#i actually have no idea what these Germans are yelling at each other about but here we are I guess the pure vibes would suffice

[belicotruth]

Some bird au i did half way through season 2. haven’t figured out which species they belong to yet (so maybe just wing au)

[alyygx]

Just Hold My Hand

Paring: Eugene Roe x Reader

Requested?: Yes, by @xxluckystrike

Warnings: None really. Just lots of fluff. So much fluff, in fact, you'll feel like you're floating on a cloud!

A/N: This is the first fic I've written in quite a long time so please be kind. I hope you all like it! And if you do please tell your friends or maybe even reblog! And then shoot me a request while you're at it. 😊

The cigarette smoke hung thick in the air as you sat smiling to yourself watching the rowdiness around you. These boys sure know how to enjoy themselves and Lord knows they all deserved it. Especially after everything this war had put them through. You were nursing your second glass of wine sitting on a stool that was brought outside. Everyone was gathered at a clearing in the woods just next to the beautiful building you were all staying in while in Austria. Spiers had forced everyone outside after the noise being made interfered with him concentrating on his paperwork. But there was no stopping the celebration. VE day was definitely something that needed celebrating. After all, it had been a long time coming. Sometimes you felt as if the war would last forever; that somehow this was just your life now, an endless cycle of blood, violence and death. You were one of the medics in Easy Co. and though you would do practically anything to take care of your war family you frankly couldn't stand seeing one more soldier wounded, bleeding, or in pain. It completely broke your heart in two. At that you grabbed your glass of wine and downed it, attempting to chase the thought away.

In the distance of the buzzing party chaos you heard a voice, sounding a lot like Luz but slurred, summoning you to come and join in the festivities. It's not that you weren't extremely thrilled that the Germans surrendered, far from it, you just really weren't a party person. The majority, if not the entirety, of the men were thoroughly drunk at this point and you were just ready to get out of there. You shook your head 'no' in Luz's direction and slid off the stool you were sitting on.

"Sorry guys. You're having way too much fun I'm afraid I couldn't keep up tonight." You said chuckling.

Luz just shrugged his shoulders and with a smile turned back to the group. As you turned to walk away you collided with another warm body only to discover it was Eugene.

"Where have you been hiding? I've been sitting here waiting for you!" You giggled, looking at your fellow medic waiting for his answer.

You and Gene had steadily grown closer and closer over the course of the war. Him being one of the few soldiers in company who could completely understand the things you were going through and vice versa. You both had finally admitted your feelings for each other and made things official shortly after Bastogne. With everything that happened in that God forsaken forrest being worried about rejection suddenly seemed like a stupid reason to not share what you feeling. Eugene apparently felt the same way too because you both ended up just blurting it out to each other at the same time and then laughing at your shared impatience.

"Sorry darlin' I didn't realize the location of the festivities had been changed. Walked around inside looking for everyone for 20 minutes before Spiers yelled from his office for me to look outside." He said smiling at you.

After glancing around at the other men and their drunken antics though his smile fell.

"You don't actually want to be here do you?" You asked, secretly hoping he wanted to do literally anything else but hang around this party.

"What?" He said suddenly as if you snapped him out of a thought. "Do you wanna get out of here?" Gene asked, taking both of your hands in his.

A wide smile spread across your face as your grip on Gene's hands tightened. He could tell by the look in your eyes that you had an idea.

"Yeah, and I think I know just the place to go."

Letting go of one of Gene's hands and pulling him along with the other you both started walking away from the festivities and onto a path that would lead you deeper into the woods. After walking together for several minutes, your hands never parting, you arrived at the lake. The moonlight was reflecting off the water and the mountains lined the background standing tall and regal topped with snow at their tips. It was the clearest night you'd seen in awhile. Not a single cloud in the sky and the stars shining so big and bright they looked like literal diamonds glistening out from a black background.

"This has been my favorite spot since we arrived here." You said staring out at the view. "But I had no idea how beautiful it would be at night"

Your eyes never left the view, Gene's eyes, however, never left you.

"Well, let's enjoy it then." Gene said, slowly beginning to sit on the ground, pulling you with him by your still entwined hands. You both laid close to each other, your hands still never parting.

"I use to do this all the time as a child." Gene told you. "Just laying, staring up at the stars at night. Really has a way of helping you figure things out."

You nodded your head in agreement. Allowing your thoughts to wander. To take you to what life will be like after you finally get to go home. You had told Gene that after you took a quick trip to see your family and gather your things that you would move to New Orleans with him. You're far from having second thoughts but now that Germany had surrendered you were beginning to get even more nervous about it.

"Gene?" You ask softly.

"Hmmm..." He hummed in acknowledgement.

"What if they don't like me?"

"Huh? Who mon cher?"

"Your family. I've never lived so far away from home before. What if they don't like me?"

Gene just smiled. His thumb beginning to rub circles on the back of your hand.

"Oh chérie. You have nothing to worry about. I know for a fact that they're going to love you. If for no other reason than because I love you."

This made you smile. Gene had always had a way of soothing you no matter what you were upset about. It's one of the many reasons you fell for him.

"Things are going to be so great once we get home. We might have to stay with my parents for a little while before we find a place of our own. But once I get a job and save up I'm gonna buy you the prettiest house in New Orleans. We'll fix it up real nice inside and get everything set to start our lives together!"

Gene was squeezing your hand now in such a manner that you couldn't help but feel his excitement. It was getting you hopeful for the future too. But at the same time you were still nervous. He seemed to pick up on this because he suddenly stopped talking.

"You ok?" He asked turning to face you.

"Yeah." You started. "It all sounds wonderful, it really does. It's just the idea of being in a new place so far from my family. I'm still a little nervous. It'll be different then being away from them like I have during the war because this time it'll be by choice. Or at least more of a choice than I felt I had when I enlisted." You sighed.

Gene just looked at you with those soft eyes of his you loved so much. Eyes so full of caring and compassion you could've just leaned over and kissed him right there.

"Everything will be fine mon amour. Any time you feel nervous or unsure all you have to do is just hold my hand. I promise that with time it will feel like home. We'll build our home together, we'll build our life together, and then once you feel comfortable we can get married." Gene smiled a hopeful smile while fishing his free hand in his pocket and suddenly pulling out something shiny.

You gasped, your eyes growing wide. It was the most beautiful ring you had ever seen.

"Well, what do you think?" He asked, holding the ring to hover over your left ring finger. "Will you marry me?"

Tears now filled your eyes. The whole thing felt like a dream. A dream you never wanted to wake from.

"Of course I will." You answered, the tears now running down your cheeks.

"We're gonna make it chère. I promise. Doesn't matter if the times are good or bad, all you have to do is just hold my hand."

[carionto]

Human sciens is simply fuck around and find out

So when the humans give a tour of the labs so alliance members see what the crazed apes are up to, suddenly BOOM the halls shake and lights flicker but the tour group is fine while the one giving the tour says something like "Ah thats the sound of progress" all while there's people rushing by with guns and extinguishers yelling about a code Red and subject escape

[22/09/23] Nice, that is a fun trope to work with. I think I'll leave the dinosaur crew be, and have some other questionable research station make a debut with an "accident". [23/09/23] Idea pops in my head after several rejections - Human-alien hybrids (because you can't cross-breed because that's not how biology works, but Humans are still curious, because of course we are) [24/09/23] Actually, no, I don't like that: 1st - fairly common as is; 2nd - doesn't feel right with the Humanity I'm writing out. No, I think a better avenue is, since Earth in this verse is gonna collapse in on itself in under a century, experiments towards terraforming methods, since that's a requirement and thus a literal blank check for any- and everything. Yes. (mad scientist voice) Yeessss, I can see it taking shape! [25/09/23] It took some kind of shape indeed.

_____________________________

Biology is the most diverse and complicated field of research with literally no end in sight. We will eventually discover every law of physics, and, yes, chemistry also has the potential for limitless combinations, only in biology can you find and create circumstances where trillions of different organisms co-exist and co-operate, compete, and can create a stable and self sustaining system. Not to mention mutation and evolution across generations, as well as the myriad of changes and adaptations a single organism can undergo in its singular lifespan. The potential is truly beyond the bounds of imagination.

Since biology is an omnipresent field in every civilization, it is only natural that it didn't take long before a Human led joint Coalition Flora research station was established - the Efflorescent Sneezewort Yarrow.

It is also natural that not long after that the non-Human staff sent this panicked message:

The Humans are insane! First, there is no regulation for anything beyond decontamination, which would be fine, if - IF - they didn't sometimes just bring the test materials out with them anyway for, and I quote: "Let it experience the outside world" or "Introduce it to my other plant buddies." The head researcher, instead of reprimanding this clearly dangerous behavior, just lets it happen. As a matter of fact, he almost exclusively and constantly ingests a plant-based gaseous substance through a device he calls a "bong" and locks himself for days on end within a random lab and, as he put it while looking at the ceiling: "Feel out the connections. We're all part of one whole, and only by becoming one with the roots of the soul can you truly attain the understanding of the spirit, and unlock the true calling of each sapling." As I draft this emergency message, there is a shuttle going through decontamination with two squads, one is an extreme disaster containment unit, the other a full on military special forces unit. With heavy duty weaponry. The worst is what they had to say: "Yeah, sometimes one of these nutcases gets the idea to combine plants with animal genes, and, to be fair, with access to the whole Coalition database and samples, I get it. There's a lot of really weird and cool creatures out there on each planet, makes most people at least think about playing scientist. Anyway, it's gonna be fine, the code said it was just a Mini HoH, so we'll be done in under an hour and you can all go back to doing your thing. I just hope we don't have to burn the thing this time, the prof said it's something like a dandelion and a small rainforest actual almost-lion from one of the real far out planets, but it's got bunny ears and the nose of a German shepherd, sorta. I think that's kinda neat." By the way, HoH stands for, and I am not making this up and the translator did get it right - House of Horrors. They claim it is just an homage to a piece of old Human culture. I don't believe them. I refuse to be a part of this madhouse for any longer than I must. Send a vessel and return me to a normal laboratory setting. I will now incubate myself in a cryo-pod to prevent any more exposure to these "scientists". Thaw me out in clean garbs and with two interns already doing real work on new medicines.

[juiceboxezz]

Commodus : Fall of Rome Part I - Ortus

I never knew the touch of common cloth. The purple recieved me as I came forth into the world, and the sun shone down on me, man and Emperor, at the same moment.

My father ruled as Emperor, and while there were eight boys who were destined for the throne before my twin brother and myself, I was the only one that survived infancy.

So, he declared me his heir.

I am five when my father gives me the title of Caesar. Caesar Commodus. Fit or unfit, I was to rise to the throne, and the first son by blood to inherit the title.

Quickly—and perhaps, desperately—my father groomed me to be his successor. He gave me Rome’s best education, the most excellent tutors valiantly attempting to teach me Latin, Greek, Rhetoric, but all that they said went in one ear and out the other.

“Who cares about this?” I grumbled once, earning my instructor’s furious glare.

“Impudence!” He had barked, scolding me for my ‘laziness’, before launching into another lecture, no doubt dreaming of a student who might actually listen to his pointless lesson.

I could practically feel the disappointment rolling off my father every time he cast a glance at me. Disappointment that I did not follow in his footsteps, disappointment that I could not care less about his precious philosophies, disappointment that I cared far more for gladiators and the Games, despite how unbecoming they are seen as. But what was he to do?

I was his only inheritor. To disinherit me was to invite bloodshed.

Often times, I would catch glimpses of other boys my age. Commoner boys my age. They would play games; some days it was dice, some they would juggle, and others they chased each other across the streets. Their joyous laughter reached my ears, and a feeling I could not name rose in my chest. I would sneer, my fists clenching, before turning and returing to the palace, and my endless lessons.

At eleven years old, I remember being summoned by my father. Begrudgingly, I ceased my play of dice in my quarters, and begin my long walk to the throne room.

As I moved through the endless halls, I imagined gladiators in the ring, their swords striking like thunder, the roars of the crowd. Blood, sweat, triumph, defeat—it all painted a picture far more vibrant than the solemn grandeur of the throne room I was about to enter.

I might have waved off the servants who scurried near, or perhaps I snapped at them for daring to cross my path, I do not entirely remember, but I recall yelling rather colorful words at someone. I held no care for how indecent the words were.

I was to inherit the throne, and they are below me. They should learn to listen to me now.

I reached the throne room, looking at the carefully stoic look on Father’s face as he sat upon his low-backed throne. He had probably heard of my playing with dice. Or perhaps one of my instructors had issued a complain about my ‘impertinence’. Something of the sort.

“What is it, Father?” I asked impatiently.

He sighed wearily, but made no comment on my tone as he usually would. “You know about the wars with the Germanic tribes, yes?”

I did not answer for a moment, racking my brain. Before nodding. A lie, but I doubt Father noticed.

“Good,” he replied. I cannot tell if that is a lie too. “Our forces are in a standstill, at the moment. And I will be leaving to aid them, and you are coming with me.”

I drew my eyebrows together. “Why?”

“Perhaps you will learn something.”

I did not share that thought. I opened my mouth to protest, before stopping myself. On the surface, it sounded like a reasonable idea. If I were to go to war with my father, I would be better known amongst the people, no? And if I were to be a good addition, more people would love me, no?

With feigned reluctance, I heaved a sigh and nodded my head. “Whatever you say, Father.”

It seemed Father noticed the feign, since he fixed me with a stern look of warning. An overreaction, in my opinion. Would he himself be as excitable about being dragged to a war at eleven years old? I doubt it.

After a moment of silence, I asked, “Are we done now?”

Father, with yet another sigh, nodded. “Pack only what you need,” he said as I turned toward the door.

I did not have much of anything I exactly wanted to bring with me. All I brought in my loculus were four dice, and a wooden horse—I recall being told the history of that horse, something to do with the Greeks. I do not remember it entirely. Nor did it matter.

One moment led to the next, and I was climbing into the back of the carriage’s cart. The coachman sat calmly on the chair, his reins steady in hand. The dark-maned horses neighed, and whinnied as we approached.

Despite my efforts to contain it, a spark of excitement flickered in my chest. Chariot racing had always seemed exhilarating—dangerous, yes, but thrilling all the same. Yet, just like the gladiators in the arena, such pursuits were unbecoming for a Crown Prince.

My tunic wrinkled as I sat down, lazily leaning back against the hard wood, but I did not mind the discomfort for once. For the window by my face made up for it.

Sure, it was probably far from the true thrill of chariot racing. The wind in my hair, the speedy clopping of hooves, the cheers of the crowd. But this, I supposed, was as close as I would come. For now.

I was vaguely aware of Father settling on the seat opposite me, but I paid him no mind. He did not pay me any mind, either.

The carriage jolted, then began to move, its wheels gliding over the smooth stone road. Outside, I could hear the cadence of the horses’ hooves and the muted hum of voices—the murmurs of commoners as they turned to watch us pass.

Their eyes caught on me, wide and shining with admiration. Yes. The common boys stared openly, some with gaping mouths, others with envious longing. My reflection stared back at me in the glass, and I found a grin had spread across my lips. I leaned into it, basking in the warmth of their attention.

That, and being in the royalty equivalent of a chariot? A slower, grander thing, but a chariot all the same. For once, I was glad I hadn’t argued with Father about coming.

I leaned closer to the window, feeling the faint breeze that slipped through the gap. The Forum’s towering columns came into view. For a moment, I imagined myself standing there, adorned with laurels, the masses cheering my name.

Emperor Commodus, I mused. It fit, didn’t it?

“Sit properly.” My father’s voice cut through my thoughts.

I sighed and straightened, the grin fading as quickly as it had come. His gaze was fixed on me now, filled with something I could not name. Worry? Frustration? Somehow more disappointment? Perhaps all three.

“Do you think this is a game, Commodus?” Father asked, though he made it sound more like a statement. I knew he already knew the answer.

“War is not the Games,” he said, his voice low. I rolled my eyes. “There are no cheers for the fallen. These soldiers are—”

“Throwing away their lives to protect my— our city,” I interrupted. I hoped my father would not comment on my slip of the tongue. “I understand all this, Father.”

Father closed his eyes, and let out a long sigh as if the interaction drained him. “We will see.”

I turned my attention back to the window, half of my attention on the city that was to be mine, and the other on my reflection.

I am not sure when I fell asleep, but when I opened my eyes, the clear blue skies were engulfed in a deep shade of indigo—only a few shades darker than the purple border of my father’s toga. Stars pierced the darkness.

The scent of sweat, leather, and iron hit me as soon as we stepped out of the carriage. Soldiers walked about the camp with confident strides, bowing their head in greeting to me and my father as they passed. My father returned with a nod. I returned with nothing. I did not feel the need to.

