#even if he moved on or Reagan moved on I can’t help but think that maybe they would at least see each other again. or maybe I like BEING SAD

[glitchkoi]

So bc my brain is rotting and I’m rewatching inside job around the clock rn cuz I must consume it constantly;

I’m going through the first season finale rn and I truly think that, maybe, the plan was to maybe have Ron eventually remember Reagan again and we would at least see him again somehow. Through out the finale Reagan’s memories glitch and warp around what was altered by Rand’s technology. Of course a dive into her consciousness was what was needed for her to remember what she was forced to forget, I feel like that the way each season has in some way ended with themes of the past and the illusion of memories him remembering SOMETHING isn’t completely out of the question. While of course Rand’s technology was different from Ron’s, I also think it would be dismissive to also ignore the amount that wiping people’s memories affected Ron’s mental state. By forgetting everything he won’t remember that, but considering who was working on the show for the amount of setting up that was done for it to not mean anything.

[rithalie-sideblog]

“Tell me I’m wrong”

Reagan picks her head up from where she’s been slouching over in the helicopter seat, scrunching her eyes up at her husband. It’s been a rough week, hell, a rough two months that led up to this moment. She isn’t exactly in the mood for a guessing game.

“You have five seconds to specify, or I swear Staedtler…”

“Tell me that the fucking epicenter of the Anomaly is not in Gravity Falls.”

Reagan blinks, tired and confused. She looks at Brett, peering over Ron’s shoulder from where he’s seated next to the man.

“Um, pretty sure it is, handsome. At least it was the last time I checked.” Brett takes the tablet from Ron’s hands. Reagan can’t help but notice they’re shaking slightly.

“Yup, Gravity Falls. Little town, a few incidents in the past with time travel, some Bigfoot sightings. Nothing big until today.” even Brett’s smile looks strained as he chuckles humorlessly. “A perfect place to open a door to the other dimension and unleash the apocalypse. When, exactly, is the cavalry coming?”

“We are the cavalry,” Reagan pats the box with her newest invention affectionately and tries not to yawn. “This baby can close any rift as soon as we come in contact with it. I know, I’ve done it before. How far are we from the town again?”

She strains her neck to see their screen and Brett, sweet, helpful Brett, unbuckles from his seat and tries to handle it to her. The machine picks that exact moment to swerve violently, making him stumble. Ron and Reagan’s hands reach out at the same time, holding him in place. He smiles at them.

Good, although an untimely metaphor for their relationship, Reagan thinks blearily.

“Sit down before you hurt yourself, you dumbass” she huffs as she buckles him in next to her.

Brett smiles as she checks for stuck straps next to his head and sneaks in a kiss to the back of her hand. Reagan blushes. It’s been a long summer.

“Reagan.”

Ron’s voice is strained, and she looks at him confused. What they and Brett have has been talked over quite thoroughly this summer, not to mention the years before, when he first found them. They wore different names then and had no idea who they were, but still he managed to sneak into their lives and stay there for years. As a friend and someone more. Ron had no reason to act strange.

Still, her husband looked ill, much unlike himself. His hands did not stop shaking.

“Gravity Falls, Reagan. The portal opened in Gravity Falls.”

“The name does ring a bell. Did we ever have a mission there or something?”

Brett shakes his head, equally oblivious. And suddenly he stops mid-movement, snapping his head up to Ron.

“Wait, isn’t that the place you chose to… To…” he shoots a look at Reagan, his eyes wide.

“The kids.” Ron says finally, and Reagan straightens out in her seat like a soldier with a new order, with laser-like focus finally on her husband.

“Reagan, we send the kids to Gravity Falls for the summer.”

For a moment, no one says a word. And then Reagan inhales, long and strained and focused, and lets out a string of curses so vile that they make Brett shrivel up in his seat and even Ron wince violently. She gets up from her seat despite the men’s outcries and marches over to the cockpit, unfazed by the machine swaying. A few seconds later they hear a yelp as the pilot gets knocked out of the compartment, sliding on the floor until Brett helps him buckle in one of the seats. The helicopter lurches violently and seems to gain speed, as Reagan milks the machine for all it’s worth.

Brett’s terrified gaze meets Ron’s wide eyes, but neither says anything.

The ride takes forever, in Reagan’s humble opinion.

Kids. Their kids! How could she forget? Sure, she’s been quite busy at the end of the school year, with her father coming back into her life with a goddamn red-taped manila folder and a mission to save the world. He burst into their tiny flat in the city, complaining about them moving from the countryside to make his search for them more difficult, and with panicked Brett on his heels. Who just kept apologizing. She didn’t understand then, so she sent her kids to school for the last day of the year. She called her husband to come home and made some tea for the man who claimed to be her father, and she waited for it all to make sense.

And, to her unspeakable horror, it did make sense.

Before the kids got back from school she and Ron had their old memories back, their suitcases packed and there was an imprint of Reagan’s hands on Randall’s scrawny neck. How dare he? How dare he come into her life again, step into her home, into her safe space with fucking Cognito business in his hands? How dare he say hello to her kids as they passed, when she worked so damn hard to keep him and her whole complicated past life away from them? Ron and Brett had to restrain her before she did the unthinkable, and then they forced her to help cover Brett’s resulting black eye with make-up before the kids came back.

She apologized, but remained angry, fuming in the bathroom while applying her best foundation on the man. Brett kept apologizing for them being found over and over again until she forced his mouth shut with a kiss. Not his fault, she said to him as he recovered, then short-circuited again as Ron pressed another kiss to his hair. It’s not Brett’s fault her father is an asshole who can not survive one measly apocalypse-like event without his daughter.

When the kids came back, they had their suitcases ready, too. They were confused, as uncle Brett offered to ride them to the bus station for “the best summer adventure of their lives”. They talked about it last month, right? Ron’s family owning a house in the countryside? About a mysterious uncle they found through old records? They found him as the kids dug around for family information for the heritage day at school. He seemed nice! It will be so much fun!

Reagan tried to not look guilty as she kissed her son’s forehead, murmuring promises about meeting them soon. He didn’t quite buy it, looking up at her from behind his bangs with that quizzical look she sometimes saw in the mirror, and it almost broke her heart. It took his father’s bent knee and a promise to believe them before he finally agreed to go. Their daughter took less convincing, happy to experience an adventure. She took after Brett in that way, always ready for new things and optimistic about the future, like Ron. She kissed her and her dad goodbye as Ron chuckled and ruffled her hair, and Reagan was ready to murder her father all over again.

As Brett walked out of the house with the kids, the girl riding on his shoulders happily and the boy dragging his feet a little, Reagan sent Ron a desperate look. He responded in kind. They would deal with things and come back to this, as soon as possible.

They did not come back soon.

It took a whole summer to get things back on track. Between the apocalypse, the after effects, the clean-up, the dimensional ripples and a bunch of necessary memory alteration, Reagan lost track of time. She meant to do a more thorough check on this “Stanford” person after she got her memories back. The first one showed no signs of trouble, but you never know! He isn’t even related to them! Who knows what he could do! She meant to call her kids and check.

None of them did.

And now they paid the price as, somehow, the biggest apocalyptic event of the decade has happened right in the middle of Gravity Falls.

They’ve kept getting some weird readings throughout the whole summer but no one could exactly spare their attention enough to check. It’s always been someone else, some other branch, that took care of this particular town. Now that she thinks of that time, neither Ron nor Brett ever even caught wind of the name of the weird town, too exhausted every day after yet another unseen complications. They were out of practice in dealing with the workload and it showed. They collapsed against each other every night, husband, wife and more often than not, Brett, for a well-deserved rest.

Well, it’s not like Reagan thought that rest deserved now. They should have checked on the kids, they should have called, they should have gone to see them, they should have checked on them at least once instead of waiting for them to call!

She speeds up again, glad that she’s alone in the cockpit, as tears of frustration and worry slip down her cheeks. Reagan never prays, and yet right now she begs every force in the universe for her kids to be alright.

———

They find the town leveled down. They find the rubble and the jarred remains of buildings and people, and Reagan’s heart stops before she remembers how to breathe again. The apocalypse site is still far away, but they can already see the reason for the disaster. There’s a giant, purplish and orangish cross in the sky, like reality itself was carved out with a slicing weapon. Under it floats a dark pyramid, and Reagan instinctively sets her course to reach it until she feels someone stop her hand.

Ron looks over her shoulder, tense but focused as he rattles out an address for the house where their kids are supposed to be. He moves to put the coordinates into the helicopter's GPS too, and soon a red dot start’s blinking at them, still too far away. Reagan dutifully adjusts her course, ignoring the people screaming for help down below. Something unsticks itself from the ground below them, reaching for the helicopter with slimy tentacles but Reagan swerves and skillfully lets the appendages meet the business end of the helicopter blades. The only praise she gets is Ron’s hand squeezing her shoulder, but she gets it. There’s no time for putting on a show.

Brett appears on her other side, his eyes wild and scared but his mouth set in a determined line. He holds a weapon out to Ron who takes it, and tucks one into Reagan’s belt, not peeling his eyes away from the wreckage of what’s left of the safe and unassuming town they send their kids to.

The GPS blinks and suddenly goes out, and so does half the lights on the board. Brett’s cry drowns in the sudden noise that fills their ears. The helicopter stops in the air and then starts falling, slowly, like gravity itself malfunctions.

Ron curses and kicks the board to try and force it back on, but Reagan stops him. She points to the anomaly. The black pyramid starts to unravel before their very eyes, brick after brick being sucked into the portal. The rumble is deafening. The last brick being sucked in marks the beginning of the exodus. All the unspeakable horrors fly past them and back into the rift one by one, some of them grinning at the people stuck in the slowly falling machine. The tear slowly closes, the fabric of reality knitting itself back together.

And then, like someone flicked a switch, there’s a sudden blink in the sky. It explodes in the array of pinkish light, covering the Gravity Falls in a gradual swoop. Whenever the light touches, buildings snap back to looking perfectly fine, people are reappearing, some lingering creatures disappear without fanfare. It’s… a perfect clean-up, Reagan can’t help but wonder, and she lets a flicker of hope take hold as she sees injured people standing up, perfectly fine once again.

The light reaches the helicopter and pushes it back, as if sensing they’re not from here. It sends the machine flying, barreling through the air and now all three of them swear, as Reagan grabs the steering wheel and pulls with all her might. She will not die before checking on their kids, thank you very much

———

It takes them another hour to locate the address again, what with the scrambled GPS and the steering system almost ripped out of its base by panicking Reagan.

The lone shack sits in the middle of the woods, way too close to where the pyramid has been. Reagan lands the machine in the clearing, and Brett is out the door before she can call for it. She unbuckles and runs after him, but Ron stops her. He silently wipes the tear stains from her cheeks with his thumbs and tries unsuccessfully to wipe the blood from her chin, before pushing a gun into her hands and letting her through, hot on her heels himself.

The clearing is full of people in various states. Ruffled clothes, tired looks and various scraps and bruises litter the crowd. She can’t see her kids anywhere. Brett is arguing with someone, she realizes. Some big and well-dressed man, who looks like he’s been to hell and crawled back on his hands and knees. His suit is torn, he has a weird hat that keeps falling off, and a pair of broken glasses on his nose. He keeps shouting at them about the government finally taking a damn clue, and trying to shoo them off his front lawn at the same time. He looks ready to brawl, all fists and scowls, but Reagan barely listens, eyes jumping from one weird person to another, all crowded around the front steps of the shack.

Survivors, she mentally categorizes. Aggressive, she notes, as they send her dark looks and she grabs her weapon tighter.

“Stanford.” Ron’s voice carries, when he wants it to.

The old man stops in his tracks and blinks at the gun aimed between his eyebrows. Brett jumps away, reaching for his own gun. People in the back start shouting and Reagan almost automatically picks up and aims her weapon at the biggest threat she can see, a big man with a red beard and an axe in hand. She can see Brett pick aim too, though she’s sure his weapon is only set to stun. The crowd stops and falls silent, tense as Ron steps forward, commanding the area with his clear threat.

“Stanford Pines” Ron all but growls, his weapon’s buzzing getting louder as it charges, a clear threat. “Where. Are. Our. Kids?”

Reagan can hear murmurs from the crowd as she powers up her own weapon. They didn’t get over the plan, there was no plan once she rushed to the cockpit, but she knows her husband. He may be the sweetest man around every day for a lifetime, but he was also the man who planned to uproot their entire lives and reimagine himself a thousand times over if it meant saving the one he loved. And he did. And now he has more people to love than he ever did, but this need to protect? To save? It multiplied. The threat he poses to Stanford is real.

And neither her nor Brett will stop him.

The old man seems to realize it too because he freezes in spot, eyes wide and jumping from Ron to Brett and finally to Reagan. He gulps, and works his jaw nervously but doesn’t say anything, furrowing his brows in determination. Ron tenses and Reagan can only hope his gun is also on stun when…

“Dad?”

The crowd murmurs and undulates as if keeping something in it, but Ron’s attention immediately jumps to them as he calls out for his son.

And then Dipper, their brave little boy, forces his way from between someone’s knees and stops short at the sight before him. At the sight of his wild-eyed parents and his uncle holding people at gunpoint, ragged and bloodied from their tumble in the helicopter.

“Dad? Is that you? What’s going on?” he calls out again, clearly scared, and Ron immediately drops his weapon. The gun doesn’t even stop powering down before he is at his knees before Dipper, throwing his arms around him in a fierce hug. Dipper holds him close too, his eyes watering and burrowing his face in his suit jacket. He claimed he was too old to cry in their arms just four months ago. Whatever happened here must have scared him. Brett tenses and risks a look at Reagan as she grinds her teeth, never taking her eyes away from her target. He follows suit.

“Uncle Brett?” Mabel whispers, way too quietly for their exuberant little girl, as she is also freed from the crowd.

Reagan hears more than sees Brett’s breath hitch as he immediately chucks his weapon away to run towards the girl. He picks her up and cradles her close to his chest, whispering assurance and crying more than she does as she clings to him like a monkey. Ron frees a hand and pulls them both down to him, trying to cuddle around all three of them. They’re all crying now, quietly sniffling, betrayed by the way Ron’s shoulders tremble.

Reagan stands, frozen. She took a lot of damage when she managed to set the helicopter straight. Her nose is broken, her hands are scraped, and she thinks she may have a concussion from how violently her head snapped around in the cockpit. She decided to wear black today, much unlike the mother the kids know. She knows she looks nothing like what they’re used to.

With the helicopter at her back, she can stay invisible for a moment longer, gun still aimed at the potential threat. But she can also see the change in the group, a loosening of tension.

Stanford’s shoulders slowly fall back as he stares dumbly at the gun at his feet, then at Ron and Brett’s backs. Defenseless, something in Reagan’s head hisses violently and, she trains her gun at the old man instantly.

But the man seems to be lost in thoughts. He looks almost… forlorn at the scene. Suddenly he picks up a hand to wipe at his own eyes, as Reagan realizes that the fight might be over. She slowly lowers her gun, which finally earns her a look from Stanford.

