#Where's that post about pm being the most fucked up family ever

[kyouka-supremacy]

Found a strong contender for funniest bsd official art

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 1/3/2023

VERY pleasing to me that the year starts and ends on a Sunday

mack doesn't know what a calendar is

listening

first song of the year: doja cat's say so (snakehips remix). just a pretty little soap bubble of a song. this is not to say it's insubstantial, bc i do think that doja cat is one of the harder hitters when it comes to production values, just that it's about a soft, ephemeral moment. in an interview i cannot locate she once said "if my songs make you get up and dance i've done my job" and this is very much a staple on my dishwashing playlist

i've stolen lyrics for a fic (no punches left to roll with) and plan to continue mining this song for fic and chapter titles. stay tuned

-

reading

hat tip to @blysse-and-blunder for reblogging a post about a buckwild academic plagiarism case. here's a short version, here's the long play by play with a bonkers twist in i think part 4.

unrelated: if RetractionWatch ever got real funding and wasn't constantly creaking along on a literal shoestring budget, they're in the top five of orgs i would like to work for. this would require me to be actually connected and qualified tho

-

watching

kicked off the sixth year of starting a new-to-me black and white movie at about ten forty/eleven PM on new year's eve, so i come into the new year watching something good. very important: it has to be a movie i have not seen but i already know i will love. previous years have been: sunset boulevard, yojimbo, the thin man, it happened one night, and bringing up baby. i am predisposed to noir and screwball comedies, but it is very funny that yojimbo kicked off the Cowboy Year and i simply have never looked back. i am reluctant to watch a cowboy movie as the first movie of the year bc they are so wildly varying in quality and i find most black-and-white american westerns afflicted with the hays code. do pre-code westerns exist? yeah. do i want to watch them? no.

this year was The Big Sleep (1946, Hawks), one of The film noirs. films noir?

can we bring back inexplicable nightclub scene where the female lead is singing something or performing a dance routine for funsies

more importantly, must a murder mystery be "good" or "comprehensible" or "a successful adaptation of the original novel's core plot"? is it not enough to see two tops, bogart and bacall, flirt at each other for the entire runtime?

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playing

pokémon. we'll see if my opinion changes, bc i have some scheduled medical funtimes over the weekend where i will be lying around and waiting a lot, but i currently don't feel like grinding enough to beat the final boss. got all the way down into the crater! met the final boss! can't be bothered otherwise and i have the bad habit of stopping a game the instant it stops being fun, which is why i have never seen the fallout endgame bc after i unlock all the settlements and decorate them i'm like well! job's done, game's over.

i further can't be bothered to get screenshots off my switch at this moment so look at dragalge who i am really vibing with lately. very shaped. poison/dragon/water moves all in one creature is very helpful

-

making

password manager: i am changing every fucking password i have bc of the lastpass breach :) bitwarden has slightly fewer quality of life features but the free tier more than supports my needs. neither of my siblings uses a password manager aside from the built in chrome and apple ones (upside down smiley face emoji) so we'll save that battle and that family plan purchase for another day.

planner talk: i am outsourcing a greater portion of my brain to the planner as the post-covid fog continues and at this point i honestly think i would rather someone have unfettered access to my journal than unfettered access to my planner. the planner is where most of the living happens. (pro tip: preload birthdays into that thing and then write a reminder a month out to actually find and send off a birthday gift/card/what have you. this makes me feel extremely put together, but there not very many people i actually buy gifts for)

thoughtful gift talk: a related pro tip, if you find whimsical but slightly generic objets d’art at thrift stores and cannot quite justify them for yourself, try throwing them in a big box for those gifts you have previously written yourself reminders about. love a trinket box or a container of some sort to put a slightly more personalized gift in. eg these rabbit glass...lidded trinket dishes? idk they have a proper name but they're rabbit versions of the milk glass hen-on-nest dishes that used to be really popular during the depression. pen and cat for scale

these will probably go off to my sister for her birthday, holding some monogrammed earrings and a cat toy for her cat fern.

i suppose the "generic box of cool stuff but not so cool that you will mourn its loss" could also work for hostess or housewarming gifts if that is a situation that frequently happens to you. i feel a little bit like im showing my hand by sharing these aging tumblr population tips bc i had to derive them all from first principles but there is no need for YOU, gentle reader, to reinvent the wheel along with me.

[thegreatjoshb]

Llama Trauma

I haven't *written* a post in a long time. It feels like not since probably undergrad. But I have recently come to realize that my childhood was exquisitely traumatic, and it has left me a shell of a man who does not know how to navigate the world in an emotionally appropriate way.

My mother is the main reason for my trauma, repeatedly choosing another man over me and my siblings, never having a real conversation about our feelings (because she was likely traumatized herself and just... couldn't), and then topping it off by dying on my little brother's birthday. At like 11 pm. She couldn't even wait 1 hour to die, so add that to the list.

Anyway, my little brother and older sister were having a conversation the day before mother's day, and my sister was finally told about *some* of the horrible events that we went through in middle school and high school. My sister is 9 years older than me, and she moved out when she was 18 years old. She probably got the best parts of our mother for the longest time, but our mom fucked my sister up with her own special trauma.

My sister just apologized to me profusely for not being there, for not even knowing what happened to us. She wished she could have saved me and my brothers, but she couldn't have been there because she was going through her own life shit at the same time, and quite frankly, I was too embarrassed to tell anybody about what was actually happening in my life. I really didn't want ANYBODY to know - not my friends at school, not my sister, not my father, not even a random stranger [I didn't want the pity] - so I mostly kept it to myself. I repressed my emotional needs and became so self-sufficient because nobody else was meeting my needs, and it got to the point where even now, as a 32 year old man, the thought of asking anybody for help doesn't even cross my mind because I always feel like I am alone and there is nobody to help me.

My district manager at work has told me so many times to call him and let him know what I need help with and to contact him if I ever feel stressed. To this day, I have had a great working relationship with him, and the ONLY time I have ever called him was when my mother died. So long story short, I always feel like my childhood self who was left alone to fight and solve all his battles. Battles I never could have won, so instead of fighting, I learned to retreat.

I learned to retreat deep into my head. There is a special place where I go to not feel, and I go so far back. My eyes feel like they look at nothing. I have perfect vision, but I don't see anything. I literally cannot tell you how I am feeling in any given moment. Right now, I feel nothing. I am so disconnected with my emotions that I don't realize how much things affect me until well after the fact. My emotions are latent and powerful, but completely unknown to me.

So, now that we have gotten the background out of the way, here is a story - one of many - I told my sister that night. She laughed so hard when I told her this story, which is honestly the most common response to what I am about to type. She told her husband, who said I should sell the story to a comedian (despite the lack of any actual humor in the story). I have never formally written out this story as far as I can remember, but every time I verbalize it to someone, they literally crack up. It is a truly tragic story, but I also believe that it is so shocking to some people that they don't know how to respond. If anybody reads this entire post, please let me know how it comes across in typed format. Here goes nothing.

BUCKALICIOUS: LORD OF THE LAND

At the end of my 8th grade year, my family was evicted from the 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house we were renting. There were 6 people living in the house - 7 if you included my mother, but I don't because she spent most of her time with her boyfriend. Let's call him George.

Of those 7, my mother and I ended up living at George's double wide mobile home on his 2.5 acres of land. It was honestly not to shabby, and one of the teeny tiny parts of living there was being able to be around so many animals.

You see, George had enough land to home some unconventional animals. He had 2 dogs - Saige - a great dane, who became my dog, my soul, and my entire reason to exist. Stone - a doofy by lovable bull mastiff. Cheech and Chong - two goats that lived on a part of the land that was sectioned off by a fence. And last but not least, Buckalicous: lord of the Land (AKA Buck).

Now Buck was a black llama with an incredible underbite that was a "breeder" llama at Busch Gardens. At 10 or 11 years old, he was no longer useful for breeding, but it is not like he was dead yet. Llamas have like a 15 year life span. George knew the guy at Busch Gardens and convinced him to sell Buck to him for $100, saying he had land for the llama to roam on and a barn to house him if the weather was bad (all true).

So Buck came home with George.

Now I remember meeting Buck in December, just a few months before I was forced to move in with George due to the eviction. I met Buck because my mother came home one day with a black eye. She had to explain that, no, it wasn't the new guy she was dating [He would beat her up later, he just didn't hit her in *this* instance]. It just so happened she got hit in the face because she got too close to a LLAMA! WHAT??! Why the fuck was my mom anywhere near a llama? How can I meet this llama that hurt my mom so?

Well, she took me to George's place that winter and introduced me to the llama. His name was Buckalicious: Lord of the Land. Buck for short. He was on the opposite side of a fence, and we had to approach slowly because he was a little skittish. My mother showed me where the Sweetfeed was. She scooped some out using an old Folger's container, and she let Buck approach to eat the food. That llama LOVED his sweet feed. She handed me the container, and I let the llama eat. It was honestly magical. Buck's underbite made him look less intelligent than he was, but he was honestly such a great animal.

Fast forward to the summer, where I am now living with my mother and George on his 2.5 acres of land in his double wide mobile home. My brother was not living with us because he got in trouble in school and had to live with my father in the neighboring city to go to a special correctional school. So it was just me, my mom, George, and the animals (Saige, Stone, Cheech, Chong, and Buck).

Now in the Florida summer's, you can imagine it to be excruciatingly hot, especially to a large llama (probably 350 lbs +) covered in BLACK fur. And it WAS HOT! It was a horribly hot summer. I remember because my mother didn't have a job, and we couldn't afford cable that summer, and George was working odd jobs. I spent a lot of time outside. That is when I became so close to the animals, particularly Saige, because I literally had nothing better to do than to go outside and run around the land by myself. We were in the middle of nowhere a mile down a dirt road. There weren't any children my age to hang out with, I had no television or video games, and my brother no longer lived with me. I was trying to make the best out of a rough situation.

The one and only nice thing I will ever say about George is that one time, and one time only in my opinion, he came up with a good idea and made it work. The land was divided pretty equally, animals and barn on one half, the people and the double wide mobile with a nearby, discounted and disgusting koi pond on the other. And instead of walking out to the llama and goats and bringing them clean water every day, George rigged up a bathtub to always have clean water fill to a certain height, thus allowing the animals to always have something to drink. You know how a toilet tank fills up to a certain level without overflowing? Same concept. Except outside and in a bathtub instead of a toilet.

In the cooler months, it was awesome because nobody had to worry or stress about watering the llama. It was just always taken care of. But when the temperature started to rise, we noticed Buck doing something strange. Buck was STANDING shin-deep inside the bathtub! Not drinking, just standing. We believe it was to help him cool down during the hot summer months. And it was just something that Buck now did regularly.

So in this particular summer, I would mow that lawn weekly. It was a lot of land, but George had a riding mower, and it gave this 14 year old something to do for a bit. But then the lawnmower broke, and we couldn't afford to fix it. And the grass grew. and grew. And it wasn't great.

Eventually, George had the bright idea to open the fence and let the goats out onto the people side. Maybe they would eat the grass? It was worth a shot? IDK. Maybe not after all.

Now the fence was open there was no land separation. The animal side was the people side and the people side was the animal side. By this point in my relationship with Buck, I had spent a lot of time feeding him sweet feed from the coffee container. It was a daily ritual for us. And Buck warmed up to me slowly. He would, as long as the fence was still between us, eat the sweet feed out of my palm. I was terrified at first trying this because I knew he had the potential to freak out and give me a black eye like he did my mother, or possibly worse. But he never did.

When George opened the fence in the hopes that the goats and llama would eat the too-tall grass, it changed the relationship dynamic. Now during the day, I would get as close to the llama as I could without him freaking out. The goats never scared me because they were always chill, and I could grab them by their horns and control them if I needed to. I could not get too close to Buck, though, because Buck just wouldn't let me. It got to the point where I would grab a handful of sweet feed to lure Buck my way, and eventually, he would walk right up to me and eat the food directly out of my hand! How freaking exciting. He used his powerful underbite as a shovel to scoop the food from my hand into his mouth. It was cute.

But it wouldn't last long. I was able to get close to Buck only a few times. He wouldn't always be calm and cool, and sometimes he would sprint away. When he started running, Saige, the great dane, sprung into action and chased after the llama. She did not do so because she wanted to chase the llama, but Saige saw the llama's erratic movements as a danger to me. Saige loved me so much that she would chase a llama that was 3 times her size to protect *ME*. I fucking loved Saige.

One day, George found an odd job to do and left to go do it. My mother and I were hungry in the afternoon, but we didn't have anything in the house to eat. So we left the house and bought like $3 worth of Totinos pizza at the nearby Walmart. We came home, heated the pizzas in the oven, and then we just enjoyed the pizzas. The last time I will ever "enjoy" a totinos pizza.

As we are eating, George bursts into the house screaming:

DID ANYONE NOTICE THE DEAD FUCKING LLAMA OUTSIDE???!!!

huh? wut?

Dead? Llama? What is he talking about? We were literally just outside not 15 minutes before bringing in our pizza haul. And no. Both my mother and I, in fact, did not notice the dead fucking llama outside.

Well, because we opened up the fence and let the goats and llama onto our side, they were farther away from their tub-water than they normally were. But Buck noticed nasty, koi-less koi pond in front of the house. And to an animal that is used to standing shin high in a tub of water to keep cool, this looked like a fun little option.

However, it was not fun. Buck slipped on the algae that lined the koi-pond and hit his head. Buck was just trying to keep cool, and he ended up drowning in the koi pond.

FUCK!

He was dead, and there was nothing we could do to bring him back. But we also could not just leave him there in the koi pond! Something had to be done, and the dogs ensured that it must be done immediately. Before we could even compose ourselves to come up with an action plan to deal with the llama carcas, Stone, our doofy bull mastiff has already started eating the llama's face.

We had to pull Stone away from the llama, and tie him and Saige up to a tree to prevent them from gormandizing on this llama feast. If it wasn't already a heartbreaking situation, seeing those dogs tied up and trying to get to the llama made it worse.

There was no plan. There was only chaos. We had to do something, and we had to do it RIGHT NOW. George grabbed some rope and tied it around Buck's body, then he tied the rope to the back of his truck. George turned on the truck and tried dragging Buck's body out of the foul water. It was not a smooth or easy process. The only thing I can think of that is heavier than a llama... is a soaking wet, dead llama.

Eventually, George was able to drag Buck's body out of the koi pond, and he drove the truck across his land. He drove it deep into the 2.5 acres he owned, and he dragged the body to a nice woody spot.

Now we both have to start digging the llama grave. That was the day I learned how hard it is to dig a grave. Not emotionally, though that did take its toll, but just how physically hard it was to shovel the dirt out, even with two able bodied men splitting the work. The sun was setting, and light was fading fast. So we had to be quick.

George was finally satisfied with the size of the grave, and we had to shove the llama into the hole. One, Two, PUSH! One, Two, PUSH. The llama fell into the grave, and we covered it back up with dirt.

I grabbed two sticks and used some of the rope that we dragged the llama body with to make a Cross, and I used that cross as the marker for Buck's grave.

It has been almost 18 years since we lost Buck to this tragedy. George eventually lost his land due to not paying for it, so I currently don't know who lives there. Or if they will ever find Buck's grave.

It was one of those things you just cannot be prepared for. In hindsight, there are so many things that I would have done differently. Clean out the koi-pond. Mow the law by hand. Or just not let the animals on the other side of the fence.

Buck was an awesome animal who deserved better, and I will never again look at a Totino's pizza without thinking of a dead llama.

[teacupsandcyanide]

I WISH I could say I was one of the OG goncharov girlies who watched it in their family living room at nine pm on a Friday night because their dad couldn’t be bothered making them go to bed after watershed hour. I wish I could at least say I was one of the film studies girlies who were forced to watch it for a uni course and saw the face of lesbian god in the most unlikely of places

Not me ! I found out about Goncharov a year or so ago when the shoe post was first circulating. But not even directly. I found out via my flatmate, who saw the shoe post, and like so many others went down a Google rabbithole to work out what the fuck was this Scorsese film they’d never heard of. They told me about it and said they wanted to watch it and I was like “yeah !! Sure!!” Great, right? Still a decent way to find out about Goncharov, yes?

No!! Because my flatmate and I have a long-established habit of watching Bad movies/television. And during the fortnight or so that they were talking about watching Goncharov, they were also talking about The Room. As in The Room, universally panned infamous Bad film 2003 directed by Tommy Wiseau.

Necessary context so people don’t mock me for making up “obviously fake” stories, I have adhd. I forget things. I get things Twisted(TM). I find it hard to keep information in my little brain and sometimes I think I’m listening when people talk to me and then it turns out I was really really not. Numbers in particular fuck me up. So when me and my flatmate were talking about Goncharov 1973, and The Room 2003, and I only knew snatches of information about either of them, like that there was a love triangle, people being held at gunpoint over drugs, a violent tragic ending centred on the death of the protagonist, and a scene where people fuck on some stairs

I - and I STILL argue, UNDERSTANDABLY, in light of all context - thought the two films were one film called The Room, directed by Goncharov, often referred to as Goncharov for ?? some reason (I remember just taking Jack’s lead on that one. I was like what do I know. Jack knows way more about films than me. If the film bros alternate between calling The Room “The Room” and the name of the director I’m not gonna make an idiot of myself asking why). And I hate spoilers regardless of whether the film is good or Bad so I did not bother to watch or Google anything that my flatmate didn’t tell me or I didn’t already know by cultural osmosis. When Jack was like “you ready to watch Goncharov on Saturday” I was like “hell YEAH I am haha let’s DO it”

Can you imagine. ??? Have you seen Goncharov 1973, dear reader? I assume you have. But have you also seen The Room 2003 directed by Tommy Wiseau?? Have you ever sat down in your living room with your flatmate, thinking you’re about to watch a bad silly film called The Room, and saying “ngl I might go on my phone during the stair sex scene”, and had your flatmate reply “yeah I’ve heard people call it kind of psychological horror, with the pseudo-incest allegory and everything” and thought to yourself “damn Goncharov is darker than I thought” BEARING IN MIND THAT YOU THINK GONCHAROV IS THE ROOM 2003 DIR. GONCHAROV

I sat through that bleak, slow pan montage of barren Sicilian orange groves thinking “huh. Maybe it’s like, arty and bad”. I laughed at the double child homicide and Jack gave me a weird look. I got through the warehouse raid and the whiplash cut to Andrey’s silent house with a growing sense of confusion and unease because this seemed less and less like a Bad film and more and more like the kind of thing film bros would die on the cross for. The first scene where they actually call Goncharov by his name is nearly twenty minutes into the film. and it was only then that I’d gathered enough information to say anything, and you know what I fucking said

“This isn’t Goncharov, is it? Like we’re not watching Goncharov”

Obviously this made Jack look at me like I was emotionally deranged and stop the film and we had a conversation that devolved into an argument about how reasonable it is for a person to talk about two films and conflate them into one film, then watch nearly half an hour of one of them without being sure that anything is amiss. To this day I argue that it was wild but not unreasonable of me and that Jack is being ableist by not understanding that I have special boy disorder that makes me confuse obscure Scorsese films with the worst films of all time. Jack believes, in a loud and hurtful fashion, that I’m criminally insane.

And there the matter has rested, but for the moments when I do something particularly manic pixie dream girl and Jack, fuming, is like “this is just like the time you thought goncharov and the room were the same film”

[ramp-it-up]

It Takes Two

Pairing: Soft Dark!Chris Evans x Reader

Warnings:  18+, Minors DNI. Curate your own experience. Cursing, drinking, cheating, breakups, rehab, recovery, deception, lies, celibacy, manipulation, wedding planning, semi-public explicit, rough, sex, oral sex (m receiving), degradation kink, breeding kink, choking, dubiuous con (b/c of deception). Darkish! Scott Evans. This is not proofread!

A/N: @lovebittenbyevans gave me a great idea about still dealing with Chris when commenting on The One.  I thought that the Chris in that fic could really go left and get pretty Dark and dirty. And then.... 

Anonymous asked:

Imagine Chris cheating on Y/N …

That made me think up this fic. It is a sequel to The One. I hope you like it!

-----

You left him.

You flew to Montreal to surprise him on set, trench coat and lingerie and everything, and when you opened the door to his trailer, you saw Heidi on her knees giving Chris a blowjob.

You cussed him out, threw the ring back in his face and turned around and left. 

You blocked his number, moved out of his house and cut off all contact.  You were done.

The audacity of Chris being indignant about your warnings about Heidi when he was boning her all along.

You loved Scott, but you had to cut him off too after he tried to explain that Chris was drunk when you found him, and was going to rehab to deal with his issues. 

 It was classic celebrity bullshit and you didn’t have time for it.

You decided to center yourself, and swear off all relationships and sex. You wanted to purge your mind of all that weighed you down. 

You concluded that love, sex, and Chris Evans made you feel heavy as fuck. 

You moved to New York City. It was far enough away from Chris and your folks in Houston to give you some peace. 

You could still run your business and even think about a storefront.  It was the perfect location to live your best life, eat healthy, exercise, socialize and network. 

You fell in love with yourself, and you didn’t think much about Christopher Robert Evans at all.

Only every time you went on IG or Twitter, even though you blocked him and his hashtags.  And every time you went to Target, because his fucking movies and merchandise were everywhere. 

But you were cool, because you were doing you. You weren’t looking for love.

Of course, that’s when it found you.

Six months after you left Boston, you were at a natural beauty products expo in Brooklyn hawking your wares.  

Your business had taken off, with almost a half million dollars in sales, and you were being interviewed by a major news outlet of color when one of the correspondents caught your eye. 

You flirted, exchanged numbers and ended up going on a date. In another three months you were engaged to him.  

Kevin Watts made you feel safe, protected and loved. And he wasn’t just after sex. He was well off, and secure in himself and you.  It just felt right. 

When Kevin proposed, it was just you and him at your favorite restaurant. So romantic. 

Not like the rowdy family 4th of July party at which Chris asked you to marry him last year, in front of both your parents.

The laughter and the joy was just a little much. 

This was perfect. You didn’t miss Chris at all. You set about planning your wedding with a profound sense of peace and safety.  

You and Kevin were meant to be.

----

Chris was nothing without you.

Nothing but an award winning actor and producer, a multi-millionaire and founder of a major organization dedicated to bringing opposing political viewpoints together. 

All of that was cool, and it kept him going, but when he lost you, he lost his motivation.

Chris didn’t take any more roles after the sequel with Heidi, and he dumped her post haste. He did enter rehab and realized that he depended way too much on alcohol to dull his emotions. 

He got drunk off his ass when he was away from you because he missed you so much, and that led to him letting Heidi think that she could have him.

She’d had him physically, but never his heart. Or his mind. You owned those.

Chris followed your business closely, and was proud of your success. 

Of course he followed your social media on burner accounts and saw that you were doing well. 

You looked like you enjoyed being single and seemed healthy and happy.

He couldn’t ask for anything more for you.

Except to be his again. 

Chris was just biding his time for your reunion, deciding to give you a year before he made his move. 

