#One time a guy was having an asthma attack back stage

[nohalosinhell-archive]

I was a theatre kid, and I remember a few times on a few different shows when someone either forgot their cue or was having some kind of issue back stage such that they couldn't come on.

Look At This really captures that steadily increasing anxiety of saying and doing anything that comes to mind that's remotely in character and will distract the audience from realizing something's wrong.

[thefallennightmare]

Just Pretend-two

Parings: Noah Sebastian x Reader

Warnings/Tropes: language, angst, fluff, smut, star-crossed lovers, right person/wrong time, cheating, talks of mental abuse.

Summary: “I can wait for years, heaven knows I’m not getting over you.” A story about two star-crossed lovers, that always find their way back because their souls are entwined. The universe desperately attempts to bring them together, no matter what the cost.

Authors Note: y'all aint ready for this. Also, this story is going to jump a lot between Noah's and Readers(angel's) POV.

Collabing With: @thescarlettvvitch

Tags: @thescarlettvvitch @ozwriterchick @waake-meee-up @notingridslurkaccount @niicoleleigh @sammyjoeee @xxrainstorm @dominuslunae @notmaddihealy @malice-ov-mercy @crimson-calligraphyx @iknownothingpeople @writethrough @thebadchic @blackveilomens Claudia on Tumblr

EDITED TO ADD ON 7/24/2024: Hi everyone. I’ve noticed a lot of new readers on this series(which I am so thankful for). I thought to add this little edit to let you new readers know that Sarah(thescarlettvvitch) is no longer a collaborator on this series due to her own choice on leaving. Her decision to leave comes just before chapter 26, so wanted to let you all know that. Anywho, enjoy reading! ☺️

READER

With a long sigh, I did my best to adjust my shirt and hair in a way to cover the mark on my neck, even two layers of foundation did nothing to hide it. Trey didn’t care that I was about to go on stage with a deep red hickey on the side of my neck or the fact that my chest was covered in bite marks. It was his way of claiming me in front of all the guys that showed up tonight which was insane when he was the only one that had my attention. 

Bullshit. 

“I told you to take it easy,” I grumbled to Trey as he appeared from the back of the bus. 

He shrugged while balancing a cigarette on his lips as he worked on buttoning his pants. His hair was a mess of waves thanks to my fingers running through it just a few moments ago but Trey didn’t bother to fix it. 

“Calm down, babe. It’s not like I haven’t marked you before,” he said while walking past me and smacking my ass. 

“That’s not the fucking point, Trey,” I seethed. “You didn’t have to leave that dark of a mark.” 

Trey lit the cigarette and blew the smoke out inside of the bus and I hastily waved it out of my face, the anger for him intensifying. 

“Have you lost your mind?! You know Malcolm has asthma, if he breathes in the smoke it’ll make him have an attack!” 

“Not my problem,” he shrugged then trotted down the stairs. 

What an ass. 

I stayed inside the bus for a few extra long moments trying to center myself by taking deep breaths and hopefully, letting Trey get a head start to wherever he was headed. 

The soundcheck went alright, it could have been worse, but thankfully Trey wasn’t completely wasted and could still perform. But that meant nothing for the next three hours until we went on stage. Who knows where he is headed right now?

During soundcheck, I noticed that while Bad Omens were bringing in their equipment, Noah’s gaze would linger on us every time he dropped something off. I thought I was the only one until Trey practically dragged me back to the bus to fuck his frustrations out. 

It wasn’t terrible. I’ve had worse but definitely could have been better. At least I was able to get off; sometimes Trey would be two pumps and done then move on to whatever else he had planned in his day.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and when I checked the message, I let out a loud snort at the text message from Chase.

Get your loner ass in the green room. Malcolm and I are hanging with Bad Omens.

I ducked into the bathroom to check myself in the mirror, smoothing down the few strands of hair that strayed out and tripled checked that the hickey on my neck wasn't that noticeable. On my way out of the bus and into the venue, I sent Trey a text letting him know to be back by six before doors opened; he of course left me on read.

As I neared the green room, loud voices carried down the hallway and when I walked through the doorway, many sets of eyes fell on me.

"Jeez, don't stop your conversations on my account. Makes me wonder what the hell you were talking about," I joked while falling onto the couch between Chase and Nick.

"Do I want to ask?" Chase ran a finger over the mark on my neck.

I smacked his hand away, hoping no one would notice. "You know how he is, Chase. It's nothing."

Chase was a really good friend of mine, had been for the last six years, and he was someone I could always confide in when things with Trey weren't that great; which was a lot. In the beginning, Chase would listen and offer advice that would strengthen my relationship with Trey. But now, I had a feeling Chase wanted to strangle Trey.

"He treats you like shit, Y/N," he ran a hand over his buzzed head. "You deserve better."

I ran my hands over my jeans and looked around the room when I felt a pair of eyes burning deep inside of me. My breath caught in my throat when I caught eyes with Noah, who was sitting on the couch across from me. Suddenly under his intense gaze I felt warm all over so I quickly shed off my sweatshirt and tossed it over the back of the couch behind me.

Nick peered down at my arm as he traced over the random tattoos on my skin, small smile pulling at his lips.

"Oh, please don't look at these. I got these stupid designs of a flower and stems when I was eighteen," I groaned. "I thought it would be so cool to get my entire arm covered in it."

He shook his head, still smiling. "No, the design looks sick. I just didn't know you had tattoos."

"Yeah, I tend to hid them only because-."

The words fell from my lips when I realized I did not want to finish that sentence in front of all the guys.

Malcolm snorted as he had no problem finishing my sentence. "Because Trey hates her tattoos. He thinks she should look pure and innocent for the band."

My eyes sliced into Malcolm. "That's not true."

"Right," it was Chase now who spoke. "Then why does he make you wear long sleeves for the shows and media pictures?"

I bounced my knee with newfound anger at my band mates for bringing up something personal in front of four strangers: to me anyway.

"Fuck this," I grumbled while rising to my feet. "I'm going to hang out on the bus until the show starts."

As I walked past the couch where Noah sat, his fingers brushed against the skin of my palm and electricity shot through my entire body. My nerve endings were buzzing with a sense of warmth that I'd never felt before. Every single cell in my body craved to feel this alive every second of the day and the way my heart pounded in my chest, I was afraid that Noah could hear how just his touch alone affected me.

I looked down at him, his long hair falling around his face in waves of chocolate locks, and his gaze traced over the tattoos on my left hand before jumping to my right arm. I was in such a trance that I didn't notice the way his eyes sparkled or when his deep voice echoed in my ears.

"Kaonashi."

My eyes blinked when the trance was broken. "Huh?"

Noah pointed to the tattoo on my arm. "From Spirited Away."

"You know Spirited Away?" I asked with so much excitement it was almost embarrassing.

"Yeah," he chuckled. "I'm actually a huge anime nerd. I have a Naruto tattoo on my knuckle."

I gasped while forcing Malcolm, who protested with a loud shout, to scoot off of the couch so I could sit next to Noah.

"No fucking way!"

Not even realizing I did it, I grabbed Noah's hand to trace over the small tattoo on the knuckle of his right hand.

"The leaf village!" I giggled. "That's so sick."

My attention was fully on drinking in the sight of the other arrays of tattoos on Noah's hand that I didn't even notice the way he was watching me, so much brightness and life in his eyes. The tattoos covered almost every inch of skin on his hands, arms, and fuck-even his neck was tattooed.

I'd love to run my tongue across the apple.

What the fuck? Why did I even think that?

Clearing my throat, I peered up at him through my lashes to give him a sheepish smile. "I'm sorry for freaking out like this. It's just no one else watches anime so I don't really have anyone to talk to about this kind of stuff."

Noah immediately waved me off. "No, it's alright. I'm always down to talk about anime anytime you want."

My heart did that little flutter it did earlier when I saw him for the first time and just like that time, I forced the feeling away. This feeling was new, unknown, and it scared me it felt so intense when I was around Noah.

I fell back into the couch with a small smile. "I haven't watched that movie in so long. It's my all-time favorite. I can't tell you how many times I watched it while growing up."

"Do you want to watch it?"

My brow raised. "Now?"

Noah shrugged. "The show doesn't start for a few hours and we've got some time to kill."

"Okay," I smiled, my knees bouncing in excitement. "Yeah, sure. Let me grab my laptop and we can watch it in here."

Not wanting to waste any more time, I practically jumped from the couch and left the room.

NOAH

With fire dancing behind my eyes, I watched Y/N leave the room, gaze lingering on the door for a few extra beats until Jolly's voice forced me to look at him.

"Did you say something?" I asked.

He smirked. "You two seem to be getting along quite well."

"We just have something in common," I rolled my eyes to show that I didn't care that much.

Even though my stomach was doing flips at the thought of spending more time with her. Finding out she was big into anime like me shouldn't have made a goofy smile spread to my lips but it did. From what I knew of her online, which wasn't much, I noticed that almost every media picture or concert video that was posted, Y/N had her tattoos covered up. I always thought it was the look she was going for but finding out that it was because Trey wanted her to keep up the image of looking innocent and pure made my throat burn.

Another thing I noticed? The giant red hickey on the side of her neck that was barley covered by makeup. Chase gave her shit for it when she first got here and that's when I heard her defend Trey for how nasty the hickey was.

"It's who he is." Her words replayed in my mind.

He sounds like a fucking prick.

We met Trey a few months back at a bar in Los Angeles where to no one's surprise; he was drunk and had some girl hanging off of his arm that wasn't Y/N. Though, we had no idea they were dating so to us, it could have been some random hook up. This was also before we knew we would tour with Hollow Souls. Trey knew who we were from word of mouth around the record label but from the moment we met that night, he had a sour taste in his mouth when it came to us.

Trey wouldn't admit it but Folio thinks it's because the record label was putting more of their attention on Bad Omens lately than Hollow Souls.

"All I'm saying is, be careful," Jolly spoke.

I sighed while brushing my hair away from my eyes. "We're watching a movie, Jolly. Not fucking on the couch in front of everyone."

Then the door opened behind me, halting whatever Jolly was going to say, and Y/N walked in with the largest smile on her face I'd think I'd ever seen someone have. My own matched when I noticed she threw on a Spirited Away sweater.

"What?" She shrugged when she noticed me staring. "I thought it was only fitting to wear it."

I patted the spot next to me where she previously sat and waited as she loaded up the movie. While the others had their own conversations, Jolly kept a curious eye on us.

"You know," I spoke as we waited.

"Hm?" She hummed in response but kept her attention on finding the movie.

Nerves ate away at me as I tried to find the correct way to say these words without coming across as weird or offensive. I've talked to plenty of girls throughout my life so why was I nervous to talk to her?

"I think you should show off your tattoo's more," I spoke slow at first, as if to test the waters.

That made her turn her head towards me, one brow raised to her hairline. "Oh, you do?"

I shifted in my spot on the couch, trying to look calm and collected. Not wanting her to realize that the way her eyes twinkled or how her bottom lip that was caught between her teeth was making me hard in places that shouldn't be hard right now; especially with her sitting right next to me.

"They're beautifully done. It's a fucking shame that you have to hide them because Trey wants you to look innocent for the band. I mean, has he even heard your lyrics or understood the deeper meaning to them?"

"Shit," she blushed and looked down at her lap. "Please don't analyze my lyrics. It's one thing when I sing them in front of a crowd but having a deep conversation about them in another thing entirely. I get so embarrassed."

"Seriously? Why?"

She shrugged. "I-uh, I think it's because people believe I don't write my own lyrics but I do. I spent hours some nights writing one song to make it perfect. Everyone thinks it's Trey, but all he does is scream the parts I tell him too. The rest is all me."

Taking her laptop from her, I placed it on the other side of the couch next to me then made her turn to face me. Meeting Y/N of Hollow Souls was on my bucket list but having deep conversations about her lyrics was at the top.

"In Your Touch Awakens, you talk about how the touch alone from someone ignites the fire within your soul. It makes your body shake with the aftershocks of a night full of hot passion."

The blush intensified to a deep shade of red but still refused to meet my gaze.

"The lyrics in One Night is a promise to spend the last night on earth with a man you only just met," I said.

Wouldn't that be fucking nice?

Ignoring the thought, I continued on. "Don't even get me started on Desperation for Our Sins. I could go into heavy detail about those lyrics."

"He has, multiple times," Folio nodded from his spot on the floor, halting his conversation with Malcolm.

I narrowed my eyes at him playfully. "That's because the lyrics are that fucking good. It's my favorite song."

"So screw Trey for thinking you should remain innocent for the band. Show everyone that this," I motioned to her. "Isn't something that should be covered up. And I mean that in the most respectful way possible, Y/N."

By now she was meeting my gaze and I could see that her eyes were wet but she did her best not to let the tears fall so instead, she blew out a shaky breath.

"Fuck, Noah. I might have to add Desperation for Our Sins on the set list just for you," she ended her words with a chuckle.

My fingers brushed over her knee, almost a subconscious action. She noticed with the way her body tensed but she didn't move away. In fact, she leaned into the touch.

"All I'm saying is, have fun when you're on stage. Come alive out there." I said.

It was the truth. Every video I've seen of a Hollow Souls concert, Y/N stayed on her side of the stage, while Trey moved around, jumping and spinning. I wanted to see that from her and made a promise to myself this tour that I would help her break out of this shell she had encased herself in.

"Tha-," her soft voice was cut off by the door to the room bursting open, almost slamming against the wall.

Trey stumbled inside, the air of the room shifting to an uncomfortable level. His eyes scanned around until it fell directly on Y/N and I, who were still sitting quite close and my hand still on her knee.

"What the fuck?" Trey spat. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

Her face twitched into a scowl and slowly rose to her feet. "You could have answered my texts then."

I was on the edge of my seat, not knowing exactly what he would do, but marveled at the way she stood toe to toe with Trey.

"What's going on here?" He motioned to the group. "A little pow wow without me?"

Y/N rolled her eyes. "Stop being a dick."

Trey smirked. "If I recall, you were begging for my dick earlier."

I averted my gaze from her down to the ground and rested my arms on my knees. My heart stuttered in my chest as jealousy fill my veins, something I didn't want to feel.

"Screw you," she scolded while pushing past Trey to leave.

He quickly grabbed her hand to stop her which made my jump to my feet. Trey chuckled darkly towards me all while keeping a grip on Y/N's hand.

"Oh, that's cute. Let me guess, she told you the story about how much she loved that stupid fucking anime movie? Unlike you, that pussy story didn't work on me. Do yourself a favor, Noah, stay the fuck away from her."

"Trey, stop it," Y/N quietly begged.

Not daring to back down, I tucked my hands deep into the pockets of my jeans and shrugged a shoulder

"I'm not doing anything, Trey. We were just talking."

"Right," he snorted before throwing Y/N's hand away from him, stalking out of the room alone.

"Asshole," she grumbled under her breath then turn towards me. "I'm so sorry about that."

My knuckle brushed against the patch of skin where Trey grabbed her. "It's not your fault."

"But it is," she nodded. "I know how he gets."

"Do you want to watch?" I pointed to the laptop. "Help get your mind off of him?"

I could see the internal battle behind her eyes as she fought with what she wanted to do and what she thought she had to do.

"I should go make sure he's alright," she threw a thumb over her shoulder. "But give me a few minutes and I'll be back. We can watch then."

I ignored the way my heart fell into my stomach but agreed with a smile. "Sure."

Once gone, I fell back onto the couch, as my body vibrated with so much energy and anger, I had to force myself to stay in the room and not run after her.

"Is he always like this?" Folio asked.

Chase answered with a long breath. "Unfortunately. We've talked about Trey to the label on countless occasions but they won't do anything until after the tour. And that's a big IF."

Malcolm gave a weak smile. "We've tried to ignore it but it's starting to get out of hand; the drinking and the way he treats Y/N."

"Have you guys even tried to stop it?" I snapped.

"Believe us, Noah. We have," Chase narrowed his eyes at me. "Trey is so far gone there's no reasoning with him. Y/N is no different. She won't listen to us. She'll defend him until her last breath, its disgusting."

My fists clenched at my sides as I waited not so patiently for her to return by pacing the room. Five minutes past with no sight of her but before I could go find her, Nick's voice called after me.

"Noah, don't."

I ran a hand over my jaw. "I’m not gonna get involved, I just wanna make sure she’s okay. Fuckin prick smelled like Vodka.”

As I followed the angry voices, I came to a halt halfway down the hallway when I noticed Trey practically foaming at the mouth as he scolded Y/N.

"Why the fuck was he so close to you?"

She pinched her eyes shut. "We were just talking."

"Bullshit," Trey spat, literally, to the ground at her feet. "No man wants to just talk to you, Y/N. Wake the fuck up and realize he wants you!"

She choked on a laugh. "You're fucking delusional. You're seeing something thats not there."

Well..

"Don't be a dumbass. It's not a cute look for you, babe."

With a quick glance my way, Trey saw me standing a few feet behind Y/N, who didn't notice me. So with a smug smile, he threw an arm over her shoulders and led her through a door that led outside.

"I can think of a few ways you could make it up to me."

NOAH

A yawn escape from my lips as I shut the door to the trailer shut before bidding a goodbye to the crew as they were getting ready to head to the next city. The first show of the tour went great, Bad Omens putting on a killer show like we usually do. But most the fans were there to see Hollow Souls, who undoubtedly brought the energy. We watched them from the side stage but even with my words earlier, Y/N didn't break out of her shell or come alive on stage. She remained in place, wearing a long-sleeved dress and black thigh-high boots.

She looked absolutely Devine on stage. How her face was stone while she sang her parts, eyes closed in concentration. There were a few strands of hair that fell from her ponytail into her face but none of it bothered her as she was in the zone on stage.

Of course, she didn't watch our set, only coming back into the venue right before Hollow Souls went on. According to Malcolm, her and Trey stayed on their bus until the last possible second. I thought about going and finding her to wish her a great job tonight but knew that it would only make things worse for her with Trey.

"Noah, you ready?" Nick called out form the window of our bus.

With one final glance to the empty parking lot then to Hollow Souls bus, I let out a breath and nodded.

"Yeah."

But before I could ascend the stairs to our bus, my name was called from behind and noticed Trey walking towards me. Instantly my body tensed with the need to fight but did my best to keep cool.

"I know what you're doing!" He bellowed.

I raised a brow at him. "Standing in front of my bus?"

"No, smartass. I know you've been watching my girl all night," Trey got right up in my face, chest to chest.

"Back up, Trey," I ordered with my hands outstretched. "I'm not going to fight you."

The difference in our heights was almost laughable. Even in my flat tennis shoes, I towered over Trey by a few inches.

