#flashbacks to the shoelace question

[ximeiii]

when i meet a cool person i’m like R U ON TUMBLR???

i never would have dreamt of doing such a thing in 2016

[derseprinceoftbd]

Okay, so:

I WAS FUCKING RIGHT ABOUT HER DAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not her mom, though, sadly; like, I think these books are just bad at villains? Like this is twice out of two a woman with the structural spot if the main villain has appeared where we've gotten teases enough to want to know of the *group* she's part of, but no knowledge of *her*. Also, they've both been kinda bland, *and* both had the body of Cytherea Loveday! I do hope we actually get some *context* for the both of them.

I wonder if Cytherea figured out the Cavaliers-may-live thing.

The Corona corpse still baffles me. I'm not misremembering that, there was definitely one on the spaceship, I swear.

Not willing to call Ianthe being dead. Willing to call Augustine as dead and John as alive, though.

I *know* we'll get some actual flashbacks to whatever the fuck *happened* in like 2060 or whatever in Nona.

*This time* I'm going to bet, again, on the Locked Tomb opening as the ending cliffhanger; I've picked up enough to know Gideon's blood will be involved. Hell, maybe Alecto will be "that girl" for Nona, and Alecto the book will be context for *her*. Hope not.

The Llama thing was the funniest joke so far, I swear.

*Either* Crux or Aiglamene will die. If *both* do, Drearburh(?) will go with them.

Pal will come back. If anyone lives (though I can't rule out the end of life itself as the series' conclusion), he and Cam will.

Given the Epilogue seemed to involve modern day, I promise that, somehow, we are going to get another scene that is very reminiscent of a paraTactician fic, and it'll probably be a Dersecest one. *Maybe* Vienna Game. *Probably* London Rain.

I think we've seen the last of the 4th, the 5th, and the 8th.

I'm also going to say it; I was wrong about the time travel. But who could blame me!

More memes will come, and if Ianthe does die, the last thing out of her mouth will be the most painful of all; maybe something about shoelaces, or a Dril quote.

The book will share three narrators; Gideon, Harrow, and whoever the *fuck* Nona is. The only safe bet is that she had the POV in the Epilogue.

The question "what does God fear" will continue to be crucial, but not yet answered.

And that's my predictions for Nona, and reactions to Harrow.

Harrow the Ninth predictions:

Gideon comes back in a body, travels back in time, meets the Emperor, gets a note wrote about her, and maybe meets her mom.

Her mom is someone we've met.

Crux is dead by chapter 4, possibly offscreen.

We meet "John", who is, I wanna say, Gideon's father?

Iantne manages to not die, infuriating me.

Silas leaves behind a Blink-esque tape detailing several major plot twists, and in it, manages to call exactly every single person who views it, while they are doing so, a massive twat, because Silas Is A Giant Git Who Is Right About Everything should be a universal constant.

Judith, or Marta, not 100% on who might have lived, manages to screw everyone over before dying for good.

The emperor makes very very clear that he could not possibly be beaten by less than four Lictors together.

We meet every other living Lictor in the present day.

Re; the head-sharing, a Piccolo joke is made. It will be shockingly subtle.

Someone will say "none houses with left grief". It will be The Worst.

We actually get Harrow's perspective on her parents' suicide. It is undercut after both die by a single, incredibly funny line.

The book ends on a cliffhanger with the opening of the Locked Tomb.

Dreirbe or however you spell it is revealed to be Pluto.

Edit: John is the Emperor, apparently, and has an Ayn Rand name. Oddly, not a spoiler, despite the obvious pun potential of "Who Is John Gaius". Not ruling out the idea of hin as father, actually; or, considering the roads I've gone down before, mother.

[sciencevillain]

I heard someone tell a joke that sounds exactly like a tumblr post, so I almost told them “I like your shoelaces”, but then I chickened out at the last second and said... “our shoelaces... match!?”

[fukurodianthus]

Cotton Candy Kisses

Synopsis: Let’s get one thing straight, confessions aren’t Ushijima Wakatoshi’s cup of tea, and the same goes for you when it comes to dealing with rejections. But then, your crackhead friends (who are done with watching two emotionally constipated fools pine for each other for two years) decide to take matters into their own hands. 

 Its a recipe for disaster, topped off with cherry coke and cotton candy.

Genre: Fluff, (a light sprinkle of angst thrown in), friends to lovers AU, mutual pining

Trigger warnings: Just a smol makeout scene lmao (not explicit), swearing(meanwhile, my mom: *disappointed brown parent noises*)

Pairing: Ushijima Wakatoshi x fem! reader

Word count: 3k+

Author’s note: I planned to release this on valentine’s day, but my exam schedule said “no❤️”. N E ways, didnt get time to proofread it, so excuse the painful amount of errors it may have. (More unnecessary rambles notes at the end!)

𝐈

“Toshi, Terushima asked me out on a date.”

“Terushima as in Terushima Yuuiji from Johzenji? The one with piercings?” Ushijima sat on the gym floor, busy tying his shoelaces.

“Yeah.”

He sat facing away from you, so you had no way of telling how well he was taking this news.

Not like it mattered anyway.

For the last two-years, you had kept dropping subtle hints that you liked him. Hell, if baking heart-shaped red-velvet cookies for him every valentine’s day hadn’t given him the slightest hint that your feelings for him weren’t exactly platonic, probably nothing could make the stoic ace aware of your feelings.

Unless you directly said it to his face.

Wakatoshi, I like you.

Four words. There were just these four words standing between Wakatoshi and your undeclared feelings. Four words could free you from the shackles of this unrequited love that had been weighing you down for the past two years.

But what was the point anyway? He’d reject you, just like he rejected Ririka. The Ririka Hirai, captain of the girls’ volleyball team, the ace who wielded magic in her hands. Let alone the guys from Shiratorizawa, even boys from other prefectures were totally whipped for her. He didn’t even bat an eyelid before a firm ‘No’ rolled off his lips. She hated crying in front of others, but the redness in her eyes and her swollen eyelids made it obvious that her spirit had been crushed by the rejection. Her previous outgoing, warm and friendly nature had vanished within a few seconds as she withdrew herself into her shell.

If this is what rejections did to people, then you were fine with being crushed under the weight of unrequited love. And you didn’t have a Semi Eita in your life like she had, so there wouldn’t be anybody to help you out of your wallowing self-pity.

Your mind wandered back to your interaction with her yesterday, how she had pulled you into the locker room, firm hands wrapped around your wrists with no intention of letting go. You were reminded of her disastrous plan, and how you’d stupidly agreed to go along with it.

𝐈𝐈

(𝟐 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐠𝐨)

“You love him, don’t you Y/N?” she asked you, cocking her head to her side as she twirled the green roots of het bubblegum colored hair. Why was she so oddly insistent on dying her hair like a meth-addicted oompa loompa? And the bigger question was, how the fuck did she look so good?

“I don’t know, Riri.” What did she expect to hear? How could you say that you weren’t half as brave as she’d been? You’d rather tend to the wounds that unrequited love caused than deal with the empty-black void of self-loathing, insecurities and embarrassment that rejection left behind.

“Y/N, I’m not a fool. I can see the way your eyes light up when he’s around.”

“So what? What the fuck should I do? Confess my feelings and get rejected? I’d rather wither under the weight of my undeclared feelings than have my soul crushed by a rejection from my best friend, thanks.” You knew you were wrong; you knew you should let go of these useless, painful feelings by confessing. Hearing him reject you would put the nail in the coffin of your one-sided love and you’d finally be free.

But you didn’t want to be free. Cowardice had this odd feeling of comfort attached to it, and you’d gotten used to it.

“Y/N, I’m not here to fight with you over a stupid himbo of a guy. It just hurts me to see you go through the same pain I had gone through. I’m just here to look out for you. I’ll give you my advice whether you want it or not, and its up to you if you’ll take it.”

You looked away. You knew that whatever she was going to say would probably make sense, she was such a smartass after all. She was never wrong, as much as you hated admitting it. Why was she such a good friend, why did she have to be so nice? It pissed you off.

“Ushijima is bad at this entire thing of love and friendships, its probably not big news to you, is it? His parents’ divorce ruined his faith in love.” She cleared her throat, trying to hide the tremble in her voice. “He doesn’t know how this entire thing of love and feelings work. Loving him is difficult, it’s like expecting an iceberg to provide you with warmth. But…” her voice trailed off.

“But what?”

“I think he likes you. He’s never looked at anyone the way he looks at you. He never saved a seat for me at lunch the way he does for you. He acts...weird around you.”

“That’s bullshit Riri, he does that stuff for me because I’m his team's manager, you know?”

“You’re just as dense as him. Perfect! You’d make a great couple” she giggled, fluttering her long, black lashes.

“Why did you confess to him if you thought he liked me?”

“Oh, I was coming to that. You see, I was a hundred percent sure he wouldn’t like me back, so I thought I might as well get these stupid feelings of my chest and move on, you know? It still hurt a lot for a few days, though. Rejections sucks, that’s nothing new. And I kind of liked Semi, so it felt like I was emotionally cheating on him if I still liked Ushijima. So, I finally confessed to him after getting rid of my feelings for Ushiwaka.” She pressed her lips together and looked away, a faint blush blossoming on her cheeks.

“You and Semi are…”

“We’re a thing now, yeah.”

“I’m so happy for you Ririka!” you practically squealed, squishing her reddened cheeks.

“We had a talk yesterday and we decided that we can no longer bear to see you two emotionally constipated dummies pining for each other anymore, so we’re taking matters into our own hands.”

“What?” Your stared at her with widened eyes, praying she didn’t come up with any stupid plans to make the situation worse.

“Do you know Terushima from Johzenji?”

“Yeah, kinda, that tongue-piercing dude with an undercut, right?”

“He’s my friend and he has agreed to helping us.”

“Oh hell no.”

“I don’t take no for an answer, I’m sorry. Babe, you can come out now.”

You choked on your own spit as you saw Semi climbing out of Ririka’s locker.

“How the fuck did you even fit him in there? Was he there the whole time? What made you think sneaking your boyfriend into the girl’s locker room was a good idea?”

“Honey, that’s too many unnecessary questions, I ain’t answering them. And there’s nobody around. So, I don’t think we’ll get in any trouble as long as you don’t snitch.”

“I’m not going to snitch.”

“That’s what I thought. Now babe, tell her about our plan.”

Semi went over with the details of their plan.

Needless to say, it was a recipe for disaster, you were sure of it.

Having an affinity for all things disastrous, you agreed to their plan.

*flashback ends*

𝐈𝐈𝐈

(𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐦𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭)

“Y/N, you there?” Ushijima was done with tying his shoelaces a while ago and now stood in front of you, his tall frame cowering over you.

You snapped out of your trance.

“Yeah, I was j-just busy thinking about some stuff.” You smoothed out your skirt and gripped your bag tightly, and looking down at your feet. You could feel his gaze on your face, but you couldn’t bring yourself to look him in the eye.

“Stuff as in…Terushima? Were you thinking about him?”

You were taken aback by his uncharacteristically direct question and looked into his eyes. His gaze flickered between your eyes and your lips; his brows furrowed together in…concern?

Your imagination must be getting better of you.

“Yeah, I was thinking about our date, tomorrow.”

His eyes seemed duller than usual, lacking its usual lustre.

“He doesn’t have a reputation for being loyal, you know.” His words seemed long-drawn, forced, painful. As if it physically hurt him to get these words to roll of his tongue.

He ran his fingers through his greasy olive-brown hair, his gaze still fixed on you. You became painfully aware of the silence in the empty gym room. Why was your heart beating so loudly? Was his heart beating just as loud?

His breath hitched as you stepped closer to him. You noticed the way his sweat-drenched shirt clung to his body, highlighting his well-built frame, the way his lips glistened when he licked his lips, the way his tousled hair stuck to his forehead. You almost brushed those stray strands off his face. Almost.

You spoke in a low tone, almost in a whisper. This moment seemed fragile, like treading on thin ice. It felt as if you both were in a trance and any loud noise would snap you back to reality. You wouldn’t mind being stuck in this trance for a few eternities. “Terushima is a player, a heartbreaker. You think I don’t know that? Maybe I just want to have my heart broken, Toshi. Isn't it better than loving someone who will never love me back?”

He stared at you with a blank, unreadable expression. You noticed how his adam’s apple bobbed up and down when he gulped, his neck and collarbones glistening with sweat.

He had no business being this hot, godamnit.          

“I just remembered, Coach Washijo wanted to have a talk with me-“ he took a step back, breaking eye contact with you.

“Coach Washijo is on a sick-leave for a week, Toshi.”

“Ah okay, right.” He turned on his heels and stormed out of the gym, the tips of his ears covered in a faint red glow.

How long will you keep running away Wakatoshi?

𝐈𝐕

(𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐧��𝐱𝐭 𝐝𝐚𝐲)

“Yeah, chocolate will be fine.”

Terushima handed you the ice-cream cone, flashing his iconic toothy grin at you.

This park of the amusement park was quieter and calmer than the other parts. You were seated on a bench beside a  mermaid shaped fountain. Behind you, far off in the distance was a Ferris wheel, lit up in pink and red neon lights, a classic decoration that was put up in this park every valentine’s day.

“Want anything else, babe?” He sat down beside you on the bench, wrapping his arms around your shoulders.

“Dude, you don’t have to put on such a show, you know? You don’t have to make it so realistic.”

He threw his head back and let out another one of his irritating laughs. It was pretty cute, even though you’d never admit it aloud.

“Y/N who said I’m pretending? When Riri asked me to take you out on a fake date to make lover boy Toshi jealous, I thought this would be a pretty good opportunity to score a date with a cute girl, it doesn’t matter if the date is fake or not.”

“You even bought a couple’s ticket, huh?”

“This amusement park has a special valentine’s day offer for couples, fifty percent off for each ride, aint that crazy? I was just saving my coins princess.”

“I swear to god, call me that one more time and you’ll find my foot up your ass-“

“Ooh, kinky!”

It physically hurt you to not punch him and wipe that cheesy grin off his face. “I can’t handle you Terushima-” You hungrily bit down on the ice-cream, gobbling it up in a matter of a few seconds.

Terushima's nose scrunched up in disgust. “The fuck Y/N, who bites ice-cream like that! Are you a caveman or something?"

“Aw babe, didn’t you know? I’m not like other girls.” You dramatically flicked a stand of your hair, as your pretentious, catty tone drew a chuckle from him.

“C’mon now, fake date or not lets a have a good time! I’m done sitting around on this bench, we’re in an amusement park for fuck’s sake Y/N!” He took his black leather jacket off, flinging it around his shoulders, his white shirt clung to his skin. He looked like a stereotypical bad boy out of a wattpad book written by a 16-year-old. You bit down the urge to make a sarcastic comment about his appearance.

“Get up now, you lazy butt.” He offered you a hand.

You slapped his hand away and stood up, brushing the small remnants of the ice-cream cone off your plaid yellow dress.

“Damn, you feisty.”

“Serves you right, pisshead.”

He was about to make a snarky retort when his eyes suddenly landed on someone standing in the crowd beside the ferris wheel. “Looks like lover boy is here.”

“You sure its him?”

“A hundred and twenty percent ma’am! Now go get your man!” He pressed a chaste kiss to your forehead before winking at you. “That’ll get him riled up enough.”

“You’re such a little shit-”

“Shut up, he’s coming here, go talk to him.”

You turned around on your heels to see Ushijima making his way towards you.

“Hey! What you doing here Toshi?” You tried putting on a surprised expression, but after seeing how Terushima snickered at you, you understood that you probably overdid it.

“Uhm, did I interrupt your d-date?” Ushijima looked painfully flustered. His eyes searched your face, looking for signs of annoyance or anger.

He was surprised at how happy you looked. Didn’t girls get annoyed when someone interrupted their dates? Ah, women, such complex creatures, all mysteries of the world seem irrelevant when compared to the mystery of a woman’s psyche.

“No, not at all! Do you want to tell me something?” You cocked you head and batted your eyelashes at him playfully.

But he remained silent, lips tightly pressed together as his eyes kept flickering between Terushima and you.

“Hey Yuuji, I’d like to talk to Toshi in private, maybe you could…you know-“

“Ah that was stupid of me! I’ll leave you two to yourselves. I’ll be at the Haunted Mansion if you need me, a friend of mine works there as a part time zombie.” He pointed finger guns at you and winked. "See ya later sweet cheeks!" You saw his silhouette fade into the distance.

It was only you and Ushijima now.

The golden glow from the setting sun and the faint pink lights from the faraway Ferris wheel illuminated his face in a rose-gold glow. He sported a red flannel shirt, more specifically the one you had bought for him while shopping with Tendou last summer.

He looked ethereal.

You cleared you throat. “Toshi? You wanted to tell me something, right?”

He looked started, unsure of himself. You looked at him with anticipation, your heart almost leaping out of your ribcage.

“Y/N, for the next match Yamagata will replace Akakura as the libero because he twisted his ankle in in the hallway today.”

Unbeknowst to you, Ririka and Semi hid behind an ice-cream truck in the distance, keeping an eye on you both. They could hear small excerpts of your conversation. So, when they heard Ushijima saying something about ‘match’ and ‘libero’, they let out frustrated groans. “That dense fucker messed up yet again.” they whispered under their breaths in unison.

Disappointment flashed across your face. Was he serious? How dense could a guy possibly be?

“You came this far, interrupted my date to tell me this, Toshi? You could just have messaged me, you know?” Your voice trembled, vision blurring with tears.

So much for love.

You felt stupid, you wanted to slap yourself across your face for being naïve enough to believe that Ushijima Wakatoshi could ever reciprocate your feelings.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

You started to walk away, wiping your eyes with the sleeves of your dress, when you felt a strong arm coil across you waist.

Wakatoshi pulled you close, and in an instant his lips were on yours. You didn’t spare a second thought before kissing him back, your lips hungrily melting into his. You grazed your tongue across his lower lip as he pushed you against the fountain, one hand placed on the small of your back pulling your body closer and the other under your dress, grazing your thigh. Your fingers aimlessly hovered over his chest before gently tugging him by the collar of his shirt.

When he finally pulled away, you both stared at each other, panting breathlessly, hair drenched from the light spray of water cascading down the fountain. The warmth of his lips still lingered on your mouth.

The sound of his voice snapped you out of your dreamlike trance. “Tendou and Semi told me that I wasn’t worthy enough of being Shiratorizawa’s ace if I chickened out of professing my feelings to the girl I’ve liked for two years. How could I sit back and watch that guy from Johzenji steal you away? I like you Y/N, and I'm tired of pretending that I don't."

You were about to respond when Semi’s voice rang out from behind the ice-cream truck.

“Oh my god Riri! Did you see that? They kissed! I’m so proud of my miracle boy-”

“Keep it down you dimwit, or they’ll hear us-“

You let out a soft chuckle and took Ushijima’s hand in yours. “Wouldn't it be very surprising if Semi and Riri suddenly popped out from behind that ice-cream truck, Toshi? But that's totally impossible right? Not like they'd ever eavesdrop on us-"

Semi and Ririka slowly made their way towards you, eyes downcast with guilt.

“We didn’t mean to intrude-” Semi started to explain.

“Shut your trap, you shitheads, we wouldn’t be together if it weren’t for you.” You chirped, drawing them into a tight embrace.

“What do you mean Y/N?” Ushijima stared at you, confused. You stifled a chuckle.

“Well, we actually made a plan…” Ririka started explaining.

After Semi, Ririka and you explained your entire scheme to him, he stared at you, confused, open mouthed.

“You could just have told me, you know? All this to get me jealous?”

“I was scared of getting rejected, Toshi.”

“I’d never reject you!”

“And how the fuck was I supposed to know that? You never showed any signs of recognition at my hints, how was I supposed to know you liked me? You huffed.

“Well, I suppose I…nevermind.”

“No, finish your sentence!”

“Would you like to ride the Ferris Wheel, Y/N?”

“Thought you’d never ask. But first, buy some cotton candy for your lady love.” He took his hand in yours, interlacing your fingers with his. "Anything for my girl."

𝐕

Ushijima’s lips softly grazed you neck, his hot breath fanning across your collarbones.

The soft pink light from the Ferris Wheel lit his face up.

Wiping a piece of leftover cotton candy from your lips, he suddenly asked, “Why do you love me, Y/N?”

You thought of the times he saved extra bento boxes for you after lunch when you refused to eat properly, how he’d stayed awake, sitting in your bedside chair, taking care of you as your body burned in fever, how he’d laugh at your stupid jokes even though they weren’t anything close to being funny, or how he’d show up at your door with cotton candy and cherry coke whenever you were under the weather.

You pressed your lips against his before whispering,

“What’s there to not love, Toshi?”

Author’s rambles notes pt. 2: Ririka Hirai isn’t a very well-known character, but I decided to add her anyways because the girl’s volleyball team characters deserve some love too! You can find more about her here (if it very isnt obvious already, I find her character absolutely adorable!)

N E ways, I hope you enjoyed reading this fic(which has absolutely 0 grammatical errors and i totally didnt write this while overdosing on an unhealthy amount of coffee at three in the morning)

Reblogs would be highly appreciated!