I only looked at the scars some of them had—on their legs, arms, a few on their faces. I wondered how they had gotten them, if fighting on a battlefield was anything like fighting in the Colosseum arena. I eyed the few gladiuses being sharpened, imaging what it would feel to have one in my own small eleven-year-old hands.

“Stay close,” my father instructed.

I nodded, though my gaze continued wandering. There were men gathered around fires, others surrendering to their barracks, and some exiting a building that I assumed was the valetudinarium with fresh bandages.

Hospitals here are pathetic, I thought. I could not imagine being treated in the same room with slaves.

We reached the command tent. Inside, maps were spread across a massive table, marked with tokens and scratches that I barely understood. Father began speaking with his generals, their voices low and serious, but I barely paid attention… no, scratch that, I paid zero attention.

I wandered to a corner, idly fingering the edge of a helmet that sat on a stool. The metal was cold and heavier than I expected when I lifted it.

“Careful with that,” an officer snapped sharply.

He speaks to Crown Princes like that?

I turned to glare at him. “Do you know who I am?”

The officer’s jaw visibly clenched, but he bowed his head. “Apologies, Caesar.”

I kept my eyes on him for a moment, like a predator stalking prey. His apology meant nothing. He still dared to speak to me as if I weren’t the son of Rome!

“Do not speak to me as such again.” I narrowed my eyes. The officer nodded.

I turned with a smile tugging at my lips, satisfied with his obedient answer.

After a few minutes, I began growing unbearably bored. And I let out a loud yawn. I noticed my father’s gaze on me, as I turned the helmet over in my hands. Good.

I lifted a brow, feigning confusion. “What?”

A sigh leaves Father’s lips. “I am sure you are weary, Commodus,” he said.

I am not, I thought, though I inclined my head in agreement. It was easier that way, to play the dutiful son in moments like these. Perhaps he would send me to the PRaetorium to settle in my chambers—anywhere, so long as it wasn’t this stifling room, the acrid smell of oil lamps filling my nostrils and the droning voices of strategists speaking of topics I held not an ounce of interest for.

“Escort him to the Praetorium,” Father ordered.

Relief blossomed in my chest, swift and bright, but it soured just as quickly when I saw who would carry out the order: the insolent officer from before.

“I would like a different officer,” I demanded.

Father’s eyes darkened, his eyebrows drawing together. “You do not decide that.”

“This one disrespected me,” I retorted, my voice rising, pointing angrily at the young man. “He deserves punishment, not the honor of being my escort.”

Once again, Father let out a long sigh, as if my words wore him down. “You.” With a languid wave of his hand, he turned to another officer, the one standing to the insolent man’s side. “You,” he said, his tone clipped with finality. “Escort Commodus to the Praetorium.”

The chosen soldier straightened at once, nodding sharply. “Yes, Dominus,” he said, before fixing his gaze on me, waiting patiently for me to move. Yes, this one was better.

Dominus, the soldier had addressed my father. Lord.

Emperor Commodus, I imagined once more. One day, that would be my name. My title. And I would ensure that insolence like today would not go unanswered.

“Get proper rest,” Father piped up as I took a step forward.

I faltered for a moment. It was not like my father to show concern. He cared for me as an heir, the next in line to his throne, not as his son.

I did not respond.

I left the tent, letting my escort open the tent flap for me and lead me to the Praetorium. The sky had turned a dark shade of blue, during my time in the command tent. There were only a handful of stars in the sky, the rest muddled by the dark smoke of fires.

The Praetorium is significantly worse than the palace, but from the few glimpses of the soldiers’ barracks, it is much better. Once again, I cannot imagine having to live in such paltry quarters.

There are only a few times in my life, that I am glad for the purple I have been born in. This is one of them.

I followed my escort under the red-tiled roofs. My eyes lingered on the rather large courtyard for a brief moment, before I began towards my chambers. The room is pitiful; a measly bed against the wall, a table and chair, and not much else.

“You may leave,” I told the escort, and he promptly nodded, muttered a farewell, and left my chambers.

A loud sigh escaped my lips. I slid my satchel off and propped it on the back of the chair, before collapsing on my bed. I did not think I was tired, and yet, as soon as my head hit the pillow, I fell into a dreamless sleep.

Every day was nearly identical to the last. I would wake up at the brink of dawn with my father, and follow him to his meetings. Occasionally, he would have a soldier—a different one each day—act as my personal guard, and allow me to roam the Legion’s camp. Those days, I remembered, were my favorites. The few times I actually had fun in my short eleven years of life. I would watch the soldiers spar and train; the ring of iron blades against each other echoing throughout the air; muscular, lean bodies of men moving with a fluid, practiced grace; for once, the smell sweat did not bring me the urge to wrinkle my nose.

Swiftly, days turned into weeks, weeks to months, and a year passes.

Twelve years old is when I first order someone dead.

Do not judge me just yet, reader. My reasoning is justifiable.

My day had been going nothing short of horrible. It was the day of the week where I had no free time. I had to listen to men far older than myself speak monotonously, and keep myself from drifting off if I did not want a sharp scolding from my father. All I wanted was to return home. I did not ask to be brought along to this dispute, nor did I want to take any part in it.

But, I persevered. And as the sun began to dip under the horizon, painting the skies in hues I never knew existed, I laid in my room, rolling dice mindlessly.

Warming a bath should not take this long, I thought with a scowl.

As if on cue, a knock vibrated through my door. I rolled my eyes and pushed myself into a sitting position, calling out to who I hoped was one of the slaves behind my door to come in. A moment of hesitation. Why? I did not know.

The door opened with a soft creak, a sound I deeply despised but had grown used to over the year. The attendant was a grim-faced man, little more than an expandable slave in armor. He bowed deeply as he entered. “Your bath is ready, Caesar.”

“Finally,” I muttered, rolling off my cot. I straightened and gestured for the attendant to lead the way.

The legion’s bathhouse is a pitiful thing—a tent pitched over a dug-out trench, filled with water heated over crude fires—as is most things in the encampment, but again, I had grown used to it. Hell, enjoyed it. Perhaps the soldiers were not gladiators, but they were similar enough. It felt good. To be like them. Only a little bit better.

I swept into the tent, brushing aside the coarse canvas flap. Steam billowed faintly in the air. Far less steam than there usually was, but I was too exhausted to comment on it.

Stripping off my tunic, I stepped into the water. Instantly, I stopped, my foot recoilling. It was lukewarm. Tepid. A shiver crawled up my spine.

“Is this a joke?” I hissed, my words cutting through the steam.

The attendant paled. His hands trembled as they clasped before him. “I— it was the fire, Caesar. The winds—!”

“Silence!” I snapped, the building frustration over the day evident in my voice, even to my own ears. I stepped fully out of the water, small droplets falling onto the dirt floor.

The slave lowered his head. “Forgive me, Caesar!” He pleaded. “The fires—I will stoke them again, at once!”

“No.” I looked up at the other slave, a significantly older but apparently competent man, standing by the flap of the tent. I had half a mind to snap at him as well, for allowing such things but I held my tongue for once.

Instead, I commanded, “You. Take him. Drag him to the fires he so poorly managed. Let him feel the warmth he denied me.”

“A— Are you sure, Caesar?” The old man stammered.

“Are you doubting your future emperor?”

I may not have wanted to be emperor, but the title had perks I would not refuse.

“N— No, no, sir,” he quickly corrected himself. The attendant begged and pleaded, but I did not falter. I merely watched as the old man pulled the younger out of the bathhouse.

My father scolded me for that.

“What were you thinking?” Came his sharp words the moment I stepped into his room, a towel draped around me. Despite myself, I flinched.

“Father—”

“Silence, Commodus.” His voice was never this stern before, I noticed. He does not take kindly to sending incompetent slaves to the furnace, it seemed.

“Father, I—” I attempted to reason still.

“I said silence,” Father quickly repeated. He let out a long sigh, that I am sure was meant to sound disappointed, but all that came to my ears was a man exasperated with his son.

It was not that far from the truth, really. At least, I didn’t think so.

“You will come with me to the battlefield tomorrow,” Father spoke.

“What?” Came my immediate protest. Surely, he was not serious, was he?

As much as I utterly despised the unbearable meetings, awful stench, and pitiful facilities, I enjoyed being here. I enjoyed watching the soldiers train. It was the closest I had ever gotten to anything remotely related to gladiators.

“You will not fight.”

I groaned. That was even worse! What was Father thinking? I was to go to a battlefield, and not fight?

As I opened my mouth to protest, my father raised a hand and spoke before I could. “Commodus, you are scraping the surface of twelve years old. And you have not recieved—nor will you ever—the proper training to be a soldier.”

“But, Father—”

“My decision is final. Prepare your things.”

[fizzing-imagines]

Neighbourly Love | Billy Hargrove x Army! Reader

Notes: This is based on an idea that @billyssillywilly gave me. I had a fun time writing and researching for this, it's one of my favourites so far!! Please note that reader is female, muscular and has long-enoigh hair ro put into a military bun in this. For my readers who know Call Of Duty: I might have added some people for y'all 😚 Enjoy!

Warnings: Mention of war, mention of sex

Word Count: 5.5k

You regretted not agreeing to a gated community now more than ever. While you were on deployment in Iraq for almost a year, a new neighbour moved in next door. You didn't think about it much at first, all you wanted to do was catch up on months of lost sleep. And you knew a lot of young couples or singles who liked to party lived on your street, but at least they kept it on the down low so you were actually able to get some good rest. After three days in hibernation you wanted to sit in your backyard with your K-9, Missy, and drink a Mojito but you didn't have any produce for obvious reasons. So it was time for a trip to Target. And while walking to your car that's when you saw him, your new neighbour, for the first time. He was fixing something on his tires, shirtless and in a pair of jeans. "Billy?", you yelled over.

You've lived in California all your life, originally in Los Angeles but then you moved to San Diego for your job. Your entire childhood was spend in Los Angeles, always in the same house with the same neighbours: The Hargroves. Their son, Billy, used to be your friend until he started bullying you after his mother left LA. Ever since then, he has been your sworn enemy, and Billy thought the same of you. Not only did you two insult each other at any chance you got, you also tried to one-up each other academically all the time. Then, he suddenly moved away in October 1984. That was seven years ago, and now he was back.

"(Y/N)?" He looked up at you while walking over to his fence. "Shit, what are you doing here?" He looked you up and down and so did you with him. "I live here. What are you doing here? Didn't you move?" Your eyes fell on a big scar on his chest, then you noticed multiple others on the sides of his torso. "Yeah, I was in Indiana.", he answered. To not be rude, you looked back into his eyes. "Some shithole town called Hawkins. Came back to LA three years ago, moved to San Diego six months ago." Was he all by himself? Well, his father has always been a piece of shit so you couldn't blame him if that was the case. Either that, or he miraculously found a wife in 'some shithole town called Hawkins'. "Still as charming as ever.", you scoffed at his lingo. "Yeah, well, what are you gonna do about it?" He laughed in a dismissing manner, checking you out once more. "You still on your military trip?" Coming from a family with war veterans, you've been wanting to join the airforce since you were a child. Even back when you and Billy were still friends you did. "My 'military trip'" you put those words in air quotes "is my career now. I'm an army EOD." Billy was quiet for a bit, clearly thinking about something, before saying "EOD where the explosive-guys, right?" He should remember all this, you talked about nothing else as a kid. "Explosive ordnance disposal, yes.", you said. "Well, I have to go. See you around." You turned around to walk to your car, which made Billy check out your butt before you hopped into your red Ford F250.

Three hours later and with a full trunk of Target bags, you pulled back into your driveway. As you went to unload your groceries (and the homeware you couldn't say no to), loud music came from the house next door. As you expected, it was Billy. Light was coming out of his garage with half his car parked into it. You didn't pay attention for now, but even after you unloaded and unpacked you heard his music blasting from his garage. He didn't change, after all. "Come on, Missy.", you cooed while getting your german shepherd on her leash. It was time for a walk anyways, so you might as well drop by and ask him to turn down the music. As you left your front door and started walking down the street with your dog on your right. "Hargrove!", you yelled while walking up his driveway. "Hey, Hargrove!", you yelled once again while somehow letting your drill sergeant voice come out. He peaked up from underneath his car, and grinned in a mischievous manner when he saw you approaching. "Already missing me, sergeant?", he asked while getting up and walking towards you. You noticed that he now wore a white tanktop that was smeared with motor oil. "Could you turn the music down?", you asked him as nicely as you could. "What was that?", he asked while looking at you like he didn't hear you - you knew he did. "Can you turn the music down?", you repeated. "What?", he repeated, leaning towards to you. "Can you please turn your music down?", you finally said in a frustrated tone. Billy grinned, said "Sure thing, sergeant." He walked over to his radio, turning down Puppet Master by Metallica. "Didn't know you were such a party pooper, sarge. Saw you at so many party's in our high school days." You rolled your eyes at him. "I'm not a sergeant, I'm an officer.", you said. Missy, who was next to you, kept looking at Billy. She could feel how tense you were and would snap at him if you gave her the command. "Sorry for stepping on your toes, officer.", Billy said with a malicious grin. "Is that all?" You nodded and gave Missy a non-verbal command to stand back up. "That's all. See you around." You turned on your heel and went your way for your walk. As you went down the street, you could hear him turning up the music again.

And he did it for weeks. It drove you insane. You couldn't sleep properly anymore, not even nap during the day, Missy was irritated, and not even you inviting your army friends over helped. "Alex, I swear to god, he's driving me fucking insane.", you said while mixing your third mojito of the night. "He keeps blasting his fucking music, and now he's started inviting the neighbours to his house for partying." Your colleague and friend Alex Keller listened to you rant about Billy while silently drinking his beer. "Every time I ask him, he just says Yes Sergeant and does the complete opposite." Alex handed you a new plastic straw, still not saying a single word, which you used to drink your cocktail. "And when I do finally sleep, I see nothing but the bombs and I can't even get a good night's rest." Now he was finally talking. "Should I go talk to him?", Alex asked. Just as he said that, Metallica could be heard from next door. You thought about his offer while sipping on your mojito, and did agree. Maybe actually talking would help. So Alex went over.

Billy always provoked you with intentions. After noticing how much you came over to ask him to turn it down, he blasted his music regularly. Sure, it wasn't why he wished you'd come over but after your decade-long rivalry he couldn't exactly find another way to get your attention. But what he knew is that raging jealousy came over him every time he saw Alex, who he nicknamed Your Buddy, pull up to your house. He suspected that something was going on between you two, so naturally he turned his music even louder when he saw his jeep in your driveway. And now, as he saw your buddy approach his property, he could barely contain his anger. Thanks to Neil, he swallowed it down and got up from the tires he was fixing.

"Hey, uhm, Billy, wasn't it?", Alex said to him. Billy nodded and reached his hand out for a handshake. "That's me.", he answered while the two shook each others hands. "Can I help you?". It took everything inside Billy to pull himself together. "Actually, there's something you can help (Y/N) with.", Alex said as he leaned against his garage. "Listen man, she's having a really hard time sleeping. And we got back from Iraq just a week ago, (Y/N) needs all the sleep she can get to deal with what we went through." Billy didn't know this, and some form of guilt hit him right in the gut. "Shit, well, I didn't know that." He truly didn't, but he wouldn't admit to turning his music up all the way just to mess with you. So he turned around to quiet down his radio. "I was actually in an accident a few years ago, it really messed with my hearing so I don't notice when something might be too loud." Alex gave him an understanding nod. He was very oblivious for an officer, because while the accident part was true he lied about his hearing. The mindflayer didn't affect his hearing in the slightest. "While I got you here, I have a question.", Billy then added. "Sure, what is it?", your colleague asked him. It was scary how easy it was for Billy to win people over. "Are you, like, (Y/N)'s boyfriend or something?" He needed to know. That was an information he needed for his peace of mind. Although he wouldn't know what to do it the answer was yes. "Oh no, man. I'm just her colleague. I just check on her so she gets help with working through with what she saw in Iraq. Felt like I was the best one to do that after I left my leg in Borjomi." Alex lifted part of his left pant leg up so reveal a good look at his titanium prosthetic leg. Billy, honestly, didn't care. Even though that guy was probably a war hero who saved thousands of lives, all he cared about was the fact that you weren't dating him. But he couldn't say that. "Well, thank you for your service.", he said to him. Alex gave him a smile and a nod before reaching out his hand again. They shook hands, this time as a goodbye, and your friend said: "Always a pleasure, have a good one." He walked back over to your house, where he told you about the encounter.

