#also i just noticed how beautiful the colors are?? christ i love how this dumb show looks

[kurikurimatsu]

i truly can never get over how much i love the expressions in this show. i love how wacky they get with em and how much they exaggerate the characters, or how even with simpler expressions theyre able to convey so much emotion. like look at these

i adore these and how amazingly the rage, confusion, despair, fear, and laughter gets across

[blossom-hwa]

fashion major!kevin

ANYWAY THERE WAS LIKE ONE PERSON WHO CALLED FOR A FASHION MAJOR KEVIN SPINOFF OF THE COLLEGE MODEL JUYEON AU I JUST POSTED (linked below) anyway! hope you enjoy, please reblog if you did, and check out my other dumb overly long blurbs in the stream of idiocy tag on my blog <3

pairing: kevin x gender neutral!reader

wc: 2.5k

genre: fluff, university!au

triggers: cursing

college model!juyeon

TBZ Scenarios Masterlist | TBZ Drabbles Masterlist

kevin moon is known on campus for two things: 1. his bright personality literally everyone loves him and if you don’t you’re jealous of him like sorry not sorry i don’t make the rules you know i’m right and 2. his.... unorthodox fashion sense. like eric thought his snake patterned shit was weird as hell?? but there are weirder things in kevin’s closet i swear to you. anyway this unorthodox style is what got him accepted into the fashion program at the university and even though there are a few assholes who stick their noses up at kevin’s work the vast majority of people are cool w his outfits even if they personally wouldn’t wear them and kevin is v well-liked in his major and on campus in general bc he knows everyone and is nice and polite and really a v cool person to be around when he’s not being a fucking idiot

and on campus there are fashion shows a few times every semester to show off the fashion majors’ work, and let’s just say that this university if p well know for its fashion major so some famous people sometimes come along to these events so EVERY TIME a fashion show rolls around the fashion majors get nervous as FUCK and there’s a lot of speculation on who will get noticed and whatever and everyone is secretive about what they’re working on and just. everyone goes fucking haywire and kevin is always v happy when the stress winds down after a show

(no one knows it but kevin has gotten offers from several companies to work with them after he graduates. he hasn’t told anyone except a few friends like juyeon/jacob and his family)

anyway you are also a fashion major who secretly really admires kevin’s stuff?? like you just think he’s so daring and creative and all of his work is absolutely amazing even if it’s a little weird and honestly you don’t even feel overshadowed by his talent and hard work you just feel in awe that you can be in his presence at all. you’re p sure kevin has no idea who you are bc even though you have a lot of the same classes you’re always too shy to sit or work near him bc even though he seems so nice and approachable he’s also just.... god he’s so good

BUT THEN. one of your professors announces that for the next fashion show they’ll be modeling projects that he’s assigning right now. which is weird asf bc usually you’ll all take your best clothing and like fix it or tweak it for the next show, like sometimes people will make something completely from scratch but that’s nerve-wracking and not many people do it unless they’re in a real pinch but it gets even WEIRDER bc this is not a regularly scheduled fashion event?? it’s like a smaller event apparently that they’ve organized just for this project AND THE WEIRDNESS TAKES THE CAKE when your professor says that YOU ARE GOING TO BE THE MODELS. YOU ALL ARE GOING TO PICK SOMEONE IN THE CLASS TO MAKE CLOTHES FOR AND THEY WILL MODEL YOUR OUTFIT

and this SENDS EVERYONE FREAKING THE FUCK OUT??? bc oh god you can’t rely on the models you’ve been using all semester now??? and you have to make flattering clothes for someone you might not even know v well and it’s just. holy fuck holy fuck holy FUCK

meanwhile you already know who you want to create for (/ahem kevin moon/) but you’re also chicken so like??? you’re just sitting in your seat looking over at him but not saying anything until your friend chanhee just pushes you out of your seat in kevin’s direction and is like GO ASK HIM BEFORE YOU LOSE THIS CHANCE and you’re like JESUS FUCKING CHRIST CHANHEE but kevin’s noticed your movement and he’s looking over with a smile on his face and you’re like jfc i can’t do this but chanhee shoves you again and so you kinda smile (you really hope it looks like a smile) and your voice is LITERALLY shaking when you go over and ask if it would be ok to use him as a model for this assignment and he’s like.... oh my god yes

because what YOU don’t know is that kevin has been ogling your designs all year?? like he enjoys his own style and is comfortable in it but he loves your work as in LOVES IT. he thinks your designs are absolutely flawless and original and you combine styles so effortlessly that he just wants to look into your brain when you come up with ideas bc what the fuck?? you may have different styles but kevin knows how to admire art AND YOUR DESIGNS ARE ART. 

so you’re reeling a day later bc now you have kevin moon’s number and he has yours and he’s now texting you on when you think you’ll have the first preliminary designs ready and when you can meet up so you can get each other’s measurements and all that and when you eventually meet up your hands are shaking so much that you can barely take his measurements and kevin is screeching in his mind as well bc oh my god you’re going to model his clothes YOU’RE GOING TO MODEL HIS CLOTHES

most people are again being secretive about their designs and even though someone in their class is modeling for them this time so there’s a bit less secrecy they’re still working alone so you get a shock when kevin asks if you want to coordinate your outfits. like work on designs together and maybe make something that matches a little though ofc retaining your own styles and you just shriek when you get the text and poor childhood best friend younghoon spills his coffee (you have been friends since basically birth and there are no romantic feelings whatsoever ok it’s strictly platonic like you watched younghoon vomit after eating too much bread when you were like 10 and he watched you get tangled up in a soccer net when you were 13 there are no romantic feelings stemming from any of that)

needless to say you reply yes yes ye sYES and kevin is grinning so wide on the other end that juyeon wonders if he’s gone slightly insane (which he has but we’re not gonna dwell on that) and both of you show up to the work rooms nervous as all hell (i’m not a fashion major i have no fashion sense i still think t-shirts/leggings are the way to go so idk how any of this works do not sue me) but kevin has a natural ability to defuse any tension in the room so within minutes you’re comfortable and laughing with him and wondering why you were so scared to approach him before and THEN YOU’RE REMINDED WHY when he shows you his design for you because... oh god.... it’s unbelievable. like it has a distinctly kevin feel to it but he’s clearly been paying attention to what you wear and what you design because it’s something you would like to wear and something you even think you could look good in. holy shit

and you just blurt out like kevin what the fuck this is so good did you like stalk my designs or some shit?? and you mean it as a joke ofc but kevin just goes beet red and mumbles something about how he really likes your work and how it’s so sharply elegant but also insanely creative and you’re just. open-mouthed like. dude i’m in love with your work too oh my god i’m gonna cry my fashion idol just said he likes my designs i’m gonna screaM

kevin stops you from screaming though even though he also feels like he’s gonna scream and this is the start of a very productive partnership between the two of you like most of the fashion majors are friendly despite the competition but you and kevin are on a whole other level?? and you start hanging out more and more often even when you’ve finished designing and are actually sewing (you ask him if this part can be secret bc you want to add a few things as a surprise - he ofc says yes and winks and tells you he has things he wants to add too which just makes you want to scream out of excitement)

and it’s a week before fashion show day and you and kevin are finished with putting together the designs and you’re excited as all hell and kevin is literally about to burst from his own skin and you insist that he goes first and when he pulls the outfit from the bag you’re just. in absolute awe. the colors match the design you made, it looks like it’ll fit, and even though it screams kevin moon it also has a distinct vibe from your own fashion style and you just yell KEVIN MOON YOU GENIUS as you snatch it from him and go change

(you don’t know obviously but kevin is blushing like a tomato while waiting for you to finish changing)

it fits almost perfectly, kevin marks a few places to fix and is debating whether or not to compliment you bc??? that sounds like he’s complimenting his own work and that’s egocentric as hell but then you say something like does it look fine and he just blurts out more than fine. you look great

AND YOU’RE SO FLUSTERED THAT YOU ALL BUT THROW YOUR OWN BAG AT KEVIN and are like GO CHANGE 

so he takes out the clothes and goes silent and you’re like.... oh my god does he hate it i mean we worked on the designs together and he said he liked it then but what if he changed his mind but then he looks at you and his eyes are sparkling and he’s like y/n this is perfect. literally perfect and he rushes to go get changed and when he comes out your eyes are bugging out of your head bc holy hell you pictured kevin in these clothes obviously since they were made for him but he looks so much better than you ever imagined

and then you blurt out something like holy shit you look beautiful

and kevin blushes again

anyway you both take your measurements and run out and then the day of the fashion show rolls around and both of you are freaking out backstage but the instant you two go on it’s like you both are literal gods bc you feel so confident in each other’s clothing and the crowd can feel it THEY CAN FUCKING FEEL IT and they go nuts when you two walk out!!! and even though it isn’t like a huge major fashion show, it’s just for this one project that your professors cooked up, you and kevin are both beaming like the sun when it’s over despite the fact that it wasn’t an important event bc holy shit you two had fun and everyone’s complimenting your clothing and it’s great it’s just great

finally all the chaos is over and the clothes have been put away and the makeup removed and you and kevin are now standing outside the venue in a kind of stunned silence that all of it’s over. it’s all over. and then you suddenly thrust out the clothes you made that kevin wore and tell him to keep it. it’s a present. and kevin takes it but he also forces you to take the outfit he made for you. and then there’s silence again

but if there’s anything you’ve gained over the past few weeks it’s a bit of courage. courage that let you talk to kevin, courage that let you design clothes for him, courage that let you become friends (and maybe something more) with him. you’ve also learned that kevin is a massive dork and a lovely human being and you’d really love to at least stay in contact so in that the moment you smile and say ‘if i asked you on a date, would you wear that outfit?’

poor kevin looks like he’s about to have a fucking aneurysm and you start to lose confidence but then he’s nodding like there’s no tomorrow like yes ye sYE S OH MY GOD YE S and omg you now have a boyfriend whom you like very very much and kevin has a partner whom he likes very very much

you two may not be a pda couple but you ARE that couple that matches every outfit they wear, you make jewelry and accessories for each other and also make each other clothes every so often. everyone is jealous of your combined fashion sense bc even though the outfits might look outrageous, you two both manage to pull them off and look fabulous at it, but also they can’t even be that jealous bc you two are the sweetest couple and are absolutely lovely 

both of you do wear the outfits you made for that show on your first date which is to like a musical or smth bc theatre kid kevin is something you can pry out of my cold dead hands and everyone’s staring but you two are in your own little world and it’s amazing

kevin admits at one point that he was afraid to ask you out bc he thought younghoon was your boyfriend and you just snort and tell him everything stupid younghoon’s done and by the end younghoon is done with you, kevin is about to vomit he’s laughing so hard, and you are smirking like no tomorrow

for the end of year fashion show you and kevin fix up and accessorize the outfits you two made for the show that brought you two together and there is absolutely no surprise that several different fashion companies scout both of you (and a couple modeling agencies too since you and kevin decided to model your own clothing again - younghoon whines that you’ve replaced him but you shut him up with chocolate bread)

kevin’s a sucker for romance (you CANNOT tell me this isn't true) so your first kiss is on the roof of the fashion building at sunset when kevin does the cheesy thing where he says you look more beautiful the view and you almost slap him but you���re laughing so hard and kevin’s cackling and somehow it turns into a kiss

you are a dork and kevin is even more of a dork and it just works out beautifully bc you’re so absolutely in love that it makes people fake vomit from the sides (looking at chanhee right here) but it’s also really sweet in that you two trust each other completely and would do absolutely anything for the other except murder. kevin made that v clear but really only bc blood would stain his clothing and he doesn’t need that. you agree wholeheartedly (younghoon/juyeon are looking from the sides like what the fuck is this couple do they need help and you two are like just go away and let us be the weird couple we are ok). the conversation ends in a v soft v sweet kiss and just. ik i said it with juyeon but kevin moon is also best bf ever ok you cannot convince me otherwise. 

and that’s how it goes :)

If you enjoyed, please don’t forget to reblog and leave a comment to tell me what you thought! Thank you for reading and have a lovely day <3

(1 reblog = 1 prayer for this weird-ass couple)

[throbbin-bobbies]

Y'all interested in a James Norrington x reader short story?

I wanna know what people think of this bad boi

Word count: 1630

Another warm day at Port Royal. The sun was high in the sky, kissing the lands with its warmth. Today was the day some of the Royal Navy's crew would be arriving, so naturally I decided to go down to the ports and greet the boys like I usually do. With some baked goods of course. The men always enjoy cookies and other sorts of sweets any other time, but I've always figured that after some time at sea they would be a lovely welcome back.

I walked out onto the balcony from my bedroom, spyglass on the small metal table still from last night. I could see the ships coming in to dock, but that didn't stop me from looking through my spyglass to get a better look. The men seemed to be carrying business out as per usual, following orders and getting ready to dock the ships. I took this as a cue to start heading down to the port with some sweets for the lads. An abundancy of cookies and muffins to choose from, two of the house servants helped me carry everything to the carriage. Charles and Arthur, two of the households servants, are usually always the ones to head down to port with me on these occasions. With me in the carriage making sure the sweets dont topple over, Charles and Arthur sat atop the carriage and started their way down to our destination.

■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■

Everything was going well, like usual. Having some small talk with some of the men getting off, talking with the officers and such.

"Ah! Miss (l/n)! What a sight to see after a long journey at sea!" An officer and friend of mine, Theodore Johnson beamed walking down the port.

"Theodore! I see you're alive and well, the sea hasn't tried eating you whole yet? Or has it, and you left a bad taste in its mouth?" I joked with him. We talked a bit more, about the same things we usually would when coming back to port. Rough waters giving troubles, pirates, and prisoners.

"We haven't got as many prisoners as we did our last go around. However, we did find a man floating adrift on some wood in the waters. Very odd discovery, but he's proven to be decent enough. Much more pleasant than his appearance I must say. The past couple months has proven to be  rather...difficult for the man."

"Well the world is rather cruel, especially in these parts. It's no surprise that any man or woman would be roughed up by the nature of the Caribbean." I said, watching Theodore grab a third cookie with a grin saying 'please?' And 'I'm just going to sneeeak this one, dont hurt me' in a playful manner. "Just take the cookie Theodore, I'm not going to chop your cookie greedy fingers off if you take another."

"Thank you dearie, you're so sweet" he smiled triumphantly with a cookie in hand.

"Has the man floating adrift have a name?" I asked.

"Yes. The man is –" Theodore started, holding his arm out in a gesture to someone behind me.

"James Norrington. Who asks?" I heard a man say walking up to my side. When I looked over I almost couldn't believe what I saw. The man that I thought surely had fallen off the face of the earth. Someone I've known for years, my dear friend James was alive and well.

"James! I thought you had gone and gotten yourself hurt! Or worse yet - killed!" I said practically shoving the tray of cookies into Theodores hands so I could hug James.

"No, no" he chuckled hugging me back, "its takes a lot more than what you'd think in order to get rid of me".

"I hate to break this little reunion, but we must be headed to see Lord Beckett, (y/n)" Theodore said, taking a bite out of a new cookie as my hug with James ended.

"Theodore I'm surprised you're not double in size with how many cookies you eat!" I teased him, causing him to smile. "But I'll let you two boys go attend to Lord Beckett. I would however like to see you again afterwards this evening, James. If you dont mind that is."

"Of course, (y/n), I always enjoy spending time with you. If I can not tonight, I'll send word to you for another time, alright?"

"I'll be waiting" I smiled, taking the platter of cookies from Theodore. He looked like a child robbed of their sweets. I grabbed a small stack of cookies and handed one to him, as well as James. "Take care you two! Theodore I expect James back in one piece, else you get no more sweets from me".

James chucked starting to walk towards land, but Theodore looked as if he was told his ship had been sunk. "I'll see to it then!"

■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■

*Later that evening*

I had yet to hear from James or Theodore since around noon when we were all on the docks. I was walking around my family's gardens. A beautiful array of colors and smells along with the overlooking view of the light blue Caribbean waters. I stopped near a section of the garden actually dropped off a bit. Maybe ten feet, but my father had a thick stone fence placed at the edge so no one would fall and break their neck. And also because I fell off the edge. But that's another story.

I leaned onto the warm stone, having been baked in the sun all day, letting out a sigh.

"Dear old James Norrington...if only you knew how much I missed you and care about you..." I thought out loud, one hand propped up under my chin.

"I believe I can say, now, I know" I jumped hearing James and seeing him suddenly appear next to me at the stone fence.

"Christ almighty!" I jumped, causing him to smile. I noticed he was no longer in torn clothing, and cleane. He was wearing a Commodores uniform, clean shaven and all. "Don't you know better than to sneak up on people James?"

"Forgive me for startling you, (y/n). But I can't help but ask...what did you mean by what you said just now?" James questioned, toying with a pebble on the fence.

I swear I could feel my face put off steam with how hot it got. "Oh, uhhh... well..." I started off, unsure how to go about the situation. "Well, honestly James," I said looking up to him, him looking up as well and meeting my eyes, "I've missed you so much ever since you left. Even more so than before, when you were with the Royal Navy. I knew you'd be coming back, this past time I didn't know if I'd ever see you again... I've...cared about you — liked you — for a long time. I just...You may think it's dumb, I'm sorry."

Now it was my turn to fiddle with pebbles, looking down at small rock that was suddenly very interesting. I could feel James' gaze on me still. I figured he was still processing what I've told him, thinking of a response.

"(Y/n)...you...like me? For..how long?" He asked curiously.

"Hmmmm...a good two years I'd say. But I'd be a liar if I said that's the time I admitted it to myself, it's likely much longer than that." I briefly looked into his blue eyes, dancing with emotions.

"I...I never knew! I thought you never liked me in such a manner" James said, taking his tri fold hat off.

"I never let you know because I knew you'd never feel the same way back" I looked up to him. "You had Elizabeth you loved, there was no doubt you would've chosen her over me."

James suddenly looked me dead in the eyes, "No! That's not true, (y/n), I believe you have yourself mixed with Elizabeth in that situation."

"What do you mean?" I was confused to say the least. I turned my body towards James, watching him fidget around a bit.

"What I mean is that I would've chosen you over Elizabeth any day. Anywhere. Any time. I simply thought had I asked for your hand in marriage courtship you would laugh at me and not want to be around me anymore. " He smiled, taking a step closer, "I think it's safe to say that it seems we both have fancied each other for quite some time, (y/n). We just don't know how to use our words." He chuckled lowly.

Noticing how close we were I couldn't help but notice more details on his face. Namely the two fresh knicks from shaving by his jawline. 'How cute' I laughed internally.

"Well...sometimes the loudest things can be said without words" I laughed.

James merely smiled and chuckled, one hand on the stone, taking a step over so he was directly in front of me and placing his hand with his hat on the other side of me. "Oh, do tell, lovie. I'm curious. Have you any examples for me?" he purred, bending down in front of me to match my height.

My elbows were up against the stone slid back further, so I could snake my hands along the railing and up to James arms. "Hmmm...I think you're a smart man James, I'm positive you can figure this one out." I winked with a grin, our faces only inches away.

James started to wrap his arms around me. The hand with his hat went to my back, while his free hand rushed to the back of my head. "Mmm yes, I believe I have" was all he said before he closed the distance between us.

[toutallyahoe]

Hey, it me, a dumb sleeby bitch. I know you're not taking requests. So I'm gonna leave this at your doorstep and if you ever want to do it, go for it. No pressure. But pls if you ever have time and motivation, could you give me some cute sleepy headcanons for any of our very good cowboys? Thanks in advance and I love you and everything you do. You're amazing.

i would literally write a fucking book for you-- i have told you this so many already asdfghjkl

but ya want some of the good boahs and some cute sleepy headcanons? BOI I AM IN!

also, before i continue-- CALL YERSELF DUMB BITCH AGAIN AND I WILL gently KICK YER ASS and hug you to death because ya ain't dumb or else i am more dumber than a fucking rock you sweet, talented smort, beautiful fecker!

AND ANOTHER THING !!! *sobs* HOW CAN YE DO THIS TO ME?!? SHOOTING ME WITH A SURPRISE COMPLIMENT-- ACK ME HEART! I FEEL M U S H ASDFGHJKKLXNBSOHD

okay, i calmed down now... onto the headcanons! btw, multiple characters because ya didn't specify who you want in this headcanon and because i knew yer beautiful ass would like more than one boah

⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃⁃

Arthur Morgan

• first off, best boah right here

• second off, this bitch won't admit he is sleepy even if his life depends on it

• is it pride???

• probably...

• definitely

• i dont know, i see Arthur as one to not really say anything he feels because he doesn't want to be a bother or thinks he'll be a dead weight

• because life as an outlaw? it ain't really the best life

• so, when there are jobs that takes a few days and he volunteers to take watch, Arthur won't admit he is tired and would continue on be on guard no matter how many times he is asked to get his ass some rest

• it'll be a pain in the ass if you aren't patient enough or very worried about him

• because knowing Arthur, he'll just suck it up

• so, if he is sleepy, his [Name] is on his ass immediately

• "you need rest"

• "don't need nothin"

• he IS stubborn as fuck

• and also incredibly more sassier when he is sleepy

• it honestly sometimes annoy [Name]

• "Arthur, you look like you're goin to pass out-- jesus christ! just rest already!"

• Arthur is too stubborn for his own good

• and it sometimes lead to some arguments really

• but [Name] will be the first to give up when he just sees Arthur and sighs

• [Name] will sit by his side and just talk about stuff

• trying to make Arthur relax and at ease

• he'll be sassy at first but will ease up and comment genuinely

• Arthur will then unconsciously place his head on his [Name]'s shoulder as the [Hair color] haired man's voice drowns his thoughts with stories of the past (either his or [Name]'s past)

• before you know it, Arthur "sleep is for the dead" Morgan is fucking asleep

• [Name] notices how quiet Arthur and will turn his head to see the outlaw asleep

• [Name] just smiles at Arthur and place his head on Arthur's and let a content sigh as he close his eyes

• they'll be fine sleeping for a bit

John Marston

• best greasy dumbass raccoon looking ass bitch

• but-- ahem

• like Arthur, John will be stubborn at first

• it's pride and John doesn't want to get babied really

• he already gets that enough from the rest of the gang since he is a real life predatory bait and gets mauled by a lot of animals

• honestly, this man has the shittiest luck

• but also lucky in some way...?

