#Danny got petty and did it again just in another universe

[nelkcats]

Star Thief ✦

After a medical check with Frostbite and a conversation with Clockwork, it turned out that Danny didn't have a protect obsession, and it was more of a ghostly reflex about protecting his haunt from invaders.

The need to protect his home had invaded his mind until it became a priority due to the constant in which the other ghosts kept coming, leaving his space obsession as a secondary priority until the end of the danger.

He only needed one night looking at the sky and getting stellar freckles to realize that he had an obsession with space, the problem? Phantom has become a possessive ghost.

As with his home, he had an irrational fear of the night sky being stolen from him, so he began stealing stars and keeping them with him. This might seem impossible if Danny were a normal person, but he was a half ghost, and a powerful one.

He stole the stars and hid them within his own ectoplasm, turning his appearance into one similar to Nocturn's. Or at least he did until Clockwork scolded him for interfering with his dimension's solar system and forced him to return the stars.

Which he did with great reluctance. But the desire to hoard the stars just for himself did not disappear; Danny looked for an alternative solution to the problem and with the help of the Infinite Map he found "The perfect dimension to steal stars and not have to return them"

However, this did not go unnoticed by the Justice League when an abnormality was detected in all parts of the cosmos, hundreds of stars were disappearing, and fast. They decided to investigate.

On the other hand, Danny was hugging and hoarding stars as he hovered in the new dimension sky. It was perfect! And he wasn't going to return them again.

[five-rivers]

Orb/Reanimation

Another part of Doorways!  Link to series here.

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“What’s his name again?” asked Danny, picking at the hem of his shirt.  Today had been… stressful, for a number of reasons.  Partially the long drive and the disastrous breakfast stop, but also the fact that they were driving to meet a guy who was possibly:

a)       Vlad Masters version 2.

b)      A horrible hole in reality that would try to kill him.

c)       Possessed, like the Keens.

d)      Using ghost stuff without knowing it was ghost stuff.

e)      Messing around with ghost stuff while knowing it was ghost stuff, but without any of the skill to keep it from messing him up in turn.  

f)        Crazy in some wonderful, unforeseen way.

Or, finally,

g)       Mom and Dad’s one and only normal friend.  

Danny really wasn’t holding for the last one, if he was being honest.  After all, unlike Marianne, this guy had been part of the Paranormal Research Club.  

Okay, maybe there were other, positive, options.  It was completely possible for someone to be weird or crazy and not be evil or even particularly threatening.  Most ghosts were like that, in fact.  

Still.

“Frank Stone,” said Dad, cheerfully.

“If he turns out to be a Dr. Frankenstein type, I quit,” groaned Jazz.  “Just so you know.”

“You won’t quit,” said Danny, with complete confidence.  

“He is a doctor,” said Mom.  “He was studying biology when we met him, for his undergraduate degree.”

“I quit; I’m telling you.”

“If you were really quitting,” reasoned Danny, “you’d just open the door and jump out.”  He was pleased that Jazz was taking her turn as the resident overdramatic teenager.  She carried that burden only rarely, but it did seem like long trips in the GAV really brought it out.

Maybe they made her remember the whole Youngblood thing.  Who knew? Not Danny.  

“I’m not going to jump out of a moving vehicle. That’s more of a ‘you’ thing.”

“I can’t really dispute that,” said Danny, remembering all the times he had, in fact, jumped out of a moving vehicle. “In my defense, I can fly.”

“Why you can fly completely negates that as a defense.”

Danny held up a finger.  “Okay, so, first off, reality is not a moving vehicle.”

“Anything can be a moving vehicle, depending on your reference frame.”

“I agree on the moving part, but I dispute the vehicle part.  Vehicle comes from the Latin vehiculum, which is ‘a means of conveyance.’ Reality is not a means of conveyance. Ergo, it cannot be a vehicle.”

“Not so fast, brother dear.  Words change meaning over time.”

“Yeah, but that’s still what vehicle means,” said Danny.  “Unless you’re doing the medicine definition, anyway.  I think.”

“Reality is a metaphorical vehicle.”

“Well, if it’s metaphorical, it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s moving.  Does it?”

“I’m… not sure.”

“I think this is the place!” exclaimed Dad, pulling into a parking lot.  “Golding City University Medical Research Lab.”

“He doesn’t live here,” said Danny, slowly, “does he?”  They weren’t ambushing this guy at work, were they?  Even if he did turn out to be just as bad as all of Mom and Dad’s other friends, that was kind of mean.  

(Except, the Keens had been acceptable, once they were no longer possessed, and even the ghost possessing them hadn’t been too terrible.)

“He’s in the building behind the lab,” said Mom. “They let the teachers live on-campus, here.  He’s expecting us, anyway.”

Right.  Because they had called ahead, giving warning to their potential enemy.  Curse you, common courtesy and sundry social conventions.

Jazz was glaring at the small name sign on the building, which was just barely visible through the rain.  “Golding City University,” she said, eyes narrowed.  

“Uh, is something wrong?”

“Frankenstein,” she said.  

“Um,” said Danny.  He looked more closely at the name.  “Golding City.  Ingolstadt.” Oh, no.  Now he was glaring at the name, too.  Because Jazz was right, and it would be his luck.  Their parents’ luck.  Whatever.  

“Do you feel anything?” asked Dad.  

“No,” said Danny.

“Well,” said Mom.  “We’ll have to run a bit, try to stay out of the rain.  It’s too bad there isn’t a closer parking lot…”

“I could also just make us all intangible,” said Danny.  

“What?”

“I could make us all intangible.  I do it all the time to miss the rain when no one is looking too closely.”

“Huh,” said Mom.  

“It isn’t as if my powers disappear when I’m not fighting ghosts,” said Danny.  “I get to use them for other things.”

“I know, I know, it just seems… petty.”

“Petty is one of the best words to describe ghosts with,” said Danny.  

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Frank Stone did not look like a Frankenstein. Not the monster, and not the ‘doctor.’

(Because Victor Frankenstein had not, in fact, become a doctor, had he?)

He was actually pretty average looking.  The same age as Mom and Dad, of course. Brown hair.  Glasses.  Skinny, but not that skinny.  Could Dr. Stone rob a grave?  Probably. But carrying the loot away without some mechanical advantage was probably out.  Unless it was old loot.  Dried out. Maybe just bones.  

Corpses were heavy.  

(No, Danny was not going to elaborate.)

Dr. Stone appeared to be somewhat confused about why Danny and Jazz were there.  Evidently, Mom and Dad had managed to give the man the impression that they wanted to fund his research with the fortune they had inherited from Vlad.

Which, incidentally, had been inherited by Danny, who couldn’t really do much with it until he was twenty-five.  Not that he was particularly keen on funding… Whatever it was that Dr. Stone was researching.  

Maybe that would be different if he could tell what Dr. Stone was talking about.  Danny wasn’t stupid, far from it, and had a good background in any number of esoteric subjects, but, well.  It was hard to rival an adult lifetime of learning and research.  Especially when he didn’t have any context.  

Mom and Dad’s briefing on Dr. Stone had generally focused on what he had been interested in as a member of the Paranormal Research Club, not his true field of study.

“Oh,” said Mom, suddenly, “this is about your organ transplant project, isn’t it?  You really need to provide more context.  When you just jump right in like that, even we’ll get lost!”

Okay.  Danny felt better.  

“Well, yes,” said Dr. Stone.  “I have been working on this off and on since college, you know how it is.  I know you kept up with that portal business!”  He flashed a nervous smile and set his coffee mug down on his coffee table.  It made a soft chinking sound against the glass.  “But the university gave me a grant, Vladco’s been donating some supplies—From their chemical division, mostly—and I’ve been having a lot of success!  I can’t wait to show you.  We’ve actually got a few specimens in near-stasis right now, all from mice.  We’re going to be implanting one tomorrow.  See how it functions.”

“Have you implanted any before?” asked Mom, leaning forward.  

“A few, but, well.  I can’t say they were resounding successes.  The most recent subject only lasted a few days… Although, that is better than the first! We’ve been adjusting some of our ratios.”

“Say, Frank,” said Dad.  “What chemicals are you using for this, anyway?  I know you’re using them in conjunction with low temperatures, but keeping crystals from forming in the flesh—”

“Yes, yes, that’s always been the problem with cryogenics,” agreed Dr. Stone.  Then they dove back into jargon and technical language.  

Danny glanced sideways at Jazz, uneasy.  Chemicals.  From Vladco. Yeah.  Not suspicious at all.  

He leaned over.  “Ten dollars says that he’s using ectoplasm to reanimate dead bodies.”

“I’m not taking that bet.  Do you feel anything weird from him?”  Jazz whispered back.  

“Weird, yes, but…”  Danny bit his lip.  “I’m not sensing any… doors.  Or ghosts.”

“Okay,” said Jazz.  “So, when we do find his mad science lab full of dead body parts, what do we do?”

“Well…  Nothing? As long as they’re legal dead body parts, I guess.  You know, from organ donors, or people who donated their bodies to science.  I mean…”  He shrugged.  “You’ve read Frankenstein, too.  And met Ellie.”

“Hm.  True,” said Jazz.  “I have to check my biases.  I’m still quitting, though.  As soon as we find his Frankenstein stuff.  Just so you know.”

“No, you aren’t.”

Jazz just sighed.  

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Danny walks silently through the halls of the research facility.  True, Dr. Stone was planning on giving his family a tour of his workspace first thing tomorrow and had implied that other researchers would be doing the same, but Danny believed in being prepared.  

Well.  Sometimes. He was allowed to be inconsistent and contradictory.  Like any teen, he was still learning how to exist.  

Maybe he should stop comparing himself to ‘any teen,’ though.  It was beginning to feel dishonest, even in his own head.  Even though, technically, it was true.  

Anyway.  

This place was kind of creepy.  At least, he presumed a normal person would find it creepy. Too bad he didn’t know any normal people.  Sam would think it was cool.  Tucker would be freaking out because it was a medical research lab.  Ancients, Danny was as bad as his parents.  

It did have a number of features that one would typically only find on the set of a horror movie, however, so he felt fairly confident in his assessment of its creepiness.  Also, he had encountered at least five different crimes against nature and sanity (it took one to know one), and he hadn’t even gotten to Dr. Stone’s lab yet.  

He was impressed.  He hadn’t expected such a high concentration outside of Amity Park or Vlad’s hideouts.  

At the thought of Vlad, Danny drooped. Yeah.  He still wasn’t over the stupid fruitloop.  Still hated the fact that he had died.  

Back to the crimes against nature.  Ectoplasm was definitely a component, if a small one. Hard to get things to glow that precise, reality bending shade of green otherwise.  Also, well.  Danny can sense ectoplasm.

And…  Now he was in a room of jars full of diluted ectoplasm and… He sniffed. Formaldehyde?  He frowned and decided the number, size, and arrangement of jars was suspicious.  He walked around the table.  Yep. That was in the outline of a human body. Yep.  

Honestly, this wasn’t any more alarming than the living mice impaled with various glowing needles, or the disturbingly brown heart beating in a fish tank a few rooms back.  It was, also, significantly less alarming than the prosthetic face (mainly because, dang, that thing looked realistic), the (fresh) skeleton someone had been injecting ectoplasm into (yikes), and the weird flesh… blob… thing that someone had just left out in their workspace.  

Still.  This was another point for the ‘someone is building a Frankenstein’s monster in this building’ theory, and Danny had kind of been hoping that he was wrong.  

He walked out of the room, on alert for random murderous corpse monsters (or sad corpse monsters that needed a shoulder to cry on, a restraining order against their creators, and a loving home).  Or mad scientists.  Because, at this point, he was fairly certain that everyone who worked here was crazy, and not necessarily in the fun way Mom and Dad were.

He was glad they had decided to sleep in the GAV and ignore Dr. Stone’s invitation to stay in his apartment.  

Dr. Stone’s office was just next door.  His lab, just beyond that.  Danny approached cautiously, his ghost half on high alert, and his deeper self stirring uneasily.  

He laid a hand flat against the door, and that stirring became wakefulness.

Crimes against nature.  Hubris.  Pride.

Superbia.  It had to be.

A hole.  A wound.

Well.  This was fast.  Even with the Keens’ list of Paranormal Research Club members they had encountered while possessed, Danny hadn’t expected to find another thing like Gula so quickly.  

He hadn’t wanted to.  Despite his outward pessimism, he had hoped that there weren’t any more.  

After several frozen moments where Danny braced himself for an attack, he realized one wasn’t forthcoming.  The tear beyond the door had not noticed him, was not trying to consume him.  

So, he had a choice.  He could either try to deal with this alone, right now, or he could sneak away and tell his family what he had found.  Both choices had pros and cons.  

Before even a second had passed, Danny was easing away from the door.  He hadn’t quite promised to share if he felt anything strange, if he had detected anything bad, but…  It was a near thing, and he didn’t want to be dishonest with his family after they had been so accepting of all his… Stuff.  

Yeah.  Call it stuff.  Nice and generic.  Covers everything.  

Plus, his encounter with Gula had confirmed that he needed backup.  

He refrained from calling on his powers on the way out.  He didn’t want to draw attention.  The limits of the doors to the place which should not be mentioned were largely unknown to him.

Luckily, the doors weren’t alarmed, and he got back to the GAV without a problem.  He poked Jazz awake first.  

“Hey,” he said, “we’ve got a problem.”

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“This portal is just… Sitting there,” said Mom.

“Yep.”

“In Frank’s office.”

“Well, I think it might actually be in the lab, but yes.  It’s kind of freaking me out.”

“Is Frank sleeping in his lab?” asked Dad, stroking the stubble on his chin.  

“No, I checked that before I went in,” said Danny. “He’s in his apartment.”

“You just… broke into his apartment?” asked Mom.

Danny shrugged.  “I didn’t break anything,” he said.  “But, I mean, what else was I supposed to do?”

For a moment, it looked like Mom was about to argue or scold him, but she shook her head.  “Alright, then someone else is in his office.”

“Maybe.  I’m not sure if these portals need a person attached or not.  Using person in the very loosest of senses, because…”  He made a gesture he hoped would be interpreted as a soul being forcibly removed from a body without killing the body.  

“You don’t think it’s in the, um,” Jazz also made a vague gesture.  

“You mean the hypothetical Frankenstein’s monster he’s made?  Yeah. I think that’s likely.  Also, judging from the sheer amount of, um, weird stuff in the other labs, I’d say it’s influencing everyone and everything around it, too.”

“Is that a thing it can do?” asked Mom.  

“I mean, I can do that,” said Danny.  He paused.  “’I’ in this case being the portal.  Yeah.  That’s why Amity Park is so…  Amity Park.”

Mom breathed out, slowly.  “Sweetie, trust me on this, Amity Park was strange long before we made the portal.

“Well, yes?” said Danny, not seeing what that had to do with it.  “So?”

“So, that strangeness couldn’t be caused by the portal.”

“Mom.  I’m—It’s a hole in reality.  Do you think it’s going to obey the laws of cause and effect?  You went to Amity Park because it was already a ‘thin spot,’ right?  I was already there.”

Mom looked vaguely ill.  

“Okay,” said Jazz.  “Let’s table that discussion for right now.  What are we going to do about this?  Break in?  Wait for our ‘tour’ tomorrow?”

“I don’t like the idea of waiting for Dr. Stone to give us a tour,” said Danny.  “I don’t want to give them time to prepare for us.”

“He doesn’t know what we’re here for, though,” said Dad.  “Does he?”

“I don’t know,” said Danny.  “I can’t read minds.”

“Yet,” added Jazz.

“Do you think he even knows about the…”  It was Mom’s turn to enter the gesturing game.

“Let’s just call it a hell portal for the sake of communication,” said Danny, despite the fact that the term did not do the actuality justice.  “Or Superbia for this particular one.  I think this must be Superbia, anyway.”  He didn’t want to imagine the possibility of even more of these things out there.  

“I’m not sure how he couldn’t notice that something strange was going on,” said Dad.  “Even if he was using ectoplasm and other supernatural elements in his research, we gave him a good grounding in what to expect from ectoplasm in college.”

“Yeah,” said Jazz.  “But not everyone is like you and Mom.  Your college days were over two decades ago.”

Something moving in the dark and rain beyond the GAV windows, catching Danny’s eye.  He pushed past his family to get a better look, blinking to adjust his eyes.  

“Heck,” he said.  “We have a mob.”

“What?” exclaimed Dad, rushing to the console to turn on the GAV’s exterior floodlights.  

They illuminated Dr. Stone and a crowd of college and graduate students quite nicely.  Their eyes reflected a dim red.  The GAV was, as far as Danny could see, surrounded.

Very briefly, the thought of gunning the GAV and crashing through the crowd crossed his mind.  It was just as quickly dismissed.  

He didn’t know what the line between influenced and mind controlled was, or how easily Superbia could cross it.  It was even possible that the ‘hell portal’ could vault over both of those and land directly in possession.  

“Ghost shield?” suggested Danny.  

“Will it do anything?” asked Mom.  

“Won’t hurt,” said Danny with a shrug.  

Mom flipped the switch.  

“What are we going to do?” asked Jazz, softly. “Wait them out?”

“Realistically,” said Danny, “we don’t have enough food and water to do that.  With this many people, they could take turns watching us.”

“Call the police?” suggested Maddie.  The other three turned to look at her.  “They are still human, aren’t they?”

“Yeah,” said Danny, frowning.  “But I don’t know how much, um, agency they have right now.  If we were in Amity, I’d say sure, our police understand, mostly, but…  Also, bringing extra hostages into this might not be a good idea.”

“If it’s the campus police that would get called, they might be affected, too,” said Jazz.  

“They have campus police?  How do you know?”

“This college sent me a brochure once.”

“Right.  Um.  I could always just fly us out of here,” said Danny.

“Assuming they don’t have ranged attacks,” said Mom, dubiously.

“Hm.  Yeah.  I think I could lift the GAV, and then we could just leave the shield on.”

“Assuming the shield does anything.”

Danny shrugged.  “I can always just try to fight them outright.  I’d prefer not to do that, though.”

Mom inhaled as if she were about to say something but was cut off by a loud noise from outside.

“Jack~  Maddie~ I know you’re in there.”  That was Dr. Stone’s voice, warped by a megaphone speaker.  “Why don’t you come out and see what I’ve done?  I dare say I’ve exceeded even our wildest dreams from college.”  A long pause.  “I even made a portal…  Weren’t you trying to get one of those?  Isn’t that what got good old Vlad hospitalized?”  There was laughter.  Too much laughter.  

The mob was laughing, too.

Superbia.  Pride.

Danny knew what he wanted to do.  He wanted to walk out and deal with the threat that was grating on his every sense.  But…  He knew that prideful actions were contraindicated under the present circumstances.  

Influence.  Right. How much could Danny be influenced?

How much could his family be influenced?

He looked up at his parents, seeking guidance. They seemed uncertain, too.  

“I didn’t destroy any lives- I made new life. New life!  Powered by an interdimensional portal, oh, yes…  Can you imagine the application?  Can you imagine a new world?”

“Okay, he didn’t seem like this in the apartment,” muttered Jazz.  “We have human nonlethal weapons, right?”

“Still have to worry about running people over,” said Danny.  He looked back at the lab building.  “We could try to cut this off at the source.  They aren’t protecting the building.  They’re using it as part of their perimeter.”

Eyes turned to the dimly lit building.  

“We can cover you,” offered Dad.  

“I don’t like this any better than you flying off with us,” said Mom.  “But…  It offers a more permanent solution.”

Danny should have gone after it when he was in the building the first time.  Well.  Time only rewound for one ghost, and that ghost wasn’t him.  

Unless he counted…  Never mind.  The point was, despite all his other wonderful and troubling features, Danny couldn’t go back and change a decision he’d already made.  Agonizing over it was a waste of time and brain power.  

Dad got behind the wheel.  Jazz crawled up into the well-disguised turret.  Maddie manned the other weapons.  

Danny stood at the door, ready to run, ready to transform as soon as he was through the shield.  

Family bonding activities.  So much fun.  

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The mob attacked before he got the door open. He still made it to the building.

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Danny didn’t bother with doors or windows or halls. He remembered what floor Dr. Stone’s office was on, and, now that he was sensitized to it, he could feel Superbia. He went through the walls, straight as an arrow.

(He wondered, briefly, if he was being as bigoted as he’d often felt his parents to be.  If he was ascribing more evil to the portals to the Red Country than was warranted. If he was simply holding up a dark mirror and seeing what he feared from himself.)

(But no.  He did not command like that.  He did not force his people to assemble armies in the night or attack people.  He kept them safe.  He had rules.)

The lab was awash in sick red not-light that burned in Danny’s mind.  It was barely physically perceptible, more present in senses that couldn’t translate to human terms than anything to do with Danny’s eyes, ghostly or not.  

In the center of the lab, on an operation table, was a stitched-together corpse.  Perhaps, under other circumstances, it would have been a very pretty corpse.  A young woman with long dark hair and broad shoulders.  

Its chest had been torn open.  Half-in half-out of the cavity was a red orb, the source of the not-light, like some sick imitation of a ghost core.  

(It reminded Danny of Freakshow’s staff, and he realized that he never did find out where that horrid thing had come from.)

They had been trying to make something like Danny.

He felt like he had eaten those blood blossom pancakes.  

Danny gritted his teeth and let his light, white-green and clear, fill his hands.  Ectoplasm fought against the miasma in the air, an oddly purifying presence. It wasn’t enough to chase away the wrongness.  This wasn’t his space.  

The fight against Gula was different.  Both he and it had been within nominally living bodies.  They had been next to the heart of Danny’s territory, his home ground.  Danny had been tricked and trapped, taken off guard, unable to use the tricks he had grown used to while fighting ghosts and Vlad.

(He could feel Superbia in his mind, pride urging him forward towards error.  Pride in his abilities, in his mind, in his family.)

Danny drifted sideways, watching.  Listening.  Other things in the building were stirring.  Sparks of wrongness growing and twisting, warping into fountains and springs.  This whole building was full of it.  Rotten to the bones.  It pressed against his teeth.  

Careful.  

He had to be careful.  

The orb shone.  

(Too much like Freakshow’s staff.)

(Influence, Danny remembered.  Just how close was it to mind control?)

Doing this as a human was impossible.  Trying to fight that as a ghost was unwise.

The always-open always-closed door that both contained and laid within Danny’s soul shifted.  So did the corpse on the table, its constituent parts sliding over each other gruesomely.  Death had lost its hold, lost its meaning.  The ghost that was Danny twisted, and he was too human, too alive.

Special little thing.  You think you can defeat us.

He could.  He could open himself and wash all this away in an instant.  He could burn with electric fire and the cold of deep space.  He could reach out.  The orb would be as dust under his hand.  

He didn’t move.  

In thinking you become…

Un-light burned up from the grooves in the tile floor. It didn’t reach the soles of his boots, didn’t reach his soul.  He gritted his teeth.  

