#funny thing is they did all this in a rental car

[that-starlight-prince]

A couple of friends from when I started grad school went storm chasing in Oklahoma, and I guess they never felt like they were in any danger (though they definitely didn't get as close as the people in the video I reblogged). I still feel like there's got to be enough uncertainty in how a tornado moves around on the ground that you'd need to have a pretty high risk tolerance to do that at all though.

[featherandferns]

orange juice (fic)

jj maybank x fem!reader | inspired by noah kahn's incredible music

content warning: mentions of drinking and drug use; mentions of abuse; mentions of bodily harm (vague, non-graphic); sexual content | feel free to message me with questions of detail if any of this concerns you before reading!

word count: 7.5k

blurb: in the most unlikely of settings, you and JJ reunite after five years apart in radio silence.

“You know, on my way here, I saw a dead rat.”

A cloud of cigarette smoke dispels into the air.

“It was funny, you know? Cause I felt bad that it was dead, even though it was a rat. I mean, I knew nobody was going to miss it, and that it didn’t have any rat family or friends which would mourn it or anything. But still…It looked like it had been hit by a car, and it was only small so it didn’t look very old, and it seemed so harmless lying there. It probably had a million and one diseases, but just laying there, it seemed harmless. And it felt weird to be sad about this thing dying which would have only maybe caused more damage if it had stayed alive – nibbling through electrical wires and all that.”

JJ takes another drag of his cigarette as he digests the anecdote.

“Anyway. This just made me think of that,” you quietly finish before sinking back into the silence.

“Did you just compare my dad’s funeral to a dead rat?”

You clear your throat. JJ watches in his peripheral as you look down at your feet and fidget your fingers.

“Shit, I guess I did.”

His eyes cut ahead the moment yours seem to flick up.

“Can’t believe that’s the first thing I’ve said to you in years.”

JJ inhales and exhales the nicotine of his cigarette. “Well, I can.”

That makes you laugh. Small and sheltered.

“I weren’t sure that you were going to come,” JJ tells you.

“Could say the same thing to you,” you reply.

Sighing, he drops the cigarette and crushes it under the heel of his boot. He probably should have worn smarter shoes. But then, why would he? Waste of money and space in his truck. Not like his dad was going to see them anyway.

“I only decided yesterday. Practically drove all night.” As if reminding himself of the sleep deprivation, JJ lets out a yawn.

“How is it, being back in Kildare?” you wonder.

JJ shrugs. “Weird. But also not weird at all. I guess I just feel old. I was driving through town and everything looks different.”

“I mean, it has been five years.”

“Jesus,” JJ chuckles, shaking his head. Had it really been that long?

He shoves his hands in his pant pockets and finally finds the nerve to take you in. His eyes scan over you like one might survey potential damage to a car after a close call. He never lets them go below your waist though. As if losing nerve, he flicks them back up to your head and meets your eyes.

“You look well.”

“Thanks. Right back at ya,” you smile.

With that smile – sweet and simple – JJ finds himself being hurled back through time to his teen years. The reminiscing of his youth and the memories that your presence stirs up feels like reflecting on a past life. Something that he almost had, and something that he didn’t exactly lose, but something that changed.

Everything had changed, really. The streets that he used to drive down with his friends, running away from security and darting to and from keggers and house parties, they all had new homes, new paint, new families. Old mom-and-pop shops were now trendy smoothie spots and hippie bars. Empty plots of land that were a good spot to share a joint had now been bought and developed into stylish holiday rentals. None of JJ’s family was left here, not even his cousin. None of his friends were here anymore either. Well, except for you. Is that what you were to him? A friend?

“It was a nice service,” you say.

“Was it?”

For someone like Luke Maybank, ‘nice’ is probably a generous term for a funeral service that’s void of cheery anecdotes and tender memories. It’s a shame that all the memories JJ held in high regard of his father – of the moments that they were bonded and close – often came with the overarching theme of alcohol or drugs. He wasn’t sure there was ever a genuine moment shared between the two. Whatever praise and pride he gathered from his dad was short lived and sparse. When his dad left the island on the boat he stole, JJ never heard from him again. And now he never would.

“Did they ask if you wanted to say anything?”

“What’s there to say? He was a guy and he died in a bender. Short and simple, I guess.”

You nod and go silent once more.

JJ knows that his answer evaded the politeness markers of small talk, but it was true. Luke Maybank was a human who lived on this earth with no mark to be left apart from those which he laid on his own child. The only way that he’d be remembered was in the nightmares that still sometimes have JJ waking up in cold sweats and reaching for the box of cigarettes by his bed.

“I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have come,” you say.

“No, it’s not…” JJ shakes his head and offers you a smile, but he knows it looks unnatural. He isn’t sure what he’s feeling right now. Perhaps everything, if that’s even possible. “I’m glad you came. I’m just tired and…well, you know.”

The funeral of my father.

“Right. Of course.”

He watches you tuck your hair behind your ears and glance towards the graves. He remembers how you used to do that when you were both younger. It was funny to him: you’d go through the fuss of trying your hair back in one way or another, but you’d always leave out a couple of strands. “To frame my face” you’d tell him, and then you’d precede to spend the rest of the day tucking your hair behind your ears. He liked it though. When you’d be concentrating on something, like surfing or fixing something up or writing, you’d lean forward and they’d come lose and hang over your pretty features. He’d want to mess with them; tuck them behind your ears for you. Sometimes he did. He remembers when you’d be on top of him, kissing him senseless, and they’d come lose and tickle his face. Somehow it would make the whole thing more sensual, with his laughs and your giggles.

He feels his face flush as the memories of nights like those creep back into his head. He shouldn’t think of you like that, not after all this time. Not with how things turned out. And especially not at his father’s funeral.

JJ had come over to you once his father was safely tucked away in the ground, six feet under. You’d attended the service at the church, hiding near the back, and then the burial, and as everybody else departed to give JJ ‘a moment’ (whatever the hell that meant), he’d turned to find you stood near a bench, lost in thought.

“It was nice of you to come,” JJ thanks.

“I’m surprised none of the others are here.”

“They don’t know. I sort of kept it close to the chest,” JJ admits. “I’m actually impressed by the turnout.”

You go to laugh and JJ sees you stifle it. It helps him ease up, smile a real smile for a second, as wicked as that sounds.

“People have layers, I guess.”

“Not my dad.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

You meet his gaze again. Your eyes make it clear that you haven’t shed a tear and neither had JJ. He wasn’t sure if maybe that would come later, once the so-called shock had worn off. He doubted it though. And yet, there was a haze of sadness about him. Death is weird as a whole. The death of a parent like JJ’s, even weirder. Maybe it wasn’t just the funeral causing the sadness. Maybe it was you.

JJ makes a move to leave but before he can even shift his foot one whole step, you’re talking.

“Do you wanna come back to mine? We could catch up. I’m sure you’ve been doing all sorts since I last saw you. Maybe have a drink or two, for old times’ sake?”

“Oh, I don’t drink anymore.”

“Oh,” you say. A pause for thought, then, “well, I have orange juice.”

It’s a strange thing to offer in place of a bottle of beer or glass of wine. Most people would say a cup of coffee. But no - orange juice: that’s where your mind went. It makes JJ smile. It seems so on-par for you to offer him that.

“Okay. Sure. Orange juice sounds good.”

“Do you need a moment, before we leave?” you ask, glancing back over your shoulder to the gravesite of JJ’s deceased father.

The dirt atop of his plot is fresh and stark brown against the green grass. JJ stares a second. The groundkeeper is dusting some muck off the gravestone. The funeral director had offered him a fine granite with award winning chiselling, after recognising JJ from the articles of El Dorado and assuming some high-placed budget. JJ had opted for a simple thing though. Cheap and likely to be hard to read within half a decade. It’s what Luke deserved. Probably what he would have invested into JJ, if the roles were reversed.

“No, I don’t. We can go,” JJ says, voice vacant. He looks back to you. “I’ll drive.”

You don’t live in your childhood home anymore. The place that you’ve settled in is a small home in a sweet looking neighbourhood. In fact, it seems the only part of Kildare that feels familiar to JJ. The front garden is quaint but well kept, with trimmed grass and flower beds that clearly garner a lot of attention and care. The fence is in need of a lick of paint: the blue fading and peeling. A sticky note is attached to the door frame of the front door and it makes JJ smile. ‘Doorbell’s fucked – shout “ding dong” really loud’.

“This is a step up,” JJ says.

“Nice, right? My neighbour is a dick though. Always complaining that I leave my driveway light on in the middle of the night. As if I can even afford to that.”

JJ chuckles as he follows you inside. There’s an instant warm smell that hits him. JJ can’t seem to describe it in any other way than that it smells like you. The interior is safe and homely. The wallpaper and wooden floors pair nicely with the throw pillows and crystals and plants and flowers. Fairy lights are strung from end to end. A kitchen, open plan, feeds nicely into a sitting room. A dining table is tucked in the corner which seemingly functions more as a desk: books piled atop with sheets of paper strewn out. There’s a small corridor to the right and the walls are lined with framed pictures which JJ can’t make out from where he’s stood. He assumes it must lead to a bathroom and bedroom. It isn’t unlived in though. There’s a small pile of clothes which need ironing; they’re sat in a basket, next to the TV. Near the backdoor is an arts and crafts project of some kind strewn about on the floor in organised chaos, blocking the exit.

It's still early in the afternoon so you don’t bother flicking on a light, instead opting to soak in the last few hours of daylight before dusk. Kie used to compare you to a cat, basking in the sun and chasing the rays until there was none left to follow.

JJ closes the door behind him and leans against it.

“You can take your shoes off, if you want.”

“Alright,” he mumbles. He toes them off and kicks them to the side, amongst a pile of your own. He notices how there’s nobody else’s shoes there: just yours, and now his.

You pour out two glasses of orange juice and turn around, handing one to him. He takes it, lost in thought. It all feels surreal, stood here with you, after a five-year pause. When you go to the sofa to sit, he assumes he should follow. You sit on opposite ends. A part of him wonders why you haven’t stretched out your legs and dumped your feet in his lap. ‘These stink’, JJ jokes, poking your toes. You wiggle his fingers off. ‘Shut up, no they don’t.’ Force of habit: he always seems to get stuck on that past. Instead, you go to pull one of your legs up onto the sofa, and JJ flicks his eyes around the room another time. He sips his juice.

“So…” You start. “Any news?”

“Well, my dad died, so there’s that.”

You kick out your leg, aiming for his thigh. “Come on now. Be serious.”

“I am; you were at the funeral. Thought you might remember that,” JJ jokes.

Rolling your eyes mirthfully, you have a sip of your juice. The sun paints shapes on the coffee table, weaving through the thin curtains that line your window. It makes your skin glow, healthy and happy. He’s torn between staring at your face and remembering every detail of your features and avoiding you completely.

“When did you move in here? It’s nice.”

“About two years ago. Mom and dad are still at the old place. They’ve rented out my room though, for tourists and stuff.”

“That’s nice of them,” JJ snorts. “How’s your brother? Is he doing good?”

“He is. He’s at college actually. Graduates later this year.”

“The fuck? That’s so trippy,” JJ mumbles, almost to himself.

JJ can remember your brother as nothing more than a preteen, sulking around the house and begging for rides to soccer practice. Now he’s nearly got a whole ass degree. His eyes naturally fixate on the dining-table-come-desk in the corner.

“What do you do for work then?”

“I’m a teacher at Kildare high.”

Of course you are. JJ smiles, eyes still fixated on the table. It seems to prompt you to continue.

“It’s kinda weird sometimes cause some of the old farts still work there,” you say.

“Oh shit. Mr Rumble still there?” JJ asks, perking up a little, meeting your gaze.

You laugh. “Mr Rummel does still work there, yeah. Still likes to bring you up to me, actually.”

“Really? In what way?”

“Just likes to add the odd little ‘you remember when your boyfriend used to steal my stapler’ kinda things.”

JJ’s laugh is different this time. The word ‘boyfriend’ coming out of your mouth has his thoughts short circuiting. You glance down at your juice and swirl it around the cup.

“Anyway, it’s a pretty good gig. I like teaching, and I actually think I’m making a difference to some of these kids lives sometimes, which is sort of strange.”

“I bet you are. You were always good at helping people,” JJ tells you. Your smile turns soft.

“Thanks, JayJ.”

The nickname is like another sucker punch to the chest. JJ takes it like a champ. Washes it down with water; pretends there’s vodka in there somewhere.

“How are the others, then?” you ask. “How are they?”

“Good. Happy. John B and Sarah are expecting a kid soon.”

“Fuck off.”

“No joke,” JJ laughs. He leans back into the sofa, reclining in the soft throw pillows. It’s strange how easily relaxed he is in this new setting. “They’re debating between two names. Esmeralda or Eton.”

“No. Please God, tell me you’re joking.”

“I wish,” JJ snorts. “Not that I got much of a leg to stand on.”

“What do you mean?” you frown. You lean over and place your juice down on the coffee table.

“JJ? Kinda dumb name.” JJ has a sip of his own before mirroring your actions.

“Hardly. ‘John James’ is pretty proper sounding to me.”

“Meh.” JJ shrugs and props an arm up on the back of the sofa.

“What about Kie, and Pope?”

“Kie is on her environmentalist shit. Investing in rebuilding the coral and things. Pope is studying like crazy. Got a good job lined up too.”

“Only Pope would get a degree when he has literal gold in his savings,” you chuckle. “Didn’t you buy a shop too, or something?”

“A little surf shop with John B, yeah,” JJ nods, smiling proud. The surf shop is something that he would always take pride in. What felt like a pipedream was now his nine-to-five. “It’s doing real good, actually. We’re thinking about expanding.”

“Well, that’s good,” you say, nodding. The two of you lock eyes. Your smile holds steady. “I’m happy for you, JJ. Really.”

“Thanks,” he says. “I’m glad you’re doing good, too.”

And now the polite small talk is over and the catch-up is done. It’s so bizarre seeing someone again after so long. So many things in life have passed – relationships, jobs, fights, conversations, achievements, ailments – but when you finally come to sum it up, it only takes ten minutes. Going through a heartbreak lasts for months, but then a year later and the relationship is summed up in a sentence or two. Time doesn’t only heal, but it also shrinks. It seems to have shrunk whatever used to exist between yourself and JJ too, as you both sit, searching for things to talk about which avoid the dark and ugly. Things which avoid the obvious.

“Do you think you’ll stick around in Kildare for a bit?”

“I don’t know. I ain't really thought about it,” JJ admits. “I weren't even sure if I was gonna go to the funeral.”

“Where are you staying tonight?” you wonder.

He laughs to himself and shakes his head, running a hand through his hair. “I have no idea. Probably just crash in my truck.”

“You’re loaded as fuck and you’re gonna crash in your truck?” you laugh. It isn’t mean when you say it. Just amused.  

“I don’t know. You don’t really get used to having money when you grew up without it. I still feel guilty buying a new pair of boots or something when my old ones ain't coming apart at the soles and shit.”

You nod. “That makes sense. Eminem had a similar thing.”

“Yeah, I’ve always thought me and Eminem were similar,” JJ deadpans.

It seems to strike well with you because you’re cracking up, laughing like he’s just told the best joke you’ve ever heard. He smiles. He always liked making you laugh. You have a horrendous laugh: truly awful. Cats in a bag being bashed against the wall-howling dog parade level of terrible. JJ loved it though. He used to tickle you just to hear it. Watching you now, head titled back, eyes shut and mouth agape, guffawing like a damn hyena…He feels like throwing up.

“Sorry, that…That was good,” you chuckle, wiping your eyes and catching your breath. “You were always good at making me laugh.”

“Fuck knows why,” JJ chuckles.

“Cause you’re funny,” you reply, as if its obvious. “You were always funny.”

It’s strange how the tone of the conversation rises and falls like a mountain range the longer the two of you sit on the sofa.

Your smile turns sombre, like when someone reminisces over a funny memory of their dead pet. Nice at first, amused, and then dampened with the reminder that those times have passed.

“It’s weird, to be honest. You’re so different now but you’re also still JJ.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know,” you sigh. You glance around the room for a moment, as if you’d find the answer hidden in code on the spine of the books stacked on the windowsill. You look at him again. “Your face looks different.”

“It does?” JJ asks. He lifts a hand and strokes his jaw. He could do with a shave, he supposes. The vanity tries to bite through to ask how, but before he can, you’re talking again.

“You don’t drink,” you add, nodding to the orange juice still sat on the coffee table. “You’re quieter. Less…”

You seem to lose the words and so you gesture with your hands. Explosion.

“Calmer. Sadder, but not sad.”

“I can’t tell if these are good things or not,” JJ says, half-joking.

“You look at me different too.”

That makes him pause. He meets your eyes and holds your gaze, steady. The whole room shifts in a moment, from carefree catch-up to tense confrontation.

“Different?”

“Yeah. You look at me different.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” JJ mutters, going to reach for his drink.

“Yes, you do, JJ.”

Your smile is gone now. He can tell, catching it from his peripheral. Suddenly he doesn’t want to be here. Doesn’t want to be in Kildare, doesn’t want to be in this house, in this room.

“You could at least acknowledge it, you know?”

“I don’t understand—”

“It’s actually more rude to not acknowledge it,” you snip.

“I’m not being rude, I’m just making conversation. You’re the one who’s got me on blast like you’re some God damn therapist,” JJ hits back, meeting your steely stare.

“You feel like you’re on blast?”

“I feel like I’m being observed, that’s for fucking sure.”

“Maybe you are. Maybe you are being observed, JJ,” you return, voice harsh and cutting like how a blade slices through paper. “Because it’s fucking weird having you back.”

“You’re the one that invited me here.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” you say.

JJ takes a breath and closes his eyes. The anger never went away, despite what you’ve just told him, he just got older. Got better at hiding it. Got enough money to try therapy. He takes another moment to breathe through it. Push it down his throat and back into his stomach and let it burn out in the acid.

“I’m sorry,” you quietly say. The venom is gone. “I shouldn’t have…I’m sorry.”

He isn’t sure why – can’t pinpoint a perfect reason behind it – but behind his eyelids, JJ feels tears swell. Feels his lips twitch like a child when they hit their funny bone. His next breath in is shaky.

“JJ?”

“Just…”

His voice cracks and he clears it, shaking his head. He wants to open his eyes but he’s scared he’ll start crying, and he’s not doing that, not right now, not today. It’s not even you. You’d seen him cry before. Held him through it and patched him up; made him smile after the sadness. But he refuses to cry today because he can’t give his dad that satisfaction, even if it’s not about him. Opening his eyes, no tears escape. He reaches for the juice and downs it.

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that,” he snaps. Then, softer, “please.”

You nod. There’s a quiet. Then, you move to stand and he closes his eyes again because it’s a struggle for you to stand. It’s a struggle. He rubs a hand over his mouth as if trying to shove the welling emotions back inside. There’s the sound of running water in the background as JJ tries to gather himself. The crack-crack-crack of a gas stove turning on and then the clink of metal on metal. You’ve put the kettle on, boiling water. There’s the tinker of porcelain mugs being taken off a stand. He seems to zone in on the peaceful sounds of you making coffee.

When you pour water into the mugs, he remembers the sound of your voice years back. ‘Did you know humans have the ability to hear the difference between hot and cold water being poured?’ ‘Why the fuck do you know that?’ ‘I don’t know. Just thought it was interesting.’

As the teaspoon repeatedly brushes against the inside of the cup as you stir in the instant coffee and milk, JJ finally feels all the emotions even out. As your footsteps make their way back over to him, you flick on the lamp by the front door. JJ opens his eyes to see you place a steaming cup of Joe in front of him on the coffee table. The mug is cute. It’s peach pink and says “I’m drinking tea instead of committing crimes” on the front in an innocent type-writer print.

“Cute mug.”

“Thanks. Thought of you.”

He silently laughs. You sit closer to him this time and your mug sits next to his. There’s no funny quote written across the paint. Then your hand is on his back, barely rubbing him, and it hits JJ that this is the first time you’ve touched him in five years.

“I shouldn’t have gotten so angry,” you tell him. “It ain’t my place to say any of that. Especially not today.”

“It’s true, though. That’s the kicker, ain’t it? That it’s true,” JJ replies.

He sighs and leans back, sitting upright once more. Your hand falls away and you clasp it in the other in your lap. He glances down and takes in your side profile. That stupid piece of hair has come lose again, fallen in your face. He distracts his twitching fingers by twisting one of his rings.

