#around 83 gifs finally done!!!

[randomfandomss]

Vincent Cardinal Benítez in every scene - Part 3/3 | Conclave (2024)

Part 1 , Part 2

[ln4bub]

hii i love your five so much omfg i was wondering if you could do 11 and 83 with lando or daniel w a bit of a breeding kink i’ve got major baby fever rn😭🫶

A/N i wasn't planning on writing this one yet, but the dr3 breeding kink was voted for in my last poll and so this one had to be done so i could tag it properly for the anon that requested it <3

DR3 Request

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Lando was always in control; being the deciding voice in what needs to be changed with the McLaren he had to drive week in, week out. So when the MCL-60 wasn't performing, leaving him stranded out in P17 or scraping points in P9, you could see it was starting to get to him. You'd bore the brunt of his frustration, traumatising poor Oscar after every bad result. But it was wearing Lando down, and so when he dragged you back to the hotel after the Canadian GP you were half expecting him to break.

So when his lips greedily meshed with yours you were surprised, you thought for sure this would be the final straw for him. His tongue clashed with yours, tasting the fruity soda you had consumed during the race. The groan he lets out into your mouth makes your body tingle, pulling at the hairs at the nape of his neck. Lando pulls you on top of him, collapsing on the bed you shared. He pulls his lips away from yours with a smack, heavy breaths now filling the space between you.

"I want you to take control tonight."

Your stomach clenches at his words, images of a flushed and desperate Lando writhing underneath you fill your mind. "Are you sure?" You mutter back, brushing that one loose curl from his forehead. His eyes close at your soft touch before fluttering open, glazed over and wide staring at you. "So sure baby, just don't want to think right now." He practically whispers, voice nervous and slightly shaky.

You press your lips to his forehead, leaving a faint glossy sheen behind. He smiles softly up at you, his tongue poking out to wet his lips in nervousness, waiting for your response. "Whatever you need," you tell him, mirroring his own smile. He leans forward to kiss you, lips hovering over your own before he feels a sharp tug in his hair. His mouth stays parted, eyes closing as you brush your lips gently over his own. You feel the way he tries to capture your lips, the barely there brush leaving behind a thin layer of spit to add to your lip-gloss.

Your tongue peaks out, running over his lower lip before capturing it between your teeth and pulling gently. Lando whimpers at the sting, large hands encompassing your face to pull you towards his own. Your lips move in sync with his, practiced and perfected over time. You adjust your position, straddling him as you continue to kiss. He whines at the weight of you against his cock, straining now against his black jeans.

Your soft hands slide underneath his shirt, pushing it up to expose his tanned skin. Lando takes the hint and removes his team merch, throwing it on the floor with a thud. His large hands slide up your back, kissing along your jaw as your nails begin lightly scratching his back. "Take it off, please, wanna see you baby." Lando whispers against your skin, the movement of his lips against your neck making you moan softly. You heed his request, pulling your dress off and leaving you in your matching set. It was Lando's favourite, all black with custom fluoro yellow piping around the edges.

He groans at the sight of you, leaning back into the pillows when you gently shove his chest. Your lips connect with his own once more, sloppily coating them in the last of your lip gloss. Lando chases your lips as you pull away but you simply smirk at him, dipping your head to suck at the apex of his jaw. A loud moan leaves Lando's mouth at the action, his head tilting back to give you more access to his thick neck; access that you happily utilise.

Your lips are everywhere, overwhelming Lando in every sense, nibbling and sucking before swiping your tongue over the fresh marks left behind. Normally you'd avoid giving him hickeys but the next race wasn't until July so they had time to fade, and Lando loved the feeling of you claiming him in this way. His cock was starting to throb in his jeans with each press of your lips against his skin, especially when you migrated further south.

You kissed every inch of his skin, tracing every mole across his chest and stomach with your lips. His body erupted in goosebumps with each touch, squirming underneath you at the teasing. You slide your pinkies underneath the waistband of his jeans before undoing the button and sliding down the zipper. You hear Lando breathe a sigh of relief at the release of pressure, lifting his hips to allow you to slide his jeans down.

You kiss his length of his underwear, feeling it twitch with the first touch of your lips. "Y/N, babe, come here." Lando mutters, pulling at your arm. You hover over his bulge, the heat from between your legs radiating for Lando to feel. "What is it baby?" You ask, looking into Lando's glossy eyes. His pupils are blown wide, lips red and bitten as a consequence of your teasing. "Just want to feel you, is that okay?" He asks, eyes pleading.

"Of course it is Lan, but you're gonna have to beg for it, can you do that for me?" You question, dragging your nails down his chest as he smiles shyly with a nod. You remove your remaining underwear as Lando does the same before hovering over his hard cock, the tip bumping your clit as you position yourself.

"Please baby, need to feel you." Lando mutters as you glide your pussy over his cock, coating him in your wetness. He stutters out a groan at the feeling of your slick covering him, "Oh god, so fucking wet. Please, god please, let me feel you baby." He continues, hands squeezing your hips in an effort not to buck his hips into you. You slide his tip into your pussy, moaning at the stretch. Lando echoes the same moan, cock twitching at the feeling of your warmth.

"Fuck, feels s'good baby, more, please, give me more please, wanna be buried inside you s'bad." Lando hurries out, voice strained with restraint as he tries not to slam himself inside you. You heed his request, slamming yourself down onto his length before riding him at a wild pace, your legs immediately starting to burn.

"Holy shit, oh my god, love you, love being inside you, so good to me, yes baby, don't stop." Streams of praise and whines leave Lando's mouth, his body falling slack at the pleasure rippling over him. Moans spill out of the both of you, the burning pain of your legs adding to your pleasure as his cock hits you at the perfect angle. "Fuck Lan, made for me weren't you baby?" You mutter, hand resting on the side of his flushed face.

He nods with a whine, "Yeah baby, all yours, no-one else's, fuck yes. Use me just like that, my cock's all for you." His mouth drops open in a loud moan of your name, "So close, wanna feel you cum, please cum, need it." He slurs, hairline beginning to stick to his forehead with sweat. Your hand slips down from his face, your other hand joining it to wrap around his thick neck as you continue to fuck yourself on his dick.

His thumb reaches over from where his hand has sat on your hips, rubbing against your clit with every bounce you make. It sends you flying over the edge, your walls clenching around Lando's cock and pulling his own orgasm from him. He releases with a loud groan, your hands tightening around his neck. His cum fills you, beginning to spill out from where you remained connected. You ease the pressure on his neck, collapsing forward on top of him.

You lift yourself on shaky legs, allowing Lando to slip out of you. You crawl up the bed before swinging your legs over Lando's face, his large hands cupping your ass. "Clean up your mess Lan." You tell him and he wastes no time, pulling you against his face as his tongue delves between your folds. He flicks and swirls like a madman, shaking his face in-between your legs, his nose bumping your clit with each movement as he cleans the combination of your cum that spills out. It doesn't take long for you to cum on his tongue, sensitive from your first orgasm.

Lando lifts you off his face, cuddling himself into you but not before kissing you sweetly, allowing you to taste the both of you on his tongue. "Thank you." He mutters, a sentiment repeated at the next race when Lando gets P4, and the next race when Lando gets his first home podium, and the week after when he secures another P2.

Oscar stands next to you in the garage as Lando gives his interviews after the race, "Whatever you did to him in that hotel room after Canada must have worked miracles, are you a witch?" He asks, laughing at the blush that coats your face. "Shut up pastry, unless you're only asking because you want some help getting those podiums too?" You retort. Oscar blushes fiercely, causing you to laugh this time before Lando joins you both, "What's so funny?"

[thefourteenflames]

JAEHAERYS & ALYSANNE CHILDREN - 1/10 Alyssa, The Red Maiden Alyssa Targaryen was the fifth child of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen and Queen Alysanne Targaryen, and their second daughter. Princess Alyssa was born in late 60 AC, and was named for her grandmother, Alyssa Velaryon, who had died six years before. As a baby, Alyssa resembled her deceased sister Daenerys, but this resemblance faded as the girl aged; she became long-faced and skinny. Alyssa did not have typical Valyrian silver-gold hair, but instead dirty blonde hair without a trace of silver, which was often tangled. She had mismatched eyes, one violet, the other green. She had big ears and a lopsided smile. At the age of six she broke her nose, which healed crooked, but she apparently did not care. As a child, she did not act like a girl, and shunned the company of girls. She would dress in boy's clothes whenever possible, and preferred to ride, climb, and duel with wooden swords, instead of more lady-like activities like sewing and reading and singing. As a young child, Alyssa followed her brother Baelon everywhere since she was able to walk. Baelon, four years older, complained that she was like a puppy, and was further annoyed that she was a girl, as he preferred the company of his older brother Aemon. When Alyssa was six years old, she was playing in the training yard when she was accidentally hit in the face by a wooden sword, which broke her nose. It healed crooked, but this did not seem to bother her. Alyssa and Baelon finally became inseparable, and by 73 AC plans for their eventual marriage were already being made. That same year, when her brother Vaegon severely insulted their sister Daella, Alyssa poured a flagon of wine over his head. Over the following year, Baelon began training Vaegon at arms; he once brought Alyssa to the training yard, dressed in a man's mail, hoping that having to face a girl would lead to Vaegon making more of an effort. The princess, still remembering the incident between Vaegon and Daella, mocked and laughed at Vaegon as she danced around him, humiliating him, whilst Daella watched. Vaegon, embarrassed too much to bear, threw down his sword, left the yard, and never came back. Alyssa married Baelon in 75 AC, when she was fifteen and he was eighteen. Their bedding sparked much ribald humor in the days after the wedding, as it was said Alyssa's "sounds of pleasure could be heard all the way to Duskendale." Alyssa was not embarrassed by the jokes, and made some of her own. That same year, Alyssa decided to claim a dragon, a year younger than Baelon had done so. The Dragonkeepers persuaded her not to claim Balerion, assuring her that she would prefer a faster dragon than the old Black Dread. Eventually, Alyssa claimed Meleys, who had never been ridden before. " Red maidens, the two of us, but now we've both been mounted." —Alyssa, about herself and Meleys, after claiming the dragon. In 77 AC, Alyssa gave birth to her first child, a son they named Viserys. Although Alyssa was advised not to do it, when Viserys was nine days old she put him in swaddling clothes and took him for a flight on Meleys. Afterwards, she claimed Viserys giggled the entire time. In 81 AC, Alyssa gave birth to her second son, Daemon. Within a fortnight of his birth, she took him up in the sky upon her dragon as well. In 83 AC, Alyssa was announced to be pregnant again, and Baelon told his brother Aemon he was praying for a daughter. However, in 84 AC Alyssa gave birth to another son, Aegon, after a long and difficult labor. Though Alyssa was optimistic about having more children, she never fully recovered from Aegon's birth. She died within a year, at the age of twenty-four. Aegon died half a year after his mother, not yet even a year old. Alyssa's death shattered Baelon, who never remarried and always continued to honor her memory.

[pretty-little-whorror]

kinktober - public space

ash williams x reader

wc: 3190

a/n: for the four evil dead enjoyers on this site. i promise if i was less employed i would post daily for this like the lord intended.

tags: semi-public sex, fem reader, fingering, p in v sex, safe/protected sex, work sex, fucking your coworkers, ash williams, ash williams and his cheesy ass one liners, and his cheesy ass nicknames, that’s it maybe but i’m tired of looking at this, also not like 100% proofread, like 83%

Ash Williams had been put against his fair share of unpleasantries. Having to kill his sister, dismember his girlfriend, get sent back in time and go toe to toe against evil incarnate. Throughout all that, he still stands by that working retail can easily be just as bad - if not worse - than all that. Ash had been at S-Mart longer than he had ever intended and dealt with more customer bullshit than one could imagine. However, he did manage to enjoy his time there in his own Ash-y way while he was there, meaning knocking boots with any coworker that he could talk his way into the pants of.

With most it was a one and done situation. Most employees stay new before they eventually leave. To Ash, this was the perfect situation - left no time for awkward talking after he had gotten done what he needed. His most recent example had been with Jenny from Arts and Crafts. A red headed hardbody that had stayed at S-Mart maybe three months. As her last two weeks wrapped up, yours began.

The Arts and Crafts department was mostly women, so word about who exactly Ash Williams was got around to you quick. Most of the talk was about his serial womanizing, however a few strange rumours of beheadings and murder were weaved in and out during a handful of gossip sessions between you and your colleagues. You chalked them up to a bad game of telephone given how out of pocket they seemed.

Eventually, you had your first run-in with Ash, and it went as expected. You managed to keep a professional smile and move on after each encounter, however that was not without acknowledging that you couldn’t blame any of the other girls for falling for his routine. He was far from unattractive and his charming demeanor did nothing to repel you. Regardless, you were determined to hold your own.

Your resistance had come as a surprise to Ash, who believes he’s God’s gift to women. However he was never one to back down from a challenge. The harder the hunt the bigger the trophy. Months of passive aggressive flirting and innuendoed bickering had only made him more determined. He had used whatever brain he had to find different ways to push your buttons without an immediate trip to HR. It would usually result with you giving him a playful eye roll before you continued back to whatever you had been doing. Today was no different of an example, but as you found yourself pinned up against a wall in the stock room, whatever exactly had finally gotten you where he wanted had slipped your mind.

This close, Ash’s cheap aftershave was almost intoxicating compared to its normal warning of obnoxious behavior to come. As your tongues pushed against one another, you could taste remnants of the mint gum he had just spit out.

His left hand made quick work to take off the ill fitting uniform as his metal one held you up against the wall. Your fingers made quick work of his own blue work shirt, pushing the fabric off his shoulders, leaving him in a white undershirt.

“Someone’s a little anxious, huh?” He words teased into your ear as his calloused hand snaked its up your back to unclasp your bra.

“If that’s such a problem, I’m more than okay to stop” Your hands dropped from his shoulders as you spoke, looking up at him. He moved his hand back up and grabbed your chin with a chuckle.

“Oh baby, I’ve got you just where I want.” His hot breath tickled against the side of your neck. “I’d be an idiot to let you get away now.” He brought your face up to his with a rough kiss, his hand dropping from your face to finish discarding your bra. He pushed his tongue into your mouth with a groan as he fondled your breast. His thumb rolling gently over your hardened nipple. You sighed into his kiss as he continued to play with your tit. He broke the kiss to look down at your chest, a string of saliva still connecting your mouth the his.


“Fuck sugar, you’ve got the prettiest tits I’ve ever seen.” He continued his ministrations as he used his other arm to raise you up, your legs now straddling his waist opposed to your hips. He quickly moved his face down to your chest, peppering nips over your other breast as his hand continued to roughly knead the other.

“Now we can’t let her sister have all the fun” He winked up at you before latching his mouth onto your nipple. You gasped at the action, the sensation of one hand rolling the hardened bud between his fingers and his mouth sucking and biting on the other causing your eyes to shut.

Ash reveled in your reaction, you could feel him chuckle against your skin as he continued. Your hand went to his head, fingers weaving through his black hair. He gave your tit one final, playful bite before his mouth went back to yours. His hand snaked down to your backside, giving your ass a quick squeeze before he set you down, his lips never leaving yours.

He made quick work of his belt, tossing it to the floor as he finished shrugging off his shirt. As soon as you heard the cloth hit the floor, his hands were on you again, discarding your pants into the growing pile of garments to the side of you. In a moment, he had you up again, straddling his waist. His mouth quickly found its way to your neck, nipping and sucking dark spots into your flesh. You sighed and lolled your head to the side, allowing him further access.

“Baby…” He whispered, his hot breath centimeters away from your ear. “Can you grab my wallet, hm?”

You giggled at the request and rolled your eyes. Understanding the request your arm snaked around to his back, snatching the wallet from his back pocket.

“Well forgive me for bothering princess,” he teased. “My hands are otherwise occupied”

“Hand” you corrected with a playful grin. In response, you felt his metal appendage pinch your ass. You gasped and slapped his arm as his mouth went back to your neck.

“That hurt, jackass!” You scolded as you felt his mouth curl into a smile against your skin.

“Well,” He raised his face back up to yours. He quickly closed the distance between you and brought your lips together. You felt his left hand sneak under the hem of your panties, slowly sneaking up to your core. “If that’s such a problem…”

You sighed as his fingers ghosted over your entrance, picking up your slick on his fingertips, at the same time, his thumb pressed against your swollen clit.

“…I’m more than okay to stop.” He pushed his index finger into your cunt as he repeated your earlier threat. You let out a breathy moan as he pushed his finger in to the knuckle.

“But I’m pretty sure you don’t want that” His voice was low in your ear. Your eyes shut as his middle finger joined the other.

“Fuck…” You murmured as his fingers worked to stretch you out.

“Shit, baby…” He breathed out as he began to curl his fingers against your walls, his thumb beginning to work small circles on your clit. “You’re so fucking wet for me, aren’t ya”

You bit your lip and nodded, your breath getting caught in your throat. Ash chuckled and shook his head.