US.  

YOUR VICTORY IS OURS.

“Wow, you picked the wrong person to use that strategy on,” said Danny, out loud.  Internally, he pulled on the delicate and frayed strands of reality that persisted even here. “I have so much imposter syndrome and anxiety that it isn’t even funny.  I know I can’t beat you.  Not here.”

But then, he didn’t have to.  

He found the right string and pulled.  He found the key and opened the door.  Death was in the room again.  Danny could move again.  Not so much the pile of flesh in front of him.  It was hard, it hurt, to keep hold of something like this, but half of Danny was this, was dead, even if he had far too many halves to ever be whole.  

Ice coated the floor, the tiles cracking under the sudden temperature change.  He dropped to the floor and was human.  

An impossible thing.  

And behind the human—

Well.  Danny didn’t have to defeat Superbia.  It wasn’t like Gula, didn’t have that strength, that experience.  He just had to make it so the things that would, could.  

(Danny had rules.  Some of them were to protect himself.)

He walked over to the orb.  Ultimately, it was just a representation, not Superbia itself. Still.  He put his foot down on it and slowly transferred his weight to it until it cracked.  Until it splintered.  Until it shattered.  Until he ground its dust under his heel.  

Then, the building collapsed.  Danny didn’t move, didn’t have to move.  He was a ghost again, floating in the air, exactly where he had been, all the floors having passed harmlessly through him.  

Outside, the faculty and student body of the college were sprawled in piles on the ground.  The GAV was, somehow, halfway up a tree.  A shockingly sturdy tree.  Several statues were in pieces.  

The sun was coming up.  

Danny put a hand to his chest and assessed himself. Yes.  Still here.  Still himself.  The Ghost Zone still sang in his bones, in his core.  He was still anchored in Amity Park.  Everything in order.  

This place, though… This place would be tainted for years, a thin spot forever.  He could feel it, now.  Why couldn’t he feel it before, when they drove in?

He shuddered.  Then he flew down to the GAV and knocked on the window.  Mom rolled it down.  

“Want me to fly us away to somewhere secluded before the cops get called and we get asked a bunch of awkward questions?” he asked.

Mom closed her eyes.  “Please do,” she said.

[oldsilverblood5]

Isolation

Maybe Danny shouldn’t have run. But what else was he supposed to do? Just stand there and listen? Go to the nurse’s office like they suggested and just listen to everyone tell him he’s crazy?

He didn’t want to think he was crazy. He knew what they were saying wasn’t true. But what explanation was there?

He thought they were just angry at first, they had every right to be, but he knew his friends weren’t that petty. When Danny had walked up to his two best and only friends in the whole world, fully willing to apologise for the things he’d said the day before, he expected them to still be upset. But he wasn’t expecting them to look at him like they’d never seen him before. To say that they had no clue who he was and that he must have gotten the wrong people.

Danny had been mad at first, thinking they were upset enough to pretend they didn’t know him. He tried to talk them out of it, saying that it was far too childish for them to do, but when they kept insisting they didn’t know him he snapped.

They were allowed to be mad at him, but this was taking it too far. He told them to knock it off, got angry with them. Sam snapped back, saying he shouldn’t be taking his issues out on them. Danny, thinking she’d finally dropped the act, wilted and apologised again. He was just mad at his family; he didn’t mean it when he said he wished they’d leave him alone.

But Sam wasn’t happy with this. She kept insisting they had no idea what he was talking about and behind the anger he could see her confusion. That’s when Danny finally started to realise something was wrong.

He’d crumbled, asking if they really didn’t know who he was, and the answer he got tore his heart to shreds.

They didn’t know him.

They truly didn’t know who he was.

His best friends, looking at him like he was some sort of stranger.

Like he hadn’t known them for years, shared all of his secrets with, told everything to and did everything with.

They’d forgotten him.

He didn’t understand why.

He couldn’t.

None of it made any sense. How could they just forget him like that? What had happened between their last conversation and this one that had caused this? Was it because he said he wanted to be alone? Was the universe actually answering his wish in the worst way possible? If that were true, then he wanted to take it back. He didn’t mean it when he said it and he certainly regretted it now.

He didn’t want to be alone.

They must have noticed his heartbreak because Sam’s fury slowly died down. They asked if he was okay, if he’d hit his head or something. They suggested he go to the nurse’s office, and that’s when Danny bolted.

Unable to handle the sight of his once friends treating him like a fragile stranger, looking at him with no recognition in their eyes. He ran until he couldn’t breathe, which admittedly wasn’t far, but it got him away from everyone. He was pretty sure Sam’s shouting had drawn attention to the others in the hall, and he wondered how much they knew. If they’d forgotten him too or if they recognised him and the people he used to be friends with. He wondered if any of them would believe him if he told them. If any of them would care.

Probably not. There was a reason Sam and Tucker were his only friends. They were the only people in this school who cared about him, and now they were gone.

Danny curled into a tight ball. He was alone in a hallway, leaning against the lockers. He’d sat down in this spot after a few minutes of aimless wandering because it was abandoned. Everyone would have gone to the cafeteria by now for lunch, leaving him about an hour of time alone to panic.

Not that he wanted it. Being alone was the absolute last thing Danny wanted at that moment, but he had little choice.

It hit him just then how lonely he truly was.

His parents had been spending all their time working on some portal to the ghost dimension, the main source of his frustration in his argument with his friends. Danny didn’t believe in the paranormal, and his parents spending all their time on something that would never work was anger-inducing for their youngest child. The town already thought them insane, but with word spreading of their obsession to build some magic portal to the ghost world, ridicule for the Fenton family was at an all-time high.

Yesterday had been their first test, and while Danny hoped the failure would knock some sense into their heads, he found himself frustrated beyond belief when it seemingly did what it was supposed to. A bright green swirling mass had formed in the gateway they built, looking exactly like what one would expect a portal to another dimension would look like. It had only been for a few sparse moments, but it was enough to reinvigorate his parents’ desire to complete the thing and create a stable portal.

If Danny were any less inclined to being mad at his parents, he may have taken a moment to wonder at the impossible sight he had seen. But he was mad, so he wrote it off as a mirage type thing due to the severe brightness and heat coming off the amount of electricity that powered it. It was a trick of the eye, nothing more.

But his parents had been so happy with it, they locked themselves in the basement to perform more tests, basically becoming ghosts themselves in the Fenton household.

Jazz had likewise made herself scarce. She’d been spending all her time at school or the library or wherever else she went that wasn’t home. She had a reputation to maintain as the normal one of the family after all. And she made it clear that being seen with any of them was a nuisance she’d rather avoid. So, Danny had seen very little of sister in recent weeks, leaving him with one less person to rely on.

Honestly, it was as if he was only person in the house at times. There were some days where he could go the entire day without seeing any of them.

So, all he had were his friends. And he must have angered the universe the same time he angered them, because now he didn’t have them either.

Danny sobbed as he realised how alone he truly was.

He didn’t have any other friends, everyone else in the school already treated him like he didn’t exist, or that his existence was an offence to them. He wasn’t close with any of his teachers or neighbours or anyone in the town really.

Five people were all he had in this world. And he’d lost every single one of them.

A family that didn’t care to acknowledge him and friends who’d lost their memories.

He was alone.

More alone than he had ever been.

“Fenton?”

[mattbrothersscriptwriter]

My Top 20 Films of 2019 - Part Two

I don’t think I’ve had a year where my top ten jostled and shifted as much as this one did - these really are the best of the best and my personal favourites of 2019.

10. Toy Story 4

I think we can all agree that Toy Story 3 was a pretty much perfect conclusion to a perfect trilogy right? About as close as is likely to get, I’m sure. I shared the same trepidation when part four was announced, especially after some underwhelming sequels like Finding Dory and Cars 3 (though I do have a lot of time for Monsters University and Incredibles 2). So maybe it’s because the odds were so stacked against this being good but I thought it was wonderful. A truly existential nightmare of an epilogue that does away with Andy (and mostly kids altogether) to focus on the dreams and desires of the toys themselves - separate from their ‘duties’ as playthings to biological Gods. What is their purpose in life without an owner? Can they be their own person and carve their own path? In the case of breakout new character Forky (Tony Hale), what IS life? Big big questions for a cash grab kids films huh?

The animation is somehow yet another huge leap forward (that opening rainstorm!), Bo Peep’s return is excellently pitched and the series tradition of being unnervingly horrifying is back as well thanks to those creepy ventriloquist dolls! Keanu Reeves continues his ‘Keanuassaince‘ as the hilarious Duke Caboom and this time, hopefully, the ending at least feels finite. This series means so much to me: I think the first movie is possibly the tightest, most perfect script ever written, the third is one of my favourites of the decade and growing up with the franchise (I was 9 when the first came out, 13 for part two, 24 for part three and now 32 for this one), these characters are like old friends so of course it was great to see them again. All this film had to do was be good enough to justify its existence and while there are certainly those out there that don’t believe this one managed it, I think the fact that it went as far as it did showed that Pixar are still capable of pushing boundaries and exploring infinity and beyond when they really put their minds to it.

9. The Nightingale

Hoo boy. Already controversial with talk of mass walkouts (I witnessed a few when this screened at Sundance London), it’s not hard to see why but easy to understand. Jennifer Kent (The Babadook) is a truly fearless filmmaker following up her acclaimed suburban horror movie come grief allegory with a period revenge tale set in the Tasmanian wilderness during British colonial rule in the early 1800s. It’s rare to see the British depicted with the monstrous brutality for which they were known in the distant colonies and this unflinching drama sorely needed an Australian voice behind the camera to do it justice.

The film is front loaded with some genuinely upsetting, nasty scenes of cruel violence but its uncensored brutality and the almost casual nature of its depiction is entirely the point - this was normalised behaviour over there and by treating it so matter of factly, it doesn’t slip into gratuitous ‘movie violence’. It is what it is. And what it is is hard to watch. If anything, as Kent has often stated, it’s still toned down from the actual atrocities that occurred so it’s a delicate balance that I think Kent more than understands. Quoting from an excellent Vanity Fair interview she did about how she directs, Kent said “I think audiences have become very anaesthetised to violence on screen and it’s something I find disturbing... People say ‘these scenes are so shocking and disturbing’. Of course they are. We need to feel that. When we become so removed from violence on screen, this is a very irresponsible thing. So I wanted to put us right within the frame with that person experiencing the loss of everything they hold dear”. 

Aisling Franciosi is next level here as a woman who has her whole life torn from her, leaving her as nothing but a raging husk out for vengeance. It would be so easy to fall into odd couple tropes once she teams up with reluctant native tracker Billy (an equally impressive newcomer, Baykali Ganambarr) but the film continues to stay true to the harsh racism of the era, unafraid to depict our heroine - our point of sympathy - as horrendously racist towards her own ally. Their partnership is not easily solidified but that makes it all the stronger when they star to trust each other. Sam Claflin is also career best here, weaponizing his usual charm into dangerous menace and even after cementing himself as the year’s most evil villain, he can still draw out the humanity in such a broken and corrupt man.

Gorgeously shot in the Academy ratio, the forest landscape here is oppressive and claustrophobic. Kent also steps back into her horror roots with some mesmerising, skin crawling dream scenes that amplify the woozy nightmarish tone and overbearing sense of dread. Once seen, never forgotten, this is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea (and that’s fine) but when cinema can affect you on such a visceral level and be this powerful, reflective and honest about our own past, it’s hard to ignore. Stunning.

8. The Irishman

Aka Martin Scorsese’s magnum opus, I did manage to see this one in a cinema before the Netflix drop and absolutely loved it. I’ve watched 85 minute long movies that felt longer than this - Marty’s mastery of pace, energy and knowing when to let things play out in agonising detail is second to none. This epic tale of  the life of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) really is the cinematic equivalent of having your cake and eating it too, allowing Scorsese to run through a greatest hits victory lap of mobster set pieces, alpha male arguments, a decades spanning life story and one (last?) truly great Joe Pesci performance before simply letting the story... continue... to a natural, depressing and tragic ending, reflecting the emptiness of a life built on violence and crime.

For a film this long, it’s impressive how much the smallest details make the biggest impacts. A stammering phone call from a man emotionally incapable of offering any sort of condolence. The cold refusal of forgiveness from a once loving daughter. A simple mirroring of a bowl of cereal or a door left slightly ajar. These are the parts of life that haunt us all and it’s what we notice the most in a deliberately lengthy biopic that shows how much these things matter when everything else is said and done. The violence explodes in sudden, sharp bursts, often capping off unbearably tense sequences filled with the everyday (a car ride, a conversation about fish, ice cream...) and this contrast between the whizz bang of classic Scorsese and the contemplative nature of Silence era Scorsese is what makes this film feel like such an accomplishment. De Niro is FINALLY back but it’s the memorably against type role for Pesci and an invigorated Al Pacino who steals this one, along with a roll call of fantastic cameos, with perhaps the most screentime given to the wonderfully petty Stephen Graham as Tony Pro, not to mention Anna Paquin’s near silent performance which says more than possibly anyone else. 

Yes, the CG de-aging is misguided at best, distracting at worst (I never really knew how old anyone was meant to be at any given time... which is kinda a problem) but like how you get used to it really quickly when it’s used well, here I kinda got past it being bad in an equally fast amount of time and just went with it. Would it have been a different beast had they cast younger actors to play them in the past? Undoubtedly. But if this gives us over three hours of Hollywood’s finest giving it their all for the last real time together, then that’s a compromise I can live with.

7. The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Wow. I was in love with this film from the moving first trailer but then the film itself surpassed all expectations. This is a true indie film success story, with lead actor Jimmie Fails developing the idea with director Joe Talbot for years before Kickstarting a proof of concept and eventually getting into Sundance with short film American Paradise, which led to the backing of this debut feature through Plan B and A24. The deeply personal and poetic drama follows a fictionalised version of Jimmie, trying to buy back an old Victorian town house he claims was built by his grandfather, in an act of rebellion against the increasingly gentrified San Francisco that both he and director Talbot call home.

The film is many things - a story of male friendship, of solidarity within our community, of how our cities can change right from underneath us - it moves to the beat of it’s own drum, with painterly cinematography full of gorgeous autumnal colours and my favourite score of the year from Emile Mosseri. The performances, mostly by newcomers or locals outside of brilliant turns from Jonathan Majors, Danny Glover and Thora Birch, are wonderful and the whole thing is such a beautiful love letter to the city that it makes you ache for a strong sense of place in your own home, even if your relationship with it is fractured or strained. As Jimmie says, “you’re not allowed to hate it unless you love it”.

For me, last year’s Blindspotting (my favourite film of the year) tackled gentrification within California more succinctly but this much more lyrical piece of work ebbs and flows through a number of themes like identity, family, memory and time. It’s a big film living inside a small, personal one and it is not to be overlooked.

6. Little Women

I had neither read the book nor seen any prior adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel so to me, this is by default the definitive telling of this story. If from what I hear, the non linear structure is Greta Gerwig’s addition, then it’s a total slam dunk. It works so well in breaking up the narrative and by jumping from past to present, her screenplay highlights certain moments and decisions with a palpable sense of irony, emotional weight or knowing wink. Getting to see a statement made with sincere conviction and then paid off within seconds, can be both a joy and a surefire recipe for tears. Whether it’s the devastating contrast between scenes centred around Beth’s illness or the juxtaposition of character’s attitudes to one another, it’s a massive triumph. Watching Amy angrily tell Laurie how she’s been in love with him all her life and then cutting back to her childishly making a plaster cast of her foot for him (’to remind him how small her feet are’) is so funny. 

Gerwig and her impeccable cast bring an electric energy to the period setting, capturing the big, messy realities of family life with a mix of overwhelming cross-chatter and the smallest of intimate gestures. It’s a testament to the film that every sister feels fully serviced and represented, from Beth’s quiet strength to Amy’s unforgivable sibling rivalry. Chris Cooper’s turn as a stoic man suffering almost imperceptible grief is a personal heartbreaking favourite. 

The book’s (I’m assuming) most sweeping romantic statements are wonderfully delivered, full of urgent passion and relatable heartache, from Marmie’s (Laura Dern) “I’m angry nearly every day of my life” moment to Jo’s (Saoirse Ronan) painful defiance of feminine attributes not being enough to cure her loneliness. The sheer amount of heart and warmth in this is just remarkable and I can easily see it being a film I return to again and again.

5. Booksmart

2019 has been a banner year for female directors, making their exclusion from some of the early awards conversations all the more damning. From this list alone, we have Lulu Wang, Jennifer Kent and Greta Gerwig. Not to mention Lorene Scafaria (Hustlers), Melina Matsoukas (Queen & Slim), Jocelyn DeBoer & Dawn Luebbe (Greener Grass), Sophie Hyde (Animals) and Rose Glass (Saint Maud - watch out for THIS one in 2020, it’s brilliant). Perhaps the most natural transition from in front of to behind the camera has been made by Olivia Wilde, who has created a borderline perfect teen comedy that can make you laugh till you cry, cry till you laugh and everything in-between.

Subverting the (usually male focused) ‘one last party before college’ tropes that fuel the likes of Superbad and it’s many inferior imitators, Booksmart follows two overachievers who, rather than go on a coming of age journey to get some booze or get laid, simply want to indulge in an insane night of teenage freedom after realising that all of the ‘cool kids’ who they assumed were dropouts, also managed to get a place in all of the big universities. It’s a subtly clever remix of an old favourite from the get go but the committed performances from Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein put you firmly in their shoes for the whole ride. 

It’s a genuine blast, with big laughs and a bigger heart, portraying a supportive female friendship that doesn’t rely on hokey contrivances to tear them apart, meaning that when certain repressed feelings do come to the surface, the fallout is heartbreaking. As I stated in a twitter rave after first seeing it back in May, every single character, no matter how much they might appear to be simply representing a stock role or genre trope, gets their moment to be humanised. This is an impeccably cast ensemble of young unknowns who constantly surprise and the script is a marvel - a watertight structure without a beat out of place, callbacks and payoffs to throwaway gags circle back to be hugely important and most of all, the approach taken to sexuality and representation feels so natural. I really think it is destined to be looked back on and represent 2019 the way Heathers does ‘88, Clueless ‘95 or Easy A 2010. A new high benchmark for crowd pleasing, indie comedy - teen or otherwise.

4. Ad Astra

Brad Pitt is one of my favourite actors and one who, despite still being a huge A-lister even after 30 years in the game, never seems to get enough credit for the choices he makes, the movies he stars in and also the range of stories he helps produce through his company, Plan B. 2019 was something of a comeback year for Pitt as an actor with the insanely measured and controlled lead performance seen here in Ad Astra and the more charismatic and chaotic supporting role in Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood.

I love space movies, especially those that are more about broken people blasting themselves into the unknown to search for answers within themselves... which manages to sum up a lot of recent output in this weirdly specific sub-genre. First Man was a devastating look at grief characterised by a man who would rather go to a desolate rock than have to confront what he lost, all while being packaged as a heroic biopic with a stunning score. Gravity and The Martian both find their protagonists forced to rely on their own cunning and ingenuity to survive and Interstellar looked at the lengths we go to for those we love left behind. Smaller, arty character studies like High Life or Moon are also astounding. All of this is to say that Ad Astra takes these concepts and runs with them, challenging Pitt to cross the solar system to talk some sense into his long thought dead father (Tommy Lee Jones). But within all the ‘sad dad’ stuff, there’s another film in here just daring you to try and second guess it - one that kicks things off with a terrifying free fall from space, gives us a Mad Max style buggy chase on the moon and sidesteps into horror for one particular set-piece involving a rabid baboon in zero G! It manages to feel so completely nuts, so episodic in structure, that I understand why a lot of people were turned off - feeling that the overall film was too scattershot to land the drama or too pondering to have any fun with. I get the criticisms but for me, both elements worked in tandem, propelling Pitt on this (assumed) one way journey at a crazy pace whilst sitting back and languishing in the ‘bigger themes’ more associated with a Malik or Kubrick film. Something that Pitt can sell me on in his sleep by this point.

I loved the visuals from cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar), loved the imagination and flair of the script from director James Gray and Ethan Gross and loved the score by Max Richter (with Lorne Balfe and Nils Frahm) but most of all, loved Pitt, proving that sometimes a lot less, is a lot more. The sting of hearing the one thing he surely knew (but hoped he wouldn’t) be destined to hear from his absent father, acted almost entirely in his eyes during a third act confrontation, summed up the movie’s brilliance for me - so much so that I can forgive some of the more outlandish ‘Mr Hyde’ moments of this thing’s alter ego... like, say, riding a piece of damaged hull like a surfboard through a meteor debris field! 

3. Avengers: Endgame

It’s no secret that I think Marvel, the MCU in particular, have been going from strength to strength in recent years, slowly but surely taking bigger risks with filmmakers (the bonkers Taika Waititi, the indie darlings of Ryan Coogler, Cate Shortland and Chloe Zhao) whilst also carefully crafting an entertaining, interconnected universe of characters and stories. But what is the point of building up any movie ‘universe’ if you’re not going to pay it off and Endgame is perhaps the strongest conclusion to eleven years of movie sequels that fans could have possibly hoped for.

Going into this thing, the hype was off the charts (and for good reason, with it now being the highest grossing film of all time) but I remember souring on the first entry of this two-parter, Infinity War, during the time between initial release and Endgame’s premiere. That film had a game-changing climax, killing off half the heroes (and indeed the universe’s population) and letting the credits role on the villain having achieved his ultimate goal. It was daring, especially for a mammoth summer blockbuster but obviously, we all knew the deaths would never be permanent, especially with so many already-announced sequels for now ‘dusted’ characters. However, it wasn’t just the feeling that everything would inevitably be alright in the end. For me, the characters themselves felt hugely under-serviced, with arguably the franchise’s main goody two shoes Captain America being little more than a beardy bloke who showed up to fight a little bit. Basically what I’m getting at is that I felt Endgame, perhaps emboldened by the giant runtime, managed to not only address these character slights but ALSO managed to deliver the most action packed, comic booky, ‘bashing your toys together’ final fight as well.

It’s a film of three parts, each pretty much broken up into one hour sections. There’s the genuinely new and interesting initial section following our heroes dealing with the fact that they lost... and it stuck. Thor angrily kills Thanos within the first fifteen minutes but it’s a meaningless action by this point - empty revenge. Cutting to five years later, we get to see how defeat has affected them, for better or worse, trying to come to terms with grief and acceptance. Cap tries to help the everyman, Black Widow is out leading an intergalactic mop up squad and Thor is wallowing in a depressive black hole. It’s a shocking and vibrantly compelling deconstruction of the whole superhero thing and it gives the actors some real meat to chew on, especially Robert Downy Jr here who goes from being utterly broken to fighting within himself to do the right thing despite now having a daughter he doesn’t want to lose too. Part two is the trip down memory lane, fan service-y time heist which is possibly the most fun section of any of these movies, paying tribute to the franchise’s past whilst teetering on a knife’s edge trying to pull off a genuine ‘mission impossible’. And then it explodes into the extended finale which pays everyone off, demonstrates some brilliantly imaginative action and sticks the landing better than it had any right to. In a year which saw the ending of a handful of massive geek properties, from Game of Thrones to Star Wars, it’s a miracle even one of them got it right at all. That Endgame managed to get it SO right is an extraordinary accomplishment and if anything, I think Marvel may have shot themselves in the foot as it’s hard to imagine anything they can give us in the future having the intense emotional weight and momentum of this huge finale.