“I’m okay, you know,” you tell him. You look up and meet his eyes. Yours are damp with emotion, just like his were moments earlier. “I’m really okay.”

“You almost weren’t though.”

“Is that the problem? That I almost wasn’t?”

“It’s not the problem. You were never a problem.”

“I ain't mean it like that,” you tell him. You shake your head and JJ isn’t entirely sure why. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Am I the reason that you left Kildare?”

A bird calls outside and JJ seems to latch onto it like a lifeline. That question makes him feel stranded and scared. He wasn’t ready for it despite being fully prepared.

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

“I…It ain't that simple.”

“Can you explain it to me, maybe?” you wonder. There’s no wrath to your tone anymore – no vendetta against him. There’s just curiosity and care, and this wonderful tenderness that JJ always associated with you from day one, when you offered him your cap to keep his hair off his face.

“I didn’t like the person I was in Kildare.”

“Okay,” you quietly say.

“I didn’t like how I acted. I didn’t like how reckless I was, and how I didn’t care who got hurt in the process.”

“Like me?”

JJ swallows. He doesn’t tear his eyes from yours though. “Yeah. Like you.”

“Okay,” you repeat, quieter still, nodding.

“After El Dorado, coming back here, everything felt tainted. I just…I needed to escape it. My dad and my past and…And you. I couldn’t face it. I felt like I’d caused some freak accident and had gotten away, and then I'd come back to face the aftermath and I just couldn’t stomach it. I just ran.”

You nod.

“I just ran,” he hears himself repeat. “And I’m not proud of it. Of any of it.”

“Okay.”

“And I wanted to fix things, but I didn’t know how. Every time I thought of coming back to Kildare, or picking up the phone, or going on Instagram and finding you…I just got so fucking scared, like a stupid shithead kid. I was so scared of becoming the guy I was again.”

And, again, you nod. When he doesn’t continue, you fill the space. “How long have you been sober?”

“The minute I left Kildare.”

“Fuck.”

“Cold turkey. It sucked ass. It still does. You don’t miss it any less. I miss the rage too, sometimes. I miss my dad sometimes, too. Miss him beating on me. How fucked up is that? That I miss him beating on me?”

You don’t seem to know what to say to that. You just look down at the coffee mugs and watch how the steam is slowly but surely going away.

“I am sorry. I know that ain't worth anything, but I am sorry.”

“It is worth something.” You clear your throat, voice coming out stronger when you say, “It’s worth everything.”

Your smile comes back, timid and tiny. You meet eyes for the millionth time that night.

“It feels like I’ve been ready for you to come back, for so long, and now you’re actually here and…I don’t even know where to start.” He watches your tongue dart out and wet your lips. “I wasn’t expecting you to look so good.”

“Disappointed?”

“Massively. I would have got my ass in the gym more if I knew it was a Goddamn competition.”

JJ smiles. “You were always a sore loser.”

“Says you,” you snort.

There’s another peak in the conversation after the long slug of the last dip. It’s so bizarre. So wonderfully bizarre.

“I’m proud of you, for getting sober. Do you feel better for it?”

“Depends.”

“Well, you look better for it,” you say.

“You’re drooling, I think,” JJ teases, reaching a finger out to prod your cheek.

Rolling your eyes, you mirthfully bat his hand away. “You’re hallucinating.”

“Well, withdrawal does crazy things,” he quips back.

You chuckle and shake your head. “I missed you like crazy.”

“I miss you too.”

Your lips part a little with that. Miss. You seem to hesitate to hold his gaze then, like it’s too intense. JJ feels as though he can see every emotion flash across your face in a second, like watching a car crash in slow motion. Surprise, shock, joy, anger, then sadness. It’s that sadness that hammers hard when you speak, voice weak.

“You left without saying anything, JJ. For five years. You just left me.”

“Don’t make it sound like that. Like I abandoned you.”

“But you did,” you whisper. The tears are back. You’ve both fallen from the top of the mountain. “You abandoned me.”

“You don’t get it,” JJ replies, voice suddenly thick.

“I was in it with you.”

“You didn’t see it,” JJ forces out. His tears are falling: they didn’t wait this time. “You didn’t see how it looked – how you looked. You looked so fucking fragile and tiny and small and your leg was so bent and twisted and black – it was black – and I thought you were already dead.”

Your breathing is shaky and broken. The two of you sit on your sofa in the sunset, eyes locked, tears streaming, chests heaving like you’ve run a marathon. The word ‘dead’ hangs in the air and haunts the room.

“I thought you were dead, and I thought it was because of me.”

“Do you hate me for it?”

“Why the fuck would I—”

“Because I didn’t die? Do you hate me for it?”

JJ blinks back his bewilderment. He physically shifts back in his seat, as if you just spat in his face. Horrified, he tells you, “Of course I don’t. Why would you even ask me that?”

“Because I’m still here, JJ. But you acted like I wasn’t for five years. You didn’t even come see me in the hospital. Didn’t sit with me in the ambulance. Hell, you can’t even look at my leg now! You think I didn’t notice? At the graveyard, and now. You think I can’t see it on your face?”

JJ whispers your name in a tearful plea. Stop.

“I’m still here, JJ. And I invited you back here, and I went to the funeral, because I wanted to see you.”

“To show me what I did?” JJ asks, harsher than needed.

You hold his gaze. “To show you I’m okay.”

He shakes his head, insistent. “It was my fault. If I hadn’t been drinking and if I’d been thinking straight, I would have never let you jump off the bike like that. It was fucking reckless and stupid and I would never, ever do it again. It was all my fault.”

“I don’t care who’s fault it was, JJ,” you whisper. Your hand reaches out and traces his cheek and jaw, and he can’t help but lean into your warm touch. There you sit, cradling his face as if he was the victim in this whole thing. It calms him almost immediately. “Nobody forced me on that bike. Nobody forced me to jump, not even you.”

“I shouldn’t have let you.”

“JJ,” you sigh.

He closes his eyes as you shift in your spot, and somehow you end up with your forehead pressed against his. He reaches out one of his hands for the other of yours that rests in your lap and he clenches it, tight. You’re both still crying but they’re silent tears now.

“I forgive you, JJ.”

He shakes his head whilst you nod.

“Yes, I do, I forgive you. I always have. You know why?”

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move.

“Because you were dealt the shitest hand I’ve ever known and look who you are. You’re sober, and you're healthy, and you have loving friends and a steady income and a job which you love, and a boathouse, and so much of your life left. And you didn’t kill anyone. You didn’t kill me, JJ. You didn’t even lose me.”

“I don’t—”

“We’re more than our mistakes.”

When JJ opens his eyes, you pull back enough to let him meet your gaze. As if you know what he’s about to ask, you smile. That smile…JJ feels like he’s coming home.

“You’re more than your mistakes, JJ.”

The moment his lips slot against yours, tentative and hesitant, like a bird exploring new ground for the first time, he’s home. There’s hardly a moment of reluctance, of confusion and mismatch from the time passed, before you’re kissing him back. The softness of your lips against his and the brush of your tongue. The sigh in your voice and the tilt of your head. It’s so seamless and sweet and safe. JJ feels safe here, with you. He feels like all the shit doesn’t matter. He feels like sober might actually be synonymous with happiness, with you. When he lies you down on the sofa, JJ doesn’t want to leave this room, this house, or Kildare. He wants to stay here, worshipping you, breathing you in until you consume all of his senses, because after five years, nothing has made him feel as alive as this. As you.

Everything is a wonderful illusion of being rushed and well-paced all at once. He revels in the way your skin gives gently beneath the scrape of his teeth. When he sucks at your throat, the skin is so delicate, and this close to you JJ can smell nothing but your perfume. He wants to fucking drown in it.

“Fuck, I missed you,” he pants. You’re gasping too. Fingers sliding through his hair, down his sides, along his face.

“I missed you,” you whine.

And that phrase gets repeated over and over like a mantra or a prayer. He hears himself whispering it against your skin with every button he undoes on your blouse. Basks in the sound of your voice, older and mature but still you, as you say it whilst pushing his dress shirt off his shoulder.

There’s a stalling pause when his fingers finish tracing down your stomach to your pants. You seem to notice it. Your hand comes to his face and thumbs at his cheek. They’re still sticky from dried tears.

“JJ,” you whisper, coaxing his attention back to your face. You’re glowing. You’re happy, you’re healthy, and you’re here. “It’s okay.” Nodding, you repeat. “It’s okay.”

Then, he watches your own fingers land on the button of your pants, slowly undoing it. Then the other and the third until they’re lose. He watches you wriggle out of them, pulling them down, struggling somewhat from the tight position on the sofa. Watches the scars emerge, faint but clear, and how they grow and spread like ivy on the side of a house. They merge with the cellulite and stretch marks. With a random bruise you must’ve gotten from hitting your leg on the table the other day. They’re a part of you – plain and simple. At the knee, there’s the connection for your prosthetic right leg. Once your trousers are off, JJ finds himself reaching out to touch it. This thing that he was partly responsible for, this marvel of medicine, the reason you can walk. He loves it and hates it desperately all at once. Glancing back up to your face, you’re watching him just as carefully as he was watching you. But you’re smiling.

“You’re okay,” JJ finds himself saying quietly. Because you are. You’re here, laying almost bare before him, just like you had years before.

“It’s rude to make a girl wait, JJ,” you tease.

With that, JJ’s smile is blossoming back like the returning of spring flowers following a brutal winter. He leans forward and catches himself above you with his arms, kissing you like you’re all the oxygen in the world. Your left leg rubs at his calf, still covered by his trousers, and you giggle against his mouth.

“Fuck, I missed this,” you say. “I missed you.”

“How much?”

“So much,” you say.

“Oh yeah? What’d you miss?” JJ persists, kissing down your neck.

“Your mouth,” you say through a moan. His hands slip behind your back and unclasp your bra. You arch your back enough for him to tug it off.

“My mouth?” he wonders, breathing it against your skin. You’re practically writhing. JJ laughs. “What about my mouth?”

“Don’t be a jackass, JJ,” you mutter.

“You want my mouth?”

“Yes,” you quietly beg.

“You do?” he checks, kissing over your breast, sucking at your nipple. “Where do you want it?”

“You fucking know where,” you sigh, impatience shining through.

He grins at the sudden hitch of your moan as he softly nips at the sensitive skin around your nipple. Then he’s kissing down your stomach until finally his fingers hook into the sides of your panties. He slowly, tauntingly, pulls them down. You kick them off at the ankles, a clear act of frustration, and he bites back his laugh.

“What? Here?” JJ plants a kiss to your hipbone. “You want my mouth here? Or…”

Another kiss, to your pelvic bone.

“Here?”

“Fuck you, Maybank.”

“You wanna?”

“I swear to fucking God,” you huff, laughing through the annoyance.

With that, JJ settles himself between your legs and praises you like you deserve to be. The noises you make are downright evil, considering he can do nothing about it and has to hold it together. You taste so familiar on his tongue.

“Fucking missed you,” he groans against you.

When he sucks on your clit, your hands latch into his hair. Your back is arching and you’re gasping and panting and desperate, and JJ feels like a young God. Pulling back, he slips a finger into your hole and it welcomes him so easily. He cusses at how wet you are.

“Come on baby. Come on, I know you’re close.”

The tells of your body haven’t changed since the last time you two were in this position. The way your mouth hangs open in a silent moan when you fall over the edge is so surreal to see after five years apart. He feels you spasms around him and basks in the scratch of your nails against his scalp as you try to ground yourself. He hardly has time to suck his fingers clean before your pulling his mouth to yours and kissing him stupid.

“Fucking missed you,” you repeat against his mouth, making him laugh. “Nobody fucks me as good as you.”

“Jesus Christ, you can’t say shit like that,” JJ chuckles. “Won’t last.”

“Don’t care,” you say. “Only thing bigger than your ego is your dick.”

JJ can’t help but laugh at that. He loves your giggles in response. And then your hands are shoving at his trousers and the humour is gone, replaced with nothing but raw lust and desperation. There’s nothing performative about it, when the two of you hurry to strip his clothes away as soon as possible. He takes note to get his socks off. You’d always had a weird thing about it, sex in socks, and nothing was going to taint this night. Not after so long.

Being inside you…JJ missed it more than all the alcohol and weed in the world. Nothing compared to the feeling of you clenching around him. The vice of your leg hitched up and over his back as he grips into your thigh, mean and firm, perfecting the angle. The senseless, endless whines falling from your agape mouth, eyes closed tight, lost in the feeling of it. JJ wants nothing to be less than perfect for you, for this. Every stroke, every kiss, every clench of his fingers…it all has to be perfect. He knows when you’re close and he’s more than fucking relieved. It’s taking everything in him not to come. He needs you to fall over the edge first.

“Do the thing,” you whine. “Do the thing, John.”

With that, JJ remembers five years back, to late nights and later mornings spent rolling in bed with you. He bites into his lip, holding back his shit-eating grin as the memories flood back, and he leans forward to your ear. Gently taking the lobe within his teeth, he croons into the shell of your ear.

“That’s my good fucking girl.”

And finally, you fall apart, taking JJ with you like you always would.

When the high finally passes and the endorphins settle down, the two of you are laying on the sofa, only covered by a throw blanket JJ had dragged down from the back of the sofa. You’ve somehow shuffled so you’re laying mostly atop of him. His arms are locked around your damp stomach like a vice, nose nestled into your hair, just behind your ear, breathing you in with every inhale.

“Will you stay in Kildare, just for a short while? For me?”

JJ wants to laugh but he knows how wrong that would be in this moment. The humour doesn’t come from the question, but from the notion that he’d leave after finally having you back in his life, safe and happy, after five long years.

“Anything,” he whispers, pressing a kiss against your hair. Anything for you.

-

“You look like shit by the way,” JJ says.

His hands are warm in his cargo pant pockets. Head tilted down and gaze steady, he sighs.

“Guess you didn’t have chance to clean up though, right?”

Shockingly, the gravestone says nothing back. Well, says nothing asides form Luke Maybank in barely legible font.

It still feels surreal, that his dad is gone. That they’d never remedy anything, or even attempt to fix their relationship. That JJ wouldn’t be able to face him and show him what he’d become. How he’d risen past it all and grown from the pain and the agony. That he’d taken the shitty hand that he was dealt and turned it into nothing but flushes and full houses. That he hadn’t grown into a petty criminal or a tax-evading lowlife, but a strong, good-willed, well-intentioned man. The thought, bittersweet at heart, makes him smile.

“I’m happy dad. I know you probably hate that, being dead and all, but I am.”

As if on cue, there’s the high pitch giggles from afar that catch JJ’s attention. He glances over to spot you and your wonderful mini-you, sitting on your shoulders, waving at him. He waves back, small and short, smiling.

“I’m glad you never met her,” JJ tells his dad, never tearing his eyes away from the pair of you. You ease her off your shoulders and take her hand, pointing to a small bed of daffodils. “I was so scared I’d be bad at this. I was so scared that I’d be like you.”

She’s so fragile as she picks a flower free from the bunch, holding it by the stem, up to you. You nod and presumably smile in approval.

“But I’ll never be like you. She’ll never know what it feels like to live in fear,” JJ states, firmly. He looks back down to the grave. “I’m not your mistakes, and I’m not mine.”

He lowers to a squat and wipes some of the dirt off the stone, revealing the dates. “Happy birthday, dad. You suck, and I hope you’re finally at peace.”

“Daddy, daddy…”

There’s an insistent tug at his jacket sleeve. JJ smiles and looks down at the best mistake he ever made. Mistake is a strong word. ‘Oops, I think is better’, you’d said when you first showed him the pregnancy test.

“What’s up, bub?”

“I found this flower. Can I give it to papa?”

JJ takes the daffodil and glances to the grave. A brief moment of anger passes over him like the breeze of winter. He doesn’t deserve this. He isn’t your papa. I’m glad he’s dead. But he closes his eyes and breathes. Your hand squeezing gently at his shoulder tells him you’re there. It helps ground him.

“Yeah, bub. I think that’d be nice,” he smiles, handing it back.

She giggles as she puts it on the grass just before the stone. Her laughter is brighter and louder still when JJ scoops her up as he stands, looping her around him until she’s a backpack.

“You wanna get ice cream?”

“Hell yeah,” you whoop.

“Hell yeah!” mini-you copies. JJ laughs.

“Alrighty, lets go.”

As the three of you make the small walk back to the car, you intertwine your fingers with JJ’s, holding his hand tight and secure. JJ takes one last glance back at the gravestone. It all began here, in a way, the re-introduction to a life he thought he’d lost. Perhaps the nicest thing JJ’s dad ever did, the kindest act he ever performed, was dying. Perhaps that was his way of paying him back for all the crap he gave.

“Hey.”

JJ glances down at you.

“You okay?”

He smiles. Then, he nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

Everything is going to be okay.

[captainamericasmotercycle]

Hangman x female reader

Hangman falling in love with wolfmans daughter,she was so overly sweet and gentle,she couldn’t ever stay mad at someone and he didn’t understand why but she was the one girl who truly made him feel weak to his knees.They we’re best friends and she never once judged him for how he held himself around others,through the arogence and the cockyness somehow she saw straight through it all an when he was having a really hard night and nobody seemed to know because he was great at hiding that,she ended up just sitting in his lap after he finished playing pool and running her hand through the back of his hair not saying anything at all,it was her just trying to relax him though jake found himself making getting excited about something else.

southern belle

pairing: jake “hangman” seresin x fem!reader

warnings: none

wc: 1.5k

a/n: i hate to be THAT person but sorry this took so long, i had this uncompleted in my drafts and i scheduled to post it last week but a hurricane deadass annihilated my state but anyways i decided to make jake and the reader in an already established relationship i hope that’s okay!

“I’ve been hearing some talk about you around base, Bagman,” Natasha said while finishing her turn in pool.

“Well, what can I say? Pilots are big talkers,” he responded, bending over the table to take his shot.

“Saying you’ve got someone back home,”

Jake looked up at her, “Yeah, you didn’t know that?”

“So it’s true?”

“Yeah,”

“Are you fucking with me, because it’s not funny.”

Bob, Javy, Bradley, and Mav walk up to the area where they normally hang out in the back of the Hard Deck.

“What’s Jake doing this time,” Bradley asks, handing a beer to Natasha.

She takes a sip of her beer and looks around at everyone, “Is Jake actually married or is he fucking with me?”

“He’s married,” almost everyone says in unison.

“Bagman? Like Jake Seresin? Is married?”

Maverick laughs, “Yep, his high school sweetheart if I’m correct,”

“Yes sir,”

“How do you know that? How did everyone know he’s married?”

“He’s married to my Goddaughter,” Natasha’s mouth dropped open and it was like her jaw was going to hit the floor.

“And one of my childhood friends,” Bradley added.

“What?”

“Yeah. None of us have met her but Jake’s said things here and there about her,” Javy says, taking a seat and pointing in between himself and the rest of the squad, excluding Jake, Bradley, and Maverick.

“This is unbelievable. How is Jake Seresin married and I’m not?”

—

This weekend was one that wasn’t too busy for the aviators, so you decided to come up to go house hunting with Jake. You wanted to be with him, but you also wanted him to stay at his base in San Diego. So you compromised and decided to move out to California.

Of course you were going to miss your little place in Texas, but it was worth moving if it meant you would be with Jake again. You had been apart for almost 3 weeks while he worked and you got the moving details sorted out.

You flew in around 7 and texted Jake that you were there. He told you to come down to a little bar called the Hard Deck. You heard your stomach rumble, yeah, you could eat.

You managed to get a rental car and drive yourself out there. When you arrived, you couldn’t help but to feel nervous. You hadn’t met any of his fellow pilots or friends in California, well except for Maverick and Penny.

You grabbed your phone and hopped out of the car. Walking in, you spotted Jake across the bar, and you felt like you had butterflies in your stomach. Even after 6 years, he could still make you feel like a high school girl with a crush.

You divert your attention away to behind the bar where you spot Penny. You walk over to her and lean against the bar. She’s pouring a beer, “I’ll be right with you,” she slides the beer down the bar and turns to you.

She gasps and smiles widely, exclaiming your name. “What are you doing here?” She tells someone to cover for her and walks out from behind the bar. She engulfs you in a big hug.

“I’m up here for a while to look for houses with Jake. I mean he’s got a place but we just figured we would rather have a bigger place with a yard, you know, just in case,” you winked.

“I see,” Penny smiled back. She worked her way back behind the bar, “Well what can I get for you tonight?”

“Get me one of whatever Jake is having,”

“I’m on it,” she winked and smiled while going to pour your drink. You kept yourself leaning against the bar.

