#also that drawing where Sam is asking how Max got in his house is a ref to the Scrouge

[artfartt]

Context: Au where Max is a dj at a skating rink and Sam is a very bad skater

[arctic-comet]

Osblaine week 2021, Day 2: Lyrics

Over the last several weeks, I have carefully curated a playlist for Osblaine. The final total length of the playlist is 2 hours and 53 minutes.

The playlist can be found HERE

Click "Keep Reading" if you're interested in the introduction, commentary, more graphics and the full tracklist.

For full disclosure, I have to give some of the credit to my amazing fellow Osblaine fangirls @dystopiandramaqueen, @splitscreen and everyone who participated in a certain conversation for the original inspiration and even bringing up some of the songs.

You should look at the playlist in five parts: one section for each season that's aired and one section for the future (because I like to end things on a hopeful note).

The playlist contains a lot of the following:

Music from movie and TV soundtracks

Instrumental music

Remixes

Classics and covers of classics

Country music. I blame Florida. My sincerest apologies.

Some of the songs were chosen because they reminded me of a certain Osblaine scene, and some of them aren't specific to particular scenes but chosen for the general Osblaine vibe. And most of the movie/TV music I chose have been used for couples that remind me of Nick and June.

Part I- Season 1, first 12 songs of the playlist:

Forbidden Love- Abel Korzeniowski, Jasper Randall, The Hollywood Studio Symphony (Romeo & Juliet)

Fireflies- Owl City

Echoes in Rain- Enya

My Ghost- Glass Pear (Bones)

Daring to Hope- Anne Dudley (Poldark)

Everytime We Touch- Cascada

1000 Times- Sara Bareilles

Too Good At Goodbyes- Sam Smith

In Case You Don't Live Forever- Ben Platt

To Find You- Cast of Sing Street, Brenock O’Connor

She- Elvis Costello (Notting Hill)

Miracle- Instrumental- Cö Shu Nie

Hanging By A Moment- Lifehouse

Commentary:

The first instrumental song IMO works as an intro for their entire love story.

The next two songs are more about having the right vibe. It's a little ambiguous and dark because that's how their life is in Gilead.

Leave my door open just a crack

Please take me away from here

'Cause I feel like such an insomniac

Please take me away from here

Why do I tire of counting sheep?

Please take me away from here

When I'm far too tired to fall asleep

***

Wait for the sun

Watching the sky

Black as a crow

Night passes by

Taking the stars

So far away

Everything flows

Here comes another new day

Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah

***

"My Ghost" is June's POV before they sleep together, wondering if she can trust Nick:

Who can you trust, in this place?

And whom can I put my faith?

If you're real, then show me now,

Who you are

The last two songs are for episode 1x10, for both Nick’s reaction to June’s pregnancy and the beginning of her first escape attempt (arranged by Nick).

She may be the face I can't forget The trace of pleasure or regret May be my treasure or the price I have to pay She may be the song that summer sings Maybe the chill that autumn brings Maybe a hundred different things Within the measure of a day

Part II- Season 2, next 10 songs:

Love Will Keep Us Alive- Eagles

So Easy- Phillip Phillips

Incomplete- James Bay

Rewrite the Stars- The Piano Guys (The Greatest Showman)

I’ll Be Your Shelter- Taylor Dayne

Love Never Fails- Brandon Heath

P.S. I Love You- 05:11- John Powell (P.S. I Love You)

It's A Girl- Mychel Danna (The Time Traveler's Wife)

I'll Stand By You- Josh Groban, Helene Fischer

The Miracle of Love- Eurythmics

Commentary:

The first four songs cover June’s escape attempt and the time they share at the Boston Globe.

"Incomplete" is Nick's POV from when she's on the run and he knows she'll be gone from his life soon. He lives in the moment.

I don't wanna look down

I don't want us to break up in the clouds

All I want is to stay us, to stay with you now

"I'll Be Your Shelter" is for when June's mental health is at its lowest point and he goes to Serena to beg for her to get June help.

What you need is a friend to count on

What you got baby you got someone

Who will stay when the rain is fallin'

And won't let it fall on you

P.S. I Love You takes me back to episode 2.09, Nick’s selflessness in the episode and of course the scene where after telling June that Luke loves her, he tells her that he loves her too, despite believing she probably doesn’t feel the same way.

It's A Girl makes me think of the beautiful moment they share during June's false labor when he helps her out of the van and they climb the steps together.

I’ll Stand By You is for 2.10, Nick holding June after she was heartbroken over Hannah and over what the Waterfords did to her and clinging onto him.

Part III- Season 3, next 6 songs:

Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close- Alexandre Desplat (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)

All I Ask- Adele

Never Enough- Loren Allred (The Greatest Showman)

I Don’t Wanna Live Forever- Taylor Swift, ZAYN (Fifty Shades Darker)

Love is Gone- SLANDER, Dylan Matthew

Constellations- The Oh Hellos

Commentary:

For obvious reasons, it was extremely difficult to pick songs for this season.

The first (instrumental) song is for the beginning of the season with June coming back to the Waterford house and them then saying goodbye to each other on the street.

All I Ask, Never Enough, I Don't Wanna Live Forever and Love Is Gone are for their night together in June’s room at Lawrence’s (the one we didn’t get to see sigh). They know it's possible it's all they'll ever have, and they'll take it, but it'll never be enough.

I will leave my heart at the door I won't say a word They've all been said before, you know So why don't we just play pretend? Like we're not scared of what's coming next Or scared of having nothing left

Look, don't get me wrong I know there is no tomorrow All I ask is

If this is my last night with you Hold me like I'm more than just a friend Give me a memory I can use Take me by the hand while we do what lovers do It matters how this ends 'Cause what if I never love again?

***

All the shine of a thousand spotlights

All the stars we steal from the night sky

Will never be enough

Never be enough

Towers of gold are still too little

These hands could hold the world but it'll

Never be enough

Never be enough

***

I'm sorry, don't leave me, I want you here with me

I know that your love is gone

I can't breathe, I'm so weak, I know this isn't easy

Don't tell me that your love is gone

That your love is gone

"Constellations" is for their long separation and the doubts that I'm sure plagued them both during it. Would they ever see each other again?

Part IV- S4, next 12 songs:

All of Me- John Legend

(Everything I do) I Do It For You- Bryan Adams

Iris- Natalie Taylor (City of Angels)

She Was Like A Bright Light- Hans Zimmer, Rupert Greyson-Williams (Winter’s Tale)

Noah's Last Letter- Aaron Zigman (The Notebook)

What’s In The Middle- the bird and the bee (Bones)

ivy- Taylor Swift

Footprints in the Sand- Leona Lewis

Remember Me (Lullaby)- Gael Garcia Bernal, Gabriella Flores (Coco)

On The Nature Of Daylight- Max Richter

My Heart Will Go On- Basil Jose (Titanic)

The Story- Sara Ramirez (Grey's Anatomy)

Commentary:

There were sooo many songs I wanted to include in part IV, but I controlled myself and ended up with this particular dozen.

"She Was Like A Bright Light" and "Noah’s Last Letter" are an instrumental double punch to the gut for Nick’s time in Gilead during episodes 4.07-4.09. The first one is meant for when he finds out June made it to Canada, and the 2nd for is for when he starts to gather info on Hannah to give to June.

"What’s in the Middle" and "ivy" are June’s POV of episodes 4.07-4.09.

"What's In The Middle" has more of an angry and confused vibe, and June was definitely both in episodes 7 and 8.

Losing your head is such a common theme

All your brains are falling out, falling out the open seams

Where is the heart, is the heart of the matter

I will empty out my skull of all this useless chatter

On the other hand, "ivy" has this haunted vibe, but there's also reverence and acceptance, which she begins to achieve in episode 9.

Oh, goddamn

My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand

Taking mine, but it's been promised to another

Oh, I can't

Stop you putting roots in my dreamland

My house of stone, your ivy grows

And now I'm covered in you

The next three songs are of course all for their reunion in 4.09, and I couldn’t resist including the song that was actually played in the scene.

"The Story" draws the season to a close nicely, with June understanding that her current needs are different from what they used to be and that there’s someone who understands her completely (and it’s not Luke).

You see the smile that's on my mouth

It's hiding the words that don't come out

And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed

They don't know my head is a mess

No, they don't know who I really am

And they don't know what I've been through like you do

And I was made for you

Part V- Season 5 and Beyond, the last 6 songs

Secret Love Song- Little Mix, Jason Derulo

Burn With You- Lea Michele

The Bones- Maren Morris

Feels Like Home- Auli'i Carvalho, Keegan DeWitt

Love Will Find A Way- Piano Covers (Lion King II)

Like I'll Never Love You Again- Carrie Underwood

“Secret Love Song” is a more angsty tune about a love that’s still kept a secret like June and Nick’s love (as far as most people are concerned). Now that they’ve already made out in front of the man who raped and abused June and made Nick watch him do that, I want to believe they can let go of the secrecy in S5, at least when it comes to a few people.

I'm living for that day Someday Can I hold you in the street? Why can't I kiss you on the dancefloor? I wish that we could be like that Why can't we it be like that? Cause I'm yours, I'm yours Why can't you hold me in the street? Why can't I kiss you on the dancefloor? I wish that it could be like that Why can't it be like that? Cause I'm yours Why can't I say that I'm in love? I wanna shout it from the rooftops I wish that it could be like that Why can't we be like that? Cause I'm yours Why can't we be like that? Wish we could be like that

***

“Bones” is about a relationship with a strong foundation, which IMO they do have. It will carry them in the future, too. They’re more into each other now than ever before and especially June is coming to terms with how strong that love is. They’ll weather any storm.

When the bones are good, the rest don't matter

Yeah, the paint could peel, the glass could shatter

Let it break 'cause you and I remain the same

When there ain't a crack in the foundation

Baby, I know any storm we're facing

Will blow right over while we stay put

The house don't fall when the bones are good

***

“Feels Like Home” is more hopeful. Their home is with each other and I hope that’s something that will be explored more in the future.

Take me, I'm ready

Go slow but go steady

To a place that we can call our own

I wanna know what feels like home

***

“Like I’ll Never Love You Again” is a good conclusion for the playlist. It’s hopeful and a testament to an epic love.

I wanna love you like the rain on a roof

Stronger than a bottle of a hundred ten proof

I wanna take love to places that love has never been

Yeah, I wanna love you like I'll never love you again

And I'll love you again

Oh, and again

[mccall-me-maurice]

A new list of headcanons for the updated AU

Lotf headcanons

Jack:

Jack is Ralph’s academic rival and also head of the debate team. He spends the weekends at his father’s business, learning how to run the company. On the Saturday nights, he goes to an underground club in a fight ring thing. Nobody knows he does it, even though Ralph also spends time there.

Jack is dyslexic and has minor and manageable OCD, denying using extra help for his dyslexia in classes.

Comes from a wealthy family with 6 siblings, his father divorcing his mother and marrying his step-mother who he pushes away because he’s angsty and shes “not his real mother.”

Loves 80s music so much, he’s a nerd for it.

Sings in the shower/bathroom like into a hairbrush in front of the mirror in his little towel like a nerd but he’s actually really good at singing.

Wears his uniform extremely sharply and very crisp like why so much effort.

He has hearing loss due to an accident in his childhood and he’s fluent in ASL, but doesn’t wear his hearing aids almost ever.

Ralph:

Ralph is fluent in violin, he’s actually really good at playing, he was also an ocean lifeguard and saved Jack’s life when he got caught in a current.

He wears thick framed glasses to read and has really swoopy handwriting thats illegible because it’s like messy calligraphy.

Ralph dives as a hobby and is so good at it, like scary good at diving perfectly.

He has beauty marks on his face that he lets people trace sometimes, ink usually adorning his cheeks.

Very French, extremely French. Fluent in the language.

Draws on his hands with different coloured pens and the designs are always so intricate like a mandala colouring book.

Also draws on the cuffs of his jeans and the rubber edge of his sneakers all the time.

Blushes very easily, will go red in a matter of seconds flat either when he’s flustered, embarrassed or angry.

Brothers with Robert.

Simon:

Spends all of his out of school time in his mother’s flower shop and can recite the meaning of most flowers if you ask him. His fingers are all bandaged up because of how much he cuts himself with knives when he’s removing stems or clippers.

He has epilepsy and faints frequently.

Is a fan of older musicals, like Grease, Dirty Dancing and Hairspray and makes the choir watch them with him.

Rarely spends time indoors, Simon is usually out biking around the neighbourhood or walking around with his friends from school.

Will paint rocks and gift them to people when he thinks they’re upset. Also does face painting at the school carnivals, because he never minds being alone in a booth when there is nobody there.

Speaks softly and is usually ignored in favour of people with louder opinions, but he’s usually right.

Roger:

His biological family died in a house accident, the only thing surviving being him and his cat Nastya, who he loves more than anything. Because of his parents death, he taught himself the rest of the Russian language, which they were already teaching him along with English. However, his heritage is East Asian and Russian.

He pierced his lip by himself, and even though it turned out fine, he got his ears done professionally.

Not very affectionate and will push people away, distancing himself because he doesn’t like the idea of anyone being close to him and get under his skin.

Dyed the back part of his hair on a whim and just liked it enough to keep it as a style.

Spends nights at Simon’s place instead of his own, finding more comfort in Simon’s house.

Sam:

Comes from a German family, but knows German, Italian and English.

He hates birthdays because he doesn’t understand why they are so important.

Hates social interactions and actively avoids them with a passion. He gets extremely nervous and just leaves abruptly when he gets too overwhelmed.

Younger than Eric by 6 minutes, which he routinely gets teased for.

Into super cheesy romantic movies because he loves the idea of a happy ending despite not having one himself.

Messes with his hair when he’s anxious, so it’s constantly messy and mussed.

Mega nail biter when he’s nervous.

Cousins with Jack.

Maurice:

Heavily touch reliant and when his friends don’t show him physical affection, he assumes the worst and gets very upset.

Heavily Italian, like so fucking Italian. His family hardly speaks English and he learned most of his from school.

Very passionate about science despite most people thinking he’s an idiot. He has some of the highest marks in his class.

Messes with things when he’s talking or uses hand gestures. Like if there’s a pen, he’s clicking it because it helps him concentrate.

Maurice has like a billion flannels and hoodies he just cycles through and it looks like he doesn’t change but no, it’s just that he owns a gazillion grey hoodies

His older sister when to an Ivy League school, so he owns a lot of stuff from it that he wears like sweaters or ball caps.

Eric:

Very sarcastic. his entire sense of humour is him bathing in his own sarcasm. It’s actually pretty well timed and kind of funny how he’s able to deadpan his jokes.

Very easily picks up on languages. He’s fluent or close to fluent in German, English, Italian, French, Spanish, Japanese and partly fluent in Korean.

Really enjoys computer science and plans on doing it for a living. He stays up late at night to work and sleeps until like midday.

Doesn’t acknowledge other people’s emotions very often because he doesn’t realise when he’s gone too far, but still feels bad for others when they’re hurt.

Jack’s favourite cousin because they’re cynical buddies. Jack is overly protective of him even though Eric is perfectly capable.

Robert:

Brothers with Ralph and is very protective over him. Has absolutely slandered choir members before for hating on Ralph.

Shares a dad with Ralph but has a different mom, who he visits over the summer and sometimes during the holidays. That’s where he gets his Spanish roots from, which is a language he’s fluent in. He has 7 siblings on that side of his family.

Adores burnt popcorn and burnt anything. If he can burn it, he will.

Works as a mechanic in his free time and built the car he shares with Ralph.

Sci-Fi nerd, specifically Star Wars. He loves the movies and watches them like every day.

Extremely talented artist, Robert sketches anytime he has a pencil and paper.

Peter:

Was bullied in the past but doesn’t let the words bother him anymore. It mostly stopped around high school.

Works with his auntie in the sweet shop and brings his friends food for them to taste test.

Used to be a boy scout, so he can tie any knot you want him to, it’s really a gift.

Gets very cold very easily, especially his fingertips. He usually has a pair of gloves on him for when it gets really bad.

A Mathlete for most of his time in high school, obviously is extremely intelligent.

Double knots his shoelaces so they’re extra secure.

Bill:

Swedish, and really enjoys his own culture. He will spend HOURS rambling about it and how much he loves it.

Watches Avatar the Last Airbender and has the biggest crushes on Sokka and Zuko.

Also is a sucker for people who wear glasses, he really loves them.

Works at the library despite not liking books, he finds comfort in shelving them and the order they go in.

Puts little umbrellas in every single drink he has, it doesn’t matter what it is.

Writes notes to himself on sticky notes because his memory is horrible.

Sets at least 5 alarms because 1 will not wake him up by itself.

Harold:

Can speak limited Spanish due to his schooling.

Likes singing, but never really got into it like some choir members because he has stage fright.

Powerful speaker when he wants to be, but is usually too nervous to say anything.

Has no idea how to tie a tie, so he lets other people do it for him.

Sometimes take sarcastic comments seriously and ends up confused.

A really good actor and loves the performing arts.

Has extremely clear skin, he never gets any blemishes.

Wilfred:

Dyed his hair because his naturally brown hair reminds him too much of his father, who he hates.

Has 4 tattoos in total, the 4 card suits on his cheek, a half sleeve of roses, a bow and olive branch on his inner forearm, and the solar system on his outer forearm.

Very flirtatious to people he doesn’t really like but gets nervous around those he does.

Hold grudges really well.

Has shockingly neat handwriting.

Has a pretty horrible home life but he never talks about it to anyone because he doesn’t want to be perceived as weak or incapable.

Colours with only crayons.

Percival:

Cries easily, as he’s very emotionally driven and is typically teased for being a crybaby or told to “toughen up.”

Absolutely has the worst sleep schedule ever, he gets 3 hours and calls it a win.

Can’t sleep without a nightlight on in his room.

Enjoys writing things down in this notebook instead of on his phone because he likes the feeling of physically using pen and paper.

Sends letters to people all the time instead of messaging.

Good at sewing, he makes his own Halloween costume every year by himself.

Hates horror movies because he’s spooked easily.

Max:

Lived through a house fire when he was younger, so he has burn scars all over his arms.

Is afraid of cooking due to the fire and will go without eating if he has to touch the stove to make food.

Laid back most of the time, but can reach a snapping point in which the emotion is amplified. (like sadness or anger)

Loves swimming, it doesn’t matter where he does it, he just loves to swim.

Is very time sensitive and has to get places early or directly on time or else he gets anxious.

A very fast reader, typically long books take him 2-3 days to get through.

Johnny:

Worries a lot, he usually sees the worst in every single situation.

Is a trans male (Ftm) and was accepted by his entire family when he came out.

Owns a St. Bernard named Dolly who is the sweetest dog ever.

Spends a lot of time outdoors, he still plays as if he is a child.

Also enjoys the snow a lot because he’s fond of building snowmen with the kids on his street.

Has very sensitive skin and eczema, which he doesn’t like to talk about or show anyone because it makes him feel insecure.

Oddly good at playing guitar, he just picks up on chords with ease.

Walter:

Good at playing the drums and annoys his entire family with it.

Uses a skateboard as his main method of transportation around places.

On the basketball team, as his older brother taught him to play when they were both younger.

Hates roller skating despite being very good at most things on wheels. He can never find his balance.

Shockingly good at Math, especially statistics and calculus. He’s in all advanced math courses.

Has a very weird snake addiction and he desperately wants to buy one.

Henry:

Aromantic Asexual who is best friends with Harold and Wilfred.

Mainly makes snippy remarks because his humour falls into the sarcasm umbrella.

Adores comic books and superheroes, specifically Marvel ones because he’s a fan of Dare Devil.

Plays baseball in his free time but hasn’t joined a team, he just plays with the boys in his neighbourhood.

Addicted to the High School Musical movies.

Good at painting people’s nails and will do it for them if they ask.

Has really fluffy hair that he lets people touch and play with.