He takes her in, in all of her battered glory, with the death in her eyes and blood trickling down her chin. She sticks it out at him, and bares her teeth, more than ready for another challenge. Deep down, she just wants to take her kids and go home.

“Mom, huh?” Stanford asks, humorlessly, “I see where they got that fight from.”

He says it too loud. It seems like all the group’s attention suddenly focuses on her, and Reagan wants to snarl at them all over again and tell them to back off. But that’s also when her kids pick their heads up and start to look for her from her lovers’ protective circle of arms.

Dipper, her brilliant, smart little genius, finds her first.

“Mom?” he asks, hopeful, a little unsure, as if Reagan is just a mirage, or something he can barely believe in.

She can’t help it. She steps forward, into the light, finally lowering her gun, and he gasps.

“Mom! Mom, what happened, are you alright? Mom!”

“Mom!” Mabel cries out, her sunshine given human form, and Reagan feels her knees buckle as she finally crumples under the relief that her kids are safe.

Ron and Brett cry out too, alarmed, but she waves her hand at them as Dipper and Mabel force themselves free and run to her. She wipes blood from her teeth and smiles and spreads her arms just in time to catch them. They look scratched and a little bruised, but they are alive and in one piece and Reagan thanks all the powers she can. They wiggle in her hold, concerned with their mom’s state, until she pulls them even closer and starts leaving kisses on both of their heads and murmuring into their hair.

“You’re safe” she keeps repeating “You’re safe, I’m here, We’re here. I’m fine. You did so good. You’re safe. You will never have to survive something like that again. I will make sure of it.”

Reagan bares her teeth as she spots someone approaching, half-feral now that she has her kids in her arms again, but it’s just Ron. Her husband puts his arms around all of them carefully, like they’re made of glass. Reagan thinks she may be. She looks for the last part of their little jig-saw family and spots Brett walking over, still sniffling, although he looks more put together than she feels.

“Some summer adventure, right kiddos?” he jokes, stopping by them and cracking his back like an old man.

Mabel whacks a hand at his leg, choking out a chuckle, and he laughs, ruffling her hair. He will join them in a moment. For now, he has a clean-up to do.

“Sorry for the scare” he says quietly to Stanford, who looks like he clearly has no fight left in him. “Got a little overprotective - Family bonds and all that, you know?”

“My brother erased his whole identity to stop the Apocalypse.” Stanford says, flatly.

Tough crowd, Brett thinks. But if there’s anything he is good at, it’s at solving people’s problems for them. And Mabel whispered to him to take it easy on the guy. So Brett will do what he does best.

“I think,” says Brett, clapping the man on the arm, “that it's something Cognito Inc. can help you with, if you let us.”

[pynkhues]

If at all helpful and/or encouraging, I cannot express how excited I am to read your post-succession fic. You're one of my favorite succession writers and I am waiting with baited breath for this fic :)

Ah! It is, anon! Thank you so, so much. You can have a little snippet if you like - the whole fic's set across two days about two weeks after the finale, so kinda keeping up with the rhythm of the last season, haha.

-

Roman texts her again that night, not a cartoon this time at least but a comment about Connor and Willa being back in New Mexico for a few days. Finally putting the old commune on the market, should I buy it? Always thought I’d make a good cult leader, and the place has great bones. Real Waco meets Burning Man potential, hey on a related note, you heard from Kendall since you 🔪

Shiv blinks, types how the fuck is that a related note?

Adds: and maybe don’t put your cult plans in writing or you’ll be done before you even start.

Dipshit.

The typing ellipsis appears on the screen, but Shiv doesn’t wait for him to reply. She has a shower, dries her hair, tells the chef she feels like lamb instead of chicken for dinner and ignores Rosaline’s barely concealed look of annoyance at the late instruction. Whatever. Shiv folds back onto the couch to read the barrage of messages Roman’s sent back in the meantime.

Hmm, good advice, you’re in the cult! A high-level position in the inner sanctum. You can do whatever Gerri’s job was.

Unless you think I stand a chance of swaying Gerri…

Pretend I didn’t send that, text withdrawn, you saw nothing, if you ever bring this up you’ll be out of the cult etc etc etc

And re: K – I’ve heard rumours he’s 🍳

Shiv frowns at the little saucepan emoji. Cooking?

She pastes it into Google, but all she gets is hot pansexual which is definitely not what Roman means, and she’s about to send a question mark back when the door opens and Tom steps through.

The air shifts like it always seems to these days, like it has maybe since he made CEO, since he chose her father over her, or maybe even earlier, maybe since he started flirting with a prison stint. It doesn’t chill, like, god, what a fucking cliché that would be, but it feels - - tighter almost. A spring pushed down, like the weight of them is too heavy for the moment. She swallows, slides her phone into to the pocket of her pants and sits up straight.

“Hey,” she says, and suddenly she realises Tom’s holding more than just his usual shit from work. In his hands is a box, which he lowers carefully to the dining room table as he pivots back to look at her on the couch.

“Hey,” he replies, and he looks almost surprised to see her here, or underprepared for her, maybe. Something. An oddly cautious expression on his often oddly cautious face, and it makes her stand up. Makes her close the distance between them, eyes first on him, then the box on the table.

“Good day at the office?”

“Sure. Matsson was in, but you already knew that.”

Shiv hums, offering nothing of her meeting with him, and glimpses instead the top of a frame in the box.

“What’s this?”

Somewhere behind them, she can hear Rosaline in the kitchen, the fzzt of the gas stove top and the whir of the oven, can hear the thrum of the central heating and feel it soft as a gloved hand on the side of her cheek, but none of it matters when she sees the first photograph in full.

Her father and Reagan, shoulder to shoulder, hand in short, fat fingered hand.

She glances back up at Tom, her face carefully blank.

“They’re from your dad’s office,” he tells her, like she didn’t know, shrugging out of his blazer and dropping it to the back of one of the chairs. Leaving it for Tilda to put away later. “I - - it’s been suggested that I move in fairly quickly, just for the. You know. The optics.”

“Oh, sure, clear out the ghosts.”

“Something like that. Marks a transition, I guess.”

Shiv sniffs, can’t help it, thumbs through the photos of her father with heads of state and right-leaning leaders. A few cultural figures, a few musicians. Morrissey and Johnny Cash. Something in her twists in a way it feels it shouldn't.

“Roman knows a guy,” she says, shooting for flippant. “Some sort of business shaman, if you want the place smudged.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Tom replies. His hand finds the edge of the box, the opposite side to where Shiv’s are, curling tentatively against the cardboard. “Most of it's been packed up now, but I just thought you might want these? Or your brothers might. Since they were obviously important to him.”

There’s something earnest to his tone, saccharine and soft, and she wonders if he means it, but in the same breath, she thinks these are worthless and he knows it. Only worth as much as the frames, the glass, the paper they’re printed on – all of them are otherwise online. Digitised in the family archive. The helmets, the medals, the war memorabilia, those are the only things with value.

She wonders if he’s kept them.

“I kept the photo of you.”

Which - -

Shiv blinks.

“You kept my father’s photo of me,” she echoes, and Tom must hear something in it, because he takes his hands from the edge of the box, shakes his head.

“It’s just a photo, Shiv. A nice photo.”

“Of me.”

“Of you.”

The one Matsson had his hands on in the office before he made clear she’d be fuckable to him again after she’s had this thing. A photo of her from before she and Tom even met, one where her hair was long and her face still round and soft with the last flush of her adolescence, even though she was in her twenties by then. She can even remember when it was taken – a father’s day photoshoot with her and him for Vogue, a spread and a story about the beautiful, promising daughters of hard, powerful men. Dad had had every photo from it printed, hell, she’d even kept a few herself, but Tom keeping it, Matsson holding it - -

The thought sinks somewhere deep in her, and she tucks her hair behind her ear, pushes the frames back in the box until the one of her father and Reagan faces up again, and somewhere beside her, Tom shifts his weight.

“He didn’t have any pictures of your brothers in there, you know. Guess you were the favourite.”

It’s something, she knows, an offering maybe more genuine than the photos, but all she can think is what does that matter? Where the fuck has it ever gotten her?

She turns, offers him a flat smile, and Tom gives one back.

[itisaterriblelove]

“AH, SHIT.” 

Elvis Hirsche had extremely bad timing, all things considered, and I couldn’t help the little flurry of annoyance that built up in my chest as I stared down at my phone. But it passed quickly, because in the next moment I realized that Elle needed me. And I would always be there for Elle when she needed me; that went without saying or even thinking about.

It wasn’t like Elle to go out and get drunk. I had known her ever since we were in elementary school, and we’d been best friends since somewhere in middle school. She was in her second year of college now and I was in my last… Well, okay, what was supposed to be my last. But I definitely didn’t have enough credits to graduate, and I certainly wasn’t sad about it. 

The point was, I had never known Elle to get drunk in a bar. And especially not without me.

“I’m sorry, Ty,” I glanced over at her apologetically as I slid my phone back into the pocket of my jacket. “I’ve gotta go.” 

I expected Tyler to look ruffled, so I opened my mouth to hurry up and explain, but she didn’t. 

She wrinkled her forehead just a little, and I could see the concern in her eyes as she opened her mouth to say, “Is everything okay?” And fuck if I didn’t just love the way this girl gave me the benefit of the doubt. I couldn’t think of a single one of my exes who—at this point in the game—wouldn’t have been jumping down my throat about why I had to bail on her. Especially if they found out it was about Elvis Hirsche. But not Tyler.

“DK texted about Elle being wasted at Blacklight,” I explained, already knowing that Tyler would get what that meant to me. “I’ve gotta go get her.” I shrugged, apologetic. But there was no fucking way that I was leaving Elle on her own to muddle through a bar full of assholes while she was drunk. Not happening.

“Why can’t DK just take her home?” Reagan interrupted, with the same attitude that I had almost expected from Tyler, but had been relieved not to get. I caught myself before I could shoot a glare in Reagan’s direction.

I was supposed to be with Elle tonight, anyway, so I couldn’t help the surge of guilt that I felt. Like maybe this was my fault somehow. That she’d gone out and done something so out of character because of me. But I had canceled on her because of Tyler’s plea that I join them tonight. All because her best friend, Reagan, had a date with some dude and didn’t want to go alone.

I was not a fucking double-date kind of guy. Especially not if the double-date was with Reagan Knight, who had always managed to find something about me annoying, for as long as we’d known each other. And this was a small town where people rarely ever moved, so we’d all kind of grown up together. Which meant that Reagan and I had been at odds basically forever.

I shook my head at her. “DK’s working.” But she already knew that. “He can’t just leave to get Elle home.” He was a bartender at Blacklight. What I didn’t mention was that DK actually was going to do just that, but just not for Elle. Apparently Elle and Jemma had made it a girls’ night out. DK couldn’t handle them both on his own, and he didn’t want to leave Elle alone while he got Jemma home.

Still, bailing on my girlfriend to deal with a drunk best friend made me feel like kind of a dick.

“Don’t worry about it, man. I can get them both home.” Elliott—the poor asshole who wanted to date Reagan Knight—didn’t ding anything on my creep meter. He was just this kind of nerdy guy, and he seemed harmless enough. Still, I considered him for a long moment before shooting another look at Tyler.

“Or you guys can come back with me now?” I offered, feeling worse as I realized I was stranding them with this guy if I left, and ruining Reagan’s date if they left with me.

I watched as Reagan and Tyler seemed to communicate through nothing but back and forth looks before Tyler gave a gentle shake of her head. “No thanks, Gavin. Don’t worry about us. Go ahead and take care of Elle.” 

I listened for it, I really did, but there was not a single shred of suspicion or judgment or even annoyance in her voice. It was fucking amazing.

“I’m sorry, Ty,” I shot her another apology, just to make sure that she knew that I meant it, but she just smiled. 

“I know. It’s okay, Gavin.” I took Tyler at face value and nodded, standing up to leave. There wasn’t any time to waste because we were at some karaoke bar a little ways outside of town, and it was at least a twenty minute drive back to Pleasant Valley and Blacklight to get Elle. We hadn’t even ordered our food when I got that emergency text from DK. But Tyler didn’t flinch as I grabbed up my keys and waved goodbye to everyone; she didn’t seem to mind at all.

And yet, I’m not gonna lie, a nagging part of the back of my mind worried about whether I’d pay for this later. I mean, most girls were just not this chill. Not even Elle, and she let me off the hook pretty much all of the time. It was something I couldn’t worry about at the moment, though; I’d already made up my mind to leave.

[marcusoseman99]

Songs of the isle pt 36 and 37

Apollo: keep it together, he has enough to deal with.

Herms: Every time you go out you get hurt and me and Dion have to pick up the peices. Dont get me wrong you are good at what you do but I cant have you straving till you are blacking out or training till you are unable to move.

Apollo: ill live don’t worry.

*Herms moved closer while still on his knees*

Herms: THATS- thats not the point when we found you we promised to look after you. Apollo you still need to look after yourself we cant be there everytime you almost die its..... hurting us.

Apollo: I never asked for your charity you have supplies and Dion..... he is nice.

*Apollo starts to stumble to the door*

Apollo: Hate to do this but i need him to give me the space i need to work I have to be stronger than this.

Herms: Apollo.

*Apollo turns with dead eyes and looks toward Herms*

Apollo: Numb again, great.

Apollo: I’m fine.

*The scene goes to Reegan and Vick finishing getting Stefans body onto a wooden bundle*

Reagan: See this wasn’t so bad.

Vick: I need a drink.

Reagan: *sigh* same

*Reegan disappears and reappears with the bottle Apollo and him drank out of Vick sits on the ground about 4 feet away from Stefan with Reagan sitting next to him*

Vick: What is it?

Reegan: No clue Apollo mixes it.

Vick: Is that a good or bad thing.

Reegan: Good if you wanna forget stuff.

Vick: Then good.

*They both drink a few times*

Vick: *coughing* I thought this would get better.

Reagan: Nope.

Vick: Can I ask you a question?

Reegan: Dude you don’t need to ask.

Vick: Thanks...... are hunters bad like who is on the right side of this?

Reegan: Well what do you think?

Vick: I think that I trust my Papa but the hunters feel off and…. violent then you aren’t violent you have helped me showed me kindness but……

Reagan: but?

Vick: I think I was wrong about Stefan like he wouldn’t have stopped yet I just can’t help but wish we tried.

Reagan: Sometimes people don’t want to be saved.

Vick: I know that but-

Reagan: It's ok you did everything you could have.

*Reegan stands up and goes to the wooden bed and pull out a lighter but Vick stops him and takes it in his hand*

Vick: I’m sorry I wish I could have done more for you but you didn’t want help. You wanted to keep going through pain even though there was a solution I’m sorry.

*The scene cuts away from Vick and Reagan sitting watching the body burn to Apollo watching from the fortress before going into his room and laying down on the ground*

Apollo: I can’t keep doing this I’m too weak I can’t even keep a human out fucking pathetic.

