#The second he said “this cool word co-incidence” I was like ‘You’re so stupid I’m in love with you’

[space-heat3r]

GUH 😧

[silverbyeol]

When We Collide - Tom Holland

Summary: A close encounter with death, brings on a new relationship (This summary sucks, but I don’t want to give anything away) 

Author’s Note: Not sure if this classifies as angst, but the ending is kind of sad... but lots of fluff all throughout! 

Word Count: 3.6K

“That’s a wrap for today everyone, have a good day and I’ll see you all on Friday,” the male producer said, there was some light mumbling throughout the cast and everyone disbursed soon after.

“Hey, Tom!” yelled a male voice, stopping the brunette in his tracks, “Would you like to hang out with us? We’re going to grab some drinks at a pub?” Tom looked over at the owner of the voice, one of his co-stars.

“I would, but I already have plans for today. Definitely next time,” the male replied with a smile. Truth be told, Tom didn’t really have any important plans. They were shooting a movie in London and all Tom wanted to do was walk around and enjoy the feeling of being home for a while.

The male walked into his trailer and changed out of the outfit he wore on set and into something more comfortable, jeans and a plain white t-shirt. He checked himself out in the mirror and, before leaving the set, put on a black cap and dark shades, to mask his identity. It was nice to get away from fame and responsibilities for a while and just lead a somewhat normal life.

The streets of London were always busy with people walking about, minding their business, and tourists snapping pictures of every nook and cranny. The weather was gloomy today and there was really no reason to wear shades outside. He probably looked crazy, but Tom went unrecognized as he made his way towards his favourite cafe- ready to enjoy some afternoon tea and maybe even read a book. The cafe was located in a part of London that was rarely crowded. The brunette turned a corner, and there it was; the cafe was standing just across the street. He stopped at the pedestrian crossing, waiting for the signal to turn green.

On the other side of the street stood a young female. She had a pair of over-ear headphones on and wasn’t really paying attention to her surroundings. The male looked her over, admiring how cute she was. She had a black and white striped top on, paired with black cargo jeans, and a black Nike duffle bag across her chest. She looked as if she was coming back from the fitness center. The light turned green for them to cross and the female looked both ways to make sure there were no other cars. She quickly looked back at her phone, missing the vehicle that was speeding down the road.

Everything moved so fast. She was about to get hit and without thinking, the male took off running towards her, ready to push her out of the way. Everything started moving in slow motion and for a split second, he saw her eyes widen with fear as she looked up from her phone and noticed the situation unfolding. Tom quickly grabbed the girl's waist, lunging the two onto the ground, right in front of the coffee shop.

‘This definitely hurts less at the studio…’ he thought and fluttered open his eyes, meeting fearful e/c ones.

“Are you okay?” the female asked as she lay on top of Tom.

“I’m fine. No big deal,” he grunted out. It was actually a big deal… His head and back hurt from the fall and his hands were scraped from sliding on the concrete. “Are you okay?” he in turn asked her as he scanned her face for any injuries.

“I’m fine… I- ermm…” she stuttered and quickly got off the males body, sitting down on the ground next to him, “Thank you- I don’t- Everything just happened so fast…” she said with a shaky voice as if the events finally hit her. The car was long gone and there were no other people walking by as the incident occured.

“What a bloody arsehole, he shouldn’t have been going so fast,” Tom said and frowned. The female's things were all over the ground and right in the middle of them were his sunglasses. His eyes met with the girls, yet she seemed to not recognize that he was famous, “Are you hurt? Should we go to the hospital?” he questioned, concerned about her well-being.

“I’m alright. Thank you… I’m not sure how I could ever repay you for saving my life… you even got hurt,” she said as she studied his scraped hands.

“There’s no need. What’s your name?”

“Y/n.” she answered and the couple stood up from the ground.

“I’m Tom. Pleasure.” he replied, looking into her eyes for any sign of recognition, but nothing.

“Can I at least buy you a cuppa or coffee?” she asked and motioned towards the shop. Tom warmly smiled at her.

“Sure.” The two grabbed their things and collected themselves before going into the shop.

“Welcome! What can I get started for you two?” asked the barista. Tom and the female awkwardly approached the counter.

“I’ll have a flat white, please,” the female by his side said.

“Two of those,” Tom added. Y/n started digging in her bag, most likely looking for her wallet.

“10 pounds.” the barista said and Tom swiftly handed the barista the orange/brown coloured bill.

“Wait… what are you-” Y/n said in confusion.

“Let’s go sit down,” Tom interrupted and led the two towards an empty table.

“You’re way too kind…” Y/n said when the pair sat down. Tom chuckled.

“Making you pay wouldn’t be very gentlemanly of me.” the female smiled at him and the barista came over to the table, setting down two small cups.

“Thank you.” they both said and Y/n picked up the cup and took a small sip, making Tom stare. Being a celebrity, he never had meaningful conversations with strangers. Everyone either wanted a photo or autograph, so it was hard for the male to make connections with regular people.

“What's up with the shades?” she asked, hoping to see more of the strangers' faces.

“Oh....” Tom mumbled and took off his glasses and cap. There was no one in the shop besides the pair, it was fangirl free, “It’s a habit.”

“Makes you look kind of dodgy...”

“Does it…?” he mumbled more to himself than the girl. She looked more calm than before as if the incident was long forgotten. He picked up his mug and took a sip of the hot liquid. Y/n took a second to examine the male. He had brown hair and a pair of matching brown eyes. His baby face made him look like a puppy. He was cute. Her eyes traveled to his arms, they were slightly veiny, he was most likely fit and worked out a lot. Her eyes looked at his hands that were red and had scratches from the fall.

“Tell me about yourself,” Tom said, wanting to keep the mood light.

“Me? I’m honestly not that interesting…” she said and looked down at her lap, “I’m a ballet dancer, I don’t really have time for much else…” she continued, picking up Tom’s interest.

“You dance? I took ballet classes when I was a child. I was even in the Billy Elliot musical-” Tom said and suddenly felt nervous. (Y/n) didn’t seem to know who he was. It was nice to be normal and treated like a regular human, not a famous actor, “when I was in secondary school,” he added.

(Y/n) looked up with interest, “I didn’t realize you were done with school… you look so young,”

“I’m actually 24,” Tom said. The female looked at him with wide eyes.

“You look so young…” she repeated and Tom took another sip of his coffee, “Did the ballet thing work out for you or are you pursuing different things?” This was Tom’s chance to tell the female that he was a famous actor.

“No, I decided to do other things,” he started. He decided that he liked the feeling of being unknown, “I work on movie sets… bunch of random things, honestly.”

“That’s cool. Do you get to meet a lot of celebrities?”

“Yeah… you could say that.”

The two sat in the coffee shop until the sky turned dark, talking about anything and everything. The longer the two talked, the more Tom started to fancy the female. Despite what she thought, she was interesting and very kind. He never met someone like her, and he definitely wanted to keep getting to know her.

“It’s almost 9…” she said with a tired sigh, “I should get going. I have rehearsals in the morning.”

“I should get going too…” Tom said, slightly disappointed…

“Despite the circumstances, it was so nice to meet you, Tom. Thank you for saving me.” she said and started getting up. He didn’t want their conversation to end, if she let him, Tom wanted to keep in touch with the female.

“Wait!” he called out and she looked at him, sitting back down, “Do you mind if I get your number? I would love to take you out on a date, or just hang out,” there was a hopeful gleam in his eyes.

“Ummm… yeah- of course…” (Y/n) felt her cheeks get warm. It’s been a while since someone asked her for her number or even asked her out on a date. Tom gave her his phone and she typed her number in.

“Have a goodnight, (Y/n).”

“Have a goodnight, Tom.”

Tom could not concentrate on set. All he could think about was the girl with the e/c coloured eyes. After the encounter, Tom texted the female that night to make sure she made it home safe. Ever since, they’ve been sending messages back and forth constantly. He wanted to take the girl out on a proper date, but that was slightly difficult. Public spaces meant lots of potential fangirls and the male was not ready to reveal his status yet.

“Holland!” yelled a strict male voice making Tom come out his daydream.

“Sir?”

“What’s the matter with you?” the director asked, annoyed that they had to reshoot the same scene for the fifth time.

“Sorry… I’ve got a lot on my mind.” he replied, making the director sigh in defeat.

“Alright. Why don’t you take the week off, yeah?”

“Oh, okay.” he replied, his thoughts going back to Y/n.

“And make sure you come back to Earth by then!” the male yelled and stormed off, annoyed about having to make a new shooting schedule for the week. Tom reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone:

Tom: Would you like to go on a date with me tomorrow?

Tom: Totally fine if you don’t

Tom: Don’t want to pressure you

To say that the male felt stupid was an understatment. Why was he so nervous? He barely knew this girl for a week and she made him feel like a teenager who was helplessly chasing their crush around. He looked at the screen, three little dots appeared and a message suddenly popped up:

Y/n: I would like that

Tom: Great! I’ll pick you up at 6! Text me your postal address.

Tom sat on the sofa in Y/n’s flat as they watched Citizen Kane on her small telly. The female was laid down, her legs laying on top of his as she balanced a big bowl of popcorn on her belly, occasionally munching on the snack. Tom looked away from the noir film, his attention purely on his girlfriend. The pair have been dating for nearly half a year and Y/n was still unaware that her boyfriend was an A list celebrity. Of course, Tom wanted to tell her, but they’ve already gotten so far into their relationship that he was scared of how she might react to the news.

“You know… I’ve never been to your flat,” the female said and stuffed some popcorn into her mouth, never taking her eyes off the telly.

“Is that something you would like to do?” Tom questioned.

“I mean… We always spend time here. Why haven’t you invited me over? Are you hiding a secret family from me?” her eyes met his and he saw the playful gleam behind her orbs.

“You caught me. My wife and kids wouldn’t be too happy to find out that I enjoy spending my time more with my mistress than them,” Y/n picked up a piece of popcorn and threw it at him, landing it right in the middle of his forehead.

“That’s what you get, Mr. Holland… or is that even your real name?” she said glaring at him, but a smile was plastered on her lips. Tom grabbed the bowl of popcorn from her belly and placed it down on the floor. He quickly got on top of her, using his forearms as support to hover over her.

“Would you like to come over tomorrow then? I could cook us dinner?” he questioned as he looked all over her face, admiring every little detail.

“That sounds lovely. Your wife and kids won’t mind?” she giggled.

“No. I’ll make sure they’re out by the time you get there,” he said and dipped down to capture her lips.

Tom was nervous about his girlfriend coming over, and not because he had a secret family. Tom did not mind that his girlfriend lived in a flat that only had one small bedroom and a common area, nor was he worried about her being materialistic and only keeping him around for the money. She didn’t have much, but she liked to spoil him with small gifts here and there with whatever money she had left from her paycheck. It was bad enough that he drove around in a Porsche, but he lived in a luxurious two story flat on the outskirts of London. If she were to ask questions, how was he supposed to explain where his wealth came from? What if there were paparazzis situated outside his home? He wanted to tell her about being Spider-man on his own time and this could potentially out him.

“I thought you lived closer to the city…” Y/n said looking out the window, watching as they got further from the center of London.

“I prefer staying out of London… It’s always so crowded and the traffic is horrible.” he replied as he pulled into the carpark. Y/n smiled in anticipation. The building of the flats looked really modern, as if they were built recently. She knew that this place must have been expensive to live in. The couple walked inside the building, his hand on the small of her back as he led her towards the lift.

“Mr. Holland.” the doorman greeted, with a kind smile.

“John. Good evening.”

Once inside the lift, Tom swiped his key card and pressed the button for the highest floor. Y/n looked around, slightly feeling out of place. She knew that Tom worked in the film industry, but she didn’t expect him to be loaded. The door to the lift opened and the girl's eyes went wide with shock as she was met with a spacious flat and huge windows that were facing towards the center of London.

“Woah… You said you did what?” the female questioned as she looked out the window.

“I work on movie sets… which reminds me,” he said and came up behind the female, wrapping his arms around her middle, “There is a private screening tonight of the movie I was working on when we first met. It would mean a lot to me, if you came along to watch it.” he said, kissing his girlfriend's cheek.

“Am I allowed to?”

“Of course. You’re my plus one, love…”

The couple finished their dinner before going to see the private screening. Most movies would be shown to the cast and crew before they officially premiered in Hollywood. This showing was meant for the UK team only. This was the moment that Tom would confess who he actually was. His heart was pounding against his chest as he and Y/n sat down in the chairs in the screen room. There were only five others there.

“What’s this movie about?” questioned the female.

“Superheroes.” Tom responded with a bit of a smirk on his face. This was going to be the first time he’s seen the final product, so he wasn’t completely sure when Peter Parker was going to make an appearance. The Marvel logo played and transitioned into a poor quality memorial video of all the Avengers that died during the Thanos battle. The scene continued with two teens as they were giving a morning announcement to their school. Tom looked over at his girlfriend who looked confused, she must not have watched any of the marvel movies. The scene ended and there he was… It was always weird seeing your own face on a big screen.

“I have a plan!” his character started, talking about how he was going to woo MJ in Paris. Tom looked over to his right. Y/n had her mouth wide open as she watched her boyfriend speak in an American accent. She looked at the screen and slowly turned her head to look at her boyfriend as if trying to confirm that it was the same person. Five minutes into the movie and there he was in his Spider-man suit talking at a fundraiser. Y/n grabbed her bag and abruptly stood up, walking out of the screening room, having seen enough.

“Shit…” Tom mumbled and raced after her, “Love, wait!” he yelled, but the female kept walking until she got outside. Not knowing where to go, she stopped in her tracks, “Y/n…”

“You’re Spiderman…” she muttered lowly and Tom almost didn’t catch it.

“I-” he started saying, but she quickly cut him off.

“This is mental. You’re Spiderman and you forgot to mention that your job entails you to actually be the main character in the film?” she said and turned around to look at him. She looked sad, almost disappointed. Tom was at a loss for words.

“You’ve nothing to say?” she tutted and started walking in a random direction, away from the male.

“Babe! Wait!” he yelled and ran up to stand in front of her to block her way, “I was scared okay… Everyone who I ever meet on the street wants a photo or autograph. When I met you, you made me feel normal for once, not like I’m some object that belongs in a museum. I know that keeping this from you was bad and I am truly sorry,” her eyes sparkled in understanding as she listened to the male speak, “I don’t want to lose you.” he ended, his eyes slightly glossy. Y/n sighed and leaned over to give him a kiss. He grabbed her waist and pulled her closer to him, fearing that this would be the last time he would be able to feel her lips.

“I understand if you want to break up-”

“Shut up and kiss me, you bloody git.” the female giggled, making Tom smile and lean in for another kiss.

…

“Don’t lie to me ever again.”

“Never.”

It’s been about five years since the couple started dating. Tom was ready to ask Y/n to marry him. He was going to propose on their anniversary, but he wasn’t sure how or where; all he knew was that he was ready to call her his forever. The male walked into their shared bedroom where the future Mrs. Holland was already in, laying under the covers, dozing off. He slipped in and pulled her close to his chest.