[imnotwolverine]

The Accidental Family - Chapter 3

Henry Cavill x OFC multi-chapter

< Chap 2 | Chap 3 Is there a handbook to this? | Chap 4 >

Disclaimer: Fluff, some strong language

Word count: 2.080

Author’s note: I had a super fun online dinner with my in-laws yesterday. Me and my boyfriend cooked all the courses and had them sent out to everyone - we had a blast! I hope all of you dear readers are doing okay; I’m sending all my love to you! And..of course another chapter of this little series ❤️

(Link to my Masterlist)

--

‘Have fun tonight. And if it’s too much; take a break.’ The nurse shot Henry a warning glare before she stepped out of the door, Henry’s warm smile showing just how eager he was to send her out so he and Bee could get the house ready for the arrival of the kids.

THE KIDS. HOLY… The thought alone made his stomach jump in excitement and terror.

Clicking the door closed, he was met with the mildly worried gaze of Phoebe, her arms folded over her long sleeve shirt, long blond hair braided away from her face.

‘What?’ Henry gulped, thinking he had done something wrong.

But Phoebe just grinned, her lips curling in a smile. ‘I never thought I’d see a man this excited to learn he was the father of four kids..but here we are.’

‘Well, can’t back up now, can I?’

Phoebe let out a chuckle. ‘You bet your ass you can’t, Mr Cavill!’ But as the words escaped her lips, that all familiar agony moved over her face. ‘I mean. It’s okay, if it’s..not what you want. I mean, you can’t remember and..it’s a lot..and..’

‘Bee.’ Henry sighed. She was right to think this was a lot to take in. And he was looking at a long recovery time. Many patients changed after such a traumatic event. And even though he thought he had always wanted this, a family, it was like being hit by a train at full speed, the way he was thrown in a life he didn’t know how to live. He cleared his throat and stepped in closer, his tongue flicking over his bottom lip. ‘So, what do we do now?’

Phoebe sighed. ‘Well, they’re just here for a visit. But I thought we could make some tea and biscuits and..’

‘I’ll make the tea.’ Henry smiled.

‘Sure?’

‘That I am. Though I’m so sure on how I am to handle four kids.’

Phoebe stepped in and clasped a hand around his shoulder, squeezing it gently. ‘Two hours, that’s it. And if it’s too much, you just head upstairs and we’ll say you needed to sleep early - they’re familiar with that.’

Henry looked down at her hand on his shoulder, her fingers quickly letting go, thinking he disliked it. He took another deep breath and slowly nodded. ‘Any other..things?’

Phoebe shrugged and laughed. ‘Well. I don’t even know where to start.’

--

Henry was glad he was about 4 times the size of these four little monkeys, because by the time their shoes were removed and Kal was decorated with their scarves, Henry was next in line to be welcomed by their grabby hands which clung to him like they were a pack of little Koala bears.

Henry thought he had plenty of experience with his little nephews and nieces. But this sure was different. Tumbles of dark brown curls cascaded over mischievous pairs of blue eyes, the youngest one somehow the fastest of them all as he crawled around the living room as if possessed, little knees thudding on the floorboards.

‘DADDDYYYY.’ They all screamed, tugging at his clothes and starting different stories all at the same time, their eager hands begging for his attention as their eyes lit up with excitement.

There was the eldest, Sam, a shy 4 year old boy. There were the twins. A boy and girl, Max and Piper - a rowdy bunch, now 3 years old. And the youngest, 1 year old Cole, named after his granddaddy, the same granddaddy having opted for settling down in the reading chair in the corner as he waited for the storm to pass.

‘H-hi.’ Henry breathed, looking down at the bouncing heads of his kids, his hands awkwardly brushing over their curls.

‘Daddy! Daddy! Did you see my draw-things?! I made like,’ The little girl widened her arms. ‘THIS many.’

‘OH, did you now? That’s a lot.’

‘Yea, and granny helped! And we baked cookies and..’ - ‘Daddy, I need to go peepee!!!’

And then the youngest started to cry as he failed to get the attention he wanted, his bone wrenching, shrilly cries reverberating through the suddenly much too small living room. Henry looked in panic at Phoebe and his mom, who were looking at the situation in mild shock; maybe it had been a little too rash to introduce him to ALL the kids at once. But here they were. Clinging to him like it was just another Tuesday. Four monkey babies, excited to see their dad after what seemed like a lifetime in their short little lives.  

It took another fifteen minutes to somewhat calm the children, Henry having settled on a dining room chair as he watched the four pairs of blue eyes that stared back at him. The youngest had settled on Phoebe’s lap, his head rested on her slow breathing chest, and the twins had settled on the carpet, twiddling with the long strings of the rug as they nagged yet again that they were bored.

‘But I want my toys mommm.’ Piper nagged.

Next up was the youngest, who started to cry again, making Phoebe sigh in exasperation as she bounced him on her lap, before she decided it best to take a little walk, her slim legs walking out into the hallway, leaving Henry with the other three kids and his parents.

‘Are you my daddy?’ Sam frowned, sitting on the couch next to his grandma, large blue eyes studying the strangely familiar being that was Henry. Henry gulped at the boy’s question, his lack of knowledge of these children making the situation ever the more painful.

‘I eh..’ He frowned as he heard even louder crying coming from the kitchen, Phoebe trying her best to shush the crying babe. ‘I am.’

‘So why don’t you play with us?!’ Max exclaimed, falling down on his little back, hands stretching out to poke at his sister who growled like an annoyed little tiger cub.

‘MAAXXXX. Granny he’s doing it - OUCH - GRANNYYY.’

‘You two! Calm it, or you’ll go in time-out.’

‘But daddy is being weirdddd.’ Max protested, jutting out his lip.

‘But I’m still your daddy.’ Henry said, slowly crawling from his seat to settle down on the rug as well, his eyes searching the gaze of the twins, whose eyes immediately lit up - playtime? PLAYTIME!

‘So you’re going to play with us?’

‘HORSEYYYYY.’ Piper cheered, crawling out to Henry to tug on his sweater to climb up to his back. Henry, however, was quick to stop her, before she’d accidentally tug his hair and agitate his head wound.

‘DADDyyyy.’ She cried, fighting him as he settled her back on her bum. ‘But I wanna..’

‘Piper, hey, hey. Look at me.’ Henry’s voice got ever softer, the louder she cried, until finally her blue eyes opened again and she looked at him with a big, overexaggerated pout. ‘Daddy needs a little time. He, eh, was broken, and now needs to be fixed.’

‘I can fix you!’ Sam climbed off the couch and started to search for the toy box, immediately earning the attention of the twins who quickly rushed over to get a look in the treasure box.

‘YAAAYYYYYY.’

‘We’re gonna fix DADDY!!!!’  

The three of them all picked pieces of toys, their fast little feet managing to escape Colin, Henry’s father, as the old man tried to grab for their little hands. ‘OI, young lady! Do not, I repeat; do not..-’

His pleas fell on deaf ears as the three children all went for the kill, Henry barely managing to sit up on his haunches in time to defend himself from the vicious attack of three hyperactive children.

‘OUCH.’ He gasped, feeling the familiar hurt of a piece of Lego in his skin, his mind having a difficult time to process how again he used to deal with his nephews and nieces in situations like these - then again, he had been sharp and witty then, and now he struggled with remembering the fact he has a wife now.

And kids. Don’t forget about the kids.

‘Ohhhhhkay!’ Marianne chimed with a fierce and loud voice, her hands clapping together with a sternness that made all three kids look up. ‘I think that’s enough fixing for today. How about we go have a drink and some biscuits, hmm?’

‘BISCUITSSSSSS!!!’ Piper cheered again - it was clear that the little girl was a bubbly bee. Bee. Oh damn, Henry thought, crawling up to a standing position before he followed the children that were running out into the hallway to get to the kitchen, his parents hot on his heels.

‘You can take a rest if you want.’ His mother whispered, laying a soothing hand on Henry’s shoulder before he stepped into the kitchen. His blue eyes met with the wisdom that lingered in his mom’s smile.  

‘Sorry about that, mom.’ Henry sighed quietly.

‘No, no. Our fault, remember? Besides, it takes some time before you know how to deal with this hot bunch.’ She chuckled as she looked over Henry’s broad shoulder, the children jumping up and down around the kitchen island as Phoebe made an attempt to cool them down while she also bounced Cole up on her arm.

‘Don’t worry son.’ Colin squeezed Henry’s shoulder as Marianne also slipped into the kitchen. ‘No matter what happens, we’re here for you, mkay?’ The old man winked at Henry, who slowly shook his head.

‘Man, I wish they had a manual for this kinda stuff.’

Colin laughed. ‘If only, if only.’

The two men remained in the doorway as the women managed to calm down the children, the lot of them all being placed around the kitchen table before they were treated to freshly baked biscuits and a lot of mommy love.

It didn’t take long before the two hours were up and the kids were packed up back in Marianne and Colin’s car, Henry and Phoebe waving them goodbye with heavy hearts, but happy smiles. Small clouds of nightly cold drafted from their mouths as they turned back towards the door, a certain melancholy left in the house that was now silent again.

‘Don’t you want to..go with them?’ Henry asked quietly.

Phoebe looked up at him, the two of them now crowding the door mat as she pulled the door closed. ‘I miss a lot of things, but I need to be here with you now.’ A slightly sad smile moved up her lips.

‘You sure?’

‘Yea. For better and worse, remember?’ She laughed, only to feel that her choice words were awful, her breath hiccuping as she quickly evaded his gaze. ‘Sorry. That wasn’t nice of me.’

Henry sighed. ‘Please don’t feel bad. You’re the best mom I know..or..can remember.’ He smirked a little, but Phoebe didn’t seem to be so easily consolable. ‘Bee, hey.’ Henry used his thumb to tilt her head up, their eyes meeting. ‘I don’t know if this is crazy of me to ask, but, eh…’ He cleared his throat, feeling his heart falter at the concerned stare of her penetrating blue eyes. Had he failed her? Fuck. He licked his lips, unsure of whether to proceed.

‘What?’ She finally breathed, her voice a little croaky.

‘Oh, it’s stupid silly I guess.’ Henry moved his hand to his head to scratch, only to be caught by her hand, her eyes giving him a half-amused smile.

‘I told you to stop doing that.’

‘That you did,’ Henry hesitated again, before simply blurting out: ‘would you like to go on a date with me?’

A short silence fell as Phoebe’s eyes widened in something so unreadable that Henry wasn’t sure whether she was about to scold him or break out in laughter. And how glad he was it was the latter, her lips pulling up into a most amused little chuckle. ‘What now?’

‘A..date? Wait, has that word changed in the..?’

‘No, no. Dating is a thing. And..’ She now burst out into a full fit of giggles.

‘What?’

‘Well, we never really dated. We just..’ Her eyes widened.

‘What, Bee? Don’t leave me hanging here.’

‘No, no. I mean YES! I want to go on a date with you, though, eh, no, let’s talk about this later. It’s been a long day and..’ Her words died as she sniffled again, her hand now moving up to brush carefully through his chocolate brown curls. ‘I’d love to go on a date with you.’

--

Chap 4 >

--

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[echo-three-one]

Chapter 32

THE ROAD SO FAR

Mr. and Mrs. MacTavish

Francine "France" Winters

MacTavish Residence, Glasgow Scotland

3:46 AM

Francine squinted her eyes as she checked her phone, the bright light illuminated her whole visage. No new messages. John promised her he'd text her as soon as the mission was over. According to their briefing, the recon mission should've ended about four hours ago.

She shifted her position and turned to Maxine who looked sound asleep. A soft smile escaped her lips once she realized that Maxine was safe within her reach.

She forced her eyes to close again but couldn't quite get the sleep she needed. She wondered if John ever got tired running in her mind. After failing her last attempt to get some sleep, she slowly got up and made her way to the kitchen for some milk.

Much to her surprise, the kitchen lights were open and Samantha sat on the dining table, her chin rested on her arms as she stared on her phone.

"Can't sleep?" France asked and it shocked Samantha a little.

"Yeah. He's supposed to text me three hours ago. Now I can't help but worry." Samantha groaned in frustration.

"John promised that too…" she slowly placed her phone on the table and it beeped. The womens eyes widened as France excitedly unlocked her phone.

Her smile almost reached the heavens but soon after reading the notification, she suddenly went back to her frown.

"What was it?" Samantha asked, raising her head and looked at Francine.

"A software update notification." Francine sighed and went to grab a glass of milk.

"Say, France… has it ever crossed your mind that John would be the one you'll end up marrying?" Samantha asked. Francine's cheeks burned immediately at the idea as she envisioned herself living in a house with three children with mohawks running around. She wasn't ready for all of it but she's blushing at the sheer idea of it as if she liked it.

"Umm… uh.. I'm not sure. Sam." her tone was really suspicious, as if hiding something and making up blatant lies. She just wished Samantha couldn't see through her.

"Sorry for that kind of question. It's just that… I think that Alex is the one for me… that's why I'm this worried about him. I couldn't sleep knowing he's not beside me…" Samantha explained while pondering her situation. If that was the case for her, then France's insomnia could also mean that she's…

"I guess it's normal to feel that way…" France defended, downing a half full glass of milk.

"You've been with him for quite some time and you both admittedly loved each other, that's why you showed concern toward him." She continued.

"So, that goes to you too? Right?" Samantha asked. France once again got cornered by her own train of thought.

"Look. Yes. I'm concerned about John too… he's…" she smiled.

"He's something else… I'm far too ready to reopen myself to a relationship and he actually told me he was willing to wait and be a friend in need." she continued, now her heart was beating slowly but fluttering at the idea of her thoughts. John was willing to wait. That meant that she could have all the time at her disposal until she was ready to love again. But such time needed was already up, as she was already denying the inevitable feeling of love she was projecting toward the Scotsman.

"Sounds like you're already ready." Samantha teased.

"No I'm not!" France immediately dismissed her, grabbed her phone and went back to bed.

"As a matter of fact, I'll sleep right now!" She said as Samantha just laughed and waved goodnight.

France slowly paced in front of John's room. She felt as if there was a huge magnet pulling her towards it and the longer her phone doesn't ring, the more convinced she was to get in. Succumbing to temptation, she pushed the doors open and sneaked her way in.

His room was always her favorite place in the house. It showcased a lot of his personality that no one could ever see in him. Landscape drawings and sketches filled the room. Football jerseys with autographs were framed on the walls along with photos with his favorite athletes.

At first glance, everyone would say that John MacTavish had it all, but when you're staring at his eyes while having a heart to heart talk, you would know that that isn't all true. He didn't have it all.

France saw his black journal by the bed. It was strange that he didn't bring it for his mission. Last time you asked him what's inside, he just chuckled and said "mission details", showing a sketch of Price labeled 'caterpillar moustache'.

France was then again tempted to open the page where he left off, showing a beautifully sketched face of her, occupying the whole page.

"Tough on the outside, soft in the inside. Just like me." was written on the corner of the page.

"I knew that you saw through me the moment we met…" She whispered as she closed the journal and yawned, crashing on his huge bed they both shared days ago when she needed someone to talk to. Covering herself with the thick covers, she inhaled the signature MacTavish scent which still lingered on his bed and it was actually effective enough to lull her to sleep. It's as if he was there beside her.

France woke up as soon as it came to her senses that Maxine would be looking for her. Throwing the covers away, she immediately rushed back to her room. Pulling the door open and sneaking her way back.

The silent clattering of the plates and casual conversations filled the kitchen. Jack was talking about some of his experiences while Samantha and Maxine were giggling. Much to her curiosity regarding the two unknown voices, both male and female, she slowly descended the staircase and peeked.

Aside from Jack, Samantha and Maxine, there was a man and a woman, possibly married, who sat together by the table. She actually felt nervous once her sight landed on the man. If he was younger, his resemblance with John would be almost accurate. And judging by that look, Francine leaned to the idea that this was John's father.

John's father had the physical qualities of a Scotsman but the appeal of a western businessman. His accent was almost not Scottish.

"Ahh. I miss my home so much. Do you mind if I let loose a little?" Mr. MacTavish asked and his wife, judging by the body language of holding on his hands, chuckled at his idea.

"Don't worry. It's your home. You should feel comfortable." Jack replied with a smile.

With a deep sigh, Mr. MacTavish actually let loose and exhaled a very deep ramble in s heavy Scottish accent. His wife replied with the same energy and everyone cackled. France was amazed at how easygoing his parents were and it told a lot about John's upbringing.

"Ooh! Looks like our other guest woke up!" Mrs. MacTavish mused upon making eye contact with France.

"So Maxine, this is your sister?" Mr. MacTavish.

"Yes, Mr. Jonathan. It's Francine." Maxine answered and France waved and smiled at the MacTavishes. Her whole body felt awkwardly nervous. She felt like this was the 'Meet the Parents' part, except they weren't really a thing… yet.

"Nice to finally meet you, Sir Jonathan and Ma'am…" France shook his hand and paused at Mrs. MacTavish.

"It's Julianne." She smiled and shook her hand. For a moment, Francine actually felt her heartwarming touch as she slowly eased the nervousness away.

"Don't be scared of us dear. We don't bite." She smiled and Francine smiled back. When John told her about how serene he felt around his mother, he wasn't joking. Her aura was powerful.

"Honey, looks like there are a lot more women in the force nowadays. Have you ever wondered if our boy John has liked any of them?" he asked playfully while France was trying her hardest not to choke on her orange juice. It looks like Max and Samantha were just giggling on their own.

"Well dear, why don't we leave it up to John to introduce us to her." She chuckled and held her husband's hand.

"Where is he anyway?" Jonathan looked back by the door.

"He's still on a mission." France answered and everyone else looked at her.

"What I mean is, they are still on their way home." She corrected, stuttering as she replied.

"Well, it's such a shame we had to leave now. Duty calls!" Jonathan stood up and everyone followed them to the front door, waving their goodbyes. France shyly followed behind them and joined the group as they sent their goodbyes to John's parents.

As soon as the car left their sights, everyone else eased and released the pressure they felt.

"Woooah. Soap has some nice parents. I thought they'll get mad at us for crashing in!" Maxine said, sitting beside France.

"Well, Soap just proved to us that not all businessmen are evil, despite what television suggests." Jack added and yawned. It was still early and he already planned on sleeping.

Samantha sat there and stared at her phone. France checked hers too and called her attention.

"I didn't get any texts from him. But I assure you, they'll be here soon."

"So, tell me how worried you were when I didn't text." John smugly asked France while he emerged from the showers, a clean white towel was the only thing wrapping his body.

France just sat by the bed, her whole body facing opposite John. Her brows still furrowed at the idea that he wasn't able to text her that they finished the mission without harm.

Their arrival earlier was not quite the arrival she expected. Her heart was supposed to flutter at the sight of John, but instead sadness filled the whole house. Alexandra Ryder was gone, and it would be too rude to reach for his embrace at the time of mourning.

"I wasn't worried one bit." She spat and crossed her arms. He could hear John laughing a little and she wanted to look at him, but his stubbornness needed to be fixed, that is if she could.

"Really? Then how come I heard from Samantha that you were up at three-" France quickly turned to her back in an attempt to stop his trail of thought, but she was surprised that John's face was already close to hers as he was crawling towards her while he talked.

France's world paused for a little as her eyes met his, gaze locked on his icy blue stare as her heart started to beat differently and her ears started to heat up, and lips slowly formed a smile.

Her eyes trailed down to his lips, where it also happened to curve differently. He was smiling and it never occurred to her that John had smiled like that before. Her lips involuntarily pouted as she felt John's face inch closer to hers, as she slowly closed her eyes and let the Scotsman take over her lips.

The first kiss was quick, their lips just met each other for a short while and they both backed up, eyes locked on to each other, both sparkling and wanting for more.

"Fine." France whispered and reached for his cheek.

"I can't stop worrying about you, dumbass." she added and John let out a soft chuckle, leaning in for another kiss, but this time it was more than they both wanted. This time it felt like they were released from all the things constraining them. France actually gave in to him for the second time, and she was glad that she did this, because John sure was a very good kisser.

Next Chapter : The Broken Ship

Notification Squad my Beloved

@beemybee @samatedeansbroccoli @enderio @smokeywhalee @whimsywispsblog @ricinbach

[fanfic-scribbles]

Fir

Fandom: MCU Captain America/Avengers

Summary: A trip to a tree lot results in a much bigger relationship milestone. Also, Bucky and Steve are idiots. It works out pretty well for everyone involved.

