#gushing over shitty celebrity men

[kindheart525]

Pinkie Pie has the best taste in stallions out of all her friends, she hit the jackpot with Weird Al’s ponysona while the rest of her friends’ guy crushes include

Flash Sentry

Prince Blueblood

Trenderhoof

Wind Rider

Discord

[idyllicbarb]

FOREVER MY LADY, AARON PIERRE

synopsis: a look into your world being aaron pierre’s love interest in a new film.

pairing: aaron pierre x actress!reader

warnings: slow burn, flirty!aaron, shy!reader, cussing, fluff.

word count: 2k+

You've been acting since you were ten-years old. Watching your mother and father become award winning stars motivated you to become one yourself. Now, you're thirty-years old with a few Emmys on your shoulder. Though, your biggest goal is to become an Oscar winner. Time feels as if it's running out for you, though the journey towards the life you’ve always dreamed of is slowly working out for itself.

There's this itch in the back of your mind, you can't scratch it. You feel as if it has something to do with your love life. It's shitty and lonely, you always hear your girls gossip about how the dating pool is shit.

You haven't had a serious relationship since college. Your boyfriend was your high school sweetheart, you two decided to keep the relationship going by attending Spelman and Morehouse College. Things took a turn when you caught him cheating on you during a block party. Ever since, you've stayed to yourself and your work. Keeping a small circle of friends and always staying in-touch with your family; the thought of a relationship has moved to the back of your mind.

"Girl, men would perish if you gave them one teeny tiny little chance," Your friend, Chastity, said while fixing your hair before you two hit the town for the evening. You laughed her off, reminding her that you're committed to your craft.

"Yes I know, but having a lil' yeah or a lil' shit shouldn't knock you off balance that much." Your brows furrowed in confusion.

"A lil' shit? What the hell is a lil' shit, Chasity?" You stare at your friend in confusion, she shrugs her shoulders while putting the finishing touches on your hair.

"My niece says that's what the kids say nowadays, it's kinda cute," Chasity says spraying herself with your perfume; you ignore the fact that it's your perfume. "Yeah keyword, 'kinda," you rebuttal with causing Chasity to burst into a fit of laughter.

—

Since that late evening with Chasity, you've decided to let your guard down a bit. Entertaining yourself by talking with a few men here and there; though they could never scratch that itch of yours. Again, the dating pool, especially your age range, sucks ass.

The thought of dating another celebrity scared the hell out of you too. You've heard the whispers and rumors on how truly nasty, disgusting, and low-down some celebrities can be. It disturbed your presence deeply, you didn't want that in your life.

But your body had a different response to your feelings. You guess you could say you had a thing for your handsome love interest in your new film, 30. A film in which you and a long-time childhood friend of yours agrees to get married to each other, if both are still single, by the time you two hit the age of thirty-years old.

You like it; a very cliche rom-com. Also, you love rom-coms, especially ones that details black love. You love being the representation you could never find when you were younger.

With a fine ass love interest like Aaron, you feel yourself falling head over heels for that man. Oh how sweet he was when you two first met to do the chemistry test. Analise, the director, gushed over how well you two mesh. It's as if you can read Aaron's mind and Aaron can read yours; that's how well you two work together. The production crew loved seeing you two interact. Some would say that Aaron is your work-husband; your face would turn red and you'd immediately end the conversation there.

But those people were correct. Everytime you came on set, the first thing you did was find Aaron and spend time with him inside his or yours trailer. You two wouldn't even be going over the script, just sitting there basking in each other's warmth. There would be times where you'd bring your vinyls and record player, sitting on the floor letting Aaron soak up all the music you enjoy listening to.

"You love Beyoncé I see." Aaron comments as he watches you sing along to the song being played. Bday was your second favorite album from Beyoncé, self-titled being your first. It was something about Bey’s music that made you feel welcomed and safe.

Sighing, you give Aaron a soft smile before scooting closer to him, "Of course, she's gotten me through so much. You wouldn't understand."

It's quiet for a few beats, letting the song Flaws and All come to an end.

Aaron lifts his hand running it through a few strands of your loose curls, you decided to finally touch up your hair after days of leaving it up in a ponytail. "Maybe I wouldn't understand, but I'd like to try."

You turn your head towards Aaron, you're staring at him but not into his eyes. You could never hold eye contact with Aaron or anybody really; you'd get nervous really face and turn away with a blush masked on your face.

"One day, I'll tell you everything." You mumble quietly. Aaron gives you a soft smile and leans forward to plant a kiss on your forehead, "I'll be waiting."

You’d never tell Aaron but you hold a piece of that day in your heart. He gives the most gentle hugs you've ever received along with the most sweet, loving, and encouraging words you heard every day on set from him. Aaron has been an amazing co-star and now best friend to you. You might even say, he’s changed your opinion on dating inside the industry.

You pushed those thoughts to the back of your mind for later. Now, it's about 11am and you're getting prepared for the day. A few interviews and a run through of how the world premiere of 30 will go. You and Aaron are supposed to give a small speech before the invited guests get to watch the film you, Aaron, and so many others worked hard on for the last few months.

—

"You look stunning," John, a makeup artist, says once you stepped inside of the small party room that's being held behind the curtains.

Out the corner of your eye, you see Aaron staring at you but you can't read his facial expression. Ignoring it, you turn your attention back towards John. "Thanks boo, you know I had to look good for tonight."

John and a few others around him hype you up as you give them a twirl in your dress along with a hair flip. Laughing and waving them off, you head your way over towards the direction of the movie, Analise.

"Analise!" You greet her with a soft smile and open warms, receiving the same affection in return. "You look so gorgeous, everyone here is giving you googly eyes, even Mr. Pierre."

Your cheeks heat up at the comment from Analise. Trying to regain composure, you smile and let your hands fall to your side, "Aaron? Oh, I doubt he's giving me googly eyes."

Analise eyebrows raises, tilting her head before turning her shoulder to stare at Aaron and looking back at you, "You really think Aaron doesn't have a crush on you?"

"We're just co-stars, I doubt he sees me in that way." You say before flickering your eyes over at Aaron. It's never crossed your mind that Aaron has some sort of feelings for you. You always took Aaron as the type of actor who is committed to his work and has a strict policy of keeping work and personal affairs separate.

"Please, every time we were on set, he looked at you like you're the only woman to ever grace this earth."

Analise stares at you for a moment before placing a hand on your shoulder, "Now, I'm not saying you have to get with him or anything. But I and others notice the way you two interact, it's refreshing. I enjoyed coming to set knowing my two lead actors enjoy working with one another."

You didn't necessarily know how to react; but a weird sense of warmth comes over you at Analise's confession. You give her a soft smile, "Thank you."

–

"So, how does it feel to have worked with the finest man in Hollywood right now?" Your friend, Chasity, asks you as you two sit at the bar and watch everyone else dance at the after party.

You grin a bit before fixing your face, "You have such a crush on that man Chas. But he's an amazing person to work with; I enjoyed every second I spent with him on set."

Chasity smirks, "Me? Crush on Aaron? I believe those honors belong to you, my love. That childish grin you just gave me told me all I needed to know."

"It's nothing more, look, Aaron is a sweet co-star and we're just friends. He's dedicated to his career just like I am with mines. That's it, that's all." You say and sip on your Margarita.

Chasity hums and stares out into the sea of people dancing, "Well your "friend" is on his way over here, right now."

Your eyes widened and you immediately sit down your drink before you have the chance to spit it out. You turn your head to see that Chasity was indeed correct, Aaron was on his way over to where you and Chasity are currently sitting.

Chasity looks over at you, "Girl you look good, stop stressing," she mumbles and turns to give Aaron a soft smile.

"Hello Chasity." Aaron greets your best friend with a generous side hug and turns his attention towards you, "Hello lovely."

"H-hey Aaron." You say with a soft spoken voice. Out the corner of your way you can see the smirk on Chasity's face; you'd have to get at her about that later.

"I'm so honored to have work with you and I've decided my thank you to you, I'm gifting you this," Aaron pulls the huge white and black Chanel bag from his bag and you gasp.

"Aaron! Oh my God, I love this. I wish you told me you were gifting me, I would've went and bought you something special too." You say as you get up and wrap your arms around his neck.

Aaron chuckles and slips an arm around your waist, the warmth that comes over your body feels amazing as you two hug for a bit while longer before parting.

You slowly take the purse from out his hands and Aaron wants to take his phone out to snap a picture of your reaction.

"Please, you don't need to, I already have something special." Aaron looks you in the eye at the last part causing you to blush and look away from him.

You become increasingly nervous and stare at the beautiful Chanel purse that's in your hands, "Well, it's a beautiful gift, thank you Aaron."

Aaron raises his hand to lift your chin softly, "What'd you say, beautiful?"

Your words for a second get stuck in your mouth, “I… it’s a beautiful gift, thank you Aaron.”

It’s as if Aaron got a kick out of you stumbling over your words, his smirk grows and he pulls back from you. “Anytime, beautiful.”

You and Aaron both hear his name being called; he gives you one more look, “Duty calls.”

You watch him walk away and Chasity hits your arm softly, “Girl! You’re practically drooling over him.”

Suddenly that brings you back to reality, “Drooling? Chas stop it. I was doing perfectly fine.”

“Yeah, well when you and him end up all over Twitter tomorrow with people over analyzing you all’s reaction don’t say I didn’t tell you so,” Chasity says before turning to the bartender and asking for another drink.

Slowly, you sit back down on the barstool, reading over the words Chanel on your new purse. “Chas, do you really think Aaron has feelings for me?”

She turns her head over at you, “Clear as day boo, the signs are there. I can’t convince you, you have to convince yourself.”

Humming in response, you turn your attention towards Aaron’s way, watching him laugh and interact with a few friends from college.

Aaron doesn’t have crush on you, right?

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[svnflowervol666]

hey! can you write one where harry invites y/n and his band mates out for drinks and they try to hand her a drink but she reveals she previously by saying like “you can’t drink when your pregnant” ...

Word Count: 2.3k

A/N: I combined this one with a request for where Harry constantly refers to Y/N as his “ex-girlfriend,” because they’re engaged now. ((Super cute. Super corny. Makes my heart mush. Anyway.)) Kinda short but still sweet. I hope you enjoy it nonetheless! Take care and TPWK.

“There she is!” 

His voice is drowned out by clanking glasses and the heavy bass of whatever rock song was playing through the shitty speakers in the corner of the room, but it was unmistakable nonetheless. Followed by his “greeting” were the shouts and howls of the rest of the bunch, most of them raising their glass in honor of her (late) arrival.

“My ex-girlfriend!”

Harry, despite his inebriated state, smiled widely and welcomed her as protectively as he always had in the past few weeks - relieving her person of any bags or extra weight, this time being her coat and purse which he hung on the brass hooks underneath the bar table, and inspecting her facial expression for any signs of discontent or worry. He couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when he kicked his “dad-mode,” tendencies into overdrive, but it certainly began on that rainy, Thursday night in their shared bathroom as they sat against the wall of the bathtub with four positive pregnancy tests in both of their hands.

“Really wish you’d stop calling me that, Har,” she sneered as he helped her shake her arms loose from her coat.

“One of these days you’re gonna cause a scene.”

“'S true, though,” the drunken boy giggled.

“You’re not m’ girlfriend anymore. You’re my fiance.”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes at his antics, intending to pull him in for a quick hug and kiss when her attention was drawn away from her curly-headed brunette and towards the man of the hour.

“Y/N!” 

“Hello, birthday boy,” her voice was mellow against the drunken slur that had started to take over her friend, Mitch’s.

“‘S not very nice of you to be late to my party,” he slurred as he pulled her in rather harshly for a bone-crushing hug.

“Sorry, got caught up with some work stuff,” Y/N managed to get out through a chuckle in between Mitch’s squeezing.

She saw Harry stiffen out of the corner of her eye, like he was torn between yelling something akin to, “Take it easy on her, mate. She’s pregnant for christ’s sake,” or letting the interaction play out. He knew he wasn’t allowed to do the former, as they’d agreed to wait until they could have all of their friends and family over at the same time to tell them the good great news, so Harry opted to let Mitch hug her extra tight despite his unrealistic, dramatic worries that he’d crush her fragile frame or hurt the baby in some way. She made sure to send a reassuring smile Harry’s way when Mitch let her go from his grasp.

Short and sweet was her greeting to Sarah, both of them opting to kiss one another on the cheek.

“Let me see it one more time,” her voice was quiet amongst the chatter of the bar, almost sounding like a whisper.

Y/N felt the heat climbing to her cheeks as she let Sarah take her hand in hers to examine the ring on her fourth finger. The band was gold and slim, adorned with a dainty yet sizeable single diamond in the very center. 

“So pretty,” she gushed, admiring the way the gem flittered, even in the dim, tungsten-glow of the bar.

Y/N muttered a quiet “thank you,” before making her away back to the other side of the table where Harry was waiting for her with an outstretched arm, yearning to get back to what they had been doing before Y/N had to make her rounds.

As he wrapped his arms around her shoulders, Y/N caught wind of the tequila on his breath. She tasted it too, when she pecked his lips quickly and - oh god, did she taste stout as well? Maybe she’d end up taking care of him later tonight when his head was stuck in the toilet, but that seemed plenty fair considering how often Harry had been doing the same exact thing for her here lately.

“Yeh alright? Had me all worried when ya said you’d be late,” Harry’s question was asked lowly so that only she could hear.

Harry had been with Mitch and Sarah all day celebrating, hence this was the first time he’d seen Y/N since this morning when he kissed her and sent her off to work.

Y/N nodded and smiled, though her face led Harry to believe differently.

“Got sick when I got home from the office. Just took me a little bit longer to get out the door,” she shrugged, insinuating that it wasn’t a big deal, but that she wasn’t feeling one hundred percent ready-to-party either.

“Baby,” Harry half-scolded her, feeling a good portion of his buzz leave his body when Y/N mentioned that she hadn’t felt well.

“Why didn’t yeh just tell me you were sick? Coulda came home and sat with you.”

“I wasn’t going to ask you to ditch your best friend’s birthday dinner just because I was throwing up for the fifteenth time this week,” she was stern in her words and made it clear that she was fine.

“I’m alright. I promise.”

Harry’s jaw softened at her proclamation, the muscles in his torso easing up from their tense position.

“Oi! Will you two stop whispering and get drunk with me?!” Mitch shouted across the table, bursting the bubble that had temporarily surrounded the couple whilst they talked about their sweet little secret that they were dying to tell everyone about.

“You,” Mitch pointed his finger towards Y/N’s head.

“Shots. Now,” he gestured to the bartender making drinks on the opposite end of where their table was.

Both Y/N and Harry chuckled nervously, unsure of how to work around the fact that Y/N couldn’t drink without spilling the beans.

“Think I need to get some food in my stomach before I do that. Why don’t you take Harry,” Y/N urged Harry forward by his shoulder and prayed it would be enough to entertain the drunk boy.

“Fine,” Mitch glared.

“It’ll just make it hard for you to catch up later then!”

He grabbed Harry by the bicep and cleared through the crowd of people in order to get his liquor he was so keen about.

The conversation with Sarah was light, mostly about what all they’d done today and bets on if Mitch would end up needing to be babied for the rest of the night. Y/N successfully dodged Sarah’s questions about the wedding and how planning was going along, chalking it up to busy work schedules and failing to come to an agreement on a venue and date.

“Harry’s dead set on a summer wedding, but I’m fighting for a winter date,” she dismissed through a nervous chuckle when the reality was that they were unsure how to navigate planning a wedding around the arrival of their baby to make any more decisions.

It seemed like ages passed before the two men returned. Y/N was picking at the fries and sipping on the ginger ale Harry had ordered her before she’d gotten there but was interrupted when Harry and Mitch came barrelling back to the table.

He was drunk. Quite drunk. And Y/N knew that because his body felt even warmer and his eyes looked even hazier than before he’d left. She imagined they definitely had more than once shot at the bar, but she didn’t have much time to ponder that before she felt his hands snake around her waist and rest on her hips. She reciprocated his touch, looping her arms around his shoulders and laying her head against his chest.

“Love you,” Harry muttered into the soft spot between her jaw and ear, then his hands wormed their way under her shirt to rest on the underside of her tummy.

“Love you too,” he said again.

She could feel him smile against her skin as he cradled her almost non-existent baby bump from underneath her oversized sweater. Harry was the only one who saw her regularly enough to notice the minute changes her body had been going through. To everyone else, she still looked like plain, old Y/N.

“We love you more, but if you don’t stop canoodling me in the middle of this bar,” Y/N began, speaking light-heartedly and quietly in his ear, “Everyone’s going to find out and you won’t get to have that announcement party you’ve been planning for weeks now.”

Harry sighed, knowing she was right, and loosened his hold on her tummy and opting to sling an arm over her shoulder to at least keep her close instead.

“I know what you’re up to,” Mitch glared at the two of them from across the table.

This gained the attention of not only Y/N and Harry but Sarah as well. Everyone turned to look at Mitch, anticipating what he was going to say next.

“And what would that be, Mitchy?” Y/N toyed.

A pout formed on his face, arms quickly crossed his chest as he huffed.

“You’re trying to get out of here and leave me all alone on my birthday.”

“Guess I’m not even here then. I’m a hallucination,” Sarah baited with a roll of her eyes.

“We’re not trying t’ leave ya, mate. Promise,” Harry stuck his pinky out across the table as a gesture of sincerity.

“Are too.”

Mitch’s drunken rambles were beginning to sound quite childish now and became more amusing by the second.

“Are not, honey bun,” Y/N requited.

“Liars. Both of you.”

Mitch launched a bunched up straw wrapper in Harry’s direction that bounced off of his most prominent curl and landed somewhere near his feet.

“Where would we even go, hmm?” Harry taunted, resting his chin on the knuckles of his free hand that was leaned against the table.

“What could we possibly planned tha’ would be better than spending time with you lot on your birthday?”

They watched as Mitch’s remaining sobriety fought hard for an answer, but ultimately giving into his drunkness and murmuring, “Don’t know! Probably going off to screw each other or something!”

The table burst into laughter, and Y/N hid her face in Harry’s chest out of embarrassment. 

“Wouldn’t surprise me actually,” Sarah quipped before taking a huge sip of her cocktail.

“Look. Here’s the deal,” Mitch tried his best in his drunken stupor to be serious.

“Prove to me that you’re not gonna leave me and take another shot.”

“Fine,” Harry shrugged.

“Let’s go back t’ the bar then.”

He started to pull Mitch along but was stopped suddenly.

“No,” Mitch was quick to intervene.

“Y/N too. If you both drink, you can’t drive home and leave me,” he said proudly as if his idea was the smartest thing he’d ever come up with.

She knew it was only Mitch being sloppy drunk and acting like the idiot he always was, but Y/N couldn’t help but feel her palms begin to sweat. They couldn’t tell Mitch the real reason why she couldn’t drink with the group tonight, so she was quickly wracking her brain for another excuse now that she’d filled her belly with french fries since giving her last one.

But there was no need to think any further, as Harry stepped in for her.

“She can’t do tha’, mate. Now, c’mon. Let’s get some more tequila. Looks like Sarah needs another drink as well, hmm?”

Harry pinched his nose in annoyance. He was trying his hardest to keep this all under wraps, but Mitch was making it extremely difficult.

“Who are you? Her keeper? Telling her what she can and can’t do?” Mitch yelled.

“No, you nunce. She can’t drink because yeh can’t drink when you’re pregn-”

Fuck.

Harry clapped his hand over his mouth before he finished his sentence, but it was too late. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking when he said it. Wasn’t even sure if he was thinking at all, to be completely honest. He silently prayed that neither Mitch nor Sarah heard him, but he quickly realized that was untrue when they both stared between him and Y/N with wide eyes.

“Y/N L/N. Are you pregnant?” Sarah was the first to speak up.

Y/N felt like she was stuck in place, only able to look at Harry with a racing chest and her mouth agape. 