Now he felt every emotion, and he knew that you must still love him too.

You just needed to realize that your life would be even better with him back in it.

The year apart would be just punishment for what he’d done to you, and when you came back together, it would be better than before.

Everyone speculated on his bachelorhood, wondering if he would settle down, speculating and gossiping about who he was with, but he just played coy and kept quiet.

No one would know that he was yours and yours alone, and that you were still his.  

You just didn’t know it.

But you weren’t going along with the plan that you didn’t know about. 

About seven months into his self-imposed purgatory, a complication started popping up on Chris’s feed. 

Kevin. 

And a couple of months after that, a post of a proposal, in a restaurant.

The asshole probably didn’t even ask or involve your folks.  Chris was in a rage for a week. 

He almost started drinking again, but as he got ready to drive to the liquor store, Kevin’s face flashed on his screen doing a report on the election.

Instead of making him even more angry, he smiled, elated at the thought that came to him.

Chris had a new plan, and it was going to be even better than before.

-----

The last three months had been a whirlwind, and you never thought it would turn out this way.  

You were planning your wedding with your mother, discussing the seating at the reception, and you deciding where Chris Evans and his date would sit.

What a time to be alive.

Your mother only let it slip a couple of times that you should be marrying Chris, but for the most part, she kept it cute.

You explained to her that everything was squashed between you and Chris, and that he and Kevin had a great relationship, were friends, even.  

They’d bonded over politics when Kevin interviewed him, and became buds before Chris even realized that you and he were together.

Kevin knew, but he wasn’t the jealous type, and he didn’t want to make things awkward. Surprisingly, Kevin insisted that he be at the wedding. 

You thought about it and decided it would be the ultimate closure for Chris to watch you marry someone else. 

You were pleasantly surprised at Chris. He was handling this very well. He never tried to contact you, and according to Kevin, never even mentioned you. That was growth. 

Maybe you too could be friends. 

You felt good about it. So much so that you unblocked him and started a dialogue.

-----

Hi.

Chris saw your number come across his apple watch and he practically did a dance. It was 9:24 pm.  He picked up his phone and stared at the word, forcing himself to wait and not respond.  He went to work out.

47 minutes later, he responded.

Hello?

This time, he sat and waited for your response, which came 7 minutes later. 

I just wanted to say, I appreciate the way you're handling this.

Chris bit his lip, imagining you sitting there, thinking of what to say and staring down at your phone.

I’m sorry, I don't know who this is. You may have reached a wrong number?

He grinned at the play. 

----- 

Your heart dropped. Did he no longer have your contact?  

Why would he do that?

You don’t know why you felt some kinda way; you’d blocked him. 

Maybe he had changed his number and this was no longer his. Your heart was beating fast when you texted back.

Is this Chris?  This is Y/N.  I was just texting about Kevin Watts.

You anxiously watched the thought bubbles on imessage.

----

Even though you’d texted back almost immediately, Chris kept you hanging for just a couple of minutes. His dick was hard at the thought of communicating with you. 

Fuck, you were such an aphrodesiac.

Oh shit! Y/N I’m sorry.  I got a new phone.. You know how it is…

He knew you wouldn’t believe that. That’s why he said it.

You just stared at the phone. That was bullshit. You can easily port your contacts into a new phone.  You just never believed that Chris would really move on.  And you didn’t know why. 

You had.

You took a deep breath and continued.

Lol, No worries!  Just wanna say thank you for being cool with my Boo. I’m gonna turn in now. Check you later.

You tried to keep it light.

Chris ignored the ‘my Boo’ comment and focused on the thought of you in bed. 

You usually slept in a tank top or t-shirt and panties, and the top would invariably come off because you got hot. 

And then things would invariably get hotter if he was in bed with you….

Cool! Sweet dreams. Check you later. 😉

Chris made sure to exit your message thread and come back so that you wouldn’t see the thought bubbles that he saw when you kept staring at the text.

You  were lost in the times that Chris always used to say that to you, and when he whispered “Sweet Dreams” in your ear when he was far away, you always had wet dreams about him. 

And that wink. 

How could a fucking yellow emoji turn you the fuck on?

You reached for your bullet vibrator as you continued to stare at the interaction.

Chis had already started stroking himself when you told him you were going to bed. 

Knowing that you were thinking exactly what he wanted you to got him close, and he didn’t even have to pull up your old videos to get off. 

Not tonight.

-----

Over the next few weeks. you’d texted a few times, Chris ‘made amends’ and you accepted his apology. 

Then, you started texting more regularly, mainly joking around about sports, your Celtics/Rockets rivalry ever raging. 

From your perspective, Chris was always appropriate and respected your relationship with Kevin.  You were glad because you’d missed your friendship with him.

You felt giddy that your life was working out so well, and you traveled to your weekend getaway in the mountains for your bridal shower with a light heart.

Chris attended Kevin’s bachelor festivities with only a week to go until the wedding.

——

From Chris’s perspective, things were working out better than he’d hoped. 

Scoring an invite to the wedding was more than he’d imagined, and Kevin inviting him out to his Bachelor party was just icing on the cake.  

Maybe he could make Kevin slip up enough so that you would dump him before the wedding. Chris was hopeful.

If not, Plan B was the nuclear option. 

-------

Kevin was following the stripper’s ass like a puppy. He was lit on booze and pills (that Chris provided) and his guard was down.

Kevin considered Chris a friend. 

Chris just wanted to keep Kevin close because he was the enemy.

They were talking about you.

“She’s so fucking innocent. A sweeter angel there never was. I’ll have to teach her how to fuck.”

Chris almost choked on his water.

“I'm sorry. What now?”

Kevin just barreled on, ignoring the question.

“That's how I know I need to wife her.” He was talking to Chris, but still staring at the stripper.

“She would never chase the D. Hell, she won’t even touch mine. You know, her being celibate and all.”

Chris raised his eyebrow and smiled, which Kevin never noticed. Chris shook his head at your antics.  His little beautiful love.

“That’s why I was never pressed that you are her ex. I mean, I’m impressed you were with her as long as you were.”  

Chris just smiled and nodded, curious as to where this was leading.

“A man like you don’t have to put up with that. You must have punani lined up for days, bro.”

Chris’s heart lept. This dullard did not have access to your pussy. HIS pussy.  Never has.

Chris could fuck a lot of people a million ways from Sunday with one text. Except for you. And you were all that mattered. 

“I don’t know about all that.” Chris put on his best, ‘aw shucks’ act.

Chris was over the moon. You were still his. In every way.

Kevin kept tipping the stripper and was trying to call her over. He asked her about a private lap dance.  Chris’s eyes lit up. This asshole was making it too easy.

The stripper nodded and went back to finish up her set.  Chris walked over to the bar.

“Aye!” Chris summoned tha bartender over. 

“What can I get you, Sir.” 

“I don’t need a drink.  I wanna take care of my friend over there. He’s gonna have a lap dance with Star. It’s his bachelor party.  I need it to be extra special.”  

Chris started peeling off hundreds so the barkeep could see. 

“And I need him to have some keepsakes, so he’ll remember it always.” 

More hundreds came off. The bartender’s eyes got bigger and bigger. “That’s no problem.”

Chris flashed his famous smile.  

“Great, let me tell you where to send them. Wanna make them a wedding present.” He wrote down an address on a napkin. 

He was now on Plan C. And it was perfect.

------

A week later and the rehearsal at the church was more fun than you thought it would be.  You weren’t allowed to participate, just watch, as the result of an old wives tale.

The church secretary found you in the pews. She handed you a manila envelope.

“This was mailed here yesterday, probably an invoice of something for the wedding, I put it aside for you, sweetie.”

You smiled back at her and tucked it into your purse, not wanting to distract yourself with more wedding bills. 

Later, when you and Kevin were in the back of the car to the restaurant for the Rehearsal Dinner, you pulled it out and opened it. You couldn’t believe your eyes.

“What the ENTIRE FUCK KEVIN!”  

You threw the pictures of him fucking a stripper in his face, startling him out of staring at his phone.

He picked one up, his mouth dropped open and started talking. 

“Look, Baby, Baby! I can explain!...”

“DO NOT FUCKING LIE TO ME KEVIN!  WE HAVE OVER 300 PEOPLE HERE FOR OUR WEDDING TOMORROW MORNING.” 

Kevin was on his knees in the back of the suburban. 

“Listen to me.. Listen.  I’m a man. I have needs…”

“Kevin, I swear to god….”

“Okay, okay… I admit it…”

You listened to him and your heart went silent.  You couldn’t even absorb what he said.

When you pulled up to the restaurant, you straightened your dress and looked at him coolly.

“I am NOT going to deal with this tonight. Tonight was supposed to be a fun celebration of our wedding. I will decide later if it's still going to happen.”

Kevin was terrified.

“Right now, you and I will go into this place, greet our friends arm in arm and pretend that you are not a fucking narcissitic asshole who just ripped my heart to shreds. Got it?”

“Yes, but I-”

“Do NOT speak to me unless I speak to you first. Or it's automatically off.”

Kevin just nodded and cleared his throat.

You raised your chin and said, “Let’s go.”

-----

Two hours later, dinner was over, and you were lit on your way to TURNT.

Chris observed you, from the moment you entered holding hands with Kevin to the second you dropped his hand in disgust, to the way you held yourself away from him at dinner, but then put on a sweet face when everyone spoke, to Kevin, who was an absolute mess.

He figured you got the pictures. He suppressed the glee that was coursing through him.

But he couldn’t figure out why you were still going on with the charade.

Chris didn’t make a beeline for you like he wanted to, he just let the natural flow of the party lead you to him.  He was talking to your cousin when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around.

“Hey you.”  

You cocked your head at him in that way and looked up at him, your smile brightening your face.  Damn, he had to plant his feet. You smiling at him like that made him feel faint.

You both heard your cousin say something, but you didn’t pay attention, caught up in your own orbit.

“Hey.”  

Chris crossed his arms, and you swore that he was recalling the time when you told him your forearms made you horny. Fuck. Chris made you wet and you were fresh out of fucks tonight.

“So, I can’t have a hug?”  

Chris shook his head at your line and opened his arms to embrace you, keeping a respectable pressure and distance until you hugged him tight and pressed close.  

He couldn’t help but pick you up, but he put you down immediately, cleared his throat and backed up, looking uncomfortable.

That wouldn’t do. You wanted more of his scent, his warmth, his HIM. You pouted unconsciously in your buzzed state.

Chris’s cock stirred.  That fucking mouth had haunted his dreams for almost a year. He was pleased that you were flirting, but he had to work the plan.  Couldn’t go too fast.

“You look… great.  I can’t wait to see you tomorrow in your wedding dress. You will be a beautiful bride.”  

Chris broke his voice in just the right place to convey a wistfulness, making you think that he thought he lost you.

You felt bad.  Chris was so sweet.  You thought about him and you thought about Kevin. 

What was the difference between what Chris did and what Kevin did?  

And who did you have more chemistry with? Chris.  

Why were you even marrying Kevin?

You looked over at him looking at you and Chris like a lost dog.

You had no idea why you were marrying him.

“You look… Like Chris fucking Evans.” You two laughed.  

“I bet you’re fighting them off with a stick.”  You sideyed him.

Chris reveled in your interest in his sex life.

“Well, you know. After rehab, I’ve laid off the... physical part of my life. It only brought chaos, you know. I’m trying to be more… zen. Haven’t really had… that  for the better part of a year.”

He watched your eyes get big.  

“Word?”  You smirked. “So you…”

Chris held up his hand.  The one you knew he jacked off with.  You grabbed it and started drawing on his palm.  Chis pulled it back and cleared his throat again. 

You pouted again. Him being hard to get made you wet.

And Chris knew that.

“So… you ready to marry the love of your life?”

 Chris’s sea blues looked you deep into your cocoa browns. You were transported back in time.

“Yes.” 

 Then you snapped out of it.  

“I mean… the church is set up, the dress is bought, everyone’s here. I guess so.”

Chris laughed as if you were telling a joke.  

“I miss your sense of humor.”

You all made small talk and you caught up a little before you asked what you wanted to know.

“So what are you up to tonight?”

Chris looked at his watch.

“I’m actually about to go to my condo an turn in. I get up early to work out.” He felt your eyes sweep up and down his body, and he flexed even though he was fully dressed. It was true. Working out was a regimen. He wanted you drooling for him. 

“It’s the Marvel condo in Brooklyn?”

You nodded, remembering good times.

“So you have a car picking you up?”  Your mind was whirring.

“I actually have a rental.” 

You gulped your drink down, not daring to look in his eyes. Now, not only was your pussy wet, your nipples were hard as hell. 

“It’s in the parking garage down the block.”

“Well, I need to clear my head. I’ll walk you there, and you can drop me back?”

Chris looked down at your cute face, and then around the room, spotted Kevin and gave him a nod.

“You sure that’s a good idea?”  

You looked at Kevin, too.  You wanted to stick your tongue out, but you just took Chris by the arm and headed toward the door.

“I’m a big girl. Nobody owns me.” 

You looked up into Chris’s eyes and instantly regretted that statement. You played it off and pulled him through the door.

You didn’t talk at all the entire way, both of your heads deep in the clouds of you and him.  The chemistry was crackling the air between you.

You held on to his arm, and he let you, reveling in your touch.

When you reached the parking garage, Chris pressed the button with his knuckle and you got in, headed for the top deck.

You just stared at each other, both thinking the same thing. Chris chuckled.

“You’re dangerous, night before your wedding, you probably have cold feet, I’m here. Maybe you want to be sure that you’re sure…”

You cocked your head. “Who said I wanted to fuck you, Chris Evans?”

Chris cocked his head too, mirroring you.  “Who said ‘fuck?’ I was thinking you wanted to talk.”

He smirked and you scowled as the door opened.

Chris left you in the elevator stewing as he walked over to the black Tesla he’d rented. There was no other car on the deck.

You scoffed, and followed him out.

He was about to walk around to the driver's side door when you grabbed his arm before he made it. He stopped directly in front of the car.

“Do you mean to tell me that you don’t want me?”  You were hot, in more ways than one.

Chris leaned back against the hood.

“That’s not what we’re talking about, y/n. You’re getting married tomorrow. To someone else.”

You smiled and reached up, fingers grazing his neck and playing with the hair at his nape. You ran your fingers through his beard.  Kevin’s couldn’t compare.

“That’s tomorrow. Tonight I’m single as fuck.” 

You stood on your tip toes and brushed your lips against his, reveling in the moan that came from his throat.

Chris fought to control his urge and continued with his act. His fingers tightened around your waist and you thought this was it.  He turned you around in front of the car and then let you go, stepping back to pace back and forth.

“What? What is this? You’ve had almost a year. Kevin’s my friend. What do you want from me?”  

He advanced on you, and you had to remember to breathe.  He knew what you wanted.

“You. I want you, Chris.”

Chris attacked your lips with his own.  He took two seconds to savor them before he ravaged your mouth with his tongue.  You moaned and he broke from your mouth to re-discover your face, your neck, your cleavage.  He had to control himself not to rip the bodice of your blush pink chiffon dress.

He had a raging hard on, which you were feeling up, remembering how you always struggled to take him.  You wanted him to hurt you with it now.

“Give me this Chris… please…”

You were reaching into his pants, thumb caressing his wet, thick tip. He was leaking for you.

“Remember when you told me that I would meet you in a parking lot, and let you fuck me over the hood of your rental car? Even if I was with someone else?”  

You pulled your hand out and started sucking your thumb, closing your eyes at the taste of Chris after so long.  You pulled it out with a pop.  

“You were so right.”

Chris practically growled, grabbed your arm and spun you, pushing your back until your chest hit the hood of the Model X.  He leaned over you, pushing his covered crotch into the back of your dress, you moaned, wanting more.  His mouth was at your ear.

“Oh, so you want to be my cock whore on the eve of your wedding to someone else.”  You moaned because it was true.

“It’s been so long, Chris…”

He reached down in between you and flipped the flouncy skirt of your dress up, exposing you to the wind of New York City.  He looked at it for a minute, your ass always his favorite.

He caressed it with both hands, pressing into you with his thumbs.  

“So you want me to feel you up?”  He pulled his hand back and sucked one of them, practically jumping for joy when he tasted you. 

“You want me to pull your panties to the side….” and he did so, seeing your slick shine in the moonlight, and playing in it for a minute, tracing your lips and making you quiver around nothing.

The way you were moaning his name was everything right now.

Your face was pressed against the cool metal of the car, and it was the only thing tying you to the earth.

“Oh yes, Chris…. Please please yesss...fuck me… damn...stretch me out…”

Chris’s dick pulsed and he needed you around him. He moved close again and unzipped his pants, the sound making your knees weak.

He teased your cunt with his tip, collecting your arousal and smearing it not only around your pussy, but around your asshole.

“I know you’ve fucked him, but have you let him have your ass?  Am I still the only one…?”

Chris was still playing the game. 

“No, no, no… I haven’t let him… I haven’t given him anything. I’ve been celibate, too.  It’s still yours Chris. All of me is still yours.”

Chris almost came just hearing you say it out loud. He already knew, but hearing you say it was the shit.

He pushed into you with a grunt, and it was difficult.  He didn’t make it. Your cunt squeezed him out.

“Ffffuck, y/n. You’re practically closed down.  Is it true?”  

He started rocking his tip into your pussy slowly, both regretting and reveling in the fact that he didn’t stretch you out with his fingers beforehand.  Then he decided that he wanted you to feel this fully.

You couldn’t answer, only responding with moans has he painfully breached you. You welcomed it, though.

“Ah, ah, ah, ah… yes Chris.  Only you.. Since you and I….”  Talking about it and the fact that you were taking him again made you wetter, and eased Chris’s way, although your pussy was already stinging with his girth. Your eyes rolled back in your head.

You would never get over this and were so grateful for the feeling again.  

Chris watched you and had to grit his teeth to hold back from the reality that he was taking you again. 

He leaned over you, hot breath huffing in your ear, puffing and groaning as he fucked you slowly.  He was trying to feel every sensation. He wanted you to know that each and every millimeter of your glorious wet, tight pussy was his.

‘Ohhhh. Fuck Chris… YESSSS!”  Your voice echoed off the concrete walls, and Chris wanted you louder.

“This what you wanted?  You wanted your thick cock inside you again. Hunh?  You wanted me to stretch your walls and fuck you raw, hunh?”  He started speeding up in time with your moans.

“Such a fucking filthy cockslut for me, baby.”  Chris grabbed your neck from the back. “Why didn’t you let Kevin hit, hunh?”  

You didn’t answer, you just moaned and Chris smacked your ass, hard.

“Chris! Fuck!”  

You screamed. You missed his ruthlessness when you fucked, you missed him making sure that you knew that he knew that you knew. You belonged to him. 

 “Please!”

“I know why.” 

Chris stopped fucking you and pressed down harder on your back, reaching around to find your clit.  He swirled around it once, then started to press down slowly. 

“Because you would never beg him for that subpar dick that he has. You’re MY whore. You belong to me.”

He pressed down roughly, and you detonated around his dick.  He didn’t have to move.  Chris pulled out, leaving you cold and bereft.

You turned around and leaned up against the hood, panting and still desperate for him.  He stood there in front of you, dick sticking out of his pants, which were ruined, and still rock hard and ready. He was in a quiet rage.

“Why did you leave me?” 

You searched his face.  He sounded like he was about to cry.  You couldn’t quite see his entire face, but his eyes shone, bright with liquid.  You went toward him.

“You hurt me Chris.  I couldn’t stay. But let me take care of you now.”

You got on your knees in front of him, the hard concrete of the parking structure digging into your knees.  

Again, you welcomed the physical pain, distracting you from what you were doing to Kevin, to Chris, and to yourself.

Chris felt like he could fly.  You on your knees for him again was a dream. 

He took his cock in his hand, stroking it, while moving close to you. In no time, the back of your head was in his palm, and you opened wide to accept him, hand coming up to stroke what you couldn’t fit.

“Ah, ah. Let me.”  

You looked up at him to see an evil grin shine down on you. 

Chris looked down on an angel trying to swallow him whole. He brushed the tears away from your eyes as you struggled to breathe. You were perfection.

Moaning around him, you relaxed your mouth and throat and let him use you.  It was difficult, because you were out of practice, but you welcomed the letting go of all thought. 

You dripped down your thighs as Chris pumped into you, ready to accept what he had to give. 

After a few minutes, he stopped, and pulled out, grabbing you up to your feet. 

Then he bent down and grabbed you by the back of your thighs and you wrapped your legs around his waist, kissing him and trying to grind down on his still-erect cock as he backed you to the car.

Your ass hit the hood, and Chris reached between you to first tear your panties off. He put them in his pocket as he swiped his dick up and down your dripping wet folds.  

He looked back up to watch your face as he pushed inside you, now, an easier path to nirvana.

He pulsed as he watched the pleasure take over your face, with your mouth slack and your eyes glassed over. This was his main purpose in life and he almost lost it.

He brought his hand up to bring you closer, breathed into your mouth as he squeezed your throat. You were high instantly, and clamped down on his cock as your body was wracked with waves of pleasure.

Chris let your body descend back down to the car as he pumped his seed into you, his mind fantasizing that he was impregnating you. 

He shook your body as the last ropes of cum spurted out of him. He ran his hand down your body as he pulled out, zipping up his pants as you came back to your senses on the hood of the car.

You stared at the stars as you realized what you had done.  You sat up and adjusted your dress, gingerly climbing back down to the ground.  

Chris kissed you on the forehead, and this time you let him get into the driver’s seat. You got in the passenger side and Chris reached into the glovebox and handed you some wet wipes.

“Fix your face. And your knees.” 

He nodded down to your legs, which were dirty from the parking structure floor.  He watched you wipe your knees off, but stopped you as you went higher.

“No. I want you to feel me all night long.”  

You wanted to be a brat, but you didn’t feel like sass right about now. You felt kinda terrible.

You got another wet wipe and fixed your makeup as best you could as Chris drove you back to the restaurant.

“Chris, I…”

“I know.  None of that meant that we’re back together.  That was for some kind of something, I dunno, something Kevin might have done?” 

You looked down, ashamed. Chris lifted your chin up with his hand.

“I want you to come to me on your own.  You’ve gotten that out of your system, and I’m glad to be of service.”  You looked up into his eyes and at his wry smile.

“But remember, you still have a choice. I’m here if you choose me.”  

He leaned over and gave you a tender kiss in front of the restaurant.

You smiled at him and climbed out of the car, watching as he drove off.

Chris’s heart was beating out of his chest as he watched you turn and go back inside. He fought the urge to turn around. It was better this way.

----

You walked in the restaurant, and pulled Kevin over to the side of the restaurant in dark alcove. 

“Listen. Do you still want to marry me?”

He looked you up and down, taking in your state, from the faint marks on your neck to your scuffed knees.  He knew exactly what was up.

You raised an eyebrow at him.  

-----

Three hours later, a sleepy Chris answered the doorbell in Brooklyn.

He smiled at you, in the Captain America t-shirt and jeans that you’d stolen from him after a photoshoot, looking like his favorite Disney princess. You.

