#debated on whether or not to put ''Alexander'' on Alex's but you know what? we don't know for sure his given name IS Alexander

[knickynoo]

The Keatons + name meanings

[bright-molina]

Emergency Contact

synopsis: Sometimes it takes an accident and the revelation that Buck is Luke's emergency contact to really bring the Buckley-Mercer (et al) Family to the same page.

fandoms: Julie and the Phantoms x 911

relationships/characters: Buckley!reader (gender neutral), Alex Mercer, Evan Buckley, Luke Patterson, Athena Grant, Maddie Buckley (all relationships are familial/platonic)

word count: 2503

warnings: mentions of minor injuries (and I mean minor, sprained ankle, minor concussion is all)

a/n: @biqherosix surprise! Catch me pushing the Buckley-Mercer family agenda cause I can. For anyone wondering, we're running with the idea that they're cousins. I honestly have no idea where this came from, I wrote it at like midnight yesterday. And it only figures that the first thing I post in forever is a crossover that is mostly self-indulgent but I promise I'm trying to get the hang of things again.

For those of y'all that haven't seen 911 but still wanna read: one, I appreciate you so much oh my gosh, two, I highly recommend it and three, all you really need to know for this one is that Buck is a firefighter with the 118, Athena Grant is a police officer, and Maddie is Buck's older sister and a 911 dispatcher. If I missed anything and you wanna know feel more than free to ask!

The absolute last thing you expected was your phone ringing well past midnight.

“Don’t answer it.”

Alex’s voice sounded from beside you, muffled by the pile of blankets he was buried under. You rolled your eyes and reached for your phone only to have him snatch it out of your grip and stuff it under the blankets alongside him.

“Give it back!”

“No,” Alex crossed his arms tighter, ignoring the second ring completely. “It’s probably Buck checking to see if we’ve gone to sleep yet, if you answer he’ll know we’re still up.”

“Like Buck would voluntarily be up right now. He’s fifteen hours into a twenty four hour shift,” You leaned back against the couch, knowing there was no tearing the phone away from Alex. “Will you at least check who it is to make sure it’s not Maddie?”

Alex groaned, loud and exaggerated, before sticking his head underneath his blankets to check your phone. You were just barely able to hear his panicked ‘uh oh’ before he put on his best fake tired voice and answered, “Hello?”

“Alexander Mercer, what are you doing awake at this hour?”

“I wasn’t awake.”

“Sure you weren’t. Give the phone to y/n.”

He was handing you the phone in a flash and you could see his wide eyes in the dim blue light coming from the living room tv. “It’s Athena.”

“Thanks, I heard. And I told you so,” You smacked him with your pillow when he stuck his tongue out and he quickly ducked back under the blankets. Whether he was hiding from you or Athena was up for debate. “Hi Athena.”

“Y/N,” Uh oh was right. You recognized the tone in her voice immediately. Exasperated and tired with a little bit of worry laced through. “You wouldn’t be able to get ahold of Buck would you?”

“I could,” You sat up straighter and Alex peeked out from under the blankets again, craning his neck to listen in on the conversation. “Is something wrong? Can’t you call Captain Nash?”

“I could,” Athena echoed your words back to you and you heard muffled shouting in the back. “But Captain Nash isn’t Luke’s emergency contact.”

“His what!”

“It’s not a big deal!” Luke’s voice. It was him who had been shouting. “I’m fine!”

“The cast you’re wearing says different,” There was a click on the other end of the line and Alex tripped over the discarded blankets and pillows as he rushed to look for the car keys. “We couldn’t reach him and Maddie was his second emergency contact but May said she went home early today.”

“Yeah, uh, she -” You put on your shoes as fast as possible and reached for the nearest sweater, one you were sure wasn’t yours. “Jee’s teething so she - she’s probably busy with her. What happened? Luke -”

“Is fine. You just focus on getting to the station and bringing Buck to Med cause he’s gotta fill out some papers. I’ll stay here with him until you do.”

“Okay. Okay we’ll be there soon.”

“Y/N put me on speaker,” Athena must’ve been able to hear the panic in your voice. She knew both you and Alex well enough to know every emotion that was running through you both at that moment. “I want both of you to listen to me. Luke is okay. A little scratched up. Maybe a bruised ego. But he’s just fine, I promise you.”

If there was anybody you trusted it was Athena Grant. So you and Alex shared a look, thanked her, and sprinted out of the apartment wondering what on earth Luke had gotten himself into.

“What do you mean you don’t know!”

“Athena didn’t tell us anything!” You shouted right back at Buck despite knowing it probably wasn’t the best idea given the time or the circumstances. Alex was a few feet away, talking quietly to Chimney to have him relay a message to Maddie. She’d be less angry if the news came from him.

“I thought he went back home,” Buck shook his head before jogging down the stairs and you followed him. He all but charged to the locker room and started shoving all his things in the duffel he always carted with him from the apartment to the station and back. “I thought he was okay.”

It wasn’t until then, until you caught a glimpse of his reflection in the little mirror in his locker surrounded by pictures, that you realized something. Evan Buckley, the firefighter, your brother who always seemed so fearless, was scared.

Buck’s mind was racing at a million miles an hour. He kept going through every piece of information he could from the last two days. Luke had promised him. Sworn he was going back home to his parents. He should’ve known better. They were too much alike and he should’ve known better.

He supposed the worrying came with the territory. The anxiety and panic and not knowing were all things he didn’t like but things he would bear if it meant making sure one of his own was okay.

He had always been protective. You were the youngest Buckley and he took it upon himself to make sure you had a better life than him and Maddie had had. Alex was family and he didn’t hesitate to give him a home when he needed one, metaphorically and literally.

And somewhere along the way the Buckley-Mercer family had grown without him realizing it. Alex had brought his band, his friends, over for dinner once and from that moment on they became a fixture in his life.

Bobby, who was surprised the first time Maddie grinned and hugged him, telling him how proud she was of him. Reggie, who was the first to accept a place in their makeshift home, needing the support and love they offered more than anything. And Luke, who was stubborn and wore his heart on his sleeve and fit right in with them.

And Buck couldn’t believe he had let them down. He couldn’t believe that he tried so hard to let Luke know he was there for him and he had failed. If he had just paid a little more attention then -

“I know what you’re thinking,” Your voice cut off his thoughts and he paused for a moment before continuing.

“No you don’t.”

“You’re blaming yourself. It’s what you always do,” You watched as he pocketed his phone and zipped up the bag. “It’s what you did when I thought I could jump off the swing and ended up with a broken arm even though you couldn’t have stopped me. It’s what you did when Alex had that really bad allergic reaction even though none of us knew he was allergic in the place. It’s what you’re doing now.”

Buck slammed the locker shut without meaning to and silently wondered how you seemed to know everything about him when he seemed to know nothing about any of you, not really. He wasn’t like you or Maddie or Alex and that had never been more clear.

“I’m not blaming myself. I just -” He sighed and walked out of the locker room, past you and Alex, and around to the drivers side of the car. He didn’t get in yet. Instead he glanced between the two of you. “I’m not Maddie. I don’t know how to tell what you guys are thinking. I don’t know how to do the things she does. I can’t help how she does. But - but maybe if I could then -”

“You’re right,” You cut him off, already knowing where he was going. “You’re not Maddie. But we don’t need another Maddie, we need Buck.”

“Y/N’s right,” Alex leaned against the top of the car and gave an easy shrug. “Maddie does family dinners every week and helps us with homework and keeps superhero bandaids around for when Reg and Bobby come back from the skate park with scrapes all over them. But you host game nights and come to every one of our practices when you’re not here and tell really bad jokes when you know we need to hear them.”

“They aren’t bad -”

“Yeah they are,” Both you and Alex answered in sync, successfully pulling the faintest laugh from Buck.

“You’re Buck,” You repeated and finally opened the door of the car. “And when Luke left home he came to you. Athena said you’re his emergency contact because he trusts you more than anyone else. We all do.”

It took less than a couple seconds for Buck to nod and get in the car, the two of you following his lead. Moments later he was speeding away from the 118 and in the direction of the hospital, determined to be where he was needed.

“You’re an idiot, Luke Patterson.”

“Wow thanks,” Luke rolled his eyes from where he sat on the couch, an action that earned him a scolding from you, and kept picking at the fabric of the pillow he was holding to him.

It was nearing mid morning and you had all gotten back to Buck’s apartment only a short while ago. The combined insistence and intimidation coming from both Buck and Athena meant the doctors had no choice but to run as many tests as necessary until they were positive Luke was fine.

Your eyes scanned his face again, a habit you’d picked up from Maddie, in an attempt to assess the damage once more to be sure nothing had gone wrong in the last ten minutes.

A butterfly bandage on his forehead above his left eye. Some scrapes on his arms from the fall. The brace around his right ankle propped up on the coffee table and some pillows. A tear in his favorite flannel that you were already patching up.

“What were you thinking?” You sighed and dropped your hands, turning in your spot beside him to look at him and read all the expressions flashing across his face. “You got hit by a car, Luke.”

“I did not!” He flinched when Alex, fast asleep across the other couch, shifted a little at the noise. Buck did the same thing upstairs in the loft, though he recognized the sound of talking and opted to listen in. “I swerved out of the way. The bike lost control and I hit the pavement but I’m fine.”

“The mild concussion and sprained ankle beg to differ,” You stared again. Luke refused to meet your eyes, refused to look anywhere around the apartment that wasn’t the pillow on his lap. He’d been doing the same thing since Buck had nearly busted down the door of the room he’d been sitting in at the hospital. “What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know,” Luke finally sighed, knowing you wouldn’t let it go any time soon. “I just - I did go home. At first. And i-it was okay until my mom started doing that -that thing she does. The voice, talking down, asking when I was gonna start getting serious, telling me I should do better. I tried but she wouldn’t stop saying all of it so I -” His shoulders sank and his head hung low and you moved closer. “I left.”

“So why didn’t you come back here?” You reached out, hand on his arm in an attempt to get him to hear you. To listen to you. To talk to you. “What made you think you couldn’t?”

It took a few moments but when Luke finally looked up his eyes were watering and he looked unsure. He looked scared and he was never scared. “I didn’t want to disappoint anyone else.”

“I don’t know if you know this,” You gave a sigh and leaned against the back of the couch on one arm. “But we are, historically, a pretty messed up family.”

You successfully pulled a laugh from Luke and a muffled ‘shut up’ from Alex only made the two of you laugh more. But when the laughter faded away you were left with the ghost of those doubts. Present and needing closure. To be acknowledged and reassured.

“There is nothing you could do that would disappoint Maddie and Buck, believe me,” You gave him a faint, sad smile and for a second he wondered what memories were the source of it. “And you never have to be scared. We’re your family and we’re here for you. Me and Alex and Buck and Maddie. Athena who stayed with you until we got there and after. Chimney who’s breaking the news to Maddie to save us all. Albert. May. Bobby. Reggie. You have all of us. I hate to break it to you but you’re a part of our weird little family and we aren’t going anywhere any time soon. So please, please never feel like you have to hide from us. You’re home here, Luke.”

And he believed every word. For a moment he wondered why he ever doubted it in the first place. It was evident in the way he had a designated spot at the dining table at Maddie’s place. In the way his clothes took up a good amount of space in one of the dressers upstairs. In the pair of house keys that hung on a chain around his neck. Reggie and Bobby were also given a pair long ago.

“Does one of you want to explain to me what the hell happened!” The sound of the door being thrown open startled all of you. Alex sat up quickly and Buck came barreling down the stairs to meet Maddie at the door.

Bobby and Reggie came in after her, holding piles of various items she’d insisted on bringing with. They were followed moments later by Albert carrying bags filled with takeout and then Chimney with Jee-Yun in her car seat.

It was dead silent for a moment as Maddie looked between her siblings, her cousin, and the boy she considered one of her own. They were all her family and that was that.

Finally the silence was broken by Luke leaning over in your direction and quietly asking, “Hey, does home have a place I can hide from Maddie until she’s less mad?”

“Oh, Luke,” You offered him a smile he recognized as a slightly sympathetic yet playful one. “There is nowhere you can hide where Maddie’s anger, love, and aggressive post-injury nurturing won’t reach. Good luck.”

She sat in your spot the moment you stood up and was immediately making sure Luke was okay. Her eyes scanned each injury just as yours had and when she finally let him take a breath he looked around.

All of this, the chaos that was unpacking the various takeout boxes. Setting up a little station on the kitchen island with various medical supplies. Chasing Jee-Yun around as she crawled and wobbled all around the place. Music playing softly in the background as everyone smiled and talked and felt relieved that he was okay.

This was home. Luke was sure of it.

Taglist:

Everything: @meangirlsx @cucumbers-and-olives @dream-a-little-bigger-x @fangirlangioma @jaskiers-sweetkiss @babychickanon @goddess-of-night​ @n0wornever @calamitykaty @hellophantoms @funsizearsonist @crybabyddl​ @txrii @sunsetcurvej @willex-owns-my-heart @angryknightstatesmantrash @all-in-fangirl @reg-peters @willowsbendtothewind-blog @jatplover

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[boggie-brainrot]

Stolen Flowers

willex week gift exchange

for @enbies-and-felonies​ , you said you were a sucker for angst so I hope I delivered well.

“Well you’re gonna have to show me.”

“What?”

“Show me the guy that is so amazing that you feel the need to steal my flowers for them.”

“Oh- I- okay. Follow me then.”

OR

In which Willie’s been caught stealing violets and has to find a way to explain why.

Alex and Willie were in their apartment, Willie with his head in Alex’s lap. They were talking about everything and everything, they’d been together for eight months now and yet they both fell in love with each other more and more each day.

“Hey, do you remember the bouquet I gave you on our first date?” Alex asked, running his fingers through Willie’s hair.

“Of course,” Willie smiles to himself, “it was a bouquet of lavender, and peonies, and violets. It was beautiful.”

“Yeah, I didn’t exactly know what flowers to get, I didn’t know your favorites... so I just chose mine,” Alex told him.

“Well, they’re my favorites now too, so I guess you did a good job,” Willie beamed, looking up at his angelic boyfriend.

“I guess I did,” Alex echoed, leaning down to give Willie a kiss.

- - - - -

 It was now a sunny Saturday in April, and Flynn is waiting at her living room window. She is determined to find out who it is, who has been stealing their violets. For the past two months, every Saturday morning without fail someone has stolen her some of her prized violets from her garden. She is waiting and watching for about an hour when at 10:34am finally the thief strikes.

Flynn rushes from the window and frantically unlocks the front door, trying to catch the thief before they leave. They swing the door open before yelling and the boy with long hair.

“You! You have been stealing my violets every week! Why? Why can’t you just buy some of your own?” she yells at him.

The boy seemed quite flustered and stunned at the outburst, he hesitated for a second before replying, “They- they’re for my- my boyfriend,” he manages to stammer out.

“Really?” she quirks an eyebrow, “So you’ve been stealing my flowers for a boy?”

“Yea- yes ma’am,” he responds, oddly formal for the girl who’s a few years younger than him.

“Well you’re gonna have to show me.”

“What?” Willie was confused by the demand.

“Show me the guy that is so amazing that you feel the need to steal my flowers for him,” Flynn clarifies.

“Oh- I- okay,” the drop in Willie’s mood is visible, “Follow me then.”

They begin walking down the path and Flynn furrows her eyebrows, wondering where the boy is taking her. The silence between the two is filled with slight tension and awkwardness.

“I’m, uh, I’m Flynn by the way,” she says in an attempt to relieve the awkwardness.

“Nice to meet you, I’m- my name’s Willie,” the boy replies.

But still, there seems to be an atmosphere that Flynn can’t quite put their finger on. They look at where they are, still unsure of where they’re going. She glances at Willie for a second and can see that he’s trying to sum up the courage to say something. She doesn’t push him but can tell that what he wants to say is significant.

Willie ends up looking like a goldfish, opening, and closing his mouth, trying to figure out the best way to tell Flynn where he’s taking them. It appears though that he won’t have to say the words after all as they arrive at their destination.

Flynn’s eyes fill with sorrow and sympathy as they realize where they are. She looks at Willie whose eyes are full of tears and then takes his hand as he guides the, through the rows, finally he stops, and she reads.

‘Alexander Mercer

In loving memory

Died 6th of February 2021

Aged 22 years

Suddenly a flower sweet

Is plucked from the garden at our feet’

“Oh,” Flynn looks to Willie and see the tears streaming down his face, “Oh Willie, I- I’m so- I’m sorry.”

Willie tries to wipe the tears from his cheeks as he speaks, “He- it was two months ago that he died. He always loved violets and uh, I saw them on my first visit to the grave so I- I just took them.”

“And now you keep bringing them to him,” Flynn whispers, “I- is it okay if I ask what happened?”

“Yeah, he um, he was in a band with three other guys. Three of them, him, Reggie and Luke” Willie nods to the graves on either side of Alex’s, “they were uh, they were getting food just before a gig and, well it must’ve been tainted or something because they never showed up.”

Flynn puts a comforting hand on Willie’s back, moving it softly up and down. They see Willie’s eyes lock onto something and she follows his eyes, he’s looking at another boy, the boy has dark hair and dark eyes, he was coming over to them.

“Hi Willie,” the boy says sadly, he then looks to Flynn, “Who’s this?”

“Hi Bobby,” Willie replies, “This is Flynn, she owns the violets that I bring to Alex.”

“Hi,” Flynn waves shyly to Bobby.

“Hi,” Bobby nods to her, he then places the red amaryllises they didn’t realize he was holding onto the grave on Alex’s left, the one with the name Reginald.

They stand in silence looking at the graves when a fourth person walks over, a young girl that Flynn recognized from high school, her name was Julie. Julie placed the purple dahlias on Luke’s grave before looking at the three that were gathered there already.

“Hey guys,” she sighs, then she looks to Flynn, “You’re Flynn, right? You were in my music class in senior year?”

“Yeah, yeah I was,” Flynn confirms, “Guys, I am so, so sorry about what happened. Willie I’m sorry that I snapped at you, I didn’t realize-“

“Flynn, it’s okay. You didn’t know,” Willie shakes his head.

“Are you two ready to go?” Bobby asks the two other mourners and they nod. They begin to leave when Flynn speaks up.

“Wait,” Flynn says, and the three turn around, “Where are you going?”

“We’re going to Kenny’s Diner,” Bobby tells her, “It was the guys’ favorite diner. We meet there after visiting the grave.”

“Okay, well uh, I’m sorry for your loss, all of you,” and with that they went their separate ways.

- - - - -

 When Willie passes Flynn’s garden the next week he pauses for a second, debating whether or not he should still take the flowers when he sees a note stuck between them.

‘For Alex’

It reads. Willie smiles slightly before looking to the living room window, there he sees Flynn standing beside a girl with long honey blonde hair and kind russet brown eyes. They both smile sadly to him and Flynn nods her head.

With that he waves to the girls, takes a couple of the violets, and continues on his way to see Alex, and meet with Bobby and Julie.

[justlightlysedated]

for @zuluoscarecho​ 🥰🥰

-

Michael is in the middle of changing the oil on Mr. Jameson’s ancient Chevy, when there are hands wrapped around his ankles rolling him out on the creeper from beneath the hood of the car.

Michael takes in the military uniforms, tactical gear, and the fact that they all have their faces completely covered and is immediately on guard, trying to figure out how to get out of this without actually revealing his secret.

"Are you Michael Guerin?" One of them asks, voice muffled by their masks, but the command in their tone is unmistakable.

"Who's asking?" Michael asks instead, not wanting to give an inch.

"His face matches the picture, Number Two," another voice pipes up. "We can just take him and confirm once-"

The voice is cut off with a painful sounding hiss, but Michael's eyes are narrowed and on the person who seems to be in charge here.

"What are the charges?" He asks, pushing himself up to his feet, and letting the creeper slide back underneath the car. "Because I know you can't arrest me without a warrant."

The group of four soldiers are all pointing their guns at him, except the one called Number Two, whose eyes look too amused for Michaels liking.

"Who says we're here to arrest you?" They ask, and before Michael can think of something to say to that, one of the soldiers closest to him moves, swinging his gun and catching Michael right on the side of the head.

Fuck, Michael thinks as everything goes black.

-

Michael comes back to consciousness violently, fists swinging and feet kicking, his knuckles smart when he actually comes into contact with someone, who grunts in pain.

"Calm down, Mr. Guerin," the same commanding voice from before says. "We're not going to hurt you."

The only difference in the voice is that it's not muffled anymore, which is the only reason that Michael opens his eyes and gives them a pointed look in answer.

The woman in question is standing in the middle of the room, she's tall and regal looking, blonde hair kept away from her face by a braid. The other three soldiers are sitting on the opposite side of the small room, two more women, one wearing a hijab, the other a brunette with her hair cut short and severe aligning with her chin and a blonde guy, built like a linebacker, hair buzzed on the sides and cropped short on top, rubbing a red spot on his cheek and glaring at Michael, all of them looking around the same age, which is not any much older than he is.

“The fact that you knocked me out and then brought me here, wherever here is says pretty much otherwise, so excuse me for not actually believing that,” Michael says, ignoring the pounding in his head to sit up, not really liking being in a vulnerable position around so many people, especially considering these people were soldiers.

The woman, who he figures is Number Two, straightens up even more, tucking her hands behind her back, and she somehow looks even taller than before as she starts to speak.

“Our apologies, but we need your help,” she says, and keeps speaking before Michael can ask what exactly they need him for.

“We are Troop Eleven-Zero-Six of the USAF, in charge of infiltrating and retrieving. I am First Lieutenant, Barbara Wilson, but everyone calls me Number Two. My team,” she motions over to them and they all introduce themselves, but Michael is still caught back a couple of sentences before when she said they were part of the USAF, the Air Force, meaning that this was either his one way ticket to a dissection table or this had to do with Alex.

“I’m sorry,” Michael says, interrupting the guy who’d been rubbing his cheek earlier. “But I don’t really care who you are. What do you want with me?”

The guy opens his mouth, probably to argue, but Number Two steps up, holding a hand out to stop him before he can say anything.

“As of 0600 hours yesterday morning, our Captain, Alexander Manes was reported MIA, during what was supposed to be a simple routine pick up. Our assumption is that he’s been abducted and is being kept somewhere outside of our jurisdiction. My team has been put on the sidelines and told to wait, while inexperienced older men debate whether or not it would be worth it to use the resources to find him.”

Michael had always known that the Air Force was going to get Alex killed. 

Even though it’s been weeks since the last time that he reached out to Alex, the distance making their connection waver and spotty most of the time, like an old radio trying to pick up radio signals that are out of range, Michael reaches out for him almost subconsciously, and he is marginally relieved to feel a sharp irritated nudge back, even if it’s Alex Code for leave me alone.

“What do you need from me then?” he asks, partially because he thinks he already knows what. But at the same time, their soulmate status is something that they never actually discuss with each other, so Michael had assumed that Alex had never told anyone else.

“You are his soulmate, aren’t you?” The girl in the hijab, who Michael vaguely remembers, had introduced herself as Carter, no first name, asks stepping away from the wall she’d been propped up against.

“He’s obviously not,” the guy who he’d interrupted before, and is now labeling, Blonde Asshole, says, a sneer on his face. “There is no way some backwards cowboy hick from Roswell is the Captain’s soulmate. I told you we should’ve checked his mark while he was unconscious.”

“That is an invasion of privacy,” Carter says, sounding disappointed.

Blonde Asshole scoffs, “We’re in the middle of an unsanctioned mission.”

The woman with short hair sends a truly impressive bitch face to the Blonde Asshole, and Michael thinks she introduced herself as Sabrina, “That doesn’t give you the sanction to act like such an asshole. Oh, wait, that’s just a delightful part of your personality.”

Blonde Asshole makes a mocking face at her, “It would’ve saved us the trip. The Captain’s life is in danger. We don’t have time to-”

Michael gets to his feet, effectively shutting him up and turns to Number Two, who stares right back at him. 

“Alex is in danger?” he questions, sending a wave of worry to Alex, which is immediately cut off with a stone cold icy wall, like Alex doesn’t want to give him even an inkling of what he could possibly be feeling right now, which usually would make Michael scoff and roll his eyes and go to the bar and drink until he can dull the awareness of Alex in his head.

“Yes,” she says, simply and effectively changing the mood inside of the room. “Our mission before he went missing was highly classified, and it’s entirely possible that it pissed off the wrong type of people, and this is their way of getting revenge. They’ll interrogate him to get as much information out of him first, and then they’ll kill him. And the Captain is a hard nut to crack. He’ll withstand the torture for a long time. But I wouldn’t put it past the Commander to just drop a bomb instead of risking a rescue mission.”

“So we’re not only on a time limit, but we’re also risking possible dishonorable discharge, not to mention actual prison time, so if you’re not going to be any help, you may as well tell us now so that we can find another way to save him,” Blonde Asshole says, and he potentially sounds worried, but Michael ignores him and keeps looking at Number Two.

“So what are we waiting for?” he asks, not caring that he hasn’t confirmed that he is Alex’s soulmate. 

He is, which is all that matters. He doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone right now. They’ll get their proof soon enough.

“For the plane to land,” Number Two says, and the plane hits a spot of turbulence on an otherwise completely still flight, and Michael drops down back to the row of seats that he’d woken up on, feeling a little dizzy. He has never been on a plane, and he doesn't understand why knowing he's actually in one, makes him feel worse than not knowing.

Number Two just reaches out and pats his shoulder, “Rest up. Once we hit the ground, there’s going to be no time for that.”

Michael nods his head, thinking that that is easier said than done, but as soon as he leans back against the seat, he feels his eyes flutter close, exhaustion hitting him like a wave,  dragging him under and before he knows it, Michael falls asleep.

-

After the plane lands, he gets shuffled into a standard armored vehicle, squeezed between Blonde Asshole and Sabrina, who asks him if he's an actual cowboy or if he just wears the hat.

Michael doesn't really answer because since the moment he touched the ground, wherever they are, since he didn't exactly get an itinerary before he'd been kidnapped, he could feel his awareness of Alex coming back in full force, and now that he was closer, he could tell exactly why Alex had been pushing and putting up walls, and trying to keep him away.

Their bond was bright hot red with his pain, and not only was he going through whatever it was causing him pain, torture being the likely candidate, but he was also actively trying to keep their bond blocked.

Michael closes his eyes and concentrates fully on the piece of Alex that he had inside of him, feeling it light up in the back of his head, and right on the center of his chest, warm and pulsing.

Alex sends out a drowsy question, probably wondering what the hell Michael is doing, and Michael sends back an image of getting pulled out from beneath the hood of Mr. Jameson's Chevy by his team.

He feels Alex’s alarm sweeping through him, and before he can say or think anything else, Alex drags him out of his head.

Michael gasps as he feels overwhelmed with pain, stinging from the tips of his fingers to an ache in his chest that makes it hard to breathe to the excruciating pain of what he’s pretty sure is at least one broken leg.

Michael opens his eyes with difficulty and takes a look around the cell that they have him in, but there are no windows, and even if he could find it in himself to move, whoever took Alex has his hands cuffed together and tied to his cuffed feet.

If Michael concentrates, he'll be able to tug against the bond and use his powers even while in Alex's body, but before he can, Alex is dragging him out of his head and into their mindscape, a phenomenon that only seems to be possible when an alien is your soulmate since it's one of the many strange things about their bond that isn't like anyone else's.

Michael lets Alex tug him forward and check him over, asking about a million questions, but he can barely hear any of that.

His entire focus is taken up by Alex. Even though he knows that in the mindscape he's nothing more than a projection of his subconscious, which is why he looks all of seventeen years old, the same exact age they were when they fell in love and formed their bond. Michael can't help but be relieved at the sight.

He misses Alex so much while he's away, even more when he's overseas and he can't even get this.

Alex stops speaking, probably noting the lovesick look on his face, and he sighs, but Michael can feel the swell of affection pulsing through him.

"Guerin, focus," Alex requests, snapping his fingers in Michael's face.

Michael blinks a few times before he nods his head, “I’m here.”

Alex nods his head, “Good, now tell me. What do they have on you? Because I can convince Wilson to get lost while I figure out how to get out of here.”

Michael is too charmed by the way he puts air quotes around lost and forgets to actually pay attention to what Alex is saying.

Alex shakes him a little, and Michael blinks a few times before he realizes what Alex is saying.

“Oh,” he says, shaking his head. “This isn’t about me. Well, not about the alien thing. It’s about our soulbond. They think I can help find you.”

Alex furrows his brow and shakes his head, “Tell them no.”

“It’s already a little late for that,” Michael says a little sheepishly, pushing his recent memories towards him.