[katehuntington]

Title: In Bad Waters - part fifteen Word count: ±6250 words Episode summary: Still in possession of the Winchesters’ belongings, Zoë meets up with the hunters on her next case. When it turns out to be a little more complicated than anticipated, she accepts their help in order to make an important deadline. Part fifteen summary: The hunt is over, and Zoë and the brothers go separate ways. Episode warnings: Dark! NSFW, 18+ only! Descriptions of domestic violence/child abuse. Drug use/addiction. Angst, gore, violence, character death. Description of blood, injury and medical procedures/resuscitation. Swearing, alcoholism. Supernatural creatures/entities, mentions of demon possession. Descriptions of torture and murder, drowning. Illegal/criminal practices. Mentions of nightmares and flashbacks. Author’s note: Beta’d by @winchest09​ and @deanwanddamons​. Also a deep bow to @fangirl-and-medstudent-help​​ who was very patient with me when I asked about a hundred medical questions. Thanks, girls!

Supernatural: The Sullivan Series Masterlist

S1E02 “In Bad Waters” Masterlist

     The lights of the suite switch on when Zoë slips the keycard in its holder by the door. After the assault she suffered earlier today, the Hampton Inn hotel management provided her with a bigger and better accommodation. Although she doesn’t plan to spend another night in Paragould, she took the generous offer.      Dean enters the spacious room as well, Sam following close behind, in case his brother needs assistance. It bugs the hell out of the older sibling, who has grumpily told him that he’s fine a couple of times already. Yet, he allows the hovering, because honestly; he doesn’t feel so fresh.

     On the way over, Zoë told him to lose the soaked shirt, which contradicted Dean’s instincts, because he has never felt this cold in his entire life, despite the heaters blowing air into the Chevy at level inferno. Even now, he can’t stop himself from shivering, his teeth clattering every now and then, despite his favorite leather coat that he’s wearing, the only clothing item that didn’t get drenched.

     Exhausted, he plops down on the kingsize bed, to out of it to comment on the luxurious suite. Closing his eyes for a second, he rubs his forehead, trying to rid himself from the throbbing inside his skull. He coughs again, the involuntary action burning his lungs. It’s a painful yet ironic sensation, because he didn’t expect to feel like his airway is on fire after drowning in a fucking lake.

     “Get out of those wet clothes, Dean,” Zoë tells him sternly, nodding at his jeans while slipping her Harley Davidson jacket on a coat hanger. “We need to warm you up.”

     Normally, he would have had at least three sly remarks ready, but not this time. Instead, he nods with a sniff, bending down to untie his shoelaces with shaky fingers. Sam drops one of their duffel bags on the other side of the bed, pulling out a clean pair of jeans, one of Dean’s henley’s, a hoodie, socks and underwear.      “I’m gonna take a shower first,” Dean says, pulling off his soaked boots.

     “Absolutely fucking not,” Zoë intervenes, setting up her extensive medical kit on the nightstand. “I made quite an effort to bring you back to life, so it would be an awful waste of my time if you go into shock and die on the bathroom floor.”      Sam raises his eyebrows at that, much like Dean, who lets his hand slip from his face.      “How else am I gonna get warm, ‘cause I’m fucking freezing,” he returns, his voice still hoarse.      “By raising your temperature slowly. Sam, can you grab a towel and fill that hot water bottle we got from the front desk? And get the extra comforters from the other bed.”

     While the younger Winchester goes to collect the required items, Zoë opens the lid and takes out an ear thermometer from the metal briefcase, placing a clean probe tip on the end while she sits down next to the battered hunter. Dean flinches away from her when she cups his face firmly to hold him in place, earning an annoyed glare from the former med student.      “Would you like me to use the regular one? Because I’ll give you one guess where I’d have to stick that. Now, sit still,” she orders, pulling his ear back to insert the device into his ear canal.      “Jesus, you’re not the one for bedside manners, are you?” Dean mutters, but cooperates either way.

     Zoë doesn’t respond, waiting for the thermometer to beep. She retreats it when it does exactly that and reads the display. “You’re at 95.2.”      “That low?” he says, unpleasantly surprised.      She nods, placing the small device on the side table. “That’s what happens when your main generator loses power. The central heating shuts down real quick when your heart stops beating.”

     Dean sniffles, very much aware of the fluid that is still creeping up his throat. He fights the urge to cough again and clears his throat uncomfortably, when Sam returns with the hot water bottle under his arm, white towels with the Hampton Inn logo on them in one hand and two thick duvets in the other.      “Dry yourself off and put on something warm, then wrap yourself in these.” She takes the comforter and lays it on the bed next to the older Winchester, before folding the water bottle in one of the towels. “Here, keep this close to you. Don’t lay down and don’t fall asleep,” she warns. “I’m gonna freshen up.”

     She gets up and muffles a grunt behind gritted teeth, her cracked ribs once again reminding the huntress of her current fragile state. Adrenaline pushed down the pain in the midst of action, but now that the dust has settled, it’s back at full force. Picking up her bag on the way, she heads to the spacious bathroom, locking the door behind her. Not really ready for the sight, she peels her wet top from her skin while she stands in front of the nine ft. wide mirror. Dark bruises greet her when she discards the tank top, her bra following suit. They match the colorful display on her right cheekbone and the black and blue fingerprints on her neck.

     “Wonderful,” she muddles, continuing to strip down, the soaked through fabric smacking against the nature stone tiles. She has no idea how she’s gonna ride all the way up to the Canadian border with an injury like this, but she doesn’t have a choice. Time isn’t exactly on her side.

     After a shower, Zoë runs a towel over her head and blow-dries her brown locks quickly. Usually, she allows her curls to dry naturally, but wearing a helmet on wet hair is anything but pleasant, not to mention that she will have to deal with a fogged up visor throughout most of the trip.

     She puts on clean underwear and hoists her leather biker pants up her legs, cursing under her breath at the ache that sears through her side with even the slightest movement. Something needs to be done, because she won’t last an hour on the Harley. Before she steps outside the bathroom, she secures her bra clasps. Not bothered to put on her top just yet, she pops her head from behind the door.      “Sam?”      The tall young guy looks up and for a second she wonders if he can actually see her through the fringe of brown damp locks.      “Can you grab me some KT tape from my med kit?” she asks, nodding at the briefcase next to Dean, who is huddled up in the exact spot where she left him, wrapped in the thick comforters.      “Sure,” Sam obliges, getting up. After rummaging for a few seconds, he finds what he’s looking for and turns to the bathroom to hand it over, but apparently she has different ideas.      “Get in,” she tells him.

     Perplexed, but not brave enough to hesitate and give her a reason to scold at him, he enters the large room, which could easily be considered a mini spa. A large jacuzzi is situated in the corner, a walk-in shower next to it. There’s even a sauna, the wooden benches shielded off by a glass wall. It’s nothing like the shabby motel rooms he and Dean usually coop up in. His admiration for the luxury comes to a sudden stop when his absent gaze lands on Zoë. Like a virgin teenager who walked in on his friend’s older sister, he stares at her for a short second, eyes wide and blown away. Shit, she’s not wearing a shirt.

     “Done gaping?” she responds, bored, placing her hand firmly in her unharmed side. “I need to tape my side and I can’t reach properly.”      Feeling caught, he shifts his attention to the KT tape in his hand. “Uh… y-yeah, sure,” he stammers, fiddling to open the package.      Rolling her eyes, she snatches the small box from his hands and opens it. “I swear to God, Sam, get yourself together. You’ve seen me in less.”

     Uncomfortably, the younger Winchester runs his fingers through his hair. Why is he being so awkward? Or maybe the better question is; why can’t he keep his eyes off her? He tries his best not to stare, but when he does, he notices the dark bruises on her ribs.      “Damn it, Zo. She got you good,” he huffs, worry replacing the uneasiness.      “It’s not that bad. I just need to secure it before I hit the road,” the tough woman mutters, peeling the plastic away from the sticky coating. She turns her back to Sam, moving her brown wavy hair over her left shoulder and out of the way. “You need to place the first strip diagonally and downward, starting from just below the scapula. You might need to lift my bra a little.”

     Somewhat nervous, the thoughtful guy rubs his hands together first, not wanting his touch to be cold. After handing him the medical tape, she lifts her right arm, hissing at the stretch.      “Right here?” he asks, lifting the wing of her lace bra, before sticking one end of the strip right below her shoulder blade.      She nods, breathing out a shuddering breath. “Yeah.”

     Sam handles her gently, the pads of his fingers not as rough as she expected hunter’s hands to be. In silence he works, focussed on his task. Zoë watches him in the mirror, a small smile of amusement pulling at the corners of her mouth, despite the discomfort. His eyebrows are knitted together in concentration, hazel eyes tracing her bruised form. After a few more instructions, he secures the second strip with the same precision. Zoë can’t deny nor ignore the current that his touch sends through her body, and it has her intrigued.

     “One more. Vertical along my side,” she says, her voice softer than she has spoken to him all evening.      The younger Winchester tries not to gulp visibly, holding the enchanting woman still, while he smoothens the final strip down her bruised rib cage. He’s careful to prevent pressure on the sensitive area, not wanting to hurt her, but she shivers anyway. When he directs his gaze on her in their reflection, Sam notices it’s not pain that has her shuddering, because her challenging eyes tell a different story. They behold a hint of curiosity, interest... lust even.

     Not sure how to cope with the tension that hangs in the air, he clears his throat and lets his finger slip from her beautifully toned and proportioned body, averting his eyes from the mirror.      “I’m - uh - I’ll let you get dressed,” he stutters, awkwardly pointing his thumb over his shoulder before he heads to the door.      “I’ll be right out,” she promises, picking a clean shirt from her bag.

Zoë watches him leave, smirking at his behavior. He really doesn’t know how to act around her, and it’s highly entertaining. There is a definite pull she experiences towards him, an attraction that she can’t quite place, but it’s not something she can dwell on. This case will be the last one they worked together and tonight will be the last time she ever sees him. But before they go separate ways, she needs to give his brother a thorough check up, even though she doesn’t like his company half as much as Sam’s. Suck it up, Zo. You’ve got work to do.

     Refreshed and dressed, she enters the master suite again, Dean still on the side of the bed, wrapped up in comforters like a burrito. Zoë’s plump lips press together in a thin line, because now is not the moment to make fun of the hunter, who without a doubt feels miserable.

     “Alright, let’s give you your physical exam so I can hit the road, huh?” she suggests, sitting down next to the older Winchester brother, taking her stethoscope from her briefcase and hanging it around her neck, after which she picks up a blood pressure gauge as well. “Stretch out your right arm.”

     He shrugs the heavy comforter off his bare shoulders, silently obeying his physician’s orders. Again, Dean misses the perfect opportunity for a dirty comeback, and it doesn’t go unnoticed. Although Zoë hasn’t known him for long, she did pick up on his usual demeanor, lightening the mood with a witty comment and some dark humor. Now, the joker is awfully quiet.

     “Y’know, you guys can have the room for the night,” she offers. “It’s paid for anyway.”      “Nah, I feel fine. Besides, if we don’t leave tonight, we’re gonna be late for our wolf hunt,” Dean replies, watching her strap the cuff around his upper arm.      Sam leans against the wall, observing the skilled woman as well. He hates to admit it, but Dean has a point. “He’s right. Today was the first night of a full moon, we won’t have much time if we stay any longer.”      “I’m just saying it might not be a bad idea to rest up,” Zoë points out, squeezing the rubber pump that’s attached to the cuff, filling it with air until circulation is cut off. “But you two kamikaze morons do what you gotta do.”      Sam scoffs at that. “You’re one to talk.”

     Her head cocks in his direction, staring him down intimidatingly, but Sam doesn’t budge and arches one eyebrow at her knowingly. His attitude annoys Zoë, and yet she doesn’t bite his head off. If circumstances were any different, she would have gladly spent at least the night in this luxurious suite and added several more, but she simply can’t. Wanting to avoid the reasoning behind her departure by all costs, she drops the matter.

     Instead, she pulls the stethoscope from behind her neck, widens the headset and places the tips in her ears. She then continues to place the diaphragm just above the crease of the elbow, while allowing the cuff to deflate. Blood begins to flow through the brachial artery again, causing a beat to thud against Zoë’s eardrums, and she reads the systolic pressure on the meter. Once the blood vessels remain open and the pounding sound stops, the closest what the Winchesters have to a doctor reads the meter again.

     “Your BP is 125 over 80. For a guy who lives off gas station food, pizza and burgers, that’s pretty damn healthy,” she comments, hooking the stethoscope around her neck again.      “Great. So can I go now?” Dean is about to rise up from the bed, but Zoë  grips him on the junction between his neck and his shoulder, pushing him down to sit on the bed again.      “Did I say I was done?” she snaps back at him.

     Dean bites his tongue when he feels her nails dig into his shoulder. He wants to yelp and call her names, yet he doesn’t, because Sam shoots him a warning glare. He argues with his little brother in silence, the younger sibling’s wide eyes sending death threats when Dean’s upper lip twitches while hinting at the woman who currently has a tight hold on him. He then shakes his head and gives in, too tired to have this discussion.

     Zoë ignores the tension all together. “Well, if you aren’t gonna stay, do you mind starting to load up the car, Sam? I wanna check out as soon as I’m done here,” Zoë states, giving him something else to do other than lurking over her shoulder.      “Sure,” the tall hunter says, and begins to gather their things, including the wet clothes Dean discarded earlier.

     When Sam has left, the tough Winchester drops his head, blinking a couple of times, clearly not feeling his best. Zoë monitors him closely; she had a hunch he was keeping up appearance in order not to worry his sibling.      “So now that your brother is out of the room, how are you really feeling?” she asks, removing the cuff from Dean’s arm. “And cut the bullshit. No one expects you to feel fine after flatlining.”

     The hunter looks up at her from under heavy eyelids, trying to figure out what her intentions are. He assumes she’s asking to determine further medical action, and so he drops the act.      “I - uh… I feel off, man,” he admits, pinching the bridge of his nose again.      “Headache?” she wonders, storing the sphygmomanometer away.      He nods, swallowing hard.      “Let me guess; you’re experiencing dizziness, decreased muscle strength, and feel like you could sleep for a week?” Zoë fills in for him.      “Sounds about right,” Dean sighs.

     Zoë puts in the ear tips of her stethoscope again in order to examine his heart, holding the bell between her second and third digit. She places the diaphragm on the right of the sternum, tracing his ribs under her fingertips to determine the right spot in order to hear the aortic valve. A stillness falls over the two, as Zoë concentrates to dissect the sound of Dean’s steady heartbeat, her other hand still holding him by the shoulder, her touch much more gentle this time around.

     Not wanting to disturb her focus, the older Winchester brother allows his gaze to wander, spending this rare moment without them yelling at each other to admire her. Whenever the tough as nails huntress boils his blood, he tends to only see the ugly side of Zoë Sullivan, but right here in this peaceful serenity, her beauty stuns him. Her face is slightly turned away, the profile of her sharp jawline and slightly upward pointed nose brought out by the warm light on the nightstand. She’s close enough for him to smell the coconut shampoo lingering in her freshly washed hair. Only now does he realize that his shivering has stilled, but he’s not sure if it actually has to do with his body temperature steadily going up, or that her soft touch is what calms his tremors. He’s not used to kind contact, a hand on his shoulder, a sweet ruffle through his hair like his mother used to do, but deep down, he craves it.

     When she shifts the bell of her stethoscope to the left side of his chest, Dean glances to her hand still gently gripping his tattooed arm, which is decorated with a short sleeve that fans out over his shoulder blade. Shades of black display what he stands for, symbols and sigils mixed with personal references to his life and the people who mean the world to him. He only now realizes she has been studying the piece of art forever edged in his skin, while she was listening to his heart.

     When Zoë is sure the pulmonic valve of Dean’s heart sounds normal as well, she slides the bell of her stethoscope to listen for the heart sounds on the right, but when the hunter flinches under her touch, her eyes dart up at his. “That hurts?”      “A bit. It’s fine,” he claims, shifting somewhat on the edge of the bed.      “Sure I didn’t break a rib?” she ponders, feeling the tender area in the center of his chest, where the first stage of a bruise is surfacing. “I worked your chest pretty hard.”

     Dean looks up at her, perplexed, as if it only now dawns on him what lengths Zoë went to save his life. She performed CPR on him, used all her capabilities to bring him back from the infinite darkness that was about to swallow him whole. Capabilities Sam doesn’t have, simply because he’s not trained to give medical aid. It hits Dean like lightning; if she hadn’t been there, he would have died.

     “Zo?”      The huntress shifts her attention from the sound of the mitral valve opening and closing, to her patient’s genuine eyes. The twenty-six year old tough guy seems that much younger all of a sudden, not sure how to get across what he wants to say.      “You - uh... If it wasn’t for you, I… y’know--”      “Don’t mention it.”

     Dean carefully glances up at her, meeting a small smile. A silent huff leaves his lips when he realizes she just returned his own words to him. Words he spoke in response to the huntress, when she tried to express gratitude for his rescue, earlier this afternoon.     “Well then, guess we’re square,” he comments. “Too bad I wasn’t conscious for the mouth-to-mouth action.”      “Ah, there he is. I was wondering when you were gonna feel good enough to start behaving like a jackass,” Zoë sniggers. “Your heart sounds fine, I’m gonna check your lungs now. Take slow breaths, okay?”

     With an amused smile on his lips, Dean does as told. Concentrating, the woman who would have aced med school listens to his respiration, using the stethoscope as an amplifier. Like she was taught, she starts at the left upper zone, then the right, comparing the two sides, before she moves down.      “Can you inhale a little deeper for me?” she requests.

     The hunter pulls in a big breath through his mouth, the action igniting a fire in his chest, similar to the time when he was a teenager, when he had a neglected cold that turned into something worse. He tries to fight another hacking fit, but loses the battle, quickly turning his head away from Zoë and coughs violently. When he settles, she continues the examination.      “Pain?” she wonders, although she has an idea what the answer might be.      “Burns,” he manages to say, his voice hoarse.      “Try again, take it easy this time,” Zoë encourages.

     After moving the diaphragm across her patient’s bare chest, she removes the medical instrument and takes a seat on the side of the bed as well, placing the bell on his back now. Staring at nothing in particular, she lets the sense of hearing take over completely. Brown eyes slightly shift from left to right, narrowing at a certain point.      “What?” Dean wonders, noticing a hint of discontent in her expression.      “Your lung sounds are a little faint; you still got some fluid in there,” the huntress explains, putting her stethoscope away. “It should clear by itself, your blood will absorb it, but if that cough gets worse, you're gonna need to see a real doctor.”      “You seem like a real doc to me,” he shrugs, covering the compliment by clearing his throat. “Haven’t had a check up in years.”

     Zoë casts her gaze down, appreciating the words, but unable to thank him for it. “Let’s keep it that way. Take these.”      She takes a small plastic bottle from her briefcase, a prescription on the side. “With the swamp water you took in, you’re likely to develop pneumonia without antibiotics. Take two tonight. The coming days, one in the morning, one in the evening, never on an empty stomach, until the bottle is empty, alright? If it hurts, you can take Ibuprofen, but don’t go over the maximum dosage. You want me to pack you some?”

     Somewhat stunned, Dean nods and takes the bottle between his index finger and his thumb. The doctor role Zoë is fulfilling right now, brings out an attentive and empathetic side of her, which he hasn’t seen yet to this extent. His injuries aren’t downgraded, he’s not told to man up and keep going, like his father so oftenly does when he suffered an injury on a hunt. He’s not used to this kind of care, but he values it.

“Thanks.”

The simple word that falls from his lips in a whisper has Zoë shift her eyes to him in surprise. She clearly wasn’t expecting a ‘thank you’, but doesn’t call him out on the sentiment. Her smile grows a little wider and for the first time since their reunion, Dean sees the innocent Californian surf girl he remembered from back in the days.

     The huntress takes out the thermometer one last time, inserting it in his ear. He doesn’t move away this time, but slightly leans into her. The device beeps and she pulls it back.      “96.8; you’re getting there. If you want you can take a shower now, just not too hot.” She removes the tip and gets up, throwing it in the trash can. “You’re all set.”      “Alright,” he says, putting the water bottle aside and picking up a towel and his clothes.

     He retreats to the bathroom and appreciates the spacious rain shower, and returns to the main suite, dressed in a warm hoody and dry jeans.      His brother is back as well. “Ready to hit the road?”      Dean nods, putting on his leather coat and straightening the collar. “Let’s go.”

     The three hunters check out and walk out towards the parking lot five minutes later. The Impala is parked in front of the building across from Linwood Cemetery, the black paint job shimmering beautifully in the pale moonlight. Zoë approaches her bike, carrying a saddle bag over her shoulder and her helmet in the other hand, as the boys walk over to their car. Instinctively, Dean moves around to the left side of the car, but Zoë stops him.      “You’re not driving,” she decides, as if it’s her call to make. “Unless you wanna be a road hazard.”      “Oh, c’mon,” the owner of the car complains, redirecting a glare from the woman in their company to Sam, who is waiting for the keys with a smirk. After rolling his eyes, he tosses his brother the keys and drags his feet to the passenger side.      “Sleep upright for a night or two,” the med student suggests.      “Why the hell would I do that?” Dean returns, puzzled.      “Because I reckon you don’t want to suffocate during the night.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “It’s called secondary drowning, asshat.”      Dean scoffs. “That’s a thing?”      Zoë chuckles at his obliviousness. “That’s a thing.”      “Noted,” Dean says, shoving down his warm jacket coat.