“Just know, I see it. And it's not going to happen. We’re gonna do this fucking tour cause the label said we can’t cut the fucking contract. But just know, this thing you want with Y/N isn't going to happen," Trey said angrily.

With one final glare, he rammed his shoulder into me as he brushed past towards his tour bus, where Y/N stuck her head out the door to give us a concerned eye.

"Everything alright?" She wondered.

Trey plastered a fake smile then brought her in for a heated kiss, one that at first she looked uncomfortable with but then she melted into his body, her fingers running through his hair.

"Lets get you to bed, baby. It's been a long day."

"Mother fucker," I gritted out through clenched teeth as the door to their bus shut.

[nottoonedin]

An ALNST Theory/Hypothesis/Over-analysis/Interpretation of events

AKA: Me slowly descending into madness over an animated web series-

(Btw this is mostly just for fun, don't take it too seriously lol)

(TW: Death, Blood)

Long post warning:

I assume we've all seen the newest posts that Vivinos has put out on their YT community tab (or wherever you get your ALNST updates), and the one that everyone is obviously talking about is the post titled <CURE>

And.. yeah, of course, just goes to show that Round 6 is just around the corner (I am screaming internally) and the attention is going to be focused on Ivan and Till, and how their story will progress (or end, depending on if someone's gonna die, which seems likely, unfortunately).

But the post that really caught my attention.. was this fucking post:

When I first saw it, in my mind I thought ''Haha, how cute and goofy! This is exactly how I saw their dynamic!'' and went on with my day.

But after thinking about it for a while, my brain decided to think up this wonderfully awful thought:

''What if Hyuna (unintentionally) had a hand in what happened to Hyun-woo?''

Now, at first, this sounds fucking crazy. The general consensus (from what I've seen) is that Luka killed Hyun-woo. But I do see some parallels between this post and the incident in Round 5 which might help explain what actually happened, but first:

Why I don't think Luka would have been able to kill Hyun-woo:

Luka is DEFINETELY not known for his muscles or strength, I mean look at him:

He's like a sickly Victorian child, not to mention his asthma, chronic migraines and heart disease. I don't believe Hyun-woo has any health problems (not that I know of anyways), so I feel Luka would have a hard time trying to push Hyun-woo over so he'd fall onto a rock. To put it simply, Hyun-woo could most likely beat Luka in a fight, unless someone interfered in some way...👀

Luka's ''fighting'' tactic:

With the parallels between The Trio doodle and Round 5, I've noticed there's a pattern with how Luka gets rids of his ''opponents'', be it on stage or outside of it (*cough* Hyun-woo *cough cough*).

He initiates the attack, it being mentally or physically depending on his opponent. He's subtle about it however, the only one being aware of his antagonism being the one he's antagonising, preserving his perfect, can-do-no-wrong persona.

2. Obviously, the opponent retaliates. But, of course, Luka expects this, it's what he wants, after all. He knows he'll be seen as the victim by onlookers. How could anyone hurt such a precious, weak, defenseless little guy??🥺🥺He doesn't even bother to fight back at all (may be too weak to).

3. A stronger force, seeing Luka in ''distress'', steps in and takes care of the attacker (the opponent), avenging Luka, who they see as the victim. He isn't the type to do it himself, letting others do his dirty work.

Now, let's apply this to the flashback in the All-In MV..

What may have happened to Hyun-woo:

Luka may have said something to Hyun-woo that deeply distressed/angered him, or perhaps Hyun-woo knew about what Luka did to Hyuna.

2. Angry, Hyun-woo attacks Luka.

(I'd also like to note that in this frame, Luka looks more like he's just had someone pulled off him, rather than he's just attacked and pushed someone over onto a rock.)

3. Hyuna finds Hyun-woo attacking Luka and, naturally seeing Luka as the victim, tries to break them apart (which would have been hard if Hyun-woo was super pissed). There's a struggle, and.. well...

Hyuna accidentally kills Hyun-woo, which doesn't bother Luka. Just means his opponent has been eliminated. As far as he's concerned, Luka wins.

Final Thoughts:

Does this theory leave a lot of questions? 100%. For example, if this theory was true, why would Hyuna be so angry at Luka? Does she later find out about his manipulative nature? How? On the stage perhaps? I find this unlikely, however, since I don't believe Hyuna ever went on stage and escaped beforehand, due to a post Vivinos made a while back:

Can this theory be easily debunked? Oh, ABSOLUTELY (I hope it is debunked in canon, to be honest lol). But it does give ideas for some angsty fanfics, I believe hehehe-

For real though, Alien Stage is all up to interpretation. Some questions may never be answered. It leaves room for different ideas, which is one thing I love about the series. <3

Thank you for reading my batshit little ramble/theory!! Hope ya'll have an awesome day/night!

[belong2human-kind]

Hey guys, Clara here 🫂

This is a venting post, it has some TWs: cancer illnesses, mentions of trauma and mental disorders.

I've been very off from tumblr, feeling pretty detached from pretty much anything lately. I'm not even sure if I'm going through another depressive episode or just life itself has been pretty tough, maybe both.

I always talk about how bad OCD, generalized anxiety and ADHD get my routine and my life really messed up, but there are more things, some that only a few here know because I am always really scared to talk about, mostly because of OCD. I have a lot of different themed obsessions, but one of them includes mystical thinking ("If I say this, it will happen" or "I can't sing, write or mention the word de a th completely or I'll lose someone" etc.)

Some days, I am feeling way better about these things and I even manage to write about it, but on others, not so much. So, as I mentioned here before, I can't say the phrase, but my closest family person is facing a stage 4 cancer right now, and things have not been going the best. I lost my dad to covid at the same year and month this person discovered the cancer, same month, she also had covid at the same time. And now her brother is terminal stage on cancer too. I have the historical of this disease on both sides of my family, VERY strongly. My family isn't very united and they are not so young, plus the heavy cancer history; I fear almost everyday I'll lose everyone and end up alone, also not to mention the fear of developing it too 🥲

Because of OCD and my fears, I cannot mention who the person is, but some might have an idea by what I said, and I guess two people here know because I can talk privately about, OCD just won't allow me to mention it "public" (I know it makes no real sense, but OCD never have made any). Well, things are going pretty hard. I feel really lost :')

Lately my chronic issues have been out of control: constant asthma attacks and my asthma was so much more controlled, more rhinitis and sinusitis pain than ever that won't ever stop, not even after 4 or 6 meds, more nauseous, more insomniac (almost 3 months very badly sleep deprived because of nightmares of all these trauna :'c ), forgetting to eat, skipping classes, 0 notion of time and space progression... And after all of that, I'm still dealing with an old childhood trauma too :'c it's been too tough. I hope I can make out of this, honestly. Life has been a nightmare. Trying to find strength to face all of this :')

I haven't forgotten any of you, and I hope I'll find back motivation to be active and interact. I love this community and I feel so welcomed by everyone 🫂

Miss you all and hope you're all doing well 🫂🌻

[rad-rat-with-a-tophat]

If you still happen to be taking prompts, 46 for richjake or boyf riends?

i will be taking prompts for as long as this blog remains my friend

sorry if this sucks by the way.

Jeremy was fine. He was just fucking peachy in fact. He totally wasn't panicking over his huge gay crush on his best friend, Michael Mell.

It was the middle of winter break and as per usual, Jeremy and Michael were him the latter's basement playing video games and being stupid teenage boys.

Being stupid teenage boys largely meant Jeremy looking after his slightly high best friend. Jeremy had tried weed once but since he had week-ass lungs and asthma that did not end up well for him. At all. Seriously, he had an asthma attack. It sucked.

So now Jeremy was trying to pick up the trash off the basement floor while Michael dozed on a bean bag.

"Jeeeeeremyyyyy," He whined, face smushed into the bean bag, "You don't have to pick the trash up, my moms' don't care,"

Jeremy started carrying empty soda bottles to the recycling bin upstairs, "Yeah but your moms' are super cool and I don't want to inconvenience and if I didn't pick the trash up and I'm pretty sure they'd hate me." He said, halfway up the stairs.

He quickly went to the kitchen and dumped the bottles into the recycling bin. Michael's moms may be super cool but Jeremy is still an anxious mess so he'd rather not talk to anyone who isn't Michael or any of their assorted friends.

When he got back to the basement, Michael is still lying on the bean bag.

In Jeremy's humble, very bisexual, and heavily biased opinion Michael looked absolutely adorable right now. His dark hair was messed around, his glasses slightly skewed, and he looked so huggable.

Yes, yes, Jeremy did know he was pathetic, but in his defense Michael was literally perfect in every single way. He was his longest and closest friend, he cared so fucking much, and the fact that he was arguably the moat cuddle-able person on the planet helped.

And he was looking straight at Jeremy. Great.

"You have been standing there for like an hour," He stated.

Jeremy was panicking but when wasn't he panicking?

"It actually was like thirty seconds... So, um, you're wrong?" He said uncertainly.

Michael mulled this over for a second.

"Yeah, no, but whatever. Wanna deathmatch in Spelunky?" He asked, beckoning to the second beanbag.

Jeremy snorted, "You're setting yourself up for failure. I spent the time when you were in the Philippines over the summer fucking mastering this game."

Spelunky was a simple 2d video game where you'd choose a character and explore abandoned caves. Spelunky also had a deathmatch option where you could fight other players, whic is what the pair tended to prefer.

It was the one thing Michael was bad at and Jeremy basked in his superiority at a random video-game.

"What the fuck. What the actual fuck. This is stupid and I hate it. I fucking quit." Michael had announced after Jeremy had beaten him the tenth time in a row.

Jeremy had just laughed and stuck his tongue at him.

Michael shot him a glare. "Don't you fucking dare gloat. You know what, switch to adventure mode, by yourself. From the beginning. Let's see how braggy you are then."

Jeremy smiled at Michael, switching the game mode and satisfied knowing that he had already beaten the game just in case something like this happened.

Jeremy was half-way through the third stage when something heavy plopped into his lap.

It was Michael.

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. This isn't a big deal. You guys have had physical contact many times. This is normal, Jeremy thought to himself.

So why does this feel different?

Just then, his tiny little 2d figure died on screen.

Michael turned his head to Jeremy.

And, Oh my goodness. His freckles. His fucking freckles!

Michael was close enough that you could see the freckles that dusted his light brown skin. His hair was soft, fluffy, and perfect. His warm brown eyes peered up at Jeremy through his dirty glass lenses.

"Dude, you just died." Michael stated.

While trying (and failing) to fight back his blush, Jeremy answered, "I did- I did in fact, um, die. Yup!"

Michael narrowed his eyes at him, scanning Jeremy's face. This only made his blush grow, climbing from his neck to his cheeks.

Great. More blusing.

"Yeah well, don't do it again." Michael said.

Jeremy awkwardly grinned, "I won't dude,"

"Good," Michael huffed, dragging his entire body onto Jeremy''s bean bag until he was basically lying on top of him, his head pressed into Jeremy's chest.

His blushing dialed from fifty to five-thousand real quick, as well as his heart beat speeding up drastically.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, can he hear my heartbeat? Oh my go what of he can? What if he can? Would he be able to realize I like him? And if he did how-

"Dude, chill," Muttered Michael, breaking Jeremy's nervous inner monologue.

Yeah okay, he could do that? Right?

Michael started shuffling, trying to get more comfortable and ended up placing his head on left shoulder, breath tickling Jeremy's neck.

Yeah he could absolutely not be chill about this. When your crush of almost a year starts cuddling on you you're not gonna be fucking chill! Who would?!

Before Jeremy could organize his thoughts, his instincts took over and placed a soft kiss on the top of Michael's head.

What the fuck?! Why did I do that?! Why did I think that was a good idea! Hell, did I even think?!

Before Jeremy could stammer out an apology, Michael made a content little sigh, looked up at Jeremy and nodded, as if something just clicked in head and Jeremy's heart melted before a fragment of a sound could leave his mouth.

Michael pulled himself up and sits criss-cross on Jeremy's lap.

He stared into Jeremy's eyes, and Jeremy could feel himself heating up and his heart about to beat through his chest.

Michael swallows, "Hey, Jeremy?" He asked.

Jeremy stares back, the video game completely forgotten.

"Yeah, Michael?" He asked, his breath coming out quick and short, his heart feeling like a hummingbird, pounding in his rib cage.

"What happens if I do this?" Michael asked before softly placing his lips into Jeremy's.

Jeremy froze. No thoughts, no rambling, no nothing.

Though he's frozen in shock he notices when Michael starts to tense up and his brain lets him actually talk.

"Apparently, I get really flustered and freeze up."

Michael looked at Jeremy, scanning his face for rejection and disgust.

"Not I mind or anything," Jeremy continued, "Just unexpected, you know?"

Michael grinned, "It would suck ass if my crush since seventh grade hated me for kissing him so..."

Jeremy look at Michael, bewildered, "Seventh grade? That's like, a long time. I've barely been able to survive a year!"

Michael laughed, "Yeah you learn to get used to it you know. Now, are you ever gonna finish this stage?" He looked at Jeremy, smirking a stupid, endearing, little smirk.

Jeremy glared at him, "You know what? Fuck you," He said, pushing Michael off the beanbag. At that both of them started laughing, finding themselves unable to stop.

@gay-stranger-things don't know if this what you meant by wanting me to tag you in "more" but you weren't clear so that's kinda on you.

[travelingtwentysomething]

I have an interesting story about a play I went to. I'm not a big theatre buff, but I DO love storytelling in all it's forms. My (25 at the time) younger sister (20 at the time) was in a college theatre class and had to go to at least 3 or 4 plays at smaller theaters that were on the list for her class and she did not want to go alone. We saw one in a literal classroom setting that was an interactive comedy and the players were dressed as nuns about the Catholic school experience. We saw Steel Magnolias (they sprayed so much hairspray in the small theater my sister had an asthma attack and we left at intermission), and we saw another play.

I cannot for the life of me remember the name, though I think it was some play on something celestial like comets or falling stars, I really have no clue. It was in a small, intimate theatre, like our old high school Black Box, 3-4 rows of chairs on risers encircling a round stage in the middle. (This was in Dallas, Texas, pretty nice theatre downtown, and I don't know if it was a widely known sort of play, so if anyone knows the play I'm about to describe please message me about it lol)

The plot centered around a couple, one man, one woman, and all I remember is the woman ended up having cancer and it was very moving. So moving in fact that I was crying silently from pretty early, tears just flowing. My sister loved to make fun of me for crying at movies and when she noticed me sniffling in the silent, intimate theatre she bumped my shoulder and made eye contact with me, smiling a shit eating grin, and I could see in her eyes she was making fun of me. I forgot myself for a second and, rolling my eyes at her, whispered on a little groan and a chuckle to her silent mocking, "shut up, I can't help it!" Just loud enough that people around me turned to look at me and some people all around the theatre giggled at our interaction, at a SAD point in the dialogue, so giggling was NOT appropriate.

It was very quiet in the theatre, people all the way across the circle had giggled, I should not have said anything, I was so embarrassed I called that much attention to myself. I turned back to the stage and the actors both continued on professionally, but very quickly, both made eye contact with me. And then for the rest of the play, as tears just rolled and rolled down my face, they KEPT looking. I noticed they looked around at the audience all around them occasionally, but it seemed very much like they looked at me more often. Watching me cry and cry and cry through the whole play, enraptured by their performances. It really was a beautiful love story, and so freaking sad I just couldn't stop.

At one point, the climax of the play, the woman had died, the guy was tearing up, crying in the story, and for about 60 whole seconds (which is soo SO long to make eye contact with someone, especially while you're CRYING), he looked to me and he cried with me while he delivered his lines. It was weird and beautiful and cathartic.

At the end of the play everyone stood up and clapped for them, the two actors bowed around the room, and their last bow, they both made eye contact with me at the top, back row, and bowed to me. It was a singular experience I will never, ever forget.

Then everyone came down off the risers and were, to my surprise, going down to shake the actors hands and speak with them for a moment, almost as if in a line to say goodbye before leaving, and some just stood around talking and asking the actors questions and stuff.

My sister and I got out of there so fast, she was so embarrassed by the attention I had called to us, and I was embarrassed I cried so much in public, and felt overwhelmed with the attention from the actors. I was too embarrassed to make eye contact with them up close and personal. I kind of wish now that I had gone to speak with them though and thanked them. I wouldn't have any idea what to say to them, but now I'm curious what they may have said to me. Either way, it's a night I'll never forget for the rest of my life.

love shakespeare. did a hamlet run tonight, looked someone dead in the eye to say “am i a coward?” during a speech and the fucker shrugged and nodded

[wahlpaper]

If It Makes You Happy Review

If It Makes You Happy by Claire Kann

CW: Racism, Fat-phobia, Queer-phobia, Asthma Attack, Controlling Grandparent, Customer Service Trauma, Money Problems

4.5/5

The combination of Claire Kann's writing and the gentle voice of Caroline Sorunke on the audiobook made If It Makes You Happy a total win! The premise would have been enough on its own even if I wasn't already a fan of Claire Kann. Queer, black, plus-size representation set to a summer vacation in a small town scene? The only other thing I could ask for it to be is one of those books where the author makes a quick cameo spot for the beloved other characters from their other work. Oh wait, it has that too! If you have read Let's Talk About Love, keep your eyes or ears peeled.

In If It Makes You Happy, Winnie is spending her last pre-college summer in Misty Haven, as she does every summer. Her queerplatonic ungirlfriend, Kara, lives in Misty Haven and is very ready to have Winnie back in person. Winnie wants to spend her summer with Kara, her brother, and working shifts at Goldeen's. Her plans start to change when she hears about a televised food competition that could really help her family. After her grandmother refuses to let her do it, their strained relationship makes itself more obvious to the both of them.

Although Winnie's summer is not the perfect one she had imagined, a brightness comes from the strangest of places. Winnie gets picked to be the Summer Queen, basically a mascot for the town for the summer. She has terrible stage fright and would not have picked this for herself, but when Dallas, a very attractive guy, volunteers to be the Summer King, Winnie might be willing to see where it goes. Over the course of the summer, she will have to decide what each relationship in her life means to her, struggle with how other people perceive both her weight and her romantic identity, and sort out what makes herself happy.

This book has a lot of gifts for its readers spread among the pages. We have Kara, a rare aromantic book character, something I'd like to see much more of. There are many nerdy references to things such as The Matrix, Pokémon, and Lord of the Rings. The book does not try to force a perfectly happy ending when it wouldn't be realistic. It allows itself to be the best it can be while letting the reader know that Winnie and those she cares about still have things ahead of them. The book never tries to romanticize the small-town, it showcases it honestly. While it has its small businesses and tight-knit community, it also has racism, fat-phobia, and gossip. I also love how much this book has to say; things about toxic masculinity, how size doesn't necessarily reflect health, how important a queerplatonic relationship can be, and generational trauma.