2. Knives Out

Rian Johnson has been having a ball leaping into genre sandpits and stirring shit up, from his teen spin on noir in Brick to his quirky con man caper with The Brothers Bloom, his time travel thriller Looper and even his approach to the Star Wars mythos in The Last Jedi. Turning his attention to the relatively dead ‘whodunnit’ genre, Knives Out is a perfect example of how to celebrate everything that excites you about a genre whilst weaponizing it’s tropes against your audience’s baggage and preconceptions.

An impeccable cast have the time of their lives here, revelling in playing self obsessed narcissists who scramble to punt the blame around when the family’s patriarch, a successful crime novelist (Christopher Plummer), winds up dead. Of course there’s something fishy going on so Daniel Craig’s brilliantly dry southern detective Benoit Blanc is called in to investigate.There are plenty of standouts here, from Don Johnson’s ignorant alpha wannabe Richard to Michael Shannon’s ferocious eldest son Walt to Chris Evan’s sweater wearing jock Ransom, full of unchecked, white privilege swagger. But the surprise was the wholly sympathetic, meek, vomit prone Marta, played brilliantly by Ana de Armas, cast against her usual type of sultry bombshell (Knock Knock, Blade Runner 2049), to spearhead the biggest shake up of the genre conventions. To go into more detail would begin to tread into spoiler territory but by flipping the audience’s engagement with the detective, we’re suddenly on the receiving end of the scrutiny and the tension derived from this switcheroo is genius and opens up the second act of the story immensely.

The whole thing is so lovingly crafted and the script is one of the tightest I’ve seen in years. The amount of setup and payoff here is staggering and never not hugely satisfying, especially as it heads into it’s final stretch. It really gives you some hope that you could have such a dense, plotty, character driven idea for a story and that it could survive the transition from page to screen intact and for the finished product to work as well as it does. I really hope Johnson returns to tell another Benoit Blanc mystery and judging by the roaring box office success (currently over $200 million worldwide for a non IP original), I certainly believe he will.

1. Eighth Grade

My film of the year is another example of the power of cinema to put us in other people’s shoes and to discover the traits, fears, joys and insecurities that we all share irregardless. It may shock you to learn this but I have never been a 13 year old teenage girl trying to get by in the modern world of social media peer pressure and ‘influencer’ culture whilst crippled with personal anxiety. My school days almost literally could not have looked more different than this (less Instagram, more POGs) and yet, this is a film about struggling with oneself, with loneliness, with wanting more but not knowing how to get it without changing yourself and the careless way we treat those with our best interests at heart in our selfish attempt to impress peers and fit in. That is understandable. That is universal. And as I’m sure I’ve said a bunch of times in this list, movies that present the most specific worldview whilst tapping into universal themes are the ones that inevitably resonate the most.

Youtuber and comedian Bo Burnham has crafted an impeccable debut feature, somehow portraying a generation of teens at least a couple of generations below his own, with such laser focused insight and intimate detail. It’s no accident that this film has often been called a sort of social-horror, with cringe levels off the charts and recognisable trappings of anxiety and depression in every frame. The film’s style services this feeling at every turn, from it’s long takes and nauseous handheld camerawork to the sensory overload in it’s score (take a bow Anna Meredith) and the naturalistic performances from all involved. Burnham struck gold when he found Elsie Fisher, delivering the most painful and effortlessly real portrayal of a tweenager in crisis as Kayla. The way she glances around skittishly, the way she is completely lost in her phone, the way she talks, even the way she breathes all feeds into the illusion - the film is oftentimes less a studio style teen comedy and more a fly on the wall documentary. 

This is a film that could have coasted on being a distant, social media based cousin to more standard fare like Sex Drive or Superbad or even Easy A but it goes much deeper, unafraid to let you lower your guard and suddenly hit you with the most terrifying scene of casually attempted sexual aggression or let you watch this pure, kindhearted girl falter and question herself in ways she shouldn’t even have to worry about. And at it’s core, there is another beautiful father/daughter relationship, with Josh Hamilton stuck on the outside looking in, desperate to help Kayla with every fibre of his being but knowing there are certain things she has to figure out for herself. It absolutely had me and their scene around a backyard campfire is one of the year’s most touching.

This is a truly remarkable film that I think everyone should seek out but I’m especially excited for all the actual teenage girls who will get to watch this and feel seen. This isn’t about the popular kid, it isn’t about the dork who hangs out with his or her own band of misfits. This is about the true loner, that person trying everything to get noticed and still ending up invisible, that person trying to connect through the most disconnected means there is - the internet - and everything that comes with it. Learning that the version of yourself you ‘portray’ on a Youtube channel may act like they have all the answers but if you’re kidding yourself then how do you grow? 

When I saw this in the cinema, I watched a mother take her seat with her two daughters, aged probably at around nine and twelve. Possibly a touch young for this, I thought, and I admit I cringed a bit on their behalf during some very adult trailers but in the end, I’m glad their mum decided they were mature enough to see this because a) they had a total blast and b) life simply IS R rated for the most part, especially during our school years, and those girls being able to see someone like Kayla have her story told on the big screen felt like a huge win. I honestly can’t wait to see what Burnham or Fisher decide to do next. 2019 has absolutely been their year... and it’s been a hell of a year.

[theladylovingcrow]

New Places, Friendly Faces (Sanny) Pt 1

Author (As known on Various sites): Lady Lover- Rockfic, Luluthechoosingcrow - AO3, theladylovingcrow - Deviantart and Wattpad, @sammy_bluebells - Instagram, @imacrowcawcaw - main Tumblr, @theladylovingcrow - writing/art Tumblr, @insannywestan - Sanny shipping Tumblr

Fandom: Greta Van Fleet

Pairing: Sam Kiszka/Danny Wagner (Sanny), lil bit of Danny/Ronnie but he's quickly swept away with Sam

Length: about 2k

Warnings/Tags: Alternate Universe, Diner AU, No band AU, fluff, some angst, awkwardness, first dates, you know the ones where person A's date is failing and person B comes and sits with them, sorry i forgot what its called but that, hand holding, flirting, Sanny

Summary: Danny was nervous; he had been building up the courage for *weeks* to arrange a date, and now.... He wasn't quite sure what to think of the situation he found himself in. The night certainly wasn't going as he had expected it to - and his emotions had never ridden a roller coaster this fast. Hell, the beautiful angel holding his hand wasn't even the one he had arranged to meet 2 hours ago.

Author's Notes: I don't know what inspired me to do this but I'm very very happy with how it's turning out (and I've never written a longer-ish multi chapter story before, so this is interesting!) I would hate for Danny to not know the Kiszkas growing up, but hey I think I made their first meeting pretty damn cute!

Also, just FYI this is set roughly in late January of whatever year, so the twins are supposed to be 20, Ronnie is 18 I think, Danny just turned 18, and Sam is 17 (I think I did all the math right but idk) HOWEVER it wasn't until I finished that I realized I absolutely did not make their appearances congruent with what they would have looked like then.... Sam and Danny look like 2018 ish but the twins also look like their high school selves :( Idk sorry

Also, because Sam is 17, this will not be posted on Rockfic and will be marked as underage, though I'm not planning for it to get dirty

---------------

Danny had been taping his foot for the past fifteen minutes.

He usually didn't do that, it wasn't his nervous tick of non-choice, but Michelle hadn't showed up yet, and it was nearing eight.

Checking his watch, Danny watched the hand tick to 7:58 and then looked up, peering around the restaurant he was in.

Diner, he corrected himself. It was a homey, 1960's American diner, a little more exposed timbers and bear carvings than checkered tiles and jukeboxes, but that's what you got in Michigan. The building was low and sturdy, a log structure with a river rock chimney over the grills in back. Every single wall was decorated with various signed pictures of celebrities that had passed through, local newspaper articles about Gerald and Fern's Homestyle Grill, old handsaws, vintage pop signs, and a million other trinkets and posters chosen by the owners (Gerald and Fern, he assumed, though they'd probably passed on considering how old the place looked to be).

It was a nice restaurant, Danny thought; the atmosphere was welcoming and calm despite the occasional clamor from the kitchen, and the decor was very interesting to look at. Plus, the waitress that had directed him to a window booth and brought him some water was just gorgeous.

'Don't think that! You're on a date, idiot' Danny scolded himself,  shaking his head. Well, he was technically waiting for the date to start, seeing as she hadn't showed up yet. But, he still shouldn't be admiring another girl like that when his wasn't there - that would just make him an asshole.

But maybe Michelle was a little bit of an asshole because she said she'd meet him at 7 o'clock and it was now 8:06- 'Stop. It.' Danny scolded himself again, mentally smacking himself upside the head.

'Didn't your mother ever tell you to assume the best of people?' One voice asked.

'Of course!' Another Danny answered.

'Well, then, she probably got stuck in traffic, or her dog threw up in her car, or she hit a bad pothole, or her mom made her go to the store, or-'

'Okay, I get it! She probably doesn't mean to be so late,' Danny conceded, concluding the conversation he was having with himself. Maybe the waitress was right and he had been sitting there by himself for a little too long.

Of course, being the nice girl she was, the waitress - Ronnie her name was Ronnie - had stopped by periodically whenever she had a minute to chat with him or finally bring him some coffee after he had given in to the craving.

Danny looked down at the small bouquet wilting on the table and sighed. Looked like this date was a bust, just like the few others he'd attempted, and he'd actually been very excited to see her. In fact, it was Michelle who had suggested this Gerald's Grill when he had shyly asked her out in Biology.

He had finally made up his mind to just stop wasting Ronnie's time and go home when a group of boys came trouping in, wet from the snow but in exuberant spirits and, apparently, "In great need of some refreshment, Ronnie dear!"

That made him want to pack up and get out even faster because, honestly, he didn't need any more knowing looks or judgement right now, but the last boy to walk in made him freeze with his coat halfway on.

The kid looked about Danny's age, roughly the same height but a whole lot skinnier. He had on skin tight jeans, scuffed hiking boots, and a red woolen coat. When he turned to talk to Ronnie, Danny could see the Tom Petty hoodie beneath the jacket and some silver necklaces.

'Nice,' he thought, 'seems like a cool guy: good taste in music and fashion.'

Also, 'Fucking gorgeous'.

What made him pause his leaving, though, wasnt the guy's body but his face - his sculpted brows, insanely high cheekbones, pink lips, and long lashes; all framed by the healthiest looking head of hair Danny had ever seen, second only to his own, or possibly one of the guy's he had come in with (the one who yelled for Ronnie) that had rather impressive, long curls styled to look like 70's mutton chops. There was something naggingly familiar about his features, but Danny couldn't place it.

Ronnie rolled her eyes and pointed the group of boys to a large table in the Eastern corner of the diner.

She snagged some menus and followed behind them, though another guy, this one also with long hair (he was having some competition here) grown out Justin Beiber style (okay, maybe not) said; "We don't need those, Ronnie, I'm pretty sure Sammy here has the whole menu memorized by now. Right, Sam-a-lam-a?"

The intruiging boy nodded, starting to recite off what sounded like a very accurate, detailed account of the diner's menu, prices and everything. Danny was surprised at the slight raspy, smokers quality of his voice, but it was pleasant, in a way.

After the fourth item or so, Ronnie stopped "Sammy" with a swat to the shoulder, shaking her heading and muttering "stupid genius" under her breath. He grinned up at her, wiggling his eyebrows and asking for a round of Vernors, pretty please, Ronnie-kins.

Holy shit, they were siblings! That's what had been buzzing at the back of his head for the past couple minutes; those mouths and cheekbones, seductive eyes, that lovely hair. The guy was Ronnie's brother (and no wonder he was so beautiful then).

Squinting, Danny watched the party in the corner. Two of the other guys, 70's hair and Justin Beiber (though he felt bad calling him that since he seemed cool and, hey, he'd  had the same 'do when trying to grow his out) were laughing at something Ronnie said, leaning on each other and behaving the exact same way, down to their blinks.

Twins! Danny could tell because he had two cousins, also twins, that acted exactly like that. Wait, though.... they looked awfully similar to-

More siblings?! Jesus, how many kids did this family have? He hoped the four were all, for the sake of their parents.

He guessed that the twins were a little older, so either "Sammy" or Ronnie had to be the youngest, though they all looked awfully similar in age.

'Seriously, how do their parents handle that?' Especially with the attractive, flirty twins, beautiful daughter, and the super smart supermodel - it had to be several handfuls raising a house like that. Danny suddenly felt a bit more sympathy for his parents, even with just having to deal with him and his little sister.

Ronnie sashayed away, calling over her shoulder for the boys to keep it down. They all hooted and hollered in response, seeing as Danny was the only other patron to bother at the moment.

Danny slowly sat back down, curious as to what interesting conversations he would hear from the group. The twin with curly hair was currently talking to a larger guy on the other side of the table about the "carefully curated sensuality" of Led Zeppelin's Prescence, which alone made him want to stay.

Not to mention, he could continue to observe the hot guy that was immediately fascinating him like few people did. Danny wasn't deluded enough to think it was love at first sight - though it was definitely a fair amount of lust - but there was something about the other boy that made him want to track his every move down to the blinking of his eyes.

"Woah there, creepy much? Chill out, he probably doesn't even like guys anyways," Danny muttered to himself, hoping that his staring wasn't obvious enough to make "Sammy" aware of it. He loved to people watch - and admire, but hated the uncomfortable confrontation of acknowledging that he had been doing so.

Supermodel boy twisted in his chair, looking at one of the many things on the wall - though it made Danny's breath catch because, could he tell? - when he caught Danny's eye. He smiled at Danny, making him smile a little tightly and nod in return.

At that moment, Ronnie came out of the back with a platter of glass pop bottles and a notebook tucked into her apron pocket, using her hip to close the swinging half-door to the area behind the counter. She smiled at Danny as he passed, murmuring a soft "I'll be right back with you," before continuing on to her brothers' table.

Gorgeous boy laughed - a surprisingly obnoxious, though maybe endearing, braying one - and reached out a fine boned hand, plucking a bottle from the tray before she could set it down. He took a long swallow, throat visibly working and eyes half closed, head tipped back. Danny quickly averted his own eyes unless he started drooling onto the tabletop.

Ronnie came over to him after a minute, refilling his coffee and insisting that she get him a piece of pie, on the house. He didn't have the heart to tell her no, not after more than an hour of sitting there pitifully, and especially not now that he knew her gorgeous brothers (or at least one of them, the prettiest, too) knew he was there. It would be incredibly embarrassing for them to know that he was stood up and alone; Danny wanted to give off a good impression, for some reason.

Ronnie walked away again, hips swaying, and disappeared into the back. "Sammy" laughed at the table in the corner and Danny's eyes shot to him, watching how he played with his straw between those two pillowy lips.

He started sweating a little bit, considering who he thought was more attractive (not like either of them would be interested in him, but). Ronnie was curvy and kind and beautiful, but Sam was lean and charismatic and had the most lovely facial structure Danny had ever seen.

'Ugh, bisexual problems', Danny thought. No one else would have know what he was talking about if they were there, though, since he had never mentioned it to his parents nor his few friends.

He wondered, idly - because he really was out of their league and it would never, ever happen - what his family would think if he brought either of them home. Ronnie would be sure to elicit absolute delight from his mother after her admonishment for getting a girlfriend in the first place (despite the fact that he was allowed to do what he wanted now that he was 18, Danny's mom still saw him as her little boy). Ronnie's brother, he wasn't sure; it's not like they were homophobic, but Danny was certain that him bringing home a guy out of nowhere would be quite the shock.

They'd warm up to Sam (he didn't want to call him "Sammy"; it felt too familiar to he polite, though he did like that), he was sure. His parents would be impressed by his intelligence and be charmed by his jokes, and tell Danny that they were glad he had found such a nice boyfriend.

Danny drifted off into a daydream of what it would be like to date Sam, to take him to family holiday meals and go out hiking with him and cuddle up on a late winter afternoon like this one. He rested his head on his hand, letting his eyes go unfocused as he envisioned the imaginary world in which he had an 11/10 boyfriend.

"Hey, I've got your pie. Mind if I sit and eat mine with you?"

-------------

@satans-helper @okietrish @lazingonsunday @bigthighsandstupidguys @karrotkate @oblvions @lantern-inthenight @mountainofthefleet seriously PLEASE tell me if anyone else wants to be tagged in Sanny and I'll add it to my list because I guessed these peeps last time and got it right but I can't remember if there's anyone else

[frederator-studios]

Derek Iversen: The Frederator Interview

Derek Iversen began his unlikely career in animation as a PA on the very first season of Spongebob Squarepants. You might say he was got by The Hook: he spent about a decade with the show, on the production staff before becoming a writer on Seasons 6-9. Since then, he’s written on countless awesome TV shows, become an elected official in the neighborhood of Valley Glen (business card and all!), and created his own Nickelodeon short, “Carrot and Stick” inspired by his dog Rosie, whose image blesses the end of this interview. In honor of his episode of Bravest Warriors premiering tomorrow (5/18), Derek and I sat down to discuss sketch comedy, time travel, and a certain absorbent (and yellow and porous) friend.

Did you always want to be a writer? What’d you want to be growing up?

First I wanted to be a fireman. Then a police officer - huge jump there. Then I wanted to be an astronaut, until I realized I get motion sickness. So I thought I should be an astronomer - a little safer, little less barfing. But in 5th grade, my English teacher Mrs. Carrol gave me high marks on a short story assignment. I got really encouraged by that; I thought, “Hey, maybe I’ve found something I’m good at!” So pretty much from then on, I wanted to be a writer.

Wow, 5th grade? Were you a wunderkind, writing a ton as a kid?

Nah, I wasn’t that ambitious. In high school I took Theater with another great teacher, Mrs. Carrick. She encouraged us to write our own scenes and monologues. So I had the opportunity to try stuff out with my fellow students, and hopefully crack them up with idiocy. Then in college at University of Arizona, I joined a group called Comedy Corner and got really into sketch comedy. I thought if I could make a living doing that, THAT’s what I want to do. There’s nothing like doing live comedy before an audience. It’s thrilling.

Did you stick with comedy after college?

Some friends and I formed our own group! The People Who Do That. We became the kings of Tucson comedy… which, shockingly, didn’t pay the bills. So some of us decided to truck it out to LA to try to make it in the big city.

Did you have a job when you got to LA?

Nope, but I got a really stupid one: phone customer service for a pager company. Let me just say, the introduction of cell phones was NOT the only thing that killed off pagers… but I had a friend working at Nickelodeon, so I managed to get a job as a driver on The Angry Beavers. This was back in the olden days, when if artists needed reference materials, someone had to actually go pick them up from libraries or - RIP - video stores. Soon after, I got a job as a production assistant on a show that Nick had just picked up: Spongebob Squarepants. At the time we all thought, ‘This is a strange little show that hopefully will get a cult following.’ It did a little better than that. So that was kind of my ‘big break’. But it took me 7 years of working on the show to become a writer on it.

How did that path look?

Long and meandering. Because for some time, I thought I wanted to do sketch comedy, and that animation was my day job. I was a PA on seasons 1 to 3 and a coordinator on seasons 4 and 5. In that time I started chipping away at animation writing, because I had to actually learn how to write cartoons. I was used to writing for the stage, and animation is a visual medium. Much more so than even other kinds of TV, let alone theater, so I had to learn to tell stories visually. And stories that kids could relate to—I’d always written for adults, so my stuff went right over kid’s heads. But I wanted to write and kept knocking on the door, and in season 6, became a staff writer. I was one until season 9.

Do you think your background in sketch comedy aided that transition?

Oh yeah, absolutely. When you do a sketch in front of a big throng of crazy college students, it’s clear when it works and when it doesn’t. Sketch taught me not to waste the audience’s time: you get in, do the joke, and get out.

How was working on Spongebob? Any stories, secrets, lore?

It was a wild ride and a lot of fun. I’ve gotta be the only one who remembers this, but I swear it’s true: back in the first season, Steve (Hillenburg, creator) had a sign on his door that read, “Have fun or you’re fired.” It sounds cruel, but it actually set a good tone. We did have a lot of fun! And there wasn't much firing—it’s not like the hatchet fell every time somebody frowned. The crew had awesome camaraderie, and I think that’s reflected in the show. I sincerely believe the environment of a show, how it’s made, affects how it turns out. If a show is made with a tense crew where everyone fears the creator, it shows on-screen. Conversely, if the crew has fun and makes each other laugh, that’s clear on-screen too.

(Season 1 Christmas party: Ennio Torresan, Carly Benner-StClair, Bruce Heller, Mica Nataami, Carl (CH) Greenblatt, and Derek with the devil horns.) 

So despite the sign, no one was afraid of Steve Hillenburg?

No, no, the sign is misleading. He’s a total sweetheart. Success couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy: just a thoughtful, funny, sincere human being.

That’s exactly what you wanna hear about your heroes. What’s your favorite thing about the show?

Well Spongebob is definitely a reflection of Steve! As are the other characters, but mostly Spongebob. And to me, the greatest thing about the show, and the reason I think it’s been such a huge success, is that Spongebob is genuine. He’s without guile. He’s enthusiastic without any reservation. And I think, especially when the show came out, a lot of cartoons in the kid realm starred adults disguised as kids. And Spongebob was never that; he was always for kids, always had a kid’s spirit. That’s part of why we never defined his age: he has kid and adult qualities. He’s just sincere—and sincerity is underrated.

Do you have a favorite Spongebob episode?

Man... that’s like choosing a favorite child. But I’ll go ahead and do it. I have several favorites. One is “SB-129”. I’m a bit of a sucker for time travel - it’s part of why I enjoy Bravest Warriors so much. “The Fun Show” is awesome too, it’s a classic. Of episodes I wrote, “Not Normal” was my first and still a favorite. It’s a bit autobiographical: I was a weird kid and always felt like I needed to conform to some idea of normality. After a while, I decided that didn’t matter and I was going to accept being my weird self. And the same is true of Spongebob.

(Mr. Lawrence (aka Plankton), Vincent Waller, and Derek.)

How did you come to write for Bravest Warriors?

After Spongebob, I was a staff writer on Sanjay and Craig, which Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi executive produced. They’re great guys and a blast to work with. They'd also produced Bravest, so I found out about the show through them. I watched it and just thought it was madness in the best possible way. Last year Will mentioned they were looking for writers, so I gave it a shot. I really wanted to be part of the show and feel lucky that I got to be!