Billy did actually stay quiet for the most part. Sure, he threw a party here and there, but in comparison to the hours of blasting music that was absolutely fine. However, now he kept complaining about your dog. While Missy wasn't a sweet dog, she was calm enough. You trained her twice a day, even off-duty, to keep her senses sharp and play-wrestled with her to get her energy out. Of course she'd bark from time-to-time, especially while training. But she was really calm besides that. "Does she ever shut up?", he said over the fence as you were playing on the ground with her. "More than you, at least.", you replied while still playing with her over who gets the rope. Secretly, Billy thought it was adorable. Especially now, where you were in shorts and a tank top he could clearly see all the muscles you've build up since he was gone - you've changed so much. The way the muscles in your arm flexed when you tugged on the rope made him feel things he didn't know he had in him, and seeing yout thighs flex as you dug your heels into the ground gave him a big mental boner. "Come on Missy, are you a K-9 or a mouse?", you said while laughing, to which she finally tugged the rope out of your hands. "Good girl, Missy!" You gave her a treat before dusting yourself off. "Why did you name her Missy anyways?" You didn't even notice that Billy was still watching you until he asked that question. "I wanted to name her Missile at first.", you said while looking at your K-9 chewing on a pig ear. "But then I thought that calling for Missile in the middle of potential war ground wasn't the best idea. So I named her Missy, as a short version of Missile." Billy made a humming sound as a response, to acknowledge that he listened to you. "Well, anyways, if I turned down my music for you I'd appreciate if you kept your Missile under controll." You rolled your eyes at him and went back to paying attention to Missy while Billy went back to whatever he was doing before. But that normal, calm question made your heart ache. 

You had a crush on Billy in your childhood, until he started bullying you. It was that little child puppylove, but those feelings were real. And if he hadn't changed so much over the years you'd probably be in love with him right now. So that conversations, a normal conversation, stung like a wasp. Missy noticed and went to lick your hand. "You'll always be with me, won't you.", you cooed at her before petting her head.

After two weeks back in San Diego, you went to work at base again. Mostly paperwork about what you did in Iraq, while simulation looking at possible new deployment options. Being away from Billy was also good for you, you didn't have to see him all day or listen to his bullshit. Because ever since that conversation your feelings for him came back in some weird, twisted way. You tried your best to shove them away, even trying to get over them by hooking up with your fellow soldiers.

It was Simon Riley today who followed you home. "Third guy this week, new record.", Billy yelled over while you and Simon stepped out of the cars. "Fuck off, Hargrove!", you yelled back before getting inside with your colleague.

While you and Simon were going at it, the mood was ruined by Billy blasting Metallica once again. He couldn't contain his jealousy, being so angry at your fellow soldier that he somehow wanted to make him go away. There was no way he could physically get into your house, so he did what he does best; annoying you with his music. "Fuckin' hell.", Simon sighted, still inside you. "Told you I had an annoying neighbour.", you said while being out of breath. "Not lettin' this go to waste.", he simply said before continuing.

But he did it so well that Billy could hear you. And the rage inside of him just grew and grew more, it was almost unbearable to him. He let it out by working out, but even that didn't help the way it normally does. And christ, once he saw Simon walking out of your house he could barely contain himself. Knowing that Simon was also a soldier, and twice his size, he went back inside to not do anything irrational.

Weeks passed, but your feelings didn't. They were still very present, and only grew during any semi-normal conversation. So when he stood in front of your door, asking to stay for three days, you were floored. A pipe in his house bursted and flooded most of the ground floor. He got a few clothes out, but had to leave so it could be repaired. Stupidly enough, you agreed against better judgement. "What is that, your trophy wall?", Billy asked when he saw your living room wall; the formal picture of you in army uniform, the badges you earned, pictures of you and Missy in different countries. The one that struck him the most was the one in the middle: You on your graduation day, with your veteran grandfathers and veteran dad, all in uniform. "Your dad was in the military?", Billy asked. You stood next to him and looked at the picture with him. "Dad was in Vietnam from '69 'til '73. Was never quite the same afterwards." He had to be honest with himself, he did not remember that piece of information from your childhood even though the two of you were still friends back then. Actually, he didn't remember much good things from him childhood to begin with. "And your grandpa's?", he continued asking. "Geez Billy, do you not remember any rant I gave you as a child?", you jokingly asked while nudging his shoulder. "World war two, both of them. Gramps and Pawpaw were in Northern Ireland, the 'Red Bull' division." Billy gave an understanding hum before his eyes went to the most recent picture of you and Missy. "Well, uhm, I have a guest bedroom you can stay in. Come on." You guided him upstairs to the room right next to yours. The guest room was much smaller than yours, but had all the necessities; a bed, a closet, a small table with a chair, spare toothbrushes and toothpaste in a cupboard and a bookshelf with some of your old books. "I was gonna make dinner, hope you like deli style sandwiches." With those words, you left him alone in the guest room. He didn't see a point in unpacking his clothes much, so he just left them on the table inside his bag. Next, he checked out the door to the bathroom - just to realise it's connected to your bedroom and the two of you will have to share it. With impure thoughts, he went downstairs into the kitchen.

"Here's yours." You pushed a plate with two sandwiches on ot towards him while already eating a sandwich yourself. With your legs dangling in the air, you were sitting on the kitchen counter while Billy stood next to you. "You always eat like this?", he asked you while taking something from his plate. "In the kitchen or the food?", you asked him. "In the kitchen, on the counter.", he specified. "Oh." You laughed. "I do, yeah. Don't you remember how my mum always let us snack on the kitchen island?" He did remember that. "Kept that habit, yeah?", he asked with a slight smile. You nodded in response and took another bite of your sandwich while feeling your heart beating faster. Most of dinner was spend in silence, until Missy came in the kitchen. A check on your clock told you that it was time for her dinner, so you jumped off of the counter to fill her bowl.

"She won't start begging for food now, no?", Billy asked while finishing up his sandwich. You rolled your eyes at him "Jesus, Billy, stop trying to find shit to complain about." The clinking of the kibble hit the bowl while you continued scolding him. "She's a K-9, trained to sniff for explosives and you seriously think that she's one to actively beg for food?" He didn't say anything, just continued eating while watching you give the food to Missy. You, now a bit pissed, put your dishes in the dishwasher while talking to Billy. "I leave for work at 5, I'll put a spare key on the kitchen counter for you. Don't know when you start working, so if you wanna eat something just grab something from the fridge." You took his now-empty plate from him and also put it in the dishwasher. "I come back at 6, so you need to make lunch yourself. But please, for the love of god" You closed the dishwasher. "Clean up after yourself." Billy just gave a hum, showing he understood. "I'll get ready for bed, just be quiet please." You went upstairs to wash your face, brush out the hairgel from your military bun and whipe down the dirt from your work day. Billy didn't stay downstairs for long, he came into the bathroom as you were brushing your hair. He started washing down with a wet cloth as well. "Do you always work 12 hour shifts?", he asked after a while. You already moved on to applying your moisturiser. "For four days, then I get four days off.", you replied.

"Why the army and not the airforce?", you stopped in your track for a second. He did actually remember what you told him. "Well, I didn't pass for flying planes. Then I thought of being a marine, but they honestly have shit working hours. So I decided on a career in the army. Then I got into the whole EOD stuff.", you simply replied. He nodded while putting toothpaste on his toothbrush. "Isn't it dangerous to detonate bombs?", Billy asked before putting the toothbrush into his mouth. You smiled, gave him a small laugh and he could feel his heart skip a beat. "You ask a lot of questions today.", you said. "It is actually one of the most dangerous jobs you could have. But the mortality rate is only at 2%, so we're pretty damn good." You put your hair into braids for sleeping. "Well, I'll be off to bed. Good night, Billy." You gave him another smile before going into your bedroom. He couldn't get the image of you smiling out if his head, it burned into his eyelids. Even when he went to bed and closed his eyes, he still saw it. His imagination ran wild, from pinning you against a wall to laying next to you while slowly kissing you. He couldn't stop thinking about it. It stayed in his mind so much that he even dreamed about walking along the beach with you, hand in hand.

Next morning, he could hear some clinking from the bathroom and soft music playing. When he got up to brush his teeth, he saw you doing your hair in the bathroom. It was an extremely tight bun that you slathered hair gel on to keep every little hair in place. You were already partially in uniform, your camo pants and shirt with your last name on it. Billy then realised that he has never seen you in uniform ever since he found out you were his neighbour. Every time you came home, you were in civilian clothes. But, oh, did his heart start beating. He thought you were the most beautiful girl he ever saw.

"Morning.", you said to him with a small smile. "Mornin'.", he replied while getting his toothbrush. Billy didn't wear a shirt yet, he was only in sweatpants that hung a bit too low. You had to admit, you did give him a look through the mirror. Meanwhile, ABBA's Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! was playing from the radio in your bathroom. He brushed his teeth while sometimes sneaking a glance at you through the mirror. Billy saw the small smile that was on your lips while silently lip-syncing the song, he saw every freckle, every mole and thought you were the most perfect being ever. The feelingin his chest and stomach became overwhelming to him.

"(Y/N)?", Billy said while putting his toothbrush into the toothbrush cup you set out for him. You turned around to face him while putting your hairbrush on the counter, and before you could react Billy leaned towards to kiss you. It all happened so quickly that you didn't have time to react. "Have fun at work.", he said afterwards before walking back into his room.

"And it all happened so quick, I didn't even have time to react.", you finished up your story to your coworker Johnny. "Fuckin' hell, you're in the army and have the reaction time of a sloth." He laughed before eating again. Todays lunch was chicken with egg noodles and vegetables. "I don't exactly have combat reaction when I'm at home.", you said to him before eating another fork-full yourself. "Always have to be ready lass, especially when it's your bitch of a neighbour who you have a crush on." Johnny laughed at his own words, to which you punched him in the arm. "I do not have a crush on him, Johnny MacTavish!" He rolled his eyes at you. "Fuck off, (L/N), I know fucking for compensation when I see it." Guilty as charged.

You wasted time after work by stopping at Target to originally buy some food, but you couldn't help to get a new fluffy blanket. On the way back, you picked up two sandwiches at Subway for Billy and you. So you walked through your front door at 8, just to see Billy in the hallway looking at your military wall. You didn't say a word, wanting to avoid him, and walked straight into your kitchen to unpack. Missy followed you by the heel, not paying and attention to Billy who gave her a side eye. As quickly as humanely possible you unpacked your groceries, threw the blanket on the couch and grabbed your sandwich to go eat in your room. "There's food in the kitchen for you.", you said to him before disappearing upstairs. Missy stayed in the living room and got comfortable in her basket next to the couch. Billy took his food, sat down on the living room couch and started eating.

"Any idea how I can win her over?", he asked Missy after a while. She looked at him and tilted her head. "Oh don't give me that, you know she intimidates me." Once Billy finished his food, he sat down next to Missys basket. "I know I should be nicer, but I can't help it, you know?" She put her head on his leg, to which he started scratching her behind her ear. "I just get so angry when I'm jealous. Really need to work on that." He continued talking to your K-9 about you, how he could make it up to you, how he needs to get less angry, that he doesn't mean it when he acts like he doesn't like Missy. Meanwhile, you left your room to bring some dishes downstairs but stopped in your tracks when you heard him talk. At first, you thought he was on the phone, then you heard that he was talking about you. "Can't you tell her, Missy?" was what made everything click in your brain. He was talking to your dog about you. That confused you so much that you went back into your room and left the dishes on your nightstand for a few more hours.

You didn't see Billy until the next day, when you came back from your last day of work for the week. But the kiss didn't leave your mind. When you walked upstairs to shower, the door of the guest bedroom was half-opened. Your curiosity got the best of you and you took a peek inside the room. Billy was sitting on the bed with books scattered around him, you soon realized that those were the photo albums you kept in the bookshelf. The one in his hand right now was one of the oldest, that also included pictures of you and Billy as children. You could tell by the color of the album. "Are you watching me, creepy lady?", Billy said while still looking at the pictures. You chuckled, then went into the room. "Found our pictures, huh?", you said as you sat down next to him. He hummed in response while flipping onto the next page. There were four pictures, all of which were taken on the same day when the two of you were 8. On the first one, Billy and you were petting a goat. "That was our trip to the zoo.", he said to you. The second picture had the two of you eating ice cream on it. On the third picture were you, Billy and his mother looking at a monkey behind the glas. And on the fourth one, Billy kissed you on the cheek for the picture. The feeling in your chest came back when you saw that picture.

"We were best friends, Billy.", you said while he flipped to the next page. There were pictures from a photo booth of the two of you. "What happened?" He didn't have a good response for that - Billy knew it was because his mother left, but that's about it. Him being alone with Neil didn't help. He was already a bully in school, but was always your friend. "I don't wanna talk about it, (Y/N).", he finally responded. That made you angry, very angry in fact. "You started bullying me overnight for six years and now don't want to talk about it?!", you loudly said while getting up. "Oh fuck you, Hargrove. We see each other again after seven years, you act like a cunt, kiss me and now you don't wanna talk about it." The last five words were spoken in a mocking tone. Angrily, you left the guest room and slammed the door on your way out.

You got a towel and your bathrobe before hopping into the shower. The radio was playing in the background, a bit louder than you usually have it on, with Tina Turner playing from it. You were singing along while shampooing your hair throughoutly, having to get all the hairgel and hairspray out, so concentrated on it that you didn't hear the bathroom door opening. "(Y/N)?", you flinked at first and already raised your hand to the showerhead as a makeshift-weapon, until you realized it was Billy. Thank god you decided to have shower curtains that weren't see-through. "What the fuck is wrong with you, Billy?!", you yelled over the sound of the water. "Get out!"

"Said you wanted to talk, so let's talk.", he replied, just loud enough for you to understand. Billy leaned against the bathroom counter, arms crossed in front of his chest, looking at the shower curtain that separated the two of you. "Oh, really? Are you that much of a perv that you have to do that while I'm showering?", you yelled. Billy was stubborn, he wouldn't move - and you couldn't force him outside without being naked in front of him. "Appreciate it, I usually don't change my mind easily.", he replied. "Look, (Y/N), I'm sorry okay?" You continued showering, since you couldn't do anything anyways, and started applying conditioner to your hair. "I know I was a dick to you when we were teenagers, I didn't know what to do with myself." You scrubbed yourself off with a loofah and shower gel while talking "Then why do you still do it? If anyone should hold a grudge, it's me and not you." Billy didn't know what to say. He can't really be honest with you now, can he? Just tell you that he has feelings for you and either wanted to get your attention or was jealous. What would happen if he did? Billy didn't know if he could deal with more rejection in his life. "You still there?", you asked when he didn't reply. "I'm just...thinking of an answer." You washed off the foam on your skin and the conditioner in your hair while an idea hit you so hard that it almost swept you off your feet. With your feelings for Billy back, so came some fantasies about him. "I think it's easier to talk face-to-face. Wanna come in?" There was silence, then you heard the unbuckling of a belt. A minute later, Billy came into the shower with you. You were turned to him with your back and couldn't see what he was doing, but you felt his hands hold onto your hips. "I still do it because I get angry when I'm jealous.", he said while slowly pulling you towards him. You turned around towards him, soon enough for your chest to squeeze against him. "Why do you get jealous?", you asked him while looking into his eyes. The water fully drenched his hair now, some strands fell into his face. "Because I want you to be only mine.", he said. His eyes starred back into yours. They looked even more blue now, at least that's what it looked like to you. Your hands cupped his cheeks before leaning forwards and kissing him. You were in the shower for another hour.

Billy slept in your bed that night. While getting comfortable next to him, you noticed his scars once more. "Billy?", you asked while leaning down on your arm next to him instead of laying down. "What happened there?" You let your fingers run across the biggest scar on his chest, tracing the white colouring on it. "Long story, you won't believe me if I went into detail.", he said while wrapping one of his arms around your shoulders and suddenly pulled you into his chest. "C'mon, tell me.", you said with a pout. Billy kissed the top of your head before saying: "You know what, when you take some days off, I will take you to the shithole town named Hawkins and have my sister and her friends explain it to you." You nodded in agreement while getting comfortable on him.

"Now I have a question for you.", he said. His hand was resting on your head, making it not possible to look up to him. So you kept listening to his heartbeat. "What is it?", you asked. He thought about what to say for a bit. "So, we've somehow made up in one way or another." You hummed in response. "And we've established that we both have feelings for each other." You let out a slight laught, knowing what he was gonna ask. "Yes, Billy, I'll be your girlfriend.", you said. He kissed the top of your head once again before pulling the covers over you and drifting off to sleep together.

Maybe not living in a gated community wasn't too bad.

[racingliners]

As the resident livery watch expert, do you have any livery ideas that you'd love to see?

like personally, I'd kill for aston to incorporate some pink into a special livery or to have a Vodafone mclaren back for a race

Now that I’m in a better headspace I can finally answer this! And I was soooooo happy to get this ask you’ve no idea, I cannot believe that other people enjoy Livery Watch. I just started it because I wanted to yell about car paint, so that fact I’ve now had multiple requests for it, and people have even messaged me saying they were looking forward to my opinion for certain liveries is just… WILD.