“I love you, Y/n.” he whispered as he kissed her neck, earning a tired reply…

“I love you, too…”

~~~~~

   "He's waking up!"

   "Tom!"

   "Can you hear us?"

   "TOM!" slowly his eyes opened and he met a white ceiling.

   "Where am I?" he groaned and looked over to the side, his mom was there looking at the male in worry.

   "You're in the hospital, Tom. You've been in a coma for six months..." his mother said in a calm voice as tears spilled from her eyes.    

   "Mum? Where's Y/n? I need to see her, is she okay?" Tom questioned as he tried to get out of bed. His head was pounding as he tried to recall the accident.

“Woah… you need to stay in bed, Thomas. Who’s Y/n?” his mother asked, concerned.

“My girlfriend… I was going to propose to her.” Tom let out.

“I’m going to go get a doctor. Please don’t move.” his mother said and left the room.

“What happened?” Tom groaned and he held his head.

“Your director called us after you didn’t show up for the shooting…” spoke up his brother, Harry, who was sitting on a chair, on the opposite side where his mother just stood, “You and some girl got hit by a car just outside a shop in London.”

“Coffee shop?” Tom questioned, his headache starting to ease.

“Yeah…” Harry said.

“Where’s the girl?” Tom questioned, curious what was happening.

“Just in the other room. They haven't been able to identify her.” Harry finished, concerned about his brother.

“Can you take me to her?”

“You just woke up… No way…” Harry said as he frowned at the older male.

“I need to see her…” Tom pleaded, making his brother sigh. Harry got up from the chair and rolled over a wheelchair that was located on the other side of the room. He helped his brother on it and wheeled him towards the room next door. The pair of brothers stopped just outside a window that looked into a patient's room. The shape of her face, the colour of her hair- everything about her was so familiar. She had lost a little colour on her skin, probably due to being in a coma and light bruises littered her body. He couldn’t see the colour of the girl’s eyes, but he was sure that he recognized her.

   She was the same girl who Tom was going to propose to. That girl was Y/n...

Thanks for reading, lovely~ 

[script-nef]

Confession in the moonlight | Gojou Satoru

Category: fluff

2.2k words; Hatsumoude date [6/6]

Happy New Year everyone!

← Previous chapter | Masterlist

Bells and chatter are almost deafening even this late into the night. Families and friends are gathering here, mingling and pushing against each other in the narrow path leading up to the shrine. There are so many carts lined up on the sides, owners screaming their products and shouting over another.

And you're walking through the crowd with the one person who you want to avoid the most in the world.

Thanks to the event which is now dubbed "The Alcohol Incident That Can Never Happen Again", you learned about a couple of things in the following days.

First, alcohol is the enemy. This is ironclad and nothing will ever shift your opinion on it. Alcohol. Is. The. Enemy. None of it will ever touch your lips again.

Second, you discovered what type of a drunk you are. The clingy, bubbly one who has the misfortune of remembering practically everything that happened. Worst combination ever. Because your brain wants you to die from embarrassment. The only plus is that you don't feel like throwing up and you don't have headaches. Whatever Gojou fed you worked wonders. 

Just thinking his name makes you want to slam your head into a wall. 

Facing him again after that has proven to be a challenge. The memory of what happened on that day intrudes every time you see his face and then you have to take a break to calm down. Faking ignorance and acting as though you remember nothing from the night was your choice. Which was a bad choice since you’re not known for your acting skills and you also have the misfortune of wearing your heart on your sleeve. Which brings on the next problem.

Third, you… seem to have feelings for Gojou. The romantic kind. Like, the boyfriend-girlfriend kind. When you woke up the next day, it was probably the most clear your mind had been in months. Alcohol is a confusing drink. Still, you're never going to go near it again. Making a fool out of yourself once is enough.

Lastly, perhaps most importantly, you basically confessed to him. While drunk. And then went to sleep.

Sitting up in bed the morning after, hair everywhere and jacket still on, you did an analysis. 

It's like a typical light novel cliché. A guy and a girl, co-workers or something like that, comfortable with each other, hangs out all the time, one major event or couple of minor events happens, the girl falls in love with the guy or vice-versa, confession and then happy ending. 

It all kind of made sense with your new, alcohol-cleaned brain. The fluttering feelings, the spike in heart rate, the uncontrollable blushing and noticing physical contact more. There’s a reason why he’s so comfortable to be around, why you practically entrusted your life in his hands. And you literally said to him once, you think in the movie theatre, that he would make a good boyfriend. To his face. Who says that? Embarrassment turns into self loathing. It makes you wonder how you didn’t notice it last time.

With this new shocking revelation, you didn’t know what to do. Confess? If there is even the slightest bit of chance he doesn’t like you back and rejects you, life will be hell to live. Because you live in the same goddamn place, work together and all of your friends are his friends.

So two options. Three outcomes. One: you confess and he accepts and everything is fine. Ideal. Two: you confess and he rejects you and so you leave the place, never come back again and work in a farm halfway across the world by changing your identity. That sounded reasonable enough. Three: you don’t confess and somehow act naturally around him. This has problems because, again, you wear your heart on your sleeve. It’s still very tempting. More so than the second one. This is perhaps the most difficult decision you’ve made in your life.

So you turned to the one person you can vent this kind of thing on. Shouko. Who looked at you like you were either stupid or dense. Maybe both. Definitely both. It was quite amazing what she could express while moving the least amount of facial muscles. 

“So… yeah. I think I like Gojou and I don’t know which of the options I should take. Help me?” 

She just stared at you. With a deadpan face that has all the stress and exasperation in the world. You pride yourself in being able to read other’s faces quite easily. Rubbing her fingers over her eyes and groaning for a bit, she eventually took her phone out and dialled a number. The line rang for a bit.

“Ijichi? You owe me 10,000 yen.” Clicking off the phone even before hearing a response, Shouko turned her focus back to you. “You seriously don’t know?”

“Don’t know what? What was the phone call about?”

“That he likes you? That’s he’s insufferable because of that? You seriously don’t know?” She inched closer and closer until her face was right in front of yours. Shouko is seriously scary when she’s angry, like a sleeping lion. And you just somehow poked her. “Look at me in the eyes. You seriously never realised?”

“Um, what?”

“The dates. Remember when I couldn’t go to the movie for Howl because someone came in? I immediately gave it to him because I owed him a favour and he wanted to spend time with you. The time he went shopping with you by flying. Do you know why he offered that in the first place?”

“I mean, it was getting late… And I was in a bad mood so— oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. Do you get it now?” 

“So then… the dinner, that was also…”

“A date.” Sighing, she sits back on the sofa, letting her head drop onto the backrest. Thoughts jumble inside your head, all of them slowly clicking into place.

“Wait, so. He likes me?”

Annoyed moans are her response as she thuds her head into the furniture. Something along the lines of “Why me.” could be heard.

“So him inviting me to hatsumoude today is also a date?” Her hand waves lazily in the air.

“Yes, it is. Tell me you accepted.” You nodded, then realised that she can’t see from her position.

“I did. I can’t really say no to him.” She makes a gagging sound.

“Good. Finally. So just confess to him then. He’ll accept, you’ll be happy, he’ll be happy, and we’ll all finally be free.”

“Free of what.”

“Your denseness.” She snaps, sitting back up. Fire burns in her irises. “It’s like the Chinese story, the one with the shield and the spear. You’re the shield, oblivious to every single one of his advances and he’s the spear, never giving up. And we’re the spectators who are bored and tired. So dress up in your prettiest clothes and go.”

And that’s why you’re walking up the steps to the shrine, swaddled in clothing. Gojou is right next to you, enjoying mochi he bought from somewhere and humming. He’s humming while you’re having one of the worst crises of your life. God, you envy his ability to keep cool. 

Making every effort to keep calm and not look move your head in his general direction, you finally arrive at the bell. The sound resonates clearly into the night. Coins clink into the offering box. Two bows, two claps, pray, one bow. Your wish is the same as always, with one more sentence. Gojou copies you, mochi finished and trash discarded.

The way down is much easier, your heart a little lighter. Maybe the rest of the night will be fine. 

This is a delusion and you realise it as soon as Gojou opens his mouth.

“What did you wish for?” His voice cuts through the commotion, nudging for your attention. You flinch a bit at the closeness but try to regain your composure. If he saw it, he doesn’t comment on it.

“I—I  wished for everyone I love to survive the fight with Sukuna and have a peaceful retirement. Especially Ken-chan.” In actuality, you did wish for that but also for a way to confess. He doesn’t need to know that yet. Your voice trembles a bit, betraying you. 

“You do know that saying it out loud negates the wish right?” There’s a delighted tone in his voice, like he’s happy he baited you. How is a person this childish? And what does that say about you, the person who likes him? A hand ruffles your head before you have a chance to lament your heart. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure your wish comes true.” Your heart thumps.

It’s so unfair how he always knows what to say. It’s so unfair that it’s having this kind of effect on you. Your earlobes grow hot and you scramble to find a reply.

“What did you wish for then?” He shifts his head to look at you. “Yeah, I know. It won’t come true if you say it out loud, but if you can protect everyone and save the human race, I’m sure it's not up to the gods or spirits whether or not your wish comes true.”

He seems to contemplate it. Then nods. 

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s not up to them.” 

“See? So what’s yo—”

“It’s up to you.”

You nearly trip over one of the stone tiles, flailing for balance. Of course Gojou comes to your rescue, hands gently gripping at your sides. The first problem here is that your reaction was too obvious. You can’t feign ignorance now, like you didn’t hear him over the crowd. The second is that you just made a fool of yourself. Which leads to the third problem. 

He is way too close. 

“You okay?” And now he’s whispering. The blushing worsens. “Come on, let’s go.”

It’s a clearing in the forest a bit away, a smaller dilapidated shrine on the edge of it. A small pond is in the middle, fireflies skimming over the surface and glimmering beautifully. 

“There you go.” He guides you to the steps of the ruined shrine, letting you sit down but stays standing. Shifting on his feet, neck cracking as he rolls it. Nervous energy leaks out of him. Wait, is this— 

“I don’t know what to say. I’ve rehearsed this like, hundreds of times but my heart is kind of going crazy.” So is yours. He comes back to you then lowers himself to one knee. Your heart stops. “I’m not proposing. Not yet. I’ve heard dating comes first.”

One of your hands slots into his. He removes his blindfold, revealing his cerulean eyes to you for the second time. Breath hitches and he most definitely heard it because his smile, no matter how tentative it was, becomes full and true.

“Let’s get to the main point straight away. I like you.” The words burn you alive and you try to take your hand back but his grip is strong. So you do the next best thing. Averting your face. “I know you do too. I also know you remember the night. Your acting skills are terrible. And Shouko told me.” If you’re not drowning in mortification and something that feels vaguely like hope, you might hit him. And Shouko.

But the second you face him, you see him. The heart-gripping worry in his eyes, the way he’s smiling to cover for his anxiousness, the light trembling in his fingers. It’s so different to his normal self, the aloof and laid-back aura completely dissipated. This is what you do to him?

“I’m not good at this. But I mean every word when I say that you’re the kindest, cutest and the most loveable person that I’ve ever met. You put up with me, and that’s saying a lot.” Protest is at the tip of your tongue, ready to argue that he should stop being so hard on himself and that you genuinely like spending time with him, but he recognises the look on your face and laughs delightedly. “See? So ready to come to my defence, even if it’s me you have to fight. Everyone’s fed up with me to some extent, and I know you are as well, but you still put up with me. That’s what made me fall for you. That unlimited kindness.”

He presses a kiss to the palm of your hand and it feels like he’s giving you his heart at the same time. Love shines in his eyes and clogs at your throat. A shuddering breath passes over the both of you. But then the cheeky smile comes back.

“I think that’s enough to sweep you off your feet. Is your heart beating fast?” A nod. “Hands clammy?” A nod. “Think you can manage granting me my wish?”

A wave of calm washes over. Gojou’s words, filled with sincerity and bare hearted emotions, turn into butterflies that travel to every inch in your body. It’s delightful and there’s no way you can live without hearing it again.

The distance between your lips close, and you swear your heart synchronises with his when they finally touch. 

[iamtheblondestblonde]

The Clark Kent Effect

Part Three

AN: Imma be honest, I’m not happy with this part. I feel like my brain isn’t entirely ready for writing yet, it’s still wired to argue cases so please bear with me as I get my shit together. I still wanted to give the people who follow this story something though (you have no idea how happy I am about every single one of you) and I sincerely hope that this is good enough, apologies if not :) 

Song: Catching Feelings - Drax Project (this will be a thing from now on)

Word Count: 4,6k 

Warnings: explicit language I’m pretty sure but thats it

Masterlist / Part One / Part Two

You felt foolish really. It was as if your entire life had turned into a soap opera overnight. You wouldn’t call yourself cynical by all means, you loved love and everything that came along with it far too much for that, but you would’ve at least described yourself as rational.

Up until now.

Up until now you’d been convinced that if people really wanted to, they would be together. Up until now you’d been a believer of where there’s a will, there will be a way - relationships that would classify as statutory rape excluded of course, age was a bit more than just a number in those cases - but you, you, you had been stopped by the Bro-Code, which was just absolutely ridiculous.

Imagine telling that to your parents: Hey mom, so I met this great guy but I can’t do anything about it because he’s friends with my ex. Your grandma would straight up laugh in your face if you told her, the badass bitch had married her former lover’s rich best friend after she’d gotten the news that her fiancé hadn’t survived the war. Without needing to call her you knew that she’d tell you to go for Mat in a second, no matter how much she’d adored Tito back then.

But you weren’t your grandma and Tito hadn’t died in a war so here you were, pining over a guy you couldn’t have and practically living out a tragic romance novel. Technically you didn’t even know if Tito would have anything negative to say about the entire situation, it may all be water under the bridge by now, but you also couldn’t just casually ask him without giving anything away.

The only good thing about this situation was that Tito had brought a great group of people along with him into your life. He’d always been good at making friends, that certainly hadn’t changed from when he was younger and since the two of you had hit it up again your friend groups had seemingly merged without issue. It sure made for an interesting dynamic. You’d had some explaining to do whenever you initiated someone new into a group that also included your ex, but the result was definitely worth it.

Spending time with Tito was just as easy as it used to be, back before feelings complicated everything. Somehow you’d managed to fall back into a completely platonic relationship, one that worked just as well when the two of you were alone as it did with others around.

You’d missed having him around the years before, his view on things and the way he’d always managed to make decisions easy by providing simple solutions.

Should you get a puppy right now? - No, your apartment is too small for a big dog right now and no, you also shouldn’t settle for a purse-sized dog because you’ve always wanted a big one since you were little.

Maybe a cat instead? - No, you are allergic to cats, don’t be stupid.

What about one of those naked ones? - Also no, you need to bathe those frequently because of the built up oils on their skin and you don’t even have a bathtub in your apartment.

(You really had to bathe those from time to time, you’d looked it up. Apparently they could still trigger allergies as well, which straight up sucked.)

Should we grab Thai or Chinese? – Chinese, you told me about this new place you wanted to try out like three days ago.

What can I do to stop this one coworker from belittling and making fun of me? - I’ll help you make her jealous, how about some courtside seats to watch the Nets since she likes basketball?

The last idea had actually come from Mat (since Tito didn’t know shit about basketball), who had also pulled some strings to get four tickets so you could attend the game with Dana, Tito and him. Mat had even taken some pictures of Dana and you in your jerseys and at the game so you could post about your night excessively on your social media, making sure that said co-worker would see it. They’d also given you a tour of the building and you were surprised to say that their locker didn’t smell as bad as you’d expected.

Said coworker hadn’t said anything ever since by the way, but you could still see her lurking on your Instagram.

For all the advice Tito provided you with, you still hadn’t asked him the one thing you needed an answer to:

Is Mat off limits?

But you couldn’t do that and therefore it somehow became a normal thing for Mat and you to walk on eggshells around each other after the “incident” at the bar.

From time to time there were moments that made it blatantly obvious how good things could be – the time he’d excitedly side hugged-you after the Nets turned the game that one night before realizing what he’d just done and quickly letting go, how he’d found you in the crowd and looked straight at you after scoring a goal at one of his games before being swept away by his teammates or simply how you could see him looking around until he found you whenever your group met up – but they never lasted more than a few seconds.