Quick facts: Romance – [established] Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers/Reader – Nondescript Reader

Warnings: Fluff, the tiniest bit of angsting, sappy ending

Words: 1983

A/N: I was going to wait to post this until tomorrow because ‘Christmas season’ and all, but in case you need something else to read today here’s a little fluffy holiday something. For folks in the US, Happy Thanksgiving! For folks not in the US, Happy Thursday!

  ~

    Normally, you might find this funny. But they actually think they’re getting one over on you.

It’s almost offensive.

Sure, you may not have the most innocent blue eyes to ever blue, or the saddest pout on this side of the world, but you have a fucking brain.

“You “accidentally” bought a tree too big for my apartment?” you ask. They both nod rapidly. You stare at them. ‘Greatest tactical mind’ and ‘world’s greatest assassin’ your ass. “It has been five minutes since I lost track of you. How did you find the “perfect tree” and have time to pay for it before you found me? To, you know, ask my opinion on the tree that was supposed to go in my apartment?”

They are either good actors, or they feel a little bad. They are not and nor have they ever been anything resembling good actors. “Sorry,” Steve says and once more flashes you weaponized innocence. Eye lasers. They’re eye lasers. “I guess we just got excited. I mean, look at it!”

You roll your eyes. It is gorgeous, full and vibrant. It must have cost a fortune. “What’s done is done. It’s huge though– will it fit in your living room?”

“Of course,” they say in unison. With such certainty only an idiot could believe this wasn’t pre-planned.

“I can just tell,” Steve says quickly. “My eyesight is really good, and we have those high ceilings.”

“Uh huh.” You’re pretty sure the serum didn’t put yardsticks in Steve’s eyes, but Steve is the only expert in the matter, and you are 99.99999% sure that actual measuring tape was involved. You can only hope they remembered to factor in a tree topper. “So much for putting it in the backseat. By the way, you two are on your own when it comes to figuring out how to get it home.”

“We’ll tie it to the roof,” Steve says.

The car is certainly big enough to handle it. But you want to see how prepared they came. “Do they sell rope or bungee cords here?”

“I’m sure we have something,” Steve says with forced nonchalance as Bucky runs off to get the car.

Sure enough, when Bucky comes back, he and Steve are able to get right to work tying the tree to the roof. “Amazing,” you say as they finish. “How you just happened to have rope hanging around in your car.”

“Always be prepared,” Steve says.

How can you resist? You grin. “Kinky.”

Steve chokes on nothing and Bucky ducks his head. “Can’t take you anywhere,” he mumbles. You laugh, because it is entirely reasonable to have rope or cords in the car (and you hope they have the good sense to keep other emergency supplies in there too) but they’re so caught up in their tree deception that they don’t seem to remember that.

“Hey,” Steve says once you’re all belted in. “Since all your boxes of ornaments are already out, we should pick them up on the way.”

“That’s a good idea,” you say. “Since the tree is so big it had to go on the roof, we have all the space in the back now.”

“That works out really perfectly,” Steve says blithely, still pretty performatively cheerful as he drives off. Bucky is about to say something, with a similarly dumb smile on his face, when he looks at you and the smile loses some of its zeal. You don’t know if it’s the crossed arms or if your maxed-out bullshit meter is finally showing on your face, but Bucky quickly turns around in his seat and faces forward, stealing little glances at Steve.

You all stop by your place to grab the ornaments. All but one box, which you surreptitiously push under the coffee table with your foot. If Bucky or Steve take notice, they don’t mention it to you. The whole affair is very quiet, but you all make it to their (admittedly very nice and much more spacious) home, where they put the tree up in its stand with such ridiculous coordination you wonder if they practiced. Honestly it wouldn’t surprise you if they did (they are almost always very committed to their very dumb ideas), but they also make an incredible team, so it could be either-or.

Steve’s still in the kitchen when Bucky finishes adjusting the tree skirt and he admires it for a moment before he looks back at you. He grins and you smile. Genuinely. “Like what you see, sweetheart?” Bucky asks and flexes.

You consider. “A-minus,” you decide.

“A-minus?” Bucky pouts.

“It would have been better shirtless,” you say and poke him with your foot. He grabs your leg and starts kissing up it and you laugh and squirm, even though his lips only connect with your pants.

“Maybe we have enough energy to do more than just the lights tonight,” Steve says and sets down a tray filled with mugs of hot chocolate. He starts passing them out. “Bucky…me…and extra marshmallows for you.”

“Ooo.” You settle in with the mug in your comfy armchair while Steve takes the couch and Bucky stays on the floor. You blow on the steam. “Is this guilty hot chocolate?” You take a sip that burns a little, but it’s worth it. “Yum.”

“Why would it be guilty?” Steve asks like he has nary a clue and only a passing curiosity, and stirs his drink like he’s rehearsing for a commercial and can’t get a natural rhythm down. Bucky ducks his head lower like he’s incredibly into his drink, but his eyes flit up and move between the two of you.

“For picking a tree too big for me,” you say and wait to see how this is going to go.

“It was an accident,” Steve says, buckling down on stubbornness like only Steve Rogers can.

Well two can play at that game, and you’re pretty sure he’s going to lose. “Yes, well.” You sigh theatrically. “It’s lovely and good for you to have. I’ll have to stop by the lot tomorrow and get a tiny one for me.”

“What?” Steve asks and even Bucky lowers his cup and licks the line of chocolate from his upper lip.

“Why do you need another one?” Bucky asks.

“Because I don’t have one,” you say and lean back. “And I want a tree in my house.”

“But we have this beautiful tree here,” Steve says.

“I don’t live here,” you remind him. “Not all of the time.”

“But you could!”

Ah ha. However the admission doesn’t ease your annoyance– it just makes it burrow that much deeper. “I’m not going to intrude,” you say and sip.

Steve opens his mouth but a sharp hiss of his name from Bucky makes him stop and the two of them have a very intense eye discussion for several seconds– or rather, eye argument, from the sheer amount of peaks and valleys displayed by their eyebrows alone. You noisily sip your drink but it doesn’t even make them flinch, so you put the cup down. Hard. That makes them break and they look at you as you stand.

“I’m going to the bathroom; I’ll be right back,” you tell them and then leave.

When you get to the bathroom you sit on the toilet lid and rest your frowning face in your hands propped up on your knees. You’re in the bathroom that you helped decorate and that doesn’t help the problem. Because you do stay here often enough that it feels like home, but any tentative brush at the subject of combining households has been swept right off the table in the last few months– sometimes harshly. You try not to let it get to you, but it does sting. Still, you’re getting used to it. You’ll go back out there and you’ll all ignore the subject was ever broached. Like always.

But it’s Christmas, and despite their complicated feelings on moving in together, you love them and they love you. And you are going to have a perfectly lovely night decorating their tree, and you’re going to get a little one for yourself, and it’s going to be nice no matter what.

You come out of the bathroom and stop just before you enter the living room proper. The tree is halfway wrapped in lights, from the bottom up, and where they stop there is a circle made out of the cord to draw attention to a card propped loosely in the middle.

You look at Bucky and Steve, both sitting on the couch like they can’t imagine what kind fairy could have possibly done this. You roll your eyes but you can’t help but smile. Most people would never believe you if you told them what morons those two can be. That must be why Sam and Natasha are your best friends.

You pluck the envelope off the tree and lift it up and down. It’s heavier than standard cardstock and not completely flat at the bottom. There’s something other than Hallmark in there.

“Why don’t you come over here and open it?” Bucky says and pats the open cushion between them. You plop down in the seat, and warmth surrounds you when they rest their heads on your shoulders. You open the envelope, pull out the card (very pretty, hand-drawn by Steve, going on your fridge for sure), and then you reach in to pull out the mysterious object.

It’s a key.

You stare at it, metal shining in the light and slightly cold against your skin. You run your finger up the teeth of it and inhale suddenly. “Wh– really?”

“We wanted to wait for Christmas, but it’s close enough, right?” Steve wraps his arms around your middle. “But yes: we want you to move in with us. It’s okay if you don’t want to, if you feel like it’s too soon–”

“It’s not and I want– I thought–” You breathe. “I thought you didn’t want to. You always change the subject–”

“We’ve been planning this for two months; we didn’t want to spring it early,” Bucky says and nuzzles you. “You know how shit Steve is at keeping a secret like that.” He leans over you to glare at Steve. “‘But you could,’” he mocks.

“Shut up.” Steve tightens his hold around you and pushes his face into your shoulder.

“Well,” you say, smiling as you close your fist around the key. Your key. “Steve does have a point. There’s no point in getting another tree when I have a perfectly good one at home.”

Steve sits up and they both lean over to look at you expectantly. “I love you both so much and of course I want to live with you,” you say. “But I want it on the record that you are the shittiest liars I have ever known in my life.”

Bucky huffs and Steve laughs. “Only because we can’t hide anything from you, sweetheart,” Bucky says and pulls you into his arms. Steve follows, because of course he does, and you lay there, content to ignore what a fucking pain it’s going to be to have to move. But you have at least another month before your lease is up and you have two of the strongest men you know to help (with at least three friends who are also strong who can be easily bribed with pizza) and at the end of it you are going to be home, with Bucky, and Steve, right in the one place you always feel you belong.

“…The key is nice and all but please tell me your security system code is easy to memorize.”

“You can make your own, only needs to be four numbers,” Bucky says and kisses your head.

You breathe a sigh of relief. “Oh thank goodness.”

“1234 is not an acceptable passcode.”

“Aw man.”

[ironwoman18]

We found love in a hopeless place part 9

Chapter 9: Our First Kiss

Early that day, while Spencer was with Emily. Max drove to pick up her younger sister, Eloise, because a pipe broke and the principal sent them home for the day.

When her sister got in the car and hugged her she asked "what's up with your car?"

"Oh Dad had to use it. His car is at the mechanical workshop so he dropped me at school and went to buy food and other things" Max nodded.

"Ok. Lucky I was out early today" she smiled at her "want to eat McDonald's?" Asked Max which made her sister smiled big and nodded. Max laughed and drove to the restaurant.

"So how are things with Spencer? The guy we met yesterday?"

"Well things are going good. He's the sweetest guy I ever met, a little awkward but it's cute" she smiled softly.

"You really like him, don't you?" Max nodded "what does he do?"

"He's a FBI agent"

"Really? That's awesome!" Said Eloise with a smile.

"Yeah but I feel like something just happened because he's out of job for a month. He hasn't talked about it and I don't want to make him uncomfortable"

"Why do you think so?"

"He said he had a nightmare last night and the fact that he's not working right now" she said as she parked the car close to the restaurant.

"Maybe he had a tough case. I heard that kind of jobs can cause PTSD"

"Of course I know it and I'm sure that was what brought him to the doctor where we met" Eloise nodded then they got out of the car and walked in the fast food restaurant.

They ordered two cheese burgers with fries and sodas. They sat down and started to eat then Max looked at her little sister "by the way... How did you know about the PTSD and the FBI?"

"Internet. I had to do an essay about the consequences of war in the army so I just made the connection with a FBI agent" she said matter-of-factly.

Max raised an eyebrow but smiled "of course, you always shock me with the information you discovered on internet"

"Internet is the best tool you could have" she laughed and ate a fry. Max also laughed and both ate and kept talking now and then about Max's work or Eloise's classes.

Their lunch was relaxed. Then Max drove to her dad's house and spent some time there.

When they arrived there was Michelle with her son, who hugged his aunts excited "aunt Max and aunt Ellie. I will go to the spelling competition!" He smiled big and both women smiled back and hugged him tight "The school's principal said I will go to a little competition a week after we start classes. It will be against other kids from the school"

"Congratulations buddy" said Max while ruffled his hair gentle.

"You will nail it Sammy" commented Eloise.

"Thank you aunts. I hope I don't lose my first competition"

"Nah you will do it great" Eloise and Max said at the same time.

"You own me an ice cream" said Eloise laughing and Max rolled her eyes but laughed too.

Then their father showed up with some coffee and some cake for his grandson.

They talked while the kid played with a tablet. Then Max got a message from Spencer asking if they could meet for coffee and she answered with a yes and excused herself with her family.

When she was gone the two sisters smirked "do you think this is the one for her?" Asked Michelle.

"I'm sure he is. She is crazy for him. Today she and I were talking and she quoted some of the things he told her. Even some random facts"

"Well, to be honest. I was getting worry after that idiot and her broke up. She hasn't had look luck with love"

"Yeah I will kill Mike if I see his face again" said Eloise with anger in her voice.

"Me too but back to Spencer" said the older sister "do you know about him?"

"Not much. Max kept some details about him to herself" they looked at Sam playing with some cars and making noises.

"He will come this Saturday maybe we can talk to him" suggested Michelle with a wicked smirk.

"I love your ideas!" Said the little sister excited and high-five her.

Meanwhile Max drove to the park Spencer told her to go. When she arrived she looked for him until she saw him sitting on a bench with a kid playing chess.

She smiled and walked to him "hey there" she said to him.

"Oh hey Max. These are Leonard and Patrick. I met them a few minutes ago and they wanted to play chess but didn't know the rules so while I was waiting. I taught them how to play"

"Really? And how old are you two?" Max asked softly looking at them.

"I'm 8 and my brother is 7" said Patrick then he looked at Spencer "is she your wife?"

They blushed and Spencer shook his head "No, we are dating but she's not even my girlfriend" he said looking at him.

"She's pretty. You should ask her. My mom always said that if you want something you should ask for it" he smiled innocently.

Max could see Spencer was uncomfortable, she bit her lower lip holding a laugh but his answer made her blush "I will think about it Pat" said Spencer smiling "ok kids. I have to go" they growled softly "but don't worry. If you want I can return tomorrow to teach you more" they smiled big "goodbye kids" he stood up and high-five them.

The couple walked in silence for a while then Max said "did they liked how you explained the game?"

"Kids understand easily the game. You just need to use the right words. An investigation said that teaching kids how to play chess will improve their social abilities, of course their math, language and logical thought" he told her "chest is easy to understand, the difficulties start when you have to learn strategies to win"

"My dad tried to teach me but I never understood" she blushed softly "I think my artistic brain couldn't handle to much math" she laughed.

"It's weird because I bet you can calculate pretty good" she raised her eyebrow "you know art is about proportions. You need to know the proper angle to draw a human being or know the right place to take a photo so the light show exactly what you want" she rubbed her chin thinking "it's all math"

"I think you are right" she looked up at him "but it's something we don't realize we are doing it"

"Exactly... I do calculations in my mind but I'm aware of that, you do it in automatic"

"Ok I understand" they arrived to a food truck that have coffee. They ordered and paid for it. When they had it they continued to walk "how was your meeting with your boss?"

"It wasn't a work meeting, she wanted to talk about me, ask me how I was and looked at me" he took a sip of his coffee "we met a long time and before she was my boss, we became friends and all the people at the BAU are like my family"

"Amazing, I feel the same about my job at the school. But sometimes I feel like I should be doing something different..."

"Like?"

"Like... Working in a museum because I know I won't be a great painter like Picasso or Van Gogh but I feel I could do more in a place where art is the main department"

"I used to think that. I wished to work in the cure of the schizophrenia or something like that but I ended up with the FBI" he looked at her "but then Emily showed me that I was helping people with my job there and I realized that I'm a better person because of this job"

She nodded and smiled at him "but it's stressful, right?"

"And sometimes dangerous" he said looking around.

"I can imagine" she looked at him. They stayed in silence for a few minutes. They finished their coffees and sat down "you aren't working because you developed a PTSD?" She asked.

He looked at her and sighed "yeah... I was having some symptoms"

"You don't have to tell me what happened"

"I want to but not today" he held her hand "you are becoming an important part of my life even though we just met a month ago" he looked at her "I'm not the kind of person who likes to express his feelings so when I do. It means a lot"

She looked at him "you too. And to show you I trust you, I will tell you why I had to go to the doctor..." She looked down.

"You don't have to Max..."

"But I want to Spencer" she looked around, the sky was getting darker and the park was getting emptier. She looked at him and smiled "it was two years ago... I met this guy... His name was Mike Davis. He was so sweet and kind, he was tall, he had brown hair and green eyes. A handsome man... We started to date and it was wonderful" she looked down "a few months later we moved together. After that he became something totally different. He treated me horrible, he never hurted me with his fists but he used terrible words to me... He made me feel like an idiot" Spencer felt the need to look for him and punched him.

"You had the mentality of an abused woman... No matter if he ever hit you or not"

"Yeah I defended him and he pulled me away from my family. We were always very close but he managed to break us" she had tears in her eyes. He rubbed her back waiting for her to continue "a few months ago I finally ended that after realizing what was happening. He left to New Jersey and then we met at the doctor"

"Did you talk to her? About this?" She nodded.

"Yes and I told her that I met a man who was helping me to move on and realized that not all men are like Mike" he smiled softly "I never talked about this with people outside my family and closed friends"

He held her hand "I promise that I will tell you what happened to me" he promised "maybe in a private place because it's something really bad" she nodded and held his hand tightly.

"Ok Spence" and without thinking she leaned in to kiss him. The kiss was slow and sweet, he rubbed her cheek gently in the kiss. They broke the kiss slowly but left their forehead together and eyes closed, they smiled.

OOooOOooOO

After next chapter I will start watching season 13 and use some events on the fic. In fact I want to add the guy from New Orleans.

[edourado]

Complete

Here lies another beggining of the  year indulgent thing. 

I have written fix-it fics and AU’s before, but none, I think, as sticky-sweet as this one. But it is also a lil smutty. So be warned. 

The first fic of 2019 had to be bright, given what Netflix and Disney are hell bent on doing to us all. 

Here it is. I hope you like it. Please let me know. The writer needs affection/validation. 

Much love. Happy 2019 to all of us. 

(Also #SaveDaredevil while we’re at it)

Frank caused a commotion the first time he visited her at her office.

She had not been expecting him at all. He was supposed to be in Florida with his kids, a Disney World event for Lisa’s 9th birthday. His flight was not scheduled to arrive until eight that night.

But then there he was, at 11 in the morning.

“Hey”, he called from her door, that voice full of gravel that still made her skin shiver, almost a year into their relationship.

“Oh”, she let out, looking up from her computer, surprised to see him. “Hi!”

Frank has this thing about him, that no matter what he put on, he looked good. It can be a bit infuriating, actually, especially on those days that she couldn’t decide what to wear or what to do with her hair. Frank just threw on a hoodie and some jeans and those boots he would wear to bed if he could, and he was ready.

Walking into her office, he made his way to her and she realized her strategy of not thinking about him during the week he spent away had worked. She had focused on everything but Frank Castle and everything she had to do so as not to think about him and, consequently, miss him too much, but now that he was here, placing the white roses that he always presented her with behind her pencil case, she felt the tightness in her chest that told that she had missed missed missed him but now was so glad that he was here.

Oh, she just knew this office was about to implode because of him.

He bent over her desk to place a kiss on her lips, and she angled her face up, but as soon as he backed away, she got up to close the door and shut the blinds, ignoring the protests of her nosy coworkers.

“I thought you were supposed to fly back tonight.”

“Yeah”, he started while she shook her head at Arlene through the window, who was making faces and mouthing “oh my God??” at her. “Leave it to those kids to not follow the plan.”

Turning to him, Karen smiled and moved to better greet him after a week of texts and quick calls to say good night.

“What happened?” She asked after a proper kiss and a tight hug, pulling him towards the couch, moving to sit sideways on his lap.

“We got a dog.”

She was on her way to kiss him again, but stopped and moved back to look at his face.

“You got a- the dog you were planning on getting Frankie?”

“Nope, not that one. Well, now, I guess, yeah.”

He had been planning on getting a dog for his son for his birthday, two months from now, in order to maybe teach some responsibility to the young boy that, unlike his sister, that took to their father and developed her organization skills from an early age, was truly content on being the spoiled youngest sibling, leaving a messy trail wherever he went.

“I took them to dinner last night”, he started to explain, one arm behind her, hand on her hip, the other caressing her thigh over her jeans.