Although this book will leave you wondering just how Winnie got selected to be the Summer Queen, you'll be too enraptured to fuss about it. Go, enjoy the puns, gluten-free treats, and quality time spent between siblings! This book just wants to be read!

[lokilickedme]

The Way

I’m writing horror again.  I guess it’s that time, you know, that time that has nothing to do with Halloween or the seasons or whatever, that time when it just hits me for some reason.  And just like I always do, I’ll say I don’t know why.

Even though I know why, and you know I know why.

Because the truth is always so much weirder and worse and more disquieting than any excuse I could make up for it, and sometimes I just feel the need.

Today I felt the need, and I couldn’t make it go away.

And so I sat down, and words I didn’t want to write were written.

.

8592 words I would rate this Mature 18+ if it was a fic, strictly because of the subject matter.

Warnings: Death, mostly.  Religious trauma, brief descriptions of abuse, mentions of mental illness, domestic violence, grief, familial dysfunction, religious abuse, emotional abuse, medical conditions, brief mentions of drug use/abuse, mild gore in reference to corpse decomposition, psychological unease and mild terror, child abuse (mental/emotional/psychological), brief allusion to physical child abuse, cult references, loss of faith, attempted murder, possible actual murder.

A Note:  I love you guys, you’re always so quick and willing to be helpful and offer advice and suggestions and such, and I adore that about you.  But on this piece of work I ask that nobody offer any theories about what happened to my brother - medical, criminal, or otherwise - and please no suggestions on things we could do to pursue investigation, that ship has long sailed.  It’s been 23 years and he’s a cold case.  We spent years trying to sort it out but in the end it’s just something that happened, and we moved on because we had to.  There are a lot of open ends, a lot of question marks, a lot of suspicious details that never connected to anything - and we tried, we truly did.  If anyone out there knows the truth, they’ve never shown themselves to us.  We do have our theories, but my brother was a secretive person living a life none of us knew about, and the people he knew weren’t people we knew.  Everyone involved is either dead or moved on or got away with whatever it was they did, and there are only three of us who still care.  It’s over.

Until today, I’ve never put these events into words.

It was something I needed to do, finally.

This is PART ONE.  There may not be a part two, unless doing this ends up making me feel better.

Please feel free to comment if you wish.  As you can see, pretty much nothing triggers me.  I just ask that you please refrain from the type of comments noted above.

And thank you.

----------

This is, regrettably, a true story.  Nothing has been changed but the names, because the dead don’t like being talked about, and James was just enough of a shit to haunt me for it.

----------

----------

They made up their minds And they started packing They left before the sun came up that day An exit to eternal summer slacking But where were they going without ever knowing the way

They drank up the wine And they got to talking They now had more important things to say And when the car broke down They started walking Where were they going without ever knowing the way

Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold And it's always summer They'll never get cold They'll never get hungry They'll never get old and gray You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today, today

Their children woke up And they couldn't find them They left before the sun came up that day They just drove off and left it all behind them But where were they going without ever knowing the way?

Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold And it's always summer They'll never get cold They'll never get hungry They'll never get old and gray You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today, today

You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today, today

- The Way, Fastball, 1998

.

That was the year James died in his sleep.

Or that’s what they say, anyway.  Asthma, the likely cause based on his medical history, our first and least disturbing assumption.  Undetermined, the official determination based on the hastily scraped-together autopsy, the best that could be done under the circumstances.  We tell people he had breathing problems, and they nod their heads and agree because they knew he did, and now he’s been gone so long that nobody asks.  Most of the people who ever met him have long moved on or disappeared or died themselves, or just remember him as the enigmatic middle son from the Keithley family that nobody really knew very well.  You know, the odd one, the one that showed up at meetings maybe once a year and smiled nervously but didn’t really talk to anyone and always seemed anxious to leave?  The one who died under mysterious circumstances?  That one.

He left the way he always came in.  Quietly, unexpected, without anyone being aware of either his entrance or his exit.

But me and mom know some things, and she’s not talking.  She probably never will.

So maybe it’s time I did.

December 1998.  I’d gotten married two years previous and moved back to the family land with my new husband.  He hated it there, but we had an affordable place to live.  It wasn’t bad.  He’d tell you otherwise.  The land never sat right with him, but I’d lived there too many years to see it.  I’d been fifteen when my father uprooted his large family from the city and hauled us out to the great back door to nowhere, and even though I’d left several times to wander elsewhere, I always came back.

I didn’t realize why at the time, at any of the multiple times.  But now I know.  That place gets you, and it holds you, and unless you’re goddamned devoted to staying gone you will always be pulled back.  It took me till I was 49 to funnel the necessary amount of devotion away from the religious dedication I’d had jackbooted into me and turn it toward getting out, but against a great number of overwhelming odds I finally did it.

But this isn’t about that, not yet anyway.  This is about my brother James, and how he went to sleep one night and found his own way out.

----------

It was snowing, had been for days, a bit unusual but not unheard of.  The part of the state we lived in was notorious for extended ice storms and we knew a bad one was coming, but until it hit we played in the snow like it was a gift and we were deprived children who knew it was all going to be taken away soon.  My brothers and I were adults but you wouldn’t know it, watching us sneak around in the woods staging elaborate commando attacks on each other.  James was the best of us, a stealth king who could stand in the middle of a room for an hour without a single soul seeing him.  Perception bias, he said.  Your brain ignores me because I obviously don’t belong, like those puzzles where you circle what’s wrong but it takes you forever to find them.

He crept around in the forest scaring the shit out of people, dropping his long tall self out of trees, appearing from nowhere to administer a well aimed snowball to the face of whoever happened to cross his path and then disappearing just as quickly.  We called him a wraith and it wasn’t a good natured jibe.  We meant it.  He made people nervous.  He was the stealthy kind of quiet you associate with danger, and he knew how to do things an average person doesn’t ever have any need to know.  It was a quiet cool that we admired him for, because none of the rest of us had it.

The religion we were raised in kept a tight lid on us, but me and James, we never really let it get into our bones.  We were the smart ones, in retrospect.  I went through the motions by force of habit and a sense of self preservation, doing what was expected and demanded of me, following the rules and making myself a perfect example of a young member of the church so I wouldn’t bring shame on the congregation and my family.  But mostly the congregation.  It was always more important than anything else.  And I had behaving down to an art form, but mostly when people were looking.  Usually also when they weren’t.

But sometimes, not quite.

And then I prayed for forgiveness about it later because God was supposed to forgive you if you asked him to, right?  The tenet of willful sin being unforgivable never took root with me even though that was what the church conditioned into us through fear and constant repetition.  They said it from the stage two nights a week and again on Sunday to hammer it home.  Two nights a week and again on Sunday my head silently disagreed.  God’s not like that.  And then I did the praying for forgiveness thing even though I knew I was right, because I was disagreeing with the church, and the church was God’s channel here on Earth, wasn’t it?  I committed a mortal sin at least three times a week on that subject alone, and though the dread of divine punishment was hardwired into me, I never could reconcile the concept of a loving and forgiving God destroying me simply for knowing better.

I’m not sure the comprehension of an overwatching deity ever actually established itself in James’ brain.  A moral code, yes.  But isn’t that what God is, really?  Maybe he understood more about God and forgiveness than the rest of us.  But he was considered an unapproved fringe member of the church because he couldn’t suffer people and noise and being looked at and he refused to preach, and he was soft-shunned as a result.  Because if you weren’t all in to the point of being willing to die at any moment for your faith, you were as good as faithless.

And faithless meant condemned.  And the congregation couldn’t be bothered with condemned people, regardless of their reasons for not having both feet in the water.  The first and only option on their list was to put the person out and let them find their own way back once they realized they had nobody left in the world who cared about them.

James escaped that somehow.  He was supposed to be shunned whole scale, but he wasn’t trying to convince anyone to leave the faith and he presented no threat to anyone’s strength of belief, and so far as anyone knew he’d committed no grave sins other than disinterest.  So the rule that dictated we cast him out was bent enough to allow him to remain living on the family land, though at one point during a fit of overzealous righteousness my mother had tried to have a family meeting to vote on whether or not we were going to let him stay.  I refused to vote and when I walked out of the house the meeting fell apart.

I’ve never forgiven her for that.  Her son’s life being put to a vote with her presiding over the proceedings, vengeful and unfeeling and devoid of compassion on behalf of God himself.  It takes my breath away, the anger, still to this day.  The only thing I ever truly learned from my mother about parenting was a long and intensely detailed list of what not to do to my own children, and I suppose I should be grateful for that.  It’s a bitter thank-you to have to give, but it’s something.

We knew James as much as he would allow us to, and not an inch further.  Which meant the extent of our knowledge of him pretty much stretched to include the singular fact that he was different.  What that meant, I still don’t really know - but it was there from the day he was born, that slight off-ness, the oddly off center calibration that you can’t really see so much as sense in a person.  I know now he was likely on the autism spectrum and he walked through life seeing and reacting to everything differently than most of us, but that wasn’t a thing back then.  You were just weird, or you weren’t.  And I’m not convinced that was a bad thing for him, strictly speaking.  But in the confines of our religion and our family’s devout and sometimes violent dedication to it, it took its toll almost daily.

He stood out, and he was very much a person who didn’t want to.  He wanted to fade into the background, to not be seen, to not be known.  And our religion didn’t tolerate that kind of nonsense, because we were commanded to be bold bearers of The Word Of God, and no exceptions were made.

None.

I’m going to stop calling it a religion now.  I beg your indulgence as I shift to calling it what it is, because calling it a religion is an insult to actual religions that don’t destroy peoples’ lives with callous indifference and murderous glee.

We were raised in a doomsday death cult.  There’s no other name that fits.

And we were trapped in it and its ugly cycle of neverending mental and emotional manipulation and abuse until we were adults, and some of us are still bound to it.  My oldest brother worked his way up to the upper levels of oversight in the local congregation and was solidly entrenched in it until his death, which is a story for later.  My youngest brother, the last remaining living blood sibling I have, is still deeply in it to this day and will likely never leave it.

I took the hard way out, three years ago, by walking away.

James, though.  He took the easy way.  He simply closed his eyes, and he was free.

----------

December 22, 1998.  Three days before Christmas, though that meant nothing to us.  The cult told us Christmas was a filthy demonic pagan ritual that was condemned by God, so to us the season was just a nice chilly time of year with lots of time off from work.  We’d had an unusual amount of snow, the most we’d had in years.  The roads were impassable and everyone was home except my husband, who worked close enough that his boss at the glass shop came and picked him up that morning with chains on his tires.  Lots of windshields had shattered from the sudden violent cold that had struck the previous night and Scott had the only glass shop for sixty miles.

I think it must have been around noon, and likely my mother had sent my dad up the hill to see if James wanted to come down for the lunch she was making.  He and his wife had split up against the strict rules of the church after a few years of suffering through an ill advised marriage, an important detail to this story that will come into the tale later, and he was alone up there at the top of the hill a lot.  Sometimes he forgot to eat, or he got so busy that he just didn’t bother, so our mother always made something for him because even though he was in his 20′s he was still a kid who needed looking after and her zealous fervor against him had died down with time.  I think he let her believe he was helpless because it worked in his favor and there was always lunch waiting for him in her kitchen as a result.

He was different, he wasn’t dumb.

We all lived on the hill back then with the exception of our youngest brother.  He’d moved to the city with his new wife not long prior.  The locals jokingly called the place a commune, and I guess they weren’t completely wrong.  Thirty-eight acres of wooded land far beyond the city limits that we’d painstakingly spent years carving a livable space into, with five houses, all built from the ground up and inhabited by an extended family of well known culties from a well known cult.  It’s almost comical, looking back on it, knowing now how they kept an eye on us for years to make sure we weren’t doing anything weird up there.

They should have run us off with pitchforks and burning stakes at the very beginning.

Things might have ended differently for us if they had.

----------

My grandparents lived at one end of the property, an old couple as simple and solid as salted soup, devoutly religious and devoted to the cult and very much cut from the can survive anything and probably will cloth like so many old country folks of their generation.  They were waiting out the end of days up there in their little wooden house, expecting the final hour of this old system to come long before their own demise.  I liked my grandmother, she had a sweet smile and fell asleep every time granddad started talking about the Bible and she paid me five dollars every Wednesday to drive her into town to get groceries, and years later, when she was dying, she told me she’d had a dream where she met my unborn son.  I was four months pregnant and didn’t know yet that I was having a boy.  She died before he was born, but to this day, fifteen years later, he tells me he’s sure he met her, he just can’t remember when.

I was scared of my grandfather.  Not terrified, but there was nothing grandfatherly to him and I always suspected he never actually liked kids much.  He’d once told us a story about the great Fort Worth flood that wiped out most of the city when my mom was a baby, and how he had told my grandmother to let go of my 2-year-old mother while he was struggling to get them across a rushing flooded creek in water up to their shoulders.  My grandmother couldn’t swim.  We could make another Ruthie, he said.  But I couldn’t get another ‘Nita.

He said it proudly, like he was to be admired for his choice.  I was young when he told that story, but it settled into me that this was evil.

Even when he was old as dirt and dying of a brain tumor in hospice care, he made me uneasy.  I was never close to him.  But for some reason, in his final days, he forgot who everyone was except me.  I had been living in another state for years and he hadn’t seen me since before the tumor started taking his life.  But when I walked into the room he turned his head and looked at me, and he mouthed my name.

He couldn’t speak.  I don’t know what he was trying to say, struggling with words that nobody could hear.  And I felt bad.  I didn’t want to be the last person he recognized.  My cousins adored him and had spent the last few years constantly at his side, and they were angry, maybe justifiably, that I was the one he reached for.

I didn’t want that at all.

I don’t believe he was a bad man, but he never spoke of anything except the cult’s interpretation of the Bible, and it was as tiresome as it was terrifying.  Granddads are supposed to be fun.  Ours quoted doctrine at us in a deep loud commanding voice that you couldn’t interrupt and you couldn’t tune out, and once he got going you had to just settle in and wait for him to run out of zealous steam.  And then he would suddenly stop and command grandmother to turn on a John Wayne movie and bring him some ice cream, and it was over until the next time.

I know my mother resented him.  She knew grandmother was the one that had refused to let her go, the one that had held onto her even though she almost drowned by the simple act of holding on.  She knew her father had been willing to let her wash away and drown.  That he thought she was interchangeable with whatever baby they would have next.  How she could spend her entire life with that knowledge and not be deeply affected by it was something that never made sense to me, but now, when she’s in her 70′s and I’m in my 50′s, I finally understand.  It affected her.  She’ll just be damned if she’ll let anyone see it.  And she had stood there in that hospice room watching him mouth my name with resentment burning in her eyes, though she would have rather died than let anyone know what it was for.  He’d forgotten her weeks ago.

The house in the center of the hill was mom and dad.  The homestead.  The house we’d all lived in together, that we’d built with our own hands, the first thing that marked that wild overgrown hill as a place where people actually lived.  A long path through the woods connected it to the grandparents’ house, and it was the epicenter of everything in our lives.  James and I had lived in the upstairs rooms of that house until we both moved out and married our respective mates years later, a reprehensible act on our part that was never okay with my mother and that she never forgave either of us for.  She’d wanted us all to stay.  We can all live here together until the New System comes, she always said.  That’s how the Bible says it’s supposed to be.  We can all keep each other safe and on the right path until the end comes, and then we’ll all be here together forever.

A decade later when I sat up on the hill watching that house burn to the ground, there was as much relief as grief billowing into the sky with the black smoke.  It was the end of an era, and it was far beyond time for it.

Nobody saw it but me.  James was dead, had been for years.  Robbie was dead now too.  Dad was gone, so was granddad.  Me and my youngest brother David were the last two left of the kids, but he had moved to a neighboring city when he got married and he has never seen things the way I see them.  We were of different generations, we weren’t raised the same way, and he’d never experienced the abuse I lived with for the first half of my life.  And he had dedicated his own life to the cult with all the honesty and lack of guile that I didn’t have when I’d made my own dedication vows at the too-young age of sixteen.

It was the end of an era, but apparently only for me.

James’ house was up the hill, past a clearing where my dad used to keep old cars that he cannibalized for parts.  Our oldest brother Robbie, long married with kids of his own, lived at the bottom on the farthest corner of the land.  And my house was on the slope to the west, built on the spot where we’d cleared off an old half-fallen homestead from the late 1800′s, dutifully paying no mind to the fact that a grave was nestled into the slope, right where the yellow daffodils grew.  The cult told us superstition was tied up with the demons and false religion, so we didn’t have the built-in human instinct that tells most people to stay the hell away from certain things.

We just pretended it wasn’t there, and put no importance on it.  It was just an old grave.  The soil was good and the garden I planted next to it did well, though those strange daffodils always wound themselves through everything I put in the ground.  My husband said something wasn’t right about it, but I didn’t pay any attention to him.  He hadn’t been raised as devout as me.

My dad knocked on my door around lunchtime and I opened it.  He backed up, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket, the fancy leather coat the dealership had awarded him when he was designated a five-star Chrysler technician and given the state’s first and only license to work on the new Vipers that had recently rolled off the prototype line.  It was a cool jacket.  Made him look like the old pictures my other grandmother had shown me of him from the early 1960′s, when he was young and very much a product of a fancier era.  He’d never stopped greasing his hair back and was still so thin that he and I wore the same size jeans.

I’ve never understood the look on his face when I opened the door.  To this day I can’t sort it.  It wasn’t a blankness like so many people who’ve seen death wear without awareness.  It wasn’t grief.  It wasn’t even shock.

He was sorry.

Those were the first words out of his mouth.

I’m sorry.

I stood there, not knowing what he was sorry for.  It was cold.  I couldn’t push the screen door open very far because of the snow blocking it.  And my father was standing at the bottom of the steps James had helped my husband build, his hands shoved down far into his pockets like a penitent child about to get in trouble, telling me he was sorry.

James is dead, he finally said.  He’s in his house.  I went up there and he’s dead.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I do now - just now, this very moment in fact, I know that I was the first person he told.  He came straight from James’ house to mine and told me my brother was dead.

I don’t know what I said back to him, I just remember sitting down on the top step and feeling the cold bite of the snow through my pajama pants.  There’s a vague recollection of putting my face in my hands, and the embarrassing knowledge that I did that simply because I didn’t know what else to do.  And dad just stood there, nervously stepping from foot to foot in the snow, because he didn’t know what else to do either.

I think I asked How at some point.  He said he didn’t know.  He had something in his pocket but to this day I don’t know what it was.

I don’t know if it was important.  Something tells me it was.  Or maybe it was just the eternally present handkerchief he always kept on him.

I’m sorry, he said again.  He seemed to feel like it was his fault somehow.  I’m sorry.

