#i make thousands of mistakes in like a two minutes span

[ilguna]

If you are willing to do another haymitch could I please get #6 from list one? Thank you

☼ beneath the surface (Haymitch Abernathy) ☼

warnings; swearing, death mention, drinking mention, haymitch gets a concussion.

wc; 3.3k

prompt; 6. to outsiders, it looks like they don't get along at all.

notes; there's a 14 year age gap...

--

There is nothing more sickening than watching the roped-off section at the front of the stage begin to fill with young faces. Each year, you promise yourself that you’re going to show up a little later to the reaping to avoid the unavoidable nausea, but the restlessness gets the better of you.

So, you always get the displeasure of sitting on the stage and seeing every face, wondering which two will be the unlucky chosen ones. You used to be one of them almost ten years ago. You were just a face in the crowd of hundreds in the eighteen-year-old section in District Twelve.

You see a reflection of yourself in the older kids the most. The fleeting innocence, the fear, the determination, the hope that you’ll make it through one more year. All for it to be crushed in the span of thirty minutes.

The odds should’ve been in your favor—you never put your name in more times in exchange for Tessera. Which means that in a glass bowl that contained thousands of paper slips, only seven of them had your name written across them in clean handwriting. And still, you were picked.

The terror that took over your body in that moment still frequently returns itself to you. As your life flashed before your eyes, you remembered the amount of Career wins in recent years. And all the District Twelve tributes that never made it to the final ten. How this was going to be your fate in a short week.

Fortunately, it wasn’t. By some miracle, you managed to break a curse on District Twelve that had lasted fifteen years. The same curse that had a fifty year run before Haymitch Abernathy won the Quarter Quell. Not that it matters, because it’s beginning to build up again, anyway.

It’s nothing that you can help. 

Which sounds awful, and you’re acutely aware of that, but you’ve tried every trick in the book. You’ve taken advice from other mentors, you’ve listened to Haymitch’s experience, you’ve used ideas that come to you in the middle of the night. The truth is that District Twelve is doomed.

It’s hard being a mentor, knowing that your efforts don’t really make a difference in your tribute’s survival unless they’re willing to try. It’s so rare to come across them. The tributes nowadays default to the idea that they’re going to die, which isn’t necessarily true. 

Of course, they were born in this black vortex, but they can crawl out of it. It’s been done twice, by Haymitch and then by you. When you try to explain to them exactly what they have to do, they realize how much energy it’ll take. And because you don’t sugarcoat the fact that they probably won’t even catch the attention of the Capitol despite your steps, they don’t bother to continue.

It’s like they want the attention, the sponsors, the good scores and the alliances handed to them on a platter. Which is such a ridiculous concept, because when has a single person from District Twelve ever been handed those opportunities? You can’t figure out where they got this fantasy from.

Regardless, it always ends up going the same way. They let the Capitol week play out the same way it has for years, ultimately screwing them over. They put in no effort for the Tribute Parade, they don’t bother with the Training Center, and they end with low scores. It’s always by then where they come to their senses, because there’s a day before the interview, where there’s one-on-one coaching. 

Due to you asking questions on their angle, their plan, what they’re willing to reveal to Caesar and the Capitol, it gets the gears turning. They realize that they’ve made a mistake, and they rely on you to fix it, but it’s always too late. You can’t come back from just a single interview.

As much as you try to help the tributes that come through, you’ve begun to slack. In the past, you jumped on them as soon as they got on the train. It was the best way to maximize their time with you, getting them a head-start, preparing them for what’s to come. Now, you observe them, and come to your own conclusions on whether or not they’ll listen to what you have to say.

Recently, you’ve been calling it the Haymitch spiral. This is exactly how he must’ve felt for the first few beginning years of mentoring, until the shine wore off and he realized that this is a rigged game. You were lucky enough to get him while he was still semi-sober, and your win even set him back on track for a couple more years.

It didn’t last long, though. He was gone by the time the Sixty-Seventh Hunger Games came around. For the first time, you were on your own to figure things out. The tributes made it farther than you thought they would under your guidance, and when you remarked to Haymitch that with his help, they could’ve made it, he brushed you off. 

A part of you despises him for this, for throwing away every tribute that comes in his direction. For rubbing it in your face afterward because you tried to make a difference. It takes everything in you not to shove it all back onto him sometimes. All you’d have to say is, “No wonder we’ve lost dozens of teenagers, they had you to help them.”

You know that if you did ever say that, then he’d shut down. Which you can’t afford him to do. There's moments of clarity where he’ll help, telling the tributes factors that you didn’t even think of. But these times are so few and far between that they hold practically no worth.

As much as you’ve learned to love and appreciate Haymitch, you truly hope that you never end up like him. That you lose so much hope and self-control that you end up with a drinking problem and blurry memories for the rest of your life. It’s your worst nightmare.

As the time nears two o’clock, the flow of teenagers go from a slow trickle to a steady flow. They shuffle into their designated areas, choosing the spots where they’ll be hidden the most from the cameras. From the prying eyes of the Capitol.

You reach up to brush a dribble of sweat from your forehead. If there’s one day out of the year that you can count on being uncomfortable, it’s reaping day. The dry heat has been particularly torturous this year. It makes you look forward to being on the train, at least it’s air conditioned. 

As if activated by your movement, Effie Trinket leans in your direction, the gentle pink curls of her wig tickling the side of your face, so that she can whisper without alerting Mayor Undersee. “Where is Haymitch?”

Your face twists, moving away from her to get some space between you, allowing you to see the look on her face, which has been painted white this afternoon. You scratch your skin to make the feeling go away. 

“He couldn’t even pull himself out of bed this morning. I just left him there.” You whisper, eyes sliding away, to the crowded streets, wondering if you’ll be able to spot him. “He managed to leave the neighborhood at the same time I did, if I had to guess…” You trail off, looking in the direction of the Hob, where the white liquor is sold for cheap. 

“Again?” She asks incredulously, as if the idea is outrageous when you’re talking about Haymitch. It’s not the first time that he’s shown up to the reaping drunk, but if he doesn’t come soon, he’ll be late. Which will be a first for him. “You need to find him.”

You shrug. “And do what, Effie?” You look at Mayor Undersee, “Excuse me, what time is it?”

He raises his eyebrows, flipping up his wrist to look at the watch. His eyebrows draw in, “I’d say five minutes to two.”

Effie’s eyes have widened. “We’ll get in trouble, (Y/n).”

“It’s not like I can get up and look for him.” You throw your hands up, they slap the top of your knees when they land. 

Effie presses her lips together, unhappy with your indifference. Neither of you speak for the remaining five minutes, which you spend hoping that Haymitch will appear out of thin air. When the clock strikes two, Mayor Undersee gets to his feet, heading for the podium. He can’t wait for Haymitch.

He begins to read the history of Panem, which is done every year at the reaping. He talks about the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, and the seas that claimed hundreds of miles of land. A war was fought to claim what was left of it, with the result being Panem.

A Capitol surrounded by thirteen districts, that was supposed to bring peace and prosperity to its residents. It was gone when the Dark Days came, the districts rebelling against the Capitol. Out of the thirteen districts, only twelve survived. The Treaty of Treason was written up to guarantee peace, the Hunger Games being part of the new law.

“It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks.” Mayor Undersee says. “District Twelve has had three victors in its time of existence. An unknown woman, Haymitch Abernathy, and (Y/n) (L/n).”

A voice shouts something slurred and unintelligible. You glance over to see if the Peacekeepers are reacting, when you find that it’s Haymitch, struggling to get up the stairs safely. You sit up in your seat, watching as he stumbles across the stage, drunk.

The crowd applauds like they’re supposed to after the announcement of the victors. A sloppy smile crosses Haymitch’s face, as he falls into the empty chair beside you. The smell of liquor burns your nose, making your face twist as you go to look away.

Haymitch reaches over, a hand on your cheek as he directs his face to yours. You place your hand over his mouth, shaking your head, disturbed. “Will you pull yourself together?”

“May I introduce District Twelve’s wonderful Capitol escort, Effie Trinket?” The mayor asks, trying to save the moment.

Effie gets to her feet, straightening out her spring green suit. She heads for the podium, while Mayor Undersee comes back to the row of chairs with wide eyes in your direction. As if he’s asking for you to get a handle of Haymitch. You’re not his babysitter—you’re hardly even his girlfriend. He’s a grown man, he doesn’t want to listen to you.

“Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!” Effie bubbles, tilting her head.

You should be past the point of fixing Haymitch’s behavior, especially since what you say goes in one ear and out the other. This might be your breaking point, with him showing up late and drunk and then embarrassing you. It’s fine if he doesn’t want to be taken seriously with the Capitol, but you’re still trying to be a good mentor.

“It is such an honor to be here today.” She says, placing a white-gloved hand over her chest, as if she’s being sincere. “It’s always such a pleasure being here in District Twelve, seeing all of your lovely faces.” She takes in a breath. “Ladies first!”

She crosses the stage to go to the glass ball with the girls’ names. She stops in front of it, reaching inside, digging her hand deep into the thousands of slips of paper. She pulls one out from the bottom, making her way back to the podium.

The square has fallen completely silent. She opens the piece of paper, reads it to herself silently, before looking up to the teenagers that are presented in front of her. 

“Primrose Everdeen.”

A girl materializes out of the twelve-year-old section at the very back. You sigh, sinking in your chair. The crowd gathered around begins to talk amongst themselves happily, which is common when a tribute so young is picked. No one thinks it’s fair, not even the ones that illegally bet.

Primrose is pale, hands clenched in fists at her sides, taking small steps toward the stage. She makes it past the sixteen section, before there’s an objection. “Prim!” A cry cuts through the silence. “Prim!” 

You watch as an older girl makes her way through the crowd, as the teenagers part to let her free. Primrose is just reaching the first step when the older one moves her away. “I volunteer!” She gasps. “I volunteer as tribute!”

You sit upright in your chair again, looking at Mayor Undersee. He’s got a deep crease between his eyebrows, eyes slightly squinted, staring ahead, thinking. District Twelve never gets volunteers, it’s likely been decades since it last happened. In other districts, teenagers fight to be the tributes that year.

“Lovely!” Effie chirps. “But I believe there’s a small matter of introducing the reaping winner and then asking for volunteers, and if one does come forth then we, um…” She’s lost confidence in herself.

“What does it matter?” The mayor says, face grave. “What does it matter? Let her come forward.”

Primrose is beginning to scream, latching onto the volunteer. “No, Katniss! No! You can’t go!”

“Prim, let go.” Katniss says harshly, trying to pry Primrose’s arms off. “Let go!”

A male slips out of the eighteen section, coming for the both of them. He grabs onto Primrose, pulling her into his arms, where she begins to trash violently. He says something to Katniss, before walking to the end of the aisle, where a crying mother has a hand over her mouth.

“Well, bravo!” Effie gushes. “That’s the spirit of the Games! What’s your name?”

Katniss has made it onto the stage. “Katniss Everdeen.”