*Apollo starts rubbing his shoulder again while his knee bounces his eyes focusing on nothing while the black substance starts forming behind him*

*The scene cuts to Vick walking the exit of the field into the clearing*

Vick: Can I come back.

Reagan: of course

Vick: Thank you- also you never really answered my question.

Reagan: oh?

Vick: which side? Which do I help?

Reagan: I can’t tell you that.

Vick: WHAT WHY? Sorry

Reagan: *laugh* I can't make your mind up for you this is your descion.

Vick: I think that makes sense.

Reagan: It does I have been around a while it gives perspective.

Vick: *sigh* Ok.

*Vick starts walking toward the forest as the fortress disappears*

Vick: well that didn’t help a lot.

*Vick starts to walk through the woods until he walks into Leander *

Leander: What are you doing out here, little Arawn?

Vick: Looking for you I wanted to help you out.

Leander: Aww thank you but I was just about to head back.

Vick: Crap.

Leander: Crap indeed I didn’t find anything did you?

Vick: This is my chance tell him and all this can end, I mean Papa trusts him…… but I don’t.

Leander: Vick?

Vick: Oh well....... no I didn’t see anything.

Leander: *sighs* That’s ok we can look later let’s get you home. 

Vick: I can just keep gathering intel yknow no harm in that.

*The pair head back to the house as the scene cuts to morning with Vick waking up slowly, till Leander bursts through the floor*

Leander: GOOOOOOD MORNING, LITTLE ARAWN.

Vick: *groans*

Leander: Come on I need your help searching the forest I still think something is out there.

Vick: Hmmm later

*Leander drags Vick out of bed and places him at the dining table where a map of the woods is sitting out with markers scattered around*

Leander: Now I am going to split our searches where'd you feel comfortable searching.

Vick: Really?

Vick: if he lets me do this then I could visit Reegan and Apollo more.

Leander: Yep, I know from your Papa that you have been going through the forest yourself for a while seems only right to let you try and go through yourself helps us cover more ground.

 Vick: Yeah that’s ok how long should I be out for?

Leander: As long as you need me and your Papa talked and agreed that it is ok for you to off on your own.

Vick: REALLY??

Papa: Yes

*Papa enters the room with a cup in one hand and a newspaper in the other he sits directly across from Vick*

Pap: But you are only getting info and if you run into anything then you find Leander and tell him

Vick: *groans* Fine- wait what if I get cornered and I need to fight I mean my magic is pretty-

Papa: If that happens then you will shoot a flare in the sky and me or Leander will come as soon as possible.

Vick: Hmmm fine.

*Vick quickly draws a circle around an area of the forest with a red Pen*

Vick: At least hunting Apollo means I know where everything in the forest is.... roughly *laughs*

*Vick gets up and runs toward the stairs but Leander and Papa call for him and he shoots his head around the corner of the door to the dining room still jumping a little*

Papa: We are trusting you with a lot here the forest has little activity but we still want to make sure.

Leander: You have skill and potential but over confidence will get you killed even with magic they will almost always have the advantage.

*Vick is visible shaken by this and stands very still*

Papa: What Leander was trying to say was you are young and inexperienced but we want you to prove yourself we don’t want you getting hurt is all

*Vick smiles and runs off while Papa and Leander sit in the dining room together*

Leander: William I respect and trust you like a brother but you must give him the reality of the situation.

Papa: I am.

Leander: Your father gave you this reality from birth and trained to be ruthless- yes you were a pain but I trusted my life with you.

Papa: I loved my father but I will never put my grandson through what I went through sometimes the things you sacrifice aren’t worth it.

Leander: I will not tell you what to do I may disagree but I still trust you and I care for your grandson.

Papa: You like him that quick.

Leander: he remains me of the men we could have been.

Papa: *sighs* Yes.

Leander: but those men couldn’t have survived our lives.

*The room goes silence as the men feel the weight of their truthful sentiment laid bare till Vick is about to run out of the door but is stopped by Papa, Leander and Debbie *

Vick: Hey.

Papa: Hey.

*Papa hands Vick an old flare gun and a small bag with ammo in it*

Papa: I was given this by my father for my first mission

Vick: What was your mission?

*The scene goes to an older man and a boy in the space spot as Vick and Papa the older man pushes a rifle, bag and the same flare gun that Vick was given but much clearer into the boys chest. Then it cuts to the boy being thrown out of the house and the scene goes to Papas face clicking back to the conversation*

Papa: Oh boring don’t worry I would kill to do what you are doing.

Vick: Pffft sure

*Leander walks up to Vick and hands him a small fabric bag that is being weighed down by its contents to the point that the bag might rip open*

Leander: This is some of the land that I have brought from Greece it will help you do most of the magic I showed you, but I recommend using the magic that you are familiar will.

Vick: *giggles* of course.

Vick: I am going to do so much dumb stuff with this.

Vick: I’ll be careful, I swear.

Leander: *smiles* Of course you will.

*Final but by all means least, Vick walks up to Debbie who hands him a bag with the zip opened so you can see inside*

Debbie: Everything you will need for a couple of days.

Vick: Did you pack-

Debbie: I’ve done this for your Papa for years, you will be fine.

Vick: Ehh thanks

*Just as Vick tried to leave again Leander stops him and puts his hands on his shoulders*

Leander: remember I’ll be in the forest too so I will be there if you need me don’t hesitate to call me.

Vick: ok I will  

*The scene cuts to Vick walking toward the forest as the three watch him depart Leander goes into his pocket and pulls out a small device that starts to blink red slowly. The scene cuts to Apollo laying on his floor in the fetal position with his eyes facing the only light coming from his window that poorly covered with a blanket, Reegan walks in*

Reegan: God are you alive?

Apollo: Wish I wasn’t.

Reegan: Are you going to get up?

Apollo: Maybe fuck off.

*Reegan leaves and some time passes before Dionysus kicks the door in and looks at around the room*

Dion: WHERE ARE YOU?!?

Apollo: *grunt*

Dion: Ew…. I can fix him.

Apollo: Piss off.

*Dion kicks Apollo in the ribs Apollo places his face into the ground and screams Dion drops to his knees and rips what’s left of Apollos clothes off and sees all of his injures*

Apollo: That was my only hoodie.

*Dion slaps Apollo*

Dion: You are resting at my forest and I will knock you out if you say no.

*Apollo barely gets to his feet and point his finger into Dions chest*

Apollo: try. It.

*Dion laughs and walks out of the room then Apollo faces Reegan*

Apollo: I win.

[setitallaflame]

“I only know of one that might be able to deal with this,” Reagan murmured, “And after all this time... The people who were there have probably moved, or I don’t want to bring this to their doorstep because they’re like me and... There’s no one else, and even if we had time for me to try to come up with an alternative... Everything is fuzzy, and everything hurts, and I’m still not convinced you’re not an IV pole. So yeah, a place. And don’t - I’m gonna see and hear whatever runs through your head, I can’t help it right now... So keep it PG, IV pole...” Then there were noises, and she couldn’t help but grip onto him tightly as he lifted her into his arms, assuring him, “I can - I can... Just need to think...” And as he was starting to move them, worrying about her dead weight slowing them down - rude - she put everything into focusing on the image in his mind. That was where she wanted them to go, that was where she wanted them to be - far away from here. Safe. In an instant, James would go from running away from their pursuers to running through the building he’d shown her. It was - it was far. She had felt the pull. Before, it would’ve required multiple long-range jumps, and even now... She wasn’t at full strength, and teleporting them both to Miami had left her barely conscious in his arms.

James knew Reagan was going to say that. He couldn't blame her. But she was going to need some kind of medical care. Fortunately, he did know doctors who'd do things like this with few questions asked, for a favor or two. It was going to be a bit of a drive, though, and he wasn't sure Reagan was going to be up for it.

He was only picking up bits and pieces of what Reagan was saying. Something about a collar and her powers. He gathered it limited her powers somehow.

"A place?" he said. He thought about places Reagan could get help. If Reagan could teleport them anywhere, he thought about the best doctor he knew that wouldn't ask too many questions, in Miami. That was quite a trip. He knew someone closer. He decided to chance it and thought about Miami.

Noises came from outside the door. "I hope you can do this on the run" he said, lifting Reagan up. "Because we're going to have company very soon." He tried carrying her, and although she was thin, she wasn't too far off from dead weight at the moment. He wasn't going to outrun their pursuers for long.

[word-wytch]

Don't Stand So Close To Me — Chapter 4

Eddie x Teacher!Reader

Chapter 4/? 3.1k. Series Masterlist

✏︎ There are some things Eddie isn’t used to hearing, and mean even more when coming from you.

✏︎ Series Summary: Forced to move back home to Hawkins after your fiancé cheats on you, you begin to fall in love again with an audacious 20 year old metalhead, only there’s one problem — he’s still in high school and you’re his English teacher.

While you struggle starting over in a place you never thought you would return, Eddie struggles feeling stuck in a place he can’t manage to leave — until you offer to help him. Of all the lessons learned, the most important are the ones you teach each other.

✏︎ Series CW: forbidden romance, slow burn, smut (18+ mdni), true love, internal conflict, student-teacher relationship, 10 year age gap, mutual pining, sexual tension, emotions, drama, angst, character development, happy ending :)

Chapter warnings: mild angst I guess? that's it :)

“Well I for one think the first lady’s new ‘Just Say No’ campaign is a great idea, it’s long overdue if you ask me,” said Mrs. Hutchins, to which your mother nodded in agreement.  

You stared down at your plate and poked at your green beans with your fork. 

“It’s about time there was a war on drugs, it’s gotten out of control in this country,” Mrs. Hutchins continued, reaching for the gravy.

You shoveled the green beans into your mouth to keep it occupied. You figured getting into an argument with Mrs. Hutchins over Reagan’s policies was not exactly what your mother had intended for the evening. Besides, it wasn’t worth your energy anyway.

Your dad gave you a silly look from across the table and you smiled at him.

You looked back down at your plate and thought about Eddie Munson again. This time it was about how he’d looked at you when you told him you’d be here. 

You wondered what Eddie would say to Mrs. Hutchins. He had an opinion on just about everything and you were certain he would not withhold it. Not for your mother’s sake, not for anybody. You suspected that it got him into trouble more often than not but there was something you admired about that.

You tucked into your risotto and tuned out the conversation.

He was sitting so close to you today. So close that a ringlet of his soft hair grazed your hand when he leaned over. So close that you could smell him. The same scent that enveloped you in the hallway the other day, although this time less bright notes of shampoo, more deep notes of leather and musk. There was that faint cigarette smell and something else too that you couldn’t quite place, like the warmth of his skin that was distinct and yet indistinguishable. 

Normally you were not keen on the smell of cigarettes. It lingered on just about everything. In restaurants and car seats, especially in homes. It clung to the clothing of heavy smokers with a stale musk that you hated, but on Eddie it didn’t seem to bother you. In fact, you were hesitant to admit that you almost liked it. 

“Andrew, why don’t you tell us about your new job,” suggested your mother.

You glanced over at the man sitting next to you, hardly able to believe that this was once the boy who used to collect G.I. Joe figures rather than play with them as intended. 

Andrew cleared his throat. “My job is to diagnose and correct issues with computer hardware, figure out what isn’t working and order and replace the corresponding parts. Occasionally it’s a software issue, in which case I can troubleshoot and reinstall certain programs.” he said, adjusting his glasses. He looked just about as thrilled to be here as you were.

“Do you guys sell computers there?” asked your dad.

“Yes, though my work is primarily in computer repairs, not sales.”

“You know I was telling my daughter here that I really think computers are going to be the future,” said your mom.

“Oh yes, absolutely. Personal computer sales have quadrupled in the last few years, all thanks to the Commodore 64 being so affordable,” said Andrew. “In fact I really think they ought to have computer classes in every school. I think I read recently in the paper that only 48% of schools have them.”

Your mom’s eyes lit up and she turned to you, “Do they have computer class at your school, dear?”

“Uh, no, I don’t think so. Not yet.” 

“Well maybe that might be something worth suggesting to the principal.”

“I doubt I would have much say in something like that.”

“I’m just saying, it’s worth a try, dear.”

You smiled curtly and glanced down at your plate again, scooting your green beens around in the excess gravy. 

“Speaking of school, why don’t you tell us a little bit about how your job’s been going? I do hope the students are behaving,” your mother continued.

“Oh, they have their moments but overall it’s been alright,” you said, “We’re studying The Catcher in the Rye in my senior class.”

Andrew raised his eyebrows, “Oh that book,” he said with a little laugh, “It’s a bit strange isn’t it? All I can really remember is how he kept calling everyone a phony all the time. I never understood it.”

Of course you didn’t. “Yeah, the stream of consciousness seems to throw some readers off. A lot of people end up missing the point.”

“What is the point anyway?” asked Andrew, but before you could respond Mrs. Hutchins interjected.

“Don’t you think that book is a bit inappropriate for children? I remember when Andrew brought it home all those years ago. At that time some of the ladies in my church group were trying to get it banned in schools. Clearly their efforts were unsuccessful.”

“My students are teenagers, not children, in fact some of them are already adults,” you said, and thought about recommending Fahrenheit 451 to her but figured the joke would be lost.

“Still, I think teenagers are too young to be reading about,” she lowered her voice, “hookers.”

You bit your lip and looked down at your plate again. It took every ounce of self control not to laugh. You glanced over at Andrew. He looked like he wanted to evaporate.

“I’ll tell you what,” continued Mrs. Hutchins, “Kids are getting into more and more worrisome and bizarre things nowadays. Did you see that special on the local news? There’s this game called Dungeons and Dragons and some people suspect that it’s a gateway, luring children into devil worshiping cults.”

This time you did laugh. “I really don’t think there’s any truth to that. The student I tutor plays that game. He talks about it all the time. It really is just a fantasy game that you create your own adventures in.”

“Well that’s what it might look like on the surface, but on this special they were talking about all the signs to look for if you suspect your child might have been lured. Now there’s the obvious symbolism like goats and pentagrams. Then there’s listening to heavy metal music — that’s a big one. Apparently there’s all sorts of hidden messaging in those songs, especially if you play the tapes backwards.”

Andrew’s face was in his hands.

“Boy, that sounds terrifying,” said your mother with furrowed brows before taking a bite of her pork roast.

You thought about Eddie Munson again. He certainly fit the description, though you were doubtful he actually worshiped Satan. You supposed there was no way for you to really know. He had quite a habit of talking about, well, just about anything besides school, but you doubted he’d openly admit to something like that. 

It was strange for you to think that you had really only known him for less than two months. It felt like you’d known him forever. 

If he did actually worship Satan, you supposed it wouldn’t really bother you. What you could tell was that he had a good heart. What you also could tell is that there was nothing you could say to Mrs. Hutchins that would change her mind.