You took him in, clad in grey sweatpants that hung off his magnificently cut body.  He blinked at you sleepily.

“The wedding is off. Chris, I….”

He reached out and grabbed you, pulling you in the brownstone and shutting the door behind you.  He had you pinned up against the wall as you tried to speak.

“Shut up and let me taste you.”  

You grinned and wrapped your legs around his waist as he carried you upstairs.

--- 

The next morning, Chris was on the phone with Scott.

“Yes, tell the workers at the warehouse to dump all the products….I don’t care, the river, the landfill…. Y/N can’t find out that I bought up all her stock…. We’re going to be married..... I know what the fuck I’m doing Scott. We leave for Aruba this afternoon. Listen, I’ll call you later.”

Chris hung up and turned to find you in the doorway, frowning and rubbing your eyes.  

“We’re going to Aruba?”  

You smiled and yawned, sleepily stretching.  That was all that you’d heard of the conversation.

Chris gave you his stunner smile.  

“Yes. It was going to be a surprise.” 

He reached down and swung you up in his arms, carrying you into the bathroom bridal style.

“Now let’s get in the shower.  You’ve been very naughty, gotta get you clean for your wedding day.”

You giggled as you relaxed in Chris’s arms. “It takes two to be naughty, Chris.”

He winked at you as he turned on the shower. “Don’t I know it.”

-----

I know it’s different. Let me know if you like it. Like, comment, reblog! 

Tags:

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[transrevolutions]

Okay listen the fuck up.

Why do we NEVER talk about autistic people who menstruate?!

In all the posts I’ve seen both about dealing with periods and dealing with autism, I have never ever seen anything that talks about just how fucking horrible it is to have your period while having severe sensory processing issues.

(Note: This is my personal experience. Everyone with autism experiences shit differently, we aren’t a fucking hive mind.)

-First of all, PMS. It’s worse. It’s fucking worse because you’re on edge normally but add the PMS in and it’s like... double. Especially when neurotypical folks don’t fucking get it.

-Second of all: Pads. Fucking. Hurt. Full stop. I can barely even wear them in the dryer winter months (where they fucking stick to my skin and make it red and irritated) and it’s still a pain to wear them in the summer. The thing is, most neurotypical people eventually “get used to” the sensation of the pads and can ignore it, but people with sensory processing disorders can’t do that.

-Don’t even get me started on tampons or the mental gymnastics that go with that. It’s the same deal as trying to wear contact lenses.

-I don’t usually get cramps all that bad, but I have heard that they are even worse, and the ones I do get suck to high hell.

-Also, when you are autistic it is WAY worse to have the blood dripping. Because you feel it more and it is fucking AWFUL. It is ALWAYS there and it SUCKS. The pad might stop it from ruining your pants but it sure as hell doesn’t stop it from feeling like Satan shit down your leg.

-And oh fuck, being forced to go to fucking school like a fucking neurotypical and being expected to walk around and do P.E. while feeling like you’ve pissed your fucking pants??? Constantly??? While a fucking pad that feels like somebody shoved burnt hay up your fucking crotch is gathering up smelly wet cold congealed blood???

-When I’m on my cycle, if it’s a particularly bad one, I literally can’t leave the bathroom except for meals. My neurotypical family fucking hates me for it but they can fuck off because what the fuck am I supposed to do?

-I cannot focus on school because everything feels so fucking fuzzy and all I can think about is how everything between my hips feels like utter hell. Of course, I get in trouble for this too. I get yelled at by my mother because “I have to deal with my period too! But I put up with it!” and all that Classic Neurotypical Bullshit.

-Plus I don’t even WANT kids! All penis-havers have to do is stick it in there (and I’m not blaming amab people at all, I’m just saying afab people have to deal with this and they don’t, that’s not their fault, it’s just how it is) but us? We don’t get a choice! We get the waterfall of blood and cramps and mental distress whether we want it or not!! And plus the autism. Which just magnifies it all. Fuck that.

-So basically fuck periods and fuck neurotypical ‘get over it’ culture and fuck the education system and fuck the people who literally seem to be incapable of making any sort of sanitary product that doesn’t hurt like a fucking fire in there.

TL;DR: Periods fucking suck and they fucking suck even worse for autistic people even though nobody fucking talks about that.

[hangovercurse]

Pictures of Us

Y/N and Casie plan a girl’s day while Colson plans something a little different

Colson x Reader

Warnings: Cursing, sappy

A/N: Ok so this was supposed to be a request from anon but got a little off track (and wayyyy to long) so I’m gonna post this and then I’ll work on that request as another entity entirely. God this is so fluffy I love it. 

Part ii

Word Count: 1518

masterlist

You loved that the first thing you felt in the morning was Colson’s hand wrapped around you, pulling you into him even while he’s asleep. If he ever woke up before you, he would press small kisses down your neck until you woke up. This was not one of those mornings. When you turned to face your boyfriend of 4 years you found him peacefully asleep, his bleached hair falling around in his face. He was absolutely stunning.

You turned your head back around to catch the time, it was already 11. You let out a sigh, realizing you would have to find a way out of his grasp. So you carefully removed his hand from your middle before starting to sit up, only to hear a groan from the man behind you.

“Why are you leaving? Its Sunday morning.” He whined, causing you to chuckle. He moved so that both his hands were wrapped around your waist, pulling you back onto the bed.

You giggled as you fell back onto the bed, “Colson I gotta get up. I told Casie we could have a girls day today.”

“You can stay in bed just a little bit longer, Case won’t mind.” His morning voice combined with his hot breath on your neck almost convinced you.

“Babe she’s been talking about this all week, I can’t bail on her.”

He chuckled, “She’s eleven, Y/N. I think she’ll be okay.” His lips found your jawline, kissing up to your cheek and nuzzling his nose into you.

You giggled at his neediness, “You can join girl’s day if you want.” You turned to face him, connecting your lips briefly, pulling away quickly.

Colson groaned as you refused to let him kiss you again, causing a small laugh from you. “Just wanna kiss my girl, is that so much to ask for?” He sunk his face into your shoulder, pressing kisses all over the skin.

“Colson, I have to get up,” your voice was tainted with laughter as he continued his attack on your shoulder.

“No.” He mumbled against your neck. The feeling of his lips pressed there was heaven, but you were on a mission.

You sighed, “let me out of this bed and then after Casie and I are done, we can stay in it as long as you’d like.” The smirk on your face was also very apparent in your voice.

You giggled as Colson perked up, pressing a quick kiss to your cheek. “Okay, go have fun with my daughter.” He laughed, loosening his hold on your hips but still not completely letting you go.

“You don’t wanna join?” You pressed a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“It wouldn’t be girl’s day then.” He said in a joking matter-of-fact tone. “But once you’re done, I wanna talk to you about something.”

You hated that phrase, it always seemed to be laced with poison. “Oh, is everything okay?” Your eyebrows furrowed as you looked towards your lover. Your heart picked up its rhythm just slightly.

He smiled down at you, “Don’t worry about it babe, it’s nothing bad, I promise.” He pressed a kiss to your lips. “Trust me, I’m not a complete idiot. I know how lucky I am.” He whispered the last phrase, causing a blush to spread across your face.

“I need to leave this bed before you convince me to stay here all day.” He groans at your statement but it quickly turns to a laugh, letting you go.

“You should do pedicures.” He called after you, causing you to roll your eyes at him with a giggle before you continued your journey to Casie’s room.

 After a few hours of manicures, pedicures, makeovers, and hair styling (Casie wanted you to try a TikTok hairstyle on her), girl’s day was finally over. Colson had been strangely absent the whole day, but truthfully you hadn’t paid much attention to him, you were too focused on the amazingness that is Casie, whom you treated like your own daughter.

You peeked at your phone, realizing it was already 5 pm. “Start thinking about what you want for dinner, kiddo.” You told Casie as you stood up, turning towards the door only to find Colson already in the doorway.

“How was my two favorite ladies’ girl’s day?” He asked, grabbing your hand and pulling you into him.

“It was great!” Casie started. “Look what Y/N did with my hair! It’s so cool, right?” She showed off the row of braids that led into two small buns on the back of her head.

“Woah.” Colson said, his eyes going wide. “You did that?” He looked over at you, “they look so cool.”

“Well, they were Casie’s creation, I just did what she told me to.” You smiled, looking over to Casie who had a wide smile on her face.

The girl was practically jumping up and down, “Can Y/N do my hair all the time?”

You giggled, “I’ll even teach you how to do it yourself if you want.” Casie nodded quickly, laughing.

“Is it cool if I steal Y/N from you now, Case?” Colson’s hand around your waist squeezing and your mind shifted back to your conversation earlier.

She sighed dramatically, “I guess.”

Colson just chuckled and began to drag you out of the room, “Thank you!” He shouted to Casie as he lifted you up, carrying you bridal style to your bedroom. He set you down outside the closed door, your back facing him. He put his hands over your eyes, shielding your vision. “Don’t peek.”

“Colson what are you doing?” You giggled, feeling a bit giddy.

“Just trust me, I’ll tell you when you can look.” You could hear the smile in his voice and then the creak of a door opening. “Okay now walk forward a few steps.” His voice was very close to your ears, sending a shiver down your back.

You shuffled forward, taking in the soft sound of music playing, until you heard him say, “Stop. Okay now turn to the right,” You did as he said, “and now you can open your eyes.”

When he removed his hand you were in awe. The bedroom you had been in just a few hours ago was now adorned with candles, rose petals, and balloons. The rose petals were shaped into a heart on the bed, which was simultaneously the cheesiest and most romantic thing you’d ever seen. But what really got you was the pictures scattered around the room. Some were stuck on the walls, some hung from lights dangling on the ceiling, and all of them were of you and Colson.

As you took in every picture he had hung up you felt tears stinging your eyes. He had pictures of your first date, you two at the concert venue where he first told you he loved you, every important milestone in your relationship was documented in picture form around the room.

You turned to look around the room, a permanent smile on your face. When you had finally turned all the way around to where Colson had been standing, you found him on one knee, a box in his hand.

“Colson.” You gasped, a tear finally falling from your eye.

“Y/N, I’ve known I loved you since the day we met. You are my other half, the best part of me, and everything I’ve ever needed in my life. Everything I hated about myself you’ve made better. You show me what it means to love not only another, but myself. I don’t think I could exist without you, and I never want to find out. You’re my muse, my love, and my soulmate. So if you’ll have me Y/F/N, would you do me the honor of being my wife?”

The tears were falling from your eyes non stop at this point. “Yes. Oh my fucking god yes.” You whispered, reaching your hand out as he slipped a beautiful diamond ring onto your finger, kissing your hand before standing up and wrapping his arms around you. “I love you.” You choked out in a whisper.

He rubbed his nose against yours and rest his forehead against yours, “I love you too.” He leaned down, his lips meeting yours in a passionate, loving kiss. Once he pulled away, he looked to his right, “You get all that, Casie?”

You followed his eyes to see Casie with his phone recording you two. She nodded, “It was gross watching you two kiss,” she made a face, “but I got it!”

“C’mere,” You motioned Casie over, opening your arm so she could join your hug. “Are you okay with me and your dad getting married?”

She rolled her eyes, giving you an ‘are you serious?’ face. “Obviously! I told him if he didn’t, I would never talk to him again.”

You laughed, squeezing her tighter. “My two girls.” Colson mused, pressing his lips to your forehead. You stayed like that for a while, Casie’s arms wrapped around the both of you, her head leaning into your stomach.

It was perfect. Your own, perfect, family.

[diazbuckleys]

always looking for ways to love you

post 4.13, comfort and confessions

wc: 1800

Eddie can tell he's lying in a hospital cot before he even opens his eyes. He knows the scent of it by heart; that stark smell of Purell, body odor, and death, so strong it burns his nostrils. And then, the feel of starched sheets against his fingers. That terrible, burning pain, ripping through his right shoulder.

"Edmundo," a soft voice says, and Eddie opens his eyes.

It's Ana. Of course it is. No one else ever calls him by his birth name. There's something comforting in the way she says it, but it's also painfully familiar. He can still hear his father's voice ringing in his ears when he had told his parents about his plan to leave their hometown with Chris in tow. Edmundo, don't do this. You're making a terrible mistake.

He opens his eyes, and he really looks at her. And he feels that sharp, shameful stab of disappointment. She really is very beautiful.

"I'm so glad you're okay," she says, and Eddie realizes she's been crying. "God-I really wondered for a moment whether you were going to wake up."

“Yeah," Eddie manages, his voice coming out in a weak croak that he's too exhausted to care about. "Yeah, I'm still here."

She squeezes his hand, where her thin fingers are threaded through his.

He sits up suddenly, blinking away the sleep and the heavy pain in his shoulder. "Is Chris...?"

"Asleep. Carla took him home a few hours ago. He wanted to stay, but, you know. It's getting late."

"Oh. Thank you." He looks around the room. It's sparse and dreary like they always are, with only a pair of plastic cushioned chairs in the corner and one large window with the blinds drawn. He wonders what time it is, how long it's been since the accident.

Slowly, inevitably, Eddie's mind starts drifting to Buck. He remembers pieces of the attack; Buck being tackled by Captain Mehta, as people screamed and ducked for cover all around them. In retrospect, Buck had probably laid on the ground across from him for only a few minutes. But in the moment it had felt like time had slowed. It had felt like they were the only two people in the world.

Ana seems to notice his distraction, and squeezes his hand again. "I let a nurse know you were awake. She should be over in a few minutes."

He smiles at her, feeling another piece of that piercing guilt. A part of Eddie wishes he could love her in the way he should. But he can't; he knows that now.

"Thank you, Ana. I'm glad you're here."

She looks at him questioningly. Despite everything, she has always been good at telling when something is wrong. "But?"

Eddie thinks about Buck on the ground, staring at Eddie soundlessly as blood dripped from his face and onto his clean white shirt. Eddie thinks about reaching out to him in the final moments before his eyes slipped shut, thinking I'm going to die, and he'll never know how I feel, or about any of it. But Eddie's alive, and so is Buck.

"But-I can't do this. I think you know that."

Ana, sweet Ana Flores, lets go of his hand with a sad smile. She sighs, like she's coming to terms with something she had tried to forget.

Finally, she says; "Yes, Edmundo. I know."

Eddie reaches for her hand again, soft and warm, and holds onto it tightly. "I'm sorry. I didn't want-I didn't mean for it to happen this way.

Ana gives him that sad smile again. "Oh, Eddie. You can't choose where your heart goes. It hurts, but I'm just sorry I didn't realize it sooner."

Eddie frowns. His head is still pounding, and every part of him wants to fall back into the comforts of sleep. Instead, he props himself up on his elbows and blinks his eyes open. "Realize what?"

"That you already have a family. You have Chris. You have Buck."

It's the first time either of them have acknowledged it out loud, and Eddie swallows a lump in his throat.

"A family?

She lets go of his hand, carefully. “Do me a favor, Eddie? Don't mess it up. For my sake."

"I won't," Eddie says, throat stuck with emotion. But there's one more thing he has to ask. "And, um. Is he here?"

Ana frowns. "I'm sorry. They're all still trying to track down whoever it was that attacked you."

Eddie's face falls, and he lets himself collapse back into the sheets. If Buck is out there with the shooter- even the thought makes Eddie's chest constrict.

"Edmundo," Ana says, tone surprisingly firm, "he's going to be okay."

Eddie nods. Of course he is. It's Buck. He has to be.

"I'm really glad you're here," he says again, grateful.

"Good luck, Eddie Diaz," she says in lieu of a response, and smiles at him before she goes, like she really, really means it.

*******

At some point after a smiling nurse enters the room, checks his vitals, and declares him "in recovery", Eddie falls asleep again. He dreams about blood spilling on the open road, the St. Christopher pendant clattering against the pavement as he fell. Buck's blue eyes, wide with terror, staring, staring, staring.

*******

And then, some indeterminable number of hours later, he's awake again. This time, the sound that drags him to the surface of consciousness isn't a voice, but the steady beat of the hospital machinery. A sign that he's still here, breathing, despite everything.

Someone else is holding his hand. Eddie feels the strong, calloused fingers gripping him tightly, and he almost wants to sob. He's okay. He came back to me.

"Hey there," Buck says, and a thousand pounds of grief and worry lift from Eddie's shoulders.

"Hi," Eddie says, and cracks a sleepy smile up at Buck. Evan Buckley, Firefighter, friend, the fucking love of Eddie's life.

Eddie blinks a little in the harsh light. “What time is it? What day is it?"

Buck leans down to check his watch, and Eddie wonders distantly where it came from, or if he had just never noticed it before. He thinks that maybe becoming more observant is something he should work on. "11:27 PM, Tuesday. Three days since you were shot."

"And the shooter?" Eddie presses. "Did you find him?"

Buck shakes his head, still clutching tightly to Eddie's hand. "Nope, still on the lookout. But Cap thought it was more important that I be here."

Eddie feels a little lightheaded and dizzy at the words. Buck's here, real and breathing in front of him. Holding his hand.

He looks terrible, Eddie notices. His eyes are bloodshot, dark circles resting underneath them. His hair is a blond, tangled mess, and his tee shirt has a coffee stain around the collar. Eddie thinks suddenly about how truly awful the shooting must have been for Buck. He wonders if he was able to get all of the blood out of his shirt.

"I brought Christopher with me," Buck says when Eddie doesn't speak. "He and Carla are both passed out in the hallway."

Eddie sighs. "Thanks, Buck. I hate for him to see me like this."

Buck nods, and strokes his thumb over the back of Eddie's hand, in a slow, hypnotizing rhythm. He looks like he's trying to gather the courage to say something.

"Look, man," Buck starts abruptly, "I'm sorry. I should have done better."

It takes everything within Eddie not to take hold of Buck by the shoulders and shake him.

"Buck. Stop it, seriously. You did everything right."

"No, Eddie. Let me just-"

Fuck. Buck's voice is breaking. Eddie can't even remember the last time he saw him cry.

"I'm fucking sorry, man. I saw you get shot, and I just couldn't move. It was like I was frozen, watching the bullet hit you, watching you fall. And later I kept thinking about Chris, and how terrible it would have been if we-if he had lost you. Telling him what happened, after you got hurt, when we didn't know if you were going to make it-that was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. He kept on just looking at me, and fuck. I had to tell him that-and I didn't know-"

Buck's crying. Full on crying, and all Eddie can do is stare.

"Um." Buck says a moment later, clearing his throat with an embarrassed flush, and wiping furiously at his eyes. "Anyway. Sorry. You deserve better, and I just-"

"Evan Buckley," Eddie says with conviction, and that shuts Buck up.

"I don't know what it will take for me to get this through your head, but you are not a disappointment. You didn't do anything wrong. I have no fucking idea what I'd do without you, actually. So please, don't try to tell me you're not good enough for me, or that you should have done better. Because you are good enough. You are. Okay?"

"Okay," Buck says, and then they're quiet. The clock over the doorway ticks slowly. Outside, the overcast sky has started to rain.

Buck rubs one hand over his tired eyes. "I just care about you, so much, Eddie. And the fact that there was even a possibility I wasn't going to get to see you again, and laugh at your stupid jokes and eat your terrible dinners-I couldn't take it."

And, goddamnit, Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever loved anyone like he loves Buck.

"I'm sorry too, that I made you worry. But I'm still here."

Buck smiles. "We're quite the pair, aren't we?"

"Shut up," Eddie retorts, laughing, "you love me."

Buck stills at that, fidgeting with Eddie's hand, but refuses to meet him in the eye.

"You know," Eddie says slowly, suddenly feeling brave, "Carla said something to me the other day, about following my heart. And then Ana was in here earlier, and I, uh. Ended things."

Buck sits up straight at that. "You broke up with her? Why?"

"Because," Eddie says. "Because-"

Buck kisses him. They're only sitting inches away from each other, but it feels like Buck's bridged a gap. Reached across a mountainous valley and pulled Eddie over to the other side.

Buck's lips taste like salt, and Eddie realizes one of them must be crying but he isn't sure who. They're both smiling, even if there are tears, too. It's sort of the most perfect thing Eddie has ever experienced.

Buck kisses him, and it feels like everything has fallen into place.

Eddie doesn't want to pull away, but he does anyway. He was just shot, after all, and already he’s feeling dizzy. He imagines there will be plenty more kisses in their future, ones that don't take place in stiff hospital beds. He hopes so, anyway.

"I love you, you know," Eddie says when he catches his breath. He feels like he's fifteen and he's just kissed a girl outside of their school gymnasium. He already wants to kiss Buck again.

Buck grins. "God, I love you too. But, Eds, please do me a favor."

"Yeah?”

"Try not to get shot again."

[wannabemobwife]

Guns, Glamour and Goodfellas - Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Revenge Never Felt So Good

Dad!Mob!Tom x Mom!Mob!Reader

-Pairings: Tom Holland x Reader, Rosie Holland x Henry Osterfield

-Warnings: Guns, bombing, language, murder, blood, hints to smut (none actual smut), typos, shitty writing, torture I guess

-Words: 4.9K

A/n: Can we get back to mob stuff? Please. I want to apologize for this chapter, it is absolute shit and I could tell by writing it. Kind of a filler chapter. Sorry it is long.

Chapter 13: Revenge Never Felt So Good

Words: 4.9K

It had been a week, since you got your memories back and you declared your love for Tom once more. Right after that, you and Tom were on the first train to Paris, refusing to fly for awhile.

You and Tom returned last night, just in time to see Parker and Rosie off to school the next morning. While you and Tom had been enjoying a second honeymoon in the city of love, Nikki and Dom so graciously offered to watch the kids. Everything was falling back into full swing. Parker and Rosie were going to school regularly. Rosie spending all her time with Henry and Parker still living his secret double life.

Things going back to normal. Somewhat.

It was a typical morning, but anytime everyone every thinks that, something gets massively screwed up. You woke up early to make pancakes and bacon.

“So what is plan for everyone today?” You asked, sipping at your steaming cup of coffee.

“Well, Rosie and I have school,” Parker explained.

“I have plans with Henry,” Rosie chimed in.

“I have meetings all day, love.” Tom said, pressing a gentle kiss to your cheek.

“Ok, so I’m all alone today,” you muttered, a little disappointed.

“I’m sorry darling, you could join me. You know much I love it when you sit in my lap during meetings. Really show them who’s boss,” Tom said, wrapping you in his embrace.

“No, it’s ok. I have some errands to run anyway.”

“Alright, angel. I love you. I’ll see you for dinner.”

“I love you too. Come on, kids. In the car we go.” You said, pushing everyone out the door.

“Why is Jared not driving?” Parker asked.

“Cause, I have errands to run and besides he’s driving your dad today.”

“Now let’s go.” You said as Parker and Rosie hopped into the car.

Tom was having a hard time returning to his mob personality. Some business was conducted in Paris, you tagged along and enjoyed every minute of it. Tom sometimes overcompensated for not being as dangerous and intimidating. He had grown soft taking care of you after the helicopter crash. Helping you get your memory took most of his time, he had to step away from the mob for awhile. But you were his top priority.

