#THIS IS OUR FIRST DATE MR JACK KELLY | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

royallygray · 5 months ago

Text

as JSjkJJMJHsjqiquajahBNHwyuqjqba

I'm normal those are sounds of a normal person

SJWUWUQLQHEOQJUFJS BC KWIOWOWOQPQ IF JSJQJWBSKANQUIEK

GEODE.YOU HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA HOW FUCKING HAPPY I AM THAT YOU LOVE IT SO KUCH AKRJWKHSEKKQOQODND

Okay firstly. The history bit.

Also I'm putting this under a cut too bc it's probably gonna get long

I really don't know when shit was happening, like year wise, but I think it's supposed to be happening in the early 1900s. I'm not big on history.

But what I do know, because throughout my life and journey as Newsies (that sentence is Not Sentencing I'm sorry):

The kids are actually much younger than the cast appears to be. Jack Kelly is seventeen. If we do it more historically accurately, then he'd be twelve or thirteen.

The kids that staged the revolution were really fucking young, is my point. The director for Newsies Jr (the one I was in years ago) told us that our ages were approximately how old the historical newsies actually were. And that like. was hugely impactful to me because I was just trying to make it through summer to get to seventh grade or smth and I could've been SLAVING ON THE STREETS WITH SEXISM TO TRY TO BE ALIVE like bro hell nah

Also I love how you are NERDING OUT on this silly little musical I recommended it makes me so happy because I did not get this info I just. anyways. I just really like it.

Okay Character time!!

I love Katherine. I need to sing Watch What Happens for you. I am leaving for a week with no tech tho starting tomorrow so if I don't do that now the next time I'll be available is next Saturday anyways

Shes. Yeah. A Girlboss.

Also she's Pulitzer's daughter!! And dude her writers block AEFJAJAHEKA it's so relatable 😭 first time I saw Newsies I wasnt a writer yet but by the time I was in Newsies Jr I was like girl I wanna be Katherine just so I can say "six months from!! NEVER FUCK WHY CANT I WRITE DUDE BRAIN PLS WORK OH MY GOD"

Also fuck Pulitzer.

she's so. Wkwjwkehwlajkahwnw. JKwhwkshqloaaskvrw. y'know??????? she's so cool. an icon. I aspire to be her.

Also the woman who played Katherine in the first time I saw Newsies is so fucking cool I love her dude she's such a cool actor. haven't seen her in years but like. hell yeah

CRUTCHIE!!!!!! I LOVE HIM. SO MUCH. btw his song is called Letter From the Refuge

oof

Anyways!!

Dude I love him sm

I really got nothing but yeah his disability is a part of him and they just accept that. also More money = good

Like yes Jack like low-key wants his crutch gone but for crutchies benefit also they are brothers <333

Dude it broke me too. I wonder if I can see what they replaced brother to in letter to the refuge in the jr version bc IT WASNT BROTHER IDK??

this popped up and I think you'd love it

OH EWWWWWWW DUDE I FORGOT WHAT IT WAS FOR GOOD REASON

DUDE IT WAS "GO GET EM"

THEY FUCKING REPLACED "YOUR BROTHER" WITH "GO GET EM" FOR THE JR VERSION EWWW

WHAT DO THEY HAVE AGAINST MY BOYS WTF

OKAY FOR THE LES BIT I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THE DATE THING CAME FROM OR WHY HE AND KATHERINE ARE ON A DATE (or maybe it's one of the Bowery?? idk but it always seemed like it was Katherine)

Anyways he's a ball of sass and honestly. like he is a business man. 60/40 is a pretty good deal. especially when you are Nine and dealing with mr Seventeen over here who is also Jack Kelly

DAVEYYYY MY BOYYYYY

I love him so much dude. Like. He's my nerd character. And I love how he's like "what the ruck you're criminals" to "I am the leader fuck off" and just becomes a Newsie within like a day just. aaaaa

Also the Newsies are 100% a family dude anyone who says different is Wrong and Incorrect

I love Davey. If I were ranting and not typing in my phone with my thumbs I think I could talk better but idk

Race :D yeah he's just an icon. background icon but he is the MAN in king of new York

Also Jack my beloved

Jack and Katherine <3

okay I might come back to rant about Jack and Jack&Katherine but I have shit to do

Also. Annie and Newsies both take place in New York so :) maybe that's similar style of music? idk

anyways yeah

THANK YOU SO MUCH GEODE I LOVE YOU ALSO THANKS FOR WATCHING IM SO HAPPY YIU LVOED IT I WAS THE ONLY OHE BOPPING MY HEAD IN THE THEATER LAST NIGHT SO I AM THANKFUL THAT YOU GOT TO STIM WHILE WATCHING OKAY BYEEEEEEE

ALRIGHTY i am no longer busy so heres my full thoughts on Newsies :DDD

tagging @royallygray and @mysteriouswolf if yall wanna read :D

ok this shit got LONG so the rest is under the cut

GOD where do I even start its beautiful its wonderful its emotional i love it so much

Ill try not to copy my intermission thoughts too much (if you havent seen those here they are)

Ok lets talk about the history of it. A quick google search says its based on a strike in 1899, and Roosevelt ran for presidency in 1901, so we'll just say the musical takes place in 1899 too (correct me if theres a different confirmed time).

During this time, work conditions are absolute shit, monopolies and trusts are on the rise, and the concept of a union has recently emerged. I really didnt need to say much of this bc its apparent in the musical, but i love historically accurate stuff so deal with it /lh

And in the musical we see the beginnings of Roosevelt's trust-busting and ideas of social equality that he acts on during his presidency (it also kinda ties into his environmentalism stuff a bit too!)

And after reading up a bit on the strike the musical was based on, a lot of the effects of the strike in the musical were historically accurate too! the newsboys could sell back papers they werent able to sell on the streets, but the price was unfortunately not yet lowered. (also, the names of the publishers in the show are historically accurate as well!!! makes my little history brain happy :DDD )

SO whats the point of all of my rambling here?

people make historical art all of the time. we see it in musicals like Annie, Hamilton, and so so many more. obviously this goes beyond musicals here, but since newsies is a musical ill try to stay with that topic.

anyway, we learn about history to learn from it. we see these past issues that our previous generations struggled with, in these art forms as to be easily digestible, and we discover their solutions. we get to see the humanity behind the issues and the conflicts they faced to overcome them. and ofc its not the only reason, but one reason these stories are told with art is to bring attention to them. people are way more likely to listen to music than study a historical textbook. so, they make it entertaining. they make relatable and lovable characters. they make people care about the show and subsequently the issue itself. all of this is to explain how and why things that happened in history are bad as to never repeat them again.

We see these topics of worker mistreatment, corrupt businesses, child labor, gender/sex inequality, and the class separation all brought to the spotlight in this show, and it does a damn good job of showing the pain and suffering they cause. the story of this show is incredible and so very important to learn about.

OK now onto the actual musical itself im done nerding out

ive done a lot of charater analysis already in that intermission post bUT WHO SAYS I CANT DO MORE HAHA

im saving jack for last bc theres so much to unpack there

KATHERINE MY LOVE <3333

Everything about her being a girlboss absolutely remains the same shes INCREDIBLE

and holy shit PULITZER'S HER DAD???? i love her even more. she directly ran away from an easy life to follow her own dreams and pursue her own passion from scratch. incredible. inspiring. mwah

i also just love her personality. shes so bubbly and happy and passionate and bright and optomistic shes the best <3

oh god crutchie. hes absolutely my favorite btw im sorry everyone else i adore him <33333

GOD his prison song actually killed me. im fully dead. deceased.

THE NEWSIES ARE SUCH A FAMILY GAHHH THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH RAHHHH

the sheer ecstasy i felt when he came back and hit Snyder with his cane i could not stop stimming MY BOYYYY

the absolute definition of sunshine character. he sees everything as glass half full and wants just the brightest future he deserves the absolute world

and ik i talked about it earlier but i adore how they take such a neutral opinion about his leg. people give him shit for it, and his brother beat them to a pulp. its just a part of him and they love his whole being, so why would they not love that about him too?

Les only got better as the show went on. i thought he was a smartass before LMAOO

AND THE DATE BIT??? WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM???? AND IT JUST NEVER GETS BROUGHT UP AGAIN LMAO WHAT

i think the biggest change i felt towards a character was Davey

he grew on me soooooo much his character growth is everything to me

he went from trying to stay out of their business to teaching them what a union was to helping them start it to running it himself when jack ran off to convincing jack to come back when times got tough he is sooo important to the story

and to me. hes important to me <3

OH AND RACE

i saw people mention the name before but i didnt know which he was until they addressed him directly I LOVE THAT GUYYY

especially in king of new york hes got such a big personality what a silly guy

OK now for the guy the silly the mc jack

At the beginning he is entirely driven by both his love for his family and ofc his dream of living in Santa Fe, but atm hes just trying to get by so hes more focused on the newsies. but a boy can dream

then he gets all caught up in the strike business and only focuses on that for a while bc he wants to protect his boys

then shit goes south. they get essentially jumped, and crutchie gets hurt and arrested.

and he thinks, what was it all for? if he couldnt protect his brother (never living that down btw), whats the point of even trying to strike anymore

so he changes his focus back to santa fe. the one thing hes still got going for him.

and he gets confronted by katherine, les, and davey, and they knock some sense into him. stopping the strike isnt going to take away any of the harm done. the danger is expected, theres no way any of this could go down without some form of a casualty. so why not try to do something about it. the only way to make this situation better is to get back in the game and keep pushing for change.

and ofc the thing with katherine which ill talk abt a bit more later

in all of this, something in him changes. he dreamed of santa fe, a simpler life, one where he didnt have to worry about having to afford food and clothing for the next day.

but what he never considered was the loneliness. sure, he offered to bring crutchie and katherine with him, but hed be leaving behind so many more. and thats when he realized he never needed to get out, he just needed things to change a bit. and they did! because of the strike, living became so much more affordable. no it wasnt perfect, but it was enough to be safe and secure, just like he wanted. and he had his family beside him the whole time.

ill admit that before i sat and thought about it for a while, this ending was really unsatisfactory to me. i mean we got how many santa fe reprises? all for naught?

but in reality, santa fe would never be enough for him. hes just so used to this life surrounded by the people he cares most about and doing everything in his power to protect him, hed just be so bored, so understimulated, and hed just continue to yearn for more. that path of wanting would never come to a conclusion and hed live his life never truly being happy. so i really do thing he made the right choice in staying, because new york became his santa fe. he didnt need to seek it out, it came to him.

Ok now with him and katherine

ill start by saying i do really adore them. i feel like a lot of what im about to say might seem like i think otherwise, but i truly do think theyre very sweet

ok so every interaction of theirs in act one was. very uncomfortable to say the least. he honestly seemed really predatory at times and it just really felt like an old-timey romance where the girl doesnt know her worth so she flocks to any guy that shows interest in hr bc she thinks its her only purpose

now obviously that is NOT the truth, those were just my first impressions. Katherine is extremely capable of taking care of herself and deciding what is and isnt right for her, she likes jack purely because she can and does. she knows her worth and just likes him bc she likes him, no strings attached

i will say the first kiss kinda caught me off guard lmao. like i knew they were gonna be a thing but that is NOT how i expected that to go down. its likely just bc of my aroace-ness but i saw no sign of them actually getting together prior to that, aside from them being the main man and leading lady in the show so ofc they have to be together. i mean ig her reaction to him drawing her was a bit of a hint but still. ok maybe its just bc im demi. hadnt thought abt that until now. damn. is this a normal thing? maybe it is. maybe im being too harsh. idk lmao

anyway ill admit the kiss was successful in getting his attention and getting him to listen to her so ill give it that lmaoo but tbh i did tune a bit of their song out bc it started to make me a bit uncomfy but i did liste back to it later on. they really seem to have a healthy relationship where they both care about the other and know the other is strong enough on their own, they just both want to be a part of the other's life. its really sweet! theyre so supportive of each other!!! green flags all around!!!

the bit with him learning shes pulitzers daughter was really interesting to me. at first she tries to talk to him but he kinda brushes her off, but from then on he just kinda has full faith in her? i mean yeah he gets upset about it bc he thinks she lied to him, but i dont think he thought she had any ill intentions. that was a complicated sentence lmaoo damn. i think he really understood that she wanted to help, he was just caught up in a lot of Feelings and was afraid that she wasnt trustworthy despite him still trusting her. and then he let her explain and from then on they fully support the other and trust each other immensely

so yeah first impressions were a bit iffy but i think theyre very sweet <333

OK GOD CAN I GUSH ABOUT THE STAGE DESIGN FOR A BIT???? GAHHH

i mean the moving stairs and scaffolding arent new. i know this. but just the way they frame scenes with the scaffolding is stunning. the chase scenes??? dude. enthralling. the bits where theyre in the city and they have people just up their acting like civilians? SO cool. makes it incredibly more realistic and believable. and the way they projected images onto the curtain-like things they pulled down was extremely creative!!! like in theory its such a simple design. it was literally nothing more than the scaffolding and stairs, and a few tables and wagons and such in certain areas. but they did SO much with it it was hard to believe it took place on a stage. ofc the filming helps with that but still. the start felt like it was on the roof of the building bc of a combination of the lighting and the use of just one of the scaffolding pieces. and when theyre in buildings, the wall of scaffolding works really well as a backdrop!!! and i already talked about the city street scenes, it fits perfectly. god its so inspiring id love to be behind something like that one day

OK AND THE CHOREO??? the sheer ENDURANCE of these people HOLY I COULD NEVER. THE FLEXIBILITY? THEYRE ALL LITERAL GYMNASTS WTF ARE THESE FLIPS AND HANDSTANDS IM SORRY???? holy shit its all SOSOSO impressive

oh my god i havent even talked about the MUSIC yet

if i had to choose a favorite song, a, i would punch whoever told me that in the face, and b, i would simply combust bc i cant choose just one

my top three tho would have to be between king of new york, carrying the banner, and crutchies prison song (idk the name its not on spotify :'((((( ) in no particular order

i havent had them on repeat enough to have any memorized, but i did remember santa fe, carrying the banner, and the world will know from the last time i watched it and i belted along to all the parts i knew this music is so good at hyping me up I WANNA START A UNION

and oh my god katherines voice???? stunning. her song is sooooo good. her part in king of new york is incredible. i love her <3

jesus christ this post got out of control. im still not done lmaooo

ok one thing that really has nothing to do with the musical itself is just the fact that it reminded me of so many other musicals ive seen at specific parts, even some of the songs sound like others i know.

Santa Fe really reminds me of Maybe from Annie, both music-wise and lyric wise. i mean theyre both "i want" songs so it makes sense but i feel like they sound kinda similar too. honestly a lot of the music sounds like Annie, but maybe its just the types of instruments used and thats just how musicals sounded when they were made. i think they were made about the same time. *checks spotify* ok well the newsies i listen to was produced like 40 years after Annie so maybe that just a stylistic choice-

idk why but the beginning of watch what happens sounds like the intro to reginas speaking part in meet the plastics lmao-

oh and brooklyn's here has the same beat as the military from Seussical but thats just bc its a marching song lmao. its also the same beat as the spanish alphabet song my spanish teacher used to use!

ok and this one really doesnt make sense but something to believe in reminds me of the power in me from Twisted lmao- kinda similar message ig? and sound vaguely similar? but idk it really doesnt make too much sense

i should. i should sum it up. this is getting out of hand.

okay i love this musical sm. clearly. do you see how long this post is. i was missing out when i refused to listen to it previously. oh my god.

and for some reason it really makes me wanna go watch my favorite musical so im ending this here TO YOUTUBE I GOOOOO TY FOR READING IF YOU DID AND TY TO ROYAL FOR UNINTENTIONALLY PUSHING ME TO WATCH THIS HAVE A GREAT DAYYYY

#newsies

4 notes · View notes

missvelvetsstuff · 3 years ago

Text

Little Bird

Chapter 10

Warnings: swearing, mostly fluff and filler.

Notes: I started reading X-Men shortly after Phoenix died. The mutants in my story mostly look like their characters in the First Class movies. Except Storm- Ororo Munroe is from the comics of the 80's because I don't think any of the movies have done her justice. I think former Super model Iman would have been better than Halle Berry. Storm and Nightcrawler-Kurt Wagner (Rika's brother) were always my favorites. And Gambit- Remy LeBeau from the first Wolverine. Wade Wilson- Deadpool is obviously Ryan Reynolds.

Chere is Cajun term of affection. I'm dating myself again but Dennis Quaid as Remy McSwain in The Big Easy used it and it melted me. He was seriously sexy in that. You know, Jack Quaids dad.

I think that's it. I'm always open for questions and comments.

Rika looked in the mirror to check her hair. She was blonde and tan again with a pale blue vintage 50's style pencil sheath dress with matching blue kitten heels, her hair styled in a low chignon bun. She was pacing her room, waiting to be called down to the press room.

Tony was announcing her officially becoming an Avenger. It had been 2 weeks since the party and most of that had been spent putting together her backstory and creating it online, to ensure the world only had the details they wanted. She was using one of her aliases that was the most generic to blend in. She would officially be Rika Holmes aka Masquerade, 29, California girl, UCLA grad, hacker, expert in hand to hand and mistress of disguise. Plus Clint was teaching her firearms and archery. Fury and the team knew the whole truth but they didn't want Ross or Senator Kelly to find out.

Rika spoke to Remy almost every day on the phone and he had come to visit and take her on a couple of dates. Remy was fun and very sweet, he made her feel so desired but she knew it wasn't anything serious. That's just not Remys way.

Rika had also spent time getting to know Kurt since he was the only family she had if you didn't count Logan, which she didn't.

The Avengers were starting to feel like something. Not family but friends at least. She felt safe and like she could trust them. Mostly.

