn good. Because it becomes the only sliver of your existence that doesn’t cut like glass beneath your skin. Sometimes you love things so much you let them kill you, isn’t that ridiculous?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer her; still, I heard my own voice: “Yes, it is.”

“It took dying for me to see that life is worth living. That there’s magic in the mundane and the frivolous. And that there’s beauty everywhere if you bother to look for it.” Lucy uncrossed her trim legs, leapt gracefully off the Volvo, and—with definite but not unkind scrutiny—pulled at the collar of my thrift shop sweater. “Even in your very, very, very misguided fashion preferences.”

The front door of the Lee house swung open, and Joe jogged out, carrying his suitcase. Gwil, Mercy, Scarlett, Rami, and Ben appeared on the porch to wave us off.

“What’d you do?!” Joe demanded, pointing at Lucy.

“Nothing,” she quipped.

“You guys gotta stop doing this!” Joe exclaimed. “You know what you’re doing, you know exactly what you’re doing, you gotta stop cornering people and forcing them to listen to your creepy tragic backstories! Nobody freaking asked!”

Lucy chuckled patiently and stood on her tiptoes to hug him goodbye. “Have fun.”

“You know it.” Joe tossed his suitcase into the Subaru and opened the driver’s door. “Ready, Baby Swan?”

“Almost.”

I walked to the wrap-around porch, climbed the steps, held my hand out to Ben. My stitches had almost completely dissolved over the past week, and the clunky impediment of bandages was no more. Joe crossed his arms and watched from beside the Subaru with an uneasy frown, but he didn’t try to stop me. He nodded to Rami, so subtly I almost didn’t notice. Rami nodded back.

“I will miss your melodramatic brooding immensely,” I told Ben. “Please do some fun family stuff while we’re gone. I’ll see you soon. Dan eich bendith.”

“Dan eich bendith,” he replied, taken aback. And then, after a moment’s hesitation, he ignored my outstretched hand and embraced me, his grasp so strong and yet so careful. His scent like crisp leaves and salted caramel and autumn sieved into a bottle unfolded in my lungs like an opened book.

“I Googled that especially for you,” I whispered. “You’re welcome.”

“I’m in awe.” His words were characteristically sardonic, but I heard warmth in them as well. When Ben pulled away, I saw that everyone else was smiling. Mercy had tears in her eyes.

I retreated back down the porch steps and met Joe by the Subaru. “Okay, mob guy. I’m good.”

He slid on his sunglasses, shook his head, flashed a proud and toothy grin. “You definitely are.”

All the way down Route 101 to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, we listened to Joe’s classic rock mixtapes and my NOAA Ocean Podcast episodes, reviewed the weekend itinerary, ran through the bare essentials for me to understand an MLB game (“Which I am totally not excited about whatsoever,” I informed Joe, who knew enough not to believe me).

When the Boeing 747 ascended above the clouds and unimpeded sunlight poured in from the other passengers’ windows, Joe put on a black sleeping mask over his sunglasses and reclined his seat, tried to nap, passed the time until he would be safe beneath the curtains of the sky again.

Somewhere over the Dakotas, as I leafed through a book about the Great Barrier Reef for my Marine Botany class, Joe’s hand bumped mine. “Hey,” he said drowsily, seriously; and I braced myself for some emotional declaration, some dire warning, some grave realization of the futility of what we agreed—almost always wordlessly, and yet unfailingly—was love.

“Yeah?”

“It’s an emergency.”

“Uh oh,” I replied, smiling now.

“Flag down the flight attendant and get some more of those honey roasted peanut packets,” Joe said. “I’m starving myself back to death over here.”

The Windy City

The bat cracked deafeningly against the baseball pitched at nearly a hundred miles per hour. It was a home run. The crowd erupted into mindless, primal shrieks of conquest; and when Joe jumped to his feet, clapping and cheering and nearly spilling his blue-and-white bucket of popcorn, I found that I did as well. I screamed for the team of a city I’d never lived in, sank back into my seat beside Joe, nestled against his chest as his right arm closed around my waist and hauled me in closer, as his left hand teased me with a soft pretzel nugget hovering just out of reach. And in that moment, I felt like Lucy, snatching Polaroids out of the space-time continuum of the present and the future and the past. There was where Joe and I were right now, of course; the day we had met each other in the nonfiction section of the Calawah University library; the dance floor at Homecoming; the first night he snuck soundlessly into my bedroom window; all those years we still had left to spend together. Not forever, but perhaps long enough.

“I like this baseball thing,” I told him over the roar of the crowd, twirling my fingers around the curling locks of dark hair that stuck out from under his Cubs cap. Or maybe I just like you.

“Whew, thank god.” Joe wiped his forehead with the back of his hand in mock relief. “Now I don’t have to break up with you.”

After the game—a 5-3 Cubs victory, close enough to keep the spectators’ blood pumping throughout—we boarded the L, held onto the metal railings as the packed train car bumped and swerved along, and disembarked in Little Italy. Historic brownstones were interrupted by a freckling of pizzerias, Italian ice stands, and sports bars spilling out shouts of triumph and despair. We were staying in the Four Seasons with a view of Lake Michigan; but we had an hour of daylight—albeit chilled, dreary, and forever threatening rain—left in our Saturday. Tomorrow would be the aquarium, and then dinner before catching our flight back to Seattle, back to the greenery and fog and eternal dampness that I was beginning to think of as my home. Had I really only left Phoenix two months ago? Had I ever really lived there at all?

“So,” Joe said as we walked under shedding green ash and black cherry trees, his arm draped across my shoulders. “Guess what the University of Chicago has. In addition to a killer Economics PhD program, which yours truly will be graduating from in approximately 2027, astonishingly aged not a single day. Maybe he’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline.”

“Hideous sweatshirts?” I guessed.

“One of the best Marine Biology departments in the world. And the affiliated Marine Biological Laboratory up in Massachusetts, where they send their PhDs to do research.”

“Wait, seriously?” I stopped abruptly, the heels of my boots squealing against the sidewalk. “You mean...for me?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, for my other girlfriend who is also inexplicably super obsessed with the ocean. I clearly have a type.”

“You want me...to come to Chicago...with you...after graduation? For like...a five to seven year commitment?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Well, that just sounds...serious.”

“Huh. What do you know. I guess we’re serious after all.” He took my hand and pulled me gently forward, leading me down West Taylor Street. He seemed to have a destination in mind.

“How is this going to work for you, anyway?” I asked, beaming uncontrollably now, trotting along beside him. “Living in a place that isn’t Washington or Scotland or Alaska?” Chicago was cold and cloudy for a lot of the year, true, but few cities were Forks-level wet and sunless. Forks-level tyrannically depressing, I would have said two months ago.

He shrugged, unphased. “Night classes. Sunglasses. Faking a chronic illness so I don’t have to leave our house. I’m really good at that one. Plus I can get a doctor’s note any time I want one. I’ve got connections, you know.”

Our house. He said OUR house.

Joe came to halt in front of a stately yet plain brownstone which now operated as a trendy bookstore, the kind that sold six dollar lattes and hosted anarchist poetry slams on Friday nights.

“Is this where we’re going to crack hipsters’ kneecaps as a bonding activity?” I asked.

“This is where I grew up.”

I looked again, studying the earth-colored stone quarried over a century ago, the wrought iron railings that framed the front steps, the rectangular windows revealing the illumination and shadows of other families’ lives. “Joe,” I said softly, leaning into him, searching for my words.

“There were eight Mazzello kids: Joseph, Charles, Mimi, Salvador, Donna, Lucia, Bianca, and Giuliano.” He rattled them off like a jingle from a fast food commercial. “And I was the oldest. So when my dad dropped dead of a heart attack in the middle of his shift at the Zenith Radio factory, it was my job to step up and figure out how to keep everyone fed. I was seventeen and completely hopeless at school back then; Sal was always the smart one, the disciplined one, he ended up as a math professor at Loyola University. I was just some directionless, grieving kid who never shut up. But there was a place for boys like me in Chicago in the 1920s. The mob could get you money. The mob could turn that same incessant chatter that got you bruised at school into something useful. And the mob could give you a family.”

Joe watched the brownstone solemnly, meditatively, his hands in his pockets.

“My mom sobbed for an hour the first time I brought home an envelope full of bills with Hamilton’s face on them. She knew how I got it. But how could she say no, how could she tell me to stop? We’d never seen money like that. All my siblings could finish school. My sisters could have new dresses on days that weren’t Christmas and Easter, my brothers new shoes, Sal the glasses he needed so badly. My mother always had something to put in the offering plate at church. And once you were in the mob, it wasn’t exactly easy to leave. But they took care of their own. After I died, they sent my mother money for years, until her own children were established enough to support her. That’s when I learned that money wasn’t just something that put food on the dinner table or kept the lights on. It’s a way of showing loyalty, of giving people peace and comfort and meaningful choices in their lives. It’s how I’ve been taught to give back to the world. So I guess I shouldn’t have disparaged my fellow vampires back in Forks, because there’s a slice of my tragic backstory, Baby Swan. Now you know. And you should know everything, since we’re in this thing together. Or maybe I just want you to.”

I laid my palm against his cool and flawless face, ran my thumb lightly across his cheek. “You really are serious about me.”

“I am alarmingly serious about you.”

“Even though this thing of ours has an expiration date?” Since I can never become a vampire. Since I will never have the distinction of being a permanent fixture of the Lee coven.

“That’s not a problem for today. That’s a problem for ten or fifteen years from now, whenever you decide you want to settle down and have kids and do the whole Great American Dream bit. You’ll be sick of me by then anyway. You’ll be dying to get away from us. Hahaha, get it? It’s a pun. Dying to get away from the vampires.”

I couldn’t imagine ever being sick of Joseph Francis Mazzello. Still, ten or fifteen years felt almost as good as forever to me. Fifteen autumns, fifteen Christmases, fifteen journeys around the sun that he avoided so deftly. “Why me, Joe?” I asked, incredulous. “You could have anyone. Any human, any vampire. Why me?”

“Because you’re you,” he said simply. And his mystified dark eyes added: What kind of a question is that? “You’re smart and you’re hilarious and you actually care about the world, about where it came from, about where it’s going, about people and places and animals that you’ll never meet. You’re indomitable. You’re fearless almost to the point of recklessness. And yet you’re so kind. You’re even nice to Ben, and humans are never nice to him...they’re either horrified or confused, or they’re too busy fantasizing about him to remember that he’s a real fucking person. But you’ve always tried to see the good in him. Even when he didn’t deserve it.” Joe shook his head, marveling. “And yeah, I’ve...I’ve screwed around, full disclosure. I’ve done the hookup thing. And it was great for what it was. But I never wanted more. I never felt some gnawing, sentimental, Hallmark-channel need for connection, to understand who they were as people. And then I met you, and...I want to know every single goddamn thing about you. I want to know your favorite color, what books you read, what the hell is so appealing about pineapple pizza, what you dream of. I feel like I could never get tired of trying to understand you.”

A refrain circled through my mind like a whirlpool, dragging every other thought down into oblivion: I love him, I love him, I love him. “Blue,” I said at last.

“What?”

“Turquoise blue, like the sky in Arizona. That’s my favorite color.”

The smile, slow and wonderous, rippled across his face. He took my hand again. “Come on.”

Joe led me onwards, down a few blocks and around a corner, as the muted sun receded from the sky and the first stars took its place, pinpricks of celestial light in a blanket of violet, azure, amber, rust. He stopped in front of the Church of Saint Lawrence, established in 1902 according to the sign mounted on the brick wall that faced the street, perhaps the same church that he had once visited with his family as an impatient child, snickering with his brothers and sisters and kicking the back of the pew in front of him with shoes that never fit quite right. There was a fountain bubbling with transparent water, a statue of the Virgin Mary at the center, coins made of copper and nickel and zinc glinting through the water under corridors of silvery luminance cast by the streetlights.

“I lied about not having my own superpower,” Joe informed me mischievously, not at all serious.

“Oh, did you now?”

“Absolutely.” He opened his wallet, rooted around, pulled out a penny and handed it to me. “I can make wishes come true. So go ahead.” He nodded towards the fountain. “Make your wish.”

The penny was worn and nearly indecipherable, but I was just barely able to read that it had been minted in 1928. The same year Joe was turned. “Joe...I can’t just throw this away!”

“You’re not throwing it away. You’re exchanging it for a wish. Now wish.”

I closed my eyes, chose my wish, tossed the penny into the fountain. The plink it made when it hit the water was bright and yet mournful somehow, like windchimes, like flickering candlelight.