“I bet my buttons that was your sister. Don’t want her to steal all the glory, do we? Come on, everybody! Let’s give a big round of applause to our newest tribute!”

Silence.

As no one claps, no one moves. This is typical, what you’d expect from your home district. If people were to listen to Effie and applaud, then that means they approve of what is happening here. Which is far from what they believe. 

It’s like this for several seconds, before you see the movement. It’s just one person at first, and then it ripples across the square. As your people press the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips before raising it in the air. A gesture that is rarely used, primarily seen at funerals. 

It’s a thanks, it’s a sign of admiration, and it means goodbye to someone that you loved.

Haymitch has risen from his seat, you swipe at his hand to pull him back into his seat, but he’s surprisingly agile. He makes it across the stage, where he throws an arm around Katniss’s shoulder. “Look at her. Look at this one!” He shouts. “I like her!” He stares, “Lots of…” He tilts his head back, as if looking to the clouds for inspiration. “Spunk!” He suddenly says. “More than you!” He moves toward the edge of the stage. You almost get to your feet, because that’s a bad idea for the state he’s in, but you refuse to be dragged down, too. “More than you!” He points directly into the camera.

He doesn’t realize that the stage ends, you know this because he walks right off the front of it. You bury your face in your hands, shaking your head. By the time you lift it, they’ve taken him away on a stretcher, clearly unconscious.

“What an exciting day!” Effie’s voice is wavering. “But more excitement to come! It’s time to choose our boy tribute!” She quickly moves to the boy bowl, where she plucks the top slip out, hurrying back to the podium. She opens the paper, not stopping to read this time. “Peeta Mellark.”

A boy from the sixteen area comes out. A competitor, you think, but you’ve thought the same in the past. You watch as he comes to stand on the other side of Effie. She asks for volunteers, but when none steps forward, Effie and Mayor Undersee trade places again. He begins to read the Treaty of Treason, but you’re leaning over to speak to Effie.

“Are they going to take Haymitch to the train?”

“I believe so.” She places her hands on her knees. “They’ll probably dispose of him in his bed.”

“Dispose.” You echo. 

When Mayor Undersee finishes his speech, he motions for Peeta and Katniss to shake hands. When they’re done, the anthem of Panem plays in full. Then, they’re taken through the front of the Justice Building by the Peacekeepers. You get up from where you’d been sitting.

Mayor Undersee comes to join you and Effie, where he places a hand on your shoulder. “He’s likely inside of the building in the far back.”

“Of the Justice Building?” You ask, looking at Effie. “They didn’t just take him to the train?”

“We don’t have the cars to spare. We have one for you and him, and then we have the separate one for Effie and the tributes.”

“Right.” You smooth out your pants. “Will you bring us to him?”

Mayor Undersee nods, heading inside of the Justice Building. You glance back at the front of the stage to see that the crowd is slowly dispersing, the Peacekeepers shut the doors a moment later. You’re brought all the way to the back, where the mayor leaves you to figure it out.

You open the door, stepping inside, finding Haymitch sitting upright on a bed. Usually the ones the school nurse provided in her office for when you felt sick. His face is twisted, touching a tender spot on the side of his head.

“Are you fucking kidding?” You cross your arms. “What was going through your head to think that it was okay to show up drunk?”

“I lost track of time.” Haymitch says.

“I don’t care that you were late! You were drunk on stage! This is a televised event, Haymitch.” 

“I know that.”

You shake your head. “Then you should know that this will not be happening again. You’re done drinking.” 

He scoffs. “Am I? Who’s going to stop me?”

“Me!” You shout. “Did you even see what happened out there? We have a volunteer that must mean something to the people here. And a boy that looks like he could maybe come from District Two.”

“Wow.” Haymitch mutters, he’s still drunk. 

“You will not be doing this in the Capitol. I will not let you be this way in the Capitol, I want you to actually mentor, not your shotty half-ass work. We have a real shot.”

“We have a real shot.” He mocks your voice. “You call my mentoring shotty and half-assed when you can’t even give them sound advice. You’re too worried about how you look for the cameras. I have my head screwed on straight.”

“Are you seriously calling me Capitol-obsessed right now?” Your voice drops.

Haymitch squints at you, possibly realizing his mistake. And then he opens his mouth, “Well you are, aren’t you?”

The room is tense, Effie clears her throat. “Maybe you two shouldn’t be together if you don’t like each other.” She says quietly. 

“No, I like Haymitch.” You scoff, waving your hand. “In fact, I love him.” Haymitch blinks in surprise. “But I would equally love the idea of him being sober for once in the Capitol. It’s not easy for all of us, you know. You think I like sitting through this every year while you get to have a drink?”

Haymitch sighs, head hanging slightly. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m tired of the apologies, too. Unless you’re going to do something to fix it, don’t bother.”

--

this was part of my 3k celebration!!

[smww4ever]

Just Nope ✋

I hold no greater ire for anything in comics than Immortal Beloved. May it rot in the depths of Asgardian sewage. Bear with me as I explain why I loathe Immortal Beloved with a passion. In no terms should this story be applauded. It is a pure insult to the SuperWonder fandom. If you can’t see it for what it is, let me explain.

Basically, it's a big f-u to SuperWonder fans. The message DC is saying with this is that it will always have Lois with Superman no matter what. They can toss out a few crumbs here and there but they will never give us the pairing, friendship or otherwise in live action or TV show.

It’s written so badly. It creates this paradox putting Superman into a cheating place in his relationship with Diana. In one instance, he gives up his life to go fight with Wonder Woman but at a minute before 1,000 years is up, it's hey it'll always be 'what's her name'. Oh and here's a trinket for you, Di. Pfffttt. Paradoxes with this story. As if he's some kind of alien pope who is infallible. We all know the pope isn't infallible. Everybody wants Superman to be more human. Humans make mistakes. I'm actually glad that the story didn't turn into one where they give in, it would mean that SuperWonder is a mistake. It's not. The only classy way I've seen SuperWonder told is through Kingdom Come. Everything else alludes to a "did they" or "are they" scenario. The nuances always point to romance between the two. Probably because they were meant to be together. Duh.

Add to that, Superman has never lived 1,000 years. Nobody who lives that long is the same person at the end. You change. You have core traits but you will be a different person. You should be a better person. Experiences shape you. There would be a high level of maturity. It’s unfathomable though to regular humans with life spans up to 80 on average to even wrap their minds around it. If he decided to go all in with Diana and have a family, they'd come back very different people having to deal with a reality that wouldn't accept them. It would be the wrong time for them to come together. In this instance, this is where Kingdom Come has no barriers to SuperWonder. The hindrances are gone.

Granted Diana has lived long. Although being that Themyscira is in another dimension so to speak. Time is different. Her longevity in the Earthly realm isn't a thousand years either.

This comic belongs in the trash bin. Full stop.

But since people like to rewrite stories, here's my idea. I would rewrite it to where Thor summons J'onn J'onzz in place of Diana. That way he can shape-shift into Lois. You’ll have Clark porking Lois, his forever love, battling side by side with superpowers. Pretty sure he’ll wonder how she got them. Maybe the Asgardians gifted them to her, and you’ll have the LGBTQ fans getting something out of it too.

Save Diana.

The woman deserves better. Why demean her like this? Who came up with the 'she's bound to help out with Asgardian affairs no matter what'. Pfffttt. And Kal?

Speaking to this version of dumbed down Kal: If Lois is that important to you, you should have asked Thor for a favor and towed her along. Maybe the Asgardians would have trained her to fight along side while reporting on it in the Valhalla Times. Then it would be a truly Lois-centric story.

All jokes aside, if DC won’t put SuperWonder together in a normal healthy romantic union then don’t do this to them either. (I know this is an old comic.)

See I blame DC for this. The gapping hole they made with eliminating SuperWonder. If we got normal interactions between the two, we could have had moments of friendship but even that wasn’t allowed.

Until next time... ✌️

🤭

I redesigned the cover btw, heh heh.

[saving-word-crawls]

Disney Movie Word Crawl

By: meganwayxo

This is a long crawl. As in, “8 pages in my word processor” long. Therefore, there are two ways to tackle this crawl. You can either complete the entire thing, which may take more than one day, or you can pick your favorite movies and just do those. Either way, you’re going to get a lot of words written because there are so many Disney movies.

I went by a list I found online, so I know some of the eras might not be quite right.

Any hand writers who want to adapt this to their own use – instead of sprinting, just write at your own pace; word war with a fellow hand writer, or simply write for those minutes.

As always, keep track of the number of words you write.

You’re on vacation, and you absolutely aren’t leaving the house. Nothing anyone can do can make you. With no plans to leave the house, you decide to finally do it. You’re going to watch all of the Disney animated movies in the order of their eras, in the order they came out. It’s a lot of Disney to watch in one sitting, but you don’t care! Write for 5 minutes to get started.

The first era of Disney animation is known as the Golden Age. Sprint for 10 minutes as you prepare yourself for the first five films from 1937-1942.

Starting off your binge is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It’s no wonder that this movie won an Academy Award. The animation in this is just spectacular. That scary forest? The details in the cottage?What’s not to love? Well, the Queen certainly didn’t love Snow White. She ordered for the girl’s death for the sake of vanity. Word war for 5 minutes.

Before you know it, you’re off to the second film – Pinnochio. A marionette comes alive and wants to be a real boy, but he has so much to prove that it’s almost too difficult. And how crazy is that scene when they’re inside the whale? Write 200 words.

Don’t mistake this next movie for it’s 2000 remake! Fantasia is the third film of the Golden Age, premiering in 1940. Mickey Mouse is heavily featured in this one, his first time starring in a major Disney movie. Did you know that this is one of the first Disney movies that combined live action with animation? One thing is certain – the quality of the music performed is amazing. Flip a coin on random.org 21:

Heads – Write for 20 minutes.

Tails – Do a fifty-headed hydra.

Oh, Dumbo. Who doesn’t just love that adorable elephant? He didn’t deserve the torment he received from having those ears. Dumbo also serves as a reminder that having fame doesn’t automatically make you happy, as evidenced by how miserable he is when he becomes a clown. Poor little guy. At least he proves everyone wrong when his true talent – flying – is revealed. Write for the duration of the video of the Pink Elephant song 16. Was this movie always so trippy?

Bambi. Why does this one have to exist? We all know why this movie is so difficult to watch. Who wasn’t deeply affected by what happens to Bambi’s mother? Generate a number between 150 and 400 and write that many words as you wipe the tears from your eyes. No matter how old you get, that scene never gets any easier to digest.

And there you have it! More than seven hours have passed since you started watching. Break for 10 minutes to finally stretch those legs.

Six films lie ahead in the Wartime Era, which spanned from 1943 to 1949. Write 60 words.

The first film from this era, Saludos Amigos, was commissioned by the US Department of State. This was a part of a Disney goodwill tour of South America. Mickey Mouse was very popular, and they actually used this movie to counteract South American ties to Nazi Germany. The things you learn throughout the years! Sprint to the next thousand.

