#he still chucked a 15 year old’s body in there like it was nothing though

[rainbow-flavoured-skittles]

Yang in the dc au is… complicated at best. he took Cole in because there was this extremely powerful meta who just died and no one is looking for him. and there was going to be an opportunity to play with necromancy soon, so he took the chance and sent Cole through the rift. his original intention was to get himself a highly trained and obedient attack dog, for lack of a better word. he didn’t really ‘care’ about Cole much in the beginning, but over time he did get attached to him, which is why he let Cole go back to ninjago city.

[amarienne]

It’s been two days. My blood still boils when I think of all the lost potential. (ramblings regarding how out of character the finale was)

Never before has an episode of any show, or a chapter of any book, or a scene of any movie has made me so upset. There is rage inside of me and the question of ‘how can a writer betray his own characters like this’.

(huge post following.)

I was not a hardcore destiel shipper. When I first started watching SPN a few years ago I knew of the ship but I thought that there was no chance in Hell a show like this would make it canon. And if we had never gotten 15x18 and some parts of 15x20 maybe I would be a tiny bit happier with how the finale went.

But the biggest mistake they did was give us the confession scene and not only that but echo it in Dean's actions in 15x19.

'That's not who I am'

This line keeps coming back to me because literally two episodes ago we saw Dean willing to sacrifice himself, Jack and even Sam so Chuck would disappear. He was red with rage and he didn't care for anything else apart winning. Let's not forget the thing that made him stop for a minute was Cas questioning Sam on why they should not go ahead with the plan. [Oh, there are plenty to be said for the only angel in all the universes that didn't just 'follow orders' after 'gripping him tight and raising him from perdition' but I won't go into that here.]

And sure, all that was Chuck's writing, but wasn't everything?

So what I am trying to say is that in three consecutive episodes we see:

-Dean full of anger and rage and ready to do anything to win -Dean giving up, losing hope after being cornered -Dean and TFW (minus Cas) finally overpower Chuck and walk away peacefully

So what changed? What made Dean walk away redifining himself as something different than the 'ultimate killer'?

Castiel. Of course, Castiel. The confession was so precious not only because Cas professed his love for Dean. No. It was vital to the plot of the next episode. And that was because before Cas utterred 'I love you' he spoke of how he sees Dean. How the way he sees himself is not the way Cas and the rest of the world sees him. How everything he has ever done, good and bad, was for love. Only for love. Not winning, not gaining power or wealth or recognition. But for love. At that moment Dean sees himself as Cas sees him, and it leaves him struck, speechless. Dean, who always had a snarky line ready is in awe trying to understand the words he is hearing.

And then, after everything is done and dusted we see Dean say 'That's not who I am' mirroring Cas' final words. The words he spent I don't know how much time sitting on the floor against the wall thinking about and crying. Noone else had gotten across to Dean like that, not even Sam. And we see that he started adopting Cas' image of him, believing it to be true. Or starting to.

Dean Winchester overpowered the ultimate villain and chose to stay true to Cas' image of him instead of taking revenge for Chuck screwing him over all his life.

This is poetic and heartbreaking, especially knowing Cas is gone. Not having Dean talk about the confession in 15x19 makes sense. We see glimpses of him numb at the loss, mourning Cas, wanting him back. We see the hope in his face when he thinks he is back. All these things make sense for 15x19, and even though we were sad we had to wait for the next episode hoping to see something tangible (aka the week we all clowned) I was content. The battle was done, the main plot was wrapped up. All was left was to see where all this last minute huge (especially for Dean) character progression and self acceptance would end up.

And then fucking 15x20 happens. It is like the writers threw in a cardboard box all the above points and details and threw it in the ocean. Nothing, absolutely nothing after the first 5 minutes makes sense in this fucking episode!

The montage at the beginning filled me with warmth and happiness. Dean (and Sam) are having a normal morning. Dean looks happy, he is eating, not depicted as overly drinking and most of all he has Miracle. He is focusing his love and affection on another living being. Sweet and warm. He plans to spend the afternoon eating pie with his brother. Goofy and light. The man deserves it for a bit.

But then we get the mention of Cas from Sam and we see how Dean reacts. How can Dean, who was sobbing on the floor and was demanding Cas to be brought back basically an episode ago keep an emotionless face and brush it off. We get the line 'If we don't keep living all that sacrifice was for nothing'. So we are meant to believe that right now Dean is not particularly bothered with Cas' death because it was a sacrifice to save the world. At this point a dread is starting to fill me.

Um, if it was the first time Cas was dying I would understand this. We have seen Dean broken over Cas' death before multiple times under more peaceful circumstances. Dean wouldn't leave Purgatory without Cas and you are trying to convince me after gaining true free will and finally writing his own story Dean would not break every cosmic rule to bring Cas back? Even if he did not reciprocate romantic feelings? This is the textbook definition of out of character in my eyes. Screw the romantic aspect because we ship it. Strip all the glances, touches and sexy lines we enjoy to gif and think back to feed the good ship Destiel, forget about it.

Keep the core of their relationship- the '3rd Winchester brother' who has stuck through thin and thick with them for the past 12 years. You mean to tell me Dean would be happy leaving Cas in the Empty and continue living his life? How is that possible? How is that Dean? How is it possible that we would not see Dean at least trying?

And then 20 minutes later comes the complete opposite of the line Dean wants to stick by. 'If we don't keep living all that sacrifice was for nothing'

But Dean does not keep living, does he? He doesn't grow happy or old. He doesn't start a family or open a bar or learn to dance. He doesn't honour Cas' sacrifice. He dies in the most unimaginitive way. And it is cruel. So cruel.

Dean went from having the strong belief that he would die young on a hunt fighting a monster, saving someone, machete and gun in his hand to starting to accept there is more to him than killing things.

And this fucking episode did a full backtrack and what did it give us?

Dean dying young on a hunt fighting a monster, saving two kids, machete and gun in his hand.

We got Dean dying in a way that gave us a 10 minute speech on how much he loves Sam. We got Dean dying in pain, scared and terrified. We got Dean getting a hunter's funeral with only Sam attending. We saw at Mary's funeral how a hunter's goodbye should look like. Room full of friends, mementos and alcohol. And Dean doesn't get any of that to honour his life.

How can he deserve that? How is it possible?

Even with Heaven 2.0 now being this trully idyllic place how can this be what Dean deserves?

And Sam... Sam gets to grow old in pain and regret. One foot on Earth with his family, one foot ready to follow Dean. Did anyone think Sam looked happy in that montage? Leaving the only home he shared with Dean? Presumably giving up his hunter friends, not even playing a 'Bobby' kind of role? Keeping the Impala in a dusty garage?

Jack... Jack who said he would be hands off, but how am I supposed to believe this would include his family? And even if he didn't heal/save Dean you mean to tell me he wouldn't be there for Sam? I am thinking of Jack appearing after Dean dies, supporting Sam's weight as he collapses, explaining why he can't bring him back. Standing next to Sam as Dean's body is burning.

And Cas... Cas who finally told Dean his truth and then sacrificed himself, content. Cas was saved from the Empty. No longer in eternal sleep sufferring. Working with Jack to rebuild Heaven. And... what? Cas who made Earth his true home, who was talking through tears how he loved the whole world through loving Dean, chose to stay in Heaven? Not stepping in Earth? Not getting in contact with the brothers? Waiting for them to die to talk to them again? And even when Dean dies he is not there to welcome him along with Jack? How is that possible?

We had gotten to know these characters so well over the past 15 seasons. How can the writers give us such a finale, so OOC for all three of them?

How can we not get a scene with Dean and Cas after the last two episodes?

Why have the confession, why have this be Cas' true moment of happines?

Why have the prayer in Purgatory a few episodes back?

Why have Dean break down in a way he has never broken down before?

What is the point of all this if there will be no climax? Even if it is the tiniest nudge, a couple words and a hug.

It makes absolutely no fucking sense. Up until now it felt like all roads, all plot points were converging to one- happiness, peace, love and family.

But no. We got a finale that would make sense 15 years ago. 15 seasons worth of character development and relationship building (not just Destiel, but Sam + Eileen, Jody, Donna and the girls, Charlie and so many others) and we got a finale that basically had Dean die so Sam could have a family.

As others have said here in tumblr Dean and Sam's lives on Earth would end up being exactly the same they ended up being if Dean did not go to get Sam that night.

How can a writer choose this fate for their characters? Why explore everything we watched on our screens, if on the last episode you decide to press delete on 15 seasons and basically deliver episode 1 if something had gone wrong and Dean died?

It makes no sense! It makes no sense regressing your characters 15 years and taking out of them all the experiences, especially those of the past few episodes.

You strip them into their season 1 selves. You strip them from all the layers of friendships, relationships, pain, experience and wisdom they went through and you strip them down to just two broken brothers, sticking together hunting things and saving people til the end. Which yes, they were.

But that was not all they were. Supernatural was a show about the family you make, not the family you get dealt with. Sam and Dean MADE the choice of sticking together. Yes they were brothers, but we know how easy it would have been to lead very different lives which would resulted in never seeing each other. They chose to stick together and they chose to build a family based on love, not blood.

And we got nothing of that legacy.

Is is unfair and it betrays not us, the fans, but the characters.

And that's what's hurting most.

[fanfic-corner]

15x18 Fics - !SPOILERS AHEAD!

I think we can all agree that everyone - fans or not - were pretty shocked by the reveal of last week, and everywhere (Tumblr most of all) seemed to explode. AO3 was not exempt from this massive outpouring of creations, so here are some fics based on That Scene. I will warn you that not all of them are fix-it fics, and most of them are quite short for obvious reasons.

Like Real People Do by prosopopeya on AO3. (4,490 words).

Tags: Coda, Episode Fix-it, Fluff and Angst, Spoilers, Post Episode: s15e18 Despair, Angst with a Happy Ending.

My Rating: 5 stars.

Description: Castiel experienced a moment of pure happiness, expecting it to be his last. It wasn't. 

Notes: This was so poetic and absolutely gorgeous.

The same old tears (wish you were here) by DestielIsFuckinReal on AO3. (1,992 words).

Tags: Temporary Character Death, Post Episode: s15e18 Despair, Coda, Love Confessions, Angst with a Happy Ending.

My Rating: 5 stars.

Notes: The speech marks were slightly annoying, but other than that, this was beautiful.

Never Enough by make_your_user_a_name on AO3. (1,556 words).

Tags: Post Episode: s15e18 Despair, Angst, Suicidal Thoughts, Love Confessions, Supportive Sam Winchester, Sam Winchester Knows, Domestic Fluff.

My Rating: 5 stars.

Description: It took him hours to notice it. He hadn’t felt it in the moment. Hadn’t felt the Cas’ hand stick slightly to his shoulder as it pushed him away, leaving him to face the Empty alone. But now that he’d noticed it, it was all he could look at. That bright red handprint standing out starkly against his jacket. It was perfect, really. Not a drop out of place. Just a handprint and nothing else. That was all he had left. The handprint where Castiel had “gripped him tight and raised him from perdition.” And now he’d saved him one more time. Same shoulder, same placement, same sting when Dean looked at it. It was poetic in the cruelest of ways. And if it weren’t for everything, he would have thought this was Chuck’s writing. But, no. Castiel was the only part of Chuck’s story that he couldn’t control. Because Cas had fallen.

Notes: Now this fic brought out the ugly tears.

this is a good thing, dean. (prayer is a sign of faith) by cascountsdeansfreckles on AO3. (529 words).

Tags: Prayer, Dean Winchester Prays to Castiel, post 15x18, 15x18 coda.

My Rating: 5 stars.

Description: Dean’s legs still don’t want to move. He sits propped up against the wall and stares unseeing at the chair in the middle of the room. Everything that Cas said plays over and over in his head. The image of Cas looking devastatingly relieved, content, as he was taken from Dean won’t leave his mind. He doesn’t know what else to do. So he prays.

Notes: Okay, and I’m crying. Again. The one time Cas can’t hear Dean’s prayers is the one time it is the most important.

all the things i’ve never said by Saffir on AO3. (849 words).

Tags: 15x18 Fix-it, Angst, Heavy Angst, First Kiss, Confessions, Sad Ending, Nonbinary Castiel.

My Rating: 5 stars.

Description: Castiel knows that their time has come. The past decade has been spent protecting Dean, living for Dean, dying for Dean. It finally comes time to sacrifice themself one last time. He wasn’t expecting it to hurt this much.

Notes: Confirmation of their relationship would have been nice! I mean, I firmly believe Dean reciprocated, but it would be nice to know for sure. And oh boy, I had not stopped to think about the scene from Cas’ point of view.

gay love pierced through the veil of death and saved the day by firefliesandstarlight on AO3. (444 words).

Tags: Fix-it, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives.

My Rating: 4 stars.

Description: Cas doesn’t die. That’s literally it.

Notes: Is it bad I found out that Charlie died through the end notes of this fic? Like, imagine writing a scene so moving that it overpowers the fact that several other fan favourites died in that same episode.

15x18 coda: it’s in the being by contemplativepancakes on AO3. (1,167 words). 

Tags: Post Episode: s15e18 Despair, Coda, Dean Winchester Can’t Cope, Hurt Dean Winchester.

My Rating: 4 stars.

Description: Blood splatters from a severed neck, the body twitching before it collapses to the floor. It sprays across Dean’s face, dotting red droplets over his cheeks and in his hair. Dean keeps his mouth shut so he doesn’t get the taste of copper stuck in it; he already can’t get Cas’s face out of his mind. Dean knows this is the last place he should be, that with the world ending, it doesn’t really matter if there’s one less nest of vamps in the world, but if he stops moving, then he’ll… have to think. “I wondered what my true happiness could even look like, because the one thing I want, it’s something I know I can’t have.” 

Fuck, they wasted so much time.

Notes: I don’t even know what to say anymore. My heart is simultaneously full and utterly broken.

1 Missed Call by glenien on AO3. (597 words).

Tags: Post Episode: s15e18 Despair, Referenced Character Death, Angst, Dean Winchester is a Dumbass, Angst with a Happy Ending, Death!Castiel, Coda, Fluff and Angst.

My Rating: 4 stars.

Description: The buzzing never stops.

Notes: I love the implications of Dean literally flirting with Death here, and even though this isn’t the ending I think we’ll get, I can still hope!

Only know you love him when you let him go by Azura_lights_18 on AO3. (1,365 words).

Tags: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Post Episode: s15e18 Despair, Hurt/Comfort, Dean Deserves to be Happy, Angst with a Happy Ending.

My Rating: 4 stars.

Description: Destiel is finally canon... for ten seconds. My hopes for the upcoming episodes (just let Destiel live, please.)

Notes: I am loving the inventive ways people are bringing Cas back! I have hope, but that might just be me putting my clown wig on.

maybe just this once (let me keep this one) by psyiocke on AO3. (1,678 words).

Tags: Episode: s15e18 Despair, Canonical Character Death, Angst with a Happy Ending.

My Rating: 4 stars.

Description: Dean Winchester listens in silence, and he mourns in it too.

or the aftermath of hearing your best friend say he loves you and then watching him die.

Notes: Oh boy here I go again. That tag, by the way, is much too soon. But if this is what happened at the end, I would be happy.

Instinct by CKLizzy on AO3. (510 words).

Tags: Fix-it of Sorts, Episode s15e18 Despair, Episode Fix-it.

My Rating: 4 stars.

Description: Dean reacted on pure instinct. Instinct he didn't know he even had.

Notes: Oh, if only. I would have passed out.

A World Redeemed by Lif61 on AO3. (732 words).

Tags: Season 15 Spoilers, Post Episode: s15e18 Despair, POV Dean Winchester, Romance, Love, Happy Ending.

My Rating: 3 stars.

Description: Cas is gone, and the world is saved. But not for Dean.

Notes: I do really hope Cas comes back. Otherwise, I’m gonna have to go and have some words with someone.

Happiness is What Makes You Cry by AnotherWorld3111 on AO3. (358 words).

Tags: Angst, Referenced Character Death, Canonical Character Death, Post Episode: s15e18 Despair, Hurt No Comfort, Love Confessions.

My Rating: 3 stars.

Description: Just... read the goddamn tags

Notes: Oh man, if Dean actually breaks down in front of Sam, I will die on the spot.

All Out of Love by asofthesea on AO3. (681 words).

Tags: Not Actually Unrequited Love, Angst and Feels, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Post Episode: s15e18 Despair, Homophobic John Winchester, Protective Sam Winchester, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt Jack Kline, One Shot, Brotherly Love, Feelings.

My Rating: 3 stars.

Description: After the events of 15x18, Despair, Sam and Jack rush back to the bunker to find Dean alone, and falling apart at the seams.

Notes: John Winchester would have been homophobic and no one can change my mind.

Tag to “Despair” (15x18) by Alvinola on AO3. (793 words).

Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort.

My Rating: 3 stars.

Description: Sam has to pick up the pieces when Cas is gone.

Notes: Seriously, these fics are making me cry all over again. I mean, what can Sam possibly say to make any of this better? That’s heartbreaking in itself.

And a shameless self-promotion:

‘I love you’ by LinaRai on AO3. (420 words).

Tags: Angst, Episode: s15e18 Despair, Spoilers, Canonical Character Death, I’m Sorry.

Description: "I love you." Dean just stares at him.

Notes: I wrote this in a Criminology lesson while eating a bag of crisps which basically equated to my lunch because I was a mess and I had to. And yes, I am fully aware that I write things with major character death too often. So sue me.

So, how is everyone feeling? I’ve started re-reading Angel’s Wild in a wild (get it) attempt to cope. Also, this led to me having a full conversation with one of my teachers about Sherlock. ‘Maybe next time don’t use a current show as an example of queerbaiting,’ she said, as if any of us expected Destiel to go canon. Seriously, how do you explain to a 40 year old woman who only just realised that BBC Sherlock might possibly be queerbaiting how much no one expected that to happen? 

[mysteryartisticwriter]

Being Crowley’s daughter and dating Jack Kline would include...

Not my gif!! (Please tell me if you, the owner, would like me to take the gif down!)

-

Of course you were half demon, your mother was human but died when you were 10

You met the boys way back when you were a teen; maybe around 15 years old in season 8 or 9

You were half demon but your mom showed love, taught you to give it back and be kind

You were the ultimate princess of Hell duh

While the boys were hesitant around you, they eventually grew to love you

And ohhh...your dad always threatened them if you tagged along in hunts

“You let a monster lay one finger on my little bear’s head, and I will end you two.” “Daaaaaad….”

Rowena never admitted it, but she utterly loved and adored you. She thought of you as an apprentice since you sometimes practiced spells with her

During Kelly’s pregnancy with Jack, you became her protector as well as Jack’s

Kelly was also hesitant around you since you were half demon, she didn’t want you to maybe end up killing her and her baby or even using Jack as a weapon once he was born

Just like the Winchester brothers, she grew to care for you too. Kelly knew Jack liked you from the start because he always just happened to kick whenever you touched her stomach

You were there when your dad killed himself for the boys, Sam was the one holding you back

Your dad’s last glance at you was a small, simple smile. “Goodbye boys. Take care of my little bear.”

When he stabbed himself, you screamed so loud that Sam and Dean winced at the pain in your voice

When Cas died a little later, you were crying right next to Dean on the ground because he was practically an uncle to you just like Sam and Dean

You mourned for three people that night; your dad, Castiel and Kelly

You vowed to avenge your dad no matter what, you were angry and sad just like Dean for so long

You never went back to Hell and you were sure that you weren’t even the next ruler of Hell anyway, not that it mattered to you

When you guys found Jack, it was strange to see that he was actually your age

You barely talked to him, angry at him for what his father did to Cas and made your dad do

Soon, you slowly began to open up to Jack more and more because he was really one of the only people you could talk to

His innocence was actually kinda adorable, his questions about life were funny too

“(Y/n), what is this?” “That is a pair of headphones, Jack.”

You were still a little bitter towards him until you literally cried on his shoulder one night about how you felt

“I was too weak to save my father, to save Castiel and soon, maybe I’ll be too weak to save you and the boys.”

You half expected Jack to be a little angry at you but he was actually really kind and gentle about it

That was when you realized you were gaining feelings for the nephilim and you didn’t even bother denying it

Unknown to you, Jack was feeling the same way

Castiel coming back was amazing to you and Dean, your uncle came back from the dead!

“Two salty hunters, a half demon princess, one half angel kid, a guy who just back from the dead. Team Free Will 2.0, here we go.”

But the happiness didn’t last long when Jack ran away because he didn’t want to hurt anybody after he accidentally killed a man

Once you found him again, you almost slapped him and yelled at him

“How dare you leave like that?! Do you know how scared and worried I was for you?!”

That was when you had your first kiss with him

He was trying to calm you down but you just caved in and smashed your lips onto his own

Jack didn’t really know what to do but went along with it anyway since he really liked you too

Rescuing Jack and Mary (the Winchesters’ mother) from the other dimension was tiring but you did end up saving both of them later on

Seeing Lucifer again and Jack went off with him, you felt mildly betrayed and hurt

Lucifer tried to convince his son that you didn’t really love him, that you were just using him to get back at his father

Jack never bought it though, he knew you loved him more than anything

He felt so powerless without his grace, Jack was so tired and all he wanted to do was be with you again

When you were trapped in the church with Jack, Sam and Lucifer, you tried your best to kill the devil with your powers

“Poor little girl…left all alone by her daddy.” “Screw you.”

You felt so weak not being able to defeat Lucifer, so vulnerable and weak

Lucifer finally tired you three out and gave a small proposition; one of you dies by the archangel blade and the other two walks out alive

Sam gave you and Jack the blade and told you to kill him but you weren’t having it, so you took the blade from him and pressed it against your own stomach

“I love you, Jack. I love you both so much.” “(Y/n) no!”

Just before you could finish the job, Dean came in and began to fight Lucifer with Michael

Jack was holding you from collapsing becuse the blade had drawn some blood

“Why would you do that?” You smiled weakly at him. “Because I’m not letting either of you die for someone as worthless as me.”

The battle was won by Michael!Dean and finally after all these years, Lucifer was dead

The victory was short lived when Michael had taken full control over Dean and left

Dean was MIA for so long and Jack was feeling worthless without his powers, it was all so much

You, of course, comforted Jack about how he felt. He didn’t deserve to have his grace taken away by someone he thought cared about him

You were so scared when his illness was starting to take him over. Jack was dying and there was nothing you could do to help

When Jack died and went to Heaven, his own Heaven was with you and the boys until he (sadly) had to leave it to go to his mother’s

Jack brought you up to her, telling Kelly that he was in love with you to which she just smiled

“I’m in love with her, mom.” “I know, Jack. I know.”

Rowena was used as a suit for Michael and when he went to attack at the bunker, Jack killed him and gained his grace back….at the cost of burning his soul out

Soulless Jack was saddening to you, he was empty and wasn’t the same boy as before

You weren’t even sure he loved you anymore since he couldn’t feel anything at all

You set your feelings and concerns aside and continued to act the same as you normally would with Jack in your relationship, but it was never the same

After he killed Mary Winchester, you became much more worried about his condition and mildly scared at his actions

Jack being locked away by Sam and Dean was torture to you. Yes, he didn’t have a soul anymore but he was still the same boy you fell in love with. You missed him

When he escaped, God/Chuck came back and was the one who told you that you needed to kill Jack or it could be very dangerous

Instead of Dean, you were the one holding the gun to Jack’s head while he kneeled on the ground, ready to die

In the end, you couldn’t kill him. He was still Jack, he was still your everything and still the love of your life

But before you knew it, Chuck killed Jack himself and raised the souls from Hell

As you and the boys were trapped in the tomb with no way out, you sobbed and mourned over Jack’s dead body with his eyes burned out

The amount of anger you had for Belphegor when he had the audacity to use your boyfriend’s body as a vessel was only felt once for when your dad died

Sealing off the town was hard enough when you had a demon in your ass the whole damn time. Belphegor never left you alone

“Hey sweetheart...” “Belphegor, I am half demon and I will literally send you back to Hell no matter what.”

You went with Belphegor and Castiel down to the rupture in Hell in order to finally get rid of all the ghosts and souls

While down there, you found out that Belphegor was really planning on sucking up all the souls to be as powerful as God

You managed to get him down and punched him so many times that his lip was bleeding and his sunglasses came off, showing Jack’s full face

“Please (Y/n)...stop. It’s me...Jack.” “....You’re not him. And you’ll never be him.”

You killed Belphegor using your powers and needless to say, Dean was not very happy about going off-plan (which was stupid to you because you would’ve had to kill the demon anyway)

You had never felt so depressed and empty in all your life. Your mom and dad were dead, Rowena was dead because of the spell she had to use and Jack was dead as well. Everyone you ever loved was dead and you were just an empty shell of who you used to be

But when Jack was resurrected by Billie the Reaper, you felt the same way as Dean did when Cas came back

It wasn’t until you realized that he was the exact same as before, soulless. You couldn’t bare it, Jack didn’t love or care about anything anymore.

As much as you still loved him, you finally broke things off with him because no matter how much you tried to deny it, your old Jack was gone

When those hellhounds were after you all, Sam and Dean were the ones holding the doors shut while you, Jack, and Cas were in the main part of the chapel trying to activate the Occultum...until Jack swallowed it

“Where’s the Occultum?” “I ate it.” “YOU WHAT?”

Just before the hellhounds could maul the four of you to death, there was a bright light that killed them and Jack’s unconscious body appeared onto the floor

Later, Jack was found awake in the bunker’s kitchen, crying to himself and Cas told the rest of you that his soul has been restored

You couldn’t help but let a small tear escape your eye. Jack was so innocent and new to the world but already was introduced to so many horrible things within three years

You loved Jack, and you always would no matter what happens to him or you

-

A/N: Most of you might know about the BLM protests and the unjust murder of George Floyd but if you haven’t donated or signed any petitions yet, I would strongly suggest that you do! Black Lives Matter! I hear you and I stand with you.

Justice For George Floyd - https://www.change.org/p/mayor-jacob-frey-justice-for-george-floyd

TAGGED:

@shortwinchester

@coltcas

@urlaslongasafalloutboysongtitle

@irinazatyk

@meadow-melody​

@eleventhdoctorsangel​

@xsweetnsour​

@gay-drian-cain​

[youremyonlyhope]

Starship Rewatch

10 years ago today (well, yesterday since I’m posting it a day later), 15 year old Hope curled up on her couch to watch a new StarKid show called Starship right as it dropped. This was the first time I got to watch a show when it was posted since I didn’t become a StarKid fan until a months earlier. I was so excited.

And now, I’m rewatching Starship for the first time in full in at least 5 years I think. I listened to the soundtrack twice earlier today, singing along at my desk at work (thank god no one else was here tonight to judge me). I still know so many of the lyrics. And so many little jokes and stuff were flooding back. Starship was my favorite StarKid show for a long time, so I’m so excited to watch this again to see if it’s still my fave.

This post ended up being really long, so you’ve been warned. But it also includes pictures of the crocheted Roach and Bugette plushies that I made as a teen.