“Outstanding job,” Joe complimented.

He was so visibly proud, so content, so faultless. The streetlights threw shadows across the sidewalk, the fountain, the whole world it seemed. I laced my fingers behind his neck, gazing up at him. “What are we doing tonight, mob guy?”

“I’m so glad you asked. You see, we have options.”

“Let’s hear them.”

“Door Number One,” Joe began. “It’s been a long day, and you’re exhausted from the illustrious honor of witnessing a Cubs victory firsthand. So we go back to the hotel, find some shark documentary on tv, order room service, shower, and drift off into a peaceful slumber. Just like last night.”

“Not bad. How about Door Number Two?”

“Door Number Two. You’re tired, but not that tired. We go back to the hotel, find that same aforementioned shark documentary, but totally ignore it and make out instead. Maybe we even round second base, in the spirit of the Cubs. Whatever you’re up for. Then we shower and drift off into a peaceful slumber.”

“Even better,” I said, and I meant it. “And what’s Door Number Three?”

Now Joe became jittery; his eyes darted to the fountain, the church, the cars that rolled lazily by. He was so desperate to conceal his hope, to not impose any undue influence upon me. I felt infinitesimal, almost weightless drops of rain against my cheeks, my collarbones, the downy undersides of my arms. “Well, uh, Door Number Three is...it’s...well...uh...it’s...”

Door Number Three is a home fucking run. “I want Door Number Three.”

“Really? Because you don’t have to say that, you can say no, that’s completely fine, it’s more than fine actually, it’s awesome, it’s totally cool, I’m seriously fine either way, and you can obviously change your mind whenever—”

“Wait.” I broke away from him, yanked my own wallet out of my purse, found the Official Whatever You Want Pass, hastily unfolded it, and presented it to Joe. “I want Door Number Three.”

He barked out a shocked laugh, accepted the pass, studied it in disbelief. “You are full of surprises, ma’am. It took me a hundred years to find a woman like you. And I don’t think I ever will again. Makes one wonder if this whole eternity thing is all it’s cracked up to be.” He tucked the pass into his pocket and kissed me beneath the streetlights, beneath the stars. “So there’s one tiny caveat to my wish-granting superpower.”

“Yeah?”

He smiled impishly, nudging the tip of my nose with his. “You have to tell me what you wished for.” He was joking, as he almost always was; I didn’t have to tell him anything. He wouldn’t press the issue. I doubted that he was really expecting me to answer at all. And yet I wanted to tell Joe; I yearned, for once, to be as clear as Lucy had said he was.

“For you and me,” I replied in little more than a whisper. “And for forever.”

Home

The only thing that startled me was how profoundly unstartling it all was, how wholly uncomplicated, how effortless.

I didn’t feel like a different person afterwards. I didn’t feel that some latent spark of lust, of carnality had been ignited, had singed through me, had left me forever marked like the heights of children ticked off on a doorframe over decades; I felt neither ruined nor awakened, no wiser, no older, no more enlightened as to the incalculable eccentricities of the vast and enigmatic universe. I felt only happiness, and exhausted satisfaction, and a deep, dreamless peace that engulfed me like frothy fingertips of waves dragging pebbles and shells back into the sea. I felt only a homecoming that was measured not in miles but in soul.

We slept in as the morning sun rose over Lake Michigan, bought Ben a hoodie (black, of course, per his usual aesthetic) from the University of Chicago gift shop, strolled unhurriedly through the dimly-lit, relentlessly blue pathways of the Shedd Aquarium. As I stood in the glass tunnel and watched sawfish and blacktip reef sharks soar by overhead, Joe linked his arms around my waist, tucked his chin into the dip of my collarbone, kissed the slope of my jaw.

“What do you think?” he asked, perhaps a touch apprehensively. “Could you get used to the Chicago life for a few years?”

“I would be tempted to kidnap some of these guys and bring them home to live in our bathtub. But yes.”

And Joe murmured, smiling, his lips to my temple: “That’s illegal, ma’am.”

Our flight back to the West Coast took off after dusk, and there was no blinding sunlight for Joe to avoid; only immense glooms of clouds and gleaming distant stars and the unfathomable void of space, cursed with crushing pressure and darkness like the cervices of the ocean floor.

Fifteen years might not be enough, I thought, resting my forehead against the cold airplane window as the city lights died behind us, as Joe’s hand weaved through mine on the armrest. But forever sounds just about right.

Larkin

There once was a boy born in a stone cottage with a dirt floor in a vanishingly inconsequential village just west of Clifden, Ireland. It was February 9th, 1672, bitterly cold, miserably wet, and the sea was murderous with storms. His mother was illiterate, as her mother had been, and as her mother had been as well, all the way back to people who painted mammoths on cave walls with their fingers; she was thirty-three and already exhausted with living, her seven children forever underfoot, her full and ruddy cheeks perpetually smudged with dirt from the field and ashes from the fire. Her husband was a failure and a drunk, but half a day’s worth of work once or twice a week was better than none at all; and as much as she never would have admitted it, he was a tether for her in a world that was often, as she had learned, both lonely and cruel.

She gave the baby boy a name—a strong Irish name, none of that audacious English rubbish—that meant rough or fierce, just like the sea that rose and ruptured against the rocky cliffs outside. He would need to be rough to survive in this world. He would need to be fierce.

He began like all the other children had been: sweet and yet anonymous, yielding, needful, worryingly small. She rocked him absently with one arm as she stirred the stew pot with the other. She sang to him, told him stories long before he could comprehend them, tales of the Lord and the saints and all their malevolent adversaries: serpents, pestilence, demons, dragons. She tossed stray sticks to him so he could carve pictures into the dirt floor and keep out of the way as she labored with the laundry or the sewing. And he grew, and he grew; and there was nothing remarkable about him at all, that boy speckled with mud and soot and the perpetual bruises of children mostly left to their own devices, that boy with pallid skin like his mother’s and black hair like his father’s and eyes so light and vibrant a brown they were nearly gold.

The boy was a baby, and then a child, and then a young man. And his mother realized one day—all at once, as a mother does when their attention is divided among so many other lives, when the children’s analogous faces bleed into each other and even their names sometimes escape her, even those names that she had chosen herself from the stories her own mother once passed to her through threadbare whispers—that people had a habit of following him, of listening to him. That there was an ether of allure that hovered around him like the mists that clung to the precarious, crumbling cliffs that touched the sea; that there was something like what the heathens called magic. And when the war came, that boy who was no longer a boy left his mother’s stone cottage and enlisted in Clifden, lied about his age, signed his name with an X because that was all he knew how to spell. But he was sure to tell the man who handled the ledger that he did have a real name, a good Irish name, a name apt for a soldier, a name that his mother had told him meant rough or fierce: Larkin.

There are men who join wars out of loyalty, principle, love for their homes; and then there are men who join to escape their homes, perhaps to forget them entirely. If you were to consult that ledger signed in a pub in Clifden, Ireland in 1688, you would read that I fought for Ireland, for the Catholics, for Christ the Lord and all his saints. But what I really fought for was my own resurrection: to take that boy stained with dirt and ignorance, drown him in the blood of other mothers’ trivial sons, and dredge up some greater version of myself that I had always known existed, that was hidden somewhere in the netlike darkness of the marrow of my bones.

People follow me, and they always have. I couldn’t tell you why. When I called them to enlist, when I thrusted swords and pikes into their calloused farmers’ fists, when I told them they could fight and live to see their wretched homes again, they believed me. I climbed the ranks like a ladder, like a mountain made of bones. And all those other mothers’ sons laid down for me so I could walk across the bridge of their spines to what I mistakenly assumed was invincibility.

At the Battle Of The Boyne, my horse was shot out from under me. A Williamite caught me beneath the ribs with his dagger. And as I bled out, staring up at the sky and impatiently waiting for the pain to vanish as my consciousness withdrew like low tide, I became aware that someone was lifting me, holding me, spiriting me through the battlefield and then the wilderness; and that my pain, in a disconcerting turn of events, had swelled to a vicious and unrelenting inferno.

Three days later, I woke to find that I was resurrected again, this time as something more than human. The man who turned me was blond-haired, light-eyed, agile and yet gentle, ancient and yet ever-changing.

“I thought you’d survive,” Nikolai said in a thick Slavic accent, standing over me with a kind smile. Then he helped me to my feet. “You have greatness in you. It sweats out of your pores, it’s in every word you speak. What a shame it would be for all of that to go to waste.”

He taught me everything: how to read and write, how to hunt, how to dodge the sunlight, how to survive an existence that was both theoretically endless and yet forever on the precipice of being cut short. He introduced me to the Draghi, to vampires who were remarkable for their ferocity, or their creativity, or their curiosity, or their cleverness, or all those things at once: Victorien, Honora, Elizabeth, Kestrel, Zhang, Sergei, Ana, Gwilym. And most crucially, Nikolai showed me that my human talents were magnified several times over, that his own followers were not immune to them, that there was power in collecting exceptional individuals like pieces of china stacked in a locked cabinet; and that if I could learn to climb immortal bones, the ladder never needed to end.

You never quite get used to the power, to the invincibility, to the promise of eternity. You never take it for granted. It hits you, again and again, in ceaseless and victorious waves. Once I was a barefoot toddler who sketched dragons and Catholic saints from the stories my mother told me into the dirt floor of our drafty stone cottage. Now I live in palaces with marble floors, with spiral staircases and libraries and gold-dripping ballrooms, with unobstructed views of any sea I choose. Now I am the dragon.

My phone rang, and I checked the name on the screen. Then I answered. “Hello, beauty. How’s the other side of the Pacific treating you?”

And Liesl answered, in a soft and astonished voice: “I don’t think Lucy can read her. I don’t think any of them can.”

I could feel it again. Another wave, crashing through me like the ocean, like the unstoppable rolling of time: power and insatiability and exhilaration. I smiled in my twilight-lit study as long-dead stars rose outside and the wind howled like wolves over the East Sea. “You know what to do.”

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angelwithwingsoffire · 4 years ago

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Okay, I really want to know how you feel about h50 season 6 finale (post plane crash/liver donation/Danny gets no props) and the series finale (Steve leaves with Catherine, Danny is on the beach alone)

When I saw this question, I was going to go back and rewatch the season 6 finale to remember all my thoughts about it, but I can’t find a place to watch it anymore so I’m going off my memory and Wiki so I’m gonna do my best. (Also if anyone knows where I can watch H50 again I’m too poor to afford the CBS shit)

I think that Danny was never given the credit he deserved for how important he was to Steve. Like from the beginning, Steve literally took the Governor’s deal just so he could fuck with Danny. He has always been the person that brought Steve out of his “SEAL Shell” regardless of if Steve wanted it or not. They both drove each other nuts, especially in the first seasons, but they mattered So Goddamn Much to each other. Danny was an uptight, rule-following cop, and he was willing to throw all of it away when Steve was in trouble.

And then in Season Six, he risked literally everything to save Steve. Breaking their cover could have resulted in them both dying anyways, but he did it to give Steve a chance. And then he backed down from killing the guy they had been hunting for ages, because Steve was in the hospital and needed him. And like I’m a fucking sucker for people saving the life of the person they love, and he doesn’t even hesitate. Steve, the same person he claimed to want to murder back in season one, needed his help and he Didn’t Even Hesitate.

And there are so many other moments that show how much the two of them came to mean to each other. The entire series is filled with moments showing the audience that they fucking matter to each other, that they care and love each other, and support each other. And that’s why the season finale didn’t sit right with me.

Steve rescues Danny, and then sits by his bedside the entire time, waiting for Danny to wake up. That’s fucking commitment right there. And then, one week later, Steve just up and leaves. He leaves behind the life he had spent the last ten years making. And yes, I understand needing a break from things, to settle his mind on everything that happened with his Mom and Dad, but I don’t think the writers handled it well. The viewers had watched for ten fucking years, seeing how much Danny came to mean to Steve, from not caring about the guy at all to trusting him implicitly in every aspect of his life, and then Steve just left. He left not only Danny, but everyone he considered family. Family means so much to Steve, we see that throughout the series, and he just turned around and left them all trying to ‘find himself’ when personally I think he already had found himself, right there on the island he was raised on.

The thing that really got me though, was the fact that the writers spent so much time telling the fans that they would get the ending they wanted, that everyone would be so happy with it. And I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I knew better than to expect a McDanno ending. I knew that wasn’t going to happen. However I was hoping that they would give an open ending that would allow for ALL members of the fandom to be happy. Personally, I hate Catherine. I have since the beginning basically because I think she uses Steve for her own gain. But I know some people love her, and I guess those were the only fans that mattered to the writers because that’s the ending they gave Steve. And I think that’s sloppy writing and a shitty way to treat the fans.

