#but in my heart it is also a trauma response to getting his apartment blown up <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[silverwhittlingknife]

dick vs. apartment organization, a story in three parts

new teen titans 10, new titans 65, nightwing: target

"i can't believe this place." "i thought you were moving." "you live like a slob."

everybody's a critic dsfsfdsf

[todomochi-uwu]

Of Unspoken Troubles & Loving You (3/3)

Pairing: Ushijima Wakatoshi x reader

Warnings: Angst

Author’s Notes: Done.

"Don't worry, Toshi. We'll be okay."

Previous parts: First Second Second&Half

Tension filled the entire gymnasium, you could feel it, the players could feel it, the rest of teams could feel it, everyone was gathering around the court, watching as each of the teams gave out their best to try and beat the other.

Anxiety ran through your veins, your shoulders were tense and the need to vomit was becoming more prominent each second it passed, you knew damn well you might have caused all this stupid rivalry, and while an outsider might see it as an over-exaggeration, the thought of someone getting hurt was throwing you over the edge. You could see the face of each and every single one of the boys, you could see the desperation, the nerves, the tiredness; and you couldn't help but pity them, there was nothing left to say, there was no way to convince them, it just simply would be stupid to do it.

The ball flew by leaving each court, points were given and groans let out, sweat covered their entire faces and their breathing so heavy it could be heard across the room; it was already the third set and none of the teams had asked for a time out, no one was giving up. It wasn´t until the mandatory rest at the half of the set that you could finally approach the boys.

"Hey boys, please take it easy. I don't want anyone getting hurt, okay? Please remember this is only a practice match, nothing to lose here." You try and calm them up, passing out water bottles, just as you were making sure everyone was okay, the rigidness of a chest crossed your way.

You looked up and couldn´t help but get flustered at the sight, Ushijima's breathing was heavy and sweat drops ran down his face, he sported the same stoic face as always but the look in his eyes was trying to tell you something, he longed for something and you knew what it was, wondering if you should give in and just comfort him, but once again the words 'Manager, not captain' filled your thoughts, and suddenly the urge washed away. "You are giving your best Ushijima san, but remember not to overwork it, Washijou wouldn´t like for you to pull a muscle." Patting his shoulder, you made your way to the rest of the team.

You were helping Tendou bandage his fingers, which were now red and bloated from all the blocking he had done, every time you would pass the bandages around them he would let out a small hiss, "You know, he didn't mean to be an asshole, he´s sorry for what he did." Tendou mumbled, making you frown "I see, so that´s why you are here apologizing for him." Tendou tried again, "Y/N…" "No, Tendou. I'm more than tired." You got up, finishing the last touches and going next to make sure Goshiki was okay.

-

The rest of the match was even worse, Kenma could barely breath and the look that covered Kuroo's face was one of pure frustration, the board wasn´t looking good for his team, 24-19, and while they had managed to win a set, he didn't think they could get away with the victory.

And while they tried their very best, in the end, it wasn't enough.

Everything was over, and while everyone seemed satisfied enough that the match was over, Kuroo couldn't help as if he had to prove himself to you. Feeling ashamed that even at this moments, Ushijima had managed to surpass him.

"Good job, guys!" You came running with towels and a box full of energy drinks, making sure everyone had one, even Nekoma. After reassuring all of them were okay, you spotted a very tired man sitting by the benches, head low, covered by a white towel and gasping for air still. Kuroo.

You approached him slowly, not wanting to startle him, "Hi." Your voice was small, not knowing how he would react.

He raised his head, the look in his eyes said everything, "Hey."

Few minutes passed by, no one knew what to say next.

"I knew that maybe we didn't stand a chance, but this is a new kind of humiliation." He giggled humourlessly.

"Kuroo…" You tried, before he continued, "I'm not mad at you, it would be stupid to be. I just can't believe that asshole has absolutely everything right in front of his fucking nose and yet he doesn't seem to care." He shook his head, desperation filling his veins, clouding his vision. "Fuck this." He got up and the process he kicked the bench next to him, making his way down the gym.

"Kuroo?" You followed him, worried for what he might do.

His pace didn't stop or faltered, his eyes screamed in fury and his body language indicated only one thing if Ushijima wasn't going to realize by himself how lucky he was, maybe he would have to give him a clue.

Meanwhile, you kept trying to stop him, reason with his logic and the thoughts that fogged his mind, but nothing worked, he was determined to do something.

"Ushijima!" The raw voice filled the hallway, making the miracle boy turn around. His features hardened at the sight of you behind Kuroo; he didn't say anything but didn't back down. "You are a fucking jerk, are you aware of that?"

Nothing you could say or do would change the current situation.

"You. You fucking idiot." His finger pointed directly, coming closer every second. "You have absolutely everything I have been killing myself for, you are monster in volleyball, we get it, but you also got her?" This time the attention was directed at you, making you uncomfortable, "And yet you dare ignore her and treat her like a piece of shit. Who the fuck do you think you are?" He couldn't hold back anymore, pushing his hands against Ushijima's chest, he kept going, not worrying about the consequences, "You don't deserve it, you don't deserve the love she's giving you." The final straw, "And for that, I'll make sure you don't get any more of it."

Snap.

Everything seemed so blurry, one moment to another Ushijima was on top of the middle blocker, punches flying everywhere, curses and threats were thrown and terror swallowed your heart.

Tendou and Reon trying to hold back Ushijima while Bokuto and Lev tried to do the same for Kuroo, it had finally blown up and you couldn't help but feel responsible.

Coaches surrounded the boys, dragging them apart and lecturing them in what just had happened; feeling completely useless you made your way outside, trying to clear your thoughts.

Was all of this necessary? Ushijima might be oblivious and blunt, but you loved him; he was also having a hard time and you knew it, yet decided to go on.

And what about Kuroo? Why did you have to get him involved in your mess? He was doing more than okay, yet you were selfish enough and dragged him.

If it was love, whatever you seemed to be in, why was it so difficult to feel happy? It surely shouldn't be like this, you should be able to communicate all your worries to Wakatoshi, it should not be this difficult, and to this, you worried. Was Ushijima the real problem here, or was there something more to it?

-

Making your way down to the nursery's office, know full well Ushijima and Kuroo would be there, not being quite ready to face them, not knowing what to say or how to act, you just knew you had to see them.

Sitting down on a bench next to the door was Kuroo, he was holding an ice pack to his right cheek and small bandages covered his lips along with some cream covering the small bruises in his nose. The sight of his face alone made your heart feel even heavier. "Hey, cry baby." He mumbled.

"Hey." You sat down, trying to find the right words. "You look like shit." God, why are you like this?

"Yeah? You should see what I did to him." He said lazily, "He doesn't punch as hard as I think he would, do you think he was holding back?" He smirked, before wincing out in pain.

"I am sorry."

He gave you frown, "Why?"

"I dragged you into all this mess, and now you are hurt. It was my mess to deal with and I involved you in it, for that I am sorry."

"You didn't do anything, I decided to be here and while I didn't expect it to turn out this way, I'm glad." He gave you a reassuring smile, cracking a little bit when the pain kicked in once again.

"You are a moron."

He giggled, "Yeah I might be, but I also know about who feels like an even bigger idiot." He sighed, "We had a little bit of a talk, and turns out he is aware of the problem; he owns it completely and is willing to try to make things better, but…"

He hesitated.

"I'm not sure about what you want."

You sighed, shaking your head "To be quite honest I don't know. I mean, I still love him, he's not a bad person and I'm sure he still loves me, but…"

"But…"

"But I'm not sure if it's the best thing to jump into it right away, maybe we should go back a few steps, you know?"

"I completely understand, and I know he will too. Just talk to him, he loves you enough to give you time and space, or to let you go if that's what you want."

Nodding, "I don't want him out of my life."

"And that won't happen but for now tell him how you feel, it'll be okay."

…

"Hey, Kuroo?"

"Yeah?"

"When we first met, you talked about going through the same situation, care enough to explain?"

"Fuck, I did talk about that huh? Well, let's just say I was taken for granted, treated like shit and I went through this spiral of lies and obsessive thoughts that emotionally destroyed me, that made me doubt myself, my friends and every single thing I believed in." He rubbed his hands, looking out the ground, "When I got out of it I felt so empty and dead on the inside I genuinely considered never dating again; it might sound like an overreaction, but I was so numb to the entire world I didn't think love was worth anything. And then, someone came in and made me realise that maybe, just maybe it wasn't my fault, it was my abuser's fault, that I wasn't at fault for giving my all to someone who just drained me, they helped me and now here we are." He looked into your eyes, "Sometimes I wonder if the trauma would have healed faster if they had appeared while I was still in that hell, instead of after. That´s why I felt the urge to help you, and while Ushijima is nowhere an asshole as my ex was, you were hurting and I hated seeing it."

"Kuroo…" Tears filled your eyes, threatening to fall.

"Oh common, please don't cry, I'm on the other side now and everything's okay."

"Do I know them?"

"Huh let's see, they are just as weird as you, but a little bit less annoying I guess." You groaned in annoyance, "I'm kidding, but yes you do know them."

"Aren't you going to tell me?" Before you could continue complaining the nursery's office door opened, and here he was, the giant, buffed, airheaded man you called your boyfriend.

Standing up you met his gaze, there was no coldness in it, no hate, no malice, just pure longing and regret, and your hurt couldn't help but clench. Taking his hand in between yours, you caressed it, making him shiver.

"Don't worry, Toshi. We'll be okay."

…

"So you want to break up?" He furrowed his eyebrows, his hands felt clammy and his breathier became a bit quicker.

"Not quite like that, I think we jump into a relationship way too quickly, we barely even knew each other and even if we have been in this for some months now, we are not working out as we should."

"I will try harder, I swear," He mumbled.

"And I know you will, I trust you to do it, but how about we make our priorities the things we love right now? Like you win those nationals and I focus on getting into university?"

"I didn't know having me impeded your education."

"It's not, but I want to know what's like to look out only for me, to know I'm not chasing anyone, just for a little while."

He nodded, didn't say a word for a few minutes, "I am sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel as if you were chasing me. I missed my chance and I understand it. Know that I still love you and will keep on doing it, and I respect your decision of letting things between us end." He vowed and turned around, not sure how to processed what just happened.

"Ushijima." "Yes?" Locking your arms around his waist, looking straight into his eyes and caressing the side of his face, "I am not letting you go, I can't. This is just for me to be able to heal, but I still love you Wakatoshi, please don't forget that."

His arms surrounded your waist, leaning his head against the crook of your neck and nodding, his body shaking slightly "Okay."

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[spacestationdaedalus]

when my demons won’t let me be

or: not in his right state of mind, Jon accidentally compels Martin. It’s not okay, but it’s okay.

or or: i spend so much time reading sick fic and i finally wrote one of my own angst and plenty of hurt/comfort, warnings for canon-typical compulsion and descriptions of panic and disassociation

Martin wakes to a shifting of weight and a cut off breath. It's a hazy half-awareness, coming to him under a snowdrift, on a radio station drowning in dull static.

In a well-practiced motion, Martin extends an arm over the covers to rest on Jon's chest. He doesn't let the full weight fall, not yet. Enough for Jon to know he's there, a touch light enough that Jon can readily push away or lean into. It depends on the particular brand of nightmare, the terror that's chosen to follow him to sleep. Sometimes he sets Martin's arm aside with a gentle squeeze, sitting up against the headboard and taking comfort in the cool bedroom air and the sound of Martin's breathing. At least, in Jon's own words. Other times, he holds Martin's arm to his chest, taking comfort in the weight and warmth of it.

Neither of those things happen, though.

Jon rolls sharply, seemingly ignoring Martin's arm in favor of the other side of the bed. He curls around himself with a low whine, harshly cut off in the back of his throat.

"J'n?" Martin props himself up on one arm. Voice rough with sleep, but no less concerned.

Jon shifts, a back and forth movement that looks like it could be the shaking of his head. His shoulders are taut and trembling. He makes another sound that could be the beginning of a shout, and it brings Martin to full awareness. He moves his hands to Jon's shoulder before he has time to think, desperate to help, to comfort, to something.

"Jon, it's alright-"

“Don’t touch me!” Jon bursts out, dripping and full of static and oh oh oh. It cascades over Martin’s mind, oily and slick. His hands pull away like they've been burned, but numb and far off. As though belonging to a stranger.

He shifts away from Jon and off of the bed, limbs moving robotically to pull back the covers, to move him away until his back meets the bedroom wall. Martin's hands are raised halfway, frozen in a caricature of comfort. A puppet on strings. He wants to move, shout, anything. But the gaze of eyes he can’t see bears down on him, an insurmountable weight holding him in place. Like a butterfly pinned inside a glass display case.

Jon is sitting up, now. Eyes (eyes, eyes, he's all eyes) blown wide, bright and glassy even in the low light of the room. His breathing is ragged and uneven in obvious panic. Even with his hands clenched tight in the front of his nightshirt, Martin can see they’re trembling. Martin’s heart aches and he wants to help but he can’t move and Jon’s eyes are still on him and he can’t breathe and it hurts. And he's afraid. He can hear his pulse pounding in his ears, the eyes are still watching him and it feels so much like burning paper and righteous anger and Elias's face and everything Martin had been trying to forget.

Jon brings up a hand to cover his mouth. Horror and panic clear in his eyes, which Martin knows are reflected in his own. Then Jon backs away, clearly unsteady on shaking legs. Martin's vision starts to blur (when was the last time he blinked?) but he hears Jon's steps fade into the hall. And Martin can do nothing.

The back of Martin's mind still using logic was hoping the feeling would fade once Jon wasn't looking at him. Unfortunately, Martin is used to being proven wrong. Face blank, body rigid, mind screaming.

Autonomy comes back to him slowly, a tingling in his fingertips that trickles down his arms and leaves an awful shakiness in its wake. Nerves making up for lost time, maybe. Trying to catch up with the adrenaline coursing through his veins. A grip Martin wasn't aware of begins to loosen from around his ribcage, and his first real breath in ages is a shuddering gasp. The force of it combined with the jelly replacing his knees sends him sliding to the floor, using the wall for support.

Martin breathes. In. Out. The first breath is molten in his lungs. His eyes water against it, and the second one is even worse. The third leaves as a sob that echoes back at him. In one last betrayal of his body against him, the tears spill over to drip down his cheeks. Martin rests his forehead against his knees and wills himself not to fall apart.

The Lonely was easy, in that regard. For months, Martin didn't have to worry about this kind of thing - the fear and anger and gaping misery that had been following them for so long. But evidently suppressing your trauma with more trauma wasn't a healthy coping mechanism. Go figure.

Leaving the Lonely was hard. Martin had spent most of the first 48 hours oscillating wildly between numb detachment and emotion so overwhelming he thought he would drown in it. Jon helped. He was patient, gentle, all the things Martin thought were too good to be true.

Martin forces himself up as soon as he's able. Maybe sooner, given the way the room sways when he stands. But it passes after a moment, and Martin goes to find Jon.

The house is dark. The occasional creak from the pipes and floors could be off-putting, but compared to everything else, it's benign. He uses fingers brushed against the wall to guide him down the short hallway.

"Jon?" He calls. The floor creaks in response.

Martin reaches the threshold between the hall and the kitchen. The haze of the moon behind thin clouds bleeds through the window above the sink, providing just enough light to see. Martin catches a shadow out of the corner of his eye, but it isn't actually a shadow, and Martin lets himself feel a hint of temporary relief.

Jon is tucked in the corner between two cabinets. Head buried against his bent knees, hands gripping into his hair in a position that mirrors Martin's from mere moments ago. Martin's heart leaps into his throat.

"Oh, Jon." Martin kneels in front of him, slow as to not startle him. If Jon notices, he makes no sign of it.

"Jon?" Martin reaches, but stops halfway. He doesn't want a repeat of before. His palm itches, but he keeps it airborne. Until he knows it's okay.

Jon makes a sound in the back of his throat, one that Martin hasn't heard before. His next inhale is strained and wet and - oh. 

Martin had never seen Jon cry before. Angry, upset, shaken, sure. But not this. It twists something awful and thorny in his chest. Martin wants to hug him, but he keeps the few inches between them.

"Don't-" Jon starts suddenly, and for an awful moment the hairs on the back of Martin's neck stand up on end. But Jon cuts himself off with a keening noise, and curls further into himself. His shoulders are trembling, either from holding back sobs or the biting chill of the poorly-insulated kitchen floor, Martin can't be sure. Probably both.

"I-I'm sorry-" Jon stutters, sounding like each word is a fight to get out. "I-I-I don't - I don't know…"

"Just breathe, Jon. It's alright."

Jon shakes his head against his legs. "N-no, you need to-" A sob cuts him off.

"Need to what, love?" The term of endearment slips out naturally on Martin's tongue. If Jon notices, he doesn't say so.

"Leave." The last word crackles slightly in the air, like static electricity threatening a shock. Martin freezes. The compulsion threatens to overtake him, but it's weaker than before. It rings in his skull, and Martin fights it back until it fades to background noise.

Jon whispers, barely audible. "I can't - I can't control it."

Oh.

"Alright, alright…" Martin bites his lip for a moment. Nods to himself.

"Okay, let's just - I'll ask you yes or no questions for now. You can, ah - just nod for yes and shake your head for no. Is that alright?"

Jon's face is still hidden, but that's alright. After a moment, he nods enough for Martin to discern the movement.

"G-good, okay-" Martin pauses, not immediately sure what question to go with first.

"Did you have a nightmare, earlier? Is that what scared you?" Martin silently chides himself for asking two questions, but hopefully it won't matter.

Jon nods.

"Has this happened before? The, uh-" Martin makes a hand motion, but Jon can't see it. "Th-the 'not being able to control the compulsion,' thing?"

There's a pause, then Jon shakes his head. Martin frowns.

"Alright, that's alright. Do you think you can look at me?"

Another pause, longer. Martin doesn't press as the seconds pass. Then Jon slowly raises his head.

Jon's eyes are wide, rimmed with red and dark circles more pronounced than they had been in the last few days. Tears are steadily dripping down his cheeks, flushed dark against his complexion. His lips are pressed tightly together, and Martin can see the barely contained panic mingled with exhaustion in every line of his face.

"Hey." Martin greets, feeling like a small victory. Jon quickly casts his gaze down and to the side, not meeting Martin's eyes. He also moves his hands to wrap around his torso, shivering harshly against the cabinets. Martin frowns again. He racks his brain for the seemingly mundane moments from the previous day. Jon talking less as the day had gone on, his less-than-already-finnicky appetite, going to bed early because he said he was a bit tired. Nothing individually out of the ordinary, not after the hell they'd dragged themselves through just to get here. But-

"Jon, is it alright if I touch you?"

Jon nods almost immediately, but still avoids Martin's eyes. Encouraged, Martin moves carefully to press the back of his hand against Jon's cheek. It's warm - hot, even - to the touch. Martin checks his forehead for good measure, feeling the heat before their skin actually makes contact. Martin's winces in sympathy, moving his hand back to Jon's cheek. He uses both hands, for good measure, to cup Jon's face, and wipe the stray tears still dripping from his lashes.

"Oh, love. You're burning up." Martin says, gently. "That must have something to do with it."

Jon's brow furrows. He brings his own hand up to his face, seemingly to try and feel his own temperature. Martin can't help the quiet laugh.

"First let's get off the floor. 's not exactly comfortable, yeah?" Martin offers. 

Jon doesn't react, eyes locked in a middle distance between the two of them. But then all at once his expression breaks, and he buries his face in his hands.

Jon doesn't react, eyes locked in a middle distance between the two of them. But then all at once his expression breaks, and he buries his face in his hands.

Martin's heart leaps into his throat. "Oh, hey, hey-"

Jon's words are muffled by his hands, and broken up by harsh, jagged sobs.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I-I didn't-"

Martin moves forward slightly so he can wrap his arms around Jon. He can feel the shivers wracking Jon's frame, and the heat radiating off of him in waves. Martin tucks Jon's head under his chin, and holds him.

"Hey, it's okay." And it's not a lie. Martin was scared - terrified, to put it lightly. He knows he can't just brush that fear away. But he's not scared of Jon, never has been, never will be. And Martin know Jon, knows him and loves him and knows that he loves him back. Martin thinks that this might be more complicated than that, but right now, with Jon coming apart on the kitchen floor, it feels that simple.

"I know you didn't mean to, Jon. It's alright."

Jon shakes his head weakly in protest. Martin can't make out his exact words, jumbled as they are. But he feels the intent behind them, with the way they reverberate in his chest.

"We can talk about it later, when you're feeling better. But I'm not mad, I promise." Martin runs a hand through Jon's hair. It might have been a braid when Jon first went to bed, but it's mostly undone now. "Right now, I'm just worried about you. That's a nasty fever you're running."

They stay like that for a few minutes more. Jon's form is still a trembling leaf in Martin's arms, shallow and uneven breaths punctured by the occasional apology and stifled cry. Jon's forehead is pressed into his neck, burning like a furnace against Martin's skin.

Martin almost asks Jon if he can walk, but instead-

"Jon, is it alright if I pick you up?"

Jon tenses, and Martin immediately regrets asking. But then Jon nods affirmative, relaxing slightly into Martin's hold. Oh thank god.

Jon fits easily into the bends of Martin's arms, one at his back and one under his knees. Jon's hands clench the front of Martin's shirt, tightening and loosening in an uneven rhythm as Martin stands. It's easy for Martin to carry him the short distance to the bedroom, mindful of the narrow door frames.

The quilt and sheets are pulled back from before, which is helpful now. Martin eases Jon onto the bed. He brushes Jon's hair away from his face in what Martin hopes is a comforting gesture. But Jon still has that faraway, panicky look in his eyes, and Martin has an idea.

"Don't move, alright? I'll be right back, I promise." Martin presses a kiss to Jon's forehead, hoping he heard and understood enough of that to not mind when he leaves the room.

Martin comes back with a damp cloth and a glass of water. And a bottle of pain reliever - one that Martin had originally picked up from the store as an afterthought, but is grateful for now. He sets the glass and bottle on the nightstand and sits gingerly on the edge of the bed. Next to Jon, who hasn't so much as shifted in Martin's admittedly brief absence. Martin lays a hand on Jon's shoulder, but after a moment, moves to Jon's cheek. An olive branch to Jon's clouded awareness.

"Alright, love. I'm gonna lay this on the back of your neck, okay? Can you lean forward a touch for me?" 