OH. THE OLD LOGO. AHHH. I already have so many feels. The future is now! I can’t handle this. The nostalgia! The Galactic League of Extraterrestrial Exploration. My facebook account to this day says I am a Starship Ranger at the G.L.E.E. because I’ve never bothered to change it. Also, shoutout to anyone from the StarKidPotter FB and EFST days if you’re reading this. AHHH IT’S CHRIS AND ERIC. Ok I might have to pause 20 thousand times during this Starship Ranger ad to acknowledge all the StarKid cameos. Tyler! “We come to conquer... in peace!” Tyler I love you. Brian and Richard! I forgot they painted Richard BLUE. Britney and Ariel! Nicholas Joseph Stauss-Matathia! I see that StarKid’s website has shortened his name to just Nicholas Strauss but remember the days when we’d purposefully say his full name? Anyway, I literally just screamed “NICK” when I saw him because he was always one of my faves. The Old Snatch was and still is iconic. Devin and Lily! The Wizard God himself, AJ Holmes. God... remember those AJ Holmes appreciation days where we’d make Chuck Norris-like memes about AJ? So much is rushing back from the depths of my mind oh my god... It’s been so long yet it feels like yesterday... “Someone really *static* F- *static* -ucked up big time” Love it.

2 minutes and 22 seconds in. I’ve written so much. I had to pause before Joey started singing to take a moment. I love this show so much. I love these goofballs so much. And they’re all so young. Most of them are younger than I am now. This is insane.

Ok I have to promise myself not to pause as much now. *Spoiler, I failed*

“I’ll fight off this gamma radiation if it’s the last thing I ever do!... We’re going down! This is the last thing I’ll ever do!” Oh my god. Look at baby Joey. He hasn’t even graduated from college yet. And that Bug puppet! Someone remind me to dig up the pictures of my crocheted plushies of Starship puppets since I made Roach and Bugette and gave them to the StarKids at SPACE and Apocalyptour. (I also did Rumbleroar, but the bugs were my own pattern I made so I was more proud) The camera is focused in on Bug instead of Joey’s face. I love it. So much. Brannnttttttt. My god. Am I gonna freak out over every single entrance? Roach pretending to die, he’s the best friend ever. “The needs of the many bugs outweigh the needs of the few bugs.” “Or the one bug, I know.” Oh man, when that line comes back... “Dirt eater” “Exoskeleton polisher” “I wanna build honeycombs” “The bug that ruins your picnic” “A fly on the wall!” That line came back to me earlier today and I died. Remembering that line was like 50% of the reason I listened to the soundtrack today.

Nick Lang! Julia! LAUREN LOPEZ. THERE SHE IS. Lovebugs, I can’t. *Sentimental music* “You could come over to my nest and I could... tear off your head and let my larva devour your body?” How did I forget that line? The way Lauren has to kick Bugette’s larva sack to walk. But the way that it also works so well with the character. I can’t. The Mosquito Brothers!! I forgot they show up so early. “This is our sister, Sweetheart” “...YO.” I CANNOT HANDLE JIM POVOLO. The “zzzz”s like buzzing as backing vocals instead of the usual “ahs” and “oohs.” The things you don’t appreciate until years later. Darren, you genius. That is such a good detail. For a second I couldn’t remember who the Overqueen is played by. 99% sure it’s Jim (It is). Also. Overqueen like ovary... and it looks like a giant vagina. That had to be pointed out to me later. “FLATTERY WILL GET YOU... everywhere.” Why did I forget that line too? “I’m a starship ranger” “Quiet you, you’re drunk” “No I’m drunk!” I remembered that line probably like... 2 minutes earlier when I noticed Joe huddling in the background and realized that line was coming up. The way Joey lets go of the puppet so both he and the puppet walk away with their arms limp... so cute.

Before even pressing play on part 3, I can hear February saying “Let the record show I am super ahead of schedule.” and I’m dying. I forgot about Brian as the escape pod. Denise Donovan! That Star Trek prop. I’m dumb so I can’t remember if it’s a communicator or what. But I know my Uhura Barbie had a mini one that I lost within a month probably. “OxyGen” “Schience” I can’t. “Mission Log... I think I just heard a spooky noise.” How am I forgetting all of these amazing lines? “Pika-pi!” AHHH I JUST SCREAMED. “My stars, I seemed to have landed in a field of these aMiNals!” I can’t. “Can I tell you guys something?” *port de bras and falls gently to the ground* “Hello!” “TOTORO!” I’m dead. The balloon mechanism on the mosquitos! I forgot about that! “HOLY SHIT IT’S A BUUUUGGGGG” Ok something I noticed but didn’t mention earlier. The bug puppet that Joe uses when he says “I had my heart set on nourishment” is the same one red and pink one that Julia used when talking about wanting to be nourishment. When Julia actually gets eaten, she’s using a different bug puppet, the green and pink one, but the same character voice. So, I can’t tell if they intentionally had her play 2 bugs so Joe could be one of them later, or if it was a mistake. I might also just be overthinking things. “ME THINKS IT WENT THAT-A-WAY” I cannot handle Jim Povolo. That scream Joe does as he slimes her. Woah I originally wrote “There seems to be no signs of intelligent lifeforms anywhere” earlier and then deleted it since I don’t know why I found it remarkable. And then looking at the comments of this part I see someone mentioned a Toy Story reference. So that’s why that line stuck out to me. Aww StarKid. There are so many Disney references in this show.

THERE SHE IS. THERE’S MY GIRL TAZ. The pew pew effects how could I forget that!  “Hey Taz. You’re pretty tough for a chick.” “I was just going to say the same thing about you.” “Woahhhhhhhh” JoMo oh my god. “My spectrometer readings are off the wazooooooo” That line kills me. Why am I JUST NOW noticing, 10 years later, that Tootsie enters this scene with his gun facing the wrong way. Oh my god. “I saw the empirical proof that science killed god. It’s comforting to know he was once alive though. I like to think that when he died, he went to heaven.” Oh Tootsie Noodles. “...What the hell kind of name is that?” “He’s got bear hands??” Why do I forget all of these lines??!? That record scratch and freeze frame to go “BOOOOOO” oh my god I forgot that. “Like the other day, he was in the cafeteria, just cah-rying in front of everybody.” BOOOOOOO. Here we go, Taz’s amazing Up monologue. “And when Up, cuts an onion, the ONION is the one who cry.” HELP. Also 99% sure I used that joke for AJ appreciation at least one year. “Now take a walk off my knife” What a line. So awesome. I remember having a profile pic on FB that was the text of that monologue and the image of Lauren screaming “WALK IT OFF” I’m still convinced that first “WOO” from the audience that we hear when Up enters is Darren. “I do not peepee sitting down” “Huh??” JoMo’s face as if he’s trying his hardest not to laugh and I can’t tell if that’s him breaking character or if Krayonder is actually trying not to laugh. “I peepee like big boy, deadgoddamnit. So stop making fun of me because it hurts my feelings” I’m dying. Also, deadgoddamnit is amazing. “if you don’t go out there and die for something, then I will kill you for nothing.” I remembered the mirror scene, just seconds before it started and already started laughing. “You’re not a failure, overall.” “Allow me to introduce you to the final member of your team. MegaGirl!” I forgot how DRAMATIC that was. I also forgot that’s how MegaGirl comes into the story.

I need to stop pausing every 5 seconds oh my god I’ll never finish this tonight if I don’t.

“All hail AstroBoy” That was the funniest line. “MegaGirl, can you kill humans?” “No. But I’d like to.” I can’t handle it. “A horse ate my cousin! Me and horses got a feud.” #1 MegaGirl doing the “I’m watching you” hand sign. I can’t. “Hey. Miráme. *Slaps* NOW ESCHUCHAME” amazing. “Or that time. You taught me calculus... CALCULUS WAS TOUGH.” I never went past pre-calc. Nope. Ah. Get Back Up. One of my fave songs. “And now we dance.” Dylan’s “OW” as they lean back. “Ok Idiotas. Say something nice. Or I will kill you.” It’s all so iconic.

“So you still think being an egg planter is lame?” “...Yes.”  The larva oh my god. I forgot we see one before the end. That’s Jaime playing the larva I think. Life is definitely one of my all-time favorite StarKid songs to this day. I wish it was longer. I love it so much. And I love that its instrumental is scattered as a motif throughout the show. “It’s a short, small thing we lead. With so much potential, pointless or essential, which one can I be?” Wow. Near Pippin levels of giving me an existential crisis. Also wow Joey improved his singing so much between AVPS and Starship. “My name’s Bug” “*Gasp!* Like a bug??” “Uh... no.” “Good. I’m February, like the month, but a person.” I should start saying that honestly. “I’m Hope, like the concept, but a person.” “You boldly go where every man -hey- woman -bark woof- or data dog has ever gone before! Sorry K9DX” Adorable. Joey’s subtle little double nod he makes the Bug puppet do when he’s shocked she thinks he’s a Starship Ranger. Amazing. Ah he said goddamn not deadgoddamn! February should have known right then he wasn’t human! “Take my claw” that too. "The only thing that needs to rest are your jokes, because they are so tired.” “Woahhhhhh” No but like... why don’t I use that line in everyday life... “Now I am slightly less weak.” “Ok. I’m going to shoot this metal bitch!” I’m dying. How did I forget the Taz/MegaGirl rivalry?? “That thing is a R-O-B-O-T man” “Can’t fool me with numbers, Krayonder.” I’m dead. “The stack of hay was my cousin!” #2 The way Meredith says “barometric pressure” is great. And Tootsie saying “Well you must take real good care of it, because I never would have guessed.” He’s such a sweetheart. “Nobody shoot dammit, nobody shoot.” “KILL KILL KILL” I never really liked Hideous Creatures but it’s so cute to see MegaGirl do the choreo robotically. I love that the Gap hasn’t changed. “Cool it skank, you do not know me.” Another line that I forgot until a split second before it was said. I’m so glad whoever edited this added some pews going in the wrong way for Tootsie’s gun. I know I definitely noticed Tootsie’s gun was backwards during this part, but I don’t know if I noticed it was backwards in that very first scene too. I forgot about MegaGirl tossing out Specs. That “MEGAGIRL!!!” scream from Joe though.

“Never in my 6 long days of life.” Underappreciated joke. Also, I think this is the 4th unique upright bug puppet. We got red/pink, green/blue, green/pink, and now red/blue. Also, Nick Lang is a great puppeteer. “Yes, I helped her escape. But I swear, never in a million years, did I think I’d be caught and yelled at for it!”  Oh I forgot Bugette is the witness. Jaime’s angry face behind Joey is killing me. “He didn’t know the humans were evil.” “Oh, they’re not.” “Shut up!” Humoons and hoomans. “And no more singing or dancing” *gasps of horror* “The Overqueen has overspoken.” “Well, that’s not gonna help your chances with Bugette” Oh Roach. “PERHAPS.” Jim destroys me.

God the 4-person Pincer puppet. Amazing. Dylan’s arms being strong enough to be above his head for 10 minutes straight. Amazing. Also, Nick Lang is so emotive as a claw. It took me a sec but yeah JoMo is the tail. “There were? Where are they?” Joey’s face. “Tell me all about her” The claws under the chin I can’t. Hey StarKid, I see you throwing in an ad mid-video before Kick It Up a Notch. You’re lucky I love and support you guys. “Put ‘em together and what have you got?” bibbity boppity boo. More Disney references! This scene is full of them. Man, remember when we were all blown away by Dylan’s voice in this song the first time? Like we could tell he could sing in AVPM/S, but his songs were just so jokey and only his long “Welcooooooooooome” showed us his talent. But then Kick It Up a Notch happened. And we FINALLY appreciated Dylan’s beautiful voice. “I pushed it to the limit.” and “To coin a phrase, be a man.” more Disney. I might be overthinking this and will have to rewatch Life to confirm, but I think the camera zooming out as Pincer reprises Life is just like the camerawork when Bug sang it originally. If so, then wow even when filming their shows StarKid really thinks it all through. (Update: It totally is referencing the original zooms for Life and that’s amazing. Except it’s zooming out instead of in. I LOVE the attention to detail even in filming the show. I’m gonna guess that’s Liam’s doing.) All I can see when I hear Bug’s chorus of this song is Jaime and her SPACE tour dancing, which they incorporated in Apocalyptour as actual choreography. Because they’re goofballs. The kick line. Love it. God. Even though it’s not my favorite song from Starship (just because I love Life and Beauty more), Kick It Up A Notch is one of the best StarKid has ever done. I really has everything. Dylan’s gorgeous voice. Not one but two reprises of earlier songs to throw Bug’s own words back at him. Jim’s bass line. Awesome puppets. Disney references. It’s so amazing. I love how all the comments are either about Dylan’s voice or Dylan’s ability to hold his arms up for a 10+ minute scene or both.

"Gameover man, gameover!” “I feel like cutting open your belly, and filling it with jelly” *Gasps* Oh my god, I put on the captions for a second, and  the caption said *Sad spayed puppy noises* “I am in charge of this mission now.” How did I forget about the mustache until 2 seconds before it happened? “She’s got the mustache now. *Kisses head* I love you” Oh my god Tootsie. I FORGOT ABOUT THE SECOND STACHE. There’s an ad right when we see Bug’s human form and I can’t even care because look at him! Ahhh. And the blue headband! Ahhhhh. Joey you’re so adorableeeee. “Bug? Well that’s a fine name.” His concerned face then the relief. Adorable. “Thank you sir. I am a tough bitch.” “Getting nothing but bug muff?!?” I love the slight delay the audience has before laughing as they realize what was just said. “Bug. You hard, ese. You flame.” I die. “Up there. In Space!” *dramatic pointing* No I totally didn’t just do the dramatic pointing with them... no that’s not in my muscle memory from 10 years ago... why would you think that. I’ll rave about Status Quo after it’s done. “But, what if I miss you?” Awwwwwwwww. And that “Just look up.” screenshot was used for “This.” memes in the fandom for years.

Oh Joey. Status Quo is such a good song too. And he really did improve as a singer to sing it. Earlier this week I remembered that this week is also the 10th anniversary of that time Darren was hopping from city to city every single day to promote the Warblers album. And at one point in that week he did a livestream that I remember rushing home to watch. In that livestream, I am 99% sure he sang Status Quo as a little sneak preview for Starship being released later that week. (Just checked, yep he sang it in a livestream on April 20 2011) God I love this song. Then the version the boys all sang for SPACE Tour was beyond beautiful too. Ahhh I love this musical.

Ok. It’s almost midnight. I started this 3 hours ago. I’m probably not finishing the show until 2am at the rate that I’m pausing and stopping to comment. But OH WELL.

“Dr. Spaceclaw” wow. “Leaving them behind was of little consequence, but a pleasure.” Oh Megagirl. “You did a very good job today too, son.” “*Gasp* Thanks dad.” That Star Wars fake-out though. Speaking of Star Wars, I really need to rewatch Ani now that I’m actively a Star Wars fan unlike last time when I still wasn’t invested in the movies I just watched them. How did I forget about Jaime playing Junior’s new mom?? ...Does Junior get an alien incubating in his chest... is that foreshadowing... I can’t remember. (This was like... half a foreshadow) This scene is funnier now that Breredith is married. The way Junior says “Phew” I’m dead. I remembered how they restrain MegaGirl once again 2 seconds before it happened oh my god. “We deserve bubbles on our skin.” An iconic line. “Well thank the long dead god you made it, Bug!”  The crunching of the handshake, I can’t. Oh someone in the comments pointed out that Bug and February are doing the Tarzan hand thing while Up’s asking Taz to see a movie. Adorable.

Get yourself a man like Tootsie who won’t stand for you talking down about yourself. “Maybe this was all part of God’s plan. He made before he died.” I love the dead god jokes. I remember years ago some kid on facebook was like “The dead god jokes are offensive” and I was like “It’s a sci-fi musical about a bug in a human body but sure worry about god being dead.” but probably in an even more immature answer. I’m just mesmerized by Tootsie and MegaGirl’s verses. God. The first Dylan and Meredith duet. Amazing. And MegaGirl’s confused face is great. “Don’t press that button, or we’ll all be sucked into space.” So... Can anyone tell me what foreshadowing is? Oh shoot... ok wait no I’ll comment on that when we get there. God that is such a cute love song. I wrote barely anything just because I love that song so much. Would love to know where Tootsie’s taking her though.

Oh my god this scene! I forgot about this. How could I forget this. “Well the world always looks a little bit brighter, from on top of a lap.” I had remembered Bug sitting on Up’s lap, but not Specs. This is the part I forgot. Adorable. Ahhhh so cute. The Specs/Krayonder relationship was apparently cut from the filmed version, but was present if you saw it live. These moments are adorable. And I love how this is the second person JoMo’s had to carry in this show since he also carried Denise earlier. “Why if it isn’t Bug, my oldest friend.” and “Don’t say that, my dear.” are adorable. Oh wait. Up sat on Bug’s lap. Not the other way around. Ok. I didn’t remember this scene as well as I thought I did. I’m dying. I didn’t want to write anything during this, but oh my god “That son of a bitch Optimus Prime” I forgot that. I love the audience’s reaction to “The entire right side of my body, it’s a robot” because they all gasp, and then laugh at themselves for gasping. I knew there was something he couldn’t do without crying. I didn’t remember it being “Sir I Wanna Buy These Shoes” Christmas Song. It’s ok Up, I haven’t listened to that song in full in years. I can’t handle it. But Christmas songs in general make me cry too. Oh Up said goddamn instead of deadgoddamn too. Hmm... Aww the mother spider story. “I think the old you was just killing out of hate.” “Oh I was.” I’m dying. Awwww the nose kiss. I definitely remembered that. “Deadgodspeed soldier!” The way Joey misses catching the keys and also Darren’s “Woo!” in the audience again. So great. That 12 minute scene is just adorable and the Up story is so dramatic and hilarious.

Hmm finishing before 2am might be ambitious... “Hahaha. Then I’ll shoot him!” “Taking care of my business down on the planet is that cool with you?” Brian’s delivery of that line has always intrigued me. “How much I care about my MegaGirl unit’s survival is also a percent equivalent to zero” Rude. “You are nothing like my boyfriend, Tootsie Noodles.” “Yes, well - wait WHAAA” This scene is so different now that they’re married. “Ha. Ha. It was cute.” “You’re... a toaster.” *Slaps* Ok 1) I used to use that insult all the time and only half ironically. I was a strange teenager. 2) She just hurt a human... isn’t that against programming, or can she just not kill humans? Evil angry Brolden is something we need more of. I love Brian as a villain. More please. “You stupid goddamn robot” So I guess they say goddamn and deadgoddamnit. I’m overthinking the evolution of language in this universe. Also Brian’s screams while being choked are amazing. I’ve never forgotten those, if anything they’re better now.

AHHHH I REFRESHED AND DELETED ALL OF MY STUFF FOR BEAUTY. Kill me. I’m so mad. Let me try to recreate it but I hate myself. I was saving this draft after every part but OF COURSE I don’t save after my favorite song and then refresh.

Oh poor Meredith. Her white wig doesn’t let her blend in as much when she’s in the hoodies playing a bug. “Oh hey Bugette, we’re just trying to get Bug laid!” That bug had to know about Bugette’s crush though? That’s just cruel. “The ending is killer” ruuuuuuddddddddddeee. I know I had at least one more point, but that’s lost to the ether. Beauty is probably my fave, if not tied with Life. When I was listening to it earlier, I was overcome with emotion because it’s just such a joyful song. These days I cry over happy stuff almost as much as I cry over the sad. And these lines just hit so hard... I love it. I love this song so much and this scene so much. “Bug. She excreted her filth for you. WE DID IT!!!!!!!!” Brant Cox is so good. It really is a shame he’s not in anything else besides AVPSY and the 10th Anniversary with everyone else. “I do accept you for who you really are. A genius.” Well February, you’ll be glad to know that you thought of that, so you’re the genius. Wow. Junior’s 25, Brian was 25, and now I’m 25. This really was perfect timing for the 10th anniversary. Also I do not feel 25. “Suck off!” amazing.

I’M SAVING THIS TIME.

Ok next part. Luckily I was only 1 minute into the next part when I refreshed. Still so mad at myself... “Someone really firetrucked up big time” (Dead)God I love that line. I also used firetruck unironically. Once again, I was a strange teenager and I didn’t like cursing and I still don’t. “This is so weird, I’m so used to the scrambly version.” (It was while writing this line the first time that I refreshed and lost Beauty....) Ok as I watch AJ, it’s hitting me that he almost definitely came to the set during rehearsals and filmed his part since it’s not a green screen like the rest of them. “The hunters have become the hunted, and it’s wabbit season.” “That was a good video, until the end when it got sad.” Thanks Bug. “I think, I just had a think” See February’s smart. “I’m in a weird situation” Love that line. “Bug is a BUG!? I DON’T BELIEVE IT” Oh Junior. Dylan’s insulted face at “I am not... a dumbass.”  So I can’t tell if Brian forgets he’s trapped when he moves his arms into a more relaxed position to lean on the column and then puts them back, or if it’s purposefully staged that way. Brian’s acting while he pretends to be shy and embarrassed about his evil plan is amazing and adorable. Brian has a good evil laugh, why don’t we get him as a villain more often? Also I was gonna make some sort of joke about Nick as Pincer’s left claw vs. Robert as Snarl’s left paw, but I’ll leave it be.

I FORGOT ABOUT THAT WEIGHT TAZ WAS LIFTING JUST FLOATING UP TO THE SKY WHEN SHE LETS GO. I just laughed out loud. “Damn that G.L.E.E. They’re always making twisted abominations of everything!!” I cannot handle it. And the wink. Poor Darren but also not poor Darren at all. I was just now WRACKING my mind for who could possibly be playing Pincer’s tail if JoMo was being devoured by mosquitos. It’s Brant. Literally the entire cast is currently onstage. Ok Krayonder’s been getting his blood drained for 3 minutes, why is he alive? OH I FORGOT KRAYONDER GETS UP AND SHOOTS THE BUGS. Ok and he gets chopped by Pincer’s claws too so HOW does he survive? StarKid answer!!! I forgot how dramatic this musical gets when you got both the bugs and MegaGirl coming after the humans. Aww the Vulcan salute from Specs. “I changed my name. To Tootsie... MegaGirl.” I love the reactions of the people in the audience who immediately realize what that means. I hear at least one “oh my god” that sounds like sobbing. Awwwww Tootsie’s “that’s real” speech and “I’d love you if you was the horse that ate my cousin.” (#3) just... get yourself a man like Tootsie MegaGirl. He is perfection. God the downloading love scene is so cute. I can’t handle it.

The Up saving Taz scene is so dramatic. Then Brian and Jim just calmly walk offstage. It kills me. Also why did Jaime just continue to lie there? “I just needed to learn how to kill with my heart.” Not exactly what Bug meant, but it works. God Taz climbing onto Up’s back is still the most hilarious thing ever. Whoever thought of her climbing that way was a genius. So funny. I always wanted to try it. Holding the gun up to her head like a blowdryer always gave me anxiety. Making the door out of a scrim that can be backlit was genius. Oof and bringing back “The needs of the many bugs outweigh the needs of the few bugs. Or the one bug.” just hurts. Poor Bug. My heart. This is probably the line that sticks with me to this day and I do think about sometimes.

Ok it’s now 2am and I still have 2 more parts.

I sorta love that Joey didn’t have the time to change into his blacks so he’s still in the Starship Ranger suit while playing the Bug puppet. “Save the Overqueen. I love her.” Awww. “Roach, I’m gonna get the job done if it’s the second last thing I do.” Love it. That Kick It Up A Notch Reprise though. Brian, you should play villains more often. Also remember all of us being like “LUPIN CAN SING?!?!?!??!!” “Lucky for me, God is dead. When you see him in hell, tell him Junior sent you.” Deadgod I love that line. This whole deadgod thing was just leading up to that amazing line. Oh no Bugette! Bug saying “maestro” oh my god. “DFSDSJFDSJKFDS... I’m dead.” I forgot that part! Oh my god the way Brian flicks the glasses back down on his face. Ok so I saw Lauren wiggle her way behind the mucus sac, but I didn’t see Nick come onstage. I rewinded, and I guess the zoom in shots on Brian and Joey were timed so we can’t see Nick join Lauren to be the first larva to come out. Oh well. And I love the crowd cheering as Junior dies. “And bingo was his name-o” That callback though. I forgot that the Overqueen eats Bugette’s body while crying. “Or Bugette! Oh...” Also god Roach is adorable.

Last part. 2:21am. Here we go. Krayonder got his blood sucked out by giant mosquitos and was cut up by a giant scorpion, but all he needs is a bandage around his head. Awwww the soft “I Wanna Be” playing the background as Bug begs the team to accept his bug form. Bug being so mad “It’s that bastard Pincer isn’t it?” and then being so happy that Joey does the little nose scrunch thing. So cute. JOEY’S FACE WHEN DENISE KISSES THE BUG PUPPET. Cannot believe I forgot that until 2 seconds before it happened too. “I now pronounce you man vs. machine. Fight!” WOAH. Why in the WORLD did “eep op ork ahah” come back to me. I was able to say it WITH Joey. That was straight from the DEPTHS of my teenage brain oh my god. I forgot about that oh my GOD. THAT’S INSANE. I FORGOT SO MUCH STUFF BUT I REMEMBERED HOW TO SAY “I LOVE YOU” IN BUG.

And the Beauty reprise.

God I love this musical. It’s still my fave StarKid show I think. And I’m horrified to see that it has only 500K views for the last part, so only 500K people have watched it all the way through after 10 years. That’s disgraceful. It’s amazing. Watch Starship.

It is 2:32am. I started at 8:50pm. Got sidetracked when I had to rewatch the Beauty part of Act 2 again to make sure I got my notes back in the post. Took a few bathroom breaks. But this is mostly because I paused every like 10 seconds to make a comment, so it took 5 and a half hours to watch a 3 hour musical. This why I take forever to watch things while liveblogging. I take too long to writing notes.

I’ll probably just post this in the morning. Gotta proofread for mistakes before posting.

Ok it’s the next afternoon. This post is literally 5,000+ words and takes 20 minutes to read according to a online word counter. I’m sorry to whoever read this entire thing. Your reward is the pictures of the Starship plushies I crocheted when I was 15 and 16.

(Ignore the bad lighting and my horribly chipped paint. That’s the only picture I have of the Bugette one since I gave it to Lauren Lopez a day later. I started making another for myself shortly after but never finished. Maybe I should finally finish the second one... hmm...)

[fizzingwizard]

Another Sunday, another episode of Digimon Adventure: (how tf do I do punctuate??). It is a good time to be a fan of Yagami Taichi.

I remember being 11 years old, the last episode of Digimon Adventure made be bawl my eyes out, and although I was excited for 02, really I just wanted more of Adventure. I guess I’m just slow to like new things (well, I am), but I would have super happy if the producers had been like, “02 will be a reboot for Adventure with the same characters and similar storyline.” And then do the same thing for every new Digimon season xD I’m sure I’m pretty damn alone in that opinion and don’t get me wrong, I love 02, and I think Tamers was good. And yet xD

^The screenshot that sums up the episode: Greymon gets his butt kicked while Taichi hangs on for dear life

I know the bond between children and Digimon is what powers them, and I’m kind of wondering if having a physical connection improves that in this show, because these kids are always riding around on their partners. (Not able exception - Togemon, because ouch. But I expect to see Mimi on her boxing glove at least lol) I have to rationalize it that way because otherwise it’s like why would having an elementary school kid on your head while you rush into the line of fire count as a battle strategy

This ep picks up pretty much where we left off, which means it’s probably only been hours since Yamato joined the group at the fortress. Already the atmosphere is completely changed.

I can see them, but they can’t see me... Ishida Yamato’s modus operandi

more below

Here is a very Digimon-esque tableau: everyone gathered around Koushirou and his computer. Yamato still being standoffish. I imagine he jumped at the chance to stand guard at the entrance so he doesn’t have to get too close to anyone.