• but yeah... ANYWAYS

• when John gets tired, he is functioning with no braincells (like he doesn't already)

• [Name] is honestly tired with it

• just fucking glaring the shit outta that greasy raccoon boi

• then maybe...just maybe, you can get him to rest his greasy ass

• John will be a bit of a whiny bitch to be honest

• like, he'll whine he ain't sleepy

• but as if it was on cue, he'll yawn

• John looking a bit embarrassed and [Name] looking at him with that "really?" look

• [Name] ain't dealing with yer bullshit raccoon boi

• i can definitely see [Name] restraining John from running away and carry the guy to his tent and slam his in the cot and glare and order John to stay and sleep like a damn dog

• John would be honestly pissed because DAMN IT [NAME]! YA HAVE TO DO THAT IN FRONT OF EVERYONE?!? ARTHUR AND SEAN AIN'T GOING TO LIVE THIS DOWN (because those two are bastards... lovable bastards though asdfgghjkl)

• but also turned on but pfft-- he won't admit that

• but yeah, [Name] just sitting on the side of his bed and will not leave until he makes sure John rest

• "you ain't leavin, are you?"

• "i aint leavin till i see yer ass sleep, Marston"

• yikes, getting called his by his last name? usually his [Name] does that when he is annoyed or angry at time

• that when John know he ain't getting out of this

• "aight... fine! i'll sleep! happy?"

• "very"

• to be honest, John feels happy when [Name] does that

• it's because this is how his [Name]'s care for him and it is sweet

• a bit annoying but sweet

• John sleeps and [Name] softly sighs and place a soft kiss on John's forehead and leaves the tent to do his work

Leonard "Lenny" Summers

• pure child

• pure child who can never do anything wrong

• just, this fucking boah is pure child who can never do anything wrong and y'all can fight me is ya say he aint

• ANYWAYS

• Lenny is adorable when he is sleepy

• just utterly adorable as fuck and his [Name] just smiles at how cute he is

• like, Lenny is reading a book under a tree and the day was just a lovely day despite it being so fucking boring

• Lenny planned to read but as the calm breeze pass by him, it didn't take long for Lenny to be yawning and his eyelids dropping but the young man is trying so hard to fight the sleep off and stay awake

• honestly, [Name] saw Lenny sleepy but being too stubborn to admit defeat with sleep will try to stay awake

• [Name] is just amused by it and found it adorable

• always adorable with Lenny

• but anyways, Lenny would be one of the submissive out of everyone if you ask him to go to sleep when he is tired

• will literally not fight back on it because his mind shuts down from the sleepiness

• honestly? will act like a baby

• because he is a baby and [Name] loves him so much and spoils him

• "come on Lenny, let's get ya to yer cot"

• "hmmm, [Name]? can you carry me there... please?"

• just adorable akdbjqjdjsjfjjsjd

• me baby

• aNYWAYS

• Lenny is just a good boah

• like, he gives up rather quickly because he knew his [Name] is looking out for him and besides, if he says yes? he gets cuddles

• so yeah, that's good for him

• Lenny gets warm cuddles and sleeps well in the arms of his [Name] who holds him very close and just being soft boahs

Sean MacGuire

• loud and dumb irish bastard who stole me heart

• i adore him asdfghjkl

• but ON TO THE HEADCANONS

• Sean is a whiny loud ass bitch when he is sleepy

• he acts like he seems drunk

• and it is both hilarious and tiresome for [Name] because he is the one dealing with this shit

• i can see Sean just clinging to his [Name] and yelling on the top of his lungs on how tired he was

• and his [Name] rubbing his temple and tell Sean to get to bed then

• "[Name]! there ye are ye beautiful fecker! i have been looking all over fer ye"

• "and why is that?"

• "i'm sleepyyy"

• "then rest Sean"

• "but i dont want to!"

• honestly acts like a kid

• a loud ass bratty kid...

• it's not even cute

• kinda

• okay, [Name] finds it adorable but he ain't telling no one shit because he already suffers from a sleepy Sean who acts like a drunk toddler

• he doesn't want to deal with everyone teasing him on being soft with his drunk toddler lover

• but yeah

• like John, i can definitely see [Name] try to restrain this dumb bastard

• probably had to hoagtie Sean if i had to be honest

• which may or may not have the sleepy minded Sean blurt out something that made [Name] exasperatedly sigh and a bit flustered

• because-- goD DAMN IT SEAN! stop being a thirsting bastard for a bit and get some sleep?!?

• "Sean, keep this up and I'm goin to hoagtie you..."

• "that's a bit kinky [Name]-- but yer boy is always happy to please ye--"

• "oh my lords-- Sean!"

Charles Smith

• stronk hunt boah

• he is just so beautiful-- im gonna cry asdfgghjkl

• bUT ANYWAYS

• Charles won't admit it outloud when he is sleepy

• he is usually reserved and quiet anyways so his [Name] has to pick up some signals when Charles is sleepy

• but Charles won't be so stubborn about it though

• like, he is kinda like Lenny, a bit submissive and giving in on his [Name]'s words if the man tells him to sleep

• well, if [Name] finds out he is sleepy that is

• when this boah is sleepy, he usually sits in a somewhere in a shade and looks at the sky

• preferably under a tree and away from camp for a bit because honestly, the camp is just too noisy at times

• so yeah

• [Name] will notice him not doing anything and just cloud watching and will sit by him

• Charles would send him a small smile and a nod

• the two would just be quiet and after sometime, Charles would lay his head on [Name]'s lap as the [Hair color] haired man braids his hair and then undoing it again, repeatedly doing the action for a bit

• it honestly soothes Charles a lot

• just his [Name] playing with his hair which he is the only who can

• it was nice and with him already be sleepy, Charles would be lull to sleep

• and with that, Cahrles is softly snoring in his [Name]'s lap as the [Hair color] haired man undoes the braid again and then look at Charles' sleeping face fondly then look at the view in front of him with a gentle smile

• it doesn't take long for [Name] to sleep too with that

Javier Escuella

• a man after me own heart

• honestly, this man is just gorgeous asdfghjkl

• BUT BACK TO HEADCANONS

• Javier would probably be the only one who ACTUALLY goes to his tent and sleep in his cot

• maybe drag [Name] there because the mexican just want a nice cuddle you know?

• honestly, sleepy Javier is adorable to his [Name]

• Javier's mind just shuts down and he forgets how to speak in english and mumbles in spanish until he falls asleep

• i can also see Javier being one to plop himself down on his [Name]'s lap when the guy is sitting somewhere (below a tree or on a seat) because when is sleepy-- he loses his braincells and all functioning

• Javier just searches for his [Name] and throws himself because one, his boah can carry him alright anyways and two, he just loves too

• his [Name] is honestly amused because Javier won't be like this when he is functioning well

• well, not all the time

• but yeah

• [Name] thinks it's cute and will hug his lover

[lord-explosion-baku]

Part 2 of Yandere Neko!Shinsou

Neko!Shinsou x Reader

Warnings: yandere, light violence??? Classic case of reader being kinda dumb around a yandere.

A/N: this was rushed as hell and definitely not my best work but🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ I’ll be writing more of the story that’ll get a little more spicy and probably a little gross tbh but please be patient. ALSO, I’m on mobile and for some reason the “read more” cut isn’t working??? So... I’m sorry lol.

“What are you doing?”

You stood against you kitchen counter, shaky hands struggling to defrost the plastic covered frozen salmon in your sink. You tried to focus on the fish and not on the abrupt stranger that has appeared in your house in the middle of the night that had claimed to be your cat. It was… impossible but you’d pulled at his ears, examined his tail, and checked his teeth; everything about him was real… he even had the same beautiful purple colored irises with those slitted pupils. He was your cat but how and why?

After a lot of one sided conversation and a struggle to get the cat-man to wear your pajama pants, you decided that it would be awhile before you could fall back asleep and figured that your pet would be hungry.

You moved the pink slab of meat onto your counter and pulled out a knife. You gave the fish a slice, trying to focus on anything but the looming presence of the strange cat-man behind you.

Just then, he placed his chin on your shoulder, his wispy purple hair tickling your skin. “That’s for me, right?” He asked, right before nuzzling his cheek into the crook of your neck.

“Gah!” Swiftly, you turned around, holding your hands up, still wielding the knife, to keep distance between you and… and Shinsou. So much for trying to focus.

He looked at you with surprise while his indigo ears twitched back as he stared wide-eyed at the knife, his narrowing into slits. Goodness, you didn’t want to frighten him but you were just spooked by the sudden contact!

“Shinsou,” you lowered your hands, resting the knife on the counter, “I’m sorry, but you need to keep your distance! People have… boundaries. And you can’t just pop up behind people like that.”

Shinsou’s ears twitched back and his lips outed subtly. “I thought you knew I was there.”

Ohhh nooo he looked hurt. It was bad enough you threw your shit at him and called him a pervert but now you were threatening him with knives. Whether he was kinda human or still your cat. You bit your lip, trying to figure out what you could possibly say or do to explain yourself and make sure your cat wasn’t upset. He was your cat, right? … Pleasing Shinsou as a cat wasn’t too hard… maybe you could… continue doing what you had done before.

“Hey,” you cooed, trying to sound as the sweetest caregiver possible. Shinsou watched your shaking hand reach up to his hears and in response, they perked up as you began scratching behind them. “I’m so sorry, Shinsou. I don’t mean to be harsh with you. I’m just rattled, is all. This is new for me, too.”

The way your fingers attentively pat his ears made Shinsou melt. You were heaven on earth and it didn’t take long for him to start purring for you, which made your eyes widen for him. Thankfully, you didn’t pull away, instead you moved your hand under his chin and began to scratch upwards. Shinsou’s face flushed, everything he knew he liked as a cat felt a hundred times better as whatever he was now. A human? Neither you nor him could call himself that but at that moment, it hardly mattered. You were giving him the attention he needed since he found himself in another body, and it was everything. You were making him feel so good that he didn’t catch himself leaning down towards you, mouth agape, pupils wide, lost in a dopamine induced trance.

You gave him a funny look as soft purrs rumbled out of his chest and the moment you finally pulled your hand away, albeit, too soon, Shinsou had to put a foot down to stop him from falling on top of you. Before your hand could return to your side, Shinsou grabbed it and, without even thinking about it, bit down on the carpal side of your palm.

You winced and Shinsou noticed, catlike eyes watching you and waiting to see how else you’d respond. He had bitten you plenty of times when he was an animal but that was usually when he was overstimulated. You hadn’t done much to get him there.

“H-hey,” you began, trying to pull away.

Your body heated up when his tongue slid out of his mouth and gave the side of your hand a long lick. You felt prickles erupt in your back!

“Don’t stop,” he mumbled as the blush on his cheeks grew. He brought your hand to the side of his face and rubbed against you, desperately clinging on to the warm sensation you brought him whenever you touched him. “Never stop.”

“I… uhh,” you tried articulating an objection but Shinsou took a step closer to you, his surprising built frame towering over you. You could practically feel the vibrations from the reverberating purrs emitting off his chest so close to yours, the distance between the two of you uncomfortably intimate. “I need to… feed you, Shinsou.”

“Mhmm,” Shinsou smacked his lips together, his purple irises darting from your face to the ignited fish on the kitchen counter. He opened his mouth, expecting you to place his treat in his mouth like you had always done before. You had to repress the need to call him out on his lack of manners. He was a cat, he wasn’t raised like you and it was partly your fault he was so spoiled.

Beside yourself, you catered to the purple haired beast’s whims, placing a tiny slab in his mouth to which he greedily swallowed whole. “Another,” he commanded and again, his mouth fell open.

“A please and thank you would be nice.”

“A what?” He stopped purring.

“People say please and thank you when they want something from another person. It’s only polite. I understand that you don’t know these things, Shinsou, but I’m not here to be your little slave. A little appreciation goes a long way!”

“Appreciation?” Shinsou tested the word on the tongue. He understood most foreign words as soon as he them. “Oh, I appreciate you, human! Didn’t you hear? I love you!”

Your treacherous heart skipped a beat and that embarrassed you. “You don’t have to go that far,” you mumbled, turning back to grab another slice of the fish. “And I told you, my name is Y/N.”

“No, but I do,” Shinsou leaned back against the counter next to you, eyes glued to you even though his food was right in front of him. “You saved me from the cold. You take care of me and pet me… and you love me too. You said so yourself and you can’t take something like that back.”

You bristled at the comment. If he could remember you telling him that you loved him as a cat, then that would mean he could recall everything you’ve done in front of him, whether it be shoving food in your mouth without the cripple of societal eating standards glaring you down, singing obnoxiously loud to your favorite songs, or even changing in front of him. It wasn’t like you had to worry about those kinds of things before! He was an animal! He couldn’t think deeper than eating and sleeping… at least that was what you thought!

“I said I loved my cat…”

“Again, I’m not your cat. You’re my-,” he started but you waved the preposterous statement away. Did cats really believe that they owned humans?

“Whatever, I look after you,” you fired back.

“That you do,” he smirked and languidly turned so his whole body was facing towards you. He opened his mouth and pointed to it. You scoffed.

“Pleeeaaase?” He asked.

When did your sweet cat turn into such a brat? You figured that since he at least learned how to say, you might as well feed him again, just this once but you made a mental note to teach him proper human etiquette later on. He had to treat you at least a little decently until you figured out a way to change him back.

“Mmmm,” Shinsou closes his eyes and enjoyed the salmon that was simply melting on his tongue. After he swallowed, he cracked a grin, knowing that getting you to feed was a partial victory. He reached for another slice, honestly having hands was so convenient, and brought the fish up to your lips. “Now it’s your turn.”

“What! No!” You swatted his hand away and the fish fell to the floor. Shinsou narrowed his eyes before picking the salmon piece up. At first you were worried he was going to eat it clean off the ground but you were happy to see he threw it in the sink. He must’ve seen what you do in situations where food touches the floor.

“What’s the matter, human? You don’t want me to take care of you now that I can?” He clutched his chest. “I’m hurt.”

Where on earth could he pick up such a dramatic move like that from. You shook your head. “I can’t eat that unless it’s prepared correctly. And to answer your question, no, I don’t need you to take care of me.”

“Pffft,” Shinsou picked up a different salmon piece and ate it. It was infuriating!

“Okay, well, it seems like you’re doin’ fine on your own so if you would excuse me, I’d like to go to bed. Hopefully I can think clearly about our situation in the morning.” You stepped out of the kitchen but Shinsou was right behind you.

“Bed?” Shinsou’s tail swished behind him, his ears perked up. What was he so excited about?

“You’re not coming with me,” you said, accusingly.

His ears fell. “Why not? I love being in bed with you.”

Oh, Jesus Christ. “Because, you’re…” you stopped at your bedroom door to gesture at his entire body, “like that! It would be inappropriate for us to share a bed! And besides, you woke me up by… biting my neck…”

“You liked it.”

“What makes you think that?!”

“Because, you were purring,” Shinsou grinned, taking a step closer to you so pressed your back against the door. He leaned down so close to you that he could feel the heat radiating off your darkening cheeks. His pupils dilated. “I wanna make you purr some more.”

“Ohh noooo,” you pushed past him, heading towards your living room. “There will be absolutely none of that!”

You gathered a couple blankets and draped them over your couch, choosing which pillow would suit your cat-not-cat best. Shinsou distracted himself by watching the long switch hanging from the fan whirl around with the manufactured wind.

“Lay down,” you commanded, pointing to the couch. Curious, Shinsou obeyed, awkwardly maneuvering himself into a position that would best fit him, but his joints wouldn’t bend the way they did while he was a cat and he found himself in an uncomfortable fetal crouch.

He looked at you expectedly. “Now what?”

“Oh god, you’re hopeless.” You grabbed on to his legs and pulled them out so they were stretched alongside your cushions and when he looked halfway normal, you threw an extra blanket on top of him. “This is where you’ll sleep tonight. Comfy?”

“No.”

“Well!” You threw your hands up. “There isn’t really much I can do for you right now!”

“You can let me sleep in the bed with you.”

“That’s not gonna happen.”

“Well then, could you get me a bowl of milk? The salmon wasn’t enough.”

You scowled at the beast who only granted you with a toothy smile. He sat up and gently took your hand, bringing it back to his cheek so he could rub it some more. You really had no idea how to react to the incredibly odd affection. No man had ever rubbed himself on you, at least, not in the way Shinsou was doing right now. But he wasn’t a man at all. He was only doing catlike things, and could you really scold him for acting on his nature?

“Or maybe you can just sleep on this couch with me,” he pulled your arm hard, so you would fall into his lap. Before you even tried to struggle to get up, he wrapped both arms around your torso and nuzzled his head against yours, sending shivers down your spine. He started purring immediately!

“See?” He nipped at your ear while locking his hands together, “There’s enough room for the both of us!”

“No!” You elbowed him in the side and hopped right back up again. You immediately regretted it. The hurt look in Shinsou’s eyes was absolutely heartbreaking. You’d hit him, your cat...

Shinsou moved his body so he was sitting up on his knees, looking up at you with those precious, widened pupils. You were just about to be overwhelmed with guilt before he uttered his next words.

“You’re being so stubborn, kitten.”

Dumbfounded, your brow twitched, aggravated and flustered. He was talking to you as if you were his pet! You had really spoiled him rotten, hadn’t you?!

You clenched and unclenched your fists. You could choose to lash out at him but then you’d have to deal with him not trusting you anymore after you figure out how to turn him back into a cat. You did love him… your cat, so you really wanted to give him the best life. That shouldn’t change just because you could now understand what he’s saying to you.

You turned on your heel. “I’ll get you your milk.”

As you walked towards the kitchen, Shinsou called, “make it warm! … Thank you!”

You flexed your jaw. At least he was trying to be polite…

Unfortunately for you, when you returned with a warm glass of milk you had steamed, Shinsou was no longer in the living room.

That little scamp.

What a frustrating nuisance, you were going to spray that mischievous scoundrel in the face with water when you found him! It was like you were taking care of a child who only looked like a young adult and that made dealing with him so much worse!

You swung your bedroom door open, prepared to throw the cup of milk in your cat’s face but your anger dissipated as soon as you saw him there, laying in your bed. He was on his stomach with a blanket half covering his body, his right hand hanging languidly off the bed while his tail was tucked against his side. Soft snores escaped his mouth that very well may have melted your heart.

You let out a long sigh and set the glass on your side table. Beside yourself and done in by your tiresome night, you carefully crawled over Shinsou, careful not to touch him even a little bit, and tucked yourself against the wall, keeping as much space as possible between the two of you.

Shinsou was like you; it was always easy for him to fall asleep and even if you were aggravated with him and your situation, it didn’t stop him from still being your cute little kitty. You’d lay down your ground rules to him in the morning.

“If you touch me at all tonight, I’m going to throw you out into the snow,” you said, nodding out with a yawn.

Shinsou only responded with more soft snores. Usually when people snored around you, it was hard for you to get to sleep, but Shinsou’s breathing was pretty soothing, just as he had been when he was a cat. It didn’t take long for your eyelids to finally grow heavy and you zonked yourself out.

When Shinsou heard your breathing grow heavy, he opened one eye and turned towards you, sleeping cozy and perfect next him. Shinsou’s tail swished behind him as he started to smirk.

@bluebearcandy

[ravens-words]

We burned down our paper house

"Spanning years and continents. Lives ruined, bloodshed. Epic."

Scenes from a lost decade.

Chapter 4 of 4

Warnings: Angst, Brief mentions of war, Jesse Manes.

...........................

October, 2015

"Hello?"

Michael's voice was groggy when he answered and it was obvious he'd been asleep and most likely didn't check who was calling when he picked up. Alex hadn't wanted to wake him, but getting to have these calls was a rare opportunity. 

"Hey, Guerin," Alex whispered, making sure to keep his voice down. His teammates were scattered all around him in the tent, each one on a call with their own families. 

"Alex?" He sounded more awake now. "How are you? Are you okay?"

"I'm alright. How are you?"

Michael let out a soft laugh and Alex matched it. Why talking on the phone was so awkward given who they were to each other was beyond him. "I'm okay. Been helping Isobel with her Halloween party decorations."

Alex relaxed back into his chair, grinning. "Oh? I bet you loved that."

"Oh yeah. I love spending two hours a day being bossed around by Isobel Evans."

Alex snorted. "What else have you been up to?"

"Not much, really." He cleared his throat. "How about you? How are things over there?" 

Alex didn't want to answer that question. He didn't know how. "It's nothing much."

Michael was silent on the other end, and Alex closed his eyes, wondering if he'd managed to screw up so soon into this, whatever this was. 

"Guerin-"

"I miss you," he blurted out. "I don't know if you can't talk about it or just don't want to, but I just want to know you're okay. That's why I ask."

Alex sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face. "I don't think I'll ever talk to you about what I'm doing here," he muttered gently. It wasn't meant to hurt him, but he wanted to make sure they were on the same page. Alex had killed people, and they weren't always bad, they weren't always evil. Sometimes this job weighed so heavily on his soul that he struggled to find a reason, a way, to keep going. He'd managed it so far, but it wasn't easy. 

"Why not?"

"Because I don't ever want the way you look at me to change." He regretted the words instantly, but it was a relief to have them out in the open between them. It was a confession, a very small one that cost him more than it should've, but he knew Michael would understand the implication of it. 

"Alex-" 

"Tell me about your day," he requested, desperate and pleading. They had so little time, and he want to spend it discussing something he'd been running from for years now.

There was silence again, but then Michael sighed, resigned. "Okay. Well, old man Jackson's car broke again- and this makes it the third time this week, and he tried to convince me it was somehow my fault and not his crappy driving..."

Alex sat back, and listened to every word, committing his voice to memory.

Just three more years.

They could make it that long.

 

December, 2015

 

"Shit, jesus christ!"

 

Alex couldn't help but smile as Michael continued to curse, voice distant. He'd either put Alex on speaker or dropped his phone. "Guerin?"

 

"Alex, hey!" He could practically hear the grin in his voice and found himself smiling, helpless against the genuine joy he could hear in the other man's words. 

 

"Hi," he uttered, quiet, the smile still clinging to his lips. "Merry Christmas."