Jon doesn't move or otherwise react for a moment, and Martin is almost sure he didn't hear it. But then he pitches forward slightly, and Martin shifts so he can support Jon's weight against his shoulder. He brushes Jon's loose curls to the side, letting his fingers linger there for good measure.

"It's gonna feel really cold, but it'll help. Easy," Martin murmurs, placing the folded cloth on the back of Jon's neck. Jon flinches at the touch, hissing between a groan and a whimper. 

"I know, I know." Martin soothes easily, adding other words of comfort here and there, lost to his memory as soon as they cross his lips. He holds Jon close, taking the chance to comb his fingers again through Jon's bed-moussed hair. He knows Jon likes having his hair played with, so Martin ever so gently works his way through some of the tangles, careful never to pull too hard or too fast. Jon's breaths slow and deepen - still marred by the occasional hitch, but a vast improvement from before. He gradually sinks more of his weight onto Martin's shoulder, until Martin is sure he's the only reason Jon is still upright. But Martin doesn't mind.

"Better?" Martin asks, when Jon's trembling passes and his breaths sound less like someone on the verge of drowning. Jon clears his throat.

"I- yes." He rasps, hardly a whisper. The word pulls a cough out of him, but he keeps going. "Th- thank you."

"Of course." Martin says. He all but beams at the sound of Jon's voice, wretched as it sounds. He considers making tea, but something about the bonelessness of Jon's posture tells him Jon won't be awake long enough to see a cup finished. But he does grab the glass of water from the nightstand, and shifts so Jon can take it in both hands.

"Drink some of that for me." Martin presses, and Jon doesn't argue. Martin reaches for the pain reliever next, shaking two pills out and handing them to Jon. He seems surprised at first, but quietly offers a thank you as he takes them from Martin's hand.

"How are you feeling?" Martin asks. It feels like a stupid question, but one of those stupid questions that you just have to ask in lieu of anything else.

"I'm-" Martin knows Jon is about to say I'm alright and something in his face must stop Jon from finishing, because he cuts himself off with a sigh. He presses the heel of his palm into his eye, suppressing a wince. "To - to be honest, uh, quite terrible."

The frankness of it could almost be funny, but Martin's heart aches instead. "I'm sorry. The medicine should help, at least."

Even without his glasses, Martin can make out the two in the hour place of the digital clock on the nightstand, and yeah, it's time for bed.

"And some proper sleep."

Jon nods, eyelids heavy. Martin takes the half-empty glass from his hand, and encourages Jon to lie back with a gentle push. Martin joins him on the other side of the bed, pulling the covers back over the two of them. He leans, partially sitting up against the headboard, inviting Jon into the place at his side if he wants it.

Jon fills the space immediately, burrowing his face into Martin's shoulder. Arms curled in front of him, pressed into Martin's side. He sighs softly. Martin watches the last of the tension bleed out of Jon's face, eyes closed. Jon's fever leaves Martin's side overly warm in minutes, but Martin can't bring himself to mind.

He's sure Jon is already asleep, but-

"M-rtin?"

"What is it, Jon? Do you need something?"

Jon makes a negative sound into Martin's shoulder, shaking his head. It's quiet for a moment, save for their breathing.

"I love you."

Martin freezes, and the response comes as naturally as an inhale after an exhale.

"I love you too."

[ashintheairlikesnow]

A Little Bit Stabbed

Jake Gets Stabbed Miniseries: First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth

CW: Discussion of past child abuse/domestic violence, description of stab wound, painkillers/drugged but in a good way, brief IV needle reference, some short references to Jake’s religious trauma, some trauma response stuff

“Took four of us to get you onto the couch, you know,” Kauri says, fingers moving gently to brush Jake’s short hair back off his forehead. There’s a hint of humor to his deep voice, but Jake catches the tremor in it, too. “You’re heavier than you look.”

“Must be… pretty fucking heavy, then,” Jake manages, voice slightly thin. They gave him something - Nat’s EMT friend showed up with IV supplies while refusing to tell anyone where they’d gotten ahold of everything from, except to repeatedly reassure all of them I know someone, it’s taken care of, I probably won’t go to jail for this. Besides, I’ve been in jail before.

Jake might not have found it very reassuring if he wasn’t halfway to unconscious from the pain alone at the time.

Now, though, there’s a needle feeding a steady supply of something wonderful into his bloodstream, holding the worst of the pain at bay. All he can feel now is maybe a little bit of an itch he knows better than to scratch, and a heaviness to his limbs that keeps them limp and relaxed. 

“We had to turn the stupid thing into the pull-out bed just to make sure your feet wouldn’t be higher than your head.” Kauri smiles at him, but there’s worry in those warm blue eyes, and Jake uses every ounce of strength to lift his good hand, the one on the uninjured side, and take Kauri’s, pulling his knuckles to his lips to brush against them. 

“I’m okay,” Jake says softly. “I am, Kaur. It’s not so bad.”

“It’s not-... you got fucking stabbed in your own kitchen, Jake.” Kauri’s lips thin and he looks away, over towards the TV, playing Clue.

Funny, Jake thinks, woozy and untethered to any kind of focus. My mom used to play Clue when we were alone, after. Made her feel better for a while.

“Just a… a flesh wound,” Jake manages in a terrible approximation of a British accent.

Kauri just looks at him, expression serious, and leans over until their foreheads touch. He’s warm, and Jake’s eyes close, basking in the body heat that comes off of him, surrounds them both. “Don’t,” Kauri whispers. “Please don’t make jokes. I thought-”

“It’s okay,” Jake murmurs. 

Eventually, he should probably tell someone he can only sort of feel the hand on the injured side. But not now. 

“It’s okay. It’s not s’bad. I got the good drugs, right?”

“Antibiotics and…” Kauri squints at the label on the bag attached to the IV, then winces and shakes his head. “Sorry. Can’t read today. It, uh. It kind of comes and goes when I’m worried, and today-”

“I get it. But… you don’t have to worry about me, Kaur. It’s over, it happened… I’ll feel better pretty fast. It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Kauri says softly, but he relaxes beside Jake, keeping a hold of his hand. His fingers are slightly chilled, but they warm against Jake’s. The two of them settle into silence for a while, a woman in black on the TV with eyes blown wide in comic exaggeration of anger speaking in a blur of sound Jake knows by heart but can’t really pick apart from anything else, not just yet, not right now. 

He knows this movie by heart. He and his mom used to curl up under a blanket while she closed her eyes and prayed for things to get better and Jake prayed for his dad to die in a car accident or some other terrible way, and make it slow, and then pray with terror not to go to hell for thinking like that.

If men like his father go to heaven, Jake would rather burn in hell.

At least my favorite bands would be there, he thinks, and laughs to himself, shoulders shaking a little, sending a ripple of pain down his arm and spiking into his skull. He winces, but the thought still strikes him as too funny to quit circling woozily around his mind, and he keeps laughing a little.

Kauri turns to look at him, eyebrows raised. “What are you laughing at?”

Jake blinks over at him, those wide blue eyes. It had been hell not to be able to hold him for so long, with eyes like that. Real hell, the kind where you spend your days wishing for a connection that seems too hard to make. “Nothing, just… thinking about shit with my dad,” He says, finally. “My mom and I used to watch Clue all the time. It’s her favorite movie.”

“Yeah?” Kauri looks over his shoulder, back at the television, and Jake’s eyes move lazily over the slight bump in his nose where it was broken by someone years ago, the dip of his lips, the roundness of his chin, angling a little with age. The way his neck would feel to trace with just one fingertip, how he smiles when Jake does it, asks him what the fuck he’s looking at when there’s way more to Kauri that needs attention right now than just his face.

There’s a lazy wave of warmth in Jake, a steady thrum of something that goes much deeper than arousal, at the memory.

Adoration.

“Yeah,” He says, softly. “She’d put it on when he left the house, we’d make popcorn and watch it. Saturday night special, popcorn and a movie, Mom and Jake.”

“Where’d your dad go?” Kauri asks, then the answer catches up with him, and he winces. “Wait, sorry. I think I know where he went.”

“Church.”

That is clearly not what Kauri expected to hear. “I-... what?” He turns back to Jake, eyebrows furrowing. “I thought-”

“Nope. He went to church. Fish fry on Saturdays, he volunteered.” Jake is dimly aware that this might be more than he’s ever told Kauri about his father, at least more than he’s ever said that wasn’t laser-focused on the hurts, the bruises, the concussion, the ER visits where Jake learned to lie. “He was a magician with a deep fryer. Best fucking fish I ever ate.” He laughs, then coughs a little against the new round of ache in his shoulder. 

Kauri is quiet for a moment, his eyes searching Jake’s face, maybe looking for an idea of how to respond the right way. Jake knows that look - he’s seen it less and less over the years, but it never fully stops.

Kauri never stops looking for the safe answer, the one that won’t get him hurt. Jake never stops being ready to fight his way out if it happens again. Kauri is still ready to say what the abuser needs to hear, placate and please and keep himself alive.

Jake is still ready to pick up a weapon and use it if his father ever comes near he or his mother again. Not that he ever will. Not that he even wants to, sixteen years after Jake last saw his face. 

But he’s still built, deep within, to fight the threat. And so is Kauri, in his own way. 

“I love you so much,” Jake says softly. “I hope you didn’t pull anything dragging my ass around.”

“Mmmn, guess I’ll find out,” Kauri says softly, snuggling back up to him, then. “Should we change the movie? If it’s, like, a thing for you-”

“Nah.” Jake smiles, slightly. He feels pleasantly drunk, on whatever the painkiller slowly drip-feeding into his arm is. A little woozy, a little bit in love with it. “It’s like a comfort thing, really. I should call my mom-”

“I already did,” Kauri says, gently pushing him back down as Jake tries to make himself sit up. “She’s driving up. She said she’ll get here in the morning, she had to find someone to watch her dog.”

Jake blinks twice. “Mom has a dog?”

“I think it’s new. But, um. You can’t exactly meet her at her hotel, Jake. She’s gonna have to come here.”

Jake feels a rush of old nerves prickling along his arms, the hair of his neck trying to stand up. He closes his eyes, tries to push it back down. “I’ve never given her my address. It’s not safe for us. What if-... I don’t know. I’ve just never… I’ve always worried that if he found her, you know, that he’d… convince her to tell him where I live. He’d turn us all in just to feel like the big righteous moral hero all over again. Probably hard to feel that way when you’re hitting a teenager. Easier when you’re turning in vigilantes with stolen property.” He spits the words, and Kauri flinches a little. “Shit. Sorry, Kaur.”

“No, it’s. It’s okay. I get what you mean. But I don’t think your mom would do that. She loves you.”

“She does.” Jake exhales, closes his eyes. Inside him there is still an angry child that wants to point out that it hasn’t always been enough. But there’s a grown man, and a decade of fucking therapy, telling him there’s a whole lot more to it than that. “And she’s finally come around to understanding why I do this. Yeah… yeah, we’ll tell her where I am. It’ll be fine. Honestly, it’s not so bad. Jameson really did a great job on the stabbing.” Jake tries to laugh again. “Fucking surgeon with a butcher knife. He managed to miss every fucking bit of me that would have killed me.”

“Except for if you bled out,” Kauri points out, voice small. 

“Yeah… but I didn’t.” Jake thinks of Antoni’s face, the focus in his dark eyes, the quick movement of his hands, the blinding agony of the cloth being forced into the wound to soak up the blood, the way Antoni had leaned all his weight forwards to put enough pressure to staunch the bleeding. Jake had never felt pain like that before, and he’s not sure he could handle feeling it again. “Ant was there. It’ll be okay. Where is he?”

“In his room.” Picking at the heavy thick blanket laid over Jake, not quite looking at him now, Kauri asks, “How are you so calm about this?”

“Drugs,” Jake answers right away. “Like ninety percent drugs.” He groans as a throbbing ache travels from the stab wound, up into his skull, all the way down to his toes. “Fuck. The… whatever’s in there helps. But also…” Jake sighs, letting his eyes drift to the ceiling, over the popcorn-texture there. He’d meant to scrape it clean and smooth, when he bought the house, but other stuff kept taking priority, and he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. “This isn’t th’ first time, you know?”

Kauri frowns. ���Jake, I have licked just about everything on your body, I’ve never seen a scar from-”

“Not… not stabbed. But… stuck here, on a couch-bed, tryin’... tryin’ to heal from shit. That’s not new.” Jake exhales. Above him, the blades of the ceiling fan circle lazily, and his eyes follow the movement of the shadows. 

“No, I guess not.”

“In any case… I haven’t s-seen… Jameson’s upstairs, right? Can you get him down here?”

Something passes over Kauri’s face, a shadow, a discomfort and darkness that Jake can’t quite read. “Jameson’s not in the house, Jake.”

“What? Why?” Jake starts trying to sit up again, and this time Kauri’s gentle push isn’t enough to get him back down. He grinds his teeth against the pain and forces himself upright, trying to shift his legs over the side of the bed. The room spins around him, dizzy-sick flip in his stomach, but he ignores it. He’s felt worse than this and kept moving before. “Shit, fuck, I should’ve made sure he didn’t leave-”

“He didn’t. I made him go.”

The look Jake turns on Kauri is baffled, but there’s anger, too, welling up inside him. “You what?”

“I told him he can’t stay here if he’s a danger to you and the others,” Kauri says, but he cringes back from Jake’s expression, instinctive fear. Jake hates how he looks like his dad - huge and muscular, a threat inherent in his existence that he might not give off if he were smaller. But his bulk and his strength is also the thing that makes him capable of withstanding the danger he puts himself in for them. It’s the reason he could come home and pick Chris up with a broken rib and carry him after they raided the last safehouse he’d lived in. It’s the reason he could finally fight back with his dad. It’s the reason the kids at his new schools, one after another after another as he and his mom moved constantly to try not to be found, left him alone. 

“Kauri, he can’t-... Jameson’s not. He can’t live on his own.”

“That’s a lie,” Kauri says, lips barely moving. “That’s a lie they tell us-”

“No, that’s not what I-... Jameson’s like Chris,” Jake says, softly. “Like Chris used to be. He was treated like an animal, Kauri. He didn’t get to use fucking utensils to eat in the last two places he was held, he told me himself. He can’t live on his own yet. If you kicked him out… Jesus Christ, Kauri, do you not remember how it felt when you were kicked out?”

Kauri looks like he’s been slapped. “Wait, Jake-... I didn’t mean-”

“We found you half-dead under a goddamn bush, Kauri, you can’t do that to someone else just because I got a little bit stabbed! Shit. Fuck. I gave him a burner phone, if he’s still got it on him, maybe I can call-”

“Jakob fucking Stanton!” Kauri yells so rarely, and Jake goes still, turning to look at him, seeing the anger written across Kauri’s face. Kauri angry is electric, and immensely sexy, and something Jake had gone so long thinking he would never see unless Vincent Shield showed up with a new idea for how to make up for all his failures by forcing himself around someone who hated him. “Will you fucking listen to me?!”

Jake just sits there, staring at him. He can’t even find the words. Eventually, he just nods.

“I didn’t kick him out on the street, I’m not that awful, and fuck you for thinking I am and we’re going to talk about that later when you aren’t half off your head from painkillers. I don’t want him here until you’re feeling better in case it happens again, so I-... so I sent him home with Nat. She doesn’t have anyone living with her right now, and she said okay, so he’s going to stay with her.” Kauri swallows, reaching slowly out to lay his hand on Jake’s leg. “He and I talked. He said it’s always been men, Jake. All of the ones who hurt him were men, one of them was... was really big like you, I guess. So I thought-... if he’s with Nat, maybe it won’t happen again for long enough for him to, to work it through in therapy and Dr. Berger maybe can give him, give him s-something to help. So maybe he won’t, um, hallucinate or… or w-whatever the next time.” Kauri’s eyes well up, glimmer with tears that don’t fall. “I was trying to help. I thought he’d feel safer with only a woman, maybe, and I sent him alone so that he’d know he can’t hurt Allyn, he was really scared of that, and…”

Jake’s mouth hangs open.

Kauri slumps over, his forehead slowly resting against Jake’s back where he sits slightly behind him now that Jake is nearly off the bed. “I had to make sure everyone’s safe. I didn’t know what else to do. I sent Chris to stay with Laken overnight but he’ll be back tomorrow, Antoni’s fucked up but he’s in his room and he’s safe, and all the rescues promised to stay in their rooms and Allyn tried to go with Jameson and I think they hate me now because I said no, but I didn’t-... I tried to think of what you would do, if it had been Chris or me he’d hurt. I was trying to be like you. I’m s-sorry if I fucked it up, I’m sorry, please, I thought you were going to die, please don’t be mad at me-”

“Kauri.” Jake turns, and uses his good hand to lift Kauri’s chin, meeting his eyes. 

Blue on blue, always. 

“I’m not mad,” He says, gently. “Not… not now. You’re right, I shouldn’t have… just been a shit deciding what you did without asking. I’m sorry. So, let me just… you spent the last couple of hours really fucking busy, huh?”

Kauri nods, kissing Jake’s fingertips, one by one. “I’m sorry,” He whispers. “I’m not… I’m not good at this, I’m not... not... I was so scared. I didn’t know what you would do, Jake, and Nat said she thought it was a good idea, so-”

“It is. It is a good idea.” Kauri blinks, surprised, and the tears that have been threatening finally run, clear as crystal, down his flushed cheeks. He looks like a fucking sculpture, Jake thinks to himself, like some artist’s idea of the perfect beautiful person. “Kauri, just. Now that I get what you were trying to do… Shit. That’s really smart.”

Kauri huffs a laugh, a kind of half-sobbing sound, and shakes his head. “It’s just, I was just guessing-”

“That’s all we ever do, too,” Jake says, voice soft. “We guess, at what we can do to help. Nat always says we make the hard choices when nobody else can. Kauri, that’s the smartest fucking idea. I’m… that’s some grace under fire shit. That’s amazing.”

“It… it is?”

“Yeah.” Jake kisses him, and Kauri tastes like mouthwash, like mint, kisses back with desperate intensity. “Yeah, Kaur. That’s even better than what I would have done. You’re so fucking smart. What made you decide to slum it with me?”

“You have a really good d-dick and I don’t w-w-want to lose access,” Kauri says, and he’s crying or laughing or maybe both. “You’re my eye candy.”

“You’re my Einstein.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck me yourself,” Jake says softly. 

“Heal a little first.” Kauri sighs, half-smiling, pulling Jake back into the bed to lay down again. “Everyone’s safe, Jake. At least for now. Everyone’s okay. You need to rest, and everyone’s going to be okay.”

Jake lets his head be maneuvered back onto the pillow, feels Kauri settle back down next to him, pulling the blankets back up over them both. He’s silent for a while, lets the soft sound of the end of the movie wash over him, showing the different endings.

“I love you,” He whispers. The way the adrenaline is fading makes him sleepy, drifting in a new drowsy haze, ready to dose off again. “So much.”

“Love you, too,” Kauri murmurs. 

He knows this - the couch-bed pulled out, watching movies and stand-up comedy at a low volume, a throb of pain somewhere that will heal only with time - by heart.

With Kauri’s weight and warmth beside him, it feels entirely, completely new.

-

@astrobly @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @whump-tr0pes @raigash @moose-teeth @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @eatyourdamnpears @boxboysandotherwhump @whumptywhumpdump @whumpfigure @outofangband @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @thehopelessopus @butwhatifyouwrite @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @newandfiguringitout @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whumpiary @endless-whump

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

the wolf should’ve been afraid of me.

Titans 3.04

just under the wire! ... i hope.

like with the previous review, i’m typing this up as i see the episode. here we go!

spoilers ahead.

1. ... well. that was an interesting cold open.

1.25. i don’t know whether to admire this show’s restraint when it comes to gotham and its excesses, particularly arkham asylum. it’d be easy to go hammer and tongs, like suicide squad (2016) did, or any number of bat media did, at a tropey, colourful~~insanity~~ that can be quite damaging, casting mental illness in strangeness and criminality. it definitely shows gotham as... separate from the rest of the country, its own ecosystem of heroes and villains, a sort of rogue state. 

but that ecosystem is still human, with its heroes needing to clip parts of themselves away just to survive, growing old and needing to be recycled, its villains languishing in the same kinds of systems that fail everybody else who needs to be helped. it’s a quieter, tenser sort of wrongness: not strange enough that you can dissociate, but not close enough that you can completely empathise. gotham is its own creature.

1.5. i know that the reasoning behind this is more doylist than anything, but i’m so glad that joker was killed off with little fanfare right at the start of the season. he is the one man in the batverse that’s transcended its confines as this sort of ethereal boogeyman/eternal edgelord and to justify his presence in the series would mean giving him this tired, overblown importance and too much of a stab at colourful, tropey “madness” in this otherwise-subdued series. i wish all batmedia would follow suit and get rid of this fucker.

1.75. so jason is bucking scarecrow’s control! or reminding him of who exactly holds all the cards right now. circling back to what i talked about in the last review, it’s remarkable just how little time it’s been since jason’s “death” and he’s already got ‘minions’ and elaborately set up plans to track, break and kill the titans. just how long has he been planning this? when did he first look at WE weapons prototypes and think that’s something i can use to blow somebody up? and the most unsettling question: did he plan his own death at the hands of the joker just so that he could break batman?

at this point it’s obvious that the scarecrow at least started jason down this path, but it’s frightening just how far he’s travelled already.

1.8. aaagh, less than one minute in! i’ll shut up. 

2. conner washing his hands at the sink reminds me that he was directly in the line of explosion when hank got blown up and he’s probably got atomised hank-bits all over his skin that he’s desperately trying to wash off.

... you’re welcome.

2.25. conner, don’t you speak to gar fucking logan like that, sir, no!

2.3. if anything it’s the lex part of him that gave him the knowhow to recognise the weapon and build a de-activator for it. 

anyway, for that ‘half-breed’ and ‘talking tiger’ comment?

(i wish, tho, that we actually see conner more interested in the superman part of his legacy, like maybe listening to stories from gar, or even better, dick, so we get a better idea of the pressure he’s feeling to live up to that part of him and not the part that’s lex.)

((i talked about conner’s stages of moral development in his introductory episode last season, but i wonder if the next stage of his self-actualisation would be to further integrate the parts of himself and realise that they are only parts and he, conner, is an entirely different person unto himself that can make decisions on how to use what he has and what he knows. his superman abilities can be used to destroy. his lex knowledge can be used to save.))

3. oh dawn :((

3.25. is this the last we see of dawn and hank? i mean, we know donna is coming back; would it be a stretch to think they’ll try to have a go at resurrecting hank as well?