ANYWAY! I could really make this answer so long that I’ll end up hitting character limit. Since I started doing Livery Watch, I’ve always done a post before all the car launches listing both what I think the core liveries for each team will look like, and a wishlist of what I want to see. (I hilariously got my prediction for Racing Bulls bringing back the Toro Rosso drinks can livery spot on, and yes I’m still riding that high).

My wishlist of liveries I want to see is… so long. Mainly, and I know I talk about it all the time, I NEED everyone to put the matte paint down. F1 cars are supposed to be SHINY, and this is very much the hill I will die on.

In terms of special/one-off liveries I would love to see:

Aston Martin

Yes I would love it so much if they brought back the pink stripe accents (beloved watermelon AMR21 I miss you!!!). I am however of the very biased opinion that Aston’s livery is absolute perfection and cannot be improved on so honestly, I don’t have any immediate yearnings for a special AM livery.

Alpine

I NEED them so bring back the full pink livery because it was hands down the sexiest car on the grid. The epitome of 10/10 no notes. (and I mean PROPERLY all over pink. Not the stickers on exposed carbon nonsense we have this year).

Mercedes

Hear me out… but I do think they were actually onto something with their vintage inspired livery they used at the German GP in 2019 (I know it was cursed… I KNOW). I think an all-over white livery would be fun as a one off for an anniversary race, or equally a rendition of the livery they ran in the 50s would be just as fun! (Also… all-black bc it was sexy af)

Williams

In an ideal world, I’d have the Martini livery back. This may also be a hot take, but I did enjoy the cyan to white ombre livery they ran during their Rokit sponsorship days. Bar a couple of exceptions the current grid of cars is quite dark and I think a brighter pop of colour would be very appreciated.

Ferrari

THE 1000TH GP BURGUNDY LIVERY!!! I think about it all the time and I miss it SO MUCH!!! Hands down the prettiest Ferrari that I ever did see. Nothing else comes remotely close. (Though, do it with cream accents instead of neon yellow please!!!!)

McLaren – Honestly they have been running some amazing one-off liveries this year! To the point I can't actually think of anythign I'd like to see. The Senna livery from Monaco and the Chrome livery from Austin were both sooo gorgeous – and to echo your above point I do think the chrome livery is the closest we’re going to get to a return of the Vodafone livery, but this year’s rendition was executed perfectly.

Racing Bulls (no I'm still not calling them VCARB)

Everyone and their grandmother knows that Team Faenza is the Red Bull Junior Team and no amount of rebrands is going to change that. So bring back any of the old Toro Rosso liveries please and thank you. Look at the detail work on that Red Bull on the engine cover!!!!!!

I can’t think of anything for the other teams at present sadly. Haas haven’t been around for long enough for anything to spring to mind (I do enjoy their current livery iteration though!) and Sauber have rebranded so much it’s hard to keep track (the Alfa Romeo livery was just so perfect imho)… and for Red Bull just ditching the matte navy for metallic dark blue on their core livery would be enough for me.

[superzombiewho]

It’s too late

This is from @janilee’s Post-Revelations Edward and Nikolai edit. I got permission to make a short fic. This whole thing is dedicated to them. And I give them 100% credit. I just loved the idea and wanted to do something.

I apologize if it’s bad.

But Janilee, I hope you like it. Enjoy everyone!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He had been acting unusual. Well more so, if that was possible. He kept blowing off the Russian, coming up with excuses to not talk to him, saying there was much to do. This was more unusual than their constant bickering at each other.

It was so unusual that Dempsey and Takeo noticed.

There were many nights where the two would let the Russian rant about Edward. They were slowly getting annoyed, getting sick of Nikolai’s whining and Edward’s excuses.

There were times that Takeo tried talking with the German, but he never got anywhere with it. Even Dempsey had tried to talk with him, but all he got was a, “Vhy do jou care, Dempshey?”

I mean. What were you expecting to happen? Edward actually cooperate? This is Richtofen we’re talking about. He speaks in riddles, he talks to himself. His answers never make sense and are never straight forward.

So what do Dempsey and Takeo plan? To pair the two of them up. Not even both Edward’s together or Nikolai’s together, not Primis Edward with Ultimis Nikolai, non of that.

Just Eddie and Nik together.

What could go wrong?

Nikolai was keeping watch for the undead while Edward did what he had to do in the lab. Making sure the German wouldn’t die.

“What was the point?” Nikolai would think. “It’s not like he would care.”

But the silence was driving Nikolai insane. The smell and the flickering lights didn’t help.

“Why do you ignore me?” He asked.

Edward stayed quiet. But his working paused for a bit. He shook his head and continued.

“Do not ignore me any longer, German!”

“Zhere is much to do.”

Nikolai just looked at him dumbfounded. Really? That excuse again?

“Ever since the house, you’ve hardly spoken to me, or even looked at me! You’ve even stopped your bickering at every single thing I do! What happened?!”

“Jou really don’t remember, do you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do jou remember vhere ve vere before zhe house?”

That made Nikolai stop and think. Where were they again? So much has happened, everything doesn’t make sense anymore.

“Mein Gott, jou don’t.”

Edward’s mouth turned upwards in an evil smirk.

“Do jou know vhy Edvard alvays bickered vith jou?”

Why was he talking about himself in the 3rd person?

“Did jou know zhat he had feelings for jou?”

“Why are you talking like that?”

“Did jou know zhat he never said anyzhing because he didn’t know how jou vould react?”

Memories of catching extra long glances from Edward popped in his head.

Nikolai looked at the ground.

“Jou just found out jou liked him back. Didn’t jou?”

Nikolai never looked up.

“I didn’t want to say anything. In case you didn’t return those feelings.

Edward chuckled darkly.

“Of course you could have been together. Edward loved you the moment he laid eyes on you.”

Nikolai remembers that day in France, at the dig site. He was there to bring the German doctor into questioning. He remembers the gun pointed at the man who had just finished killing his father figure, a request from Maxis. He remembers the damaged man.

“He was just scared of his feelings.”

Nikolai remembers all the times he would yell at the German man about a thing going wrong in a mission. He remembers the man cowering before him. The regret in Richtofens eyes.

He also remembers when he would pick up something heavy, muscles flexing a little, Edward would always blush and look away.

He also remembers some conversations, Edward would stutter.

“For all his cockiness, he didn’t know how to act around you.”

His memory goes back to Nikolai helping Edward when ever he got down, or when ever no one else was there to help, he would yell at the Russian.

Nikolai hears yelling in the back of his head.

‘I’m still here’

‘No’

‘Nikolai!’

“And you know Edward,” Edward walks up to the Russian and leans up to his ear. Nikolai’s eyes widen at the voice in the back of his head.

“He likes to,” Edward whispers.

‘I vas zhe nicest one. Und jou von’t even… remember’

“Run.”

‘I love… you’

[the-austrian-candidate]

hetalia headcanon

For me, doing this is a great stress reliever, and I have had a lot of stress lately.  Also, my ADHD is not allowing me to give a simple answer to the question, I always have the urge to give the whole backstory, like what happened five centuries ago... So, my favourite dorks yet again. PruAus. Modern Times

Who carries all the important documents while traveling? Gilbert, as much as Austria can act like not clumsy person, he gets lost in his head. Especially when they are waiting, for example, in the airport, he would have the book opened, but he would be playing scenes in his head, not reading, so documents are not exactly safe with him.  Prussia, on the other hand, is organized in a practical manner; after all, someone had to teach it to Lutz, and for sure it wasn't Rod. Gilbert has everything neatly in order, and he also makes sure that Rod sits in one place and doesn't wander off in the big airports. [Seriously, guys, I got lost in Munich airport once; oh the stress.]

Who puts their cold hands/feet on the other? Of course, it is Gilbert. He has a thing for barging into Rod's safe place with different shenanigans. Every damn time he comes back from the cold, he tries to sneak up to Austria and touch him with those frozen fingers. And every time Roderich yells at him. At this point, it is basically a tradition.

What do they argue about the most? These days they actually try to talk to each other; it took centuries to achieve that. They used to quarrel about almost everything. Starting from Prussia's attempts to gain power within Holy Rome, different approaches towards German unification, Maris Theresa sitting on the Austrian throne—here Gilbert was rather prejudiced; he changed a lot since that time. Austria's way of dealing with minorities in the empire, the empire itself. Roderich's marriages, Ludwig's education. You name it, they had an argument about it. In the XXI century, they still argue sometimes. Gilbert still has thoughts that he is not needed anymore; Prussia was disolved, and granted, there are Teutonic Knights (in a way, the Order is existing; I am not going into details, but it is fascinating), but it bothers him sometimes and he becomes snappy. Roderich simply has no idea how to deal with a brooding Gilbert. He will say something like, get a grip, you are alive, and this will unleash the hell of all old resentment. The thing is, Roderich, despite losing the empire, still has a country to represent and has no idea about Gilbert's turmoil. Also, the sole thought of Gilbert not being here as a lover, friend, enemy, or whatever they are is unacceptable on so many levels that Roderich denies the possibility of even thinking about it. There is also one more thing that brings arguments: Gilbert tends to be jealous, though he knows it is stupid. As he started to live with Rod, he kind of saw the point. Roderich has no idea how to be alone; for him, Antonio and Liza are vital parts of his past and the few rare people he feels okay around (all the angsty things I have about spaus will come up eventually). Anyway, Gilbert didn't understand how Austria could be so at ease with his exes but not with him. During one of the arguments, when he managed to get Roderich to yell, he heard that Rod is simply scared that if he starts saying what he feels or wants, Prussia will leave, and he doesn't have to be afraid of Tony and Liz, as both relationships ended and both were political. Whatever he has with Gilbert is far more important.

Who is better with kids? Gilbert is more open towards kids; he treated Ludwig as a brother, not as a project. He was strict when it came to discipline, military training, and education, but from time to time he still made sure Ludwig was just a kid. Roderich is just awkward; he does not know how to talk with kids or how to play with them. Despite this, in very few moments, he would sit with little Feliciano and draw with him, or teach HRE how to play the piano. Those are rare good memories. In general, my headcanon is that neither of them is very good with kids, like the actual work you have when you have kids. How could they be good at this. There were always maids and babysitters, and they didn't grow up in regular Families.

[consistantly-changing]

[Image descriptions in order: a twitter thread by @/gwenckatz "Gwen C. Katz" which says "There's a phenomenon I actually see extremely commonly when literature is used to teach history to middle school and high school students. Let's call it "pajamafication."

"So a school district nixed Maus from their curriculum, to be replaced by something more "age-appropriate." IIRC they didn't cite a specific replacement title, but it will probably be something like John Boyne's "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas."]

["The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is tailor- made for classroom use. It's taught at countless schools and it's squeaky-clean of any of the parent-objectionable material you might find in Maus, Night, or any of the other first-person accounts of the Holocaust.

"It's also a terrible way to teach the Holocaust.

I'm not going to exhaustively enumerate the book's flaws--others have done so--but I'll summarize the points that are common to this phenomenon in various contexts.

"First, obviously, the context shift. Maus, Night, et al are narrated by actual Jews who were in concentration camps. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is narrated by a German boy. The Jewish perspective is completely eliminated.]

["Second, the emphasis on historical innocence. Bruno isn't antisemitic. He has no idea that anything bad is happening. He happily befriends a Jewish boy with absolutely no prejudice.

"Thus we're reassured that you too, gentle reader, are innocent. You too would have have a childlike lack of prejudice and you too would be such a sweet summer child that you would have no idea the place next door is a death camp.

"Maus, by contrast, the children are not innocent. They are perpetrators of injustice just like adults." Attached is a photo of a page from Maus. It says "they ran screaming home." Atop a comic panel. The panel shows two German boys, drawn as pigs, running away from the narrator—Maus' father—a Jew drawn as a rat wearing a pig mask. The kids are yelling "Help! Mommy! A Jew!!" And "A Jew!" At the bottom of the panel, it says "Quick, the mothers came outside to see what was!" The panel beside it shows Maus' father in the modern day, narrating "The mothers always told so: "be careful! A Jew will catch you to a bag and eat you!" ... so they taught to their children." The third panel in the row says at the top "I approached over to them..." The panel shows the rat in the pig mask approaching three adult pigs, each with a young pig boy. The rat says "heil hitler." The caption at the bottom says "if i ran away they would see: "yes, it is a Jew here."".

You can see the top of the two panels beneath it, where Maus' father is bending down to greet the German boys, saying "Don't be afraid, little ones. I'm not a Jew. I won't hurt you." The next panel shows the adult pigs, the German mothers, waving and chuckling apologetically to the rat in the mask, saying "Sorry, mister. You know how kids are... heil hitler."]

[Returning to the thread: "Maus also smashes the claim that people just didn't know what was going on in the camps." Attached is another photo of a page, showing a panel where a transport train with a swastika on one of the cars on the left side of the panel. There are three armed guards and one guard dog looking threatening, and two prisoners. One at the far left, barely in frame, being threatened into the transport car. The other at the side of the transport car holding a suitcase.

The caption at the top left corner says "And we came here to the concentration camp Auschwitz, and we knew that from here we will not come out anymore..". The caption at the bottom right says "we knew the stories-that they will gas us and throw us in the ovens. This was 1944... we knew everything, and here we were."

Continuing with the twitter thread: "Third, nonspecificity. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas turns a specific historical atrocity into a parable about all forms of bigotry and injustice. I'm sure Boyne thinks he's being very profound. But the actual effect is to blunt and erase the atrocity.]

["There's the too-cute-by-half way it avoids terminology: "Off-With," "the Fury." Harsh language becomes "He said a nasty word."

Notice how "it's a fable" ties in with the goal of eliminating anything parents might object to.

"And that's our fourth point. Bad things can happen, but only abstractly. Someone's dad disappears. He's just...gone. How? Who knows. People stand around looking hungry and unhappy and saying "It's not very nice in here."

"The ending is sad, but it's sad like a Lifetime movie. It's sanitized, it's quick, there are no details, it's meant to poke that bit of your heart that loves crying.]

["Maus's description of the gas chambers, meanwhile..." Attached is a photo of four panels. The first says at the top "and everybody crowded inside into the shower room, the door closed hermetic, and the lights turned dark." The panel shows a drawing of the gas chambers, which look like a large, communal shower room. A caption points to a spot on the roof, saying "Zyklon B, a pesticide, dropped into hollow columns." The caption at the bottom says "it was between 3 and 30 minutes- it depended how much gas they put- but soon was nobody anymore alive."

The second panel shows the outside of a door to one of the shower rooms. It is grey, with one small square window in the top and a simple handle. The caption at the bottom says "the biggest pile of bodies lay right next to the door where they tried to get out."

The third panel has the text at the top "this guy who worked there, he told me..."

Beneath is a drawing of Maus' father lifting a large pipe with another prisoner. The prisoner is saying "we pulled the bodies apart with hooks. Big piles, with the strongest on top, older ones and babies crushed below... often the skulls were smashed..."

The next panel shows them carrying the pipe together, the unnamed prisoner at the back, Maus' father at the front. The prisoner continues "their fingers were broken from trying to climb up the walls and sometimes their arms were as long as their bodies, pulled from the sockets." Maus'father turns his dead back angrily to shout, "ENOUGH!" The caption at the bottom says "I didn't want more to hear, but anyway he told me."

The thread continues "A historical atrocity can never be a metaphor for all bigotry because the specifics are what makes it an atrocity. The Nazis didn't just do "bad things, generally," they did THESE things. And leaving out the details is simply historical erasure.]

["Finally, fifth: Fiction.

However much poor little Bruno and Schmuel might rend your heartstrings, you can ultimately retreat into the knowledge that they aren't real and they didn't really die.

"Now, I write historical fiction, and obviously I believe it has a place, in the classroom and out. But no Holocaust education can be complete without nonfiction that teaches about real people who genuinely did experience it.]

["One of the striking things about Maus is how big the cast is and how few of them survived." Attached is a photo of a page from Maus. The first panel is slightly out of frame, showing Maus listening to his father saying "...clubs. then the germans took away the factory from Anja's family." The second panel is also slightly out of frame, with Maus' father saying "...money and she left him and he killed himself." To the right of Maus' father, is a photo of two Jews, with a bullet hole through where the head of the left one would be. The next panel is Maus' father showing Maus more photos. He is saying "the middle brother, Levek, he ran with his wife to Russia when the ware came, but when he saw how it was there, he wanted to run back."

Maus' father continues in the next panel "those who ran to Russia, they put to Siberia as traitors, but to smuggle back over the borders cost a fortune. I sent some money...