What are your favorite things about Bravest Warriors?

I love time travel and sci-fi, and you get both of those in BW. That’s a treat. But I love that it also goes right to the heart of teen angst. That’s a sandbox I don’t get to play in a lot, as I’m usually writing for kids or preschoolers. It’s a lot of fun to deal with broken hearts, romantic attraction, all that gooey hormonal stuff.

Do you have a favorite character from the show?

I like Danny a lot, because he’s kinda pathetic. I just want to help him out. But I can’t resist Catbug. He’s amazing. And I’m a big fan of Impossibear. Something about his gruffness... he’s selfish in a way that reminds me of Bender from Futurama. If I ever got to do another BW episode, I’d want it to be about Impossibear. Finding the mushy heart he hides inside.

What is your episode, “A Apple, B Banana, C Chili” about?

I did a sort of anti-consumerist screed cleverly disguised as a Bravest Warriors episode. The team succumbs to the power of marketing. They have to escape the clutches of a Costco-like superstore. It seemed like a uniquely weird challenge they hadn’t faced before. I think that’s why it was chosen from the ideas I pitched—when you’re pitching on a show with a lot of episodes, you’ve got to find the part of the floor that hasn’t been painted yet.

Aha - don’t they go in that store to grab Wallow a snack?

Haha yeah. Wallow gets hangry on a mission so they go to buy him some chips or a granola bar or something and it goes terribly wrong. I love episodes like that - we did it on Spongebob too - where it’s the simplest possible objective. The goal of the episode is one tiny thing, and then it balloons out from there and becomes ridiculously huge in a way it never deserved to be.

What would you be if you weren’t a TV writer?

Maybe a lawyer. Or a crazy activist trying to make the world a better place and not getting very far. I’d probably be quitting my job at the EPA right now out of sheer frustration. At least writing cartoons, I can express the absurdity of our world—but hopefully to make people laugh, instead of cry.

What are your favorite cartoons?

Well, Spongebob’s pretty darn good. I always loved Ren and Stimpy, the latest news notwithstanding. I’m a simple man: I love Road Runner. I couldn’t resist the simplicity of the gags. You always know what’s going to happen - Road Runner’s gonna get away and Wile E. Coyote is gonna eat it. But you don’t know how he’s gonna eat it. The magic is in the details. I’m a big fan of The Simpsons. And I enjoyed Aqua Teen Hunger Force; Master Shake cracks me up. I love how stupid and petty he is.

After writing for so long, is it ever still challenging?

Absolutely, it’s always a challenge. I think a lot of people struggle with being too precious with their ideas. It’s a collaborative medium: stories change and change and change again. You can accept compromises and look for the good in them, or you can fight against them. My view is, you have to choose your battles. Even the creator doesn’t have complete control. And the best creators and showrunners delegate responsibilities. They trust the people they’ve hired.  

Do you pitch show ideas around?

I haven’t as much lately; I’m busy story editing a preschool show now called Hanni and the Wild Woods. But I made a Nickelodeon short a few years back with my friend Miles Hindman, called “Carrot and Stick,” about a pair of buddies who live in a junkyard. Their nemesis is a dog named Rosie, based on my own dog Rosie. It’s a mixed media show - a combination of puppets, live action and 2D - so we wanted her to play herself. It didn’t work out. She’s cute and all, but cute doesn’t make you a good actor…

(Rosie, sweet and perfect in every conceivable way aside from acting ability.)

What else are you working on?

Well besides Hanni, I just got back from teaching an Animation Writing class in Jamaica for a few weeks - that was amazing. It was through The World Bank; they’re trying to build an animation industry over there. I’m glad they found me, it was a ton of fun and some of the student’s ideas were really cool. I also have a YA sci-fi book I really want to write. The trick is finding the time to do it; it keeps eluding me. Earlier I said animation is very collaborative - not so with this book. I have a very specific vision, and I’m excited to tell exactly the story I want to tell. I also write as Spongebob and Patrick on their Twitter accounts - which is a tougher gig than it sounds! All of the 140 character zingers have to be contained to their universe. But it’s fun and keeps me connected to the characters, and I love that.

Thank you for the interview Derek! So much fun talking with you. Good luck on all your many projects, I’ll be on the lookout!

- Cooper

[imalifegen89]

A Legacy Left Behind - Chapter 2 - The Lions of the Valley - Part 1

Rating: Mature

Category: M/M

Fandoms: Stargate Atlantis /Stargate SG-1/ Hawaii Five-O (2010)

Relationships: John Sheppard/Steve McGarrett

Characters:  Steve McGarrett, Danny "Danno" Williams, Junior Reigns, Kono Kalakaua, Adam Noshimuri, Joe White, Anton Hesse, Victor Hesse, Wo Fat, Clay Garcia (OC), Bradley Jacks, PO Higgins (OC), Kamekona Tupuola, John Sheppard, Mr. Smith (OC), Wraith (OC), Goa'uld Character(s)

Warnings : Crossover/ Canon Divergence/alternate Universe/Violence

Summary of the series:

The Ancients fled the Milky Way galaxy after annihilating the enemy they had unknowingly given birth to, themselves-  or so they thought. What if the enemy was still here? What if they are aligning themselves with others to regain power? Well, it was a good thing some of the Ancients left behind a gift; a legacy to prevent that exact eventuality, wasn't it? But will it be enough? An Alternate Universe where the Wraith originated on earth and the SGC have to pick up the pieces where the Ancients left off and continue the fight against the Wraith- since it's the survival of humanity that is at stake!

Summary of the chapter: The Lions of the Valley - Picks up the story where we left off Steve & his team, how they wrapped up their operation, and glimpses of what goes on the side of the enemy.

Beta — Salchat — She's the best!

Part - 1

Physical Training Facility, Naval Personnel Housing Complex

Bagram Air Base - Afghanistan.

Two days after Major John Sheppard's retrieval from Parwan.

"Whoa, what’s with the pummeling fest on the bag Steve?"

Senior Chief Petty Officer Daniel Williams swerved to avoid a face full of punching bag and wrapped his muscular arms around it, to stop it from returning to sender.

"Let it go, Danny," Steve said in irritation, glaring at his second in command. The man was interfering with his work out- well, that is if you could call the full-blown venting he was indulging in, raining kicks and punches on the bag in their gym- a workout.

"Now, how well do you know me, hah? You know it's useless asking me to do that. So tell me, what's bothering you, babe? Why are you feeling guilty?"

"Why would you say I'm feeling guilty? Maybe I'm angry!" challenged Steve, making a grab at the bag. But Danny wasn't letting go easily. And Steve wasn't honestly feeling like engaging in a brawl over a punching bag with his annoyingly perceptive friend.

In fact, he must have been at it for a while because he felt the exhaustion taking over, leaving him feeling drained. He started to unwrap the tape around his knuckles slowly.

"Well, you see that is because I do know you. Now, if you were angry, you would be in the ring, sparring with that crazy Jap, Noshimuri, kicking each other's asses to hell and back. Frustration would have taken you to the shooting range and there'd be many very-dead targets, shot through the head by now. This is where you come to, if the guilt is the winning contender in your crazy head. So I ask again babe, what’s wrong?"

The New Jersey native let the endearment slip in, whenever he was concerned about his young charge. Danny was six years older than Steve and had been in the Navy that much longer than Steve as well. Danny was given this freshly-out-of BUD/S, green as grass, young Lieutenant five years ago to keep alive. And then to train him in the field, if he could manage the first task. He had managed to do all that and remain Steve's 2IC throughout the years. The guy needed a steady and sane keeper.

Danny admitted to himself that the young officer had come a long way and had earned his respect and loyalty along with his friendship. The guy was as crazy as they came - laboring under utter delusions of bullet-proof superman tendencies- in Danny's humble opinion. But the guy had proven his worth and mettle under fire many times over the years.

The Lieutenant had a keen intelligence and the base nature of a hell-hound that was extremely useful when it came to tracking the baddies the brass let him loose on, disguised as missions. Danny had come to understand the obscure methods deeply hidden under the wild chaos that was Lieutenant Steven J. McGarrett of the Navy SEALs.  And to somewhat his consternation, Danny found himself devotedly invested in the said Lieutenant’s general well-being.

..........

Steve huffed and finished what he was doing. Then ruffled through his duffel bag until he found two bottles of water and sat down cross- legged on the mat on the floor near the workout benches. Danny was not going to go away anytime soon and he might as well get it over with now, Steve thought to himself. All mental bitching aside, he found that talking things out with his NCO, did help him more often than not.

Danny left the punching bag and came to sit down beside Steve. Steve gave him the other bottle of water and let out a sigh.

"It's Sheppard. I can't get it out of my head Danny. I keep hoping and praying that those people got to him on time. But from what little I saw... it was bad, man. And to think that our own people did that to him, that I fucking hand-delivered him for that ... shit."

He stuttered and came to a stop, his breath hitching. Danny had a comforting hand on his back.

"It's been what, two days now since those classified fucks disappeared?" Steve asked, giving voice to the thoughts that had been swirling in his mind. "There's only a skeleton crew there in that village now, the one they'd secured earlier, right? And another one, milling around looking for those two missing assholes, that had John. Nobody's telling me shit except for an all polite 'I'm sorry sir, It's classified'. I spoke to Joe too. He says he doesn't know anything either. It's not like I'm looking for goddamn state secrets here, is it? Just tell me where they took him and if the guy is alive or not... Fuck."

Steve was mortified, realizing that he had worked himself up to a full-blown rant. That was what Danny usually did. Steve was the stoic one. But the guilt and the frustration were eating away at him and he suddenly felt like he needed to go down to the firing range right the fuck now; ok- so Danny was maybe onto something there.

"Hey, I know you two were close. Hell, I helped nudge you two knuckleheads along to get your acts together and get into it. And I'm sure that he is being taken care of, Steve. I mean they sent a fully-fledged Colonel to the field, to a war zone, just to retrieve him. And they would not have done that, if they were not very keen on keeping the zoomie alive. Shep must be important to someone higher up there for something and you must believe, for now, that is a good thing." Danny continued.

"And Steve, you did what you had to do, babe. Arresting him and handing him over was the only play you could make with the intel you had at the time. We all heard Hart over the line, Shep could have taken off with all of them, and instead, he got crazy and ran away," he gave a moment to let that sink in. "Now, you told me that you believed this Sumner guy, when he said that Shep was away saving lives? Not running around like a maniac," Danny asked after the lengthy pause.

Steve gave a grudging nod.

"Then you've got to cut yourself some slack and believe me when I say that you did the right thing at the time too;" Danny took the nod as a yes and continued. "Colonel Sumner wasn't there then and they didn't train you on telepathy or precognition at Annapolis or Illinois or anywhere else. So there is no way you could have known what Shep was doing. Anyone of us in your shoes at the time would have done what you did. Hell, orders came from Joe to hand him over to that fucker at Parwan and you couldn't have disobeyed a direct order. You think Joe would have ordered you to do that, if he knew they were going to torture the man?"

Danny answered his own question after a beat. "No babe, I don't think so."

He seemed content to leave it at that, picking up on the reluctant agreement in Steve’s face, even though Steve did not say anything.

“Then what the hell happened to Freddie?” Steve asked quietly after a moment. “Who or what killed him and his team? And what the hell could possibly have made him sound so pissed scared like that? You knew him too Danny, it wasn’t like him at all!”

Danny contemplated his answer and let out a sigh.

“Yeah, I was thinking about it too. He did sound a little crazy on the line. But you’ve got to realize babe, he just crashed. Maybe he was a bit out of it? On the other hand, your Colonel said it was something to do with his mission and that they were targeted by something that we don’t know about?”

“Sumner said they believed Freddie and his team were compromised the minute that call went up in the air or maybe before even that.” Steve replied.

“Well then, there you go. There is so much classified shit around that chopper; we simply don’t know what happened. Maybe it was like the Colonel said or maybe not. We just don’t know. That’s the job Steve. We all know what we get ourselves into when we take on our missions. And things don’t always go our way and missions do go FUBAR. And then we die. We just have to hope that this Colonel of yours will find the people who were responsible. It was their op after all.” Then Danny brought up the matter of more practical and relevant issues. “Besides, we have our own group of assholes to worry about. You need to get your head in the game, Steve. That’s our mission.”

Steve didn’t say anything for a while. But he knew Danny was right. There really was nothing he could do for Shep or Hart right now. But he could do something about the bad guys he already had in his sight. That would have to be enough for now.

Danny let him just sit in silence for a few more minutes. Then he stood up decisively.

"Come along, grasshopper- let’s go get some grub. Maybe we can talk Kono into seducing one of the hush-hush fuckers to cave in and tell us something. Maybe it was your ugly mug that had them clamping up on you. Kono is way prettier than you. Fuck, even that Jap's got more charm; what with the husky bed-room voice and dimples…"

Steve felt his lips twitching involuntarily at Danny's muttered musings. He let out a chuckle and got up to follow his friend. His feelings were still dangerously close to the surface- but he felt somewhat in control of them. He was glad that Danny found him when he did; the man had a way of getting him out of his funk. He was not going to say any of that out loud though; it wouldn't help him one bit to let his NCO's head get any bigger.

Base Commander's Office, Bagram Air Base - Afghanistan.

Commander Joe White summoned Steve to his office the next day.

“Get yourself a coffee and sit down Steve,” he invited.

Steve did as asked, knowing that whatever came next- had to be quite important. Commander White was like a father to Steve and often mentored him; in both his professional and personal lives. But the Commander rarely indulged in private chit-chat while on active duty.

“I know you’ve been upset over the whole incident regarding Hart and that pilot Sheppard. Hell, I am a little upset myself.” He gave birth to the understatement of the day.

“I’ve had contact with Colonel Sumner. Now, I can’t tell you about whom he works for or what Hart and others were involved in. And I can’t tell you where Sheppard is or how he is either. Why? Because I don’t know. But, here is what I can tell you - according to Sumner, the chopper that went down with Hart and others was involved in one of their operations. They are investigating what happened to them still, because apparently, they were way off from their destination-”

Steve nodded along. This was what the Colonel had informed him while he was taking Steve’s statement as well.

“They're not sure yet if any foul play was involved from their end or how the enemy got to their transport in the first place. And they are still investigating everyone who was included in that operation.”

Steve bristled at the insinuation that Freddie might have been consorting with the enemy. He had known the guy for a while and been down range with him several times. He was pretty sure Freddie wouldn’t do that.

Commander White held up a hand to forestall the argument he could see coming his way.

“I know he was a friend. But it’s their op and they have to find out what happened. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that Sumner agreed to let us keep the bodies of the three SEALs with us. The team he has here will take the bodies of the civilians with them. He said that Hart and the other two SEALs were recruited in Canada. Apparently Hart was a part of the NORAD exchange. God knows how he managed that.”

Steve wasn’t sure whether his CO was referring to Freddie or Colonel Sumner. But he kept his doubts to himself and sipped his coffee.

“So he offered to return their bodies to the base in Canada, but I said we'll take care of it. That’s what I wanted to let you know. We have the bodies with us and I'll be making arrangements to return them back to the States within the week or so. I thought that maybe if you wrap up your mission here by that time, you can accompany them.”

“Thank you for arranging that, Sir.” Steve said with heartfelt gratitude. Escorting his friend’s body home was the least he could do for him.

With that he left his CO’s office to get back to the operation he was running. He was on the field team today, for the surveillance on the enemy base.

Naval Command and Control Center, Bagram Base - Afghanistan

Four days after Major John Sheppard's retrieval from Parwan.

Steve and his team found themselves gathered in the CIC (Command and Information Center/Command and Control) after dinner, for the day's review. Well, what was left of his team at the base anyway; since some of his team was still in the field. They were discreetly observing the activity in the enemy base they had tracked the weapons convoy to- earlier.

Thanks to several GPS trackers they had managed to install on the trucks, they now had the exact co-ordinates of the hidden base, the infamous Hesse brothers kept disappearing into.

……….

The SEAL team had been tracking the four suspicious vehicles, that split up from Kandahar and had been cruising all over the whole northern region of Afghanistan. The team had also split up, in order to tail each of them.

Finally, around about ten days ago, the vehicles, now full with illicit cargo of weapons, money, ammo and other assorted inventory enough to invade the whole country, had regrouped and continued towards the valley of Panjshir.

Anton Hesse had got into a truck along the way and continued with the convoy as well, which Steve considered an ad ded bonus. Wherever the elder brother was, the younger was not far behind and that saved them the trouble of locating the two assholes later. The convoy had continued until it ran out of the road and then into a barely navigable route in jungle terrain, leading towards the Hindu Kush mountains.

Continuing for about another day, deep into the jungle, the convoy had finally reached a small yet well-hidden base right up against the valley. It was located well away from the smaller villages scattered around Panjshir, but nestled quite close to Hindu Kush mountain range. Steve suspected that they probably had a network of cave entrances and even underground bolt holes, apart from the base they could see from the surface.

So nine days ago, this was where they were, when Steve had to divert to help the unfortunate Black Hawk; which then led to Sheppard's subsequent arrest.

Steve and his team had been taking turns in keeping up constant surveillance around the clock on the hidden base to get a feel of their operation. After the initial convoy they tracked, there had been three more arrivals. The brothers never left the place- but they were seeing the evidence, that somebody even higher up in the terrorist food chain had shown up. Only the previous day, the security had been beefed up all over the base considerably, after an armored SUV had delivered the said leader.

They had been gathering in the CIC every day since the discovery of the enemy base, to view all the information and footage whichever field team of the day managed to send through. They had been making plans for attacks; war gaming various scenarios and adapting the plans according to the changes that were happening at the enemy base.

……….

Today was different because their CO, Commander Joe White was present for the live review with them. Usually, Steve just handed over the day's report to him after the viewing session.

"Alright, listen up people!" Commander White called everybody for their attention.

"We've got the word down the line today. The mission's been green-lighted by the Naval Intelligence Command. They want your platoon to move in and shut it down.  The strategy is to kill or capture the two known targets and the unidentified target. Whatever other resistance, you deal with as you see fit. They want you moving within 24 hours. This is it, ladies, the operation 'Mountain Goats' is a go."

The only lady that was present at the CIC, Agent Kono Kalakaua tried her best to hide a snicker at that, but only partially succeeded. White sent her a look on his way out of the room. Steve could have sworn he saw a smirk on his Commander's face; but he was much better at hiding it than Agent Kalakaua.

Those two had a long debate going on about the silly little names the Naval Intelligence (ha ha) came up with, against the professionalism, the alphabet soup agencies displayed, with their use of alpha numeric IDs, for operations. And Steve was wisely staying away from it.

……….

Steve had been on the trail of these particularly troublesome Hesse brothers for a few months now; all the way back from India. He had followed them around half the world from India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Thailand before finally settling up for the long haul in Afghanistan.

The Naval Intelligence had caught wind of a strange deal going on- Victor and Anton Hesse had come up as big players. Therefore the NI had Steve on the field following them on ground discreetly, hoping to put a stop to whatever the Hesse brothers were planning. Although he was given the support of various SEAL teams available in every country he found himself in, Steve had managed to keep his second in command SCPO Danny Williams, Lieutenant JG Bradley Jacks, PO 1st class Junior Reigns, and PO 1st class Clay Garcia as permanent fixtures on his team.

Special Agent Kono Kalakaua of the Special Activities Division of the CIA, formerly of the DEA and with two tours under her belt as a soldier in the US Army before that, had been following a trail of arms deals when she had crossed paths with Steve. Realizing they were after the same terrorists, they had joined forces in Pakistan to continue the observations. She was a beautiful woman with Korean heritage and Steve thought he saw Danny always go a little bug eyed, every time she flashed her dimples at him.

Lieutenant Adam Noshimuri had come with Kono, as a package deal. He was an American/Japanese dual citizen with experience in JMSDF (Japanese Maritime Defense Forces) and Japan's PSIA (Public Security Intelligence Agency) and had been tracking a Yakuza connection to illegal armsdealing and smuggling. He had been seconded to the CIA almost a year ago, as part of a Japan-American Intelligence sharing venture. Kono and Adam had made a number of arrests and shut down some major smuggling routes. But the leadership of the enterprise had proven elusive. The CIA, in conjunction with its' Japanese counterpart, had given the blessing for the dynamic duo to join the SEAL team in order to get to the bottom of it. Danny believed that Adam was the calm, steady and reasonable presence to the wild hurricane that was Kono; much like he was to McGarrett.

Fourteen other enlisted SEALs from the Naval Base Bagram, including two more NCOs, completed Steve's platoon for the operation 'Mountain Goats'.

Navy SEAL Ready Room, Bagram Base - Afghanistan

The team was divided into four groups. Lieutenant Steven J. McGarrett had the overall tactical command of the operation and was going to be on the lead attacking team. He had four other SEALs and one Adam Noshimuri, whose field MO (Modus Operandi) was not that different from a real-life ninja.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Danny Williams would be leading a team into the base from the right flank and if anything were to happen to Steve, would be taking over as the ops lead. Petty Officer 1st class Junior Reigns had command of the team that would be attacking from the left.

These ground attack teams carried their standard primary weapons, HK MP7 4.6X30mm sub-machine guns with suppressors and Sig Sauer P239 subcompact 9mm hand guns strapped to their thighs, as secondary weapons. They all put on their standard body armor, night camo and face paint with their tac vests and field kits filled up with extra ammunition, several kinds of grenades, field med kits, comms gear, batteries, field rations and water. The team leaders also carried portable compact screens that they could use to tap into their night drone feeds that were observing the enemy base even now. They were all equipped with NVGs (Night vision goggles) and cameras with live feeds connected to their CIC, as it was the standard for any SEAL team raid.

PO Higgins was seen lovingly hugging his affectionately called Pirate Gun, a modified M79 grenade launcher as he carried it along with his standard kit to the helipad. The big man easily over 6’4" with a width to match, made the big gun look positively tiny and harmless.

Agent Kono Kalakaua, who was equally enamored and just as lethal with her beloved Sniper rifle McMillan Tac-338 that fired the deadly .338 Lapua Magnum rounds, had the lead of the snipers. She and three other SEALs made up the team that would take the 'Over Watch' position when they were at the field, keeping the asses of the ground team covered. Lieutenant JG Jacks, carrying an M82-50 caliber, extreme long range, anti-material sniper rifle and SEALs Garcia and Terrance with their MK-11 medium sniper rifles, completed the team. They also had special image intensifiers, thermal imaging cameras, and sound suppressors to aid the night vision and stealth.

……….

The three SEALs who were already at the enemy base conducting surveillance, would keep on aerial surveillance with the two drones they had in the air and would provide live feed for the team leaders and if the need be for the snipers to tap into, during the raid. They would also provide back up and act as field medics.

……….