3.5. “deathstroke didn’t make us into killers.” good, because deathstroke didn’t make jason a killer either. there’s a missing step there you need to be looking for, dick. 

3.75. dick did try to break the cycle, step away from gotham, run from the possibility that he could turn into batman. it didn’t help; he couldn’t fully withdraw from his vigilante persona the same time he loathed it, and batman literally haunted him both asleep and awake. but maybe gotham doesn’t have to turn anybody into anything. maybe gotham has nothing to do with it at all. it’s about taking responsibility, realising some sacrifices are pure bullshit, and building an actual family instead of merely a team.

anyway: hugs!

(oh, also? mr “i hate flying”? i mean, there’s perfectly valid reasons to hate flying that’s not related to childhood trauma, but then again, this guy was literally a ‘flying grayson’ once. also also, remember that he also gets sea-sick. must’ve a lot of fun stories to tell.)

4. ooh that gar/kory confrontation was brief but cool!

listen, i have never seen a psychiatrist with that extravagant an office and SIR I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW--

4.5. kory’s so unused to reaching out for help and it’s breaking my heart that HPG likely is some kind of impostor that’s maybe causing her symptoms in the first place. 

kory and dick have mostly been apart this season but it’s remarkable how their journeys have paralleled each other; kory processes her grief, isolation and existential dread into a determination to take care of this new family she has, no matter what it takes; dick does much the same, forging ahead with plans and solutions until he has no fuel left in him and spirals into a massive breakdown.

4.25. listen titans this really is a TERRIBLE continuity error. we aren’t goldfish; we can clearly remember that two minutes ago it was gar’s upper arm that was burned, not his forearm. COME ON.

“sensory deprivation tank” *SNORT*

anyway, gar is the BEST

4.5. i wonder where these visions of experimentation took place. was it on tamaran, or on earth, after she came to hunt down rachel/trigon and before she lost all her memories? is HPG a part of the scientist group that experimented on her? ... god, i hope not. i mean, i think he is, but it would be cool to have some positive therapist representation in media. 

5. you’d think the van transporting a dangerous supervillain that only batman could catch would be more secure but... i’m also not entirely surprised. 

5.15. i love dick gives ZERO shits about hiding himself or even ensuring scarecrow is adequately contained. just turns away after kidnapping him in BROAD DAYLIGHT and says ‘let’s go’. I LOVE THIS DUMBASS

6. lmao gar is having a really really shitty day SOMEONE GIVE THIS MAN A BREAK or just a goddamn story arc of his own

6.5. i’m really confused about the timeline here. so... sometime ago, kory came down to earth to hunt down trigon, yeah? at some further point down the line she and her sister were kidnapped and experimented on. THEN she somehow escapes but... loses her memory? a few months pass and then we see blackfire alive and well and free; she kills faddei, can impersonate other people, and is clearly seeking out kory. but now she’s still in the experiment facility...? what’s going on?

i’m not entirely surprised about the facility being mostly deserted. either the biggest investors in this project gave up on it and it was left to the most fanatic to carry on, or they were deliberately trying to lure kory and get her to free blackfire--expand the environs of the experiment, so to speak.

7. hopefully barbara is going to get something to do other than listen to various men give her Attitude

8. how do you terrorise a terrorist? well:

i love when dick is a scary-competent motherfucker.

8.25. ooooh, the attack on crane at arkham a ploy to get crane to blackgate? nice one dick, i didn’t even think of that. but why though? to protect crane from the titans? to intercept the van to blackgate and “rescue” him? seems likely--red hood was there, except dick got to crane quicker.

9. still reeeallly unclear about the komand’r situation. was komand’r captured after s2? is this all A TRAP?? if so, why are you stepping into the only thing that can contain you, kory????

9.25. so... definite parallels between dick/jason and kory/kom here. i’m just. i’m still. really confused. i’ll shut up now.

10. this may be my favourite dick look yet:

woodsman!dick in a beanie.

10.5. i unironically love how titans has made this bizarrely-devoted-to-his-moniker, toxin-spewing supervillain into a tamer version of hannibal, psychoanalysing his victims into submission. it’s of a piece with how inward looking titans is, the way all of its villains are obsessed with how our protagonists’ minds work, to the point where they would actually spend time inside of them. 

there are no big plots to end the world. no apocalypses or endgames here. these villains collect the titans’ insecurities like infinity stones. the way the titans defeat them is by achieving character growth--literally winning by the power of love. literally “the real superpower is the friends we made along the way”!

10.7. anyway, i’m betting dick is used to this bullshit from crane and is humouring him in the service of getting more information. the story about the wolf? an implicit threat, not to mention dick getting to control what crane knows about him and what methods he would use to manipulate him.

am i giving dick too much credit here? i don’t think so. he’s really impressed me so far this season.

10.75. like. there’s a real unreliable narrator vibe coming off with every person that talks about bruce (much like how the various members of the titans talked about jason’s motivations) and to buy into crane’s talk about bruce being a psychopath is to fall for the same manipulation that jason fell for. dick is the only person who hasn’t really psychoanalysed bruce this season, and i think some part of his detective brain is piecing things together into a bigger picture.

11. i’m glad kory rescued kom but did she have to kill the scientist?

(i mean, yeah, probably - the less people know that kom escaped the less likely they’re going to have the fucking govt on their doorstep, but still.)

11.5. dick’s gonna come back to wayne manor, stare straight at komand’r and go, well which room would you like? because the team might as well adopt ANOTHER person, yeah?

12. oh MAN that red hood/nightwing fight was AMAZING! and he did the thing! the boomerang escrima thing! i’m so delighted!

12.5. the anger and disbelief in dick’s voice when he says you told crane EVERYTHING?! tells me that he knew exactly what he was telling crane himself.

12.75. “everything you are is because of him” - oh that reminds me of halluci!bruce from last season. i hope we see halluci!bruce again--he is so vicious but so entertaining... so much more effective at tearing dick down than crane or jason combined. goes to show that dick’s biggest enemy is own fucking head.

12.8. oh no! dick’s shot! crane is in the wind with red hood! blackfire is now with the titans! i love it!

honestly this season’s pacing is such a big step up from the last couple. gold star, show.

[avengerscompound]

Until the End of the World - 9

Until the End of the World: A Captain America Fanfic

Masterlist PREVIOUS //

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing:  Bucky Barnes x Steve Rogers x F!Reader

Word Count:  1795

Rating:  E

Warnings: pregnancy, Anxiety

Synopsis: Four years after Steve and Bucky got to the bottom of the HYDRA conspiracy that had led to you and your son being hunted for the first three years of his life, you, Bucky, and Steve have carved out a nice life together.  Things are calm and you feel like a family unit.  When Geo starts calling Bucky and Steve ‘dad’, a decision is made to try and add to your family.

Things aren’t as calm as they seem.  When your pregnancy hits the papers, HYDRA rears its head once again, and Steve and Bucky need to track you down to protect the family they had created.

Chapter 9

There was something very comforting about how quickly things just fell back into a routine.  Yes, there was still a great deal of excitement about the baby.  Yes, there was morning sickness and check-ups to deal with.  Yes, you were under pressure to finish your thesis before things got so chaotic that you wouldn’t be able to.  Yes, you were doing all this while living in one of the guest apartments while most of your stuff was under plastic sheeting.

Even with all that, things felt calm and normal.  You had work and classes.  Geo had school and soccer and music lessons.  There were kids’ birthday parties and dinners with the Avengers as a group and just one or two at a time.  You had trips to the grocery store and the farmers’ markets, and meals to prepare.  You were living your very own version of a normal life - and as strange as it was, it did feel normal.  You were a family expecting a baby just like millions and millions of other people in the world right now.

That was why it caught you off guard when you realized you were being followed.  You were in your sixteenth week of pregnancy and clearly showing.  Your baby bump wasn’t enormous - you could move around freely and had quite a bit of energy, but it was definitely a pregnant belly.  Random old ladies would want to touch it and Bucky and Steve had taken to caressing it absentmindedly in bed or pressing their hands on it while you sat together in the hopes they might feel the baby kick even though it was still far too soon for that.

You were walking Geo to school when you became aware that something wasn’t quite right and your first instinct was to run.  You didn’t think you were ever going to get over that severe flight response you’d picked up when you were being hunted.  It was like your trauma had engrained it into your very DNA and whenever something felt off you would prick up like a rabbit checking for a predator, ready to flee at the smallest perceived threat.

You tried not to worry Geo as you drew him a little closer to you and you glanced around.  Almost immediately you relaxed again.  A man was taking your photo from the end of the street.  He was carrying a messenger bag and had a large, high power camera.  The fact he was only barely concealing his existence meant it was paparazzi.

You wouldn’t exactly say you were used to the paps.  They did bother you in groups from time to time.  Particularly if you went out with Steve or both Steve and Bucky.  They would gather around outside the Avengers tower entrance anytime something big happened hoping to get a photo of an Avenger and maybe a word for them to sell along with their photos.  There had been a few times when they’d gathered outside a restaurant you were eating at with Steve.   And on a couple of occasions, they had stalked you and Bucky at the farmers’ markets.  Generally, they were oddly not great at recognizing either Bucky or Steve when they weren’t in uniform.  It was like the stars and stripes distracted everyone’s attention from the face or something.  They also never bothered you when you were by yourself.  It was news you were dating Steve Rogers.  It was big news that you might potentially be dating both Steve Rogers and James Barnes.  You were used to getting little google pings where gossip columnists would speculate about who you were and what your relationship was to Bucky and Steve.

By yourself, there was no news to sell.  By yourself, you were just some nobody with their kid going about their boring everyday life.  The news crews and paparazzi that flocked around the doors of the tower would let you pass unharassed.  So seeing one following you from the tower when it was just you and Geo was a bit of a shock.

Still, they were not a threat to your physical safety.  Just your privacy.  You figured that this one had noticed the baby bump and wanted to get some clear photos of it so they could sell it and someone like Perez Hilton or J. Jonah Jameson could speculate about whose baby it was and rant about the way of the world that ‘The’ Captain America might possibly knock up some woman out of wedlock.

You got Geo to the gates of his school and went in and signed him in electronically.  The school he attended was selected because of their security.  No child went home with anyone that had not been verified as a designated pick-up.  Geo also quite liked the security system and liked to talk to it, so that was an added bonus.

The paparazzi followed you closer on your way home and called out to you asking about the baby.  You did your best to ignore them though you couldn’t pretend it didn’t make you feel uneasy.  Part of it was just that having been on the run from some secret organization that wanted to experiment on you and your son had made you value privacy about all others.  Anyone putting your picture out into the world was enough reason to run.  Adding a complete stranger following you to that, your stress levels were through the roof, and by the time you got back to the tower, your heart was hammering thanks to the adrenaline surging through you.

You got into the elevator and sunk back against the wall.  “FRIDAY, can you take me to Steve?  Make sure you warn him that I’m coming.”

“Of course, miss,” she replied.  “He’s currently talking to Mister Wilson, but I’ll make sure he knows you are agitated.”

The elevator stopped at the office level and you went straight to Steve’s office.  It had big tinted glass walls so you could see him talking to Sam even before you got there.  When you knocked on the door they both looked at you with concern.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Sam said.  “And I’ll send you that intel.”

“Thanks, Sam,” Steve said, walking the other man out.  Steve must have been able to see how stressed you were because he pulled you into his arms as soon as he reached you, and just held you close as Sam left.  “What is it, sweetheart?  Did something happen?  I thought you were going into college today.”

“I was,” you said, melting into him and letting him support your weight.  “There was a guy following me…”

Steve held you out at arm’s length and looked you over.  “What?”  He asked.  “Did you get a good look at them?  Is Geo okay?  Where is he?”

“It’s okay,” you assured him, rubbing his arms.  “It was just a pap.  But they don’t normally follow me when I’m on my own, and it didn’t feel good.  Too many bad memories of my past.”

Steve relaxed and hugged you again in soothing circles.  “Because you’re pregnant?”

“I think so,” you said with a nod.  “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”  You shook your head a little.  “I know that this is just one of those things I have to deal with because I am with you - and I don’t blame you for it.  It’s not like you signed up for the army to invite the vultures in to pick apart your life.  You just want to make the world safer.  And for me specifically, you have done so much to ensure that.  But I didn’t like how it made me feel.”

Steve nodded.  “I am sorry, sweetheart.”

You nosed at his neck.  “There’s nothing to be sorry for.  I just… Is there anything we can do to minimize it?  Make it unlikely it will happen again?  Or at least make it so I’m not alone when it does.  I don’t like the idea of going back to a full security detail, but…”

Steve shook his head and pulled away from you.  “No, I totally understand,” he said going over to his computer.  “I’ll get you a driver.  They can take you to and from Geo’s school and college.  That way you’re going out through the garage and the cars have tinted windows so they won’t see who you are.  It should be a safer way to go shopping too.  They don’t tend to follow the cars.  The payoff is too erratic because half the time it’s just our agents or they end up going somewhere with parking and losing sight of them.  If you do want to take a walk you can always just take me or Bucky.  And if that doesn’t work we’ll amp up security again.

You moved over to him as he tapped away on the computer and sat down in his lap.  He looked up at you and smiled.  “Thank you for this,” you said.  “I know I’m being stupid.”

“No, you aren’t,” Steve assured you.  “Even if it was just a case of something harmless triggering your past, that’s not being stupid.  I hate when cameras have their flash on.  It gives me flashbacks to the war every time, and it’s one of the only times I feel truly vulnerable because the dissonance between that immediate danger that I feel and the safety of where I am -” he shook his head “- I want to fight and know there’s nothing to fight.  But those people who do that job, they aren’t harmless.  They predate on people.  They have caused the death of people.  Tony’s house ended up blown up because they stalked him while someone was sending him threats.  What they do is not okay, and you not wanting to be alone around them is normal.”

You sighed and kissed him gently.  “I love you so much, you know that?”

He smiled up at you.  “I love you too, sweetheart.”  He rubbed your hip as he looked up into your eyes.  “I had better go back to work.  Did you want to go to school?  I can get someone to drive you in.”

You shook your head.  “No.  I think I’ll just work from home.  Can you have someone ready to do Geo’s pick up with me though?”

“Of course,” he said.  “I might even come down with you, just to make sure the plan works.”

You smiled and pecked his lips, before standing up.  “Thank you, honey.”

“No need to thank me,” he said.  “Keeping you and Geo safe is my top priority.”

You headed out, much more relaxed than when you arrived, and once again filled with a mixture of love and gratitude for the men who you had accepted in your life.

// NEXT

[uservillanelle]

Killing Eve ― 3x04 (Review)

Last episode was... something else for me. Episode 3 will ALWAYS have a special place in my heart because of Villaneve’s kiss and all that, but this episode. It has to be my favorite this season and if they keep up like that... not only will we have a PERFECT season, but it will be impossible for me to pick a favorite episode. I’ve watched it probably close to 10 times already and I’m not going to wait any longer. We have bunch of stuff to discuss! So let’s start!! (This will be a LONG review, so I apologize in advance lol!)

The Titles

It’s so interesting that they chose this season to experiment with episodes. Back in episode 2 we had the very first additional credits sequence which I, personally, liked a lot. However, maybe they didn’t like it as much? Since they didn’t use it anymore. I wonder why they haven’t placed the credits sequence in the premiere instead? It would still be unpredictable gesture, so I’m still wondering about it.

ANYWAYS! By titles, I meant the NAME titles this episode. The past two seasons we were used to having titles that indicate the names of PLACES e.g. RUSSIA, LONDON, TUSCANY ect. They are still doing that, in different way, the letters are smaller now and they use this interesting “blinds” effect that the letters appear and move like blinds would if we opened/closed them? Really nice touch, I must say. It’s something different, something we haven’t really seen before in the show. 

Now the names. I’ve read a couple of people saying something like “why the name titles? we obviously know who the person is? so what’s the point of that?!” I found that quite funny lol! I mean, YES, we know exactly who they are but that’s not the reason why they’re using those name titles. Name titles, in this case, are to show us WHO the show is focusing on for the time being. That also means that the normal sequence of events will be disrupted since there won’t be any scenes switching between different characters. For some reason I felt like something like this happened before but then I remembered that something like this was used in another show called Dare Me! That’s why it felt so familliar and Killing Eve is exploring that type of narrative and honestly, I dig it. Yeah, it might get confusing for some people, having to bounce back and forth between the timeline and the events, but it’s perfect for those of us who has a sharp eye for details. It’s for the viewers who analyse and put pieces together. It’s exactly what Eve is doing at the end of the day with all the kills, isn’t it? So thinking about it, makes it all even more fascinating. Damn. I’m REALLY falling for the show... aren’t I?

The titles makes it SOO much easier for me to write these reviews as they basically tell which character they are focusing on right now and that’s what I did in my reviews lmao! I’ll just follow the characters in the episode so I’m sure you guys will be able to catch up with me with no problems!

Niko

So... THE MUSTACHE IS GONE. 

I didn’t see it coming. The way they released all those trailers/sneak peeks featuring Niko made it seem like he was finally getting his fresh start and like, I had a feeling we might even get an episode fully focused on him and maybe Eve or something? So, that’s how well they mix things up. My mind, yet again, has been BLOWN. 

Before we talk about the elephant in the room, I just want to say that Niko was a good person. I might not have been a huge fan of him, but I felt IT. Speaking of fans, I think it’s normal to NOT like him because he is playing the boring husband type and obviously he stands between Villaneve. But other than that, he IS a good, ordinary person. It’s a fact and Eve knows it. Niko keeps Eve grounded, safe, STABLE. He is all those things she found boring before in season 1 and didn’t appreciate enough I feel, because she was too used to them as all of us are. 

He gets to play the part of a normal, ordinary man who got scared when he found out that his wife is chasing an assassin, who soon enough possibly murdered Eve’s colleague and a dear friend. Yet, it didn’t seem to slow Eve down nor did she notice any of the red flags in front of her face that straight up screamed DANGER. I think most of us would’ve reacted to things like that the way Niko did. Yes, we would’ve been a boring man/woman who the viewers hate, because they crave for danger and psychotic obssession filled with hatred and lust and a LOT of craziness. It’s what we crave now, watching the show and WAITING for Villaneve to happen. 

This morning I’ve been watching a few of reactions of the episode and I got to explore different perspectives of people reacting to the same thing. I love that. I want to know what other people see in things, you know? And so... one of the people made a point about KE writers killing off whoever they want, probably to surprise the viewers as they probably don’t know how else to drive the story. Meaning that Kenny or Niko didn’t have to die. But that’s the whole point... one thing is to claim that they are doing whatever they want with the show, but another is to actually COME UP with ideas for a decent, I mean.. not even decent, AN AMAZING plot that people would be shocked and amazed by at the same time. You can only go this far without having to touch any of the main characters, you know? There comes a time when you have to make big, serious choices in terms of the story and this season Suzanne is GOING FOR IT. Like I mentioned in my previous post here, the first two seasons were amazing, but it only NOW feels like things are getting real. Suzanne took over and she’s getting shit done. She’s taking this responsibility and making huge important choices that will shift the main plot AND Villaneve in certain direction and so far it’s going sooo smoothly and brilliantly. 

I mean, yes, Niko deserves to start over and have a nice life but the moment Villanelle found out about Eve... Niko’s fate was decided for him whether he liked it or not. And having him simply disappear from Eve’s life AND from the show as if nothing... I’d see it as waste of character’s potential. So instead of not having Niko around but have HIM affect the story in such a profound way, I think killing him off was a great idea. This way... his character gains so much more meaning and it helps to drive the main story forward, but most importantly it will change and affect Eve in ways we have never seen before. So, I think I’ve read somewhere that Owen McDonnell (Niko) wanted his character to go out with a bang, and he truly did. Yes, it was a very brutal, shocking death but it was definitely a very strong one.

Now, the soundtracks STRIKE yet again. I’m talking about Niko’s soundtrack, Dear Diary by The Moody Blues is soo well fitting for his character while showing him trying to start over with his life. It carries this... sort of bittersweet feeling, but at the same time it’s so... freeing? And the lyrics speak his story without Niko having to say anything at all. 

“ Woke up too late. Wasn't where I should have been For goodness sake, what's happening to me?” 

Yeah, he WOKE UP a bit too late and realized that the life he had wasn’t really for him anymore.

“So many people by the score Rushing around as senselessly They don't notice there's people like me”

And we basically see him drive through the town and watch people going with their lives and not really notice him for who he is now, for what he had to go through. Probably none of them had to go through so much trauma and had their lives in danger the way Niko has.

“If they weren't so blind, then surely they'd see There's a much better way for them to be”

Perfect description for Niko the previous two seasons. Now that he’s “woken up” I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought that way. Again, this show picks the soundtracks for a reason and I’m not sure if in first two seasons the songs described and spoke instead of characters, but this season they are really going for it. 

Eve

Oh boy, where do we start?

So... from now on Eve spends her nights at Bitter Pill office. I mean, after being shot by a crazy assassin girlfriend, who, found out where Eve’s living now, it’s more than understandable for her to NOT want to stay in her apartment any longer. But staying in the office is not the best idea either. I mean, she still can go back to her apartment to clean up and all that? Guess not this day. Which happens to be her BIRTHDAY. I was convinced that Villanelle sent her the cake of a bus was only to remind her off their mindblowing kiss, because let’s remember back in 1x04 Villanelle had just murdered Bill and threw a birthday party to Konstantin. And it wasn’t his birthday. Yes, she tried to get on his good side, but I really thought this would be yet another example of Villanelle’s behavior. Turns out.. it IS Eve’s birthday... and my mind is blown yet again. I NEED to know what day is her birthday. Like, seriously?! And.. Niko hasn’t messaged her despite it being her birthday. Like.. you two have huge issues still, but hello? It’s your wife’s birthday... or maybe he forgot? But here is Villanelle not forgetting about Eve’s special day... and the fact that it’s a goddamn bus... WE GET IT, VILLANELLE, YOU’RE A HOPELESS ROMANTIC.