Rika was still wary of Bucky but was willing to be cordial for the sake of the team.

As she pondered over events of the last few weeks and paced, she heard Friday call her

"Miss Rika, Mr Stark is ready for you" "Thank you, Friday. Please let him know I'm on my way."

Rika took the elevator down, put her shoulders back and walked into the press room to a million flashes.

Tony was speaking "There she is, our new team member. Miss Rika Holmes, aka Masquerade. She is a hacker, skilled in multiple forms of hand to hand combat and Mistress of Disguise. We are very excited to welcome her to the team." He offered a hand to help her up to the podium. Rika smiled and waved. Questions were shouted at her so fast she couldn't keep up. All members of the press were given a folder with the bio that Rika and Nat had created and Tony thanked them all for coming. Next was a reception, giving select reporters the chance to have one on one time with Rika.

While one reporter was grilling her about her personal life and asking if she was sleeping with any of the Avengers, Rika was relieved to see Remy enter the room. Rika looked at the reporter, told him that her personal life was none of his business and excused herself to greet Remy.

Remy gave her a big hug and kissed both of her cheeks "Hello, chere, you look stunning. How's the press treating you?"

"Oh Remy, I'm so happy to see you. Most are ok but the last one was trying to find out who I'm sleeping with." Rika frowned "I don't see what that has to do with my ability to be an Avenger."

Remy chuckled "I'm sorry, chere, but you're a celebrity now and people will want to know. Or he wanted to know if he had any 'super' competition"

Rika fluttered her lashes at him "I don't know, does he have any competition?"

"Aawww, chere, I wish I could whisk you away someplace beautiful and romantic and show you. Unfortunately I'm leaving with your brother and Hank tomorrow, to see if we can find out what Erik Lensher is up to in South Africa. I don't know when I'll be back and contact will be sporadic." He looked at her sadly. Touching her cheek "I'll miss you"

"I'll miss you too, Remy. I've really enjoyed the time we've been spending together." She replied softly

Remy grinned "I don't have to leave till morning" and winked. Rika blushed "I'll get us some champagne, chere"

Loki and Thor made an entrance, like always, and Loki headed straight for Rika. He gave her a hug and kiss on the cheek "Hello, love. How are you? How is your debut?"

Rika smiled at him, "Except for some intrusive reporters, fine. I don't feel any different now that I'm official." She shrugged.

Someone hollared "RIKA!" And she turned to look at the source "Wade! I'm so glad you could make it." She grunted as he swept her up in a hug.

"Wade Wilson, this is Loki and Thor of Asgard. Loki, Thor my friend, assassin Wade Wilson."

Wade grabbed Loki's hand shaking it exaggeratedly, "Not THEE Loki from the battle of New York? That was so hot, I'm such a huge fan of your work."

Loki looked at him "Of course" and pulled his hand back.

Thor gave Wade a crushing hug "The pleasure is ours masked man"

Wade grunted in pain and looked at Rika, wheezing "He seems nice"

Rika scolded him "Wade, Where have you been? I tried to call you about the party celebrating my first mission. Saved a number of mutants that Hydra kidnapped" Rika smiled "Weasel said you were out of the country"

Wade replied "Sorry, there were these gangsters in Spain that couldn't wait. I heard about you being totally BadAss and making the Winter Soldier look like a pussy. I'm so fucking proud. I couldn't have come to the party though, Xavier was there and the last time we met it ended badly. He read my mind and it was just too much for him. It's better for us to stay away from each other"

Rika looked confused "I never heard about you and Charles but I know both of you can be pretty intense."

Wade looked at her "No, you wouldn't have heard. It was like another reality or universe even. But enough about me. Things must be going well if you decided to stay here. Did showing the Soldat up get him off your back? Or did you two fuck it out?"

"Wade!" Rika slapped his shoulder "That isn't going to happen. You sound like Nat."

Wade gasped "Are you saying I sound like THE Natasha Romanoff? The one and only Black Widow? How do you think she feels about men with avocado skin? Can you introduce me to her?"

"Didn't you meet her when you were here with Hank before?"

"I saw her but never met or spoke."

Rika looks for Nat and waves when she finds her "I'm sure she will be thrilled to meet you."

Nat came over and hugged Rika "Welcome to the team, girl. Who's your masked friend?"

"Nat, this is Wade Wilson, another badass assassin and good friend of mine. He wanted to meet you, he's a bit of a fanboy" Rika winked.

"The infamous Deadpool? I'm a bit of a fan myself" Nat flirted

Wade kissed her hand "I can tell you are trouble. Rika, I like her. So, Nat. You must show me some of your moves." Nat and Wade wander off chatting.

Bucky was being a creep, pretending to be involved in a conversation Sam, Steve and Rhodey were having about some mission before he joined the team but he was really watching and listening to Rika and her friends. He watched Nat and Wade stroll past and Wade waved at him flirtatiously, Bucky shook his head.

Remy came back with 2 glasses of champagne and gave one to Rika. "So how long do you have to stick around, chere? When can I steal you away to your room?"

Rika shrugged and looked at her watch "Since I'm the subject of this presser I need to stay until Tony calls it. He said around 4 so maybe another hour."

Remy smiled "You get to just stand around and look beautiful? Have you already had one on one time with all the reporters here? Maybe we should do a lap and make sure you don't miss anyone. Yes?" He offered his arm and they wandered around, stopping here and there to chat until 4:30 when Tony thanked everyone for coming and wished them a good night.

Rika said goodbye to Wade and both made promises to get together soon. He gave her a crushing hug and whispered in her ear "Make sure you bite off a piece of that canjun for me, chere." And kissed her cheek. Rika blushed and laughed.

As everyone headed upstairs a group of delivery drivers showed up with pizza for everyone. Rika and Remy grabbed a couple of pieces and some sodas then went to her room to watch a movie. They decided to have a John Wick Marathon after they ate and Rika showered and changed into some shorts and a tank top. They ate and laughed and cuddled and made out until they fell asleep tangled up together on the couch.

Bucky went to bed after they left the room, grateful that his room wasn't near Rika's so he wouldn't have to listen to whatever they were doing. He took a shower and lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He tried listening to music, then reading, then watching tv. Bucky couldn't concentrate on anything and every time he let his mind wander it ended up in the same place.

Remy woke early and tried but failed to get up without waking Rika. "I'm sorry chere, I have to get going before Hank comes looking for me. I promise I'll get in touch with you whenever I can and I'll see you when I get back."

Rika hugged him sadly "It's been really great. You helped me feel normal again, after all that time with Hydra. Well, normal for us. Be careful and keep an eye on Kurt and Hank for me."

Remy kissed her softly on the lips "I will. Try not to break too many hearts before I get back."

Rika giggled softly "Bye, Remy"

After the Remy left, Rika went back into her room and changed into some workout clothes, sports bra and bike shorts, she needed to stretch and move. It was wonderful cuddling with Remy all night but she was sore from the stress of the press reception and slept so that her neck was aching.

She went to the gym and started her yoga routine on the mat near Nats ballet barre. Relaxing music coming through her ear buds and she stretched and moved.

Bucky was also stressed by the press conference. He wouldn't have even gone but Tony insisted that the entire team be there to show the press they were united in welcoming the new teammate. The reception was even worse because a couple of reporters came at him pretty aggressively, and one was really trying to get in his pants. He hardly slept and decided hitting the gym was the best course of action.

As he walked the hallway he heard footsteps ahead of him and When he saw who it was, wished he had tried to go back to sleep or showered or something. It was Remy, heading to the elevator after leaving Rika's room. Remy greeted him with a grin and a wink "Sergeant".

Bucky gritted out "LeBeau" clenching his left fist. He stopped in the kitchen for a banana to calm the ache in his gut even though he wasn't sure it was hunger. Seems he has already lost but he thought he heard Remy say he was leaving for awhile, at the reception yesterday. Not that he was eavesdropping, couldn't help what his enhanced hearing picked up. He shook his head, trying to clear her from his mind.

When he opened the door to the gym he could smell her, vanilla body spray and a hint of her own musk and sweat. He was salivating, she smelled so delicious. He saw her stretching and going thru the different poses completely fluid, like water.

Bucky just stopped and stared for a moment. Enjoying the beauty of her movement before he realized what a creep he was being, again she seemed to bring that out in him, and went to the punching bag to start working out his stress.

Rika smelled something or more accurately someone while she was finishing her yoga routine. She was already wondering if joining the team was a good idea. Seemed like she couldn't go anywhere without running into him which made it much harder to ignore him. He always had an eager look in his eyes, like he was a puppy hoping for a scrap of her attention. It was a strange change from the animosity he aimed at her in the beginning.

Rika nodded at him "Barnes"

Bucky looked up at her "Rika. How do you feel about your big press conference? I hate those things in general, too many people asking too personal questions. Anyhow, welcome to the team."

Rika smiled softly "It was alright. One reporter asking if I was sleeping with anyone on the team but the rest weren't too bad."

Bucky nodded "Yeah, I saw you with your boyfriend. Or are there two or is it three?"

Rika laughed and shook her head "You're awfully interested in my personal life Barnes. You're not working with that reporter are you?"

Bucky scoffed "Just making small talk. You seem to have a number of suitors considering you haven't been here long."

"You jealous, Barnes? Maybe there's something special about me that they get and you are missing out on. 'Once you go blue, no others will do.' Meh, I'll have to work on that." Rika laughed as she left the gym

Bucky rolled his eyes and watched her go.

@vicmc624 @nash-dara

#bucky barnes x reader #james bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes x ofc #little bird

20 notes · View notes

i-am-robie · 4 years ago

Note

short(?) fic idea: kara and lena through the other peoples perspective (ie noonans barista, lena’s driver, takeout cashier or any random ppl)

I read this and my first reaction was, I don’t know how to write a drabble. And then Jack’s voice interrupted me so, this may not be what you’re looking for anon, but here’s what just happened in my head lol...

“I’m just saying,” Jack finishes as they’re finally next in line at Noonan’s, “there’s something going on with them.”

“You’ve got some awfully firm ideas of what for someone with absolutely no evidence,” Sam says smiling and looking down at the pastries in the case.

“I’ve got eyes!” Jack looks affronted

“You know, I think he might be right.”

Sam turns to Kelly in surprise. “Look I know when I first got to National City, I thought they might be dating, too,” Sam says. “But they weren’t!”

“Plus,” Alex breaks in, “Kara would tell me. She’s terrible at keeping secrets.”

They shuffle forward as the line moves. Sam waves them all up to the counter, before greeting the barista. “Hey Tom, I’ll have my usual and whatever this crew is ordering.” She turns back to the group. “It’s on me today, even if Jack couldn’t be more wrong.”

“Oh, how can you not think they’re dating…” Jack starts but he’s interrupted by the barista.

“Jack, are you talking about Kara and Lena?” Jack nods at him. “They’re definitely dating.”

Jack claps his hands together and practically crows with glee. Alex looks like she might pass out. Kelly just smiles. Sam looks gobsmacked.

Alex recovers first. “Tom! What do you mean they’re dating?”

“Oh come on,” says Tom, punching in their drinks, “you see them more than I do, but it’s pretty clear whenever they’re in here. All the soft touches and the blushing and the cheek kissing? That’s dating activity. And Lena never lets Kara pay.”

“Cheek kissing…?” Alex is looking a little green now.

Tom finishes ringing them up and Kelly guides Alex over to wait for their drinks while Jack grabs a table as Sam pays.

“You doing ok there, babe?” Kelly asks. “You look like you’re thinking a little too hard.”

“She’d tell me. I mean, right?” Alex looks at her girlfriend. “If she and Lena were, you know?”

Kelly laughs affectionately. “Maybe they’re still figuring out how to tell you, maybe it’s early, maybe they don’t even know themselves yet.” She looks a little more serious now. “But you’ve seen them together lately. Don’t you think it’s something a little more?”

They pick up the drinks from the counter when they’re ready and walk over to where Jack and Sam have commandeered four large chairs around a low table.

“Gross,” Alex says, squinting down at the writing on the side of second cup she’s holding. “Who ordered the venti pumpkin spice with extra whip?”

“Me!” Jack grins and makes grabby hands. “Sammy and I were continuing our earlier conversation,” he adds while Alex and Kelly take their seats. “She agrees with the premise that Lena and Kara would like to be dating each other, but doesn’t believe me that it’s already happening.”

Sam puts a hand up. “There’s too much pining for that to be the case.”

“They’ll get there when they’re ready,” Kelly says. “If they’re not there already.”

Alex, who’s been silent since handing Jack the drink suddenly looks up. “There’s only one solution,” she says.

Jack leans forward. “I’m all ears love.”

“Tom said it looked to him like they’re dating, right?” The rest of them nod. “If they’re dating in secret, then they’re not going to act that way around us. But around people who they don’t think are watching...?” She looks around the circle.

“They’d be more comfortable,” Sam says thoughtfully.

“I feel like I know where this is going,” Kelly interrupts, “and I need to go on record saying we should just let them be.”

“We need to talk to the people in their lives who aren’t us,” Alex finishes, ignoring Kelly’s advice.

“I’ll make a list,” says Jack. “We can divide and conquer.”

—————-

“Oh, Lena is in here all the time, she’s always sending that sweet girlfriend of hers the most beautiful bouquets,” says the florist, Ruth, when Sam drops by.

“Where does she have them sent?” Sam asks.

“Mostly to CatCo,” Ruth answers, wrapping brown paper around a mix of delphinium, lisianthus, free spirit roses, and starry asters. “Sometimes she’ll come in and pick up the flowers herself, though.”

——————

“Inconclusive,” Alex says, shaking her head when Sam reports back to the group. “Lena has sent Kara flowers at work since she moved from Metropolis.”

“On to the next,” says Jack. “I’ll handle this one.”

——————-

“So, Harvey,” Jack begins, leaning against the wall next to the front desk. “I bet you see everything that goes on in this building, don’t you?”

Harvey grins as he waves a resident through. “Doormen know everything, Jack.”

Jack nods. “So, say, if one of your residents has someone over regularly, you’d see them come and go, right? Get a feel for the relationship?” He’s trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

“I’d like to think we can generally tell who guests are to our residents, sure,” Harvey says easily, winking at an older woman passing the desk. She blushes and waves. “Is there something specific you’re looking for, Jack? Or have I misjudged you and you’re just interested in what the job is like.”

Jack grins. “You see right through me, Harvey. I’ll just come out and ask it. Do you think Lena and Kara are dating?”

Harvey gives Jack a long, inscrutable look.

“I wouldn’t want to speculate on the particulars, Jack,” he finally says. “But I’ll tell you this: Ms. Luthor is never happier than when Ms. Danvers is with her.”

——————-

“Well, Harvey was less helpful than Ruth,” Jack complains that evening, pouring himself a drink at Sam's wet bar before joining her and Alex on the couch.

“I have another idea about who to ask next,” Alex says.

—————-

All in all, they talk to as many people as they can think of—from the server at Kara's favorite pizza place (“They always fight about who gets to pay, young love is so sweet”), to Lena’s driver (“It’s not my place, but Sunday night is definitely date night”). Nia even volunteers to ask around CatCo once they bring her up to speed. Apparently, the newsroom is divided on the topic, though everyone agrees there’s something there.

—————-

It comes to a head two weeks later when Sam hosts game night.

Kara corners Alex in the kitchen when Kelly asks for more snacks. Kara comes up next to her as she pours more chips into a bowl, leans against the counter.

“Alex, why did Jimmy at Mr. Huang’s House of Wontons ask me when Lena’s and my anniversary is?”

Alex rubs the back of her neck. When she’d recruited Jimmy to help, she really thought he’d be more subtle. She decides being direct is the best way to handle this.

“Ok so don’t be mad but I might have asked him if he thought you guys were dating in secret.”

Kara looks like heat vision is something Alex should be concerned about right now.

“I know you like her, Kara, you’re about as subtle as a freight train.” Alex clips the top of the chip bag closed, and glances over at Kara.

Kara frowns at that, looking a little vulnerable instead of angry now. “So what if I do?”

“I think everyone in National City knows that Lena likes you,” Alex continues. Kara goes pink and splutters unintelligibly. Alex puts up a hand to stop her. “Jack thought you might be dating and I guess I got worried that you were but didn’t want to tell me because you thought I wouldn’t approve. So I asked around.”

“Well we’re not dating!” Kara says defensively, reaching up to adjust her glasses. “And it’s not cool to go around asking people about us, ok? She’s my best friend and we’re close and maybe I do like her but,” Kara swallows hard and it almost looks like she might cry and now alex knows for certain that they’re not dating but oh does Kara want to be, “we’re not dating. Can you drop it?”

“Kara,” Alex says gently, putting a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “I’m just trying to say it would be ok, if you were dating. We all just want you to be happy. I get that you’re not,” Alex says when Kara starts to interrupt her (and is Alex referring to Kara dating or Kara being happy? She isn’t sure herself), “but I’m trying to tell you it would be great if you were.”

“I just,” Kara looks down at the counter. “Alex I want to, so badly, but I can’t lose her again. We spent so long getting back to this place, you know? What if I ask her out and then I mess it up?”

A throat clears behind them, and Alex and Kara whip their heads around.

“Sam sent me in for drinks,” Lena says, but she’s looking so intently at Kara that Alex decides this might be a good time to leave the kitchen.

Alex just rounding the corner back to the living room when she hears Lena speak again, in a softer voice than Alex has ever heard.

“You wouldn’t mess it up, you know. You couldn’t.”

#ngl this was fun and a little silly but that's kind of my brand #what's an anon #ask robie #also i full on refuse to live in a world where Jack isn't alive and Sam didn't stay #robie writes

599 notes · View notes

deafwestnewsies · 4 years ago

Text

you tell me you love her (i give you a grin)

And I'd choose our fate a million times over.

david jacobs x jack kelly (unrequited love)

read it on my ao3!