What do we do?  I asked him.  I’ve never felt more blank.  What are we supposed to do?

I don’t remember what he said, other than he was going to get my older brother.  I remember thinking that was a good idea.  Robbie would know what to do.  He always did.  Brash and blustery and bigmouthed, he got things done while other people stood around debating how to do them.  He would get on it, whatever needed doing.  He would figure it out.

I went back in the house and dad walked away, headed down the path through the woods that connected my house to Robbie’s, hands still shoved deep in his pockets, the big retro vintage Chrysler emblem on the back of his jacket the last thing I saw before I pulled the screen door shut.  I stared down for a minute at the mound of snow it had scooped into my livingroom, still with no clue what I was supposed to do.

No clue at all.

I kicked the snow back outside and shut the door.

----------

It’s an odd thing, watching the coroner’s van drive away with someone you know inside it.  Someone you saw just yesterday.  Someone who was alive.  Someone who should still be alive but isn’t, somehow.  And since there’s really no way to earn a ride in a coroner’s van without dying, there’s an awful unsettling sensation to it that you can’t get away from.  The last time I saw James he was laughing that devious little laugh of his, his eyes red and bloodshot from the ever present asthma he’d suffered with his entire life.  I don’t count the sight of the coroner’s van leaving the hill via our long steep driveway with his cold corpse tucked into a black zippered bag, because I didn’t see him.  I never saw him.  I didn’t see him dead in his house and I didn’t see them carry him out, I didn’t see them put him in the van.  I didn’t see him later, when it was all over with.  And if I try hard enough I can imagine that van empty, with that long black bag tossed crumpled in the back without a body in it, and James somewhere else living his life however the hell he pleases.

I hold onto that.  Some days it helps.  And some days I think I see him, walking by the side of the road or getting out of a car in the post office parking lot, and it makes me happy thinking he escaped.  I see him in every hitchhiker, in every wandering traveler making his way down the interstate, in every tall thin man I glimpse from the corner of my eye as I go about my business in town.

He’s out there.

I hope he’s happy.

The ice storm hit the next day.

----------

For the next two weeks we were stuck on our hill.  Power out, no electricity, no heat, no lights, roads iced over and impassable.  We all piled up in mom and dad’s house, quietly grieving James, trying to stay warm.  Most of the state lost power for days, including the city 150 miles away where his body had been taken to the state coroner’s office.  There was no apparent cause of death, so the state ordered an autopsy.

His body had just been placed into cold storage to wait its turn when the power grid went down.  And then, by some unholy stroke of nightmarish luck, the facility’s generators failed.

Nobody could make it in to work because of the ice.  By the time someone finally got into the morgue the cold storage had been down for four days.

Six bodies melted, including James.

----------

No viable autopsy could be done, though they tried their best I suppose.  The end report was obtained two months later.  It was mostly inconclusive due to the long delay and resultant decomposition of tissue.  There was apparent scarring on James’ heart, but it was old scarring and had nothing to do with his death.  His lungs were scarred as well, but that was no surprise, he’d had severe asthma his entire life.  There was no determinable cause of death, no inflicted trauma, no presence of illicit drugs as far as they could tell from the limited toxicology report they managed with what they had to work with.

No reason.

He’d simply died.

It seemed fitting, to me at least, that the end of him be enshrouded in an unsolvable mystery.  He was a secretive person, intensely private.  He would have loved knowing nobody had a clue what happened to him.

And so we drew our own conclusion as a family.  He’d had an asthma attack in his sleep.  There had been an inhaler next to his bed, but it was new and still in the box.  He simply hadn’t woken up to use it.  Dad didn’t participate in the drawing of this conclusion, his input kept stoically to himself, like he knew something the rest of us didn’t.

We pretended not to see it.

He and mom braved the last of the ice a few days later to make the 150 mile drive to see James one last time.

They came back different.

You couldn’t tell it was him, my mother said.  He was melted, literally.  It was like one of those science fiction movies where they melt you with a laser beam and you turn to goo.

Dad had nothing to say.  He went to bed and stayed there until the next day.

You can go see him, mom told me.  I’ll go with you if you want to go.  But I don’t recommend it.

I decided not to go.

And so I never saw my brother dead.  I never saw any proof that he was gone.  He just wasn’t there anymore.  There was no funeral, he was cremated and his ashes were sent home weeks later, and I went on with my life with the image in my head of James, alive, somewhere else.

----------

Dad was different from that day on.  He’d always been stoic, terse, strict.  My childhood had been spent in fear of him, an eternal dread of making him mad and feeling his temper erupt keeping me from showing any hint of a personality during my formative years.  The cult had forced him to abide by the violent tenet of Spare the rod, spoil the child and there was never any risk of me being spoiled.

James being gone flipped a switch in him.  He was nicer suddenly.  Mellow.  Kind.  After the trauma wore off his humor discovered itself and he was funny.  The dour angry demeanor fell off and revealed a man that I was sad never to have known before.  He and I became friends.  I could sense in his new attitude toward me that he regretted how he’d raised me and respected the way I’d always stood up and been my own person despite it.  But my mother was falling off the deep end and for all the newfound easygoingness of my father, she counterbalanced it with an extremism born of the religious fervor of a mother determined to gain enough favor with God to see her dead child again.  And she was going to make sure the rest of us did too.

We all had to get good and straight on the path, get completely right and stay that way, or we’d never see James again.  He’d be in the New World and we wouldn’t, and how would she explain that to him?  She and I worked together in a law office at the time and as she became more unhinged and unpleasant, I reacted by becoming more outgoing and accomplished.  Our boss changed my work designation from receptionist to Executive Assistant and started teaching me how to do everything from filing papers at the courthouse to photographing accident scenes.  I no longer answered to my mother, the office manager.  I answered directly to the boss.

That didn’t go over well.  She was a control freak with heavy untreated trauma, and the one person in the world she felt the most obsessive need to control was suddenly no longer under her thumb in a workspace where she considered herself the supreme authority.  She countermanded every order the boss gave me and tried to load me up with general office chores that left me no time to do the important assignments he’d given me.  I had no choice but to tell her she wasn’t my superior anymore.

She chose that day to have her nervous breakdown over James, jumping out of my car at a red light on the way home and storming angrily through a shopping mall with me trailing frantically along behind her, yelling for security to arrest me while I tried to get her to calm down.  I ended up telling her she wasn’t the only person who lost James but that none of the rest of us were allowed to experience our own grief because we were too busy catering to hers.

She sat down on a bench outside the sporting goods store and glared at me with a cold hatred I’ve seen on very few other faces, ever.

I knew it would be you, she hissed at me.

That moment changed our relationship forever.  It changed me forever.  That was the day I decided my life was my own, that she not only didn’t have authority over me at work, she didn’t have authority over me anywhere else either.  She could no longer dictate my actions, my behavior, my thoughts and feelings.

For this she disowned me.  It was the first of several disownings over the next few years.  I got used to it.  We went to work the next day like nothing had happened, and I didn’t do a single thing on the task list she slapped down on my desk.  It was a metaphor for the rest of my life, but I didn’t know it yet.

My husband and I moved out of state a couple of months later, away from that hill, away from her increasingly controlling paranoia and bitterness, the first of many small steps toward freedom.

As we were driving away with our trailer full of personal belongings behind us, he said one thing that I tried to argue against, but that somewhere deep inside I knew was probably right.

That land is cursed, he said.

----------

A few weeks before we moved my youngest brother came to town and we went into James’ house together.  It was exactly like it had been the day my dad found him.  The only thing that stood out as different was the bare mattress on the bed - the men from the coroner had wrapped him up in the sheet he’d been laying on and took it with them, leaving just the naked springform mattress James had bought for Jessica right before her final breakdown and their subsequent separation.

It took me a while to go in the bedroom, but I knew from the moment I walked into the house that I was going to end up there.  I needed to see it, the place where James had closed his eyes and left us.

There was a small puddle of dried blood near the foot of the bed, brown and stained into the fabric.  James always slept backwards, with his head at the wrong end.  The blood had come from his nose.

I touched it.  I don’t know why.  It was dry.

He was gone.

----------

David and I laughed a lot that day.  James had been funny in a way that was distinctly him, quiet and of few words, but those words had always counted.  And as we sorted through his things and talked about him and moved some of his stuff into boxes to be stored away, I felt as much awed respect as befuddlement at what was around me.  He’d never been a conformist, which I knew was why the cult had never gotten a firm grasp on him.  He was unknowable and therefore unbindable.  But his house was proof that he didn’t conform to any human expectations either, and nothing in it made sense unless you’d spent time around him.

There was an engine in the bathtub.  I’m not sure what it went to.  Another engine, in the beginning stages of disassemblage, rested on a blue tarp in the center of the livingroom floor, obviously the last project he’d been working on.  There wasn’t much furniture - his wife had taken most of it when she left and it would have never entered his mind to replace any of it.  Jessica’s cookware was in the kitchen cabinets, unused, some of it still in the original boxes, some not even fully unwrapped from their wedding shower years before.  Jessica didn’t cook, she microwaved.  David asked me if I thought it would be okay for him to take a glass Pyrex measuring cup because he’d broken his.  I told him to take it.  It had never been used.

I didn’t want anything, but knew I needed to take something.  One of my husband’s solo CDs was sitting on the entertainment center and the cover, the cover I’d designed, caught my eye and brought me to the CD player to pop the tray open.

Inside was a CD single of The Way.

It was the only thing I took.

----------

My husband told me some time later that my dad and older brother had altered the scene before the police arrived.  After the phonecall from me his boss had rushed him home and he’d gone up to James’ house without my knowledge.  He’d thought it strange that he’d had to step around at least a dozen empty compressed air cans scattered haphazardly around the place as he entered, like they’d been used and tossed aside one after another.  There had been several more on the floor around the bed.  My father had told him to go back down and see how mom and I were doing, and when he returned to James’ house after the coroner’s departure, the cans were gone.  Other than that he said things seemed different, but he couldn’t say quite how.  Just not the same.

He told me my dad didn’t call the police until after he and Robbie had been in there at least an hour, alone with the body.

It’s not something we’ve talked about often, because there’s no satisfactory explanation for it that either of us can come up with.  My mother says they probably didn’t want the police to assume the cans meant he was huffing compression fluid and accidentally killed himself, because Look at the shame and reproach that would bring on the congregation if anyone thought such a thing!  We all knew he used the compressed air to clear the valves on the engines he was working on, all mechanics do, it’s common.  Wouldn’t the police have accepted that explanation?  Dad was the only one that spoke to them.  They wrote down whatever he said, and then they left, and then the coroner came and took James away and that was that.  My father, the most upright straight-and-narrow devoutly dedicated man I’ve ever known in my life, misled the police for a reason that he took with him to his own grave.

The only other person in the world who knew the truth about it took it to his grave too.

At the same time.

In the same car.

Four years later, on October 18, 2002.

----------

The big garbage bag of empty air cans and whatever else that was removed from James’ house that morning had been stashed in my dad’s garage and stayed there until a few weeks after he and Robbie’s joint funeral, when my mother asked my husband’s old boss to come and dispose of it.  Scott was a man who knew people who could do things.

The evidence, whatever it was evidence of, vanished.

----------

The mystery around James never dissolved and eventually no one talked about it anymore, I guess because there was no way we could ever truly find out what happened without him here to tell us.  There were a lot of details that we could never find a way to weave together into anything that made sense and a lot of it was probably inconsequential anyway.  There was a girlfriend that he’d tried to keep hidden from us, a woman that was quite a bit older than him who wasn’t a member of the cult and therefore needed to be kept a secret.  In the end she had convinced him to stop hiding their relationship and he’d bought her a ring.  We met her all of twice before he died, and within days of his passing she left town with her brother and never came back, taking whatever she might have known with her.

James’ ex Jessica had sneaked onto the hill and broken into his house to put a dead raccoon in his kitchen sink a few days prior to his death.  We were shocked when he told us she trespassed on the land often without anyone knowing, and my mother made my father fix the electric gate down at the road so that it wouldn’t open without one of three clickers in the possession of herself, my father, and me.  James would have to come to her house and get hers any time he needed to leave the hill, an arrangement he agreed to because Jessica stole things from his house all the time, she would absolutely take a gate opener if she saw it.

He told us the gate wouldn’t keep her out though, and that she didn’t come in that way anyway.  The only way to protect ourselves from her was to lock her up and he doubted even that would do it.

He died less than a week later, and twenty three years later we still don’t know how or why.

----------

We never felt safe on the hill again.  Jessica was deranged in the worst possible way, we’d known it for a while, and James was her obsession.  She’d threatened to kill him multiple times and had tried twice.  We hadn’t known this, because James, big strong stoic Clint Eastwood type that he was, wasn’t about to tell anyone he was violently abused for years by a skinny little woman that everyone believed was not much more than a meek dormouse with shyness issues and a case of painful awkwardness.  But we knew she was evil.  We just didn’t have any proof.

The first thing my mother said after the initial emotional breakdown of finding her son dead was Jessica did this, I don’t know how but I know she did it.

I believe she was probably right.  But if Jessica was anything she was wily and devious with a strong survival instinct and an uncanny ability to lie convincingly and draw sympathy onto herself.  She’d convinced us for years that she was the perfect combination of sweetly harmless and endearingly clueless, but that only lasted until the day she called 911 screaming that James was beating her and then threw herself face first into a tree in their front yard and sat, calmly singing and coloring in a coloring book on the porch with blood running down her forehead, waiting for the police to arrive.  The act she put on when they got there was one for the Academy, but the officers didn’t buy it.

James calmly rolled up his sleeves and showed them his scars where she’d burned him and slashed him with a kitchen knife.  He pulled up his shirt and pointed out the marks she’d left on him with her teeth and nails.  He hooked a finger into his mouth and showed them the empty hole where she’d knocked one of his teeth out with a baseball bat.  One of the officers asked him why he hadn’t killed her and buried her somewhere on the land already.

She left in the back of the squad car, and my mother took James to the courthouse to get divorce papers started two days later.

Jessica came to his memorial service when we finally had it, several weeks after his death.  She wasn’t invited but we couldn’t keep her from coming.  She wore black like a widow and created a dramatic disruption complete with loud wailing and declarations of undying love, and afterward she stood to one side of the room, smirking at us with the kind of icy malice that you only see on the dangerously deranged, and then usually only in the movies.  Several people commented in hushed voices, asking why she’d been allowed to come.  At one point she started wailing They killed him!!, but everyone with the exception of her mother ignored her.

Her mother, who was still in our congregation, flitted around the room chatting with everyone, sobbing her heart out like it was her own son we’d just memorialized.  She was an ER nurse and had been famously fired from her job at the hospital for taking locked-cabinet medications home by the purse load.  She claimed she put them in her pocket to use on her shift and forgot to return them to the cabinet before leaving.

Jessica had been staying with her for a while.

----------

We fed the crowd at mom’s later that afternoon with my husband and his boss guarding the gate, making sure she didn’t try to come into my mother’s house.  The police were called preemptively, and because this was a town of 300 with not much of anything else to do, a squad car was dispatched and stationed near the inlet to the main drive.

Jessica showed up not much later, like we knew she would.  She drove past the police and parked a few yards down from them in plain sight, just sitting there by the side of the road, far enough away from our property that we couldn’t legally do anything about it.  The officers got out and talked to her, warned her not to cause us any problems, and she fed them a woeful tale about being banned from her beloved husband’s memorial service and denied the right to say goodbye to him.

The officers knew there was no body at that service to say goodbye to.  They also knew her.

My husband came up the hill and told us she was down at the road and that Scott was blocking the driveway with his truck to keep her out.  I told my mother it was time to file a restraining order against her.  She was living in fear and Jessica was known to be trespassing on our property frequently.  No, she told me with tears in her eyes but not a sign of distress on her face.  It was a look I knew, because my mother rarely showed emotion unless she was angry and the rest of the time it was this cold detachment.  That would bring reproach on the congregation because everyone knows what we are.  I can’t do that.  I won’t let her win that way.  I won’t let her cause us to bring shame on God’s name.

God’s name.  I took it in vain that day.

More than once.

I was leaving in a few weeks, moving a thousand miles away.  My husband and I weren’t going to be there to help her keep an eye out, and thirty eight acres of heavily wooded land is impossible to protect and easy to sneak onto from a hundred different directions, James had shown us proof of that.

God will protect us as long as we do the right thing and leave it to him, she said.  He knows what she is.

I think it was just a coincidence that nothing terrible happened in the following weeks, because my faith was getting tenuous and a lot of prayers were going unanswered.  But Jessica quietly disappeared back to her own world after a couple of infuriating weeks of putting herself in our paths every chance she got, and not long after that my husband and I moved away, and as we left the driveway for what we thought would be the last time he sighed and shook his head with the exasperation of a man about to say I told you so.

“That land is cursed,” he said.

I tried to disagree, though I don’t know why.

----------

Less than a mile up the road we passed a man walking.  He was tall and thin and covered in the dust of a long journey with a ratty backpack strapped to his back, and as we passed him I caught his reflection in the side mirror.

It was James, I knew it in my heart every bit as strongly as I knew it couldn’t be.

He was walking away from the hill, toward the west.  The way we were going.  And I swear on whatever holy relic you wish to place under my hand that he raised his head and met eyes with me in the mirror, and he smiled.

.

Anyone can see the road that they walk on is paved in gold And it's always summer They'll never get cold They'll never get hungry They'll never get old and gray You can see their shadows wandering off somewhere They won't make it home But they really don't care They wanted the highway They're happier there today

.

[shrinkyclinksfest]

That's a wrap!

Thank you all so much for another successful run of Shrinkyclinks Fest! Altogether the works add up to 150K words of new Shrinkyclinks content and six new artworks! We want to thank all our wonderful writers, artists, promoters, promoters, readers, and supporters. We will see you all next year!

Without further ado, the Masterlist:

Title: Nazi Punks Fuck Off [Shrinkyclinks AU] Creator: bleedxblack Medium (fic, art, podfic, etc.): digital art Rating: G Prompt #: 22 Warnings: N/A Summary: Local punk Steve Rogers goes to see his hardcore vocalist boyfriend, Bucky, perform with his band, Widow. Friend and guitarist Natasha took the first photo of them after the band had finished their set. Steve took the following photo himself while he watched his friends and lover play on stage.

Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33271081

Title: Steve has hot guy problems Creator: HeyBoy Medium (fic, art, podfic, etc.): digital art Rating: T Prompt #: 33 Warnings: N/A Summary: For the ShrinkyClinks Fest prompt: Meet-cute at the gym! Smol Steve is determined to work on his cardio and fitness. He reluctantly goes to the gym, feeling intimidated but ready to spit fire at anyone who so much as looks at him twice. He is going to get a good workout, damnit. Ignore the clunkheads. Ignore the gym rats. Ignore the super hot guy with long hair and stormy eyes who always seems to be using the equipment near Steve. That wasn't so bad! Now we can shower and go home. Wait, hot guy is also in the shower and… he's singing. WAIT hot guy just exited the shower and now he knows that I know he was singing!.

Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33271468

Title: asthma attacks, fire escapes, and chai Creator: beemotionpicture Medium: fic Rating: gen Wordcount: 6,657 Prompt #: 9 Warnings: none Summary: It happens because of his asthma of all things.

As soon as he feels short of breath he starts rooting through his messenger bag for his inhaler. Steve has a moment to think aha!and then fuck,before he’s losing his grip on the thing and it’s skidding across the pavement and into an alleyway.

He freezes when he realizes he’s not alone.

Steve hears a muffled sound coming from behind the dumpster, but that’s not what makes him look; no, it’s the metallic scent in the air which, with a creeping feeling of dread, he hopes isn’t blood. He looks. It’s blood.

And there’s a man sitting right in a puddle of it, leaning heavily against the brick wall and clutching his side with a metal hand.

How Steve finds an injured Bucky, nurses him back to health, and takes down a HYDRA agent while he’s at it. Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33272239

Title: Highway Ghost Creator: Neonbat  Fic Rating: E Wordcount : 15820 Prompt #: 31 Warnings: Usual WS Bucky warnings Summary: Steve hated long drives, it was too easy to zone out, especially when you’re full of cook-out food and good times. Having someone fall out of nowhere right in front of his car wasn’t exactly something he’d ever consider a possibility. He had enough excitement already from his job as an ER Nurse. Except, where most people would have been laid out on the asphalt, the man dressed in black got up without a scratch and insisted medical care wasn’t needed. The fuck was his life?  Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33283738

Title: He "Accidently" Picked A Hot Roommate Creator: rufferto Medium: digital art Rating: G Prompt #: 48 Warnings: N/A Summary: Steve needs a roommate. He thinks he will never find one but then he meets Winter Soldier Bucky who needs a place to stay while he recovers. Steve offers him the room immediately and it turns out Bucky is a great roommate. Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33279370

Title: special delivery Creator: @glim / glim Medium: fic Rating: Teen + Wordcount: ~6,000 words Prompt #: 30 Warnings: n/a Summary: Written for shrinkyclinksfest, Prompt #30: Steve Rogers has always been prone to sickness, but summer colds are the absolute worst. What he wants is a huge bowl of chicken noodle soup and some ice cream. What he gets is a food delivery guy who’s so built and hot Steve chokes on his tongue. That’s why he keeps ordering long after he’s recovered and how he finally gets Bucky Barnes into his apartment and his bed. Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33343828

Title: When the Pool Closes Creator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy  Fic Rating: T Wordcount : 1858 Prompt #: 36 Warnings: N/A Summary: Steve just wants to enjoy a day out in the sun by himself. That’s not too much to ask. Except it is, apparently. With such fair skin, sunscreen is a must, and there’s no way he can reach his entire back. He’s just going to have to find someone to help him apply it, and if the guy is ripped… Well, it’s not Steve’s fault that he’s got good taste. Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33341596

Title: To the Future and the Past Creator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy  Fic Rating: T Wordcount : 1465 Prompt #: 40 Warnings: Major character death Summary: Maybe a funeral isn’t the right time to admit to a gay love story, but Bucky doesn’t care. That’s what Steve wanted, and Bucky’s never been able to say no to the love of his life. Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33358726

Title: A Shot Across The Bow Creator: Author: Becassine Artist: Call_me_kayyyyy  Art Rating: G Fic Rating: E Wordcount : 18382 Prompt #: 52 Warnings: Blood/Injury, Implied/Reference Abuse, Reference Slave Trade Summary: Bucky Barnes is a Pirate Captain, and one accustomed to getting his own way. When fate drops Steve Rogers in his path one lonely evening in Tortuga, his life is forever turned upside down. Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33265450/chapters/82597747

Title: Sometime, anytime, sugar me sweet Creator: Girl_Back_There Medium: Fic Rating: Mature Wordcount: 6214 Prompt #: 45 Warnings: Some Homophobic Language, Instances of Sexual Harassment against women Summary:Bucky doesn’t know how his mother managed to Jedi mind trick him into dropping off Becca at summer camp this year, but she somehow did it. Despite his grumpiness at the unreasonable hour in which he was wrenched from his nice and cozy bed, Bucky is glad for this time with his little sister. Becca spends their time talking about the activities she got to do last summer that she hopes will be back again this year, all of which was organized by Steve Rogers. After she came home from Camp Marvel last year, all Becca could talk about was Steve Rogers, one of the counselors for her team, The Howlies. Steve Rogers was an amazing artist. Steve Rogers participates in all of the competitions despite his asthma, scoliosis, heart arrhythmia, and various other medical issues. Steve Rogers totally drinks his respect women juice. Bucky would be worried about his sister may be developing a crush on this Steve guy, but after meeting him, Bucky is more preoccupied with the crush he's developing on Steve. So preoccupied in fact, he ends up signing on to be a camp counselor for the summer. Link to work:https://archiveofourown.org/works/33339220

Title:  The Way To A Man’s Heart Creator: Author: HaniTrash Artist: Kocuria_visuals  Art Rating: T Fic Rating: E Wordcount : 11852 Prompt #: 53 Warnings: N/A Summary: Steve Rogers, skinny Brooklynite, is a college student who makes old recipes and posts videos of them on tiktok. When Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier and Avenger, sees one, he's instantly hooked and becomes Steve's biggest fan. What follows next is a story of food, flirting, and a very unlikely pairing. But much like Steve’s unusual recipes, what shouldn’t work often does… Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33312223/chapters/82722664#workskin

Title: Maybe A Muse Creator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy Medium (fic, art, podfic, etc.): fic Rating: M Wordcount: 2871 Prompt #: 28 Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Summary:  When Bucky Barnes needs extra money, he’s appalled that his best friends think he should become a model for the art department on campus. Shy, nerdy, and socially awkward, he’s not sure that’s something he feels comfortable doing. Still, he needs money, and he likes the idea of becoming someone’s muse. The problem is he had no idea two things would happen. First, one of the students in the class is exactly his type; second, he has to model nude. Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33393928

Title: Be My Breath Creator: Goosenik and clarkestetler Medium: Fic Rating: Teen and Up Wordcount: 44,575 Prompt #: 48 Warnings: N/A Summary: For the Shrinkyclinks Fest 2021 prompt: Steve needs a roommate. He thinks he will never find one but then he meets Winter Soldier Bucky who needs a place to stay while he recovers. Steve offers him the room immediately and it turns out Bucky is a great roommate.

Basically: Bucky moves in with Steve after he escapes from Hydra, and Steve begins the long process of helping Bucky remember how to be human again. Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33275848/chapters/82626394

Title: Tap-Tap Into Your Heart Creator: huntress79​ Medium: Fic Rating: T Wordcount: 5k Prompt #: 6 Warnings: none, except for one blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mention of animal death  Summary: When HYDRA finally fell, the Soldier was lost, in more than one meaning. And for the next several months, he, more or less, drifted from one former safehouse to the other, always avoiding to stay too long in one place. Until he comes to Brooklyn - and finds a new purpose, again in more than one meaning… Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33416524

Title: I'd be selfish but never with you Creator: Lacunalady on Ao3 Medium: Fic Rating: E Wordcount: 20k Prompt #: 32 Warnings: No archive warnings apply Summary: Prompted with: "Arranged marriage AU. Steve is a prince and Bucky is a newly crowned king of the neighboring country having conquered/overtaken the last ruler. In order to keep the peace between their countries, Steve's father decides for them to wed. Steve is reluctant for several reasons but mainly because he wants to marry for love and the fact that Bucky has a reputation for being exceedingly ruthless in battle (aka the winter solider)" by Bangyababy on Tumblr! Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33424936

Title: Just Peachy Creator: Erosanderis Fic Rating: N/A Wordcount : 1266 Prompt #: 34 Warnings: N/A Summary: Steve Rogers was not looking forward to meeting his soulmate. Ever since the day he was born, he had the worst possible words on his forearm. So of course he would meet them at work. Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33412060

Title: Knocking Boots with Sugar Creator: buckybarnesdeservestobehappy  Fic Rating: E Wordcount : 4095 Prompt #: 29 Warnings: N/A Summary: In between summers at college, Steve Rogers wants a new adventure beyond his lonely life in Brooklyn. He ends up in West Texas working on a dude ranch where Bucky Barnes is a long-time employee. When Bucky offers to buy Steve a drink, they end up drunk on tequila and making out in public. For the rest of the summer, they're inseparable. As the summer draws to a close, Steve realizes he doesn't want to leave. Link to work: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33499603

[kirillsochnev]

August 31.

Weird day! Moved into the dorms, helped Carrie bring all of her stuff (wish she'd put in a word for me with that hot roomate of hers) and then was followed by her to the guys' side. It's fine here, I guess, if mom can't bear see me we can get used to that dorm life.

Ms. hot teacher(or is it Mrs. Hot teacher? I hope not.) came around and ordered us to help with decorations for tomorrow. I obliged, of course, I'd eat rocks if she asked, honestly. Got roped into doing it with a bunch of nerds. I mean, that Seva kid probably can't blow up a baloon without having an asthma attack? And Edik's weird. Looks old as all hell and watches cartoons. Mila's, well, about as bad as my sister, but also not my sister, so more insufferable. Her friend is crazy. And weirdly good at guessing what im thinking. Seriously, how can this fag guy guess I was thinking of gooseberry when he asked me to think of any fruit ..?

And then shit went down! Like, we're hardly halfway through decorating the stage and these dust spirits come outta nowhere. I asked Azovka what they were, but she isn't really helpful, just keeps whining. I blast the dust thingy to pieces and this fuckin'- Guess it's a Domovoy, but for school facilities? comes out. The dust spirits call him "Daddy". I was almost thinking I've gone crazy with Azovka and the Mistress! Kept them to myself, you know, to not end up in grippy socks, and there's this shit. And everyone sees it. And they fucking talk to it, like it's no big deal, and accept it's mythic quest in the middle of the woods. That's gonna get em shanked one day, I swear.

But we go into the woods. Carrie goes, and I follow. God knows if anything happens to her I'm getting the blame and the lifelong sentence. It's fine, I guess, nothing weird happened. We get the thing the creature asked for and come back, super late, to get chewed out by Goar (Ms. super mega hot teacher. she looked stressed today, wouldn't stop messing with her phone. I've got no fuckin clue how she types on that tiny thing. Should i get a phone?) . Wanted to give her a magic stone, but that felt like it would be creepy. Gave one to Carrie to bother her. She didn't even seem phased. I don't think she's even affected by my scary eyes anymore! I pulled that move on all of them, and actually got the big guy. He was about to shit his pants. (fey presence aoe fear/charm)

School starts tomorrow. Don't know what to feel. I finished 9th grade not that long ago, but also that was a decade and a half ago. It's still crazy thinking about that. And about how mom just took me back, no questions asked, after all these years. I wonder if she would take dad back. Don't know how anyone could like a pig like Carrie's dad. Dad will have a much harder time when he returns, though. What's the use of an Engineer that missed out on 16 years of technology? It's gotten insane. I bet he will understand all of that pretty fast, though. And explain how they make those 3D things. For now I'll just try not sucking at school anymore. Just two more years and we'll be done and going back home. I should get better at physics and geography. They keep talking a big game about the new exams at the end of school.

[sweetsubharry]

Hii!! Do you have any fics where Harry is the Damsel in Distress and Louis saves him?? Bonus if it's a kidnapping fic

Thank you very much!!

hiya!  💞 yes I have a couple of those! :) I do love a good classic rescue fic!

The first four are kidnapping and the rest are just the damsel in distress type of thing! I wasn’t sure how severe you wanted the distress? So the one’s where Louis is comforting Harry from a thunder storm and stuff I didn’t include, if you want to see those types too just send me another anon :) 

Anyway! Please stay safe and read the tags everyone! 💞

Count The Wolves And We'll Sleep Tonight by scribblewrite

Louis's the Alpha of a powerful pack and Harry's his omega.

When Harry's taken by rogue alphas, Louis will do anything to bring him home safely.

Burning Skies by emeraldharry

They both watched as ice and fire danced across their palms, hypnotized by the small things they could do with their powers. Snowflakes swirled around each other as the mist twisted about like a small tornado, while the fire in Louis' hands swayed and twirled gracefully—bright and warm and beautiful.

Before, Harry couldn't even think of touching him with the fear of turning his skin to ice. Now, he knew that Louis wasn't some ordinary human to shy away from. Louis was bright, fiery flames, a body of powerful waves of heat. Louis was everything he was not, his polar opposite, but it was all the more reason that they fit together just right.

or

[Mutant au: Harry likes to think he's normal. Except, normal boys don't freeze everything they touch. Louis thinks he's perfect just the way he is and shows him just that. Zayn is a telekinetic, Liam is a rising YouTube star, and Niall is the best human best friend there is.]

You Took My Heart By Surprise by LiveLaughLoveLarry

There is reason to believe Prince Harry’s life is in danger. After a failed kidnapping attempt, Louis is assigned to guard Harry around the clock. He is the best at what he does, but he has a tendency to not get along with clients. Louis and Harry start off on the wrong foot, but it soon becomes clear that neither is at all what the other expected.

~*~*~

Queen Anne met Louis’ eyes. “While your file documents many remarkable accomplishments, it also contains a number of early terminations. Why is that?”

“It all depends on what your priorities are,” he said slowly. “If your primary concern is protection, I’m your guy. If you’re looking for someone polite…” He shrugged. “I don’t generally try to be rude, but social graces aren’t what I’m being paid for. If someone values being sucked up to over being protected, that’s their problem.”

“You seem quite well-mannered,” Anne said, frowning.

Both Nick and Louis snorted at that. “You’ve only known me for ten minutes,” Louis said. “Give it time.”

cut your teeth on my heart by turnyourankle

Louis has worked as a security officer for years, but he's handed his first opportunity to be team lead. The assignment is nothing like what he expected.

Harry has spent years trying to distance himself from the pressure of the Twist name and legacy. But it's going to be hard to avoid when his mum hires him a bodyguard.

turn the sky black into a sky blue by orphan_account

Harry forgets that noses exist. Louis is a badass motherfucker. They bang.

“I’ve been in love with you since I dropped my books in the hallway and you made fun of me when you picked up my John Green novel off the ground.”

Save Me by CupcakeStyles

It took a door to slam him to the ground for Louis to look up and meet the broken eyes of Harry Styles, finding it in himself to want to help this boy from his misery. 

I'm falling again by nancy01

Liam gripped Harry's shoulders and ordered him to look at him. "Harry, tell me what's wrong?"

Harry couldn't hear what Liam was saying anymore, could only see and hear white noise. He wanted the hands to encase him and hold him, not keep him away at a distance.

Harry tried to speak but all that came out was a whimper again.

"Harry? Talk to me!" Liam ordered again.

"Gonna drop." Harry managed to get out, tears leaking down his face.

OR

harry drops on stage and Louis has to save him

If I Just Breathe... by whisperingwind

Harry has an asthma attack in the middle of an interview. Cue Louis saving the day, yet again.

Title from "Breathe" by Michelle Branch

If you're lost, just look for me by whisperingwind

Maybe the pain wouldn’t be so hard to withstand if it weren’t for his low tolerance.

Sure, he stubs his toe and tears up, and yeah, he might go to Louis for excessive cuddles after getting whacked in the head with a red bull can, but this is something entirely different.

He feels like he’s dying.

“Shh, shh, shh,” Louis whispers, trying to calm him down, and brushes his fingers through Harry’s hair. It’s slightly damp from the sweat rolling off his body, especially the sweat coating his face and neck. He doesn’t like seeing Harry cry, especially over things as petty as being a bit ill.

Though Louis is starting to realize that Harry is more than a bit ill. “You have to tell me what’s wrong.” It’s a command. He has to keep that overlay of sternness in his tone in order to get what he needs from Harry, otherwise he’ll never get a straight answer from the younger lad. “Deep breaths, come on. I need to know what’s going on and you’re the only one who can tell me.”

Or Harry contracts Appendicitis. Louis saves the day, again.

Title from "Walking in the Wind" by One Direction

How Much? (Enough) by iwillpaintasongforlou

Harry has an asthma attack during X-Factor rehearsals and only Louis ever listened closely enough to know what to do to help him. That's sort of how things go between them, though. Louis revolves around Harry, a bit. Harry revolves around him too, a little. Somehow it works- very much a lot.

tell me that I'm wrong but I do what I please by moonlightlouis

au where Harry and Louis are in a relationship and someone hurts louis' baby so he defends his honor

(twenty minutes later) wound up in the hospital by b4byhoney

“Baby, I think a quick trip to A&E might do you some good, hm?” Louis keeps his voice as calm as possible. He doesn't want to startle Harry or make him scared, but he knows that Harry’s fever is too high and he can't risk Harry choking himself into another attack when he's so poorly.

He hears a sharp intake of breath come for Harry and he knows Harry is starting to panic. Louis moves his hand from Harry's hair to his back, rubbing circles into his sweat-soaked shirt.

“No, no. Shh, don't worry, darling. Everything is okay, you’ll be okay. I just know that the doctors will be able to make you feel much better much sooner than I can...Just want you to get healthy as soon as possible, okay?”

-

or the one where harry has the flu and louis is a protective, nervous-wreck of a boyfriend

We Are Inevitable by mmargarita

“What’s the second flaw?”

“The second inevitable flaw in your plan is:” Louis stood straight and walked towards Harry, grabbing his chin. Harry’s breath hitched. “Us.” Louis smiled. “We’re inevitable, baby. We’re soulmates, and we both know it. You just need to come back to me.” . . . . 30/07/2020: This work has been edited and corrected, and now has 7k words more.

Snow Soaked Love by sunniskies

They take off down the hill together, Louis pulling slightly ahead, relishing the rush of adrenaline as he twists his body deftly through the powdery snow, his skis kicking up a haphazard pattern of tracks in his wake. He can hear Harry laughing loudly over the noise of the flying snow and Louis thinks about how he can’t wait to kiss him when they reach the bottom.

Louis and Harry take a weeklong skiing holiday, but when Harry gets hurt, their plans shift.