     “You made your deadline,” Sam reminds her, leaning his arms on the hardtop while looking over as she checks the time.      “Not yet, but at least I’ll make it in time for the big show,” she smiles faintly. “What about you two? Texas?”      “Yep, Waco,” Sam specifies.      Zoë nods. The Winchesters can tell from her reaction that she knows the place.      “When you’re in town, stop by at Honeybee Ham & Deli. I tell ya, their ham and turkey is awesome,” Zoë recommends.      Dean smiles happy as he pictures the plate full of juicy meat. “Will do.”      “What about you?” the younger sibling wonders.      Zoë climbs in the saddle of her Road King, which faces the two men. She doesn’t put her helmet on just yet, though. Her small smile disappears when she’s confronted with what’s coming. “I’m going up north,” she answers vaguely.

     A silence follows and Dean glances at Sam over the top of his car. They can both sense that something’s up.      “If you need a hand--” Sam starts carefully.      “No, I don’t. Really guys, you need to stay out of this one. It’s not your fight,” Zoë says, stern.      “Complicated case?” Dean comments.      “It’s just something I need to take care of. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the help you gave me here, but this is personal business,” she answers, looking from one to the other. “Whatever you do, don’t follow me.”      “We have our own personal business to take care of,” Sam assures.      “Your Dad?” the huntress assumes.      “We want to find him. He’s probably after that thing that killed Mom and Jess by himself,” Sam states, determined.

     For a moment Dean observes his brother, aware of the strong mindedness in his voice. He could fight him. Hell, he can start an argument with him right now, but what would it matter? Sam isn’t easily convinced otherwise, not when it comes to this. He wants to find Dad and kill whatever brought so much misery upon them so desperately, that it’s becoming an obsession. When he returns his gaze Zoë, he’s caught off guard by her, who stares directly at him. She has been reading him all this time.      “Seems like you do have your own personal business to take care off,” she states wisely, hanging her helmet on the handlebar.

     “Sure you can ride?” Dean checks with her.      Zoë glances at him, but he isn’t mocking her, the oldest Winchester son actually has a solid point. She doesn’t feel great at all. Her head is still throbbing from the blow she took during her physical fight with Laura; she probably suffered a mild concussion. A 520 mile bike ride isn’t going to improve the ache in her bones either. She would love to go back into the Hampton Inn and get some sleep, which she normally does after an exhausting hunt. This time things are different, there’s just too little time.      “I don’t have much of a choice,” she sighs. “I should get going.”      “Be careful,” Sam offers.      Zoë only responds with a smile and looks down at her biker boots. It’s funny, all this time she has been fighting the Winchester boys, but now that she’s about to leave, she’s lingering.

     “I hope you’ll find John,” she says out of the blue.      Surprised, the brothers take her in. Where did that come from? The huntress notices the surprise on their faces, because she continues to explain herself.      “He’s your father. I know he can be a pain, but he’s family. Treasure that as long as you can.”

     Sam watches Dean nod agreeing, and he too realizes that she’s right. The last time he saw his father, they had a huge argument. Ever since, he has been afraid that he might never see his dad again, that he will never get the chance to say he’s sorry. That’s what he is, because he regrets yelling at him, he regrets picking a fight. He knows he’s not the only one to blame, but he bailed on both his brother and his father and chose his own path. He stands by that decision still, but he does realize how much his actions hurt them. The youngest Winchester is done fighting his Dad, he just wants to make sure he’s alright. Zoë knows loss. She lost her father in an unforgivable and certainly unforgettable manner. It’s that fact that makes both Dean and Sam understand that these wise words are coming straight from the heart.

     The huntress looks at them with a calm expression on her face, a satisfied one, and yet a glint of sadness is noticeable in her eyes. She doesn’t expect to see them ever again. Not wanting to wait until the goodbye becomes sentimental, Zoë kicks the ignition, the characteristic Harley Davidson rumbling loud in the night.      Before she can put on her helmet, Dean calls out for her. “See you around.”

     As he watches her response, Zoë keeps quiet. Not likely, she realizes, not pronouncing the words out loud. She gives them a last nod, pulls the helmet over her head, turns the throttle, and with a loud roar her Harley hits the highway. The  brothers watch the single red taillight get smaller, then she disappears out of sight. Silently, they stare at the road ahead, both thinking about what she just said. Sam is the first one to reply to it.

     “Did she just… say goodbye?” he checks, making sure he didn’t just interpret her words wrong.      Dean doesn’t respond and forks his fingers together while leaning his forearms on top of the car. Pondering, he stares down the street.      “As in… for good?” Sam adds.

     He glances at his older sibling, who opens his car door. Sam takes his example and settles in the driver’s seat. Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac sounds from the speakers as soon as the younger Winchester turns the key in the ignition.      “Are we going after her?” Sam wants to know, before he drives off.      “No,” Dean responds, annoyed by the fact that for a split second, he was thinking about it himself. “She’s a big girl, Sam. She can take care of herself.”      “That’s what you said last time,” his sibling bounces back.      “That was just bad luck. It’s not our job to protect fellow hunters, it’s our job to protect innocents,” Dean brings to mind.      “If Zoë's in trouble, she's innocent.”      “Believe me, Sam. I believe Zoë is everything but innocent,” the oldest of the two disagrees.

“I don't know, man. I think she’s after something big, or something big is after her,” Sam sighs, staring through the windshield in the direction where Zoë vanished just moments ago.      “So she’s onto a big fish,” Dean returns nonchalantly. “If she needs our help, she’ll call.”      The driver scoffs. “No, she won’t.”      Dean glances aside and observes his brother for a moment, confused by his brother’s motives. “I thought you were so determined to find Dad?”      “I am,” Same confirms.      “Then why the fuck do you care so much for some girl? We have better things to do. There’s a werewolf on the loose last time we checked and I don’t see why we should be bothering ourselves tracking down a hunter who’s fine on her own and is not keen on our company,” Dean rambles annoyed, after which he quotes her. ‘Whatever you do, do not follow me’. Her words, dude.”

     Sam gives in with a huff; maybe he’s right. Zoë made it pretty clear that she doesn’t want them on her tail. Maybe they should just let her be. But deep inside he feels it eating at him. His gut tells him that something bad is going to happen to her. Contemplating on the choice, he stares ahead.      “Seriously, if you want me to believe that you don’t have a major crush on her, you’ll have to do better than this.” Dean’s brows are raised as he looks aside.

     His younger brother glares at him, but decides not to respond. Dean is making fun of it, but he’s not sure himself how he feels about Zoë. She’s such a mysterious girl, with a dark sense of humor and a peculiar personality. She’s fierce, rapid on the counter, sarcastic, confident, smart. An amazing huntress with a big heart, even though she might act like she couldn’t care less. He can’t help but to be curious about her. Why? He can’t put his finger on it. There’s a connection between them, if they like it or not.

     Sam decides to change the subject, determining their new destination. “So? Waco then?”      “Waco it is,” Dean agrees.      Sam turns the Impala around, when they hear a strange clunk coming from the back of the car as he drives over a speed bump while exiting the parking lot of the Hampton Inn. Uh-oh, he realizes, assuming his brother heard it too.      “What is that?” Dean says out loud, looking over his shoulder. “Did you close the trunk? Stop the car.”

     Sam does as told and in the middle of the exit, Dean gets out. Sam stares in his back mirror, waiting for the inevitable. He already noticed the damage when loading up the car, but didn’t have the courage to tell the person who loves the Impala so dearly. That, and he wanted to give Zoë a head start. When he rolls down the window and pokes his head out, he sees Dean, boiling in rage.            “What’s going on?” Sam asks, pretending to be unaware.      He gets out and joins his brother, beholding the back of the Impala. The paint of the trunk is scratched, leaving the Chevrolet damaged by the shovel that Zoë used as leverage to break open the trunk. For a moment, Sam just stares at the car without saying a word. Dean, on the other hand, grits his teeth so hard that his brother can hear them grinding. His face looks like a volcano that is about to erupt as he clenches his fists, trying to contain his anger.

     “Insulting Baby is one thing, but this -” Dean hisses furiously, ���this is unforgivable. I’m gonna kill her, I am so gonna fucking kill her!”      “Calm down,” Sam tries to ease him.      “Calm down?!  She fucked up MY CAR!!!” he shouts as he turns red.

     He slams the trunk and pushes it down hard, but it doesn’t lock as it should. Then he strides back to the front and gets in on the passenger side again. Quickly, Sam sits down behind the wheel, not wanting to piss him off even more. Dean is about to detonate; one wrong move, comment or facial expression and he will explode.            “Get the fuck going,” the owner of the classic car growls, squeezing the blood out of his hands around his cellphone, tempted to call perpertrator.      Sam gulps, surprised that the device doesn’t break in half, and uncomfortably leans back before he hits the gas. The day that Dean got this car from Dad, he learned a very important lesson; if you mess with the Impala, you mess with Dean.

     “For the record,” the older Winchester starts off. “This isn’t the last time we will see Sullivan.”      “It isn’t?” Sam carefully questions.      “Oh, we’ll see her again,” he snaps. “And I’m gonna kick her fine little ass when that time comes.”

      Poor Zoë, Sam can’t help but to think. She’s probably laughing that same fine little ass off right at this very moment, as Dean so poetically described it. A part of him hopes they will indeed never run into her again, because she is going to feel his brother’s wrath. What are the odds anyway? America is a big country; she is only one of over 320 million people in this nation. Sam glances ahead into the dark night and grins, because something tells him that their paths will collide again. Maybe even sooner than expected.

Well, that’s it! Episode 2 is wrapped up, now on to the next one. 

Thank you for reading. I appreciate every single one of you, but if you do want to give me some extra love, you are free to like or reblog my work, shoot me a message or buy me coffee (Link to Kofi in bio at the top of the page).

[onechicago-upsteadrhekker]

Finally!!!!!! I’m posting another prompt fic❤️ I know it’s taking me a while but I am working through them so I promise, if you requested one, it’s coming!! I really liked coming up with this idea so I hope you enjoy it!

@randers198 requested #67 “Don’t look at me like that.”

*title comes from Sleeping At Last’s song January White*

the future is brighter than any flashback

It had been an hour since Hailey and Jay had been in the damp, empty basement and as far as kidnapping experiences went, this one so far hadn’t been bad. They were both fairly unhurt, the basement floor looked to be somewhat clean and they had been left alone which was nice and frankly, they were getting kind of bored. 

Or at least tired of waiting for something to happen.

It was the most uneventful experience Jay had ever had in being a captive and while he wasn’t knocking that, he had been kicking himself for even getting into this situation in the first place. 

He and Hailey had been undercover with this new up and coming gang. All its members were fairly young and clearly inexperienced but Intelligence had it on good authority that there was a silent leader who was pulling the strings and putting dangerous ideas in their heads so they were trying to figure out who it was.

Everything had been going smoothly and he and Hailey had managed to work themselves into the gang’s group of friends but for reasons unknown to them, things between the boys seemed to grow tense and then apparently one of the boys thought that Hailey was smuggling information to a rival gang. 

And to be fair she had been smuggling information just not to a rival gang. 

One thing led to another and as soon as Jay thought it was getting a little out of hand, he’d jumped in which made the boys even more antsy and then the next thing they knew, they were being forced into a van and then kicked into this windowless basement which was dead bolted from the outside.

Now Jay was fairly confident he could have taken all of their captors, they were really just kids after all, but they’d had guns and they were visibly scared and nervous and Jay hadn’t wanted to risk it with Hailey there. He knew she could hold her own but one of the boys had a gun to her head so Jay wasn’t going to take any chances. He knew they could bide their time and find a better opening to escape or wait for the team to come rescue them.

And so far that was their plan. The gang of boys still had no idea that they were cops which worked to their advantage because they were left untied and unharmed which meant the boys were either stupid or didn’t think they posed a threat or both.

And now they were just waiting.

They sat next to each other on the hard floor, their backs resting against the wall and their shoulders brushing, both of them staring aimlessly at the locked steel door a few feet in front of them.

Hailey let out a sigh, letting her head fall back to rest against the wall, “I can’t believe we got kidnapped by a bunch of teenage boys.”

“Teenage boys with guns,” Jay glanced at her. If it weren’t for the guns they would have never been taken in first place; he and Hailey could have definitely  been able to take them if it weren’t for the jumpy boys with guns.

They sat in silence a few more minuets before Jay lazily motioned to the door, “I mean I guess we could try the door again.”

Hailey drew her legs up to cross in front of her, resting her elbow on one of her knees, “I don’t think it’ll work just like it didn’t work the past ten times we tried it.”

“Yeah but it’s better than just sitting here,” Jay lamented grouchily and Hailey had to refrain at rolling her eyes at his impatience.

“No Jay. We’re gonna sit here and wait for our team.” She played with her shoelaces, propping her head against her hand, “I’m sure they’re close at locating us. The boys couldn’t have been that good at evading them. They don’t even know we’re cops.”

“I hate just sitting and waiting,” He grumbled, looking around, “I mean there’s gotta be something we can do to get us out of here.”

She glanced back at him, sitting up a bit straighter, “Like what? We’ve already swept the basement for bugs and cameras and we’ve checked the door multiple times. There’s else to do.”

Hailey leaned back against the wall, turning her head to look at him, “Look Jay, I wanna get out of here too but you gotta admit, this isn’t half bad for being held against our will. I mean, we’re together, we’re in a somewhat clean basement and I think we’re fairly safe for the time being so I think we should just try and relax and hope our team gets here soon.”

Jay scrunched up his face in displeasure before letting out a big sigh and banging his head lightly against the wall a few times in frustration.

They fell into another bout of silence and Hailey could see Jay rapping his fingers impatiently against his leg from the corner of her eye.

As long as he didn’t start pacing again then she didn’t care.

She knew it bothered him not knowing what was happening outside that door and it bothered her too but she knew how much he really did hate sitting and waiting. He didn’t like feeling powerless and she knew not having a gun with him was making him even more anxious.

She grimaced at the memory of the boys forcing them to give up any weapons they had. 

She knew none of that would have happened if they hadn’t had a gun to her head and she knew that’s why Jay had been complicit and truthful to their demands. 

She would have done the same in his place.

But here they were. Waiting and Hailey was so grateful they didn’t seem to be in serious danger. She knew those boys wouldn’t kill them, they barely had the guts to hurt them. The only real danger here was either their silent boss showing up or one of them getting scared and accidentally pulling the trigger. She just hoped they would be left alone and their team would deal with them.

It was silent for at least half an hour before Hailey piped up again.

“What if we had a baby at home?”

Jay turned his head sharply at her very unexpected question, his eyes going wide. He let out a garbled, “What?”

She wasn’t looking at him, just staring off into space with a troubled look on her face. She picked at some imaginary dirt on the floor, “What if there was a baby waiting for us at home?”

Jay’s heart was beating so hard he thought it might beat right out of his chest and he felt like he could hardly breath as his eyes drifted towards Hailey’s midsection, “Um, Hailey...?”

She seemed to pick up on his distress and she glanced at him, doing a double take at his very pale and stricken face, his eyes trained on her stomach.

Hailey rolled her eyes as she lightly hit him on the arm, pulling a face, “Don’t look at me like that.” When he raised his eyes to meet hers, she gave him another look, “I’m not pregnant if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Jay was still staring at her not sure what to make of this conversation. Of course they had talked about having children in the past but not recently and he wasn’t sure what brought this on. Especially since they were sitting on the floor in a locked up basement.

“But I’m serious,” Her brows were furrowed as she bit her lip, “What if something happened to us? Who would take care of the kids?”

Jay swallowed, trying to formulate a response, “Hailey, honey. We don’t have a baby let alone kids, plural. What brought all of this on?”

“I don’t know,” She shrugged against the wall, “I guess I was just thinking that if we were in this situation and we had a baby waiting for us to come get them but something happened to us, what would happen to the baby?”

He scratched the back of his neck, his head reeling slightly at the emotions he was being bombarded with all of the sudden. Shocked that the question was provoking all these feelings he’d never quite experienced before.

He definitely hadn’t anticipated this conversation when they were forced into this basement.

“Well,” He cleared his throat, “I guess we would have godparents picked out and that’s where uh, he or she would go. My brother or maybe someone on the team.”

Hailey gnawed on her bottom lip, “I guess you’re right.”

Jay turned his head to look at her again, “I mean, we would figure all of this out if you got pregnant.”

She looked deep in thought and Jay paused, trying to figure out how to phrase the question he wanted to ask.

“Do you,” He hesitated, “Do you want to get pregnant?”

Hailey slowly turned her own head to meet his gaze. Her eyes were blazing and he could tell she had been thinking about this. He had no idea that she had been thinking about having kids.

They had talked about it briefly before they got married and some since but it had always been in hypotheticals and vague some days. But this, this felt more concrete. Like Hailey was thinking those ‘vague some days’ were upon him and while Jay had always envisioned having kids, the thought of it actually happening for real made his brain short-circuit and his chest get tight.

“I don’t know Jay,” She seemed to be struggling with her thoughts, “I mean, we both agreed we wanted kids and I just feel like we need to have them sooner rather than later but then things like this happen,” She motioned around the empty basement, “And I wonder if maybe it shouldn’t be in the cards for us because I can’t see either one of us quitting. I don’t want to quit but is it fair to a possible future child for us to go to work knowing that we might not come back?”

Jay, again, wasn’t sure what to say to all of this. He hesitantly put a hand on her thigh, catching her gaze, “We’re going to get out of here, you know that, right?”

She rolled her eyes at that, “Of course I know we’re going to get out of here. The team will be here any minute,” Hailey huffed, “But what if we were in a more dangerous situation. What if one of us, or both of us, had to go undercover with really really bad people or what if you got shot again or something happened to me?”

“Well,” Jay interjected seriously, “First of all, I’m not going to let anything happen to you if I can help it. Second, me getting shot is something that might not be avoidable and thirdly, we would do everything in our power to get back to any children we might have in one piece. But Hailey, we take risks for a living. You know that better than anyone and you know that sometimes we can’t avoid the situations we get into. And sometimes, that means we don’t come home. That one day, one of us might not come home.”

Hailey glanced at him, unsure at where he was headed with this. Maybe a little afraid to know where he was headed with this, “So, what does that mean exactly?”

Jay took a breath. His mind was racing and he’d be lying if he said he’d never thought about the things Hailey was voicing. He’d just never thought that they would actually have this conversation that they kept telling themselves they would have someday. 

But here they were. Locked in a basement talking seriously about a decision that should not be made lightly. Or one that should be made individually; this was something they needed to decide on together but he’d heard the quiet hope in Hailey’s voice even amidst the fears and he knew that deep down, both their hearts were in the same place.

He just needed to give her, and himself, the courage to take the step they had been so hesitant to talk about. Something they had been hesitant to address aloud but something that had been brewing in the back of both of their minds since they got married.

Hailey was still looking at him for an answer so he turned to her with earnest eyes, his hand grabbing hers in reassurance. He swallowed, trying to organize his thoughts into what he wanted to say, “I think it means that we shouldn’t be afraid.”

Tears sprung into Hailey’s eyes and Jay gave her a soft smile, pushing a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear, “Yeah, our jobs have a higher risk factor than most and yeah, one of us could die but should we let that stop us from looking down into the face of a baby that has your eyes and my hair? Should that stop us from missing out on first steps and first words and a life full of joy and wonder that only a child can bring?”

Hailey watched as Jay shook his head, looking somewhat perplexed, almost like he was torn but there was a crooked little smile on his face despite that, “Maybe it’s selfish to bring a child into a world that we know to be so cruel. Especially into our life because it holds so much unpredictability but I think it would be worth it. God, Hailey,” He chuckled, tears in his own eyes, “Think about it. A little girl or a little boy who looked like a perfect mixture of both of us. Something that’s an actual living, breathing, walking, playing, crying, laughing manifestation of our love.”

“And if I died because I did something dumb or some evil dude shot me or hell, because I was in a car accident. Even if I had just known our baby for a day, it would be worth it to see your face in a child we created together.”

Hailey was desperately blinking back tears at his words. The fears were still there and she knew they always would be but hearing Jay talk about a little boy with his eyes and her smile or a little girl with his smile and her eyes. It just solidified the yearning that she had been feeling in her heart for the past few months.

Every time someone would ask her when they were having kids or how many she wanted or when she deposited a little girl or boy back to their crying mother after a burglary or a shooting. It was scary and heart-warming all at the same time and something she found herself wanting even though she knew the dangers.

But Jay was right. Why worry about the things that may never happen and give up a life filled with children? And she knew that if, God forbid, something happened to both of them, there were plenty of people in their lives that would step up to the plate and care for her children as if they were their own.

Hailey met Jay’s eyes, smiling as she squeezed his hand, “You’re right. We shouldn’t sacrifice something that we both want because of things that may or may not come to fruition.”

Before she could say anything else, Jay captured her lips in a sweet but passionate kiss. Long, languid kisses that made her forget everything except how much she loved her husband. They somehow ended up laying on the hard basement floor, one of Jay’s arms cushioning her head as he leaned over her to continue giving her long kisses.

“So that’s it then?” He murmured against her lips, “We’re having a baby?”

Hailey smiled impishly under his kisses, “It would seem so but it could take a while yet so we should probably get started.”

