#best soccer predictions for tomorrow

[meazalykov]

the golden girl

uswnt x uswnt!reader

summary: what happened in a world where reader played on the USWNT in the 2019 World Cup?

part one (part two here)

Knowing that the call at eight am could change the pathway of my career, I couldn’t sleep. My mind spins rapidly as I tried to close my eyes and manipulate myself into believing that tomorrow would be an ordinary day, but that didn’t work. 

Hi! My name is Y/n L/n and I am a soccer player who plays for club Olympique Lyon. I am a forward who many people call the “next big thing,” since I am only 19 years old. 

After winning the Champions League final with Lyon, scoring a brace which involved a penalty, my career seemed to go in a great path that was unordinary for a teenager. 

I sat on my bed, criss-crossed, as I stared at the digital alarm clock on my bedside table. 4:38am. Three hours and twenty two minutes until I get the call. 

After traveling to my hometown in the United States, Virginia Beach, I traveled to the last International camp, before the World Cup, in order to “try out” for a World Cup roster spot. My mentality is great, my skills during the camp were phenomenal and I believe I proved that to the coaches, but I am young. 

The coaches will prioritize other forwards like Alex Morgan, Tobin Heath, Megan Raphinoe, and Christen Press first. I am aware of that. They’ve won the 2015 World Cup four years ago and have the experience to go up again. However, everyone knows that the USWNT will need to bring on youngsters to set themselves up for future competitions, so I have confidence that I'll be the one they’ll call. 

Three hours and twenty minutes later, I sat at my dining room table in Lyon, preparing for the unexpected. 

My phone’s flashlight goes off a few times and my screen brightens at the sight of my International Coach’s number. 

“Hey.” I spoke first as my finger pressed on the green button. The nervousness in my voice was present, I wanted this decision to go my way. 

“Hi Y/n! How are you feeling right now!?” My United States coach, Jill Ellis, asked. 

“I’m- Um— I’m nervous.” I told the truth. I heard a small chuckle come from the coach which I raised my eyebrows at. The tension on my end could be cut with a sharp knife. The lack of sleep made my nerves worse too. 

“Well I have some news for you.” Jill said. I swallowed on nothing as the next few seconds can predict how my day– sorry— year will go. I know she has to call other players about the decisions for them so our call won’t last long, thankfully. 

“Let me start off by saying that all of the coaching staff, including myself, needed to consider someone who is young and has a lot of quality. We were impressed by the amount of work you've put into our international camps and we’ve kept up on your club experience at Lyon for more reference. So, we’ve chosen you to be on the roster to represent the United States in the 2019 World Cup.” The excitement in Jill’s voice grew when she announced that I would be in the World Cup. 

However, most of what she said sounded muffled through the happy tears that poured down my eyes. I couldn’t believe it! My hard work paid off. 

“Thank you!” I said. 

“No Thank you Y/n! We’ll see you soon, Bye!” Jill ended the call before I jumped in joy. 

A couple of months later, I sat on the bench in France as the USWNT was up against Thailand in the group stage. It was the 64th minute and we were up 7-0. As I sat on the bench, my heart raced faster out of nervousness. Eventually, my head turned when I heard her call my name. I am excited, but my stomach felt like there was a rock in it. The weight of expectations settled squarely on my shoulders as I looked at the ongoing game. 

We are winning the game by seven, but I still wanted to prove my best to the coach, teammates, and the fans. When I stood up, my legs felt like jelly making my way to the touchline. The crowd's roar was deafening, every step closer to the pitch amplifying my nerves. 

“You’re going to go on for Raphinoe. We are up 7-0 but use this as an opportunity to get a feel of the field and experience.” Jill spoke with empathy as she patted on my back, allowing me to do the required warmup on the sideline before standing at the midline. 

I tried to shake off the doubts, reminding myself of the countless hours of practice that had brought me to this moment. The nerves in my legs wouldn’t calm down. Maybe I can use that as a source of adrenaline. 

Running onto the field in replacement for Raphinoe, the enormity of the occasion hit me like a ton of bricks. The stadium seemed to stretch endlessly all around me, filled with thousands of spectators watching my every move. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. The ball was at the other end of the field, giving me a moment to collect myself.

Then, Julie Ertz shot the ball over the left side of the field to gain space. The ball landed on my ivory-colored cleat and I dribbled around a Thailand opponent before passing to Alex Morgan who lightly tapped the ball behind the net. Goal!

My jaw dropped in realization as Alex jogged over to hug me. Some of the girls on the pitch came to congratulate me on the assist as others clapped their hands. I didn’t take it offensively, we are up 8-0 now and there's not much to celebrate now besides the inevitable win. My first touch in the World Cup gave an assist which I later found impressed spectators. 

I glanced at my teammates when the game started again, finding reassurance in their encouraging, yet concentrated, nods and smiles. They had confidence in my abilities, even if I struggled to find it within myself sometimes. With each passing second, my nerves began to settle, now replaced by a fierce determination to prove myself worthy of wearing the US jersey.

Eventually, I found myself caught up in the rhythm of the play. My eyes were on the ball, blocking out the noise of the crowd and the pressure of the moment. With each touch and pass to a teammate, my confidence grew and my movements became more fluid and precise.

Then, in the 73rd minute, it happened. A perfectly timed pass by Samantha Mewis found my feet. At this point I wanted to be the goalscorer, not the assist. With a burst of speed, I raced towards the goal and dribbled around the defenders who were in the way of the goal, the screaming chants of the crowd fading into the background as they saw what I was doing. At that moment, there was only me, the ball, and the goal.

My right foot unleashed a powerful shot, the ball rocketing into the back of the net with a stunning curve. Goal! The stadium erupted into cheers, the sound washing over me like a tidal wave of euphoria as my teammates ran to congratulate me on my first ever goal in the World Cup. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to bask in the glory of my achievement, the weight of my nerves finally lifted off of my shoulders. The game ended in a 13-0 win for us!

Later in the World Cup tournament, I found myself on the bench as my heart pounded at the match in front of me. Thanks to Alex Morgan and Christen Press who scored in the Semifinal against the Lionesses, we were in the World Cup final against the Dutch. 

As the game enters the 79th minute, with the score being 2-0, the coach calls my name. This took me by surprise since I didn’t believe that any substitutes would join the final. When I stood up, my legs felt like lead as I made my way onto the pitch for Tobin Heath, who had an injury earlier in the tournament and couldn't play all 90 minutes. The roar of the crowd washes over me, drowning out the doubts that threatened to consume me since I am on the right wing.

With only minutes remaining, I can’t make a mistake. I have to make every second count. We are up 2-0 but the Netherlands could easily catch up if we make a few errors, they’re EURO champions and have a statement to make for the world.

As I focus on the ball, blocking out the noise of the crowd and the pressure of the moment, the 89th minute comes along. Krieger gets the ball from a Dutch forward and launches the ball in the air towards Rose Lavelle. The girl who scored the second goal in the final headed the ball over the field again before it landed onto my feet— This is my chance. 

My feet take the ball towards the goal. Veenendaal, the Dutch Goalkeeper, sets herself up in a ready position. As I race closer to the goal, my heart pounds in my chest. The defenders close in but I dribble around them effortlessly. An Oranje defender missed her chance to side tackle me as my left foot unleashed a powerful shot. The ball grazed the tip of Veenendaal’s fingers and the ball hit the back of the net with stunning precision. Goal!

The stadium erupts into cheers as I run to the corner of the pitch to celebrate. A typical knee slide that allowed my knees to slide through the soft grass before I stood up and turned to my teammates who rushed to congratulate me. Everyone on the bench got up and ran to me as well to celebrate. At that moment, the voice in my head told me that I’ve done it. My goal gave everyone the reassurance that we secured a World Cup win for the USWNT four times. 

After winning the Bronze Ball, Gold Medal, and being able to take pictures with the World Cup trophy itself, I cried. The tears wouldn’t stop after my bestfriend Mallory Pugh hugged me as she cried as well. We were so happy, I have never felt so proud of myself and my team. 

Hopefully 2023 will secure us a three-peat…. 

part two here

[toxinoire]

More Mean Girls Headcanons

• Regina definitely got bangs (The Reneé Rapp bangs💖) post canon

• She has a faint scar under it from the bus, because while her back is her main thing, she did gash her face.

• Karen can quite literally guess your entire personality with the sweetest and kindest smile in existence

• She'll just end up giving you an existential crisis while being all :D

• Janis has a stash of candy everywhere she goes

• She's a fucking sweet tooth

• Damian has to make sure she brushes her teeth

• Gretchen actually has the best immune system out of all of them

• And then when she does get sick, she cannot get out of bed

• Cady is feral as hell

• Don't be fooled by the height and the charm

• Seriously if you even think of being a dick to her friends she will punch you, no hesitation

• Damian and Gretchen became besties immediately

• After everyone made up, Cady's first initial reaction "AW YISS A REAL FRIEND GROUP"

• And then Janis painted everyone

• Gretchen cried

• And then Cady cried

• And then everyone cried

• "What's so great about literature-" And then Regina emerges from the shadows like "Sit your ass down and listen to me go off"

• Janis and Regina once got into a debate with five people about the nuances of the Iliad and The Odyssey

• Damian is sure someone pissed their pants

• Karen's just happy and generally just excited about fluffy blankets

• Sometimes, Regina and Cady take turns calling Gretchen at around 8 at night to gently remind her to sleep

• Gretchen forgets to sleep because she overthinks what she should do the next day

• "Gretch, I know you're anxious, but we're here and we'll help you. Now go to sleep so you have energy tomorrow."

• "Please go to sleep. Nothing is predictable. Things will go off the rails. On the bright side, we're stuck with you and we are now automatically going with you when it does."

• Both of those actually help

• Janis and Damian once made everyone mini pride shoelaces with their respective flags

• So every pride month, you see six teens in white shoes with shoelaces have whole ass gradients of different pride flags

• It's iconic really.

• Regina's vocabulary is either "Fuck off" or "Your presence is like a fucking housefly circling all the food on the table, leave me be" depending on her mood

• The first time they ever saw Karen be so utterly terrifying at someone was when someone catcalled them.

• The boy cried

• Cady likes to literally poke people for fun

• She also has a collection of dinosour figures

• "What if I-" "No."

• Janis collects FNAF plushies like they're pokemon

• She has multiple plushies of the same animatronics

• Her favorite is Lolbit

• She has six animatronic plushies in particular standing on her highest shelf sitting next to each other with handmade nametags of her and her friends on each one on who she thinks could be who

• She's Lolbit, Damian's Bonnie, Cady's Funtime Freddy, Gretchen's Glamrock Freddy, Karen's Chica, and Regina's Roxy

• Gretchen and Karen are everyone's hypewomen

• They'll be screaming like soccer moms whenever someone in the group has an achievement

• Cady normally sucks at history but she loves medieval history

• She got so into it so much that she got into weaponry

• This child can very much use a bow and arrow

• And a sword

• She got Regina into swordsmanship

• They duel. A lot.

• It scares the others sometimes

• Gretchen's way of threatening Janis is "I'll use your favorite paint to make the worst color gradient in existence."

• It works

• Damian has a love/hate relationship with the insanity in this friend group

[betensured]

Football Prediction for Tomorrow

Betensured provides football prediction for tomorrow. Here you will find all the information you need to make informed decision when selecting the bets. You can easily make the decision and enjoy great results. Betensured is your one-stop destination to find information on football matches, predictions and more. The experts have many years of experience in making these predictions and will help you find the best bets for your profit.

[thisisformediaclass]

Introduction

Hello! My name is Adriana. My family comes from Italy and England. My name comes from Latin origin meaning “from Hadria." If I could change my name to a fictional character, I would change it to be Ellie from The Last of Us. I've been told that I look like her and I think she is a strong character.

I don't remember much from my high school years. I believe the first day was more of an orientation and I had a lot of people I knew from my previous school there with me. The last day of high school we celebrated on the bus ride home. I think my favorite moment from high school was when I did our spring musical during my sophomore year. It got me to come out of my shell and be on stage. My least favorite moment I honestly don't remember. If I could do high school all over again, I would want to go in with more confidence.

I am a Liberal Arts major. I chose this major because I don't know what I'm going to do in the future. I am interested in animation though. I've loved animation since I was younger and found a great interest in it. It's fun to do but also stressful, however it gives me the chance to get creative.

I used to play sports when I was younger. I played a lot of basketball in elementary and middle school and I played soccer and track and field in high school. I like to draw and animate now as a hobby. I got into drawing when I was younger when me and my family would go to church. I have Tourette's syndrome and I had a lot of vocal tics. So in order for me to stay quiet during church, I would draw since I wouldn't tic while I drew. I found out that I could draw something almost perfectly when looking at a picture of it, and I drew a lot of Pokémon back then. I still draw them now.

The last movie I watched was Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. I definitely recommend this movie even if you don't like animation. The story telling, art style, and character design is amazing and is well worth the watch. It is defiantly one of my favorite movies, but my all time favorite movie is probably Into the Spiderverse. I am a sucker for art styles and this one was just so pleasing to look at. The comic book look and how they use colors is just...wow. My least favorite movie would probably be Frozen 2. It was way too over hyped and was very predictable, although the music was good.

The last thing I created was a sketch of the wolf from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. Its one of the best character designs I've seen in a while since its so simple yet so menacing.

If tomorrow was my last day on Earth, I would want my last meal to be waffles. I just like waffles. Better than pancakes and I will fight you on that.

[datasportsgroup]

Artificial Intelligence has been revolutionary for the Sports Industry

Artificial intelligence is the ultimate way of automatically learning what you want. It can simulate the actions of people; it can learn from experience, and it can adapt. The best AI applications can have their outcomes reflected in the real world: athletes’ performance, for example, can be accurately predicted based on their performances. At its best, this kind of automated learning is entirely self-sufficient. However, it may not be possible for a human being to notice the error. The human can see the error in the terminal output but does not understand it. In other cases, it may seem that the computer is operating in a deterministic way.

Illustrative evidence

Before AI was a big business in sports, it was an art. With computers, computers were not capable of evaluating their performances well enough to have the athletes compete. The machines were not the experts, but the sport’s governing bodies were. For example, the 1983-88 period produced two Olympic Games in America and South Korea, and two World Cup games, in England and India. With the introduction of personal computers on each of those teams, they could work together more effectively because they could come to agree on everything. This was a cell that developed into a complete entity today called Artificial Intelligence.

AI in the sports industry can be used to analyze the movement of athletes and make decisions on whether they should take part in an Olympic Games. For example, when athletes train in the heat, it’s no longer only about creating an exact program to train to mimic the athlete’s body type. Instead, the performance science algorithms from sports science teams constantly update data to incorporate every little movement and reaction of athletes to improve their performance for the Games.

Artificial Intelligence in sports is the newest addition. We have seen several cases in which sports teams have relied on artificial intelligence to determine the best play to call their athletes for specific events. A few examples of this type of play: Saints, in the Premier League, have a strategy for using analytics to decide which play to take off in the dying seconds of games – as long as it’s not the first goal. Manchester United took the world by storm with their famous win over Crystal Palace. Wenger and company put together a remarkable display of defensive discipline. The highlight of that defensive display was the extraordinary resilience of their attacking style.

What is the Face of sports AI?

Artificial Intelligence in sports came across as bearing many titles like Automated training, AI prediction, and analytical sports, enabling professional athletes to perform better in competitions. The technology has been applied in several sports such as baseball, basketball, soccer, and football. In addition, in sports that do not use highly skilled athletes, such as skaters, tennis, and cycling, such analytics tools can better train these athletes to perform better. The challenge with traditional sport systems is that they can be extremely time-consuming to use, and the size of the playing field also limits players’ training. In contrast, a cycling system allows training and racing to occur on a much larger scale, with the athletes competing on a much wider playing field.

Sports AI follows a model that is still able to learn from experiences and adapt to changing situations. The AI can also use some of its own expertise to improve its knowledge of the world, in addition to the ability to respond to new challenges in the games it competes in. When AI plays a role in sports, one of its primary goals is to improve the human interaction when a player scores a goal. One possible technique to accomplish this goal is to train the agents with deficient intelligence that, in large part, memorize and analyze the actions, including their intended actions, and react to those actions based on their learned information.

The athletes of tomorrow are the athletes of tomorrow. So the sport has to evolve into a machine-learning system that we could use to predict the outcome of a game, recognize the right time to attack a goal or make a difference in the result of an intense match. We could also use it to predict the outcome of a football match, the result of an international rugby match, or how well a basketball player will perform in an upcoming game.