"In '38, when I needed cash to my factory, he gave. So now I helped him come back to his wife's family... to Warsaw."

In the centre of the page is a drawing of a photo of Levek, a haunted looking rat.

Maus' father continues "In Warsaw, you know how it was. If they stayed only in Russia, they still now could maybe be alive,

"Anja's parents, the grandparents, her big sister Tosha, little Bibi and our Richieu... all what is left, it's the photos."

The bottom of the page is full of drawings of photos of all the people who died.]

[The twitter thread continues "Because it's a true story, Maus can also explore neglected aspects like the intergenerational trauma, which simply vanish in a pat fictional story that is just finished when you get to the end."

Attached is a photo of a panel of Maus slumped over his desk, flies flying around him and emaciated bodies of the Jewish victims piled at his feet. The caption at the top says "At least fifteen foreign editions are coming out. I've gotten 4 serious offers to turn my book into a TV. Special or movie. (I don't wanna-)

In May 1968 my mother killed herself (She left no note.)

Lately I've been feeling depressed."

There is a speech bubble coming from off screen, which says "Alright Mr. Spiegelman We're ready to shoot!.."

The twitter thread continues "Thus, books like The Boy in the Striped Pajamas are not an age-appropriate equivalent way to teach the Holocaust, but a false construction of history.

This ends the first part of the thread. But there's more...]

["The Maus incident is not an isolated case. It's part of a broad trend of replacing the literature used to teach history with more kid-friendly, "appropriate" alternatives.

And outside of the Holocaust, it usually doesn't meet with much controversy.

"It might mean replacing Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave or Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave with modern historical fiction, for example.

Wars, the Civil Rights movement, Apartheid: any "icky" part of history can be a target.

"But it plays out along the same general lines: Primary sources replaced with modern fiction, victim perspectives replaced with perpetrators, specificity replaced with Star-Bellied Sneetch-style "Why can't we all just get along?" metaphors."

/End ID]

[zuluc]

summary: the production of genshin impact is amazing! now let’s see what the actors are really like separate from their characters

style & genre: bulleted; modern!au, general fic

warnings: mentions of drinking

notes: another idea that’s popped into my head! this is pretty random but i’ll be updating more parts if you guys like it☺️ 

Aether and Lumine aren’t actually related in real life, they just look so much alike that they thought they were long lost siblings. Even off set they act like brother and sister because it feels natural after spending so much time together

Their phone contacts for each other are “my twin” and their greetings are always “i found you!”

Paimon uses a green suit to hide the lower half of her body but when she was getting used to “flying” around, she would forget that she didn’t actually fly and would step on other cast members’ toes: most of which were Aether’s

Bennett is the luckiest guy on set and actually pulled two five stars in a ten pull and hit 30 pulls to get another five star, however, he is really clumsy and trips over air every three seconds even if he watches where he walks

Diluc and Kaeya don’t hate each other but have a mutual rivalry over certain beverages. At one point they stopped talking to each other for a whole day because Diluc said the alcohol Kaeya brought him tasted cheap

Speaking of Diluc: he, Aether, and Albedo use the same brand of hair oil, only to realize when they sat next to each other and commented how familiar their “cologne” was

The drinking buddies (Kaeya, Beidou, Rosaria, Venti, Lisa, and Scaramouche) hang out on their days off sometimes

Klee really likes to be around Kaeya or Albedo because she thinks they’re good-looking. She gets excited when she’s in the same scene with either one of them so her personality is really genuine on screen

Albedo keeps chapstick in his pocket and uses it periodically between scenes. He zones out quite a lot because he gets bored easily. Yells at people to hydrate but in like a calming voice

Qiqi is already a pretty quiet kid but she likes to act and her role was perfect for her. You might see her sitting in the director’s chair when the cameras are rolling because they want her to see what she’s a part of. aw

Mona likes her hat and keeps it on most times but it always wacks people in the face when she turns. She doesn’t mind when it hits Scaramouche because he has his own hat. They have impromptu hat battles sometimes to which the costume designers get nervous about

Fischl can’t speak German for the life of her and she really likes Jojo’s and laughs in references with Razor. You might think she’s still in character off camera but no, that’s just her

Zhongli is possibly the richest person on the set but everyone else pays for all of his expenses just because. He does pay for everyone’s coffee especially when they have an early morning shoot

Scaramouche, Keqing, and Xiao have a group chat where they poke fun at other cast members showing up late and then proceeding to roast them behind their backs

They also like to change their lines in the middle of a shoot like Keqing ranting about the archons but instead she replaces them with other cast member’s names; Scaramouche replacing “when did i give you permission to issue your own orders” with “i’m hot aren’t i;” and Xiao repeatedly saying “can i eat something other than almond tofu please” or “i feel bad for this guy, he needs a hug” while looking straight into the camera

Xiao is actually a shy guy who is very kind to everyone around him so the cast was surprised when he started saying character lines because they never heard that tone in his voice before. He was mildly flustered afterwards from the compliments

Out of all the cast members, Aether forgets his lines the most even though he doesn’t say that much. When he forgets he autopilots to “windblade!”

The younger cast have a group chat to keep each other accountable for their early shooting times. But they all forget and end up late to the reading table

Signora actually did punch Venti in the stomach too hard on accident and they had to take a break as she apologized profusely to which Venti kept reassuring her that it was fine; got his gnosis back after the scene was over as symbolism for “i’m sorry i punched you in the gut really hard”

Barbara sings like an angel and the theme song for the series is written and sung by her

Childe stared at his prop bow for a good five minutes when he first got it and told the director that he didn’t prepare in using a bow but for “dual-wielding.” (plot twist: they never actually told him he was using a bow as a weapon but they knew he was a fast learner). All of the shots of him using it are genuine confusion as to how the thing works

One time with his last shot, he threw the bow on accident and hit Bennett

During the cast interviews, Venti likes to do them all with Zhongli or Xiao because they actually let him talk as much as he wants without overpowering his already loud voice

When he does it with Paimon, they tend to blow out the surrounding people’s eardrums so they were never paired again haha

Other interview pairings are Ningguang and Beidou and people like watching them together because of how soothing they sound and just the overall way they talk to each other

The opposite with Kaeya, Childe, and Lisa interviews. They keep flirting with the interviewers and viewers

“Hey girlies, watch the next episode” wInK

“Seize the day. Watch us again tomorrow night 8:30pm PST” wOnK

“What a cutie, would you like to see us again?” im blushing

Honestly, anyone could listen to Zhongli talk all day so he has longer interviews because even the people asking the questions want to keep him for longer

The whole cast is like one big family and whether they’re protagonists or not, they all have a close bond behind the scenes

[marciego]

4, 9 and 19 for jadangie babe <3 (mayhaps asking 9 purely bc i want you to talk about angel rubin) - iris

4. Which one is more protective? Who needs to be ‘protected’?

i don't think either of them needs to be protected but i do think jade is probably more protective, she Would go >:( at people if they look the tiniest bit bad at angie, whenever german and angie just slightly disagree on something regarding violetta she points at german and goes "don't talk to my wife like that" (it's definitely an excuse to call her her wife)

also whenever there's a bug in their house they're both scared as fuck and jade gets a shoe and stands in between angie and the bug and goes "DONT WORRY I'LL PROTECT YOU" but the moment the bug moves the tiniest bit she yells, jumps on the table and goes "i lied ANGIE GO KILL IT" and it's always angie that has to either 1. kill it herself, or most likely 2. call ramallo to kill it for them (jade hugs whoever killed the bug for 10min straight while calling them her hero every time, one day ramallo sent leon there instead because he didn't feel like dealing with the cuddling that day and leon regretted it So Much)

9. What are their thoughts on having children?

they love their son very much <3 but genuinely i think at first neither of them like, really considered it? like at the beginning it probably wasn't something they ever thought they'd have, because i do think jade has somehow always wanted children in her desire to have her own family, like she did try so much with vilu and all but it never worked out how she hoped it would, and the whole appeal of jadangie is letting go of that strict idea of family jade had for herself with german to enjoy something new with someone new, and welcoming this change wih open arms, so in that way i think that even if her desire to have children someday was still there it was rather dormant? because she wanted to enjoy her life with angie, and she wanted to do so many things she never got to do

and then after some time i think jade brought it up, but not that seriously at first, like i can so see jadangie chilling home someday and jade just going "you know, i think that with how awesome we are as aunts we'd make pretty amazing moms" and angie would be like "are you sure that's how that works?" and jade would go on and on and be like "just THINK about it, a baby with your curls and my gorgeous eyes, how pretty would they be??" and angie would be following her in her thought process and it wouldn't be that serious, until at some point angie would joke back like "jade i'm not sure i could keep up with your pregnancy cravings" and i see jade getting like, a tiny bit more serious and quieter and genuinely going "actually, i think i'd like to adopt some day" and she's go on about how she knows how it feels when someone gives you a chance and she'd want to be the one to give that to a child someday, and the whole conversation angie clearly felt that it wasn't just silly blabbering and that jade had been thinking of it for real, but this moment would make her so soft and she feels good about that idea you know? like she needs more time to reflect on it and they need to talk seriously about it and there are a lot of things to consider, but her first reaction is to be "yeah, that would be nice" and with the smile jade gives her after that she really thinks it's enough for now

19. How do they feel about PDA?

i think they'd be pretty big on pda, but not necessarily your usual pda, like they don't mind kissing in public (mostly just cute pecks when jade gets excited tho) and sometimes hugs and all, but i think most of the way they act around each other comes from jade's childlike excitment, and i'd think it'd definitely rub on angie. like they're taking and jade excitedly pinches angie's face but with like, lots of strength, like she "grabs" her cheeks (like you know that thing grandmas do with the thumb on one cheek and the middle finger on the other and then they shake your head) and she shakes her shoulders and she pokes her in the ribs, if she's really really excited she'll grab her whole face and give a big smooch and probably miss her mouth but it doesn't even matter, like it's all stuff like that, and angie complains a bit but laughs every time and she does it less but it's also something she does herself

i think it's mostly the way they'd act around each other in public, their calmer, softer moments are something they keep to themselves

[zdux]

Genshin Family Headcannons

I've had these Genshin Family Headcannons floating around in my brain for god knows how long now, so I think it's about time I posted them!

On to the details~

Zhongli & Baizhu dated for a while, and after they broke up Baizhu ended up adopting Qiqi. Zhongli did not know this, and nearly had a heart attack thinking that through some insane miracle Qiqi was his biological child and he was late on YEARS of child support.

Zhongli & Ninnguang are siblings. Not Biological, but Ningguang doesn't know that, so he doesn't say anything. My idea is that Zhongli hasn't been using his gnosis for a while, like multiple decades, but he would shift forms. He tried to be a teenager for a while during his mid-archon-crisis, and ended up getting adopted by Ningguang's parents. She was born not long after, so she always saw him as her older brother. After a few years of this, he accepted he couldn't play make believe like this forever, and disappeared one night. Little did he know, his aura was keeping Ningguang's family out of debt, and after he left it all fell to ruin. Ningguang then grew up, spending the rest of her life wondering what happened to her brother & missing him.

Before all that, Zhongli did raise, and is still raising, Xiao and Ganyu. During that time, they were both mentoring under other adepti. They see him as their dad, and have forever. Zhongli recently ended up kind of half adopting Hu Tao, but she doesn't know all of the details of them being adepti & an Archon, but she's just happy to have a family.

Xiao has recently started dating Aether, which was supposed to be his little rebellion at Zhongli for dating Childe, as Xiao hates Childe, but Zhongli is very proud of Xiao and Aether. Though his planned back fired, Xiao is truly happy to be with Aether.

Hu Tao has been dating Yanfei, and while they are happy together, as well as work well as business partners, Zhongli's back is going to go out early if he has to keep supervising the two pyro loverbirds. They have so much energy, and just run him ragged when they are handling a job.

Beidou ended up pretty much completely adopting Kazuha, as he has been on the run a while now, and while she was working with him/the resistance, they both just felt connected like family.

Part of the reason that Kazuha sees Beidou as a mom is because his disapeared a long time ago with is younger brother. He was happy they escaped, but he hadn't heard anything about his brother since, which made him scared.

Thoma, on the other hand, was actually adopted by Beidou. His parents left him in Ritou to suffer, and though Beidou wasn't able to take him with her to be a sailor, she was able to get him set up with Ayaka's family.

Yoimiya is the only blood family he knows of, and her family immediately took him in around age 16 when they found out what his parents did. He continued to work under Ayaka despite them suggesting he learn the fire work trade.

Little does he know, but Razor is Kazuha's brother. Their mom didn't end up making it, as she became fatally ill during the journey from Inazuma to Liyue. She was rushed to Bubu Pharmacy, but it was too late, and she sadly passed away while being treated there. Razor was supposed to be sent to Mondstat to become a knight of Favonious, but the wagon transporting him was taken down by Hillichurls, and then he was found by his Lupical.

Lisa regularly goes into the woods to study, and that's when she ran into Razor and began visiting him to teach him how to speak, to which she sort of became him mom.

Jean technically has no kids, but had ended up raising Klee, Albedo, and Barbara. Klee had been with Albedo pretty much since she was born, as Albedo would take care of them both with Alice coming to check in here and there. But after an experiment gone wrong, Albedo was badly hurt, and carried a small, crying Klee all the way to Mondstat. Once he got there, he was lucky that Jean, Lisa, and Diluc were all having dinner at Good Hunter. They rushed over to him, Jean in the lead, and he handed Klee to her before collapsing on the ground. They brought him to the cathedral where he was healed, and once he was recovering he was taken to the Knights head quarters for questioning. After that, they figured it was better for Klee to be in the Knight's direct care, and Albedo could work with them. Jean ended up becoming quite the mother to the two of them.

As for Barbara, she simply always took care of her. Though they aren't that far apart in age, Jean still always took on a parental role for her.

What Alice forgot to mention, was that she actually has a sister. Said sister is in fact, Mona's mom, and when she saw Mona having magical potential like Alice, she sent her to study under her current Master, Alice's rival. Without knowing it, Mona and Klee are cousins.

Diona was finally able to get over her anger towards Diluc, as she eventually got so fed up with him that she went to Angel's Share just to yell at him. But when she got there, she realized he wasn't drinking alcohol. After sitting her down and talking to her for a while, Diona was finally able to understand Diluc. She started crying, and Diluc sat with her while she did, before she eventually started to fall asleep, so he carried her on his back to the Cat's Tail. When he got there he saw her dad and went to deliver Diona to him but realized just how drunk he was. Diluc then set Diona down on a chair while he went to confront her dad, which lead to a massive yelling match. Diluc realized just how neglectful her dad really was, and had him arrested the next day. He was then charged with Neglect, and has since been cast out of Mondstat for an unknown amount of time as his sentence, as well as not being allowed custody of Diona. The Cat's Tail was closed for a while before another bartender took it up and renamed it. Diona moved in with Diluc and he now raises her on his own. She sees him like a hero and the father she always wanted, but he never asks her to call him "dad" or "father" but instead asks her to call him "Pa" or "Vati" (the german translation of dad.)

Diluc and Venti have also been in a long term relationship for many years. Diluc asks Venti not to drink around Diona, as it still makes her uncomfortable despite being his apprentice. Venti respects this and often will "buy" his drinks from Diluc and make his way over to the old Cat's Tail and drink there instead, or he will just stay at Angel's Share if Diona isn't there/is in bed. The two of them have been dating for nearly 8 years, but aren't married. Everyone always asks why not, but they just don't see the point. Venti is very independent, and Diluc constantly has responsibilities, they don't want their life to be 50/50 but rather they both do what they love and enjoy one and others company while doing so, without labels.

And that's a wrap! I could probably write out exactly how each of these came to be in more detail, but this is quite long as it stands. I hope you all enjoyed!

[messedupfan]

Infinity & Beyond (Wanda Maximoff x Reader) Chapter 4

Summary: This chapter focuses on the journey of the reader during the five years without Wanda.

A/N: Thank you for the likes and reblogs! Hope that you are all enjoying the story.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3

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You wake up a few months later in the Avengers compound once again. This time with your memories intact and feeling unbelievably disappointed. “She found him,” you find yourself saying to whoever was in the room as you involuntarily sit up on the bed. The nurse brushes it off as some weird superhero thing and not something to address. But then you repeat yourself again and again until she alerts Bruce who grabs the attention of the other remaining Avengers.

"What do you think she means?" Natasha questions as you make the statement again.

"Maybe she's talking about Wanda and Vision?" Steve chimes in with a concerned look on his face and his arms crossed over his chest.

"Why would she be talking about Wanda and Vision? Vision was an advanced robot with a stone in his head, he had no soul for Wanda to find. If any of that exists," Bruce points out.