Agumon’s fight with MetalTyrannomon went... not so great. Yamato coolly tries to explain to Taichi that evacuating was the only way, otherwise they’d risk all being destroyed, and that would be the end of everything.

Taichi’s fist tightens and begins to shake...

... he doesn’t look like he totally agrees with Yamato’s reasoning, but he doesn’t have a better idea. But, being Taichi, he can’t just let it rest.

Yamato talking to Taichi’s back while Taichi frantically starts to sort out his Feelings is just how they communicate. This is a common shonen anime trope for the hero and his foil. Yamato’s pushing, Taichi’s not exactly hiding, but he doesn’t want to face him until he can face him with resolve.

Yamato: Look at me. Look at me!

Taichi: *sweating* It feels like a hole’s burning in the back of my neck, so... I’ll pass

Taichi finally explains out what’s got him so knotted up: he regrets Ogremon’s death. Like we saw last episode, the battle that began as revenge turned into a battle of samurai pride. And Taichi is evidently a samurai. He wanted to see that battle to the finish, out of mutual respect for the opponent (who he’d never met before and who had been trying to kill him previously... but y’know when you’re kindred spirits that’s all water under the bridge)

Yamato doesn’t really get it. This is where these two are fundamentally different. Taichi attac, Yamato protec, then everybody gets a FIGHT!

I mean, not 100% of the time, but the bottom line is Yamato’s not so big on this pride thing, although he does have pride of his own. But he’s definitely not into taking unnecessary risks, especially if it puts his friends in danger. The trouble is, Taichi doesn’t think he takes unneccessary risks either... just necessary ones ;)

The other kids can already feel the tension increasing and Taichi and Yamato haven’t even raised their voices at each other yet. Lol buckle up kiddos

Jou wonders if he should make them stop, and Mimi instantly turns around and begs him to try. My Joumi heart LEAPT.

TBH I was surprised she did anything at all, I was expecting Jou’s “Should I break them up?” to just end there with nothing happening. Instead we got an adorable Joumi moment where Mimi shows that as much as she teases him, she already somewhat relies on Jou (to be fair, I do think Mimi’s the type to rely on anyone who offers when she’s not sure what to do herself). Jou, being Jou, is unprepared aaaaand wigs out.

Jou: Oh no oh no oh no she actually expects me to get between them?!?! But but I flunked Tough Guy school! That’s literally why I’m a nerd! This girl’s trying to throw me to the wolves!

Fortunately for Jou, he has a redheaded savior.

Sora: Stop it. He’ll wet his pants again and I don’t have any more extras.

Sora shows her insight into people’s hearts and understands that Taichi and Yamato need to hash things out. It’s not dangerous... yet. But the way she’s more or less frozen in place along with the others says she’s... maybe a bit on her guard, at least, lol.

Koushirou, being Kousihrou, is completely oblivious to all of this and focused on his computer.

Oh yeah... the real reason Taichi turned his back to Yamato earlier - whenever they look directly at each other, they suck each others souls out. I CALL BODY SWITCH

I mean jogress

I mean marriage

They spend like the entire first half of the episode arguing omg get a room.

Then... Agumon wakes up!

And even though it’s a cartoon, it’s clear to see the way Taichi’s body fills with relief. I wonder if Yamato didn’t realize or didn’t think Taichi was that worried about Agumon. 99 Yamato tended to feel that Taichi was insensitive to others. But while he can be, Taichi also doesn’t express his emotions in the same way as Yamato. They’re both wont to hide how they feel, but while Yamato goes quiet and aloof, Taichi just acts like everything’s normal. So maybe here, Yamato really thought Ogremon and MetalTyrannomon were the only things on Taichi’s mind. Just a guess.

Awwww montage of cute...

a boy and his dinosaur!!

Maybe to Yamato’s surprise, Agumon totally echoes Taichi’s feelings about Ogremon. “I wanted to settle the score with him.” Weird as it sounds, they made a manly bond with Ogremon and running away just doesn’t sit right. Agumon’s raring to go...

... but his stomach isn’t quite ready yet hahaha.

Yamato’s probably used to Gabumon’s appetie but I suspect Agumon’s tummy growl has errr exceptional resonance

Glad to see the return of the Digimon’s bottomless pit aka stomach. I think it was just last week I complained about that not really being a thing so far. This time it was the other Digimon who went gathering, but I hope to see the human kids rushing around in a frenzy to care for their partners’ appetites soon lol

While the others eat, Taichi and Yamato decide they haven’t finished vampiring each other’s souls and sneak out to the mouth of the cave. Sora follows them to see if she can watch any hot yaoi action.

Lol but I do really like the framing heart. All we can see of the boys is their shadows. Sora keeps her distance but she’s watching them intently from a distance. I assumed she was just gathering more data on how short a leash she needs to keep them on.

Turned out that was not quite correct... reluctant to interrupt though she’d been before, once they start talking about what to do next she adds her input. We’ve got Yamato on Taichi’s one side and Sora on his other side. It’s the beginnings of TAIORATOOOOO *more airhorns*

^I can’t see anything but Goku and Vegeta bahahaha. Also why is eleven-year-old Yamato SO broad-shouldered, between that, his deeper voice, and his perfeclty coifed hair Taichi must seem like a toddling infant to him bahahaha. Like come on Yamato is not a child you must be kidding

Already Yamato is getting into the habit of Looking At Taichi while Taichi Looks At Literally Anything Else.

These two don’t need words. They talk with their vampiric eyes.

Koushirou’s hyper focus on his computer finally pays off and they all gather back around. Everyone starts cheering when the hologram appears even though they don’t know what the heck it is. This is Koushirou, so it must be awesome!

It turns out to be a map of much usefulness.

And it turns out Ogremon was telling the truth about the path to the holy Digimon being straight ahead, while fires Taichi up even more.

^Obligatory ‘Gomamon is cutest Digimon’ cap

Koushirou also gives Taichi special data on MetalTyrannomon, including his weak point. Taichi is THRILLED. He’s happier about this than he is about finding the route to the holy Digimon. This is the difference between Taishiro and Taito guys. When Taichi gets a reckless idea, Yamato tries to talk him down, or at least be sensible about it. Koushirou? Koushirou is a FREAKING ENABLER.

They wait with baited breath for Yamato’s reaction. Though he seems underwhelmed, Yamato admits Koushirou’s information “does seem reliable.” That’s all the permission Taichi needs to go back to freaking out over how awesome Koushirou is.

They come up with a plan to lure MetalTyrannomon away so Taichi can fight him while the others take the chance to escape and head towards the path to the holy Digimon.

^Obligatory ‘Sora is best girl’ cap

Yamato waits for the others to get away before following after... he stalls for a minute as if unsure whether it’s really alright to leave Taichi on his own. In the end he joins the group... All things considered, I think he’s pretty thrown off by Taichi, tbh.

Yamato’s group doesn’t make it far before they encounter a very suspicious looking lake.

^More evidence that Yamato is not really an elementar school kids. He’s clearly at least 15. He’s been routinely failing every year in order to get held back until he can be in the same class as Takeru. That’s the extent of his overprotectiveness

It sure is fortunate that Koushirou’s genius extends to fluency in English or they’d have no idea this lake of dark mist is bad friggin news.

Or... maybe they would have:

Mimi sneaks behind Jou and pulls his middle school exam workbook out of his bag.

And immediately chucks it into the lake.

Where it disintegrates.

This is how Mimi’s mind works. She’s smart! They need to know what would happen if they went into the lake without actually going in it. So they need to put something else in first. So far so good. What should she throw? A stick? A rock? One of Sora’s endless towels?

No, Jou’s workbook. Duhhh.

She probably felt she was killing two birds with one stone here x’D Experiment complete, and Jou prevented from anymore whining about not having time to study. Mimi is chaotic good.

gosh I love Joumi

Jou is lawful neurotic

Greymon shielding Taichi is just soooo cute even if it still feels weird that he has to be up there in the first place

The battle rages between MetalTyrannomon and Greymon, who just won’t quit even though he’s losing... pretty bad... I mean...

He just grabbed a missile with his bare hand...

Taichi: Now I know what it’s like to be a firework

Loop-de-loop! Taichi’s suction cup shoes strike again.

Courage going UP!! Reaching a fever pitch! The evolution that’s been looming for two episodes finally happens!

MetalTyrannomon: Eat my dust!

Woooooooo, MetalGreymon is just as freaky as ever. Always my least favorite evolution in Agumon’s line, but the glowy purple wings are cool.

Also, nipple missiles.

MetalTyrannomon: I can’t believe I was beaten by some meddling kids!

So yeah, we are back to killing Digimon willy-nilly. None of this “but what about their hearts?” shitck. Always found it amazing in 02, a children’s cartoon, that said “Yeah the characters you loved last season were totes murderers but it was justified and sometimes you just have to kill.” And fourteen-year-old Taichi is just like, “Yeah, I’m a murderer, and you should be too.” XD And Miyako hits LadyDevimon with a skateboard. Priceless

This scene is adorable but Taichi’s butt looks so saggy.

I’m kind of wondering how evolution works in this show. They jumped right to jogress in like episode two or something, but we haven’t seen it since (I would sort of expected Taichi to think of it when it was clear MetalTyrannomon was too strong, though I would also expect Yamato to nix that idea both because he doesn’t want to and because to him it’s a pointless fight and not the priority). Since then, the Champion level evolutions went similar to 99 Adventure, with everyone getting their special episode, and I’m sure that’s how it’ll go down with the next level too, but there was no gap at all between going from one level to the next. I’m trying to say, they seem able to reach the next level awfully fast. They didn’t need to meet Gennai and collect the tags and Crests, the Crests appear already uploaded in their Digivices. I’m not complaining, as always I’m glad this show is not just a carbon copy of the old one, but I am curious if evolutions are easier to attain in this series, or if there are going to be more of them and that’s why they come so quick, or if the series just won’t run long enough for there to be significant gaps of time between evolutions.

Episode ends with the group deciding, like I predicted last week, to split up and try the Left and Right routes, since the Straight one is blocked. Gays go right and lesbians go left, of course. :P

This episode was pretty fantabulous, I loved it, Digimon is awesome.

Next week it’s no surprise what we’re gonna get.

WeeeeereGarurumon! Also my least favorite evolution of Gabumon’s line but still cooler than MetalGreymon hahahaha.

I’m also totally stoked for the grouping of Yamato, Jou, and Sora. There’s tons of potential for Yamato and Sora to bond, although my prediction is that while he’ll pretty much like her (even if he won’t admit it to himself), she’s going to find him a little difficult. But she’ll have an easier time talking to him than the others do. I also fully expect Jou to drive Yamato out of his mind lol.

This also means the other group is Taichi, Koushirou, and Mimi. I assume we won’t see too much of them next week, but I hope that means they’ll get their episode the week after, because I am dying for some Taishiro moments. Practically salivating. Also, Koumi fans can probably look forward to Mimi and Koushirou Not Getting each other too, lol

[anywhozits]

All I Really Want Chapter 8

Rating: M

Pairing: Hansanna now / Kristanna eventuallyyy

Verse: 90s High School AU / frozen retelling

Chapter Summary: Anna still celebrates her 15th birthday.

Notes: Thank you for reading!! Warnings in this chapter include profane conversations and underage drinking.

READ ON AO3 HERE

“Surprise!” A chorus of voices echoed through the entryway of the Larsen’s Newport Peninsula beach house.

Hans flipped the light switch and several grinning faces beamed back; hands raised in an excited stupor.

“Happy birthday, Anna!” The chorus echoed.

Anna’s eyes lit up as she scanned the crowd—all her best friends were there. Kristoff, of course. Sven, Olaf, Ryder, Ashley, Bebe.

They’d hung a banner, somewhat shoddily painted by the likes of probably Kristoff, and the gesture made tears prickle in Anna’s eyes.

Hans threw a hand over her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “Thought you deserved a rager, too.”

Anna laughed, tears still prickling. The fact that he thought she deserved anything…

And then she turned her head and saw Elsa, cheeks still red from her tipsiness, and Anna lost it into quiet sobs. “Thank you, guys!” She could barely choke this out.

“Ashley and Bebe arranged the whole drink situation and I think that’s in the kitchen? If we all wanted to do a round.” Hans’s hand had floated down distinctly to Anna’s ass. Her cheeks burned.

When she noticed that Kristoff had narrowed his eyes at the pair of them, she bit her lip nervously.

Was Hans right?

No? No. Nonono. Forget this, Anna. Forget. It.

And she did.

Music started blasting from who the hell knew where, but it was Pony by Ginuwine which meant this was officially a rager, and Anna was already so drunk she felt a little wobbly. But she was also super excited for this shot.

Because there were so many people who loved her and it was her birthday and she spent the first bit with her parents and Elsa and now all her friends…

Whew. Deep Breaths.

The emotions overwhelmed her again and she felt the tears flowing, but she trudged into the kitchen anyway.

Kristoff had beaten them there by a mile and already poured all the Don Julio shots into tiny red plastic cups, handing them out with a smile and a wink (to Anna at least).

“Anna, happy birthday,” he said, smiling, raising his plastic cup.

Her heart fluttered a little and she just knew her cheeks had turned a deeper shade of crimson.

“Anna, hi! God, it feels like I haven’t seen you in five-ever.”

Anna giggled. “Hi, Olaf.” Her eyes narrowed when she saw her friend holding one of the shot glasses. Olaf said he didn’t want to drink until college. Good on him, she thought. Knowing the massive hangover, she would have tomorrow made her think Olaf had a sixth sense. “What are you drinking?”

“Red bull.”

She laughed heartily at that one. “Red Bull? I’m gonna have to send you on a run along the beach to get all that energy out.”

“I’m great!” He exclaimed way too excitedly.

“Okayyy, attention, attention!” Sven cupped his hand over his mouth to give himself a little extra volume over the beats of Pony. “Anna is 15! And happy surprise party to her – tonight, we drink. Thanks to Hans for arranging this little shindig. Thanks to us for getting the party started. Are we ready?”

Everybody cheered.

“Then without further ado… arriba, abajo, al centro, al dentro.”

Ashley and Bebe had naturally forgotten the salt and the limes and literally any chaser other than red bull, so Sven was met with many horrified coughs. But at least now the job was done.

Anna jumped up and down. She thought the tequila hit her instantly. “Hot tub?!”

“Beers to go!” Hans opened the fridge and started chucking Coronas to everyone as the ran out to the front yard.

It was completely pitch black already. Nobody could see anything but the eternal blackness of the boardwalk, the sand, and the ocean. Even the BBQ area and the hot tub were hard to discern. Still, soon enough everybody shed their clothes and hopped in, realizing a little too late that the hot tub was not, in fact, hot and instead actually somewhat cold. But they were too tipsy to care.

They were all squeezed in – Elsa and Anna next to each other, with Hans to Anna’s right and Ryder to Elsa’s left. The rest had filed in wherever they saw fit.

“Hey, uh—Elsa. I hear you’re going to Pomona?” Ryder asked in an especially friendly manner.

“Yes. I’m doing a pre-college program now to get in the swing of things.”

“Ah. Rad.”

“Mmhmm,” Elsa nodded while sipping her beer.

“My sister’s going there too!”

“Really?”

“Yeah—her name’s Honeymaren. She’s cool. I bet she’d love to know somebody before starting, if you’re—if you’re cool with that, I can hook you up.”

Elsa blushed. “Hook me up?”

“Yeah, you know—put you in contact, whatever—so you’ve got a friend before you start.”

She bit her lip. “Oh, sure.”

Then he laughed. “Ohhh you thought I meant hook you up hook you up. Nah. Didn’t mean it like that. And anyway, I don’t know what the whole dude sitch is there, but I’m sure you two could find that whole shebang out together.”

“Yeah,” she swallowed. “Maybe.” And then let out a long breath.

“Let’s play a game, let’s play a game!” Olaf chanted.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Anna squealed. She loved games. “Okay! Which game?”

“Ten Fingers!” Bebe yelled a little too loudly. She was at least two shots in. “You put out ten fingers and then someone says, like, never have I ever… given head or whatever and if you’ve done it you’ve gotta drink so everyone knows you’ve done it!”

“I’ll go first,” Hans smirked, snaking his arm around Anna once again. “Never have I ever flown coach.”

Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff were visibly the only ones who didn’t drink.

Kristoff next. He narrowed his eyes, furrowed his brow, and then spoke, “Never have I ever flown. In a plane. Ever.”

Drinks all around, and Sven immediately had a response ready, “Never have I ever done drugs, other than weed.”

Hans was the only one who drank anything.

“Interesting,” Sven said.

“Never have I ever been drunk!” Olaf exclaims, his go-to answer for this kind of game.

Groaning in unison, they all polished off a bit more of their beers.

“Never have I ever watched porn,” Bebe said with resolve. “I want some real dirt.”

Anna, Elsa, and Ashley and the boys minus Olaf took proud sips of their beers.

“WHAT?! You’re telling me girls watch porn? The hell?” Ryder can’t shake his confusion.

“Um, duh,” Anna rolled her eyes. “We’re not another species.”

“Never have I ever…” Ashley gulped, unsure where to take this. “Blacked out.”

Anna’s jaw dropped. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Huh.” Anna drank her beer, frowning when she realized it was empty. “Aww. All gone.”

“I’ll get some more,” Hans murmured. “This game’s lame anyway.”

Anna rolled her eyes. “You’re only saying that because you’re losing or … winning—which is it?”

“Winning,” Hans said as he climbed out of the hot tub and turned away.

“I can help you carry stuff!” Olaf ran after him.

“Okay. My turn,” Ryder bit his lip. “Um. Never have I ever been in a band.”

“You suck,” Kristoff whined.

“Yeah, Ryder. Go to hell.” Sven flipped him off.

Elsa, next, rubbing her hands together nervously, eternally unsure. “Never have I ever…eaten a hamburger?”

“Shit, really?” Sven was more than taken aback.

Elsa nodded, prompting everyone to drink even more. Anna grabbed Elsa’s beer and took a couple gulps from it.

Aaaand okay. Now—officially—all of the alcohol hit Anna. The world kind of … actually very noticeably so started spinning.

“Laaaaame,” she said, her words starting to slur a little bit. “We’ve gotta kick it uppa nosh, hmm? Never… have I ever… had sex in a forest.”

Nobody drank.

“Hmmm… nobody? Nah one body? Nah any one of you? Okay.”

Kristoff scooted closer to Anna and puffed out his chest. “Never have I ever had sex on the beach.”

Anna took Kristoff’s beer this time and stared deeply into his eyes while she drank sip after sip. Again, nobody else drank.

Then Sven. “Never had I ever had sex in the car.”

Anna deliberately sipped on the beer again.

“Never have I ever had sex in a hot tub!”

Anna laughed maniacally and took several long gulps of the beer. “Nah this one though! I… swear!”

“Good,” Bebe replied, scrunching up her nose. “Well, um. Never have I ever had sex.”

Anna took an uninspired sip. Not dramatic when they knew all the other places she and Hans had explored… but when she looked around and noticed not a single soul except… was that Elsa drinking?

No way. Elsa?! She’d have to debrief this later, like. Majorly.

But, seriously? Nobody else? Like... shit.

Why had they taken it so far with all those random spots, then? Almost like... they were baiting her or something.

And besides… more than anything, it surprised her. Anna thought most everyone had done it. At least, she hadn’t considered herself particularly early, really. But if Ashley hadn’t done it, despite Hans making it seem like they’d hooked up before, then Anna was beyond confused. Crisis mode. Because if they hadn’t and in general if Ashley-the-17-year-old hadn’t… then oh freaking snap maybe she was early. Not that she regretted it, but. It still felt weird to be one of the only ones. She didn’t want to feel like a slut or something. Shit.

Yeah. Okay—she was a slut. Anna Larsen, the slut. Shitshitshitshit.

Except, there was that one silver lining.

Elsa drank, too.

No wonder she gave such good advice about doing it for the first time.

Ashley shrugged. “Never have I ever kissed a girl.”

But Anna could think of nothing but the word slut on repeat so she couldn’t begin to comprehend who drank to that one.

Slut. Slutslutslut. Slut. Anna’s a slut. Anna Larsen’s a slut. Slutslutslut.

But… at least she was winning the game? Right?

Yeah. When Anna looked down at her hands, she realized she was crazy close to officially sealing the deal of her win.

Or did winning this game make her more of a slut?

This was hopeless. Might as well embrace it. She had no regrets.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Anna proudly showed off her right hand. “I only have wwwww-one finger left!” And then, all of a sudden, she remembered the most important, juicy detail of the night. So Anna backtracked, leaning over to her sister. “Wait. El…sa. You had sex? Why di’it you tell me?” She had tried to whisper but in her drunken state had abysmal volume control.

“You saw me drink?”

“Mmhmm.”

“You didn’t… did you see me drink for any other ones?”

“Mmm, couple. But I dun care about those. Lass I saw for drink wash the sexy time one and I wanna know the story! Story time, story time!”

“I don’t want to tell the story, Anna. And it’s … it’s not exactly what you think. It’s different, but… I’m not ready to talk to you about this, okay? I... I wouldn’t have answered it if I were sober.”

“You sure soun sober, sisser.” Anna took her index finger and jammed it into Elsa’s chest bone. Her cerulean eyes looked glossy and lost. And then she jutted out her bottom lip. “Come on, tell me!”

“Another day, okay?”

She huffed and blew a piece of wet red hair out from her face. “Fine,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest, grumbling, “Beee that way. Another day, wha-evah.”

Elsa bit her lip. “Hey, you know what?”

“Whuh?”

“I think I need to eat my words about Hans.”

“Yeah?!” Anna’s eyes lit up and she squealed. Not a slut, not a slut.

“Yeah. He’s… he seems like a good guy. He put in a lot of effort for you today. I can’t believe he talked to mom and dad, I mean—that’s a huge effort in and of itself.”

Anna giggled and nodded. “Huuuge.”

“So, anyway, he’s—"

“I got more drinks!” Hans called from the sliding glass door. Olaf bounded in after him. “Would’ve been back sooner had Olaf not talked my ear off about everything he loves about Anna.”

Olaf shrugged. “Wanted to make sure you know how special she is.” And then he hopped back into the hot tub.

“Awww,” Anna cooed, giving Hans a sloppy kiss on the lips as he handed her the drink. “Thanks babe.”

“No prob.” His eyes became half lidded and he didn’t let go of her face, bringing her in for another kiss, even sloppier this time, definitely with tongue. One hand trailed down her body and onto her thigh—her upper thigh, and he squeezed her skin. Anna shivered and kissed him deeper.

Fuck it. Slut or not a slut she was happiest here, like this. With Hans.

“Um. Dudes? Game’s not over.” Ryder tried to wave his hand in their peripheral vision, but all four eyes were decidedly closed.

“Earth to Anna? Earth to Hans?” Sven had started full-blown yelling, and at the same time Kristoff had retreated to his shell, his eyes also closed for some reason.

Anna giggled. “Hah—earth. Thassfunny, Ashley.”

“Um. It’s Sven. I’m Sven.”

“Oh-kay, yeahhh. Sure, you are, Ashley. Thassa good one too. I didin know you were so fuuunny!” Hans’s hand squeezed her thigh again. “Should we finish the game?”

“I think, maybe…” Elsa looked around, trying to garner support from her sister’s friends. “We can just say you won?”

Anna giggled and pumped a fist into the air. “Yeah! Cool! Go me!”

“I’m gonna get you some water.”

“Thanks, sisser,” Anna said, yawning. “Soo… whadda we do now? Ooh! I know! Go… I wanna go… swimming!”

Before anybody could stop her, Anna raced out of the hot tub and then to the beach.

Kristoff chased after her.

“Anna, Anna, wait wait wait wait!”

She spun around so quickly that her body couldn’t take it and she fell dramatically onto the sand with a huge plop. “Oof,” she exhaled before cracking up.

He dashed to her side, sliding with ease on the sand, somehow, and making sure she was okay.

Then, he reached out one hand and touched her protectively on her shoulder. She shivered at the touch, smiling when she noted how soft and kind his brown eyes were in the moonlight.

“I wanna go…schwimming.”

“In the ocean?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Are you… are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Mmhmm.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt. I want you to be safe.”

“You…wan me to be safe?”

“Yeah, I—I do.”

Anna thought back to what Hans had said earlier. About Kristoff being pathetic and all that—it wasn’t true. Anna knew it couldn’t be true, but… she wanted to tread those waters maybe a little more than she wanted to wade out into the actual ocean. “Because you looooove me?” Okay, there it was. Out.

A palpable silence overcame them both.

And then Anna leaned back so her head rested on his chest. Kristoff hesitated initially, but then steadily draped his arm around her shoulders.

Still silent.

In a flash, something happened, a penny dropped maybe, and Kristoff tensed up completely.

Okay, so ... either Hans was right, or ... he was completely, utterly wrong and Anna just made a complete fool of herself. Great. Excellent. Wonder-freaking-ful!

Anna couldn’t let this silence go on for any longer. She whispered, “Like a sisser.”

And then he sighed, “Yeah.”

Ha! See, Hans? Her not-boyfriend was so frigging wrong.  Kristoff loved her like a sister. Not... whatever.

But then why did Anna suddenly feel so disappointed?

“You my bessfrien,” she sighed into his chest. “Thank you fo keeping me safe.”

He didn’t say anything else, just held onto her tighter.

Until.

“Anna!”

Hans’s voice.

“Anna! You didn’t actually go swimming did, you?”

Anna laughed and tried to stand back up but had much difficulty, swaying so heavily that Kristoff came to her aid. “No!”

“Come on, let’s go to bed.”

“To bed? Oooh.” She tried to strut toward him, but her stumbling created a real fall-risk. Hans rushed to help her, shooing Kristoff away in the process.

Within seconds Hans’s mouth was on hers again, like in the hot tub, to the same graphic degree. All Anna could think was yes. She was so happy. He planned the most perfect birthday she’d ever had in her life and now she was here kissing him. Yes—happy. Perfect. Best birthday she could ever wish for.

All thanks to Hans.

Kristoff visibly grimaced and tried to push past the couple. He grumpily uttered, “Goodnight,” but this word made Anna perk back up.

“Kris?” How had she forgotten he was here? Dumb shit, Anna. Drunk or not. Kristoff continued to trudge away from the couple, but a very determined Anna clumsily sprinted to catch him. “Sorry bout dat. Um—thank oo for tonight. I… is been a guh-reat birthday.”

He stopped the second she caught up to him and let out a sigh. “You’re welcome, Anna.” His eyes darted to Hans quickly. “Are you… I know you’re—are you good to, um, be with him tonight? I meant what I said earlier—I want you to be safe. I want to make sure you’re safe.”

Anna nodded and said, “Thanks, bessfren. I’m great—safe! Happy and in loooove.” She smiled blissfully and impulsively got up on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his right cheek. “Goodnight, Kris!”

His eyes grew to the size of saucers and his cheeks flushed red.

“Good…good morning! I mean night. It’s night. Um—goodnight. Goodnight, Anna.”

But by the time he finished speaking, Anna was already back with Hans, kissing him fervently, and paying Kristoff no mind.

[bobbystompy]

91 Quotes I Enjoyed From 2020

Below are my favorite quotes from 2020. Though most occurred throughout the year, some took place before but were encountered during.

1) “You don’t have to be new to make new.” - Rick Rubin

2) “He put the beat on and go to sleep then wake up with a verse.” - The Lox

3) “Every opinion is bad.” - Blink-155

4)

(via Twitter)

5) “At the start of every disaster movie, there’s a scientist being ignored.”