The grass crumpled beneath his boots. His shadow left a broad dent in the shade

(his body was still a marvel- when had Jack Kelly become so strong? When did Jack Kelly grow into his wimpy shoulders and snivelling ankles? When did Jack Kelly ditch his dreams of a boy to become a man?)

that towered over a lean man who was casually basking in the weak October daylight. He frowned at the sudden loss of warmth, but his eyes danced with mirth as he gazed over his former selling partner, current best friend, and long-time confidant. “Why, Jack Kelly. I thought you stood me up.”

“I’d neva, Dave,” Jack bent down in the mellow grass next to David. “They caugh’ me onna big shipment just as I was ‘bout to leave for lunch. Tell Esther that the market’ll have a good deal on trout tomorrow.”

Their heads nearly touched at the temple, and if Jack had the nerve or the gall, he could move a miniscule inch and connect their homely skin. It would only take a second- and what is a second, honestly? A moment in time? In the everlasting universe? And Jack Kelly wasn’t a very smart man, but he knew that humans only took up a small part of the whole existence of the world and a single second of humanity could manage to be wasted on the shifting of a cold, lonely wrist to lay on the freckled arm of another-

David rolled onto his side, more interested in a patch of dandelions than the market predictions for the next day. “Besides,” scrunching his nose, as if that would clear his irreverent musings on the universe, “not all o’ us are fancy medical men with all the break time they could ask fa’. I’m the big man pullin’ the weight ‘round here.”

(And it was true, to some aspects. Jack brought home honest-to-goodness bakery bread on Fridays so they could practice Shabbat without travelling, as Mayer so liked to do. He gave Les nickels to spend at the fair and bought Sarah hair ribbons for no particular reason. There was the gas bill he had paid one particularly difficult December, and the endless hours of doing various handiwork around the house when David was studying and Mayer’s old aches came to haunt him. The Jacobs’ home was also Jack’s, not because he needed it, but because they needed him.)

(He needed it too, he supposed.)

A yellow dandelion hovered over his nose, gently twirling with the teasing hum of David leaning in so close. Jack’s teeth snapped at it.

“You can drink the milk of these, I read,” David mused.

Jack wrinkled his nose. “Dandelion salad‘s only good tha first five times. Plus, it’d turn Crutchie’s tongue yellow.”

Dropping the little flower altogether, David rolled flat on his back and turned to gently nudge Jack on his shoulder with his premature wrinkling forehead. “Jackie,” he whispered.

(“I love you,” he would go on, later in Jack’s dreams. “I’ve loved you since I met you, I love you like a wildfire, I love you so much I cannot bear it, I love you like every character in all of my books, I love you.”)

“I’ve met a girl.” There was a hint of mischief in David’s tone- and Jack didn’t recognize it. There was suddenly a gated city wrapped around David’s heart and Jack was frantically scrambling for the key; For the first time, he was locked out of David’s life. He was an onlooker upon territory he had memorized by touch, by heart, by memory.

“Yeah?” If David had been paying attention, the word would have pinged around his Tin Man heart- hollow, empty, overused. “The Walking Mouth finally has someone to use it on?”

He relished in the feel of David’s uncalloused palms shoving playfully at his tanned, muscled arm. “Don’t be crass,” the boy chided. “Her name is April.”

(Jack was born on a misty-eyed April morning, with the clouds swabbed over the sun and an ominous wind blowing throughout the emptied streets. His mother had called it a bad omen. His father couldn’t fathom why.)

The crook of Jack’s elbow was full of David’s lingering fingertips; A question he didn’t dare ask left a sour taste on his tongue. He smiled at David’s far away face, his gaze belonging to a girl,

(a girl, a rotten girl, a girl that wasn’t even Katherine because that would have hurt much less, understandable even. She was an unimportant girl and she would never be enough for Davey, his Davey)

(A girl.)

and his smile was full of thorns.

---

“I can’t believe-” the words were practically ripped from his throat. “We’s goin’ so fast!”

David couldn’t drive in the technical sense, but he was captaining a true automobile as the Earth did spin. Jack sat in the passenger seat to crow at any poor little commoners that walked along the beaten path, none of them good enough to ride in the electrical engine Mr. Ford had handcrafted himself.

It had been a graduation present from a fellow doctorate student (one with a wealthy father and ill-meaning connections), a spin in his brand-new electric carriage for his reliable old pal, David Jacobs. Jack’s eyes widened to the size of half-dollars as the man passed over the keys to David- David, who had once put the wrong shoe on the wrong foot and walked around crooked all day, too proud to admit he had made a mistake- and they tried to conceal their excitement as the engine turned over for the first time.

He was going to do it. Right here, right now, in this strange man’s car, with clunky work boots on his feet and David’s spectacles sliding down the bridge of his nose.

“I love you!” Jack roared over the engine.

“I’m going to ask April to marry me!” David practically sang into the wind.

Jack’s throat closed up, his skin was set on fire, and he suddenly wanted to see what happened when you jumped from a gadget that was moving so fast.

“Wait, what? Did you hear me?” David’s hair was beginning to grow long enough that it was wild in the gust of the automobile. “I’m going to ask her to marry me!”

(When he was seven, another newsboy- only a handful of months older than him- had asked him if his momma had ever taught him about love. No, Jack had replied, both sour about being outsmarted by a kid who picked his nose and not ever having a momma in the first place. “It’s this great big tree that grows on the inside of our tummies,” the boy went on. “And one day, someone ‘s gonna come along and pick all ‘f th’ fruit on our branches, one by one, until all you have are pretty green leaves. That’s love.”)

(That same boy would kiss him in a dirty alleyway seven years later, and Jack would crack a joke about all of his apples still being intact. The boy would stare back with blank, unrecognizable eyes.)

Jack couldn’t even be angry- he wasn’t strong enough to be furious anymore, not when his days were long and the nights were spent clutching at empty bedsheets. He couldn’t be angry at his good, unselfish Davey, the boy who rubbed at his mother’s aching feet when she spent too long at the factory lines and clumsily darned socks when his sister couldn’t feel her slender fingers. There was no resentment for the beautiful, dark-haired girl who had accidentally collided with David at the grocer’s market when they reached for the same can of something-or-other. She had been nothing but kind to the gentle giant who lurked in the shadows of David’s life, telling inappropriate jokes and interrupting their dates. April always made a place for him at their table.

“That’s the best idea you’ve had all year,” Jack called out, and watched his words dance away in the wind.

---

Katherine had struck him, hard, when he asked her to marry him.

He cradled his jaw with a shock that reverberated around his skull. “Kathy, what did I-”

“You are the most selfish, careless man I know, Jack Kelly.” Her skirts whirled around her ankles- the candy-pink cotton matching other bridesmaids’ dresses to contrast the delicate white lace of April’s wedding dress. David Jacobs was now a married man, and Jack Kelly a desperate one. “We all see how you look at him. There’s not a single person who hasn’t noticed. Get it through your thick, unfeeling skull.”

(“They say,” David’s vows were memorized. His voice never wavered. “That only someone in love would truly understand the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice: a man walks through the Underworld to save his begotten bride, to only turn around and lose her at the very last second. I’ve spent years pouring over that story, wondering why Orpheus would be such a fool, such an irresponsible, lovesick fool, if he truly loved her. But now, standing before my own darling little bride, I understand. I’d turn around for one last look at you. I’d turn every. Single. Time. I’m your fool, April. And I’d choose our fate a million times over.”)

“He doesn’t love you,” Katherine’s voice was heavy with disgust. “And I’m beginning to understand why.”

---

The train ticket was heavy in his palm. “I just don’t see why you have to go,” David whispered. “Who is my son going to learn his bad habits from? Who’s going to teach him how to hawk a headline for extra change? How to poke fun at his papa?”

“He has Les.” Jack’s voice was a barely audible rumble, rusty with misuse. He didn’t talk much these days, Jack Kelly now preferred to linger in the background of conversations, the memory of a bright young man he used to be. Those days had come and gone without much complaint, even if Jack secretly yearned to be so terribly free that he believed in a future for a gangly, fresh-faced boy and a hardened boy with the silver-tongued lies.

(There were rumors, you know. About horrible men and horrible things, about broken ribs and jail time even the Mayor would disapprove of. Jack didn’t do much to dispel the irrational stories people told about him.)

(To prove a lie is false, you must present the truth.)

(Jack didn’t have a truthful bone left in his body.)

A carefully measured silence stretched between them. “Is this about…” David’s hand instinctively reached for Jack’s rough palm- a second of contact, the flash in the pan, their moment in the universe.

He withdrew from his gentle touch, and taking a bullet to his leg

(Jack was twenty-three and alarmingly brave. David was twenty-two and studying to become a doctor. They both cried as David’s unsure hand stitched an unclean wound back together- David, tears of worry; Jack, hopelessly lovesick and falling apart at the seams.)

had been less painful. “It’s about Santa Fe, Dave. Kiss Esther goodbye for me, won’t you?”

The platform to the train was busy, flowing with New Yorkers that had somewhere to be, a place to go, or a person to meet. Jack was the lone soul that took his time to feel the cobblestone under his worn-down boots, the ragged laces dragging against the streets that raised him as their own. His suitcase, a single-handled brown leather

(the only item inside was a bundle of letters, all addressed to David Jacobs)

thing, had never seen a polish rag or repairman’s case, and he felt as if he had the weight of the world to carry with him all the way to New Mexico, where the cattle roam free and Jack Kelly wouldn’t have a broken heart to board up behind slats of wood. The train whistle blew, sharp and piercing, and Jack couldn’t resist his own dreadful hubris; He turned.

And David Jacobs had already disappeared into the swarm of faceless people with their endless inventory of needs to be met, so Jack Kelly got on a train to Santa Fe.

#newsies #newsies on tour #newsies on broadway #newsies live #newsies 1992 #javid #jack kelly #davey jacobs #javid au #javid fanfiction #newsies au #newsies fanfiction #katherine plumber #my writing

24 notes · View notes

deancasbigbang · 4 years ago

Text

Title: Upon a Sun-Baked Rock

Author: spiffingtea

Artist: KayRoseBee

Rating: Mature

Pairings: Dean/Castiel, background established Sam/Eileen, implied Ellen/Bobby, implied past Jo/Dean, Implied Unrequited past Cas/Kelly

Length: 25000

Warnings: Character Death (minor), Grief, Mentions of PTSD, Descriptions of Custody Proceedings, Kidnapping of a Minor (and Adult), Attempted Arson, Implied Past Domestic Abuse, Mentions of the Prison System

Tags: John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Domestic AU, Actual Child Jack, Single Dad Castiel, Kindergarten Teacher Dean, Happy Ending, Slow Romance, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Military Veteran Castiel, Lawyer Sam

Posting Date: November 18, 2020

Summary: After a pregnant Kelly Kline seeks out refuge with Castiel after leaving her abusive ex-lover, Cas is left to pick up the pieces of grief and a son after her death giving birth. Six years later, Cas finds himself doing all he can to make sure Jack can have a happy upbringing. When he brings Jack to Kindergarten on his first day, he has no idea how much meeting Jack's new teacher, Mr Winchester, will change him. Cas and Dean find themselves in the midst of transition - Dean is about to see his younger brother Sammy married and Cas is still finding his place as a single Dad, when both are faced with catastrophic news. As they grow closer and learn more about their situations, they learn that their lives may be more intertwined and dangerous than they think...

Excerpt: Jack gives a dutiful nod, before leaning forward, gripping the pencil he was carrying tightly and carving at the paper, tongue sticking out from concentration. Dean has to refrain a slightly amused smile. Kids were kind of adorable, when they weren't screaming at him or each other. "Hey kid, you're gonna strangle the pencil. Why don't you give it some room to breathe?" Jack nearly drops it completely, but at least the risk of the pencil carving 'car' into the table had decreased significantly. Jack leans back with the air of an accomplished marathoner when he finishes, staring down at his handiwork as though by sheer effort of looking his work will be great. Dean shifts the paper round. "Hey, great work! Your C and R's are right on the money." Jack looks at his writing again, as though Dean was tricking him, and gives a satisfied nod at his handiwork. "the a is hard though." "Yeah, they're tricky little things, those a's. I betcha they won't get away for long from you, though." "Jack?" Dean and Jack look up at the new voice coming from the doorway. Castiel stands there, looking between the two of them in slight confusion. "Daddy!" Jack exclaims, sliding off his chair to run to Castiel, clinging to his leg in greeting. Cas ruffles his hair, before looking back up at Dean; Dean feels himself on edge just by the look Castiel gives him - it's a perfectly civil expression, but his back is straight, and his eyes are hard. "What are you doing here, Mr. Winchester?" Castiel asks. What are you doing with my son? Dean finds him inadvertently standing to his feet. This man had no right to command the amount of attention he did from Dean, but he found himself unable to resist it. Was that what had Dean so on edge? "Jody needed some help lookin' at her car. Couldn't find her and found Jack, looked like he needed some help with his abcs." Castiel squints. "But you're not on the clock." Dean shrugs with one shoulder. "Yeah, well. Kid needed help, so I helped." He feels Cas stare at him, really stare, and Dean feels a hot chill run down his neck. He was half expecting the man to choke his soul out of him and lay him bare. Instead, Castiel tilts his head. He glances down at Jack, who grins up at him. "Yeah! Mr. Winchester helped me not strangle the pencil!" When Cas looks up at Dean, his expression is notably softer. He stills says, "You didn't need to do that. I should be--" "We all got enough on our shoulders, it's what I'm trained to do. Practically taught my own bro how to read and write too." Dean remarks, waving a hand at him in dismissal. Castiel looks a little uncomfortable. "Well... thank you, Mr. -- " "Dean's fine, as I've said." Dean grins. "Castiel, right?"

DCBB 2020 Posting Schedule

#dcbb 2020 #fic preview #2020 promo #deancas #destiel

61 notes · View notes

heliads · 4 years ago

Text

Meeting the Parents

based on this request: “Racetrack x reader where she is filthy rich so he goes out to dinner with her family and they don’t like him. He then teaches her what it’s like to be poor? Kinda like the titanic scene??”

masterlist

Race stands before you, nervously tugging at his shirt collar. You can tell he’s wearing his best clothes, and he’s even forgone his usual newsboy cap to make a better impression. Tonight, after all, is the night he’ll meet your parents for the first time.

You and Race had been dating for a few months now. It all started when your best friend, Katherine, had dragged you along to the lodging house so you could meet the newsboys of Manhattan. You had only gone so you could finally meet Jack Kelly, who she’d been talking about for what felt like forever, but you were instantly distracted by the sight of a newsie with golden curls. He’d been talking to one of his friends, but the second you’d walked through the door he had stopped and stared, all conversations forgotten. Your eyes had met across the crowded room, and in that moment, you knew that this boy was going to be the death of you.

It hadn’t taken him long to ask you out, in that usual flirtatious way of his, and it had taken you an even briefer moment to accept. Race flirted with every girl that crossed his path, that’s just what he did, but once he met you, everyone knew he had finally found someone he truly cared about. You two were so in love that it felt like even Romeo and Juliet were simply vague shadows of what you felt when you were with him.

Before long, your parents began to question why you came home with a grin and a blush, and why they kept hearing voices from your room late at night when you should’ve been asleep. Eventually, they found out that you were dating Race, and so they arranged to meet him tonight. Thus, Race is panicking.

“I’se just worried, you know? I’ve never been to a restaurant this nice, and your family is filthy rich. I mean, you could probably buy yourself an island or something. How am I supposed to tell them I’se a newsie?”

You laugh gently and straighten his collar. “First of all, I think that’s a bit of an overstatement. Second of all, if they see even a quarter of what I see in you, they’ll be more than happy. We just have to make it through one dinner, and then we don’t have to hide our relationship anymore. That’s good, right?”

Race sighs, then turns to face the door. His hand wraps around yours, squeezing for the briefest of moments as if to give him one last boost of strength, then opens the door for you. “Here we go, darlin’.”

You and Race make your way through the maze of tables, trying to find your family. Race is doing his best not to stare at the ornate chandeliers and gilded portraits hanging on the walls. He treads delicately on the fine carpets as if they’re made of crystal. “I feel like I’m a bit out of my league here, Y/N.” You can’t help but laugh at the awestruck expression on his face. “Don’t get too caught up in the decorations. I see them.” Race nods in readiness, then walks with you to your family’s table.

Your father smiles when he sees you. “Y/N, dear, there you are. And this must be-” “Anthony. It’s nice to meet you, sir.” You do your best to hide a smile as Race shakes your father’s hand. Race doesn’t often use his real name, he must be trying his hardest to impress your parents. This idea is confirmed when Race guides you to a seat and pushes in your chair.

With a slight movement of her hand, your mother indicates for the waiter to bring some drinks for all of you. “So, Anthony, it’s lovely to see you at last. How ever did you meet Y/N?” Race smiles, and only you can see the nerves still emanating from his every move. “Uh, I met her while I was at work. A friend of hers introduced us, and I’ve been in love ever since.”

You turn to Race, beaming, but your father leans forward and continues the interrogation. “Ah, a workplace introduction. That’s how I met my wife, actually. I’m a banker, at the Manhattan Alliance down the street.” He smirks coldly, letting his statement sink in. The Manhattan Alliance is one of the biggest banks in New York, so Race definitely feels the pressure growing at the table. “What do you do again, Anthony?”

You hold your breath. This is the one question you had hoped they wouldn’t ask. “I, uh, work with the New York World.” Your father raises an eyebrow inquisitively. “Ah, the newspaper. I know Pulitzer, he’s a good man.” You stifle a grin as Race does his best to not say anything. To the newsies, Pulitzer is anything but good, and hearing your father speak of him as if he’s a saint is taking all of Race’s strength not to break his composure.

