#and hopefully a benny pen too

[happi-dreams]

my growing special spaceship hoard ..

[bradshawsbaby]

Letters to My Love // Part VIII

We’ll Meet Again

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Bob Floyd x Female Reader

Summary: When you signed up to volunteer with the USO, you never anticipated that you would meet a man like Ensign Robert Floyd. Fate brings you together one balmy spring evening in Charleston—the night before Bob is set to ship off across the Atlantic. Pen and paper become your only means of sharing your heart with the naval aviator who’s captivated it, igniting a correspondence that spans the distance between you. Can love blossom even as war rages and thousands of miles keep you apart?

Word Count: 2.9k

Author’s Note: Oh my goodness, it’s been well over a month since I last updated this story and I sincerely apologize for that! I hope you all enjoy Bobby and Peach’s next set of letters!

Set the Mood: If you’re looking for some 1940s vibes, check out the playlist I made to pair with the story.

The title of this chapter comes from the song of the same name by Vera Lynn, a song which also happens to factor into this part of the story!

Dedication: As always, this story is dedicated to my dear friend, @luminousnotmatter​. Clara, thank you, thank you, thank you for your support of this story!

Warnings: Alternating POV, brief allusions to war, and references to rationing. This chapter is mostly fluff, fluff, and more fluff!

March 6, 1943

Sweet Peach,

Looks like I have my own elephant in the room to address this time. You asked for a photograph, and I’ve inundated you with five. Trust me, you think Dottie is bad, but I would dare to wager that she’s not nearly as insufferable as the lugheads I’m bunking with over here. When they caught wind of the fact that I was planning to send you a photo—which, for the record, was not at all forward of you to ask for and which actually gave my ego quite a nice boost—you should have seen the holy hullabaloo they raised. You really would have thought I was planning to feature myself on the front cover of Life Magazine with the way they carried on.

My original intent was to send you my graduation photo from Annapolis. My mother ended up packing a copy of it with my things when I left home—I think she was hoping I’d find a nice girl to give it to. She’ll be thrilled indeed to find that I have. Speaking of which, I hope you don’t mind that I’ve mentioned you in my letters to my family. I feel like you’ve become such a special part of my life, if you don’t mind me saying so, and I wanted them to get to know you a little bit, the way I have.

But anyway, like I was saying, I was glad that my mama tucked that photo away with my things so that I could have something to send you, though it’s by no means as spectacular as the photograph you sent me. When Tommy Boy and Benny found out that was the picture I was planning to send you, however, they started talking a whole bunch of nonsense about how I needed to send more pictures that showed off “the real me.” According to Benny, I look way too stiff and formal in my graduation photo. I told him that I thought the ladies were supposed to love a man in uniform, but he told me that’s apparently not the case when said uniform looks like it’s choking the life out of you. Tommy Boy said I should send you pictures that remind you of the fact that I actually do know how to have a good time—his words, not mine.

Even Paul agreed with them. That traitor.

To make a long story short, Peach, that’s why you’re (hopefully) holding those five photographs in your hand right now. In addition to my Annapolis photo—which my mother still happens to think is nice, even if the fellas don’t—are a few photos of us on board our carrier. I’m glad that you remember what I look like so that you don’t confuse me for my much better looking buddies—I hope seeing us side by side doesn’t do me too much of a disservice. I labeled them on the back for you, but there’s a few shots of me and Paul, then me, Benny, and Tommy Boy, then all four of us, then me standing beside me and Paul’s plane.

You know, now that I really think about it, I have a feeling that Benny and Tommy Boy’s grand scheme all along was to make sure that you had photographic evidence of them to show to all your friends and fellow USO volunteers. I tried to explain to them that you had very kindly informed me that most of the girls you know are spoken for, but they both still seem to have it in their heads that you can find a couple nice girls for them. Like I told you, they’re completely insufferable. Good thing they’re also pretty great guys, otherwise I don’t think I’d be able to stand it.

Anyway, all that to say that now you have some photographs, Peach. More than you asked for, I know, and I hope they don’t disappoint. Perhaps it was you who’s been remembering things with rose-colored glasses all this time and not me? Either way, I’ll stop rambling about it now.

Paul, Tommy Boy, and Benny send all their best. Paul especially appreciates all your kind words, and your thoughts for him and his family. He says he knew you were a great girl, right from the start when you nearly spilled that punch all over him.

Speaking of punch and the dance, congratulations to your friend, Emily! A little bit of good news in the midst of all this madness is always greatly appreciated. And I’m sure that when the time comes, you’re going to be the prettiest bridesmaid there ever was.

Can I be honest with you though, Peach? I’m sure Emily is a lovely girl, especially if she’s lucky enough to count you as a friend, but at the moment, I have to confess that I don’t hold her fiancé in quite as high esteem. Now to be fair, I don’t know much about this Eddie guy, but from what I do know, he has to be one of the most foolish men I’ve ever seen. Before I explain, I should mention that I saw Eddie at the dance that night, right before he pulled Emily out onto the dance floor. You might wonder how, and I’d tell you it was because I was standing a few feet away from the punch table like a total coward, trying to work up the nerve to go talk to you. So the truth, Peach, is that I saw what happened between you and Eddie—how he approached you and asked you if it would be alright if he asked Emily to dance.

On the one hand, I was selfishly relieved that he didn’t ask you. That meant that all hope wasn’t lost, and I might still get a shot to talk to you. But on the other hand, I couldn’t understand how one man could be so stupid, if you’ll pardon my saying so. Like I said, I’m sure Emily is a lovely girl, but I don’t understand how anyone could see you, Peach—especially that night, when you looked so beautiful in your pretty party dress—and think to dance with anyone else. I suppose you’re right though. It is funny how things work out. And as big a fool as I thought Eddie to be at the time, if I saw him right now, I might just shake his hand and thank him. Because if he hadn’t been a fool, I might not be talking to you right now. And let me tell you, Peach, that is as depressing a thought as any I can think of. So three cheers for Eddie and Emily! I wish them nothing but a lifetime of happiness, and I’ll join them in praying for an end to this war so that they can have their big wedding.

It sure is wild to think that in your last letter, you were telling me about your holidays, and now it’s already March. Time feels like it’s flying much too fast, but not quick enough at the same time. Do you know what I mean?

Paul still can’t believe how big Clara and Paul, Jr. are getting every time Natasha sends him updates. In her last few letters, she wrote that Paul, Jr. has finally started talking—she was very smug that his first word was “Mama,” but only because Clara’s first word was “Dada.” And now that he’s started, he just can’t stop. He’s starting to call everyone by their names—or at least his version of their names—and he even says “Dada” now when Natasha points to pictures of Paul. In her most recent letter, Natasha said he was even starting to walk and that she’s been having to chase him all over the house. “He’s going to be a runner, like his daddy,” she wrote. Did I ever tell you, Peach, that Paul and I ran track and field in high school? He could always run circles around me. Paul’s quite the proud papa, and he’s been bragging about his family to anyone on the carrier who will listen—it usually ends up being me, Tommy Boy, and Benny.

I’m sure little Frankie—or maybe not so little anymore—is starting to walk and talk now, too. Has he been giving you, Dottie, and Paddy a run for your money?

Peach, you once called me an honest man and so I don’t want to lie to you now—as much as I’d like to say that I’m sorry to hear you haven’t been attending any more dances, I’m just not as good a man as all that. The truth of the matter is that I’m quite chuffed (can you tell I’ve been spending time with a lot of Brits?) to hear that you’re saving a dance for me. It makes me want to finish this war and get home all the faster, knowing you’ll be there to welcome me back.

You know, we’ve actually gotten to enjoy a few USO performances over here recently. It does a lot to lift our spirits, and it always makes me think of you. One of the singers performed that Vera Lynn song, “We’ll Meet Again” the other night and I couldn’t help but imagine how nice it would be to be dancing with you again. I thought I might share some of the lyrics with you, the ones that really made me think of you:

We'll meet again

Don't know where

Don't know when

But I know we'll meet again some sunny day

Keep smiling through

Just like you always do

'Til the blue skies chase those dark clouds far away

I believe deep down in my heart that we’re going to meet again, Peach. Just like the song says, I might not know where and I might not know when, but I know it’s going to happen. And what a happy day that will be, when I get to see your smiling face again.

I haven’t even sent this letter yet, and I already can’t wait to receive your next one. I hope whatever you’re doing right now, Peach, it’s bringing a smile to your face and that you’re doing real well.

Until next time and until we meet again.

Most Truly Yours,

Bobby

P.S. I’m very embarrassed to admit that for a farm boy from Iowa, I’ve got quite the brown thumb. My only advice to you and Dottie when it comes to your Victory Garden is don’t do anything I would do!

April 2, 1943

Dear Bobby,

What an absolute treat to receive not one, but five wonderful photographs with your last letter! You can tell Tommy Boy and Benny that they were dead wrong—I would have been MORE than happy with just your photo from Annapolis! I think you look remarkably handsome in it, and I’m very thankful to your mother for thinking to send it along with you. The other photos you included are just the icing on the cake.

I love getting a tiny glimpse of what life is like for you over there, and it’s so good to see all of you smiling, despite the circumstances. Tommy Boy, Benny, and Paul all look very handsome as well, but between the two of us, I don’t think any of them could hold a candle to you. Still, it does make me wonder if being handsome is a requirement for joining the Navy nowadays? If so, I’d say you all certainly fit the bill.

Dottie was quite eager to see your picture, and I’ll have you know that she declared you even more handsome than she had been imagining—and my big sister has quite a vivid imagination, let me tell you. Paddy teased her about it endlessly, saying that maybe she should find herself her own pen pal considering how much she seems to enjoy sticking her nose into my correspondences. Just to get back at him, Dottie traded our extra coffee rations with one of our neighbors for more sugar rations. Paddy grumbled about it the next few mornings, but Dottie made it up to him with a chocolate cake after dinner.

I’ve been keeping all your photographs on the desk in my room, Bobby, and I’m looking at them right now as I pen this letter. I promise you that I certainly wasn’t remembering you through rose-colored glasses and that, in fact, you’re even more handsome than my faulty memory could recall. I especially love the pictures of you with your friends—your smiles are all so bright that I can actually feel the joy of your friendship just by looking at them. You have such a lovely smile, Bobby, made all the lovelier by the fact that you have such a wonderful heart underneath.

While we’re on the topic of photographs, it seems that you and I are starting to play tag with them. Since you sent such sweet photographs of you and the boys, I thought I might send a photograph I really loved that we took while we were home in Georgia for Christmas. That’s me, Dottie, Frankie, and Paddy on Christmas morning, right before everyone started opening their presents. Since I talk about them all so much in my letters, I thought it might be nice for you to put some faces with their names. Besides Paddy, of course, since you already know his face.

By the way, I’m truly touched to know that you’ve mentioned me in your letters to your family. Of course I don’t mind it! My family knows all about you, so it seems only right that you should be able to tell your family about me. Maybe one day we’ll all get to be together to share some peach cobbler and pumpkin pie!

Tell Paul, Benny, and Tommy Boy that I say hello and that they looked great in those photos! Tell Tommy Boy and Benny in particular to keep their chins up, and that they’ll find two lucky girls to call their own very soon! And you can tell Paul that I’m still mortified about that punch spill.

Oh, Bobby, I’m so embarrassed to think you overheard my conversation with Eddie that night! Truth be told, in that moment, I felt so silly. I thought for sure he was going to ask me to dance, so I felt a bit ridiculous when it turned out he just wanted to know if it was okay to ask Emily. In all honesty, I really wanted to leave after that. But then you showed up and everything changed. My whole night turned around. Dottie always says that everything happens for a reason, and I really do believe that. I think Eddie and Emily were meant to meet each other that night, just like you and I were meant to meet each other, Bobby. Knowing you has brought so much goodness to my life, and I can’t imagine what it would be like if our paths hadn’t crossed that night. So now I can say thank goodness for Eddie wanting to dance with Emily!

I know exactly what you mean about time, Bobby. Dottie and I were just talking about how we want time to slow down because it feels like Frankie is growing up way too fast! Just like Paul, Jr., Frankie is walking now and we have to be vigilant at all times to make sure he isn’t getting into any mischief. Just the other day, he somehow managed to get his hands on Paddy’s keys and hide them under the couch. We spent hours looking for them! He also said his first word a couple months ago—Dada. Thankfully, Paddy was home to hear it, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so proud. Dottie pretended to be miffed—”Fifteen hours I spend in labor with that boy and he says ‘Dada’ first!”—but she really was excited, too. Now he also says Mama, hi, bye-bye, and milk. Sometimes he’ll say doggy, too, when we see dogs out on the street. The funniest thing is that he seems to have given me the nickname “Cookie.” Whenever Dottie asks him who I am, he laughs and says, “Cookie!” So to you, I’m Peach and to my nephew, I’m Cookie. I don’t know what I ever did to deserve all these food nicknames!

I’m so thrilled to hear that the USO has finally made its way over to you boys! I can’t imagine what you’re all going through over there, but I know that you do deserve an opportunity to relax and unwind.

That Vera Lynn song is so beautiful, and my heart is so full to hear that it made you think of me, Bobby. After I read your letter, I remembered that we actually have a record of that song in the house, so I immediately went and put it on. I admit, I played it a few times and imagined that you were here dancing with me. We will meet again, Bobby, I just know it. I feel it in my heart, too, the same as you. And the sun will be shining bright when we do, just like the song says.

I hope the sun is shining on you right now, Bobby, and that wherever you are, you’re safe and you know that I’m thinking of you and wishing you the speediest return home.

Until we meet again, know that I’m sending you all my very best.

Most Affectionately Yours,

Peach

P.S. Dottie and I have been cursed with brown thumbs ourselves, but we’re determined to make this Victory Garden work! I’ll keep you updated on our efforts!

P.P.S. I know it will probably be a while until we hear from each other again, so I want to wish you a very Happy Easter. Stay safe, Bobby!

[bluesungology]

OKAY SO I FINISHED BRIDGERTON SEASON 3 !!!

HERE ARE MY THOUGHTS:

- for season 4 it’s definitely gonna be a benedict/sophie/eloise/phillip story because it would be weird to continue francesca’s story right after she got married.

- also francesca’s husband john kilmartin, dies two years after they got married. season four will be set one year after season three (francesca and john’s wedding) so the timeline wouldn’t be right if he died a year after.

- at the end of season 3, when eloise was getting packed up for scotland, she said she will be back in one year for her mother’s MASQUERADE BALL!!!

-THIS IS THE SAME MASQUERADE BALL BENEDICT MEETS SOPHIE!!!

-so season 4 will definitely (hopefully) be about benedict.

- ALSOOOO the code name for season 4 is ‘Vauxhall’. vauxhall is a place where masquerade balls were often held in the regency times. and a masquerade ball is where we will see the future mrs benedict bridgerton. think about it.

-i also don’t understand why they felt the need to change francesca’s second husband to a wife?? follow the book people you won’t get cancelled for not doing that 🙄 no offense

- colin didn’t have a lot of scenes with his family. like when anthony was in a crisis, he had daphne. or when daphne was in a crisis she had literally any other person in her family. but poor colin was not alone but he was lonely 😞

- also colin is like the only bridgerton child that didn’t have sooo much drama. as much as i loved season 3 and i was longing for it for so bloody long, a little bit of drama wouldn’t hurt (other than the whistledown thing)

- what is with that threesome? skipped the whole scene so don’t ask me what happened

- also i keep hearing people saying that colin should’ve groveled more for penelope, that she deserves to be chased not be the chaser. yes pen deserves everything in this world and the next but give colin a break okay? he wanted to marry her as soon as possible because he LOVED her. and pen had no choice but to say yes because if a man you have loved for more years than the amount of years you were alive asked you to marry him, would you say no? i’ll leave it at that.

- i wish they showed anthony and kate’s baby 😔 we had nothing than ‘WE’RE PREGNANT!’ then they disappear with no word of the pregnancy again.

- this was supposed to be a pen/colin season. not a pen/colin/ben/tilley/paul/fran/john season.

- there wasn’t enough time to develop pen and colin’s love story. i feel like it was far too rushed, with all the other characters lives interfering and the whistledown drama as well.

- fran should’ve just had her own season. like she would’ve been amazing in her own season, in her own spotlight.

- she didn’t even have time to develop as a character. like, yes she was recasted, but her character in s1 and s2 was carefree, young, not awkward. but now she’s this mature, grown up, and forgive me, weird young woman who doesn’t know what she wants. she was also gone for basically more than half of the show and giving her a whole season (one that’s shared with other characters mind you) to get married? i thought that was weird.

- i thought she could’ve had at least a whole season to just be there and live her life.

that’s all the notes i have so far in the season. let’s hope for season 4 being benny boy’s love story 🤞🏽🩷

[ochre-brainrot]

Attention residents, observants, and interested parties of Ochre. This is a breaking news broadcast brought to you by the Golden Quill.

There have been reports that a mysterious individual, yet unidentified, is leaking secure documents from the Collectanea. This is the first time these documents have seen light, and their publication will hopefully shed light on the mysterious history- and record-keeping that the Rosiah family practices.

The Collectanea is mostly a mystery to the laypeople of Ochre and its parallel worlds. If they've heard of it at all, they know only that it is supposedly a massive library filled to the brim with records, historical documents, and internal communications from the elusive Rosiah family. It is said to be possibly the largest and most comprehensive source of information ever amassed - and all entirely closed to the public without specific petition or good reason.

An unidentified informant, thought to be either connected to the Rosiah family or an outsider, has begun to publish snippets of the vast quantity of documents found in the Collectanea. They are going by the pen name Danidy Driscoll, and at the time of this article, their motives remain unclear. The general consensus among the public, however, is gratitude for being having more access to this information and being able to learn about exotic and intriguing concepts.

More to follow, this is Golden Quill reporter Bennie Olivander.

Basically, I'm gonna do what @imatin3222 said and put MORE stuff out there rather than letting it gather dust in google drive. Not just polished pieces, but snippets of lore too that I just can't find a place for in the world guide yet. Just for funsies, because why not!!

Little snippets of lore and worldbuilding will be tagged with #Collectanea and titled with "[subject] - Excerpts from the Collectanea"

:)

[goldenraeofsun]

4:01 PM

Dean sips his whiskey and glowers across the bar at his own reflection. His wrist is burning like a brand, but it’s probably all in his head. The stupid timers don’t cause physical pain when they reach T-minus zero, Houston we have a problem. The numbers freeze, and that’s that.

Dean’s had counted down to nothing at exactly 4:01 PM, fifteen minutes ago. Fifteen minutes of running into his soulmate, getting his number, continuing on his way to this bar, and telling the bartender to keep ‘em coming.

He refuses to look at the far corner of the room, the booth he had reserved like an idiot. Four PM, party of two, under the name Winchester.

On the bar by his glass, his phone is still lit up with Cas’s texts from the past hour.

Cas 3:11 I’m so sorry I have to move our appointment. My client just unexpectedly switched our time to 4pm.

Cas 3:21 I think I’ll be able to escape by 4:30. Can I meet you then?

Dean had responded with a thumbs-up emoji. He didn’t have it in him to say any more.

Cas 3:50 This city is impossible to navigate. How does anyone live here?

Cas 3:58 You were right, I should have rented a car.

Three minutes after Cas’s last text, Dean ran into his soulmate. Right on schedule.

As far as first meetings go, it hadn’t been as much of a shitshow as Dean had expected.

The dude was attractive, at least, and the first thing he did after bumping into Dean was apologize. But he was wearing a tailored suit and glued to his phone, so it definitely could have been better.

His soulmate would’ve run off none the wiser, except Dean had to blurt, “Wait!” because, despite his disappointment, Dean couldn’t let his soulmate disappear into the throngs of Michigan Avenue. Dean wasn't about to fall to one knee, but he also couldn't let his best shot just go.

The man stopped, irritated. His gaze refused to linger on Dean, instead fixating on a building at the end of the block.

Head swimming with too many thoughts to name, Dean couldn’t get the right words out. He gestured mutely to his wrist, pulling up the flannel to show him.

Eyes widening with understanding, his soulmate quickly tugged up the cuff of his sleeve, only sparing a second to verify his own timer stopped. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even notice.” he said, distracted. “My name is James. Here,” he fished out a pen and something to write on from various pockets of his trench coat, “my number. We… should talk. Later.” He scowled, raising his other wrist to check at his watch. “I need to go.”

“Sure, man,” Dean said, mostly grateful he didn’t have to stick around and have some heart-to-heart with a stranger that was apparently meant for him. Whatever the fuck that actually meant.