“Right now? On a strange basement’s hard cement floor?” He sounded somewhat incredulous but he moved his lips to her neck.

Hailey rolled her eyes, giving him a slight shove, “No. I meant tonight. After we’re rescued.”

Jay popped his head up from where he was nipping at her collar bone, “Well, then, they’d better hurry.”

“I’m sure they’ll be here any minute,” She smirked down at him.

Almost as soon as she said it, there was a crash and the door to the basement went flying open.

They both tensed up, adrenaline starting to rush into their veins, preparing for a fight but upon seeing Vanessa and Kevin’s forms rushing into the basement, they relaxed back into their somewhat compromising situation.

Vanessa’s eyes widened and a sly smile crept across her face and Hailey and Jay realized they had been so caught up in relief at seeing their friends that they had forgotten the position they were currently in.

“Um, wow. Maybe we should have waited,” Vanessa was full on grinning now, a mischievous sparkle in her eye.

Jay stood up so fast that he was almost dizzy at the blood rushing to his head as he grabbed for Hailey’s hand to help her up.

“We’re here to save you,” Kevin was right on Vanessa’s heels, an amused look on his face. He coughed, gesturing between the floor and where Hailey and Jay were now standing, not touching each other, “I hope y’all weren’t too uncomfortable.”

Even though everyone obviously knew Jay and Hailey were married, the couple tended to refrain from much PDA so it was a little amusing to walk in on them kissing. Especially since they were expecting them to be chained up and maybe in need of an ambulance.

Kim appeared in the doorway, her worried eyes immediately assessing Jay and Hailey, “Are you two okay?”

Jay was about to answer when Vanessa winked at them, turning to Kim, “Oh, I think they’re more than okay.”

Hailey just rolled her eyes while Jay looked a little put out that they had been interrupted. She crossed her arms, giving Vanessa a glare, “Yes, we’re fine no thanks to you. What took you so long?”

She heard Kev mumble something along the lines of “It looked like you were doing just fine without us” to which she did not respond. She also ignored Vanessa’s poorly concealed snickers.

Kim looked a little confused but the relief was clear on her face as she reached for her radio to tell Voight that everything seemed fine.

“Well, thanks for the assist,” Jay nodded to Kev as he slapped him on the upper arm in thanks. He grabbed Hailey’s hand and started tugging her towards the torn open steel door, giving a smile to Kim as he passed her on the steps, “Now if there’s nothing else, we’re really kind of worn out from this whole experience and it’s almost,” He glanced at his watch, “seven o’clock anyway so I think we’re just gonna head home.”

Just then Adam joined them and he opened his mouth to say something to them but Jay slapped him on the back with a smile as he beat him to the punch, “Hey man, thanks for finding us. We’re okay but I think we’re gonna head home.”

Adam stared after them as they disappeared into the house that was attached to the basement.

“Um,” He pointed after the couple as he looked at the rest of his team in confusion, “Did I miss something, here or...?”

Kim shrugged; Vanessa and Kevin laughed.

Approximately nine months later, Ellie Halstead was born and Jay and Hailey were never so grateful for being locked in a basement.

The end!! I know it was probably a little anti-climatic and maybe a little awkward but I just wanted to get it done😂 I feel like I’ve been writing this thing forever! But I hope you enjoyed it anyway. I borrowed some of the lines from a show called ‘Chuck’ that used to be on NBC before it got canceled😭😭😭 so if you watch the show...you know😆😉 I would love it if they ever had Hailey and Jay have a conversation like this in the show but for now, I thought this would be a cute mixture of sweet and funny. I wanted it to be somewhat lighthearted but in a situation where Hailey would feel the need to broach a conversation that had been weighing heavily on her mind—like having children with the dangers of their job. I can’t wait to hear what you thought!!

[roc-thoughtblog]

Sense and Sensibility Readthrough Part 18

Chapter 21, Pages 103-111

Previously, Mr. Palmer was a bad. Yep. Just a bad. Mrs. Palmer knows Willoughby and has seen Brandon recently, but not much came out of it.

Also, Happy Valentines day, ya filthy animals, and a happy (lunar) new yea-actually I just rewatched that scene from Home Alone 2 and I kinda don’t like it anymore. I just don’t like the idea of guns. Also it feels a lot more contrived now than when I was 10. Also a tad homophobic? I guess I might retire wishing people a good holiday and new year vis a vis calling them filthy animals.

I hope all you romantics are having a better time of it than the poor Dashwoods thus far!

Readthrough below.

Chapter 21

The Palmers have gone home to Cleveland.

But this did not last long; Elinor had hardly got their last visitors out of her head, had hardly done wondering at [...]

This sentence stretches out for eight lines, so Elinor has an excessive amount to think about the Palmers of, before new guests arrive.

Mrs. Jennings "discovers" she has two more relatives in Exeter, two Miss Steeles, who obviously Sir M invites to the next social occasion. Being, immediately. Poor Lady M, has to worry about more surprise strangers for guests. She still likes the new girls though, apparently they're good with kids. That'll earn the Lady M points.

And also obviously Sir M has got to involve the Dashwoods in this too. I don't blame the Dashwoods for ditching, this must be really exhausting. Sir M is the ultimate extrovert. I also forgot that the Dashwoods were related to him.

It's just a random thought, but everyone is in agreement that the Dashwood sisters are very pretty/handsome/beautiful. Well, except for Mr. Palmer, but he is stubbornly contrarian in general and I wouldn't trust him to even like the pure concept of happiness. I wonder how that is? I've never thought of any of my friends as beautiful, despite that I feel like they are on principle, and for lack of any dissenting opinion. Does that mean the Dashwoods are exceptional, or is that sort of aesthetic thought common for the time, or am I personally missing something about people?

Oh dear lord the children are actually just bullying the guests. Of course.

She saw their sashes untied, their hair pulled about their ears, their workbags searched, and their knives and scissors stolen away, and felt no doubt of its being a reciprocal enjoyment.

P-Please Lady M, have mercy on the Miss Steeles. So it's not that the girls are good with kids, it's just they they're really good at pretending this is okay to their host. This reminds me of the time a bunch of gifted and talented tweens tied my shoelaces together and tried to take snips of my hair for "DNA samples." Fun day. Those kids are like 20 now, I wonder how they're doing?

With such a reward for her tears, the child was too wise to cease crying.

HAHA! This is also another of the neat little spins that get lost in adaptation huh. Unless pains were taken to preserve this, on screen it would just be a scene where the child kept crying as they were being pampered. But here the single lines changes the whole character of the scene.

Regardless, remedying her youngest does produce a reason for Lady M and her children to exit stage, leaving the Dashwoods room and quiet to speak with the new girls alone.

The girls are still talking up the Middletons, so seeing as Marianne can't withold her true feelings for the sake of politeness, Elinor carries the weight of the talking. Which isn't much, really short awkward impasse on the quality of rowdiness in children.

beaux

I-what? One of the Steele sister has started talking about beauxs. I'm relieved that Elinor is as confused as I am on what a beaux with an x is. Elinor even uses it without an x, so I personally feel vindicated, though this implies that the x in beaux isn't silent when Miss Steele says it. Be-owks?

"Lord! Anne," cried her sister, "you can talk of nothing but beaux - you will make Miss Dashwood believe you think of nothing else."

Too late, Elinor has already written them off in her mind. I'd comment something or other about writing people off but honestly I'd be exhausted of all these strangers too.

Alas for Elinor and Marianne this feeling is not mutual and they are very much on the awkward end of, alas, unrequited friendship. How was everybody's Valentines day, by the way? I spent some time playing around with a piano. Turns out you can close your eyes and hammer anything on the major blues scale and it'll come out sounding sassy. :D

Anyway, to aid the Steeles in their quest for friendship, it seems Sir Middleton has armed the girls with every piece of gossip he knows or assumes of the Dashwoods. Whoop. So now they too know every about every brief brush with romance the Dashwoods have had.

The letter F- had been likewise invariably brought forward, and found productive of such countless jokes, that its character as the wittiest letter of the alphabet had long been established with Elinor.

Heheh, well, that'll happen. Ah, but it's even spread to the Steeles. Poor Elinor. Sir Middleton spills the beans nigh-immediately, while telling the girls not to blab about this "great secret."

Hrk. That's giving me personal flashbacks which I suppose I won't expand on, on pain of irony.

Buuuut it does reveal that the Steele sisters are apparently quite familiar with Edward Ferrars! Perhaps they can tell us why- oh, nope, nup. They also say basically nothing of substance, and Elinor is too reserved to interrupt them or ask questions. Well, it would probably seem really awkwardly eager too, to suddenly ask after the person you're probably deliberately trying to keep a social veil of plausible deniability up around.

And that's it for this chapter! So between this and last chapter, nothing immediate seems to have occured, but we've been introduced to the Palmers who know Willoughby and Brandon, and the Steeles, who know Eddie. If I had to guess I would hazard that this getting the setup out of the way for some sort of convergence of information later? The sort where the house of cards collapses, probably something that'll rattle Elinor something real shook. I feel like there's a shoe waiting to drop pretty hard with Eddie.

Sir Middleton is probably has a time bomb of a party in the works, if it would take gathering all these families in one place.

[niteshade925]

The Thunder Concluding Thoughts

So I finished watching The Thunder (《破冰行动》) in about a week.  I have to say this drama is definitely NOT the disappointment that people say it is.  It's pretty good.  I’m recommending it to the cdrama fans out there who like crime dramas with a dark and serious story.  Just be aware that it does not have an official English subtitle or fansubs (so far as I know).

Anyway, this post will be very very very long (4500+ words, in fact), filled with spoilers and my opinions.  If you are planning on watching, please skip this post.  I’m hiding everything else so this post won’t be hogging space on anyone’s dashboard.

Storytelling

Considering the story is about an operation to raid a whole village involved in drug trafficking (inspired by real events of Boshe village/博社村) and bring the criminals to justice, it is bound to be dark and gritty, filled with tragedies.  But it’s also surprisingly not very gruesome.

The entire plot is separated into many different storylines, which merge and intersect with each other at different times throughout the drama.  Here’s the main four:

The first (main) one follows the main character Li Fei/李飞 as he tries to avenge his friend and partner’s murder by finding evidence to bring down the big bad, with help from Chen Ke/陈珂, Ma Wen/马雯, and numerous others.

The second one follows Li Weimin/李维民 and Zhao Jialiang/赵嘉良 (real name Li Jianzhong/李建中), who are the two most experienced people on the law enforcement side in dealing with drug traffickers.  Since the former is a director and the latter is an informant/undercover agent who reports directly to the former, their individual story lines only merged after the midpoint.

The third one follows the third branch of the Lin clan (mostly Lin Zonghui/林宗辉) and how it was half destroyed by the main branch and second branch, which culminates in Lin Zonghui’s decision to turn informant.

The fourth one follows Ma Yunbo/马云波, the Deputy Director of Dongshan City Police Department, as he slowly realizes the error of his ways and tries to earn his redemption.  

There are other more minor storylines, but I won’t be listing them all out since this isn’t a wiki article lol.  Anyway there are a lot of different storylines in this drama, and the ways in which they intersect are interesting, though rather predictable.  These intersections also roughly separate out the drama into a few sections, which allows the drama to have a good pacing overall.

However, the way this drama establishes the backgrounds of the characters and storylines is slightly problematic, since nearly all of it is done with flashback sequences.  Flashback sequences are a staple in crime dramas of any kind, because it satisfies the viewers’ curiosity, but the constant sudden scene changes were disorienting and broke the flow of storytelling.  I guess flashbacks are an easy way to stick to the “show, don’t tell” rule, but I do think some flashback sequences can be told by characters in the “present time”, and this may even help to flesh out those characters more, depending on how they “tell” viewers about the past.

Another thing that was noticeable was amount of closeup shots used, especially in the interrogation scenes in the first half.  They do give actors the opportunity to use micro expressions and their eyes to convey the characters’ true emotions.  On the downside.....too many closeup shots tend to make me uncomfortable, so......I guess I both liked it and disliked it.

-----(this is the divider because I don’t know html lol)----------

Characters and Acting

Hoooo boy, where to start.  I would say this is the best thing about the drama overall.  The characters are what really drove me to sacrifice sleep just to binge the entire thing in a week.  These characters aren’t exactly unique in the genre, but they made up the heart of the drama, no questions about that.

I guess I’ll start with the main cast here and ramble talk about both the character and the portrayal together.  Because this drama had a rough “cops vs. criminals” setup, the main cast was sort of “locked in” to specific character archetypes, and that left little space for the actors themselves to perform freely.  Despite this, most of the main cast were able to do pretty well:

Li Weimin/李维民 (portrayed by Wu Gang/吴刚):  

In my opinion, Li Weimin was the best portrayed character out of the main cast.  Some people said that Wu Gang overacted in certain scenes where Li Weimin got upset or displayed his eccentric side, but to be honest, I don’t think it’s bad at all.  I'm pretty sure the dramatic approach is due to Wu Gang's acting style and training, since he was a theater actor first, and transitioned to an actor for TV/cinema later in his career.  Wu Gang’s constant little physical movements-- whether it was fidgeting with something or playing hopscotch with his feet--gave Li Weimin a certain air of eccentricity that I liked.  Li Weimin wasn’t without his faults, of course, he’s rather quick-tempered and was too eager to see results, which Wu Gang illustrated with his dramatic line delivery in the scene where he was furious at Ma Yunbo for not ending all drug trafficking in Dongshan city in 3 years.  The most noticeable flaws in Wu Gang’s performance (to me) was his salute (seriously can he just straighten that wrist lol) and his voice, because his voice had that smooth quality of a documentary narration, so occasionally it felt like he’s just flat out describing things.  Not that I’m complaining, his voice is very pleasing to the ear, but it just doesn’t fit the scene sometimes.  His best scenes for me were: 1) when he stubbornly refused Li Fei’s offer to buy a hoodie for him because it made him look too young (can relate because I have an older relative who’s exactly like that lol); 2) when he was questioning Cai Yongqiang while nonchalantly playing with his shoelaces; 3) when he had a sorrowful inner monologue about how he would be all alone if both Li Fei and Li Jianzhong died like all of his other comrades; and 4) when he suffered the loss of his friend during the climax, and had to try hard to stop himself from losing control to grief before the operation was over, because he was the frontline commander and was thus responsible for all of the agents.

-------------------------------------------------

Lin Yaodong/林耀东 (portrayed by Wang Jinsong/王劲松):  

Wang Jinsong never disappointed in any role he’s been in, really.  He’s the actor who played Marquis Yan Que in Nirvana in Fire and the unforgettable eunuch Yang Jinshui in Ming Dynasty in 1566.  I don’t think Lin Yaodong was his best performance (the best had to be Yang Jinshui in Ming Dynasty in 1566, hands down) but it was still very good.  The way Wang Jinsong played Lin Yaodong (especially the even line delivery and the deliberate body movements) gave him a dignified air befitting a powerful elder.   It was also thanks to Wang Jinsong’s great performance that I realized what Lin Yaodong was:  he wasn’t just a drug lord, he was a hypocrite.  He kept stressing the importance of clan and family, yet he was the one of the people responsible for deaths of half the third branch family; he kept reiterating that he brought wealth to Tazhai village, but what he did was slowly eroding the villagers’ motivation to do any honest work; he kept emphasizing the need to protect the Lin clan, yet the drug trafficking he introduced to the village literally ruined the young people of the village.  To Lin Yaodong, the clan was nothing but a means to an end that benefits him, otherwise he would not be exclusively using members of the second branch family to do all the dirty work.

-------------------------------------------------

Li Fei/李飞 (portrayed by Huang Jingyu/黄景瑜):  

Li Fei is apparently quite controversial despite being the undisputed main character of the show.  A lot of people think his character was “unnecessary”, “badly written”, and there were even gossip floating around about how the character was just a way to “get Huang Jingyu onboard”.  Seeing all of those comments made me pretty confused, because I thought Huang Jingyu did a pretty good job for someone who didn’t have a lot of experience in acting.  Before anyone says though, I am not a Huang Jingyu fan, just want to get that out of the way first.  This is literally the first drama I’ve seen him in.  I think his portrayal was easier for younger audiences (by that I mean early to mid 20s viewers like me) to relate to.  Li Fei’s outpour of grief upon seeing his partner getting murdered right in front of him, his clever interrogation of drug dealers, his goofy little tricks that outsmarted the criminals, his dejected disregard for his own life when he expressed desire to go to Tazhai village alone; his shock and anguished headbanging on the car window upon seeing his father getting murdered (also right in front of him); and finally his emotional numbness while saying goodbye to the father he never got a chance to know.......all of it was done convincingly.  I’ve laughed with him, I’ve cried (a little) with him, and for me that’s good enough.  There were other comments about how Li Fei was too hot-headed to the extent of being frustrating, but I think that’s just how the character was meant to be (Li Fei was supposed to be in his early 20s).  That said, I do think Huang Jingyu needs work on two things:  enunciation and facial expressions.  He did well when a scene required him to convey a particular emotion, but he wasn’t able to convey a mixture of different emotions (I will give an example later).  If he could make improvements in these two areas, I’m sure he would become a much better actor.

-------------------------------------------------

Now for memorable supporting characters.  In my honest opinion, the supporting characters are the ones who really made this drama good.  These actors’ performances regularly steal the limelight away from the main cast.

Lin Shuibo/林水伯 (portrayed by Qian Bo/钱波):  

Lin Shuibo was a once-respected teacher who became addicted in a desperate attempt to save his addict son, and was thrown out of Tazhai village for being an addict after his son died from overdose (was revealed to be murder).  Later he devoted his life to take care of a homeless drug addict teen he met on the streets.  I have to say, Lin Shuibo was the first supporting character that really caught my attention and made me cry.  Qian Bo nailed this character.  The dejected slump of his shoulders, the hopelessness and anxiety in his darting eyes, weeping for his son with tears leaving tracks on his dirty face, explaining that he tried drugs so he could set an example of successful rehab for his son......this character may not be more than just a plot device, but he actually tore at my heart.  Teaching was a highly respected profession in China, so for a teacher to fall into addiction and homelessness, resort to picking garbage for a living, that’s literally falling out of paradise and straight into hell.  Despite this, Lin Shuibo never lost his kindness or capability to love, and that's what saved him in the end.

-------------------------------------------------

Ma Yunbo/马云波 (portrayed by Zhang Xilin/张晞临):  

Originally I was going to put Lin Shengwu as the second of the memorable supporting characters, but then Ma Yunbo’s best scenes happened and made me change my mind.  Ma Yunbo was a pretty interesting and complex character, since he started the drama as a “good guy”, but as the story went on, it was revealed that he was the corrupted cop.  Then as the viewer learned more about the character, we started to see that he was not simply in it for the money like Chen Guangrong (another corrupted cop).  He was more or less coerced into it by Lin Yaodong because of his wife’s debilitating chronic pain, which was in turn the consequence of taking a shotgun blast meant for him.  Before the start of the story, the pain had grown too much for his wife to bear, so she turned to heroin for relief, and Lin Yaodong took the opportunity to become her supplier.  This was a major problem for Ma Yunbo, since he was seen as a hero who served justice to drug traffickers and was the pride of his shifu Li Weimin.  Here, both the drama and many viewers say that Ma Yunbo’s greatest weakness was pride, and that was why he became corrupted, but I disagree.   I don’t think Ma Yunbo’s most important trait was pride, I think it was love. I think he loved his wife deeply and that was the only reason why he started dealing with Lin Yaodong.  If he was as prideful as people say, I think he might refuse his wife's request instead.  In fact, his wife's suicide was what finally unshackled him from his constant internal conflict.  Thus, his internal conflict was really a three way conflict of pride vs. love vs. doing what’s right.  Zhang Xilin’s approach to such a complex character was subtle, conveying most of the internal conflict with facial expressions.  The way he could seem to make his face age instantly with an expression was brilliant.  

-------------------------------------------------

Lin Shengwu/林胜武 (portrayed by Zhao Xuan/赵煊):  

First, this character was pretty much a plot device.  Lin Shengwu really only served 3 purposes in the story:  to delay the video evidence from getting to Li Fei until the time is right (to manage pacing); to cement the people from the main branch and second branch of the Lin clan as the big bads of the drama; and to serve as a reason for Lin Zonghui’s eventual decision to become an informant.  The first one is pretty straightforward, but the second and third purposes require acting skills to achieve, because the audience needs to be able to pity Lin Shengwu.  And boy did Zhao Xuan deliver.  Lin Shengwu’s death was the second time I got emotional while watching this drama (first time was that scene of Lin Shuibo I mentioned).  The scene where a wounded Lin Shengwu called asking Lin Zonghui to take care of his children and telling him “if there’s a next life, you will still be my Uncle Hui” with a quivering voice just straight up broke my heart.  Lin Shengwu was certainly not a good guy (he was the one who destroyed the evidence at the very beginning, and probably participated in drug dealing), but he really did love his family and tried to protect them, unlike Lin Yaodong.  Unfortunately, his family was already in the grips of the devil from the very start, so he was destined to lose everything.