“I, um, I - yes?” It came out as more of a question due to her state of shock.

“I’m so fuckin’ sorry. Holy shit,” Harry exclaimed as he went back to Y/N’s side to console her.

He was spiraling in fear that Y/N was angry with him, but it was mostly the alcohol making him think so.

“You’re having a baby?” Mitch’s voice was unusually quiet for how loudly he had been yelling just moments ago.

“Yeah. We are,” she was laughing nervously as she spoke.

“Sorry that Harry ruined the surprise. We wanted to have a big party and tell everyone at the same time, but I guess the cat’s out of the bag for you guys.”

She rubbed Harry’s back with her palm, a silent reassurance for Harry that she wasn’t upset with him. Mitch and Sarah, however, they couldn’t read.

Mitch said nothing, only leaving his position beside Sarah to go stand in between Y/N and Harry. He looked at them both with an expression that resembled both anger and confusion, which only added to their discomfort.

In a split second, he had his arms around both of them, hugging them tightly.

“Holy shit! This is the best birthday present ever. Uncle Mitch and Aunt Sarah. What the fuck?!” he was rambling now, beaming from ear to ear as he ran over to pull Sarah, who was also losing her shit, just in her own seat and not on top of Harry and Y/N, into the group hug.

Their eyes caught each other in the midst of the friend-sandwich they were being forced to be a part of. A smile and knowing look were exchanged between them and they knew, despite it not coming out in the most fashionable way, their precious little bub would be surrounded by people that loved them dearly.

[queercraftingchonk]

Shepard Hosts a Samhain “Dumb Supper” on the Normandy

I always enjoy the holiday Mass Effect fics; there's a plethora of cute Halloween drabbles out there. As a Celtic Pagan, I crave seeing a Pagan Shepard celebrate Samhain this time of year. (Don't have the current time/energy to bring that into reality at the moment. To hold me over, have a summarized thought experiment on how it would go...) So my mind wandered to the beauty of Shepard hosting a "Dumb Supper" on the Normandy--a Samhain tradition for some NeoPagans, and a ritual I've held a few times personally...

Shepard is terrible at cooking, and thus employs Kaidan and James to help bake Soul Cakes and an autumnal meal. Neither Garrus nor Tali know exactly what dex meals to prepare, so Shepard ordered some Palaven dishes ahead of time and froze them. Kaidan works on defrosting and cooking them up, obsessively checking the notes on his omni-tool to be sure he won't accidentally poison his dextro-amino friends with poor cooking.

Samantha Traynor and EDI craft an absolutely gorgeous tablescape of black cloth, black plates, Earth autumnal leaves, and (electric) candles. Every place setting has extra utensils and condiments, just in case. The one real candle sits at the Head of the Table where the Spirits of the Departed are assigned to sit in honor. A small, cast iron cauldron sits nearby.

Mordin's old coffee mug sits next to the wine glasses for the Spirits. (Miranda was sure to buy the Sur'Kesh beans the salarian doctor was fond of.) Kolyat comes aboard before the dinner, nervous but warmed by the invitation. At Shepard's request, he's brought some of the candies he remembers both his parents once enjoyed on Kahje. (Grunt is obsessed with the little hanar-shaped sour gummies and grumbles a bit that he can't eat them because they're for "the ghosts". Steve Cortez overhears the young krogan's disappointment and sneakily requisitions an order of the gummies for next week's shipment.)

Guests are asked to wait in the Lounge where they can mingle and chat. Pens and paper are strewn about the bar with a little sign written in Shepard's chicken-scratch penmanship: "Write a letter to a passed loved one. These notes are for the deceased, not the living. Your letters won't be shared. Feel free to write one letter for everyone, just a message for one person/ancestor, or make several individual notes for various spirits."

Garrus has three crumpled papers and a frustrated look on his face. His mandible flick in annoyance as he struggles to write a letter to his mother. Joker is similarly struggling writing a note to his dad and sister. When he says, "We better not find out we need postage to the afterlife to send these damn things," some tension is relieved and the men laugh.

Samara, Tali, Jacob, and Kasumi sit at the poker table and chat, gushing over the pics Jacob is sharing with them of his son. (His partner is watching him; a fussy toddler won't be able to stay quiet for a Dumb Supper.)

Liara and Wrex catch up while Javik sits with unusual amounts of tact after being thoroughly warned by Liara to be respectful of this tradition. However, he seemed less apt to call the ritual 'primitive' even if his initial reaction was one of nihilistic cynicism. He remains contemplative.

When the first batch of Soul Cakes comes out burnt, Zaeed steps in to salvage the second batch and grumbles about yankees' inability to bake a goddamn decent shortbread. (Turns out the merc is a surprisingly good baker.) Jack steals a burnt soul cake with a quick biotic slight-of-hand; before she can eat it, Dr. Chakwas swats it out of her hand. Smirking at the biotic's affronted expression, she puts it back on the tray. "Our special guests get served first, Jack."

"It was a shitty one!" Jack cries. Chakwas quirks a brow, and the matter fizzles, leaving James and Kaidan smirking. (Kaidan already wrote a letter to Ashley; it's been secured in his back pocket all morning. Her favorite beer is chilling in the fridge next to Jenkin's favorite hard cider.)

EDI briefly disables the fire alarms so Shepard can cleanse the mess hall with juniper incense and a slapdash bottle of blessed water she managed to make while on Earth visiting Anderson's grave.

Finally, the time comes; with EDI pumping a gentle dinner bell noise through the Normandy, the dinner guests file in and take their assigned seats at the very large table. (Garrus and Joker feverishly finish their letters, jam the envelopes into their respective pockets, and stumble out of the lounge last.)

Shepard sits opposite the Head of the Table where the Spirits sit. The electric tealights along the Samhain centerpiece equal the number of lives listed on the Normandy's memorial wall--plus two: one for Irikah Krios and one for Robert Cortez.

The food is served with the Honored Guests first; Miranda pours Mordin's coffee as Kaidan uses a Biotic pulse to flick off the cap of Ashley's beer and Jenkin's cider. The plate for the Dead is piled high with hot levo-foods. The guests are then served from oldest to youngest; Wrex wears a smug grin while Grunt does the krogan version of a pout.

Once everyone is served, Shepard moves to hold hands with everyone; Garrus to her right, Tali to her left. Eventually all guests hold hands (even Jack, who swallowed a mumble of annoyance) and Shepard says a silent prayer. Once done, everyone eagerly digs into the food. The only sounds are everyone's enjoyment of the meal.

Before dessert, Shepard leads off the letter sending. She has several envelopes which she places in the small tabletop cauldron. Using a long match, she lights it on the Honored Dead candle and then safely burns the paper notes. (Grunt and Jack are noticably more excited now that they get to burn stuff.) Shepard then sits down, and clockwise, folks go up, take a moment to respect the Head of the Table, and send their letters in flame to the afterlife. Kaidan and EDI begin handing out dessert once Garrus's letter burns to ash in the cauldron.

Shepard and Tali almost burst into laughter when EDI--eyeing Joker knowingly--places a charging cable beside the Spirits dinner plate (ostensibly for Legion). Jeff is thrilled and wears a smirk, having received the reaction he hoped for.

As folks finish dinner, they each get up and pay respects at the Head Chair. (Once Grunt leaves the mess hall, Shepard chuckles as she hears him lament "wasted food" regarding the offerings.) The reactions range from quick and casual to heavy and misty-eyed.

Eventually, Shepard is alone with the dishes. Her heart is overflowing, bolstered by the presence of loved ones living and dead. Before she begins cleaning up the cauldron and used dishes, she listens quietly for the voices beyond the veil.

A tear escapes when she hears Anderson whisper, "I'm so proud of you."

Happy Samhain everyone~

[theonewiththefanfics]

The List (one-shot)

Synopsys: The Reader and Tom have been best friends for years. When she finally gets time off of Uni and comes to visit him and Harrison on the set of Spider-Man: Far From Home, she becomes great friends with all of his co-stars, much to his delight. But when he overhears a conversation between the Reader and them, he can’t help the jealousy that fills his heart. And maybe that was the final push needed for his crush on her to be revealed.

Pairing: Tom Holland x f!Reader

Genre: angst, fluff, SMUT

Warnings: SMUT (thigh riding, m going down on f, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it, y’all), overstimulation), swearing, and the usual stuff you’ve come to expect from me

Word count: 5636

           “Okay, okay,” Y/N laughed before resting her head against the couch as the group waited for her answer. “Let me think…. Okay… In no particular order – Catherine Zeta-Jones… I mean I’d let that woman do anything she wanted to me. And when I say anything, I mean anything… Zac Efron, ‘cause that look in Hairspray did things to me.”            To that Zendaya snorted. “Dude, I can introduce you two.”            “And you’ll say what – hey this stranger like millions of others wants to fuck you ‘cause you’re on her list? If you’re down, of course.”            Cackling at Y/N’s answer ‘cause it was true, Z motioned for her to continue. “Michelle Pfeiffer, because Queen.”            Z, Harrison, Jacob and Angourie all nodded in unison.            Jacob pressed on. “Two more.”            “Okay,” Y/N chewed on her lip for a moment before settling on the last two people. “Ben Hardy ‘cause Bohemian Rhapsody was a look,” she emphasised the last word, and Anguorie groaned in agreement.            “And Sebastian Stan,” Y/N finished.            Z’s eyebrow raised. “Really?”

           “Okay, listen, have you seen his thighs? Like… I’d ride them into the sunset if allowed. And he seems like such a sweetheart, and he cares so much about his fans, it’s the most endearing thing ever,” Y/N gushed because to be fair, she had been a fan of his since Once Upon A Time, and his version of the Mad Hatter had struck a chord. So, the fact that Tom worked with him, and they had a banter-like relationship made her heart beat faster.            Just like with her friend, she was incredibly proud of him because Y/N knew how it felt to be an outcast, and having heard his struggles of integrating into a complexly new society at the horrible age of twelve made her feel for Sebastian. Teenagers were shitty people. Besides, the fact that there was a possibility she could meet him through Tom, also didn’t help with the slight obsession she had with the Romanian and his thighs.            As the conversation started to dissipate, everyone chiming in on who’s on their list, Tom who’d been standing right outside the door of the trailer finally came in; his hair a completely dishevelled mess, and face a mask of calm with a small smile playing on his lips to mask the jealousy.            “And what is everyone talking about?” Tom asked entering Zendaya’s trailer and flopping down next to Y/N, putting an arm behind the couch. On an instinctual level, she leaned against his side making his heart flutter before all the butterflies were squashed when Zendaya elaborated.            “Her list,” Z said with a smirk pointing at the girl next to him before sipping on her drink despite it having gone stale.            “Oh really?” Tom’s unruly eyebrow quirked up. “Do tell.”           “Catherine Zeta-Jones, Zac Efron, Michelle Pfeffer, Ben Hardy and Sebastian Stan,” Y/N listed off the names while rotating her head from one side to the other and gave him a pointed look of ‘was that good enough? Happy?’            “Ouch, Y/N,” Tom put a hand over his heart in mock hurt, though there was some real pain mixed in there as well. “And no me?”            The girl snorted and rolled her eyes. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I know you have hordes of adoring fans that would love to get into your pants,” she patted his leg, “which means you are famous, but to me… you’re just Tom. The same guy I’ve known since being six, and the same guy I had to rescue from a spider two weeks ago… and I have a phobia from them.”            “It was huge!”            “First off, that’s what she said. And second – you call me for help?!” she exclaimed through a laugh. “Do I need to remind you of the zoo incident?”            Angourie’s eyes sparkled at that. “Wait, what’s the ‘zoo incident’?”            “We went to the London zoo a couple of years ago, and in the tropical house one of the big hairy spiders had somehow gotten loose, and Y/N found herself with it on her shoulder,” it was hard for Tom to keep the laughter away at first, seeing as everyone was howling, but remembering the state his friend went into, all happiness evaporated.            “I had a panic attack,” Y/N expanded, shrugging as if it hadn’t been truly terrifying. She didn’t mind the others laughing about the event. Looking back on it, as much as it made her shiver, she knew there was no harm in their reaction, but Y/N would be lying if she said Tom and Harrison not laughing didn’t comfort her a bit. They knew her struggles, so it was nice of them to keep it to polite smiles. “Like to the point they had to call an ambulance because I wouldn’t stop screaming and hyperventilating,” she chuckled, but to elevate Tom’s mood ‘cause he had been so distraught that day, she nudged his shoulder.            “Why do you think Spider-Man’s my least favourite superhero?” Y/N teased looking at Tom and waiting for his usually snarky response, but instead, this time all she got was a roll of his eyes as he diverted his attention to Harrison and bit down on his lip.            Y/N’s eyebrows furrowed at that. Obviously, she didn’t mean it, and Tom knew it. Just because she didn’t have an affinity to the eight-legged spawns of Satan, didn’t mean she hated Spider-Man, let alone Tom as the character. She couldn’t be prouder of him if she tried.            “Tommy, you okay?” Y/N leaned in closer so that only he could hear her. “You know I didn’t mean it, right?”            There was such concern and care in her gorgeous Y/E/C orbs that he had no choice but to melt and push down the jealousy. “Yeah, darlin’. I know.”            He pecked her forehead and gave his full attention to the rest of the group. But deep down a coil of jealousy started to unfurl.

***

           The next day Tom walked into the gym in a sour mood, so much so both Anthony and Sebastian stopped to look, as the boy walked over to the treadmill with slumped shoulders. So completely opposite of how he usually greeted the two with a cheery smile and handshake.            Of course, all the teasing they did was in good fun, no one took it to the heart, but after Y/N had so freely talked about wanting to ride Sebastian’s thighs into the next year, all those things they'd staid kinda stung. Especially because he hadn’t been on the list, and she kept referring to him as her friend.              “What’s gotten the baby in such a bitter mood?” Mackie teased as he added more weights to Sebastian’s bar. “Girl trouble?”            “Actually yeah,” Tom confessed putting the water bottle in the holder, and then he groaned. “Massive girl trouble.”            He heard his two fellow actors sigh. A loud ‘clank’ echoed through the room, and then they were next to him.            “Spill,” Sebastian nudged his chin in Tom’s direction, making him huff and cross his arms.              “Well, she came to visit me while we shoot the movie,” he started leaning against the side of the treadmill, “and she’s getting along incredibly well with everyone which I’m totally happy about, but then last night, Haz, Daya, Jacob, Angourie and Y/N-“            “She the girl?” Mackie needed clarification. Tom nodded and then continued. “They were hanging in Daya’s trailer waiting for me to finish up, and as I was walking over to them, I heard them talking about her… list...”            “Five celebs she’d do if given the chance?”            “Yeah,” Tom confirmed, and Mackie nodded like it was the most understandable thing. “And the thing is… well, I’m not on the list… but Sebastian is.”            A teasing smirk pulled on the brunet’s mouth. “I am?”            “Yes, and I’m not going to go into detail, ‘cause I don’t need those flashbacks,” the Brit immediately said before either man could open their mouths and start pressing for the nitty gritty info. “But when I asked why no me, she said ‘cause I’m ‘just Tom’.”            Anthony shrugged, the water in his bottle sloshing around. “And what’s so bad with that?”            “I’ve been flirting with her for the past three years. We’ve even kissed! And we both were sober when we did it!” Tom groaned throwing his head back in frustration. “I just don’t understand it...”            Anthony had a sympathetic look on his face, because again – all the teasing came from a place of love and respect, but there was nothing fun in seeing Tom so helpless and beaten down. “Have you considered that she just might not see you that way?”           “Like a celebrity? Yeah, no she said she doesn’t care about this whole Marvel shit and all, that I’m just Tom to her, but…” he huffed, “that’s what’s bothering me. I’m ‘just Tom’ and I don’t wanna be ‘just Tom’. I wanna be more.”            “Or,” Sebastian raised his eyebrows at Anthony in a way that said ‘don’t completely crush the kid’, “she could be completely oblivious to what you're doing. Listen,” he straightened out and wiped away a trail of sweat from his forehead, “I was once trying to flirt with a girl, a friend of mine, much like Y/N is yours, and I thought I was being very obvious. Which I was, but the problem wasn’t with the hints, it was that she was totally clueless. It took me actually saying to her face ‘hey, I really like you, and I wanna take you out for dinner, and maybe have a relationship with you’ before she caught on.”            Tom bit at the inside of his cheek before looking up at the two men. “Do you really think that could be it? That she’s just not picking up on the hints?”            “I dunno, man,” Sebastian shrugged, and Mackie had the same unknowing look on his face. “What do you have to lose though?” With that said, the two retreated to resume their workout but kept a close eye on the boy.            “Her,” Tom whispered under his breath as he thought over the advice and got prepared to run. “I have everything to lose.”