______

Much to the disappointment of your mother, sparks did not fly over dinner. That was obvious enough for her not to arrange another, much to your relief.

The weekend came quickly, and it was a long one, which meant more time with quizzes to grade, and boxes that you had procrastinated unpacking. More time alone with your thoughts. 

Historically you never minded being alone, typically you relished in it. Lately you had been doing everything you could to combat the oppressive silence in your apartment and the noisy chatter in your mind.

On Saturday you practically wore out your records, exhausting your entire collection as you did some much needed cleaning. 

On Sunday it was difficult to get out of bed, so you just left the radio on when your alarm clock went off.

On Monday you sat on your living room floor in front of your TV and thumbed through the quizzes that you gave out on Friday, marking each one with your green grading pen.

You paused when you got to Eddie’s. 

There was a little drawing of a dragon at the bottom of his quiz along with a note that said “Slay me!”

You smiled for the first time that day, fingers tracing the lines where his pen met the paper, feeling the subtle indents left behind by it. 

You ran down the ten questions, he got nine of them right. You gave him a 90% and circled the A- at the top of the paper. At the bottom you wrote “You sure slayed this quiz!” with a little smiley face.

______

Eddie Munson had a way of creeping into your thoughts when you least expected it. It was like he had taken up permanent residence there, like a song stuck in your head.

It was far a better song than the sad and angry one that had been playing on repeat for months now, and at this point you would take any break you could get from it.

On Tuesday you couldn’t stop thinking about the way he smiled at you on Friday when he turned in his quiz. It was playful and warm.

On Wednesday he sat across from you after school. He was wearing a flannel shirt under his usual denim vest today. It was refreshing to see him in color for a change. The vibrant red suited him. He’d rolled his sleeves up, revealing a tattoo that looked like a cluster of flying bats.

“So, how did you do on your history test? Did you get your grades back?” you asked, bringing your attention away from his forearms. 

“Yeah, uh,” Eddie shifted in his chair, glancing off to the side, “I got a C,” he said quietly.

You nodded, your expression neutral, though there was a softness in your eyes. “How do you feel about that?”

Eddie looked surprised, “I…” he paused for a moment, blinking, “You know, honestly, when I first got my test back I was actually pretty happy about it,” he said. “I mean it’s better than I usually do, way better than an F.”

You looked at him curiously, “You said, ‘at first’ did something change?”

“Well, I mean a C is good for me, but — “ he glanced at you sheepishly.

“Then a C is good!” 

He looked relieved. “Oh, well in that case, then yeah. I guess I am pretty happy about it.”

“Eddie,” you said gently. He leaned forward at the sound of his name. “You don’t have to worry about impressing me, that isn’t what this is about. I just want to help you graduate, not be valedictorian,” you said, “I’m proud of you.”

Eddie beamed at you with those big brown eyes of his. Suddenly he glanced away, blinking quickly as he lifted a hand to scratch the side of his head to shield them from view. 

You leaned closer, sensing the shift in his body language. When he turned to face you again you could have sworn his nose was a little flushed, his eyes wetter than usual.

“Sorry, I don’t hear that a lot.”

Your chest tightened. You wanted to leap across the desk, scoop him up in your arms and tell him that a thousand times, but instead you just smiled softly and said, “Well, get used to it.”

He smiled at you again, big and broad. He fidgeted with the rings on his fingers and for just a moment you swore you could see past the hair, the patches and chains, straight through to the boy he once was, getting F after F. You could see the disappointed looks from everyone around him reflected in those eyes of his. He must have gotten used to them, steeled himself to them, resigned himself to the letter.

You felt the tears start to burn behind your eyes and you searched for anything to change the subject. “How did your campaign go on Friday?”

His lips curved into a mischievous smirk. “Found three new recruits actually, just last week.”

You raised your eyebrows and blinked, clearing your eyes of any evidence. “Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah. I knew it the moment I saw ‘em, two freshmen sitting all by themselves at the end of a lunch table. They’d been there for weeks, just the two of them. You can always kinda tell with the freshmen, they just look like little lost sheep, ‘specially these two. One of the kids was wearing a Weird Al t-shirt,” he said with a laugh, “And that’s when I was like, ok, these kids should sit with us for a change. Well it turns out they’ve been playing DnD for ages, and they’ve got a friend in another lunch period who plays too, so now we’ve got three new members, which is great because, uh, we were kind of hurting for them.” He chuckled softly.

Eddie had an energy about him that was bold and magnetic. It sucked you right in. The timbre of his voice was bright and warm. It was oddly soothing. You enjoyed listening to him talk, watching his hands as they gestured wildly, which you figured was a good thing since he did a lot of talking. 

“Some kids just need someone to show them that school doesn’t have to be all bad, you know? I know that’s what I needed.” 

You imagined freshman Eddie sitting in the cafeteria by himself, lonely and lost, with his curly mop of hair much shorter than it was now. 

“Us freaks have to stick together, you know?”

You nodded sympathetically. “Yeah, I know. I wasn’t exactly popular myself,” you admitted. “Actually I used to help run an after school mentoring program in Indianapolis. A lot of troubled kids came through there, but it was so rewarding to watch them come into their own, find a place they felt like they belonged, you know?” you said, “I miss that part of my old job.”

Eddie rested his hand against his cheek and hummed in agreement. He looked like he was miles away and yet absolutely present all at once.

“I’ll admit that teaching wasn’t my first career choice, but it’s rewarding in a way that you just… can’t achieve by sitting alone and writing stories by yourself.”

Eddie smirked and gave a thoughtful nod, “That has its own rewards though.”

Your eyes twinkled. “Oh yeah, it definitely does.”

You shifted the focus toward his schoolwork. Today you helped him work through some equations in Trigonometry. Truthfully it took some refreshing on your part, it had been ages since you’d done it and you were more than a little rusty. Math was never really your strong suit anyway. The nice thing about formulas is that once you understood them you could just simply apply them and solve. Math seemed to be something that Eddie was naturally pretty good at though. You wondered if it had anything to do with having to deal with numbers frequently in his campaigns. 

“Alright, I think that about wraps it up for today. Not sure about you but I’m getting hungry,” you said.

“Ok, I’m parked right over there,” he said pointing out the window to the van in the near empty  parking lot. “We can walk out together. You never know what sort of monsters might be lurking in the shadows at this hour,” he said with a look of exaggerated suspicion.

You chuckled and your heart fluttered in your chest, “Sure, actually I’m the red sedan a few spots down.” 

“Great, I know a shortcut,” said Eddie.

You both packed up your things and headed down the main hall towards the gym. 

It was when you rounded the corner that you saw them — Jason and Patrick filling their water bottles at the drinking fountain. 

You gave them both a little wave, which they returned half-heartedly. There was a curious expression playing on their faces which you had hardly a second to study before you passed. Eddie didn’t even look at them. 

You could feel the tension in the air, and their eyes on you as you both left out the back door.

Eddie reached into the pocket of his vest and procured a pack of cigarettes. “Sorry, do you mind? I’m totally jonesing right now.”

“Oh no, it’s fine.”

Eddie gave a gracious nod and popped a cigarette between his lips. He flicked the lighter and his mouth was washed in a warm glow, illuminating the smile lines already prominent on his young face. They suited him.

He blew the smoke away from you with a relieved sigh and you walked toward your cars together in comfortable silence. 

The sun was low in the clear blue sky, casting a golden light over the parking lot. The leaves were just starting to change in fiery orange and yellow patches. You could smell autumn in the crispness of the air, in the leaves that had already fallen as they skittered across the asphalt. 

Eddie ducked his head under your car in a swift motion and looked around suspiciously. “Coast is clear, no monsters.” 

You gave a big belly laugh. “Good thing I have you to keep me safe.”

The wind caught his hair as he rose to his feet and turned to you. “For you? Anything.”

Eddie Munson was beautiful like a neon sign at night. Beautiful like graffiti, like an empty street that beckoned you to wander down it.

You could feel your heart pounding as you smiled at him, turning to putty at his words. “See you tomorrow, Eddie.”

“See ya.” He gave a little bow with his head and waved as he turned toward his van.

You got into your car and set your bag on the passenger seat, letting out the breath you didn’t even realize you’d been holding in. You could hear the roar of the stereo as Eddie’s van came to life two spots over.

You couldn’t help but steal another glance at him. His hair swished and swayed as he bobbed his head to the beat. He was wild like the summer wind as it ripped across a field. 

His eyes caught yours again and he flashed you a smile, bright and blinding.

If there was once thing you were certain of in that moment, it was that Eddie Munson was going to be the death of you.

At least you couldn’t get in trouble for your thoughts.

______

A/N: Oooo we've got a revelation on reader's part and next chapter I've got some really delicious moments in store so sit tight because this burn is gonna be slow but oh boy is it gonna be worth it!

I have one request — If you read and enjoy this, especially if you ask/asked to be put on the tag list, I ask in return that you reblog AND tell me what you like about this fic, even just something short and sweet! Please engage with me, it’s all I get in return for writing a story that you love for free 💜

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Thank you all so much for reading and commenting along each week, it means the world to me!

[kendrixtermina]

Edelgard and “meritocracy” - an essay

In this essay I wish to adress the common argument that “meritocracy bad, therefore edelgard bad” & the logical leaps therein.

Before we begin, I’d like to stress that she doesn’t even use the word “meritocracy” & they’re not even looking at it’s modern definition but reacting to the way it has been used as a fighting word to denigrate the poor specificically in the post reagan modern USA & then assuming Edelgard means the exact same thing by that without bothering to examine what she actually says & in what context.

Modern capitalism & the way it uses rhetoric of merit as an excuse is bad & with its reduction of human value to their moneymaking ability, definitely inherently ableist, I agree totally.

But 3H does NOT take place in the modern world. Progress is always relative to what came before. It*s progress away from entrenched problems.

It’s a total failure to even imagine a world different from the sucky one we live in - that’s exactly what tolkien meant  by that saying that if we’re prisoners we have a duty to escape.

Edelgard doesn’t live in a capitalist society nor is she bringing about capitalism (if anything Claude’s the one talking of free trade & giving the merchants what they want, though he is almost certainly playing them much like the church)

And the main component of capitalism - factory owners, rich elites who owns large swathes of companies or real estate - is nowhere to be found.

In our world that cropped up because industrialization made owning factories, offices, trade etc. more lucrative that just owning the land, so factory owners replaced landed lords, essentially promising the peasants freedom if they helped them overthrow the kings but granting them only in a limited manner - the flawed inequal democracies that resulted were a compromise between peasants and factory owners.

But by and large the nobles are very much in the same niche as the factory owners today - they own the land and get special trade privileges (the means of production), they often abuse the populace with impunity, the peasants are very poor.

Edelgard cracks down on corruption & special trade privileges even during the timeskip.

And like the rich of our world, they have a self-mythology propaganda justification based on merit. Yes, there is the “by the grace of god” argument, too, but crests give you extra fighting power, and if you look at the Ferdinand support for example you do see that Fodlan’s nobles - especially the adrestian ones - see themselves as a honed elite that is trained from birth & therefore better at ruling.

Not quite the same argument a modern billionaire uses - who is very invested in convincing you that they didn’t get their power and wealth by their birth - but a myth nonetheless.

Edelgard’s not bringing “meritocracy” as in brutal competition opposed to caring social safety nets, but as opposed to unearned privilege.

If you wanted to compare that to any kind of sociohistorical context, you might look at Napoleon’s peasant liberation or the implementation of civil service examinations in ancient China.

That wasn’t an all good thing - In the same way that Europe is very impacted by the legacy of rome both good & bad (there are persisting bad attitudes toward war, authority and agriculture for example), east asia still has a lot of education obsession causing pressure & unhealthy work habits to this day.

But if you compared ancient china before the reforms to ancient China after it definitely got better, by ancient china standards.

We couldn’t expect the people back then to come up with all advances up to our exact modern values at once (not can we be sure how much of our values will stand the test of time)

Considering that Fodlan’s ideal of merit is basically what Lorenz, Ingrid and Ferdinand are embodying for their respective countries, and that she stocks her inner circle with very different leaders, it is no stretch to say that she wants to shake up the social ideas of what even counts as merit, to make ppl value other things that crest power or elite upbringing, the same way we might say today that hey, cleaners are valuable actually.

Edelgard is basically doing her world’s equivalent of taxing the billionaires - reducing the power of what the overprivilieged class happens to be, & it’s obvious from her talk of how she despises inequality that she would hardly be for rule of factory owners.

When Edelgard says that she wants to make Fodlan more merit-based, that has to be taken in the context that she lives in a world where your birth determines everything, incompetent nobles can be as lazy as they want, and no one cares how competent you are if you lack a crest, title or both.

If she looked at our world, she would quickly see through the propaganda that it is supposedly “merit based” and object to how wealth and national origin obviously dictate wealth & opportunity while talented people go to waste in sweatshops.

Now of course there have been arguments even against “perfect” meritocracy - one is the devaluation of working class jobs.

To this one could answer that this is more a flaw in how merit is conceived. Historically there have been societies that exahlted blue collar work, artisans or farming.

The second argument, however, is not so easy to get rid of: That is devalues people who can’t just go & produce like machines, especially the unemployed, the sick, the mentally ill, the disabled…

But at this point we’ve got to lean back & get our definitions straight, & make it clear what we even mean by “meritocracy” -

Because if we’re just talking about the basic idea that competency should be rewarded, I don’t think too many people disagree with that. We might see a problem with valueing the competency of a doctor or lawyers dispropottionally over the competency of a cleaner or a bricklayer, but we all, by and large, want the people who prepare our goods and services to be competent. Maybe we wouldn’t exalt it over all over qualities, but most of us admire skill.

Of course the problem with the political rhetoric of “meritocracy” is that it goes beyond just rewarding skill, first with the afore mentioned rewarding of only some skills, but mostly with the reversion or overemphasis of the above: Saying that skill is the only thing that matters (to the exclusion of any inheent human value) & that those who don’t have it are worthless.

First I want to throw out the thought that this is a product of the production/profit orientation of capitalism, but one could of course imagine, as many sci fi authors have done, a non-capitalistic society that is still obsessed with merit at the exclusion of those who are not oriented towards productivity & care more about fun & relationships than producing, or those who can’t produce because they are sick or disabled.

So now we must ask ourselves the question: Which of those views does Edelgard actually hold?

Cause I want you to notice that they’re not the same. “Skill should be rewarded & jobs should be done by competent people”  is not the same position as “Skill is the ONLY thing that matters and if you don’t have it you are worthless”

In one position, skill is a good quality, in the other, it's a prerequisite to worth.

Most of us here probably agree that skill is admirable (we like and reblog pretty fanarts), but not that the unskilled are worthless.

Looking at her superficially I could perhaps see how someone might suspect her of the latter -  She gravitates to & surrounds herself with skilled intelligent people and she’s obscenely superpowered.