Your father continues speaking. “I was talking to Pulitzer just the other day, actually. What is it you do with the World?” Race goes rigid for just a moment, then tilts his head casually. “I work with raising profits for the newspaper through, uh, studying distribution patterns and management, specifically focusing on regions within Manhattan.” Race speaks as confidently as he can. You two have been practicing this line all week to make sure he can translate being a newsie into seeming wealthy. It actually sounds pretty good, if you could say so yourself.

“I understand, I understand.” Your father nods, leaning back in his chair. “What you mean to tell me is that you’re a mere newsboy. No amount of prepared speeches can hide the truth, which is that you are nothing but a street rat, who should be under no circumstances fraternizing with my daughter. Yes, Pulitzer told me all about you. It sounds like you’ve been seen with him, Y/N, and he was eager to tell me just what I would be getting into.”

Your head flies up. “Father! Anthony is perfectly respectable, and what’s more, I love him! Please treat him with the courtesy he deserves!” Your father just shakes his head, a cool glare emanating from him. Your mother speaks up beside him. “You know this won’t work out, Y/N. Please, just get rid of him and let’s move on.”

Race stands up. “I can see I’m not wanted. Well, Mr. L/N, I may be ‘just a street rat’, but I will always love your daughter, no matter how cruel her father.” You stand up too. “I can’t believe either of you. I’m going with him.” Race takes your hand, and as the two of you flee the restaurant, you can hear your mother calling your name.

The second you leave the stuffy restaurant, you turn to your love in despair. “Oh, Race, I’m so sorry. I never thought any of this would happen.” He kisses your cheek softly, then shakes his head to dispel your worries. “Trust me, none of this is your fault. That’s just the thing about rich people- they never want to dirty they’se hands with us commoners. That’s what I like youse so much, Y/N, because you never cared about the money.”

You smile at that, and let Race lead you further away from the restaurant. After you find yourself heading down twisting streets, you realize you have no idea where you are. “Race, where are we going?” He grins, then pulls you down another side street. “If we can’t have that date with your family, we’re going to have fun with mine. Come on, Y/N, it’s just a little further.” You shake your head, laughing, and keep going after Race. You feel like you would follow that boy for forever.

Before you know it, you’re at the lodge. You can hear the distant sounds of music coming from somewhere inside the building, and when Race throws open the door, you’re enveloped in the sounds and sights of what feels like a festival. The newsies are all there, worn out but joyous after a long day of selling. One of the newsboys, who you believe is Albert, makes his way through the crowded room towards the two of you.

“What’cha doing here, Race? I thought you had that date?” When Albert sees you, his eyes clear. “Ah, there ya are.” He takes you in, still in your elegant gown. “You know, if you ever get bored of Racer here, I’d be more than happy to take care of youse.” Race shoves him, and Albert falls back, laughing. “As if I’d let the likes of you anywhere near Y/N.” He turns back to you with a grin, then holds out his hand. “Besides, she’s already dancing with me.”

You accept his hand, still taking in the sights of the room. Boys are crowded into the different areas of the lodge, some talking, some dancing, and some providing a beat by drumming on whatever empty surfaces they can find. All in all, it’s one of the most hectic scenes you’ve ever witnessed, and yet somehow one of the best.

Race leans in close to you, straining to be heard above the din of the room. “See, this is all we need. No mansions, no diamonds, no millions. Just the drums, some friends, and a good time.” You laugh at that, feeling the entire day's stresses run away from you. The aura of pure, unbridled joy surrounds you. Without strict social norms, without imposing parents or gossiping wives, you can at last breathe and let yourself have fun. Here, you can finally be yourself.

Race takes your hand and leads you to the groups of dancers. He places his hand on your waist, keeping the other clasped around yours, guiding you to the beat. The steps are slow at first, but as the boys drumming start to get more excited, the two of you move faster and faster until you’re breathless, both from dancing and from laughing. Race lets go of you to spin you, and the two of you spin around and around until the walls are tilting and you have to cling to Race so you don’t fall over.

The room seems too hot to think straight, what with all the boys packed together, so Race leads you to a balcony. The cold night air is a balm to your flushed skin, and you breathe it in happily. “See, we may not have millions, but we do manage to have a good time.” Race declares, leaning against the balcony’s railing next to you. “That you do. I don’t think I’ve laughed that much since I was little.” Race looks over at you, the moon shining in his curls. “That right there is a crime, darlin’. You’se got a smile that’s too pretty to hide away.” You glance away from him, blushing, but Race turns your head back with the tips of his fingers so he can kiss you. You kiss him back, rejoicing in the feeling of him next to you and wishing that this night could last forever.

#newsies #race imagine #race x reader #race imagines #racetrack #race higgins #racetrack imagine #racetrack x reader #racetrack imagines #newsies imagines #newsies live #newsies broadway #newsies x reader #racetrack higgins

75 notes · View notes

prettyinlimegreenboots · 4 years ago

Note

I love you. You enormously stubborn pain in the ass.”

I’ve been watching a lot of “Code Black” and “ER” so I decided to put our favorites in as Medical Professionals. Normally, family isn’t allowed to treat other family members but just pretend that doesn’t exist. There are cuss words in this one.

December 18, 2019 8:30AM

It was a normal shift, well as normal as the emergency room could be. There had been no major shootings or stabbings though the day was still young, he thought as he sat at the nurse’s station filling out paperwork.

“Why did I choose to go into Emergency Medicine again?” A chart was thrown on the desk as Katherine “Plums” Plumber, PA slumped over looking at Spot. “I just diagnosed my fifth case of the flu. This should be for the general practice peeps, not me.”

Spot grinned at his favorite colleague. “I’m sorry princess, but you’re drawing alllllll the short straws tonight.”

“Damn you Conlon - if I find out you’re the one assigning me cases, as head nurse, it’ll be your head. Next one I get I’m requesting you to join me!” She pointed at him as the bay doors were thrown open and a stretcher was pushed through. She grabbed her stethoscope and pointed to him. “Guess I spoke too soon. You’re with me. What do we have?”

“A 29 year old male who is complaining about severe back pains. Pain level is between 6-7. Blood in urine.” The EMT announced as they wheeled him in, screaming about drugs.

Spot followed along already prepping an IV line and anticipating any directions Plums would throw his way. The two worked in tandem as additional nurses and orderlies made their way to the bay.

Within minutes, they had diagnosed him with kidney stones and sent him for an ultrasound to see what the prognosis would be. Making his way back to the nurse’s desk, he threw his gloves in the trash and sighed as he sunk into a chair. He relaxed as he listened to the soothing sounds of the ER; it truly was his home away from home.

“What are your plans for when you leave this place?” He looked up and grinned at Albert, who had his own chart and running his hand through his hair, messing it up.

Looking at the clock on the wall, he groaned seeing he had another 2 hours. “Sleeping. Race will be home around 4 so I’m hoping I can get a good nap before he gets home. You?”

“Surprising Finch with dinner tonight.” Albert grinned.

Spot studied him for a minute before his hand slammed the desk. “You’re proposing tonight aren’t you?”

“Why dontcha tell the whole department, Conlon?” Albert dragged out as Plums slid over in her chair.

“He’ll say yes, Albert. You don’t have to worry.” Plums grinned. “He’s been dropping hints for the last four months.”

Albert smiled. “Thanks Plums. At least someone knows what to say.”

“Hey now! I gave you all my advice two months ago when you bought the ring.” Spot scrawled his signature across the paper looking between his two friends. “Besides I haven’t told Racer anything and that’s a damn miracle for sure.”

Albert chuckled at his best friend's antics. “Does he suspect anything?”

“Nope and he won’t.” Spot said as the doors were thrown open with the sight he didn’t want to see.

“Plums.” He called her name as he pushed off the desk, rolling his chair backwards and onto his feet running to the doors before anyone could comprehend what was going on. He heard feet behind him as he grabbed a stretcher and rolled it towards the door.

“What the hell happened?” Spot asked, looking between the two males, one of which had blood running down his face.

“Your fiancé is an idiot.” Jack Kelly looked between Spot and his wife.

Between Jack and Spot, they heaved him onto the stretcher before wheeling him back to the bay. “What happened?”

“He has first period planning as do I so he came down to the shop. The next thing I see his head is bleeding and his arm is weird.” Jack said looking between Kat and Spot.

“Albert, take Jack out to the waiting room.” Kat said, giving her husband a look as Spot started mopping up the blood on Race’s head. Kat was busy checking on a concussion and his injured arm.

Kat looked up and sighed. “He needs stitches and a possible cast. Spot, you okay doing that?”

Shaking his head, he looked at her. “I’m not steady. Get Romeo to do it. I'll start his IV.”

She nodded, calling Romeo to start the stitches as he focused on inserting the IV. At that time, Race started to come around. “Where am I? Don’t infect me with anything …. My fiancé’s a nurse.”

“Hey, hey Race. You’re in the ER, Jack brought you in. Do you remember what happened?” Spot asked, leaning close to him.

“Spottie? No what happened?” Race cracked an eye open, squinting at the brightness. “I hurt, Spot.”

Lacing his fingers with Race’s he squeezed them. “What hurts, Race?”

“My head and my arm.” He groaned. “It’s fuzzy, Spottie.”

He looked up at Kat before looking at Race. “What’s fuzzy, Race?”

“Your face.” Race said, closing his eyes.

Kat put a smile on her face as she leaned over Race. “Hey Race, can you open your eyes for me?”

He cracked them open with a slight grin. “Lucky me, I got the dream team.”

“You did.” She smiled. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Three.” He rolled his eyes, his non-injured hand flying up to cradle his head. “Ow Ow ow …. that was dumb, make it stop.”

Spot bit his lip to keep from laughing. “Make what stop?”

“Spinning of the room.” Race shut his eyes tightly, willing it to stop.

Uncapping the IV, Spot pushed the syringe that Kat had handed him full of pain medicine. “There, you should be okay in a few minutes. Can you open your eyes for me and Plums? We have a few questions for you.”

He sighed, cracking open an eye. “Alright, hit me with these questions.”

“What year is it?” Kat asked, flashing her penlight in his eyes, watching them slowly dilate.

“2019, unless I was knocked out longer than that.”

Race chuckled.

Shaking her head, she smiled. “Nope, you’re good. When’s your wedding date?”

“January 17, 2020.”

“What’s your dog’s name?”

“Uhh … Sassie.”

Kat looked over at Spot giving him a look. “I’m going to diagnose him with a mild concussion. I want him up in radiology getting a look at that hand. We’ll brace it here but he may need a steadier cast. Spot, wanna take him while I go talk to Jack?”

She had him a chart and left the room. Removing his gloves, he gave a look at his husband. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’m floating. Is that normal?” Race asked, as Romeo smoothed a white bandage on his head. Spot smiled in appreciation.

“Yea but you’ll be okay. We’re going to get you upstairs for a X-Ray.” Spot patting his shoulder, reaching for the phone to call an orderly to move Race. He braced his arm and stood back when a man came to move the bed. “We’re heading to Radiology, Specs.”

Race gave his fiancé a look. “Is radiology really necessary? My arm is fine.”

“Uh huh. You heard Kat, we’re gonna go get it looked at.” Spot walked beside the gurney as they got in the elevator. “You don’t have a choice in the matter.”

Race pouted. “But Spottie, I’m fine.”

Specs snorted hearing Race call Spot his nickname. “Racetrack, stop while you’re ahead.”

He sighed, closing his eyes feeling the gurney move from the elevator. Specs parked the gurney across from radiology as Spot quickly thanked him. “I’m going to see where you are in line. I’ll be right back.”

Race hummed before Spot disappeared into the adjacent room. Luckily, radiology was empty and they were able to take Race right away.

“Told ya I’m fine, Spot. Quit worrying.” Race said as they moved him back to the gurney as the tech looked at the x-rays.

“Actually Mr Higgins, you have a fracture on your ulna, which is probably going to require a cast.” The Radiographer, named Blink, gave Spot a look.

Blink held up the x-ray that had a circle around a thin silver line. “It’s thin but it’s there.”

“Thanks Blink.” Spot took the X-ray from him before moving the gurney through the door where Specs was waiting.

The two moved Race through the halls before putting him in an actual room within the ER. “You’re also staying here a lot longer than planned, Racer.”

“What?!?” He exclaimed, sitting up which agitated his head causing him to groan. “Why?”

Race texted Kat that they were in the room before giving his fiancé a look. “You have a mild concussion, they’re gonna want to keep you most of the day to make sure you’re not gonna die. Also we need to get a cast on that arm.”

“Hey guys. How’s it going?” Kat asked, coming into the room, grabbing the x-ray, holding it up to the light to review it.

“I wanna go home, tell Spot that I’m fine and I don’t have to stay.” Race said as Race adjusted his bed so he was on an incline instead of laying flat.

Kat’s tongue poked out of her mouth as she studied the x-ray and shook her head. “Sorry, Race, but Spot’s right this time. You’ve got a mild concussion, along with the stitches and the cast we’re gonna put on, I want to keep you in here for a bit to watch you and make sure nothing crazy happens.”

“I wanna have a second opinion ….. I don’t like the dream team so much anymore!” Race gave them both a pout as Spot chuckled.

Kat gave the two a look. “I could have Talmore come in and look at him.”

“Oh no! He already thinks Race is pretty - he’s not touching him. Race, a couple of more hours in here and you’ll be free.” Spot shook his head, looking at Race. “I love you. You enormously stubborn pain in the ass.”

Race’s eyes lit up. “ I love you too but you love my stubborn ass.”

“No comment.”

Kat laughed, shaking her head. “Only you Race. Spot, go clock out. I’ll get Albert to do his cast.”

“I can do it...” He gave her a look.

Motioning to the nurse’s station, she smiled. “Go clock out, gather your stuff, grab Jack and come back here. You are almost dead on your feet.”

He nodded, leaning over and kissing Race’s head, whispering an ‘I Love You’ before promising he’d be back shortly.

“So how much longer do I need to be in here?” Race asked looking at Kat.

Looking at the clock that now read 11:00, Kat sighed, handing him a menu from the bedside table. “We need to get some food in you first and you’ve got to finish that IV bag. I’ll come check up on you at 1:30 and if you’re good, I’ll release you.”

“I’m sorry.” Race looked at her whispering the apology.

Kat sighed, setting the chart down, sitting in the chair beside the bed, relaxing for the first time since Jack brought him in. “For what?”

“Making yours and Spot’s worst nightmare come true.” Race played with his fingers, avoiding looking at his sister.

Reaching up, she caught his fingers and laced them with hers. “It’s alright Race. We’re just glad you’re not more seriously hurt. Yea, we dread the day any of our family ends up here but I’m glad it wasn’t anymore serious. Now figure out what you want for lunch and when Spot comes back, you can order. Let him or I know if anything doesn’t feel right or you feel dizzy, alright?”

“Thanks Kat.”

“You’re welcome.” She leaned over and kissed his forehead. “Don’t give Spot too much of a hard time. He’s really worried about you.”

She left the room, leaving him alone as he flipped through the menu. Spot always hated the food, but did mention the mac and cheese was actually pretty good. He decided on that along with a salad and a chocolate chip cookie when the door was pushed open.

Jack grinned seeing his brother while Spot looked annoyed. “Where’s Kat? Did you decide lunch?”

“I think she went to do rounds.” Race said as Spot nodded, putting his stuff in the corner of the room. “Mac and cheese, salad and a chocolate chip cookie.”

“Anything to drink?” Spot gave him a look while picking up the phone.

“Coke.” Spot tilted his head, trying to figure out if the saline in the IV would dilute the Coke enough - it wouldn’t. “Try again, Race.”

“Ugh killjoy.” Race groaned. “Sprite then.”

Spot nodded, placing the order as Jack looked over Race’s injuries. “You doing alright?”

“Yea, got a fracture on my ulna, a pretty new bandage and apparently I’m concussed.” Race said, as Spot hung up the phone. “And I’m getting a cast at some point.”

A knock on the door caused them all to look up. Albert grinned pushing open the door. “Hiya fellas. I hear someone needs a cast.”

“Albie, I have a fracture on my ulna and the dream team thinks I need a cast.” Race pouted giving his best friend a look.

Albert gave Race a look. “And you’re gonna be the dumbass to defy them?”

“Well ….. not me but you could.” Race grinned.

Laughing, he grabbed the necessary supplies before shaking his head. “Dude, I actually like my job. Besides you don’t piss off head nurse Spot or doctor Plums. It ain’t pretty. Just ask Spot about the other day.”

“Dude, I’m gonna stick you with all the flu cases for the next two weeks if you don’t shut up.” Spot gave him a look as Albert held his hands up innocently.

Albert turned to Race and gave him a look. “Sorry you’re on your own with defying them. Leave me outta it. What color do you want your cast?”

“Wimp. What are my options?” Race asked, as Albert crossed the room to open a drawer, looking at the packages inside.

Albert sighed. “Pink, green, blue, yellow, red, or purple.”

“What color green?” Race asked with a grin.

Albert and Spot both groaned while Jack chuckled. “Lime green like your ugly ass shoes at home.”

“That’ll work.” Race nodded as Spot collapsed on the couch and threw his arm over his face. “What’s wrong Spottie?”

“I’m tired Race. I was really looking forward to a nap after work before you got home.” Spot sighed, throwing his arm off his face. “I didn’t anticipate the day going like this.”

Jack looked between the two, starting to feel the tension in the room. “Do you guys need anything?”

“Nah, I think we’re good. Thanks Jack.” Spot stood and gave him a hug before settling in the chair beside the bed.

Jack leaned over, gave Race a kiss on the forehead before whispering something to him. “I’m heading out but let me know if you need anything. Bye Al.”

Watching him leave, the room was quiet as Albert put the cast on. Spot held onto Race’s fingers as they watched Al work. “There it should be set in about 5 minutes. Don’t get it wet, Race. Spot knows how to take care of it.”