The Three Caballeros was another movie that combined live action and animation. Like the previous movie, this one has various segments, a not-so-difficult plot to follow, and a few new characters only seen in these films. The premise is that it’s Donald Duck’s birthday, and he gets presents from his friends in Latin America. That’s a quality concept that you can get behind! Roll a die, multiply by 25, and write that many words.

Another segment film, Make Mine Music is one of Disney’s war propaganda films. Surprised? Probably not, as that does seem to be the theme of this era. Do a Three Digit Challenge.

Fun and Fancy Free is next, and it strays from the segment film format. Instead, this follows two different stories and is yet another example of a mixture of live action and animation. Jiminy Cricket is a key character in the first portion, Bongo, while Mickey Mouse and his friends all star in Mickey and the Beanstalk. Write for 15 minutes. Are you having fun? Do you feel fancy or free?

The first time Melody Time hit theaters, it was a flop. Described as the pop version of Fantasia, it had a $1.5 million budget, but only made $1.8 million. Oh well. Disney can’t win them all! Write 500 words.

The last movie of the Wartime Era is The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. This models the same format used in Fun and Fancy Free, featuring two stories. This movie went on to win Disney a Golden Globe in color cinematography. Do the Carrot and Stick challenge.

Despite having one more movies than the last era, a little over six hours have since elapsed. Take a 5 minute break.

More princesses are on the horizon, as we’re now entering the Silver Age of Disney, spanning from 1950 to 1959. Eight movies are a part of this era, so write 800 words to prepare.

Cinderella is a beautifully created movie with an extremely tragic heroine. Most of the princesses have heartbreaking stories, but who doesn’t cringe when Lady Tremaine sticks the stepsisters on Cinderella, when they tear up her dress? If it weren’t for her mice friends, Cinderella truly would have been alone in the world. Roll a die.

1 or 3: Write 300 words.

2 or 5: Word war for 20 minutes.

4 or 6: Do a song sprint to a song of your choosing.

Another wacky Disney movie is Alice in Wonderland, and it’s not just because the author of the book it’s based on was rumored to be on drugs when he wrote it. Like the Pink Elephant part of Dumbo, this is a truly trippy, truly crazy movie. Sprint to the next 500 as you digest all the characters and situations Alice goes through after falling down the rabbit hole.

There’s obviously a bit of controversy surrounding the next movie in this day and age. Peter Pan’s portrayal of Native Americans definitely goes against politically correct culture. Fast forward through this cringe-worthy part, and write 200 words as fast as you can.

Animals, specifically dogs, take a front seat in Lady and the Tramp. The most iconic scene from this movie is the restaurant part. Try to resist the urge to tear up while these two lovable pooches have a great first date. Write 300 words.

True love’s kiss being the cure for what ails people is a recurring theme in Disney movies, most specifically in Sleeping Beauty. This cartoon version certainly glosses over the darker parts of the Grimm Brothers’ story. Thankfully so, too, as it truly would have stolen the innocence of many of us had we known what some of the missing details are. Write 1,000 words in 30 minutes as you try to forget what you may now know.

Dogs take center stage once again in One Hundred and One Dalmations. From Pongo and Perdy to the crazy Cruella De Vil, there is a lot to love about this movie. The challenge for this movie should be easy – write 101 words!

The Sword in the Stone is a play on the Knights of the Round Table story. It begins with a young Arthur, who must vie with other people in England in an attempt to become the King of England. Oh, did I mention that Merlin himself is also a character? Write for 20 minutes.

If you get less than 500 words, sprint for 5 minutes.

If you get more than 500 words, rest for 10 minutes.

The Jungle Book is the last movie in this era. Once more, animals are brought out to be the stars, even if the main character is a human. How fitting that he would be one who can speak with these animals! Flip a coin.

Heads: Song war to I Wanna Be Like You.

Tails: Song war to Bare Necessities.

Ten more hours have passed! When was the last time you ate a vegetable or went to the bathroom? Break for 20 minutes.

We now enter The Bronze Age, which lasted from 1960 all the way to 1988. That’s a difference of 28 years. Write 280 words.

Cats take center stage in the first movie from this era, The Aristocats. Duchess was always such an amazing mother to those kittens. And who didn’t love the positive portrayal of Madame Adelaide, an old, unmarried woman who loves cats? She isn’t insane; she’s just rich and wants to provide for her beloved pets. If only Edgar wasn’t the world’s most greediest butler, trying to get rid of the animals so he can inherit a fortune. Write 500 words as Thomas O’Malley helps get the kittens back home. Don’t forget to do your scales and arpeggios!

Everyone knows the story of Robin Hood. He robbed from the rich to give to the poor. Is this the right thing to portray to kids? Well, that’s for a parent to decide. After so many hours watching movies, you’re in no position to make decisions for other people. Pick a character and do that challenge.

Robin Hood: Write 1% of your word count.

Maid Marien: Write 200 words.

Little John: Word war for 30 minutes.

Friar Tuck: Do 5 song sprints.

Prince John: Sprint for 10 minutes.

Time for the movie about everyone’s favorite willy nilly silly old bear. That’s right, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Did you know that this is technically another example of segment film? The stories in this were all previously released featurettes that were merged together with extra footage with a fourth feature added to bring everything together. Who knew? Write 100 words.

Older Disney movies have a habit of casting the same people in their films. The man who played Baloo in The Jungle Book also voiced the role of Little John in Robin Hood and Thomas O’Malley in The Aristocats. Our next Silver Age movie, The Rescuers, recasts Eva Gabor, who previously voiced Duchess in The Aristocats, as Miss Bianca. You’re learning so much Disney trivia during your binge that you don’t even know what to do with yourself. Write 600 words, one hundred words for every word in rescue. After all, what would the world be without the Rescue Aid Society?

If it wasn’t for The Fox and the Hound, Disney World in Orlando, Floria wouldn’t have such a famous ride as Splash Mountain, which takes riders through the story. Write for the duration of this view from the ride 8.

The Black Cauldron is a rather different kind of movie, you’re now noticing. Given all the movies you’ve watched so far, you can’t help but notice how much darker this one is. The movie is based not on a Grimm fairytale, but on the first two novels of a series based on Welsh mythology. The series it’s based on has five books, so write 500 words.

The Great Mouse Detective tries to bring a mouse that isn’t Mickey into the spotlight. And it certainly succeeded, as it made back the money spent on it, and then some! The folks at Disney must have been pleased, as it pulled in more money than The Black Cauldron. None of these money things matter to you, though. Not when you’re 25 movies deep on this crawl! Write 250 words as fast as you can.

Write it in less than 10 minutes: Write 100 more words.

Write it in more than 10 minutes: Write 200 more words.

Inspired by a Charles Dickens novel, Oliver & Company is Disney’s musical buddy comedy. The movie stars Billy Joel, one of the most famous singers of the the 1980s. Some might even say he is the epitome of the 80s. Write 80 words, then 160 words, then 240 words.

Another eleven hours have passed by you. How are you even still functioning? Take a 20 minute break.

Welcome to the Renaissance! The Disney Renaissance, that is. The ten films that came during the period between 1989 and 1999 brought us lovable princesses, exceptional songs, and hit after hit. Write 100 words, 10 for each movie.

The Little Mermaid is the first you’re watching from this era, so right off the bat you’re off to a great start. Pick two songs and do the tasks associated with them.

Daughters of Triton: Write 700 words.

Part Of Your World: Sprint for 10 minutes.

Under the Sea: Sprint the duration of the song.

Poor Unfortunate Souls: Write 200 words in 5 minutes. If you fail, sprint to the next thousand.

Kiss The Girl: Write 500 words.

The Rescuers Down Under, while a solid sequel, is the worst performing movie of the Renaissance period. The movie came out on November 16, 1990. When you add up the digits from this date, you get 28. Write 280 words as you try to figure out what went wrong with this film.

Disney was back on top with the release of Beauty and the Beast. This gave us such memorable characters as Lumiere and Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts and Chip, and who can forget Beast? He really needs to work on those anger problems. Word war for 10 minutes, and hope that the last petal doesn’t fall from the rose!

There are two types of fans of the next movie, Aladdin: people who like it, and people who only like it for Robin Williams. It’s true that his genie is legendary. Have you ever read about all the problems between Williams and Disney, though? You should one day. It’s a fun feud to read about. As the movie made over $504 million at the box office, write 504 words. Time yourself!

In 10 minutes or less: Genie grants you one wish. Do any sort of writing challenge you want.

In 11 to 20 minutes: Genie is unsure, but he still grants you a wish. Word war for 15 minutes.

Over 20 minutes: Genie won’t grant you a wish. Sprint to the next 500.

The time has come. It’s finally time to watch one of the greatest Disney movies ever made – The Lion King. Try not to cry during that scene. Oh, you know the one. Write 120 words, 10 for every letter in Hakuna Matata. Don’t worry about how long it takes you to do it. Don’t worry about anything. Apply that problem-free philosophy to your own life.

Pocahantas is a Disney film that’s actually based on a real person, not on a fairy tale. Granted, artistic license was greatly used when portraying her life, but isn’t that the case for many movies made about famous people? The movie is set in 1607, so write 1607 words.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame did well at the box office. By now, though, you’ve begun to not really care about those statistics. You’ve watched so many movies, and you’re barely awake. The film is set in France. You start fantasizing about a European vacation. Where do you want to go? Click here 6 to generate a random country. Refresh until you have a European one, then write 10 words for every letter in that country’s name.

Switching things up to something mythical is Hercules, a film based on Greek mythology. Despite this being a Greek story, Hercules is actually this god’s Roman name; his Greek name is Heracles. Who knew? Roll a die.

Even number: Look at the fundraiser bar on the NaNoWriMo website and write the last three digits of the amount that has been raised.

Odd number: Generate a number between 200 and 500 and write that many words.

Mulan is another Disney Renaissance film that is based on an amazing woman. Again, artistic license is used, but the premise is true. Mulan was a Chinese woman who went to war in place of her father. She brought honor to her family by helping to defeat the Huns. Do a song sprint to I’ll Make A Man Out Of You, one of the most popular Disney songs ever.

With Tarzan coming after such a great movie like Mulan, some might feel a bit disappointed. While it is still a quality film, you can certainly tell that the Renaissance period is drawing to a close. Sprint for 5 minutes.

15 more hours have elapsed. What day is it? Where are you? Rest for 30 minutes because things are about to get weird.

Now that we’re in the new millennium, the period between 2000 and 2009 is known as the Post Renaissance Era. Eleven whole movies fall in this category. By now, I know. You must be very tired. But a Disney movie marathon knows no bounds! You have to keep going. Write 100 words.

Fantasia 2000 is the remake no one asked for and yet we got it anyway. With new music and new stories, though, this is decent enough. With 8 different segments to it, write 80 words.