“Thank you,” James said swiftly. Without another word, he took off back down the street.

Dean didn’t bother to watch him go. He had a barstool waiting with his name on it.

Sam will laugh himself silly once Dean tells him his perfect match wound up being some corporate suit. Dean once told him he’d rather microwave his own head than set foot in an office cubicle.

Sammy was the big soulmate skeptic in the family. He found his non-timer approved other half while he was protesting an illegal dismissal of a disabled employee. Three years later, when Sam bumped into Gabriel Crawford in a strip club at midnight on Dean’s birthday, he discovered Gabe was perfectly happy to let Sam live his apple pie life while Gabe continued to party like it was 1999.

Gabe made Sam promise to look him up if Eileen was ever down for a threesome.

Turned out, Eileen was.

Sam most certainly was not.

He still sends Gabe a card for the holidays, and usually Gabe sends him back candy samples from wherever he’s vacationing for the winter.

But everyone else Dean knew bought into the soulmates game, hook, line, and sinker. His parents were soulmates. Benny and Garth both settled down with theirs. Charlie and Aaron were holding out for theirs. Hell, even Jo had her weird thing with Bela Talbot.

Dean would’ve counted himself among their number - until he met Cas.

Well, until Cas messaged him on Bobby’s new ask-a-mechanic feature on the garage’s website. Cas had inherited a banged up 1967 Mustang and had no idea where to start with restoration. Apparently Gabe of all people was staying with Cas at his place in southern California, and he recommended Dean.

Why Cas couldn’t just look up a local place still baffles Dean to this day, but he has never been more grateful for Cas’s weird-ass logic.

Their relationship had stayed strictly professional until Cas’s actual car broke down on some random highway in California. Dean had tried to talk Cas through the repair himself, but it was no use. Cas either didn’t have the equipment for the fix, or Dean didn’t diagnose the right problem. Dean was about to hang up, when Cas had asked, clearly embarrassed, “Would you please stay on the line? I have this irrational fear of being murdered in the middle of nowhere where nobody can find my body for proper rites.”

Dean, almost surprising himself, didn’t laugh. Instead, he said, “Sure thing. Wanna put me on hold while you get in touch with Triple A?”

He spent an hour and a half on the phone with Cas, telling him stupid stories about the worst things people have done with their cars.

In return, Cas told him all about the stars that were just coming out in the darkening desert sky.

The week after, Bobby’s garage received a gift certificate in the mail. It was for a weeklong stay at the Chicago location of the five-star hotel chain Cas works for, in Dean’s name.

Those little chocolates on the pillows ruined Dean for motels everywhere.

At the bar, Dean signals the bartender for a refill. He glares down at his phone. The little rectangle contains his entire history with Cas, call logs, text receipts, everything.

He can’t look at it any longer. He shoves it in his pocket, and the receipt with his soulmate’s phone number crinkles in protest. With a sigh, Dean takes out the flimsy piece of paper.

James’s handwriting is neat, so Dean doesn’t even have the excuse of not being able to read a digit or two.

Maybe Dean will give him a call after his drink with Cas. Hopefully, once James finds out that Dean’s just a mechanic, lives in a shoebox apartment in Bucktown, and has never been to Aspen or the Alps, he’ll tell Dean to take a hike.

Dean flips the receipt over, and his stomach gives a sickening lurch. In pretentious curlicue lettering, the first words Dean reads are, The Nine Spheres.

James is staying at Cas’s hotel.

Fucking great. Dean crumples the receipt and shoves it back in his pocket. With his luck, James will probably want to meet in the restaurant on the first floor, the fancy-ass place with the steakhouse burger and truffle fries Dean would actually sell his soul for.

Dean actually dreamed about that burger, a few months after his Cas-sponsored stay. When he told Cas about it, Cas let out a bark of laughter.

In the next breath, though, he told Dean he does the same when he’s scoping out a new location and can’t stay at a nearby Nine Spheres.

Dean tips back his glass of whiskey. It’s stopped burning on the way down his throat, a good sign.

He was so stupid, thinking he could fuck with destiny, fate, or whatever shitty power up there decides soulmates.

Once Cas told him about his business trip to his neck of the woods, Dean had taken one look at the numbers on his arm counting down and did the math. He would meet his soulmate smack dab in the middle of Cas’s window in Chicago.

He could make Cas be his soulmate. Cas never brought up his timer, if it was still ticking, if he’d already met his other half. And Dean, coward that he was, never asked. If he didn’t know for sure, then there was that slim, slim chance that theirs matched up after all.

But no, Cas had to go and switch up their meeting time at the last second, and Dean had run into James instead.

His pocket buzzes with a new text. Mood lower than Cas’s voice register, Dean slides his phone out.

Cas 4:38 My meeting is over. Should I still meet you at the same place?

Dean 4:39 Yeah Hope its okay I got started without you

Cas 4:40 More than okay, considering my scheduling difficulties.

Dean 4:40 See you soon

Dean sighs and drains his glass.

Foot jiggling on the barstool and eyes trained on his hands clasped in front of him, Dean deliberately does not look around as the door opens.

And opens again.

And again.

Confused and irritated, Dean takes another look around. Above the bar, a chalkboard clearly proclaims Happy Hour from 4:30-6:30 PM. Dean ducks his head, scowling into the remains of his drink. He probably overlooked the sign before because of his single-minded quest to get shitfaced like a freshly-dumped senior at prom stuck next to the spiked punch bowl.

His phone obnoxiously tells him it’s 4:43.

That’s just great. Dean hops off the stool, meaning to ask the hostess if anyone’s asked for Winchester, when James pushes open the door.

Dean stops dead in his tracks.

James freezes, his eyes going wide. His trench coat swishes ominously to a stop.

Should Dean turn around? Pretend he didn’t see? Cas is going to be here any second.

Before he can make up his mind, James is walking towards him. “Hello,” he says. “I wasn’t expecting to run into you here.”

Dean swallows. “Me neither,” he says honestly.

James scans the small crowd now gathered around the bar, brow furrowing in concentration. “I’m supposed to be meeting someone.”

Dean lets out a silent exhale of relief. He musters up a weak smile. “No problem, man. I’ll leave you to it.” As he turns back around, James steps up to the hostess stand.

James says, his voice slightly raised to be heard over the din, “I’m a bit late, but is there a reservation for Winchester? For 4:30?”

Dean could not possibly have heard what he thinks he did. But the timing is right - for once. He spins around, practically losing his balance thanks to the booze he already drank.

The hostess scans her sheet of names, shaking her head. “There was a reservation for Winchester at four PM, but that’s it.”

James’s face falls. Shoulders slumping, he pulls out his phone, squinting as the screen lights up. “He said he was here,” he mutters.

He can’t be Cas. That would be crazy - like, dingo ate my baby, crazy.

“Could be at the bar,” the hostess says flippantly, tilting her head to the crowded area. “Most of ‘em don’t check in.”

James’s lips press together. “Thank you,” he says to the hostess, his tone clipped. “I’ll wait there.”

Dean steps in front of him before James can get lost in the throng of people. “I heard you’re lookin’ for me,” he says with a confidence that’s only 99% bullshit.

James blinks. “You?”

“Dean Winchester, at your service,” he says, spreading his arms wide.

“Dean,” he echoes, his gaze raking up and down Dean’s body, drinking him in with his new eyes.

“Gotta say,” Dean drawls as his heart pounds with nerves. Doubt niggles at the back of his mind like an itch he can’t scratch, but he’s already made his memory foam bed. Might as well lie in it. “Cas is the weirdest nickname for James that I’ve ever heard.”

“My full name is James Castiel Novak,” Cas says, flushing. “James - that’s what I go by professionally. My family calls me Castiel.”

Dean can’t hold back his broad grin. “Family, eh?”

Cas’s expression takes a swift dive from embarrassed to mortified. “And friends,” he tacks on. He takes a step closer, staring at Dean’s face in wonder. “But you’re also my soulmate.”

Dean laughs giddily. “Should’ve known you wouldn’t beat around the bush. Not your style.” He jerks his head towards the bar. “I think I see an open seat. You wanna have that talk now?”

Cas hesitates. “Would you like to go to Nine Spheres instead? I’ve had business dinners every evening I’ve been in Chicago so far, and, while the food has been good-”

“It’s not the steakhouse burger?” Dean finishes for him.

The corners of Cas’s mouth turn down into a slight grimace. “Last night, a client treated us to tapas. I woke up starving.”

Dean smiles. “You know I’m always down for that burger.”

“Excellent,” Cas says with relish as he pushes open the door.

They walk onto the street, and it’s almost offensively quiet after the noise of the bar. It’s a balmy Spring evening, the sun still relatively high in the sky.

“You don’t seem disappointed anymore,” Cas says out of nowhere as they reach the end of the block.

So Cas caught on to that, back when they first ran into each other. Dean shrugs. “I just got stood up by the guy I’d specially set up to meet me at 4:01. Wouldn’t you be?”

Cas clears his throat, asking hoarsely, “You wanted it to be me?”

Dean throws him a look. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Cas just shrugs. The light changes, and they step off the curb.

“Were you… disappointed?” Dean asks hesitantly.

Cas lets out a surprised laugh. “Of course not. I didn’t even think - well,” he falters, casting a sidelong look at Dean, “I’m not disappointed. Believe me.”

The automatic doors to Nine Spheres open, hitting them with a burst of perfectly conditioned air. Dean hasn’t stepped foot in the hotel since Cas paid for his stay, but it hasn’t changed one bit. The same tiered giant chandelier glitters overhead. Giant pillars bracket the concierge desk to the left and the enormous staircase to the right that leads up to the second floor rooms. The tiled floor, so polished Dean can practically see his reflection, stretches the length of the lobby.

Dean sticks out like a flannel-wearing sore thumb. “Cas,” he hisses, “hold on. I don’t think I’m dressed right for this place.”

Cas sucks in a breath. “No,” he says as Dean’s heart sinks, “I suppose not.” He jerks his head towards the elevator bay. “Room service?”

Dean blinks.

“I’ve called for the burgers on several occasions at other locations,” Cas assures him. “It tastes as good.”

Was Cas actually trying to convince him to go up to his room? What a dumbass. Dean laughs.

Cas colors, his gaze dropping to the floor. “Forget it,” he mutters. “We don’t-”

“You know, if you invite me up to your room,” Dean cuts him off, “you’re going to have a bitch of a time getting me to leave, right?”

Cas stares at him.

“Dude,” Dean says, “I’ve never stayed anywhere this nice in my life. Between the food, the water pressure, and the robe that felt like I was fucking a cloud, I had enough of a hard time leaving last time.”

“I’m glad,” Cas says stiltedly. “We strive to provide the optimal experience to all our guests.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “’M saying, add you to the mix, and they’re gonna have to drag me out of here, kicking and screaming.”

“And if I don’t want you to leave?” Cas asks in an undertone as he pushes the up button for the elevator.

“Then I guess we don’t have a problem,” Dean says, winking.

Cas’s responding grin falls as the doors close behind them and the elevator starts moving. He shakes his head. “It’s a shame there are cameras in here.”

Dean leans in closer, whispering in his ear, “Doesn’t bother me much. Whaddya say to giving the peeping toms a show, then?”

Cas bites his lip, and this close, Dean can see how his eyes have blown black with want. “I - I can’t.”

It’s like he’s been doused with a bucket of ice water. Dean steps back, shame filling him. That’s fine. He can regroup. Hopefully Cas will be more receptive behind closed doors. It’s not the first time this has happened, anyway.

“Dean, I have to work with these people every day,” Cas hisses, wringing his hands. “The last time an executive got… busy with a coworker in the pool, the mocking didn’t end for weeks. Not to mention her rebuke from upper management.” He throws Dean a desperate look. “I would like for you to be fully clothed by the time you meet my coworkers for the first time.”

Cas is already planning for Dean to meet his people?

The elevator dings, and Cas steps out. “Are you coming?” he asks hesitantly.

“Oh, yeah,” Dean says quickly. As he follows Cas down the maze of rooms, he has to ask, “You were planning on introducing me to your coworkers?”

Cas’s cheeks pink. “Unless you were opposed to it,” he mutters as he stops in front of Room 1518. He sighs, making no move to insert his keycard. Instead, he lifts his head to meet Dean’s gaze squarely. “I’ve put in a transfer request to Chicago.”

“What?”

“It was before I knew you were my soulmate,” Cas says quickly. “I’ve never felt like I fit in in California, and my parents live in Pontiac. The Chicago office is decently large, and, well, I knew you were here,” he says, his voice going quiet near the end. He straightens. “So there were many reasons.”

“You’re staying?” Dean says, his mouth dry.

Cas bobs a nervous nod. “I hope that’s okay.”

Dean grins. “Sure is.”

Cas touches the inside of his wrist, his expression turning almost shy. “Of course, when I first pictured introductions, it was strictly as a friend. I don’t really know anyone else in this city well, and I’ve told you about my difficulty in social situations, so it would’ve been more for moral support than anything else. But after this evening -”

Dean interrupts his rambling. “Are there cameras in the hallway?”

“What- oh,” Cas says, his eyes flicking down to Dean’s lips before back up again. “Yes?” He points. “They’re all the way down there, though, so they can’t -”

Dean cuts him off with a heated kiss.

[notyetbulletproof]

Heyy beautiful soul 💖

Firstly I love seeing (somewhere relaxed too) people going through same pain and angst after being introduced to Kathony 🤍 not to mention obsession!

Anyways CVD stepping down as the Bridgerton showrunner has made me somewhere doubtful. I know Jess Brownell will be doing an amazing job but won't it cause difference of vision and love for our fav characters and their arcs in the show ? I ams scared that s3 won't even come closet to s1 and s2 👀

Honest to god love, same. Also seeing as how Season 1 was like okay nice for me but season 2 was like HAVE MY SOUL, yes I am worried. Also, admittedly, I dislike Colin. He is so boring to me. I know it’s bad but it’s how I feel and I personally hate people having to glow up physically to get the attention of the people they love. Like am always here for an emotional glow up or growth but I don’t like the ugly duckling but she was always a swan thing. So I hope the show changes it. Also I know that wasn’t ALL it was and not exactly how it went down. It was how it was explained to me and it bugs me but I am sure it will be better handled or at the very least executed mindfully.

Plus Polin get married way later in the books so I wonder if kanthony will be the married B story and season 3 is about Pen. Repairing things with the Bridgertons and Colin falling for her and sort of leaving it open ended for season 4. So they can share focus with Benny B’s story.

I think it will definitely be different (the season) but I want Kanthony because they had to share their season and it makes sense that they would be there exploring married life and the like and honestly we gotta trust that the tone of the characters has already been established and shouldn’t be messed with unless it’s in a growing together and dealing with trauma vibe kinda way.

It’s 3am and this is really a ramble of an answer so I apologise. In a nutshell—- thanks for reaching out! ♥️ yes, I share your worries and will always hold Season 2 in my heart no matter what. Also some fanfics will save us and that is all I can hope for. My biggest worry is that I might not tune in as eagerly if there is limited kanthony and I don’t want that to affect ratings because it could also be less kanthony. But I am 1 person not a million and I am pretty sure they’ll use kanthony as a draw for the new season. As they set up Polin. Passing the torch and all that. Yes it will be different but hopefully still heartfelt and well thought out. 🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽🤞🏽 until then, let’s just keep screaming about how perfectly handled Kate and Anthony were. Even in the dumb pull my hair out moments. Still perfection.

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

Don’t Treat My Love Like a Habit Part Fourteen

Previous Part | Next Part | Masterlist

Pairing: Santiago Garcia x Reader Rating: Mature (this may change) Warnings: Cursing; angst... And well.... Y’all will see Notes: Set before the movie. Not beta-read. Reina is Spanish for Queen. I hope everyone’s having a good week! 💜 Summary: You’d spent the last few days checking all of the cameras we had available for Hernandez, but you hadn’t been able to get another fix on the man.

The tracker stopped giving off a signal somewhere around El Eden, outside Jericó. There was no way for you to know if it had been knocked loose, or if it had been found, but it gave you a direction. It also put Hernandez in range of one of the last in-person sightings of Lorea, down by Las Minas.  “So I’ll drive down--” “I don’t know if you should be driving anywhere. You haven’t even gotten your stitches out yet,” You gave the phone a withering look, willing Alex to feel the power of the stare from the other end. You and Pope were at the office, looking down at a readout of all of the places the tracker had given off a signal before cutting. You’d spent the last few days checking all of the cameras we had available for Hernandez, but you hadn’t been able to get another fix on the man. Pope told you that he hadn’t gotten anything else about Hernandeze’s whereabouts from his informant, either, and that she hadn’t even expected him to be in the car that night.

The two of you had taken to calling Alex when we were in the office and having him on speakerphone when we were talking over status updates that day. You tended to go by his apartment at least once a day to check on him, make sure he was eating properly and helping out if he needed it. Pope had gone with you a couple of times, and they had been… Amiable. “Fine, you drive,” Alex retorted. You shook your head. “I’m still looking through these feeds. I get that we may get something closer to where the tracker cut, but-- I don’t want anyone going anywhere until we have something more firm. If the tech just shat the bed, or they found it and broke it, going down to El Eden isn’t going to solve anything, it’s just going to waste time.” 

“Pope, your informant doesn’t have anything?” “She didn’t the last time I spoke to her,” Pope turned his head toward the phone to answer, his eyes still set firmly on the map, “But I have a check-in with her in a couple of hours.” A check-in. You were pointedly not thinking about what that might entail. “Look, soon as we get something that looks like Hernandez--” “What if we don’t?” Alex asked. You went quiet. It was a fair question. The man had slipped up once; he’d be raising his guard, making sure nothing like that happened again. You and Pope had both been twice as cautious that week, double- and triple-checking that the door was locked before we went to bed. “We will,” Pope answered. You turned to look at him, taking in the set of his brow, the way his lips were pulling down. He meant, ‘We have to’.

--

You hadn’t had a quiet night alone without Pope since the office had been broken into. It was… Odd. Not eerie or anything, but just like something was missing. You’d briefly, stupidly, wondered if Pope felt like this when you’d stayed with Alex at the hospital. It was Pope’s apartment, he was used to being there alone. Well maybe not alone, but at least without you there-- You huffed, closing the fridge door for what had to be the fifth time that evening. Pope hadn’t told you when he’d be home back when he’d left to meet with his informant. “You gonna tell me what her name is, or should I call her Isabella 2.0?” You’d tried to tease. He’d cast you a dour look as he’d tugged jacket. “What’s it matter what her name is?” He’d asked, and the words had left him with such tired irritation that you immediately felt stupid for saying anything. “No, it… It doesn’t,” You’d mumbled. He’d just grunted, said he’d let you and ‘Brano know if he got anything, and left.

Maybe he hadn’t sounded that irritated? Maybe you’d just been thinking about it too long. Being in the apartment alone gave you a lot of time and silence in which to overthink things. You’d texted Frankie and the guys to see how they were doing, but Benny had a fight that night, so you wouldn’t be able to distract yourself with them for at least another few hours, and by then, Santiago would be home. Hopefully. Hopefully Santiago would be home. Back. Hopefully Santiago would be back. 

-- 

Hernandez is hunkered down in Las Minas. You’d jumped at the sound of your phone, and now you were just staring at the text that had come through from Santiago. Lorea? Was Alex’s answering text. Unclear, Pope’s response came through in seconds.

Las Minas, you could work with that. First thing in the morning, you’d go in and start working through the camera feeds that you could access from Diego’s office. You opened your separate texts with Santiago. Coming back soon?

You watched the screen for a few moments before setting the phone aside. A few more minutes, nothing. He’d answered Alex so quickly. You looked around the apartment, stomach churning. Maybe you wouldn’t wait until morning to head into the office and start combing through those camera feeds. 

-- 

You left him a post-it, of course. 

--

“So I’ve got five possible targets, there are like three that I’m ready to rule out, but I wanted to get your read on them before I dropped them completely,” You said, not even bothering with a ‘hello’, instead pointing to a map on the wall with printed-out imagery from the cameras you’d been able to access pinned to it, “The red tacks are the ones I think are the most likely, blue are the ones I wanna ditch.” “Have you been here all night?” Pope didn’t bother with a ‘hello’, either. “Where else would I be?” You returned your hand to the keyboard, eyes still on the monitor. “I don’t know, with Zambrano?” He said it like it was obvious, like you were over there all the time, beyond helping the guy since he was wounded. “Just stopped by after work for a bit.” “And then?” “Would you look at the map, please?” You didn’t mean for it to come out as snappy as it had, but you were… Tired, and annoyed - more annoyed than tired. Santiago had never answered your text, nor had he texted you when he got in, which you’d asked him to do on the post-it. To top it all off, he was asking if you had been at the office all night. So, presumably, he hadn’t gotten in, had spent the night elsewhere, and… And you’d gotten a tip out of it. Anything else that happened didn’t matter, and you didn’t care anyway, and this game of emotional whack-a-mole was really starting to take it out of you. 