“I think I want you to say it, baby” His mouth returned to your neck as the pace of his fingers became rougher. You didn’t speak, groaning in response instead, partially annoyed but mostly too lost in the feeling of his fingers inside you to care. You felt him like up a third finger outside your entrance and you arched your back towards him out of instinct.

“You gotta say it first, sugar, gotta tell me whose got you all hot and bothered”

You whined and opened your eyes, pleading up at him. “You, Ash. You….please” you rutted yourself against his hand as you spoke. He looked down at you with lust blown eyes.

“Good girl,” He whispered into your ear as his pushed in a third digit. You moaned at the feeling, his fingers immediately working on curling against that one, perfect spot and working with the pressured movements of his thumb against your clit. You felt the familiar building pressure in your belly as his hand worked to bring you to your climax.

“Now, how about you finish fetching that love glove out, hm?” You sighed. Your shaky hand meeting your other that held his wallet. You looked down, fingering through cards and cash until you pulled out the golden foil. You quickly dropped the leather wallet to the ground to join the other discarded garments.

“Ash…” You let out a whine as he withdrew his fingers to grab the condom. You looked up at him and pouted. He chuckled, glowing in the fact he’s taken your bratty demeanor away and replaced it with desperate begging.

“Oh, just give me a minute, doll face.” He winked as he undid his fly, pulling his pants down enough to allow his hardened dick out of its confines. You were, well you didn’t want to say impressed, but surprised he had the anatomy to match his attitude. You must have been taking a moment too long to look as Ash whistled to get you attention.

“My eyes are up here, sugar pot.” You rolled your own as he went to get the condom out of its wrapper. Before he would tear the foil, you snatched it out of his hand. Deciding to make a show of it, you tore the gold wrapper with you teeth while another hand began to stroke his member. Rolling the leaking beads of precum down his shaft with feathered strokes. You pulled the condom from the wrapper entirely and slowly rolled it down his cock.

“Atta girl,” Ash’s head tilted back with a sigh, he once again brought your lips down to his for a sloppy kiss. You gave him a few more lazy strokes before he adjusted how he held you against the wall in order to line himself up with your entrance. You breathe out a sigh l as the fat bulge of his head finds your swollen, wet hole. Out of instinct, arch into him, desperate him to satisfy your clenching body.

His lips reunite with the side of neck with an amused chuckle. “You’re so needy, hm?” He teased between peppered kissed towards the crook of your neck, teasingly pushing himself against your entrance.

His metal hand gripped your hips firmly as he pushed you down onto his achingly hard cock. Your eyes slammed shut with a carnal moan as he fully sheathed himself inside of you.

“You stretch so good for me, baby” He groans as he revels in the feeling of your sex enveloping his, your soft walls like a perfect fitting glove. You roll your hips against his, drunk on the euphoria of him buried inside to the hilt.

“Fuck, Ash-“ Your head falls back, hitting the wall behind you with a thud. He drags his cock from inside you before coaxing himself back in. You whine, working your best to sink as far down as possible in tandem with his movements.

His pace starts sultry; fucking you deeply and purposefully, his thumb resting on top of your thigh as he brought you down on him until you could feel his pubes tickle against your lower belly.

Your hands found their place, one flush against his chest and the other grabbing into his shoulder; promising crescent shaped bruises to form in the following hours from where your nails dug into his flesh.

He adjusts his hold on your hips as he picks up his pace, bouncing you on his cock. “Can’t believe I can finally fuck you.” He purred in your ear, his breath hot against the shell of your ear. His left hand moves between you, his thumb dancing over your clit andhis fingers circling where he pushed into you, getting it coated with the cocktail of your wetness and his precum that dripped out of you.

His hand then raised to the underside of your chin; his thumb lifting your head as his fingers prodded against your languidly parted lips. You further opened your mouth, allowing for the gentle intrusion. Your tongue swirled around the digits as you looked up through hooded lashes into his eyes. Making a show of cleaning off his calloused fingers. If Ash had an ounce less of self control he could have finished then and there.

He instead chuckled, his stare fixated on your mouth as you sucked his fingers. “Look at you, getting all filthy for me , hm?” His pace transformed into rough and desperate thrusts, his swollen head kissing your cervix. He withdrew his fingers from your mouth, his hand meeting his other at your hips, changing the angle he pounded into you just enough for him to be fucking directly into your sweet spot. An aching moan escaped your mouth at the change; allowing anyone who was close enough an exact idea of the wanton situation you were in.

“You sound so fucking hot for me baby, but the last thing I want right now is for someone to take this pussy away from me.” Normally, your response would be to chide him for pointing out the obvious accompanied by an eye roll. However, you just bit down on your reddened bottom lip and nodded, arching down on him further, desperate for him to fuck an orgasm out of you.

Ash's thrusts became rough and desperate, his length hitting your cervix with each powerful stroke. The change in angle caused an electric surge of pleasure to shoot through your body, your stifled moans threatening an exposing volume.

His rough and quickened pace only added fuel to the fire, you could feel the intensity building, your body desperately responding to his every movement in an attempt to bring your orgasm on quicker.

You clenched around him, your walls pulsating with need as you arched your back, meeting his thrusts with fervor. The overwhelming sensations coursing through you pushed you closer to the edge.

With each unrestrained thrust, you felt the pleasure intensify, the tension coiling within you like a tightly wound spring. Your moans threatened to grow louder as you did your best to stay quiet-biting down on your lower lip hard enough to draw blood as your head lolled aside, allowing him access to return his mouth to your neck. He callously nipped and sucked at the reddened skin as your nails dug into his skin as you desperately sought release.

As the pleasure reached its peak, you let out a guttural cry, your body convulsing in the throes of your orgasm. Waves of ecstasy washed crassly over you, leaving you breathless and completely consumed by the sensation.

Ash continued to pound into you, fucking you through as you were thrown into rapture. He felt the familiar burning of his own orgasm approaching. His final thrusts were rough and desperate as he finally came, burying himself deep inside you.

As the waves of pleasure subsided, his lips trailed back to yours, taking one last opportunity to taste you.

“You think you’re okay to stand, sweet cheeks?” He asked, his voice soft as his hand trailed down to your ass, gently kneading the soft flesh as he spoke. With a nodded response from you, he slowly pulled out from you. Out of instinct, you whined at the sudden empty feeling, still drunk on the sensation of his cock stuffed into you. He chuckled at your mewl.

“Don’t worry sugar, as soon as I can fuck that tight pretty pussy of yours again, I will. That’s an Ash Williams guarantee. ” He patted your ass and you unwrapped your legs from his waist, placing a foot on the cool ground. You almost fell to the floor as you attempted to put your weight on it. Ash’s metal hand still on your waist, he was able to keep you from falling completely. He smiled, relishing the fact he had fucked you good enough you couldn’t walk.

Knowing exactly what had made his lips curl into such a shit-eating grin, you flicked your eyes up.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” You bent down to pick up your long discarded clothes, the cool metal of his hand still on your waist. “They just fell asleep is all.”

“Whatever you say, baby” He winked, turning his attention to disposing of the used rubber, rolling it off his softened cock; careful not to make a mess. He found some garbage to toss it in and pulled his pants back up over his crotch. You cringed at the thought of whoever had to take out that trash later tonight.

“What time are you out tonight?”

The question came as a surprise to you. You raised a brow as you worked to put your pants back on.

“Six…” You responded, unsure of the intent of his question. He wasn’t gonna wine and dine you - or whatever the Ash equivalent is that was - certainly. You had never heard any report of him attempting anything along the lines of that with anyone before. “What time is it anyway?”

He turned his wrist over, looking at the watch face. “Ten after.”

“Oh,” You raised your brows, surprised you had been…occupied, long enough to round out your shift.

“You?”

“I’m out at eight.”

“Oh, well okay”

The dialogue was shallow as you finished reassembling your work clothes.

You turned to him; “Why..?”

Ash looked at you with a cheeky grin, raising his eyes from his watch just enough to look up and meet your eyes.

"We should grab some drinks after work, have a bit of fun. I'll buy, I'm feeling generous tonight."

“And here I’ve been told chivalry is dead” Your put your shirt back over your head in time with the sarcastic response.

"I promise you, my intentions are anything but chivalrous when I tell you I'll be paying." He said with a grin and tacky wink. You decided to roll your eyes playfully opposed to wasting your words.

"I can take that as a maybe?" Ash asked. "Don't disappoint me, darlin'."

“Yeah yeah fine, whatever. Where?” You folded your arms across your chest, waiting for his reply.

"The Elk, we can sit at the bar, talk all flirty like." Ash said suggestively. "Nothing better than a bottle of whiskey on the table and a pretty lady beside it."

“Just pick me up after your shift, yeah?”

"After my shift," He confirmed with a smirk. "But just so I know, that's a yes then?"

“Deduce that one yourself, jackass.” You walked away with a smirk, not sure if volunteering more of your time with Ash would pan out in your favor.

[bratshaws]

through the hourglass 116. brb x oc

a/n: so good news is im seeing some changes in the app version of tumblr. PC is back to normal??? Anyway, hope it stays that way...also I know I said smut for this chapter but my mind went somewhere else entirely uwu. Reblogs and comments are so welcome! Thanks for liking my fic!

pairing: plus size!oc x rooster

warnings: none.

goodness gracious (pls read this one to know more what this fic is about!!)

chapter

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50/51/52/53/54/55/56/57/58/59/60/61/62/63/64/65/66/67/68/69/70/71/72/73/74/75/76/77/78/79/80/81/82/83/84/85/86/87/88

/89/90/91/92/93/94/95/96/97/98/99/100/101/102/103/104/105

/115

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-

“Bah bah bah!” Nicole was still bouncing a bit on Beatrice’s arms as they get inside the house, sleep nowhere in sight, “Bah bah bah!” followed by the monkey twinkling as she shakes it, vigorously, so much that the dogs turn to look up at her curiously.

Beatrice smiles before kissing their daughter’s head, the little girl still moving and wriggling, “My God, did your nonni give you sugar or something? You are so wriggly tonight!” she hears the sound of the doors being locked followed by Rooster’s grunt as he places Marcus’ gifts by the staircase. She wanted to help, she even voiced that she could but Rooster was relentless in saying that she should just keep those ‘soft hands of hers’ holding up Nicole.

His footsteps soon entered the kitchen, the sound of fabric ruffling followed and another heavy sigh left his lips. She turns around just in time to see him rolling up the sleeves to his elbows and unbuttoning the shirt even more to reveal his defined chest for her eyes to see…but she held back the commentary when she noticed his face, “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” he rolls his neck, a ‘crack! crack!’ echoing in the kitchen as he does so, “I should’ve just done that tomorrow.”

“I told you I could help.”

“Listen,supermodel.” he smirks when she blushes, “You can’t be busy picking your gifts, that’s my job.It’s in the ‘Bradley Nicholas Bradshaw’ contract.”

“Wha-since when?? I don’t remember signing that up anywhere.”

Rooster just laughs, dropping his head for a few seconds then lifting it back up as he approaches his girls, hugging Beatrice from behind to kiss the back of her neck, ‘Ah,gorgeous, you don’t have to sign that. It comes with the whole package.”

Beatrice giggles in front of him, which makes Nicole laugh as well, turning her body to look at her father with her chubby cheeks appearing even fuller because of that adorable grin, “How about you,Nikki? You aren’t sleepy?” Nicole just touched his chin, tapping the skin there then gently petting his mustache, all the while with her eyes wide and mouth parted open with pure amazement.

“I think she’s just excited to see us again,” Bea smiles, kissing Nicole’s cheek, “She’s so happy, aren’t you, honey?” more monkey shaking, more noises and more bouncing from Nicole, “God, she’s getting so big.”

“Wel she is six months old,gorgeous.”

“I know but…” Bea tsks, “She can stay a baby a while longer, you know? I know I wouldn’t mind it at all…would you?”

“Nah,I wouldn’t.” 

Ah, the fear that every parent had to go through: their children growing up and getting bigger in a blink of an eye.

Both of them could finally understand that.

Nicole kept on babbling, this time her focus was on her mother’s necklace and braid, well,mainly on Beatrice’s braid. Her pupils enlarged so much Bea was worried they might pop out of her eyes, but Nicole was so enraptured by the hairstyle, it was absolutely precious.

Probably because she had never seen her hair like that before, Beatrice usually let it loose or in a bun or even in a ponytail and it was so strange for a six months old baby that she had to touch it…several times, maybe even nom it-

“Okay, okay, not going to eat mommy’s hair.” It was Rooster who stops it, gently pulling the strands of hair from Nicole’s mouth and picking her up from Beatrice’s arms, kissing her cheeks when she whined in disagreement, “Well, missy, you can’t do anything you want, especially eat hair…and while mommy’s hair smells delicious, it’s not edible.” and he pokes her little tummy, just enough to make her giggle and hug his neck, “She’s not sleepy at all.”

“She’s not.”

“Well…that complicates things.”

Beatrice arched her brow and tilted her head towards her husband, smirking at him with her arms crossing, “Oh?”

“Yeah…there were things I had planned but…I can pause them because of my baby girl.” he smiles, lifting Nicole over his head and letting out an ‘ah!’ to match hers, bringing her down to kiss her cheeks, “I can wait.”

“You should,because she still needs to take a bath. And so am I.” Beatrice says, running her hands through her bangs, “Maybe the bath will make her sleepy, you know she loves water, it can tire her out.”

“i guess.” Rooster replies, gently holding that minuscule hand to bring it to his lips, kissing the small fingers and then the tip of her button nose, “I mean, but I wouldn’t mind if she stayed up a little while longer…we can watch more cartoons.” 

“Ah!”

“See? She agrees.”

Nicole had him in her little palm and Beatrice loved it. Because whatever Rooster had in mind, clearly it was the same thing he had when he looked at her during the party, was long gone and spending time with Nicole was much better. “Well, let’s wash her up first, then see how she gets.’ Beatrice says as she gets closer,kissing his jawline, “How does that sound?”

“Sounds good, doesn’t it,Nikki?” and he bounces her in his arm, her happy giggle echoing around the room, “Do you want to set it up?”

“Yeah, I don’t mind.” because she just wanted to see the two of them having fun together. Beatrice kisses him one final time before she walks up the stairs to their bedroom, inhaling happily as she recalls everything that happened that night.

It was a great night.

And her anxiety sickness was nowhere in sight, maybe it was good she didn’t feel like drinking alcohol, it’d only make her feel worse.

Now all they had to do was celebrate Christmas and then go to Virginia before the New Year! Simple!

She really wanted Brad to have another good time while in the holidays, she knew how much he liked it and now with Nicole he’d want her to enjoy the celebrations just as much! Beatrice bites her lower lip, running her thumb over her wedding band as she thinks about his Christmas gift…it was a bit of a callback, she had to admit, but now that she was getting back to Tiff’s class, she figured why not?

Plus, it’d certainly make him feel…energized before their trip.

Beatrice shakes her head with a smile, “But that can wait.” she whispers, “I need to set everything for Nikki.” she disappears into their daughter’s nursery to get one of her onesies, only for a sudden growl coming from her stomach interrupt her, “Wait…did I eat?” she blinks trying to recall if she snacked on something or just had drinks during the night, too excited to eat?

She was too excited to eat because she remembers eating something small and then ntohing else.

And she was starving. Another thing in the way of Rooster’s plan.

She pursed her lips into a little pout, holding the onesie to her chest and turning around just in time to see Rooster watching her from the door, “Hi gorgeous.” he smirks, “Got her outfit?”

“I did.” she pauses, “Roos I don’t think I had dinner.”

“...what?”

“I-I think I was too excited to eat.”

Rooster’s smile turns into a worried frown, “Gorgeous…you can’t do that. Come on,supermodel, you have to eat.”

Beatrice’s cheeks flushed just a bit, “I know…I-I was just really overwhelmed…can we order something after? I-If that’s okay?”

“Of course it is,why wouldn’t it be?” he asks, kissing her forehead when he gets closer, “Baby…I can wait, believe me,I can control myself…when I have to.” she laughs against him, letting him kiss her head again “After Nikki’s bath we are going to order something and you’ll eat.”

“I’m sorry…”

“It was a crazy night, I know.” he smiles, “But don’t do that, pretty girl, worries me so much…okay?”

“Okay.”

–

They genuinely thought that Nicole was going to be sleepy after the bath, she usually did, but something tonight only made the little baby even more active. So now they were all in the living room, sitting on the couch, Nicole was being held against Rooster’s chest and the two of them ate pizza.

And watched cartoons.

At midnight.

He couldn’t wish for anything better, especially since the dogs were lying around the couch, watching the tv just like they were, Eleanor sometimes sniffed the pizza but Jolene ‘boofed’ in warning so the pup lied back down. Rooster looks down at Nicole, just in time to see her looking right at the cheesy slice of pizza, mimicking the way he ate by opening and closing her mouth, “Sorry,birdie. But you can’t eat this yet, you got no teeth.”