It’s an misunderstanding that Dimitri makes in-universe, he accuses her of “only benefitting the strong”

But note that her answer to that is that she wants to empower the weak to no longer be weak & decide their own lives, instead of accepting charity. (Contrast with how Dimitri romanticizes abyss, for example, even as Claude points out that locking the poor underground is hardly help.)

Of course she can say many things, as rulers often give florid speeches.

But let’s have a look at what she actually thinks. How does edelgard actually act towards people who struggle or aren’t productivity oriented?

This is one of her lecture questions from part I:

“When one professor lectures many students, some will inevitably have trouble keeping up, while others will get too far ahead in their studies. I wonder how this problem might be solved…”

Her favorite answer is “lectures should be optional”.

Which part of that sounds like a bell curve type eugenicist “only skill & intelligence counts” kind of person? She wants the struggling students to be taken proper care of, not just the good ones.

Look at the speeches she gives to Petra & Lysithea about not giving up on themselves & wanting them to move forward from an empowered mindset. Look at how she tells Lysithea to take it easy & not overtax her body. (Not "don't whine & keep working")

Look at Bernadetta - very much an ‘unproductive’ individual with great struggles & limitation. Does Edelgard dismiss her as a weakling? Not at all. Not even in the C support. She makes sure to stress her good qualities when introducing  her, makes an effort to be more patient so as not to scare her, & they become good friends.

Look at the Linhardt support - at first she mistakes his behavior for youthful lazyness (He’s 16 after all) & wants to get him to apply himself, but when she realizes that he just has different priorities, she respects that, & works to get him the exact sort of position that he wants. No “suck it up!” or dismissing such a different lifestyle. Nor does she chide him for hating fighting at any point.

Edelgard does everything in her power to accomodate people so they can do their best. She sees the value even in strange unsocial people that society would dismiss. She found a job for someone like Jeritza & helped him, she doesn’t hesitate to make Dorothea a general or Manuela the prime minister no matter what people say or if they don’t act like typical politicians.

Also, when she talks about choosing her sucessor, she wants them to be brilliant/competent yes, but also kind and 'an outsider' (ie, impartial) - hardly a PoV of "if you are skilled you can do whatever you want and if you aren't no other quality matters". She's prizing kindness & objectivity just as highly, something which is absolutely reflected throughout all her actions & behaviors towards others.

She doesn't devalue living quietly & low key without making waves - in fact, that is her dream life, which she deems superior to achievement and ambition, which are to her just tools to archieve good aims.

She couldn’t be further from having a narrow definition of what a “valuable” person is, she is all ABOUT empowering people to take control of their own lives, no pity-driven charity, no paternalism, none of that. This is one of my favorite traits about her, so I can’t help but get mad when people accuse her of being the exact opposite.

But maybe the biggest argument is abyss. This is where the genuine underclass lives, poor, struggling, traumatized, refugees etc.

Edelgard isn’t as vocal during Cindered Shadows as Claude - she can’t blow her cover & just isn’t as expressive personality wise. But she’s the one who makes everybody swear to take care of Abyss no matter who wins.

And her route is the one where, instead of telling you that they lost people, Hapi tells you that they’ve all been pretty much fine over the timeskip.

If you want to help the struggling & the poor and those who don't have "conventional" skills, you should back edelgard.

[stefanmikaleson1864]

I Promise

 Requested: can you do a one shot where yn is Bobby’s youngest daughter who survived the fire. While she’s at a friend’s spending the night the house catches on fire and she is trapped inside?

@courtney-reagan​

Moving to LA it was hard to make new friends. You had trouble adjusting to your new life so far away from you old one. You had a love hate relationship with your dad. It was hard because you knew it wasn’t his fault for the fire but then he was the easiest one to blame. 

Missing your mom and brother and sisters was hard. Sometimes it was like you didn’t know who to grieve first. One minute the loss was easy then it hit you like a ton of bricks. 

You envied your dad. He moved on and sometimes it feels like he just got a new family. How was it so easy to just replace them? Granted he didn’t talk to much about it. He just kept it all in just like you. 

He did show his love and worries in other ways though. The PTSD and trauma coming out in other ways. Maybe it was his way of letting you know that he knew and he wasn’t over it either. 

So when you told him that you were going to your friends house for a sleepover he expressed his worrisome about “these girls” and were they the right kind of people to be hanging with. You knew that no matter who you were friends with that he would find a problem. 

He dropped you off after school that night. Friday night prime time sleepover time. He told you about 500 times that you could call him no matter what and he would come get you. 

“Dad It’s a sleepover I’ll be fine don’t worry.” you told him as you two sat in the driveway of your friend Hannah’s house. 

“I know but even if you feel like you can’t call me you can.” he said. 

“I’ll be fine promise i’ll call you in the morning don’t worry. Love you.” you told him opening up the door. 

“I love you two sweetheart.” he said to you. Watching you walk in the house. 

Later that Night the sleepover was a blast. Makeovers and Karaoke and pizza. You finally felt like you belonged. It was like life was fun again. These moments meant a lot to you. More than people think. 

So in the late night everyone fell asleep in the makeshift tent that you all had built. Screaming woke you up out of a nice slumber. 

Everyone looking around at each other. Then the smell of smoke coming in the room. That smell that you knew all to well. It made your heart beat faster hands and legs shaking. You struggled to catch your breath. 

Hannah’s mom came in and saw you the other girls not knowing what to do. Just sitting there in shock. She tried to calm you down. But it didn’t work only getting more panicked. 

Hannah’s dad came running in the room smoke all over his face a scared and frighted look on his face. He looked defeated. You were back home again and it was just overall fear took over you. 

Hannah’s dad was on the phone with 9-1-1 they told him to shut the door and try and close off the room. With the hopes the smoke wouldn’t come in. 

Bobby was at work. Heading right over after dropping you off at the sleepover. He was grateful for the night shift the first time ever it was able to distract him. He didn’t wanna worry so much about you but it was hard. 

Later that night finally going to sleep wishing morning came quick. He was woken up by the ringing bells. The awful noise coming through the firehouse waking the quiet 118 up. 

“Where are we going? Bobby asked when everyone entered the truck, 

“2123 Lakeview dr. House fire family trapped inside.” Buck answered. Bobby’s heart dropped. It was an awful to familiar  feeling. 

“Y/N is there she’s at a sleepover.” Bobby whispered. 

Buck started driving a hell of a lot faster than what he was. No one said anything, they didn’t know what to say. Nothing they would say would take away his pain right now. 

Sitting in that room was hard. Everyone was sitting in the room holding each other. Hannah’s dad was trying to calm everyone. Her mom wiped everyone’s tears away. Giving everyone hugs telling them it’s okay we will be alright.

You knew that these things could get so out of hand. How deadly they could be. How they can take everything away from you. 

You wished for your dad. You hated that your phone was downstairs. You couldn’t get to it. You just wanted to know he was on the way. He was coming like last time. 

Little did you know those sirens you heard that got everyone’s hopes up. Help was here they were gonna make sure this time was different. 

Bobby ran out of the truck before it came to a full stop. Grabbing his gear and going. The protest of the 118 tried to talk to him to get him to calm down to think rationally but that wasn’t going to happen.

  He bust down the door. “Y/N Call out. I’m here daddy’s here.” he called out. He searched the upstairs and then made his way upstairs. It was hard, the ceiling was falling down and stuff was everywhere. 

Bobby headed up stairs with Eddie who came in after him. Hearing a noise coming from the bedrooms. He headed to that one. His heart thumping out of his chest. He called out and said to get out of the way out of the door. 

Relief washed over him as he saw you. You were okay, you were alive un hurt that’s all he wanted. 

You ran over to him and he grabbed you in his arms. Eddie got the other girls one in each arm. Promising to come back for the parents. They didn’t care just that the kids were safe. 

Once you were outside Bobby took off his mask breathing in the fresh air. You held onto him. He didn’t want to let go either. He was so happy you were okay. He can’t believe you had to go through this again. 

“Promise me no more sleepovers, no more fires, you're never leaving the house.” Bobby said. 

“Deal I promise.”

[setitallaflame]

“Ryder was smart,” Reagan softly replied. “He knew what was coming. He saw the crackdown on mutants, he saw the writing on the wall, and he did everything he could to prepare for it. Not just with having our bags packed and ready, but with having an idea of where we would go next. In hindsight... I wish I would’ve helped him. I wish I would’ve taken things more seriously. Instead, I thought we were safe. I thought I was being careful when I teleported to the top of the Space Needle, or into the bathrooms or backrooms of clubs so that I could watch a band or listen to a particular DJ.” Now... She couldn’t help it, she would always wonder what gave them away. If she gave them away. She knew it was pointless, that she’d never get her answers, but living in that limbo? Forever wondering? It meant always questioning whether or not she was ultimately responsible for Ryder being gone. Marcos’ comment about finding her somewhere else to go brought her out of her thoughts, and she nodded, “Moving me again probably isn’t the worst idea. Getting me further away from... wherever I was. Oh, did you - do we have a phone or something? Did we find something I could record my memories on? Just in case?”

Reagan nodded, “I’m trying not to. But it’s like this - this itch in the back of my head that I can’t scratch. My mind is desperately trying to put a puzzle together, to see an entire picture, when certain pieces have been incinerated. Even knowing the plan, even having helped you set it up... I’m still having a hard time comprehending it all, which I know makes no sense, but you have to remember who you’re talking to.” She offered him what ended up being a mirthless smirk at that before he assured her that he would get Dreamer back to where she needed to be. Wherever that was. “I - I think I said thank you? But after the whole pink smoke thing, everything’s a little hazy. So if you could thank her again for me, I’d appreciate it.”

"That doesn't make you naive. That makes you human." He paused, smirking just a little, "Metaphorically speaking, anyway." Then the smirk faded, and he exhaled a long, heavy breath. "No one ever thinks something like this is going to happen to them. No one thinks a tornado is going to hit their house, or that someone they know is going to get sick. No one thinks Sentinel Services are going to turn up one day knocking at their door. There are people who prepare, sure, but no one ever really thinks it’s going to happen.” He wasn’t trying to discount her feelings, but she said it herself: everyone felt that way. He didn’t know what caused it, but it was true. “But alright…we’ll find you somewhere else to go.” Because she was right, of course. Her house wasn’t safe anymore. Sentinel Services didn’t give up. And, as much as he hated to agree, maybe sparing her parents the pain wasn’t so bad, either. If she could go home, he wouldn’t have kept her away for that reason, but maybe it was a silver lining. If she didn’t go home, they wouldn’t know that one of their children—he didn’t have any opinion on the right or wrong one, nor did he care to—wasn’t going to be joining them. (He couldn’t imagine that, shouldn’t imagine not knowing what was happening to his kid. Not knowing whether they were dead or alive. But he brushed that aside. Now wasn’t the time for that.)

Right. He’d been so eager to make her happy that he’d forgotten the small issue of her abilities being volatile enough to tear the Needle down if whoever it was that was controlling then happened to take over at that moment. A stupid lapse, of course, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. He just wanted to make her happy. “It wasn’t gonna work out anyway.” A pause. “It’s okay,” he said softly. “Don’t worry about it. I know that’s easier said than done, but…it’s going to be easier for you if you don’t let it bug you too much.” It was weak, but he really didn’t know what would happen if she worried at it too much. He didn’t know if the stitches would tear, or if she’d drive herself insane first. “We’ll get everyone where they need to be,” he assured. Dreamer would go home, and they’d get Reagan somewhere safe, somewhere a little farther away. She didn’t have to worry.

[queenshelby]

A NEW WORLD – PART NINE

A QUIET PLACE 2 FANFIC

Pairing: Emmett x Fem!Reader

Warning: Angst, Gore, Death, Murder, Attempted Rape, Aliens, Violence, Movie Spoilers, SMUT, etc…

DAY 764

‘Say Good Morning Mumma’ Emmett said holding up Charlotte as you came walking out of the bedroom.

‘I didn’t hear your get up. Why didn’t you wake me?’ you asked as you were still not used to Charlotte sleeping in a different room to you ever since Emmett cleared out the study room and put up a toddler bed for Charlotte.

‘I thought that you could use some extra sleep’ Emmett said as he took one of the wooden blocks away from Charlotte. You were up with Charlotte for two nights as she was teething and last night you finally managed to sleep five hours straight.

‘Not in your mouth, remember?’ Emmett said and Charlotte pouted at him, trying to get the wooden block back with her tiny little hand.

‘I asked Jeremy to pick up some children’s paracetamol and a teething toy on his run to the mainland today. Also, one of the women on the island found a baby monitor packed away in her garage. I will try and get it to work today. You might feel a bit less anxious about Charlotte being in another room if you can hear her through the monitor’ Emmett suggested as he handed you a cup of instant coffee.

‘Thank you’ you said with a warm smile and some guilt. You still haven’t told Emmett that he is Charlotte’s father. Yet, you could see an instant connection between them.

Emmett has never asked about Charlotte’s father and you never told him much about her and her birth. It was more that you could handle at the time especially since you thought that he was in a relationship with Nancy.

‘How come you and Nancy don’t share house?’ you eventually asked as you were making breakfast.

‘It’s complicated Y/N’ Emmett said, causing you to raise an eyebrow at him.

‘So, you aren’t in love with each other? Is that it?’ you asked curiously.

‘I don’t have feelings for her if this is what you mean. In fact, I believe that love in a world like this is a dangerous thing. It’s not worth it’ he said before putting his empty bowl into the sink and excusing himself.

It was obvious to you that he didn’t really want to discuss his relationship with Nancy.  

***

Later that day you were invited to Nancy’s house to play cards and have some wine.

Reagan had kindly offered to babysit Charlotte that evening as Lucas and Marcus were out in the woods for the night, hunting animals for the community to eat alongside Emmett’s friend Morgan.

You had the feeling that there was something between Morgan and Evelyn, but didn’t dare to question it.

***

‘This is so strange’ you said as you took five cards from the deck and a glass of wine from the ones Nancy had poured and placed in the middle of the table.

‘Being here, on the island, you mean?’ Nancy asked and you nodded. You still struggled with the idea of being safe, of not being hungry and of having access to clean water simply to have a shower. The strangest of it all was that Charlotte’s father was with you now after you had expected to never see him again.

‘I think you just need to accept the fact that God chose you to be here. To keep you safe. It’s that simple’ Nancy said and you couldn’t help but chuckle.

‘I am sorry Nancy but I find it hard to believe after all the shit that has happened to me and my family and friends. I had to kill people to get here. I put a knife in the head of a close friend so that she would no longer suffer when she fell ill while we were at the bunker. I was almost raped by two men when Emmett saved me. Was all of this God’s plan for me?’ you sighed as you had lost faith many years ago.

‘Let’s not talk about faith, shall we’ Evelyn said and you all nodded in agreement quite quickly. After all, faith and believe had become a difficult topic and some people struggled more with it than others since the invasion.

‘Where is Emmett tonight?’ Adrian, one of the others, asked and Nancy rolled her eyes in response.