After the order from his Commander, the whole team had gone over the objective and attack plan in detail. Steve had encouraged everyone to ask questions and state concerns. After two hours of intense discussion and planning, he had dismissed the team for a quick break with the order to be ready and report to the helipad at the west end of the complex by 0200 hrs. He had then gone to update his commander on the agreed plan. Joe White had given his approval, seeing that Steve and his team had everything covered.

West End Helipad – Meeting Point, Bagram Air Base - Afghanistan

0155 hrs

Being the professionals that they were, Steve found them ready and waiting eagerly, when he reached the meeting point at 0155 hrs with Commander Joe White in tow.

"Alright team, just so we are clear on the plan again. We go there, make sure the things are as they should be, go in hard and fast. We don't let them regroup. Stealth is the name of the game for the entry. You know what the Hesse brothers look like and we ID the other leader on the go. It's kill or capture for those three. And all the Intel we can get, we need to keep intact. That means keeping an eye on Anton, as he’s the tech guy. For the rest of the base, it's open season." He re-capped the quick and dirty version of the game plan.

"Go give them hell boys!" Joe White delivered the traditional order.

"Hooyah!" Came the enthusiastic reply from the platoon.

The Enemy Base, Panjshir Valley - Afghanistan

0245 hrs

The two Stealth Black Hawk helicopters had delivered the team some distance away from the objective due to the landing difficulty in the jungle terrain the enemy was based in. A half-hour trek through the jungle had brought them near the entry points and they were ready to begin.

Steve sent out a roll call.

His team, designated H1 through H5, stated each of their readiness into their comms. Steve was designated HL as he was the team lead.

Danny and Junior also had similar checks running through their own teams, designated R and L respectively. They were positioned at their entry points in right and left flanks and were ready to move on mark.

Kono reported to Steve the readiness of her team last when all of the snipers had dispersed and taken various Over-watch positions. They were perched on hills, trees and in Jack's case, on top of a Humvee parked at the highest point behind thick vegetation closest to the mountains. They had the enemy base covered from four positions and the three ground teams would breach from the points in between, providing each other maximum cover.

The ground teams would also change into hand signals after Steve's order to move in and only the snipers and drone teams would make verbal reports, keeping everyone on the loop. PO Higgins, acting as the team’s demolitions expert, would divert from Danny's team after the initial entry, to place explosives on strategic locations.

They would leave nothing behind when they were done.

Steve checked in with the ops controllers at the CIC in Bagram some 60 miles away, who were watching over the live feeds, for the final Go/No Go order.

"Hotel Lima, you are a go. I repeat you are GO." The confirmation came from the tech at the CIC.

Steve took a deep breath; sent a quick mental prayer to any god who watched over the crazy SEALs to keep his team safe and gave the order to move in.

The Lions of the Valley-Hidden Freedom Fighter Base, Panjshir Valley - Afghanistan

0300 hrs

Salim Khabir positively hated the night shift as a sentry. It was cold, humid and the mosquitoes would not leave him alone. There were three others guarding the main building tonight, sharing the misery with him; a fat lot of good that did...Not.

The flat-faced, dead-eyed, Chinese guy had everybody on their toes and Khabir had had to chip in as a guard, to keep up round-the-clock security. He was their official cook. There were altogether fifteen of them on duty tonight. Four for the main building, two for the storage shacks, three of them for the barracks where the soldiers were based and six patrolling the perimeter. And there were many others awake and guarding the miserable nights away inside the buildings as well.

"Shit. I had to draw the short straw again! What wouldn't I do to be inside the cozy guest house guarding that?" he thought to himself sourly.

"Whatever that Chinaman is about, he must be important. I have never seen the Hesse brothers cower away like that from anyone ever before," Khabir slapped at a mosquito on his forehead.

"Oh, I wonder what's up with all the hush-hush dealings going on in those caves? Nobody goes in there except for the brothers. And the weird China guy of course..." he kept up his mental dialog while scanning the surrounding area. It was a hopeless gesture though; the night was dark and the visibility was quite poor.

"And what the hell kind of name is Wo Fat, anyway?"

All the private musings that were keeping the hardships of the night sentry duty away, also kept Salim Khabir from noticing the red cigarette light, ten yards to his left, disappear into the night.

By the time he did notice, there was nothing he could do anyway. He may have opened his mouth to shout out a warning- but the knife across his throat put a stop to it, before the thought to shout even fully formed.

……….

Steve had sent Adam and Leonard to take care of the patrolling guards on their side of the entry. Those two had disappeared into the moonless night to neutralize the guards without breaking stealth. Two patrol guards with their throats slit and one guard shot in the head with a suppressed MP7 later, it was done.

Steve and his remaining three SEALs had silently trekked through the dark, while the patrol was busydying. They had gotten close behind each of the sentry guarding the main building- and all of them- including clueless Khabir, were dispatched thoroughly and quietly, with their throats slit open.

Steve then directed two of his SEALs to drag the bodies away while waiting for the team leaders to signal in, with clicks on the comms.

……….

Danny spared a couple of seconds to watch his two guys- Ruiz and Hicks- taking off after the two guards who had the misfortune to wander towards the entry point- where Danny and his team were positioned. The third guard held Danny’s full attention now. Poor sod had taken a detour into the thicket to relieve himself only maybe three yards off to his left. Danny waited patiently until the guy finished and tucked himself in; then blew his brains out with his suppressed MP7, point blank.

Signaling Steve and Reigns with pre-arranged clicking codes on his comms, he moved his team towards their target, as Higgins went away to plant his deadly gifts.

……….

Team leader PO Junior Reigns was listening to the signal of all clear/moving in from Williams while watching his point of entry. Lt. Jacks, the sniper who was closest to him and had the birds' eye view of Reigns' entry, was giving him a terse report.

"Six patrol guards are down. Reigns you are clear to move. You've got two at the shacks and one moving from the barracks towards them. You got about thirty seconds to move before the third joins the party-"

Reigns directed Jones and Derrick to take care of the stationary guards and moved towards cover behind the shacks, to meet the arriving guard. He heard the soft gurgles that erupted from the dying guards and then the swish, as the bodies were dragged aside by his team. He observed the arriving party getting a little bit agitated and waving his torch around, as he couldn't see his fellow guards where they were supposed to be. Junior had seconds to act before the guard panicked and raised the alarm.

He took his k-bar, calmly took a breath, and sent it flying. His aim proved true as the knife found its mark, burying itself deep in the third guards' throat.

He signaled his advance as the rest of his team joined him after tucking the bodies behind the storage shacks.

……….

The smaller building they had identified earlier as the point where the base security was coordinated, was tucked away to the side of the main building. Danny's team had the task of breaching and securing it while Steve and his team breached the main building from its entrance and exit simultaneously.

Danny directed Bryce and Klein from his team to detach and reinforce Reigns' team according to the plan- Junior had the unenviable task of breaching the barracks where the terrorists slept.

Danny, Ruiz and Hicks made their entry through the only door the security hut had. Hicks, who was on point, mule kicked the door and Ruiz threw a frag grenade. They entered, leading with their MP7s and the still stunned and confused enemy had no hope of putting up a reasonable resistance.

There were ten of them in all and within ten minutes all of them lay dead where they were with shots to the chests and heads. Danny then got busythat with the computers. He inserted the data retrieval units they were all issued prior to the raid by the Naval Intelligence Command for this purpose. The NIC was anal about collecting every scrap of data they could.

Ruiz quickly cleared the rest of the building while Hicks kept watch.

……….

Steve, Riley, Wilkes, and Nelson positioned themselves at the front entrance of the main building as Adam and Leonard made their way toward the exit. This team had to be cautious with their entry because it was suspected that the leaders were housed in the upper section of this two storey building. They breached at the same time Danny's team did, to preserve stealth to the last possible minute. Wilkes kicked the door in and the grenades were thrown in. Steve heard Adam and Leonard making entry through the back as well.

Gunfire erupted as the confused and injured guards started firing blindly. Steve took cover behind an upturned sofa and returned fire, covering his fellow SEAL’s entry. They moved in tandem covering each other and within seven minutes, they had cleared the ground floor of the mail building. Eight enemies lay dead with kill shots to heads and chests.

Meanwhile, Kono reported in, saying she had taken care of two guards upstairs. Both were unfortunate enough to move towards windows wandering into Kono's cross-hairs. Taking the stairs that was the only way up from inside was proving difficult, now that the enemy was up and alert. But the element of surprise and shock and awe tactics were still working to their advantage, keeping the enemy somewhat confused. Steve managed to shoot down two more as they peered down from the upstairs railing.

Then five of the enemy got organized and positioned themselves behind cover from above to block the SEALs from gaining the upstairs. Steve waited until Adam and Leonard joined him. He then signaled Adam, who nodded in response.

Both of them popped from the cover they were behind and lobbed two grenades in perfectly timed simultaneous throws; both grenades sailed in elegant arcs and landed near the two clusters of enemies upstairs. The SEALs were already moving and at the base of the stairs when the grenades went off, killing the five targets instantly.

Steve and Adam got to the top together and Steve turned left while Adam turned right. They had three main rooms to clear on the second floor.

Riley and Nelson followed Steve to the left with Leonard and Wilkes following Adam to the right. Steve moved cautiously with his two SEALs flanking him, clearing closets and bathrooms. When they reached the bedroom door, it exploded outwards showering them in wood splinters. They all ducked on reflex and rolled to find cover.

"Come on you mother fuckers!! Come get me, I dare you. You fucking cunts!!"

They all heard hysterical screaming and swearing coming from the room. They had found Anton Hesse. It made things easier for them. If Anton was here screaming at them, he was not busy deleting their databases.

"Come out with your hands up Anton. It's over." Steve calmly ordered while keeping his weapon pointed at the door.

Sound of a breaking window was followed by a report from Garcia on the Over Watch. Anton had tried to take a leap off the balcony and Garcia had firmly discouraged the notion.

Anton Hesse did not come out with surrender as ordered. He came out shooting his shotgun in a blazing arc trying to catch the SEALs in a sweep. It was a dumb thing to try to use a shotgun as a machine gun and he only managed to make a couple of massive holes on the walls and a wooden closet door. Steve and his team were again showered with splinters, pieces of bricks, and dry plaster of walls but none of them were seriously harmed. Steve took careful aim and shot the maniac on the thigh. Anton let out a squeal; dropped his gun and then dropped to the ground hugging his injured thigh, wailing miserably.

Riley calmly secured Anton Hesse while Nelson quickly patched the wound with a field dressing. They would properly treat it after they had him transported back to Bagram. The field bandage would keep him from bleeding out and going into shock.

Steve was about to order them to take him to their exit point when Garcia came on his comms again.

"Boss, I've got movement. One bogey on the roof moving fast towards the back of the building. He is making a run to the caves. I repeat bogey moving north on the roof top. I do not have a shot."

The urgency of the report had Steve running into the room Anton had just vacated. He ran into the balcony and jumped on the railing. Using it as a step to propel himself up, he managed to grab hold of the rainwater drain at the edge of the roof. He hauled himself onto the roof and took off running after the enemy, whom he could see already gaining distance. He had a feeling this might be the third and the unidentified target.

He barked orders to Nelson and Riley to secure the prisoner and take him to the exit point while on pursuit. He ignored Danny's shouts through his comms to wait for goddamn backup before running after maniacs by himself. Steve knew Danny would follow and get to him on time anyway, despite his bitching.

……….

Adam, Leonard, and Wilkes were having a relatively easier time compared to Steve and his team. They were clearing the right-wing, when they came face to face with Victor Hesse. He had a bomb strapped to his chest and a dead man's trigger clutched tightly in his right fist.

"Now, just lower your weapons and raise your hands."

The older Hesse ordered calmly with his German-accented English. Seeing Adam and the two SEALs obeying his order- boosted his confidence.

"I will be slowly walking out of here, down the stairs, and out of that door. And you will let me- otherwise, all of us go to hell in an ugly boom, and sort our shit down there in front of the devil." He informed them with an arrogant smirk.

Adam tracked Hesse's slow movement towards the stairs with a slight smile. When his mental count reached six seconds Adam said "Ouch."

Victor Hesse had about a second to wonder about the strange reaction to his seemingly working plan to get away. Then he heard a splat and felt a spray of liquid on his face. His brain went offline for a moment and when it came back online, he registered a bloody stump where his right fist used to be. The dead man's trigger and his right fist lay scattered to tiny pieces on the floor. His eyes rolled back his head and he fell to the floor, unconscious.

"Ouch is the word brah." Said Kono in Adam's ear jubilantly.

Adam kneeled down by the passed-out Hesse to put a tourniquet and wrap up what was left of his hand. Wilkes slowly divested Hesse of his deadly ornament now laid on his chest harmlessly. Once finished, Adam directed Wilkes and Leonard to take Victor Hesse away and join the other two from Steve's team. Adam himself took off with the intention of finding Steve. He had a feeling Steve was going to need help.

……….

PO Junior Reigns and his team were engaged in a fire fight with enemies in the barracks. One of them somehow had woken up before they could breach and alerted his buddies. They had barricaded the entrances to the complex and started shooting at Junior and his team. EneThe enemymy had the cover of their building and Junior’s team was scattered around the building behind whatever cover they could find. They had both the entrance and exit of the building covered and had already killed three enemy combatants who tried to come out of the building. Now they were locked in an impasse; with Junior’s team outside and the enemies inside.

Junior popped up from behind the truck he was taking cover and took a couple of shots at the enemy who was aiming at a running SEAL. Derrick was moving from his cover to get behind another nearby tree. The terrorist ducked inside and Derrick made it behind cover safely.

Then Reigns spotted the man he was waiting for. Higgins had been busy planting explosives. He had just finished the shacks and the security hut and was moving towards the main building when Reigns signaled him to divert towards him behind the truck instead.

"Ah Junior, you want me to break up the tie?"

PO Higgins was all smiles realizing he was getting to use his Pirate Gun, the modified M79 grenade launcher.

"Yes, Higgins. If you would please do the honors,"

Reigns gestured him with a sweeping hand and took a step back to make space for the big SEAL and his big gun. He signaled his team to take cover and cover their ears.

Higgins took a knee, aimed his grenade launcher towards the housing complex, and let loose.

Four strategically placed shots from the Pirate Gun later; the housing complex was reduced to half-collapsed rubble. The terrorists, suffering from various injuries, came spilling out and it was shooting fish in a barrel for Junior and his team then.

Higgins took a mocking bow and sauntered away to complete his original mission.

……….

Danny cursed when he heard Steve taking after the bad guy all by himself. He hurriedly directed the rest of his team to finish data retrieval from the security hut and then continue to the rest of the available

identified data points to keep gathering everything they could. He then took off after Steve, berating him about the back-up all the way.

……….

The target had continued his mad dash over the roof, taken a running leap onto a truck that was parked below, rolled off its' hood and continued running through the thicket towards the mountains.

Steve caught up to him just as he was stepping into an obscure area that most probably led into a cave or a tunnel system. He didn't want to lose the guy in a maze; so he took a couple of shots on the run, trying to steer him away while closing the distance.

The man was quick on his feet as he veered away and continued running alongside the hills still aiming to take his chance disappearing into the jungle. Steve matched his stride and vector and put on a burst of speed.

Then the man somewhat surprised Steve, as he changed direction again; this time running straight at Steve. Caught off guard, Steve went down with his target on top of him in a tangle of limbs.

They fought fiercely. The bad guy didn't waste time raining punches on Steve's face while trying desperately to grab his gun. Steve held on to his gun with all his might and managed to aim an elbow to his opponent's face. The man took it on the jaw and rolled with it; when he disengaged from Steve, he had Steve's MP7 in his hands.

The man got to his knees in one smooth motion and aimed the gun at Steve's face. His finger tightened on the trigger and a smirk graced his face.

What he didn't realize was that when Steve aimed an elbow at his face, his other hand was going to his hand gun which was strapped to his thigh. That move loosened Steve’s grip on the MP7, letting the bad guy have the weapon.

So by the time he rolled off Steve and took a knee to aim Steve’s own weapon at him, Steve already had his hand gun tucked close to his chest, aimed at the smirking asshole's face.

A second later, the bad guy fell to the ground face-first; a neat hole in his chest, because Steve had changed his aim at the last second to keep him alive.

……….

Adam and Danny both made it to Steve at the same time. They had been directed by the drone team to his whereabouts. They found their leader kneeling by the fallen body of the bad guy, with both his palms pressed against a bleeding wound on the bad guy’s chest.

Adam contacted the medics for the field stretcher to be brought in to transport the man while Danny took time to fuss over Steve, to make sure the SEAL wasn't about to keel over from an undisclosed wound as well.

……….

Calls were made and the choppers were brought in. They had space to land at the enemy base which was now firmly under the SEAL's control. All three wounded targets were transported to Bagram along with the medics and one more SEAL to keep an eye on them.

The rest of the team dispersed around the base to secure everything. The hard part might have been over; but they still had to go over everything to take inventories, to make sure they didn't miss any data they could retrieve, and to sweep the area for any stragglers hiding away.

After two hours of thorough search throughout the base, Steve was satisfied. He called his team to the chopper that was patiently waiting to take them back. They all got in and once the bird climbed high enough in the sky, Steve called Higgins to deliver the coup de grace.

The Petty Officer gleefully pressed the buttons in his remote detonator. Explosions rocked the enemy base in answer, taking in all the illegal weapons, ammo, buildings, and bodies and turning them into dust and rubble.

Lt. Steve McGarrett congratulated his team on a job well done; boisterous hooyah's were shouted in reply.

The Lions of the Valley was no more.

[septic84]

Your Soul knew it belonged to me 2.0

Everyone around them seems to see it easier than they do, and yet it takes a woman to spark the entire thing off. Or the original: It's obvious to strangers so why are they fighting it? They're grown up now and should both know the ending of this story. This summary is awful. 