***

           It was almost two weeks after the conversation about the list, and Y/N’s time in Austin was running out before she had to get back to London and Uni. Which meant Tom’s time to confess was running out as well. Who knows who she could meet while back in England, and while he was stuck filming?            Once again, they were all hanging out, now with the addition of Tony, which didn’t help Tom’s mood despite everyone relaxing. Y/N’s list had been brought up again, and although the two were gushing over Catherine Zeta-Jones and how Michael Douglas should watch out, all Tom could think of was how she had practically drooled over Sebastian and his thighs.            “We should all go out clubbing!” Z suddenly exclaimed jumping up from the couch and grabbing her purse, bringing Tom out of his wallowing.            “And that’s my cue to leave,” was Y/N’s response to the invitation.            A plethora of ‘no’ and ‘boo, you bore’ and ‘what!’ rung through the room, but she just shook her head with an affectionate smile. “Clubs are not my scene, like whatsoever. Just ask Tom and Haz how many times they’ve tried and failed to get me out on a Friday night.”            Everyone’s expecting eyes befell on the boys. Harrison was the one to respond. “All of them.”            Y/N just raised her shoulders. “I’m a bore, what can I say.”            While a few of their gang still tried to coerce her to join, she was steadfast on going back to the hotel and getting some sleep. As she stood up from where she had been nestled in Tom’s side, her hips and spine popped making her release a satisfied groan, but that also drew Tom’s attention, specifically to how her bright yellow sundress rode up her body a bit. It took everything in him not to moan at how soft the back of her thighs looked, but ever the good friend, he stood up as well and told her he’d drive her to the hotel.            “Come on,” Y/N sighed giving him a smile, “I can just call a taxi. I don’t wanna keep you from all the fun, just because I’m a buzzkill.”            Tom just shook his head, dead set on getting her there. “I invited you all the way out here. What kind of a best friend would I be if I let you just leave on your own?”            “A normal one that doesn’t want to miss out on all of the fun with his other friends?”            “Or a normal one that wants to make sure his friend gets back to her hotel safely?”            Y/N chuckled as the two of them made their way downstairs and to his car. “And a taxi wouldn’t do that?”            “Nope,” Tom smirked and skipped ahead opening the door for her. But that’s where the light-heartedness ended. The second he was in the car and the ignition was on, a tense atmosphere rolled over them.            He wouldn’t speak to her, instead just kept pursing and biting his lips while Y/N kept glancing at her friend, but he wouldn’t even spare a second.        She had talked to Harrison about Tom acting a bit off the past couple of weeks, and although the two were best friends as well, she was definitely closer with the brunet than the blond.            “I dunno,” Harrison had shrugged. “He’s acting off, I won’t deny that, but he hasn’t said that anything’s bothering him.”            Y/N rolled her eyes. “Of course, something's bothering him.”            “But what can we do unless he talks about it?” Harrison shrugged.            And he was right. If Tom wouldn’t say what was wrong or why he was pushing the two of them away, she didn’t know how to help. So, when he stopped in the car park of her hotel, the two moving up to her room with that awkward silence still between them like a wall, she had had enough.            “Are you okay?” Y/N asked biting her lip and crossing her arms after she dropped her purse onto the sofa. Tom had gotten her the VIP suite much to her chagrin, but even being as exhausted and upset as she was now, the bed seemed lumpy and uninviting. “You’ve been pulling away, and I don’t know what I did wrong, but I need you to tell me so I can fix it.”            “Nothing’s wrong,” he mumbled brushing a hand through his hair. “I dunno what you’re on about.”            Frustration was boiling in her veins. “No there is something wrong. You’ve been off since that night in Z’s trailer.” And then it dawned on her. “Tom, you know it was a joke, right? About hating Spider-Man.” Y/N was terrified he had actually taken the comment to the heart. As she was about to reach out for him, wrap the boy in her embrace he took a step back.            “You think it’s about that?” his eyebrows shot up so high in his forehead they almost disappeared in his hairline. “Un-fucking-believable.”            Y/N scoffed. “I’m not a fucking mind reader. So, unless you tell me what’s wrong, I can’t help.”            “You know what,” Tom closed his eyes and raised his hands in dismissal, “forget about it. Doesn’t fucking matter.”            “Of course, it does! We are best fucking friends!” she exclaimed unable to comprehend why Tom was pushing her away. “And I care for you! We tell everything to each other, so fucking talk to me!”            “I don’t wanna be your best friend anymore! I’m fucking in love with you!”            A small, soft ‘you what now?’ fluttered through the air as Y/N stood in front of him with her mouth agape.            “I’m in love with you!” Tom cried. “I’ve been in love with you for five years now! And for the past three years, I’ve been flirting with you, but I can’t take it anymore. I can’t do this! Why can’t you see it?! Why can’t you ever see me?!”            With every spoken word, Y/N was moving closer and closer calling out his name, but he wouldn’t stop. Years of pent up emotions were finally flowing freely, and you can’t stop a river from rushing to the sea.            “I’m always there for you! I’ve always been there! When it’s a broken heart, a broken arm or just a shitty day, it’s always been me that makes you feel better! And yet you’ve never been able to fucking see me!” his hands went up to pull at the messy curls, eyes shut as tears rolled down in an endless stream. “And I can’t take it anymore! I need you to know, I just-“ his chest rattled as he pulled in a breath, completely unaware that Y/N was right in front of him. “I can’t keep living with this pressing down on me, when I know we could be happy together, when I know I can love you like no one e-“                “Tom!” she yelled right into his face. As he slowly lifted his gaze, two tears streaming down his high cheekbones she wiped them away with the tenderest of touches. “Stop talking and just kiss me,” the plea was barely audible, but he heard it. He would’ve heard it over the howling of a tornado or the crashing of waves. It was a plea he never thought would ever be uttered, but there was no way in hell he’d ignore it.           For a moment he was stunned, brain processing the fact Y/N had actually said that he should kiss her, but then she moved forward more, Tom’s hands wrapping around her waist on instinct.           “Kiss me,” her lips brushed right against his, and that’s when his mind cleared from the fog, and his mouth was on Y/N’s.            It was messy, a clash of tongues and teeth as years of hidden love spilt over the surface and into the heart of the other, filling them to the brim like wine filled a cup. They were grasping at one another in a desperate manner, trying to touch everywhere at once.            Stumbling back, Tom flopped down on the edge of the bed, bringing Y/N to straddle him.           “I wanna ride your thigh,” she moaned as he nibbled on her neck leaving purple marks in his wake.            “Really?” the question was muffled from where his mouth was attached to her skin. “You sure it isn’t Sebastian’s thigh you wanna ride into the sunset?”            His sass wasn’t something she wanted to deal with, especially as the ache between her legs became more and more and more unbearable, so she bit out, “keep talking like that, and it will be.”            The rough grasp around Y/N’s hips as he flipped her leg over his and ground his knee upwards towards her crotch was enough of an answer as to what he thought of the statement. “Not a chance, darlin'. Not a fucking chance.”            “I’m just saying,” Y/N moaned out as Tom’s hands rolled her hips forward and backwards on his thigh, “you just spilt out your heart to me, and then come after with the sass?”            He groaned as her teeth latched onto his shoulder before her tongue soothed the bite. “You deserve it for not realising what’s in front of your eyes.”            Tom could feel the wet patch of where Y/N’s arousal had soaked through her panties and onto his jeans, and that just made him flex the muscle more, making her moan his name into his ear.                “Feel good, love?”            All Y/N could do was sigh in pleasure. Slowly, gently as she was still grinding against his thigh inching closer and closer to the inevitable release, Tom took his hands away from her hips and placed them at her back to unzip the dress.            It pooled around her sides like a pond of sunshine, and when he lifted his gaze up, his knee jerked quite literally, giving Y/N that final push that made her tumble over. As she rode out the waves of her first orgasm, Tom’s mouth watered at the sight before him – her completely naked chest.          In complete awe, his palms trailed up Y/N’s waist sending another shiver down her spine, as they skimmed across her ribs, under her breasts before cupping them and rolling her nipples between his fingers.    He was so enamoured with bringing Y/N to the edge, that he didn’t even notice how much he needed to cum himself until she palmed him through the black jeans while his mouth had been covering her collarbones with hickies.            “Shit,” Tom hissed as Y/N unbuckled the belt and opened the zipper and the button alleviating some of the tension. Lightly she raked her fingers down his stomach, over his abs and left red marks on the skin of his hips before dipping below the waistband of Tom’s boxers to grab at his length.           Another hiss made its way into the air as Y/N scraped the nail of her thumb against his tip smearing the precum down his cock. Tom attached his mouth to her neck sucking against her sweet spot as she slowly worked her hand over him, just enjoying the moment.            It felt surreal for both of them. Not for a second did either think they’d end up in a position like that – with Y/N moaning Tom’s name as his lips travelled down her collarbones and to her breasts and with Tom doing everything possible as to not cum in his pants because her hand was pure magic.            “You keep going like that,” he whispered and bit at the underside of Y/N’s boob as his fingers gave a harsh tug on her nipples, “and it’ll all be over right now.”            She moaned at the sting of where he’d bitten her but was now licking the pain away. “And we don’t want that do we?” her voice was hoarse already. Tom couldn’t wait for what was about to become of her.            Pushing away from him, Y/N stood on the floor and let the dress drop, leaving her in white cotton panties. They were definitely not sexy or even remotely attractive. In fact, they were the most basic ones she had because she totally did not think that’s how her night would go, but Tom didn’t seem to care one bit.            His chocolate eyes, already dark from the lust, became like a void looking at Y/N. A black lace thong or waist-high period ones with stains – he didn’t care. His shirt practically flew off of him as he stood up and smashed his lips against hers, needing to have that constant contact, and while his hands roamed and dipped all around her body, fingers brushing against her clit through the fabric, Y/N got rid of Tom’s jeans. She was just about to push against his chest to make him drop on the bed and take off his boxers when he slid down onto his knees in front of her and placed open-mouthed kisses to the inside of her thighs.           “Shit, Tommy…”            Her hands wove into the brown locks and pushed them away from his face so she could see his eyes that never left her face.            “Let me make you feel good,” he mouthed the words against the inside of her thigh inching his way closer to where Y/N needed him the most.           “Let.”           Closer.            “Me.”           Another inch.            “Make.”            One more.           “You.”           Almost.           “See.”           Right there.           “The stars.”            And he placed his lips right on her clothed clit. By that point, Y/N would’ve been a sobbing mess from the neglect if not for the need to keep her body upwards as to not crush Tom.            “Please,” she whimpered brushing his hair away from his forehead, and that one little word was enough for him to roll down her underwear, mouth still latched onto the supple skin of her thighs. It was enough to grab her by the waist and pull her down to sit on his lap as he quickly discarded his own offensive piece of clothing. It was enough to make his member violently twitch against his stomach at the thought of her dripping cunt wrapped around him.            Gently Y/N rocked back and forth to coat him in her slick, mouths entwined in a dance when his eyes sprung open.            “Wait, wait, wait, condom,” Tom took his lips away from Y/N’s, but she was quick to bring him back by saying "it’s okay. I’m on the pill and clean.”            “Are you – are you sure?” there was such worry in his gaze, her heart skipped a beat. “Because we can wait, we don’t have to do anythi-“            Her lips interrupted his ramblings once again. “Make love to me, Tom.”            “Okay.”            Internally he scolded himself because ‘okay? Seriously? That’s the best you can come up with?’ though the gentle smile on Y/N’s face calmed his thundering heart, and as he muttered out an “I’m also clean”, and she replied with an “I trust you” while climbing in his lap, he swore his heart was on the verge of giving out.        The sigh both of them let out was filled with pure relief. Relief that the ache was about to be quenched, relief that they were together in this, relief that they both felt the same way. Relief that it was all out on the table and there was no turning back.            One of Tom’s hands rushed up to his curls and fisted them, eyes squeezed shut as he strained to stay composed, to give Y/N time to adjust to the intrusion. “Fuck,” he whispered as she leaned down and rested her forehead against his peck, trying to accommodate to the size. “You good there, darlin'?”            “Give me a moment, just a bit more,” Y/N’s breath was shaky as she whimpered.            “As much as you need… we don’t have anywhere to rush to,” and that brought a small smile on his lips. They had all the time in the world.            Another minute passed before Y/N rolled her hips a bit, startling Tom with the sudden movement and eliciting a whimper from his throat. All of it was unhurried and soft, the movements deliberately slowed down so the two could feel the other.            She moaned at how full she felt; all of the ridges and veins of Tom perfectly fitting inside of her and not just that. As he intertwined their hands together bringing their lips in for a kiss, all of the pieces just fit.    Every time they would hang out and hold hands, Y/N would marvel at how natural and good it felt. How easily her heartbeat synched up to his during their Friday movie nights when her head rested on his chest. And that one time when they’d kissed at a bar, his lips had moulded to hers perfectly. They were perfect for one another, and Y/N wanted to scream at how oblivious she’d been.            As much as he wanted to close his eyes and just allow himself to feel everything, Tom couldn’t. His mind screamed to not even blink, to not miss a second of what was happening, to take in the full spectrum of the gorgeous sight on top of him. But he was just human, and sometimes pleasure could be overwhelming.            The way Y/N clasped and fluttered around him, her soft breaths echoing all throughout the room like a symphony made Tom squeeze his eyes shut and rest his head against her chest. Her fingers carded through his hair, pulling at the strands as if to get him closer than he already way.            Tom’s hands had most definitely left imprints on Y/N’s hips, and they became harsher as he felt himself near his peak with every single thrust. But she wasn’t there yet. And he wasn’t about to finish without her tumbling over first.            Detaching his lips from the valley of her breasts, Tom licked the pad of one of his thumbs and sneaked it between their moving bodies, pressing it ruthlessly against her clit. Y/N choked on a breath at his touch because it was the thing, she needed to release all over his cock.            The incredible tightness Tom felt made a groan rumble through his chest, and with two more thrusts, he spilt all of himself inside her.    They were trembling as they helped one another to ride out the waves of pleasure, and once Y/N came down from her peak, she slumped over in his hold, a soothing hand running up her shivering back.            Gently, Tom helped her roll to the bed and off of him, not once detaching his mouth from her neck, words of praise and love being whispered in her ear. He was just about to stand up from the bed and go to the bathroom to grab a damp washcloth and clean them up when his eyes trailed to her core and fixed on how his seed dripped out of her.            “Fuck, you look so good like this,” Tom moaned leaning back down, a finger slipping over her folds and mixing up the white and clear liquids. “But I bet you taste even better.”            And then he dove in. Despite Y/N’s core spazzing around nothing from the overstimulation, he didn’t let her shimmy away. Instead, his biceps flexed, and his hold became as strong as iron, as he pulled her harder against his mouth and kept on his assault.            Expertly his lips wrapped around her clit creating an airtight seal as he sucked on it, sending Y/N spiralling. Her back arched up from the bed, both hands grabbing at the pillow behind her head for some sort of support because there was nothing left to tether her to the real world.            Her mouth opened in a silent scream, Y/E/C eyes that had been locked onto Tom during the whole ordeal rolled to the back of her head as she cummed for the third time that night.            As the euphoria rippled through her veins, Y/N was finally able to find her voice and the most guttural scream of Tom’s names split the night air into two, a hand fisting in his hair to keep him there between her legs.            Tom’s whole jaw was a mess as he crawled up Y/N’s body leaving sloppy kisses all over before he could plant a passionate kiss on her lips. She was still floating, still somewhere in space, but had enough consciousness to grant his tongue access and wrap her hands around his neck, as the taste of him and herself invaded her mouth.            “Been wanting to do that for a while,” he muttered letting his lips kiss her chin and cheeks while his palms soothingly rubbed her quaking thighs.            “Well, you're welcome to any time,” Y/N chuckled, mind still completely dazed. She let herself relax for a moment, and in the meantime, Tom laid down beside her. With both of them still completely naked, he brought her in his embrace and burrowed his nose in her hair, just to stay in the blissful moment.            “Tom?” Y/N hummed turning her head to the side. “Can you let me go for a sec? I need to pee; don’t want a UTI.”           Reluctantly he pulled his arms away from her torso, but not before giving her boob a playful squeeze making her swat his hand away. Y/N stood from the bed and immediately collapsed onto the floor.            He was jumping to the rescue instantly. “Shit, are you alright?”            But Y/N was full on laughing, hands clutching her stomach and legs curling up to her chest, tears streaming down her face. “O-oh my god! I’ve never been unable to fucking walk after sex!”            An adorable cherry blush rose and spread over Tom’s chest and cheeks at the remark. Knowing he was the cause of her happiness and also her inability to walk after their escapades, made his heart stutter, and he had to mask his exhilaration and shyness with a chuckle.            “Can you help me get up?” she extended both hands out to Tom. “I still need to pee.”            He climbed out the bed and grabbed Y/N’s palms that fit so flawlessly in his and gently pulled her up.            “You good?” he watched her take two steps while still holding onto her. But she seemed to have regained some control over her limbs so with a small “yeah, thank you,” and a peck on his lips, she went into the bathroom.            After doing her deed and having thrown a damp towel to Tom, Y/N scrambled back into the once lumpy looking bed that was now like a cloud, mostly because of who her pillow was.            “So,” he smirked looking down at her, trailing a finger over her bicep, “am I on the list now?”            “Nope,” Y/N popped the ‘p’ and cuddled up closer to Tom. “Still don’t consider you a celebrity. Besides… those people are on there for a theoretical ‘what if they were down for it and I had the chance’ scenario… hopefully, this wasn’t a one-time thing, and you’ll be down for the rest of our lives.”            Tom snorted, a lightness filling his chest. “Darling, now that I’ve finally made you understand that I’m in love with you, I intend on making sure you remember that.”            Y/N couldn’t help the quirk of her lips, and she pecked his chest. “So,” she breathed out, “who’s on your list?”            “You,” Tom answered in full seriousness. “Just you. Have been since well… since like five years ago when I fell in love with you.”            Y/N slapped his shoulder and shook her head as she laughed. “I’m calling bullshit on that one.” But he just shrugged.            “Games or not,” his lips skimmed over hers, “‘what ifs’ or not. The only one I need or want is you.”

Tags (crossed out wouldn’t take): @lumelgy @palaiasaurus64 @supernaturalbaesduh @breezy1415 @crazy--me @thatawkwardlittlefangirl @sea040561 @staryeyedgirl @deathbyarabbit @s-c-a-r-e-d-po-t-t-e-r @reblogger-not-a-blogger @m-a-t-91 @dalilx @i-need-a-hero-i-need-a-loki @maladaptive-ninja-returns @averyrogers83 @in-the-end-im-still-trash @gallifreyansass @dewy-biitch @avxgers @unlikelygalaxygiver @sweet-ladyy @magicwithaknife @ollyoxenfrees @bnhvrdy @tvwhoresblog @celebsimagines @thatkindofgurl @sj-thefan@nerissa98 @happyseagrill @asguardiansoftheavengers @crazybutconfidentaf @wishingforahome @pizzarollpatrol @desir-ae

A/N: sooo, I’ve been working on another Endgame fix-it-fic and it’s around 8k words rn... and it’s barely halfway done :) I feel like I’m going to combust. Sorry for the absence, it’s just a lot to write as was this one, but I hope you liked this :D

P.S. tell me what you think :)

P.S.S. my tags are always open/ requests are closed

[shakespeareintellectualbadass]

http://andthenshesaid.co.uk/expertsofourownexperience/queer

Feels weird to advertise a blog on a blog, but I'm writing a series called Experts of Our Own Experience around pieces of my personal experience of life - being neurodivergent, dealing with depression and anxiety and an eating disorder, and most recently, being visibly queer for the first time in my life. I've learned more about myself from hearing others talk about their experiences, and I'm a big believer in learning about experiences other than your own, so whether any of these things apply to you or not, maybe you'll find something connective.

If you're interested, check it out, lmk if you have thoughts ✌

I’ve known I’m not straight since I was seventeen.

I went to all-girls school for fourteen years, from age four to eighteen. All my friends were female until I got to college. For most of my youth I was more consumed by the romantic stories my imagination conjured up, and generally those stories starred princes rather than princesses. I never spent any time overanalyzing it because it never felt wrong, to imagine either but focus more on boys.

And yeah, I’m definitely attracted to men. I obsessed over the boys we met at parties in high school like my friends did. I enjoy flirting with and dating men (most of the time…). I have a longstanding, embarrassingly strong celebrity crush on Jensen Ackles (like full blush, swooping in my stomach listening to him sing or when he winks at the camera). I remember one particular boy who my best friend and I fought over for about an hour at a friend’s quinceañera freshman year (that might be the most heated fight we’ve ever had and we’d only met him at that party, which is ridiculous). I also had really intense female friendships I didn’t think anything of. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see how those friendships with girls I liked and admired - the really earnest ones where I’d go out of my way to do things for them and be around them because I just really want her to want to be my friend - were actually crushes. I’m a people pleaser (with people I care about anyway), but I recognize that higher intensity now that I’ve been through more serious relationships. Definitely bisexual.

It clicked in the autumn of senior year, when I fell for one of my friends from school. We spent a few months pining and then dated for about half a year (though we were both dealing with shitty mental health struggles at the time and were overall not very good for each other) and broke up right before I graduated. All our friends knew we were together, as did my family and probably hers and probably quite a few more people than we knew. What can I say, I’ve never been known for my subtlety, especially when romantic interest is involved.

But right now is the first time I’ve been obviously queer. Visibly, aesthetically queer in how I choose to present myself.

I’ve easily passed for straight all my life. I’ve had long hair and lengthened my eyelashes with coats of mascara, worn low cut tops and tall heels and tight jeans. I’ve flirted with men more than women and leaned into my soft, feminine energy more than my assertive, masculine energy.

But I’ve never had to adjust to being bisexual, to accept that about myself. I never worried about what my parents would think. I know I’m enormously lucky because of that. That said, there’s a difference between coming to terms with being bisexual and being comfortable presenting as queer. My parents are both artists; they both went to college for performance (acting for mum, singing for dad) and are wonderfully open minded and raised me with that same open-mindedness. I don’t think I ever actually came out to them. I could tell they knew about my interest in my high school girlfriend, so I just started talking about it, and that was that. My whole extended family is very accepting, and there are other LGBTQ+ members of the family. One of my cousins is trans and bi; we make a lot of jokes about being the gay cousin (“every family has a gay cousin; if yours doesn’t, you’re the gay cousin” “but if I’m the gay cousin, and you’re the gay cousin, who’s flying the plane?”). My dad’s mom and her partner have been affectionately dubbed The Grandmas for my whole life. Grandma Natalie is as much my grandparent as Grandma Gayle, though we’re not related by blood. I don’t know how many members of my family know I’m queer - I’ve never specifically come out to any of them either - but I don’t worry about it. It’ll become obvious at some point, or I’ll drop it in conversation like I do so often now.