Disney’s first computer-animated movie, Dinosaur, is up next. This movie follows a group of dinosaurs trying to survive. It’s an extremely intense movie, as some of the dinosaurs are frightening for young children. After so much regular animation, this computer change up is most welcome. Pick a dinosaur.

Carnotaurus: Do a fifty-headed hydra.

Parasaurolophus: Write 300 words.

Iguanodon: Write 1,000 words in 30 minutes.

Pteranodon: Carrot and Stick challenge.

Velociraptor: Do a Three Digit Challenge.

Who doesn’t love the next film, The Emperor’s New Groove? The characters are memorable, it’s a return back to 2-D animation, and the story is hilarious. Running at 78 minutes, write 78 words as you watch this comedy unfold.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire is when things really start to get strange. In this movie, eight explorers with eight very different personalities search for the fabled lost city. Be careful not to drink the nitroglycerin! Write 800 words.

Lilo & Stitch is one of the most successful, most popular movies to come from this animation era. Stitch became a phenomenon! Disney even began to edit him into other Disney films as an ad for the movie. Sprint for the duration of each video. 1 10 2 10 3 10 4 10

Treasure Planet ended up being a box office disappointment. Trying to model the slight success of Atlantis, Disney failed. They ended up losing $31 million! That’s a lot of dough. Sprint for 31 minutes as you cringe your way through this.

By the time Brother Bear came out, Disney animation was basically doing whatever it was that they wanted to do. Rotten Tomatoes gives this movie a rating of 38%, just to give you an idea of what you’re dealing with. Write 380 words.

Disney’s Home on the Range is billed as an animated musical western comedy. That’s a lot going on for just 76 minutes of airtime. This was not the hit Disney was looking for. Movies in this era hadn’t done nearly as well as movies from the Renaissance. With names like Roseanne Barr, Dame Judi Dench, and Cuba Gooding, Jr., surely they had higher hopes for this movie. Write 400 words.

Things are still weird, but Chicken Little proved to be a small hit amongst a few years of slumps. Everyone knows this story, a play on The Boy Who Cried Wolf, so how exactly it warranted 81 minutes of film is something you don’t understand. You’re really getting tired of watching movies. Time for an impromptu, mid-era 10 minute break.

Meet the Robinsons came next. Disney stepped their game up for this one. There were talks of a sequel to this film, that’s how good it was. However, when John Lasseter became chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios, he canceled this sequel, as well as sequels to Chicken Little and The Aristocats. Thanks, John Lasseter. Write for 5 uneventful minutes.

Dogs have always been popular characters in Disney films, so it’s no wonder that Bolt did so well in theaters. Who would think to pair John Travolta and Miley Cyrus in a movie? Only the people at Disney. Write 160 words, the amount of profit (in millions) this movie brought in.

Take another 10 minute break. You’re on the home stretch now, and you don’t even know how much time has passed.

We’re now in the final era, the Revival Era. This began in 2010 and is happening right now! Holy cow. That’s exciting. No challenge now, let’s just go.

The Princess and the Frog did so much better than most of the movies from the previous era. Not to mention that this is the first Disney movie where the main characters are people of color. Disney finally caught up with the times… in 2010. Write 270 words.

Continuing with the hits came Tangled. Disney is certainly on a high with these amazing movies. Based on the story of Rapunzel, catchy songs and memorable characters like Mother Gothel make this such an unforgettable movie. Word war for 5 minutes.

Winnie the Pooh, released in 2011, was one of the last movies to feature the classic 2-D animation that the company was known for producing. This was a low budget movie and didn’t earn too much more. It seems as though Disney was simply putting a movie out just to put it out, but that’s their prerogative. Generate a random number between 100 and 200, and write that many words.

Brave deviates from the norm set by most Disney princesses. Merida does not want to get married. Her only ambitions are to live a relatively normal life. All the power to her! Who doesn’t love a girl who knows what she wants? Set your own goal, just as Merida would do her own thing.

Who knew that one of the highlights of this era would be a movie about video game characters? People just can’t get enough of Wreck-It Ralph. Who didn’t find it heartbreaking when Ralph confessed to not wanting to be the bad guy? Wipe those eyes and write 500 words.

Frozen proved to be the best movie Disney ever decided to make, as it’s proved to be such a financial success. Children can’t get enough of it! The challenge to this movie has to be an obvious one – Sprint the duration of Let It Go.

Any movie coming after such a big hit as Frozen has big britches to fill. Big Hero 6 did not bring in over a billion dollars like its predecessor, but it did hold its own and turned out to be fairly popular. People fell in love with Baymax, a health care robot. Write 600 words, 100 for every letter in Baymax’s name.

Finally, the last movie is here! Zootopia capitalized on something that’s always been a big hit with Disney – animals as characters. There’s just something about talking animals that people adore. Financially, this movie did almost as well as Frozen. To have two huge hits in one era, so close together? Disney sure was lucky. For every thousand words you’ve written during this crawl, write 10 words.

You did it, and you’re absolutely exhausted. How much time has passed? What day is it? When do you have to go back to work? You don’t know, and you don’t care. It’s time to sleep for the next 12 hours!

[thetriggeredhappy]

recently rediscovered your blog and read the fic from your dad spy au where scout starts out as the "guard" and then becomes scout from there and lemme tell you that shit put me on some s-tier brainrot. like a cranial decay type beat.

i had a concept in my head that instead of being hired as a guard, he could have been hired as a right hand man to the administrator like pauling, because i think hed be awesome in that position. like imagine having a personal merc who can get in fast and out even faster. but maybe he would stay in the base like the rest of them, sort of like a secret on call intel gatherer, who also maybe sometimes has to dig a couple graves. and also like, nobody on the team expects anything from him at first because its this 20 year old newbie kid. hes dressed in his formal clothes and he talks like somebody from relatively around boston but not quite. i can just imagine one day he comes back during a team dinner with his shirt half untucked and stained with blood, hair disheveled as he asks soldier if he can borrow his shovel, or him debriefing them for a mission when miss pauling is busy. same vibe as the fic i mentioned before but scout gets to have a job as cool as miss paulings. honestly id write it myself if i didnt have the attention span of a fly

anyways your scout content gives me life thank you

scout teamfortress but 20% more competent standing next to miss pauling teamfortress while she's doing her job and doing like silly quips and otherwise contributing nothing like it's a buddy cop film is literally my fucking ideal

(warnings for some canon-typical violence)

-

“Oh, Pauling, it’s good to see you again,” greeted the chairman, smiling in an imitation of a grandfather and clasping her hands perhaps too-kindly considering she barely knew him. “Young as ever, and still so stylish, I see. And who’s the new fellow?”

“He’s just here to help with transport, Mr. Montgomery, nothing unusual,” Miss Pauling replied, returning his smile and adjusting her glasses. “Heavy cases, you know how it is.”

“Of course, I remember you almost toppling clean over last time we made a trade!” Montgomery agreed, frowning at the memory. “You’ll pull a muscle that way, better to be careful. It’s a pleasure to meet you, young man. And your name?”

“Mr. Normandy, sir,” the new kid replied easily enough despite his slight East Coast accent, giving the man a firm handshake, expression neutral and stony, the picture of professionalism. Internally, Pauling breathed a sigh of relief.

“Firm grip there, young man,” Montgomery praised, nodding approvingly. “Tennis player, perhaps? Or golf?”

“Baseball, sir,” he replied, still evenly. “First baseman.”

“Ah! Of course! Were you any good?” Montgomery joked.

“At everything but playing in front of the crowds, otherwise I’d be in the major leagues,” he replied, tilting his head just slightly to imply that he was joking, his sunglasses glinting at the movement, and Montgomery barked a laugh.

“I like this one, Miss Pauling!” Montgomery said, and Pauling just barely caught herself from physically relaxing at it.

“We do too, Mr. Montgomery,” she agreed. “I was under the impression that you’re very busy today, so we won’t keep you for too long, we just wanted to sort out the final details surrounding the manufacturing rights for the—“

“��Pacific Northwest branch, up into British Columbia and Alberta, of course,” Montgomery agreed, nodding faintly. “Of course, of course.” He turned to regard his own man in a dark suit, the one standing to the right, who appeared to be unsuccessfully trying to stare down Normandy, who was completely ignoring him. “My briefcase, please.”

The man handed over the briefcase, and Montgomery put it on his desk, opening it and pulling out a sheaf of papers. “All our requests are submitted and approved, at this point we just had a few dustbins to take care of regarding initial percentages and making sure everything is wired to the correct accounts, which names are undisclosed, things like that,” Pauling explained as he glanced through the papers.

“Right, right, everything looks good here,” the man murmured, nodding to himself, sending his long-white hair just ever-so-slightly out of place. “I’m assuming these more sensitive documents should be sent some way besides through the mail?”

“If you finish them today I can take them with me, otherwise either me or Mr. Normandy can return to pick them up at your convenience,” she replied, to which Normandy gave a singular nod.

“Oh, it would only take me a short while,” Montgomery said, waving a hand. “We have a lovely lounge just down the hall from here if you’d prefer to wait there, it should only take me ten, fifteen minutes at most. In the meantime, I do believe there’s also the manner of payment for services rendered.”

Miss Pauling tilted her head just slightly to one side, confused.

“I arranged with Helen already,” Montgomery explained, not looking up from where he was initialing a few things. “The payment, rather than being wired, she asked to be made in material investment. A venture of mine from years ago that she’s willing to sit on. Rather than gold or bonds, she agreed to take some old currency of mine that my family collected, from early 18th century New Zealand and Australia. Monetarily it’s worth around the same, and I’m quite a bit attached to it to be entirely frank, but it was at her request to buy the whole collection from me, and after years of the work we’ve been doing together, well, I’d never trust it with anyone else.”

He gestured to the other man, the one on his left, who stepped forward to hand him a manila envelope, which he passed to Pauling.

“Inside is both keys, the door alarm codes, and all other security information for the building where the collection is being stored. They’ll ask for a few codes and confirmation of identity, only because several other art collections and artifacts are being stored there by other affluent individuals such as myself.”

“Thank you, Mr. Montgomery,” Pauling said, taking the envelope gratefully.

“Think nothing of it, my dear. Helen talked me into it all her own,” he said easily enough. “Now, gentlemen, if you would let Miss Pauling and Mr. Normandy into our lounge? I should have these wrapped up before any of us can even think about lunch, eh?”

One of the suits showed the two of them through the doors and down the hallway, through two doors bracketed by similar suits who simply nodded politely at Pauling and ticked their chins at Normandy as they passed them.

Normandy posted up beside the door for all of three seconds before they shut and Pauling pulled her glasses up, rubbing at the bridge of her nose and making a vaguely distressed noise. He then promptly relaxed, instead leaning his hip against an armchair probably worth the same amount as a small car. “So, uh, we’re glad that he’s giving us a bunch of commemorative coins from when dinosaurs still walked the earth?” he asked just below normal speaking volume, eyebrows raised.

“Yes. Very glad. Because unlike about six people total on the planet, he hasn’t figured out yet how valuable those are.”