Alex just inhales deeply and closes his eyes.

"Fine, okay," he says, sounding defeated. "My team is good at extraction, and having a direct line to me through you should get the job done, but-"

He stops himself and turns to Michael, looking at him with a pleading expression, "But you have to promise me that you're not going to do something reckless and dangerous and expose yourself."

Michael wants to tell him that he will do anything if it meant getting him back safely, but he also knows that it's probably a declaration that Alex doesn't want to hear.

"I'll just lead them to where you are and stay out of the actual fight, you don't have to worry about that,” Michael says, and Alex gives him a look like that’s asking for him to do something impossible.

Before either of them can say anything else, Michael feels a jolt of pain coming from Alex’s side of the bond.

Alex grits his teeth, shutting his eyes tightly and shaking his head.

“Is that why you push me away sometimes, because you’re trying to protect me from this?” Michael asks without actually meaning to.

Alex blinks his eyes open, and just looks at him, and Michael can tell that he’s on the right track, but now isn’t the time to be discussing this.

Alex just breathes in deeply, and then narrows his eyes at Michael, and Michael feels a deluge of memories, scents and sounds and limited vision, of the drive to wherever it was that they took Alex.

It’s not a lot, but it’s enough for Michael to piece it together.

“We’re going to find you,” he tells Alex, infusing the words with as much conviction as he can.

Alex gives him a wan smile in return. “I know.”

Michael just nods his head and Alex closes his eyes, and then Michael drops back into his body like he’s been dropped from a great height.

He jolts and his eyes snap open, and he sees Number Two and Carter, turned around looking back at him.

He can feel Sabrina’s hands on his neck, and wrist checking his pulse.

“Is everything okay?” Number Two asks slowly, eyes darting all over him, probably worried that they’d concussed him earlier.

Michael nods his head, “Just conferring with Alex. I know how to find him.”

Number Two looks at him for a long moment, scrutinizing, before she nods her head sharply, "Alright then."

She turns towards the front starting the truck up again while Carter hands him her tablet with their location and the map pulled up, showing real time images.

Michael grabs it gratefully and starts looking for something that matches the memories that Alex gave him.

"Let's go get our boy back."

[thesportssoundoff]

“I’m not sure how to feel about this card but Jon Jones vs Dom Reyes is great shit.” UFC 247 Preview

Joey

Feb 2nd

The UFC rolls into Houston, Texas for a very STRANGE card. It's had some injuries and pull outs that changed around its dynamic (imagine this show if Jimmie River vs Marlon Vera and OSP vs Ryan Spann) but it's got the bare minimum which is two title fights followed up by an underdcard with big dudes on it. That's basically all  I ask for. It's definitely not the UFC's best offering but when you consider that they lost three good fights and had a PPV come up at the last minute? I've seen worse. I guess. Jon Jones vs Dominick Reyes and Valentina Shevchenko vs Kaitlyn Chookagian are basically your drawing cards anyways.

2020 Stat-O-Matic:

Debuting Fighters (2-2): Youssef Zalal, Austin Lingo, Kalinn Williams Main Event Exemption:

Short Notice Fighters (1-1): Kalinn Williams Main Event Exemption:

Second Fight (1-1): Antonio Arroyo, Journey Newsom, Domingo Pilarte, Miles Johns, Justin Tafa Main Event Exemption: Vs Debutantes:

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (5-0):   Main Event Exemption (1-0):

Undefeated Fighters (2-1):  Dominick Reyes, Miles Johns, Austin Lingo Main Event Exemption: Dominick Reyes

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (1-1): Trevin Giles Main Event Exemption:

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (1-1): Ilir Latifi Main Event Exemption ():

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- When @theanticool  and @cerealsensei   says something, I feel compelled to listen because if he's not right, he's able to put things together in a logical enough sense that it makes me consider things. So when both say that they think the end of the Jon Jones reign at 205 lbs is coming to an end, I feel compelled to consider it. It's hard to really judge just what Jon Jones is and we're entering Anderson Silva territory where Jones is the world's most blasse unbeatable fighter ever. He's in that pre-Chael Sonnen phase where Anderson just sleptwalked through fights and struggled to amuse himself for five rounds of blegh. So is Jones about to prove some mortality? I kinda don't know. The three guys to come close to giving Jones an L was a super athletic and long limbed Alexander Gustafsson, Daniel Cormier in both their first and second fight (fights he still lost decisively) and the Thiago Santos fight where Jones just...sort of fought. The right people are telling me Jones is vulnerable----but I'm just not seeing it. Perhaps I'll believe it WHEN I see it and perhaps Reyes is the dude to bring that out.

2- So what does Reyes do well? For starters, it's hard to think of a fighter Jones has faced in a bit who possesses genuine stopping power with his hands. Anthony Smith hits pretty damn hard but he's more of a master of accumulation, Thiago Santos can wipe dudes out with his legs but really only has one serious finish with his hands (Jan Blachowicz) while DC's punching power seems to come and go depending upon the situation. Gus has tremendous hand speed but his finishes in the UFC were mostly against the likes of guys like Jimi Manuwa and five rounds worth of abuse vs old man Teix. Reyes has power and if nothing else, that'll give him a shot to do things in those brief moments where Jones' defense lapses and his chin is out there to be touched. Also I've seen Reyes have to adjust gameplans and make a swap up as he did vs Volkan Oezdemir, even if you can debate whether it was enough to WIN the fight. Lastly? Reyes is well rounded enough as a wrestler, striker and grappler that he's not as one dimensional as some of Jones' other opponents and he's not broken down like Gus was. Also don't forget that Reyes is a young 30 years old and not with over 30+ fights like Anthony Smith and he's a natural LHW.

3- I wonder if Jones will feel more motivated to get as finish in this one given how much flak he took by not finishing a guy with torn ACLs in both legs?

4- What does the UFC want more; a Jones win to get him to move up to HW for a big summer show run OR a Reyes win to finally have a sellable rematch for Jones that doesn't involve the retiring Daniel Cormier?

5- Is a finish like the one that Valentina Shevchenko got vs Jessica Eye actually a bad thing? If you go through Shevchenko's UFC history; you've got a lot of pretty damn boring five round fights with the occasional "holy shit" finish. The Jessica Eye finish is the Holy Shit-iest of the Holy Shit finishes----but in the process, it created this somewhat unfair expectation that Shevchenko is capable of doping that all the time. She may be capable of that but she rarely if ever takes that risk. Part of it has to do with the fact that most women are so petrified of getting what Jessica Eye got that they wind up hanging out away from the firing range, opening the door for Shevchenko to leg kick with an occasional takedown on the back end to control women. It creates for boring ass fights but would we be more willing to accept a boring fight if we didn't know she was capable of highlight reel finishes as well?

6- Chookagian tends to be a hyperactive striker so chances are Val is going to take her down and finish her BUT Shevchenko is prone to bouts of inactivity mid round and so I wonder if Katlyn Chookagian has the capacity to steal a few rounds just by doing stuff when Valentina isn't doing anything.

7- Fair to say Mirsad Bektic is just going to be a top 10 filler name and not a real contender any time soon? He draws rising MMA manager and pro fighter Dan Ige on the main card.

8-  A lot of people griping about HWs on the main card but this is a sport of size and the BIG BOYZ are here to throw fisticuffs!

9- What's Ilir Latifi's plan in the move up to HW? Is the goal to stop cutting weight and hope his sledgehammer power is able to travel with improved cardio on the back end?

10- Keep an eye on Miles Johns vs Mario Bautista. Got potential to be a wild scramble fight with subs aplenty.

11- Journey Newson had a pretty impressive debut as he overcome a really rough start to give Ricardo Ramos some trouble with his pressure game, length and boxing down the stretch of a loss on short notice. He draws Domingo Pilarte on the prelims and Pilarte is a wild fighter at 135 lbs who is coming off a disputed decision loss in HIS debut. Should be a really great fight on the ESPN+ portion of the prelims.

12- Do we pencil in Alex Morono for a bonus of some kind already?

[lightsandlostbells]

Druck season 2, episode 7 reaction

Goddamn, Druck. I’ve been dragging my ass with the rest of the S2 reactions because honestly, the content is pretty rough and rewatching it requires a certain amount of emotional fortitude, lol. 

Anyway, here’s me putting myself through S2 hell so I can catch up to recap S3 hell!

Episode 7

Clip 1 - Interesting choice of entertainment

As I mentioned in the last reaction, I thought we might start with Mia calling off their relationship, as if last night was her way of saying goodbye to Alex, getting in just a little more time together because she did as Kiki asked. But obviously that wasn’t the case, because Mia and Alex are very much still in bed together.

They are sitting up and watching a movie on a laptop. In the movie, a woman kisses another woman. We cut away to Alex and Mia sitting there stiffly, sneaking glances at each other, as we hear the scene get sexy, with zippers unzipped, lots of panting and wet smacking sounds. Both of them clearly getting turned on by this video. Alex shifts and I think he covers his lap a little more, lol. He shifts closer to her and “subtly” puts his hand out for the taking. I love that Mia notices and smirks a little but doesn’t seem to take his hand. 

This whole part of the scene was so weirdly true to life, lmao, if you’ve ever ended up watching a film that was more explicit than expected with someone. I had a friend who ended up watching Y Tu Mamá También on like a first or second date, neither of them knowing what the movie was about, and it was apparently very awkward.

Finally he turns off the film and kisses her. She leans away eventually and starts asking him about the scene - whether he was turned on by her or the scene. He’s like … both? He asks whether Mia watches porn and she says yes.

There was some debate about like … whether it’s in-character for Mia to watch porn or whether it’s hypocritical of her to do so as a feminist, and I don’t want to even get into the larger debate about whether porn can be feminist because holy shit is that a can of worms, but whether or not you think it’s compatible for Mia to watch porn with her being a feminist, people do a lot of stuff that isn’t 100% in line with their ideals. A lot of feminist criticism also opposes makeup and believes it to be a product of patriarchy, but Mia wears lipstick anyway. So just on the level of whether this is consistent with her as a character, i don’t think it’s wildly OOC.

There was also a lot of (understandable) debate about them watching a lesbian sex scene while still dodging a clear answer about Mia’s sexuality, especially right after Kiki made that comment about Mia being bi in the previous night’s clip, which again went unanswered. By the end of the episode they did give us an answer, but watching in real time made it feel more like they were drawing out the answer. I guess I’m wondering just why they chose to do so? Was it to tease the audience, or were they trying to find a way to drop the answer in naturally (because I can think of places where they could have done so earlier), or was there intended to be a reason story-wise that Mia’s a little vague? Is it just because it’s related to her romantic history, and it’s difficult for her to mention? Because she could mention her bisexuality without talking about specific relationships, although it’s true people might ask whether she’d ever been with a girl.

I think the most likely reason is perhaps that the Druck team didn’t expect just how much people wanted from them about Mia’s bisexuality, and they wrote in more scenes mentioning it after they saw fan reaction.

About the video they’re watching - it’s called Wach and it’s apparently by Funk (the channel that does Druck). You can watch it on YouTube although it seemed kind of dreary so I confess I didn’t watch much of it, lol. If it’s really good and I’m missing out, let me know! Anyway, the movie’s about two girlfriends but in the scene Mia and Alex are watching, they’re having a threesome with a guy. Not sure if there’s any bigger significance other than the nod to something else from Funk, and nudging at the topic of Mia’s sexuality, or the sex topic between Mia and Alexander.

He suspects she has a bigger reason for asking and draws a question mark on her forehead. This dude needs to take improv classes already, that’s clearly where his heart lies. Also, I think Mia might be asking why he’s turned on to get his opinion about two women together? I mean, I guess that could be the in-universe explanation why the talk about her sexuality is a little vague is that she wants to see how he’ll react first.

They have a pillow fight and she shoves him out of bed, he runs back into the room and tackles her and they roll around. WATCH THE LAPTOP! Eh, I guess Alex can afford another one.

They’re playful and cute. Things get heated and he slips his hand to crotch level, which makes her shake her head and back off. He asks her what’s allowed. LOW BAR, I know, but at least he doesn’t pressure her to go father than she wants. It’s sad and I don’t want to praise him for showing basic human decency, but William’s comments when Noora didn’t want to sleep with him, saying it was a funny joke and such, or that he’d managed to sleep with her soon anyway, always bothered me, so I’m glad this wasn’t recreated in Alexander.

Mia gives him the finger, and then adds another, which is deeply fucking iconic, and we end as he slides his hand down her pants. Well, damn. A big departure from Noora, not so surprising because Mia has a lot of differences from her (such as drinking alcohol when Noora did not). Part of me is proud of Mia for being upfront about what she wants and setting boundaries for what she doesn’t, the other part is like ohhhhh nooooo, girl. You told Kiki you’d break up with him, you don’t want to go any deeper with him! (...pun intended.)

Clip 2 - Bubble bath

Mia and Alex are taking a bubble bath together, lying at opposite sides. That’s quite intimate. They are doing some types of The Sex at this point even if it is not The Whole Shebang so maybe not surprising, but certainly we’re seeing their physical relationship escalate as a faster pace than Noorhelm. They seem comfortable in there together. Alex says they should stay in there as long as they can. Like, days. Well, if you can tolerate pruning, cold water, and marinating in your own filth for that long, go for it.

Mia offhandedly mentions Alex’s grade retention and he looks tired and not ready to talk about it. That water just got a few degrees colder.

He asks why she’s so cautious, if it’s because of Kiki. Mia lies to him that she talked to Kiki and everything’s cool. MIA, NO. Really???? Not a good idea. You’re not only disrespecting Kiki with what you’re doing now, and lying to your friends, but now you’re lying to Alexander, too. I know that she probably just wants to stay in this bath and in this bubble of Alexander’s apartment where everything’s OK and she gets what she wants and no one is mad and her personal life isn’t messy, but this is not the way to go about it. 

OH SHIT he actually asked about negative experiences and whether that’s why she’s bi. Errrr, is he implying that she likes girls because she’s been burned by men? YIKES. Mia tells him that statement alone is reason enough to only date girls from now on. Okay, so is that confirmation of her bisexuality? (I guess if I have to ask, probably not the clearest it could be.) And she says that she could also ask why he only does one-night stands and moves fast. He says it’s complicated. So basically, despite becoming more intimate, literally lying here naked in this tub together, both of them still have some friction, both aren’t completely opening up to each other. 

She chides him for his so-called hard life, with his nice car and apartment, and he reminds her that this is his sister’s flat, and we finally get an answer of sorts that his sister is in Bali. (By now we know the truth, but when this aired I wrote in my notes: “Super dark theory: the sister is dead and he means they scattered her ashes in Bali or something like that.”)

He talks about it’s hard with his parents and then says he wants to get out of the tub as the water is getting cold, which is one hell of a turnaround from wanting to stay in there for days like a minute ago. Mia says things are difficult with her parents, too, and she’s sorry. That makes him lie back down in the tub. Tension averted for now. They fist-bump. I guess their couple thing is hand gestures? Like Jonas has Hanna’s nose, meanwhile Mia and Alex are just flipping each other the bird and knocking knuckles. I can get into that, they certainly have a lot of options.

Clip 3 - Truth or dare

Mia and Alex step outside and turn off airplane mode on their phones. So they’re really hiding from everyone, huh, not even letting text messages come through. This is shady as hell that Mia’s doing this when she told Kiki otherwise. She’s lucky because this is holiday break, but she can’t camp out in Alexander’s apartment away from the rest of the world forever

Mia told the girls she was ill. DUDE. All of them were worried and checking in on her. I wonder how many of them truly believed her and didn’t have any suspicion of what she was really doing? Kiki in particular seemed to wonder how she was doing, and I’m not sure she totally bought Mia’s excuse. But whether she did or not, that must make Mia feel a ton of guilt. (Though she still doesn’t break up with him...)

I love this shot of Mia and Alex looking so small and uncomfortable once they stepped outside, like it’s overwhelming and harsh to leave their bubble.

They go back inside because it’s cold, or because they don’t want to face the outside world, and Mia is pensive. She spins around the thermos like it’s spin the bottle (and lmao when it lands between them, fixes it to point toward Alex) and says truth or dare. I wonder why she chose that moment to get some truth between them? Because she feels guilty about the lies she told her friends? Because she wants to know this thing she’s lying to them about is worth it, and that means she has to open up?

He says truth. She asks, “Why me?” He says it’s because she knows who he is. Which true, if you assume he means all the way from when she told him off about Kiki back in season 1. She’s been pointing out his flaws all along. And I mean, maybe he has a shit opinion of himself, but she wasn’t wrong about him (at least not entirely) and she didn’t fall for an idealized version of him, Alexander the rich bad boy with the cool car who’s the most wanted guy in school. She saw through that and she saw him at much of his worst, and yet somehow she’s here anyway. And I don’t know if this is exactly what he meant, but she also knows him in the sense that they have some things in common, like dealing with difficult parents, being Christmas orphans, etc.

Mia directs the thermos at herself and says truth. Bold move considering she knows what he’s probably going to ask; she’s really just ready to talk to him about it, and this is maybe an easier way to do so, framing it as a game. Alex takes a moment to think about what to ask and then asks why she’s so cautious. She tells the story of when she was 13 and she had a crush on her friend’s older brother, who was 18. He paid her a lot of compliments and she thought he liked her. He pressured her into sleeping with him, she didn’t want to but did it anyway, and then he never texted her again. Some people are school knew about it. She felt bad about herself and couldn’t talk to anyone.

The age of consent in Germany is 14, making what happened to Mia statutory rape. This adds perhaps even more impact to Mia reporting Bjorn later in the season, because it doesn’t sound like the first guy faced any repercussions for what he did; with Bjorn there is hope that justice will be served.

I think this explains a lot about why Mia was cautious about Alexander in particular, because he’s the kind of guy who was feeding girls compliments, sleeping with them, and cutting them off. Didn’t Alexander compliment Kiki’s stomach or something? And then of course Mia had a front-row seat to him ghosting Kiki after sleeping with her, and then seeing it all happen again like a slow-motion car crash. I really, really hope this makes him think about what he was doing with girls before Mia. Remember how he tried to justify himself in episode 2 about what he did to Kiki, not making her promises and saying how he couldn’t have torn down her self-image all by himself? Here he sees the long-lasting effects of that behavior on someone. Just think, there are probably Mias out there who will end up telling their stories to someone else, and the guy they’re talking about will be Alexander.

Alex is about to turn the bottle back to himself, but Mia stops it and says she also had a thing with a girl that ended before she came to Germany. No details on why it ended, if it was something really bad or more of a mundane breakup. Since she’s not going into details, I’m assuming whatever happened wasn’t horrible, but I’d still like to know more details about it.

Could they have handled Mia’s sexuality better? Yes, of course. But at this point I was just glad they addressed it directly. It would be nice if they touched on it in the future: we haven’t yet had the build-up of Matteo living in the flat, or being rescued by Hans, but with both Hans and Mia being members of the LGBT community, it would be really nice if they were able to support Matteo, and then we could hear more about Mia’s sexuality, too, like her past relationship, how she realized she was bi, etc.

He says no pressure, they have all the time in the world. THANK GOD. Low bar, I know, but I also still think there’s value in showing men being respectful and not pressuring women into sex? If you consider that the target audience is teen girls, this is a message that they need to be hearing - that they are allowed to set sexual boundaries and that boys have to respect them. And for teenage boys, while Alex has done a lot of messed-up stuff regarding girls, this part can still be used as a model for respecting boundaries and getting consent.

Clip 4 - I bet Hans and Linn ate the soup later

Mia and Alexander are in Mia’s room, ostensibly trying to study but very clearly hot for each other and making this a kind of foreplay. However, they don’t get very far until Hans comes into the room. He asks whether Alexander made “grumpy cat” angry, lmao. I love that nickname for Mia. He flops on the bed as if checking out the view of Alexander. Hans, what about Michi??

UNFORTUNATELY the doorbell rings and Linn opens Mia’s door, saying there’s a girl with soup. We hear Kiki’s voice. UH OH. Damn, Mia didn’t even really have time to like, try to shove Alexander under the bed or anything, did she? 

Alexander says it’s totally OK with him. Um, I bet it is. Would be a great opportunity to be like, hey Kiki, sorry for dumping you on NYE? Although he doesn’t look totally OK with it, though that might just be because Mia is so visibly worried.

Lol, Hans thinks for a moment, clearly recognizing Mia’s distress, and then strips off his robe and throws it over Alexander, and hey, he was the only one doing anything smart in the moment? Maybe not honest, but smart? OK, not smart, but it was ... something. 

Well, Alexander ain’t up for hiding under a robe, he takes it off as Kiki walks in with a big pot. She eyes Alexander and Mia, saying she made soup. She looks stunned at first, but then gets pissed and says it’s one thing for her to fuck up and apologize, but this is the worst. I have to agree, honestly. Mia put the burden on Kiki to tell her what to do, and then she didn’t even respect Kiki’s wishes. And then she lied to everyone. After that whole performance with cooking Kiki a nice dinner to talk about how sorry she was? This makes it seem like Mia just doesn’t give a shit about Kiki’s feelings, her crying and apologizing was an act to make Mia feel better, not Kiki.

I wonder if Kiki was really thinking Mia broke it off, or if she wasn’t suspicious. Like she was definitely suspicious after Sam put it out there a few episodes ago, and some of her moves were kinda calculated toward figuring out the truth. The soup may have been genuine goodwill, but maybe she also wanted to see if Mia was really sick, or if she was hiding something. Kiki did look very shocked when she saw Alexander, but maybe she was telling herself that no, Mia wouldn’t lie, Mia meant what she said, Mia cares about her. So this moment was confirming her worst fears.

Kiki angrily puts down the bowl of soup and I have to give her some credit for not throwing it or dropping it, which is what I was expecting.

Alexander asked her why she lied, and Mia says she doesn’t know. Errr, not a great answer, Mia. I have an idea why she lied. She wanted the moral high ground of “making things right” but didn’t want to actually give anything up. She wanted to ignore or run from the problems instead of dealing with them.

Mia says she can’t do this to Kiki. Alexander is pissed. Honestly, I can’t blame him for that. He has his flaws, too, for sure, and has been a shit to Kiki, but he also asked Mia if things were OK with her and Kiki, and she said they were, and now he’s finding out they weren’t and she’s using that as a reason to break up. I’d feel pretty betrayed. She also gave them a few days where they were extremely open with each other, took their relationship to the next level physically, got vulnerable with each other, and after that, she’s calling it off. When she knew all along that it was a bad idea - like she could have nipped this in the bud at the benefit concert. Instead it’s like she dawdled and made their relationship more intense and meaningful before ending it for a reason that’s been there the whole time, which is so much worse. (For Alexander, a dude who doesn’t get close to people? Even worse.)

Mia has massively fucked up but from a story perspective, I don’t mind it? I mean … that’s good for the protagonist’s growth. I like how messy Mia has been. I think it takes her off the “perfect girl” pedestal. 

Clip 5 - Panic attack

Mia is lying in bed in the dark at 21:00, so you know, she’s called it an early night. I feel you, girl. She reads her texts from earlier, where she and Alex flirted and discussed him coming over to study. How nice things were just hours earlier. No new messages. 

By the way, I can see the tear streaks on her face when she’s in bed, nice detail.

However, after she puts it down and rolls over, her phone lights up. She checks it and Alex is telling her to come over. Typing in all caps so it seems extra urgent.

As she’s running to Alexander, you hear some heavy breathing and rewatching the scene, it definitely sounds masculine, but when I first watched this clip I was so surprised by this development and why Alexander needed Mia that I wasn’t paying super close attention (also not watching with headphones), and I thought it was Mia’s breathing as she’s worried and running out the door. The reveal that this is Alex’s heavy breathing during a panic attack really stunned me. It adds so much tension to the scene as Mia is running to his place, obviously heavy breathing is something that reminds you of dangerous or tense scenarios.

She runs up the stairs to his place and his door is open, the lights are dim. The way the camera follows her is really disorienting, it’s hurried, it’s shaky. The lights make everything eerier - it’s dark and the sign on the wall makes the room pink, it’s not unnatural. Watching Mia run through his apartment trying to find Alex feels like navigating a maze.

Mia calls out for Alexander and eventually finds him in his underwear in a corner, sobbing and hyperventilating. You can see him clearly in the light but there’s still something unfocused about it. Mia grabs a paper bag from the kitchen and has him breathe into it. He’s crying and saying he wasn’t there. Holy shit, this is a panic attack?

Mia holds him as he cries and gasps for breath. He asks her to stay, she says she’s not going anywhere. She makes a joke about it still being 50 euro with breakfast and he manages to laugh.

This pose at the end is definitely giving off Pietà vibes.

The camera goes from extreme closeups as Alex is gasping to pulling back once he lays in Mia’s arms and calms down a bit, once he’s able to breathe and laugh at her joke. Like we’re getting breathing room. The music also goes from really tense to something more gentle once he relaxes in her arms and she says she’ll stay.

Goddamn. So instead of Mia having panic attacks/trauma, it’s Alex??? It was Noora who was panicking in OG, but we’ve switched the roles, Mia is the one to calm down Alexander. 

Props to Druck for showing a dude having a full-blown attack like this, in a very non-glamorous and vulnerable way. Panic attacks in general can be pretty visceral and they’re not pretty, and I think some media shies away from showing male characters in really fragile states like this. And it’s definitely a reversal of a lot of media gender roles to have Mia the fully clothed one who’s “in control” helping out Alex, the half-naked, sobbing and shaking one. And for this not to be portrayed as something weak, but something healing. Also, big props to the actors. Chris Veres didn’t hold back in this scene.

This clip really got to me, especially as someone who has experienced panic attacks. The earlier scene with Kiki discovering Mia and Alexander together had ratcheted up the drama, but this was one of those clips where I couldn’t really do anything else after I watched it for a little while, it had gotten under my skin that much. It’s hard for me to unpack it. Even rewatching it unnerves me, though Mia’s gentleness and compassion, and the ending where she says she’s not going anywhere, make the experience more uplifting. Bravo, Druck. 

I think it helped that it was so surprising too, like we already got a very important clip earlier in the day, and it was the drama we were all expecting, the next step in the Kiki/Mia/Alex situation, but this definitely was not what I was expecting next, both in that it’s a divergence from the original storyline and that I figured the next clip would build on Mia dealing with estrangement from both Kiki and Alex.

Clip 6 - Giddy up

Mia wakes up in bed with Alex the next morning. I like the contrast here from the last scene, just what a difference the daylight can make, feeling so much less threatening, and I like Mia’s reaction, as if she’s taking in all that happened last night. She looks at a Polaroid picture at the side of the bed, of Alex and his sister. The fact that it’s beside the bed tells you how much Alex probably looks at it and misses his sister.

Alex stir and wakes up. Heh, the crinkles of their pillows and sheets are so damn loud? I kinda love it, though, it reminds me of how good it feels to slowly wake up after a good night’s sleep. He tells Mia that he had a dream where he was feeling bad and cried in front of Mia, weird right? Mia agrees. It’s very quiet and they’re whispering. Comforting, talking about it and acknowledging it without having to go into the ugly details right now. And Mia isn’t grilling him over why he was having a panic attack or anything, just being gentle. She strokes the hair behind his ear and kisses him. They kiss softly and it gets a little more intense until Mia reaches for the jar next to Alexander’s bed and grabs a condom. They smile and Mia sits up on him and takes off her shirt. The music helpfully proclaims, “I’m a cowboy” so I mean, we know what position they used. Not surprising Mia would be on top.

I have zero problems with Mia and Alexander having sex sooner than the season finale, as with Noorhelm, although I was kinda like … is this reeeeally the best time to take this step, kids? Not because of Alexander’s panic attack, but more about Kiki walking in on them and finding out, and Mia thinking she can’t do that to Kiki, and what the hell they were going to do. It felt like they had a lot to talk about. But even so, I can definitely see why Mia felt it was the right time to take this step. There was no way Mia was leaving Alexander after last night, and clearly they care about each other a ton. It must have felt not just like waking up in the morning, but that they survived the night. The panic attack made Mia realize the total depth of her feelings, I think, and so I can fully see why it led to increased tenderness and intimacy.

Comparing Mia and Noora, Mia has trust issues and a bad experience with sex like Noora, but William did more stuff that would’ve broken Noora’s trust and made her question her feelings for him before they had sex. Noora and William kissed, then William was cold to her in front of his brother, so Noora was upset, then they made up, then William smashed a bottle over a guy’s head, then Noora was upset at that and questioned whether she could be with William, then before they could get back together, Niko happened. Since they’ve kissed, Mia hasn’t really had so many reasons to be upset with Alexander himself - it’s all about the situation with Kiki putting stress on their relationship. So I can see why the sexual element of their relationship, and the relationship as a whole, escalated much faster; Mia had more time to build up trust with him without that getting interrupted.