It does vary, how out I am - in high school I was comfortable with it in my personal life, but I never considered joining the LGBTQ+ club - and it’s been different when I’m in a relationship. Both my long term boyfriends were queer/on the bisexuality spectrum, but we presented like a heterosexual couple so never had to worry about coming out. While my high school girlfriend and I weren’t subtle, we also weren’t fully out as a couple. Her family was religious and she was worried about their reaction. On top of that, we were both fairly femme, and in Catholic school the general assumption is that everyone is straight. When I got to college, I only dated men. Part of that was residual fear left over from how badly that high school relationship ended. Part of it was I went to a Catholic university (seriously, how did I spend eighteen years in Catholic institutions when I’ve never been Catholic). A lot of it was compulsive heterosexuality - something queer women fall into a lot because our society is set up with men as the be all and end all (“how could anyone not be attracted to men?” “Of course the ultimate happy ending is settling down with a man...”). A lot of it was how much more I was around men. For the first time, there was a lot of choice, which was an exciting prospect. Even when I wasn’t in a serious relationship, I tended to only focus on men as romantic prospects.

Again, with the benefit of hindsight, I can see how much I’ve been and still am guided by that ingrained need for male attention and validation. It’s also easier to pick up men than women - there’s no is she flirting or is she just friendly to deal with – because men and women are socialized so differently that men don’t usually gush and compliment women they’ve just met in the same way that women do. Maybe it’s just easier to assume men are flirting because of the stereotype that men always want to get laid. Maybe it’s scarier to flirt with women. Maybe both. It’s certainly possible that’s my own projection rather than fact. That said, I did once have a two hour conversation with a lady in a shop during which we effusively complimented each other multiple times, and I have no idea if she was flirting with me or if she was just nice. Girls in bar bathrooms consistently hype each other up without ever exchanging names. It’s wonderful, but it does make things a little foggy when one is trying to flirt with a lady.

Anyway - I was talking about being obviously queer for the first time. It’s odd because I’m very comfortable talking about being bisexual. I bring it up in conversation easily. I post about it for pride. I talk about it a lot on my podcast. I’ve been comfortable with it since I recognized it - I have a wonderfully supportive family, and accepting that part of myself came easily. Presenting it to the world aesthetically is different - more personal, more vulnerable. Even writing about it here, thinking of you reading this, I feel more shy than I would were we face to face. While I didn’t spend any time reassessing my personality when I realized I’m bi, I’m just now recognizing that I do have internalized biphobia and compulsive heterosexuality I need to work through. I think the difference right now is about presentation, that I’ve never felt like I looked bisexual. Which is silly, right? As much as we talk about gaydar and queer trends (bisexuals cuff their jeans, etc), both within the LGBTQ+ community and out, you can’t actually tell anyone’s sexual orientation from their appearance. Queer people just tend to be more adventurous with their self-expression, perhaps because they’ve spent time at one point or another repressing who they are. Perhaps there’s just a joy in exploring something different, that makes you stand out. I don’t know - that’s true for me, though I’m only just starting to experiment myself, and I’m sure it’s different for everyone. I certainly don’t know if I would experiment with my style in the same way if I was straight, having never been straight.

My style has slid less feminine during this year of lockdown. Part of it is that I��m rarely going anywhere, and when I am, I’m walking a lot, so sneakers are a must. I exercise a lot more now, so often when I leave the house, it’s for a workout in a park and I’m dressed in leggings and a sweatshirt. I’ve gravitated toward looser trousers for the last year and a half or so; after years of skinny jeans, I’m obsessed with how comfortable they are. Now that it’s winter, I’m more focused on being warm and comfy than being fashionable. Also, I sort of feel like any moment an apocalypse movie is going to start and I need to be dressed to live in the woods. This added up into a vibe more butch than I’m used to, but with my hair longer than it had been in years, I didn’t really notice.

And then I chopped all my hair off. Like actually all off. A full pixie cut, shorter than I’ve ever gone.

Leading up to it, I guessed I was going to want to lean more into feminine fashion again to balance the cropped cut. I like being feminine and I’m in no hurry to give it up. I planned to pull out my comfy knit pencil skirts and my heeled ankle boots. I expected to forget about my new habit of dressing like I live in the woods. That hasn’t really happened. I’ve still been dressing for comfort, and my style choices have gravitated more toward sweater vests and flare trousers. Both Harry Styles and Phoebe Waller-Bridge in the “Golden” music video. The other day I caught sight of myself in a window and needed a moment to recognize myself: the combination of loose jeans, sweatshirt, raincoat, sneakers, and short hair just didn’t feel like the me I remembered. I looked at myself and didn’t see the femme, straight passing person I’ve looked like for most of my adult life. Let me be clear - I am by no means saying that looking obviously queer is a bad thing. It’s new to me, but I’m rediscovering myself.  I still saw me - and that’s key, that this haircut has always felt like me - but a different me than I’m used to seeing in the mirror.

I have a lot of affection for this new aesthetically masculine and feminine mix, and the other day, stuck in the house at the beginning of lockdown no.3, I felt the urge to dress up a little. I put on lipstick for the first time since May, pulled out a plunge bodysuit and a pair of one-of-a-kind flare jeans I found in a vintage shop on Brick Lane the other week (looser jeans are a masculine leaning I’m embracing wholeheartedly). I decked out my fingers in rings and pulled out my wire-rimmed blue light glasses (my eyesight is so bad that my actual glasses look like something from the wardrobe of a nerd from a 1980s movie, so I stick with contacts). I snapped this photo, just to see the full effect as I no longer have a full-length mirror, and - bam.

I love how I look. I’m obsessed with my hair, with the bright red lines of the bodysuit (and isn’t me in a bright color shocking enough!). I love the jeans, love that they’re a little too big in the waist and just keep flowing out from there, a feminine line in a masculine fabric. I love the wire rim glasses (even if I do look like my dad in the 80s). I love the muscle I can see in my arms from months of pushups and calisthenics. I love how much space I take up, both physically and just in my presence. I am feminine and masculine. I am impossible to miss. Once, even a year ago, that would’ve been stressful. Now, I feel like shouting from the rooftops. This is me.

It’s gone up on Instagram. It’s my new profile picture on various apps. The only caption has been a peace sign emoji - a joke within the LGBTQ+ community about how bisexual people never know what to do with our hands (“point a camera at a bisexual and see how long it takes them to flash a peace sign or finger guns”). It’s a very different vibe from my last profile photo - almost two years ago I smiled at my friend behind the camera from a flowering yellow bush as I watched my last relationship coming to an end.

I keep coming back to how much it is different. This is a change - not of who I am, but of how I reflect it to the world. Proud and excited as I am, and as much as I want to care only for what I think, the fear of rejection lingers. The fear that my friends’ love isn’t malleable and won’t fit this new me anymore. The yearning for the people I love and admire to be proud of me. And on top of that, I wonder how I am different, how my change in appearance reflects an inner shift. How it necessitates it. I’ve always felt the inner shone through to the outer - now that I’m changing the outer, does that come from a shift I’ve already made or is there one still to make? Do I have to act more queer because I look it? What do I feel I need to prove?

Maybe I’ve spoken so much and so easily about my sexuality because I knew it wasn’t visible. Now it’s far more clear, and I feel both more confident and shy. Who is this woman who wears red and casually takes up space? I know her, have seen her in flashes, but this is the first time she is stepping out so boldly. That’s it: I am bold in a way I haven’t felt before. I know, logically, that I have been (again, I’ve never been known for subtlety), but not so consciously. Not with so much intention behind my choice. Some boldness comes so easily I never think of it, but this - this was like bursting out of water for that first breath of air. Natural, intuitive, but not easy.

All this comes in the middle of a period of great change in my life. I’m moving back to my home country after living in London for almost three years, back to my parents’ house after living alone for a year during this pandemic. I’m reconsidering everything I want to spend the next few years doing, much less the rest of my life. I’m trying to figure out how to fund seeing the world and how to organize running a podcast with guests from everywhere I go. I’m consciously focusing on myself and what I want rather than delaying or sacrificing my goals for anybody else. I’m putting off putting down roots for a bit and relying on the knowledge my family is there to come back to. My future see-saws between the safety of family and the unquestionable boldness of adventure.

There is an apprehension that comes with change, an acknowledgment that I am growing and becoming something new, something that is always myself though I did not know it was there. It is freeing and exhilarating and terrifying, growing. Like jumping off a cliff, I have to squeeze my hands into fists and tighten my core and rely on the knowledge that the water below will catch me, that I will catch me, so that I can enjoy the fleeting moment of flying into something new.

[dontcallmecarrie]

The End of An Era

writer’s block, go away. Also, doing a timeline crunch in this AU because it somehow grew a plot and I really want to write Howard getting punched [and the older he gets, the easier it gets for him to pretend to be a victim], this is set in 1990.

Sorry not sorry.

.

They’d been so, so careful.

Maria’d balanced a full-time job, the PTA, and the local homeowner’s association on top of an impressive network specifically meant to throw private detectives off their trail; Tony had invented an AI just to check for any possible new developments in the search, as well as taken great pains for the only A on his report card to be in shop class. James’ job as a line cook was possibly the most notable thing about their household. 

It was hard work, passing as average. To be able to live a quiet and peaceful life.

It came to a screeching halt one evening, when Tony spotted the guy who rolled into town with a cheap suit and blandly unremarkable face that screamed danger.

.

“Houston, we’ve been made.” Tony muttered with a calm he didn’t feel, and quietly pushed his watch’s emergency button before turning back to the car he was working on.

He couldn’t leave right now, it’d be too obvious. He never clocked out early from the shop, and couldn’t afford to be memorable now.

All he could do was pretend everything was fine, and hope. 

.

His mom had always been prepared; they’d had drop bags ready since they’d first started running, and Uncle James’...situation only meant that they were even more ready to start running at the drop of a hat. 

By the time he’d arrived, JARVIS would have long since sounded the warning and mom and Uncle James should have each grabbed their own bags and a vehicle to get the heck out of dodge and go to ground, and check in with JARVIS before proceeding to phase two. 

Only...

That sure was a lot of unmarked black SUVs. And they were passing right by their house but not surrounding it.

The agent types were headed to the outskirts of town, instead.

Tony wasn’t going to question it, either way. He just ducked in, grabbed his bag, and ran.

.

The entire area was now swarming with g-men, and Tony had never been so grateful that he wasn’t like one of the dumb jocks who’d driven out to the meteor crash site because they were apparently being taken in for questioning and he was good at disguises, but he wasn’t that good. [Not yet.]

As it was, he’d had to bullshit an excuse to leave town, and never had he been as grateful to have been part of the robotics club because they bought his excuse about regionals. The oil stains only helped sell his story, too.

But it’d still been nerve-wracking, plastering on a smile and showing off his shitty half-finished ‘remote-control car’ and gushing about transistors to the agent who eyed him dubiously, but it got him out with a backpack and his car and that’s all he needed, in the end. [It was more than they'd had, last time. It was enough. It had to be.]

.

Tony ran.

Ran and pushed his car to its limits, ran and switched out the plates several towns over. Kept running, and didn’t stop.

His mom had checked in, she’d made it out.

Uncle James, however...

.

JARVIS had registered Uncle James pushing his own emergency button in recognition of the warning. 

Had registered him grabbing his own drop bag, and taking his motorcycle to go to ground.

And that was it. 

Tony and his mom were safe. Uncle James was missing, last seen in a town swarming with agents from some government agency. 

.

Tony was 16, so close to being a legal adult [finally safe from Howard—] he could almost taste it.

But.

That didn’t matter a whit in the face of missing part of their family— because even if it wasn’t by blood, Uncle James was family. 

“What do we do now?” Tony asked, because he was 16 and this wasn’t the first time they’d had to leave their past behind but it was different this time and he didn’t know what to do.

[Funny, how so much can change in the blink of an eye.]

“Oh, tesoro.” 

The last time he’d seen that look, his mom had burned a government agency and a multimillion dollar company. 

“For family, we raise hell.” 

.

To their credit, it takes roughly three days for SHIELD to discover that apart from being within range of an extraterrestrial object giving off strange readings, the nearby town was also involved in...very strange things. Like the HYDRA cell that had somehow popped up in the chaos, but even that paled in comparison to the discovery that they’d found the last known location of the missing Stark heir.

Three days.

By then, the trail’s started to go cold. [Again.]

But this was the biggest breakthrough in the case in nearly a decade, and Howard Stark was nothing if not relentless when it came to searching for the people he wanted. 

.

Tony and his mom are hard-pressed to continue flying under the radar; the pressure Howard’s exerting means that the risk of discovery is even higher than ever. 

Great. 

[Like things weren’t hard enough.]

.

Sometimes, rarely, Tony almost considers it.

Considers buying into the sob story Howard puts out, wonders if he’d be able to stomach turning himself in and the fallout of being ‘found’ after so long. 

It wouldn’t be hard, if he wanted to; just one phone call, just one glimpse if he’s not careful about his disguise, and just like that it’d be over, no need to hide anymore.

Howard could get the perfect heir he wanted, and...Tony could be able to access the staggering number of resources his father had at his fingertips to find the last of his family, instead of building his own computer from spare parts and improving JARVIS’ firewalls and skulking around Internet cafes to hack databases in the hopes of finding out what happened to Uncle James. 

If he wanted to.

Tony was over twice the age he’d been since he last saw his father in person, could reliably defend himself from his fists and mature enough for Howard’s sneers to no longer affect him. 

...no.

Maybe it was incredibly selfish, but Tony refused to go back. 

Though part of him felt guilty for not using everything at his disposal, he also knew Uncle James would never forgive him if he went back the way he sometimes considered [or would he? Tony remembered early on, the look in his eyes and he hadn’t talked about his past much but Tony wasn’t stupid, he knew HYDRA was bad news, shouldn’t he be pulling out all stops to help his family? Shouldn't he— no, stop].

.

Now that Tony’s older, now that he has JARVIS in his pocket and a network in place, sometimes it’s safer if he and his mom travel apart. She had felt bad about it early on, but...needs must.

Besides, it was easier to lose a tail when it was just one person. And it was faster covering ground that way [more efficient, when searching while trying to remain incognito].

.

Tony’s eighteen birthday is celebrated with a hug and a slightly stale muffin from a convenience store, JARVIS quietly whirring in the background. 

It’s not what he’s expected. Not as significant as he’d been imagining, somehow: there’s no feeling of invisible chains lifting, no ‘it’s over, Howard officially no longer holds any power over you’ sensation. 

All he feels is...a moment of quiet relief, and the acute loss and uncertainty that he and his mom felt every day that they didn’t find a lead. 

[Nearly two years, and not even a body. He was still out there. He had to be.]

.

James came to with a sharp gasp that quickly turned into a snarl, and started thrashing again.

Where was he? When was he? That squadron had come out of nowhere and they’d just stuck him in cryo and he was supposed to check in and oh God, not again never again he refused he’d die before HYDRA could wipe him again—

“Hey, easy there!” A sleek black and gunmetal grey robot yelped, one hand flying up while the other continued holding the door to his chamber open. “Friendly, here, area’s secure for now.  You’re safe.”

“Who are you.” James immediately asked, pinning him with the darkest glare he had to focus on the now rather than— [were Maria and Tony safe? Had they been captured too? Oh fu— no, not now, later] other things. 

“Funny you should mention that. I am Iron Man.” The robot replied, and then the faceplate lifted up and oh.

Oh, no.

“Sorry I’m late,” a Tony who was far older than the teenager he’d said goodbye to that morning [not ‘that morning’ oh gods how long had he been out—] grinned ruefully back at him. “But I’m here to rescue you.”

[derryhawkins]

Puppy Love

summary: Right after she breaks up with her abusive boyfriend, Beverly house and dog sits for her two good friends while they’re gone for a month. During this time she has to take the dog to the vet because of a terrible limp, and there she meets the one and only Ben Hanscom – a sweetheart with a pure soul and kind eyes. Untrusting of men other than her three best friends, Beverly believes she’ll never find someone to trust and be with for the rest of her life. But as time goes on, and as she becomes friends with Ben, that belief gradually changes. word count: 5.7k warnings: mentions of abuse (i don’t go into detail); there’s also a bit where she has a panic attack but i don’t go into to much detail there either a/n: hello i meant to post this earlier but i got anxious and then i needed to focus on school bc of a paper and today tumblr is being a bitch, so. sorry lmao. hope you enjoy this tho!! ignore any typos and/or spelling mistakes 

AO3 link

chapter one: bad limp

Beverly Marsh doesn’t trust men – most of them, at least. The only men she does trust are her good friends: Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, and Mike Hanlon.

She and Richie had grown up across the street from one another, and he was the only kid who adamantly stuck by her side through the hells of elementary, middle, and high school in their small town of Derry, Maine. They were both the outcasts there from the get go. A kid who was too talkative for his own good, a boy who came out proudly bisexual in middle school, a teen who couldn’t sit still for the life of him; paired with a kid who had bruises on her body everyday, a girl who learned men looked at her wrong at too young of an age, a teen who got slut shamed for very untrue rumors. Then college came, and the two hauled ass to New York City to go to college, sharing a shitty one bedroom apartment and working hellish hours to scrape by. They didn’t go to the same university, though; Richie went to NYU for four years in drama and then went a different route of standup comedy while Beverly went to a smaller college to get a cosmetology degree.

Those years, they met Eddie Kaspbrak and Mike Hanlon. Eddie was at the same college Beverly went to on way to become a Science teacher, and they both worked at a crappy coffee place. They got along extremely well and after a while she introduced him to Richie, the two beginning their marriage-like bickering instantly. It was no surprise to Beverly when they got together in their second year of college. The feisty young man complemented their duo extremely well from the get-go, officially making them into an inseparable trio in no time. Then comes in Mike Hanlon, a sweet boy who grew up on a farm and who was on his way to become the best veterinarian known to man. ("I'm not gonna be the best one, guys, chill." - "Well, we think you will be.") He was Eddie’s room mate and about the time Eddie and Richie started dating was when Mike got pulled in, making their group an even four. Beverly had been hesitant at the time. Her father and every man back home made her wary of how men and boys would be towards her, her own boyfriend no help to that thought process at all, but Mike was quick to prove her wrong. He didn’t stare at her as if she were a piece of meat – hell, he still doesn’t, and neither do the other two (for obvious reasons) – and he’s never anything but gentle.

And then there’s Tom.

How she ended up with a nearly carbon copy of her father as a boyfriend during college is beyond her. He looked harmless back then, Bev remembers; he charmed her way into her life, making her believe everything was fine, but then slowly started manipulating different situations and raising his hand at her and verbally threatening her. She should’ve gotten out of it sooner but something kept her there with the asshole; something kept her from telling her friends, coming up with lame excuses as to why another bruise had formed on her wrist.

Fast forward some years. The even four graduated – Tom, too – and Richie beings to work his ass off to get gigs and all for his stand up comedy career that hopefully won't flop, and Eddie’s searching for assistant teaching jobs, and Beverly is working at really nice hair salon that pays well, and Mike is in Veterinary School. And she’s still with Tom; her friends are starting to catch on, if they hadn’t before. A few more years down the line, Richie gets a big break (okay not that big, but it's a break nonetheless), and somehow becomes extremely popular among the teens after his tweet about his cute but angry chihuahua like boyfriend. Eddie has been an assistant teacher for a couple years now and getting ready to become just a regular teacher; and Mike’s out of Veterinary School, and Bev’s opening up her own salon after a two year business program at a community college. She’s still dating Tom.

Until she’s not. At 26, Beverly has had enough. After nearly seven or eight years of something she grew up enough with because of her father, she gains the courage to finally stand up again to her another abusive man in her life. The other three finally knew the entire truth and with their help and pep talks and comforting words and hugs, Beverly stands up for herself. She dumps Tom. A fight ensues. She acquired a few new bruises and he expects her still in their shared apartment when he comes home from work. But when he’s gone, through tears and cries, she packs up everything. Literally everything. And then she’s getting in the crappy Honda she’s had since her first year in college with all of her belongings and driving to Richie’s and Eddie’s house just a little bit away. They aren't there, though. Richie is on a mini tour for a month and to because it was the summer and to celebrate the fact someone hired him as an actual teacher for the upcoming school year, Eddie tagged along.