 

"Merry Christmas." There was a short, comfortable silence and it struck Alex how much this, just this; listening to Michael breathe on the other end of a call, meant to him. "I wish you were here."

 

Somehow, Michael, quiet and reverent, had the unbelievable ability to make the simplest things sound like holy confessions only meant for Alex and it never failed to fill him with joy and frustration in equal measures. Alex had so many things- beautiful, poetic things- to say about Michael, about his heart, his smile, his eyes. But he could never share them, kept them trapped in a leather bound notebook that had been his companion for the better part of seven years now. He desperately wanted to tell him how much he meant to him, but writing the words down had always been much more easier than saying them. 

"Alex?" 

"I'm here. I'm here. What are you doing for Christmas? You're not spending it alone, are you?"

"No," Michael answered quickly. Too quickly. Alex's heart sank. "I'm spending it with Max, Iz and Noah. At least Max will be there, I won't have to be a third wheel."

He was trying to sound cheerful, no doubt for his benefit, but Alex could hear how it was forced. 

"Guerin," he whispered, and he heard him take a deep breath. "Don't hide from me."

Michael let out a laugh that sounded a lot like a sob. "I don't want you to- I'm okay, Alex, really."

He should have proded him more. He shouldn't have let him pretend things were okay. He should have comforted him.

Instead of doing any of that, though, Alex let him hide. "Okay," he allowed. "Tell me how you've been. I missed you." 

Michael's spirit lifted and Alex, feeling like a coward, was relieved. At least he'd managed to do some good for him.

Please, let that be enough.

 

January, 2016

Happy New Year's, Michael. I hope this year will be a good one- AM

 

Happy New Year's, Alex! I miss you. Any chance you'll be coming home soon? - MG

 

Not for at least six months. I'm sorry -AM

 

It's okay. Take care of yourself and stay safe, will you? -MG

 

March, 2016

When Michael answered the video call, he was smiling widely. 

He was also shirtless. 

Alex's eyes trailed down and it took a herculean effort to get them back up. When he managed it, though, Michael, the smug bastard, was smirking. "Like what you see?"

Alex rolled his eyes and felt his face heat up. He hoped to god his blush wasn't visible. From the wiggling eyebrows and the full blown smug smile he received, his prayers went unheard. 

"I can't believe I finally managed to convince you to video call," Michael proded gently. 

His tone wasn't accusing, but Alex felt guilty anyway. He hadn't told his teammates anything; not about Michael, and certainly not about him being gay. It seemed that trusting them with his life was a lot easier than trusting them with that part of himself.

There had been so many moments where he wanted to say it, to just put it out there and see what happened. But he always backed out last minute, instinct, old doubts and fears uniting and insuring his silence.

"Hey," Michael frowned, coming closer to the screen, as if the movement would bring them any closer. "Where'd you go?"

 

Alex smiled. "I'm here. Sorry, I zoned out."

 

"That's okay. Bad day?"

 

He shook his head. "A long one."

 

Michael hummed sympathetically. "Wanna talk about it?"

Alex shook his head. "Not really."

"Alright," he backed off immediately.

"You cut your hair," he found himself saying, just now noticing.

"Isobel made me," he grumpled, running a hand through the short curls. An ache, a need, to touch him, to be there beside him, threatened to overwhelm Alex and he found himself blinking back tears. "You like it?"

"Yeah," he breathed out.

Michael squinted, then his face softened. "Hey, what's going on?"

 

No, Alex wanted to say. I miss you. I want this to be over. I want to be there with you.

 

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay." He tried to smile. "And- it looks good. You look good."

He was rewarded with a beaming smile. 

 

April, 2016

 

"Happy birthday!" Alex cheered the minute Michael picked up. 

 

"Hey, you." Michael laughed softly. "Thanks."

"Sorry I couldn't call you on your actual birthday."

"That's okay."

Alex frowned. "Hey, are you sure you're alright?"

"I am now that we're talking. It's been a while since we talked."

"I know. I'm sorry. Things have picked up here, I've barely slept in days."

"Are you safe?" He sounded scared, and Alex cursed himself for worrying him. 

"I'm in a war zone, Guerin." The words were harsher than he intended and he closed his eyes the minute the words left his mouth, knowing he'd managed to make things worse. "I'm sorry," he blurted out when the silence became too much. "I just- I hate this. I wish I could be there."

 

"Yeah," Michael said, voice tight with either anger or resentment. Probably both. Or maybe something else entirely that Alex couldn't grasp. "Why won't you talk to me?"

 

"I talk to you whenever I can. I told you, it's-"

 

"Don't play dumb, Alex. You know what I mean."

 

"No," he argued. "I don't. I talk to you, Guerin."

 

"Not about anything that matters," he snapped. "Not about what's been going on with you. You think I don't see how tired you are? You think I don't hear how miserable you are? You think I don't-"

 

"I told you before, I don't want to talk about this, any of it," he told him, voice cold and devoid of emotions. 

 

"Alex-"

 

"If this is how the call is going to be, I'm hanging up," he threatened and he hated it. He absolutely hated it. But he was desperate enough to fight dirty. Desperate enough to keep Michael separate from the hell he was in to use every weapon in his arsenal. 

 

"Okay," Michael said, and the words cut a knife through his chest. He sounded resigned and bitter and Alex hated himself for causing that. 

"Captain Manes!" 

Alex closed his eyes and cursed silently. "I've gotta go."

"Yeah."

"I'l talk to you later?"

He let out a wary sigh. "Yeah."

.....

May, 2016

 

"Can I tell Isobel about us?"

The smile on Alex's face dropped and he swallowed thickly. "Guerin-"

He seemed to get what Alex was trying to say and made a noise that was halfway between a sigh and a scoff. "Forget it, that was stupid of me." Alex's blood ran cold, but he managed to keep his cool and ignore the bitterness that seemed to color the other man's words. There seemed to be a lot of that since their talk three weeks ago.

 

"Listen, I just don't want-"

"I get it," he snapped and Alex closed his mouth. "You don't want anyone to know."

"Guerin, I don't want him to know. That's why I don't want to tell anybody."

Trying to reason with a pissed off Michael proved to be a more difficult task than Alex anticipated and he was quickly running out of patience. 

"Did you tell your teammates? About us?"

Alex's silence was enough answer and Michael laughed. "Of course you didn't. And it's not because of your dad, Alex. It's because you don't want anybody to know you're with me."

"That's not why and you know it!"

"No, I don't," 

All his father's beatings combined hurt less than the wounded tone of Michael's voice, and it only served to solidify Alex's belief that being with him hurt Michael. And he was smart enough to know a relationship wasn't supposed to be like that. Being with someone wasn't supposed to make you miserable all the time.

"You know, I can count the people I care about in that town on one hand and I'd have fingers to spare," he told him quietly.

Michael sighed tiredly. "I know."

"I only ever came back for you. Just you."

Michael was silent on the other end, but the breath that rushed out of him at Alex's words was very telling. 

"I'm sorry," Alex muttered, trusting that Michael would understand why he was apologizing.

"It's okay."

It wasn't, not by a long shot, but Alex wasn't quite ready to face that particular truth yet. Instead, he smiled and decided to extend a peace offering of a sort.

"I think I might be able to come home next month."

"What?!" There was a little excitement creeping into his voice and Alex was relieved. "Seriously?"

"It's not set in stone, but- yeah, I think I'm coming back in a month or so."

"Good," Michael breathed out. "That's good."

.....

June, 2016 

 

Alex sat down on his bed heavily and stared at the wall, ears ringing and unable to think, unable to breathe. He was supposed to be resting, but he doubted he would be able to sleep for a long time. 

He moved to lay down when something solid dug in his hip. When his hands closed in on the sat. phone, a sticky note attached to it, he froze. He turned on the light and, with the room dimly lit, was able to read the note. 

Today was fucking hard, cap. If you won't talk to us, then at least talk to someone. It was written in Bradley's careful handwriting and Alex closed his eyes, lest the tears that had been building up spilt out. He didn't know about Michael, no one did, but he could tell his teammates knew he had someone. He'd never denied it, but he'd never come out and said it. He was grateful to know that he didn't have to. 

He absentmindedly played with the phone, and allowed himself only a few seconds to think of all the reasons he shouldn't talk to Michael after the day he'd had.

In the end, his need to hear Michael's voice won over any logical reasoning and he found himself dialing the number he'd memorized by heart. It rang five times before he answered.

"Alex?" Michael shouted over the sound of music, voice light and easy in a way it hadn't been in a while. Alex's heart sank when he realized that he hadn't heard Michael sound happy in months.

And that was on him.

He let out a shaky breath and answered. "Hey. This is a bad time, I'll-"

"No! No, hang on." Seconds later, there was the sound of a heavy thud, a door closed, and Michael's voice was back, much clearer. "Hey, I'm glad you called. I missed you."

"Yeah, you too," Alex managed to say, a lump in his throat. 

"Hey, are you okay?"

"No," he admitted, "I'm not." 

Michael was probably shocked into silence, having not expected an honest answer. "What happened?"

"I'm just tired." He took in a shaky breath and let it out slowly. "Will you talk to me?"

"About what?" Michael asked gently.

"Anything." I just want to hear your voice instead of their screams, he wanted to say but didn't.

So, he listened to Michael talk about his day, about Isobel and Max and a car repair job he'd done that had impressed Sanders enough that he'd actually said the words 'good job, kid' out loud. And, miraculously, little by little, he felt a sort of peace wash over him, and the pain of what had happened today lessened to a somewhat bearable level. It was a heavy burden that would be there forever, but talking to Michael made that burden easier to carry.

"Thank you," he interrupted him, voice quiet.

Michael laughed softly. "What for?"

For being the one good thing in my life right now. For keeping me sane. "For being you," he smiled.

Michael snickered. "Well, that's the first time anybody ever thanked me for that."

Alex found himself laughing with him, and the knot in his chest loosened.

July, 2016

Alex was beyond exhausted, beyond angry and desperate for this; the war and the killing and the endless cycle of nearly identical days, to be over. He'd been hopeful a week earlier, thinking he might be able to go see Michael, but his leave had been rejected, on account of his team being needed here. Michael hadn't been happy about it and though this had happened before, this time had felt different. They'd had a fight about it, and Alex hadn't heard from him in about a week. 

Truth be told, Alex dreaded their next conversation so much that it was almost a relief when he called and Michael didn't pick up. Alex felt that there were cracks forming in this thing between them, probably due to how much they both left unsaid and the long distance between them probably wasn't helping. Sometimes, he felt like he was holding Michael back, making him miserable instead of happy, and wondered if maybe he needed to let him go. He could never say it outright, too scared of losing him, but he'd contemplated it.

When he called him, Michael answered on the second ring. 

"Alex!"

And he was well on his way to getting well and truly drunk from the sound of it. 

"Are you drunk? Guerin, Where are you?" 

"I'm not drunk, Alex," he told him moodily. And Alex realized that no, Michael wasn't drunk, he just sounded happy. How messed up was it that he hadn't recognize his happiness and mistook it for drunkenness? "Noah threw a surprise party for Iz. It's their anniversary," he explained, words wistful, bitterness forgotten.

Alex bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. That was never going to be them, was it?

"What the hell, Alex?" Though his words were whispered, there was a cold fury in them that made his heart sink. "Are you serious?"

He said nothing. He hadn't meant to say the words out loud, but a part of him was relieved he had. This conversation was a long time coming.

Michael wanted a family. He'd never said it, but Alex could tell. He wanted to be with him, wanted everything with him, and though the feeling was mutual, Alex didn't see it happening for a long time, if ever. Not when Alex felt paralyzed any time he tried to tell his teammates about his relationship. Not when the mere idea of anybody finding out and word reaching his father sent him into a spiral that, more often than not, ended with him having a panic attack.

"It's true," he whispered, digging the knife deeper. "You were right, Guerin. I didn't tell anyone about us. I don't think I'll be able to any time soon."

"Alex-"

"Stop," he snapped, heart thumping wildly. A part of him recognized that he should cut the conversation short and talk to Michael later. When he wasn't feeling so raw; when he could look down at his hands and not see blood on them; when he could close his eyes and see something other than fire and hear something other than the screams of a hundred innocent people. "I'm not coming home, Guerin. Not for a while. And- this isn't working."

 

Michael cursed viciously, and the sound of something breaking reached his ears, but Alex was calm in a way that scared him. He knew what that calm meant; knew, deep down in his bones, that this was going to be the last conversation they were going to have for a long time. 

If he was capable of feeling anything at the moment, Alex thought he might have felt sorrow. 

"Alex, please talk to me. You don't- we're fine. We- what do you mean it's not working?"

He hated how desperate Michael sounded, how scared. 

I did that. I did that to him.

"We should stop this," he informed him, and even to him the words sounded almost robotic. 

"Alex, what-?" 

Michael sounded confused and Alex didn't blame him.

"You can't tell me you haven't thought about it, Michael. We're- this thing between us, it wasn't going to last. It's not- all we do lately is fight, aren't you tired of it?"

He wasn't trying to be cruel, but he sure sounded like it. 

"Of course I'm fucking tired of fighting with you, Alex! And it's not working because you won't talk to me. I've tried to get you to so many times but you're like a freaking brick wall," he hissed, then laughed hysterically. "I can tell you're off. I can tell you're hiding something. I can tell that you're in pain right now, but if I asked, would you tell me what happened?"

Alex was in pain, he was in so much pain that even his damn teeth ached, and he was tired. Maybe that was why he did the thing he'd vowed to never do and found himself telling Michael everything he'd been trying to keep hidden.

"I kill people for a living," Alex told him, cold and furious. Later, he was sure he was going to regret this, but for now, that didn't matter. "I've killed so many people; fathers, brothers, sons, husbands, d-" he cut himself off and breathed heavily, chest tightening. "I've got so much blood on my hands, and it feels like no matter what I do, I'm never going to be able to wipe it off."

There was a sharp intake of breath and a chocked sound that Alex couldn't identify over the sound of his pounding heart. 

"Is that what you wanted to hear?" He demanded. 

"Alex," all the fight had drained out of him, and the only thing left in his voice was sorrow. 

Alex hated it.

"Tell me," he demanded, "is that what you wanted me to tell you? That I'm-"

"Stop," Michael begged. "Just stop."

 He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, Guerin."

 

Michael said nothing, probably because he'd understood that Alex was apologizing for more than this conversation. Then he let out a sharp breath. "So, this is it, huh?"

 

"I'm sorry."

 

"Stop saying that!"

He did. He didn't say anything at all; just listened to Michael breathe heavily and wondered how he could breathe at all when Alex felt like he was drowning.

"Is this really it?" He sounded small, and scared. 

Alex remained silent. He closed his eyes and listened to him breathe. 

"Fuck you, Alex." Michael raised his voice. He wasn't screaming, but it was close enough. "Did you ever even want this? From the minute you left, you've been- You won't tell me anything. We spent whatever time we had talking about stupid shit and you never let me in. You won't tell anyone about us because you're scared, but have you wondered how I feel, Alex?" He didn't have an answer for him and Michael didn't wait for one. "I'm terrified every day of something happening to you, every single day, and you know what the bitch of it is? If something does happen, half the town will know before I do and that's because no one would even think to tell me. And there's no one I can talk to about this because you don't want anybody to know. I sucked it up. For seven months, for even longer than that, I sucked it up and I didn't push, though god knows I wanted to. And now, just like that, you decide to end it?" When Alex didn't answer, Michael snapped. "Fucking say something, Alex."

"It's over. I'm sorry."

"Fuck you, Alex." In perfect contrast to the words, he sounded heartbroken, defeated. 

For a brief instance, he wanted to take it all back and beg Michael to forget every word he'd said. But then the dile tone reached his ears and admist the heartbreak and shock, there was a sense of relief. It was short-lived, however, and soon, he found himself hunched forward, his hands tangled in his hair and his world was falling apart around him. He decided to give himself one minute. One minute to fall apart, to rage and cry and regret all the choices he'd made that had landed him here. Then, he did what he did best and gathered all those emotions, put them into neat little boxes and buried them in the deepest corners of his mind. 

Michael had been a lifeline of a sort in these past few months, he'd helped more than he knew, and now that he was without that lifeline, Alex wondered how long it would take for him to stop drowning.

 Continue on AO3

@benkouji726 tagging you because it won't show up in the tags and you (for some reason, lol) actually like this fic and have been waiting for this chapter (I hope you like it???)

[zayray030]

Misunderstandings are Disastrous.

Summary: Oliver is a good person. He really is. So he doesn't understand why he's comforting a drunk Iris who thinks her husband's cheating on her. He's gonna kill Barry. OR Barry and the others have been acting really wierd for a month and Iris rightfully jumps to conclusions.

How did Oliver ever get put into these situations. He was a good man. Sure me might have killed a few people and cheated on a couple of people, but at the end of the day he tried his hardest to be a good person.

Do that's why he was extremely confused on why he was consulting an extremely drunk Iris about her place in Barry's life.

“I'm sure he loves you Iris. Why would you think otherwise?” Oliver asked, trying to get to the source of the problem. He's sure by the time Iris has finished he would be able to dig up at least 50 different times where Barry gushed about Iris, at least.

“Well it started a month ago…”

~A month ago~

“Hey babe!” Iris greeted happily when she saw Baeey in the kitchen. She had just come back from C.C Citizen and she really wanted to see her husband again.

“Oh, hey Iris. What are you doing here?” asked Barry distractedly, not looking up from his phone. Iris frowned slightly at his tone before smiling again and soldering on.

“Well I just got back from jitters after writing a really long article on the newest crime sprees that the Flash had stopped and I really wanted to come cuddle with my husband!” she said excitedly but Barry still hadn't looked up from his screen. “Barry?”

“Oh, um yeah, that's nice. Listen Iris, I have to go somewhere. I'll see you tonight.” said Barry before getting up and walking out. He hadn't even given her a kiss goodbye.

Iris just shook her head, thinking it was nothing and maybe he was recovering from another meta attack. Oh well, they'll cuddle tonight.

~A week after that incident~

“Hello, this is Barry. Please leave a message.” came Barry's voice from the phone. Iris sighed again and let her phone drop on the counter of Jitters. Iris had been acting weird all week and he had been ignoring all her calls and Iris was starting to get worried. Was he being mind controlled?

Suddenly, Iris heard the sound of the door opening and when she turned around she saw a very beautiful woman walking in and she couldn't believe who was behind her. Barry.

Iris felt something stir up in her chest but she pushed it down. Now was not the time to tune in with her emotions. She quickly looked around the room and saw a hidden spot where they wouldn't be able to see her but she would be able to and sat there.

Iris felt her heart crack the more she sat there and watched Barry talk to the beautiful woman and laugh with her. Insecurity shot up in her and so did jealousy but she squashed them down. Barry would never cheat on her. He was too loving for that. But Iris couldn't help but think of those times where Barry seemed almost bored with her and she felt her eyes stinging with unshed tears. She rubbed at her eyes quickly. No! She would not jump to conclusions about her loyal husband!

But Iris couldn't help but feel her heart crack even more when she saw Barry give the woman a hug longer than strictly necessary and saw the woman kiss his cheek. Iris held back a sob until Barry walked out with a woman and only then did she bring her hands to her face and sob.

~A week after that~

“Sorry Iris, but today is meta day.” said Cisco sadly as he and everyone else got ready to go out in town.

“Find a really cute girl that Barry told us about,” said Ralph. Frost slapped him over the head. Or maybe it was Caitlin. Who knows?

“Oh?” Iris said quietly, taking a step back from everyone hurt and betrayal rippling through her.

“What this dumbass means is that we're just going to pick some clothes that we can wear without our powers getting in the way and Barry met this really nice woman who can make clothes like nobody's business.” said Frost, with her usual cold tone but it was surprisingly gentle when directed at Iris.

“Yeah, what the ice lady said. Plus, I really want to buy some more jackets.” added Allegra.

“Okay, that's cool. Um, have a nice day.” said Iris awkwardly as everyone walked out to the elevator. While Iris was walking away she heard something that caught her ears so she stayed back slightly.

“Christ that was close.” muttered Cisco.

“Next time don't be so obvious. Barry doesn't want Iris to know and I agree. She deserves it.” snapped Frost.

“Yeah! Don't ruin it. He doesn't want her to know until the last minute possible and we're going to respect that.” agreed Allegra and Iris could imagine the small glare she must have on.

“I'm sorry but I feel weird when I lie to Iris.it doesn't feel natural.” argued Ralph.

“Well Joe, Wally, Cecile, Jackie and Kamilla are willing to do it so pull one for the team, Ralph!” said Cisco as the elevator doors closed.

Iris felt her heart crack again at knowing the fact that her own family and friends were willing to sit back and watch her husband go behind her back. Iris knew she shouldn't be jumping to conclusions but it was getting harder and harder to be able to deny the fact that her husband might be cheating on her.

After all, the evidence and the strange interactions have been proof enough that maybe, just maybe, that Barry is cheating on her and the others are supporting this. Iris quickly ran to the canteen and flopped down on one of the couches and sobbed her heart out at this new revelation.

~Currently~

“... and other odd things have been happening across star labs and whenever I hang out with the others they're just so secretive and they keep sending me these looks and - and-” and Iris could no longer keep her tears in and sobbed out.

Oliver quickly put an arm around and tried to soothe her like he would soothe Thea when she got scared, nervous or upset and let her cry on his shoulder.

“It's going to be okay, Iris.” he said softly while also vowing to kill Barry for his stupidity. “I'm going to need you to take this drink for me. It'll make you sober but won't give you a hangover.” he said gently as he took out a small vial full of red liquid.

Iris nodded slightly, still sniffling slightly and drowned the drink in one go. Oliver looked into her eyes and saw her pupils go back to their normal color and huffed out a breath of relief.

“Hey, you better now?” he asked gently.

“No.” she answered and Oliver could understand that. He just wished that Barry could think twice before he did something dumb like this again. It's as if anything Oliver taught him went through one ear and out the other.

“Understandable. Come on let's go.”he said gently before calling over a waiter to pay the check. Iris didn't protest like she usually would and just stood up and shivered slightly, her shirt dress and heels doing nothing to keep her warm. Oliver shrugged off his jacket and placed it around her shoulder.