A03

Chapter one: Let’s be honest

Dan unknowingly glared at Phil as he smiled and touched one of the people who were currently attending the same meeting as they were. It was innocent, but Dan couldn't comprehend it as such, not now. Cindy, who happened to be stunning, was a constant face in these meetings and seemed to have taken a liking to Phil. The touches were all innocent, only slightly bordering flirty, but it still was enough to set Dan off. He hadn't been coy about how he handled jealousy, but when it came to Phil's attention, the jealousy also caused rage. Dan was already irritated to start with; he hated meetings that were held on Fridays, especially when they ran late into the evening. The hardest part about it was he knew exactly what was happening but recognized it too late to control the storm brewing inside of him. He swallowed hard as the tension started to build in his neck, trying to distract himself with something other than that woman. As the meeting moved along and the touches continued, Dan had to excuse himself to the bathroom on three separate occasions to calm down. He made a half-hearted attempt to cover for himself, stating that he was not feeling well. Martyn asked if Dan needed to leave, but he took his seat, shaking his head. He knew he was being ridiculous but couldn't help it. "Very professional,” he thought bitterly to himself. "You alright?" Phil asked, concerned, after the third time, Dan had walked out of the meeting. Phil knew his best friend hated making a spectacle of himself. "I'm fine, Phil," Dan whispered harshly, clearly annoyed. Phil cocked his eyebrow, frowned at him, but said nothing. The rest of the meeting, Dan only said what he needed to and kept focused on anything else but that woman touching Phil. His face was hot and ears beet red; he rocked slightly in his chair and held his balled-up fists on his lap. Much to Dan's relief, after what felt like days, the meeting ended. Glancing out a window, Dan smiled as he saw that it was dark. Grabbing and pulling on his coat, he checked his phone, sighing with relief. At least now they could relax, maybe watch an Anime of some sort, and get back to normal. "Oh, Hey Dan," Phil said as he approached, Cindy was behind him. "Are you going to be alright to get home by yourself? We are going to get a drink and maybe something to eat." Phil's eyes darted nervously; Dan could tell he was subconsciously asking for permission. "Sure, Phil." Dan's smile was tight and awkward. "I'll see you later." He nodded at Cindy and walked away without another word, but he could hear Phil sigh as he walked out the door. Dan got into the taxi, who proceeded to drive him to their home. The ride felt lonely. Dan knew in the back of his mind he was way too dramatic, but still, he envisioned himself in a sad music video, head against the cold glass, rain dripping down, and streetlights flashing brightly in the windows as they sped by. He hated being alone; he hated sudden changes in plans and especially hated that he knew Phil was with Cindy. With his teeth clenched, he paid the driver, shuffled his feet as he walked up to the flat door, and unlocked it. When he was in the confines of his room, he threw his bag against the wall, groaning in rage. His outburst was absurd, and Dan knew it. Phil was allowed to have other friends, female or otherwise. "Fucking hell, Dan. Get it together." He cursed himself out as he ran his hands through his hair. He knew he had no right to act like this. His mind still egged him on, causing him to think of all the things that could happen between Phil and Cindy. Dan always thought Phil preferred men, but he still couldn't deny that Cindy was attractive. He got progressively more upset, picturing perceived scenarios in his head that all were of a shitty rom-com nature. He had to get his mind off of this before he did something he would regret, such as sending a snarky text or tweeting something that would never disappear from the internet. After cleaning the kitchen, then the bathroom, Dan started to clean up the lounge. He thought that he would be calmed down after all of the physical exertions of cleaning. That was not the case; when Dan ran out of things to clean, he started scrolling through Tumblr as another distraction. "Typical," he said out loud, chastising himself. Soon Dan started to doze off; maybe sleep would help. Deciding to go to bed, he offered a silent prayer to the universe that Phil would be okay. To Dan, it seemed like he had been gone for a long time; in reality, he knew it wasn't the case. Shaking his head, he scoffed at how codependent he was. With self-deprecating thoughts running through his head, eventually, he fell into a restless sleep. It didn't last long as he began tossing and turning for what seemed like ages. The struggle to rest always seemed to happen when Phil wasn't there, more so when Dan didn't know exactly where he was. A short time later, he was fully woken up by a loud thump on the door, the jingling of keys, followed by a very drunk Phil stumbling in. Dan sighed, got up, and went to meet him. "Phil? You alright?" Phil giggled and stumbled towards him. "Yeah," he slurred, "you have sleep hair." He giggled again. "You are very pretty." Dan blushed but said, "Yeah, I was in bed, you idiot." He shook his head, but a small smile played on his lips. Phil attempted to wink, causing Dan to laugh, "You sound so northern right now." "Do I?" Phil grinned "Yes, you do. Let's get you into bed, shall we?" Dan's hand went to the small of Phil's back as he guided him into the bathroom. Dan ignored the small gasp that escaped Phil's lips. He also ignored how his friend leaned into his touch, at least externally. "Don't wanna bed," Phil whined. Dan ignored him, motioning to the door. "Go on, English major," Dan shut the door and waited. His mind was racing as he tried to slow his breathing. Phil opened the door, the harsh light from the hall made him squint, and Dan couldn't help but smile at his stupid face. "God damn it, Phil," Dan thought. "Don't laugh at me." He was self-conscientious and embarrassed. "Phil, I wasn't laughing at you. Trust me, I wasn't." Dan grasped his shoulder then slid his hand lower, returning it to the small of his back as he guided them towards Phil's room. Phil once again leaned into his touch and sighed deeply. Dan pulled him closer to his hip, holding him up while flipping on the overhead light. "No, too bright, Dan." "Okay, you baby," Dan helped Phil sit on the edge of his bed, turning on the lamp next to it instead. "I have never seen you this intoxicated Phil," Dan remarked, taking off Phil's shoes. "Yeah. Had a good time, Dan." Although he was clearly drunk, Dan knew Phil was lying, when you’ve been best friends for so long, it was extremely noticeable through the alcohol-saturated words. Phil was struggling to take off his jacket; he looked like a kid who was trapped within a collar and sleeves. Dan stood up, crossing his arms; there was no mistaking how amusing this was to him. "You could at least help, asshole." Dan laughed as he approached him. "Such dirty language." Dan put his hand on Phil's shoulder, effectively stilling him. He leaned in; he could smell sweet liquor on his friend's breath and hear Phil's heart racing. Dan wasn't sure if it was due to the struggle of trying to get his jacket off, or if Phil was nervous. Dan pulled one arm, then the other, gently out of the coat, throwing it on his dresser. "Water?" Phil asked, almost whining. Dan got it and brought it back to him. Phil was already lying in his bed, his eyes closed. "Here, Phil, you needy little shit." Dan handed him the water. He looked at Phil, a loud part of his mind was suggesting he crawl into bed next to Phil and hold him through his self-inflicted condition. Dan shook his head. "You'll be alright now, yeah?" "Yes," Phil said, sitting up slightly, taking a drink of the water. "Thanks, Danny." "Danny?" Dan smirked "Ugh, shut up," Phil said, pulling blankets over himself. Dan turned on the light in the hall just in case an emergency bathroom trip was needed. "Good night, Phil," Dan said softly as he went back to his room, smiling and shaking his head. Phil never got drunk; he was going to feel awful in the morning. Not that Dan would admit it to anyone, but secretly he was a little glad about this. It served him right for leaving him for that woman. Dan knew how childish and petty he was being; he didn't care. Being able to relax now that Phil was home and safe, Dan finally was able to drift off to sleep. When he woke up later, he was confused; something (rather, someone) warm was next to him. He panicked briefly, then saw Phil curled on his side, his back pushing against Dan's. For a moment, Dan focused on the warmth and the comfort that it had brought him, sighing contently. He felt like he was at peace for the first time in as long as he could remember. It was like it was in the past when they had slept together in the same bed. He smiled as logic suddenly butted in. "What the hell?" Dan turned over, facing Phil's back. Why was Phil in his bed? Was he okay? This worried Dan, especially after he had lied earlier about his time with Cindy; however, he doubted that was the reason he was now sharing his bed. Dan was sure Phil was here because he was too intoxicated to know he was actually in Dan’s bed instead of his own. Phil turned over, now facing Dan. It was just becoming light, and with what was shining into the window, Dan could see Phil's face was puffy. Perhaps it was from the alcohol; however, it appeared he might have been crying. Dan's scowled; why was he crying? Dan pushed Phil's fringe out of his eyes, sliding his hand down his cheek. The feelings had started years ago, but Dan knew that sooner or later, the dam would break, and he would have to leave or tell Phil the truth. He also knew that it was his fault that they hadn't gotten closer; he had made it pretty clear he wanted nothing but friendship. It wasn't the truth; it was fear. Phil's face was warm, and he wanted nothing more than to kiss those swollen lips. Smiling sadly, he pulled his hands back, placing them together under his head, on top of his pillow. He watched Phil sleep; his breathing was steady, rhythmic, and comforting. Before he knew it, it had lulled Dan back to sleep. When Dan woke up again, Phil was not there. He assumed he had sobered up and left, probably embarrassed upon realizing he was pressed against Dan, in the wrong bed. Disappointed, Dan stretched and got out of bed to take a shower, but as he approached Phil's door, he heard pitiful whimpering. Dan knocked. "Phil?" "Kill me," he responded, Dan chuckled. He got Phil some tablets for his head and knocked again. "Phil, can I come in?" "Okay." He moaned. "Pretty hungover, huh?" Dan smirked, handing him the bottle, then immediately regretting his petty thoughts from the night before. Phil was really sick. "Yes, my choices last night were," he paused, "poor," Dan didn't know if he was referring to the amount he drank, or something else, but he didn't ask. "Well, take those and go back to sleep. I will check on you later, you party animal." Dan smirked. "I'm sorry, Dan." "Just don't puke on me." Phil groaned as Dan continued onto his shower. He left Phil's door open, so there would be airflow for his poor hungover friend. Dan didn't take or give apologies very often, unless ironically. It was a flaw of his, and he was not good at conveying forgiveness. Besides, any anger Dan had been harboring dissolved quickly when he saw how poorly Phil was, now he just felt sorry for him. Dan peeked his head into Phil's room as he passed, Phil was deeply sleeping again. He would take care of Phil today; he didn't think his flatmate could do much for himself anyway. When Phil finally awoke, it was late in the afternoon. Painfully, he crept out of the bedroom to the lounge, where Dan was sitting in his sofa crease, scrolling through something on his laptop. Phil sat next to Dan, his face in his hands. Dan looked at him. "You look like hell, Phil." "I am old." Phil said, "I don't handle much anymore." Dan laughed, "30 isn't old, Phil." He said. "Old enough." He leaned back into the sofa. Not making eye contact, Dan asked, "What do you need, Phil?" Phil pulled his head out of his hands, "Coffee." Phil said simply. "Yeah, Okay. You should eat something, yeah?" "Probably," Phil said; however, his face paled slightly. Dan stood up and ruffled Phil's hair roughly. "Okay, needy." "Hey. Stop. That's not nice." Phil groaned, Dan laughed again. As Dan was in the kitchen, he made coffee and soup. Whenever Phil was sick, whether it was self-induced or not, Dan took care of him. He would act like a smart ass about it, but in all reality, he enjoyed it. Dan returned to the lounge, "coffee and soup. Interrupted my browsing, you know." He smiled, handing them to Phil, "please try not to projectile vomit all over the lounge, okay?" "Thank you," Phil took it and tentatively gulped coffee. After a few minutes, he carefully spooned an exceedingly small amount of soup into his mouth. Dan gazed at Phil; he looked so weak and powerless right now. He was adorable, fragile, and vulnerable. Dan's heart fluttered, and his stomach knotted as he noticed Phil meeting his gaze. His face flushed, "You're enjoying this power, aren't you Dan?" He asked "Yes. Immensely." Dan sat back down and continued what he was doing. "However, I am really OP right now," Phil's face scrunched up as if he had remembered something, "Dan, are you feeling better? I know you got ill a few times during the meeting. I shouldn't have even gone out last night," he turned to look at Dan, "what was wrong?" Dan blushed. "Ah yeah, Phil. I'm fine. Didn't last too long," the tension could be easily felt, but neither one said anything. "Was it lunch yesterday?" Phil asked. Dan didn't want to lie, but he didn't want to tell the truth either. "I don't think so, but it's passed now. Besides, you are far too sick to be worrying about me." Dan smirked again. "You still look flushed. You should go rest; I am okay." "And miss hung over Phil? Nice try, Mate." Dan smirked as Phil rolled his eyes. The rest of the day, they watched anime together quietly. Had Phil gone home with him last night instead of on that date, he wouldn’t feel as poorly as he did right now. Things were starting to return to normal; Dan was obsessively overthinking as per usual. What had Phil acting so out of character? Why had Phil gotten so drunk yesterday? Why did Phil lie to him about having fun with Cindy? Phil was slightly leaning against him, as he usually did, this time, however, Dan could see Phil hesitantly watching him out of the corner of his eye. It was later in the evening, and he couldn't let it go, Dan had to ask. He had been taking care of Phil all day, which was not a burden, but he had to know why this happened in the first place. Typically, Phil was the caregiver, now with the roles reversed, it was refreshing; however, it also was leaving Dan with a sense of responsibility to figure out what the hell happened last night. It was driving Dan nuts, not knowing what had happened to Phil; nothing pissed him off quicker than someone taking advantage of his friend’s kind nature and awkward social graces. Phil usually told him everything, but with the way, Dan acted it was no surprise that Phil hadn't been too forthcoming. Careful with his tone, voice soft and concerned, he asked: "Phil, what happened last night that made you drink so much?" Dan did not make eye contact. "Oh, real talk. Worried about me, yeah?" Phil joked. Dan softly and evenly said, "Yeah, Phil. I am." Phil sighed, realizing that Dan was honestly concerned. "I just, I was being myself, so you know how that goes." He sighed, "I said too much. Embarrassment, you know." He shook his head, "I don't want to talk about it; I am embarrassed now as it is." Dan gave him a sympathetic smile. His flawed clumsy, and socially awkward friend (who had a knack for sticking his foot into his mouth) was clearly not going to talk about this, at least not now. Dan had a burning desire to insist on it, but he relented. "Okay, Phil." Dan reached over and patted his leg, his hand resting there a bit too long before he quickly withdrew it. "But for the record, there is nothing wrong with you being yourself." Dan then looked straight ahead at the TV, wanting nothing more than to hug him, make him feel better. Why now? Why was this so much harder now? Dan had dealt with his pining and jealousy before, but it seemed like now he finally was starting to lose control. It scared him. The years of repressed feelings seemed to be hitting him at full force—stupid Cindy. "I'm going to bed." Phil finally broke the silence a few hours later. Dan nodded and patted Phil's leg again. "Goodnight." He watched Phil get up, stretch, and go to his room. Dan was starting to show more affection towards Phil unintentionally, and he knew that sooner or later, it was going to get him into trouble. Dan knew Phil was beginning to notice, and unless he was willing to be open with his feelings, he needed to stop. He just wasn’t sure how. As he checked Tumblr before he went to bed, a photo he hadn't seen before caught his eye. It was of Phil with that woman, and they were kissing. He was fucking kissing her! Sure, it was on the cheek, but still. That woman again. Dan's rage that had caused him to slam the laptop shut quickly faded into despair that led him to cry into his pillow. He was jealous, he was heartbroken, and he was mad. Were they a thing? Were they going to see each other again? Dan knew he shouldn't stand in the way of his friend's happiness, and he wouldn't, but he couldn't stop the pain in his chest. "This is going to kill me." He thought as he cried. Phil was still awake, thinking. He knew Dan was jealous of Cindy paying so much attention to him; he also knew how childish Dan acted. Phil figured he was upset because she had chosen to get a drink with him rather than Dan. "Girls can like me to," he thought bitterly. If Dan only knew the truth was that he had no interest in Cindy other than a friend, maybe he wouldn't react like that. But that brought to light other unanswered questions. Phil knew he should tell him, so if Dan wanted to ask Cindy out, he could and not feel bad about it. This made Phil uneasy to think of. Cindy had asked him to go for a drink because they got on so well. However, about an hour in, she asked him about Dan, and something happened that Phil didn't intend on. With the help of the sweet drinks he ingested, he started to answer questions about Dan and somehow had disclosed his deepest feelings. It was like he couldn't stop. He barely knew her, and yet there he was telling her the most important secret he had ever kept. After the word vomit, he felt stupid and fearful that he had disclosed something so vital to her, thus making another wrong choice, he continued to drink. He knew at the time it was an emotionally driven decision that wouldn’t turn out well, but he didn't care. He had been lucky that Dan wasn't so mad that he ignored him coming in last night. He was in no condition to look after himself. Somehow in a drunken haze, Phil had gotten into Dan's bed. He wasn't sure how or why, but when he woke up needing a wee, he was shocked. Quickly and quietly, he exited Dan's room, hoping he would be none the wiser. The truth of the matter was that Phil was only interested and in love with one person. Now he found himself crawling into that person's bed when he needed comfort, without even realizing it. Phil noticed that Dan had become more affectionate, but Phil assumed it was because he felt bad for him. Phil would have to find a way to go on with their lives because he knew he couldn't have Dan. Not in the way he wanted him, anyway. Phil sighed and turned over. He was not going to be able to sleep well. He got up to get a drink, passing Dan's door. He stopped when he heard soft, sad notes of the piano and sniffling. Dan was agitated. He almost knocked, but he didn't want to embarrass Dan or make him feel awkward. Still, he stood and listened a moment, his heartbreaking as the piano music stopped and a was replaced with a gut-wrenching sob. "Oh, Dan, don't cry," he whispered. Why would Dan be crying so forcefully? What had hurt him so much? When Phil headed back, he paused at Dan's door again. Silence. No longer were their sad notes or crying, filling the quiet of the night. Sighing sadly, he went back to bed. He wanted nothing more to comfort Dan, hoping he was not the reason for such a sad melody. The next morning, they had planned to go into town to get some needed supplies and props for videos, as Phil would be leaving for a few days. Dan was just stepping out of the bathroom, drying his hair, when he met Phil's eyes. Dan could have sworn he saw Phil blush. It was incredibly early for both of them to be awake, but it seemed as if neither one was sleeping well. "Phil, do you want to stop and get breakfast while we are out?" Dan's voice was still thick with sleep. "Sure." He said simply; he was tired, both physically and emotionally. He stretched and yawned. Dan stopped and looked at his friend as he passed. "Phil, are you still sick?" "No, not really, just didn't sleep well." Dan gave him a skeptical eyebrow raise, "You’re still okay to go out, though?" "I'll be fine, just want to shower and have some coffee. I'll be fine." If Phil was honest, Dan didn't look much better. His eyes were red and puffy as well as carrying a deep shade of blue-gray bags underneath them. Phil wasn't going to start that conversation, though. He was sure Dan wouldn't talk about it anyway. When they left the house, they decided to walk down their street to a small cafe nestled in a quiet corner. Both of them were unusually quiet; Dan assumed Phil was in a foul mood and decided to wait to make intelligible conversation until after he had coffee. Phil thought Dan was still mad at him for the whole Cindy incident, so he said nothing. After they were halfway through, Dan was unable to continue with the wordless breakfast. "Phil, why are you so mad at me?" Dan's head was down, and he looked up at Phil. His voice sounded more wounded than he wanted it too. Is this why he was crying last night? Phil had a confused look on his face; Dan's tone had taken him by surprise. Dan was hurt. "I-I'm not mad, but I feel like you're still mad at me," Phil said, as childish as that sounded, it was how Phil felt. "I am? I wasn't aware of this. Thanks for telling me, Phil," Dan rolled his eyes. This made the corners of Phil's mouth turn up into a smile. "Seriously?" Phil asked, "Don't think I didn't see that look you gave me when I left with Cindy." Phil said, looking at his plate, humor in is tone. Dan cleared his throat. "Ah Yeah, awkward. Sorry." Dan tried not to think of that woman and her face on Phil's lips. How close she was to him, how she got to feel his lips against her skin when Dan wasn't able to. Oh god, what other things had they done? Did she touch him? Did they? Dan tried to stop himself as the rage started to boil through his veins. It was too late. His face was red, and it was evident that he was upset. "Dan, you are mad right now!" Phil exclaimed. "No, I'm not, Phil!" Dan lied as he shifted uncomfortably. "Yes, you are. I know you, Dan. Shocking as it may be, women ask me out to get drinks too," "I know that, Phil!" Dan said too harshly; he watched Phil's expression turn to hurt; he shook his head. Shit. Quieter, he said, "Look, You know how I am, I am trying to stop, get better," Dan trailed off. Phil relented as he saw the pink tint cross his friend's face and suddenly felt guilty for causing it. Dan was already upset the night prior; Phil didn't want to create another night of depressing piano playing and sobbing. Honestly, though, he knew Dan was telling the truth. Dan was trying. Phil grabbed Dan's arm, giving it a quick squeeze. "I know." Dan shifted uncomfortably in his seat, pushing food around on his plate with his fork. "I'm sorry," Phil said, sighing. Dan waved him off, quick to change the subject. "Well, now that the train wreck is over, do you still want to get props and stuff, or would you rather head home?" Dan adjusted his fringe, avoiding making eye contact. The blush was still all over his face, much to his dismay. Why was it getting harder to talk to Phil? "I think we need to get some food at least. I wouldn't want you to starve." Phil said, smiling. "Right," he said, pulling out his wallet, taking out the correct amount. "I need to pee, and we can go." Phil smiled; it wasn't unusual for Dan to pay when they were out. Dan took care of things like this more than Phil. He was better at it, better at making it look effortless, easy. Phil usually ended up with some sort of awkwardness; whether the money fell onto a plate of leftover food or under the table, making him have to crawl on the floor to retrieve it, it always seemed like something embarrassing happened. He smiled to himself as uninvited memories flooded into his mind. Dan didn't even make a big deal of Phil's quirks when he was genuinely embarrassed; he would try to create a diversion. Phil knew he would be lost without Dan. Dan walked back and caught the tail end of what he referred to as Phil's "Fondness smile," though he wouldn't ever tell Phil he had named it that. It happened when Phil remembered something touching or endearing; however, it didn't usually occur in public. Dan looked at him for a while, the far-off look in his eyes, the way the corners of his mouth were turned up, and his teeth were showing; Dan was thankful. This was the version of Phil only Dan got to see. Smiling, Dan sighed out loud. Phil looked so innocent and beautiful with this look upon his face. "You ready to go, or you want to daydream more?" He asked as he approached him. Phil jumped slightly and blushed but quickly recovered by saying, "Yes, let's go." Phil grinned. They had been walking around for a few hours; Dan had saved Phil from injury a few times. He smiled; Phil ignored where he was going when he got involved in something. He remembered Phil's video about almost getting hit by a car while texting. "Dingus," Dan said softly, watching as Phil tried to chase a squirrel. They had gotten what they needed and started to head home. There was still tension, and Dan hated it; he just wanted things to go back to normal. They walked mostly in silence, with only a few words between them. They were back at home, and Dan went to Phil's room. "Hey, Phil," Phil looked up, "I don't know what's going on, but can we get over it? I don't like... this." Dan crossed his arms. "I just don't want anything left weird." Phil smiled, "Yeah, I'm sorry If I hurt you, Dan." "You didn't." Dan smiled at him as he lied. "Okay." "Things are too weird..." He repeated. "Yeah, I agree. Let's just forget about all that, okay?" "Agreed." Dan turned to go. "How long will you be with your family?" "Well, I'm leaving early tomorrow. I'll be gone until Friday." "Okay, I would say, "tell your mum hi," but I saw her last night, so," A pillow whizzed by Dan's head. It had been a long time since he had pulled out a "your mum" reference. "Very retro, Dan," Phil said, rolling his eyes, Dan just smirked.

Dan groaned as he stumbled out of bed at 6:30 am to bid Phil farewell. Being up this early should have been illegal. "Who takes a train at 7 in the morning?" He grumbled, rubbing his eyes. Phil laughed. "A lot of people, Dan." "Not our kind of people," "That's mostly true," Phil moved closer to Dan, smiling softly at his hobbit hair. When he reached Dan, he pulled him into a hug. "See you Friday," he whispered. "You know where I'll be," Dan responded equally as quiet. "Try not to stay on Tumblr all week," Phil said, pulling away, picking up his luggage. "Yes, Mom." Dan smirked, "Have a safe trip." "I will take care of yourself, Dan." With that, Phil left the flat, and Dan was now sentenced to spend the next four or so days alone. It was far too early to be awake, so Dan stumbled back into his bed. Phil texted him later on in the day. "I got here safely. See you Friday." "Good. See you Friday."

Dan tried to record a video, but he just couldn't force the motivation. Instead, he found himself watching through old videos; he listened to Phil talk through the screen. It made him smile and feel homesick, it seemed ridiculous to Dan, but home wasn't a place; home was a feeling. Dan closed his eyes. "I am screwed," he said out loud before he dozed off. The rest of the days (and nights) consisted of Dan finding ways to pass the time. He wasn't sleeping well, but he already had figured that would happen. He found himself playing his piano until the early hours of the morning, lying down to sleep for maybe an hour or two, and doing nothing productive during the day. He was not motivated most days, and with Phil gone, it was even worse. Jealousy sprung to the surface after seeing that Phil had posted on Twitter, he was having a great time and looked well-rested and relaxed. Liking the post, Dan locked his phone and set it down; he couldn't muster any more than that. The days passed slowly; Dan was miserable. Without realizing his destination, one night, he wandered into Phil's bedroom. He knew he shouldn't be there, but he couldn't help it. Phil's room felt like a safe place amongst the demons chanting in his head. He sat on the bed, hugged one of the trademark colorful pillows tightly to his chest, and took a shaky breath. He was confused; he had no idea why this trip was the one that had him crying into his best friend's pillow. It had never gotten this bad before. Everything was so overwhelming right now, so raw. It wasn't as if Dan hadn't missed Phil before when he was gone, but this was far more intense than it had ever been. Frustrated and embarrassed, Dan put the pillow back, got up, turned out the light, and shut the door. The word codependent kept echoing in his thoughts. Shaking his head, he made his way back to his room. He should at least try to sleep. After what seemed like ages of trying, he gave up and resigned himself to staring into the nothingness of the room. Phil was coming home in the morning, this came with many emotions, and now that he was thinking of it, Dan couldn't sleep at all. Something had to give. Dan couldn't keep living this lie. He missed Phil more than he would miss a best friend; he missed him like his boyfriend. "Maybe I should," Dan stopped that thought right away. He wanted so badly to tell Phil that he was in love with him, to admit why he got so jealous. Dan was so afraid that he would ruin their friendship, their careers, and the empire they had built together. He was mostly scared he would cause irreparable damage to the most important relationship he had ever had. Was it better having Phil like this, or not at all? He didn't know. Dan looked at the clock; it was 7:00 am. Finally, exhaustion overtook him, and he drifted off to sleep, thinking of black fringe and beckoning blue eyes.

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So, if you were not around for the first draft of this, (It was started in 2017) this is draft two. This was the first official "Phanfic" that I started and left unfinished for literal years. It was always a thorn in my side as I am a completionist and it really bugged me that I had left this a WIP. In April I announced I was giving it a revamp and would finish it because it was important to me. And it still is. With that being said, I struggled to revamp and finish this, I had lost my passion for the story. My mind demons are telling me I shouldn't even post this, but I made a promise, and I keep them. I don't have an editor, I have software, so if there are mistakes, I did the best I could with that I had.

Kudos on A03, comments, likes or reblogs are really appreciated if you feel so inclined. 

*****

[thisdiscontentedwinter]

Hunger - Chapter 24

Hunger master post

 It takes nine days.

Behind the scenes, Rafael McCall and Jordan Parrish work their magic, and spin a cohesive, credible story to both the FBI and the Beacon Hills’ Sheriff’s Department. Stiles thinks the FBI is the harder sell. The Sheriff’s Department is in a mess since the news of Sheriff’s Haigh’s arrest, and the news that he framed John Stilinski. The mayor calls in some woman from out of state to run things in the meantime.