The two of you were stuck, neither of you wanting to hurt Tito’s feelings. At least with your big group moments with Mat alone were rare. They still happened from time to time though, especially since the majority of your friends wasn’t even aware of your dilemma, which was why you found yourself in the passenger seat of his car on a Friday night.

Emily’s boyfriend Rafael had finally returned from a two-month-long work trip to Spain and was dead set on making an authentic recipe he’d been taught over there for everyone. Unfortunately he’d made the mistake of putting Emily in charge of getting the needed groceries and in true Emily fashion she’d forgotten to buy tomatoes. Something neither of them had noticed until Rafael had wanted to start cooking as soon as everyone arrived at their place. Maybe Emily had done it on purpose or maybe she hadn’t been thinking properly in that moment, too caught up in the fact that her lover was with her again, but she’d tasked Mat and you with a last-minute errand run to the store.

You couödn’t stop yourself from checking out the wine aisle though, leaving him waiting behind, dutifully holding a bag of fresh tomatoes and checking his phone while you inspected the options. Rafael had asked you to bring some wine as well but the one he’d requested was apparently out of stock.

“Barzal”, you called for his attention, inspecting a label to try and figure out if it was a suitable replacement, “you think Rafael would like this one?”

As you turned around with the bottle in your hand you were taken by surprise by Mat’s proximity. You hadn’t even noticed how close he’d moved until now and for a couple of seconds you were caught up in your daydreams again. He seemed to struggle with the same thing, his pupils blown and his breathing growing uneven while the two of you just stared at each other. His lips were so close and so incredibly inviting, his mouth slightly agape.

If I leaned up on my tippy toes right now I could-

You quickly stopped yourself from finishing that thought, looking down so you had a couple of seconds to gather your thoughts, thoughts Mat seemed to infiltrate constantly. By the time you dared to look up again he was running his hand across his face in frustration before slowly breathing out and returning to his cool and collected regular self.

“I’m the wrong person to ask this, he was drinking some red wine earlier and the one you picked out is obviously red but that’s about it. Wine culture is definitely lost on me, sorry. I prefer beer.”

“Stereotypical hockey player through and through, I see.” Later on you’d tell yourself that the smirk that followed made your brain short-circuit, because there was no other way to explain why you’d keep on flirting otherwise.

“Maybe one day I’ll teach you, only if you’re nice to me though”, you teased, maybe in an effort to take control over the situation, maybe because you simply couldn’t stop yourself but his laugh made your heart soar for one second, until you remembered why this shouldn’t be happening.

Maybe you simply were an undiscovered masochist because even though you knew you should stay away from him you kept finding yourself in situations like this one way too many times. Deciding that you’d simply drink the wine by yourself if anyone had an issue with it - drowning your sorrows seemed like a great idea either way right now - you handed him a second bottle before moving to leave the aisle and in turn his personal space.

Making eye contact with Colin standing a couple of meters away from you got you to do a full 180 though, almost smacking into Mat in the process, who had obviously followed you towards the cashiers.

What was it with Mat and you?!

While a collision was thankfully avoided, Colin’s presence could cause other problems, since he hadn’t exactly appreciated you breaking off things over a month ago. Because you hadn’t known him for long it had taken you longer than you liked to admit to realize that he was a manipulative bastard, you weren’t proud of that, and you had no idea how he’d act right now.

“What’s wrong?”

“My ex is over there and I don’t want to talk to him. Is he walking in our direction?”

Mat lifted his concerned glance from you to look over your shoulder so he could be on the lookout.

“If he’s the one wearing a Gucci hoodie that is so obviously fake then yes, he is walking in our direction.”

You let out a snort at the casual burn but you weren’t too happy about having to face Colin right now. He hadn’t even crossed your mind in these past few weeks but for him to cross paths with you while you were with Mat of all people seemed to be yet another one of these odd twists of fate your life seemed to attract lately. Maybe your guardian angel had decided to start a meth lab instead sometime recently, there was no other way to explain what was going on instead.

“Uh.. you look good, don’t worry, he’s definitely the one that missed out. Do- do you want me to pretend to be your boyfriend or something?”, Mat stuttered out nervously, probably noticing your anxious shifting and you couldn’t help but smile at his words, despite him being wrong about the reason behind your nervousness.

“Thanks for the offer”, you gave him a gentle smile of reassurance before continuing, “but no, it’s not about the way I look or anything like that, I don’t give a fuck what he thinks of me because he’s an idiot. I just don’t want him to cause any problems and if I could I’d just run away from him forever so he doesn’t have the chance to ever ruin my night again.”

“Well I’m no expert on forever, but I’m here right now and I say fuck that guy”, he responded and with that he grabbed your hand and started running towards the cashiers, leaving you with no other choice but to run along with him so he wouldn’t rip your arm out of its socket.

Oh how you wished you had a picture of the expression on Colin’s face as Mat and you ran past him, hand in hand and cackling like maniacs.

He was apparently too stunned to follow you as you fought over who would pay for the stuff - Mat ultimately winning - but you didn’t let that stop you from running all the way to this car as well. Of course hand in hand.

Masochist.

Somehow the weird tension between the two of you seemed to lift sometime during your little sprint but you weren’t sure if this would be permanent or if it was a spur of the moment thing. You’d be damned if you didn’t enjoy it while it lasted though.  

The entire ride back you couldn’t stop thinking about the way his hand had felt in yours and what a perfect fit it had been, desperately wanting to feel it again as the two of you sang along to the songs playing over the speakers, perfectly happy in your little bubble.

-

As Christmas approached Emily roped everyone in to accompany her on her mission to make Rafael appreciate the cold that taken over New York. According to her he dearly missed sunny Spain but all you could see was a man who was happy to be home again. You weren’t about to tell her that though, you’d long figured out that whenever she’d set her mind to something it was best to simply follow along. Everyone else had apparently come to the same realization because no one objected to her plans.

Emily wanted to take Rafael ice skating and since the Rockefeller Center apparently wasn’t good enough and too crowded, she told everyone to meet at Pier 17. Dana and Mariah were on board of course and you’d managed to convince Tito to come along, who had in turn invited Mat.

In a ridiculous attempt to not get spotted, both Mat and Tito had donned a pair of glasses and while you were used to seeing them on Tito by now, seeing Mat with them again knocked the breath out of your lungs for a second.

It had been almost two months since you’d last seen him like this and the fact that you hadn’t recognized him that night seemed impossible to you now. Maybe it was because you’d gotten to know him since, seeing him in real life instead of only on pictures and memorizing his handsome features in the process but as you tried to get a good glance at him without anyone noticing you realized that he’d never be Clark Kent to you again.

Whether that was a good or a bad thing was still left to decide though.

“Need help with those?”, Mat’s voice ripped you out of your thoughts. You’d been so lost in them that you hadn’t even noticed that everyone else had already laced up their skates and walked out onto the ice while you’d been staring at your hands for who knows how long, laces wrapped around your fingers but not doing anything. Tito and him had brought their own skates while everyone else had to rely on rentals and his were already laced up perfectly of course.

You nodded, despite full well knowing how to do it yourself but you weren’t about to stop Mat from pulling your leg into his lap so he had better access. Besides, you’d stupidly forgotten to bring gloves and you’d gladly take any chance to leave your hands stuffed inside the pockets of your jacket as you rapidly got colder.

His fingers worked quickly, tightening the laces with expertise and you watched his hand moving in awe.

If hockey ever wasn’t an option for him anymore, hand modeling definitely was. He had such nice hands, strong and big and perfect. For a quick second your thoughts drifted to what else they could be capable of, before you reeled them back in, mentally scolding yourself. It really wasn’t your fault, not thinking of him seemed impossible these days.

His eyes were mostly focused on his work but from time to time he’d lift his gaze and give you a small smile, one you happily returned despite the mess inside your head. He had just finished tying the second one when someone banged on the glass, making the both of you jump a little.

“Ayo Barzy get your filthy paws off Y/N!”, Tito yelled before zooming away again laughing loudly, leaving an awkward silence behind.

Was this just Tito being his usual little-shit-self or was he actually serious?

For a couple of seconds you couldn’t do anything but stare at Mat as he looked down onto his hands, one of them still loosely wrapped around your ankle. Carefully you pulled your leg off his lap, set both feet on the ground and got up.

It was apparently time to face reality again.

You waited until there was a break in the throngs of people circling around the rink before stepping onto the ice, muscle memory from your childhood kicking in immediately. Once you were convinced that you weren’t going to fall on your ass you did a couple of little spins until you were facing Mat again, who had followed you. He looked at you with a slack jaw and you laughed at his expression.

“You can skate?!”, he asked bewildered and you laughed again, moving so the both of you could skate beside each other at a relaxed pace.

“Obviously. Sorry to ruin your late night fantasies of teaching me how to skate but I’m a good Canadian girl and I did some figure skating when I was younger. I actually used to be pretty fast.”

That caught his attention and you smiled at the way he looked down at you with a conspiring grin.

“Oh yeah? Show me what you got then”, after a couple of seconds of contemplation he continued, “last one to reach the others owes the winner coffee.”

You looked around to find the rest of your group, spotting them on the other side messing around. Of course.

“You’re on, Barzy. I hope you’re ready to lose though”, you winked at him before racing towards your friends, leaving him and his exclamations about you being a cheater behind, now definitely not cold anymore.

-

Something in your relationship seemed to shift after that, at least whenever you were alone with him. Things were still difficult around others, especially with the way Emily kept prodding you for updates and Tito constantly disturbing the few moments you had alone with him. You weren’t sure yet if he did it on purpose or if he simply had awful timing but it wasn’t like it made a difference.

Christmas came and passed just as fast, the team leaving for a roadtrip shortly after. You’d celebrated New Year’s Eve with your friends in a club, unable to kiss the person you wanted to either way so your lips had stayed untouched as the fireworks went off at midnight and the days following.

Tito had announced that the guys would return later in the day though, already making plans in the groupchat to meet up tomorrow. While you wondered where he got all this energy from you suspected it was a way to distract himself as the trip hadn’t been successful - to put it mildly. In reality they’d ate shit, losing all of their games, some to teams that should have been an easy win.

It was hard to watch on TV but even harder to talk to the guys afterwards.

A couple of hours later you sat on the couch, a book in hand that you’d meant to read for weeks and enjoying staying in on a Friday for once. You were so lost in the story that it took you a couple of seconds to realize that someone had knocked on your door.

Who could that be?

Tito or Emily were most likely to show up unannounced at your day but you knew that Tito would be on his way to his home so he could sulk by himself and Emily was away on a ski trip with Rafael. Unwrapping yourself from your fuzzy blanket you padded towards the door, taken aback by who was waiting on the other side.

“What..”, you trailed of questionably, not even sure what you were going to say in the first place.

Mat looked so out of place in the dimly lit hallway, dressed in a suit that fit him so nicely, bag set on the ground next to him.

“Can I come in?”, was all he said and you nodded, unable to bring yourself to say anything else.

How could you even refuse him?

You didn’t move from your spot beside the door and after taking off his shoes he took a couple of steps inside your apartment, hanging up his coat before turning back around to face you.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here but if I’m honest I can’t even tell you. I just didn’t want to be alone tonight and since you seem to constantly be on my mind either way..”, he trailed off, seemingly gathering his thoughts before continuing, “I don’t know if you watched the games or-“

“I did and you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to”, you said softly as you interrupted him, sensing his apprehension. You decided that you weren’t about to touch his admission of thinking of you all the time with a ten-foot-pole, instead focusing on the rest of his sentence. He looked so broken and lost standing there so you couldn’t help but take the few steps it took to reach him, wrapping your arms around him in a tight hug.

You knew from personal experience with Tito that athletes tended to take losses personal and if you had to take a guess you were pretty sure that Mat was one of those guys that blamed himself for them as well.

At first he seemed surprised about your bold move – it was the most the two of you had ever touched so far – but he quickly caught himself, hugging you even tighter to his body. For a couple of seconds you stood just like that, simply basking in each other’s proximity.

It was as if your bodies were made for each other, your head resting perfectly in the crook of his neck. Despite probably just getting off a plane he smelled so good and you were trying to figure out if you could take a deep breath without raising any suspicions. Before you’d managed to make a decision however, he pulled away and you unfortunately had to untangle yourself from him.

“Feel free to stay as long as you want to”, you said to fill the silence, leaving out the part where you hoped he’d stay for the night as well. He simply nodded before asking where he could change into more comfortable clothes. While you were sad to see the suit go you directed him to your bedroom, glad to have taken those thirty minutes earlier to tidy up.

He returned in a pair of grey sweatpants and a hoodie and it took every last remaining bit of your willpower not to drool at the sight of him. Somehow he managed to look even better in sweats than he did in his custom suit, which really wasn’t fair at all.

You had to admit it was a little weird to see him in your apartment though. He’d been over a couple of times to pregame etc. but he’d never been here alone. Somehow it felt strangely intimate to have him over by himself on this Friday night. To prevent your thoughts from going to a direction they definitely shouldn’t, you asked:

“Do you want some tea? I know technically you still owe me that coffee but I’ll be generous and let you off easy this time.”

For good measure you even threw in a wink at the end and your words had the desired effect, breaking the loaded tension completely.

“You cheated! I would’ve won if you hadn’t started early”, he exclaimed but the way he was laughing showed that he was anything but butthurt about the situation.

“Mmm keep telling yourself that, it’s okay”, you kept on teasing as he followed you into your small kitchen that was definitely at maximum capacity with two people in it. You’d be lying if you said that you didn’t enjoy the closeness the tight space prompted though.

With a steaming mug of tea the both of you settled onto your couch shortly after, also small enough to keep you close together. You’d been wanting to buy a bigger one for weeks, but right now you certainly didn’t mind its size.

Masochist.

“Oh I love that one, the chimpanzees are so cute”, Mat said to your surprise as he finally realized what was playing on your tv and you looked at him in utter disbelief. You certainly hadn’t pegged him for a guy that liked to watch nature documentaries but yet here he was, constantly surprising you.

“What? Documentaries are very soothing”, he defended himself and you had to laugh at the way he looked like a little kid with his floppy hair and the cute way his eyebrows had scrunched up.

“I know. That’s why I love watching them as well.”

You hadn’t exactly pictured yourself watching documentaries with him on a Friday night, something that felt way too domestic if you were being honest, but yet here you were.

As the hour grew later both Mat and you sunk further in the cushions and while you had no recollection of how exactly it had happened, your head apparently ended up on his shoulder somehow. Your only regret was that now it wasn’t as easy to sneak glances at him from time to time without him noticing. At one point he’d even wrapped his arm around you, moving both of you into a more comfortable position before covering your bodies with the fuzzy blanket and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat lulled you to sleep before you even knew it.

The soft sound of your name woke you up sometime later, you weren’t exactly sure how much time had passed but the credits of the second documentary you’d started were already rolling and you were pretty sure you’d only caught the first half of it. In your sleep you’d cuddled up even closer, your arm wrapped around Mat’s midriff and you quickly sat up, embarrassed about turning into a koala in your sleep. Maybe you could blame it on the documentary?

“Sorry for waking you but I should probably head home. Otherwise my back is going to kill me tomorrow.” His voice was a little hoarse and it was obvious that he’d fallen asleep as well, his hair now sticking up in multiple directions. You suppressed a giggle at the disheveled sight of him, instead appreciating that he let down his guard enough for you to see him that way.

“Yeah of course. I’ll show you out.”

“Thank you for tonight. It means a lot to me”, he said quietly as he stood by the door, ready to leave.

“Anytime Mat. Get home safe.” It was the first time you’d called him by his first name, after months of first calling him Barzal then Barzy and he must have noticed as well because his smile could probably make glaciers melt at this point. You weren’t even sure why you’d given up your pathetic way of distancing yourself from him – despite the fact that it was very much obvious that it wasn’t working – but to not call him Mat would feel wrong after this evening.