You didn’t dare look at Pope, didn’t want to know whether he was looking at you or the map in the stilted silence that followed. But after a few moments, you heard his footsteps trail away from your desk, over to the wall, and you let yourself glance over your shoulder. Same jacket as yesterday - but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. You lowered your head back to your work, shaking your head a little. What he was wearing, what he did last night or didn’t do, none of that mattered, none of it-- “Ditch the blue.” Pope’s voice cut through your thoughts, and you grabbed the pen you’d set aside hours ago, crossing them off of the list that you’d compiled. “Too conspicuous?” You asked. “Yep.” You tossed the pen back onto the desk and glanced over at Pope, watching him look at the two remaining targets. They weren’t terribly far from one another, but they couldn’t be monitored by one person. “I’ll get Zambrano, drive down, hit them today,” Pope said, pulling his jacket sleeve back and glancing back down at his wrist, “He can drive. We won’t engage if we see anything, it’ll be strictly recon,” He added, glancing back at you.  You turned back to your computer, nodding and wordless. You didn’t like the idea, but you knew that the tip that Pope had gotten would need to be moved on quickly. “You should go back to the apartment, get some rest,” Pope added, heading for the door of your small office space. “I’ve got some stuff to wrap up here,” You shook your head. “Reina.” You looked up at Pope then, raising a brow and waiting for him to speak. He hesitated before he sighed, shaking his head. “I’ll grab walkie-talkies, Zambrano and I will radio when we’re in position.” “Fine,” You nodded, and were on your way to adding, “Be careful,” When you found yourself speaking to the door. 

-- 

“How was the fight?” You asked, leaning back from your monitor and stretching your back over your chair as you spoke into your chair. “What fight?” Alex’s voice crackled through your headset. “Mic,” Pope’s sighed over Alex’s question. “Shit, hang on, ‘Fish-- Sorry, guys,” You apologized before tapping the mute button on your headset - the controls were so damn sensitive. You’d already accidentally knocked them half a dozen times. You raised your phone back to the ear you’d pushed your headset back from. “Sorry, Fish.” “Late night?” Frankie chuckled. “... So how was the fight?” You repeated, not in the mood to touch that just yet. “It was great. Benny kicked the guy’s ass.” “Atta boy,” You grinned, pushing yourself out of your seat, “How’ve you been?” You listened to Frankie catch you up on what you’d missed the last couple of weeks, checking your phone screen now and again for any texts from Santiago or Alex, just in case. “You okay, Q?” “Fine, why?” “You sound a little...Dead.” “Forgot what a sweet-talker you were, chulo.” “You know I don’t mean it like that--” “I’m teasing, Frankie,” You smiled a little, grabbing your mug and walking over to where you’d set up the coffee maker in the back office that Diego had allotted you and Pope, “I’m fine, just… Yeah, late night. Work, you know.” You hesitated as you set your mug down, thinking. “...Frank?” “Yeah?” “Let’s say… Hypothetically… That there was a, like… Snowball’s chance in hell that there was some truth to all the teasing you’ve done about me and Pope.” “How big a snowball?” “You know that boulder that chases Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark?” “Oh, no!” Frankie laughed, and you couldn’t help but smile a little bit at the sound of it -- it was so light, and after the mental hell you’d been putting yourself through, it was nice to hear someone laughing about it. “What’s going on?” He asked. You looked down at the coffee pot, trying to cobble your thoughts together. “It’s just-- Ugh, hang on,” You reached up, adjusting your headset as it began to slip, your hand brushing the controls as you did, “It’s just that-- I don’t know if it’s because I’m staying with the guy, or-- Or what, but I can’t get him out of my head. It’s bad, Frankie. And I mean, it’s not new, either, I’ve had feelings for Santiago since… Since before I took this job. I mean they weren’t always serious, not like they are now, but there’s always been something there for me--” Now that you were admitting it, you couldn’t get the words to stop; they were spilling out like unorganized tupperware from a hastily shut cupboard, “But fuck, it’s just been so much-- Worse isn’t the word, I mean, noticeable, maybe. Fuck, I’ve been living with the guy, we sleep in the same bed, and he’s cuddly, and I like it way too much. I spent half the night looking for new apartments because I just… I can’t do it anymore. If I don’t get out of there, I think I’m gonna fall in lo--” “Hey Q?” Alex’s voice crackled in through your earpiece. “Hang on ‘Fish--” You sighed, raising your hand to your headset. But before you could even touch it-- “Your mic is on,” Santiago’s voice was quiet, almost regretful. Your heart slammed into your rib cage with the force of a freight train. You reached up with a shaking hand, tapping the mic button on your headset again to mute it. “...Francisco, I’m going to need to call you back.” Tag list: @justanotherblonde23​  ; @revolution-starter​  ; @emurlemur​ ; @badbitxhbuckybarnes ;  @supernaturalcat7​ ; @mylittlelonelyappreciationtoo​

[unstoppableforcce]

trivia night

pairing: Santiago “Pope” Garcia x reader

masterlist | next part

a/n: oh so very smutty so [18+] y’all. thank you to everyone who inspired and encouraged me to enter the triple frontier fic world, if y’all like this one be sure to let me know so I can keep more coming !! ( and a special thank you to @mandoplease for publishing such incredible work that I had to join the Santi fic world !! )

“No, Jango Fett is from the prequels--”

“Boba Fett is also in the prequels--”

“And the originals--”

The whisper fight was not unusual for a Thursday night trivia night with the boys around the table at the brewery but it was unusual for Frankie, Benny, and Will to get away with the discussion for so long. 

Santi was almost always the first to jump in and set the record straight, no matter the topic of the question asked by the bald and Irish host up by the bar, but not this Thursday. His stare passed over the few tables packed with housewives eying up Benny and ignoring their husbands, and over the twenty-somethings with purple and pink hair holding similar arguments. It was directed straight to the bar across the concrete floor and no where else. 

Because it wasn’t tall and lanky Bram the bartender behind the counter like it had been every Thursday night for the past six months since Frankie moved two blocks away from the brewery. It was you. 

And he couldn’t pull his attention from you, not even to correct the absurd whisper fight happening at the table around him that had spiraled into an even stupider battle between the brothers for the pen to scribble down the answer. 

You were too distracting.

“Pope— Pope— give me the goddamn pen, Benny— Pope, come on is it Boba or Jango?” Will fought, nudging him enough to snap him from his thoughts but also nudging him just enough to send the beer in his hand clattering to the side, spilling out all over the table. 

Frankie and Will were quick to grab their phones off the table, Benny scrambling exclusively for the tiny slips of paper for the trivia game, but Santi had no choice but to slide his chair back to try and avoid making a mess of his pants. Except it made a screaming noise that echoed around the large brewery warehouse, the metal chair against the concrete making people throw their hands to their ears and groan instead of focusing on the question at hand. 

“Dammit,” he cursed out, reaching for a handful of napkins as his jeans got wet but as he began dabbing, he glanced around and realized the whole brewery shifted their attention to their table, “sorry, we’re all good.”

“Convincing,” Frankie chided and Santi quickly hit his hat off his head, earning a chorus of laughter from the table, but doing little to hide the blush on either of their faces.

“It had to be my beer?” Santi scoffed, grabbing another handful of napkins to begin wiping at his chair and the table. 

“You weren’t helping with the question—”

“You two would have figured it out—“

“I told you it was Boba—”

“Turn in your answers to the front so we can move on to the next question!” The host called from the bar and Benny quickly stood with his answer on the slip of paper, taking it up to the front as everyone’s tables did the same. 

But as Pope tried to keep cleaning with his futile napkin pile, a dry towel appeared on the table next to him, between him and Frankie. 

“Here, let me...” 

It was you, not Bram the bartender, pushing the dry towel into the spilled beer on the table, and he froze. 

If he thought you were distracting from afar, it was worse up close.

Frankie didn’t freeze though, he quickly scooted out of the way, careful to lift his chair so it wouldn’t screech the way Pope’s did, but Pope still stood just a foot behind you, frozen in place. 

The hustle and bustle of the trivia night continued on around them and you worked quickly, drying off the table and wiping down the floor where most of it ended up, but he didn’t snap out of it until you bent down in front of him and he realized he was just staring. 

“Sorry, it was an accident...” He sighed, trying to get back to himself by bending down next to you, trying to help with his sloppy pile of napkins even as you waved him off. 

“It’s okay, trivia can get pretty intense.” You chuckled, using your towel to collect the mess of napkins he had in his hands. “I’ll take that.”

“Oh um, thank you.”

“No problem--”

“I don’t know any of the Spice Girls!” Benny whisper shouted from across the table, interrupting the two of you as both of you slowly stood back up. 

Santi took a glance around, realizing the trivia night had continued on around the two of you and that was what Benny was talking about, not any other random reason. 

But he could still care less, focused more on you as he dragged his seat back to the table. Except you didn’t flee the table immediately and retreat back to the bar like he expected, you hung around, leaning into the table.

“What’s the question?” You hummed, quickly earning all of the attention of boys around the table. 

“Umm who was the only Spice Girl not to sing a line during Wannabe...?” Frankie meekly offered from beside you.

“Posh.” You whispered before pulling back, flashing Santi a smirk and finally retreating to the bar while Benny scribbled the answer down quickly. 

“Thanks—” “Thank you—” they all cheered behind you and you offered the same smirk you gave to Santi to the rest of them. 

“That’s not Bram...” Will laughed out, sipping at his beer. 

“No, definitely not.” Frankie continued to muse, nudging Pope again and almost making him drop the pitcher in hand as he moved to pour himself a new drink. “Was that what was distracting you--”

With his glass only halfway filled, he brought it to his lips to give himself an escape while the boys began to laugh around him. 

“Yeah, definitely not Bram...” He joined them with a laugh but the next question came on quickly and they all moved on. 

Except for Santi. He didn’t. He couldn’t, not that quickly. 

He glanced back to the bar, looking past the bald man leading the questions to you at the bar. Though the second you felt his stare, you looked up from the counter and briefly caught it. But he only sent it back to the guys around him, missing the smirk that stayed on your lips as you stared. 

As halftime from the trivia game sounded off, most of the crowd escaped out to the food truck in the back alley, including Will who refused to take orders for the others. 

“If you want a taco, go out and get your own taco.” Will scoffed out, earning a round of groans in response. 

But as Benny got up with his glass of beer to intercept the stares he had been getting from the table on the other side of him and Frankie excused himself for the bathroom, Santi really had no choice but to get up himself. And if he was getting up, he was going to talk to you. 

At least, that was if he could catch your attention out of the crowd of men waiting for refills. 

Nabbing a small section of counter top next to Bill, the older office worker who came to play alone nearly every week and oggle the owner, Santi patiently waited as you passed pitchers and glasses across the counter to the hoard of waiting men. He contemplated heading back to the table, not wanting to make things more difficult for you, but as he caught your stare again while you worked, he figured you might prefer for him to tough it out. 

So he waited, and waited, past the ten minute warning from the bald host, then past the five minute warning, but eventually you cleared out the crowd and made your way over to him.

“Pitcher of the Amber or...?” You prompted, wiping some of the spillage from the last pitcher you past over the counter away as you maneuvered yourself across the counter from him. 

“Yeah, please...” he sighed out, clenching his eyes shut as you turned your back to him. 

No. No, was what he should have said, they still had almost half a pitcher left on the table but It came out before he could help himself. 

What was wrong with him? He never had any problem asking for a name, or a date, or a phone number, especially when you set him up so well. 

Hopefully the tacos made the boys thirsty because you quickly turned around with a full pitcher and he had to fish his wallet from his pocket, tossing a few bills out between the two of you. Enough to cover the pitcher and a healthy tip. 

But nothing to wow you. He had no charm, no confidence. What was wrong with him—

“Need me to carry it back to your table or you think you can handle it without spilling?” You mocked easily, the smirk building on your lips again and practically drawing him further into the counter.

You had your own gravity to you, it was simple, effortless, unlike anything he had felt in a while. He leaned his elbows forward onto the counter next to the pitcher and you leaned closer just the same almost on instinct. 

“I think I can manage that myself... thank you though...” 

That wasn’t smooth, that could’ve been so much smoother, what the hell was wrong with him—

“Need anything else?”

“Your name?” There was his recovery, better late than never. He quirked his head and slyly dropped his stare to the counter with a chuckle before dragging it slowly back up to your eyes. “Maybe a phone number?”

The smirk didn’t even drop when you laughed at him, amused by the display. 

“I don’t even have your name,” you mused, letting out a wistful sigh, reaching for your towel to wipe at the counter again. 

“Santiago.” He extended his hand over the counter and you took it easily, offering your name back as you did. 

“Maybe if y’all win trivia I can see myself offering up a phone number.” You shrugged, pursing your lips out slightly. 

He didn’t let any blush rise to his face, just a hum of his own amusement. The blush for the whole room was worn by Bill just one seat over, trying desperately to look like he wasn’t eavesdropping though both of you could clearly tell he was. 

“Maybe?”

You shook your head but the smirk on his lips only grew on his face, “Maybe,” you repeated. 

“I think I can work with maybe.” He liked this banter, and he more than liked the smile you sent it his way with. 

“Yeah? Then you better up your Spice Girl’s knowledge.”

“I know my Spice Girls—”

“Good for you man.” Frankie joked, having overheard just his line as he approached the counter behind Santi. “I thought I had the next round?”

Santi stuttered a bit at that, back off his game, searching for the words he needed but you had already chuckled out and shifted your attention away, grabbing the money and turning to the next customer. 

“Oh, did I interrupt—”

“No, why would you think that?” Santi kept his voice down but let the sarcasm flow freely, throwing his hands up in some minor annoyance and Frankie hid his laughter and the heat of his cheeks behind the brim of his hat. “Just take the pitcher, will you—”

He looked back to the counter to push the pitcher his way and you were back, holding a handful of napkins out to him, “just in case.”

“Thank you.” He said again, taking them from your hand as you just shook, turning your back to him as he walked away with Frankie, the host calling for the start of the final few rounds. 

He was no longer useless to the team. He magically shifted into the leader he normally was when they came out for Trivia night, answering questions before some of the guys could even process them, scribbling out faster than even Benny could manage. But in the end, it wasn’t enough. 

Team ‘the boys’ worked their way into second place just behind the two assholes at the bar, clearly having just gotten off work with their loosened ties and rolled up sleeves. Team ‘rich and delicious’. That meant they got the applause and they got the free beer growlers. 

It also meant Santi got nothing. 

Or at least, he assumed that was the case, letting his stare fall to the guys around him as they cheered for their first second place victory since they started coming. 

“Nice work man,” Frankie touted, patting him on the back as Will freshened up each of their glasses with more beer. 

It was a fun night and it felt good to do better than ever before, but he was competitive to say the least. He wanted to win. Not just for the principle of winning, though it would have certainly been reward enough to beat the two dicks at the bar. But more so for you. 

Though as he caught your stare across the brewery again, your smirk told him it wasn’t over yet. 

After about another hour of drinking, you shouted out “last call,” and by then, most of the brewery had began to pack up and head home anyways. 

Will had planned to drive Benny home, Frankie had planned to walk from the beginning but Pope steadfastly remained confident in his sobriety. Dolling out a few hugs or handshakes to say goodbye, he excused himself to the restroom and when he came out, his team was gone. 

Making his way to the bar, now one of the few remaining patrons, he caught your stare and attention much quicker than he had before. 

“No win for you tonight...” you joked and he rolled his eyes, taking claim of the seat across from you. 

“Second is better than we’ve ever done so I still have that to be proud of.” He fought back, watching you wave to the last group of people as they left, kind enough to bring their glasses back up to the counter for you. 

“Really?” You quirked your head over your shoulder as you continued to clean. 

He quirked his head right back, amused to say the least, “Yeah, we aren’t the smartest band of guys—”

“No, I mean, you’re proud of second?”

He laughed out at that, meeting laughter from you as well and smiling, “is second not something you reward? First only?”

“I may have a prize for second...” You laughed, “but you don’t really strike me as a guy satisfied with second.”

“Satisfied?”

“Satiated, content, accepting of—”

He shook his head, another spell of laughter falling from his lips, “No, you’re right, I’m a competitive guy.”

Grabbing a tub out from under the bar, you settled it on your hip and maneuvered out of the bar, going table by table and grabbing the rest of the glasses laying around. “I know, you put up quite the fight for second, the ‘nearly grandma’s’ team was only two points behind.”

“I guess Posh Spice really helped us.” He laughed. 

You settled the tub back out on the counter and reached over for a wet rag to begin wiping down each of the tables. “So what do you think you should get for second place? Especially if I’m the one who boosted you to second...”

“What should I get?” He couldn’t remember the last time he was around someone and kept his smirk up for this long, he’s never been so amused by someone, so playful with someone...

He felt light. Honestly, light. When was the last time he could say that?

“Well the phone number was for first, what’s for second?” You tempt your smirk back his way as you bend over the first table, wiping it down. 

“I mean, a first date, a first kiss, I’m very interested in everything... what are my options here?”

“I’m starting to think maybe I should have reworked my tiering here, you know, put phone number on the bottom, third place or something.” You mused, moving to the next table as he turned on his seat at the bar to follow you with his stare. 

“So I’ve already won the phone number?”

“Insatiable...” You mocked, finishing up with the last few tables and pushing the chairs in. Pulling your phone from your pocket, you quickly unlocked it, passing it his way, “How about you give me yours?”

“And then?”

“Well,” you spun around some as he began typing, looking up at you between his name and number, “it’s nearly midnight and I’m not off work yet, and I normally work everyday but Thursdays and Sundays so, I’m not much for dinner dates but I’m a big fan of breakfast.”

“That’s convenient, I make a mean breakfast.” He smiled, quirking his chin up as he handed your phone back to you. “How about tomorrow?”

“Now we might be a little ahead of ourselves, I just got your phone number.”

“I haven’t gotten anything.” He shook his head with another laugh. 

He liked laughing this much. Sure, he laughed with the guys but he didn’t have plans to sleep with any of them. And the people he did sleep with weren’t like you. Maybe that’s what he’s been doing wrong recently. 

“Second place...” you mutter, shaking your head as you take a few steps closer, effectively eliminating any space between the two of you, no bar to lean over, no nothing. “Second place would really be lowering my standards you know...”

“Should have told the ‘rich and delicious’ team to stick around.” He mocked as you leaned closer, his voice getting quieter and quieter as you did.

“Nah, second isn’t too bad when it looks like you.”

He couldn’t take it anymore.

In all honesty, he’d been staring at your lips since the two of you ended up alone at the bar and watching you bend over to clean... he had shown incredible restraint so far.

And judging by the way your stare fell to his lips, he wasn’t the only one. He felt more confident than he had felt all night.

More confident than he had felt in a while, if he was being completely honest.

He surged forward off the bar stool and grabbed your face with both hands, dragging your lips to his. The kiss was heated and full of fire, but far too short. He couldn’t let it linger for too long, almost all of his confidence coming out in the single surge. But as he pulled his lips back from yours, keeping his nose up against yours, he felt a spark of electricity flow through him from head to toe.

The way his lips hovered over yours, dancing against yours ever so slightly as he tried to catch his breath, it was like two live wires sparking against each other.

Electrifying.

Clearly you felt it too, because he couldn’t even catch his breath much less get out a word or two before your lips were back on his and your hands were gripping tight to his chest.

Stepping you back, his hands fell to your hips, guiding you onto the next bar stool so he had a better angle, his hips in line with yours in between your legs, his lips moving to attack your neck.

“Santiago...” you moaned out, his name floating through the stale air of the brewery like the sweet honey the amber ale tasted like and he swore he could taste it on his lips as he licked down to your shoulders.

“Let me take you home...” he rolled his hips up into yours and the breath that escaped you was even more rugged than the last.

“Oh well, first place...” you threw your head back, “first place would get to take me home.”

“What does second place get?” His kisses trailed along the gold necklace that hung around your neck, dipping lower into the cleavage of your black top.

“Well, we have the place to ourselves, might as well make ourselves comfortable.”