Better conclusion to modern sports with full stop far ahead

AI in sports analytics is beginning to pay huge dividends and is already affecting an ever-growing number of organizations. We see the impact of AI in the sports industry through influential sports such as cricket, racing, football, tennis, basketball and many more. Artificial Intelligence in sports is an exciting area because it brings together a wide range of interesting applications. There is considerable research in this area with significant potential for big breakthroughs and enormous benefits for the sport. The challenges posed in AI in sport have been investigated throughout the years, and a large body of evidence has recognized their potential.

Employment predictive analytics and machine learning in sports management are on the rise, leading to much progress in this area. Many sports organizations, namely the International Olympic Committee (IOC), are creating standards to address the issues of gender pay in sports and individual sports. Additionally, professional sports organizations are moving in this direction with training camps and workshops that help athletes understand the different models to follow for making money in the sport. This helps bring about better balance and more money available for other sports to thrive. So the advantages of the Sports API, Data Sports Group, are pretty evident from the about context and persuasive to utilize their services.

[footballbeting22]

The Insider Secrets of Football Betting Definitions Discovered

世界杯买球 Point spreads will also have moneyline odds attached. While two of the most popular NFL bets are on the moneyline and the point spread, a third most bettors love to target is the game total. Just don’t go too hard when betting on the NFL Preseason. NFL Predictions - get free NFL picks for each and every NFL game, including the Super Bowl. To see today's best predictions from all the sports covered at OLBG head to the main page for betting picks. In the popular list of you may also see some of tomorrows soccer picks or this weekend soccer picks. The soccer bet builder enables you to put a personalized bet on any football match that you like. If you bet on a particular player scoring there are at least 22 players on the pitch, plus the subs that come on, so this is much harder to predict. European champions are crowned every four years in the UEFA European Championship, much as the FIFA World Cup. How much one is willing to spend is purely up to them and so, it is advisable that one know how to limit themselves. Betting with anybody else (bookmakers) is illegal for both residents and visitors: you can only legally bet on-course, at one of the HKJC’s off-track betting shops, or on the HKJC website.

If you place a bet on your favorite team and it loses then the platform you are betting with benefits as well as if your team wins then you benefit. The benefits of sports betting are not realized by the banters alone as evidenced by the numerous companies that have set up shop in the country. They do not have to win the game outright for you to win your bet. Specific outcomes of an event are represented by betting markets or bet types. Go to the Odds tab, and pick any country, league, or event. You can either request the betting market if the bookmaker offers the “request a bet” feature, or you can create the same outcome by dividing your stake by the decimal odds for a draw. If a player transfer or a managerial move is close to completion, according to the press, you’ll often see that betting has been suspended, which means that the odds are so low it’s no longer worth the bookmaker offering a market. Each free bet is available when you sign up to the chosen bookmaker. 3. Things change: Never assume that the team you place bet on would win always as any result is possible regardless of your analysis.

When it comes to football betting, what we want to discern is whether or not such performances were the result of the inferior team providing a difficult tactical match up for their opponents in terms of personnel, whether such results were merely a matter of the superior team perhaps being in the midst of a congested schedule or whether or not such performances were a matter of random good fortune. It's human nature to want the spectacular, ally-oop, hail Mary's. If you are a risky player and want only to follow football accumulator tips, you can use our filters and select football as a sport, and then click on accumulators. NBA Predictions - our best NBA bets today are famous, featuring game predictions and player projections. Obviously, the higher the odds the higher the chances of your football predictions being fruitful. Our particularly strong group of expert soccer tipsters add their predictions to the site on a daily basis.

All of our tipsters have public profiles, where you can see all kinds of stats. Big and small markets - or, in this case, strong and weak markets -each have their pros and cons. Bet365's customers have access to a wide range of payment and withdrawal options. 22Bet earned fame and recognition as a sportsbook that offers an overwhelming number of reliable and convenient payment options, processed quickly and without any fees charged. Betin Kenya offers you one such advantage and you can easily unlock your bonuses using the Betin Kenya Promotion Code. So, which one is it? Football is the most popular sport in the world, and it’s largely for this reason that it’s also considered as one of the best sports for betting. Well, it’s because they come from real pros. Best fixed matches 1×2, soccer fixed matches, free fixed matches forum, genuine fixed matches, free halftime/fulltime fixed matches, free fixed matches no payment, real fixed match, free fixed matches blog. There will be no Tips for soccer. Countries that soccer staking is not legal should not subscribe to our plans.

[mycryptosuite]

Today Free 2 Odds Daily From Soccer Vista Punters

Today Free 2 Odds Daily From Soccer Vista Punters

Today Free 2 Odds Daily From Soccer Vista Punters Today free 2 odds daily is a sure winning game and you have to make sure you play it – Get winning and Sure 2 odds football predictions and betting tips from Abcnaija.com Best odds daily on sure soccer prediction, our games we offer are always safe – A well forecaster 1,000 odds it comprises of 2 odds from 10 different leagues (more…)

[halftimeprediction]

How to make an opinion on a site that claims to be the best UK football prediction site?

Could a tipster site that has just come up win the title of the best UK football prediction site? Yes, it could. There is no reason to disbelieve on the tips provided by a website with little experience in soccer betting. The website might be new but the tipper behind the website could be highly experienced and well connected.

In this blog we’ll discuss factors that make a better tips website

You stumble upon a tipster website while looking for a football match prediction for tomorrow. It is a new site but it promises excellent results. You check its experience and find that it has less than 3 year experience in soccer betting.

Would you believe in the site and its claim?

It all depends on your knowledge of soccer betting. If you believe that it is only an experienced tipper that can give accurate tips then you won’t rely on the claim made by the site. You will click back from that site and continue your search for an experienced tipster.

Let’s find reasons to believe on a new tips website Guarantee/Claim

If the website is giving guarantee of success, you can think about buying a tip from that site. But you should closely read the terms and conditions of guarantee before relying on its words. Guarantee of success is certainly a reason to rely on a new website.

Track record

A site that has a very little experience would have a little record to show. But whatever record it has, the record must be checked. For example, a site has only 1 year experience but it has won more than 90% of bets will be more reliable than a site with 10 year experience but less than 90% success rate.

Feedback

Here you can argue that a site that has spent little time in soccer betting would have limited feedback. You are true but whatever feedback you get about a site, you should pay attention to it. If you find that all the customers of the site are saying only good things about the website, you have a reason to rely on it.

Fee

There are full chances that a new site could offer its tips at a reduced price. It can give discount to make clients. Here you are saving some money on tips and the money saved is profit earned. The low fee coupled with other factors like guarantee could be a reason to rely on the site.

Presentation

A site that talks only about its strengths and try to convince the punters by highlighting its ways is more reliable than the site that uses unethical ways like fixed football match prediction for tomorrow. Match-fixing is the darker side of soccer betting.

These 5 characteristics would help you in making an opinion on a site that is new to soccer betting but claims to be the best UK football prediction site. There are chances that you can discover a new tipper that is both reliable and affordable.

[sirthisisa-wendys]

Punica granatum: Toji Fushiguro x Fem!Reader

synopsis: a short snippet of a story you all know and love.

wc: 1.6k

tw: none

masterlist

"Are you hungry?"

"No." You cast an angry glance at the monster who is holding you captive. "Leave me alone."

"Perhaps you're thirsty?"

"No." A protective covering of shrubs shields you away from the stench of oakmoss and belladonna emitting from the entity across from you. "Go away." His green eyes shift from your hunched-over figure to the stone-cold floor in front of him.

"I..." His words falter, but you look away from him, focusing on some point in the distance. The hulking god across from you stands suddenly, storming off in the face of your resistance as you call out,

"I'd rather die than live here with you."

But that wasn't all true. Death is so final, so permanent. And you could never bring yourself to do the unthinkable and commit yourself to such an act. However, you did not want your captor to feel any reassurance from your presence.

Discomfort.

You want him to avoid looking at you, avoid talking to you, avoid you completely. Maybe then he would let you go back home to your goddess mother and your life as a humble farmer to the eternal beings of this world.

Maybe then he'd see you were of no value to him among the various others he could have stolen that day.

But Toji Fushiguro is a patient god, you learn, and your hunger strike withers in the face of his persistence.

"You must be hungry," he murmurs, leaning over the couch you're perched on and looking at you curiously. "I have fruit if you want it. And it's fresh."

Fresh fruit. Your stomach grumbles furiously at the offering, but you mask your hunger with a look of disinterest.

"No, thank you." You place your book in front of your face again, the words blurring together as Toji moves around to sit next to you, his black sweatshirt pulled taut over his chest.

"Not even some juice, huh?" You don't reply, still pretending to read the book, when he finally sighs. "Well, I'm going to go to a meeting. I'll be back shortly but in the meantime, my... friend... will be watching over you. In case you try to escape." Again, you offer him no response, and Toji leaves you alone on the couch; the invisible "friend" no doubt just the cameras placed around the property.

You've scoped them out and know where you can hide should you need a place to do something secretive. Three blind spots. That's all you had to do what you had wanted to do for some time now.

You walk into the kitchen and pour yourself a glass of water before looking over the offerings in the fruit bowl. Bananas, oranges, apples... a pomegranate.

Perfect.

You pluck the ripe fruit from the bowl with ease and retrieve a metal spoon from a drawer. All the knifes had been replaced with notes like "thought you could use one of those, huh" and "not in my house". Little shithead.

You open the fruit and scrape the seeds from inside while you stand between the pantry and the laundry room, right in the blind spot of two cameras. You devour the fruit in record timing, then dispose of it as quickly as you can before downing the cup of water you poured earlier, placing it in the sink, and in full view of a camera.

"I knew you were hungry."

The voice behind you makes your skin crawl, and you turn to face Toji again, eyes wide.

"How did you--"

"Does it matter?" he wonders, taking his hands out of his sweatpants pockets and rubbing them together briefly. "Between the fruit and the books, you're easy to predict. You haven't considered I've planted everything here for you so you'll be more inclined to--"

"You tricked me."

"And?" Your stomach lurches, and you grip the sink edge behind you, vision blurring.

"What the hell have you done to me?" Toji gives you a toothy grin, approaching you slowly and placing both hands on either side of your body. His head dips, the scar on his lips separating as he speaks gently, deliberately.

"You consumed my property. You ate one of the many fruits I grow in the fields of my domain, little goddess. You're mine... at least until I say you're not." Your knees buckle slightly, but you still manage to keep yourself upright, clutching the sink for all it's worth. "Six sections of the pomegranate. Six months out of the year. That's what you owe me."

"Fucking asshole--"

"Careful, y/n," Toji touches your chin, but you snap your teeth at him with the little strength you have left. "It's a shame you didn't eat the orange. But I bet you wish you would've eaten the banana instead..."

His voice fades to black as you slump forward, your body giving out and no longer supporting you.

_____________________________________________________________

You awake in your bed, like most mornings, staring out at the barren landscape of your new home.

"There's no life here," you whisper to no one, eyes blinking slowly. "There's nothing here."

Toji takes his respite in his own room, choosing to remain away from you, especially because you cry. You cry every single day. And when you're not crying, you're laying somewhere, sniffling into your sleeves as you dig deeper into the despair and sorrow of your predicament.

The first time you cried, he didn't know what to do. Toji started with trying to get you to eat something - which was rebuffed with a nasty retort - and ended up watching you sob into your hands, unsure of what he could do to make it better.

"You could let me go," you huffed, but he recoiled, frowning at you as if you had just requested the world stop spinning.

"You ate the fruit," he said, crossing his arms over his chest and squinting his emerald eyes. "I'm sorry, but them's the rules."

"You're not sorry."

"No, I'm actually not."

And from that day on, you vowed to see less and less of him until finally, you remained in your room, huddled under the comforter and staring out of the window from dawn until dusk. You don't know how many days had passed like this, but it doesn't matter.

There would be a time when you would be allowed to go home.

You don't want to be here.

Or so you think.

_____________________________________________________________

The first day you're coaxed out of bed is entirely by accident.

A barking noise draws you out of your trance, and you almost fall out of bed at the sound of something other than another person in the house.

You throw open the door and rush toward the yipping, finding Toji sitting in the living room on all fours and staring down at the little white dog. The tiny thing is staring back at him with wide blue eyes, wholly focused.

"Speak."

The dog barks twice, then a treat is produced from Toji's hand and deposited in front of the canine. When Toji sees you staring from around the corner, brows furrowed, he offers you a look of recognition. The white dog walks up to Toji and licks his face, then sits and waits patiently.

"Throw hands," Toji commands the dog, and it backs up on its back legs, raising its front paws before jumping toward Toji. "I taught it a few tricks." You approach the two carefully, the dog facing you with a wide smile and a wagging tail.

"Hey, little buddy..." you whisper, picking it up carefully.

"His name is Six Eyes."

You and Six Eyes become fast friends, running around the house and terrorizing Toji on occasion. But the best days are spent with Six Eyes in your room, both of you laying out on the bed with a book or something to take your mind off of the punishment you must endure.

Toji rarely bothers you, and you the same. Unless, of course, Six Eyes needs to pee and he can't take him out due to "work", or you need Toji to get his dog food.

But in taking care of the little dog - who is much smarter than he would have anyone believe - you find a softness in Toji you hadn't seen before. Countless times, you find him and Six Eyes napping on the couch or playing "soccer" (which is just fetch with a tennis ball), or sitting together and watching some science fiction show. Your hatred of him doesn't quite wane, but you allow yourself to see him in a different light. One that isn't so bad.

_____________________________________________________________

"Tomorrow," Toji announces while you're sitting with Six Eyes and watching a telenovela. "You're going home tomorrow."

"Wait, really?" He notices the lift in your tone, the way you straighten up and your eyes regain the hint of the familiar glow they had before he stripped it away from you. In his heart, there is deep envy, a deep desire to know what it's like to be thought of as desirable. But he ignores that part of himself, stuffing it down as you hold Six Eyes in your arms and watch him carefully.

"Yeah," he answers, tossing the pieces of junk mail into the trash in the kitchen. "For six months."

"Can I take him with me?" You hold up the dog and the animal stares at him with that stupid "head empty, stomach full" look. Toji clicks his tongue against his teeth and turns away, shrugging.

"Whatever." You respond by placing a few kisses on the dog's head, returning back to the telenovela with a cheerfulness you can't quite contain. And Toji notices it, growing ever so distant with each hour that passes, until he's fully retreated into his room and sulking while reading the volume you had first picked up when you arrived, trying to find a deeper meaning within the words he had never read before.