6) “Be brave enough to suck at something new.”

7) “Comedy is the only job you can have where you can use everything you know” - Robin Williams via Dave Chappelle

8) “What’s the worst swear word where you live?” - Josiah Hughes

9) “Cookies are a really great way to get everybody to like you for a short period of time” - YSAC

10) “The worst dancer at a wedding is the one who’s not dancing.” - John Mulaney

11) “I never saw the end of the tunnel. I only saw myself running out of one." - Kobe Bryant

12) "A good movie begins as you're walking out of the theater" - Ethan Hawke

13) “When I was young and starting in cinema, there was a saying that I carved deep into my heart which is, 'The most personal is the most creative.’ That quote was from our great Martin Scorsese.” - Bong Joon-ho

14) “Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow” - River Phoenix via Joaquin Phoenix

15) “Thank you -- I will drink until next morning.” - Bong Joon-ho

16) “Men will bury their emotions for decades and then take it all out on children tubing while they drive the boat.” - @krauter_

17) “They help you with the dumb face stuff, but they don’t tell you how to fix it” - Adam (Nate’s friend), on having older sisters

18) “We all had our connections, but it’s not the details themselves that matter, it’s the feeling behind them. There are a million coming-of-age tales. Lady Bird’s secret sauce is how deeply its creator gave a shit. The older I get, the less I care about anything but the sense of a filmmaker’s personal connection to the material. It doesn’t matter what it’s about, what genre it is, or whether it’s genre at all. I only really care that it feels like something the filmmaker had to tell me, and that it was that filmmaker in particular who had to tell it. It has to answer the ‘why are you telling me this’ question, and not just why are you telling me, but why are you telling me.

Lady Bird is a movie that feels like only Greta Gerwig could’ve made. And it’s only because it’s so specific to her that it can be so meaningful to so many people.” - Vince Mancini

19) "I have cast some lonely votes, fought some lonely fights, mounted some lonely campaigns. But I do not feel lonely now.” - Bernie Sanders

20) “Ever hear a Beatles song you haven’t heard before?”

21) “Drinking is an emotional thing. It joggles you out of the standardism of everyday life, out of everything being the same. It yanks you out of your body and your mind and throws you against the wall. I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.” - Charles Bukowski

22) “You shouldn’t have to hear a band to know if they’re good or not” - Josiah Hughes

23) “I was raised by OGs.  Some of you were raised by IG.  I understand.” - Ice-T

* * *

[Here is where I note the line of demarcation that was the COVID-19 pandemic hitting the US, pushed forward by Tom Hanks’ announcement, the NBA and NCAA shutting down, and, then, the nation itself.]

* * *

24) “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.” - Vladimir Lenin

25) "Taken together, this is a massive failure in leadership that stems from a massive defect in character. Trump is such a habitual liar that he is incapable of being honest, even when being honest would serve his interests. He is so impulsive, shortsighted, and undisciplined that he is unable to plan or even think beyond the moment. He is such a divisive and polarizing figure that he long ago lost the ability to unite the nation under any circumstances and for any cause. And he is so narcissistic and unreflective that he is completely incapable of learning from his mistakes. The president’s disordered personality makes him as ill-equipped to deal with a crisis as any president has ever been. With few exceptions, what Trump has said is not just useless; it is downright injurious." - Peter Wehner

26) "Epidemics have a way of revealing underlying truths about the societies they impact." - Anne Applebaum

27) “A funny thing about quarantining is hearing your partner in full work mode for the first time. Like, I’m married to a ‘let’s circle back’ guy — who knew?” - Laura Norkin

28) 

(Jojo Rabbit)

29) “The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. - Deadwood: The Movie

30) “All bleeding stops eventually.” - Deadwood: The Movie

31) “Our Father, which art in heaven… / Let him fucking stay there” - Deadwood: The Movie

32) “It’s like a power outage, but we still have power” - Ryen Russillo, on the pandemic

33) “Whenever Sox baseball returns, it’ll be weird to not have Farmer on the call any more. The relationship between a fan and longtime announcer is always built in the little moments. One afternoon, he’s the soundtrack as you clean the garage. On another night, he’s your bookmark for the game as you stand in line for churros or walk down the ramps at Sox Park to try for better seats in the 100 level. A voice like Farmer’s becomes so familiar that you only really notice when it’s no longer there.” - Kevin Kaduk, on the passing of Ed Farmer

34) 

(via Twitter)

35) “In my songs, I try to look through someone else’s eyes, and I want to give the audience a feeling more than a message” - John Prine

36) “Observe everything. Admire nothing.” - Generation Kill

37) “Trump, by that definition, has always been a wartime president -- always willing to sacrifice people he doesn’t know to things he only sort of cares about” - David Roth

38) "Whenever they speak Michael Jordan, they should speak Scottie Pippen." - Michael Jordan

39) "Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can't reach." - Hunter S. Thompson

40) “Airlines sending me “we’re in this together” emails. When my suitcase was 52 pounds I was on my own.” - Mike Dentale

41) “Sometimes you can be the worst source of your own story” - Ryen Russillo

42) “Family is not necessarily blood, but instead who you would bleed for.”

43)

(via Twitter)

44) "This is the deal that Jordan made, knowingly or unknowingly — that he would trade everything he had for everything he wanted. And then, when he won all those things, he found that he had nothing but that.” - David Roth

45) “I’m brand loyal, but the brand doesn’t matter” - Caitie Miller, on why she doesn’t like generic peanut butter

46) “NOBODY shitposts Gene Hackman!!” - Mark Dehlinger

47) “When a man concludes that any stick is good enough to beat his foe with—that is when he picks up a boomerang.” - G.K. Chesterton

48) “You can be appalled forever, but shocked only once.” - Jeff Weiss, on early Eminem

49) “Whether I’m pessimistic or optimistic, the fight’s the same” - David Simon

50) “Freedom can never be completely won, but it can be lost.” - Bernard Simon

51) “Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere. As long as we keep shining that light, we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands.” -Kareem Abdul Jabbar

52) “In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist -- we must be anti-racist.” - Angela Davis

53) “Start as close to the end as possible” - Kurt Vonnegut, on creative writing

54) “You can’t stay woke all the time — that’s insomnia.” - Dr. Cornel West

55) “No, I get it. I’ve dated a lot of Geminis.”

56) “The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” - John Krakauer, Into The Wild (via Tyler Keller)

57) "I couldn't show them my For You because it's pretty much just lesbian stuff and depression memes" - Maggie Loesch, on showing TikTok to her coworkers

58) "It's 1 a.m. in Slovakia and I've already had one bottle of wine and I don't know how long this press conference will go, so good luck to me." - Marian Hossa, following his NHL Hall of Fame announcement

59) “All I want in life is to go on an Anguilla group trip” - Mandy Gilkes

60) “You miss old friends when you don’t see them, but you miss them more when you do.” - Chuck Klosterman

61) “The only way to appreciate the present is to pretend it’s already the past.” - Chuck Klosterman

62) Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth, oh, never mind You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth Until they've faded, but trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back At photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now How much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked

(”Everybody's Free [To Wear Sunscreen]”)

Second time that essay’s been quoted on this list.

64) "I mean, it's just human nature to suck up to the people above you, crap on those beneath you, and undercut your equals” - Brian, Family Guy

65) “You never quit a job. You quit a manager.” - Brian Bedford

66) “All the pictures in my house are of people I’m not friends with” - Tracy Cunningham

67) “In order to leave something behind, you have to leave.” - Dr. Herman, Grey’s Anatomy

68) 

(via Twitter)

69) “You can obsess about death if you don’t have to obsess about dying.” - Brendan Kelly via “White Noise”

70) “If it’s right to do, it’s wrong to wait.” - Andy, doorman 

71)

72) “When I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the Supreme Court] and I say, 'When there are nine,' people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that.” - Ruth Bader Ginsburg

73) "America is mostly people who’ve never left their state saying we have the best country in the world." - Billy Wayne Davis

74) “A writer is someone who knows at least 80% of their writing sucks.” - Gabe Hudson

75) 

(via Twitter)

76) “You’re dead twice” - Brendan Kelly

77) “Perfect is the enemy of good” - Voltaire (via Zach Lowe)

78) “I don’t want to be a savior, I want to be a mirror.” - Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

79) “I get bad Twitter FOMO but not real life FOMO. That just goes to show I need to get off the Internet.” - Josh Thomas

80) “Is there anything you love in life that you engage with seriously that you don't also engage with humor?" - Sam Sutherland, on his relationship with Blink-182

81) “My favorite genre of music is my friends' bands" - Josiah Hughes

82) “Let’s fall in love like both our parents aren’t divorced.”

83) “Seabiscuit may be the only earthling that was on both sides of the stamp.” - Brendan Kelly

84) “There’s no shame in coming in second, except in, like, wars.” - Family Guy

85) “I feel like I experience writer’s block 100% of the time, and when I do write, I have impostor syndrome.” - Phoebe Bridgers

86) “We teach based on what we most need to learn.” - psychologist on Grey’s Anatomy

87) “Having too many choices is the leading cause of stress” - Grey’s Anatomy

88) “I think we've all gravely underestimated the extent to which this year has changed all of us, permanently” - Kelli Maria Korducki

89) 

(via Twitter)

90) “I wonder if people understand why they don’t have polio” - Sandra E. Garcia

91) “Ending songs is terrible, so let’s keep singing” - Dave Hernandez

[aonrivers]

Pregnancy, Birth, Postpartum, and Baby Time! (TMI warning) - Part 02

In Part 01 I went over the truths about being pregnant. Now that the nine (really ten) months are over... Labor and Postpartum begins.

Labor and Postpartum Truths: 1) Not being able to eat sucks once you're admitted into the hospital. You seriously only get ice water like they say online. So make your last meal one that can hold you out until after birth. 2) Contractions feel like really bad period cramps. I'm sure there's some women who feel them worse, but that's all I got on the topic. I was numb for them most of the time. 3) To induce labor, at least for me, they shoved this "shoelace" thing up my you-know-what. As I said before, I was swollen down there, so any time my cervix was checked I was in a lot of pain, and this thing was no different. 4) Hospital rooms are not quiet. Between hearing everyone outside at the nursing station to the beeping in your room, you also have constant visits from nurses when all you wanna do is rest because you're basically waiting for labor to begin. 5) Water breaking isn't a "oh hey I think I peed myself". No. It's like a queef then GUSH and it doesn't stop until you and your bed are soaked. 6) Catheters are handy when you are bed rest and drinking gallons of water. Also, you get one when you get the epidural. Which they don't really tell you until the epidural is offered. 7) Take the epidural if you don't want to experience a natural and painful birth. I felt no pain leading up to labor. I did however feel a shit ton of pain when the pain relief ran out. They tell you it's because labor is all in your back - this excuse is bullshit. I was in so much pain when that shit wore off that my husband said my labor pain face didn't match this one. Once they take the tube out of your back, the pain fades away. But my back still hurts in that spot even as I type this. The pain in the spine also lingers after giving birth. Almost like you need your back seriously cracked. 8) The epidural needle doesn't really hurt if your pain tolerance is high for stuff like this. It's a pinch. What you do feel that is considered almost like a quick throbbing pain is when the fluid is injected. It's like a small punch to your back. 9) Projectile vomit will most likely occur. All the gallons of water you consumed waiting for labor will come projecting out of you before you go into active labor. Be glad your head doesn't start spinning. I up chucked three times and had to have myself redressed and my bedding changed out. 10) Some labor beds have built in handles to assist with labor. See if yours does. They helped a lot. 11) I tore two tiny spots inside my VJ giving birth. They stick a numbing agent where they see you'll be tearing, so that's cool and all - you'll feel it when you start being mobile again. BTW, some women tear bigger. Luckily my baby was only 7lbs. 12) You may not know your labor doctor. I met mine briefly the day before at my doctor's office, but never before that. Don't feel shy about being exposed in front of them though, they do this for a living. 13) Speaking of being shy. I am a prude with my body. I don't want people checking out my ass or having my nipples poking through my shirt on a cold day but all of this goes out the window when you're in the hospital to give birth and here's why. One: this is the doctor and nurse's job. They see boobs, ass, and vagina every day. And two: you're giving birth - who TF cares what you look like. 14) Pushing a baby out is not like pushing pee out. It's like taking the biggest shit of your life. You push with your asshole. Literally. And it causes hemorrhoids and for your ass to hurt WEEKS after giving birth. (Do yourself a favor and get some fiber enriched foods because pooping is not easy it pain free.) 15) Those home videos of the women giving birth don't exist anymore. It's pretty much illegal. I guess people were blackmailing the mother. Idk. That's what my nurse said. But they give you a big ass mirror to watch the birth of your baby so that's really cool. 16) Hospitals offer photographs of your newborn (unless you gave birth in 2020). It's usually expensive and I would've done it too if they offered. My husband got amazing shots of our daughter which I cropped out to make that oval baby picture our parents in the 80s got. 17) Taking pictures of your baby in the nursery is a big no no. I wish I could've seen my baby under the UV lamp with her glasses on to fix her jaundice, but I was bedridden with the pre-eclampsia. Hubby saw her though. He says she was just chilling while all the other babies were crying their heads off. FYI, the reason you can't take pictures is because of the other babies in there. They're not yours. You don't have the right to photograph them even if your baby is mixed in and she's the only one you want the picture of. 18) I wasn't told this until it came time... But they push your belly and I mean in your belly button and hard. They check if your uterus is shrinking and returning in place. (Breastfeeding helps it go faster.) This pushing hurts like a mofo. Seriously. And they don't care if you're in pain from, oh idk - THE EPIDURAL WEARING OFF! They are required to check. 19) My friend told me this which I think is important to know... When you're doped up on pain meds before birth or if you're having a really hard time during the labor process (time  you entered hospital to when the baby pops out), have someone with you. Have that person listen to the words coming out of the doctor and nurse's mouths. My friend didn't and took meds they gave her and was devastated when her baby came out gray and on the edge of death. She didn't know what they gave her or what they said about the meds. If she did, she would've known this would be the outcome of her child's birth (baby lived btw. He just graduated high school last year!) 20) Labor and Delivery nurses are freaking awesome. Postpartum nurses not so much... 21) The hospital food really isn't that bad. At least, it wasn't where I stayed. I had choices for breakfast, lunch, and dinner too! 22) Nurses can't technically tell you no to taking the baby to the nursery. Yes you need bonding time with your baby, but you also need rest. 23) The chair that pulls out into a bed for your partner is uncomfortable af. They have cots. Ask for one. 24) I couldn't have visitors. Make sure you don't either. It's nice. You don't gotta worry about appearance or staying awake for your guest. Birth is about you and your baby (and partner) and the time you have with them. Your guest can wait till you get home. 25) Back to the heartburn and hairy babies talk. This isn't really a myth. My baby came out with a full head of hair, hair on her ears, and fuzz all over her shoulders and back. At a month old it's going away, but that head of hair is real. And so was that heartburn!! 26) Bleeding after birth is like having your period back, but it goes on and on. It changes colors and has a gross smell to it. And wearing a pad again SUCKS! I do have to say though... That mesh underwear they give you is freaking awesome. I want some for my daily wear. 27) For a week or two, I felt like I was punched in the cooch. Walking hurt, getting up hurt, even bathing hurt (no baths until you heal btw, so I showered). Even now, a month later, I still feel pain down there when sitting a certain way (like Indian style). But what do I expect? A freaking baby was pushed out of me!! 28) After the six week heal time is up, don't expect sex to go back to normal. It still hurts for me but this time because of the bruising and stitches. 29) When it's time for sex, lube up. Breastfeeding and hormones still rampant don't assist in easy glide ins (if you know what I mean). 30) When the milk comes in, your boobs get bigger, harder, and start to ache. Feed feed feed or feed and pump. It's the only way to fix it. And don't be surprised when you wake up and your bed is stained with milk puddles because you're still sleeping naked to easily feed your little one at night. My side of the bed is disgusting, but ce la vie! It comes with the territory (like lack of sleep). 31) Also, sleeping on your side with milk filled boobs is not easy. It hurts. Go back to sleeping on your back because belly sleeping isn't comfortable either. 32) Everything you buy or received for your baby screams suffocation with it's warning labels. Don't let it get you paranoid like it did for me. Learn your babies habits and go with your instincts. They also sell baby breathing monitors that alert you if the baby stops breathing. 33) Outfits are cute and irresistible, but try to resist buying those newborn clothes. My baby grew out of them all within three weeks and wore only half of the clothes we had. Also, buy larger clothes - season conscious - that way you're ready when the baby starts growing out of their clothes. We had hardly any 3 month PJs, now her closet is over packed... 34) The baby may not sleep in their crib or bassinet right away. My girl would rather be on me or my husband than a cold bed. Seriously. They want your baby sleeping with nothing but a fitted mattress that's cold and a swaddle or wearable blanket. My baby hates swaddles and kicked too much with the wearable blanket. She sleeps with me for easy feeding and comfort - for me and her. I don't sleep much but slowly I've been getting my Z's and during the day I put her in the bassinet on her belly because I can watch her and she's amazing with that head support already. When she doesn't feed every 2-3 hours, she'll be spending more time on her own in her bed. So don't be discouraged if it's not working for you. It will happen. Just takes time. 35) Sound machine was a waste of a gift. Our phones have sound effects we can tune into. Google Home and Alexa even offer it. My baby doesn't like it, she'd rather listen to us or the TV. Also she doesn't like the dark until she's actually sleeping. She loves bright lights. They tell you the opposite online. 36) If your boobs are small, don't bother getting the shirts where you pull your boob through a window because it won't work. The shirts with the clip that drops to expose the breast are the best. Amazon has great prices and quality shirts on this. My one from Kohl's broke after wearing four times. 37) I really don't think those smiles are gas like they claim it to be. Sure some are. But when your kid smiles without passing gas, they're smiling because they're happy/content. 38) You'll probably end up missing your belly bump the first few weeks like I did. I kept thinking she was still in there. I mean, it's nine months carrying a creature in you. You get used to it. And lastly... 35) You get what you wished for. Any time I talked about having babies, I said keywords on what I wanted: a beautiful, healthy, happy, and smart baby. And I got just that. === So there it is. My journey, my tips, and my nitty gritty of it all of just pregnancy, labor, and postpartum alone!! There is so much more to being a mother; and that will continue in my part 03,04,05,etc to come. IDK how many there will be, only time will tell.

I will continue to update Part 01 and Part 02 when I remember more things.

As Part 03 is conjuring, I would like to say congrats if you're pregnant or gave birth already; and good luck if you're trying.

[shirtlesssammy]

2x22: All Hell Breaks Loose: Part Two

Then:

Back in 1835, Samuel Colt made a special gun

Now:

Sam is dead, y’all. Bobby brings Dean some comfort food, but he’s just interested in a comfort drink. And Bobby suggests BURYING Sam? Gah, he’s a hunter, Bobby. He deserves to burn. Anyway, Dean’s not interested in letting Sam stay dead. He shoves Bobby away, telling him to leave. 

He apologizes though, and asks Bobby to leave. Bobby does. 

At a campfire, Jake and Azazel parlay. Azazel is a little sad that he ended up with his runner up, but he’ll deal. Jake doesn’t want to comply with Azazel’s plans. 

Dean continues his Grief Tour 2007. I’ll be honest, I like to bury my feelings in humor and sarcasm, but this shit is still real. Dean is MESSED UP. Listening to him talk about their childhood, something that has been analyzed TO DEATH by this point, still punches you in the gut. 

Yeah, Read All of This Alert:

You know, when we were little— and you couldn't been more than 5— you just started asking questions. How come we didn't have a mom? Why do we always have to move around? Where'd Dad go when he'd take off for days at a time? I remember I begged you, "Quit asking, Sammy. Man, you don't want to know."

I just wanted you to be a kid... Just for a little while longer. I always tried to protect you... Keep you safe... Dad didn't even have to tell me. It was just always my responsibility, you know? It's like I had one job... I had one job...

And I screwed it up. I blew it. And for that, I'm sorry. 

I guess that's what I do. I let down the people I love. I let Dad down. And now I guess I'm just supposed to let you down, too.

How can I? How am I supposed to live with that? 

Hahahahha, lolololol, NOPE. (Fun fact: I didn’t realize the Dean crying meme was from this episode because I can’t. watch. this episode.) 

Figuring out what he can do, Dean tears out of the house and heads to a crossroads. Yep, our boy is about to make the deal that’ll change his life forever. (Natasha: Dean used his Fish & Wildlife ID in the crossroads box to summon the demon and barter away his soul. And in season 15, Dean is Fish & Wildlife in the toxic werewolf brothers plot. I’m just going to sit back and slow clap this fact for a while!)

Frankly, I’m surprised the demon gave him a year. (It’s Crowley, right?) Anyway, Dean seals the deal, and Sam comes back to life. 

Dean comes back from the deal to find Sammy a little worse for wear, but alive. They hug. Sam wants answers. Dean covers up the real story and says that Bobby patched him up. Sam tells Dean about his weird Hunger Games trial. They need to figure out Azazel’s plan. Dean wants Sam to rest and recover, but SHOCKER, Sam wants to power through the situation. 

The brothers head out to find Bobby. And Bobby wins the understatement of the season when he sees Sam standing at his door. “Sam, It's good to see you up and around.” He throws some serious daggers at an elusive Dean. But gets to work anyway. 

He has information on demonic omens. There’s a place in Wyoming that hasn’t been touched by demons. It seems they’re surrounding the place. He asks Sam to take a look and asks Dean to help with hauling more books into the house.

Once alone, Bobby demands Dean tell him what he did. Dean’s face says it all and Bobby guesses he made a deal, demanding to know how long he got. Dean tells him. 

Dean continues down the “I’m not worth anything” path by telling Bobby that at least now “my life can mean something.” 

Excuse me while I fling myself off a cliff. Also, I paused the screen at just the right time. 

But, honestly, Bobby pleading with Dean to care just a tiny fraction for himself IS HEARTBREAKING. 

There’s a rattle in the junkyard (POSSIBLY my heart trying to reassemble itself). Bobby and Dean spring instantly to attention and head off to investigate. Ellen appears! She’s alive!

Well, we hope she’s Ellen. Bobby makes her do shots of holy water just in case. She explains how she survived. She was out on a pretzel run and just happened to not be there when the Roadhouse was attacked. Before he died, Ash called her and told her to look in the safe. Ellen pulls out a map of Wyoming.

Bobby whips out his research prowess. Each mark on the map is an abandoned church built by THE Samuel Colt. Colt built private railroads leading between each church which, when joined by lines on the map, form a star. It’s a gigantic devil’s trap! Sam has a lightbulb moment: all the omens are from demons circling the trap and trying to get inside. 

In the middle of the map is a cemetery. Dean speculates that Colt was trying to keep something contained inside the trap. Something in that cemetery. 

Jake pulls up to an old railroad crossing. Yellow Eyes appears and tells Jake to head for the cemetery and open up a crypt for him. See, he can’t cross into the trap....yet. Yellow Eyes hands Jake the key to the crypt: it’s a gun! (It’s THE gun.) 

“This is the only gun in the whole universe that can shoot me dead,” Yellow Eyes helpfully explains. Jake immediately points it at him, but Yellow Eyes plays on his emotions. Jake can kill him, but he’ll go back to working a dead-end job in a factory. Why do that when his family could live a good life in the coming apocalypse? 

“You have the chance to get in on the ground floor of a thrilling opportunity,” Yellow Eyes insists. I always forget how smarmy he is! UGH. Jake lowers the gun. 

Cut to the cemetery. Jake enters warily, unaware that the Winchesters, Ellen, and Bobby have beaten him to the punch. They’re waiting for him, and corner him near the crypt. Jake confronts Sam, insisting that he ought to be dead. “You can’t be alive.” EVERYONE exchanges shifty glances. 

Jake laughs at them, and then orders Ellen to point her own gun at her head. He’s been eating his brain Wheaties because she follows his command. Dean, Bobby, and Sam all drop their weapons. In the brief moment that follows, Jake springs for the crypt, jabbing the Colt into the lock of the crypt. Dean and Bobby wrestle Ellen’s gun away from her and Sam shoots Jake multiple times, then several more times as Jake pleads for mercy. DAMN. 

It’s kind of too late for the crypt. The lock spins. 

The door unlocks. Dean grabs the gun and they all head for cover as black smoke blows out of the crypt. The force of the crypt unlocking blows out the train tracks and Yellow Eyes steps calmly through the former trap’s boundaries. Ellen names the crypt: it’s a devil’s gate! And they’ve got to close it ASAP. No pressure, though. 

Dean turns to find Yellow Eyes standing close to him. Before Dean can pull the trigger on the Colt, Yellow Eyes grabs the gun with his spooky demon mind mojo and chucks Dean halfway across the cemetery. Dean’s head gets bashed against a tombstone.

Meanwhile, Sam, Ellen, and Bobby are trying desperately to close the wide-flung doors. Sam catches Yellow Eyes advancing on his brother, but the demon pins him to a tree before he can get too far. Dean gets pinned to a tombstone. 

Yellow Eyes thanks Dean for Sam’s resurrection. Demons can’t make deals to bring people back, but humans half-mad with mourning can! Yellow Eyes is ON BOARD with Sam as Hell’s general. He gleefully toys with Dean’s emotions, planting doubts about whether he brought back the real Sam. 

“What’s dead should stay dead,” Yellow Eyes says to Dean, whose eyes are TOO DAMN EXPRESSIVE and I CAN’T HANDLE IT.

Yellow Eyes continues the emotional torture. “I knew I kept you alive for some reason. Until now, anyway. I couldn't have done it without your pathetic, self-loathing, self-destructive desire to sacrifice yourself for your family.” Suddenly John Winchester appears and grabs Yellow Eyes from behind, pulling his black smoke version from his body. Yellow Eyes smokes back into his body, but it’s too late. Dean has the gun now. He points it and in one perfect shot, fires a bullet into Yellow Eyes. 

Yellow Eyes dies just as Ellen and Bobby manage to close the crypt doors. Dean faces his father who gives his boys little nods and then flashes out in a burst of light. JOHN OUT! 

Afterwards Dean stares at Yellow Eyes’ body. The Winchesters reflect on their father’s feat with astonishment: he climbed out of Hell! (Of course, on the back edge of season 15 we know that there’s a quite pleasant staircase one can take.) With Yellow Eyes dead, the Winchesters can check that giant lifelong quest off their to-do list. Time for a margarita party!!! 

Back at the car, Sam reflects on his interactions with Jake. He asks Dean for the truth about what happened after he was stabbed. Sam is very smart, and immediately asks if A) he died and 2) Dean sold his soul to bring him back. Dean is the worst at covering his lie. 

Sam asks how long and Dean delivers the awesome timeline: one year. “I had to look out for you. That’s my job!” UGH DEAN you’re killing me here. 

“You’re my big brother,” Sam tells Dean carefully. “There’s nothing I won’t do for you.” Sam vows to save Dean. He can totally fit that in, along with fighting the hundreds of escaped demons who fled through the gate. Sam can multitask! Dean grins and tosses the Colt into the trunk. They’ve got work to do!

What’s Quoted Should Stay Quoted!

I guess that's what I do. I let down the people I love. I let Dad down. And now I guess I'm just supposed to let you down, too.

Sam, oceans aren't boiling, okay? Frogs aren't raining from the sky. Let's get you your strength back first.

What is it with you Winchesters, huh? You, your dad. You're both just itching to throw yourselves down the pit.

We got work to do.

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive! 