Before the cake arrives, we have a scene of Eve cleaning up in the bathroom, checking out her bruise and then the moment with Bear. Everything made total sense. Eve brushing her teeth, smelling herself, probably aware that she’s in desperate need for a shower, then again smelling her hair until Bear points it out for her. Yes, SMELL is the reoccuring theme in Killing Eve. So that was alright. Everything was going smoothly UNTIL Bear spotted the UNDERWEAR. Now, I did some digging to find a confirmation that it indeed was underwear and not some random piece of clothing or whatever... and in one of the recaps online they did say it was underwear. My question is... WHY? Why did they include THAT specific bit? The fact that Eve needs a shower was established more than ONCE, out loud and through a solo scene in the bathroom. So it got me thinking... and by thinking, I almost immediately got an idea... If it’s still not clear for you, let me remind you just how the last episode ended... with Eve sitting on her bed listening to Villanelle’s recording with her eyes closed. And now... the underwear being spotted and throwin in a bin and all the smell? Okay, I’m so going to say it now. Eve masterbated while listening to Villanelle’s voice. Okay. To me it happened and the underwear bit is a confirmation of that. And if that’s not the case... please let me know because I NEED to know what the hell did that bit mean. But until someone does that... I already know what happened and I’m happy with it. 

Now the cake moment. So not only does Villanelle know where Eve’s apartment is but where she works?! This gurl is putting some EFFORT for her girlfriend and on top of that buying a very expensive cake which Eve threw off the rooftop moments later. The reason for that is.. Villanelle. Duh. I was completely mesmerized by that scene. Again, THE SOUNDTRACK. I love, love, LOVE this score that was playing during the scene. It’s probably another new addition to Unloved album, but if anyone has seen it somewhere or has a link, please let me know!! The lyrics do all the work in this scene too...

“Set me free”

It all started in season 1 episode 7 when Villanelle told Agniya that she’s free to go and do whatever she wanted to. She replied with “I don’t want to be free” so she was killed off. Now, Being FREE has been mentioned SEVERAL times this episode. Including the lyrics in the soundtrack AND Sandra Oh talking about Eve trying to FREE herself from the Twelve and basically from the life she has been living before. Such a huge theme for Killing Eve. What does it mean for Eve to be free? Is it the same thing as it is for Villanelle? Again, in the scene with the accountant’s wife, Bertha, Villanelle tells her “You’re free now. You can be whoever you want.” and the other replies only with “But.. I don’t want to be free”. What an iconic parallel. So, for Villanelle, being free is being alone, as it seems. And in this case Eve is desperately clinging to Niko because she, like Bertha, doesn’t want to be free. Or more like.. she THINKS she doesn’t want to be free. So all those small gifts coming from Villanelle including the cake tells Eve that she CAN be set free. And.. as we can see from how the episode eneded.. Eve is now finally FREE. 

She opens the box soo carefully, not knowing what to expect from Villanelle and then sees the cake. Immediatelly gets flashbacks to their moment in the bus and how they fought and most importantly, KISSED. And next thing you know... we see how a gush of air blows in her face with the sound of someones BREATH. The sound of it is soo familiar. We know exactly who it is. Villanelle, breathing in Eve’s face. And for a second she closes her eyes. Gives into it... into Villanelle but then something shifts, the struggle within her continues to take over and she grabs the cake once she gets emotional and throws it off the roof. Only to instantly regret it afterwards. The complexity of this scene and of Eve’s character is just.. on one hand she hates feeling like this now that she knows she has feelings for Villanelle, but on the other hand she likes it... she admits it and a part of her just wants to give in. We saw the same thing, only reversed feelings, in previous episode. She finally gave in and kissed Villanelle only to headbutt her right after, once she realized what she did and how WRONG it’s supposed to be. Here, she gives in for a moment.. closes her eyes and then realizes how fucked up that is and what a terrible person and WIFE she must be so she throws it off and THEN the feelings for Villanelle comes back... I just have to say.. I’M LOVING THIS! I hope that at the end of the season Eve WILL fully accept her feelings for Villanelle and become new version of herself, new version of Eve who is FREE. And I can’t wait to see what kind of person will independent Eve be like.

Next. Eve and Jamie. I’ve seen pictures of them in Jamie’s house and I did NOT like that atll. I still have a feeling something might happen between them and god, do I hope I’m wrong. But that scene as they were just chilling in his living room was so great for Eve because she needed someone to have this frank conversation with. She has been focusing on herself lately so much that she didn’t think other people did mistakes or terrible things like she did until Jamie proved her wrong. FINALLY we are getting some information about the dude. Even if it’s not pretty. At least it’s the truth. Eve really needed to hear it and especailly the ‘choices’ part. Someone had to remind her that SHE is in control of her own life and it all depends on the choices she makes at the end of the day. 

Speaking of choices, as soon as Eve gets a reply from Niko, she gets hopeful and goes even as far as to meet him. I appreciate that she is putting so much effort in trying to fix things between her and Niko, but at the same time I feel she’s only doing this for herself... meaning, that she doesn’t want to lose the person that keeps her somewhat SANE still and used to ground her. And in the middle of this, she gets so distracted with this thing with Niko, she doesn’t even realize that it’s not actually Niko who’s messaging her and really, I don’t blame her for not realizing it, I, myself, the first time watching didn’t catch the sight of Dasha in the beginning and yeah I was also played like Eve. But this is where I noticed a nice similarity/parallel between Eve and Villanelle. Eve’s all distracted with Niko and desperate to patch things up, she’s not realizing how someone else might be manipulating/using her. DASHA is doing exactly that. And she does the same thing with Villanelle at the same time. Now, Villanelle is all about family this season, whenever she hears about family, suddenly she’s distracted and the same is with power. I mean.. is she really that naive to trust Dasha again? It looks like Villanelle believes everything Dasha tells her, or almost everything. And so Dasha gets to manipulate her into doing what she wants her to do.

Gotta mention the teddy bear Eve found in one of Jamie’s rooms she’s staying at. Literally the previous night Villanelle sent her a teddy bear with recording and even here... at some strangers house she finds a teddy bear. Seems like she can’t get away from Villanelle no matter how much she tries. “What do you want from me?” She’s asking Villanelle because she clearly isn’t leaving her alone. 

The last scene with Eve witnessing Niko’s death... all I can say is GIVE SANDRA OH A GODDAMN EMMY ALREADY!!! Her seeing Niko suddenly being stabbed with a fucking pitchfork in the neck forced her to freeze and stare in terror and that chuckle of disbelief that followed afterwards.. as if saying “am I dreaming? Is this really happening? It can’t be” because Kenny JUST died... what are the fucking odds someone just stabbed Niko in front of her eyes?! I would lose my SHIT... and Sandra expressed it so beautifully... her slowly approaching the scene but then has that massive lump in her throat and she can’t breath and next second she’s losing her balance and falling to her knees in complete defeat and just stares at his body... powerless to do anything about it. This scene and the scene where Konstantin tells Villanelle that Eve is alive.. these two scenes HAVE to bring Jodie and Sandra EMMY’S because thats ART of acting and pure talent and I can’t imagine them NOT getting the awards they deserve. And they deserve EVERY single one. 

So there is literally NO ONE left for Eve. Bill’s long gone, Kenny as well, now Niko. I think that will be the last straw for Eve. I really don’t know how she will be able to come back from this or.. keep going. She’ll have to do it to avenge the people she loved. But she really has no one except Villanelle now. And I think.. yeah, Villanelle will also only have Eve when she’s done with her “family” and realizes that Konstantin/Dasha were playing her and Eve all over again. 

Konstantin

You’re in some DEEP shit, mister.

Question time. Why Konstantin went to visit Irina? What was the point of doing so? Was it only so he could ask about the German car that his wife’s boyfriend owns? Or was it purely on Irina’s part? Because the conversation they had proved once more that Konstantin is NOT fooling anyone. Everybody knows he’s working for himself. Eve pointed it out during Kenny’s funeral, then Villanelle with “You’re full of shit” and now Irina, paralleling Villanelle by saying “you’re full of shit” and walking off. This girl has grown so much and she’s soo mature already and smart and a fucking badass! I missed her. And by putting her father in his place she mentioned ending up “dead” .. you know what that sounds like to me? FORESHADOWING. It is exactly that, isn’t it? For Irina to straight up tell him his future if he doesn’t stop whatever he’s doing. And I guess he won’t stop.. or will he?

So... was it him who stole those 6 millions? I thought it was Sergei... but it kind of seemed like someone set him up. Was it Konstantin? Because when he went to visit Bertha and she mentioned about how her husband worked out who took the money... and Konstantin’s face during that scene... he is literally shitting his pants lol! That makes me believe he had something to do with this and he defintitely has... but what exactly did he do? And now that Bertha knows about the email and some information about it, Konstantin doesnt hesitate to reach out to Villanelle to ask her to get rid of the accountants wife only to save his own arse. Once again.

Next up: Konstantin’s relationship with his DAUGHTERS. Am I the only one who sees that Konstantin is treating Irina AND Villanelle the same way?! They basically have the same dynamic. Both Irina and Villanelle curse at Konstantin, have their small tantrums with him and can put him in his place. And both of them have already done so. And let’s not forget... the producers ALSO call Villanelle and Irina his DAUGHTERS so it’s confirmed. Everybody knows it. And recently I saw a BTS video of this latest episode about Konstantin and hearing Jodie then say “then there’s Konstantin’s REAL daughter” and then there’s dramatic close up on Villanelle LMAO! The jealousy and the way they edited it... damn. Okay, let’s just agree Villanelle is Konstantin’s daughter. 

Now, did he visit Geraldine?! Because when we saw Carolyn drive back home, she saw Konstantin walking from the same direction her place is located. And her daughter was home at the time... so did Geraldine lie about Konstantin not visiting her and being there or she didn’t even know when Konstantin sneaked inside? I’m getting really suspicious now.

Villanelle

GO AWAY, HICCUPS

Villanelle? Listening to MUSIC? What did I miss? Back in season 1 she was interested only in national anthems. Now she’s listening to other kind of music?! Music to me is EVERYTHING, it’s a massive escape, it’s something that helps me get through every day and it evokes FEELINGS. It is associated with feelings so much and what does it say about Villanelle? That she has FEELINGS. The layers are slowly being peeled off her as Oksana is coming out and I can’t wait for the next episode. I’ll write another small analysis/discussion about Oksana and Villanell soon as I feel this deserves a separate discussion.Going back to the topic of music, at the end of the episode Villanelle arrives HOME and is wearing headphones indicating that she probably was listening to music on her way there. I’m sensing BIG changes. Villanelle is truly progressing and developing and we are getting to witness it!

Okay. the part we all have been waiting for. THE HICCUPS. The very first time they start is EXACTLY after Konstantin mentions “FAMILY” Villanelle is really invested in her family now and was in previous episode so now knowing that Konstantin found them probaly quickened her breathing and she got nervous/excited. The hiccups are involuntary contractions. You can’t control it. And at the same time they tend to be constant. We have never seen Villanelle have them before. And they only start after she hears “FAMILY”. This reminds me of a scene in 1x02 where Konstantin tells Villanelle Eve’s name for the first time and then suddenly the champagne’s bottle pops. It’s a sign. And the hiccups seemed to stop for a short period of time, right until Bertha approaches Villanelle and tells her that she wants to be a FAMILY and hugs her. Seconds later hiccups come back. The concept of FAMILY must be very foreign to Villanelle. It’s something she never really had and so now learning about her family, something so unknown to her, is affecting her body. And the way I see it... the hiccups are like a constant reminder to her, that yes, she never had family and that she’s finally interested to find that family again. So the hiccups symbolize the LOSS of something she never had. In this case, her family. Because we see her get off the train at the end of the episode and she reaches out to touch her neck. This scene for me has so many different meanings it’s sooo fascinating? And one of the meanings, probably the main one, is that she reaches out to her neck once she realizes that hiccups are finally gone. And that is exactly when she’s back at HOME. Back where her FAMILY is. So it’s like... she’s no longer alone, the void from before has been filled because she found her family now. 

Now, the very first time I watched the episode and that last scene.. I was like “shit, did she, by any chance, feel Niko’s pain?!” I mean that’s IMPOSSIBLE. Because Niko has just been stabbed in the neck with pitchfork and yeah it just occured to me. But then... I realized that maybe it’s not Niko’s pain she’s feeling but EVE’S. We see Eve freeze and struggle to breathe and have lump in her throat and that’s when Villanelle stops having her hiccups and she has this MOMENT. Almost the same moment as Eve had when she felt Villanelle’s BREATH on her face.The connection thesr two have... I mean.. VILLANEVE IS ENDGAME, OKAY?!

We got a tiny problem now. Dasha FRAMED Villanelle. It got me thinking.. this is basically a betrayal. And could that mean.. that maybe Dasha did something similar to Villanelle in the past? Like, framed her with some kill? Could it be that huge thing that happened between the two of them? I hope we will find out at some point this season. And I mean.. the way Dasha killed Niko is NOT Villanelle’s style at all. Villanelle had PLENTY of chances to kill Niko herself and she didn’t because she knew well enough that if she hurts Niko, Eve will never forgive her for that. So she didn’t. But Eve doesn’t know that. She wasn’t a part of that conversation Villanelle had with Niko and Gemma. What Eve does know... is Villanelle’s handwriting. The iconic “Sorry Baby” should be a perfect example. Let’s not forget the postcard Villanelle sent to Eve in Amsterdam. Yes, Carolyn took it, but maybe... she’ll give it to Eve once she knows what happened? I mean there is NO way Eve will believe that crappy note is Villanelle’s. Not even her handwriting. Plus... if Villanelle wanted to kill Niko, I don’t think she would’ve done it in front of her eyes. And even if she did... I think she would have wanted Eve to SEE her do it. At the end of the day, Villanelle wants Eve to know about each and every kill she does. And Niko wouldn’t be an exception. She’d leave a PERSONAL note/message for Eve. What did Dasha leave?! “Still Got It”? Really bitch? Is that a note to Eve or Villanelle? If it’s to Villanelle... you just prepared your grave, Dasha. I can only imagine Eve finding out it was Dasha and ending up killing her to avenge her husband. And Villanelle being there to gladly assist her with everything she needs.

Carolyn

Never thought frog sounds could be this relaxing

She’s still dealing with Kenny’s death. In her own way. I mean, I understand Geraldine completely when she confronts her mom and basically tells her that she wants them to talk about Kenny’s death. If I was in her place, I would want to talk about it too. But Carolyn doesn’t seem to operate in that way. Plus, she dropped the line “there are things you don’t tell me, that are for quite different reasons” and she means it about Konstantin. She saw him leave her house. Geraldine said nothing about it. So... is she working with Konstantin now? What’s happening?

The dynamic between Carolyn and Konstantin though. Both of them are double agents and ready to betray one another at any given time despite knowing each other for YEARS. One minute they are working together as they were in season 2, then now Konstantin is doing his own thing, and even maaybe going behind Carolyn’s back with her own DAUGHTER?! I don’t believe this. I don’t think Geraldine knows about him visiting the house.. or does she?!

She comes back home, lies down and turns on frog sounds to relax herself while grabbing a pillow to press against her own face. Makes me wonder if she did it because she kept on repeating that she MISSES Kenny’s smell, but why would that pillow smell like him? So maybe she only wants to run away from the world and shut off by grabbing the pillow? Though for a moment or two I really got worried she might be suffocating herself lol! Careful with grief, Carolyn!

Dasha

The old hag of the hour. 

You fucked up, Dasha. BIG TIME. But before we get into the killing, I have to mention the scene where she meets the Lady of the Twelve. That’s what I will call her from now on. So, she’s either a keeper, or someone higher. I don’t think she is one of the Twelve, but she might be very close to them. Probably an assistant or something? Because she obviously has the power to HANDLE the HANDLERS. In this case, Dasha. I mean, I only saw her once and I already have the hotts for this lady, but she’s one of the bad guys and... WHEN DID THAT STOP ME BEFORE? I’m literally in love with a psychotic assassin LOL! 

Can I just point out the fact that the Twelve KNOW about VILLANEVE??? Apparently they have spies EVERYWHERE, like Eve said back in season 1 episode 3. “They are completely invisible and they could be literally everywhere”. That explains someone spotted Villanelle going around London, buying expensive ass perfume only to visit and fight with her girlfriend. And the Twelve know it. That’s a HUGE thing. They are treating it like a huge thing and they do not like Villanelle chasing Eve. That makes me think... so why would Konstantin let Villanelle know that Eve is alive if he is also working for the Twelve?! The same is with Carolyn and Eve!! Like?? Who is working for who now and who is betraying who?! I need explanations and QUICK!

Now Dasha proposing she can kill Eve... is this yet another foreshadowing moment? I know, the lady told her NOT to do it, but I have a feeling Dasha will try to hurt Eve at some point... and I hope Eve will be ready for it. As much as I would LOVE for Villanelle to save Eve.. I want Eve to handle Dasha by herself and take her revenge. I want dark!Eve at the end of this season. Am I asking for too much?! She already killed once. Might as well do it twice lol!

 So Dasha is supposed to “drive a wedge” between Eve and Villanelle. And when I realized Dasha stole Niko’s phone and was texting Eve to come to him... my first thought was “Okay, so is Dasha really trying to bring Eve and Niko back together?!?” But that is complete NONSENSE! I mean, I don’t think even a professional therapist will be able to bring them back together OR let alone recommend them to try to fix their marriage so how in the HELL would Dasha do it? It didn’t make sense.. but how else can she really fuck up Villaneve? Apprently by getting rid of Niko!! Dasha, sweetie... you ONLY BROUGHT THEM CLOSER BY ELIMINATING THE ONLY OBVIOUS OBSTACLE IN THEIR WAY!!! The hell was she thinking?! Does she really believe Eve will fall for her bullshit? Or does she expect Eve to find out it was HER and that’s when Dasha gets to kill Eve?! I don’t think she’s that smart. Either way... Dasha is done. I can totally see her dying this season, or possibly somehow magically escaping but I doubt it. Eve and Villanelle will deal with this bitch and it will be SOO delicious to watch them get their revenge.  

Overall Thoughts

JESUS. This was a LONG ass review. I honestly apologize, but if you reached this point, THANK YOU SO MUCH!! You’re all amazing for spending your time reading my nonsense lol! It’s just that this episode had soo many great things worth discussing and so many symbols and meanings that make the show so complex and fascinating and god... I could talk about it for hours. I probably spend around 3-4 hours writing this so yeah, the proof that I have a serious fixation lol! 

But like I said.. this episode is my favorite this season. Perfect. I can only imagine how great the next 4 episodes will be. Also, can’t believe we are already halfway into the season. It’s crazy how quick the time flies!

And as always, if you have any thoughts/reactions/predictions you’d like to share don’t be afraid to message me or drop in my askbox!! I’m always up for discussing things like that!! 

[signoraviolettavalery]

frenziedblaze replied to your post “Max: exposes Liz’s family to hate crimes for ten years Max: does...”

Agree that Michael going to Maria at the end of 1x13 is born from trauma, but I don't think he's unintentionally hurting Alex? I mean, he made a choice to go to Maria instead of Alex. Choices are intentional. What are your thoughts on the directions the writers take that?

Choices are intentional, yes, but they aren’t always made with the intent to hurt. The hurt can be a side effect/consequence, but not the primary intention. So I don’t think Maria made her choice intending to hurt Alex; she just knew she would and didn’t care. Similarly, I don’t think Michael went to Maria with the intention of hurting Alex, and frankly, in Michael’s case, I’m not sure he even realized he would. 

Obviously, all of the below is my interpretation, but it seems to me that the difference between Michael and Maria is the level of knowledge and intent. Granted, Maria just got roofied and possessed two days ago, but the narrative seems to be pretending this hasn’t happened? She’s shown calmly running her business and being absolutely, rationally cognizant of the fact that her feelings will have an effect on Alex and talking to Liz about it. She is, in fact, thinking about consequences. When Michael shows up, she takes a good long second to think about it, knowing exactly what her choice will do to Alex, and says “we’re open.” 

Michael, meanwhile, is a mess, and I think his state of mind and level of knowledge regarding Alex is a lot more vague. Yes, Alex called him family - but the building was about to blow up and Michael was shouting outright lies at Alex to get him to leave. He has no way of knowing whether Alex is going to stick around once they’re out of the burning building. He’s witnessed Alex leaving again and again and again throughout season one.To me, it comes down to a line I read in a fic, which I think really aptly summarizes Michael’s attitude to Alex’s feelings right now: “you didn’t want to be with me, so why do you care that I’m with her?” After all, if Alex didn’t want to be with him, if despite loving him, Michael wasn’t enough to stick around for, why would it hurt Alex to see him with someone else? (obviously I’m just summarizing Michael’s mindset here) 

Plus, I really, really don’t think he’s rationally, cognizantly thinking right now in the way Maria has been shown to be. I think Michael’s running from Alex without thinking, the way Alex tends to run from him, because Alex makes him feel Too Much, and right now, he can’t handle it. I mean, Alex has a track record of ripping his heart out, and he’s just lost his mother, witnessed an entire building of his people blown up (which he blames himself for), saw his sister’s life fall apart completely, and lost his only chance of knowing about where he came from. Plus, he’s been awake for, like, 48 hours and he is, quite frankly, a mess (Vlamis’ acting is really on point here; he’s just ruffled and chaotic and so, so traumatized, in sharp contrast to how put together Maria looks this episode). And then Alex showed up in his airstream in the middle of the night to talk about how “I left, I feel guilty, I look in the mirror and see my dad.” I get Alex’s intentions here, but Alex, I think, came across to Michael not as taking responsibility for hurting him, but as making it about himself when Michael can’t handle it. He didn’t see Alex’s commitment and devotion in that; he saw Alex once again making his life more complicated with Emotions. And he can’t handle the emotional turmoil of Alex right now, so he’s running, and I don’t think he’s thinking. 

Plus, I’m not sure Michael even remembers that he promised Alex to talk the next day, given it was a promise made vaguely after he’d just had a vision of Noah being Noah and murdery, in the midst of emotionally turbulent events, on no sleep. Also, given Alex’s track record of, like, not sticking around, Michael probably thinks Alex won’t even be there when he comes back fro that conversation? All of which comes down to, Michael is running desperately from Emotions and Feelings and Alex, which are Complicated and much more than he can handle right now, and while he may be vaguely aware that Alex will be upset that he ditched him without a conversation, I don’t think he realizes anywhere close to the amount of devastation his choice will cause Alex. 

But also, frankly, while I adore Alex, I do think he has kind of..strung Michael along a bit, constantly coming into his life, asking Michael to take him back (which he does), and then finding an excuse to leave. I mean, Alex showing up at the drive-in with beer, asking Michael to take him back and forgive him for running off that morning, pretending it was fine..only to ditch him once again by calling him a criminal? I mean, that was just cruel. I understand Michael’s desire to move on (it’ll fail). Alex has hurt him, and he can’t keep going around the same merry-go-round anymore. He’s not doing it to hurt Alex, but I can see how it might be justified for him to try to move forward. Maria, meanwhile...well, what has Alex ever done to Maria in order for her to decide his feelings don’t matter? 