“They’re even auditing all the speeding tickets we ever gave out,” Parrish tells everyone one night over pizza. “It’s gonna be a while until things settle down.”

“Do you think anyone else was in on it?” Stiles asks him, his mood darkening. “Apart from Haigh and Kate?”

Parrish is silent for a moment, and then he shakes his head slightly. “I don’t know. I hope not, but I don’t know.”

Derek bumps Stiles gently with his shoulder, and Stiles forces himself to relax.

“I think we’re almost done on our end,” Rafael McCall says. “I’m heading back to Sacramento at the end of the week. Maybe I’ll get lucky with a nice relaxing serial killer.”

“Rafa!” Melissa exclaims.

He raises his eyebrows and steals a piece of pepperoni. “I’m just saying, I’d sleep a lot easier at night knowing it was just the Sacramento Slasher out there, you know?”

Stiles knows.

The world has gotten much bigger than he ever expected. Much deeper and darker. But also, he hasn’t felt this safe in years. He has wolves by his side.

Peter Hale has rented some loft space in town. After six years in that bunker, he wanted somewhere with a lot of windows. The place is huge, and a haven for spiders, but the light is incredible. So far Peter and Derek are just sleeping on mattresses on the floor, but they’ve got a refrigerator now and, weirdly, a coffee maker, so they’re making slow progress. Neither of them likes the idea of going shopping where there might be crowds, and Peter also refuses to buy furniture without physically inspecting it first, so it’s going to be a slow process.

Everything feels like a slow process.

Peter’s not here tonight.

Neither is Chris.

And from the look on Allison’s face when she arrived, Stiles isn’t dumb enough to point that out. Scott had whispered once, horrified, that they smelled like each other. Smelled like each other like Stiles and Derek, who gravitate toward one another whenever they’re in the same room, or smell like each other in more of an ew way? Scott had refused to expand on that.

Actually, Stiles doesn’t know what would be weirder. The thought of Chris and Peter fucking like bunnies, or cuddling? He thinks cuddling might be craziest.

Also, nobody’s mentioned the fact that Parrish has pretty much moved in over the last week. Not even Rafa. So maybe that’s another thing everyone’s avoiding talking about.

It’s okay.

It’s good.

This little group of people with all their petty divisions and alliances and grievances… they’re starting to feel like a real family. There’s someone missing still, and Stiles is doing his best to be patient, his best not to panic about what might still go wrong, and it’s so hard. But he has Derek and Scott and Melissa and everyone, and they distract him when he needs to be distracted, and they leave him alone when he needs to be left alone, and he can do this.

With their help, he can do this.

Melissa starts to clear away the pizza boxes. She moves around behind Stiles and reaches out to grip his shoulder gently. “Early night tonight. It’s a school night, remember?”

Stiles nods, sudden butterflies in his stomach.

“You too, Scott,” Melissa says.

Scott nods, distracted.

It’s only a few days to his first full moon, and even though Peter and Derek have promised to be there for him—even though Chris has, although Stiles suspects that’s more for his own peace of mind than Scott’s—he’s anxious. He’s frightened of losing control and hurting people, which Stiles gets, but also, it’s Scott. He’s like the sweetest guy Stiles has ever met. Scott’s got this.

Between them all, they can handle whatever the universe throws at them, right?

Right.

 ***

 It’s easy to fall into Derek’s embrace, to tilt his head back and let Derek scent him. It’s easy to close his eyes when Derek presses his nose, and then his mouth, and then his tongue against the pulse point in his throat. It’s easy to find himself nuzzling back blindly, his breath hot and his heartbeat racing, searching for skin to touch with his lips.

It’s easy to pretend it’s all about the scenting, and the wolves, and something animals do that Stiles barely understands. Animals don’t kiss though.

Derek’s lips brush against Stiles’s, and then his tongue is gently tracing the seam of them, and Stiles’s mouth is opening like it’s the simplest thing in the world. It starts off soft and warm, and then Stiles’s legs fall open and Derek is shifting into the space Stiles makes for him.

Stiles is hard in his jeans, and a jolt runs through him when he rocks his hips and discovers that Derek is too. A part of him—the part that’s never done this before—wants to push Derek away. The rest of him wants to wraps his legs around him and drag him closer, so that’s what he does.

Derek moans, and the sound sends a spark of pleasure right to Stiles’s dick.

Derek pulls back. “You okay?”

“Keep going,” Stiles says. “Jesus. Keep going.”

 ***

 His boy is eager and smells of arousal. His blood is hot, and pumping close to the surface of his skin. Derek wants to taste him. He nuzzles his way down Stiles’s chest, plucking his shirt up so that he can press his face against that pale mole-dotted skin. Stiles is still too thin, but not sickly with it anymore. His boy is getting strong again, and Derek rewards him by dipping his tongue inside his belly button and making him shake with laughter.

Stiles’s dick is straining in his jeans, and Derek rubs his thumb across the button on the fly.

“Keep going,” Stiles whispers. His amber eyes are wide.

Derek pops the button and slides the zip down. He presses his nose into Stiles’s boxers, into the seam between Stiles’s thigh and his groin, and inhales. Stiles shudders, his fingers scrabbling in Derek’s hair.

Derek peels down the elastic of his boxers.

Stiles’s dick is hard and hot under his tongue. It tastes of salt and sweat and Stiles. Derek licks a strip up it, and Stiles arches off the bed.

“Oh! God, Derek!” Stiles is breathy, frantic, as Derek sucks the tip of his dick into his mouth. “I’m not going to last!”

Derek doesn’t care. He’s greedy for this. For his boy. For his Stiles.

Stiles shudders and thrashes underneath him, panting hard as he comes. Derek swallows him down, and then kisses his way back up his body toward his flushed face.

Stiles stares at him wildly for a moment, and then pulls him close for a breathless kiss.

Derek holds him tight.

 ***

 “Derek,” Melissa McCall says as he sneaks upstairs later. “I’m sure I said it was a school night?”

Derek flushes and escapes.

 ***

 Stiles has had a lot of first days at different schools. After a while all schools look the same. Same tired lockers. Same scuff-marked halls. Same lunches. Same smells and sounds. Same kids, same cliques, same old same old. Beacon Hills High isn’t any different on the surface, except it’s a lot easier to walk inside flanked by Scott and Allison.

A few of the teachers look twice at his name, and not just his first name either, but most of the kids don’t seem to immediately associate him with the former sheriff. They either don’t remember the scandal or they don’t care.

The exception appears to be the terrifying and beautiful Lydia Martin.

“Stilinski,” she says, looking him up and down when he sets his tray down at her table at lunch time. “Huh.”

Stiles doesn’t know if there’s a judgment there or not. Lydia looks like the sort of girl who has a scathing judgment for every occasion, but she’s also friends with Allison and Scott, so… Stiles figures he’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. Particularly when he sees her sliding a calculus textbook under her copy of Marie Claire when she catches him looking.

Stiles eats his lunch and listens into to the conversation, casting half-furtive glances around occasionally, and wondering if one day these people might be his friends too.

As first days go, Stiles has had worse. He’s most anxious about History, since he doesn’t have either Scott or Allison in that class with him, but one of the guys from lunch, Danny, saves him a seat beside him.

It’s good.

Maybe this is the last first day Stiles will have to have.

He likes the sounds of that.

 ***

 “How’d it go today?” Melissa asks that evening as Stiles is helping set the table. Melissa is on a day off.

“Okay,” Stiles says. He doesn’t want to get too enthusiastic in case it doesn’t work out. Story of his life.

“Did you get much homework?” Melissa asks him. “I talked to the school about how you’ve got some gaps, and Ms. Morrell said something about tailoring a study plan for you?”

“I’ve got an appointment with her on Friday,” Stiles says. He looks down at the stack of plates Melissa handed him. There are only three. “Is Jordan working tonight?”

“He’ll be by after dinner,” Melissa says, and checks her watch. “Scott!” she yells up the stairs. “If you’re supposed to be doing homework, why can I hear you shooting aliens from down here?”

Melissa doesn’t need any damn werewolf hearing.

“Can I invite Derek over?” Stiles asks.

He’s done his homework. He’s trying to be the good kid. Which, when it comes to academics, is actually kind of easy compared with Scott. It’s the other stuff that Scott outstrips him at. Like being effortlessly kind and helpful. That’s the stuff Stiles has to work at. And he’s trying, for Melissa. Hence setting the table.

Melissa gives him a look he can’t quite read. “Not tonight, hmm?”

“Okay.” Stiles swallows down his disappointment, even though he was kind of expecting this. Melissa has already given him the talk about how she’s taking her role of foster carer seriously, and she doesn’t want either of them to do anything that will risk Stiles getting sent away. She didn’t explicitly spell it out, but Stiles figures having underage sex in her house is probably a really fast way to fuck things up if anyone finds out.

Melissa gives him a small smile.

Scott clatters down the stairs in time to get the meatloaf out of the oven. Stiles heads into the kitchen to help him. When he gets there, Scott has the meatloaf sitting on the counter and is rattling through the cabinets. “Do we have any more ketchup? Mom, are we out of ketchup?”

“I don’t know, Scott!” she calls back from the dining room. “Did you look?”

“I’m looking!” And then he reels back, a small plastic container in his hand. “Mom!”

“What?”

Scott looks like a confused puppy as he stares down at the container. “Why do we have pre-natal vitamins?”

There’s a sudden crash of cutlery from the dining room.

 ***

Dinner is kind of awkward.

“You and Deputy Parrish?” Scott asks, jaw hanging open. “Aren’t you kind of…”

“Say it, Scott,” Melissa says, arching her brows. “I dare you.”

Scott snaps his mouth shut.

Dinner is also kind of hilarious.

Afterward, when Stiles is chilling in front of the TV and Scott is having an existential crisis about being a big brother at sixteen, a car rolls into the driveway. The headlights flash up against the living room window for a moment, before the engine cuts out and the lights turn off.

“Stiles,” Melissa says, appearing in the living room doorway. There’s a shaky smile on her face like she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “You’re going to want to get the door.”

Stiles bolts off the couch, his sudden rush of hope battling with every other part of him that screams not to trust this, not to believe it, it can’t be what it thinks. He hurries to the front door and flings it open.

Parrish’s car is in the driveway and Parrish is climbing out of the driver’s seat.

The passenger’s door swings open and a man gets out.

Stiles freezes—

He’s older than Stiles remembers. A little thinner. There’s more gray in his hair now, more wrinkles around his eyes. But it’s him. It’s him.

—and then stumbles forward into an embrace he’s needed for the past four years.

“Stiles,” Dad says, and it sounds almost like the answer to a prayer. “Oh, Stiles, kiddo. Stiles.”

Stiles bursts into tears.

[artificialqueens]

Say You Won't Let Go Part 1 (Biadore) - Fucking Awful

A/N: Hey Qweens! Fucking Awful again, back with another song-based Biadore fic.

Summary: A song inspires Danny to think back on his relationship with Roy, from their first meetings to present.

Song: This one is based on “Say You Won’t Let Go” by James Arthur, linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yW7w8F2TVA

Structure: This one will be somewhere between 7-8 parts, if you guys are down to stick it out! Each part is associated with a couplet or verse from the song. Song lyrics are in bold and just there to set the tone; if they come into play in the story/dialogue you’ll see them again. Internal monologue/thoughts are in italics.

 Danny was laid out on his tiny couch, feet propped up on the arm rest and his laptop balanced on his stomach. It was a gray, rainy day in Seattle, which he took as the universe’s cue that he should just hibernate for a bit. He’d just finished watching Amy Schumer’s latest comedy special on Netflix, and needed something else to do for a few hours until he was supposed to go out with Johnny. 

It had been a minute since he found any new music he was really into, so Danny decided to go hunting through Spotify. Not feeling particularly adventurous, and curious as to what exactly was getting radio play right now, he went straight for the Global Top 50 playlist. He put it on shuffle and sat up to pack another baby bowl for himself.

He lit up and listened to the first few songs that played. He dug a couple of them – he was always into whatever Kendrick and Lorde were putting out, and was slowly being one over by those little fuck faces The Chainsmokers – but he was disappointed with how little variety there was. Everything sounded overproduced and more than a little electronic, which were not inherently bad qualities to Danny…just bad when they all started to sound the same.

He was just about to change playlists when he was surprised – the sound of an actual acoustic guitar, not a synth or an drum kit. Danny decided to give the song a shot, and was again pleasantly surprised by the guy’s voice. He listened to the song once and really enjoyed it – enough that when the playlist rolled into a Post Malone song, he clicked back to listen again.

Before Danny knew it, he’d listened to the song 8 times and had almost burned through his whole bowl. The melody, the voice – it was all great. But he couldn’t bring himself to turn the song off because it kept making him think of one thing, a person really: Roy.

Some combination of weed, the music and thoughts of Roy was giving him an unbelievable high. He felt warm, happy, and totally relaxed. As he let the song continue to play, Danny started to think back about spending time with Roy…

—

I met you in the dark, you lit me up You made me feel as though I was enough

They’d been in the competition for about 10 days at this point, together as a group for less than a week. Danny felt lucky that he’d come into Drag Race with his friend Jay – at first. He was quickly disappointed to find out that his homie was more concerned about selling a packaged Laganja personality than being an ally and confidante in what was turning out to be a really brutal experience.  Danny found himself feeling closer to Gia and Dela, strangers to him only a few days before, than to the person he’d known for years.

That Jay was not going to be the support system he hoped for became crystal clear the night before, when Michelle had called him out for his lack of corseting. Danny had been totally crushed by her comment. He knew that he absolutely killed the Rusical challenge, but got the distinct sense his lack of cinching cost him the win. Coming off 2 straight weeks of almost going home, he had been so close to the validation he desperately wanted; he knew it was spoiled of him to think this way, but 2nd place for something so stupid and superficial felt as bad as lip-syncing for his life – again.

He’d gone to talk to Jay about it after the elimination, hoping for a friendly face to spend a few minutes venting before flipping the situation. Jay was always good for laughs and distractions, and had frequently drug him out of the dumps before. But when Danny bounded up calling him “Ganj Ganj,” he was met with another pre-prepared round of drama.

Jay went on about his parents coming up on the Untucked screen and how the other girls – led by Roy/Bianca – had been mean or rude or something that he interpreted as less than empathetic to his situation…whatever it was, Danny couldn’t follow the story. In the years he had known Jay, his parents had been nothing but supportive. Not unlike Danny’s mom, they took a little while to come around at first. But, after a few months of their son death dropping across West Hollywood, they’d become his biggest fans. Hell, Danny had met them on several occasions and they’d proven to be heavy tippers with enough tequila in them. So why Jay was making a big deal about his parents “finally” accepting him after 20-something years, Danny could not understand.  

What he did understand was that, like himself, Jay understood how this show worked. Ever perceptive – they were both ESFPs after all – Jay and Danny knew how the camera guys worked. Their lenses were trained to catch drama, and it was so transparent that the insecure and victimized Laganja was on display to get airtime.

And so the next day after Snatch Game, Danny chose to take his emotional needs elsewhere. Just like in the Rusical, he knew he fucking killed this challenge. He’d been low-key doing Anna Nicole as a part of his Adore act for years, so when the opportunity presented itself to bring her (back to) life he slayed.

But today on the runway he was supposed to look like RuPaul, a challenge where he once again felt set up for failure. The polished, Glamazon aesthetic was so far away from what Danny was equipped to do. He saw zero opportunity to go out on stage and have Michelle do anything but wag a rhinestoned talon in his face.

Danny knew without question he was going to be read for two things: his dress being too short, and his waist not being cinched. The first he knew was his fault, but was ready to defend it – he preferred shorter things that didn’t sop up the spilled beer on a club stage, fuck hemlines that hit the floor. But the second he felt was both personal and petty. The body stuff, it dinged his self-esteem more than he wanted to admit. He was starting to wonder if he was misshapen for real, not just misshapen for a man dressing as a woman.

So when he needed to voice his fears out loud – Bonnie always taught him that insecurities lose their power when you talk about them – he brought it up at the mirror with Ben. Shane happened to be there as well, but Danny felt a weird kinship with his fellow Idol and wasn’t too shy about bringing up his issues in front of the Aussie.

“Am I the only one that’s, like, having a problem with, like, my body?” Danny put the question out there, expecting the empathetic Ben to jump in immediately. He was surprised when Shane engaged him first.

“Well maybe you do, and so what?” Shane replied – not what Danny expected him to say. For someone who presented so beautifully – Courtney was un-clockable as a woman, and really could’ve won America’s Next Top Model in a heartbeat – he sure did have a lot to say about body acceptance and self love.

The conversation opened up into a broader discussion about weight and body issues, as Ben spoke about his struggles with weight as a child. Hearing him talk about his own obesity and bullying gave Danny some much-needed perspective on the situation. He started to feel really stupid for bringing up “hog body” when he knew damn well he was actually pretty slim and had nothing to complain about.

Now he was feeling insecure on 2 fronts – about his body, and about whether or not his concerns about his shape came off as bratty in comparison to Ben’s very real story.  Again, he knew about how the cameramen worked. He could only imagine people twisting his words into fat shaming, fishing for compliments, self pity…He walked away from the mirror, lost in his own worries.

When Roy piped up from the work table behind him, Danny was shocked. “Adore!”

Damn, he’s so good at remembering to use people’s drag names. “Yes baby?” Holy fuck, why did I just call this old ass dude ‘baby’? Danny walked over to Roy’s station. I like that newsboy hat, I should get one of my own. But in black. And leather.

And then the moment that would no doubt prove to be the biggest surprise of his Drag Race experience happened. Funny how 30 seconds can change the course of 5 weeks, 3 years, forever…

With no apparent ulterior motive, Roy offered to lend Danny his extra waist cincher – not only to lend it to him, but to lace him in it so he didn’t go out there looking like a fucking idiot wearing a corset for the first time.

To say this confused Danny was an understatement. He knew he had been dismissive of Roy from the first day they’d combined the premiere groups, but in his defense he thought it was totally justified. From his perspective, everything Roy had said to and about Laganja, Gia, himself – and even some of the less vocal queens under 25 – was rude and condescending. Roy presented himself as someone who would treat Danny and his art just like any other “seasoned” queen had in the past – as if it was a joke, and not worth his time or appreciation.

That had changed a bit in the last 24 hours, when he started to see that maybe Roy was just there to call people out on their bullshit. He was basically right about the Laganja situation, though maybe a little harsh with his delivery. Danny had to appreciate that the older man seemed to at least be honest to the drag personality he’d built over (so many!) years – even if Bianca del Rio was truly a hateful cunt.

All this was processing in Danny’s mind as Roy made the offer, and he realized he was standing there with his mouth half open and subconsciously licking his lips. Why am I doing that?  

“I’m down!” How could Danny possibly turn down the offer? Here was someone giving him a golden ticket into Michelle’s good graces – or at least spotting him some of the bus fare to get there – and goddammit he was going to say yes. The fact that it was Roy of all people, though, was still a shocker.

Roy said he would lace him in as soon as he got dressed, and that was that. Danny started to walk away, but then turned around to linger at the table for a few seconds afterwards. He noticed more than a few things in those moments – again he was perceptive one, for a Libra at least.  

First, he noticed that Roy had a little self-satisfied smile when he thought Danny had walked away. It was close-lipped and just barely noticeable as he took off his hat, but his eyes betrayed the grin independent of the curve of his lips that showed Danny he was pretty happy about something.

Second, he noticed what Roy looked like. Danny had spent so long looking at – and kind of hating – Bianca del Rio that he’d never taken the time to look at Roy. Roy was undeniably handsome, with a youthful face that never revealed his age and dimples that you could take a shot of Fireball out of. His olive skin gave off a perma-tanned glow, and his deep brown eyes projected a kindness that even his most cutting words and facial expressions couldn’t over power. Danny found himself quickly wondering about what he couldn’t see; Roy was an inch or two shorter than him, but from what he could tell it was made up of mostly muscle and would certainly feel nice and strong up against…

Danny cut off his own thoughts. He had to, knowing that the hands he had momentarily been fantasizing about were soon going to be touching his bare skin and lacing him into what was one-part body shaper and one-part sex toy.

Too late. When Roy was done transforming himself into Bianca-as-Ru, he came over to help Danny.

“Alright Delano, strip down so I can see what I’m working with.”

“What-“ Danny almost had to bite his own tongue to not finish the sentence as he removed his shirt. You were honestly about to say ‘Whatever you want, Daddy.’ Jesus! Get it together. Roy slipped the corset over his head and began tightening from the back.

“It’s got to be tight, but you should still feel like you can breathe even if your heart is in your throat. I can’t be responsible for the death of yet another drag queen.” Danny laughed, and so did Roy.  

“Ok, now lean over and grab table, it’ll give me some more leverage to pull from and you’ll be a little more comfortable. Does that feel okay, the way I’m pulling? Is it too hard?”

Danny honestly couldn’t tell if Roy was doing this on purpose.

“Usually a guy buys me a pizza or at least a few beers before he’s bending me over and asking about how hard he’s going.”

He could literally feel Roy rolling his eyes behind him.

“Oh please, kid. In your dreams.”

Danny wasn’t sure, but he thought he could also feel Roy smile. How can I feel someone smile when I can’t even see their face?

Roy wasn’t wrong about the dreams, though. Danny already knew that he was going to have all kinds of fucked up sex dreams about Roy-as-Bianca-as-Ru and Roy-as-Bianca-as-Judge Judy and Roy-as-sexy AF Roy himself…good thing he wasn’t hung up on defining his own sexuality.

But what surprised Danny was when, later that night during the judge’s panel and his second time coming in second, he wasn’t upset like the day before. For the first time this whole competition, he felt truly proud of everything he’d done in the challenge AND on the runway.

The latter was in no small part due to Roy, who Danny got the distinct sense was proud of him, too. Danny could feel his smile – that smile he could some how sense even without seeing it – during all his critiques, and it helped him carry his confidence through Michelle’s comments about his dress length and wig. He stood a little bit taller and beamed a little bit brighter knowing Roy was even a little bit impressed with him.

Why do I care so much about what Roy thinks of me? This would remain a mystery to Danny for longer than he was proud to admit.

When the top and bottom queens walked back into the Untucked lounge, Danny stole a second away from the cameras to grab Roy and pull him aside. He hugged Roy tightly – did I hug him too tight? – and thanked him for his help.

“You just saved me from getting ripped a new asshole by Michelle, thank you so much B.” Stopping his impulse to say “baby” again, “B” seemed like a good catch-all that he could always say stood for Bianca.

“Please, you wish I would rip you a new asshole.” Roy broke out of the hug, and gave Danny a peck on the cheek. “You’ve got a lot going for you, Danny. You’re so talented and really very special. I’m glad I could help them see it, now it’s your job to remind them every time.”

Roy walked away while Danny hung back to savor the words for a minute. The most judgmental, honest person he’d ever met just told him he was talented and special. It took him a few seconds of head-in-the-clouds awe before he wandered into the Interior Illusions lounge and leaned himself onto a chair – Fuck, sitting in a corset is hard.