[hargrove-mayfields]

Just A Dream Away

Chapter 13/13 read here on ao3!

for @harringrovebigbang

~~~~

Just as they had predicted, it really wasn’t easy.

Billy spent a lot of time in his first few months back constantly breaking down. Everything from his basic needs, where he couldn’t hold down any foods, the sunlight was painful, and wheeling around a damn thirty pound cart just to breathe was just inconvenient, to his social life, where he was dealing with the stigma of being zombie boy 2.0, and the harsh realization that he had killed his own best friend, but also that he had to cope with knowing his abusive father had mourned him, was now thrown off, and after living so long on the other side with no way, or not time really, to cope, he was lost in the real world.

When anything went wrong or made him upset he’d just shut down and cry, leaving it up to whoever’s care he was in at that time, be it his family, the one he was born into or the one that he chose, or his therapist, to figure out how to help. He always felt stupid, like some bratty toddler throwing tantrums over not getting his way instead of like the survivor he was.

Like somehow he could fight dozens of interdimensional monsters twice as big as he is, but he couldn’t handle a little bit of stress or discomfort.

Thankfully, with a lot of reassurance and promises under their breath, they were able to move past that stage of recovery rather quickly, and the hardest part from there was just deciding what to do with their lives next.

Before the world ended, Billy was ready to study sports medicine at SCU in the fall, and Steve was thinking about following him out west to get his masters in teaching. That’s of course not what happened, nor is it going to work out at this rate, at least not until Billy gets the clearance to breathe on his own, so it’s back to the drawing board, deciding between the only two choices they really have.

Either they were going to head back towards Cali anyways and just wait to start the rest of their lives there, or they would stay in Hawkins and set up while Billy recovered. The choice was obvious to both of them.

After all that had happened, all that time that had been lost, the unnecessary grief they had all suffered, there was no way they could leave now, ditching to California would only put distance between them and the people they cared about, while the memories, the nightmares, and scars would always follow them wherever they went.

So they start looking for places in Hawkins, which turns out to be a lot goddamn harder than they thought it would be.

A house won’t fit into their budget, though even if they did, they’re pretty sure that two guys in a town like Hawkins wouldn’t have been able to buy a house together, so they look for apartments instead, so they can file as roommates. That’s no easier, because everywhere they try to go is either roach infested, or full of smokers and pets, and the very last thing Billy needs to get better is a bunch of their neighbors giving him asthma attacks on the daily.

John Harrington made it very clear that no rapscallion punks would be staying under his roof, and Billy himself had decided that, despite Neil Hargrove’s turnaround, he was never going to let Steve anywhere near the man, especially not after they were outed to him. Right now, he could walk away with his peace of mind and at least a smidgeon of respect for his father. He wasn’t willing to jeopardize that, or Steve’s safety just to move them into a house full of bad memories.

Close to deciding that maybe their only choice was to book it after all, Robin approaches them with an offer. She says she’s going to be commuting to Ivy Tech for school, and since she won’t be home most of the day anyways and Steve technically already has a room there, that they’re free to move into her apartment.

If it wasn't for their circumstances, they’d never have taken her up on that offer, but seeing as they don’t have anywhere else really to go, they decide to accept, but only if she agrees to let Steve pay part of her tuition at least.

Billy has a hard time agreeing to that, Robin to him a reminder of Heather, and Heather a reminder of what he did, but eventually they have a talk about it, and they both cry, but things turn out okay in the end between the two of them.

So by spring of the next year, they have their things packed and a list of days to expect a phone call from Max, and they’re out of their respective homes, dragging into Rob’s place what few possessions they had to call their own.

Billy isn’t allowed to lift more than fifteen pounds yet for fear of collapsing a lung, so his job is mainly to point to where he wants things and change his mind so Steve has to do all the hard work, the both of them all light and laughing at themselves, giggling like their younger counterparts until their newly allotted room is at least semi presentable.

They still have a long way to go, in their decoration skills yes, but also in the recovery aspect, both physically and mentally. But for now, they get to be happy, and appreciate what they have: eachother, a newfound sense of security, and a boundless love that could stand the trials of grief and separation, and would definitely be able to make it through the unknown that lied ahead.

Billy is alive. And Steve is whole once again.

[writingsbychelle]

I Quit

Summary: While touring with 5 Seconds of Summer, you suddenly have a bad asthma attack, causing things to shift between you and Calum.

Pairing: Calum Hood x Reader

Request: /

Warnings: description of an asthma attack and uh,,,,smoking?

Word Count: 2.019

(A/N: actually really like this fic! thanks to Amy for proofreading this and helping me❤��)

    “Do you mind?” Calum asked, holding up a pack of cigarettes and a lighter as you both leaned against the tour bus, waiting for Luke, Ashton and Michael to finish packing up so you could head to the next destination of the tour. 

    “Not at all,” you smiled at him and tucked your phone into your back pocket before turning to look at him.

    You were currently touring with 5 Seconds of Summer as their opening act, and you guys were close to finishing the tour. After almost four months on the road, it was safe to say that you were ready to return back home and get some well-deserved rest. However, as much as you were longing to curl up in your bed and binge-watch Netflix for the rest of your life, you also never wanted this to end. The shows, the audience, spending time with the guys to whom you had grown incredibly close to over these past few weeks and overall the atmosphere of being on the bus with the band. 

    But most of all, you were going to miss your late-night talks with Calum. 

    Generally just being with Calum. 

    You had already been friends before going on tour. But ever since it had become your routine to talk outside the bus during stops, Calum usually lighting a cigarette while you took sips from your bottle of water until it was time to step back into the bus and turn in for the night. You felt even closer to him than ever before. 

    That was probably going to be the thing you’d miss the most: your bus stop routine with Calum. 

    The way his eyes shone in the streetlights, the smoke leaving his lungs in long breaths, him asking if it’s okay for him to smoke next to you despite already knowing your answer, his teasing eye-rolling whenever you’d say, “that’s gonna kill you one day,” while pointing at the cigarette resting between his plump lips.

    Him. 

    You were going to miss him. 

    Logically you knew you’d still be able to see him, especially since you only lived about 20 minutes away from him. Still, the thought of not hearing his soft snores every night and having deep conversations at random rest stops in the middle of the night ate you up on the inside. It was pretty obvious what you felt for the bassist, but admitting it was something you didn’t even dare to dream of. Especially while you were still on tour and it could create unnecessary tensions between you, him and the band. Still, you couldn’t help but wish for things to be easier, for the tour life to go on forever and for you to spend the rest of your life with the man leaning against the bus next to you.

    “What are you thinking about?” Calum ripped you out of your thoughts.

    Shrugging your shoulders, you replied, “I’m gonna miss this.”

    “Me too,” he took another drag of his cigarette, “touring is always so much fun; it’s hard to believe it’s almost over.”

    “That’s not what I meant,” you mumbled, hoping he wouldn’t hear you.

    No such luck, Calum raised his eyebrows, silently asking you what you were hinting at. Before you had the opportunity to embarrass yourself, you heard loud voices coming towards you, Luke and Michael arguing about God knows what while Ashton was following his bandmates, typing something into his phone before tucking it away when he saw Calum and you leaning against the tour bus.

    “We’re all packed up and ready to go,” Ashton informed you after Luke and Michael had already disappeared into the bus.

    “We’ll join you in a minute,” Calum answered, holding up his cigarette for Ashton to see.

    “No rush,” he teasingly winked in your direction as he walked up the few steps into the bus.

    Ashton was the only one out of the four guys that knew about your crush on Calum. He had figured it out some time ago while you were touring in Europe and since he had become like a brother to you, you had approached him and asked for advice. The drummer had told you just to follow your gut feeling, which at first sounded like shit advice to you but the more you thought about it, the gladder you were for his ‘words of wisdom’.

    Before you managed to get lost in thought once again, Calum exhaled one last smoke cloud, putting out his cigarette before asking, “Ready to head inside?”

    Just as you opened your mouth to answer him, you were hit with the smoke he had blown out just a few seconds before. The moment you breathed in the smoke, you felt your throat closing in and began coughing violently.

    “(Y/N)? Is everything alright?” Calum asked, but you weren’t able to answer him, your chest tightening and you gasped for breath, feeling almost like someone was squeezing all the air out of you.

    “I-,” you tried taking a deep breath, which just ended in another coughing attack, “c-can’t...breathe.”

    Black dots started dancing in front of your eyes, vision blurring as you continued to gasp for breath. Calum helped you sit down, opening your water bottle for you and urging you to take a sip while yelling for someone to call an ambulance. All of this you didn’t notice, too busy trying to get at least some oxygen into your lungs. The water helped slightly, but you were still wheezing, coughing and gasping for breath. Out of the corner of your eyes, you saw Luke rush out of the tour bus, phone pressed against his ear. Your throat felt tighter and tighter with every passing second, and the last thing you saw before passing out, was Calum looking at you, eyes full of fear.

    That night the ambulance had taken you to the nearest hospital. The second they arrived, the paramedic had pressed an oxygen mask against your face, helping you breathe as you were loaded into the vehicle. You had woken up after a few moments of being unconscious, still barely able to breathe. Calum sat right next to you, your head in his lap, him holding onto your hands and speaking reassuring words to you. You didn’t really understand any of them, but the sound of his voice and his presence were enough to help you calm down a little bit. Once you were on the stretcher, you had asked if Calum could come with you, and apparently, the paramedics decided to make an exception and let him ride with you in the ambulance, holding your hand the entire time until you were wheeled into the examination room. 

    After a few tests, you finally got a result: asthma. The smoke from Calum’s cigarette had caused quite a bad asthma attack, but luckily the doctor had told you if you kept an inhaler at you at all times, the chances of having another attack that bad were pretty slim. With the diagnosis, and the advice to take it a bit slow the next few days, you were released. All four guys of 5 Seconds of Summer were waiting for you and crowded around you once they saw you walk into the waiting room.

    “So…I have asthma apparently,” you shrugged, holding up the inhaler you were given.

    “You’ll be alright, though, right?” Ashton asked.

    Nodding your head, you replied, “Yeah. The doctor said to take it easy, and if I feel like my throat is closing in again, I’ll just have to use the inhaler, and it should be fine. She also said that I could finish the tour, so that’s good news too.”

    “Thank god,” you heard Calum mumble as the others cheered, pulling into a group hug.

   Only two weeks later, the tour had officially come to an end. 

   To celebrate the great success of it, you gathered at Michael’s house together with the people that had helped make the tour possible. You had been wandering around the house for some time now, trying to find a certain bassist, but so far you had no success. After feeling like you had checked every inch of the house, you decided to go into the backyard, wanting to catch some fresh air and hoping to find Calum out there, maybe having a smoke and trying to get a few moments away from everyone himself. 

   Calum had felt distant lately. 

   Ever since your little hospital scare, he hadn’t really been spending time with you. No more late-night talks outside of the tour bus while waiting for the guys to finish up or while the bus needed to refuel. You were scared you had done or said something wrong, and after going over it with Ashton, you finally got the courage to confront him and ask him what was going on. Opening the door, you took a step outside, inhaling the chilly night air and letting out a sigh—finally some fresh air. You let your eyes drift around the backyard until you finally spotted Calum sitting underneath a tree that was decorated with some fairy lights. 

   “No cigarette?” you asked as you approached him.

   His head shot up upon hearing your voice, obviously ripping him from his thoughts.

   “No...I’m...I quit.”

   “You quit? Smoking?” you sat down next to him, his body visibly tensing as you did.

   “Cal...what’s going on?”

   “What do you mean?”

   You sighed, “I mean, that you’ve been avoiding me since my asthma attack two weeks ago. And now you apparently quit smoking? What’s going on, Cal? Did I-did I do something wrong?”

   Tears were rising in your eyes, afraid that something you did, something you were unaware of, had ruined your friendship with the bassist.

   “(Y/N), no. No. You did nothing wrong. It’s just-fuck,” he ran a hand over his buzzcut in frustration and whispered, “I’m the reason for your asthma attack.”

   “Cal…it wasn’t your fau-”

   “Yes, it was! I was smoking next to you and the smoke caused your attack.”

   “The smoke might’ve been the reason for the asthma attack but I had asthma before! If anything, I should be thanking you right now because if it hadn’t been for you and your smoking I probably never would’ve known I have asthma and would’ve kept wondering why I’m always coughing at night and running out of breath after singing on stage.”

   “(Y/N),” he took your face in his hands to force you to look into his eyes, “it is my fault. Whether you like it or not. I quit because I never want to see you like that, lying on the floor, gasping for breath. You-you looked like you were going to die, (Y/N). I can’t risk seeing you like that ever again, do you understand?”

   “You quit for me?” you whispered, not quite believing your ears.

   “Yeah, I did.”

   “You know you didn’t have to.”

   “I know. I wanted to. For you. And obviously also for my health,” he chuckled slightly, face slowly moving closer to yours.

   “Cal, I-”

   “Shh,” he gently shushed you before placing his lips on yours.

   His lips were warm and soft, tasting slightly of the alcoholic drink he had earlier that evening. Your hands, almost instantly and instinctively moved to the back of his neck, your nails slightly scratching his scalp in the process, causing him to let out a low groan. His lips parted slightly, his tongue slowly tracing your bottom lips, slipping inside your mouth once you parted yours. Roughly his hands grabbed onto your hips and pulled you into his lap before wrapping around your body and pulling you impossibly close. 

   A loud cheer from inside the house broke you apart, your head flipping around, afraid you had been caught, just to see everyone still busy drinking and partying inside Michael’s house.

   “You wanna go back inside?”

   Calum’s voice sounded hoarse and lower than usual.

   Shaking your head you replied, “How about we get back to my place?”

   To make your point clear, you rolled your hips, grinding against him and causing a moan to slip from Calum’s lips.

   “Sounds like a plan to me.”

Masterlist and ways to support me are in my bio, please check them out❤️

[dajaregambler]

AAside - Gyroaxia Band story - Chapter 4 (full)

Translation of Gyroaxia’s band story from the game ‘Argonavis from Bang Dream! AAside’.

This post contains all parts belonging to Chapter 4.

(Recommendation to read this along the ingame band story, since it’s all fully voiced!)

Part one - “Joint declaration”

-----At GYROAXIA’s sharehouse

Reon: Kenta-san, have you seen this?

Kenta: What?

Reon: How members of Fantôme Iris are dissing us, and that from there fans started to fight each other…

Miyuki: I saw it too. Like, how Fantôme’s comments started it all, although I’m suspicious if they actually did say that

Reon: I was thinking so too but….

Reon: On the contrary, our fans went out to get revenge after Fantôme’s live had ended…

Kenta: I’m aware of it. I had shrugged it off as baseless rumors that would disappear on their own soon.

Kenta: And then it turned out to be a bigger commotion than I had expected it to.

Miyuki: What’re we gonna do? Are we gonna leave it be or

Kenta: The leader of Fantôme shall be coming here tonight. I intend to discuss what we should do about it.

Miyuki: Haha, always first on the move ain’tcha now

Reon: It’d be good if it didn’t influence the voting for the starting live, but…. today they’ll be announcing the results, right

Kenta: What now, are you not confident?

Reon: That’s not….

Miyuki: Well, I’m not worried about our ranking, it just doesn’t feel too good thinking how these strange rumors still out there

Kenta: I’ll be taking care of it. Leave it up to me

Miyuki: Yeah, yeah. Please do so, Kenta-sensei

-

----A few hours later

Felix: ---Then, I shall be taking care of the draft for the statement. Could you verify it for me once I had sent it after returning home as soon as possible?

Kenta: I’m sorry for the inconvenience. I’ll respond as soon as possible.

Felix: I could say the same. Ah… that reminds me, I had forgotten to mention something

Kenta: What may it be?

Felix: Congratulations on reaching first place at the starting live. It’s still an amazing accomplishment, even without the impact of the rumors.

Kenta: Thank you very much. However, I believe that you are not intending to leave things as they are now, right?

Felix: Why of course. We may have ended up last now, but one could say it was a mere warm up for next time.

Felix: It ought to not take long before we get tired of staring down on your backs.

Kenta: …..GYROAXIA will not lose.

Felix: I see… fufu. Now then, I suppose it’s time to---

(Door opening)

Nayuta: Any coffee

Nyankotarou: Nya~

Felix: Good evening, Nayuta. Pardon my intrustion. And hello to you too, you must be Nyankotarou

Nayuta: …..A guest, eh

Kenta: You seem to be well informed, to the point of knowing his cat’s name. 

Felix: Only because I have checked the official blog of your band. A fan ought to know this much, or am I wrong?

Kenta: Haha

Felix: Now, I shall be taking my leave. I would love to sit down and have a nice chat with you when possible, Nayuta

Nayuta: ………

Felix: À bientôt. And to you too, Nyankotarou

Nyankotarou: Nya~

-

Nayuta: …..What did you talk about

Kenta: I had consulted him about what we should do about these baseless rumors. Nothing that should concern you.

Nayuta: ‘Kay

Kenta: Ah, right there is coffee. I’ll go make some right now

Kenta: (Even though I’m doing everything I can to not distract Nayuta with any unnecessary trouble, it has to blow over as soon as it can.)

Kenta: (If... this would put an end to it, though...)

Part two - “Joint interview”

-----At an office

Miyuki: Soft and fluffy chairs, some way too delicious coffee…. at last, the kind of treatment we deserve

Nayuta: ….Oi, Sakaigawa

Miyuki: Mh? What’s up, Nayuta?

Nayuta: It’s time. Let’s leave

Miyuki: Eh? I mean sure it’s been a while since it was supposed to start but… wouldn’t it be good to wait for a bit at least!

Nayuta: Tch….

Miyuki: The management of the Fes had set this interview up for us too. Hold it out just for a bit, okay!

Miyuki: Handling advertising is also an important part for the Fes, didn’t Kenta say so too?

Nayuta: Where is he

Miyuki: He said he suddenly had a meeting to attend and is at the office now

Nayuta: ………

Miyuki: I’ll contact the person in charge too, c’mon sit down!

Interviewer: Excuse me. My sincerest apologies for being late!

Shu: So sorry for bein’ late. Was busy with school an’ all that 

Reiji: Forgive us for making you wait.

Miyuki: Eh? You guys are Epsi’s….

Nayuta: ….What’s the meaning of this

Miyuki: Wasn’t it supposed to be Nayuta’s interview today or...

Interview: Huh? Have we not informed you about it? That it’s a joint interview with the frontmen of the participating bands...