Jake spotted you from across the bar and got butterflies. Even after 6 years, you could still make him as flustered as the day you met. He set down his cue stick and walked over to Natasha, “Hey, Trace, how much do you bet that I can get that girl’s number,” he pointed over to you.

She looked at him confused, “I thought you were married?” I mean, he had to have a little fun tonight. Jake pretended to slick back his hair and made his way over to you. Natasha watched with a shocked face, but Maverick knew exactly what was happening, this wasn’t the first time he had pulled a stunt like this.

He finally got to where you were standing and leaned against the bar next to you, “Hey, Darlin’, what are you drinking tonight?”

You turned and smiled at him, “You know, I’m havin’ whatever my husband is havin’,”

“Shame you’re married, we could’ve made a good match,” he pretended to pout. You giggled and wrapped your arms around his neck and he leant down and kissed you softly.

Across the bar, Natasha dropped her pool cue in disbelief. She watched Penny come back with a beer and talk to Jake and the mysterious woman. The woman grabbed her beer and Jake grabbed her hand, leading her back to the group. Natasha’s mouth was still wide open.

The pair came over, laughing. “This is my wife,” he introduced you to the Dagger Squad. Natasha shut her mouth, which was now dry and she watched your interactions with the rest of the team. You walked over to Maverick first and he engulfed you in a fatherly-like embrace. “It’s good to see you kid,”

“You too, Uncle Mav.” Okay so Maverick wasn’t lying about you being his Goddaughter. This was unbelievable for Natasha Trace. How in the world is Jake “Hangman” Seresin, married to a sweet thing like you?

You made your way around the area, introducing yourself to all of Jake’s friends.

“Bradshaw,” you smile.

“Wolfe,” you squint your eyes at him, “Not anymore, Bradshaw, I’m a Seresin now, I have been for a while too,”

“Really? You’d rather take on this dip’s name, rather than keep the cool one?”

“Alright, Bradshaw, that’s enough slander on my humble family name,” Jake cut in. Natasha watched the interaction between the three of you, well I guess Bradley wasn’t lying about you being childhood friends.

Maybe she’s in some sort of nightmare, this can’t be real. You walked over to Natasha last, “Hi,” you tried to introduce yourself to her, but Jake interrupted you, “This is the Mrs.,” he said proudly.

You rolled your eyes at him and introduced yourself to her in the way you wanted, “You must be Natasha, I’ve heard so much about you from Mav. He says you’re an amazing pilot,” you smiled at her and she smiled back, in a forced kind of way. She wanted to reach out and touch your face to make sure you were real.

“So you’re married to Jake?”

“Yes, ma’am,”

“Like, you?”

You giggled, “I am,”

“Natasha, seriously–”

“Jake, this is your wife? But she’s so sweet and you’re so… not,”

You gasped, “My Jake? He could never even hurt a fly, his momma raised him better than that. He’s the sweetest man I know!” You knew he wasn’t, but you had to have a little fun. You’ve been with Jake for 6 years, of course you knew he had a temper, teasing tendencies, and a bit of an attitude, but you’d never admit it out loud.

“See, thank you, sweetheart. At least someone has my side,”

“Of course, baby,”

—

You spent the rest of the night trading stories and sipping beer. The bar began to empty and soon enough it was only your group in there.

Jake was sitting across from you, watching you tell stories of when you two were in high school. He didn’t know how you did it, but just the looks you gave him made him weak in the knees. He began to get more tipsy and more emotionally overwhelmed.

He came over to you and sat down, he laid his head on your shoulder and you didn’t even think twice. You ran your hand through his hair as he lay down, you didn’t even blink when he came over, you just continued to tell your story.

When you were finished talking, he pulled himself up to your ear and whispered to you, asking to go home. You nodded and waited for Bob to finish his story.

When the end of the story came, you stood up and grabbed Jake’s hand, “I think it’s time for us to head out. It was wonderful to meet you all tonight, we should do this again soon.” You all said your goodbyes and you dragged Jake out to the rental car.

“Baby, my truck,” he pouted.

“We can come back for it tomorrow, honey, right now let’s get you home,”

He nodded and followed you to the car, you helped him in and you got into the driver’s seat, you having had much less to drink than Jake. You pulled out of the parking lot of the Hard Deck and began to make your way home to the apartment.

A perfect ending to a perfect night.

[letterlitter]

Karting around

Lando Norris x reader

•in which one small choice will get you to the Bahrain gp paddock.

Lando will never forget the day you met. How you tripped on a kart and almost fell on your way to clear the tires off of the circuit the day he went karting with friends during summer break.

The hot summer day and the amount of work you had to do was not a good mixture with sleep deprivation from the final semester of your bachelor's. Picking up summer programs was not a wise choice. "At least it would end sooner" you had thought as you handed in the form. Now you regretted it.

The job in the racing track had been your motivation to keep going. After getting into Formula 1, this was the cheapest and the closest thing you could get to the experience. You started racing karts and landed a job on the same track a couple of months later. Never knowing this small choice would lead to a bigger fate and gravely embarrassing yourself infront of professional drivers of the fastest cars in the world was the price to pay to get to it.

"Be careful are you okay?" Lando reached his hand for you to hold onto to prevent you from falling. He was too far away but you caught yourself just in time.

"Yes." You exhaled sharply in relief, "this guy is begging me to ride him...that sounded so weird sorry." You pointed at the blue and yellow LN go-kart you tripped on. The track's new owner had bough quite a few of them. You even learned how to drive a go-kart on them so you were super excited about the owner visiting, wanting to look good, yet you ruined it, twice.

You looked up at Lando, who was trying not to laugh at your joke. You didn't think the joke itself was funny to him, but the way it sounded dirty was making him giggle. You noticed his eyes wrinkle when he did.

"Wanna give it a go?"

Your raised your head with the suggestion.

"So you could beat the crap out of me?" You immediately wished you lead a more polite life and wouldn't keep making yourself look worse.

But Lando didn't seem to care much. The blue of his eyes kept looking deeper in the shade.

"How about we give you a headstart? The karts are all the same it won't be like F1."

You suspiciously looked back at him, "is this a make a wish situation? Mind you I am not dying yet."

He laughed. "I promise we made this choice ourselves. It'll be fun with one more driver. Your boss told me you have experience. Come on." He gestured you to follow him.

"I sort of wish he didn't."

***

Five minutes later there you all were, you in your rental helmet and everyone else in their custom designed ones.

Despite your liking, they all agreed to let you start at the front of the pack with them starting a little further from the line.

The flag was waved and off you went. Pushing hard on the gas, trying so hard to beat at least one of the four people racing against you. Three were F1 drivers so you were focused on beating the other man. The only thing your mind was thinking was "don't lose" and you even surprised yourself since not even in go-kart championships, did you push so hard to win.

By the final lap your core muscles were extremely sore and your grip on the wheel felt numb. You had no idea if you had lost yet but you kept on going and you crossed the line with a simple exhale like you had kept all your breaths in the whole race. This was the first time you felt so out of your own body.

A slight tap of the finger on your helmet brought you back on earth,

"You still there?" Lando's voice sounded stuffy through your helmet.

He offered his hand which you took to stand up, taking off your helmet after. 

"Your speed was insane are you alright?" Lando put a hand on your shoulder, bending over a bit to look you in the eye, making sure you're fine.

You nodded yes and started walking towards the building to ask about your lap times.

"Lap time goes: Lando, Alex, .... wow.. y/n, George and Mike."

The "What??" You screamed was the third embarrassment you put yourself through that day. But it was all worth it. You started jumping around making weird noises to your coworker who had just read the names.

Later on George would claim he was trying to be nice and gave you the spot because he wanted to make you look good infront of Lando because he knew you two would end up together.

***

Lando kept coming back to kart with different groups of people. Different drivers, family members, friends. And you had become a member of their racing bunch throughout summer.

Couple days to the official new formula1 season, while your shift was ending and men with cameras were walking in to take some pictures from Lando and his Quadrant team for publicity, Lando pulled you to the side.

He started out hesitant but you didn't really notice at first.

"Before you go I wanted to ask you this once in a lifetime question."

"That would be the second one this summer then."

He smiled, you had become a little closer, a little friendlier during the summer. You felt like it was okay to try and make him laugh.

"How would you like to be a special guest in the Bahrain gp paddock? I might be able to show you around."

You didn't know what to say. Your hands started to sweat and your heartbeat got fast. Was this part of the dream you were having or was it all real?

"What? Yes of course. Yes yes."

So you exchanged numbers and he told you that your trip will be paid for. After a couple months of dating you realized that was just Lando's way of asking for your number. Offering something big to get something small. Maybe that's how it worked for the rich.

You said your goodbyes and waited a couple days for Lando to send you further information.

And this was only the beginning.

[weirdmorefics]

Unmasked Chpt 1- The Call

Word Count- 1,461

Morning came slowly I stayed up most of the night with nightmares. The nightmares are usually worse this time of year, I think it is my mind's way of reminding me of the anniversary of the first Ghostface murders. My brain is wrong though I need no reminder. The only thing keeping me at all sane during the night is the fact that Spencer is not lecturing today and I will get to see him in the morning at work.

I walk into the BAU with a box of donuts for the team since we are all stuck doing boring paperwork today.

"Morning kid, you look like shit. Long night?" Rossi says full of humor.

I roll my eyes and open the box of donuts, "Hey, don't bite the hand that feeds you."

Rossi puts his hands up in surrender then grabs a donut, "Thanks, kid."

As he walks away I shout "Could you stop calling me kid too because that would be great!"

I set the donuts down in the breakroom and picked out one of Spencer's favorites to set on his desk.

I approach Spencer's desk and set the napkin-wrapped donut down on his desk. "Morning Reid,"

"Thank you, Y/n morning to you too. Did you know Americans consume ten billion donuts every year?"

I smile "Well let's make that ten billion and one." My phone cuts off the conversation and I see my sister's contact photo, "Excuse me I have to take this..." I hope he didn't notice my face shift to an anxious one.

Sidney never calls only texts and she still barely does that. She thinks I am an idiot for chasing after the crazy people who kill when enough killers already come after us.

"Do not come to Woodsboro," Sidney states in a serious tone as soon as I pick up my cell.

"Wow, what a lovely way to begin a call! No, hey sis how are you?" I bite back sarcastically.

"Did you hear me Y/n? Do not come to Woodsboro!" She repeats.

" I wasn't planning on going to that hell town anytime soon. What's going on with you? Shouldn't you be busy with your book tour or something?" I respond trying not to sound concerned.

"He's back Y/n," she whines out.

I swallow deeply and walk away from the desks and towards Penelope's office she is never here this early anyway. "This isn't funny Sidney."

"I am in Woodsboro and my rental car has a murder weapon in it and ripped-up pictures of my face and yours. Oh and did I forget to mention two kids were murdered in the same exact way as the original ones... so yeah I'd say he's back." She responds quickly in an angry panic.

I slam open Penelope's door and proceed to vomit my guts out in her trash can. I hear the wheels of her chair squeak as Penelope looks at me with concern as I dry heave in her trashcan. I definitely should have checked if anyone was in here first.

"Sweetheart, are you okay?" Penelope asks softly.

"Sidney, I got to let you go," I breathe out and hang up on her.

I wipe the sweat off my forehead. Why does no one ever mention how exhausting dry heaving is?

"I'm fine Garcia," I try to sound detached. I can't be here. One thing that makes the Ghostface all the same is they want to kill the Prescotts and everyone they love.

"You really don't look fine," she says full of concern.

I try to exit without a word but Penelope is quick to follow to make sure I am okay. It must be an odd scene as Penelope chases me and I speed walk away. Especially since we are always attached at the hip.

I ignore everyone's gaze and walk into Prentiss's office without a word.

Prentiss was doing paperwork of her own and did not even look up, " I need a leave of absence as soon as possible... preferably today"

That statement made her head quickly whip away from her mess of papers, "This is awfully unlike you Y/n... has something happened."

The stress of the anniversary, Ghostface, and the worry of losing Spencer Reid after we just got him back from prison seem to boil all over at once. "I JUST NEED A LEAVE OF ABSENCE IS THAT SO HARD TO DO EMILY!" I shout so loud and instantly regret as I see all my team members' eyes on me from Emily's office window.

"I am sorry Prentiss," I put my hand to my forehead fighting back the anger and fear-induced tears. I have seen so many murders I should be used to it at this point but Ghostface will always be different he always comes back as someone new.

Emily stands up shutting the blinds to her office to halt the onlookers. "L/N you need to tell me what this is about, right now! I have never once seen you act like this."

I pace back and forth the last name I made up did nothing to protect me I will always be a Prescott. I just need to get out of here before they find that out. I take a deep breath, "I am really sorry I can't, I just can't tell you. It will just get you hurt. It will get the whole team hurt and I can't do that! Spencer just got back, Scratch is gone, and the team is almost back to normal I will not ruin it. I am going to leave either way I just needed you to know."

I turn to leave but Emily grabs my arm, "Agent, if you are in danger I need to know. One more thing you also seem to be forgetting is this team won't be normal without you."

A knock follows her statement, "Is everything okay? Garcia told me Y/n was sick. Does she need a drive home?" It's Spencer's voice I can tell immediately. The question makes this even harder. Why must he be so kind? Why can't I stand to leave him?"

Emily's gaze meets mine, "I recognize that look."

"Prentiss I don't have time for your profile," I whisper shout to prevent Spencer from hearing me.

"I know all too well what it's like to be undercover Y/n," Emily states compassionately.

"I have no idea what you mean?"

"Your file is suspiciously blank and sealed of all past background and Strauss assured me it's for the better. It is similar to what my file used to look like." Emily unfortunately continues to profile me.

I feel trapped I can't go to the door Spencer is there and there is no escaping Emily's questions.

Spencer proceeds to knock again, "Everything alright in there?"

I sigh, "Emily I will tell you everything if you leave the team out of this."

"Y/n you know I can't promise that," she frowns.

I grab her hands tightly, "You have to because I know how to deal with this but every time he comes back someone around me dies!"

"Who comes back Y/n?" Emily's tone changes to a demanding one like the one she uses in the interrogation room.

"Promise me you won't tell the team! Promise me you won't let Reid get involved." Tears prick my eyes I don't care that I am being blatant about my feelings for Reid nothing can happen because I am cursed to repeat the same horrors for the rest of my life.

Emily sighs, "I promise."

"Ghostface is back... and my last name isn't L/N... it's- it's Prescott," I stutter as the words come out like saying them would make this more real than it already is.

"As in the Woodsboro killings?" Emily asks in utter disbelief.

"Unfortunately... and I have to go back there, for my sister," I state. "You can not convince me not to, I can't lose her."

"Y/n we solve cases just like this we can do this as a team," She soothes.

"Tell that to the last agent who tried to help my sister and nearly died," my stress getting the better of me causing me to shout and not notice Spencer opening Prentiss's office door.

I felt the eyes on me once again, I doubt I can talk myself out of this one. The chance of a silent escape gone stuck in a room of profiles who could sense I am on the urge to bolt out the door. Then my phone starts to ring in my pocket, none of the team seems to notice when Emily gives me a knowing look. She clearly knows the Ghostface cases well they all start with a phone call.

Taglist- @bunbunbl0gs

[itsgrimeytime]

Home is Where the Heart is (Part Ten) || Farmer!Rick Grimes (TWD) x Teacher!GN!reader AU

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9...

Taglist: @1tsk1tty

rick grimes taglist: @golden-hoax @mgparker @zomb-1-egutzz

AVAILABLE ON AO3

Inspiration: Like Real People Do by Hozier and Begin Again by Taylor Swift.

Summary: Your life was spinning out of control, you knew that. After a string of particularly shattering events, you decided it was time to start anew. With a little help from one of your Grandma's rentals, you found yourself in the small town of Alexandria. The last thing you expected was your neighbor, Rick Grimes.

TWs: kinda anti-Lori, a lil bit of crying, alluding to sex (nothing graphic), and mentioned child abandonment.

[[A/N: Fun fact, I based the multiplication tables on actual posters I had as a kid. And yes, I did have physical multiplication tables on my walls, I was a nerd. This one is quite the rollercoaster. Enjoy :))]

You woke up early that morning, dancing around your house trying to gather everything up. It was almost 2 weeks until school started, and you had honestly never been more panicked in your life.

Grabbing stacks of paper and a few colorful posters you saved from your job in the city, you pushed open the door and unloaded it into your car. It wasn't your first trip to the car that morning, and it was starting to get a little tedious (you would've been frustrated if you weren't so nervous).

Slipping them into the trunk, you took a big breath out of your lungs and readied yourself up for another load. There was a lot more than you'd thought there'd be to decorate a classroom-

"Mornin', darlin'," a voice called to you, and you immediately spun on your toes to meet the one and only Rick Grimes.

It had been a few days since you'd seen him. You started working over at his house, so you wouldn't be running yourself into the ground again. He kept you hydrated and fed, and if you got stressed, he'd kiss your temple or drag you away from the computer. It was a really nice change of pace. You'd been relatively less stressed because of it, except for, well, now.

Rick was leaning against the fence, sleeves rolled up past his elbows (a worn flannel that maybe he wore just for morning work, you noted), and forearms on full display. You could see dirt on his hands though, and you realized it was early enough he must have been working too. Grinning at you and blue eyes twinkling, a stray curl hanging over his face (you had the instinct to comb it back). He actually looked a little messy, imperfect even, who knew he could do that?

Making your way over to him, you chimed with a bright smile, "Hey, loverboy, funny seeing you here."

He laughed, eyes swimming all over your face as you stood in front of him, "'Could say the same for you, ya know."

You smiled, teasing, "You always watch me like that?"

He let out a low chuckle, eyes intently focused on you -you really were never going to get used to that, "Only sometimes."

Laughing, you gently combed the curl back in its place and while you were at it fixed the rest of the muss of his hair. It looked a little like a bedhead, so you spent a little longer fixing it. Rick just watched you do so, maybe a little fondly.

"'S gettin' a lil' long, ain't it?" he offered, and you looked at it for a moment -the bundle of curls almost reached the bottom of his neck.

"Rick, believe me when I say this," you moved your hand to his cheek -mock-serious, "-I will kill you if you cut your hair."

Rick let out a full-body laugh at that one, head tilting up to the sky. You smiled at the noise, heart lurching in your chest.

"Don't get me wrong," you clarified, hand still in place "-I've seen the pictures, and you are very handsome with short hair-"

He just smiled at you, eyes trickling all over your features. It made you want to fidget a little.

"-in fact, I think you'd be handsome with any hair, actually-"

Rick leaned forward and pecked your lips, effectively cutting off your reasoning. It was a simple kiss, just surface level, still made you smile though.

"Ya do know how to flatter a guy, you know 'at?" he hummed, fingers tapping along the wood. He kind of looked like he wanted to touch you, but, you know, dirt hands.

"I am just stating facts," you argued. It was unreal how he did not know how plain attractive he was. God, you could wake up every day stoked just because you were together.

He changed his footing, looking at you curiously, "What are ya doin' out 'ere anyway?"

Blue eyes drew to your trunk, where a substantial pile was growing -messy colors and books and stationery-

"'Looks like a lotta stuff," he commented, saying playfully (but there was something a little serious in his tone), "-Ya ain't leavin' me, are ya?"

"No," you laughed in disbelief, but you saw something in him relax, "-Remember that job I have? That you ignore?"

Rick rolled his eyes, "I don't ignore it."

"You do," you patted his cheek, "-you buy everything for me. But-"

He smiled at you, affectionately, turning to kiss your palm.

"-since school starts in a few weeks," you explained, "-I have to go set up my classroom. What is in my trunk is not my stuff, but instead, tragically, is cute little posters about multiplication tables."

"Cute?" he questioned, eyes looking at you so fondly you thought that you might melt in your place.

"They're jungle themed," you clarified, motioning with your hands, "-have little monkeys on the sides."

Rick smiled at you, something smoothing into his eyes, "'At does sound pretty cute."

Your eyes flicked between his, "I said that, didn't I?"

He laughed again, and you pulled him to your lips that time -a little longer than before, but not much more than the press of the lips. Although you were pretty sure Rick wanted it to be. You too, really.

"Alright, loverboy," you parted, dropping your hands from his face, "-you've distracted me enough, I have some work to do. The colorful letter cutouts will not stack themselves."

He looked at you a second, before asking, "Ya need an extra set of hands? Or maybe three?"

"Oh, you don't need to wake them up, Rick, I'll be fine-" you hummed, "-it'll only take a few hours."