“What, is a picture of a kangaroo on some copper really gonna make up for a couple hundred thousand American dollars?” Normandy asked, sounding doubtful.

“Not copper. Something else,” she replied. “I can’t tell you much more about it other than that, but these coins are made of something priceless to us. And to the Administrator.”

“…Love? Memories? The magic of family?” he joked, cracking a smile, and she rolled her eyes, moving to open the envelope and start reading the papers inside. “Hey, uh, not to question whether my job should exist, but what the hell am I doing here, exactly? Besides carrying a briefcase. Like, chivalry isn’t dead but I really don’t think you need me carrying your bags and holding the door for you.”

“You’re helping with security, basically,” she replied, adjusting her glasses to squint at tiny handwriting about the collection. “Mr. Montgomery is trustworthy, but he mostly hires out to… well, people like us. His security detail is mostly people we’d rather have screened, freelancers, stuff like that. A lot of people we contract out to are like that. Most of them have heard about me and know better than to try and pull something, since I can hold my own pretty well, but if they haven’t, seeing a second person might persuade them to think it over again.”

“Oh, so I’m like, uh, when it says ‘tow zone’ next to the no parking signs even though nobody checks, or when they’ve got a camera in the corner of the store that isn’t even plugged into anything,” he said, and the looked up at him, confused. “Like, uh, what’s the word… I’m a casual deterrent.”

“Sure,” she said, because it sounded like he knew what he was talking about, shuffling the papers back away and closing the envelope again, making a note to ask the Administrator if she should change their current containment procedures to be closer to Mr. Montgomery’s. “Just… if there’s a fight, you deal with it, otherwise you just stand there and look like you’re paying attention.”

“That’s what the sunglasses are for,” he agreed. “I was blinking morse code at the guy across from me literally the whole time.”

“You know morse code?” Pauling asked, surprised.

“Just the alphabet, ‘S.O.S.’, and ‘ass’.”

She rolled her eyes again, and that’s when the door opened.

She expected Mr. Montgomery, not one of the men in suits. “Excuse me, both of you, if you don’t mind,”the man said, accent having the slightest English tilt to it, a Londoner if Pauling had to guess. “You’re Miss Pauling, the Mann Co. affiliate, yes?”

“That’s me,” she agreed, hesitant, and glanced at Normandy.

“I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. Mr. Montgomery have you the wrong envelope on accident,” the man said apologetically, extending a hand forward. “We apologize for this unfortunate mix-up, it’s really quite embarrassing, but those documents are sensitive and we’ll be needing to see them back now.”

Pauling looked at him, and within a moment, shifted her expression. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” she agreed, nodding. “No, right, of course. These aren’t the papers for the currency collection?”

“I’m afraid not,” the Brit agreed, head tilting just slightly, hand still extended, moving a fraction further forward.

“Well, thank goodness we figured out now and not with us halfway back,” she joked, and moved to hold the folder closer to her body. “I’ll take this right back to Mr. Montgomery, then.”

“He’s sent me to correct the error,” the man explained simply.

“Right,” she said, and saw in her periphery that Normandy had already started sneaking a hand in towards his primary, clearly having pieced together something she was only suspecting. “We can bring this to his office, then, right down the hall.”

“You misunderstand,” the man said, taking a step forward again. “I’ll be taking it to his office myself.”

“That’s funny,” Pauling said. “I didn’t realize you had clearance to be in there. Or to be carrying a semi-automatic instead of a standard handgun.”

The Brit reached for the semi-automatic, and before he could even get it out properly, Normandy hit one clean shot to the side of his head and another to his thigh, sending him crumpling to the ground.

Pauling had only as far as pulling her own handgun free, thumb on the safety, and breathed a sigh of relief, glancing over at Normandy, shifting to more comfortably hold her gun. “Quick reflexes,” she noted.

“Just noticed a lot sooner, maybe,” he shrugged, stepping forward to glance over the body, tucking his gun back away.

“What was your hint?”

“He’s here to give us the right folder, yeah? Well, why were his hands empty, then?”

She was just starting to nod and realize that as well when a second man shouldered through the door, holding a gun at the ready. Normandy scrambled to draw his own, but Pauling fired a shot into his knee, shoulder, and neck to send him dropping before he was even close. “There’s quick on the draw, and then there’s prepared,” she said pointedly. “Gotta think of if there’s more than one, new guy.”

He nodded, and drew his gun again, bending to hit the guy on the ground at the temple hard enough to knock him out if he wasn’t unconscious already. He then glanced up at the sound of a shout from the other side of the door, two men shouldering through, guns drawn but lowered. It was only the firm eye contact they made with both her and Normandy that made her pause the millisecond it took to realize these ones weren’t trying to kill them.

“Pauling, what on earth is going on here?!” Montgomery demanded, entering the room and staring with wide eyes at the bodies on the ground. “What could’ve possessed you to—“

“He was trying to run off with these documents,” she explained quickly, gesturing with the envelope. “He knew whatever was in here was valuable.”

“He drew his gun, sir,” Normandy added, tipping his head down towards the body, and Pauling glanced down as well and found herself a little surprised. He’d rearranged the man just slightly, apparently, adjusting the arm to be holding the gun a bit further outward. “Other one was aiming to kill.”

“My, my,” Montgomery tsk’d, shaking his head as he surveyed the scene. “What a mess. My apologies, Miss Pauling, Mr. Normandy.”

“It’s alright, but you need to start doing more thorough checks on your staff, Mr. Montgomery,” Pauling stressed.

“He’s only been here two weeks, sir, he was one of the men we hired in a hurry after the incident last month,” one of the bodyguards said, and Montgomery shook his head.

“Thank goodness nobody was hurt,” he sighed. “Mutiny, and besides that, they’re bleeding on my carpet. Here are those papers, Miss Pauling—what a day, eh?”

“It’s really alright, we handled it,” Pauling assured him, giving her bravest smile, a little exasperated now.

“Right, right, you and the first baseman,” he agreed, and Normandy fought back an actual smile.

“If you’d like, we can take care of those for you,” Pauling said, gesturing at the bodies. “To pay you back for the carpet and the scare.”

“Sounds fair to me,” Montgomery agreed, clearly relieved.

-

“My dad’s gonna be pissed, by the way,” Normandy was so helpful as to say on the way back up the path to the base. “And you’re fielding that.”

“About the suit, or the fight?” she asked, glancing at his clothes where he was somewhat covered in a fine dusting of mud and grime from the gravedigging, shovel still in his free hand.

“Both. Mostly the fight. Your fault for saying it’d be an easy one to start with,” he said.

“If it was going to be that much of a problem, you wouldn’t have gotten this job. I’d just have made you go do dishes all day or something,” Pauling replied.

“Point taken,” he said, walking ahead to get the door, holding it open for her. “Wait, we’re allowed to mention what we do, right? Just not names?”

“Or locations, even with travel distance. Round up to the hour if it comes up,” she replied.

“Sure, sure,” he agreed, trailing a step behind her as she led the way through the base.

In the common area, there was a bit of a ruckus happening. Soldier, Heavy, and Demo appeared to be having some kind of arm wrestling competition on a rapidly-toppling table, the Engineer was on a stepstool trying to fix the ceiling fan, and Sniper appeared to be half-watching the beginnings of an argument between Pyro and the Spy regarding use of the oven as Medic patched up a burn on his arm.

“Hullo,” Sniper greeted the two of them, sounding a little bored, Medic giving them a brief, polite nod. Normandy’s eyebrows were raised pretty far as he surveyed the room.

“Hi, Sniper,” she greeted in return, then cleared her throat, raised her voice. “Team meeting in five minutes! New mission for next week!”

Groans from the room at large, the eight mercenaries starting to finish up what they were doing and filing out. Spy moved over, glancing over Normandy and starting to talk to him in rapid-fire French, picking smaller bits of gravel off of his suit as they walked.

“Alright,” she addressed the room, Normandy peeling off from getting mother hen’d by Spy to stand next to the blackboard with her. “Monday, you’re all going on a transport mission. Getting the truck from point A to point B with everything in the boxes intact. Already we’ve had to put up with some people trying to get ahold of these things, so bring your guns.”

“Oh, our guns, you said? Lads, this is a serious one, keep your heads on a feckin' swivel, she’s sayin’ we might even need guns, can you believe it?” Demo faux-gasped, and chuckled when Spy bopped him on the arm, rolling his eyes at the Scot's theatrics.

“Yeah, yeah,” she waved off, flipping through the papers a bit. “So Engie, I’ll need the keys to the truck, me and Normandy are going to be loading those tomorrow, all of you need to be at this drop point bright and early.”

“How early?” Heavy rumbled.

“Six. Hour and a half of drive from here.”

Some complaints from the room that she sighed at.

“Hey, hey, calm the hell down,” Normandy cut in, and she glanced over at him where he had his arms crossed and a stern look on his face. “You chuckleheads get to have all eight of you to unload the damn thing, me and Miss P gotta do all the rest of this on our own and probably kill twenty guys on the way there and back. She had to be up at 6 AM, workin’ since 7 AM, lunch break at noon and nothin’ else, and we just got back now at, what, fuckin’, 10, 11 PM? Any of you work her shift and then see if you even got the energy to complain about wakin’ up early, how about that?”

The room went utterly devoid of complaint or backsass. “Thank you, Normandy,” she said politely, and he just nodded once, glancing off to the side. “Anyways, anything new on this end? Spy, how are you adjusting?”

“Very well,” he said simply. “I have nothing pressing to say. Once I’ve been updated from the stock weaponry provided here to my requested preferred weaponry, I believe I should do just fine.”

“I see you already have Herr Normandy digging graves,” Medic chimed in. “Straight into the hard labor, ja?”

“Eh, hey, y’know, it’s why they keep us young people around,” he shrugged, grinning, and there was a brief uproar to drown out Medic’s entirely offended scoffing and Spy’s snort-laughing.

“Get ‘im, lad!” Demo cheered, and Normandy indeed looked fairly proud of himself.

“Monday, transport mission,” Pauling noted over the noise, writing it up on the chalkboard to hide her own smile from the room. “Normandy, you and me are doing the boxes tomorrow. Everyone on the same page? Good. Dismissed. Oh, and Pyro—stop taking the fire alarms down when they beep. They’re beeping because you light things on fire in the base. Do that outside.”

“Oh, hey, uh, helmet guy, All-American Beef,” Normandy called, and Soldier straightened up. “Here’s your shovel back. Gettin’ my own tomorrow.”


Soldier walked directly over to him, clasping a hand on his shoulder. “That’s a high honor, Cadet,” he said, tone grave. “Do not take this responsibility lightly.”

“I, uh, I won’t?” he said hesitantly, and blinked a few times as the shovel was carefully taken from him before it was promptly marched from the room in double-time. Only then did Normandy look over at her. “So he’s always like that?”

“You’ll get used to it,” she assured, dusting chalk from her hands. “You should get to sleep soon, we have to be up early.”

“Sure thing, Miss P.”