“Can we go to star labs first? I left my laptop there by accident.” she said. Oliver nodded secretly elated that he was finally going to where he wanted Iris to be in the first place.

After Oliver had paid for all of Iris's drinks they quickly got into his limo and drove off. For the most part of it Iris was quite apart from the occasional hiccup and Oliver just kept bouncing his legs, nervous. With how bad the others had been he was sure it was going to be a complete disaster.

When they got to star labs Iris briskly walked in, wanting to get out of there as quick as possible and went straight to the Canteen

It was completely dark when they walked in and Oliver held his breath as Iris switched the light on.

“SURPRISE!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY IRIS!!!!” Everyone screamed the moment the light was turned on. Iris jumped back, fear in her eyes, but it quickly disappeared as she saw the scene.

There was a huge banner that said ‘Happy birthday to Iris Ann West Allen’ in big, bright, bold colours and there were steamers all around along with cakes and candy all on plates. The normally pristine area was filled with so much decoration and there was a mounting of presents on a table at the corner of the room. Drinks were placed everywhere and all her friends where crowded around the front.

“Do you know how long I've waited?” asked Cisco as he sighed a sigh of relief. Oliver just shook his head thinking over and over that this was a bad idea.

“Iris?” Barry asked when he noticed his wife had gone silent. Everyone had turned to the small woman and they could see tears collecting in her eyes.

“So you aren't cheating on me?” she asked quietly. Everyone paused in their laughter and turned to stare at her. Why did she think that?

“What? Of course not, Iris! Why would you think that?” asked Barry speeding over to his wife and tilting her chin upwards. Oliver shook his head again and groaned quietly in his hands.

“You kept on ignoring me and when you did talk to me you sounded so cold and dismissive and you guys kept avoiding me and I saw you hang out with a pretty women and ignore my calls and I saw her kiss your cheeks and i-” Iris lost the battle with her tears and started sobbing in her husbands chest.

Over Barry's shoulder, Oliver could see everyone's guilty and ashamed faces.

“Iris, baby, I so desperately wanted to tell you about this but they wouldn't let me talk to you. They even had to lock me over on Cynthia's earth just to keep me quiet. I so desperately wanted to call you and give you all the attention you deserve but they took my phone away and knocked me out.” said Barry to his wife, soothing her doubts away. Well, most of her doubts anyway. It'll take more than a few words.

“Oh.” she said quietly, but tears were still streaming down her face.

“We're so sorry Iris. But if Barry was cheating on you, which he isn't, I would never stand by him. I would tell you straight away and post every ugly picture I have of him in the Citizen.” said Kamilla, coming to her sister figure and giving her a hug.

“And plus, I would burn his face off.” added Allegra, joining into the hug.

Slowly everyone began giving Iris apologies and telling her one hundred percent that if Barry tried anything with her they would without a doubt, one hundred percent, end his existence.

By the end of it the only person not in the hug was Oliver but Iris fixed that soon enough by pulling out a blind arm and waving it around signalling him to come over and dragging him over.

“Now come on, birthday day girl! It's time for you to party and dance the night away!” cheered Sara pulling Iris to the dance floor and Iris let out a small giggle and soon mostly everyone was on the dance floor.

“How the fuck do I make this up to her?” Barry quietly asked Oliver, Kara and Kata

“It's going to take time. A few words can't change what she's thought about for a month. Therapy is a good idea and reminding her you love her every time you talk to her. And also, when throwing her a surprise party, don't you dare ignore her.” said Oliver. He had recently begun to see Iris as a sister and he wasn't going to stand around and see her upset.

“I mean I got her tickets to go to the best spa in America so I think it's best to think that maybe she needs a good day to relax with friends.” said Kate, as if she was challenging Oliver. Oliver just scoffed and smirked.

“Well I got her a free day to whatever thing she what's from the Queen beauty spa.” countered Oliver and before those two could get into a fight Kara stepped in between them.

“Oh, no, no, no. This day is Iris's special day and none of us is going to ruin it. We already ruined her month by making her think that Barry was going to cheat on her. So Barry, a way Iris could forgive you is if you put your speed to use.” said Kara not realising the double meaning to it until Oliver and Kate cracked up. “Oh, shut it.” she snapped.

“Anyway, what Kara said. You're practically a human vibrator. Put that to use for her birthday gift and make sure she stays happy. After that we're all going to grovel at her feet like dogs for ruining her mental state.” Kara finally got out after she'd finished laughing.

“Couples dance!” yelled Cisco dragging Kamilla to the dance floor. Barry sped over to his wife and danced with her. Everyone's eyes were kept on the couple and they felt their eyes glisten. Those two have gone through so much, they deserved this little money between them.

The night was spent partying and dancing with Iris opening up presents and everyone apologising. The ones who couldn't get drunk kept an eye out for everyone. By the time the night was over Iris had happy tears in her eyes and most of her worries had subsided. Her feet ached and all she wanted was a night with her husband.

“Come on, let's go. Let me give you your present.” he whispered into her ear and she could see Kara blush bright red from where she was talking to Oliver and Kate.

“Yay.” she said quietly and he quickly picked her up bridal style and ran out with her. Iris faintly heard everyone calling them goodbye and she relaxed into her husband's chest.

He opened up their dorr and gently ran then to their bedroom and gently placed her on the bed.

“Let me show you just how much I love you, baby.” he whispered into her ear and Iris just nodded before gasping softly.

Maybe an entire month of worrying whether your husband was going to cheat on you wasn't good but Iris couldn't deny the after effect was very nice.

At least that's what she told herself when she woke up to her naked body sore all over and her husband's smug smirk.

[sciencelings-writes]

Iron Man Bingo: Tony Stark & Harley Keener

this is part of my 5+1 series of Tony and his kids, this one has less Tony in it which was not what I was planning but I’m mostly trying to show how much he cares, even from afar. 

Every Christmas, Harley got a ridiculously expensive gift that he knew his mother couldn’t afford. It was always labeled that it was from ‘Santa’ but Harley was anything but stupid. There was a billionaire out there that still felt bad after several years of putting him in danger once. Okay, maybe twice but Harley honestly didn’t dwell on it. He actually liked helping Tony out when he was twelve, his life was boring anyway.

Usually, it was a custom kit to build something that gradually got more and more complicated. They would be robots and other machines that kept Harley busy for a few weeks before he ended up modifying it to his own design for the rest of the year.

It was a single armed robot with gold lettering on it that cheekily spelled out ‘ANTHON-E’ or ‘TON-E’ for short. Tony wasn’t discrete. And he had a strange sense of humor.

Okay, Harley thought it was funny and the golden stickers could’ve spelled out anything he wanted. Harley was the one that thought it was funny to call the bot TON-E. But Tony did send a note with ideas for names that were just as bad. Mostly puns that ended in ‘-E.’ Most of them were not FUN-E. In fact, they were borderline SHIT-E.

But one year, the year after the shitshow that was Ultron and the breakup of the Avengers, Harley got something a little different. There was a huge box of parts and Harley audibly gasped when he took a look at the blueprints. It wasn’t a little project or a robot, it was a full-on Iron Man suit. Tony had included several colors of paint and literally everything Harley could ever hope to need to make the suit perfect, although the weapons were understandably less powerful.

They weren’t like nerf guns instead of actual guns, but they weren’t going to destroy his whole block if he fucked something up.

The only thing fully put together in the kit was the arc reactor. Sure, Harley had seen it up close, hell, he had put it back in Tony's chest that one time but it had been a few years and now that he had a better idea of what it was, he was fascinated by it. There was a note on it from Tony, it gave a personal phone number and an invitation to ask for anything else that he would need and a suggestion for a free visit to New York.

Harley was a little bit excited. When he wasn’t being watched by his little sister and mother, he literally jumped up and down with a ridiculous grin pasted on his face. It took him a full month to stop smiling and he started working on the suit immediately. He also started regularly texting Tony after years of not talking him.

Their conversations ranged from dumb shit that Harley was not ashamed of talking about to deep shit like the effect of the loss of the Avengers. It took a few months and several reminders that Harley knew how to deal with the man's panic attacks that he opened up again.

Harley may not be a therapist or anything like that, but he was the type of person that could listen to people. He listened to his mom when she broke down when he suggested she try dating again, he listened to Tony during his panic attacks and the adults always felt bad for unloading their trauma onto him but he didn’t care. Sometimes people needed someone to listen and think for them when they couldn’t think straight and Harley honestly didn’t mind being that person. He seemed to stay calm when other people would freak out.

Right before spring break, Harley finished his suit. He had fully tested it and wanted to see how it would fare for long distances, so he decided to surprise Tony by visiting. He wasn’t an asshole though, he told his mom that he was going to go visit, he just didn’t tell her that Tony didn’t even know.

Honestly, Harley only knew that Tony was going to be in the country because his AI connected to FRIDAY and she had told him Tony’s schedule for the whole month. He specifically took a few weeks off to chill out and Harley was planning on ruining it. Eh, Tony would forgive him.

He was kind of surprised that his mom let him go at all, but it turned out that she had talked to Pepper Potts and she had promised that she would make sure that Harley would be taken care of as she was sure that Tony couldn’t even take care of himself. Okay, he could but a lot of the time he forgets that human bodies had needs that had to be met every day. Like sleeping and eating.

Anyway, Harley left as soon as he could. And now he could say, flying was pretty fucking awesome. He topped out at about one thousand miles per hour, faster than a normal plane, but it would still take a while to get to New York. So he enjoyed the ride. For one, the view was beautiful, by being so high up, everything just looked so small.

Harley didn’t even think before he flew in loops and just played around with the whole concept of flight. The ducks in the air could probably hear him whooping from outside of his metal mask.  But he didn’t think that they had the brain capacity to care.  

He was in the middle of a swan dive when his visor turned red and text flashed in front of his eyes. Thankfully, it wasn’t a problem with the suit or anything like that. It was an alert for something happening nearby.

By then he had been flying for a while and was already above West Virginia. The alert just said that the AI had sighted a mugging using a nearby security camera. The guy had a gun and his AI had deemed it safe enough to be his first act of heroism. He didn’t have much else to do and if he actually wanted to be some sort of superhero, he would have to actually do some hero-ing.

He continued his dive until he was about as high as the nearby building. He slowed his descent and heavily dropped on the ground. He almost lost his balance but he didn’t fall so it was fine.

“Iron Man?” The criminal guy froze in his tracks and dropped the old woman's purse.

“Not quite.” Harley shot a low powered repulser blast at the man and surprisingly hit him. His arm but he fell to the ground. “I’m more like petty-crime Iron Man.”

The criminal was passed out on the ground so Harley paid attention to the woman.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

“Thank you so much, young man, before you shoot off into the sky, would you mind taking a picture with me? My granddaughter loves Iron Man!” Well, she got over that quickly…

“I guess…” He helped her after she struggled to take a selfie with him and after a few minutes, the lady had a picture of the new black and gold Iron Man. She seemed pretty pleased with the picture. He told her to call the police to report what happened before he shot off into the sky to make his way to New York.

This wasn’t the only stop he ended up having, he ended up stopping a robbery in New Jersy and distracted a potential rapist so that a girl could get an uber home. He wasn’t aware of how many pictures were taken of him and by the time he got to new york, there were several news sites that wrote about him. Most had headlines like ‘Iron Boy?’ or ‘Is there a new Iron Man?’ and dumb shit like that but one had ‘Tony Stark has a child who fights crime?’ So it could’ve been worse.

He landed at the Avengers compound in the middle of the night. He was exhausted but excited at the same time. Conflicting emotions were annoying. He popped out of his iron suit and stretched a bit before strolling into the compound with slightly hunched shoulders. Pepper met him inside, apparently, she had stayed awake waiting for him.

“Tony is just in his workshop and he’s going to stay down there all night if you don’t get him out of there. I’m going to bed and if you just join him, I’m going to sic FRIDAY on you guys.” Pepper threatened with a yawn. Harley was physically exhausted enough not to even think about denying her.

Pepper showed him to the workshop and excused herself to go to bed. FRIDAY let him in and Tony didn’t even notice. Tony seemed to be intensely examining a glowing holographic screen in front of him. Harley sat by him for a full five minutes before Tony even realized that he was there.

“Kid?” Tony looked like he hadn’t slept in a week so Harley was surprised that the guy even recognized that he was a kid.

“Hello to you too, it’s been a while.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Chill out, it’s spring break, I just decided to stop by.” Harley smiled and stood up. “Come on, you look like shit. Your girlfriend wants you to get some sleep.”

“You know I haven’t had enough sleep when I consider that you’re a hallucination.”

“Why the fuck would you hallucinate me? Maybe in the morning, we can reunite properly but personally, I’m about to pass out so…”

“Yeah yeah, no need to make me feel guilty… goddammit, you have gotten better at that…” Tony stretched and stood up in a way that strangely reminded Harley of a cat. “I saw you didn’t waste too much time to go play vigilante.”

“The fly here was pretty boring.” Harley shrugged. “Hey FRIDAY, tell Pepper we’re on our way up.”

‘Of course.’ The AIs voice came from the hidden speakers. ‘Boss says that you haven’t gotten the high score for getting Tony out of the lab.’

‘What’s the high score?’

‘Fifiteen seconds due to an accidental alert from Spider-Man. He didn’t mean to press the panic button.’ FRIDAY replied and if she had a face, Harley was sure that she was smiling. Or rather, smirking.

“Well, I’m going to beat that record.”

“Good luck with that kid…” Tony groaned. “Please at least promise not to give me a heart attack.”

“You have a med bay here right?” Harley smirked.

“Jesus Christ…”

Pepper could hear the laughing all the way from the Iron Suite.

[cy4658-writes]

16. Over the moon by midnight Pt 1

References:

You: Bold

Dan: Italic

 °Dan’s POV°

 'We meet at last, Prick’ she said with a giant smile on her lips as she proceeded to hug me.

'Do something, Daniel! Hug her back!’ I thought to myself as I wrapped my right arm around her waist and lifted the pizza box right above her head.

She looked really pretty and red was definitely her color. Her accent was cute also.

She smelled like flowers and her apartment like chocolate.

She had those kinds of eyes that irradiate comfort, I was no longer nervous.

-       Your apartment smells really nice, chocolatey

-       Hahaha! Really? Is that the first thing you tell a woman?

I didn’t know what to say, I just stood there with my eyes wide open. I was trying to say something when she interrupted me

-       I’m kidding! You can close your mouth now, but thanks, I made brownies to have as dessert. What would you like to drink?

-       What do you have?

-       Beer, Coke, wine and something called Ribena? I don't know what it is but I saw everyone at work drinking it so…

-       You still haven't tried Ribena? I'm offended. Get that!

-       All right, all right! Hold your horses! Jesus Christ! I only been here a few days, I’m not yet a full on Brit yet.

She said as she disappeared into the kitchen

 -       Where are we eating? Counter, coffee table?

-       Coffee table! The couch has a lovely view. She shouted.

As I was waiting for her to come back with the drinks, I put the pizza down where she told me and saw her laptop over an auxiliary table next to the couch.

Her Spotify account was up and a song paused. She was listening to ‘If I could only see by Tonic’

‘She does have an impeccable music taste’ I thought.

As I was caught in my train of thoughts, she came in from behind me and startled me

-       Already snooping through my laptop? she joked

-       Nah, I was just curious to see what you were listening to.

-       You can press play if you want to, that way if there are any awkward silences, the music will fill them up. But you might want to turn down the volume first. I have a neighbor that gets utterly annoyed if I play it too loud she said as she stuck her tongue out.

-       HA HA HA. You are not as funny as you think you are! I mirrored her previous grimace

-       Here is your Ribena, I decided it was a beer day for me, but just in case I need some alcohol to put up with your unbearable existence.

-       Thank god I live next door and I can leave whenever you start getting tipsy.

-       Low blow, mate! Shall we? she said pointing at the pizza

-       Yes! I’m starving!

As we were eating and talking about our lives, I noticed that she kept on staring at me. That always made me uncomfortable but I wanted to know why she did that.

-       You are staring at me again. Do I have something on my face?

-       Damn, sorry! I thought I was being smooth. I don’t know but ever since you got in here I feel I’ve seen you before.

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ I thought. She recognized me; I couldn’t believe it and I didn’t even bring up my YouTube yet. ‘How the hell did it happen?’ I decided to play it dumb and see where this was heading.

-       Really? You know a lot of tall ass guys with hobbit hair?

-       I can’t say I do, you remind me of a guy on a video a friend of mine showed me a long time ago.

I was made, but I kept my cool

-       Really? Who?

-       I don’t even remember his name, but I do remember he was dressed as a dinosaur and trying to eat cereal someone was throwing at him. It was actually quite hilarious.

I couldn’t believe my damned luck. Not only she has seen me before but she’s seen me doing one of the most stupid videos I’ve made in my life. All I wanted was for the earth to rip open and swallowed me. I don’t think I ever craved death as much as I did in that precise moment.

I don’t remember how long I remained zoned out, but all of a sudden she was waving her hands in front of my face.

-       Dude! You here among the living?

I didn’t reply, I just covered my lit red face with my hands when all of a sudden it happened

-       OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

I softly screamed. And I mean softly only because my hands were still on my face and muffled the sound of my very pitch high voice.

-       What?! What is going on? She said while grabbing my hands and putting them away from my face.

She had to have figured out so, I might as well come clean right then and there.

-       It’s called Dan the Danasaur and it is, in fact, me on that video. I made that video back in 2013.

I told her while staring at my feet, I couldn’t make myself look her in the eye until I hear she was laughing and her laughter started to sound like she was choking.

-       Here! Take a sip of this. Are you ok?

It took her a few seconds to compose herself. There were a minute or two of deafening silence until she spoke again.

-       Ok, I was not expecting that like AT ALL. Is that what you do for a living? Videos on the internet? She asked with, what felt, underwhelm in her voice.

-       Well, yes. I am a youtuber among other things.

I made eye contact again with her and I saw that she was a little blushed and with a smile on her face. I did not know what the hell was going on.

-       What? You keep staring at me again

-       That video, the one you did? Was the only thing that made me smile during a very rough time in my life. My friend found it on the internet and sent me the link via email. It was one of the few things that, back then, made me feel a hint of happiness. Unbelievable how the universe works, right? So, now that I have you here, let me thank you. Your moronic ass helped me get through some deep shit.

I was dumbstruck. What I was supposed to tell her? I mean, I could see a hint of sadness behind her eyes. Should I hug her? Make a joke? I needed to act and I needed to do that quickly

-       I am glad that my personal and public humiliation did you any good.

She started laughing.

-       Public humiliation is not only my forte but also a great source of laughter. You are kinda cool, Prick. Maybe I should dig a little into that YouTube channel of yours.

-       Well, this was nice. I think I should go now and choke myself to death. I said as I stood up. I was literally going to run to my house and die.

-       Don’t be an idiot! I would never do that if it made you uncomfortable. I told you! You sort of a cool dude, I much rather get to know you like this than from what you put out there.

I sigh in relief.

As we resumed our chitchat, a song started playing that made Y/N sit up straight; she took her hands to her chest and closed her eyes. I could see that the song meant something deep to her.

-       Have you ever heard a song and thought ‘This is exactly me. This song sums up everything I want in life’? Never have I ever found one like that till I heard this.

It was Iris by The Goo Goo Dolls. I’ve heard it before but never really paid attention to the lyrics until Y/N said that. For some reason, I felt compelled to give it my undivided attention.

-       I never thought of that, but it is a beautiful song I resumed as the song finished.

She gave her bottle the last sip and stood up

-       I think I need a refill. You want something else or you are good?

-       I’ll take a beer, thanks

-       Coming right up!

As she disappeared into the kitchen, I took my phone out of my pocket; I had a text from Phil

Everything going ok?

Yeah, everything is going fine.

she’s seen one of my videos, at least

tell you later.

It took her a moment to come back with our drinks, I found myself looking at her straight in the eyes, I felt myself smile.

Our night had just begun but I didn’t know that yet.

[malecsecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, @codeblackglitter!

Read on AO3

*****

a yellow-eyed man (and a green-eyed monster)    

Alec understands how much this party means to Magnus, how much work he’s put into it. Alec just wishes that he was in more of a party mood. After three weeks of constant celebration following Valentine’s defeat, it’s a little hard to get into it. The first few nights, Alec was able to hold it together. Unfortunately, it seems that each party pulls Magnus farther and farther away. Rather than staying at Alec’s side, providing a barrier from the public, Magnus has taken to mingling with the other party guests as Alec hangs along the wall. He understands why, don’t get him wrong. Magnus is the High Warlock. It’s his duty to assess the damage Valentine did and to form connections with the other downworlders in attendance.

That being said, the party seems to be getting more intense rather than dying down as Alec had hoped and he knows he’s going to have to abandon ship soon. The sounds of celebration have started echoing between his ears and his throat has begun to tighten. It would definitely be easier if Izzy or Jace were here. Even if they joke about his anti-social behaviors, they still would make sure he was okay. They know if they manage to drag Alec to a party, he’s very much going to be acting like their shadow throughout the duration of the night. The noises and unwelcome contact with the other guests always overwhelms him.

Alec knows Magnus would also completely understand Alec’s need for space...hell, Magnus was the one to explain anxiety to Alec in the first place. He had always just assumed the heart pounding terror he felt in loud, social situations was just an exaggerated shyness. Izzy had tried to talk to Alec about it a few times but Alec knows he mostly tuned her out. It was bad enough trying to be a gay shadowhunter, he didn’t want to acknowledge that he was broken as well. (And boy is Alec kind of glad Magnus wasn’t around to hear that. The ensuing lecture on how mental illness or anxiety doesn’t make someone broken is one Alec has already heard far too many times following his and Magnus’ first talk.)

The room is starting to feel claustrophobic and Alec knows his heart is beginning to pound but he still can’t fight the guilt that rises when he thinks about leaving. Magnus loves parties and would definitely stop throwing so many of he knew they were triggering Alec. Alec certainly doesn’t want Magnus to have to give up something he genuinely enjoys just because Alec can’t get his shit together. Plus, does Alec even have the right to ask that of Magnus anymore? Between everything with the soul sword and the seelie queen, Alec has been constantly worried about overstepping. He now knows what it feels like to lose Magnus and he’s not eager to experience that ever again.