Beverly doesn’t trust men, and the full reason why hits her like a train as she sits in her best friend’s and his boyfriend’s home, alone and honestly a bit scared. It makes her sad thinking over how much she loves and trusts three guys with her life, but two harmful men and the disgusting, predatory looks from other men out weighs her best friends’ good intentions. As she sits there, suitcases haphazardly pushed into the living room and body sore, she wonders if she should go to the doctor. It’s only a few bruises and a busted lip, though. Eddie, if he knew, would be fussing over her and dragging her out of the house in an instant to get her checked on from worry – the opposite of what his mother did constantly to him as a child.

The redhead chuckles at the thought of the Kaspbrak fretting over her, but then a few tears are leaving her eyes and suddenly she’s crying again, and wanting to call one of her boys, but she can’t. She doesn’t want to. Not yet, anyway. Richie’s having too much fun, Eddie’s enjoying his break, Mike is already working, having a good time while doing so. They didn’t need to worry over her while they’re living their lives to the fullest.

A bark interrupts her thought process and she blinks, confused for a split second until she remembers Sid. A black lab with too much energy for her own good, just a little over a year old. Richie and Eddie had gotten Sid when she was four months old. They almost didn’t get her all because they weren't sure how often they'd get to spend with the puppy. Both are home more often than they thought, though still both of their jobs restrain them from spending the amount of time they want with the puppy - less often than they first thought, though. Thankfully, both Mike and Bev are available more often than not, Bev the most. They help take care of Sid when the couple can’t, which honestly isn't that much, and the adorable dog has somehow formed into everyone’s pet over time with how often they're all at the Tozier-Kaspbrak house.

Bev wipes under her eyes and cheeks, wincing at her palm pushes into the bruise on her cheek too hard, and makes her way through the house to the back door. She peers outside to the fenced backyard and sees Sid near the back, tail up and ears perked; on high alert. The dog probably heard something she didn't like, or maybe saw a squirrel. Beverly opens the door after she unlocks it, and one hand rests on the door frame.

“Sid!” She shouts to get the dogs attention. “C’mere, girl!” Sid yaps and runs to Beverly instantly, and the woman’s laughing a bit as she crouches down, the dog attacking her with licks. Beverly pets the dog in return and moves to sit on her butt. “Hey, girl. You missed me, huh? I was just here yesterday, though, before your dads left. You miss them, too? Hm, I bet. I do. Yeah, I do, and they miss you, no doubt about it. C’mon, hey- oof, let me stand up, girl. Sid- Okay, thank you. Hey, can you sit? I’ll give you treat! Good girl, let me take a picture.”

Beverly snaps a picture of Sid, the black lab’s tongue hanging out the side of her mouth as she pants, floppy ears forward and dark eyes wide. She quickly sends the picture to Eddie, paired with a text of heart and dog emojis and ‘she misses u!’. She then ushers Sid inside, brows furrowing when she thinks she sees the dog limping, but it was hard to tell. She quickly finds the dog treats in the kitchen pantry, and feeds Sid one right as she gets a reply from her friend.

[from: coffee buddy 11:49 am MNFK SHES SO CUTESJDK I MISS HER TOO GIVE HER LOVE SOME LOVE FOR US]

[to: coffee buddy 11:50 am i'll be sure to give her all the love dw ur pretty lil head]

[from: dipshit 11:52 am SID!!!!!!! THE CUTEST!!!!!!!!!! THANK U FOR UR SERVICE BEV]

[to: dipshit 11:52 am mwah ur welcome rich x]

She smiles at their reactions. It's cute and something she's seen a thousand times throughout the year they've had Sid. One time, she had watched and listened to Richie gush over Sid sleeping with her head in Eddie's lap, his boyfriend drifting off to sleep as well. Unfortunately, that memory ends with Tom calling her and demanding her home for the night, cutting the friends' fun night together short.

Beverly finds herself frowning at the memory and doesn't bother to keep track of Sid as she wanders throughout the house. The young woman stays in the kitchen, her mood coming back down. She brushes stands of her long hair out of her face, her features scrunching up in disgust. She hates it long. Hates the way it gets the way and how she always has to do something with it, always having to get tangles out at the ends. Tom loves her long hair though, and after some persuasion back in college, Beverly grew it out again and kept it at the same mid-back length. Her stomach churns with the realization her father liked her hair long, too. It was the reason she chopped it all off in the first place. Self-hate settles in her, and she can feel the tears coming back as she leans against the counter when her phone starts ringing again. She jumps. The irrational part of her brain is telling her that the caller is Tom, that he somehow found out that she left home while at work, and he's coming over to drag her back. The other part - the rational part - knows that can't be it.

With shaky hands, she pulls her phone back out. Relief floods through her at seeing the familiar number of one of her clients. She sighs and presses the green dot on the screen before putting it on speaker. It was Audra Phillips, a wonderful woman around her age that started coming to Beverly's own salon the moment it opened, always complimenting Bev's work and saying how the redhead should be a renowned stylist for hair, makeup and clothes. "Hi, Audra," she greets, hoping her voice doesn't give off the fact that she had been close to crying.

"Beverly, hi!" Audra greets, happy. If she can tell something is up, she doesn't say anything. "I was just wondering if we're still on for one today? It's just- I'm busy these next couple days and there's a court case Friday, and I really don't want to look like shit. The split ends are bad. And it's my first one, y'know?"

"Of course, yeah," Beverly does her best to sound up beat. "I was actually just about to leave to get everything ready." It's a lie, but the other woman doesn't need to know that. Until Audra called, Beverly's mind had completely pushed away her one o'clock appointment, too engrossed into the early morning fight with Tom and her leaving without his knowledge.

"Wonderful! You are a life saver, Marsh, I fucking love you."

A genuine smile reaches her lips. "It's truly no problem, Audra. I'll see you at one."

They hang up, and Beverly goes to the bathroom after fishing her makeup bag from one of her suitcases. She stares at herself, taken back by the appearance. The bruise on her cheek is worse than she thought, and she had dried blood she didn't know about on her chin from the cut on her lip. Her striking blue eyes are bloodshot and rimmed red from crying on and off throughout the morning, and her bright red hair was a bird's nest. She is a complete and utter mess, and she has no idea how to make it seem like she isn't. But she does her best for the next ten minutes; she covers up the bruise with ease, and does her make up to where the only indication of her crying are the bloodshot eyes. She tames her hair to the best of her ability and just throws it into a ponytail. She keeps what she's already wearing on - a tee from Disney World that she got a some years back when she and her three friends were all free of school - with light skinny jeans and converse. Then, she puts Sid back outside in the backyard, grabs her keys, makes sure the doors are all locks and that the lights are off, and finally leaves.

+++

"-and I've always wanted to start a fashion line. Or do something with fashion, and make up too, which is why I started that- that...what's the word? Oh, well, that thing where people can make appointments for getting their makeup and hair done for dates, or prom, or whatever - oh, a bundle! The two in one. Gosh, I'm the owner and can't even fucking remember these things correctly," Beverly says, wincing as she remembers that she's talking to a customer. "Sorry for my language."

Audra chuckles from where she sits directly in front of Beverly, the woman behind her snipping away at her now wet hair. "You know I don't care about your language, Bev, keep on with it. And don't down talk yourself, sweetie, everyone forgets things."

They meet eyes in the mirror and share a smile. Audra has been at the salon for some time now. Beverly washed the other woman's hair before actually starting to cut it, per Audra's request. During that time they had conversed about a million and one things, leaving one conversation to go to another only to jump back to a topic that had long since been forgotten when one of them remembered something else. It was nice, Beverly had to admit. It was getting her mind off of that morning.

"Would you add fashion if you could? To the bundle - making a three in one deal."

Beverly's brows knit together as she thinks about it. Then, "Most likely. I think it would be hard to do, though. I don't think fashion is one of my strong suits, and... I dunno, the makeup deal probably won't last too much longer and I doubt the fashion thing would, either."

Audra snorts with a roll of her eyes. "You are one of the most talented women I know with all of this," she tells Beverly, hands moving under the cape. "I've never been disappointed once, and the make up you do for the prom and special events are fucking fantastic! Your fashion sense is off the charts when you dress up; hell, even when you dress down. You have the potential to do all three, Bev. What's holding you back?" The question is quieter, filled with so much care; and her other words are full of sincerity. It has Beverly faltering her movements.

She licks her lips. She knows what's holding her back. "Tom," she says simply as she quickly goes back to doing Audra's hair, and she hopes it doesn't sound as bitter and fearful as it felt. "He's always been supportive of this - of the hair salon - but he's always...apprehensive about the makeup. And then about the fashion, he's just so against it."

"What do men know?" Audra asks. "And what does Tom even do?"

"He works at some small business. A financial analysis."

"He's just jealous. Scared, maybe, of you turning out better than him. God, men are so...ugh."

"There are a few decent ones out there," Beverly says, thinking of her friends. A large smile tugs at her lips. "My best friends. Richie's annoying as all fuck, but he's genuinely caring when he wants to be. Usually to his boyfriend, and me. We grew up together, so we're basically siblings. Then there's Eddie - Richie's boyfriend. A damn firecracker. A bit crazy. A mother hen, at times. Oh, and Mike! He's probably the most genuine, nice guy I know. He's over six feet, and Rich calls him a gentle giant. I'd call him the perfect guy, but he loves pranks, and he and Rich get into a prank war three times a year and they drag Eddie and me into them too. They're not perfect - not by a long shot - but they're the most decent guys I know. I doubt there's any 'perfect guy'."

Audra's quiet for a moment. "I'm surprised you didn't put Tom in there."

Beverly's jaw clenches for a moment. "Why would I put my ex in a list of good men?" She says in a casual way and hopes that it doesn't cause dramatic reactions from those around her. It does. Her regulars and few employees know of her and Tom. It was clear no one likes him, and Bev knows that maybe they figured out something had been wrong about the relationship, but she always painted Tom as a good guy to others despite the bruises littering her skin and his harsh words towards her even in public. Audra's jaw drops and Beverly stops snipping the hair and moved her arms to her sides just in time as Audra turned around, and she sets the scissors on a flat surface. A gasp is heard across the building, and Bev turns her head to see her good friend and employee, Kay McCall, standing a few chairs away, getting ready for another customer.

"Did he dump you?" Audra asks, almost sounding hesitant to do so.

Beverly looked back at her, and then at Kay who is walking over at the speed of lightning. "I... Actually, I dumped him," she says slowly. "This morning." It almost feels wrong telling the girls first instead of her best friends first, but there's a sense of relief that comes with telling someone and Bev figures that the boys won't mind.

Kay squeals and pulls Beverly into a tight hug. "Oh, my god, I thought you'd never get rid of that ass!" She pauses and pulls away, keeping her hands on her friend's shoulders. A serious yet excited expression sits on her face. "I know it's no surprise I don't like him, okay, I'm sorry. I know you loved him too but, babe, that boy was a total whack job! He gave me the fucking creeps!"

Audra is nodding along. "I wanted to say something, but we're not that close, y'know? And I didn't wanna piss you off accidentally."

"I honestly thought you were gonna end up marrying him. It was, like, my worst fear the longest time," Kay admits. Her hands finally leave Beverly's shoulders.

"Mine too." Beverly takes in their looks, and she wants to take the words back but it's too late. She doesn't want to tell them what he's done, it's too early and too fresh to tell someone out right, so she doesn't. "I stopped loving him, is all," she lies. But, it's not really a lie. "I felt obligated to stay in the relationship, I guess. Probably a bit scared, too, because we've been together since the end of my second year of college. I finally just ripped off the band-aid this morning."

Audra smiles softly. "Long ones are the hardest to end."

Kay nods in agreement. "Yeah. Hey, I've got a pullout at my apartment if you need a place to stay. I know you two were living together."

Beverly shakes her head. "Thanks, but I'm good for now. Rich and Eddie are out of the city for a month, and I'm already visiting there to dog sit. Might as well house sit, too. I'll call if I decide to take you up on that offer, though."

They share a few more words - not much at all, though - and soon Beverly is back to Audra's hair, and Kay is walking up front where a new customer is stepping in. She licks lips, feeling how chapped they are, and her nose scrunches the slightest bit as her tongue went over the cut. She had forgotten about it, and at remembering it she is grateful that neither Audra nor Kay asked about it. She doesn't know what she would have come up with if they did.

+++

The rest of the day consisted of Beverly having a few more customers, going to the grocery store because she knows for a fact that Richie and Eddie have zero food at their house, walking around fearful, and finally getting to the Tozier-Kaspbrak residence with the sun completely gone because apparently shopping and driving takes a lot longer than she realizes. She keeps the doors locked and lets Sid roam around as she puts up the groceries - she was right, they had no food - and later feeds Sid, noticing that the limp she thought she saw that morning is, in fact, a limp and it looked the slightest bit worse. After dinner, and after letting Sid outside for a few minutes to use the bathroom, Beverly's phone starts to ring and ring, and ping continuously, messages and missed calls from Tom keeping the device occupied. She waits, but the messages and calls come in nearly every second. Every minute. She wants to call someone - Mike, Richie, Kay, Eddie, anyone but Tom - but she can't pick up the phone, because that means looking at her messages. She knows it's not going to happen, but that doesn't stop her from feeling as if even if she touched the phone Tom would find out where she is like some telepathic demon from Hell.

It's not until she's hearing her own wheezing when it dawns on her that she's having a panic attack over the stupid fucking calls and text messages, curling in on herself against one of the kitchen walls, cheeks wet and make up smudged because of her tears. She hasn't had one in years, not since her first year in college, which is a surprise in and of itself given who she's been dating. Her mind struggles to grasp at what to do - its been eight years - but once she remembers, Beverly does her best to do it. It takes time, much longer than she would like to admit, but she soon calms down. Her hands stop shaking, and her cheeks are starting to dry, and her phone is silent too. Sid is laying a few feet away, staring. Worried. Beverly sniffles. Shakily, she stands and the young dog moves her head up in a flash, eyes trained on Beverly as the young woman moves across the kitchen. Sid then quickly gets up and limps to where she's right beside Bev.

Her eyes squeeze shut as she unlocks her phone to avoid looking at the missed calls and unread texts, and it makes her want to throw up as she does it but she blocks Tom's number, erases the messages and makes the missed calls notifications go away.

Then, she's going to bed in the guest room, exhausted. Sid is at her feet in the bed when she's supposed to be in her bog bed and kennel, but Beverly doesn't care. Rich and Eddie don't have to know, anyway. She's too relaxed. She feels too safe with Sid there. So, she lets Sid stay there, eventually falling asleep.

+++

It's halfway through the morning when Beverly notices Sid is heavily favoring her right front leg as she plays without a care in the world in the backyard. It concerns her, worries her, so she calls the nearest vet and places an appointment at two - and coincidentally, it's the one Mike works at. She doesn't call her two best friends yet, not wanting to worry them in case nothing is wrong. She doesn't go into work. She doesn't want to, simply put, so she doesn't. She's the owner, anyway, and goes in whenever she pleases; the fact that she had no one specifically ask for her on that day was another reason Bev doesn't go in, and she knows the employees can handle themselves. She takes a nice, warm, long shower and brings Sid inside around noon. Then she has lunch, and as the time for Sid's appointment rolls closer, she changes into Nike shorts and the same t-shirt she wore the day before, uncaring of who saw her in it yesterday. She's still emotionally drained from the night before, so it surprises her that she didn't walk out in sweats and a hole-y shirt.

The drive to the vet is fine. Sid stays in the backseat, constantly moving into different positions and standing to look between the front seats, even though her front leg is probably hurting her. Upon reaching the vet clinic, the hope of seeing Mike rises, and she gets out with Sid quickly, locking her car, and then goes inside. It’s not long at all until she’s sitting in one of the back rooms waiting for someone to come in and check on Sid. Not too soon later, the door is opening and she’s hoping it’s Mike, but it’s not. She tries not to look too disappointed, though it wasn’t hard at all given as the guy who walks in is attractive.

She blinks, taking in the dirty blond hair and soft brown eyes; he’s tall, too – about Richie’s or Mike’s height – and at first Beverly, admittedly, tensed up. Here’s a guy who she doesn’t know and therefore doesn’t trust, and her first thought is that he’s going to say something her. To try and flirt. To seem as if he’s this perfect dude trying to win Bev over for a hookup. But then he’s giving her a warm smile before crouching down to Sid who’s jumping in excited at seeing a new person, and she suddenly feels bad for jumping to conclusions.

“Hey,” the guy laughs as Sid licks his face. “You’re a friendly one, aren’t you? Who’ve we got here today?” He’s then looking at Bev and standing up.

Beverly twists the leash in her hands. “That’s Sid. Um, she has a bad limp, and I just got worried.”

He nods and looks back down to the dog, who’s now laying on the floor at his feet, panting as she stares up at him. “Yeah, I noticed it when I walked in. It’s pretty significant. If you don’t mind, I’ll take her to weigh her out there. We’ll be right back.”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s fine, do what you gotta do,” she says. “I’ve never been to a vet before. Sid’s not mine, she’s my friend’s. I’m just dog sitting while he and his boyfriend are outta town. I figured I should bring her myself in case something is actually seriously wrong.”

He smiles as he slips the vet’s leash on Sid with ease, and unclasps the other off of her collar. “That's nice of you to do.”

“I'd do anything for my friends.” Beverly sets the leash in her lap, giving a tiny smile. “She pulls a lot, by the way. Just a warning,” she tells the man.

He nods. “It’s fine. Be back in a jiff,” he tells her and then he’s out of the room with Sid, the dog excitedly walking and pulling. Beverly chuckles and leans back in the chair, blue eyes looking at the framed picture on the wall. It’s an illustration of different types of dogs and their names and where they originally came from.

She’s about to stand up to get a better look when the guy and Sid come back in. He walks the dog to her and lets her reattach the leash before removing the vet’s leash. “How much does she weigh?” Bev asks, curious, frowning at how Sid is favoring her leg.

“Thirty pounds,” he says.

“That’s good, right?”

He nods. “Yes, it is. Female labs usually get up to between twenty-five and thirty-two.”

Bev smiles and pets Sid. “Well, you’re a healthy girl, huh? Other than your leg.” She looks up at the guy, and he’s already looking at her with an expression she can’t read. Its similar to the one Richie gives her once in a while when he’s in a particularly loving mood towards everyone; but there’s something about this guy’s expression that’s so different from it at the same time. There’s no lust, no want, no desire. Almost admiration, if she has to label it. It’s a look she’s not used to, to say the least, and she has to look away and back down to Sid. “So, are you going to check her out, or is there some big shot vet doc that has to come in?” She asks. “Dr. Doolittle, maybe?”

He seems to jolt back into reality at the question, and if Bev were to look up she would see his cheeks reddening. “Huh- oh, yeah. I’m just- just an intern here, trying to get my foot in the door before I finally become a veterinarian myself. No Dr. Doolittle, though.”

Beverly chuckles and looks up. “Shame. I’d pay some real money to have Dr. Doolittle here.”

He smiles, still blushing a little. “I’d pay to be Dr. Doolittle.” Then, “I’ll go get the ‘big shot vet doc’.” He uses air quotes as he uses the words Beverly had said moments before, chuckling lightly as she rolls her eyes with no malice behind the action.

“Alright. Oh- hey, uh,” she hesitates, “I’m Beverly Marsh, by the way. I should’ve introduced myself sooner. Sorry.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’m Ben Hanscom. I’ll be right back with the doctor, Beverly.”

As he leaves, she can’t help but feel a bit embarrassed about just introducing herself like that so abruptly, but she pushes the feeling away. A few minutes later, the guy – Ben, and she can’t help but think how well the name suits him – walks in with the doctor. They check on Sid, have her walk around for a few seconds, and then the doctor is explaining that nothing seems wrong.

“There isn’t any swelling or cuts or broken bones, so it’s probably just a bad sprain. Nothing too bad, thankfully, but you’ll have to restrict how much she plays for it to get better. I’ll prescribe her some pain medication that you’ll give her once a day for seven days. If it’s not better by this day next week, I suggest bringing her back. It’ll most likely require surgery if that’s the case.”