[tiktaalic]

Why exactly do you see Dean as gay rather than bi? Absolutely feel free to completely ignore this ask if you don't want to go into it - it's just I've heard that interpretation a few times here on Tumblr and I'd genuinely be really interested to hear your thoughts behind it, and how you relate it to the way Dean canonically acts on the show

the pithy answer is projection! the unpithy answer is that out of 320 episodes over the span of 15 years, there is one (1) where his attraction comes off as genuine to me, and it took place fifteen years ago (cassie). i’m a lesbian, and when i was younger i had really genuine and meaningful friendships with men that i thought meant i was in love with them. they were very dear friends to me and i cared deeply about them, and they continue to be dear to me and people i care deeply about now that my head’s on straighter. so that’s that point. 

this is. going to be a long post so this is the preemptive warning to everyone who can’t read tumblr paragraphs to zip scroll.

lisa straight up reads as a lavender marriage to me. the focus for both lisa AND dean is him stepping in to be a father figure. their conversations about how much they care about each other center around how good he is with ben/how much he loves ben. there’s like, nothing where they’re smiling at each other and actually enjoying each other’s company. she’s a two night stand he’s seen 4 times in the last decade. she is dean putting on his brave face and keeping his promise. lisa’s post dean boyfriend matt is in one episode for about 3 minutes purely so he can die, but this is the scene.

so like. lisa is CAPABLE of interacting with a man she’s dating in a way that looks like they’re dating, versus. this.

so that’s that point. we’re at season six and we’ve already gone through every long term relationship with a woman dean’s been in. but let’s get really technical! let’s go through bad boys and after school special and amara to boot. 

in bad boys, robin is dean’s first real crush when he’s fifteen or so. first crush being when you’re 15 rather than in elementary or middle school? gay behavior (joke). let those among us who have not had a straight crush as a teen because they were the first person to be nice to us throw the first stone! and that’s what it boils down to for me. it’s the first time dean’s had ANY stability, and he relishes it. it would not surprise me if she’s his first real friend. she’s definitely his first real NORMAL friend. she asks him what HE likes, what HE wants to do with his life. and that’s totally new for dean! to have choices and to have his wants given consideration instead of just having expectation after expectation loaded onto him.

it does not surprise me that dean, who’s been taking a masterclass in repression and masculinity since the tender age of four, dates robin. it would not surprise me if he dated robin and was gay. of course he’s going to throw himself 100% into a relationship with a girl when he knows he’s at an age where boys are supposed to be skirt chasers, when he meets a girl and she’s NICE to him and KNOWS him like literally no one else does. all of this accompanied by the “i am a boy and have positive feelings for someone who’s a girl this MUST be romance this MUST be a crush” like. this is going to get into overshare territory for a moment i apologize but As A Lesbian when i was 15/16 i actively had crushes on girls and rational-ed them away as Girl Best Friends :) while telling everyone that the feelings i had for my boy best friends were crushes aksdkfkndf. repressed gay people are stupid and dean is MUCH more repressed than me aged 16. so. robin box ticked. 

after school special: jail for dabb jail for dabb for a thousand years i know. trust me i know. BUT. 17 year old dean who’s fully pulled on the leather jacket and womanizer persona, who doesn’t talk to anyone in his class and just hangs out in janitor closets making out with a girl who thinks his persona is hot. and when she tries to get close to him, to form an emotional connection, he panics and self sabotages. which. yes. peak straight man behavior. i’m not arguing that this little characterization bit is the pillar upon which gay dean rests, i’m saying if you’re inclined, you can nudge it into gay kid going “oh no this is too much responsibility i gotta get out of this” behavior. and i’m inclined!

amara: the amara stuff is so. hdnfdkf. it’s this primordial connection or whatever stronger than dean and amara both and yet dean’s still able to buck it a few times for [drumroll........] cas! + i don’t have any of the posts on hand but i DO agree with the whole vibe of. “i would fuck the embodiment of my destruction and horrors and failings because my self loathing is THAT strong”. also: gay af for the being of destruction with an immutable pull on you and towards you to say i will give you your greatest desire and then give you your mommy back and dip.

and then there’s the various one night stand stuff. i don’t have the comprehensive list on hand, but off the top of my head these are times when dean has sex scenes that are given huge focus:

when he comes back from hell and everyone’s gently asking if he’s fine and he’s like could a guy who wasn’t fine do THIS [tries to sleep with a bartender and or angel]. when bobby dies and dean’s hardcore mourning and hardcore drinking to the point where i think his drinking is acknowledged for one of a true handful of times in the series. just checked the transcript for that one. the morning after:

DEAN: Ugh.

SAM: You look like crap.

DEAN: Yeah, well, I feel worse than I look. I do recommend the Cobalt Room, by the way. Awesome night. Although I think I'm getting too old for this.

which. again. normal straight man commitmentphobe hitting his 30s and going hmmm.... perhaps real connections would be nice? but that doesn’t contradict gay dean at all, it slots in. also this is season 7. season 7 and he’s too old for this. top of my head i can think of two more similar instances: s11 baby when he groans and goes “mistakes were made”, s13 advanced thanatology when cas is dead and he’s FULL ON grieving so hard that sam takes him to a strip club. and again. he over does it. again he throws himself too hard to the coping vices and when he wakes up he’s tired and sore and has a headache. the other time he gets laid is endverse, which uh. is basically dean in 24/7 mourn drink sleep with someone mode. there are like... a handful of times he has sex For Fun, enough to count on one hand. the rest are all real easy to slap the label PERFORMANCE or COPING WITH MOURNING on.

obviously all of these points go either way - you could absolutely interpret them as legit attraction to women. you can interpret them as legit attraction to women while these instances are still coping/performance. but for me personally they all end up on the gay column instead of the bi column. um. end manifesto i think.

[your--isgayrights]

How about 999 yjh and uriel?

This went a bit past just 999, but I had fun with this prompt! Here's some cannon based Jonghyuk angst with happy ending lol.

The nine hundred ninety ninth regression was one that Yoo Jonghyuk planned based on his previous regressions, as he always did.

Although, it wasn't as if the previous two regressions, the nine hundred ninety seventh and eighth, were really the worst the starstream had seen of Yoo Jonghyuk. That title would probably be saved for the forty-first from which Yoo Jonghyuk was conscious of the fact he had to deliberately block memories from to stay sane.

No, the problem with the last two regressions wasn't the presence of any memories that were wretched to the point of novelty. The problem was the fact that Yoo Jonghyuk barely retained any memories of them at all.

It was all a haze… it was honestly hard to tell if those regressions had been even markedly different from the ones previous to them, as all of the repeated events seemed to mush together and meld with the centuries of anguish he had already endured.

He hadn't felt anything new. Done anything new. So much so that he would forget his place in the new regression and wander aimlessly thinking of the old until some high level constellation punk got a lucky shot at him.

And then all of a sudden, Yoo Jonghyuk woke up in that familiar train car. The one that no matter what would only last for the first thirty minutes of the scenario.

Almost out of habit, he looked for that boy he had been keeping an eye on. The one who always died.

He stopped when he realized.

999.

That boy had died one thousand times.

Yoo Jonghyuk had lived one thousand times. Been in this train car one thousand times. Failed to save anyone one thousand times. Died one thousand times.

Was he really that useless? Yoo Jonghyuk thought to himself, as he went through the motions of beating Choi Han-gyu to death before he could blow up the car.

Honestly, at this point maybe he should accept that he was just like the boy in this car.

No matter what he did, he was going to die anyway.

If he thought about it like that, then…

Well, what was the best thing that he could accomplish with his own death, knowing that it would come to him no matter what he did?

So in the nine hundred ninety ninth turn, Yoo Jonghyuk took more risks than ever before. He made choices and plans that he never would have before because experience had shown they were the antithesis to his former dogma. That which put his own means of survival above all else.

And little by little, Yoo Jonghyuk began to notice that things could be new again.

In this regression, his companions cared more about him. They respected him more, and opened up about things they never had. As if something in his actions connected to them. Made them think he acted out of love for them since his actions clearly showed no care for himself.

And maybe Yoo Jonghyuk wanted to believe them, too. That he was still capable of that sort of love. That desire for connection.

So he let himself fall into it. He made his decisions based on everyone's survival except for his own.

And his comrades continued to show new sides of themselves. The way Lee Jihye tried not to weep aver the bloody remains of his leg, even though no one had died that regression. How Lee Hyunsung's lips trembled while trying to stop the blessing where Yoo Jonghyuk's arm used to be. Shin Yoosung's open bawling, as it began to set in on Yoo Jonghyuk that he would never see this version of her's face ever again.

But Yoo Jonghyuk knew whose response to his actions had surprised him the most this regression.

"Jonghyuk. Are you ready?" The voice of a certain archangel was heard near his somehow still intact ears.

Uriel's face was close to his, a tight grip on his arm and waist along with the angelic wing steadied on his back the only support keeping him held upright as the others had followed his instructions in forging through the final battle ahead of them.

"There's no need to watch over me so closely, Uriel." He told her. It was, in fact, something he had been telling this strange angel recurrently ever since she had stepped down from Eden to join their group.

That was one thing he had never expected of the entity he had once known as the Demon-like Judge of Fire. In all the timelines he had been through Uriel had been just that, a silent judge. Reacting positively to his lawful actions in the early scenarios with coins, and expressing disappointment over his more morally dubious actions. Only descending after the destruction of Eden occasionally to cast judgement in person.

But something about this round had moved the archangel to act differently after the destruction of Eden this round.

"No offense, but there's obviously a d**n need for it, Jonghyuk." Uriel casually censored herself, as though the restrictions of Eden were still in place. "You can't see how the others are looking back towards you right now, but they know it too. That it's always times like this that you feel the need to go and take unnecessary risks."

Yoo Jonghyuk thought that he heard it in her voice, then.

That lilt in Uriel's voice that suggested she was talking to an old friend, even though the span of time in which he had met this version of her was infinitesimal in comparison to the life he had already lived before her, and perhaps compared to the life of a constellation as well.

Maybe Uriel, too, had lived through this all before. A war where she was called upon to support a comrade close to death.

Perhaps she also knew what it was like to be too helpless to save someone important.

Yoo Jonghyuk should be sorry that she would have to go through it again.

He could already feel it. No matter how close Uriel and her sword stayed by his side, Yoo Jonghyuk could feel his death coming to him.

It was because the outer world covenant wasn't an outside threat. It was something that was inside of him. A hole that came from the very center of him. Almost as if there were no outer world god involved, and Yoo Jonghyuk had really only done this to himself.

When everything was fading, and he could recognize her voice as one of the ones desperately calling out to him, Yoo Jonghyuk thought that he should apologize to her.

Instead, he died with a smile on his face.

.

.

.

The one thousandth regression was one that Yoo Jonghyuk planned based on his previous regressions, as he always did.

When he woke up on the train car again, he wasn't smiling as he had been when he died.