[ziracona]

How many people were tested just for others anyway? Gordon's wife and daughter, Daniel (the wiki says it was also for shoplifting but he was 16 so I call bs), literally everyone except Lynn and her husband in Saw III, and my memory past 3 is fuzzy but that one lying author's wife comes straight to mind. They weren't being tested for whatever John pretended his survival of the fittest policy was they were terrorized tortured and/or killed for basically nothing but the pain of the target.

Anon you’re so valid TuT 

ITS TRUE AND WE SHOULD ALL SAY IT!!! Also, I wrote this little part last, bc I just wanted to give fair warning that I went blind into a rage and wrote threethousand words about how much I hate John Kramer, full of very terrible language and spoilers for Saw 1-6, because I go that fucking feral at the sound of his name, and I can’t make everyone scroll past that so I’m putting most of it under the cut, but even if you decide you justifiably fear that rant and don’t read it, just know you are incredibly valid, and John can eat shit and die. Rant start:

John did that bullshit constantly! He would over and over put 1 (one) man he personally wanted to watch suffer on trial and sacrifice /scores/ of people for no reason. No trap, no way to escape, at someone else’s mercy completely or maybe with 0 chance even there bc JOHN KRAMER IS A SACK OF SHIT. 

He kills a house full of drug addicts in two, mostly just bc his wife worked w drug addicts and John hates drug addicts, and even though Amanda was in their literal exact same position she does jack shit to stop him and just watches people slowly have their organs deteriorate and start coughing up blood around her!! Including fucking Daniel! Who got an antidote but like, at the 11th hour. Do y’all even understand how biology works John and CO??? If you neutralize a poison after it has deteriorated parts of organs it might save your life but itS NOT A FUCKING HEALTH POTION. Poor Daniel Matthews probably will only live to be like forty tops if he’s super lucky because of that. And he did NOTHING!!! He had shoplifted bc he was going through a teen phase but he’s like sixteen! Everyone was dumb as shit as a teenager, and most people shoplift at some point in their life! It does not earn you slow deterioration of your organs! Poor kid not only watched a man burned to death in an oven, dude have his brains blown out, girl die of prolonged organ failure, and more shit, he himself /killed/ a man as a sixteen year old child to save Amanda Young because he’s got a good heart and is a good person, and that shit is awful! It’s traumatic to kill someone at any age, but as a teenager? And then he got knocked out by her and thrown in a tiny locked safe, tied up and gagged, and kept alive by an oxygen tank in an enclosed space after that massive trauma for or AT LEAST 24 HOURS ! He did NOTHING. It was all just a long-con sacrifice to get Eric Matthews to a specific location. Eric did some real shit, but god, even after everything Daniel did for Amanda and all John’s talk of innocents, neither of them ever even tell Eric he lived! Amanda just locks him up, fights, beats him to she thinks death, and then John keeps him locked up and isolated in a cell for months, only to make him choke himself slowly in a test he doesn’t actually get to participate in to keep a friend from being electrocuted. It’s all kinds of fucked.

Even Jeff did nothing worse than be depressed and obsessive and unavailable to his kid, all Lynn did was have a boyfriend after she and he separated (and tbh the only reason John took her was bc he wanted a doctor and hated her for being one of the docs who told him he had cancer bc John is a pettyass hypocritical stupid sack of shit!) I’m VIBRATING with hatred. Lynn was just a pawn in Amanda’s test! It never mattered if she kept John alive! It only mattered if Amanda decided to fucking shoot her!!! She did her task and died and JOHN KNEW THERE WAS A HIGH PROBABILITY AMANDA WOULD KILL HER AND DID NOTHING TO STOP IT BC JOHN CARES ABOUT NO ONE BUT HIMSELF THE FUCKING WORTHLESS LITTLE WORM. 

And the other victims in 3 are a poor college student who ran over someone on accident and feels massive guilt already and served jail time for it who gets his fucking limbs and then head all twisted off while begging for his life because JOHN KRAMER IS A PIECE OF SHIT AND SO IS JEFF TBH. BUT NOT AS BIG OF ONE. The poor girl who is stung up naked in a freezer and sprayed repeatedly with water till she is encased in ice and dead literally just saw the hit and run and ran away bc she was scared!!! Not to mention Jeff’s other kid who gets kidnapped and locked up as collateral! Even if she’s not hurt that’s FUCKING TRAUMATIZING FOR A YOUNG CHILD. And Allison Kerry did nothing wrong! Amanda kills her in the Angel trap literally just bc she’s investigating them! When he targets a detective John’s always like “Ho ho he, I am putting you on trial bc you are obsessed with your work”  LIKE, BITCH NO SHE FUCKIN AINT SHE DOIN HER GODDAMN JOB AND U DON”T WANT TO GET CAUGHT YOU STUPID FUCKING WHORE I FUCKING HATE YOU SO MUCH THAT JUST LOOKING AT YOUR FACE CAUSES ME TO PRODUCE SO MUCH EXCESS EPINEPHRINE I COULD BOTTLE IT AND SAVE IT FOR LATER. I swear to god, if I had a grenade and I was in the room trapped with a still breathing John Kramer, I would kill pull the pin and take us both! FUCK I would pull the pin and then french kiss the grenade as thanks for letting me see that sack of shit go right to hell!

I don’t remember all of four bc it was really terrible, so I don’t have a lot of thoughts there except woof, but there was a lot of bullshit. Like John’s lawyer who did nothing but try to talk to him about finances enough it pissed John off got kidnapped, won his first game, and then got kidnapped again BC THAT SHIT HEAD SURE NEVER KEEPS EVEN HIS OWN GODDAMNED WORD and was made pawn in the game and then shot bc he didn’t have a chance to save himsefl!!! 

In Saw one, also, again, Adam was never being tested. He was just a pawn too. It was Gordon who got to decide to kill him or not, and ADAM LIVED TO SIX OR WHENEVER THE FUCK THE TIME WAS AND JOHN STILL LEFT HIM TO DIE BECAUSE HE”S A HYPOCRITICAL PIECE OF SHIT!!!! And he’s not interesting enough for Johns MASSIVE brainshlong that obviously is so full of right ideas and enlightenment you MICROPENISEDtrulyIDIOTIC self-centered human garbage!  He only took Adam at all bc he was there! He said the reason was Adam was pathetic! ADAM WAS DOING HIS BEST YOU CRUSTY ASS RED ROBED TURTLE LOOKIN MOTHERFUCKER. He was a freelance photographer in New Jersey in his early 20s during an economic collapse, and still nice enough to be taking care of stray cats you FUCKING sack of dogshit! 

And Gordon? All he did was tell John he had cancer! He was cheating on his wife too, but like, the reason John picked him was that!!! HE THOUGHT!! GORDON SOUNDED TOO COLD WHEN HE TOLD HIM HE HAD CANCER I FUCKING HATE JOHN KRAMER SO MUCH. John Kramer really will see someone smile not as big a smile as he thought they should have given him and be like: “Yo, is anyone going to corkscrew their eyeballs off?” and not even wait for an answer. I fuuuuukning hate him. And that little shitface thought it was somehow chill to order someone else to kill Gordon’s wife and eight year old child who had done JACK SHIT wrong ever if Gordon wasn’t willing to brutally murder a kid in his early 20s who had done nothing wrong????! WHAT THE FUCK. Mr. KRamer.. QUICK QUESTION. WHAT. THE. FUCK. You self-righteous, self-centered, pretentious, pettyass, sadistic motherfucking goddamn worthless excuse for anything!

In five he’s finally dead so I can : ) once. BUT HE STILL FUCKS UP SHIT FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE. SO I’m STILL MAD. All the people Hoffman kills are ppl John told him to, so HE STILL MOTHERFUKIN RESPONSIBLE. In 5 it’s a bunch of people responsible kind of for deaths of people in a low-income neighborhood. One guy was paid to torch an abandoned building, and eight people died in the fire, but he didn’t know anyone was there and feels terrible. He thought it was vacant, it was just arson. Another is a journalist who found out about the arson, and didn’t break the story bc guy 1’s father bribed him. There’s a fire inspector who learned the truth and was bribed by the guy’s dad not to tell too. A city planner who was bribed into selling permits for the land. And Brit, who was the girl who paid for the arson, bc she wanted to make an apartment complex, and maybe actually knew about the 8 people and might have deserved some real payback–it’s unclear???? Regardless. I want to add that the cops had been investigating, had a strong case, and were about to arrest them and hold these people accountable in a legal manner, which John knew bc HOFFMAN WAS IN HIS POCKET, and John so hated the idea of them facing justice justice, he kidnapped them. The fire inspector got dragged into saw blades by her throat and torn apart, the journalist died to a nail bomb, and the city planner got electrocuted in a bathtub. The two who made it had their arms split down the middle up to the elbow to let enough blood out to save them.  I cannot. Just.

Anyway. In six, again at DEAD JOHN WHO WON”T QUIT FUCKING EVERYTHING UP’s request, a ‘game’ is played and William Easton (one of my fave protagonists bc he’s a piece of shit but damn if he didn’t have a real glow up in forty-five minutes) is thrown into a hell circuit. 

And so, undeservingly, is like, EVERYONE he fucking knows! His janitor Hank is first up. Target for…what was it? OHhhhhh right. He smokes. That was why. That makes so much sense john I’m sorry I doubted you PSYCH I CAN"T EVEN SAY IT AS A JOKE I JUST THREW UP A LITTLE IN MY MOUTH JOHN QUICK Q? WHAT THE FUCK? oh wait it’s because your an ABSOLUTE BASTARD. You would think I would get desensitized but no. It just. It’s fuel on the flame of my rage.

William Easton and the janitor, Hank, are hooked into something that slowly tightens and crushes their ribs any time they take a breath, and whoever doesn’t die first gets to live, and poor goddamn Hank smoked so ofc he can’t outlast a healthy dude in his 30s and John crushes his ribs just to make William watch someone die. Then he makes William pick which of two people to save in trial 2. MEANING HE GODDAMN STRAIGHT UP KIDNAPPED THESE TWO TOTALLY FINE WITH EITHER DYING, IN FACT WITH THE SOUL PURPOSE BEING TO DIE bc who cares about them right John? You fucking pretentious self-righteous creep! I have a year of the Pig teddy bear I named after Peter Strahm JUST for the FUCKING satisfaction of knowing John would hate that bc he was so into year of the motherfucking pig. ANyway. Plot again. Poor file clerk at Williams firm and the poor secretary are the two targets, and literally they did jack shit!!! They work for shitty lawyers but all they do is clock in to a 9-5 and file shit!! They are literally just there to rub it in William’s face that insurance policies aren’t fair bc according to them, one of the humans is worth more than the other bc health and age, but uuuuh oohhh William the older one with health issues is p hard to kill face to face bc you know her and she has kids and the young healthy man in his early 20s family is dead and he doesn’t have friends which means according to John he is worth less bc JOHN DOES THINK YOU CAN CHOOSE BETWEEN LIVES and all of this is here just bc John somehow thought it would be fun to fucking WIN A GODDAMN “I’M RIGHT” ARGUMENT WITH A LAWYER at the expense of brutally hanging a human being with barbed wire!!! 

Sidebar–if John Kramer was a real human being, I would go yearly on a fucking pilgrimage to his grave just to SPIT on his stupid corpse. I HATE HIM SO MUCH. 

K so young man dies. Then test 3 his attorney dies too, I don’t know much about her, except she is just there to make William feel like shit and they were into each other, and she tries to kill William after he gets hurt trying to save her bc he has the key to her trap in his stomach or chest idr, but she doesn’t get the key in time and dies, and then test 4 he finds his associates strapped to a carousel with a shotgun that picks one at random and blows off their head, and has to let all but two of them get gunned down and choose which two not to kill. And again, they’re kind of shittyass lawyers, but uh. Yeah. To save two, he has to let this huge piece of metal rip through his hand, but William does it and destroys his hand to save the two he can, and suffers picking while they all beg him to pick them bc John wanted to see him suffer picking between human lives again because he’s a goddam self-centered stuck up jerk who vales human life less then admiring his ugly ass dick in the mirror every day and pretending he’s a member of Mensa, the evil utterly irredeemable sack of shit. Anyway, at the end, William has never had a chance to live or die at all! And John was literally just torturing him for fun and killed /all/ those people not even for a test for William but /solely/ to make him suffer bc human lives DON"T MATTER ONE FUCKING IOTA to JOHN SHITASS KRAMER. WHO JUST WANTED TO WIN. AN INTELLECTUAL ARGUMENT. POST-MORTEM. BECAUSE he’s THAT kind of shittyass, pretentious, sanctimonious, better than thou, always right, incapable of wrong, smartest fucking asshole in the room man!!! I bet he doesn’t ever wash his hands when he takes a piss! I KNOW IT! FUCK John Kramer! 

ANd OH! William gets killed by a kid who hates him bc he turned down their father’s insurance policy fraudulently, knowing he would die of an illness without the money. BC William was terrible. Which is /so/ great for that fucking teenager! Killing someone horribly with acid while you watch them die and their body be melted! And they beg you not to do it and apologize on the other side of bars, already beat to shit, and plead for forgiveness, and your mom begs you not to, and the dude’s sister sobs and begs you not to!!! SO GOOD! Way to go john you FUCKING CUNT, they definitely value their lives now you goddamn motherfucking souless sack of shit!

I-I don’t even have the energy to do the other Saw movies or go back over the other victims in Saw one WHO DID NOTHING WRONG. John just hated them!!! BC HIS WIFE KNEW THEM! In most cases! John just fucking hates drug addicts! OK u know what here’s the short version even if I can’t do them justice rn bc I’m pissed!!! One guy got sliced to death on razor wire for cutting when he was depressed bc John is a piece of shit, one got burned to death after walking on glass for hours bc John doesn’t believe in invisible illnesses and if you’re walking you must be healthy, oh yeah! And the fucking dude Amanda killed in her first trial was just a drug addict! Going to a recovery clinic! He never had a chance to live on his own bc the only choice was if Amanda would cut open his intestines and sift through him for a key while he was awake but too drugged to move or not, and she did! Didn’t even get to plead for his life! ANyway!!!! Fucking as far as I can tell all Zep did was work at the goddamn hospital! He WENT OUT OF HIS WAY TO BE NICE TO JOHN and told other people he was a cool dude!!! He was just a janitor!!! WHAT THE FUCK???

I just. God. I hate everything about John Kramer. The way he talks makes me so LIVID I change color like a goddamned chameleon. He is so ready to argue his stupid shitty fucking ethics with anyone who breathes in a ten mile radius. Shithead John over here will strap you to a table and make you listen to him talk about how it’s not his fault he poisoned two people and gave them one antidote and a bunch of knives and one of them came out dead, and his hands are clean and people don’t value their lives so they should die while he watches eating fucking cereal I am just–I am so glad John has cancer? Like, the idea of Saw sans John having cancer is unbearable, because I am so afraid the writers would never let him die and we would never be free of the human cancer that is John. The only human being on the planet that has ever been able to make me root for the cancer. But boy in that one and only regard, John is special.

I hate him so much it is unbelievable. Like. I can’t even put it into words. THe pure, unbridled fury I feel when I hear John say, “D’oh ho ho, but I, with these two little handies of mine, hath never pulled the gun’s trigger! Got you there! Where is your science! Where is your god! I am no murderer! I heal people! By sawing off their faces! You just do not understand, oh poor unenlightened human that you are. May you be strapped to a machete car and blessed with my wisdom  😔” I absolutely lose control of 90% of normal human functionality, and all that I have left is righteous justice and bloodlust. It’s unbelievable.

Whichever one of you god-mode-brain peeps made that post saying Eric Matthews had the hardest test in the whole Saw franchise because he had to sit and listen to John Kramer talk for two hours was a GODDAMNED HERO and if you contact me and prove the tumblr account is yours I will paypal you ten dollars and a personalized note thanking you for the joy that gave me because I just really hate John Kramer that FUCKING MUCH. I would cut off my own toes to be able to have something to shove down John Kramer’s throat to make him stop. talking.

There are a lot of things in this world I hate bc I hate things that are unjust, but I hate absolutely nothing more in the universe than a villain who is a self-righteous, hypocritical asshole who won’t even admit that what they are doing is wrong and parades as the tragic genius hero despite knowing GODDAMN well that they are a petty, shitty, hypocritical, absolute fucking MONSTER with no redeemable qualities or capacity for love. And John Kramer is at least my second least favorite character in the history of ANYTHING. Maybe my first. I’m not even sure anymore! Nasty-ass, evil, pretentious, self-righteous, shortsighted, selfish, sadistic, voyeuristic, willfully ignorant, crusty ass useless soulless garbage little SHIT.

[1000-directions]

Hello! You both give good advice and write Winterhawk, so I was wondering if you'd mind giving a few tips since I might want to start writing Winterhawk? Like, is one of them a raging disaster and the other mostly has themselves together? How do you see them? Which of them would break a (dumb) law and who would keep their dumb friend from getting arrested? I haven't read fics either so if you know of any that really nail their characters, I would also love that. Thank you!!

oh boy do i have a lot to say on this subject!!!

the thing about winterhawk is that they are both dumb beautiful oblivious idiots, but they are also both highly skilled and competent strategists and agents. there are certainly differences between the two characters, but i think what makes them so compelling is their similarities. they’ve both been brainwashed and forced to do horrible things that they would never do otherwise. clint was kept under loki’s thrall for three or so days and was indirectly responsible for hundreds of deaths (and directly responsible for maybe a few dozen). bucky was kept captive by hydra for seventy years and was involved in dozens of extremely sophisticated assassinations, including jfk. they’re both going to spend the rest of their lives trying to make up for things they did that they could not control that they still take responsibility for. they both have ptsd and nightmares. they are both still good, soft, loving people in spite of the terrible things that have been done to them. although they’re probably both down for a revenge spree to make sure the bad guys never get to hurt anyone else.

(they’re also both snipers. clint uses a bow and arrow, and bucky uses a gun. who is the better shot? it’s impossible to guess, they should definitely have a shooting contest to find out!! they should definitely bet on the results!! the loser should definitely have to take the winner out on a date!!)

they are also both canonically disabled. bucky lost his left arm and uses a prosthetic. clint is hard of hearing and wears cool purple behind-the-ear hearing aids (i realize that using the term ‘disabled’ for hearing loss can be fraught, but to my knowledge clint does not identify with the capital-D Deaf community, and his hearing loss is acquired after trauma and not congenital).

they also have their unique traits. clint has depression, and his life outside of work is always kind of falling apart because of it. clint is our good disaster boy who is trying his best, and his heart is always in the right place, and he is loyal and good and protective, but his life is a dumpster fire.

clint is 6′3 (tall!!!) and bucky is 5′9 (small!!!!!) and this is Very Important. clint has broad shoulders and really muscular arms and back because of archery, and bucky has real good thicc thighs Because We Say So.

clint has a one-eyed dog named lucky who he rescued after some assholes pushed him into oncoming traffic. bucky (sometimes) has a white cat named alpine, although he only started appearing in comics like eight months ago so not everyone is on board with this headcanon yet. 

uhhh also bucky is like over a hundred years old, and clint is like, i don’t know? in his thirties? i usually imagine him being in his thirties. but definitely not a hundred.

(in his defense, bucky looks extremely good for his age, but being cryogenically frozen by terrorists for long stretches of time will do that to you.)

“wait,” you may be saying. “i watched some avengers movies, and this does not sound like clint at all?” and, you know, fair point. the problem is that the first avengers movie came out in april of 2012. then, in august of 2012 matt fraction started writing the hawkeye comic book series which is extremely beloved and really deft and emotional and powerful and really changed how a lot of people saw the character, but it was really Too Late for any of that to carry over into the MCU. when people ship winterhawk, they sometimes mean movie bucky and sometimes mean comics bucky, but they almost always mean comics clint.

i realize this is confusing.

this is why you have to Read The Fic and Learn From The Masters.

here at Winterhawk 101, our reading list is pretty simple, and it is: the complete and unabridged works of @captn-sara-holmes, which can be found here. it is impossible to overstate how much sara is directly or indirectly responsible for pretty much every single one of us being here. like, we all go here, but she built here. i would posit that every single winterhawk writer joined fandom either because they read one of sara’s stories and fell in love, or because a friend of theirs read one of sara’s stories and they got yanked along for the ride (see below: winterhawk is a pyramid scheme).

i always suggest starting with clint barton’s super secret snipers’ club, which i think is a very accessible way into this fandom and basically a masterclass in what makes this pairing fascinating and compelling and tender and perfect. where you go after that is up to you. there’s time travel, kidapping, kidfic, this one amazing fic based on the martian that’s so good i don’t even know how to describe it, and plenty more.

study sara’s work. learn her ways. realistically, i think like 80% of us are just writing our stories based on her stories anyway.

but also! there are so many other people in this fandom creating amazing fics and fanarts, and it’s a fun and thriving and creative community full of people who are excited about making stuff and excited about people joining the community. there are always fandom events going on.

here is a link to the mcu bad decision buddies discord (18+ only, please), which is not officially a winterhawk server but…it is a winterhawk server. it moves fast sometimes, and some people can be a little feral, but it’s a great place to do writing sprints and to promo your work and to meet new people and ask questions.

the winterhawk reverse big bang wrapped up pretty recently, and there are lots of new stories and artworks available for you to put into your eyes!

@winterhawkbingo is going strong!

@mandatoryfunday is an amazing account that posts a new prompt every monday, and people spend the week creating arts and fics based on the prompt, to be posted on friday (or like…on saturday or sunday if you are me lol)

the winterhawk tumblr tag is always popping, and lots of fans track it or check it regularly. if you post a story there or if you ask a question about fandom, someone will find it, even if you have no winterhawk followers.

in conclusion

winterhawk is a pyramid scheme

it is, though. because the people who love this pairing love it so, so much, and it’s something you want to share with your friends. you get sucked into it, even if maybe you didn’t want to and you’d been actively resisting it because you were so sure you weren’t going to like it (am i talking about me? who can say?). and once you’re into it and your mind is blown, you start thinking of people you know who would also enjoy the unique kind of hurt/comfort, angst, recovery, catharsis, etc. that this pairing excels at providing. you’re gonna bring a friend along. you’re probably gonna bring a few friends along. and you’re all going to create cool stuff, and the fandom will keep growing and changing, and so there is new fan content being created constantly. it’s a very rewarding fandom experience. it really, really is.

anyway, both those idiots would break the law if it was dumb enough. clint’s the one who ends up in jail, but by the time bucky shows up to bail him out, clint’s already slipped his cuffs and charmed the secretary and escaped out the window in the bathroom. but he probably took three steps of freedom before tripping over his shoelaces and faceplanting on the pavement, and that’s where bucky finds him, passed out in the alley.