“Thanks Albie.”

“You’re welcome, Race.” Looking over at Spot, Al gave him a look. “Need anything, Spot?”

Shaking his head, Spot smiled. “No, I added something to Race’s order and I stole a can of Mountain Dew from the nurse’s station. But if I don’t see you before we leave, have fun tonight.”

Albert’s face lit up at that. “Will do. Thanks.”

Watching him leave, Spot sighed, leaning back in the chair. He wanted to say something but he didn’t want to unload on Race. He felt Race squeeze his hand, looking up at him. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Spot’s face softened, hearing the fear in Race’s voice.

Race’s eyes were wet with tears as everything hit him from the morning. “For scaring you, making you worry and having your worst nightmare come true.”

Standing up from the chair, Spot sat on the side of the bed and pulled Race into his arms, letting him sob. “I’m sorry you got hurt but dammit Race, my heart stopped when I saw you and Jack at the doors. I think I might’ve aged at least 10 years. I want to be pissed off at you but I’m just really glad you’re okay. Just promise me you’ll be more careful?”

He felt Race nod on his chest as someone knocked on the door. Looking up, Spot rubbed his fingers under his eyes before calling to come in. An orderly came in and delivered Race’s lunch before asking if they needed anything else. She left after they said they were good.

Spot grabbed a covered cup before sitting in the chair giving Race a look. “Eat!”

“What did you get Spot?” Race sniffled, wiping his eyes before pouring the dressing on his salad.

“Mac and cheese. They always have it for the patients but not always for the staff.” Spot popped a forkful in his mouth savoring the taste. “There’s one good thing about you being here - Mac and cheese for me for lunch.”

Pulling out his phone, he looked at the texts that had come through. He didn’t see one from Medda, not knowing if she knew about Race yet. He sent her a quick text.

Race’s in the ER with a concussion, 8 stitches and a fracture ulna. He’s okay and we’ll be going home shortly. I’ll have him call you in a bit.

“Anything interesting going on in the world?” Race asked, motioning to his phone.

Locking it and slipping it in his pocket, Spot shook his head. “Nah. You’re not missing a thing. Did you drive this morning or did Jack pick you up?”

“Jack picked me up. Why?” Race replied, starting on his Mac and cheese. “Holy shit this is amazing.”

“Toldya.” Spot ate some more with a grin. “Trying to figure out if I needed to get your car home. I’m guessing you’re off work for a week or so. Do you need anything from school?”

“My bag but Jack can grab that.” Race said, trying to think if there’s anything else. “I’ll text him later.”

Silence enveloped the room, as Race slowly ate his chocolate chip cookie. He couldn’t get Spot’s earlier confession out of his mind. “Do you wanna take a quick nap?”

Spot bounced his feet, shaking his head at Race’s question “Nah … was actually thinking of going to get some charts to work on. Why?”

“I was going to see if you want to come lay with me. I’m not feeling the best and wanna cuddle.” Spot toed off his shoes, carefully crawling into the bed with his arm around Race as he laid his head on Spot’s chest. Spot gently ran his fingers through Race’s hair as his breath evened out. Looking up at the bag of saline, Spot sighed knowing they had at least an hour more to go.

Looking down, Spot relaxed seeing Race sleeping soundly. He sighed, running a hand through his hair and thanked his lucky stars that his world was okay. A quiet tap sounded at the door as he said to come in.

Kat’s face softened seeing the two of them in the bed. “How is he?”

“He just ate and cried but he’s doing good. No complaints of pain but the meds we gave him would eliminate that.” Spot said looking up at the saline bag. “I’m guessing he has 30-45 minutes left on that.”

She nodded. “Yea that’s what I’m thinking. I’m going to keep him off work for a week, I don’t want that concussion getting worse. But that’s not why I came in. There’s some paperwork you need to fill out.”

“Surprised I’m just getting it now.” Spot rolled his eyes. “If you bring it in, I’ll complete it.”

Kat put a hand on his arm. “Will do. How are you doing?”

“Better now that he’s fine and sleeping. But I was scared there for a moment.” He looked up at her with a smile. “And you, how are you?”

Shrugging, she looked at Race. “The same. Broke down with Jack earlier and had a good cry so that seemed to help but I think my heart stopped when I saw them in the doorway.”

“I told Race the same. I’m just glad he’s alright and it wasn’t anything more serious.” Spot pressed a kiss to Race’s forehead, sighing.

She patted his arm. “Same, Spot. I’ll get those papers and I’ll be right back. You need anything?”

“Alcohol?” He asked, giving her a grin as she laughed.

“Sorry that’ll have to be later. But Race won’t be able to have any for a couple of days.” She grinned.

Spot gave her a look before shooing her from the room. “Thanks Plums.”

“You’re welcome. Let me know if you need anything.” She took her leave, returning a few moments later with a stack of papers before leaving the two alone.

He quickly filled out the admission paperwork that was a couple of hours late. Reviewing them a final time, he scrawled his signature on the line before throwing them on the table at their feet.

“Mmmmm what time is it?” Race murmured, shifting slightly.

Running his hand through his hair, Spot started humming before whispering. “You’ve been asleep about 20 minutes. You’ve got some time before your saline bag is done.”

“It’s bright, Spottie.” Race whined, burying his head deeper into his chest. “Can you turn the light off?”

Reaching behind him, he flicked the light above the bed off. “That better?”

“Yes. Thanks Spot. Love you.” He murmured sleepily.

Pressing his lips to his head, Spot smiled, humming. “Love you too.”

The opening of the door startled him as he yawned. “You okay?”

Looking over at Kat as she washed her hands, she smirked at him. “Yea I must’ve fallen asleep. What time is it?”

“1:30. Saline bag is almost done so I’m going to disconnect it. Wanna wake sleeping beauty up?” She put a pair of gloves on before smiling at the pair.

Leaning near Race’s ear, Spot pressed a kiss to his cheek before coaxing him away. “Wake up Racer. Kat’s here to kick us out.”

Groaning, he stretched before cracking his eyes open “I can go home?”

“If you wake up.” Kat smiled at the grogginess in his voice as she clamped the IV line as the door opened.

Albert grinned at them. “Thought you guys were already gone?”

“Nah he had to finish a bag of saline before Plums released him.” Spot said as Albert grabbed a pair of gloves and some supplies.

Spot pushed himself out of the bed, standing near it gripping Race’s hand. “Hey Race, look at me. Don’t look at them.”

Race looked over at Spot with a grin “Why?”

“Just don’t. Tell me a story, Race.” Spot said, motioning Kat and Albert to go ahead.

“A story huh? Well Jack likes to come hang out in my Science Class. He has a habit of leaving something random in the room. Some of my students have him as a teacher so he always tells them to look for something out of place. It drives me absolutely bunkers but the kids really enjoy it.” He shrugged, as Albert put gauze on the IV site.

“Race you gotta keep the gauze on for a couple of hours then you can replace it with a bandaid.” Albert gave his friend a look before looking up at Spot who grinned. Albert threw the IV materials always before leaving the room.

Race flashed them a thumbs up before looking over at Kat. “Can I leave?”

“Slow your roll.” She gave her brother-in-law a look. “I’ve gotta draw up discharge papers. You’re going to be off work for a week, giving you some time to heal. Take it easy, Race.” She paused, giving him a no-nonsense look. “No alcohol, no strenuous activity, and no baths. Sponge baths for the first couple of days, then you can shower. Spot, you know what you’re looking for. Any questions?”

Race’s face fell at the restrictions as he looked at Spot who shook his head. “I think we’re good. Thanks Plums.”

“I’ll come check up on him the day after tomorrow. You’re welcome. Let me get those papers then I’m kicking you to the curb.” She grinned at them, walking out the door.

Race leaned up and kissed Spot’s chin, the closest place he could reach. “Thanks Spottie. Can we get pizza for dinner?”

“If that’s what you want, sure we can get pizza for dinner. No pineapple.” Spot shot him a look. “I don’t care if you’re hurt, no pineapple.”

Race pouted, as the door was pushed open revealing Kat and Specs with a wheelchair. “Kat back me up - pineapple is good on pizza right?”

“Sure is. Spot let him have pineapple. He’s hurt.” Kat winked at Race as he laughed. She handed Spot the stack of papers. “You know what’s included in here. Let me know if you have any questions. Race, seriously take it easy tonight, watch movies and hang out on the couch type of night.”

“Thanks Kat. Can I go?” Race looked between the three in the room.

Spot grabbed his bag from the corner before heading for the door. “I’ll meet you at the exit in a few minutes. Thanks Plums, Specs.”

He disappeared as Kat and Specs helped him into the wheelchair before pushing him from the room. Several stops were made along the way as their friends said goodbye to him. As promised, Spot was waiting by the exit, his truck idling with the passenger’s door open. With some help, they got Race into the truck, Spot thanking Kat and Specs again. “Ready to go home?”

“Take me home Spottie.” Race said with a yawn as he pulled away from the curb and headed home.

Thanks @wide-eyed--wonderer for sending this prompt. This is 4390 words of pure mayhem and Race being Race. Let me know what you think!

#Newsies #Newsies Fan Fiction #writing #ask #wide eyed wonderer #drabble prompts #newsies drabble #Racetrack Higgins #spot conlon x racetrack higgins #Spot Conlon #Medical Drama #Nurse Spot #Doctor Katherine #Life In The ER Newsies Series

21 notes · View notes

neverplannedonnewsies · 4 years ago

Note

hey, are you taking requests? if so, can i ask you for some fluffy finch x reader please? (do you need more of a prompt than that?)

I am SO SORRY about how long it took me to actually get around to writing this. I really wanted to but the motivation was a-lackin’. Also this required a LOT of editing, I didn’t realize how long it had been since I had written anything, doesn’t flow quite as easily anymore. Anywho, here is some Finch fluff, and in the course of writing this I got some ideas for a few other fluffy fics, so more should be coming in the future - I just did this one because I was particularly motivated. I hope it’s ok that it is a modern-era fic!

No warnings; Finch x reader pairing

You rush into the staff meeting, making it in just as the principal is getting the meeting started. Sliding into the chair your friend Katherine saved for you, you survey the room, trying to get your bearings and straighten your many books and papers. As you’re shrugging out of your coat you spy a new face in the crowd of teachers that you know so well. A tall lanky man roughly your age with curly hair is seated several chairs down at the conference room table. A very cute man your age. Before you have a chance to lean over and ask Katherine who he is, the principle clears up the mystery for you. “And of course, we have a new member joining our staff today. Everyone I’d like to introduce Patrick Cortes, who will be our new boy’s gym teacher.”

Mr. Cortes smiles and nods at the group in general as a few people call out a welcome, glancing around and making brief eye contact with you before he turns away again. Anything that mixes up the school day is always welcome, but a new teacher is something particularly intriguing. You have no doubt this is all your students will be able to talk about today, and honestly you can’t blame them. After all, he is a very handsome gym teacher.

When the meeting ends you want to go introduce yourself, but Jack Kelly, the art teacher, immediately goes over and begins engaging him. You decide it’s probably for the best, Jack is far more comfortable talking to strangers than you. Plus, you’re still disheveled from your rushed morning and need to get things in order before your first class. You’ll just have to meet the new teacher later.

---

You head outside for your lunch break. Unfortunately, due to Katherine’s class schedule with the upper level English students you do not have the same lunch break, otherwise you’d eat with her in the staff room. But this year the course schedule made that impossible, and you didn’t particularly care to eat with any of the other teachers. While you liked them all, your lunch break was a time to relax and not think about school. Instead you had managed to find a picnic table that none of the students seemed to use. Not only was it a far walk from the cafeteria, but your school had open campus lunch, meaning at least half the student population vanished for the lunch period as long as possible, always running back to class just in time before the bell.

Today however, you were stopped in your tracks as you rounded the corner of the building and were confronted by the sight of Patrick Cortes sitting at your table. He looked up from his lunch slightly startled.

“Oh, hello there,” he said, giving you a bashful smile, “Am I in your spot?”

“Hi,” you replied, getting over your shock, “No, not at all, I’m just surprised. None of the other teachers have found this spot yet. May I join you?”

“Of course.”

“I’m Y/N Y/L/N, I teach the upper level history courses here,” you said as you sat down and began unpacking your lunch.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Patrick Cortes, though please call me Finch.”

“It’s nice to meet you as well. Finch. That’s an interesting nickname.”

He shrugged, “Got it when I was really young and it kind of stuck. My father is also Patrick Cortes, so the family needed some way to distinguish between us. It’s better than Junior.”

You laughed, “How’s your first day going?”

“Pretty decent. No trouble with the kids and everyone has been very welcoming. It’s a little strange coming in after schools already been in session for a month, but it hasn’t been too rough so far.”

“That’s good to hear. If you don’t mind me asking, why are you eating out here instead of in the staff room?”

“So this is your spot,” he said with a teasing grin. “Honestly I just wanted to get outside. It’s such a beautiful fall day and I prefer being out of doors. The kids in my classes are going to have to learn to dress for all weather, that’s part of the reason I became a gym teacher – perfect excuse to have class outside.”

“It’s certainly easier than getting a history class outside,” you laugh.

“A little bit,” he agreed with a smile.

The conversation shifts to where you’re both from, other schools you’ve taught at, other basic “getting to know you” information. You learn that Finch moved to town to be closer to his parents, that he has a cat named Pringle, and that he does not have a girlfriend or wife. This last bit of information isn’t unwelcome to you, though you try not to dwell on it too much.

As you finish up and begin to head inside Finch stops you and says, “So is it alright if I continue having lunch here? It’s seriously fine if not, I don’t want to invade your space if this is where you come to relax during your day.”

You contemplate his question for a few seconds before replying, “Actually, it would be great to have a lunch buddy. I don’t mind at all.”

Finch grins at your words and you have a brief moment of wondering if you made a mistake. Afterall, he had a very adorable smile that could be hard to resist.

---

As you continue to have lunch together, you and Finch start to become good friends. It was nice to have another close teacher friend besides just Katherine, someone who could relate to the challenges of your job without judgement. The weird thing was though, you had yet to hang out outside of school. You of course had lunch, and were also together at all the staff meetings, chaperoned homecoming, and you had even convinced Katherine to come with you to a few of the basketball games now that Finch had taken over coaching the boy’s team. But all of this was within the boundaries of the school, where it was very clear that you were both teachers and coworkers. At first this was fine, but you started to wonder what it would be like to be with Finch outside of the bubble of the school.

Of course, the other aspect that complicated things was the fact that everyone else also seemed to notice how much time the two of you spent together. You began noticing that kids in the cafeteria would spot you and Finch walking together and start nudging each other and giggling while very not-subtly staring at the two of you. And there were times the other teachers would look inquisitively at the two of you when you laughed a little too loud in a staff meeting at a joke the other had made. Katherine kept encouraging you to go for it but you were worried. You were coworkers, you didn’t want to make him uncomfortable. What if he didn’t feel the same? And what if you had waited too long to make your move? All the while you dreaded when fall would turn to winter, effectively ending your private lunch dates.

Fortunately, Finch didn’t seem to notice your inner struggles or when you would stare at him for a moment too long. He had started coming to your classroom to “pick you up” before walking to your lunch spot, prolonging the time you had together. Occasionally he’d even come to your class during his free period, claiming to need help with a school procedure he wasn’t familiar with, but then staying for the rest of your lesson. To say that wasn’t distracting to you or the students would be a lie, but you couldn’t bring yourself to kick him out either. You just enjoyed being around him.

Finally, on one of those glorious fall days Finch, as always, appeared in your classroom doorway. Unlike usual though, he seemed a little nervous.

“Hey,” you said, looking up from your desk with a smile, “ready for lunch?”

“Yeah… Actually, I was wondering if instead of lunch you’d like to go to dinner?” Finch said, rubbing the back of his neck shyly.

You sat in shock for a few seconds before smiling even bigger and saying, “How about both?”

He laughed in slight disbelief and with a huge grin on his face said, “Deal.”

#THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE REQUEST #i get so few requests #it's very flattering #i really hope i did a good job #and that it doesn't end too suddenly #and hopefully it's fluffy enough haha #newsies #newsies fanfiction #finch #finch x reader #newsies finch #patrick cortes #newsies fan fiction #disney newsies #teacher fic

9 notes · View notes

dawnwave16 · 5 years ago

Text

Not what I expected

Please note there are mentions of suicide in this chapter, please don’t read it if this makes you uncomfortable!

8; 9(here); 10

Chapter 9

Having said that she turned on her heel and walked a little way away from the group and dialled the bakery.

Sabine was the one who answered the phone and she quickly confirmed that the four adults with them were there to help. Upon hearing this Alix relaxed and the rest of the teens followed suit. After heading onto the Liberty and settled in for what promised to be a long conversation. The teens told the BAU team as much as they could about Lila arriving at the school and everything that followed. How she had targeted Marinette almost immediately, how she had been making suggestions about what they class could do that would supposedly help them “make it big” but from what their group could see, it was slowly making them destroy whatever chance they had of achieving their dreams. They spoke about how they had taken a good look at their own actions when they had realised what was going on and realised what they had done to Mari was not right at all and so they had each gone to her and apologised.

Marc, Nathaniel and Alix all explained how they kept all of Mari's art supplies in their lockers in the art room as they were worried that someone might get the bright idea to destroy them. The list just kept going and throughout it all, they made sure to keep an eye out for Akuma's as they knew they would be prime Akuma bait with everything being spoken about and none of them wanted to deal with that. Once the teens were done it was the BAU teams turn. They admitted that they couldn't reveal everything yet but did fill the teens in on what they could. It was nightfall by the time they were done talking so the team agreed that it was time for them to head back to the hotel. The teens decided they would have a sleepover instead as Luka had the boat to himself that night. So, after saying their goodbye's the four of them headed back to the hotel.