[waywardaf67]

Coda: S15E3

Cas walked to his truck, parked right outside the front door of the bunker. He had sustained himself on nothing but hope and prayer for the last ten years, but he knew no matter how much he hoped he would, Dean wasn’t going to follow. Cas gave the hunter ample time to stop him, but the look was there––that same disheartened look Dean always wore when Cas disappointed him. Only this time, Cas knew there was no coming back. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to come back. 

In time, he would reach out to Sam, let the hunter know that he had to leave, and he knew Sam would understand. Cas also knew that no matter how upset Dean had been with him, he was going to take his anger out on his little brother. He would apologize for that too. But they would get along just fine without him––they always had. Sam and Dean Winchester never needed him. He thought they did, convinced himself in the beginning that he was there for the cause. That he believed in the righteous man and his little brother that drank demon blood. He’d even convinced himself that they grew to care for him, but as Cas climbed into his truck he knew it was over. He couldn’t be a punching bag for Dean any longer. He made mistakes, failed in epic proportions, but he had always stayed true and loyal to the Winchesters. Even when he was working with Crowley it was with them in mind. 

Save Sam and Dean––Cas thought it was his calling. His one mission from God. Maybe it was, maybe God only sent Cas to save Dean because he needed a broken angel to rebel. Naomi was right, he came off the line with a cracked chassis, but was that by design? 

As Cas pulled away from the only place he’d ever considered home he wondered if Chuck planned for him to rebel. Planned on Metatron stealing his grace and leaving him weakened. So many things had happened to him since he raised Dean from perdition, and he wondered how much he actually had a choice in. Unlike Dean, Cas wasn’t just angry about this, he was also perplexed. Maybe only having free will for ten years made it harder for him to understand Dean’s anger. Being an angel programmed to follow orders and protect God’s will was all he’d known until two boys from Kansas asked him to make a choice. One demanded it actually. And hasn’t that always been their relationship? Dean demanding one thing or another from Castiel. Pushing him to his limits and beyond. 

Cas felt the phone in his pocket buzz and was surprised that Sam was calling him so quickly. But maybe Dean had already gotten too drunk or smashed up his bedroom and Sam needed someone to talk to. Cas almost pulled over to take the call, but instead slammed his foot on the gas––his truck gave a growl, but it was nothing like the Impala. Tears welled up in his eyes and he blindly threw his phone into the passenger seat. 

He would add this missed phone call to the ever-growing list of apologies he would make to Sam, but for now, Cas needed nothing but quiet and the open road. He was bitter that this is his biggest takeaway from Dean. It wasn’t love or compassion, kindness or understanding, no what Cas learned most from his best friend was there isn’t a problem in the world that you can’t run from. 

He reached for the tape in his glove box but stopped himself. Listening to the mixtape Dean gave him would only cause his heart to break further. He had never known if Dean crafted those songs just for him, or if this was just an old tape he had laying around and passed off to Cas as another teachable moment. 

They had a lot of those teachable moments. Dean was constantly trying to get Cas to conform, never quite comfortable with his otherness. And Cas had tried, he tried to make Dean accept him, tried to make Dean love him, but even as he lay dying in the barn a few years ago Dean could never say it. Maybe he never felt it, though Cas didn’t want to believe that. He had to believe he mattered. He made a difference. Sure he fucked up a lot, and made bad choices, and kept things from the brothers, but he only ever did that to protect them. Couldn’t Dean see that? 

As the distance grew between Castiel and Lebanon, Kansas, he thought about everything they had been through. From that first trip up from hell, the seals breaking, when Cas took over Claire Novak’s body, the first time he went against heaven for Dean, and every wrong turn he’d made since then. He thought about Naomi’s mind control and the thousands of Dean’s he’d killed, but how the real Dean’s words pulled him back from the edge. He’d asked that day what broke the trance, and Cas, still being dumb and naive, thought Dean would understand that it was him, those words so close to expressing his love––as close as Dean had ever come to telling him that he loved him. Why didn’t Dean see that? Or it was possible that he did know exactly why Castiel was able to overcome mind control and he just brushed it off. Not everything was about them. Dean had a lot of problems he needed to sort through, and his willingness to accept love and understand his place in the world was his biggest area of concern. 

That’s what made Cas so confused, for years Dean thought of himself as nothing but a tool, an instrument to be used to fight evil. First at John’s will, then Alistair’s, then Cas’, and finally Chuck’s. Why was it so hard for him to wrap his head around this? Had Dean finally learned that he deserved good things? Castiel felt like he might have been the first person to ever tell him that, and it took him ten years to believe it, but that could be why he was so angry. He'd finally accepted that he mattered, that what he did was important. Just because Chuck was behind the why didn’t make it any less true. 

Humans on this plane still felt things, they still mourned loved ones, felt pain, and fear. Dean saved countless people from going through those things. Just because God trapped them in this maze doesn’t mean the work he did to keep the maze running was for nothing. 

What felt like hours, but could have only been minutes, dragged on as Cas drove aimlessly. He had used the last of his Grace to stop Belphegor and felt like he might need to sleep, if only for a short respite from thinking of Dean. He was mad, and hurt, scared, and lonely. His mouth was dry and that meant he needed water which meant he would have to urinate, and that was the final straw. Cas couldn’t hold back any longer. One perfect tear slipped down his cheek before he was able to pull to the side of a dark abandoned road. He didn’t even know what direction he chose, or if he was still in Kansas anymore. 

The reference that he actually got and used made him choke out a sob. He’d finally done it right and Dean was nowhere to see. 

Years of pain and arguments washed over him, causing him to gasp for air. This had happened to him once before when he was a human, and one of the nice people at the homeless encampment told him it was a panic attack. It had to be that, he couldn’t breathe or stop the tears from streaming down his face. His heart physically ached as if it were slowly cracking, but was beating too quickly for that to be true. His arms felt numb and he was thankful he already pulled over when this happened. 

He loved Dean with everything he had and it wasn’t enough. He’d never been enough and it didn’t matter to Dean that he never stopped trying. If Cas were honest with himself he would say that nothing had been the same between them since he worked with Crowley to open up purgatory. And Cas just spent countless years following Dean around like an abused puppy begging for love. All he ever wanted was to be loved. Maybe Sam loved him out of some misplaced obligation, but never from Dean. 

Anger welled up inside of him, taking the pain he felt and wrapping it up like a wounded bird. This was another lesson he learned from Dean, embrace the anger and shove aside the sadness. It wasn’t his fault Mary was dead, it wasn’t his fault he had to stop Belphagor, it wasn’t his fault Chuck trapped them there and watched them like some campy TV show. Dean had said that every time something went wrong he was there, but damn it, so were they. Sam and Dean had fucked up just as much as he had and he was always there with open arms and forgiveness. Something Dean never gave him––not really. They would move on and there would sometimes be a half baked apology, but they never worked anything out. They just pushed forward and kept fighting because that’s what you did, you never gave up. Well, Castiel was tired of living like a Winchester and he was ready to give up. 

He wanted to lay down across the bench of his truck and sleep until...forever really. It would be so easy to close his eyes and let exhaustion take him, but a nagging voice in the back of his mind––that sounded an awful lot like Dean––told him he would have a sore back and a cramped up neck. So, one last time, Cas decided to push forward. There had to be a motel close to wherever the hell he was. 

He reached across the seat, grabbing his phone. With the last of his energy he would search out somewhere to stay. At least this time he had his own credit cards and vehicle. How many times would Cas have to be a human without a home because of Dean? 

Cas was expecting to see one missed call from Sam, but he was shocked to see several missed calls and a list of texts. His eyes burned and felt swollen, but the tears had finally slowed and he swiped their last traces away with the back of his hand. As he stared down at the illuminated screen, Dean’s name on display at least twenty times. 

Missed Call 11:47 pm Dean

Missed Call 11:47 pm Dean

Missed Call 11:48 pm Dean

Missed Call 11:51 pm Dean

Missed Call 11:59 pm Dean

Dean 12:04 am >> Cas pick up the damn phone.

Dean 12:07 am >> You sorry sack of shit, you don’t get to leave this family. 

Missed Call 12:10 am Dean

Missed Call 12:15 am Dean

Missed Call 12:16 am Dean

Dean 12:20 am >> Come on man. At least tell me where you’re going.

Dean 12:20 am >> Cas, please. 

Missed Call 12:21am Dean

Missed Call 12:21 am Dean

Missed Call 12:23 am Dean

Dean 12:30 am >> Please come home.

Missed Call 12:32 am Dean

Dean 12:37 am >> I’m sorry. 

The anger in Cas deflated. He wasn’t ready to forgive Dean or go back home, but his heart began to piece back together thinking that maybe he and Dean could salvage some part of their relationship. He didn’t want to leave, he didn’t want to feel used and hurt. He didn’t want to admit that the words Belphegor spoke got to him. But he wasn’t going to back down just because Dean said he was sorry. Sorry wasn’t going to make up for blaming him, for sending him to Hell with Jack’s body being inhabited by a demon. Dean wasn’t sucking it up and moving forward about his loss of Mary, why was Cas expected to move on so quickly after his child had died. 

Cas 1:04 am >> Prove it! 

[onthevirgeofdestruction]

A Whole Castle

In Little Ways Part I (The First Short for New Readers) (The Playlist)

Words: 2,775 Warnings: Past Child Abuse Mention Characters: Logan, Roman, Patton, Virgil Universe: Whole Castle Genre: Hurt/Comfort Additional Tags: Patient Parenting

For your “A Whole Castle AU” I noticed that Patton won’t hug/touch Roman or Logan at first. What’s it like the first time that happens? Who initiates it? How long does it take? - Anon A whole castle Patton seeking out cuddles and hugs from Roman and Logan for the first time... 🥺 - Anon Do you think we could get a story where we find out what kinda stuff Patton’s parents did to him? Or could you maybe just summarize it? - Anon (In part I) Does Patton ever worry that Logan and Roman and Virgil will abandon him too or send him back? - Anon (In part II)

omae wa mou shindeiru wanna suffer more listen to the playlist while you’re at it

   It had been weeks since they had gotten Patton. If he wasn’t with Virgil, he didn’t come out of his room, and he avoided Logan and Roman unless they called for him. Logan tried not to get disheartened. He knew Patton needed time to get comfortable. He was acutely aware of how much time it took, considering how many times Virgil ran away. But Patton was struggling in school and Virgil had trouble communicating concepts and Logan desperately wanted to help. He was quite literally trained for this. He tried to teach Virgil how to do so, but when he got put on the spot by Patton’s questions Virgil often faltered and Patton couldn’t follow. Patton needed things presented in very simple language to understand.

   Roman suffered, too. Logan didn’t miss all the bittersweet glances he was hiding when Patton ran off to hide in his bedroom. Patton was having accidents at night because it scared him to leave his room while Logan and Roman were awake. Virgil had been staying with him in his room some nights to walk Patton to the bathroom, but progress was slow. The problem was ultimately that Patton didn’t trust Roman or Logan. He didn’t trust any adults, so Logan tried not to take it personally, but he did sometimes.

   With Patton’s history of neglect, Logan was afraid of giving him too much space. He wanted to make sure he was present in Patton’s life and supporting him. He wanted Patton to no longer have to suffer without parental guidance. But Patton always just curled into himself and talked quietly. His body language all screamed that he was scared and didn’t want to be there. If Logan watched from another room, Patton would play with Virgil and colour and have fun, but as soon as there was an adult in the room with Patton he would clam up. Virgil's presence let him still play, but he would get quieter and less boisterous.

   Logan simply didn’t know how to reach out and say that he and Roman were safe adults. With Virgil, he required enough time and patience to open up. But Virgil did nothing but act out and attempt to incite yelling matches, and this was very different. Virgil required confirmation that they wouldn’t hurt him no matter what he did. Patton needed proof that they cared about him, but he was unwilling to give Logan or Roman the opening to try. Virgil screaming, breaking things, and running away were opportunities to show they would still love and support him. He did not have the desire to relive those times, but he would take any chance Patton would give them. But Patton would not give them a chance.

   Logan sighed as he sat in the den with his book and looked out into the empty living room. It wasn’t reasonable for a 14-year-old to want to spend all of his time with a 6-year-old. He was allowed to want personal space. But without Virgil Patton would not leave his room and even try. They had been operating under the concept that Patton’s room was his sanctuary and his place to always feel safe and go back to when he got stressed. That had worked for Virgil. Virgil often needed his space to deal process. Logan did not think it was working for Patton, though.

   He knew he liked his room and could have fun there. He felt comfortable in there. Virgil spent time in Patton’s room to colour with him and make up stories about his toys together. But Patton didn’t prefer leaving his comfort zone. He needed to try something new. Logan slid his finger in place on his book and got up from the chair, heading to Patton’s room. He knocked three times and paused for a response, but there was nothing.

   “Patton, it’s Logan,” Logan announced after no sound. He opened the door slowly and Patton was sitting on the edge of his bed with his doll. He looked anxiously at Logan. Patton’s shoulders curled in and he slumped his head immediately like he normally does around adults. It was painful to watch.

   “I do somethin’ wrong?” Patton asked meekly, bracing himself.

   “No, you haven’t. I just wanted to ask if you minded if I read in here? Please answer honestly,” Logan inquired. Patton looked confused for a moment and stared down at the floor. He held his breath, waiting for a response that was feeling like it wouldn’t come while Patton nervously gripped his doll.

   “I don’” Patton muttered. Logan entered the room and sat in the glider in the corner, turning on the lamp to read. Patton had moved farther down his bed, putting more distance between himself and Logan. This was to be expected, and Logan tried his best to hide his sorrow. He smiled reassuringly instead and attempted to focus on his book.

   The only way Logan could think of to be there for Patton was to literally be there. Place himself in Patton’s area but continue to respect his boundaries. Show Patton that they were fine with sharing space with him. He wanted to demonstrate that being around adults didn’t mean he was going to get punished. He would have preferred a doctor’s guidance for this, but Patton wouldn’t talk with the doctor either. He cried through the last appointment. This was a simple leap of faith he had to hope would pay off. If Patton became visibly distressed, he would leave. His room would still be safe and his. Logan just felt like he had to try.

   Patton was stiff for a good while. Logan’s progress on his book wasn’t particularly successful since he mostly checked to make sure Patton was not getting upset. Eventually, he got up off the bed and played quietly with his building blocks in the corner. He flinched every time he accidentally made a loud noise, but Logan simply smiled at him when Patton looked over. Logan was genuinely worried that this attempt would have caused a terrible reaction, but Patton’s breathing remained normal. Other than glancing at Logan often at first, he never progressed past cautious. Patton still viewed his room as his comfort zone. Logan didn’t push his boundaries too hard.

   He breathed a sigh of relief. Patton was doing okay. He was building a house with the blocks and sometimes muttered to himself the dialogue between the characters going in and out. He even heard Patton quietly humming to himself while he played with the blocks. When Logan flipped the page and it rustled, Patton jumped and turned to look slowly. He sighed and went back to playing, no longer humming. Patton at least was comfortable with Logan enough to forget he was there. That was more progress than Logan had seen in weeks. Maybe giving Patton his space at first to adjust helped.

   Virgil poked his head into the bedroom. “Hey, Patty, you want a snack?” He proposed and Patton looked nervous and didn’t respond. Virgil furrowed his eyebrows and looked around. “Oh! Dad! What are you doing in here?” Virgil asked, surprised to see Logan.

   “I just wanted to spend time with Patton. He said it was alright for me to join him,” Logan motioned with his head to Patton.

   “Is that right, pipsqueak?” Virgil smiled at him. Patton nodded slowly. “I told you he’s chill. Do you want a cheese stick or something?” He drew a rectangle in the air. Patton nodded once more and Virgil left the doorway.

   Virgil reappeared a couple of minutes later, holding a bowl of chips and chucking a prepackaged cheese stick on the floor next to Patton with a brief wave. He retreated down the hall with the hand sign for ‘I love you’. Patton looked to Logan for a moment before reaching for the cheese stick. He struggled with getting a grip on the packaging and frowned at the stick, making an upset expression.

   “If you would like me to open that for you, I can,” Logan offered. Patton paused and considered it before clambering up off the floor. He came over slowly and held out his arm all the way to pass it over to Logan. Logan picked it carefully out of fingers and Patton backed up and wrung his hands while Logan peeled back the packaging a third-way down so Patton could snack on it. He held the cheese stick out for Patton. He patiently held it in place while Patton considered him. Patton smiled a little and took the stick from Logan’s hand swiftly, then scuttled across the room to where he was playing.

   Progress was progress. Despite the redundancy, Logan would take any opportunity he could to help Patton.

   Every day that one of them could, Logan or Roman made time to just sit with Patton in his bedroom and give him his space. If Patton ever got distressed, they called in Virgil so he could calm back down or leave. Keeping the room safe for Patton was paramount to their attempts. Patton seemed to exalt Virgil. Why Patton thought a 14-year-old could protect him from an adult was beyond Logan, but at the moment it was alright since it was only them at home. Patton didn’t enjoy leaving the house, so for the moment being that was okay. He could teach Patton safety protocols later. For now, just getting Patton to be relaxed near them was important.

   It took a week for Patton to be comfortable making noises around one of them. Roman reported that Patton’s sound effects were delightful. He was the first to hear the sounds louder than a mummer. Logan noticed that Patton liked to have animal saviours in his stories. Patton would also act out scenes from his old house with his toys, and Logan was even happier to have Patton here with them.

   Patton got punished and yelled at for getting in ‘their space’ or a word that he assumed ‘annoying’. This happened often. The child in the story had a sister, and Logan had to assume Patton intended that to be his doll since he was an only child. The children would go on adventures and get yelled at by the parents when they were caught. It was very unpleasant to sit through.

   The adults there also did not get along. He lived with his mother and when his father visited, they mostly fought about child support. From the layout of the house Patton built, it was a one-bedroom apartment and Patton might have slept in a walk-in closet. Being afraid of the dark wasn’t uncommon at Patton’s age, but it suddenly made more sense why Patton reacted so badly to it. He hoped they could get Patton to play in front of Dr. Picani so he could help. This wasn’t Logan’s area of expertise, nor would it be responsible of him to make an attempt.

   Another week of time and Patton wouldn’t sequester all the way across the room from them. He played at the floor-level table, colouring with his crayons or playing with his toys. Logan watched a story with paleontologically incorrect dinosaurs jumping off the table and learning to fly. He barely paid attention to his book that day. It was the first occasion his toys were ever openly supportive of each other in his stories. They encouraged each other and said pleasant things. He didn’t miss how the T-Rex called the velociraptor ‘pipsqueak’ when he reassured that it would be safe and he could fly, too.

   One more week and Patton asked Roman to read him a story, of which he hammed up so much Logan could hear Patton cackling from the living room. Patton started asking for stories from Roman more often after that, which Roman was so moved by he cried and demolished a large bowl of dark chocolate cherry ice cream. Virgil sometimes sat in on storytelling to make fun of Roman, but he regularly got caught up in the stories, too, much to Virgil’s chagrin.

   It was three weeks out when it finally happened. Neither of them had spent time in Patton’s room yet today since they were both busy. Roman was practicing singing and doing a recording in the garage which meant it was just a little loud in the kitchen for Logan to focus on grading, so he was sitting on a cushion at the coffee table with some ‘chill Lo-Fi beats to study to’ playing. On this assignment he asked the students to explain the steps of the equations to verify comprehension, so he had given himself extra work other than explaining where the student went wrong in their math.

   Patton came out of his bedroom and gathered a book from the bookshelf to read. Logan had fully anticipated for Patton to take it back into his room. But Patton climbed up on to the couch and started reading there, instead. Logan froze for a moment. He didn’t know how to react. He knew he shouldn’t emote too enthusiastically and make Patton nervous, so he just tried to return his attention to grading. Patton joined Logan with no prompting or interaction. Virgil wasn’t out here, either, which was his normal requirement. Patton got lonely and decided to spend time with someone on his own.

   Logan chewed on the inside of his cheek. He was unreasonably moved. But he wouldn’t do anything to deter Patton. Patton was used to Logan spending time with him quietly and changing that might be upsetting. He was so glad Roman wasn’t here because if Logan wanted to cry in relief, Roman would most certainly do it. This was genuine progress. Patton was getting more comfortable with them. Logan’s attempts weren’t harmful or in vain. Patton didn’t hate them.

   Patton held the book close to his face while he read, kicking his feet to the music slowly. He seemed to give up halfway through the text and rubbed his eyes. He blinked a few times and slumped back into the couch with a small pout. Logan hummed curiously. Patton got up to put the book away and returned to his room. Logan thought that would be it for today and that Patton would stay there. But Patton came back out with his building blocks chest, dragging it across the carpet. He started playing instead, clicking together pieces to make a nature scene and galloped a horse and cowboy across it with a small whinny.

   This felt monumental. He wanted to scream from the rooftops. He would have to settle on ice cream with dinner. Roman came out of the kitchen and walked into the living room with an exhausted sigh. He made it halfway through the living area when he noticed Patton playing on the floor and his eyes started watering up. Logan quickly shot his finger up to his mouth and Roman nodded hurriedly and rushed through the rest of the room and off to their bedroom.

   Twenty minutes had passed, and Patton upgraded the horse to a unicorn that was fighting off ‘mean people’ when Roman came back out, acting much more composed and holding his composition notebook. He sat on the couch and started working. Likely inspired by Patton again. Roman hummed tunes to himself while he worked, making up a melody. The ‘mean people’ had eye lasers, but apparently those did not affect unicorns. With Roman composing, Patton’s superpowered unicorn, and Logan’s elation, he struggled with focusing enough to grade. But today, that was okay.

   “I like that one,” Logan pointed out when Roman hummed out another slow and emotional melody.

   “Oh! Thank you, darling,” Roman said happily and started filling in lines and writing it down. Logan turned off his music and let Roman work with that steady determination he always got when he wrote a new song. Roman hummed a little louder as he worked, creating furiously. He looked like he was in the zone, but said zone included looking to Patton and smiling instead of his regular intense focus.

   “Um, will you…” Patton trailed off holding a base piece stacked with another one stuck on top of it out towards Logan.

   “Always,” Logan nodded and took the blocks, digging his nail into the side to wedge them apart. Patton beamed with Logan, handed back the two separate pieces. Patton sat down excitedly and went to work making a new scene. The unicorn and cowboy were venturing to an undersea kingdom now. Unicorns can breathe underwater, too. Patton’s idea of unicorn biology was fascinating. Logan chuckled quietly to himself and returned to grading.

>>> To Part II >>>

Taglist: @elizabutgayer @radioactivehelena @ollyollyoxinfree @kanene-yaaay-o-retorno The Taglist Repository Taglist: (ask to be removed) freakin’ everything: @katelynn-a-fan @dwbh888 @royal-stormcloud @ananonsplace @brain-deadx0 @the-grounded-raven @grouptalekindnesssoul @the-hoely-bleach @anvil527up @fanficloverinthesun Human AU:  @somehow-i-got-an-account  @starlight-era  @just-your-typical-trans-guy @potatsanderssides @idont-freaking-know Logince:  @idontcareaboutcanon @silverobsidion-speaks  @a-fandom-trashdump  @averykedavra @k1ngtok1 @potatsanderssides Moxiety (platonic):  @kieraelieson  @star-crossed-shipper Adoption:  @enby-phoenix @idont-freaking-know Foster:  @i-am-not-a-dinner-roll @nonasficcollection @idont-freaking-know Found Family:  @supernovainthenightsky

[horansqueen]

AM Conversations : chapter 44

A Niall Horan fanfiction ; rated MA

CHAPTER 1 || CHAPTER 2 || CHAPTER 3 || CHAPTER 4 || CHAPTER 5 || CHAPTER 6 || CHAPTER 7 || CHAPTER 8 || CHAPTER 9 || CHAPTER 10 || CHAPTER 11 || CHAPTER 12 || CHAPTER 13 || CHAPTER 14 || CHAPTER 15 || CHAPTER 16 || CHAPTER 17 || CHAPTER 18 || CHAPTER 19 || CHAPTER 20 || CHAPTER 21 || CHAPTER 22 || CHAPTER 23 || CHAPTER 24 || CHAPTER 25 || CHAPTER 26 || CHAPTER 27 || CHAPTER 28 || CHAPTER 29 || CHAPTER 30 || CHAPTER 31 || CHAPTER 32 || CHAPTER 33 || CHAPTER 34 || CHAPTER 35 || CHAPTER 36 || CHAPTER 37 || CHAPTER 38 || CHAPTER 39 || CHAPTER 40 || CHAPTER 41 || CHAPTER 42 || CHAPTER 43

NOTES:

-one chapter is her pov, the next is his. -4.1k -im sorry, i never proofread, i hate it. -there WILL be smut. but not only smut. -this is a romance, comedy, smut story. -for the summary, check my MASTERLIST.

- if you want to be notified when this is updated, please message me or leave a comment!

- you can send me questions and theories and comments. tbh they all make me SO SO SO SOOOO HAPPY! and make me want to write more! you can also tell me if there are things you WANT to happen. you never know, i may add it :P

- note for this chapter: i planned more things for this chapter but got caught in the smut. sorry? i want them to have a few more chapters of happiness before the rest of the story happens sooo i hope it wasnt too boring?

requests for this chapter!

Chapter 44 : His chapter

NIALL

"I hate this."

I turned to my girlfriend with a smirk and chuckled a bit before pushing her side gently with mine. She turned to look at me too and made a grimace but I quickly reached for her fingers and grabbed them, pulling her with me. I moved my arm up and made her twirl around just to make her get her smile back and when she stopped, I noticed her lips were curled again.

"You used to love this, come on."

She tilted her head and stuck her tongue out at me before laughing. I pulled on her arm again to bring her closer and closed my eyes when her lips crashed against mine.

"To be honest I never really enjoyed this." she admitted when I kicked the ball her way. "I just liked spending time with you and you were always a fan of football."

"Are you serious?" I chuckled, an amused smile on my lips. "We used to play for hours! And all this time you hated it?"

She rolled her eyes, kicking me the ball back and I stopped it with one of my feet.

"Okay I didn't hate it but it's not something I really enjoy."

"You don't like it only because you're not good at it." I pointed out jokingly, passing her the ball again but bursting into laughter when she kicked it back very roughly and not in my direction. "Don't be a sore loser."

I jogged to get the ball back and when I came back, she shook her head.

"If that was true, I wouldn't do much."

I frowned and looked up at her.

"What do you mean?"

She rolled her eyes and took a step closer.

"I'm pretty average at pretty much everything." she shrugged, stopping the ball again.

"Well you'd give blowjobs a lot!" I joked, bursting into laughter when she shot the ball so hard I had to take a step on the side not to be hit. "More seriously though, you're not average at everything, and there's nothing wrong with being average anyway."

She raised her nose up. "Yea I know, everyone's special is an other way of saying no one is."

"Did you just quote The Incredibles?" I asked with an other laugh.

"Shut up and play."

I laughed again but we started playing in silence. It was finally warm outside, warmer than it usually is in may, and I felt like I hadn't played football in way too long. Soccer Aid was not really far away and I needed to practice but the more we played, the more I realized I wouldn't have much competition if I played witb my girlfriend.

"You're the worst person at football i've ever met." I confessed after an hour.

She grimaced while panting, holding herself on her knees. I smiled more and took a few steps closer, bringing the ball with me. She looked pretty and I was endeared by the fact that she'd make efforts to play with me even if she didn't like it.

"What?" she asked, raising her eyebrows before to get back up. "What are you talking about i'm.. i'm so good I mean..." she stopped and sighed, grimacing again. "Okay, I seriously suck but I mean, you should see me play golf!"