"I don't know then," Steve shrugs. Then you repeat the phrase again. "Maybe it's Wanda and her brother? I don't know, maybe we're too focused on the cloudy eyes thing. We could be thinking about this too hard."

Then Rhodey comes into the room to inform the members that the radar has picked up a signal of an unidentified flying object. He thinks that Carol might be back. "Just say UFO," Natasha rolls her eyes as she follows the guys out of the building. On their way out she spots a worried Pepper Pots and quirks her lips into a reassuring smile. "I think she found him," she says to the woman and leads her to the landing zone of the compound. It's only then that Natasha realizes what you meant. Sure enough, a woman is carrying a ship into the landing zone with Tony Stark and someone named Nebula. Pepper wraps her arms around Tony in tears and relief. He is quickly brought to the medical wing where you remain. Somehow having watched the whole thing from your bed.

When you come out of it the nurse informs you that your eyes had gone cloudy for a moment and you had predicted the return of your father. "He isn't my father," you grouched. Huh, must be another ability, you think to yourself.

Later, after passing a few diagnostic exams with flying colors, you are discharged from your hospital room and are eating across from a very serious Thor as people argue and yell at each other. It was weird to eat actual food. Thor was almost amused watching you figure out how to hold your sandwich.

Tony is then rolled into the room with a furious energy. You can tell that he is really hurting from this loss, that he is frustrated and you can even feel betrayal radiating off of him somehow. Of course, it's not until he's shouting at the Captain that you realize you are feeling his emotions. You were feeling everyone's defeated emotions and it was beginning to suffocate you. As you try to distract yourself with the food, your mind wanders to how overwhelmed Wanda must've felt being able to read people's minds. That leads to the memory of Wanda slipping from you and it's almost too much to handle. You toss the plate in front of you, disrupting the ongoing argument. You’re squeezing your skull as the tears come and you scream for it all to stop. Natasha and Steve fall to your side as they do their best to calm you down. Once the memory leaves you and you've settled, everyone in the room gets serious about finding Thanos.

Nebula is useful as she provides the only lead to finding Thanos and you join them on the spaceship, brushing off everyone's concerns. The talking racoon asks how many of you haven’t been to space before, you raise your hand among the others which seems to be enough to make him laugh. You don't understand why until the ship rushes off to space.

Arriving just outside the planet, a floating woman you hadn't been introduced to yet appears at the front window and is surprised to report that the planet is just Thanos. Along with everyone else, you are heart broken to find out that he had destroyed the stones. You feel for Thor when he says he went for the head and shed another tear for the woman that Thanos had taken from you. It feels like you just lost her all over again.

The first year is the longest. The days feel never ending and drag on. Most nights were spent jolting out of bed in a cold sweat as you're being haunted by memories. It often felt like you were back in the hands of Hydra being electrocuted and injected, spoken to in a language you didn't know, probably German. Everything that was done to you in the time you were captured, everything that your mind had originally suppressed, was attacking you each night. Going through it alone made you miss Wanda even more. So once you could remind yourself that you were safe, you had also been reminded that you were alone. Lots of tears were shed in the night.

After Tony built up enough strength to leave the compound he did but he never stayed gone long. He would return often to attempt to build a relationship with you. It wasn’t easy trying to let him in, the lack of sleep being no help, so you didn’t. Your resistance never stopped him from making the effort to get to know you. Now that he knew you existed, he wanted to be part of your life. Tony knew that you needed family and he was all you had left, even if you didn't want to accept it. He promised to never abandon you ever again.

That didn’t mean he stopped living his life. Within a few months of his recovery, Tony invited you to his surprisingly low-key wedding which you begrudgingly attended with Natasha and Steve. They had been helping you out a lot with coping and figuring out whether or not you wanted Tony in your life. Steve often joked about fighting him again to get him to back off, but you never took the offer. You did your best to enjoy yourself at the wedding but it only reminded you of what you couldn’t have.

You smiled your way through the night as you thought about Wanda.

Her smile, the dress she would’ve worn, her laugh, that look in her eyes that is so full of love and only reserved for you. Your mind went even further back to a time when Pietro was alive and how they would’ve danced together and how happy he would have been for the two of you. You even imagine the wide grin he would have walking Wanda down the aisle and the single tear he would shed. Once he found that ring of yours he was constantly harassing you about when and how you were going to ask his twin. Even giving unwanted advice and ideas. It was all so consuming. That night you fell asleep crying in Natasha’s arms.

Months later, while Tony was visiting you he included you in on a secret. Pepper was pregnant. You didn’t exactly give the most joyous reaction but you were happy for him and Pepper. “When she’s born, promise me you won’t come back here,” you find yourself saying.

“Well I don’t know if she’s a girl yet but… why don’t you want me to come around here?” Tony asks as he returns the ultrasound image to his pocket.

“I want the three of you to be happy. I don’t want you to worry about me. Besides, I’m thinking of asking Nat to start assigning me to missions. I probably won’t be around as much and I really just need to get my mind off of the things I lost and the things I can’t have.” You keep your eyes on the promise ring Wanda had given you on your first anniversary. “But I want you and Pepper to be happy. Enjoy your life Tony. You don’t need to make things right with me to do that.” Tony disagrees but hugs you as he says his goodbyes and you find Natasha for your first assignment.

You are there for the birth of Morgan Stark. You forge her a special necklace from your powers and smile at the little bundle of joy. “Congrats you guys, she is so precious,” you say as you hold the baby.

“Thank you, Y/N,” Pepper says with hooded eyes and a tired smile. You hand the baby back to Tony and leave before thoughts of Wanda could invade and cloud your head. She always wanted a family. She used to fantasize about the kinds of parents the two of you would be. The types of kids you guys would raise. Baby names… Being away allowed you to forget her. But moments like these threatened to tear you down.

More years pass and Natasha is forced to ground you from missions because you have become too mentally unstable and a major liability. Steve drags you to his group therapy sessions but you hardly pay attention or contribute. You just miss Wanda and you allow yourself to feel that pain because running from it has only made it grow. For the most part you spent your time sitting in meetings with Steve or Nat. You preferred being in Natasha’s meetings since they were about mission updates and strategy and not about people crying over first dates. Shortly after that particular meeting Steve began to hint that maybe you should give it a try, you shut him down and turned it around on him. He quickly dropped the subject.

Among that daily schedule you would end your nights curled up on your bed in the room Wanda stayed in while she was waiting for you to come back to her. You would hold some clothes that still smelled like her to your nose as you listened to sad songs. For a while you’re stuck listening to Little Talks wondering if her spirit was lying by your side trying to reach out to you. Some of the things you felt were too painful to keep around and you had them stored at a special place far enough from here. One of them being the old computer. Well, they had been stored away for you but sometimes you convinced yourself that you made the call on your own. Not that Natasha arranged a team to steal most of your belongings.

Tony was generous enough to copy every video and photo file from the computer and put them into your phone. They helped you go to sleep at night.

Then one day, a man you swore had to have been on the vanished list that Nat viewed often, appears at the gate. “Is this old?” Steve asks.

“This is live,” Natasha says. They let him in and the three of you stand around as he explains how he can help. You, Nat, and Steve are skeptical but not so much that you guys don’t have hope it won’t work. Immediately you guys are on the road to find Tony Stark.

Over the years you tried to visit between missions, when you could. Not for Tony but for Morgan. You couldn’t help but fall for the little girl, she was your sister and you wanted to be the best big sister you could be for her. You also wanted to make sure she knew how many people cared for her and that she would always be safe and protected. Natasha was also captivated by her and would sometimes join you on the visits. You girls would play once she was able to run around and you even showed her some of your powers. During this time you finally allowed Tony in and even established a healthy relationship with him and Pepper because whether or not you wanted to accept it, they were your family.

When you arrive at the cabin, Morgan jumps out of Tony’s arms and runs into yours. “Y/N/N!” She shouts happily. You greet her with just as much energy and take her into the house to let them do the talking.

Pepper prepares some drinks and has you take them out to everyone. You re-enter the kitchen to help her with lunch. “Why aren’t you out there with the rest of them?” Pepper asks conversationally.

“Because my powers are connected to my emotions and if your husband says no… I might accidentally blow him into bits and pieces,” you sigh.

Despite herself, Pepper laughs a little. “You know,” she starts. “If you called him dad, he won’t have any other choice than to say yes.”

You shake your head, not this again. “Not going to happen.” Tony hasn’t directly asked you to say it but Pepper has and she keeps bringing up how much it would mean to him to hear you say it. “Besides with what we’re trying to do there’s a chance that he might lose all of this. I’m not even sure if I want him to say yes.” Your gaze lands on Morgan playing with her toys. Pepper follows your gaze and smiles softly.

“Hey Morgan, sweetie?” Pepper calls attention to her daughter who curiously looks up at her mother. “You should go out there and rescue daddy,” Pepper says. The little girl's face lights up as she stands to run to the front door. “Knowing Tony, he will find a way to protect everything he loves and save the world. Even if it kills him,” there is something in the way she says those words that causes the two of you to share a look. A hopeful let’s hope it doesn’t come down to that.

She then gives you a hug and tells you to stop by more often, she wishes you luck, and you leave the warmth of the home to the frowns of your rejected friends. You don’t look at Tony when you bid him goodbye.

Next you find yourself in Bruce’s diner and watch as Scott Lang fails to be recognized as Ant-Man by some kids. Bruce is willing to give the time travel a try and on the day the test run is done, you begin to lose hope again. You eat your taco near a window as you observe Scott set up in the landing zone. You laugh when Nebula and Rocket arrive blowing away his food. You almost can’t believe that is the guy who had access to the closest thing they had to a time machine. Steve walks in smiling at your laugh, you don’t do that often, with Tony barking orders behind him. People get to work on the machine and that pesky flicker of hope is restored.

As you work on things Tony is by your side teaching you about every part you are using and putting together. You just let him rattle on and on as you let yourself fantasize about holding Wanda in your arms again. Before you know it they are doing the first test run with Clint Barton. He disappears and instantly reappears with a baseball glove and a stunned expression. “It works,” he says and that feeling of hope causes your heart to pound in your chest. You are going to see her again. Now to find out when to travel to.

“See you in a minute,” Nat says with contained excitement. She is just as excited to complete this mission as you are. After a lot of thinking and planning they separated into three teams of people. Tony, Steve, Bruce, and Scott leave to 2012 to retrieve the tesseract, scepter, and the time stone. Nat, Clint, Nebula, and Rhodey vanish to 2014 to grab the power stone and the soul stone. The last team is just Thor and Rocket to grab the reality stone that is apparently inside of Thor’s former girlfriend. Tony, Steve, and Nat wouldn’t let you go on the mission because they still think you’re a liability. You argue that Thor isn’t exactly the picture of mental stability but they point out that Thor is the only one on their team that knows Asgard and where that stone is.

So you sit and pout in a chair for the quick minute that everyone is gone. Part of what has you so pissed off is that you didn’t get to experience time traveling. All because of a few bad missions. You watch them disappear and stare at the platform but time seems to drag on and you look down at your phone with a sigh. In that second everyone has returned with their stones and your heart drops. You notice one person missing and frown. “Where’s Nat?” You ask. Clint wears a broken expression and takes a breath before explaining how he received the stone. “Oh,” is all you can come up with.

Clint felt that it should’ve been him and you didn’t disagree but you understood why Natasha sacrificed herself. She confided in you a few times about how she felt like a monster because of what she was forced to do when she was being raised in the Red Room. She even talked about the mandatory hysterectomy and hated that she could never carry kids of her own. You did your best to try and cheer her up by telling her that adoption was always an option. “No agency is going to allow a former assassin to adopt a kid. Trust me… I tried.” She then boasted about Clint and his family, she loved them as if they were her own family. “I’ll deny it if you tell anyone but I cried like a baby the first time his daughter called me aunty Nat,” she got teary eyed and you passed her another shot of vodka.

Natasha missed them so much and you knew she would sacrifice herself to get them back. She wouldn’t have been able to live with herself if his family came back and she had to inform them that he died to save her. She probably would have felt like a bigger monster than she already thought she was. You stood up and left the room to collect yourself and get as far away from everyone’s grief as possible. Natasha had easily become your best friend these past few years. In the past year that you’ve been stuck at the compound there were days when it felt like all you had was each other. You can’t believe she’s gone but you have to hope that there is still a way to bring her back.

Banner finds you later and makes you some food and Rocket sits with you and the rest of the guys sit by the dock to talk. You force the comfort food down despite feeling too sad to eat and notice Nebula walking back into the time machine area. They call you into another room where they’re going to put the stones together but you ignore them and follow Nebula. They let you go, assuming that you’re still upset about losing Natasha. The first time you went on an actual mission with Nebula, you were put off with how serious she was so you came up with random nicknames to call her. She was annoyed initially but eventually she mentioned how funny she thought it was. Her tone had remained emotionless as she told you that and you had to refrain from laughing because it felt rude to do so as she was opening up. Nebula was still a very serious person to be around but she loosened up a bit around you, even called you her friend.

“Hey Neb-Neb!” You called out after her but she ignored you. “Bu-Bu! Hello?” You followed her to the control panel, “Nella, what’s going on with yo–” she cuts you off by wrapping her hand around your throat and speaking to you through gritted teeth. There was definitely something off about Nebula but you couldn’t quite figure it out. So you fought back because you weren’t fighting your friend, you were fighting a stranger. The two of you go hand in hand until she slips out of your hold and goes back to the control panel. You move to stop her but are too late. Next thing you know, you are waking up in rubble.

With a groan you sit up and dust yourself off then quickly panic, you don’t even know if they had time to do the reverse snap. You crawl your way out of the rubble and find Steve, Tony, and Thor speaking in hushed tones. “Did you guys do the snap? What happened?” You ask frantically, you need to know that you’ll be seeing Wanda again. Losing her a third time was simply not an option. Then you see a very alive Thanos just sitting there. That’s when it connects in your head. It was a different Nebula and she was getting a past version of Thanos into this present. “Please tell me you guys did the snap,” you look at Tony and he nods. But the look on everyone's faces told you that they didn’t know if it worked.

You join them as they attack Thanos but he is powerful and not easy to bring down. You’re tossed into another pile of rubble and shake your head, annoyed with yourself because you felt useless. Your powers were failing you and you couldn’t fathom as to why. Out of nowhere you see portals open up one by one, the people that had vanished and the people that hadn’t stepped through each portal. Then an enormous Ant-Man emerges from the ground and drops off a few more people that must’ve been trapped from the destruction of the compound. You gather with the rest of them and really focus to activate your powers as Steve grabs Mjolnir and shouts, “Avengers… Assemble!” Despite the unsuccessful attempt, you still charge along with the rest of them to fight against Thanos’ army.

Without seeing her, you could just sense that Wanda is among the rest and as much as you want a reunion, saving the world takes precedence at the moment. You could practically hear her telling you to go be a hero anyway. As you fight against Thanos’ army, using the hand to hand combat skills Natasha and Steve taught you, a part of you is still distracted and searches for Wanda. Regardless of where you want your focus at the moment. You make your way around the battlefield hoping to knock into her or something so that you don't get yourself killed trying to find her. Then you hear her.

“You took everything from me,” her tone is heavy and her eyes are glowing. You come to the conclusion that she must not know whether or not you are alive. So you don’t let her know and wait to find out what she does.

“I don’t even know who you are,” Thanos responds, angered by the woman's threatening glare.

“You will,” she says before she starts attacking him with her powers. Discreetly killing off a large gathering of Outriders hurtling towards you, you watch Wanda as she comes very close to killing Thanos herself. He calls for the ships to rain fire on everyone and that’s when you finally make yourself present to her. You jump from your spot and land right beside her and create a force field to protect the both of you. Other members are being protected by the sorcerers and it isn’t until Captain Marvel comes flying through that the bullets stop coming down and people are trying to get the gauntlet out of there. You turn towards Wanda and feel her mixed emotions, you wink at her with a smile as you let the barrier go.

“It’s time to be a hero right now, love. We can say hello later,” you tell her before you go back into the fight, the adrenaline rushing through you as your powers have finally activated. Each member does their best to keep the gauntlet out of Thanos’ reach but sadly no one succeeds and he holds the extreme amount of power once again. Carol fights him with as much power as she has to keep him from snapping his fingers but eventually gets tossed aside. You step up next using everything that you have inside of you, using abilities you had no idea you even possessed. But in the end you are tossed onto a metal rod that had been protruding out from the destroyed building. It had stabbed you through your side making it difficult to breathe. As you fight for air you look around to watch Thanos and his army disappear. Tony collapses beside you. “No,” you cough out weakly. You reach out for him and luckily he was close enough for you to touch his shoulder. “Tony,” you gasp as the tears sting your eyes. His eyes follow the sound but you can tell that he’s not actually looking at you.