Tom couldn’t remember the last time he sat in his office doing business. He missed it. He missed the thrill of torturing someone, having them beg for their life in front of him. He missed the feeling of firing his gun.

“Tom, you’re late,” Haz said as Tom got out of the car.

“Sorry not sorry Haz, I enjoyed breakfast with Y/N and the kids this morning,” Tom responded.

“I have to tell you something.”

“What? It’s never good news if it’s right when I get here.”

“We’re down two more.” Harrison mumbled referring to then decreasing number of soldiers part of the Holland Empire.

“Are you fucking serious? Haz, I’m so fucking tired of this bullshit. My men are getting fucking killed. Everything has gone to shit,” Tom screamed, enraged.

“Tom, we’ll figure it out. Just need to keep your cool.” Haz said, trying to avoid Tom’s wrath.

“Easier said than done. Alright, who’s here,” Tom asked, trying to forget about everything else.

“William.” Haz said with a straight face.

“What? Why? He’s always been loyal,” Tom questioned. One of his most valuable men, working against him, the rat?

“I got word from the soldiers he has been taking bribes from Parker,” Harrison explained.

“What the fuck for? Well, I guess we’ll find out.” Tom said, walking into the main room of the warehouse.

“William, I’d never thought it would be you in this chair.” Tom said, walking up to one of his most trusted employees.

“Tom, you gotta believe me. I didn’t do anything. I’m not the rat,” William pleaded. He knew what had been happening to the mob.

“Did you or did you not take money from Parker?” Tom asked.

“Yes, he just wanted to get out of the manor at night. So, he paid me to turn a blind eye.”

“Where was he going?”

“I don’t know, I assumed to some girl’s house.” “William, I trust you. So I’m going to let you off with a warning, but you can’t let him sneak out anymore. I’m afraid we are being targeted. If he tries to leave, you have to tell me.”

“Yes, boss. I’m sorry.” William apologized.

“It’s ok, but you understand what needs to happen right? I can’t be looking like I’ve gone soft,” Tom asserted.

“Yeah, I can take it. It’s ok,” William said, gritting his teeth as he waited for the collision of Tom’s fist to his cheek. Tom winded up to deliver one swift punch to William’s left eye. Not breaking the skin but creating a dark purple blotch.

All of Tom’s frustrations have been channeled into his mob duties. Each punch riddled with anger and frustration. A release of catharsis combined with blood. Tom wears the smell of blood and death like a perfume.

The rest of the day was full of uneventful meetings. Meetings with business associates, actual business associates for the company.

When Tom came home, he planned to confront Parker about his whereabouts if he tried to sneak out again. Everyone retired, you went to sleep first and Rosie went to her room. Parker said, he was going to bed but Tom could see right through him.

Tom was sitting in the den, sipping a glass of watered down whiskey. Waiting for his son to disobey him. At 11:55 PM, Parker made his way downstairs ever so slightly. Only to be met with the dagger eyes of Tom.

“Where the fuck do you think you are going?” Tom asked as Parker tried to sneakily leave.

“I… I thought I heard noise outside and I’m going to go check on it,” Parker stammered. Getting caught by Tom was not part of the plan.

“Oh, ok. Parker the guards can do that. Go back to bed.” Tom said, turning back to the TV in the den, broadcasting Raiders of the Lost Ark.

“Ok. Night, dad,” Parker said, trudging himself back up the steps.

“Night…. I know, you’re lying,” Tom whispered loud enough for Parker to hear.

“What? I’m not lying.”

“Parker, I know you’ve sneaking out for weeks and bribing William.”

“Dad, I’m sorry,” Parker immediately started apologizing, no bother in trying to lie himself out of this one.

“Why have you been sneaking out?” Tom questioned, seething with anger but refusing to show it. Trying to have a mature adult conversation.

“I’ve been going to a girl’s house, her name is Jamie.”

“Oh, glad you find someone. You know after everything with Charlotte,” Tom replied.

“Well since I told you the truth, can I go? We made the plan a couple days ago and don’t want to cancel,” Parker lied.

“Alright, just be back before sunrise or your mother will have may head,” Tom informed him.

“Thanks dad, you should get some sleep,” Parker said, making his way out of the heavily guarded house.

Parker left as quickly as possible. He knew Wilson would be pissed for him being late. The talk with Tom was not how this was supposed to happen.

He couldn’t betray his family and himself anymore.

Parker hoped this was the last time he would have to talk to him. He planned to quit, after the conversation with Dom. Parker had become everything he hated, someone who kills for sport.

“Wilson, this is the last thing I’m doing then, I’m out,” Parker said, walking towards Wilson.

“We’ll talk about it later, my boy,” Wilson said, patting Parker’s shoulder.

“Alright who am I killing? You never gave me a target.” Parker shouted at Wilson walking.

“Oh, this isn’t a hit, it’s a robbery. Here’s your new firearm,” One of Wilson’s men explained, tossing a MP5K at him.

“You okay kid? You know if you’re too much of pussy the boss might understand,” jeered one of the men as Parker gulped at the size of the weapon.

“Fuck you, I’m fine. Let’s just get this over with,” Parker barked, trying to put his mind aside. He has never done anything like this. It wasn’t just one person he was killing, it was the possibility of having many causalities. Altering his persona from a hitman to a mass murderer.

A million thoughts flooded Parker’s mind. He wouldn’t be killing people who deserved it like before, contract killers or drug dealers, these were innocent people. Stupid people for gambling all their hard earned money away but nonetheless innocent.

Parker’s heart nearly stopped when he saw where the van pulled up to. A place he knew all too well, it was one of Tom’s casinos.

The company that Dom had built, but all the Holland boys sent thriving in the new century, was more than it seemed. Holland Exportation and Luxuries was much more than exporting goods.

It was casinos that ran all along the French Riviera, more specifically Monaco. It was hotels across the entire globe. It was a business but not the family one. More of a front for the mob but it paid the bills. Harry and Sam had been in charge of running and establishing the hotels and casinos across Europe.

“Y’know your way around, right? That’s why the boss put you on this.” One of men asked Parker as he fiddled with his new machine gun.

“I guess so.” Parker replied.

“Here’s a map. Where are the guards? Which posts?” Asked a soldier, pointing to the main entrance hallways, where security was sure to be.

“I don’t know.”

“So we’re going in there fucking blind? Fuck, thought you’d be good for something. Just stay out of our way,” yelled one of the capos.

“No. I’m taking point. If you have a problem, you can fucking talk to me about it along with my Glock,” Parker threatened.

“Alright. Don’t screw this up. The boss wants big bucks from this. Says “it’s step two in the fall of the empire.” Whatever the fuck that means.”

“On my count, 1, 2… 3,” Parker screamed.

They came storming in, barricading all the entrances and exits. Parker and Wilson’s men clad in all black and payday masks. All various colors and designs. They looked as they were trick or treating.

This was the last thing Parker wanted to be doing. He came today to quit and now he was robbing a casino.

Parker kept repeating a mantra in his head “Last one, then I’m done” as held his gun high. Pointing it directly at innocents, he could see them shaking in fear.

“EVERYONE ON THE GROUND NOW!” He shouted, aiming his machine gun high.

“Don’t you fucking touch that button. I know what it fucking does.” Parker barks at the person behind the token counter. “Open the vault.” Parker said, pointing the gun at him.

“Why should I?” remarked the worker.

“Cause I fucking said so and I’m threatening your life,” Parker explained

“Enough of this shit!” He screamed, firing a few rounds close to the worker but not hitting him.

“You don’t have to do this. You could walk out of here, all of you. And we could go on with our lives. No need for money or the cops.”

“I think we both know that’s not gonna happen. I’ll ask nicely, please open the vault,” Parker mocked. “Boss said “start killing hostages in 10 minutes.” One of the other men whispered in Parker’s ear.

“Did you fucking hear that? We’re gonna fucking kill you if you don’t cooperate. So I suggest you open… the fucking… vault.”

“Sir, we can’t.”

“See this gun. LOOK AT IT! It has the power to put a bullet through your skull. Open the fucking vault. I won’t ask a fifth time.”

“That’s it. Now, type in the code.” Parker directed towards them.

The vault door creaked open, revealing trappings of pure wealth. Money stacked on tables, almost reaching the ceiling. And gold bars, glistened as the light reflected off of them.

“Now was that so fucking hard. Take all of it. Everything, even the gold.” Parker said, directly towards his men.

“Thank you, you’ve served you purpose,” Parker said to the worker, shooting him dead not even 3 seconds later. The screams of the other hostages echoed through the vacated room.

“Now to everyone here, there’s already one dead. I don’t mind making it more,” Parker barked.

“What’s your name?” Parker asked the nice looking girl kneeling on the ground.

“It’s not nice to not answer when someone asks you question, especially someone with a 9 caliber MP5K in your face. I ask again. What’s your name?” Parker spoke.

“Jane,” she whispered, shaking with fear.

“Well Jane, I want to thank you for your cooperation. You are in charge of talking to the cops, ok? And let your boss know, that Wilson is always watching,” Parker said, as he turned to leave.

“I will but you won’t get as far as you hoped,” Jane asserted, trying not to irritate Parker.

“And why’s that?”

“I know you. I remember you. You’d come in here with your dad.”

“You don’t know fucking shit!” Parker screamed.

“I know your name and that puts me at a high position of power,” Jane expressed, growing less afraid by the second. Realizing he is just some scared boy. Maybe not afraid of his own shadow but broken down by the fear of the world.

“I’m the one pressing fucking gun to your head. I HAVE ALL THE POWER!” Parker vociferated loud enough to shake the chandelier hanging above.

“You wish. Men like you always wish.”

“Seems like you’re doing some wishing yourself sweetheart. Wishing to be escorted out of here in a body bag. Now shut your fucking trap.”

“Hey. Let’s go. Leave her.” One of the Wilson’s men said, pulling Parker towards the exit.

“He still loves you and he’ll forgive you for this,” Jane shouted as Parker left.

Refusing to turn back, he had taken enough lives from this ill attempt at revenge. Parker didn’t know who he was fighting against anymore. Who was the hero and who was the villain?

All the wrongdoings as vast as the sea. All his attempts to make someone pay were misconstrued. Who actually deserved it?

The words of the woman replayed in Parker’s head. She was like a broken record, forcing him to listen to a truth he hoped to forget. How could Tom forgive him? Parker knew what he done was unforgivable. It was a mistake, all of it.

Parker marched into Wilson’s office and said, “Ever since I started working for you, my family has been in danger. I thought my dad was the reason for my girlfriends death, but I was wrong. I guess I’ll never know. Here Wilson, my gun. I quit.”

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? I own you. I could end you, boy. Just like I almost did your parents,” Wilson barked.

“What?” Parker questioned, a look of confusion are on his face.

“Oh, please. You really think it was just a malfunction,” Wilson scoffed.

“What are you talking about?” Parker asked.

“Their helicopter. Pretty brilliant work, if I do say so myself,” Wilson gloated.

“They almost died.”

“Yeah and so? Your dad is my enemy. That is the whole reason you came to me in the first place.”

“You promised you wouldn’t hurt them,” Parker screamed. “Promises are meant to be broken. They don’t call me the Merchant of Death for nothing.”

Wilson was ready for the fight and been the one pulling the strings the entire time. Tom warranted no quarrel. Never being the instigator in a fight with Wilson.

They had been divided for years to come, focusing on their separate mobs. Only acknowledging each other if they accidentally crossed paths. There was Wilson’s mob, then a few others scattered round London such as Graham’s which was almost non-existent and Shaw’s which was mostly the drug scene. But Wilson was Tom’s biggest competitor. Being a part of then game for years before didn’t matter, Tom eclipsed Wilson just like the sun does the moon.

Or the moon to the sun, that was exactly Wilson’s play from the start. Taking out the pillars of Tom’s life. First a reason to have his son turn on him, the death of a loved one. Next, removing you from Tom’s grasp. Eventually a play had to be made on Rosie. Leaving Tom utterly alone.

Only thoughts that would cross his mind be suicidal ones, having lost everything he ever cared about. It was a long play, one Wilson vowed to see through. Wilson saw all his work as justice and merciful. Almost biblical, they way everything was playing out.

“It was you. All along. The fucking puppet master,” Parker mumbled under his breath.

“If you are talking about your little girlfriend, that was strictly business, nothing personal. But yes, I have been the one behind the scenes driving your father mad. Remember the note?” Wilson exclaimed.

“She didn’t deserve to die,” Parker shouted.

“What? Are you really upset? That was ages ago. Plus, I had to get you on my side somehow,” Wilson teased.

“Wait, you knew I’d come here?”

“Parker, how stupid are you? When will you grow up and learn this rivalry is just the beginning of a war. What side are you going to be on? You have a choice. I’ve warmed to you and I want you on my side as I take your daddy down.”

“That’s your first fucking mistake don’t have any weaknesses,” Parker admitted, taking a lesson from Tom. He drew is gun, point blank at Wilson.

“Parker, what are you doing? Put the gun down,” Wilson pleaded for his life.

“No, you made me into a cold blooded killer. Not my dad. I quit.”

BANG

After a loud thud sounded, the room was silent. Only a faint smell of smoke from the gun was there as Parker fled as quickly as possible.

Parker made his way home that night a changed man. All his kills in the pass were strictly business. Never driven by emotion but this one was personal.

It wasn’t a job or a hit. He was no longer a contract killer. Killing for the sake of money or an obligation. He was cold blooded killer.

In some twisted way, Parker enjoyed Wilson and his company. Looking up to him. He was then one who saved him from the horrible life he thought he was leaving behind. The one full of deceit and betrayal. The one with Tom, you and Rosie.

The one that led him to be next leader of the Holland mob. The one that resulted in the death of his beloved girlfriend. The one that had almost taken you and Tom away from him. The one that almost took his life. The one that forced him to kill for sport.

But no, he was wrong Parker brought that on himself. Parker’s naivety was his greatest enemy. He was just a child not too long ago. Once afraid of his own shadow, then afraid of failing at life and school, especially the SATs. Now, he was an adult burdened by problems a 16 year old should ever face. He could sit there and blame Tom, but it would do him no good when all he had to do was look in the mirror.

Parker was his own worst enemy. Searching for justice, when none could be found in a world wear mobsters roamed. Causing shootouts, robbing banks, and killing innocent people. People deserved to be avenged and Parker sure as hell wasn’t doing anything to aide.

Parker drove home, took four showers and threw his clothes away. Anything to wash off this abhorrent day. The next morning, Parker went on like nothing had changed. As if he didn’t shoot his boss and Tom’s rival in cold blood. As if didn’t only see himself as a cold blooded killer. Everything that he is and everything he owns soiled with the scent of murder.

He played it as though it was any other morning. Eating his pancakes and bacon before starting the day. Telling you about his plans for the day. Trying to keep his cool. The lovely morning breakfast conversation was interrupted once Tom’s phone rang.

RING, RING, RING

“Haz, why are you calling me? I’m having breakfast with my family,” Tom asked, annoyed his precious breakfast was interrupted. “Charlie is here, you need to get here. I have to tell you something,” Haz informed Tom. “Ok, I’m on my way,” Tom said, brushing off the request. Why would the

company’s electrical engineer for aeronautical transportation be there?

“Love, I’m so sorry but I’m needed at the warehouse. Thank you for this wonderful breakfast, wish I could enjoy it. Bye, kids. Have a good day at school,” Tom said, making his way out the door. Bidding you all goodbye.

“Haz, what’s was so urgent that I couldn’t finish my breakfast.” Tom barked, annoyed he was pulled away from you and the kids even on a Saturday.

“We were robbed last night. The casino.” Haz explained, his head hanging low.

“How the fuck? Did they catch them?” Tom seethed with anger.

“No, we do have eye witnesses though.”

“How much is missing?”

“About 11 million dollars, from cash to gold bars.” Haz said, waiting for Tom to explode.

“FUCK. We need to make them pay. I’m done playing fucking games.” Tom shouted, calming himself down for his meeting with Charlie.

“Now, you said Charlie was here, right?”

“Yeah, in your office.”

“Charlie? What are you doing here?” Tom asked, a little annoyed he was taken away from his morning with his family.

“Tom, I ran my report and did diagnostics tests and it’s not good,” Charlie started.

“What the fuck does that mean, Charlie?” Tom yelled.

“I think the helicopter was sabotaged.”

“What? You mean is that someone tried to take out my wife and I while we were on a helicopter,” Tom repeated, making all the connections necessary .

“Yes, it wasn’t just a normal malfunction. Did they ever find the pilot?” Charlie asked.

“No… Jesus fucking christ, if it’s true then…Fuck, I’m sorry I have to go,” Tom yelled, running out to the car.

“Jared, home now.”

“Mr. Holland is everything alright?” Jared asked, concerned by Tom’s frantic manner.

“No. I just found out the helicopter was sabotaged. I think someone might being trying to take out Y/N and I.”

“Come on baby, pick up,” Tom whispered, frantically dialing your number over and over.

“Y/N answer the god damm phone!” Tom shouted, when heard the same voice message over and over again, “Hi, this Y/N Holland please leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

“God fucking dammit. Fuck, voicemail. Jared do you know where my wife is?” Tom yelled, afraid what your silence meant.

“Last I heard she was at the store getting groceries,” Jared explained.

“Fuck, I have here location on my phone. Change course,” Tom barked, praying you were okay. With the information he just learned he didn’t want to leave you alone, not even for a second.

“Y/N! You’re okay.” Tom said, inhaling a breath of relief. You were coming out of the store pushing a cart of groceries.

“Tom! Of course, I’m okay. What are you doing here?” You asked.

“I’ll explain later. Get Parker and Rosie we need to go home now.”

“They’re already home. Henry’s there also. You’re scaring me.” You said, Tom never acts like this.

Being a part of a mob there is a constant fear of someone behind you. All throughout Tom’s life he only had to worry about himself until he met you.

Tom’s worst fear is him being the reason you no longer walk the earth. The last week he had glimpse of life without you and didn’t care for it one bit. You weren’t a weakness but at the same time, you were. For anyone with a dangerous job there’s always a target on your back.

“Come on, love. In the car,” Tom motioned towards the car.

“Tommy, my car is here. I’ll meet you there,” you said, kissing his cheek goodbye.

“Ok just be careful please.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Ok, Jared. Home now plea—“ Tom directed but was cut off by a loud BOOM.

“Jared, what the fuck was that?” Tom asked.

“Sir, it was Mrs. Holland’s car.”

“Y/N! Y/N?” Tom jumped out of the car. Nothing else mattered in that moment, only finding you.

Time stood still as thick black smoke bled through the air. Coating everything in its path with a faint ash. Screams echoed from the bystanders as the car went up in flames.

“Tom, I’m okay. It wasn’t mine.” You exasperated, coughing from the smoke. It wasn’t your car but it was close in proximity.

“Thank god. I can’t keep almost losing you,” Tom whispered, kissing you hairline.

“I’m here now.” The second you were in his arms you knew you were safe.

“Yes you are. It sure does look hell a lot like yours, though. Come on, I’m taking you home,” Tom said, wrapping his right arm around your shoulder.

Pulling up to the manor, everything looked different. There were more guards posted at every corner with heavier weaponry. Tom had the gate barricaded with another car in case some where to ram into the gate.

“Jesus, what took you so long?” Haz said

“They tried to bomb Y/N’s car. Thankfully the dumb fucks who planted it, picked the wrong car.”

“Tom you need to tell me what’s going on.”

“I will. Family meeting in the living room. Now.”

“Some of us have some secrets to share. I want to know everything that happened here while your mother and I were in Paris. Someone start talking,” Tom said, pacing in front of Parker and Rosie sitting on the couch.

Rosie and Parker were both hiding something. Rosie’s however was a rather monumental milestone. Rosie reminisced of her wonderful night with Henry while you and Tom were away. She loved Henry so much and was overjoyed to share that experience with him.

Rosie had told Henry at the wedding that she was ready to take that next step with him. Seeing you and Tom re-commit yourselves to one another affirmed that for Rosie. That she loved him more than anything.

“I’m sorry, dad. You don’t have to worry, we were safe,” Rosie blurted out.

“What?” Tom barked growing more anger by the second.

“Henry and I used a condom,” Rosie responded.

“Rosie?” You questioned, knowing what she was talking about.

“WHAT?” Tom screamed.

“That’s not what you were hinting at?” Rosie stammered.

“No, this is about Parker,” Tom reckoned.

“Fuck,” she mumbled under her breath.

“Where the fuck is he?” Tom yelled, bolting out of the living room. Looking for the boy who had stolen Rosie’s innocence. You and Rosie soon followed hoping Tom wouldn’t do anything rash.

“Dad!”

“Tom!”

“Henry, you bastard! You fucked my daughter!” Tom shouted charging at Henry.

“Oh shit,” Henry muttered, he knew Tom could kill him in an instant.

“You went in my daughter! What’s stopping me from killing you right now.” Tom asked with gritted teeth, hoping this dumbass wouldn’t answer.

“Tom, put him down,” you said, as Tom was gripping his collar and dangling him in the air.

“Daaaadddd.”

“Tom, please,” you pleaded as Tom held a gun square to Henry’s head.

“The safety is on, I was never gonna shoot him. Just make him shit his pants a little. From now on, you two can’t be here alone. And if you are in your room the door needs to stay open,” Tom said, pointing fingers at Rosie and Henry.

“I believe we have more important business to get to. Now come on,” you said, pulling Tom away.

“Y/N, you know I was never going to actually hurt the boy right?”

“Yes, Tommy. Now please resume the family meeting.”

“Parker. Do you have something to tell us?” Tom asked, knowing his son will lie.

“I’ve been sneaking out at night and I’m sorry,” Parker started, you could hear the disappointment behind his voice.

“Why? I know it’s not because of a girl. I want to know everything,” Tom explained, fucking tired of all the lies.

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

Parker began by explaining how he felt by the loss of Charlotte and how he turned to Wilson. In Parker’s mind he was doing the right thing. Serving justice to those who wronged others. But in reality he was the one committing the wrongdoings.

Parker came clean that he was the one killing all of Tom’s men and that he killed Jazz. That he went Wilson before coming to Tom. Becoming Wilson’s secret hitman was never supposed to go this far. He only intended for it to be a big fuck you to Tom. Not destroy his livelihood and his family in the process.

Including all the details of Wilson’s secret agenda of taking you and Tom out. But Parker left out the fact that Wilson was no longer a threat. Having taken care of him the day before.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve never been this naive and stupid. I’m the one you’ve been searching for. I’m the rat,” Parker exclaimed. “Dad, say something,” he pleaded.

“Get out,” Tom said with an unchanging expression.

“What?”

“I said get the fuck out!”

“Tom,” you tried to reason.

“You are no longer my son. Betraying me, betraying your family. Get out.” Tom screamed.

A/n: I’m sorry. I like the content in this chapter but not the writing.