It was because he knew that he wouldn't let the events that let him get so far in the last regression repeat.

He couldn't live like that.

Suicidal idiot that he still was, he couldn't let the same thing happen to his precious memories of those friends in the nine hundred ninety ninth that had happened to every other memory he had of them from all those other regressions. Let them repeat until the point of oblivion. He couldn't do it. He just couldn't, even if it would be the right thing to do, even though it could save their lives, Yoo Jonghyuk just wasn't strong enough.

And he hated himself, for that weakness.

That was when Yoo Jonghyuk decided that he had to die, sitting there in that subway car before the scenarios started.

No matter what it took, killing every constellation in the starstream, losing distorted versions of old comrades, finding and wringing out his sponsor's neck…

Yoo Jonghyuk had to survive long enough to stand in front of that wall once more.

And join all of his once treasured memories in the deepest oblivion of death.

From then on, the only times he saw that Demon-like Judge of Fire descended from Eden was when she was sent with the express purpose to kill him in a way that didn't matter.

The only thing new he learned about her thereafter was how her corpse looked with a sword through the middle.

That was, until he met her as an outer god.

Secretive Plotter had wondered if it would please an angel like Uriel to know that he had prayed for the first time in that moment.

Prayed against all odds that her firey sword really could pierce through his curse of life and see him to his end.

But some dumb guy saved him that day.

And now, in the present, Yoo Jonghyuk was watching the kid version of that guy pick the green bits out of the omelette he had made him.

He had been trying to remember from the timelines where he had kids how he had tricked them into eating their vegetables, but like most of the times he tried to recall those deep memories of his, something in his brain had gotten caught up in that pesky number 999's time.

It was probably because his current company made those times hard to forget.

"Aaaaah I'm going to be late!" Uriel ran into the kitchen in a flash of blonde curls, going for the bread in the fridge as if she was going to run out of the house with toast in her mouth like a schoolgirl from one of her animes. "Jonghyuk do you know where Jihye is?"

"She already left." Yoo Jonghyuk reported, as he batted her hands off the bread and gave her a fork for the small omelette he had already put on the table for her. "Her first class this semester is in an early slot."

Even though he had told that girl to schedule her classes with the university early if she wanted good times…

"Shi-" Uriel seemed to remember there was no system to filter out her swears as she spared a glance toward Dokja before correcting herself. "Shoot. I mean shoot." She started speaking between bites as she scarfed down the omelette "I think that [munch] girl borrowed the shoes I was [chew] going to wear to my interview [gulp] without asking…"

"Does it really matter what shoes you wear?" Yoo Jonghyuk commented as he used his chopsticks to start placing Dokja's vegetables back into his omelette. "A former constellation is going to look strange submitting her manhwa manuscript to an editor for review no matter what."

"Give me a break." Uriel frowned. "It's not my fault that your world somehow made the mistake of making creative skills look more appealing on a resume than demon slaying skills."

Yoo Jonghyuk thought that there was truth to her observation, as he watched Uriel ruffle the hair of the pouting Dokja, before putting her clean plate in the sink for him to deal with later.

Everything about this world was new to Uriel. One could see it plainly in the very way she moved, unused to not carrying wings everywhere she went and walking ever so lightly on the earth wherever she went. Whether it was because she knew what it was to fly or because her shoulders had never felt so light before, Yoo Jonghyuk couldn't be sure.

"Good luck." He called, as Uriel walked out into the fray ahead of him, donning combat boots instead of the professional heel she seemed to have misplaced.

"Thanks Jonghyuk!" She replied, seemingly not compelled to look back to check on him as she walked out the door.

Yoo Jonghyuk had this certain feeling, then. A feeling that he often saw himself having in this new life of his, with these old friends of his.

Even though he thoroughly knew these people already, that fact made it all the more exciting to watch them grow into their roles in this world. Become the people that he never got to see them be.

"It's that look in your eye."

Yoo Jonghyuk almost startled, as he remembered he was being watched.

He turned to find young Dokja looking him with a gaze that seemed to see beyond his stoic expression.

"My father never looked at anyone like the way you looked at her just now, Hyung." He said, in that small, knowing voice of his, before a shyness seemed to come over him, and he looked down at his plate.

"That's why nine hundred ninety nine was always my favorite." He admitted, in a little voice

The emotion that Yoo Jonghyuk felt then was a rare one, but not entirely new.

A mixture of pride and bashfulness that only his own children had ever raised out of him, a glow that seemed to start from his chest and go on to cover his cheeks.

Perhaps an erstwhile familiarity with that feeling was the only thing that allowed him to save himself from smiling, as he tried very hard to tell Dokja sternly to eat his vegetables.

And when Uriel came home that evening to announce that her manuscript had gotten picked up… well, it wasn't hard to admit that Yoo Jonghyuk too was now living through a life that he never had before.

[amjustagirl]

Chapters: one. ~ two. ~ three. ~ four. ~ five. ~ six. ~ seven. ~ eight.

Wordcount: 2.7k

Summary: Being with Miya Atsumu is like chasing a storm - equal parts exhilaration and danger. After all, it’s impossible to tame a storm.

Masterlist here

AO3 Link here

Playing volleyball in Milan is everything Atsumu dreamed of and more - the lights are brighter, the crowds are bigger, there are no distractions, no nagging to ignore, no pending errands to run - nothing to detract from the rush of exhilaration when he executes yet another perfect set. His teammates introduce him to the joy of soaking in the sunset over aperitivo by the Navigli canals, and he develops a liking for cheese and cured meat -  prosciutto, salami, bresola, sending pictures of the street markets to Osamu even though he receives no reply.  

But it’s not long before the novelty of living alone in a foreign land fades. He’s never been particularly good with languages, so he’s unable to get across the language barrier preventing him from socialising outside of his teammates. So Atsumu finds himself falling back into habits he learnt at home - buying take-out pizza on Friday nights from the pizzeria down the street, ordering extra because the pizza in Milan is thinner, crisper and infinitely less filling. There are no aquariums in Milan, no museums with dinosaur bones, so he measures his steps on cobblestone streets to the park every Sunday to sit on a bench too large for him alone, watching the birds and clouds in the sky. 

He tells himself to be content with watching his baby grow through the frame of an eleven inch screen, recording every one of her babbled words and chuckles onto his phone until it runs out of space and has to call Suna for technical support. He becomes a regular at the post office, mailing packages of dolls and nutcrackers, chocolates from his favourite sweetshop and handmade baby dresses from wizened oba-chan he learns to air kiss on both cheeks. 

‘Home, Oto-san?’ Shino asks during one of their calls. His voice breaks when he has to tell his baby ‘sorry, darlin’, not yet’. It’s the only time he opens up the webpage to check if he can book a flight back home. 

He starts rushing to the locker room right after matches end to avoid seeing his teammates’ faces light up when their families congratulate them with kisses and warm embraces after every match. When his teammates ask about his family (he drives away the thought that they’re asking out of pity), he whips out his phone to show them his favourite picture of Shino, her little face screwed up in confusion when they loaded her back with the giant mochi for her first birthday- ‘such a trooper, didn’t even cry when she fell down’ he tells them proudly. He’s quick to swipe past any photos of her. 

He doesn't need the memories, he really doesn’t.

Well - he might not  need  the memories, but it’s not as if they disappear. He wakes up to find himself on the other side of bed. ‘Sorry, darlin’ he mumbles sleepily (because he knows he tends to invade her space, and she’s likely to kick him bodily off the bed if he doesn’t apologise quickly enough) - before snapping awake with a thin sheen of cold sweat on his forehead remembering he’s five thousand, nine hundred and sixty miles from home. 

Not that he’s counting. He really isn’t.

He’s ashamed to admit that he heads to the club that night to pick up someone - anyone to warm his bed, but he’s not sure if it’s the burn of alcohol or the flashing lights (or that prick of something in his chest - it can’t be his conscience, he’s pretty sure only Osamu has that) because his stomach churns whenever pigs with their painted faces and false smiles approach him, and soon gives up, returning to his apartment cold and alone. He’s pretty sure it’s the alcohol because he pukes his guts out in the morning and swears off from ever going to a club again.

“MIYA !’ 

He only has time for a brief flash of shock between hearing his coach shout his name and feeling the impact of his teammate’s full weight against his shoulder that sends him sprawling across the floor. There’s a collective gasp from the crowd, but it’s not loud enough to drown out the sickening snap of bone ringing in his ears as he’s lying on the ground. 

The sharp burst of pain stabbing his shoulder is enough for him to know what the doctors later confirm - a shattered collarbone. Complete rest for at least eight weeks is prescribed for a full recovery. 

‘What were you thinking, Miya?’ his coach asks him exasperatedly when he’s discharged from the hospital. 

‘I goofed’, he replies lamely. ‘Sorry, sir’. 

It wouldn’t do to tell anyone that for a split second, he was distracted by the sight of a dark haired woman with bright eyes cheering at the top of the stands, a plump toddler balanced on her hip. 

It’s close enough to the end of the competition season that his coach figures it’d be better for him to just cut his stay in Milan short and return to Japan early to recover properly. So he lands in the Osaka airport amidst a haze of rain, arm tucked in a sling. The airport staff are kind enough to help him wheel his bags out to the arrivals gate where he’s surprised to find Osamu waiting with a bored expression on his face. 

‘I thought ya weren’t talkin’ to me’, Atsumu says.  

Osamu snorts, taking hold of his bags. ‘Mum made me come and get ya, since you're useless with that busted collarbone of yours.’ Then he turns on his heel and matter of factly adds as he walks off - ‘Besides, you’ll end up stayin’ with me anyway - it’s not like you have a home of yer own.’ 

Atsumu opens his mouth to retort but shuts it with a snap. 

‘You better hide in the kitchen if ya don’t have the guts to show yer ugly mug around her’, Osamu tells him at half past six in the evening, not even looking up from the tuna and spring onion onigiri he’s forming in his hands. 

But Atsumu doesn’t. He tells himself it’s because he can’t bring himself to leave Shino’s side for a second more than he has to, not when he’s still drinking in the sight of her grown so, so big in the span of just a few months. The little girl had been confused at first, when both he and Osamu turned up at the childcare centre to pick her up, but after several minutes of coaxing her to recognise which one of them was Oto-san and Oji-san (the hair colour probably helped) and the bribe of a very elaborate doll (probably the main reason), she’d warmed up to him and refused to let go of his hand. 

She pushes open the door to Onigiri Miya with a gentle smile on her face when Shino shrieks ‘Mama!’ at the top of her little lungs and rushes over to her, though it vanishes the instant she notices that it’s not Osamu playing with the little girl. He tries his best to ignore the stab of guilt in his chest when she takes an instinctive step back to yank Shino behind her legs. 

‘You’re back’, she finally says, glancing at his arm resting in its sling.   

‘Yeah…’ he responds, starting to sweat like he’s standing under the hottest stadium lights. ‘Ya look good’.