Shu: Aah, that’s ‘cuz I asked to not let ‘em know. Wanted to get a good scare outta ‘em!

Nayuta: ….We gotta leave

Miyuki: Heey hey now! This kinda interview isn’t too bad, is it! And it’s not like you speak a lot on your own to begin with!

Reiji: My deepest apologies for spoiling the mood. Ujigawa has a tendency to enjoy pulling suck pranks...

Shu: Aw c’mon, stop talkin’ as if I’m some lil’ kid

Interviewer: We are very sorry for the lack of communication on our part! I promise it will not take too long, so please….!

Nayuta: ………

-

Interviewer: ----Now then, could you tell us what you think of each other’s bands?

Nayuta: Got nothing

Shu: Eeeh, that’s makin’ me sad. I’mma big fan of Gyro! Nayuta-san’s vocals are a given, but the rest of the band---

Miyuki: Wonder if it’s okay for Nayuta to act like that….

Reiji: Isn’t it more exciting to have an interview with a feeling of tension in the air

Reiji: It’s quite interesting, like Asahi-san himself

Miyuki: Haha… A relief to hear that then

Reiji: ….Speaking of which, that secret live from the other day was exciting too wasn’t it

Reiji: Somehow to the point of Asahi-san collapsing from singing too much….

Miyuki: Hm, aah… that. Yeah, Nayuta just went a bit overboard with giving his all

Reiji: Is his physical condition stable?

Miyuki: All good, good! Not a big deal at all!

Reiji: Then that is fine…. The vocalist collapsing must be undeniably troublesome for the members too.

Miyuki: Well… honestly, what came after that was more troubling than him collapsing

Reiji: Had something happened?

Miyuki: Nah well, it was more silly if anything you know, like a whole coup d’état was being staged! 

Reiji: Coup d'état…. Haha, that does indeed sound quite funny.

Reiji: If you don’t mind, could you tell me more about it?

Part three - “Stand and talk”

Miyuki: ---And with that, the whole coup fell apart. And one way or the other we all got back together again.

Miyuki: See? Told you it was silly, right?

Reiji: ….It’s necessary for the surprise attack to land its mark, if one wants a coup to succeed.

Reiji: For that moment, you have to bow down to those in power and patiently await your turn to strike...

Miyuki: Uum… What’s that about?

Reiji: ….History that I had learned in class about.

Reiji: Either way, thank you very much for talking with me.

Reiji: We’re respectively having our own fair share of issues due the nature of our frontmen, however we shall be doing our best for the Fes going on forward.

Miyuki: Seriously mature for your age, aren’t you….

Nayuta: Let’s leave, Sakaigawa

Miyuki: Sorry, sorry. Got caught up in talking. So, how did that interview go? 

Nayuki: Dunno. You’ll see tomorrow when we get back

Shu: Nayuta-san, good work. Was plenty of fun to talk with you!

Reiji: Thank you for your time too, Sakaigawa-san. I wish you good luck at the live tommorrow.

Miyuki: Ah, hold on Nayuta! Sorry for this, we’ll sit down to talk again some other time

Reiji: ….How did it go with him?

Shu: Wasn’t fun at all. That mister wouldn’ react at all despite pushin’ his buttons

Shu: Anyway, you seem to have heard somethin’ interesting?

Reiji: Yes. Exactly the kind of thing you enjoy.

Reiji: I’ll go collect evidence from the livehouse and hospital at once. I’ll be able to have it done in a few hours.

-

-----At GYROAXIA’s sharehouse

Ryo: Ah, Miyuki-kun and Nayuta, welcome baaack

Kenta: Welcome back, good work today

Miyuki: Huh, you got back too?

Kenta: Yes, it was a simple meeting. More importantly, how did the interview go?

Miyuki: It was… the whole thing turned out different than expected. Nayuta had to do a joint interview with Epsi’s Ujigawa-kun

Kenta: With Ujigawa Shu.... Was there anything strange that happened? 

Miyuki: Nah? It went pretty smoothly, right Nayuta?

Nayuta: Don’t remember. Don’t care

Kenta: Then, that’s fine….

(Door opening)

Reon: Ah, Kenta-san! Did you check online!?

Kenta: What is it, have fans started arguing again?

Miyuki: We commented on it, shouldn’t it have calmed down?

Reon: Not that! Look, it’s about this!

Miyuki: Uuum… “GYROAXIA’s vocalist, Nayuta Asahi has been spotted at the hospital! Troubles arise regarding the continuation of the band”---- 

Ryo: “Which leads to tension between the band members! Are they on the verge of breaking up with LR Fes right around the corner!?”

Miyuki: ...What, what the hell!? Where did all of this come from?

Kenta: I had assumed the possibility about hospital-related rumors spreading but…. not that it would reach about the state of the band itself.

Reon: It’s strange right! And way too detailed! To the point of a coup being mentioned!

Nayuta: ….What’s the meaning of this?

Kenta: I can only think it was one of us that had leaked it. But, how…. doesn’t anyone here remember this?

Miyuki: Think about it, going out of your way to talk about th--

Reiji: If you don’t mind, could you tell me more about it?

Miyuki: ….Eh? Don’t tell me….him!?

Kenta: Is there something you know, Miyuki

Miyuki: ……..Shit! Sure did it this time!!

Part four - “Reiji’s strategy”

Miyuki: While… Nayuta was doing the interview, I had talked to Epsi’s drummer…

Kenta: The drummer…. Karasuma Reiji

Miyuki: But, we didn’t talk too long ago, and I didn’t say anything about Nayuta’s asthma either!?

Kenta: There was more than enough time to spread rumors online about it.

Reon: It’s about an illness, and with how he collapsed at a live, you can make up as much as you want about it….

Kenta: ….There were a lot of awful rumors about Epsi when they were in Kyoto. How they’ll do anything to crush whoever piques their interest, and the like

Kenta: Which makes me suspect that they’re the ones behind our trouble with Fantôme.

Ryo: Why…. why would they do such things?

Kenta: To cut down the amount of rivals for the Fes…. I wouldn’t know for any other reason why.

Reon: Still, to go like that about it… it’s way too foul!

Kenta: They’re still middle and highschool students, but have plenty of funds and human connections to make use of.

Kenta: An example of what happens when a child who doesn’t know any better becomes drunk on power, I suppose

Nayuta: ……….

Miyuki: Goddamnit….!!

Reon: What do we do? Make another statement?

Kenta: Compared to last time, these rumors aren’t completely baseless. Any wrong moves will increase our amount of problems….

Miyuki: I’m sorry, everyone…. All because I just can’t keep my mouth shut….

Kenta: Apologies are for later. We need to focus on what to do about this right now...

Nayuta: Ain’t gonna do a thing

Miyuki: ...Eh?

Nayuta: We’re gonna rehearse. Get ready

Reon: Is it really fine to just leave it at that!?

Nayuta: Don’t give enough of a fuck to play around with some shitty brat

Kenta: Still… will the fans agree to it?

Nayuta: As if I know

Reon: “As if” you say….

Ryo: Then… wouldn’t it be better to admit to everything?

Miyuki: …..Eeeeh!?

Ryo: Let’s admit it at the beginning of the live. About Nayuta’s illness, and our coup d’état too

Kenta: …..Isn’t that asking to invite even more chaos?

Ryo: It’ll be all good!

Reon: How even

Ryo: ‘Cuz we’ll be doing a live right after it?

Ryo: Once our live starts, everyone’s worries will fly right out of the window and they’ll become happy!

Miyuki: What’s with that…

Kenta: ….I see

Reon: You’re agreeing with him!?

Kenta: Because… it might be a chance to demonstrate our power. Rumors and facts, GYROAXIA’s music will bring it all to the ground

Kenta: If it goes smoothly, we’d be back on track for the Fes...

Nayuta: ……..

Miyuki: Nayuta, I’m sorry…. It’s my fault that your fans came to know about your illness…..

Miyuki: But, it’s as Ryo and Kenta said… If it’s with you…. with our performance, everything will be blown away

Nayuta: Cut it out with the whining….

Reon: You’re so….!

Nayuta: I’m only gonna sing

Part five - “What about it?”

----At the livehouse

Gyro fan A: Hey, did you see it? Those rumors online. Like, “Gyro in a crisis of disbanding” and all… 

Gyro fan B: Isn’t that fake? And, Nayuta’s illness….

Gyro fan A: Yeah but… there’s also how Nayuta collapsed during the last song at this secret live the other day, right?

Gyro fan B: Yeah… and it does seem that the members often fight too….

Nayuta: …...Listen

Gyro fan A: Eh…. He’s gonna talk? Isn’t this unusual!?

Nayuta: Everything online, those shitty rumors--- All of it is true

Nayuta: I have a respiratory disease. There’s guys that started going on about quitting

Nayuta: But… what about it?

Nayuta: Even if I fall, I’ll sing. Even on my own, I’ll sing.

Nayuta: As long as I live

Nayuta: …...GYROAXIA

-

Reon: (All you had to say or what… still… it really fired up everyone!)

Miyuki: (Amazing, eh… that it wasn’t “us” either.)

Ryo: (Yeah, this feels nice… everyone looks happy)

Kenta: (Go, Nayuta…. crush them….!)

-

Gyro fan A: GYROOO!!!

Gyro fan B: NAYUTAAA!!

Gyro fan A: Hey, is that illness part true!? He’s still going at full power during the encore!!

Gyro fan B: The instrumental part was amazing too! No way that they’re breaking up!

Ryo: Aah, how nice… this kind of atmosphere… it’s very happy….

Reon: Haah..haah.. alright! The best performance…. yes… yes!!

Miyuki: Fuuh... for real, he’s some kinda monster... the fact that he pulled off a live beyond flawless

Kenta: You did it, Nayuta…. Alright, time to wrap it up

Nayuta: …….

Kenta: Nayuta….?

Nayuta: Oi… dunno if you’re here… some damned guy that has the nerve to pull some shit---

Nayuta: Whatever you wanna do, don’t drag me in it

Nayuta: That shit won’t crush my music

Nayuta: Still, you’re an eyesore. Don’t get in my way a second time. And if you wanna keep going...

Nayuta: I’ll destroy you… at the Fes battle

Miyuki: Haha… As if he’s some pro-wrestler

Reon: He.. was considerably angry

Kenta: Really? Isn’t that---

Ryo: Yeah, it’s the Nayuta that we know

-

Gyro fan A: That was so awesome! But… what Nayuta said at the end there...

Gyro fan B: “I’ll destroy you at the Fes”.... does this mean that a participating band spread rumors?

Gyro fan A: Seriously… that’s straight up awful

Reiji: ………

Reiji: (Failure, huh… No, they turned the tables around….)

Reiji: (There’s many other bands that aren’t this straight-forward… Well, whether it succeeds or not, either is fine.)

Reiji: (As long as Shu has been entertained)

[megalony]

Braces

This is a fluffy dad! Steve Rogers imagine that I’ve been meaning to polish up for a while. I hope you all like it, feedback is always lovely.

Taglist: @lunaticspoem @butlegendsneverdie @langdonzvoid @jennyggggrrr @rogmeddows @radiob-l-a-hblah @rogertaylorsbitontheside @chlobo6 @rogertaylors-lipgloss @sj-thefan @omgitsearly @luckytrashgooprebel @scarsout @deaky-with-a-c @killer-queen-ofrhye @bluutac @vousmemanqueez @jonesyaddiction @ambi-and-sunflowers @milanosaurus @httpfandxms @saint-hardy @7-seas-of-fat-bottomed-girls @mrsalwayswritex @rogerina-owns-me @peterquillzsblog @im-an-adult-ish @crazylittlethingg @allauraleigh

Masterlist

Summary: Steve and (Y/n)’s son has to wear braces on his legs that Steve knows knocks his confidence a lot. But he decides to surprise Steve after a mission by running properly without them.

Enjoy.

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

Bruce smiled at the scene in front of him, something that didn't happen very often and that was rather rare in all cases. He was currently in the lab, trying to do his work but his eyes kept diverting to look over to where Tony was. Although it was him he certainly didn't act like the Tony Stark everyone knew and got annoyed with after a while. He was standing in front of the metal table in the lab which his nephew James was sitting on with a bright smile that Bruce never got tired of seeing.

Whenever Tony was around his nephew he seemed like a totally different person and Bruce found it rather endearing to see.

Things between Tony and Steve had always been uneasy, it was like they were always getting off on the wrong foot or they always locked horns over the most silly, trivial of things. But when (Y/n) and Steve had James, it cemented the broken foundations between both men. They would hardly ever argue if James was around and he seemed to calm them both down rather a lot, more than (Y/n) could ever calm down her big brother and her husband.

The little boy had a lot of medical problems, some of which related to the problems Steve had before he got the serum and it broke his heart to see his son grow up each day struggling in the same way he had done. They all knew it wasn't Steve's fault, the serum did run through James like it did him but not enough of it. James had asthma like Steve did but not as bad as his dad which was a relief to them for Steve had a lot of asthma attacks and couldn't even run properly with how bad his breathing got.

James was also a very skinny child, taking after Steve again and it caused him to gain illnesses quicker but they was the only illnesses James had inherited from his dad. What Steve was happier to acknowledge was that James was his double, he had the same ash blond hair, the baby blue eyes and the cheekbones and even the curved nose. He had a lot of personality traits like his mother and smarts from her and Tony combined too. He was a mix of all of them and they all loved it.

Tony had taken it upon himself to be his nephews doctor and consultant, he wanted to help and look after him in any way that he could which is why James and (Y/n) were currently in the lab with them.

James wore braces on his legs to help him walk properly, when he was a toddler he somehow managed to walk with his feet sticking out to the sides and he found it very difficult to walk without support. The braces were to help correct his walk and give his legs that extra support and Tony designed them so they weren't so bad looking and hard to manoeuvre. He made them so they were thin but strong and kept moderating them like he did to his suits to thin them down but make them more efficient at the same time.

"Alright then, I'll just adjust these and your all set little man. Why don't you surprise your dad without them on?" Tony encouraged, seeing James' eyes light up at the idea like he had stars captured in his pupils.

"Can I?" He asked, excitement bubbling in his tone causing his mother to smile. He wasn't used to walking very much without the braces on, he relied on them to make sure he continued to walk properly since he was still growing. The thought of running- or at least trying to run- to Steve and show him he was a big boy able to walk better made his smile widen significantly when his uncle nodded that he would be alright to do that.

"Sure, just not for too long."

"Your dad should be back now, let's go surprise him." (Y/n) pitched in as Tony carefully placed James down to his feet before patting his back.

With a smile, Tony leaned against the table as he and Bruce watched James slowly walk over to (Y/n), managing rather well on his own without the support he was so used to. It wasn't as if they were crutches that he relied on to keep him upright, James could walk without them but it was safer and would aid him better if he wore them every day until a stage where his walking was adapted to normal.

(Y/n) handed his bag to him and he slipped the straps onto his shoulders, he never went far without his backpack designed to look like Steve's shield. He took his mother's hand and they exited the lab in search of Steve, knowing they would be back in a little while for the braces to be fitted again.

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

Steve and Natasha walked down the corridor, both rubbing at their damp hair making their contrasting hair colours look a few shades darker than they really were. The pair had just got back from a mission which took three days and still felt like they were covered in dust and grime.

Even spending half an hour in the shower didn't do much to rid the sticky feeling that Steve got from being in his mud covered suit for hours on end.

Both of them stopped outside the elevator, pressing the button to head up to the lounge in the Avengers tower so they could sit down and try to recover before they eventually had to do something or got another mission come through. Some of the avengers lived at Stark tower, but others like Steve, Thor and Clint had their own homes, though they sometimes stayed over when needed.

"Go on honey." (Y/n) whispered to James, kissing his head before pulling back to watch him make a bee-line for his double. James could see his dad and aunt down the corridor waiting for the elevator and he hoped he would catch them before they disappeared to another level of the tower. James knew not to run too fast, (Y/n) had warned him about that because it would strain his legs and he could pull a muscle or fall which wouldn't be very good for him at all.

"Daddy!"

As soon as the all too-familiar voice reached his ears, Steve felt his heart speed up and he turned to his left to search for the occupier of the voice. Steve hadn't been expecting his son to be at the tower today but he certainly hadn't expected his son to be heading towards him with a bright smile and no braces adorning his slim legs.

A bright smile lit up Steve's features at the rather rare sight of James looking happy to be trying his best to speed walk. It was very hard to get James to want to go out with his braces because he felt awkward with them and as if they were holding him back rather then enhancing him. Steve wanted to take a few steps forward and reach him halfway but he stopped when he realised James was determined to make it all the way down the corridor to him instead.

The moment James got within reach, Steve bent down and scooped his boy up in his arms. He spun round whilst holding James tight against his chest in a comforting hug, knowing he had caught James just in time because his foot had skidded on the polished tiles and he would have fallen if he carried on any further.

"Wow there, soldier! What happened to the braces?" Steve asked in shock, standing up to his full height once again with James secured to his shoulder. He felt his heart jumping in his chest when James wrapped his arms around Steve's neck, hugging him as close as possible since he'd missed him whilst he'd been away.

Steve bounced his boy on his hip but when he noticed James was breathing rather deeply he moved his hand and dug around in the backpack on James' shoulders. He pulled out his boy's inhaler, something Steve had had the luxury of forgetting about until James was a toddler and found out he needed one. The little boy took a few deep breaths to calm down before he managed to give Steve a response to his question.

"Uncle Tony's fixing them, I wanted to surprise you." There was a small hint of sadness in his tone because he knew soon enough he was going to have to go back to wear the braces that corrected his walking but slowed him down at the same time.

"Well you certainly did. Do you think you can make it back up to the lab without them?" Steve whispered the last part in James' ear, seeing his son smile brightly and nod in response to the mini-challenge. Steve always tried to push James to keep going and try harder but at the same time, Steve would stop him if he knew his boy wouldn't be able to do it.

When Steve was younger he never had people trying to encourage him to do things, he had to encourage himself and he didn't want that for his son. As much as his mother had tried to make him feel normal and comfortable and okay, she wanted Steve to hold back and play things safe rather than try and test his limits. He knew that James needed someone to will him on and that was exactly what Steve was going to do, he would try and push James within his limits so he would excel.

"Well done little guy." Natasha chipped in with a smile, running a hand through his hair to ruffle the strands which made him smile before she patted Steve's shoulder and headed into the elevator heading.

Steve pressed a kiss to the side of James' head before he set him back down to his feet, walking close beside his boy just in case he slipped or tripped. Steve could see that James was already starting to edge his feet out to the sides automatically like he did when he was running but he was walking overall much better than usual.

When they got to where (Y/n) was patiently waiting for her boys, she kissed James' forehead, wrapping him up in a congratulating hug before letting him head over to the stairs so she could see Steve.

It felt like a lifetime since (Y/n) had felt Steve's arms binding around her waist, seen his charming yet cheeky smile or felt his lips pressing against hers when in reality he had only been gone for three days. (Y/n) always prayed that any missions didn't last very long because she knew that if three days felt like a lifetime, he would barely get through a week or more without Steve.

"Daddy, come on!"

James' voice broke apart the couple's short-lived moment but the lopsided smile on Steve's face made (Y/n)'s heart skip a beat and told her they would carry this on later. The couple started to ascend up the stairs after their son who was bouncing up the steps like he was a spring or a little excited puppy.

(Y/n) leaned her head on Steve's shoulder as they both watched James, but when they got close to the lab Steve noticed James was slowing down. He was clearly getting tired and he was starting to kick his feet out to the sides, his legs becoming uncoordinated because he didn't have the energy to correct himself.

"Alright super-soldier, come here." Steve wrapped his free arm that wasn't placed around (Y/n)'s waist, around James' front and gently picked him up so he could settle him on his hip to rest his legs.

"Uncle Tony I surprised daddy! And walked up the stairs too!"