-------------------------------------------------

Lin Zonghui/林宗辉 (portrayed by Gong Lei/公磊)

Of the two most conflicted characters in the drama, one is Ma Yunbo, and the other is definitely Lin Zonghui.  As the family head of the third branch in the Lin clan, he was forced to watch as members of his family died at the hands of his relatives, but because he tried to stay out of trouble, he could neither say nor do anything about it.  Plus, like most other members of the third branch family, he was a person who actually cared about the clan.  As time went on and more people close to him died, his internal conflict changed from self preservation vs. avenging his family to protecting the Lin clan vs. doing what’s right.  I don’t feel that his death at the end was really necessary to the plot (it was probably done to further expose Lin Yaodong’s hypocrisy), but given everything his cousins Lin Yaodong and Lin Yaohua have done, he’s more than justified to confront them.  Acting-wise, like Zhang Xilin, Gong Lei also conveyed Lin Zonghui’s internal conflict mostly with facial expressions and body movements.  There was always a slump in his shoulders, and the way his eyes alternate between looking powerless and burning with fury was really great.  However, I didn’t quite like his approach to the climactic confrontation scenes, because I felt that he was a little overdramatic there, especially the line delivery, which briefly broke my immersion.

-------------------------------------------------

Lin Can/林灿 (portrayed by Song Hanhuan/宋撼寰)

If I’m only talking about the acting, then I might rank Song Hanhuan’s performance as the second best in the supporting cast, right behind Zhang Xilin.  I do admit that I’m rather biased towards the good guys and complex characters, but no matter which way you cut it, Lin Can deserves a mention.  The first time I noticed him was very late in the story, right at the climax where Lin Can and Li Fei were both threatening to kill the other’s father.  Huang Jingyu was not able to convey Li Fei’s emotions well enough (again, his facial expression needs work), but in contrast, Song Hanhuan really conveyed a wide range of emotions just in a few seconds, from fear to desperation to even a little hint of regret.  In fact, he looked as if he was on the verge of total mental breakdown.  That scene prompted me to go back and revisit his other scenes after I finished the drama, and that was when I realized Lin Can actually cried a little bit when Lin Shengwu died.  At the time when I first saw the scene, I thought Lin Can was just shocked to see Lin Shengwu commit suicide, but now, thinking back on Lin Can’s lines about how he and Lin Shengwu grew up together as playmates, I think Lin Can actually felt sad there, however briefly that emotion lasted.  That single tear was a very simple (and easy to miss!) gesture that added a whole other dimension to what would otherwise be a rather flat henchman character.  

------------------------------------------------- 

Cai Yongqiang/蔡永强 (portrayed by Tang Xu/唐旭)

I do wish the writers could have given Cai Yongqiang more scenes, because the few scenes he appeared in were all great.  The scenes where Li Weimin questioned Cai Yongqiang were the among the best in the entire drama.  At the time in the story, Cai Yongqiang and Li Weimin didn’t trust each other (although it was later revealed that they were both good guys), and were both trying to see if the other person was corrupted.  This led to a few interesting exchanges between them filled with quotable lines, but the best part has to be Cai Yongqiang’s answer to Li Weimin’s last question about Cai Yongqiang’s evaluation of himself and the drug control division.   The way Tang Xu delivered these lines (his voice was quivering with emotion almost the whole time) was really touching:

“For drug control officers like us, there’s two dangers.  The first is mortal danger, because our opponents are people who would bid their lives for money.  It’s not just our own lives in danger, but also the lives of our partners, our families”......”The second is temptation.  Money making is easy for drug traffickers.  To save their own skins, they would try their damnedest to bribe us.  Tens of thousands (yuan), hundreds of thousands, even a few million at a time.  For them, a few million is the profit they earn in a few days, but for young officers who earn a measly 2-3k per month and has to pay mortgages and raise children with it, this contrast is too much.  Not being tempted is impossible.  But every officer in my division has overcame the temptation, and for that, I think they are all terrific.  All of them are admirable.”.....”When you’ve been on the force for a while, you start to develop a deeper understanding of human nature.  A lot of bizarre things happen every day.  Sometimes, not being able to see them is a real blessing.”

-------------------------------------------------

Thoughts on Theme

The message of a story like this is obviously “drugs are bad, kids, it ain’t worth it”, but I would say the theme is conveyed pretty well here, because the story gives us all of these characters who are examples (some of which I’m sure are inspired by experiences of real people) of what may happen once you start to do/sell/make such addictive controlled/prohibited substances as crystal meth.

First is the effects of addiction on users.  This part is pretty obvious, and we have many examples throughout, though there were a few different reasons for each of them coming into contact with the drug in the first place.  Zaizai (Lin Shuibo’s son) was a representation of teenagers who became addicted because it’s seen as “cool” and “everyone was doing it”.  Wuzai became a drug dealer, because it gave him better profits than working entry-level jobs, and eventually he became an addict as well.  Then there’s women who became addicted due to severe emotional stress, like Yang Liu and Cai Xiaoling (it was hinted that her addiction may have been a major factor in her miscarriage).  Of these people, Lin Shuibo was a special case, as he apparently tried drugs out of a desire to help his son quit, but became addicted as well.  Out of these characters, most died either due to overdose, continued drug-abuse, or murder (from being in close contact with dangerous criminals).  The only two who got a good ending were Lin Shuibo and Wuzai, since both were able to quit and earn an honest living.  Of course, this could not happen if they weren’t supporting each other through the rehab process.

Second is another type of effect that the drugs had on those who made/sold them, and that is greed.  The reason Lin Yaodong had so much power over everyone else in the village was because he could give them the money they desired.  According to Lin Yaodong, the village used to be dirt poor, but ever since he led the villagers to manufacture crystal meth, everyone there quickly became wealthy, and all that easy money gave rise to greed.  Lin Yaodong then used a combination of his own status in the clan and the greed of the villagers to control them, thus satisfying his own lust for power:

“I know whether the people of Tazhai have had a change of heart just from sitting in this car.  At this hour, adults should be leaving work, and children should be leaving school, all of them going home, even the elderly lady selling produce.  The fact that our car can drive forward so smoothly on this narrow road means the people of Tazhai haven’t had any change of heart.”

This lust for power was also the reason he described his goal as to build the biggest, most beautiful ancestral shrine for the Lin clan.  He saw the ancestral shrine as the seat and symbol of his power, and this was apparent when the three family heads gathered there like a panel of judges at a court to announce Lin Shengwen’s punishment.  

Lin Yaodong’s image as the great provider for the village then began to corrupt the younger generations of the village as well, since they all looked up to Lin Yaodong and hoped to become his henchmen.  This began to destroy the real familial bonds between people in the clan and replaced it with simple trust and blind loyalty, which effectively turned the clan into a sort of mafia.  Even though almost everyone in the main branch and second branch still talked about what’s good for the clan and seemingly tried to contribute in their own ways, when one compared what these characters say versus what they do, then their true motivations began to show.  There’s Lin Yaohua and his two sons, Lin Can and Lin Tianhao, who would maim, torture, and kill members of their own clan just because trust was broken.  For them, there’s not much real familial bond to speak of, there’s only loyalty to “Uncle Dong” (Lin Yaodong) and "Uncle Hua” (Lin Yaohua).  They may still call each other “brothers”, “uncles”, but these words contain more indications of power than affection.  At the same time, the blind loyalty eroded away at the humanity of the younger members of the Lin clan, and this was perfectly demonstrated with Lin Can’s sudden decision to kill Zhao Jialiang at the climax, an act that disturbed even Lin Yaodong.

-------------------------------------------------

My Criticisms &  Other Thoughts

Finally, criticisms.

I agree with other people that the writing for the 3rd and 2nd to last episodes (ep 46 & 47) did not seem to have the same quality of writing as earlier episodes, but I am of the opinion that it wasn’t a huge problem.  What was a problem was the overacting from some actors at the climax.  Again, it wasn’t that bad, but it was enough to briefly break my suspension of disbelief.  Also, the last episode was among the best in the drama.

About the complaint that Zhao Jialiang’s death was unnecessary and forced into the script, I disagree.  I don’t think Zhao Jialiang ever went into Tazhai village expecting to come out alive in the first place.  Dude’s there to avenge his wife and that was it.  On the other hand, his death also highlights how far Lin Can had fallen.  Point is, his death might feel abrupt, but it does make sense if you think about it.  

About the “plot holes”.  I agree with one comment I’ve seen that many of the “plot holes” people pointed out were actually explained in later episodes.  They probably commented pretty early on in the drama, so that’s why certain things seemed like plot holes to them.

As for Chen Ke, again, I do agree that she may be the weakest character in the drama, but unlike some have said, I don’t think it was 100% on the actor, and I’m pretty sure it had something to do with the writing.  This drama clearly aimed to be realistic, so almost all of the characters expressed some sort of shock upon seeing another character get wounded/killed, and I think that’s the reason why Chen Ke panicked when Ma Wen got blasted with a shotgun.  Chen Ke was just a normal civilian who happened to be a nurse, she’s not a nurse in the army or something, of course she would be shocked if the event took place in front of her eyes.  Seeing the aftermath and witnessing the event first hand are completely different things.

Everything else about the drama, cinematography, music, etc....were all ok.  Nothing bad, but also nothing notable.  I did like the theme song though.

(Bonus little rant about all those cdrama scenes where a character is severely ill or wounded or killed..........can we stop having all of them spit out mouthfuls of blood????  When a character got stabbed in the guts or shot through the heart, they should NOT be spitting blood, unless they are also wounded in the lungs or stomach or mouth, then ok fine, but it’s still more of a situation of coughing up blood.  Seriously.  When Zhao Jialiang got shot through the heart and immediately started spitting blood, I actually burst out laughing.  This silly shit needs to change.)

And that is it!  All in all I liked The Thunder, and I may watch it again later.

[ceescedasticity]

Wrote about 900 words of SIgns, which is not enough for a chapter but enough to make me hope I’ll finish one--

By the time Barney stumbled down eight flights of stairs into the original part of the Stanton farmhouse, Mary, James, and Jane had dragged Will inside as far as the kitchen and gotten him propped in a chair. Will was soaking wet, and a trail of dark water led out of the kitchen to, he assumed, the porch in question.

Well… the puddles were too thin to be tar, anyway. Possibly not water, though.

Mary was making tea. James was trying to dry Will off with towels. Jane was trying to take Will's pulse at his wrist, which might have been easier if she hadn't been wearing rubber dishwashing gloves for some reason.

A jolt of adrenaline later he was ducking under a swing from Mary's pitchfork. "Hey, stop, it's me!" he said, as Jane and James looked up in surprise.

"What — Barney. Sorry," Mary said. "I thought you were an imp. What are you doing here?"

"I had a Prospit dream of Jane getting your call," Barney said. Still nothing of this <em>actual scene</em>, though. "You might want to call Simon and Bran now or they're likely to feel very left out."

"Like <em>that</em> will help," James muttered. He threw a black-stained towel off to the side and wrapped another one around Will's head, covering his hair. He was also wearing rubber dishwashing gloves. "I <em>think</em> it's off his face and neck, just mind the collar—"

Jane peeled off one of the dishwashing gloves and reached — very tentatively — to touch the side of Will's neck. She relaxed minutely after contact and started feeling for the pulse. "He's like <em>ice</em>…"

Hmm. "The gloves — are you trying not to touch the… water?"

"I don't think it's water," Mary said. "And yes, if you get it on your skin it makes you… see things." She shivered.

"Things?"

"Later," Jane said, straightening up. "I think we should try to warm him up. I'll call Bran and Simon. You three see if you can get Will in a hot bath — or at least out of those wet clothes." She handed Barney the dishwashing gloves and left the room. He wondered if she knew where the phone was.

James groaned. "I guess we'd <em>better</em>, if we can't touch his clothes without… having flashbacks, or whatever— Bloody <em>wake up</em>, Will!" Will didn't respond to the shaking.

"I'll start the bath and get some pajamas out of his room," Mary said. "And make sure there aren't any imps around…"

Barney would have expected this to lead to an accusation of skiving off the hard work from James, but he just said, "And a bucket for the old clothes and the towels," and let her go.

"So just the two of us are supposed to be carrying him, then?" Barney asked. (Barney might — <em>might</em> — be more qualified to drag people around than Jane. He wouldn't make any such statement about Mary.)

James looked down. "She was really shaken up, by— She didn't know about the… water stuff when she found him, right? So she just tried to wake him up and check him over, and I'm not sure what she saw but she's barely holding together right now."

"Oh." Barney eyed the dark puddles on the floor.

"<em>I</em> just remembered Will's <em>bloody</em> birthday, and then there was some — octopus thing with teeth. Then your sister thought of the rubber gloves." James scowled. "We might as well get his coat and shoes off here, they'll be even wetter than the rest."

It turned out to be difficult to untie waterlogged shoelaces while wearing rubber gloves; James announced he was getting the scissors. Barney got Will's coat unfastened and off, and looked around for some idea of where to put it—

The coat had… holes in it. Four in the front, three more in the back, like someone had just cut holes in the coat with scissors — or with a knife. A knife might be more likely.

Returning to the kitchen, James saw the coat and dropped the scissors. "<em>Bloody</em> hell, Will—"

Closer inspection revealed matching holes in Will's shirt, but unmarked skin beneath. Any stains on the fabric were covered over by the dark 'water'.

Will had healed from getting hit by a meteor, Jane had said.

James scowled his way through cutting Will's shoelaces and getting the shoes off. He threw them violently into a corner. "Just leave the coat here. Let's get him in the bath."

[badchoicesposts]

Don’t Dream It’s Over Chapter 19

Series Summary: Liam and Ali thought that their relationship was perfect, but their whole world came crashing down when Constantine called him back to Cordonia. Four years later they meet again at Liam’s bachelor party, determined to make things between them work even if it isn’t always easy.

In this AU, Liam and MC (Ali Moonessar) dated for a year in New York while Leo was still crown prince. They broke up when Constantine asked Liam to come back to Cordonia, but they meet again at Liam’s bachelor party before the social season. The story will contain flashbacks, which will be italicized, of their relationship and follow them as they try to navigate the season with Ali as a suitor. I’ve messed around with the timeline a bit so that it fits the story better. I’ve also added in a few OCs of my own.

Pairing: Liam x MC (Ali Moonessar), Platonic!Drake x MC

DISCLAIMER: I’ve changed up the timeline of the social season a bit to fit my story better. I’ve based it off of some research I did on the British Social Season. Some of the dialogue was taken directly from Book 1 of The Royal Romance but was changed a bit to fit my fic.

Also, I’ve never been pregnant so the small amount of information about pregnancy that I stated in this chapter was based purely on my research on the topic. I apologize if any of it it inaccurate.

TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of a panic attack and abortion.

Taglist: @flowerpowell, @ao719, @kingliam2019, @emceesynonymroll, @hopefulmoonobject, @dcbbw, @qammh-blog, @liamxs-world, @drakesensworld, @i-only-signed-up-for-fanfiction, @lauradowning29, @texaskitten30, @senseofduties, @indiacater, @alexintheskyy, @jared2612

A/N: This is my first time ever posting a fic. Please let me know if you enjoyed it and would like to read more. I thrive on validation, lol. Thanks for reading!

Catch Up: Masterlist,  Costumes (Don’t Dream It’s Over One shot)

Ali’s shoulders relaxed under the warm spray of water, and she leaned her head against the shower wall, trying to focus on her breathing. It had been two days since she spoke to Maxwell and Bastien, and she had definitely noticed Charlie hanging around more since then. She was glad it was him and not some random member of the guard that she had never met, but it was still strange to know that she needed security.

She turned off the water and wrapped herself in a towel, before wandering back into her bedroom. Her brown eyes swept over the gold dress that she would be wearing tonight, and she bit her lip nervously in anticipation of what was to come. 

Liam had decided that it would be nice to get everyone together for a dinner. He believed that it would be a good chance for all of the noble children to get acquainted with one another. They were the future leaders of the country, and he wanted them all to be on good terms. However, the dinner wasn’t the cause of Ali’s anxiety. Now that they were back at the palace, Liam had taken to spending nights with her again, and she knew that she needed to tell him everything tonight. She couldn’t put it off any longer. He deserved to know. Not to mention, it was dangerous to keep it from him with the looming threat of someone leaking it to the press hanging over her head.

Ali slipped on her dress and shoes, pausing for a moment to look at her reflection in the mirror. The small heart shaped pendant that Liam had given her the night of The Masquerade twinkled as it caught the light, and for some reason it was calming to her. Her eyes travelled down to her stomach, and she placed her hand on top of it. She had been researching pregnancy nonstop for the past few days, and she knew that she probably wasn’t going to be showing anytime soon. By her calculations she was only just barely two months along, and it was by sheer dumb luck that she even found out this early. But, knowing that there was a baby growing inside of her caused her heart to swell with happiness. That is until she remembered who the baby’s father was. 

She dropped her hand, straightened her posture, and left to meet Maxwell. 

“Hey! You’re early,” he said, opening his bedroom door.

He had expected to meet her right before they went downstairs the way he always did. 

“Yeah, I wanted to make sure I was on time,” she said, awkwardly rocking back and forth on her feet. 

Maxwell moved aside so she could come in, and she perched herself on the edge of his bed as she watched him tie his shoelaces. She glanced around his room, her eyes going wide at the book she saw on his nightstand.

“Are you reading a pregnancy book?” she asked with a smile as she grabbed it and began flipping through it.

“Yeah! I figured if I wanted to help you I would need to understand what your body is going through,” Maxwell said as he finished tying his shoe. “Not that I could ever fully understand what your body is going through. You know, with me not having a uterus and all.”

Ali smiled at Maxwell’s sweet words. 

“That’s really nice of you, Max!” 

“I’ve been brushing up on my prenatal yoga too! Not to toot my own horn, but I think I’ll be ready to start teaching classes any day now,” he said, with a smile as he shrugged on his jacket.

“Brushing up? As in you already had prior knowledge of it?” she asked with a playful smile, not really thinking anything of her words. 

A blush rose up onto Maxwell’s face, and he sputtered for a moment. 

“Pshhhh, what! No! Why would I know anything about prenatal yoga? You’re the only pregnant woman I’ve ever met before in my life. Like ever,” he said nervously. 

“Um, okay,” Ali responded confusedly, “Thanks anyway. It’s really sweet of you. You’re gonna be a great uncle!” 

“Not just a great uncle,” Maxwell said returning to his usual demeanor, “I’m going to be Maxwell Jr.’s favorite uncle!”

“Maxwell Jr.?” Ali questioned with a smile. “What if it’s a girl?”

“Maxine,” Maxwell responded immediately. He had obviously given the topic a great amount of thought. 

Ali watched as he made his way around the room, grabbing his wallet and shoving some dirty clothes into a hamper before making his way back to stand in front of her. 

“So, are you excited to tell him?” he asked.

Just like that, the previous fun that they had been having disappeared. She began to fidget nervously again.

“No, I think I’m going to throw up,” she said, running her hand up and down her arms, in attempts to calm herself down.

“Maybe that’s just morning sickness,” Maxwell responded. 

“Trust me. It’s not.”

“I think he’ll be happy,” he said, trying to make her feel better.

Ali looked up into Maxwell’s eyes and saw genuine hope there. It almost made her feel bad for being so cynical. But then she remembered that Maxwell wasn’t the one carrying the future king’s illegitimate child. 

“I guess we’ll see,” she said, wanting to just drop the topic. “So who’s going to be at this dinner?”

“All of the suitors, Ben, Bertrand, Drake, Tariq, me, and two other noblemen I don’t think you’ve met. Neville and Rashad,” Maxwell responded.

She had been briefly introduced to Tariq already, but neither of them had ever gone out of their way to speak to each other, and he had seemed rather dull if she was being honest.

“Is there anything I need to know about these other noblemen?” she asked, as they began to make their way down to the dining room. 

“Well, Rashad is pretty laid back. His only issue is that he doesn’t mind spending time with Neville,” Maxwell continued.

“Wow, Neville’s that bad?” 

“Just be prepared to hear him insult Drake for being a commoner all night.”

“But, I’m a commoner,” she said as they walked through the palace halls.

“Yes, but he can’t insult one of Liam’s suitors right in front of him.”

They lined up with some of the other guests outside of the dining room, and Ali quietly observed the two men that she hadn’t previously met. 

“I better not have to sit next to the commoner,” said one of them as the dining room doors opened. 

“I’ll take a guess and say that’s Neville,” Ali mumbled to Maxwell under her breath. 

He nodded wordlessly, and they found their seats. 

“Of course she’s seated right next to the prince,” Kiara said to Penelope in an undertone as Ali sat down. 

She took a deep breath and psyched herself up for what was sure to be a long night as everyone took their seats as well. 

“Thank you all for joining me this evening,” Liam began once they were all seated. “As we are the new generation of leaders I thought it would be nice for us to spend an evening getting to know each other.”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea, Liam. However, many of us are already acquainted with each other,” Olivia spoke from her place on Liam’s other side. 

There was a brief pause in conversation as the first course was served, and everyone began eating.

“Well, it’s been some time since we’ve all been together like this, and I do believe there are a few new faces here as well,” Liam said with a quick glance in Ali’s direction. “Lady Alison, I believe this is your first time meeting Lord Neville and Rashad.”

“Yes, it is,” she said, placing a kind smile on her face. “It’s very nice to meet you both.” 

“It’s nice to meet you as well, my lady,” Rashad responded politely. 

“Rashad spends most of his time on business trips. He’s often away from Cordonia for long periods of time,” Liam explained. 

“I do enjoy my travelling, but Cordonia is my home,” Rashad elaborated. 