By the time they reached the Hotel they had worked up quite an appetite, so they called the rest team and asked what they wanted to eat, placed the order for room service, then headed up. When they got to the room they were surprised by how quiet Garcia was being however before they could ask Garcia spoke.

“Two things, firstly I will give you the details of what I found after we've eaten as if I start now, none of you will want to eat. Like at all. We've had bad cases but what I've found makes those cases seem so normal it's scary. Also, Jack is still in the room and I don't want to give him the same nightmares I know I'm going to be having. Anyway, the second point is more of a question for Emily.”

“What's the question, Garcia?” Prentiss asked as her friend stopped to take a breath.

“Do you still have your contacts in Interpol?”

The team gasped at the question. While Jack wouldn't understand the implications of it the team did, what they had originally thought to be a case of getting rid of a bully was so much bigger.

“I'll call and ask if any of them are in Paris at the moment and get them to meet us here in an hour if you'd like?” Prentiss answered.

“Please do.”

The next hour passed relatively quickly, they had eaten and tried to keep themselves distracted and it worked for the most part. As soon as Jack was in bed and the Interpol agent, Clyde Easter, had arrived Garcia knew it was time to start.

“If I could turn your attention to your tablets you will see the files of three other girls have been sent to them. I know this seems random, however after going through our little Mari's old phone and looking at how 'Lila' had basically convinced all of Mari's friends to join her in what amounts to cyberbullying, I knew I had to look deeper. My first point of call was looking into Lila Rossi specifically only to find that she didn't exist prior to joining Collège Françoise Dupont, like at all. If we look at the school records the day she first joined Mari's class she was actually enrolled as 'Nekane Layla Kelly' originally from Basque. About the only thing Nekane hasn't lied about is that her mother is an Italian diplomat. Anyway, she was born in the Italian Embassy in Basque and attended school there until she was 10 when her mother was transferred back to Italy as Nekane's grandmother was dying. They spent two years there before heading to Spain for two years and finally came here to France. She didn't change her name until she came to France as she felt that it would stand out too much here. Now I know it's normal for diplomats to move but except for the first one there wasn't a reason given for the change.

Anyway, I looked at her old classmates and found something weird. If you look at the files for Aisha Robinson; Tamiko Norris and Amara Mogami you will see that not only are they similar in looks to Marinette but they also have multicultural parents with one being Europian and the other being Asian. This may seem minor at a glance but all three girls were in the same class as Nekane and two of them committed suicide shortly before Nekane moved. Aisha attempted to commit suicide too however her babysitter got concerned when she didn't respond to the call to come down to eat and went to check on her then called for emergency services who were able to save her. In each of the girl's cases, they were fairly popular at school until Nekane joined their class were upon their classmates turned on them and started bullying them. Aisha doesn't talk much anymore but she has had to be changed to homeschooled as she can't handle being around people her age anymore. In her case her parents supported her however in Tamiko and Amara's case, the girl's parents believed what everyone was saying about their daughters.”

The team was silent as they listened to Garcia, JJ had tears running down her face at the thought of what could have happened if Marinette's friends hadn't rallied around to support her. Emily had closed her eyes, as a diplomat's child herself, she knew that frequent moves happened, but that they always had a reason. Clyde had also closed his eyes, he'd dealt with a lot of nasty things while working for Interpol but this was something he never thought he would see. He looked at the age that Nekane Kelly would have been at the time of each of the other girl's suicides and realised that she would have been about 10 for the first 12 for the second and 14 for the third. He looked up as he realised this and repeated his thought out loud so that the rest of the team could hear it too. Reid made the connection first.

“She's targeting Marinette as her fourth victim. Unlike our other unsubs, she get's her satisfaction from playing with her victims' lives and destroying them without having to kill them herself. I think the deaths are inconsequential for her, she just likes seeing her target suffer. Marinette is suffering but she isn't letting Nekane get her way. She's speaking out more and hasn't let herself be isolated, she changed her phone number but rather than let her old number be reassigned she kept her old phone to help get evidence of what's going on. Do we know if the other three girls were targeted at school the same way Marinette has been or was their's only cyberbullying?”

“According to Aisha's parents it was at school as well,” Garcia replied. “I only looked into the cyber side thanks to Marinette's phone. I saw several messages telling her she should just kill herself and spare the world, among other things. They all started when Nekane rejoined the class.”

“According to the group of Mari's friends we spoke to earlier, the bullying from the class started at around the same time. They mentioned that one of the more aggressive girls still calls herself Mari's 'bestie' but is the first to put her down if 'Lila' even looks like she's even mildly upset. The girl seems to think that Mari is jealous of 'Lila' being interested in the same boy as Mari, yet according to her friends Mari and the boy, Adrian, have agreed to just be friends until the boy completes at least another year of councilling. They didn't say what he needs that for but it does show that those that truly know Mari know the truth. They also mentioned that the two might not date at all and that it depends on how they both feel at that time.” Morgan commented before he and the other three who had met with Marinette's friend group told the team what they had found out. Hotch followed Morgan's example by telling the team about what happened in the bakery.

“Before the three of them left I got the mother's name and said I'd like to speak to her, Nora said she'd stay up and talk to her parents when they got home. Hopefully, I'll hear from them soon as I have a feeling there's more to the babysitting story then we know,” Hotch concluded.

It was then that his phone rang, apparently they would be hearing from Mrs Césaire much sooner then they had thought.

@northernbluetongue; @wargraymon0709; @moonlightstar64; @winter-gardenflower; @bee-wrecker; @starsshineandgivehope

#mlb #criminal minds #lila salt #not what i expected #au bio dad for marinette

93 notes · View notes

dustedmagazine · 5 years ago

Text

Dust Volume 6, Number 4

Guided by Voices just dropped record #30!

We enter April wishing all of you good health and financial solvency, though we know that many of the musicians and artists and appreciators that visit our site are in very dire circumstances. Our own crew is, so far, not infected, though we are coping with varying degrees of success to the new normal. Some are writing more. Others are struggling. Almost all of us are listening hard to the music that sustains us, and hope that you are likewise finding some solace. This edition of Dust is a big one, as a lot of us have the attention span for shorter, but not longer pieces. Enjoy it in good health. Contributors included Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Jonathan Shaw, Ian Mathers, Andrew Forell and Tim Clarke.

Aara — En Ergô Einai (Debemur Morti Productions)

En Ergô Einai by Aara

Swiss black metal band Aara offers a very high-concept LP, investigating the European Enlightenment, and the period’s complex and conflicting discourses on human rationality. In some ways, the historical period was enormously optimistic, featuring thinkers like Ben Franklin and Rousseau, who were committed to modes of thought that were scientifically rigorous and grounded in egalitarian ethics. But at the same time, European coloniality ramped up significantly, and capital became a rapacious, world consuming engine, churning out massive wealth and even more massive human suffering. Aara investigate that — or anyways that’s their claim. They haven’t published the lyrics to these songs, and the vocal stylings of singer Fluss are so brittle, so horrendously shrieked, that it’s impossible to decipher the words. The music is suggestive, however. It’s infused with a grand sensibility, and also charged with black metal’s negative intensities. The influence of Blut Aus Nord’s romantic Memoria Vetusta records is strongly present — and Vindsval, Blut Aus Nord’s principal composer, plays guitar on “Arkanum,” first track on this record. Its grandiosity is in tune with the philosophical enthusiasms of the Enlightenment. But it’s pretty cold stuff, like rationality itself.

Jonathan Shaw

Ryoko Akama / Apartment House — Dial 45-21-95 (2019) (Another Timbre)

Dial 45-21-95 by Ryoko Akama

The one time I saw Ryoko Akama’s music performed, the visual poetry of the concert was at least as compelling as the music that was made. During one piece she, Joseph Clayton Mills and Adam Sonderberg walked calmly up and down a line of tables loaded with instruments and knick-knacks she picked up during her visit to Chicago, making timely sounds that seemed to accent their movements rather than issue from them. While it sounded nothing like the music on Dial 45-21-95 (2019), this album is likewise the work of sympathetic musicians expressing a composer’s impressions of a place and all that comes with it. The source material this time comes from Akama’s visit to the archive of filmmaker Krzystof Kieslowski. Objects she saw, words that she read, and the episodic pacing of his works all became part of this cycle of leisurely, gentle movements of music that is small in scale, but not exactly minimalist. The musicians, in this case the English new music ensemble Apartment House, often seem to be passing phrases from one to another, each recipient conveying a reaction to what they’ve heard rather than the same information. In this way they impart the experience of a story without telling one.

Bill Meyer

Aidan Baker & Gareth Davis — Invisible Cities II (Karlrecords)

Invisible Cities II by Aidan Baker & Gareth Davis

What better time than when we’re all forbidden by pandemic to spend time in the company of others to listen to some quality sonic landscaping instead? Nadja’s ever-prolific Aidan Baker second duo collaboration with bass clarinetist Gareth Davis follows on the first Invisible Cities with a similar structure; Baker, credited on that first LP with just “guitar”, somehow summons up vast or subtle cloudbanks of hissing ambience, covert drones, even sometimes harsh blares (check out “The Dead” here) while Davis plays his clarinet like he’s carefully picking his way across a perilous set of ruins. Whether elegiac like the opening “Hidden” or more mysterious like the fading pulses threading around Davis’s work on “Eyes”, the result is a vividly evocative set of involving ambient music made using slightly unusual materials. Even though Baker and Davis fall into a set of background/foreground roles, both clearly contribute equally to what makes Invisible Cities II work so well (honestly, a little better than their fine debut as a duo), and although unintentional, the result can serve to give us temporary shut ins plenty of mental fodder as well.

Ian Mathers

The Bobby Lees — Skin Suit (Alive)

youtube

The Bobby Lees may be from Woodstock, but they definitely do not have flowers in their hair. Skin Suit, the band’s second album, is a blistering onslaught of garage rock fury, at least as heated as last year’s Hank Wood and the Hammerheads S-T, but tighter, nearly surgically precise. Singer/guitarist Sam Quartin has a magnetic, unflappable presence, whether issuing threats sotto voce (“Coin”), insinuating sexual heat (“Redroom”) or crooning the blues. But everyone in the band is more than up to the job, whether Macky Bowman knocking the kit sidewise in the most disciplined way, Kendall Windall jacking the pressure with thundering bass or Nick Casa lighting off Molotov cocktails of guitar sound. Video (above) suggests that the record isn’t the half of it, but the record is pretty damned good. Jon Spencer produced and makes a characteristically unhinged cameo in “Ranch Baby.” Two covers ought to be a misfire—can anybody improve on Richard Hell’s “Blank Generation,” or add anything further to the Spencer Davis Group’s “I’m a Man”? — but instead bring the fire. Helluva a band, probably even better live.

Jennifer Kelly

Rob Clutton with Tony Malaby — Offering (Snailbongbong Records)

Offering by Rob Clutton with Tony Malaby

Sometimes when one musician gets top billing, that just means they ponied up for the session fees. But on Offering, the words “Rob Clutton with” signal that the Canadian double bassist conceived of a sound situation and procured material suited to that concept. Clutton is well acquainted with the American soprano and tenor saxophonist, Tony Malaby. Their association dates back two decades, when both men were resident artists at the Banff Centre For Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada, and they’re both members of drummer Nick Fraser’s band. That common ground gets the nod on “Sketch #11,” a Fraser tune that occasions some of the most swinging music on this wide-ranging and thoroughly satisfying session. But elsewhere the genesis of the material lies in Clutton’s own improvisations, which he recorded, transcribed and analyzed in order to locate nuggets of musical intelligence worth developing into discreet melodies — or further improvisations. Either way, Malaby isn’t just the guy on hand to play the horn parts, but a known musical quantity to be either be written for or set up to set loose. Clutton must have had his tone, alternately ample and pungent on soprano, and his imaginative responsiveness to the melodic, rhythmic, and emotional implications of a theme in mind, for his own purposeful perambulations seem designed to give Malaby plenty to wrap around and climb upon. While the music is ever spare, it’s never wanting.

Bill Meyer

Pia Fraus — Empty Parks (Seksound)

Empty Parks by Pia Fraus

Empty Parks, the latest album from Estonian neo-shoegazers Pia Fraus, deftly soundtracks crisp, blue-skied, late winter days when buds are emerging on bare trees and the promise of warmer days beckons. The Tallinn based band comprising Eve Komp (vocals, synth), Kärt Ojavee (synth), Rein Fuks (guitar, vocals, synth, percussion), Reijo Tagapere (bass), Joosep Volk (drums, electronic percussion) and Kristel Eplik (backing vocals) traffics in layered harmonies, swathes of synth and roving guitar lines over a solid, propulsive rhythm section. Most of the songs move along at a good clip with a great sense of dynamics and a focus on atmospherics. Sometimes one wishes they would let go a little and explore the hints of noise on standout tracks “Mr. Land Freezer,” “Nice And Clever” and “Australian Boots” which have traces of grit that, if given more prominence, may have elevated Empty Parks as a whole from enjoyable to compelling.

Andrew Forell

Stephen Gauci / Sandy Ewen / Adam Lane / Kevin Shea — Live at the Bushwick Series (Gaucimusic)

Gauci/Ewen/Lane/Shea, Live at the Bushwick Series by gaucimusic

The cultural losses inflicted by the current pandemic situation are so immense that no record review is going to hold the whole story. But this one might clue you in to one culture under unique threat, and also shine a light on the spirit that may bring it back again. Since the summer of 2017, tenor saxophonist Stephen Gauci has been organizing a concert series at the Bushwick Public House in Brooklyn, NY. Each Monday starting at 7 PM up to half a dozen individuals or ensembles will play some variant of jazz or improvised music. This album is the first in a series of five titles, all released as either downloads or CDRs with nicely done sleeves, and each documenting a set that was part of the series. Live at the Bushwick Series is a forceful argument for the mixing of aesthetics. You might know drummer Kevin Shea from the conceptually comedic jazz band, Mostly Other People Do The Killing, or Gauci and Lane from the many recordings that showcase each man’s impassioned playing and rigorous compositions. Maybe you know guitarist Sandy Ewen as a started-from-scratch free improviser. But when you hear this recording, you’ll know that they are a band, one that makes cohesive and ferocious music on full of tectonic friction and fluid role-swapping on the fly. When the quarantines expire, there may or may not be a concert series, or a Bushwick Public House to host it. But it’ll take the kind of commitment and invention heard here to get things rolling again.

Bill Meyer

Vincent Glanzmann / Gerry Hemingway — Composition O (Fundacja Sluchaj)

Composition O by Vincent Glanzmann / Gerry Hemingway

A composition is both an ending and a beginning. It establishes some parameters, however specifically, to guide musicians’ interactions. But the publishing of a piece can also provoke many different interpretations, especially when the composition itself is designed to be a work in progress. Percussionists Vincent Glanzmann and Gerry Hemingway developed Composition O with the intent to revise each time they play it, so that while there is a graphic score guiding them, it is subject to change. So, don’t expect this music to have the locked-in quality of, say, Steve Reich’s Music for Eighteen Musicians, any more than you might expect it to evince the self-creating form of a free improvisation. It proceeds quite deliberately through sections of athletic stick-craft, sonorous rubbing, and eerie extensions beyond the percussive realm enabled by the distorting properties of microphones and the deeply human communication of Hemingway’s vocalizations, which are filtered by a harmonica. The score keeps things organized; the concept means that this music will evolve and change.

Bill Meyer

Magnus Granberg / Insub Meta Orchestra — Als alle Vögel sangen mein Sehnen und Verlangen (Insub)

Als alle Vögel sangen mein Sehnen und Verlangen by MAGNUS GRANBERG / INSUB META ORCHESTRA

In a previous review for Dusted, I characterized Magnus Grandberg’s sound world as “unemphatic.” The same applies here, and the accomplishment of that effect is in direct inverse to the size of the ensemble playing this album-length piece. For this performance, the Insub Meta Orchestra numbers 27 musicians, but it rarely sounds like more than four or five of them are playing at any time. The ensemble is well equipped to represent whatever Granberg suggests. In addition to conventional orchestra instrumentation, you’ll find antique instruments such as spinet, traverso and viola da gamba, as well as newcomers like the analog synthesizer and laptop computer. Granberg selects discerningly from centuries of compositional and performative approaches. The piece’s title, which translates to “When all the birds sang my longing and desire,” tips the hat to Schubert, but the way that timbres offset one another shows a working knowledge with contemporary free improvisation. It takes restraint on the part of the players as well as the composer to make a group this big sound so small in contrast to the silence that contains its music.

Bill Meyer

Ivar Grydeland / Henry Kaiser — In The Arctic Dreamtime (Rune Grammofon)

If Ivar Gyrdeland (Danes les Arbres, Huntsville) and Henry Kaiser had first met in an airport lounge or a green room somewhere, you might not be able to hold this CD in your hands. They’d have sat down, started talking about strings or pick-ups or their favorite Terje Rypdal records, and who knows where that might have led. But they met in an Oslo studio, and one of them had some means of projecting Roald Amundsen — Lincoln Ellsworth’s Flyveekspedisjon 1925, a documentary of an unsuccessful and nearly fatal attempt to fly two airplanes over the North Pole. So, they set up their guitars and improvised a soundtrack to the film on the spot, which became the contents of this CD. Neither man regards the guitar’s conventional sounds as obligatory boundaries, and much of the music here delves into other available options. Resonant swells, looped harmonics, and flickering backwards sounds alternate with shimmering strums, skeins of feedback, and unabashed shredding, radiating with an icy brightness that corresponds to the unending polar sunlight that shone down on the expeditionaries as they hand-carved a runway out of the ice.

Bill Meyer

Guided By Voices — ‘Surrender Your Poppy Field’ (GBV, Inc.)