“Mr. Stark, we won. Mr. Stark,” Peter says as he tries to grab Tony’s attention. Rhodey lands beside his best friend with understanding and sadness in his eyes. Yours tighten shut for a moment as your tears start to fall. You want to wake up from this horrible nightmare but this is reality, a piece of you knew that you couldn’t avoid. Then Pepper arrives and pulls the boy in the spider suit away from her husband. You look up and see that he has finally returned somewhat enough to recognize his wife.

She tells him that he can rest now, then she looks over to you so that you know that now is the time to say something so you don’t regret it later. With a weak grip on his shoulder you nudge him to return his attention to you. It looks like he’s trying to smile at you but is obviously far too weak to do as such. You offer him the best one that you could muster in your current state. “I love you, dad. It’s okay, we’ll be okay,” your hand lands in his and he gives it the lightest squeeze before it falls limp.

Wanda makes her way over to you and panics at the amount of blood you’ve lost but at the moment you don’t feel anything. Not even the pain of losing your father. You just feel… numb. It dawns on you that your body must be failing but that doesn’t scare you. She takes your hand as your loud thoughts of just letting go enter her mind. “No,” she starts through frustrated teeth. “You can’t leave, Y/N. Please, keep fighting. This can’t be our ending. I need you, please don’t leave me,” she sounds so broken but equally determined to keep you alive. As you hold her gaze she lets out a broken sob and tenderly whispers, “I love you to infinity.” She continues to beg, depositing small kisses to the back of your hand. As her words sink in, you find the strength that you need to fight off the thoughts of letting go. Then, with your heightened vision, you look around and find every remaining Avenger kneeling out of respect for your father and you have the urge to join them. You struggle to get up from your position, Pepper and Wanda try to stop you from moving but all rational thought has left you.

“I’m not dying right here,” you grumble as you reach behind you and cut the rod. You shift your position and Pepper sprays your wound to close it around the remaining bits of the rod that was still in you so that the bleeding would stop until you could get it properly treated. Then you kneel for your father to show your respect for him in his death that you failed to show while he was alive. You think about how grateful you were for the last five years and how much you appreciated that he never gave up on you. You silently thank him just as the adrenaline leaves your body and it succumbs to the full extent of your injuries causing you to collapse and pass out.

Chapter 5

[sineala]

The gay Invaders

Hi, internet! Today I'd like to talk about one of the chronologically-first canonically-gay couples in Marvel Comics history: Brian Falsworth (the second Union Jack) and Roger Aubrey (The Destroyer). (I mean "chronological" in terms of in-universe timeline rather than RL publication date; I'm pretty sure Northstar is still the first to publication as far as unambiguously-gay Marvel heroes go.)

If you are a fan of reading or writing about Captain America being queer, you should care about Brian and Roger, because they were two of Steve's fellow Invaders in the 1940s, meaning that they are two of the people on the list of Steve's Old Gay Friends And Teammates, because, yeah, Steve sure had a lot of canonically gay friends during the war. Probably more than you'd think he would have had in the forties! (The other two are Percival Pinkerton, who's part of Nick Fury's Howling Commandos, and of course Steve's childhood friend Arnie Roth. Pinky is gay by word of Stan Lee, IIRC; Arnie was as canonically gay as DeMatteis could make him in the early 1980s, so they didn't say the word "gay" but it's really, really not subtle. Steve compares what Arnie feels for his "roommate" Michael to what Steve feels for his girlfriend Bernie. Yeah.)

I previously made a Tumblr post about Brian and Roger, rounding up some of the canonical evidence of their relationship, but that post is six years old now, and in the intervening years, Marvel has thoughtfully put the rest of the 70s Invaders run on Unlimited as well as the two Citizen V miniseries that star Roger and retcon his relationship with Brian as romantic. So I've read them now, and I've got panels.

Okay. I should probably begin by saying that Brian and Roger are not canonically gay in their first significant appearance together, which is in Invaders vol 1 #19 and #20, published in 1977. Roy Thomas does not seem to have intended them to be a couple, and they aren't canonically one in any of the original Invaders run. However, if you enjoy gay subtext, it's very nice.

This whole arc is the one that introduces Roger in modern canon. He's been brainwashed by the Nazis and the Invaders rescue him and get him back to his normal self. But in #19 we get his backstory in flashback, as related by Montgomery, Lord Falsworth (Brian's father; yes, MCU fans, the name should look familiar) and it turns out that Roger and Brian were basically best friends since childhood:

They were the dearest of friends!

Anyway, they both ended up captured by Nazis, they presumably changed their minds about appeasement as a policy, Brian got out and joined the Invaders, then they had to rescue the brainwashed Roger, and it's a fair amount of fun in a two-issue arc.

The subtext is even more prominent in Invaders #34, in which they find out that someone going by the Destroyer (which is Roger's codename) has been doing villainous deeds, and the Invaders worry that Roger's gotten himself brainwashed again. Brian immediately insists that it can't really be Roger because he knows Roger and Roger Would Never:

Unsurprisingly, Brian is right. It's not really Roger; Master Man is impersonating the Destroyer, and the villains have taken Roger captive, and the Invaders break him out and there is an extremely significant moment where it just so happens that Roger has to catch Brian, saving his life for a change, and they stare deeply into each other's eyes and Brian seems to be having difficulty finishing his sentences:

Some people who read this therefore concluded that Brian and Roger were extremely gay for each other. While ordinarily this sort of shipping is mostly confined to fandom, in this particular instance, one of the people who started shipping Brian/Roger was Fabian Nicieza, and Fabian Nicieza, as you probably know, writes comics for Marvel. I think you see where this is going.

However, first I must inform you that, sadly, Brian has been canonically dead for years. Captain America vol 1 #253-254 -- the two-parter about Baron Blood in the Stern/Byrne Cap run in the 80s -- establishes that Brian died in a car accident in 1953. (This is also the run where Joseph Chapman -- a friend of Jacqueline Falsworth's son Kenneth -- becomes the third (and current) Union Jack.)

(Roger then appears in a bunch of T-Bolts issues; I assume there's nothing interesting there on the gay front because I feel like someone would have told me. I should probably read more than three T-Bolts issues someday.)

So, anyway, in 2001, Fabian Nicieza wrote a miniseries called Citizen V and the V-Battalion. Roger, who is still superheroing as the Destroyer despite being pretty old by this point, is part of the titular V-Battalion, and he has a very prominent role in this miniseries. And in #1, we have the usual splash page of character backstory, and there's a very, um, interesting line there:

Regarding Brian and Roger's relationship, the narration informs us: "It sounds much gayer than it probably was."

This is interesting, obviously for a couple of reasons. One is that, up to this point in canon, as far as I can tell, literally nobody thought any of this sounded the slightest bit gay at all. (Other than, I guess, Fabian Nicieza.) The other reason is that, as we soon find out, it actually was as gay as it sounds. Thanks, Fabian!

In 2002, Nicieza wrote a second miniseries, Citizen V and the V-Battalion: The Everlasting. Issue #1 opens with a flashback set in 1953; specifically, we see Brian's funeral:

Roger is extremely sad, and when Lord Falsworth expresses his sympathy about the death of Roger's "friend" and saying that he knows how much this hurts him, Roger mutters under his breath that he doesn't have the slightest clue:

All is revealed on the next page, when one of the other characters tries to ask Roger about superhero business and Roger snaps at him because, as he says, "I just watched my friend die in my arms."

Except "friend" isn't the word he starts to say:

Yep. That would be "lover." So Roger nearly outs himself. So, yes, now it's absolutely canon. Hooray.

Later on in the issue, which is set in the present day, we have a couple pages of Roger staring at pictures of the two of them and continuing to be sad:

Yeah. They were a couple.

So the question you -- being a Captain America fan -- might ask yourself is, okay, did/does Steve know about any of this? (The reason I started looking all this up was because I wanted to know if Steve knew.) I don't know if we have a panel of Roger specifically admitting any of this to Steve (and if we do, I would like to know about it), but I would be comfortable saying that Steve probably knew back then -- because, well, he seems like the kind of guy who would actually have been fine with it in the 40s, what with all his gay friends -- and also that I can't think of a reason why he wouldn't know now. Because he's definitely worked with Roger again in fairly recent comics, and also Roger is very much out, these days.

In fact, New Invaders #4 (2004) opens with Roger attending Pride:

So, yeah, he's out.

(Then he has to fight, as far as I can tell, homophobic Nazi vampires. They're yelling slurs in German. Great.)

In All-New Invaders #10, which is from 2014 (and which is not the same series as New Invaders), Roger shows up to help out the Invaders, and in passing, he just happens to mention to another character (Joseph Chapman, the current Union Jack), that he is in fact gay:

He and Joseph don't really like each other much; as far as I can tell, their acquaintance in New Invaders consists of Joseph being vaguely homophobic and Roger being bitter about him being Union Jack because he actually wanted to be Union Jack himself to honor Brian's memory -- you know, that thing superheroes sometimes like to do to honor their dead superhero significant others, viz. Hank when Jan was dead after Secret Invasion -- and now Union Jack is this annoying kid and not, y'know, the love of his life. This exchange from New Invaders #4 seems pretty representative of their relationship:

Anyway, yeah, he's pretty obviously out.

Steve isn't actually present for this conversation in All-New Invaders, but he mentions in a later issue of this run that he knows what Roger and his pals have been up to, plot-wise, so I feel comfortable assuming that he's talked to Roger at some point in the previous ten years or so, and therefore, since Roger is completely out at this point in canon, there's no reason Steve shouldn't know now.

On an unrelated note, it's also a fun issue if you're a Steve/Tony fan because this is clearly running in parallel with Hickman's Avengers run, which means that he spends half a page telling Namor that he's mad at him and the rest of the Illuminati (but mostly mad at Tony because... he's just obsessed with Tony in this run, I guess?) about the mindwipe:

This is the sum total of my knowledge about Brian and Roger. No, wait, I know one more thing, which is that Brian was a character in the late, lamented mobile game Avengers Academy, in which he was also actually gay; Roger does not seem to have been there. There's a CBR article that you can read about the whole thing, which mentions some of these details from the comics in passing. (I have no idea why it says that their relationship was alluded to in the Stern/Byrne run; unless I missed something big, the only thing those issues do is establish Brian's death. As far as I can tell, no one is gay in them.)

So, yeah, that's Brian Falsworth and Roger Aubrey, the two gay Invaders. Steve sure has a lot of gay friends.

[natromanxoff]

19 - The Dynamic Duo V Montreux

Hello folks. I was sitting around twiddling my thumbs and I thought I would give the old hard drive a clean up, so before I dump a load of rubbish I thought I'd better answer these before I throw everything in the recycle bin. Let's start with a lady from New Jersey who goes by the name of Dorothy who gave me a very interesting offer for the next time I'm in New York. If you're reading this Dorothy, could you send Jacky your email address so I can reply to you. I've just opened up a "secret" Hotmail account so I can send replies without pestering the lovely Mrs Smith all the time, and to test it I went to the guestbook and picked a few names at random. Maybe I should reply to the irate drummer, but if I do that he'll just reply to me and the girls in the office will miss out on laughing at him as well. Staying with the skin bashers for a mo, Ron Hansen in Madison is a drummer, and said he liked my jokes and reckons Mr Irate uses three sticks, two in his hands and one up his arse (his words not mine). Would I be correct in saying your a Zep fan Ron? Today's question is, "What do you get if you cross a drummer with a roadie?" The answer is a stupid roadie.

Moving on, last time around I mentioned a drink which we consumed in Brazil, and the charming Sonia and Dina informed me it was called Caipirinha, and a pleasant little tipple it was to. Somewhere in Australia there is a lady called Karen who is listening to the Offspring CD non-stop, so I'm gonna have to try and answer her question as she has such great musical tastes, even though she wants to know the..........(flashing lights, fireworks, drum roll) Hoover Salesman Story. ARGHHHH. Its actually a very short tale, and I think it's quiet boring but it seems to have grown in stature over the years, and as always I'm gonna drag it out and start from the first skiing expedition that I ventured on with RT.

Having checked my trendy little biog mag, I reckon the year is 1980, and the dynamic duo are in Montreux putting the finishing touches to Fun in Space and we have a few days off before a tour starts in Zurich when Rog says, "Let's go skiing." He had skied a few times before and was ok at it, but I had never put a pair of skis on in my life. I said, "Lets go, but you ski and I'll just get pissed." He then went on about what a buzz it is and how I would love it, etc. As we were touring soon our American crew had to fly out, so I called up Jim Devenney and told him to come over a couple of days earlier cause we were gonna ski. Jim is a great skier and was on the first flight available and I picked him up at Geneva airport ready for some fun. That night we hit the town and have too many drinks and Rog goes off to bed semi early, while Jim and myself sat out on the jetty of Duckingham Palace with a ghetto blaster, Derek and Clive tapes, and a vat of wine singing disgusting songs at full blast, which must have echoed over to France. Suddenly we hear a French voice screaming at us and we have no idea what he was saying so we carried on goofing around, and the next thing I hear is a huge splash as Devenney falls in.

Let me assure you that a drunk trying to get a drunk out of Lake Geneva is not an easy task, but we succeed and head back to DP and retire to our rooms. I'd just got into bed when I hear a crash and go to investigate, only to find JD had gone in the wrong room and was trying to get into a baby's cot, and getting him out of there was harder than getting him of the lake.

Next day Roger, Dave Richards, his wife Collette, Jim and myself set off to Zermatt, and on arrival we stock up on skis, passes and other skiing paraphernalia (big words now!) Dinner, drinks and off to bed. Next morning we're up and ready to go, and thinking I'll never ski again after this I refuse to waste money on a ski suit, so I wear jeans. My second wrong move, the first was agreeing to go. The hotel owner wouldn't let us leave the hotel without first drinking a couple of Sambuccas, not my idea of a good breakfast, eggs, bacon, tea, toast and Italian liqueurs, but who are we to refuse. Next I've got to try and walk in those godamn boots, and we eventually arrive at the top of the Matterhorn.

The OK skiers, RT and Dave set off on their own, Collette begins a very slow trip down while JD tells me he'll stay and teach me. On go the skis, and down I go, flat on my arse. Up I get and I'm off, for all of about 2ft before I'm down again. This is not any fun. After a couple more tumbles my great mate Jim said, "If you're gonna f*** around I'm going." And thats the last I saw of him all day. Thanks pal. I'm standing there watching people ski and think, "It can't be that hard. If you stand like this, lean like that, you can ski." So I stand and lean in the correct positions and I'm away, screeching down a mountain with only one very small problem, I have no idea how to turn or stop, so as I'm flying past Collette, and she reckons I looked very worried, I yelled for some advice and all she said was, "DIVE." Sound advice, so thats what I do, and by now I'm getting wet. I wait for her and then we set off together, the blind leading the blind, with me diving at the slightest bit of speed or bend in the piste. A million years later we eventually reach the bottom of this awful slope and it's finally over. Wrong. Theres a T-bar to get on so we wait in line till it's our turn. You're supposed to put the bar just under your bum and it drags you up, but I'm 6ft and Collettes about 5ft 5in, so the bar was either in the middle of her back or around my knees, and no one told me not to sit on the f***ing thing and we bounced around for a while until we fell off. I'm now getting really pissed off with all this, "Get me a helicopter," I demanded from Collete. She told me they don't just send them, you have to be hurt. I replied with, "I'll break my f***ing arm but I've gotta get off this mountain." Realising I'm not getting a copter I light a ciggie and ponder.

We agree to split up and go with someone our own height, so I ended up with a great German guy who was really helpful. Once on the T-bar I can see that it goes way up and I would have to ski back down to base camp, and in case you've forgotten, I can't ski, so I said that I was gonna bail out, and jumped off. I then head of in a straight line to the cable car, skis on the shoulder and wading through 3ft of snow in a pair of very heavy and very cold jeans. What seemed like hours of wading I make civilisation and head to the bar for a triple strength coffee and a triple scotch while everyone gawked at me cause I looked like I had a shower fully clothed. Yeah, I wanna do this again.

Dinner that night was great fun for the others cause they got to take the piss out of me. Their day will come. The rest of the nights activities shall remain sealed away, but a good time was had by one and all. The tour went smoothly and I try and put Zermatt behind me, except Collette, still to this day, takes great delight in telling everyone about it, and everytime she says it she makes me look more and more pathetic.