[protipsters-blog]

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[grigori77]

Summer 2021′s Movies - My Top Ten Favourite Films (Part 2)

The Top Ten:

10.  WEREWOLVES WITHIN – definitely one of the year’s biggest cinematic surprises so far, this darkly comic supernatural murder mystery from indie horror director Josh Ruben (Scare Me) is based on a video game, but you’d never know it – this bears so little resemblance to the original Ubisoft title that it’s a wonder anyone even bothered to make the connection, but even so, this is now notable for officially being the highest rated video game adaptation in Rotten Tomatoes history, with a Certified Fresh rating of 86%. Certainly it deserves that distinction, but there’s so much more to the film – this is an absolute blood-splattered joy, the title telling you everything you need to know about the story but belying the film’s pure, quirky genius.  Veep’s Sam Richardson is forest ranger Finn Wheeler, a gentle and socially awkward soul who arrives at his new post in the remote small town of Beaverton to discover the few, uniformly weird residents are divided over the oil pipeline proposition of forceful and abrasive businessman Sam Parker (The Hunt’s Wayne Duvall).  As he tries to fit in and find his feet, investigating the disappearance of a local dog while bonding with local mail carrier Cecily Moore (Other Space and This Is Us’ Milana Vayntrub), the discovery of a horribly mutilated human body leads to a standoff between the townsfolk and an enforced lockdown in the town’s ramshackle hotel as they try to work out who amongst them is the “werewolf” they suspect is responsible.  This is frequently hilarious, the offbeat script from appropriately named Mishna Wolff (I’m Down) dropping some absolutely zingers and crafting some enjoyably weird encounters and unexpected twists, while the uniformly excellent cast do much of the heavy-lifting to bring their rich, thoroughly oddball characters to vivid life – Richardson is thoroughly cuddly throughout, while Duvall is pleasingly loathsome, Casual’s Michaela Watkins is pleasingly grating as Trisha, flaky housewife to unrepentant local horn-dog Pete Anderton (Orange is the New Black’s Michael Chernus), and Cheyenne Jackson (American Horror Story) and Harry Guillen (best known, OF COURSE, as Guillermo in the TV version of What We Do In the Shadows) make an enjoyably spiky double-act as liberal gay couple Devon and Joaquim Wolfson; in the end, though, the film is roundly stolen by Vayntrub, who invests Cecily with a bubbly sweetness and snarky sass that makes it absolutely impossible to not fall completely in love with her (gods know I did).  This is a deeply funny film, packed with proper belly-laughs from start to finish, but like all the best horror comedies it takes its horror elements seriously, delivering some enjoyably effective scares and juicy gore, while the werewolf itself, when finally revealed, is realised through some top-notch prosthetics.  Altogether this was a most welcome under-the-radar surprise for the summer, and SO MUCH MORE than just an unusually great video game adaptation …

9.  THE TOMORROW WAR – although cinemas finally reopened in the UK in early summer, the bite of the COVID lockdown backlog was still very much in effect this blockbuster season, with several studios preferring to hedge their bets and wait for later release dates. Others turned to streaming services, including Paramount, who happily lined up a few heavyweight titles to open on major platforms in lieu of the big screen.  One of the biggest was this intended sci-fi action horror tentpole, meant to give Chris Pratt another potential franchise on top of Guardians of the Galaxy and Jurassic World, which instead dropped in early July on Amazon Prime.  So, was it worth staying in on a Saturday night instead of heading out for something on the BIG screen?  Mostly yes, although it’s mainly a trashy, guilty pleasure big budget B-picture charm that makes this such a worthwhile experience – the film’s biggest influences are clearly Independence Day and Starship Troopers, two admirably clunky blockbusters that DEFINED prioritising big spectacle and overblown theatrics over intelligent writing and realistic storytelling.  It doesn’t help that the premise is pure bunk – in 2022, a wormhole opens from thirty years in the future, and a plea for help is sent back with a bunch of very young future soldiers.  Seems Earth will become overrun by an unstoppable swarm of nasty alien critters called Whitespikes in 25 years, and the desperate human counteroffensive have no choice but to bring soldiers from our present into the future to help them fight back and save the humanity from imminent extinction.  Less than a year later, the world’s standing armies have been decimated and a worldwide draft has been implemented, with normal everyday adults being sent through for a seven day tour from which very few return.  Pratt plays biology teacher and former Green Beret Dan Forrester, one of the latest batch of draftees to be sent into the future along with a selection of chefs, soccer moms and other average joes – his own training and experience serves him better than most when the shit hits the fan, but it soon becomes clear that he’s just as out of his depth as everyone else as the sheer enormity of the threat is revealed.  But when he becomes entangled with a desperate research outfit led by Muri (Chuck’s Yvonne Strahovski) who seem to be on the verge of a potential world-changing scientific breakthrough, Dan realises there just might be a slender hope for humanity after all … this is every bit as over-the-top gung-ho bonkers as it sounds, and just as much fun.  Director Chris McKay may still be pretty fresh (with only The Lego Batman Movie under his belt to date), but he shows a lot of talent and potential for big budget blockbuster filmmaking here, delivering with guts and bravado on some major action sequences (a fraught ticking-clock SAR operation through a war-torn Miami is the film’s undeniable highlight, but a desperate battle to escape a blazing oil rig also really impresses), as well as handling some impressively complex visual effects work and wrangling some quality performances from his cast (altogether it bodes well for his future, which includes Nightwing and Johnny Quest as future projects).  Chris Pratt can do this kind of stuff in his sleep – Dan is his classic fallible and self-deprecating but ultimately solid and kind-hearted action hero fare, effortlessly likeable and easy to root for – and his supporting cast are equally solid, Strahovsky going toe-to-toe with him in the action sequences while also creating a rewardingly complex smart-woman/badass combo in Muri, while the other real standouts include Sam Richardson (Veep, Werewolves Within) and Edwin Hodge (The Purge movies) as fellow draftees Charlie and Dorian, the former a scared-out-of-his-mind tech geek while the latter is a seriously hardcore veteran serving his THIRD TOUR, and the ever brilliant J.K. Simmonds as Dan’s emotionally scarred estranged Vietnam-vet father, Jim.  Sure, it’s derivative as hell and thoroughly predictable (with more than one big twist you can see coming a mile away), but the pace is brisk, the atmosphere pregnant with a palpable doomed urgency, and the creatures themselves are a genuinely convincing world-ending threat, the design team and visual effects wizards creating genuine nightmare fuel in the feral and unrelenting Whitespikes.  Altogether this WAS an ideal way to spend a comfy Saturday night in, but I think it could have been JUST AS GOOD for a Saturday night OUT at the Pictures …

8.  ARMY OF THE DEAD – another high profile release that went straight to streaming was this genuine monster hit for Netflix from one of this century’s undeniable heavyweight action cinema masters, the indomitable Zack Snyder, who kicked off his career with an audience-dividing (but, as far as I’m concerned, ultimately MASSIVELY successful) remake of George Romero’s immortal Dawn of the Dead, and has finally returned to zombie horror after close to two decades away.  The end result is, undeniably, the biggest cinematic guilty pleasure of the entire summer, a bona fide outbreak horror EPIC in spite of its tightly focused story – Dave Bautista plays mercenary Scott Ward, leader a badass squad of soldiers of fortune who were among the few to escape a deadly outbreak of a zombie virus in the city of Las Vegas, enlisted to break into the vault of one of the Strip’s casinos by owner Bly Tanaka (a fantastically game turn from Hiroyuki Sanada) and rescue $200 million still locked away inside.  So what’s the catch?  Vegas remains ground zero for the outbreak, walled off from the outside world but still heavily infested within, and in less than three days the US military intends to sterilise the site with a tactical nuke.  Simple premise, down and dirty, trashy flick, right?  Wrong – Snyder has never believed in doing things small, having brought us unapologetically BIG cinema with the likes of 300, Watchmen, Man of Steel and, most notably, his version of Justice League, so this is another MASSIVE undertaking, every scene shot for maximum thrills or emotional impact, each set-piece executed with his characteristic militaristic precision and explosive predilection (a harrowing fight for survival against a freshly-awakened zombie horde in tightly packed casino corridors is the film’s undeniable highlight), and the gauzy, dreamlike cinematography gives even simple scenes an intriguing and evocative edge that really does make you feel like you’re watching something BIG.  The characters all feel larger-than-life too – Bautista can seem somewhat cartoonish at times, and this role definitely plays that as a strength, making Scott a rock-hard alpha male in the classic Hollywood mould, but he’s such a great actor that of course he’s able to invest the character with real rewarding complexity beneath the surface; Ana de la Reguera (Eastbound & Down) and Nora Arnezeder (Zoo, Mozart in the Jungle), meanwhile, both bring a healthy dose of oestrogen-fuelled badassery to proceedings as, respectively, Scott’s regular second-in-command, Maria Cruz, and Lilly the Coyote, Power’s Omari Hardwick and Matthias Schweighofer (You Are Wanted) make for a fun odd-couple double act as circular-saw-wielding merc Vanderohe and Dieter, the nervous, nerdy German safecracker brought in to crack the vault, and Fear the Walking Dead’s Garrett Dillahunt channels spectacular scumbag energy as Tanaka’s sleazy former casino boss Martin, while latecomer Tig Notaro (Star Trek Discovery) effortlessly rises above her last-minute-casting controversy to deliver brilliantly as sassy and acerbic chopper pilot Peters.  I think it goes without saying that Snyder can do this in his sleep, but he definitely wasn’t napping here – he pulled out all the stops on this one, delivering a thrilling, darkly comic and endearingly CRACKERS zombie flick that not only compares favourably to his own Dawn but is, undeniably, his best film for AGES.  Netflix certainly seem to be pleased with the results – a spinoff prequel, Army of Thieves, starring Dieter in another heist thriller, is set to drop in October, with an animated series following in the Spring, and there’s already rumours of a sequel in development.  I’m certainly up for more …

7.  BLACK WIDOW – no major blockbuster property was hit harder by COVID than the MCU, which saw its ENTIRE SLATE for 2020 delayed for over a year in the face of Marvel Studios bowing to the inevitability of the Pandemic and unwilling to sacrifice those all-important box-office receipts by just sending their films straight to streaming.  The most frustrating part for hardcore fans of the series was the delay of a standalone film that was already criminally overdue – the solo headlining vehicle of founding Avenger and bona fide female superhero ICON Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow.  Equally frustratingly, then, this film seems set to be overshadowed by real life controversy as star and producer Scarlett Johansson goes head-to-head with Disney in civil court over their breach-of-contract after they hedged their bets by releasing the film simultaneously in cinemas and on their own streaming platform, which has led to poor box office as many of the film’s potential audience chose to watch it at home instead of risk movie theatres with the virus still very much remaining a threat (and Disney have clearly reacted AGAIN, now backtracking on their release policy by instigating a new 45-day cinematic exclusivity window on all their big releases for the immediate future). But what of the film itself?  Well Black Widow is an interesting piece of work, director Cate Shortland (Berlin Syndrome) and screenwriter Eric Pearson (Thor: Ragnarok) delivering a decidedly stripped-back, lean and intellectual beast that bears greater resemblance to the more cerebral work of the Russo Brothers on their Captain America films than the more classically bombastic likes of Iron Man, Thor or the Avengers flicks, concentrating on story and characters over action and spectacle as we wind back the clock to before the events of Infinity War and Endgame, when Romanoff was on the run after Civil War, hunted by the government-appointed forces of US Secretary of State “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) after violating the Sokovia Accords.  Then a mysterious delivery throws her back into the fray as she finds herself targeted by a mysterious assassin, forcing her to team up with her estranged “sister” Yelena Belova (Midsommar’s Florence Pugh), another Black Widow who’s just gone rogue from the same Red Room Natasha escaped years ago, armed with a McGuffin capable of foiling a dastardly plot for world domination.  The reluctant duo need help in this endeavour though, enlisting the aid of their former “parents”, veteran Widow and scientist Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz) and Alexie Shostakov (Stranger Things’ David Harbour), aka the Red Guardian, a Russian super-soldier intended to be their counterpart to Captain America, who’s been languishing in a Siberian gulag for the last twenty years. After the Earth-shaking, universe-changing events of recent MCU events, this film certainly feels like a much more self-contained, modest affair, playing for much smaller stakes, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less worthy of our attention – this is as precision-crafted as anything we’ve seen from Marvel so far, but it also feels like a refreshing change of pace after all those enormous cosmic shenanigans, while the script is as tight as a drum, propelling a taut, suspense-filled thriller that certainly doesn’t scrimp on the action front.  Sure, the set-pieces are very much in service of the story here, but they’re still the pre-requisite MCU rollercoaster rides, a selection of breathless chases and bone-crunching fights that really do play to the strengths of one of our favourite Avengers, but this is definitely one of those films where the real fireworks come when the film focuses on the characters – Johansson is so comfortable with her character she’s basically BECOME Natasha Romanoff, kickass and ruthless and complex and sassy and still just desperate for a family (though she hides it well throughout the film), while Weisz delivers one of her best performances in years as a peerless professional who keeps her emotions tightly reigned in but slowly comes to realise that she was never more happy than when she was pretending to be a simple mother, and Ray Winstone does a genuinely fantastic job of taking a character who could have been one of the MCU’s most disappointingly bland villains, General Dreykov, master of the Red Room, and investing him with enough oily charisma and intense presence to craft something truly memorable (frustratingly, the same cannot be said for the film’s supposed main physical threat, Taskmaster, who performs well in their frustratingly brief appearances but ultimately gets Darth Maul levels of short service).  The true scene-stealers in the film, however, are Alexie and Yelena – Harbour’s clearly having the time of his life hamming it up as a self-important, puffed-up peacock of a superhero who never got his shot and is clearly (rightly) decidedly bitter about it, preferring to relive the life he SHOULD have had instead of remembering the good in the one he got; Pugh, meanwhile, is THE BEST THING IN THE WHOLE MOVIE, easily matching Johanssen scene-for-scene in the action stakes but frequently out-performing her when it comes to acting, investing Yelena with a sweet naivety and innocence and a certain amount of quirky geekiness that makes for one of the year’s most endearing female protagonists (certainly one who, if the character goes the way I think she will, is thoroughly capable of carrying the torch for the foreseeable future).  In the end this is definitely one of the LEAST typical, by-the-numbers MCU films to date, and by delivering something a little different I think they’ve given us just the kind of leftfield swerve the series needs right now.  It’s certainly one of their most fascinating and rewarding films so far, and since it seems to be Johansson’s final tour of duty as the Black Widow, it’s also a most fitting farewell indeed.

6.  WRATH OF MAN – Guy Ritchie’s latest (regarded by many as a triumphant return to form, which I consider unfair since I don’t think he ever went away, especially after 2020’s spectacular The Gentlemen) is BY FAR his darkest film – let’s get this clear from the start.  Anyone who knows his work knows that Ritchie consistently maintains a near flawless balance and humour and seriousness in his films that gives them a welcome quirkiness that is one of his most distinctive trademarks, so for him to suddenly deliver a film which takes itself SO SERIOUSLY is one hell of a departure.  This is a film which almost REVELS in its darkness – Ritchie’s always loved bathing in man’s baser instincts, but Wrath of Man almost makes a kind of twisted VIRTUE out of wallowing in the genuine evils that men are capable of inflicting on each other.  The film certainly kicks off as it means to go on – In a tour-de-force single-shot opening, we watch a daring armoured car robbery on the streets of Los Angeles that goes horrifically wrong, an event which will have devastating consequences in the future.  Five months later, Fortico Security hires taciturn Brit Patrick Hill (Jason Statham) to work as a guard in one of their trucks, and on his first run he single-handedly foils another attempted robbery with genuinely uncanny combat skills. The company is thrilled, amazed by the sheer ability of their new hire, but Hill’s new colleagues are more concerned, wondering exactly what they’ve let themselves in for.  After a second foiled robbery, it becomes clear that Hill’s reputation has grown, but fellow guard Haiden (Holt McCallany), aka “Bullet”, begins to suspect there might be something darker going on … Ritchie is firing on all cylinders here, delivering a PERFECT slow-burn suspense thriller which plays its cards close to its chest and cranks up its piano wire tension with artful skill as it builds to a devastating, knuckle-whitening explosive heist that acts as a cathartic release for everything that’s built up over the past hour and a half.  In typical Ritchie style the narrative is non-linear, the story unfolding in four distinct parts told from clearly differentiated points of view, allowing the clues to be revealed at a trickle that effortlessly draws the viewer in as they fall deeper down the rabbit hole, leading to a harrowing but strangely poignant denouement which is perfectly in tune with everything that’s come before. It’s an immense pleasure finally getting to see Statham working with Ritchie again, and I don’t think he’s ever been better than he is here – he's always been a brilliantly understated actor, but there’s SO MUCH going on under Hill’s supposedly impenetrable calm that every little peek beneath the armour is a REVELATION; McCallany, meanwhile, has landed his best role since his short but VERY sweet supporting turn in Fight Club, seemingly likeable and fallible as the kind of easy-going co-worker anyone in the service industry would be THRILLED to have, but giving Bullet far more going on under the surface, while there are uniformly excellent performances from a top-shelf ensemble supporting cast which includes Josh Hartnett, Jeffrey Donovan (Burn Notice, Sicario), Andy Garcia, Laz Alonso (The Boys), Eddie Marsan, Niamh Algar (Raised By Wolves) and Darrell D’Silva (Informer, Domina), and a particularly edgy and intense turn from Scott Eastwood.  This is one of THE BEST thrillers of the year, by far, a masterpiece of mood, pace and plot that ensnares the viewer from its gripping opening and hooks them right up to the close, a triumph of the genre and EASILY Guy Ritchie’s best film since Snatch.  Regardless of whether or not it’s a RETURN to form, we can only hope he continues to deliver fare THIS GOOD in the future …