“Ah!” she sounded upset!

“Hey,come on now,” he raises the slice higher when she tries to reach it, “No, mama already gave you food.I know it’s not what you wanted but it is what you can have for now.” she made another indignant sound, “I know,I hate it too.”

Beatrice watched the interaction with one hand holding her head up, her cheeks curving into a smile as Rooster talked to Nicole as if she was ten years old, no baby talking at all. It was the cutest thing ever, “You know,” she begins, “I think this is a great way to end the night.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, us, together, watching tv and having pizza? It’s amazing.”

Rooster swallows his bite to give Beatrice another grin, “Well…yeah it is pretty good. Core memories for Nikki,” he lifts his slice again when he sees Nikki’s hand moving upwards, “And for us.”

“Yeah…” her stomach was still fussy but she was eating slowly, she knew it could be nausea from something but she couldn’t pinpoint what. Maybe the whole excitement,maybe that was too much for her to handle and her stomach was taking the toll of it, “I like it…and thanks for joining me too.I know it’s late…”

“I never say no to pizza,” again his hand gets even higher and Nicole’s high ‘aah!’ reaches his ears, “And spending time with my family.”

Beatrice’s smile is nearing hurtful by how stretched her lips are, even if she’s still chewing her own slice. She sighs softly, looking back at the tv with her brows low, feeling another hint of nausea coming up in her stomach but she tried to hold it back as best as she could, lying down just a bit more on the couch.

She felt Nicole’s little hands tapping her bare calf, then her daughter crawled over to her stomach, “Nikki!” she did this without any of them noticing and that little girl had such a good balance she didn’t even rolled to the side, “Baby girl, don’t do that, I know you are strong but-”

“Ah!” she slaps her hand on her mother’s chest a few times before dropping her head on top, huffing angrily.

Beatrice looks over at Rooster, who’s still chewing his pizza, “She’s mad at you.” that made him stop and look over at his wife in pure horror, “Because you didn’t give her a bite.”

“She can’t even bite!”

“She doesn’t know that.” she didn’t want to show how Nikki’s weight, as minimal as it was, was making her stomach feel even more nauseous, she just adjusted herself on the couch while holding Nicole close to her chest, kissing her brown head, “You can’t be mad at daddy, you can’t eat grown up food baby girl.”  she sits up a bit more, “Don’t be silly, oh Roos, she’s pouting!”

When she looks up so is her husband.

“Roos…”

“I don’t want her mad at me!”

“Brad,she’s a baby.” she says sweetly, holding up Nicole so she looks over at Rooster, “She doesn’t hate you, you know that.” Beatrice scoots over to where he was so the two most important people in her life could look at each other, “She doesn’t get it.”

Bradley’s eyebrows were low as he frowned, looking back down at Nicole whose light green eyes only appeared lighter because of the light above their heads, “Maybe she’s just sleepy.I know some babies get fussy…and it is pretty late.”

“It is.” Beatrice agrees, clearing her throat when the nausea hit again. Stronger this time, “Oh wow.”

“What?”

She couldn’t hide it now, “I feel a bit sick.” she says, “Like my stomach is messed up, I think.”

Rooster’s pouting face disappeared and turned into worry, “What are you feeling?”

“Just…a bit nauseous, that’s all.” she tries to distract herself by bouncing Nicole in her arms, the little girl’s pout disappearing as her eyes struggled to keep open because it was obvious she was tired now and her anger was because of sleep “I think it’s because I was so excited tonight. Has to be.”

Bradley’s eyebrows furrow and he frowns a bit more, looking down at her stomach then back at her, “Baby…can you eat?” he nods to the half eaten slice, “You barely ate anything.”

“Oh no,I will…I just need a few seconds.”

Rooster grabs Nicole from Beatrice’s arms and tilts his head at his wife, “Do you want to lie down a bit?” she shakes her head negatively, “Do you want tea?”

“I…no, it’s fine, it’s just hunger.” she didn't know if it was hunger but it did feel that way. It felt just like that time she ate chili and felt bad for hours, it was extremely similar. Beatrice knew there was something off but she couldn’t pinpoint what…was she allergic to something now?? Maybe tomatoes? Was she allergic to tomatoes? “I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

She nods with a small smile, “I just need to relax a bit…that’s all Roos.”

“If you are sure…”

“I am.”

But her husband knew her and he knew that if she felt bad it’d take some time for her to say it to him, which he hated but he couldn’t force it out of her. He sighed, kissing her head before he stood up, “I’m going to put Nikki in her crib,” he looked down at their daughter who was now peacefully snoozing against his chest, “I’ll be right back,okay?”

Beatrice nods with a little smile,watching him walk away and up the stairs, leaving her and her raging thoughts to herself. Why would she feel this way? She didn’t eat anything strange, she’s eating pizza for crying out loud! She chews her lower lip, trying to remember if there was any way she could really be developing some sort of allergic reaction to food.

She gently rubs her hands on her stomach, the nausea coming and going…strangely it reminded Bea of the time during Nicole’s pregnancy. Although the nausea was so much stronger than and–

Wait.

“No.” she whispers, “There’s no way, I took my birth control shots.” she could feel the anxiety rise up, “This is not what I’m thinking, it can’t be. There’s absolutely no way it’s that…there’s no way.” she did take her birth control shots, she remembers going to the clinic and seeing the lady there, the same lady as before.

She remembers the shot, she remembers feeling down in the dumps for a few days. “I’m just imagining things,” she whispers, “This is nothing more than a bad stomach day. That’s all.” but she continues rubbing her stomach, “...that’s all.”

[callsign-cacti]

Someone to Love Me

Part 3

Previous Part

Word Count: 3.9k

Warnings: Violence, blood, alcohol abuse, talk of physical abuse, mental illness

His ears were ringing as he stared at the numbers the judges were holding up. 27, 27, 29 to a total of 83. Two points behind the rider in second place. 

Meaning that he had lost. He wasn’t moving on to the finals in a few weeks. 

It was bullshit. He had known the second that buzzer had rung that he had a better ride than Tommy Jenkins, the second-place rider. He had been so confident that his score would have told him that he was going to Vegas in December. Instead, it just told him he was going back to Wabang as a loser. 

“Abbott, gotta get outta the arena!” One of the bullfighters was yelling at him, waving his arms in an attempt to gain Rhett's attention, but all Rhett could see were those goddamned numbers. 

His body felt heavy as he walked through the dirt to hop back up behind the pens.

He was done. 

He had lost.

But he shouldn’t have.

As he began his walk down the alleyway, a ringing started in his ears, but it wasn’t loud enough to block out the looks thrown his way, pity and sympathetic looks being thrown his way only making the pit in his stomach grow.

“Maybe if he hadn’t shown up piss drunk this morning he woulda done better.” Only a little way down the alley, Rhett paused, catching snippets of the conversation some of the gate workers were having.

“Or maybe if that girl of his wasn’t so busy sleeping around then he wouldn’t be such a goddamned mess and he could have gotten it together enough to win!”

He should have let it go. The gate guys were always nasty, always having something to say when you weren’t the ones winning. They were the wannabe bull riders, the ones who competed at county fairs and placed last every time. The ones who couldn’t make it two seconds in the pros. The rejects and wannabes, first to lose and first to mock you for getting farther than they ever could, or would.

He should have done what he always did, and ignored them because everything that came out of their mouths was bullshit, fake, and desperate. 

Except in this case, they were right. 

Adrenaline and anger were the gasoline, and the fact that Rhett had nothing else to lose was the match that set the entire garbage that was his life on fire.

So he turned on his heel, ignoring the looks being tossed his way as he stormed back up to the group of guys, calling out to get their attention. 

Rhett didn’t know who had been talking, and he didn’t really care to find out. So he picked out the meanest-looking one and swung, a satisfying crack of the man's nose reaching Rhett's ears before he was ducking out of the way of a fist.

Both of them got a few good hits in before the two of them were pulled apart, Rhett being dragged out of the arena by two guys he didn’t know. He heard a door open, and then he was being shoved outside, his ass hitting the pavement as his eyes burned at the sudden assault of the sun.

Spitting out a mouthful of blood, Rhett squinted at the two retreating figures, a pathetic thrown over a shoulder before the doors shut him out with a resounding clang.

Sitting against the hot asphalt, Rhett tongued his lip, blood filling his mouth before he spit it out again.

So that was it.

He was done. 

Looking down at himself, at the sponsorship patches and the teal of his chaps, frayed and dull and missing patches of fringe, he started laughing. But the laughs soon turned into labored breaths as the reality of what had just happened hit him. Suddenly, the vest was too tight, the chaps too heavy.

His hands were shaking as he reached for the zipper of his vest, practically ripping it off himself. Once that was off, the pearl snap shirt came next, the buttons making a popping sound as he hastily removed it from his body. 

Pushing himself up off the ground, he ripped the zippers of his chaps down, the top part coming loose from the leather. 

And then Rhett was staring at the remnants of his rodeo career, the only tangible evidence besides the buckles in his room at the ranch. 

He wanted to set them on fire. 

He wanted to leave it there to rot. 

He could do it, get in his truck and drive home and toss the buckles into the trash as well. No one there would bother pulling them out of the trash for him. 

Hell, Royal would probably bury them in a field, happy to be rid of the reminder that his son had made it further than he did.

“You’ll regret it if you leave it there!” Rhett whirled, not realizing that he wasn’t alone. Leaning up against one of the light posts was Nick Mint. 

He had met Nick around ten years ago, being a retired bull rider himself who’s son in law was on the circuit. 

It had been one of Rhett’s first bigger rodeos he had gone to without Royal there with him to coach him. Rhett had barely been able to make it himself after a problem moving the cows into the South pasture.

He had been so nervous for that ride, having drawn one of the rankest bulls of the night. Nick had spotted Rhett hanging back by the chutes, and after his son-in-law Bill had ridden, had walked up to Rhett to give him some pointers on the bull.

Rhett had won that rodeo by three points, mostly because of Nick's tips. Nick had been the first to congratulate him, and Rhett had spent the rest of the night with the Mint family.

Since Rhett and Bill were in the same circuit, he saw Nick a lot and had grown close with the man and the Mint family. But he had always remained closest with Nick, and his wife Gwyn. In a way, they were his pseudo rodeo parents, supportive and kind and genuine, something that was uncommon not just in the rodeo world, but in Rhett's world as well.

Even after Bill retired, if it wasn’t too far of a drive, Nick and Gwyn would show up to rodeos, coaching and cheering him on.

“You should have beaten that Jenkins kid!” Pushing himself off the light post, Nick hobbled over to Rhett, bending to pick up the pile of clothes and hand them to Rhett. “Everyone in that arena who knows bulls knows that score they gave you was nothin but bullshit, pardon the pun!” Nick chuckled, quickly sobering when he looked back at Rhett. 

“I’m real sorry kid!” Nick offered, placing the clothes into Rhett's hands. Rhett nodded, unsure of what to say to that. 

“You know, I saw your girl in there.” Rhett's gaze snapped off the trailers and back to Nick.

“Maria…?”

“Not that terrible girl!” Nick spat, lips turning down. “Sutton!”

“No, Nick, you couldn’t have… she wouldn’t have come to this!” Because she wouldn’t have. A few months ago, at one of the rodeos, you approached Rhett. It was the first time you had actively sought him out in months, having respected his wishes from the night he had left you in the parking lot of the Handsome Gambler.

You were firm in your accusations against Maria, telling him that you had seen her and Lane going into his trailer. Whatever else you had planned on saying to him was lost to the void, as Rhett spun around and fucking lost the plot. Accusing you of lying, of being jealous of Maria, of trying to ruin something else for him.

He knew that Maria was cheating on him, the entire fucking circuit knew Maria was open for business with whoever caught her eye that night.

But to admit that to you…

So no, he didn’t think you would be here, for no other reason than to watch him ride. Because, in truth, there was no other reason for you to be here. He had thoroughly burned the last pieces of his bridge with you and regretted it every day.

“Are you telling me I’m wrong boy? I might be old, but I’m not stupid!” Nick huffed, crossing his arms. “Now, you listen to me good boy, cause I’ll not tell you this again! That other girl, she isn’t right for you. Gwyn said it herself the night she met Sutton. You and her, you got something good, something like me and Gwyn had, if you would only get your head outta your ass and stop feeling so goddamned sorry for yourself! Now, I don’t know what happened between the two of y’all, and I know you think you don’t have a chance in hell with her, but let me tell you, son. She was here tonight, and she was cheerin louder than anyone else. So you need to get your fuckin act together, and stop pissing your life down the drain, because…”

Nick paused for a second, sucking in a breath before continuing. “Because if Gwyn were here today, then she would be mighty disappointed to see what you’ve become, pullin' that stunt in the arena, showin' up drunk, letting your pride get in the way of the best thing that ever happened to you!”

Now it was Rhetts turn to suck in a breath. He was ashamed to admit he hadn’t noticed Gwyns absence until Nick had mentioned it, and now that he thought about it, he had heard something about Gwyn passing around a year ago, but the memory was hazy, as Rhett had been drunk at the time. He should have known the second that he had laid eyes on Nick that something wasn’t right.

If there ever were soulmates, Nick and Gwyn were it. So effortlessly in love that it made you simultaneously sick and jealous every time you looked at them. And looking at Nick now, he looked thinner, paler. There was less life in his eyes than there was in the past. Rhett guessed losing your other half could do that to you.

Nick's phone rang, shattering the silence that had fallen between the two, and Rhett noticed his shaking hands as he reached into the pocket and read the text. 

“Well, Bill’s ready to leave, and he’s my ride!” He extended his hand, and Rhett quickly dropped his gear, taking his hand and pulling Nick into a hug. “Thank you! Thank you for everything!” Rhett whispered, hugging the man tight. He felt Nick nod, and after a few more seconds, pulled back.

“And, I’m real sorry about Gwyn!” He said, still clutching onto Nick's hand, hoping to convey to him just how much he regretted ignoring the news about her death.

“Just, make things right Rhett!” 

Once Nick was gone, Rhett bent and scooped up his gear, and started the trek to his truck. He had been planning on going to a bar and getting piss drunk and driving back to Wabang tomorrow. But if he left now, he could make it back before nightfall.

-

Rhett had barely taken three steps out of his truck before Perry turned a corner, breaking out into a slow clap.

“Well well well, if it ain’t Mr. Gold Buckle Champion himself!” 

Rhett tightens his grip on the bag, attempting to push past Perry and into the house, ignoring the stench of alcohol wafting off of Perry. Answering Perry would have been a green fucking light for a fight, and Rhett was to tired to fend off his brother tonight.

“Oh, that’s right, you placed third, you aren’t going to Vegas!” Perry taunted, pissed that Rhett was ignoring him. Honestly, he was a little shocked that Perry had taken the time to find out how he had done, whether it be by watching his rides or even bothering to look up the placings.

“You know, we watched it, Mom made us. You rode better than Jenkins, but did you know that Mr. Dunley and Dad were old rodeo buddies?” 

Rhett turned at this, eyes narrowed as Perry continued on, happy that he had finally gotten Rhett’s attention. 

“Oh yeah, we all watched the first two rounds. You weren’t good enough to win, we all knew that, the judges knew it too. But you were a hell of a lot better than Jones!” Perry stepped closer to him, smug grin plastered on his face. He wobbled a bit, straightening himself as he paused, letting him process what he was saying.

A knot began to form in his stomach. 

Royal wouldn’t do that. There was no way that he…

“That’s right. Seems like that pea brain of yours does still work. Dad stepped away a few minutes before Tommy Jones rode his third round. Made a call, and…”

Rhett didn’t wait to hear the rest of whatever Perry had to say, turning for the porch and flinging the door open. The sound echoed through the house, quiet except for the steady hum of the air conditioning and the low murmurs coming from the television, and made Royal step out of the kitchen to see who dared to disturb the unsteady peace of the house. 

He made a call. The words echoed through Rhetts head as he tried in vain to find something, anything to prove that Perry would be wrong. 

Royal had started him on bull riding.

Had been there at every junior rodeo, every county fair, cheering him on. Had paid the entry fees and driven Rhett hours. Had celebrated the wins and told his buddies stories about his son.

But somewhere along the way, Rhett started taking advice from other riders, getting good. Getting better than Royal. 

Rhett wasn’t sure when his fathers' gaze had lost the admiration, or when it had turned into disdain, or when the disdain had turned into hatred. 

Jealousy had taken root and festered and turned his father into someone that he didn’t recognize.

He made a call.

And he wasn’t sure when there stopped being anything behind Royals eyes at all.

He made a call

Behind Royal, Cecilia had stood from the table and was at the fridge, shuffling around the kitchen as she began preparing food.