And because I know someone will want to know, here’s the ending I would have loved. After the conversation between Danny and Steve about wanting to find peace, I wanted the entire team, the entire Ohana, to come over for a visit. There didn’t need to be any dialogue, just all of them seeing each other and being there for each other and loving each other. I didn’t need a McDanno ending, I needed a family ending. The group that means so much to everyone, being there together. They went through So Much during the series, and now they’re finally able to find peace TOGETHER.

#h50 #mcdanno #hawaii five 0 #danny williams #steve mcgarrett #h50 finale #ask angel #Anonymous

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theshipsfirstmate · 4 years ago

Text

Agents of SHIELD Fic: All My Best Kept Secrets Are the Ones I Didn’t Know I Had

post-SHIELD 7x06 and also post-Agent Carter season 2. peggysous -> daisysous.

doing my best to tie up the loose ends that get Daniel from Peggy to Daisy, because I, like many others, could not have imagined shipping him with anyone else and then the last few eps of SHIELD have taken a sledgehammer to my feelings. so, just like this ship, idk where this came from, but here it is.

Title from “Something in Common” by Dawes.

All My Best Kept Secrets Are the Ones I Didn’t Know I Had (AO3 - wc: 3218)

After Peggy went back to New York, Daniel told himself to take it easy.

And he tried, he really did. He even said it in his head, sometimes, the way Jack had: “Take it easy, Danny boy.” The wise-cracking agent had never stopped teasing him, even after they had become something resembling friends. But he was gone now too, left behind in a past that didn’t feel as distant as it should.

They’d had all of one day together, he and Peg, before everything went to hell. She had kissed him -- in his office, of all places -- and he had reveled in it for a few blissful moments before sending her away with a matching grin on her face, so he could pick her up later that evening for a proper date.

He’d planned on Musso and Frank -- had been carrying around the image in his mind for longer than he’d admit to anyone -- but after he picked her up and saw that mischievous flash in her eyes, he’d called an audible, turning the car south on Western, guessing she’d be up for something a little more adventurous. He was right, she was taken with El Coyote from the moment they walked in, wide-eyed and grinning at everything from the margarita glasses to the friendly waitress who’d winked and called him “Blanquito.”

Looking back at it now, he’s almost glad he doesn’t remember too many more of the details. He doesn’t remember what they ordered or exactly how long they’d sat and talked in that booth. He just remembers the warmth of her eyes, her hand in his across the table, the way she seemed more relaxed than he’d ever known her to be. Those were the things to hold onto.

He’d dropped her off with a gentlemanly kiss at her front door -- and a less-than-gentlemanly follow-up when she’d tried to convince him to come in for coffee. His only regret now was not taking her up on the offer. Not so much for the obvious reason, just to give them a few more easy hours before it all came crashing down.

Because when Daniel returned to his own front door that night, there was a patrolman — one of the new guys, whose name he had to read off his badge in the dim porch light — sitting on the stoop, waiting for him.

“Thompson’s gone,” the kid said. “Never made it on the plane. Signs of a struggle in his room. And a lot of blood.”

The next week was non-stop, chaos and panic and a wild goose chase that had led them everywhere but to Jack. A sinister cloud hung over the entire office, and the spectral whispers of the one name no one wanted to speak aloud echoed in the desperate silences. He and Peggy barely had a chance to look at each other, let alone talk about anything but the latest scraps of evidence, and when it was all over, well, there was no relief there, either.

He’s never gotten used to funerals, and having a hand to hold this time didn’t make it that much easier, not with the weight of failure pressing down on them both.

Thompson had fought hard, that much was clear when they’d finally found him. But it wasn’t enough. That was Daniel’s biggest fear every time he thought about the facts they had been able to gather, every time the unspeakable name echoed in the confines of his restless brain. Cut off one head, and two more take its place -- would they ever be enough to fight it? Would it ever be easier?

__________________

“You know it truly is nothing to do with you, don’t you?” Peggy had asked him, eyes turned down to the table between them, to the cups of coffee untouched and growing cold. This time, Daniel didn’t reach out for her hand. He listened to the buzz of the planes taking off at the Lockheed Air Terminal down the road, and wished it were enough to drown out the whole day entirely.

“Peg, you don’t have to do that,” he’d muttered, feeling childish. “Spare me the pity, I-”

“Daniel,” she’d interrupted, in that tone that left no room for questions. “I’ve never pitied you, and I certainly don’t intend to start now.”

He stared back, silent. That was the problem, you see, with the goodness of a heart like hers. There was no artifice, no way to crack back in a moment like this one. As miserable as it was, he was going to have to sit here and take it.

“Please,” she’d continued, softer, still barely looking at him. “I want to say it. I need you to know.”

He’d huffed out a breath through his nose and aimlessly fiddled with the tiny pitcher of milk. “OK.”

“I want to say…” she had started, stopped and gathered herself, then started again. “I want to tell you that you deserve so much more than what I can give you.”

He’d hated hearing the cliche, even as he weighed its truth. He wasn’t sure what exactly it was that he deserved, but hadn’t he known it would be this way from the start? Hadn’t a part of him always worried that there wouldn’t be room in her heart for the kind of life he wanted to share?

“It’s not for the reason you think,” she’d insisted, before he could come up with something to say in response. “I promised myself….When Steve died, I promised myself I would keep up the fight.”

She hardly ever said his name aloud. It didn’t ruffle Daniel as much as he expected, but it did make him speak up.

“I’m in it with you, Peg. I hope at least you know that.”

She’d nodded, and then she’d finally looked up -- and he immediately wished to God she hadn’t. Because there, behind the sheen of barely-restrained tears, was their ending.

“All we can do is our best,” she told him, not for the first time. “And I think we both know this fight is going to take the best we have.”

He nodded and swallowed against the lump in his throat he was starting to worry might be permanent.

“But this... It’s too much for me, Daniel. I can’t lose you too.”

A bitter part of his brain pointed out that it was ironic, to say that as she walked away. But he tamped that down, and told her the only truth he could find that felt like it wouldn’t make things worse.

“I’ll miss you, Peg.”

She had reached out then, squeezed his hand fast and tight, telling him the same before swiping beneath her eyes. And then, she was gone.

Easy.

__________________

Daniel had tried, he really had. In his brief moments of free time as they watched the Hydra trail dry up hopelessly once again, he went on a handful of absolutely mediocre dates with the sunny blonde who worked the front desk at the local library and the brunette waitress who left her number on his receipt at the diner. He even let the guys at the office set him up once with a busty redhead who was so forward he spent the next week trying to suss out whether or not they’d paid her.

But there wasn’t anything there. There wasn’t anything anywhere, it seemed. With every interested woman he met -- and there were a few, he didn’t mind saying -- it was the same as it had been with Violet. Perfectly fine, perfectly nice, perfectly room temperature. In another lifetime, maybe he could have convinced himself that’s what it was supposed to feel like. But not now.

And then one day, he walked into his office on a top-secret S.H.I.E.L.D. base, and met a girl from the future.

There was something about her, right from the beginning. She was beautiful, there was no denying that, and he saw something familiar in the mischievous glint in her eye — he’d been able to clock her CIA lie on its face, though it was just one part of a larger, much more confusing puzzle.

At first, he thought his reaction to her was just part of the chaos -- excess adrenaline at the prospect of seeing Peggy unexpectedly and the frantic and unexplainable events that followed. But then it didn’t go away.

She kept surprising him, that was familiar too. Comforting, almost, in a bizarre, backwards kind of way. She saved his life on the train — he’s always had extra respect for a woman who could throw a good punch. And he hadn’t missed the shadow that crossed her face when he mentioned all the things that Hydra had taken from him. There was even more to uncover, he was sure of it. Even finally learning her first name, Daisy, had him furrowing his brow at the dichotomy.

But there was hardly time to dwell on it. He’d expected to drive out of that futuristic aircraft and never see her, or any of her compatriots, ever again. He’d deliver his package to Stark, go home to an empty house, and wake up tomorrow to throw himself back into the work.

The next thing he knew, he was staring at the familiar eagle on the wall, and Agent Coulson was telling him he was dead. Like it was that easy.

__________________

He tried to throw himself into the fight immediately — he’s always been aware of the liability of dead weight and there wasn’t any time to stumble around and gather his bearings if he was going to be useful in the team’s mission to stop the Chronicoms.

Still, he would catch Daisy watching him, warily, like a timer on a bomb. She teased him in the clothing store, elbowing him playfully when he stopped dead at the “modern” 1970s fashions, but when he met her eyes, there was something more insistent looking back at him. It was like she was asking him a question neither of them could put into words, sizing up whether or not he was going to run, or stay, or fit, or break, or...something.

He tried his best to not to give her more to worry about. So he wouldn’t be the one to extract Hydra from S.H.I.E.L.D. in the ‘50s -- as it turned out, there were plenty of other ways to save the world. That was the core of the mission he’d signed up for from the start, and he felt more at ease the more he realized this was a team devoted to the same cause.

But he wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, that made him step up behind her in that underground bar and call her “sweetheart” -- maybe the same misguided sense of chivalry that got him a dressing down after he made Krzeminski apologize to Peggy in the briefing room back in New York. Mercifully, Daisy had gone along with his ruse, surprising him again with a palm pressed to his chest and a conspiratorial grin in his direction.

And he hoped it was duty again, not the memory of that smile, that made him insist on accompanying her to hack into the base. After a confrontation with the scruffy kid with the dark circles under his eyes, he was more aware than ever that this team was just barely more adjusted to their circumstances than he was. But that still didn’t quite explain his growing desire to stay at Daisy’s side.

What he was really looking for, if he’s honest, was a bit of solid ground. What he was wondering was if the feeling in his chest would turn out to be fleeting, if the quaking he’d felt when she touched him was because of her powers — or if it was something else entirely.

Because it seemed like something he never felt with Violet or the librarian or any of the rest. It seemed like it might be something he’s only felt once before. And it’s just his luck that it comes wrapped up in even more danger.

He tagged along just the same, watching her back and trying to learn on his feet about all the things she could do in addition to making the earth shake. She could break into a computer network he can’t even begin to comprehend, she could snap a crystal clear picture of him on that thin screen she said was a telephone, she could quirk an eyebrow at him and make him forget, just for a moment, that his life had descended once again into supernatural chaos.

“You look OK for a guy who just aged 20 years.” She teased him a second time as he marveled at the photo, and his stomach flipped all the way over to melancholy. But he wasn’t totally honest about why.

His heart ached at the thought of Peggy getting the news of his “death,” but the biggest goodbye of all, Daniel had realized, was to the man he used to be. However lonely and lukewarm he thought his life had been, he hadn’t been prepared to lose it so suddenly. There was possibility there, and promise to mourn, and the uncertainty about what lay ahead now had given him a rose-colored rearview mirror to look back at all he had left behind.

But when he told Daisy that this might be his last stop, she had simply turned back to her computer, assuring him their current dilemma was just a minor setback -- “Without us, it’s way worse,” she said.

She said it like she’d already accepted him as part of the team, like another thing she knew that he didn’t was that he hadn’t lost himself to the ether of time travel. She said it like he belonged.

It made the decision seem easy enough.

__________________

When the Malick kid’s goons bring her back, when he sees her limp and bloodied, slumped on the floor beside him, he has another flash to his past -- Peggy lying prone, impaled on a mean-looking length of rebar. He had learned that night how strong she really was. Not just because she had survived, but because she had let him see her at her weakest and most terrified, had let him haul her into his arms and onto his couch and into focus for his fiancee, who he knew would be able to see right through it all.

He had blown up his entire life just for the weak, grateful smile they shared when they realized she was going to be OK. And it had been worth it.

Daisy doesn’t seem the type to let someone stroke her hair either, but Daniel tries to stop himself from drawing any more parallels right then and there. He keeps checking her pulse point like an excuse, and hopes it’s a fair trade-off that he agrees to tell her the story of his rescue.

He doesn’t like to think about Stevens much, about the way he’s carried the potential of that pesky man's life with him every day since he woke up on that stretcher. That’s what you do when someone dies for you. You have to live for them.

That makes him think of Peggy again -- and then, unbidden, of Steve Rogers. He remembers the stories they used to tell about what Captain America was like before the serum: skinny, frail, half a dozen 4F rejections under various pseudonyms. He thinks of that kid, plucked from the life he was supposed to live and thrust onto a pedestal that must have felt completely untenable at times -- given muscle and then immediately handed the weight of the world.