"Carl's helpin' me outside, and Judith is pickin' flowers, think she might give 'em to ya actually, and-" he tilted his head -playfully, "-I gotta few hours."

You laughed, "Do you?"

"For ya?" he grinned, eyes skimming over yours -fond, "-Absolutely."

Rick ended up piling up his kids in his truck and following you to the school. What can you say? You were weak-willed when it came to Rick Grimes.

Now, you were roaming down the hallways, hands full of papers, muttering the instructions you got from an email to your classroom. Beside you, Rick held most of the stuff (not that you hadn't offered), Carl held one box, and with your free hand, you held Judith's -keeping her close. Rick's eyes had been following it the whole way, you probably would've said something, if you weren't so distracted.

"Rick!" a woman called, crouching down to the kids' level, "-and look, Carl and Judith too! Hey guys."

She was young, wearing a floral top and regular jeans. She had blonde curly hair and a deep sort of blue eyes. Her voice was warm and she seemed so welcoming it was actually unbelievable-

Now that you noticed it, she came out of the first hallway -the younger classes. You briefly wondered if she was a teacher too.

"Hey, Beth," Rick chimed happily, warm, "-just helpin' Y/N get 'eir room ready."

"Y/N," she smiled, big and bright, rising back to her feet, "-the Y/N?"

He chuckled, and you saw the tips of his ears go pink (a smile bloomed onto your lips again), but still, he confirmed, "Yeah if ya wanna say it like 'at, the Y/N."

The woman grinned, something twinkling in her eyes, before realizing she hadn't turned to you yet, "Oh, I'm sorry! I'm Beth, Beth Greene, I teach Kindergarten here."

Figures.

"Hi, it's really nice to meet you," you chimed, smiling, "-and even though you don't need it apparently," your eyes shot to Rick a second, "-I'm Y/N. I teach third grade, and am... currently trying to find my classroom."

"Oh," she spoke, eyes lighting up at the idea of helping, "-I can totally help you with that! Third is gonna be the second hallway, what's your classroom number?"

"203," you replied with ease -in all your nerves, you had memorized it.

"That's easy," she waved a hand dismissively, "-should be right at the front, odd rooms are on the left."

"Thank you," you smiled.

"I hope to see you around!"

You grinned wide and continued walking down the main hallway. Maybe I shouldn't be so nervous.

"Look at ya," Rick hummed, teasingly, "-already makin' friends."

You pursed your lips, warning, "Don't start, loverboy."

He laughed, as you turned down the second hallway -eyes darting between room numbers, a little frantically. Rick's eyes lingered on you a little longer, eyebrows furrowing a second. He opened his mouth to say something, but you interrupted him.

"There it is," you breathed out a sigh of relief -second door on the left.

Grabbing your key off your lanyard which had your photo ID too, you slid it into the lock and turned.

Taking in the room, you were nearly bouncing on your toes. Not that it was anything special, it was just a basic classroom with lines of desks, a big whiteboard, plain white brick walls, and a big desk in the corner. It was just... your very own classroom.

"Ya look happy," Rick chimed, coming up to your side as Judith and Carl ran into the room.

You instinctively called out, thinking of the hard tile flooring under your shoes, "Be careful, you two! Don't fall!"

The both of them slowed down considerably, and you let out a sigh of relief -placing the papers you had on one of the desks in front of you and turning to Rick.

He was smiling at you so fondly that you promptly forgot what you were saying -heart skittering in your chest, "Sorry, what did you say?"

"Ya look happy," he repeated, blue eyes skimming over your face a little like he couldn't get enough of you.

"Oh, yeah, I am," you agreed, smile on your face, "-I've always had assistant jobs, this is... I finally have my own classroom. It's big for me, even if sounds a little stupid-"

Rick shook his head, putting the boxes onto the floor, and approached you -running his hands along your arms, "Ain't stupid, baby. Not at all."

You smiled at him but not quite the fullest, nerves still bubbling under your skin, "Thank you."

He furrowed his eyebrows, eyes smoothing over your smile, "'Ere's somethin' else. What's wrong?"

You bit at your lips a second, "I just... I really don't want to mess this up. I've only ever been an assistant-"

His hands moved up to cup your face, turning your eyes onto his -steady gaze, "You're gonna do great. Not a doubt in my mind."

You pursed your lips.

"I've seen ya wit' Carl and Judith," he continued, genuine and honestly, "-you're amazin', baby. You 'ave nothin' to worry 'bout."

"Yeah?"

"'Course," he assured, leaning forward and pecking your lips once, "-Now, what ya want me to do, boss?"

You laughed, and the four of you got to work. Well, Judith was sitting at a desk coloring with crayons but you'd still counted it (especially when she'd offered you the finished product after Carl signed it for her. You immediately stuck it on the pinboard behind your desk. Rick couldn't stop smiling at you).

You were, at the current moment, making nametags with Carl; you were writing their names and he was folding them into triangles -quite diligently, you added. Every once in a while he'd tell you about somebody if he knew them, 'Annie likes the color pink, and James likes dinosaurs, he let me play with his favorite once. It was so cool-'. Attentively listening, you carefully skimmed every name, making sure that their name was spelled right.

"Do you know what Mary's favorite princess is?" you asked, curiously.

Carl paused from folding, gathering an oddly serious face (you almost laughed), "'Think she told somebody it was Cinderella once."

Kind of basic, your mind chimed.

"Good choice," you hummed instead, and you could feel Rick's eyes heavy on the two of you -you chanced a look at him and sweetly smiled. He grinned, shaking his head, and busying himself with the posters.

And then, there was a rapt on the door.

You curiously looked to the door and spotted a man with dark hair and dark eyes. His eyes surfed along the room before landing on Rick, a grin seeping across his face.

"I heard we had a visitor," he spoke, echoing out into the room.

Rick spun to him, grinning wide and making strides to the door, "Glenn, 'ey! Ya heard from Maggie?"

The man, Glenn, smiled in a small sort of way, shaking his head -embarrassed. You peeked up at the two of them, curiosity peaked.

Carl whispered, low for your ear, "'At's Glenn, he teaches here."

You turned to him, digging deeper, "And whose Maggie?"

He darted to the group, seeing they were lost in conversation, and putting his hand in front of his mouth, whispering, "She sells flowers in town, he has a big crush on 'er."

"Really?" you whispered back, "-How do you know?"

"Dad said so," he responded, blue eyes locked onto yours, "-Glenn won't ask her to be his girlfriend though."

"No," you exaggerated, enraptured, "-does Maggie like him back?"

"Yeah," he answered, mindlessly folding, "-she looks at 'im how Dad looks at you. And Dad really likes you."

You smiled, something in your chest fluttering, laughing a little, "Does she?"

"Yeah," he hummed, adding dramatically, "-And she twirls her hair."

"Oh, wow," you responded, playfully, "-she must really like him then."

He nodded at you, as you continued writing away. Until a thought crossed your mind.

"Has your Dad ever tried to get Maggie to make a move?" you asked.

"Dunno," Carl answered, shrugging, "-Dad says everybody in Alexandria is waiting on it. I don't really care, though."

You laughed, and you felt Rick's eyes dart to you at the noise, "Well, at least, you have your priorities straight, Carl."

There was a pause.

"You should try it though," he added, a little quietly, not looking at you.

"Should I?"

"Yeah," he leaned into his hand, "-I think if two people like each other, they should be together. 'Specially if they really like each other. Like you and Dad."

"And you're-" you pursed your lips, "-you're okay with me and your Dad?"

"Yeah," Carl spoke, instantly, "-he smiles a lot with you. 'Didn't used to smile that much when we weren't around."

You frowned slightly but didn't say a word.

"'Cause Mom left," he commented, tone much lower than before. You just watched him quietly. You hadn't really thought too much about Lori, or, at the very least, Carl's perspective.

It might be a little like he lost a Mom.

You bit your lip, bouncing your pen for a moment, "Hey Carl?"

He turned to you, big blue eyes, and his fingers dancing along the table.

"It's okay to miss her sometimes," you decided, eyes settling along his face, "-even if... even if she left on purpose. You can still miss her."

"I can?" he asked so genuinely that it made your heart ache in your chest.

"Yeah, of course," you hummed, giving him your full attention, "-we can still miss the people who hurt us. Especially if you love them."

"And," he started, voice maybe a little wobbly, "-And it's okay if it did hurt me?"

Something in your gut twisted. Oh, Carl.

You took a breath in, hand coming to smooth down his arm, "Yeah, sometimes-" your hand smoothed along his head, "-sometimes people do things that hurt us, and it-" you bit your lip, remembering things yourself, "-it hurts for a long time. And you know what? That's okay."

Carl just looked at you.

"It's okay to feel hurt by someone," you added, not moving your eyes from his, "-even when you love them."

Carl looked at you for a second, processing the words. You attentively kept his gaze, patient.

Before you could blink, he scraped back his chair and threw himself into your arms. Tiny little arms and hands hugging you.

You smiled, a little bittersweetly (maybe with a dusting of tears in your eyes), hand coming up to carefully hold the back of his head. Wordlessly, you smoothed your palm against it -repetitively.

Looking up to match Rick's concerned eyes, you motioned dismissively with your free hand, mouthing 'Later'. He seemed to shoot between your eyes and the back of Carl's head, rolling his lip in between his teeth.

'It's okay', you mouthed, trying to reassure him, '-he's okay.'

Something in him softened, and he took a deep breath, turning back to Glenn.

You did eventually meet Glenn, Rhee you learned; he taught fifth grade, towards the end of the third hall. Just like everyone else, he'd said Rick had practically introduced you already. It made you grin, just like it did every other time. He was nice, friendly even, offered to help you learn the ropes -which, you kind of desperately needed.

A little after that, with the help of Rick's height and Carl's remarkable focus (seriously, you wished you had that), you finished your classroom. Cubbies pushed against the wall, crayons in little drawers, papers properly filed in your desk, and walls covered in cute posters. You deserved a little break, so you took one.

Eating dinner with the Grimes, you stayed over. Leading you to now, as you sat -curled up on the couch watching whatever sitcom was on. It seemed familiar, but you couldn't really remember. Rick was putting Carl to bed, as he'd put Judith a few hours earlier, and you just sat in the coziness of his house.

It was crazy how nice it felt to be in here.

"Hey, baby," Rick hummed out, waltzing up to your side.

"Hey," you greeted with a sweet sort of smile.

Rick sat down just beside you, pulling you into his side (his body warmth bubbling along his skin, and a woodsy smell pulling through your nose). In response, you went to lean your head onto his shoulder -naturally.

"Just one thin'," he hummed, and you stopped in your tracks as he guided your chin up. And with fond, twinkly eyes, he kissed you.

It was languid, beard scratching at your face, and fingertips gently on your skin. Your hand naturally pushed through his hair, brushing through the curls with your fingers. Rick let out a low hum in response that made your stomach twist in a sort of pleasant way, so you kept doing it. Lips melding together with each breath you took, you had the spare thought that he kissed you a little carefully -gently. It made sparks shoot to your toes that he cared so much. Wanted to make you feel special and cared for.

You parted then, eyes fluttering open with a breath, a little flustered. Rick laughed a little at your reaction, fingers brushing along the hinge of your jaw -the careful touch of his callouses.

"Ya are so cute," he hummed, low as a whisper, "-always so flustered by me. 'S cute."

"In my defense," you responded, "-you are probably the hottest person like... maybe ever."

He quirked an eyebrow, a playful smirk smoothing across his lips, "Hottest, huh?"

You paused, "Uh, yeah. I call you handsome all the time-"

"Handsome and hot are two different thin's darlin'," he interrupted, curling his hand behind your ear, "-'s 'bout the intention."

"Well, then-" you continued a little uncertain, "-yeah. You look like you deserve to be carved out of marble-"

His eyes just laid heavily on you, but you could see the tips of his ears turn pink.

"-and at the same time, I would like to watch you chop wood shirtless sometimes," you finished, a little quieter.

He laughed just a little, before confessing, "Sometimes, I do chop wood, actually."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he explained, voice low and gruff, "-in the winter, in case the power goes out. Keep some firewood for the fireplace. Don't think bein' shirtless would be a good idea in 'at weather."

You hummed, distracted by the way his fingers were brushing against your skin. It was so fond it made your head spin.

"'Could be shirtless for other reasons though," he added, tone coated in something different.

You let out a breath, eyes flicking between his, mindlessly poking his chest -accusingly, "Now that's not fair, Grimes. Jokes like that-"

"Who said I was jokin'?"

Your breath hollowed out in your chest, your heart pounding a little too fast. You swallowed, eyes holding his heavy look that you had never really seen before, but you knew very much what it meant.

Heart leaping into your chest, you spoke, "Yeah?"

"Kids are asleep," he offered, eyes set on your face -dipping to your lips, "-if ya want to, I want to."

"Jesus Christ," you muttered.

He laughed a little at that, eyes fond for a second. But continued strumming along your skin, careful touch now definitely making your head spin.

You breathed out, "I would like that. Yeah, who wouldn't?"

Laughing again, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to yours -surface level, but something new biting there. A promise for more.

You wrapped your arms around his neck, hands twisting into his hair. He hummed again, but this time a little differently.

Before you could blink, he was pulling you up to stand, and right before you could do that, he hitched his arms under your thighs -effectively carrying you.

You swallowed, god help me.

Rick grinned at you, something shining in his blue eyes, "'Figured I could show you somethin' else with my strength, yeah?"

You croaked out, just staring at him, "Yeah."

He laughed big and bright then, eyes smoothing to your lips, and decidedly saying, "'Said I was gonna take care of ya, didn't I?"

You blinked, swallowing. Well, maybe you didn't need god to help you.

You looked at Rick a second, before he started to move to the bedroom with a pretty quick pace -almost running. You laughed.

Maybe you were already blessed.

[prettyyoungandbored]

Reason to Live - Johnny Knoxville

Pairing: Johnny Knoxville x Fem!reader (goes by “Babydoll”)

Author’s Note: Currently OBSESSED with “Reason to Live” by KISS and this is what came out of it. This is before Y/N and Johnny’s relationship. Enjoy!

Warning: Y/N goes through it.

Song lyrics belong to KISS.

NOT MY GIF

Y/N was a hopeless romantic and although it was a part of her that she accepted, she also struggled with it. High school boys either didn’t want her or they chickened out. The guys in her 20’s were very much the same with the exception that they just wanted her as a fuck buddy.

She tried to be ok being a fuck buddy. She really did. But still, the hopeless romantic in her thought maybe she could be the one.

She never was.

“Girly, you know I love you more than anything,” Whitney began, putting her hand on her best friend’s shoulder, “but you can’t go around falling for guys that want nothing to do with you outside of sex.”

Y/N closed her eyes. “I know. I know this,” she sighed.

“I know you know,” Whitney said with a small smile.

Y/N opened one eye. “Are you also saying it because you’re tired of coming with me to the Hard Rock Cafè when I’m heartbroken?”

Whitney snorted. “This is not my scene, but I’ll go anywhere for you and with you. I just hate seeing you get like this.”

She got up from her chair. “I’m gonna use the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

Y/N nodded as she sipped her drink. Whitney had a point, sure, but still it didn’t-

Out of love, there's nobody around,

All I hear is the sound of a broken heart

Y/N’s head snapped up. Maybe the liquor was hitting her but also, maybe whoever was singing this song understood her.

Out of time, no more waitin' for you

Now the hurtin's through, and a new day starts

She eyed around to find out where the music was coming from. Her eyes landed on one of the many televisions. Her mouth hung open ajar as she got up from the bar and walked to the closest TV. Her eyes were glued to the music video playing.

And I feel a change in my life, I sailed into dark and endless nights

And made it alive

Everybody's got a reason to live, baby

Everybody's got a dream and a hunger inside

Everybody's got a reason to live, but it can't be your love

Something inside her called. Whoever was singing had a point.

Love, as great as it was, wasn’t the reason to live. She was built for better things in life. She needed to start living for her, not some guy.

“Y/N?!”

She snapped out of her thoughts and turned to see Whitney standing there.

“What’s going on here?” she asked. “You don’t need to be so close to the TV.”

“Who sings this?”

Whitney blinked. “It’s KISS.”

Y/N whipped her head. “It is?!”

“Yeah, remember my dad would play them all the time on the radio?” Whitney said.

Whitney’s dad was the rock radio DJ in their hometown. While Y/N and Whitney spent time there - and even worked there in high school - she wondered how she could’ve missed this song.

“Do you know the name of the song?”

Whitney shook her head. Y/N hurried back to her chair at the bar she reached into her purse, grabbing her notebook. She wrote down ‘KISS’ and a couple lyrics she remembered.

She bought the album the next day and it played on repeat for the entire week.

But the message stayed with her for two years.

=================================

Two Years Later…

Out of touch, with myself for so long,

Now a feelin' so strong comin' over me

Y/N leaned her head back on the head rest and let the lyrics wash over her.

She was in her rental car parked right outside the hotel.

It took her two years to build herself up. To create a life where she felt fulfilled by her work and by her friends and family. She was doing great. Never better in fact.

Then she met Johnny Knoxville on her first day of “Jackass”and she found herself slipping back to her old ways.

He was ambitious, kind, courageous, funny, handsome as hell- she knew she was in trouble from the moment she laid eyes on him.

For the first couple weeks, she managed to keep it together. But sure enough, she found herself melting whenever he was around.

Down the line, there's a lesson I've learned

You can love and get burned, if it has to be

A rap at the car window broke her thoughts. Y/N snapped her head up to see Johnny Knoxville standing there.

She rolled down the window.

“Hey,” she exhaled, an embarrassed smile on her lips

“I wanted to make sure you were ok,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone fall asleep to KISS.”

“Yes! I just…long day and I’m exhausted,” she chuckled.

“You’re telling me.” He paused. “We were all over the place.”

“It was worth it considering all the great footage we got.”

“Hell yeah. You really brought a lot to the table today. It was impressive.”

She shrugged. “Just did my best.”

Johnny’s face softened. “You sure you’re ok?”

She nodded. “I promise.”

“Well, let me know if you need anything. See ya in the morning, Babydoll.”

Babydoll. That goddamn nickname that made her want to giggle and squeal. The first time she heard it she couldn’t stop smiling.

She rolled the window as Johnny walked away and she leaned back and sighed. Just then, she heard another knock and turned to see Holly at the window of the passenger seat.

Y/N unlocked it and Holly slid into the passenger.

“Hi there,” Holly greeted. “I saw you and Wonder Boy-.” She paused. “Is this KISS?”

Y/N turned down the radio. “Yeah.”

“Would you care to explain why you’re sitting in the car listening to KISS?”

Y/N sighed. “Look, you know I like Johnny, and I haven’t had a crush like this in a long time. It’s that kind of crush I want to shake off, but I just can’t.”

“Why would you want to shake it off?” Holly questioned with a pout.

“Because whenever I’ve had them in the past, I’ve just gotten let down.” Y/N pulled back her lips. “It used to be bad and then I heard this song…and I don’t know. It just kind of pulled me back up and reminded me there was more to life than crushes or falling in love and dating and shit. And it worked before.l

She sighed. “It’s not working anymore. I’ve been listening to it on replay since I got here because every time Johnny and I talk, those feelings come back and I don’t want to ruin anything.”

She felt a warmth on her hand. She looked down to see Holly holding her hand.

“I’m sorry you’ve been let down,” Holly said. “I know crushes suck. But maybe this one might work out. You never know until you give yourself a chance to put yourself out there.”

Y/N nodded. “Ok. I’ll try.”

“Good.”

Holly went to get out of the car when Y/N said, “I’m gonna give myself another couple of minutes in here. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Ok. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Holly closed the car door and Y/N sighed. She then put the song on repeat.

=====================================

BONUS SCENE

Holly found Johnny, Steve-O, and Ryan talking in the hallway.

“PJ, a word?” she motioned.

He excused himself from the group when Steve-O shouted, “Don’t steal my girl, Knoxville!”

Johnny waved him off as he and Holly stood in the corner.

“Look, I’m gonna be straight with you,” she said. “Y/N likes you too, ok? I don’t know why she does, but she does.”

Johnny perked up. “What do you mean likes me too? Wait, what did she-.”

Holly held up her hand. “Don’t play this game with me, ok? Just make a move.”

He shoved his hands inside his jean pockets. “She just feels out of my league.”

“Yeah, she is,” Holly agreed. “But I also know you’re a good guy and you would be good for her and her for you. Listen, I’ll drive her to set tomorrow. I’ll slash her tire or something while she sleeps. You drive her home and ask her out, ok?”