“Have a good night, Y/N”, he simply said, still smiling as he leaned down to kiss you on the forehead before walking out the door, leaving you speechless.

 -

Tagging: @jamiedrysdales​ @nazdaddy​ @itrocksmysocks​ @yeeehaw-hockey​ @whitesummerx​ @teenagekook​ 

[mrvdocks]

Redamancy

The act of loving the one who loves you; a love returned in full.

Steve Harrington. Residential popular boy until high school came and went. Now, he was actively clawing to stay relevant or at least, a ladies man.

Steve Harrington. Childhood crush since the sandbox incident in first grade. And perhaps you could throw unrequited love interest into the mix.

Maybe you should’ve read the signs that he wasn’t interested when you saw him and Robin at the mall. Or when he stopped hanging out with you after joining his “cool” gang. Or when he would try to not stare so much at you in algebra or across the room during lunch. You weren't sure about his feelings anymore. He always hid everything.

You didn’t mean to pine for him for so long. You knew you shouldn't have. But that chance encounter after Nancy broke up with him made you think you had some semblance of a chance. You didn’t want to be the rebound, but how your heart swelled when your eyes met his, your lips upturned in an easy smile. The party seemed to slow in front of you, bodies becoming blurry and your eyes only focusing on his figure coming to you.

If this was anything like the movies you’d seen and dreamed of, you hoped it would end with him confessing his mutual feelings for you and not him taking your face in his hands and kissing you sloppily. You could practically taste the spiked punch on his lips.

You pushed him off, staring at him in shock. He inches closer, his sweaty hands trying to bring you back to kiss you again but you refuse. “Steve?” You whisper to him.

He just stares at you, eyes flickering back and forth, you don't recognize the look. But something about it feels so innocent, so soft. It feels like he’s searching for something deep within you. You shake your head, tears brimming in your eyes. “I’m not Nancy.”

He reeks of punch and hairspray. “I know that.” He manages out.

His hands come back, one hand resting at the nape of your neck, his fingers entangled in your hair. The other caresses your cheek. The feeling made you feel so warm, so loved. You were delighted in his gentle yet sloppy touch, internally screaming for more of the connection.

But you weren’t sure about him anymore, about the things he wanted. It seemed to be a shitty year for him.

Certainly, someone who made it their mission to get over you with cliques and drama didn’t deserve you.

But you were anything if not human in your possibly unrequited feelings.

“Steve.” You say again. You break out of the trance to step back. The moment was accompanied by sounds of loud teens and music, you shook your head again and darted for the door.

Steve mumbles out your name but it gets lost in the sea of screams and synths. You’re out the door by the time he searches for you in the crowd.

He can’t stop thinking about you at work. He stares at the chocolate chip flavor ice cream and thinks of how you dropped yours in the sandbox in the first grade. How he gave you his without a second thought. Robin thinks there’s something wrong with him. And it wasn’t just the pathetic attempts at trying to chat up customers. She said he looked - what’s that word again? Forlorn.

This whole time he thought he wanted Nancy back, but he couldn’t get you out of his head. He missed your laugh, the snorts that would follow. The way you smelled followed him and the way you looked at him that night at the party, the tears in your eyes, haunted him.

He regretted so much of his later high school experience. He regretted being such an asshole. What good did it bring if you were locked out of his life?

He sees you pass by on your way to work at the diner in the mall. He tries to bury his feelings by asking out the random girls he serves but every time he’s turned down it comes back full force.

“Whatever happened to that girl you liked?” Dustin asks from behind the binoculars.

“Which one?” Steve asks. There must’ve been so many Dustin was referring to.

“That one that you always talk about, likes the same "nerd stuff" I do? Pretty? Cool?”

“That’s not my type.” Steve dodges the question, but nonetheless has a clear image of you in his head.

“Oh yeah? What is your type again? Not cool?” Dustin deadpans.

Steve huffs. “Alright, time’s up, give me the binoculars.”

Dustin passes them, eager to get on with his Russian mission. Steve scans the area, he’s about to give up on this whole mission when he lands on the sign of the diner you work at. He can’t help but focus on you at the register, deep in conversation with another co-worker and bursting into laughter. A captivated smirk came onto his face.

“You should probably go talk to her. She’s definitely a step up from the girls from the shop - actually from all those girls you've been trying to ask out.” Dustin says.

Steve looks up from the binoculars. “What’re you talking about?”

Dustin laughs. “You’re so obvious. Whatever happened to not letting girls know that you care?”

Steve shrugs. Stupid advice anyways.

Steve tries to not think of you when everything goes downhill in a span of a few hours. If he died without having said anything to you, even so much as an apology, he thinks the guilt would’ve killed him instead.

“Have you.....ever been in love?” Robin’s raspy voice asks him.

They’re just coming down from their highs and sprawled out on the floors of the bathroom. The near-death experience had scared him shitless enough to rethink a lot of things.

“Yup. Nancy Wheeler. First semester, senior year.”

“Bullshit. She’s such a priss.”

He hums. “Turns out, not really.”

“Are you still in love with Nancy?”

“No.” He says, a little too quick.

Robin’s interest is piqued.  “Why not?”

“I think it’s because I found someone who’s a little bit better for me.” He fiddles with the frayed ends of his uniform.

“There’s this girl, the one I like. It’s somebody that I.....kind of ignored in high school. I didn’t mean to but I just know Tommy H would’ve made fun of me. Or I wouldn’t have been prom king. It’s all just a bunch of bullshit anyway but when I think about it, this girl knows me. Inside and out. She always has. I should’ve been hanging out with her the whole time.”

He breathes out, hands shaking as he confesses what he’s bottled up for so long.

“First of all, she’s hilarious. She would have me in stitches all the time,” he chuckles. “She’s such a nerd, she likes Star Wars and math and books and things I made fun of. And she’s so smart. Probably much smarter than me. What do you think?”

“Of?”

“The girl.”

“She sounds awesome.”

“Yeah,” he nods solemnly. “And what about the guy?”

“I think there is something seriously wrong with him. To have something real right in front of him and leave it for something so fake.”

“Yeah, I’m an idiot.” He whispers.

“Have you told her? How you feel?”

Steve shakes his head. “I feel like all the bad I’ve done to her...I just deserve the rejection at this point.”

“You never know until you try. Maybe she feels the same.”

“Yeah maybe.” He concludes.

He didn’t think he’d survive the Russians but he does. With one evil defeated, he thinks the worst is over. And it would’ve been until Billy showed up.

The kids are ready for him, shaky, but on guard. Steve can see Billy’s figure illuminated under the neon mall lights and his heart drops when he sees what he’s carrying.

You’re in Billy’s arms, unconscious and beat up but hopefully still alive. Still dressed in your diner uniform, Billy had snatched you up close to after hours and was planning on putting you to good use. He’d laid you down close by but still far from everyone’s reach.

Everyone’s eyes widened when they realized who he had. They hadn’t planned for this. Heather had gone long ago and if Billy’s plan was for you to become the next Heather, then you were in very dangerous territory.

“That can’t be-” Dustin asks but he’s interrupted by Steve.

“That’s it.” He grits. His knuckles are white and he feels the adrenaline rush through him. Nancy glances at him. The sheer determination is what she saw but the fear is what drove him. She signaled El.

The kids alter their plan to distract Billy so Steve has a shot at pulling you away from the danger. If the Mind Flayer gets anywhere near you, you’re as good as dead.

El gets the Mind Flayer going, letting it try its luck at her. She’s got Billy right where she needs him when she gives Steve the signal.

Steve’s never run so fast in his life. He only gets angrier at the eldritch terror as he comes closer to your body, bloody knicks marking your cherubic face, and a bleeding side wound. You clearly put up a fight.

“No, no, no, no.” He utters in shock, lifting your upper body and supporting your neck with his left arm. His hand grabs at your cheeks, shaking you to gain some response.

“Hey! Come on, wake up! Please.” He cries. When he gets no response he brings you up to his chest, hugging you as tight as he can.

The smell he remembers is there but coated in dirt and slime and blood. He’s horrified. He can’t close his eyes for fear that you’ll pass.

“Not you. Please not you. Come on, wake up.” He rocks you back and forth.  “You can’t leave me too. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. About everything. I'll do anything please, wake up."

He feels you stir under him just then, wincing in pain and moving as slowly as your body would let you.

“Steve?” You mumble his name incoherently.

It’s a miracle he hears it among the commotion in the background. You feel the stinging pain in your side and your hand shoots up to touch it.

“Hey, hey, no. It’s okay. You’re okay.” He takes your hand in his and squeezes it reassuringly.

He’s thankful, so thankful that whatever being there was beyond the Mind Flayer let you come back to him.

“Am I going to die here?" You cry, unable to move without feeling white-hot pain throughout your body.

“No, okay? Just stay with me."

“Steve.” You groan. Your eyes feel so heavy, but he urges you to stay awake. It just feels impossible.

“No hey, we don’t have to talk right now. Okay? Stay with me, please. When this is all over I’ll take you on a hundred dates. You can yell at me, hit me, do whatever you want but stay with me.” He pleads.

A roar startles you both, and upon seeing the Mind Flayer charge to reap its pound of flesh, Steve accepts his fate. He shields you and buries your face in his neck, bracing himself.

The impact never comes. Instead, he hears screams and wills himself to open his eyes. Billy stands just inches away, tendrils impaling him as El lays on the floor in front of you both.

Steve’s shaking worse than before, he’s in shock. He almost thinks El’s dead but she’s a sobbing mess. Everything stops and the Mind Flayer falls dead.

He can hear Max’s cries for Billy. The silence that follows is deafening. Steve immediately looks down at you, making sure you’re still alive. When you wince in pain, he takes some comfort in it.

He kisses your forehead and utters profuse apologies and thanks. With whatever strength you can muster, you squeeze his hand in reassurance.

You sit in the booth, waiting for Steve to come back with the ice cream. You're humming along to the music coming from the loudspeaker in the shop absentmindedly. Today was part of many recoveries.

Steve smiles warmly when he returns, passing you it and watching as you take an eager bite. Chocolate chip, without fail.

“Final verdict?” He clapped his hands together in anticipation.

“It's gonna be a hard pass from me. Scoops did it better.” You giggle, breaking your faux serious face.

“Damn.” He smirked.

You both broke into a fit of laughter, his shoulders bouncing with glee.

Your hand came across the table to hold his, fingers interlocking. You finally realized what that look at the party meant. That gaze he held. He was in love. Completely and utterly at its mercy.  

It’s been three months since the battle at Starcourt Mall. Your side is somewhat healed but the scar will always be there to remind you of the ordeal. Steve’s nightmares about losing you to the Mind Flayer are starting to fade. You managed to get an internship outside of Hawkins doing what you loved and Steve was going with Robin the next day to see if the video store was hiring.

Steve kept his promise. The first date you two had was out of the hospital. It was scary at first, acknowledging bottled up feelings and things from the past that neither of you wanted to own up to before. But when he finally confessed and made it up to you in a million ways, you caved. Since then, dates have become sweeter and funnier, they surpassed the good old days.

You’d like to think things have changed for the better now. Hell, you even managed to convince Steve to start looking at colleges. You wanted to get out of Hawkins as soon as you’d saved up enough and graduated. But for now, you were taking it one day at a time.

You think you’ve earned your soft epilogue, here with him. At least the peace you read about in books. The kind where you can finally breathe. The calm after the storm.

[horrible-monstrosity]

Those last three episodes of Steven Universe: a mini-essay

JUST FUCK ME UP

kevin party, donner party, what's the differenfe

hey guys, remember when lion disappeared? i legitimatedly don't. he ran off with connie or something and even though lars is probably in mortal peril and lion's the only way to get to him... naw don't need him. even though now steven's all worried bout lion he didn't give a shit enough earlier to search for him just for lion's own sake. nothing matters.

the party sadie and co fucked off to in the last episode and the tit-ular kevin party are not one and the same. why not? because none of this matters. nothing fucking matters. just... some stuff happens and none of it ever fucking lines up or amounts to fucking anything. why is this show still airing?

Kevin thinking Steven's name is Clarence is the best if not only joke this show has produced in the last like twenty episodes. Or thirty. How long has this season been going for? How many episodes does this show have?...

kevin is allergic to dog but lion is still here ok. the joke is he think lion it dog but the fact he hasn't like broke out in hives should maybe tell him something?.......

So the crux of this episode is, Kevin gives Steven this patriarchal man male romantic advice which basically amounts to "have a good time and don't be a sniveling soyball" and is entirely reasonable. But since this is Steven fucking Universe, it's clearly absolutely fucking terrible. I mean, maybe it's not the perfect solution for *this* particular situation, but why the fuck would he know that? Is he supposed to read Steven and Connie's fucking minds? Why does the feminist solution to problems so commonly require the male reading peoples' fucking minds? It's a perfectly fucking reasonable piece of general advice, and Kevin even seems to be at least the littlest bit actually concerned about Steven's love life issues beyond getting the cool quantum-tranny Stevonnie at his party... but no, he's gotta be wrong, because he's the designated small-time patriarchal oppressor and 84opposition to the gender revolution.

connie assumes that steven doesn't want to talk to her not because she's been bitching at him and been doing shit like accusing him of being friends with kevin leaving him to wonder what he's done wrong... but because he's friends with kevin, obviously. female accountability and logic at 0%

kevin doesn't know how to friends. are we supposed to hate him or feel sorry for him? ... never mind, both of those options are equally depressing with the way the show treats him.

connie likes steven's maximum soy pink polo shirt, because the way to get grils is to treat yourself like a defective woman who needs re-estrogenizing and soy yourself up. just fucking go cry at her and wear the soy clothes she bought you and drip snot upon her. bitches love snot and then even though steven said kevin had his heart broken and it looks like they have some sympathy for him connie goes "lol ofc he did" and he falls in the pool and they shit on him. fuck this gay earth the rebellion was a mistake homeworld did nothing wrong

So... what the fuck was the conflict here again? Seems like the only thing keeping Steven and Connie from making up was bad timing and mutual awkwardness. Did anyone learn anything from this, aside from Steven discovering he needs to get even more soyful if he wants to inject his gem cummies into a strong big-nosed short-haired minority female someday? Did any of this fucking matter?

Also, I've no idea if this is just fan conjecture or what, but apparently the "Sabina" (because yeah that's a name normal people hsve) who fucked Kevin up is actually the le mysterious pink-haired person mute lesbo who hit it off with Pearl forever ago and probably showed up again at some point in the last X episodes but I don't fucking remember it. You... you... how did you manage to make this even worse? So not only is Kevin terrible and wrong and evil for existing, and for hitting on hot five-gendered quasi-minority manchicks at parties, and for giving reasonable advice... he hit on a thicc pink turbo-lesbo and we're supposed to hate him for that, too. Just... how the fuck do I put this? It's like... stupid fucking cis straight normal fucking a white male, thinking this world is full of other normal people like yourself- the real Earth's population is 99% minority queer demigender faggosexuals, how dare you think you can get into a normal heterosexual relationship with a female of the species? He tried some normal human courtship instead of feminist-approved all-gendered-yet-female-oriented interactions fit only for mentally-deficient degenerate aliens, so he deserved to have his heart trampled on. She's a stryng fymyle fat womyn person, you fucking piece of shit, not some thing for you to treat like (an object/your property/an animal/whatever) by treating her like a normal human being. You're shit, normies are shit, and treating a transcendant gender-goddyss as equal to yourself is oppressive. Or... some fucking shit like that. fuck i don't know whatever

-

c'mon plot it's time to go the fuck back into space already!!! It occurs to me that Connie (probably, I don't fucking know) knew all this time Lars was trapped in spacedanger and Lion was the only thing Steven or anyone else on Earth could use to rescue him, but she decided to fuck off with him anyway. Because why? Because her selfish little emotional snit over Steven valuing her life is more important than Lars' own fucking life? Remind me, why are we supposed to like Connie again? Also why did Lion stay with her this entire time anyway? Usually he just fucks off and does whatever he wants. He never wandered back to Steven?

Connie immediately shows her ignorance and downplays the situation as a fun and funny adventure, steven and connie in space o ho ho! an attitude which hey you know might be conducive to PEOPLE THINKING YOU'RE NOT FUCKING FIT TO HANDLE YOURSELF IN SPACE AND THEY SHOULD LEAVE WITHOUT YOU TO PROTECT YOU... Pretty fucking retarded thing to say after all that bitching about... no, wait a minute, Connie never said anything about being treated like Steven's equal or being coddled, did she? I mean, she barely said anything about anything because this was an underdeveloped aborted fetus of an arc, but the entire crux of this disagreement really was just... #

god fluorite still creeps me the fuck out. She's basically some magna-tranny that's gone through eight different transitions of like three genders each and gained a new fat roll for each one. Is this supposed to make me like "diverse" people? Because it's not working. Every single second of her vocal drone grating across my eardrums makes me want ever more to perpetuate a holocaust against the legbutt people. Eugh. two children are all we need to save lars, don't bother bringing garnet or any of those other fucking main characters we have lying around or anything naw fuckit