His buzz was quickly killed by the latest episode of Ganja drama, another round of accusations hurled equally at him and Roy from an incredibly insecure Jay. It actually distressed Danny to see Jay so upset, but at the same time he knew it was at least 50% bullshit and totally at his expense.

That Roy practically leaped to his defense (at least Danny saw it that way) only added to the mind-fuck of the day. The stranger he thought would be his biggest detractor was instead acting as more of a support system than the friend he usually counted on.

After the night’s cluster-fucked Untucked session – during which Danny allowed himself to really enjoy Roy’s humor for the first time, but was also accused of being heartless and cruel – and elimination, Danny was feeling pretty shitty. “Did you or did you not come for me?”-gate drained him completely, and he was genuinely sad to see Gia leave. Yes, had Gia spent the last few days rallying around Jay, but Danny knew that was just because G was incredibly empathetic and trying to help a girl out when no one else would. They had become good friends, and Danny was bummed to see someone he started to feel close to go home.

He was last on the van back to the hotel, and ended up sitting alone towards the front. He popped in his headphones and turned on some upbeat music, trying to drown out the negativity in his head: Even when you do well, you’re going to lose friends. This is like the fucking Hunger Games, you win or you die. Or is that Game of Thrones? Whatever, either way it sucks. Gia was rad. Oh god, things are only going to get worse with Jay. Now that he’s –

“You ok, kid?”

Danny’s spiraling thoughts were cut off by Roy, who had sat down next to him and plucked out one of his ear phones. He had a genuine look of concern on his face, but tried to mask it with an exaggerated eyebrow raise.

“Yeah, yeah totally fine.” Danny could feel his own expressionless face and quiet voice giving him away; as someone who was naturally so animated and loud, he knew he was transparent.

“Liar.” Roy scoffed and elbowed him in the side. “Hey, don’t let Jay get to you. He’s playing a game, not a very good one, but it’s just a game. I hope he figures out it won’t work before he self-implodes, it’s driving me out of my goddamn mind. And he’s going to lose a good friend in the process.”

Roy paused, and Danny could feel that he was waiting for a response. Danny wasn’t really sure what to say; Roy was right, but he didn’t want to talk about it anymore.

“Look, just keep doing what you’ve been doing the last two weeks.” Roy had grabbed his knee when he started the sentence, and Danny could’ve sworn he felt actual bolts of lightning shoot from that hand out through the rest of his body. “I meant what I said in the hallway – you’re unique and so fucking talented I can’t stand it. Get out of your own way – and if you forget how great you are, I’ll just keep reminding you.”

There was a squeeze of his knee and a genuine smile to punctuate the sentence.  Danny felt the lighting strike twice. Roy handed him back his headphone and stood up to take his old seat –

“Wait, stay up here.” What are you doing? Before he could stop his words or his actions, Danny grabbed Roy’s wrist and pulled him back down.

Roy obliged, and that was that. For the rest of the season it was always he and Danny in the front of the van together. Sometimes Greg and Shane would join them, but no matter what it was always Adore and Bianca riding together on the way back to the hotel – laughing, stressing, supporting, falling asleep on each other. He never told anyone, but those van rides were his favorite part about Drag Race. 

—

We danced the night away, we drank too much I held your hair back when You were throwing up

If the first 10 days felt like a millennium, the rest of the competition flew by in a heartbeat. At least that’s how it felt to Danny, but he suspected that was because every day was such a rollercoaster ride. From Snatch Game to Glitter Ball it was a total blur, a super stressful mix of his massive victories and equally massive failures. By the time they got down to the Final 4 and shooting the “Sissy That Walk” video, Danny felt like he had aged at least 15 years in the span of about 15 minutes.

But through it all Roy was his constant. He never quite ceased to be surprised by this fact. It gave him confidence (and something else) to know that he had a cheerleader in someone so discerning and masterful at the artistry of drag. Roy was always there with either a corset, a joke, a sewing kit or a hug –

Those hugs, man those hugs became like heroin to Danny. Anytime it was getting to be too much he could just sidle up to Roy, who would almost instinctively open his arms and wrap himself around Danny. It made him feel so safe and protected, but also built him back up; the Bianca Del Rio was willing to break her hard shell to comfort him, messy little Adore Delano, and that made him feel like he was special again.

So when Danny was the one hugging Roy, rubbing his back as he crouched over a toilet in Shane’s hotel room, it was a strange reversal of roles.

It all started after Greg’s elimination, which solidified Adore, Bianca and Courtney as the top 3 of Season 6. They were all devastated to see Darienne Lake sashay away, but Danny assumed that, like him, Roy and Shane were just so happy to make it to the finale.

“Guys, we need to celebrate. I know it sucks that Greg is gone, but holy shit we made it!” Danny tried to lighten the mood in the van. “Come on, we need to do something special. It’s our last night in the hotel, we have to make it special.” His knew his face was a-light with excitement, all a part of the Danny Noriega sure-fire pump-up experience.

“Ok you little party animal, what did you have in mind?” Shane got a mischievous look on his face, and Danny was instantly thankful that the Aussie was so down.

“It’s seriously our last night in sequester or whatever they call it. We should be able to do something, go out back in WeHo or –“

“I doubt they’ll let us go out, but maybe they’ll let us hang out together for once.” Roy, ever the practical one, joined in the scheming. “Danny, think you can charm the PA’s into letting us all bunk up in Shane’s room tonight?”

Roy thinks I’m charming? Danny’s thoughts were quickly interrupted.

“Ooh, a threesome? I never took you for a kinky one, Haylock.” Danny nearly spit out his water laughing at Shane’s comment. Roy in a threesome, yeah right.

“Don’t knock in ‘til you’ve tried it, kanga.” Roy winked at Shane, which shot a strange jolt through Danny that felt something like jealousy. “Danny, if you can get them to let us all crash together then we can use the Post-Its to order some Fireball – “

“And tequila!” Shane wasn’t going to let a night pass without tequila.

And it was tequila that led the holy trinity into several games of Never Have I Ever.

They decided from the outset that they’d play with 10 fingers to start – as Shane said, “More fingers are always better, and let’s face it we’ve all probably done everything.” They had made it through 2 rounds – Shane lost the first, and Roy the second – before changing the rules to include a shot for every finger they put down.

“You realize that means the loser is taking 10 shots, right? They teach math in Australia?” Danny could feel himself slurring his words a little bit.

“We’re pouring, like, half shots, you pussy! Not even half shots. Third shots, even. Fourths or eighths – I dunno, I can’t remember the stupid fractions. Point is they’re tiny and you need to just suck it up.” Shane laid out a stack of small tequila shots for them all.

“If you kill my chola I will murder you dead, Shane.” Roy, who was slurring the most at this point, draped an arm across Danny. “I’m from New Orleans, I know some dark Cajun mafia shit. Voodoo.” He hiccupped. “Don’t worry baby, I’ll take care of you.” Danny felt Roy moving closer to his face, whispering the last sentence into his ear.

15 questions into what would be the final game, and Roy and Danny were in a dead heat. Shane had lost total interest around question 5 – maybe not so much lost interest as passed out, Danny thought. But he and Roy were tied, each with only one digit left in their hands.

It was Roy’s turn to ask a question, and Danny could see the wheels in his head turning – slowly, drunkenly. There’s a reason you don’t operate heavy machinery while drunk.

In a flash, Roy sat up a little straighter. He let out a clearly self-satisfied huff and locked eyes with Danny.

“Alright, Danny. Daniel, if that even is your name. My question to you –“

“You don’t ask questions, idiot. You make a statement. Never have you ever –“

“No one likes a know-it-all, shut up. Ok, never have I ever – “ Roy suddenly dropped the snarky voice he’d been using to taunt Danny – “been with an older man.”

Danny was confused: one, he was pretty sure that was a lie, and two, Roy was staring at him really intensely when he said it. He was watching Danny closely, almost studying him while he waited for an answer.

“Well, I guess the game continues. Neither have I!” Danny was feeling triumphant – happy anytime he got to win in a game – but that quickly went away when he saw Roy. The normally bright, dimpled face he’d grown to adore had fallen completely. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought maybe Roy looked sad. That wasn’t quite right – Disappointed? Hurt? Danny was trying to figure it out when –

“Whatever, I lied. I’m out of fingers. Game over.” Roy grabbed the remaining baby shots – all 10 of them, which easily made 4 or 5 real ones – and slammed them down.

 "Jesus Roy, that’s straight tequila.” Danny didn’t know if he should be concerned or impressed.

The answer came not 10 minutes later, when Roy was hunched over that toilet. Danny sat next to him on the hotel bathroom floor, rhythmically stroking his back and humming absentmindedly while Roy wretched. Danny got lost in the motion, starting to trace abstract patterns into the fabric of Roy’s t-shirt. As he started to learn the layout of the taught muscles that made up his friend’s back…

Danny was snapped out of his little drawing session when he felt Roy humming under his touch. He didn’t notice at first, because of the vomiting that he was trying to ignore, but as the older man started to relax he began to almost purr every time Danny’s hands would cross certain places. Danny began to focus on those places, telling himself it was to comfort a friend and definitely NOT because he liked hearing Roy make those sounds…

“I’m sorry, kiddo. Sorry you have to take care of me, I can’t imagine this is how you wanted this night to go.” Roy got words out for the first time since he got sick, and of course they were kind and thoughtful.

“B, spending time with you is the best any night can go. Even if it means sitting here to make sure you don’t cough up a lung or break a hip.”

Roy chuckled, leaning himself away from the toilet and against the bathtub. Danny caught his eyes, trying to read them. It was a combination of exhaustion, affection, fear, and something else that Danny had never seen before.

“Are you ok, Roy? Seriously, are you?”

“Come on, I drink more than that on most Monday nights. Just exhausted from all of this.” Roy gestured to the nearly empty bottles.

“No, I know we’re basically murdering our own livers by mixing Fireball and Patron” – Danny was surprised by his own level of articulation with so much liquor coursing through his body – “but something else is up.”

“Well aren’t you a perceptive bitch? Don’t worry about it, it’s just…I….look, it’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“Why not? Shane’s passed the fuck out, it’s just me. You know you can tell me anything, I told you about the time I –“

“Don’t need reminding, Danny, but thanks. No, I just can’t…specifically…” Roy was staring to slur more, and his sentences were losing structure. “I can’t tell you, because…”

Danny thought he got it. Roy’s worried about the competition, he’s stressed about what’s going to happen next. That’s why he can’t tell me, because he thinks I’m burnt out enough myself and doesn’t want to add on. Or he because he wants to beat me.

“I get it, I do. You’re stressed about top 3. It’s a lot of pressure, or whatever. Look, Roy, we all know you’re going to win and take over the world, become something really amazing. Whatever you’re feeling, forget about it. It doesn’t matter, because you now what? You’re gonna be America’s Next Goddamn Drag Superstar.” 

Danny tried to read the expression on Roy’s face after his drunken attempt at a pep talk. There was a clear – and clearly faked – layer of happiness and appreciation trying to cover one of total disappointment and confusion.

“You’re right. I am gonna win, just like Laganja’s parents always said I would.”

And with that, Roy hoisted himself up off the bathroom floor and then lent Danny a hand to do the same. “We should probably go to sleep, since we all have to leave early tomorrow. Walk you back to your room?”

Danny saw those same wheels turning in Roy’s head, some drunk guy still running the machine. 

“If you’re sure you’ll be ok, then yeah. I think we leave Shane to handle the mess we made in the morning.”

Danny walked with Roy back to his own room. It was all of 50 steps, but Roy held his hand while they walked anyway. It might’ve seem strange to anyone else, but they were drunk and both known to be touchy-feely at any level of inebriation. 

Danny slid the keycard in the lock and opened the door. As he backed into his room, he felt Roy hover in the doorway. He looked up to see his friend staring at him, his sharp and deep eyes focusing with a burning intensity he had never seen before and couldn’t really define. It almost seemed like he wanted to pounce on Danny, to –

“Look, about tonight…” Roy slowly started into a commentary on how he should’ve taken the shots slower, how he hadn’t eaten, how bad he felt that Danny had to take care of him. “And I guess what I really wanted to say to you tonight was – “

“I know, you’re proud of me. Thank you for that, you changed my life and I changed yours. All that kumbaya shit.” Danny thought he knew exactly what Roy was going to say, and wanted to spare his Bianca façade the indignity of once again being kind. He wrapped his friend in a hug and kissed him on the cheek.

When Danny let go, he expected to see a relieved and ready-to-joke Roy. Instead he saw that same face from earlier – a little fake happiness haphazardly spread across something sad.

“Yeah, that’s it. I just wanted to say that I – I’m proud of you.” Roy grabbed both of Danny’s hands. “I really am.” He leaned in to kiss Danny on the cheek. He lingered longer than usual, but Danny wrote it off on the alcohol again.

Danny smiled. “Well thanks, Dad. Goodnight!” He meant it as a joke, but he got the distinct feeling Roy didn’t take it that way. Roy squeezed his hands – just like he had with his knee, all those weeks ago – and went back to his room.

Laying in bed and trying to sleep, Danny found himself confused. Why was Roy so weird at the end of the night, almost like he was sad or in a bad mood?

Again, this would remain a mystery to Danny for longer than he was proud to admit. He was never as perceptive as he thought he was.

[mrmichaelchadler]

Penny Marshall: 1943-2018

To some, she was the co-star of one of the most popular sitcoms of its era and a familiar face/voice on any number of shows over the years. To others, she was a trailblazing filmmaker who became the first American woman to direct a movie that made over $100 million at the box office, a feat she would repeat for a second time just a few years later. Whichever side of the camera she was working on, Penny Marshall was a consummate entertainer who could handle everything from the broadest slapstick comedy to serious drama, and her passing today at the age of 75 from diabetes complications will hit hard with anyone who encountered her work over the years.

Born Carole Penny Marshall in 1943, she grew up in the Bronx with a father who directed industrial films and a mother who was a tap dancer. After attending the University of New Mexico for a couple of years, marrying and divorcing her first husband Michael Henry and having a daughter, Tracy, Marshall moved out to Los Angeles to try her hand at show business. After doing some commercials, she made her film debut in a bit part in “How Sweet It Is” (1968), a film written and produced by her brother Garry, who had already established himself in the business, working on shows like “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” Over the next few years, she would make appearances in such films as the biker movie “The Savage Seven” (1968), the counterculture drama “The Grasshopper” and the cult comedy classic “Where’s Poppa?” (1970) as well as such TV shows as “Then Came Bronson,” “Love, American Style” and the immortal made-for-TV movie “The Feminist and the Fuzz” (1971). She auditioned for the role of Gloria Stivic on “All in the Family” but lost it to Sally Struthers (her then-husband Rob Reiner, who she married in 1971, did land the part of Mike Stivic).

Marshall's first big break came in 1972 when she was cast in the recurring role of Myrna, the secretary to Oscar Madison, during the last couple of years of the hit sitcom “The Odd Couple.” During and after the run of that show she turned up in any number of programs, including “The Bob Newhart Show,” “Banacek” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and was a regular on the well-reviewed but short-lived comedy “Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers.” In 1975, brother Garry was working on his enormously popular sitcom “Happy Days” and had written an episode involving a couple of Milwaukee brewery workers who served as dates for Fonzie (Henry Winkler) and Richie (Ron Howard); he decided to cast her and Cindy Williams, who had appeared opposite Howard in “American Graffiti” (1973), in the roles. The byplay between the two actresses was so apparent that Garry decided to spin the two characters off into their own series. That show, “Laverne & Shirley,” debuted in 1976 and was an immediate hit that lasted for eight seasons before going off the air in 1983 (with Marshall going it alone during the final season when Williams left due to a pregnancy). Sure, the show was pretty silly and inconsequential but Marshall and Williams threw themselves into the goofball material with such heedless glee, even the sternest of viewers couldn’t help but crack a smile every now and then.

While working on “Laverne & Shirley” as an actress, Marshall developed an interest in directing, helming four episodes of the series over the years as well as an episode of “Working Stiffs,” a little-seen 1979 sitcom that co-starred then-unknowns Michael Keaton and Jim Belushi. At a time when few women were granted the opportunity to direct major studio films, Marshall caught a break when she was hired to come in and take over the production of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” (1986) after director Howard Zieff departed shortly after filming began. The film, an action-comedy starring Whoopi Goldberg as an ordinary bank employee who becomes involved in international espionage after accidentally making contact with a British secret agent on the run from the KGB, is not especially memorable (other than the re-recording of the Rolling Stones hit that it was named after, as performed by Aretha Franklin and backed up by Keith Richards). But she managed to squeeze enough laughs out of the tired material (thanks to a game cast of comics like Belushi, Carol Kane, Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz, her “Laverne & Shirley” co-star Michael McKean and Tracey Ullman, whose breakthrough TV variety series she would direct an episode of the next year), suggesting she might do even better if she lucked into a better script.

As “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” proved to be a moderate box-office hit, Marshall was given another chance to direct: “Big” (1988), the fantasy-comedy about a 13-year-old boy (David Moscow) who makes a wish on a mysterious carnival machine to be big and wakes up the next morning as himself, only in the body of his 30-year-old self (Tom Hanks). At the time that this film was made, there was a weird mini-wave of films in which teenagers inhabited the bodies of grown-ups and vice-versa, most of them focused exclusively on the gimmick in the broadest of comedic terms. The genius of “Big,” however, is that once she established the premise, Marshall took the story in a more realistic direction, as the now-grown kid finds herself thrown into the seemingly unfathomable worlds of corporate politics and adult relationships and reacting to them with a direct openness that was both disarming and charming. Instead of turning into the kind of grotesque or cynical fable it might have been in lesser hands, Marshall created one of the most genuinely winning fantasy films of the decade. She also helped supercharge the career of star Tom Hanks (who received his first Oscar nomination for his work here) and even inspired countless numbers of toy store visitors to emulate its most iconic scene by tapping out “Heart & Soul” on a giant keyboard, as Hanks and co-star Robert Loggia did at FAO Schwarz.

"Big" was a smash, the aforementioned first film directed by a woman to gross over $100 million, and put her in the position where she could pretty much make anything that she wanted. Although she was presumably offered countless comedies, her next film proved to be something entirely different. This was “Awakenings” (1990), a film based on the book by Oliver Sacks that told the story of a doctor (Robin Williams) who successfully administered the drug L-Dopa to a group of patients who had been catatonic for decades, and of one such patient (Robert De Niro) who first had to deal with waking up in a new time in which all of his loved ones are long gone and then with the gradual realization that his seemingly miraculous recovery is only temporary. Again, Marshall took supremely tricky material that might have been unworkable in other hands and found an emotional core that allowed viewers to relate to the story without cheapening it, and showed an increasingly deft hand with actors with the fine performances that she got from her two leads. The film proved to be a surprise success with audiences and received Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actor for De Niro, although she was inexplicably passed over in the Best Director category.

Her next film, and arguably her best, was inspired by a 1987 documentary about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, a real-life women’s organization that was developed when Major League Baseball was threatened with a complete shutdown after America entered World War II. She put the makers of that film, Kelly Candaele and Kim Wilson, together with screenwriters Babaloo Mandel & Lowell Ganz to write what became "A League of Their Own." 

"A League of Their Own": Columbia Pictures

The film told of the league through the eyes of two sisters (Geena Davis and Lori Petty) who find themselves playing for the Rockford Peaches under the dubious managerial eye of Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), a former star and current drunk who is nevertheless inspired by the team (whose players include the likes of Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell) to straighten up and lead them to the World Series in which the two sisters now find themselves playing on opposite teams. In telling a story that simultaneously serves as a comedy, an emotional drama about the conflict between sisters and a peek into history that had until then been all but forgotten, Marshall found herself spinning a number of narrative and emotional plates throughout and pretty much managed to make them all pay off in a movie that inspired plenty of laughs. And despite the fact that, to quote the most famous line, “There’s no crying in baseball,” the film earned its tears. Although a period film about women’s baseball might not have seemed like the basis for box-office success, the movie was one of the surprise hits of the summer of 1992, once again allowing Marshall to break the $100-million barrier. To cement its reputation as an instant classic, the movie was entered into the United States National Film Registry—ensuring its continued preservation—in 2012.

After the triumph of “A League of Her Own,” Marshall’s subsequent screen output proved to be somewhat less successful, both commercially and artistically, but she still had some interesting moments here and there: “Renaissance Man” (1994) told the story of a recently unemployed advertising executive (Danny DeVito) who found himself teaching basic literacy classes to a group of semi-literate recruits at a local Army base. The film is little more than a rehash of “Dead Poets Society,” but is perhaps somewhat notable for featuring the big screen dramatic debut from Mark Wahlberg; “The Preacher’s Wife” (1996) was a theoretically unnecessary remake of the holiday classic “The Bishop’s Wife” (1947) that featured Denzel Washington as a suave angel who appeared in New York to help a struggling pastor (Courtney B. Vance) and his wife (Whitney Houston) make a go of their church in the face of personal and financial difficulties. Although not a patch on the original, it proved to be reasonably entertaining thanks to the charming performances from the three leads (with Houston delivering arguably the best performance as an actress). Her final directorial effort, “Riding in Cars with Boys” (2001), told the inspirational true story of a woman who went from being a teen mother to eventually earning her master’s degree. The film contained performances from the likes of Drew Barrymore, Brittany Murphy, and James Woods that were engaging enough to make you forget how formulaic it all was.

Although her career in front of the camera during this time was largely limited to small roles, two appearances stand out: In “Hocus Pocus” (1993), the weird Halloween kids movie that has gone on to become a cult favorite for reasons that continue to elude me, she turns up alongside brother Garry as a married couple (see what I mean about it being weird) who are visited by the three witches who assume that he is the Devil and she is Medusa in one of the few scenes that demonstrates any real comedic invention. In Albert Brooks’s underrated satire “Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World,” she plays herself in a hilarious opening scene where she perfunctorily interviews Brooks (playing himself) for the lead role in a remake of “Harvey” and cannot quite disguise her complete lack of interest in him. Perhaps most notably, she has gone down in the history books as the first celebrity to lend their voice to a character on “The Simpsons,” playing the nefarious Babysitter Bandit in an episode meant to serve as the show’s premiere until technical difficulties caused it to run as the finale of that first season.

Besides her success as a filmmaker and as an actress, Marshall received a number of other accolades over the years. She received three Golden Globe nominations for her work on “Laverne & Shirley,” was one of the recipients of the Elle Women in Hollywood Icon Awards in 1997 alongside Meryl Streep, Jane Campion and Laura Ziskin and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004. In 2012, she published her memoir My Mother Was Nuts, in which she recounted her long and groundbreaking career as an actress and a filmmaker, thoughtfully filling that book with plenty of amusing anecdotes about the people she met along the way. It's a work that's as funny, charming, unpretentious, and entertaining as the woman who wrote it. 

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