Karen has never been happier to have a private office.

“We went to this sea food place-”

“You got a dog at a seafood place?”

“Almost. We get there and I’m looking for a parking spot when these two little maniacs yell ‘SHELTER!’ and hop off the car.”

Karen smiled, knowing exactly what he meant. They had picked this up a while ago, under the impression that, as long as the car was moving very slowly and they loudly announced why they were exiting the vehicle and where they were going, it was ok to simply unbuckle and leave.

“So I park the damn car, and when I get there they go ‘daddy daddy please!’, thrusting this puppy on my face.”

“What breed?”

Here, he sighed.

“A pitbull.”

“Oh, these kids are good.”

Frank loves pitbulls. Everyone that knows him knows this. He had forfeited the privilege of having one when he married Maria, who is very allergic to dogs, leaving the one he already had to live with his parents. Old Max had died soon after Frankie was born, and Frank has been puppy orphaned since then.

“Yeah”, he says, softly, as he always does when talking about his children, picking on a seam of her jeans. “I made it a little difficult, though, made them promise all kinds of things about taking care of it, going for walks and shit, but Lisa hit me with the birthday bribe thing, and Frankie said he never wanted anything more in his entire life, even if he had met the dog three minutes ago.”

With hands on his face, Karen bent to take her kiss, and the familiar warmth of him made her want to go home.

“So now you have a dog.”

“Now I have a dog. Its technically the kids’ dog, but he’s gonna live with me full time, so yeah.”

Weaving her arms around his neck, she pulled him for a hug, aware that someone was going to knock, any second now.

“I’m happy for you”, she said, feeling his arms tighten around her. “And I’m also glad you’re home a whole nine hours earlier.”

She had been right. Right when he was weaving his fingers inside her hair, opening his mouth to her kiss, someone knocked on the door, and she got up from his lap.

“Yeah, come in.”

Simone and Andre, of course. Everybody had been asking about Frank, wanting to meet him, but these two have been the worst.

“Hi-i, excuse us”, Simone sing-sang, walking in as Frank slowly got up from the couch. “We just wanted to know if you’re gonna join us for lunch. Hi, I’m Simone.”

Frank moved to shake her hand, and Andre stood there sizing him up.

“Frank Castle.”

“Ah, the famous Frank. I wish I could say we’ve heard all about you, but this one has built a mystery”, Andre said, taking his turn in shaking his hand. “She doesn’t say anything, no matter how much we beg.”

Karen would have sent them away, but it was a little fun to watch Frank squirm under her coworkers’ scrutiny.

He smiled his polite smile, and touched a hand on the small of her back.

“I’m afraid I came to steal her away for lunch.”

They tried to convince him they could all have lunch together, but he explained that he had just touched down in New York, his suitcase was still in the car, he had his kids waiting for them back home.

After a lot of probing, a lot of insistence, Alex and Sam joining them in the office, she managed to shoo everybody away and, finally, pull him by the hand to the elevators.

“I feel like The Bachelor or something”, he whispered to her while they waited, mouth to her ear, and she put one arm around his torso.

“They’re a bunch of reporters, and I have been retaining information about you for almost a year. You’re lucky they’re not dissecting you over my desk.”

The door pinged and opened, and they stepped into the empty elevator. Frank kissed her discreetly, a sweet hand on her face while they descended to the lobby for his car.

“Sorry for showing up unannounced”, he said against her cheek. “I thought I’d surprise you.”

“It’s ok. I’ll have to hold a press conference in the break room when I come back, but it’s worth it.”

He smiled against her face, placing a lingering kiss on her temple just as the doors opened to the lobby.

She asked about the trip on the way to his apartment, a hand on his hair while he drove, and he told her about long lines and kiddie rides, but how it was worth it, just to see the kids so happy. How they had to smuggle the puppy to the hotel, and Lisa forfeited a day in Sea World so they could go back home early and how they almost cried along when the puppy whined in the plane, the loud noises hurting his little ears.

When he parked in his usual spot, Karen tugged on his sleeve before he even started gathering his stuff to get out of the car.

Unbuckling, she leaned to kiss him and, after quickly bunching up her skirt to her hips, moved out of her seat and maneuvered herself on top of him, laughing out an “ouch!” when she banged her head on the car ceiling in the process.

He was smiling when she moved to kiss him, hands eager on her, going from her face to her hair, down her neck, over to her back and down her hips until he was gripping her ass firmly, kissing her slow and deep, making her sigh against his lips.

“I missed you”, she whispered when he dove to kiss and nibble on her neck, arms around his shoulders, feeling warm and tingly from his kisses.

“Fuck”, he sighed against her skin, looking up again to catch another kiss. “I missed you more.”

Frank had his hands full of her and everything was already spinning when she took her hands from his face, lowering them down his chest.

“The kids are gonna sleep over?”

“Yeah”, he said against her neck while she pushed his shirt out of her way.

“Well then”, she said, closing her eyes when he pressed a chunk of her skin between his teeth, a reaction to her fingers unbuckling his belt. “We’ll have to make do.”

It’s not that they never had sex with the kids in the house. He shared custody with Maria, 50/50, and they’ve been going out 10 months, now, of course they had to make sure the door was locked and try to be as quiet as possible.

But he was just coming back from a week away, if they went upstairs right away, she would have to wait until bedtime to get her fill of him.

So the car it was.

“Hold on, hold on”, he breathed, one arm around her, leaning off the seat to start the car again, setting the air conditioner on high.

Frank came back to her with renewed gusto, and she kinda liked the rough fabric of his jeans scratching her bare thighs.

It had to be quick. No time or space to draw out anything. Plus, his windows were tinted and the garage was underground, but this was still a public space.

She groaned into his mouth when he slipped inside her, bracing a hand on the ceiling right above her head, rolling her hips on his, the vents of his (very impractical) Mustang blasting cold air on her back.

He had ripped the buttons out of one of her shirts, once, on a drunk encounter where he knocked on her door after drinking with his buddies, and as exciting as it had been at the time, she had warned him not to do it again, she couldn’t exactly afford this habit of his. So now he was always careful, going button by button every time.

This time, he stopped just after three, when her bra was exposed enough, and pushed the lacy fabric aside to attach his mouth over her breasts, hugging her to him, making her moan at what the movement did, he was just so good at this.

Oh, his hands. Frank knew just how to handle her, his fingers applying just the right amount of pressure. A little bit over comfortable, not enough to hurt, just enough to make her shiver, guiding her over him, pressing and kneading, and they have to hurry, the kids are waiting upstairs, one of his neighbors could walk in any minute, there might be a security camera or two registering as his car bounced.

“Now, Kare’, come on”, he growled in her ear after just a few minutes, dipping his hand between them and bucking his hips up towards her, and she pressed her lips together to keep the scream in, moaning loud against his face, the air conditioner too loud to let anyone outside the car hear her.

Frank let go just after her, face pressed against her neck, and she hugged him to her, moving her hips to and fro slowly as they both came down, sweating a little bit in spite of the cold air coming out of the vents.

“One fucking week”, he said, all mellow, head resting against the seat, a hand on her face, and she kissed him slowly. “Away from you. I never wanna do that again.”

They took a few more minutes to put themselves together and look around before exiting the car.

Upstairs, opening the door, they found the Castle kids on the living room floor, playing with their new puppy.

“Hi, you guys!” She greeted, and both Lisa and Frank got up from the floor, excitedly talking over each other, showing her the dog, trying to tell her all about the trip to Florida in less than a minute.

“Ok, ok, hey, calm down”, Frank said, closing the door behind them. “Take a breath.”

The plan had been for them to go out, and they would drop her off at work after they ate, but she ended up sitting on the floor with the children, playing with the new family member, trying to come up with a name for him, so Frank ordered in.

“He looked straight at us when we came in”,  Lisa was telling her, sitting by her side playing with the puppy while Frankie sat, technically, on the floor, but with his back against her chest, her legs crossed around his small frame while he played on her phone. “The lady told us he was born less than a week ago. We were the very first to come in and see them.”

“He has three sisters”, Frankie piped in, not looking up from the phone. “I wanted to bring them all home.”

“Yeah, in your dreams, buddy”, Frank said from the couch.

“But daddy, you love dogs”, he argued, calm as cucumber. “You would love all of them.”

“I think it’s good that you only got him”, Karen said, pushing the boy’s hair away from his forehead. “One dog is already such a big responsibility, can you imagine four?”

“I agree”, went Lisa, rubbing the puppy’s belly. “We would be totally overwhelmed.”

Nine years old and such big words.

“Right. Totally overbelted”, echoed her brother, sort of.

“By the way”, Frank said from his spot on the couch. “What’s this guy’s name?”

They thought about names for a few minutes, laughing while she and Frank suggested names like Tiberius or Leandrenous.

“Frank Jr Jr!” Suggested an excited boy.

“That’s too many Franks in one house”, argued his sister, shaking her head solemnly.

The food arrived and they jumped to set the table, babbling away about Disney World and how they couldn’t wait to be old enough for the “big rides” while Frank opened the door and payed the delivery guy.

They sat down at the table to eat and, while Frank served rice to Lisa, Karen spotted a stain on his neck, right below his left ear.

Lipstick. Hers, from the car.

Dropping her fork, she reached out to clean it, or, at the very least, smudge it away before the kids saw it. He looked at her, a question in his eyes, and she moved her hand to show him the soft pink tinge in her fingers.

She had to breathe deep not to laugh at the smug expression on his face.

“No chicken for me, daddy”, Lisa said. “I’m a vegetarian.”

He fixed her with a look.

“Since when?”

“Since today. I just saw on TV how they make burgers and chicken nuggets, so I’m not gonna eat meat anymore.”

“You could have mentioned that before I ordered chicken and steak, maybe?”

“Sorry. I’ll have rice and fries. And I guess I can have some cauliflower.”

They ate and the puppy whined, begging for food while Frankie listed all the disadvantages of being a vegetarian and Lisa listed the benefits.

“They eat dogs in China. Did you know that?”

“No they don’t!”

“They do, too! And in India, cows are sacred. So us having burgers is just as weird for them. You wouldn’t eat a dog, would you? So why should I eat a cow?”

There was a moment of quiet, while Frankie thought about it and Lisa tried not to make a face at the steamed vegetables she was munching on.

“What else do they eat in China?”

.:.

After teaming up to load the dishwasher, they all got into their shoes again, to go out and drive Karen back to work. They needed to also stop at a pet store, to buy the newest member of the family some proper food.

“You’re sleeping over, right?” Lisa asked from the back seat when Frank pulled over in front of the Bulletin, the dog on her lap.

“Yep”, she confirmed, twisted around to look at the girl.

“Good. We still need to tell you about the rest of the trip.”

“And I need to show you my new comic books”, Frankie - now also a vegetarian - added.

“I want to hear and see it all”, she smiled at them. “Bye, you guys.”

Moving back, she looked at Frank, who leaned in to collect a kiss.

“We can come pick you up.”

“No need. I have a Skype interview, don’t know how long it’ll take. I’ll get a cab, or something.”

“Ok.  But call me if you want me. I’ll come running.”

She took the kiss, and whispered just for him.

“I always want you.”

.:.

As she expected, the office was holding its collective breath waiting for her return. She had barely walked out of the elevator when Simone got up and started to follow her.

“You sneaky bitch”, she said, pinching her arm and Karen smiled. “You were hiding that all along?”

“I wasn’t hiding anything. Or anyone.”

“Karen”, said Sam, catching up to them. “That is your boyfriend? Jesus Christ, he’s so yummy.”

She didn’t say anything to that because, well, yes, he is.

She didn’t mean to keep Frank a secret. He wasn’t, really. But things had started very uncertain, with them.

He was married, when they first met. Just starting on his divorce process, and he was not in a very good place then. Neither was she, really, what with the break up with Matt and Wilson Fisk waging war on her over the exposè she wrote on him, Nelson & Murdock handling the case, it was a mess.

But then they met again, and she wrote a story on him, they teamed up to bring some corrupt CIA officials down, he became a source, she became his one woman database, he saved her life, and suddenly-

Suddenly they were in love. Crazy, stupid, inexplicable love, theirs was a completely new thing, for her.

Karen had boyfriends before, she had been in love before, but what she felt for Frank and what he felt for her was beyond her own comprehension. She’s a respected journalist, and she doesn’t have the words to describe it.

She’s his and he’s hers. That’s it.

But she never had envisioned herself falling so hard for a man as complicated as Frank Castle. A man whose divorce papers were still warm from the printer, the ink from the judge’s signature still fresh. A man whose job she couldn’t even understand right, so covert everything was. A man with two children (and a pretty spectacular ex wife, if she’s being honest. It was pretty much impossible not to fall in love with Maria Castle) and more redacted record files than she thought was healthy.

Still. There she was, ten months after the first time he kissed her, unable to imagine her life without him, anymore.

But if she was anything, it was a pessimist. Her own life and history too punctuated with heartbreak for her to be anything other than that.

So she kept him a mystery. Not telling her coworkers she was dating, at first, and then evading questions about him when it became obvious that she was indeed seeing someone.

Plus, it felt good, to keep him all to herself.

During that time, she had also developed the purest form of love for little Lisa and Frank Jr.. She met them after a few months of dating, and the kids took to her with ease, embracing Daddy’s new girlfriend with a warmth that, honestly, choked her up a little bit.

She loved Lisa and her curious mind, sharp wit and enormous heart.

She loved Frankie and his tenacity, his sweetness and his bravery.

And, Lord above, she loved Frank. All of him, even the parts that made her want to yank her hair out in frustration, sometimes.

They were, both of them, more than a little bit broken when they first met. The way they put each other back together made them stronger everyday.

“Come on”, Alex was saying as she put her hair up for her interview. “Dish.”

“There’s nothing to dish”, she lied. “Now shoo. I have a call with Tony Stark, if you don’t mind.”

They only left after she promised happy hour next Monday, so they could question her about her relationship over tequilas and margaritas.

And, while she waited for the call to connect, she conceded: that didn’t sound so bad.

.:.

Dinner was somewhat tricky.

Lisa was standing her ground with this whole vegetarian thing, and the last thing Frank wanted was to curb any of her impulses - especially when they were rooted in something valid -, even if they didn’t last long, so he had no choice but to adapt.

When she got there, they were, Frank and Lisa, in the kitchen, trying to make a cheese and broccoli soup.

“Tomorrow”, Frank started while he supervised the kids brushing their teeth after dinner, already dressed for bed. “We’re gonna go to the vet, get that little guy all the vaccines he needs to be healthy.”

“Can we go to the park after?” Frankie asked, standing on a little stool step to make him reach the sink, foam spilling out of his mouth.

“Depends on what the vet says.”

“We should get him a trainer”, Lisa said after rinsing, drying her face. “Like the one Kim Kardashian got. You know, to house train him.”

“I doubt I can afford Kim Kardashian’s dog whisperer.”

They said goodnight while Karen rubbed moisturizer on her face and Frank walked to tuck each of them into their own beds, maybe read with them a little bit. The dog - who still didn’t have a name - was going to sleep in Frankie’s room tonight (he had won the coin toss).

She was already in bed, browsing her phone when he walked in, turning the lights off and closing the door behind him, carefully turning the key.

Karen locked the screen and reached to put the phone on the nightstand, smiling when Frank reached the mattress and got a hold of both her ankles, yanking her to him, she giggled and bit on her lower lip, watching as he quickly shed his shirt and threw it behind him.

He bent to place kisses and nibbles on her belly, moving her own shirt out of his way, until he was pushing it over her head and lying down on top of her, his kisses slower than the ones they shared earlier in the car, but not any less intense.

Karen likes the weight of him on top of her. Likes to raise her legs and wrap them around his torso, feel the muscles of his back with her hands, tug on the longer strands of his hair. And she loves everything he does to her, he never disappoints.

But she felt him a little different this time. While his right hand holding her hips up for him was nothing new, the left one on her jaw, angling her face up so he can kiss and lick and nibble on her neck, lower, a tiny bit more intense than usual, was.

(Not unpleasant, by any means, but new.)

“Fuckin’ craved you all week”, he says against her navel, hands busy busy busy on her, and Karen feels violent shivers running all over her. “Missed the taste of your skin.”

This is what her coworkers meant when they said “dish”. They wanted the details of how Frank performs in bed, how his body feels on top of her, how thoroughly he fucks her and how expertly he eats her out, but that is something she was determined to keeping for herself.

She didn’t want to share how he makes her arch her back off the bed when he dips his head between her legs, or how he makes her shiver with the way he works his mouth on her, how she trembles while trying to be quiet, biting on her lip and seeking leverage on his hair.

Karen was not even a little bit eager to describe how he makes her come on his tongue, her skin erupting in goosebumps when he slides up to whisper how much he loves the taste of her, or how he is so good in reading her body that he knows just how to touch her to have her shivering for him all over again, or how perfectly he fits between her legs, how perfectly he fits inside her, her perfectly he moves within her.

This is just theirs.

But, maybe, depending on her mood, she can imply the way he rolls them around and perches her on top of him, and how very good she is at riding while his eyes inspect her, hungry and loving.

Maybe, just maybe, if the drinks are good and the mood is right, she might even tell them how hard he takes her from behind, and she has to scream into a pillow to avoid waking the kids, but even then he doesn’t stop, how he can go for so long she ends up dizzy.

Karen would never soberly admit how she begs for him, how he commands and she obeys, because this is the best she’s ever had, or how he tells her that he loves her so so so much while fucking her silly.

Her nosy and curious coworkers sure would like to know about the shower they shared after that, because they worked up quite a sweat, and maybe Sam, the hopeless romantic, would sigh if she told him that the way Frank looks at her makes her heart spread warmth all over her.

But she thought that it was private, just like the fact that her favorite position is when he’s fully lying on top of her and she is all tangled around him, or that is how the start and end most of their encounters, except when they’re too eager to make it to the bed.

Maybe she’ll tell them. We’ll see.

.:.

Frank is usually the first to wake up, so he’s the one that starts breakfast. Eggs and waffles with honey and jam, fruits, fresh juice for the kids and coffee for himself and the woman who stole his heart. A decent breakfast for a Saturday morning.

This morning, though, he had company. While he cracked eggs on top of melted butter, a tiny little puppy wobbled his way to the kitchen, no doubt following the smell.

After the table was set, Frank picked the dog up, feeding him a little treat, and walked back to the bedroom, to pick wake the rest of the house up.

And honestly. This boy is almost seven years old, now. Maybe it was about time he stopped climbing into his parents’ beds? He would have to talk to Maria about that.

Not that he didn’t like that his son felt safe and comfortable enough around Karen to sneak into bed with her and pass back out while Frank was in the kitchen, sleeping starfish style in the middle of the mattress, one of his feet on top of her stomach, his little chest rising and falling as he breathed.

(Good thing Karen insisted on changing the sheets last night after their enthusiastic reunion. Even tired as she was, she had the presence of mind to predict his kid’s behavior.)

“Go on”, he whispered to the dog, placing him on the bed, watching as he walked towards Frankie’s face to sniff and inspect.

Frank walked to the window and cracked the curtains open, letting a little sun in before lying back down on his side of the bed, moving the kid so he could fit.

“Morning”, Karen greeted, stretching, eyes still closed, moving her face towards his for a kiss. “Something smells good.”

“I made breakfast”, he said softly as the dog sniffed Frankie’s face and the boy turned away, groaning and rolling until he was lying on his stomach. “Hey there, buddy. When’d you get here?”

Soon, Lisa padded out of her bedroom and joined them, hair a mess, also woken up by her nose.

They walked to the table and Frank carried his youngest like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder, placing him on the chair and laughing at his sleepy face while he blinked awake, staring at the plate in front of him.

Deep sleeper, Frank Jr.. Barely ever cried when he was a baby. Slept through the night from the beginning. Unlike Lisa, whose lungs capacity had humbled her parents and their neighbors alike.

Finally sitting down on his own chair after making sure everybody’s plate was full, Frank watched his daughter make plans with Karen about next year’s birthday, when she would be old enough for some of the bigger rides at Disney.