5.  FEAR STREET (PARTS 1-3) – Netflix have gotten increasingly ambitious with their original filmmaking over the years, and some of this years’ offerings have reached new heights of epic intention.  Their most exciting release of the summer was this adaptation of popular children’s horror author R.L. Stine’s popular book series, a truly gargantuan undertaking as the filmmakers set out to create an entire TRILOGY of films which were then released over three consecutive weekends.  Interestingly, these films are most definitely NOT for kids – this is proper, no-holds-barred supernatural slasher horror, delivering highly calibrated shocks and precision jump scares, a pervading atmosphere of insidious dread and a series of inventively gruesome kills.  The story revolves around two neighbouring small towns which have had vastly different fortunes over more than three centuries of existence – while the residents of Sunnyvale are unusually successful, living idyllic lives in peace and prosperity, luck has always been against the people of Shadyside, who languish in impoverishment, crime and misfortune, while the town has become known as the Murder Capital of the USA due to frequent spree killings.  Some attribute this to the supposed curse of a local urban legend, Sarah Fier, who became known as the Fier Witch after her execution for witchcraft in 1668, but others dismiss this as simple superstition.  Part 1 is set in 1994, as the latest outbreak of serial mayhem begins in Shadyside, dragging a small group of local teens – Deena Johnson (She Never Died’s Kiana Madeira) and Samantha Fraser (Olivia Scott Welch), a young lesbian couple going through a difficult breakup, Deena’s little brother Josh (The Haunted Hathaways’ Benjamin Flores Jr.), a nerdy history geek who spends most of his time playing video games or frequenting violent crime-buff online chatrooms, and their delinquent friends Simon (Eight Grade’s Fred Hechinger) and Kate (Julia Rehwald) – into the age-old ghostly conspiracy as they find themselves besieged by indestructible undead serial killers from the town’s past, reasoning that the only way they can escape with their lives is to solve the mystery and bring the Fier Witch some much needed closure.  Part 2, meanwhile, flashes back to a previous outbreak in 1977, in which local sisters Ziggy (Stranger Things’ Sadie Sink) and Cindy Berman (Emily Rudd), together with future Sunnyvale sheriff Nick Goode (Ted Sutherland) were among the kids hunted by said killers during a summer camp “colour war”.  As for Part 3, that goes all the way back to 1668 to tell the story of what REALLY happened to Sarah Fier, before wrapping up events in 1994, culminating in a terrifying, adrenaline-fuelled showdown in the Shadyside Mall.  Throughout, the youthful cast are EXCEPTIONAL, Madeira, Welch, Flores Jr., Sink and Rudd particularly impressing, while there are equally strong turns from Ashley Zuckerman (The Code, Designated Survivor) and Community’s Gillian Jacobs as the grown-up versions of two key ’77 kids, and a fun cameo from Maya Hawke in Part 1.  This is most definitely retro horror in the Stranger Things mould, perfectly executed period detail bringing fun nostalgic flavour to all three of the timelines while the peerless direction from Leigh Janiak (Honeymoon) and wire-tight, sharp-witted screenplays from Janiak, Kyle Killen (Lone Star, The Beaver), Phil Graziadel, Zak Olkewicz and Kate Trefry strike a perfect balance between knowing dark humour and knife-edged terror, as well as weaving an intriguingly complex narrative web that pulls the viewer in but never loses them to overcomplication.  The design, meanwhile, is evocative, the cinematography (from Stanger Things’ Caleb Heymann) is daring and magnificently moody, and the killers and other supernatural elements of the film are handled with skill through largely physical effects.  This is definitely not a standard, by-the-numbers slasher property, paying strong homage to the sub-genre’s rules but frequently subverting them with expert skill, and it’s as much fun as it is frightening.  Give us some more like this please, Netflix!

4.  THE SPARKS BROTHERS – those who’ve been following my reviews for a while will known that while I do sometimes shout about documentary films, they tend to show up in my runners-up lists – it’s a great rarity for one to land in one of my top tens.  This lovingly crafted deep-dive homage to cult band Sparks, from self-confessed rabid fanboy Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim), is something VERY SPECIAL INDEED, then … there’s a vague possibility some of you may have heard the name before, and many of you will know at least one or two of their biggest hits without knowing it was them (their greatest hit of all time, This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us, immediately springs to mind), but unless you’re REALLY serious about music it’s quite likely you have no idea who they are, namely two brothers from California, Russell and Ronald Mael, who formed a very sophisticated pop-rock band in the late 60s and then never really went away, having moments of fame but mostly working away in the background and influencing some of the greatest bands and musical artists that followed them, even if many never even knew where that influence originally came from. Wright’s film is an engrossing joy from start to finish (despite clocking in at two hours and twenty minutes), following their eclectic career from obscure inception as Halfnelson, through their first real big break with third album Kimono My Place, subsequent success and then fall from popularity in the mid-70s, through several subsequent revitalisations, all the way up to the present day with their long-awaited cinematic breakthrough, revolutionary musical feature Annette – throughout Wright keeps the tone light and the pace breezy, allowing a strong and endearing sense of irreverence to rule the day as fans, friends and the brothers themselves offer up fun anecdotes and wax lyrical about what is frequently a larger-than-life tragicomic soap opera, utilising fun, crappy animation and idiosyncratic stock footage inserts alongside talking-head interviews that were made with a decidedly tongue-in-cheek style – Mike Myers good-naturedly rants about how we can see his “damned mole” while 80s New Romantic icons Nick Rhodes and John Taylor, while shot together, are each individually labelled as “Duran”.  Ron and Russ themselves, meanwhile, are clearly having huge fun, gently ribbing each other and dropping some fun deadpan zingers throughout proceedings, easily playing to the band’s strong, idiosyncratic sense of hyper-intelligent humour, while the aforementioned celebrity talking-heads are just three amongst a whole wealth of famous faces that may surprise you – there’s even an appearance by Neil Gaiman, guys!  Altogether this is 2+ hours of bright and breezy fun chock full of great music and fascinating information, and even hardcore Sparks fans are likely to learn more than a little over the course of the film, while for those who have never heard of Sparks before it’s a FANTASTIC introduction to one of the greatest ever bands that you’ve never heard of.  With luck there might even be more than a few new fans before the year is out …

3.  GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE – Netflix’ BEST offering of the summer was this surprise hit from Israeli writer-director Navot Papushado (Rabies, Big Bad Wolves), a heavily stylised black comedy action thriller that passes the Bechdel Test with FLYING COLOURS.  Playing like a female-centric John Wick, it follows ice-cold, on-top-of-her-game assassin Sam (Karen Gillan) as her latest assignment has some unfortunate side effects, leading her to take on a reparation job to retrieve some missing cash for the local branch of the Irish Mob.  The only catch is that a group of thugs have kidnapped the original thief’s little girl, 12 year-old Emily (My Spy’s Chloe Coleman), and Sam, in an uncharacteristic moment of sympathy, decides to intervene, only for the money to be accidentally destroyed in the process.  Now she’s got the Mob and her own employers coming after her, and she not only has to save her own skin but also Emily’s, leading her to seek help from the one person she thought she might never see again – her mother, Scarlet (Lena Headey), a master assassin in her own right who’s been hiding from the Mob herself for years.  The plot may be simple but at times also a little over-the-top, but the film is never anything less than a pure, unadulterated pleasure, populated with fascinating, living and breathing characters of real complexity and nuance, while the script (co-written by relative newcomer Ehud Lavski) is tightly-reined and bursting with zingers.  Most importantly, though, Papushado really delivers on the action front – these are some of the best set-pieces I’ve seen this year, Gillan, her co-stars and the various stunt-performers acquitting themselves admirably in a series of spectacular fights, gun battles and a particularly imaginative car chase that would be the envy of many larger, more expensive productions.  Gillan and Coleman have a sweet, awkward chemistry, the MCU star particularly impressing in a subtly nuanced performance that also plays beautifully against Headey’s own tightly controlled turn, while there is awesome support from Angela Bassett, Michelle Yeoh and Carla Gugino as Sam’s adoptive aunts Anna May, Florence and Madeleine, a trio of “librarians” who run a fine side-line in illicit weaponry and are capable of unleashing some spectacular violence of their own; the film’s antagonists, on the other hand, are exclusively masculine – the mighty Ralph Inneson is quietly ruthless as Irish boss Jim McAlester, while The Terror’s Adam Nagaitis is considerably more mercurial as his mad dog nephew Virgil, and Paul Giamatti is the stately calm at the centre of the storm as Sam’s employer Nathan, the closest thing she has to a father.  There’s so much to enjoy in this movie, not just the wonderful characters and amazing action but also the singularly engrossing and idiosyncratic style, deeply affecting themes of the bonds of found family and the healing power of forgiveness, and a rewarding through-line of strong women triumphing against the brutalities of toxic masculinity.  I love this film, and I invite you to try it out, cuz I’m sure you will too.

2.  THE SUICIDE SQUAD – the most fun I’ve had at the cinema so far this year is the long-awaited (thanks a bunch, COVID) redress of another frustrating imbalance from the decidedly hit and miss DCEU superhero franchise, in which Guardians of the Galaxy writer-director James Gunn has finally delivered a PROPER Suicide Squad movie after David Ayer’s painfully compromised first stab at the property back in 2016.  That movie was enjoyable enough and had some great moments, but ultimately it was a clunky mess, and while some of the characters were done (quite) well, others were painfully botched, even ruined entirely.  Thankfully Warner Bros. clearly learned their lesson, giving Gunn free reign to do whatever he wanted, and the end result is about as close to perfect as the DCEU has come to date.  Once again the peerless Viola Davis plays US government official Amanda Waller, head of ARGUS and the undisputable most evil bitch in all the DC Universe, who presides over the metahuman prisoners of the notorious supermax Belle Reve Prison, cherry-picking inmates for her pet project Taskforce X, the titular Suicide Squad sent out to handle the kind of jobs nobody else wants, in exchange for years off their sentences but controlled by explosive implants injected into the base of their skulls.  Their latest mission sees another motley crew of D-bags dispatched to the fictional South African island nation of Corto Maltese to infiltrate Jotunheim, a former Nazi facility in which a dangerous extra-terrestrial entity that’s being developed into a fearful bioweapon, with orders to destroy the project in order to keep it out of the hands of a hostile anti-American regime which has taken control of the island through a violent coup.  Where the first Squad felt like a clumsily-arranged selection of stereotypes with a few genuinely promising characters unsuccessfully moulded into a decidedly forced found family, this new batch are convincingly organic – they may be dysfunctional and they’re all almost universally definitely BAD GUYS, but they WORK, the relationship dynamics that form between them feeling genuinely earned.  Gunn has already proven himself a master of putting a bunch of A-holes together and forging them into band of “heroes”, and he’s certainly pulled the job off again here, dredging the bottom of the DC Rogues Gallery for its most ridiculous Z-listers and somehow managing to make them compelling.  Sure, returning Squad-member Harley Quinn (the incomparable Margot Robbie, magnificent as ever) has already become a fully-realised character thanks to Birds of Prey, so there wasn’t much heavy-lifting to be done here, but Gunn genuinely seems to GET the character, so our favourite pixie-esque Agent of Chaos is an unbridled and thoroughly unpredictable joy here, while fellow veteran Colonel Rick Flagg (a particularly muscular and thoroughly game Joel Kinnaman) has this time received a much needed makeover, Gunn promoting him from being the first film’s sketchily-drawn “Captain Exposition” and turning him into a fully-ledged, well-thought-out human being with all the requisite baggage, including a newfound sense of humour; the newcomers, meanwhile, are a thoroughly fascinating bunch – reluctant “leader” Bloodsport/Robert DuBois (a typically robust and playful Idris Elba), unapologetic douchebag Peacemaker/Christopher Smith (probably the best performance I’ve EVER seen John Cena deliver), and socially awkward and seriously hard-done-by nerd (and by far the most idiotic DC villain of all time) the Polka-Dot Man/Abner Krill (a genuinely heart-breaking hangdog performance from Ant-Man’s David Dastmalchian); meanwhile there’s a fine trio of villainous turns from the film’s resident Big Bads, with Juan Diego Botta (Good Behaviour) and Joaquin Cosio (Quantum of Solace, Narcos: Mexico) making strong impressions as newly-installed dictator Silvio Luna and his corrupt right hand-man General Suarez, although both are EASILY eclipsed by the typically brilliant Peter Capaldi as louche and quietly deranged supervillain The Thinker/Gaius Greives (although the film’s ULTIMATE threat turns out to be something a whole lot bigger and more exotic). The film is ROUNDLY STOLEN, however, by a truly adorable double act (or TRIPLE act, if you want to get technical) – Daniella Melchior makes her breakthrough here in fine style as sweet, principled and kind-hearted narcoleptic second-generation supervillain Ratcatcher II/Cleo Cazo, who has the weird ability to control rats (and who has a pet rat named Sebastian who frequently steals scenes all on his own), while a particular fan-favourite B-lister makes his big screen debut here in the form of King Shark/Nanaue, a barely sentient anthropomorphic Great White “shark god” with an insatiable appetite for flesh and a naturally quizzical nature who was brilliantly mo-capped by Steve Agee (The Sarah Silverman Project, who also plays Waller’s hyperactive assistant John Economos) but then artfully completed with an ingenious vocal turn from Sylvester Stallone. James Gunn has crafted an absolute MASTERPIECE here, EASILY the best film he’s made to date, a riotous cavalcade of exquisitely observed and perfectly delivered dark humour and expertly wrangled narrative chaos that has great fun playing with the narrative flow, injects countless spot-on in-jokes and irreverent but utterly essential throwaway sight-gags, and totally endears us to this glorious gang of utter morons right from the start (in which Gunn delivers what has to be one of the most skilful deep-fakes in cinematic history).  Sure, there’s also plenty of action, and it’s executed with the kind of consummate skill we’ve now come to expect from Gunn (the absolute highlight is a wonderfully bonkers sequence in which Harley expertly rescues herself from captivity), but like everything else it’s predominantly played for laughs, and there’s no getting away from the fact that this film is an absolute RIOT.  By far the funniest thing I’ve seen so far this year, and if I’m honest this is the best of the DCEU offerings to date, too (for me, only the exceptional Birds of Prey can compare) – if Warner Bros. have any sense they’ll give Gunn more to do VERY SOON …

1.  A QUIET PLACE, PART II – while UK cinemas finally reopened in early May, I was determined that my first trip back to the Big Screen for 2021 was gonna be something SPECIAL, and indeed I already knew what that was going to be. Thankfully I was not disappointed by my choice – 2018’s A Quiet Place was MY VERY FAVOURITE horror movie of the 2010s, an undeniable masterclass in suspense and sustained screen terror wrapped around a refreshingly original killer concept, and I was among the many fans hoping we’d see more in the future, especially after the film’s teasingly open ending.  Against the odds (or perhaps not), writer-director/co-star John Krasinski has pulled off the seemingly impossible task of not only following up that high-wire act, but genuinely EQUALLING it in levels of quality – picking up RIGHT where the first film left off (at least after an AMAZING scene-setting opening in which we’re treated to the events of Day 1 of the downfall of humanity), rejoining the remnants of the Abbott family as they’re forced by circumstances to up-sticks from their idyllic farmhouse home and strike out into the outside world once more, painfully aware at all times that they must maintain perfect silence to avoid the ravenous attentions of the lethal blind alien beasties that now sit at the top of the food chain.  Circumstances quickly become dire, however, and embattled mother Evelyn (Emily Blunt) is forced to ally herself with estranged family friend Emmett (Cillian Murphy), now a haunted, desperate vagrant eking out a perilous existence in an abandoned factory, in order to safeguard the future of her children Regan (Millicent Simmonds), Marcus (Noah Jupe) and their newborn baby brother.  Regan, however, discovers evidence of more survivors, and with her newfound weapon against the aliens she recklessly decides to set off on her own in the hopes of aiding them before it’s too late … it may only be his second major blockbuster as a director, but Krasinski has once again proven he’s a true heavyweight talent, effortlessly carving out fresh ground in this already magnificently well-realised dystopian universe while also playing magnificently to the established strengths of what came before, delivering another peerless thrill-ride of unbearable tension and knuckle-whitening terror.  The central principle of utilising sound at a very strict premium is once again strictly adhered to here, available sources of dialogue once again exploited with consummate skill while sound design and score (another moody triumph from Marco Beltrami) again become THE MOST IMPORTANT aspects of the whole production. The ruined world is once again realised beautifully throughout, most notably in the nightmarish environment of a wrecked commuter train, and Krasinski cranks up the tension before unleashing it in merciless explosions in a selection of harrowing encounters which guaranteed to leave viewers in a puddle of sweat.  The director mostly stays behind the camera this time round, but he does (obviously) put in an appearance in the opening flashback as the late Lee Abbott, making a potent impression which leaves a haunting absence that’s keenly felt throughout the remainder of the film, while Blunt continues to display mother lion ferocity as she fights to keep her children safe and Jupe plays crippling fear magnificently but is now starting to show a hidden spine of steel as Marcus finally starts to find his courage; the film once again belongs, however, to Simmonds, the young deaf actress once and for all proving she’s a genuine star in the making as she invests Regan with fierce wilfulness and stubborn determination that remains unshakeable even in the face of unspeakable horrors, and the relationship she develops with Emmett, reluctant as it may be, provides a strong new emotional focus for the story, Murphy bringing an attractive wounded humanity to his role as a man who’s lost anything and is being forced to learn to care for something again.  This is another triumph of the genre AND the artform in general, a masterpiece of atmosphere, performance and storytelling which builds magnificently on the skilful foundations laid by the first film, as well as setting things up perfectly for a third instalment which is all but certain to follow.  I definitely can’t wait.