Johnny nodded. “You got a deal.” Then it dawned on him. “Wait, you’re gonna do what?!”

[jessicaloons]

Chapter 3:

I have this thing where I get older, but just never wiser…

Masterlist - Previous - Next

"We ready?" Dad checked and we all nodded.

"Pops, we’ll be late! Come on! Or do you want me to drive?" I asked and wiggled my eyebrows.

"Hell no! I’m not coming all the way to Monaco, for the first time! To be killed in a car crash because you drive like on a racetrack!" Shima exclaimed and Mum and Daniel nodded agreeing, Dad laughed and started the engine.

Due to the traffic, we parked the rental car one hour later in the underground parking garage of the house where the Leclercs were living. I got out of the car, opened up the trunk and took out my bag. The rest did the same and we walk med up to the elevator, Mum stopping in front of the door of the staircase.

"Oh come on Mum! Do you really wanna walk up to the 5th floor?" I asked as a loud bell announced the arrival of the elevator.

"Last time, we were stuck almost two hours, Lizzie! It wasn’t funny!" she exclaimed and pushed the door open to the staircase, Dad following her.

"Seriously, Dad? You too?" I asked disbelieving.

"Let’s go!" I turned around as he came back, carrying Mums bags.

"5th floor? We’re underground? 6 staircases? Absolutely not!" he laughed and together with Shima and Daniel we enter the elevator.

"If we get stuck, Charlie can throw us some snacks through the opening in the ceiling!" I chuckled and pushed the round button with the black 5 on it.

"We’re not getting stuck!" Dad laughed and shook his head "You only got stuck the last time because you and Charles jumped like crazy! If you don’t do that, we’re good!"

I looked at him mischievous and he held up his pointer finger.

"Don’t you dare!" Daniel said and I laughed.

The elevator door opened and we got out, waiting at the staircase door for Mum. A minute later the door opened and with a slightly red face she stepped out and right on cue the door to our left opened up.

"Doetterer’s!" "Leclerc’s!" we yell and Shima and Daniel as well as Mum and Pascale stay silent while they stare at Hervé, Enzo, Charles, Arthur, Dad and me.

I hugged Hervé first and at the same time we both say out loud "Happy Birthday!" we laughed and are the first to enter the flat.

Inside Dad and Mum congratulated Hervé with a half hug, half handshake and kisses on the cheeks and a warm hug. Pascale hugged me tight and kissed my cheeks.

"Happy Birthday, mon jolie fille!" she said before Enzo and Arthur attacked me and pulled me in an awkward 3 way hug and both said "Happy Birthday, Lizzie!" before they both gave me a kiss on the cheek.

Charles stood next to Shima and Daniel, who stood next to his parents after they congratulated Hervé. As the chaos settled, Charles walked up to me and pulled me in a tight hug, I could smell his perfume, felt the outline of his chain beneath his shirt bore into my collarbone, he pulled away and cradled my face in his hands before he kissed both my cheeks, I stuck out my tongue and he laughed.

"Happy Birthday, ma belle! May all your dreams come true!" he said and I could feel the look of the others on me, but I just grinned at Charles as we both shout out at the same time "Driving for Ferrari in Formula 1!" we started laughing and the rest joined in.

The door bell rang and Pascale left us to open up, two minutes later Family Gasly joined us, some more birthday wishes were exchanged before Pierre pulled me into his side.

"Ahhh speedy, tonight is going to be epic! All planned out, only the best for your 18th Birthday! You’re the last one of us to turn 18! Finally! Pop the champagne!" he said and his Mum gave him an earnest look.

"Pierre, we want the girls back in one piece!" Hervé laughed and Charles shared a look with Daniel.

"And what about us? We’re ok in pieces?" Charles pretended to be shocked.

"Didn’t you watch Taken? They take pretty girls out of clubs, not boys, you’re safe, they don’t want you!" Arthur threw in and I laughed.

"Damn right! You have to look out for us boys!" I said and Shima looked confused.

"Do we expect that something like that might happen? What is going on?" she asked and Pascale patted her arm.

"Let the boys talk, Shima, mon fille, you know how they are!" she said "Charles, help Shima and Daniel get settled. Enzo, Marina and Juergen."

"I guess I just get settled myself." I huffed and Pascale laughed.

"Lizzie you have your own drawer in Charles room!" now I laughed and walked towards Charles room, followed by Shima, Daniel, Pierre and Charles.

"The pull-out-couch is made for two, and then the air mattress, deal with who sleeps where!" Charles shrugged and plops down on his bed, I followed him.

"Yup, we’re settled." I said and stretched "So, Pierre what do you have planned?"

"There is a private party from RedBull at Jimmy'z and now guess who’s on the guest list with 4 extra guests…" he said and I sat up "I believe what you want to say is thank you!" he wiggled his eyebrows.

"Do you think we’re allowed in there? We’re both in the FDA now, Pierre? I don’t want you to get into trouble…“ I asked and he nodded.

"I don’t think that someone would care? We’re practically nobody’s for now, so I‘d say we have a nice little dinner with our families, then the girls start to get ready and our car picks us up at 9:30!" Pierre stated and with that we all lay our outfits for the night out.

15 minutes later we’re all together at the huge dinner table and devour the delicious food, shared stories, laughed, drank and had a lot of fun. At around 8 Shima and I took our leave and cramped together in the bathroom, showering, preparing for the night.

"So, will you finally tell Charles that you have a massive crush on him this year?" Shima whispered while straightening her hair. I curled mine and laughed, then shook my head.

"Did you see that in the living room? Our families together? What if I tell Charles I have a crush on him, maybe more and he doesn’t like me back, which he probably doesn’t, I don’t want to lose this all, Shima!" I sighed and curl another strand of my hair.

"I think even a blind guy can see that you and Charles are totally into each other! But I get it, the Leclercs are your family too and you’re scared to lose them… although I think even if it would get a bit weird between you and Charles, that wouldn’t change a bit between the families! But yeah I’ll stop pushing!" she replied and I shot her a thankful look through the mirror.

Yeah it was true that I had maybe more than just a little crush on Charles, but losing him over it? Not gonna happen. Our friendship was too important, our families connection too precious to risk it for a crush. I finished up my hair and make up and then went in Charles room to go and get my dress.

At 9 Shima and I walked into the living room and everyone was standing together, Charles is staring at me, then looked at the balloons in the back, I followed his look and then I saw the beautiful cake shaped like an ‘18’ on the table.

"You didn’t thought I would let you celebrate your birthday without a cake?" Pascale said and I hugged her.

"Thank you! It looks soooo good!" I replied and looked at the cake.

Everyone congratulated me again and then we took some pictures all together and some of me with my cake, when it was time for me to blow out the candles.

"Don’t forget to make a wish!" Shima said and I nodded thinking about it for a second and then blowing out the candles.

We all had a slice of cake as Pierre announced that our car arrived, I grabbed my purse and jacket from Charles room together with Shima. As we walked back I heard the dads talk to the boys.

"… Charles, look out for the girls! Take care of them!" Hervé said and Charles nodded.

"Don’t worry! I will take care of them!" he said and turned around "Let’s go!"

"Fucking hell, Pierre! This is amazing! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I screamed as we walked through the doors of the buzzing night club.

"Only the best for your birthday! Oh and in case you wondered why you have to wear this bracelets… that means we’re VIPs. Drinks for free!" he shouted and we made wide eyes "I’d say let’s get this party started! Off to the bar and then to our table!"

And so the night began…

"Come on! One more round of shots!" Pierre said and left the table, Charles rolling his eyes.

"Lizzie, you will regret it in the morning! And these two will regret it too!" Charles said to me and looked then over to Shima and Daniel who were both leaning their head back against the wall, eyes closed, half asleep.

"But it’s my birthday, Charlie! Don’t you want me to be happy?" I slurred and pout at him.

"Ma belle, I want you to have the best birthday ever, but also I don’t want you to feel horrible in the morning!" he said quietly as he leaned down to my ear to not shout over the music of the club. I looked up and smiled at him, as Pierre came back with a round of shots for everyone, Charles sighes and chuckled "Last round!"

Shima and Daniel sat up and grabbed a shot each, we jugged the liquor down and I stuck my tongue out.

"Ughh it tastes horrible!" I said and Charles laughed.

"So? Ready to go home? That was enough, no?" Charles asked us and I shrugged, Daniel and Shima nodded in agreement. Pierre was gone and Charles looked around “I swear, one day I’ll kill Pierre! Where is he now again?! Let’s go outside and I try to call him!”

We got up from the table and made our way trough the club, outside I took a sharp breath, it was cold and Charles helped me in my jacket. Daniel and Shima walked to the side where it was quieter and sat down on a little wall, both leaning on each other closing their eyes. Charles pulled out his phone and called Pierre, I stood next to him, leaning against his shoulder.

"Pierre? Where are you? We’re outside! No! No more shots! Get out, we’re leaving! Pierre don’t make me come and get you! Pierre! What? No! No one wants a tattoo! Get your ass out here!" Charles talked in fast French and I only understood half of it, Charles discussed some more with Pierre before he hung up.

"I want a tattoo." I murmured and Charles stiffened "What was Pierre saying?"

"I said there is a tattoo artist inside, doing tattoos for free! If someone wants one! Man, Red Bull parties are wild!" Pierre walked up to us, more stumbled.

"I want a tattoo!" I repeated and Charles shook his head "Why are you shaking your head? I’m 18! I can get a tattoo if I want one!"

"Lizzie, you’re wasted! You’re in no place to make such decision!" he answered "Let’s go home! If you still want one when you sober, you can do it!"

"No! I want one! Now! Pierre, let’s go!" I said and took a step towards Pierre who was leaning against a pole, eyes closed.

Charles grabbed my hand.

"I’m not letting you do this! Lizzie, please!" getting frustrated with my stubborn and drunk self.

"Charles let me go!!! I always wanted a tattoo!" I hiss and he pulled me into him.

"Then you still want it when you’re sober! Come one! You know that this is a bad idea! You’re not that stupid!" he was annoyed and I pushed away from him.

"Not that stupid? Do you say I’m stupid?" I slurred.

"Right now? Yes, yes you are acting stupid!"

"I hate you!" I fumed.

"Nope, you love me." he stated, rolling his eyes.

"Ok, I do. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t hate you!" I stomped my feet out of frustration.

"You can hate me as much as you want, but I’m not letting you do that! I’ll call a cab and we’re heading home! If you want a tattoo in the morning and you have the ok from your parents we can do it, I’ll even pay it! But for now, we’re fucking leaving!" he looked at me and I slowly nodded "Good! Your dad would kill me if I let you do that, you know? You don’t want that, do you?" I sighed and shook my head "Oh, he really has a death wish! Where the fuck is he now!" Charles looked around, Pierre gone. Shima and Daniel both close to falling off the wall into the flower pit behind.

"I’ll search Pierre, you take care of these two, don’t let them hurt themself!" I said giggling and walked towards the club, Charles looked hesitant for a moment but then went straight to Shima and Daniel.

"He is going to kill me!" I said as I downed another shot grinning at Pierre who then took my hand and led me to the little quiet corner with the tattoo artist.

"First, it’s my turn!" Pierre laughed and I nodded.

"What can I get on your skin, darling" the tattoo artist asked in a strong British accent.

"Oh, uhm, well something small?" I said and he laughed.

"Love, I’m only doing minimalist tattoos tonight, so the regret won’t be to big. So you’re good! But what motive? Stars? Heart? A little quote?"

"No, I have something else in mind." I answered and the tattoo artist looked at me, waiting for my idea.

Charles’ POV:

The moment they stumbled out of the club, I just knew what happened. I could see it in her face. A shy and hesitant smile on her lips, her eyes wide, cheeks flushed, head hung a little.

“Hey Charlie, I found Pierre. Took some time to convince him to leave…” she began and Pierre laughed, they definitely had drunk some more.

“But here I am and I have your girl with me! Let’s go!” Pierre slurred and Lizzie lets out a little giggle. My girl…

“The taxi’s here. Come on!” I said and held my hand out for her to take and she does, her hand is warm and soft and as soon as we all sat in the car and the driver starts driving, she squeezed my hand three times, then leaned her head on my shoulder. I looked down at her and smiled.

“So, what did you get?” I whispered and tucked a loose strand of hair, that fell in her face, behind her ear, she blushed and looked up

“How did you know?” she asked curiously and I rolled my eyes.

“Ma belle, how long do I know you now? So?” I replied and she giggled again, the sound that made my heart skip a beat every goddamn time.

“I’ll show you at home!” she whispered before she yawned.

“Alright, close your eyes now.” I cooed and she cuddled into my side.

The next minutes of the ride were quiet, soft snores from Pierre, quiet laughter from the back from Daniel and Shima.

“Stop laughing! It’s not funny! I think I have to throw up! Seriously Daniel! I think we need to stop!” Shima’s panicked voice alarmed me although my German is way to bad to understand what she said.

Daniel turned to me.

“She has to throw up, we need to stop!” he said and I turn to the driver and tell him to stop, Shima and Daniel got out and walked to some bushes.

“She’s not getting back in my taxi! If she throws up, the smell will stay for days!” the driver said loud and Lizzie woke up.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Here.” I said, shoved him some money bills in his hand and gently nudged Lizzie.

“Pretty girl, we need to get out.” I said and she rubbed her eyes and looked around.

I shook Pierre and he woke up with a loud groan.

“Come on, we need to get out!” I said and he grumbled something before he got out.

“Thank you and good night!” Lizzie said in her best French she could muster in her state and smiled at the driver.

As we climbed out I started laughing.

“You do realise he kicked us out?” I asked Lizzie and she blinked.

“He did what? Why?” she looked at me confused and I turned her to Shima and Daniel next to some bushes.

“And I was nice to him and said good bye!”

“In such a cute French! He probably regrets kicking us out!” I laughed and she looked around “Don’t worry, only 3 streets away from home, we’ll be in bed in no time!”

“Alright guys, listen, we need to be quiet! Daniel you help Shima, don’t look at me like that, you’re swerving! Pierre you hold on to me and Lizzie, you too. And stop giggling! God, why are you so loud!?” I opened the door to our flat and used the flashlight app on my phone to light us our path to my room. I don’t know how we managed to get into my room without any big noises, but as soon as I closed my door I took a deep breath and lean against it. I turned around and Pierre already stripped out of most of his clothes, now only in his boxers, he stumbled to the air mattress and plopped down on it. Then he grabbed the blanket and pulled it over his head and started to snore, great one less to take care off. Daniel sat down on the pull out sofa and got rid of his button down shirt, threw it on his bag and pulled a shirt over his head. Then he shrugged out of his jeans and climbed into the bed under the blanket, he gave me a thumbs up and I laughed quietly. Lizzie sat on my bed, looking at Shima who pulled a large shirt over her head, wriggled around with her arms inside and seconds later her dress dropped to the floor and she picked it up, next up she puts on sweatpants and sat down next to Daniel, who stared at her fascinated just like me, she pulled some face wipes out of her bag and starts wiping off her make up, she realised our stares.

“What? I’m almost sober, throwing up helps.” she said and I nodded.

“Ma belle? Where’s your stuff?” I turned to her but she just shrugged her shoulders.

“Dunno? Why?” she asked and looked first at me and Daniel then Shima, who already laid down next to Daniel and fell asleep.

“We’re going to bed now? It’s almost 4 in the morning?” I laughed and she shook her head and got up on the bed “Lizzie what are you doing? Get down!”

“I’m not tired! Come one Charlie! Let’s dance!” she giggled and jumped up and down.

“Lizzie, please stop! Before you fall off and…” I started and took a step closer as she lost her balance and fell of the bed right into my arms and together we fell straight to the floor “Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?” I looked at her and she shook her head.

“I’m dizzy, I think the alcohol wants to come back, or maybe if I dance a bit it goes back down? Come on Charlie, dance with me!” she laughed and I helped her up, I sent Daniel a helpless look who just laughed, then he shook his head.

“Before sunrise, she’s your best friend!” he stated and turned around, pulling the blanket over his head.

“Charlie? I think I have to throw up!” Lizzie mumbled and looked at me.

I groaned, packed some clothes from my drawer and ushered her in the bathroom, where she knelt down in front of the toilet. I sat next to her, grabbed her hairs in a makeshift ponytail and one second later the alcohol made its reappearance.

“I’m sorry Charlie, I’m a mess…” she sniffled after a while as she looked up, her eyes bloodshot. I got up and wet one washing cloth with warm water and one with cold water, then filled up a cup, good thing mum always kept spare ones in the guest bathroom. I sat back down again next to Lizzie and handed her the cup of water.

“Here, rinse.” I said gently and she did. I flushed the toilet again, closed the lid and pulled her to her feet, then gently pushed her to sit on the toilet. I knelt in front of her, put the cold cloth in the back of her neck and began to wipe down her face with the warm one. She smiled at me and it’s that smile again, that always made my insides flutter like crazy.

“You’re a good friend, Charlie. The best ever.” she whispered and I smiled.

“Yeah, ma belle, you too! And I’m sorry for not writing it in my post earlier… but you are also the prettiest girl.” I said and she blushed.

“Stop, I just threw up I don’t know how many times in front of you, I can only imagine how pretty I look…” she snorted and I laughed.

She always looked pretty, it doesn’t matter what she’s doing, I thought to myself and threw the cloth in the laundry basket.

“Here, I brought some clothes.” I said and hand her the pile of clothes that I got out of her and my drawer. She ignored her clothes and grabbed one of my t-shirts, I then got up and turned around while she changed, but in one of the small mirrors on a shelf I saw how she slipped out of her dress, a bandage around her left elbow, I turned around immediately and she puts my t-shirt in front of her.

“Charlie!” she squeaked and I blushed and turned around again.

“Shit! Sorry! I just… I just looked up at the shelf and there is a mirror and I wanted to look away but then I saw the bandage… and then I… oh god.” I stuttered and she laughed.

“Oh yeah, that’s the tattoo.” she sayid quietly “You can turn around and have a look, Im supposed to take it off as soon as I’m at home anyways.”

I took a deep breath and turn around, she was wearing the t-shirt now that was long enough to cover her until mid thigh.

“Here, look.” she whispered and I took a closer look, as I saw it I smiled “And? Do you like it?” she looked at me nervously.

“I love it.” I said and she smiled from ear to ear “But your dad is going to kill me. So come on, let’s go to bed, I need to be in good shape to fight his wrath off.” I took off my shirt, replaced it with a clean one, changed into sweatpants and we made our way to the bed and lay down. After a minute of silence Lizzie turned around and snuggled into my arm.

“Charlie?” she whispered and I turned my head slightly “Thank you for the best birthday a girl could ask for.”

“Everything for you, ma belle.” I whispered back and gave her a kiss on the crown of her head “Now sleep.” before the words are out she was already fast asleep. And I tried not to think about what Juergen would do to me when he’s going to see her tattoo.

"Yup, I get it Mum, you’re mad, but for the love of god, stop stirring your coffee that loud!" I groaned and Mum sent me a death glare.

"Why is Mum mad?" Dad walked in together with Hervé and Charles next to me stiffened "What did you do?" Charles paled.

Shima and Daniel both made themselves busy with their food on their plates, Pierre grinned like crazy, Pascale looked sympathetically at me and Mum just scoffed.

"Why don’t you show him!" she said and Charles grip on his mug got even tighter, he swallowed hard as I showed Dad and Hervé my arm, Hervés eyes widened, Dad showed no reaction at all.

"I said look out for her and don’t let her do crazy things!" Hervé said to Charles in French.

"I swear I tried to stop her, Juergen! Really! But she tricked me! She and Pierre tricked me! I’m so sorry! Please believe me!" Charles rambled but Dad only shrugged his shoulders.

"It’s alright Charles, I know her now for some time and if she wants something, no one can stop her, you should know that by now, too." Dad laughed and I looked at him surprised.

"You’re not mad?" I asked and he shook his head.

"My little owl, I could never stop you from doing what you really wanted, so by now, I just accept it. At least it looks nice."

Charles let out a deep breath and we started laughing.

This was indeed my best birthday.

————————————————————————

Little Note:

That's it, chapter 3 is out - one of my favourites of the ones I’ve written so far. Just a little fun chapter in between. Chapter 4 will be a whole bunch of emotions…

Please leave a comment/ like/ reblog/ message and tell me how you liked it! I'm dying to hear your thoughts! I'm open to any criticism, bad or good, it doesn't matter!

If you want to be added to the taglist, drop a comment!