And now there’s Daisy, with these powers. The kind of strength good men would covet and evil men would kill for. And like him, she’s left behind whatever life she had in order to fight her way through space and time and try to save humanity.

Peggy was a woman who ran headfirst into a storm without giving so much as a thought to an umbrella. Daisy, he’s learning, is the storm itself.

So he talks to her, and he keeps talking. He tells her things he’s never told another living person. In fairness, he thinks, he’s technically known her almost 20 years.

He tells her about survival, certain she already knows. He tells her about warfare, a different type than she’s seen, but with a common enemy. He tells her to fight -- and when she shows him the shard of glass she’s snuck back to him in a bloody palm, he knows the way his heart thuds could be just as dangerous as the psychopath in the other room.

Daniel’s always been good at waiting for his moment, and mercifully, it comes not long after Daisy slips completely into unconsciousness. He shifts away from her on the dirty floor to avoid risking further injury, and he readies himself like he had in the trenches.

When the time comes, he fights, just like he knows Stevens must have fought to get him to safety. They catch a lucky break when the earth-rattling powers prove to be too much for Malick to handle, and he carries her back to the ship, leg aching all the way, remembering the stern nurse in the field hospital who had looked down her glasses at him every time he’d complained about the throbbing.

“It’s the beat of your heart, soldier, remember that,” she had snipped as she doled out his meds. “If nothing else, it means you’re still alive.”

The team meets him at the door to help Daisy into their med bay, and when Agent Simmons mutters something that sounds an awful lot like “Not again,” something else twists inside Daniel’s chest. Shrugging off his own first aid until she’s been attended to, he takes a seat by the door to stay present but out of the way. Maybe some small part of him hopes that when she wakes, he’ll be a familiar face.

If he’s honest, he’s never thought about living to see the end of the 20th century, never even considered it. He was a S.H.I.E.L.D. director with war injuries and more than his fair share of close calls, it would have taken nothing short of a miracle. But he doesn’t think twice when the scruffy kid -- Deke, he remembers this time -- tells them they’re about to jump again. He's not sure when he changed his mind, but it’s been changed, nonetheless.

“I’m where I need to be,” he says, as the soft beeps of Daisy’s monitor assure him that if nothing else, she’s still alive.

Easy never felt quite right, anyway.

#first mate fic #daisysous #sousy #daisy x daniel #agents of shield #agent carter #daniel sousa #daisy johnson #peggy carter

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cywscross · 5 years ago

Photo

From @lightveils on Twitter (free to use wherever!). I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. I definitely have enough fics to fill it lol~

-0-

A Fic You Love Without Knowing The Source Material:

I was born for this by esama (Assassin’s Creed | Altair x Desmond | M)

Juno did her best to lead him to her preferred fate, but the end is coming and Desmond has doubts.

A Fic With A Premise That Shouldn’t Work But Does:

Proposing To Strangers by moonstalker24 (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | G)

At the end of a strained relationship, crime novelist Stiles chooses to hide from the world inside a bar with far too many motorcycles outside it for comfort. Here he'll meet the man of his dreams, eat food and propose marriage, all within the first five minutes.

Peter doesn't know who this kid is, but he's cute and looks like he could use a break. So he feeds him. He's not expecting a marriage proposal, but with what comes after, he doesn't really mind.

A Fic You’ve Reread Several Times:

Hooverville by twothumbsandnostakeincanon (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | E)

Town to town, train to train, tent to tent.

By 1932, the dust had begun to blow and the jobs were gone.

Anonymity was a byproduct of looking for work, which made it both necessary and convenient.

Stiles had enough secrets of his own to know to look the other way when he saw something that shouldn’t be possible.

The ghost of a tail giving enough balance to disembark a moving train.

Near silent Latin whispered on the edge of a tent encampment.

A flash of burning eyes.

He had more than enough to worry about without adding the oddities of others, and besides- having unusually sharp teeth certainly didn’t make a man worse than the ones running from the wife and kids they couldn’t feed.

So Stiles kept his observations to himself. He kept his everything to himself.

Until he met a man. One with eyes so blue they seemed to glow- and then they did.

Stiles tried to look away, but for the first time he was stopped.

“Don’t be like that sweetheart. Aren’t you curious?”

A Fic You Still Remember Many Years Later:

All True-Hearted Souls by mardia (Temeraire | Laurence x Granby | G)

“For God's sake, if someone doesn't talk Laurence out of these constant heroics, I wouldn't bet a farthing on his chances; no, and not ours either.” Four times that John Granby helped save William Laurence's life. Laurence/Granby. Spoilers up to Empire of Ivory.

A Comfort Fic:

Nothing Improper by Bunnywest (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | G)

“How long since someone touched you, sweet boy?” Peter asks, his voice barely a breath in Stiles’ ear. “Days? Weeks? Months?” Stiles nods imperceptibly at that last one.

“After…after everything, after Allison,” is all Stiles manages to get out.

A Cathartic Fic:

Swing by ShippersList (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | T)

Stiles wants to fly.

A Fic You’d Print And Put On Your Bookshelf:

Nose to the Wind by Batsutousai (HP | Tom x Harry | M)

While Harry had been content with his second chance, that didn't keep him from thinking what he could have done different, how many people could have survived if he hadn't been set on the very specific path he'd walked. Third time is the charm, though, right?

A Fic You Associate With A Song (x2):

Strange Duet by BelleAmante, thiliart (thilia) (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | M)

The past three years have been a series of shocking, or not so shocking, successes for 2018 Tony award winner and two time Grammy nominee, Stiles Stilinski. You don’t typically find classically trained opera singers singing alternative folk rock to crowds at Coachella. Nor do you find indie singer/songwriters winning best actor awards at the Tony’s for their Broadway debuts. Stilinski has made it his lifetime habit to defy and exceed all expectations.

-or-

A Steter fic loosely based on Phantom of the Opera

Full Circle by Nike Femme (FMA | Roy x Ed | T)

Edward Elric returns with amnesia. He has lived the past four years as Auric, a Gatekeeper. But there are some battles that only he can fight. Will his friends be able to awaken Ed, and what happens to Auric if they do?

A Fic That Inspires You:

Off the Line by esama (FFVII | Cloud x Vincent | T)

In which Cloud gets a Virtual Reality Dream Console – ShinRa's latest in virtual reality technology. Aaand everything pretty much goes downhill from there.

A Fic That Brought You On Board A New Ship:

Me and Mine by linndechir (Fast and the Furious | Deckard x Owen | E)

The last time they'd spoken, Deckard had told Owen that he was tired of cleaning up his messes. But the first thing he did after breaking out of prison was to take Owen to the other end of the world so they could lick their wounds and start planning their revenge.

A Fic You Wish Could Be A Movie:

Moving In (To Every Single Aspect of Danny’s Life, Including the Boring Bits like Dry-Cleaning) by westgirl (Hawaii Five-0 | Steve x Danny | T)

It felt wrong for Steve to sound unsure of his place in Danny’s life. His place in Danny’s life was at Danny’s side, driving him slowly insane. Steve should feel secure about that.

A Fic That Led To You Making Friends With The Author:

Begin and End by Rikkamaru (Log Horizon x HP | G)

This is how it begins: a boy rejected by his family, a boy reunited with his brother by his sister-in-law's intervention. A boy who found a family in an online game. But how will it end?

FREE SPACE:

Reverti Ad Praeteritum by Batsutousai (Fullmetal Alchemist | Roy x Edward | M)

Unwillingly forced to serve as a human trial for a crazy alchemist experimenting with time travel, Edward Elric finds himself standing across from Truth in the moment it takes his leg from him. Armed with the knowledge of what's to come and burdened with guilt for the choices he'd made as an adult, Ed sets out to fix every mistake he ever made and save every life they ever lost, no matter what it takes.

A Fic You’ve Gushed About IRL:

Designation: Miracle by umisabaku (Kuroko no Basket | M)

It's been three years since seven human experiments, called "Miracles," escaped Teiko Industries, alerting the world to the presence of super-powered children. Now they're finally integrating into society-- going to normal high schools, playing basketball, falling in love-- and trying to find out if it's possible to truly escape their past.

A Fic You Associate With A Place (have to self-rec for this one):

Safe Harbour by cywscross (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles x Chris | T)

Peter didn't think he'd find a home here. He certainly didn't think he'd find a home with two other men.

Chris and Stiles prove him wrong.

A Fic That Made You Gasp Out Loud (kind of? it was suspenseful):

Sanctuary by DiscontentedWinter (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | E)

The Hale Wolf Sanctuary isn’t just for wolves.

It turns out it’s for Stilinskis as well.

A Fic You Found At The Right Time:

slow increments by Areiton (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles)

Peter is enigmatic, egotistical, sometimes barely sane. He's sharp and cutting and takes more time to care for the pack than anyone.And sometimes, John catches him watching Stiles.

A Fic That You Would Read Fic Of:

if you try to break me, you will bleed by Dialux (Game of Thrones | Jon x Sansa | T)

It had been a slash across her chest from a White Walker’s sword that finally ended her life. Sansa’d landed in a puddle of her own blood, and she’d died quickly, quietly.

And then she’d awoken with a gasp, trembling, in a bed that had burned under Theon’s betrayal.

A Fic That Made You Laugh Out Loud:

The Path towards Unwilling Godhood by Sky_King (Bleach | Kisuke x Ichigo | G)

Ichigo has never had the most normal life, and this latest chapter of it is no different.

"I'm not a god!"

A Fic With A Line (Or Two) That You’ve Memorized By Heart:

Atlas by distractedKat (Star Trek | Spock x Jim | T)

Between what was and what will be stands James Tiberius Kirk, in all his fractured patchwork glory. Because saving the Federation was only the beginning.

A Fic That Gave You Butterflies:

The Rest of Our Lives by mia6363 (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | T)

“I don’t know, as a kid I watched a lot of movies, you know? And at first I figured like… I’d be on some great adventure that would take me away from it all, you know? Like Indiana Jones comes around and is all, ‘Hey Stiles, buddy, come with me we’ve got to go save the world.’ Then… you and… everything happened… then I just… I figured I’d die before I was eighteen.”

A Fic That Embodies Something You Value In Life:

The Boy Sleuth by Shey (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | T)

Stiles is eight when he discovers a box of his mom’s old Nancy Drew Mysteries in the back of the guest bedroom closet.

A Favourite AU:

Love What is Behind You by KouriArashi (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | M)

Basically what it says on the label. Hunger Games type fusion. Stiles doing way better than anyone anticipates. Peter finds him intriguing. Ruthless, devious assholes working together to ruin bad guys, as the Steter ship is meant to be.

A Fic You Stayed Up Too Late To Finish Reading:

Of Dwobbits, Dragons and Dwarves by ISeeFire (The Hobbit | Fem!Bilbo x Fili | T)

Bilba has been a slave her entire life. All she knows of the outside world is what she sees from time to time outside the gates of Moria and the stories her mother used to tell her. Stories of a place called the Shire where her mother once lived and a placed called Erebor where, as far as she knows, her father still lives. Stories of dragons a thousand times larger, and more intelligent, than the beasts the orcs rode and of a strange concept called freedom where one was allowed to live as they wished with no one to tell them what they could, or could not do.

The stories meant little to Bilba. The only future she had was to live, and die, as a slave as countless number had before her.

And then the orcs dragged an injured female firedrake through the gates, her rider screaming obscenities behind her as he fought to reach her side...and everything changed.

A Fic That Made You Feel Seen (another self-rec lol):

i am addicted to death (so remind me what it’s like to live) by cywscross (Teen Wolf | Peter x Stiles | T)

Stiles is sixteen years old. He has already died seventy-eight times.

#Fic Rec Bingo #Bingo #Misc Fanfic Rec

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flowerfan2 · 4 years ago

Text

The Whipped Cream Incident

McDanno, 3k, A03, M

Summary: Pretty much what it says on the tin... the story of the whipped cream incident, as referred to in Risky Business (although you don’t have to have read that story to enjoy this one).

Steve’s had just enough whiskey to feel comfortably warm, when for some inexplicable reason, he blurts it out.

Danny’s eyes go wide, and Steve kind of forgets what he just said. Danny’s eyes are crazy blue right now, picking up the color of his shirt. He takes Steve’s breath away.

Danny moves closer to Steve, poking him with a finger until he focuses. “Steven. What are you talking about? Slowly, this time. Like a human.”