He laughed at that, pulling his lips off of you and glancing around the empty warehouse bar. “Yeah?”

“Could’ve come in first.”

“Oh honey, I’ve got no problem taking you on the table...” he smirked, dragging you off the stool and bringing your face back to his for a chaste kiss. “And I never come first.”

“Oh I set you up for that one...”

“Damn straight sweetheart.”

Grabbing your hips as you slung your arms around his neck, he moved you back to the nearest table and sat you back on it. And while you pulled at his short curls, deepening the kiss, he found the bottoms hem of your shirt and began dragging it tantalizingly slow up your chest.

Seems you were the one showing little restraint now, meeting his hands and rapidly lifting it the rest of the way off and tossing it aside easily.

“You’re good at that.” He mused, reaching for the bottom hem of his own shirt to do the same

“Yeah, I take it off at least once a day you know...”

“Smart ass.”

He grabbed for your hips again but instead of drawing you closer, he flipped you around, pressing the front of your hips into the table and pushing hims elf firmly against your ass. With one strong forearm taut around your torso, he kept your back against his bare chest, dragging you as close as possible until your breaths aligned with his and his lips could move to your ear. 

“Is this okay?” He huffed, still trying to catch his breath and staggering even more so as one of your hands reached up to intertwine your fingers with his holding against your chest. 

With a roll of your hips back into his, eliciting another groan from his lips, you responded with a throaty, “Yes...”

Your head fell back onto his shoulder as his restrained and hardened length continued to grind into your ass, the fingers of his hand not holding you upright dipping to the button of your jeans and undoing it quickly. The hot breath panting out of your chest held in your throat as his hand dipped even lower, dragging taunting lines along your soaked underwear. 

His hips rocked in a deft rut against you still but now rocking your tight bundle of nerves into the palm of his hands, prying a restrained whimper from your lips. 

“Baby, I want to hear you.” He cooed into your ear, his mind desperate for the honey of your voice and the way his mind seemed to drown in it. The hot pleasure of each movement bubbling in his stomach, he was hardening against your ass, you were soaking over his fingers...

“Santiago...”

A growl released from his lips, as his hips stuttered against yours. He wanted more of you, more of your delicious voice whining out into the echoing warehouse, more of the decadent juices dampening his fingers as he pushed aside your underwear and dipped into you one finger at a time, more of the hot taste of your skin as he sucked onto the bend of your neck to your shoulders, more of you... so much more of you. 

Bending you over the table, your hands splayed out over the freshly cleaned surface, trying to keep yourself upright with nearly quivering arms. His pants hit the floor, belt buckle clattering to the concrete, and yours quickly followed suit, worked down your legs to bunch up around your boots and ankles. But keeping yourself partially upright was futile, turning your head over your shoulder you caught sight of him stroking over his fully hardened and lengthy girth and all but resigned yourself to your impending fate, laying down the rest of the way with another moan released your lips. 

The sight of him alone had you clenching around the stale air of the warehouse and nothing else, desperate for more of him.

“You want this?” He played, drawing a languid stroke over himself as he brought his tip to play against your exposed and aching cunt. “Tell me you want me, baby.”

“I want you...”

“Yeah?” He pressed in gently, toying with you as your grip around the table tightened. “Tell me baby.”

“Smart ass,” you groaned, earning a gentle yet playful smack on your ass that you relished in, trying to back into him for relief. Finally, the taunting tease was too much and you pleaded for him with your dripping honey tone, “I want you, I want you, please.”

Pushing the rest of the way in, all of your noises held tight in your throat while he kept still within you, relishing in the feel of you stretching around him as your hands clenched tight around the table. One of his hands worked up your back, unclasping your bra with a practiced move and continuing up to the back of your neck, pushing your face into the cool table top before he began to work in and out of you. 

His other hand held at the dip of your lower back, holding you in place as his thrusts accelerated in pace. The holding grip felt like a crushing weight but nothing like the force of his pounding hips as he nailed you deeper and deeper into the table. The repeated hits of your hips against the table threatened to leave bruises but you could care less, the pain was pulling an addicting sense of euphoria from your core and you’d cover your body in a thousand bruises if it meant you’d feel this good. 

Weaving his hand from the back of your neck into your hair, he lifted your face up just enough to meet his lips as he bent over you, finding a newer, deeper angle with his lips ghosting over yours. 

“How does it feel, baby...” he taunted as you tried to bring your lips to his but he held you just far enough back to feel his breath but not his lips. 

Close, tauntingly close, but not enough. 

“Kiss me, Santi...”

“How does it feel?”

Sending a particularly pounding thrust into you, your head fell back against his shoulder, your moan descending into a sob as his lips met your neck for a lengthy lick and bite. 

God, you didn’t just feel good, you felt right. You felt right like nothing had before, not since he and the guys got back from South America. 

He bought the house because it felt like the right thing to do, he stopped doing work that would hurt himself because it felt like the right thing to do... but this was the only thing that felt right. He had been looking for something like this for longer than he could even remember and he wanted more. 

“Santi—” 

He cut you off with his lips on yours, contorting at a weird angle but giving him new access to your still half clothes chest. He wanted your bra off, he wanted to feel every inch of you, every single goddamn inch of you. 

Every sound you made, no matter how faint, echoed in the big room now, even in competition with the obscene sound of his hips smacking into yours. You could hear each grunt and breath that fell from his lips and he could hear the same from you, every whine and moan, every whimper and—

“Please...”

Your words vibrated against his lips and released a new level of desperate need from within him. 

The hand he had fighting with the fabric of your bra relinquished the fight to get it off, moving underneath to take hold of your breast, his other hand reaching back around your torso to hoist you back up into his chest. His teeth gritted together as he found a whole new rhythm, faster, faster, faster...

“Oh my g—”

“Oh fuck honey.” Everything was getting tighter, the tense coil in your stomach, his grip around your chest, every muscle in his legs and abdomen, the pull of you against him... you were clenching tighter and tighter around him, tighter and tighter. 

His hips snapped even harder into you as his rhythm began to falter but his hand reached down from your stomach with a purpose. His hand was back on your pulsing bundle of nerves, but not his palm, two fingers, rubbing meticulously at first but quickly loosing all sense of control as you began to shake against him. 

Biting down on your shoulder, he moved to a pace he couldn’t hope to maintain, trying to push you over the edge with his fingers, rubbing faster and faster and faster and—

“Fuck, Santi— fuck.” you shook, coming apart around him as your scream of his name cursed out into an echo, bouncing around the warehouse walls and playing into his ears on each bounce. Then your breathless whisper released just loud enough for him to hear in your smoothest voice, drenched in honey, drowning his ears in it, “Santiago...”

And that was all it took.

He was falling apart, barely managing the control to ask “can I— fuck, can I— inside?” and get an exhausted nod from you before he came apart. 

His hips stuttered, knocking you into the table once, then twice in quick succession, all accompanied by whines of his own falling from his lips against the skin of your neck. 

“Not bad for second place...” you mocked, still out of breath as he kept you held up against his chest.

And his laughter shook the both of you, his forehead, now damp with sweat, pressed into the side of your face. As he slipped out of you, sending you both whimpering out from the loss of contact, he kissed down your spine until he picked his own pants up. 

“Let me take you home,” he kissed back up your spine until you turned around and met his lips with yours. “I promised breakfast...”

“I like breakfast.” You hummed, holding him close by his curls, forehead holding against yours. 

“I like you.” 

To think, you had the audacity to be mad when Bram the bartender asked you to pick up his Thursday shift.

—

tags: @mandoplease @spider-starry @pizzahutmonkeybutt @mouse230 @kindablackenedsuperhero @shakespeareanwannabe @mylifeliterally @this-cat-is-dea @woakiees

[the-fiction-witch]

The Other Harmon P1 - P5

TV SHOW : THE QUEENS GAMBIT COUPLE: BENNY WATTS X READER RATING: Flirty Af

Part 1: Happiness 

I laid looking at the ceiling, pondering, thinking, My brain never turned off. It never had as long as I remember, my life had been a strange one and yet I had found my own happiness, I just have hope my sister will find it likewise just I imagine not the way I did, as we had always been two rather different Harmon's.

"Uummmm..." I heard beside me looking to the other half of my bed as he turned over his mop of messy long hair matted and out of place more so than usual, his face a picture of peace and relaxation his facial hair sat as perfect as usual, his strong skinny upper body out from our covers a little the rest of him wrapped up warmly his face stiffened and he grimaced "y/n? What are you doing still awake?" He asks with a yawn

"Nothing Benny, I couldn't sleep"

"Alright, come on, come here honeydew... Let's get some rest, got a plane to catch in the morning" he yawns pulling me to his chest like I was his teddy bear. Not that I minded at all. I kissed his bare skin and nuzzled closer to him trying to lose myself in a dream.

Part 2: Promise Me!

"Girls-"

"Mother? What's going on?" My sister spoke

"Girls we just uhh were just going on an uhh a little trip out for ice cream," my mother said in a hurried tone as she drove "okay baby just close your eyes, close your eyes and you promise me you'll look after your sister"

"Mother-"

"Promise me!"

"I promise"

I remember little else of what happened. I just remember my sister holding my hand as they took us somewhere, I didn't understand where They took me away from my sister for reasons I didn't know.

"Elizabeth Harmon, and Y/n Harmon. Eight and four" a man said as he made notes taking me somewhere else.

I would see my sister often but she never seemed happy all she ever wanted to do was play chess and I didn't understand it. I liked to watch but I couldn't play honestly. I didn't really want to but I knew the more my sister grew to know that board the less she would grow Into my sister. One day people came and we were told to wash up and dress nicely. I showered, brushed my teeth and put on my prettiest dress doing my hair Into braids with small blue ribbons even shinned my little shoes. And I went and waited for what felt like forever until Beth arrived

"Where have you been?" I asked

"Sleeping"

"But this is important"

"It's just another couple who will look at us see us as a package and not bother" she explained "they always want you... they never want me"

"Well... maybe if you tried"

"You think I don't?"

"I'm sure you do beth," I nodded as the door opened and we were ushered inside and there sat a rather nice looking couple. Things were said and disgusted but I barely spoke a word until they left and we were told to pack.

Part 3 : Different

I forced so much of that time away from me watching only as she got better she drifted away from me, I remember wondering around this hotel as Beth chatted with her friends. I saw someone sitting discussing chess to some other men. Something about him seemed so... different.

All these boys were stuck up little nerds in suits with pocket protectors for their pens, hair gelled back and glasses perched but...

He was different. His jeans tight to his body leaving little to imagination a tight belt around his waist a black shirt under a green shirt unbuttoned slightly but all hidden by this long leather coat, his slender pale neck intrigued me his face youthful and yet aged a speckling of facial hair giving him a look of someone more mature his brown eyes seemed to hesitate on the crowd he spoke to his hair pulled back by his hat but it was obvious it was long and unruly. Someone came over and the crowd quickly left him alone. He stopped of course and turned to scan the room until he saw me. His eyes flicked up and down before he seemed confused. I went over out of curiosity sitting on the chair across the table from him

"Hello" I smiled

"Hi, how old are you little girl?" He asks

"Old enough to know better" I smiled making him chuckle a little too "are you playing today?"

"No, I just come to... see old friends and check what's going on" he explained, "do you play?"

"Not really, watched a lot," I said

"Here, I'll give you a game," he says laying out a thick wooden board and laying out all the pieces all the years of watching beth and I knew so little "don't worry, I'll go easy on you" he winked moving a piece I had no plan or much skill of moves or starters or anything like that I just plaid and not five minutes later "Hu... you uhhh your good"

"Thank you" I smiled

"I think I know who you are, '' he smirked "your Beth Harmon? Aren't you? That kid that knocked Harry off his perch in Kentucky?"

"Ohh no" I laughed

"No? Who are you then?"

"Y/n, Beth's my sister" I answered

"Is she now, well it was very nice to play you y/n"

"It was nice to play with you too" I smiled "ooh sorry I uh-"

"Benny, Benny watts" he smiled offering his hand I happily took it and he gave my hand a little kiss before getting up with his stuff to go elsewhere

"Who was that?" Beth asked behind me

"Who?" I asked

"Who was that you were just talking to?" She asked

"Ooh... just a boy" I smiled

"A boy? What were you doing?" She asks sitting with me

"We played a game is all"

"I thought you hated chess?"

"I don't hate it, I don't love it, it's a nice game," I said

"Who was he y/n?"

"He said his name was Benny"

"Benny? Benny watts?" She asked and I nodded "you- you just played a game against Benny watts?"

"Yes, he seemed lovely, A very fine gentlemen" I smiled

"Y/n, you know who that was right?"

"No..."

"He's US champion"

"Ooh, well I beat him, though he was going easy on me" I explain

"This is why I don't take you places" she sighed going off elsewhere.

Part 4 Our Little Secret 

Beth barely let me on trips after that she didn't seem to like me around when she was doing chess for whatever reason but I went with her and our new mother to las Vegas I stood around this strange place seeing so many names and so many tables I simply wondered thought in my dress trying not to draw attention to myself, I spotted on a board of people the name of my sister. I also saw not far away on the list a name I remembered from what feels like so long ago Benny watts I remember that name it's funny but since that day I had I suppose you could call me a groupie if chess has groupies, fan I suppose.

I kept an eye on him, magazine articles of him, pictures of little things mostly even if I hid them under my bed not wanting Beth to know, I thought something pleasant about him and the fact I had beaten him so long ago even if no one knew that but him and I. It was like a secret we shared.

And just at that moment, a familiar voice spoke up

"Well, well, little y/n Harmon. What are you doing here?' I heard I turned and saw Benny much as I Last did in fact almost exactly like a picture I clipped from chess review not two weeks ago

"Benny watts" I smiled so excited to see him "ohh well just here for beth and all"

"Of course yeah, hopefully, I should at least get to play your legendary sister" he laughs "you know one of these days you should enter"

"Me? No, no chess is Beth's thing I wouldn't want to impose"

"Y/n if beth can wipe the floor with these boys you can do it with your eyes closed," he says

"Chess isn't my thing, never has been"

"You beat me"

"I haven't forgotten that Mr Watts" I blushed

"Aren't we growing up to be a proper lady?" He laughs "growing up a lot back home? Aren't you?" He asked as I caught his eyes lingering in me I blushed hard seeing such a thing

"Yes, I am"

"I can tell," he says "how about a game?"

"It's alright, you don't want to do too many today"

"Come on, just for fun," he says

"No thank you, how was Austin?"

"Sorry?"

"You were in Austin recently, how was it?"

"How do you know?"

"I keep up with chess review, well once beth is done with it" I smiled

"Do you? Are you keeping an eye on me?"

"I like keeping an eye on you" I smiled "so how was it?"

"It was Lovely"

"I always wanted to go..."

"I'll have to take you with me, next time" he smiled "just answer me something... honestly, I'm sure when Beth has things written about her in all these chess magazines she cuts them out and then lets you have them?"

"Yes" I nodded

"And then if it happened in those said chess magazines happen to have anything about... me in them, do you have a read?"

"Of course I do like I said I keep an eye" I smiled

"And would all those little clippings about me be in a secret box under your bed so beth doesn't find out what you've been doing?" He asked and I froze up completely "I take that as a yes, don't worry our little secret" he winked "I'm sure I'll see you later y/n" he smiled giving my hand a little kiss and he went off somewhere I assume for a game but as I watched him walk away I felt something strange. A horrible pain in my stomach...

Part 5: A Woman 

I ran as fast as my feet would carry me up to the room, my mother and beth both gone already I ran to the bathroom pulling up my dress and my many petticoats seeing the trail of thick red blood that had begun to form as my stomach cracked with the horrific pain as badly as it had earlier. I pushed my dress off me and almost saw the blood coming out of me as I cried out in pain, I grabbed as much toiler paper as I could rolling it up and cleaning myself up and going back to watch beth.

"You alright darling?" Our adoptive mother asks

"Uhh yeah" I nodded

"what's wrong?" she asked pulling me to the side a little

"I uh I started"

"Ohh, first time?" she asks and I nodded a little scared almost in tears she handed me something from her handbag and a couple of pills "Go on it'll help," she says

"It hurts"

"they'll help with the pain"

"why does it have to hurt?"

"who knows" she sighed "But you're a woman now" she smiled

"Can... things cause it?"

"Like what darling?"

"Like... sinful things, or people?" I asked

"no of course not darling its a natural part of being a woman" she explained "All though... being excited doesn't help" she winked "why do you ask?"

"No reason" I smiled as I glanced across the hall to a table with benny playing against his opponent.

[punkscowardschampions]

Mattie & Jay

Mattie: I am, as of about 54 seconds ago, freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Mattie: Finally, although that Geography exam was MUCH easier than the 7 hour lock-in vibe we had for our Art project 😨😱

Mattie: The hand cramp might be permanent, I’ll never be able to hold a pen or a pencil again… What a shame 😏

Jay: The news I’ve been waiting for, I can’t hear about another bloody exam, Mats

Jay: not yet old enough to look back fondly, you know 😬

Jay: Can help you think of a more top drawer excuse not to get a summer job in publishing though

Mattie: but old enough it is but a distant memory 😆

Mattie: um yeah right, dad knows my summer plans do not involve a single book this year, not even the trashy beach read

Jay: Yeah, yeah, I’m in the winter of my life and you’re about to have the summer of yours 🤫

Jay: Not even a travel guide? Boooo 👎

Mattie: Winter is a little harsh

Mattie: but it’s the end of August, definitely

Mattie: you’re such a 🤓

Mattie: I already know where I’m going

Jay: Ouch x 2

Jay: but go ahead and tell me your plans then

Mattie: Noah loves it

Mattie: How many countries are you trying to tick off yourselves this summer?

Jay: He loves to spend a week in each, with 3-4 days as a rule of thumb per city but some are doable in 2, I’ll be able to budge him and keep you posted

Mattie: That sums you both up so well

Mattie: You know where to direct my postcards

Mattie: Well, I will *hopefully* be spending some time in Switzerland, if all goes well

Jay: Um… that’s a winter destination, we’re discussing summer here

Mattie: Who asked you to write the rulebook, Miss 🤔🤪

Mattie: Switzerland still very much exists in Summertime, it looks beautiful, actually

Mattie: But I do have a reason for going

Mattie: Reasons

Jay: I’m getting the feeling that those reasons aren’t summer glacier skiing in St Moritz and the melted mountain snow making the Rhine Falls a must visit

Jay: so, which boy has keys to his parents' holiday place and how long have you wanted this scenario to play out?

Mattie: Whilst those are all undoubtedly excellent reasons, definitely worthy of a best-selling beach read, so maybe you should pitch them to dad instead actually…

Mattie: You know our actual mum ended up having those twin girls, when I was like 3 and you were what, 9 or 10? Obviously you know but anyway

Mattie: And we’ve not had contact with them because it might make us super emo and dad and the grandparents didn’t really want us having contact with real mum because it’d be damaging, potentially

Mattie: Well, I’m finally gonna do it, schools over, I’m an adult now too

Mattie: And she isn’t Benny’s mum, they aren’t his sisters, so I don’t feel like I have to wait for him to age up to do this

Mattie: They board in Switzerland, assumedly they’ll be back for the Summer, they have a house here too but I’d like to go see them there, as that’s where they spend most of their time

Mattie: If they want to, grandma has to set it up but she will now I’ve said I want to

Jay: Mattie

Jay: slow down

Jay: When did you decide this?

Mattie: I’ve been thinking about it seriously since I was about 16

Mattie: but then they would’ve been 13 and I don’t think anyone needs any more potential angst and drama at that age, it wouldn’t have been fair

Mattie: You can’t say you’ve never thought about it, surely?

Jay: What did dad say when you told him?