On some level I almost enjoy how few fucks Lars has come to give, even doing shit like spouting the aesop he was just given as a kewl one-liner as he (kind of) trounces the bad guy... but still, it's all off-screen development that raises a lot of questions. Maybe it's just the change in environment and the lack of anyone to try and impress (the shitgems sure as hell aren't the cool kids) that's brought this out of him- that almost makes sense, but there's nothing indicating that's the case... or anything's the case, really. Maybe it's just some kind of tangential stockholm syndrome where I'm happy to see something actually fucking happening, I don't fucking know.

also how did they steal the ship? they """explain""" but... they really don't. They're just that good because take our word for it lars is really happy for those clean pants. how much did he shit himself over the past couple weeks

And then shit gets terrible again. Lars is more triggered over sadie than his own parents... because of fucking course he is. No, she wasn't worried sick, she was faffing around whining about having to do your work for you or having to work at all and then fucking quitting her job to go become a marxist rock guitarist. Hey, remember the purple cake incident? Lars was legitimately fucked up over his social anxiety and his inability to hang with the cool kids despite wanting so badly to do so, so Sadie just fucking around with them like it's nothing because she really is barely worried about his wellbeing... yeah, I think that shit's gonna fuck him up a little bit.

But no, Steven basically just... tells him to get the fuck over it. Because, like, he's not there so she can do whatever the fuck she wants, immediately. Fuck is this shit? Like all of five minutes into the episode Steven just starts fucking explaining this shitty twisted aesop to both Lars and the audience. Yeah man, you go die in space, your gf can immediately go do everything you ever angsted over with ease and I'll come rub it in your face and you should just fucking get over it because u totes love her that much, lol. *You* aren't entitled to your own emotions.

Oh and then Steven compares Sadie's faffing to Lars's fucking comandeering a space ship in order to keep himself alive. Because the woman's feelsies are equivalent to the man's fucking life. Guys, what the fuck am I watching?...

I think this is one of those... things... this show does, where it at first vaguely approaches something that would pass for a normal human cognitive outputting, but then turns, farts in your face like that sexy alien from Star Wars and flits off like Tinkerbell leaving you confused and asmellied. Where in an attempt to create an unthought new aesop never before cognizized by mankind it ends up with a bizarre twisted mess.

At the very least Steven maybe shoulda thought twice before bringing some of those photos. "Oh, look how well your abusive not-gf has been doing without you! Befriending everyone you ever wanted to befriend but couldn't because you need a fucking therapist! Yeah that'll make him feel better". Hey, remember when Steven was empathic, you guise? I mean that being thrown the fuck out was part of what defines this arc, but come on...

It also severely hurts the thing that it's played out so fast. Lars is #triggered by the photos, okay, but then Steven immediately gets on his case and REEEEEs at him for... trying to destroy Sadie's something or other, because I don;t fucking know feminism is the radical idea that a man's emotional freedom is so disgusting it'll destroy a pure beautiful deserving woman from a distance of a thousand light-years in a fucking instant- Calm your fucking tits, Steven Sugar, we're in the middle of fucking space, Lars has no way of destroying Sadie's whatever the fuck it was he was supposed to be destroying. Let him have his knee-jerk reaction. Also, all of a week or a month away from your best friend slash romantic interest is enough you should expect she's moved on from you completely. Okay.

... Hey, wait a minute, I thought Kevin Praty taught us that sniveling was the way to get all the pretty wymyn? What might have changed between then and now, a difference of one entire episode? ... No, really, I have no fucking clue. This time, the contradiction is so fucking incoherent I can't even turn it into "because Sugar and feminists like her place female emotions above all else". The only way I can see it is if shitting on certain types of males is equal to or higher than muh womans, as the Kevin Party incident was twisted specifically to work at Kevin's expense. ... It's funny how this runs completely opposite what I'd think most people would find healthy. If the person you're hurt over is nowhere fucking near you then get it out of your system, but don't go dumping all your emotional baggage on them at a fucking party. This show wants us to bottle up our emotions when there's no fucking reason to at all but mainline emotional diarrhea in the most inappropriate of situations. what is this shit?

lol the crew are made so fucking useless just by a single fucking photo phone just take it from him One of the shitgems calls Stevvie "friends"... plural. they aren't a singular "they". SOC JUS FAUX PAS

man i can;t believe stevonnie;s fucking dead to bad the show ended here guys i guess homeworld can just go take over the world now. it's better this way

-

This was apparently some sort of special event called "Stranded", but the stranding only lasts one episode. Oooooookay.

This one is entirely just a nitpick, but I find it so strangely interesting from a writing perspective that I just can't leave it out... The "everything is broken" joke is like three lines long and two lines two long. Stevonnie is like, man what's broken and we're shown the readout from the ship showing everything flashing red, okay... and then she's like, ohhh man wow look almost everything it broken?? who expect that ha ha. And then she says, at least the screen works... and that immediately gets broken. Ha haaaaa. I dunno bout you, but I woulda laughed more if they'd just cut it short- have Stevonnie see the screen and go "oh, everything" or even just "oh", in that high-pitched, slightly breathy tone of voice that says "well, shit". Then crash. Boom, short sweet and to the point and gives you like ten more seconds this episode to spend on the plot of the epi- oh wait

Stevonnie is stranded on spaceplanet because no communications, but... xei have magic. Just... shoot some magic fireworks or start a magic fire for smoke signals. Or a normal fire, even. If the problem is that random new green gem will also find you if you do this... actually mention that. Steven and Connie don't even seem to consider sending a physical signal of any kind, even though it should be an obvious idea.

And then Stevenconnie just... finds a random alien species? And casually eats it? This... this just raises so many questions... Throughout the entire run of this show up until this date, the only alien species we've seen has been the gems. The center of the entire show, something that's been continually developed (if not consistently, coherently or well)- there's a decent amount of thought put into how these lifeforms that're completely unlike anything on Earth function, both in biology and society, with some degree of interplay between the two. The show was kept focused on the effects of Rose's rebellion and events related to it, and we avoided all the extra thought, logic and possible scientific plot holes that would be brought into existence by trying to create and balance multiple forms if alien life from multiple different origins. But now they just... dumped this stuff on in there? Because why

This is at once the first new alien species we've seen since the very beginning of the show, the first organic species, the first animalistic/non-sentient species, and the first found in it's alien habitat... and not only are a fucking bunch of them all introduced at once, they're thrown in casually and Stevonnie fucking eats most of them. What the fuck? There's no thought put into these things either, they're just a bunch of wacky squacky animals mainly comprised of random Earth animal parts. There's no logic to how they work, why they exist, how they evolved like this, they're just... wacky funny animals for no reason. Fuck you. After the series up until this point has focused on developing one species with an entirely different biology, history and culture from humans, with all of those things to at least some degree influencing or connected to each other, seeing these critters introduced just at random with no logic or context is incredibly jarring. This was such a fucking bad idea...

Also Stevonne eats the fucking fruits and animals and drinks the water because all planets just have human-compatible food species and good old motherfucking H2O I guess

stevonnie has more stubble than steven ever did because i hate life and i hate everything. this is disgusting. It's even distributed weirdly; instead of being on ziouir's chin it spreads up either side of zoidrgh's face and actually on to the cheeks. And we just have to see it's fugly little cheekstubble for the entire fucking rest of the episode. gagh

And then we get to this... really weird dream sequence where some really weird writing decisions are made. It starts off in Connie's house with Connie's mom... uh, rising up out of the carpeting, but Stevonnie identifies them as "my house" and "my mom". Stevonnie is both Steven and Connie, but given we're used to Steven being the main character and usual viewpoint throughout the entire series this comes off as though it's Steven saying this is "his house/mom". But, you know, they're not. And for any fan who's not devoted enough to commit to memory which character's household interior this is, it's misleading until Connie's mom shows up and then confusing after that. Why the fuck did the writers decide to write the scene like this? Why not have Stevonnie go "my, uh, your, uh, Connie's house" or some shit? Or just remove this part entirely because it gets really weird when the mom starts talking about EXTERMINATING ORGANIC LIFE and setvonnie notices nothing. Then the mom turns into this... weird brownwashed minority fusion version of YD with a big ol' jellyglob of Conmom's hair slapped onto the back of her head. What is this shit? if you're going to make it a meaningful dream you can't just do random shit like that. stop mixing messages. Just... stop. why did they choose to do this, and with Conmom specifically? If it's supposed to imply PD and YD's relationship is like Connie and her mom's... well first of all, that doesn;t fucking work because PD is nothing like Connie at all. But ignoring that, if it's supposed to imply YD is some sort of a parental figure to PD... why Connie's mom? She's not particularly important, and we don;t know her all that well. If it's not a comparison to her specifically and it's just that she parent... why Connie;s mom? Of all the parental figures in the show, because... I don't know, this is dumb fuck this

Though once that shit stops I actually almost like this dream sequence. Having our main character taking the place of PD in the dream, reliving her memories, it not being clear we "are" PD and that Stevonnie is acting out this memory rather than acting under xfer own will until we get to the mirror scene, where Stevonnie punches the reflection of PD while their own appearance remains the same... that's pretty fucking nice. This might also be a manifestation of that Stockholm syndrome I mentioned earlier, though. PD wants things and is frustrated with her current situation. She tries to get what she wants by bitching at someone else to give it to her, sure, but the way she storms off on her own and punches the mirror implies she wants to change things, there's just something holding her back. She has a trajectory. Apparently the fnadom hates her for being a brat, but I almost like her. ..... bets are open on how long it takes for the writers to completely fuck this up.

and then steven and connie just go home and who fucking cares nothing mattersfuck this show

... It seems the fandom has latched on to PD being an off-color because she's small (because height is a color what the fuck is that term why is it that). Like the rich family that hides their embarrassing retarded offspring in the basement, I guess. (i still crackship lars with kevin by the way)

[scenes-in-between]

Hollywood A.D.

A/N: @settle-down-frohike gets credit for inspiring this one. ;) Also credit once again to Lady Manson for the screencaps.

“That’s it, Scully. I can’t take it anymore!” “Shh, Mulder, sit down.”

He can’t get out of the theater fast enough. No ifs, ands, or bees. No ifs… ands… or bees.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he mutters, shoving open the door and stalking out into the warm Los Angeles night.

The Fox lot is not deserted, but the crowds from earlier have dispersed, and the relative quiet is a sudden contrast to the audience’s laughter still ringing in his ears. Strangely enough, it’s not an entirely welcome contrast, as he realizes it just makes him feel all the more exposed, standing out here alone in front of the theater, still holding his stupid plastic Lazarus bowl full of popcorn. He casts around for a moment, wondering where he can go, when he remembers that the sound stage one building over has been dressed up as the graveyard from the movie as a sort of promotional deal for the premiere -- get your picture in front of the green screen looking like you’re running away from zombies, that sort of thing. The door is still propped open, and when he pokes his head inside, he doesn’t see anybody in there.

Perfect.

He finds a place to sit and try to breathe through his embarrassment and anger. He’s just as angry with himself as he is with Shandling.

Shandling.

When he and Scully came out here to watch them shoot the movie, almost a year and a half ago, Garry Shandling had called him up the night before they left, caught him just as he was getting out of the bath.

“Let me meet you for a drink. I’ve got a few more questions for you, if you don’t mind.”

Even as he’d tried to play it cool, to affect disinterest in the glitz and sparkle of the Hollywood set, he secretly couldn’t help feeling a little starstruck. Just a little. So even though he would never in a million years admit it to Scully, the idea that a famous actor (okay, a moderately well-known actor) wanted to hang out and get a drink with him, Spooky Fox Mulder, black sheep of the FBI, was strangely appealing.

If only he’d just said no.

Instead, he agreed to meet Garry in the hotel bar downstairs. “I really appreciate you letting me pick your brain some more,” Shandling told him after they ordered a couple of whiskeys. “Meeting you and Agent Scully today made me realize I need to… rethink some aspects of this character.”

“What do you mean? I thought your character was… how did Federman put it? An ‘amalgamation loosely based on’ me?”

“Right, right, yeah. And he is. Technically. Like, on paper. But what Federman doesn’t understand is that truly embodying a character requires so much more than mere words on a page.”

“You mean like with the…” Mulder made a gesture meant to evoke their earlier discussion of whether he dressed to the right or the left, but Garry’s widened eyes made it clear he either didn’t remember or didn’t understand. Mulder sighed. “What you said to me before, about finding your character’s… rudder?”

“Right! Yes, exactly. Exactly like that, yes.”

“Look, Mr. Shandling--”

“Please! Call me Garry.”

“Garry. I’m certainly not gonna tell you how to do your job, but this isn’t a documentary, right? I mean, based on what we saw today, it would be generous to even say the movie’s ‘loosely based’ on the truth. So how much does it really matter whether your Fox Mulder does things exactly the same way I would?”

Shandling leaned in. “Listen, Fox-- Do you mind if I call you Fox?”

“I, uh, I prefer ‘Mulder,’ actually.”

Garry’s eyes narrowed, and he nodded slowly. “Interesting, very interesting. And how strong a preference would you say that was, on a scale of one to ten?”

Mulder chuckled. “Let’s just say the list of people who can get away with calling me ‘Fox’ doesn’t extend much beyond my mother.”

Garry sat up straight again, looking slightly alarmed. “We’ll go with a ten on that, then. Good to know. See, this is really helpful stuff.” He pulled a small notepad and pen out of his pocket, then scribbled a few notes before continuing. “To answer your question about how much all of this matters? It matters immensely.”

Mulder waited for him to elaborate, but Shandling just sat there looking intently at him until he finally shrugged, picked up his drink, and took a long swallow. “All right then, I guess. Fire away. What do you wanna know?”

One drink turned into two. And then three. And eventually four. Mulder found himself answering the most eclectic mix of questions, from really mundane things like how he took his coffee and what brand of toothpaste he used, to downright philosophical questions like whether he thought it was possible to have happiness without sadness or whether truth was more important than love.

(He struggled with that one more than he expected.)

“Okay, I think I’ve got everything I need on you, specifically. Now I need to dive into your relationship with your partner.”

Mulder snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that one,” he said without thinking, then cleared his throat. “I mean… there’s not much to tell.”

“Oh, I don’t believe that for a second. The way you two interacted at the set today… we’re talking layers of complexity. There may be nothing straightforward about it, but unpacking that history between the two of you may be the single most important part of informing my character and his interaction with Tea’s character.”

Mulder spared a moment to wonder why Tea Leoni wasn’t giving Scully the third degree right now too, if all of this really was that important. His eyes widened with the thought that maybe she was, and he just didn’t know it.

“Okay, so you’ve worked together for, what, five years now?”

“Uh, almost six,” he answered absently, still imagining Scully and Tea Leoni drinking and chatting and giggling. What he wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall in that scenario.

“Now, I don’t know what it’s like in the FBI, but in this industry, two attractive co-stars working together that long, neither one married, or gay, you either end up hating each other or you end up sleeping together. Sometimes both.”

Mulder’s focus snapped back to the conversation at hand. “You’re kidding. You mean that’s not just a Hollywood stereotype?”

“Hey, it’s a classic for a reason. But you two… you certainly don’t seem to hate each other, and you’ve got an easy familiarity, but I don’t get the sense you’re doing the naked tango in your off hours. Am I right?”

“Yeah, no, we’re… Scully and I… we’re partners, and I trust her with my life, and she’s probably the best friend I’ve ever--” He stopped. That was way more of an admission than he was comfortable with, even considering all the other ridiculous things he’d admitted to Garry over the course of their conversation. He cleared his throat again. “We’re friends. No tangoing, clothed or otherwise.”

“But you’ve at least kissed a couple times, right?”

Mulder’s face, already warm from the alcohol, flushed in an instant. He hoped it wouldn’t be apparent in the bar’s low lighting. “What?! No. I told you, we’re--”

“Aw, c’mon, don’t hold out on me, man. No two people who are ‘just friends’ look at each other the way you and Agent Scully do when you think the other one’s not paying attention. There’s more to the story, and I’ve got to know what it is.”