Clip 7 - Crew love is true love

Hanna and Mia are in the bathroom and Mia’s been telling Hanna how fast everything has gone in the last few days. It sure did! By the way, Hanna’s looking very pretty.

I like how they went from the cowboy song in the previous clip being a non-diegetic song and transitioned into this one as a diegetic song, with it playing at the Abi party now. That kind of stuff is clever, and it’s smoother than just choppily switching songs between scenes.

Alex is going to therapy now, which I love. I love that we have the Bad Boy Rich Dreamboat character seeking professional help for his trauma, I love that Druck is mentioning therapy rather casually, normalizing it. It’s not something that’s considered shameful or embarrassing, just a potential avenue for help. Mia says she doesn’t think it was his first panic attack, but she doesn’t really know why. (I’d understand if people were ehhhh about Mia telling all this to Hanna if you want, like IDK if Alexander gave her permission to tell people about his panic attack. Mia and Hanna seem to be pretty trustworthy about stuff like Matteo’s sexuality and they’re not trading it as juicy gossip, but I would get it.)

Hanna says Jonas also won’t talk to anyone, not even Matteo. Ohhh no. That boy might need some professional help, too, if he’s that much of a mess.

Hanna’s totally hugging turtleneck guy/not Gereven when they enter the club. Mia looks around and sees Kiki with Carlos. KIKI, TREAT HIM RIGHT. CARLOS, TREAT HER RIGHT. Kiki glares at Mia. 

Carlos gets a drink the same time Mia does and says, “What’s up Judas?” Not gonna lie, that’s mean, but it made me laugh. He does the typical “ugh girl drama BITCH FIGHT” thing, and lmao, I can’t help but think of like Jonas/Toilet Sam tussling in the stairwell in S1. Yes, it’s all girl drama, boy fights just don’t exist, ever!

Carlos is like, it’s none of my business, he doesn’t want to get involved, but he’s getting involved (lmao) and tells her how Kiki was in a very bad state the last few days, and says it would be a good move to smooth everything out. He’s like, good talk, and walks off. Without paying either, lol. Mia pays for him. Well, I guess she has some groveling to do. God, that talk was ridiculous but benevolent of him? He’s looking out for Kiki’s well-being. 

"Two angry birds” aka Sam and Amira (and lmao I love that nickname) come up to Mia. Indeed, they look angry. Mia says she’ll make it up to Kiki. I mean, she should probably apologize to the other girls, too, for lying and putting them all in this awkward position where they’re torn between friends.

Heh, there’s some banter among the girls about Sam being the only one who’s single and when Amira is like helloooo, Sam says she has Allah. Although it’s played more as a joke, this follows the same pattern of people disregarding the Sana character as someone who can have romantic relationships and feelings. She doesn’t count in the conversations about who in their group is alone and who’s not.  

Mia follows Kiki to talk to her. She apologizes and Kiki just looks annoyed. I don’t blame her considering that Mia’s last apology with the dinner turned out to feel hollow, all words but not backed up with actions. Kiki points out she was a hypocrite. I love Mia and I feel sympathy for her, but Kiki is really really not wrong.

Maybe this is obvious, but I’m seriously just realizing how close this situation is to Eva/Jonas/Ingrid in S1 (or Hanna/Jonas/Leonie), even more than Vilde, Noora, and William were to that situation. Mia fucked it up with Kiki to a level Noora didn’t with Vilde. 

Kiki interrupts and tells Mia what’s what - that if she had been honest from the beginning, Kiki wouldn’t have stopped her. But instead, Mia went to her when Kiki was heartbroken and basically made Kiki tell her what to do and give her her blessing. That’s exactly what happened! Mia put the burden on Kiki and basically said her happiness was in Kiki’s hands, like either Kiki had to be the villain and tell Mia to break up with Alex, or put aside her own feelings and be OK with it, even when she was the person who was wronged. Kiki didn’t feel like doing giving her blessing when she felt like shit and had been betrayed by a friend. And she didn’t expect Mia to listen, but Mia should’ve cared about her from the beginning. Kiki calls Mia out on being honest not just with others, but with herself. Kki used to compare herself to Mia, Mia gives all these moral lectures that sound smart and clever, but it’s not about what you say, but what you do. Well, shit. She’s right. And Mia needs to hear this. I’ve said this before, but I think their relationship is really complex this season. Messy, but complex. And this dynamic between them, with Kiki feeling like Mia didn’t really care, or was judging her, goes beyond just Alexander’s involvement. It’s not just fighting because of a boy.

Mia is apologizing and Carlos comes in to ruin the moment and be like “You straightened it out?” Lmao dude, don’t interrupt. He gives them all a shot, which is his attempt to play mediator, I guess, so he’s dumb but he’s trying. Kiki clinks glasses with him, then walks out. When Mia calls after her, Kiki says you still want my blessing? But you need yours. Whoaaaa.

Carlos and Kiki walk off hand in hand talking about her breasts. Well, I guess it’s nice that they’re appreciated without the surgery. Though obviously it’s about how Kiki feels about her body, not Carlos.

Mia stays behind and has a Moment, I guess she’s thinking about how she needs to go all in with Alexander, get rid of her remaining doubts. Then she goes out to meet her girls, they smile and dance. Finally Kiki smiles at Mia and they dance together. I love their little glance of reconciliation. The girl squad has a group hug. Awww! 

Toilet Sam comes in and greets everyone! He’s talking to Hanna and OF FUCKING COURSE that’s when Jonas and Matteo roll in. Jonas sees Hanna and Sam and legit pulls a Granpa Smpson exit, lmao at Matteo’s exasperated exit after him. Poor Matteo.

Mia and Kiki dance together in the closing moments of the clip, and it’s a fitting ending. Yay, they’re happy again! Truly the next three episodes will only be good times and no more suffering!

Social Media/General Comments:

LMAO, I fucking lost it at all the passive-aggressive Instagram stories that Kiki posted after the dinner from last episode. She tagged only Amira, Hanna, and Sam, not Mia, posting pictures that didn’t include Mia, set to Little Mix’s “Shout Out to my Ex” for that extra bitter flair. Which you know, fits Kiki’s relationship with Alexander, but honestly feels more like Mia is her ex going by the pictures, lol. Then Amira, Hanna, and Sam respond by posting Kiki’s posts WITH Mia, like good lord, the dramaaaaa of it all. I mean, they’re all making a statement, that they’re not ditching Mia, but how must that make Kiki feel? But it’s all so teenage and petty and immature that I love it. 

Jonas flakes on Matteo, saying he needs to study, but it’s more like he’s staying home and getting wasted. Matteo is worried and says they barely see each other anymore. Jeez. This is a total reversal of what we’ll likely see in S3, unless they are BOTH total messes in that season. Then it’ll be up to wise men Carlos and Abdi to step up for their bros. We did see Carlos having some sage advice in this episode, so maybe it’s not such a wild idea?

Matteo and Hanna talk later and Matteo lets Hanna know that Jonas isn’t doing well and that he failed a math test. I don’t think it’s Hanna’s duty to fix Jonas’ problems at all, but it’s nice that Matteo and Hanna are talking together and trying to help Jonas.

The other girls were gossiping about Mia and Alex. Amira figured out that Mia probably wasn’t answering because Mia was at Alexander’s place. Sigh, Mia. How long did you think you could keep your relationship a secret? It always gets out, as you just learned last week!!

Kiki posts a LOT of stuff about fake friends on IG after she discovers Mia and Alex together, and it’s pretty juvenile, but you know, hashtag relatable. And understandable. Super teenage.

I like that Amira reached out to Kiki and said she was there if she needed to talk. Kiki has been a shit to Amira on multiple occasions, but Amira remains a true friend. And I hope Kiki keeps this in mind the next time she wants to say something racist or insensitive (not that she would recognize it as such, probably).

Druck gave out hotline information for teenagers after the panic attack clip, encouraging them to talk to someone, which is great. Again, I love how they’re encouraging teenagers not to go through their problems alone, whether it’s through therapy, hotlines, or talking to trusted friends and family.

Amira talked about religious discrimination on Instagram and how difficult it is to get into public service in Germany when you wear a hijab. She’s mentioned this before, when the girls were meeting with career counselors, and I really hope that we somehow get a S4 despite the girls’ graduation so we can get an Amira season. I would love to see her story talk specifically about her ambitions and how she tries to achieve them despite people constantly telling her she won’t be able to make it as a Muslim hijabi. Just send Amira to Australia and she can have a life-changing backpacking adventure. It would be amazing. (Skam never gave us the Evak + boy squad Morocco trip we deserved, so I am down for Druck providing that awesome travelogue content.)

I am not German so please feel free to correct me or clarify me on cultural and language matters.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

[alaynes-writings]

Locked in

Summary: Shy reader is in love with Alex and accidentally angers Jefferson. When he wants to get his revenge, Alex comes to the rescue.

Pairing: Alexander Hamilton x reader

Time period: modern

Word count: 1,858

Warnings: none, maybe slight claustrophobia

A/N: Not the best, but there you go. Enjoy, and tell me if you notice any mistakes. Feedback would be nice. Thanks!

                                                          ---

You had been in love with Alexander Hamilton since the beginning of college. You still remembered how you two had met. It was the first day, you were extremely nervous. You had just moved out and you didn’t know a single person at your new college. Due to your shyness, it had always been difficult for you to find friends. And first days at new schools always sucked, at least in your experience.

You were walking down the hallway, trying to find your locker. As you looked around, searching for the right number, it happened. Someone pushed you from behind and you almost fell over, dropping all your books and your bag on the ground. It became completely silent as everyone was staring at you. You felt your heatbeat quickening and hastily knelt down to collect your things. You tried to stop your hands from shaking but all you could think about was how stupid you must look. Great start, you thought.

“For gods sake stop staring. You’re all acting as if this has never happened to you.”, a voice suddenly said and a boy knelt down next to you, starting to pick up your books. Everyone else turned away, continuing with their previous conversations.

“Thank you.”, you said quietly as the boy handed you your books and stood up.

“No need to thank me. You okay?”

You nodded.

“Good. Just ignore the others. Some people here are quite stupid. I’m Alexander by the way.”, he introduced himself and smiled.

“My name’s Y/N.”, you answered.

“Y/N, okay. It’s your first year, right? I mean, because of the books.”

You nodded.

“Great. Then we’ll se eachother in class later. Bye, Y/N!”, he said before making his way through the hallway. And that’s how you met Alexander Hamilton.

Since that day, 7 months had passed. You were able to find wonderful friends in the Schuyler Sisters and because they were friends with Alexander you had spent quite some time with him and his friends in the last months. It wasn’t always easy, hiding your feelings for him from everyone, but you could never tell him. Never. He was too cool, too charming, too popular. You would rather jump off a bridge than confessing your feelings to him. But after some time, Eliza had noticed the way you looked at Alexander and how you always got nervous when he was around. She understood that you wanted to keep your feelings secret and tried her best to support you. And you were really grateful that you had such a good friend.

You were currently sitting outside on a bench with Eliza, enjoying your lunch break. From your place you could see Alexander on the other side of the court, talking to Laurens. He just looked so handsome. His long, black hair was put in a ponytail and you loved it when he did that. You could see him laughing at something Laurens just said.

“Are you listening to me?”, Eliza asked, waving a hand in front of your face. You quickly snapped out of your daze and turned to look at her.

“Sorry what were you saying?”

She laughed.

“I was telling you about the essay that I’m working on. But apparently other things are more interesting.”

“Sorry.”, you mumbled.

“Don’t worry it’s fine. I know how it feels to be in love.”, she smiled. You just sighed.

“Maybe you should do something. You just seem so unhappy and… Oh look he’s coming over.”

You quickly turned your head into Alexanders direction and saw that he was walking straight towards your bench. You immedialety felt your cheeks heat up and looked at Eliza again, trying to look nonchalant.

“Hey guys! How are you?”, Alex asked, smiling his award-winning smile.

“Fine, thanks.”, Eliza answered as you tried to stay calm.

“Y/N you look nervous, are you okay?”, he asked, looking at you concerned.

“She’s just nervous about debate class. Jefferson is her opponent this time.”, Eliza quickly answered for you and you shooted her a thankful look.

“Don’t worry I’m sure you’re gonna be great.”, Alex said, giving you a pad on the shoulder. You smiled and nodded. “Thanks Alex.”

“I’m gonna go now, Laf and I wanted to meet at the library. See you!”, Alex waved goodbye and left to meet with his friend.

“That went well.”, you sighed, unable to hide the sarcasm in your voice.

“Come on it wasn’t that bad.”, Eliza said, trying to cheer you up. “Anyways we gotta go now too, you shouldn’t be late to debate class.”

You weren’t the biggest fan of debate class. You hated public speaking and therefore it always took a lot of willpower to take part in the class. Today you would be debating against Thomas Jefferson, a guy you absolutely couldn’t stand. You wouldn’t go as far and call him your enemy, but you two just disliked each other. A lot.

Fortunately, this time the debate went very well. At some point your mouth moved faster than you could think and you let out a sarcastic comment, which for some reason brought Jefferson completely out of concept and he lost the debate. After class Peggy couldn’t stop laughing and was constantly telling you, how great you were. You just wish you wouldn’t have said it. You hated the attention.

The next morning you met Alex at the entrance.

“Y/N! Peggy told me what happened yesterday. You were so awesome! I wish I would have been there.” he laughed and threw and arm around your shoulder. “You just destroyed Jefferson! I couldn’t have said it better!”

“Thanks.”, you smiled, trying to calm your racing heart. “But it wasn’t on purpose. It just… slipped out.”

“Doesn’t matter. It was great. See you at lunch later, okay?” You nodded and watched as he left into the crowd. Maybe all of this wasn’t that bad.

The next two days went by without anything special happening. Your friends were still talking about the incident, but you just tried to ignore it. And at the end of the day you were glad, that you had some work to do at the library and your friends went home.

As you worked you didn’t realized the hours that went by and soon it was after 9. You decided to stop for today and packed your stuff. When you went to leave you noticed the librarian who looked rather stressed.

“Can I help with anything?”, you asked carefully. The woman turned to look at you and smiled.

“It’s nice that you offer your help, but it’s fine. I just need to sort all of this… but oh wait. If you could take these papers to the copy room? That would be nice.”

“Sure.”, you said taking the papers. The copy room was on your way out anyways. As you walked through the hallways you noticed how quiet it was. Most of the people were already at home.

You opened the door to the copy room and turned on the lights. You looked around for a second and decided to put the papers on one of the desks. Someone would know where to put them. Suddenly you heard the door closing and a click afterwards. You rushed to the door trying to open it, but it was locked. You felt panic rushing through your veins as your tried again. It didn’t open.

“Hey! Someone’s still in here!”, you shouted.

“Well I didn’t hear anything. But don’t worry, tomorrow someone will find you.”, you heard a familiar voice through the door.

“Jefferson?”, you asked.

“That’s what you get for humiliating me. Have a good night Y/N!”, he said and you could hear the anger in his voice. Slowly you heard his footsteps becoming quiet and then there was silence.

“That’s not funny! Let me out! Let me out!”, you screamed now and hammered your fist against the door.

But nothing happened. You tried again, calling for someone, but no one was there. Everyone was already at home. You looked around, trying to find a way out. But the room had no windows and the only door was locked. As you realized that you would be here the entire night you felt the panic rising again. You slowly let youself sink down at the wall and started to cry. You never wanted that. Just because of this one comment. You tried to calm yourself down but you could practically feel the walls getting closer and there was no escaping the situation.

Suddenly you heard a knock on the door.

“Is someone there?”, a voice asked. Alexander. Immediately you stood up.

“Alex?”, you asked.

“Y/N? What the?! What are you doing in there?”, he asked trying to open the door.

“I’m locked in. Alex help me! Please get me out of here!”, you begged, trying to hold back tears.

“What?” he sounded shocked. “Wait a minute. I’m gonna get you out of there.”

After a few minutes your heard footsteps and then the sound of a turning key. The door opened and you felt so relieved you threw yourself into Alexander’s arms.

“Hey, it’s fine. Everything’s okay now.”, he said, wrapping his arms around you. You nodded, unable to hold back a sob.

“It’s okay.”, he tried to soothe you, gently stroking your hair.

He loosend the hug as you let go of him and wiped the tears off your face.

“How did this happen?”, he asked.

“The librarian asked me to bring the papers and after I went inside, Jefferson locked me in and...”

“Jefferson did this?!”, Alex cut you off, shock and anger swinging in his voice. You nodded.

“He was angry because of what happened in debate class.”

Alex cursed under his breath and you could see how his jaw tightend with rage.

“He will pay for this Y/N I swear...”

“No!”, you quickly said. “It will just get worse. Please. Right now I just want to go home.”

He stared at you for a moment, debating whether or not to give in.

“Alright.”, he sighed eventually. “Let’s get you home.”

You walked silently next to each other. You noticed Alex shooting concerned looks at you now and then but you were still to agitated.

You both stopped in front of your apartment.

“Thanks, Alex.”, you said, smiling softly.

“No need to thank me. I’m just glad you’re okay. But Jefferson…!”

“Alex no! Enough fighting.”, you cut him off and he sighed.

“Fine. As you wish. I won’t do anything.”, he gave in. He moved in to pull you into a hug. You felt his body against yours and the smell of his cologne filled your nose.

“Are you really okay?”, he asked and you could hear that he was still worried. All you could do was nod.

“Good.”, he said and softly pressed a kiss to your hair. You felt like your heart just stoped beating.

He let go of you and cleared his throat, his cheeks turning pink.

“Well, we’ll see eachother tomorrow then.”

You watched as he turned around to leave, still unable to process what just happened. You defenitely needed to talk to Eliza about this.

[atheshadowdancer-blog]

Part 2: Vampire in training

Hello again! :D This is a continuation of the first Hamlaf one-shot I did a few days ago for @sparkskun , so if you haven’t read that one...GO READ IT! Becuase this one is after Alex is turned, and now Laf is being a good boyfriend. :)

WARNING: THERE IS BLOOD AND SLIGHT SWEARING IN THIS...Just saying.

Summary: It has now been two weeks since Hamilton became a vampire, and now Lafayette has been helping him learn his abilities. They have hidden their secret well, but now there is a chance that someone close might find out of their true forms....

Lafayette opened his eyes and smiled as he watched the last raindrop fall into a bowl he had placed on the ground the night before. Gilbert then looked down at the small man he was holding in his arms and smiled before holding him close to his chest. Ever since Alexander completely turned, the pair was inseparable, always staying at each other’s side except when one was called for war. During their time together, they were able to sneak off of camp and work on Alex’s super speed. Lafayette felt himself fall in love with Alexander all over again when he watched as Alexander ran around the place acting like a little child on the day of Christmas.

 Lafayette kissed Hamilton’s head as he watched Alexander’s eyes began to flutter open but stopped as if they were debating whether or not to let their owner wake up. Eventually, Alexander did wake up to see the Frenchman looking down at him smiling, Gilbert’s accent was thick as he spoke, “Bonjour, mon amour.” Alex smiled and snuggled closer to Lafayette, “Morning, Gil.” Lafayette chuckled, “Ready for another day? I think it’s time for me to show you something...” Alexander looked up at the taller man suddenly interested, “What is it?” Lafayette smiled, “We should get dressed first.” Alex nodded and quickly got out of the cot to retrieve the shirt and jacket he abandoned on the ground. As he got dressed, he felt as if someone was watching him. He turned around back to Lafayette to see he smiling at him, he softly smiled, “See something you like?” Lafayette got up from the bed and grabbed his jacket as he approached the smaller man. He held his lover’s chin, “Yes, you, Mon Cheri.” He quickly kissed Alexander on the nose before putting on his jacket and walking to the exit of the tent. “Hurry now, Alex. We should finish before the general wakes up.”

Alexander slowly walked up the lege of the cliff Lafayette told him to climb. He looked over the edge and at nervously spoke to Lafayette, “Are you sure about this? I don’t want to die from jumping off a cliff......” Lafayette yelled back, “Don’t worry, mon amour. The only thing that can kill us is fire and a stake to the heart. This will just feel like a sprained ankle. Now, jump and imagine yourself as a bat. And don’t worry, I'll catch you if you don’t fly.” Alex nervously nodded, he spoke to himself, “Okay...you can do this, Alex. Just....jump.” He closed his eyes and ran to the ledge and jumped. Almost in a second, there was an explosion of mist when it cleared up, there was a small baby bat with its eyes closed. When it opened its eyes, it began to freak out and fall to the ground. Lafayette was quick to run under it and hold his hands out to catch it. 

The bat soon fell into his hands and looked up at Lafayette with shock in its eyes. Lafayette smiled; this was Alexander in his animal form. Lafayette began to study Alex when he saw something in the middle of his stomach, a small hole, just like the one he earned from being shot in the stomach. An upside to being a vampire, wounds heal twice as fast. Lafayette smiled and kissed the small hole in his furry stomach. The small black eyes widened flustered at Gilbert before using his wings to cover his face and stomach. Lafayette laughed at the baby bat before speaking, “Mon Amour, try to fly. After this, we can begin to go back to the camp, okay” Alex uncovered his face and nodded, and used his small claws to get up from laying on his back and slowly stood up. He looked at Gilbert and nodded before jumping and slowly beginning to fly around Lafayette. He soon got excited and began to fly in loops and attempt to perform other tricks. Lafayette cheered for his lover, “Well done, my love, Now, we should stop.” 

Alexander nodded and flew back down to Lafayette, landing on his back and using his claws and latching on to stay on his back. Lafayette began to grow confused but quickly gained his balance as he felt the sudden weight change on his back. Alexander, now in his human form, held onto Lafayette’s back, “That was fun.” Lafayette smiled, “I couldn’t agree more.” The smiles on both their faces fell as they heard a sound in the distance. The sound of Patriot drums, informing the army to wake up, including the general. Alexander and Lafayette looked at each other, Alex quickly got off Gilbert’s back and followed him as he used his super speed to race back to the camp.

As they got closer to the camp, Lafayette caught Alex’s gaze and gave him a look that said, “Slow down.” They both stopped running as they approached the camp. They calmly walked in and watched as other soldiers groaned and stepped out of their tents. They both looked at each other and sighed, they were successful yet again, and not caught by the general. “Hamilton!” They both jumped and watched as Washington approached them, “Alexander, get your breakfast and began to work. I don’t want you to stay up too long like you have been doing. Alexander nodded, “Of course, sir.” George nodded and walked away. Alex sighed and looked up at the Frenchman, “I should go.” He looked down and kissed Alex on the cheek, “Go. I’ll meet you at my tent so we can off into the woods again.” Lafayette smiled and watched as Alexander ran off, going to get his meal and get to work.

Washington writing a letter to his wife when heard a soft knock come from the entrance of his tent. “Come in”, he looked up from his letter to see Hamilton walk in with yet another pile of papers. Washington smiled, “Thank you, Hamilton.” He reached for his metal mug that rested on the left side, and silently took a sip. Alex spoke, “Is there anything else you need to be done?” Washington set the mug down on the desk then looked down at his desk, “I am sure, Alexander.” He spared a glance at his mug, expecting to see Alexander’s reflection, his eyes slightly widened as he saw something; Alex did not have a reflection. He quickly stood up, causing Alexander to take a step back out of shock,”Actually, there is nothing to be done at the time. You are excused for the evening.” Alexander smiled, “Thank you, sir. Have a good night.” Washington quietly watched as Alex left the tent before racing off to the only man he knew has been around Alexander these two weeks; Lafayette.

He quickly approached the tent and opened the flaps only to see a deserted tent. He ran to Alexander’s, yet saw no one inside. He looked through the entire camp but did not find them. Soon, he came across their two friends; Hercules Mulligan and John Laurens. “Laurens! Mulligan!” The two stopped and quickly saluted their general,” Yes, sir?” Washington approached the two men and spoke, “Do you know where Hamilton and Lafayette are?” They both shook their heads. The general then exclaimed, “Go find them!” Mulligan and Laurens spoke at the same time, “Sir, yes, Sir!”, then ran off.

Hamilton playfully spoke,” Okay, Lafayette. I showed you my animal form. Now it’s your turn.” Lafayette smiled, “Of course, Mon Cheri.” He began to crouch then get on all fours. Alexander watched in awe as Lafayette’s normal dark skin was replaced with dark fur, and his hands were replaced with paws. Alexander stepped back and saw in awe that his lover had turned into a yellow-eyed wolf. He heard a voice in his head, “Why don't you turn now?” He smiled, it was Lafayette’s voice. Alex quickly jumped in the air and turned into a baby bat, then he flew and landed on Lafayette’s furry back. Alexander heard his lover’s voice in his head once more, “Hold on. We are going for a ride.” He held onto Lafayette with his claws as he began to run deeper into the forest.

As they ran deeper into the forest, something caught Lafayette’s eye; red coats. Lafayette turned his head to look at Alexander, “Get their attention. I’ll attack them from behind.” Alex looked at what he meant then nodded. He leaped off of Laf’s back and flew towards the trail they were taking. Lafayette quickly ran by a series of trees and waited for them as he saw the group of lobsterbacks talking to each other.

Alexander quickly landed in front of the trail and watched as they neared him, yet had not seen him. One of the British soldiers saw him, “Men! Look..a baby bat.” He walked up to Alex and picked him up as another spoke, “I do have to admit, he is quite cute.” The third one spoke, “Do you have that rope, Robert?” He nodded, pulling the rope out of his bag while still holding Alexander in the other. “Why were you asking?” He smiled, “Let’s take him back to camp.” Alexander began to squeak and squirm in panic as the British soldiers began to wrap him in the rope.

Lafayette growled from behind the tree and leaped out at one of the soldiers, pouncing them and biting at their neck; no one took away Gilbert’s love. The two others began to panic, and one began to pull out a pistol and aimed it at the wolf. They pulled the trigger, but Lafayette had jumped out of the way, running towards them. They began to reload but were stopped by Lafayette pouncing them to the ground, their screams being short as Lafayette tore at their throat. The last one, holding Alexander his hands, broke into a run, most likely heading back to the camp in hopes of escaping death. But Lafayette was quick. He chased after him and used his sharp teeth to tear at his legs, causing him to scream and fall to the ground. Lafayette got on his back before he could get up, and bit the back of his neck, killing him. 

Lafayette got off of the dead man’s back and grabbed his coat in order to free Alexander, who was trapped underneath him. Alex got out of the loose ropes then crawled towards Lafayette,” That was horrible...I almost got captured!” Lafayette smiled and quickly trapped Alex in his paws, “But I am glad you are safe.” He then gave his kissed on his face, with some of the blood getting into Alexander’s fur. Before the Frenchman could continue to give his lover dog-like kisses, they heard two voices. “Dude, we have been walking for three hours. We are not going to find them.” Lafayette looked down at Alex as he released him from the hold of his paws, “Get on my back....” Alexander climbed onto his back as he neared the voices.

Hercules wiped the sweat that started t form on his forehead, “John, it’s getting late. Let’s just let them get back when they want.” John shrugged, “Maybe, but Washington gave us an order. We are to find Alex and Gilbert then take them back to camp.” Before Hercules could say anything back, they heard a growl then a wolf jumped in front of them with a bat looking at them from behind its head. John put his hands out, “Woah! No need to come at us buddy!” The wolf’s glare softened and he slowly then walked towards the two while starting to stand on its hind legs. Hercules and John watched in shock as the wolf and baby bat turned into people they recognized as friends; Lafayette and Hamilton.

“Holy shit.....HOLY SHIT! ARE YOU GUYS WEREWOLVES OR SOMETHING?!!!” Hercules began to yell and pace around the group, Alex spoke, “First, quiet down, we don’t want people to hear us. Second, we are vampires.”  Hercules held onto his bennie, “This is amazing! My friends are vampires! This is awesome!” John spoke, “Wait. Why didn’t you tell us? Have you been keeping it a secret this entire time?” Lafayette sighed, “We couldn’t risk it. If the army found out, they would have burned us at the stake, or made it easy and just ramed a stake in our hearts.” John stayed silent for a moment. but then sighed, “Okay, let’s agree on something. We’ll keep this a secret, but don’t hide anymore from us, okay?” Lafayette nodded, John turned around, “Let’s get going. We don’t want to keep the general waiting for us.” They began to walk then Hercules spoke, “Wait, Why is there blood on Alexander’s cheek and Laf’s teeth?” The pair looked at each other and smiled, “Redcoats.”