Mattie: He didn’t say I couldn’t, or shouldn’t

Mattie: Obviously he had plenty of words of warning about her

Mattie: and I respect his experience, of course

Jay: but you’re going to do it anyway

Mattie: It’s different

Mattie: I’m not going to be in a relationship with her, or ask her to raise any children

Mattie: I just want to meet her

Jay: Meeting her is inviting her to have a relationship with you, why would you want to open that door? It’s closed for a reason

Mattie: Because I want to know her, who she is

Mattie: even if it’s bad, she’s still half of me, us

Mattie: And if she was that keen to form a relationship with us, she would’ve tried long before now and we’d know about it

Mattie: That’s evidently off the table

Jay: Off the table when she didn’t want it, but when you show up wanting it, that’s her way in, that’s who she is

Mattie: It’s been a long time

Mattie: Like my whole life and I’ll be 19 soon

Mattie: She’s clearly got her own life that she’s happy with, she’s still with the twins dad

Mattie: I’m not saying you have to come if you don’t want to

Jay: People don’t change that much

Jay: she’s happy, they’re bound to be miserable

Mattie: All the more reason to meet them

Mattie: but we don’t know that, Grandma would’ve told me if they were, I think

Mattie: and done something about that, more to the point

Mattie: And Dad changed, people can, I don’t think that blanket statement is fair

Jay: No, she tried to change him and couldn’t, he met Ava and was allowed to be himself

Jay: Grandma has kept us away from them as agreed, if she really thought you should meet, she’d have done something about that

Mattie: She didn’t want us to be jealous, as kids

Mattie: and that makes sense

Mattie: but I’m not now and I’m not trying to steal their life or anything like that

Mattie: I know she did a lot wrong, to dad, to us and in general but that doesn’t change the fact I want to do this

Jay: It doesn’t make sense to me that you’d want to do this

Mattie: I know you feel differently

Mattie: and I get it, for you

Mattie: It’s just weird to me that they’re out there and I’ve basically never met her, never mind the twins

Mattie: Why wouldn’t I do that, if I have the chance to

Jay: Them maybe, but she doesn’t need to be involved if Grandma is helping you

Mattie: I have no idea if she will want to see me

Mattie: but I want to know that I reached out to her too

Jay: Like you said, if she wanted to, she could’ve

Jay: I don’t want you getting hurt

Mattie: I know you don’t

Mattie: and I do appreciate the concern, no sarcasm intended

Jay: Yeah, none detected

Mattie: I’ll be fine, I promise

Mattie: I have no expectations so I can’t be let down

Jay: If you had 0 you wouldn’t be reaching out, you’ve been thinking about this for years, of course there’s some expectation there

Jay: be careful

Mattie: I just want to know what they’re like, whatever that entails

Mattie: Obviously if she/they refuse to see me, that’ll be disappointing

Mattie: but I don’t think Grandma would’ve offered if there was no chance they’d also be into it

Mattie: Assumedly, they’ve discussed this possibility too

Mattie: I’m always careful, it’s my middle name 😋

Jay: Your middle name is unsuspecting or unjaded, something like that

Mattie: A prefix, how classy 💅

Mattie: What’s yours?

Jay: Take the un away and boom, there’s mine

Mattie: Oh, slightly unoriginal when it came to me then

Mattie: could’ve been like Jay ‘this baby is definitely yours’ Pemberton-Howard

Jay: That’s what happens, originality goes out of the window in favour of cutesy matching

Jay: and there’s no need for my middle name to do the work my actual already did

Mattie: Benny is lucky there’s been no 2nd child in his case

Mattie: I’ll just be here languishing in the forgotten middle 🥺

Mattie: At least Jay is a decent name, compared to her usual naming style, a win there

Jay: Yours is fine too, since Tilly never stuck

Mattie: Not on paper though

Mattie: Let’s just pretend your official name is Jacinta or something too 😆

Jay: Let’s not

Mattie: Alright spoilsport

Mattie: Keep your cool name 😎

Mattie: They can call me Mathilde, so Swiss

Jay: She owes me that much at least, for everything you don’t remember

Mattie: You can tell me about it

Mattie: when you feel like it

Jay: I’d be a proper spoilsport doing it now

Mattie: Of course not

Mattie: I told you I’m not going into this with 🤩

Jay: You’re doing this to find out for yourself what she’s like

Mattie: Partially

Mattie: Doesn’t mean you can’t talk about your experience with her too

Jay: It means there’s no point talking about it, you won’t be talked out of anything and I definitely won’t feel any benefit

Mattie: Fair enough

Mattie: So tell me what you guys have been up to

Mattie: Now I can think about anything that isn’t my exams

Jay: You mean well, but I remember her like a kid, I hate her and I am afraid of her like a kid, it’d sound crazy

Jay: maybe unreliable should be my middle name

Mattie: That makes sense, you have nothing else to go on

Mattie: and the potential risk of finding out what she’s like now outweighs any potential reward for you

Mattie: I do understand, it’s just different for me, that’s all

Mattie: It doesn’t mean either of us is wrong

Jay: I’m so glad it’s different for you, seriously

Mattie: I won’t say I’m so sorry for you

Mattie: because that sounds the opposite of how I want it too

Mattie: but you know

Jay: Yeah, don’t ever say that 😏

Mattie: anyway, you’ve turned out alright

Mattie: mostly 😉

Jay: Oh thanks

Jay: I’ve just been working btw, no news to rival yours

Mattie: Ahh, the joys of being old

Jay: Less cheek if you want to get to my age

Mattie: Sorry but sound like less of a grandma 😅

Mattie: You can redeem your cool and youthful points by helping me pick what to wear to the leaving party tonight

Jay: Surprised you want my help, but sure 😎

Mattie: It’s not my usual crowd that’s throwing it

Mattie: but like the entire year is invited, so I can’t not go

Mattie: I’ll need a little help to match the vibe, I think

Jay: Okay so expensive but not attention-seeking

Mattie: Definitely

Mattie: There’ll be enough people looking for attention without me even making that attempt, no thank you

Jay: What do you have rn that’s vintage or looks classic?

Mattie: [selection from your own wardrobe and Ava’s]

Mattie: 😬😬😬 idk how I’m going to decide in time

Jay: You should decide on the last one and keep your hair and make up lowkey, but the one before that if you’re thinking of a statement eye or lip

Mattie: A statement lip is not lasting the celebrations

Mattie: and I mean 🥂 not 💋 before you start

Jay: 💋 proof works for 🥂 too

Mattie: you have a point 🤔

Mattie: Ugh, I need food before I can concentrate

Jay: Before you go…

Jay: whenever you talk to the twins, ask them if they want to meet both of us

Mattie: Of course if they want to meet me they want to meet you too, dummy

Jay: It’s not a no from me, is what I meant though

Mattie: Okay, I will let them know

Mattie: I’m sure they will, why wouldn’t they

Jay: If she’s lied about us and Grandma hasn’t been allowed to say anything, they could think all kinds of things

Mattie: If they’re anything like me they’ll wanna find out for themselves

Mattie: besides, you were a little kid, I was a literal infant, what kind of shady bitches could we have really been, wouldn’t add up

Jay: We don’t know anything about what they’re like yet

Mattie: Come on though

Mattie: Who says no thanks to surprise cool older sisters

Jay: Venus

Mattie: Oosh, fair point

Mattie: I was mostly joking anyway, time will tell, they’ll be who they are and we’ll see if they want to know us too

Jay: Yeah, it’s out of our control

Mattie: and that’s okay

Mattie: breathe 😌

Jay: I’m fine, I’ve done this before

Mattie: True

Mattie: It’s a bit different this time though

Jay: Easier because we’re all older and I’m not getting a 3rd dad as well

Mattie: No luck on a different mum, I’m afraid

Mattie: We look a bit alike and that has to come from somewhere

Mattie: But seriously, don’t you think being younger was easier?

Mattie: like you can’t fully wrap your head around any of it so you just roll with it

Mattie: maybe that’s totally wrong

Mattie: it didn’t happen to me so I don’t know

Jay: I already had Ava and Rio when I needed one

Jay: being a little kid made it overwhelming and scary

Mattie: I’m sorry I couldn’t do much but cry and be annoying in various other ways a toddler is

Jay: How much you cried around her used to be my favourite thing about you, don’t apologise

Mattie: Well, it was my pleasure 😅

Mattie: and 🤞 I’ve gone up a bit in your estimations since for more than just 😭

Jay: Maybe a little bit, I suppose

Mattie: Charming 😏

Mattie: I’m feeling a tantrum coming on now anyway

Mattie: Couldn’t eat before that exam and now I’m hangry 😡😡🤬

Jay: I remember you saying you needed a 🍼

Jay: we can talk later, when you’re too hungover from the leavers party to call me an old dork or whatever else, that’s fine

Mattie: Attack when I’m weak 😲 rude, smart but rude

Mattie: I’ll try not to buttdial you past your bedtime, grandma 🤙✌️🤟

Jay: Noah’ll appreciate it, undoubtedly

Mattie: If that was an attempt to throw him under the bus as the old nerdy one

Mattie: Both can be true

Mattie: match made in heaven

Jay: Bye, Mattie

Mattie: Love you 💗💗

[umikawa]

Roses Are Red

Pairing; Benny Rodriguez x Reader

Warnings; None really

Word count; 1100

A/n; Based off the lovely song Roses are red by Bobby Vinton <3 (from my wattpad)

You laughed as you sat down on a bench with Benny, the yearbook clutched tightly in your hands messy with signatures as you look at the eighth-grade photos. Ever since the rest of the guys and then Scotty moved, you and Benny have been inseparable, spending each and every moment with one another, preserving the friendship that could so easily slip from your grasp. 

"You didn't sign it Ben," you say, nudging a pen on his shoulder, passing the book onto his lap. 

You handed me your book   I signed this way

Benny thought for a moment, tapping the pen against his chin as he thought of something to write, something that wasn't common like "have a great summer" or "see you next year."That wouldn't be true anyways, you and Benny would most likely be spending the entire summer together. When the words popped into his mind he wrote it out, in the neatest possible handwriting he could conjure up. 

"Roses are red, my love

Violets are blue

Sugar is sweet, my love

But not as sweet as you"

He smiled bashfully as you read it, a small blush creeping on your cheeks. When you looked at him he rubbed the back of his neck, smiling at the ground before he met your eyes. 

"That's very sweet Benny." You smile, leaning over to kiss his cheek.

He looks at you with a smile, not knowing that his hand is holding yours. "U-Uh yeah." He chuckles nervously, feeling you squeeze his hand.

-

We dated through high school

Everyone in town knew you and Benny were a thing, some girls jealous that somebody finally swept Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez off his feet. You two were together throughout school, surprising a lot of people since you were so young.

Graduation had just passed, seniors getting a day to say goodbye to friends who were off to college and get their yearbooks signed. You passed Benny yours and he flipped to the back of the book, finding a clear spot before he wrote in it.

I wrote into your book  Next to my name

"Roses are red, my love

Violets are blue

Sugar is sweet, my love

But not as sweet as you" 

You read the same poem he wrote for you in eighth-grade, him smiling because it still made you blush.

" you're very cute Benny Rodriguez." He grinned before pressing his lips against yours, pulling away to kiss your cheek.

-

Then I went far away

You let the tears fall as Benny hugged you, a scout had picked him up for the dodgers immediately, even though he was fresh out of college. You buried your face into the crook of his neck, smelling the faint hints of cologne and vanilla, the odd yet comforting smell calming you down.

"I'm so proud of you." You whisper, fixing the collar on his shirt.

He looks down at you sadly, pushing the strand of hair that fell in front of your face back. "I wouldn't be here without you."

"You'll always be my best friend Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez." You said, holding out your pinkie.

He wraps his pinkie around yours, "You'll always be my best friend Y/n L/n." You chuckle at the boyish grin he gives you, hugging him one last time as his train gets called.

"Don't forget me yeah?"

"Don't forget me neither." He replies, picking up his suitcase and walking onto the train, glancing back at you and waving.

And you found someone new 

Dear, Benny

Hi Ben, I've seen you on tv! Benny The Jet Rodriguez still sticking huh? I heard Scotty was an announcer now, its really cool. I'm still living in the valley, they fixed up the sandlot, put a new dugout and painted the lines. It's still pretty beaten out though, the new kids are so good, even caught one of them with your jersey on. Squints and Wendy are having another kid, what's this one, the sixth one? Speaking of kids, i have one of my own. Named her Vanessa, after your mom, James and I are really anxious for you to meet her (James more excited to see you i might add)

Well, this letter is kinda jumbled, How are you? The sports channel doesn't tell you everything.

Love, Y/n L/n

I read your letter, dear  And I wrote back to you

Dear Y/n,

Hey! Everythings going good, the season is really picking up and although it's a little stressful juggling everything its all worth it when i get on the field. A little girl huh? If she's anything like her mother then she's ought to be sweet. I'll try to pass through some time to meet her. Tell James i said hey, and let me know his reaction. Squints and Wendy having another kid doesn't surprise me, it's them after all. I'll see you three at the end of the season (Hopefully)

Love, Benny Rodriguez

P.s

"Roses are red, my love

Violets are blue

Sugar is sweet, my love

Good luck, may god bless you" 

You smiled as you read Benny's letter, calling James over. He rests his hand on your waist, looking over your shoulder as you point to where Benny says Hey to him.

" oh my God!" He exclaims, "And he's coming here when the season ends?" He cheers but hears crying when he jumps up, he freezes in his spot as you send him a glare, walking over to the crib Vanessa was sleeping in.

"Hi, baby, sorry we woke you up. Papa got excited that my friend was coming, can you settle down for mama?" You speak softly, rocking her back and forth as she quiets down. You set her back down in the crib, walking over to James to smack him in the head. He rubs the spot, digging into the envelope when he saw another note.

"Honey." He says, holding it out for you. You grab it from his hands, sitting on the couch to read it.

I almost forgot something

Someday some boy will write  In her book, too

"Roses are red, my love

Violets are blue

Sugar is sweet, my love

But not as sweet as you"

You smiled, tucking the note back into the envelope it came in, looking at the tv.

"Stepping up to bat is the famous, Benny The Jet Rodriguez, we watch as Howard winds up his pitch, throwing a fast one but nothing stops the jet. Oh! The ball is going, it's going, and it's outta here! The jet has hit yet another home run!"

Xxx xxX

A/n: aHa went bye bye for a while but hi!

[aion-rsa]

In the Heights Review: Lin-Manuel Miranda Musical Still Lights Up

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Romance permeates Jon M. Chu’s big screen adaptation of In the Heights, like the aroma of charcoal on a summer day. Perhaps this should be obvious since the central conflict of the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical remains its two star-crossed couples working things out at the northern, tip-top peak of Manhattan. Yet that’s not where the movie’s true passion lies; like the source material before it, the In the Heights film’s real ardor is for the neighborhood of Washington Heights itself. How else could a picture so endear you to what is otherwise a cup of bodega coffee?

As a jubilant and kaleidoscopic love letter to the handful of city blocks which run adjacent to the George Washington Bridge, In the Heights bursts with a life and creativity that is often blinding, and always intoxicating. It lives in a postcard Neverland version of the usually overlooked and marginalized sides of New York City, yet that does not make it fanciful. Rather this is a movie head over heels in love with its street corners above 181st Street, and the largely Latinx community which lives there. And if you go into it with an open mind, you’ll fall, too. 

Ostensibly the story of Usnavi de la Vega (Anthony Ramos) and his quest to leave New York City behind in favor of his parents’ Dominican homeland, In the Heights opens after he’s already achieved his dream. He’s older now and recounting to his daughter on a Caribbean beach his memories of a community that is obviously still his real home. For back in the day, he was the young guy who owned the corner’s favorite bodega, and he knew everyone on the block.

There’s Benny (Corey Hawkins), Usnavi’s bestie and an ambitious dispatch caller at the local taxi cab service; Kevin (Jimmy Smits), the overachieving first generation immigrant who owns said taxi service; and Sonny (Gregory Diaz IV),  Usnavi’s teenage cousin who helps out at the store. But perhaps most importantly there’s Vanessa (Melissa Barrera), the aspiring fashion designer who also has plans of getting out of the hood—if only to West 4th Street—and who’s the apple of Usnavi’s eye.

Theirs is just one of the mildly complex romances at the heart of a film, which also focuses on the return of Nina (Leslie Grace), Kevin’s daughter who is home for the summer after her first year at Stanford. She is the golden child to both her father and all of Washington Heights—one of the “good ones” who made it out. It makes telling them all she dropped out that much harder, including Benny. Because, like Usnavi and Vanessa, theirs is an entire history of everything being left unsaid. Each couple, and all the familiar faces in their lives, is about to have a whirlwind summer filled with music, heartbreak, a rolling blackout, and just maybe a winning lottery ticket.

As with many stage-to-screen transfers, Chu’s adaptation of In the Heights struggles at times with its new format. The Broadway’s musical’s creators, Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame and Quiara Alegría Hudes, the latter of whom wrote the book for the show and has here penned the screenplay, are intimately involved in the film. And they’ve made a series of smart, savvy concessions to their new medium. Some songs have been moved around, others have been excised completely, and the wrap-around story with modern day Usnavi in his dream beach bar on a Dominican shoreline attempts to add more narrative structure for a film which is, at heart, a series of musical vignettes.

Still, In the Heights cannot wholly avoid the most familiar obstacles which have tripped up other Hollywood adaptations: the need to maintain as much of the musical material as possible from the show gives the film an occasionally shaggy quality as it meanders its way around every major set piece in its 143-minute running time, and ultimately overstays its welcome with maybe one too many toe-tappers.

With that said, it would take a real curmudgeon to focus on the minor narrative stumbles when there is so much exuberance emanating from Chu’s production and the kinetic ensemble. With its fusion of freestyle rap, salsa rhythms, and other blended Caribbean musical styles, this film erupts with an irresistible vitality every time its ensemble hits the asphalt.

Chu, who before Crazy Rich Asians cut his teeth by directing the best Step Up films, brings a familiar eye for propulsive choreography and joyful movement that made the dance sequences in those films into spectacles greater than most modern action movies. In the Heights is similarly ready to try on almost any creative hat for at least one musical number, such as when Usnavi, Benny, and Sonny break the fourth wall to sketch on the screen their wistful daydreams of what they’d do with a winning lottery ticket, or in the way Vanessa’s song about getting out leaves her entire block covered in the fabric she thinks will carry her off on a downtown train.

In lesser hands, these flourishes could fall into music video glibness, but they’re balanced by an entirely authentic ensemble and a beating heart beneath the razzle dazzle. Ramos particularly seems to be a talent on the make, trading in John Laurens’ blue coat and starched collar from Hamilton for a more laid back and movie star-ready affability. His Usnavi is charmingly big-hearted yet hints at deep waters beneath his calm surface. And, with all respect to Mr. Miranda, Ramos can sing “It Won’t Be Long Now” in a much fuller range.

Barrera’s Vanessa and Grace’s Nina also both have showstopping ballads that are sure to amass each an influx of fans. However, the solo number that lingers best belongs to Olga Merediz, whose Abuela Claudia is the surrogate grandmother to both Usnavi and the neighborhood. On paper, the part could easily be reduced to an archetype, but Merediz’s one major scene where she sings only to herself about a lifetime’s worth of regrets and slights after immigrating to the U.S. from Cuba 70 years ago elevates the films and adds texture to the Latino-American experience that In the Heights so celebrates.

More than its romantic will-they-or-won’t-they rendezvouses, it is the movie’s affection for the ties which bind first, second, and third generation Americans that becomes the picture’s real emotional resonance. The film version of In the Heights also updates that pride and anxiety with a new subplot involving Dreamers—undocumented young people who grew up and lived their entire lives in America—and the dread of being deported from the only home they’ve ever known.

Of course with a gushing heart on its sleeve, In the Heights is still a fairy tale in search of magic, not sorrow. Instead of ice castles or ancient kingdoms, however, its alchemy resides in salons with broken air conditioners and the sugar flavored ice shavings found in a Piragua guy’s cart (which, by the by, provides Miranda with a movie-stealing cameo). I’m not sure if it has the same complexity of music and narrative that propelled Miranda’s Hamilton into a phenomenon twice over, including last year’s Disney+ streaming event. But it won’t really matter to the countless new fans who will surely watch In the Heights on repeat—and hopefully on the biggest screen they can find.

In the Heights opens in theaters and on HBO Max on Friday, June 11.