Beverly nods along to the words and takes the information in, planning on calling Richie once she leaves to explain everything to him. After that, both the doctor and Ben are leaving again, Ben coming back five minutes later with a small, blue pill bottle.

“Give her one forth of these everyday, and it should help,” Ben tells her as he hands the bottle to her. “I hope she gets better. She’s such a sweetheart.”

Beverly stands and holds the pill bottle with one hand, and Sid’s leash with the other. “Me too. Thank you, by the way.”

He sheepishly smiles and shrugs. “I barely did a thing. It’s all the doctor.”

She chuckles. “Well, thank her too for me. Hey, do you know a Mike Hanlon?”

He nods quickly. “Yeah, he’s another intern for one of the other doctors here.”

“Is he here?”

“Yeah. But he’s helping with a surgery on a sick cat. Why?”

She shrugs. “He’s one of my friends. I was expecting to see him, is all.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

Beverly frowns but then smiles, shaking her head as she gets ready to leave. “You’re not a disappointment, Ben. You seem like a cool guy, and it was nice meeting you.”

He’s then giving her another warm smile, and he’s blushing again. “Thanks. It was nice to meet you, too. And Sid, of course.”

Beverly then says a bye with a smile of her own and she walks out of the back room, and to the front. She pays, not minding having to, and walks out with her phone pressed to ear as she calls Richie, explaining what’s wrong and what’s happening with Sid as she drives home. She doesn’t mention the breakup or Ben just yet. She doesn’t want to think about either too much, and telling her best friend about both would require just that. So, she doesn’t. Richie doesn’t ask, either, because one: he avoids the topic of Tom as well because it just puts him in a pissy mood for the rest of the day and he can’t be in a pissy mood during a gig, and two: Beverly have no indication about the guy who helped out at the vet clinic being attractive in any way.

She sighs as she falls into the couch after giving Sid the correct amount of medicine, turning on the TV, pushing any thoughts about men out of her mind as she watches a rerun of an old 90s show.

[wayward-river]

Die From a Broken Heart (Hidden Identity)

Sweet Pea x Reader - Reader x Poppy Mae (daughter) - Sweet Pea x Poppy Mae (daughter)

AN: Alright y’all I can’t let this story go it’s my baby so have another drabble! This is more of a song fic. If you listen to the song Die from a broken heart by Maddie and Tae most of they lyrics are said. I do not own the song, it just inspired me. I’m sure you can read this as a one shot but it is a continuation of my Hidden Identity series if you haven’t read it you will still get this though!

This is also a bit of a time jump. Poppy is 21 and Ace is 17. Also this one got away from me so not quite a drabble.

AN 2: Thanks as always to my beta, my girl @xserpentlife go follow her and check out her fics she’s amazing, also she’s nearing a celebration go tell her what y’all want to see! All mistakes are my own I do not own the gifs credit goes to the person who made them. I will stop rambling now! Hope y’all like it! 

Warnings : Dad!Sweet Pea feels. (I mean c’mon), angst a little I guess. Protective Dad!Sweet Pea. 

Y/N POV

You sat around the fire, smiling as you watched Sweet Pea, Malachai, Fangs and Chase talk about some new jobs. The Serpents and Ghoulies working together made your heart warm. Especially after everything. After everyone told you that “Serpents and Ghoulies don’t mix” but you wouldn’t trade your mixed family for the world.

The sliding door opening pulled you from your thoughts as you looked over your shoulder. Ace stepping out with your cell phone in his hand. You flung the blanket off of you setting it next to Toni.

She looked up at you. “Everything good?”

You gave her a short nod. “I think so. Probably just Poppy gushing about something Jax did.”

Toni gave a small chuckle. “I can’t believe those boys didn’t scare him off on that first date”

You laughed at the memory of all them interrogating Jax, and then three of them tailing them on their date. “Yeah funny that's how you and Chase got together wasn’t it?”

Toni looked across the fire at Chase. “Yeah, he was charming and we were both so heartbroken.”

You nodded as you headed up the steps of the back porch towards your son. Remembering how awful Toni’s break up was with Cheryl and how hard Chase took Rose ending things.

You shook your head as you approached Ace. “Hey bud...your sister?”

Ace nodded handing you the phone as he made his way down the steps to the fire everyone was surrounding.

You brought the phone up to your ear, your heart immediately breaking as you heard your daughters sobs on the other end.

“Poppy? Poppy Mae, are you okay? Baby talk to me.”  Your worried tone perked Sweet Peas interest as he watched you enter the house.

Sweet Pea POV

“Hey Ace, was that your sister?”

Ace nodded as he pulled his marshmallow from the fire.

Sweet Pea looked from the boys, back to the back door.

“Go check on her.” Malachai spoke up making Sweet Peas decision for him.

Sweet Pea hurried out of his chair and up the steps.

Y/N POV

“Baby talk to me please.” You pleaded with your daughter.

“How do you get rid of wine stains outta your favorite dress?” Poppy replied sniffling.

You went to reply but were cut off by the next question out of your daughters mouth.

“Black mascara off a pillowcase? Cure a one too many headache?”

“Well baby.” You began again.

“Mama, can I come and maybe stay a few days this weekend or next? And, hey, how do you get rid of wine stains outta your favorite dress?”

You looked up as you watched Sweet Pea enter the house from the yard, he leaned on the counter listening to Poppy.

“How does he sleep at night? Mama, the nerve of this guy to leave me so easy, am I gonna be alright?”

“It’s going to be okay Poppy Mae. Mama is here just talk to me okay.”

“I wanna kick myself for falling so hard. Mama, can you die from a broken heart?”

“Oh baby, he’s an asshole, okay you didn’t do anything wrong.” You responded the tears springing to your eyes.

“Can you ask daddy if he’s got time to come and look at my front door? It got slammed last night and now it don’t close right. And just promise me that you won’t tell him everything and keep that pistol in the drawer. Mama, please don’t say I’m gonna laugh about this some day. You didn’t see the way he drove away.”

“It’s gonna be okay Poppy. I promise, your daddy is on his way.”

You looked up to see Sweet Pea already pulling his jacket on, and grabbing his keys. He gave you a kiss on your temple, and walked out of the kitchen. You listened to the front door close.

“Can your knees give out from prayin’ so hard? Can you go blind from crying in the dark. Mama, can you die from a broken heart?”

You sniffled unable to hide it from Poppy.

“Oh mama, I didn’t mean to upset you.” She cried.

“Poppy Mae when you get your heartbroken, you don’t apologize okay? I’m gonna stay on the phone until Daddy gets there okay?”

“Yeah okay. I think I see his truck lights.” She responded.

You sighed eternally grateful that you had convinced her to still live somewhat close to home, in a small trailer.

Sweet Pea POV

I pulled up to Poppy’s trailer and could see her pacing through the windows. I sighed trying to keep my anger in check. I told this boy not to break her heart, they’ve been together so long. Hell I thought he was going to ask for my blessing soon.

I cut the engine to the truck, getting out and walking up to her front door. I examined it slightly before I walked in.

She stopped pacing and looked up. Her cheeks were stained slightly black from the mascara she had been wearing.

“You are supposed to look at the front door….not me.” She softly said sniffling.

“Oh baby girl, I care about you not about that damn door. I’ll fix it later.” I breathed as I took quick strides and wrapped her in my arms. Her resolved broke more as she gripped onto me sobbing.

I maneuvered us to the couch. Slowly sitting us both down as I continued to hold her.

She leaned away sitting up and looking at me. The look she gave me breaking my heart.

“Daddy” She whispered as she took a shuddered breath trying not to cry.

“Chick Pea, you gotta let it out.”

“Was it ever really real, if he don’t feel the way I feel?” She finally asked as a broken sob racked through her again.

I pulled her to me. “It was real Chick Pea. It was real.” “I’m gonna kill him” I mumbled softly to myself.

I held her as she continued to cry after about thirty minutes her breathing evened out and soft snores filled the room.

I placed my arm under her knee and kept the other one tightly around her as I walked to the front door, opening it and heading to the truck.

“This was a lot easier when you were little.” I mumbled.

“Daddy?” She stirred. “What are you doing?”

“I’m taking you home Chick Pea, you are gonna stay with us for a few days okay.”

She nuzzled into me her arms wrapping around my neck as she hummed in agreement, allowing me to open the truck door and set her in.

The drive home didn’t take near as long as the drive to her did. I pulled up to the house and could still see the fire going in the back. Knowing them they wouldn’t want to leave until they knew Poppy was okay. I cut the engine off once more and got out of the truck going around and grabbing Poppy out and back into my arms.

Y/N must of heard me come home because she flung the front door open as she heard the truck her eyes going wide as she saw our daughter tucked into my arms.

Y/N POV

You flung the door open ready to ask Sweet Pea questions, stopping as you eyed your sleeping daughter in his arms.

“Oh baby.” You sniffled. “Just go put her in her old room since we didn’t touch it.”

Sweet Pea nodded as you moved out of the way. You watched him walk down the hallway towards the bedrooms before stepping into the kitchen and pulling out a beer for Sweet Pea.

You set it on the counter just as he reappeared in the kitchen. A deep sigh coming from him as he ran his hands across his face.

“I want to kill him for hurting our daughter like that.” He finally spoke breaking the silence.

You placed your hand on his arm. “I know. I want the same, but please tell me she is somewhat okay.”

“She will be, it will take some time, and some mama time, but she’ll be Poppy Mae again soon.” Sweet Pea responded as he walked towards you pulling you into him.

“I’m sorry.” He softly whispered.

You looked up at him, confusion clear on your face. “Why Pea?”

“I broke your heart once.” He responded.

You gave a light laugh. “Yeah, you did. I got drunk that night and Chase was there for me.”

“I just, seeing her like that tonight and I couldn’t fix it, I just felt like I failed her.” Sweet Pea admitted as he looked to the floor.

“Oh, Pea. You are her hero. She is a daddy’s girl. You showing up like that means so much to her. You didn’t fail her baby.”

Pea nodded as he gave you a slight kiss. “The guys still here?”

You nodded. “They wouldn’t leave until they knew that their niece was okay.”

Sweet Pea hummed in approval while he took your hand leading you to the back sliding door, and back down the steps. He sat in his chair pulling you into his lap.

Malachai smiled as he watched the interaction between you two. “Poppy okay?”

“She will be. Damn boy broke my chick peas heart.”

“Guess he’ll just get shitty jobs for awhile.” Fangs chided.

“He’ll get more than that. He’s over eighteen I can legally punch the kid, or make him go through initiation again.”

“Pea.” You scolded. “Just be there for her, don’t any of you go start anything with Jax. She still loves him and you’d just be hurting her more.” You scolded all three men around you.

Fangs put his hands up in defense. “Hey just doing uncle things.”

You rolled your eyes. “She’ll be just fine. She’s got all of us.”

They all hummed in agreement as the conversation slightly shifted. You watched as Ace got up and looked to the window of Poppys room.

“Heading to bed Ace?” You questioned.

“I’m actually, I’m going to go check on Poppy.” He responded.

“She’s asleep bud” Sweet Pea informed him.

“I-I know I just want to make sure she’s good dad”

Sweet Pea nodded as he watched Ace ascend the stairs and disappear inside.

You sat around the fire a little longer before sending everyone home. Malachai, Fangs, and Chase promising to stop by tomorrow for an impromptu Uncle date with Poppy. Something they quit doing when she was thirteen but thought she needed now more than ever. You gave a nod as each person hugged you before they left.

Malachai paused pressing a kiss to your forehead. “She’ll be okay sis. She’s as tough as her mama.”

“Mhm I know I just never wanted her to go through that pain Mal. I mean I am so thankful she didn’t have half of the traumatic shit we went through, but thats my baby and she’s hurting so bad.” You confessed.

“Just be here for her okay. Let Ace do his thing too he may be younger but brothers have a special place in their sisters hearts”

You nodded as you hugged Malachai again. “Thank you.” You breathed.

“For what?” He asked his grip on you tight.

“For always trying to protect my stubborn ass.” You admitted.

Malachai chuckled. “I’m glad I couldn’t stop you on some things.”

You smiled as your eyes flicked to Sweet Pea waiting for you at the bottom of the steps. “Yeah me too, Mal. Me too.”

Malachai gave you another quick hug before letting you go, watching you walk away before he turned away towards his car.

You made it to Sweet Pea, intertwining your hands as he led you upstairs and inside.

“I know she’s sleeping but I really want to check on Poppy.” You confessed as you looked down.

Sweet Pea turned towards you, pulling you into him. “I know baby, I don’t blame you. I’m so glad you didn’t see her in her trailer.”

You nodded as you moved out of his grip, your hand leaving Sweet Peas as you walked towards Poppy’s room. The door was slightly open, you quietly pushed it open fully as you looked in tears sprang into your eyes once again. Sweet Pea wrapped his arms around you resting his chin on your shoulder.

You both took in the scene before you for a few moments. Ace was laid out softly snoring, one arm above his head and the other wrapped protectively around his sister as her head rested on his chest.

“We raised some pretty good kids.” You whispered.

Sweet Pea hummed in agreement as he moved his head kissing your shoulder.

“We sure did.” He mumbled back.

[clexa--warrior]

Five years ago this week was the first time most people in America had ever heard of an incel. For me, it was the first time I spent a week of my life explaining to those people what an incel was.

As soon as the news of Elliot Rodger's killing spree in Isla Vista broke, as soon as they released his videos, I knew. At the time, I was working at Death & Taxes, and I announced in our work chatroom, "I know exactly what this is. He posts on PUAHate. I'd bet my life on it."

Back then, PUAHate was the primary forum for men who had spent a lot of time and money investing in the pick-up-artist craze of the late aughts, with not particularly great results. Furious that the technique of wearing giant velvet hats and walking up to random women in bars and insulting them had not worked out as well as they had hoped, these men commiserated online.

But that wasn't all. As the pick-up artist trend subsided, the forum evolved from complaining about pick-up gurus and became more about the horrible evil and shallowness of the women they had failed to woo with these techniques. They adopted the term incel—short for "involuntarily celibate"—from less overtly misogynistic parts of the internet and started referring to themselves as such. After George Sodini—a man who had also tried and failed to become a pick-up artist and was furious at women for his lack of romantic success—shot and killed 4 people at an L.A. Fitness in Collier Township, Pennsylvania, he became a PUAHate hero.

As it turns out, Rodger did post on PUAHate, and in his manifesto he even credited the forum with giving him a community of men who confirmed "many of the theories [he] had about how wicked and degenerate women really are."

It sounds naive to say now, but as terrifying as PUAHate was to read, as much as you'd look at it and go "Oh shit, one of these nuts is going to kill someone someday," it just didn't seem quite as serious of a possibility as it does now. It was more of an "Oh god, have you seen this weird shit on the internet?" thing.

There was a lot of that in those days, actually. Shock sites were a thing. There was Goat.se, "Two Girls One Cup" (still have not seen it, thank you very much), the kind of sites you'd send people to in order to freak them out and see their reaction. Then there were message boards in which participants were constantly upping the ante to see who could say the most offensive thing, post the most abhorrent image, shock people already inured to the shocking. This is how things operated in PUAHate, but also how people saw PUAHate. It was shocking, but it wasn't dangerous. Not yet.

A few months after the Isla Vista attacks, Gamergate happened. Women who wrote about video games had to go into hiding and feared for their lives because these asshats were scared they were going to steal "video games" from them. Soon, misogynistic 4Chan trolls gained support from more mainstream misogynistic sites like Breitbart, an alliance that would later help propel Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States.

I think it's clear that Trump would not have happened without Gamergate, but I've also wondered a lot over the years about whether or not Gamergate would have even happened to the degree that it did if it were not for Elliot Rodger, and I have been leaning for a while now into camp "I don't think it would have." I think that as repulsive as Rodger's actions and words were to normal people, a whole lot of men out there heard them and thought "that's fucked up ... but he's not wrong." I think that there are men who saw what he had to say and then went and joined those groups themselves. I think that while they may not have all gone on murder sprees, they did find other ways to lash out at women.

Not everything that happened since then is bad. When I look back at things I wrote back then in light of Isla Vista, I am genuinely impressed with the way the Left has aggressively fought against the misogyny and male entitlement that was coming from inside the house. We don't dole out passes or progressive street cred to "lefty" men who are shitty to women, we don't assume that men who are not the traditional, macho bro are not a threat. Good for us, damn the manarchists.

PUAHate disappeared after the murders, overwhelmed by bad publicity. Soon it became Sluthate. Now it's Redpilltalk, though it's much less popular these days than r/braincels, incels.co, 4chan's R9K board, and other sites where men rage against being denied by the women they believe they are entitled to. They make references to St. Elliot, talk about "going ER," gush over other men who have gone on murder sprees, and today they plan to go to Starbucks, order vanilla lattes -- the drink he threw at happy young people he saw out and about while working himself up to their murder -- and give their name as Elliot in his honor.

These days, rather than men who had been fed a diet of Girls Gone Wild, Tucker Max, Suicide Girls, professional pick-up artists and celebrity sex tapes, who had expected life to be a hedonistic sex buffet, many of the incels on these boards were raised in the heyday of sexual purity. They were raised to expect a virgin bride. They were raised to think of women who had sex before marriage as buckets of their classmate's spit.

Since that day five years ago, there have been at least six other "incel murders" in the United States and Canada. At least 47 people, including Rodger's victims, have lost their lives, more have been injured. Online radicalization is an increasingly serious problem and the way it happens is really not so different from the way it happened with PUAHate. People who feel they've been denied something they were supposed to be entitled to often want a target for the rage they feel, a group they can dehumanize.

The one thing I have learned in my years covering these groups is that they ultimately force themselves into a self-fulfilling prophecy. They create environments where they can be as repulsive as they like, where there are no consequences and only rewards for being horrible and offensive, and then they go and try to take that act on the road, only to find that other people do not feel this is an acceptable way of behaving. The things they felt entitled to become even further out of their reach, because they no longer know how to socialize normally. They get rejected even more, and they get angrier than before. They get more dangerous than before.

Five years ago I wrote:

Elliot Rodger was the product of a culture that teaches male entitlement. Men are entitled to women, to sex, to jobs, to money–and if they don't get them, then women are to blame. He felt entitled to all these things and was livid over not getting them. You don't see women committing crimes like this because we are not taught to feel entitled to these things. The only way to stop more people like Elliot Rodger–or George Sodini who murdered women in an L.A. Fitness center for the same reason–is to stop teaching men to feel entitled. Start with not telling them "boys will be boys." Start by telling them there's no such thing as "friendzoning" and that women are allowed to not be sexually attracted to them. Start by telling them to listen when we say that we don't want their "compliments" on the street, and that we don't have to be flattered by them. Start by telling them they have no right to demand that we "smile" at them. It'll work out better for all of us.

We still teach men that they are entitled to certain things. We still teach men that women are evil and will use their sexuality as a weapon. We are still making men dangerous. And we still don't really know what the hell to do about it.

[redorblue]

The Terranauts, by T. C. Boyle

There’s this one thing that I always found incredibly annoying about English books, and that German books thankfully don’t have (yet). I hate the bunch of review snippets all over the cover so. much. It screws up the cover design, it can get pretty crowded if the publishing house was really proud of this book, and it tells you absolutely nothing. Same thing on the backside: I’ve seen books that have three lines of quote from inside the book, and six quotes from reviews gushing about it. How is that supposed to help me, or make me buy it? Last time I looked, most people still buy books because they think the story or the setup is intriguing, or because they like the author, not because Person X, Author of YZA, said it’s a “triumph of the imagination”. German books don’t do that. German books have the author and the name of the book on the cover, nicely integrated into the cover art, and a synopsis and maybe a short quote on the back. Orderly. Informative. Very German, probably.

But I digress. The reason I got into this was my most recent read, The Terranauts, and not only did I find it terrible, I also have no idea which book those reviewers from the Guardian, the Times etc. read - I find it hard to believe it was the same I did. So let’s try something else and use those incredibly unhelpful literary critics to structure what I did not like about this book.