"Oh?" I chuckled again. "You think you,re a good golfer?"

"Na," she raised her nose up again. "You should see me because I suck even more."

This time, I burst into laughter and moved my chin her way, pushing the ball gently her way with my foot.

"Okay, just try to move past me with the ball."

"Actually, I could just... like..." she shrugged, looking up at me. ".. hit you in the knee and i'd probably win."

"That's... totally not fair play." I let out, raising my eyebrows as her lips curled.

"Okay but i'd probably win, yea?"

I glared at her and she just rolled her eyes, shaking her head.

"Fine, fine, but don't be too rough."

I smiled as she kept her eyes on the ball and tried to move past me, pressing both her hands on my chest to push me. I took a step back and laughed, grabbing both her wrists and making her look up in my eyes.

"Darling, you're cheating."

She stared at me a few seconds and her lips curled. I loved theway her eyes sparkled and my gaze dropped to her mouth when she licked her lips.

"Maybe." she whispered. "But i'm winning."

She tried to push me again but this time, I didn't lose my balance and got closer to her. She tried to kick the ball away but her leg intertwined with mine and we both fell on the grass and she let out a loud 'ow!' before she started laughing. She opened her eyes and I realized I was half-laying on top of her with one of my thighs between hers and her lips curled again.

"This is my favorite football position," she whispered, nibbling on her bottom lip.

"That's not a football position."

She rolled her eyes with a chuckle and brought one of her hands in my hair, slipping her fingers in it. These past few weeks had been perfect and I wanted things to stay that way. After the small fight we had had about my jealousy, we had decided to focus on us and if I wanted to be honest, I couldn't remember a time in my life where I had been happier with a girl. I knew that eventually many things would change but I didn't want to think about them. I just wanted to live the present moment and enjoy fun times with my girlfriend. It was still crazy to realize she was not only my best friend anymore but I was slowly getting used to it.

"Mm, shut up."

I smiled more and bent down to kiss her, my lips brushing against her first before deepening the kiss. She brought one of her knees up and pressed her thigh on my ass to push me closer to her, making me laugh in her mouth.

"You're such a horny girl, I swear." I mentioned with a chuckle when she ground up against me.

"Look who's talking, you get hard as often as a fifteen year old." she argued, smiling against my lips.

"I blame you." I whispered, pulling away slightly to look in her eyes.

She chucked low and shook her head, still staring at me, and I didn't want to move. I had never felt like that with any other girl I dated and I had this weird feeling that I would never have this kind of relationship with anyone else in my whole life. The thought of spending my life with her reached my mind and my smile faltered slightly. That idea was still scaring me more than I could admit and I was not sure why. I loved her, I was even in love with her, and we were happy together, but thinking that I wouldn't live anything else with anyone else was not a comforting concept.

"Are you okay?"  she asked, taking me out of my thoughts.

I blinked a few times and focused on her again. Her hair was a mess and spread around her head, her lips were slightly parted and the sun was shining on her skin. I wasn't horny anymore, or even scared. I was just in awe of her, how beautiful she was, and how much I loved her.

"Y-yes..."

She opened her mouth more to say something but my phone made a sound, telling me I had a text message. I search through my pocket and she laughed at the way I squirmed over her, making my lips curl slightly.

"It's Louis." I explained, glancing at her before looking back at my screen. "He wants to go out tonight. You in?"

My eyes found her again and she raised her nose up and shrugged.

"Not really, but you can go if you want." she quickly replied. "I'll just take a warm bath and read a book."

My eyes roamed on her face, not really knowing if that,s really what she wanted. I remembered dating Maya and how I always had to guess what she really wanted. I could never rely on her words and I had to decipher her body expression to know the truth. Olivia was different but the habit to be on guard or even to get defensive was still alive inside me. I tensed and frowned, hiolding my breath as I tried to analyze her.

"Are you sure?" I asked cautiously. "You're not just saying that, right?"

This time, she laughed and shook her head, letting her fingers move from my hair to my jaw.

"If it bothered me, i'd tell you."

My lips curled into a big smile and I bent down to press my lips against hers.

"You're perfect." I whispered before kissing her again as she laughing against my mouth.

I pecked her lips a few times and finally moved off of her to get up. I held my arm out and she grabbed my hand, the warmth of her skin feeling amazing against mine, and I just helped her up. Her body was close to mine and I smiled as she wrapped her arms around my neck, getting on her tiptoes.

"As long as we cuddle when you come back." she requested, tilting her chin up. "Deal?"

She was adorable and despite the fact that we were both sweaty, I pulled her closer and let my hands run up her back under her shirt.

"Deal."

                                              ----

I couldn't remember the last time I drank that much. I tried to avoid any discussion with Louis that would have to do with Olivia because I really didn't know how it would go and I was not in the mood to ruin the friendship I had with him, or the one he had with my girlfriend. I was still a bit jealous of how close they seemed to be when they were together but it didn't seem to happen as often and I couldn't say it bothered me.

"Chillax, mate!" Louis let out with a laugh, making me grimace.

"Did you just say 'chillax'?" I asked, turning to him and making Harry laugh. "Who the fuck are you?"

"Alright, he's still slightly lucid." Liam pointed out, getting up and taking Julie's hand. "We're leaving, was a long day."

I remained sitting while they said goodbye to everyone and when it was my turn, I got up a bit too quickly, making me realize I was drunker than I thought.

"Hey, Neil, you okay?" Louis asked in a concerned tone, putting his hand on my back. "Come on, i'll bring you back home."

He helped me walk until the car and held my head to get me inside. I leaned against the seat and closed my eyes but quickly opened them again when I realized I was getting dizzy and nauseous. We drove in silence and when he finally parked, I let my head fall on the side to look at him.

"D'you need help to get to the door?"

I groaned and raised my nose in a grimace, pushing my back off the seat and opening the door slowly. I heard Louis chuckle and quickly, he got out of his car, jogged to my side and helped me out. I was not that drunk and I knew that it would be better as soon as i'd be inside but he still walked with me to the door and after a few tries, I unlocked the door and we both walked in. I smiled immediately when I saw my girlfriend sitting on the couch, her legs close to her body and her nose in a book. When she heard the door, she looked up and she went from being happy, to surprise, to suspicious. She put her book on the coffee table right next to her glass of white wine and walked to us. I noticed she was wearing one of my hoodie but her legs were bare and I let my eyes run on her before looking up and sending her a smirk.

"Sorry Louis, I didn't expect you to be there."

"It's no problem love, I'm just here to bring you back your boyfriend in one piece." he grinned and she chuckled, rolling her eyes. "Where you should put this dead weight?"

I turned to him with a frown, sending him a loud "Heyyy!" with an insulted tone but it only made him laugh. Olivia brought her shoulders up and I noticed her hands were hidden in the sleeves of her sweater.

"You can bring him in his bed, i'll take care of him."

She followed as Louis helped me to the bed and I grabbed a pillow and sighed as I watched them interact. She nodded a few times and tilted her head, bringing her hand to his arm. I think I heard her apologize and she finally got on her tiptoes to hug him before he left. I watched him disappear in the hall and stared at my girlfriend as she turned my way and sent me a smile.

"So, had fun?" she asked, getting closer to the bed and working on my shoes.

I watched her as her hair fell on the side, hiding half her face and slowly, I brought my hand up to move a lock of hair behind her ear. She glanced at me with a shy smile as she pulled on my socks and I was too focused on her to help her in any way. She moved closer and undid my pants and my eyes fell on her fingers.

"Are you gonna help me?"

I looked up at her, amused by the whole thing, and moved my ass up as she pulled hard on my pants. She held my boxers with one hand as she took my pants off completely and this time, I laughed.

"Are you scared to see me naked?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

"That'd be wrong, you're drunk." she pointed out.

I reached to grab her wrist and pulled gently on it, making her turn around and bend slightly. The collar of her hoodie was falling right in front of my face and I sat straighter to take a look.

"Fuck, petal, you're not wearing a bra." I pointed out, ignoring her comment. "Show me."

I brought my hand up and pulled a bit on it but she just chuckled and got back up. I let out a short groan and grimaced, letting my fingers run on her naked thigh.

"Please, darling, come closer." I almost begged.

"Niall, don't act like a child." she argued, rolling her eyes with a smile.

She put one of her knees on the bed and reached over me to grab the sheets but quickly, I moved my hand between her legs and let two of my fingers rub a few times over her panties.

"Fuck."

Her word came to my ears in a whisper and I let my free hand slide under her hoodie to reach her breasts. I didn't feel as drunk suddenly and I realized how bad I wanted her. We had been dating for a few months already but I still couldn't get enough of her, whether it was physically or romantically and I didn't know why we should stop ourselves if that's what we wanted.

"Can I take your panties off, love?"

As I talked, I brought my fingers in the hem of her panties and pulled on them. I was a bit scared she'd move away but instead, she grabbed the other side of her panties and helped me get them off.

"Bring your knee back on the bed." I asked low. "Please, let me touch you."

She bit her bottom lip and did what I asked, bringing my attention back on her inner thighs. My fingers reached her pussy again but this time, I felt my heart skip a beat and my dick swell.

"You've got such a pretty little cunt, petal." I whispered. "Did I ever tell you?"

Instead to answer, she moved her hips very gently and lightly against my fingers and I reached for her hand with my free one, bringing it slowly and softly closer to me.

"You make me so hard."

I pressed her hand against my crotch and I noticed her lips parting. Her fingers grabbed my cock over my boxers and I groaned at the feeling.

"We shouldn't do that." she murmured so low I almost didn't hear. "You're drunk."

"Not anymore, just a bit tipsy, you know me." I pointed out, pressing my fingertips on her clit and pushing them between her folds. "Besides, I really want to you to ride me."

It took only half a second for her to straddle me and with a smirk, I brought my fingers to my lips and sucked on them for a few seconds, tasting her. She just looked at me motionless until I brought both my hands on her thighs and quickly, she pulled on my boxers.

"I'm supposed to take care of you." she pointed out low, staring down at my hard cock. "Not ride you."

"Oh you're taking care of me alright."

She chuckled and shook her head but didn't answer me. She simply pressed herself against my cock and i felt it slide between her legs. I smiled when I realized how wet she was and she let out a short whimper as she was coating my dick. I felt my tip press against her clit and my hands ran from her thighs to her waist as I helped her move.

"Enough teasing petal, ride me. Fast and hard."

Once again, she chuckled but moved up only to sit on my cock quickly. I felt her tight around me as I entered her and I gripped her waist harder at the incredible feeling, hissing through my teeth.

"Jesus Christ..." I let out, feeling my fingers sink in her skin as they pressed on her. "Never had a pussy feeling as good as yours darling, fucking hell."

She smiled and bent down to brush her lips against mine but I couldn't resist and brought one of my hands behind her head to push her lips harder against mine. I quickly deepened the kiss and moaned low in her mouth until she moved slightly away.

"Really? Or do you say that to every girl you shag?" she asked in a whisper, her lips brushing against mine.

"No." I chuckled. "It's true, you're the best lay I ever hard."

"Mm, liar."

I moved a lock out of her face again and stared in her eyes. I was having a hard time not to focus on the way she was throbbing around me, squeezing my cock hard with her walls, but I breathed in and tried to put the words in my head in the right order.

"I'm not lying. No other girl felt as good as you. Maybe it's the feelings we have for each other or maybe it's how well our bodies fit together... or a bit of both... and maybe a bunch of other things too... but you're the best lay I ever had, Olivia."

Her eyes roamed on my face for a few seconds and she finally smiled fondly at me.

"Can't believe your drunk ass could come up with something like that."

I laughed. "Oh shut up, I love you."

"I love you too."

She chuckled again and sat back up before moving up slightly on her knees. I felt my cock slip slightly out of her and she moved back to get me balls deep inside her again. I slapped her thigh slightly then a bit harder to incite her to go quicker and when she started moving hard over me, I looked down to watch my cock slip in and out of her. I could hear how wet she was and when she let out a few whimpers, I felt myself twitch inside her.

"Fuck, you're gonna make me cum." I mumbled, shutting my eyes tight.

She started moving quicker and harder over me and when I reached an orgasm, I gripped both her thighs and shook beneath her. I opened my eyes as I was cumming and noticed her, her eyes closed and two of her fingers rubbing quickly her clit. The sight was amazing and when she started cumming over me, I felt her clench around my still hard but sensitive cock. It took us a few minutes to get back to normal and slowly, she moved up on her knees and I watched as my cum dropped from her pussy to my stomach.

"Oops, sorry." she apologized as she quickly got off of me.

I smirked and looked up in her eyes, raising my eyebrows.

"Why don't you clean your mess, petal?"

She quickly nodded and reached for the tissue box next to the bed but I quickly grabbed her arm to stop her.

"I meant with your tongue."

She blinked a few times but quickly, she got on her knees next to the bed and stuck her tongue out as I pushed her hair behind her shoulder. Her tongue ran on my warm skin, gathering my orgasm and I could swear I felt my cock swell again when I saw her swallow. I was about to say something when she moved closer to my dick and ran on tongue on the tip before sucking on it for a few seconds.

"You... are..." I said slowly, shaking my head.

"Naughty?" she proposed with a smile.

"I was going to say 'incredible' but yea, that too."

She laughed and got up, bending down to get our clothes and bring them to the laundry basket. She disappeared in the bathroom adjacent to our bedroom and came back a few minutes later with a glass of water and pills.

"Take that and drink everything. It'll help for the headache tomorrow." she ordered, handing me everything.

I groaned a bit but sat up and did what she told me to do before laying back down. She put the glass on the bedside table and moved the covers over me, tucking me in and making me chuckle.

"Do you need anything else?" she wondered, letting her fingers run on my cheek and jaw. "More blankets? Pillows?"

I shook my head frenetically, making her smile more. "Just you."

"Give me a few minutes."

She went to the bathroom again, closing the door behind herself this time and I used this time to move my boxers back up and turn around in bed. When she got out, she turned all the lights off and slithered under the covers with me. I quickly pulled her closer and pressed my lips against her.

"You taste like beer." she pointed out low as my lips curled more.

"You taste like fucking heaven."

She pressed her lips together, trying not to smile too wide but I noticed my words made her happy and I kissed her lips again.

"Was ut fun tonight at the bar?"

"Mmhm, it's a shame you weren't there though." I admitted, rubbing my nose gently against hers. "Louis, Liam and Julie were there. And Harry too, with his new girlfriend." I waited a few seconds before continuing. "Are you jealous?"

"Mm, no. She's a model, isn't she? Is she prettier than me?"

I laughed and rolled my eyes, moving slightly away only to notice she was smirking.

"No!" I admitted, happy to realize she was just playing with me. "I mean yea, she's a model, but she's not prettier than you. She asked where you were, though."

"Why would she ask that?"

"Maybe she wanted to find out if you were prettier than her." I suggested, pecking her lips again.

She brought her arm around my neck and slid her fingers in my hair. I loved when she did that. Nothing felt better than that.

"Did you tell her that i'm madly in love with you?" she whispered, brushing her parted lips against mine.

"Why would I tell her that?" I asked just as low, feeling my heart skip a beat at her words and perhaps a little because of the alcohol still running in my veins.

"Because I am." she replied. I closed my eyes when her lips pressed against mine. "I'm so madly in love with you, Niall James Horan. I love you."

"Not as much as I love you." I argued, pulled her closer to feel her whole body press against mine. "Nothing is stronger than my love for you."

[eeveevie]

Salvation is a Last Minute Business (3/18)

Chapter 3: People Who Do Things

The Valentine Agency duo visit the Memory Den where Madelyn engages with a mysterious stranger in exchange for information about the Railroad. An old friend helps Nick discover alarming evidence that could crack the case against Eddie Winter wide open. Later, Madelyn returns to Boston Common to ‘follow the Freedom Trail’ and bumps into a familiar face.

“I admire people who do things.” - Bruno Anthony as played by Robert Walker (Strangers on a Train, 1951)

x - x

Art for this chapter by @its-sixxers​ :D 

[read on Ao3] ~ [chapter masterpost]

January 15th, 1958

“You can’t trust everyone.”

Madelyn spoke the words aloud, gauging Nick’s response. They were on their way uptown, trying to drudge up any leads they could on Montrano’s assassination. The last few days hadn’t managed to secure any valuable information, even from their most trusted of sources. Even their newest recruit, MacCready, had nothing to offer. The streets were quiet—gripped by fear—just the way Eddie Winter wanted it. Now they were switching tactics and stepping directly into enemy territory by visiting the very institutions run by the Winter crime family. It was a dangerous game, but somebody had to play it.

“Is that what that note says?” Nick asked in response, flicking his gaze to her as he drove. Madelyn was alarmed for all of a few moments—he was a detective, after all—it was his job to figure things out. “You’ve been worrying over that piece of paper for weeks now.”

She looked over the words and the well-worn creases where she had folded and unfolded it, even though the words had been seared into her mind the first time she read them. “I received it on New Year’s Eve, at Faneuil Hall. I don’t know who it’s from. I—I meant to tell you about it.”

He looked amused, which she took as a good sign. “No skin off my nose. Looks like you were following its advice,” he teased. “Pretty enigmatic, if you ask me.”

Madelyn was in full agreement. “Do you ever get the feeling that you’re being followed?”

“Comes with the territory,” he replied before realizing her genuine unease. “Hey doll, if you’re really that concerned, we can—”

“No, no,” she shook her head, snapping herself away from the lingering fear. “I’m sure I’m overreacting. We’ve had some run-ins lately that have me spooked, is all.” She tried to lighten the mood. “You never take me anywhere nice.”  

Nick’s brows stayed furrowed, hands gripped tightly around the steering wheel, her joke soaring right over his battered fedora. “Don’t remind me. Jenny is still cross that I took you to a crime scene.”

Despite the tension, or maybe because of it, Madelyn laughed. “Well, we didn’t know it was one before we got there. She should be more upset about the blood on your socks.”

“I didn’t say she wasn’t.”

At first, when they reached their destination, Madelyn wondered what they were doing at the Olympia Theatre. As far as she knew, it was a reputable establishment, with no known ties to the mobster families in Boston. She stared up at the marquee through the window as Nick rounded the car to her side, opening the door and offering his arm. She took it graciously, still fixated on the theatre signs until he nodded towards a side street with a single, burning red bulb as a guiding light. Luckily, he was just about the only man she trusted to lead her down a darkened alleyway, daring to laugh at the absurdity of it all. At the end of the cobblestone path there was a red painted door with a golden placard that read—The Memory Den.

“You’ve been here before?” she assumed in a playful tone.

Nick looked noticeably uncomfortable, reaching up with his free hand to adjust his tie. “Uh, Jenny brought me here once. We were younger, and Winter didn’t own the joint. It’s not your typical dance hall.”

Madelyn didn’t know what to expect, but when they finally entered she was overwhelmed, all her senses overloaded at once. The music was loud and infectious, crowds of couples dancing close—very close—to the up tempo sounds of the live band. There were sparkling, strung up lights that dangled from the ceiling making her feel like she had stars in her eyes—and what was that glorious smell?

“Blueberry pie,” Nick commented, reading her mind as he took her coat, handing off their belongings to the coat-check boy with a generous tip. “But that’s not what we’re here for,” he quickly reminded. She blinked hard, snapping herself free of the club’s distractions so she could focus on his instructions. “Let’s split up. You work the crowd, see if you can find anybody that knows what’s been happening on the street. I’m going to see if I can find Irma.”

“Irma?” she questioned, with an arched eyebrow. “Looks like I’ll miss out on that sweet-talking that you do.”

He shook his head with a soft, albeit nervous chuckle. Was the illustrious Nick Valentine blushing? “Don’t tell Jenny.”

They separated, Nick disappearing into the crowd as he made his way towards a back rooms, looking for the management who ran the Den. Meanwhile, Madelyn slowly surveyed the room, keeping a mental note of anyone that looked questionable as she gravitated towards the bar. The dancing, however, proved to be mildly distracting, bordering on erotic with the way some couples pressed up against one another. A glimpse of her past—dancing with Nate in a similar fashion when they were young and foolish lovebirds flashed through her mind while her ears burned hot. A tingle crossed over her skin and she practically swallowed the entire first glass of whiskey whole before ordering another.

Madelyn decided cooler heads would prevail and braced herself, letting out a calming exhale as she glanced around the club once more. As far as she could tell, there were no obvious signs that Winter’s men were present. If they were, it was likely they were holed up in the back where Nick had wandered off to. It was her every intention then, to charm the bartender into divulging information when she noticed a man sitting at the end of the bar—somebody who looked suspiciously familiar. Yet, she couldn’t place the man with the dark glasses and black, quaffed hair, or the immaculately tailored suit he wore. He wasn’t a mobster but didn’t look like a regular patron either. Still, she had the overwhelming feeling she had seen him before, racking her memory to figure out when and where.

The stranger didn’t seem to notice her staring but if he did, didn’t seem to care, continuing to nurse his bourbon in that little corner of the bar. And then, he flashed the tiniest of smirks, tilting his glass in her direction. Suddenly a shiver ran up her spine and the anxiety she had been carrying since Faneuil Hall blossomed in full force. She gripped her whiskey tight, shooting back the rest of the contents with only one thought—she needed to find Nick, and get out the hell out of there. Without another moment to lose she moved away from the bar, blending into the crowd of dancing bodies as she made for the back rooms. When she glanced over her shoulder, the man from the bar was not far behind.

Rather than fear, Madelyn felt a rush of annoyance and decided to act. In one swift motion, she whipped around, pinning the much taller man to the nearest wall. One arm pressed across his chest, her other hovering near his throat where she held the end of the hairpin she had yanked free from her curls. With a flick of her thumb, the small blade clicked free, now shimmering in the darkness—a wonderful little present from Nick.

She pushed her stalker a little harder against the wall, boxing him in. “Why are you following me?”

The man’s eyebrows shot up over his darkened shades as he choked out a startled laugh, hands raised in defense. “Maybe I just need to use the can!”

He pointed with both index fingers to the doors just beyond her field of vision, but she wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily. She pressed again, harder against his chest. “Who are you?”

“A priest.”

Madelyn was incensed. “Bullshit.”

“A sailor’s mouth? Adorable,” he commented whimsically, almost as if he wasn’t being held at knifepoint in a dim club hallway. Then again, Madelyn wondered how easy it would be for the man to quickly turn the tables, considering their size difference. The thought had her easing the sharp end of the hairpin a little closer to his skin. He let out a meep. “You sure know how to charm a man.”

“Who are you really?” she asked again.

He wiggled his fingers where his hands were still poised mid-air. “Somebody with secrets to share.”

Well now, that was awfully convenient. Madelyn narrowed her eyes, still skeptical even as she relaxed, leaning away from him. The stranger sighed in relief as she lowered her arms, tucking her hair back into place with the deadly flower pin and stepped away. She looked him over as he straightened his tie, letting out a little cough as he cleared his throat.

Finally she asked, “What kind of secrets?”

“Ah, information isn’t free, my friend,” he replied. When she didn’t say anything, too frustrated by his sudden appearance, he continued with an amused expression. This time, he gestured towards the main room where the live music had grown louder and faster. “I’ll give you everything that you want to know for a dance.”

“No!” she instantly rejected.

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Madelyn hesitated over the man’s proposal in her mind and the mere second thought had her heart racing. What was she thinking? She couldn’t say yes. But wasn’t this all part of the job—the dangerous game her and Nick had agreed to? They weren’t going to corner Eddie Winter if they didn’t take risks, and right now, all she had to do was participate in one dance—not jump off a bridge. An entirely new set of nerves overtook her with the way the man was grinning at her, as if he could sense her inner turmoil. It was all made more difficult by the fact she couldn’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses, her own reflection shining back.

“Fine.”

He chuckled, beckoning her to follow. “Come on snake, let’s rattle.”

Madelyn ignored the jolt that shot through her when he gripped her hands, pulling her into the crowd of dancers as the music intensified. She hadn’t allowed herself to be manhandled since Nate’s death. There had been no intimacy, no flirtatious touching and certainly no dirty-dancing in an uptown speakeasy. Being escorted like a lady by Nick around town while they investigated cases certainly didn’t count. But now, she blamed it on being touch-starved and reeled in her focus. If she was going to do this, she might as well do it properly.

As the two fell into the rhythm of the music, she committed to every placement of her feet, every twist of her hip, every movement of her hands as they slid across the man’s shoulders and arms, the two of them gliding through the crowd as the music blared. He snaked an arm around her waist, palm flat along her lower back while he held her other hand in the air near their heads.

He was still wearing the same, fascinated smile. “Well Charmer, what do you want to know?”

“Do you work for Eddie Winter?” she asked bluntly, ignoring the pet name. Even if she had her assumptions, she still needed to ask.

The man guffawed, spinning her in time with the beat. “If I did, would I tell you?”

“Fair enough.”

“Who do you work for?” he asked, the two splitting apart for a brief moment to circle around one another.

Madelyn didn’t lift her gaze from his face, and she could only assume he was staring right back. She decided to be honest, hoping to catch more flies with honey, so to speak. “Valentine Detective Agency.”

Not the whole truth, but what the nameless man didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. He pulled her back, hands like fire as they glided along her waist to keep her close to him as they moved. She steeled herself, resisting the urge to pinch the nerve in his shoulder and have him writhing like a baby on the floor—Piper had taught her that trick.

“Going after the big dog, hey?” he questioned, not bothering to wait for her response. “Not surprising you’ve run into some dead-ends with all those disappearances. Now with the floaters showing up in the Harbor? Phew. Can’t catch a break, am I right?”

Madelyn wanted to know how he knew about her and Nick’s string of bad luck. She supposed if he knew about the agency, it was easy to hear about the rumors of their constant failures as well, set on by the Boston Police Department. She wanted to know a lot of things, but as the man mentioned the disappearances, she decided to change her approach.

“What do you know about the Railroad?”

The man flashed a low, alluring grin. “That old myth? Everybody knows they’re just a ghost story.”

She wasn’t convinced, especially by the way he seemed completely charmed by the very mention. “I’m not so sure,” she disputed. “What’s this I hear about ‘following the Freedom Trail’?”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“From a very reliable source,” Madelyn answered, almost defiantly. “Somebody I trust.”

“Here’s some advice, Charmer.” He spun her away at arm’s length before twirling her back just as fast, this time so her spine was flush against his chest. The stranger’s breath was hot against her ear as he let out a soft chuckle. “You can’t trust everyone.”  

Madelyn’s brain didn’t catch up fast enough. By the time she registered the words, he was gone, disappeared into the sea of people. She spun around on her heels in an effort to catch one last glimpse, to shout a response, but there was no sight of the mysterious man. Unnerved, she found refuge away from the crowd, holding a hand to her chest as she steadied her breathing. It wasn’t just coincidence—he had to be the one who sent her the note on New Year’s Eve. More questions raced through her mind, sending her spiraling. Just how long had he been following her? And for what purpose? Was she in danger?

“Hey doll,” Nick found her near the lobby, his expression shifting into one of worry when he sensed her bewilderment. With him was a voluptuous and beautiful, icy-blonde haired woman, dressed in a red-sequenced dress with a slit that rested high up her leg. Madelyn could only assume it was Irma. “You alright?”

She shook her head and then nodded, before shaking her head again. “I’m not sure.”

Irma let out a hearty chuckle. “Looks like you met Deacon, sugar.”

“De—who now?” Nick questioned, clearly confused. “Madelyn?”