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[yamithediaperdork]

It’s a living (Ben 10 omiverse)

it was a nice and peaceful day in Bellwood for a change, though considering it wasn't the main stream universe's Bellwood that made a degree of sense. In fact even as the main verse Ben sat across from his counterpart, enjoying the Mr.smoothies of universe 23 they could both relax as Seven-seven and Tetrax had decided to stay on earth and work as a team with 23, so were out patrolling. "So, not that it's not awesome to see you from time to time..but usually you showing up means something about to go all fucky fucky...Sooo what brings you here?" 23 asked. "things don't ALWAYS go bad when i show up!" Ben protested, huffing a little. "Mmmhmmm..So you showed up and I get attacked by my future team mates..you show up and the Ben war..you show up and Mad Ben.." 23 said, counting off on his fingers. "..Damn uh.. well I promise, no world ending stuff this time." Ben said, sweat dropping. "I uh.. ok so i told you I recently moved out and got my own place right?" "And yet you haven't invited me back once." 23 said and blew a raspberry to show he wasn't really offended. "eheheh well fact of the matter is I mightttta gone a little beyond my means and kinda sorta..I'm like a week from getting kicked out." Ben said, poking his fingers together sheepishly. "Heh, and what, you want a place to crash?" "welll more thinking maybe since I've been helping you and all that jazz, you could spot me a couple of grand to get me in the clear and stuff?" Ben asked hopefully. "eh..I learned the hard way not to loan friends money Ben. it's why me and my Gwen aren't on speaking terms." 23 said, then took a big drink of his smoothie. "however, I AM willing to help you MAKE the money you need, and more." "...Doing what?" Ben asked, confused. "Cuz gotta say, I've tried the retail thing back home and when you have to stop doing stock to fight alien invaders, you don't keep your job for long." "Pffft as if I'd let you work retail! Nah man! You know I've leveraged my frame and endorsed a TON of things right? Part of how I'm rolling in dough? Well I got this one wanna be sponsor who I'm not big on the product, but they are offering a crazy amount of cash. I figure they'll settle for the Ben of anther universe, you do the gig, we split the money 50/50, and everybody wins." 23 said, taking out a note pad and a pen. "Look uh, not to sound ungrateful, but if I'm the one doing the modeling or whatever, shouldn't I get more then half? and what are you writing down?" Ben asked. "That's how much your half of the deal will be, and I think you'll find it more then fair." 23 said and smirked. Ben frowned and picked up the piece of paper, looking down, then did a double take as his eyes went wide. "Holy crap! what am i modeling off? Missiles?!" he asked, his voice going higher then normal. "nah, no weapons of mass destruction in that sense.. though bet you'll still clear rooms." 23 said and gave a impish grin. "You'll be working for huggies." "..Say what?"

After half a hour of back and forth, and Ben admitting he really didn't have a better option, the two took off, transforming into XCLER8 and Speedyquick instead of hailing a cab and made their way to the huggies headquarters. since 23 was used to this sort of thing Ben mostly let him talk over the contract and tried not to get boarded out of his mind as they talked returns and profit margins, only tuning in when the executive they were talking to (who if Ben didn't know better, he'd swear was this universes version of Charmcaster) brought up diaper usage. "Of course seeing your other self in our new line of Lil' stinkers would do wonders for our promotion of them, but if we could show them being used it would really help sell other points. we're taking photo shoots for magazine spreads and of course some tv and internet ad's. the more you and your client can promise us in terms of selling these diapers are for big babies who need to be put in their place, the more zero's we can add to your check." She said, smiling. "Wait..as in..you know.." Ben interrupted before 23 could talk, and unable to say what he was thinking, and blushing badly, he make fart noises with his mouth. "Heh, yes, we want you to go dooty in your diaper." Hope said, smirking and watching the two boys reactions. "N-No way! I mean I'll wear them and crawl around and stuff, but I'm NOT taking a dump in diapers!" Ben huffed and crossed his arms, shaking his head and well, looking just perfect for the target audience. "Maybe I should give you and your client a moment to talk this over. we can make a deal without the diaper usage but it's going to cut into the bottom line." Hope said and got up and left the room. "Can you BE anymore of a brat?" 23 hissed at Ben. "But..but..she wants me to-" "Yes, I know. I was there. Look Ben, I'm putting my neck on the line for you here, if my other sponsors hear about what a crabby brat your being here, it could affect me. Also your the one who came to me for help, so wouldn't like crapping yourself in huggies and making a boat load of cash once be better then doing a bunch more commercials to make the same amount? And who the hell from your universe is gonna see you doing this anyways?" 23 asked. "But I don't wanna poop in a diaper!" Ben whined and shook his head. "and you can't make me! so th-" he started to add, then suddenly he was yanked out of his chair and over 23's laps. "W-what are you doing?! and when the hell did you get so strong!?" "I've been working out since the mad Ben thing. and I'm gonna do what anyone does with a whinny brat.." 23 said and smirked, tugging down the back of Ben's pants. "I'm gonna spank you." Yanking Ben's skid marked stained briefs up and giving the bigger boy a wedgie and exposing those cheeks, 23 paused. "Last chance to be a good boy and let me handle this." he said. "Y-You don't have the balls!" Ben cried out, his voice carrying. "I gave you a chance." 23 said and shrugged, then brought down his hand on Ben's bubble butt over and over, turning the cheeks nice and red as Ben bawled like a baby.

Since the office wasn't sound proofed, and many people knew that both of the Ben's were in the office, it attracted A LOT of attention as the bigger Ben's voice filled the floor with the sounds of wails and there was the unmistakable sound of buns being tanned. Hope smirked as she listened, feeling she had pegged the relationship between the two boys right, and waited till there was just the sound of the bigger Ben sobbing before going back into her office, and fighting back a chuckle as she saw the bigger boy in the corner, his pants in his chair and his undies still hiked up. the boy had his nose to the corner and his hands on his head, and was whimpering and sobbing gently. "I'm sorry for that, somebody needed a attuide adjustment." 23 said. "oh don't be! I just wish we had recorded that! would of been perfect for the set up of a commercial!" Hope said and chuckled. "well I can always spank him again." 23 offered, chuckling to as Ben whined loudly from the corner. "So, may I assume that your both on board with widdle Benny making uh-ohs and tinkles in his diapers?" Hope asked. "I dunno, Ben, are you ok with messing your diapers?" 23 asked. "Y-Yes! No more spankies!" Ben cried out, his hands going from his head to covering his poor buns. "i think that answers your question." "excellent, then I'll draw up the contract, and if we hurry we can have Ben in the studio in about 2 hours. Make sure he gets LOTS to eat, we wanna show off how the Lil' stinkers hold up to even the biggest messes." Hope said. as 23 and Hope chuckled, Ben whimpered and found himself sucking on his thumb having ALL the regrets.

a hour and half later and a semi pot belly Ben was leaning back in his folding chair, in front of the set and belching off and on. He still hadn't been able to reclaim his pants though he'd been allowed to tug the wedgie out at least, though this just got loads of comments about how diapers might be a good full time choice for him. Ben had swallowed back any come backs or threats he had in mind as every time 23 was quick to pat his still sore booty. going on Hope's advice 23 had forced Ben to chow down, though while the catering table was set up with all sorts of awesome snack foods, including Ben's favorite, chilli fries, it was the large pyramid of at least 23 jar's of prune baby food that 23 had directed Ben to, helping the bigger boy and spoon feeding him as the crew setting up the large nursery chuckled. "Come on ben, one jar to go. you can do it." 23 was saying, grabbing the last jar and smirking at Ben's baby food covered face. "D-Dude..I'm not joking..if I eat one more bite I'ma hurl." Ben whined. "that's what you said two jars ago." "by all means, call my bluff, just when your wearing baby food on your shoes, remember i warned you." Ben said with a weak smile then a LOUD and nasty belch. 23 made a face and waved the air in front of him. "Man, if it smells that bad now.. Maybe i should excuse myself to the other room when you crap yourself." he teased. "N-no way..if I'm doing this..you're watching AND smelling!" Ben whined and Belched again. "Can i get something to drink?" he asked. instantly he realized he should of worded his request better as 23 got a large baby bottle filled with what was hopefully milk, and popped it in Ben's mouth. it only took a few sucks on the nipple to realize that of course, it was formula, and Ben scuched up his face. "Hehehe I have to say Ben, you are JUST too cute like this. I might have to try and lock you into a long term agreement here." 23 teased then winced at the glare Ben gave him. "Kidding! Kidding!" pushing the bottle out of his mouth, Ben went to say something but was cut off as Hope strolled onto the set. "Ok people, time to make some magic. baby Ben, we need you in wardore." she said then pasued. "Oh, Do you know how to put a diaper on?" she asked, suddenly looking sheepish. "N-No." ben whined and a loud toot came out his bottom. "Oh er..I don't think we have time to teach you before you unload." Hope said, holding her nose. "it's ok, I'll diaper the big baby." 23 said happily. "of course you will." Ben muttered, but let himself be lead off to a side room where there was star on the door, with his name on it. "great...I'm about to become famous as a diaper boy.." Ben whined. lead inside 23 just chuckled. "Mr.Devil, he's ready for his close up."

The diaper was MASSIVE, and for a second both boys just stared at it, wondering if Ben was gonna be able to even walk in the thing. it was easily the equal to 10 normal diapers layered together and was a soft baby blue (whether that was a marketing choice or just when they had been making these things expect 23 to model them, neither boy was sure) anther loud toot from Ben's back door which sadly filled the small dressing room had both boys holding their noses, and broke them out of their trance. "I..I don't wanna do this. I'm scared." Ben whined, looking at 23 with pleading eyes and starting to squirm in a way that told him their deadline was coming up fast. "Sorry buddy, we signed the contract. but I'll make sure this goes as fast as possible. all you have to do with whimper and cry, and act like you've been acting, and I'll be doing the voice over." 23 said and reached up, patting Ben's head. Ben whined but let himself be laid down on the teddy bear print changing mat on the floor and just lifted his arms to let 23 tug his shirt off. "we're gonna have to enroll you in a exercise program if we need to keep feeding you like this." 23 teased, noting that while Ben wasn't chubby, he had enough pudge on him to look a bit like baby fat, and the baby food in his tummy wasn't helping. Sliding Ben's undies off 23 tossed them in a trash can behind him, then unfolded the massive diaper as Ben whined. "W-why'd you toss out my undies? A-and were are my pants? F-For after?" he asked, feeling so small and helpless as 23 lifted Ben up but his legs to get the diaper under him. "hush, you let me worry about that..though..heh.." 23 paused the look down at Ben's exposed crotch. "Didn't know you shave." "I uh..haven't gotten my pubes yet.." the bigger in so many ways, but not where it counted boy said. "well that explains your cute widdl-" "Watch it!" Ben huffed and for the first time moved to use his Omimatrix. "Ok ok..Sorry." 23 said sweat dropping. "I've had THREE girls interested in me by the way, so it can't be THAT small!" Ben added and 23 smirked and powdered him lots. "And how many of them saw you down there?" 23 asked, as he tugged the diaper up. "and of those that saw, how many stayed interested?" with the diaper tapped up Ben sat up with a bit of effort, but was blushing and wouldn't look 23 in the eyes. "L-Let's just get this over with." Ben huffed and tried to get up on his own, only to keep falling back on his puffy butt. "That's what I thought." 23 chuckled and then held out his hands, Helping Ben get to his feet. the bigger boys BIG diaper had his legs spread and Ben was barley able to waddle, several times needing to stop and take 23's hands as they made their way out onto the set. 'If i make it though this I'm moving to a smaller apartment so i never have to ask this son of a bitch for a favor again.' Ben thought.

Hope grinned ear to ear and had some of the photographers snap shots of Ben needing help with walking, before coming over with a baby blue bonnet and bib that had white text in comic sans, that read BRAT. Ben would of argued about the add ons, since he was pretty sure that hadn't been in the original deal, if it wasn't for the fact he was using every ounce of control NOT to mess himself too soon and have to start all over. "There we go, don't you just look adorable~" Hope teased and tickled Ben's chin. "A-Ah.S-Stop that..w-we hafa hurry up..I..I can't.." Ben whined and rubbed his tummy, a muffled fart coming out and making hope take a step back. As they started to film, Ben for the most part blissfully blacked out, but of course got to watch the commercial after, with everyone praising him on what a good boy he had been.

"Hey everyone, Ben 23 here, and bringing you yet anther great product. So, brats, we all know one and we've all thought about putting them in their place, but where do you even start to get what you need for it?" Came 23's voice, on a screen of black. "Well the answer for that, Is huggies. That's right, the same company you've been trusting to look after your little bundles of joy is here to help you put those same bundles of joy turned into over sized brats back into little baby's." the screen came into focus and there was Ben, a glazed look in his eyes and holding his tummy, in all his big baby glory. "Most of you know about my other universe counterpart, but what you don't know is that he's a grade A BRAT. as a favor to his friends back in his verse, we're giving Baby Ben the punishment he deserves. isn't that right baby ben?" 23's voice asked as Ben whined and pouted. "Pwease, no wanna go poopies! I'm sowwy!" Ben cried out. "now now Ben, you don't want anther spanking do you?" 23's voice asked, and it was the yelp of fear that sold it as Ben totally lost control. the camera zoomed in as the back of Ben's diaper rapidly started to expand, and loud gross farts were heard. Ben for his part was face down ass up, and pounding a fist on the floor as he filled his diapers, crying and howling but really, it only made the shot better. "Lil stinkers is made with a new material that allows for up to 40 times the normal amounts of waste, which means even with 22 jars of baby food in baby Ben's tummy these diapers won't leak, or your money back." 23 said. the diaper only started to take on a dirty stain of brown in the back as the material reached down to Ben's knees. "with our new smell block guards in the diaper, you'll only get the faintest whiff of the the mess the big babies made. Sure it spares the brat but if your brat is anything widdle Benny here, you're gonna be punished enough changing him." with a few last sputtering farts Ben was apparently finished and sucking on his thumb as he got up on his knees, looking to the cameras. "C-Change pwease?" Ben whined. "Oh silly Ben, if we just changed you right away, where would the fun be in that? with added rash protection built into the diaper, along with bratty baby brand powder, Our little Benny can go 12 hours without a change!" hearing that Ben bawled again, both hands coming up to his eyes and there was just no two ways about it, he looked like a giant baby. "See you in 12 hours little guy! enjoy your poopie diaper." 23 said cheerfully. Ben's cries were muted as they went to the last of it. "Lil stinkers by huggies. put your brat back in diapers, and in their place. Available at a super market near you in two weeks."

Ben naturally wasn't actually kept in the poopie diaper for 12 hours, though they did take the chance to get all the pictures they needed for him in his poopie diapers, with 23 posing in some of them with him. Such as having Ben in his arms, Ben over his lap and pretending to give him a messy spanking, and of course 23 pulling the back of the diaper open as Ben sat on his ass, hugging a teddy bear and sucking on a pacifier and 23 holding his nose. If 23 was being truthfully though he was glad he was wearing his baggy pants as the site of Ben like this almost had little hearts in his eyes and he was tempted to try and keep Ben like this. Still a contract was a contract, and once they had enough footage they got Ben changed into a clean diaper but out of the bib and bonnet, and with his t-shirt back on. Ben was actually in the crib that was part of the set up when he came out of it, the staff and Hope and 23 where having a few drinks. "C-Can somebody come let me out? And.. get me big boy undies and pants?" Ben called, using the crib railing to haul himself to his feet but swaying dangerously if he let go, so knowing he couldn't get out. if the crew heard him, they ignored him and kept talking among themselves and laughing, annoying Ben. "I SAID, SOMEBODY LET ME OUT!" Ben yelled and stomped a foot, slipping and falling on his padded rear. "oh great, the baby is awake." 23 said, smirking and winking to the crew who all laughed. "Your not freaking funny! Let me outta here NOW or I'm going way big!" Ben growled and started to fiddle with his watch. "Way big?" a crew member asked. "as in he's gonna be a big boy?" "No! as in the alien who's 100 feet tall!" Ben huffed and got the watch ready to go. "-sigh- I'll handle this." 23 said and walked over, holding his hands up. "heyy heyy..it's OK Benny. we don't need to bring aliens into this. you're all done here and we'll cash your check at the first bank of Ben then you can go home. OK?" "i want outta this diaper, I want outta this crib! and i want big boy undies and pants!" Ben huffed, keeping his hand over his watch. "heh, your terms are agreeable. we only re-diapered you because you were out of it, and I don't really wanna change anther poopie diaper." 23 lied. He would of totally loved to keep changing Ben's diapers but clearly the little guy had been pushed to his limit.

As it turned out they couldn't find pants in the studio for Ben, or a pair of undies so the poor hero ended up standing in line with 23 at the bank in his t-shirt and diapers, which normally would of caused problems but with 23's technically owning the bank, it was brushed over. The first thing they did after getting the check cashed was go shopping and get Ben a pair of sumo slammer boxers, then off to the food court for him to get the taste of the baby food and formula out of his system, though he wasn't able to eat his full order. 23 joked about how they should of gotten him a happy meal as he wiped up the chilli stains off of Ben's face. after that it was time to go home and Ben gave 23's hand a shake. "..ok, you saved my ass from having to move back home..buttt don't expect me to come back here till this ad campaign is over and done." Ben said. "heh, come on, didn't a SMALL part of you have fun?" 23 asked. "hahahaha NO. Today was the most horrible day of my life, and with the shit I've been though, thats saying something. Maybe you can come over to MY universe sometime and be a diaper boy for me though." "heh. or just show up with a diaper bag." "..Shutting up." with that Ben went back to his home universe, very much richer. Or so he thought.

as it turned out their money while looking the same on the outside, was made differently and raised all sorts of flags when Ben went to go and deposit it in his universe. there was a public cry of outrage that a hero like Ben would try and destabilize a local economy like that, and there was talks of official charges of counterfeiting and maybe even jail time. Not even able to get his cash back, and the Plumbers having to give him the cold shoulder publicly to save face, Ben decided to take a little bit of a vacation (2-7 months while the plumbers legal team got him out of the mess) back in universe 23, figuring that 23 owned him, AND wanting to give him a piece of his mind.

"baby Ben! back so soon?" 23 asked, delighted as a red faced Ben made it to his pent house. on the way over Ben had been recognized, teased and scolded for not being in his diapers and had seen billboard with him in all his blacked out diaper baby glory. "ha.Ha. we have a problem." Ben said, and then nodded to 23's couch. "mind if I take a seat?" "Only if you promise not to make a puddle." 23 joked, but moved aside as Ben came in and flopped down. Ben spent the next 10 minutes explaining out what had happened, as 23 looked upset and shook his head. "Man, that sucks. I'm sorry, i didn't know!" 23 said. "well, I need a place to stay for a little while till i get the OK to go back..so I was wondering if y-" "would put you up here for a few months, heh,. that can be arranged. don't think you'll be able to get a place on your own here unless you just did more commercials though, rent in the city has gone up since i live here." "Not like i have a penny to my name anyways, and was gonna ask if you'd rent me a place..Buttt staying here I guess won't be so bad." Ben said with a little smile. "there is a small price I'd like you to pay..But in return for humoring me on this onnnne tiny little thing, I swear you'll want for nothing while staying with me. all the junk food you could want and any video games, the whole nine yards." 23 said, blushing a little now. "..why am i getting a bad feeling about this?" Ben asked. "well see.. they didn't need the stuff they used in your commercial after you left..so they gave it to me for free..and you were just SO god damn cute.." 23 said, getting up and leading Ben to yup, a recreation of the nursery from the set. "FUCK NO!" "oh come on Ben! i promise! no baby food this time and pop in your baby bottles! Pleasssse?" 23 asked, bringing his hands together. "why in the world would i agree to do that for a few months? I could just go do anther commercial, then get my own place here!?" Ben pointed out. "one, because as your agent I control whether you do anther shoot, it's actually part of the contract, two, if I tell my bank not to cash your check who else do you think will cover that much. three, and this is the kicker. where else can you go to with ease to hide out? you really think mad Ben is gonna welcome you with open arms?" "..Fuck my life!"

And so one week after promising himself he'd never be a big baby again, Ben found himself in two of the thick blue diaper's  and in a t-shirt top, crawling behind behind 23 and pouting like crazy. "Don't you think top is over kill?" Ben whined. "I'm the one paying for them. so just shush and look adorable." "Not funny." Ben pouted and then realized it would be harder then hell to get off and on the couch's and just sat on his diaper butt in the living room. "So what d-" "I want chilli cheese fires, I want a two liter of coke, and I want the latest sumo slammer game five minutes ago!" Ben huffed then grinned. "..Demanding aren't we?" "and i quote: I swear you'll want for nothing. I want all of that." Ben said smugly. "you know, i could of just spanked you." 23 teased, going to grab the phone and make the food order. instead of Ben telling him off however, the threat had a amusing and smelly effect instead. Ben froze at the memory of that and then well, with him being double diapered it was a little hard to tell since there was no smell, but 23 could of sworn Ben just got a little taller. "heh, Did somebody just make me a present?" "NO!...yes." "Good boy. I'll change you after you eat, if your a good boy." 23 said and winked. "...this is gonna be a long 2 months."

the end?

[saltnhalo]

inspired by if I can’t have you by shawn mendes, and this video

Dean looks out over the city lights of Toronto as the cold wind tousles his clothes, bites at his skin. His glass of whiskey, half-forgotten, is held in tightly curled fingers.