“We really haven’t, though. I mean, there was just the one… okay, one time I walked in on her about to kiss a guy she thought was me.” Garry’s eyebrows shot up, and Mulder shook his head. “Don’t ask. I can’t even begin to explain that one. And then another time, I thought we were maybe going to, but then she got stung by a bee and almost died. Seriously though, that’s it.”

“Walk me through that second time, with the bee. Set the scene for me.”

Mulder groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. Up until then, he’d never spoken about that incident with anyone. He and Scully seemed to have come to a silent agreement to pretend it had never happened. He wasn’t exactly eager to re-live it, and yet…

“She was gonna leave.” His voice was quiet, almost like the words were sneaking out without his permission. He dropped his hand, fiddling with the napkin on the bar in front of him, staring down at it while the memory unfolded in his mind. “We’d… I’d gotten us in trouble again, and they slapped her with reassignment. So she came by my apartment to tell me she was quitting.”

He swallowed, remembering the panic he’d felt at the thought of losing her. The shock and dismay that even after all that time, she still thought she was holding him back.

“She, um, she started to go, and I followed her into the hallway.”

“And it was your Lloyd Dobler moment?” Shandling interrupted, and Mulder frowned. “You know. Say Anything? Peter Gabriel? ‘I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen?’”

“I don’t--” Mulder stammered, thrown out of whatever rhythm he’d started to find in the telling. He shook his head. “I told her I didn’t want to do the work without her. And we had… I don’t know, I guess you could call it a charged moment.”

“Locked gaze, passion crackling in the air, now or never, will they, won’t they?”

Mulder looked down, feeling foolish and starting to deeply regret his decision to share this. “Shut up, Shandling,” he muttered.

“No, no, it’s beautiful! Real life is rarely so cinematic. You’ve got to appreciate it when the stars align like that. The beauty before the tragedy, Oscar-worthy drama playing out in an ordinary apartment building hallway, unscripted.” He sighed almost dreamily. “So then what happened?”

“Then the bee stung her in the back of the neck, and she collapsed, and the moment passed. We were both a little more focused on trying to keep her alive.”

“And you never decided to revisit, give it another try?”

“No, it seems we’ve decided to pretend it never happened.” Mulder downed the last of his drink and rubbed his eyes again.

“Damn, cock-blocked by anaphylaxis. That is rough.” Garry shook his head, scribbling furiously on his notepad. “Really though, that explains so much.”

“Look, Garry, this is just for your, you know, research or whatever, right? This stays between us?”

“Oh, for sure. Definitely. This is all just background, helping me find my motivation and all that. Scout’s honor.”

Scout’s honor.

Sitting in the fake graveyard in his tuxedo, Mulder sets his popcorn to the side, puts his arms on his knees and lets his head fall down to rest on them. He should have known better. And now, this moment between him and Scully, this deeply personal and meaningful moment in their history together, is a throwaway line in a crappy movie, and worse than that, Scully’s going to know exactly where it came from.

“I’m so stupid,” he groans, heaving a deep sigh and picking his head up.

It’s not just the line. It’s the whole damned movie. For all Shandling’s bullshit claims about authenticity and embodying a character and whatever else he’d said, those depictions on the screen were nothing more than caricatures. His life’s work, turned into a joke. And if, god forbid, he’s not able to get a handle on this brain thing, this stupid movie is going to be the closest thing he’ll have to a legacy.

He’s hard-pressed to think of anything more depressing than that, just now.

And then, inexplicably, he just starts laughing. It comes out of nowhere, but once he gets going he finds it hard to stop. It’s just so ridiculous, isn’t it? All of it: the sniper zombies of the Cigarette-Smoking Pontiff, the stupid, plastic Lazarus popcorn bowls, even the very idea that he, Fox William Mulder, could have a legacy worth defending. He laughs until tears run down his cheeks, and then he wipes them away and pulls himself together and picks up his popcorn once more. Sighing, he stares into the middle distance and shakes his head.

He doesn’t notice when the stage door opens again.

[vanilla107]

Masterpiece (Part 6)

Okay so its been 4 months since I’ve updated and I’m so happy to finally be writing this again! It was a bit of a struggle to get back into the swing of it but I had so much fun with this chapter! A huge thank you to @angellecookiewingz, @krzed and @sugar--pie for being my Nathchlo friends. I couldn’t of done this without your support! I hope you all like enjoy it!

Part one: https://vanilla107.tumblr.com/post/145967766370/masterpiece-part-one

Read on A03: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8286893/chapters/18984242

Song used in this chapter (oh my word it’s beautiful just listen to it): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNGq16nHr-Q

*********************************************

Chloe woke up with a light feeling in her stomach and smiled.

She hadn't felt so happy in ages. With happiness she jumped out of bed and stretched.

Everything just seemed...right.

She could hear the sounds of the cars driving down the street below her, and smell the faint fragrance of roses.She changed into her waitress uniform and took a deep breath.

"You're gonna make it Chloe. Today is a good day."

She applied a light amount of makeup (there was no harm in still looking fabulous, right?) and made her way to her door. She paused. Nathanaël said that breakfast was important....but skipping one day wouldn't hurt. She opened her door and screamed in surprise.

"Nathanaël! Don't do that!"

Nathanaël burst out laughing. "I'm sorry! I was just about to knock!"

He ran his hands through his damp hair and grinned.

"You on your way to work?"

Chloe nodded and smiled. "I actually haven't felt this happy in a long time...it feels good."

"Everyone needs a rest every now and then. I think you just needed one," he said, noticing how much brighter her face looked. "Well, I gotta get going-" Chloe started but she stopped when she saw his face. "What? What's wrong? Is there something in my teeth?" Chloe asked getting impatient.

"Chloe, it's seven in the morning."

"So?"

"The restaurant only opens at 9. Why are you up so early?"

Chloe felt her stomach tighten. "Well...um...I usually go early so that I can get the place ready for customers...I get more money that way." Nathanaël raised an eyebrow.

"And how much more do you get paid?" Chloe averted her eyes.

"It depends...."

She felt Nathanaël's hands on her shoulders.

"Chloe. Stop lying to me."

"Okay! I may of....gotten into a fight with Gabriella, one of my awful co-workers and...poured juice all over her. And as punishment...I need to clean all the floors before the place opens for a month."

Nathanaël stared.

"Well, if you're gonna do that, then at least join me for breakfast. I assume you were going to skip?" he asked raising an eyebrow. Chloe's stomach growled and she groaned. "Okay, I didn't eat but-" "No buts. C'mon, I'm sure you can spend just a half an hour with me.”

Chloe knew he wasn't going to give in.

“Okay, fine!” she groaned but she smiled as she followed him to her apartment. “I made scones so feel free to put whatever you want on it,” Nathanaël said as he opened the door.

The smell of warm scones assaulted Chloe and her eyes got watery. When was the last time she had scones? A couple of months ago? The fresh scones were on a cooling rack on the marble counter-top with little bowls of cheese, strawberry jam, cream and butter surrounding it. Chloe didn't waste any time in grabbing three scones and putting cheese on the one and cream and jam on the other two. She sighed in contempt and caught Nathanaël humming a song as he buttered a scone for himself. Chloe felt her chest tighten.

It was the same song he had been playing for months after he and Marinette broke up.

“Nathanaël...why do you keep listening to that song?” she managed to say with a mouth full of scone before swallowing. Nathanaël froze bit his lower lip nervously. “Well, it’s only fair that I tell you, I suppose-”

“It’s about Marinette isn’t it?” Chloe blurted out and slapped a hand over her mouth.

Nathanaël gave her a confused look. “Why would it be about Marinette?” he asked.

Chloe was slowly dying inside.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Why would you blurt about his ex-girlfriend like that? He probably thinks you’re desperate now! Ugh, come up with an excuse!

“Um...because the lady has long, dark hair in the song and...it reminds you of her?” Chloe squeaked.

Nathanaël burst out laughing and ran a hand through his red hair.

“Wow, you are a really bad liar,” he chuckled and Chloe could feel the embarrassment radiating off of her.

Can’t the floor just eat me now? she thought.

“If you wanted to know about my love life Chloe, you could’ve just asked,” he grinned, his eyes full of mirth. Chloe slammed her hands on the table and looked at Nathanaël, who was clearly enjoying how flustered she was getting.

“That’s not what I meant Nathanaël! Gosh, why do you have to be so blunt? I was asking about the song because you sing it all the time, not about your love life! And besides, you and Marinette broke up so why would I want to know about it?”

There was silence and Nathanaël raised an eyebrow as he absorbed all the information she was telling him. “Are you done?” he asked still grinning.

Chloe groaned and put her head in her hands.

“Okay, to save you from any more embarrassment I’ll explain. Marinette and I were never dating.”

Chloe’s heart stopped and her eyes grew wide.

“W-what?”

Nathanaël nodded and took a bite into his scone which he had spread a generous amount of cream and jam on.

“Marinette was helping me find inspiration for my paintings, which resulted in the two of obviously spending more time together. Since Mari is one of the hottest up and coming designers, naturally she would have paparazzi tailing her. I was with her quite a lot and the tabloids went wild. No one even bothered to find out the true story.”

Nathanaël took another bite of his scone and swallowed.

“Adrien and Marinette were dating in secret because she didn’t want her relationship with Adrien to seem forced because she was working with his dad. When they finally revealed that they were together...well the media jumped to conclusions that Marinette had broken up with me even though we were never together.”

Chloe was dumbstruck. She couldn’t believe she had jumped to such conclusions.

“But…didn’t you have a crush on Marinette in high school?” she asked as she took another bite of her scone. Nathanaël nodded.

“I did but it was pretty obvious how Marinette felt about Adrien. Thank God that they confessed to each other before we graduated. I don’t think I could imagine those two without each other…they truly love each other.”

Chloe felt uncomfortable talking about Marinette and Adrien.She hadn’t encountered them since the restaurant incident last Friday, and quite frankly was okay with never seeing them again. She was still good friends with Adrien but she never really buried the hatchet with Marinette. She had always been cruel to Marinette and for her own reasons didn’t want to think about it right now.

“So what about that song that you keep singing? You sang it all the time once you and Marinette ‘broke up’” Chloe said using air quotes.

Nathanaël smiled sadly.

“Marinette actually told me about the song. That song reminds me of how people just judge one another without getting to know them or the circumstances they’re in. It’s sort of my new inspiration for my paintings right now. The song is really a twist on Rapunzel but it ends tragically.”

Chloe snorted. “I’m aware of that. You played it so often that I know all the words.”

Without warning Chloe began to sing the song that had stuck in her head while she worked what had woken her up every morning and had tormented her in her dreams.

A man came across this old tower one day

It was straight like from a book he once read

He lifted his head up and saw this young lady

And here's what the lady said:

"Moi je m'appelle mademoiselle Noir

Et comme vous pouvez le voir

Je ne souris, ni ris, ni vis."

Et c'est tout ce qu'elle a dit

Chloe was about to sing the second verse when Nathanaël surprised her with his velvety tenor voice and watched in awe as he sang.

The man was so scared he could only run away

He ran to the town and then said:

"I just saw a lady with the longest dark hair

And I think she's a living dead!"

The people, so scared, took their guns and their swords

They ran to the tower and then

They saw the pale lady and felt a great fear

When they heard how she said it again:

"Moi je m'appelle mademoiselle Noir

Et comme vous pouvez le voir

Je ne souris, ni ris, ni vis."

Et c'est tout ce qu'elle a dit

She joined in with him for the last verse and felt lightness build up in her. It felt right singing with Nathanaël.

The people, they knew what this all was about:

She was clearly a demon from hell

They decided to set her long hair on fire

In the end it would burn her as well

But the lady was no demon she was a lonely soul

Just like in that book they once read

Still waiting for her prince while her hair was on fire

The one last time she said:

"Moi je m'appelle mademoiselle Noir

Et comme vous pouvez le voir

Je ne souris, ni ris, ni vis."

Et c'est tout ce qu'elle a dit

The apartment collapsed into silence and Nathanaël looked just as surprised as Chloe did.

They had just sung with each other.

Something neither of them thought they would ever do.

“Well…that was…wow,” he said breathlessly. “Y-yeah...I-I didn’t know you could s-sing.” Chloe stuttered.

Chloe looked at the clock hanging on the wall and nearly feel off her seat.

“IT’S NEARLY 9. I HAVEN’T CLEANED THE FLOORS. SHIT. SHIT. I’M SO FIRED!” she screeched.

Chloe finished her scones and grabbed her handbag. “No no no no no no. This can’t be happening. Not today,” she groaned as she tried to open the apartment door.

“Chloe, relax. I’ll walk with you there and explain everything,” Nathanaël assured as he helped her with the door.

They walked down the long corridor and down the stairs, Chloe still fidgeting nervously. Once they had gotten to the restaurant, the doors were already open and Mr. Shelley was already looking mad. Thankfully there were no customers, which meant no humiliation. His frown deepened when he saw her.

“Chloe! Why are you late? And why are the floors not mopped? I have every right to fire you for tardiness and failure to keep the hygiene levels of this establishment high-!” Mr. Shelley stopped yelling once he saw Nathanaël at Chloe’s side.

He immediately put a smile on his face and wiped some sweat off of his forehead. “Chloe, who is your friend over here?” he asked so sweetly that Chloe could feel the bile rising in her throat.

“This is Nathanaël my-“

“Boyfriend,” interrupted Nathanaël.

{Uploaded 10th April 2017}

[captainjellyroll]

Postpone the War, Please (part 2 of USUK Pacific Rim Drabble Shit)

[ok so this is a 2nd copy of the original that i sent in because i just realized the amount of mistakes in there so i tried to make some edits rip sry ]

Arthur stormed out of the Training Room after making uncomfortable eye contact with Alfred and Francis’s idiotic statement. There is no way that he was going to be a co-pilot with that guy. It didn’t really matter how hot he was. It was just a matter of how Arthur could possibly even survive a minute of his obnoxious laughter and his stupid talks in an enclosed area without hurting Alfred.

To his surprise, as he walked quickly down the corridor, Alfred was running after him, “Hey, Artie! Wait up! Artie-.”

Arthur turned and scowled at him, “Do not call me that.”

The other pilot rolled his eyes, “Look, I don’t know what Francis was on about but you’re a good fighter. I’m not saying that I want to be a team with you, because I don’t, but if you want to train or something during free time-.”

“I could barely stand being in the same room as you and you weren’t even talking. How did you think I would say ‘yes’ to that?”

“God, you don’t need to be such a tight-ass about it. I’m just saying, Artie-.” Alfred frowned at him, with some annoyance etching into his voice. How the hell is this idiot annoyed by him? 

“I told you not to call me that.” Arthur grit his teeth.

Alfred stopped and raised his eyebrows and leaned in, slowly enunciating, “A-r-t-i-e.” A smug grin formed on his face in reaction to Arthur’s face darkening dangerously.

Arthur really tried not to slap him. The key word being 'tried’ Arthur did, in fact, slap him. He promptly walked away with Alfred muttering curses behind him. Arthur was too tired to deal with this bullshit.

~

So apparently the bullshit Arthur put up with wasn’t enough because maybe two days later Ivan showed up at his door with a light smile and proceeded to heave him over his shoulder like a sack of bloody potatoes and dropped him off at the Interrogation Bay. Next to Alfred.

“Bloody hell!” Arthur sighed angrily with Alfred pouting and looking off to the side. Arthur directed his gaze to Francis, “I am not going to be fucking co-pilots with him.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a co-pilot with him.” Francis flinched back a little at Arthur’s direct assault. “Why are you so negative about this?”

“Does it really matter?” Alfred answered in his stead, strangely grumpy. It didn’t sound right for him to sound angry. “I don’t want to be here either. I want to go.”

Francis sighed and stood, "I know that this kind of thing shouldn’t be forced according to protocol. But I really do think that you two are suited to be partners.“ Alfred stopped leaning on his arm and sat up as Francis walked by. Arthur and Alfred’s gazes followed Francis as he walked to the back of the room. When he was at the door, Francis turned on his heel with a nervous smile, "And there is the fact that I am not a protocol Marshal.”

Arthur and Alfred widened their eyes in realization of what he was doing. They scrambled out of their chairs and sprinted to the door. The door closed and the lock clicked. Arthur slammed his hands against the door, “Goddammit, frog! I’m going to wring your neck once I get out of here!”

“Francis! This isn’t cool, man!” Alfred yelled at the one-way glass window. “Let me out of here! I thought that I was your friend!”

There was no answer and they stood in utter silence. They dared to look at each other and automatically turned away from each other when they locked eyes. This was utter hell.

~

“I don’t want to do this.” Alfred grumbled after a long silence between the two. Arthur stood glaring at the window from time to time while Alfred lounged in the chair, putting his feet up on the table. “I mean, I really don’t want to do this.” Arthur could see that Alfred was looking at him off of the reflection of the glass, “I don’t mean that I’m completely against being partners with you. You’re physicality is strong and I can respect that. I’m fine with working with that. The problem is with your attitude. So. I don’t want to do this.”

Arthur sighed, “Neither do I. I don’t want you to be poking around in my head through the Drift.” Arthur turned and looked at Alfred, “And you’re personality is absolutely awful.”

“What? How?” Alfred raised an eyebrow, “I’ve been told that I’m a pretty good guy.”

“You may be a 'good guy’ but you’re so…” Arthur searched for the word before looking at Alfred definitively, “Annoying. You’re so childish and carefree about the world despite everything that is happening and you're annoying.”