He thought he lost his family when he got divorced. Had night terrors about becoming one of those estranged fathers, alone and unloved for the rest of his life.

Instead, he never even had time to miss his kids. He just got a new dog, and there was a ring burning a hole inside the safe in his office.

All there was missing was a “yes”.

[chasholidays]

They Were the Best Years of My Life

An And So It Goes timestamp for @matriarchal and @lushatrocity!

i.

It's not like Bellamy wanted to have kids so that he could come up with family Halloween costumes. He loves Clarke, he's always wanted children, and once they've moved into a larger place and gotten their jobs stabilized, they figure they're ready.

It's still staggering and more than little terrifying to start a family, but then they have a baby, and he doesn't really have enough room left in his brain to not feel ready for that. He's too busy making she she doesn't choke on her own hand or something to think about how he's an adult with a house and a wife and a baby.

Cassandra is just over seven months old when October rolls around, and he remembers that Halloween is a thing, and for the first time ever, he has a tiny, living prop to work with.

"I came up with a list of costumes for us during my free period today," he tells Clarke when she gets home.

"For what?"

"Halloween. I'm going to need to get working if we're going to have three costumes by the end of the month."

She bites her lip, trying to hold back either a smile or laughter, he's not sure which. He's a little ridiculous about Halloween; he knows that. And Clarke knows it too. She thinks it’s cute.

“We’re going trick-or-treating with our infant? I think everyone’s going to know the candy is for us.”

“We must have something to dress up for,” he says. “She can come to parties with us. Or help us give out candy. Or just pose for pictures.”

“Maybe we should get into cosplaying or something,” she muses. “So you have more opportunities to dress her up.”

“Or you could just help me pick a family costume.”

“From the list that you made.”

“From the list that I made,” he agrees. “We’ve got years of family costumes to go. We just need to pick what order we do them.”

“I love you,” she says, shaking her head. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Bellamy's favorite thing about Halloween costumes is that there really is no limit. They range from fictional characters to generic professions, inanimate objects to vague concepts, which means he really has a lot to work with, and he thinks he has some great ideas there.

Clarke, however, gets stuck on the first one. "Frodo, Sam, and Gollum?"

"I'm Frodo, you're Sam, Cassandra is Gollum. She's mostly bald and isn't great at communicating. I could make her a One Ring pacifier."

It sounds as if Clarke is actually choking on her laughter, which is always an accomplishment when he can manage it. "Okay, that's--on the list. Pirates is a little vague."

"We're pirates and we rig Cassandra's stroller up to look like a treasure chest. That one might be better when she's a little older," he admits. "It would kill at trick-or-treating."

"Or when we have two kids and Cassandra has her own costume."

"Or that."

"Bat, Super, Wonder?"

"One of us is one of the Batpeople, the other is one of the Superpeople, Cassandra is Wonder Woman."

"I want Batgirl, you can be Superman."

"Cool, write that down."

In the end, they come up with ten potential costumes to do over the next decade, and settle on the Lord of the Rings group for this year, largely because Clarke can't stop giggling about it.

"Besides," she says, like Bellamy hasn't agreed and she still needs to justify herself to him. "That's a much better costume to show off to our friends than to go trick-or-treating in. We'll save the others for wider audiences."

"You know these were all my idea, right?" he asks, with a smile. "I like them. You don't have to convince me."

"I'm rehearsing for when our friends make fun of us. Just let me know how I need to help," she adds, and Bellamy kisses her and gets to planning.

He and Clarke are still the only ones in their immediate friend group with a child, but their friends also love Cassandra and never mind having to accommodate her when they make plans that involve Clarke and Bellamy. He knows the two of them don't go out to the bar to hang out with Gina as much as Monty, Miller, and Raven do, but they've pretty much accepted that. They have a baby; they're drinking at home.

The Halloween party is at his and Clarke's place this year, both because they have the largest place and because taking the baby places can be a pain, but a group costume doesn't have impact unless it's seen all at once, so Bellamy and Clarke both open the door, with Cassandra in her mother's arms.

Monty and Miller take a second to take them in. The costumes are great, if Bellamy does say so himself; they're not leaving the house, so he even made furry socks to give them authentic hobbit feet.

"You know," Monty finally says. They're dressed as Captain Cold and The Ray, which is also a pretty great costume he approves of. "We met playing Hearthstone. It shouldn't be possible that we're not the dorkiest people here. And yet here we are."

"Is that a One Ring pacifier?" asks Miller. "You can't just give Gollum the ring, guys."

"But it makes her so happy," says Clarke.

"I'm just saying, I wouldn't put my kid in a costume that actually encouraged her to bite my finger off," Miller says, and Bellamy shrugs.

"I'm willing to risk it. But I'll take that into consideration for next year."

"This is going to be a thing, isn't it?" Monty asks, wary.

"We've got a list," says Clarke, bright. "It's already a thing."

Monty just shakes his head, but he's still smiling. "Great, can't wait."

"Yeah," says Bellamy. "Neither can I."

ii.

It gets a little more complicated when Cassandra starts developing opinions of her own about how she'd like to dress for holidays, but it's the nice kind of complication. He remembers, a little bit, how it was when Octavia was growing up, what it was like to see her turning into a person before his eyes, but it's even cooler this time, when he's old enough to really understand and appreciate what's going on.

She's three and a half by the time she's articulate enough to express opinions on Halloween costumes, and when he asks what she wants to be, she thinks it over carefully and decides, "Chewbacca."

Clarke's sitting at the table looking at their budget, and he can actually see her trying not to laugh.

"Chewbacca?" he asks. "From Star Wars?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay," he says, inclining his head. "I bet we can do that. But it's going to be a lot of work to put all that fur together. Are you going to help me?"

"Uh huh."

"And you're not going to quit if it's too hard, right?"

"Nuh uh."

"Okay," he says. "Let's get started."

Obviously, he's not actually expecting Cassandra to do a ton of work, but it's never too early to start learning the basics of sewing and construction, as far as he's concerned. And it's not actually that hard a costume, in some ways. He can buy some brown leggings and a top, sew some fur on there, and then make a mask. And his and Clarke's costumes will be easy; Han and Leia is definitely a dream couples costume.

"One of the big Halloween secrets is that you only make as much stuff as you can't buy," he tells Cassandra, low. They're drawing up plans together, which means he's sketching actual plans, and Cassandra is drawing a picture of Han, Leia, and Chewbacca, which is mostly just a bunch of blobs.

"You know you can just buy the actual costume, right?" Clarke says. As usual, she's not contributing to the overall costuming process, but she likes to be close, so she can still be a little involved.

"Mom's right, but it's more fun when you make stuff. But making shirts is really boring."

"Really?"

"Yeah. But making the costume is going to be fun."

"Sure it is," Clarke mutters, and he sticks his tongue out at her over Cassandra's head.

Of course, he's right, and even Clarke gets in on it, as he knew she would, because Clarke doesn't know how to resist a project, especially when both he and Cassandra are involved. She puts her foot down that she wants Leia's Cloud City look, and Cassandra gets really into going to thrift stores with her looking for costume components, which is really kind of ridiculously cute.

It really is a group effort, and when they line themselves up for the first time in front of the mirror, no one's more excited than Cassandra.

"We look so good!" she says, and just like that, she's hooked.

Bellamy's never been so proud.

iii.

The next year, Clarke is visibly pregnant, so they have that to plan around.

"It's too bad she's too young to watch Fury Road," Bellamy muses, drumming his fingers against Clarke's stomach. "She'd definitely be a war boy."

Clarke laughs. "She's four, we're not showing her Mad Max just for a Halloween costume. I don't care how much you want her to ride eternal, shiny, and chrome."

"Which is what I said."

"Sometimes you say things hoping I'll secretly disagree."

It's not like she's wrong. "I just can't think of many age-appropriate characters who are visibly pregnant."

"That's because kids can't know that pregnancy exists, or else they'll ask where babies come from."

"God forbid." He sighs. "I guess she'll have a lot of opinions. You think you're going to be up for trick-or-treating? You've been a little tired."

"I think I'm good." She kisses his shoulder. "I don't want to miss it. And I really want to find out what you guys come up with."

He smiles. "Yeah, I'm looking forward to that myself."

He and Cassandra sit down to talk about it the next day.

"So, I was thinking it would be fun if our Halloween costume this year had the baby in it," he tells her, and she frowns.

"Is the baby going to be born?"

"No. But maybe Mom could dress as someone who's having a baby soon."

"Oh." She frowns. "That could be okay."

"Okay?" he asks, a little amused in spite of himself.

"I wanted to be ponies."

She's been watching My Little Pony basically non-stop on Netflix; he should have seen this coming. "And there's a pony with a baby?" he asks.

"Uh huh. Princess Cadance had a baby. So Mom can be Princess Cadance and you can be Shining Armor and I can be Twilight Sparkle!"

Twilight Sparkle is her favorite, so it's not like this is some great sacrifice for her. "You want to do that?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay," he says. "I bet we can figure it out."

And he really does mean it, but after about half an hour of googling, he'll admit he's not entirely sure what to do with the whole thing.

"I'm worried if we just dress up as ponies, we're going to be furries," he admits to Clarke.

"I think furry is something you already are, not something you become the first time you dress up as a cartoon horse."

"Is that based on something, or are you just guessing? Remember when the dean on Community got that dalmatian fetish? It could be like that."

"Community wasn't a documentary, Bellamy. Except for the documentary episodes," she grants, before he can make the argument himself. "Anyway, did you look at Equestria Girls?"

"At what now?"

She rolls her eyes. "Didn't you have a Navy buddy who was a brony? Why aren't you better at this?"

"I'm okay with not being better at this. What's Equestria Girls?"

"It's the one where all the ponies are humans in high school."

"How is that real?"

She shrugs. "No idea, but it would probably be a lot easier to do those costumes. Regular clothing decorated with, like, their cutie marks and stuff."

"You think that's going to be pony enough for Cassandra?"

"We can do pony ears, just to be safe. I bet you can talk her into that."

"Oh, so it's my job to talk her into it?"

"Halloween is your holiday, babe," she tells him, patting his shoulder. "I'll tell her that Santa's not real, when that comes up."

He laughs. "And you're fine with being a pregnant, anthropomorphic horse for Halloween? Just checking. I want it in writing that you're fine with this and it was your idea, because I don't want you to be complaining ten years later about how much this sucks."

"I promise I will only ever complain about the year you made me a pregnant anthropomorphic horse costume as a joke," she says, and he kisses her hair.

"Good enough for me. I'll see if the kid doesn't mind."

She's thrilled, of course, and Bellamy doesn't worry about it until the night of. It's their first year trick-or-treating with Monty and Miller; they'd only been fostering Dylan for a few months last year, and he wasn't comfortable going out with a big group of near-strangers. Now, he's settled in a little more and sees the wisdom in going on a longer route with nicer houses and better candy.

He's just that he is, unfortunately, also a six-year-old boy, so he looks a little wary at the sight of them.

"What are you supposed to be?" he asks.

"Ponies," says Cassandra, smug. "We always make family costumes."

"Oh," says Dylan. "That's cool."

"I bet Dad would make one for you too," she says, with the magnanimity of a child making a promise she won't have to put any effort into fulfilling. "If you want him to."

"We're not doing a six-person costume next year," Miller tells him, low. "I will actually murder him."

"I know," says Bellamy. He smirks. "We'll have the baby, so it's actually going to be seven people. Unless Raven and Gina want in, and--"

"There is something wrong with you."

"That too," he says. "Happy Halloween."

iv.

Seven people is really a lot to work with, Bellamy has to admit. It's why he and Cassandra decide they should start planning in September.

"It's like Christmas creep, but specific only to our family," says Clarke.

"They're already selling Halloween candy some places," Bellamy points out. "It's not just us."

"Well, I think we should go back to an old classic idea," she adds, which is surprising. Clarke usually considers her role in Halloween planning to be supporting, not leading.

"Yeah?" he asks, "What's that?"

"Pirates."

Cassandra lights up. "Pirates?"

"Yeah. Dad had this cool idea where he thought he could rig a stroller up so it looked like a treasure chest, and then the rest of us could be pirates, protecting it. That would be fun, right?"

"Yeah!" she says. She's practically vibrating with excitement. "Can we do that, Dad?"

"We should check with Uncle Nate and Monty and Dylan," he says. "Make sure they wants to do it too. But even if they don't, we make a pretty good pirate gang with just the four of us, right?"

"Uh huh," says Cassandra. "Well, three of us. Marc is the treasure, right?"

"Yeah. This one's going to be complicated," Bellamy adds, doing his best to bring some real gravity to the statement. "We have to put together the treasure chest. That's construction, not just sewing."

"I like complicated," Cassandra declares. "Let's do it."

Clarke, unsurprisingly, takes point on building the treasure chest; construction and artwork are her fields, and she manages to put together a sturdy cardboard shell that slides over Marc's stroller. For the lid, she finds some cloth to go over the top of the stroller, taking advantage of the part that folds up, and Bellamy has to admit, it looks awesome.

"It's almost like I'm good at things," says Clarke, with obvious smugness.

"It never gets old, finding new things you're good at," he tells her, fond, and leans in for a kiss. "Seriously, this is awesome."

"Of course it is. I love our Halloween tradition," she adds, with a small smile. "Just because I'm not always as involved--"

"I know." He smiles. "Trust me, I never doubted. Now you just have to help me come up with an appropriate pirate costume for you."

"I didn't know it was that hard."

The smile turns into a smirk. "When I think about you dressing up as a pirate, it's not exactly G-rated fantasies."

She laughs, tugs him down for another kiss. Both the kids are actually asleep, so there's an outside chance he's going to get laid tonight. He's pretty sure they can make it happen.

"So tell me about your idea tonight, and I'll help you figure out something appropriate for me in the morning," she murmurs, and he grins and tugs her closer.

"Works for me."

The pirate costume she ends up wearing to trick-or-treat is not, therefore, the pirate costume of his fantasies, but once the night is over and the kids are settled down, she undoes the top few buttons and tightens the corset, so, really, who says you can't wear Halloween costumes all year round?

They're going to get a lot of use out of this one.

v.

At age ten, Dylan is the one who finally says, "I want to be Spider-Man this year," and Bellamy and Clarke exchange a look,

Bellamy doesn't often think of the conversation he and Clarke had during their first Halloween together, all those years ago. He does remember it, but less on its own and more as the first time Clarke confirmed that she wanted to have kids with him, that she didn't just love him and want to stay with him, but that she was planning a future for them, the same as he was.

He did not expect, in any way, to actually have to make Spider-Man costumes for any number of children.

"I wanna be 'Pider-Man too," says Marc, right on cue. He thinks Dylan is the coolest person to have ever lived, which means that everything Dylan does, he wants to do too.

"Is there a girl Spider-Man?" asks Cassandra. "A good one. Not just Spider-Man with a ponytail."

"I think we can probably figure something out," says Bellamy. "But I'm not being Uncle Ben. There's no way I'm jinxing myself like that."

"I think as long as we're all in the Marvel family, it still counts as a theme costume," says Clarke. "I bet Monty will have ideas."

This, as it turns out, is an understatement.

"Okay, so, Spider-Gwen is awesome, Cassandra can be her. She's got a hoodie, it's a really cool aesthetic. And then Dylan can be Peter Parker Spider-Man and Marc can be Miles Morales Spider-Man."

“So they’re not just different costumes for the same person?” Bellamy asks, frowning. “How many Spider-Men are there?”

“How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?” Monty asks. “This is not for us to know. I already have a Black Widow costume, so I’m set. Assuming it still fits.”

His frown deepens. “Why do you already have a Black Widow costume?”

“Because I’ve already dressed up as Black Widow. Nate wants to be Heimdall.”

“Does Nate know that?”

Monty just looks at him, unimpressed. “It’s Idris Elba. Everyone wants to be Idris Elba.”

Bellamy can’t argue with that.

After some googling, Clarke opts for Captain Marvel for her costume, and Bellamy goes with Captain America, mostly because he has a thing for Chris Evans. And Clarke has a thing for Chris Evans. Everyone has a thing for Chris Evans, from what he can tell.

But for some reason, it feels like more work than usual.

“It’s because you’re making fucking armor,” says Raven. She and Gina are coming with them this year, but have opted for DC superheroes. Bellamy’s pretty sure Raven just wants someone to try to tell her she’s a fake geek girl who doesn’t know Oracle isn’t in the Marvel universe so she can fight them. Which he completely supports; he hopes she kicks their hypothetical asses.

“So it’s Miller’s fault.”

“And yours. You want a real shield.”

“What’s the point of having a fake shield?”

Raven rolls her eyes. “So have you always been like this, or is this a weird biological imperative? Like you had kids and decided you needed to disguise them so they’d be protected from predators.”

“That sounds real. I like Halloween,” he says. “Miller and I did costumes together when we were little, and I always liked it. And when O let me dress her up.”

“Masculinity meant you couldn’t play with dolls so you had to figure out another way to do it,” she supplies.

“Or I just like Halloween. Seriously, it’s fun. And I’ve got another five years tops before Cassandra decides she’s too cool to dress up with her family, so I’ve got to milk it while I can.”

“Kids sound exhausting, I’m glad I don’t have any.”

“Yeah, if that's how you feel about it, it's definitely good. You want to be sure about kids. But you’re still coming out with us? Trick-or-treating can be a lot."

"Obviously. I miss having an excuse to get free candy. The costumes look really cool," she adds, bumping her shoulder against his. "You're good at this."

"Costumes? Yeah, my mom taught me to sew when I was a kid."

"Not just that. You guys are good at all of this. I still feel like I'm not used to you being parents, but--you're doing awesome at it."

He smiles, but there is a lump in his throat. Validation never gets old. "Getting sentimental in your old age, huh?"

"Shut up," she says. "Metal-working always does that to me."

He puts his arm around her shoulders and gives her a squeeze. "Yeah, that must be it."

The costumes get done, and by the time Halloween rolls around, Bellamy really does feel like a successful parent. Not, of course, that Halloween costumes are the be-all and end-all of parenting, but--it's not just costumes. His kids have two parents who love them and are able to take the time to do things for them and with them, which is lucky, and they have adopted aunts and uncles and friends who all want to go out with them. When Bellamy was Cassandra's age, he was already taking his sister out alone, and while he could do that, he likes that his kids will probably become embarrassed to be seen with him long before he stops wanting to make them all family costumes.

"Do you think if we do this again next year and I start now, I could make myself web shooters?" Cassandra asks.

"Depends on what you're thinking," says Clarke, clucking her tongue. "You could probably get something that would shoot something out of it, but it's not going to be like real functioning webs."

"I know that," says Cassandra. "But I really like this costume, and it would be cool if we could do, like, silly string! Fwip, fwip," she adds, flicking her wrists at the darkness. Monty loaned her some Spider-Gwen comics, and Bellamy can sense the start of a new obsession. It really might last her all the way to next Halloween. "We could do that, right, Dad?"

"Raven might need to be technical consultant," he says. "I'm not really an expert on web shooting. But yeah," he says, putting his arm around her and giving her a squeeze. "Any costume you want, we'll figure it out. You know that."

"I do know that," she says, easy, and that's his favorite tradition.

After all, he gets to be a superhero every single Halloween.

[footballerindreams]

Bandage - Niklas Stark Imagine

WARNING! SMUT!

If you are not comfortable reading please do not continue or read at your own risk.

And this is just a product of the mind based on real people.

Please do respect writers. They are open to critics and opinions to enhance their skills but to bash them is wrong.

---

This is a part of my Niklas Stark and Samantha series fic. But they are a stand alone, one shot fic. Hope you like it.

---

The game against Bayern was really, really tough. Both teams could feel that given the fact that a 1-1 draw was the result of their match. For Bayern, it was a stumbling block, a stain on their record as of the moment, while for Hertha, it was worth it. Drawing with the record champions was great but doing it on Bayern’s Allianz Arena is making it more special; a feat rarely seen in the games.

But for one particular person, that tough match will be marked in his mind in another way. As the match ends, so is when he noticed a stinging pain on his left knee. He looked down and see that wounded knee dripping specks of small blood. He was limping a bit going towards the medics.