Washington looked up from his book as he heard four pairs of footsteps enter the camp. He stepped out of his tent and saw as the four men approached him, he stood up straight, “Lafayette, I need to speak with you, Privately. You three, return to your tents.” Lafayette looked at Alexander one last time before entering the tent.

Lafayette walked into the large tent and held his hands behind his back, “Is there something wrong, sir?” Washington rested his hands on his desk, “Yes. I have noticed something about Alexander. He has...changed.” Lafayette looked at the book that rested on the general’s desk and froze, it was a book about vampires. He quick regained his voice as he watched Washington walk towards one of the torches that lit up the large tent, “Is that so? I can ask Alexander if he has been feeling unwell.” Washington grabbed the torch, “I don’t think that is necessary, Lafayette. For I believe it's your doing.” Washington quickly turned around and held the torch towards the Frenchman. Lafayette hunched his back and jumped away from the flames, dodging the flames that nearly touched his stomach. He continued to back away from the general as he attempted to catch Lafayette with the flames. Unfortunately, Gilbert tripped. He tried to back away from the general but stopped when he held the flames to his face, rage easily seen in Washington’s eyes. “How did I reverse the effects?” Lafayette exclaimed, “There is no way to change him into a  mortal again! It’s...permanent.” Washington continued to look down at the Frenchman, and slowly walked back to the torch holder and returned the torch to its place. “Return to your tent, soldier.” Lafayette scrambled to get up and ran towards the exit of the tent.

“And Lafayette, if Alexander gets harmed,”, Lafayette turned back to the general, who was giving him a death glare, “I won’t hesitate to throw a stake into your heart.” Lafayette quickly nodded then ran out of the tent.

Fortunately for the vampires, Washington was the only one who could skillfully throw a stake. Unfortunately, there was another.....Aaron Burr.

The drama begins, @sparkskun ......:)

[isntthisenoughwhatwouldbeenough]

Chapter 6 (Time Will Take Them Away)

A/N: Hello Lovely Wonderfuls! I hope you’re all doing well :) This one is for my Hamliza shippers! Here’s Chapter 6 of Time Will Take Them Away! Thank you so much for continuing to read this story and being here! I appreciate it! I hope you all enjoy! As always, I wish you the happiest of days and lots of good thoughts!

Chapter 6

“You know what, Alexander, I don’t care whether you believe me or not,” she steps closer to him, “the fact is I’m leaving and that’s it.” She pauses about to leave, but continues. “And you know what else,” she says fire in her eyes, “I don’t need your approval, you have no say in what I do because we,” she pauses once more, as he glares at her, “are only friends and that’s it.”

She turns to leave, but he grabs her arm before she can leave and pulls her into him, capturing her lips in a passionate kiss.

She falls into him, forgetting. She starts to kiss him back, before pushing him away, despite the electricity she feels at the touch of his lips on hers. Her breathing is heavy as she gently touches her lips, almost feeling his lips on hers though they have parted. She’s shaking, she’s not sure why.

“Betsey.”

Her eyes snap to his, and all he can see is hurt and fury in her eyes.

“How dare you,” she whisper shouts.

“Betsey, I’m sorry”-

“I told you not to call me that!”

She shakes her head, not believing that this was actually happening.

“Eliza, please don’t go, I’m sorry that I made you uncomfortable, but”-

“Uncomfortable, Alexander this was beyond inappropriate! You’re with Angelica! My sister! I can’t believe you had the audacity to do this!”

He’s never seen her so upset, he’s not sure what to do with himself. He wasn’t going to kiss her, but it was almost as if it was out of his control. He wanted her so badly, his body took on a mind of its own.

“I’m sorry, it’s like I can’t control myself.”

“Well, you’ll have time to get some self control because I’m leaving, and I don’t want you there on moving day. Go to work, tell everyone you’re swamped, I don’t care. I just don’t want you there.”

She stared him down, the fury in her eyes dissipating into hurt and disappointment.

“Be-Eliza, please, I promise”-

“No, the only promise I want from you is that you’ll leave me alone, and that you never ever do this again.”

She has tears brimming in her beautiful eyes and it breaks his heart. He nods his head slowly, silently agreeing to her promise. She gives him one last look and leaves the apartment. Not once looking back, in fear she would run back into his arms and finish the kiss he started.

She makes it back home, to fall in her bed in a fit tears, hating how much she wished she could have Alexander’s arms wrapped around her.

Moving day comes and Eliza is relieved to hear that Alex couldn’t take off work to be there. Angelica seems annoyed, but Eliza reassures her.

“Its fine Ange,” she hugs her to her side. “Besides we have three strapping young men to help us, that’s more than enough.”

The sisters laugh as the trio of boys start doing flexing poses with beaming smiles on their faces.

“Okay,” Angelica laughs out. “Pick up some boxes, let’s do what we came here to do.”

In a few hours everything is packed in the moving truck, and the group heads to Brooklyn. They reach their destination, looking up at Eliza’s new home.

“Doesn’t look to shabby, Dearest,” Angies smiles.

“I’m quite fond of it myself.”

Another few hours and everything is in the apartment. Eliza looks around at her friends and smiles.

“Who’s hungry?”

Everyone raises a hand and she chuckles.

“Its my treat guys, what are  we  having?”

After a small debate they decided pizza was best. While they wait for food they start unpacking boxes. Peggy has the boys set up the electronics first. As soon as they finished she put on some music. They worked in harmony dancing around the small apartment and laughing all the while.

Once the pizza came they took a well deserved break.

“Am I just starving or is this the best pizza I’ve ever tasted,” John groans, taking another bite.

“I think it’s a bit of both,” Peggy says, sighing in satisfaction.

Everyone mumbles in agreement. They sit and talk for a bit, before getting back to work. Peggy gasps when she finds an old picture of the three of them.

“Oh my god,” she laughs.

“What,” Eliza and Angelica ask in unison.

“Come here,” Peggy motions them over.

They walk over to her, looking at the picture in her hands.

“Oh my god,” Angelica says, placing a hand over her smiling lips.

“Do you remember that day,” Eliza smiles at her sisters.

“Yes, it was Peggy’s birthday and some jerk kid decided it would cool to pick on her,” Angelica says, annoyed. “Then, the little jerk proceeded to grab a handful of her cake and throw it at me, when I told him to leave her alone.”

“You forgot about Eliza kicking him, when he said he thought me and Angie were ugly,” Peggy laughs.

“That was well deserved,” Eliza smiles. “My favorite part was when Angie grabbed a handful of cake and threw it right at his face.”

The girls all laugh, remembering the epic cake fight that was had that day. The picture showed the three of them covered in cake. Angelica was in the middle with her head tilted and a big smile on her face. Peggy was on her right, mid laugh and Eliza was on her left, her arm stretched out and a megawatt smile on her face.

“Mom was so mad,” Eliza chuckles.

“Dad thought it was hilarious,” Peggy laughs, remembering how he high-fived  each of them.

“They both agreed that kid deserved it though,” Angelica smiled.

“I have to hang this in the living room,” Eliza takes the picture, hanging it on the wall.

They step back, Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy, side by side. They each tilt their head and smile. Eliza hugs them both to her side, giving them both quick kisses on the forehead.

“I love you both, so much,” she smiles, looking at each of them, “thanks for always being here for me.”

“You’re always there for us, Betsey,” Peggy shrugs, “you got our backs, we got yours.”

“No matter what,” Angie kisses her cheek, as they form a group hug.

“Hey, lovelies,” John smiles, entering the room, “can we join the love fest?”

“Of course,” Eliza opens her arms to welcome them.

They all hug each other with light laughter, before releasing each other.

“Its getting late, you all should be getting home,” Eliza checks the time, looking up and smiling at everyone.

“We can stay a little longer,” Angie offers, but Eliza shakes her head.

“No, you guys have work tomorrow and you already took time off to help me today.” She smiles and places a hand on Angelicas shoulder. “I appreciate the offer, but I can handle the rest of this.”

“Are you sure,” Peggy asks, with raised eyebrows.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she pulls her in for hug, squeezing her tight and kissing her cheek.

She does the same with Angelica, then hugs each of the boys, thanking them for all their help.

“Love ya, Liza,” John says in her ear, lifting her off the ground as he hugs her.

“I love ya too, John,” she laughs.

He pecks her cheek and gives her a wink, before stepping aside.

“Sure, you’ll be okay, mon ami,” Laf asks giving her a hug.

“I’ll be just fine,” she smiles at him, as they pull away. “Thank you for all your help today.”

“Bien sur,” he smiles.

“You call if you need anything, okay kid,” Herc hugs her tight, lifting her up like John, but spinning her.

She giggles, he puts her down, pulling back with a smile.

“I will, yoda.”

He squints at her playfully, and she laughs.

“I promise.”

He nods with a smile, bopping her nose and walking with her to the door with everyone else.

“You sure, you’ll be okay?” Angelica hugs her once more. “I can stay.”

“I’ll be fine, dearest,” Eliza smiles at her as she pulls away. “I promise to call or text you at least once a day.”

“Okay,” she nods.

“Me too,” Peggy says, coming to hug Eliza again. “You better come visit, too.”

“I promise to do both, darling.”

She smiles at each of them as they exit, waving as they leave. Once they’re gone, she shuts the door with a sigh. She makes up her bed and takes a shower. She eats left over pizza and sits on the couch, watching tv and slowly unpacks. She smiles and laughs as she unpacks pictures and different items she somehow she forgot she had.

She only has a few boxes left by the end of the night, smiling as she looks around and she sighs in relief. This is good, she thinks, I’ll be okay.

                         It’s been two months since Eliza moved and she was a little surprised by how well she was adjusting. She sat in the park on Saturday mornings, reading and people watching. She worked during the week and had a new friend, named Theodosia. She was proud of herself and she felt lighter.

It was Friday afternoon and she had gotten off early, so she decided to do some grocery shopping. She walked through the store slowly, taking her time. She turns and tries to reach for a bag of chips, but she can’t reach it. She frowns, her hands on her hips, looking up at the bag.

“Excuse me, miss,” a voice says behind her, “may I help you with that?”

She turns and sees a man with hazel eyes, light hair, a kind smile, and at least a foot taller than her. She smiles at him.

“I would appreciate it, thank you.”

He reaches for the chips, looking back at her to make sure he got the right ones. She nods with a smile and he grabs the bag, handing it to her.

“Thank you, so much,” she says, placing the bag in her cart. “I don’t know if these shelves are too tall, or if I’m just too short,” she laughs.

“I’d say the shelves are too tall,” he laughs with her.

“Well,” she pauses, feeling slightly shy, “Thanks for all your help…”

“André,” he smiles, offering his hand.

She takes it, smiling brightly at him.

“Eliza.”

“Its nice to meet you, Eliza,” he says slowly, he nods and releases her hand.

She brushes a stray hair behind her ear, and lightly blushes. He smiles at her.

“I’m sorry,” he pauses, looking nervous, “may I ask for your number?”

She hesitates for a moment, almost saying no. But, why not? She was single, and he seemed sweet, not to mention he wasn’t bad on the eyes. She had no one waiting for her, and the only person standing in her way, she was letting go. Nodding at him with sweet smile, she answers him.

“Yes, you may.”

They end up walking around the store together talking, and laughing. She hadn’t felt this free in a long time and she enjoyed the feeling. He was a veterinarian, he was from London, and he had a cat named Reginald. They walked out of the store together, smiles still in place. They decide to meet the next week for a date and Eliza feels more excited than she thought she would.

She gets home and puts her things away, when she gets a call from Angelica.

“Are you ready for girls night?”, she asks right away.

“Yes! And I have some news!”

“From the tone of your voice, it sounds like good news.”

“It is, I’ll tell you tomorrow when you guys get here,” she smiles to herself.

“Ooo okay, I can’t wait to here it!”

“I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

“Yes, you will.”

“I love you, dearest.”

“I love you, too.”

She hangs up, turning on the radio. Milk by the 1975 comes on and she starts dancing around her kitchen, giddy on good feelings. She stops when she sees a text. She opens it and her smile fades. It’s from Alexander.

*I hope you’re doing well, Eliza. We miss you.

She sighs, wanting to ignore it, but decides to answer.

~I’m doing very well, thank you and I miss everyone, too. I’m a little busy. Talk to you later.

She felt a little rude, but she couldn’t get sucked back in again. She nodded her head at herself, putting her phone down and turning up the radio.

[x-dudes]

Believer (Alex Summers x reader)

Date of Publication: July 20th, 2017

Notes: I did my best on portraying the military stuff correctly but I have absolutely no prior knowledge of how the U.S. military works. If I screwed any of that up, I’m sorry.

Summary: The horrors of war had become a common sight at that point. Seeing the bullet caught in his dirty flesh was a regular occurrence. The perfectly circular, internally burned hole in his shirt over the chest? Maybe not so much.

Warnings: swearing, I get sort of graphic with descriptions of injuries at times, minor angst, I use she/her pronouns in this one, even though I don’t usually do that?

-

Saigon, Vietnam//1972

“(Y/N), we’ve got another one.” Peggy called from the next room over. The swelling heat of central Saigon seemed to double in the few moments between cleaning up the current soldier and tending to the next, and all a seventeen year old (Y/N) (Y/L/N) could do to cope with the exhaustion that had begun to set in was let out a huff and wipe away the sweat dripping from her forehead, down to the hairs of her brow and the bridge of her nose with the least dirty handkerchief she had on hand. For a brief moment between cleaning blood from stump limbs and removing bullets from dirtied flesh she had peace. A low groan, however, broke through this peaceful moment as (Y/N) remembered her duties once more, shaking out of her trance and following Peggy’s call through the high archway between the chambers.

“What’ve we got, Peg?” She asked the other woman, re-tying her hair away from her face. The woman who was just a few years older than her seems to have aged ten years in the two years she’s been nursing in the war. Sweat dripped from her face and neck down to the collar of her uniform as she and another nurse who (Y/N) did not know hoisted another wounded soldier from the arms of the others onto a gurney.

“Took a bullet to the left shoulder not too far from here. He’s probably dehydrated. Doesn’t look too deep; Should be an easy one to take out.” Peggy replied. (Y/N) stretched up almost desperately, trying to see the damage, and possibly (usually depending on how severe the wounds are) the man behind them. “Laurie, fetch me-”

Peggy’s speech was drowned out by the booming resonance of another explosion. This was a frequent occurrence around here, with the noise often times being too loud to even hear yourself think, sometimes hearing screams or curses to accompany them and not allowing yourself do anything but maybe flinch. Though you always try not to flinch. Nurses aren’t supposed to flinch, the soldiers need their strength. Another boom, and a pair of snapping fingers before your eyes broke you out of your trance. “(Y/N). (Y/N)?”

“I’m so sorry, Peggy. What can I do for you?” You replied, straightening your spine and stepping into the empty space around the gurney which Laurie left. (Y/N) finally got the chance to see the man she was tending to, and was almost more shocked by his almost decent condition than she had been by some of the real horrors and tragedies that had come through here in the past.

“See if any surgeons are available.”

“I checked just a few moments ago for another man and there aren’t. It may be hours before a doctor can get to him, Peg’.”

Peggy, for a brief moment clenched her eyes shut and furrowed her eyebrows, though the expression was as soon gone as it came. Nurses aren’t supposed to get don’t get overwhelmed out here. They aren’t supposed to. The soldiers need our strength.

(Y/N)’s gaze fell from Peggy’s baby blues back to the man resting on the gurney, allowing herself to take a proper look. There was of course the small hole in his shoulder, blood seeping through the cloth of his uniform around the gash, though even more surprising was the large hole in the center of his shirt which seemed to have been burned away somehow. The flesh below the burnt hole was unwounded, and absent of any scars, though caked in dirt and the drying blood from the wound in his shoulder. She saw the man shift slightly and diverted her gaze back to the woman before her.

“Very well,” she sighed. Peggy swallowed the knot that had formed within her throat. “We’ll do what we can…”

-

(Y/N) (Y/L/N) stood beside an operating table as she watched each stitch be placed through the skin of the same man from before.. His body temperature was extraordinarily warm by the time they got to him, and the nurses debated over whether it was an infection or a fever from being out in the open jungle for being so long. Every so often she would remove the damp rag from his forehead, soak it in the bowl of cold water beside her, and wring it out, placing it on his forehead again, but she mostly watched deliberately, checking every so often to see if he had stirred at all in his sleep. This was the first opportunity she had to look at more than just his injuries, and she took every second of it to advantage. He was blond, the sharp angles of his face giving him an almost angelic look within the light. He was still dirty, sweat, dirt, and blood spackled his face and the parts of his body which weren’t cleaned for surgery, and in his sleep he held a troubled expression, though despite all of this he was still quite handsome. (Y/N) reached for his dog tags, reading the inscription within the metal.

SUMMERS,

ALEXANDER C.

971-92-4845

B POS.

NO PREFERENCE

“Alexander Summers,” She whispered to herself, though not even she could hear it over the noise. “No preference…” Certainly not something she sees frequently. The final stitch was being placed as she switched her gaze, and she readied herself to return Mr. Summers’ body to the gurney once again, and get him to an available bed. A nod from the person who gave the stitches and she was placing her arms beneath him once more. “Joyce, ready?”

“Yes.” the middle-aged woman on the opposite side replied. “One, two, three-” The two women transferred him to the gurney, and wheeled him out.

-

“Mr. Summers?” A voice said. Alex thinks he heard a voice say anyways. He honestly couldn’t tell, and he hasn’t opened his eyes yet, which he thinks is a perfectly good thing because it means he might be dead, but then he hears the voice again, clearer. He hears it louder. “Mr. Summers, can you hear me?” It’s a woman’s voice, and it’s loud, but it’s also so gentle and soft and almost reassuring, and he thinks that maybe it’s some sort of angel and maybe he really is dead even though part of him knows he’s not, yet the angel nearly makes him smile. Alex almost forgets where he is before he hears a boom, and knows damn well where it came from, and Alex almost cries when everything comes back together, but he doesn’t. Men aren’t really supposed to cry. They especially aren’t supposed to cry if they’re soldiers. “Mr. Summers, can you hear me?” The angel asked again, but before Alex responds, he hears the voice say “Pam, I’m not sure if he can hear me. He’s alive, but he’s not respondi-” The angel says he isn’t dead, so Alex has to say something.

“I can hear-” He groans out, moving to sit up and beginning to open his eyes.

“No, no, no. Stay down. Stay down.” She replied, gently placing her hand over his chest, and pushing softly to reinforce her request.

The feeling of the angel’s hand on his chest almost makes Alex want to cry again, and Alex pleads to himself, and then to every higher power of every religion he could think of that he doesn’t hurt her. Hearing this woman’s voice care for him, and comfort him when the last thing he remembered before this moment was this fucking war, and he doesn’t doubt for a second that after he wakes up, he’ll be caught up in more of this fucking war, may be the single best thing that has occurred in his life. Alex thanked them all once he felt her touch lift off of his body.

Alex finally gets his eyes open and the first thing he sees is blinding yellow light directly in his eyes, bringing up the debate as to whether or not he’s actually dead once more in his mind. A sharp pain cut through his left shoulder and his eyes clamped shut once again as he tried his damndest not to wince. “Pam, turn that off.” The angel snapped, and the light was gone, leaving his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the area.

“Pam- oh, sorry- Pam, we need a midwife, are you busy?”:

“No, I’m available- Sorry, (Y/N/N)- where is she, Laurie?” A voice beside him replied, but it isn’t the same voice, and Alex’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion as his eyes adjusted.

“It’s quite alright. Go on” The angel called to the woman, Pam, as Alex’s newly adjusted eyes watched her leave. His stare shifted to the woman behind the voice, and nearly, just nearly, smiled at the sight before him. If he had thought she sounded like an angel, then he was in for one hell of a surprise when he saw her face. She looked... heavenly. What better way was there to describe an angel woman?

“Um, hi…” Alex greets her and he physically cringed, and he wondered whether it was the pain of trying to move his left arm again or at how horribly weird he sounded.

“Oh-” She muttered. (Y/N) put a smile on her face while she turned her attention back to the wounded man beside her. “Hello,” She greeted him. “Mr. Summers, my name is (Y/N) (Y/L/N). I’m a nurse. You were wounded in your left shoulder. Do you know where you are?” Alex grunted, trying to find a position that didn’t hurt his arm.

“I’m still in ‘Nam, I figure?” He replied, cringing once more at allowing himself to be a smartass.

‘Yes, sir, you are. Do you still know what year it is?” She asked him. Alex feels his hair combed out of his face by the soft touch of the angel woman, whose name he now knows is (Y/N). Without even trying, he felt his eyes shut at how comforting (Y/N)’s fingers felt against his scalp. His pandering prayers of mercy against the woman before him were recited to himself once more, and his head shamelessly sank into her touch.

“It’s- ah- It’s ‘72.”

“It is. Good, and do you know the date?”

“I know the month, but I’m not so sure of the- the numbers.” Alex mentally scolded himself again at sounding so stupid in front of (Y/N), the angel.

“Okay, wonderful, and what month is it?”

“It’s October, right?”

“Yes it is, and do you remember your name?”

“Mmh- It’s Alex Summers. Unless you want my full name?”

“That’ll be enough, Mr. Summers.” (Y/N) replied, smiling softly. The piercing deep blue of his eyes bore into hers with an emotion that she couldn’t place. “Well, good news, nothing was permanently damaged, and your wound doesn’t go too deep at all, so aside from some nerve damage, you should be just fine in matter of time. You can’t fight in your condition, however, and if you tear a seam you might get an infection, tear a major artery, or much worse, so you’re going to be here for quite some time.” Alex felt euphoric upon hearing he wouldn’t have to fight anymore.

“I understand, ma’am.Thank you for everything.” Alex replied, voice leaking with enthusiasm. By this point, his smile had been fully present on his face without his knowledge, and seeing it made (Y/N) giggle to herself.

“Please, sir, don’t be so saddened.” She chuckled. Slowly, Alex’s smile turned to a faint smirk as he gazed back at his angel, (Y/N).

“Can you blame me?” He remarked. “Stuck in here, not fighting, with no permanent injuries,” He dramatically rested his good arm over his chest. “And to make things worse, having a beautiful woman caring for me as I recover? Ma’am, how do you expect me to live?”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll find some way to cope with such terrible news,” (Y/N) joked, a smirk growing on her face to match his. “Until then, could I get you anything? Food, water, fresh bandages?”

“Um, water would be nice, if you don’t mind?”

“Sir, of course I don’t mind. It’s my job.” She smiled. “Be right back.”

-

“Fuck, wha’ happened?” Alex groaned. The pain in his left shoulder now searing. Alex had been there just over a month, and the pain that had just started to get better seemed to be burning through his body, twice as worse at it was before.

“You tore a seam.” He heard someone sigh. He knew it was her. The other nurses that cared for him came and went. Alex could hardly remember the names of any of the other ones, but he would always know (Y/N)’s voice.

He would always know (Y/N).

“Did I?”

“Yes, you did. Was it at all because you put weight on your bad arm?”

“It… might’ve been” He mumbled.

“You mean, after I specifically told you not to?” She emphasized. Alex huffed in defeat whilst (Y/N) took a seat on the plastic crate beside his bed. He avoided her eye contact, even after she placed a hand over his good arm. This was (Y/N)’s time to huff, and she smirked ever so slightly as she began running her hands through his golden locks, a weakness only she seemed to know he had.

Alex tried relentlessly to stay mad at her. He swears he did. Though the moment her fingers began to run through his hair he was putty in her hand once again. “Dude- Sir, with all due respect, you can’t mess around with your shoulder like that. If that hole gets any deeper, or any wider, it could kill you. That wound is right above your heart, and-” (Y/N) paused for a moment to check for anyone eavesdropping. She deemed the coast clear, but lowered her voice so only Alex could hear her words. “-and if you were to tear something major, we don’t really have the tools or the people to fix that sort of thing. That’s major surgery.”

“‘m  sorry, (Y/N).”

“Don’t be sorry, honey. Just be careful next time, okay?” Alex nodded, a calmed smile stretched across his face when her fingers scrape across his scalp. “Thank you. Get some rest. It’s late and you need it.”

As (Y/N) began to stand, Alex grabbed her hand, making her freeze in place.

“Wait,” She quirked a concerned eyebrow in response, hoping that Alex could see it in the dark. “Did anything, uh, happen after I tore my stitches?” A heavy sigh left her lips, and she moved to sit at the foot of Alex’s bed.

“So, I could lie to you, pretend that I don’t know what you’re talking about and tell you the redundantly obvious, but that would only make your condition worse, I think, so I’m going to be honest with you. You deserve for me to be honest with you.” She whispered. Alex could feel his heart drop out of his chest before she had even said what happened. Once he realized that she could possibly now know the one thing he had never wanted her to, he felt almost sick. She finished her thought before he had the chance to throw up, thankfully. “So, about halfway through stitching you back up, your chest started to get rather… warm. At first I thought it could’ve been an infection of some sort, but then it started to get… red. Like, glowing red.” She explained. “Now, before you start to panic, I don’t think anybody but myself saw, and you don’t have to worry about me. I, um, I am one myself, so-” Alex bit his tongue as she spoke, yet he still couldn’t helping himself from asking the obvious question.

“One what?” He needed to hear the words.

“A-” she checked for late-night listeners once more even though almost everyone around them was sound asleep. “A mutant.” She whispered. His heart nearly exploded in that moment, as his hand reached to properly hold hers, rather than awkwardly grabbing it. She smiled at the gesture and wrapped her fingers around his.

“(Y/N), thank you.”

“For what?”

“For everything.” Her small smile bloomed into a full blown beautiful grin and Alex swore his heart actually did burst that time.

“Sure thing, Alex.” Okay, he was wrong, this time, hearing her call him by name, hearing his name said in her voice, seeing her happy, this was when his heart burst.

“One more question?”

“It’s late, but sure.”

“How did you end up here?”

“What, like in ‘Nam?” Alex nodded. “I was finishing school when I saw a flyer asking for volunteers, and I jumped at the chance. You know, I lost a brother in Vietnam just last year so when I saw the chance to help others like him, I wanted to take it. It ended up causing a big fight with my dad, actually, but I believe in what I’m doing, and I believe that what I’m doing is right, so I’m still here regardless of what happens to me back home.”

“Shit…” He muttered. “I uh-”

“How’d you end up here?”

“Me? I was drafted.” He stammered.

“Oh, sorry, I meant how did you end up here. Here in the- well I guess this is sort of a hospital. How did you wind up getting yourself hurt?” She inquired. A gentle smile graced her lips, and just looking at her, taking in her beauty in the dim light of the room, screamed at Alex not to tell her his sins. He couldn’t scare her away like that. He couldn’t bring up the horrible truth of his actions. He’s already decided that what he’s done won’t go unpunished if there is a higher power out there. Alex has never been a believer, yet he lived each day of his life in fear.

Alex Summers was never a believer, yet each night he had been in there, in her care, recovering from what had to be the first act of vengeance, he prayed. He thanked every higher power of every religion he  knew of for giving him her. He thanked them for what he believed to be a second chance at being happy, and forgiving, and normal. With her, Alex could almost feel normal again, even after everything he had done. She was hopeful and loving, and the only faith he’d ever truly known.

This woman had saved his soul, and Alex Summers did not deserve to be saved.

Alex brought her hand up to his lips, planting a small peck to her knuckles, and instantaneously covered the area with his own hand, as if it would fly away if he didn’t keep it there.

“That’s a story for another time, babydoll.” he answered, keeping his voice barely above a whisper to hide any trace of his shame. (Y/N) smiled a little wider, trying to hide her fluster at his pet name, and placed her free hand over his.

“I’ll be waiting.” She joked. “Until then, get some rest. And take these,” (Y/N) placed a few orange pills in Alex’s free hand. His fingers curled around them, carefully moving them to his mouth and swallowing them dry, watching her wince as he did so. He chuckled at her scrunched up face, and moved to kiss her knuckles once more.

“Yes, ma’am.”

-

Saigon, Vietnam// New Year’s Eve, 1972

“Thank god.” Alex muttered. (Y/N) handed him a metal canteen of water, and held her fist downwards, inviting him to sneakily take the pills from beneath her fingers. Alex held his hand open and she dropped the pills into his waiting palm. “Thank you, Miss (Y/N), you’re a doll.”

“So you say.” She teased, sitting at the foot of his bed. Alex sat upright, careful not to use his nearly-healed-yet-still-hurting This had become a sort of routine for them. (Y/N) works most of her assigned shift for the day, takes pain pills to Alex about 30 minutes before it ended, sits at the edge of his bed, and they talk. “So,” She begins. “Tell me about your little brother. Scott, was it?”