“Congratulations on your ride today Rhett. You looked great!” Her words were encouraging, but her tone was flat, never turning her gaze from what was in front of her or realizing that Rhett wasn’t responding to her attempts to break the silence in the kitchen.

Rhett winced as Perry shoved him out of the doorway, pain flaring down his side as his shoulder was jostled and then slammed into a wall. The scrape of the chair finally made Cecilia pause, taking in Royal and Rhett whose gazes were still locked together, and Perry with his feet up on the table, beer in hand.

“Don’t know why you're congratulating him ma… he didn’t win anything!”

“He placed third Perry!” Cecilia said, exasperated at having to correct her son.

“Well, yeah. But to move onto Vegas, he would have had to have placed second!” Perry was quiet for a second, a smug smirk spreading across his face. “Right, dad?”

Royal grunted, finally breaking and moving to retreat back into the den, away from Rhett. 

“Did you do it?” His voice is quiet, and it cracks as the last word flows from his mouth, but he did it. He had asked. And he knows Royal heard him, the house wasn’t loud enough for him not have heard what Rhett had said, but he remained silent as if he hadn’t. 

His silence, the way his shoulders hunched just a little more, was answer enough for Rhett.

“Did you fucking do it!” Rhett shouts, balling his fists so his nails are cutting into the palms of his hands.

He almost feels like he’s out of his body, the slight pain radiating from his hands and his shoulder grounding him as he watched Royal turn, his father's face set in a grim determination to deny deny deny. 

“What are you talking about Rhett?” His tone is condescending, but his eyes flit anywhere but to Rhetts gaze.

“Royal?” Cecilia asks from the fridge. But it’s Perry who answers.

“Oh, that’s right!” Perry interjects, closing the fridge as he pops open another beer. “You were outside. Rhett was gonna win second, which would have sent him to Vegas. You remember Thomas Dunley right? Well, turns out, he was one of the judges and Dad made a…”

Royals voice is hoarse when he speaks, a rumbling enough that has Perry stopping immediately.

“Why?”

“Rhett!” Cecilia tries, stepping between him and Royal. He’s quick to step around her, getting into Royals face.

“Why did you do it?” He’s screaming now, but Royal doesn’t even flinch as he takes a step back from his son. 

“We need you here.”

“The hell does that mean, you need me here. You don’t need me here! You don’t even want me here. It would have been two weeks, two fucking weeks that you would have had to manage without me! Two weeks for something that I have been working for my entire life!” Rhett flings his arm towards Perry.

“And you wouldn’t have been alone, you would have had Perry. But that’s my bad for assuming that he would have actually gotten off his ass to actually do some fucking work instead of just getting fucking drunk and being a deadbeat, good for nothing worthless asshole!”

“You watch your mouth Rhett!” Royal hissed, his eyes narrowed as he straightened up.

“No, let’s hear what he has to say!” Perry said, pushing up from his chair so fast that it toppled over behind him.

“I wanna hear about how worthless I am. You think your any fucking better Rhett? Look at you!” Perry walked around the table, only stopping once he was a few feet from Rhett.“At least I did something with my life, instead of chasing some stupid, childish dream, hoping Daddy would love me for it!”

Distantly, Rhett realized that he had been digging his blunt nails so hard into his palms that they had broken the skin. But that wasn’t important when Perry was standing in front of god and everybody, acting like he was something instead of a no-good dead beat worthless drunk.

“Yeah, Per!” Rhett laughed, looking his brother up and down. “And what do you have to show for what you did? You sit at home on your ass and get so fucking wasted that I’m surprised you haven’t choked on your own vomit and fucking died!” This time, it was Rhett who took a step toward Perry, ignoring Cecilia’s weak pleas for the two of them to stop.

“And where’s your wife and kid huh? Oh, that’s right, they fucking left you because you’re a narcissistic, piece of shit who…”

He saw Perry coming from a mile away, having been watching him wind up since the beginning of his rant. He dodged the first few punches easily and then cocked his fist and landed a solid punch right to Perry's nose.

The cracking was the most satisfying sound he had heard in a while. Perry stumbled back, his hand reaching for his nose, and pulling his bloody hand away. 

“Rhett Abbott!” Cecilia gasped, immediately moving towards Perry with her hands out. Perry pushed her away, and Rhett glanced over towards Royal, who stood watching with a frown on his face, but was making no move to interfere. 

Taking his eyes off Perry was his first mistake. 

His second mistake was not looking at Perrys' hands, but at his eyes. Rhett had seen Perry in a lot of different states, but never had he seen Perry, or anyone, look at him the way his brother was looking at him now. 

Rhett only broke eye contact as Perry extended his arm, glancing down at his hand. By then it was too late to completely dodge the knife that was in Perrys hand, only managing to move enough so that instead of stabbing into him, it slashed at him, making a cut a few inches long. 

Stumbling back, he looked down at his stomach, and then back up at Perry, who was being held back by Royal. 

His brother looked crazy, a wild look in his eye that scared Rhett far more than the knife in his hand. He wondered if Rebecca had looked at Perry and seen what Rhett was seeing right now. 

He knew she had. 

It’s why he had helped her and Amy run. 

As the pain in his stomach began to register, he wondered why he hadn’t gone with them.

Perry was still looking at him over Royals shoulder as he clutched his stomach and began moving for the door. Cecilia was screaming in the kitchen as he grabbed the bag he had dropped on the way in and blew through the door.

Even outside, as Rhett wrenched open the truck door, he could still feel the chill of Perrys' eyes on him, his hand shaking as he tried and failed to jam the keys into the ignition.

Cecilia was at the door now, her eyes wide and mouth saying something that was blocked out by the ringing in Rhett's ears. But she made no move for the truck, even as the engine stalled once, then twice. 

His panic rose as he desperately turned the key, mumbling prayers under his breath. Royal had just breached the front door as the engine finally turned over, and Rhett was shifting into reverse as he stumbled down the steps, throwing up his arms to protect himself from the spray of gravel sent from the tires as he peeled out of the driveway.

His mouth tasted like iron as he threw one last glance in the rearview mirror, his parents standing in the fading light of the evening, their gazes following him like Perrys.

He can still feel them as he passes the Wabang city limits sign, raising a shaky hand to flip the sign off, only then noticing the blood on his hands. Looking down, the grey of his t-shirt is hidden under red, and he curses as he reaches into the back for a blanket, pain shooting through his body as he presses it up against the cut. 

He knows that in a few minutes, the adrenaline from everything is going to wear off, and when it does, he’s gonna crash and burn. On top of that, he has no place to go, because there’s no way in hell he’s going back to the ranch ever again.

Shit

The blood has already soaked through the outer edges of the blanket.

Double shit

It takes him three times to get his password right to unlock his phone, his hands shaking as he pulls up his contact list.

There's only one number on his favorites, even though he hasn’t called it in months.

He taps it, sucking in a breath when he hears the dial tone. 

It rings and rings and rings, and then the voicemail message pops up. He hangs up, only to call right back. This happens three more times, and he is about to hang up just to call right back again when a voice rings through the truck.

“Rhett?”

The long awaited part three. This story was actually supposed to be several chapters longer, but I could not for the life of me, get it to where I wanted it to be, so I stopped working on it, which is why there was a six month hiatus.

But I love this story, and I love Rhett, and I also want to be able to include these characters in other things that I'm working on. So it's a bit rushed, and not as fleshed out as I originally planned, and I had to kill several darlings, but here it is.

There will be one more chapter after this, maybe two. But they will definitely be on the happier side, and I cannot wait for y'all to see them!

Also, @bradshawsbitch, you have been in my head for six months, and this one is for you! Thank you for commenting on the second part, and sorry its so late!

[universalimagines]

Strangers on a Starship (Part 1)

WARNING: Possible Triggering Content in this Story

So I’ve had this idea for a multi part La’an/Spock story for a minute and I’ve now decided to write it out. FYI this story will be dark and might contain content that’s triggering for some people so just be warned.

Jenna Mitchell usually liked the calmer missions. They gave her time to catch up on her reading and they weren’t getting shot at, boarded or drawn into complex drama. But the quiet ones always came with a catch. Usually that catch was boredom or a surprise shooting battle at the worst time. Today it was worse though. Power was fluctuating across the ship, internal sensors were down across entire decks and engineering was having a hard time keeping up with all the malfunctions.

That had translated into two problems for Jenna. First, it meant doing anything on her off hours that required power impossible. The lights would keep going off at the worst moments meaning she couldn’t ever enjoy her book. Second, the cascading level of the issue had meant that Chief Hemmer had drafted anyone who’d scored higher than an 80% on their engineering exams to aide in keeping up with the busted relays. And of course, Jenna had scored an 83% in Engineering which meant she’d been one of the unlucky draftees.

That was what lead to her to her current predicament. Stuck in the access tubes at 2300 fixing a relay that had knocked out power to the crew lounge. She’d been sent there after a mountain of complaints from the crew there had annoyed Hemmer enough to send someone down to fix it.

She’d arrived with a tool kit to hear the constant gripes of the crew about spoiled food or drinks without any buzz to them. She silently cursed them as she walked behind the kitchen and climbed the tube into the service tunnel that fed power into that section.

The light was out in that section of the tunnels as she walked around looking for the bad relays. She hoped that she could find the damaged one quickly. Repairing a busted relay or replacing it was a simple job but finding it was often more luck. The damage to the relays she’d seen hadn’t all be done the same way. Sometimes the damaged relays were obvious with sparking and fried wires. Other times the wires looked no different that the good ones and she’s had to check each relay to find the bad ones, which would take hours.

Today she was lucky though. She saw the broken relay quickly, since the relay was sparking and adding some small illumination to the hallway. Jenna quickly shut off power to the relay. Behind her in the lounge, she could hear the groans and gripes of the crew no doubt annoyed that their lounge was dark on top of not able to serve them food anymore.

With the power offline, she extracted the busted relay from the wall and put it down as she picked up a fresh one from the tool kit. She inserted the new relay into the wall and ran a final check with her scanner to make sure she’d installed it right before she turned power back on.

The scanner reported that all was good, so she put the scanner on her hip as she prepared to reengage the power. Just then, her scanner beeped loudly causing her heart to skip a beat. She looked at the scanner results.

“SCANNED OBJECT: DAMAGED RELAY”

"ANALYSIS: DAMAGE NOT CONSISTENT WITH OVERBLOWN FUSES. 95% LIKELYHOOD DAMAGE CAUSED BY DIRECT PHASER FIRE.”

Jenna had to reread the report to make sure she’d seen what she thought.

“What the hell-“ Jenna began before she felt something grab her from behind and slam her into the wall. The hit disoriented her and messed with her vision. She then felt herself get thrown again. The second throw caused her shoulder to impact on the hallway before falling to the floor. Jenna thought she’d felt something break as she tried to recover and crawl away. Her attacker straddled her, pinning her body and head to the ground so she couldn’t move nor could she see her attacker.

But one of her arms was still free and close by, was one of the tools in the kit. Using all of her remaining strength she swung the tool and felt the item make contact with what she assumed was her attackers head.

But her attacker barely flinched and within seconds was back on the offensive. Her attacker backhanded her hard cutting her lip in the process. Disoriented, Jenna could barely put up any resistance as her attacker grabbed her neck and lifted her to her knees. With both hands, her attacker slammed her head into the bulkhead, hard.

Jenna was slumped against the bulkhead wall, blood trickling from her head. She could feel the pain in her body numbing as she slowly started to lose consciousness. She started to feel her body move without her input. It took a great deal of energy for her to realize her attacker was dragging her. Eventually the attacker stopped dragging her, leaving her sprawled out on the floor. By now, Jenna ability to remain conscious was waning. The last thing Jenna remembered as her vision went black was a hand raising up her shirt, and the feeling of utter revulsion.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Captain Pike had just finished his shift on the bridge and had left Ortegas in the Chair while he got some sleep. As he made his way down the hallways to his quarters, he noticed that there was a rather large and angry crowd handing around the crew lounge, which was now in pitch black.

As he marched inside, he saw that some of the crew were using their own flashlights to create some kind of light for the room. He spotted LT Sam Kirk sitting down with Cadet Uhura and Nurse Chapel having a chat.

“Hey guys.” Pike smiled as he approached them. All three got up from their seats in a sign of respect. Pike gave them both a hand indicating they could sit back down again. “What’s going on?”

“Power’s been intermittent for a bit now.” Sam answered. “The complainers finally irritated Hemmer enough that he sent someone down to repair it.” He then gestured to the room. “But as you can see, they haven’t finished yet.”

“Yeah.” Pike admitted having figured out where the annoyance was coming from. “Who did Hemmer send.”

“LT Jenna Mitchell sir.” Uhura added.

Pike frowned. Mitchell was competent at repairing relays since she’d been drafted to help. Plus, she wasn’t an egoist. If the job was above her skill level, she’d have asked for help by now.

“She has been down there a minute, hasn’t she?” Chapel added. “What could be taking so long?”

“How long has she been down there?” Pike asked.

Sam looked at his watch and frowned too. “Over an hour.”

The four officers all shared a look of concern. “Maybe we should check on her?” Uhura offered. “Make sure she’s good?”

“Officer thinking Cadet.” Pike smiled. The group got up from their seats and went to the back room where the access tube was.

Pike pressed the button to the hatch only to find it wouldn’t respond. He gestured to Sam as both men pulled on opposite ends to the door leading into the service hall, finally opening it up.

By now, the crowd had gotten angry. “Will someone light a fire under that dumbass engineering sent to fix this place?” Someone had whined out.

Christine and Uhura both nodded heads at each other and went into straight crisis management mode. “Hey, take a breath guy.” Chapel began. “We’re all have the same goals here. Fix the problem so life goes back to normal. Yelling at a fellow officer won’t get it done faster.”

“Plus, I know the officer they sent.” Uhura added. “if it’s taken this long it must be a serious issue. I’m sure she’s doing her best.”

Pike nodded back at Chapel, smiling at her skill as defusing situations. He and Sam headed into the hallway confident that Chapel and Uhura could hold the masses at bay till they found out what had happened.

The pair walked into the hallway until they found Jenna’s toolbox on the ground. “Well, this must be the relay she was working on.” Pike state.

“Looks finished too.” Sam remarked as he pulled up the damaged relay she’d removed. “So why didn’t she turn the power back on?” Sam pointed to the nearby relay that had been turned off.

Pike rubbed his chin in confusion. “Not sure…” Pike started observing the relay closer, trying to see if there was something in it that might explain where Jenna was. “I’d say she went to repair another relay but the why did she leave her tool bag?”

“Sir…” Sam said softly pointing to a section of the wall. When Pike looked there, he saw something that made his tension rise. Right on the wall at eye level was a red stain. He put his fingers up to it feeling the soft liquid. He could tell instantly the liquid was blood… human blood.

The pair silently turned down the corridor raising their lights to shine a path down the dark passage. Nearing a corner that led into two separate paths, the pair each decided to take a different direction and remaining at full alert.

Sam had gone left and was shining his light down the hallway when he noticed something out of place. Hidden hastily in the wall panels was a tool Sam recognized as one belonging to an engineer’s kit, but this tool had blood on its head. Sam was eyeing the tool when out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something. It took him a second to comprehend that what he saw was indeed the truth and not a nightmare. It was Jenna.

She was lying flat on the floor, unconscious. Sam’s cursory examination informed him that she had been attacked. Her uniform was in tatters and barely hanging off her body, having been torn in several places exposing large portions of her chest, back, hips and legs. In each location where her skin was exposed, her skin was marred with scrapes and bruises. Finally, her head had a terrible gash on the back and side covered in dried blood and there were thick bruises on her neck.

“Chris!” Sam yelled down the hallway. “I found her!”

Chris sped down the hallway less than a minute later. He too stopped in his tracks when he saw what Sam had. “She barely has a pulse.” Sam breathed out.

“MEDIC!” Pike screamed down the hall at the top of his lungs.

The two men rolled Jenna onto her back searching for signs of life-threatening injuries. They had just finished examining her when Chapel showed up, clearly having sprinted the whole way there. Chapel took quick stock of the situation and got to work assessing the wounded officer.

She dropped her head down by Jenna’s head to try and hear her breathing then moved her hands along the wounded officer’s body. “Airways not obstructed. No signs of major bleeding. But this head wound worries me. We need to get her to sick bay.”

“The malfunctions have been messing with the transporter.” Sam admitted. “We’ll need to take her straight there.”

“Sam, run ahead and see if you can find something we can cover her with.” Chapel ordered, hoping to ensure they could protect her modesty as well.

Sam nodded and sprinted off while Pike pulled out his communicator. “Pike to Bridge. Send security personnel to lock down the crew lounge and all routes into the service hatch on that level.”

“Yes sir.” Ortegas replied, her voice not hiding the shock of the request.

Sam was back within a minute with a blanket that had been draped over one of the couches in the lounge. Chapel quickly covered Mitchell’s unconscious body with the blanket and secured it to her so whoever carried her wouldn’t trip.