The celebration of their draw in the locker rooms is lying low already when he arrived from being treated. His friends Davie and Max looked at him with worry and he just grinned at them.

“Hey bro. How was it?” Davie asked Niklas, hanging his arm softly around the tall blonde boy’s shoulders.

“I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about. It’s only a scratch and nothing more.” Niklas assured and Davie just smiled back in relief and so as Max.

Time passes by and they left Munich for Berlin. On the ride home (by the plane), Max woke up in his nap and saw Nik’s a bit grimacing face. Max tried to get Davie’s attention of the other side of the aisle just beside them, succeeded and pointed towards their friend.

“Are you okay Nik?” Max asked.

“Yeah. I’m fine. My knee hurts a bit. It’s stinging.” Niklas said.

“I’ll remove the blanket okay.” Max said and lifted the blanket covering his friend’s legs. Nik was using shorts to ease his legs. “The bandage is soaked. It needs to be replaced.” Max recommended.

“It’s okay. I’ll just fix it when I arrive home.” Niklas interrupted.

“Are you sure?” and Niklas nods.

---

They arrived at Berlin and went to their own cars. Max and Davie were still looking at their friend contemplating to just accompany him to a hospital to be treated.

“Nik?” Davie said.

“I’m fine Davie. I can manage to get safely home. I’ll call you if something happens.” Niklas started to get annoyed and that is what the two friends do not want to happen.

“Okay. We will let you. Be careful.” Davie replied.

“I’m not dying and it’s just a scrape in the knee.” Niklas smiled back at them and went on.

---

Niklas was halfway through driving when he felt his knee hurt and bit numbing. He remembered that his friends told him to call them if anything happens but he does not want to worry them more so he decided to go to another person because where he is now is much nearer than his home. Blocking his thoughts of the pain in his knees he went on his way.

He arrived in the house he intends to stop by for help and knocks on the front door and the door opens.

“Hey Sam.” Niklas said smiling at the woman who opened the door for him.

“Nik! You’re here now. Come in.” Samantha gestured and Niklas went in.

And as the door closed, Nik pecked her lips and hugged her and realized that he is not his house.

“Oh shoot!” Niklas said.

“It’s okay. Annie and Andrew are not here. They went first to Basel for our family trip. I had to follow tomorrow afternoon since I have to finish things in the office earlier this day. I saw the game, it was so intense and…” Sam pulled Nik softly towards the couch and then noticed Niklas’ bleeding knee. “Oh my lord! Your knee! It’s still bleeding!”

“Yeah. About that?”

“I know. Sit down there. I’ll get the kit.” Samantha said and went to get the first aid kit she has.

Niklas sighed and looked at his knee then Samantha was back. Sitting down on the floor and opened the kit. “Let’s see that wound.” Sam said and removed the bandage slowly.

Niklas winced at bit because of the pain and some of his leg hairs plucked sticking on the plaster.

“Gosh, it’s getting blue because of the contusion. I’ll get some ice and put it here for a while.”

Sam got up get an ice pack and then returned. She rolled Niklas shorts’ sleeve a little higher on his muscular and hairy legs and applied the pack. She also noticed the big bulge on Nik’s shorts but didn’t mind it. Nik closes his eyes due to the sting and lay back on the couch. Sam then wiped the area clean and applied a new bandage. When she finished dressing Nik’s wound, she noticed a twitching motion in between Nik’s shorts and it’s larger now. She knows Nik is very well endowed that it always shows when he’s using tight pants or his jersey shorts and knows the difference in the size and manner of Nik’s junior. She looked at his face a bit flustered and discomforted. She just smirked and asked her guy.

“Are you okay? You seem to be in pain.” She asked.

“I’m fine. I’m still adjusting to the discomfort.” Nik said with his closed eyes.

“Is it because of the bandage? Is it too tight? I can loosen it.” Sam asked.

“N-no. It’s okay. Thanks.” Niklas replied.

“Or is it tight in here?” Sam asked again and palmed Nik’s tent in the shorts and the boy moaned and she smirked. “I guess we have to let it loose.” She said slyly and palmed him more until it twitched again.

“Please.” Niklas said.

Sam went to the waist band of the boy’s shorts and pulled it slowly down his ankles not letting the wounded knee be touched. The emboss of Niklas dick on his boxer briefs is long that it’s sideways and almost poking out on the lower sleeve. Sam did not waste time and removed the underwear as well swiftly just below his crotch and his dick slapped in his stomach. He sighed in comfort.

“Someone’s relieved.” Sam commented.

“Not yet.” Nik whined.

Sam continued to pull his underwear slowly in the same manner as his shorts and then opened Nik’s leg more so that she could be closer to his thing in between it.

She started her ministration by licking the tip downwards the shaft through the protruding vein.

Unconsciously Nik puts his hands on her head, gripping it firmly as she gives him a blow. It was too much pleasure for him. It’s been a while since he jerked or even slept with her.

“Ugh. Sam. I’m…” Nik stutters and Samantha stopped. She stands up and leaned down pulling on Nik’s shirt and removed him of his last garment. She then removed hers as well, standing naked in front of him. They’re both so turned on and there’s nothing more to do but go all the way. Nik swallows the lump on his throat and his cock twitches to his discomfort being so hard and precum starts to show. She goes back to him and straddled sitting his lap and whispered to his ear.

“Let me do the job.” She said.

“Okay.” He replied.

Sam rested her head on his shoulders and palmed for his cock and lined it up her entrance she lifts herself a bit then stab herself with Nik’s cock.

“Mm!” she moaned surprisingly and loudly biting her lips.

“Ah! Too! Tight!” Niklas exclaimed with his hands grabbing he back towards him.

Sam pulled herself up slowly leaving the head inside and thrust back slowly. Both are gasping in pleasure until Nik’s entire large dick is inside her.

“You okay?” He asked pushed her away from his torso to see her and she nodded.

She puts her hands on his shoulders and started pulling up and pushing down against her guy’s member on a steady pace then speeds a bit as the pleasure increases. Nik does not know where to place his hands so he just let it slide on her back, to the front on her breasts, to her legs and vice versa. Their sweat starts to show and mix up and both are feeling that they are reaching their high.

“Nik! You’re so thick and big!” she exclaimed.

“I’m almost close!” he said in his grit.

She increased her pace on riding him making Nik scream in pleasure.

“Come Nik! Please! Come! Do it inside!” she said.

“I-I-I! AAAAAAH!” Nik screamed, locking her legs and hips down on him as he lets out his load inside her deeply making her scream as her peak reaches at as well with him. He lay back on the couch while she falls down on his chest both gasping for air after their intense orgasm.

It took a while for them to recover and when they did it was Sam who first removed herself looking down to where they are connected, dripping wet with his and her cum. She almost stumbled down trying to stand up firmly.

“You? Okay?” Nik asked in between his breaths.

“Yeah. I’ll---I’ll just get towels and dress your wound again. It bled.” She said and left then returning with towels and a pair of shirt and shorts for Niklas and wiped each other’s bodies and she dressed his wound again.

“Just stay for the night Nik. You should have your knee rested. Just go home tomorrow.” She said as she wears her clothes again.

“Okay. I really should rest here…After what happened.” He smirked and she just blushed.

She pulled Nik from the couch and helps him wear the borrowed clothes and pulled her towards the bedroom.

“You made me use these clothes; probably your husbands and now you will let me sleep on your marital bed?”

“He does not use that anymore and you will not fit on my daughter’s bed and I won’t let you sleep in the couch and feel more pain by the morning.” She said.

“Like any mother should be.” Nik rolled his eyes.

“Is that a compliment or an insult?” she asked.

“Depends on how you understand it.” He replied.

“Dork.” She smiled at him and he did in return.

They settled in the bed with her spooning him to relax his knee and drifted to sleep.

---

@quack-and-yellow

[mirkwoodshewolf]

Chapter 1; Lagos

Alrighty guys and here is where we begin the plotline for Captain America: Civil War. Hope you guys enjoy it now in light of all that’s happened here in America I would like to take this time to warn my fellow America readers of Crossbone’s suicide part towards the end of the story (if you guys have seen the movie you’ll know what I mean) so warning of violence, Sam’s sassy back-talk and swearing mainly with the B word. Other than that no other warnings, enjoy my lovelies :)

__________________________________________________

For the past 6 months Steve, Sam, Nat, Wanda and I have been on the trail for one of the deadliest terrorists and former STRIKE commander for HYDRA Brock Rumlow who now calls himself Crossbones.  

Recently we have traced his foul scent to Lagos, Nigeria so our plan had to be as low-key as possible and try to minimize civilian casualties. 

Currently Wanda and Nat were undercover in a small café sitting just a table apart from each other.  As Wanda stirred her sugar into her coffee she heard in her earpiece Steve’s voice.

‘Alright, what do you see?’

“Standard beat cops, small station, Quiet Street. It’s a good target”.  Just across the café stood the police station with a few cop cars parked in front of it. Up in the hotel room, Steve Rogers peeked out from behind the curtain in his Captain America uniform with his shield attached to his back as he said.

“There’s an ATM on the south corner which means,”

“Cameras” I finished for him.  I was up on the rooftop with Sam scouting out the area alongside him.

“Both cross streets are one-way”.

“So compromised escape routes” stated Wanda.

“Which means our guy doesn’t care about being seen, he isn’t afraid to make a mess on the way out. You see that Range Rover over halfway up the block?”

“You mean the red one? It’s cute” stated Wanda.

“It’s also bulletproof, which means private security, which means more guns, which means more headaches for somebody probably us”. Stated Natasha as she picked up her coffee and took a sip of it.

“You guys know I can move things with my mind right?” stated Wanda.

“And my howls can easily stop anything from coming right at us” I mocked in the same tone Wanda used.

“Looking over your shoulder needs to become second nature” said Natasha as both she and Wanda glanced at each other. 

Sam walked towards me up on the ledge of the roof and said to Natasha through his earpiece.

“Anybody ever tell you you’re a little paranoid?”

‘Not to my face. Why? You hear something?’

‘Eyes on target folks. This is the best lead we’ve had on Rumlow in six months I don’t wanna lose him’.  Sam scoffed and said.

“If he sees us coming, that won’t be a problem, he kinda hates us”. Hanging out with both Steve and Sam on our early morning runs, they’ve told me the story of what happened in DC and how they literally dropped a building right on Rumlow, unfortunately he survived and was fixed up by medics and ever since his release, he’s been doing rouge terrorists deals.

Suddenly my ears caught the sound of honking and people shouting out rude comments.  I turned and saw a large garbage truck starting to go through a tight road filled with cars and people.

‘Sam, (y/n) you both see that garbage truck? Tag it’. Steve said to us.

“You sure you don’t wanna sit this one out She-wolf?” Sam said to me as he held his arm out and pressed some buttons ready to activate his little buddy Redwing.

“Please. I’ll tag it before your little pigeon gets there” I scoffed out. Then at the same time as Redwing flew in the air, I leaped off the building towards another rooftop. 

Thanks to my wolf enhanced agility, now in my human form I can easily leap over from one building to the next, scale up a building by leaping from wall to wall, and run about as fast as I can run as a wolf. 

I kept my eyes on Redwing hoping that this time I can finally rub it in Sam’s face that a wolf can beat a bird.

As we both got closer, I leaped down from the rooftop into an abandoned street alleyway and ran up towards the corner of the building and sniffed the air.

“Ugh! Well besides whatever else stinks up the air, plus the trash—I smell—powder-burns, the driver or someone in there has a gun”.

‘She’s right. Plus that truck’s loaded for max weight. And the driver’s armed just like She-wolf said’. Sam’s voice said in my ear. 

“It’s a battering ram” Natasha and I muttered together.

‘Go now!’ Steve’s voice rang out.

‘Why?’ asked Wanda.

‘He’s not hitting the police’. Said Steve.  We then all moved from our cover position knowing that now we’d have to improvise on the fly since our prediction of them hitting the police station was a misfire. 

The truck soon plowed itself through the secured gates of the Institute for Infectious Diseases.  Soon more trucks came up and mercs in full combat gear came out from the back and started open firing at anyone in sight.  Two guys then shot from their guns gas cans which spread green gas from inside the building causing everyone to pass out.

That’s where I came in, I leaped from the rooftop and my claws extended outward and I sliced one of the shooters down.  Another one started firing at me but I leaped up and as soon as I landed next to him he went down like a house of cards.

“(Y/n)!” I heard Wanda call out to me.  Using her improved telekinesis, she managed to immobile the merc and she tossed him to me. I leaped up and spinned roundhouse kicked him and landed skillfully on my feet.

“Four. Nice job She-wolf” Sam stated as he landed beside me. I smirked at him then using his pet Redwing he scanned the building and stated. “Rumlow’s on the third floor”

“Wanda, just like we practiced” said Steve as he came up to us.

“What about the gas?”

“You and (y/n) get is out”. She then used her powers to lift Steve up gracefully into the institute.  Wanda then turned to me and she said.

“You ready Wolfie?”

“Let’s do it Mama Bear, Sam mind giving us some cover?”

“On it!” Sam stood in front of us and his carbon-fibered wings created a shield for Wanda and me.  Using her powers to first draw out the smoke, then once I had the all clear, I used my resonance howl to send the smoke into the air.  

During Ultron, I didn’t know that I could do my resonance howl while in human form, but while training with the Avengers I was able to do it without causing so much destruction.

‘Rumlow has a biological weapon’ Steve’s voice said through our comms.

‘I’m on it!’ Natasha said.  Suddenly I heard tires screeching and an engine rev. ‘Sam. (Y/n), he’s in an AFV heading north’ Steve’s voice groaned.

“We’re up She-wolf, you wanna lift?” asked Sam.

“No thanks Sam, I’m capable of catching up to them, I once stopped an AFV when I was just 11 years old”.  Sam then took off flying and I phased into my wolf form but first looked to Wanda and she stared deeply into my golden wolf eyes and she said.

“I’ll meet you there with Natasha, go track them down Wolfie” I then let out a proud snarl then charged down the street and soon caught up with the AFV just to see it plowing through a small market area.

The men inside soon got out and split up and it was at that moment I saw Sam landing on top of a makeshift rooftop of one of the marketers. 

“I’ve got four, they’re splitting up”. I ran through the market then quickly changed back into my human form when I knew I could no longer fit through the crowd as a wolf and snarled as my eyes began to change back.

“I’ve got the two on the left!”  I ran as fast as I could through the crowd, my eyes locked dead on the two men just ahead of me.

‘He doesn’t have it. I’m empty!’ Sam stated through the comms. It was then I knew I had to stop these guys, one of them had it and if he were to let it lose, a whole bunch of people are going to die.

“Get out of the way! Move! Move! Move!” I barked at the people as I jumped over bikes, stacks of merchandise, benches and even people until finally I took a leap over a cart and tackled the big guy down to the ground.  Thanks to Natasha and some of the other female agents, I was able to fight almost as good if not slightly better than them.

The big guy tried to fire his gun but I pushed his hand aside and disarmed him and swung my fist across his jaw.  I then punched him in the chest over 7 times before kneeing him hard in the ribs and flipping him over.

My ears then picked up the sound of his buddy behind me cocking his gun, he fire but I leaped into the air in a backflip before landing on top of his shoulders.  I used my legs to squeeze his neck and I slammed my fists down on his head before using my weight to flip him and tossed him to the ground. Then using his arm like a beam, I flipped and kicked the big guy in the chest before bringing the smaller guy up.

I then punched him right in the nose twice before going under his leg and bringing it out from underneath him. Before he could even get up I punched him yet again and then finally reached for a gun next to us but as I aimed it at him, he had a gun pointed at me.  The two of us having a stare down

.“Drop it. Or I drop this” said the big guy.  I turned my eyes towards him briefly to see he had the biological weapon in his hand.  I growled softly before he cried out again. “Drop it!”

“He’ll do it!” His buddy screamed out.  Just before I could even make a decision, the big guy soon came down as something had shot him.   

I then made my move as my fangs came out and I killed the smaller guy then reached out with my hand and grabbed the tube just barely before it touched the ground.

I stood up to see Redwing levitating right next to me, I moved my hair out of my eyes and said.

“Payload secure. Thanks Sam”.

‘Don’t thank me’ he mocked.  I rolled my eyes and said.

“I’m not thanking your pigeon”.

‘Aww come on She-wolf you wound me’.

“I’m gonna take my pride and still not thank him”.

‘Okay then no treats for you for a week’. I rolled my eyes but then my ears soon heard the sound of screaming and I smelled the air. Oh god—I held out the tube for Redwing which he opened up a compartment for me to put it safely in and I took off running.  I just hope I’m not too late. 

When I reached the open area of the market, I saw Steve fighting with Rumlow, I smelled the scent again and it was stronger than before.  I growled then just before Rumlow could land another punch to him, I tackled him in my wolf form and used my fangs to crush and disarm his land weaponry arm before pining him down by the head with my huge paw, snarling in his face. 

“So, I’m gonna assume you’re the She-bitch everyone’s been talking about back home”. At that insult I snarled louder and angrier.

“(Y/n) down!” Steve said in a commanding voice. I turned to him glaring at him but knowing that he was the Alpha I couldn’t go against his word.  I released Rumlow and phased back into my human form as Rumlow stood up on his knees and took off his helmet revealing his deformed face.  Steve walked up to him and gripped him by the vest jostling him making him exclaim for a brief second before saying.

“I think I look pretty good, all things considered. And I see you managed to teach the stubborn bitch how to sit” Oh I swear if he calls me bitch one more time I’ll do more to him than that building did, and no amount of doctors will be able to repair his smug face.

“Who’s your buyer?” demanded Steve.

“You know he knew you. Your pal, your buddy, your Bucky”. Rumlow sneered.  Steve’s aura went from demanding to shock like a snap. 

“What did you say?”

“He remembered you. I was there, he got all weepy about it. Till they put his brain back in a blender. He wanted you to know something. He said to me…‘please tell Rogers. When you gotta go, you gotta go’ and you’re coming with me”. Distracted by Steve’s pain I forgot to mention what it was that I had smelled earlier.

“Steve HE’S GOTTA BOMB!!” I tackled Steve out of the way and in the midst of blowing himself up, we saw red mystic force holding it back, Steve and I both turned to see Wanda struggling to hold it.  She then let out a yell as Rumlow soon went flying up but it wasn’t enough. 

The building right next to us soon blew up. 

People ran screaming in fear, the smell of death filled the air at least for me and Steve, Wanda and I just stood there in absolute shock.

“Oh my—Sam…we need—fire and rescue, on the Southside of the building. Come on (y/n) we gotta get up there”. As Steve took off I turned to Mama Bear who only looked at what she had just done in absolute horror, shock and most of all regret.

[artdjgblog]

Innerview: David Hudnall / The Pitch

August 2011​

Photo:​ NA / Posters: DJG Design

Note: Featured news article.