Last but not least, English is not my first language and although I tried my best: please forgive me any mistakes I made!

Taglist:

@moonlightts2 @silkenthusiasts @itsjustkhaos

All pictures are from Google, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.

[midwestmade29]

Ice Skating ⛸️

Christmas writing prompt: #3 Word count: 777 Divider by: @benkeibear Be sure to check out @madhatterbri's [full list] of Christmas/New Year writing prompts!

Ok, there’s a couple mentions of you, Christian and a hot bath…but I promise I was on my best behavior and kept this story 100% fluff!

Christian helps you get the hang of being on skates for the first time…

“Refresh my memory, but did you say you’ve never done this before?” Christian asked as he pulled into a parking spot at the outdoor skating rink. “No, I haven’t. Not even once.” You confessed, feeling a little embarrassed. Your whole life you’ve lived in a cold weather state where ice skating was a common winter activity, but you never gave it a try. Of course, the one time you decide to attempt something new like this, it’s with a man who was practically born on skates and views gliding around on the ice as a basic skill like riding a bike! “It’s really not that hard. I promise I’ll help you.” He reassured. “I can already feel my back starting to hurt. Are you sure there aren’t other things to do around here? There has to be something we can do that has a smaller chance of me breaking a bone!” You begged, trying to get out of it. Christian looked at you with the cutest puppy dog eyes you had ever seen before, almost making you change your mind. “Come on Y/N! Don’t be nervous! How often do we have free time while we’re on the road? I haven’t been skating in forever, it will feel good to be on the ice again. If you do end up falling, I promise to run you a hot bath later to soothe your aches and pains. I might even join you…”

You found yourself at the skate rental counter after Christian convinced you to get out of the car when he elaborated more about the hot bath he promised you later. He handed you your skates and chuckled when you stared at them uncertainly. “Come sit and I’ll help tighten the laces for you.” It took him no time at all to make sure your skates were well adjusted and fit properly. Once his skates were on as well, he helped you stand and walk over to the entrance of the rink before stepping onto the ice. “I won’t let you go unless you tell me to.” Christian pledged while reaching his hand out to you. He guided you onto the ice, steadying you while holding onto your arms and grinning at your shaky legs. “No laughing!” you warned before smiling too. “I would never!”

Around your 4th lap around the rink, you really felt like you were getting the hang of things! Christian even released your arms and laced his fingers with yours once he knew you were okay. Christmas music played through the speakers around the rink, strings of lights were hung everywhere for the perfect ambiance, and if the aura around the rink couldn’t get any more perfect, fluffy white snowflakes began falling too. It really felt like you were in a winter wonderland! “You’re doing great baby! Thanks for giving this a chance, it means a lot to me.” Christian expressed. Before you could respond, a skater zoomed right past you, making you wobble. Christian pulled you into his arms before you had the chance to fall, and his chest felt good against your frozen nose as you nuzzled in closer to him. Unfortunately, your embrace was short lived when the next skater went by just as fast. Christian began to teeter before eventually losing his balance. He tried to stabilize himself by grabbing onto your arm, but he pulled too hard and the two of you fell like a ton of bricks.

Christian broke your fall when you landed right on top of him and he groaned as the cold and damp ice started soaking into his pants. “Oh my gosh Christian! Are you okay?!” you asked, full of concern. “I’d be a lot better if you’d get your knee off my pelvis.” He quipped. You apologized repeatedly as you peeled yourself off him and offered a hand to help him up. Once the ice shavings were brushed off his clothes, you couldn’t help but to start giggling. “What’s so funny?” he asked. “You know, I was for certain that I’d be the one falling down tonight, but that wasn’t the case. Technically I wasn’t the one that fell. You drug me down with you!” you teased as Christian scowled at you. You placed his arm around your shoulders as you made your way off the ice and over to the counter to return your skates. As Christian slid into the driver’s seat, he hissed at the soreness that was already settling in. You reached over and took his hand in yours before murmuring, “Come on my little figure skater. Let’s get you back to the hotel and into that hot bath...”

My how the tables turned...😂

[hyperfixated-gvf]

Groupie AU Headcanons

Hello hello! Here's those headcanons I promised for the one year anniversary of Settle Down! They aren't really all that smutty, sorry. I'm still planning on writing more filth for you guys, though, I promise! Also, I'm sorry if this isn't my best work, I'm not really well-versed in writing headcanons, but it was a really fun exercise!

Without further ado, enjoy!

...

Warnings: Language, one spicy headcanon (#3), which includes a couple lines of dirty texts and one mention of masturbation over the phone

Pairings: Danny Wagner x Reader; Jake Kiszka x Reader; Sam Kiszka x Reader; Josh Kiszka x Reader

Words: 3545

...

What you like to do for fun together:

Josh:

Josh likes to romance you even though you aren’t a couple. He’ll surprise you with a rose and whisk you away for an adventure around the town, but his favorite thing to do with you is find the most beautiful park and picnic, bonus point if there’s a pond or a lake because you guys like to keep seaweed snacks on you to feed the ducks. You’ll name them funny little names and he always ends up taking a selfie with them, which you always find funny because his photo reel is full of selfies with ducks.

“A rose for my darling,” Josh said, swooping dramatically until you took the flower from his hand. 

You took his outstretched hand and followed him down the stairs, noting the backpack he wore. “Did you find us a park? And did you get some seaweed? You fed the rest of ours to those mallards in Indiana last time.”

Josh shot you a mischeivous grin, and then opened the door to the rental car for you. “Don’t tell Sam, but I stole the rest of his.”

Jake: 

Jake loves teaching you about music, but not just music in general, music the way he sees it. He’s not great at sight reading or anything having to do with music notes on paper, so when he caught you staring early on in the arrangement and you admitted that you loved watching them play and were interested in learning yourself, Jake couldn’t help but put himself in the position of teacher, even if he’d never taught before, because he loves explaining his process to you, which also helps him figure things out himself when he has trouble. You’ll sit there together for hours with a snack and just play around on the instruments.

“It kinda reminds me of when Pheobe tried to teach Joey how to play guitar,” you laughed. After the many months now that you’d been with them, you’d have thought you would be better now at the guitar. You were not.

Jake smiled and made an exagerated hand motion. “What – you mean you think I name my precious skills things like ‘the bear claw’ and ‘the old lady?’” he teased, having watched that episode with you just to scrutinize the guitar playing. He moved to sit with his chest flush up against your back, wrapping his arms around you, even though they nearly didn’t reach around the guitar, and you leaned back into him, content to just watch him play.

Danny:

Danny loves going to antique stores with you. The Kiszka brothers aren’t always in the mood to spend hours looking meticulously through each and every section in the store, but you’re always down to stay with him and watch his eyes light up when he sees something cool. Your favorite thing to do is find a very expensive or different clothing rack and then dress each other up in the weirdest outfits possible (although one time, you did end up liking a coat he put you in more than you thought you would, and Danny carried it around the store for you until you checked out).

“Do you think that Josie would hate me if I showed up with an entire vintage ‘My Little Pony’ set for her birthday next month?” Danny joked, grinning as you raised your brows in surprise at the pure size of the display, with what look like about 50 plastic ponies all standing around a multi-piece set.

You picked up a pink one. “I’m sure you’d definitely be low on the list of ‘people I need to send a thank you card to.” You turned to see an old ukulele hanging on the wall at the booth across the floor. “But I don’t think you should be actively making your sister hate you. Go check that uke out instead.”

He turned to where you were pointing and gasped, the hand-painted designs immediately making him forget about ‘My Little Pony.’

Sam: 

Sam loves drinks – alcoholic, holiday, specialty, anything – and he loves knowing what the “special” drink of whatever town or city they’re in is. He’ll do all his research and send you screenshots or links to places that he wants to go, and he knows you’ll come with because you want to take advantage of seeing the world like a rockstar without fame. Sometimes, just to fuck with people, Sam insists that you made each other unrecognizable, and then once you’d drank your fill of the best hot cocoa or a flight of craft beer, he’d call Danny or one of his brothers and challenge them to find you, like a big game of hide and go seek.

“I think you look a little bit like a cartoon character who dresses up in disguise. The fake mustache is going just a little too far,” you teased, watching Sam wipe his mouth and accidentally set the stick-on facial hair askew. 

He gasped as if offended and fixed his mustache, smoothing it out with his fingers and shooting you a dirty glare in the process. “Don’t talk about the ‘stache that way, Y/N. It’s my Clark Kent factor,” he defended. 

Clark Kent had nothing on Sam Kiszka, you thought. You took a sip of a new beer from your flight and smacked your lips together. “Oh, this one’s good. Here, Superman,” you said playfully, hovering the drink over to Sam’s side of the table, “taste this one.”

How they’d react to a pregnancy scare:

Josh:

The most supportive boy there ever was! Wanna keep the baby? He’s already looking at the safest cribs. Don’t wanna keep it? He’ll drive you across the US to get you to a state that supports it, and he’d insist on being the first brother at your side, since he’s the oldest. But as we all know, Josh loves children, and he’s already writing lyrics about the the wonders of childhood and all the feelings he’s experiencing knowing that he could potentially be a father (…25% chance biologically, 100% chance in practice), and he keeps them stored away when the scare is resolved, but you find them weeks later, since everyone’s stuff is mixed with everyone else’s, and it definitely makes you cry.

“I really like this one,” you said, voice quivering as you read a set of lyrics on the papers you found that brought a lump to your throat. Just seeing how Josh had perceived things through his specific brand of communication was special, and even if you hadn’t wanted a baby, experiencing Josh’s positivity was something of a bundle of joy in and of itself.

Josh peeked over your shoulder and became a little bashful. “Well, they’re still a work in progress.”

Jake:

Jake is probably one of the most apprehensive about the maybe-pregnancy. In no way would he shirk responsibility or even be disappointed, per se, but he does worry about how it will affect the band, the arrangement, and their lives in general. He knows that the band’s time has an expiration date, and somewhere deep inside, he’d be a little worried that a baby would make that date come sooner. In his opinion, it would be one of the best reasons to go out, but Jake isn’t done quite yet. That being said, Jake thinks tiny little guitars are cute, and he quite likes playing house with you. He’s also second, only after Sam, regarding the most curious about who the “real” father would have been, if you actually had been pregnant. 

“You’ve been a little quiet,” you said, nose to nose with Jake in his bunk. There was no funny business, not after the excitement of the day, but you’d noticed his unusually subdued demeanor after you broke the news.

Jake looked back at you with what almost look like guilt. “I’m just…processing. It’s like, our whole lives could have been changed, you know? And I feel bad that part of me was so– so against a baby .”

You pressed a soft kiss to his nose, grateful that he was honest and thoughtful both. “I would never ask you to give up your life, Jake. We’d have found a way.”

Danny:

He becomes a little bit of a Papa Bear, very much a dad-zilla, even in the short time the scare goes on for. Very freaked out, very concerned, but the most attentive of them all. He’s the one going out to buy the pregnancy tests and coming back with vitamins and a chocolate bar, too. He’s also the one who does the research for the nearest OB GYN so that if you are pregnant, you could be seen. He’s there in the morning with water and a cuddle, and he’d watch you like a hawk until you were safely and securely not pregnant, but he’d admit to you days after that he didn’t mind playing the doting partner, for what it was worth.

“Wait!” Danny cried out as the three Kiszkas enveloped you in a tight, comforting group hug. You all turned your heads toward him, bodies frozen where they were as his tone of voice surprised you.

“What?” you questioned. You’d much rather him be involved in the hug than standing on the outside, but he sounded worried and that set you on edge.

Danny bit his lip, taken aback by the immediate and complete shift of attention to him, even though he called it to himself. “Um…” he started, licking his lips uncertainly, “that won’t, like…hurt the baby, will it?”

“Oh god,” Sam chuckled, pulling away. “It’s the return of home-ec Flour Baby Dad Danny! Everybody run!”

Sam:

Sam spends the first few hours of the scare attempting to make light of it by assigning everyone a parental role. He jokingly dubs Danny, “Daddy,” as a nod to their fans (which Danny just rolls his eyes and shakes his head at), declares himself, “Pops,” Josh, “Papa,” (but only with a Spanish twist), and Jake, “Dada,” (but, again, only in the Shrek the III voice). In all reality, he’s scared out of his wits, because logically, Journey was right - the road ain’t no place to start a family. But between the doubts and the fear and the unpreparedness, seeing you laugh at his stupid jokes and the way his brothers look at you, he’d also knows that you already were kinda a family, and regardless of your decision to keep it or not, you’d be a pretty damn good one after everything, too.

You could see Sam sitting on his hands, everyone waiting impatiently for Danny to get back from the drugstore they had to do an emergency stop at. It was only ever in the dressing room before a show that Sam did that.

“You good?” you asked quietly as you sat next to him, hand on his knee. 

Sam chuckled softly, glancing at you with his basset-hound eyes. “Yeah,” he said, clearly nervous but trying to hold it together. “Are you?”

You leaned against him, resting your head on his shoulder to and stem his nervous energy. “Sure,” you said, half false confidence, the other half genuine. “One way or another, we will be.”

How they’d react if you sent them a dirty picture (that the others didn’t get 👀):

Josh:

Josh is probably the one who least minds sharing you. It’s not because he doesn’t love you any less than the others, it’s because he finds you so damn beautiful that he couldn’t fathom not sharing you with the others, who he knows love you just as much. So, when the other three don’t get a text, he shares with them, but only just barely; he is, after all, possessive of what you give to him specifically, so he only allows the other’s a peek once he checks that it’s okay with you. Very much, “ha ha, look what I have” more than he does it out of the goodness of his heart.

“Holy shit, darling. How can you do this to me? You know I’m around my brothers, and you know that we won’t be home for another few hours.”

“Can I brag about you, darling? Would it be okay for me to show the others how beautiful you look in that picture? Just so that they know. Then it’s all for me.”

“I can’t stop staring at this, Y/N, damn. How did we get so fucking lucky?”

Jake:

Jake is definitely the one taking a little “break” from whatever it is he was doing. Most likely to the bathroom (hint hint wink wink). If he knows you’re free, he’d definitely give you a call, just so that you can hear his breathing change as he gets off in the studio’s private bathroom. You might even talk him through it, knowing that you got him so worked up with one picture. And when he gets back to the others, he’d just smirk knowingly in a way that would drive the other three insane.

“You know it’s only fair that I call you so you can hear what you do to me, sweetheart.”

“I’m alone now. I hope you are too.”

“The others hate me for having a secret, but if you wear that little number tonight I bet they’ll forget all about ;)”

Danny:

You know that you’re playing with fire when it comes to Danny with how quick he is to snap from his sweet, down-to-earth everyday demeanor to his dominant, controlling bedroom one. Combining the two different extremes of his personality, especially when he’s not with you to do anything about it, creates a very interesting breed of Danny, and the others would never know what set him off because he wouldn’t be thinking of them – as soon as he sees that picture, he knows that his focus is done for the rest of the day. He’s only human, after all.

“If you wanted me to leave to come and fuck you stupid…this was the best way to do that. Good job.”

“You’re so pretty and I want to absolutely RUIN that. In a good way, obviously.”

“You’re gonna want to start groveling, sweet girl. You’ve made me mess up too many times and they’ve sent me home.”

Sam:

He’d immediately look up at the others for their reaction if he was around them and, when he doesn’t see a reaction, he’d catch on immediately that he was the sole recipient of the photos and devolve into his teasing, taunting bedroom persona. He’s just as good at getting you all riled up over the phone as he is in person. He’d hint at it in the group, telling his brothers when they ask why he’s so distracted on his phone, “It’s a Y/N and I thing. For me to enjoy and you to not.”

“Just for me, dirty girl? How kind of you.”

“Good god, baby, you are beautiful. Where have you been hiding these sexy little pictures?”

“You’re gonna be dressed like this when I get back to the bus, right? Curl up right there in my bunk with the blinds closed, I want you all to myself. Go ahead and touch yourself for me, make sure you’re nice and wet and ready, cause this was a naughty, naughty, prank.”

How they’d react to fan speculation about their relationship with you:

Josh:

He’d have next to no reaction. In fact, you’d be very surprised if it were him to bring it up in the first place, because Josh loves his fans, but to a point that seeing everyone’s wants and desires and criticisms all at once overwhelms him since he can’t make everyone happy. But if he saw something about your relationship, he’d be sure to bring it up to you if only to make you aware of it, but outside of that, he really doesn’t care if people speculate.He protects you as best as he can – they all do – but he’s no stranger to the world of fame and fans, so he sees no reason to fight it.

“Hey, we’re dating again, just to let you know,” Josh said casually from the couch as you poured yourself a cup of drip coffee and hoped to God that the bus wouldn’t make you spill it all over yourself.

His words made you laugh, though, and you snorted before taking a sip of your drink. “Oh yeah? I wasn’t sure who I was on most recently. The last I heard I was caught up in a love triangle between Danny and Jake, and they hated each other because of me, so…”

Josh put his feet in your lap as soon as you sat down next to him. “Nah, darling, you’re all mine right now.”

Jake:

Like Josh, he probably wouldn’t have much of an outwardly reaction, but the speculation would put Jake a little more on edge, especially since he lurks on social media more than Josh does. This would unfortunately lead to him distancing himself from you for a little bit, meaning not as much sex, not as much fun, and not as much time that he spent with the band when you tag along. It might make you falter for a second, not knowing what brought it on (and not because you hadn’t seen the rumors, but because there were so many of them that you’d become desensitized) but, eventually, the other boys would drag him to you when they figure out that he’s making you upset by doing it, and he’d come around like he always does.

“I think that you being the mastermind behind this all is very fitting,” Jake joked, listening as the dressing room door was barricaded from the outside. “They’re just your loyal meatheads.”

“Why are you avoiding me?” you asked, ignoring his question and getting right to the point that the other boys had brought Jake in to clear up. “I’ve given you like, one handjob in the past two weeks and you gave up your hotel night to Josh.” It was about more than sex, of course – you missed him as a friend, and you were worried you’d done something to make him angry. He fixed you with a startled gaze and began to protest, but you would have none of it. “And you DARE say that you aren’t, Jake Kiszka. Talk to me," you asked, softer now.

Jake hesitated for a moment, but let out a deep breath he seemed to be holding in his entire being. "Okay."

Danny:

This man would cause chaos if given the opportunity. He’d like supportive posts, but he’d also like cryptic, single-guy coded posts just because he can. He’d probably even follow a new ‘run by a hot woman’ account to really nail the point in that nobody out there really knew what was going on behind closed doors. And, speaking of behind closed doors, he likes it when the speculation cycle eventually makes it around to him again, because he when people think you’re his, it gives him ground to call you that “as a joke.” However, it also makes him just that much more likely to have you whisper-scream his name on the bus for the others to hear, and that’s not a joke.  

“Well, hello there, Y/N,” Danny said with a wink as he slid into the diner booth beside you before any of the other three could, “or should I say, my ‘on-and-off-again, no-good-for-me girlfriend’ who I was apparently seen buying a ring for last week.”

The other three band members crowded into the other seats, leaving you squished up against the wall. “It’d better be one fat diamond, Wagner,” you huffed, prying your phone from between the two of you. “Have the masses moved me to your corner again?”

“Oh yeah,” Danny confirmed, smiling sweetly and wrapping an arm around you. He kissed your cheek and then followed it with a whisper into your ear, “I’m your prince in the streets but a freak in the sheets, as they say. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Sam:

Sam is an enigma when it comes to speculations. It happens so much that he gets bored of it, and his response differs every time. In the beginning, he would just shut down socially – that meant a break from social media, less outings, less fan interaction from him – but as time went by and speculations because something to sigh about instead of react to, he’d be even more careless. He’d post stories with you, bring you everywhere with them, throw you a kiss onstage, etc. because he’d be a little spiteful. He doesn’t like it when people demonize you for being close with the whole band, so he���ll show his affection plain as day to get that message across.

“Sam, just because they say–”

“I don’t care what they fucking say, I’m doing this because I want to,” Sam insisted, popping a piece of cotton candy in his mouth as the Ferris Wheel rose higher. “I love fairs.”

Looking out at all the people wandering around the town they were playing a show in, you knew there’d be a large population of Greta Van Fleet fans who’d catch sight of you and make assumptions. You honestly didn’t mind, but you knew it ticked Sam off, even if he wouldn’t admit it. 

The sun was beginning to set, though, and pressed flush shoulder to foot with Sam, you couldn’t really find it in you to argue.

...