‘Who knows. He said that he needed space. He’s been acting strange ever since he got back from the mainland and my best guess is that he’s down by the old beach shag. That’s where he usually goes when he wants to be alone’ Nancy sighed somewhat disappointed. Clearly, Emmett has not let her into who he was and to who had become.

‘Hmm I wonder why that is?’ Evelyn said as she sipped on her glass of white wine while looking over at you with a smile.

You were surprised by the look Evelyn gave you. Did she know about you and Emmett you wondered?

***

After two games of cards, you helped Evelyn to take the empty wine bottles back to the kitchen in order to get some refills for everyone.

‘You need to tell him Y/N’ Evelyn said calmly as she started opening two more bottles of wine.

‘What do you mean?’ you whispered, looking at Evelyn with wide open eyes.

‘That Charlotte is his daughter’ she then went on to say.

‘How do you know?’ you whispered in a panic. You never had this conversation with her.

‘Lucas told me Charlotte’s birthday and he also told me that she came four weeks early and he had to help deliver her. Apparently, he is still a little freaked out about seeing his sister’s vagina’ she laughed before continuing on. ‘Emmett told me about you six months ago, about the night you spent together and how he could never tell Nora who the woman was he had been with that night. He still feels guilty about it all’ Evelyn whispered.

‘I remember when he called me the day after, telling me that what happened between us was nothing more than a mistake. But of course, he feels guilty towards Nora after all the crap she put him through that year’ you sighed, remembering how bad their relationship had become before the night in question.

‘No Y/N’ Evelyn said as she put one of her hands onto your shoulder. ‘The guilt he feels is towards you, for pushing you away the way he did after the night he had spent with you. He loved you. He probably still does’ Evelyn whispered with a smile.

‘He’s got a funny way of showing it. He had more than a month to say something to me before these things invaded our planet’ you huffed.

‘The morning after you had spent the night with Emmett, Nora called him from the hospital near her sister’s house. She was diagnosed with cancer that day. Her prognosis was good at the time but she never got the treatment she needed following the invasion. He chose his family Y/N. He had to’ Evelyn said with both of her hands on your shoulders.

‘I had no idea’ you said as your chin dropped and small tears began to form in the inside of your eyes. Emmett had never given an explanation to you as to why he acted the way he did and you immediately felt awful about what him and Nora must have been through.

‘I know. That’s why I am telling you now. You need to forgive him for what happened between you and let him be a father to Charlotte’ Evelyn said and you nodded in agreement.

There was nothing to say and, as soon as you returned to Nancy’s living room, you excused yourself.

You explained to the group that Charlotte was teething and that you were tired and wanted to get some rest. But the truth was that you had to see Emmett and clear things up once and for all.

***

As you arrived at the top of the hill which led down to the beach and the old beach shag, you could see Emmett sit on a large towel in front of a small fire place, starring at the sea.

Quietly and slowly, you made your way down the hill in between the bushes and approached Emmett from behind.

‘You scared the shit out of me Y/N’ Emmett said just after he startled as you tapped him on the shoulder.

‘I am sorry’ you smiled before kneeling down next to him.

‘What are you doing here?’ Emmett asked and, without words, you caressed his face with one of your hands and drew his lips closer towards yours.

‘This’ you whispered before your lips met in a passionate kiss.

‘Y/N, I am so sorry for…’ Emmett tried to say as your lips finally drifted apart.

‘Sshh. I know’ you said before pressing your lips back onto his one more time, even more desperate and passionate than before.

‘I love you’ you whispered after you had silenced him with your lips and, just as they parted again, he told you that he loves you too.

‘Didn’t you say that love in a world like this is a dangerous thing?’ you asked in between kisses and while your hands began to roam over each other’s bodies.

‘It is and I am afraid of it, but sometimes you can’t help it. I have loved you for years Y/N’ Emmett said, his deep blue eyes gazing into yours.

‘Oh Emmett’ you sighed, before you climbed onto his lap and pressed your lips against his again.

Your lips parted slightly, allowing his tongue to enter your mouth and start dancing with yours all while he began to unbutton your blouse.

‘We are on a public beach Emmett’ you giggled as his eyes wandered over your breasts which clearly had gotten larger.

‘No one ever comes down here’ Emmett assured you before guiding you off him and pushing you onto the towel beneath him, covering the sand.

After taking off his own t-shirt, Emmett rubbed both his hands along your thighs up towards the hem of your skirt. Then he moved his hands underneath your skirt and then back down towards your knees. As his hands made another pass over your legs and under your skirt, he reached all the way to the top of your thighs and his fingers felt around for your panties. Not finding any, he looked up at you and raised his eyebrows in a playful manner.

‘Shortage of underwear on the island’ you answered his unasked question with a little smirk and a flirtatious look in your eyes.

Emmett then started exploring you with his fingers. Finding you wet and aroused, he pressed one of his fingers easily into your opening and then slid it back out and rubbed it along your pussy lips and towards your clit. He repeated this process over and over again and you let out a soft moan every time his fingers made this journey along your body. Your eyes met and you bit your lip as he continued fingering you.

‘Oh my god, that feels so good’ you whispered to him and he smiled back at you.

You certainly didn't want him to stop, but you also wanted more.

After a few more minutes of this pleasure, you pulled him on top of you and your bodies were pressed up together. You could feel Emmett's hardness straining through his jeans against your thighs and you could help but moan at the sensation.

He then pulled your mouth to his in a passionate embrace. Your breaths were shallow as your kiss deepened, his mouth practically enveloping yours.

It wasn’t long until Emmett reached between you and unzipped his jeans before pulling them down along with his briefs.

‘Fuck I want you so badly’ you whispered as you pushed up your skirt and spread your legs widely, allowing Emmett to line himself up with your soaking entrance.

‘Fuck Y/N’ Emmett moaned as he thrusted his rock-hard cock into your very wet, swollen, and ready, opening.

You let out a long, low moan as he entered you. His cock felt so good inside you; like two puzzle pieces fitting together. You squeezed your muscles on him in response, sending a shiver of intensity through your body. With your left legs wrapped around him, he was pushing deep into you. With every hard and fast thrust, you would yell out, not afraid of making your noises heard on this darkened and empty beach. As he pounded into you, your hands slid, scratched and grabbed all over his body, along his back, onto his shoulders, and then down to his ass. You gripped his tight ass cheeks and pushed him in tighter on each thrust.

‘Don’t come inside me’ you barely managed to say and Emmett simply nodded as he kept thrusting into you deeply.

With all the thrusting, you eventually arched your back, changing the angle of his entry, and now his cock was hitting your very sensitive g-spot.

Your moans now turned to loud "fucks" and "oh gods" and you were soon pretty close to an explosive orgasm. Knowing that you were close to climax, Emmett sped up his thrusts which sent your over the edge.

‘Oh god, oh god, oh god...Emmett…fuck’ you moaned as a powerful orgasm rippled through your body and Emmett’s palm quickly came down on your mouth.

‘Shh’ he smirked as your pelvic muscles contracted and pulsed, tightening around his cock and then released. Spasm like shivers moved up to your shoulders and through your body and you let out a very long, satisfied exhalation.

‘Holy Fuck’ you said to Emmett, with an exasperated laugh in your voice once he finally removed his hand from your mouth.

He smiled back at you, then scooped his arms up under your back and lifted you to sit facing him. Still catching your breath, your mouths came together for a kiss, but you simply exchanged warm breaths into each other's mouths before your lips met.

As your body calmed from the orgasm, you brought your hand down to his cock. He was wet and sticky from your fluids, so you leaned down, bringing your lips to his cock, tasting yourself on him and began sliding your tongue all along his shaft, adding the lubrication of your saliva to him.

Your tongue made broad strokes along the underside of his cock and then tickled the tip and then back down again, adding more and more moisture to his cock with every lick. Now slippery with your moisture, you brought your hand to his cock and began moving it up and down, giving your mouth a break. As you squeezed your fingers and twisted your wrist on his cock, he brought his fingers back to play with your pussy. Still highly sensitive from the orgasm you had just experienced, you gasped at his initial touch and your muscles involuntarily squeezed and clenched.

He inserted his pointer and middle fingers into your wet opening, then dragged them out and up along your lips to your sensitive clit. You let out a loud groan as he did this, while your hand continued its work on his cock. Slowly, he continued moving his fingers along your wetness, along your lips and then he started finger fucking you, slowly at first and then faster and with more intensity. You matched his intensity with your hand on his cock. Faster and deeper he plunged into your warm tunnel, and faster and tighter you moved on his manhood. He took in a deep inhalation and let out a gasp and you knew he was close to release. His fingers were now rapidly pounding into you and you were moving your hand faster than ever on his cock.

‘I am close’ Emmett moaned, barely managing to speak and you quickly dropped your head down onto his swollen cock and he let out a loud, guttural exhalation as his warm and sweet cum released into your mouth.

‘Hmm’ you moaned out, squeezing his cock with your lips and sliding them up and down as he pulsed out more semen into your mouth. Once he was complete, she licked your tongue on his cock, before removing your mouth and swallowing.

You had never really enjoyed sucking off a cock and swallowing cum before, but with Emmett it was different and you were somewhat truly delighted in satisfying Emmett this way.

You sat up and looked at Emmett. His head was leaned back, his eyes closed, and a look of complete pleasure on his face.

‘Fuck…this was something else’ he whispered to you, followed by a deep sigh and a little contented laugh.

You smiled in return as he fluttered his eyes open.

It wasn’t long until your lips met again and, just as you heard some noises in the bushes besides you, Emmett quickly pulled up his pants while you buttoned up the blouse which never left your body.

Then, Emmett quickly put his t-shirt back on and, to your relief, two rabbits jumped out of the bushes making you both laugh and fall back against the towel which was barely covering the sand from the beach.

‘Emmett?’ you said as you rested your head on his chest while your eyes were gazing into the fire.

‘Hmm’ he said as he was holding you tight.

‘There is something I need to tell you’ you murmured.

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[therealvinelle]

What if Bella got possessed by a demon in Twilight? Like pretty standard, The Exorcist type of stuff.

A lot of you anons should just head on to Ao3 instead of my inbox because whereever you went with this fic idea, I’m sure it’d be delightful. Lulzy, but an absolute delight.

Since you say Twilight, I’ll just set the timeline to the beginning of the series, when Bella has just arrived in Forks. She got possessed just before leaving, as Renée wanted to try an ouija board.

So, for the purposes of this ask, demons are real within the Twilight universe. They have to be very few and far in between, though, since humans don’t know about them and they presumably don’t care about following the Volturi law.

Bella is Reagan and the demon Pazuzu has taken up residence within her.

As happened in The Exorcist, this isn’t very noticeable at first. Bella starts saying some messed up things, yes, enough so that the other kids at school avoid her and the teachers give Charlie a call, but she’s not running down the stairs like a spider. Charlie is worried about her behavior and calls Renée about this, but he’s not dialing up any priests just yet.

Well, Bella gets worse.

Edward, for the record, was interested in this delicious smelling girl with the mystery box brain up until she started spouting profanities in the hallways at other students. Not being able to read her mind, he assumes Bella Swan is just like that. There’s no challenge, no reward, nothing to keeping her alive, his only real reason for not eating her at this point is Carlisle. Though his sheer distaste at that vulgar human who dares to tempt him so makes him resistent to drinking her blood, just out of spite. She’s not his perfect damsel with the delicious blood, and that ruins a lot of the appeal. Not all, mind, because that blood is still delicious.

Though it does help when she’s pulled out of school. Edward can pretend vulgar hamburger doesn’t exist, even as he ruffles through her wardrobe for sweaters to huff.

Back to Charlie, whose daughter is now running down the stairs like the spider.

He sends her to every shrink he can afford, has all the doctors in Forks look at her, and none of them give him an answer he can believe. He’s at his wit’s end.

And this affliction, whatever it is, that’s affecting Bella, it doesn’t seem natural, not human. She speaks in tongues, sexually assaults herself (yes, this happens in the movie), growls and hisses like an animal, in every way acts like- well, whatever it is, Charlie’s ability to deny that this his daughter’s affliction is supernatural in origin is growing thin.

But none of the shrinks can help him with that, and Charlie is a “lapsed Lutheran”, so I doubt priests is something he’ll consider all that seriously. He needs occult help, yes, but from someone who will actually help Bella.

His mind turns towards Carlisle Cullen and his children, and how Billy reacted when they moved into town.

Charlie laughed off his friends’ fears then, thought it was ridiculous to believe the Cullens could ever be anything but human. He dismissed their unusual looks as just that, unusual looks, their too-good-to-be-true cover story as them being that wonderful, and was quite happy about it.

That was then, now his daughter is fast becoming proof that the occult is indeed real.

And Dr. Cullen is so very kind, excellent in his work as a doctor and above all knowledgeable.

Say that Billy was right, that these guys aren’t as human as they appear. Well, that makes them the only people in the world, in Charlie’s world anyhow, who might be able to help.

Which is how Carlisle has the town chief walk into his office, tell him his daughter is possessed by a demon, and that Carlisle has to come over and have a look at her.

Now, as I think demons would be extremely rare, we’ll allow that Carlisle with all likelihood hasn’t seen any of these before. Quite the contrary, he was once a man who persecuted women suspected of witchcraft. He understands Charlie a little too well, but is also not touching this exorcism quest with a ten-foot pole.

Except, the chief seems convinced that Carlisle himself isn’t entirely human.

What would a human doctor do?

Carlisle really has no choice here but to come with Charlie. Besides, no matter how one looks at it what Charlie said about Bella is highly disturbing, the girl obviously needs medical attention.

So Carlisle has a look at Bella, and his “ahahaha we’re all human in here” smile quickly stiffens as he finds that whatever’s going on with Bella, it is indeed not human. She’s spitting green goo, talking Latin backwards, inhumanly strong, impersonating Carlisle’s father, and depending on how closely we follow Pazuzu’s actions in The Exorcist she may have killed a man. There’s scars on her body spelling out pleas for help.

It becomes clear to Carlisle that this girl really does need an exorcism. Or something, anyway, this is terrifying new territory for him.

But he has neither any clue nor the authority to perform an exorcism, and he lacks the network to get his hands on a human priest who’ll do this. More, even if humans could help (and considering how misinformed they are about vampires, the odds of that are extremely slim), involving more humans than have already been pulled into this would not make the Volturi happy.

There’s really only one place to go where someone will have the resources to help this suffering human, and that’s Volterra.

There’s a risk that demons are like immortal children and Aro will kill her on the spot, but Carlisle, still spooked from father Cullen’s voice coming out of this 17-year-old girl in the 21st century, has no other recourse.

So he tells Charlie he’s taking Bella somewhere Charlie can’t follow, and it’s likely they’ll never see each other again, even if Bella is saved. Charlie is devastated, but the promise that his daughter could get better means he can’t refuse. Just the fact that Carlisle isn’t entirely human yet benign makes him the best help Charlie is able to get her.