James' voice became slightly higher in pitch from his excitement when the three of them entered the lab and his words caused Tony's lips to curve into a smug smile. He knew it would raise his nephew's spirit to try and walk without his braces and impressing Steve would only further elate James' mood.

"See, you won't be needing these for much longer I'm sure. So I've changed the design a little, and the colour scheme is just as his lordship asked. Come on little man."

Steve pulled away from (Y/n) so he could walk over and settle James down on the table. He watched intently as Tony crouched down in front of his nephew and slotted the braces into James' shoes before strapping them just below his knees to keep the metal bars in place around his skinny legs. It didn't escape Steve's attention when the smile James previously had on his lips dampened when the braces were put on his legs. But when he noticed the small Captain America shields at the bottom of the braces, a breathless giggle left his lips.

"Thank you uncle Tony."

"Your welcome." Tony ruffled his hair before he made his way over to Bruce so they could carry on working on their new piece of technology.

Steve shook his head with a playful smile when James looked over at him and held his arms out, clearly wanting to be picked up. Whenever Steve had been away even for just a little while James became clingy wanting to be wherever Steve was and he loved it.

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

"Are you ready to head home?" Steve questioned the little boy in his arms who he knew was rather tired. James nodded tiredly in response, slipping his bag back on his shoulders when Steve handed it to him. Natasha had stolen (Y/n) for a while wanting to catch up and chat and she said she would meet the boys back at their home when she was finished chatting with Natasha.

Steve gently placed James down to his feet and got up himself, putting his leather jacket on before taking James' hand and attempting to leave the room but he stopped when he realised his son wasn't walking with him. He cocked his head to the side, his baby blue eyes pooling with love and confusion as he waited patiently for James to tell him what was wrong.

But Steve found his face falling when James simply held his arms out to him; he wanted to be carried.

"What's wrong soldier?" Steve went down on his knees so he could be level with his boy who was clearly upset with tears glistening in his eyes which made Steve feel panicked.

"I don't want these." James responded quietly, tapping at the braces on his legs making Steve sigh sadly. He took a deep breath before he looked at James with a gentle expression, trying to think how to make him feel better about it but he didn't know what to say to make this better.

"I know you don't, but they're not forever buddy. If you don't have them you'll hurt your legs and your back too." He tried to keep his tone gentle and understanding and James nodded his head but his expression didn't change. He didn't want to walk around wearing braces that slowed him down and made it feel weird when he walked, They annoyed him and made him feel abnormal, not to mention the way people looked at him when he went out.

"I don't like them daddy."

"Buddy, if you wear them then you can train with me more when your walking better. You wanted to join me didn't you?" A small smile tugged at James' lips as he looked down at his feet and nodded in response. He went to the gym with Steve from time to time but didn't do much, he mainly watched him most of the time although Steve encouraged him to do small weights and he helped him with other activities there. It made James happy and boosted his confidence a little so Steve kept bringing him along.

"But I... um..."

"What is it?" Steve asked, a smile on his features encouraging him to talk and say what was on his mind.

"I want to be like you."

Closing his eyes Steve sighed, that was not what he expected to hear and it broke his heart. Truthfully he didn't know if James could ever be like him with the medical issues he had. James might get better as he grew older, his asthma might subside, he was most likely going to walk fine when he was in his teens and no longer had the braces. And if he put on a bit more weight he might be less vulnerable to illnesses, but Steve didn't know if he was ever going to be like him in a physical stance.

But then again, Steve always thought he himself would always be the short skinny kid who spent half his life in a hospital or laid in bed with a cold and yet here he was now.

"What colour are your eyes?" Steve's rather off-topic question caught James by surprise and he looked very confused before he answered as if he thought it was a trick question.

"Blue."

"Just like mine, and what colour is your hair?"

"Blond."

"Correct, and you've got my nose too; you look exactly like me. You have a shield on your back and your a good little soldier, your kind, funny and I know your smart. You're already like me, you're my little doppelganger and I love that about you, but you don't have to act like me or walk and talk like me. You are amazing and perfect as yourself. My little soldier."

Steve didn't want James to grow up and think he had to act just like Steve or even want to act like him, he wanted James to be his own person. He thought it was sweet and rather endearing that his son- his first child, looked the spitting image of himself, Steve loved that. It was like he was looking in a mirror that showed him his younger self. But he wanted James to grow up and form his own person and his own mind, he came to the gym with Steve because he wanted to try and train but Steve didn't want him to think he had to be just like him.

With a soft smile, Steve reached out and wrapped his arms around James, holding him to his chest in a tight, comforting hug before he got to his feet, ready to get them both home.

[captainjimothycarter]

How about modern Steggy meeting at Pride? Both bi, but that's not why she's there, she's there cause her young child is trans and she's not letting them grow up ashamed of this ("Even if it does turn out to be a temporary questioning 'phase', I won't let them ever be ashamed of being who they are."). Cause like 10 year old Carter child who's a little antsy to be there, Peggy with bi-pride tipped curls, and Steve with the trans flag painted on his cheek

OP YOUR MIND!! They would fiercely protect the Carter Child, not that Steve thinks she can’t do it, but he’s downright feral at times when it comes to kids in danger. This might not be what you had in mind, so I do apologize. This got ahead of me is quite long.

--

“Ignore them,” Bucky breathed in Steve’s ear, tugging on the blonde’s hand to get him away from the protesters that are somehow legally allowed here. This was borderline abuse if you asked him. Sure, freedom of speech but it was quickly cut off when you yelled at children and elderly people for being themselves. 

Steve growled under his breath and tugged his hand away from Bucky’s, careful not to touch the drying trans flag painted across his cheek. Natasha would be furious if he messed up her work. Or touch the chalk-dye of the flag in his hair.

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, despite Bucky didn’t look like he’d believed him. The guy stood out like a Christmas tree, literally with the bi flag colors wrapped around the metallic arm and shining bright enough to land a plane. “Just go find Clint, I’m going to walk off. Need to cool down.”

Before the man could say a thing, Steve was stomping off, in midst of the crowd to get away from his rightfully worried, best friend.

The last he expected was when he emerged from the other side of the crowd was to be tackled-hug by a ten-year-old child with bright hazel eyes, a buck-tooth grin, the same colors in his hair dyed on their hair, and wearing a shirt that read, ‘i’m the trans kid your parents warned you about.’ 

Steve fell to his backside to avoid instinct-wise to protect himself, an arm wrapped around the kid to prevent any of them from being trampled over by the crowds rushing from one stand to another.

“You’re Captain Ameria!” The kid sat upon his chest, still bright-eyed, kneeling rather painfully. “You’re Steve Rogers! I did reports about you.” They were actively bouncing up and down and Steve was doing his best to school the pain the sharp knees caused. 

“I am,” he grunted. “Can we keep it to a whisper, son? It’s a secret.” He pressed his finger to his lips to indicate hush, hush until he saw the kid’s eyes widen and go glassy. “Oh no, no. Hey, hey, did I say something wrong?” He sat up and the kid latched on, imitating what Steve imagine what it was like to hug a Khola.

His arms wrapped around the kid and gently held them close, kissing their temple in a show of calming them down. What could he say? He still had parental instinct installed in him from his mother. 

He could feel the kid’s sobs against his chest, feel their fingers dig into his shirt, refusing to let go while he tried to calm them down. If anyone noticed Captain America clinging to a sobbing kid, no one stopped to say a thing.

“Michael?! Michael!” 

A breathless woman with flushed cheeks, the same brown eyes, and her hair dyed in the bi flag colors scrambles to them. She drops to her knees beside them and slides the last few steps, looking from her child to Steve.

“I-I don’t know -” Steve breathed, a panic looked etched on his face. “They tackled me and I-I fell and-and accidentally said son, a-a force of habit and they started crying. Did I say the wrong thing?”

The woman’s eyes lit up with recognition as to who Steve was before her face softened, tenderly laying a hand on the back of Michael’s hair and stroking it out of the way. “No,” she breathed. “No, you said the right thing. The perfect thing for them to hear. They ideologize you and always have. I guess seeing you here is...well, overwhelming. Michael, love, we got to let the Captain go.”

Slowly peeling away from him, the kid sniffles and rubs at their face, smearing the flag’s paint without realizing it. His face is flushed and eyes red, with tears still in them. He looks almost ashamed as he climbs from Steve’s lap to his mom’s. He could hear the murmurs of an apology.

“Hey now,” Steve breathed, fully sitting up now. “There’s nothing to apologize for.” He can’t help himself in tossing the guy’s hair and wiping away a stray tear. It makes the kid smile, at least. “You were just excited and overwhelmed, there’s a big crowd here today, huh? And I guess...me calling you son didn’t help did it? Just burst that bubble.” When the kid flushed, Steve just gave a helpless smile. “When my ma first called me Steve, I cried so hard I managed to throw myself into a panic attack.”

“I bet that did nothing to help the asthma,” the mother muses, giving Steve a fond smile. At Steve’s surprised look, she shrugs. “I might be a Brit, but I grew up on your story, Mr. Rogers. I’m Peggy, by the way. This is Michael.” 

Steve shakes their hand and nods. “No, it didn’t. Managed to give myself a nose bleed too. It’s good to meet you two. Here, let’s get up before we’re trampled.” Getting the pair off of the ground, Steve brushes the grass stains off of their clothes out of habit. “I take it it’s your first pride?”

“For both of us,” Peggy muses, kissing her embarrassed son’s cheek. “Michael wanted to go to his first pride since coming out and I wasn’t going to tell him no. We’ve already been yelled at by them.” The tone alone tells Steve well enough who them is.

“Tell me about it. I’ve already gotten into two screaming matches before my friends had to drag me away.”

“That was you? Crickey, no wonder people looked nervous. Well, yes they’ve called me quite a few names already. Child abuser. Pedophile. Rapist. Disgusting, barbaric group.” She sets Michael down and hugs him close to her frame. “Even if this is a phase, I don’t care. I’m going to support and love my child regardless. They do not deserve to be ashamed of themselves.”

Steve’s eyes fall to Michael whose still staring up at him like he’s the moon and stars and it makes him both antsy and warms his heart. “I wish I had that line of thinking,” he sighs, shaking his head. “Not that I’m ashamed of who I am, anyone with the right knowledge can research about me, history can’t erase that forever, but...the backlash one could’ve received in my time...it leaves a mark on you.”

It was a struggle in his mentality. Steve supported, openly every LGBT organization, spoke out against protestors, and haters. Donated large, marginal amounts of money, but when it came to speaking about his struggle and making an ‘official’ public remark? That’s when he backed out. 

“But Mr - Captain…” Michael sputtered, tugging on Steve’s shirt.

“Steve.”

“S-Steve.” He was still breathy from the crying spell but his excitement to get to call his obvious hero by his name was etched into his face. “There are lots and lots and lots of people who would be happy to know that you’re like us too! You might get people mad at you but then they weren’t fans of you in the first place if they don’t support your decision. I know lots of my friends would know and  be happy to know that you’re a-a-a trans guy like me!”

Well, what in the hell could he say to that? He looked from the smart kid up to his mother who just smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “He’s right, you know?”

“Yeah,” he breathed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Yeah, I do. I think you’re right, Michael, I shouldn’t hide who I am. Been asleep far too long and I think I got work to do to fix this mess.” He paused for a moment, reaching into his jeans to hand Peggy a business card [Tony’s idea] with a hologram of himself in his uniform and saluting, his name and personal number on the back.

“Call me tonight? I want to talk to you about this. I have to go.” 

His eyes flew to something past the pair and Peggy’s neck craned to see over the crowd, clicking her tongue as she spotted what Steve had seen. 

If it was just her, she’d help, but Michael was here and perhaps didn’t need to see his hero fighting a bunch of bigots. He was still quite sensitive to violence, the poor thing. 

“Okay,” she agreed, scooping her son up and tucking his head into her neck. “You go do that.” She paused to kiss his cheek. “And be safe, please.” 

--

That’s how, two days later, Steve finds himself standing in the very park Pride had taken place, on the portable stage with his team behind him. He still sported a black eye, almost healed but the remains of a yellow bruise were still there. His ribs ached from being kicked, but he was still standing. It was on the news for days how Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes and Clint Barton ruthlessly attacked a bunch of peaceful protesters.

Peaceful, my ass.

They didn’t see the symbols they carried, the signs, the proud man who stood in front of them? Steve wasn’t standing in 2013 anymore, he was in 1943 and standing before a german officer, wearing the same grin on his face. He knew his choices, the power of his voice, and money, and knew them well. He also knew what the other side of Steve’s fist felt like against his jaw.

“They were Nazis,” he tells Tony over dinner, rolling his eyes. Peggy’s on speaker between them, having just gotten done lecturing him. “I don’t give two shits what the media says.”

“Language,” Peggy muses, though Steve can hear the smile in her voice. “I have a son.”

“Whose asleep,” Tony interjects. “Cursing is allowed when the kidlets are asleep.”

“Says you.”

Steve rolls his eyes at them and downs the rest of his beer. “Pepper is gonna smooth it out, anyhow. I’m not making some public statements on how sorry I am ‘cause I ain’t. Don’t show up to an event and not expect a backlash. They’re lucky that’s all we did was break a few bones. Maybe it’ll teach ‘em next time. Besides, they attacked us. We gave them clear enough warning not to touch us.”

They had formed a barricade, protect those Pride Idiots from charging inside while the cops did nothing. Even Tony had to call in a few suits and help, Pepper immediately on the scene with her trusted news crew. 

“I ain’t worried about it,” He continues, shrugging.

“Spoken like a true American,” Peggy teases, making Steve flush. “So have you given any thought to our earlier conversation?”

Tony’s staring at him from across the way, Steve’s started to nervously play with the end of his binder. “Yeah,” he sighs. “Yeah, I have. I’ll call you with the details.”

Taking in a deep breath to calm his nerves, Steve’s eyes scan the crowd. He knows there are a few of those Pride Boys out there, but he can’t make them out. He doesn’t care to. They wouldn’t dare to attack a stage when Captain America stands in full uniform and his team behind him. Pepper had brought out her news crew again, live broadcasting this emergency meeting, as well as a few other news sources. 

She’s smiling at him from the side, giving him the thumbs up.

Steve’s eyes fall to Bucky whose gotten up with Clint and stood beside him, giving his shoulder a squeeze. “About time you’re doing this, though you owe Dugan 50 quid for this,” Bucky teases, leaning up to just barely kiss Steve’s cheek in a public display of affection. “I’m proud of you.”

Clint’s beside them, towering over Bucky, holding the life out of Bucky’s flesh hand and pulling him close. His head tilts to the side and signs to Steve, asking if he’s ready. 

Steve nods, his eyes finally falling to the two people who got this started. Peggy Carter and her son. Michael runs up to him from the side of the stage when they arrive, climbing onto Steve’s shoulders like he’s always belonged there. Steve can’t help the laugh he lets out as he grips Michael’s legs around his chest to keep him secure. Peggy, for her own sake, smiles as she stands beside Steve, Bucky moving over to let her get closer.

“Alright,” He sighs into the microphone, perhaps too close. “Let’s get this over with.” He pauses, counts his heartbeats, feeling them in his throat. “It goes without saying, who I am and whose in my company, but I think we need to make some personal facts clear in the light of recent news.”

He stills and takes in a sharp breath, eyes scanning the vast crowd before he feels Peggy’s hand on the small of her back.

“My name is Steve Rogers and I am a transgender guy.” There’s a mixture of stilled silence and gasp throughout the crowd, followed by intense murmurs. Yet no one raises their hand or shouts questions. Pepper has these guys whipped. Good.

“That might come as a surprise to some of you and regardless of your personal opinion, I do not care. Let me restate that, I do not care if you support me or don’t. I want one fact and one fact made clear, if you decide to attack me, my friends, or anyone for being who in the hell they are, no amount of legal fear and paperwork will stop me from doing what I think is right to rectify that situation.”

“I was thankful to have heavy support during my time serving, before, and after, and even waking up here. It was recently brought to my attention as to what me coming out officially could do for the young LGBT youth and I am only sorry it’s taken this long for me to realize it.”

“To be fair,” Peggy muses. “You’ve been a little busy.”

Steve laughs, unable to help himself. “A tad bit.” He squeezes her to his side and presses a small kiss to her temple. “Now,” he speaks into the microphone. “If anyone else is curious, I’m bisexual too. And in this recent news, my team and I have gotten together to design a program to help the LGBT youth seek the sanctuary they deserve. This means after school programs for all ages, cafes, safe bars, book stores, all opened 24/7 to offer them help. There are homeless shelters in place that will help the youth kicked out, programs we’re establishing to help with anything from name changes to hormones, to funds to get back on their feet. Counseling as well for any who wish to seek it. Adoptive parents who figuratively would want to ‘adopt’ and assist the youth.”

“Who’s paying for all this?! It sounds like -”

The reporter, someone in the midst of the crowd, that Steve can’t see is instantly shut up when Clint charges off the stage and heads in his direction and pulls the man up to his feet by the collar of his neck. 

“Who in the hell do you think is?” He snaps. “I wish these programs were around when I was a kid, then maybe I wouldn’t had destroyed my body using makeshift binders that hurt me. These kids, adults, whatever will get the help they need. If you have a problem with it, then I suggest you shut the hell up.”

“Thanks, Clint,” Steve breathes, jerking his head at Bucky to go get his boyfriend. “In a better sense of words, I am. Now, any questions?”

There’s a hell of a lot of questions that go over Steve’s head. 

When did your name change? What’s in your pants? Did you have surgery? Did you have bottom surgery? Is that kid yours? Are they paying you to say this? 

There’s plenty of statements too, raging from support but more often protest and the second it gets rowdy, it’s put to a stop when Natasha and Tony are strolling around the crowd. 

Bucky and Michael are right - this is a long time coming. The youth, the people of today deserved to know who Steve truly was. Not that he’s ever denied himself. They deserve to know that he would do anything to protect them, even if it involves a few legal cases of punching a Nazi here or there.

Michael was certainly right, the youth of today deserved to know who had their back, and how proud he was to come home one day and run straight into Steve’s arms while his mum was at work, to tell him how he stood up to his bully and made sure the substitute teacher called him by his real name and how he got to tell them that his new dad was Captain America.