[xjamlessparkx]

divorce | myg |11

summary: in which you have to go through a painful process of your own family shattering

pairing: yoongi x reader

genre: angst

01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 |12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17

“Y/N! Listen!” You heard him calling from behind. You started to walk faster, in hope that he would disappear. He shouldn’t follow you after you left because you just told him that it was late.

He didn’t stop and soon a warm hand grabbed your wrist and turned you around to face him. He winced at the sight of you.

It wasn’t your intention, but as soon as you left you started crying and him calling your name wasn’t making it any better.

“What?” You snapped at him, stepping back and pulling your hand out of his grip.

“I, I made a huge mistake…” he started, going through his hair in an attempt to find words. His hair was pretty messy as his eyes were fixed on you, examining your whole face in hope to read your expressions. There wasn’t anything, but sorrow to read from you.

“It doesn’t feel like a mistake, though” you were surprised about the words which left your mouth. If he had been confessing to you weeks ago, maybe you his words would affect you. But now, they didn’t.

“The day … when you were drunk. You-” you cut him off, shaking your head at his statement. You knew where he wanted this conversation to lead to.

“Yoongi you just said it yourself. I was drunk. Anything I’ve said was because I wasn’t in my right mind… ” he shook his head as he shut his eyes, sighing deeply. Suddenly his hands reached out to you, his warm hands cupping your cheeks as he pulled you closer to himself. Slowly, he wiped away the last tears. You, on the other hand, were startled by his sudden action. Your eyes were wide, lips slightly apart while you watched Yoongi.

You couldn’t remember the last time you were so close to him. It felt like the first time in your life and your heart started beating faster. At that point your own body, your own feelings irritated you more than Yoongi’s words could do. It was confusing how you jumped from a monotonous condition to a feeling making you wanna combust in seconds. As if you were a teenage girl who fell in love for the first time in her life.

“You’re lying!” He breathed out, his forehead leaning against yours as he pulled you even closer. “You and I, we both know that there is still something between us, we can’t get rid off.” At his statement your heart sank and literally fell from its place, making you wince in surprise.

Your eyes were darted on the ground, afraid of looking up into his eyes. At some point, you didn’t realize that the position you were in was dangerously close. A part of your body wanted to push him back, but the other part didn’t allow you and wanted to rest a little more. Feel his warmth and closeness for the last time. His affection which made you feel loved by him, for the first time after your marriage.

“Yoongi-” your voice was wobbly and you tried to maintain your breath. Not realizing that you were somehow crowed by people around you, you stayed in your position. People would give you both a glance but ignore you and walk past the two of you.

He shushed you down. “Look, we all make mistakes. I know that mine is huge and that it will take time to recover, but I really don’t want to lose you. I’m an idiot for not taking care of you. An idiot for wanting to divorce-” his voice cracked as he talked. His warm thumb was brushing against your cheek slowly. The last word sent a shiver down your spine as you looked up, noticing how close the two of you were. Clearing your throat you put your hands on his chest, gently pushing him away while you step back.

“We, we shouldn’t do that…” you say as you stare into his eyes, the intensity growing.

“Y/N… I am so sorry” he was serious, you could tell by his expressions but you still didn’t want to accept the truth.

“A sorry won’t bring all the memories back we shared. A sorry won’t forget about the pain you caused. Remember when you told me that after our children know we will divorce. They already know …” you bluntly say, focused on his face.

“Y/N-” he started but you cut him off. The anger was bowling inside you, about to blow off. You now realized what he was pleading for.

“You want us to reunite? Live together again, as if nothing happened. Cause a trauma but then act like it wasn’t harmful to our children?” You say, your words being sincere as you point at him.

“Doesn’t that make you selfish? You only think about yourself, your own happiness and how you feel sad and regret what you did. What about us? Ahran, Junsun and me?” He couldn’t say anything, he was blown away by your words. Even though he wanted to protest and tell you how much he suffers at the moment. How much it hurts him that he let go of his family for a period of time where he felt wanted to have fun outside of his marriage. At some point, he overthought his decisions and asked himself if he really was mature enough for a marriage and a family.

“Ahran was going through a mentally painful crisis, not feeling loved by her parents. She had to agree with our decision because we are adults and decide what’s good and bad for us” your voice was surprisingly calm as you spoke and you also were a little taken back by your own mood changes. “Junsun seems like he isn’t affected at all but I hear him crying himself to sleep at nights. I see him fighting with his classmates because they make fun of his parents who are divorcing. I see him not attending birthday parties because he refuses to see others happiness when he himself can’t be happy at all. And me …” you voice cracked, feeling your throat burning as you couldn’t say anything. Your words didn’t come out, instead, you felt the tears forming in your eyes.

Yoongi’s eyes were teary as he listened closely to what you said. His heart sank at the painful process his children had to go through. He realized that he never really was ready for a marriage and regretted his decision of proposing to you so early. Maybe things would have a different turn by now.

He wanted to reach out to you, wipe away the tears which he knew he caused. But it felt like something was holding him back. Was it shame or fear that he would hurt you even more?

“You can’t just jump from one conclusion to other. Let’s assume that we will get back together. Ahran and Junsun might be happy at first but what if it doesn’t go the way we want it to be? If we can’t get hold of our relationship now, do you we can in the future? We can’t just play around with their feelings just because we have needs ourselves” You clarified, taking a deep breath as you wipe away the tears.

“We… we can try” he muttered. Indeed, he was hurt and ashamed but he still didn’t want to lose you. Not again.

“We can’t just try and wait for what will happen. We aren’t teenagers. We are adults who have children. The word ‘try’ doesn’t exist in our dictionary. It’s too late already …” you tell him and wait for his response. He doesn’t say a word.

“I wish you would’ve acknowledged my effort…” you whispered, hoping that he didn’t hear but he did.

“Words can’t describe how much I am sorry for what I did. Apologizing won’t work… but I really don’t want to give us up?” He started, stepping closer. In that moment, he felt the confidence growing as he hesitantly reached out for your hands.

“Us? Is there even something left about us?” You pulled your hands back out of his grip. “You already have a new relationship. Shouldn’t you focus on that?” You lifted your eyebrows, clearing your throat.

“It doesn’t matter how cruel a woman is. In this world, no woman deserves to get betrayed or cheated on. Not even Yuna. Doesn’t matter how much I want to avoid her. I’m not a person to destroy one’s relationship, not even in my dreams and you should’ve known by now. I wish you the best Yoongi…” you mumble, leaving him with no words left. You turned around and walked away.

On the one hand feeling totally dejected and disappointed for turning him down. The only chance to recuse your family, but on the other hand, you were proud of your confidence in speaking up against him and his wishes.

Nonetheless, it felt refreshing to finally be able to speak up without him talking down to you. Even though, what you said was sincere you hoped for him to not suffer like you did. If this would be the beginning of the crisis then maybe you would’ve wished him the same but now, everything was totally different. You knew how painful it was and never wished anyone to go through the same.

Externally, you were solid and serious about your decision but internally you wanted him back so bad.

Sometimes, we have to give up what we love to gain something new.

You two coming back together would cause more harm than good, you knew it. No matter how much you wanted him back, you should focus on your children’s feelings and future.

You pulled out your key and opened the door. Haning your jacket on the hanger, you went inside. Your mother crept out of the kitchen, with a towel in her hand as she dried her hands. The moment she spotted you, she furrowed her eyebrows.

“You’re early?” It was rather a question than a statement.

You sighed, putting the keys on the counter, “I lost my job” you plainly state as the lips of your mother dropped wide open.

“W-What?!” she shouted as she eyed you with wide stares.

“I’m tired…” you muttered. It felt like you talked enough for today. The conversation took away your strength and power to stand on your own feet. The only thing you wanted was to lie down and do nothing for the whole day. Even though you knew that the second part would be hard.

You heard your mother calling you, but you weren’t listening as you went into your room and let yourself fall on the bed, pulling the sheets closer to yourself.

No matter how much you were proud of yourself you asked yourself if this was really the right decision made

[mackdizzy]

hey brother, do you still believe in one another?

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21667843

Fandom: GRAVITY FALLS

Pairings: Stan and Ford (NON-ROMANTIC/NON-INCESTUAL)

Rating: T

Warnings: Eye Trauma/Horror, (Nothing too graphic!) Mental Trauma/PTSD (On Ford’s part,)//brief Bill mentions, etc. 

Summary:  intergalactic bounty-hunter AU. 8 pages of teeth rotting stan twins hurt-comfort, because I need nothing more in this world, apparently.

A/N: My first published one-shot, after I've done a lot of publishing and deleting; I think I'll keep this one up for good, though, I'm quite proud of it. Inspired by an rp I'm hashing out with @lemonpie , the entire love of my life. Also dedicated to those on the Fandom Fields discord server. You guys have made my week, seriously.

AU that Probably Has A Name But I Don't Know It in which when Mullet!Stan came back to see Paranoid!Ford, instead of fighting like idiots they made up, got Ford better, and are now intergalactic, multidimensional bounty hunters who love eachother a lot and care about eachother a lot.

It's pretty simple, guys. 8 pages of fluff because my poor little heart needs it.

First things first: shoes off. Ford hates the dirt.

It was surprisingly early when they returned to the room; barely breaching 4 in the afternoon. Apart from the trouble of finding a place to stay (you thought hotels were hard to find in your own dimension?), Stan and Ford usually stayed out late enough anyway. There was evidence to gather, there were clues to collect, there were people to bring to safety; all of this denouncing the fact that there was usually also something to kill, of course.

It had been almost a year since they’d completed the portal and left that old house behind. Not left it behind for good, per say; they would come back every now and then to drop off old gear and pick up new stuff, make sure nothing bad had gotten in when they were away--sometimes they just needed a break from all of….this. But not always, not usually. Breaks were appreciated, but the work was exciting, dutiful, and never-ending. Breaks were best (and usually) taken at moments like these, when they had the time to spare; him fixing the weapons, Ford poured over one of his journals or a book he managed to find, both of them hashing over what they were going to do tomorrow over cheap interdimensional food (strawberry waffles tasted good in any multiverse, his brother would always insist).

The routine wasn’t always as straightforward as that, but nothing the two of them did would ever really be considered straightforward. There were bumps in the road; there had been bumps in the road all year, really, but after the first week in that house “alone” with his brother, that was sort of to be expected. They did what was natural; they worked them out. Because that’s what family did, and because there was nothing he’d rather have done.

Currently they were located--precisely, he noted, pulling out the pocket compass-- at -36.85271, -68.54629, 1.56. If they were back at Ground Zero, he’d note them somewhere in South America (Argentina, maybe, or Chile). Here in the moonshine dimension (which apparently had nothing to do with liquor, despite the fact that he felt drunk every time he looked out the window), the cliffsides remained, but that was about all; the grass was magenta and the sky was a deep purpley color, and the stars saturated the sky so richly, 24/7, that they were almost blinding. Stan would’ve been happy to sit by the windowsill and stare all night, but they had work to do---and besides, they never left the windows open.

Normally, they found absolutely any living space that felt hospitable and plopped down for the night--they were the opposite of picky--but after a couple of rough nights in a particularly rough part of the southern woods, he was delighted to hear Ford say matter-of-factly that he had connections in the mountains, and that’s where they were headed. They’d spent the entire morning traveling, and 4 hoverbuses in plus a lot of hiking later, he’d made the executive decision to check them in and call it a day. Unconfronted yet with the roofwalker who owned the place, someone who Ford had said it would be crucial to talk to, they’d checked themselves in nonetheless and taken the elevator up 38 stories to the bedroom arrangement.

Kitchenette in the corner, desk and 2 chairs, television, bookshelf (empty). Attached bathroom and bedroom--another TV, 2 chests of drawers. And 2 beds. They were always given 2 beds, and they always started out arranging themselves across both, and yet both beds were never actually slept in.

Still: shoes off first, because Ford hated the dirt. He unlaced his boots and threw them casually by the door, hoping that wouldn’t annoy his brother too much. What happened next was calculated routine. He took the window bed, threw his massive bag down. Crossed to the window, locked it, pulled the shades tight, wrapped the cord around the lock to keep them shut. Repeated the process with the window in the sitting room. Moved to the door, locked it tight, pulled the door bolt. Checked the lock on the bathroom and then checked all four locks again, just for safety measures. Next he spot-checked the room, corner to corner; their reputation wasn’t massive, but it was still slightly dangerous, so every inch was scrubbed for cameras, bugs, and any geometrically-suspicious looking artwork. Finally, lights on, buzzing radiator off, windows weatherstripped for sound prevention, tea on the kettle.

Ford never really watched him do any of this; it was more of a safety-net set of activities than anything. Ford didn’t stare at the windows so much if he knew he’d locked them, didn’t direct so much erratic attention to the corners if he knew they’d been checked. So once everything was underway, tea included, he made his way into the bedroom, to find Ford cross-legged on his bed, poured over one of his journals, referring to the other two and a general mass of paper around him as he scribbled. Stan leaned on the doorframe and raised an eyebrow, a soft chuckle escaping his lips.

“Ford, what are the beds for?” He tried not to sound too naggy, but he knew Ford’s sleep habits improved significantly if he wasn’t doing most of his work in the same place. He’d read that on a travel blog somewhere ...he thinks.

“You’re not my mother, Stan.” Ford grumbled in return, but it was half-hearted, and he stood anyway, gathering the paper in a messy armful and carrying it to the desk anyway. Stan took the chance to stand behind his brother and peer over his shoulder, where his loops of neat script had begun filling the newest blank page of the journal.

“Shapeshifters, huh?” He noted, fingers drumming against the back of Ford’s chair. They’d only dealt with shapeshifters once or twice--most of them were nasty, selfish creatures, the conscientious ones interested only in self preservation. With such little regard for the species, he wondered how they populated, but he supposed that could be said for some lines of human lineage as well.

“I believe that is what we’re working with, yes. With all we’ve encountered, I’ve yet to do an official entry.”

He leaned further against the hard-backed chair Ford was situated in, squinting his eyes at his handwriting. His dyslexia had never made it easy to read any of the perfect, neat script Ford had started writing in around age eleven. He did really like the drawings, though; his brother was an amazing artist, something they’d never really known about until he’d started drawing the things they encountered. He let himself stare a bit and wonder at the ways Ford was even able to make something with no defined shape come alive on the page, and all his little frantic scribbles; messy with excitement, not panic. It was a nice sight, but Ford kept stopping to---well, at first he thought he was just brushing away his hair or fixing his glasses, but the 7th or 8th time in about two minutes, it finally set in.

“Hey, hey.” He said gently, nudging Ford’s shoulder. “Your eye ok?”

“Fine.” Came the simple response, which was Ford-speak for No, but I’m totally busy doing my nerd shit and don’t want to be bothered.

Still, Stan could be good for one thing, and it was this. “Let me see.” He sounded slightly naggy again, and Ford rolled his eyes at the ceiling, but some things couldn’t be helped, and he was grateful it worked when Ford spun awkwardly around in the seat and gave him a fixated stare.

“It’s swollen.” Stan said under his breath before even really getting a good look at it, because it was. Pretty red, too. “Look at my finger.” He said, directing his brother’s eye around. Motion was good, that was a start.

“Is it bleeding?” Ford asked, and the sad, wounded little tint in his voice might have been enough for him to lie about it if it was (as if he could ever lie to Ford), but luckily, it wasn’t. “No.” He said, gently. “It’s red, though.” And then he grabbed the chair from the desk across from the room and sat across from Ford, placing his hands on his lap, and Ford rolled his eyes and went to face the journal, but Stan pawed at his arm, infuriated, so he eventually turned around to face him.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing.” Ford mumbled, averting both eyes. “Stan, I’d really like to get back to m--”

“Ford.” Just the slightest edge tinted his voice.

“It’s not fair!” Ford shot back, brushing his hair out of his eyes. Stan could tell he was starting to get a little worked up, and he tilted his head, half in curiosity, half in concern. “It’s not fair that I have to be the one with a---full blown facial anxiety tracker!”

“You know I would’ve noticed anyway.” His voice tried to be gentle, not all-knowing or condescending, and the sentiment was enough to get Ford to crack a smile (albeit a wounded one), which was all he needed, really.

“It’s also quite unfair how you notice everything, Stanley.”

And that got him to laugh, and then he extended a hand and Ford took it. He stroked his thumb along the backside of Ford’s hand and he felt all six of his fingers relax in his grasp, and once they were both pretty calm, he tried again.

“What’s up?”

This time around there was more honesty. Ford looked at his hands for a moment before shutting his eyes tight, taking a shaky breath. When he spoke, it was very quiet. “Haven’t been sleeping.”

“Really? You’ve seemed pretty restful to me.” Inside he’s cursing himself, though, guilt overflooding him. He should’ve been paying more attention, but Ford hadn’t asked, hadn’t brought this up, and he never wanted to seem too pressing. Still, Ford was right, he did notice everything, or at least...he was supposed to.

“Yes, well, my body’s alright, but my mind---haven’t been dreaming right, keep going to the mindscape, I’m stuck, stuck with---with---stuck with-”

“Alright, alright.” He gave Ford’s hand a little squeeze, stopped him before he had to say it out loud. “That’s what I’m here for. Do you ...do you think it’s real?” He had to admit, the thought dried up his throat a little bit. What he’d seen was pale in comparison to what he’d heard from Ford, but the scars didn’t lie, and neither did his own haunting memories of that twisted, inhumane laugh coming from Ford’s lips.

“...No.” Ford replied, but it was hesitant, and it took a moment. “No.” He said again, more resolutely. “Just--just me in my head. It’s getting worse, though, it’s not real REM.”

“How long has it been like this?”

“About two weeks?”

“Ford.” He groaned, his hand covering his eyes, another sharp wave of guilt consuming him. “Jesus Christ. Two weeks? Why didn’t you tell me, Ford?”

“You always worry so much.”

“That’s my job, doofus.”

Ford didn’t say anything in response to that, so he stood, stretching his arms above his head, and yawned, throwing his coat onto his bed. “Alright. Executive decision. Showers and then we’re sleeping. That--” He pointed to whichever journal that was-- “Can wait for the morning.”

Ford’s eyes turned to the clock. “Stan, it’s barely 5.”

“Yeah, well, it’s 2 o’clock somewhere.” He yawned again, and this time Ford caught on and yawned back, flipping him off (with two fingers as per usual) lazily for making him catch it. He laughed, and Ford stood and sluggishly made his way towards the bathroom.

“Want me to come?”

“No, it’s alright. Thank you, though.”

He nodded and made his way into the bathroom off the sitting room, taking the tea off the kettle for when they were both out. Once he was done he fetched it and poured two glasses, making his way into the bedroom to see if Ford was done yet. He wasn’t, but he’d been expecting that, so he set both of the cups on the desk, set on his own bed, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

He’d gotten quite good at just waiting--sorting through his thoughts, and though Ford was the list-maker, planning; these days, boredom was nonexistent, any downtime was appreciated. But he did start to worry slightly when 45 minutes later Ford was still in the bathroom, and he was about to go knock on the door when he heard a scream.

Ford’s scream.

He grabbed the gun out of his holster, changed the setting on it to the most powerful stun setting; not enough to knock Ford dead, but if something was in his body that shouldn’t be there, it would be enough to get it out. He’d had to use it twice before, and neither time had been pretty, so he hoped Ford was in control enough for it not to be necessary.

The bathroom door was locked, but that wasn’t a problem. He considered getting the lock kit from his bag, but hearing another scream was enough for him to discard that idea; he kicked at the hinge-points to loosen everything and then shouldered it hard enough to unlodge the lock before kicking it open the rest of the way. Hotel doors were always shit, no matter the dimension.

There was blood all over the counter, and it stained in the shower as well. Ice filled his veins and he could almost feel his breath stop, but Ford was still alive, still in there, needing him. One hand on the gun he pushed the shower open with the other, shoulders trembling. “Ford?” He said, concern in his voice, but a slight edge too; a warning, to anyone else.

Ford (Ford’s body?) was huddled in the corner, arms tight around his shoulders, his whole body trembling. Since he was undressed, it was easy to scan for the blood, and he was at least a little relieved to see that it was all coming from his eye--better for no blood at all, of course, but no self-decimation had occurred, and since that was usually Bill’s first step, it meant if there was possession, he was fighting it.

“Ford? Ford, are you with me?” He got down on his knees and reached out, safety out the window in lieu of his desperation to make things right, make things okay. Ford met his eyes, and another wave of relief--those eyes were so unmistakably his brothers, large and brown and mousy and right now they looked terrified, the left filled with tears, the right pouring blood. Those were Ford’s eyes, not anyone or anything else’s; so what mattered now was assistance, not violence, and he re-sheathed the gun, holding out both hands.

“Stan--Stan--” Ford gripped his sleeves and held on tight, tugging aimlessly, and he moved in closer, pulling his brother to his chest. It relieved him once again to see Ford clinging on; it meant he was processing things, he was still here, still recognizing him. “Stan, he’s--he’s coming, wants in, been too long without, Stan he’s angry, make me pay he wants me to pay Stan, I’m not safe you’re not safe watching, he’s watching, he’s--he’s--”

“Alright, Alright, Shh, shh--” There was blood in Ford’s hair from where he grabbed at it, blood on both hands, blood smeared on his face, and Stan just wanted to take him in his arms and gather him all up and make everything better for him. He held him close against his chest and whispered things into his hair as he ran his hands through it, down his back; useless, pitiful reassurances, I’m here, it’s okay, he’s not real, I’m real, you’re safe, until Ford’s racing mind finally gave out and he collapsed flat against his chest, head by his heartbeat, silent, still.

“There we go.” He soothed softly, tilting Ford’s chin up. “Whatever your head’s been givin’ you for the past two weeks, it’s bullshit. It doesn’t matter. I matter, and I’m right here.” Ford was soft like putty in his arms in a way that showed he trusted him, which of course meant the world to Stan after everything. Ford’s eyes met his solidly for a moment and he very briefly smiled but then he was out again, somewhere baseless and mindless, just breathing softly against his chest, the fingers on his left hand twitching gently against his leg. He stepped back just for a moment and turned the shower setting into the bath setting, laying Ford back in the tub with his head propped against the rim.