[hypmic-translation]

Momoiro Uta Gassen (2gumi Edition)

JIRO: Here it comes! The 4th Momoiro Uta Gassen! JYUTO: This year, we will be splitting up to support the Red and White teams respectively. JYUSHI: Burn the memory into your eyes and ears!

CHORUS Settling the score in this weird team-up, hit it! (Hit it!) And yet we all still have our unbreakable spirits! (Spirits!) Everybody has something that could be a weakness (Weakness!) Even in this world that’s been caked in mud If you stay strong, you’ll have a chance!

JIRO Ooh! You know it’s Ikebukuro’s awesome next Number 2- -Yamada Jiro, the former soccer player; essential Red carded, a volley shot sent high into the air There’s no time for golden goals here on New Year’s Eve! (1)

JYUTO Dispatched by prefectural police, Iruma Jyuto I might be strict but that doesn’t make me family (2) Who do you think you are, disregarding public service? Just this once I’ll close my office year with white! (3)

JYUSHI If time could halt, I might be able to continue blooming without end Come now, all you flowers, stain me with your tears of blood Be nothing more than the red on this wild rose!

ROSHO The year ends, and so does this ceaseless quest for knowledge But relaxation is also a valid formula for victory Only today will I allow you to submit a blank paper You wouldn’t want a failing mark written in red, right?

GENTARO Red-faced in the morn, but bleached bone by the eve (4) Even now, the samurai is seen in Sanada’s red armour (5) (6) We’ll make an impact today like a historical novel! It’ll be good, I insist! Ah, but that’s a lie ♪

HIFUMI Growing close late at night, a platinum call Even from far away let’s have a wonderful talk A rhyming Gigolo, Hifumi-san’s corona (7) I won’t let these hard times get the best of me!

CHORUS Settling the score in this weird team-up, hit it! (Hit it!) And yet we all still have our unbreakable spirits! (Spirits!) Everybody has something that could be a weakness (Weakness!) Even in this world that’s been caked in mud If you stay strong, you’ll have a chance!

HIFUMI: Woo-hoo! Could you feel the strength of our support? ROSHO: It’s no good, I was so nervous singing… GENTARO: Let us welcome in tomorrow with high spirits. The 4th Momoiro Uta Gassen still has more to come!

NOTES

“Golden goal” is the term for a variant of football/soccer in which the first team to score a goal wins. It’s usually used as a tiebreaker in games where both teams scored equally - so Jiro is essentially saying that one of their teams has to win now.

The word Jyuto uses here is “小舅” which translates to “brother-in-law” or, more literally, “little father-in-law”. While trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about, I found out that “小姑” is the female equivalent (“sister-in-law”/”little mother-in-law”) and is typically used as an implied insult in regards to in-laws who are nosy and interfere with your personal affairs for no reason. I did what I could with the info.

“御用納め” is the term for when the Japanese government essentially mandated that people who work for public affairs get a few days off around New Year’s, which usually makes December 28th their last paid day of work for the year. Jyuto is, of course, a corrupt cop, and it’s common for “black” and “white” to be police jargon referring to people as “guilty” or “innocent” respectively. Basically, he’s joking about how it’s ironic that he’s on the white team.

A proverb which essentially means “live life to the fullest and don’t waste time, because you never know when something might happen”. You could be healthy in the morning and dead by the evening; it’s not something anyone can predict.

Sanada Yukimura was a warlord who was alive during the Warring States period of Japan, and is famous for his use of the “akazonae”, or “red armour”, during the Siege of Osaka (very likely a purposeful reference considering how he’s following Rosho here).

Unrelated to the above, the word “武士” means “samurai” - however when written in katakana as “モノノフ” (“mononofu”), it usually refers to fans and live audience members of the female idol group Momoiro Clover Z (aka the people who host the Momoiro Uta Gassen).

I can only assume what this means is “this is my experience dealing with the coronavirus” but the fact that it’s even mentioned here is wild enough on its own. What a weird year 2020 was.

[klaineanummel]

enemies with benefits

Kurt Hummel is the captain of the NYU Violets soccer team. Blaine Anderson is the captain of the Columbia Lions soccer team. They're bitter rivals on and off the field, but that doesn't mean that they can't also be attracted to each other. Right?

Hello everyone!! Welcome to my fic for the @gleepotluckbigbang Glee Potluck Exchange! :) I have been paired with the wonderful @notarelationship, and while I did not receive any official prompt, I did get a bunch of tropes that she enjoys. So, here you go darling! I hope that you enjoy <3

Massive thanks to @mailroomorder for betaing this fic <3 you're the real MVP. Also, I'm fully aware these fics were supposed to be capped at 5K. lmao oops?

A small note, more so for those of you well versed in soccer: I am fully aware that the NYU Violets soccer team is not in the same NCAA division as the Columbia Lions (far from it actually). However, in order for the fic to work, I fudged the facts a little bit. I mean, hey, it's an AU, right? So, apologies to any potential die-hard soccer fans out there for this small inaccuracy.

the seventh time

It’s the first time they’ve done it at Kurt’s apartment. Not because Kurt doesn’t want Blaine here (though, in theory, he doesn’t), but because he lives with four other guys. All of whom are on the NYU Violets soccer team with Kurt. All of whom have a tendency of coming home earlier than expected, and of walking into Kurt’s room without knocking, no matter how many times Kurt begs them to stop.

He doesn’t feel the need to have his roommates and teammates see him having sex with the captain of the Columbia Lions soccer team.

They’re all out today, though, and Kurt knows this time that they will be out for a very long time. They’re celebrating, after all. 3-2 against the Lions, meaning they’re headed for the semi-finals of the NCAA Division I Tournament, whereas the Lions will have to fight for their spot in a few days.

Winning is one thing, but winning against the Lions? Oh, if Kurt could bottle the absolute joy it brings him, he’d never be sad again.

“Fuck,” he shouts, feeling Blaine’s fingers brush against his prostate. Adrenaline and ecstasy flow freely through his veins, and Kurt thinks he should always have sex after winning a big game, because this is possibly the best sex he’s ever had.

Not that Blaine will ever, ever know that.

Blaine pulls out of him, then comes back with three fingers, shoving them in roughly. Kurt presses his face into his pillow and biting down on the fabric to stop himself from shouting out again. Blaine’s fingers are hot inside him, stretching him much quicker than he usually prefers, especially considering how rare it is for him to bottom.

“Hope you’re ready,” Blaine says, leaning his entire body over Kurt’s to speak directly into his ear, “because I’m tired of waiting to fuck you.”

Kurt turns his head to the side, spitting the pillowcase fabric out of his mouth before he says, “Hope you’re better at topping than you are on the pitch.”

It’s a cheap shot, and not even an accurate one, but he’s still high off his victory and enjoying how rough Blaine is being far too much. He just wants a guarantee that that’s going to continue throughout the rest of their tryst.

As expected--he’s so predictable--Blaine lets out a sound that can only be described as a growl before pulling away from Kurt. Kurt keeps his cheek pressed against the pillow, swaying his ass gently, invitingly, as he listens to Blaine struggle to put on his condom.

Soon enough, there’s hands on his ass checks, spreading them a bit further than Kurt usually prefers, and a slick, latex-covered cockhead pressing against his hole.

“Fucking come on,” Kurt grumbles. “See, this is why we keep beating you, because you don’t know when to fucking – holy shit.”

He’s full in an instant, hips arching high, Blaine’s fingernails digging into them. He reaches up and grabs onto the rail at the head of his head just in time for Blaine to pull out and immediately push back in.

“Shit, Blaine,” the rail digs into Kurt’s palm, but he doesn’t care, because Blaine just keeps fucking in and out of him, and Kurt still hasn’t really adjusted to the size of him and fuck it’s good. “Yes, fuck me, come on.”

“Do you ever shut up?” Blaine mutters, so quiet that Kurt isn’t sure he’s actually supposed to hear. “Or does the sound of your own voice turn you on?” Okay, so he was definitely supposed to hear.

He isn’t sure how to respond to that because yes, he actually does like to talk while he’s having sex – not because he likes the sound of his own voice, but because he loves hearing his lovers during sex as well, and him talking is the best way of ensuring that happens. But he’s not sure he wants Blaine to know that. Really, Blaine already knows too much about what he likes in bed. He doesn’t need the man who’s been his biggest rival the entirety of his university career to know everything.

Finally, he settles on, “Fuck me harder and find out.”

Blaine lets out a low half-scoff half-chuckle at that, and Kurt smirks to himself. 

“Or, what?” He continues, tilting his head to the side as though that will allow him to see Blaine any better. “Is this as good as you can give? Because if that’s the case, then no wonder we beat you today.”

“You are such,” his thrusts speed up, and Kurt keens happily, letting his face melt into his pillow and his headboard rail burn into his palm, “an asshole.”

The irony of the statement makes Kurt laugh, which just makes Blaine increase his speed even more, putting a definite pause on the laughter.

The adrenaline spiking through him is mixing with his pleasure, and Kurt can tell that he’s going to come soon. It’s the fastest he’s come in a long time, and he can’t stand the fact that it’s Blaine Anderson who brought him there.

He brings his own hand down to his cock, stroking himself quickly.

“You going to come?”

Kurt just nods against his pillow, biting down on his lip to stop himself from saying anything potentially embarrassing.

“Thank fuck,” Blaine says. “Been on the edge since I pushed into this tight ass.”

Kurt bites into the pillow again as his orgasm hits him. He pumps in and out of his own fist, ass muscles clenching tightly around Blaine’s cock.

“Holy shit,” Blaine says, and Kurt can feel his fingernails digging a little deeper into his hips. He’s definitely going to have some kind of mark there tomorrow.

Blaine’s rhythm becomes a little more erratic as he fucks Kurt through his own orgasm. Kurt lets him, sated and boneless after his own.

When Blaine is done, he immediately pulls out and falls onto the mattress next to Kurt, chest heaving, eyes glued to the ceiling.

Kurt watches him for a moment. Watches the way his eyelashes brush against his cheekbones every time he blinks. Watches the way his pink tongue slips out to wet his equally pink lips. Watches the way his amber eyes are never still, not even now, staring at the absolute nothingness of Kurt’s ceiling.

He watches him until his heart gives an uncomfortable tug and he has to stop watching because that’s not a road he wants to go down.

He moves his own gaze up to the ceiling as well, and then says, “You’re a sore loser, huh?”

Blaine immediately elbows him in the side, and it feels better. More normal. The way things have always been and need to stay.

 the tenth time

He’s not at all surprised to see Blaine leaning against the wall opposite the door to the Violets locker room. He’s wearing possibly the tightest jeans Kurt has ever seen him in, and a light purple crewneck that’s doing absolutely illegal things to his arms.

“Sucks, doesn’t it?” Blaine asks, not moving from his spot.

Kurt shrugs his duffle bag higher onto his shoulder. “You here to rub it in?”

Blaine stays still, and Kurt really wishes he’d do something with his body, anything to give Kurt even the slightest indication of where he’s going with this.

When Blaine doesn’t respond for a few moments, Kurt says, “Because if you are, you can save it. I already feel fucking awful, and I don’t think I’m up for one of our snipe sessions.”

Blaine still doesn’t say anything, though Kurt notices his left eyebrow has raised the tiniest bit.

“You know how much this sucks for me?” Kurt can’t help it. He feels raw from the loss, and the almost half-hour shower he’d just taken to try and rid himself of the feeling had done absolutely nothing. All of his teammates have left already, quietly expressing their condolences to him, a few reminding him that they’re planning to get spectacularly drunk at their favorite bar a few blocks down.

Kurt doesn’t feel like getting drunk. He doesn’t feel like sitting around with the team he knows he let down while they all try to convince him that it wasn’t his fault. He doesn’t want to be faced with the reminder that it’s actually completely over.

“You have another shot at this,” Kurt continues, one hand gripping the strap of his duffle bag tightly. His other hand points accusingly at Blaine, not close enough to actually push him but wanting more than anything to do so. “You get another year to redeem yourself, to get the win for your team. I’m done. This was it for me. I’m graduating in a few months, and since we didn’t even make it into the semi-finals, I know that not a single scout is going to contact me, which means that my soccer career is over. I’ve fucking peaked. Now I have to finish my dumbass degree, and then get some bullshit office job that I’ll fucking dread going to every day of my damn life, and all because—”

He doesn’t get to finish the outpour of emotions. Blaine closes the distance between them and interrupts him mid-sentence with a deep, forceful kiss on the lips. His hands come up to cup Kurt’s face, bringing him close.

It takes Kurt a moment to catch up, but as soon as he does, he lets himself melt into the kiss. He wraps his free arm around Blaine’s waist, pulling his middle in closer to Kurt and feels his other hand relaxing around the strap of his bag.

Blaine breaks the kiss, separating with a soft smack of the lips. “I know,” he says, hands still on Kurt’s cheeks, forcing him to look directly into his eyes. “I know.”

Kurt nods as well as he can between Blaine’s hands. He licks his lips, then asks, “Is your roommate home?”

Blaine shakes his head.

Kurt nods again, and says, “Perfect.”

 the eleventh time

Just an hour ago Kurt had been fucking into Blaine from behind, letting himself be more forceful than he usually was, his anger at the defeat seeping into every single thrust.

Blaine let him. There were no jabs, no snipes, no bitchy or petty comments. He just let out a few, “Keep going’s,” every now and then to let Kurt know that he was okay with what was happening.

Now, Kurt is lying on his back on Blaine’s bed, with Blaine’s head between his legs, gorgeous lips wrapped tightly around Kurt’s cock.

Kurt can’t stop staring at him, heart jackrabbiting in his chest. His curls are still drying from the shower he’d taken earlier and are so soft around Kurt’s fingers. He keeps shifting his fingers through them, wanting to memorize the feel of them in case he never gets this chance again.

They don’t do this. Or, at least they never have before. It’s always either been quick handjobs in shower stalls after games or fucking in one of their apartments. For some reason, to Kurt, going down on Blaine always felt like it was too much. Too vulnerable. Giving Blaine too much power.

Yet, here Blaine is, doing exactly that. He bobs up and down slowly on Kurt’s cock, swallowing around him every so often, tongue caressing the underside of his dick with every movement of his head.

It feels like he’s worshiping Kurt’s cock, and Kurt doesn’t really know how to feel about it.

Because what he’s realizing now is that he isn’t the one with the power here. Blaine may be the one doing all the work, but it’s Kurt who feels vulnerable. It’s Kurt who feels powerless. It’s Kurt whose heart is practically beating out of his chest, begging for him to just hand it to Blaine on a silver fucking platter.

“Blaine, I’m—”

He doesn’t have to finish the sentence. Blaine brings a hand up and wraps it around the base of Kurt’s cock, then increases his speed, bobbing up and down and Kurt’s cock faster, tongue finding the underside of his cock and focusing on the skin there.

“Blaine,” Kurt warns, tightening his hold on Blaine’s curls. “Blaine, pull off. I’m going to—”

Blaine doesn’t stop, doesn’t pull off, and before he can stop himself Kurt is coming down Blaine’s throat, head falling back against the pillow and eyes closing as he feels Blaine’s cheeks hollow around him, carrying him through the orgasm.

As though reading his mind, Blaine pulls off exactly when Kurt starts to feel sensitive, and Kurt flutters his eyes open just in time to see Blaine swallow heavily.

Blaine moves up until he’s directly next to Kurt, staring right into his eyes with an intensity that Kurt isn’t sure he’s ever seen off the field.

“It’s not over for you,” Blaine says. He reaches a hand out and finds Kurt’s, linking their fingers together. “You’re going to do amazing things in your life, Kurt. One loss isn’t the end. You’re right at the beginning.”

Kurt nods, the words warming his stomach and drying out his throat. He can feel tears pricking at the edge of his eyes, and god, as if this whole experience wasn’t embarrassing enough already now, he’s going to, what? Cry?

“That’s, um.” He has to pause to clear his throat, as his voice comes out scratchy and low. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Blaine shrugs, a small, private smile on his lips. “Don’t get used to it, Hummel.”

Kurt’s heart stutters in his chest, and he finds himself smiling as well even as he already starts to sit up, letting Blaine’s hand go to pick up his clothes. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Anderson.”

 the fifteenth time

It’s different between them since the Violets got eliminated from the tournament. Not just because they’ve now officially exchanged phone numbers and actually arrange to meet up instead of simply falling into bed together every time they have a match or after running into each other at some sports bar.