1. “Excruciatingly funny” - Times Literary Supplement

This one is the easiest: I have no idea what they are talking about. If this book was so funny, it wouldn’t have been too much to expect to laugh at least once, right? Well, I didn’t. I also didn’t chuckle, snort, giggle, smile or even lift one corner of my mouth in amusement. Because in my not so humble opinion, this book is not funny. Unless I’m supposed to laugh about this one guy lusting after whichever woman has the longest legs in the room, about this woman who falls for him nonetheless and keeps lying to herself about his shittiness, or her so-called “best friend” who takes a trip to Mexico and promptly gets diarrhea. Yeah, very funny. Not everybody has the same sense of humour and all that, but I think someone who can laugh about such things has a rather questionable one.

2. “Lord of the Flies meets Hunger Games” -  The Times

With this one I at least get why they came to that conclusion. The story is the fictional continuation of a real-life experiment conducted some time in the 90s where eight people - four men, four women - were locked into a glass dome with a self-sustaining ecosystem inside, and basically told to see how many were still walking after two years. The first, real group broke closure (= was interrupted) after a few months because of a medical emergency, which is why the fictional second group is all the more fanatic determined to not open the airlock for the full two years, whatever happens. While they’re in there farming and supposedly conducting scientific experiments (although you never learn what it is exactly they’re testing, so if you want hard science, stay away), they get media coverage from all over the US (about what, one might ask... Must have been one hell of a silly season to send reports about people milking goats... Checking humidity... catching fish... Unheard of, right?).

So yeah, I can see where that one came from: a bunch of people locked in together at close quarters, becoming increasingly hateful towards each other = Lord of the Flies. Doing it all for the media coverage, completely with donations and the participants as celebrities and merchandise = The Hunger Games. Never mind that neither the characters from Lord of the Flies nor the candidates in the Hunger Games were there willingly, whereas in this book going under the glass with seven people you already can’t stand before you even go in, slowly starving yourself, slowly asphyxiating in the winter months, without pay or plan what to do afterwards, is somehow presented as being incredibly desirable (Really, the only lucid part this book has is when the characters call this enterprise a cult, or deny it being a cult - hey, at least they said the word, and self-denial is a serious Thing among all the characters). But okay, if you say so. The thing is, in my opinions it falls short in both comparisons.

I have to admit, I’ve never read Lord of the Flies, only watched the movie, and you shouldn’t judge a book by its adaptation. But I remember that (besides the survival part) it’s about group dynamics, how groups organize under pressure, how new leaders establish new orders, and the violence that ensues. Now I’m definitely not one of those people who need a body count to enjoy a book, but this one, I have to admit, was too... tame? for me to be credible. The highest tensions ever rose was a fistfight between two characters after almost two years of being locked in, when they were half starved already and there was barely any oxygen left in the air. Sure, the rest of the time they were constantly badmouthing each other, and venomous when they had to talk about something - but really, that’s your climax, your crisis? I already mentioned that most of the crew members didn’t like each other to begin with, and of course that didn’t get better over the course of the book, but it feels a bit lame to have your characters constantly emphasize how much they hate each other (and one even threatening to kill anyone who jeopardizes the mission! Talk about a Chekov’s gun that just... never went off I guess?), and then presenting a few punches as The Worst It Can Get. Let alone not resolving anything after they finally get out. Most of the crew just disappear into thin air, which is fitting because they weren’t much more than thin air with a name tag during the entire book, and the POVs just... get on with their lives I guess. The ending really feels a bit like the author just ran out of pages, and not in the good, open-ending kind of way. There is no resolution, no discernible character arc, no epiphany, nothing. It just ends. So take this as a vivid example of how structuring does NOT work.

As for the comparison with The Hunger Games... First of all, there’s the same problem of being too tame. The Hunger Games works partly (!!) because it’s suspenseful, what with fighting and hunting and figuring stuff out and action scenes in general. The Terranauts doesn’t have anything of the sort: no secret plots to unveil, no rivals to kill (and the moral dilemma that comes with it), very little, very drawn out struggle for survival... Again, I don’t need any of this to like a book, I can do without action, but it’s the Times that made the comparison, and I’m sorry but I think The Terranauts falls short. By a mile or so. Another thing that made The Hunger Games so interesting is the role the media plays: How the games are basically just entertainment for the rich, how public images are constructed and why, how public opinion and public sentiment is influenced etc. The Hunger Games were honest about how it’s all “just” for show. The Terranauts, however, tried to keep up its pretense of being oh so scientific, while the only thing that ever gets any screentime is not experiments or hard facts, but photo ops and interviews and presentations. Which would be fine if the book ever properly dealt with the fact that it was all just a huge media stunt. But it doesn’t, it never talks about the implications of the experiment being a big, expensive reality show, it never grants its characters a moment of epiphany or a personal crisis with regards to their sacrifices not being for science and the survival of the human race, but for money and money alone. The closest the characters ever get to realizing this and instrumentalizing it is when some of them threaten the CEO to talk to the press, but none of them ever go through with it (and there’s no reason why they wouldn’t besides this ominous cult mentality thing, because some of them have been treated really badly). Not even the crew member whose responsibility is PR management ever really tries to create a public image of himself that he can use to get what he wants and influence public opinion to the disadvantage of disliked crew mates or some such. It all feels very half-baked, and that from an author who’s famous for writing real adult novels. Talk about how naive and shallow YA novels are.

3. “Heartbreakingly human” - The Guardian

God... I hope not. I think not. If this set of characters is supposed to provide us with a sample of human experiences and emotions, then it’s really time to pack my bags and go be a hermit somewhere. Also, everyone is white, with the exception of one Asian person, who coincidentally is also the only woman who is consistently described as being fat and plain and kinky-haired (fat and kinky-haired being used as decidedly denigrating terms here - god this book has so many issues). And a terrible person, but that’s true for everyone. There are two minor characters who seem to be alright, the crew physician and the crew leader, but every non-POV character is basically just walking cardboard with maybe one or two traits each (for some reason I absolutely can’t fathom, bitchy, scheming and promiscuous come to mind for every single female character). Besides that there are three POVs: one man inside, one woman inside, and one woman outside (the Asian one). They all have some common character traits: they’re hateful, spiteful, lying, scheming, unreflected, self-serving, egocentric assholes. But besides those lovely common traits, they have some others that make them loathsome in their very own way, and I can’t shake the feeling that the author took a lot of inspiration from some nasty gender stereotypes. (warning: from here on it gets spoilery)

Let’s start with the guy, Ramsay. He’s sex-obsessed in a way that he can’t form any coherent thought as soon as a pair of shapely legs and boobs with a woman attached enters the room. He’s incapable of fidelity, love, loyalty and commitment, although he constantly claims otherwise. Let me give you a few examples of his awfulness: After he breaks up with one of his crewmates (after maybe forcing himself on her? It’s not made clear. How can that not be clear.), he constantly complains how ugly and old and generally repulsive she is. That’s the only thing he has to say about her. He then starts an affair with another crewmate, and when she becomes pregnant, he blames it all on her for deceiving him and being irrational because she didn’t want to screw up her body with artificial hormones every day which apparently is to be expected from every woman. He then pressures her to have an abortion. She refuses, and he constantly thinks about how gross she is the further the pregnancy progresses. After the baby is born, he doesn’t help her whatsoever, and first chance he gets, he takes off on her although he has promised her otherwise. To top it all off, he restarts his affair with a woman from the outside crew about whom we only learn that she’s a snake with nice legs, while he’s still married to the mother of his child. I don’t think I need to add anything to that. The amount of misogyny, sexism, and patriarchal stereotypes about men as mindless sex machines (plus the corresponding view on women) all compressed into one character is baffling.

For the women there’s a bit more variation, but it doesn’t get any less nasty. Woman No. 1, Dawn, is the long-legged, full-breasted redhead beauty who gets one of the few spots inside the experiment and takes over responsibility for growing food in the fields and tending to the farmyard animals. She then gets together with Ramsay, gets pregnant and decides to carry the child against all common sense, considering that the experiment can barely produce enough calories for eight people, let alone nine, and is definitely not able to provide for the special needs of a pregnant woman or a newborn child. After Dawn’s two years are officially over, she refuses to leave the glass dome and decides to stay inside because she feels so close to nature inside, or something like that. Notice the symbolism at work here? The stereotype presented here is that of Mother Earth, fertile, providing, one with nature itself. It’s quite fitting that Dawn’s nickname, chosen by her fellow participants, is Eos (which literally means dawn). Both her names fit very well into this whole mantra that the organizers of the experiment have: to start anew, create a better world, one that sustains itself and doesn’t exploit resources but is fertile enough to to live independently (which, I’m sorry, is just not true. They rely on the local power plant to keep their ideal environment stable, they receive knowledge from the outside world, and after the two years the dome is in need of a thorough restocking because the crew killed all the farm animals and ate all the seed stocks because they were hungry.) Dawn is the archetypal woman, the one who nourishes others and gives life, is loving, beautiful and monogamous, but she also displays some negative traits that have been historically associated with women: She’s naive to the point that she doesn’t notice any negative feelings Ramsay has towards her; she’s self absorbed, like when she decides to go through with the pregnancy at the risk of the others starving; and she’s emotional in a way that’s constantly pointed out to be annoying and exaggerated (they call it weepy).

The other female POV, Linda, is presented as her foil. She’s also the only PoC character, which makes her negative portrayal doubly problematic, especially since she seems to stand in for two ethnicities: Asian (because of her Korean ancestry) and black (because of her kinky hair). We keep being told that Linda and Dawn are best friends, but there’s really no evidence in the text to support that since they’re constantly bitter, false and patronizing towards the other, in their thoughts and in their actions. Also, they mainly seem to talk about the men in their lives with each other, with Dawn as the one who has a way with men and Linda as the jealous, Fat Ugly Friend^TM. So yeah, great portrayal of a friendship between two women, since obviously men is the only thing we ever talk and care about. But besides being presented as an overall terrible person - false, needy, deceiving, the archetypal snake to Dawn’s Eve* - Linda herself also constantly emphasizes that she’s overweight and not conventionally attractive, which in her interior monologue tied together with her lack of success with men - and her race. The only valid point this book makes is that it damages your career and possibly your romantic chances, especially as the only PoC in an all-white environment. But since this point is filtered through the perspective of a character whose interior monologue is filled with constant nagging and delusions, it’s incredibly easy not to take it seriously and dismiss it as another figment of Linda’s imagination. This may not be racist in and of itself, although it definitely comes across as mocking racial awareness, but it sure starts to look like the real thing once you take all the negative comments into account that Linda makes about all her physical features that make her distinctly non-white. It also ties neatly into yet another issue this book has: body-shaming. Surprisingly (or not), this also mainly concerns the female characters and is filtered almost exclusively through the way men react to them. I got so, so tired reading about how Linda, the fat and ugly one, tries to get men to sleep with her (unsuccessfully, unless they are old and gross), while the thin, pretty women like Dawn have an entire parade of admirers (and successful careers). Also notice how personality doesn’t play any role at all in both women’s romantic success? That’s because women’s personalities don’t matter, simple as that. And it’s probably better that way, since they’re all naive and clingy or dishonest and needy anyway - in addition to being mean, which is something all characters in this book share.

The thing is, with books like this one that are just horrible with regards to sexism, racism, body-shaming and a whole host of other things, I always wonder how that happened. I don’t want to condemn the authors for all those things without having read some of their other books (which I generally don’t, because I value my time) or doing a thorough check on them (which I generally don’t do either, because I’m lazy. But I can’t help but ask myself whether these are the author’s actual views. Other options would include a critique of these issues gone wrong, or a misguided attempt to induce some historical accuracy, or ignorance. The problem is that I’m pretty sure I can exclude said other options. Historical accuracy in this case is not necessary since the book is set in the 1990s, not in the middle ages. Ignorance is a pretty weak excuse by itself, and one issue may slip under your (and your editor’s) radar, but so many...? The author of this book is a white guy, so he’s probably wearing privilege lenses, but still. Lastly, a critique would necessitate at least some attempt to contradict the views you have your characters expressing, either through the narrative or - even better - through a character themselves. I know that, and I’m a twenty-something amateur reader who sometimes tries her hand at literary critique. An author (and editor) who has been in the business for so long should definitely know that, and also how to work said critique into the story so that a casual reader would catch it. Which leaves us with option No. 1. And the reason why I regret having spent money on one of TC Boyle’s books, and why his name is another entry on my list of authors never to be read again.

*An afterthought that I’m too lazy to work in somewhere else: There is so much religious imagery in this book. It starts with the nicknames many characters in this book get, like God the Creator, Jesus, Judas, Eos etc., and culminates with this whole Garden of Eden theme that surrounds the experiment. Like with the cult thing, the book isn’t even shy to call itself out on it, but if this is not a prime example of lampshading, then I don’t know what is.

[regrettablewritings]

Dating Wade Wilson Would Include

AN: This is going to be a bit more perverse than the other Would Includes because, hey, it’s Wade.

Being very confused when he starts talking to no-one and looking elsewhere tells the audience about how awesome and badass he is

You will get used to it, you have no other choice really

Sometimes you will also jokingly throw in something you want him to narrate (like how amazing you think he is or something that makes you seem wonderful)

This will always, without fail, result in Wade turning back to no-one the audience so he can gush about how wonderful you are

Chances are, you met because he was out doing as Deadpool does: wrecking havoc getting the job done with a few unpredictable setbacks on construction, property damages, and people being alive

You won’t even let him convince you otherwise, but you might’ve been a bit scared when you first saw him

“Might” meaning you definitely were -- the dude had just shoved a katana through a thug when he noticed you, frozen in place, and practically vomited up hearts and butterflies

He then had the audacity man-sized balls of courage and boldness audacity to waltz (skip) right up to you as if nothing had happened and try to strike up a charming conversation

Once you got over the initial shock and scrambled away, he wanted to follow but wound up having to stay behind and deal with un-aliving some other punks

You’re not even sure how Wade tracked you down after that because all he ever offers is “the plot demands it”

Once you got over his beyond bizarre mannerisms, though, and allowed yourself to let your guard down a bit and talk to him, however, you found out he could be pretty harmless in regards to those he wanted to establish a connection of sorts with

“The most pain I cause to you is making your gut hurt from laughing so much! . . . That is, until we finally get into BDSM --”

Once he got over the pain established by the slap to the face, he asked if you wouldn’t mind applying that same treatment to his ass.

Geez, Wade, keep it in your jumpsuit.

“No!”

Crude jokes

This can go a few ways, depending on how comfortable you are with Wade’s sense of humor

If you, too, are a connoisseur of crudeness then congratulations: You just found out what you guys spend an uncanny amount of time doing when not doing . . . other things

If you’re not that into it, Wade will respect this but still lapse into it out of habit. It’s a part of his character, though, so don’t expect him to completely forgo it. He’ll just try to avoid using his alpha-level stuff and try to keep it at a beta level.

But if you humor him every once in a while and throw in your own nasty language, you swear you can see him blushing even through the red of his mask

Speaking of which, for as confident and bold as he appeared at first, you quickly came to realize that this was more or less a front to an extent when Wade refused to remove his mask

It would take a while for him to even so much as lift it up for you to see his infamous mouth

Honestly, there’s a possibility that he won’t let you see the entirety of his face unless an argument started up out of you, yet again, asking “what the big deal is.”

To be honest, you are startled. But only for a moment.

As you told him, “I’ve seen worse; usually on the people who’ve gotten on your bad side.”

He enthusiastically attempts to make chimichangas in celebration but winds up burning them on accident from being too eager

Putting his crayon drawings on the fridge

“Wow, I love the direction of blood-splatter in this one, Hun!” “Knew you would! I used a vermilion crayon for that part -- real delicacy amongst the Crayola Clan.”

Meeting Blind Al a handful of times, but mostly only in the brief stints where Wade actually takes you back to his place

Wade much prefers going to your place because it’s nice and cozy

And because your place has a stove and oven that have yet to be damaged by his cooking antics

And because at the end of a long, rough day of slaughtering, it feels nice to be surrounded by your scent and essence as it envelopes him in a softness he hasn’t experienced since his time before he became the Merc with a Mouth if you guys decide to get down and dirty, he gets to annoy an entirely new set of neighbors and avoid getting heckled at by Al. And on that note . . .

Sex: Once again, this can go a variety of ways, depending on your feelings towards the subject.

If you’re all for it (and have seen the movie), then you can have a pretty good idea of what you’re probably in for. Good luck and be safe.

If you’re not entirely put off by it but prefer to wait, Wade will be understanding (maybe even teasing and gently calling you a “precious little lamby-poo”). But he’s still going to occasionally test the waters. This will include walking around shirtless (especially after a shower), making loud and obnoxious yet still somehow appealing noises when he stretches or exercises, throwing in perverted jokes, asking you for porn recommendations, etc. However, he’ll keep it to a minimum if he feels you’re getting uncomfortable.

If you’re not that into it, if at all, Wade may honestly be put off. At first. Eventually, he’ll decide that while sex is something he very much enjoys, he also very much enjoys having you around to love and love him right back. Besides, that just means he gets to experiment more with toys!

Lots of pancakes and Mexican food

Just. A lot.

You’re gonna be crapping like a goose quite often, just sayin’

Arguments, while not necessarily common, still happen. And they’re usually the result of you accusing Wade of not taking things seriously

Wade’s entire approach to life relies heavily on casting humor in everything -- even if he doesn’t always feel it. But it’s a facade that’s helped him, if not other people, and he’s so used to looking out for himself that it just makes sense to keep on doing things this way.

Unfortunately, sometimes he gets a little too out of hand and can feel immature.

Fights usually end with you leaving to cool off and him stewing alone with the voices and the audience. Eventually, one or the other (usually the voices) remind him that he’s not a lone wolf anymore and that he needs to consider other people again. To which he winds up having a montage about you and feels awful and oh my god, (Y/N), I’m so sorry, please let me treat you to some froyo and then I’ll let you tie me up and you can do whatever you want with me even if it means watching that shitty  Green Lantern movie with that punk, Ryan Reynolds, and --

You have to demand for him to get down from the Starbucks counter that he’s decided to give his proclamation and apologies from about ten times before he realizes you’re about to kick his ass

Fights coming from Wade, however, are when you know you’ve messed up. They rarely happen but when they do, 9/10 it’s about your safety

Yeah, it’s cheesy and cliche, but you know what else is cliche? The protagonist’s love interest getting hurt or killed because of him. And Wade isn’t about to go through that again.

He only really gets like this when a new threat has become present in the city’s underbelly, though, so for the most part, he’s cool

Learning your way around certain weapons

From his days as a regular-looking merc to the current days where he’s a merc who looks like he’d rubbed his face in a briar patch, Wade has been a master with weaponry.

He wants to make sure that you, too, can properly use them should the time come for him to gather up his allies for a climatic showdown at a warehouse or something

You don’t get it, but you go along with his lessons

To his glee, you take to guns pretty well once you get used to the kick

When you hit a couple of bullseyes in a row, Wade will not hesitate to tell you how aroused he is

You’re not as good with swords, but that’s okay: “We can be a tag-team, babe! You got the guns and I got the swords! We’ll be so fucking cool -- Holy shit, I gotta get you a suit to match. It’s gonna be hot!! . . . Both literally and, like, not literally. This thing is tight; you’re gonna sweat like a member of the Trump cabinet getting questioned by the press.”

Making . . . acquaintances with the guys at Sister Margaret’s. You wouldn’t necessarily call them friends but you have a pretty good feeling that if something were to possibly happen to you, a decent number of them would at least make an effort to have your back

Mainly because you’re dating Wade and therefore are friends with Weasel

If Wade isn’t around to be your partner in crime or vice-versa, Weasel is your stand-in.

As such, you tag-team loving insults at Wade from time to time.