Guns, Glamour and Goodfellas Masterlist

taglist: @thenoddingbunny-blog @dummiesshort @adriannauni @bi-lmg @allthisfortommy

[leonawriter]

I often see that when people do meta or analysis (or even headcanons/fics) on Chuuya, they’ll touch on how he is with the mafia, and they’ll ask the question of “is he actually happy there, how free is he” among other things. Often these opinions are ones I have conflicted feelings about, as I’ll freely admit I’m biased toward him staying in the mafia, and some may have a harsher view on the mafia’s influence on him, or just in general, than I do.

Earlier I saw a post that touched on several things about Chuuya and the mafia that made me think. Some aspects had been mulling in my mind for a while, too. 

(I may go into a ramble here. I’m tired and there’s stuff going on. I just hope some of it makes sense.)

The first thing is that when we compare Chuuya’s relationship with the Sheep to that with the PM, it’s easy to say “he was never respected in the Sheep, they took advantage of him and used his power, emotionally manipulating him to feel responsible” but something that sticks out when Chuuya is dealing with Mori is that in spite of the Sheep being a “democratic” organisation, everyone outside of that group sees Chuuya as its leader. He’s the one who looks out for the members, he’s the most visible, so he’s the “king.”

Effectively, Mori treats him as such in their interactions, and recognises and respects that Chuuya, despite saying “I’m not a king, I just have a trump card up my sleeve!” several times, does want to have that kind of respect. To be listened to when he says to people “don’t do that” because he knows it’s in their best interests.

Chuuya’s downfall in the Sheep is that he’s the one with the most power in terms of violence and raw physical power, having all of all of his agency and social power taken away from him in small ways. Even such things as him wanting the kids to not go to the docks and buy alcohol is them saying that they don’t care about his opinion, they don’t care about his well-being. In their opinion, they do as they like, and when they fuck around and find out, he bails them out. 

Despite his repeated protestations of “I’m no king!”, he must have on some level have internalised the idea that not only should he take responsibility, but that the responsibility to look after the kids under his protection means that they should, in theory, listen to him as well. He was no king because he was a puppet monarch; someone who is there for show, but doesn’t make any decisions.

When Chuuya watches the way that Mori works, he’s already seen how the Sheep treat those they’re afraid of, even those that they should have trusted. He sees that his former allies, his former family, would give him up in a heartbeat if they thought he was a threat. Anyone who went through that would at some point ask “where did I go wrong?”, and Mori is the one who answers him in a way that doesn’t spare his feelings, and also encourages him to pick himself back up.

If you look at what Mori says, it explains to Chuuya why Shirase (and assumedly the Sheep council) acted the way that they did. He isn’t stupid, he knows it was controlled and orchestrated by Dazai and Mori, and even says so when he’s picked up by the mafia after being betrayed. But hearing Mori leads Chuuya to understand why it happen, and if you can understand why something went wrong, then you can learn how to handle things better next time.

Chuuya respects people, he likes people, he wants them to live. He grieves their loss. I truly think he’d come at being the boss - as I think he’d inevitably become, at some point in the near or distant future - in an entirely different way to how Mori does, purely by how Chuuya doesn’t think about things in such a logical, optimal solution-based way. However, he does very much think in a way that suits the mafia. He can weigh one life against another’s, and choose the life of his own against that of someone who's done no wrong other than to go against him. He can choose the “organisation” over other people. He was good at the jewellery business when he first started out, and I’d love to know what he’s been doing since then. And he doesn’t seem to show any discomfort with that!

The thing is this - there are many reasons Chuuya stays in the mafia. 

One is that he respects and admires the people he works with, and his boss. That respect and admiration is also not a one-way street; these people see him as more than just his ability, even when they know what that is and what his origins are. That’s enough for a lifetime of gratitude, and more than just gratitude, but a feeling of “how can I ever repay this?”. And the only thing that they want from him in return is that he keeps developing, becoming more confident and better at his job(s).

Another reasons is, as said above, he has the mindset for it. He is that strange kind of person who is both infinitely kind and capable of love but also infinitely capable of cruelty and violence. Each time I think “where would Chuuya be if he weren’t in the mafia” I think of how the closest we see to his sort of mindset is either in another criminal organisation, in the Hunting Dogs (who aren’t criminal, but are the only organisation that are allowed to do such things and also be within the law), and, well... Tanizaki. Tanizaki, who would be perfectly happy to assassinate a guy just to save his boss’ life, and who someone said would do just fine in the mafia. 

The thing is, the ways in which Chuuya is trapped by the mafia are general only of his own making. He seems to have this idea that he has to have a certain kind of self-image, one that he began to cultivate back when he first joined, so that he would be given respect. In some ways, however, this also is reminiscent of Mori himself, who will be acting in an unprofessional way (trying to get a “young” girl to please get some clothes on) but have to cover that up once someone walks in. 

But this isn’t just a mafia thing! Fukuzawa does it too, and we can see it in the way that he wants to make the right kind of responses, but if he weren’t director, he’d just go with the flow more. With how he wants to just go out places and pet cats, but has to put up this image of the dignified director that people can rely on. 

In Chuuya’s case, I think it’s something he needs to work on, so that he can become a self-assured and confident adult, but in general it’s just... adulthood, to need to look professional while you’re doing your job. The problem with some of these characters is that their job is so closely tied with who they are.

To summarise:

Chuuya wanted the respect of being a leader even as he was denied personal agency while in the Sheep, and was given the ability to work toward that respect and earn it from others on his entry into the mafia. Mori’s words showed him what he lacked, but also highlighted what hadn’t been given to him before.

Chuuya’s place is in the mafia as it is where his talents lie, but more importantly it is most likely where he would feel the least out of place, and the least uncomfortable by peoples’ assumptions that he “should” act or think in a certain way. Just as in many ways he is seen as “too nice and kind” for the mafia, so would he be seen as “too violent, cruel, and callous” to work in the light, within the law, and his continued ability to stay loyal to the mafia without discomfort for what they do would make it impossible for him to work for the ADA.

[punkpsychologist]

HELLO

AAA. OKAY. ITS BEEN A BIT. You know, I actually drafted this post before but my fucking power went out and I lost it. So here we go again.

Main parts of this motherfucker

where I've been

what happened (yes these are two different things)

where I'm going and how I feel about it

alrighty. so I successfully finished my first year of college at a community college near my home town. i worked asynchronously and was able to make it onto the dean's list again for the second semester!

so all of that was good and well but if you have read some of my previous posts you might know that there is a very specific Scholarship that i have been after. it was very important and was considered to be a deciding factor on if i would be able to go to a university and live in the dorms or not. i did not get the scholarship. my mother and i felt very confident that i would but it was very new and the school that created it had yet to really solidify how it worked and what it's requirements were. in otherwords, the prospect of the Scholarship was unstable from the beginning.

i never got any kind of email or correspondence that explicitly said that i would not receive the Scholarship but i found that it would primarily be given to sophomores. i'm a college first-year who is very close to achieving an associate's degree. my mother and i panicked back during my finals week over the Scholarship. after realizing that I would have a better chance if i had my associates, my mom and i made a plan to put me into a "maymester" course and to completely fill my summer with classes. if i was able to pass all of those classes, I would have my associates by august. now i mentioned that this plan was created during finals week, i was incredibly tired and my pms was putting me in a really bad space. i felt this kind of sense of hopelessness, like it all felt very fruitless. i was tired and i had been continuing on the thought that once i finished my finals that i would get to rest. after realizing how fruitless the effort could be, we scrapped that plan and opted to place me into a full load of classes for the second half of the summer, i was waaaayyyy more supportive of this. my classes begin on july 5th and im once again in the class of one of my favorite professors so we'll see how it goes.

it gets a little more interesting here. so i told you that i never was explicitly told that i was denied the Scholarship, so there was a period of time in the early summer where i was just kind of in this limbo of searching for answers. i was scrambled and panicked and felt rather hopeless. i need to leave home. it's not that my family is bad to me, quite the opposite. i am the only child of a single mother, my father overdosed on opioids when i was a toddler, and my mothers family stepped up to help raise me. i grew up extremely paranoid of people and was always very close to death-related situations. i was also sexually assaulted by someone close to me and couldnt tell anybody. i believe that i am a psychologically unhealthy individual. i have incredible amounts of empathy and sympathy for people, i am also extremely afraid of people. due to my anxiety mixed with my trauma and pms i go through phases of being paranoid and unjustly afraid of people that i love very much. the covid19 quarantine was the most enabling thing that has ever happened in my entire life. i didn't have to talk to anybody aside from my mother or leave my house. i made myself think i was safe and happy when in reality i was slowly allowing my anxiety to consume me. when i say this im serious, like having panic attacks in the grocery store because i cant manage all the people that i run into and lying to someone that i love very much because im afraid to go out and i dont know how to explain to him what exactly is making me act this way. i dont know how to function without my family, and they are all much older than me. i know they will die and i will eventually be left alone.

tldr: i need to be around people my own age and i need to be around them physically because my mental health has gotten out of hand

one of my friends inspired me to transfer to university a year earlier than initially projected. the Scholarship was needed to be able to go.

while in Scholarship limbo my mom straight up called me over and said "you know you're going to the dorms in the fall right?" and i stg its like i had a mini breakdown. AFTER ALL THAT FUCKING SHIT. I GET TO GO. I GET TO GO!!!!!!!!!! I DON'T KNOW WHY SHE DIDDN'T TELL ME EARLIER. THIS DID THIS WHEN I TRIED TO QUIT BAND IN HIGH SCHOOL AS WELL. MAN. I'm so happy, I can't possibly explain how simultaneously happy and afraid I am. Going off and to the dorms is the best possible outcome I could ask for but in yet it is the one that I feared the most. I wonder if this was her way of trying to get me to see how far I would go to try and scrounge up cash or if she wanted to see how devoted I was to the idea of university.

Either way. I have my dorm room and roommates secured. I was on campus a few days ago for an orientation. I also have a couple of friends as well as some organizations that I intend to join. For privacy purposes I still can't tell you all where I'm going or when exactly a lot of things are happening. I will probably upload pics of my room though.

If you're here, thank you. I hope you're doing alright, I genuinely hope anything youre struggling with becomes easier and that you find yourself struck with inspiration often <3

[solesurvivorpaigeargot]

HOLY HELLO Sketchy friends, followers, and fans! It's that time again, time for...

SHIPPY SATURDAY!

The heck is happening here? Here's an FAQ~ Wanna support the event? Here's my Ko-fi!

That's right, it's FINALLY the last Saturday of the month... and I've decided it's high time our Quotable prompt evolved into a Dialog prompt! This is gonna work a lot like previous Quote prompts, but with an extra twist, so please make sure you read the guidelines for a valid request before sending in!

ONWARDS!

To make a VALID Shippy Saturday request, please send me the following in an ASK to my ASKBOX:

The COUPLE you'd like me to sketch up ---- OC? Heck yes! Canon? Hell yeah! All characters welcome, so long as they're from Fallout ---- OC x OC? Cool! Canon x Canon? SWEET! OC x Canon? DAMN RIGHT.

The NUMBER of the dialog snippet you'd like me to art them saying ---- Got more than one favorite? You may list up to THREE in your ask, in order of preference, to help the artist avoid repeats <3 ---- Still can't pick? Send in 'Dealer's Choice!' and the artist will pick one for you.... oooor possibly make up some fresh dialog on the spot ;3

What KIND OF RELATIONSHIP your couple has with each other ---- Romantic? Platonic? Professional? Familial? Rivals? Neighbors? Despite it's name, Shippy Saturday is about all kinds of human connections, not just the romantic ones! ---- Is your couple part of a larger OT3 or poly group? Tell me who else is part of the relationship; they probably won't get arted, but they might add their two cents to the scene from off-frame XD

IF YOU'RE SENDING IN AN OC!! ---- Send your request ask FIRST, without reference information ---- THEN send your OC's reference information to me via my Tumblr IM ---- Don't have any reference pictures, but you can type of a written description? Great! I love working from written descriptions! :D [ No, really, I do. Give them to me :D ]

After that, you can leave all the rest to me! :D [ I.e Please do not request poses or specific actions ]

Hokay? HOKAY! With all of that out of the way, let's get onto the dialog snippets! These are taken from various things I enjoy, as well as some of my own work. These quotes have been modified to gender neutral pronouns, to remove most proper nouns, and for brevity.

[ Some of these quotes have multiple speakers! That will be shown like this! "Speaker A" -- "Speaker B" ]

"Yeah, well, I'm a victim of circumstance" -- "... I thought you called it your pecker."

"Here, you look cold."

"You are so lucky I love you." -- "Damn right."

"You know the routine." -- "Yeah! WE do all the work, YOU get all the credit!"

"I want you with me, but... I'm scared." -- "Trust me. Trust me to take care of myself." -- "I trust you, it's the rest of the world I'm terrified of!"

"No breakfast?" -- "I did it yesterday-- bologna and beans, it's your turn." -- "No... It was eggs. I did eggs... over easy." -- "The hell you did! Bologna and beans, it's your turn!"

"I like the kind of person who can handle themselves... think on their feet."

"So you were ahead of me." -- "I don't know about ahead, but I've been behind you ever since you fried those mannequins."

"Don't make me say it out loud..." -- "... I can say it first, if that'll help."

"Nooooooope... five more minutes." -- "We were together all night." -- "Didn't count... I was sleepin'."

"Well, this is very serious" -- "IT IS!" -- "You, you destroyed a door." -- "Colonel, we're talking about a test on an armored vehicle, that will carry people into combat." -- "Right, but this door is property of--" -- "The shell barely penetrated the door." -- "okay, but now it's all bent out of shape. How are you gonna get it back on its hinges?" -- "I'LL BUY THE ARMY A NEW GODDAMN DOOR!"

"Sorry, I thought... I thought you were trying to buy something I'm not selling."

"I'm busy." -- "Too busy to look up?"

"You can't kill people just because you don't agree with them." -- "You see, that was the ONE point me and the doctors could never agree upon."

"Would you ever consider having a drink with an enlisted solider?" -- "Depends... does the enlisted soldier think I need one?" -- "What are they gonna do? Kick you out?"

"Thanks" -- "No problem, anytime."

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up-- one day it's gonna happen to you. Someday someone is gonna ask you, who is it? And a face is gonna jump to the front of your mind, and it's gonna completely sandbag you... I can't wait to watch!"

[to a peacefully sleeping person ] -- "Good moring, Mx. ___, this is your wake-up call. Please move your ass."

"I say we run for it" -- "Running isn't a plan, runnin's what you do when a plan fails!"

"... Normal Illinois, is that on the map?" -- "Yes, Sergeant, it is." -- "... is it normal in Normal?" -- "... Uneventful, I think, is the word."

"Now-- how many brahmin does it take to make a stampede? Is it like... three or more? Is there a minimum speed?" -- "Wish a stampede up your ass."

"I don't mind being a secret of yours."

[Right after THE BIG FUCKING KISS] ".... let's not make it a year before the next one, okay?"

"If we were serious about money, we'd quit being hired hands--" -- "Handymen! We are han-dee-men." -- "Oh whatever! We'd quit this and go find some real money."

"Please... don't go where I can't follow."

"Alone is fine! I can do alone, it's worrying after them that's got me all wound up!" -- "Have you considered that's because alone is NOT FINE and you don't wanna do it anymore?" -- "---!!"

"This is not the first time you've been here." -- "We've been down this road before, that is correct." -- "Several times, in fact." -- "I hadn't been keeping count."

"And you must be ___, I've heard all about you." -- "I deny everything."

"First time I saw you? I thought to myself, that's the kind of person BRICK WALLS jump outta the way of." -- "Figured you'd be safer behind me rather than in front of me?" -- "Damn right."

"Just keep looking at that beautiful sky; that's the sky that'll be over our roof when we're done." -- "What if we don't finish the roof? Then we can look at the sky all the time."

"Yeah, well... maybe a friend is what I need right now."

"Next thing you know the Feds will be at our door; Sorry, time to move out, Eminent Domain." -- "Down honey, down."

"Even a heat-seeking missile can miss a target." -- "... you taped so many hot-plates to the test target you could fry an egg at 20 feet, and it STILL missed by a mile."

"My dear, my darling, love of my life...." -- "What do you want?"

"What I mean to say is... you make here a better place to be. For me. Easier. Does that make sense?"

"Calm down, you make it sound like a war." -- "What do you people have against being prepared?!"

"This is not just a report, it's a deadly weapon." -- "Sir, an M-16 is a deadly weapon. A report is just a pile of paper, unless you plan to inflict a lot of extremely vicious paper cuts."

"Stupid son of a bitch, knocked himself out cold..." -- "Cold my ass, he's dead."

"Y'know, in baseball, a guy who hits .400 is consider pretty damn great." -- "In baseball the losing team isn't killed by their opponents."

"Hey... I love you. Did I tell you that today?"

This post is going online at 8 PM, June 24th, 2021, US Pacific time. The askbox will open for requests until 6 PM, June 25th, 2021, US Pacific Time. Get yours in now!

Arting will begin at 9 AM tomorrow morning, see you then! :D

-Loor

[perhapsthanatos]

10:32 pm with yuta ♡

nct’s yuta x fem!reader (got inspired by a dream of mine & found the idea really cute)

alternate title: be the james dean to my audrey hepburn

genre: fluff. a pinch of angst. non idol au. badboy!yuta au.

word count: 1400~

playlist: chinatown by wild nothing, lover’s rock by tv girl & work this time by king gizzard and the lizard wizard.

warnings: featuring johnny (not a warning though). smoking cigarettes. cursing. lowercase intended. not proofread.

a/n: hi i was supposed to post a vampire!haechan fic but i really wasnt happy w it in general :( the plot or overall idea of the fic was really good, but i just felt as if i didnt do it justice so here we are :( but ngl, i kind of like this concept more? maybe bc i can see it more vividly? idk, i feel like my writings r getting repetitive & its getting on my nerves lmaoo this is getting long im sorry do u guys even read this part anyway? i would also like to apologize abt the amount of projecting im doing lmao ive been having some rough days & i love my sister but hate being compared to her so often so this is a way for me to rant abt it ig? also so sorry its coming out a little later bc i woke up late today (& procrastinated for the rest of it so here i am posting really late at night) & decided to go to the convenience store to get ice cream (& a ton of other bad shit pls dont do this its rlly unhealthy) for breakfast bc i can :) any who, enjoy lovelies <3

“oh my, y/n! you’ve grown up so well! just like your sister!”

“oh! i’m sorry i’ve almost mistaken you for your sister! y/n is your name, correct?”

“y/n, darling, you are looking so dashing! you really do resemble your sister, don’t you?”

“ah, you must be y/n! i’ve heard all about you and your sister from your father!”

you swear that your reddening cheeks are threatening to fall off any moment now from all the fake smiling. the hundreds of superficial compliments, the insincere flattery and the need for these people to constantly compare you to your godforsaken sister makes you feel even weaker than you are. it gets harder and harder to keep up with a big persona that isn’t at all you. as lucky as you are to live such a lavish lifestyle, you can’t help but hate how your family has to be so perfect. you hate how you have never fit in with them, even if you are so good at faking it. you hate how you have always been stuck in your sister’s shadow, constantly haunted with the reminder that you yourself aren’t good enough. you hate how you now have to entertain the rich and brainless guests at your parent’s gala because she’s gone for some stupid prodigy competition and everyone is only talking about her in front of your face. so what if she’s better the better sister? you still have the right to earn respect, right?

you’re exhausted from all the small talk. your facade gets more brittle by the second under all the pressure. your body feels as if it's gonna give out due to your brain shutting down after all that interacting. you try to keep on going with the night as it unravels itself by being the perfectly poised poster child, trying to make your parents proud. but alive yet almost completely devoid, you decide enough was enough. what if you left right now? no one would notice, would they?

after pulling up your phone discreetly to send a few text messages, you pass through lots of people dressed in gold and finery in a way that wouldn’t have you noticed right away. keep your head down and don’t you dare make eye contact with anyone. nearing the end of the room, grabbing the first glass of whatever alcohol you see and downing it in one gulp, you start walking away as quickly as possible from the ballroom. “ignorant privileged fucks,” you angrily whisper to no one in particular, setting the now empty glass on whatever surface and begin to head to the main exit where no one could spot you running away.

“and what do you think you’re doing here, miss?”

a voice interrupts you, looking up you see that it is your father’s head butler; johnny. he is dressed in a simple black suit that makes him appear taller than he is. his long brown hair is slicked back and his bowtie seems brand new. you have known the man since he started working in your household less than ten years back. you were a reckless child, often trying to find ways to sneak out, finding a way to escape from this life and he sympathized with you. after all, he could barely imagine living your life, never catching a break for yourself and always pretending to be someone you weren’t. he often helped planning when you would sneak out into the night, scheduling things like what time you should leave and what time you should be back, more specifically a time when no one would notice. he would take care of your form of transportation and have your location on at all times, just to be extra safe. as much as he wants you to have fun and have a bit of freedom, he still worries that something might happen to you. because of all this, you two have grown to have a very strong bond. you could confidently say that he is most definitely a parental figure in your life since your parents (and even your sister) are often overseas for work.

“what do you think i’m doing? you think i wanna be in a room with those half-baked bipeds? fuck no!”

“i know, i was just joking. you looked like you were about to explode in there, i wish i could help.” he laughs, pulling out his phone preparing what you might need. “so what will it be for today? the driver? we just need to pay him to keep his mouth shut. a taxi? it’s cheaper than paying the driver, but you still need to pay… not like that’s a problem for you though. maybe an uber would be good enough—“

“actually, i got myself covered. thanks.”

his jaw slightly drops and his eyebrows furrow. he looks straight at you in shock. “what do you mean you got yourself covered?”

you look down at your feet, a nervous habit. “i got myself a ride, you don’t need to help me. i’ll be back as soon as dawn comes.”

he raises his eyebrow. “who’s your ride?”

“doesn’t matter,” you glance down at your phone seeing a notification and wave a goodbye, leaving rather suddenly. “i gotta go, i’ll text you when you need to open the gates!”

“y/n! wait! who’s your ride— and she’s gone.” johnny sighs, watching as you run towards the front gates, tossing your stiletto heels away on the grass while you’re at it. he heads back inside, silently hoping you’ll be fine.

knocking the window of the old black mustang parked outside behind the big bushes, the driver rolls down his window and sends the most charming smile.

yuta in his black beanie, long blonde hair, worn out doc martens, signature leather jacket and black skinny jeans. it almost makes you laugh on how he wears the same thing almost everyday but still manages to look so good.

he is most notable for having a big bad boy reputation and you knew that he was the breath of fresh air you needed in your life. a person who can understand having the pressure of having to be or to fulfill your persona. a person you can completely be yourself around. a person who is full of warmth no matter how cold he may seem on the outside.

“get in, princess.”

and that was all you needed. you tiredly walked to the other door and sat yourself in the car. rolling his window back up, he looks at you. you are wearing a simple yet stunning black dress along with silver jewelry adorned on your neck and wrists. your makeup is perfectly done but still struggles to hide the fog in your eyes. he has the sudden urge to clear them away. he softens at the sight of you. no one is perfect, but he finds you being perfect enough without ever having to dress up.