Steve aims a serious look at Danny. He loves it when Danny pretends Steve is a Neanderthal. It’s charming. “I just said I hadn’t done it before you, that’s all.”

Danny narrows his baby blues at Steve. “Done what?”

“Sex with a guy.” Steve doesn’t understand why Danny looks so surprised. He’d thought it had been pretty obvious, what with being completely closeted for so many years, and most of those in the military.

Danny abruptly stands up. “You maybe should have mentioned this,” he says, waving an arm around. “We’ve been together for weeks. Months-”

“One month, three weeks, two days,” Steve corrects him. “If you count from that first kiss in the hospital. If you count from when we got to Kono’s-”

Danny glares at him. “You should have said something.”

“Why? Does it matter?” Steve pushes down a pang of hurt.

A look that Steve absolutely cannot interpret flashes across Danny’s face, and then Danny shakes his head and sighs.

“No, of course not. Of course not. But we will be talking about this later. When we are less…” Danny waves his hand around, apparently indicating their general state of inebriation.

Steve grins, nodding. Fine with him. Danny grabs Steve’s hand and pulls him upright. Steve presses himself up against Danny’s muscled chest and is rewarded with a long, whiskey sloppy kiss.

“Mmm,” Danny says, briefly going boneless against him. “Let’s go upstairs and lie down before we fall down, sound good?”

Steve drapes an arm around Danny’s waist as they make haste towards the stairs. “Aye aye, sir.”

*****

In the morning, Steve wakes early and goes for a swim, as he usually does. Unfortunately instead of clearing his mind, it gives him too much time to think.

He doesn’t really believe Danny could be mad at him for not being experienced with guys. But it could be something related, something about identity, and that’s always a hard subject, especially for Steve, who has avoiding thinking about it for most of his life.

Although Danny has always played it close to the chest too. As far as Steve knows, none of their friends or teammates knew that Danny was bi until he and Steve got together.

Danny has told Steve about how he dated a guy in college, and he and Danny spent one memorable evening on the beach talking about their male celebrity crushes, but Steve has never volunteered many details about his own sexual history. There’s not much to tell, at least not where guys are concerned.

When Steve gets back to shore Danny is there, smiling softly as he hands him the towel Steve left on the sand.

“Morning, handsome,” Danny says, stretching up to kiss Steve’s damp face.

Steve feels a rush of warmth, and bumps his shoulder against Danny’s as they walk back to the house. Danny’s not mad, of course not. Although the fact that Danny’s already got breakfast laid out on the table on the lanai may be a signal that they’re about to have a talk. Steve figures he might as well head it off, so they can get back to enjoying their weekend.

“I’m sorry if you got the wrong idea, but it’s true. I’ve never had sex with a guy before.”

“Okay,” Danny says mildly, sitting down at the table and stirring some sugar into his coffee.

“Why did you think I did?”

Danny stretches out his feet in front of him. “I’ve been trying to figure that out. I think it was when we were at Kono’s, one of those first nights, sitting outside in her backyard. Remember?”

Steve thinks back fondly to the misty garden behind Kono’s little Seattle home. “Yeah, I remember.”

“We were kissing,” Danny says, “and you said you forgot the feel of it.” Danny leans over and rubs Steve’s cheek with the back of his hand. “Stubble, you said something like you forgot what it felt like to kiss someone with stubble, but you liked it.” Danny cups his hand around Steve’s jaw and smiles. “So we kissed some more.”

Steve feels himself blush. “I did like it.” He takes a sip from coffee that Danny has left black, just as he prefers. “And I have kissed guys before. Two, actually.”

“But you never went any further, is that it?”

Steve nods. “Yeah. One was in high school – just a make-out session under the bleachers, very cliché. He wouldn’t give me the time of day the next morning in class, and then I moved to the mainland not long afterwards.”

“And the second?”

Steve shrugs. “Another teams guy. Years and years ago. We actually probably would have gone further, we were drunk and stupid with it, but we got interrupted.”

Danny looks concerned. “Did you get into trouble?”

“Nah, no one saw anything. But it put the fear of god into me, you know? I couldn’t let DADT ruin my career.”

“So you stuck to women.”

“Or, you know, just doing my job.”

Danny looks sad for a moment, and Steve braces himself for another round of poor Steve, he doesn’t let anybody in, too focused on his work to find someone to love, but Danny doesn’t go there.

“But you, um, you like what we’ve been doing?”

Steve hears it then, the slight echo of insecurity in Danny’s voice. Danny hadn’t realized he was leading this charge, that it had been on him, to the extent such a thing was even necessary, to make sure they did things right, and now he’s worried. Classic Danny.

He gets up and pulls Danny out of his chair, winding his arms around Danny’s fantastic shoulders. “I love everything we do together,” he says, letting his voice rumble low into Danny’s ear. “I wouldn’t have picked anyone else to take my boy-virginity.”

As intended, this makes Danny laugh out loud, and Steve ducks in to kiss him while his mouth is still open. Danny responds enthusiastically and starts to tug Steve inside.

“What about the pancakes?” Steve asks, trying to keep kissing Danny while stumbling into the house.

“We can reheat them,” Danny says.

“Hypocrite,” Steve gasps out, as Danny shoves Steve’s swim trunks off his hips and tosses them onto the couch. “You never want to microwave pancakes.”

“Is that really the conversation you want to be having right now?” Danny asks, looking up at Steve from where he’s crouched down on the floor, sliding his hands enticingly along Steve’s bare thighs.

“Just saying,” Steve insists, even as his breath flies out of him in response to the heat of Danny’s mouth on his cock.

Danny rolls his eyes with his mouth still busy, which is quite a sight, and Steve lets the banter go in favor of letting out a nice, long moan. He loves when Danny sucks him off, and loves sucking Danny off. And Danny seems to love it too, giving and receiving. It’s a sucking off love fest.

Afterwards, lying on the floor in the living room while the air slowly heats up with the morning sun, the rug underneath them slightly scratchy against Steve’s skin, Danny rolls towards Steve and props himself up on an elbow.

“I have a confession to make,” Danny says.

Steve mirrors Danny. “Oh?”

“I assumed, you, um, had more experience with guys than I did.”

“Well, I don’t,” Steve says, wondering why they’re going over this again.

“No, I mean…” Danny flops over on his back and throws an arm over his eyes. “I honestly don’t know if I can even say this.”

“Because words are usually so hard for you.”

Danny kicks a foot in Steve’s direction, and Steve pins it with his leg. He rolls over and flops on Danny’s chest, sticking his tongue out to taste the sweat trickling in between Danny’s well defined pecs.

“Are you trying to distract me?” Danny asks.

“Maybe you’re distracting me.”

Danny huffs out a laugh and slides a hand up and down Steve’s back. “Okay, whatever, just…” Danny takes a breath and then his words come out in a rush. “I think I was sort of waiting for you to take the lead with some stuff, even though that’s dumb, but maybe you were waiting for me to do it, and I want you to be, you know, good with stuff, with us together, and, yeah, I don’t even know.”

Steve peels Danny’s arm off his face and looks him in the eyes. “Danny, I am absolutely good with stuff, with us. If you’re worried that you’ve somehow pushed me into anything-”

“No, that’s not it.”

��Well, you haven’t.” Steve squints at Danny. “Is it the opposite? Are you bored?” Steve has been pretty satisfied with what they do in bed – or out of it – handjobs and blowjobs and various forms of rutting up against each other. It’s always fun, and sexy, and he has no complaints whatsoever.

Danny barks out a cackle, and then sits up, grabbing Steve’s discarded swim trunks and throwing them at his head. “No, you crazy person, I’m not bored.”

“But you think I’m too vanilla?” Steve asks, loving the way Danny’s face flushes pink at this.

“No, you’re not, what does that even mean, we’re grown-ass men,” Danny protests, his blush intensifying.

“Grown-ass men can have fun, too,” Steve says, waggling his eyebrows.

“I love how you think that face belongs in this conversation,” Danny says, but he’s smiling happily back at Steve. “And I didn’t mean you were too vanilla, whatever hipster meaning that has, but if you want to do other stuff, you know, we could, that’s all.” Danny’s clearly more than a little uncomfortable about this conversation, but he’s powering through.

Steve is intrigued, and more than that, ridiculously charmed by Danny, even in the middle of what should be an awkward talk about sex. Every day he falls further for this guy. “Come shower with me, I’ll show you how much fun grown-ass men can have,” Steve says, getting to his feet and reaching down to pull Danny up. It’s the weekend. They can mess around all day, if they want. This is his life now, and he loves it.

“Yeah?” Danny asks. “Okay. But only if we can take more than three minutes. I’m not interested in one of your ridiculous Navy showers.”

Steve grins and gives Danny a lecherous wink. “I’ll do my best. Age does have its benefits.” Steve ignores Danny’s groan in favor of pinching his naked butt as they run up the stairs.

****

The next morning, Steve is in the kitchen putting away groceries when Danny comes downstairs. Danny’s just finished his shower, and he’s naked except for a towel slung low around his hips. It’s a really good look.

Steve grins to himself, checking to make sure that the supplies he selected are within easy reach, and turns to Danny.

“Morning, handsome,” Danny says, walking right into Steve’s arms for a kiss.

“Look who’s talking,” Steve rumbles into Danny’s mouth. Danny is warm all over from his shower, and he smells great, clean and fresh but still himself underneath. Steve spreads his legs and leans back against the sink, pulling Danny in close.

“Didja miss me?” Danny asks, resting his weight against Steve and wrapping his arms around his shoulders. Steve can feel the moisture from Danny’s damp chest through his t-shirt.

“Always,” Steve says. He nips at Danny’s ear, and Danny hums, pressing his towel wrapped hips enticingly up against Steve’s body. “Wanna take this upstairs?”

Danny tilts his head back and gazes up at Steve. “I’m good,” he says, humor pulling at his lips.

Okay then, Steve thinks, looking around his sunny kitchen as all the blood in his body rushes south. Might work better, anyway. He twists to the side, which brings certain very interested parts of his body into even closer contact with Danny’s.

“I bought something,” Steve says, or tries to, his breath catching as Danny sucks a kiss into the side of his neck.

“Yeah?” Danny asks, still concentrating on Steve’s neck, sliding lower to get to the tender skin just under his collarbone before pulling back for a moment to strip Steve’s t-shirt off.

The pause gives Steve a chance to reach into the bag on the counter, and he pulls out a bottle of whipped cream, presenting it to Danny with a smile.

“Oh no, you did not,” Danny says, his eyes going bright with interest. “Is that for…?”

“Ice cream sundaes,” Steve replies, trying not to smile.

“Right.” Danny slides his hands up Steve’s chest, his fingertips giving extra attention to his pecs and nipples. “Sundaes.” Danny flicks at a nipple, and Steve gasps as Danny quickly soothes it with his tongue.

“Danny,” Steve breathes out, one hand sliding down Danny’s body as Danny turns his attention to his other nipple. Soon he’s sucking at one while he flicks rhythmically at the other. Steve shudders.

“You like this, don’t you?” Danny whispers, his breath hot on Steve’s skin. Steve doesn’t answer, but he figures the way he’s practically panting and trying to worm his way into Danny’s skin probably does the trick.

Steve gives in to it, head tilting back, body on fire. He’s not sure what Danny is trying to accomplish, but he definitely likes it. He whines a little as Danny straightens back up, his mouth tracing kisses up Steve’s chest.

“Fuck,” Steve says. “Danny…” The towel around Danny’s hips slips to the floor as Steve gets a grip on Danny’s ass, giving him a squeeze.

Danny grunts his appreciation, then leans back as his hands fall to Steve’s waist. “Let’s get rid of these.” He tugs at the denim. “I think they’re in the way.”

Steve nods and Danny goes to work on Steve’s jeans, popping the button and easing the zip down until he can get his hand on Steve’s cock. Damn, that feels good.

“So,” Danny says, almost conversationally, as he strokes Steve, “what are your plans for the whipped cream, hm?”

Steve has pretty much forgotten about the whipped cream bottle he’s still gripping in his right hand, and he struggles to get the top off of it as Danny continues to palm his dick and whisper low and rough into his ear.

“Gonna spray it somewhere?” Steve sucks in a breath as Danny’s hand twists a little as he comes up over the tip. “Gonna spray it on me, and then lick it up?” Danny growls, licking a stripe up Steve’s neck as if in anticipation.

Steve hasn’t really thought through what, exactly, was going to happen with the whipped cream, but spraying it on Danny was the general idea. He can’t get the right angle on the bottle, though, not while Danny is doing that thing to him that makes him shake, but he’s trying, holding it behind Danny’s shoulders so he can get both hands on it.