Thinking about the watching Magnus walks towards that elevator just seems to make the situation worse, however. Alec is gasping slightly and his vision has begun to blur. He knows it’s going to become obvious very quickly that something's wrong with him to the other guests if he doesn’t get outside right now. He places his cup back on the table and begins to head towards the door. As he stumbles across the room, trying hard to avoid any physical contact with the hoards of people filling the loft, Alec scans the room in hopes of catching Magnus’ attention.  Unfortunately when he does manage to spot the warlock, he appears to be in deep conversation with a seelie girl. She is staring into his eyes and Magnus...Magnus looks lighter than he has in weeks. With each celebration and assurance that the downworld has survived, the weight seems to lift off his shoulders but now he looks almost carefree. His eyes are crinkled slightly and Alec can hear the faint sounds of his laughter over the beat of the song. Between the dim but colorful lights and the grip she has on Magnus’ arms (and wow does Alec love those fucking arms), their interaction seems oddly intimate and Alec has to turn away quickly to beat back the nausea he suddenly feels.

Logically, Alec understands without an ounce of doubt that Magnus would never cheat and not just because they love each other. Magnus just isn’t that kind of person, especially after everything Camille did to him. Magnus would never dream of putting someone through that. Emotions, however, aren’t prone to logic. Alec can’t help but think about all the issues he and Magnus have had lately. If this seelie can make him smile, lessen the burden Magnus has been carrying for so long, who is Alec to interfere? After everything Alec has done lately to add to the stress in Magnus’ life, the least he could do is turn away and let Magnus enjoy himself.

So lost in his own thoughts, Alec doesn’t notice the vampire approaching him until the man grasps Alec’s arm lightly.

“Hey, I’m Jordan...are you okay?”

It’s difficult to hear the man and Alec is so startled it takes him a moment to understand what he’s asking.

“Uhh. I. Uhh” Alec stutters out, feeling the familiar burning in his face as a deep blush rises to his cheeks, embarrassed at being caught off guard while feeling so out of sorts.

“C’mon, follow me.” the man suggests politely. He takes a hold of Alec's hand as he leads him through the crowd and outside. Alec eagerly takes some deep breaths as the cold, fresh air hits him.  

“Woah, easy now. The air isn’t going anywhere, I promise. Just try to calm down.”

“S-sorry. I don’t..I’m not-”

"Just relax. Don’t worry about it. The last thing I need is to accidentally kill Magnus Bane’s boyfriend. He doesn’t seem the forgiving type.”

Alec knows the vampire is just trying to help him but all Alec wants is for Magnus to find him. Magnus knows how to calm him down faster than anyone else. He’s understanding, sweet, and more than Alec has ever deserved. But the vampire is right, Magnus isn’t the forgiving type and Alec has broken his trust so much recently that the shadowhunter doesn’t quite understand why Magnus is even still bothering with him. He can do so much better. He’s by far the most beautiful person Alec has ever laid his eyes on and is certainly not short on power either. How did a man so perfect end up with someone like Alec? An unremarkable shadowhunter who put Clave orders before the love of his life. A nephilim who can kill demons every night but apparently can’t make it through a fucking loft party without completely losing it.

“Hey, hey. Slow down. Just focus on your breathing. Christ, this is a mess.”

Alec focuses his attention on the man kneeling (kneeling? When the hell did Alec sit down?) in front him. He’s pale, obviously, with sandy brown hair and light green eyes. He looks around 19 but Alec knows that he could very well be 219. Alec doesn’t recognize him or his name so he must not be from Raphael’s clan. He’s handsome, Alec supposes. Not nearly as stunning as Magnus but he has nice bone structure that Alec can appreciate. He continues with his observations as a way to distract himself. The man, Jordan, is wearing dark jeans with a purple long sleeve shirt. It has a slight v-neck and he’s wearing a gold chain around his neck. Alec’s mind instantly goes to myriad of necklaces Magnus had tried on before the guests had arrived, each more elegant than the next and surely costing more money than Alec would would see in his lifetime.

“Okay, good. You okay? Feeling better?”

“Y-yeah,” Alec says, clearing his throat.

“Here, take a sip.”

Alec gives the man’s glass a dubious look. He knows better than to accept random drinks from guests at Magnus’ party. Between those looking for him to “loosen up” and those unhappy with his relationship to Magnus in the first place, it’s certainly safer to avoid the risk.

“I promise, it’s just water. If I wanted to hurt you, I definitely wouldn’t have dragged you outside alone. I’m certainly not dumb enough to want try and hurt the High Warlock’s lover in his own loft and would have to be downright suicidal to do it after the man in question saw us together," Jordan explains, moving to sit next to Alec on the chair.

Alec recognizes the sound logic of the statement and reaches out for the cup, absently wondering when Magnus would’ve seen them together.

Magnus misses Alexander. Between the fiasco with the soul sword and the seelie queen and now the constant celebrations, they've hardly had any time just for themselves. And it's not like Magnus is insecure or something, of course not. Centuries old, he certainly doesn't have time for something as trivial as insecurities. He's just...realistic. He loves Alexander, of that there's no doubt. But they have been under more than the usual amounts of relationship stress with no real time to work it out. Magnus understands why. As High Warlock and Head of the Institute, they don't have time to only think of themselves. The fact that their respective roles helped play a part in their fights isn't helping the situation, though.

At the very least Magnus wishes that Alec would stay with him during the party but he also understands why he doesn't. Alec worries that he'll mess up the downworlder relations and with how high strung everyone has been, his fears aren't exactly unfounded. It doesn't help that Alec finds these social interactions about as fun as Magnus finds Clave meetings. He just feels a little lonely without the nephilim by his side.

Which is, of course, a little ridiculous. They're both grown men, they should be perfectly fine with a little distance between them. Unfortunately, just because something should be doesn't mean it is.  Before everything with the soul sword, Magnus was damn near ready to ask Alec to move in with him. Not that he wasn't ready now, he just doesn't know if it would be a welcome invitation.

Though obviously keeping the sword a secret even for a little while was a mistake, Magnus knows he isn't blameless in the situation either. There's been too many nights where Alec's haunted expression as he walked towards the elevator has kept him up. Plus after the seelie queen's betrayal, it's been hard to act as if he maintained the moral high ground. He's beyond pleased they're back together but he also knows they need to sit down and have a serious, detailed discussion about how to prevent something like that from happening again.

That being said, now is neither the time nor the place for it. As the High Warlock, Magnus has taken it upon himself to throw each of their "celebration" parties as a way to check up on each corner of the downworld in New York. It's important during a time like this that all voices are heard and everyone's story is told.

That's why he currently has a more-than-a-little intoxicated seelie girl clutching to his arm. She's slurring a bit as she tries to tell a story about a werewolf who got caught in one of the fae circles not that long ago and Magnus is trying desperately to get her feet back beneath her properly. He can't help but chuckle a bit as he helps her adjust, happy to know that the largest problems facing the downworld at the moment are the same petty mishaps that have been around for centuries, rather than a bigoted monster trying to kill them all.

As his amusement begins to die down, he scans the room in hopes he can find Alexander. He knows how anxious his nephilim can get at parties when he's left on his own for too long and wants to make sure he's still doing okay. Of course, when he spots him it's a very different story than he was expecting.

Magnus is by no means a small man but Alexander easily towers over most everyone in the room at his 6'3 stature so it's not hard to spot him weaving through the crowd. What really catches Magnus' eye, however, is the vampire leading Alexander towards the balcony by his hand.

Just as Magnus has no time for insecurities, he surely has no time for jealousy either. The twinge in his gut that accompanies the sight of his boyfriend stumbling after an admittedly handsome gentleman is nothing of import, of course. Magnus itches to follow them, just to make sure everything is okay but he quickly talks himself out of it. Alec is his own person and it's nice to see him socializing. (Why are they holding hands though? Alexander hates physical contact with strangers at the best of times, parties especially.)

It doesn't help that Magnus knows the vampire attached to his boyfriend. Jordan has a history of being flirtatious and promiscuous. But surely the younger man wouldn't be foolish enough to flirt with Alexander inside his loft, correct? It'd be hard to imagine anyone could be that stupid.

Rather than imagine the different possibilities, however, Magnus decides the best solution would be to loosen up a little. It's his party, he should be allowed to relax. If Alexander wants to branch out, who is Magnus to stop him?

Magnus casts one more look to the balcony, both Alec and Jordan sitting on one of the lounge chairs sharing a drink, before he heads off towards the bar.

______________       ______________       ______________     ______________       ______________     ______________     ______________    _____________

Unfortunately, by the time Jordan and Alec have made their way back inside, Magnus has had more than his fair share of drinks for the night. He's unsteady on his feet and more than a little uneasy about the situation. Magnus is avoiding looking at his boyfriend and the vampire, instead choosing to pour himself another one, when he realizes someone is trying to get his attention.

"Magnus, hey...hello? Mags? What's up?"

Magnus turns towards the voice and finds Alexander standing almost directly behind him, eyeing this empty bottles in front of Magnus with a worried expression.

"Alexanderrrrrr," Magnus drawls, his tongue feeling heavy in his mouth, "nice of you to make your way back inside. Got bored of the vampire?"

"What? I don't- what are you talking about?" Alec says, genuine confusion lacing his voice.

"Oh, c'mon. You don't have to lie. You're allowed to mingle. Go, be free. Don't worry about me." Magnus slurs, wide gestures following his words and causes his cocktail glass to spill slightly.

"Okay, why don't I take that," Alec says, reaching for the glass, "I think you've had enough for tonight."

"No, I really don't think I have." Magnus counters, pulling the drink towards his chest.

"C'mon, Mags. Let's just cool it, okay?"

"Oh, are you here to play shadowhunter? Going to tell us lowly downworlders what we can and cannot do?"

"What the hell, Magnus? That's completely unfair and you know it" Alec argues, hurt in every word.

Magnus knows he's right, too. Alec is just trying to look out for him. But Magnus also knows there's a lot that they need to talk about and work on, and in his drunken haze, now seems like as good a time as any.

"Oh, unfair? You mean like how you hid as soon as the party started to avoid having hard conversations with the other downworlders?"

"Okay, I have no idea where this is coming from but you are being completely ridiculous right now. This is not the time or the place to have this conversation and you know it. Why are you acting like this?"

"Maybe I want to have this conversation here and now. Why is it so unreasonable to want to have an honest discussion with my boyfriend?"

"Because we're in the middle of the goddamned party you insisted on throwing and you're making the guests uncomfortable."

"So it's now my fault we haven't had time to talk and not the fact that you've been avoiding this conversation for days? And if they're so uncomfortable like you say, they can leave!"

The lights suddenly come on and the music cuts off abruptly, "EVERYONE OUT!" Magnus yells, the cry seeming to echo off the walls of the loft.

The guests grumble and complain as they leave but each of them knows better than to try and argue their way out of it.

"Look, they're gone. Now are you ready to talk?" Magnus practically sneers.

"No. No, I'm not. By the angel, Magnus what the hell has gotten into you? You weren't like this earlier."

"How would you know? You spent half the night talking to that vampire?"

"Jordan? What has Jordan have to do with any of this?"

"Oh, he's Jordan now? That's nice" Magnus says, sarcasm dripping from his words.

"What? That's just his name. And you were talking with that seelie girl anyway!"

"Am I not allowed to talk with allies now? I'm trying to find out the extent of Valentine's damage but sure! Next time I'll just stand around like your warlock pet!"

"You are so out of line right now. I can't talk to you when you're like this."

"So leave!" Magnus yelled, opening a portal back to the institute next to the shadowhunter.

"Fine, I will." Alec said, hurt and anger warring on his face before he stepped through.

Magnus closed the portal after him and headed back to the bar.

Alec steps through the portal and heads straight to the training room. He has no idea what the fuck just happened back in the loft but he knows the best way to work out his frustration is on the punching bag. He doesn't even bother to wrap his hands before he starts, letting his mind go through the last hour to try and figure out what caused the change in Magnus.

He knows Magnus was right, he has been avoiding hard conversations with both Magnus and the entire downworld but it's not just because he feels guilty. Whether they felt it was justified or not, the seelies and warlocks broke the accords by siding with Valentine and Alec knows that bringing that up when the downworld is still reeling from the Clave's betrayal in regards to the soulsword could have disastrous results.

Both sides having broken the accords could be the boost they need to rewrite them to be more equal and just, but it's unlikely either side will see it that way at first. There's a rough couple of months coming up in terms of politics and diplomacy and Alec admits to trying to avoid it for as long as possible.

Alec's avoidance, however, doesn't explain what happened with Magnus and Jordan. All Alec and Jordan talked about after Alec got over his episode was different ways of treating anxiety. Jordan apparently used to suffer from some pretty severe panic attacks but it stopped being a problem after he was turned. They had just compared notes on the best ways to calm down and avoid triggers.

So why would Magnus, who is always pushing Alec to talk about his anxiety and what he needs, be upset about that? Surely he wasn't jealous of Jordan...

Alec's thoughts were interrupted as Isabelle entered the training room.

"Hey big brother. What's got you so worked up?"

"Why do you think I'm worked up? I'm fine."

"Really? Because you're supposed to be at Magnus' party getting ready to kick everyone out so you can have hot makeup sex and instead I find you beating the shit out of that thing at 2:30am."

"A) Can you please stop bringing up my sex life all the time? You're my sister. It's weird. and B) I was at Magnus' but I don't know. We had a fight."

"You don't know if you had a fight or you don't know why you were fighting?"

"Oh no, I'm definitely sure we were fighting. I'm just not sure what could've prompted it."

"Well, why don't you walk me through what happened and maybe we can figure it out" Isabelle said, grasping Alec's arm and leading him towards the bench in the corner of the room. "So the party had just started and Magnus was going around talking with everyone. I ducked out towards the side of the room because-"

"You hate people and don't know how to hold a conversation with people you don't know?"

"I-yes. And then I don't know. I started to get...overwhelmed."

"Oh Alec. Did Magnus give you a hard time about that? I swear, high warlock or not I'll kick his ass"

"No, no. Of course not. He would never."

"Then what? Did you tell him?"

"No.."

"Well, why not, Alec? You know he wants to know that shit."

"I also know he was having fun. He was laughing with some seelie girl. I didn't want to bother him."

"You know how upset he'd be if you called yourself a bother."

Alec looked away, knowing she was right but unwilling to admit it.

"Okay, if you didn't tell him, what did you do?"

"I was trying to go outside because fresh air normally helps and this vampire, Jordan, must've recognized the signs and he helped me out"

"Jordan? Jordan Draeher?"

"Uh-I don't know? Does it matter?"

"What'd he look like?"

"Um. Light brown hair. Green eyes. Shorter than Magnus. I don't know. Why?"

"Nothing," Izzy said, a knowing look on her face, "what happened next?"

"Jordan and I stayed outside for a little while, apparently he used to have panic attacks and stuff too. And then we started to get pretty chilly so we headed inside."

"Where was Magnus during this time?"

"He was, apparently, drinking the entire bar."

"Oh shit. Was it a bad night?"

"I don't know!! He didn't say anything to me but he was. In a bad way by the time I got inside"

"What'd you do?"

"I tried to get the glass from his hand, told him he'd probably had enough. Then he started yelling about how shadowhunters can't tell downworlders what to do, that I had been unfair to avoid talking to everyone, and to go hangout with Jordan."

"Shit, what the hell?"

"Right?! I don't know what prompted it. But then I told him the middle of a party wasn't the time or the place for that conversation and so he kicked everyone out."

"So definitely a bad night then."

"After everyone left he told me to go hangout with Jordan and I told him that he wasn't talking to the seelie girl anyway so it wasn't like he needed me..."

"Alec."

"I know, okay? But I was mad. Then he called himself my warlock pet and I told him I wouldn't talk to him if he was gonna be that way and he opened the portal to the institute."

"So let me get this straight. You were having a bad night but didn't say anything because you thought he was having fun with some seelie girl and were definitely jealous. Then he got drunk because he was having a bad night but didn't say anything because he thought you were having fun with Jordan and was definitely jealous. And then you two got into a ridiculous fight because you've both been too busy with your duties to discuss the fights you've been having about your duties?" Isabelle asked, rolling her eyes.

"I-yeah."

"I swear, you boys are the dumbest creatures. How you haven't all gone extinct is beyond me."

"But why would he be jealous of Jordan? He's Magnus bane."

"He's still human. Or yknow, half human. Plus if it's the Jordan I'm thinking of, he's a notorious flirt."

"But he's Magnus."

"So tell him that when you see him tomorrow."

"Wha-oh shit. Tomorrows date night."

"Wow. Don't look so scared about getting laid, big brother. You've done it before."

"Ew, Iz. Enough."

She smirked at him before becoming serious again. "What's worrying you?"

"What if he doesn't show up?"

"Are you kidding me?"

"I'm being serious. What if he's still mad"

"He'd still show up and you know it."

"...What should I do? I want him to know he's special. That he doesn't have to worry about anyone else."

Isabelle was looking at him, fondness in her eyes before a mischievous look came over her.

"Ohh, I know what you can do."

Magnus wakes up and immediately regrets it. The lights are too bright, the house smells like alcohol and sweat, and his mouth is drier than the goddamn Sahara. A shrill ringing echoes across the loft and makes him realize what woke him in the first place.

He groans as he stands from the living room lounge chair (what's the point in having a three thousand dollar bed if he doesn't even sleep in it?) and digs through the empty bottles to find his cell phone.

"What." He states, voice scratchy and hoarse.

"Rough night, bane?" Catarina asks.

"Hurgughhuuh" the male warlock grumbles.

Catarina laughs, loud and uncaring of the headache pounding behind Magnus' eyes.

"I'm surprised lover boy let you sleep in after that stunt you pulled last night."

"I-what?"

"Oh, do you not remember?"

"Wait. How do you even know anything that happened last night? You weren't even there."

"Yeah, but Raphael and I were gossiping about you this morning."

"Why am I even friends with you?"

"Someone has to be friends with your drama queen self. Be happy any of us out up with you, especially your nephilim."

"Dare I ask what happened?"

"You really don't remember?"

"Would I be asking if I did?"

"Jeez, someone's touchy this morning."

"Catarina, please."

"Fine, fine. Sources say-"

"Sources? Really? And I'm the drama queen?"

"Do you want to know what happened or not?"

"Sorry, sorry. Go on."

"Well, as I was saying. My sources tell me that the shadowhunter ran off with some sloozy vampire on the balcony while you dealt with the seelie limpet, you then decided to drink your weight in malt liquor, and when the runed boy came back in to stop you, you guys got into a screaming match. Apparently..."

Magnus tunes her out as she continues her tale, as the memories from the night before come rushing back (along with a fresh wave of nausea at the thought of just how much alcohol he managed to consume last night.)

"Ughghughu" Magnus groaned out.

"You okay there?"

"Dammit Cat. What the hell is wrong with me?"

"I mean...do you want like a list or-"

"Enough, thank you."

"You asked...but honestly, don't get too worked up. I'm sure you'll think of some way to win him back by tonight. That boy is absolutely besotted with you."

"Oh shit. Tonight's date night." Magnus rushes to check the time and quickly groans to himself again. It's already 1:30pm. He has like four and a half hours until he's supposed to meet Alexander and he hasn't even showered yet. Magnus goes to tell Cat he has to go but when he checks his phone, she's already hung up.

(Magnus swears he can still hear her laughing at him, though.)

Magnus knows he overreacted last night and wants to apologize but he also knows that the emotions behind his outburst were so very real. They need to sit down and talk as High Warlock to Head of the Institute but for tonight, tonight they can just be two boyfriends trying to have a nice night. Plus, he can take this opportunity to remind Alec just who Magnus is.

And luckily, Magnus has just the outfit for it.

Alec feels absolutely ridiculous. He's been standing on the institute's steps for the past ten minutes trying to decide if he's really going to go through with this.

He, for once, let Izzy choose his outfit and he completely regrets it. The shirt is a silky purple material, with a white diamond pattern all over it. He knows she bought it for him like three years ago and now it feels tight and uncomfortable.

Not only is he standing there wearing something that feels like it's going to burst off, but he's also holding a huge, colorful bouquet of flowers. Luckily he was able to talk Isabelle out of trying to write a poem for Magnus, as well.

He's pulled out of his musings by just about the last thing Alec expected.

It's Magnus. Now, Alec has come to expect a new look from Magnus whenever they go out. He's always beautiful but sometimes his look just stuns Alec entirely.

Magnus now though is beyond anything Alec could've expected.

He has purple tips to his hair, a long purple sequined coat, ankle boots, and tight leather pants.

But that's not it. Of course it's not.

There's a motorcycle. He's on a fucking motorcycle.

It's like every single one of Alec's wet dreams right there in front of the institute.

"Wh-uh-hm. What?" Alec stutters out. His face is absolutely on fire and he wouldn't be surprised if he was actually drooling.

"You okay there?" Magnus asks, smirking.

"You look-uhm. Here" Alec says, thrusting the flowers in Magnus' face.

"Oh. Wow. They're beautiful. Thank you, Alexander." Even Magnus now has a light pink coloring to his cheeks. "And might I add that that shirt is simply exquisite on you."

"Oh. Uh. Thanks. Thank you. But you. Wow. You look really. Uh. Nice." Alec cringes as he chokes out the last word. Nice? Fucking nice? Magnus looks like the every fantasy Alec

has ever had and he uses the term nice?

"Oh, well don't be too hard on yourself. Nice is as good a compliment as any"

And oh wow Alec didn't think his face could get any hotter but the knowledge that he just mumbled that shit loud enough for Magnus to hear feels like it's actually going to burn him.

"Have you ridden on a motorcycle before? Y'know, besides in one of your fantasies."

"Uh. N-no. Never."

"Well," Magnus swapped the flowers in his hand for an extra helmet, "put this on and come sit behind me. Hold onto my hips, okay? I'll keep you safe" he said, smirking slightly.

Alec can feel his heart pounding but he trusts Magnus and slips the helmet over his head. Getting onto the motorcycle itself is a bit awkward but sliding in behind Magnus and gripping his hips just feels..right. At least now Alec doesn't have to worry about whether or not Magnus will actually show up.