Pike then gave his comms to Chapel as he gently lifted Jenna’s unconscious body up, careful to avoid moving her head too much.

“Chapel to sick bay.” Chapel called into the comms. “We’re got a seriously injured crewman on deck 3. Head trauma, significant lacerations and blunt force trauma. We’re coming to you.”

The group exited the service corridor and began a breakneck sprint to sick bay, ignoring the looks of shock in the crew as they ran by.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Spock and La’an were together aboard the shuttle Galileo as it made its final approach to the Enterprise. The pair had been off ship aiding a Federation outpost in getting their defense grid established by helping them work through several bugs that had caused the grid to short out.

“Last time I agree to help anyone set up defense grids.” La’an groaned, her impatience with their completed mission evident.

“Perhaps next time we take part in such an operation we will remember to ask the staff how many experiments they are running and how much power they are draining from the grid.” Spock replied back.

“Next time?” La’an gasped. “Oh no. I am never taking part in any mission where I have to teach officers who’ve never even held a phaser how to set up remote phase cannon turrets and shield generators.”

“You are the ship’s chief of security.” Spock pointed out. “Is there anyone else on the ship with you knowledge of weapons and defensive systems?”

“You know you could’ve set the whole grid up by yourself.” La’an offered.

“Perhaps.” Spock stated “But Captain Pike does not like sending officers out alone on away missions. If you refused to accompany me. The Captain would’ve insisted I travel with LT Ortegas or perhaps even Nurse Chapel.”

The thought of Spock flying off alone with Christine Chapel sent a feeling La’an couldn’t describe into her head. Since their mind meld when facing the Gorn, Spock had been on the forefront of her mind more often than she liked to admit.

She was pulled from her thoughts when Spock spoke. “Curious. We have been within range of Enterprise for several minutes now and they have yet to respond to my hails.”

La’an immediately adopted a serious expression. The crew was usually on top of their game and not responding once in range was red flag in La’an mind. She’d hoped they’d just caught Uhura or Christina asleep at the comms but she knew that was wishful thinking.

Spock reached out on comms again and this time he got a response. Before he could even speak, a hard voice came through. “Shuttlecraft Galileo, proceed to docking immediately. LTs Spock and Noonien-Singh, proceed to sickbay upon arrival.”

The pair looked at each with similar expressions of confusion before they piloted the shuttle into the docking bay.

Once on board, the pair had rushed to sickbay to find Captain Pike, Nurse Chapel and Doctor M’Benga huddled around engaged in a deep and tense conversation. In the back, Spock could see that one of the private patient suites was active and likely occupied.

“Captain.” Spock announced himself as he and La’an came to a stop by the group.

“Spock, La’an.” Pike sighed, his voice tight with tension and grief. Spock recognized this as the same tension that dominated his mind whenever they’d learned about the loss of crewman. “We’ve got a serious situation here, one that is going to shake the crew when the scuttlebutt gets loose. LT Mitchell… Jenna… She was raped.”

Both La’an and Spock, though normally stoic and hard individuals were shaken by this announcement. While outwardly, they appeared only slightly more tense than usual, those who knew the two officers could see the tension, anger and sadness displayed in their subtle actions. Spock, who normally stood at perfect parade rest started shuffling on his feet and the clasp hands behind his back had tightened. La’an meanwhile had balled her hands into fists and her facial muscles tightened as her anger rose to the surface.

“Do we know who was responsible?” La’an asked, her voice tight in anger, waiting for a target to unleash it on.

“No.” Doctor M’Benga whispered. “She was brought in unconscious a few hours ago and she has yet to awaken.”

“Plus her attacker didn’t leave any DNA behind.” Chapel added.

“Where did the attack take place?” Spock asked, his focus trying to shift to solving this brutal act.

“The conduit tunnels that connect to the crew lounge.” Pike answered. “Security is currently holding all the entrances to the conduits sealed along with all personnel present at the lounge.”

La’an looked at Pike seeing where he was going. “Sir, are you looking to make us the primary investigators for this case?”

Pike nodded. “With internal sensors crashing ship wide, I need someone to investigate who is bot someone I trust and had an airtight alibi, which both of you have.”

Pike pulled out his PADD and handed it to La’an. “This investigation takes priority over everything LTs.” He explained them. “Pass off your other tasks to your teams. The crew wont sleep easy till this case is resolved.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

La’an had returned briefly to her quarters in order to change into a fresh uniform and grab a quick cup of coffee before she went right back to work.

As La’an removed her uniform, her shirt got briefly stuck in her hair as she removed it. In frustration, she slammed the shirt into her couch.

La’an could already tell this investigation was going to be a hard one. Not because of the difficulty of the case but because how close to home it would strike. La’an didn’t have many friends on the Enterprise but she’d recently counted Jenna in that list. At first, the two hadn’t gotten along. Jenna was always too optimistic for La’an’s taste but overtime the pair had developed a friendship. As La’an had started to open herself up to the crew, Jenna had been one of the first to include in group get togethers including those involving Chapel, Ortegas and Nyota. To hear that such a kind soul had been violated in such a horrid way was crushing to her.

But her anger stream was broken was the sound of an incoming message on her console. Not bothering to put on a new shirt over her sports bra, La’an walked over to the console and pulled up the message.

The message was a repeating spoken sentence, in a voice that sounded like a busted computer. But the words sent a chill down La’an spine.

“That’s one. More to come. When I’m done, I think you’ll be fun.”

[rictwheeler]

BASICS.

full name: riot jesse wheeler nicknames: ri, rj age: 26 years old gender: nonbinary pronouns: they/them or ze/hir orientation: queer language(s): cajun french, english species: werewolf (born -- triggered) status: non pack member

BIO.

(tw for mentions of physical assault, murder -- unintentional, gun violence, ptsd, & death)

You’re raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana by a woman who should have been done raising kids decades before you came along. There’s three of you til your Granddad passes away, and then it’s just the two of you. Mom’s in and out, and you learn to stop asking when you’ll see her next after the third time she lies to you. Your mom lies a lot. You remember that. But MawMaw never lies, not even to spare your feelings.

You grow up well aware you’re not like other families. Other kids have moms and dads and even grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins. You’ve just got MawMaw. She says it’s because everyone else got out the first chance they got, left for mountain ranges and starry skies and blinding lights in better cities. You’re young. You tell her you don’t care how pretty it is somewhere else, you want to be here with her. It makes her smile.

There’s another reason you know you’re not like other families. MawMaw had told you since you were little, back before all this leaving mess, your family unit had been strong, connected, respected. Not the sort of thing humans fully understand. She sits you down when you turn eleven and spells it all out for you. She tells you about the full moons, the shifting, the trigger, the hunters. She’s never, ever spared your feelings. Your whole life feels tinged with dramatic irony, as she assures you things are different now. The two of you are safe. You won’t ever have to trigger the wolf like she did. Neither of you could know she was wrong. 

You’re 17. It’s late. You’re just trying to get home. You don’t even hear him running up, seventeen years of your life spent feeling safe on these sidewalks and five years of walking alone on them means it’s too loud to hear him over your earbuds. Even when you’re sent sprawling onto the pavement, you’re more annoyed than alarmed. Then the gun is pressed to the back of your neck. Two shots ring out that night, and only one of you runs from the alley. You’ve never been afraid like this. You’ve never seen someone die before. It had been an accident. An accident. Better him than you.

You run home when it’s over, faster than you’ve ever run before, adrenaline the only thing keeping you upright. You don’t collapse until you make it through the door, woozy and too terrified to speak, blood dried on your face, your neck, your  shirt. MawMaw only reports it because you’re hysterical, and you stay mostly anonymous through the proceedings. It’s still an agonizing wait while you’re worried they won’t believe you, and you might get carted off. You don’t. You make your statements, and try to move on. 

You’re terrified to be alone for months. Going out after dark is a no. Even now, you run home when you have to work late, slamming the door and bolting it behind you and not calm until you’ve checked every room. You end up dropping out of high school, a few months shy of graduation. Tragedy hits again when MawMaw dies too young at 83, and then the owner of the apartment building dies a year and a half later, and his son sells the building, sells your only home out from under you. You never thought you’d want to leave Louisiana, but after everything? That town in Rhode Island you’d heard about in passing sounded better than nothing. 

You finally arrived six months ago. Not a lot to be done with less than a high school diploma, but you snag a job at the comic book shop, and you secure a little place in Shadow Lake, and for the first time since your hands scraped the pavement nine years ago, you feel in control of your own life. 

CONNECTION IDEAS.

good influence: Riot isn’t a bad kid, per se. But they’ve spent their life Around other people. Being totally on their own is new, and someone to help keep their head straight might be helpful. (OPEN TO 2)

bad influence: On the other hand! A little corruption never hurt anyone, right? Riot’s no stick in the mud, but being in a still somewhat new town, getting their footing is a work in progress. Someone to make them live a little, what’s the harm there?  (OPEN TO 2)

parent friend: Part good influence, part obnoxious welcome wagon, for whatever reason, this person looked at Riot and decided to take them under their wing, despite the protests. And trust, there are plenty of protests.  (OPEN TO 2)

regular customer (bestie): Honestly, Riot loves when this person comes in. Like, it genuinely makes their day. Maybe they’re funny, maybe they’re the only person in town who gets the storylines like they do, or maybe it’s the earnest way they’re always so lost among the volumes and trying to get Riot’s opinion. Either way, Riot has told them at least once they’d die for them in response to something they’ve said.  (OPEN TO 1)

regular customer (worstie): Conversely, every time this person is within their sight Riot wants to lock the doors. It’s probably just annoyance, or a mutual ribbing, but nine times out of ten this person’s opinions are met with a deadpan, “Die about it, then.” Again, there’s no one reason why this has to be. Maybe Riot doesn’t think they’re nearly as funny as they think. Maybe they never put the comics back in the right spot. Maybe they requested a comic to be ordered and took, like, forever and a day past the agreed upon pickup date to actually take it, even though they were definitely around often enough to have taken it sooner. Either way, if Riot has grey hairs, it’s their fault.  (OPEN TO 1)

*blasts paralyzer by finger eleven*: Not gonna act like this is anything other than a hookup connection. There’s only so many ways to let off steam in a small town.  (OPEN TO HONESTLY HOWEVER MANY LMAO)

it’s a small world after all: Riot didn’t expect to see this person again. Maybe they’re also new to town, or maybe they’ve lived here all their life, but either way, Riot’s glad for some familiarity, or as close as they can get. They spent about a year travelling from Louisiana up to Rhode Island, so they could have met at any point from start to finish.  (OPEN TO 2)

[user230507021118079]

Never Alone - Ch. 82

summary: "𝘐𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐'𝘷𝘦 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘮𝘺 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘵 𝘏𝘰𝘨𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴, 𝘪𝘵'𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺. 𝘉𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘪𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦. 𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴…𝘐 𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘯𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘨𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘪𝘯 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘦."

𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙝𝙚 𝙣𝙚𝙚𝙙𝙚𝙙 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙜𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙝𝙞𝙢 𝙖 𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙞𝙘𝙚…

*the only characters I own are Ciara, her family, and Jade. all other rights go to she-who-should-not-be-named

blog masterlist || previous chapter || ch. 83

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

A few minutes later, Madame Pomfrey told her that she was done. 

Knowing that the nurses' talents were needed in so many other places, Ciara was quick to push herself off the table and wander back out into the Great Hall. 

Looking around, she was hoping to find as many familiar faces as she could. 

“Ciara?” she finally heard someone call out her name. 

Turning to her right, she found a familiar blonde witch sitting on the floor a yard or so away from where she stood. 

“Luna-” she responded in a whisper. She quickly crossed the aisle to her friend. The younger witch rose to her feet to greet her, grabbing her hands with a smile. 

“I’m glad you’re alright” Luna said gently. 

Ciara didn’t know why all of a sudden she felt the need to cry, but standing there watching Luna with a cut on her upper cheek, her hair covered in soot, still smiling back at her as if nothing had happened, she found tears welling up in her eyes. 

Luna’s eyes softened. 

“Oh, don’t cry,” she cooed, “It’s alright.” 

Ciara laughed slightly, taking back one of her hands to wipe her eyes clear of tears as best she could. In the time that she did that, another face appeared just beyond Luna’s shoulder. 

“Hey there,” Neville greeted with a crooked smile. 

“Hey,” Ciara whispered, not trusting her voice to go any louder. 

Like moths to a flame, more and more students began to migrate to their location until nearly all the remaining members of Dumbledore’s Army, sans the Golden Trio were all standing in a circle, greeting each other with smiles, hugs, and thankful expressions. 

Ginny had wasted no time throwing her arms around Ciara’s shoulder, and the white-haired witch couldn’t even tell for herself if she had laughed or cried when she did. 

The group of them sat together to the side of the room, exchanging lighthearted tales from the battle. 

“I can’t even imagine what would have happened if we didn’t bring that bridge down” Neville noted. 

“Well, we all have Seamus to thank for that” Ciara managed to pipe up jokingly. 

Some lighthearted laughs followed her words, 

“Who knew that talent would follow him all the way from first year, ey?” Dean said, nudging the Irish boy next to him.  

“Oh my god, remember in Flitwick's class when he blew up that feather when we were meant to be levitating it?” Neville said with a smile. 

This time, everyone roared with laughter, Seamus among them. 

Ciara watched her friends smile in front of her, and again she felt like crying. It was all just a little too much. 

“Ciara?” she suddenly heard another voice sound from behind her. 

Looking over her shoulder, she watched Draco emerge from the crowd. He looked like he was about to smile upon catching her eyes, but that immediately faltered as he saw the students she was sitting amongst. Especially when some of them looked up at him as he approached. 

Ciara offered him a smile, swallowing down the tears that had been brewing over the last couple minutes. She rose to greet him, 

“Hey” she said softly. 

“Hi” he said back, his voice sounding small. 

She tilted her head slightly, 

“You alright?” she asked. 

Draco gulped, and Ciara didn’t miss the way his eyes danced over her shoulder. 

“Yeah-” 

“Oi, Malfoy!” Seamus’ voice piped up from the group on the floor. 

Ciara tensed up as she turned around to face the whole of Dumbledore’s Army as they were all alerted to their presence. All she could do was hold her breath. 

“That was, ah, that was a pretty wicked thing you did out there” the boy finally said. 

Shoulders slumping in relief, Ciara felt herself smile. Next to her Draco shifted awkwardly on his feet and offered the smallest of nods instead of verbally responding. Ciara looked out at her friends, catching Luna’s eyes a moment, watching as her friend grinned back at her. 

Nodding to herself, she turned to the boy at her side. 

“Come on” she said, “Let’s go for a walk.” 

Draco accepted her offer in silence. She bid goodbye to her friends, promising to see them later on, before turning and walking towards the back of the Great Hall, Draco close to her side. 

The two of them climbed the rubble together, finally breaking back out into the courtyard for the first time since the fighting had ended. For a while it was quiet, before Draco finally managed the courage to break it. 

“How’s your side?” he asked gently. 

Ciara smiled, 

“Good as new” she said jokingly, “Madame Pomfrey is a miracle worker.” 

Draco tried for a smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Ciara didn’t miss that, and her eyebrows furrowed slightly. 

“How are your parents?” she asked him in turn.

She watched his eyes twitch slightly, 

“They’re ok.” he said flatly, “But they’re going to leave. I told them I was staying to help with the clean-up efforts.” he continued, suddenly finding his fingers very interesting. 

Ciara smiled sadly. 

“I’m glad” she whispered lowly. But Draco heard her and lifted his head up to look back over at her, his eyes shining slightly. 

They continued their walk for a few more moments, approaching the distant broken bridge, when suddenly a group of three figures caught their eyes. 

Draco stopped short. 

Ciara looked ahead, watching as none other than the Golden Trio walked away from the bridge and back into the courtyard. They were talking and smiling with each other, that was until they realized that they were no longer alone. 

The three of them stopped just short of the pair of Slytherin’s. 

Ciara looked forward at Hermione, a small smile forming on her face. The Gryffindor girl whispered her friend's name, grateful to see her standing there, alive. 

“Hey ‘Mione,” Ciara whispered back. 

The two girls shared a smile, but the moment was quickly interrupted by Ron as he cleared his throat awkwardly. He was eyeing Draco, and Ciara could see the way his grip tightened around Hermione’s hand which he already had a fierce hold of. 

At her side, Ciara felt Draco tense up equally as he met the gazes of both boys across the way from them. 

“Malfoy,” Harry said in greeting, finally breaking the silence.

“Potter,” Draco replied, the normal edge of disdain in his voice not quite there. 

In the silence that followed, Hermione found Ciara’s eyes again and raised her eyebrows in a silent question. 

Ciara felt her face heat up slightly in understanding. 

Glancing down at her side briefly, she gently grabbed a hold of Draco’s hand, intertwining their fingers together as she looked back up at the trio. She felt Draco give her hand a soft squeeze in acknowledgement. 