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[darkaviarymc]

The Evergreens Enfold the Shrine, A recursive fic of The Incandescence of a Dying Light by @quaranmine

Chapter 2

June 13th, 1995

-

The Owl Head Trail was a five mile side trail off of Pinnacles and connected to it at both ends. The intended start was by the parking lots at the start of the main trail and the end was just past the campgrounds.  There was no rule against going the opposite way, though, which is what Gem, Etho, and Beef did on that early Tuesday morning.  It was considered a intermediate level trail because of some falling hazards along the edge of the path, steep hillsides and even some sheer drops alond the edges of the path.  The trio no longer considered themselves novices, though, not after spending the past week exploring the first stretch of Pinnacles as well as a few novice level side trails.     

“Can’t believe our vacation will be pretty much over once we reach the end of this trail,” Gem said with a forlorn sigh.  “I miss it already.

“Well, my name’s on the rental car,” Beef said, “But feel free to stay the whole season if you can figure out your own ride to the airport.  I’ve got summer classes for my bachelors program starting in a week.”

Etho shook his head.  “Nah, Pause would kill me if I didn’t come home.  He was worried about me traveling all the way across the continent as it is.  You know how roommates are.”

“It’s too bad he couldn’t come,” Beef said.  “It sucks missing part of the team.”

“Yeah,” Etho agreed.  “It was just bad timing that the only week I could get away from work was the same week as the Iceberg Festival, and that’s like, a big cultural thing.  It wouldn’t have felt right to ask him to miss it.”

“That settles it then!” Gem declared and spun around, walking backward to face Beef and Etho while she talked.  “Next summer, I say we plan better.  Maybe pick a different campground and come earlier, that way Beef won’t have to worry about his summer classes and Pause can have two vacations.”

“Sounds great!” Beef agreed. 

“Turn around and walk straight, Gem,” Etho warned.  “You’ll fall down the hill and crack your head.  Don’t you remember the story you told last night?”

Gem rolled her eyes but did as she was told.

“You know,” Etho continued, “Pause says that someday the internet’s gonna take over the world.  You’ll be able to go to school, work, movie theaters, and all kinds of stuff all on the computer no matter where you are in the world.   Then you won’t have to worry about getting home for class, Beef.” 

Beef scoffed.  “In his dreams!  The internet’s full of nothin’ but dweebs and sex pests.”

“Excuse me!  I use the internet all the time!” Gem protested.

Beef laughed.  “Like I said.  Dweebs.” 

Gem playfully slapped Beef’s arm, and then noticed that Etho had stopped and was standing on the edge of a path looking at something off trail.

“What are you doing?” she stopped and asked.

“Did you see the ghost of mustaches past?” Beef asked as if he was asking a serious question.

“Not funny, Beef,” Etho replied.  “I did see a sialia currucoides, though.  Or at least I thought I did.”

Gem cocked her head.  "A what?"

Etho didn't answer.  He instead simply reached into his vest pocket and pulled out his binoculars.  He adjusted the focus as he looked through them, trying to find the best setting with which to search for he bird he thought he'd seen.

"I thought you wanted to hurry so you could get to the library and make good on your bet with Gem?" Beef said.

"Yeah, but the whole point of taking this detour to the car was to see the sights one more time, right?" Etho answered, not lowering his binoculars.  "I've always wanted to see one of these in the wild.  Their populations have been steadily declining over the past twenty years, you know."  He stepped up onto a large rock to get a better view, not looking where his feet were landing, but instead at what he'd finally found.  Through the binoculars he saw not one, but three mountain bluebirds, all males judging by their bright blue plumage that contrasted beautifully against the dark brown bark of the fir tree they were perched in.  But his enjoyment at the vibrant sight was short lived.  His foot slipped on the rock that was still damp from the morning dew.  He spread his arms out to steady himself, dropping his binoculars in the process, but is was too late.

"Oh Sna-AH!"  He yelled as he completely lost balance and fell.  He tumbled down the steep hillside, his body striking rocks and tree limbs along the way.  Somewhere in his mind, Etho was aware there was pain and would be even more later, but the disorientation caused by the startling fall made it impossible to tell exactly where he was being hurt.  He was vaguely aware of someone shouting, but...

"ETHO!" Gem screamed and darted towards the rock Etho had fallen from.  She was stopped so abruptly by Beef's tight grip on her arm that she almost tripped backwards. 

"If you run after him like that, you'll fall, too!" Beef scolded.  He only released her once he was certain she wouldn't run off recklessly.

Gem's eyes darted between Beef and the rock.  When she approached the rock again, she did so much more cautiously.  "ETHO!" she screamed again.  When she was met with only muffled, pained groaned in response, she looked again to Beef, eyes filled with desperation.

"Shit," Beef cursed through clenched teeth.  "Etho?"

"I'm alive...I think...ow."

Beef breathed a sigh of relief while Gem inched dangerously close to the edge, craning her neck as much as she could to try to find where Etho had landed. 

Beef looked around the tree line and eventually found a long, sturdy stick.  Using it as a walking stick for balance, he took a few slow, careful steps down the hillside.  With one hand on the stick, he held the other hand out to Gem.  "Step very gently," he warned.  "Hold on, buddy," Beef called to Etho, "We're coming to ya!"

Again, Etho only groaned in a response that Gem and Beef could barely hear.

Gem nodded and took Beef's hand, and together, they carefully and methodically made their way down the hill.  Occasionally Gem would feel her foothold becoming unsteady and tighten her hold on Beef's hand, prompting him to stop and allow them both to regain their balance before continuing down. 

They reached the bottom safely; the few minutes it had taken them had felt like hours.  What they found there made their stomach turn.  Etho was laying on his back, and blood flowed from a deep gash in his forehead and many smaller cuts on his face, making him squint to avoid getting it in his eyes.  His long sleeved black t-shirt was torn in several places, revealing even more bleeding wounds, though none as serious as the on his head.  Also concerning was the way his right ancle, the one he's initially slipped with, was bent.  It was twisted much farther to the left than an ancle should be, and it didn't take a doctor to tell at first glance that is was most definitely broken.  

They wanted to be relieved that Etho was alive and conscious, but they instantly knew looking at him that in this state, there was no way they could possibly get him back onto the trail.  

Gem dropped to her knees a little less carefully than she should have.  She winced as her legs struck the hard ground, but she paid her own pain no mind as she opened her pack and unpacked her sizable first aid kit.  Beef had called her paranoid for bringing something so large and comprehensive, insisting that it was unnecessary weight and space to take up that could be used to carry more beer.  She'd insisted on it, though, having been the only one in the group to do her proper research (Etho had researched too, though his pre-trip readings had been mostly on the topic of birds native to the area).

"Go get help," Gem told Beef while opening a pack of gauze wrap and alcohol pads. "I'll stay with Etho."

"'M fine, Gem," Etho said.  His slurred speech was added evidence that he'd most likely suffered a concussion. 

"No," Gem insisted.  "You are not fine.  You have a very serious head injury and probably a broken ancle.  I don't even want to move you right now until we know if your back is hurt, too."

"'Im'ma a bology major, I know wha'I'm talkin bout."

Gem stopped and glared at Etho.  "You're an ornithology major, and unless that dorky tactical vest you always wear is hiding a set of wings, I highly doubt your studies apply to you."

"Yeah well, you're jus' a pharm-cicity tech, yeah?"

Gem rolled her eyes and began gently dabbing the alcohol pads around, but not directly on, Etho's most serious head wound.  "Pharmacy tech?  Yeah.  I still took first aid classes."

"I'm ag-sci.  I'm useless here," Beef said.

Gem nodded.  "Which is why I'm sending you to get help."

Etho winced when the alcohol stung his wound.  His vision was blurry and he couldn't quite make out exactly what Gem and Beef were saying.

But then, just for a few seconds, he felt a moment of clarity.  He could hear some sort of ringing, but not quite like the persistent ringing in his ears.  This was a lighter, almost melodic tone, like a wind chime or...

A bike bell.

His eyes opened fully and he stared directly over Gem's shoulder.  What he saw there wasn't some vaguely human shaped shadow or a transparent apparition. 

He was there. 

He was there as clearly and fully as Gem was: a man with black hair and an immaculately groomed mustache, dressed in a pink Hawaiian shirt.

Weakly, Etho raised his arm and tried to point.  "Behin' you, Gem!"

Gem wiped her head around, but saw only trees and rocks there.  She sighed and abandoned her efforts to clean Etho's still-bleeding head, opting instead to press a thick cloth against it in attempt to controll the bleeding.  "No bird watching right now, Etho."

Etho tried to shake his head, but didn't get far due to the pressure from Gem's hand.  "wan'n a bird," he slurred, his breath growing heavier as he spoke.  "I's him.  The guy from th'story."

"You think you saw the ghost of Pinnacles Trail?" Beef asked, raising an eyebrow.  "Dude, you really did hit your head bad."

"Badly," gem corrected.  "And what are you still doing here?  Go!"

"Right!  Right, going now.  You sure you'll be okay?"  

"We have plenty of water and there's bear spray on my necklace," Gem assured him, emphasizing her point by raising up her lanyard to show him the small canister of bear spray hanging there.

A few moments of silence passed after Beef walked away, interrupted only by the ambiance of the forest and Etho's labored breathing and occasional whine of pain.

"Y-you think he died right when'e fell?" Etho asked softly, a tear streaking down his bloody face.  "Or did'e lay there like this?  Knowin' he's never gettin' up?  Jus' waitin' t'die?"

Gem shook her head.  She closed her eyes tightly to suppress her own tears.  "Don't talk like that," She said, her voice cracking despite her best efforts to hold her composure.  "Beef's going to get you help, and you're going to be okay.  Pause would kill us if we came home without you."

Etho's eyes slipped closed and he let out a ragged breath.  "Y'now how... roommates are..."

"Etho?" Gem asked just short of panic when she felt her friend go limp.  "Etho!" She yelled when he didn't respond. "No no nonono no," she muttered and  touched Etho's pulse point.  She nodded to herself when she felt the thump against her fingers.  She layed a hand on his chest and could feel his breathing that was much too shallow to be safe.  

Gem looked up at the hillside.  She couldn't see her other friend through the trees, and could only hope he would find help in time.

"Please hurry, Beef."

Halfway up the hill, Beef was moving as fast as he safely could.  He'd abandoned the walking stick, opting instead to use the rocks and branches around him to pull himself up.  He wished he could sprint up the hill like some kind of wild animal, but he knew that if he rushed himself, he would end up just like Etho.  He heard something crack and crunch beneath his feet.  He looked down and saw Etho's binoculars.  Under his foot was a lense that had popped off in the fall.  They probably weren't totally beyond repair and he wanted to stop to pick them up, but he couldn't afford to risk loosing his balance.

Not to mention any more precious time.  

He could see the top of the hill and the trail now, as well as the top of someone's head.

"HEY!" He shouted to the person.  "Hey, excuse me!"

The person in question stepped out from behind the tree to find him, and Beef had never felt such relief.  Standing there at the top not far from where Etho had fallen was a tan-skinned man with black hair and a stubbled beard dressed in what Beef hoped was a forest ranger's uniform with a hand radio clipped to his belt  

The ranger crossed his arms.  "Excuse me sir!  What are you doing of trail!"  His facial expression and posture were stern, his voice was more curious than accusatory.  

Beef took a second to catch his breath.  "Can you help?  My friend feel, he's really hurt."

The ranger didn't take a spare second to pull a collapsible hiking stick from the deep pockets of his pants.  "Show me."

Beef nodded and let the ranger follow him down the hill.  "He was birdwatching," Beef explained as they made their decent.  It was faster than it had been with Gem.  He somewhat knew the trick to keeping balance on the loose rocks now, and the ranger knew what he was doing as well, likely from years of experience on these trails.  "He was paying more attention to the view than where he was walking and slipped.  His head's bleeding and I think his ancle's probably broken. 

"Is he alone?" the ranger asked.

Beef shook his head.  "No.  Our other friend is still down there with him.  She knows more first aid than I do.

The ranger nodded.  "Good, good."

When they reached the bottom, they found Gem in tears.

"I can't wake him up," she sobbed.

Beef knelt down next to Gem.  "Is he breathing?"

Gem nodded.  

The ranger let out a low whistle.  "Oh, this is bad."  When sobbed again, he responded with, "Sorry.  I don't sugar coat things, I tell it like it is."  He unclipped his radio from his belt and adjusted the frequency.  It squeaked and crackled a little before going silent again.  "Bdubs to HQ, you copy?"

A voice came over the radio in response.  "HQ to Bdubs, I copy."

"We've got an injured hiker on Owl Head.  We're gonna need a med-evac."

"Copy that.  Coordinates?"

Beef and Gem watched Bdubs pull out some sort of device covered in dials and listened as he rattled off a bunch of numbers that were likely the coordinates HQ had asked for.

"Copy that, Bdubs.  Wait there until the chopper arrives."

"Copy that, HQ.  Bdubs out."

Beef stood back up to be face to face with Bdubs.  "Thank you."

"Of course.  As a forest ranger, it's my duty to make sure all you fine visitors are safe.  But just a second now..." Bdubs looked around the area, down at Gem and Etho, then back at Beef.  "There wasn't a fourth person with you was there?"

Beef and Gem looked at each other, then back to Bdubs and shook their heads slowly.

"It's just been the three of us all week," Gem said softly, her voice still rough from crying.

"Hm,  Must not have gotten enough sleep last night.  A full night's rest is important you know.  Keeps you strong and healthy." Bdubs ponded his fist against his chest to emphasize his point, then winced and rubbed the place he'd struck himself.  "Ow.  See?  I'm so strong I even hurt myself." 

Beef chuckled awkwardly at the ranger's odd antics.  He wanted to further address that "fourth person" comment, but there were more important matters to attend to. 

Bdubs knelt down next to Etho on the side opposite Gem.   He looked him over, paying special attention to the other side of Etho's heas.  "Has he been moved since he fell?"

"No," Gem answered.  "I didn't want to risk hurting him more in case something happened to his back.  

"Good thinking."  Bdubs reached over to Etho's broken ankle and gave his foot a light tap.

"What are you-" Gem tried to protest the action, but was interrupted when Etho roused slightly and grimaced in response.  

Bdubs offered Gem a reassuring smile.  "If he can still feel his feet, that's a good thing.  No major spinal damage.  And he's responsive, so he's not comatose."

"I...I guess that makes sense."

Bdubs visually checked Etho over some more while he asked questions of Gem.  

"Was he unconscious when you found him?"

"No, he lost consciousness about... five minutes ago maybe?  He could talk before that, but he was slurring like he was drunk."

"Had he been drinking?  The paramedics will need to know if he's got any substances in his system."

"He had a few beers last night, but nothing this morning."

Bdubs nodded slowly.  "That slurring means a concussion then, for sure.  Looks like there's another wound on the back of his head, too."

Gem sniffed.  "He warned me to be careful when I was acting dumb and now he's the one who fell.  It was my idea to take this stupid trail in the first place."

"What's your name, sweetheart?" Bdubs asked, giving Gem a serious look.

"My name's Gem."

"Gem.  Beautiful name.  Accidents happen, Gem.  You can't blame yourself.  And this gentleman here is..."

"Etho," Gem completed the sentence.

"Etho," Bdubs repeated.

Hearing his name in strange voice caught Etho's attention.  He groaned and his brow furrowed.

"Hey there, buddy,"  Bdubs said softly.  "You waking up?"

Etho's eyes flicked open just for a second before closing again.  "Who'r you?"

"The name’s Bdubs.  I'm the ranger who just called a med-evac for ya.  We're gonna get you out of here, just hold tight."

"Gem?" Etho asked, sounding groggy.

"I'm here, Etho."

"Me too, buddy," Beef said from behind Gem.

"Hurts," Etho grunted through clenched teeth.

"I know," Gem said.  "I'm sorry."

"Pain means you're alive."  Beef gently squeeze Gem's shoulder, and she returned the gesture with a small, tired smile.  "Stay that way for us, okay?"

"'K.  Can't die here."  Etho's lip twitched up in was was meant to be a smile.  "Pause'll kill me 'f I die."

Gem and Beef both laughed, taking Etho's clearly intact sense of humor as a good sign.

Gem echoed Etho's previous words.  "You know how roommates are."

"Is his roommates him emergency contact?"  Bdubs asked.

Gem nodded.  "We're all each other's contact, but he's also on the list."

"I'll need to radio back to HQ so they can contact him."

"Here..." Gem offered before rummaging in the inner pocket of Etho's jacket.  She pulled out a small, clear, waterproof bag containing Etho's passport, trail permit, and list of emergency contact names and numbers.  She handed it to Bdubs.  "Here's all his information, just in case they need it at the HQ."

Bdubs took a moment to admire the bag before standing up.  "This is a genius idea."

"It was all Gem's idea," Beef said, patting Gem's shoulder.  "We all have one on us."

"Well, Gem's great!" Bdubs said with a wide-eyed grin and stepped away to radio back to HQ.

"You really are great," Beef said to Gem.  "I honestly don't think I could have handled this without you.  I wouldn't have had a clue what to do."

Not knowing how to respond, she slumped backwards against Beef's chest and let him hold her steady.  Etho had slipped out of consciousness again, but the bleeding had slowed enough that she felt she could safely remove her hand from the head wound. She left the cloth there just in case.

She looked down at her blood covered hands, and again she began to cry.  She buried her face in Beef's shoulder, and if she felt a few tears that weren't hers roll down her forehead before trickling down her cheek and mingling with her own, she would never say so.

[thebisexualdogdad]

Prom night - Tory Nichols x M!Reader

You couldn't believe that Tory actually said yes to going to prom with you and not even because you two were hooking up on the down low and weren't really telling people about it but because Tory once told you that prom was the last place she would ever be seen.

"I guess prom wouldn't be so bad if I was there with you," she said when you asked her, "plus it's a free excuse to get dressed up and look hot."

When you picked her up she stepped out of her bedroom in a stunning leopard dress with a slit that cut all the way up her leg and your jaw dropped.

"Don't get any funny ideas mister," her little brother tells you after taking some pictures of you guys for Tory, trying to sound like the man of the house.

"Go play fortnite," she chuckled, kissing the top of his head, "I'll be back around midnight, there's leftover pizza in the fridge if you get hungry."

Arriving at the dance you stand in the doorway, noticing Tory is nervous.

"Hey we don't have to do this, we can just go hang out at the beach or something," you tell her.

She takes your hand and squeezes it reassuringly, "I'm okay, let's dance."

Everyone was staring at you guys, of course there were rumors you were together but showing up to prom arm in arm and Tory being in a dress like that was a statement.

On the dance floor you find Robby and his date, having fun with them dancing to the blaring music while avoiding Sam and Miguel as Tory promised to not cause a commotion.

Not that Tory didn't enjoy the moments of dancing right up on you knowing that they were looking.

During the slow dance her arms are around your neck while you hold her waist.

"I'm really glad we came here tonight," she tells you.

"Me too," you smile, "and I know I've already said it like ten times but you are so gorgeous Tory."

She smiles back and kisses you sweetly.

When the prom comes to an end you still have a bit of time before Tory promised her brother she would be home so you drive to the closed amusement park with some burgers you picked up on the way and just chill in your car in the parking lot.

"Where did you even get this tux?" She asks with empty fast food wrappers on the floor of your car.

"My mom picked it out, she said and I quote 'Tory is gonna find you so handsome in this'," you laugh.

"Well she was right, you are very handsome," she tells you.

There's a moment of silence, the lights from the park rides glowing in the night sky.

Tory looks at you, smiling but not speaking.

"What?" You chuckle.

"I don't know what I did to deserve you," she says sincerely.

"I could say the same thing…. I love you Tory," you say for the first time worried that it was too soon and would freak her out but you just had to get it off your chest.

"I love you too Y/N," she says softly, leaning in to kiss you.

The kiss quickly turns heated and she climbs into your lap, your hands on her thighs.

"You sure you want to do this here?" You ask.

"There's no one here and I need you," she replies, her hands on your neck while she kisses you.

Your hands move further up her thighs and under the open slit of her dress.

"Just be careful this is a rental," she chuckles.

The two of you maneuver the best you can around your nice clothes, Tory accidently honking the horn with her elbow making you both burst out laughing.

"Okay, okay I think I got it," you say rolling on one of the condoms you kept in your car for spontaneous moments like this.

Tory lowers down on your cock, moaning while she takes a second to adjust.

You hold onto her waist while she slowly bounces in your lap.

"You feel so good," you say, a hand reaching up to her chest to palm her through the material of the dress.