She decided this was neither the time nor the place to have the discussion with Nick. At least now, she had a name—something else to go on. Instead of responding as expected, she glanced between Nick and his lady-friend. “Did you get what you need?”

“Sure, sure,” he responded, taking her subtle hint. He tipped his head towards Irma with an appreciative smile. “Thank you, for all the assistance.”

“Don’t mention it, Mr. Valentine,” she purred. “Just don’t let your big, softy-self get hurt, all right? And please say hello to Jenny for me.”

Outside, Nick didn’t immediately press for details, taking the time to look over her demeanor to gauge her emotions. Surprisingly, Madelyn had mellowed out, attempting to rationalize her encounter and determine the next best step. Only then did he dare to flash a sideways smirk. “Make a new friend?”

“Find us a new lead?” she deflected, humorously.

Nick laughed, escorting her to his parked Cadillac. “What do you say to more of ‘walking into treacherous lands’?”

Madelyn flashed Nick a teasing grin. “Lead the way, Mr. Valentine.” 

January 16th, 1958

Precinct 8 was the closest police department to Valentine Detective Agency, and it just so happened to be the only precinct in Boston with a somewhat friendly face. Marty Bullfinch—he and Nick used to work together, the closest thing Nick had to a partner before Madelyn came to the agency, and before Marty began hitting the bottle a little too hard. Their last case had them hunting down some golden grasshopper—more of a legend than anything tangible. By the end, the two had gone their separate ways, disgruntled and untrusting of what the other had to offer. It seemed that fate saw fit to bring the two back together at least one more time.

“What is this, some kind of joke?”

Marty’s disposition was alarmingly harsh when he saw the two enter the bullpen, standing up from his desk to sneer at Nick. He looked worse for wear, black hair greying at the sides and thin at the top. He looked haggard, dark lines under blue eyes indicative of a man who hardly slept and drank far too much. Madelyn stepped away as he quickly circled around to where they had been approaching but were now considering high tailing it out of there. Before either of them could take another step, Marty had snatched Nick’s hand in a firm shake, yanking him forward into a tight hug.

He laughed. “Ah Nicky, you old bucket of bolts. It’s good to see ya!”

Madelyn struggled to understand if it was a term of endearment or some in-joke between old friends. Either way, Nick appeared relieved by Marty’s true reaction to their presence. When they separated, the police detective eyed Madelyn with a surprised arch of his brows.

“You replace me with a dame?”

She took no offense, smiling as she extended her hand politely. Marty held it far too delicately, as most men did, sure they were going to break her if touched too roughly. “Miss Madelyn Hardy. Attorney on loan from the D. A’s office.”

“A little more than just a dame, Marty,” Nick said, amused.  

“Right,” he nodded, grin a little more nervous as he adjusted his blue patterned tie. “What are you doing here? You know these guys that I work with all hate you, right?”

Nick didn’t waste any time, removing a tattered note from his coat. “Leave this behind at the Memory Den?”

Madelyn resisted the urge to laugh at the way Marty practically leapt to snatch it out of his hands, carefully confirming the paper’s contents before crumpling it up and tucking it into his jacket. Nick had shown her the letter the evening before, or what remained of it—a torn sheet of what read like instructions, signed by Eddie Winter himself. The only problem? A clear evidence marker that showed it should belong in Boston police custody. Irma had informed Nick that Mr. Bullfinch had been at the club, asking too many questions, but ultimately couldn’t resist the lure of a good drink and got careless.

“God damnit Nicky! Are you tryin’ to get me fired?” he snapped in a sharp whisper. “Worse yet, killed?”

“I’m trying to get you to tell me what’s going on,” Nick replied. “Why does Boston P.D. have evidence of organized crime perpetrated by Winter that they haven’t done anything about?”

Marty’s face scrunched up, clearly discomforted with the entire conversation. “Couldn’t you have come here asking for a drink?” he muttered, shifting his eyes around the room. Madelyn noticed that a few detectives and uniformed officers had begun to look their way. “Follow me.”

“Valentine, you aren’t going to get anything from coming here,” he announced, clearly putting on a show as he led them down a hallway out of sight. When the coast was clear, he ushered them into a cramped storage room with a single, low hanging light.

Nick had the foresight to wedge himself between Marty and herself, glaring at the other man. “This better be worth it.”

“Listen, I don’t know who to trust anymore. All the evidence that we collect from low-level busts, from these hits and murders? They keep disappearing. Changing hands. Sent to different precincts for ‘further analysis’,” Marty rambled, pupils blown wide. He was either paranoid or had seen a pattern so startling it could only be true. “When I ask, they say they are trying to match up handwriting samples, that it will take some time. I say, fuck ‘em!”

Madelyn leaned away, startled by his tenacity. “That sounds like a cover-up. A conspiracy to let Winter get away with his crimes!”

“Nothing concrete. I can’t tell who’s on the payroll,” Marty continued, voice atremble. “If somebody ain’t, they’re too chicken-shit to ask the tough questions. But we’re still sent to keep up appearances. Clean up the scenes, make sure to the people, we’re trying to make Boston a better place.”

Nick remained quiet, jaw locked in silent ferocity. Madelyn knew he wanted nothing more than to see Eddie Winter off the streets—by any means necessary. His eyes darkened, narrowing as he focused in on Marty’s jacket. “So there’s more of these self-incriminating notes, you say?”

The other man was just as good as picking up on Nick’s intentions, shaking his head and hands wildly. “Oh no, Nicky. Don’t get it in your head that you’ll be able to get any of these away from police custody. Got em’ locked up real tight across the city. You think you can walk in here because you know me but what are you gonna do in Quincy? Waltz in there and just…” Marty waggled his fingers for dramatic effect. “Five finger discount the joint?”

Madelyn’s chest tightened at the serious expression Nick wore, his intentions clear as day. “Nick…” she warned. “I—we can’t.”

“Yeah Nicky, listen to the lawyer broad,” Marty said in a panicked tone. “Is going after Winter really worth the trouble?”

“Right now there’s smoke burning all over Boston, clouding her in a thick sea of ash. And where there’s smoke, there’s sure to be fire,” Nick described, more determined than ever. “Do you really want to be here when the house burns down?”  

His former partner swallowed hard. “God damnit—no,” he finally relented, rustling through his jacket pocket to return the scrap of evidence. “I’ve told you everything I know but—if I find out more, you’ll be the first to know.”

Nick nodded, finding the agreement acceptable. “Good. We’ll do our best to keep you safe, Marty.”

As Madelyn and Nick made their way from the hallway closet, down from the bullpen and into the precinct lobby, they heard Marty Bullfinch call out to them again in his ragged voice. “For shit’s sake! Next time, bring be a bottle of whiskey—or else!” 

January 17th, 1958

Boston Common.

Madelyn once promised herself she would never return to the lakeside park or the surrounding neighborhood where her husband had been murdered. She didn’t need to walk the snow-covered streets to relive those moments—every agonizing second still etched into her mind each night when she closed her eyes. It hadn’t gotten easier, even a year later, even with the distractions that life had tried to provide her. She wondered if it ever was going to be any easier, or if she was meant to carry around that pain and guilt forever. Her chest tightened, body going numb as she stared down at the very spot, envisioning the stain of blood and the last flicker of life she saw in Nate’s dark green eyes. Quickly, before she succumbed to her grief, she reminded herself that the past was not the reason she was there.

That morning, Nick had finally confronted her about what had occurred in the Memory Den and she came clean about her suspicions that she was being followed. Madelyn couldn’t determine for how long, but between New Year’s Eve and that evening uptown, it wasn’t a fluke. He raised the same concerns that she did, wondering if there was an underlying danger, but after analyzing the circumstances a little more rationally, it didn’t appear so. The two agreed that if anything, somebody or something was trying to convey a message. While Nick worked in the shadows, tracking down Winter’s evidence files, they decided Madelyn would follow-up on the mysterious stranger. What she didn’t tell her partner, however, was where she was going that Friday evening.

The Common park stood empty, frozen still in the dead of night. Madelyn stood in the chill of the icy winter wind, watching as the hands on her watch signaled midnight. She used her shoe to scrape the snow away from the bronze placard on the ground—The Freedom Trail. Boston. Hundreds of tourists flocked to the site every day, but tonight, she was the sole visitor, searching for a clue. Curiously, there was a small smudge of red paint on the corner, something that looked like an arrow. She slowly moved to the nearby fountain that had been frozen over since Christmas, a low light emanating around the cobblestone. A second sign read—At Journey’s End Follow Freedom’s Lantern—more red paint covering some of the letters.

She was so engrossed with the thoughts of where the red brick pathway led—the graveyard next or was it the statehouse—that she barely registered the quiet footsteps and shadow approaching before it was too late.

“Dame like you shouldn’t be out this late.”

Madelyn swiveled to face the familiar taunting voice, briefly alarmed to find the man from the Memory Den leaning against a nearby light fixture, hands leisurely tucked away in his pockets. He was dressed in the same well-tailored suit from before, albeit with a winter coat to combat the chill in the air, and those damn sunglasses.

“You might be the next disappearance that private dick of yours ends up investigating,” he continued with a smirk.

She knew that it would be a battle of wits with his kind, shaking away any trace of anxiousness from her stance and expression. It would take all the field experience she had—or perhaps just pure instinct to handle the likes of him. At least now she knew his name. “Is this you threatening to snatch me away, Mr. Deacon?”

His lips flattened into a straight line before he let out a hearty chuckle. “How formal! Mr. Deacon, she says,” he shook his head and approached. When he noticed her apprehension, he kept his distance. “Just Deacon, Charmer.”

Madelyn found it peculiar but said nothing. Instead, she focused on the non-use of her name. Her need for pleasantries outweighed the minefield of red flags her mind set up. “Please, call me—”

“Charmer,” he interrupted, repeating the nickname with a grin. “Were you going to say Miss Hardy? Yeah, we don’t really do that.”

Of course he knew her name—Madelyn had to wonder what else he knew, and how much of an advantage this Deacon fellow had over her. When it came to information, she didn’t like it when she was left out of the loop. Rather than expressing her frustration, she peered at him curiously. “We?”

Deacon nodded, removing his hands from his pockets to gesture towards himself. “Me, and my many personalities,” he said with such certainty, she couldn’t quite tell if he was joking. He then tilted his head, jutting his thumb over his shoulder. “Follow me.”

Madelyn hesitated, knowing full well she had no reason to trust the man. A similar feeling to one she felt in the Memory Den washed over her and she stepped forward—be it bravery or impulse, she needed answers—and as Deacon mentioned before, he was willing to provide them. A voice in her mind reminded her that the knowledge she sought wouldn’t come so easily. Information wasn’t free. Still, she wouldn’t have come to the Common that evening if she weren’t looking for something, and she wasn’t about to return to the agency empty handed.

Instead of walking the Freedom Trail proper, Deacon led Madelyn up the streets into the North End neighborhood on the banks of the Boston Harbor. He was quiet, keeping a careful watch on their surroundings—at least that’s what she assumed he was doing, still questioning the purpose or usefulness of wearing such darkened shades at nighttime. Eventually, they came upon the Old North Church, the centuries old building damaged by a nearby property fire a few years prior. She stared up at the impossibly tall steeple and noticed that on the railing there sat a small, burning lantern.

“Freedom’s lantern,” she spoke.

Deacon was impressed. “Now you’re getting it.”

He withdrew a key from his pocket, using it to unlock the rusted chain that would otherwise bar entry to the church. Madelyn took the time to read over the faded plaque set into the red bricks—one if by land, two if by sea—the building was more than a historical site, it was holy ground, offering many heroes of the American Revolution their final resting place. Fitting that it would also be a safe haven for some secret organization. As she followed Deacon inside, she moved her hand over her chest to form a cross—half out of respect at the destruction she saw, half out of the embarrassment she felt for not stepping foot inside a church since Nate’s funeral.

“Ah, et spirtus sancti hmm?” Deacon questioned, his lighthearted tone bordering on offense. She shot him a silent frown, urging him to lead on. It was surprising that after two years, the interior had yet to be refurbished, many of the pews still showing signs of the fire that had swept through. A portion of the upper floor had collapsed, partially blocking the doorway that led to the basement and catacombs, but it didn’t deter Deacon. He waved a hand, motioning for her to move ahead of him. “Ladies first.”

Madelyn shook her head. “Priests first.”

“Oh, I’m going to like you.”

Deacon crouched to avoid knocking his head against the low beam, obliging her request to walk ahead of her down the darkened, narrow stairway. She braced herself along the wall as she followed, watching his every move, suddenly very aware they were surrounded by the dead. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, an irrational thought came to her, telling her this was all an elaborate ruse and she was about to be butchered and encased away in a tomb, never to be seen again. The sheer thought sparked a shiver to run up her spine and she inhaled a sharp gasp.

He glanced back at her, eyebrow raised. “Need me to hold your hand?”

Madelyn was sure she’d ever met somebody so insufferable. Despite herself, she forced back a smile. “I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than showing me a collection of dead bodies, Mr. Deacon,” she said the name intentionally, earning a rise out of him. “Been there, done that.”

“I know,” he answered, walking the two a few more paces towards a larger bronze plate, a replica of the ones that lined the city’s Freedom Trail. Wires connected the plaque to a mechanism beyond the brick wall and the further she scrutinized the space, the more she realized there was a room beyond. Deacon flashed another grin as he maneuvered the seal until it clicked a release. “I give you, the Railroad.”

Beyond the false wall was darkness but before she could move forward, Deacon caught her elbow, saving her from falling off the ledge. She was about to say her thanks when the room was flooded with light, Madelyn raising her arm up to shield her eyes. She squinted through the blinding spotlights to the other side of the gutted tomb to see three figures—two women and a man who looked suspiciously like her neighbor, Robby. Before she could speak, the woman in the center called out.

“Deacon, where’ve you been?”

He added his hand to Madelyn’s in a futile attempt to help block out the brightness. “Jesus, Dez—I said no intimidation tactics!”  

With a snap of her fingers, the lights dimmed to a more reasonable setting, allowing Madelyn to readjust her sight. She pinched the bridge of her nose, wincing as the dark spots slowly faded away. Only then did she realize Deacon had yet to release his grip of her arm—she decided to say nothing about the infraction, for now. What she needed was answers—now.

“Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?” she asked, emphatically.

The woman across the way nodded, signaling Deacon to escort Madelyn across the way to where they could have a more civilized conversation. The others loitered nearby, listening on. Even there, Deacon held onto her and she wondered if he was doing so to keep her put, or to offer her some semblance of familiar comfort in a strange place. Either way, she didn’t bat his hand away, focusing on the red-headed woman as she spoke.

“I’m Desdemona, and I’m the leader of the Railroad.”

She said it plainly, as if it was of no consequence. But there it was—the truth. The Railroad wasn’t some fairytale, made up by Bostonians to scare each other in the night. They were real and apparently operating out from the ruins of the Old North Church. One question nagged at Madelyn’s mind—were they friend, or foe?

Desdemona continued before she could ask. “We went through a lot of effort to arrange this meeting with you.”

Madelyn shifted her gaze to Deacon, to her neighbor Robby, to the silver-haired woman standing guard, and back to Desdemona. “Why? You clearly know where I work, and where I live. A simple hello didn’t suffice?”

“I assure you, you have nothing to fear. In a world full of suspicion, treachery, and hunters—our organization must play our cards close to the chest. In our line of work, we have made many powerful enemies—you never know who you can trust.”

Deacon’s fingers tightened along her arm and she thought about the note—his note and words. Madelyn was only beginning to understand. “What exactly is it that you do?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard rumors,” Desdemona replied, resentfully. “That the Railroad are the perpetrators behind the many disappearances in the city.”

Madelyn nodded, knowing full well she and Nick had added that very theory to their case notes. It was one of the many reasons she had decided to follow the lead downtown in the first place. Desdemona sighed, shaking her head as she pulled a lose cigarette from her jacket pocket.

“There is some truth to the matter,” she continued, the smolder of her smoke casing an eerie glow on her face. “We seek to help people leave the city of their own volition. Battered women unable to divorce their husbands, unlucky bastards who can’t repay their debts to the loan sharks, or sometimes, just a person who wants to get away and begin again.”

“It’s all kosher,” Deacon quipped, as if sensing Madelyn’s tension. “New identities in new towns—and we have an agent within the Boston P.D. who clears the files for us.”

Madelyn was still skeptical of their intentions. “Are you saying you had nothing to do with the last twelve disappearances?”

“That, or the murders,” Desdemona shook her head. “We’ve ceased all activity to switch focus on gathering intel. Haven’t harbored anyone in months. Our main focus now—rather it was—is on dismantling the web of lies being fed to this city. The disappearances, the murders—we might be the only people stupid enough to fight back.”

Madelyn’s heart warmed at the idea, thinking of herself and Nick before focusing on the bigger picture. “Was?”

“We aren’t hiding out in an underground tomb for kicks,” Deacon remarked. “Two months ago—do you remember reading about that gas leak in Lexington that left a bunch of people dead?”

Desdemona hushed him with a wave of her hand, choosing to fill in the remaining details herself. “The media covered up the deaths, as expected. But it was no accident. We were targeted.”

“Who would do such a thing?” Madelyn asked.

“Likely the same people who are out to see that Eddie Winter does not spend another night in prison. The same people who are responsible for making so many Boston citizens disappear in the night, and perhaps the same people who have given you and your detective a string of bad luck.”

Desdemona’s claims were powerful, if true. She motioned to the very man at Madelyn’s side. “What remained of us were lucky to survive, thanks to Deacon. Now that our resources are limited, we have not had as many chances to help those in need or track essential people down.”

“Except for you,” Deacon mused, leaning close to her ear. At that, she finally wiggled herself from his grasp, ignoring his quiet chuckle.

“Why me, exactly?” she questioned. “Despite your limitations, your theory isn’t any different than the agency’s. I’m not sure how we can be of any help.”

“We won’t lie to you,” Desdemona voiced, eyes sharpening as Deacon made a small disagreeing sound. “Your name had come up in our intel too many times for it to be coincidental. So we sent out a few agents to ensure you weren’t a threat. Signaled Deacon to make contact and, well, now you’re here.”

Madelyn wasn’t pleased. “I still don’t appreciate being stalked.”

Deacon shook his head. “Don’t call it stalking. I’d call it…social distancing. Except, well, without the social part.”

“Where is this intel coming from? Winter’s men?” Madelyn asked. If so, she needed to follow-up with Nick, immediately. However, the uncertainty in Desdemona’s expression gave her pause. “Do you not know?”

“We were still in the process of decoding what we had when we were forced to find a new safe house,” the other woman explained. “Many of our resources were left behind.”

“That’s where you come in,” Deacon chimed in.

“Excuse me?”

Desdemona sighed, flicking her cigarette to the ground and extinguishing it with the sole of her leather boot. “Consider this your formal invitation to join our organization.”

Madelyn was caught off guard. She knew immediately what the dangers of joining a fringe, underground society would bring—the unknown frightened her and thrilled her all the same. Yet, she was also aware of how Desdemona and her fractured group were likely the last people left in Boston willing to take a stand against the darkness that threatened to envelop it whole. If she offered a lending hand, it could make all the difference.

“Okay,” she finally agreed with a nod. “I’ll join.”

“Now we need to know what to call you. Secrecy keeps us alive, and code names are a part of that,” Desdemona explained before Madelyn could interject—why couldn’t she just use her own name? “What’s yours?”

She ignored Deacon’s overjoyed expression as he leaned closer. “She’s already got one, don’t you, Charmer?”

Desdemona looked between them curiously, waiting for Madelyn’s approval. With a sigh, she nodded, agreeing to the moniker. At least it was fitting. The expression on the other woman’s face told her she thought so too.

“Welcome to the Railroad,” Desdemona offered a fleeting smile. “Agent Charmer.”  

[angelkurenai]

Hurricane - Dean Winchester x Reader (Detective AU) - Part 12

Title: Hurricane

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Word count: 5,511

Warnings: Almost Smut, Nudity

Summary: With one of the most dangerous serial killers on the loose and in your tracks you have no choice but to rely on the help of the police to ansure your safety. It doesn’t hurt that the detective in charge is the one of the most skilled there is and probably, well, definitely the most charming one you have ever seen. Or that his flirting with you takes your mind off the danger waiting for you right around the corner. & Based on: Imagine detective Dean Winchester flirting with you while working on your case.

Read Part 1 here! l Read Part 2 here! l Read Part 3 here! l Read Part 4 here! l Read Part 5 here! l Read Part 6 here! l Read Part 7 here! l Read Part 8 here! l Read Part 9 here! l Read Part 10 here! l Read Part 11 here!

“He hasn't come back yet?” Sam's voice on the computer made you look up from your phone and you shook your head.

“No, and it's already very late.” you glanced out of the window to see that indeed the darkness had set in for good “He keeps checking in every 15 minutes but I-” you stopped yourself, biting your lower lip and the younger Winchester gave you a soft knowing smile.

“Can't help but worry for the rest of the 14.95 minutes about him.” he nodded his head at his own words and you huffed, looking down at your hands.

“Stop that.” you grumbled and he grinned.

“Stop what?” he raised an eyebrow.

“That. You act like you know everything about my feelings because they- they are obvious like a neon sign in the darkness to the entire world but your brother.” you pursed your lips like a little kid when you heard your best friend laugh with you.

“Well, I wasn't gonna say but-” he shrugged with a fond smile “It is kinda true. Dean wouldn't realize it even if a truck him right in the face. I can't even count the times I've had to third-weel for the two of you and all of that flirting still has not led to a date.” he shook his head, leaning back in his seat.

“Speaking of which-” you chewed on your lip, glancing once more at your phone “I uh I met... Jack this morning and he said some things about Dean that got me thinking.”

“And had you feeling a certain kind of way too, maybe?” he smirked and you glared at him as hard as you could master “I know Jack very well to not even ask what he's spilled.” his smile got softer, no longer teasing you "But if you ask me (Y/n)... you shouldn't put your whole life on hold because you- you assume things are just happening in your mind. You-you don't have a reason to hide it anymore or to forever wait hopelessly in love with the man to tell him what you feel.”

“You say this as if I even have a chance with him, Sam.” you scoffed, trying not to let your hopes get up.

“And you say this as if you don't!” he looked at you in disbelief “(Y/n), he kissed you just two days ago! You told me that yourself, how can you forget that?”

“Yes because I was having a panic attack and he didn't know how to get me back to my senses but that was all!” you couldn't help but feel your heart drop at the thought “I- We talked about it Sam, that very night. He didn't- he said there were no feelings behind it, only him doing his job. He made it clear it meant nothing. So there, I don't think there is much of a chance after all.”

“Wh-what?” he blinked, eyebrows raised in surprise “That idiot, what was he- No, (Y/n), you gotta hear me out! I know my brother, and trust me when he is with you or- or even talks about you it's so much more different than it is with any other woman! Do you think he'd go to such extents to protect you if you weren't that important to him?”

“As a friend, probably! Family even, but let's be honest Sam, if he really wanted something more he'd- he'd have made a move or at least told me something.” you shook your head “Flirting is- it's what Dean does and even if he wants a casual night with me I'm- I'm not up for it. I want something serious and he doesn't, he never does. I don't blame him but I can't keep waiting or trying for something that will just never happen. I- I know I could try but gosh Sam I've hurt enough as it is with the entire case, both physically and mentally, and my heart is or most part in one piece.” you rambled as all your friend could do was stare at you with wide eyes.

You were trying so desperately to convince yourself, though, because sadly Sam wasn't saying it clearly how Dean felt (you partially understood it wasn't his job to) but you were growing impatient at the same time when thinking about that almost-kiss and what it could mean.

“You-” he let out a shaky breath, running a hand through his hair “You two are seriously the world's biggest idiots!”

“Why would you say-” before you could fully question him though your phone buzzed and you didn't even have the chance to blink before you reached fast for the device to read Dean's message.

You heard Sam scoff and mumble to himself something that sounded like “Not in love my ass.” but you didn't question it.

“He- wow.” you breathed out with wide eyes “He found him, Sam! He- Chuck's in town and he will be for a couple days, he says he's sent you the adress?”

“Yeah, I got it. I'm not far away... what is it?” he question with a frown when he heard you snicker.

“Oh uh nothing, it's just-” you giggled “He says he's in desperate need of lots and lots of beers right now to forget the 60-year-old woman he had to hit on.”

Sam rolled his eyes “Why did I even ask? Anyway- Tell him it's better if he returns immediately to your motel room, the less he's out there, the better. It won't take me long to get there and I'll keep an eye out all the time.”

“Alright then, please drive safe.” you whispered and he gave you a nod and warm smile.

“Will do.” he nodded his head “And for the love of, (Y/n), just listen to me for once.”

“Sam” you sighed softly but he gave you a stern look.

“I'm serious. I'm sick and tired of you two pinned over each other and crushing harder than a pair of 12-year-olds and I swear if I see you doubt what he feels about you once more, I'm going to lock you in a room until you've figured it out! Hell, even Jack knows and you keep refusing it's a thing but I swear to you, I'm going to keep up my promise if you so much as dare to deny it once more!”

“O-ok I'll think about it. I will, I promise!” you nearly raised your arms in surrender. Fed-up Sam was the most scary Sam you had seen so far.

“You better.” were the last words he breathed out to you before you were left in silence. You still weren't sure about Sam taking Dean's place on keeping an eye out for Chuck, in case he left his motel, because it wouldn't make much of difference if Amara found any Winchester in the town, she'd instantly know you were all there.

But some selfish part of you worried about Dean's well-being a little more, not to mention him catching some shut eye. You'd heard more than plenty from his nightmare the previous night, along with all of the pacing he'd done, and in more than a few messages he hinted that he felt worn out. That, along with the nagging feeling you had ever since that peck made you want him to get back as soon as possible to test the waters of... whatever relationship you had going on.

“As if you didn't enjoy it! ;)” you typed the reply and with a sigh got up from the chair to make your way to the bathroom. You wished that after a relaxing bath everything would be calm, at least for one night, and you could get the chance to relax and... hopefully forget about the outside world with Dean. Hopefully.

~*~

Walking into the motel room an involuntary sigh escaped Dean's lips. He placed the plastic bags on the sole table in the room and his eyes did a once over of the entire place in search of your figure. For a second he tensed up when he didn't see you around, he took a few long strides and frantically almost now looked around. It wasn't until he heard some shuffling come from the door to his left that he realized he had not thought of the most obvious of all.

Taking a step towards the bathroom he only found himself freezing in his tracks. He knew he should have immediately turned around and pretended he had not seen a thing but his body refused to listen to whatever logical part of his brain was left anymore. For some reason he was reminded of his dream not too long ago and he felt even more compelled to stand there.

The door was slightly ajar, letting him have just the right view inside the bathroom were you had just started getting dressed after a shower. While it was comforting that you were just fine, it wasn't comforting to realize the kind of effect you had on him.

He felt like some sort of weirdo, a creep like the kid he'd caught looking at you through the window of your room all that time ago, but at least in his defence he didn't get off on it or made a habit out of it, not to mention that he knew you. Plus, he didn't do it on purpose. He had only stumbled upon it and he just couldn't pull away from you. But that was a fact from the very beginning: Being so drawn to you. The attraction first to your appearance and very soon to your character had been undeniable from the first moment and if things were different he'd already have taken you out on more than plenty of dates, if you had said yes that is. It didn't help at all that he had spent so much time thinking about the kiss you had shared not so many hours ago or that almost kiss previously the same day, practically had his mind consumed with you.

All in all, it was different – well, he couldn't lie to himself – he was in love with you and he hoped and wished that you felt the same even in the least bit.