Hermione smiled in spite of herself, while Harry stiffened, and Ron’s mouth fell open in shock. 

“Hey, Harry” Ciara piped up, drawing the chosen one’s attention back to her face. “I’m glad you’re not dead” she said. Her tone was sarcastic, but below it was a sense of earnesty. One that made Harry finally return her smile. 

“Thanks” he said honestly, “The same goes for you” 

There was a beat of silence, and a thought visibly flickered across Harry’s mind. 

“Both of you” he added. 

Ciara beamed, and again she felt Draco go still next to her. 

Still smiling, Hermione tilted her head to the side, signaling for her and the boys to continue their walk back to the castle. Leaving Draco and Ciara to stand alone, with the reminisce of Harry’s words seeping into the ground at their feet. 

Taking the initiative, Ciara gently tugged on Draco’s hand, silently urging him to follow her down the bridge. 

The structure had been severed a few yards down, leaving a steep drop into the ravine below. Ciara eyed the destruction curiously for a moment before moving to sit down, her hand slowly falling out of Draco’s. She carefully swung her legs over so that they were dangling above the drop, her eyes trained on the distant, rolling hills that lay beyond the castle. A calm, spring breeze gently moved through her hair, and if she concentrated hard enough on the view, for a moment she could forget about everything that had just happened. She could forget about the castle, her home, that lay in shambles behind her, she could forget about the piles of bodies that were left in the Great Hall, she could forget about it all, if only for a moment. 

The space next to her was filled a moment later, Draco’s shoulder gently brushing up against hers as he joined her at the bridge's edge. 

Ciara glanced over at him with a soft smile but was quick to turn her attention back to the scenery. Taking a deep breath, she shrugged her shoulders in a feeble attempt to release the tension that had built in there over the course of the battle. 

“What’s going to happen now?” she asked out loud. More so to herself then the boy who sat next to her. But he responded nonetheless, letting out a shaky sigh of his own. 

“I don’t know” he admitted honestly. 

Ciara found herself nodding, such was the answer she expected. Such was the answer within her own mind as well. But Draco wasn’t finished, as it were. 

“But for some reason...I’m not scared of that.” he said quietly. 

Ciara blinked in surprise, looking over at him with a single eyebrow raised. 

“You’re not?” she asked curiously.

Draco shook his head. Up until that point, he had adopted her position of staring harshly out at the landscape beyond them. But when she had turned to look at him, he met her gaze head on. 

“I would have been before but-” he furrowed his eyebrows together for a second “Not anymore” 

“How come?” she implored, studying his expression carefully. 

“Probably because of you” he answered almost immediately. 

Ciara hadn’t been ready for that. Her eyes widened in surprise, thinking for sure that she had misheard him. 

“What?” she managed to cough out. 

Draco scoffed, looking down at his lap for a moment. 

“I’ve spent my whole life scared. Trying to please my father.” he started, “But ever since I met you, it’s like I finally realized that my life is, well, mine. And even if there are hardships, or uncertainties, that’s ok.” he finally managed to look back up at her. “Because I have you to remind me about what really matters. That I’m not alone.” he finished. 

Ciara felt herself beam at his words. She spent so long trying to figure out the puzzle that was Draco Malfoy. And now here he was, sitting at her side, speaking with what she knew was his true voice. His true heart. 

She scrunched up her nose slightly, 

“You’re cheesy, Malfoy” she finally said jokingly.

Draco flushed at her words, throwing his hands up exasperatedly. 

“Well what else do you want me to say?” he demanded. 

Ciara shrugged, her hands falling behind her to brace herself up as she leaned back from the edge of the bridge slightly. 

“I don’t know,” she teased, “Maybe you should talk more about how I’m your ‘choice’ and what not-” 

Draco didn’t know what came over him. Maybe he had grown tired of her teasing, or maybe he just saw this as the perfect opportunity to shut her up, but he quickly leaned forward, capturing her lips with his own, effectively doing just that.

Ciara’s breath caught in her throat in a brief moment of surprise. But as Draco’s hand gently rested itself on the side of her face, she found herself sighing in relief. She returned the kiss gently, finding it hard to keep a smile from dancing across her lips. 

Slowly, Draco pulled back from her, his forehead resting against her own as they both focused on returning air to their lungs. 

As their noses briefly brushed up against each other, Ciara let out a soft laugh. 

“Like I said…” she whispered, “Cheesy.” 

Again, Draco rolled his eyes, but he was smiling too. 

“Yeah, but you love me,” he said, his thumb gently sliding across her cheekbone. 

“And you love me,” she responded just as quickly.

Neither of them corrected the other. 

Ciara let her head fall to rest on his shoulder, her eyes once again returning to the view beyond the broken bridge. As she felt Draco’s head drop on top of hers, his hands collecting hers where they lay close to his hip, she sighed again. 

They sat there in silence for a while, just taking in the peaceful air around them. Relishing in the presence of one another, alive and well in a brand-new world. 

As the afternoon dragged on, Ciara knew that they would need to be heading back to the Great Hall. So, with a sigh, she carefully shuffled up onto her feet. Draco watched her every move with interest. 

Ciara offered him her hand, which he took gratefully, allowing her to pull him to his feet.

With one last shared smile, the two of them turned back towards Hogwarts, making the trek back across the empty battlefield together. 

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

blog masterlist || previous chapter || ch. 83

[taiblogcomics]

The Big Unfair Data-Share In the Air Scare

Hey there, deerstalker caps. Well, we're finally here. It's the last issue of Avengers Undercover. This won't be at all satisfying, will it? I sincerely doubt it.

Here's the cover:

…Oh, right. I was confused by the symbolism here until I remembered that Zemo kicked off this thing by very blatantly offering the kids an apple. Okay, I guess that makes sense now. Very confusing if you don't recall that detail, though. But also, now her knife's radioactive! That can't be good! I guess this cover is at least moderately spooky enough to warrant the season. 4/10, see me after class. Except don't, because never seeing this comic again can't happen soon enough for me~

So! Let's recap everything before the final issue. Eternal loser villain Arcade got magic nanite powers and set up a Hunger Games for teen superheroes. After a month, they eventually escaped, whereafter they found society difficult to mix back into, due to the leaked footage of the event. With them being painted as potential bad seeds, they're targeted by the Masters of Evil for recruitment. Most of them aren't stupid enough to go for it, and plan to turn it around on Baron Zemo and pals the first opportunity they get. Three months later, they're still hemming and hawing at making a plan, leaving Zemo to spring his own trap instead…

So, speaking of three months ago, we jump back to six months ago, where Arcade is bragging to Zemo, wanting an invite to the Masters of Evil for his exploits. Zemo asks exactly what amazing deeds he should be exalted for. Kidnapping? Child abuse? Video editing? The only thing impressive about what he did was the tech. Which is why they're co-opting it, thanks to Miss Coriander. They make a dupe of Arcade, transferring his nanites over to the robot. And that's how the kids murdered Arcade, only for him to turn up in Constrictor's prison later~

Back in the present, the present Avengers are trying to blast their way through the giant rock blocking the entrance to Supervillain City. The kids apologise, they didn't know it was a trap. The Avengers believe them, assuring them there's no worry. They'll be sure to trip Hellstrom's magic seal in a few minutes. And how much trouble can the world get into in those few minutes without them? Meanwhile, we see Sabertooth and Mystique sacking the Tower of London, demons burning down Roxxon's oil fields, the Young Masters bullying SHIELD Academy recruits… Okay, maybe the last one is kind of on the lesser side, but still.

Of course, as mentioned, all of that is just a smokescreen for Zemo's real plan. He asks Deathlocket for a progress report, and she's almost 83% done whatever she's hacking. Constrictor and Madame Masque go do another sweep for straggler SHIELD agents. And what do you know, they happen to run into Cammi. She's trying to smash up whatever she can before whatever's going on can happen, but they zap her and carry her away, chiding her for picking the wrong side. They respect her cleverness in escaping prison, but it wasn't enough.

Suddenly tech everywhere cuts out, and Zemo appears on camera. He asks for everyone's attention, then lampshades how he's the big scary villain making threats by hacking into everyone's communications network. Except no: he's hacked into SHIELD's communications. SHIELD has access to everyone's data and is monitoring all your communications. They know what you watch on TV, who you call on the phone, and the contents of your email inbox. Oh no, all my spam! Big Brother is alive and well. So, like, who's the real bad guy here?

Guess what, it's still the Nazi in the purple ski mask. And Cammi demonstrates this by throwing Constrictor into Zemo as he talks. How is she so tough all of a sudden? Well, she's been transferred Arcade's godmode nanites, through Miss Coriander being attached to SHIELD's systems. Now Cammi has the godmode. And she just embarassed Zemo while he was on-screen to the entire world's communications. Cammi, the character who was left out of most of the story due to being locked up is ultimately the hero of the day.

And she couldn't have done it without her prison buddy, Arcade! He turns up, having just escaped with her from prison and given her the permissions to use the nanites. Except, no. Fuck that guy, he doesn't get credit for this. Cammi decks him across the face too. And since the Helicarrier is still broadcasting to everyone, she shows the world that Arcade is still alive, and the plan to defect to the Masters of Evil was always fake.

She explains everything to everybody, so there's no longer any confusion regarding her and her friends. They're all in the clear now. Having now been the superhero, though, Cammi doesn't think she's cut out for it. In fact, she's not cut out for any of this. And using her new powers, she goes rocketing into space, leaving Earth behind.

The comic wraps up with a few epilogues. The remaining teens now have SHIELD's trust. They just want to be kept in the loop a little bit. Cullen Bloodstone having willingly joined up with the Masters of Evil is never brought up, so I guess he changed his mind after Hellstrom mind-controlled him? Either way, the kids reunite with their other friends who were smart enough to be left out of this adventure, and just have some fun being teens at some stupid lake somewhere.

And the villains… Well, whatever their plan was, they at least got second place: keeping the Helicarrier. It doesn't have access to SHIELD's systems anymore, but it's still a cool ship. And it's got a great new hood ornament: Arcade, who starts screaming as the Masters of Evil rocket off to do more villain shit. I told you he'd finally get his comeuppance~

Okay, so! In conclusion, Avengers Undercover is garbage. I think we've conclusively proven that. Now, Arena is still worse, in my opinion. Arena existed just to kill off some C-list teen heroes like Mettle and Juston, and I will forever hate it for that. Say what you will about this series--and we've said plenty here--but at least nobody died, yeah?

Let's talk about Zemo's "plan" for a moment, yeah? Coz, like... What was his plan? Okay, he's hacked into the communications of the entire planet. Except it's really SHIELD's comms, and his big plan is to... reveal this? Like, to sow mistrust? What was your next step, sir? People mistrust the quasi-militaristic espionage group policing the world's superhumans, and... then what? The regular people go over to your side? Like, not to get political, but I think everybody already would mistrust such an organisation, just like in the real world. Was this a statement about our current hellscape of data-sharing and so forth? Maybe I'm stupid, but I don't know what he hoped to accomplish with this. I do know I'm going to use this image again, though~

In summary, this series was already very rough and built on an already stupid preceding series. The rush to the end to conclude it before cancellation certainly didn't help much. If you want a much better story about what might make a teenager fall into the temptations of supervillainy, check out the YA book series Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm A Supervillain. It is way better than any of these comics, and I highly recommend it.

Wow, we're finally done with this whole arc! It was tedious and downright unpleasant at times. Thankfully, I just got a shipment in a couple weeks ago, so we can clear the air and do a bunch more My Little Pony comics as a palate cleanser. Doesn't that sound nice~?

[cata-strophes]

I posted 111 times in 2022

That's 49 more posts than 2021!

92 posts created (83%)

19 posts reblogged (17%)

I tagged 107 of my posts in 2022

Only 4% of my posts had no tags

#my art - 48 posts

#dsmp - 43 posts

#dsmp fanart - 40 posts

#ask - 39 posts

#dream smp - 38 posts

#dream smp fanart - 36 posts

#doodle - 36 posts

#anon - 32 posts

#blab - 27 posts

#tommyinnit - 26 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#also the six characters is on its way i just realized i have a deadline in three days and i just started it so i had to… set priorities lmao

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

the headcanon was “During hibernation season, Tech will fall asleep anywhere. Much to Phil’s dismay”

2,536 notes - Posted October 28, 2022

#4

one of the headcanons i was sent was “Tommy’s chat became butterflies after his revival (for the symbolic meaning and they like corpses). They tend to hang out on him/be clingy considering how crazy we went when he was gone lol” :}

See the full post

5,284 notes - Posted October 27, 2022

#3

heard this audio several months ago around when wilbur talked with phil about apologizing and i thought "this is definitely sbi", so i saved it to come back to later.... and months later i finally did! lol

6,023 notes - Posted June 15, 2022

#2

asked instagram for headcanons to doodle between breaks a few days ago and someone sent the (very canon actually) "Animals like Adore c!Tommy for some reason?? He's like a Disney Princess" headcanon and i only got time to draw again now

anyways only this one doodle done so far but it is very important imo so here

6,829 notes - Posted May 18, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

See the full post

9,728 notes - Posted March 28, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[crow-caller]

I posted 634 times in 2022

107 posts created (17%)

527 posts reblogged (83%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@les8ean

@gullbones

@lokebrenna

@spearxwind

@crow-caller

I tagged 255 of my posts in 2022

#sometimes theres asks - 24 posts

#book review - 14 posts

#books - 14 posts

#art appreciation tag - 14 posts

#pokemon - 12 posts

#review - 11 posts

#yewchube - 9 posts

#lightlark - 9 posts

#taskmaster - 7 posts

#mortal engines - 7 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#i will finally buy from your store one of these days. okay i did years ago when you had a print of good angel charas.... but god so nice. so

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Me: I should read something good and refreshing

Me: (opens That One YA Dystopia About Human Pets)

See the full post

105 notes - Posted September 30, 2022

#4

That One YA Dystopia Trilogy about Human Pets: Perfected

I read an entire book trilogy at once for this review, and it’s 2014 to 2018’s Perfected by Kate Jarvik Birch, a mainstream published series about humans being kept as pets.

Aw jeez.

I’ve never done a full trilogy at once, but after Lightlark I wanted to do something properly exciting. Slash disturbing. This will be roughly the same format I always do- full synopsis with discussion, and broader analysis. (And yes! This trilogy, which unilaterally earns 0 stars, is better than Lightlark!)

Read On WordPress here! Or the video is below which is the same!

148 notes - Posted October 18, 2022

#3

people love to infantilize asexual people like im not out here serving cunt 24/7 you just aren’t allowed to touch it

291 notes - Posted June 12, 2022

#2

I write silly books about angels and demons and love as the world ends around you (and how maybe it can still be okay in the end anyways)

A naive angel befriends a bullied demon and that forbidden friendship kick-starts the apocalypse. About identity and love and what it's like to be a cosmic being not meant to have free will.

A huge swath of LGBT characters and stuff too, especially in the realm of questioning and experimenting. No real romance, just friendship, and ace/aro/queer stuff.

If you don't know, it's about impossible for indie authors to spread the word about their work. I'm a very ill and disabled person unable to work, so every reblog and especially review matters so much.

I offer free copies for anyone who wants one. Ideally you'd review, but I just want people to be able to read them.

Gum eboook

Amaz print

Goodreads

336 notes - Posted September 11, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Tiktok sensation LightLark is the final boss of bad fantasy YA— a failure built on aesthetic boards and tropes, unable to pretend it has a heart

Tiktok sensation LightLark is the final boss of bad fantasy YA— a failure built on aesthetic boards and tropes, unable to pretend it has a heart

View On WordPress (Includes audio version)

A full summary with spoilers, analysis, quotes- and so much more on the subject of a book you should never read. This is a long piece. Like ‘Youtube Video Essay’ long.

Lightlark is joyless, a husk beyond parody, a checklist of every Island of Blood and Bone and Glass and Hearts that has come out in the last five years, built and sold on tropes and aesthetic boards. This is a book written by an author who is not a writer. It would fit in on the dregs of an amateur writing site with eerie perfection.

But Lightlark is more than that. You see, Lightlark is… a TikTok book.

EDIT:

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[rott3nc0re]

The Artist & The Freak

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iii. Hideout

warnings: swearing & mentions of sexual thoughts

A/N: he’s so pretty in this gif i can’t stop staring at him

other chapters: i | ii | iii | iv | v | vi | vii | viii | ix | x

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It felt nice for her to finally get proper rest after a long night. She was still cooped up in Eddie’s arms, constantly snuggling into his chest throughout the night. But this morning she woke up without him beside her, slightly panicking. She got up and quickly went downstairs. “Eddie?” she called out but no answer.

Her mind spiraled into many bad thoughts. She checked outside to see if there was another car parked outside the house which there wasn’t. She sighed as a relief but continued about her worrying for Eddie. There was one place she hasn’t checked and she knew he had to be there.