Danny Gibson’s Quiet Contributions

Forty hours of Danny Gibson’s week are occupied by a data-entry job, but when he’s not at work, he’s often putting together an art project of some kind in the basement of his house, which sits south of 39th Street in the shadow of the old Loretto Academy building. Gibson is a collector of things — gloves, old toys, obsolete technology, office paper, corn husks, helicopter leaves — and he stores his prized finds in this colorful subterranean lair. That he is an artist who uses much of what he collects in his work cushions him from the label of the collector’s less endearing alter ego: the hoarder. But a case could be made. Gibson is best known for DJG Design, the name under which he has been designing poster art for local and national bands for the past decade. Starting September 2, he’s displaying somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 original pieces of work in an exhibition, Quietly Contributing, at 1819 Central Gallery. None of them are for sale. After the show concludes at the end of the month, he’ll haul them all back to his cave. “I’ve only sold a few originals,” Gibson says, sorting through a dusty stack of notes, sketches and old prints. “A lot of this stuff I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of. They mean too much to me.” Nosing around Gibson’s basement is like flipping through an old yearbook of the Kansas City and Lawrence music scenes. Anvil Chorus, In the Pines, the Stella Link, Namelessnumberheadman, Doris Henson, the Afterparty, and about a hundred other local bands�� names — many defunct and mostly forgotten — are inventively fashioned onto show posters. In this way, the 1819 Central show isn’t just a celebration of Gibson’s work. It also serves as a kind of retrospective of the past 10 years in our local music scene. “There’s a sort of timeline or history involved with these posters,” he says. “Lots of stories, lots of other people’s bands. Promoters, venues. Posters have such a short life span, and then they’re kind of forgotten. So it’ll be neat to line it all up.” This winter, Gibson made the decision to retire DJG Design in order to focus more fully on visual art, which also makes the show a bit of a memorial. “I had been wrestling with the design thing for several years. I’ve always been more into visual art than design,” Gibson says. “And I’ve been kind of moving out of the music scene in some ways. A lot of my friends in bands have grown up and moved away. I don’t get out as much as I used to. I woke up one morning in February and was like, ‘I’m done.’ It felt good.” Gibson grew up on a farm in north-central Missouri — barnyard imagery is a recurring theme in his work — then studied art and design at Missouri State University in Springfield. After four years, he dropped out and relocated to Kansas City, where he moved into a house (“a rathole by where Costco is now”) with some Elevator Division band members, whom he knew from Springfield. The house became a sort of revolving door for local musicians, and Gibson converted the basement, used by a previous tenant as a photography studio, into his own art studio. He started making posters for Elevator Division shows, which led to work with other bands. “A lot of people knew Elevator Division, so people would see my stuff and come to me and be like, ‘Hey, will you make us a poster?’ ” he says. “I got paid a lot of times in cheeseburgers. There’s no real money in making poster art for your friends’ bands. But it was exactly what I wanted to do. Make art, mix it with music. I had a really great time with it.” Working for design and advertising firms was never appealing to Gibson, partially because of his aversion to computers. (He has a very old-looking desktop in his basement that contains a version of Photoshop’s 1999 5.5 version, which he uses sparingly.) For many of his DJG years, Gibson was employed as a janitor at the Kansas City Board of Trade, an occupation that allowed both his collector’s instincts and his artist’s instincts to run wild. He once intercepted 15,000 sheets of office paper headed for the Dumpster and took them home. Plant clippings he discovered in a trash can were repurposed as the font for a Billions poster. “I’m big on process, and being a janitor allowed me to work out a lot of my daily thoughts and ideas,” Gibson says. “I’d end up writing and sketching things on paper towels. Sometimes I’d put the paper towels, or whatever I was writing on, into the final posters. I love midcentury Polish poster art and folk art. The hands-on, cut-and-paste approach. I like including my notes or even my e-mails on posters. It gives it a more human element that I think is missing in a lot of computer design stuff these days.” Gibson’s imaginative worldview makes it easy for him to artfully convert cat hair into lettering, but self-promotion comes less naturally. I spoke to a number of people who consider Gibson one of the most talented artists in the city. But Gibson largely lacks ties to the local art establishment. “I like to sort of exist in my own little world, I guess,” he says. “In some ways I don’t think I really understand the adult world. I can survive in it. But I prefer to be down here in the basement, working on my stuff.” Lately, though, some friends who believe strongly in Gibson’s work have emerged to assist him in getting his name and work further out into the public sphere. Some of them, not surprisingly, are musicians. Coinciding with Quietly Contributing is DJG Was Here, a 35-song compilation album (downloadable for free at noisetrade.com/djgwashere) featuring music from many of the musicians for whom Gibson has designed posters over the years: Darling at Sea, Max Justus, Sam Billen, the ACBs, Thom Hoskins, David Seume. “Danny puts sweat into everything he makes,” says Bryan Lamanno, whose band, the Tambourine Club, appears on the compilation. “He’s not just sitting at a computer. I always just let him do whatever he wants when he designs stuff because he always comes up with something fun and interesting and intricate.” Though Gibson is a collector, he also likes to share and is eager for others to see what he’s put together for Quietly Contributing. “There’s some great moments that I’m excited for people to see,” Gibson says. “Sometimes I look at these posters and I’m like, ‘What was I doing? How did that happen?’ There’s something much bigger to it all that I can’t really explain.”

We asked Gibson to pick a few of his favorite posters and talk about the process and ideas behind them.

001) Darling at Sea, Anvil Chorus (New Year’s Eve at the Brick) New Year’s Eve being such a big night, I wanted to shoot for an epic poster. I had an idea of the post-party: the contents of an insane partygoer’s stomach or the contents on the floor the morning of January 1. So, I set a rule for myself and just grabbed whatever I could at arm’s length around me at my studio desk. I threw it all on the scanner and created a sea of strange things swimming. The posters were printed in black on Wall Street Journals I saved from my day job, and I hit them up with a red heart rubber stamp. I’m pleased with the typography on these, especially for a computer font, which I’ve used very sparingly over the years. 002) Violet Burning, the Billions, Gabriel Yard I was working as a janitor, wondering to myself about a unique, springlike concept for a poster for this show. I had been away from my cart cleaning something and came back to it and found plant clippings and prunings anonymously placed in it. I instantly saw this poster. I pushed my cart down to my little dungeon desk, decided to go on break, and started making the typography. 003) Onward Crispin Glover, the People, Elevator Division At the time I made this image (2002), I was more aggressive about incorporating political-social messages into my work. It was my early 20s, and I guess it was the post-art-school political-poster-making in me talking? I think the news at the time had some major headlines about American importing and exporting. So, I have a backwards American monster eating a ship. The image was made in ink, and the boat was cut from a very old book. I ran this through an old fax machine to get the dirty look and then printed it on old green-and-white-striped computer paper. Notice this show was at the Pub, which is now the Brick. I always forget that. It’s interesting to see a bit of history in something as short-lived as a concert poster. 004) Flattery Leads to Ruins, James Dean Trio, Roosevelt I had a ton of fun with this one in a pop-art kind of way, I guess. I also enjoy a chance to throw celebrities or notable people into art. I was literal with playing off the band names James Dean Trio and Roosevelt. But the other, Flattery Leads to Ruins, came out of the headlines at the time. Martha Stewart was on trial, and I would watch CNN every day while cleaning a lunch area at my day job. This is a great example of taking visual liberty with a batch of bands on a concert bill. With the printing I made black-and-white photocopies and then ran them back through an oversized printer to get the color. 005) Atom and His Package, Brazil, Pixel Panda, Mail Order Midgets This is one of my personal favorites. I love a good visual pun, and I like to spin ideas off of band names. Here we have a guy named Atom carrying a package of Mail Order Midgets and a Pixel Panda (the panda is based from my childhood drawings of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). The original art will be on display at my poster exhibition, and it’s fairly big compared to the small print the final poster ended up as. I’d love to revisit these characters; there’s a good road-trip story there. I’ve always had visions of being cursed or challenged to journey cross-country carrying specific heavy things in my arms along the way. I think about that with this poster. Poor Atom.  

[sofiaruelle]

Hey Sofia! I was wondering, have you seen Stranger Things 2 yet If so, what did you think of it? love your art!! xxx

I’m glad you asked!I’m actually about to watch Episode 9 right this moment (on Nov. 8; 9:58am). (And i finished this 5:48pm writing this)

The CGI has gotten better 8)))))))))I LOVE THESE KIDS SO MUCH. They’re so good. Like we already know they’re amazing actors since Season 1. BUT LIKE THEY’RE EVEN MORE AMAZING IN SEASON 2 especially with Will’s and Mike’s PTSD.Ngl, i kind of stopped watching a bit around episode 3…. cause it was such a slowburn that didnt really hold my interest for so long.  I mean i’m all about slow burns in stories and the many perspectives is to set up everything for the last few episodes but yeah idk i got distracted by Net juu no Susume.Like i kind of wished they kept up with the DnD running theme that they had in the first Season?? or atleast kept with the Video Game references since they set that up in episode 1 just so everything is more tied up together… if that makes sense? I mean yeah sure they added that in the LAST part but like eh… THE LAST FEW EPSODES THOOOOOOOOO.

fersure i am dying in feelings.spoiler-y feelings under the keep reading (sorry for being all over the place i am not eloquent)

SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!! Sorry for the long read. i have feelings.WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLike damn Noah Schnapp his acting is AMAAAAZING. LIKE HOLYYYYYYYSHITTTT. Especially this season everyone is just *EYE EOJIS AT WILL*. and BOOOOOOOOIIII did Noah step uppppp. I love how he’s wide eyed terriffied lamb protect at all costs and then the next he’s a stone cold intense.When Eleven was introduced outside of the Upside down so early into the series, I lowkey wished she stayed longer in the Upside Down cause they built it up in the first season that it takes her a while to recover after she uses her powers. i mean she was getting stronger…. but like you know…. idk. But i kind of liked the flashbacks of her surviving in the forest. And i also appreciate the fact most of the adult she has encountered arent mean to her. They’re always genuinely concerned for her well being and wished her well in her en devours.  8))))))

I like Eleven’s father-daughter relationship with Hopper. He’s relearning to be a dad and she’s learning how to human(?) and find herself. and its cute and they’re gonna be ok. (but i find the Mom files, that she finds, being in the cabin a little too convinent??? like hopper could have kept it in his house? but he also might have moved out to the cabin as well… *SHRUGS*) I’m just happy Hopper has an Arc of his own this season. The episode with her sister was kind of out of place? and kind of loses the urgency in the story and its feels disjointed??? but I also hope she’ll one day reunite with her sister and they’ll patch things up. (season 3!!!!!!!!!!!!)CAN WE ALSO TALK ABOUT LUCAS AND MAX?????????? THEY’RE SO CUTE. Lucas was really great. Im glad they gave him more screen time and really delved down to his character so he no longer seems like he’s angry 24/7. The glimpsed  we get of his home life is such a gem. I love it. especially his sister. WAHAHHAHA I sometimes think Max was added in for the sake of middle school romance and throwing a wrench in the boy’s friendship….. Like i dont hate her perse… i just didnt like how handled her character.  Like the time between after she helped out setting the trap in the junk yard; up until the time she stabbed her brother in the throat with morphine…. she was kind of tossed aside. i feel like there was some sort of deleted scene where she figures out how to drive a car ????? idk. I do hope she has a bigger impact next season. LET HER BE BEST FRIENDS WITH EL PLEASE.God Bless, Dustin. My sweet boy. I still cant believe he still has insecurities in his friendships (i cant believe he was fine with being replaced by Max in the party). I teared up when he kept calling out to his friends on the radios and no one was answering him. AND THE THING AT THE DANCE. ugh. that hit close to home. Nancy dancing with him ties up nicely with the first episode when he offers her pizza and she slams the door on his face. (Also i like how this didnt develop with out of place inappropriate pervy jokes at Nancy’s expense like in most movies when the comedic relief get the most beautiful girl in the end)

Also i love his new relationship with Steve. also i want him to be the Disney princess of the Demadogs. (i’ll probs draw that later)

STEEEEEEEEEVEEEEEEEEEEEEE. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENTTTTTTT YAAAAAAASSSSSSSS. best baby sitter. best older brother. I wish he had closure with Nancy. Like girl dick move for cheating on him when you guys have ambiguously broken up. idk man. The way they wrote Nancy was disappointing. I dont want to blame it on her PTSD? but i wish she just said something when Steve was assuring her that it was ok. LIKE GIRL DONT JUST LET HIM WALK AWAY. SAY SOMETHING. (whelp there goes my hopes and dreams for a jonathan steve nancy sandwhich *SOBS*)  Nancy is a smart cookie and i wish they handled her relationship with Steve and Jonathan better. She was pretty bad ass for grabbing that shot gun tho. Like Hopper didint even question it. and she took it like a master gunsman? marksman? like she was born to wield that gun. Good job on continuity. 8))))))))))))))))))))))))

The Park scene was A+++.That Conspiracy theorist tho………. I was expecting him to be a red herring of sorts? The Vodka… the russian music… It might be him just being vaguely racist in the “If i drink this and listen to this i will get into that Soviet headspace“ kind of sense? But i was expecting him to be a Russian spy and maybe do some damage later on and not just be there to help Nancy and Jonathan realized their attraction and give Barbs her closure. IDK. (and like shouldnt the blue side of the american flag be on the left side when you hang it vertically? or the blue side being on the right mean war or something? idk im not american. please confirm.)Joyce………… man. Also good character development. Cant believe she went from “need to save my boy” to “must protect at all cost cause he a fragile” to “i need to hurt my son in order save him” like damnnn. i was expecting Jonathan to convince his mom to amp up the heat and not the other way around. MY GOD. BOOOOOBBB BOOOOOOOOOOOOOBBBBBBB. THE SUPERHERO WE ALL NEED. UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHH(I did not expect Samwise to be pretty tall. Also a friend pointed out that he was Sam and i’m just he’s the tallest hobbit). uggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh cant believe he died.Billy………………….Dacre Montgomery he’s so beautifullllllllllll. like his eyelashes are so fucking long and his jawline can cut me like a bitch. he’s a fucking beautiful man. and i am just fucking straight when i see his  but goooooooooooooood his character is such a fucking asshole. his lines were amazing. they tried to save his character by showing his shitty dad but i need one big redemption arc before i completely appreciate Billy. For now i will grumpily admire his eyelashes and jawline.ALSO I TEARED UP WHEN WILL SAW ELEVEN THE FIRST TIME IN 353 DAYS. AND I AM JUST SO HAPPY THEY GOT TOGETHER IN THE END. It wasnt too fan service-y (unlike Jonathan and Nancy) and it was just so sweet and right when they finally were together.ACKKKK SORRY FOR THE LONG POST. and the shitty grammar.

[welcometophu]

Not Your Destiny: Chapter 8

Marked Book 1: Not Your Destiny

Chapter 8

[ Previous | First | Next ]

Ángel wakes up to the feeling of something poking him in the back, while a warm body lies on top of him, pressing him into a too-thin, too-hard mattress. He shifts, and Gabi groans, patting his chest.

“Don’t move,” she mumbles. “You’re softer than Luca’s couch.”

“Why am I on Luca’s couch?” While the couch has been pulled out as a bed, it doesn’t look as if anyone bothered to make it up. Ángel is wrapped with Gabi in a pair of blankets, with a pillow shoved under Ángel’s head. Gabi’s head is tucked against his chest, and she presses her hand against his chest again when he tries to roll away.

“We all came to one place after last night,” Gabi mumbles, patting him gently as soon as he stops trying to move. “You and Tanner and Hayley were totally smashed. Sam was kind of gone, too. Zita went home after; Danny would’ve killed her if she stayed out. But everyone else pretty much stayed here.”

“Luca’s place,” Ángel clarifies.

Gabi is silent, then makes a noise that sounds like no.

“Not Luca’s place,” Ángel tries again.

“’S’complicated,” Gabi mumbles. “It’s a really big place. But this is Luca’s couch.” She grabs the blanket, pulls it up over both of their heads. “It’s a shitty couch, but we should just keep sleeping. Easier than walking to my room.”

“You have a room and we’re… here. Did we…?” Ángel sits up, spills Gabi off to one side. He’s still wearing his jeans and his shirt, everything but his shoes. Gabi’s in sweats and a different shirt than he remembers.

“Fuck, no.” Gabi sits up, pushes her hair out of her eyes. “Ángel, I wouldn’t have sex with a guy so drunk he couldn’t think straight. Or not-straight. You may have waxed poetic about some guy’s ass last night, I don’t even know who. I sat on you to make sure you didn’t do something you’d regret. Besides. You kept saying you didn’t want to sleep alone, and Hayley and Tanner took one of the guest rooms.”

No, no, it’s okay, you guys go sleep together. I mean sleep. Just don’t. Please? I mean, I can’t tell you no, but really, maybe not tonight? It’s only been like a day, and Hayley, you’re better than that.

His own voice echoes in his head, and he winces at the memory of leaning on Tanner’s shoulder, lecturing them both. “Fuck, I was kind of an ass.”

“Kind of,” Gabi agrees. “But I don’t think they hate you. They were both pretty much plastered, too.”

Ángel falls back against the pillow, groans when the spring digs into his back just above his kidney. He closes his eyes, presses the heels of his hands against his eye sockets. “I can’t remember half of last night. After I started dancing again. After I told you guys about the soulmark ritual.” He groans again, long and loud. “And fuck me, why did I start telling you guys all my personal shit, anyway? It’s not like you care.”

Gabi rests a hand on his shoulder. “We care. Sort of. I mean, we’re stuck with you for another month, right? And you’re almost family for Maritsa and Cleto, which makes you our family once removed. Also, you should be warned for next time that Zita plus alcohol is a really potent combination for spilling your guts. You are not the first to fall prey to that. Danny won’t drink with her, and they’re married.”

Ángel opens his eyes slowly, rubs the sleep from them.

Then stops.

Because fuck.

There’s ink on his wrist: a sleek spotted cat with tufted ears and chin, poised to pounce, with a simple circle behind it. The skin around is slightly red, the color faded as if it burned into being hours before.

“What…? Oh.” Gabi leans in, sniffs at his wrist. “Yeah. It’s done now.”

He grabs her hands, twists them both. “It can’t be you. We touched—”

“Several times and it was still clouded when we talked last night, yes,” she says. “It’s not me. Hey.” She reaches for his face, cups his cheeks carefully. Her fingers are to the side of his eyes, blocking out the light so all he can see is her. “It’s okay, Ángel. You’re going to be fine. Whoever it is, they’re marked too, right? How hard can it be to figure out who got a surprise tattoo last night?”

“Unless they were drunk and think they got a real one,” Ángel says. His chest is too tight, and his hand curls into his shirt, twisting it above his heart. “They have no idea. I don’t know who it is. I touched someone last night, and it’s—they’re… fuck. I don’t know.”

“Breathe.” Gabi says, and Ángel does his best.

His skin itches, and his wrist aches like burning now that he’s seen the mark. He’s wide awake now, heart hammering, and he feels like his bladder is going to burst if he doesn’t move soon. “I need to go,” he says, and she lets him go, pulls backward to give him room.

He gets his feet on the floor, and the room spins, head pounding as he makes it upright. He grips the side of the couch for a moment, then takes a step. He stops, turns back. “Bathroom?”

Gabi points at a door on one side of the room, while the door on the other side opens. Ángel just reaches the door she pointed to when he hears Luca ask, “Is Ángel all right?” and Gabi’s whispered response.

No footsteps follow him, and that’s fine. Good.

The door opens into a hall, and Gabi yells, “Left!” so he turns in that direction. One door stands slightly open, and he hurries to it, thinking that has to be it. He shoves it further open, stopping when it smacks into someone.

Yes, it’s the bathroom.

Sam and Max are in it, one in boxers and the other in sweats, lips locked as they lean against the counter. Sam grunts at the impact from the door, and Max blinks at Ángel, pupils large and black.

“Bathroom,” Ángel manages to say, his throat tight.

Max tugs at Sam and they both squeeze through the open door, leaving Ángel just enough room to get past them and in, slamming the door behind them. He falls to his knees in front of the toilet, waits.

His stomach roils, but doesn’t empty, despite the ache behind his eyes. He closes his eyes, lowers his forehead to touch the lip, groans quietly.

“You okay in there?” Sam calls out.

“I’m not dying,” Ángel replies, even though he feels like his heart is pounding so hard they must all be able to hear it. Maybe some of them can hear it. Clan. He hasn’t confirmed it, but Gabi keeps smelling him. They have to be Clan. Right? But Clan and Mages. The Mollicones and Maritsa and Cleto.

It doesn’t make sense in his head.

Nothing makes sense.

A knock at the door. “Do you need me to get you some water?” Sam asks. “You’re probably dehydrated. You had a good time last night.”

“Heard you did, too,” Ángel mutters. “Probably better than I did after we left Antigone.” He draws in a breath, relieved that it comes more easily this time. He lets it out slowly, pushes himself to his feet. “I’m okay. I’ll go to the kitchen after this.” He pauses. “If you tell me where the kitchen is.”

“Stairs are at the end of the hall. Go down, and to the back of the house. You can’t possibly miss it.” A soft rap against the door. “And if you need something, yell. There are enough of us here. We take care of each other.”

Ángel laughs dryly. He’s pretty sure no one can take care of this.