No, it’s different because they actually talk to each other now. It’s not just petty insults, sex, a few more petty insults, and see you later. Now Kurt finds himself sticking around for a bit after the sex at Blaine’s apartment to ask about his day, his classes, his life. And the one time they managed to do it at Kurt’s apartment he found himself looking for excuses to keep Blaine around longer than necessary, to the point where his roommate Mike almost caught Blaine leaving.

He can’t help it. He may hate Blaine’s team, and in theory Blaine for being the captain of said team, but as a person Blaine is…

Well, he’s quite possibly the kindest person Kurt has ever met.

“Slow down,” Blaine says, legs coming up so that he can hook his ankles together over Kurt’s lower back. “Sam’s going to be out all night, you don’t need to rush.”

Kurt nods and does as Blaine asks, slowing down until he’s just gently rolling his hips, not even really thrusting. Blaine’s eyes flutter shut and his lips part in a silent show of enjoyment.

And this is the other thing that’s changed – they never fucked face-to-face before. It was always either back-to-chest if they were in the shower, or with one of them on all fours in bed. Yet, this is the third time they’ve done it, and honestly, Kurt is starting to wonder if there’s a way he can request that they stop.

Because actually seeing Blaine’s face while they do this? Looking into his eyes as he talks while they fuck? Watching him as he falls apart under Kurt’s ministrations?

It’s getting to be a little too much.

“Fuck,” Blaine whispers, eyes still shut. He rolls his hips in time with Kurt’s, and a small smile appears on his face. “Don’t know if I’ve ever said this, but you’re fucking amazing at this.”

Kurt’s stomach constricts. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”

Blaine’s eyes open slowly, a slight frown on his face. He reaches a hand up to cup Kurt’s cheek, fingers spreading wide enough to completely cover the left side of Kurt’s face.

With far too much inflection in his voice, he says, “No. I don’t.”

Then, he tilts his head up and presses their lips together, flicking his tongue against Kurt’s in time with the slow movements of their hips.

Kurt lets himself be kissed, lets himself fall into the feeling of Blaine’s warm mouth and Blaine’s ass tight around his cock, loses himself in the emotions it sparks in him.

It’s definitely getting to be too much.

 the twenty-first time

Kurt and his roommates decide to celebrate the fact that they’re all back in New York after the holidays by going out for drinks at the bar a few streets down. It’s usually a pretty quiet spot since it’s decently out of the way, which is what makes it all the more surprising when they walk in to find Blaine and a few of his fellow Lions sitting in the booth right next to the door.

“Oh jeez,” Kurt mutters, just as Mike says, “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Blaine instantly stands, eyes flying between the five Violets, only lingering on Kurt for a second longer than on all the rest. “Hey Violets.”

“What the hell are you guys doing here?” Matt is scowling down at them, Mike has his arms crossed over his chest, Jake has a massive scowl on his face, and Kurt is just now realizing how ridiculous this rivalry is. “This is NYU town.”

“We’re not trying to start anything,” Blaine assures, raising his hands with palms out. “Honest. Just heard some amazing things about the wings and nachos here, and we couldn’t figure out where else to go.”

“Bit far for chicken wings and nachos,” Kurt mutters, feeling his cheeks warm, fully aware that he’s the one who told Blaine about this place.

“They’re really good chicken wings and nachos,” Blaine says, eyes meeting Kurt’s, whose blush worsens under his gaze. He looks away, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Whatever,” Elliott, shakes his head. “Let’s go somewhere else. I can’t eat with these guys stinking up the bar.”

“Oh, come on,” Kurt rolls his eyes, putting a hand on Elliott’s chest to stop him from turning around to leave. “The season’s done, and we’re all seniors. We’re not rivals anymore, just… five guys who won’t eat at a bar that some other random guys are at? That’s insane,” he shakes his head and pushes Elliott back a little. “We’ll just go sit in the corner and ignore them. Who gives a shit?”

His teammates grumble about it, but they still follow him toward the back corner of the bar, throwing glares behind them every now and then.

“You’ve changed, Hummel,” Elliott says, sliding into the booth and sitting next to him. “A few months ago you would have forced those assholes out on their asses for even daring to come to our turf.”

“Yeah, well, a few months ago we still had a chance at being NCAA champions. Now we’re just college students eating at a bar. Doesn’t seem worth it anymore.”

“Is it too late to rescind your captainship?” Mike throws out, to which Kurt replies by flipping him off.

His phone buzzes and he pulls it out, eyes widening when he sees Blaine’s name on his screen. He glances over at Blaine and tries to shake his head as subtly as possible, because he cannot be reading texts from him in front of his freaking teammates.

Blaine just widens his eyes and gestures down to his phone with his head. Kurt looks away, but still sneaks a look at his phone, trying to do his best to hide it from Elliott’s gaze without making it too obvious that that’s what he’s doing.

You didn’t tell me you were back in New York already.

Kurt rolls his eyes and shoves his phone in his pocket. He looks over to Blaine, mouthing, really?

Blaine shrugs, and Kurt rolls his eyes again, then turns away to focus on his roommates.

It’s at least twenty minutes before his phone buzzes again. He ignores it, pretty sure that it’s from Blaine. But it buzzes again, and again, and again, until he finally grabs it, already shaking his head at what he knows is waiting for him.

Come over tonight.

Kurt.

Kurt.

Kurt.

Kurt.

Kurt.

Come over tonight.

Kurt.

Kurt.

Kurt.

Kurt.

Kurt exhales sharply, shaking his head to himself as he quickly types back.

Your use of periods at the end of every text is unnerving

He doesn’t bother putting his phone away, as sure enough, within moments he has a reply from Blaine.

Please come over tonight. Sam is going to his girlfriend’s. Please.

He bites down on his bottom lip, then sighs and texts back: Fine, but stop ending all your texts with periods you look like a grandpa

Blaine instantly responds: Scouts honour. Text me when you’re leaving here

Kurt rolls his eyes to himself, then puts his phone back in his pocket.

Elliott elbows him, and when Kurt looks up it’s to find him waggling his eyebrows. “Boy trouble?” he asks.

Kurt just shakes his head and mutters, “Yeah, something like that.”

*

Blaine rides him that night, gripping his shoulders tightly as he does so, bouncing up and down on Kurt’s cock in a way that makes Kurt absolutely crazy.

He isn’t really sure how he managed to go two whole weeks without this.

When they’re done, Blaine lays down next to Kurt. He doesn’t lean in to cuddle, they still never do that, but he does lie down in such a way that they’re completely pressed together, shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip. Their hands touch awkwardly, and Kurt wonders if he’s supposed to hold Blaine’s hand.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“You ask like I can stop you from doing so.”

Blaine chuckles at Kurt’s response, and his index finger comes out to run down Kurt’s palm.

“I went to that bar on purpose,” he says, voice quiet. “I was hoping to run into you.”

Kurt licks his lips, forcing his eyes to remain on the ceiling, trying to ignore the way the pad of Blaine’s finger feels against the inside of his hand.

“Why?” his voice is a little hoarse, his throat dry, and his heart is beating far too fast in his chest.

He can feel Blaine shrugging his shoulders next to him. “Wanted to see you. We barely talked over the break.”

“I know,” Kurt says. He had purposefully refrained from texting Blaine, even though his fingers had itched to do so every single day. “You could have just texted to see if I was back.”

Blaine shrugs again. “I guess.” He’s quiet for a moment, but then says, “I didn’t want to text you, though. I wanted to see you.”

“But why?”

This time Blaine doesn’t shrug. He doesn’t really say anything.

Kurt sighs, then sits up. “I should probably leave.”

“No, don’t go,” Blaine sits up too, putting a hand over Kurt’s wrist. “Come on, we haven’t seen each other in forever. Just hang out. Tell me about your break.”

“Blaine…”

“Kurt, come on.”

Kurt rubs a hand over his face. “Blaine, what the hell are we doing here?”

Blaine stares at him, lips parted as though on the cusp of words, but nothing comes out.

Kurt shakes his head. “This is insane. You know I genuinely disliked you when we started this? I mean, I thought you were hot, but you were so obnoxious on the field, and the Violets and Lions hate each other, so I just…” His hand goes through his hair, pushing it back. “But now we’re here, and we keep ending up here, and I don’t even know what to think about all this because you’re so…”

“I didn’t like you either,” Blaine says. Kurt meets his eyes, deep amber that he’s always terrified of drowning in. “I really didn’t. You were cocky, and so quick on your feet both on and off the field. So damn gorgeous it infuriated me.” He moves a little closer. “I didn’t think sleeping together would change anything. Just another way to channel our aggression.”

“Right,” Kurt says. “But we’re not soccer rivals anymore.”

“Yeah.”

“But we’re not really friends either,” Kurt continues. “We’re just… two guys who sleep together sometimes.”

Blaine’s finger finds Kurt’s hand again, and he starts tracing a pattern on his palm. “I consider you a friend.”

Kurt closes his eyes, head falling back slightly. “Shit, this is a mess.”

“It doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t have to be complicated, or messy, or any of those things.”

“Blaine…”

“Look, why don’t we, I don’t know. Hang out sometime. No sex, just… coffee, or lunch. Just talking.”

Kurt opens his eyes, but just enough to glare ever so slightly at him. “You mean like a date or something?”

Blaine shrugs. “Whatever you want to call it.”

Kurt sucks on the inside of his cheek, eyes still narrowed at Blaine. He takes in a deep breath, heart pounding in his chest. “Fine.”

Blaine’s face immediately lights up. “Really?”

“Yeah. But it’s not a date,” Kurt holds a finger up. “Just two guys getting lunch. No funny business.”

“Cross my heart,” Blaine does so, grinning widely. He looks over Kurt’s chest, then says, “You’re not still going to leave, right?”

Kurt continues to glare at him despite the warmth spreading through him at the obvious interest Blaine is showing him. He rolls his eyes, then says, “Fuck it. I didn’t have any other plans tonight.”

Blaine goes to lay back down, shoulders doing an adorable little shimmy, and Kurt follows him back down, finally allowing a small smile onto his face.

 the twenty-second time

Kurt chooses a hole in the wall pizza place that he knows is just that much more out of the way for Blaine. He asks to meet at one, knowing that Blaine has a class at three-thirty that he can’t skip. He wears a sweatshirt and a loose pair of sweatpants. He barely spends any time on his hair. He reminds himself five times that morning that he will not offer to pay for Blaine, nor will he let Blaine pay for him.

Basically, he does everything in his power to make this as obviously Not-A-Date as possible.  

Blaine is already there when Kurt arrives, dressed casually in beige chinos and a warm, soft-looking peacoat. He has his messenger bag hanging over his shoulder, and his hair is gelled back impeccably. He looks nice, and it kind of makes Kurt feel bad for wearing his most casual clothes and for shoving a beanie on his head before walking out the door, telling himself it’s to protect his ears from the cold and not because he knows it’ll make his hair look suboptimal.

He greets Blaine with a smile, then heads into the restaurant before Blaine can try and hold the door open for him. Blaine follows, already happily chatting away about how his day has been thus far.

They place their order at the counter, only briefly arguing over the financial benefits of sharing a pizza (what Blaine wants to do) versus each just ordering a few slices for themselves (what Kurt wants to do). Blaine ends up winning, but Kurt still forces the cashier to split the bill between them as she rings them up.

Not-A-Date.

Blaine starts to lead them towards a table in the back of the restaurant, but Kurt sits down at a table between a large group of college kids and a bickering middle-aged couple. Blaine looks at him a little weird, but Kurt doesn’t let that phase him.

Not-A-Date.

They chit-chat as they wait for their pizza, and it’s way less awkward than Kurt thought it would be. Blaine seems to have an endless supply of conversation fodder, and he somehow makes even the most inane things sound interesting. Kurt doesn’t say much, only chiming in whenever Blaine asks him a purposeful question, but he doesn’t mind at all. He’s actually pretty sure that Blaine could monologue at him for hours and Kurt would be happy just to sit there and watch him do it.

Not-A-Date.

Their pizza arrives and they tuck in. Blaine is a surprisingly neat eater, taking small nibbles and wiping any grease from around his mouth after every few bites. Kurt, on the other hand, practically inhales his pizza. It isn’t even a ploy to prove that this isn’t a date – Kurt’s had to get used to racing through any shared food after growing up with a human garburator as a step-brother and spending the past two years living with four similarly inclined roommates.

Blaine watches him devour his half of the pizza in the time it takes Blaine to finish a slice and half, lips curled into a tiny half smile. Once Kurt has popped the last bit of crust into his mouth, Blaine wordlessly holds out a handful of napkins to him, one eyebrow quirked, and Kurt blushes as he wipes down his hands and a large amount of his face.

“You got a bit on your sweater, too,” Blaine says when Kurt sets down the tiny mountain of napkins on the table. Kurt looks down and groans at the rather spectacularly sized grease stain on his chest.

He dabs at it with a few more napkins, but gives up after a few moments, rolling his eyes and stating, “Whatever, Elliott’s magic with this kind of thing, I’ll just make him fix it later.”

Blaine chuckles at that and takes another small bite of his pizza, eyes dancing as they stay locked on Kurt’s as he chews.

Not-A-Date.

Kurt takes over the majority of the conversation as Blaine eats, and he keeps it as surface as possible. He mostly talks about school, going into as much detail as he can about all the classes he’s taking this semester,  how he only has one class with a professor he’s never had before, and how he has at least one teammate in every class, something he didn’t coordinate but is more than thankful for.

Blaine doesn’t seem to react any differently to Kurt mentioning his teammates than he did to any of Kurt’s other stories, but Kurt still decides not to continue down that particular conversation stream. As much as he’s trying to keep this Not-A-Date, he’s also been having a great time, and he doesn’t want to ruin that by potentially bringing up anything that could lead to a discussion about their rivalry.

Barely an hour has passed since they arrived by the time Blaine finishes his pizza. He wipes his lips and fingers down one final time, smiling a bit too widely at Kurt as he does.

“This was really fun.”

Not-A-Date.

“We should do this more often. You know, just hang out.”

Not-A-Date.

“You’re a really cool guy, Kurt.”

Not-A-Date.

“I’m glad you agreed to this.”

Not-A-Date.

“I’m just sorry that I have to head out so soon. My class is at three-thirty, and the Columbus campus is—”

Not-A-Date.

Not-A-Date.

Not-A-Date.

“Skip it.”

Blaine’s eyebrows shoot up, and Kurt’s heart skips a beat. Take it back, take it back, tell him you didn’t mean it, tell him—

“What?”

Take it back. “Skip your class,” the words come out, his mouth seemingly ignoring all commands from his brain. “Come home with me.”

Blaine presses his lips together, but Kurt can still see the corner of his mouth twitching up.

“I thought you said no funny business.”

Kurt swallows thickly, cheeks heating up. He looks down at the empty pizza box on their table and the heaps of napkins tossed around it.

“Right. Well, you have class, so.”

He hears Blaine chuckle and brings his eyes up hesitantly at that. Blaine is no longer hiding his smile, and his eyes are so warm on Kurt’s that it makes his heart ache a little.

“The semester just started,” Blaine says. “I think I can afford to skip this once.”

Not-A-Date.

*

It’s faster than usual, Kurt feeling pent up from trying to keep things so casual before. They don’t even get fully undressed, basically just shrug out of their coats once they’re in Kurt’s room and fall into Kurt’s bed, pulling their dicks out and jacking each other off like goddamn teenagers until Kurt’s sweatshirt and Blaine’s vest have tiny stains of come dotting them.

“Crap,” Blaine says once they’ve cleaned themselves up and made themselves somewhat more presentable, looking down at his vest with a bit of a pout. “Sam is going to be so mad at me for doing another load of laundry so soon.”

“Sorry,” Kurt replies, purposefully stopping himself from looking down at the various marks now staining his own sweater.

Blaine looks up at him, smiles, leans over and presses a quick kiss to his lips.

“Worth it,” he says with a grin.

Kurt smiles back, then picks up his phone to check the time. “It’s only two forty-five,” he says, chewing on his bottom lip for a moment. “You could probably still make it to your class.”

Blaine scrunches up his nose and says, “Nah. I’d rather keep hanging out with you,” he presses another kiss to Kurt’s lips. “You want to go for a walk?”

Kurt narrows his eyes at that. “It’s freezing out, Blaine.”

“So, change into something warmer.”

His eyes are sparkling, lips spread into an infectious grin, and Kurt chuckles as he stands and heads to his closet.