“I completely understand. You can build a new home anywhere in the world, but there’s always a special attachment to the first,” Ali said. 

“Exactly,” Rashad said, a small smile on his face.

“And where was your first home, Lady Alison?” Neville asked. 

“I was born and raised in New York.” 

“Oh,” he said.

“You seem surprised, Lord Neville,” she said, an amused smile on her face. 

“It’s just that you look…” he trailed off, nodding in her direction as if that was supposed to make his point clearer. 

“I’m sorry. How do I look?” she asked. 

“Exotic,” he finished. 

Ali had to stop herself from gagging.

“Yes, well my parents were first generation immigrants. They moved from the Caribbean to The States before I was born, so I was born and raised in New York,” she said, the displeasure evident in her voice.

“Good to see you’re as charming as ever, Neville,” Lizzie said sarcastically, causing the man to narrow his eyes at her.

Liam nudged her foot gently under the table, and when she looked over at him she could see him holding back a laugh. She narrowed her eyes at him and kicked him back harder, biting back her own smile. He let out a small cough to mask his laughter, but this did not go unnoticed by Olivia who was watching their interaction closely.

“Liam, it was so nice of you to set up this lovely dinner. Although, I have to admit I’m not completely sure why Drake’s here,” she said, smirking over at the other man.

“It’s because I’m a joy to be around, Olivia,” Drake shot back sarcastically.

“Yes, the man who never smiles is such a joy to be around,” the redhead responded. 

“Drake has been a fixture at court since he was a child. He has also served as my trusted counsel more times than I can count. It seemed inappropriate to do this without him present,” Liam responded, ending the conversation with a hint of amusement in his own voice, obviously entertained by the interaction. 

“I think Drake’s great!” Maxwell said happily from his spot on Ali’s other side.

“Yes, I’m sure Ali does too,” Madeleine mumbled as she brought her wine glass up to her lips.

Ali narrowed her eyes.

“I’m sorry I didn’t quite catch that,” she said, smiling sweetly. 

Well, this night was going just about as well as she had assumed. 

“I just said that I’m sure you agree with Maxwell’s sentiment. We all know that the two of you are quite fond of each other, but I was wondering when you planned on telling Prince Liam just how fond,” she said, a venomous smile on her lips. 

“I’m sorry. I’m not sure what you’re referring to,” Ali said, bringing her own water glass to her lips and taking a sip of the cool liquid in attempts to calm the butterflies that had just erupted in her stomach.

“I’m referring to the fact that you’re pregnant with Drake Walker’s child,” Madeleine said, getting straight to the point and looking extremely proud of herself.

Ali, who had still been drinking her water, choked on the liquid and brought the glass back down to the table, attempting to clear her throat as several gasps were heard throughout the room. Maxwell patted her back in a way that was well meaning, but still unhelpful when you were choking on water. 

“I’m sorry, but I’m still not sure what you’re referring to,” Ali said, her voice hard now and her shoulders tense. 

“Oh, aren’t you?” Madeleine said, placing her phone on the table.

Ali and Drake’s voices filled the room from the speaker, and it felt like all the air had been sucked out of it as everyone heard their conversation from the first day of the Apple Blossom Festival. 

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

“Yeah, I have.” 

“You can’t ask me to get you a pregnancy test and then pretend like it didn’t happen.”

There was a momentary pause as neither of them spoke.

“Damn, what are you going to do?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I’m scared, Drake.”

“We’ll figure it out. I promise,” he said.

“I can’t have a baby! I’m still a baby!” 

“Eh, I think you’re more of an angsty teen than you are a baby.”

“Sorry,” Drake said. “Look, I know you’re scared, but everything’s going to be okay. You’re not alone in this.”

Another moment of silence followed. 

“You have to tell him,” he continued.

“I can’t. I don’t know how.”

The recording cut off after that point, but that didn't matter. It had already confirmed that she was pregnant. 

Ali couldn’t breathe. Her initial reaction was to believe that this was all her fault. If she had just told Liam when she first found out then they wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. He wouldn’t be finding out like this. The room seemed to be closing in on her. She was having a panic attack. 

“Ali,” Liam said her name as he gently touched her arm. 

He was sitting right next to her, but it sounded as if he were a million miles away. Kiara was muttering rapidly in French, and Olivia looked as if she had just been slapped in the face. She refused to even look at Bertrand. Then, a thought occurred to her.

 “You didn’t hear the entire conversation,” she said, her voice hoarse as she tried to breathe normally.

“What?” Madeleine asked, the smile on her lips wavering the slightest bit. 

“The entire conversation. That wasn’t the entire conversation,” she continued, trying to ignore the tightness in her chest. 

“Y-yes, it was,” Madeleine responded, defensively. 

“Actually, it wasn’t. You only heard what the person you had following us bothered to listen to,” Drake finally spoke up. “If you had heard the entire conversation you wouldn’t be making careless accusations.”

“What are you talking about?” Madeleine asked, her anger now evident.

“It’s not his baby, you idiot!” Olivia spoke up, quickly realizing what was going on. 

Ali looked over to Liam for the first time since this conversation began. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of her the entire time, and his mouth was still hanging open in shock. 

“I’m sorry you found out like this. I was going to tell you tonight,” she said, rising from her seat and walking to stand next to him. 

Ali grabbed Liam’s hand and placed it on her stomach, still holding onto his wrist tightly. Liam was looking down at both of their hands intently. He didn’t speak for a few moments, but there were tears shining in his eyes when he looked back up to her.

“Are you sure?” 

Ali nodded, and she was surprised at the large smile that crossed his face. Liam shot out of his seat and pulled her into his arms. He effortlessly lifted her off the floor and spun her in a circle. She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck in surprise and didn’t bother to stop the laugh that fell from her lips. In that moment they both forgot where they were. They forgot that they were in a room full of people, of women that were supposed to be vying for Liam’s hand in marriage.

“We’re going to be parents?” he asked, pressing his forehead to hers.

“Yeah, we are,” she said, gripping onto the lapels of his jacket tightly. 

Happy tears were streaming down his face as he pressed kiss all over her face. His lips brushed against her forehead, her nose, her chin, and both of her cheeks before he finally pulled her into a sweet kiss. Both of them getting lost in each other.

“Well, this is awkward!” Lizzie said loudly, in attempts to draw them back to their current setting. 

The two of them looked back over to the table to find a mixture of both shocked and confused expressions. Maxwell, Ben, and Lizzie were beaming at them excitedly. Olivia and Madeleine both looked furious but neither of them said anything, while Penelope and Kiara both looked upset, but resigned to the fact that they were never going to be chosen anyway. 

Ali nervously glanced at Liam, but even though they were in an uncomfortable and unconventional situation, the man couldn’t keep the smile off of his face. He kept one hand on the small of her back, and she was interested to see how he would diffuse this situation. 

“Prince Liam, Lady Alison, please come with me,” Bastien said, opening the dining room door and striding purposefully into the room.

Ali shot Liam another nervous look and followed Bastien out the room without a second thought, listening as Liam remained behind for a moment to address the dinner party. 

“This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I told you to tell him,” Bastien mumbled to her under his breath.

“Yeah, it wasn’t what I had in mind either. But, at least we know who was following me,” she said back as Liam joined them. 

“This is bad isn’t it?” Ali said, as he placed his hand on the small of her back.

“It is. But, I can’t seem to care right now,” Liam said, smiling down at her with love in his eyes.

“I’m sure your father will,” Bastien stated, breaking up their conversation and beginning to lead them up to Constantine’s office. “I already have someone up there explaining everything to him.”

They stopped outside of Constantine’s office just in time to see another member of the guard emerging from the room. The man looked shaken up, and he glanced nervously in their direction before continuing down the hall. Liam squeezed Ali’s hand reassuringly before entering the room with Bastien following behind them. 

Constantine was leaning back in his office chair, his hand resting on the desk in front of him. The only light in the room was coming from a lit fireplace in the corner, and it was casting menacing shadows across his face. It almost made him look like a Disney villain. 

“Please, sit down,” he said, gesturing to the chairs in front of the desk. 

Liam pulled one of them out for her and allowed her to get situated before sitting down on a chair next to her. He rested a hand on her knee protectively and looked over at his father, an unreadable expression on both of their faces. 

Ali was doing her best to refrain from showing her nervousness, but it was still obvious by the death grip she had on the wrist of Liam’s hand.

“So, it seems that the two of you have had an… eventful evening,” Constantine said, his voice filled with controlled anger. 

She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say. If he was looking for an apology he wasn’t going to get one. Her initial reaction was to blame herself, and she still did. She felt terrible for how Liam found out, but Madeleine was the one who had caused a scene.

“Yes, we have. I should be congratulating you. You’re going to be a grandfather,” Liam said, a smirk on his face. 

Ali could tell he was trying to keep the mood light, but it seemed to have the opposite effect on the king. 

“How long have you known?” Constantine asked, his gaze hard as he looked her over. 

“A few days, sir,” she answered, her voice cracking slightly.

Her grip on Liam’s wrist tightened even further, and he reached over to place his other hand on top of hers, gently rubbing circles on her skin.

“And how long did you plan on keeping this information to yourself?” he asked, grabbing a bottle of bourbon from the side of his desk and refilling the glass next to it. 

Liam’s eyes narrowed at his father’s accusatory tone, but he said nothing, his jaw clenched tightly shut.

“I was going to tell Liam after dinner tonight. I didn’t know that Madeleine knew or that she was planning to announce it,” she responded, her voice quiet but stronger this time.

Constantine looked at her appraisingly as he sipped from his glass. 

“You were reckless,” he said, turning in his seat to meet Liam’s eye. 

He laughed humorlessly before continuing. 

“Leo has been reckless since the day he was born. He’s caused countless scandals that we’ve all had to help cover up and do damage control for, but never once has he gotten anyone pregnant!”

“That we know of,” Ali mumbled sarcastically under her breath. 

She saw Bastien hold back a smirk at her comment, but Constantine didn’t seem too pleased with it. 

“Get out! Both of you, get out of my sight!” he yelled, motioning for Ali and Liam to head to the door. “Bastien, stay behind.” 

The two of them didn’t need to be told twice. They both scrambled out of their seats like scolded children and were out of his office in a heartbeat. They stopped once the door had closed behind them, exchanging nervous looks. 

“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that,” Ali whispered. 

Liam broke out into a grin and went to pull her into his arms, when they heard Constantine’s voice through the door. She brought a finger up to her lips in a shushing motion and pressed her ear to the door, pulling him to do the same.

“You’ve known this for a week, and you still didn’t come to me with it?” Constantine questioned, the same controlled anger in his voice as when they had first entered the room. 

“I’ve only found out for sure a few days ago, sir. I’ve already set Lady Alison up with a guard, and I’ve been keeping her safe since,” the other man responded.

“That’s not the point! I told you to come to me with anything you found out about her, anything that could stop her from becoming queen. But, you kept this information to yourself and now look at what’s happened!”

Ali’s jaw dropped at his words, and Liam had a similar reaction. However, his shock was quickly replaced with anger, and she was forced to grab onto his arm to keep him from storming back into the office. 

“I’m sorry, sir. I believed that due to the… sensitivity of the situation, Alison should have had time to come to terms with things before it was brought to anyone’s attention,” Bastien responded. 

They didn’t stick around for the rest of the conversation. Ali pulled Liam away from the door, and led him back to her room. She shut the door behind him and turned to look to him. They were truly alone together for the first time since he found out about the pregnancy, and she wasn’t sure what to do now. There was a mix of anger and sadness on his face, and she wasn’t sure which topic she should address first: the pregnancy or his father’s intention to keep them apart.

She opened her mouth and closed it a few times, trying to figure out what to say. She kept searching for an articulate and neat way to tell him everything that was going through her mind, but when she couldn’t she just let the words spill out of her mouth. She told him about the Drake and the pregnancy test, about how someone (apparently Madeleine) wanted to make the press believe that Drake was the father. She told him about the guilt she had been feeling for keeping the pregnancy from him and how sorry she was for not doing it sooner. She let out all of her fears about what was going to happen now that everyone knew, but reminded him that she loved him and wanted this baby more than anything in the world. 

Liam listened intently as she rambled on. She was about to start talking about what Constantine said when Liam stopped her. 

“That was a lot of information to get in thirty seconds,” he joked, pulling her down to lay on her bed beside him. 

She cuddled into his side, her face burning with embarrassment.

“Are you mad?” 

“About what?” he asked, furrowing his brows in confusion and running his hand up and down her back. 

“That I’m pregnant. That I didn’t tell you sooner,” she said.

He sighed and pulled her closer into him. 

“I understand why you needed some time, but I do wish I hadn’t come out the way that it did,” he said. 

“I’m so sorry. I was so scared, and I wanted to tell you, but I just kept picturing the worst case scenario, and every time I decided to tell you I would remember that your father didn’t think I would be a good queen, and-” she began rambling once again, her words coming out in a nervous jumble before Liam quieted her. 

“I know that it wasn’t your intention for this to happen. I’m more upset with the situation than I am with you. If I wasn’t crown prince, if we didn’t have to worry about the press or the people, if I was just a normal man, then we could be celebrating instead of worrying right now,” he said more to himself than to her. “I still can’t believe we’re going to be parents.” 

His voice was more cheerful when he said this than it had been a moment ago.

“Are you okay with everything?” she asked. 

“I should be the one asking you that,” Liam chuckled.

“Well, you just found out that you’re going to dad and that your dad is a snake, so I just figured you may need more comforting than me right now,” she tried to say nonchalantly, but the bitterness was still evident in her voice. 

“I can’t believe he was looking for ways to discredit you,” Liam said, running his hand down his face.

“I’m just glad he never found anything. I’ve never been more thankful for my boring ass life,” she said with a laugh. 

“Your life isn’t boring,” Liam said, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of her head.

“It was! Before I came here my time consisted of me going to work, class, and then going home to binge watch Criminal Minds,” she said, pulling herself out of his arms and sitting up. “But, look at me now. I moved to a different country, and got knocked up by the future king.”

Ali looked into Liam’s eyes and smiled softly as his hand came up to cup the side of her face. 

“We’re really having a baby,” he murmured, sitting up and pulling her into a gentle kiss. 

Ali sunk into his embrace, her body falling on top of his as he lay back on the bed once again. He kissed her softly, not willing to pull away from her until they were both desperate for air. 

“I love you,” he mumbled, before flipping them over and moving down to lay his head against her stomach where he repeated the words once again. 

Ali smiled and began running her fingers through his hair. Liam’s arms wrapped around her hips as she did this, and it was just a matter of minutes before he was lulled to sleep by her gentle touch and soft breathing. 

Ali woke the next morning to find Liam sleeping soundly beside her. She was still in her dress from the previous night, but he had woken up at some point in the night and pulled her blankets over their bodies. She sat up in bed and raised her arms above her head, stretching her muscles. Two arms snaked around her waist, pulling her back into the bed. Liam rested his head against her shoulder and pressed a few soft kisses to the exposed skin of her neck as his hand lovingly caressed her stomach.

“Good morning, my love,” he mumbled sleepily against her skin. 

Ali turned to rest on her side so she could face him.

“Good morning,” she said, tracing the stubble on his jaw with the tips of her fingers. 

He turned his head and pressed a gentle kiss to her palm, opening his eyes fully for the first time that morning and taking in the expression of the woman lying next to him. 

“You look upset,” he observed, his voice still gravelly from sleep.

“I’m not upset. Just a little anxious,” she admitted. “What do you think your father’s going to do?”

Liam sighed and pulled Ali into him. She buried her face into the crook of his neck and closed her eyes. 

“I’m not sure,” he began, his mind already reeling with ideas of how to proceed from here. “By now the news has probably made its way around. He can’t deny the pregnancy because a room full of people heard it confirmed.”

“I still can’t believe you found out like that,” Ali groaned, pushing her body closer into his. “I always imagined telling the father of my child that I was pregnant in a cutesy way. Not by being outed at a formal dinner party.”

The sound of Liam’s laughter filled her ears, and she pulled herself up so that she could glare at him.

“It’s not funny!” 

Liam tried to suppress chuckles and sat up next to her when he failed. 

“I don’t know how we ended up here, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” he said, pressing a gentle kiss on her forehead when his laughter finally subsided. 

A loud knock interrupted their moment and they exchanged looks of disdain. 

“So, time to face this, huh?” she asked, getting up and trying to straighten the dress she had fallen asleep in. 

“We’ll do it together,” Liam reassured her, getting to his feet and grabbing his jacket from where he had carelessly thrown it on the floor the night before. 

Ali took a deep breath and opened her room door. A pair of blue eyes were looking back at her with sympathy.

“The queen wants to see you and the king wants to see Liam,” Charlie said, taking in their disheveled appearance. 

“What are they trying to do by separating us?” she narrowed her eyes and looked back at Liam. 

“I don’t know, but you should change before you meet with Regina,” he said, stepping forward and giving her a gentle kiss. “Don’t worry, I promise everything will be okay. And, don’t let her intimidate you.”

“That’s a lot easier said than done!” Ali called after his retreating frame. 

“Everything will be okay!” he called back. 

Ali looked over at Charlie incredulously, but the man simply shrugged in response. She rolled her eyes and let out a sigh. 

“Give me a second to get changed.”

She dressed quickly, not wanting to keep the other woman waiting, but also not at all looking forward to their meeting. The fact that Constantine and Regina wanted to meet with them separately didn’t sit well with her. Why couldn’t they speak to them together?

“How bad do you think this is going to be?” she asked Charlie as he trailed alongside her on their way to meet the queen. 

“I don’t know, but remember she can smell fear,” he joked in attempts to cheer her up. 

Ali glared at him and he shrunk away from her gaze, shooting her a sheepish smile in apology. 

“Okay, I can do this,” she said to herself, straightening her spine and knocking on the door to Regina’s study. 

“Come in,” the queen called through the door. 

“Good morning, ma’am,” Ali said as she entered the room .

“Lady Alison, please join me,” she said, motioning to the small sitting area of the room. 

Ali awkwardly perched herself on the edge of the chair next to Regina’s.

“Tea?” the woman asked, already pouring hot tea into a small teacup and handing it to her. 

Ali accepted the cup and took a small sip of the liquid. She had always been a coffee person and didn’t really care for tea, but she thought it would be inappropriate to refuse it. 

“So, it seems that we have run into a spot of trouble,” Regina began, leaning back comfortably in her chair. 

Ali mustered up a small smile, but remained silent. 

“Of course, we can’t deny the rumors that have already begun to spread. Not when an entire dinner party heard it confirmed.”

“I’m sorry that happened. It was my intention to tell Liam in private, but Madeleine announced it before I had the chance to speak with him,” Ali said, bringing the teacup back to her lips again. 

“Yes, well Madeleine’s actions were unfortunate for all of us,” Regina responded, a hint of anger in her voice. 

Ali nervously glanced out the window, unsure who Regina was more angry with, her or Madeleine.

“But, that being said, we can still take care of this before it gets out of hand. So, how much?”

Ali furrowed her brows in confusion.

“I’m sorry, how much what?” she asked, placing the teacup back onto its saucer and putting it down on the small table in front of them.

“How much do you want to make our little problem go away,” Regina said casually.

Ali’s jaw dropped, and she made no attempt to regain her posture, her mind moving a million miles a minute. 

“M-make our problem go away!” she said incredulously. “You mean to get rid of it?”

“Yes,” Regina replied calmly. 

“Oh, my god!” she said, shooting out of her chair and pacing up and down in front of the queen. “I- I can’t believe… I don’t want money!” 

She continued her meltdown, the queen relaxing in her chair, watching her reaction with a look of amusement. Ali felt sick to her stomach at the proposition. Even more so to the fact that Regina seemed to find her reaction entertaining. 

“Come now, you can’t possibly believe that you and Liam are just going to have this child and live happily ever after can you? The fact that you’re carrying an illegitimate heir to the throne is bad enough, but that can still be remedied. However, Cordonia would be doomed if you became queen,” Regina said with a laugh. 

Ali opened and closed her mouth repeatedly in a way that resembled a fish. She had no idea what to say to that. 

“Yeah, cause I’m sure the people would just love the thought of me aborting Liam’s baby,” she finally said sarcastically. 

“Oh, no, not an abortion. You lose the baby and run home to New York overcome with grief. Liam mourns for a day or two and then chooses another one of the suitors and moves on with his life,” Regina states, a feigned look of sympathy on her face.

Ali let out a humorless laugh and gripped the sides of her head in her hands. 

“So you would just lie to everyone?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, you really have it all figured out, don’t you?”

“Yes.” 

“Well, sorry, but that’s NOT going to happen,” she said, turning without another word and walking out the door. 

She ran straight into the Charlie in the hallway, tears welling up in her eyes as the weight of Regina’s words fully came down on her. 

“Where’s Liam?” she asked him through gritted teeth. 

“I think he’s back in his office. I take it the meeting didn’t go well,” he said, looking over her red rimmed eyes. 

She turned and walked into the direction of Liam’s office without another word, barely aware of the man trailing behind her. Already overcome with emotion, she threw his door open without even bothering to knock. 

“You’re stepmother just offered to pay me off to have an abortion and leave the country!” she shrieked.

“What?” Liam asked, caught off guard because of her sudden appearance and not fully processing her words.