At that point he stepped out, getting a bundle of fresh towels from under the counter. He grabbed a couple of the mouthwash glasses (so as not to get blood in the tub) and used them with the water and shitty hotel soap from the tub to clean off Ford’s hands and face, taking his time and never stopping that soft mumbling, that soft reassuring Ford that he was safe, would be safe so long as he was here with him, and he was so brave and smart and strong, and that he could tell him anything at all, any time.

Eventually he set the soap down and doused the washcloth in water a few times, but he couldn’t even reach Ford’s eye before he felt six slim fingers close around his wrist. Gently he pulled back and caught Ford’s eyes, soft, and his smile, gentle.

“Hey.” Stan spoke, his voice barely audible above the dull running of the bathwater, beginning to work on Ford’s eye. His brother had since let go of his hand to let him work, but Stan had met his grasp with the other one, and rubbed his fingers alongside the back of Ford’s hand for the next few minutes as he worked to get him cleaned up, keeping his handiwork as gentle as possible. “You feelin’ okay?”

“Mmm.” Came Ford’s only response, half-cognisant, and he chuckled back, wringing out the last of the washcloths before brushing Ford’s messy curls away from his eyes.

“Alright, Brainiac. How about we hit the sack? I’m making sure you actually sleep tonight, idiot.” Ford nodded, half playfully half sleepily, and he stood, turned off the water, picked Ford up bridal style like he weighed nothing; he grumbled softly and fussed at first, and Stan was about to put him down when his brother apparently changed his mind, resting his head back against his chest. He set Ford down on his bed, and it only took a minute before he was sitting up, rubbing at his (good) eye sleepily. They both changed for bed, Ford climbing under the covers, and Stan sat on the edge of his bed but didn’t do anything further. “You want me here, or over there?”

A singular moment of silence, then Ford beckoned him over with two fingers. He wasn’t expecting anything less, not after tonight’s earlier confession, and frankly, he didn’t want anything less, so it was with no hesitance that he made his way over to the other bed; not by much, but big enough for two, and they’d slept in much more cramped spaces before. He laid on his back, one arm underneath Ford, the other one in his curls. It was a position that was nothing but familiar to them, albiet one he’d missed the past weeks, and he was happy to be giving something back to Ford for once; a night of good sleep was not arbitrary, not to them. Ford gently set his head on his chest, managed to get his arms over him and their legs tangled up in his sleep. He was cute when he slept, endearing when he mumbled math equations and excerpts about the paranormal.

It wasn’t long before he drifted off himself; day and night cycles didn’t exist here, so he set his alarm for a good solid 10 hours--way more than usual, but Ford needed it and they’d both earned it. He felt well-rested when it finally buzzed, and he was overjoyed to see Ford’s head still on his chest, his own chest still gently rising and falling, curly hair a mop around his head. He stirred gently when he heard the alarm, too, wiggling off Stan to rub at his eyes, and Stan placed a gentle kiss to his forehead before throwing his legs over the edge of the bed and stretching.

“Stanley?”

It was a very soft, very genuine call, and there was some caution as he turned his head, tilted it gently, furrowed his eyebrows. “Yes, Ford?”

“Thank you...for what you did last night.” Ford met his eyes. “I don’t think I say thank you enough, Stanley.”

“‘S alright, Ford.” He said, walking around the bed and sitting on it next to him. Ford’s head lazily collapsed onto his shoulder. “I told you, that’s what I’m here for.”

But Ford wasn’t done. “And that I love you.” Their eyes met again, Ford’s at somewhat of a crossed angle from his head on his shoulder, and Ford’s hands went to his sleeves, gripping somewhat urgently. “I need you to know that, Stanley.”

He laughed slightly, pressing another soft kiss to his twin’s forehead. There was a minute of silence, just the rustling of the trees outside and the smell of last night’s forgotten tea in the air and the two twins who needed nobody else in the world cuddled close. Then Ford jumped to his feet, laughing.

“Race you down the stairs!”

“Seriously, Poindexter?” Stan stood too, brushing himself off. “You think you’re gonna beat me in a footrace?”

“Never said footrace.” Ford laughed, hefting his travel bag with one shoulder and the portal gun with the other. But Stan always had an extra trick or two up his sleeve.

“Ford?”

“What?”

“Love ya’ too.” When Ford’s face softened, like he’d never needed to hear any other words in his life, Stan took the opportunity to snatch the gun from his now-relaxed hand and toss it on the bed, sprinting for the door.

“Last one to the bottom buys waffles!”

If you liked this, I’d really appreciate some reblogs and even better, some feedback. Or if you think there’s something I can improve upon!! Hell, use the tags to tell me what you had for lunch. I don’t care. I hope you all enjoyed my first real fanfic though!!

[lokidrabbles]

Perceptive (Loki x Reader)

Loki reveals to the reader his reponsibility in the NYC attack.

———-

It must have been at least 8 years since the incident in New York involving the Chitauri and Loki, however the memory continued to be very recent and prevalent to him. Although the mind stole negatively influence Loki, feeding off of the trauma and hate and depression he had suddenly experienced after discovering his true heritage. He accepted it, he had taken innocent lives, and in return, his family and home had been taken away from him. A bargain the universe made for the terrible actions he had commited.

But after thousands of years of interacting with frailty of life, Loki knew the healthiest way to cope for a being of his nature was to move on. Life continued and he was a man to move along the wave.

Loki had managed to succumb to an average and non-eventful life on Midgard with his brother. NYC was a critical point perhaps; the city he had tainted all those years ago, but it made sense for him to become stationed here, and of course because you had lived here already.

Loki was aware that you were living in NYC during the attack, and how he had put your life at risk. He instigated a deep hatred against himself for it, but he knew dwelling on it wouldn’t benefit himself or you. He best attempted to avoid it at any cost, but he failed at times in bringing himself down. A few unspoken nights of him wallowing in himself, tears streaming down, asserted the fact that Loki hated what he did, and he hated that he could have been the cause of your death. He also hated the fact that he could not bring himself to admit this to you.

You were not fully aware of the details of the attack all those years ago, just a notion that Loki had been involved in some way. You dared not ask him and you also lowkey did not want to know about it. Things had been going well between you two already, no need for baggage from the past.

During an uneventful evening at your home, you had mindlessly flipped over different channels in an effort to find something. Loki sat somewhere in the living room, reading silently to himself and content in being in your company. It had been weeks since any major events had happened, and it was a period of peacefulness Loki had taken advantage of. It was many years since he has experienced any type of stability.

Flipping through the channels, your eye caught a story during a local news channel, instigating you to stop. At first you couldn’t make out what the story was about, as various images of the New York skyline surrounded by alien machines, being toppled over, explosions lighting up from corner to corner. A deep held memory suddenly clicked in you as the news anchor spoke of the event.

‘-since the attack back in 2011. Over 5 million NYC residents were affected by the attack on that day, and many more who had lost their lives. A memorial service will be held on-‘

You immediately turned your TV off, gulping nervously. You really wanted to avoid the memory in any way possible. You remembered the debris, the fires, the screaming, the skyscrapers falling over, your apartment building blown up into nothingness. You also knew Loki had wanted to get away from this memory, from the traumatic and tragic event.

Your heart almost jumped out of your chest as Loki laid his hand on your shoulder.

“Why avoid it?” He asked sternly.

You looked over your shoulder and up at him. “Avoid?”

“You know what (y/n), what happened that day.” He looked down at you.

You sighed. You didn’t want Loki to worry about your post-trauma as you yourself had been working on it. “I just thought you didn’t want to listen to that.” You said convincingly.

Loki let go of of your shoulder as he moved in front of you. “Listen to what? Listen to all of the destruction that happened?” Loki became slightly irked at your response. He believed that you did not want him to face this, face his crime on the basis that he did wanted to ignore it.

You became puzzled. You noted something was wrong with him. “It was years ago Loki, what happened was horrible but I know its something, maybe, touchy. I don’t want to bring it up.” You twiddled your fingers, hoping he wouldn’t read you.

Loki’s breathing became deeper. He felt his anxiety and frustrated leak out of him. He couldn’t hold back anymore. “You know it was me. I did all of that. I took all those lives and I made you suffer through that even before I met you.”

Your eyes widened as the words entered your mind. Loki was horribly stern and nervous, and it made you feel unsafe and afraid. You gulped, standing up in front of him. “Loki, I...”

“Quiet. You know nothing.” He said as he grabbed your arms aggressively. “I am not an object for your pity. Im an object for your hatred, for your mourning. You cannot develop any sentiment for me. You understand?”

You were shaken. “Why are you raising your voice at me?”

“Because you need to know and understand what I am!” He gripped on your harder.

You whimpered. “I’m trying to be considerate here. I know you’ve gone through a lot-“

“Gone through a lot? Is that what you believe?” Loki asked, his tone becoming more aggresive as he let go of you.

“I just want to help, I don’t understand why you have to be a jerk-“

A snarl formed on his face as he marched agressively towards you. “A jerk? This is what I am referred to after all that I have lost in no less than a year. You simply cannot be this much of a simpleton.”

You felt your face become redder. “Loki, stop.”

“Don’t act and assume as if you’ve figured me out. You want to believe you have some kind of power over me just because I may have shown you vulnerability once. You haven’t the slightest notion of everything I have gone through. The entirety of your short and useless existence could not fathom an instance of all I have had to put up with, everything I have had to endure. You have no idea what pain is, you irksome brat.”

I deep and painful knot formed in your chest as you looked straight into Loki’s furious gaze. You mustered all of your courage to hold back your tears, to hold back all of the sentiment you kept within, only to allow one single rogue drop run past down your cheek. You gripped your palm into a fist and took a deep breath.

“You win.” You said shakily. “I’ll leave you alone.”

Loki breathed deeply, eyes still locked on yours. He felt immediate regret after realizing what he had said.

“But don’t you ever think about coming anywhere near me again. I’m done wasting my time.” You retorted coldly.

You quickly turned and shuffled your way out of the area into your room. You took a last look at him. “You think you’re introspective with all of this, when you don’t even got one single clue about yourself or me. Good luck Loki.” You slammed the door behind you, feeling the hot tears spill out onto your cheek.

—-

TBC

[fluffmugger]

introspectivenavelgazer said: I’m curious about your thoughts OH HOLD ON BB I GOT OPINIONS. ITS BAD. 

sabacc said: ah, the disturbing things bingo movie oh no. nononoo. Make no mistake. This was not a “nooope” situation.  There was precisely one moment in a teaser that actually triggered me, and that was so fucking poorly done in the end product I ACTUALLY ENDED UP LAUGHING. I’m  not exaggerating, check the post. First time I saw that it pulled a very hard visceral cord, and when the Kersh scene came up in the movie, I was huddled up in my chair, hoodie on, ear blocking ready to ride out that wave of programmed fear.   Instead, I fucking laughed because the whole thing was so fucking ridiculous. What was a deft, vicious piece of editing got completely fucking wrecked.  And that’s pretty much what happened to the story, that film was a hot mess of absolute bullshit.  It not only completely fucked up the overarching themes of the original story, it made no fcking narrative sense in and of itself as a movie verse Lo, there be spoilers...

While some parts I can understand for expediency - such as sidelining Audra and shifting Bill’s obsessive run to IT being based on a local child that he ultimately fails to save, why the fuck have Audra in it in the first place? A five second appearance so ...wha, you can make a running joke on Bill sucking at writing endings that’s just an endless sledge against King? What was the fucking point of that?     Likewise the inclusion of Silver, stripped down to a single cameo that only got vaguely saved because it put him in the place where he could meet aforementioned kid (now living in Bill’s old house in a most contrived of plot points but I will allow it because it works) and form an emotional connection. The whole reason for them standing to face IT is shifted from the pact they formed - the childhood vow they could never break - to Beverley instead somehow magically seeing the future while trapped in the deadlights, and realising that if they didn’t finish IT once and for all, even after the cycle they would all eventually take their own lives like Stan did, unable to live with the taint.  While this could be a interesting take in and of itself - if you do not face the demons of your childhood, they will destroy you one way or another - it completely shifts the core motivation to one of self interest.    Initially the Losers (especially Bill) did actually take on IT from a position of self interest (and young Bill actually has a moment of self agony over it, is he only leading  his friends into a deadly crusade because he wants vengeance for Georgie? Does he have that right? Is he nothing but a “selfish little shit waving a tin sword”), but it became so much more, and these children became monster slayers.   It’s the hero’s journey.   And shifting that makes it a corruption, not into a subversion.   It was also so damned messily handled - it could have been interesting , the idealism of childhood shifting to pragmatism of adulthood, but it was reduced to a handwave threat, and they didn’t need to be threatened.  The original story had a whole intertwined creep that was fucking beautiful, this veneer of adults in control of their own lives and destiny being stripped away in thin layers, with the Losers gradually beginning to dimly perceive they are simply parts  of some great cosmic machinery and their illusions of control and indeed  their entire lives are all just that - illusions. The undermining of reality and stripping of power were great Adult Fears that played fucking beautifully in the book.  The silent unspoken Imposter Syndrome, hinted at, but never directly addressed, that all their successes were simply due to being touched by IT.  In the movie? Oh man we’re all gonna kill ourselves if we don’t fix this and it means ...nothing to the characters. Seriously. They all still walk anyway.  And   way too much fucking time is wasted on characters abruptly deciding to leave only to Not At The Last Second.   It’s just a big fat clumsy mess.

They completely chunked out Bowers taking Mike out of the final battle, yet still included him in the film - Why? what was the fucking purpose?  They also intimated that IT was responsible for killing his father - ironically the one fucking murder Bowers did commit -   and adult Bowers was delightfully played, but he served  no fucking purpose whatsoever. Not to drop them to the lesser number of power (5 as opposed to 7), not to drive them into the sewers, what was the fucking purpose of having him there? He shows up, doesn’t even break Eddie’s arm (so there’s your other purpose of resetting the gameboard to the positions of the last confrontation) gets stabbed, gets killed, and they go on la de da.

Michael’s story is absolutely fucked into unrecognisability.  I’ve already ranted about killing off his parents - it’s a dumb fucking decision and I will never fucking excuse it. William Hanlon is a key player in the books, inadvertently preparing his son for his role of watchman.  This is completely lost to the most basic of fucking racial stereotypes.   Holy shit they actually refer to his parents as fucking crack heads  at one point (although this is later revealed to be a fake out by Pennywise), but what does it serve?   While you can argue that removing him is what destabilises Mikes character THERE IS NO FUCKING REASON TO HAVE AN UNSTABLE MIKE.   In the sequel, Mike is clinging to sanity by less than the skin of his teeth, drugging Bill against his will at one point, actively leading everyone into danger with a false promise of victory and generally acting like a desperate fucking madman. Why take a dignified black character and turn him into an unstable Kassandra?  You don’t need a fucking unstable Kassandra, the very nature of what IT is, and its horrific, aeons-long parasitic relationship with Derry is so fucking unbelievable in and of itself it does that for you.   

Likewise Eddie’s adult career  is suddenly changed to being a ...investment? insurance? boring person thing? what the shit? Why not have him own the goddamn largest fleet private chauffeurs? Why change? that one tied back into his navigation skills at least, and there’s serious coin in that shit.   And fucking hell do not get me started on fucking Myra fucking hell if you want to touch a complex and fucked up relationship like that, you don’t handwave it. His entire rampant hypochondria is shifted to  something closer to ...smart arse with some small neuroses?  Ok, but you’re telling me this..why? what is the purpose of this?

Completely out of left field, Richie is heavily intimated to be Queer. Ok.     But they then go on to jam in additional homophobia (and this is on top of Mellon’s death that to be fucking honest is shot way too fucking far on the side of “lookit the smartmouth gay get stomped”)  and Pennywise threatening to reveal Richies Great Secret to the point I literally leaned over and asked His Lordship “The script writer does know this is set in the fucking 21st century, right?”   It could have been a fascinating side story of a man whose trauma keeps himself in a cage even when he doesn’t have to, but it’s not. It’s a hot mess of what the fuck let’s throw a gay (but not too obviously gay we’ll do it so we can claim he’s not so it still sells in china and we have plausible deniability hide your queers, hide your queers!)  in just so we can kill the object of his affection.  YOU DON’T NEED TO AMP UP THE ANGST OVER EDDIES DEATH. WE ALL KNOW ITS COMING. AND IT HURTS.    You know what woulda been ground breaking? You’ve laid the groundwork with Beverley already, have Richie in the deadlights as he is, have Eddie do his Big Damn Hero Save, and then have richie see what’s coming and shove eddie out of the way.  Having Richie die instead of Eddie? Holy crap, no one would have seen that coming. It would have blown up fucking everyone, film, telemovie and book fans alike.   (Also holy shit adult richie, far from being the smart, funny man we all know is a wanker. His comments at the chinese dinner party have none of the genuine humour of the book or even the  Curry adaptation, he comes across as a mean spirited bullying dickhead that you’d all go to the toilet at the same time and climb out the window to avoid. In a kid it’s funny. Kids have no filters. From an adult, it’s fucking poison)  

We also have all these elements of childhood coming back, but there is no purpose to them in the film.  In the book, it’s the wheel turning, the gameboard sliding back to where it was last time they faced IT, a very real embodiment of unfinished business and an inability to escape your childhood - a fact the characters are very well aware of and in varying ways horrified by their own regressions -  but in the film it’s just leaving the audience wondering why are they doing that? why’s that there. what the fuck man. why have bill stutter? So you connect the adults to the kids by using the broadest fucking flanderised tropes possible?  It doesn’t even stand on its own two feet, it relies on way too much back knowledge from other sources. And it reeks as it they bolted on large chunks of some other horror movie script that was presented to the studio and changed the names.  There’s no psychological implications, there’s no deftness, hell there’s no fucking chemistry with any of the fucking actors.  It’s reduced to a jumpscare gore fest. It doesn't even compare to the first half.  It got so bad that by the second act I was literally pointing at the screen and BAM right on cue, there was the jumpscare. That’s how fucking predictable it is.   The CGI was shithouse (I actually burst out laughing during the Paul Bunyan scene as well as the Kersh one it was so fucking bad) the ending is..my god they literally prance around him screaming “fucking clown” until he shrinks, they pluck his heart and crush it. Fuck me, the Curry adaptation had its problems but the savage, ritualistic destruction of IT as they all fell to their knees around and tore it apart with their bare hands had fucking balls at least.  And BTW, it’s only the caverns and the house on neibolt street that get destroyed, the rest of the town is just fuckin’ dandy and it’s like DUDE THE TOWN WAS LITERALLY BUILT ON IT. DERRY CANNOT SURVIVE WITHOUT IT.  IT’S A PARALLEL FOR THE HORRIFIC CANKER  AT THE HEART OF EVERY “LOVELY” AMERICAN SMALL TOWN. THIS IS ABSOLUTELY SOMETHING TO PLAY WITH.  and then, THEN they end it with a letter from Stan. See, Stan didn’t kill himself because in one brief, horrific instant he remembered everything, and even as a child knew he couldn’t face it again and bailed, no... he knew he was going to buckle and killed himself so..he wouldn’t die they wouldn’t all die what. the fuck. was the purpose. of THAT.

In short, it was a phoned in, badly written, badly edited piece of shit, completely purposeless and not even worthy of its predecessor. 

[hermiome]

(1) the thing is, for me, in wanting to keep the mj thing a twist they pretty much killed the build up of the relationship. and also i love mary jane and peter and would love to see that adapted on tom's spidey BUT the way they went about it was not good. first of all the lack of personality mj has? yikes. zendaya has so much potential why waste that in stupid lines and whatever else they think they're doing with her character? is just ridiculous and that was only on homecoming.

(2) then it got worse on ffh like peter went from only acknowledging mj, because of well her out of place one-liners on homecoming, to suddenly I WANT TO DECLARE MY FEELINGS FOR HER like? the struggle peter has with not wanting the responsibility of being a hero (which is a great contrast with homecoming and that is awesome imo) would be so much better and have more depth if it was rooted on losing tony, which it somewhat is but the movie kept going on and on on how peter just wanted mj???

(3) and the whole thing bothers me because there's no development but nobody seems to see it? and okay this is the mcu and not much has an actual development but damn could they at least try? peter and mary jane is SO iconic and this is just sloppy tbh. toby's mj and andrew's gwen had the love story their deserved but tom got whatever this is :( and sorry for ranting on your ask but i feel like i'm alone in this and you're the first person to say something negative about it in my dash.

Hi! First of all, sorry for replying like three days later, but I wanted to sit on my laptop to write a proper reply instead of just agreeing with everything you’ve just said (which I whole-heartedly do).

Look, I am 24 years-old. Just yesterday, I saw a tweet of some screenshots of the kiss with a caption that said ‘can you believe these are the peter and mj from our generation???’, which if I’m being honest, made me feel incredibly left out because I grew up with the original trilogy of the Spider-Man movies. The first one came out in 2002, and I was 8 years-old -- I remember my father was excited and literally dragged me to the cinema to see it and I was like, BLOWN AWAY by it. Literally it was like my first favourite film with real people on it, and it stayed on my top list ‘till I was like 15 lmao. To me, Peter and MJ’s love story is one of the most iconics of all time, and their first kiss under the rain made me start to believe in love lmao. I know there were lots of problems with the relationship in the last movie of the trilogy, but I still love it with all my heart. I was so invested in it that I didn’t even watch The Amazing Spider-Man movies until recently; it just felt wrong. 

And then, the MCU came along and Tom Holland was casted and he was such a sweet, pure, amazing Peter that he bought me completely. But what had me completely hooked was his relationship with Tony, which was essentially why I didn’t like SM:FFH as much as everyone else did. As you said, I think the main focus on this film should have been Peter’s grief at the loss of his mentor.... which, yes, it was in a way, but not as centrally as I would have liked. I get it, this is a Spider-Man movie, but Tony has been at Uncle Ben’s level of importance in this universe for Peter. I think the fact that they put the ‘romance’ in the spotlight threw me off. To quote you, it was underdeveloped and rushed. And this is coming from someone who is okay with Sharon and Steve, the most rushed relationship in the entire MCU, probably. 