This isn’t fucking sustainable, Dean. Running from country to country, chasing your highs, forgetting about everyone who helped you get where you are.

It’s been two weeks. He’d thought time and distance would help, the endless string of shows and performances serving as a distraction, but it hasn’t. His thoughts keep returning to—

It’s going to get to a point where you put your music, your ego, above me every time. It already is. You’re blind if you don’t see it.

He grits his teeth. It’s not selfish to want to be successful. He’s worked so hard to get here, and now that he’s finally achieved his dreams, he shouldn’t be told to step it back. People want more. Everyone wants more.

…Almost everyone.

Goodbye, Dean.

Dean’s hand shakes as he lifts the glass of whiskey to his lips. He takes a tasteless sip, looks out over the hollowly beautiful view for another minute, then turns and walks back into his room.

~

It’s 2am in Montreal, and Dean lies awake in his hotel room, looking at his phone.

He knows he shouldn’t be doing this—he needs a clean break, otherwise it’s going to mess with his head. He trusts that Crowley knows what he’s been talking about, since it’s his management that’s made him so successful, and so he’s tried to stay away from everything that could remind him of…

Of Cas.

Clearly, he’s failing.

Every message that he scrolls past hurts more and more, every sweet flirtation or news about their respective days, shared comments and confessions of fears, aspirations, love. Cas’s absence burns like a hole in his heart, and reading his texts only makes it hurt so fucking much more.

Over and over, he reads: I love you, I love you, I love you.

Does Cas even still feel that way about him? Or has he moved on already, too over Dean and the consuming nature of his career to care?

As much as Dean wishes he could say the same, that he’s doing fine on his own and he’s happy…

It’s not the truth.

~

Dean’s hotel room in New York has all the comforts and luxuries that a young music star could ever want, but that’s not what he’s absorbed in right now. Instead, he’s a third of the way through the expensive bottle of rum that was provided to him as a courtesy from the hotel, drunkenly doodling images and random song lyrics into his notebook.

He’s trying to use his newfound insomnia to write new songs, but no matter what avenue he tries to take with his writing, or which themes he focuses on, his thoughts always come back to Cas.

He always comes back to Cas. And Cas always comes back to him—or he has done, for the last three years they’d been together.

But this time… Dean is starting to realize that Cas may not actually come back. No matter how many times he’s typed out a text, he’s deleted them every single time, and never actually had the guts to reach out.

Likewise, Cas hasn’t contacted him since the night that they fought. The night the he ended… them.

And that realization is fucking terrifying, because it’s starting to put things into perspective for Dean.

If he can’t stop thinking about Cas—not even when he’s onstage, or in his hotel with a glass of liquor, or even writing a brand new fucking song—then maybe he made a mistake in letting Cas walk away. Maybe he’s made the biggest fucking mistake of his life.

And if he can’t write a song that’s not about Cas… maybe he should stop trying not to.

He finishes the last of his glass, sets it down, then puts pen to paper and starts to write.

~

The song, in itself, is pretty simple. It’s Dean, in all his essence, saying all the things he would say to Cas and confessing just how much he’s missed him in the time they’ve been apart. It’s a long shot, he knows, and he might have done too much damage to their relationship already, but he has to try.

“Crowley,” he says into his phone, as he sandwiches it between his ear and his shoulder and fiddles around with guitar chords. “This tour is going to be my only one this year. I’ve gotta focus on other things. Can you make sure the press knows before my show tonight?”

“What? Dean, you—“

Dean cuts his manager off before he can get any further. “I’ve made my decision, Crowley, I won’t let you change my mind. Just get it done.” He hangs up the phone before Crowley can protest much more, and the accented squawking is cut off mid-rant. He’s got more important things to think about—like chord progressions, and performing a completely new song, and whether Cas is going to actually use the ticket and VIP pass that Dean had requested be delivered to his apartment this morning.

~

Dean sits in his dressing room, ten minutes before his show is due to start, and looks down at his phone. The news outlets have been going wild all day with the news that this will be his last and only tour for the year, but he couldn’t care less about that. Amongst all the people who have been texting him or tweeting at him, the one person he really cares about, really wants to hear from, has been radio silent. The most recent text in his conversation with Cas still just says we need to talk.

He tosses his phone onto the table in front of him and runs his hands through his hair. Regardless of whether Cas is here tonight, he’s still gonna play the song—he didn’t pull an all-nighter on it for nothing—but the longer it goes without hearing from him…

The more Dean worries that the damage he’s done is totally irreparable.

There’s a knock on his door.

“Come in!” he calls, spinning in his chair to face whoever needs his attention.

It’s Benny.

“Is he here?” Even if it’s not Cas at the door, Benny could still be bringing good news—news of Cas spotted in the venue, Cas waiting in the VIP area, Cas wanting to talk to Dean. Just from the look of Benny’s face, though, Dean can immediately tell that that’s not the case.

“Sorry, Dean. No one’s seen him. I’ve been sent to get you, the show’s supposed to start soon.” He opens his mouth, like he wants to say more, then closes it. “Good luck out there,” he says instead, and then the door closes again.

Dean tries not to deflate, tries not to let the news of Cas’s absence crush him more than it already feels like it is. A lot of people paid good money for their tickets tonight, and he still needs to give them what they came for, regardless of who may or may not be in the audience.

He pours himself a shot of whiskey, downs it in one quick swallow, then stands.

It’s time to put on a show.

~

“How are y’all doing?”

The stadium erupts in wild screaming that makes Dean’s blood thrum with adrenaline and electricity. This is why he loves performing live—the energy that he gets from the crowd has to be one of the most incredible sensations he’s ever felt in his life, and he smiles out at his audience.

“Alright, this next song is… kinda special, actually. I wrote it last night, and this is the first time I’m performing it for anyone, let alone several thousand anyones, so…” He laughs and shakes his head as he takes the offered acoustic guitar from a stagehand. “If it’s no good, then I’m sorry. But I wrote it for someone pretty f—damn amazing, and I was really dumb to let him go, so… if you’re out there, you know who you are.”

That’s all he can say right now, before his nerves and his fears get the better of him. There’s more, so much more, but it’s all for Cas’s ears only (if he ever gets a chance to say it) and so for now, he sits down on his stool, sets his guitar against his thigh, and begins to play.

I can’t write one song that’s not about you…

He can’t hear the audience past his earpieces, so he can get lost in the music, in the chords and his voice and the feelings that well up inside him. The hopelessness, the inability to move on, the longing and the feeling of wrong time, wrong mindset.

He sings out his feelings, everything he wishes he could say to Cas, closing his eyes halfway through and just letting himself go. So much to say, so much still left unsaid, so many feelings bottled up inside him with no way out. Even if Cas isn’t here to hear this tonight, at least it’s a start.

When he opens his eyes again, towards the end of the song, there’s a commotion by the front barriers, people turning to look at someone and the crowd making way for them and then—

And then Cas is standing there, pressed against the barrier and looking up at Dean, one person in a sea of thousands but the only person who matters most to Dean in this single moment.

His heart breaks open, raw and vulnerable, and he fumbles the next chord in front of an entire stadium full of people but it doesn’t matter because Cas is here. This means that maybe, hopefully, he’s willing to give Dean a second chance.

He plays the last few chords, sings the last few lines as he watches a reluctant smile tug at the corners of Cas’s mouth, and barely lets the last note ring out before he’s putting his guitar down and jumping down off the front of the stage. His security team move to intercept him as he nears the barriers, but Benny must say something into the comms, because they step down after only a moment.

There’s nothing standing in between him and Cas now but a metal barrier, and Dean closes the distance eagerly, as though it’s just the two of them and no one else. Cas reaches for him as he gets close, curls his fingers into the lapels of his jacket and kisses him. The crowd screams. Dean doesn’t care.

The kiss only lasts a few brief moments, but there’s so much in it. There’s relief, and frustration, and the joy of being reunited. There’s passion.

There’s Cas.

When they separate, Cas’s hands still cling to Dean’s jacket, as though he’s unwilling to let him drift away again. Dean leans close, the edge of the barrier biting into his chest. “You came,” he says, breathless and exhilarated. Cas is really here.

“I did.” His voice is quiet over the noise of the crowd. Dean leans in closer to hear him, always gravitating into his pull.

“You didn’t use the pass I gave you.”

Cas gives him a wry look, one eyebrow raised. “I bought my own ticket, Dean. Are you really cancelling the rest of the tours you were planning to do later this year?”

“Yeah. Someone made me realize that there are more important things than how many chart toppers I can release and how many stadiums I can sell out.” He pauses for a second, then adds, “It’s you, Cas. You’re the important thing. And the someone. Just in case it wasn’t clear.”

For the first time, Cas grins, wide and gummy and happier than Dean has seen him in a long time. “It was clear, Dean, but thank you. It means a lot to me that you’ve thought about what I said. Really.”

Dean’s heart flip flops in his chest, and he grins like an idiot. “I don’t know how I ever thought I could put anything above you, Cas. I… I need you. I want to make this work.”

The corners of Cas’s eyes crinkle. This time when he pulls Dean in for another kiss, it’s softer. Gentler. “Me too,” he says when they pull away, and the corners of his lips curl up. “I think you have a show to finish. I’ll meet up with you after?”

Dean can’t think of a more perfect way to end the night. “Deal,” he says, but as he turns away to head back up to the stage, Cas grabs him loosely by the wrist to get his attention back.

“Oh, and Dean?” He grins, and Dean leans back in, enthralled by him and whatever it is he has to add. Cas squeezes his wrist gently, his eyes soft.

“I really liked the song.”

[hearts-hunger]

“D’you need a pencil, love?”

Part One || Masterlist

Pairings: College!Roger x Reader

Word Count: 1.5k

Warnings: None!

A/N: Ok my darlings! This is the first fic I’ve ever posted! It’s part one of a (hopefully) continuing saga of fluff. I envisioned Ben!Roger when I wrote this, but if the real deal is more your cup of tea, that’s wonderful too! Also, I know nothing about the layout of Imperial College London, so I kind of pictured my own university. Let me know what you think! ♥

It really had not been your morning.

Not only had you gotten a late start on your morning routine thanks to your roommate hogging the bathroom, but you’d vastly underestimated the time it would take for you to find the room your first class was in. The chemistry building was on the other side of campus from the classes you usually took, and the whole place was a complete maze. You were scrambling to find the classroom marked S107, because that’s where your class “Intro to Organic Chemistry” was held at 10 am every Monday and Wednesday. Despite your best efforts, though, you found yourself running around the ground floor of the building like a chicken with its head cut off.

Finally, thanks to the help of a friendly security guard that had taken pity on you, you’d found the wretched classroom. You stood outside the door, catching your breath, checking your watch. 10:12. You dreaded going in, knowing that you would be the object of everyone’s attention and scrutiny for coming into class late. You had to, though - you couldn’t justify skipping the first day, especially of the class you really needed to make a high grade in. Being a humanities major, you usually didn’t go near science-y classes, but you needed to take at least one to graduate.

You took a deep breath and tightened your hold on the strap of your messenger bag. You could do this.

You pushed the door open and went inside, realizing with a feeling of immediate horror that the class was huge. The classroom was really more of an auditorium, with rows of seats that descended to the stage, where the gray-haired professor looked up at your entrance. Almost every student turned in their seats to see who had come in, and you felt a fierce blush color your cheeks.

“Welcome,” the professor said, though from his tone of voice you couldn’t really tell whether he meant it or not. He shuffled some papers on the podium and looked over one of them. “You must be Y/N.”

Oh, god. “Um, yes, that’s me,” you said with a nervous laugh, fervently wishing the universe would have mercy on you and let you drop dead right then and there. “Sorry I’m late.”

The professor motioned to the sea of students before him. “Please, find a seat.”

“Right,” you said quickly. You went to the nearest spot you could find, a few rows down from where you were, next to a boy with shoulder-length blonde hair. You pulled out your notebook as quietly as you could, your face still burning. Thankfully, the professor went right back to his lecture, and everyone turned their attention away from you.

You thought you’d reached the end of the morning’s difficulties, but, of course, you weren’t that lucky. You searched in vain through your backpack for a pen or pencil, silently cursing yourself. You were at the point of giving up and hoping that you could remember the important parts of the lecture without writing them down when the boy next to you tapped your shoulder.

“D’you need a pen, love?” he asked quietly, holding out one of his own.

You flushed. “Thank you,” you said back in a whisper, taking the proffered pen.

He smiled, and you were struck by what a pretty smile it was. His big blue eyes sparkled - oh, could you be any more cliche? you thought - behind the round tortoise shell frames he wore. “No problem.”

You tried to turn your full attention to the professor as the boy went back to his own notes, begging yourself not to get distracted. He smelled really nice, and the rolled up sleeves of his denim overshirt nearly drove you crazy as he rested his arm on the armrest between your seat and his. You kept having to refocus your attention on the lecture - something about molecular mass, you thought - and by the end of class you notes written in the boy’s blue pen were horribly disorganized and unhelpful. Great.

When the professor concluded his lecture with an admonition to do the questions in the chapter assigned for next class, people started packing up and chatting with their friends. You packed up your own things and turned to the boy.

“Thank you for letting me borrow this,” you said bashfully.

He smiled at you. “Keep it. Don’t want to show up at your next class without something to write with, right?”

You felt your cheeks color at his smile, as well as his light teasing. You couldn’t help but smile back.

“Right,” you agreed. You stood and put your bag over your shoulder, noticing how tall he was as he stood next to you.

“I’m Roger, by the way,” he said, his accent a little knee-weakening. You watched as he took off his glasses and stuck them in his breast pocket.

“Nice to meet you, Roger,” you said. “I’m Y/N.” Both of you filed out of the row, following the other students out into the hall.

He looked like he was about to say something when he suddenly took your arm and pulled you closer to him. You were alarmed for a second before you noticed that he had saved you from being run over by a group of rowdy boys barreling down the hall.

He released you immediately. “Sorry,” he said. “Those guys weren’t paying attention, and I - ”

“No, it’s fine,” you assured him, endeared to his gallantry and his worry that you might be offended. “Thank you. I didn’t even see them.”

Feeling a little bolder than usual, you said, “Are you trying to start a track record of coming to my rescue?”

He grinned. “I dunno, are you trying to start a track record of needing to be rescued?”

You smiled, liking how he’d keeping up the lighthearted teasing. “Unfortunately, I probably am,” you admitted. “I only found the classroom thanks to the security guard.”

“Oh, Benny?” he said. “Yeah, he knows where everything is in the building. If you ever need a good place to study, he’s the one to ask.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you said. You glanced at your watch; you had to start heading to your next class, but you didn’t want to stop talking to Roger.

“Got to head out?” he asked, seeing you check your watch.

You tucked your hair behind your ear. “Yeah, actually. It was really nice meeting you, though.”

He looked hesitant for a moment. “Um, yeah, you too.” The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Are you sure you know how to get to your next class?”

You conceded a smile for that one. “I think so, but I appreciate your concern.”

“Anytime,” he said. His smile really was very pretty.

“So, I’ll see you on Wednesday?” you asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said, and you felt slightly crestfallen. Before you could mumble something and make your escape, though, he added, “I think I’m going to need my pen back before then.”

You met his eyes, seeing a teasing glint there. “Is that so?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, his tone mock-serious. “Actually, I think I’m going to need it later today. Do you think I could take you for coffee and get it back then? Maybe, say, 4 o’clock?”

You couldn’t help the smile that crossed your face; you felt you were fairly beaming. “Of course,” you said. “It’s only fair of me to get it back to you, sooner rather than later. Which coffee shop did you have in mind?”

“Depends,” he said. “Where are you going to be around 4?”

You were a bit flustered, and it took you a minute to recall your schedule. “Um, I’ll just be coming from history, so I’ll be near the library.”

“Perfect,” he said. “How about the café right across the street from the library? Does that work?”

“Yeah, yes, absolutely,” you said. You played with the hem of your sleeve, suddenly feeling bashful under his gaze. “Well, I’d better go. I’ll see you at 4, then.”

He leaned his shoulder against the wall, his expression saying he knew exactly how flustered he was making you, and looking at you almost as if he found you charming. “Don’t be late.”

You blushed. “No, I wouldn’t dare,” you said, bringing a laugh from him.

You gave him one last smile as you turned to go, feeling almost giddy with delight. You were sure he was watching you leave, still leaned up against the wall, his head cocked endearingly and his arms crossed over his chest. It wasn’t until you were outside that you allowed yourself a properly excited grin, feeling your heart go a million beats a second. He’d really asked you out. A devastatingly handsome and sweetly chivalrous British guy had asked you out on an actual date. It was more than you could have hoped would have come from such a disastrous morning, and you couldn’t believe your luck.

Read Part Two ♥

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33 Fun Facts About Buffy the Vampire Slayer

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33 Fun Facts About Buffy the Vampire Slayer

On the genre-busting television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the heroine saved the world—a lot—over the course of seven seasons. Buffy premiered on the WB 21 years ago today; here are a few things you should know about the show. (And this is just the tip of the stake.)

1. THE SHOW IS A SEQUEL OF SORTS TO A MOVIE.

In the late ‘80s, writer Joss Whedon had an idea for a movie that would subvert the horror genre. “I had seen a lot of horror movies, which I love very much, with blond girls getting killed in dark alleys, and I just germinated this idea about how much I would like to see a blond girl go into a dark alley, get attacked by a monster and then kill it,” he said. “And that was sorta the genesis for the movie, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” The movie, penned by Whedon and directed by Fran Rubel Kuzui, hit theaters in 1992. It starred Kristy Swanson as Buffy, Donald Sutherland as her watcher Merrick, and Luke Perry as her love interest, Pike (David Arquette also starred as Pike’s best friend-turned-vampire Benny). But the film was different from what Whedon had originally intended. “My original script for the movie was kind of dark and scary and it was comedic, but the final product was much more a broad comedy,” he said.

A few years later, the rights holders approached Whedon about making a TV show out of his creation. He wasn’t sure it would work, but “I started to think about it and I came up with the notion of playing all sorts of horror movies in high school and making them metaphors for how frightening and horrible high school is,” he said. “With the show, I kinda wanted to get back to the roots of genuine horror, but with a lot of comedy and a lot of edge and a lot of self reflective sort of examination of horror. But at the same time, get genuinely creepy and hopefully genuinely moving.” And the TV version of Buffy was born.

2. KATIE HOLMES AND RYAN REYNOLDS COULD HAVE STARRED ON THE SHOW.

Could you imagine Katie Holmes as Buffy and Ryan Reynolds as Xander? According to a 2000 biography, before she was Dawson’s Creek’s Joey Potter, Holmes was offered the role of the slayer, but turned it down to go to high school. Reynolds refused the role of Buffy’s wisecracking sidekick. “I love that show and I loved Joss Whedon, the creator of the show, but my biggest concern was that I didn’t want to play a guy in high school,” Reynolds told The Star in 2008. “I had just come out of high school and it was f***ing awful.”

3. GILES WAS THE FIRST ROLE CAST.

According to casting director Marsha Shulman, “Anthony Stewart [Head] was the first person that got cast on the first day we started casting. He was just it.”

Many other actors who read for the part, Whedon said, made Giles too stuffy, but Head’s take was a little sexier. “Tony Head was one of the few people that we saw and instantly knew right away that nobody else was going to play that part,” Whedon said. “He embodied it perfectly.”

4. SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR AND CHARISMA CARPENTER SWAPPED ROLES.

Gellar auditioned for the role of Sunnydale High queen bee Cordelia Chase before eventually being cast as Buffy. “At the time, we were all trying to find our way to make the show something, its own thing apart from the film,” Schulman said in The Watchers Guide. “We didn’t think of Sarah as Buffy because we thought she was too smart and too grounded and not enough of a misfit in a sense, because Buffy was this outsider. How could Sarah be an outsider? She’s so lovely. So we brought her in as Cordelia, and she was fantastic as Cordelia. Then we went to the network, they knew that Sarah was a star from her previous work, and that she could be Buffy, and that we could do that Buffy.”

Carpenter, meanwhile, auditioned for Buffy before being cast as Cordelia. “I think that the way it turned out is the way it was meant to have turned out,” Carpenter told the BBC. “I’m extremely pleased that I wound up with the character that I have for a myriad of reasons. … I don’t know that I would have been ready for that kind of fame if I’d gotten Buffy. So, I think [Buffy] went to the right person.”