The next winter appears and I'm at home and the phone rings, "CT, wanna go skiing?" To which my reply was nothing like, "Oh I'd love to you fabulous little drummer boy." I can't believe he talked me into it again, but this time we were gonna do things correctly and go to Aviemore in Scotland and take lessons, this was the saving factor in his plan. So once again we pile into the Range Rover and aim north. We split the driving (for a change) and had a good journey up through the snow covered mountains till we get to the resort. A usual night was on the cards, dinner, drinks and bed, then up bright and early for some lessons and a good day on the slopes. This time we've both got the correct outfits so we head off to where our little group of idiot skiers are. We're all standing in a line, with Rog and me at the end, and each person gets to snow-plough a few feet. These clowns have less idea than my first try, and it's also incredibly cold and we've now got icicles hanging off our hair. It's our turn and we both look like olympic champions, but the only thing wrong with getting it right the first time is that the instructor then turns his attentions back to the start of the line. Here I am once again standing on the top of a mountain, freezing cold with two 'things' stuck on the end of a pair of stupid boots, and I inform His Royal Highness that the next trip away involves sand and sun, no excuses, end of argument. RT agreed that this wasn't much fun and thought my idea worth considering.

We finally heard the two magic words, "Lunch Break." We're gone in search of some good HOT food and a nice beaujolais, and we found both. We also found that the hotel bar had an amazing selection of whisky, and we had to try as many as possible. We're now semi pissed and decide that as we're warm we might as well go back to this lesson even though we are very late, and the instructor looked at us and said, "Where have you two been?" Rog came back with "Trying lots of your wonderful scotch's." He was fine with that answer and we carried on trying to learn something, and would you believe by the end of the day I could actually turn and stop.

Back to the hotel for a nap before dinner. Over a very nice meal and a couple of little drinkettes we agree that it's far to cold here and we'll clear off the next day, so into the bar we go with our earlier mission of trying all the scotch's. We were sitting at a table chatting away and cracking jokes with each other and end up talking to the couple on the next table, swapping skiing stories, needless to say mine were very short, and having a bit of a laugh, when the woman said, "What do you two do for a living?" God knows why, but I said; "We're Hoover salesmen." At first they didn't believe us but we both started going on about the difference between domestic and industrial cleaners, uprights, backpack types, ones you pull along the floor. We went on about the different wattage, suction power, the amount of pressure on Axminsters and Wilton carpets, even a couple of car expressions like overhead this and thats. What the hell do we know about vacuum cleaners? But boy are we good at this. After about 30 mins of utter bullshit the subject finally changed and they wished us all the best with our door to door salesmanship and off they went to bed. We then had to reassure each other what we actually did for a living, had some more drinks and tried to work out how we knew so much about cleaners as both of us have spent most of our lives trying to stay well away from them. We spent the drive back to London having a good laugh about the one day we spent in a Scottish ski resort.

Well that's it folks, the story of a small company, R & C Taylor,..... Hoover Salesmen. I did learn to ski quite well, and whilst in Gstadd doing the Shove it album Spike flew out cause he fancied learning to ski, and the fool asked me to teach him. I wasn't much help because everytime he fell over I burst out laughing cause I kept seeing myself in Zermatt, and Spike looked just as worried and stupid as I did.

Before I go I noticed that Jacky had to get her boiler fixed and said for me not to make a comment, but little things like that spark me off and I remembered that when we were recording in the Townhouse Studios I had a little, no a big affair with the studio chef. Every three months Virgin would do a magazine for all their staff, written by all the heads of various departments, airlines, studios, video, shops, films, etc. and they would say what was going on with their particular section. Alan Douglas, who was chief engineer of all Virgin studios wrote who was recording where, and he wrote, "Queen are in studio 4, and Crystal, their main man is stoking the kitchen boiler." I thought that was hilarious, but Jane went ballistic. That's it for now.

Loadsa luv Crystal (Carpet cleaner to the stars)

[ideks-on-mars]

Half-Brothers?

The Taichi-Naoyasu Situation

Taichi and Naoyasu are half-brothers and here's how lol

Taichi's mother and father had both met in their birth country of Germany. However, his grandparents on his mother's side hadn't approved of his father. The two had then decided to study a good amount of Japanese before saving up for plane tickets and running off to Japan. They changed their last names and had a completely fresh start. The two were madly in love, or at least that's what Taichi's mother thought. She had figured out she was pregnant, with who we know as Taichi, and she was ecstatic. She quickly told Taichi's father and his reaction was the exact opposite of what she expected. The man was furious and didn't want anything to do with the woman or baby. After hours of begging and yelling the man had left the German woman to fend for herself and her unborn baby. She picked up a few different jobs at small stores, extra shifts and she would make good friends that were more than happy to help her, two of those friends being the Shirabu's who also had a baby on the way. Her life in Japan was getting better. And on April 15, 1995, her baby Taichi, was born. She had changed her name after the "Love of her life" had left. Her last name was Kawanishi. And now, all she had was her, her friends, and her beloved baby.

Meanwhile, almost exactly 4 months before Taichi was born. A small, fragile, pale woman, had been another victim of the man. She had found out she was pregnant by him during January 1996. The woman was, just like the last, left soon after. The woman was young and hadn't even been in Japan for too long. She had came to Japan from her home country of Finland due to that fact that it had always been a dream of hers to move in with her grandmother, who moved to Japan when she was two. She was intelligent though, and knew languages like Finnish, Slovak, German, and Japanese. She could also keep up a normal conversation in English and Danish. She was confident in her ability to take care of a baby and she studied extra hard, wanting to be able to get a decent job for her and her baby.

After graduating from college, she was now about seven months pregnant. She lived with her grandma and she was working as a translator for people visiting Japan. She had, who we know as, Naoyasu Kuguri, not long after. However, the older he had gotten, his mother had taught him more Finnish, Slovak, and German than Japanese. He knew some Japanese, of course, they lived in Japan. However his mother thought that all he needed was her and the only person he should feel the absolute need to talk to was her.

TIME SKIP

Multiple years later and Taichi is now seventeen with Naoyasu being sixteen. STZ was having a practice match against Nohebi and they were having a small break between the first and second set.

"Kawanishi-Kun~...doesn't number twelve over there remind you of yourself~ hehe~"

Kawanishi turned to the place his upperclassmen, Tendō Satori, was pointing towards, curious as to what he was talking about.

Taichi scanned the other team until his eyes landed on number twelve. The boy had a lean, yet muscular build, his height similar to Semi's. He had a bored expression on his face and a water bottle in hand. His eyes were pointed at the end, very similar to Taichi's. The only difference was that number twelve's eyes rounded into the point. Taichi's were more of a obtuse angle that lead to the point. Their eyelids were both very pointy. His eyebrows were thicker than Taichi's and his pupils were a lot bigger and more circle shaped, compared to Taichi's oval shaped pupils. Taichi's eyes were silver gray, number twelve's eyes seemed to be green with a hint of grey. Taichi's hair was a darker ginger, thick, and messy. Yet number twelve's hair was...interesting. His hair was a blonde mixed with brunette, leaving him with a very light brown bedhead. However his eyebrows were darker.

"He does look...kind of like me..."

"Kind of", was a bit of an understatement, Taichi could go around telling his team that they were related and they'd most likely believe it, except for Kenjirō of course, who knew the whole situation with Taichi's family.

"You should talk to him! You two seem equally as uninterested."

Some of his teammates laughed at Yamagata's joke but Taichi, for once in his life, actually considered going up to the boy and talking to him.

As if God himself had granted him an opportunity, Nohebi's captain walked up to the team, his hand placed on the back of the stoic winged spiker.

"Hey, sorry if I'm interrupting anything, but would any of you mind helping Kuguri-Kun here find the restroom?"

The captain, who they knew was called Daishō, patted the boy's, now known as Kuguri, back twice. Kuguri didn't react though, he stood there beside his captain quietly, slouched and staring at the ground blankly, his hands stuffed into his volleyball jacket pockets. Before anyone could speak, Tendō, not surprisingly, did.

"Oh! Well our dear Kawanishi-Kun would love to escort Kuguri-Kun! Right Kiwi?"

Kawanishi looked at Tendō with an expression that said "are you serious?" but Taichi wasn't one to go against an upperclassmen's wishes, especially Tendō's. Taichi sighed.

"Yes, Tendō-San."

Daishō smiled a snake-like smile, however Taichi didn't think he could help it, and walked away leaving his teammate with the monsters known as Shiratorizawa. Taichi could tell he was uncomfortable so he quickly walked past him towards the exit.

"C'mon, Kuguri-Kun."

He said, his German accent slipping a little. He glanced behind him and saw that Kuguri was sauntering behind him. Taichi stopped, waiting for the slightly shorter male to catch up with him and began to walk at the other's pace.

Taichi got to the door first and held it open for the brunette. He glanced up at Taichi and nodded. However Taichi could've swore he saw the other's eyes widen for point two seconds before he looked back down and walked through the door way. Taichi, even though it was barely audible, heard Kuguri speak.

"Thank you, Kawanishi-San."

The thick, obviously European, accent was clear in his words. Taichi could tell that it was slightly German, but it just had to be another Northern European accent. Taichi quickly shook it off and nodded. They silently headed down the hall, the occasional Shiratorizawa student walking past them. Suddenly, and surprisingly, Kuguri spoke.

"So...where are you from?"

Taichi was taken aback, the other's accent was thicker now. Taichi seemed confused but figured the the other thought he was from somewhere else due to his accent.

"Oh, um, I'm from Japan. It's just that my mother is German and...I knew how to speak German before Japanese."

Kuguri nodded.

"Oh. I was just asking. I spoke Finnish, Slovak and German before I spoke Japanese. I'm still not as good as I should be at it."

Taichi understood. Japanese was no joke, and neither was Finnish, Slovak, and German.

"Well, if speaking in German makes it easier for you, then I don't mind."

(Bold + Red = Speaking in German)

Kuguri smiled happily. It wasn't the biggest smile, more of just the sides of his lips curling upward, but still, a smile.

"Thank you...Naoyasu Kuguri."

Taichi smiled back, a similar smile to the one Naoyasu had shown him before.

"Nice to meet you...I'm Taichi Kawanishi."

The two smiled, happy that they had someone that they could relate to.

"Anyways, I didn't see you on Nohebi last year, are you new?"

"Yeah, I'm a first year..."

TIME SKIP

It was now the end of the match and Nohebi was about to get on their long trip back to Tokyo.

(I looked it up and from Miyagi to Tokyo is 4-6 hours 👀)

The two teams thanked each other for the practice game, all waving as they piled into the bus. Naoyasu was the last one to get on. He turned around and waved at Taichi one more time. Taichi waved back and watched happily as his new friend had drove off. He was glad they had exchanged numbers.

"So you really did make friends with him?"

Taichi looked over at his teammates.

"Yeah. He was pretty chill."

They nodded.

"Did you catch his name?"

"Yeah. Naoyasu Kuguri."

TIME SKIP

The two boys ended up being good friends. They didn't get to hang out as much as they wanted but it was good enough for them due to the fact that they weren't very social people anyway. Though, when they found out that they both got to go to the same training camp, they were excited. In the training camp you actually got time to lay back and chat with people from other teams, giving them the chance to hangout with each other.

The thing was, at this training camp they allowed parents and/or siblings to come. The parents would come watch their children play, help with lunch and dinner, and help with other fun drills and activities, and if they had younger children they were allowed to bring them. That's how a lot of the parents and siblings made good friends with the others. Taichi's mom, Annike, had always come, due to the fact that, 1) she loves and wants to support her son, and 2) she was great friends with most of the moms of his teammates and other teams. She would always bring Taichi's little six-year-old half sister, Takara, who enjoyed playing with the other little ones. She was the result of of Taichi's old stepfather. He was a cool guy and him and his mom were on good terms. Taichi never really gave him a chance though. However, Taichi would never deny the fact that he adored his little sister.

Once they arrived, Taichi quickly scoped out his teammates and joined them whilst his mother conversated with the other parents.

The coaches informed everyone that they would take the first day to let everyone get settled in, eat, and conversate.

Earlier into the day, Taichi heard his name being called.

"Kawanishi-San. Hello."

Taichi turned around, already having an idea of who it was.

"Hi Kuguri-Kun, how've you been?"

"Alright. You?"

"Fine, thanks."

"Naoyasu! Don't run off like that."

(Bold + Blue = Speaking in Finnish)

"Sorry ma."

Taichi looked a little behind Naoyasu and saw a short, pale woman with blonde hair that fell beautifully over her shoulders, he could've swore she was made of glass. She had on light blue jeans and a grey shirt on. Her eyes were the same color as Naoyasu's.

"Who's this?"

Taichi had no clue what she was saying, considering she was speaking in Finnish. Suddenly Naoyasu moved to the side, so that he wasn't between the two and they could meet eyes and Taichi didn't only see one half of her.

"Ma, this is Taichi Kawanishi, a friend of mine. Kawanishi-San, this is my mother."

Taichi remembered that Naoyasu only had his mother and knew that she knew and taught him German, plus Naoyase was just speaking to her in German so he responded in German.

"It's nice to meet you Kuguri-San. I'm good friends with Naoyasu-Kun."

Taichi stuck his hand out. The woman grabbed it, firmly shaking his hand.

"Nice to meet you Taichi-Kun. You can call me Aino."

"Taichi!"

Taichi looked behind him to see that his mother had come up behind him. She walked up beside him, a smile on her face, Takara beside her. Taichi's mom had curly, long, ginger hair that was pulled into a ponytail. She had on jeans and a t-shirt just like Miss Aino. She turned over to Aino and now the womans' jaws dropped.

Taichi and Naoyasu looked confused while Takara didn't seem to care all the much, only hugging her big brother's leg. Taichi patted her head, still not taking his eyes off of the two women.

"Aino?"

"Annike?"

Now the boys were beyond confused. They knew each other. Both the women nodded to each other and began to walk away. Taichi tried to call out to his mother.

"Mom-"

"Watch your sister Taichi. I'll be back soon."

Naoyasu tried too.

"Mom where are you-"

"Stay with Taichi, help watch the girl."

"Hi!"

Taichi and Naoyasu both looked at each other, shrugged, and looked down at the little girl, who was now looking up at Naoyasu.

WITH THE WOMEN

The two were behind the building now, staring at each other.

"It's been a while."

"It has."

They both were quiet for a few seconds.

"Is that...his son?"

Aino nodded.

"Yeah...it is. Naoyasu is his. I'm sure Taichi is his, correct?"

"Yeah, he is."

The two women chuckled.

"They're half-brothers."

"Yeah they are. They deserve to know."

Annike nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, I can't lie to Taichi any longer."

The two talked more. Catching up with each other and talking about their respective sons. They were nervous to tell their sons, yet excited and happy that they at least had met and are good friends.

AFTER THEY HAD SAT THE TWO BOYS DOWN

Both Taichi and Naoyasu were now sat down on the curb of the parking lot near the building where the training camp was being held. The women were leaning against the Kawanishi's car, both smoking a cigarette. Takara was being watched by some of the Shiratorizawa moms.

Annike dropped the cigarette onto the asphalt and stepped on it, putting it out.

"We have to tell you something important."

The two boys nodded.

"I don't think you both realize how much this will affect you both. This will shock you both tremendously."

The two were hesitant, but nodded. The two women looked at each other and Aino gestured for the other to go ahead and tell the two.

"You two are half-brothers."

The two brothers paused completely. That was until Taichi slapped his thigh and stood up.

"I knew we looked alike!"

He didn't say it in German, causing some other people to look at the usually quiet boy out of curiosity. Taichi bowed towards them apologetically before returning to the situation at hand.

Naoyasu was in shock. Half-brothers? He was just being told now? He assumed that they had the same dad. He wasn't stupid. He put two and two together.

Naoyasu stood up beside Taichi. The two looked at each other not exactly knowing what to do. However, Taichi, who was already a big brother, now of two, had his instincts kick in. Whenever his little sister was confused and was completely lost on what to do, he comforted her, so that's what he did to his new, well new in his life, little brother.

Taichi wrapped his arms around Naoyasu tightly. Naoyasu seemed genuinely scared at first but calmed down quickly. He hesitantly wrapped his arms around Taichi, resting his head on Taichi's shoulder.

The two women smiled gently at their sons, both extremely pleased that the two seemed happy. Taichi pulled away and patted both Naoyasu's shoulders.

"Let's go introduce you to your new little sister too."

Naoyasu looked confused.

"But...I'm not related to her."

"You're part of the family now. No escaping."

Taichi and Naoyasu both laughed and began to make their way to the little girl. The moms watched before Annike started walking too. She noticed that Aino wasn't following her and turned around.

"You too, Aino. You're part of the family too."

Aino couldn't even fight the smile creeping onto her face and dropped her cigarette, stepping on it. Annike reached her hand out and Aino grabbed it.

They both rounded the corner and smiled widely when they saw Takara walking between her two big brothers, holding both theirs hands and talking about something with a big smile on her face.