Surrender Your Poppy Field by Guided By Voices

The ever productive Robert Pollard kicks off a new decade with a louder, more distorted brand of rock, his characteristic hooky melodies buzzing with guitar feedback. He’s supported by the same band as on last year’s Sweating the Plague— Doug Gillard, Kevin March, Bobby Bare, Jr. and Mark Shue, who like Pollard are lifers to a man. Songs run short and feverish with only a couple breaking the three- minute mark and the chamber-pop “Whoa Nelly,” clocking in at 61 seconds. And yet, who can pack more into a couple of minutes than the godfather of lofi? “Queen Parking Lot” ramps up the dissonance around the most fetching sort of melody, which curves organically around modal curves. “Steely Dodger,” layers rattling textures of percussive sound (drums, strummed guitars) around a dreaming psychedelic tune. The words make no sense, but tap into subconscious fancies. This is Guided by Voices 30th album. Here’s to the next 30.

Jennifer Kelly

Zachary Hay — Zachary Hay (Scissor Tail)

Zachary Hay by Zachary Hay

Zachary Hay is an American acoustic guitarist, but please, put aside the associative baggage that comes with those words. If you do so, that’ll put you closer to the spirit that informed the making of this LP’s ten un-named tracks. Like Jon Collin, Hay seems to be intent upon capturing the mood and environment of a particular moment. The sound of the room, or someone turning on a tap while he’s recording — these become elements of the music every bit as much as his patient note choices. Hay likes melodies, but he doesn’t feel bound to repeat them, which imparts a sense of motion to the music. Things change a bit towards the end, when he puts down his guitar and stretches out for a spell on banjo and squeezebox, humming along with the latter like a man who knows that he must be his own company.

Bill Meyer

Egil Kalman & Fredrik Rasten — Weaving a Fabric of Winds (Shhpuma)

Weaving a Fabric of Winds by Egil Kalman & Fredrik Rasten

Some music is born out of commercial or communicative aspirations, or philosophical structural prescriptions. One suspects that this music originates from some agreement about what sounds good, compounded by other ideas about the right way to do things. Fredrik Rasten is a guitarist who splits his time between Berlin and Oslo, shuttling between improvised and composed musical situations; he has an album out on Wandelweiser, which should tell you a bit about his aesthetics. Egil Kalman plays modular synthesizer on this record, but he is also a double bassist from Sweden who lives in Copenhagen, and he keeps busy playing in folk, jazz and free improv settings; one hopes that someday, we’ll hear some recordings by his touring project, Alasdair Roberts & Völvur. But in the meantime, give a listen to this record, which patiently scrutinizes a space bounded by string harmonics and electronic resonance. Rasten uses just intonation to maximize the radiance of his sounds and re-tunes while playing to subtly manage the harmonic proximity between his vibrations and Kalman’s long tones. The synth supplies a bit of slow-motion melody. The album’s two pieces were performed in real time, and the effort involved in maintaining precise harmonic distance gives the music a subtle but undeniable charge. The title mentions winds, but this music feels more like a sonic representation of slight but steady breezes.

Bill Meyer

Matt Karmil — STS371 (Smalltown Supersound)

STS371 by Matt Karmil

UK producer Matt Karmil’s latest release STS371 mines a lode of straight ahead acid house and techno laced with enough glitch and twitch to appeal to the head as much as the body. Lead single “PB” is a maximalist concoction of ricocheting hi-hat, blurting bass, the panting of the short distance runner and an undercurrent of soft white noise. Karmil uses just a few simple elements to build his tracks which foreground the beats. Hi-hat and kick drums drop on tracks like “SR/WB” to highlight woozy synth washes. It’s just enough to let you breathe before the high energy tempos return and the strobes flash once more. STS371 touches on Force Inc clicks and cuts and ~scape minimalism beneath the rhythms but most of all Karmil is interested in keeping you on your feet. Mission accomplished.

Andrew Forell

Kevin Krauter — Full Hand (Bayonet Records)

Full Hand by Kevin Krauter

Indiana musician Kevin Krauter’s sophomore album Full Hand floats by like a summer breeze. The Hoops bassist plumbs 1980s AOR and coats it in an agreeable fuzz to produce 12 tracks of gossamer dream pop heavy on atmosphere if not always individually memorable. Lyrically Krauter mines his memories and experiences growing up in a religious household, self-discovery and coming of age with poetic grace that his delivers over drum machines, hazy synths, delicate layers of guitar, and low-key yearning vocals.

At his most direct on the title track and “Pretty Boy”, Krauter explores queer identity and his wish to be himself and express his desire. “Green Eyes” and “How” confront the dilemmas of doing just that. The songs are less confessional or revelatory than the sound of Krauter working things out in real time, allowing his audience the privilege of listening as he does so. There are no “big” moments but one comes away inspired by his words and warmed by his music.

Andrew Forell

Nap Eyes — Snapshot of a Beginner (Jagjaguwar)

youtube

Album number four sees Nap Eyes open up to take in broader, sleeker vistas. For the most part, lackadaisical country-rock’n’roll is nudged towards expansiveness by spacey guitars borrowed from My Bloody Valentine’s Isn’t Anything. Nigel Chapman steps forward into his front man role with more aplomb than on preceding albums, marshalling his bandmates around him to explore more colorful musical territories. Most successful are the singles, especially opener “So Tired,” plus the canny repurposing of the “Paint It Black” riff on “Real Thoughts,” and the deft guitar work on “Dark Link.” Sometimes there’s a loss of focus, a feeling of stretching for something just beyond reach. But that’s OK; after all, the shrugging acceptance of their shortcomings is right there in the album title.

Tim Clarke

Peel Dream Magazine — Agitprop Alterna (Slumberland / Tough Love)

Agitprop Alterna by Peel Dream Magazine

On second album Agitprop Alterna, Peel Dream Magazine sound just like early Stereolab, with occasional blasts of shoe-gazey guitar thrown in for good measure. It may come across as reductive, even dismissive, to make such an overt comparison, but there’s no getting round it. With Stereolab’s comeback reminding everyone how beloved the band is, it’s heartening that there are new bands carrying the torch of their glorious aesthetic. To anyone who grew up in the 1990s listening to this stuff, it’ll no doubt be startling how well Joe Stevens has pulled this off. It’s a love letter to the sound of droning organs, guitars hammering away at major sevenths, driving rhythms and zoned-out but tuneful vocals. It’s derivative, sure, but it’s so well done, and the song writing is so solid that the appeal is undeniable. A recording of John Peel’s reassuringly deadpan radio patter even makes an appearance on “Wood Paneling Pt 2,” midway through the album, as if posthumously giving the band his blessing. I can’t argue with that.

Tim Clarke

Sign of Evil — Psychodelic Horror (Caligari Records)

Psychodelic Horror by SIGN OF EVIL

Maybe music this astoundingly stupid shouldn’t be quite so fun. But Sign of Evil, a one-man-black-metal-psychobilly-mash-up from Chile, makes a racket that’s so oddly deranged that it’s hard not to be charmed. Imagine if Link Wray somehow managed to walk into a Dark Throne practice session, c. 1995, and decided to jam, and you might conjure some of the strangeness you’ll encounter on the doltishly titled Psychodelic Horror. It’s fitting that the best song on the tape is simply called “Horror.” Nuff said. But check out the whacko piano that Witchfucker (yep) gamely pounds through the song’s first 30 seconds, and then the wheezy guitar tone he abuses your ear with when the metal portion of the song starts. These are not the sounds of a well-adjusted intelligence. Nor are they the sorts of sounds made by jackasses that cynically profess misanthropic allegiance to Satan, even as they enjoy decades-long careers in the music industry. Watain and Gorgoroth and Dark Funeral only wish they could be this legitimately unhinged. It helps that Witchfucker isn’t a loathsome racist. Rock on, you weirdo.

Jonathan Shaw

Tré Burt — Caught It From the Rye (Oh Boy)

Caught It From The Rye by Tre Burt

Tré Burt has a rough-edged voice and fiery way with the harmonica that can’t help but remind of a certain Nobel Prize winning songwriter, though his words are less oblique. This debut album has a raspy, down-home charm, framed by raucous acoustic strumming and forthright Americana melodies. The winner here is the title track, which glancingly references the J.D. Salinger classic, but mostly reflects a soulful, restless search for meaning in art and life and music. “All my favorite paintings/ they keep on fallin' down/And I need savin' by the grace of god/But I know he's off creatin' /another one like me,” croons Burt with sandy sincerity. It’s a resilient sort of music, where Burt’s yowling voice plumbs emotional depths, but his rambling guitar line maintains a steady cheer. Burt got his big chance from John Prine’s Oh Boy Records, and as that songwriter hovers near death, it’s a good time to celebrate his legacy of leaving the ladder up.

Jennifer Kelly

Michael Vallera — Window In (Denovali)

Window In by Michael Vallera

Chicago photographer, musician and composer Michael Vallera releases Window In, a four-track album of ambient manipulated guitar and electronic drone. Vallera works in a liminal space between actuality and potential, with continual, albeit almost imperceptible, shifts from the general and the hyper-specific. He brings a photographic eye to his compositions. They are the aural equivalent of seascapes in which one basks before one is drawn to details and the secrets beneath. Vallera’s tracks float by on luxurious oceanic swells with undercurrents of hiss, subaquatic rumbles, the blips and bleeps of luminescent trench dwellers. In the process the source, the guitar, is rendered unrecognizable, erased from the results leaving only disembodied sounds that ironically feel anchored in the real. Fans of Wolfgang Voigt’s Gas project, Fennesz’ guitar based ambient music or Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops will find much to appreciate here. Window In is a meditation on stillness and calm in the eye of powerful natural forces, something we always need but more so now.

Andrew Forell

Windy & Carl — Allegiance and Conviction (Kranky)

Allegiance and Conviction by Windy & Carl

Windy Weber and Carl Hultgren have been creating ambient space-rock for nearly 30 years now. The couple’s cosmic yet intimate output may have slowed — this is their first album since 2012’s We Will Always Be — but their sound possesses a timeless resonance. Stepping into their river of watery guitar and bass drones in 2020 feels like little has changed since we last left them — and yet, strangely, everything is new. Windy’s voice makes tentative yet emotionally insistent appearances on five of these six tracks, her words hinting at small-scale revolutions (“In the underground, we’ve got a job to do” — “The Stranger”). “Will I See the Dawn” is the only wordless piece, where electric piano and tape hiss manage to speak volumes. At only 38 minutes, this is a short album for Windy & Carl, but one that has enough shadowy depths to qualify as a worthwhile addition to their intimidating discography.

Tim Clarke

6 notes · View notes

annaw8799 · 5 years ago

Text

Newsies: Of All the Things that I Don’t Know Prologue

Part of a bigger story I’ve been working on with my OC Katherine Moore and our boys Spot Conlon and Jack Kelly. Please circulate and tell me what you think :-)

Jack Kelly had been anything but boring in his pursuit of Katherine Moore, the Pearl Street druggist’s comely sixteen year old daughter. And although time and again the dark-haired, sprite of a girl had dismissed his advances with an eye roll, she had still found something strangely charismatic and endearing about the overly confident newsboy. It had certainly helped that he had readily offered her compliments, detailing her beauty and singular charm, though she had only laughed at these flashy attempts to woo her, ending these interactions with a clearly resounding “no” each time. But even she could not deny the smile that began to grow on her lips when he would appear the very next day with more of the same.

Katherine’s mother and father had also taken quick notice of Jack's sudden interest in their eldest daughter, and had not been shy in showing their displeasure. There had been gentle “tuts” from her mother, Effie, in response to her strong-willed daughter’s spirited banter with the ragged-looking boy, and stern stares from her mustached father, Edward, at the sight of Jack loitering at or around their family pharmacy. But because of Katherine’s natural inclination toward independence, and her parent’s long-standing history of easy distractibility and poor supervision, Jack was allowed to pursue her with little to no real deterrence.

Katherine had of course noted her parent’s unease with Jack, and had added this as further evidence in support of her natural inclination to refuse him. But, as the weeks had gone by, she had found herself unable to stop thinking about him. And there he had been, day after day, not giving her a chance to forget. Thus, Jack Kelly eventually received the answer he had been seeking, unbeknownst to Mr. and Mrs. Moore, and a deal had been struck between he and Katherine. She had agreed to give the Manhattaner a few hours of her time, and in return, Jack would finally leave her be if she remained wholly unimpressed.

So on one cool fall day in early October, Jack had led the way to a restaurant named Tibby's, a gentlemanly manner in his air, as his arm had linked through Katherine’s somewhat skeptical limb and he had suavely opened the door for his lovely date.

"Ey, Katie, what doya wanna eat?"

Jack had boisterously smiled at the pretty green-eyed girl as he had posed his query, a hesitant smirk appearing on Katherine’s lips in turn.

She had cocked an eyebrow before coyly stating, “I thought I told you that I’m not fond of nicknames.” But upon noting his dismissive headshake, she had rolled her eyes and continued, “And I didn’t know you were planning on treating me to lunch. That is surprisingly thoughtful of you.”

His smile had been unwavering as he had replied, “Only the best for you, dollface.”

She had chuckled slightly to herself, musing, “I suppose I can stay for a short lunch. I am quite a fan of the roast beef here.”

“Roast beef it is then,” he had said, smirking back down at her. And upon walking up to the counter, he had quickly pulled some clanking change from his pockets to make their order.

Katherine had remained behind, somewhat unsure of herself, especially when she had suddenly noted the dozen or so pairs of eyes peering curiously at her from all corners of the room. They were all unfamiliar faces, though most looked as Jack did----with mismatched clothing and unkempt hair. Their stares were somewhat unnerving, but not completely unfriendly. So, Katherine had managed a small smile in response, nodding her head in salutation.

Yet after turning around to put her eyes back on Jack, the dark-haired girl found herself smacking face first into a shockingly solid form. She had quickly backed away, a look of slight annoyance on her face from the unexpected collision. But upon lifting her gaze to irritably confront the thoughtless soul at fault in their run-in, her mouth had closed of its own accord at the sight of the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen.

She noticed their striking cerulean hue, and the pride and strength that reflected in their seemingly bottomless depths. The boy's mouth was twisted harshly into a look of annoyance but quickly softened to a light scowl, revealing an even more attractive face. Katherine watched him eye her with curiosity, looking to her wide stare and then allowing his gaze to slowly take in the rest of her body. His more in-depth observation had secured an unexpected blush from the awe-struck girl, but before she had been able to speak, the handsome stranger had tipped his hat in her direction and muttered, “‘Scuse me.”

She had shaken her head, attempting to rid herself of the involuntary coma that had seemed to suddenly set in. And strangely her eyes had continued to follow his form as he had sat at a table by himself. Several "hellos" and "heyas" had been directed towards him, but he had merely tipped his cap at all of it, unaffected by the loudness and attention.

However, Katherine’s own attention had been taken again by Jack Kelly’s quick tap on her shoulder and swift moving arm around her waist as he had pulled her over to the very table the boy had settled at.

“Heya, Spot,” Jack had said, smiling good-naturedly as the boy, Spot, had looked up at the pair before him. He had nodded to Jack in salutation, then had turned his attention to Katherine, a smirk on his lips and a spark in his eyes.

"Why Jacky-boy, is this the girl you've been blabberin' about all these weeks? The one that won't give ya' the time a' day?"

Jack shook his head, shooting a sheepish look in Katherine’s direction and shrugging. But Katherine only rolled her eyes in response, sticking her hand out immediately toward Spot and saying, "I can speak for myself, thank you. My name is Katherine Moore. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Spot."

Spot’s eyes widened somewhat in surprise before he gently took her hand, pulsed it and murmured, “Most girls seem ta think so, dollface.”

Katherine had squinted in mild distaste as Spot and Jack had shared a knowing chuckle. The girl had found his cockiness abrasive and not at all humorous, a glare of growing contempt shining in her gaze. But before she had been able to say one challenging word in response, Spot’s eyes had turned quickly back to Jack as he had said, “Y’know, it took ya forever ta get 'er here, Jack. Ya might wanna make sure she stays…"

Spot's eyes had flashed to the chair Katherine had been standing next to, causing Jack to clumsily pull the seat out for her. And though she had immediately taken her place at the table-----thanking Jack for his politeness----Katherine had continued to stare perplexedly at the handsome stranger across from her, thrown by his unexpected gentlemanly reminder.

The three had sat there in thoughtful silence for several moments until their food had come. And then slowly, but surely they had settled into one another’s company for what was only a short while, but happened to be just long enough. Jack and Spot had waxed on about their various borough triumphs and struggles. But more importantly, Katherine had quietly, though capably, taken everything in---from the reverent stares that were shot out of all corners of the room toward the two leaders, to the striking blue gaze that repeatedly met her own.

What she did not see, however, was the covetous spark in those clear blue eyes that day. She had been unaware of the Brooklynite’s pleased smirk following her promise to accompany Jack to an upcoming vaudeville show, as well as the way that Spot had surveyed her every move as she had vacated the table to then leave the restaurant. But what had been of the utmost remarkability in those passing moments, was the swirling curiosity and budding investment that had immediately filled Spot Conlon, the King of Brooklyn himself, and his complete confoundment in the face of these rarely experienced emotions.

It had certainly been an interesting start to something that day, but what it was, not one of them could yet pinpoint. And if they had known how the events of the next four years would so naturally play out among them----as well as how involved they each would be within the larger, much more dangerous tragedy slowly encapsulating Katherine and her family----there might have been no one there in the end to pull the beautiful green-eyed girl out of the unabating fire that had all but swallowed her whole.