But I don’t like this version of MJ -- they tried to make her so ‘different’ and  ‘strong’ and like, the radical opposite of Kirsten Dunst’s MJ that they screwed her up badly. It’s a pity in my opinion, because Zendaya is truly gorgeous and a great actress, but I’m fed up with people only accepting ‘tomboys’ as strong female characters. And the fact that one of the first things we listen to Peter say in the movie is about her, when he didn’t give a damn about her in the previous movie was like ??? so off ??? AND LISTEN, WHAT BOTHERS ME THE MOST -- HE WAS DEAD FOR FIVE YEARS. FIVE FUCKING YEARS, MATE. In Endgame, we saw how the world was, how dark and depressing it had become. Are you telling me in just a few months everything is sunshine and rainbows and like a musical again??? Now he only cares about a girl and doesn’t have any trauma about the time he’s lost??? They acknowledge it so little in the film, if that ‘video’ at the beginning could even be called acknowledgement.........

Also, the little details about Peter and Tony’s relationship. Couldn’t they have just given us more??? Tony had a picture of his kid in the kitchen, it was the main reason why he got off his ass and built the time machine. Are you telling me Peter couldn’t have had a picture of them too, make some parallels maybe??? The only time I remember where Peter behaves like he truly knew Tony was when EDITH says something like ‘Tony loved his acronyms’ and he’s like YEAH HE DID with a sad smile?? Maybe I’m too Irondad/Spiderson baised but, as I said, I was EXPECTING MORE DETAILS, MORE PERSONAL STUFF. They loved each other, they had a father-son relationship, for God’s sake.

But well, what’s done is done. I have fanfics to mend my broken heart. And, to be honest, apart from that, I enjoyed the movie... if only because I love Tom Holland. I seriously do -- he pours his whole body and soul into this character. I would have loved to see him in a more well-constructed love story. I think he would have pulled it off really well. But the actions scenes were fantastic, and Mysterio was one of the best villains the MCU has given us. Also, MAY AND HAPPY - I LOVED THEM! THE PLANE SCENE! THE WAY HAPPY LOOKED AT HIM WHEN HE STARTED BUILDING HIS SUIT, CLEARLY SEEING TONY! THE WAY TONY WAS PROBABLY ROLLING IN HIS GRAVE WHEN PETER CONFUSED AC/DC WITH LED ZEPPELIN! Those were the moments that truly mattered, that made me enjoy it.

Thank you for this message, by the way. I felt like I was alone in this too. 

[bethhxrmon]

All I Ask of You Pt. 18

“When you’re worn out and tired, when your heart has expired. Oh, Lover, I’ll cover you” - “I’ll Cover You (reprise)” from RENT

Pairing: Peter Parker x Original Female Character

Word Count: 4,549

Summary: The one that literally no one wanted or asked for

Warnings: Suicide attempt, death, emotional trauma, lots and lots of angst

A/N: So this chapter covers a lot of mature topics and I tried to handle writing them the best that I could. If you or a loved one is suicidal please reach out to someone, the U.S. suicide hotline is 1-800-273-8255 and please don’t read this chapter if it will trigger you!

Masterlist

Playlist

Sunlight streamed through a window, and Annie slowly opened her eyes. Her eyelids felt as though they were being weighed down, but she couldn’t get herself to turn over and go back to sleep. It wasn’t that Annie had anywhere to be, but she couldn’t get around to drifting off again. Not that she had been able to sleep for long.

Upon waking up, she could barely remember making it inside the apartment. After running off, Annie hadn’t paid attention to where she went. All she could see was Tina’s bleeding body and all she could smell was smoke. She could still feel the heat from the flames lapping at her, singeing parts of her suit.

Somehow, she had made it back to the apartment in one piece. What she did remember was that her parents were both asleep, so she must have gotten back early in the morning. No one knocked on her door, so she didn’t make any move to get out of bed. She couldn’t get herself to sleep, and she couldn’t remember when she had gotten to sleep. Though, she did know that it took her what felt like forever.

It was impossible to close her eyes and not see Tina’s dead body. Annie flinched when she heard the door to her room open, but was only met with her cat padding into the room. She turned so she was laying on her stomach, her face buried in the pillow so all she could see was black. Yet her mind kept going back to Tina.

When it was obvious she wasn’t going to be getting any more sleep, Annie got out of bed and looked at her phone. It was blown up with calls from Harper and many text messages as well. How she still had her phone in the first place, she was unsure.

Sorry things went bad last night. Call you later? Annie typed, sending it to Harper before throwing on some clothes before going out to the kitchen. The coffee pot was half-way empty, and Annie poured herself a cup. It wasn’t like she could tell her parents what happened. She couldn’t tell anyone about what happened.

“I see you finally woke up, how late did you stay up?” her dad asked, taking a drink of his own coffee.

Annie shrugged, “Not sure, got home pretty late.”

There wasn’t much to be said, and Annie worried that if she spoke too much that she would start crying. Instead of thinking about talking about the last night, Annie stared at her coffee and drank it. She knew that her mom was probably stuck at work, looking over some case. Though, as long as her dad was a teacher, he’d likely keep having weekends off like she did.

As long as she didn’t ask questions, she didn’t care. Neither of her parents asked about what she was doing half of the time. It was almost like they were keeping her out of whatever issues they were having to the point that they stopped being parents altogether.

In a way, Annie could make sense of it. She couldn’t use them against each other and they couldn’t use her if she just wasn’t involved. Though, she also felt like her drooping eyelids and how intently she stared at her dark drink were all signs that she needed something. Whether that was a hug or just an affirmation that she was going to be okay, she didn’t care.

A knock on the door was what cut through the silence in the apartment. Her dad got up to answer the door when Annie sipped some of her coffee in response to the knocking. If it had been only her in the apartment, she likely wouldn’t have answered the door in the first place. Though, her dad clearly hadn’t had an eventful night like she had, given he was opening the door.

“Um… hello, what may I do for you?” her dad asked, looking at the woman who was now in the entryway.

The woman gave a small smile, “Does Annika Hardwick live here?”

“Yeah, Annie, get over here,” he said, waving her over.

Annie set her coffee down on the kitchen counter and walked over to the door. The lady who was asking for her was dressed in a pantsuit and seemed to be someone official. It left a knot in the pit of Annie’s stomach. Only, she wasn’t sure why that was. Then again, she had no way of knowing why someone would want to speak to her. After the night that had happened, it could have been for anything.

The lady smiled, “Could I take her, maybe speak to her alone for a few moments?”

Annie looked between the lady and her dad. At this point, she was positive she could have ran away with the lady and he wouldn’t have batted an eye. Then again, she also wanted him to say no. To not let her go until he knew exactly what was going on. Something that she was positive was wishful thinking on her end.

“Yeah, sure, does she need to go somewhere?” he asked.

The lady nodded, some of her blonde curls bobbing up and down, “Yes! That would be perfect, thank you.”

“Alrighty, Annie, go get a jacket. She’ll be right out with you,” he said.

Quickly, Annie scrambled to her room and grabbed a grey hoodie. It wasn’t going to be cold, so she knew that her black leggings and vans would work fine. Why in the world her dad was letting this happened was beyond her. For all she was aware, she was being kidnapped by someone who had a vendetta against her. Not that it would matter. If she absolutely had to, she would use her powers to keep herself safe if that was needed. Only if that was what was necessary. After last night, Annie didn't want to do anything with her powers.

Once out of the apartment with the woman, she felt the knot in her stomach growing. Why wouldn't it? She was in an elevator with a complete stranger who she knew nothing about at all. It was obvious that under any other circumstance where she had a caring parent, Annie wouldn't have ever left the apartment.

"I'm sure you're wondering why I wanted to meet with you," the lady started.

Annie sighed, "Yeah, I guess."

"Well, I just wanted to have the chance to tell you about the situation that we have on our hands without your father having the chance to freak out over it," she explained.

Annie crossed her arms, "What 'situation' are you on about?"

"Have you met this man before?" she asked, pulling out a picture of Darren Lancaster,  the same man who was there last night. The man who killed Tina. Who tried to kill her. Who she shouldn't have let go so easily all those months ago.

Annie slowly nodded, "Um... yeah. I was supposed to have a photoshoot of sorts. Headshots, ya know? I kind of wanted some new ones."

"Right. So you were supposed to have a meeting with him at midnight last night, correct?"

Annie's eyes widened, "Y-yeah, look, I know the time's weird, but that was what worked best after I had my closing night show and that was when he was free afterwards."

"Did you go?"

Annie shook her head, "No, I-I was at a party last night. I kinda ended up staying out too late. Some things happened at the party and... are you the police or something?"

"No, not by any means. You don't have to worry about me. I'm Linda Vanger and I work at an anti-sex-trafficking non-profit organization. Did you hear about the fire last night?" she asked.

There were two ways for things to go. Either she played dumb or played far too knowledgeable about what was happening around her. She didn't know how covered the fire had been. Things caught fire all the time. It was New York, weird things happened and most of the time it was never questioned. Then again, she didn't want to seem like she knew too much. Not when she claimed that she hadn't been anywhere except for a party. In a way, it was a solid alibi. There was no way a normal person could have made it to that building all the way from Flash's house.

Annie shook her head again, "No, what're you talking about?"

"Well, at the building you were supposed to happen there were a couple of vigilantes who may have been trying to stop that man. Clearly, something went wrong and the building caught fire. There were several reported gunshots according to witnesses who were neighbors. But that's not what concerns me," she explained.

Annie bit her lip, "Th-then what does concern you?"

"Tina Burnstock, do you know her?" she asked, pulling out a photo.

Annie nodded, "Y-yeah, we're kinda friends. She's been having a rough time and I've been checking in on her. Why?"

A part of Annie wished she could just drop the act as they started walking down the street. The lady didn't seem to want to hurt her. That much was clear. What Annie wasn't clear on was how she'd react knowing that Annie was the vigilante who had tried to stop that man earlier.

"I-I'm afraid that your friend was killed. By what, I'm not sure. She showed several gunshot wounds to the chest and abdominal areas, and I'm sorry if this is a lot for you to hear right now," she said.

Hearing the words out loud made everything feel all the more real. There was no way around it. Tina was dead and it was all real. The previous night hadn't been some kind of nightmare that she could wake up from. What she was dealing with was now simply her reality. Tears began to sting Annie's dark eyes and she stared at her black shoes, trying to even out her breath as they walked.

"I know that this is probably a lot for you to hear and is likely a lot for you to handle. Look, we can go and get some coffee or tea if you would like. I know this lovely cafe a few blocks from here, all on me," Linda said, leading Annie.

Annie couldn't think of anything else to say, so she nodded, In that moment, Linda could have held a gun to her head and she wouldn't have batted an eye over it. It was impossible to know what she was supposed to do. How could she tell anyone the truth of what happened? That she had been there. That Tina had died right in front of her. That she'd had the chance to incarcerate the man who was probably doing just fine months ago. That she didn't incarcerate him because he said something that was likely a lie. That she was just some dumb girl with powers she couldn't use. That she just wanted to go home and sleep for days. That she had no clue how in the world she would function when she would have to go back to school the next day.

Linda held the door open for Annie, and it was a small coffee shop. Not an evil lair or a sketchy apartment building.

"What would you like?" she asked, smiling at Annie.

Annie shrugged a little, "Um... some green tea."

The green tea reminded her of Peter. Then of how he seemingly ran off from her the night before. Right when she needed him the most. She could have had the chance to make things normal and to live like a normal person. Maybe he just didn't feel the same and needed the chance to get out of the situation. She didn't know, and a part of her wanted to text him and figure out what was going on with him.

Linda led her to a table and sat across from Annie, "I really am sorry for your loss. However, I can't say that the rest of the news will be any easier to process either. You see, Tina was a sex trafficking victim. She wanted to speak out about her experiences. So she came to us."

What had made Tina decide to suddenly choose to tell everyone about her experiences? Annie could remember when all she wanted was to get on a bus and leave. That felt like it was yesterday, and that she would see Tina walk right in. It felt like everything was just some big, demented joke that everyone but her was in on.

Annie sniffed a bit and looked up to meet Linda's bright blue eyes, "Okay, what is it? What happened?"

"We think Tina was kidnapped out of malice, that she had things to say which threatened other bad people. Look, I can't tell you the entirety of the case-"

"Why not? You're already telling me everything else. Don't you think that this would make far more sense to me if I knew what the hell was going on?" Annie snapped before she heard their drink orders being called out. She shrunk back into her chair, "Sorry, I know it's not your fault. Just... keep going."

Annie stood to grab the drinks and took them from the counter and brought them back to the table, setting Linda's in front of her.

Linda nodded, "It's alright. I'm sure this is a tough time for you, knowing what had just been happening. Anyways, we believe Tina was where she was due to foul play. And it is my suspicion that she wasn't murdered by the vigilante."

"Right, then what did happen?" Annie asked.

Linda sighed a pit, taking a drink from her cup, "We believe that she was killed by the same man who kidnapped her in the first place."

"Okay, this is great and all, but what does it have to do with me?" Annie asked, blowing on her green tea.

Linda licked her lips and her eyes darted across the room, "You were in some of the evidence. Your appointment was in a book that was somewhat damaged, but we were able to read what the contents were. It contained plans for your abduction."

The last words seemed to hang in the air for a long time. Annie knew that she shouldn't have been surprised. She had known exactly what she had been getting herself into. It was obvious that she had thrown herself into a risky situation, and she knew that what she had done was something that she should have put more though in.

However, what Annie hadn't been expecting was for someone to point out that she had almost been abducted. That she had almost been thrown into a situation where she would have ended up like Tina had been. Stuck in an alley with some drunk creep.

Had she been a normal person, Annie wouldn't have been there. Then again, had she been a normal person, she wouldn't have gone up to the man in the first place.

Annie didn't know how long she had been quiet for, "What do you want me to do?"

"We were hoping to have you testify in the trial. At least, say what happened in your experience with him,” Linda explained.

"So... I'm guessing that the fire didn't kill him," Annie replied, sipping her green tea.

Linda shook her head, "Nope, actually, Tina was the only casualty. But he's in the hospital for injuries and smoke inhalation."

It almost felt satisfying to know that he had suffered. To know that she had gotten in some kind of hit before everything went down. That she had caused something to happen. Granted, she also had no clue what would happen if she testified. What if she cracked? Sure, everything was fine right then while she spoke to Linda, but she was talking to someone on her side. How would she hold up once people started grilling her?

She couldn't just lie her way through everything. At the same time, if she didn't say anything, then it was likely he would only get murder charges. But her identity would be in jeopardy, and she wished that her dad hadn't let her leave the apartment so quickly. She wished someone could tell her what the best solution was.

"I understand if you need a moment. You shouldn't have to, but it would help to convict him if you said what happened and testified because of the plans that he had in place for you at the time," Linda said, taking another drink from her cup.

Annie bit her lip in thought and shook her head, "I'm sorry, I can't. If there's any other way I could help you, I'd be more than willing to."

"Well, this is more of a desperate question which I doubt you have an answer to. But do you happen to know the identities of Spider-Man and White Swan?" she asked.

Annie choked on her drink, coughing up a lung, "Of course not, I've seen them around, but hasn't everyone?"

"While I would never charge either of them with anything, it is likely that they'll be suspects for the arson unless something else can be proven," she said, "But I feel like if I got them to testify against the charges, we could have an even better case on our hands."

Annie shook her head, picking up her tea, "I-I'm sorry, but I don't know anything. I... I wish you luck, but I need to get home. My dad's probably wondering where I am."

"Fine, but if anything happens, don't say that I didn't warn you," she said, shrugging.

Annie couldn't get out of the coffee shop fast enough, and she felt the knot in her stomach turn into a lurching feeling. She was suspect for an arson that she did commit, but she hadn't meant for it to happen. It was a dumb decision and she wished there was some way that she could just go back and fix it. Maybe if she had listened to Spider-Man, things would have been easier.

She took a moment to pause in a convenience store and checked her phone, scrolling through the news. Sure enough, there were articles covering the entire situation. It talked about Tina's being trafficked and how both she and Spider-Man were suspected of arson and, in extension, murder.

Her stomach dropped and she felt bile come up, and she ran to the bathroom, going to the first stall. Vomit came right out of her mouth, but there hadn't been much to throw up in the first place. Not that it made much of a difference. Annie still felt the wave of nausea overcoming her. She was in so much legal trouble that she had no idea where she was supposed to begin with the whole thing.

One of the articles' comment sections had all sorts of theories. Some claiming her to be a monster. Was she? Annie shook her head, those were people on the internet who had nothing better to do than comment their dumb conspiracy theories on obscure news sites. A few comments down, however, there was the address to which hospital the man was being held in. That he wasn't even being charged with criminal activities yet. Everyone blamed Spider-Man and herself.

Did anyone bother to realize that she wanted to keep people safe? It felt like no one realized that she hadn't meant to hurt anything or anyone. Still, knowing the address made her wonder what would happen if she ever got found out.

Was it possible that she could simply throw away the suit and be done with everything? It was the slightest bit likely, but she knew that Spider-Man wouldn't be able to do the same thing. At the same time, he wasn't responsible for anything, and she was positive that he had been in there getting people out of the building. How had he not gotten to her or Tina in time? Maybe the smoke was too thick. When she woke up she could remember that the floor had weakened to the point that it collapsed on itself.

Once she got out of the convenience store, Annie found her feet carrying her to the address of the hospital that was listed. Why that was, she wasn't sure. It was highly unlikely that the comment was true. If it was, then obviously someone would end up losing their job.

Still, she kept walking in that direction and she was in the hospital before she could even fully realize it herself.

"Hey, I'm here to see Darren Lancaster, he's my uncle and I heard about the fire and... I wanna make sure he's okay," Annie said, hoping that the lie was convincing.

Either the receptionist wasn't paying attention or she really hated her job, because she let Annie pass through without a second thought. She knew that what she was doing was wrong, but she didn't want to do anything. She just wanted to see if it had been true.

She couldn't fathom the anger that was inside of herself, or any of what she was feeling. It felt as though she was going to be sick, but there wasn't anything to throw up. Her heartbeat felt like it was pulsating in her head.

“Thought that you’d show up at some point,” he mumbled, looking up at Annie.

Annie paused, staying in the doorway, “I don’t understand.”

“You’re that girl from last night. The one with the powers,” he said, staring at her.

She pursed her lips, “Y-yeah, I guess I am.”

“And I killed your friend, you know that, right? I shot her so many times I’m surprised she didn’t drop dead right away. And you… you did nothing, you were useless the whole damn time,” he replied, starting to sit up.

Annie felt her throat tighten, “I-I… you can’t, I’m not… stop,” she tried to start talking, but she couldn’t figure out what the right words were. What was she supposed to say.

“You failed her. You failed everyone there, you almost killed everyone there, you know that? You’re practically a monster!” he exclaimed.

It felt like she couldn’t breathe and everything around her was completely ice. A sensation that she had never felt before was starting to constrict her. She needed to breathe, but she felt like she couldn’t.

Of course, she had to breathe at some point. Whether she breathed or her body made her, she wasn’t sure. What she was sure of was that she had done something. The hospital machines went haywire and Darren was staring at the ceiling blankly.

“Help! Someone get help!” Annie yelled, stepping back into the hallway, her hands covering her mouth.

She couldn’t blink, and everything around her seemed to slow down. It was clear that Darren wasn’t going to talk to her again.

What had she done? Annie stepped backwards and out into the waiting area when she was asked to leave by the doctors. She sprinted out of the hospital, unable to get out of there fast enough. Why had she even gone? She shouldn’t have gone, she should have gone home.

Tears blurred her vision again as she walked around aimlessly, trying to call someone who could help. There had to be someone who would pick up. Obviously not her parents, they wouldn’t do anything about it.

Calling Harper only made Annie leave a voicemail. They were probably doing something important anyways. That was fine, she called Ned, another voicemail. Then, she called Peter and she heard the line pick up.

“Hey, what’s up?” Peter answered.

Annie could barely breathe, “I-I-I don’t know where I-I-I-I am a-and I-I don’t know what’s happening.”

“Woah, okay, Annie, what’s wrong, just tell me where you are, I’ll come and get you. Are you gonna be okay?” he asked, his words coming out faster and faster.

A sob broke out of Annie’s mouth. How could she even begin to say what was wrong? What would she even say to him? Even if she did tell him everything, what would he do? Would he think she was a monster?

“Y-yeah, I-I’m just being silly, s-sorry, I-I gotta go, bye,” she said, hanging up the phone.

There was only one thing she could do. She definitely couldn’t put that suit on. Not when she couldn’t control her own powers that she thought she knew how to use. And especially not when she was definitely a criminal and all the charges would come up eventually.

All she could think about were the words Linda had said. How long ago had that been? It felt like five seconds ago. She had no clue how she got back to her apartment building. Though, she didn’t go up to her floor. Instead, she went up further and further. She kept going all the way until the roof.

She wasn’t even sure if she knew what she was doing, but nothing felt quite right. Maybe it was lack of sleep or because of her powers or simply everything that had happened. Maybe it was everything combined. The air was starting to become humid, and she could feel that through her hoodie.

Perhaps, things would be easier for her if everything just stopped. If she could just get everything to stop, maybe things would be better for everyone else. Annie stood at the ledge, still barely able to see through eyes swollen with tears.

Then right as she was about to step off, she felt something sticky on her hand that pulled her back. A familiar red and blue figure was in front of her and she looked up, her eyes wide.

Spider-Man was looking at her, the eyes of his suit so wide that she couldn’t see the black outline.

“Please, let me help you. Y-you’re really scaring me here,” he said, pulling Annie closer.

Annie didn’t say anything, she wasn’t sure if she could.

“Seriously, Annie, what’s wrong?” Spider-Man asked, reaching out to embrace her.

Annie drew herself back, “Please… d-don’t touch me… h-how do you know who I am?”

“Okay. Well, I remember you from the one time I uh… I walked you home,” he said, his arms at his side.

Annie nodded, “R-right…”

“Seriously, what’s wrong? Because what i just saw… that was fucking terrifying,” he told her, crossing his arms.

She shook her head, “I just… I don’t know what I’m doing… and I think it would just be easier if I quit while I’m ahead.”

“No. Y- you can’t do that. Look, I don’t know what’s wrong or anything, but I can tell you that there are people who would never forgive themselves if you died. There are people who you mean the world to,” he replied, wishing that he could just hold her.

Annie looked at the ground, “R-right, yeah, you’re right. I-I’m sorry that was really dumb and… I’m sorry.”

“Hey, don’t think that you need to be sorry. You’re hurting and you need help, okay? I don’t know how much I can help you, just… just promise you’ll be careful?”

Annie started walking back to the doorway before turning back to him, “I’ll try.”

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