Carlisle takes Bella to Volterra, where Aro puts on his best Max von Sydow impression and says “Ah, demons... I’ve seen this once before, in the memories of a merchant from Ur...”

Knowing Aro while not knowing the lore of The Exorcist well enough to know what to do about a demon possession if you don’t have a Catholic priest on hand, I imagine Aro dresses up in whatever it is that Sumerian priests wore thousands of years ago (he always told Caius those bedazzled costumes would come in handy someday, and look who was right! VINDICATION) and tricks Pazuzu into possessing one of the humans Heidi brought in instead. This human is promptly killed. Ta-da, Aro smiles to Carlisle, he solved the problem!

Bella wakes up surrounded by insanely beautiful people in an underground palace in Italy and remembers nothing. Carlisle gets the honor of explaining to this human girl that she was possessed by a demon, Charlie asked Carlisle to fix it, and now the nice man who makes jingling noises whenever he moves because he’s dressed head to toe in gold wants her to be a different kind of demon because he can’t read her mind.

Bella caught maybe half of that.

Carlisle refuses to elaborate on the “possessed by a demon” part. No, Bella, you did nothing embarrassing, no one thought you were weird. We hardly noticed you were possessed at all!

But he was serious about that last part, Aro noticed she has a special ability so he’d like for her to become a vampire.

Bella, still, overwhelmed, makes a phone call to Charlie explaining nothing at all but assuring him that the demon is gone. She is then made a vampire.

Edward arrives too late to the party, so late that the party is in fact over, as he didn’t believe Carlisle when he said hamburger was possessed by a demon. Now it turns out that the disgusting, vulgar girl was in fact a delicate flower and a damsel in distress this whole time. Except, now she’s a vampire. Woe! Theirs is a love that never bloomed.

Bella has no idea who this guy is, and asks Renata to make him go away.

[uncpanda]

Swamp Thing

Prompt: Jamie Reagan x Reader fic and the reader is a lawyer with Erin

AN: Can you spot the SVU reference? 

Requested By: ANON

“No.” 

“Look, I wouldn’t be asking unless it was really important, and THIS is really important.” 

You don’t even look at Erin as you walk, your nose buried in a file. You turn into your office and settle behind your desk. When you look up, she’s still there; arms crossed and staring you down. 

“Look, Erin, I don’t know how it works at the Manhattan DA’s office, but here, in Brooklyn, we don’t set our friends up with our little brothers.” 

“It’s not a set up. Jamie recently went through a heartbreak, he broke it off with his finance’ and partner. He has no one to go to this political dinner with, and all Reagans have to be there to support my dad. He checked plus one, and now he needs one. And if we have an empty seat at our table it’s going to look bad.” 

You lean back in your chair, “So you schlep out to Brooklyn, to look up one of your old interns . . .” 

“And friends. You’ve seen me drunk, that makes you a friend.” 

You snort at that, “Exactly, I got your drunk ass home safe after several shot of tequila, and I held your hair while you threw up.” 

“Friendship.” 

“Or me not wanting you to die of alcohol poisoning, because then I would have had to find a new internship.” 

You stare at each other for a moment before you both grin, “Send me the time, dress code, and address. I’ll meet your group there.” 

She moves behind your desk, gives you a not great hug do to your chair, and says, “Thank you. I owe you one.” 

As she moves out the door, you call out, “You owe me ten Reagan.” 

The event ends up not being for another week. For the most part, other than picking out an outfit, you put it out of your mind. You’ve just finished negotiating a deal with a murderer, double digits and the first one starts with a two, and you can feel the headache brewing. 

Which is why you’re more than a little annoyed when you go back to your office and see an officer sitting outside it, waiting for you. The rest of your afternoon should be clear . . . you didn’t have any testimony to go over. 

You stop in front of him, and study him for a second. He’s cute. “Can I help you?” 

His head snaps up, “No. Thank you. I’m just waiting on Ms. Y/L/N.” 

You give him a small smile, “Present and accounted for.” 

 He stands up, nods a few times and goes, “Of course you’d be pretty.” 

“Excuse me.” 

He takes a deep breath, “My name is Jamie Reagan, I’m here to undo the mess my 

sister Erin made.” 

Ahh, so that’s what’s going on. You bite your lip to keep from laughing, “Then you should probably come in.” 

He follows you into your office, and each of you takes a seat on your couch. There’s a breath of silence before he says, “Erin, had no right to corner you into going to this dinner that’s coming up. I mean, I didn’t even have a desire to go, it’s just something you do for family.” 

“Torture you mean?” 

His lips quirk, “Yeah. Anyways, I already asked an old friend I went to law school with, she said yes, so you’re off the hook.” 

You lean back into the couch and stare at him, “Well, now that’s a shame.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. I could leave the rubber chicken dinner, but you turned out to be pretty cute. The way Erin was begging made you seem like you were the swamp thing.” 

He nods, “So, as long as I kill her in Manhattan, you won’t have to try my case, right?” 

“Yep.” 

“That means it wouldn’t be a conflict of interest for you to go on a real non-boring date with me next Friday?” 

“The whole being arrested, trial and prison thing might get in the way?” 

He laughs, “For you I’ll drop the murder.” 

“You’ve got yourself a deal.” And you can’t help but think that deal wise. . . you’re on quite the roll today. 

[americangirlstar]

Now that both Courtney books are out and I’ve read and processed them both, I do want to say that I think they’re the least well-written of any of the AG books, but not through any fault of their own- let me explain.

(Note that for this discussion I’m ignoring the Doylist criticisms- Courtney and 3/4 of her friend group being white again, the lack of gay discussion in-text in regards to the HIV crisis, etc. These are valid complaints and concerns, but not what we’re talking about right now.)

The Problem with the Current Book Length

I think the main problem with Courtney stems from the fact her books are so short. American Girl has literally been doing the stupidest things in regards to their books lately, almost as if they’re trying to sabotage them on purpose. First they remove illustrations in 2015- when their target audience is about nine years old. I don’t know about you, but when I was six and getting into American Girl, the illustrations were the highlight for me. Not because I had no attention span and loved pretty pictures, but because it showed me firstly what the girl’s life was like, whether it be 1760s wilderness or 2001 Chicago. It was like stepping into their world, really helping you get into their heads, which was basically what the dolls were supposed to do, to let you know that girls like you exist throughout time and space.

As well as that, the illustrations were free advertisement. I can’t tell you how excited me and my sisters were as children to go to the American Girl place and look at the doll displays, shouting that that’s the dress Felicity wears to the ball! or look, Josefina’s goat looks exactly like the book! AG cut that from 2015 to 2020, as if they were trying to appeal to an older audience- while at the same time changing all the doll outfits, accessories and marketing to appeal to a younger demographic.

Now, this isn’t about the illustrations, as Courtney got those- it’s about what they did to the historical characters after the Illustration Outrage™ happened. See, they’d condensed the historical six-book format into two books- not necessarily a bad idea, parents would be more likely to buy two books for their kid than consider buying six. However, they then claimed that if they put illustrations back, they would have to abridge the books- literally my nightmare.

First of all, American Girl, we know for a fact you can fit all six books plus illustrations into ONE VOLUME, let alone two. You’re just being cowards here and trying to nerf your own stories for... some reason.

So that meant a lot of important things got cut- Rebecca’s Chanukah story, Melody’s cousin’s house search, Maryellen’s Christmas adventure... all things important to the girls’ histories and character.

The Problem with Courtney’s Writing

Now, Courtney was the first doll to be released after the abridging began, meaning her books were released, in their entirety, just as short as the abridged stories. So it basically means she gets four books while the others get six- and unlike the others, Courtney doesn’t even have mysteries or short stories to pad out. (And honestly, looking at her book’s amount of content, I’d even argue that she basically got two while everyone else got six, but I digress.)

The problem with her books isn’t that they have an author writing them poorly (I really feel like her author was doing the best with what limited time she had), but in how cramped American Girl made them. Because, well, Courtney has to deal with a lot in such a short amount of words.

Let’s compare her to Julie, for instance- Julie pretty much has a new 70s thing every book. In order: feminism, rising divorce rates, San Francisco’s Chinese culture, environmentalism, the country’s bicentennial, anti-bullying and deaf acceptance. And adding to this, we also have her own personal journies through her parents’ divorce and move, her basketball team, her friendship with Ivy (and later Joy), overcoming her fear of horses, student council, detention... It’s a lot, and yet her books don’t feel rushed or forced at all. It’s just a year in the life of a girl going through a lot of new and sudden events, and how she grows and changes throughout them. She may not be as deep a character as Addy or Kirsten, but not every girl goes through the trials and tribulations they do, and it’s a good series overall.

Courtney, meanwhile, does feel rushed and forced, because of the short timespan. Instead of fitting everything into a six-book format- or even at two-book format that is the same length and content as the six-book- everything has to be fit into two short books.   Everything Courtney has to cover includes the topics of divorce and stepfamilies, feminist and technological advancement, the Challenger explosion, the HIV crisis, Hands Across America, and the founding of Pleasant Company. And in Courtney’s own journey, she has to cover her learning to stand up for herself, her relationship with her stepsister and Tina’s own character development, her mother running for mayor and how that affects her, how much she misses her Dad after he moves, her friendship with Sarah (note on that later), her basically getting hate-crimed after standing up for her friend... that’s a LOT of stuff, and I didn’t even include the non-AG 80s product placement they shove into her collection.

But without the longer format, everything is pushed together to its detriment. Tina’s development and Maureen’s mayoral candidacy are two plotlines that are literally dropped and almost completely ignored in the second book. The Challenger and HIV issues were handled decently, but the Challenger only lasted a few short chapters, and the HIV topic was not as informative as it could be, leaving out several things like Reagan’s refusal to treat it for so long, and its effect on the gay community. Honestly, the HIV scare was more shifted to focus on the mob mentality of a new and scary disease- which, while needed right now, also ignores many of the bigotry-related reasons it became an epidemic. Pleasant Company’s inclusion feels forced in, and I think was the only resolution she had to her Dad plotline?

And don’t get me started on the Sarah plotline- every Girl of the Year since Kanani- sans Isabelle and Luci- has had the story of “oh no I’ve been ignoring my friend and now they’re mad at me :(” and it’s SO old. Seriously, I counted the contemporary dolls that have had that storyline, and it’s thirteen*. Thirteen times we’ve covered this issue- almost all of it in quick succession- and now we have to deal with it in a historical character book while much more important things are going on! Yes, it sucks when a friend ditches you while you’re being attacked and bullied for something you’re standing up for, but once again, with how much is happening in such a short book, it just feels like a forced-in plotline that we’ve seen a billion times, and with their falling-out happening mainly due to the attention Courtney was given Isaac, it serves to make Sarah seem closed-minded at best and bigoted at worst- it’s clarified that she’s not, she’s just scared and upset with Courtney, but when you put those events so close together, it leads the reader to lump them together and get the impression that, you know, Sarah is a worse person than she is.

*Full count: Nicki (book 2), Chrissa (book 2), Kanani (2), McKenna (1 iirc?), Saige (both books), Grace (2), Lea (3), Gabriela (1 and 3), Tenney (2), Z (1), Blaire (1), Joss (1) and Kira (1).

It’s a bit weird, too, that Courtney’s... what’s the word? Vibe? with her how her story is written and marketed Is closer to the Contemporaries than the Historicals. Am I the only one feeling this? My best explanation for it is that the author, Kellen Hertz, had only written contemporary books for American Girl before- the third Lea Clark book and all four Tenney Grant books, both of which contained the Friendship Issues™ plot. I’m not at all saying she’s a bad author- I honestly love the way the Tenney books are written- and I’m not saying she couldn’t write a historical book, but it’s clear American Girl didn’t ask her to change up her style or content from what she’d done for them before, as well as giving her way too much to cover in such short books.

Conclusion

Honestly, this conclusion should be obvious- American Girl needs to expand their books again. Whether they simply allow the books to be unabridged, or go back to the six-book format, Courtney's books are too cramped to tell an effective story, let alone the poor abridged girls.

The other girls were given six-book length, so if they went back to that length or format, Courtney would have to be rewritten, at least a little- and that’s okay! There’s a lot of things that could use expansion or connection, such as her Summer trip with her Dad that was given basically one sentence in the text. Her growth with her stepfamily could be acknowledged- and honestly? I think that if these books were expanded, her mother’s mayoral arc should either continue through the books, or Maureen should become mayor before the book 2 arc. I’ve mentioned this before, but having Maureen as mayor (or even still a candidate) would put a lot of pressure on Courtney to be perfect so that nobody can say “look at how awful this woman is for doing politics instead of raising her family right”- which means that when the Isaac stuff happens, it has even more stakes for Courtney and her family. Does her Mom still support her with her own reputation on the line, and what does that say about Maureen’s character, how does it affect Courtney and the D’Amicos... that’s all fascinating stuff that was completely missed out on.

And if she was turned into a six-book format- honestly, here’s how I’d do it, just off the top of my head. It would involve a bit of event shuffling, but honestly I think it would work!

Meet Courtney - pretty much the setup for everything happening, her starting to get her Crystal Starshooter plans and her mom’s campaign beginning.

Courtney Learns a Lesson - her relationship to Tina, culminating in the Challenger incident.

Courtney’s Surprise - we move the founding of Pleasant Company over here, since Molly’s basically her Christmas Present. We’ll probably need an additional plotline- maybe similar to Julie, she can have a story on spending the holidays in different places.

Happy Birthday Courtney - end of summer, aka meeting Isaac and her trip with her Dad.

Courtney Saves the Day - Beginning of the HIV arc, ending at her presentation to her class.

Changes for Courtney - Continuation of the HIV arc as things get worse for her and Isaac, ending where Friendship Superhero ends.

Is that a perfect sorting? Probably not, I came up with it in ten minutes. But would it give Courtney space to breathe and more time to explore everything happening to her? Probably!

The tl;dr of this is honestly that American Girl are absolute cowards right now, and need to expand their books back. Their abridging is only harming their stories- which, as Courtney herself points out, are the reason girls got into their company in the first place.

[earnestly-endlessly]

Hi, how are you? Your blog is amazing and your recommendations have already allowed me to read wonderful stories, so thank you so much! I wonder if you could suggest me any cherik fics of them as detectives? I remember reading one a long time ago, but unfortunately I don't know the name and even less the synopsis. Thank you in advance for your help.

Thank you so much @remember5novemberv for your kind words. I'm so sorry this took me so long but I hope you enjoy this list. There are some excellent detective AUs in this fandom so you're in for a treat.

Cherik Detective AUs

Their Mouths Always Lie – keire_ke

Summary: Charles adheres to most police protocols like they are a personal code of conduct. Erik gets things done and over with, for better or worse. Raven knows what she's doing, most of the time. The serial killer kills, regardless. Police AU.