“Yeah, I’m not sure how much there really is to say. I’m almost twenty years older than him, and we were never really close like brothers are supposed to be.”

“That’s unfortunate. Do you write to him?”

“Sometimes, yeah. In my mind, the less he knows, the better. I think he would be about…” He trailed off in thought, counting the age difference between himself and his only sibling on his fingers. “About six or seven, I think.” He paused to let out a hefty sigh, breaking his watch on (Y/N)’s face to stare at the floor desperately working to push his emotions back. “A six year old’s not gonna understand where I’ve been or what I’ve been doing all his life. It’s not fair to him.” (Y/N) gave him a sad smile, reaching to entwine her fingers with his.

“Well, I’m not going to lie to you, because lying’s not what I do-”

“You must not be a very good nurse, then.” He joked, playfully tapping their interlocked hands on her knee. Instead of laughing, though she furrowed her brows and pouted slightly as she shook her head.

“No, I do alright, but I don’t want to fill anyone with any sort of false sense of hope, you know? If I say you’ll be fine, I mean it, unless something changes, in which case I’ll tell you that too. It just kind of bothers me when these men are on the brink of death, and someone tells them ‘oh, you’ll be just fine. Don’t worry.’ because they won’t be fine, and were I in their position, I would want to know the truth. I’m always honest with them, because I want them to know they should work to make the most of these remaining days. You know, write to their loved ones, pray to their gods, make arrangements-”

“What kind of arrangements?”

“You know, funeral plans, inheritance, life insurance, whatever may be in their will. Those sorts of things.” She answered. “You know, it gets hard sometimes, seeing the things I do around here, hearing the things they say and seeing the things they do during their final days. Some time before you came here, there was a man who lost an arm, and came too late for us to help. A lethal infection had already set in, and he had lost a lot of blood, so by the time he got to us, and try as we might, we couldn’t do anything about it, so of course I told him of the news, and he spent nearly every moment of his last days praying. He would only ever take breaks to eat or sleep. I’d hear him beg for his wife to be happy and taken care of, for his children to grow up strong and healthy and successful, even without their daddy to take care of him. I’d hear him beg for his family to know he loves them. It was heartbreaking. It was so, horribly tragic, and I couldn’t do anything but watch. There were so many times where I wanted to cry to someone, to anyone, and tell them about how sad this man was, or how affected I seemed to be, even though I wasn’t supposed to be, but I couldn’t. I can’t I’m not supposed to cry.”

“Why not?”

“None of us are. It’s one of the first things we’re told when we get here, is that nurses aren’t supposed to cry, because these men need our strength. And when they need our support, we can really only share passing mournful looks and quick, quiet whispers at how mournful we all are.” Alex simply nodded, hoping he didn’t seem insensitive to her. She seemed to read his mind somehow because she began stroking his thumb with her own in a way that told him he didn’t. She took a deep breath and straightened her posture trying to cover any sadness she had allowed to slip through the cracks. “Anyway, as I was saying before, lying’s not what I do, so I honestly can’t understand your disconnect to your brother. Why would you think it’s best to not write to him? He writes to you sometimes, you know. Where would you have ‘been’ those six years?”

“I…” He began, pausing to think through his next words. “I- fuck-”

“Alex, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push, I just-”

“No, no, it’s okay. I, uh, I was in prison for some time, because I had… hurt people.”

“Intentionally?”

“Well, sort of…” (Y/N)’s eyebrows rose, though her motions over his thumb continued. “I did… mean to hurt them, but not as badly as I actually ended up hurting them. My powers were sort of uncontrollable at the time, so I ended up in a government penitentiary by the time I was about 15. At first I asked for solitary, because I felt bad- fuck (Y/N), I felt so bad- and I didn’t want to hurt anybody else like I did then. They wouldn’t give it to me in the beginning, so I did what I had to do to earn it. I hurt more people to keep me from hurting more people.” Alex finished with a sad chuckle.

“Well,” She started, moving her available hand up to tuck a loose strand of Alex’s messy and slightly overgrown hair behind his left ear. “Your brother still loves you,” She brought their joint hands up to her lips “and despite what you know,” She placed a kiss to the smooth back of his hand. “Or, rather, what you think you know,” She rubbed a gentle circle over the area. “Scott undoubtedly still loves you even after you’ve done some things you aren’t proud of.” She disjoined their hands and took his in both of hers, rubbing the scarred knuckles with her thumbs. “And you’re right, he is too young to really understand those sorts of things.” She placed a kiss to the first knuckle. “But,” The second knuckle. “If he’s too young to get those things, I don’t see why you wouldn’t take advantage of that and try to be better.” The third. “So in time, when he is old enough to understand those sorts of things, he can say ‘Well that’s not my Alex.’” And the fourth,. She rubbed the same circles over his knuckles with her thumb. “And of course it’ll be the same Alex. You can’t change your past, obviously.” She moved on to kissing his fingers. “But your future is mostly in your hands.” The tips of his fingers. “So when little Scott hears about you and says ‘Well, that’s not my Alex.’ he can mean it, because that’s a different version of his brother than the one that he knows.” The inner part of his wrist. “He’s changed.”

Alex couldn’t do much more than stare at her hands. He traced her every feature with his eyes as she pressed small pecks to the curves of his good hand, leaving no place unmarked. He stared at her as if he was hearing the word of the lord, and goddamn it he would take it as gospel. Alex Summers was never a believer for a moment in his life, but (Y/N) (Y/L/N) was a goddess of a woman, and every word she spoke was his revelation.

Alex Summers was not once a believer, but that was okay, because all of his faith was held within (Y/N) (Y/L/N). Alex knew that if there was a heaven out there, he wasn’t welcome within a hundred miles of the gates, but in this little sliver of time he had with her, that was okay with him. This moment he had with her was better than any pearly gated eternity anybody had to offer, anyways.

Alex Summers is not a believer, but (Y/N) (Y/L/N) looked absolutely immaculate that warm December night. The soft glow from the lamp by Alex’s bedside gave her a glow that was angelic in the purest sense of the word. Alex knew damn well that he didn’t deserve the sliver of divinity that he was delivered, though that stopped him none from wanting more. Alex wanted everything that there was to offer, and he could feel her warm breath over his hand, and as she moved her lips down his fingers to his wrist and kissed him there he felt a fire burning every inch her kiss reached, yet still craved whatever more this otherworldly woman had to give. She giggled a bit and lifted her head to meet his stare. His eyes bore holes within her own, and she playfully raised a curious eyebrow. A small smirk graced her features, hoping to get at least a smile out of him, but his expression remained the same. He seemed focused, as if he was concentrating on each individual hair on her head, each inch of her skin, each curve of her nose and lips and everything her eyes held within them. “What?” She asked him.

Alex Summers wanted everything she had to offer,

He desperately craved everything she had,

Alex had truly known what it meant to want it all in that moment,

So he kissed her.

He heard the word come from her mouth in a harmonious concern, and decided to keep himself waiting no longer. He had hurriedly reached his bad hand up to cup her jaw, and ignored the pain of moving his shoulder almost entirely as he brought his lips over hers.

And he kissed her.

He kissed her as if she would disappear the moment he pulled away, and held onto her as if she was made of sand, as if he would shatter her if he dared to do anything more. And he waited, praying that she wouldn’t push him away and run from him in anger, and tell him that he had ruined yet another good thing that was in his reach, and that he was right about himself all along. And he waited.

And he waited.

And he panicked.

And she kissed him back.

She moved her hand to his shoulder and kissed him as if this were her last. She kissed him with so much passion that she felt like she was in an old Hollywood movie, and she held onto him as if he would blow away in the wind if she didn’t anchor him to her. And she loved him. She knew she loved him more than she had ever loved before, and convinced herself that she could never love another as she does right now.

And he pulls away from her, a dreamy smile on his lips. She furrows her eyebrows at him, yet still can’t help but at least smirk in return.

“Are you an angel? You must be an angel.” Alex asked, almost giddily.

“What?” She giggled, reaching for his hand once again, and using her free one to push him down on his bed once again.

“Are you? You have to be, because you showed up after a situation where I could have died, and you’re doing all these good things to me, trying to set me back on the straight and narrow. And it seemed to be in the time where I needed someone like you the most. I think when you take account to the the circumstances, you may be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He drawls, squeezing her hand in his.

“Get some sleep, Alex.” She chuckles. “I think you need it.”

“Sure thing, doll.” He promised. (Y/N) bent down, moving to kiss his forehead, though Alex swiftly tilted his head up to meet her lips with his own instead. (Y/N) sighed, yet kissed him once more on the lips, and again on the crown of his head as she intended.

“Good night.” She muttered

“Good night, gorgeous.”

“Get some sleep.”

“I love you.” Alex blurted, and she giggled.

“Tell me that in the morning. Good night.”

-

“Up and at ‘em, Sleeping Beauty. I’ve come with good news.” (Y/N)’s  voice rippled through his ears, stirring him from his already light slumber. Blurred memories of the night before swam through his head, and the second he felt (Y/N)’s weight shift on his bed, he couldn’t help but grin broadly at her form. He opened his eyes a bit wider, rubbed the sleep from them, and noticed her expression that screamed ‘anxious mess’ to him.

“That’s not a good news kind of face.” He groaned. (Y/N)’s placed her tiny hand over his broad chest in a silent way of asking him to stay down, yet Alex disregarded her wishes completely, lifting himself up by the elbows and taking her hands in his. “What’s wrong? This isn’t about last night is i-”

“Shh, you’ll get us in trouble. No, this isn’t about that. It really is good news, Alex. I guess I’m just being selfish? I should have known better.”

“(Y/N), what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” She stressed, squeezing one of his hands in hers. “Nothing is wrong, Alex. I’m being sent home on Wednesday.”

“You’re what?”

“I’m being sent home on Wednesday,” She repeated. “And you’re being transferred.”

“To where?”

“You’re being moved to a camp further South. It’s run by a guy named W. Stryker, and they didn’t say why they were moving you, just that you were healthy enough to leave, and this guy needed you. And I thought I had known a lot about all these different camps, but I guess not because I’ve never heard of this one before, or this W. Stryker, but I’m concerned. They just sent another guy to him a couple days prior, he called himself Toad, and I still haven’t heard any reason to not be suspicious.”

“And where are you going?”

“I’m going back to my family in New York. Maybe start looking at places to live, because I’m not so sure I’ll be welcomed back with open arms. Finish school, maybe?”

“Will you write to me?”

“Of course. Do you want some help getting your stuff together?”

“Yeah…” He replied. His eyes overflowed with sadness, but he wasn’t going to cry. He should have known better. “That would be nice.”

He should have known.

-

Westchester, New York//March 23rd, 1983

“It smells pretty old in here. Is this a school or a museum?” A young Scott Summers remarked. The hand across his shoulders carefully navigated the blindfolded boy down the short set of steps into the next room.

“One more,” The hand directed, “And last one- oh,” Navigation didn’t go quite as well as a much older Alex Summers had hoped, watching as Scott bumped into a young redheaded girl crossing his path. She outstretched her hand, levitating her books and papers within inches of hitting the floor and neatly stacking them within her arms once more. She gave him a cold, angry gaze, though she knew he couldn’t see.

“I can’t.” Scott said aloud, trying to follow the direction of the voice he’d just heard.

“Who’re you talking to?” Alex asked, returning his broad hand to his brother’s shoulder.

“Me.” The redheaded girl snapped.

“I just heard you in my head.” The younger Summers boy marveled.

“I’m telepathic, I read minds.” She retorted, sarcastically.

“Yeah, well stay out of mine.” He snapped back.

“Don’t worry, Scott, there’s not much to see.”

“Hey, wait,” He called as he heard her footsteps grow further and further away. “I didn’t tell you my name!”

“No, you didn’t.” She called back, angrily storming out of the room. Alex chuckled breathily at the interaction, turning his head away.

Hank McCoy climbed down the large staircase, several large manila envelopes and file folders in his hand, and a young woman with a bright smile by his side.

“- but I’m still not sure about how well that would go over with Charles. What do you think, (Y/N)?” Hank had asked her, though for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to fully listen to his plans for these final few months of school there were.

“I think it’s a good idea. Ask him about it, and if you need me to back you up, let me know.” She answered, absentmindedly. Her eyes had a sort of dreamy gloss over them as she watched a blindfolded boy she didn’t recognize step into the room below, guided by a blond man. She continued to stare as the blindfolded boy had run into a redheaded girl she knew quite well, smiling just a tad as she levitated her papers back into her arms. She heard the boy speak to nobody in particular and giggled to herself as he got to know Westchester’s own redheaded fury that was the telepath, Jean Grey.

“-and of course I want the be- Is that Alex?” Hank’s question snapped her out of her trance, though he had already left her on the stairs to greet the blond that stood at the bottom. “Alex Summers!” The name sent a spark down her spine, though she quickly brushed it off and tried to watch Hank from her place on the stairs.

“Hank McCoy!” The blond man boomed, reaching out to shake her friend’s hand.

The voice.

(Y/N) slowly climbed the stairs to the large platform in which the single staircase broke off into two, still trying to look without being seen. “This is my brother, Scott.”

Scott. She thought to herself. It couldn’t possibly be…

“Hey, Scott. I’m Hank McCoy, I’m one of the teachers here.” Hank greeted. (Y/N) climbed the stairs a little lower, hoping to catch a glimpse of his face.

It’s not him. She tried to convince herself. What are the chances of seeing him again after, what, ten years? Just go down there and wait for Hank. You probably seem creepy by now.

Alex pat his younger brother’s back. He flickered his eyes from Scott to Hank and back again as his old friend introduced himself.

“So where’s the professor?” He asked Hank, ignoring his answer over the sound of high-heeled steps on the wooden stairs. He glanced up at the source of the noise, but didn’t pay it much mind. “Sorry, what?”

“I said he’s in the East wing, second floor. Probably teaching a class right now. You want to go check?” Hank repeated. The woman from before stepped down the final stair and stood by the rail post, watching Hank explain himself again.

“Sure,” Alex stated, turning his head entirely to have a proper look at the woman beside his old friend. She meticulously listened to his each word, only breaking her gaze  to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear, which was when Alex caught a proper look at her face.

Her face. He thought to himself. God, she looks so much like her. Thinking of her again made him let out a single breathy laugh. Wonder what she’s doing now…

Hank noticed Alex’s stare and turned his head in curiosity, only to be met with (Y/N)’s focused stare. He jumped a bit, but nodded in her presence.

“Oh, (Y/N).” He noted.

(Y/N). Alex mused. Hm... Nah, couldn’t be.

“Hm?”

“I’m going to take them to find Charles, but I’ll be back.”

“Take your time,” She insisted. Alex’s eyes doubled in size. “I’ll be around.”

That voice. It was older, and a bit lower, but he could still recognize that voice in a crowded room to this day.

“Alright,” Hank nodded, “I’ll be back. Come on, Scott.” Alex opened his mouth, but couldn’t find the right words to say. He shut it and looked back to Hank and Scott, now walking up the stairs he had just come down from. He turned back to (Y/N), who watched them with a curious expression. An expression he had memorized.

“Actually, go on. I’ll catch up to you guys in a bit.” Alex called, quickly running his hands through his hair and smoothing his jacket.

“You sure?” Hank called back. Alex turned to gaze at (Y/N), who had just turned to walk out of the room.

“Yeah.” He replied softly. “Yeah, I am.”

-

“Excuse me.” Alex called, quickening his steps to catch up to the woman. “Excuse me. Excuse me, miss-” (Y/N) quickly turned around, catching sight of the tall blond man from before, rushing towards her. Upon looking at his face properly for the first time and gasped. Her shock quickly turning into a small smile as he approached her. “You look familiar. Are you an angel?” He had asked her, nervously brushing his hair from his face. “You must be an angel.” She laughed, taking his free hand between her own.

“So you say.” She teased, lacing their fingers together. “What are you doing here, Alex?”

“I came to bring my brother here.” He answered excitedly. “What are you doing here?”

“I actually work here now.” (Y/N) replied. “How long are you going to be here?”

“I- ah, look. It’s been forever, and I’ve missed you every day since you left, so we’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but I’ve got to go find my brother. Could I pick you up tonight and we can finish this later? Maybe over dinner?”

“I’d like that.” She giggled. He grinned back and pressed a kiss to the back of her hand.

“Great,” He pressed another kiss there. “Pick you up at seven?”

“I’ll be counting the seconds.” (Y/N) commented. Alex began walking away, though (Y/N) squeezed on to his hand before they fully broke away and pulled him back to her. “Oh, and Alex?”

“Yeah, doll?”

(Y/N) promptly cupped his jaw in her hand and pressed her lips to his.

“I missed you.”

[serkewen12]

Something There - Part Five

Pairing: Jefferson x Reader

Warnings: some naughty words and one suggestive situation 

Word Count: 8164

Part One  Part Two  Part Three  Part Four

Tag list: @butlinislin @wolfphantom-m @musicalmoriarty @daveedish @imagineham @imaginebeinghamiltrash @insane-hamilton-imagines @shamagangster @tempfixeliza @crazypurplebananas @secretschuylersister @love-doesnt-discriminate @icanneverbesatisfied @getupoffathathang @th-mtchndr-s-th-pwrhs-f-th-cll @hamiltryingmybest @marquiis-de-la-baguette @consumed-by-musicals @drugsdiggs @hamfan22 @hamfamhamfam @y-lue @chloehamiltonn @patron-saintof-sluts @hanakatsumi @itsgarbagecannotgarbagecannot @alois-in-bootyshorts

Much to your delight and slight worry two weeks had passed without John and Lafayette bringing up your blunder outside the coffee shop. John was ever cheerful and with everyone having a full course load it seemed that he didn’t have time to worry about the fact that you were obviously flying by the seat of your pants with this “internship” or so you were inclined to believe. Lafayette was the one who made you worry. He hadn’t brought up the subject up, but you could tell by the odd looks suspicion that were always followed with a glint of amusement in reaction to how uncomfortable you looked that he was biding his time. Lafayette always knew when you were lying and you were on edge waiting for the moment he finally decided to pounce.

Last week Thomas had told you there was a new collection of books arriving from his parent’s home in Virginia that he would be adding to the library’s vintage and rare book section. You were set to meet him Wednesday evening to help look through the titles and organize them, on top of that he had promised to play you a song on his violin. He had finally admitted to you that he played when you had accidentally knocked over a stack of handwritten sheet music off a shelf in his study. Curiously he had never once played you that song you had walked in on him playing that day at school.

Economics was as eventful as ever, your professor had assigned a project for students to pair up and come up with a solution to help lessen the budget deficit within the government. Alexander had automatically claimed you as his partner that would help him take down his “enemies” in the class. You wanted to roll your eyes but the idea of the debate the professor was putting on was bringing out your competitive side. Thomas might be your friend, but there was no way you were going to let your emotions get in the way of the last big project of the semester.

“I think our ideas will blow everyone out of the water,” Alex said triumphantly.

“Don’t forget Jefferson is well versed in foreign government. He will most likely pull ideas from what other countries are doing at the moment. We have to stay on top of that so he doesn’t surprise us,” you commented without looking up from the laptop.

Alex shared a desk with you and set off researching topics from France because he assumed that would be Thomas’s country of choice to pull ideas from. He wasn’t wrong, you agreed one hundred percent. You glanced up and gazed across the room. Thomas and James were both engrossed in their notebooks. Thomas looked up to grab a book and made eye contact with you. His lips turned up into that arrogant smirk and you returned one back in return. You quickly grab your phone from your back before opening a new text. You could tell by the look in his eye that he was confident in what he was working on.

(Y/N) 1:40pm - You’re looking pretty confident over there. -

The Asshole 1:42 - You don’t think you’re going to win this debate do you? I’m not going to take it easy on you because I care about you. -

Because I care about you. You stared at your phone for a moment letting those words sink in. Don’t overthink that, you are just friends (Y/N).

(Y/N) 1:48 - I wouldn’t expect anything less. We still good for Wednesday? -

The Asshole 1:49 - Of course.

“Who are you texting?” Alexander teased and attempted to look at your phone.

“Just a friend,” you laugh. Keep telling yourself that.

Lafayette hummed along with the music flowing through his earbuds as he walked into the library Wednesday evening. He was on the hunt for a book to reference for cake decorating for his pastry class. Browsing quietly he found a few books that seemed promising before settling in at a table. Almost thirty minutes had passed when he heard a familiar voice approaching and he looked up from the books.

(Y/N) was walking towards the rare book section happily talking to Thomas Jefferson of all people. He was carrying a box and was laughing at what (Y/N) had said. Lafayette couldn’t help but stare in shock as he leaned forward to watch them disappear around the corner.

“Mon Dieu!”

He quickly jumped up, shoved all of the books into his bag, and scurried around the corner. Stopping quickly when he spotted them a few aisles away, he ducked behind one of the bookcases. The box Thomas had been carrying was now sitting on a table and they were both pulling small stacks of books out and were cataloging the titles onto a spreadsheet.

“These are going to be great additions to the collection Thomas,” (Y/N) said with a wide smile.

“I figured you would be excited about them.”

They continued to catalog all of the books and started making organized piles so they could quickly put them onto the shelves. As Thomas moved to the shelf closest to them and started placing the books while Lafayette backed off slightly to stay out of sight. This was better than anything he could of expected. He knew (Y/N) was lying about an internship but he never considered that she was spending time with Jefferson. I can’t wait to talk to her about this.

“So about dinner last weekend, I was thinking I should return the favor and cook for you,” Thomas mused.

“Is that so? I guess that’s fair since I refused the first time I was at your place. I’ve been curious about if that fancy ass kitchen is just for show or not,” she teased.

Well, well they have been in each other’s houses. She has cooked him dinner even.

“I’ll have you know I’m a great cook. If you don’t believe me ask Gil.”

“Looks like you will have to prove it to me sometime then. I’m going to be working on the economics project with Alex on Friday, but I should be done around 7 if you wanted to still watch a movie at my place,” (Y/N) commented.

“That works for me. James and I are working on ours as well….”

Lafayette slowly made his way toward the exit of the library. No wonder (Y/N) had been so worried about what had happened at the coffee shop. If Alexander or Hercules found out about this they would lose their minds. They still were plotting off and on how they wanted to get back at Jefferson for that insult a few months ago. He could only imagine how they would react if they knew about this secret relationship.

“I’m going to have to talk to her as soon as possible,” he said to himself as he walked down the street.

“God damn him!” Alexander slammed his bag on the the table causing both Eliza and you to jump.

“What happened now?” You shot him an annoyed look.

“Was it Jefferson?” Eliza asked with a concerned look.

“No! I’m so tired of Burr! He never will take a side on anything! He had the nerve to tell me people don’t like me. Can you believe that?”

“Well to be fair Alex you are one of the mouthiest people on campus so that’s not an outrageous claim,” you retort.

Alexander tried his best to look outraged, “That is besides the fucking point. If there is one other person on this earth I can’t stand besides Jefferson… it’s Burr. You should see him in our politics class! He skims by without really telling anyone anything on his stances. It’s shady, he is shady.”

Well at least Thomas and Alexander had one thing in common, they both can’t stand Aaron Burr. Thomas had told you all about how Burr had tried to upstage him in the class elections, but he was able to come out on top. Alexander didn’t like him because he never seemed to have an opinion about anything and then had the nerve to insult him for always having to much to say. He didn’t take kindly to being told to talk less, even though you were inclined to believe that was actually some sound advice because Alexander was always getting himself into situations because of his quick tongue.

A chorus of hellos brought you back to the present and you realized John, Herc, Laf, Angelica, and Peggy were all gathering around the table. They were all happily chatting about how the semester was almost over and that means a small amount of stress lifted for the time being.

“So (Y/N) your birthday is this weekend! We all know what that means,” Eliza said with a smile.

“PARTY!!” They all chorused.

“I don’t know guys…” you begin.

“Oh hell no. It’s your birthday and it’s been months since we have all gone out and had fun. You have been blowing us off long enough, we are going out for your birthday,” John complained.

It was true. It had been a long time since you had gone out and hit the bars or went dancing. You had been neglecting your friends lately and getting dolled up and hitting the town did sound like a fun.

“Oh all right. Let’s do it!”

“Saturday. You put on that cute sparkly dress that you’ve been saving for a special occasion and we are going to treat you to the best night out ever. We are going to that new club that just opened!” Angelica practically squealed with excitement.

“You will be able to get away from that job without an issue right?” John questioned.

“It won’t be a problem at all,” you say nonchalantly waving your hand.

As you walked away after aggressively planning the party out and arguing with them all about whether there needed to be cake, everyone had compromised on cupcakes.  You were so deep in thought about how you hoped the night would go that you didn’t hear the footsteps quickly coming up behind you.

“(Y/N)! J'ai besoin de te parler,” Lafayette was saying as he ran to catch up with you.

“Hey French Dip, what’s up?”

He gestured for you to follow him and grabbed you hand as he lead you down a hallway away from everyone and sat down on a bench.

“Okay… What the hell is going on Laf?” You bite out, “You said you needed to talk to me, not drag me down the damn halls.

“Is there anything you would like to tell me about?” He gave you a stern look.

“Uhhh. Could you be more specific?”

Anxiety was running high at this point when you saw the look in his eyes that said “you can’t be serious”. Oh God, this is it. He is confronting me about the coffeeshop.

“There is no internship.” It wasn’t a question it was a full blown statement as he looked you in the eye daring you to try to lie to him again.

Your breath caught in your throat as you struggled to form a response that would sound convincing.

“What? That’s silly Laf. The internship is at…”

“I saw you (Y/N), in the library on Wednesday last week. You walked right past me with Thomas as I was studying,” he accused you with a glint of amusement in his eyes.

“I… I um… oh that,” you stutter quietly trying to regain your composure.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit. Laf was watching you expectantly. He looked so incredibly smug as he rested his chin on his hand. You knew he had been waiting to strike about catching you in a lie but the fact that he had actually seen you with Thomas had you sweating nervously. He’s the one that said I should give him a chance in the first place!

“Oui that.” He had a wide smile now.

“I’ve been seeing him and Angelica was covering for me by coming up with the internship,” you confess.

“Quelle!? Pourquoi ne m'as-tu pas dit? Je savais que Thomas pouvait vous montrer combien il se soucie de vous! Je ne peux pas croire que tu rencontres!” Lafayette practically shouted wide eyed. (What?! Why didn’t you tell me? I knew Thomas could show you how much he cares about you! I can’t believe you are dating!)

“Whoa! No! We aren’t dating. What the fuck Laf? We are just friends! We have been hanging out, nothing more,” you pressed. Why does calling him a friend seem harder to believe?

The wide excited smile on Lafayette’s face quickly turned to a look of disappointment and confusion. You couldn’t help but feel as disappointed as he looked, but telling him the truth about what you had been doing lifted a weight from your shoulders. In truth the only reason you hadn’t confided in Laf like you normally would was because of stubbornness. He was the one that told you Thomas was a good person and you told him you would never be his friend. Yet here we are..

“Oh… you aren’t dating? I must have misunderstood, you said you were how you say, "seeing each other”. I just assumed, forgive me. You are friends then? How did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me?“

Laf seemed sad that you had been keeping this secret from him as he asked you more questions about what had been going on. You answered all of his questions and filled him in on what had been going on. He was surprised that Thomas had taken the bold move to invite you his house. As you detailed your interactions a knowing look had settled onto his features.

"As I have heard Angelica say before… ‘you have it bad’,” Laf said with a smile.

“Oh shut it Laf! Okay I’ll admit he is attractive and you were right there is a lot more to him than he lets people see. You aren’t mad at me for lying to you?” You felt awful that you hadn’t told Lafayette about this situation sooner.

“Non. I understand completely. I will help you.”

“Help me? What do you mean?” You gave him a confused look.

“I’m going to help you keep this from Alexander, John, and Hercules. I understand why you did this. I will talk to Angelica and we will try to keep them from finding out about what’s going on with Thomas,” Laf smiled warmly and pulled you into a hug.

“Thank you so much Laf. You don’t know how much that means to me.”

Thomas was stretched out casually on the floor of your apartment leaning against the couch. You were lounging on the couch, Beauty and the Beast was half over on your television. You absentmindedly twirled your fingers through the ends of a small portion of Thomas’s tight curls as you watched Belle twirl around the ballroom in her signature yellow dress. You let out a sigh.

“What’s wrong (Y/N)? Thomas said looking up at you.