He takes care of business, now that his stomach is no longer roiling, and washes his hands. He tries not to look at his wrist, but the ink catches his eyes every time he glances down. When he exits the bathroom, Sam and Max are gone, but Gabi and Luca are hovering in the door to Luca’s room.

Ángel crosses his arms as he walks back to them.

“It’s going to be colder today than yesterday,” Luca says, nodding at Ángel’s short sleeves. “Want a hoodie?”

Maybe asshole isn’t the right word for Luca. Maybe savior, at least right now, although Ángel suspects he’ll be back to asshole later. Ángel nods, takes the soft grey Tampa Bay hoodie that Luca offers. Luca must have arms like an ape, because the thing is too long, covering Ángel’s wrists easily, and he takes another shuddering breath once they’re hidden.

Luca holds up his hands, wrists toward Ángel. Both are blank, and Ángel nods.

“Thanks.”

“Anything to make you stop stinking,” Luca says.

“I just don’t know how I missed it. When it happened to Hayley, she jumped like something bit her. She didn’t see it happen, she felt it.”

“You weren’t exactly feeling much after the amount of beer you had in you last night,” Gabi says dryly. “You should probably start the morning with some painkillers and a lot of water, or you’re going to be miserable at the garage.”

“We leave in thirty,” Luca adds, and that’s another small punch to the gut.

“Right.” Ángel’s still wearing yesterday’s clothes. He smells a little like beer, and he’s feeling that headache coming on. And every time he looks down, he knows that his wrist is there and he’s going to see some damned cat that means something to someone else and he doesn’t know what.

And the worst of it is, he doesn’t know what would show up to signify himself, either, so he doesn’t know what to look for. If he even had any idea where to look.

He wavers, uncertain. He tugs on the sleeves, pulling them over his wrists, curling his hands inside. “Sam said the kitchen’s downstairs?” he asks, because he just needs to get away.

“Yeah, Tony’s been up for an hour already, so there’s probably food out. He does that when Sam and Max crash here,” Luca says. “It’s easier than letting them go through the cabinets. Gives us some more control over what they eat.”

“They don’t live here.”

Gabi snorts. “God, no. They have an apartment. So do Maritsa and Cleto, although honestly, they stay here half the time because this place is better, so they might as well kick in for rent. Zita lives with Danny in the suburbs. Me, Tony, and Luca all share this place, and we’ve got three guest rooms, too. Big rooms, but it’d be better if we had en suite bathrooms. I have to share with Luca and whoever’s in the guest space on this floor.”

“It’s a huge house for the area,” Luca admits. He grabs his leather jacket, shrugs into it. “I’m going out for a bit. You should eat. Shower if you want, there are towels in the closet inside the bathroom. No one will mind if you use something. But you’ve only got twenty-five minutes now, unless Tony says he doesn’t mind if we’re late.”

“I’ll ride in with Tony, give you a few extra minutes. You need to drop Tanner and Hayley off anyway,” Gabi reminds him.

Because Tanner and Hayley are here as well. Somewhere.

Ángel gestures down the hall to the stairs he can see. “I’m just going to….” He fails to finish the sentence, but Gabi nods as if he did. He doesn’t wait for either of them to reply before he walks away.

The stairs at the end of the hall go both up and down. Ángel can hear footsteps on the floor above, plus he spots a small landing only a few stairs up, and another door there. Maybe a space over the garage.

It’s none of his business. This isn’t his house, and it’s probably the only time he’ll be in it.

He really doesn’t care how big it is, doesn’t wonder where that door leads and why there are so damned many rooms.

Still, he walks up the few stairs to the landing, pauses looking out through the window, his hand on top of the low bookcase. He’s somewhere on the outskirts; he doesn’t really recognize the area, but there are other houses, mostly low and close together aside from this one. It has a yard, and with three floors he already knows it towers over most homes. With the bright grass outside, and the wrought iron fence he can see in the distance, he wonders exactly how much this house and land cost.

And how the hell three people under thirty afforded it.

The idea that Mollicone’s is a mob front drifts back into mind, and Ángel tries to ignore it. He knows it’s not true and it’s honestly a horrible stereotype, but he also knows there’s money coming from somewhere.

His fingers trail over the wood, knocking into a small statue that is on top of the bookcase. Ángel crouches down to take a closer look, snickers when he realizes that it’s a cheap ceramic knockoff of Michelangelo’s David. When he lifts it, the words Florence 2001 are written in awkwardly formed letters on the bottom. He sets it back down carefully, not wanting to destroy something that’s so obviously a keepsake from childhood.

He rocks back on his heels, lets his fingers drift over the spines of the books lining the two shelves of the case. All hardcovers, all old, and all well-read. He’s pretty sure some of them are older than he is, including a copy of a children’s book that’s so tattered that he’s afraid the binding would rip if he tried to pull it out. Still, he wonders what a book about a little girl named April and her kittens is doing here, alongside girl detectives and boy wizards, and not a few classics written long before anyone in this house was born.

The sound of laughter drifts up the stairs, and Ángel turns to go back down before he’s made a conscious decision to do so. He follows the murmur of Hayley’s voice, finds the kitchen just as Tanner bends down to lightly press a kiss to her lips. Hayley leans back against the long island, her hands framing Tanner’s face. His hands are on the marble, his body language cautiously staying out of her space except for where their lips touch. Sparks dance from her fingertips, lighting the tips of his hair.

Ángel coughs, and they break apart. A flush suffuses Hayley’s cheeks, but Tanner just grins.

“Dude, look at all the food. Real food.” Tanner gestures at the long, heavy oak table on one side of the huge kitchen. There are enough chairs to seat a dozen people, but no one is there currently. Plates line the table with bacon, eggs, fruit, bagels, along with two boxes of cereal and a carton of milk. It’s obvious that most of it has already been dug into, but there’s still plenty left.

Hayley reaches up, tucks her hair behind her ear then twists the strand around her fingertip. “Tony was down earlier, said he does this after nights like last night. He called us Gabi’s strays. Or Sam’s strays. I don’t know which, he kept changing it. He’s really cute, isn’t he? Tony, I mean, although Sam’s really kind of hot, too, and he and Max are so very hot together. Luca’s cute, too, and Gabi’s adorable, and did I hear that you slept with her last night?”

“Slept,” Ángel replies curtly, arms crossed, trying not to tug the wrists of Luca’s hoodie down. “I apparently used her like a teddy bear, or she used me as a mattress or something. And she’s kind of an asshole, and so’s Luca, but I like them. And I don’t really care how hot anyone is, I’m not looking.”

He’s not looking at anyone here, anyway. He’s touched them all before, he knows it’s not them. It can’t be any of them. Which means it’s someone anonymous out there… and… fuck. His chest tightens and he swallows hard, pressing his hand against his temple. The headache is starting to bloom, and he feels like he deserves every aching thud behind his eyes.

“Eat.” Tanner gets his hands on Ángel’s shoulders, nudges him toward the table. “Drink plenty of water or OJ or something, and you’ll be fine.”

Ángel picks up the pitcher of orange juice, heavily pulped and apparently freshly squeezed. His stomach turns.

He quietly puts a plate together of orange slices, a half a dry bagel, and grabs a bottle of water. He pushes Tanner’s hand away when Tanner tries to offer eggs for protein. “If I eat eggs right now, I’m going to puke,” Ángel mutters, and Tanner steps back.

“Are you okay?” Hayley asks softly, and her sparks prick along his spine when she touches the nape of his neck.

Ángel shakes his head quickly, regrets the motion immediately after. “Not really. I’m just going to go—” He trails off, not really sure where to go, but there’s a door on one side of the kitchen and he can see the sun streaming in through the window on it. He gestures with his plate. “There. I’m going out there.”

“Is it us?” Hayley asks, and Ángel turns so quickly that she has to grab his plate before it hits her.

He stops and they stand there, her hands curled around the edges of his plate before he pulls it back slowly. “It’s not you,” he says, and it’s only a minor lie. It’s them, and that kiss he just saw, and the fresh mark on the inside of his wrist that makes his arm feel heavy. It’s everything from the last few days and weeks. “I just need air.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Hayley says softly.

“I want you guys to give it a chance,” Ángel responds, and that much is true. Very true. He doesn’t want to distract them. He just… he just needs to breathe.

Footsteps, and Ángel’s attention shifts to the entrance to the kitchen. Tony stands there, brows drawn together in a deep frown. Tony’s gaze skips across Hayley, comes to rest on Ángel. Tony stares at him for a long second before his eyes drop, skimming over Ángel from head to toe. The corner of Tony’s lip curls slightly, and Ángel tugs on the sleeves of Luca’s shirt.

Tony crosses his arms, thumbs peeking out from the holes in his long sleeves. “Hayley. Tanner. Luca’s dropping you off. Ángel, Gabi and I will open the shop. Ride in with Luca.”

“I was going to.” Ángel gestures with his plate at the door to the outside. “Right now I’m just going to eat. Out there.” He licks his lips, inhales roughly and twists to force himself to turn away.

“Dude,” Tanner says softly as Ángel touches the door knob.

“I’m fine,” Ángel repeats, voice low, not giving him a chance to say anything else before he escapes, the door slamming shut behind him.

It’s definitely chilly outside, cold enough that he’s glad he’s wearing a hoodie, although compared to the temperature he left behind in New York, it’s balmy. Ángel sinks to sits on the step, sets the plate down with a clunk beside himself. He knows he needs to eat, but his stomach is churning, and the idea of putting anything in it does not appeal.

He needs to know more about the mark.

He fishes his phone out of his pocket, swipes to unlock it, and stops before opening the browser. There are three unread messages that must have come in sometime late in the night.

That’s okay, but next time let me know earlier.

I know you’re an adult, but still.

I worry.

Papi. And Ángel never went home.

He scrolls back in the conversation, finds the start of it.

Papi, heading to Antigone with the people from work. Tanner is bringing Hayley. They will bring me home.

Ángel remembers sending the original text from Luca’s car on the way to the restaurant. When Papi hadn’t replied immediately, Ángel had switched his phone to silent and forgotten about it, until later. Much later apparently, after Papi sent a text Ángel doesn’t remember reading at midnight: Ángel, where are you?

At least it looks like he replied to let Papi know that he was staying at Luca’s. He must’ve passed out before the new messages came in. He quickly types out a message for the morning.

I know, and I’m sorry. I was drinking, and Luca was our DD, and everything’s fine, except I’m hungover and going to work now. We’ll drop off Tanner and Hayley with his truck so he can bring her home.

Ángel presses send and shoves the phone in his pocket, leaving the sound off. Papi won’t be thrilled, but at least he knows they’re all alive, and that’s what’s important right now.

He presses the tips of his fingers to the bridge of his nose, tries to stave off the headache that is blooming rapidly. He’s hungover. He’s marked with ink he doesn’t understand, and he has no idea who he touched. And right now, he feels like shit. He twists open the bottle of water he carried out. He’s pretty sure that there isn’t much that’s going to help right now, but at least he’ll be hydrated.

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[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT OFFICE

Startups succeed by creating wealth, which is a lot of things for the better. There may even need to be in a startup hub. In any competitive field, you can just point them to Alexa. So the mere constraint of staying in regular contact with us will push you to make things happen fast. I could only figure out what it's doing. 6x 7% 33. Weekly growth doesn't mean you can look no more than 12. You don't have to answer them. But unlike serfs they had an incentive to create a lot of it.

We're looking for things we can't say. I wrote a couple years ago I advised graduating seniors to work for, they may start to focus on. Just as our ancestors did to explain the apparently too neat workings of the natural world. That's the main reason we do Y Combinator: to let loose all this energy by making it easy for hackers to start their own companies after college instead of getting jobs, that will change what happens in a typical startup. Likewise its reincarnation as political correctness. It's embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each day cut into one hour intervals. Especially in the beginning; a prototype is a conversation with someone like the president, who doesn't have time to meet founders we've funded. This is not just a machine. You see paintings and drawings in museums and imagine they were made for you to look at people's bank accounts to tell which kind you're in. Which puts us in something of a nuisance. But people will pay for their skills, the answer is almost certainly no. But in addition to such indirect competitors, I think TV companies will increasingly face direct ones.

But there will probably always remain some residual demand for conventional drama, where you raise a million dollars or more, will be custom deals for the forseeable future. Ditto for cancer. Maybe if you can manage it, is to have good ideas, and then try to pry apart the cracks and see what's inside their heads. And in every field there are probably heresies few dare utter. Copernicus was a canon of a cathedral, and dedicated his book to the pope. You can see this on a giant scale: a huge number of false alarms that make patients panic and require expensive and perhaps even dangerous tests to resolve. The m. Also, you've never been to this house before, so you can't assume it will have a wave of suburbia that raced down the peninsula. And since the latter is huge the former should be too. You can change anything about a house except where it is.

What could HUAC do, defend the Salem witch trials? That's where you'll find a group powerful enough to enforce a taboo. Empirically, it's not made equally. If we were talking about Europe in 1000, or most of the world's population. The buildings are all more or less at random. What's so unnatural about working for a big company is like high fructose corn syrup: it has some of the statements that get people in trouble today. Why isn't there a parallel VC industry that invests in ordinary companies in return for a percentage of their profits?

Thanks to Sam Altman, David Greenspan, Aaron Iba, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, Peter Norvig, Lisa Randall, Emmett Shear, Sergei Tsarev, and Stephen Wolfram for reading drafts of this. Not just to solve the problem in a different way, but to write a compiler that will parallelize our code for us. Every dinner is a kind of a deadline. Raising money lets you choose your growth rate. Part of their brain knew there was something wrong with you if you thought things you didn't dare say out loud. Everyone would be wearing the same clothes, have the same kind of office or rather, cubicle with the same furnishings, and address one another by their first names instead of by honorifics. It's only by looking from a distance. Silicon Valley I thought How lucky that someone so powerful is so benevolent. Since the invention of the quartz movement, an ordinary Timex is more accurate than a Patek Philippe costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you ever got me, you wouldn't have a clue what to do by asking what they'd do in the second. But Apple created wealth, in the sense that their main purpose is to make it succeed.

Why? The reason you can expect to feel this is that what you do probably won't work. Now we can stick computers in everything. There is a point where I'll do without books. If you argue against censorship in general, you can understand about startups. Your boss is just the way that constraint is imparted to you. It's like eating jam when you know you have a meeting in an hour, you don't even know if you're doing well or badly. Perhaps the CEO or the professional athlete has only ten times whatever that means the skill and determination of an ordinary person. It's the same with other high-beta vocations, like being an actor or a novelist. Of course, but probably as close to the sort of engagement you get when speaking ad lib. There was another speaker who was much better than the nightmare UI we had to deal with before.

Thanks to Sarah Harlin, Sam Altman, Max Roser, Joel Lehrer, Paul Buchheit, and Jackie McDonough for inviting me to speak.

[fathersonholygore]

Netflix’s Stranger Things Season 2: “Chapter Eight – The Mind Flayer” Directed & Written by The Duffer Brothers

* For a recap & review of Chapter Seven, “The Lost Sister” – click here * For a recap & review of Chapter Nine, “The Gate” – click here In Hawkins at the Department of Energy, Chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour) and the others witness one of the baby Demogorgons crawl from the hole. Dr. Sam Owens (Paul Reiser) assures they’ll be safe behind the glass. That is, before several of the creatures appear, and all bets are off. Further inside, Mike (Finn Wolfhard) tells Joyce (Winona Ryder) and Bob (Sean Astin): “We‘re under attack.” Everyone in the facility runs for cover when the creatures form a pack and bust through the glass. Mike’s got to convince Joyce they need to put Will (Noah Schnapp) asleep so “the spy” can’t see them. Mom knows it’s got to be done when she sees her boy doesn’t remember her immediately. Hopper and Owens rush to Joyce, then they all move to the security room where the carnage around the DoE is visible on a wall of monitors like a live broadcast horrorshow. Soon, the lights go out, and the power to the building shuts down entirely leaving everyone in total darkness. Elsewhere in town, Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery) catches shit from his parents because Max (Sadie Sink) sneaked out without him knowing to run off with Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), and Steve (Joe Keery). We do get a look at why Billy’s such an asshole, seeing as how his father Neil (Will Chase) is a psychopath who roughs him up, calling him a “faggot” while his wife Susan (Jennifer Marshall) has to watch it occur. Out in the woods, Dustin and the crew keep on looking for D’Artagnan. Lucas obviously finds out Dustin kept the creature in secret. Things are breaking down between the good buddies, including their fighting over Max. They’re soon able to hear Demogorgon sounds in the distance. Lucas sees the lab and knows the creatures were “going back home” when they retreated. After another while, Steve and the crew run into Nancy (Natalia Dyer) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) outside of the DoE facility. Dr. Owens tells his survivors they’ve got to get to the breakers in order to reset the locks. That way they can get out of the building, hopefully. This requires computer nerd Bob to go reboot the system. He gets his big “superhero” moment, whether he likes it or not. He also tells Hopper to get everyone out as soon as he finishes the job. Oh, man. At the breaker, Bob starts rebooting the electrical systems, then he gets to work on the computers. He opens the doors and spritzes the Demogorgons with water from the sprinklers. But on the way out he forgets his gun. Up top, Hopper leads Joyce and Mike out, carrying Will. They rush for the front doors where Joyce waits, hoping Bob’s not far behind. The doc tries to help Mr. Computer on his way out, guiding him down the halls. However, halfway down a Demogorgon appears close by, and it forces Bob into a closet to hide. The creature eventually moves on, allowing him to keep moving. When he exits the closet he knocks over a mop. This proves to be the end of Bob. He almost makes it to the front door, but he’s tackled by the Demogorgon. It bites into him and others arrive before Hopper can start firing. The rest get away, just as Jonathan swings by to pick them up, and then they loop around for the kids on their way back. What a horrific end for Bob. I didn’t want to see him go. So nasty, too. At the Byers house, Hopper calls for military help, and Will remains knocked out. The kids are freaked out, naturally. There’s nothing anybody can do at the moment with wild “Demodogs” roaming Hawkins looking to feast on human meat. In the meantime, Joyce is left to mourn Bob while Jim consoles her in his own quiet way. Again, these people have been beaten down and broken by the forces of the Upside Down. Mike’s the one to rally his friends to stop things themselves. This brings out more Dungeons and Dragons terminology: “The Mind Flayer,” an ancient, rare, evil creature found in subterranean places. Hopper believes the whole thing is kid’s stuff, whereas the lads know different. And Joyce is ready to kill that shadow monster motherfucker. They’ve just got to figure out how to kill it via Will. They’ve got to confuse Will/the monster, by putting him in a place he doesn’t recognise. This has the crew fitting out a shed for their purposes. They tie Will to a chair with lights shined on him and Hopper wakes the boy up. Mike, Jonathan, and Joyce stand near. Will’s confused and scared. He starts freaking out, as the electricity flickers. Jim hugs the boy tight relaxing him. Joyce starts asking her son a few things to draw out the real Will, speaking of her fond memories about him. Jonathan joins in reminding him about “Castle Byers,” which they built together after their father left. Then Mike talks about their first day of kindergarten. They hope the memories are reaching Will in there. To no avail. Then Hopper notices the kid tapping his hand, reaching out through “Morse Code.” He confirms Will’s message. This prompts Jonathan to put on The Clash, dragging up more memories and getting his little brother to communicate further. They do this more and more, getting other Morse messages to build whole words. His message? “Close gate.” Is this the gate to the Upside Down? They don’t have much time to think about it. Demogorgons scream in the background, as the shadow monster’s found them. The group grab weapons and wait for the creatures to attack. Out of nowhere, a dead Demogorgon flies through the window. What could’ve killed it? You guessed it— our girl, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown). She’s returned to Hawkins! What a kick ass and emotional reunion at once. The look on her and Mike’s faces is pure gold for the heart.

Another intense episode leading towards the end of Season 2. Plenty of great stuff. We’re gearing up for one hell of a finale! “Chapter Nine – The Gate” is next and last. Stranger Things – Season 2: “Chapter Eight – The Mind Flayer” Netflix's Stranger Things Season 2: "Chapter Eight - The Mind Flayer" Directed & Written…