Guilty by Association – Reagan

Summary: While investigating the homicide of a John Doe who he suspects might've been murdered while working the streets as a prostitute, Detective Erik Lehnsherr finds an unexpected ally in a hooker named Charles who seems as determined as he to solve the case. As they become more deeply involved both with the case and each other, there's just one thing that Charles neglects to mention -- that he's really an investigative journalist, one quickly convinced that what they're dealing with is more than simple murder. cop!Erik, fake-hooker-slash-reporter!Charles, Modern AU.

Incy Wincy Spider – Tawabids

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is a renowned homicide detective, with his husband Charles at home and his partner on the job, Moira MacTaggert. When a twisted serial killer starts targeting mutants, Erik and Moira are the perfect team for the job, especially since Erik himself is the mutant poster-boy of an NYPD trying to improve their image.

But what they don't yet know is that the serial killer is an old soul out of Erik's past, and his next move is to pull Charles into his web.

The Theory of Partnership Dynamics – Pangea

Summary: “Detective Lehnsherr, how wonderful to see you out on the job!” The fed in the front greets him as they draw nearer. He’s shorter than the other two by a full head, and he’s beaming at Lehnsherr as if completely undeterred by Lehnsherr’s paint-peeling scowl.

“What do the feds want?” Lehnsherr asks bluntly.

“You know I can’t tell you that,” the fed answers cheerfully. Then his gaze lands on Alex, and, impossibly, his grin gets even brighter. “Did you get a new partner?"

“No,” Lehnsherr says through his teeth while at the same time Alex says, “Yes.”

Charles’ Killer – luchia

Summary: When detective Charles Xavier finds himself hunting down a vendetta-driven serial killer, it doesn't take long for him to realize he's in over his head. It only takes a little longer for him to realize his killer is, too.

Demoted – JayPendragon

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is a detective-specialist with the NYPD Mutant Tactical Unit, ready to help out where his skills are needed. Or he would be, if he and his partner hadn’t been demoted. For the next four months, he is patrolling the Lenox Hill precinct with Azazel – if he doesn’t die of boredom first.

One night they are called in to investigate a potential case of domestic violence, yet the tenant assures them he is both alone and unharmed. However, there is something about this Charles Xavier that compels Erik to follow up.

Watching the Detectives – Clocks

Summary: Detectives Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr are good friends and colleagues. However, when they go undercover at a Christmas party to nab a prime suspect, Erik keeps reminding himself to stay professional and ignore feelings of unexpected jealousy.

Oh, Sinnerman (Where you gonna run to?) – TintagelCastle (orphan–account)

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr is one of the best homicide detectives in New York. From small time stabbings to high end mob hits, Erik (and his equally scary partner Logan) makes sure all the bad guys get caught, searching for the final clue to nail his mother's killer. As a string of murders draws the net ever tighter on Erik's life's work, he needs to catch the nightmare of his past whilst continuing to be the darling of the Force...

And so what if he's completely in love with the British guy on Forensics? Who's he ever going to tell?

Wrap up my bones – waifornight

Summary: Damaged detective Erik Lehnsherr is grimly searching for a serial killer whose victims all have extraordinary gifts. But without any clues or leads he and his partner Logan are in the dark. Until Charles Xavier, abducted by the killer, escapes. Together Erik and Charles must confront something far darker than either of them had ever imagined.

Alternate Universe loosely based off the crime movie Kiss the Girls.

I’ll see your heart (and I’ll race you mine) – sirona

Summary: For Kriminalhauptkommissar Erik Lehnsherr, this case will change everything.

Paralyzer – Yahtzee

Summary: In 1965, Erik Lehnsherr has infiltrated the NYPD for his own purposes -- but his powers make him a brilliant detective. Yet that's not why FBI agent Charles Xavier has sought him out. It's because the mysterious killer they're both trying to find is murdering people like them: other mutants.

Their search for a madman binds them together. Their inner demons may tear them apart. But the greatest danger comes when the killer they're looking for looks back.

Wrap up my bones – waifornight

Summary: Damaged detective Erik Lehnsherr is grimly searching for a serial killer whose victims all have extraordinary gifts. But without any clues or leads he and his partner Logan are in the dark. Until Charles Xavier, abducted by the killer, escapes. Together Erik and Charles must confront something far darker than either of them had ever imagined.

Alternate Universe loosely based off the crime movie Kiss the Girls.

The Long Bright Dark – lachatblanche

Summary: Ten years ago Detectives Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr closed the case on a grotesque series of murders that continue to haunt them even in the present day. When they are pulled in for questioning a decade later, they finally have confirmation of something that they have both suspected for a very long time - that there is unfinished business for them to take care of and that the case they thought they had closed so very long ago is in reality still all too open.

A True Detective AU.

Finding North – ClarkeStetler, Goosenik

Summary: Charles and Erik are (loosely) friends with benefits. They don't share personal details, last names, or anything concrete about their lives. This is ruined rather spectacularly when Charles gets recruited by the Mutant Apprehension Division of the FBI. Surprised is a bit of an understatement for their reaction to finding themselves partnered up and sent out on cases with the team.

Closer (to God) – dsrobertson

Summary: Se7en/The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo AU-ish.

Political journalist and editor, Erik Lehnsherr, has just lost £150,000 in a libel case against businessman, Kurt Marko. Down on his luck and in need of money, Erik is approached by the Metropolitan Police’s Detective Inspector Charles Xavier. Well-known for his investigative journalism, Erik is asked to help in the search for a serial killer in return for £200,000 if the killer is caught.

Wrapped up in murder, religion, and sex, Erik gets more than he bargained for.

Homo Sacer – unveiled

Summary: In a not too distant future, Detective Erik Lehnsherr meets Charles Xavier: street magician, former academician, and telepath.

One Good Day – troll_under_the_bridge

Summary: One case which is going to turn Charles' world upside down, while he struggles to pacify his boss, investigate murders and come to terms with the mess his life has become.

Playing With Fire – professor

Summary: Charles is a detective determined to catch a serial killer.

If the serial killer doesn't catch him first.

Hold on or let go – aesc, pearl_o

Summary: Teenage telepath Charles Xavier takes a job as a consultant, working with prickly police detective Erik Lehnsherr. Charles is used to being on his own and taking care of himself; he has no reason to think that his relationship with this stern, icy man is going to change any of that. (Also known as: Tough Little Baby Telepath.)

MCIS: First Case – Pookaseraph

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr considers himself a great MCIS agent, and he puts up with a lot from his boss - Moira MacTaggart - in the name of solving crimes against mutants, but he's not so sure about this new empath, Charles Xavier. Their first case together will test Erik's patience, but doubtless be the beginning of a brilliant friendship.

MCIS: Fathers, Sons, and Brothers – Pookaseraph

Summary: Alex Summers has a single case that he has obsessed about ever since coming to MCIS two years ago: Su-M-94-0708-0034, the murder of Christopher and Katherine Summers, and the presumed kidnapping and possible murder of Scott Summers. Very little evidence was found at the time, but hopefully a new team - and new leads - can shed light on the case that left Alex an orphan.

When the Crazies come to town – Chinchillaatthedisc0

Summary: Erik is a surly detective with zero people skills who has just been assigned the murder case of Kurt Marko. Prime suspect? Charles xavier. Who's no where to be found.

My old man is a bad man – faerie_ground

Summary: Sebastian Shaw dies at two am in the morning with a dagger embedded in his forehead. Detective Erik Lehnsherr is on the case, and the number one suspect is the recently widowed Dr Charles Xavier, Sebastian Shaw's husband.

Deep Cover – Subtilior

Summary: Omegas in heat? The perfect whores. Sebastian Shaw? The bastard who kidnaps them for his Hellfire Club. Erik Lehnsherr? A hard-boiled detective who's been on the Hellfire case for months. The catastrophe that unfolds when he goes in on retrieval and finds Charles Xavier still writhing in a Hellfire bed? .... Deep Cover.

A Murder of Ravens – AbandonedWorld

Summary:Charles Xavier is wrongfully accused. Erik Lehnsherr is a top-notch homicide Lieutenant who stumbles upon the case of a lifetime: a serial killer targeting mutants–and only mutants. Charles bides his incarceration waiting on a miracle, reciting Poe's timeless gem in effort to retain his sanity...

Note: Unfinished

[asublimehimbo]

okay okay okay thinking about this constantly now. Reagan’s trauma is so much like my own it’s really crazy. uhh big big big spoilers of inside job from the next paragraph onwards!!

one - reagan’s memory looks a lot like mine. presumably my dad didn’t literally get in my brain and delete memories (my paranoia is having a rave rn so who really knows but. not likely). but I have forgotten whole people before. someone’ll come up to me on the street, acting like we’re best buddies and I know I should know them. their face tickles my brain. their name starts with an E, maybe. but I couldn’t tell them who they are or why i know them or anything about them. i cannot properly explain how large and unsettling these lapses are.

the visual representation of reagan’s memory (which is absolutely genius imo) is a lot how i imagine mine to be: a mess of connections, a disorganized project of attached events. the scrapbook of a conspiracy theorist. i loved the way her repressed memories were treated. the flickery, dim lighting, the sludge that pulled her from one to the next no matter how hard she tried to stay where she was. That’s how it feels to be surfing through my brain, a lot of the time. my mother asks me when my next therapy session is and i close my eyes and plunge into the depths, bringing myself back to the appointment i last had, skating helplessly from the color of her shirt to my first grade teacher who told me i couldn’t draw, to the way that my only friend moved at the end of the year and gave me her phone number, to the guilt from being too scared to call her -- it goes on forever.

my own memories of my father are buried so deep i’m not sure i’ll ever get to them for real. everything i can access now feels strange, off-putting... like it’s been altered. like it’s not mine. i don’t have the tank and fluid and technology to go inside my head. all i can really do is therapy and hope. i don’t know why the dvd player instills otherworldly fear in me. i don’t remember something bad happening near it... then again, i don’t remember my own birthday or how tall i am, i don’t remember when i first learned how to craft a poem, i don’t remember i just don’t remember.

two - her dad’s misguided attempts to get her to love him. my dad did this a lot. maybe this is it’s own kind of abuse: not knowing how to love and doing it violently. he called me by the right name even when the rest of my family hadn’t adjusted yet. we loved the same book series, and we talked about it for hours. he played me his music. i liked some of it. i ache for the ability to tell him about a memoir i read that i know he would love. i’m not sure if any of that was genuine though, and like reagan, I’m not backing down. i’m never going to talk to him again if i can help it (if he doesn’t become the ceo of my shadow government, metaphorically). i believe some of it came from the place in him that wanted love, like i think rand’s abuse did. maybe this is abusive behavior in general -- treating you like shit, then treating you nice, and flipping back and forth. in my case, the shit part was ignoring and scapegoating me. i still feel evil sometimes because of what he did. reagan’s dream wasn’t to become ruler of the world... i can’t remember what it was, exactly. i waited a little too long to write this (2 hours is too long, apparently), and the details of the episode are already flickering away from me, getting fuzzy and burning up. my point is, she didn’t want to be the at best morally ambiguous person she is now. her dad admitted that he engineered her for this purpose. he did all he could to make sure he turned out the way she did.

I’m not the omniscient viewer of a tv show of my life. i can’t tell you whether my dad did that or not. but i can tell you he did enough. enough to craft me into someone who’s probably going to be convincing vampself that vamp’s not the literal worst person ever until the day vam dies. enough to make me question if i’m a bad friend/boyfriend/child/sibling/general human being every time i say something that produces anything other than laughter.

three - the slowly faltering conviction that she can do everything herself. like reagan, I’m really smart. I’m a gifted kid (derogatory). i can do most subjects really well (i take american standardized tests like a queen. i want to shoot myself.). i pulled a 100% for most of the first semester of my physics class. but where i’ve really focused my talents over the years is the arts. and like reagan, i cannot stand working with others. i’m the kid who actually preferred when all the other group members where arguing over how to divy up work (because none of them wanted to do anything), so i could just finished the project myself. i always used to write alone, do art alone, keep it secret and special and sacred. it was my shelter away from humanity. i’d share it when it was done, but the process was all my own. insomniac nights. you know the drill.

Like Reagan, all of that changed for me recently thanks to ✨true friendship✨ (i mean recently in pandemic time. it’s been three years). i met a guitarist, a musician like me. they changed me for good. they loved me, unconditionally, somehow. even though i’m like this. even though i’m me. i watched them closely, because i watch people closely. i think it’s the trauma, you know, how i always used to be on the lookout for days when it would be bad and no one would fall asleep happy (assuming i fell asleep at all). so i watched them love me, and i think when they did it so up close, so genuinely, something in my head clicked and i learned how to do it myself. i learned from them how to love me. during this whole time i kept up my lone wolf act, and i don’t know. i guess i figured that if they could love me, see my art, and still love me, then i was good enough for one person. and that’s all i’ve ever really wanted. so i started, slowly, to work with them. i gave it my all, and did not end up resenting them for anything we did together. somehow, it made our friendship stronger. so i auditioned for a poetry club. i took an art class and bathed in the joy of having other friends who were artists. i shared freely, with my safe group of humans. i got up on stage, with them and two other musicians, and made joyous noise in front of crowds.

somehow, it just felt good. i expected a sting. i flinched after every band meeting for days on end, but the blow never came. like reagan’s dad did to her, my dad convinced me through his behavior that my art was silly, not worth attention, not good enough for attention. Maybe if i sang as strong as rick springfield, I’d have a case for wanting his love and pride. Reagan shared that passion for invention and science with another kid, but Rand took it away, then convinced that other people aren’t worth it. then, that she wasn’t worth it.

four - the house reagan and rand used to share. i noticed that throughout the show it was pretty messy. I figured it was just part of Reagan’s deal, you know. Like she’s just kind of a messy person, mad scientist, whatever. And then I watched the finale, and when she kicked Rand out, and cleaned up his stuff, her house was actually... kinda clean? She must actually be a neat person. Not like, overwhelmingly so, but thinking about how organized her lab is: even though it looks messy, she never has trouble finding things and everyone seems to be able to navigate it easily. A lot of the clutter when Rand was sharing her house was literally just garbage... it must’ve been Rand who was so messy. and, as weird as it might sound, i think this is a common sign of abuse going on. To be clear, I’m not saying “a person who is messy in their living space is bound to be abusive to loved ones”. Cleanliness has be associated with moral superiority for far too long for my disabled ass. But, I can say from my own experience, abusive people do try to make things as hard as possible for you, especially if you don’t do what they want you to. And part of this could be being messy, dirty, not fixing things in the house because it takes a lot of work to clean up after a whole other person in addition to yourself. It makes everything twice as difficult. Someone who is already prone to or has mental illnesses will take this difficulty twice as hard, and eventually the garbage is going to pile up... much like it did in my house when my father was around, and like it did in Reagan’s.

i thought that was an interesting detail, whether i’m right or not. maybe it was even a metaphor, for how rand junks up reagan’s mental space.

i think that’s the entirety of what i noticed! this has been sitting in my drafts unpolished for like a week lol. hard to get up the nerve to share such a thing as was unspeakable for so long.