“where to?” he asks as gently as he could. he knows that you are most vulnerable during these moments and that it is hard to finally break down your walls after a day full of stress, so he doesn’t pry immediately. all he wants to do is to keep you here, safe and away from your burdens and for you to stay comfortable with him, even if it couldn't be for long. but is that too selfish of him to ask? he hates how you hate your life and it is taking every bone in his body to not run away with you. but who is he to tell you what to do or what to change anyway? all he can do for now is try to find a way to make you genuinely smile.

“take me anywhere,” you whisper to the latter. “i just want to be as far from myself and my life as possible. miles away or the nearest convenience store, just take the long way home before dawn.”

you look down at the cup holders, spotting an open cigarette box. you tug one out of the nineteen and light it with the lighter you kept in your pocket. you lean back and close your eyes. he only admires as you bring the cigarette to your lips, exhaling a cloud of smoke afterwards. letting the radio play quietly, he starts the car and begins to drive away from the mansion. he can’t help but wonder how you (an elegant daughter) and him (a bad boy) are millions of worlds apart, but more similar than you think.

© perhapsthanatos (efa)

[lumosinlove]

Sweater Weather Roster Description:

(So I probably definitely forgot some things. There’s a lot of complicated matching up that went into this. But, regardless, I wanted to post it, so we’ll fix and add as we go! <3)

James Potter: (Pots, Pothead, Potty)

Position: Left Wing, First Line

Number: 7

Years In The League: 7—drafted, no college.

Previous Teams: None

Description: 25. 6’1”. Dark brown hair, hazel eyes, white. Can usually be seen wearing whatever Lily buys him. Known on the team for being a joker, but also someone you can go to for any reason. Hyper.

Nationality: American. Hometown: Boston, MA.

S/O: Girlfriend, Lily Evans.

Closest to on the team: Sirius Black and Sergei Ivanov, but basically everyone.

Rooms With: No one

Sits with on the bus/plane: Sirius Black

Lives With: Girlfriend Lily Evans

Injury: Multiple concussions

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Putting his contacts in, because he usually wears glasses, gets him really into the game mode. His favorite food is treacle tart, which he had when he took his girlfriend Lily to England—now she makes it for him on his birthday.

Favorite Moment On Team: When he told them that he and Lily were pregnant and they all celebrated.

Superstition: He has to call his girlfriend, Lily, before every game.

Warm Up Song: Eye of the Tiger

What the announcers say when he scores: “Aaaaannndd Potter is wheeling tonight!!”

~

Sirius Black: (Padfoot, Cap, Captain)

Position: Center, First Line

Number: 12

Years In The League: 6—First pick overall, no college.

Previous Teams: None

Description: 24. 6’3”. Black hair, gray eyes, white. Hair gets really fluffy in humidity and it drives him insane. Short hair, curls above his ears. Loves a good backwards hat. One of the strongest on the team.

Nationality: French-Canadian. Hometown: Montreal, Canada.

S/O: Remus Lupin—secret.

Closest to on the team: James Potter and Adam Fox and William LeBlanc

Rooms With: No One

Sits with on the bus/plane: James Potter

Lives With: No one

Injury: Badly broken ankle, one mild concussion

Puck Personality Fun Fact: He had a very hard time coming up with one, so James chose one for him. He pretends to hate the rookies, but will drop literally everything for anything they need. He’s also really bad at taking his pre-game nap.

(Pascal Dumais from the background: “He does not understand household chores!” “Shut up, Dumo!”)

Favorite Moment On Team: His first game after deciding to stand up to his mother about getting a trade. He could finally relax, and enjoy himself. When he scored the first goal, he let his teammates celebrate with him.

Superstition: There are so many. There are too many. Has to go out onto the ice last, has to have a butter and honey toasted sandwich before the game at 5:00 pm, has to do his stretches in a certain order, has to put on and sharpen his left skate first. Cannot even talk about the Cup without freaking out. Will wear the same gross hat until it literally reeks if they’re on a hot streak.

Warm Up Song: Doesn’t really have one.

What the announcers say when he scores: “Seriously!!! That is one serious goal!!” “That Black back-hander will kill a fella!”

~

Finn O’Hara: (Harzy, Fish)

Position: Right Wing

Number: 17

Years In The League: 3. Went to Harvard College.

Previous Teams: None

Description: 23. 6’0’’. Dark red hair, luscious and fluffy. White. Wavy. Light freckles. Brown eyes. Is a single eyebrow raiser. Habit of saluting. More on the slender side of muscle. Is a bit of a worry-wart. Super sarcastic.

Nationality: American. Hometown: New York, New York.

S/O: June Calder—sort of.

Closest to on the team: Logan Tremblay and Leo Knut and Olli Halla

Rooms With: Timmy Jones

Sits with on the bus/plane: Kasey Winter

Lives With: Leo Knut

Injury: Two bad concussions in college.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: He wanted it to be that he’s real fucking good in bed, but it’s that he likes eating grilled cheese with strawberry jam because his older brother, Alexander, used to make it for him all the time when they were kids.

Favorite Moment On Team: Probably that one team dinner where Blizzard got drunk and tried to swim in a fountain. Or when he found out that Logan also got drafted to the Lions the year after him.

Superstition: Has to have a grilled cheese and strawberry jam before every game. Has to tape his own sticks on the bench. Has a handshake with Logan they do before walking down the tunnel.

Warm Up Song: Hollaback Girl, Gwen Stefani

What the announcers say when he scores: “OOOOOOOO’HARA HOW DARA!! WHAT A GOAL!”

~

Timmy Jones: (Timmers)

Position: Defenseman

Number: 62

Years In The League: 10. Went to Boston University

Previous Teams: New York Islanders

Description: 31. 6’1”. Black hair, braided, reaches his shoulders and he likes to tie it up sometimes, hazel eyes. Black. One of the most popular jerseys because he’s such a crowd pleaser always riling them up and talking to fans through the glass. He’s also one of the biggest Instagram users and is always posting really funny locker room videos.

Nationality: Canadian. Vancouver, Canada.

S/O: Single

Closest to on the team: Olli Halla and William LeBlanc and Thomas Walker

Rooms With: Finn O’Hara

Lives With: Olli Halla

Sits with on the bus/plane: Olli Halla

Injury: Fractured foot a few years ago.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Kasey’s rival for best hair in the league. Famous for his crazy cellys

Favorite Moment On Team: Conference Finals! And when all the boys touch Moody’s leg for good luck.

Superstition: Has a lucky towel that no one is allowed to wash.

Warm Up Song: Where are Ü Now, Jack Ü, Skrillex, Justin Bieber

What the announcers say when he scores: Timmers strikes again!!

~

Olli Halla: (Olli)

Position: Defenseman

Number: 5

Years In The League: 10, Undrafted.

Previous Teams: Winnipeg Jets.

Description: 6’2”. 32. Very, very blonde hair, nearly white. Pale blue eyes. Cute little nose. Cannot grow a beard to save his life. Total baby-face. Is sort of shy and awkward. What a sweetheart.

Nationality: Finish. Hometown: Helsinki, Finland.

S/O: Single.

Closest to on the team: Timmy Jones and Finn O’Hara

Rooms With: Elias Cook

Lives With: Timmy Jones

Sits with on the bus/plane: Timmy Jones

Injury: Concussion, twice. A few bruised ribs.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Wins the pre-game team kick-around almost every time. Brings awareness to charities that contribute to doing research on the brain and brain injuries. 

Favorite Moment On Team: When the team welcomed him back from his pretty serious concussion (he missed nearly a year) by all wearing the number 5 out on the ice during warm ups.

Superstition: Wears his cross and says a small prayer after the national anthem. Also has to play in the kick-around.

Warm Up Song: Replay, Iyaz

What the announcers say when he scores: (G)oooooolllliiiii!

~

Brady Smith: (Smitty)

Position: Right Wing

Number: 92

Years In The League: 10. Drafted.

Previous Teams: Washington Capitals

Description: 28, 6’3”. Black hair, blue eyes. Black. The sweetest person you will ever meet in your life. Is adored by all of the hockey wives and girlfriends. Can speak Spanish and (ofc) German. Has a tattoo he has on his back shoulder blade of the Stanley Cup which he won with the Washington Capitals. The cup says his wife and two kid’s names on it with room for more—this man loves his babies.

Nationality: German. Hometown: Berlin, Germany, where his mother is from, but moved to the Boston, MA when he was 15 years old—where his father is from.

S/O: Married to his wife Allison, and they’re expecting their third child. Their first is a boy named Max, their second a boy named Noah.

Closest to on the team: Evgeni Kuznetsov and Jackson Nadeau.

Lives With: His family

Sits with on the bus/plane: Evan Kane

Rooms With: Evan Kane

Injury: Frequently separates his shoulder :(

Puck Personality Fun Fact: He’s part of the Lions’ power play. Is actually a really good tattoo artist and has inked Kris Lavolie and Evgeni Kuznetsov. He gave Kris the date of his daughter’s birth, and he gave Evgeni a tiger on his left bicep.

Favorite Moment On Team: He really loved when Sirius became Captain. He felt a shift in their team’s drive.

Superstition: Has to read the note his son wrote him a few years ago.

Warm Up Song: Anything Drake

What the announcers say when he scores: Braaaddyyy Smith! What a goal!

~

Pascal Dumais: (Dumo)

Position: Center

Number: 9

Years In The League: 24, drafted first overall.

Previous Teams: New York Rangers, Colorado Avalanche.

Description: 41. 6’1’’. Brown hair, cut pretty short but brushes up at the front or superman curl.  White. Hazel/green eyes, dark eyelashes and brows. Scruffy beard always. Is the dad of the team. Well tell anyone who asks the hilarious stories of when Sirius lived with him.

Nationality: French Canadian. Hometown: Montreal.

S/O: Celeste Dumais, wife. And four children. Adele (13), Louis (10), Marc (9), and Katie (7).

Closest to on the team: Logan Tremblay and Sergei Ivanov.

Lives With: His wife and four kids—and Logan of course.

Rooms With: No one

Sits with on the bus/plane: No one, he enjoys the peace and quiet (not that anyone gives him any)

Injury: Broken wrist. Bruised ribs. Mild concussion. Lost too many teeth to count.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: The BIGGEST prankster on the team. Loves fine wine.

Favorite Moment On Team: Whenever the crowd chants “Duuummmooooo,” or the first time Sirius smiled.

Superstition: Slaps Sergei’s ass before they walk down the tunnel. No one knows why.

Warm Up Song: Eight Days A Week by The Beatles

What the announcers say when he scores: "Pascal Dumais everybody! One of the oldest in the league—he’s still got it!”

~

Logan Tremblay: (Tremzy, [Finn: Lo])

Position: Right Wing

Number: 10

Years In The League: 2. Went to Harvard College.

Previous Teams: None.

Description: 22. 5’9’’. Dark brown hair, long enough to be wavy and always wearing a snapback. Green eyes. Light freckles. White. Always sinfully tan. Really broad and strong. Those arms and chest muscles damn. Really dark, long eyelashes. Clean shaven. Really loud, always mildly grumpy. Flirts with EVERYTHING. 

Nationality: French Canadian. Hometown: Rimouski, Quebec, Canada.

S/O: Single…..

Closest to on the team: Leo Knut, Finn O’Hara, and Pascal Dumais, Thomas Walker.

Lives With: Pascal Dumais

Rooms With: Leo Knut

Sits with on the bus/plane: Leo Knut

Injury: He broke a finger and a foot and frequently has black eyes from fights.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Has a fleur-de-lis necklace that he never takes off. Spends his summers in Nice, France where his mother is from. Bites his nails.

Favorite Moment On Team: Playing with Finn again.

Superstition: Says he isn’t superstitious but he is. Won’t touch the kick-around soccer ball before he decides to play. Has a handshake with Finn they do before walking down the tunnel.

Warm Up Song: Whatever It Takes, Imagine Dragons.

What the announcers say when he scores: “Scooorree!!! Oh, the tremble before Tremblay!”

~

Thomas Walker: (Talker, Walkie-Talkie)

Position: Defenseman —also an enforcer.

Number: 43

Years In The League: 8. University of Wisconsin.

Previous Teams: None.

Description: 30, 6’2”. Short hair, brown eyes, one of the most ripped guys on the team. Black. Pierced ears, usually small gold hoops. Takes them out for play. The Lions organization does a segment with him called Walkie-Talkie where he goes around the locker room and interviews his team mates with funny questions.

Nationality: American. Hometown: Chicago, IL.

S/O: Single

Closest to on the team: Timmy Jones and Adam Fox and Logan Tremblay.

Lives With: No one

Rooms With: Adam Fox.

Sits with on the bus/plane: Anyone who wants to CHAT.

Injury: Broken foot, some broken fingers.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: He got his nickname Talker because he never shuts up on the ice. Starts a lot of fights. 

Favorite Moment On Team: When Kasey jumped in the fountain.

Superstition: Needs to take a three minute nap between periods. He puts a towel over his head right in his stall and literally falls asleep for three minutes. (James: it’s fucking weird”)

Warm Up Song: Top hits, just needs the background noise.

What the announcers say when he scores: “Goal!!! He just walks right up there, don’t he?”

~

Sergei Ivanov: (Vans)

Position: Defenseman 

Number: 55

Years In The League: 23, Drafted, no college.

Previous Teams: Pittsburgh Penguins, Colorado Avalanche, Vegas Golden Knights.

Description: 40. 5’11”. Light brown-gray hair—was blonde, losing it at the front a little.  White. Really stern blue eyes that transform and crinkle when he smiles (but it’s hard to get a real smile out of him, and the boys feel really accomplished when they do).

Nationality: Russian. Hometown: Omsk.

S/O: Anya. They have three daughters: Aleandra (10), Evenlina (8), and Katya (7).

Closest to on the team: Kris Lavolie and Pascal Dumais and James Potter

Lives With: His wife and children.

Rooms With: No one.

Sits with on the bus/plane: Kris Lavolie.

Injury: Shoulder injury

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Loves classical music

Favorite Moment On Team: One of his daughters was born the same night he got his first hat-trick. Some of the team came to the hospital with him.

Superstition: Stops at a Church on his way to the rink everyday for a few quiet moments.

Warm Up Song: He doesn’t have one, he prefers to talk to everyone instead.

What the announcers say when he scores: SERGEI SCORES!

~

Jackson Nadeau: (Nado)

Position: Left Wing

Number: 58

Years In The League: 8. Went to College but didn’t finish.

Previous Teams: Chicago Blackhawks 

Description: 26, 6’0”. Dark brown hair, chin length and straight, blue eyes. White. Is very laid back and a big flirt. Has cheek bones that could kill and a very stark scar running down one of them from a skate in the face.

Nationality: French Canadian. Victoria, Canada.

S/O: Single

Closest to on the team: Evgeni Kuznetsov and Brady Smith

Lives With: Evgeni Kuznetsov

Rooms With: Evgeni Kuznetsov

Sits with on the bus/plane: Evgeni Kuznetsov

Injury: Skate to the face, other minor things.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Rival with Evgeni for most pick ups on the team. Has many tattoos—one full sleeve, working on the other.

Favorite Moment On Team: Probably when Evgeni got traded, he found his best friend.

Superstition: Has a handshake with Evgeni.

Warm Up Song: He won’t tell you up front but Hamilton.

What the announcers say when he scores: Rapidly repeating “Nadeau, Nadeau, Nadeau!!!”

~

Evgeni Kuznetsov: (Kuny)

Position: Center. Enforcer.

Number: 86

Years In The League: 10. Drafted.

Previous Teams: Anaheim Ducks, Calgary Flames, Buffalo Sabres.

Description: 27. 6’4”. Short cropped light brown hair and puppy-dog brown eyes. Has a slightly chipped front left tooth. White. Very heavy Russian accent, doesn’t speak perfect English and uses this fact to get out of interviews. Is very charming. Literally a giant.

Nationality: Russian. Magnitogorsk, Russia. 

S/O: Single and ready to mingle—or already does mingle. Excessively.

Closest to on the team: Brady Smith and Jackson Nadeau

Lives With: Jackson Nadeau 

Rooms With: Jackson Nadeau

Sits with on the bus/plane: Jackson Nadeau

Injury: Had to have knee surgery.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Will tell you he has the most pick-ups on the team, but it might be Nado. He’s always making jokes in Russian that basically only Sergei and Henrik can understand and Sergei just rolls his eyes while Henrik laughs.

Favorite Moment On Team: He loves team dinners, just hanging out with the guys.

Superstition: Has a handshake with Jackson.

Warm Up Song: BLASTS Russian rap.

What the announcers say when he scores: THE RUSSIAN BEAR STRIKES AGAIN!

~

Evan Kane: (Kaner)

Position: Right Wing

Number: 51

Years In The League: Two. Went to College at Boston University.

Previous Teams: Calgary Flames.

Description: 23. 5’11”. Tan skin with freckles and brown eyes, black, short hair. Hispanic. Super strong and holds lots of team workout records. The brightest smile. Eyebrows on point. Loves to read, was an English major at school.

Nationality: American. Hometown: Boston, MA.

S/O: His girlfriend, Caroline Hall.

Closest to on the team: Brady Smith and Elias Cook, and Leo Knut

Lives With: His girlfriend.

Rooms With: Brady Smith

Sits with on the bus/plane: Brady Smith

Injury: Nothing major up to date.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Wicked fast. One of the fastest in the League.

Favorite Moment On Team: Probably meeting Pascal Dumais. He’s looked up to his playing style for a long time.

Superstition: Tapes his own sticks, sharpens his own skates.

Warm Up Song: Eminem

What the announcers say when he scores: “Yes he Kane!!!”

~

Adam Fox: (Foxy, Sexy)

Position: Defenseman

Number: 32.

Years In The League: 19. Drafted.

Previous Teams: New York Islanders.

Description: 36. 6’2”. White. Light brown hair that pushes up at the front and is shaved close at the sides. Blue eyes that will kill you. 

Nationality: American. Hometown: Boston, MA. 

S/O: Girlfriend, Lucìa Perez.

Closest to on the team: Thomas Walker and Sirius Black

Lives With: His girlfriend.

Rooms With: Thomas Walker

Sits with on the bus/plane: Elias Cook

Injury: Nothing too serious.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Is constantly made fun of for being the prettiest. Ever.

Favorite Moment On Team: Bringing his girlfriend to her first game.

Superstition: Stretches in a certain order.

Warm Up Song: They boys will tell you it’s SexyBack but it’s actually just heavy metal.

What the announcers say when he scores: “A foxy goal!!”

~

Henrik Sunqvist: (Sunny, Sunshine)

Position: Defenseman

Number: 33

Years In The League: 10. Played in the Swedish league for a while.

Previous Teams: None in the NHL.

Description: 39. 5’11”. Blond hair, cut short, pale blue eyes, white. Warmest smile you’ve ever seen. 

Nationality: Swedish. Hometown: Uppsala.

S/O: Linnea Sunqvist, his wife and their daughter and son, Maja (10) and Hugo (11).

Closest to on the team: Evander Bell

Lives With: His wife and family.

Rooms With: No one

Sits with on the bus/plane: Likes to sit alone with a nice audiobook sometimes.

Injury: Nothing major, a few minor concussions

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Almost never fights, but when he does…ouch. Can speak French and Russian.

Favorite Moment On Team: When he gets to morning practice and has coffee with the boys.

Superstition: Has to do a few somersaults in the locker room—we don’t know why.

Warm Up Song: Russian rap—no one knows why/how he knows Russian so well.

What the announcers say when he scores: “The sun is shining on Sunqvist!"

~

Elias Cook: (Cookie, Crock-pot) 

Position: Left Wing

Number: 29

Years In The League: 7. Drafted.

Previous Teams: Toronto Maple Leafs

Description: 25. 5’11”. Hazel eyes, Black hair, baby curls so cute we love the curls. 

Nationality: Canadian. Toronto.

S/O: Fiancee, Jamie Barrow.

Closest to on the team: Kasey Winter

Lives With: Jamie.

Rooms With: Olli Halla

Sits with on the bus/plane: Adam Fox

Injury:

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Loves spicy food. Once made Sirius cry by daring him to eat some really spicy dish.

Favorite Moment On Team: Listening to ABBA in the locker room.

Superstition: Does a few laps around the hallways. The press love to try to catch him for interviews while he’s doing this.

Warm Up Song: iSpy, KYLE and Lil Yachty

What the announcers say when he scores: “The stove is HOT for Cook tonight!”

~

William LeBlanc: (Bluey)

Position: Center

Number: 44

Years In The League: 3. Drafted.

Previous Teams: SKA Saint Petersburg.

Description: 24 6′1″. Brown hair, wavy, green eyes. White. Goes to Russia during his summers.

Nationality: French Canadian. Sherbrooke. 

S/O: Single

Closest to on the team: Tyler Wright, Sirius Black.

Lives With: No one

Rooms With: Kris Lavolie

Sits with on the bus/plane: Tyler Wright

Injury: Concussion.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Never learned Russian well, despite playing in the KHL. 

Favorite Moment On Team: When Kasey jumped in the fountain.

Superstition: Has to touch all the boys’ names above their stalls

Warm Up Song: Russian rap.

What the announcers say when he scores: LeGOALLLLL

~

Evander Bell: (Ringer)

Position: Right Wing

Number: 21

Years In The League: 15. Drafted.

Previous Teams: Bruins, Red Wings.

Description: 33. 6’3”. Sandy blond hair and brown eyes. White. Pretty shy, but really kind. Laughs really loudly which then makes himself blush.

Nationality: American. Hometown: L.A.

S/O: His fiancee, Emily.

Closest to on the team: Henrik Sunqvist

Lives With: Emily and his son, Xavier.

Rooms With: None

Sits with on the bus/plane: Likes to sit alone, besides joining the card game.

Injury: Broken wrist.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Can play the guitar and the piano. Is one of the team’s biggest You Can Play ambassadors (Pascal and Sergei are the other two most active). Always goes to the Gryffindor pride parade.

Favorite Moment On Team: The entire locker room singing We Are Never Getting Back Together. Beginning to see hearts on the glass at the team’s You Can Play Night.

Superstition: Wears the same hat and socks. 

Warm Up Song: Taylor Swift. 

What the announcers say when he scores: “A dead Ringer from Evander Bell!”

~

Kris Lavolie: (Volley)

Position: Defenseman

Number: 11

Years In The League: 3. Went to University of Michigan.

Previous Teams: None.

Description: 24, 6’1”. Dark hair that’s straight and falls to about his chin, brown eyes. White. Broadly built. Kind and a really good listener.

Nationality: French Canadian. Hometown: Quebec City.

S/O: Single

Closest to on the team: Sergei Ivanov

Lives With: His daughter, Aveline.

Rooms With: William LeBlanc

Sits with on the bus/plane: Sergei Ivanov

Injury: Broken rib.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Kris is a single dad. One of his best friends, Lee, she takes care of his baby girl who is four now while he’s on the road. Sometimes she gets to go stay with Sergei’s family, too. Sergei helps him so much, and he’s thankful for him <3. His daughter’s name is Aveline and he will do ANYTHING for her.