“Or maybe I should put it on you,” Danny says, his hand slowing, just holding gently now. Steve groans and thrusts up into Danny’s hand, not wanting him to stop. “I could put a little dab just here,” Danny runs a finger along Steve’s length, and then suck you down-”

Just then, three things happen in quick succession.

An all too familiar voice shouts in surprise from the doorway.

Danny’s hips thrust hard against Steve’s.

And Steve sprays the kitchen, and a very shocked Junior, with whipped cream.

By the time they regain their wits, Junior is long gone, shouting “I didn’t see anything, oh my god, sirs, I’m sorry, I saw nothing, I’m leaving!” They hear the front door slam, and stare at each other, before breaking out into uncontrollable laughter. Danny slides his hands out of Steve’s pants and sinks to the floor, curled up over his stomach as he gasps for air, and Steve falls down next to him.

“You’re naked,” Steve finally says, sucking in a breath, and Danny looks down at himself, sitting on the floor starkers, and cackles.

“I know!”

“Junior saw you-”

“I know!”

“With the whipped…”

“I know!”

There’s a clinking sound and they see Eddie, who has cornered the bottle of whipped cream up against his water bowl and is licking it clean. There’s whipped cream on the kitchen island, and on the floor, and a little bit in Danny’s hair. Steve reaches out a finger and wipes it off, Danny glaring at him and then grabbing Steve’s finger and sticking it in his own mouth.

Steve grins, and then reality sneaks back in. His attempt at taking the lead and spicing things up between them didn’t exactly go as planned.

“I’m sorry, Danny,” he says ruefully.

“For what?” Danny has found a splatter of whipped cream on Steve’s shoulder and is smearing it with his finger.

“I’m sure you didn’t exactly want Junior to see you, all, you know…”

“Butt naked and jerking off my boyfriend?” Danny asks, grinning at Steve. “It’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

“You’re not upset?”

“Do I seem upset? Why should I be, ‘cause Junior saw my ass? I have an awesome ass, and an awesome boyfriend. Junior’s gonna be jealous, but I can handle it.”

Steve catches Danny’s gaze, and sees nothing but fond amusement and steady love. “You’re really okay with this?” Steve waves his hand, indicating the general state of disaster that is the morning’s attempt at sexytimes.

“Are you kidding? This is the most fun I’ve ever had. And-” Danny stretches over and retrieves the can of whipped cream, “if you don’t mind a little dog spit, I’m pretty sure the can isn’t empty.”

Steve laughs again, batting the can out of Danny’s hand, and planting a fierce kiss on his boyfriend’s lips, which taste deliciously of whipped cream. It’s the most fun Steve’s ever had, too. And he doesn’t think it’s anywhere near over.

#mcdanno #H50 #H50 fic #Hawaii Five-O #steve mcgarrett #danny williams #sexytimes

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interestarticles · 3 years ago

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Best Movies Of The Year 1980 - Top 20 Films Of 1980

What Are The Best Movies Of The Year 1980?

From New York to Los Angeles this is a question that will get a different answer from every person you ask. There were some great films in the 1980s, and 1980 started the decade off with a bang as a year full of innovation in every way throughout all of society, and it was the start of some exciting new techniques, technologies, and ideas in the film industry in particular with many movies from the year 1980 introducing revolutionary and pioneering cinematic visions. Many people think that some of the best 80s movies of the decade came out in 1980. In this article post, we will go through our top picks for the 20 best movies of 1980, you might be surprised to find out which movies made it on the list! 1) Kramer vs. Kramer In 1980, "Kramer vs. Kramer" was released and became a huge success at the box office. The movie starred Meryl Streep as Joanna Kramer, Dustin Hoffman as Ted Kramer, Jane Alexander as Marylin Jaffe-Jenson, and Justin Henry as Billy Kramer. This film won five Academy Awards in 1981 including Best Picture of 1979 or 1980. It also received nominations for best director (Robert Benton), best actor (Dustin Hoffman), and best-adapted screenplay based on another work (Erica Mann). It is now considered one of the most significant Hollywood films ever made about divorce because it provides nuance to both sides of an argument. 2) The Shining This iconic horror classic film directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall was released in 1980. It is based on Stephen King's 1977 novel of the same name. The film has been ranked a number of times as one of the best horror movies ever made and is now considered to be one of Kubrick's best films. It was nominated for two Academy Awards (Best Actor in Leading Role--Jack Nicholson) and won none at the time. The Shining also received nominations for Best Director - Stanley Kubrick), Best Adapted Screenplay--Steven Spielberg/Stanley Kubrick). Its reputation grew over time, eventually earning an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. 3) Being There Hal Ashby himself had been nominated for an Academy Award in 1971 with directing The Last Detail. It is a film that could be classified as both comedy and drama, but the emphasis on this 1980 release lies more on its comedic aspects. While it was not one of the most acclaimed films when it came out, many now consider Being There to be a classic film about society's relationship with television at the time. It offers commentary on economic inequality and how people are often reduced to simple archetypes who can easily fit into neat narratives for consumption purposes. 4) Time Bandits Time Bandits, a 1980 British fantasy film about adventure, was co-written by Terry Gilliam. It stars Sean Connery and John Cleese as well as Shelley Duvall and Ralph Richardson. Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm. Peter Vaughan and David Warner are also featured. It is a whimsical kids' movie with the fantasy adventure of time travel that has been ranked as one of the best movies ever made by many critics. Gilliam has referred to time bandits as first in his "Trilogy of Imagination", which includes Brazil (1985), and then The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (88). They all revolve around the "craziness and incoherence of our society, and the desire for escape through every means. These films all focus on the struggles and attempts to escape through imagination. Brazil is seen through the eyes of a young man, Time Bandits through a child's eyes, and Munchausen through an old man's eyes. Time Bandits, in particular, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. 5) Pennies from Heaven Quite a departure from his previous work, this film is much more lighthearted and comedic than the serious dramas of The Miracle Worker or Bonnie and Clyde. The plot revolves around Arthur Parker (Steve Martin), whose life becomes increasingly chaotic as he tries to juggle two jobs, an impending child custody battle for his daughter, and a demanding girlfriend who wants him to give up one job so that they can have some time together. 6) Airplane! This Leslie Nielsen instant comedy classic was one of the highest-grossing movies of 1980. The movie is about an airplane crew that must find a way to land their plane after food poisoning breaks out on board and the pilots become incapacitated, with only two inexperienced passengers who happen to be a doctor (Robert Hays) and a flight attendant (Julie Hagerty) qualified to land the plane. Airplane! was one of the most successful films at theaters in 1980 It had more than $83 million worth of ticket sales by year's end - it became one of Leslie Nielsen's most popular roles ever The film also helped launch Robert Hays' career as a leading man, though he later found greater success playing comedic supporting characters before retiring from acting. 7) The Empire Strikes Back One of the most famous of the 1980s movies, The Empire Strikes Back is remembered for its numerous plot twists and turns as well as introducing fan-favorite Yoda The film features Mark Hamill reprising his role as Luke Skywalker in this second installment of George Lucas' Star Wars series and it was the first star wars to be released on VHS. Featuring a mixture of live-action footage with high-quality animation from Japanese company Toho, it became one of the best critically acclaimed movies ever. In 1997, it won an American Film Institute award for being among the top 100 films since 1941. 8) Raging Bull 1980 was a strong year for movies, and Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull is one of the most acclaimed action films to be released that year. It stars Robert De Niro in an Academy Award-winning performance as new york boxer Jake La Motta, who has a turbulent affair with Kim Basinger's Vickie. The film depicts how new york boxing served as both his escape from domestic abuse but also led him on a self-destruction path. In addition to being nominated for ten Oscars (including best picture), it won two including best actor for Robert de Niro and best director awards respectively. Released by United Artists, the movie has ranked among the top 100 American Films ever made according to AFI rankings. This release is considered one of the best films of the 80s by many critics. 9) Kagemusha One of the most interesting and well-made movies that 1980 has to offer, Kagemusha tells the story of a warlord who is critically injured and after being buried alive. The movie was directed by Akira Kurosawa and stars Tatsuya Nakadai in one of his best performances ever as both warrior leader Katsuyori Shibata and an imposter named Shingen Yashida. Released in Japan on April 20th, 1980, it became the second-highest-grossing film at the Japanese box office just behind The Return of Godzilla (1984). Kagemusha made its international debut at Cannes Film Festival's Directors Fortnight where it won two major awards: Special Jury Prize for Best Direction and Grand Prix du Festival International du Film - Art. 10) The Gods Must Be Crazy Part comedy, part drama, The Gods Must Be Crazy is a timeless classic. Released in 1980, the film follows Xi (N!xau), an out-of-touch bushman who lives happily with his family until he encounters Coca Cola for the first time and it changes their world forever. The premise of this movie makes us laugh because we can relate to how much more comfortable life was before modern society became so intricate that things like Coke began infiltrating every aspect of our lives. We're drawn into Xi's story as he goes from living peacefully with his tribe to being thrust into a completely different reality when they start hunting down any remaining cases of coca-cola at stores all over town! It also touches on some deeper themes such as the cultural modern world where his customs and rituals mean nothing. Xi's journey is our own as we watch the culture clash of modern society, with all its good intentions and never-ending thirst for new things to consume, come into contact with a simpler time that has long since passed by. The humorous film release was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film but lost out to Italy’s Cinema Paradiso (1988). 11) Caddyshack Released in 1980 this classic comedy film by Harold Ramis is widely considered one of the funniest movies ever made by fans and critics alike. It features an amazing comedic all-star ensemble cast, including Chevy Chase as a rich playboy who turns caddie in order to get girls; Ted Knight as Judge Smails, who wants to keep his country club memberships exclusive and prestigious; Rodney Dangerfield as Ty Webb, a millionaire golfer-cum-caddy who has been banned from all other golf courses for being too good. Also featuring Bill Murray as Carl Spackler, the groundskeeper at Bushwood Country Club whose only goal seems to be killing off gophers with any weapon he can devise (including explosives); Michael O'Keefe as Danny Noonan, a young man hired by Judge Smails's daughter (Castle) to caddy for him; and Brian Doyle-Murray as Lou Loomis, the club's ultra-snobby head professional. 12) The Blues Brothers Another instant classic 1980 movie, The Blues Brothers are best known for its 1980 car chases. Starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as Joliet Jake & Elwood Blues respectively, the two brothers who perform a blues show before being arrested by police. They break out of jail with their friends to save an orphanage from foreclosure through satanic cult leader sheik Abdul Khadaffi's "Elvis-Is-King" rally in Chicago Illinois on Mothers Day 1980 at noon. The film has been praised by audiences and critics alike for its music, screenplay, and performances but criticized for its lack of character development (most likely due to budget constraints). This was even acknowledged during production when director John Landis told cast members not to act too much because "no one is going to see this movie." The 1980 car chases are iconic and highly regarded by film critics. One of the most memorable moments in 1980 was when Elwood Blues while driving his 1980 Chevy Malibu, spots a cat on the front fender as he's being chased by police officers from Illinois State Troopers who try to arrest him for not wearing seat belts (the law at that time). The chase ends with Jake & Elwood crashing into an old man sitting atop a 1980 Chevy Monte Carlo. After striking them, the cops then swerve quickly around their fallen comrade before continuing after our heroes. 13) 9 To 5 9 to 5 (listed in the opening credits as Nine to Five) is a 1980 American comedy film directed by Colin Higgins, who wrote the screenplay with Patricia Resnick. It stars Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton as three working women who live out their fantasies of getting even with and overthrowing the company's autocratic, "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot" boss, played by Dabney Coleman. The film grossed over $103.9 million and is the 20th-highest-grossing comedy film. As a star vehicle for Parton—already established as a successful singer, musician, and songwriter—it launched her permanently into mainstream popular culture. A television series of the same name based on the film ran for five seasons, and a musical version of the film (also titled 9 to 5), with new songs written by Parton, opened on Broadway on April 30, 2009. 9 to 5 is number 74 on the American Film Institute's "100 Funniest Movies" and has an 83% approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. 14) Smokey And The Bandit 2 Smokey and the Bandit 2 Is a 1980 American action comedy film directed by Hal Needham, starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, Jerry Reed, Jackie Gleason, And Dom DeLuise. This film is a sequel to 1977's film Smokey and the Bandit. The original release of the film was in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. Bo "Bandit", Darville (Burt Reynolds), and Cledus "Snowman," Snow (Jerry Reed) transport an elephant to the GOP National Convention. Sheriff Buford T. Justice, Jackie Gleason (Jackie Gleason), is once more in hot pursuit. 15) Superman 2 Superman II, a 1980 superhero movie directed by Richard Lester, is written by Mario Puzo, David, and Leslie Newman and is based on a story by Puzo about the DC Comics character Superman. It features Gene Hackman and Terence Stamp, Terence Stamp, Ned Beatty, and Sarah Douglas. The film was first released in Australia and Europe on December 4, 1980. It was also released in other countries during 1981. Megasound is a high-impact surround sound system that's similar to Sensurround and was used for select premiere Superman II engagements. The Salkinds decided in 1977 that they would simultaneously film Superman and its sequel. Principal photography began in March 1977 and ended in October 1978. There were tensions between Richard Donner, the original director, and the producers. It was decided to stop filming the sequel (of which 75 percent was already completed) and instead finish the first film. After the December 1978 release of Superman, Donner was fired from his post as director and was replaced by Lester. Many cast members and crew members declined to return following Donner's firing. Lester was officially acknowledged as the director. Principal photography resumed in September 1979 and ended in March 1980. Film critics gave the film positive reviews, praising the performances of Reeve, Stamp, and Hackman as well as the visual effects and humor. The film grossed $190million against a $54 million production budget. 16) Friday The 13th Friday the 13th, 1980 American slasher movie, is directed and produced by Sean S. Cunningham. Written by Victor Miller, it stars Betsy Palmer and Adrienne King. The plot centers on a group of teenager camp counselors, who are each murdered by an unknown killer as they attempt to reopen an abandoned summer camp. Cunningham, inspired by John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) success, put out an advertisement in Variety to sell the film. Miller was still writing the screenplay. Filming began in New York City after casting the film. It was shot in New Jersey during summer 1979 on an estimated budget of $550,000. The finished film was the subject of a bidding war. Paramount Pictures won domestic distribution rights while Warner Bros. Pictures took European rights. Friday the 13th, which was released on May 9, 1980, was a huge box office hit, earning $59.8 million globally. The film received mixed reviews, some praised its cinematography, score, and performances while others criticized it for depicting graphic violence. It was the first independent film of its type to be distributed in the U.S. by major studios. The film's box office success led it to many sequels, a crossover film with A Nightmare on Elm Street, and a reboot of the series in 2009. 17) Flash Gordon Flash Gordon is a 1980 space opera film directed and produced by Mike Hodges. It was based on Alex Raymond's King Features comic strip. The film stars Sam J. Jones and Melody Anderson as well as Max von Sydow, Max von Sydow, Max von Sydow, and Topol. Topol is supported by Timothy Dalton and Mariangela Melato. Peter Wyngarde plays the role of Peter Wyngarde. The film features Flash Gordon (Jones), a star quarterback, and his friends Dale Arden and Hans Zarkov (Topol), as they unify the warring factions on the planet Mongo to resist the oppression by Ming the Merciless (von Sydow), a man who wants to destroy Earth. Producer Dino De Laurentiis had been involved in two comic book adaptations: Danger: Diabolik and Barbarella (both 1968). He had also previously worked on Danger. De Laurentiis declined a George Lucas directorial offer, a Star Wars version directed by Federico Fellini was also rejected. De Laurentiis hired Nicolas Roeg as director and Enter the Dragon writer Michael Allin as the lead developer on the film. They were replaced in 1977 by Lorenzo Semple Jr. and Hodges, who had written De Laurentiis’ remake of King Kong, this was due to Roeg's dissatisfaction. Flash Gordon was mostly shot in England, with several soundstages at Elstree Studios and Shepperton Studios. It uses a camp style that is similar to the 1960s TV series Batman, which Semple created. Jones quit the film before principal photography was overdue to a dispute between De Laurentiis and Jones. Much of Jones's dialogue was dubbed by Peter Marinker. The documentary Life After Flash examines the main subjects of Jones' departure and his career after it was released. It is known for its Queen-inspired musical score, which features orchestral sections by Howard Blake. Flash Gordon was a box-office success in Italy and the United Kingdom, but it did poorly in other markets. The film received generally positive reviews upon its initial release and has since developed a large cult following. There have been many attempts at sequels or reboots, but none of them have ever made it to production. 18) Cheech & Chong's Next Movie Cheech and Chong's Next Movie, a 1980 comedy film by Tommy Chong, is the second feature-length Cheech & Chong project, after Up in Smoke. It was released by Universal Pictures. Cheech and Chong go on a mission: siphon gasoline to their neighbor's car. They then continue their day. Cheech works at a movie theater, while Chong looks for something to smoke (a roach). Then Chong revs up his indoor motorcycle and plays loud rock music that disrupts the neighborhood. Cheech is fired and the couple goes to Donna, Cheech's girlfriend, and welfare officer. Cheech seduces Donna over her objections and gets her in trouble with her boss. 19) Coal Miner's Daughter Coal Miner's Daughter, a 1980 American musical biographical film, was directed by Michael Apted and based on a screenplay by Tom Rickman. The film follows Loretta Lynn's rise to stardom as a country singer, starting in her teen years with a poor family. The film is based on Lynn's 1976 biography by George Vecsey. Read the full article