Alfred furrowed his brows and glared at him, taking his feet off of the table and sitting up in his chair, “You know, I see you around the base and you’re always alone. You barely talk to anyone unless you’re giving orders.”

“So?”

“So maybe if you weren’t such an asshole then you would have some friends.” Alfred said with a firm tone and unamused eyes. Arthur almost flinched at it. Almost.

His scowl deepened, “Well, at least I’m not an immature, conceited prick that goes around thinking that he can do whatever he wants.” Arthur stepped close to the table and slammed his hands on the table, glaring at Alfred who didn’t break eye contact with him across the table, “Whatever "incident” happened that made you resign from the program was probably another idiotic thing you did.“

Alfred leaned in closer with a glare, looking up at Arthur. All traces of amusement or mocking in their conversation had vanished from his face and his blue eyes were fiery with low-burning anger. "You don’t know anything about me.”

“And you don’t know anything about me so I would appreciate it if you didn’t speak to me as such, Jones.” Arthur spat out his last name as if it were poison.

He didn’t really know why he sounded so tense or why he was angry in the first place. Arthur figured it was because Alfred just… looked so happy and nonchalant about everything even after all the cities on the Pacific coast were, no doubt, going to shit. Alfred probably lived a blessed life with a loving family and took whatever he had for granted. He probably didn’t have to worry about anything or ask why his family hated him. Arthur was angry, not at Alfred as a person, but because of how he acted. This world was cruel and Alfred seemed to act like everything was alright. But it isn’t.

From behind the glass was Francis watching anxiously at the two with the Head Scientist, Yao, watching and looking at Francis incredulously.

“What made you think that putting these two in a room together was a good idea?” Yao stared at Francis, judging him silently, “Are you sure that they would be compatible? They look like they’re going to kill each other.”

Francis laughed nervously, tugging at his collar, “I’m not so sure either. We were just short on time and-.”

“Don’t you think that we should open the door now? It’s been nearly an hour.” Kiku said quietly by the panel, his hand hovering over the button that would open it.

Ivan leaned on his hands, watching in glee. He came in shortly after Francis had the door locked. He was enjoying every second of it. Ivan pouted a little at Kiku’s question, “Should we really let them out? I’ve found that my time in this place has become quite nice with Alfred locked in an enclosed space for an excessive amount of time.” Ivan looked back at Alfred, glaring at Arthur, with such malice.

Yao frowned and looked at Ivan disapprovingly, “We are not going to leave them in there to kill one another.”

Ivan looked like he was going to protest so Francis butt in before Ivan and Yao started another one of their arguments, “Okay. Just…. just a half hour longer and then open the door. I- I think that they’ll find a way to figure this out on their own.”

“Yes, sir.” Kiku looked at Francis carefully before responding to the order, “Marshal, are you just scared of what they might do to you when they get out?”

Francis’s voice was wavering and he nervously backed away from the window, “Of course I am. I’m absolutely terrified. Yes.” He looked at Kiku, “Did you know that once when Arthur and I were still cadets in the training program, I took one of the pastries that his older brother sent him and he stabbed me in the leg with a fork?” Yao and Kiku looked at Francis as his eyes grew with worry and fear at the memory, “Have I ever told you how I once teased Alfred a bit too much about his weight and he ended up launching me across the room into one of the supply carts?”

Francis would have continued rambling if Yao hadn’t put a hand on his shoulder, “Maybe… maybe you should sit down, Marshal.”

“I have made a mistake.” Francis said with dread daunting on him.

~

With Arthur and Alfred arguing with each other for the next half hour, the door was opened and Francis had never ran as fast as he did that day. When Kiku first saw him after Arthur and Alfred go out his face had many bandages and his left arm was in a sling.

“Sir-?”

“I’m fine.” Francis said, his voice sounding broken and on the verge of crying. He opened the door to his room. “I’m just going to cry for a few hours.”

The door closed and Kiku stared after him before flicking his eyes towards Alfred, walking past Arthur in the corridor and shoving his shoulder against him. Arthur ran after him, yelling angrily. Kiku turned the other way, walking quickly, “They would make a truly terrifying team.”

~

Arthur walked into the Training Room to see Alfred practicing, swinging the staff rigidly with power. Arthur kept his eyes following the figure as he started to turn away, such brute force with no elegance at all. But maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.

Arthur turned his head away too late as Alfred locked eyes with him. “Hey!” Arthur winced and turned to look at Alfred. They hadn’t seen each other in weeks after the whole, being-locked-in-the-same-room-for-an-extended-amount-of-time-and-hurting-Francis ordeal. But he looked at Alfred and noticed that some strands of his hair were matted to his forehead with sweat. He was back in that baggy t-shirt. Goddammit. “C'mere.”

“No.” Arthur continued to walk away.

“Hey! Arthur.” Alfred’s voice wavered a bit when he said his name. “Arthur. Please. I just want to talk.” His voice got a little softer, which Arthur thought to be physically impossible.

He stopped for a moment and before he knew it, he had let out an exaggerated sigh and walked back. “What do you want?” Arthur asked, the question coming out more harshly than anticipated.

Alfred, instead of speaking, sat down and motioned for Arthur to sit across from him. Arthur raised an eyebrow but Alfred motioned to the spot across from him again.

“Wow. I didn’t think you could be diplomatic.” Arthur said mockingly, crossing his arms.

“Just sit.” Alfred whined, patting the spot loudly.

Arthur sat down reluctantly, sitting on his knees and placing his hands in his lap and watched disapprovingly as Alfred stretched out his legs. “What?” He asked again.

“Okay. Listen. Even if I hate to admit it…” Alfred flicked his gaze up from the ground to Arthur’s face, “We’re Drift compatible. Aren’t we?”

There was a little skip in Arthur’s chest when Alfred said it. No. Arthur thought firmly, No. “You’re… you’re absolutely insane-.”

“Arthur.” Alfred leveled his gaze with Arthur’s. Arthur was taken aback at the pleading look in his eyes. He looked completely serious. It didn’t suit him at all. “There have only been three times in my entire life, that being 26 years, when I was completely serious-.”

“That I can believe.” Arthur snorted.

“But… this is the fourth.” Alfred finished and looked like he was expecting an answer from Arthur.

Arthur took some time to form his answer and finally brought himself to look at Alfred, “I know. I know that we’re compatible. But I have no idea how that’s possible because we’re complete-.”

“Opposites? Yeah.” Alfred laughed sheepishly, “I’m kinda freaked out too. But you’re… a pretty good fighter.”

“Piloting a Jaeger is so much more than physical ability.” Arthur narrowed his eyes at him.

“Oh, I know. But… that’s why we should at least try. Right?” Alfred rubbed the back of his neck anxiously, “Kiku was telling me how Generation X, my old Jaeger, was just redesigned and fixed after…. that incident.”

“I’m fine with testing out… the Drift with you for a few moments. I don’t want you poking around in my memories.”

“I don’t want you in my memories either.”

“I’m a gentleman, of course I wouldn’t.” Arthur nodded slowly and looked up at Alfred. The atmosphere in the room was too serious, too somber. Arthur added in, “I’m frankly impressed with your ability to hold a civilized, mature conversation-.”

Arthur stopped as the sound of running steps rushed towards them from the corridor and Yong Soo sprinted in, tripping over his feet from trying to stop himself from going too fast. “YO AL. THEY’RE SERVING BURGERS FOR LUNCH.”

“Seriously?” Alfred perked up and scrambled to get up, dropping the staff, “FUCK YES.” Yong Soo laughed and Arthur watched the two run down the corridor. “I’ll see you later, Arthur!” Alfred called after disappearing around the corner.

He sat alone on the ground of the Training Room, speechless. Arthur sat, staring in the corridor and sighed, “…Never mind.”

~

Alfred’s heart was pounding as the scientists suited him up. It had been so long since he had been here. Feliciano clicked the chest plate into place on his chest and looked up at Alfred curiously, “Are you okay?” He asked.

“I’m fine.” Alfred smiled reassuringly and Feliciano smiled back, turning away and giving Kiku a thumbs up.

Alfred looked to the side and Arthur was looking down at the suit. When Arthur looked back up, he caught Alfred staring at him. “I’ll be fine.” Alfred and Arthur had gotten on talking terms after their discussion in the Training Room and maybe weeks later, they thought they were ready to test out their Drift compatibility. “It’s been quite a while since I’ve been in this suit, though.”

He’s talking to you. It’s small talk! Just say something back. Be cool. “Ditto." Idiot.

~

Generation X was looking better than ever. The outside shell was polished and the inside was completely computerized and clean. Alfred looked nervously to the right as Arthur took his place. His heart was beating louder every second he looked. He turned away as his ears grew red and anxiety grew in his chest. Arthur noticed and kept watching Alfred worriedly.

"Ready for the drop?”

“Naturally.” Arthur said in response.

“Let’s go, Feli.” Alfred laughed as they dropped onto Generation X. The jolt that they felt as they landed was something that Alfred missed but his heart felt like it jumped to his throat.

Over the intercom they heard Feliciano counting down and stumbling a little over the seven and the six. “Engaging pilot-to-pilot protocol!” Feliciano said cheerfully as the wires on the back of their helmets jolted as energy pulsed through them.

“You better not pry.” Arthur muttered.

“Of course not.” Alfred responded as he closed his eyes.

The sudden jolt of the “neural handshake” as the scientists nicknamed it or the Drift took him aback. He passed over so many memories. He tried to make sure that he didn’t see all of it, which was kind of hard to do since they were literally in his face. But then, something went awry.

Everything seemed to stop and Alfred felt like he was being lurched forward, he could feel himself there. 'There’ was Australia, which was weird because Alfred had never been to Australia but… Arthur had.

Alfred looked around and everything was in ruins. The whole city was abandoned. Then he saw him. He could tell that it was Arthur, well, a smaller Arthur. He couldn’t be less than 13 years old. It was kind of easy to tell it was Arthur too…. those eyebrows have seemed to have stayed with him since childhood. Tragic.

13 year old Arthur looked like he was about to cry. He was out of breath and sobbing as he hid behind the dumpster. Alfred knew what he was running from. The ground shook violently beneath them as a huge chunk of the building next to them crashed to the ground as a Kaiju roared. The air was thick and suffocating and there was a haze through the city from all the dust. Everything was so vivid. The colors of the crushed cars, the decrepit buildings, the bodies. Alfred looked at Arthur, snapping back into reality, to see his eyes widening in panic.

“It isn’t real, Arthur!” Alfred yelled, knowing that there wasn’t much noise in the Jaeger but everything sounded like hell with Arthur’s memory growing stronger. “Snap out of it!" Alfred looked back at the memory to see 13 year old Arthur putting his hands over his head, tears streaming down his face. Alfred knew that he had just activated one of the cannons. "Arthur!” He shouted, the cannon started to glow a blue as it faced the bay doors. “Listen to me. This is just a memory.” He said to Arthur. 

Arthur looked up at him and Alfred stared into them. They were much more green than he remembered and they were sad. They were so… scared. 

Alfred looked again and Arthur had put his hand down and stared at his hands, out of breath. “hey-.”

“Don’t. Please.” Arthur said quietly. He was silent for a moment then he looked up and pressed the button on the intercom, “Is everything alright there?”

Gilbert was the one that responded. “Uh, yeah. Kinda. Sorta. No?”

“Gilbert, what are you doing on the intercom?” Arthur’s voice sifted back to his firm, bossy tone.

“Well, it’s nice to be talking to you too, Mr. Kirkland.” Gilbert shot back before responding. They could hear crying in the background. “Uh, since the whole cannon thing went on, Feliciano kind of panicked and tripped when he was going to call in Francis and a lot of things happened but he ended up tripping and hurting himself. He’s crying. A lot now.”

“Is he okay?” Alfred piped in before Arthur could.

“Yeah, my bro’s taking care of him.” Gilbert seemed to have turned away from the intercom to yell something in German to his brother. “Yeah. So what happened? Do you want to come back in? That was a hella strong memory current you got there.”

“Sorry.” Arthur said quickly. He obviously didn’t like saying that word. “I… I lost my composure for a moment there. I’m fine to continue.”

“If you say so.” Gilbert answered, “I’ll get Kiku to launch you or something.”

Alfred looked at Arthur worriedly, “Arthur-.”

“Alfred. I’m sorry.” Arthur refused to look at him, “You shouldn’t have seen that.”

“Hey, it’s okay. Memories can…. they can be a bitch.”

Arthur actually laughed and it was adorable without spite or malice laced into it. He looked at him with a twinge of melancholy, “Yes. They can.”

~

“So let’s take this baby around for a test run.” Alfred said, grinning as they made their way into the water, “Kiku, any Kaiju around to pummel?”

“No. And hopefully there won’t be. You two are lucky that you’re Drift compatible.” Kiku responded over the intercom. The crying in the background ceased and Arthur felt less guilty for making Feliciano panic like that. “Francis directed that there should be three rounds with at least a 8000 kilometer radius with Generation X. That marks the entrance into popular Kaiju territory. So steer clear of that, make it a close skim around.”

“Nice.”

As Generation X made its way to the radius mark over the intercom a song started to play. Arthur thought that it may have been in his head, another minuscule memory from the Drift but it was actually from the intercom. He could hear Ludwig telling Gilbert to turn it off but the music got louder.

The same exact song played five times over and Arthur was getting fed up with it. He could feel his eyebrow twitch in annoyance as the music played another time around, “Can you turn that goddamn music off? We’re near the conflict zone!” Arthur turned to look at Alfred to see how he was coping with it and found that Alfred was bobbing his head to the music, a childish grin plastered on his face.

“Woo! Turn it up, Gil! AC/DC is my shit!” Alfred said into the intercom and Gilbert’s laugh was heard as the music got even louder.

“Oh sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” Arthur muttered under his breath as the music blasted in the Jaeger. But it wasn’t long before he was smiling. He looked at Alfred who was mouthing the words passionately…

Arthur could get used to this.

(okay if i continue this from here, shit’s gonna go down so i’m kinda ???oh and that ac/dc song that’s playing is 'Highway to Hell’ lol and sorry this is pretty short compared to part 1 but here ya go -Key) 

====================

AHH this made me so giddy and happy oh my GOD <333 bless your soul for bestowing upon me such brilliance and beauty uaahhhhhh~ <3333333

IM SO EXCITED FOR THE NEXT PART IM READY FOR MORE ANGST HECK YEAH !!!!!

[melindarowens]

2017: Right Splits over Civil Disobedience, Left Splits over Political Violence

This week’s biggest political controversies exposed fault lines within the country’s major political factions, with the right fighting about civil disobedience while the left fought over the attempted murder of a Republican Congressman.

Shakespeare in the Park

On Friday night, two conservatives disrupted a New York performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that escalates the left’s campaign of imagery designed to cathartically depict the death or murder of President Donald Trump. TheRebel.tv’s Laura Loomer was arrested for running onstage during the Shakespeare in the Park production, while activist Jack Posobiec taped her demonstration and shouted at the crowd: “The blood of Steve Scalise is on your hands!”

“Old Right”

Several authors at anti-Trump conservative publications condemned Loomer and Posobiec, arguing that the two infringed on the free speech of Shakespeare in the Park and their tactics were too close to the Occupy of Black Lives Matter movement.

Pro-Trump conservatives labeled this faction the “old right,” stating that there is no moral equivalence between this disruption and the violence of left-wing protesters in dozens of recent incidents.

The old right losers who are upset about what Laura did don’t realize that unlike them, we fight – and that’s why our guy won. #FreeLaura

— Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules) June 17, 2017

Which is appropriate

She broke the law.

To fight an injustice

Just like #RosaParks https://t.co/VubPBkRbuH

— Google “CNN,175,Sue” (@NolteNC) June 17, 2017

They’re literally shooting at us and you want to play Marquis of Queensbury.

Cowardice.

Fight the enemy or fuck you.

— Google “CNN,175,Sue” (@NolteNC) June 17, 2017

Oh yeah, leftist students threatening conservatives with violence is the exact same as a 1 minute interruption of Shakespeare in the Park https://t.co/5oMTc5YIV0

— Scott Greer (@ScottMGreer) June 17, 2017

This is the mentality that has sat, patted itself on the back, and watched for decades as America has gone further and further Left https://t.co/pcEf3YbZ2C

— DanRiehl (@DanRiehl) June 17, 2017

We went to one play and accomplished more for the message than the millions donated to think tanks and handed to K Street. Let that sink in

— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) June 17, 2017

Schlichter vs. Podhoretz

One archetypical exchange in the aftermath of the Julius Caesar demonstration saw Tablet editor and “Never Trump”-er John Podhoretz facing off with lawyer and author Kurt Schlichter.

I’d say I just learned tonight you’re a drooling, immoral, melodramatic idiot, but alas, I learned that long ago. https://t.co/2WuZPvp0Ux

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) June 17, 2017

you want affirmative action for being a moron because you wore our country’s uniform? Happy to oblige.

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) June 17, 2017

Cernovich vs. Shapiro

Even more heated was the war of words between independent author and White House reporter Mike Cernovich, responding to criticism from former Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large and “Never Trump”-er Ben Shapiro.

This obnoxious stupid snowflake crap is no better than the protesters who try to block college speeches. https://t.co/mDyOL6fO7J

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 17, 2017

He doesn’t matter. None of those guys matter anymore. They don’t break news or make news. Controlled opposition for media to abuse. https://t.co/NXMhrqtt2m

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) June 17, 2017

This is total, complete horse crap. She invaded a public performance to obstruct it. She has no right to the stage. https://t.co/YgcpKQrvPf