Some people that might be interested! :-) @garbagekannot @newspapersinyourshoess @cutesiewoojin

#Spot Conlon #hot spot #spot conlon fanfiction #Jack Kelly #Newsies #newsies 1992 #newsies fanfiction #newsies fandom #92sies #1992sies #jack kelly fanfiction #OC

10 notes · View notes

johnnymundano · 5 years ago

Text

Prom Night (2008)

Directed by Nelson McCormick Screenplay by J.S. Cardone Music by Paul Haslinger Country: Canada, United States Running time: 88 minutes CAST Brittany Snow as Donna Keppel Scott Porter as Bobby Jessica Stroup as Claire Davis Dana Davis as Lisa Hines Collins Pennie as Ronnie Heflin Kelly Blatz as Michael Allen James Ransone as Detective Nash Brianne Davis as Crissy Lynn Kellan Lutz as Rick Leland Mary Mara as Mrs. Waters Ming-Na Wen as Dr. Elisha Crowe Johnathon Schaech as Richard Fenton Idris Elba as Detective Winn Jessalyn Gilsig as Aunt Karen Linden Ashby as Uncle Jack

Theft Alert: All images from IMDB

Donna Keppel (Brittany Snow; working hard here, bless) is the only survivor of a family massacre perpetrated by Richard Fenton (Johnathon Schaech; looking very Sean William Scott), a creepy teacher with a boner for her. Tonight Donna’s Prom Night is being held at a swanky hotel, but tonight is also the night Richard escapes from The Home For Creepy Teachers With Wayward Boners. Everything you expect to happen happens, just a lot less interestingly than you would expect for a slasher movie, certainly for one that cost $20 million. Prom Night (2008) is like an experiment see if it possible to make a slasher flick so inoffensive and dumb it could be screened at tea time on The Disney®©™ Channel. It turns out it is in fact possible to make such a thing, but unfortunately no one would want to watch it. It actually makes you hanker for Prom Night (1980), as low-budget and timeworn as that disco slasher may well be.

For starters, Prom Night (2008) is not a remake of Prom Night (1980) despite what anyone says. Fuck that noise, someone obviously just wanted to use the title. End. Of. They are both slasher movies which take place on Prom Night, but that’s it. I know this because I watched Prom Night (1980) recently for the first time, and last night I watched Prom Night (2008) for the last time. Prom Night (1980) has a mystery surrounding the identity of the killer, which keeps you awake and which also has a surprisingly strong emotional pay off, whereas in Prom Night (2008) we know who the killer is from the off, which is boring and has no pay off at all. Essentially then, this is the difference between the two, one is a bit amateurish but very entertaining, while the other is slick as snot on a door handle and as dull as ditch water.

Ultimately only one Prom Night successfully evokes the youthful exuberance of the night in question, which is important as I am 50 and English, so I have no personal experience whatsoever of a Prom Night. Also: get off my lawn! Prom Night (1980) makes it look like a fantastically enjoyable event at which hormonally crazed kids dance enthusiastically to fantastically simplistic disco. Apparently the movie was shot with the cast dancing to real, popular disco hits until the makers realised you have to actually pay to use other people’s music (?!who knew!?). Being a bit strapped for cash they had the soundtrack composer Carl Zittrer cook up some home-made disco beats at roughly the same tempo so the visuals and sound would still gel. Carl Zitterer did an excellent job. A bit too excellent in fact, since the similarity was still so pronounced a $10 million lawsuit was brought against the movie (and settled for $50,000 – phew!). A small price to pay for one of the most cheerful and fun dance sequences I’ve ever seen, particularly as I didn’t pay it. Prom Night (1980) is a decent slasher flick but the dance floor sequence is just pure joy. Prom Night (2008) makes Prom Night look like a shit night club where nobody knows anyone else there; seriously, the interaction of the core group with everyone else, who they apparently have known for years, is ridiculously minimal. And the songs are the kind of heatedly sexual nursery rhymes I am generationally disposed to dislike. I just don’t get it, basically. You crazy kids! “Who’s your daddy? And is he rich like me?” isn’t so much a song lyric to me as a reason to call the sex police. And while technically the dancing in Prom Night (2008) is smoother, the dancing in Prom Night (1980) is more realistically ramshackle and energetic.

Also, in Prom Night (1980) the killer, whoever they are, is refreshingly human (they slip on the slippery floor at one point, etc) but in Prom Night (2008) the killer is a tediously efficient killer; which is odd because he’s just a school teacher with a creepy boner for one of his female students, which explains none of his killing efficacy. By rights he should just be crying while wanking over the school yearbook, as I imagine most creepy schoolteachers with boners for their female students do. Maybe creepy schoolteachers with boners for their female students find that reductive and a little offensive of me, and that’s a real crying shame there, because the last thing I want to do is offend creepy teachers with boners for their female students. Every school has that one teacher who dates his female students “secretly”, and as the female student ages out of school he replaces her with a new female student. Maybe you are that guy. In which case you need to hear this: Dude, you are creepy. No one is impressed; they are creeped out. Preying on children is not cool. And if they are in school they are children, I don’t care how developed their chest is. A light prison sentence or some intensive therapy are what you need, creepy teacher dude, not high fives and Budweiser with the bros. (I do apologise for the fact I went to school in the 1970s leading to my not acknowledging that creepy schoolteachers can also be female, and the students being creeped on can be both female and male; with any combination of gender being creeper and creeped upon. I guess everyone sex creeping on everyone else, well, that’s progress? Well done, everyone. Personally I would have tried to phase out the whole creepy-schoolteacher-with-a-boner-for-their-student thing but I guess expanding it across the gender spectrum is certainly one way to go.)

In terms of cast Prom Night (1980) only really has Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielsen as “names” but everyone is okay, and the characters are all quite quirky and sympathetic. Prom Night (2008) might not have many “names” but it has a far more professional level of acting, which is a win for it. But, alas, while there are real actors in Prom Night (2008) and they all try hard with what they are given, what they are given is so lacklustre and generic it is dismaying how much effort they probably had to put in just to make the characters seem as bland as they do. There’s the black couple; he’s good at sports, she’s a bit sassy. There’s the co-dependant bickering couple; he’s controlling and drinks too much, she’s whiny and, well, she’s just whiny. The gym teacher is sparky and enthusiastic like absolutely no gym teacher I’ve ever met in my half a decade existence, but very like every gym teacher in American high school set shows on Nickleodeon. The most interesting character is Detective Nash, and that’s only because James Ransone appears amusingly miscast; unless a cop who resembles Christian Bale if he was a candleblogger is your idea of a movie cop. Obviously that’s nobody’s idea of a movie cop, luckily though Idris Elba knows what everyone expects from a Movie Cop and delivers it with lightly self-parodic gusto. Of course Idris Elba is unarguably a charismatic screen presence; I know that because most of the things I’ve seen him in are godawful but he is always a pleasure. Maybe it’s just unfortunate choices on my part and I’m actually missing a string of entertainment pearls starring Idris Elba, even so Prom Night (2008) would come in on the poopy side of the mark sheet. But, again, even in something as poopy as Prom Night (2008) Idris Elba is fun. Here he’s The Big City Cop so he walks like he’s prolapsed and rasps his dialogue like he regularly gargles lava-hot cawfee. The enthusiasm Elba invests in playing this poorly written part makes up a bit for the utter idiocy of the character. Ultimately though nothing could distract from Detective Winn’s stupidity, so colossally boneheaded are his actions in the movie.

Prom Night (2008) seems to take place in an alternate universe where every authority figure is a moron. In a better slasher flick this might be a genuine attempt at a point, but here it’s just bad writing. Sure, you might think that everyone in authority in the universe we actually inhabit is a moron, and at this point in history you would have a strong case, counsellor. Exhibit one being our current lying coward of a Prime Minister (I write this in the year 2020). But the authority figures in Prom Night (2008) are actually more excessive in their cretinous obliviousness than even that lying shyster. Having (eventually) realised that the killer is loose Idris Elba visits Donna’s guardians, who decide not to bring her home immediately or have her placed in police custody for her own protection, because it might “embarrass her” in front of her friends and put a big downer on this magical night of awful dresses, terrible music and light fingerbanging. Idris Elba, a policeman remember, goes along with this, which is kind of epically dumb, but then he raises the dumbness stakes by going to the Hotel Swank to keep an eye on Donna. Literally. He actually stands by a bit of silver scaffold in the dance hall for hours, and stares at the back of her head, occasionally rubbing the top of his own head and pursing his lips. Incredibly this does nothing to locate and apprehend the killer, who is merrily killing staff and guest alike at his own convenience. Idris Elba even asks at the desk if they have seen the killer, even showing them a picture (which is some amazing police work for Prom Night (2008)). But when asked by the desk clerk if he should be concerned Idris Elba says ”no”. Later when the fact that the killer is in the hotel killing people can’t even be avoided by Idris Elba he pulls the fire alarm and the entire hotel decants chaotically onto the street. Because there’s absolutely no way the killer could get out unnoticed during that, right? Absolutely no way at all. Nu-uh! Essentially most of the people in Prom Night (2008) who die do so because Idris Elba’s character has all the brains of a shoe.

And a lot of people do die in Prom Night (2008), but don’t get too excited slasher flick fans, because it doesn’t really feel like it because the kills are largely inoffensive stuff; which in a slasher movie is kind of offensive in itself. Prom Night (2008) tries to distract from the lack of splatter with sudden bursts of convulsive editing which just makes it look like the killer is over amorously cuddling people to the floor, or re-enacting his favourite Super Bowl tackles. The only clue that his victims are dead comes later when we get to see the body with some dainty little red marks on their clothes. So averse is Prom Night (2008) to actually getting bloody that one character has their throat slashed and so little claret splashes it’s preposterous. If you were asleep next to somebody with their throat cut you’d wake up sodden in the red stuff, you wouldn’t have to turn them over to discover they were dead. Maybe Prom Night (2008) should have invested some of that $20 million in a medical professional acting as a consultant to tell them that throat wounds tend to, you know, bleed profusely since it’s all the blood inside you coming out of that new hole that kills you. Okay, sometimes it’s the shock of blood loss that offs you but, whatever, there’s a lot of blood involved. There is, I admit, one artfully shot kill where an arc of blood spatters a sheet of plastic but mostly the effects in Prom Night (2008) are less Tom Savini and more Tom and Jerry.

Sadly then, when it comes to this particular Prom Night (2008) you’re better off staying at home and washing your hair.

#Prom Night #Movies #canada #United States #2008 #The 2000s #Slashers #Horror #Nelson McCormick #Brittany Snow #Idris Elba #Creepy teachers #Johnathon Schaech

11 notes · View notes

twdxjess · 6 years ago

Text

Hey There, Princess: A Negan Story (Ch 4)

Summary: The reader decides to come clean with Rick about her past but when Rick refuses to talk with her, she decides to take matters into her own hands and stop the saviors from hurting her community. Along the way she gets stopped by Negan trying to show her how good it will be to become a Savior. Will she stay with Alexandria or go with her true love at the Santuary?

Setting: Journey to the Santuary ( Season 7)

Pairing: Negan X Reader

Need to catch up? masterlist

Tags: @khloekiddo @squidsart1910

Instead of chasing Rick, trying to explain your relationship with Negan, you decided you needed to get your thoughts together. So you took a walk around Alexandria making Jax fall asleep on your chest. In addition it gave you the courage you needed to finally tell Rick everything about your relationship with Negan and hopefully in the process mend your friendship. As you walk up to Rick’s house with Jax sleeping peacefully in the baby carrier, you saw Aaron waiting on the porch. Just before you motioned to Aaron you saw Rick come outside. “ Well it’s now or never..,” you thought to yourself as you slowly walk toward Rick and Aaron.

“ Hey guys...” you awkwardly stated but Rick walked passed you as if you were invisible, thankfully, Aaron acknowledged your presence and said, “ hey ( y/n) let’s talk later...umm we’ve gotta go somewhere right now...”.

“ Ya’know if you guys just give me like two minutes I can drop Jax off at the Wilsons and I can tag-a-long just like old times!” You cheerfully said but obviously your charm didn’t rub off because Rick still looked pissed. That’s when Aaron calmly replied, “maybe next time...” and then they were gone.

You felt like complete shit, but instead of going home and crying you had another idea. So, you walked over to the Wilson’s and decided to drop off Jax praying they were still on your side. You were nervous at first wondering if they knew about you and Negan but you placed that thought in the back of your mind and knocked on their front door.

As the door began to open you were greeted by Mrs. Wilson, “ Why isn’t it my two favorite people in the world!” She gave you a hug feeling all the stress from the day simply go away. She gestured you into her home and then you asked, “Hey Judy, I know this is last minute but can you watch Jax for a little bit? I need to help Rick on a supply run.” As you were waiting for her answer you noticed none of the Wilson’s things were taken by the Saviors earlier today.

Judy answered your question snapping you out of your thoughts, “ I would love to watch this lil’ one and luckily those people didn’t take away any of our things so you can lay him in our bed upstairs until he wakes. I’ll make sure to turn on the baby monitor.”

“ Wait you’re saying they didn’t even take your medicine, that’s like gold nowadays?” You asked trying to piece together Negan’s plan.

Mrs. Wilson smiles and said, “ Well (y/n) when we were in the basement I just prayed for protection and I think..no I KNOW the lord answered. I mean we still haven’t gone through everything yet but as far as I know they didn’t take a single thing. What about you (y/n)? Did they take anything from your house?” Mrs. Wilson seemed concerned.

“ ummm,” you weren’t sure how to answer you wanted to be honest and say “nope cause the leader is my sons father and my thought-to-be- dead fiancé” but you thought short and sweet would be better so you answered, “ nope my house wasn’t ransacked either.”

Judy smiled with relief and that’s when you headed to her room and placed Jax in the middle of their bed. “ see you later sweet boy, I’ll be back soon I promise.” You whispered to Jax as you kissed his chubby cheek.

Returning downstairs you thanked Judy once more and then left. Knowing Jax was safe you tried to figure out how you were going to leave without anyone noticing you. You remembered a secret tunnel but then you thought that maybe it is too risky with walkers around. Finally, you decided the easiest way was to climb the fence hell you’ve seen Enid do it plenty of times before Rick’s crew came to Alexandria.

Before you left you packed a backpack of supplies and climbed the fence from your backyard. As soon as you were at the top of the fence you saw Carl and Enid climbing too. “ I guess I wasn’t the only one Rick didn’t want help from.” You laughed quickly climbing down to the other side.

Walking through the forest reminded you of the walks you and Negan would take just to get away from everyone’s bullshit at the hotel. You especially looked forward to them when you had a shitty day. You smiled remembering the conversations you had with Negan, and you even remembered the baby name conversation that took place in the woods.

“ What about Kelly for a girl and Matthew for a boy’.” Negan sweetly said while holding your hand.

“ I like them but I knew a Kelly in high school and she was a major bitch and Matthew... I have a crazy cousin with that name.” You shyly grinned.

Negan looked a bit down but then you continued to say, “ why are we even talking about this cause you do realize I’m not pregnant.”

Negan grinned as if he knew something you didn’t but before questioning him he answered, “ its better to be prepared then not, sweetheart, cause you never know what may happen. Besides I think you’ll be an awesome mom!”

You laughed at the handsome man and just smiled knowing how your own mom said the same thing to you years ago and how she could see you being a mom. A tear started to fall down your face thankfully Negan interrupted your thoughts by saying, “what about Jax...it’s kinda of a combination between Jack , which was your dads name and Jackson, cause I always love that song by Johnny Cash. In addition it sounds pretty badass to me!”

You agreed with Negan as he pulled you in for a quick kiss. Then you said, “ as long as I have dibs on the girl names...”

Negan replied, “ Darlin’ you can have dibs on whatever you want.” Negan playfully grabbed your waist and brought you in for a long passionate kiss.

Coming back to reality, as you were approaching the road you heard a car coming. So you quickly hid behind a tree stump. Minutes later you heard the car stop and someone got out slamming the car door behind them. Your heart was beating fast praying they didn’t see you when the stranger finally said, “ I don’t know why you are hiding cause I can spot your sweet ass miles away, Princess.”

After realizing it was Negan you quickly got up and brushed yourself off making your way toward the handsome devil. “ now tell me (y/n), why on earth would you leave Alexandria when you couldn’t decide just hours ago on whether to leave Rick the pricks community or not. Let me guess, are you lookin’ for a good time just like the old days cause darlin’ I sure am.” Negan licked his lips while staring you up and down. “If only he knew how that look made you really feel”, you thought.

That’s when Negan tried to kiss you and as much as you wanted to your instincts kicked into gear squirming your way out of his embrace.

“ Negan, no, I came to talk with you about the future...” before you could finish your sentence Negan inturupted you, “well, sweetheart, if you want more kids you better stop resisting me.”

You laughed, “ Negan, please I’m serious we need to talk about our communities future for Jax’s sake.”

Negan shook his head and replied, “ You know if Ricky would just obliged by Santuary rules..” he stopped realizing you probably had another suggestion so he then said, “you know what, fine I’ll hear you out on one condition...”

You stated to him, “Let me guess force Jax and I to leave Alexandria ...or maybe have sex with you...”

Negan liked where you were going but like he said when he first meet you if you didn’t want to do something he wouldn’t force you. So he shook his head and said, “ let me take you on one date... right now...”

You were stunned at his request and wanted to resist but if this is how he will listen what’s the harm of one silly date you thought. You agreed and said, “ right now, where would we go the sun is almost down.” Negan grabbed your hand and said, trust me sweetheart I’ve been waiting to show you this place for a long time now.”

Just like that you were in Negan’s car riding off into the sunset. Trying to remind yourself, “don’t fall for him again (y/n) because remember he is the villain now not the knight that once saved you years ago.”

#negan fanfiction #negan x reader #the walking dead #twd fanfiction #twd reader insert #jdm #jeffery dean morgan #negan x you #negans thirst squad #knight in a leather jacket #part 2

24 notes · View notes