“I’ll make a terrible queen anyway, so you can just tell everyone that I lost the baby and decided to leave, and then you can just move on with your life!” she continued, beginning to pace the length of his office now instead. 

“My love, please calm down,” Liam tried to say in a soothing voice.

However, this only served to agitate Ali even more.

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” she yelled hysterically. “I’ve never been more insulted or disgusted in my life! And that’s saying something considering I’ve spent the past three years as a waitress for drunk frat guys!”

“Bastien, Drake, please give us a minute,” Liam spoke into the corner of the room behind her. 

Ali turned and noticed the two men standing there for the first time since she entered. They both looked extremely uncomfortable and wasted no time in heading to the door. 

Liam’s heart broke as he looked back at the woman he loved. He had seen Ali upset on several occasions. He had seen her break down and have panic attacks. He knew what her bad depression days looked like, and he knew what she was like when she was feeling insecure. But, the man had never seen her look this distraught. There were tears streaming freely down her face, and her entire body was shaking. 

“My love, look at me,” he said, walking over to her and taking her face into his hands. “That is not going to happen.”

He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss on her forehead, keeping his mouth against her skin for a few moments longer, in attempts to calm her down. His thumbs unconsciously stroked her cheeks, wiping away her tears. Ali wrapped her hands around Liam’s wrists, desperate to keep him close to her after the things that Regina said. As they stood there, the sound of Ali’s sobs the only noise filling the room, neither of them knew what to say, only that they needed to be near each other. 

After her breathing had finally returned to normal, Ali released Liam’s wrists. She was about to move away from him when he pulled her back into him, their chests pressed together and his forehead resting against hers. 

“Marry me,” he whispered softly.

[shirtlesssammy]

14x15: Peace of Mind

Then:

Dean’s afraid to like snakes, folks. ;)

Now:

A man runs down a dark and empty street to Harrington’s, the local malt shop. He pounds on the closed door and calls out for “Sunny”, and she answers. He tells her he doesn’t want to go alone, but she tells the man, Conrad, to go. She made a promise to stay. The romantic music swells, they kiss goodbye, he tells her that he loves her and then runs away.

Conrad runs as hard as he can away from town. He arrives at a gas station when ringing starts to affect him. He demands and then steals the phone from the attendant. Before the attendant can call 911 or Conrad can make a call, his head explodes. “Dude?” Griffin, the gas station attendant is quite the cutie, and in WAY over his head. Cue the vomiting.

At the bunker, Cas finds Jack with his new BFF, Felix the snek.

The snake isn’t feeling well and Jack is worried about him. Cas is worried about Jack. Cas asks Jack about his powers. Jack does the old pencil trick to show that his powers are, indeed, back.

He feels different though, so Cas asks about Jack’s soul. Pencil Drop. Jack doesn’t know how much of his soul he has left, and he doesn’t think about it. Well, I’ll just be over here huddled in the corner thinking about it for a long, long time. JACK!

Cas heads to the kitchen to talk with Dean. Dean has made himself one heck of a Scooby sandwich (with vegetables on it!). I love hunter husbands checking in with each other. So domestic.

Meanwhile, Sam is having horrible trauma flashbacks to all the hunters Michael killed in the bunker. Like, I don’t want to see this, but it’s also amazing that we’re seeing this! Sam isn’t dealing. (AGH, his instant look to his tablet after the flashes? Break my heart.) In fact, he isn’t dealing with it so much that he has another case, tells Dean and Cas about it, and ultimately tells them he’s leaving in 10. Cas confers with Dean about going with Sam to help him. He instructs Dean to stay with Jack to help him.

Cas and Sam arrive at the gas station where Conrad lost his head. Griffin is there and tells them to check out Charming Acres, a town about 5 miles down the road.

Cut to Charming Acres, and what appears to be a scene right out of Saturday Evening Post (Cas reads it when the others have gone to bed. #blessthisangel) They run into Justin and Cindy Smith. They tell them to check out Harrington’s. Justin then notices Sam’s cell phone. He’s never heard of one and Cindy whisks him away before he can inquire further.

For Pornographic Science:

They head inside Harrington’s, and it feels like every new move they make, they fall further and further into the past. Like, this isn’t 1985 Back to the Future. This is 1955 Back to the Future. It was old feeling in 1985. (Sidenote: Time is really weird and I’m creeped out by it.) “This is weird,” Cas notes the obvious. They sit at the lunch counter and are instantly greeted with complimentary milkshakes. Sam digs in. SAM DIGS IN. Like, Sam “Mr. Salad” “We might be dealing with something Supernatural” Winchester just digs in. He really likes it though, and he deserves a milkshake so I’ll let it pass (especially in retrospect when the problem turns out to NOT be the milkshakes. Also, I love that Cas will drink alcohol but will pass at milkshakes.) 

They talk to Chip, the owner, about Conrad’s death. Sunny listens in with great interest. Chip points the “flatfoots” in the direction of where Conrad was staying, a boarding house in town.

Once at the boarding house, they’re instantly greeted by Ms. Dowling, the owner.

At the bunker, Jack is trying to get Felix to eat, but is having no luck.

Dean suggests bacon (DUDE, do you want to give Felix pancreatitis?) Dean also suggests a field trip for the fam. Jack agrees.

At the boarding house, the proprietor shows Sam and Cas Conrad’s room. She then mentions that she only rents to men. “You got to have morals.” She looks at Cas and says, “You know.” Both Natasha and I read that as she could see that he was an angel, but I guess she could just see his “otherness”. Sam asks for tea. While searching for hex bags, Cas finds surprisingly passionate love letters from Sunny to Conrad. (Cas’s hand gesture when describing “the shape and the heft”, OMG.) Sam suggests checking things out tomorrow. Cas is confused. Sam insists that he really is tired.

At Justin and Cindy’s home, Justin continues to focus on “cell phone”, until he remembers what one is, and realizes that he’s not supposed to be where he’s at.

He runs from the home, and his head explodes. Oh dear.

On the road, Dean gives Jack some snacks for the snek --angel food cake or devil’s food cake. DEAN. All of life’s problems cannot be solved with cake.

(Ok, MAYBE if you indulged in a little cake, you’d feel better. Ahem.) Jack chooses Angel food cake, and all is right in the world.

The next morning, Cas goes to find Sam and he’s nowhere to be found. Ms. Dowling is anachronistically listening to headphones while carpet sweeping the floor. She seems dismissive of Cas, but tells him that Sam went for a walk and “a milkshake.”

Cas pulls up to the malt shop with (symbolic?) bird poop darkening his car window. Cas:  keepin’ it real. Sunny is setting up the parlor for the day to the tune of “Pink Shoelaces”, the same music the Ms. Dowling owner was listening to playing over the speakers. NEFARIOUS. Cas asks after “the very tall man” and is about 100% done with all the weird evasion in the town.

At the Smith’s house, Cas investigates the most recent death. Mrs. Smith is all sunny yellow and lace, offering Cas a morning martini.

Cas tries to settle on a chair to talk through the case and Mrs. Smith freaks the fuck out!

Let’s all take a moment to pat poor, traumatized Mrs. Smith. Cas just manages to avoid telling her that her husband Justin’s head exploded. LOL, no he didn’t, Mrs. Smith tells Cas. Because he’s right behind her! It’s Sam, I mean...It’s Justin Smith!

Sam a.k.a Justin asks his wife to make him a martini and Cas confronts him. Sam’s deep in the fantasy. He’s happily married, and the mega-dork in the relationship who can’t even “RAWR” seductively. “Your name is Sam Winchester,” Cas tells him aggressively. “You will SNAP THE HELL OUT OF IT!” Sam tells Cas and his potty mouth to “skedaddle.”

Meanwhile, Dean and Jack arrive at Donatello’s house. Donatello, lacking a soul, is the perfect person to talk to about the issue with Jack. Uhhh….I’m not convinced. Dean stays outside to keep an eye on Felix.

Inside, Donatello putters around, making coffee and talking about that one time he had his soul eaten by an ancient celestial being. He describes himself as a galaxy, “bright and shiny and spinny” with a very large black hole in the center where his soul should be. He’s not bad or good, he’s just empty.

Jack looks within himself. He doesn’t feel nothing, but he’s not sure what nothing feels like. He wants a little space to figure himself out. Donatello tells Jack that he ascribes to the “What would Mr. Rogers do” maxim. Jack decides that he’ll do “What would the Winchesters do,” which is a TERRIBLE PLAN. Have you SEEN this show?

Outside, Dean checks in with Donny about the verdict: soul or no soul? “I suppose the first question we must ask ourselves is, what is a soul?”

Dean, it’s a SALIENT question! Donatello tells Dean that Jack is fine, totally fine, “the most powerful being the universe,” an enigma. Thanks, Donny.

Cas shows up at the shake shop with his smiting face on.

He accuses her of being a witch who has taken over the town. He pulls out her “steamy, erotic” letters to Conrad. 

She denies what he’s implying and Cas goes full angel on her. “Tell me or I’ll rip it from your mind.” DAMN, CAS!

Panicked, she denies involvement and the Mayor interrupts. He’s arrived with his posse (including Sam). He’s always been able to dig into people’s minds. One day the mill shut down and the town started to go downhill (in his opinion). He heard voices and he shouted at them to make the world better. When he started to imagine that his soda shop was more popular - and it happened - he realized he could affect that change on the rest of the town as well. It turns out that it’s not witchcraft. He’s a “mind control psychic” who is playing with the people of the town like they’re dolls. Anybody who wouldn’t accept his happiness would be killed.

“You,” the Mayor wonders about Cas. “Why can’t I change you?” He’s an angel, you ass! It’s fightin’ time.

Excuse me, while I fan myself while Cas uses various soda shop accessories to nonlethally fight off the Mayor’s goon squad.

Outside, Sunny confronts her father about him murdering Conrad. He tries to convince her that Conrad’s death was her fault, because she told Conrad the truth. What a dick.

Inside, Sam tackles Cas and manages to grab his blade from his sleeve.  

Cas tells Sam to snap out of it but Sam protests that he’s super happy. “I know you wanna be happy,” Cas says. “And I know what it’s like to lose your army. I know what it’s like to fail as a leader, Sam. But you can’t lose yourself. You have to keep fighting. You can’t lose yourself. Because if you do you fail us. You fail all of those that we’ve lost. You fail Jack. Sam! You fail Dean!” Cas’s plea breaks Sam out of the mind-control trap. Phew! Good work, babes.

Sunny tells her dad that, although she promised her mom to stay by his side, he’s a monster and she can’t do it anymore. Too bad, the Mayor says, because he’s a god in this town. Sam and Cas intervene. The Mayor is no god (and they’ve met God). “God has a beard,” Cas shouts defiantly, and god bless Misha for delivering this line so seriously.

The Mayor starts to explode Sam, but Sunny busts out her own mind mojo. She overpowers her father. “You wanna be happy?” Sunny asks her father before jamming him with a mind-whammy. He freezes.

Cas checks the Mayor’s head, where he’s sitting catatonic. “She made him happy,” he tells everyone. Sunny trapped him in his head, in a beautiful world, where he can live out his life away from other people. (Thinks about Hunter Heroici and how the best trap for a dangerous psychic appears to be their own mind. Is this a salient point???)

Back at the bunker, Dean and Jack reflect on the trip.

“It was illuminating,” Jack says mysteriously. Cas and Sam arrive. Arkansas was...weird.

“Heard you wore a cardigan,” Dean says.

At Sam’s accusatory look, Cas says, “Yeah I told him about the cardigan.” Oh, and also the wife and the whole drank-the-koolaid shebang. Husbands, amirite?

Sam and Dean reflect on the false happiness of the town, and the grim reality in the bunker. Sam hates the bunker after what happened. It’s their home, but he needs time to process it all. Great! Everybody just needs time to heal.

Except...in Jack’s room he talks to Felix. The snake misses his friend terribly, Jack thinks. “Sam and Dean would help you,” he says. So he’ll help him see his friend again. I steel myself for Noah’s resurrection but instead what happens is worse. Jack turns the snake to ash so it can find his loved one in Heaven. A) Wouldn’t Noah be in Purgatory and 2) What Would the Winchesters Do is the WORST PLAN.

Do Quotes Like Bacon?

He says he’s good

I thought you were gonna sleep until the cows dragged you home

It’s like we’re stepping into a Saturday Evening Post. I look at them sometimes after you fall asleep at night. They’re very soothing

You must be the flatfoots I keep hearing about

Oh no, his head exploded. Like a ripe melon on the sun

Do snakes like bacon?

He has beautiful hair

Have you already had your martini today?

Using language like H - E - Double Hockeysticks. You should have your mouth washed out with soap

“You know what happened next?” “No, but I have a feeling you’ll tell me.”

God has a beard!

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[mysteriesofmilo]

Phineas and Ferb references

The Phineas Flynn’s Law YouTube channel has made two different videos so far on all the Phineas and Ferb references in Milo Murphy’s Law. But I’ve come up with 18 more since watching those videos.

References will be listed in episode order, through season 1.

1.  In Sunny Side Up, Melissa says "We are going to crack this thing. And by that I mean, we are not going to crack this thing." One of Doofenshmirtz's favorite phrases is in the format, "Ah, Perry the Platypus! Your timing is [negative adjective]! And by "[same negative adjective]" of course I mean COMPLETELY [same positive adjective]!"

2. In "Smooth Opera-tor" and "Bubble Boys"/"Isabella and the Temple of Sap": Amanda and Baljeet have both planned out every single minute of their entire day.

3.  Someone says “Crepe Suzette?" in both Rooting for the Enemy and Rollercoaster the Musical

4.  In Rooting for the Enemy, Milo says, “I think I broke my thumb,” and in Thanks But No Thanks, Baljeet says, “I think I pulled my sigmoid colon.”

5. From The Doctor Zone Files, The Substitute, The Llama Incident, and Invasion of the Ferb Snatchers: "The End?"

6.  When Melissa talks about her fear of rollercoasters in Murphy’s Lard, Zack talks about the odds of it happening again. This is an obvious reference to Rollercoaster the Musical.

7.  In the song Chop Away at my Heart, they ask the question "If I fall, do I even make a sound?" while comparing themselves to trees. Now I know this is an age old question that philosophers have been asking for generations, but Doofenshmirtz had a scheme based around it in My Fair Goalie.

8.  In the episode We're Going to the Zoo, Dakota lists off different things that could possibly stop their mission. One of those is a potted plant. Like, maybe, Planty the Potted Plant from the episodes No More Bunny Business and Just Our Luck?

9.  In Missing Milo, Cavendish says about Milo, “Yes. Yes, he's alright.” It’s a possible reference to the “too young” line.

10. Some Like It Yacht had a whole slew of them. One is that a green squid gets stuck on Mrs. Murawski’s head. In Swiss Family Phineas, Candace pulls a few things off her head, one of which happens to be a green squid.

11.  Diogee’s entire sequence in the song I’ll Get From Here to There looks suspiciously like Perry's entrance in Crack That Whip, or really in any given episode.

12-13. At the end of the aforementioned song, Milo asks Diogee how he got there. He then stands there with his eyes looking in opposite directions like Perry does in his “mindless pet” mode. Milo then says “I think he's having a flashback.” This is an obvious reference to the running gag in Doof Dynasty where people (and platypeople) have flashbacks and others comment on this fact, as well as the fact that they can’t see it.

14. When the H.M.S. Indulgence wins a surfing competition, the school board gets exactly the amount of money they need to fix the yacht, with $2 left over. Someone says “We can buy a candy bar and a half!” This is a reference to the running gag in Phineas’s Birthday Clip-o-Rama where somebody says “If I had a nickel for every time...” and then there’s a montage of that thing happening, and then the person says “Huh. I guess I could buy a candy bar.”

15. In The Race, one of Milo’s inspirational shark mantras is “Don't stop swimming, or you'll die.” In Raging Bully, Ferb says “Sharks have to keep moving forward, or they’ll drown.”

16. In The Island of Lost Dakotas, the lady that Dakota talks to on the bus is named Frances. Francis is Major Monogram’s name.

17. In the other plot of The Island of Lost Dakotas, Milo uses his shoelaces to tie himself to a telephone wire and swings from them. Candace does the same thing to get herself, Melissa and Isabella out of Phineas and Ferb’s maze in We Call It Maze.

18. This one is probably a stretch, but in Fungus Among Us, when Dakota is dressed as Time Ape, he says “I’ve got hands on my face. I’m handsome.” And in Quietest Day Ever, Doofenshmirtz sings the song “I’m Handsome.”

[allhailbrittania]

Anya: Suzaku, are you an M?

Suzaku: Why are you asking that question out of the blue? I am not!!

Anya : I don't think so.

Suzaku: Ok, name one incident where I was a M.

*Anya flashbacks*

Suzaku: Oh no, I lost the school bus because I was trying my shoelace at the bus stop. Oh no, I dropped my purse into the dust bin. Guess I will have to walk all the way to school. All 16 miles.

Suzaku: Oh no, I am the last person in the room. Guess I will have to clean up the room before I leave, because I don't want to trouble the cleaning crew.

Suzaku: Oh no, I don't have any interesting incidents today. Guess I will walk into those brittanians who ragged me once and try to unsuccessfully make friends with them.

*Flashback ends*

Suzaku: I didn't ask for three.

Anya: But you enjoyed it didn't you.

[angstmatsuscenarios]

Suiriku and... *spins the wheel* there is blood. somewhere? that’s all, have fun!

I had at least three or four ideas for this one before deciding on this one. A high school flashback sort of fic, hope you like it!

Warning for mentions of blood, injury, and bullying under the cut:

Slam!

Karamatsu jumped from where he sat on the couch in the living room, reading a book for one of his classes. Someone had just burst through the front door and shut it hard behind them, hard enough to knock one of the framed photos on the walls askew.

Who could that be?! Karamatsu wondered, marking his place in his book and swiftly standing up. Jyushimatsu and Choromatsu were both still at school for clubs—at least, they were supposed to be. Osomatsu had dragged Ichimatsu to the convenience store for a snack run, while their mom was still out on errands and their dad was at work.

Karamatsu swallowed back a sudden worried lump that had lurched up in his throat. Surely it’s nothing to worry about, no one would break in during the day. Right? It was harder to convince himself of that when he was home alone.

He heard something else then, something that sounded like…sniffling? Karamatsu’s apprehension suddenly morphed into curiosity, and he bit the bullet as he stepped cautiously toward the entryway to investigate.

To his surprise, Choromatsu was there, stooped over as he fumbled to untie his shoelaces. His hair hung over his face, forming a sort of shield around him, but Karamatsu didn’t need to see his face to know he was the one who was sniffling.

“….Choromatsu? What are you doing here now? I thought you were going to walk home with Jyushimatsu once he was done with baseball practice…”

Karamatsu’s voice trailed off once Choromatsu finally lifted his head, revealing his face to Karamatsu. His cheeks were flushed and tear-streaked, his eyes wet and red-rimmed from what Karamatsu assumed was crying, and his glasses perched crookedly on his nose. But that wasn’t what drew his attention first—what caught his eyes and made them widen in horror was the bright red blood dripping from Choromatsu’s nose.

“Choromatsu! Wh-what happened?” Karamatsu exclaimed, kneeling down next to his brother and attempting to keep his cool. It was hard not to be frantic when his brother’s nose was gushing like this, though, and he felt on the verge of panicking.

“K-Karamatsu…” Choromatsu whimpered, wiping his eyes with the sleeves of his uniform jacket. “I….I-I just…” He couldn’t even finish his sentence, he was shaking so much, and his chin quivered as he repressed his sobs.

Karamatsu had the unsettling notion that something bad must have happened at school…he could only imagine what. But he’d have to find out later, he deduced, as he shifted into damage control mode. Right now, Choromatsu needed to be calmed down before he could try to get the story out of him.

“It’s okay…its okay, Choromatsu,” Karamatsu said gently, the way Osomatsu would had he been here. He hesitated, wishing he had his oldest brother’s knack for knowing how to handle a delicate situation involving one of his brothers. Finally he placed his hands on Choromatsu’s trembling shoulders and went on, “Come on, let’s go to the kitchen. You should get cleaned up and take care of your nose…do you think you need a doctor?”

“N-no…I don’t th-think so…” Choromatsu mumbled, wincing a little. “My face hurts…”

“Well, I’d imagine so. It looks like you were punched right in the nose…um, is that what happened?”

Choromatsu fell silent, lowering his gaze to the floor, still sniffing. Karamatsu’s heart sank further as it became glaringly obvious that had to be what happened. The biggest question now was why.

“You can tell me later. Right now let me just take care of you, okay?” Karamatsu expected Choromatsu to object, stubbornly insisting that he could take care of himself as he usually did, but instead Choromatsu submitted as he let Karamatsu help him to his feet and guide him into the kitchen.

Choromatsu said almost nothing as Karamatsu settled him down at the kitchen table, then tore a wad of paper towels off the roll by the sink and handed them to him to hold against his bleeding nose. Karamatsu frowned as he examined the extent of Choromatsu’s injuries—his nose looked pretty swollen, and in addition to that one of his eyes was developing a black-and-blue bruise all around it. He really took some damage today…what heathen would do this to my poor brother?

His mind reeled as he got back up to fetch an ice pack from the freezer. Clearly it was something bad, something he didn’t want to talk about…but what? What could Choromatsu have possibly done to warrant such a beating?