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 17, 2017

This is what a coward looks like. #FreeLaura https://t.co/EyiGZnR1a3

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) June 17, 2017

After trading a few intense personal insults, both men reiterated their arguments — but no longer directly to each other.

They took stage for 1 minute.

The left pulls fire alarms, uses pepper spray, hits people with bike locks.

It’s not even close.

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) June 17, 2017

Use free speech in ways that irritate the left. Do not impede other people’s freedom of speech. This is not difficult.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 18, 2017

At the same time, the left was infighting over a much more high-stakes topic: targeted political violence.

Steve Scalise

On Wednesday, a 66-year-old Illinois man opened fire on Republican lawmakers practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game, wounding House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and putting him in critical condition through the weekend. The attacker — James Hodgkinson, who was killed by police returning fire — also shot Two Capitol Police officers, a congressional staffer, and a lobbyist. The Daily Caller has reported that investigators found a list of GOP lawmakers’ names on Hodgkinson’s body.

Instead of universal condemnation, Hodgkinson’s attack has brought about a tone-policing feud between the establishment left and the social justice left.

Impulse Control

Over the weekend, several Verified progressives of varying prominence — an L.A. Times blogger, the creator of #OscarsSoWhite, a rapper with 250 YouTube subscribers, an Uproxx editor, and TV actor George Takei — argued that sympathy for Rep. Scalise should not outweigh his sinful acts as a lawmaker. In most cases, more traditional liberals scolded their more radical peers for generating bad optics.

When will it be time to move Scalise’s opposition to gun control from the last graf of a story to the first? https://t.co/D3ZkHjFr2w

— Michael Hiltzik (@hiltzikm) June 18, 2017

You can despise Scalise’s politics and also despise the fact someone thought gun violence would somehow change his or anyone’s mind.

— John Haltiwanger (@jchaltiwanger) June 16, 2017

Wounded Congressman Scalise, who the GOP are so sad about, voted TWICE to not recognize the #MLK holiday. https://t.co/LKhFbJtIn9

— Iskandrah (@iskandrah) June 18, 2017

I ask you simply to look at Rep. Scalise’s record. Do you have sympathy for other white supremacists?

— Iskandrah (@iskandrah) June 15, 2017

Was Scalise a “human” when he voted against Marriage Equality and spoke at a white supremacy function? Or do only Dems need to be “human?” https://t.co/5lzMbfnKk0

— April (@ReignOfApril) June 16, 2017

and don’t tell me the man has a family and allat shit, because so do folk with their premiums traveling on a rocket to Mars

— SUPER SIZE (@GrandeMarshall) June 14, 2017

Made the mistake of looking up Steve Scalise voting record on women and LGBT rights. Time to break out Milkshake Duck.

— Donna Dickens (@MildlyAmused) June 14, 2017

I don’t have any tolerance for caveats on condemning political violence right now. You’re opening the door a crack. It needs to stay shut.

— jessicashortall (@jessicashortall) June 16, 2017

Cool – I guess enough time has passed since Scalise got shot that we can go back to attacking him as a homophobic bigot. Stay classy, Sulu. https://t.co/Pjkiai4yIN

— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) June 17, 2017

Why do we have to list Philando’s accolades? How come the headlines aren’t, “Steve Scalise, a bigot who is trying to kill you, got shot”?

— Brandi Geography B. (@ItsTheBrandi) June 17, 2017

Josh Barro, an editor at Business Insider, wrote a thread on how the dehumanization of the left’s political opponents is “bad for society.” Dozens of progressives rebuked Barro in the responses, calling him misguided, “insincere,” and “white boy.”

This feels like the wrong week to do an analysis of whether Steve Scalise is a good congressman.

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) June 18, 2017

On the other side of the argument, New Jersey Democratic strategist James Devine urged progressives to “hunt Republican Congressmen.”

Scarborough vs. Reid

On Saturday, MSNBC host Joy Reid called the situation “delicate” because, while “everybody is wishing the congressman well and hoping that he recovers” from an apparent assassination attempt, Reid lamented that “Scalise has a history that we’ve all been forced to sort of ignore on race.”

Joe Scarborough, one of Reid’s colleagues, appeared to attack this segment — without naming his target. CNN anchor Jake Tapper co-signed the condemnation.

Rep. #Scalise was shot by a white man with a violent background, and saved by a black lesbian police officer, and yet… #AMJoy pic.twitter.com/Qm96T90c6Y

— AM Joy w/Joy Reid (@amjoyshow) June 17, 2017

If you are attacking Steve Scalise’s voting record right now, do yourself a favor and just stop now. I can’t even believe what I’m seeing.

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) June 17, 2017

Who would even think for one second that it is appropriate to attack a man who is fighting for his life after an assassination attempt?

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) June 17, 2017

Agreed. Unfathomable. https://t.co/nh4BbDH4OM

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 17, 2017

Pelosi vs. Pelosi

Septuagenarian Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi’s conflicting reactions to the Scalise shooting provided the clearest example of progressive id vs. progressive super-ego.

On the day of the shooting, she said — in direct contradiction to virtually every other statement she has made about President Trump and Republicans — that she prayed for unity in the wake of the attack.

On days like today, there are no Democrats or Republicans, only Americans united in our thoughts for the wounded. https://t.co/HcsiRCcFiP

— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) June 14, 2017

Yet the very next day, in a seemingly unscripted moment, she returned to her default position of partisan blame:

Somewhere in the 1990s, Republicans decided on the politics of personal destruction as they went after the Clintons and that is the provenance of it and is what has continued. Again, I feel as if we’re having a family moment that is very, very serious and we’re talking about things that we can say, the discussion—save the discussion for another day. When you have a president that says, “I can shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and nobody would care,” when you have people saying, “beat them up and I’ll pay their legal fees,” when you have all the assaults that are made on Hillary Clinton, for them to be so sanctimonious is something.

The New Political Landscape

Two parties — Republicans and Democrats — still essentially rule American politics, but their constituencies are becoming more tribal and divided, even against their electoral allies. Trump voters hate Republican lawmakers, such as Sens. John McCain and Ben Sasse, for publicly attacking the president and his agenda during and after the 2016 election. Democrats are still picking up the pieces from a contentious DNC leadership race, where establishment-friendly Obama ally Evan Perez narrowly defeated far-left Rep. Keith Ellison.

These same divisions play out in cultural institutions, such as the social justice warriors purging classical liberal professor Bret Weinstein from the Evergreen State College campus or Fox News’ internal fight over the future of its programming style.

The arguments taking place now are over what are appropriate means to victory over the other side: for the right, whether to be polite or ruthless — and for the left, whether to be ruthless or violent.

Source link

source http://capitalisthq.com/2017-right-splits-over-civil-disobedience-left-splits-over-political-violence/ from CapitalistHQ http://capitalisthq.blogspot.com/2017/06/2017-right-splits-over-civil.html

[everettwilkinson]

2017: Right Splits over Civil Disobedience, Left Splits over Political Violence

This week’s biggest political controversies exposed fault lines within the country’s major political factions, with the right fighting about civil disobedience while the left fought over the attempted murder of a Republican Congressman.

Shakespeare in the Park

On Friday night, two conservatives disrupted a New York performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that escalates the left’s campaign of imagery designed to cathartically depict the death or murder of President Donald Trump. TheRebel.tv’s Laura Loomer was arrested for running onstage during the Shakespeare in the Park production, while activist Jack Posobiec taped her demonstration and shouted at the crowd: “The blood of Steve Scalise is on your hands!”

“Old Right”

Several authors at anti-Trump conservative publications condemned Loomer and Posobiec, arguing that the two infringed on the free speech of Shakespeare in the Park and their tactics were too close to the Occupy of Black Lives Matter movement.

Pro-Trump conservatives labeled this faction the “old right,” stating that there is no moral equivalence between this disruption and the violence of left-wing protesters in dozens of recent incidents.

The old right losers who are upset about what Laura did don’t realize that unlike them, we fight – and that’s why our guy won. #FreeLaura

— Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules) June 17, 2017

Which is appropriate

She broke the law.

To fight an injustice

Just like #RosaParks https://t.co/VubPBkRbuH

— Google “CNN,175,Sue” (@NolteNC) June 17, 2017

They’re literally shooting at us and you want to play Marquis of Queensbury.

Cowardice.

Fight the enemy or fuck you.

— Google “CNN,175,Sue” (@NolteNC) June 17, 2017

Oh yeah, leftist students threatening conservatives with violence is the exact same as a 1 minute interruption of Shakespeare in the Park https://t.co/5oMTc5YIV0

— Scott Greer (@ScottMGreer) June 17, 2017

This is the mentality that has sat, patted itself on the back, and watched for decades as America has gone further and further Left https://t.co/pcEf3YbZ2C

— DanRiehl (@DanRiehl) June 17, 2017

We went to one play and accomplished more for the message than the millions donated to think tanks and handed to K Street. Let that sink in

— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) June 17, 2017

Schlichter vs. Podhoretz

One archetypical exchange in the aftermath of the Julius Caesar demonstration saw Tablet editor and “Never Trump”-er John Podhoretz facing off with lawyer and author Kurt Schlichter.

I’d say I just learned tonight you’re a drooling, immoral, melodramatic idiot, but alas, I learned that long ago. https://t.co/2WuZPvp0Ux

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) June 17, 2017

you want affirmative action for being a moron because you wore our country’s uniform? Happy to oblige.

— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) June 17, 2017

Cernovich vs. Shapiro

Even more heated was the war of words between independent author and White House reporter Mike Cernovich, responding to criticism from former Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large and “Never Trump”-er Ben Shapiro.

This obnoxious stupid snowflake crap is no better than the protesters who try to block college speeches. https://t.co/mDyOL6fO7J

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 17, 2017

He doesn’t matter. None of those guys matter anymore. They don’t break news or make news. Controlled opposition for media to abuse. https://t.co/NXMhrqtt2m

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) June 17, 2017

This is total, complete horse crap. She invaded a public performance to obstruct it. She has no right to the stage. https://t.co/YgcpKQrvPf

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 17, 2017

This is what a coward looks like. #FreeLaura https://t.co/EyiGZnR1a3

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) June 17, 2017

After trading a few intense personal insults, both men reiterated their arguments — but no longer directly to each other.

They took stage for 1 minute.

The left pulls fire alarms, uses pepper spray, hits people with bike locks.

It’s not even close.

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) June 17, 2017

Use free speech in ways that irritate the left. Do not impede other people’s freedom of speech. This is not difficult.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) June 18, 2017

At the same time, the left was infighting over a much more high-stakes topic: targeted political violence.

Steve Scalise

On Wednesday, a 66-year-old Illinois man opened fire on Republican lawmakers practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game, wounding House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and putting him in critical condition through the weekend. The attacker — James Hodgkinson, who was killed by police returning fire — also shot Two Capitol Police officers, a congressional staffer, and a lobbyist. The Daily Caller has reported that investigators found a list of GOP lawmakers’ names on Hodgkinson’s body.

Instead of universal condemnation, Hodgkinson’s attack has brought about a tone-policing feud between the establishment left and the social justice left.

Impulse Control

Over the weekend, several Verified progressives of varying prominence — an L.A. Times blogger, the creator of #OscarsSoWhite, a rapper with 250 YouTube subscribers, an Uproxx editor, and TV actor George Takei — argued that sympathy for Rep. Scalise should not outweigh his sinful acts as a lawmaker. In most cases, more traditional liberals scolded their more radical peers for generating bad optics.

When will it be time to move Scalise’s opposition to gun control from the last graf of a story to the first? https://t.co/D3ZkHjFr2w

— Michael Hiltzik (@hiltzikm) June 18, 2017

You can despise Scalise’s politics and also despise the fact someone thought gun violence would somehow change his or anyone’s mind.

— John Haltiwanger (@jchaltiwanger) June 16, 2017

Wounded Congressman Scalise, who the GOP are so sad about, voted TWICE to not recognize the #MLK holiday. https://t.co/LKhFbJtIn9

— Iskandrah (@iskandrah) June 18, 2017

I ask you simply to look at Rep. Scalise’s record. Do you have sympathy for other white supremacists?

— Iskandrah (@iskandrah) June 15, 2017

Was Scalise a “human” when he voted against Marriage Equality and spoke at a white supremacy function? Or do only Dems need to be “human?” https://t.co/5lzMbfnKk0

— April (@ReignOfApril) June 16, 2017

and don’t tell me the man has a family and allat shit, because so do folk with their premiums traveling on a rocket to Mars

— SUPER SIZE (@GrandeMarshall) June 14, 2017

Made the mistake of looking up Steve Scalise voting record on women and LGBT rights. Time to break out Milkshake Duck.

— Donna Dickens (@MildlyAmused) June 14, 2017

I don’t have any tolerance for caveats on condemning political violence right now. You’re opening the door a crack. It needs to stay shut.

— jessicashortall (@jessicashortall) June 16, 2017

Cool – I guess enough time has passed since Scalise got shot that we can go back to attacking him as a homophobic bigot. Stay classy, Sulu. https://t.co/Pjkiai4yIN

— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) June 17, 2017

Why do we have to list Philando’s accolades? How come the headlines aren’t, “Steve Scalise, a bigot who is trying to kill you, got shot”?

— Brandi Geography B. (@ItsTheBrandi) June 17, 2017

Josh Barro, an editor at Business Insider, wrote a thread on how the dehumanization of the left’s political opponents is “bad for society.” Dozens of progressives rebuked Barro in the responses, calling him misguided, “insincere,” and “white boy.”

This feels like the wrong week to do an analysis of whether Steve Scalise is a good congressman.

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) June 18, 2017

On the other side of the argument, New Jersey Democratic strategist James Devine urged progressives to “hunt Republican Congressmen.”

Scarborough vs. Reid

On Saturday, MSNBC host Joy Reid called the situation “delicate” because, while “everybody is wishing the congressman well and hoping that he recovers” from an apparent assassination attempt, Reid lamented that “Scalise has a history that we’ve all been forced to sort of ignore on race.”

Joe Scarborough, one of Reid’s colleagues, appeared to attack this segment — without naming his target. CNN anchor Jake Tapper co-signed the condemnation.

Rep. #Scalise was shot by a white man with a violent background, and saved by a black lesbian police officer, and yet… #AMJoy pic.twitter.com/Qm96T90c6Y

— AM Joy w/Joy Reid (@amjoyshow) June 17, 2017

If you are attacking Steve Scalise’s voting record right now, do yourself a favor and just stop now. I can’t even believe what I’m seeing.

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) June 17, 2017

Who would even think for one second that it is appropriate to attack a man who is fighting for his life after an assassination attempt?

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) June 17, 2017

Agreed. Unfathomable. https://t.co/nh4BbDH4OM

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 17, 2017

Pelosi vs. Pelosi

Septuagenarian Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi’s conflicting reactions to the Scalise shooting provided the clearest example of progressive id vs. progressive super-ego.

On the day of the shooting, she said — in direct contradiction to virtually every other statement she has made about President Trump and Republicans — that she prayed for unity in the wake of the attack.

On days like today, there are no Democrats or Republicans, only Americans united in our thoughts for the wounded. https://t.co/HcsiRCcFiP

— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) June 14, 2017

Yet the very next day, in a seemingly unscripted moment, she returned to her default position of partisan blame:

Somewhere in the 1990s, Republicans decided on the politics of personal destruction as they went after the Clintons and that is the provenance of it and is what has continued. Again, I feel as if we’re having a family moment that is very, very serious and we’re talking about things that we can say, the discussion—save the discussion for another day. When you have a president that says, “I can shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and nobody would care,” when you have people saying, “beat them up and I’ll pay their legal fees,” when you have all the assaults that are made on Hillary Clinton, for them to be so sanctimonious is something.

The New Political Landscape

Two parties — Republicans and Democrats — still essentially rule American politics, but their constituencies are becoming more tribal and divided, even against their electoral allies. Trump voters hate Republican lawmakers, such as Sens. John McCain and Ben Sasse, for publicly attacking the president and his agenda during and after the 2016 election. Democrats are still picking up the pieces from a contentious DNC leadership race, where establishment-friendly Obama ally Evan Perez narrowly defeated far-left Rep. Keith Ellison.

These same divisions play out in cultural institutions, such as the social justice warriors purging classical liberal professor Bret Weinstein from the Evergreen State College campus or Fox News’ internal fight over the future of its programming style.

The arguments taking place now are over what are appropriate means to victory over the other side: for the right, whether to be polite or ruthless — and for the left, whether to be ruthless or violent.

Source link

from CapitalistHQ.com http://capitalisthq.com/2017-right-splits-over-civil-disobedience-left-splits-over-political-violence/