“Fine. But if I freeze out there, I’m totally blaming you.”

Blaine laughs, shaking his head lightly and says, “Deal.”

Not-A-Date my ass.

 the twenty-third time

Blaine keeps up the façade of hanging out as just friends, no funny business, when he asks Kurt to come over for a movie night a couple of days after their not-a-date at the pizza place. Except he’s very clear that Sam will be out all night with his girlfriend, and that maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea for Kurt to bring an overnight bag just in case things run late and he wants to crash on Blaine’s couch.

Kurt wants to call him out on how Obviously-A-Date this is, but he also wants to go and doesn’t really feel like getting into it with Blaine.

So, he packs his bag, tells his roommates that he’ll be back the next morning (pointedly ignoring the catcalls they send his way) and hops on the subway to Blaine’s apartment.

In Blaine’s defense, he’s done a good job of playing up the excuse for getting Kurt to spend the night. There’s a folded up blanket and a pillow on the arm of the couch, and Blaine is just as dressed down as Kurt was the last time they met up.

It’s still very much Obviously-A-Date, though, because instead of ordering food in Blaine has cooked them dinner. It’s just pasta, but the effort gone into it doesn’t go over Kurt’s head. He’s also bought a fairly nice bottle of red wine to go with the pasta, and after they’ve eaten produces the most scrumptious looking homemade cinnamon buns that Kurt has ever seen out of the oven.

“I like to bake,” is what Blaine says when Kurt tells him that it’s too much for just a movie night. Which may be true, but Kurt also knows that cinnamon buns are tricky and time-consuming as he, too, likes to bake. He, for one, only makes them when he’s trying to impress someone.

Which, if Blaine is trying to do, is definitely working.

They settle into the couch after their dinner and start up on some shitty romantic comedy on Netflix.

At the start of the movie they’re each comfortably on separate sides of the couch, sharing knowing looks whenever something particularly cliché happens. Then, about fifteen minutes in, Blaine stands up to go get another cinnamon bun, and when he sits back down, he is significantly closer to Kurt.

It’s quite distracting having Blaine so close to him, especially when he starts to lick the excess icing off his fingers after every single bite. Kurt spends the next five minutes ignoring the movie in favor of watching Blaine lave his tongue over his own fingers, cock growing hard in his pants at the memory of that tongue on himself.

Blaine catches Kurt looking moments after popping the last piece of the bun into his mouth. He raises an eyebrow, still licking the icing off of his fingers, and then far too innocently asks, “What?”

Kurt practically pounces on him at that, covering Blaine’s lips with his own and licking out the taste of the icing from his mouth. Blaine moans into the kiss, pulling Kurt closer and almost immediately wrapping a leg around his hips to bring them down onto Blaine’s.

The movie is still running, ignored, in the background when they hop off the couch and hurry to Blaine’s room hand-in-hand.

At least they can say they tried, right?

 the twenty-seventh time

“Fuck, Kurt,” Blaine is under him, Kurt’s hands splayed over his chest as Kurt bounces on his cock. His thighs burn, but Kurt ignores them, fucking himself faster on Blaine’s cock as he feels his orgasm building.

“I’m—”

“Me, too,” Kurt says, fingers digging into Blaine’s chest. Blaine wordlessly brings a hand up to Kurt’s cock, wrapping his fingers around it as Kurt continues to speed up his thrusts.

“Shit,” Kurt groans, head falling back as Blaine pumps his cock in time with his thrusts. It doesn’t take long before Kurt is coming all over his own stomach and Blaine’s hand, and within moments he feels Blaine convulsing beneath him as he comes as well.

He practically collapses on top of Blaine once he’s come down, causing Blaine’s dick to slip out of him. Blaine groans at the sensation, and Kurt grumbles into his chest.

“I can’t feel my legs,” he mutters.

Blaine laughs at that, gently pushing Kurt off of him until he is lying next to him instead of directly on top. “Soccer season ending has got you a little out of shape, huh?”

“Get fucked,” Kurt mutters, whacking Blaine on the chest with as much energy as he can summon. Which isn’t actually that much, as the action only makes Blaine laugh a little louder.

“Just did,” comes Blaine’s reply after a few moments.

Kurt can’t even sum up the energy to act annoyed about that, so instead he just mutters a string of words that don’t even make sense into Blaine’s chest, resting his face on its warmth.

“I didn’t quite get that,” Blaine teases, fingers coming up to card through Kurt’s hair.

“Me neither,” Kurt says, sighing at the feeling of Blaine’s fingers.

Blaine chuckles and continues to move his fingers softly. It feels like heaven, the gentle feeling against his scalp in contrast to the burning in his legs. He settles further into Blaine’s chest, pressing a soft kiss to the skin beneath his lips, then lets his cheek rest there.

“My mom got me tickets to West Side Story for Christmas,” Blaine whispers, continuing his ministrations on Kurt’s hair.

“Yeah?” Kurt responds, just to let Blaine know he heard him. His eyes flutter shut as he feels himself relaxing further and further into the bed.

“They’re for next week,” Blaine continues, and Kurt can hear his heart speeding up a little where his head is lying.

Kurt’s finger starts to make a circle on Blaine’s side, where it’s been resting.

“Blaine?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you asking me to go to West Side Story with you?”

Blaine’s heart is definitely beating faster now, and it makes Kurt smile to himself. It’s not every day that he can literally feel the nerves that asking him out is making someone feel.

“Just as friends,” Blaine says quietly, fingers stilling. “No… no funny business.”

Kurt’s smile grows against Blaine’s chest at the words.

Because it’s silly, isn’t it? They’ve hung out so many times over the past few weeks, just as friends, no funny business, and every single time has ended with them in bed and Kurt leaving with a mental countdown to the next time they’ll meet up.

He’s starting to wonder what the point of all this “just friends” stuff really is. Other than a nonsensical fear over people’s reaction to the fact that he may actually like Blaine.

After all, it’s been clear since the first time that Blaine asked him to hang out that Blaine didn’t want it to be just as friends. That something had changed for Blaine throughout their time together. And maybe the first time he’d asked him Kurt wasn’t completely certain if things had changed for him too, but ever since the day at the pizza place, their hang out after, and the subsequent Not-A-Date’s they’ve been on…

“No,” Kurt says, opening his eyes slowly.

He could swear that Blaine’s heart literally skipped a beat when he said it, and Kurt instantly regrets playing coy.

“No?” Blaine asks, removing his fingers from Kurt’s hair.

“No, I mean,” Kurt pushes himself up on his hands so that he can look at Blaine when he says it. “I don’t want it to be just as friends with no funny business.” Blaine’s lips part a bit, one eyebrow raising.

“Then what would it be?” Blaine asks, and Kurt would be annoyed at the impertinence, but he guesses he kind of deserves it.

“A date?” He asks, shrugging one shoulder up and sending Blaine a hesitant smile.

Blaine’s face cracks into a happy smile. “Yeah?”

Kurt nods. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Blaine says, wrapping an arm firmly around Kurt’s back. Kurt takes the hint and leans back down onto Blaine’s chest, happy when Blaine’s free hand goes back to his hair. “A date.”

“A date,” Kurt repeats, pressing another kiss to Blaine’s chest.

 the twenty-eighth time

“You’re looking spiffy Hummel,” Mike says when Kurt exits his room. He grins at his friend, doing a little spin for him and Elliott, who are both sitting on the couch in their living room dicking around the PS4.

“Hot date?” Elliott asks, waggling his eyebrows as Mike wolf-whistles when Kurt finishes the spin.

“I sure do,” Kurt says, rubbing his hands down his thighs and licking his lips. “With Blaine.”

Mike and Elliott instantly frown, turning to each other with narrowed eyes.

“Blaine?”

“As in…?”

Kurt nods. “Yes, as in Blaine Anderson, Captain of the Columbia Lions. That Blaine.”

“Kurt are you—”

“Serious? Yes, I am,” Kurt says, glaring at Elliott, who snaps his mouth shut at the interruption. “I wouldn’t be telling you if I wasn’t.”

“When… how…?” Mike glances between Kurt and Elliott as he stammers, then settles his eyes on Kurt. “I don’t understand.”

“A while, and the how is not important,” Kurt says, not feeling like getting into the hate-sex-becoming-feelings portion of this just yet. “What is important is that I like him, and we’re going to see West Side Story, and if any of you give me any shit over this, I will not hesitate to kick your ass to Tuesday.”

Both Elliott and Mike raise up defensive hands, but neither speaks.

Kurt nods, then says, “Great. I’ll see you guys after my date. Or,” he scrunches up his nose, then says, “Maybe not. We’ll see.”

They don’t say anything else as Kurt leaves, and Kurt shuts the door behind him feeling like he just let a huge weight off his shoulders.

*

Blaine is waiting for him at the subway station closest to the theater, and the first thing he asks is, “Did you tell them?”

Kurt nods, smiling. “Did you?”

Blaine nods as well. “Well, just Sam,” he says. “He said he always thought there was something more than just rivalry between us.”

Kurt chuckles. “I just told Mike and Elliott. They…” he presses his lips together, scrunching up his entire face, then settles on, “I wouldn’t say they took it well, but they also didn’t try and physically stop me from coming, so. I guess that’s something.”

Blaine reaches out and takes Kurt’s hand, interlacing their fingers immediately. “I guess that’s that, then. Our friends know.”

“Our friends know,” Kurt nods. He squeezes Blaine’s hand. “And now there’s nothing hanging over us to stop us from enjoying our first official date.”

Blaine smirks a little, then asks, “Official?”

“Well, yeah, unlike those unofficial Not-A-Date’s we were going on before.”

Blaine laughs, lifting Kurt’s hand up to press a kiss to it. “You’re great, you know that?”

Kurt grins and nods. “Duh.”

*

Kurt’s apartment is closer to the theatre, and even though Blaine is a little concerned about the idea of flaunting their new relationship in Kurt’s teammates' faces so soon after revealing it, Kurt doesn’t care.

“They’re going to have to get used to seeing you around sooner or later,” Kurt reasons as they step onto the subway. “Might as well be sooner.”

Blaine grins, leaning into Kurt. “Planning on keeping me around for a while, huh?”

Kurt shrugs. “We’ll see.”

Blaine hides his face against Kurt’s shoulder, laughing a little. “We’ll see?”

Kurt shrugs again. “I mean, I kind of like you. A little. Which is weird, because I totally hated you a few months ago.”

“So weird,” Blaine agrees, kissing Kurt’s shoulder lightly. “I kind of like you too, you know?”

“Well that’s convenient,” Kurt says, and Blaine chuckles yet again.

*

Mike, Matt, and Jake are all sitting on the couch when Kurt and Blaine walk in.

“Oh, shit,” Matt says, eyes widening. “I thought you were joking,” this is directed at Mike, who rolls his eyes.

“I was not,” Mike says, glancing briefly at Kurt before looking back to the TV.

“I think it’s nice,” Jake says, smiling at the two of them. “Plus, it’s not like they were super subtle with the unresolved sexual tension on the field.”

“Unresolved?” Blaine asks quietly, and Kurt elbows him gently.

“Yeah, dude, good for you,” Matt says, giving Kurt a somewhat hesitant smile. “Anderson’s hot for a dude, even if he is a Lion.”

Both Jake and Matt turn to glare at Mike, who doesn’t respond until Jake kicks him swiftly in the shin.

“Ow, fuck,” Mike drops a hand down to rub at his shin, glaring at Jake before turning to Kurt and Blaine and saying, “Yeah, congratulations, I’m happy you’re happy.”

Kurt chuckles at that, shaking his head at how stubborn his teammates can be. “Mike, I think if you put aside our stupid rivalry – which doesn’t even really matter anymore because, if you didn’t notice, none of us play for the Violets anymore – you’ll find that you and Blaine actually have a lot in common. I bet you guys could even become friends.”

Mike waves a dismissive hand, eyes back on the TV. “Yeah, sure, I’ll get to work on that. Just don’t be too loud when you’re sexing it up in there, okay? It’s distracting.”

Kurt rolls his eyes, but figures that’s about as good as it’s going to get for now. He pulls Blaine towards his room, ignoring the way that Blaine is shaking with silent laughter.

“I guess that could have gone worse?” Blaine says once Kurt has closed the door behind them.

“Way worse,” Kurt agrees, then pushes Blaine back onto his bed, wordlessly telling him that he’s done talking about it.

 the thirty-second time

Sam is out, and Kurt and Blaine are tangled together under Blaine’s sheets. Kurt is trying to suck a hickey into the hollow of Blaine’s neck as subtly as possible, while Blaine ruts up against Kurt’s thigh, whining at the not-nearly-enough pressure Kurt is providing.

“Kurt, come on,” Blaine says, running a hand down Kurt’s back, fingernails scratching over him lightly.

“Come on, what?” Kurt asks, sucking a little harder at the red spot beneath his lips.

“Just… something. Anything.” Kurt smirks against Blaine’s skin, then lifts his head slightly so Blaine can see him raise his eyebrows at him challengingly.

Blaine huffs, digs his nails into Kurt’s back, and says, “Fuck me.”

Kurt pushes himself up to kiss Blaine softly on the lips, whispering, “See how easy it is to use your words?”

Blaine groans, pushing Kurt away and towards the nightstand where he keeps his lube and condoms.

Kurt goes happily, grabbing what they need and immediately starting to coat his fingers in the lube. He warms it up briefly, probably not enough, then brings two fingers down to Blaine’s hole and presses them in.

“Cold,” Blaine hisses, just as Kurt expected him to. Kurt chuckles, gently pressing the fingers in and out of him.

“You wanted something.”

“You’re a dick,” Blaine mutters, then gasps when Kurt curls his fingers inside him. Serves him right.

“Maybe enough using your words for now, huh?” Kurt continues the slow movement of his fingers, taking his time in a way that he knows drives Blaine absolutely crazy.

It’s at least five minutes before he pulls out to re-apply lube to his fingers, including a third this time. He presses them in far too slowly, and Blaine groans, punching a fist against the mattress as he lifts his hips and wriggles them.

“Come on, Kurt,” he says. “It’s been forever since we did this.”

“Exactly,” Kurt whispers. “Which is why I want to be extra careful to make sure I don’t hurt you.”

“For fuck’s – Kurt. Please.”

Kurt smirks, stretching his fingers out inside Blaine, then bringing them together to gently stroke at Blaine’s muscles with the pads of his fingers. He can feel the way Blaine contracts around him at the motion, and so repeats the action, thrilling at the feeling of it and the thought of how soon, he’ll be able to feel that around his cock.

“Kurt, oh my god,” Blaine says, punching the mattress again. “Do not make me beg, I’m serious.”

As much as Kurt would love to go down that road, he does have to admit that he’s getting a little too worked up himself. With a quiet, “Alright, alright,” he pulls his fingers out. He makes quick work of the condom, rolling it on and then spreading a bit more lube over his cock.

Before long he’s lined himself up against Blaine’s hole and is pushing in slowly, no longer to tease Blaine but out of fear of this being over embarrassingly soon.

“Shit,” Blaine groans. “You’re so big. Don’t know how I always forget you’re so big.”

Kurt barely hears the praise, focusing on not coming instantly as Blaine’s tight, hot body welcomes him in.

Once he’s bottomed out, he pauses for a moment, eyes shut, and hands clenched around the sheets around Blaine’s head. He bites down on his bottom lip, breathing in and out through his nose.

“Kurt,” Blaine whispers, and Kurt’s eyes open to find Blaine’s directly below him, staring up at him with blown pupils and a softness that Kurt can’t really believe is directed at him. “Hey,” Blaine continues when Kurt’s eyes have opened. “You okay?”

Kurt nods, then lowers himself down to press a kiss to Blaine’s lips, his cock shifting inside of Blaine as he does so.

“Fuck,” he mutters at the same time as Blaine says, “Oh, shit,” against his lips. They both chuckle quietly, and then, not wanting to waste more time, Kurt begins to roll his hips in a slow, but steady, pace.

Blaine’s head falls back against the mattress, and he hooks a leg around Kurt’s hips, pulling him in just a little deeper with every thrust.

Neither speaks as they build a rhythm together, their bodies moving in sync. Despite how many times they’ve done this, Kurt still finds himself amazed at how well they fit together. How easy it is to be with Blaine like this. How, even when they hated each other, he couldn’t help but admit that nobody had ever been so perfectly matched for him, sexually, as Blaine is.