______________      ______________      ______________     ______________       ______________     ______________     ______________    _____________

As they walked into the restaurant, Magnus started in on a long explanation on the history of how sandwiches were invented during one of Magnus' gambling matches. (Alec still doesn't know whether or not to believe him. He prefers to take each of Magnus' stories with a grain of salt.

Once they sat down, however, the conversation seemed to quickly die down.

"Magnus...I'm sorry, you were right. I had been avoiding the hard conversations with the rest of the downworld and as Head of-"

"Now, this may seem a bit...unfair, since I am the one who forced this topic in the first place but how about we hold off on the politics? Just for right now? We can talk about what happened last night still but let's talk as boyfriends, and we can talk as Head of the Institute and High Warlock later on?"

Alec won't deny the relief he felt at Magnus' suggestion. As much as Alec knew they needed to discuss it all, he had been stressing for hours about how to possibly have an in-depth, nuanced political discussion in the middle of their date night surrounded by mundanes.

"I-yeah. That sounds good, thank you."

"Don't thank me yet, I haven't apologized yet."

Alec quickly shook his head, hating the idea that Magnus could feel guilty for being upset. "You were having a rough night. You never have to apologize for that."

"I do when I take it out on you. I didn't tell you that I was stressed and then acted completely out of line. I'm certainly old enough to know better."

"C'mon, don't take all the blame here. I should've recognized the signs. You were quieter than usual and you started mixing drinks before the guests had even arrived. I should've asked you what was wrong but I was too caught up in myself to notice. And then I completely ditched you the second I started to feel anxious and that's-"

"Woah, woah wait. You were feeling anxious? When? Are you okay?" Magnus asked, eyes bright with concern.

Alec blushed when he realized what he admitted. He knew he would have to talk to Magnus about what happened eventually but he wasn't planning on bringing it up so soon. "Oh, yeah. Uhm. It wasn't that bad, really. I just, I don't know. I was overwhelmed and it was so crowded and I just..let my mind wander too much. That's actually why I was talking with Jordan in the first place. He noticed I was having a rough time and helped get me out."

"And then I yelled at you for it, like a total ass." Magnus said, still concerned but obviously angry with himself as well.

"No, no. It wasn't like that and you know it. I should've come talk to you once I started feeling that way like you asked me to. You didn't have all the facts."

"You were hurting and I let my jealousy get the best of me."

"Actually...that's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. I mean, I just. I can't imagine any reason for you to feel jealous. You're...amazing. You're the greatest thing to ever happen to me. Someone like Jordan could never, never change that."

"Trust me, I was as surprised about the jealousy as you were. I guess I was just feeling...concerned about whether or not this was all too much for you. If maybe this was too much effort," Magnus admitted, voice soft.

"It, you, could never be too much effort. I love you."

"I love you too."

"To be honest, that's actually why I let Izzy dress me up. To show you that you were always worth a little extra effort."

"I assume that darling Isabelle was also responsible for the flowers?"

"Uh..those were sort of my idea? Though i did refuse to add a poem."

Magnus' laughter echoed through the small dining establishment as they settled in for a nice meal.

Coming back to the loft with Alexander in tow truly felt like coming home to Magnus.

As he passed by the flower arrangement he had sent to the apartment earlier, he couldn't help but reflect on the last time he received something of the sorts. It had to be over a century ago but leave it to Alexander to fix that.

Alec turns towards the warlock and kisses him softly on the lips before pulling back slightly. With their foreheads resting together, Alec whispers "how about you take off your makeup while I run a bath?"

Magnus' heart flutters at the suggestion. While normally such a situation would lead to a long night of sensuality, Magnus knows they're both too tired for something like that. Instead he can already picture how the night will go.

Alec will sit on the edge of the tub, hand in the water. He'll make casual conversation to avoid distracting Magnus too much as he removes his makeup. (He can use magic to do it, but much prefers to do it by hand.)

Once the water is the right temperature, they'll both strip down and settle in together. They'll take turns trading lazy kisses while washing each other. Once the water runs cold and their skin starts to prune, they'll dry off and head to bed.

Slipping on a pair of boxers, they'll settle in for the night. Magnus will hold his darling Alexander in his arms once more and in the morning they'll finally have the conversations they've needed to for some time now. But for now, now they could just be together.

"That sounds amazing," Magnus whispers back.

[the-revisionist]

The Tristan Chord, chapter 20

xx. Calder Valley sunset view

Trigger warning: mentions of abortion, underage sex

1. the escape artist

It’s the Year of the Abortion. Gillian only calls it this in her head and in her diary: Written in a looped, thickly traced imprimatur of deep, cheap ballpoint blue—wishes she had an oh-so-symbolic red pen but doesn’t—underlined, defiant, and knowing full well that her nosy mother would read it. Despite this bit of all-caps bravado she does not quite possess the courage to write down all the things she wants to put to paper. Like how the morning after the D&E that began and ended with a doctor’s lecture and scowl, she stared into a toilet bowl of blood—oily clots and thickened skeins, specimens poised on the water’s surface as if on slide under a microscope, like in science class, she should be in science class—and her knees buckled and it was an act of sheer will to keep upright because she has already caused enough trouble, is the source of her mother’s tears and rages, her father’s silences, Robbie’s wounded befuddlement as she froze him out, all of it worse than the blood in the bowl, than the abortion itself.

Thus a resolution to be good: Extra chores around the house, studying more, assiduously avoiding any kind of interaction with and/or mention of boys. No matter how hard she tried, though, the perpetual undercurrent of parental resentment lit up her nerves and sent sparks of rebellion flying through the house. She swore at her mother’s passive-aggressive comments, matched her father in sulking, and got horrid, lurid purple streaks in her hair that unleashed a torrent of abusive verbiage from her mother more extensive and obscene than announcement of a pregnancy did. Her father had just sighed and said Oh, Gillian in that way he had, half a haiku of disappointment that cut her a thousand times more than the elaborate brow-beatings from her mum.

Then summer. The streaks in her hair grew out and when she bobbed it she appeared alarmingly wholesome—particularly in a school uniform, so it is a relief to chuck it in the bottom of the closet for a few months and avoid the leering sarcasm of certain headmasters: playing the nice girl next door now, are we? Being good, she realizes, is a tiresome affair, garnering no tangible reward, nor even a baseline of respect. She starts staying out late again, staggering in at any time between midnight and five in the morning, and usually digesting a late-night snack of leftovers and opprobrium from whichever parent had stayed up late for the honor of shaming her.

These nocturnal preoccupations come courtesy of another big event in the Year of the Abortion: Antje, Gillian’s best mate, buys a used Fiat. She lives in a council flat with her mother, who is Dutch; her father, a drunken native of Sowerby Bridge, occasionally shows up at the flat for attempts at reconciliation with his wife and daughter until his fists and his drinking override the tenuous established peace, and he ends up leaving again for the deleterious combination of rehab and flophouse.

Gillian has no idea why Antje—possessive of blonde supermodel good looks, who was also smart, cool, and widely admired by all—has ever given her the time of day. She possesses no illusions about her own appearance, and suspects they are friends largely because she makes Antje look good in comparison—pretty, but not too much so, the Belinda to her Dido—this comparison leaping to mind thanks to Maurice playing Dido and Aeneas the other week whilst she and her parents were having tea at his; after too much sherry he tipsily enacted the plot with salt and pepper shakers and various other condiments. (Dido was a bottle of Ballymaloe Relish.) Conveniently she could blame her parents for mixed messages. Her father, always kindly biased toward one and all, said that she was beautiful, while her mother would only say, with grudging suspiciousness, there’s something about you.

In comparison to what Antje has splendidly in spades, something is really nothing, and that elusive something did not serve her well in the plan she had hatched last year to be noticed by the great and mysterious Eddie Greenwood. Antje knows him, had introduced them at an outdoor party near the reservoir one time, where Eddie said ta by way of introducing himself and then later don’t lean on that, love when she dared to press her ass against the precious shiny flank of his newly renovated Corvair. Via the social misfit’s favorite kind of osmosis—artful eavesdropping—Gillian absorbed several facts: he was the older brother of her classmate Robbie, worked in a garage as a mechanic, which she liked because she liked working with autos and fixing things too, and Christ in heaven he was the gorgeous eighth fucking wonder of the world when he dove flawlessly into the reservoir. Awkwardly, and with Antje’s eh, why not? approval she set to the task of befriending Robbie in hopes of getting closer to Eddie. Similar to John Elliot’s impervious ignorance to the subtext of Gillian’s frequent interrogations concerning his estranged wife, Robbie seemed oblivious to her persistent questioning about his brother, and before she knew it she was in too deep with him. Which was easy enough to do because he was kind, laughed at her dumb jokes, and appeared interested in her to a degree that no one else was. Exempting the strange force of Robbie’s desire for her, nothing remains of the fantasy she craved nor the relationship she never meant to have.

So she finds herself at the reservoir once again on a summer night, but this time alone with Antje—their hair damp from a swim, trading a joint, and staring up into the encroaching night as just-visible stars knit infinite, unseen pathways into blackening blue.

So that’s that, eh? Antje says.

That’s that, Gillian echoes.

Antje hums sympathetically. Brilliant plan didn’t work.

Nope. Gillian releases a cloud of smoke, an offering to the starry sky. Didn’t fucking work at all.

They collapse into giggling that leaves them breathless, because there is nothing else to be said about it all.

A fortnight before the school year begins anew they go to a punk club in Manchester, all cavernous chill, blood red anarchy symbols and slogans on the grotty walls, bloated with smoke, and with a bad band doing covers of Joy Division until they’re booed off stage and someone starts cranking the real thing through the speakers. While Antje flirts with some bloke from the shit band because she thinks he looks like Adam Ant, Gillian tries finagling a pint from the bartender, who rolls his eyes at her alarming baby face and tells her to piss off—and finds herself pressed up against a woman at the bar also vying for alcohol.

The woman smirks and buys her a pint. Gillian is relieved the club is dim enough to camouflage her burning blush. Over the past year certain feelings have, on occasion, simmered within her, forcing periodic, half-hearted self-denials of the realization that she fancied some girls a bit, and watched them much the way she did certain boys and thus in a manner distinct from that of her friends—not the casual critiques of how Claire wears her lustrous hair and how Rita does her flawless makeup and doesn’t Sandra look amazing in that skirt, but something different. She is ensnared by ineluctable details: softness and grace, perfume and clean sweat, the long legs of the headmaster’s wife, just to name a few.

In the dark of the club the color of the woman’s eyes are unfathomable. Her hair, long and wavy, looks dark brown, auburn—or maybe that was a trick of the magenta light that hovered sadly around the empty, beer-sodden dance floor. She wears the seemingly incongruous combination of a leather motorcycle jacket over some sort of flowery print dress, and Doc Martens. So incongruous it seems genius, at least to a fifteen-year-old. She lives in Hebden Bridge, she tells Gillian, and studies art at Bradford. She smokes. Curlicues from her cigarette unravel slowly in contrast to the pounding, transformative flurry of music relentless as hummingbird wings.

Day in day out. Day in day out. Day in day out.

Gillian’s heartbeat matches time with Joy Division until Antje roughly grabs the scruff of her collar and slurs into her ear, we’re leaving, Mike is taking us to a party.

Irritably she wrinkles her nose. Who’s Mike?

Our new best friend, Antje hisses, so stop flirting with this dyke and let’s go.

This dyke. The phrase vibrates, her neck prickles. But as Gillian shrugs apologetically and turns to go, the woman grabs her rucksack by the strap, fishes out Gillian’s notebook of French that she was studying in preparation for the fall, and scrawls a name and an address on a blank page in the back. Only the name swims into cohesion: Julia.

Stop by sometime, yeah? Julia says. I have interesting friends. She smiles. And better drinks than here.

Outside the dark air is purer and sweeter, even as a lorry roars by, and the guy named Mike points at a white van while Gillian stops dead on the curb and thinks ax murderer.

Then Antje presses the keys of the Fiat into her palm, the sweaty warmth of her hand a shock. Follow us, she says.

Don’t have my license yet, you know that.

Don’t get caught, then. Before crossing the street to the van, she squints playfully at Gillian. That woman gave you her number?

Well, address. Yeah. So?

Oh nothing, Butterbean, Antje coos.

The nickname, used ever since they were in grammar school together, soothes Gillian’s ire just a touch. Don’t mean anything, she grumbles.

Jesus Gillian, you were looking at her like a bloke, Antje cackles—and nudges her gentle-like, nipping at her with a quick, blurry kiss on the cheek, and says, S’all right, silly, I don’t care. You only live once.

Following Mike to the van she sways through the street and the trench coat she wears flutters and flares; a streetlamp coronation drops a wreath of light on her blonde head. She pops into the van and she’s gone. Even though they remained friends for years after this, Gillian has always framed this image as a closing shot, the final scene in the movie of their youth because twelve years later Antje will be dead of an overdose in some bloke’s apartment in Manchester and Gillian will be married to Eddie and the first thing she will think of when hearing about it will be, you were always looking for the perfect way out, you always wanted to escape the shit life here, well you did, you finally did. In death, she envied Antje more than she ever did in life.  

2. A different shadow on the wall, a stranglehold of a certain feeling

A few weeks pass before Gillian makes the move one day after school. Getting into Julia’s building is no problem; the lock on the main door is broken, and every floor is connected by a thread of dingy hallways reeking of cabbage or unidentifiable root vegetables—a hundred years of cheap food sweltering and stewing in misery. Standing in front of the correct door on the fourth floor, she knocks. And waits. Knocks again. Nothing. While anxiously biting her lips, she hears an ominously slow thumping on the stairs that grows closer and closer. Then singing, a basso profundo of all force and no tone: Reap the wild wind.

Then, exaggerated and trilled ridiculously: Reeeeeaaaap the wwwwwwild wwwwwind.

Appearing at the end of the hallway is a large man with wild, curly black hair and a herringbone overcoat. He grins at her, which does absolutely nothing to soothe the panicked pounding of her heart; at a glance she can tell that she barely reaches his shoulders, her waist is probably as big as one of his thighs. Slowly he sways toward her, hulking and humming Ultravox, drunk or stoned or both and, like a battered old ship guided to shore by an invisible tugboat, lumbers right past her to the corner flat next door.

Fumbling with a set of keys, he nods at the door of Julia’s flat. She’s not in, love. Be around in about an hour or so.

Oh.

You’re welcome to wait, he says, and the door to his flat slowly opens. Want to come in?

N-no, I’m okay. I’ll just wait out here.

He smiles again. Smart girl. Prolly watch all those slasher movies, don’t ya? They’re like a public service announcement these days, aren’t they? He pushes the door open wider. Tell you what. I’ll leave the door open so we can chat.

Gillian remembers she has a Swiss army knife in her rucksack. My luck, she thinks, I’d probably end up stabbing myself if he comes at me. Okay, she agrees warily.

I’m James.

Right.

All right Miss Mysterious, you don’t have to tell me your name. Where’d you meet Jules?

Jules?

Julia, ya numpty.

Oh. Club over on Carlton.

You mean that shite place that always plays Depeche Mode?

Gillian hesitates. She likes Depeche Mode. No, the one with the anarchy symbols.

Jesus Christ you’ll get the clap from just sitting on the shitter in that dump. Fancy a cuppa?

Sure.

She hears a clatter of dishes, the sound of a kettle popped, running water.

You’re just a wee bairn, he says. What’re ya doing in a shithole like that, eh?

Listening to music, she replies, and trots out the lie she has prepared for nearly every stranger she meets: I’m eighteen.

If you’re eighteen, he snorts, then I’m bloody Methuselah.

Tired on being on the backfoot, she decides it’s time to grill him by seizing on his weird accent: You Irish?

He gasps. You wound me, child! Glaswegian, born and raised.

Sorry.

Trust me, I’ve been called worse. He carries an old wooden desk chair into the hallway and presents it to Gillian with a florid curtsy and she thinks of an old cartoon she saw with a bear pretending to be a butler. Thought ya should be comfortable, he says. Five minutes later he brings out a cup of tea, goes back into the apartment, and Gillian feels like she’s being set up for some Monty Python skit and a giant blancmange will come barreling down the hallway and smother her to death.

I’m assuming she wants to paint you, James calls out into the hallway.

Gillian squeaks. Me?

You’re pretty enough.

She paints? Then Gillian remembers: She’s in art school, numpty.

He sighs. There’s nothing more painful than a wasted compliment. O the fairer sex, thank heavens I don’t have to bother with you lot.

That was a compliment, then?

James laughs. Come inside, take a look. I have some of her paintings here. Her flat’s too bloody small for most of ’em.

Gillian hesitates.

I swear I’m not a rapist.

That is s-something a rapist would say.

Fair point, ya cheeky little bint.

He ignores her. She finishes the tea, frowns nervously into the empty cup until the curious embrace of fate wins out and she surrenders, wandering cautiously through the open door into his flat.

It is larger than expected. One half of it is sparse—mattress on floor, electric plate, small refrigerator—but a migration and density of objects creeps along the southern exposure: paints in containers and on brushes clustered in empty rusted coffee cans, the effect of it all pulls the eye to the canvases in various states of process that crowd and dominate the wall that they lean against.

The biggest canvas is the most colorful one, a painting unlike anything she has seen hung in dusty museums or anyone’s home. A landscape of the world on fire—swaths of red-orange-gold meltingly thick on a blue and lavender background, the brightness chasing a darkening violet blue to the very edge of the canvas, to where you imagine the night begins. Her eyes flicker among the alternating lines of drenched color and she marvels at how these individual, distinct lines come together into a thrilling whole, as the frames of a film coalesce into a single second of motion. Something else magically takes shape: A hauntingly familiar hatched stack of lines near the bottom of the painting, its identity confirmed with a 90-degree head tilt.

That’s the mill! she exclaims.

Yup, he says. As the title evinces.

There is a ribbon of rough white canvas at the painting’s bottom right. She kneels, and there it is, in a thin pencil scrawl almost too illegible to read: view of calder valley sunset no 27, the milll.

Oh.

He laughs not unkindly, his heavy, bearlike tread creaking the floorboards as he walks over to the painting.

It’s something, isn’t it? he murmurs, as if seeing the landscape for the first time. Folding his arms, he sighs with undisguised affection. Bitch has the nerve to paint better than me.

Another cup of tea and several biscuits later she’s so caught up in his conversation, his world—he talks of his hometown of Glasgow and its art history, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and symbolism and Art Nouveau, all while doodling on a large sketchpad and continually topping off his tea with scotch—that she almost doesn’t notice Julia walking in through the flat’s still-open door. Late afternoon sunlight cuts across the room and the artist herself rivals the startling beauty of her work—same Doc Martens, same leather jacket over a frayed linen blouse, and an old corduroy skirt, and Gillian receives confirmation that her hair is a rich russet brown and her eyes, filled with sunlight, are light hazel, sort of green-gold. The sum effect is that she is unlike any woman Gillian has ever encountered before, different than her classmates, her teachers, her mum’s friends.

She rests a hand feather-light on Gillian’s shoulder as if they’ve known each other forever and Gillian hears the delicate racketing of silver bracelets near her own ear, a click-click as if something is locking into place—oh happy prison, keep me here forever—and Julia says, in a voice flecked with a toff accent that Gillian hadn’t noticed the first time around, James, you’ve stolen my stray.

3. drink and dope and Derrida and Depeche Mode

Gillian starts coming round regularly. First it’s weekends, then a sprinkling of days during the week after school, casually dispersed just so that she doesn’t appear a desperate clinger-on. Sometimes there are up to a dozen or so people crammed in Julia’s tiny, tidy flat—apparently she uses James’s significantly larger space as a default studio—sitting around smoking, drinking, eating, getting high, and talking about books, music, art. Even though she is terrified of saying anything amongst this gaggle of university students and penniless artists—she still hasn’t recovered from the shame of enthusiastically admitting she liked Wordsworth—nonetheless she feels remarkably grown up and sophisticated and is mostly content to sit around and take it all in. Well, to take in the restless hostess at the very least: At these times Julia is always on the move, fetching drinks, talking, pacing, trying to get people to eat homemade protein bars or granola or disgustingly verdant smoothies.

She’s a bloody hippie, James always says. Talk a good game, pretends she’s a Wire fan or whatever, but you see, whenever she’s alone she’s making fucking granola and listening to Joni Mitchell.

That James knows what she’s like whenever she’s alone has, on more than one occasion, guiltily tied Gillian into knots of jealousy; it’s not until she drops in on him late one afternoon to find him hung-over all the way into bleary-eyed incoherence and with a scruffy, peroxide-blond punk boy in his bed that his particular intimacy with Julia all makes sense. Insofar as anything she feels, thinks, or sees nowadays makes sense.

It certainly doesn’t make sense, Gillian thinks, that after a night of drink and dope and Derrida and Depeche Mode—some in Julia’s circle had grudgingly copped to liking the band, which made her feel cool again—to make granola at four in the morning but by Christ they are doing it. Everyone is gone, including James, who has staggered back to his flat, and she watches as Julia scoops the cooled granola off a baking sheet, dump it into a bowl, and shove it under Gillian’s nose.

Try it, says Julia. Not the burnt parts, though.

Gillian grabs a nutty, sticky clump of the granola and pops it in her mouth. It’s sweet and warm, and she could easily down the whole bowl. It’s good, she says.

Bet you can’t taste the spirulina!

No, because I don’t know what the fuck that is.

Julia laughs and sits across from Gillian at the space-green Formica kitchen table, which, as she had proudly told Gillian, had been fished out of a dumpster—by James, of course. She stretches out long legs, flexes her bare feet. Gillian notices that the bottoms of her feet are grayish-pink from running around barefoot all night.

So, she drawls, my little foul-mouthed friend, my sweet and tender hooligan—

Am I really a hooligan?

Don’t sound so pleased, Gillian. You certainly like to talk that way, don’t you? But that’s not you, you’re smart. Can’t help but wonder, though, if you’re thinking ahead. Do you want to go to university?

My father wants me to work in insurance, Gillian replies with a shrug. Civil service, maybe.

Julia bursts into laughter.

No, really.

Why?

Because I—like helping people? Gillian speculates helplessly. Which is bollocks because the thought of actually dealing with people all day sets her teeth on edge. It’s because the old man wants her to work in some boring desk job that will keep her out of trouble.