#BestFilmsOf1980 #BestMoviesOfTheYear1980 #BestMoviesOfTheYear1980-Top20FilmsOf1980 #movies1980 #Top20FilmsOf1980

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ohsofoxyclocks · 5 years ago

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‪So, I have many thoughts about the finale ending that I haven’t even sorted out my feelings about yet BUT posts on here have helped me see the positives in the ending...Yes I’m still bothered by some of the beach conversation and the TIMING of Steve’s temporary leave and the fact of what we see last on the screen despite knowing Steve will of course return, but I’m going to put that aside to focus on OMG WE JUST GOT AN ALMOST WHOLE EPISODE STRAIGHT FROM A FANFIC THAT I ABSOLUTELY LOVED. I know much of this has been discussed so I apologize if it’s repetitive, but a bunch of my favorite McDanno fanfiction tropes just actually happened in canon and I just...still can’t believe we actually got all of it? So I wanted to make my own list, and feel free to add on or expand or share your thoughts about any of these!! Let’s take stock (warning, this is long!): ‬

‪-Danny calling Steve in distress, Steve immediately leaving his important cipher mystery meeting to get to him. Can already see Steve starting to freak out before the gunshots ring out when he looks out the window and stutters. ‬

‪-Gunshots ringing out OVER THE LINE, and Steve very obviously starting to panic. Drives like a maniac (still confused on how going INTO oncoming traffic was supposed to help but I digress). Steve yelling Danny’s name repeatedly desperate to hear his voice‬

‪-arriving at a burning camaro, screaming Danny’s name (fun tip: play this bit in slow motion!), and STICKING HIS ARM IN A BURNING CAR/catching himself on fire when he thinks Danny could be inside‬

‪-You can hear the creeping desperation/emotion in Steve’s voice as he’s giving orders to HPD (“Detective Danny Williams-MY PARTNER-you know who he is”)‬

-Steve actually mobilizing the whole island to find his Danno. (Again, something I never really expected to see outside of a fanfic). “I want every person on this island with a badge looking for Danny Williams”‬

-Steve’s face when he walks into HQ with Cole and the tears in his eyes when Tani is showing him the kidnapping footage ‬

‪-Just the whole “An enemy of Steve’s uses Danny to get to him”!!!! I always wanted it but never expected it so explicitly ‬

‪-“I HAVE THE PERSON YOU CARE ABOUT MOST IN THE WORLD.” GUYS—IT DOESNT MATTER WHATEVER ELSE HAPPENS BECAUSE THIS IS CANON BABY. We knew it, everybody knows it, but now it’s confirmed. When rewatching the series, remember this<3 also part of me is like, will all the other criminals hear about this and try to do the same when Steve comes back since Steve put up no fight in giving in to Dayui Mei’s demands? Isthiswhyheleftsoquickly‬.

-video footage of Danny strung up and bloodied...fanfic come to life. Steve’s face when he sees this....‬

‪-Steve looking like he’s gonna simultaneously collapse, panic, and murder someone when Dayiu Mei is asking him what he will do‬

‪-Steve not hesitating to give into Mrs. Wo Fat’s demands bc any risk is too risky when Danno is involved‬

‪-The team trying to get Steve to give a flying fart about the cipher when Danny’s life is on the line and Steve still not giving a flying fart. ‬

-Steve finding Danny lying helpless on the floor. His whispered “Danny” when he first sees him (you have to listen close for this because the dramatic background music is super loud at this point).‬

‪-His little stream of soft, comforting reassurances as he’s getting Danno to the car. Danny holding onto him‬

‪-CRADLING BLOODIED, STRUGGLING TO-BREATHE-DANNO TO HIS CHEST IN HIS ARMS. My mom, who doesn’t ship McDanno romantically but loves their friendship, when this happened: “whoa! That’s a little much (gay), don’t you think?” Hehe, no, it’s perfect. ‬

-More tears from Steve as he’s holding Danny on the way to the hospital.‬

-Steve’s comforting reassurances and refusing to let go of Danny on the gurney until he’s absolutely forced to. DANNY REACHING FOR HIM, Steve’s reassuring pat. Steve’s face as he looks down at him fearing how dire this is.‬

‪-Steve’s face as he collapses against the wall when they roll Danny through the double doors, closing his eyes, trying to calm his breathing as he tries to avoid thinking about the unthinkable.‬

-STEVE BARGAINING WITH GOD FOR DANNY’S LIFE. After not seeing him pray before I don’t think? His face...that emotion...omg. He very obviously can’t imagine living in a world without Danny in it, and would rather die than do so. ‬

-Side note: Imo, Steve seemed closed off to the team—physically and emotionally—when he wasn’t sure Danny would make it. Almost as if we got a glimpse of the Steve he’d be without his Danno, if that makes sense. Notice how he’s turned away from them in the waiting room/chapel, how he didn’t even look at them when Danny was wheeled away through the double doors. How he didn’t give an eff about the cipher they were trying to get him to care about. Not that he doesn’t have beautiful Ohana bonds with the other team members because of course he does, but...it’s just different with Danny and I don’t know how he would’ve made it through this one, especially considering his already struggling state at the time. I think we kind of saw a glimpse of that, is my point. They both helped each other grow since first meeting, and it was almost like that part Danny helped bring out in Steve went away with Danny when Steve thought he might lose him. If that makes sense? More on this later? ‪

‪-Steve holding unconscious Danny’s hand❤️❤️❤️ Closing his eyes and letting out a deep breath right after taking his hand (anyone want to gif this moment? ;) )-side camera view of this moment so was hard to see but it’s there. Seeming to look at the machines for reassurances that Danny is alive, healthy. Scanning him over and likely feeling guilty for the marks on his body. Holding his head in his hands by Danny’s bedside.‬

‪-the whole conversation when Danny wakes up! Danny, probably a little doped up, all sweet and reassuring and cuddly and funny. “Why’d you stop holding my hand?” and Steve immediately taking his hand back and rubbing his forearm I think (this was out of the camera angle tho so idk for sure). Steve’s voice tinged with so much emotion when he says “Buddy.” And, Steve being emotionally vulnerable/open again bc his Danno is back!! This whole scene I just fhdisksml. ‬

‪-Steve’s smiling and squeezing and wrapping his arms around Danno like an octopus when he hugs him (I wish we had some additional slightly different camera angles of this hug-as was shown in the promo for example-but I digress again). Danny closing his eyes for a moment, seeming to savor it. Steve getting Danny to look him in the eyes to tell him he loves him. To me, this scene had a very “see you again soon” rather than “goodbye” vibe even though I wish there were parts of the dialogue that were different. ‬

‪-Steve slowing down, looking unsure, and turning back to look at Danny before he leaves. Anyone wanna analyze this? Maybe just a “I know I need to do this so I can come back and be the person I need to be for both of us but fuqqit imma miss you while I’m gone” or “I need to leave so no one can use/hurt him to get to me again right now.” Or just “hey maybe this isn’t the most genius plan.” Idk, but I would LOVE to hear Scott and Alex’s take on this scene. Also they filmed this scene before the show was ended by CBS so who knows how that factored into it. If they thought there would be a possible reunion later?