She walked up to the boathouse, praying that he’d be here. She opened the door and popped her head inside, only to find a scared Eddie with a the same broken beer bottle from last night. “It’s just me, Eddie” she put her hands up in defense. “Jesus Christ Sinclair, could’ve killed you” she giggled at that and walked closer to him. “I was looking for you” she said as he placed the makeshift weapon down and leaned against the window. “Couldn’t sleep, but having you in my arms felt super nice” she blushed and looked down at her shoes. “Felt nice to have someone to sleep next to” he grinned at that, looking at her shy state. “Yeah? Is that so?” he said while moving closer to her, their bodies were really close to each other’s. The door opened, revealing her friends and scaring them both. Cleo and Eddie saw them hold up groceries with smiles and Dustin holding in his laughter.

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Eddie’s mind went into many different thoughts while the group explained what’s been happening in Hawkins for the last three years. Demogorgons, The Mind Flyer, a girl with superpowers but she lost them? It was all too much but kinda intriguing to him. But that explains the Starcourt story Cleo mentioned. He was stress eating cereal out of a box and drinking beer as he was trying to understand what exactly is going on. “So, is Vecna from the Upside Down then?” Eddie asked, looking at everyone around the room. “Yeah I believe so” Dustin said, Eddie sighed as he took another swig of his beer. As Robin, Dustin and Max talked and explained what’s happening to Eddie, Steve pulled his friend outside of the boathouse.

“Before you ask, i’m okay Steve” Cleo gave a reassuring smile to him.

“I know you are it’s just-“

“Just what?”

“It’s just that I thought we handled this and everything was good, especially when Billy sacrificed himself”

She looked down and nodded as her arms were crossed. “Yeah, I thought so too but, this is something much bigger than us. God I wish El was here if her powers are back”

“Me too, but we’re gonna have to fight this thing ourselves” she was honestly scared, going against something they’re not really prepared for or don’t even know what it is. She just nodded, not anything physical to say.

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The group left, leaving Cleo and Eddie alone again. They were inside the house, Eddie smoking near a window as Cleo ate some fruits from the groceries they got. She was also sketching, thanks to Robin who got her sketchbook. “So,” her head looked up at the metalhead. “What did Harrington say to you before?” he crushed his cigarette into the ashtray and walked over to where she was. “Just how we thought this was done. After everything that happened last year, we thought it was done” he sat down across from her at the dinner table, snatching a grape from the bowl. “So I guess everything hasn’t been the same since ‘83 huh?” his tone was playful, trying to make light of the situation. “I guess, yeah” she answered back as she went back to sketching. He peered over, smirking. “Whatcha drawing?” she looked up at him, giving him a little smile. “Just finishing this funny sketch of Steve” she made him look funny, with his face being kind of distorted, his head being bigger than his body. He came around the table and peered over her shoulder to get a better look. He chuckled, causing her to giggle.

“You should do one of me”

Her heart sunk, almost forgetting that she made a sketch of him.

“…Unless you already have”

His tone was playful and teasing. He realized she wasn’t saying anything, making him more curious. He went back over to sit across from her and looked directly at her. “I won’t make fun of it, I swear” she felt a little embarrassed, drawing her small crush before they had their “date”.

“You swear on everything?”

“I swear on everything, Cleo”

Her name coming from his mouth felt so nice to hear. She blushed a little as he did and started turning two pages to her sketch of the metalhead. She passed it to him and his eyes went wide. “Holy shit Sinclair, you really did this?” he admired and stared at the drawing. She giggled, “yeah, I just finished it Friday at lunch”. “It’s so realistic, you’re really talented” she nervously laughed, not really knowing how to take that information. “Thanks, I’m really glad you like it” she smiled. “How long did it take you?” he was actually invested in this and that was making her fall harder for him. “Well I needed a good look at you, so when we had math I just sketched a very rough draft of you” she felt a little bit embarrassed by admitting that she was starting at him in class. “Ah, so that’s why you were staring at me?” he teased. She didn’t know what to say, causing him to lightly chuckle. “It’s okay, at least you made me look really good though” she threw a grape at him, causing him to laugh.

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The sun was setting down and Cleo decided to make dinner for the two of them. She wasn’t the most amazing cook but her friends and family loved her food whenever you cooked for them. She was hoping that Eddie would like it. Heavy footsteps were coming down the stairs, signaling that the freak was coming downstairs. “Ah so the artist can also cook?” he teased as he entered the kitchen, getting her to giggle. He came up behind her, looking to see what she was stirring. “The artist has many hidden talents” she turned to look back at him, causing him to smile. He sat on the counter, watching her cook.

“You know how to cook, Munson?”

“Nah, almost burnt my trailer down trying to cook boxed mac and cheese”

She laughed at that and he did too. “Well come here, wanna show you how to make spaghetti” and he listened, coming up behind her. But closer than before, her breath hitched a little. “Just put your hand on my hand that’s stirring” he did and that gave her chills. “We don’t want the noodles to get too soft, it’ll be really soggy” she explained but he wasn’t really paying attention, he just wanted to kiss her. “What if I liked it soggy?” that caused her to snort a laugh. “Who eats soggy spaghetti, Eddie?” she turned to look at him. “I do” he was a little bit serious about it. “Okay, we’ll make it soft but not to where it’s too soft and soggy” he nodded at that and continued stirring the pot with her. He moved closer to her, her breath hitched again as she felt him press against her. “So is it just plain spaghetti we’re eating?” his free hand land on her waist and her heart was beating faster. “N-No, there’s some tomato sauce I found” she started stuttering, he knew what he was doing to her and he liked it. “It’s d-done” she was still stuttering as she moved to the sink to pour out the water. “You mind getting some plates out?” she asked without looking his way. “Of course, sweetheart” he had a toothy grin as he went over by the cabinet to get plates.

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She couldn’t stop thinking about earlier, how close he was behind her. And his hand on her hip, the thought made her shiver. Cleo was nice enough to wash the dishes for the two of them as Eddie went to go smoke. He was outside this time, sitting in the backyard and watching the water. After she dried the dishes, she decided to join him outside. “Hey” she called out, startling him again. “Fuck, Sinclair. You can’t sneak up on people like that” she softly giggled as she sat next to him.

“You’re gonna be the death of me you know that?”

“You’re such a scaredy-cat”

He scoffed at that and took another drag of his cigarette. “I’m just being cautious, i’m still wanted for Chrissy’s murder remember?” she frowned at that, thinking she did or said something wrong. “Right, I’m sorry” she said as was standing up, getting ready to leave. “Hey, wait” he said, standing up. He crushed his cigarette into the sand and walked in front of her.

“Look, I didn’t mean to snap at you like that it’s just…”

“It’s just what?”

“I don’t know just over dinner I was just thinking about if we get caught, especially by Jason and his friends because of what happened to Chrissy”

She took a step closer to him, gliding her hand into his. “They’re too dumb to figure out our hideout” he softly chuckled at that, getting her to smile. “But if they do come, I got your back and telling the others” he smiled down at her.

“Our hideout huh?”

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taglist: @serpenttines @trvlllx @munsonmyloml @ayoitsmickey @playgurlxoxo @rindousworld

[waugh-bao]

Couldn’t agree more with these rankings. 1.90s Charlie 2. Cropped Charlie. I mean that closeup of cropped Charlie in the black sweatshirt…gorgeous!! Probably my favorite pic. I think another reason 90s Charlie is so great is he seemed to really embrace that Savile Row style. He always had style and beautiful suits of course but it seems like he really stepped it up around that time. Maybe getting clean? Or just age? But it seems like from then on he became an all out Savile style icon.

The question of why Charlie really stepped up his embrace of that Savile Row style is an interesting one. Obviously, no-one knows anything for certain, because he never wrote a memoir or directly addressed his reasons, but I'd hazard to guess that getting clean was the key to it.

Charlie, especially compared to his bandmates, never mind the larger rock world, was still relatively restrained in what he ended up terming his mid-life crisis. He was using drugs (heroin and amphetamines) from about '83-85, and after he quit that he was drinking to excess for another year or two.

“I became totally another person around 1983 and came out of it about 1986. I nearly lost my wife and everything over my behaviour. I was not particularly fun to live with. I would have died..."

It would bear being noted here that he had a chronic migraine disorder, and he said even in the '70s that he didn't do well in any way with excess in regards to alcohol. (As someone with the same issue that rings true for most people who deal with it). So he wasn't having fun drowning himself in brandy, and was consistently making himself sick doing it:

All that that being said, the relative didn't matter much to him. Having hurt his family, and his friends, clearly impacted him in a huge way. When he talked about this stuff in interviews in the '90s that was the first time anyone outside of the Stones really knew, and it's admirable that he owned up to his mistakes because very few people knowing meant he could have kept it hidden easily.

But he got more emotional over that than you were likely to see him over anything else. In a 60 Minutes interviews from 1994 there's an audible crack in his voice when he talks about how it impacted his wife and daughter, and he admits that, if they had left him as they came close to doing, he'd probably have given up entirely and died from the drug use or alcoholism:

Almost to an equal degree, the fact that he had scared the hell out of Keith (and everyone else in the band) pained him quite a bit:

“I just stopped cold – for me and for my wife. It was never me, really. I passed out in the studio once, and that to me was a blatant lack of professionalism. You might have been drunk in the studio, but you’d never fuck up. I passed out, and Keith picked me up – this is Keith, who I’ve seen in all sorts of states doing all sorts of things – and he said to me, 'This is the sort of thing you do when you’re 60.'"

He wasn't exaggerating with the stopping cold, either. After falling down his cellar stairs to get a bottle of wine a few weeks before a residency at Ronnie Scott's, he finally decided that enough was enough and went cold turkey. On absolutely everything. Dave Green, his childhood best friend, in his tribute to Charlie:

"For a while afterwards, he didn’t do anything at all: he didn’t drink, he basically just lived on nuts. He denied himself everything for a year or two."

Part of what motivated that extreme approach to getting clean wasn't only his desire to make it stick, but what appears to be a fairly substantial dose of self-hatred. The one common denominator in how he talks about that period, other than despising what he had done to his family, was disgust with himself because of what he'd done to his body, which lingered for the rest of his life. These are quotes about that period and topic from a range of interviews over the last 35-ish years:

"My daughter said I looked like a vampire."

"I barely ate for 2 months, because I'd started to get fat from the drinking.”

"By the mid-80s I stopped that [drugs] but I drank rather heavily. I ballooned a bit and, God, I couldn’t get some of my trousers done up! That was it. I stopped everything. I lived on nuts, peanuts and sultanas. That’s all I ate for months.”

“I never weigh myself. But if I put my trousers on and they don't do up, then I don't eat until I can. Which is not very good for you.”

So an element of why he wasn't embracing that style to his prior degree in the '80s was that he couldn't fit, or didn't think he could fit, into a good deal of his tailored Savile Row clothes. For a while in the early '90s, it was almost frightening how thin he got. I would say that the biggest element in his shift back in that direction was getting clean, because wearing those clothes, and expanding his collection, was a way to reclaim who he had been before and to move forward looking like the person he wanted to be:

In essence, he felt he had been a monster (his own word) for three years, and an important element in recapturing the man he wished to be again, i.e. the staid and stabilizing gentleman, was to dress the part.

There's an epilogue to this in the last half a year, too. Charlie's appearance was what marked him out the most from the other Stones, and was the first thing that gave people a clue to the role he played in the band. "Dad", "heart", "rock", "anchor", etc. depending upon who you ask. His distinctive clothes, along with the gray hair he embraced so easily, were almost as iconic, and recognizable, as his drumming, and as much a source of familiarity and comfort to his bandmates.

Keith letting his hair go its natural white, and the lovely, (for him unusually) coordinated tailored corduroy suit he wore to the memorial service for Charlie at Ronnie Scott's, say something profound about their desire, even need, to hold onto everything they loved about him, Savile Row style included:

[bratshaws]

goodness gracious 98. brb x oc

a/n: AAAAAAAAAA NOT EVEN MY SHIT DAY CAN STOP ME FROM GETTING EXCITED FOR WHAT'S TO COME I HOPE YOU GUYS ARE TOO

check out the fic's playlist made by the sweet @wiipes !!

pairing: plus size!oc x rooster

warnings: f l uf f, Rooster has doubts, Mav is a good dad/uncle

chapters:

1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/13/14/15/16/17/18/19/20/21/22/23/24/25/26/27/28/29/30/31/32/33/34/35/36/37/38/39/40/41/42/43/44

45/46/47/48/49/50/51/52/53/54/55/56/57/58/59/60/61/62/63/64

65/66/67/68/69/70/71/72/73/74/75/76/77/78/79/80/81/82/83/84

85/86/87/88/89/90/91/92/93/94/95/96/97

(pls let me know if you want to be added to the taglist!!)

taglist: @mirandastuckinthe80s @roosterschanelslut @wiipes @lcahwriter @shrimping-for-all @gretagerwigsmuse @frenchtoastix

@lizzie-rdj @fanboyluvr @atarmychick007 @comebacktoearthpls

@peachiicherries @mak-32 @lizziespidiepridie @roosterswifey @ollyoxenfrees @piceous21 @sqrlgrl22 @hofficoffi @lexhalstead3 @lorilane33 @legendarydreamersharkparty @luckyladycreator2

@emilybradshaw @j-6o @louisahale @leobabbyyy @kulicny @winter-run @ktjmac @graciereads @bigpoppajes

-

He looked up at the ceiling with his arms behind his head, hearing Beatrice change in the bathroom. They had a lovely dinner, but his mind was swirling with thoughts he tried to get rid of ever since morning. He told Mav about their plans for kids after the wedding. 

And his uncle was close enough to burst into flames at how fired up he got. Which he appreciated a lot, but he had to talk to Mav about a worry he had. “Done.” Beatrice’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts, his eyes traveling to her shirt wearing form down to her bare plush thighs, “Finally changed.” her soft smile widened as she climbed on the bed, lying on top of the covers like he was, “Did I take too long?”

“No,ma’am, you actually were really quick.” he smirks, but the smirk doesn’t reach his eyes and Beatrice notices it. She notices it because her eyebrows furl in question, making Rooster chew his lower lip, “What?”

“You look worried.” she replies, scooting closer to him so she could prop her chin on his pectoral, her sweet smile melting his walls like it always did, “What’s the matter?”

He kept his eyes on hers for a little bit, then he dropped his head back on the pillow, rubbing his forehead with his fingertips, “...do you think I’d be a good father?” it’s a quiet question, one that almost doesn’t want to come out, almost as if he already knows the answer to it. Beatrice’s head leaves his chest and she sits on her knees, worried eyes looking at his face.

He had a good childhood, his mother did her best  to make sure he’d grow loved even without his father. He had Mav…for a while, then he broke contact, then he got back with Mav and now he’s here. “Why are you worried?” She doesnt sound angry, she just sounded curious about it, her smaller hand brushing through the sandy brown strands, the repetitive movement almost lulling him to sleep but he had to stay awake.

He doesn’t reply right away, his jaw moving with the words on the tip of his tongue, “...I…it’s just, well…you know.” he had a feeling she did, even if he couldn’t voice it outloud. Beatrice’s hand drops from his hair so she could place it on top of her thigh,her other hand tucking her hair behind her ear.

“Well, do you want my honest opinion?”

That sounded a lot more serious than he expected, “I’d like that, yeah.”

She inhaled deeply, adjusting her position on the bed before meeting his eyes, “I think you’ll be a great dad.” she smiles, “Because you were raised by a great woman and even if your father wasn’t with you physically, he was always around whenever you needed him.” his eyes didn’t move away when she explained it, “And you also have Mav.”

“Mav has no kids though,” she gave him a look, her smile widening, “...well,I mean.”

“You are his pride and joy, you know that. And you know what else?” Beatrice leans closer, lying on her stomach next to him, propping her chin up with a hand, “I see the way you are with Bibi and my other nieces and nephews. You really care about them, Roos and you hadn’t met them before me…honestly,I’m nervous too about being a mother and such.”

“You’d be great though.”

“Thank you. But…if I’m honest, I think parenthood isn’t made of knowing things from the start. You know? We’ll have to figure things out, but we’ll manage it.” she grins, her cheeks reddening just enough to make his heart beat faster.

Bradley’s own smile widened, his hand coming up to touch her cheek, “You are too cute.” he whispers, rubbing the curve of her chin with the pad of his thumb, “Thank you.” he still felt nervous, but much less than before, honestly anytime he talked to Beatrice he felt like his stress levels melt down to a minimum.

“You are very welcome.” she whispers back, leaning her lips closer to his so she could peck him, smiling against his mouth when he wrapped his arms around her waist and dragged her to lay on top of him, her legs straddling his hips and their chest touching, “Is there anything else bothering you?”

She feels his hands dragging up the length of her leg, knee to the top of her buttocks, where he kept them, playing with the lace of her underwear, “No, not really…I’m just thinking now.” he begins, “Some people might consider me too old to be a father.” Beatrice furrows her eyebrows, leaning back in surprise, “I’m thirty-seven, Bea.”