"Huh? Oh nothing Thomas. I just love this part of the movie, always have,” you comment without looking away from the screen.

“Something is bothering you, you’ve been distracted a lot these last few days,” Thomas pointed out.

“It’s my birthday tomorrow… everyone insisted on going out and dancing.”

“That should be fun. You are going to have a great time,” he said his voice seemed more hollow than normal.

“It will be… I just wish you were going to be there. I wish we could all just go out and be together without it causing world war three,” you lament quietly.

“How about I cook you a nice birthday dinner at my place? Let’s just turn off the movie and go now.”

The movie was quickly switched off and you quickly grabbed your bag and coat.

Thomas swept into the large kitchen in his home. You slowly followed him into the open room. He had rolled up the sleeves of his button up to above the elbow showing off his toned forearms. He also undid the top few buttons on his shirt because of the heat that was going to be generated from cooking dinner. You tried not to stare, but you weren’t going to complain. This was for your birthday after all.

“So what are you going to cook? Can I help?”

“I’m going to cook my specialty. No you may not help! This is your birthday dinner,” he shooed you away from the stove.

You sat down at the island and watched him rustle through the pantry. There was an odd looking antique metal contraption sitting in the corner that caught your attention. Thomas turned around with his arms full of clear containers of assorted noodles.

“Penne, rotini, farfalle, shells, or traditional elbow?” Thomas asked as he sat the containers down in front of you.

You stared at the containers and then raised an eyebrow at Thomas. You looked over the types of noodles and weighed your options.

“Um… rotini? I guess. Hey Thomas what is that contraption in the pantry?”

“Oh that? It’s an antique noodle press. I use it to make all the noodles,” he said matter-of-factually with his back turned to you as he put the water on the stove.

“You made all those noodles? From scratch?”

“What kind of cheese do you like?”

“Parmesan and cheddar I suppose…” you say slowly, “Thomas are you making macaroni and cheese?”

“Don’t sound so shocked, it’s delicious. It’s the best when it’s baked and made from scratch,” he said proudly.

The noodles boiled and you laugh to yourself as you watched Thomas meticulously grate cheese. You had no idea that his most absolute favorite food was macaroni and cheese. The idea of someone has sophisticated as Thomas being in love with such a simple food was hilarious at the very least. Of course he was making it in the most complicated and classiest way possible. He pulled a baking pan out and started layering the noodles and cheese before putting bread crumbs on the top and he put it into the oven.

“Well it needs to bake for a little while and then dinner will be served M'Lady.”

You couldn’t help but laugh. It had been almost 45 minutes and Thomas hadn’t let you help with anything.

“You know macaroni is the least sophisticated of all pastas right? I can’t believe it’s your favorite food. I could’ve made that in three minutes in a microwave,” you teased.

Thomas turned around and looked horrified, “How dare you!? That instant microwave joke of a meal is vile. The handmade molten goodness that is in the oven right now is pure heaven! You’ll change your mind when you taste it!”

You hadn’t expected the passionate reaction from Thomas and an idea floated through your mind. You smirked as you opened your phone and went to Thomas’s contact. You hit the edit button and quickly deleted ‘The Asshole’ as his name and typed in 'EZ Mac’. You giggled to yourself.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” you continue to tease.

Thomas pulled out dishes and silverware and went to set the table.

“You aren’t even going to let me help set the table?” You pout.

“Nope, I told you I’m treating you tonight,” he said as he breezed past you with some wine glasses.

When the buzzer sounded and he pulled the dish out you had to admit it did look delicious. Thomas smiled when he caught you staring hungrily. He led you into the dining room and you both sat down.

Thomas sat down slowly and watched (Y/N) as she took the first bite of her food. She closed her eyes as she savored what she had just tasted and he felt satisfied.

“Okay, I admit it Thomas this is amazing,” she admitted with a smile.

“Anything for you, happy birthday (Y/N),” Thomas said sincerely as he raised his glass.

Her eyes snapped up and met his and a blush worked it’s way across her cheeks. He loved it when she blushed when he said things like that. He smiled back at her and continued to eat. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to keep this up.

Two helpings macaroni and two glasses of wine later (Y/N) was laughing and trying to pull information from him about the debate coming up next week.

“You know you want to tell me. Come on Thomas it’s my birthday,” (Y/N) crooned.

Thomas swirled his wine slowly in the glass and smirked, “Pulling the birthday card on me? I haven’t drank nearly enough wine to fall for that routine.”

“Damn… are you absolutely sure you won’t tell me anything?” She pouted slightly before taking another drink.

“I’m absolutely sure you are beautiful.”

The words had fallen from his lips before he could stop himself. My God… I’ve apparently had enough wine to make a fool out of myself. He stared at (Y/N) nervously, she slowly put her wine glass down and looked him in the eye.

“I… um… so we should get these dishes taken care of,” she stuttered as she got up and started picking up her plate.

“Hey! No, no I’ll take care of those! I told you it’s your birthday dinner and you shouldn’t have to do a thing,” he exclaimed.

“Oh no you don’t Thomas Jefferson! You cooked me dinner and let me drink your wine. I’m going to help you clean up!”

Thomas watched as she snatched the plate from his spot and retreated into the kitchen quickly. He slowly went to pick up the wine glasses.

“Why did I say that? I called her beautiful and she basically ran off. Damn it,” he quietly berated himself.

You quickly put the plates in the sink and grabbed the pot from the stove. You weren’t sure what to think of what Thomas had said at the table. He had looked so sincere and you could tell it was something he wasn’t planning on saying. You didn’t have much time to think on it before Thomas made his way into the kitchen carrying the bottle of wine and the glasses.

“Here let me wash them, you can dry them and put them away,” he tried to compromise.

“Sounds good,” you say trying to reel in your feelings. Just play it cool…

“So are you excited about going out tomorrow? You never said where you were going,” Thomas mentioned as he washed the plates.

“Oh! It’s some new dance club that just opened. Yeah I’m excited, it’s been a long time since we all went out,” you say before letting out a sign.

“What’s bothering you? Seriously (Y/N) you can tell me,” he pressed.

Everything, but right now your handsome face is high on the list of things that is bothering me.

“It’s nothing Thomas. I was just hoping that I look good enough tomorrow. Angelica, Eliza, and Peggy always look so good and I just feel like I’m inadequate when I’m around them when we go out,” you confess as you put down the glass you were drying.

Thomas dried his hands quickly on the towel sitting by the sink and turned to face you. He was so close that you could almost feel the heat that was blazing in his brown eyes. Your eyes widened and your heart was hammering out of control

“Listen to me, you are going to look amazing,” Thomas whispered drawing closer to you, “You are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.”

You felt his hands cautiously touch your hips as he pulled you closer to him. Holy shit… holy shit.

“So beautiful…” was all he whispered before he pressed his lips to yours.

As he slowly pulled away you felt like you were in a daze. The kiss was quick but he had poured every bit of emotion and longing into it. As he went to take a step back you grabbed the front of his shirt and kiss him again. His fingers tightened on your hips and you wrapped an arm around his neck as he backed you into the edge of the counter.

As you deepened the kiss you could feel his hands working up your sides. His hips had you pinned against the side of the counter. God yes. You grabbed the edge of the counter with one hand to steady yourself and barely registered the feeling of your elbow grazing something. He had just begun to trail kisses along your jaw when you heard glass shatter.

The sound snapped you out of your daze and you practically leap apart. You were both breathing heavily and you turned to see one of the wine glasses that had been sitting on the counter was now lying broken in the sink.

“I…I’m sorry. I should go, it’s um… getting really late,” you fumble as you rush out of the kitchen.

Stupid! What the fuck was that?! Oh my god how could I do that?!

You ran into the living room trying to find your coat and purse so you could leave. This could not be happening. Sure you had thought about what it would be like to kiss Thomas and that had felt better than anything your imagination had concocted, but now what? You had to get out of there, you knew the feelings you had been trying to ignore were running rampant and you were not ready to have the conversation that the kiss would start. God, God, God…

“(Y/N)! Wait!” Thomas came rushing into the living room behind you. Shit.

“Sorry I have to go,” you stamper not trusting yourself to look him in the eye.

Hurrying towards the door you were stopped when Thomas grabbed your hand.

“Please wait, I’m sorry,” he begged, “If you’re going to leave at least take your birthday present.”

Thomas picked up a carefully wrapped rectangular package off the small table in the entryway and held it out to you. You steal a glance at his face and he looked defeated. You mumbled a thanks and slip the gift into your purse before retreating out of his house.

Thomas stared at the spot (Y/N) had been standing for what felt like an eternity. He didn’t know what to do or what to say about what had just occurred. He hadn’t planned on kissing her like he had, but she was there and so close, he just couldn’t stop himself. He slowly turned on his heels and trudged to the kitchen. He paused letting his brown eyes scan the counter where you had just been and looked in the sink at the broken wine glass.

“What the fuck was I thinking?”

He turned and leaned against the counter and his thoughts wandered to a conversation he had with Lafayette a few days prior.

“Shut up Gil, we are friends.”

“Oui that’s what (Y/N) told me but we both know that isn’t what you want,” Laf said with a sly smile.

“Well it really doesn’t matter what I want now does it. She made it pretty clear to you that we are just friends,” Thomas snapped.

“I think we both know that there is something between you. It’s totally obvious, even Angelica says so.”

“I don’t know what to do, OKAY! Happy now?! I thought becoming her friend would make it easier, but it’s made it a thousand times worse,” he said with an exasperated sign.

Lafayette rolled his eye and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Just tell her how you feel! Make her dinner. Seriously do you have no skill at all?”

Thomas ran his hands through his curls and sighed. He had told Lafayette he was going to try his best to tell (Y/N) how he felt. He had planned on dropping a few hints and gauging her reaction to them.

“I just wanted to tell her she was beautiful not attempt to seduce her on my counter. Damn it…”

Thomas left the kitchen without cleaning the broken glass. That could wait until the morning. He made his way upstairs and stripped off his clothes and collapsed onto his bed. His mind was consumed with thoughts of how he should proceed. He wanted to call her, apologize, and beg for forgiveness but decided to wait and see if she would talk to him tomorrow. All he could do was hope he hadn’t make the biggest mistake of his life and ruin everything as sleep overtook him.

It was officially your birthday, which meant tonight was the night that you were hitting the club. The party however was the furthest thing from your mind after what had happened with Thomas. With your phone constantly going off with endless notifications from Facebook and various text messages from friends wishing you a happy birthday you were on edge. Every time your phone went off you were nervous that it was Thomas. The thought of what he might say and what you could say had been a constant worry since you had gotten up this morning. You had retreated like a coward the night before, running away from the feelings you had been trying so hard to repress. What if he wanted to forget it happened? That would be impossible. What if he confessed that he wanted to date? Best case scenario with a lot of variables. The what ifs was killing you and even though you dreaded what he might say his silence was also making you nervous.

You stared at your phone as it read 7:00pm. Angelica had just went live on Instagram with Peggy and Eliza showing that they were getting ready for the evening ahead. You had spotted Alexander in the background with his nose in his notebook as usual. Angelica had stared into the camera after seeing that you had started watching and told you that you had better get your ass off the couch and start getting ready. You chuckled to yourself as you got off the couch, she knew you all to well.

Wandering into your closet you pushed all the clothes to the front to reveal a teal dress that still had its tags. Snatching it off the rung you held it up and smiled before laying it carefully across your bed. You quickly strip out of your clothes and put on your robe before making your way to the bathroom. You had just begun priming your face when you got a text from Angelica harassing you about getting ready, your only reply was a quick selfie to show you were indeed in the process.

You had managed to successfully finish your foundation and slight contouring and then you stopped and stared at your own reflection. You are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. Thomas’s voice floated through your head. You felt your face heat up as the memory was brought back.

“Nope, don’t you do this to yourself. Don’t think about him or his mouth. He hasn’t even said a word to you all day so tonight you not going to think about Thomas fucking Jefferson,” you command your own reflection.

“You did what now?” James asked looking up from his essay.

“I invited her here for dinner because of her birthday, I told her I thought she was beautiful, I kissed her… rather aggressively against my counter, and then she ran out of the house as fast as she could,” Thomas repeated as he sat another book on his dining room table.

“This is great! I was starting to think you were never going to make your move,” James said cheerfully.

“Were you not paying attention? She literally ran out of my house; like picked up her things and ran out the door and wouldn’t look me in the face! How exactly is that 'great’?”

“I was paying attention and didn’t you say she was the one that pulled you in for the second kiss? That shows she is interested, therefore that’s great and you can finally stop tip toeing around and moping about how you hate being in the friendzone,” James replied matter of factly.

“I haven’t even said anything to her today. The way she ran out of here I figured she could use some space.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Excuse you?” Thomas said angrily.

“You haven’t said anything to her at all? She ran out of your house because she probably was to flustered to be able to handle the emotions she was feeling and then you go radio silent? It’s her birthday, the least you could do is say happy birthday. You need to make your move.”

Thomas picked up his phone and stared at a blank text message while he tried to figure out what he should say.

“Come on Thomas, make your move. Don’t freeze,” James pressed.

“Shut up! I’m trying!”

Thomas: 8:00pm - Hey I hope you have a great time tonight. Happy birthday.

You were working on blending your eyeshadow when your phone buzzed across your counter. You huffed and put your make up brush down.

“Damn it Angelica… I swear to god if you’re hounding me about getting ready…”

Fully expecting to see a text from the eldest sister you eyes widened when you saw the message was from Thomas. Hey I hope you have a great time tonight. Happy birthday. A scowl formed as you read the text. Your first instinct was to thank him, but you had promised yourself that you wouldn’t think about him tonight. Tonight was about you.

“He waited all day to say something… I think I’ll return the favor. I will just text him when I get up tomorrow,” you smirk.

When you had finished up your makeup you decided to leave your hair loose. Sliding on the teal dress and putting on your matching strappy heels. Standing in front of the mirror you examined your full reflection. The dress fit you perfectly. It had a fitted top with a flowing skirt that had an ombre that ended in a midnight blue right above your knees. There was a scattering of sparkling small crystals on the skirt fabric. The fabric flowed nicely when you swayed back and forth and the crystals glittered in the light. You nodded in approval, you looked damn good.

The club was incredibly crowded and the music was loud. You smiled as you felt the bass pump through you. John stood up on a chair and waved animatedly to get your attention and you laugh as Peggy pulled him down and started scolding him. Everyone cheered and wished you a happy birthday. Laf pulled out a square parcel and handed it to you. When you opened it you saw a delicious looking cupcake.

“Oh Laf you didn’t have to bake for me,” you shout over the music.

Lafayette waved you off and they all broke out into song before you ate the dessert. Red velvet. It was your favorite kind of cake.

“Laf holy shit this is so good,” you gush and he gave a cocky shrug in return.

A few drinks later and you were on the dance floor surrounded by your friends. Eliza and Alexander were dancing with each other and Peggy had wrangled John into dancing with her. There were plenty of attractive men here, but none of them were able to keep your attention. None of them are Thomas. Angelica didn’t miss how you were turning down invitations to dance from a few of these men and the slight frown that appeared when you saw the couples dancing.

“Damn it,” you hiss.

“What’s wrong? Are you missing a certain someone?” Angelica teased.

“I don’t want to talk about it Angie,” you lamented.

Angelica stopped dancing and grabbed your arm and started pulling you away from the dance floor.

“Where are you goin’ Ang,” asked Herc.

“Bathroom! We will be right back,” Angelica replied quickly.

You both hurried down the back hallway and stumbled into the bathroom. You crossed your arms immediately with irritation.

“Okay, what is going on? Did something happen with Jefferson?”

“Nothing happened,” you lied.

“Bullshit girl, you are lying. You play with the hem of your clothes when you are lying,” she challenged.

You swore to yourself as you slowly let go of the hem of your dress. You didn’t want anyone to know about what happened with Thomas. If Angelica found out about the kiss she would lose it and try to meddle in what you did next.

“It’s nothing,” you argue.

“If you don’t tell me I’ll go get Laf.”

“Jesus what the hell. I promised myself I wouldn’t think about him tonight, but that’s next to impossible. We kissed okay?! He invited me over last night for dinner and we kissed,” you snap.

“You WHAT?! Tell me everything!!”

“He kissed me. Oh my god Angie it was amazing, but then I broke one of his wine glasses, panicked, and then ran out of his house like an idiot.”

“You two are unbelievable. You are going to call him tomorrow and you are going to fix this. This is getting out of control. You like him, he likes you. Do something about it,” Angelica said flabbergasted.

“What about the guys? They want to destroy Thomas. It will be world war three every day,” you counter.

“Who gives a shit! They want you to be happy and if he makes you happy they will deal with it. Now let’s get back out there and have fun. You can worry about Thomas in the morning!”

When Thomas woke up in the morning the first thing he did was check his phone. The text shown as read, but still there was no reply. He rubbed his eyes slowly and sighed. Instagram was the next place he checked and there was a flood of pictures of (Y/N) dancing with her friends, drinking various types of drinks, eating a large fancy looking cupcake, she was smiling brightly and looked like she was having the time of her life. He took a long shower, taking extra time with his hair and then meticulously groomed his facial hair. It was almost 9AM by the time he sauntered out of the bathroom and got dressed. He looked up from buttoning his shirt when his phone lit up.

(Y/N) 8:50am: -Hey. Wanna meet me for coffee? We need to talk.-

We need to talk. That was a phrase that gave him both hope and anxiety. This could go very wrong or very right.

Thomas 8:53am: -Sounds good. Normal spot?-

(Y/N) 8:54am: - Yup -

After making the plan to meet up with Thomas you took a deep breathe. When you grabbed your larger purse so you could put your wallet in it, the bag was heavier than usual.

“What the hell…”

Looking into your bag you spot a magenta package. Pulling it out you realized it was the birthday present from Thomas that he had given you before you ran out of his house. It had gone forgotten when you arrived home and you used a small purse when you had gone out to the club. Carefully turning it over in your hands and sitting down on the couch you open it slowly. He had taken every bit of care in wrapping this gift. Once the piece of magenta paper was loose and had fallen to the ground you stared at the back cover of an extremely old looking book. Turning it over and carefully opened the cover to see the title page. You gasped as you read the title The Count of Monte Cristo. This was from his private collection, he had shown you this book one of the first times you had gone to his house. It was his favorite book in his collection if you recalled. You felt tears sting your eyes slightly, this was a perfect gift.

Taking extra care you placed the book on your nightstand in your room. You ran out of your apartment with a large smile on your face. You hailed a cab and told him the address of the very same coffee shop that you had chased Alexander out of. All you could do is hope for the very best when you met up with Thomas.

Alexander walking down the crowded city street, weaving back and forth between bodies. He had spent the last hour speaking with George Washington about what his plans were after graduation. He was already irritated, George wanted him to work for him, that wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. He had no idea why he hadn’t spent the night with Eliza and opted to go home. As he walked he looked across the street at the familiar coffee shop that he almost lived in. He could use the strongest coffee he could after the heated conversation he had this morning.

The familiar form of (Y/N) getting out of a cab quickly caught his attention. He smiled and sped up to catch her. She walked into the door before he was able to cross the street. Curiously he could see through the windows (Y/N) hadn’t gotten in line to get coffee, she had gone and immediately sat down at a table across from a very familiar mess a black curls. Alex stopped in his tracks.

“What the fuck is she doing here with Jefferson?” Alexander hissed.

He crept close enough to be able to see most of what was going on at the table, but since he was outside he couldn’t hear anything they were saying. They were smiling and she reached over and grabbed onto his hand. Rage bubbled to the surface as he watched Jefferson raise her hand to his lips and kiss the top of it. It took every ounce of his self control to not run into the coffee shop and make a scene. He winced when he thought of what Eliza would do if she found out he had done something like that. He was going to get to the bottom of this as fast as possible. He quickly shot off a text to squad saying their plans were cancelled. He had new plans: to confront (Y/N) as quickly as possible. They looked way too friendly in there and all the guys had grown suspicious of this internship. John had been joking that she probably had a secret boyfriend and with what he had just witnessed he was inclined to think John might be right. He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away. There was something that was nagging at the back of his mind. Something that he had heard in passing at school. He stopped walking when he recalled something Aaron Burr had said to him about a week ago. Alex had been so angry about Burr saying people don’t like him that he had only half listened to the other things he had said to him.

“I’d watch your back if I was you Hamilton,” Aaron Burr said quietly.

“What the fuck are you talking about Burr?”

“Well I’ve heard through the grapevine around here that Jefferson has it out for you and your little friends,” Burr said with a smile, “He’s a charmer and is incredibly sly, he will pounce on the first weakness that he finds and exploit it.”

“Fuck off Burr, Jefferson isn’t going to exploit anything,” Alexander growled and shoved his way past Aaron.

Charmer. Pounce on the first weakness. Alexander was seething. Was Thomas low enough to try to seduce (Y/N) for the means of exploiting her feelings? He would like to believe he wouldn’t do such a thing, but his track record for being an arrogant self centered prick wasn’t doing him any favors.

“I’m going to put a stop to this right fucking now,” Alexander said.

You walked down the street after meeting Thomas at the coffee shop. You were buzzing with excitement. He didn’t regret the kiss, though he had apologized for how it had escalated. He had even invited you to the charity gala that the university’s wealthy families and students put together once a year. The Schuyler sisters went every year, as did Lafayette. They were from wealthy families that always donated to the charity event. Thomas of course was also one of the guests who attended every year. You had never had to worry about going to such a fancy event, until now.

Hambone 10:23am: - Hey we need to talk about something important are you free?-

(Y/N) 10:25am: - Um ok. Yeah I’m free, where are you? -

You looked at your phone with a raised eyebrow. Alex seemed upset for some reason. He never wanted to do anything on Sundays especially this early in the morning.

“I wonder if something had happened with the debate project,” you whispered to yourself.

Hambone 10:26am: - Little park a few blocks from the coffee shop -

He was only a few blocks away. Something about this seemed strange to you, but you shrugged and headed to the small park. After walking for a few minutes you turned to the left and went down the path into the park. Alexander was sitting at a bench a few yards away. You waved with a smile.

“Hey Alex. What’s going on?” You said cheerfully.

“So I’m going to cut right to the chase here…” he said angrily.

“Whoa Alex… calm down,” you reasoned.

“Uh no. You and Jefferson looked really friendly back there in the coffee shop.”

You felt like the air was sucked out of your lungs. He had seen you and he was angry. You knew they wouldn’t be happy about this, you knew Alex would act like this, but you were hoping to have more time to plan out how you were going to talk to them about the situation with Thomas.

“I can explain.”

“Are you out of your goddamn mind!? That’s Thomas Jefferson that you were making heart eyes at! He is a piece of shit (Y/N)! I can’t even believe this. Did you forget how he treats people? How about the things he has said to you?! He’s…” Alexander was in a full blown rage fueled rant.

“Stop it…” you were trembling.

“…always trying to screw us over! How long has this been going on? Is the internship real? I bet it isn’t. I seriously can’t believe you! Angelica and Laf are always standing up for you in this little internship story too… my god they fucking already knew about this didn’t they?! Did it ever occur to you that Jefferson is trying to screw with your feelings?”

“Stop it Alex,” you said a little louder.

“He is a self centered and arrogant. Not only that Burr told me that Jefferson had it out for us and that he is a 'charmer’ and 'that he will try to exploit weakness’! He is probably just trying to seduce you so that when he gets what he wants he can throw it back in our faces! He only cares about himself (Y/N)…

"STOP IT ALEXANDER HAMILTON!”

He stopped mid sentence and saw that you were shaking with angry tears streaming down your face.

“Oh (Y/N)… I..”

“NO! You shut your fucking mouth for once,” you roared, “You know what, I knew you were going to be mad when you found out about this, but I at least thought you would be respectful! Thomas had been nothing but kind to me since I gave him a chance! Laf is his friend too… I don’t see why you can’t just attempt to get along!”

“Oh of course he is being kind to you! He knows he can win you over so he can rub it in my face…”

“Not everything is about you Alexander! Is it so insane that he might not be some monster? I’m going to be his date to the gala. You aren’t going to ruin this for me Alex,” you conclude.

“But why?! He is awful. He is going to take advantage of you (Y/N)! I’m trying to help you before he does something awful,” he reasoned, “He doesn’t care about you, why would you want to date him?”

“BECAUSE I LOVE HIM!” You yelled.

Alex stared at you slack jawed. You were breathing heavily and the realization of what you had just shouted was creeping into your head. You stared at Alexander wide eyed. The silence between you was heavy and it was obvious that he had no idea what to say to your declaration.

“So you better just get over it Alex. I will see you in class tomorrow,” you said curtly before turning on your heels and storming away.

[everythingislegalinsantafe]

Interruptions (A.Ham x Reader)

a/n: this one was hella fun to write i hope u guys enjoy!

request: alex x reader where one of hamil!squad says “Oh my God will you guys just kiss already!” to them 

word count: 1,752 words

“You know, if we were anywhere else I would smack you right now.”

“If I were anywhere else besides next to you I would be the happiest man alive.”

You scowled at Alexander as he laughed to himself.

“Alex, mon ami, will you please shut up?” Lafayette pleaded and you couldn’t help but agree.

“I don’t know, man,” Hercules laughed. “It’s fun to watch.”

“Alex, I know you love teasing my sister, but for tonight can you maybe tone it down a bit?” Your brother, John Laurens, asked.

You rolled your eyes and grumbled, “You’re the one that got us into this mess so you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

What happened was that Washington had invited everyone to a ball, including your brother and his friends. However, Washington insisted that everyone needed a date and that’s where you fell in. Alexander was the only one out of the entire revolutionary squad to not have a date, so being a good friend, your brother told him he knew someone who was unable to say no to him.

That was you.

You thought it was quite odd for your brother to ask, no, beg you to be Alexander’s date for the night, considering he knows how much the two of you argue about almost everything. You think it’s because he just wants to have a good laugh.

You wouldn’t have said yes if you knew you were going with Alexander, but you had already agreed so now you were looking beautiful and quite elegant in your new pastel purple dress Hercules made for you while feeling downright furious as you held onto Alexander’s hand.

“If Washington comes up to us we need to ac-” Alexander started

“We need to act professional. I know, I know. I don’t like you, but I’m not going to damage your career for that.” You mumbled to him.

He looked down at you surprised at your answer and squeezed your hand. You blushed but kept walking toward the open doors, determined to not show how flustered you were at that single act.

For the past hour, you and Alex debated the entire time instead of dancing or meeting new people. You were in the middle of another argument when Mr. Washington decided to make an appearance.

“Alexander, I’m glad you could make it tonight. Nice to see you’re finally taking a night off.”

Alexander jumped when he heard his commanding officer’s voice behind him.

“S-sir!” Alex stammered as he stood straighter. “I must admit, Sir, it is nice to take a break.”

General Washington gave him a small smile before looking at you, “And who is this young lady? Your date I presume.”

You smiled at him and curtsied, “(Y/N) Laurens, Your Excellency. It’s an honor to meet you.”

“Likewise, Miss Laurens. Is your brother here, too?”

You nodded and pointed to your brother’s position in the ballroom, “I believe he’s trying to unsuccessfully ask those women to dance with him.” You said with a giggle and he chuckled with you.

“Speaking of dancing, I should find my wife. Good to see you Alexander and lovely meeting you Miss Laurens.” Washington said before he disappeared into the crowd.

Alexander visibly slouched and took a deep breath to calm himself down.

“Are you alright?” You asked with a laugh.

He just shook his head before turning his head to watch all the couples sway lively to the music.

It was silent between the two of you for a long time until he surprised you with a question.

“Care to dance, (Y/N)?” Alexander asked as he held out his hand.

You stared at his hand before looking up into his eyes, searching to see if he was trying to play a trick on you, but you saw none.

He wasn’t a bad dancer, you said to yourself as he spun you once again around the room. He is much lighter on his feet than I thought.

Throughout the first two dances, no words were exchanged before you finally couldn’t take it.

“I want to say I’m sorry for saying I wanted to slap you earlier,” You told him sheepishly. “I also want to apologize for all the times I’ve argued with you.”

Alexander shook his head and smiled, “No, I should be the one apologizing. I’m the one who can’t keep my mouth shut and starts the arguments.”

His grin grew as you giggled and he pulled you tighter.

“Y'know,” He whispered and you suddenly you felt like it was only the two of you dancing the night away in the ballroom. “The real reason I like arguing is because I li-”

“Yo Alex! Can I talk to you real quick?” Hercules asked, not knowing he interrupted Alex from saying something important.

Alexander looked at you desperately, “Please don’t leave. I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.”