‪-Telling Eddie to look after Danno, which definitely means Danny will be keeping his house/bed warm til his hubby returns.‬

‪-fleeting thought I have that I might expore later: possible acting choices in the difference in hand holding/smiles between with Danny vs. Catherine?Notthepointofthispostthosoweskipfornow‬

‪-I might post thoughts on other things later but I mainly just wanted to compile this list of straight-out-of-fanfic moments that 100% confirms Danny IS the most important person in Steve’s life and OF COURSE he will return and text/call him everyday til then. Regardless of the end, which is really so open that we can do so many beautiful things with now, most of the episode served as a beautiful culmination of what Steve and Danny have come to mean to each other throughout the last 10 years, and we can rest peaceful and happy in that. ❤️‬ (this is also me still trying to convince myself to be okay with the way things were left on the beach/the conversation, etc)

I would love to hear y’all’s thoughts about any of this!!‬ if you made it this far—I apologize again for the length but lovey boys call for lovey rambles

#h50 #hawaii five 0 #mcdanno #theboysloveeachothersomuch

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ilikemcdanno · 3 years ago

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my biggest issue with doris is how she (and everyone around steve) just expected her to slot back in and be his mother and be respected as such. just rolling up into his home and telling him to watch his language made me so mad i actually started skipping through the episode at that point until i saw a scene without her. and i expected a much different reaction from danny then "she's your, mom get over it" and i just shut down to her entire storyline at that point.

i've seen a lot of negativity towards catherine and i have to say i do not understand it. i love her. i love her and steve. i keep assuming she does something to make people's hatred of her valid but so far nothing, so i am bracing for her to do something bad in the coming seasons which will make me very sad because i can't imagine it, with how they've written her character. i am devastated at how easily steve gave up on her, honestly.

(it might be me projecting, both me and my partner were military and we spent a lot of time apart, and if he had ever hit me with "i can't wait for you" i would have been inconsolable. it's not like steve and cath weren't used to being separated. you don't go from "i want to spend the rest of my life with you, for better or worse" to "i give up completely. she's been gone for a month let me go out and try to get a new girlfriend😊" i hate that part so much.)

now i'm just talking too much, sorry.

anyway! they did that same kind of joke with max and morrison, too, since both actors were in heroes. it's cute. a lot of the actors are people who were in lost or heroes, i've noticed. also just two seconds ago i read that apparently scott's dad is in the show? that's really cool.

Exactly about doris! She expected steve to welcome her back with open arms. When in reality she’s been gone 20 years. Plus she constantly kept stuff from steve.

Also, I’m sorry if don’t remember the episode correctly or I misread your ask. But I remember Danny rejecting Doris completely. He never liked her, he wasn’t nice to her just because she’s Steves mom either. He was kinda like I mean she’s your mom, but he wasn’t expecting steve to be super welcoming either.

Concerning Catherine, people might give you different reasons why they might not like her and their overall thoughts on her will be different. But personally I always felt her and steve were better as friends. And i could appreciate her being badass, but maybe she isn’t made to have someone tie her down.

I do not blame cath for wanting to live a life where she feels needed. Also I kinda hate the whole transactional thing they had going on at the start. Steve constantly asking her for favors - which in his defense was for the greater good - but it just felt weird overall? That’s more Steve’s fault.

Another thing was cath constantly came in and out of Steve’s life as she pleased - and that’s something that bothers some people, including myself sometimes. And honestly? Part of it could be the fact we might favor steve. Putting on a version of the rose tinted glasses for steve, so to speak.

But I’m in firm belief that we can all have different opinions, that’s the beauty of it. I’m really not gonna sit here and say you’re wrong, anon. I hope that I didn’t come off that way either. I think you’re valid and I appreciate you letting me know your thoughts. (And to answer your question - she doesn’t do anything in the later seasons. If you’re in season 8 right now; everything you’ve seen so far is what she’s ‘done’.)

Also yeah! Scott’s dad was in season 2. He was that old guy who didn’t wear shoes. And then he ended up getting the boys pizza after the case they did together. I know that description is kinda vague but hopefully you know what I meant. XD

#asks #anonymous

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sunny-flower-girl-01 · 4 years ago

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Ohana- A Hawaii Five-0 Fanfic Chapter Six

First, I just have to say I'm SO SO SO SO SORRY for how long it took to get this chapter up. I had work, Halloween, 3 birthdays (including my own) and I had to move classrooms, which I am just now settling into. I've always had time to write at work and at home, but this past month just hasn't been cooperating with me. I know this one is short, but I've been dying to make an update, so you guys don't think I've completely abandoned you, because I didn't!

I know this chapter is short a maybe a little boring, but the next chapter is underway, and I hope to have it up by next weekend before I go on my trip.

Thank you guys so much again!

Following Day

Steve McGarrett's House

Steve’s POV:

I dropped my keys on the table as I walked through the front door. Shutting and locking the door behind me, I went into the kitchen to see Danny drinking coffee and making pancakes. I saw his car in the driveway when I pulled in, so I knew he was here.

“Whatcha doin’ here, Danno? I thought you and Kari would be having breakfast this morning. Not that I’m complaining, pancakes look good.” I said as I poured myself a cup of coffee and pulled the butter out of the fridge.

“Yeah well you aren’t going to get any if you keep putting butter in your damn coffee.” He said. I could tell he was pissed off. I stayed silent for a moment to see if he’d continue.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

He sighed and flipped a pancake. “I broke up with Kari.”

“Oh... I’m sorry man.” I leaned back against the counter and watched him work. “Again, not that I’m complaining, but why are you here and not at your place?”

“Better question, why weren’t you here when I got here?” He shot me a look. I rolled my eyes. Truth was, after Thea got off the phone with Nora, she and I fell asleep on her couch. We stayed up for a while and talked about nothing in particular. She told me some stories from her childhood, and I told her about my time in the Navy, whatever I was able to tell her. We agreed last night that we need to take this thing between us at a slow pace. We’re about to become parents so we need to be careful with how we do this. I shrugged my shoulders.

“I was with Thea last night.” I said simply and took a drink of my coffee. I moved to grab some pancakes when Danny lifted the plate and moved it out of arm's reach for me.

“You were where?”

“I was with Thea, okay? She got some bad news and needed someone to talk to so I went over and we fell asleep on the couch. Now give me a damn pancake.”

“All you did was sleep?” He asked.

“Yes, dammit. Give me the plate.” I said, leaning over the kitchen island to grab the plate from him.

He shook his head and set the plate down. He turned back to the stove to put more batter in the pan. “Don’t eat all of them. Rachel is dropping Grace off here in a bit when they get done looking at apartments with Thea.”

I nodded and made myself a plate. “Rachel’s been pretty generous with your time with Grace recently. Anything up with that?”

He shrugged and flipped the pancakes. “I don’t know. She hasn’t been fighting with me at all recently. I’m starting to think her and Stan are planning on moving again. They acted just like this before she told me she was moving my daughter across a whole country.”

“She can’t move her again. This is Grace’s home and your home, no matter how much you hate it here.” I said. Despite Danny’s feelings about the state of Hawaii, I knew he could never leave the family that he has found here with Five-0. It would never be the same without Danny or Grace.

Danny turned around and opened his mouth to say something. I knew exactly what he was about to say, so I beat him to it.

“I know, Danno. You don’t have to explain it to me.”

About an hour later, after I had gone on my swim and my run, Grace was dropped off and was trying to convince me and Danny we needed to go to Kamekona’s.

“Monkey, you just had breakfast an hour ago, let’s wait a little bit.” Danny explained. He and I were sitting on the couch watching a football game. Mostly it was me trying to pay attention to the game while Danny made comments and yelled at the tv the whole time. Grace was up at the table coloring. This was a normal Saturday routine for us. Sometimes Grace was here, sometimes she wasn’t. Other times the rest of the team joined us. After the crazy week we’ve had a work with the murder case we’re been on for a while, it’s nice to be able to sit down and relax.

“Thea asked me about Ty’s case. I feel bad not being able to tell her anything.” I said, taking a swig of my beer.

“Well you’ve got to know something to be able to tell her.” Danny said, glancing up at Grace who was in her own little world coloring. “This is the 3rd drowning victim found at that dock. All showing the same signs of a struggle, once we’re able to pinpoint where the bodies came before they washed up, it’ll narrow down the search. We’ll find them Steve.”

I nodded, turning back to the TV. “Yeah, yeah I know. I just don’t want there to be another body before we're able to get a lead.”

Danny’s phone started to ring from the kitchen. Grace got up and dashed to the other room. “I got it, I got it!”

Danny rolled his eyes. We both knew it wasn’t going to be work, they would have called me first. “I swear if it’s Rachel telling me she’s gonna pick her up soon, I might actually throw myself into the ocean.”

“You realize most people would actually enjoy that right?”

“Shut up.”

“Danno, it’s Auntie Thea.” Grace said, coming into the living room and holding the phone out to Danny. Danny and I gave each other a weird look. Why would she be calling Danny?

“Any arguments I need to know about?” Danny asked as he took the phone from Grace. I rolled my eyes and swatted his arm, trying to leave a mark.

“Answer the damn phone.” I said.

Thea’s POV:

“Why do we have to move?” Nora asked me for the 10th time this morning. I’ve had this conversation with her about 5 times in the last week. She doesn’t want to move from our little apartment, the only home she’s ever had. I’ve lived there since I left my mother’s house when I was 18. When Nora was born, she lived with my mother for about 3 weeks, then I moved her in with me. Since I was the only one taking care of her, it made more sense to have her with me instead of me traveling back and forth every day. Julia, my mother, never objected to it. She had Nora’s things packed up and waiting for me when I told her I was coming to get her. The next time I saw her was at her funeral a few months later.

“Because sweetie, our place is too small for two more babies, so we need to find a bigger place to fit everyone.” I said, glancing back at her in the rearview mirror. She was leaning back in her booster seat, staring out the window. She turned her head and looked at me in the mirror.

“Is Steve going to live with us?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but quickly closed it when I didn’t have anything to say. Steve and I had never really talked about what was going to happen after I had the twins. He would want to be close to them, right? Where would they stay? You couldn’t move newborn's back and forth like that could you? Why did it take my 7-year-old to make me realize these things?

“Uhm, I don’t know babe. I’ll have to talk to Steve about it.” I left it at that. I really did need to have a conversation with Steve about it. After last night, I feel better about sitting down and having this conversation with him. It was obvious that we both wanted to spend more time together, so finding a schedule that worked for all of us wouldn’t be too difficult.

“Since he’s going to be the new baby's daddy, does that mean he’s going to be-” She was cut off by my cell phone ringing. I quickly answered it, knowing full well what Nora’s question was about to be, but I didn’t have it in me to answer it right now.

I glanced down quickly to see it was Rachel before I held it up to my ear.

“Hey Rach, what’s up?” There was no response on the other end of the line, just some shuffling around and a loud banging sound. “Hello, Rachel? Can you hear me?” I asked again. This time, I heard what sounded like Stan off in the distance on the other end of the line.

“Open the fucking door Rachel, before I break it down?”

My eyes widened and I quickly tried to get Rachel’s attention. “Rachel! Hello! Can you hear me? Rachel, answer the phone!”

I heard Rachel call out and scream before the line went dead. Thankfully, I was at a red light and quickly calledDanny.

“Mommy, what’s wrong?” Nora asked. Me yelling at the phone probably scared her.

I looked back at her. “It’s fine baby, I just got to call Danny okay?” I turned down another street when I finally heard him answer.

“Hey Thea, what’s up? You know I think you hurt Steve’s feelings calling me instead of him.” He joked.

“Danny, something’s wrong over at Rachel’s house. I think Stan hurt her.”

Danny was silent for a moment. “What do you mean?” The joking tone in his voice was gone.

“She called me, I don’t know if it was on accident or on purpose. I could hear a lot of noise and Stan telling her he was going to break a door down. She was screaming but the phone hung up before I could get her to hear me.” I remembered suddenly that Rachel hadn’t told him about the divorce or the reason she was divorcing him. I knew Stan was angry, but I never thought that he would act like this towards her.

“Thea, where are you?” He asked. I could hear Steve asking him in the background what was going on. “Nora and I were on our way to Kamekona’s.” I was trying to pay attention to the road and talk on the phone.

“How close are you to Steve’s place? I have Grace over here and I don’t want to bring her.” I pulled up to the next light and made a U-turn.

“I’m just a few blocks away.” I said. He hung up and I put my phone down on the passenger seat.

“Nora, we’re going to go hang out with Grace at Steve’s for a while. Maybe I can call Kamekona and have him bring us some food. How about that?” I asked her. The nervous look on her face broke my heart.

“But is Auntie Rachel going to be okay?”

I tried my best to give her a small smile in the rear-view mirror.

“I hope so sweet pea, I hope so.”

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