Now, of course, he knows that it’s more than just sex. The few weeks he’s been dating Blaine have felt like something out of his high school fantasies. The way their conversations ebb and flow come as easily as the movements of their bodies together. Their plans always line up perfectly, even if they aren’t exactly what either of them planned, and every time he leaves Blaine’s apartment, or wherever they’ve met up, or watches as Blaine leaves him, he starts to count down the minutes until they will see each other again.

It was only months ago that he hated the fact that he couldn’t stop falling into bed with Blaine. Now he can’t imagine why he would be doing anything else.

“I’m not going to last much longer,” Blaine says, bringing up his other leg to full wrap around Kurt. Kurt takes the hint and begins to speed up his thrusts, simultaneously bringing a hand down to jack Blaine off as he does.

He can feel his own orgasm building but does his best to hold it back. Blaine starts to whine as he gets closer, and soon enough he’s coming over Kurt’s fist, his muscles contracting around Kurt in what Kurt is pretty sure is the closest he will ever feel to heaven.

Kurt lets himself follow Blaine, the feeling of the muscles around him just enough to push him over the edge. He fucks Blaine through it, reveling in the sounds of Blaine’s moans as he starts to come down from his orgasm just moments before Kurt does.

He pulls out as soon as he’s finished, careful to go slow. He makes quick work of the clean up, throwing out the condom and grabbing a few tissues from Blaine’s nightstand to mop things up quickly.

“We’re going to have to shower,” Blaine mutters as Kurt tosses the tissues in the general direction of the trash.

“I have no problem with that,” Kurt says, lowering himself back onto the bed and curling into Blaine’s side.

They lay in silence for a few moments, Kurt enjoying the rise and fall of Blaine’s chest under his cheek. He notices that the spot he’d been sucking on early is indeed starting to darken further, and grins to himself at the knowledge that he put that there. That he’s the one who gets to kiss Blaine, fuck him, and give him hickeys to announce to the entire world that there is someone in Blaine’s life who wants to be known.

He smiles, running a finger in slow circles over Blaine’s chest.

“Hey,” he says, turning his head slightly to make sure that Blaine can hear him well.

“Yeah?”

Kurt feels his smile growing a little bit more as he asks, “Be my boyfriend?”

The sound of Blaine’s heart speeding up in his chest is enough answer for Kurt, but the soft, sweet, “Of course,” that Blaine whispers seconds after Kurt has asked is even better.

 the first time

The tiled wall of the shower stall is cool against Kurt’s palm, but Blaine’s back is warm against his chest, his hip is hot under Kurt’s other hand, and his ass is scorching around his cock. Not to mention the spray of warm water falling over them as they groan in unison, Kurt pressing Blaine’s body into the cool tile with every thrust.

It happened fast. They were the last two in the Lions locker room, exchanging snide jabs over the tiny dividing wall between their showers. Blaine leaned over a little too far during a retort and his eye travelled down. The longer he stared, the more it affected Kurt, who found himself embarrassingly hardening under the eye of his rival.

Then, they were kissing. First over the shower divider, then together in Blaine’s shower stall, Kurt pressing Blaine up against the wall. Then Blaine was excusing himself and returning surprisingly quickly with a travel-sized pack of lube and a condom. He pushed the items into Kurt’s hand, then pressed himself back up against the wall, ass sticking out invitingly.

And now they’re here. Despite being able to follow the chain of events quite easily, Kurt is still having some trouble believing that it’s real, that he’s actually fucking Blaine Anderson in the goddamn Lions showers.

“Just so you know,” Blaine says, voice breathless, “this doesn’t change anything. I still hate you.”

“Ditto,” Kurt retorts, moving the hand on the wall down to Blaine’s other hip to be able to fuck him a little more forcefully.

“Shit,” Blaine mutters. Then, a little louder, “I’m still going to kick your ass during this tournament.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Kurt replies, thrusting deep into Blaine’s ass.

“And this isn’t going to become a thing,” Blaine continues as though Kurt hadn’t said anything. “We’re not going to become fuck buddies, or something like that.”

“Don’t you have to be buddies for that to work?” Kurt asks, punctuating the sarcasm with another forceful thrust.

“Exact- fuck,” Blaine’s forehead falls forward and rests against the tiled wall. “So, we’re agreed.”

“Yeah,” Kurt says, gripping Blaine’s hips a little tighter. “Just a one-time fuck. Relieve the tension.”

“Great,” Blaine says. “I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

Kurt continues to fuck Blaine as hard as he can in this position, digging his fingernails into Blaine’s hips, hoping to leave marks that will last at least a few days.

“Definitely,” Kurt manages, pressing his entire body right up against Blaine’s, taking in his warmth, how tight he feels, how perfect he fits against him. If this is going to be the only time, he gets to do this, after all, he’s going to do everything he can to take it all in. Wring every drop of this moment into his mind, where he knows he’ll replay it for at least the entire duration of this tournament every single time he jacks off.

Blaine shouts, “Fuck, Kurt,” and Kurt feels his orgasm growing from the pit of his stomach.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, voice so quiet he’s not sure Blaine can hear him even from this close. “Definitely same page.”

[fizzingwizard]

I fell asleep so here’s day 5 a bit late to party... Day 6 will surely be late too xP Again, thanks for the comments last time, I enjoyed them, even the ones hidden in tags haha.

Koushirou and Taichi have a talk post-Bokura no Mirai. Watch out, cuz both boys have mouths on them. Taishiro if you squint.

---

Tri week day 5 - Survival - They Make Miracles

Taichi texted him wanting to hang out over after school, and as Koushirou had spent the day at the office, that meant Taichi came there. He spread out on the couch, flipping through the pages of some comic book. Koushirou sat at his desk. They had a bottle of cold oolong each and a bowl of shrimp crackers. Out the window, the din of rush hour traffic filtered in from the Tokyo streets below.

Some might look at them and think they were ignoring each other, each occupied in separate activities, only looking up to acknowledge there was someone else in the room when their hands bumped reaching into the cracker bowl. But their friendship worked like this. In fact, if the long stretches of silence bothered Taichi at all, he would have ditched Koushirou way back in elementary school.

That was something about Taichi not everyone understood: he could get as wrapped up in his own head as Koushirou did. Sometimes it seemed like Taichi sought him out because he wouldn't have to feel pressured to make small talk. He wanted to think, and he wanted someone else to be there while he was thinking, but not Sora, who would want give him advice, and not Yamato, who would stay quiet but coiled with tension until Taichi finally said something to bring them back to known waters. Koushirou, at least, understood the need for privacy for his thoughts, even if he didn't quite get why Taichi still wanted another body there anyway.

So it came as a surprise when Taichi shattered the silence, a page of the comic book suspended in the air as he paused mid-turn. "I'm never going to know if it was a mistake or not, am I," he said.

Koushirou looked up. Taichi's gaze was fixed on a random spot on the coffee table. But then he straightened, throwing his arms over the back of the couch in a deceptively casual move. His face, though, he kept turned away.

On days like this, Koushirou tended to be so involved in his work that, even if Taichi did have something to say, all he'd get in reply was a vague "Hmm." Later he might not even remember that they'd talked. It was a habit that drove Mimi up the wall, but once again, Taichi never seemed to mind that much. Of course, most of the time the conversation was along the lines of "Look at the cool play this soccer star made," or "Can you believe Satou-sensei expects us to finish the group project by tomorrow?" and "Hmm" was, more or less, all the response needed. Plus Koushirou was pretty sure Taichi sometimes took advantage of it to insist he had agreed to things he couldn't recall ever discussing.

Too bad he couldn't pretend this was about a mistake on some test.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard while he weighed his options. "... The world isn't divided into good and bad, Taichi-san," he said at last, though once the words were out, they felt pale and trite horribly inadequate. "For what it's worth, I think you made the right choice. Really the only choice."

He didn't add the rest: that he viewed killing Meicoomon as akin to chopping off a gangrenous limb. A terrible choice to make, but without it, the necrotic tissue would continue to spread and infect until there was nothing left. The metaphor worked, but he felt pretty sure the depersonalization wouldn't sit well with Taichi.

Taichi made a noncommittal noise. Something knotted in Koushirou's stomach. Probably, more than any of the others, Koushirou was the least upset with how things had ended with Meicoomon. In his wildest dreams he'd never imagined separating a Chosen from their partner, let alone - let alone killing one. When he'd realized Meiko might know the password to unlock the Digimons' sealed memories, hope had struck him like a bolt of lightning: all those dark predictions he couldn't see his way out of were about to be swept away by a miracle. Just like when they were kids.

That was the fatal error. There hadn't been any miracles when they were kids.

It had only felt that way because they didn't know how else to explain the unexplainable.

He and Taichi had talked many times over the years, about the fact that they were killers. The others didn't get a lot out of putting it into words like that, but it was true. They'd been killing since they were ten years old, killing to protect, killing to survive. It was just that, this time, they'd killed someone that loved.

"I just," Taichi swallowed thickly. "At the time, we... there wasn't any more time, but... now I just wonder... no one else wanted to do it, they all followed my lead and maybe... Sorry, I'm not making any sense..."

"We followed your lead like we always do, Taichi-san, because you lead us well." In a sudden fit of nerves, Koushirou pushed off the polished surface of his desk and stood. Once standing, though, he felt infinitely more awkward and wished he hadn't.

He was trying to think of an unobtrusive way to disappear behind his workspace again when Taichi at long last gave up staring at the wall. He looked over at Koushirou with liquid brown eyes. It was only the briefest of glances before he hunched over on the edge of the couch, fingers digging into his scalp.

His next words were muffled and wet-sounding.

"Nishijima-sensei died. I was - I was so messed up. I shouldn't have made that decision. I shouldn't have made any decisions. I was - what's the word they use -"

"Compromised?" Koushirou offered.

"Yeah, that."

Fuck.

Why did Taichi have to come to him for comfort? Yamato or Sora would be so much better at this.

If they were better, he would have gone to them, Tentomon's matter-of-fact voice in his head pointed out. Tentomon was in the digital world at present, but Koushirou didn't need him there to know what he'd think about this.

Then another voice, one that didn't sound like Tentomon at all, added: Maybe comfort isn't all he wants.

"You witnessed something... unspeakable," Koushirou said gently. His feet seemed to move as if on automatic, making a winding path around the desk to stand at the coffee table's edge, an arm's length away from where Taichi had begun to collapse in on himself. "It had to affect your judgment."

A beat. Taichi gave a tremulous nod.

"It doesn't follow that your judgment must have been mistaken, Taichi-san."

The hands smoothed down his face. "But I'm never going to know," he said in a dull voice.

Folding his arms, Koushirou sat down on the opposite seat. "Let's not deal in vagaries. Here's what I know," he said, careful to keep his tone level, bussinesslike. "I know the world was going to change, at that moment, one way or another. I know a lot was at stake." Lives, the entire world - Mochizuki and Meicoomon. Taichi was certainly thinking it on his own. Koushirou forced himself to hold his gaze as he went on. "I know Meicoomon's data had been corrupted beyond recognition. I know Yggdrasil and Homeostasis both intended to move regardless of how we felt about it. I don't know how much was ever really salvageable. But I know you salvaged control. We're not their unwitting pawns, and that's thanks to you."

A slow smile crept over Taichi's face, brittle at the edges. "Isn't that thanks to you? Every time we need a miracle, Koushirou, you -"

"There are no miracles," Koushirou interrupted, with a stubborn set of his jaw, "that don't sacrifice on the altar of mysticism the ones who broke their backs to make them happen."

Stunned silence. Taichi gave a startled laugh. "Wow... I'm not sure I understood all the words there."

"Maybe there was a way to save Meicoomon." The words spilled out like a runaway train, and he had no idea if he was helping or hurting, but he couldn't stop now. "And maybe there was a way to save the digital world that didn't involve abducting eight children from their homes and making them fight for their lives, resetting their innocence, teaching them how the world assigns value, whether something is cheap or precious, based on circumstance, on convenience. We all handled it the best way we knew how, and sometimes - sometimes that way wasn't very good. The whole time, there was one thing that got us through it, day after day. Taichi-san, do you know what it is?"

Taichi looked as if he were hanging onto what Koushirou was saying like it were a lifeline. He nodded. "It was hope."

"No, Taichi-san," Koushirou said viciously. "It was you."

Taichi's throat worked, and his long, dark lashes stuttered. He seemed to try to answer, but lost the words he'd been looking for. "Fuck," he choked out after a while, head tilted back to stare at the ceiling.

Koushirou gave him time to get a hold of himself. He'd seen Taichi cry before. Always out of guilt. Well, not this time - not if he could help it.

The ping of an incoming message lit up his computer, followed by an insistent buzz from his phone a moment later. He didn't get up.

"I-I wish-" Koushirou listened in silence as Taichi tripped and stumbled over his unruly emotions. He suspected it had been a while since Taichi had done any sort of maintenance on them. Not since Meicoomon, probably.

"I wish we could have saved Meicoomon, Koushirou." He'd never sounded so much like a child, not even when he was one.

"We all do."

"But I don't know if it's because I regret what I did, or because I don't like the way Yamato and Sora treat me now, like I'm about to break down any second, or because Hikari will never look up to me the same way again-"

"None of the above. It's because you're a good person, Taichi-san."

The look on Taichi's face was somewhere between bleak and utterly desperate. "How can you be so sure about that?"

"I know many things," Koushirou said. "I think you'll agree with me there. I could be wrong about any of them, but not that one thing." He didn't smile, he didn't let his gaze waver. "Never that."

I don't wany any leader that isn't you.

"Fuck you," said Taichi, voice breaking, but there was unexpected laughter at the end of it. "Geez, Koushirou. What am I supposed to with that?" He shook his head, looking exhausted. "I couldn't talk about it before. I couldn't - make things all about me, when Mochizuki's the one who-" He stopped, fists curling and uncurling on his knees. "Yamato will beat me up if that's what I want from him. Sora will tell me everything's fine even if it's not what she really thinks. Hikari won't talk about it all. I figured you at least didn't hate me for what happened. Out of all of us, you would have thought everything through for yourself. At least your opinion would be your own."

"It is," Koushirou promised.

Taichi nodded. The color had begun to return to his face. Slowly, as if carding through his thoughts, he said: "I'll never know if it was a mistake. But it's done."

"It's done."

"That's not much of a balm for the soul," Taichi sighed.

Koushirou looked down. "I guess not," he said. "It's real, though."

Another silence followed. Like the calm after a storm, Koushirou thought. He did feel as though they'd just weathered some catastrophe, or perhaps escaped it by a hair.

"She says she doesn't hate me," Taichi said after a few minutes passed in therapeutic quiet. "Mochizuki."

"Ah."

"But she's... y'know. Kind. She's the type to blame herself for things that aren't her fault."

Koushirou shrugged. "Seems like you two are a matched set, then."

Taichi gave him a sharp look, but didn't say anything. He took a deep breath, whole body swelling like a cresting wave. Then he reached for a shrimp cracker.

"Damn... heavy talk makes me hungry."

Koushirou couldn't help it. He laughed. And reached for his bottle of oolong. He was parched.

"Koushirou..." Ah, he knew what was coming now. "Thanks. When I came over, I didn't mean for..."

"I don't want thanks. Or apologies." I just want you. But, no, that... he wasn't at a point where he could say that just yet. "I just want you at your best. I still think we can change the world, Taichi-san."

A hesitant grin. "That's a promise," Taichi said, only it sounded more like "fash a fwomish" with his mouth full of cracker.

Demons couldn't be defeated in a single afternoon, over oolong tea and shrimp crackers, despite best intentions. Koushirou knew that. He'd dealt with his fair share of demons and they were intractable little brutes. But Taichi could out-stubborn anything. He wouldn't have been able to lead them this far if that weren't true.

As for Mochizuki Meiko - even if Taichi couldn't quite admit it yet, Koushirou thought he understood why she was being "kind." Because though what they'd taken had been enormous, they'd done their utmost to give back what they could. It might be small, but seeds always are. Mochizuki had a future stretched out before her too, free from the designs of any government organization or mysterious otherworldly power. Teeming with possibilities, neither good nor bad. Simply there.

Taichi was going to change the world. Koushirou meant to do the same. People would say they made miracles, but the two of them would call it something else.

They would call it living.

---

as usual i am an overdramatic bitch

side note: I was gonna have Koushirou call out Taichi for saying Yamato would beat him up, but just didn’t find a spot for it. So for clarity’s sake, this is Taichi being hard on himself, not indicative of what Yamato would actually do. We all saw him cry after losing his bestie *wibble*

I don’t know how they can both reach the shrimp cracker bowl if Koushirou’s at the desk and Taichi’s on the couch, by the way. I guess it’s hovering in the air between them, or they both have Elastigirl arms :P