You sighed as Alexander got whisked away. You walked slowly to the edge of the ballroom and leaned against the wall while watching the flurry of couples dance around in circles. Many songs had passed on and you were about to leave when you felt someone tap your shoulder. You turned around to see a soldier smiling confidently at you.

“Excuse me, Miss. But I couldn’t help but notice your beauty from across the room and I just had to introduce myself. I’m General Charles Lee.” He said as he grabbed your elbow.

You didn’t like how cockily he said “general” and you certainly didn’t like how he grabbed your arm. You could tell this man was not a gentleman and your mind was racing for ideas of how to escape his grasp without angering him.

“I’m (Y/N) Laurens, Sir. And it truly was a pleasure to meet you and I thank you for your compliments, but I was just leaving.” You gave him a small smile as you tried to pull yourself out of his grasp.

His smile soon fell into a frown, “Why are you leaving so soon?” Then his eyes lit up sinisterly as he leaned down to whisper in your ear, “If you want to leave we could just head back to my house and have a little fun.”

You gasped and pulled away from him to smack him right across the face. His cocky demeanor soon changed into a more terrifying one.

He quickly grabbed you by the waist and you used his other hand to put it over your mouth as you tried to thrash and scream to get somebody’s attention.

“Now you listen to me, you little whore. You aren’t suppose to run away when someone compliments you, especially a man of my position,” He growled. “You’re coming home with me whether you like it or not.”

You kept thrashing in his arms before you finally bit his hand and stomped hard on his foot with your sharp heels. He howled and you swiftly ran across the room away from him. You looked around and spotted Alexander looking hopelessly around the dancefloor and you sprinted towards him.

“Woah! (Y/N), what’s wrong?” He asked as you practically jumped into his arms.

You started stammering, “Th-there was th-this m-m-man. A-and he tried to-”

“Ah Miss Laurens! I see that I’ve found you!” You jumped and hid behind Alexander as you heard that voice again.

“Mr. Lee, I didn’t know you were acquainted with my date.” Alexander said cooly as he reached to grab your hand to comfort you. You quickly squeezed his hand like he did to you earlier.

“That’s General Lee to you Hamilton,” Lee snarled. “And this little slut ran away when I was nothing but a gentleman to her!”

You gasped and stepped out of your hiding spot, “Gentleman? You forcibly grabbed me before proceeding to tell me how you were going to kidnap me!” You spat into his face.

Lee’s face turned red with anger before he snatched your wrist and raised his to hit you, but before he had the chance to Alex caught Lee’s hand.

“Don’t you ever raise your hand to her again you fucking coward,” Alexander growled. “And how dare you call this woman a slut? How dare you? She’s a god damn angel from heaven who nobody deserves and you think you have the right to grope her and call her a slut? Leave now, Lee, before I force you out.”

Lee stormed away with a bright red face that was now flushed from being embarrassed in front of his fellow soldiers.

Alexander quickly turned around to you and pulled your face close to inspect if any damage has been done to you.

“Did he hurt you? Let me see your wrists,” Alexander desperately grabbed your wrists while you were still in shock from what had happened. “I knew it, the bastard bruised you. I swear (Y/N) the next time I see him I won’t just use my words to kick his-”

“Alexander, I’m fine,” You said as finally came back into reality. “I was just frightened that’s all.”

He took one of his hands out of yours to cup your cheek. Your were afraid he could feel about hot your face was as he gazed down into your eyes.

“Thank you,” You spoke softly. “Not for just saving me but for all those kind words you said.”

He smiled lovingly at you, “All of it was true, my dear.”

You both grinned brightly at each other before Alexander looked down in embarrassment, “Listen, (Y/N), what I was about to tell you on the dance floor earlier was that I argue with you because I li-”

“Oh my god will you guys just kiss already!”

Both of you snapped your heads up to see Hercules, Lafayette and John drunkily giggling while leaning against each other. You have no idea who yelled the statement, buy you were about to yell a retort back before Alexander grabbed your face to turn in towards his to kiss you.

You made a noise of surprise before closing your eyes and wrapping your arms around him to deepen the kiss. The two of you stayed embraced in each other’s arms, ignoring the hooting and howling for your friends.

When you finally pulled apart, you looked into each other’s eyes as if someone set the stars in there.

Alex broke the moment with a grin, “I argue with you because I like you.”

You rolled your eyes, “I figured that much out.” And you pulled him in for another a kiss.

[alittleoptimistic]

Renaissance of the Mind: Chapter 3

Chapter 1  Chapter 2  Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Summary: Senator Thomas Jackson has spent the better part of his career swaying the public opinion to the belief that old souls are villainous. Everyone knows only people who screwed up royally in their previous life come back for another chance. They are criminals and should be imprisoned the moment they are discovered. But after a chance meeting with a strangely familiar young man, Thomas’s worst fears are animated. A lifetime of his own forgotten memories in his unwieldy hands, Thomas is faced with a decision.

His headache wasn’t going away.

In the last hour, he’d consumed four ibuprofen pills, half a bottle of aspirin, and copious amounts of alcohol.

This was turning out to be a poor decision.

A headache had started just after his speech and had yet to let up. His entire head throbbed and pulsed with every heartbeat. He was alone at home and taking one of the very few sick days he could, and he was distantly aware that he should probably call a doctor at this point. Two days of a migraine wasn’t normal. Right? Maybe?

He couldn’t hold onto a thought long enough to really consider it anyhow.

But he did know now that medicine overdose along with alcohol was a bad plan. Very bad.

He’d been puking in the toilet in the dark in his bathroom for the last twenty minutes.

And all the while his head continued to pound.

This was just some kind of flu. Something he’d caught. But man it was bad.

After what felt like an eternity, his stomach settled slightly. Thomas dropped onto the floor, exhausted, and stayed there with his eyes shut. After a while he had the presence of mind to flush the toilet, but after that, he just sat, trying not to think about anything. Everything hurt. He wiped his mouth with a growl of frustration and got to his feet shakily.

He’d need water and food after that, some part of him supplied. Or he’d faint. Slowly, he stumbled out of the bathroom, down the hall to his immaculate, very seldom used kitchen. All the curtains in the house had been drawn, and every light turned off. So naturally, he tripped over just about everything in his stumbling way to the fridge.

Once reaching the fridge, he kept his eyes shut as he opened it and cool light spilled out. He groped for something to eat and landed on a stick of butter.

Whatever. He’d take it.

His brain buzzed and whizzed around and the next he knew, he was on his couch, the stick of butter in hand, staring blankly at the swirling pattern on his ceiling.

“This sucks,” he croaked. “This is a big ol’ pile of cow dung, Jeff.” He frowned. “Jack… son.” Pathetic, really. Honestly, he couldn’t even say his name right.

He ate a piece of butter from a trembling hand and cursed the empty house in a general sort of way.

It was then, of course, that his cell phone buzzed. Light flooded the room like laser beams and he groaned, turning his head away.

But it kept on buzzing on the coffee table just a few feet away.

Muttering, he forced himself to sit up, and grab it.

“What?”

A shocked pause. “Oh.” It was Maria. “Goodness, you really are sick.”

Thomas would have rolled his eyes if that wouldn’t have hurt enough to send him to his knees. Instead, he blinked slowly. “Yup. What’s wrong?”

She sighed. “Ah, well, I was calling because I’ve been able to handle all of your responsibilities today thus far, but after that speech, if you disappear for too long-”

“They’ll forget about it.” She was right. They would. They needed to ride this wave of media presence if they wanted to get somewhere.

“Exactly. They need to keep seeing you. So… when can you come in?”

Thomas exhaled tiredly. “Uh, as soon as I can.”

“We really need you here, Mr. Jackson. I understand but-”

“Don’t worry,” he interrupted. “I want this just as much as the rest of you. I’ll be in tomorrow.”

He could hear her smile in her voice. “Great! Awesome. Thank you, sir! Please feel better. I will see you tomorrow, then!”

“Tomorrow.”

He hung up.

And tossed the phone sloppily across the room.

He’d think about everything... tomorrow.

From the outside, Alex’s record shop looked like one of those crappy corner stores where you buy lottery tickets and cigarettes and people hang to cause trouble. There were bars on the windows and the door needed new paint. It got stuck every time Alex opened it, and he had to shove his shoulder into it get it to work properly.

But Alex didn’t care.

He’d poured his heart and soul into this little shop and if his heart and soul looked like a crappy corner store, so be it.

That said, on the inside, he had done everything he could to fix it to exactly his liking. Records of all sorts were stacked in boxes and on the walls and on shelves, and large posters were framed on the walls. There was a semblance of order. It went like this: new stuff, front of the shop, old stuff, back of the shop. And it worked just fine for him. If anyone needed help, they’d ask and he could find them the record in less than thirty seconds. He and his roommate/best friend Jack ran the place and Alex wouldn’t have it any other way.

Alex, per usual, shoved open the door. The smell of coffee and warm leather greeted him. There wouldn’t actually be any coffee yet, but he’d brewed so much of it inside the tiny shop, the smell was sort of ingrained in the walls. He flicked on the lights and smiled.

In the back of the shop, he’d set up the pay counter, and he had dozens of record players to use. He’d choose a style for the day, usually, and Jack would probably complain about it, but that was okay. He swerved around the randomly placed shelves of records. He did pretty well with this shop. Especially since records were coming back as ‘retro’ and ‘cool’. Whatever. He liked the music and he liked being able to see the music as it spun. He liked the way it sounded and he loved searching for songs. Forgotten songs. Lost songs. Songs so rare, no one had listened to them in decades. He’d dig like some kind of treasure hunter in people’s garage sales, obscure auctions, pawn shops, for more music.

And then, if he felt like it, he’d sell his findings.

Before, Alex hadn’t had enough time to appreciate such things like music. He’d been so hurried, so desperate to make something of himself, he’d been solely devoted to writing and politics. They were everything.

He didn’t have his writings or his political career now. They weren’t ‘his’ anymore.

And funny enough, that was okay. The world would keep on spinning whether or not Alexander Miranda chose to step into the public eye.

However, he would like to make it clear, that he could. He could become all that he was in the 1700s. After all, back then he’d started with absolutely nothing. Even at his lowest moments in this life, he had far more than he had as the young, scrappy, and hungry kid that stumbled off a burning ship into New York without a single friend in the world and nothing but the clothes on his back.

Yeah, if he wanted, Alex could do it again. It would take some luck, but he’d pull it off like he always had.

But, man, he really kinda liked music. And he realized now, he wasn’t the type of person that could multi-task. He couldn’t listen to music and drink in a bar and dance with pretty girls and- and live if he was constantly waiting to get back to his ‘real’ life of writing and politics.

So whatever. Yeah, he didn’t have much money, yeah he lived in an area that was burgled every other night and drug busted at least once a week, but he didn’t mind.

People were as kind as they were bitter, and music had a way of soothing people, making them happier for just a moment. He’d never figured out how to do that as a politician or a soldier.

He’d thought it was just one of those gifts some people had.

Like Eliza. She’d been able to make anyone smile the moment they walked into a room.

And Alex had just assumed he couldn’t do that. It occurred to him maybe he hadn’t really tried.

He plugged in his favorite player and thumbed through a few of his favorite records. He wasn’t a hard core Beetle fan, but they were alright if he was in the mood.

Eh. He wasn’t today.

He was still debating between a classical Bach or Kansas when the bell on the front door rang. Kinda. The bell had a tendency to get drowned out by the shoving and pushing and scraping that it took to open the door.

Alex sat down in a swivel chair, hands behind his head, and spun in a circle. “If I look at you, and you look high, Jack, you’re going home.”

Jack, the roommate, stuck a ruffled head through the door and huffed. “Uh, for your information, I am clean.”

Alex glanced at him and snorted. “Clean.”

The redhead, almost-former druggie looked down at his wrinkled t-shirt and jeans and shut the door behind him. “In the substance sense.”

“That’s nice. Physically clean would be nice too.”

Jack glared at him, straightened his jacket with an eye roll, and stomped past him. “I’ll wash my face in the sink.” He opened the back door and left it open behind him.

“There are a washcloth and some spare clothes back there too, I think.” Alex had put some in there when he wasn’t sure whether he’d be able to keep up his half of the apartment rent. He grinned and used his legs to push the swivel chair halfway off the ground. He could just see Jack enter the bathroom. “You’re the best!” He added with cheeriness he knew Jack would find extremely grating.

“You’re the worst,” came his muffled reply.

Alex chuckled and went back to searching through his stack of records. He liked old music as much as he liked new music. And when he said old music, he meant like, the stuff people tended to just lump together as either ‘hymn church stuff’ or ‘classic ugh so boring’ as well as the music made in the early twentieth century.

He chose something at random and clicked it in place.

Mozart. Piano softly washed over the room. Now that kid been something of a phenomenon. Jefferson had detested him if he remembered correctly. Wouldn’t play any of his music. Alex had no idea why, just that Jefferson had always been very irritated whenever someone attempted to play it. Alex chewed his lip. See, this was the thing about old music. It was flypaper for memories. Even now, if he played the song he and Eliza had first danced to, he’d be thrown back to that hot summer night and the feeling of the blue silk dress beneath his sweaty fingers. Her light touch on his shoulder and his equally gentle touch on the small of her back. It had been humid and the hosts ran out of punch halfway through the night, he recalled. But it had been some kind of magical time anyhow.

He was usually very careful about which old music he played, just in case it was too much for him that day.

With a sigh, Alex pushed himself out of the chair, stretched his back, and started the coffee machine beneath the counter. He didn’t actually like coffee, but the caffeine was too large of an asset. He needed caffeine.

Once enough for a cup had brewed, Alex quickly removed the pot, poured the coffee into his cup, and hastily thrust it back under the hot stream. There was probably a reason the coffee machine was stained brown. He smirked, wrapped his hands around the hot mug, took a sip, and bent under the counter to continue his never-ending task of sorting. He’d come back yesterday from a day of hunting with a dozen new records that needed a home in the shop.

He’d done this for a few minutes when someone shoved on the door. Alex frowned. That was unusual. People were not often here this early.

With an armful of records in one arm and his coffee cup in the other hand, he struggled to stand.

“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. Here, let me help you.”

The records slipped, but suddenly someone was there, taking hold of a bunch and setting them down on the counter. Alex smiled. “Thanks,”

“You are very welcome. Pardon me, but are you, Alex or Jack, sir? The sign outside said Alex and Jack’s Records and I… I… Are you alright?”

Alex stared, horrified. He had gotten very good at recognizing people. Mia had been right. It was in the eyes. He couldn't do it every time, but sometimes...

And there was no way he would ever forget the eyes looking at him right now.

“B-Burr?”

The man frowned, confused. He was a dark-skinned, smartly dressed man with close cut hair and a very familiar cautious, concerned smile. “It’s Barron, actually.”

The coffee cup slipped from Alex’s fingers, and the moment broke. Alex cursed and jumped back from the hot liquid. “Oh jeez, S-sorry, sir. I- no, I’m, this is fine. I’ll just clean it up.”

“Here, I’ll help.”

Burr- Barron- whatever, leaned forward and Alex jerked back as if burned. “No. Really. I have a cloth right here.”

Which he did. He was always spilling coffee it seemed.

He bent beneath the counter, and once he was hidden, waves of terror crashed through him.

Terrified wasn’t exactly what he thought he’d feel like if he ever ran into him. But here they were. His hands shook as he scooped up the coffee and deposited the broken ceramic into a small trash can.

Good enough.

It was obvious Burr didn’t remember. Otherwise, he would have reacted when Alex said his name. So… there was nothing to do. Nothing but serve him as he would serve any other customer. It wouldn’t be fair to him otherwise.

When did his life get so complicated?

Taking a deep breath, Alex wiped his hands on his jeans and stood up. He forced a smile. “Sorry about that. And, I’m Alex.”

Burr laughed easily and shrugged. “Nice to meet you. And don’t sweat it. We all have days like that.”

“I tend to have quite a lot of them.” Alex laughed nervously.

Look at him. Small talking with his freaking murderer.

“So,” Alex gestured at the records around them. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Looking for something specific.” Please say no.

“Actually I am. I’m,” He smiled sheepishly. Burr, being sheepish. What the actual heck. “I’m a history teacher, and, I swear this is relevant, there’s a piece of music that was composed during the eighteenth century that I heard about at some point. And anyway, I thought it would be interesting to show it to the students. But, I can’t for the life of me find it anywhere. I asked around and, long story short, they said you were my best bet for rare music.”

Alex bobbed his head. Probably too many times. “So, you’re teaching like, world history?”

“American. Revolutionary War, actually.”

Alex’s voice cracked. “Oh.”

There was an awkward pause. Alex cleared his throat. “So, do you know the name of the song? The composer? Year it was made?”

Burr chewed his lip. “I… I remember learning that Thomas Jefferson, the president, I mean, was fond of it. He was there when it was composed. A friend of his was the composer.”

Alex racked his brain, wondering where he’d picked up something so obscure, but shook his head. Alex hadn’t exactly been on speaking terms with Jefferson. “Sorry, man. I’d need more information than that.”

Burr sighed. “It was a long shot anyhow. Do you have anything from that time period?”

Oh did he.

He forced himself to think. A businessman. He was being a businessman. “Uh, um, I know Thomas Jefferson liked Bach. A lot.”

Jefferson used to hum it obnoxiously loud when Alex was trying to speak.

Burr’s eyes lit up. “Anything you can think of. That would be great.”

Okay. Alright.

He could find some Bach. Scurrying, Alex got to the back of the room and flipped through several of his classical pieces. He was having a hard time gripping things. Everything kept slipping through his sweaty fingers. Bach. “Here we are.” Alex lifted a record. Nearly dropped it. “I don’t know how much you know about music-”

“Very little.”

Alex did that strange nervous laugh again, fully aware that it would seem profoundly weird to Burr. Barron. Ugh. “Well, anyway, this is great. I read in a history book once that he’d often hum it when he was trying to concentrate, or uh, trying to derail other people’s concentration.”

Burr laughed. “Alright. That is certainly interesting.”

Alex handed him the record. “It’s rare, so I doubt you’ll find it this old. It was recorded early twentieth century. More authentic, people say.”

Shrugging, Burr walked to the counter. Alex scurried after him. “Sounds good.”

Alex named his price and Burr paid without complaint. He caught a glimpse into his wallet, and Alex mentally rolled his eyes. Of course, Burr would end up rich. Again. He must have some other source of income. Unless history teachers were usually carrying that much cash these days.

As Burr folded his wallet, Alex couldn’t bear the silence. It would eat him up inside. “So, um, Revolutionary War. You know a lot about it. That’s like, Founding Fathers, right? Alexander Hamilton and stuff?”

He kicked himself.

Why did he say that? Why the heck did he say that?!

Burr’s eyes lit up again. It was strange, so very strange to see him this way. Something had happened after the war. He’d lost that light. And now it was back. “Hamilton. That’s not usually one people name. He’s a particular favorite of mine.”

Alex’s stomach fell to his converse. Right. Of course, he was.

“Bit of a prat, but a financial genius. No one ever argued that. And a brilliant lawyer. Did you know he defended one of the first suspects of a murder conviction once America was a nation?”

Yeah. He did.

Alex shook his head. “No. That’s pretty cool, though.”

Barron stared at something Alex couldn’t see but suddenly shook himself. He smiled that sheepish smile once more. “My apologies. I do not mean to give you a history lesson.”

Alex tried to keep smiling. “Well, I hope your students enjoy the music. And- and you yourself, sir.”

Burr dipped his head. “Thank you for assisting me. Have a good day.”

“You too.”

With that, he tucked the record under an arm, forced open the door, and exited into the city morning.

Everything froze.

And

Alex fell backward, landing perfectly in his swivel chair. He held up his hands to his face and watched them shake in a detached horror.

“Yo, anyone tell you your clothes look like a Grandad's? Uh, what’s up? You look like you saw a ghost.” Jack poked his head through the back door, a toothbrush still in his mouth.

Alex laughed, slightly hysterically. “I just sold an antique record to Aaron Burr.”

Jack wrinkled his nose, thinking. “Wait, like, the wig and red coat guy in the duel?”

Sure.

Alex was frozen, staring at the place Burr had been standing. He needed composure.

“He told you?”

“Hmm?” Alex forced his eyes away. “Uh. Yeah.”

Jack gave him a seriously? look. “And you just let him walk away? Alex, he’s a murder! You should have called the police!”

What? Why? “He didn’t… he didn’t do anything to me, Jack. He just wanted a record to show to his students.”

“But, dude, he’s killed, someone!”

Alex blinked, crossed his arms and turned his swivel chair to face Jack totally. “More than two hundred years ago. In an entirely different life.”

Jack shook his head. “No, no, man. You gotta get out more. They’re saying old souls are stuck in loops. They just do the same things they did in their first lives. That’s why they’re dangerous. He’ll kill again if he hasn’t already.” He cocked his head. “Actually, nevermind. Don’t call the police. I think I still have some weed in one of your lockers.”

It took Alex a second to register that. He was already thrown by Jack’s worldview. “What? Dude! You can’t just leave weed in the store!”

Jack shrugged. “Sorry?”

Alex sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands.

He was going to need more coffee.

[thesportssoundoff]

“Short Notice PPVs are always wacky” The UFC 222 Preview

Joey

February whateverdaythisis

UFC 221 and UFC 222 sort of drink from the same bath water if we're being honest. The difference is that UFC 221 was an example of the worst of the worst case scenario short of cancelling a show. UFC 222 is the rarest example of doing the absolute best case scenario with the worst case scenario as the loss of a big time title fight somehow gave us a deeper card overall. UFC 222 has a very poor main event---but it's got a "star" and having a star is winning half the battle. The co-main event is a fantastic fight between two of the top 5 featherweights in the world with a title fight in the balance with a FRESH title challenger emerging for Max Holloway. You have big dudes Andrei Arlovski and Stefan Struve who add some size for those of us folks who like to see big dudes do big thangs. The rest of this card has a very distinct prospect feel as you have a heaping of good fights BUT a very clear direction where the fights that matter outside of those three are prospect building fights. For instance Sean O'Malley is the THIRD fight on the card, challenging a capable veteran test in Andre Soukhamthath in what should be a damn good fight. The top FS1 fight on the card is a fight designed entirely to get Mackenzie Dern over, drawing Ashley Yoder in a prospect tester fight. The one elite prospect at 135 lbs, Ketlen Vieira gets a massive step up in former title challenger Cat Zingano as well. Even Fight Pass has that kind of fight on it as prospect Jordan Johnson draws a HW dropping down to 205 in Adam Milstead. This isn't a great card but it is a card worthy of being on PPV, even if the main event isn't.

Fights: 12

Debuts: 3 (Yanit Kunitskaya, Mackenzie Dern, Alexander Hernandez)

Fight Changes/Injury Cancellations: 2 (Bobby Green OUT, Alexander Hernandez IN vs Beneil Dariush/Max Holloway OUT, Brian Ortega IN vs Frankie Edgar)

Headliners (fighters who have either main evented or co-main evented shows in the UFC): 8 (Frankie Edgar, Brian Ortega, Stefan Struve, Andrei Arlovski, John Dodson, Cyborg Santos, Bryan Caraway, Beneil Dariush)

Fighters On Losing Streaks in the UFC:  4 (Cat Zingano, Hector Lombard, Mike Pyle, Ashley Yoder)

Fighters On Winning Streaks in the UFC:  7 (Cyborg, Frankie Edgar, Brian Ortega, Bryan Caraway, Ketlen Vieira, Jordan Johnson, Cody Stamman)

Main Card Record Since Jan 1st 2016 (in the UFC): 18-11 Cyborg- 4-0 Yana Kunitskaya- 0-0 Frankie Edgar- 2-1 Brian Ortega- 4-0 Andre Soukhamtath- 1-2 Sean O'Malley- 1-0 Andrei Arlovski- 1-5 Stefan Struve- 2-1 Cat Zingano- 0-2 Ketlen Vieira- 3-0

Too High Up-  CB Dollaway vs Hector Lombard

A lot of people would point to Struve vs Arlovski and I can hear you out there. The problem with that argument though is that Struve/Arlovski on a card with two featherweight fights (one male, one female) and two bantamweight fights (one male, one female); you kind of need two big guys to entice people who only like big dudes. As stated before, there ARE fans who object to the lighter weight classes almost on principle and that in turn you probably could use a big boi fight for some much needed card variety. Instead I'll turn to Lombard vs Dollaway where both guys are in rough shape in their respective careers. Lombard is the ultimate example of the busted signing and since the start of 2015, he's 0-4-1 with 3 stoppage losses in the last 4 fights. On the other end of the coin, you have C.B Dollaway who is 2-3 in his last five fights and the last time he won at middleweight was in 2014 vs Francis Carmont. The last time Dollaway beat a dude coming off a win? The same year in March of 2014. Long story short, this fight being on the FS1 prelims just doesn't seem right.

Too Low- Bryan Caraway vs Cody Stamman

I know it's sort of done in by the fact that 7 of the 9 fights on the FS1 slate are at 155 lbs or lower BUT Stamman vs Caraway is a really intriguing fight. Since getting into the  UFC, Stamman showcased his wrestling en route to a big decision win over Terrion Ware and then followed that up by upsetting Tom Duquesnoy in a fight where dude pretty much did everything he wanted to do vs the more athletic Duquesnoy. Cody Stamman's overall game is about physicality and toughness complemented by some orthodox striking and top heavy wrestling and at this point, he's due a step up relative to divisional relevance. As such, this Caraway fight is a PERFECT clash between a good prospect and a good veteran----but it's basically buried as NOT EVEN THE FIGHT PASS HEADLINER. I disapprove.

Stat Monitor for 2018: Debuting Fighters (Current number: 4-8):  Yana Kunitskaya, Mackenzie Dern and Alex Hernandez

Short Notice Fighters (Current number: 4-2): Brian Ortega, Alex Hernandez

Second Fight (Current number: 7-9): Sean O'Malley

Cage Corrosion (Current number: 5-5):  Adam Milstead, Bryan Caraway, Mike Pyle, Cat Zingano

Undefeated Fighters (Current number: 6-8): Kelten Vieira, Sean O'Malley, Jordan Johnson, Brian Ortega, Mackenzie Dern

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- So why should we care about this main event? What necessarily is the appeal or the allure of this fight? I know there's a sizable segment of the audience that's gonna want to see this title fight but I gotta admit that this is the first title fight in a long time where there's really nothing I care about. I'm not one of those folks who thinks dudes are right to walk out before a main event they don't give a shit about and I find it pretty unfortunate that I'm on the fence about even watching this main event. It's just hard to see anything about this fight that I feel any sort of general emotion about.

2- Is it fair to say that Yana Kunitskaya is the worst UFC title challenger since Chris Cariaso back in 2014?

3- I know a lot of people think that Cyborg stepped up to save this show but it seems obvious to me she's just trying to fight her way through her contract as quickly as possible. Works out best for both parties!

4- Frankie Edgar vs Brian Ortega is going to test how many MMA fans actually follow prospects vs the ones who pretend to follow prospects. I've seen a few knuckledraggers do the whole "The Answer is gonna derail the hype train!" bit and I've seen enough "Ortega will get exposed!" talk to the point I'm left wondering when MMA fans stop considering a dude to be a prospect. Brian Ortega is not a prospect. He is 27 years old with wins over Clay Guida, Renato Moicano, Thiago Tavares and Cub Swanson without spending more than five seconds thinking about his resume. He has showcased every skill necessary to ensure that there isn't one significant area in his game that is such a glaring unproven untested area as to put a cap on his ceiling as a pro fighter. We've seen him tested and we've seen him face adversity. Ortega isn't a prospect! What he is is a young PROVEN in his prime 145er facing another proven 145 lber. The idea that Ortega is some prospect who will eventually get exposed is flawed because if that's the case, it would've happened by now. You're no longer a prospect if you're seven years into your MMA career, have had six fights in the UFC and have main evented an event. As much as people want Brian Ortega to NOT be a thing, he is a thing and will continue to be a thing no matter what happens between Edgar and Ortega.