“Here,” he said at last, sitting in the chair next to Choromatsu’s again and offering him the ice pack. “Press this to your nose and eye, it should help.”

Choromatsu nodded slightly as he accepted the ice pack. He gingerly pressed it to his face, flinching the moment it made contact with his skin. “Oww…”

“You…you really don’t think you need to see a doctor?” Karamatsu asked pensively. “Perhaps when Mom gets home we should ask her opinion…”

“No…I don’t want to explain to Mom what happened.” Choromatsu’s grip tightened on the ice pack, and he blinked rapidly, as if staving off more tears.

Well…that sounds serious.

“Would you be willing to tell me, at least?” Karamatsu asked, trying to maintain his calm as he locked his gaze with Choromatsu’s. “It seems like something really bad happened, and I’m starting to worry. If this is something we should tell Mom about…”

“N-no! It’s not,” Choromatsu said quickly, almost frantic. “It was…it was just a…thing at school. It wasn’t really a big deal..”

“Are you sure?” Karamatsu inquired. “Did you get in trouble for anything–is that why you don’t want to talk about it?”

“No…it’s not that. I’m not in trouble, but….it’s just…embarrassing, is all.”

“Ahh. But wouldn’t it feel better to get it off your chest?” Choromatsu wouldn’t meet his eyes, dropping his gaze to his lap. Karamatsu went on. “I can tell you’re distressed by this. Perhaps I could help. And I promise, my dear brother, I won’t tell a single soul if you wish to keep it that way…though it may be hard to explain your wounds otherwise.”

Choromatsu hesitated, before finally bringing himself to meet Karamatsu’s gaze again. His eyes were still swimming with tears as he asked, his voice hushed, “You really promise not to tell anyone? Not even Mom, or Osomatsu? Because he’ll blab it to everyone if he finds out…”

“Of course! Cross my heart,” Karamatsu vowed dramatically, then played down the theatrics as he became serious again. “So…what happened?”

“I…I was leaving anime club, and I was just standing outside minding my own business while I waited for Jyushimatsu’s practice to finish,” Choromatsu began, voice wavering. “A-and then suddenly these two older kids showed up. I thought they were gonna just leave me alone, but they…th-they…” His breath hitched, preventing him from continuing.

Karamatsu pulled off another handful of paper towels, giving them to Choromatsu. “And…?” he prompted gently.

“They…they came over to me, and started to harrass me,” Choromatsu finally found his voice again, blotting the tears gathering in his eyes with the paper towel. “They were saying really horrible things to me…they were making fun of my glasses, and my hair…and they said I was a teacher’s pet and a loser. And that I…I-I’m a freak because like anime…they s-said I’ll never become a successful adult if I’m such a dork now…”

Karamatsu’s heart ached as Choromatsu let out a shuddering sigh. How could anyone say something so heinous?! he thought, devastated beyond words at seeing his little brother so broken and sad. “What happened next…? They beat you up?”

“Y-yeah.” Choromatsu sniveled, removing the ice pack from his face and blowing his nose as lightly as possible. It was obvious even that simple gesture hurt an awful lot. “I t-told them to leave me alone, but that wasn’t enough for them…one of them grabbed me by the arm, and the other j-just punched me in the face like it was no big deal. Th-then they dropped me and went away.”

“Oh, Choromatsu…that’s horrible,” Karamatsu lamented, unable to fathom the very idea. His own little brother, being ganged up on and attacked for absolutely no reason? It made him feel sick to his stomach. “Why on earth would they ever pick on you?”

“M-maybe because it’s true,” Choromatsu wailed, his chest heaving as he struggled to take in a deep breath. “I am a loser, a s-stupid loser, and it’s obvious everyone thinks so since people are willing to beat me up for it and…a-and…”

“Choromatsu.” Karamatsu gripped Choromatsu’s shoulders, making it so that his younger brother couldn’t avoid his eye contact. “Please…don’t say such terrible things about yourself. They simply aren’t true.”

“B-but…but why else would they…”

“Because they’re mean, brutish people with far too much time on their hands who think it’s fine to bully people over petty things,” Karamatsu surmised, never once faltering. “But they are absolutely wrong, because you’re none of those horrid things they accused you of being. Who cares if you wear glasses and watch anime? That’s just part of you, and you are a great person, Choromatsu.”

Choromatsu peered into Karamatsu’s eyes, his own expression so despondent and helpless. He collapsed against Karamatsu then, partially burying his face against Karamatsu’s sleeve, and began to cry all over again. Karamatsu didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around Choromatsu, pulling him into a much-needed hug.

“It…it still h-hurts, even if it’s not true…” Choromatsu sobbed, clutching tightly to Karamatsu. “It hurts a lot…”

“I know…I know…” Karamatsu murmured, stroking his fingers through Choromatsu’s tousled hair. It was all he could really do, sit quietly and offer a shoulder to lean on while Choromatsu cried it out.

“I…might’ve gotten some blood on your shirt…” Choromatsu mumbled apologetically a few minutes later, once the stream of tears had stopped and he was trying to pull himself together again. He still hadn’t left Karamatsu’s embrace, though, still resting his chin on his shoulder.

“No worries–Mommy’s stain remover will take care of that.” Karamatsu couldn’t care less if his shirt had Choromatsu’s blood and snot on it, so long as he’d been of any help to his brother. “Do you feel a little better now?”

“I guess a little…thank you.” Choromatsu managed a tiny smile, though it didn’t linger long. “I guess I just feel kind of down…and my face still really hurts.”

“Let’s keep icing it. Your poor nose is so swollen,” Karamatsu said, lifting the ice pack to Choromatsu’s face again. Choromatsu allowed his brother to press the pack against his throbbing nose, wincing a little but holding himself still.

“What’ll we say if anyone asks what happened to your face?” Karamatsu asked at last.

“Tell them I got hit in the face by stray baseball,” Choromatsu mumbled. “I’ll just say a couple of kids were playing near me on the front lawn and accidentally threw a fly ball my way.”

“You think that’s believable enough?” Karamatsu bit his lip thoughtfully. “You’re sure we shouldn’t just tell them the truth…?”

“No, absolutely not. It’s mortifying…and I’d rather just forget the whole incident ever happened,” Choromatsu responded, in what was almost a whisper.

Karamatsu agreed to comply to this story, if only to pacify Choromatsu. But something deep in his heart told him that Choromatsu wouldn’t be able to forget this incident anytime soon.   

[onaperduamedee]

hey there! feel free to ignore this ask if it's annoying or anything. i'm almost done watching star trek discovery and i entered the michael burnham tags to find it's not just me who ships michael with philippa. although i am curious how did you and others start shipping them? i personally try to ignore the mother/daughter thing they keep mentioning on the show because i like them as a couple so i really don't want to think about that part LMAO

Milippa shipper ahoy! Hello and welcome to rarepair hell: we have three shoelaces and a Prime Minister (@nomi–sunrider). Don’t worry, this isn’t annoying at all, it’s even rather comical (I knew that at some point new fans would watch the show, reach episode 4 pretty quickly and go “where the hell does Milippa come from?”), and to be honest I was expecting this ask even sooner, so I am thankful you gave me the opportunity to talk about The Strange Case of Milippa, because I do think it’s an interesting instance of fandom doing its own thing and canon ending up with a slack chain as a result.

About your question: Personally, I love ride or die devoted lovers/friends tropes, complex women and Captain/Second dynamics. Generally, I think the ship happening despite canon is a side-effect of promotion, timing and not enough female characters. So, fasten your seatbelt for an abridged history of Milippa:

(Bear in mind, these are only my observations of the ship’s evolution on tumblr. Others might have a different perception of the show and the fandom.)

In a way, it all started because the show was justifiably proud of having two women of colour as leads and mainly promoted Michael and Philippa during the first season’s production, even if it didn’t mean the Captain would be sticking around. If you go back far enough in fanarts, you’ll see people may have started investing in their relationship, even shipping them, before the show began. Michael and Philippa were all over the promotional material and HELL YEAH TWO WOMEN IN ROLES THAT TEND TO BE EXCLUSIVELY FOR MEN OF COURSE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE INTO THAT.

The first episode happened, Philippa and Michael had a fun, cute and often intense chemistry where there was no real hint of mother-daughter rapport and that could have easily been interpreted as flirty had they been men or a man and a woman. They were simply really enjoyable together and it didn’t take much to read it as “First Officer has a crush on her Captain”, which is not unheard of in the Star Trek fandom (TOS, Voyager).

Philippa died. No one is ever dead in sci-fi, so we kept our fingers crossed for a return, in flashbacks at least. She lived on in fanon anyway, having pre-canon complicated feelings for her First Officer or rising from the dead for an exhausted smooch. At this point, we’re four episodes in and still no mention of a mother-daughter relationship. This means we have months of fans kinda shipping them prior to the show combined with almost a month of the show being on air with no characterisation of their relationship in a specific direction, except Michael being awfully devoted to Philippa and affected by her death. Fans weren’t wildly extrapolating.

No, seriously, the early shipping was amazing: fans fell hard and headcanoned they had a thing in the past. This isn’t Doctor Who where River Song had a secret identity that could potentially reveal a familial bond with Amy: Michael already had two mothers. This is Star Trek where Amanda and Sarek have a 40-year age difference or so. This really did not seem wild at the time (not that there is anything wrong with big age gaps per se). Fans weren’t expecting the show to suddenly come out of the woods with such a specific characterisation of their relationship this late in the introductory game: dead mentor and grieving martyr was already enough.

That’s when the end of episode four came in and introduced the whole mother-daughter relationship (as well as ensure Philippa would never come back by making a Klingon snack out of her). Many might say now this dynamic was here from the start because Philippa was an older mentor, but I can assure you that from week to week it was not that evident, unless you assume every older woman must be a mother to younger characters. That’s coincidentally when I started shipping them out of sheer contempt for the trope of referring to any female mentor/protegée relationship as familial: it is my personal fictional arch nemesis, the female equivalent of “no homo”, that I seem to encounter in every fandom where there’s more than one female character.

Fun times. I remember seeing more than one shipper nope out of there, which is more than comprehensible: I was uncomfortable myself, but primarily because I am not half bad at analysing texts and their relationship really didn’t read as  maternal to me. Yet one line could hardly erase weeks of shipping, of creating, of fandom building headcanons and a community around it. A bunch of truly amazing fics and fanarts were produced fairly early and kept on being produced which cemented a community, however small. The introduction of the Emperor did not remotely help: the promo for the episode itself was inexplicably gay and Milippa fans did spend a week flailing in anticipation speculating this Philippa and that Michael might have a thing, the episode itself tossed around lines and tropes generally used for star-crossed lovers even if “daughter” made a long-awaited reappearance, this time literal, and Michael kept missing Philippa to the point of abducting her autocratic blood-thirsty counterpart. Not even taking into account Michael and the Emperor’s interactions in the finale. I mean… 

Not everyone see the tension, of course, and the canon does see their connection as maternal, but there is no denying that the season hinged on the strength of Philippa and Michael’s love (familial or not) and that this canonical intensity fuelled a ship that not only preexisted its labelling, but also was not exactly lacking in material.   

There is no point in debating canon interpretations (I don’t create in or for canon), but there is something to say about intent vs. execution, because the gay vibes are there. I love what Daniel Mallory Ortberg had the guts to say concerning the Michael/Philippa situation when reviewing the finale for Vulture:

Then there’s a lot more excavating of the warped mother-daughter dynamics between Michael and Georgiou, which I could do without for two reasons:

1. The amount of sexual tension between Mirror Georgiou and Michael is … let’s go with non-zero. Sure, part of that is because every Mirrorverse character is characterized primarily via Murderous Horniness (as evidenced when Georgiou takes a quick detour to have a threesome on Qo’noS), but there’s a lot going on between the two of them in all of their scenes.

2. The original Georgiou and Michael did not have that sort of relationship in the least! They were deeply fond of one another and Georgiou taught Michael a great deal, but Michael had a solid relationship with both of her parents and met Georgiou well into her own adulthood. There’s plenty of grist for the mill in terms of wanting to redeem herself and struggling for the approval of a lost mentor without adding Murder Mommy dynamics into the mix.

(x)

Finally, I think it is worth mentioning that Philippa and Michael were also the first meaningful and long relationship between women on screen in Discovery. The second woman Michael interacts with is the prisoner and she leaves pretty quickly. The third is Ellen Landry and she is killed after one episode (which was just long enough for me to start shipping them together: I hate this show). Tilly was introduced in the third episode only and Michael doesn’t interact with any other woman before Katrina Cornwell in the mid-season finale. The femslash shipping options were not exactly varied: I clung onto what was/had been there. I know it’s not the first reason behind shipping Milippa, but it is a factor.

Again, this blurb solely reflects my views and observations. But I would be curious to read what @mswyrr, @nomi–sunrider and other fans have to say about this.

tl;dr: You had to be there. The shipping happened rather naturally over weeks, but canon did not go there and the train was already launched so we ignored canon. Also I am petty and they are pretty.

[themurphyzone]

Secret Santa Ch 7

Holidays are a great source of inspiration! Just sayin’!

Ch 7-Melissa

The nice thing about her gift was that she had most of her materials already. It was just a matter of putting it together in a scrapbook whenever she found the time. Her photo collection of Murphy’s Law incidents took up so much space that her dad had complained, so she figured storing the ones she didn’t regularly analyze in a scrapbook and giving it to Milo would be better than tossing them.

So far, she had a section dedicated to school, animals, family, and miscellaneous things that didn’t fit anywhere else.

“Maybe there’s such a thing as too much,” she muttered, tossing aside another photo of the Llama Incident. There were ten of those in the scrapbook already, so she didn’t need any more from that day. Unfortunately, her phone had died in the middle of the Woodpecker Incident, so she only had pictures until they evaded the crocodiles.

It didn’t bother her too much though.  

Melissa kept anything that had Cavendish and Dakota in the background, since she was still trying to figure out a pattern for their appearances. Besides, Cavendish getting hit with Murphy’s Law by proxy was comedy gold.

Soon she only had two pages left, but no more photos. To fill in the space, she signed her name with a huge signature that took up half the page.

Then she fired off a quick text to Sara and Zack, asking them to meet her in the park in an hour. She was lucky Milo was out for father-son bonding time this afternoon.

“Glad you could make it,” Melissa said, opening her backpack and taking out the scrapbook and several colored pens. “Sign somewhere on the last two pages please. I’d like to have this scrapbook done today.”

Sara claimed almost the entire space with a sketch of Dr. Zone and Time Ape, leaving Zack to write his name in a spare corner.

“Was the drawing necessary?” Zack asked.

“Look, I’m trying to learn how to do art here,” Sara replied. “This girl’s gotta practice. At least a legion of Oldbies can’t possibly flame me for this one because they don’t like how I’ve been drawing Dr. Zone’s cast.”

When they were finished, Melissa unzipped her bag and shoved two other books to the side to make room. Before she could put the scrapbook away, something swooped out of nowhere and snatched it out of her hand.

She yelped and pulled back, her hand suddenly stinging. A small gash had opened on her skin, but it wasn’t too deep. Sara pointed up with a shout of surprise, and they watched an eagle fly towards the trees with the scrapbook clutched in its talons.

Before Melissa could rush off after the eagle, Sara pulled her towards her car and bandaged the scratch. “Lucked out,” Sara said. “The talon only grazed you.”

Melissa scowled. “I didn’t spend all week on that scrapbook just to have a birdbrain snatch it out of my hand. I’m going after it.”

Zack scanned the area with a pair of borrowed binoculars from Sara’s car. “Looks like the eagle dropped it and caught a duck instead. Hopefully it didn’t drop the scrapbook directly into the lake.”

The park was full of kids playing in the snow, so they had to be careful. Zack was nearly knocked down by two girls on a sled, while Sara had snow in her cap from being pelted with a stray snowball.

When they reached the shore, they found Elliot sprawled on his back, the scrapbook lying on his chest as he wheezed for air. His earmuffs were half-buried in the snow behind him.

“Thanks for being a pillow to my scrapbook,” Melissa said. She plucked it off his chest, flipping through the pages to make sure there wasn’t any damage. There were several scratches from the talons on the cover, and a small amount of snow had collected in the corners, but she didn’t see any long-lasting damage.

“Not so fast,” Elliot recovered quickly, and he put the scrapbook in a large, crumpled plastic bag faster than she could blink. “This is a direct violation of the Safety Manifesto, Article Two, Section Five, which clearly states that heavy objects cannot incapacitate the Safety Czar by falling out of the sky. And by the powers invested in the Safety Czar, that would be me, Paragraph Three allows the one who got hit, again that’s me, to take the object in question as incriminating evidence of a disregard for the safety of the populace and the greater good.”

“Aren’t you violating park rules by stealing?” Zack asked.

Melissa rolled her eyes. Somehow it didn’t surprise her that Elliot managed to annoy everyone except Milo on his off-days too. “That’s a gift for a friend,” she said, deliberately not mentioning the recipient. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with another anti-Milo rant. “So fork it over.”

“You’ll get it back once I’m finished analyzing the evidence,” Elliot replied. “Which could take anywhere from a few days to a month.”

“A month?” Melissa protested. “The Secret Santa party is in a week!”

Elliot ignored her, waving to Sara as he passed by her. “Hey, Sara. What’s up?”

Sara just glared at him. “You are very lucky there are witnesses around.”

He laughed nervously. “So about the incident in B Hall when you were a freshman-“

Sara crossed her arms. “Kris still hasn’t forgiven you. I suppose I could text her right now. I bet she would love to catch up and see how you’re doing now that you’ve graduated.”

Elliot gulped, wisely deciding not to push his luck. “No, that won’t be necessary. I’ll...I’ll just be on my way. No need to let her know of my whereabouts!”

Tossing the scrapbook to Melissa, he ran away, not even bothering with the blatant ‘safety violations’ that were being committed by children of all ages as he made a beeline for the bike rack.

“Thanks, Sara,” Melissa said, putting the scrapbook away before anything else could harm it. She made a mental note to store her gift under lock and key until the day of the party. “So why is Elliot afraid of your friend?”

“In order to properly tell you, I would need to flashback to the day of November 8 in my freshman year,” Sara said, waving her arms in an arc above her head. “Commence ripple effect!”

“Ripple effect?” Zack whispered.

“Just pretend there’s a distortion in space-time that allows us to see into the past,” Melissa said.

‘Twas a dark and stormy hallway….

“Wait, how can a hallway be stormy?”

Get out of my flashback!

“Sorry.”

Eh, letting it slide. Two pretty freshman girls waited with bated breath for Mrs. Gilbert’s infamous English class. Rumor has it that the smartest students have been driven insane by an unknown entity that lurks within her wig. A senior once knocked it off her head to discover the hidden trove of secrets buried in the strands, and nobody ever saw hide or hair of him again.

But even the hallways are filled with danger in the early hours of the morning! While it wasn’t late enough for the boys’ bathroom to emit a stench so powerful it would make a thousand skunks boil with envy, at no hour was any student safe from the likes of…Elliot Decker!

DUN DUN DUN!

“I don’t think the sound effects were necessary.”

“Zack, just let her flashback in peace!”

Aka the Hall Monitor!

A weirdo who would try to write you up for not having double knots in shoelaces, or try to pass a resolution through the student council that anyone caught with an open flap in their backpacks would be sentenced to two days in detention!

That fateful day, he spotted us minding our own beeswax while we waited anxiously for class to begin.

“Halt!” he declared. “You two aren’t sitting criss-cross applesauce! Your legs are a prime tripping hazard for those hurrying to class!”

He may have thought we were weak little freshman ripe for the picking, but there was nothing that could scare Kris! She was fearless! Except for copyright strikes, of course, but that’s another story.

“I spent the last 36 hours marathoning The Dr. Zone Files in preparation for the new season,” Kris growled. “I am tired, I regret nothing, I didn’t eat breakfast, and I swear if you try and pull this garbage on me, I will hunt you down and force-feed you that stop sign piece by piece.”

And so Elliot slunk away, his metaphorical tail between his legs.

“End ripple effect!” Sara said. “So yeah, that’s what happened! Don’t mess with Kris when she’s sleep-deprived.”

“Wow,” Zack said. “It’s hard to believe you went to the same high school.”

Melissa nodded. “But still just as crazy.”

Sara’s phone buzzed, and she pulled it out of her pocket, shaking her head. “I gotta run. Milo and Dad managed to get themselves tangled in Christmas lights around a life-sized gingerbread house.”

“Okay, I’m putting this scrapbook away where no eagles can snatch it. See you guys later!”

She waved goodbye to Sara and Zack, holding the straps of her bag tightly as she walked home.

Her dad was in the kitchen with two steaming mugs of hot chocolate when she walked in through the front door. “Figured you wanted to warm up,” he said. “Lots of marshmallows too, just how you like it.”

Melissa shook off her snow boots, leaving them on the porch outside. She shut the door behind her, taking a spare key that hung on a rack above the dresser and locking the scrapbook inside the top drawer. “Thanks, Dad,” she said. “By the way, the scrapbook doesn’t leave that dresser until the day of the party.”

She sipped her mug, the warmth trickling down her throat. Richard Chase made the best hot chocolate in the city, she was sure.

“Well, at least there’s room to breathe around here now,” Richard said. “And try not to burn anything down next week when you’re having fun with your friends.”

Melissa shrugged. “I make no promises.”