Okay, your insults are loving; Weasel’s are about as brutal as a true friend’s should be.

You both stand as the Straight Men boring people to Wade’s hare-brained totally well thought-out thoughts

Meeting Colossus and Negasonic during one of Wade’s trips to the X-Men Mansion.

Wade insists that there are other mutants around the house, but there wasn’t enough in the budget for you to meet them

Colossus, while hesitant about someone like you being with Wade, is ultimately just glad that there’s someone around him to potentially keep him grounded since he can’t seem to get through to the Merc

Negasonic seems indifferent to you and even snarkily asks what’s up with you two and why you’re with Wade. But ultimately, she doesn’t think you’re bad. She even threatens a smile when you tell Wade to knock off trying to tease her.

Wade introducing Spiderman as, “The one I’d be with if you hadn’t bewitched me with that figure of yours.”

You try to forgo this and carry on a decent conversation with the other red suit-wearing hero

You and Peter are now friends and exchange texts often, catching movies when you’re home alone and bored and Peter has free time

This, of course, causes Wade to whine and flail like a jealous child and accuse you guys of friend-cheating behind his back.

The best way to silence this is to have a game night or movie night or invite Peter over for Taco Tuesday

Humorous conversations of every shape and breed

You ever woken up in the middle of the night wondering what unicorn farts smell like? If you don’t, Wade will. And you’d best believe that you’re going to talk about it.

No subject really seems to be off limits for you two.

Except for his past to a certain point.

When you guys first started talking, it threw you off and into a canyon by how brazen he was to talk about certain topics that most people would be horrified to even ask about. Eventually he got the idea that you weren’t entirely comfortable with answering some of them, however, and he attempted to lighten up. Eventually, though, when you got comfortable enough, you answered them and asked them right back

Becoming a pro at cleaning up messes -- specifically, blood

You’ve learned to budget to afford copious amounts of bleach and color guard and rubbing alcohol since getting serious with Wade

You tell him time and time again to stop coming into your apartment, thinking it’s okay to drip blood into the damn carpet, couch, or bed sheets but does he listen?

Does Wade ever turn down Mexican food?

You’re not one for sewing up deep wounds, however. You confirmed this after insisting such to him when he asked you to patch up a cleave mark to his chest. Her persisted, and you regurgitated. He apologized, and you had to go lie down on the couch which still smelled of bleach from the last time Wade had arrived.

Those rare but sweet moments where you guys just feel like a normal couple.

Wade is quiet for once and you two aren’t feeling up on each other, but just enjoying each other’s company. Your conversations are simple, but they don’t need to be complex for you to understand what the other is getting at.

Peaceful moments are a rarity for Wade, given his mutation and lifestyle. So there’s a special air about the room whenever these moments occur . . .

They are often broken (and rather quickly) but the smell of something burning in the oven and Wade scrambling up screaming, “MY TAMALES!!”

Nicknames galore between you two.

Wade, having almost no sense of self-censorship, goes wild with what he calls you: Pretty Princess, Unicorn Warrior, Player 2, Sugartits, Babe, Hot Stuff, Sweet Stuff, Beloved Apple of My Eye, My Darling (Y/N), Tootsie Pop, Baby, Sugar, Honeypot, You Beautiful Fool, and Reader (he never explains this one to you, only winks) to name a few. Honestly, you’re pretty sure he just makes them as he goes along because he’s also whipped out some nonsense ones from things that just happen to catch his eye like French Fries, Burrito, Fire Escape, Glow-in-the-Dark Limited Edition ACDC Poster (GDLEACDC for short)

You try to keep up, but usually wind up sticking to basics because keeping up with Wade can be exhausting: Honey, Babe, Bae, Daddypool, Wadey, D.W. (Double W), King Avocado, Chimichampion, Sweetie, Sweetums, and Sugarpants. You also call him Prince, but that’s for special occasions as you’ll see further below . . .

Laughter

God, you don’t remember laugh so much in your entire life!

Even if you and Wade don’t necessarily share the same sense of humor, the man has a gift: He can always find something or someway to put a wide smile on your face and make you cackle until your face, stomach, and even the back of your head hurt.

The laugh lines you begin to develop are what Wade finds the sexiest about your looks.

After dat sweet ass of yours

Pain. It’s inevitable. Because as resilient as Wade is both in personality and physically, it’s all due to a painful, ongoing process from which he will likely never be cured.

Usually, he’s fine: He can go days, even weeks without noticing the pain or even feeling it all together. He describes it as something that occasionally fades due to constant exposure to it, so he’s fine and dandy to go out, grab a drink, visit an arcade, kill a dude, take a jog in the park . . . You know, the usual stuff.

But other days . . . It’s bad

Other days, he can’t even get out of bed. The pain is excruciating to the point where even the tears that seep out sting

You want to hold him through this -- he wants you to hold him through this. But it’s a just plain bad idea.

The most you can do is be nearby him, make your presence quietly known, feed him soft, nurturing foods that won’t draw as much attention to how sensitive he is. He also will ask you to read to him. He says he doesn’t care what, but you’ve noticed he critiques less when it’s children’s fairytales.

You’re pretty positive that when you read stories about the prince saving a princess, he’s imagining himself saving you. Only he’s the way he used to look, and not some batter-faced bozo with a whole lot of problems on his plate.

You therefore make it a point to call him Prince when he’s in such a vulnerable state. You want him to know that you love him as is; to hell with those cliche fairytales and what they think beauty is! This is your story and you’re going to damn-well look like it, not having some beings from Mt. Olympus come down and portray you! (Though Wade would very much like to be played by Hugh Jackman. I mean, he’s not doing Wolverine anymore, so he’s got an open spot now, right? Right??)

Wade’s resilience helping him pull through the agony. And once he’s back on his feet, he’s quick to smother you with hugs and kisses.

Because even though he may seem to overdo it to the point where it may not appear genuine, Wade adores you, he appreciates you. He practically worships the ground you walk on, if in a way that only Wade could probably pull off and still seem charming. And he never wants you to doubt that.

Because you listen to him, you care for him, you stick by his side despite knowing exactly what he does and what it entails. You put up with him and his shit not just on a friendly level, but a romantic one and well and he sometimes has trouble comprehending it and has to talk to nothing the audience just to sort out his thoughts and conclude, yet again, that you’re goddamn amazing and he doesn’t deserve someone like you in spite of your insisting otherwise. (Of course, he’ll easily accept your argument that he does deserve you and tackle you with cuddles.)

And in this world, it’s you, him, the audience, and the voices. And if it all came down to it, Wade would and always will choose you to be the companion he wants to talk to the most. About everything and nothing, until the end of time.

[anthropophagusthebeast]

nothing is worth talking about but what else is there to do. yesterday was totally miserable, i failed at everything, and then as usual, as throughout my entire life, my own feelings about my own experience are a burden to others and that makes me a bad person. i wish i had just stayed in bed all day, then i wouldn’t have had to get into anything that just winds up directly engaging me with the fact that i’m beyond help and it’s a problem for everybody else, who would all be having a great time if it wasn’t for me. my whole stupid life. i just don’t want to do anything because i know how it turns out but i just feel so obligated. people get just as mad at you for “not trying” as they do when you try and it’s a big mistake. there’s no way out. nobody gets how all the “little things” amass into one big monolithic thing that only has one message and one character: your life is hard because it’s a waste of time. when you’re a shitty person, one of the problems is that people treat you like some new form of liar, like you’re just making it up that you can’t do anything right, it’s all a routine for the benefit of your captive audience, to disguise the fact that secretly you’re great and capable of anything. as if anybody has ever had a reason to fail on purpose, as if anybody has ever just refused to indulge in their own greatness for some perverse and unknowable reason. it’s so frustrating that while i’m trying so hard and failing so theatrically, there’s this perception that it’s all my choice, i could just Be Better if i didn’t insist on being so stupid and incompetent and uncomfortable. god it’s so fucking funny too that right in the middle of this day that was just one compound failure after another--failure to do something, and failure to simultaneously act like everything is perfect--my parents would bring up humiliating early childhood shit, and some of it not even early ENOUGH childhood shit to justify how stupid it was. i hate thinking about that stuff. while they were at it i should have busted out the story about how i submitted something for this special writing test and the proctor made an example of me in front of the whole entire room filled with my classmates, to show how even someone who you think is “smart” can be a really awful, boring writer with nothing to say. everyone thinks it’s funny that i’m depressed and everyone thinks that the things i hate myself for, i’m doing on purpose and could just stop at any time. i mean if i were capable of being at all different or better, i wouldn’t have to feel like this. i care about my family but so often i just feel like i’m sick of talking to them. i want to just leave them to their own devices so i don’t have to sit there conspicuously looking out the window with nothing to say while they gush over the news of the day or some celebrity event or just like, what it’s like to be a published writer and an overachiever of great talent. like what the fuck am i ever doing in that room, besides anxiously struggling to keep my behavior in check so nobody gets mad at me for having the wrong look on my face, which i invariably fail at. like if only i could just be nominally involved and send a warm greeting card whenever they’re getting together to share their amazing successes and everything. count me out. i get up in the morning and i feel pretty sick, which i announce, and i kind of wish it had factored in to how the rest of the day went, like maybe i could have at least gotten some forgiveness on my energy level or whatever, but it didn’t matter. nothing matters. for some reason i cannot communicate to my husband that i’m trying to plan our trip to the liquor store. i’m trying to say that i can either do groceries now and he can go later if he wants, or if he doesn’t want to do that, then i’ll just do my whole trip later, and for some reason he tells me that he can go AND that he doesn’t have a good reason to go, at the same time, and for several minutes there was just nothing i could do to get my point across so i could get a real answer. then i make this remark about someone having red hair, and honestly most of the reason i said it is that i can never get on the same page as him about what constitutes red hair, so i adjusted my identification to what i think he always says, and he disagreed with me AND explained why i was wrong. it just got me thinking about all the basic material things in life that we cannot agree on, like “what tastes salty to me tastes sweet to him” sounds like a ridiculous hyperbole but it’s a literal example that happens all the time and it just makes me feel so stupid or like i’m going insane, that we can’t even agree on black/white up/down type of designations. i sat there thinking about every example of this and thinking about how i have to stop caring about this, i have to stop caring about this, i have to stop caring about this. i have to stop caring. i’m always telling myself this because it’s the only thing that makes any sense. just stop caring. my caring about anything never makes the slightest difference in the world except that i get upset, and then other people are upset at me for being upset, like it’s something i’m doing to them. and of course while i’m gazing at my bookshelf thinking about my list of things to never bring up again--don’t say who has red hair, don’t say what things taste like, avoid every single topic where your husband is reliably going to say an inside out version of what you experience, just don’t talk about any of this stuff again, it doesn’t matter anyway--he of course is suddenly at my side with deep concern in his voice about whether i’m annoyed because we disagreed about the redhead. i was actually honest and remarked that we’ve never agreed about whether someone is a redhead in our entire relationship, and then we went on to disagree about some more redheads, and i GUESS it was good that i was honest because supposedly that’s always good, but was it really? did it matter THAT MUCH that i didn’t just absently refuse to say if something was on my mind? i mean what difference did it make? i have these fantasies all the time about just never speaking again because i’m always wrong and i always have to back off, but then it’s also “wrong” to not speak, or speak less, that is ALSO something bad and abusive that you are doing to other people in the process of just trying to avoid unnecessary and irresolvable conflicts that don’t go anywhere. then we have to play this game i made him get me for my stupid birthday, or more specifically i caused him to get an extra controller by suggesting that we could actually play together, which i should have known would be a bad idea; things had been ok the previous day but then all of the sudden he started playing to shut me out completely, he cleared every single screen by himself before i even got my crosshairs on anything, i was totally incapable of landing a single point and when i decided to just stop trying as an experiment, it didn’t change anything that was going on on the screen, he just completely took over like i wasn’t even there. it seemed like i had two choices: either quit and just let him have the thing all to himself which is what was effectively happening anyway, OR try to remind him that this is a cooperative-not-competitive game and i don’t really want to play if he wants to score every single point while i just sit there, which would have resulted in him sitting around politely twiddling his thumbs while i struggle to catch up, which sounded even worse to me. so i bailed and somehow that had to be controversial too. i mean i forced him to get this extra controller somehow, and now we have this thing in the house that he went out of his way to get, that we can’t use because i’m not good enough for that activity, or not even a good enough person. yet another fuckup of mine that cost effort and money to accomplish. more things to feel guilty about. like yet again i’m not allowed to just NOT do something where i’m only going to humiliate myself or waste someone else’s time. like what is this societal obligation to just grin and bash your head into the wall over and over again so nobody has to be mad at you for not participating. then we talked to my family and i guess i made an asshole out of myself by trying to escape attention, and i FELT like an asshole while i sat there with nothing to say while my husband led this whole conversation with them--except for the times that we had to talk about my bad, sad, failed children’s art. like i tell this story about an object that i thought was mercifully long gone, but my stepmother brings it up, a “book” i made at a library event when i was a little kid, which i remember so well because the librarians were desperately trying to get me to string more than two ideas together and i just couldn’t, i just couldn’t think of a story at all, not even a ripoff one like some of the stuff i would write later when i was trying to live up to the accusation of being “gifted”, even with them getting visibly frustrated with me and breathing down my neck trying to explain to my little retard self about what “beginning” “middle” and “end” mean. maybe they thought my parents would be mad because probably they paid for me to do this little workshop and if my thing came out bad then they’d be pissed, like when the school photographer jumped up my ass about how i wasn’t smiling enough and i was supposedly acting like I was “angry at the world” when all i was trying to do was not take a picture with my big stupid hideous toothy grin that i felt terrible about, but he was probably just trying to protect himself from angry parents. anyway and for some reason my father’s response to this is to bring up this unbearably pathetic story i did when i was a little too old to be making shit like that, this miserably serious x-men fan fiction that included a talking crayon. this seems to come up whenever i try to bow out of the idea that i’m “talented”, whenever i try to say that i’m not creative, which is really true, somebody wants to mention like the saddest most pathetic thing i’ve ever done in my life. i’m 39 years old and i’m still hearing about it. it makes me feel like garbage every time, at least for the reason that something terrible i did when i was 12 or something is still the most memorable work i ever produced, and everyone laughs and i’m supposed to like, enjoy this somehow, or take up the mantle of amusing everyone with what a piece of shit i am, and do it with a smile and a good attitude. like everyone knows i’m a piece of shit but i’m not allowed to FEEL like a piece of shit about it, what kind of life is that? so finally i removed myself from all of this and just hovered in the kitchen trying to do the one thing that i almost do right every week, which is make this one dinner when otherwise i totally fail year after year to contribute to the meals in this house, and i completely fucked it up. my husband could barely choke it down, it was terrible to see. i really don’t want to do it again, ever. and of course i made some remark about how he doesn’t have to eat it, and that was a bad thing to do too, that also made me a piece of shit, an even bigger one. ruining dinner. ruining the game. ruining my family’s good time. ruining groceries. ruining everything. all i want to do is kill myself but everyone would be mad at me for that, too. some of my most moving fantasies are about people telling me it’s ok if i kill myself. it’s just ok. i don’t have to feel bad about it and everyone understands that i have come to the mature and reasoned conclusion that my life is a huge waste of time; if i don’t like it, and neither does anybody else, then it’s obvious that i should end it, everyone will understand and forgive me and be glad that it’s over. but of course that would never happen. i just can’t win, i’m not competent to just get through a day uneventfully, and whenever i show who i really am or how i really feel everyone hates me for it. i hate myself. who wouldn’t hate themselves for, day after day, failing to do anything good, and then everyone treats you like it’s funny and you should be laughing. there’s just toil and misery and it’s fruitless. the paradoxical insistence that you make a clown out of yourself AND act like you like it AND act like actually you are also capable of great things just like everybody else, OR ELSE you have a bad attitude and everyone has the right to hate you for it. i just want to die, all the time. nothing works and nothing helps. i fantasize about having a brain aneurysm and dying in my sleep, or getting hit by a car, or catching a stray bullet, or anything where i just spontaneously expire and i don’t have to do anything ever again. like right now my husband is fucking grinding coffee in our bedroom which is totally and completely abnormal, just to avoid me. what the fuck am i supposed to do. literally what the fuck am i supposed to do. communicate better than i can communicate. play better than i can play. be more creative and successful than i can be. cook better than i can cook. don’t be sad. don’t be confused. don’t be angry with myself about the same things nobody else likes about me either. don’t kill myself because then everyone else will be pissed off even more. like what could i possibly do to ameliorate things. just don’t be yourself, at all costs, do not ever be yourself. don’t escape. don’t forfeit. don’t quit. don’t have feelings. don’t have a hard time, ever. don’t stop trying to do things you’re bad at. don’t stop humiliating yourself. don’t stop acting like you like it. i wish my mother had had an abortion and i’m sure so did she. just kill me, please. or do i not deserve the fast death, either. i don’t want to do anything. just thinking about how i spent about $100 on trash bags because i was too stupid to figure out what to do. just thinking about walking out in the rain to “help” take the trash out, realizing that there was a problem, and having my husband yank the bad wrong bag i stupidly bought out of my hand and leave me standing there doing nothing while in front of me he dragged all the trash across the sidewalk by himself, shouting and cursing. and this is it, now he’s working in the bedroom. never happened before. it’s me, i’m garbage. i’m shit. maybe i’ll die. i ruined everything. because i ruined yesterday, i also ruined today. maybe it will turn out that yesterday i also ruined tomorrow. and on and on and on it will go. nobody knows what it’s like to just be trash. i’m afraid to stop typing because there’s nothing else to do. i can’t imagine going to yoga tonight. the only thing i feel in my body is this cortisol response. a cold rock in my stomach. imagining people laughing at me writing things like this and talking about what a pill i am after i’m dead. yesterday i was so upset that i started imagining animals, being deep in a forest somewhere and just taking comfort in the company of animals. it was alright until somehow the question came up of do i want to feel better, why don’t i just choose to, and i couldn’t respond to that. i just feel so bad. intellectually i’d like to feel better because then i wouldn’t have this exhausting problem. but it’s hard to imagine from where i’m standing, when i feel like i have this bottomless supply of grief that i can’t just pretend isn’t there. maybe i would like for people to feel more sorry for me, is that it? when i try to admit this stuff i start comparing myself to my most intensely selfish friend and it disgusts me but maybe that’s why we’re friends, because secretly i want everyone to pity me just as much as he openly demands pity. i guess it makes him better than me that he’s more honest about it. but like i don’t need people to somehow uplift the idea of me or anything. i just want to be dismissed. i want people to say “ah yes, claire can’t do this, she can’t do anything, we’ll just leave her out of it,” and then i want them to really do that and not roll their eyes at me or laugh at me or yell at me or treat me like i’m secretly depriving them all of something they deserve. just leave me alone. just believe me when i describe how i’m incompetent, or even demonstrate it! that’s probably the worst thing, just not being believed. when you’re trying desperately to explain your sense of reality and everyone just turns it inside out because it’s not convenient for them. because nobody in the world feels the way you do. i hate the way people treat the suicidal. i hated that documentary where the kid kills himself and his stupid friend dissects his suicide note to explain that it was all bullshit because all teenagers feel that way. well obviously all teenagers do not really feel that way because all teenagers do not kill themselves; they have good days and some bad days, they don’t REALLY hate themselves, they strive to be liked and have friends because they realize it’s possible, they get over it, whatever “it” is. just because someone isn’t eloquent enough to explain to you convincingly that their life is agony doesn’t mean that their agony isn’t authentic, that it’s just shallow childhood bullshit. nobody truly believes that you’re in pain until it’s too late, and then even after that, they develop all these theories about how your pain was inappropriate and flimsy enough to have been dispelled with a cup of coffee and a hug, so basically it’s your own fault for not “reaching out”. and now we’ve reached the desired conclusion, that it’s ok for you to be angry at people who experience lethal psychological pain because they were just being shallow lazy selfish jerks to rudely spoiled your day by choosing to make sure they never lived through another meaningless day again.