5. WILLOW WAS RECAST AFTER THE PILOT WAS SHOT.

Willow, science geek and Buffy’s best friend, was an exceptionally tough part to cast. “We had actually cast someone else in the pilot. It just didn’t work,” Shulman said. “When we got picked up, we always felt that we were going to start again and look for another Willow.”

“I was determined that we wouldn’t have the supermodel in horn rims that you usually see on a TV show,” Whedon said. “I wanted somebody who really had their own shy quirkiness. While the network and I were looking for people, Alyson Hannigan slipped under our radar. She came in and we didn’t really know that she was going to be the guy, and then when she read for the network we were just blown away. She brings so much light and so much tenderness to the role, it’s kind of extraordinary.”

6. DAVID BOREANAZ WAS DISCOVERED BY THE CASTING DIRECTOR’S FRIEND.

Whedon, the network, and the casting director saw a number of guys read for Buffy’s eventual boyfriend (and vampire!) Angel before David Boreanaz auditioned. “The breakdown said the most gorgeous, mysterious, fantastic, the most incredible man on the face of the earth,” Shulman said. “I think I saw every guy in town. It was the day before shooting, and a friend of mine and called me and said to me ‘You know, there’s this guy that lives on my street who walks his dog every day and I don’t know what he does but he has all the things you’re describing.’ And the minute he walked in the room, I wrote down on my notes: This is the guy.”

Still, despite the fact that Boreanaz gave “very good read,” Whedon wasn’t sold on him. “He wasn’t exactly my type,” he said. “I wasn’t sure we necessarily had the guy here until I asked the women in the room, who had turned into puddles the moment he walked in. I had to defer to them—they seemed to know better than me, and thank god I did, because David turned into a great star and a very solid actor.”

7. THE FIRST VERSION OF THE THEME SONG WAS A DUD.

Whedon wanted the credits sequence—which begins with “this scary organ and then devolves instantly into rock ‘n roll”—to spell out for viewers exactly what the show was about: “Here’s a girl who has no patience for a horror movie, who is not going to be the victim, is not going to be in the scary organ horror movie,” he said. “She’s going to bring her own youth and rocking attitude to it.”

Dissatisfied with an early version of the theme, Whedon opened it up in a contest of sorts to local indie bands. It was Hannigan who suggested Nerf Herder; the band ultimately wrote and recorded the show’s theme. “They created the show and were filming the first season and the people there … hired some fancy pants Hollywood guy to write the theme song and they didn’t like it; they wanted something more rocking, I guess,” Nerf Herder’s lead singer, Parry Gripp, said. “So they asked a bunch of local, small time bands who they could pay very little money to come up with some ideas and they liked our idea and they used it. And the rest is history!”

The band rerecorded the theme in the second or third season because the first recording was a hasty affair, and the song went off-tempo in the middle, Whedon said.

8. THE SHOW SHOT IN A WAREHOUSE—AND AT ACTUAL SCHOOLS.

In the beginning, Buffy didn’t have much of a budget, so instead of shooting on a soundstage, the crew used a huge warehouse in Santa Monica, California. “We were very much on a tight budget,” Whedon said. “This hall you’ll see a lot of in the first 12 episodes. It is the entire school. We only had the one hall, so we use it over and over again. It’s really kind of sad, actually.” The outside of the warehouse also doubled as the entrance to Sunnydale’s only club, The Bronze. “When we designed the club, we put the door to the club on the outside of the actual warehouse so that we could go in from the outside because that would give it real life and make it very realistic,” Whedon said. “And of course we did it just once, and then once more in the third season, because you have to wait until night to shoot, go in and out and light it, and it’s just enormously complicated.”

Torrance High School in Los Angeles subbed in for the exterior of fictional Sunnydale High. It’s a popular spot for film and TV; you might also recognize it from Beverly Hills, 90210, The Secret Life of the American Teenager, 90210, She’s All That, Not Another Teen Movie, and more. And when Buffy went to college, most of Sunnydale University was shot in the warehouse, but some parts of the first episode of the fourth season were shot at UCLA.

9. THERE WAS A REASON FOR THE VAMPIRES’ CREEPY FACES—AND THE “DUSTING.”

In the Buffy movie, the vampires looked like regular people with sharper teeth and paler skin. But for the show, Whedon wanted to increase the sense of paranoia by making the vampires resemble normal people until it’s time to feed—at which point, they transform into monsters. But there was another reason, too. “I didn’t think I really wanted to put a show on the air about a high school girl who was stabbing normal-looking people in the heart,” Whedon said. “I thought somehow that might send the wrong message, but when they are clearly monsters, it takes it to a level of fantasy that is safer.”

Getting into vamp mode—which required a prosthetic that fit from the forehead down to the bottom of the nose—took about an hour and 20 minutes. “It can be tedious,” David Boreanaz said in 1998, “and taking it off is the worst part, because you have to sit there and you just want to rip the damn thing off—but you can’t, because you’ll take a piece of your skin with you. It has to be removed very delicately. But the end result is definitely worth it.”

The film also had vampire bodies lay where they fell after they were staked. But Whedon had different ideas for the show. “It was a very conscious decision to have [the vampires] turn to dust, clothes and all, because I didn’t think it would be fun to have 15 minutes of let’s clean up the bodies after every episode,” he said. The show’s visual effects artists worked on and refined the technique over the seasons.

10. THE CREATORS DREW ON EXISTING VAMPIRE LORE FOR THE SHOW.

But they didn’t use everything. Vampires don’t fly on Buffy or turn into bats  because the show didn’t have the money and Whedon thought it looked silly. Other elements of vampire lore, however, were used: Vampires don’t have reflections; they can’t enter a house unless they’re invited; they’re vulnerable to garlic, crosses, sunlight, fire, and holy water; and they can be killed by beheading or via a stake through the heart.

11. GELLAR HAD SOME PROBLEMS WITH THE DIALOGUE.

The show was famous for its “Buffyspeak,” which was partially inspired by California Valleygirl-isms and how Whedon and the other writers spoke. For Gellar, though, that dialogue sometimes was an issue. “Joss has his own sort of language that’s difficult for us mere mortals to understand,” she said in 1998. “I grew up in New York. We didn’t have Valley girls, and constantly, I’m asking him ‘What does this mean? I’m not quite sure.’ There’s a very funny story about [my audition] where the first line is ‘What’s the sitch?’ And there I go walking in, and my first ‘What does this mean?’ No idea it meant situation. Talk about blowing a job instantly.”

12. HERE’S WHERE YOU’VE SEEN SEASON ONE’S BIG VILLAIN BEFORE.

Underneath all of the Master’s vampy makeup is actor Mark Metcalf, who has appeared in Animal House (he played Doug Neidermeyer) and Seinfeld (he played The Maestro), among many other films and television shows. “Most of the guys we read came in and gave us villain villain villain in a very unimaginative way,” Whedon said. “Mark’s not that character, he’s just sly. He undercut all of the villainousness with real charm.”

13. THE CAST AND CREW HATED THE LIBRARY SCENES.

Head delivered much of the show’s expository dialogue in the library—and cast and crew alike came to dread those scenes. “He’s brought so much to all these really tough speeches, giving them life where they had very little because they’re full of so much information,” Whedon said. “When we finally blew up the school at the end of season three and were in the library for the last time, everybody breathed a great sigh of relief because these became the bane for us when we were filming, to go back into this space and talk yet again about what the peril was going to be.”

14. DARLA WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE IN THE SECOND EPISODE.

The vampire (played by Julie Benz) was supposed to expire at the end of “The Harvest” after Willow doused her with holy water, but Whedon kept her alive because he thought Buffy and Angel’s romance would be more interesting if it was a triangle; Darla, of course, was Angel’s sire. She was eventually killed in episode seven, but would continue to pop up in other episodes—and in the spin-off show, Angel—from time to time.

15. GELLAR AND BOREANAZ WOULD EAT GROSS STUFF BEFORE KISSING SCENES.

In a 2002 interview with The Independent, Gellar called love scenes “the unsexiest thing in the world.” What she and Boreanaz did beforehand couldn’t have made it any sexier. “[We] were the worst,” she said. “We would do horrible things to each other. Like eat tuna fish and pickle before we kissed. If he had to unbutton my shirt or trousers I would pin them or sew them together to make it as hard as I could. Once I even dropped ice cream on him.”

16. THE SHOW BUILT ITS OWN GRAVEYARD.

In the first season, Buffy shot in a graveyard in Hollywood. “It meant going out all night, until sunrise, a lot of times,” Whedon said. “That was back when we had the energy for that kind of thing.” Starting in the second season, they created their own graveyard in the warehouse’s parking lot. “It made our lives a whole lot easier, but it doesn’t give you the scope that you get from [the Hollywood graveyard],” Whedon said. “It’s a really beautiful place. Looks great.”

“We poured in kerb, back-filled it with dirt and planted grass and lots of trees and stuff and that’s our graveyard set,” production designer Carey Meyer told the BBC. “The majority of our cemetery stuff actually takes place in that little tiny parking lot. At night, with a couple of headstones in the background with all the trees and such, you can really cheat to make it look quite large.”

17. WHEDON HAD AN INTERESTING NICKNAME FOR GELLAR.

At a cast reunion in 2008, Whedon revealed—to Gellar’s surprise—an odd nickname for her, borne from the fact that she dealt with so much pain on screen. “David [Greenwalt] and I used to crow, when we realized what Sarah could do,” he said. “We used to call her Jimmy Stewart, because he was the greatest American in pain in the history of film.” Gellar laughed and said “I never knew that!”

18. AT LEAST TWO ACTORS PLAYED MORE THAN ONE VILLAIN.

Brian Thompson, who played vampire Luke in the first two episodes, returned in the second season to play The Judge. “Quite frankly, we were in a hurry,” Whedon said. “We already had his face cast and we knew he could put makeup on and give us a good performance.” Camden Toy, meanwhile, played a number of villains, including one of the Gentlemen in “Hush” (season four), a skin-eating demon called Gnarl in “Same Time, Same Place” (season seven), and Ubervamp Turok-Han (throughout season seven).

19. THE WRITERS HAD THEIR OWN TERM FOR PLOT-MOVING DEVICES.

It was coined by writer David Greenwalt. “A lot of this stuff is based on myth and horror movies, and a lot of it made up for our convenience,” Whedon says. “At one point, when we were trying to figure out exactly what Buffy would be trying to do [in the first episode], Greenwalt just shouted out ‘For God’s sake, don’t touch the phlebotnum in Jar C!’ We have no idea to this day what it was supposed to mean, but it became our word for the vague mystical thing—such as the master’s cork in the bottle theory—so phlebotnum is our constant on the show.”

20. WHEDON WROTE THE LARGELY DIALOGUE-FREE EPISODE “HUSH” TO CHALLENGE HIMSELF.

Season four’s tenth episode, “Hush,” features creepy villains called The Gentlemen, who come to Sunnydale and steal the residents’ voices … so that no one can scream when the monsters cut out their hearts. There are only 17 minutes of spoken dialogue in the 44 minute episode. Whedon wanted to do a largely silent episode because he felt like he was phoning it in. “I had fallen into the ‘people a-yakkin, I can sort of do this without really thinking about it’ style of directing, and I wanted to curtail that in myself,” he said. “On a practical level, the idea of doing an episode where everybody loses their voice presented itself as a great big challenge because I knew that I would literally have to tell the story only visually, and that would mean that I couldn’t fall back on tricks. I wanted to do something harder.” Though Whedon was terrified that he wouldn’t be able to pull off the episode, it was well received by critics, and is a favorite of fans and the series’ stars alike.

21. THE GENTLEMEN WERE INSPIRED BY A DREAM.

A version of Buffy’s creepiest villains first appeared in a dream of Whedon’s; they floated toward him while he was in bed. “What I was going for was very specifically a very Victorian kind of feel, because that to me is very creepy and fairytale-like,” Whedon said. He created a drawing, which he delivered to makeup supervisor Todd McIntosh and John Vulich at Optic Nerve, the special effects house that created the prosthetics for the show. “I was drawing on everything that had ever frightened me, including the fellow from my dream, Nosferatu, pinhead, Mr. Burns—anything that gave that creepy feel,” Whedon said. “We get into a lot of reptilian monsters and things that look kind of like aliens, and what I wanted from these guys was, very specifically, fairy tales. I wanted guys who would remind people of what would they were scared of when they were children.”

Whedon’s ultimate hope was that kids of a certain generation would be as traumatized by the Gentlemen as he was by the Zuni Doll from Trilogy of Terror. The team cast mimes and actors who had done creature work—like Doug Jones—to play the Gentlemen.

22. THE HARDEST CHARACTER FOR WHEDON TO KILL OFF WAS BUFFY’S MOM.

One of Buffy‘s most critically acclaimed episodes is season five’s “The Body,” in which the slayer’s mom, played by Kristine Sutherland, dies of natural causes. Whedon said in a 2012 Reddit AMA that Joyce was the toughest character for him to kill. He did the episode, he said in DVD commentary, because “I wanted to show not the meaning or catharsis or the beauty of life or any of the things that are often associated with loss, or even extreme grief, which we do get in the episode. But what I did want to capture was the extreme physicality, the almost boredom of the very first few hours. I wanted to be very specific about what it felt like the moment you discover you’ve lost someone. And so what appears to many people as a formal exercise—no music, scenes that take up almost the entire act, if not the entire act, without end—is all done for a very specific purpose, which is to put you in that moment of dumbfounded shock, that airlessness of losing somebody.”

The moments after Buffy discovers her mother dead on the couch were done in a single take, which Whedon had Gellar perform seven times (the actress has called the episode one of her favorites). “The cameraman had the camera on his shoulder the whole time and was running around,” Whedon said. “It wasn’t a steadicam—he had no harness because I wanted that urgency of handheld, that you’re in the moment of it. It’s an extraordinary piece of acting from Sarah … to go from the extremity of first finding her, the helplessness of not knowing what to do. All the things that Sarah had to go through in this, she had to go through many, many times. And every take was extraordinary.”

23. ONE SHOT IN “THE BODY” WAS INSPIRED BY DIRECTOR PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON.

One shot in “The Body” follows the coroner after he examines Joyce’s body out to where Buffy waits with her friends in another single take. “I am a huge Paul Thomas Anderson fan,” Whedon said, “and I had been watching Magnolia excessively before I shot this. So these endless tracking shots probably owe something to that. What can I say, I’m a hack. But what I was really trying to get at here was, again, the reality of the space. I wanted to see Joyce very clearly, and then I wanted to walk all the way over to where Buffy was, where her loved ones were, so that you understood she was down the hall, she was really there. We weren’t on a different set.” Whedon gave kudos to production designer Carey Meyer for building sets that would let him get those long takes.

24. GELLAR KNEW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IN SEASON FIVE WELL IN ADVANCE.

Several moments in the final episode of season three foreshadowed two major events in season five: Namely, that Buffy would get a sister (Dawn, played by Michelle Trachtenberg) and that the slayer would die at the end of season five. “I’ve actually known the [plot of the] entire last season for about three years,” she told the BBC. “There was a dream sequence that Buffy had with Faith. Faith had a riddle, and it was something like ‘Little Miss Muffet, sitting on her tuffet,’ counting down from whatever the numbers were, and I went to Joss to ask what it meant. That’s when he explained to me that I was going to have a sister, that Dawn, the character of Dawn, would be coming on the show. I think that’s exactly when I became aware also of what the future plans were.”

Why manufacture a sister out of thin air? “Part of the mission statement was, let’s have a really important, intense emotional relationship for Buffy that is not a boyfriend,” he told Salon. “Because let’s not have her be defined by her boyfriend every time out of the bat. So, Season 5, she’s as intense as she was in Season 2 with Angelus, but it’s about her sister. To me that was really beautiful.”

25. SEASON SIX WAS THE TOUGHEST FOR GELLAR.

After the fifth season, Buffy moved from the WB to UPN and resurrected its heroine for the sixth season—which was darker in tone (and more controversial) than any season before it. “It was definitely tough for me,” Gellar said at a Paley Center event in 2008. “It’s so hard to separate myself from her, so it was tough for me to see these situations and say ‘But Buffy wouldn’t do this.’ … I know Joss and Marti both had to talk me off a ledge a couple of times because it just felt so far removed from me at the time, and maybe that was the point. Maybe I was struggling the same way she was struggling to find out who she was. It just felt so foreign to me. … We love her, and I think it was hard for all of us to watch her suffer. … It was a tough time. And I think that’s what came through in the end, and that was great. When Buffy herself resurfaced, we sort of found our voice again.”

26. WRITER/PRODUCER MARTI NOXON HAS A CAMEO.

She’s the lady with the parking ticket in “Once More, With Feeling.”

27. GELLAR CALLED THE MUSICAL EPISODE “DAUNTING.”

“I’m a perfectionist, I come from a long line of lots of preparation, and certainly that was not the case with this,” she said. “If I had my druthers, we would have gotten it about two years ago and been in classes for a year and a half, maybe six weeks of rehearsals? Instead of four days.” At a Paley Center event in 2008, Gellar admitted to “begging” to be let out of it. “I begged for Buffy the rat,” she said. “I kept thinking, ‘Bring the rat back.’”

28. STONE TEMPLE PILOTS’ LEAD SINGER WAS A FAN.

Scott Weiland reportedly became a fan while watching the show in prison. Gellar, who later appeared in the band’s music video for “Sour Girl,” had a theory about why the show was so popular among prison inmates: “Hot chicks doing battle. It’s like acceptable porn.”

29. GELLAR KNEW THE SHOW WAS OVER BEFORE THE REST OF THE CAST.

In the March 7, 2003 Entertainment Weekly cover story, Gellar announced that Buffy was coming to an end after seven seasons. “I love this job, I love the fans,” she said. “I love telling the stories we tell. This isn’t about leaving for a career in movies, or in theater—it’s more of a personal decision. I need a rest. Teachers get sabbaticals. Actors don’t.” The rest of the cast found out the day the story hit stands. “I was devastated,” Hannigan said in 2013. “I was just very shocked.”

30. BUFFY’S ADVENTURES CONTINUE IN COMIC BOOKS.

A number of writers who worked on the TV show have also worked on the comics. Even James Marsters, who played vampire Spike on the show, wrote a comic about his character. “I was at the San Diego Comic Con and I was describing an idea that had been kicking around my head for a long time to [artist] George Jeanty, who draws a lot of the Buffy comic books,” Marsters told io9. “And he thought that it was a fabulous idea and that I should definitely get in touch with [Dark Horse editor] Scott Allie. He made the phone call and then I pitched it to Scott over the phone and Scott liked it a lot. It’s a story that was going to try to be made into a Spike movie years and years ago.”

31. THERE WAS TALK OF AN ANIMATED SERIES.

Whedon and the show’s other writers produced seven scripts for an animated Buffy series, which would have taken place during the show’s first three seasons and been voiced by the cast. Sadly, no one wanted the show. “They were really fun to write,” Whedon said. “We could not sell the show. We could not sell an animated Buffy, which I still find incomprehensible.”

32. THE SHOW SPAWNED ACADEMIC COURSES…

A number of colleges and universities offer courses on the show; they’re called “Buffy Studies.” People have written books and held conferences dedicated to discussing the themes of the show and presenting papers on it. According to the Los Angeles Times, attendees at a 2004 Buffy conference “were presenting 190 papers on topics ranging from ‘slayer slang’ to ‘postmodern reflections on the culture of consumption’ to ‘Buffy and the new American Buddhism.’ There was even a self-conscious talk by David Lavery, an English professor at Middle Tennessee State University, on Buffy studies ‘as an academic cult.'”

An informal study conducted by Slate in 2012 showed that, when it comes to pop culture in academia, Buffy is number one: “More than twice as many papers, essays, and books have been devoted to the vampire drama than any of our other choices—so many that we stopped counting when we hit 200.”

33. … AND A BOOK OF SLANG.

Publisher’s Weekly called Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon “a strange marriage of a fan guide and a linguistics textbook.” Said The Kansas City Star: “If you’re curious about the word ‘ubersuck,’ or just want to remember which episode you first heard it in, this is the place to look. As Buffy would say, it is not uncool.”

BONUS: RARE BEHIND-THE-SCENES FOOTAGE

During the second season, Pruitt filmed behind-the-scenes footage of the cast goofing off and getting into makeup, the stunt crew at work, and some of the show’s most iconic sequences. You can watch it above.

Additional sources: DVD commentary; The Watcher’s Guide.

All images courtesy of Getty Images unless otherwise noted.

This piece originally ran in 2014.