He watched the drops of water slide down from your still wet hair to your bare back he felt like he ran out of breath. His eyes watched the way your muscles flexed as you patted your body with a towel, trying to dry most of the water. You were standing all but naked, save for the pair of panties you had on, and he would be lying if he said his eyes didn't skip over your every curve and edge once or twice so that he could take everything in and remember it. He was so tempted to just push the door open and help you, no matter the form or direction that ended up going to. He almost felt his fingertips tingle with the need to touch you.

He was so caught up between admiring you and trying to understand the plethora of emotions swimming through his body that he didn't even realize it when you managed to put on a pair of pants and a shirt and were getting so much closer to him. He didn't even have the time to react when-

“Dean” your voice held so much relief, as if you hadn't noticed how awkward he was being only half a second ago trying to pretend he hadn't been standing there or as if you did know but chose to ignore it completely. Your shoulders relaxed instantly and an easy smile formed on your lips “I was going to wait for you but I seriously felt like my clothes were going to stick to my skin for good very soon so I couldn't-”

“S-Sure after everything that happened you needed something to help you relax...” he trailed off, almost cursing at himself for how unsure he sounded.

“Yeah, I mean, I had some serious thinking to do as well. So I suppo-” but you stopped mid-sentence and it was then he cursed under his breath. You studied him for a bit and after a moment your smile fluttered and your eyebrows pulled into a frown. You reached out and grabbed his arm before he could get away.

“Dean?” Oh how it made him weak on the knees to hear you say his name. You didn't do so often and it was such a shame he realized in that moment.

“Dean?” it was a whisper this time and it distracted him even further in all the bad possible ways that he certainly couldn't afford at the moment “Is everything alright? Something wrong?”

“Apart from the fact that we're hiding from a psycho? No I wouldn't say much.” he cleared his throat, his eyes flying over your form for a second or two and it was possibly the worst decision he could make. Given that your face was flushedbecause of the hot shower, your hair still wet and even your clothes just a bit in a far too sinful way because he couldn't help but want to help you dry up in more than one ways. He hurried to add “I've gotten burgers in case you're hungry. And uh pie, which I know you li-”

“Dean” and there it was again and it made a lump form in his throat. He felt your fingers on his chin, only two fingers slowly turning his face in your direction without even the slightest of protests, but then again you could shift his entire world with just a look “Tell me.”

His eyes did another once over but this time focused on your face where he noticed a familiar, soft and calm look of understanding there. You smiled a bit, taking a step closer as if you weren't already significantly close but who needed to breathe anyway? Certainly not Dean at that moment.

“Alright then, I will tell you.” you slid your hand up his arm “About what I've been thinking about. About what... we haven't really talked about yet and I-” you looked up to meet his eyes again “I want to. Without any lies or hiding anymore. Just a straight answer, don't care if it hurts me. But no lies.”

“Wh-what about?” his voice was getting lower and it made it harder for you to focus.

You licked your lips, not knowing it had the same if not worse effect on him. His eyes followed the line of your tongue and you could hardly fight a small smile of your own when you whispered “What Jack said.” your eyes locked and he stiffened more, if possible “Was it true?”

“Is that the kind of thinking you've been doing in the shower?” he softly and barely raised an eyebrow.

You shrugged glancing away for a mere moment “Would you prefer I was doing some kind of... other thinking? Or maybe something else aside from showering?”

His breath got caught in his throat. There was no mistaking the way your lips curved up into a very flirty smirk, the kind that he'd given you plenty of times before, and there was no doubting the words you said. You had never been more bold than that and it did catch him by surprise in a good way.

“Maybe.” he asked instead, shrugging before licking his own lips “Depends.”

You held his gaze for a few more seconds, your hand slowly sliding up to his chest and up his flannel where your fingers toyed with the collar of his flannel “On?”

It took him some time to reply simply because of how focused he was on your lips - or was it how kissable they looked at the moment? Then again, they always did. Mustering all the confidence he could, although still with hazy eyes said “Me being the focus of your attention the entire time?”

“Why detective-” you grinned easily, leaning closer to him “Don't you know?” he expected you to mock him a bit, tease him but he didn't get any of it. Instead he felt your fingers light as a father trace up his jaw, to his cheekbones before combing through his hair, sliding to the back of his head and tugging softly “I can't take my mind off you... no matter where my hands end up wandering.”

His head was tilted so that was only inches away from yours, your forehead almost leaning against each other's so you heard the sharp intake “You seem rather comfortable talking about it. Do you do that often?”

“Hm that's a secret you'll have to do some more serious interrogation to get out of me, detective. Besides-” you glanced down at his lips “How often do you do it?”

“Are you that interested to know?” was it audible? He had no idea.

“More than I'd care to admit out loud.” you gave him a small shrug and smirk.

“Why?” he asked in a low voice.

“Why... what? Why can't I admit it out loud or... why do I do it in the first place? Because if it's the second one then-” you were almost pressed against him and he'd give anything to press you against the wall in addition “I'm sure you can think of a reason or two.” your voice had dropped to a lower seductive tone and he was barely holding back a sound in his throat that, he was sure, wouldn't sound anywhere near human. Especially with how your eyes roamed over him. He didn't know just how much thinking you had done and for what reason but he didn't want to complain.

“But that's something we were supposed to talk about later.” your voice, softer brought him back to reality again “I asked a question and I did mean it. Seriously... I want to know if it was indeed true.”

“Why?” it came out in a raspy voice, almost frowning “Why do you want to know so much?”

“Is it not obvious? Has it not been from the beginning? I- I know what I've said in the past could be taken both ways but... I told you I did some thinking. Some serious thinking.” you murmured “Besides, what difference will it make if you know the reason?”

“It will, to me yes it will.” it was him who got closer “And you said it: no lies. Yet I'm not getting the full truth here. Tell me why do you really want to know?”

You shrugged a bit, your face burning but no point in backing down now. Taking a deep breath you watched as his own other free hand slid up your bare arm and he took gentle hold of your chin to make you look at him even though you weren't far from it. You let him rub his thumb on your cheek for a second, slowly drifting to your lower lip.

“For the same reason as you.” you whispered, not missing the way his shoulders relaxed. He held your gaze. Not so many words in a simple sentence that meant a million things, a million feelings. For the same reason he wanted to know why Jack's words mattered to you. A reason that was only-

“It was.” his voice came out more confident than before and he took a deep breath as if finally able to breathe “I-it was. You're right, it was. I- I'm– I'm a fool for you, an absolute and total fool for you.”

“What-” you started, the two words he repeated having surprised you but if only for a couple seconds. It was when realization set down on you maybe a bit harder than you had initially expected.

“It was true. What Jack said, everything he said was true.” it was like you could hear it. And even more, everything everybody else said was indeed true

Your breath hitched in your throat and your eyes all-but-widened. Two words that meant so much more than you could ever possibly comprehend. He had never been so open about it and so sincere, more than you had ever seen him before (if it was possible at least) and above all more scared than ever. He looked almost shy about it, at first, but then you realized he too was holding his breath after the words left from his lips. Maybe he had been unable to stop them, maybe he was speaking from his heart and couldn't stop it, maybe he wanted you to know but not yet and maybe... there were a thousand possibilities. You could think about them all you wanted but truth was it would take forever and you had obviously lost far too much valuable time thinking about what could and couldn't be instead of just going for it.

“A-are you going to say someth-” he started, making you realize you had been silent for a bit too long.

“Good.” you cut him off, voice a bit shaky “G-good to know.”

It wasn't what he expected to hear so it did make him frown but when he parted his lips ready to speak, no words came out. Instead every sound was muffled by the pair of your own lips on his. The gasp that left when you took hold of the collar of his flannel and pressed yourself as close as possible to him was simply adorable. You had probably taken the both of you by surprise because this was no kiss fueled by some sort of emergency and it was no kiss happening by mistake. Despite the both of you being in a life or death situation, for lack of better words, this was a kiss happening for entirely different reasons.

Just to wipe out any doubt you might have he started kissing back with just as much passion only three seconds later. A soft laugh came from you when his hands found your middle soon followed by a yelp when he took hold of your thighs and lifted you up with ease. His lips were much more firm against yours. His tongue brushed over your lower lip and you parted your lips to give him full entrance. His tongue was hot on yours and it tasted like coffee. You let him have his way, enjoying it all along, as his wet lips hungrily devoured yours. The low moan that he gave you when you caught his lower lip between your teeth made you grin. You nibbled on it, making him push you harder against the wall and getting a giggle from you.

He kissed you fully on the lips again, stealing your breath away. His tongue was no more gentle as before, if anything it seemed quiet the opposite. “Something tells me-” you panted when he pulled just an inch away “You've been looking forward to this?”

“Don't you know?” he asked in a gruff voice, his lips leaving a wet trail of kisses down your neck. Pushing you against the wall you arched your hips forward, earning a moan from him.

“Figured.” you bit your lip, shuffling to get the jacket off his shoulders “So that's why you've been staring at me through the open door huh?” you grinned when he froze for a moment. You leaned closer to his ear “What, detective?” you kissed it “Thought I wouldn't notice? Then why do you think I put on a small show for?” you trailed your lips down to his neck.

His shoulders relaxed and a deep chuckle made his chest rumble “Seriously, best kind of thinking you've ever done, sweetheart.”

“Life's too short. And I wasted too much time overthinking. I wanna act on it now. But you can thank Jack for it later.” you grinned and he chuckled.

“Besides, don't worry. You're definitely taking me out too but for now- I'm not holding back.” you huffed, trying to get him rid of his flannel as well. He pulled just a bit away, helping you but still giving you a raised eyebrow “What? You saw more than plenty before. It would be only fair.”

“It would, yes. Also-” he let go of you to stand on your feet to, much to your pleasant surprise, pull his black T-shirt over his head “All that for me? How considerate. I might have to repay you for that. What kind of services would you like this time m'am?”

“I can think of something. Can't you?” you grinned, hooking your fingers through the hem of his jeans and pulled him closer to you. His eyes widened once more in surprise but chuckled nonetheless.

“Maybe I could.” his voice was more rough, the look on his face more determined and serious, and it immediately made the familiar feeling set down harder on the pit of your stomach.

His eyes roamed your figure rather shamelessly. The fact that your shirt was still a bit wet and you had no bra didn't help at all in fighting the deep red off your cheeks. The way his eyes darkened made you shiver. Bringing a hand up to rest on the nape of your neck, slowly sliding to your cheek. He leaned in, kissing your forehead as if to make a promise, then your cheek and then your lips where he didn't pull away from. He didn't need any effort to push you down on the bed. With your hands hooked on his jeans you pulled him down, not that he even wanted to stay more than an inch away from you.

Your hips bucked up involuntarily, grazing the stiffness in Dean's pants that made you let out a shaky breath. He pushed your hips with his asking for as much friction as possible but only groaned in your mouth when you showed him you weren't going as gentle as before. His hands came to rest on your hips, squeezing so tight that you were sure it was going to leave a bruise. Compared to any other kiss this one was filled with much more raw emotion, need and a hint of lust.

Your fingers fumbled with his belt with just as much impatience as his fumbled with your shirt. Although he was more focused on getting as much skin contact as possible. You shuddered when his hands moved underneath your shirt and trailed up your sides to your chest, the touch only making your let out a whine when he refused to give you release but only torture you a bit more with his hands. To get him back for the teasing you held firmly onto his jeans, with your legs around his waist, you flipped him over that you were on top of him.

You pulled away just a bit to look down at him licking the remainer of your taste on his lips with a grin always plastered on his face. His hands didn't leave their place from underneath your shirt which was probably just why he was grinning like that. Cheeky bastard. With a mere move, though, you managed to wipe off the smile. With a hand almost over his hard on and a thrust of your hips you had his eyes widening and him choking on a moan that came unexpectedly.

You leaned down but repeated the move, your bodies sliding together, as he practically held his breath. Your lips found his again and with a harder push he couldn't hold back a grunt. A thrust of his own hips came and his hands that had stilled before were now even more frantic over your body. It was almost a game at this point, for everything. Seeing who'd last longer before breaking - at anything whether it was a moan or another thrust - and who would get be the one on top.

So it wasn't long before Dean was laying on top of you again and had you moaning even more. There was no minding it though when you were too busy craving more of his touch. But if he wanted to torture you with his hands so could yours. His rhythm turned wilder, his breath becoming even more erratic, making you squeeze your legs around him.

“Fuck, sweetheart.” you didn't even realize it when he had taken your shirt off. His eyes roamed your figure, dark and filled with want, but they only focused on your eyes in the end which made you relax more than you ever imagined. A laugh came from him, his breath hot and heavy against your neck “You're going to make me come in my pants already, princess. Haven't done that since I was a teenager.”

A giggle burst from your lips and you tightened your hold around his shoulders, your lips brushing over his as you spoke “Did you happen to do that often?”

He let a deep throaty moan when you pressed your bare chest flushed to his but grinned nonetheless “More or less. Although you make me feel like I'm 16 again, I get the impression that if I were to meet you when we were actually 16 there'd be a lot more of that coming.”

“Is there a pun intended?” you laughed as he shook his head “So you're saying, supposing we were the same age, you'd want me the same?”

“Sweetheart, there's no way my 16-year-old-self would let you walk by not even in my wildest dreams.” he said in a husky voice “I'd be crushing on you harder than a freaking teenager. Let alone the rest of the... thinking I would do with you in mind.” he said in between attacking your neck with kisses.

“Oh thinking is what we're going to call it now.” you giggled before your voice lowered and you whispered in his ear “I like how that sounds.”

“If only you knew, sweetheart.” he said breathlessly “I've dreamed about you.” he whispered roughly in between the kisses “Wanted you. Ever since we first met, I was a gonner. Don't know how you did it but damn you got me baby.” he mumbled against your skin as he licked and sucked on your neck now, he chuckled softly “I couldn't stop thinking about you.”

He didn't even realize it when the exact same words came out.

“It's easy to understand... You simply cannot resist me.” the words were innocent to you but not him.

As if electricity shot right through him, Dean's eyes snapped wide open and he pulled away faster than he ever had in his life. He stared at you with wide eyes as it dawned on him. He felt as if he was being pulled back to that dream and it scared him to the bone. Dean shook his head furiously, his breath having caught in his lungs as he stumbled to get back and away from you.

“D-Dean?” your voice was barely filled with pain, rather more worry and it warmed his heart because she would never sound like that. It reminded him it was still you, you that he had held and loved truly. “Dean...” you started but he only got further away, leaping off the bed and you hurried to put your shirt back on, standing on the edge of the bed “Is everything ok? What- what happened? Did I do someth-”

“No” he hurried to say, wanting to kick himself for making you doubt yourself even for a moment “No, it's not- you didn't do anything. You never could, I'm just- Ah fuck.” he groaned dragging a hand down his face before he fell down on the floor, back against the wall and head resting in his hands in defeat.

“Dean” you were almost scared to ask. You slowly approached him, kneeling in front of him and hesitating to place a hand on top of his “Dean talk to me. Something is going on with you... I could help.”

“You can't- you won't-” he felt like all his words were burning his throat, his head swimming with only one thought “You...” he pulled his hands away from his face and looked down “You will hate me.”

“Wh-what?” you blinked in surprise “Dean... I could never- What are you talking about?”

After such a great act of love, after he had already showed you how much you meant to him, after he was ready to experience your love and give you all of his he was sure he wouldn't be able to take it. But he also wasn't able to take the voice in his head, the constant feeling of being on edge and of feeling so much fear.

“I-” the lump in his throat made it impossible to talk, just as much as the fear settled deep in his heart but he knew that it would happen sooner or later and he didn't want to take advantage of your love when he didn't deserve. When he felt like he didn't deserve anything but your hate.

“I let her free, (Y/n). I was the one that set Amara free.”

~~~

A/N: My fave chapter is here! Right before it all goes to hell, I hope you enjoyed these lovely moments! Feedback is welcomed and tags are sadly closed!

@getlostinthedark @cap-just-said-language @catwithyellowwings @word-scribbless @carryon-doctor-lock @nightriver99 @timelady1140 @spideyxstan @agentstarkid @all-will-be-well-love @simpleboox @jaylarkson @cookiechipdough @alltimekp @a-dorky-book-keeper @givemebooksorgivemedeath @skeletoresinthebasement @sammy201d @akshi8278 @amandamdiehl @hobby27 @deans-baby-momma @musiclover1263 @feelmyroarrrr @sofreddie @skymoonandstardust @babygabrielle-blog @woodworthti666 @gunpowder-and-smoke-inofficial @erule @lizwinchester16 @itslunabitches @itsquies @justkending @fiftyshadesofrebel @love-my-not-natural-babies @outsider-underwater @deans-baby-momma @kaylinfayezink @x-waywardaf-x @keshaia @moonlight-on-her-skin @happy-little-marvel

[pi-cat000]

MSA time travel idea (part 31)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Vivi POV, 8, 9, 10, Lewis POV, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, Lance POV 18, 19, Lewis POV 2, 21 , 22, Vivi POV 2, 24, 25  Lewis POV 3,  Mystery POV , Vivi POV 3, 29, Lewis POV 4

Part 32: here

.

Why? Why couldn't he have just stayed dead? WHY? All he has done is make things worse! So much worse. Sure, Lewis is alive, but at what cost…and for how much longer?  How much more can he lose? Actually, no, he doesn’t want an answer to that question. Arthur used to think nothing could top being murdered by his best friend in terms of terrible experiences and, oh boy, has he been proven wrong.

“Hey…”

Wrapped in his carefully constructed cocoon of self-loathing and mourning, Arthur ignores the irritatingly cheerful voice. He is beginning to hate the sensation of sound vibrating in his chest.

“HEY!”

Of course, the demon can’t take a hint and leave him to suffer in silence.

‘What,’ Arthur projects sullenly, pulling his attention forward. As much as he would rather drown in despair, he doesn’t want the bastard to start threatening Lewis’s family again. After failing a few more times at crashing the van- Arthur doesn’t even get the merger satisfaction of freezing his body for a millisecond now the demon is on alert- this really is the very least he can do.

“We’re here. I thought you might appreciate being coherent for the visit.”

Begrudgingly, Arthur finds the motivation needed to focus on their shared soundings. Surprise, surprise, there is a lot of flat desert. However, now the expanse is broken by a single structure; Kingman Mechanics, sign dark, sitting directly ahead of them. It is the same half red-brick, half corrugated iron building it has always been, yet the exterior is cold and uninviting. It looks like one of his frozen memories, drained of all colour and lifeless. Arthur watches with mounting discontent while the demon parks and strolls up to the front door.

Wind throws dust at their eyes, forcing the demon to squint in shared discomfort. The gusts are stronger than usual, and, if Arthur were to hazard a guess based on the darkening clouds, he’d say there was a storm coming in. Overhead, grey blackens, the day begining to transition into night. Lines of police tap, positioned across the closed garage door have been pulled free and are waving about like demented hands. No sign of police, though.

“Hello! I’m home,” The demon sings out, flinging open the unlocked door, “Oh wait…I forgot. There’s no one here…”

Arthur knows the sentence is meant to upset him and hates the stab grief, which immediately shoots through his chest. The fact that he’ll never see Lance come ambling out of the side door to greet him and welcome back is painful.

“At least…There should be no one here,” The demon continues, examining the space with a more critical eye, glancing back at the open door, “That was definitely locked when I left.”

Arthur is too busy drowning in another wave to depression to care much about the reception desk, which has been pulled apart and emptied across the ground. Usually, around this time of day, Lance would either be working late or packing up, grumbling about the low lighting and his poor vision.

Casually, the demon meanders over, examining the mess left scattered on the floor. Loose paper rustles underfoot, disturbed by their approach.

“So someone’s been through here…I don’t suppose you get a lot of thieves around these parts?”

When he doesn’t respond right away, the demon prompts with a more impatient, “Are you with me back there? ”

‘No...No thieves,’ He musters, mulishly compelling his attention onto the room. Neither he nor his Uncle had been particularly vigilant about locking doors, and they’d never had an issue. Why does it even bother asking when It has all Arthur’s memories? The demon knows everything he does.

A loud snort of amusement. They move further into the building. The door to the hall is open, revealing the narrow passage leading to the equally narrow stairs. Empty and dark.

“Please, I didn’t bother keeping even half the crap you had stored up here. You think I want a few hundred hours’ worth of pathetic pining after dumb friends, or re-runs of the same repetitive daily routines, over and over and over? Trust me, I chucked that shit right out.”

They pause at the entrance to his Uncle’s small, cramped office. Like the reception, the space is a mess. Someone has turned this room as well.

“I just keep the useful and really juicy stuff. Sides, it’s not like you’re going anywhere if I ever need a refresher.”

His Uncle’s shotgun is missing. Okay, that catches his attention. That shotgun had been a fixture of the office for almost as long as Arthur can remember. The reason why the door had been religiously locked during his childhood and teen years. It’s weird to see it missing. Are the two shots kept handy in the desk drawer also missing?   Had his Uncle used them?

Of course, no sooner has he thought it, the demon is checking the draws for the shots. They are, indeed, missing.

“Now, who would come all the way out here just to steal some old gun?”

Arthur has no idea why, but, apparently, this question is rhetorical because the demon has started prowling the space, peering into filing-cabinet and at misplaced, scattered files. A patch of rustic discolouration marking the inside of the door catches their eye. Arthur feels that disconcerting predatory interest return as it picks out several other, similar, splotches. The demon reaches forward, running a finger over the nearest patch, bringing the hand up to its mouth. Arthur gets a flash of phantom nausea at the metallic taste. Blood. What he wouldn’t give to be able to throw up right now.

“Hm…” An irritated sigh, “and this is why I hate loose ends.”

The demon wipes the hand clean on Arthur’s pants. Obviously, the blood meant something more to it than to Arthur. Whoever had been here had either hurt themselves searching the room or had some pre-existing injury. Also, this had to be at least a day old, meaning the person was probably gone.

“Yes, most likely,” The demon answers his unvoiced question unprompted, “Suppose I haven’t killed as many people as I thought...How inconvenient. And here I was hoping to hit the road before sunrise, but it looks like I’ll be hunting around for this moron.”

‘If this road trip so important we should just go right now.’ He throws in half-heartedly, because damnit if a small part of him still hopes that he can stop this.

“Ha. I like the enthusiasm, but it really is nothing urgent.”

One last frown is directed at the bloodstain before they spin to head back into the hall and up the narrow stairs.

“A lot has changed in the last hundred years, and I’ve got a little catching up to do which requires a bit of travel. And then there’s this time-travel mystery to sort out. Lucky us, with a double-strength soul, this body isn’t going to burn out not nearly as fast as it should. It’ll give me the time I need to make this little partnership permeant.”

‘...,’

“The hassle I go through, I swear. Humans don’t even live that long to begin with but, all to often, you idiots just pass on for no good reason. Half the time, I’m not even siphoning that much energy. So weak.”

With the sky coved, there is bearly any natural light coming through Arthur’s bedroom window, making the room gloomy like the rest of the building. Undeterred, the demon starts to rifle through the narrow wardrobe pressed against the opposite wall, putting an end to their ‘conversation.’ While his body goes about chucking clothes onto the bed and sorting them into piles, Arthur just stares. ‘Make this little partnership permeant’…He expects the words to make him sad, sadder, or angry, but he only feels numb.

“Ugh. Your fashion sense is terrible. This baggy orange stuff is about as unflattering as clothes can get.” 

Arthur watches his body spin and pose in front of the dusty full-length mirror he has jammed into the back on his wardrobe, having spent a good half hour trying on various combinations. Black seems to be the colour of choice. No surprises there. The black shirt, dark blue jeans, and black jacket are all old and worn down. He hasn’t worn this stuff in years, meaning the clothes are a whole lot tighter than Arthur really likes. 

“I suppose this will have to do.” The demon examins a lime green scarf, and Arthur can feel the contempt directed at the only green coloured thing he owns. A gift from someone, he can’t remember who. 

“At least it’s not the ugly orange life vest.”

They make eye contact in the mirror, and Arthur mentality winces, wishing he could look away.

“You know, I bet we’d look pretty good with a proper body maintenance routine and some nice clothes. I’ve definitely had more unfortunate hosts.”

“Something to do later. Can’t be killing people 24/7 after all.”

They pack up one of the clothing piles in an old school backpack, slinging it over a shoulder before strolling across the landing into his uncle’s room. 

The demon moves with purpose, knowing exactly what it wants. Lance’s hidden stash of cash which he keeps for emergencies and his wallet. Unlike the reception and the office, both their bedrooms seem relatively intact. If the ‘thief’ had been through, they hadn’t done much to disturb anything. Maybe, if Arthur could find the motivation to care, the inconsistency would be interesting or cause for investigation. He doesn’t care.

The demon frisks the room, mentally tallying up the cash it finds. While it counts the money, Arthur’s attention is drawn to the crumpled up photo, the corner of which is poking out from Lance’s wallet. It’s of him and his uncle standing before a beat-up van. His van. This photo was taken on his eighteenth birthday. The van had been a gift. Numbly, he watches.  

The demon flips through Lance’s assorted business cards in loose motions, pulling out the photo alongside them. Money is left in the wallet, and anything deemed unimportant is dropped to the floor.

‘Wait,’ Arthur objects suddenly when they come to the photo.

“Hmm?” The demon hums, continuing to sort.

‘Keep it…please,”

A pause. “Keep what? This?”

Their vision centres on the photo. The demon pinches a corner, pulling it free, scanning it with minor interest.

‘Yeah,’ Weird how quiet he sounds, considering he isn’t actually speaking out loud.

Humour and mild exasperation follow.

“Sentiment. Thought we’d decided not to get too attached to things.”

Arthur’s not really game for another round of verbal bashing and beratement, so he doesn’t bother responding. He really wants the photo. He wants it so badly it's painful, but he’s not going to beg. Not for something like this. Some of his longings must be filtering through because the demon roles its eyes in an exaggerated movement.

“You know what? Sure. Whatever,” It shoves the photo back into the wallet, flipping it shut and shoving it into their back pocket, “We’ll keep it. Don’t say I never did anything nice though.”

Arthur reframes from voicing his opinion-nice what a joke- too relieved about having something of his Uncle’s. A reminder. 

The relief doesn’t last long.

“Speaking of sentiment. I think it’s time we go kill Lewis’s cute little family,” A fist pump and they head down out to the stairs. Fear, frustration and panic, quickly case away all other emotion. It’s his Uncle all over again. Not again. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked for the photo. No. Arthur’s sure it wouldn’t have mattered…

‘I can’t help that I care,’ He whispers miserably, a small part of him wishing desperately that he didn’t and hating himself for it. 

“Oh, I know.” They walk back out the door, slamming it shut, heading towards the van. The gravel crunches. The landscape is almost black, the invisible sun having finished setting. 

“Say bye…we’re not coming back to this dump.”

Gusts of wind rip at the newly acquired jacket. 

‘…’

“Oh, right. Haha, you can’t speak. Well, it’s the thought that counts.”

.

NOTE: HELLO! Just want to take a second to thank the aprox 20-30 return readers for this fic. I have definitely noticed u (like 30 parts in and it would be hard not to). I want to say that I am always pleased to see u return to like/reblog updates. Very motivating. This fic has been spinning its wheels while I attempt to build tension so I hope u enjoy the payoff.   

Also! thanks to the people who drop in every now and then to bulk like/reblog all the parts they missed. It never fails to catch me off guard (in a good way) when I sign in and see 10+ notes from one person. 

Part 32: here