Favorite Moment On Team: Taking his daughter to the Lions’ family skate for the first time.

Superstition: Talk to/call his daughter before every game.

Warm Up Song: XO, Beyoncé

What the announcers say when he scores: “La gooaaaaallll by Lavolie!!”

~

Tyler Wright: (Wrangler)

Position: Defenseman

Number: 8

Years In The League: 

Previous Teams:

Description: 27. 6’2”. Hair that is shoulder length, really dark brown. Blue eyes. Square jaw. Has a bit of a temper on the ice, but is a sweetheart otherwise. Ironically doesn’t like fighting.

Nationality: American. Hometown: Minnesota, Minneapolis.

S/O: His girlfriend, Elsa, who lives in Sweden and is a professional football/soccer player.

Closest to on the team: William LeBlanc

Lives With: No one

Rooms With: No one

Sits with on the bus/plane: William LeBlanc

Injury: Nothing serious.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Has four dachshunds named Puck, Deke, Gordie, and Stanley.

Favorite Moment On Team: Like many, when Kasey jumped into that fountain. “It was just so fuckin’ out of character, you know?”

Superstition: Has to participate in the kick around, and has to kick the ball last with his right foot.

Warm Up Song: Royals, Lorde.

What the announcers say when he scores: “Wright in the net!”

~

Kasey Winter: (Kase, Blizzard)

Position: Goalie

Number: 30

Years In The League: 8 years. Drafted, no college.

Previous Teams: New York Rangers.

Description: 26. 6’2’’. Light brown hair down to his shoulders. Known for being the most beautiful hair in the league. Softest brown eyes that psych shooters out. Grows a really gorgeous beard whenever the fuck he wants. 

Nationality: Canadian. Home town: Ontario, Canada.

S/O: Girlfriend, Natalie Darcy

Closest to on the team: Elias Cook and Kris Lavolie

Lives With: His girlfriend, Natalie.

Rooms With: No one.

Sits with on the bus/plane: Finn O’Hara

Injury: Torn hamstring.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Will have his girlfriend braid his hair for practice sometimes. (“You can say what you want, but keeps it out of my face. Good old boxer braids. It’s where it’s at.”)

Favorite Moment On Team: When the team got to the Conference Finals seven years ago.

Superstition: Has to do stretches in a certain order.

Warm Up Song: Wasabi by Little Mix (Thanks, Natalie)

What the announcers say when he makes a safe: “The Blizzard is blinding!” “It’s a squall!”

~

Leo Knut: (Nut, Knutty, Peanut, Peanut-butter)

Position: Goalie

Number: 1

Years In The League: His rookie season, so almost one. No college.

Previous Teams: None.

Description: 18. 6’3’’. Dark blond Hair, pretty wavy and falls over his forehead. Blue eyes. Button nose. Blond eyelashes. Cannot grow a beard to save his life.

Nationality: American. Hometown: New Orleans, Louisiana.

S/O: None….;)

Closest to on the team: Logan Tremblay and Finn O’Hara and Evan Kane

Lives With: Finn O’Hara

Rooms With: Logan Tremblay

Sits with on the bus/plane: Logan Tremblay

Injury: Nothing major.

Puck Personality Fun Fact: Has a small gray-streaked patch of hair by the front of his head from hitting his head really hard when he was little.

Favorite Moment On Team: Well, the first moment he felt most at home was when the rest of the boys started imitating his accent. Logan is the worst at it, but he does it the most.

Superstition: Not very superstitious…yet.

Warm Up Song: Violet, Bad Suns and Love On Top by Beyoncé

What the announcers say when he saves a puck: “Another nuts save for Knut!” “We’re nuts about Knut!” “Right in the nuts!”

[cryinginthebackseat]

initials t.c.

Fandom: Open Heart

Pairing: Tobias Carrick x MC

Words: 7.299 (I’M SO SORRY)

Summary: Tobias Carrick makes Claire an offer she can’t refuse.

Warnings: 50% plot, 50% smut, swear-a-thon, blasphemy

Author’s Note: when the book first introduced us to tobias carrick, the first thing that hit my mind was “okay, but that dude is like the carbon copy of jesse williams and that’s hot” but then, once it reveals who he is and what’s his role in the book i went “interestinggggggg” cause you know, i’m a sucker for morally grey characters and all, and i’m not even ashamed to admit it. also, carrick is shaping up to be such an interesting character with each chapter and maybe one day- okay, maybe this sounds like a pipe dream- but one day, i hope he can be a li (let a girl dream plz) lmao

also if anyone’s interested, i made a PLAYLIST to accompany reading the fic.

the title is inspired by serge gainsbourg’s initials bb

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Cast down off heaven Cast down on my knees I’ve lain with the devil Cursed god above Forsaken heaven

To Bring You My Love - PJ Harvey

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Whenever Claire thinks about Tobias Carrick, admittedly, unfortunately, tragically, she always thinks about his eyes first before remembering what a colossal pain in the ass he is.

It always comes in that order. Like the number 3 always comes before 4, like the seawater dragging back from the shoreline before a tsunami occurs, like pouring milk before the cereal (she honestly didn’t get what the fuss is about until one day Elijah cried ‘oh, hell no you don’t, satan!‘ one morning and proceeded to give her bullet points why pouring the milk before the cereal is considered a sin and more of an abomination than Nephilims’ existence and that there’s a higher probability that she’s a psycho for being a ‘milk first’ kind of person). So apparently, Claire’s a psycho now which explains so many aspects- but she digresses and the point is, the reaction is uncontrollable and she high-key hates how she can’t control her goddamn mind most of the time.

The point is, she needs to stop thinking about him to begin with. 

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Claire Castelnuovo was born in the summer, under the sign of Gemini. Marilyn Monroe once said that stands for intellect, being a Gemini, but she was too blissfully unaware of this guerdon that she devoted her adolescent years to being outdoors instead. Too many days she spent trampling along the cornfields with her cousins until the skies faded out with brilliant purple-tinged amber and she was carrying a piece of the sun in her skin and smelled like one, stuffing wildflowers inside her boots as she walked around the neighborhood with her dad’s old stethoscope, napping in a hammock with Oasis’ All Around the World on repeat. By the time she hit 15, her black strands had turned brown from repeated sun exposure. She loved it.

But it was a different time, a different place. Somewhere that only exists on the margins of her memories, lost and hidden.

Now, Claire prefers the night.

It’s 9:30 pm when she arrives at a hotel bar in downtown Boston. A newly christened establishment which has somehow become a regular spot for Hemingway’s enthusiasts once the Boston Globe wrote an article about their Hemingway Daiquiri and how, as they wrote it, ‘probably the only place that’s brave and crazy enough to adhere to the 1930s original recipe’ and bourgeois party birds at wee hours during the weekend.

Her eyes are gritty, dry and strange. Her mind’s much worse for the wear- she feels like shit, like in the middle of watching that scene from The Green Mile shit when all is hopeless and you feel like walking out of the theater, but you’ve spent your last savings just to buy the ticket, so you decide to stick through it.

Claire makes a beeline for the bar, tries to flag down the bartender. She orders an Old Fashioned, making sure to specify to double it because she’s not a regular here and he’s not Reggie and that’s how she’s been taking her drink for years.

She knows well deep in her bones that she should be somewhere else. Somewhere more familiar, somewhere where Tim Mcgraw often plays from the subpar speakers, and the rustic wooden bar countertop is gouging and discoloring from the cheap household cleaners and alcohol stains, and her friends are cramming together in the same booth in the back, reveling and laughing until they close the bar down and make a mess all over. Perhaps it’s a mistake coming here, where no one’s a familiar face and the drinks are a tad overpriced for her budget.

But then, perhaps this is exactly what she needs; the unfamiliarity, the visceral feeling knowing that she doesn’t belong here, where no one knows her name and the huge deal of weight she’s currently carrying on her shoulders. Perhaps, she can’t face her friends after what happened, after what Esme has done. Shit, how could any of this happen? Claire knows this all on Esme’s, but her guilt has grown hopelessly tangled with her anxiety. She’s her intern, for fuck’s sake, Claire’s supposed to prevent this from happening in the first place.

Man, where’s Declan Nash when she feels like punching someone in the face?

Claire makes the mistake of drinking her drink too quickly, because it hasn’t been ten minutes and she’s drained half of the content. Then she reaches for her phone in her bag, fiddles with it, absent-minded, equal parts bored before then settles on watching the band performing Art Pepper’s You Go To My Head and immediately thinks of that time she accidentally dropped her brother’s saxophone in a moment of her rather graceless, wine-soaked self with the whole family present.

Someone plops down on the empty stool next to her. Claire’s now scrolling through her phone- again, bored. Sienna commented on the post Elijah shared to the group chat with a few unnecessary-yet-totally-necessary emojis to the already convoluted series of texts and Claire only reads them in silence, not only because her friends’ texting behaviors are too chaotic for her to follow sometimes but she’s not really feeling like talking to anyone right now.

“Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in.”

Famous last words.

Claire freezes in her seat. Her phone’s still glowing in her hand, alighting her features. She recognizes that voice- too well, that is and it’s enough to set off her flight-or-fight response.

She glances up from her phone, preparing for the worst.

Well, what’s presented before her is literally the worst.

“Of all the gin joints…” she says once her eyes find Tobias Carrick sitting next to her, still in his work shirt, sleeves rolled-up, a few buttons undone, reeking of smoke, soap and antiseptic with a shit-eating grin plastered over his face.

She should have gone to Donahue’s instead.

“Evening to you too, Castelnuovo. Drinking your dinner tonight, I see?”

“What, this? No, this is breakfast. 100% daily value of alcohol and pretty much nothing else. I mean, it’s not the weekend without a bad case of hangover and an aspirin snowglobe in the morning, am I right? You know, like a glass of aspirin? Not a literal snowglobe?” she blabbers, realizing just so by the time she hears him snort. Claire chokes down another sip to shut her mouth up. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m about to commit first-degree murder and burn this whole place to the ground,” he drawls, the ever goddamn sarcastic. “What do you think? I’m trying to get dru-”

“No, I mean what are you doing here, of all places? Can’t you get drunk somewhere else?” she interrupts, her midwest accent does funny things to the vowels and consonants- something that only happens whenever she’s in distress, or at least according to Jackie.

“Last time I heard, this joint’s still owned by the Hilton, not a certain junior member of the Diagnostics Team at Edenbrook hospital.”

“Dude, what do you think of the H in Claire H. Castelnuovo stands for?” Deadpan, trying to keep up with the rolling sarcasm, she retorts. He smirks.

“Horatio?”

“Get the fuck out of here,” she mutters, mid-eye-roll, mid-snickering.

He chuckles, his voice rich and smoky amidst the late-night swing and distant chatters. Carrick doesn’t leave, of course, typically him- if those anecdotes Ethan told her has taught her anything about his character, that is- defying everything, scheming his way to the top, the embodiment of ‘those devilish boys with their heavenly eyes’ type your mother warns you about.

Not that the latter is relevant.

“Or what?” His mouth twitches but there’s a hard, challenging light in his eyes that she knows too well by now.

“Or I’m leaving.“ She shoots him a glare. He’s testing her patience- again, like it’s his finesse. Some things never change, it seems.

“Come on, Castelnuovo, don’t be a sourpuss. The night is young and I can promise you, the last thing I am is a horrible drinking buddy.”

With a touch of irony, she replies: “I’m sure. I bet you asked your friends to fill out a questionnaire every time you went out with them, did you?”

Carrick hums.

“You’re funny.” But he says it in the same tone that someone might say Jesus fuck, you’re probably one of the most frustrating creatures I’ve ever laid eyes on. Also, because the next thing he says is: “A little rough around the edges, but funny nonetheless.”

“That makes one of us then.”

Carrick frowns, which is kind of a surprise because she’s half expected him to flash her that signature cheeky grin of his.

“Listen, I’m just trying to make a friendly conversation here. I know we haven’t really seen eye-to-eye with each othe-”

Claire snorts and crosses her arms over her chest. “That, doctor, is an understatement of the fucking century.”

“Okay so, we’re like Tom and Jerry but sans the background music and a naive little duckling running around calling one of us his momma, but I feel like now’s the time to call out a temporary truce between us.” A beat, then: “I heard about what happened with the intern.”

Something flashes across her face- and Carrick must have noticed it, because his face does this odd thing- it softens, even for a moment. She hates it. He’s not supposed to be looking at her like that, not supposed to see her at her weakest state or saved her ass- And Jesus, why does she have to be indebted to Tobias Carrick, of all people- But god forbid, the last thing she’ll ever do is crying in front of him.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she mutters, barely audible, trying to temper her fluctuated emotions.

“Then don’t. We can talk about anything else or fall into some sort of endless, meaningless platitudes. Whichever will work.” As if sensing Claire’s lingering hesitation, he adds. “Tell you what, to sweeten the offer, your next drinks are on me.”

She assesses him for a long minute, eyes narrowing. She’s shaking her head, but her mouth, as if against her will, instead says: “Careful, Carrick, there’s a chance I’ll be abusing that offer and run you dry.”

"Hey, if you want to butcher your liver so bad, don’t stop on my account,” he says. “Don’t worry, though, I’ll make sure to save your ass again this time around. Pro bono.”

Claire looks as if she’s just swallowed a dead rat. “Thanks, but no thanks. Death seems more like an appealing choice.”

“Well, I stopped death from interfering then, I’ll stop it again.” Carrick winks, she pretends to gag again yet remains still in her seat, so Carrick waves at the bartender for their order- she orders for a refill and he, a martini and Claire is this close from asking 'shaken or stirred?’ but then remembers who he is and immediately washes the question down with her drink.

“You know, if anyone told me weeks ago that I’d be having a drink with you tonight, I probably would have socked them.“

Carrick is in the middle of lighting his cigarette, but laughs instead. “The Times They Are a-Changin’, as Bob Dylan said.” A puff of smoke escapes his mouth, curling around his fingers. Claire instinctively looks away. “Which reminds me of that one time your mentor sang Ballad of A Thin Man on the fucking subway when we were 20.”

She swivels her head to his direction, on the verge of choking on her drink. “Hold on, hold on, Ethan Jonah Ramsey sings?”

“Give him a dare he couldn’t refuse and a few shots of whiskey, and I promise you he’ll sing like Sinatra on crack.” He grins, his eyes are all crinkled and bright; she thinks that means he’s genuinely amused. “Ah, good times. We were like- wait, who was it he’d like to say we’re like again?”

A small smile pulls at her lips. “Bert and Ernie.”

“Jesus, he really fucking compares us to some Sesame Street characters, huh?” She laughs at that, loud and bright. He does the same. “Personally, I’d always say we were like Butch and Sundance back then- rebels with a cause, a band of misfits, trying to leave our marks on the world. You know those types. We were young, we wanted so much- I still do. I mean, let’s be real, whoever’s wanted to be defeated at their own game?”

A crease forms between her eyebrows, not quite a frown.

“Nobody,” Claire concurs, hating herself for it. “But was it worth it? Betraying the closest thing you had to a brother or a lover…” Carrick coughs on his smoke from the latter. “or whatever in the process just to get what you wanted?” Claire was obviously aiming for that brash, hard-hitting jab, but it lands gloriously too soft.

The bartender finally places their ordered drinks down on the bar. Carrick reaches for it, taking a careful swig, then sets his glass down. He takes a deep breath.

"It’s nothing personal. It never was. I never considered him as my rival.”

“Yeah, but by doing whatever you did, you’ve made an enemy out of him,” she counters. “Look, Carrick, I know we live in a dog-eat-dog world and I know being good sometimes doesn’t get the job done. Perhaps Machiavelli was right. Perhaps, when necessary, you have to be ruthless, dissembling and manoeuvring- what did he say again? ‘The end justifies the means’? But if any worthwhile end can justify the means to attain it, if everyone outright surrenders to their darker side, then what’s left of our humanity?”

For an interminable moment, there is only silence. He simply stares at her, as if she’s a walking, talking Rubik’s cube he can’t solve or a book that he has opened and now he’s got to know so much more and she feels pinned under those warm irises, uneasy.

Suddenly, his mouth begins to take shape; the corners hike up, stretch and then he does the unexpected.

The bastard fucking laughs.

“Excuse me?!” she spits, white-hot anger lacing each word. Carrick laughs harder- the audacity- despite Claire’s growing razor’s edge stare. “Did you just laugh at me? I was being fucking seriou-”

“Sorry, sorry.” Wiping an imaginary tear from his left eye. “I was just remembering Harper’s words. She’s right, you really are on the side of the angels, aren’t you?”

She points at him with her glass, snarling. “And you, mister, are the devil himself with a medical degree and an egg head- and I don’t mean the slang for a highly academic person.”

“Ouch,” Carrick says out loud, still kind of laughing, borderline frowning. “Okay, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

“Damn straight. Though you have a lot to apologize for.”

He groans. “Don’t tell me you’re still pissed about that one patient I stole under your nose?”

“The North remembers, ser,” she says, mean-spirited.

“Then does the North remembers that I saved her life?”

“Oh, so you’re discrediting the efforts of the other doctors that helped you make the cure?”

“Alright, alright. You win.” Carrick holds up his hands, the universal gesture of defeat and takes one final drag of his cigarette. He stubs it out, all the while keeping his gaze on her.

“So, how exactly can I make it up to you?“

Claire blinks- once, twice, thrice, realizing his intent. His voice drops an octave and he’s leaning in, close enough for her to notice the constellations of freckles splaying across his face and the way his brown eyes glinted like two shots of whiskey under a stream of light, intense and all-consuming. She feels her mind races, her brains feel as if they underwent a short-circuit and get caught on fire, and the fact that her mind’s on the precipice of exploring the idea is not helping.

A burst of laughter erupts from her throat, not that it’s funny- there’s nothing funny about the situation, but someone ought to diffuse this shift of tension between them, or that was her aim, at least.

“What, you wanna pay me back?” she asks, trying to keep her voice from cracking but failing miserably. Fingers trembling against her glass as she chugs nearly a quarter of her drink in one go.

He notices that.

"A Lannister always pays his debts, does he? If you think that I owe you one, then I’ll gladly pay.” His eyes flick back to her face, searing into her. The air crackles between them. The band is playing a different song now, a sound that only exists on the margin of her attention. If they’re in, say a mid 2000s rom-com movie, someone would probably interrupt this moment and save her from this. But this isn’t a movie.

Claire licks her lips, a candid reaction which encourages him to inch closer- or is it her? She can’t tell anymore. Tracing odd patterns on the palm of her hand with his finger and oh god, this is Carrick, the bane of her fucking existence, she’d shoot him first before she kisses him. But something about the prospect of fucking this bastard twists her insides deliciously into a confused mess.

“How? By fucking me?” she inquires, feigning scandalized- all that Catholic guilt bullshit.

He grins, all-teeth and wolfish and shrugs as if they’re talking about his life insurance policy or shit. “Well, that’s the idea.”

“But you don’t even like me.” It should come out as I don’t even like you, but even she knows that’ll be just another lie she tells.

“On the contrary, I enjoy our rivalry far more than I should, Castelnuovo,” he purrs and places a hand on her knee. Her throat bobs. She’s wearing a skirt, it didn’t seem important then, but now his hand feels warm against her skin, dangling on the edge of impropriety. Like gravity, all it takes is a little push for him to cross that line.

“I should be disliking the way you talk to me, challenging me and putting me on the back foot every goddamn time. I should be focusing on taking you down a peg, but the more I see you, the more I realize you have an attractive kind of power. And I’m just one man. And if there’s anything I learned, the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.”

But then his movement suddenly ceases. Claire almost asks why.

"However…”

“What?” she stares up at him, eyes wide, breath hitching.

“However if you only accept alcohol as the currency for transactions, then I’ll tell the bartender to get us another round instead,“ he tells her, offering her one last chance to back out from this, from making this mistake with him.

Claire stares into her drink, actually mulling this over. Her mind tells her no, but the other part- the alcohol-infused part of her mind- whispers otherwise. She imagines if Ethan or any of her friends are here, they would probably grab her shoulder and shake the living hell out of her for even reconsidering his offer.

But then again, intelligence, alcohol and desperation have always had a bad history of getting along together.

“What about June?” Claire asks against her better judgement, after a long, considerable pause. Carrick raises a confused brow.

“What about her?”

“I thought you guys…” she trails off, makes a face, feeling all-kind of flustered and aroused and wow, she’s really doing this, huh? “I mean, I don’t know- I don’t wanna get in between you guys.”

“Nah. It was only a three time thing, but there’s never been anything between us.” He chuckles at Claire’s askance look. “If you don’t believe me, you can fact-check it with the woman herself,” Carrick adds, looking at her dead-on with his eyes like he wants to get the message across.

She regards him silently for a long second, and maybe she’s a touch drunk now, maybe the bartender put something in her drink, or maybe she just needs to blow off some steam after what’s been happening in these past few weeks and Carrick happens to be a decent warm body for the occasion, but Claire finds herself shifting closer.

"Then I want you to pay me back.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah,” she answers, more sure this time, more determined.

Her nose bumps his, his breath fanning across her face all the while Carrick’s slightly pushing her skirt up, letting his fingertips travel higher. His eyes keep darting back and forth from her eyes and lips, checking for her reaction. There is no inhibition here, not anymore. People might be watching- heck, they could be already watching and it terrifies her that she doesn’t give a damn about it.

“But if you tell anyone about this, I swear to god… ” she warns and a shadow of mirth passes across his eyes, making her almost regretting this. Almost.

“Claire, darling.” It’s the first time he’s ever said her name and her stomach does a tango. “Your secret is safe with me.“ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

He gets them a room in the hotel, it’s on the twentieth floor. Carrick handles the accommodation- he can afford it, apparently, which is not really surprising and the nuisating check-in procedure while Claire only waits in the lobby like a beautiful, agitated china doll amidst the turbulent sea the whole time until he comes back, flashes the room key at her and beckons her to follow.

She goes ahead of him, but he catches up. His body heat sends her anxiety rocketing sky-high through the roof as they walk next to each other, hands briefly brushing against one another but she ignores that (or at least she tries).

They are silent in the elevator, they are silent even once they reach the designated floor and walk down the hall to their room where the dim and shadowed lights follow their steps like vultures.

Carrick holds open the door for her and she enters, taking in the windows and the striking view of Boston skyline peeking behind the curtains, the TV and the queen-sized bed. The latter does nothing to assuage the anticipation that’s bubbling in the pit of her stomach, by the way.

Claire hears him shut the door, locking both bolts. She peers at him over her shoulder, half-turned, one eye on him. Their eyes meet, neither speaks. He’s taking off his black peacoat, back against the door, he’s looking at her as if wanting her is his full-time occupation and the realizations comes in like a mule kick, how that tiny voice inside her head, the one that tells her that this is a bad idea and she’s better off leaving never comes.

The room is not considerably huge (with $110 per night, you would have expected you’d get a bigger room), he could easily have her in six large steps, yet he stands there. Sizing her up, smirking rather devilishly, handsomely as if challenging her to make the first move. It’s another fucking game with him. A display of power, waiting who would fall first.