"Fuck yes," she groans as you thrust your hips upwards into her.

She fully unbuttons your white shirt, hands exploring your bare chest with your stomach clenching with every movement.

She kisses you again but it's sloppy this time as the both of you are doing your best to keep the pace of your bodies steady.

The car is shaking and all you can hear is the sound of your moans blending together.

Sooner than you anticipated you're cumming but still intent on giving her her own orgasm you squeeze her ass with one hand and use the other to rub her clit.

Tory cries out your name when the added pressure on her clit pushes her over the edge.

When your releases subside she slows her movements, letting a few aftershocks hit her before going still.

"That was hot," she tells you.

"You're always hot," you tease.

"Well that I know," she laughs, kissing you one last time, "I should probably be getting home."

"You kind of have to get off of me for me to drive," you joke.

Tory blushes and rests her head for a moment in the crook of your neck, "if I must."

When she returns to the passenger seat she fixes her dress while you button your shirt back up and take the full condom off.

"What do I do with this?" You ask, tying it off but not having anywhere to throw it away.

"There's a trash can over there," she says motioning to the amusement park trash can near your car.

"Now I really hope there's no one else here," you say unlocking the door.

"Y/N," she says before you get out, "pants."

You look down and realize your dick is still out, "oh right," you laugh, stuffing it back in your pants, "what would I do without you?"

[tg-ace]

As promised a full page (and a half) of deleted things I’ve noticed from Fallout and Rogue Nation trailers. (It’s a bit past midnight so I’ll probably edit this later and/or add more to it if I feel like it). (So yes if you are reading this, right now it has been written by sleep-deprived me and does not have correct grammar sorry).

https://youtu.be/wb49-oV0F78?si=n9jbLFtgDjO9ZSUt Firstly bro how many deleted scenes did they have in this one jeez, and the sad thing is they look cool as well as darker than any movie so far (mainly because they show more dead bodies than normal (which yes Dead Reckoning beat them at that) but it shows actual close up scenes of them and blood which doesn’t happen often or ever in these movies (not including Walkers/Larks injury). Kinda wish they kept the snow car scenes in with all the dead bodies because the team hasn’t seen anything as gruesome as that yet (on-screen) so we could actually see how each of them would react differently towards it. (Also wanted to see what was behind that door).  (Edit: it was more bodies :|).

 https://youtu.be/XiHiW4N7-bo?si=WoGzov-WCNsW77dM (this one shows more of the gruesome scenes I was talking about). Also, it feels like it made more sense to remove Ethan almost colliding with an eight-wheeler because it would have removed Ethan from the main action of the scene which was chasing Walker/Lark.

https://youtu.be/MEOOas3JZt0?si=OwCysW5Uxmb710GW (with Benji and Luther’s line changes/additions.)

https://youtu.be/GH94euhUeL8?si=s-zAzg4xsrx2kagZ Noticed they had Walkers/Larks “No hard feelings.” Put over his “Go.” Line.

https://youtu.be/RILMeOnw1xc?si=O0dwOScx4fC8mm4-  Here’s just a video of Fallout deleted scenes which you actually can look at if you have the movie disk (it’s in the main menu). But you can’t hear the real audio which I absolutely hate because these scenes are really cool and I want to hear what they’re actually saying.

https://youtu.be/gOW_azQbOjw?si=IsG0MWQ-uVYkFnSx  For starters I guess Hunley’s line used to be “the IMF IS uniquely trained-“ and not “Ethan is a uniquely trained-“. (Or it could have just been a case of hiding the real lines, like when someone’s mouth doesn’t match up to what they’re saying because it sounds a bit cut/loud when he says it). Fr the background music for Rouge Nation’s trailer though because bro I completely forgot it was this 😂 (fr my mind made it transition to that one IShowSpeed song… idk). Also, it seems that Luther and Brant originally had more scenes because there was one cut to them walking in what seems to be a military base, airport, office, or my personal favorite the rental car pickup. (You could probably make a more estimated guess based on their outfits because their wearing the same ones as motorcycle chase scene). Furthermore, the scene with all four of them talking about the ledger used to be longer and/or had different shot angles. (Also I think Benji’s “Oh my god!” probably could have worked depending on when and how he said it during that scene)

https://youtu.be/FjLSKvVDWyA?si=7uOxxy0iAJF3A8nI The first line was already changed because Ilsa says for the actual plan “You have to get through 12 feet of concrete (then) and 70,000 gallons of pressurized water without any metal.” (Skipping over the Benji’s “stand by to receive” because I can’t remember if that’s a line). Guess they had it as two minutes thirty for the time but they might have changed it because it was an odd number or they just wanted to show it for longer. Also can’t tell if I feel like they should have kept “or else we’ll both be dead” because the main point for Ethan was Benji might die but, it would be true that they would both be dead. (Little side note I find it funny that they used deleted Brandt lines to make people think Brandt was there at the point). Think it was reasonable to remove Brandt’s “shutting down the IMF is a mistake you may regret” because it would just be saying already what’s being shown to us. Finally, for this ad, I am so happy they changed Brandt's line from “now we are wanted by the CIA, awesome.” To “now we are wanted by the CIA, I am so proud of us.” It just sounds way funnier with how he deadpans it.

I feel like for this (https://youtu.be/85H3z44tBoE) they should have kept Benji’s agreed, yes he’s has had a crisis of faith and his thoughts about “Am I fighting for the right side and risking my life for a world that doesn’t seem to care.” (Then Ethan saying “And sometimes the answer is no?” and Benji nods “not being proud of it.”). Because it adds a bit more depth to his character, but either way I still think that scene turned out good.

(That's all I have for now, it has filled up a page and a half good night).

[hankwritten]

Words That Taste Bad in Your Ears

Zhanna/Scout, 1k

Saturday (July 8) : Spicy | Savory | Sweet

“We need car,” Heavy said when they landed in the middling Australian town barely propped up by the minuscule airport.

“We are here to find transportation,” Heavy reminded forty-five minutes later.

“We,” he grit out, emphasis on every syllable as Zhanna and Scout pressed their faces to a glass display case containing children’s toys—ooing and aaing as if they were children themselves—“come to village. For car.”

“Relax Big Guy,” Scout waved away, not taking his eyes off as a wooden cutout with mechanical limbs fired an unsettlingly detailed toy rifle, causing a 2D wooden kangaroo across the display to fall flat, “won’t kill you to slow down a goddamn sec.”

“These words. They come out of little Scout’s mouth. Are you even listening?”

“Mm hmm…”

“Scout! Tell Heavy to slow!”

“Yeah…” Scout still hadn’t taken his eyes off the display, watching as the toy hunter and toy kangaroo reset themselves with clicking precision.

“Chatterjay is right,” Zhanna, exposed to The Worst of Heavy’s coworkers and now traitorous and unhelpful, said. “Misha rushes us.”

“We are in rush.”

“If someone has not come and taken all the metal by now, a few hours extra hours will not make.”

“<Zhanna,>” Heavy said, switching to a language that could properly capture his annoyance. “<We came to do a job! We aren’t here to be tourists, to go sprinting about some no where town in the dry and the heat just to gawk at all the stupid things the Australians have come up with. I Are you doing this just to aggravate me?>”

“<Not everything I do is about you, Misha,>” Zhanna shot right back, straightening up from the glass display and nearing his high with a glare. “<Have you ever thought that maybe I want to go look at things that aren’t an endless icy expanse? That maybe your sister wants to live a little for the first time in twenty years?>”

“<Our family keeps our word. When we say we’ll do a job, we’ll do it.>”

“<That is what you do. And you’ve applied it to the rest of us without proof.>” Zhanna puffed up. “<We’ll go to the big rock when we’re good and ready. And if that little purple woman is cranky, well then she can just go cry about it.>”

“Yeah!” Scout said, puffing up beside her. “No idea what my girlfriend just said, but she sounded pissed at you and I support her wholeheartedly. Screw you Heavy!”

Zhanna, for whatever reason, thought this was very funny. “Screw you!” she repeated.

“Screw you!”

They echoed this back and forth a few times until Heavy had had quite a enough, marching off down the street to find suitable transportation on his own. His two—supposed—mission-mates kept laughing, Zhanna so hard she squeezed Scout in a sidehug that lifted him off the ground.

Still, through the oxygen throttling show of expression, he managed to throw out one last, “Screw- gak! –you…”

“Love you little chatterjay. Such a way with words.”

“…Thanks…*wheeze*…babe…”

*

Heavy’s solo expedition did not pan out as well as he had hoped. This was not how he would have split the Team had he been in charge, though at first he was relieved he could keep an eye on Zhanna a bit longer; she was the eldest of his sisters, but age did not translate to wisdom, and it often seemed she sought out trouble on purpose. Trouble like Scout for instance. Probably the worst man she could have chosen to suddenly fling her first ever affections on, Scout took her sudden interest in stride, and was in no way disturbed when they had calcified into this unshakeable loyalty. Zhanna had decided what she liked, and what she liked was this annoying little toothpick who wouldn’t shut up.

How he hoped Bronislava and Yana were getting into less trouble. He’d sheltered them out of love yet…

Yet he had to admit many of his decisions weren’t always the best ones. The quest for a rental car for instance. The last three Australians he spoke to insisted on arm wrestling him before doling out any quest information, and when he handily beat them it turned out most of their advice were things like, “Don’t know about that, maybe go ask Marsha up the road?” In the end Heavy was fed up that he started refusing ‘brawls’ all together, which only further decreased his success rate.

When he finally trudged himself into the town’s largest diner, he was less than pleased to run into Scout and Zhanna there, still dragging their feet.

“And in the states,” Scout was saying, “chicken comes in buckets. It’s great. I don’t know why but having chicken in a bucket is just so much better than regular chicken- you know I even have this chicken costume they let me have for free when the TFC—Teufort Fried Chicken—place was closing down. They just threw it away! Okay so they didn’t let me have it for free, I had to go out to the back and fish it out of the dumpster, but it was worth it because they’d had a guy wearing that mascot costume for thirty years before they closed down—thirty year old grease stains on the inside! Can you believe it!—but then the Italian place across the street ran them out of business.”

“Mm…” Zhanna said, chin resting in hands as she watched him across a plate of friend chicken.

“So instead of being a mascot, it’s now a mas-scout! Get it? Ha! I crack myself up.”

“Yes. Cracked like chicken egg. Scout is done talking now though, and will go back to putting showing me ‘real cuisine’.”

“Huh? Oh! Oh right, yeah.”

So Scout picked up a chicken wing, and leaned forward. Zhanna took a rip out of the flesh, then proceeded to lick the savory grease off Scout’s fingers. The two did break eye contact during this.

Heavy sat down beside them with a mild noise of disgust.

“Brother! Finally done wandering around?” Zhanna wiped the grease off her mouth with her sleeve. Scout watched her do this adoringly.

“Heavy,” Heavy grit, “was looking for car. To get us out of this place.”

“A ride? Ha! We already found one, dummy,” Scout said.

“What?” Heavy said. “When?”

“While you were out moping. C’mon, it’s out back.”

Heavy was left to be the one to throw bills on the table. This annoyed him. And then, annoyance didn’t even begin to cover what he felt when he walked to the back of the diner and found, not a car, but a scooter with a sidecar attached.

“This will not make five kilometers,” Heavy said doubtfully.

“Sure it will! The chick who sold it said it ‘outrun a pack of thirty dingoes, all while you’re transporting live feral wombats’.”

“Implication was that would be fighting wombats, while dingoes are chasing,” Zhanna nodded helpfully.

“…Fine,” Heavy said, walking toward the vehicle. “As long was we are leaving.”

But before he could even touch the thing Scout barked, “Nope! I’m driving, chucklenut.”

“What?” Heavy demanded.

“Sorry man, way it’s gotta be. I’m driving, Zhanna’s riding bitch, and you-” Scout paused, wiggled his finger in a circle, and papped it against Heavy’s chest, “-get the baby carriage.”

“Scout is not serious.”

“He is,” Zhanna nodded solemnly, “I will be riding this bitch all the way to big rock.”

She used one arm to squeeze Scout around the shoulders, who promptly turned bright ride. Heavy got in the sidecar. It was the only place he could effectively turn around, and not have to look at them anymore. Better alone in the hack for the entire rest of the trip than to spend one extra minute than he had to with them.

He would have words for Pauling when this was all done.

[neurosismancer]

So, let me put on my Internet Old Person hat and tell you kids about the the way we committed music piracy in the long long ago of 2001, and the fragility of those music collections in those days.

You might know Napster. You might know Limewire. But there was a music piracy tool in between those. A little remembered program called AudioGalaxy, and it worked a little like Napster and a little like BitTorrent. The exact details of how it worked are immaterial, but one thing it did was when you searched for an artist, the songs were sorted, in essence, by popularity (e.g. how many people had that specific song file shared.)

Now, I can’t understand why this was a thing, but there was a strange phenomenon in the early days of file sharing and music piracy where people would share songs with the wrong artist name or song title. Certain bands and artists got a lot of stuff attributed to them that they never recorded. “Weird” Al Yankovic may be the most infamous victim of this, with nearly every novelty song and song parody released attributed to him regardless of quality or subject matter.

The confluence of these two phenomena are how I discovered one of my favorite bands of all time.

So, in my late teens, I found a new favorite band. A quickly little one-hit wonder known as DEVO. Y’know, the band that dd “Whip It.” They had the funny red hats that looked like flowerpots. Those guys.

Anyway, I had become obsessed with this band to the point of autistic hyperfixation, and I wanted to hear everything they’d ever put out. At that point, they’d released nine studio albums, a couple live albums, and two collections of early demos, and I wanted them all. So I would find myself crawling in the bottom pages of the AudioGalaxy search results looking for those obscure tracks—b-sides, songs on soundtracks and compilations, the occasional bootleg, They’d pop up between songs that were obviously not by DEVO, and much like our poor friend Alfred Yankovic, any sort of vaguely quirky 80s song got assigned to DEVO.

That was how I found it. A song called, simply, “Detachable Penis.”

Now, I had never heard of such as song, but I knew on the face of it, it wasn’t a DEVO song.

But with a title like that, I knew I had to find out just what in the name of fuck a song called “Detachable Penis” sounded like.

It sounded, dear reader, like this:

(CWs: blurry images of a dildo, the word penis, spoken word poetry)

And I immediately went to Google, because this song somehow tickled an itch in my brain, and I had to go and find out the real band that recorded this song, because how the hell else was I going to get every song I could of theirs I could get my grubby little hands on. The band was called King Missile, and I was hooked.

I’d like to see any music discovery algorithm beat that.

I eventually acquired their entire major discography along with a few EPs and B-Sides. I eventually burned those to a CD, which I could listen to with my MP3 CD Player.

And I realize, upon writing that, for you youth “MP3 CD Player” is a noun phrase that needs explaining. See, while the iPod had been released at that point, and similar devices were also on the market, they were all prohibitively expensive. The economical way to listen to pirated music files was to burn them to CD, but some CD players had software that allows you to burn those song as as _data_. Suddenly, you could have a single CD with 700 megabytes of MP3 files—room for an artist’s entire discography, if not multiple artists.

Since I was download a whole lot of MP3s with my high speed DSL connection, I was taking up an awful lot of space on my hard drive that needed to be offloaded somehow. CD-Rs and an MP3 CD Player were the optimal solution. And it worked…

…until it didn’t.

In the summer of 2002, my parents took me on a vacation to Las Vegas and Los Angeles. It was in the latter city where someone got into our rental car and swiped my MP3 CD player and a binder of CDs—both pressed CDs I’d acquired and CD-Rs of illicitly acquired MP3s, along them a CD-R I’d burned containing the nearly complete King Missile discography.

Songs I had only on that one CD-R.

It took me a decade—ten fucking years—before I’d recovered all the music that was on that disc.

This is the sort of discovery and the sort of loss that kids will never experience again in this day of Spotify and the all-you-can-eat buffet of music on demand we have now.

[braveclementine]

January 13, 2015; 1:37 P.M.

Warnings: None, Readers under 18 can read this book.

Copyright: My OCs are Coach Yonce, Emma, Ila, Tempus, and Itty Bitty. I own these characters. I do not condone any copying of this.

"Before you say anything, yes I already saw the news." Robert replied in a disgruntled voice as I burst into his dressing room once more. He was already typing away at a computer, a phone tucked up under his ear.

We had flown back to California while Robert worked on his shoots and alternatively, worked on getting the other three girls out of the wards.

"I also gave a press conference, so we're flying straight back out to the psychiatric ward. I'm afraid my response might've put the other two girls in danger." Robert admitted, finally moving the phone away from his ear, tossing it on the desk in a disgruntled way. "We're leaving in an hour. Donald is going to try and meet us there, he, Mrs. Bobb, and his son Eric are flying in from England later today. They might even get there before us. Anyways, the fact that the newspapers are already calling for an investigation might cause them to kill the other two and try to escape."

"What about Y/N's parents?" I asked.

"Her mother is a mess at the moment. They're driving down to Kentucky to get Y/N out as well. I'm afraid their involvement might make things worse, but I couldn't talk common sense into her. Besides, there is nothing more scary than a furious, angry, scared parent when their kid is in danger. Who knows, maybe her mother will get her out before we even get there." Robert said, slamming the computer down.

"I'm guessing Trump and Bobb weren't able to get Emma out?" I questioned softly as we headed out to his car. Chris was already in the back seat.

"They were working on it. The Judge finally gave them the release yesterday afternoon. Funny she committed suicide only hours later." Robert replied, disgruntled. "The psychiatric ward told Donald to come over the next day and they'd have all the release papers filed out for her parents to sign. Boom, next thing you know she's killed herself out of depression."

"Bullshit." I responded. "Sometimes I wish I really were Bucky Barnes with a killing problem."

"Yeah well sometimes I really was a philanthropist, billionaire, playboy." Robert sighed. "Unfortunately, I'm only the billionaire part. Being married kind've cuts out the chance of being a playboy."

I rolled my eyes.

"But on a serious note." Robert said. "You really ought to prepare for the worst Sebastian."

"Robert." Chris snapped.

"He is right." I replied grudgingly, though it made my heart start pounding of my chest in an unpleasant manner. "They could kill them right now, knowing we're all coming."

Once we landed, Robert got a rental car and we piled into that next. I was starting to feel cramped with all these small spaces, but I was to tense to really move.

A phone rang through the car and Robert picked it up as he sped towards the ward. "Give me the news Don."

"It's not looking good." Trumps voice came through the speaker. "The FBI is sending agents down and the psychiatric ward has guards all around it. They're trying to get me to move to a 'safer' spot. Are you almost here?"

"Almost." Robert responded. "I'd say another fifteen minutes. They haven't started shooting yet, have they? Where are the parents?"

"Y/N's parents are fighting with the guards, begging to get in." Trump responded. "Katherine's parents are more skittish of the guns. They're nearby, shouting at the guards, but they're keeping their distance. Oh, the FBI are just pulling up."

"We're almost there." I said tersely before he disconnected from the phone. "Step on it Downey."

He did just as I asked, stepping on the gas, swerving in and out of traffic while Chris and I held on for dear life. I was sure the cops were going to get called on us, but as long as they showed up at the ward, I didn't care.

It was also Downey's car and I was sure he could pay off the ticket.

We got to the ward without a police chase however and I practically leaped out of the car before Downey had even pulled it to a stop. I put my hand on the gun in my jacket pocket that I'd gotten once I'd gotten out of therapy. I had changed my anti-gun thinking ways. I was going to need it.

The other two went to meet with Trump, but I crossed over to where the guards were baring Y/N's parents from coming in.

"Sebastian!" Mrs. Y/L/N said, tears streaming down her face. "They're not letting us in! What if Y/N is dead inside?!" This started a fresh round of tears.

"It's going to be okay." I lied and turned to the guard, "Let us in. This isn't a prison. It's a therapeutic ward for children. There are parents who need to see their children right now. I'm sure you've been paid off to stand guard here, but you're not going to be using that money when you're in jail. So move."

Two of the guards exchanged hesitant looks and I continued, "Believe me, there is not enough money in the world to save your asses when you're charged with second degree murder. You're going to be put in there for life. That's what happened to the others and if you really think the FBI agents here are going to let you escape with your money after those children inside are killed, think again."

The guards exchanged another look and then the boss shouted, "Stand down. Let the FBI through."

I rushed past them. The secretary was no longer there and I threw open the door, drawing my gun.

I could hear Y/N screaming, shouting Itty's name over and over again. I raced towards that sound and once I came to the closed door, I slammed the door open.

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