But what do you want to do?

Julia asks her this question all the time. Because she’s so unaccustomed to anyone actually asking what she would like to do with her future, usually she just shrugs or changes the subject. But the late night, the cheap chianti, the joint has worn down her stroppy protective layer.

I don’t—don’t know, she says. Travel. Go to France. Maybe Netherlands, Rotterdam—Antje’s got family there, we talked about going someday.

You’re learning French. I saw it in your notebook.

Yeah. Thought maybe if I got good enough, I c-could be a translator. I could live and work anywhere, then.

You could, Julia says softly. She has a habit of gazing so intensely at Gillian, and for such seemingly long, uninterrupted intervals—half a minute seems eternity—that Gillian wants to tell her everything but then she stops and wonders if Julia is really seeing her and not an object in light and shadow, something to be committed to paper or canvas in paints and oils and pens, rendered useless and casually discarded in the process.

Gillian stares at the floor. Are you really going to paint me? she mumbles.

You don’t want me to, do you?

With a don’t-give-a-fuck shrug, Gillian redirects her look at the kitchen wall, where there is a worn and torn film poster of Cocteau’s Orphée, and gnaws futilely at a hangnail.

I don’t usually paint figures. People. She pauses. Well, not anymore. Thought I was never good at it. But James said I should try again, and figurative work, that’s his thing—he’s so good he caught the eye of Lucian Freud, you know. So when I saw you, I thought you might—inspire me.

Me?

You’ve got a good face. An interesting face. Mark my words, there’s more beauty in character than anything you’ll see in a bloody magazine or on telly.

Gillian feels a blush coursing up her body, from chest to neck and further, and as the tips of her ears tingle, she blurts out, You should paint Antje. She’s way prettier than me. She’s beautiful. I mean, she’s, she’s like a painting come to life anyway. Like a, a Botticelli or whatever.

Why would I want to paint a painting? Julia grins teasingly. You sound like you’re in love with her.

No. I mean, I love her—she’s my best friend.

I like her. Bring her round again.

Nah. She’s too busy shagging this guy she met, he’s in a band.

Not that horrible Joy Division cover band? Julia is aghast.

Gillian’s silence confirms it.

They laugh.

Then, sighing, Julia looks out the window. Jesus Christ, it’s nearly dawn.

My parents will be freaking out.

You can call them. James has a phone—you could dash over and use it. Nothing will wake him now.

Gillian shakes her head. Fuck them.

Julia doesn’t push. She rises, relights the joint she’s been working on most of the night, and starts puttering about clearing up the party mess while Joni Mitchell plays jazzy and low in the background.

But you know I’m so glad to be on my own—

Calder Valley sunrise seems less spectacular compared to the painting of its sunset. Gillian stands near the kitchen window and she’s just tired and high enough—and crashing ever so slightly—to imagine that the pastel cresting of dawn over the tops of the buildings is a painting, something created in the vapid studio of her unimaginative mind. Absently she nibbles at her fingernails again and tastes the smoky bitterness from a joint on her fingers and amidst the layered bass that rolls through her like blood and the jangling guitar, Julia lifts the hair away from the nape of Gillian’s neck and kisses her there.

Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger Can set up trembling in my bones

Is this okay? she whispers.

I know no one’s going to show me everything We all come and go unknown Each so deep and superficial Between the forceps and the stone

Gillian is afraid to say yes, even more afraid to say no. She touches Julia’s hand, which rests on her hip—a tentative signal, a flashing warning light to go slow. Hejira means journey, this much she has learned from puzzling endlessly over Joni Mitchell. But there’s no telling what the point of the journey is or where it will end up. But this morning it takes her to this woman’s bed, where she’s stripped down blank and naked as a new canvas. Her partially clad, fumbling fucks with Robbie—and a couple others—did not prepare her for the wholesale vulnerability of being like this in someone’s bed. For appraisal with sight and words and where the hot greed of her response is tempered with a thousand kinds of touches and kisses, a sweet hell of foreplay where the ache created by the slightest contemplation of forever dwells—she knows it now and will never, ever forget it because it is here that she learns how to beg without regret.

Slow and gentle, Julia parts her legs and studies her cunt as closely as her face or any other part of her body; it is impossible to know within the fine, feathered interleaves of aesthetics and desire where the artist’s detachment ends and the lover’s appreciation begins.

L’origine du monde—the origin of the world, she says. It’s a painting. By Courbet. Beautiful. Almost as beautiful as you. She sighs. Christ. You are really lovely and I can’t help myself.

Gillian manages one last final, whispered please before it begins. The immersive shock of someone going down on her for the first time sends her shivering into a sublime state of frightening pleasure. She can’t relax, can’t enjoy it. Like diving, an innate instinct for self-preservation mingles with the exhilaration. But with slow persistence, and a couple soothing breaks—take a breath, love—she comes.  

Later, an impasto of fickle November sun and shadows marks the prints on the bedroom wall—a Georgia O’Keefe, and the pink flag of the Wire poster flutters a good-morning kiss—dapples their tangled limbs, and underneath her head her new lover’s heart marks time in a steady swishing beat, like an oar hitting water, while she breathes in the happiness of a moment that she never wants to end.

Maybe I’ll take you to France, girl, Julia murmurs before falling asleep.

4. the forceps and the stone

On the day of her 44th birthday Gillian takes her usual solitary, celebratory ramble and finds herself in Leeds, in the city’s beautiful main library and on the brink of an unavoidable chasm into the past. Prominently on display, as thick and large as a cutting board or even the bloody registry for Westminster Abbey, is a mammoth coffee table-type book called Contemporary Scottish Artists and she thinks of James for the first time in God knows how many years. The spine makes a tiny creak of protest when she opens it and she shoots a panicked look at the librarian, who is pretending not to watch her. She finds him listed in the index, and there is his work on page 457: a soft-lined impressionist pastel sketch of a handsome, fair-haired man sitting on a park bench beside the name JAMES HEATH ADAIR, the sprawl of his life contained within parentheses: (1958–2007). Nearly thirty years ago she had cried in his lap, face pressed into dirty, paint-stippled chinos, while he soothed her with hair-stroking and platitudes over the impossibilities of first love and helplessly, stupidly quoted Nick Lowe at her—you’ve got to be cruel to be kind—in order to justify his best friend’s sudden and permanent decampment to her native London.

Now she struggles, and fails, not to cry in front of the librarian who frowns openly at her, ready to give her the boot should salty tears mar the glossy pages of their fancy new book.

It takes another year to summon forth courage to look up Julia; the convenience of finally having a computer at home, after she scrounges up enough money to buy Raff a decent one for school use, affords her all the stealth and privacy required for this niggling, fortuitous task. Late one night, the shit internet connection somehow tremendously improved by three glasses of wine, she googles Julia and finds photos of a professor living in northern California with closely cropped gray-white hair and wearing glasses—here is the book she co-edited called Methods and Modalities in Art Education, and here is a photo of her in a studio wearing worn denim with a bandana at her throat, the same throat Gillian kissed fewer times than she wanted, here are hands that fucked and caressed in a black and white photo, caught in broad gesticulations as Julia stands in front of a class wearing a plain white blouse and a spangled necklace, here is her wry half-smile and Gillian wonders how many students have fallen for that smile and that seductive line about Courbet, and here is the reacquaintance of loss nestling soft and wild against her, here is its gentle unpredictability, here is loss begetting loss, and here she falls asleep on the couch after another few glasses of wine and thinking, I always knew you would end up in California.

Even though she drifts off to a vision of California cliffs and coasts, her unconscious mind teems with recollections of Eddie: Nearly two years after Julia left Hebden Bridge she ran into him on the main drag in Ripponden, where she’d gone looking for a summer job.

He’s alone, leaning against the old Corvair that Robbie claimed they’d rebuilt together, but later Eddie tells her he did it all himself because Robbie is a fuckwit. He’s just as beautiful as she remembers, tall and golden-haired, broad-shouldered and square-jawed, wearing a dark blue Fred Perry polo and a pair of Ray Bans. As she approaches, he grins. This close she notices his teeth, two crazy paths of crowded, crooked enamel. It releases him from the burden of perfection, from the fantasy that existed in her mind. It places him within her reach. He hoots with self-conscious laughter and shyly ducks his head, like James Dean in Giant confronted with and confounded by the mere presence of Elizabeth Taylor. When he removes the Ray-Bans and finally looks at her, she is lost to him.

chapter soundtrack:

“Digital,” Joy Division 

“Reap the Wild Wind,” Ultravox 

“Hejira,” Joni Mitchell

“California,” Joni Mitchell 

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

The Divine Transcendence by Aiden Wilson Tozer

O Lord our Lord, there is none like Thee in heaven above or in the earth beneath. Thine is the greatness and the dignity and the majesty. All that is in the heaven and the earth is Thine; Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, O God, and Thou art exalted as head over all. Amen

When we speak of God as transcendent, we mean of course that He is exalted far above the created universe, so far above that human thought cannot imagine it. To think accurately about this, however, we must keep in mind that ”far above” does not here refer to physical distance from the earth but to quality of being. We are concerned not with location in space nor with mere altitude, but with life.

God is spirit, and to Him magnitude and distance have no meaning. To us they are useful as analogies and illustrations, so God refers to them constantly when speaking down to our limited understanding. The words of God as found in Isaiah, ”Thus says the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity,” give a distinct impression of altitude, but that is because we who dwell in a world of matter, space, and time tend to think in material terms and can grasp abstract ideas only when they are identified in some way with material things. In its struggle to free itself from the tyranny of the natural world, the human heart must learn to translate upward the language the Spirit uses to instruct us.

It is spirit that gives significance to matter, and apart from spirit nothing has any value at last. A little child strays from a party of sightseers and becomes lost on a mountain, and immediately the whole mental perspective of the members of the party is changed. Rapt admiration for the grandeur of nature gives way to acute distress for the lost child. The group spreads out over the mountainside anxiously calling the child’s name and searching eagerly into every secluded spot where the little one might chance to be hidden.

What brought about this sudden change? The tree-clad mountain is still there towering into the clouds in breath-taking beauty, but no one notices it now. All attention is focused upon the search for a curly-haired little girl not yet two years old and weighing less than thirty pounds. Though so new and so small, she is more precious to parents and friends than all the huge bulk of the vast and ancient mountain they had been admiring a few minutes before. And in their judgment the whole civilized world concurs, for the little girl can love and laugh and speak and pray, and the mountain cannot. It is the child’s quality of being that gives it worth.

Yet we must not compare the being of God with any other as we just now compared the mountain with the child. We must not think of God as highest in an ascending order of beings, starting with the single cell and going on up from the fish to the bird to the animal to man to angel to cherub to God. This would be to grant God eminence, even pre-eminence, but that is not enough; we must grant Him transcendence in the fullest meaning of that word.

Forever God stands apart, in light unapproachable. He is as high above an archangel as above a caterpillar, for the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar is but finite, while the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite. The caterpillar and the archangel, though far removed from each other in the scale of created things, are nevertheless one in that they are alike created. They both belong in the category of that-which-is-not-God and are separated from God by infinitude itself.

Reticence and compulsion forever contend within the heart that would speak of God.

How shall polluted mortals dare To sing Thy glory or Thy grace? Beneath Thy feet we lie afar, And see but shadows of Thy face.

(Isaac Watts)

Yet we console ourselves with the knowledge that it is God Himself who puts it in our hearts to seek Him and makes it possible in some measure to know Him, and He is pleased with even the feeblest effort to make Him known.

If some watcher or holy one who has spent his glad centuries by the sea of fire were to come to earth, how meaningless to him would be the ceaseless chatter of the busy tribes of men. How strange to him and how empty would sound the flat, stale and profitless words heard in the average pulpit from week to week. And were such a one to speak on earth would he not speak of God? Would he not charm and fascinate his hearers with rapturous descriptions of the Godhead? And after hearing him could we ever again consent to listen to anything less than theology, the doctrine of God? Would we not thereafter demand of those who would presume to teach us that they speak to us from the mount of divine vision or remain silent altogether?

When the psalmist saw the transgression of the wicked, his heart told him how it could be. ”There is no fear of God before his eyes,” he explained, and in so saying revealed to us the psychology of sin. When men no longer fear God, they transgress His laws without hesitation. The fear of consequences is not deterrent when the fear of God is gone.

In olden days men of faith were said to ”walk in the fear of God” and to ”serve the Lord with fear.” However intimate their communion with God, however bold their prayers, at the base of their religious life was the conception of God as awesome and dreadful. This idea of God transcendent runs through the whole Bible and gives color and tone to the character of the saints. This fear of God was more than a natural apprehension of danger; it was a nonrational dread, an acute feeling of personal insufficiency in the presence of God the Almighty.

Wherever God appeared to men in Bible times, the results were the same--an overwhelming sense of terror and dismay, a wrenching sensation of sinfulness and guilt. When God spoke, Abram stretched himself upon the ground to listen. When Moses saw the Lord in the burning bush, he hid his face in fear to look upon God. Isaiah’s vision of God wrung from him the cry, ”Woe is me!” and the confession, ”I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips.” Daniel’s encounter with God was probably the most dreadful and wonderful of them all. The prophet lifted up his eyes and saw One whose ”body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.” ”I Daniel alone saw the vision” he afterwards wrote, ”for the men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled to hide themselves. Therefore I was left alone, and saw this great vision, and there remained no strength in me: for my comeliness was turned in me into corruption, and I retained no strength. Yet heard I the voice of his words: and when I heard the voice of his words, then was I in a deep sleep on my face, and my face toward the ground."

These experiences show that a vision of the divine transcendence soon ends all controversy between the man and his God. The fight goes out of the man and he is ready with the conquered Saul to ask meekly, ”Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”

Conversely, the self-assurance of modern Christians, the basic levity present in so many of our religious gatherings, the shocking disrespect shown for the Person of God, are evidence enough of deep blindness of heart. Many call themselves by the name of Christ, talk much about God, and pray to Him sometimes, but evidently do not know who He is. ”The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life,” but this healing fear is today hardly found among Christian men.

Once in conversation with his friend Eckermann, the poet Goethe turned to thoughts of religion and spoke of the abuse of the divine name. ”People treat it,” he said, ”as if that incomprehensible and most high Being, who is even beyond the reach of thought, were only their equal. Otherwise they would not say ‘the Lord God, the dear God, the good God.’ This expression becomes to them, especially to the clergy, who have it daily in their mouths, a mere phrase, a barren name, to which no thought whatever is attached. If they were impressed by His greatness they would be dumb, and through veneration unwilling to name Him."

Lord of all being, throned afar, Thy glory flames from sun and star; Center and soul of every sphere, Yet to each loving heart how near!

Lord of all life, below, above, Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, Before Thy ever-blazing throne We ask no luster of our own.

(Oliver Wendell Holmes)

[musingsdeme]

Pantry

Happy Birthday to the absolutely incredible @alullabytoleaveby��.  I am late, but it’s not less filled with love for that.  For your birthday I give you, two dorks in love being domestic as hell.

ao3

Cas reads the cereal boxes.  The backs of them.  The long, indecipherable lists of the ingredients, and the percent daily calcium intake, and the weird little blurbs on the front with weird cartoon characters; Cas reads them all.  He reads them all painstakingly.   Dean knows this because he has been standing in the cereal aisle, watching Cas read the cereal boxes painstakingly for, he looks down and consults his watch, thirteen minutes and forty-three seconds.  It was cute for two minutes.  Cas had that little furrow between his brows and he was squinting as he read.  There was something just fucking…fucking endearing as shit about Cas giving that much attention to fucking breakfast food.  But Christ, it’s been fucking, Dean looks at his watch again, fourteen and a half minutes, and how long can the guy keep critiquing Tony the goddamn Tiger.  

“Casssssss,” Dean whines, “just pick one already, c’mon.”

Almost in slow motion, Cas lifts his head, looks at Dean, and raises one perfect eyebrow as if to say, “excuse you, foolish mortal.”

Dean blinks, for a moment struck dumb by Cas’ cocked eyebrow and challenging expression, before collecting his thoughts and forcing out an eye roll.

“We’ve been here for fifteen minutes,” he points out, “just grab a box and let’s go.  We don’t have all day.”

Cas’ eye brow ticks a centimeter higher because, no, actually, Dean, we do have all day. He’s gracious enough to not point that out.  Instead, he spreads his arms, Frosted Mini Wheats in one hand, Cocoa Pebbles in the other.  He looks vaguely lordly, loose fitting grey sweater, dark washed jeans, five o’clock shadow, and all.

“Dean,” he begins, “You may not have noticed, but we are standing in an aisle devoted to nothing but cereals—”

Oh shit, Dean thinks, here we go. 

“—of different flavors, textures, and dietary benefits, some of which I am not certain are even worth the calories it would take to masticate them.  Did you know—”

Dean looks up to the ceiling, hoping to encounter salvation amongst the obnoxious florescent lights and industrial metal work.  

“—that there no fewer than sixteen flavors of Cheerios alone?”  

He ducks his chin and stares almost conspiratorially at Dean as if there is some secret they both know about the prodigious variety of Cheerios flavors, a dark, disturbing secret.  Dean has no fucking clue what that’s about, and he eyes the Fruity Cheerios warily, his nose crinkling:  now that he thinks about it, they do seem weird …when the hell did they even start making Fruity Cheerios?  Were Fruity Pebbles just not good enough anymore?  And, fuck; Dean’s mouth curls, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios?  That’s like a fucking travesty and insult to pie.  

Wait, no. He shakes his head; he’s not getting sucked into this.

Cas nods sagely at him, apparently pleased that Dean understands that Cheerios, and possibly the entire General Mills corporation, are not to be trusted, and Dean almost bursts out laughing, but catches himself just in time.  He bites his lip instead.  Laughing will only provoke a Rant, Capital-R Rant, the kind where Cas uses “abomination” at least twice to describe relatively mild inconveniences.  

“I’ll grant you, there do not need to be that many flavors of Cheerios,” Dean concedes, Cas smiles, smug.

“But,” Dean continues, “you still gotta pick a box, Cas. If you don’t like it, we’ll get you a different kind next week.  It’s not life or death.”

Cas frowns at Dean, then frowns at the boxes in his hands, and then frowns at the sign for aisle fifteen as if it has personally wronged him.  He grips the boxes harder than necessary.  His mouth twists in frustration.  He places them both back on the shelf, stalks away. Dean grabs the cart handle, ready to chase after him, but Cas returns.  He shoves a box at Dean’s chest.

His face is blank.  Curiously blank.  “Strange celestial being is new to earth and does not understand your silly human customs” blank.  Except Cas is not new to earth, he understands way more than he lets on, and there is a tiny, almost invisible smirk lurking at the corner of his lips.  

He intercepts Dean’s hold on the cart and wheels away, like an ex-angel on a mission, while Dean is left standing in aisle fifteen holding a box of Fiber One Bran Cereal.

“Fiber is important for men of your age, Dean,” Cas calls back as he rounds the corner to aisle fourteen.  Dean blinks down at the box, blinks at Cas, looks up at the ceiling for help.

“Son of bitch,” he mumbles, “good for a man of your—that’s rich coming from someone literally older than dirt!” He yells as a woman and her toddler come around the corner.  

She draws up, offended.  He fumbles the cereal box and blushes, “Not you, ma’am, I was talking to my—that is, I—you’re a beautiful, young, clearly, prime of—”  

She scowls at him, wholly unimpressed.

“Right, so I’m gonna just,” he jerks his thumb behind him, “go now, so you, uh, you have a nice—”  

Dean grabs the nearest box of Captain Crunch as he turns on his heel and half runs half stumbles out of the cereal aisle.  

Cas is not snickering, exactly, but he is contemplating the pastas with way too much glee when Dean rounds the corner.  He’s snickering on the inside.  Dean knows it.  He can feel it.  

He narrows his eyes.   Cas has a bag of Rigatoni in one hand, and a bag of Linguini in the other, in a row filled with at least four different brands and twenty different styles of pasta.  Dean realizes suddenly, with a bone crushing weight of dread, that this is going to be a long, long, long, fucking long ass day.  

God he fucking hates grocery shopping.

*

Dean has legitimate reasons to hate grocery stores.  For starters:  too many people, two few exits.  It’s a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation in terms of manageable escape routes. Then there’s the aisles: rows and rows and rows and rows and fucking rows of metal shelving, stacked full of boxes, and cans, and who knows what else at least three feet deep.  The damn things are heavy, full, and the space between them too narrow.  If one of the things falls over?  Splat. That’s it.  Game over.  He and every other mother fucker in here will be smashed flat like an Aunt Jemima pancake (two for one in aisle thirteen) in a domino-effect topple.  Don’t even get him started on the grocery carts: more like infant death traps and grown man traffic jams.  He’s seen little old ladies start screaming matches about who could go first through the aisle with their overstocked carts to buy the last can of cranberry sauce.  It was NOT pretty.  

You know what else is not pretty?  Grocery stores.  Everything is beige.  What the fuck is up with that?  The tile is always this weird off white speckled with brown and black, so you can’t tell what’s decorative and what’s dirt.  Sam thinks that Dean’s over exposure to garish motel room décor and livid crime scene carnage has made him wary of anything colored neutrally.  Dean thinks that Sam is not properly appalled by the way that grocery store chains use interior design decisions to potentially mask health code violations.  He’s threatened, on more than one occasion, to dig out his health inspector badge and take it for a spin, but Sam has, so far, managed to put a kibosh on that idea…so far…

Then there is the music.  God, the fucking music.  Could they at least turn on a damn radio station instead of this weird pre-ordained mix of top forty and smooth listening?  Who the hell thought that was a good idea?  Every time he thinks that he’s finally managed to just tune it out enough to be aware of his surroundings and focus on his shopping, an announcement comes on over the speakers five times louder than the music had been, making Dean jump out of his skin and reach for his gun, which would, if he pulled it, cause an entirely new set of issues.  

It would be great if the grocery store sold liquor, and even better if Dean could just casually down shots as he worked his way through his shopping list.  At least alcohol would take the edge off, never mind that he’s supposed to be giving (modified) sobriety a try.

The real thing he hates about grocery stores, the real goddamn clincher, is that Dean has never been inside one when he didn’t feel like he had a target on his back.  