Claire finally turns around to face him. With a renowned determination, she removes her coat, letting it fall unceremoniously onto the carpeted floor. Her blouse follows next and her skirt, which she tugs it oh so slowly down her legs.

Carrick’s eyes widen, if she doesn’t know better, she thinks he’s speechless. He takes a deep breath, his gaze religiously following every movement as she twirls around once more to unhook her bra. His jaw clenches and unclenches. He’s having a hard time keeping himself in check which she takes an immense pleasure in. Claire just wants to see the man squirm for a change, even if she has to shed every article of clothing she wears.

By the time she slips off of her underwear, she is breathing raggedly. He hasn’t yet approached her so she crawls onto the bed, lying on her back with one elbow props her up, legs crossed. She kicks off her heels, rolls down her stockings with a bit of that noir come-hither, Lauren Bacall-esque heavy bedroom eyes.

Finally, Carrick steps closer until he’s only a hair’s breadth away, like a target, filling her line of sight. The tension in the room is hot enough to send the thermometer reaching its maximum limit and she’s burning, burning, burning right through the core.

Claire cranes her head up to meet his gaze, noticing the way he’s drinking in her body like a pirate ogling a bottle of rum. High-strung, tense, Carrick lowers his head to her, his fingers carding through her long hair. Dimness consumes him raw, his silhouette is starting to find its place amongst the shadows except for his eyes. Never does the fire in his eyes falter, merely alight.

They are already nose-to-nose when Claire suddenly raises her hand over his lips. He withdraws from her, looking confused and hot and bothered.

“Take a seat over there, will you?” She motions to the settee near the bed, her tone leaving no room for argument.

He smirks, but she can see his bravado if faltering. “Ordering me around in the bed now, are we?”

“Didn’t you say tonight is about you making it up to me?”

“Touche, touche.” Carrick straightens his posture and makes his way to the settee across from her, shifting uncomfortably in his seat given the growing issue in his pants.

With eyes still trained to his, Claire cups her own breast, fingers pinching her pebbled nipple before the same hand travels lower down her stomach, her thighs. Carrick leans forward in his seat, obviously liking where this is going before Claire slowly and teasingly part her legs for him to see.

A surprised groan escapes him.

“Jesus, Claire,” Carrick hisses. “Fuck, I didn’t know you’re a goddamn tease.”

She doesn’t bother replying to him, but a winning grin finds its way across her face as she lays on her back, her shame and modesty are distant, knees pulled up so he can have a clear view of her. With two fingers, she runs them along her folds, dragging them slowly up to her clit. Claire imagines they are his fingers- which once upon a time would have horrified her, but tonight, as she repeats the motion over and over, knowing that he’s sitting there, watching her without being able to get his hands on her, she decides to submit to this newfound fantasy.

A rustle pulls her back to reality. He’s undoing his own pants, palming his cock, runs his fingers over the leaking head.

A low moan catches in her throat at that, her gaze snapping up from his erection to his face where his irises have darkened and pupils dilated. He wants to show her, that’s he’s as depraved as her when it comes to wanting, that he fucking wants her and in spades and she fails to think like a normal human being anymore.

Claire uses that image to work on herself harder, faster, feeling the intense pressure beginning to build beneath her fingers. She’s so wet now, despite him being able to see that, she wants him to hear it as well as she uses her idle hand to tap against herself. Carrick growls, his pace matching the rhythm she’s setting.

She slips her fingers inside her, drops her head back against the mattress and bites a loud moan that threatens to escape her lips. Flushing scarlet all over her abdomen, her breasts and up to her neck. Her blood thumping louder than bombs in her ears, her breaths begin to come in gasps.

Another fast and hard thrust from fingers, and Claire finds herself sighing his name.

“Tobias…”

And every last bit of his self-restraint snaps.

In just a blink of an eye, Carrick is already on his feet, grabs her waist, harshly, and tugs her down onto the edge of the bed where he’s now kneeling before her. He doesn’t bother with the teasings or soft kisses or caresses, and even before Claire has the time to register what’s happening, he crushes his face between her parted legs and eats her out.

She gasps, high and fleeting, twisting the bed sheet between her fists while his tongue flicks over her, moving back up, back down, lapping along her folds in the same motions she showed him with her hand, how she likes it. Claire forgets how to breathe. It just occurs to her just how arousing the sight of him on his knees like this, sending her mind hitchhiking into outer space.

“Oh, fuck.” She breathes, back arching on the bed with a drawn-out moan. “Fuck, Tobias!” Her hips gyrate over his mouth and she presses her heels against his shoulder blades. She’s so close. All she needs is a little push to send her careening into oblivion and it seems that Carrick can sense it because he brings two digits to her entrance and slides easily inside her, setting a ruthless pace.

With her hands reaching out to the back of his head, Claire cries out his name and trembles violently. Encouraged, Carrick curves his fingers inside her, hitting that exact spot that finally undoes her as she comes, long and hard, around his mouth and fingers- the kind of orgasm that you can feel deep in your bones- and watches as fireworks dance behind her lids.

When she finally comes down from her high, everything is hazy. It’s like waking up from a deep slumber after a decadent soak in a scented bath and she loses all orientation, until she feels him nipping the inside of her thighs. She hisses, glances down, heavy-lidded eyes finding Carrick is leaving bruises after bruises all over her skin like some kind of a lewd memento of his work, like he wants her to remember this the next time she wakes up in her own bed and he’s not there.

"Are you trying to turn me into a Na'vi, doctor?” She asks, still kinda breathless, feeling surprisingly conversational despite having just experienced, if not, one of the best orgasms in her life. He smiles against her thigh and withdraws from her, only after her thighs are sufficiently bruised enough, licks his fingers clean and stands up at the end of the bed.

“Maybe. You’d make a cute blue extraterrestrial creature, though,” he replies cheekily, then undoes the button of his shirt, showcasing his naked torso.

Claire feels her cheeks heating up again, but forces herself to stare; eyes following his pectoral muscles, down to the toned lines of his abdomen while he slides off of his pants. The man is one fine specimen, alright, and he knows- smug bastard- and she thinks it’s such a shame that Carrick is… well, Carrick. If the man learns how to shut up for one minute or avoid trying to sabotage everyone’s career at Edenbrook altogether, maybe, just maybe, she’d consider him.

“But honestly, I just wanted to hear you say my name again,” Carrick continues, crawling his way up to her, pulling her out of her musings. He settles between her thighs. His lips finding her ear and nibbling at the lobe while his fingers pinching and pulling at her nipple. Claire shivers. Nails scraping along his skin, raising angry marks that would certainly be there tomorrow.

When they kiss, it’s so good that she can’t help but curl her toes. He kisses her like he’s trying to steal her breath or her name. She can taste herself in his mouth, which sparks so many feelings inside her. Her mind’s foggy, sweat pooling on her forehead. Carrick is but shoves his tongue into her mouth, lapping at her, biting, sucking and she leans hard into the kiss, retaliates by scraping her teeth against his bottom lip. It spurs him on. Making his cock twitch against her thigh and Claire decides she can’t wait anymore.

Claire rolls her hips at him. He takes the hint and rolls over to grab a condom from his pants. Then he’s back on top of her, his weight and heat crushing her most deliciously and brings her body further up the bed with him; she drapes her legs around his hips, hands gripping his arms. Her lust and anticipation collaborate to the point of near madness.

Carrick nips the taut line of her jaw and drives himself into her.

They both groan in unison.

“Oh, fuck.” Carrick mumbles between shaky breaths, his face pressed against her throat. “Fucking hell, Claire, you feel so warm.”

Claire, on the other hand, goes rigid under him. Her mouth hangs open and her world narrows down to the feeling of his cock inside her and the pleasure that builds up again in her abdomen.

This is happening, she thinks, he’s inside her and it feels so amazing. She might as well be crazy for agreeing to do this with him in the first place, but the promise of the thrill beats the doubts.

He starts slow, just the smallest fraction of hips, gently thrusting back and forth in shallow motions. She whines, frustrated and impatient, raising her own hips to meet his, but Carrick’s weight pins her onto the mattress and she can’t fucking move.

“F-faster,” Claire stammers, her molars grinding like toothache.

The bastard smirks, like he’s been anticipating the word coming out of her mouth.

“Beg for it.” His words are punctuated with every unhurried stroke he’s giving her, teasing her and if she’s not in the middle of being fucked right now, she would have kicked him in the balls.

Growling, she swallows her plea by pulling Carrick down for another kiss. This time, she’s the one who does the biting and the sucking, making sure he’s distracted enough and then just like with all the things she does in her life, she takes the matter into her own hands.

With all her strength, she scrambles up, pushes him off of her and knocks him onto his back flat on the bed. When she swings her legs to straddle him, his eyes pop.

“Holy shit, you are feisty.”

“Only cause I’m angry and horny,” she bites off. Angling herself above him and with one hand, guides his shaft back to her opening. “And you- you weren’t doing a proper job fucking me.”

He smirks. “I was trying to wind you up.”

“Fuck you.”

She lowers herself and sinks back onto his cock, relishing in his moans and growls.

“Baby, you’re doing it.” His hands curling around her waist, his head falls back onto the bed, exposing his throat and Claire is so hard-pressed not to bite him there.

Claire ignores his smartassness, naturally, and lifts herself, drops back down. Slamming her hips into his until she’s bouncing on him. Nails clawing at his chest. Finally be able to set a pace she desperately craves for, finally wiping that smirk off of his face.

Under her, Carrick is biting his lip in an effort to not to lose control. His hands are everywhere now; her stomach, her breasts, her neck, her cheeks. Leaving fire on its wake. She might still hate him after this is strange, little arrangement is over but at this juncture, he’s exactly the remedy she needs after everything.

Then Carrick wraps his arms around her and picks up the pace, thrusting into her hard and fast. Claire shakes. She can’t catch her breath, her forehead pressed on his shoulder, her teeth latching onto his skin. Breathing a string of 'fuckfuckfuck’ while he squeezes her ass and continues to fuck her with careless abandon.

"Tobias.” Her moans amplify. She’s close to climaxing again, her legs quivering. Eyes wide shut. “Please, please.” So much for not begging.

He pulls her to him so their foreheads meet. Their lips brush against each other, but they aren’t kissing, merely trading breaths. A hand touches her cheek and her lids flutter open, finding his eyes- those depthless, amber eyes that pretty much lead her to this point, are watching her, pulling her in.

“Say it again,” he encourages darkly, face twists in pleasure. “My name. Say it again.”

She does it again, it comes out as a groaned whisper, repeating it over and over again like a sacred mantra.

Her second orgasm sweeps through her, making her spine arches, it tears a winded moan from her throat and it’s more than enough to trigger Carrick’s own release; fingers digging into the soft flesh of her hips, groaning gutturally.

Panting, sore but sated, Claire collapses on top of his chest, his arm still drapes around her. The rise and fall of his breath lull her to sleep. Before she knows it, he gently rolls her to his side, pulling the covers for them and kisses her on the shoulder, which comes out as… odd for her.

The bed moves and she feels him leaving.

He’s leaving.

He’s leaving.

She doesn’t know why it stings, but it does. But also Claire opts not to pay no mind to it and forces her mind to surrender to sleep that once again tries to take hold.

Claire wishes she doesn’t dream of him that night, but she does.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It’s way past midnight when she wakes up. The room is dark. The curtains are closed. She’s still naked and sore under the covers, mind reeling in from what has just transpired.

One might ask in which universe does Claire Castelnuovo agree to sleep with Tobias Carrick? Well, apparently they did it in this one and oddly still, she doesn’t regret it. Though she’s still low-key sad that he left her straight after sex, but hey, what can she do about it? This arrangement itself is nothing but a means to an end, anyway, a perverse alternative for him to pay back what he allegedly owes her, she shouldn’t be surprised if he left after the ‘debt’ is paid.

Feeling her mood somehow takes an unexpected dip, she gets us from the bed and gathers her clothes on the floor.

She’s in the middle of zipping up her skirt when the bedside lamp flickers and comes on.

Claire turns around. Carrick, rousing from sleep, looks at her, rubbing his eyes and stifles a yawn. His lips still tinged from her kisses and bites.

“Leaving so soon?” he asks, voice still raspy from sleep and Claire thinks her mouth is hanging open, standing rooted to the spot like a spider on an icicle; frozen in time.

For a moment, she does nothing but stares at him, being rendered speechless. For many times, Tobias Carrick never fails to surprise her. Just when she thinks she has him all figured out, he comes sneaking in through her windows like a thief in the night and it just strikes her, how he really is an uncharted territory for her. Despite her having him pinned under her, exploring the hard planes of his body under the touches just a few hours ago.

The man is like a fucking myth, at this point. She knows him only from stories and her limited time around him, but who is exactly Tobias Carrick? Is he the competitive doctor at Mass Kenmore, the Machiavellian asshole that severed his friendship/relationship with Ethan for the sake of his greed and ambition? Or is he, Tobias Carrick, the man who saves her life, makes her laugh and kisses her shoulder in the afterglow?

She’ll probably never know.

“Yeah, my roommates will probably deploy a search party if I don’t come home tonight,” she replies, distracted, finally finding her own voice back. He nods, feigning disappointment- or is he not? She clears her throat and continues putting on her clothes. “I thought you left.”

He chuckles at the absurdity of her deduction. “And without saying goodbye?” Carrick rolls off of the bed and rises to his feet. He’s already wearing his pants- thank fuck for that- and approaches her. “I may be an asshole, Castelnuovo, but just so you know, my mother raised me better than that.”

So they’re back to their usual last name basis perimeter. That’s good, right? After all of this, she thinks a little familiarity would be nice for her sanity.

“Good to know, then.”

Silence encompasses the room. It’s awkward and overwhelming and it throws her a little off-balance. At the bar, they seemed to know exactly what to say to each other- especially him; but now, even she can sense the hesitation in his gait, at the way he’s looking at her and a faint alarm is trilling her head. Because if he’s making this awkward, she can do a whole lot of worse.

"Oh, before you ask, that makes up for pretty much everything, yeah. I mean, it’s alright.” You fucking dumbass, she thinks to herself, averting his gaze while a smile blooms on his face.

“Good to know, then.” He parrots her words and she huffs a laugh, freely and sweetly, like she’s currently not knee-deep in her problems or she’s just fucked the most incorrigible man that ever exists. He does too, but his gaze lands on her mouth before going back to her eyes.

Another silence passes. It’s time to go.

“I have to go now.”

He nods mutely and moves away so Claire can step past him.

She wears her coat. In the mirror, she still looks thoroughly fucked; her hair’s dishevelled, she smells like him now, but she really needs to go. She promises herself that this will be a one time thing because, Jesus fuck, she’s supposed to be smarter than this. She’s not fifteen anymore, and this is not the summer where she can watch the sunset from the cornfields with her cousins even though his eyes possess the same color.

Yet she walks toward the door in a daze, like she’s forgetting something but can’t pinpoint what it is.

“Can I-”

“Hey, do you-”

She stops, mid-turning, and closes her mouth. She doesn’t realize she’s interrupting him.

“Oh, sorry,” Claire says, embarrassed. “You go first, it’s alright.”

“Can I have your number?” he asks, uncharacteristically hesitant.

She thinks he’s joking or maybe he’s just feigning interest, but one look at his eyes and she can tell that this isn’t smoke and mirrors.

The eyes, chico. They never lie. It’s dumb, but that line from Scarface is the first thing that comes to her mind. That’s why when she hands him her phone, her hand is shaking slightly. She has to bite her lip to stop herself from grinning like a maniac.  

Claire takes a cursory glance at her phone once he returns it. He saved his number solely as t.c. with the water drop, the syringe, the ghost, the eggplant, the firework emoji and she chuckles endearingly, questioning the universe how he can easily get both a rise and a laugh out of her.

“I’ll text you?” Carrick asks again and she nods a little too enthusiastically at it, but what the hell?

“Sure.”

“Alright.” He takes one look at her, steps closer and for a moment, she thinks he might be going to kiss her.

“Goodnight, Claire,” Carrick says instead and she nods, admitting the fact that he’s not going to do it.

“Goodnight to you too, Tobias.” Then pauses at the doorway, feeling surprisingly bold. “I gotta give it to you, though, for someone who’s become the bane of my existence for months, you’re a damn good lay.”

He barks out a laugh, obviously, that Claire can hear all the way down the hall. And she thinks she can get used to the sound.

                                                         fin.

Tag list: @villain-fuckarooni @beckaroo @arfeiniel​ @this-person-is-busy @colossalpainintheass​ @drethanramslay @hatescapsicum @theeccentricbibliophile

[platypus-mcslothman]

‘Well, at least we’re not America’ is a common phrase said by most people when political/racism issues or crises occur in UK. A phrase I am coming to discover is telling of how well the propaganda machines in our country work. The UK is wayyy more dysfunctional than America and allow me to detail but the surface level of known issues in our political sphere.

1. U.K. media ecosystem is… corrupt. Seriously, the older I get the more realise how not too dissimilar our media is to North Korea’s, except our media doesn’t work for the state primarily and will turn on it if it benefits them. You can look at how our media recently attacked Boris Johnson and then started pushing out puff pieces when he won a landslide in our local election for perfect proof

We’ve had phone hacking scandals, invasions of privacy, been accused of Nazi like language by the UN, have a state owned media outlet with political leaders heading it, anti-vaccine and now anti-lockdown narratives being pushed forward, think tanks owned by prominent right wing politicians and advisors being treated as unbiased think tanks, and more.

Our media landscape is predominately owned by 5 people. Rupert Murdoch (owner of Fox News) being one of the most prominent and also the closest to government.

The media in the UK is basically an attack dog for politics. It’s often been said no government will ever get into power without Rupert Murdoch on side.

It gets significantly worse when you begin to discover many prominent journalists are friends, god parents, spouses, and family members to our political elite. Heck, Boris Johnson (our Prime Minister) was originally a journalist for the spectator and telegraph (and an appalling one at that).

2. our police are well… corrupt. They’ve been involved in murdering civilians, brutally killing protestors and lying about killing them, feeding lies to the press about officers being hurt by protestors, assaulting journalists, and are involved in numerous conspiracies, and coincidentally were the only public service that didn’t receive defunding during and after thatcher’s era.

The most recent conspiracy involves the media too. A private detective called Daniel Morgan was suspect to have been murdered by two police officers with axes, who were originally investigating the crime, after he started investigating corruption in the police force. This case happened in the 90s and is now resurging after renewed interest. Strangely enough, the case Morgan was investigating later became known as the Phone Hacking scandal in the early 2000s.

Essentially the phone hacking scandal was the reveal that newspapers were hacking phones, wiretapping houses, and paying or blackmailing police officers to give them information about criminal cases. During this scandal it was also revealed newspapers were hiring PIs. More specifically the firm that Morgan worked for and even more specifically the suspected murderers who were fired from the police forces and were hired by Morgan’s old PI firm. You couldn’t make this up.

3. this is gonna be a running theme, but our politicians… corrupt. In a slew of scandals over decades, our politicians have been revealed to spend their work expenses on personal expenses (one politician bought a draw bridge for their manor, and many used them to buy second homes in London before selling them off at a profit during a housing crises), they accept other ‘jobs’ for private businesses (essentially a politician is payed thousands for a couple hours in an ‘advisory’ position), they’ve used tax havens (David Cameron, one of our prior PMs, is the most prominent example), they’ve lobbied after leaving their post (essentially they’re paid a lot of money to push for legislation changes that will profit a company which is quite easy to do when you have political connections, yet again David Cameron is a prominent example), and in the most recent disgusting display I present to you: the ‘my little crony’ model. A model that visually shows you the corruption in our pandemic expenditure.

https://www.sophie-e-hill.com/post/my-little-crony/

During the pandemic, our government bypassed competition laws to directly award contracts for PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), and test and trace. 25% of these contracts at minimum have since been deemed as questionable. They were awarded to businesses owned by politicians, politician’s family members, neighbours, friends, and political donors. Dyson was even revealed to have directly messaged Boris Johnson to change how taxes work so he could provide profitable ventilators when we were desperately short (which is worse when you consider Dyson didn’t deliver a single ventilator despite these changes). That’s not even an isolated story. There is a backlog of stories of strange and not suited businesses not providing PPE, not providing useable PPE, and being payed to make PPE at inflated costs. We’ve had sweet wrapper makers, jewellers, pubs, and a finance company that was only set up weeks before the contract being given these essential jobs in making and delivering PPE. The amount of money spent on these contracts is not yet fully known because documentation hasn’t been published fully, which is unlawful according to our Supreme Court’s findings.

In the pandemic we spent 37 billion on our test and trace app. The app was a failure and still is. It doesn’t contact people, a lot of data was lost because they were using an outdated Excel program to store data (which it didn’t store because Excel is not designed for that amount of data and severely outdated), and a lot people haven’t downloaded it because of trust issues caused by poor communication and initially designing the app to store data in a centralised location instead of in a means where the data can’t be accessed at a later date (as almost every other country did for trust reasons).

Now, 37 billion pounds is a very abstract number. Many don’t fully understand how much money that really is. Well, it could nationalise our entire electric grid in the UK. It’s 10% of the amount needed to end world hunger. It could end our housing crisis in the UK. and it was spent on an app that doesn’t work! Not to mention, the leader of test and trace is now being rumoured to be appointed the head of our national health service…

Heck, our PM was paid by one of his political donors to refurbish his temporary flat in Number 10 (our version of the White House). He spent £200,000 whilst he claimed our entire country didn’t have enough money to feed poor children during the pandemic. And even after he lost two fights with a footballer over the issue (yes, you heard that right), our government contracted a private company that provided inadequate amounts of weekly food. Below isn’t even the worst example.

(Note this a contrast between the amount you could actually buy with money allocated by the government and the amount given by the private companies hired by the government. They took may as well have literally have took candy from a baby.)

Summary: the U.K. is worse than the US exactly because the people of our nation and kingdom don’t see the ridiculousness and corruption that takes place daily and historically.

We’ve had governments spying on trade unions and activists, we’ve had kids being brutalised by police officers because they attended or were thought to have attended a protest, we have a bill that now is trying to ban protest, we have a media ecosystem so disgustingly inadequate they don’t hold government to account, and we have politicians who claim they could live off minuscule amounts provided by the state to the poor and disabled whilst gourging on state paid meals at fancy restaurants where they spend more than that minuscule amount in a couple hours.

There’s so much wrong with my nation and kingdom, I honestly don’t have enough words nor the ability to accurately articulate how disgustingly corrupt it is. We are not the United Kingdom, we are the Corrupt Kingdom. I could go on and fucking on about how unjust, untruthful, and immoral my nation is. I don’t like that, but I also am not going to be patriotic about a nation that kills the poor and disabled by not providing support, allowing a virus to ravage our society by not putting the needs many before the needs of the few, and who claims we can’t spend money on society whilst spending lucrative amounts on idiotic selfish things.

Further reading/references:

(this is my blog, I haven’t posted here in a while)