5- NOW if you wanna talk a hype train in some danger; Andre Soukhamtath vs Sean O'Malley. Let's briefly point out why this is the right idea; O'Malley is fighting in a division where everybody is pretty good. This isn't a 155 or a 170 where there's a sizable underbelly of fluff that exists to sort of allow certain fighters a chance to eat up on the mediocres. A lot of those dudes have either retired or been cut, leaving a really thick division with a lot of fighters who can all beat one another. Soukhamthath is probably at the very bottom of that totem pole; a guy who looks good in spurts but can be outworked and hurt. Stylistically he's a bit what O'Malley wants; a guy who will come forward at him in a straight line, not exactly give you a ton of craft and ultimately can be taken down or hit at will. NOW for why it might be a bad idea; Andre Soukhamtath has three UFC fights but in those three fights he's lost two split decisions (Albert Morales and Alejandro Perez) and iced Luke Saunders in a fight he was losing up until that point. He has dropped all three opponents he's faced so you know he hits hard. O'Malley CAN be hit, giving us an imminent sense of danger right off the jump. Soukhamtath also works at such a slow pace that he's probably not going to tire out compared to O'Malley who was sucking wind in a frenetic second round before finding a big energy jump in the third. This is, in many ways, a sneaky tough fight for a flawed prospect.

6- Andrei Arlovski staved off retirement by upsetting Junior Albini in a showcase fight for the diaper wearing Brazilian in November and his reward is a more appeasing stylistic matchup with Stefan Struve. The weird thing about Arlovski's fights these days is that he's not entirely faded to the point where you'd say he's done (he gave Overeem some tense moments against the fence, had spurts of success vs Josh Barnett and almost finished Marcin Tybura) but those glimpses are becoming less and less frequent. The same could be said for Stefan Struve who battled back from a broken jaw and some serious heart related issues to resume his MMA career to modest success. Struve had success vs Alexander Volkov but couldn't keep it up and in what has become a Struve habit; faded when the pressure got too hot and he couldn't get the fight to the ground. I guess my question is whether this is less a test about who has more to offer the heavyweight division but rather which guy has the most left?

7- So what's going to be our fight that gets cancelled the week of? Bonus points if you with "the day of" and get it right!

8-Fun debate to be had; is the UFC rooting for Ketlen Vieira to win so they have a new 135 super contender OR are they hoping for Cat Zingano to win knowing that Cat coming off a win probably makes for the most appealing 145 lb title fight Cyborg can have outside of a Nunes/Cybrog clash?

9- John Dodson has never lost two fights in a row BUT it feels like his career is heading in a pretty precarious place now. He's 3-3 in his last 6 with just one finish in those six fights. His calling card was "the smiling guy who moves really fast and hits really hard" but that loses its luster when you stop putting people out with frequent regularity. Now he's just the smiling guy who moves really fast and loses split decisions. Dodson vs Pedro Munhoz is the perfect fight for both guys as Munhoz needs a really legitimate win and Dodson could really use a dynamic performance to get his career sorted out. Both guys have something to offer the other which creates for, on paper at least, a really compelling clash with high stakes involved.

10- Does a finish get Jordan Johnson any sort of attention at 205 lbs?

11- Beneil Dariush has one of MMA's low key elite resumes at 155 lbs with Edson Barboza, Michael Johnson, Evan Dunham, James Vick, Tony Martin and Rashid Magomedov all on the resume. He just lacks the chin (and the requisite consistent pop in his hands) to really be considered among the tops in his division.  I also think he probably earned the win over Dunham in hindsight.

12- Wonder if  Mackenzie Dern gets the strawweight division out of this prolonged funk it's been in.

Must Wins

1- Frankie Edgar

At 36 years old, Edgar really really needs this one. A loss to Brian Ortega and you almost have to close the book on Frankie Edgar ever getting the 145 lb crown. Edgar is a hall of famer but at some point he's going to wake up and fight like a 36 year old who is heavily reliant on timing, explosion and quickness. Ortega is a really big dude for 145 lbs in build and bulk. He's more reminiscent of former Edgar rival Benson Henderson than any opponent that Edgar has faced recently at 145 lbs. He's massive, deceptively slick, a frequent powerful kicker and blessed with a wide array and assortment of submission tricks that Edgar will need to be mindful of. This is a toss up fight for me but for Edgar, if he doesn't win, you're left realizing that the bar has been set at 145 lbs and he's no longer in the necessary class to compete with the elite.

2- Sean O'Malley

The first name out of Dana White's mouth when he talks about star building is Sean O'Malley. I'm not as on board. O'Malley is a really fun fighter who has good fights and does have a bit of that star power vibe in the package.  The problem is that conversely, I feel like O'Malley flaws are a lot tougher to get away with at 135 than it would be at 185 and up. Soukhamthath is basically bottom of the barrel and he's still pretty damn good. This is an unforgiving division to be learning on the fly but O'Malley's gotta do it.

3- Mackenzie Dern

The UFC Is trying to jolt some life into their WMMA rankings and so Dern who is in that "good enough to beat 99% of the regional chicks but still too raw to make serious noise soon" is being tasked with...well...making serious noise soon. Dern's striking looked better but is a ways away---but her ground game is absolutely the key to her success going forward. Dern's job is going to be to beat up the sort of women who make up the "nameless faceless opponent" rankings at 115 and 125 lbs. Let's just hope the UFC learns to take it slow.

Five Can't Miss Fights

1- Brian Ortega vs Frankie Edgar

2- Andre Soukhamtath vs Sean O'Malley

3- Pedro Munhoz vs John Dodson

4- Andrei Arlovski vs  Stefan Struve (even if it's bad, it'll still be fun enough to laugh at)

5- Cat Zingano vs Ketlen Vieira

[insane-hamilton-imagines-blog]

Secret Relationships (Thomas Jefferson x Hamilton!Reader)

Prompt: “Oh my God, you love her!”

Summary: Being Alexander’s younger sister isn’t always the easiest thing in the world. When you have to hide the fact that you are dating his enemy, Thomas Jefferson, it becomes even harder. How will Alex react?

Warnings: Lying? Ummm, maybe some Out Of Characterness, but I hope not.

Time Period: Hamiltime

Words: 2230

A/N: Hey guys! I really am so sorry for not posting a story recently, but school as gotten to me. However, I have a couple of stories almost ready to post. (and sorry about the title, still trying to work on that.) More exciting news: I started this blog 3 weeks ago today and I almost have 300 followers!! You guys are the best thank you so much! I hope you enjoy the story, and please send in some requests, my inbox is empty. Have a wonderful day!

Being the younger sister of Alexander Hamilton was not the easiest thing in the world. While you loved your brother dearly, there were times that he could be a bit too stubborn. Most of the these situations happened during dreaded cabinet meetings, or “battles” as they had been renamed.

Usually, you would avoid going, but Alexander would beg and plead with you until you gave him. The reason you dreaded them so much was because of the talk. Most people there believed that because Alexander was your brother, you could apparently control how he behaved. Not true.

One particular day, you and Alexander were walking side by side to the meeting. You walked along in comfortable silence, so your mind drifted to the upcoming battle. Alexander was going up against a man named Thomas Jefferson. They would be debating over whether or not the government should accept Alex’s plans for the nation to assume state’s debts.

After arriving, you wished your brother good luck and went to find a seat. Looking around, you pulled the hat you had worn, further down. Maybe then people wouldn’t openly tell you how idiotic they thought your brother’s ideas were. Not long after you got settled, President Washing walked into the middle of the room followed by Alexander and Mr. Jefferson.

Everything happened so fast, you were unsure where to look. Mr. Jefferson claimed that each state should be responsible for their own debts. he also tried to insult Alex by saying his plan was too long to understand, but you just laughed because he had just insulted himself.

Unfortunately, Alexander came back with full force. You but your lip and kept your head down, praying Alexander wouldn’t say anything too rash. Your ears tuned back in to the conversation when you heard your brother shout,

“Bend over, I’ll show you where my shoe fits!”

Your head snapped up and your eyes went wide. All around you, everyone was going crazy, discussing who they sided with most. Ignoring all the talk, you rushed to your brother and grabbed his arm, pulling him away from the crowd.

“What the hell was that, Alexander?” you cursed, not caring if anybody overhead her.

“What do you mean?” he asked rather confused. “Jefferson was out of line so I put him back in his place.” Alex tried to defend.

Before you could respond, President Washington walked behind your brother. You quickly curtsied out of respect and watch Alexander’s eyes go wide as he walked away with his commander.

“Serves him right.” you mumbled, smoothing down the wrinkles on your dress.

Glancing around the room, you saw Mr. Jefferson talking quietly with Mr. Madison. Sighing heavily, you began the journey towards their spot. Somebody had to apologize for Alexander’s actions.

“Mr. Jefferson.” you stated and both men turned to face you.

“Yes, may I help you, Miss...” he began, but trialed off when he realized he did not know your name.

“Hamilton. (y/n) Hamilton.” you introduced yourself, but hurried on once you saw the distain in Jefferson’s eyes grow. “I, um, I came here to apologize for my brother’s words. He was partially in the wrong, and we both know he is too stubborn to admit it.” you confessed.

“I agree.” Jefferson agreed bluntly, but added on to his statement after noticing your look of disbelief. “But I accept your apology and offer my apologizes, Miss. Hamilton” he told you.

“Thank you.”

‘How is it that we have not yet met, Miss. Hamilton?” Jefferson inquired. “I’m sure I would not forget a face as beautiful as yours.”

You blushed and look down at the floor. ‘Well, Mr. Jefferson, you have been off in France.” you pointed out.

“That is true, and please call me Thomas.” he insisted.

“Only if you call me (y/n).” you countered.

Neither of you were able to say another word because it was then that Alexander stormed over to you and puled you behind him, distancing you from Thomas.

“(y/n), what are you doing talking to the likes of him?” Alex spat.

You opened your mouth to speak, but Thomas beat you to it. “We were having a perfectly civil conversation until you came over here, Hamilton.”

Sensing another argument, you stepped between the two men, holding each of them back. “Both of you are grown men, so let us stop fighting like children. For goodness sake, you are both dignified members of government.” you chided.

Then, you turned to your brother and tried to reason with him. “Alexander, I do not need to be protected, I was simply apologizing to Thomas for your behavior. Now let’s-”

“Thomas?” your brother seethed, and you quickly pulled him outside to head back home.

“I’m so sorry against, Thomas. I hope to see you again soon.” you called over your shoulder, offering him a smile.

“Goodbye, (y/n).” you heard him respond, and the rest of the way home you had a blush on your cheeks as you ignored your still fuming brother.

A month or so later, you stood in front of your mirror and smile at your reflection. You were going into town to meet Thomas as you had been for the past two weeks. It was always the highlight of your day. Thomas was a perfect gentleman and you could feel yourself falling in love with the Secretary of State more and more each day.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door and Alexander stepped in. “(y/n), my lovely sister.” he began, with a joking tone. “I was wondering if you would like to join me on a visit to Eliza? She has missed you these past few weeks.”

You sighed internally and turned to face your brother. “Oh Alex, I would love to go, but I've already made plans to go to town today with a friend.” you lied, praying he would buy it.

A look of disappoint crossed his face, but it was changed within a second. “That’s fine. Stay safe.” he advised, kissing your forehead.

You hated lying to your brother, but it was necessary; especially since you and Thomas had officially began courting last week. You took one last look at your appearance, gathered your belongings, and headed outside.

Once you reached your destination, you found a bench to sit on and wait for Thomas. Eventually, he strolled your way, and you stood up to greet him.

“Hello, darling.” he greeted, warmly.

Linking your arm through his, Thomas guided you down the street and past all the little shops. He stopped in front of the local bakery and pulled out a chair for you to sit in the outdoor seating.

“Wait here, I will be right back.” he informed you before disappearing inside.

You glanced around and smiled, enjoying the warm rays of the sun and the fresh breeze. It wasn’t until your heard two familiar voices that your smile dropped.

Alexander and Eliza were headed your way.

Instantly you turned, back facing the street, and you pulled your hat as far down as it could go. Your plan to become near invisible did not work. Turning around you saw Eliza beaming at you.

(y/n), dear. It’s so good to see you.” she exclaimed, pulling you in for a comforting hug.

As you pulled away, you took a chance and snuck a glance at Alex. “Where is your friend?” he inquired.

“Oh, umm.” you started, palms already sweaty. “He-SHE- I mean she is inside.” you answered, laughing nervously.

Alexander gave you a look that told you he was unconvinced, but Eliza spoke once more before your brother could interrogate you.

“Well we have to go, but we must spend time together soon.” she stated, and you just nodded your head meekly.

You let out a large sigh as Thomas walked back outside, pastry in hand. He set in on the table between the two of you and took your hand as he sat in the seat opposite of yours.

“What is the matter, love?” Thomas questioned, rubbing his hand back and forth over your hand.

“I hate lying to Alex about our relationship.” you confessed. “He almost just caught us now, but I feel terrible. We need to tell him.” you pleaded.

Thomas started at you incredulously. “Are you absolutely sure that you want to tell him now?”

“Yes!” you stated confidently. “No.” you answered again, this time with less enthusiasm. “I don’t know!” you sighed. “It’s so hard keeping this a secret and I hate lying to him, but I know he’ll hate me if he finds out.”

Thomas gave your hand he was holding a small squeeze and offered a comforting smile. “Why don’t we wait until after the next Cabinet Meeting? The meeting is tomorrow so we can admit the truth the next day.” he reasoned and you smiled.

Finishing up your date, Thomas walked you a little over halfway home, before kissing you goodbye. You entered your house and prepared for the next day.

The Cabinet Meeting the next day did not go well, at least not for Thomas. Both Alexander and President Washington disagreed with his idea to aid France in their revaluation. And unsurprisingly, Thomas and your brother where in bad moves.

Once you made sure that Alexander was out of earshot with the President, you pulled Thomas into a secluded corner of the room.

“I'm sorry it didn’t go well today.” you offered, trying to console him. You knew how much helping the people of France meant to him.

“Thank you, (y/n).” he said.

Wrapping his arms around your waist, he pulled you close to him for a quick, but loving kiss. You blushed as you pulled away and swat at his chest, trying to scold him for that fact that somebody probably saw you.

You were right, somebody did see you. Alexander.

He had finished his talk with Washington and was trying to find you, but he was meet with the sight of his baby sister kissing his enemy, Thomas Jefferson!

Without a moment’s hesitation, Alexander stormed into view and ripped you off of Thomas, making sure that you were well behind him.

“What the hell do you think you are doing to my sister?!” Alexander screamed at Thomas.

You pulled on your brother’s arm, trying to get him to calm down but it was too no avail.

“I’m not doing anything terrible to her. I’m kissing her because we are courting!” Thomas screamed back before he even realized what he was saying.

Alexander’s jaw slacked as he tried to process what had just been stated, and your eyes went wide. Nobody moved for a good minute, and you felt like you wanted to disappear into the floor.

“Excuse me? Did you just say you are courting my sister?” he growled.

Thomas only gulped and nodded ever so slightly. Alexander then turned on his heel and glared at you. “Tell me it’s not true.” he almost pleaded with you.

“It is.” you whispered, not able to look into Alexander’s eyes.

Again, it took Alex a few minutes to come up with a response and when he did you wanted to scream and shout. “You’re not allowed to see him anymore.”

“What?” you shrieked. Did your brother really believe he had the authority to tell you who you could or couldn’t see?

“You heard me. I’m not allowing you to see Jefferson any longer.” your brother stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Hamilton, I really don’t think you have the power to say-” Thomas started, but was quickly overshadowed.

“I’m just trying to protect you, (y/n).” Alex said, trying to justify his decision. “I could almost guarantee that Jefferson is only using you to get ahead of me.” he explained.

Your eyes filled with tears and you turned away as you heard your brother and Thomas having a mumbled conversation. It was hard for you to make out, until Alex revealed the discussion.

“Oh my God, you love her!” Alex shouted, shocked.

Also shocked as well, you walked towards the duo and pulled Jefferson closer to you. “Do you really mean it?” you questioned, hopefully.

“Of course I do.” he responded honestly. “From the moment I gazed into your beautiful (y/e/c) eyes I knew we were connected somehow. And now I understand, you’re my soulmate.” Thomas confessed. “You make me a better person and I more myself when I'm with you. I love you, and nothing is every going to change that.” he told you, directing the last part towards Alexander.

You gave him a watery smile, through tears of joy. “I love you too, Thomas.” you replied.

Holding his hand in yours, you turned to face your brother and gave him a hopeful smile. After staring between the you and Thomas, he sighed and his gazed softened.

“If he makes you happy, (y/n), you have my blessing.” he half grumbled.

You walked to Alex and kissed his cheek. “Thank you Alex, I really love him.” you whispered. “And I love you too.” you reassured him, giggling.

Then, Alexander glared at Jefferson once more. “I swear if you ever hurt my sister, I will not hesitate to kill you.” Alex threatened.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Hamilton.” Thomas promised before he turned to you and brought you into a passionate kiss.

Everything had turned out all right.

[alaynes-writings]

Secrets - Part 3

Summary: The reader and Alex are finally able to admit their feelings for each other.

Pairing: Alexander Hamilton x reader

Time period: modern

Word count: 2,571

Warnings: none

A/N: I finally finished it! I like this one better than the second part. As always, if you notice mistakes, please tell me. Feedback would be nice. Enjoy!

                                                            ---

You had called Maria immediately and told her everything that had happened in the last weeks. She listened patiently without interrupting you, just chuckled now and then and when you were finished she sighed playfully. “Something like that could only happen to you.”

“Thanks, Maria. That's really encouraging.”

She laughed. “So what do you think of Alexander now?”, she asked and you went silent for a moment. What did you think of Alex? You liked him. He was nice, intelligent and talented. You enjoyed spending time with him. He made you feel nervous sometimes, but maybe that was just because you had known each other for just a few weeks.

“He's nice.”, you answered eventually. “I like him. But he also makes me nervous. I don’t know.”

“I see.”, Maria said. “Well I think you're developing a crush on him.”

“Maria!”, you exclaimed but she only laughed again.

“That's just my opinion. You know I'm always honest with you.” You sighed. She was right. Maria always told you what she was thinking. Of course that sometimes meant she said something you didn't want to hear, but you were best friends and you were glad that she always told you the truth.

“Also, don't tell me you don't think he's handsome.”, she added and you could hear the teasing tone in her voice.

“Well I... that's not... I mean.... this has nothing to do with...”, you rambled, feeling your cheeks heat up. You heard her chuckling through the phone.

“I'm not developing a crush on him!”, you exclaimed firmly, crossing your arms. You would surely not fall for a man you had only known for such a short time.

A few weeks later you eventually had to admit that you had been wrong. Completely wrong. You had gone to every single debate class, never missing a lesson. Alex seemed pleased to see you and every time he smiled at you, your heart started beating faster.

Sometimes you met secretly in the hallways since you still hadn’t told Thomas or Aaron about him. You felt bad for lying to your friends, but you knew how much they disliked Alexander. Therefore you mostly met outside of college, mostly at the café or you took long walks through the park, just talking. Maria was the only one who knew how you really felt.

Of course she had noticed your change in mood whenever you saw Alexander and how you seemed to forget everything else when you were looking at him, just like you were now.

It was a sunny day, two months after your first meeting and you were sitting with Maria outside on one of the benches on the campus.

Alex was standing in front of the main building, talking to one of the professors, bag over his shoulder and his hair in a kind of messy ponytail.

“You know, you could just go and talk to him. I think that would be more efficient than staring at him all day.”, Maria said.

“I'm not staring!”, you pouted, immediately turning your gaze away from him.

“Why don't you ask him out on a date?”, she asked, giving you an encouraging smile.

But before you could answer, another person interrupted.

“Who's got a date?”, Thomas asked curiously and leaned over the bench from behind.

“No one!”, you replied a little to fast. “Maria is just joking.”

“I see. No gossip today.”, he said leaning back again, seeming disappointed. “What are you guys up to?”

“Not much, just enjoying lunch break. Right Y/N?” Maria answered and grinned at you.

“Yeah. But I have to go now, I still have to finish my essay. See you later guys!”, you said hastily, grabbing your stuff and made your way to the library. You needed some time for yourself, to think.

Luckily no one was at the library, so you sat down and took a deep breath. You knew it was ridiculous to hide your friendship with Alexander from Thomas, but you were afraid he would freak out if he knew. Let alone tell him that you had a crush on his enemy. You let out a frustrated sigh. Why did everything always had to be so complicated?

“You okay?”, a voice suddenly asked and you flinched, turning around to find Alexander, smiling softly at you.

“Sorry, I didn't want to startle you.”, he said and sat down next to you.

“It's okay, I was just lost in my thoughts.”, you replied, returning his smile. “Are you alright? You seemed distracted the last days.”, he asked, giving you a worried look.

“I'm fine, I just have a lot of work to do.”, you explained nervously. Why did he have to look at you like that?

He didn't seemed fully convinced, but didn't question you further. “I actually wanted to ask you something.”, he started, clearing his throat. You looked at him, surprised to see him nervous, fidgeting his hands.

“You know, there's a party next weekend and I wanted to ask if you might want to go there. With me.”

Your heart skipped a beat at the almost hopeful look he gave you. You just stared for him a few seconds, trying to figure out if you were dreaming. You weren’t.

“I'd love to go.”, you agreed happily and he beamed at your answer.

“Awesome! I have to go now, Washington doesn't like it when someone is late, but I'll text you later about the time.”

He stood up and you could see the excitement in his eyes as he grabbed his bag.

“See you Saturday Y/N!”

You nodded and waved, unable to speak, still not fully realizing what just happened. You definitely needed Maria's help.

                                                              ---

“I have nothing to wear!”, you complained, tossing a red blouse across the room. Maria was sitting on your bed, watching you as you let out a frustrated groan.

“Let me take a look.”, she offered and you plopped down on the bed, crossing your arms. It was still an hour till Alex would come and pick you up, but you were already feeling nervous.

“How about this one?”, she asked, holding up a black dress.

“It's not a funeral, Maria.”

She rolled her eyes. “Black is elegant.”

You huffed.

“And what about this?” She held up a cute red dress, that you had overlooked in your clothing pile.

“It's cute and elegant, but not too much. Perfect for a party. And a first date.”

You blushed. “I don't even know if it's a date. I don't think so.”

She let out a sigh, handing you the dress.

“Put it on. I'm sure he will love it. Whether it's a date or not.”

You changed clothes and when you looked in the mirror you were surprised how much you liked your outfit.

„It‘s perfect!“, Maria exclaimed and you nodded. „Now come one, let me do the rest. We need to hurry, if you wanna be ready in time.“

Maria took care of your hair and makeup. She was a genius when it came to things like this. When she was finally finished and seemed content with her work, you took a look in the mirror. You looked amazing. You turned and smiled at Maria.

„Thank you. I don‘t know what I would do without you.“

She chuckled. „No need to thank me. That‘s what friends are for.“

A knock on the door made you jump and Maria wished you good luck before hiding in your bedroom. You took a deep breath and opened the door.

“Hey Y/N, you rea - “, Alex started but stopped when he saw you, just staring for a few seconds before he found his voice again.

“Wow, you... you look amazing... I... wow...”, he rambled and you saw his cheeks turning red.

“Thank you.”, you said, blushing a little as you grabbed your jacket and closed the door behind you. He was silent when you walked to his car, but you could feel him staring at you and you couldn't help the small smile that tugged at your lips. Maria had been right.

You could already hear the music when Alex parked his car. The house wasn’t hard hard to spot, considering all the people and the lights. You stepped in and Alex looked at you hesitantly.

“Would you mind if I introduced you to my friends? I think they would like to meet you. And they are all nice, I promise.”

You nodded. “Sure, Alex.”

He smiled, taking your hand and intertwining your fingers as he lead you through the crowd. Your cheeks heated up and you felt your heart racing.

Alexanders friends weren't hard to spot. One of the first things you had realized about them was that they were loud. Not necessarily in a bad way, but they were just loud, no matter what they did. John was the first one to spot you and he waved, causing the others to turn and look at you.

“Alex, I'm glad you could make it. And I see you finally brought Y/N here!”, John greeted you happily.

“I'm John, this is Lafayette and this is Hercules.”, he said, pointing to the men beside him and you smiled at them.

“I'm Y/N. It's nice to meet you all.”

Alexander was still holding your hand, but he quickly let go when he noticed John's teasing grin.

“It's nice to meet you too, Y/N.”, Lafayette said and you noticed the French accent in his voice. “Alex told us a lot about you.”

“You could say so.”, Hercules added with a smug grin and Alex let out a nervous laugh.

“Don't listen to them, they're stupid.”, Alex said, shooting a glare at his friends. You laughed. “I think I like them.”

Alexander’s friends were really funny. It was easy to talk to them and you really enjoyed yourself. After a while you all sat down on one of the couches in the corner, where it was a bit more quiet.

Suddenly Alex phone vibrated and he looked at it, sighing annoyed.

“Sorry this is important. I'll be right back.”, he excused himself and stood up.

“Don't worry we will take care of your friend.”, John shouted after him as he left the room, before he turned to you with a grin, leaning closer.

“So what do you think of Alex?”, he asked.

“Wha- What do you mean?”, you said nervously, irritated by the sudden change of topic.

“John I thought we agreed to not scare her off.”, Lafayette said, looking reproachful at the curly-haired man.

“I'm not scaring her off!”, John exclaimed, giving the Frenchman a glare.

“Yes you are. I'm sorry, mon ami, he can be an idiot sometimes.”

“What they are actually trying to say, is”, Hercules interrupted as he noticed your confused look, “that they want to know if you like Alexander.”

“If I like Alexander?”, you asked, your confusion only growing. If you didn’t like him you wouldn’t be here, spending time with him and his friends.

Lafayette sighed. “You know, the man can't stop talking about you. He is thinking about you non-stop. Doesn't matter what the topic is, he always comes back to you. Y/N said something, Y/N did something, Y/N would say, and so on. We were actually very curious to meet the girl that turned his world upside down.”

You blushed at his words, feeling heat rising in your cheeks.

“And since we are best friends, it's our job to find out if you like him too.”, John added, leaning back.

They all were looking expectantly at you now and you gulped. Were they joking? You hesitated for a moment before you spoke. “I like Alex.”, you started. “He's nice. Intelligent. Charming.”

John's grin widened and you felt how your blush deepened. “So do you like him more than just friends or not?”

“I... I...”, you stuttered but just then Alex came back, plopping down next to John.

“Sorry it took me a little longer. What are you guys talking about?”, he asked, looking at you. “Y/N just told us about the last debate class.”, Lafayette said and you gave him a thankful look. John seemed disappointed that you didn't really answer his question, but Alex didn't seem to notice. You continued to talk for a while, when you excused yourself, saying that you would get some fresh air.

“I'm coming with you.”, Alex said immediately, standing up. You nodded and you turned to leave but you could practically feel John grinning at you.

When you were outside you took a deep breath. You couldn't get the things the boys had said earlier out of your head. Was it true that Alex talked so much about you? And did this mean that he felt more for you than just friendship? Or was all of this just an awful joke?

“You okay?”, Alex asked, causing you to look at him. He smiled softly and your heart fluttered.

“I'm fine. Just thinking about something your friends told me earlier.”, you said, cursing yourself in the next moment. Now you would have to explain.

“What did they say to you?”, Alexander asked worried, clearly anxious now. “Did they offend you?”

You shook your head.

“No not at all. That's not it.”

He seemed relieved and started to relax a little, but still looked at you concerned, waiting for you to continue.

“They just... mentioned that you talk a lot about me.”, you said, looking up to him nervously. You saw how shock spread over his face.

“And they said that you're always thinking about me.”

He groaned, looking embarrassed.

“Are they right, Alex?”, you asked nervously. Maybe this was a bad idea, maybe you shouldn't have said it. Giving his reaction he was not very pleased with what you said.

He hesitated, giving you an unsure look before he nodded.

“It's true. I like you Y/N. More than friends.”, he admitted. “I just didn't know how to tell you and I was worried you - “, he explained stuttering, but you interrupted him.

“I like you too, Alex.”

He looked at you in disbelief as if he couldn't process what you just said.

“You do?”, he asked hesitantly. You nodded.

He beamed at you and carefully put his hands around your waist to pull you closer.

„I‘m the happiest man on earth right now.“, he muttered, his eyes full of love and adoration.

His gaze moved to your lips, flickering back to your eyes, silently asking for permission. You replied by moving in and when his lips met yours, your eyes fluttered close. You could feel your heart beating so fast you were sure he could feel it too, as his lips molded softly against yours.

He slowly pulled away and smiled. „Does this mean we are officially in a relationship now?“

You felt your cheeks heating up. „Y-yeah I think so… I mean only if you want…“

He chuckled and pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead. „Of course I want.“

You smiled at him happily. “Then yes, we are in a relationship. But I need your help with one thing.” You hesitated for a second before continuing.

„I need your help with telling Thomas and Aaron about us. I know you don‘t get along well, but they are my friends and I don‘t want to hide this from them.“

He chuckled and a small grin spread on his face. „Of course. Anything for you.“