As a kid, he ventured into these places when dad was away on hunts and he and Sam finally ran out of food.  He would take the crumpled up bills that dad gave him, walk the however many blocks to the store, holding Sammy with one hand and a shopping basket with the other.  Dean was good at math from an early age; it’s easy to be good at math when you have to figure out how far you can stretch five dollars for two weeks of food.  The cashiers sometimes looked at him fondly, sometimes suspiciously, and Dean learned quickly that a sure smile would do him a lot better than uncertain eyes.  He walked into grocery stores worried how far the money would stretch; he walked out of them praying what they had bought would be enough and feeling the grown up gazes watching him walk off with his little brother in tow.  Don’t call the cops, he prayed, don’t call the cops.

When he was in his teens, he chanted the same mantra.  Dad’s oversized jacket was Dean’s constant companion.  It pulled chicks and a few boys in hidden corners behind the high school, but it also had deep pockets and an inner lining that made it easy to hide bread and peanut butter, and a small carton of milk.   He would smirk and smile and use two dollars to buy juice, and his jacket to hide the rest.  He hated the families with their full carts and full purses.  He knew it was unfair, he knew it was stupid, but he hated the whole damn store.  There was enough for him and Sammy here and a hundred kids besides, but fucking god forbid if he got caught leaving with a jar of peanut butter.  He sweated more shoplifting the first few times than he did on his first hunt.  If he fucked up on a hunt, Dean got hurt.  If he fucked up stealing, Sammy went hungry.

As a young man, he hated how he got the money to pay for food.  He was proud that he had it, proud that he provided for his brother, provided for himself, but…the money felt dirty sometimes.  There were stains on some of the bills, and Dean knew where they came from, who they had come from.  It made him cringe.  Made him hate the whole damn system.  Not to mention that he was wary enough of the world, by this point, to feel claustrophobic in a store this big, a store with so few doors and too many people, any one of whom could be a monster in disguise.  It made him feel like something was crawling at the back of his neck.  He rushed out of there with his bags in hand and his tarnished pride left behind in the cash drawer.

When he lived on the road with Sam, he avoided grocery shopping.  It wasn’t like they needed food for a nonexistent kitchen.  

When he lived a year with Lisa, she did the shopping.  Dean begged off and she let him.  He was a mess, she was probably afraid he’d start shooting up the place.  

Now he lives in the bunker, which has an industrial kitchen.  Now he lives with Sam who wants all sorts of green, organic tofu nonsense.  Now he lives with Cas who, newly fallen, is experiencing the joys (and disappointments) of food for the first time. Now he is living in a home and discovering that he likes…no, he fucking loves, cooking for his family.  

So here he is, in the grocery store, shopping with an indecisive, very thorough former angel/brand new human, who has never actually tasted…well, anything, and a grocery list that includes about a hundred things, only about half of which Dean’s actually ever seen, and a very, very long afternoon ahead of him.

*

Cas fucking loves the grocery store.  That much is apparent.  Cas likes missions.  He especially likes mission that he chooses himself.  Hence, his careful, tactical, precise contemplation of every item on their list and some besides.  Dean has been a human for going on almost forty years (a man of his age, Cas had said, jerk) and he finds this place overwhelming as fuck.  He’s not sure how Cas is managing.  

“I’ve made a plan,” Cas says, squinting at a bag of Rotini.

“Huh?”

“You asked why I wasn’t more overwhelmed,” Cas responds, “I googled the store layout before we came, cross checked that with our grocery list, and prepared a “plan of attack.””

Dean blinks, impressed, but not surprised.  

Castiel puts the rotini pack on the shelf and picks up a bag of fusili, “I made a flow chart with our planned recipes for the week and our household grocery list, broke that into an ingredient list, organized said list by the products and then adjusted for the organization of aisles at this particular store.”

“That’s intense, Cas.”

Cas shrugs, “I like being prepared.  Which of these is more texturally pleasing?”

“I think it’s less about the texture and more about how the shit absorbs the sauce.”

Cas tilts his head, frowns, and considers the bags of pasta in his hands.

“Which of these do you think has better sauce retention?”

Dean chuckles, “I dunno, man.”

Cas rolls his eyes, “You’re the chef in this family.”

Dean’s heart flutters like it does every time Cas calls them a family, but he tries to put that aside and focus on Cas’ question.  He scrutinizes the proffered bags.

“Hmmm…” He makes a show of squinting at the contents and purses his lips dramatically

“Dean, this mortal life is finite, and I’d rather not waste it contemplating pasta.”

Dean looks up through his lashes, “Says the guy who spent an hour choosing a cereal.”

“It was hardly an hour, Dean,” huffs Cas.

“Sure it wasn’t.”

“Deeeaaaannnn.”

Dean grins up at Cas, “Neither of these.”  

He replaces fusilli and rigatoni with farfalle and penne. Holding each up for Cas before adding them to the cart.

“These ones look like bowties,” he says, “and these you can turn into whistles.”

Cas’ mouth twists, half exasperated, half amused, “And yet neither embodies the quality you suggested we look for in a pasta.”

Dean shrugs, “Like you said, I’m the chef in this family.”

They add four boxes of lasagna noodles because Cas and Dean are making a veggie lasagna for Sam and a lasagna Bolognese for themselves.

“What’s next?” Dean asks leaning over Cas’ shoulder to peer at his list.

Cas smiles at Dean’s proximity, at Dean’s hand on his waist.  Dean smiles because Cas smiles.  It turns into a feedback loop for a moment.

“You wanted to make chili?”

“Yep,” Dean lets the ‘p’ pop obnoxiously.

“Then the canned goods are next.”

Dean rolls his eyes, “Lead the way.”

Cas does.

*

The canned goods aisle gives him the creeps.  For starters, it reminds him of his trip to 2014, when 2014 was years in the future and not years in the past.  He half expects Chuck to appear around the corner, rambling about toilet paper shortages and mass grocery runs.  Secondly, it reminds him of his childhood when he invented over a hundred ways to prepare spaghetti-o’s, only about a tenth of which were actually good.   Thirdly, they weigh down the damned cart like nobody’s business, and if he’s gonna get crushed to death in a grocery store, this is the aisle where it would happen.  

Old habits die hard, so Dean loads down the cart with “worst case scenario the bunker is called the Bunker for a reason” provisions, while Cas squats down to scrutinize canned beans.  

“I don’t understand what the difference is,” he complains.

By the time Dean has made a third trip to deposit an armful of emergency rations to the bottom rack of the grocery cart, Cas has built a small pyramid of black beans each with a different label professing a different brand, preservation technique, or flavoring style.  

Dean’s knees groan when he squats down to Cas’ level.

“I think we would be better off buying beans that haven’t been preserved in large amounts of sodium.”

His mouth twists in disdain. Dean tries really, really hard not to laugh.   He coughs pointedly and clears his throat, while Cas rises quickly to his feet and wheels away dramatically, muttering about heart disease, manufacturing plants, and “not as god intended.”

Dean, much slower to get to his feet, shakes his head and shoves his hands in his pockets, smiling brightly as he follows in Cas’ wake.  

There’s a fifty-fifty shot that Cas will be charmed or disgusted by human inventions.  Dean’s never sure if he’s going to have a Little Mermaid moment or a Smitey McSmiterson rage fest.  Both are endearing because Dean’s just that in love with the dork.  Strolling behind Cas as he mutters darkly about dangerous preservatives like the hipster health nut he so surely is, is so bizarrely awesome that, by the time he makes it to the next aisle, Dean’s cheeks hurt from grinning.

*

Dean is big on samples at the grocery store.  One, because they’re free (duh!).  Two, because they’re usually shit he’s never gonna buy so he might as well enjoy it as a perk for all the shopping related stress.  

He bats his eyes at the little old lady giving out slices of apples, makes small talk with the middle aged man giving out tiny cups of soup, and he grabs five little coffee cups and runs from the exasperated kid at the coffee cart.  

At the deli counter, though, you get to ask for what type of sample you want and they’re give it to you.  

Dean does it for the hell of it.  Cas tries things so that he knows what he likes and doesn’t (Cas’ lack of food experience is a travesty that Dean considers it his mission in life to correct).

Cas’ running commentary and fluid, completely unfiltered facial expressions bring joy to Dean’s life, but generally seem to concern the delicatessen employees.

Dean comes up with a different lie to explain it every time:  amnesia, he recently regained his sense of taste, he just woke up from a coma, he’s ending a lifelong commitment to vegetarianism.  

Today, Dean tells them that Cas was a monk, living a completely aesthetic life.

“Free from pleasures of the flesh,” Dean shakes his head sorrowfully and then wraps his arm around Cas’ shoulder, “that’s all over now, ain’t it, Cas?”

Cas, who has just bitten into a piece of bella donna cheese, moans appreciatively, and Dean laughs until he can’t breathe.

Cas, who enraptured by the cheese, had missed the exchange, and is not sure why Dean’s laughing so hard, places their order with a lot of side eye to Dean.  The poor son of a bitch working the counter has to tolerate Dean’s increasingly hysterical laughter and his increasingly complex array of sexual innuendo about pepperoni and aged cheese.

*

Dean’s favorite section of the store is, without doubt, the bakery.  It smells amazing:  flour and butter and yeast.  There are shelves filled with muffins, trays of pastry fresh out of the oven.  There are bins of bagels in a dozen different flavors, cases of cookies:  chocolate chip, macadamia nut, oatmeal raisin, sugar cookies with sprinkles and icing made to look like animals and characters.  Cupcakes with frosting piled high sit next to cakes ready to be decorated for birthdays and graduations and welcome homes.  

Dean’s never had a grandmother, but he always imagined that if he had had one, her house would have smelled like this, warm and inviting and delicious.

Cas is enraptured by the breads:  all the different shapes and textures and smells.  He sniffs at them with rapturous eyes and listens carefully to the sound they make when he presses down on the crust.  

Dean makes a beeline for the pies.  Ugh, the pies.  Freshly made that morning and gloriously golden even in the shitty grocery store lighting.  He can’t decide between Triple Berry and Apple, so he adds them both to the cart.  Cas makes his own contribution of Italian bread, French Brioche, and a dozen croissants.  He also, with a kiss to Dean’s cheek, add a box of cookies made to look like the bat signal.

“My husband’s the best,” Dean declares, grinning like a moron and holds up the box as proof to the nearest shopper.

She nods bemusedly as Dean scurries to catch up to Cas, squeezing his ass (Cas has a great ass) and kissing his neck when he does.

*

The butcher’s shop is a trial.  Some days, Dean loves it, some days, he remembers the Mark of Cain or the most recent hunt and he feels bile in the back of his throat.  Cas wears a frown not like he’s distressed, more like he’s mentally recreating the physiology of whatever animal they’re looking at and contemplating how best to rebuild it from the parts available, which creeps Dean out, being, himself, a fleshy creature that Cas once rebuilt from available parts.  He pats his own chest, making sure that he’s still intact.

“Dean,” Cas says as he eyes the steaks, “it always surprises me the way in which trade has shaped the evolution of food consumption in this country.”

“Does it?”

“Yes. Just a hundred years ago, if you wanted a cow to eat, you would have had to raise it yourself until maturity and then slaughter and preserve the meat…or, of course, an alternative would be to build a trading relationship of some kind with a neighboring human who raised and slaughtered cows and exchange a different slaughtered animal or material good in exchange for dead flesh.”

“That’s fascinating, Cas.”

“The railroad was instrumental in making trade across long distances possible.  I recently watched a special on PBS in which…”

Dean places their order while Cas continues the economic history and technological evolution of the cattle industry in the US, which segues into his insistence they purchase free range chicken only, and Dean needing to explain that PETA is not really the best organization to join up with if Cas wants to advocate for animal rights.  

*

Cas loves the produce section as much as Dean loves the bakery, if not more. He loves the textures and colors.  He loves his unfiltered ability to touch and investigate everything.  Dean loves watching him explore. It’s a good thing too because it takes him forever to make his way through (that’s why the produce section is their last stop).

Cas holds out herbs for Dean to smell and smiles joyfully at Dean’s reactions, be they sneezes or nods of approval.  He laughs when Dean juggles oranges, charming a nearby child as well Cas with his antics, and giving a theatrical bow when he’s finished.  Cas gives him a kiss and the kid gives him a round of applause, both of which Dean accepts graciously.

He listens to Dean’s opinions of different types of apple with absolute focus, and he shares mini lectures on the uses, both culinary and ritualistic, of different fruits and vegetables and spices.  It takes them over a half an hour to gather all the things that Cas wants to try and all the things Sam had asked for and all the things that Dean knows he likes, but it feels like the quickest stop on their trip because they’re both relaxed.  

*

Dean provides commentary on Okay magazine articles while they wait in the checkout line, thinking of Bobby as he does so.  Cas rolls his eyes good naturedly, digging their reusable shopping bags out from where they’ve been buried beneath their shopping.  Dean is the type of person who goes grocery shopping with reusable bags these days (or, he’s at least married to and brother to people who bring reusable bags to the grocery store).  That’s a thing.  Cas’ extraction is careful and delicate.  Dean helps Cas’ work by providing comedic background noise.  

Dean slips an arm around Cas waist while he proffers coupon after coupon after coupon for the cashier.  She’s a teenager, but she smiles at them the way that Dean smiles at babies:  like they’re the cutest goddamn thing.  He’s not sure how he feels about that:  he’s a grown man after all, but Cas seems entirely unfazed by the adoration.  

The light outside is different when they leave than when they entered:  it’s getting on towards dinner time.  They load their groceries into the trunk of the Impala, send Sam a text with an ETA so he knows to come up and help unload their stuff when they get home.

Cas reaches over and takes Dean’s hand as they pull out of the parking lot, and Dean laces their fingers more securely together, smiling as Cas turns on the radio and they hit the road.

When they get back, Sam helps them unload everything and unpack everything.

Cas rehashes the conversation that he and Dean had had about the meat industry.  Sam, unsurprisingly, perks up eagerly at the topic.

“Have you read Upton Sinclair, Cas?  You might really enjoy it.”

“Woah.  No,” Dean interjects, throwing up a hand, “Not before I make my Lasagna, you’re not.”

“Good point,” Sam says, suitably contrite.

Cas considers them with squinted eyes and then refocuses on Sam, “Sam?”

“Yeah, Cas?”

“How much do you know about the General Mills Company?”

Dean busts out laughing, doubles over, and can’t stop for ten minutes (“Dean, this isn’t funny!  This is a very serious concern.”).

When he does finish laughing, he shoos Sam away from the stove, oven, and counter, (he loves his brother, but Sam could literally burn water), and sets him to chopping vegetables.  Dean dons his “Kiss the Cook” apron, puckers up his lips, and Cas obliges him, before returning to his verbal tirade against General Mills.

Dean makes the sauce; Cas makes the pasta; Sam chops anything they need chopped, and keeps their glasses filled with wine.

Dinner is delicious when it’s done.  Warm and filling.  Fresh vegetables, homemade sauce and sautéed meat; the bread is warm and crisp and Dean uses it to sop up the extra sauce on his plate.  They’re all groaning and relaxed by the time they’re done, smiling contentedly.  

Dean surveys his family.  Sam places the apple pie in the oven (“I can turn on the oven and set a timer without burning down the bunker, Dean.”   “This place has survived fifty years but I don’t know if it can survive your cooking.”)

Cas rubs his foot against Dean’s calf under the table and shakes his head fondly at their bickering.  

The pie is as good as it smelled earlier, but it can’t beat how warm and content Dean feels eating it here in this company.  

When the dishes have been cleaned and the (few) leftovers put away, they curl up in the family room.  When Dean kisses Cas, he tastes like apples and cinnamon, and Dean hums in pleasure.

“You know, Cas,” Dean smiles, “I think we might have to go back for more pie.”

Cas shakes his head and smiles, “Next weekend, Dean.”

“It’s a date.”

[justinjohn]

10 real-life photos: Women’s March: Chicago edition

I just got back from the Women’s March, Chicago contingent, and I have some cool pictures to share with you. 

First and foremost, I couldn’t 1) hold a sign, 2) drink my coffee, and 3) take pictures, so I just wore a shirt that I actually independently purchased a year ago that features what appears to be an abstract rainbow on it, which is really an aerial shot of tulip fields in Holland, but you get the point. It’s just the gayest thing on the planet, and I was super self-conscious because people were looking at me and even taking pictures, which was both unintentional and unexpected, and so I just wanted to shove myself down a street sewer for a minute. And then I saw this girl and I shut the fuck up:

She is wearing a homemade vagina over her head. And loving it. Like, she assembled that at home with wiring and fabric and there’s even a pearl in the clitoris for panache. I love this shot because we’re actually looking at each other as sort of pastiches of our cause and it was just a moment of shameless celebration in each other. She’s amazing.

2. Respect your mother

I stopped people during the march when I loved their signs. I am a huge environmental advocate, and when I saw this girl walk by, I flagged her down and asked her for her picture. Her dumb friend kept trying to get in it before realizing I didn’t want her, and I think I got lucky with this one:

I signed a petition in support of the EPA, and I am going to be launching a project to help the environment, which is fashion-related, so stay tuned. It’s the least I can do in my unemployment, you know, as the world crumbles around us and the environment dies. The women’s march today was nice because no matter what you were protesting, the crowd was embracing of the cause. At one point in the march, a woman in the crowd called out, “Have a great, global-warming day!” And everyone laughed. Because it’s still funny, until polar bears are extinct and the laughter turns to tears and I kill myself.

3. Pregnant pussy power:

At first I tried to just snag a photo of this sign because it was outlined in glitter and said ‘pussy power’ in pink bubblegum letters, which I loved, and then I realized that not only was the girl holding it beautiful, but she was sporting a brilliant face tattoo, and a FUCKING BABY, strapped to her chest.  Way to get out there with a newborn and make a sign with glitter on it. I couldn’t even wash my hair this morning, much less be bothered to make a painted sign. Jesus. 

4. rEVOLution:

I suppose I am actually that dumb to never have realized that the word “revolution” contains the word ‘love’ spelled backwards. I guess I’m new at this whole ‘protesting’ thing, or just am not that clever. Anyway, I just loved it and how effectively the one-worded sign was displayed, so cleanly but powerfully. I mean, it looks like it’s fucking photoshopped into her hand for Christ sake. Loved it.

5. fat baby Trump and leather daddy Pence

Clearly whoever made these is a genius and deserves some sort of ‘protest advertisement’ grammy, or whatever the awards show is for this. I mean, they went through the trouble of drawing in a goddamn shirt collar and tie over the leather harness on the Pence cut-out. That was definitely going the extra mile. And that expression on Pence’s face-- it makes me uneasy, like I accidentally logged into his webcam channel. It’s just really a spot-on design. Couldn’t have done a better job myself.. with the sign that I didn’t make. 

6. Painting nails 

This is my favorite emoji and I use it constantly either as depicted here or as a black woman because I like the contrast of the pink nails on the darker skin. I just think this sign abstractly gets a lot across: the trump hair (just on its own) and the nails.. I just ‘get’ this protester. Also because judging by those glasses, I think he’s probably also a lady. Which, by the way, was the other problem with my goddamn sweatshirt.. I felt like a human version of one of those electric, hanging mosquito traps. All the gays were like, “Ooh, look at this little rainbow.” And, just like the sign, I was like, “I don’t think so.” Leave it to the gays to use a women’s march to cruise for men. 

7. Now the real winners of the march today were the children. They were the ones that truly made this moment in history not only monumental but filled with hope. And I am about to show you why:

I just fell in love with this little girl holding this sign “NASTY woman in training.” Go get ‘em. Stand up for yourself, be strong. I am glad mommy is teaching you that you are a strong person who can accomplish anything regardless of gender and that studies show that you probably have a 2% higher IQ, on average, than your fellow counterpart, so you’re already a step ahead. Don’t ruin that with drugs or alcohol, okay honey?  

And then we have  this little gem, #8:

Nevermind the homeless man in the background who is looking into the camera like, “What the fuck you doing?” What? I am taking a picture of a child with a picket, motherfucker, leave me alone.  Just kidding-- I didn’t even notice that until after, but it’s actually kind of hilarious, no? 

Anyway, could this girl not be more adorable? 1. She matches her sign. 2. That hat. 3. It’s so sunny she can’t keep her eyes open. 4. she drew small hearts in the ‘A’ of “am” and the ‘r’ of “Future” because she's so stinking cute. And 5. She’s actually 100% right. She is the future and I am so glad she’s out there realizing that we don’t judge people by their gender or color of skin or sexual orientation. Now, scamper off you little periwinkle dream.

9. Wait till I can vote. 

Maybe I am a sucker for kids that match their signs (I am now discovering), but lord Jesus what an adorable little girl with such a positive message for all of us. I like she she still struggles making a lower-case ‘a’ and I just think it’s important for people in this world to know that you are watching, listening, and learning,and you too, even at age 9, can distinguish good from sniveling, wispy haired garbage fire. Great job today, kiddo. A+.

10. Stronger Together.

 I loved this photo because of all of the little tykes strung to the light post sticking out their cute signs together, but I am just looking at this to see that little child is wearing a shirt that reads, “everyone loves a brave girl” (with a temperature-sensible sweater over it in case it gets cold), which just makes me want to cry because I can’t find another emotion to express how cute I think that is. I just want to eat her up, and her facial expression is just too adorable for words, so I’m just going to move on.

to a bonus: #11. A drive-by:

I mean, it doesn’t get better than displaying a sign out of your sun roof because you’re stuck in the car. If you look at their faces, they’re laughing and having a good time because, I mean, why not?, who said you can’t protest on wheels?

Far be it from me, Mr. Rainbow.

Overall, today was a powerful day for of all of those who felt voiceless, who watched the inauguration yesterday in abject horror, whose stomaches welled up with terror, as mine did, who feared the worst. Today demonstrated that we are braver, stronger than we ever imagined, and that we won’t take this, and we will march to prove it. It’s a long road and one mired with disappointment and certainly a lot of adversity but together, we will prevail. Hope does exist. 

According to the LA times, nearly 2.5 million people galvanized today in various cities throughout the United States and the rest of the globe to protest Donald Trump and his possible legislation that would marginalize women, minority groups, and LGBTQAI constituencies.

<3

Justinthecity

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