“...yes, and? There are people who have kids much later in life?”

“I know and I agree with you…I guess it got me thinking a bit.”

‘About?”

Bradley inhaled deeply, “If we’ve met before now,I don’t know if I’d be able to manage everything. My feelings, my life, hell, being a father before now is insane to think of.” he murmurs, “I was too immature, too angry to think about anything else.”

But he had a hard time imagining himself without Beatrice. If they’ve met before, maybe during his TOPGUN training, he can’t say he’d be too different from now.Maybe more closed off, but he had a feeling that Beatrice would call his attention immediately. Maybe it was because he loves her so much, that thinking of being without her made absolutely no sense to him, that even if he was filled with issues back then and if they had met before, he’d do his best to keep her in his life.

“So now,I mean…I think it’s a good time, even if I’m an older dad.”

“You are talking as if you are in your seventies, Roos.” she chuckles, furrowing her eyebrows at him, “I mean, look at Leo, he’s a father again at thirty-eight. There’s no ‘oh I'm too old to be a parent’, you are a parent when you feel ready.”

Bradley purses his lips, she has a point, “Yeah,I guess so.” he rubs his hands in circles on her buttcheeks, almost as if he’s kneading dough. Beatrice looks back at his hands then at him, her cheeks a light red, “It relaxes me.” it was the answer to her unasked question.

“Of course it does.” she laughs, leaning closer to kiss his lips, “But we have to sleep, it’s nearing midnight.” of course her fiancé had to voice his complaint, trying to deepen the kiss, “Rooster…”

“I’m just kissing you goodnight.” he mutters on her lips, laughing with her before he breaks away, giving her a completely enamored look, “...you are incredible, you know that?” Beatrice’s shy smile only made his heart beat faster, his hand tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “You are so incredible and smart and funny and so sexy. “ 

“And you are all of that and more.”

“Hey,I’m complimenting you here.” he mutters, but his smile remains the same, “But I’m serious, you are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.” he tries to say more but is rudely interrupted by a yawn breaking his line of thought, blinking hard up at her, trying to stay awake, “But…maybe I should continue this tomorrow huh?”

“I think that’s a great idea.”

-

“So for your bachelorette party,” Beatrice stops rearranging the boxes in the storage room to look at Shells, “As your maid of honor,I decided we should do something…relaxing and fun. No strippers or anything like that.”

She completely forgot people had bachelorette parties, “Oh. Um…okay?”

“Yeah,I mean, strippers are great but I don’t think they’d be your style,Bumblebea. So…” she taps her hands on the bartop to mimic a drumroll, before she pulls out a flier from her back pockets, holding it in front of her, “You are going to get a full spa day at the Sun’s Retreat.”

“The Sun’s Retreat? That place is always booked!How did you–”

“That’s for your maid of honor to know and you,” she boops her friend’s nose, “To enjoy.”

Beatrice looks down at the flier, a royal blue one with golden accents that had the ‘Bachelorette’ written in the same gold with curved letters. Beatrice then smiles up at Shells, before wrapping her friend in a tight hug, “Thank you, Shells.”

“You are welcome babes, you deserve it.” she smiles back, hugging her friend just as tightly, “And if I’m right, I think Rooster and the others aren’t going to have a stripper party either, Bob might’ve slipped some ideas because I prodded him so much.” the brunette tilts her head in confusion “It has something to do with a brewery, from what Bob told me so no tiddies for them either.”

She didn’t know if she should be aware of that yet, after all wasn’t it a surprise? But either way, she knew Rooster would love it, “Thank you Shells.” she smiles, holding the flier close, “I…thank you. You have no idea how much it means to me.”

“You are my bestie,ride or die till the end, babes.”

Beatrice couldn’t be more thankful, she had wonderful friends - and bridesmaids -, her family’s support and she had Rooster. With time moving, quite fast they were literally at the end of the month, it was hitting her that she’s going to get married…she’s going to get married. 

Shells watched Beatrice’s smile turn small and her friend sat down on a stool, “You okay?”

“...yeah.” it was a bit shaky and cracked, but her friend didn’t look upset, “...I’m going to get married, Shells. To Rooster.” she laughs almost in disbelief, “...I never thought I would and now,” her eyes drop to the engagement ring, “...it’s so crazy.”

“I mean the man is crazy about you so–”

“No, not that.” Beatrice sniffles, feeling her eyes sting as she keeps her hands between her thighs, looking at the horizon, “...It’s so crazy I used to think I didn’t deserve this, didn’t deserve him…and now-”

“Now you are going to be Mrs.Bradshaw.” Shells adds with a smirk, gently nudging Beatrice’s arm, making the brunette laugh softly and look down at her hands, “You deserve it, Bea. You do deserve this happiness, you know that,right?” She does, now, after months of wondering how and why, she understands she’s deserving of this and there was nothing more that she’d want.

Beatrice felt like she achieved so much in such a short amount of time, she found the man she loved, the one person that was part of her life and she couldn’t see herself without him. “Anyway, we have to finish cleaning, there’s much to do.” she pushes herself off the stool, sniffling quietly before she walks towards the storage room where there were boxes that had to be organized.

She knew that from now, time would go even faster, in a blink of an eye it’d be September and she honestly felt like they were going well with it. Her aunt was helping them a lot too, everything was paid, even their honeymoon - although it was with their own money. 

And she even sent out the invitation to the triplets, much to her siblings' chagrin - with the exception of Guillermo who didn’t understand why they were so upset about it - but she assured them that if they tried anything, she’d resolve it. No one was going to ruin her wedding.

While putting stuff aside, she felt her phone vibrate in her back pocket. She pushed the box of napkins further on the shelf before pulling it out, frowning when she saw who it was, “Hello?”

“Cugina!Hello!”

“Umberto!What a surprise! I thought I’d only hear from you before the wedding.”

“Ah, no no, I wanted to ask you a question! Is Natasha going to be at your wedding?”

What a strange thing to ask- Beatrice’s eyes widened in realization, “Oh,Nat?” Shells looked up from the area she was cleaning once she heard the pilot’s name, “Yeah, she’s one of my bridesmaids, why?”

“Oh,I was curious, that’s all cugina.” there was more in there, Beatrice knew, “But oh! There was something else! Say, you and Bradley’s honeymoon will be here in Sicily, no?” she replies positively “Ah, I see, I see. And you’ll stay at a hotel, correct?” again a positive response “I was wondering because papa thought you two are staying over.”

Beatrice blinked, parting her lips, her male cousin sounded…suspicious, “Umberto.” she begins, walking deeper into the storage room, “That’s a weird comment to make, cugino.”

“Ah, yes…well…cugina is it possible that Natasha is flirting with me?”

Ah.

Beatrice chuckles, rubbing her forehead, “If you want to know cugino, yes,I think it’s very possible.” poor Umberto, oblivious as a baby when it comes to flirting and of course he’d call her since she sees Nat almost every day.

“Oh Dio Mio, when I was there I didn’t even notice.”

“I know,well…you’ll stay here a week so…you can always ask her out?”

“...that’s a great idea cugina, I will do that. And I’m sorry,I did not meant to do this with you worrying about your wedding.”

Beatrice shakes her head even if Umberto couldn’t see it, “It’s okay Umberto, I’m not mad at you, I promise. But do try talking to Nat when you come up, okay?” she laughs when he stammers over the call, “Yes,I know, bye Umberto.” she finishes the call and turns back to Shells who’s just leaning on the bartop with a little smirk, “Rooster will lose his shit.”

“Someone else joining your family,Bea? What’s with this Italian power that brings people in?”

“It’s the mediterranean blood.” she jokes, a little giggle making it’s way out of her throat, tucking strands of hair behind her ears as she continues her duties. The second time her phone vibrates, she half expects Umberto to be calling her again, but she was a bit surprised when she saw it was Mav’s number.

Wait, when did she get Mav’s number?

And wasn’t he with Rooster right now?

Beatrice pauses, looking at the phone’s screen and chewing her lower lip, ‘odd’ she thinks, but does accept the call, “Mav? Is that you?”

“Hey kiddo, sorry to bother you right now. You busy?”

“Um…” she looks around the still messy bar, “Kind of? It’s Monday,I have to help  clean the bar.”

“Ah, sure, okay. I’ll show up in a few minutes if that’s alright? I wanted to talk to you.”

Panic darts over her spine. Talk? What would Mav want to talk about with her? Nothing bad, right? Nothing…bad about their wedding,right? If he feels her anxiety through the call he says nothing, waiting for Beatrice’s response instead and when she finally says okay, he just says it’ll be fast. The call ends with Beatrice blinking at her phone, “What did Mav want?” she hears Shells ask.

“...to talk to me.” she whispers, “Should…should I be worried?”

Shells blinks then shrugs, “I mean it’s Mav. I get worried because he’s with my aunt and well, Rooster is technically his nephew/son/godson, so he’s the family Rooster has.” that makes sense, maybe it was something that Maverick wanted to talk about the wedding and not because he was against it. Right? Right, Pete would never do that.

Beatrice nodded quietly, not finding within herself to answer her friend, instead she shoved her phone back into her pocket and turned to the storage room, rearranging everything until Maverick showed up. And it wasn’t easy, because her anxiety was climbing up her spine and clinging to her brain like a sloth to a tree, but it made no sense, Mav was their biggest supporter, he wouldn’t show up because he wanted to say something bad.

Of course not.

She was being silly.

But the anxiety did return when Maverick showed up, stopped by the bar’s doors and smiled, “Hey, kiddo, join me for a short walk?” Beatrice looked back at Shells, who waved her hand at her to go on and the brunette licked her lips, rushing to meet Maverick outside the bar.

They walked a bit farther from the Hard Deck - it was strange seeing Maverick wearing uniform and not the usual clothing he’d have - with Maverick’s hands inside his pockets and sunglasses covering his eyes, “This is good.” he stops walking until they reached the beginning of the beach, where the sidewalk turned to sand.

“Oh…sure.” she says quietly, “Is there…something wrong?”

“Wrong? No, in fact I’m here to…” he pauses, inhales then looks away, before removing his sunglasses,”I’m here to talk to you.”

“About?”

“Rooster.” he begins and he sees her eyes widen in panic, holding his hands up in defense with a soft laugh, “Woah, easy, nothing bad. Nothing bad,I swear.” he lowers his arms after a few seconds when he sees Beatrice’s shoulders relax, “...listen, Bea. Do you know how much you do for that boy?” she looks up at Mav in question, “You showed up in his life at the right time, the very right time…I’ve never seen Rooster like this. He looks so happy with you.”

Beatrice’s cheeks heat up, her eyes dropping to her hands sheepishly, giving Pete a shy smile, “And not only looks happy, he is happy…I know he has doubts, he has many doubts he still hasn’t dealt with, but I want you to know that every time he’s with you he feels like those doubts are easier to handle.” her cheeks redden even more, “He hasn’t changed, personality wise too much but he’s more open about certain things and I think that’s your influence.”

Beatrice, however, makes a face,” I don’t like the idea that he changed because of me, though…’

“No, not changed because of you. He didn’t change, he’s just more open because you gave him the comfort that you’d understand him.” Beatrice’s lips close when he explains it, “...he has a lot of demons, Bea, a lot of demons some people wouldn’t be able to handle. That’s why he closed himself for so long, do you know how much it meant to him to hear that you aren’t mad when he gets deployed?”

“...well…”

“You don’t have any close family in the military,do you?” She mentions her uncle and cousin, but no one in her nuclear family, “You have the patience of someone who’s used to this and you aren’t. You did more to him than he expected you to and…I want to thank you for it.”

Beatrice’s head snaps up, “Thank me? But–”

“Rooster is my godson and my nephew, he’s…my boy. He’s the son of two people I cared deeply about, two people who’d’ve loved to have met you.” Bea’s eyes gloss over when he says that “He went through so much, sometimes all at once and seeing him so happy with you means the world to me.”

Beatrice could only look at the older pilot with her hands wringing together, speechless, her eyes shining with tears that didn’t dare to fall. She never…expected Maverick to say something like that, she never expected to be thanked because of Rooster, “Mav,” she says quietly, to which he looks at her in question, “Can I hug you?”

Pete’s smile turns fond, “I’d be upset if you didn’t.” he opens his arms and the brunette hugs his middle while his arms wrap around hers in a fatherly hug, rubbing her upper back gently. He pats her back, hearing her sniffle, “You are a good girl,kiddo. You both are good kids.” he chuckles, “You two are meant to be.” That only made the crying get a little bit louder, her hold on him tightening as she tried to control the sound of her sobbing.

“T-Thank you,Mav.”

“You are welcome kiddo.” he whispers, patting the back of her head, “You are very welcome.”

[agentofship]

I posted 308 times in 2022

31 posts created (10%)

277 posts reblogged (90%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@bughead-bones

@2minutes2midnight

@valentinaonthemoon

@libbyweasley

@springmagpies

I tagged 292 of my posts in 2022

Only 5% of my posts had no tags

#fitzsimmons - 83 posts

#&lt;3 - 59 posts

#fic rec - 30 posts

#leo fitz - 21 posts

#agents of shield - 17 posts

#jemma simmons - 16 posts

#fitzsimmons fic - 15 posts

#iain de caestecker - 13 posts

#alternate universe - 12 posts

#agents of shield fic - 11 posts

Longest Tag: 120 characters

#love it when translation is actually smart like that and doesn't just stupidly translate something that's not gonna work

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

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27 notes - Posted November 23, 2022

#4

Just for the Night, chapter 2/2

FitzSimmons, rated M, 7900 words Summary: Bringing home her cute new colleague for the night sounded like a good idea to Jemma Simmons. He's cute and a fantastic kisser, just what she needed to relieve the stress of spending Christmas with her whole family. She just hadn't planned that she would end up snowed in with her one-night stand AND her family for Christmas.

Once more, happy Christmas Libby <3 "I'm so sorry, they weren't supposed to be here until much later!" she whispered as she closed the door behind herself and leaned back against it as if someone might burst through it anytime. "I know, you said so but I bet they wanted to avoid--" "The snow, yeah. My mum tried to call but my phone was in the living room. I probably wouldn't have heard it anyway, I slept like the dead last night." Fitz smiled at that and there was something so sweet in a way that she didn't tell him the orgasms weren't the only responsible. Even though he'd greatly contributed to the short-lived state of relaxation she'd felt that morning, she'd been exhausted for weeks. "Anyway, the road's closed so--" His lips pressed against hers softly, taking her by surprise. She was busy panicking about the whole situation, how dare he interrupted her like that? But then, his arms wrapped around her waist, impossibly warm, and Jemma melted into the embrace with a slight whine. Maybe she should have gone and talked to him weeks ago. She might have brought him home to her London flat and gotten the opportunity to enjoy his affection longer without being interrupted in the worst possible way. "Good morning," he said, eyes and tone equally soft when he pulled back.

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29 notes - Posted January 8, 2022

#3

Finally finished this portrait of Fitz/Iain from the wedding scene in 5x12 <3 It had been a while since I drew him and I’m pretty happy with the result! Done in watercolor and color pencils! Commissions open for this type of portrait or digital ones, more details via DM :) REDBUBBLE / ETSY

33 notes - Posted December 4, 2022

#2

It Was All Make-Believe

FitzSimmons, rated T, 2609 words (for now) Chapter 1/6 @libbyweasley​ and I are very excited to finally start posting this fic we've been working on for months based on Libby's original idea. The fic is all written and a new chapter will be posted every week. I've written three chapters from Jemma's POV and Libby has written all chapters from Fitz's POV. Hope you enjoy :) Summary: Fitz and Jemma go undercover as a couple and discover it isn’t as difficult as they’d thought it would be. But what happens when those feelings become a little too real? Season 1 AU They all moved to the briefing room, May and Ward looking as awake and ready as ever. Fitz, not so much.

"Didn't even have time for breakfast," he grumbled as he took his place next to Jemma. "Why do these always have to be so early?" Jemma shook her head and pressed the second mug of tea she was holding into his hand. "Oh thank you." He took a sip and his face turned a little less grumpy for a second. "Maybe the problem is that you stayed up working in the lab so late," Jemma pointed out and he huffed. "You're one to talk!" "But I can function on five hours of sleep, you obviously can't." If his still only half open eyes and messy curls weren't enough to prove her point, Jemma reached out to straighten his collar. "That's because he's still growing!" Skye tousled his hair as she walked past him to take her place in the briefing room.

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41 notes - Posted April 9, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

It had been a while since I’ve worked on a Liz/Jemma art :) (Based on that gorgeous Liz photoshoot I’m planning I’ve done this one using both color pencils and watercolor and I’m thoroughly enjoying it.  I’m currently open for commissions (both traditional and digital fanart). Send me a DM to know more :) 

44 notes - Posted July 3, 2022

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