‘I know when you’re lying, Atsumu’, she sighs - and if he's being honest, she’s right. To the untrained eye, she looks perfectly put together, dressed in a pencil skirt and heels with her hair neatly tied back, but he knows her too well to be fooled. He can spot the pallor of her skin beneath her makeup, the droop of her shoulders, the downward tilt of her lips. But before he can formulate a response, she grabs Shino’s hand and turns to go, the little girl waving goodbye at him until they’re out of sight. 

‘Wow. That was awkward.’ Osamu quips from over the counter. Atsumu can’t even find it in him to respond.    

Osamu makes him work at his store in between his sessions of physiotherapy. ‘To keep ya out of trouble’ he says, and Atsumu doesn’t really mind, it still leaves him plenty of time to pick up Shino from childcare every day, and it certainly gives him the excuse to hang around Onigiri Miya when she stops by in the evenings. 

He tries to make conversation with her - ‘That’s a new dress you’re wearing’, but is always rebuffed - ‘I bought this old thing years ago’, to Osamu’s endless amusement. She’d always enter the store with a fond smile on her face for Osamu (it makes him want to puke), and would immediately drop it the moment she meets his eyes. 

He tells himself it’s normal, she used to be cold and standoffish to him before they started dating, that she’d come around after a while. But even when he tries a different tack (perhaps compliments don’t work on her like they used to before), asking her ‘how’s yer day’, she shoots him a look of distrust that cuts right through his smile - ‘Just tell me what you want, Atsumu. You’ve never bothered asking me that before’. 

Osamu actually roars with laughter at that. Traitor. 

‘Need help with that?’ Osamu comments after watching Atsumu struggle to reach the exercise tape on his back with his one good hand, stepping in after Atsumu gives a reluctant nod. But he immediately yelps in pain when Osamu decides to abandon all pretense of being gentle and yanks on the exercise tape viciously.

‘Just take off my skin while you're at it, why don't ya’ Atsumu whines. ‘It never used to hurt that much when  she  would help me after physiotherapy’. 

‘She’s always been nicer to ya than ya deserve, fuckin’ scrub’. Osamu retorts, pulling at the remaining tape with increased vigour. 

Atsumu bites his tongue through the pain, picking apart his brother’s words before replying - ‘Hey ‘Samu. She’s still really mad with me, isn’t she? D'you think she’ll ever forgive me?’ 

‘Have ya tried apologising to her, for starters?’ 

‘What?’ Atsumu asks, bewildered, before yelping - 'Wait - ouch!! What the hell that bloody hurt!?!?!' 

‘You know - saying sorry? Owning up to your mistakes? Asking for forgiveness? You abandoned your wife and child for months - but I suppose that concept must be alien to you, shit stain.’ 

Osamu doesn’t give him a chance to respond, shaking his head as he walks away. 

His pride is an ugly, misshapen lump in his throat that's so inflamed it's almost impossible to be swallowed, but he does so anyway, asking her if they can speak for a short while in the alley behind the shop, away from Osamu’s eavesdropping ears. She furrows her brows at his request, but follows him out without complaint. 

It’s only when she’s standing before him in the dimly lit alleyway, the dying light of the setting sun reflecting a halo above her head that it hits him like a blow to the back of his head that he’s a fuckin’ idiot - how did he manage to convince himself to blame her for trying to get in his way of chasing his dreams. This is what he missed when he was living alone in his cold studio apartment in Milan - being able to return after trainings and matches to a cosy flat overflowing with her cheeky banter and his baby’s laughter. 

Gods, he wants his family. He wants to come home. 

But before he can pour out the apology he’d been preparing with Osamu’s help, she interrupts him by slapping a brown envelope into his chest. 

‘Look, I’m not sure what you have to say to me, but frankly, I’m not sure we have much to say to each other anymore,’ she tells him impatiently, as he opens the envelope, a tidal surge of dread overwhelming him. 

‘What's this’, he says blankly, even though the title on the very first page of the stack of papers trembling in his hands sets it out clearly -  Rikon-Todoke. i.e. Divorce papers. 

It spells out in clinical, cold words the terms of the proposed separation - dissolution of marriage by mutual consent, no request for alimony or compensation, legal custody to be granted to her with ample visitation rights for him. He would think it fair, if it were to apply to anyone but him.  

‘But why?’ he rasps, chest burning from the knife that pierces him right through his heart. 

She shifts forward, and the neon lights from the buildings surrounding them melding together to throw her face into sharp focus, her mouth curving upwards into something much harsher than a smile. It’s as if his departure acted as a whetstone, sharpening her edges, shaping her into a woman with hard eyes he can’t recognise. 

‘You and both know it’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it Atsumu? You’ve made it quite clear that this marriage isn’t what you want out of life. In any case neither of us have really been happy even before you left, so we might as well be free from each other.’ 

At this, he shakes his head, parting his lips to object but she continues ruthlessly, her words slicing past his tissue thin excuses. 

‘If anything, my time with you has taught me that it's impossible to stop the storm from destroying everything in its path. You can only try your best to outrun it, and  this' - ’ she stabs a finger at the stack of papers shaking in his hands -  ‘this is my attempt at outrunning you.’

It feels as if his world has somehow shifted, tilted upside down, turned inside out, his assumption that her taking him back would be an inevitable conclusion now disproven by the papers burning in his hands. He knows he’s hurt her beyond measure, but he never thought that his choice to chase what he thought were his dreams would leave him without the ground beneath his feet. 

‘You don’t need to do anything else - just sign it and give it back to me soon. I think it’s better for all of us - you, me and Shino, if we divorce formally and lead our own separate lives’, he hears her say, turning to go. 

Acting on instinct, his hand shoots out to grab her wrist and she flinches, the steel in her eyes crumbling to leave only frozen terror behind. 

I could never hurt you, he wants to say, but doesn't - because he knows it's a lie. 

Numbly, he releases his grip, letting his hand drop to his side. 

He hears the door close behind him. 

Osamu finds him hours later, crouched on the back steps to the shop, papers clenched in his hands. He takes the papers from him and mouths to himself while scanning through it, but there is no spark of surprise in his eyes. 

‘Did ya know she planned on divorcing me, ‘Samu?’, Atsumu asks, swiping his eyes with the back of his hand. 

‘I had a pretty good guess it was coming’, Osamu replies heavily. 

‘Fuck’, Atsumu groans, dropping his head between his legs. 

Osamu prods his side with the tip of his shoe. ‘It’s not that I want to kick a guy when he’s down, but she's your wife, not a toy you can toss aside and come back to after a few months, shit for brains. And if I’m being honest, it looks like you’re acting like a brat who only wants his toy back when someone else picks it up’.

Osamu’s response lights a fire in his chest, and he whirls to his feet, grabbing his twin by the front of his apron growling - ‘Whose side are ya on anyway?!’ 

Osamu looks at him calmly, uncharacteristically refusing to take his bait. ‘Well, it's not as if ya don't deserve it. You walked out on her and Shino for almost a year, Atsumu. I’ve been the one cleaning up yer mess like I’ve been doing my whole life - I’ve been the one picking Shino up from childcare, I had to accompany yer wife to the hospital when yer kid was down with a high fever - d'you still have to ask whose side I’m on?’

‘D'you love her, ‘Samu?’ Atsumu asks after a pause. 

The twins stare at each other. 

‘I love her like a sister, you asshole. And I hate that it’s my own brother causing her pain.’ Osamu eventually says, pushing him away.  

The door slams behind him again.  

The dark clouds above him rumble ominously. It starts to pour. 

[just-like-playing-tag]

Yo it's Apollo!Ray AU hours again

I just think Ray would be more fitting as ruthless psycho than Norman? I mean, Ray was willing to sacrifice 35 children out of 37- children that were his family, children he loved. I'm not saying such decision didn't destroy him internally; but if he, after having thought about it for a long time and considered there was no other chance, eventually agreed to sacrifice most of his own family, think about what he might be able to do to the creatures he despises.

Now, I'm not saying I'm 100% sure this is how Ray would act if he was sent to Lambda, and I know I'm on thin ice with remaining in character; but I find it fun to think of what could have been of him and eventually bringing to light some hidden dark aspects of his!

Hear me out: Ray is a complex, predominantly gray character. Through the canon story, he was greatly effected by Emma's good influence for the better. Nota bene!! I don't mean that Ray isn't his own character, and that his personality and development was solely shaped by Emma; what I mean is that he was influenced by Emma's attitude as much as she was of his own, because our personality is also built on the people we're surrounded by, especially the ones we share a deep bond with.

Now, let's say that, at Grace Filed, Ray's heart was still in a predominantly gray zone: a bit ruthless at heart - he really was willing to abandon to death 92% of his family - but still able to be influenced by Emma's good resolutions for the best (even though it's important to keep in mind that he didn't believe an escape involving more than three people was possible until it took place in front of his eyes. I think it's a very relevant detail, as it shows how GF!Ray's cynism and realism often lead to him solely being able to see the most negative results, and not allowing him to believe in the impossible as Emma and Norman did).

Now, things changed as canon Ray escaped. He had seen the impossible become reality right in front of his eyes, and in that moment he vowed he would have never made the same mistake: he would have never given up again; not on his family, nor on his life.

He swore to protect his family, and that he would have never allowed any of his siblings to meet death again: and that's because, for the very first time in his entire existence, he started to believe that no-escape-scenarios can actually be overcame without sacrifices, if only you have enough faith into making it possible. He learned that fighting back will never stop being an option, and he's now willing to do anything, even the impossible, to grant his family an happy life- this time, for all of them.

It's beautiful, isn't it? Well, bad news!!! Lambda!Ray never got the chance to go through this character development. In fact for him after his shipment everything got worse and more desperate!

I find it unlikely that Ray would have left a note with a revisited escape plan like Norman did before leaving... We know for sure in two months he didn't come up with what Norman had thought in a couple of hours, and even though in the circumstances of him being shipped he would have been him to make the recognition, he didn't know about the support of the younger siblings, which was a key element of the escape plan. Overall, even putting aside the fact that Norman is generally considered being a span more witty than Ray, I personally like to think that Ray, for how he is - pessimistic, depressed and everything - after seeing the cliff would have been far too miserable to come up with something as fast as Norman did.*

*Actually, it's hard to tell for sure, because I think Ray would never give up on saving Emma and Norman- but things were happening so fast, so what if he didn't have enough time? What if he just couldn't come up with a plan to overcome the cliff? I fully believe Ray would have done anything to save Emma and Norman, but what if there wasn't anything to be done? It's hard to say.

Ray is shipped to Lambda. This is probably what he's thinking, differently from Norman:

1. Their plan to escape somehow feels as it's already failed, since they already lost one person: without him, the plan of setting the house on fire to distract Isabella has no chance to work, making their already few chances of escaping go down to basically none.

2. Differently from Norman, who never stopped believing in Emma, Lambda!Ray doesn't know if his siblings were actually able to escape; taking into account how pessimistic Ray is, he has probably long presumed them dead. In such situation, it's very likely he considered the work of the six years of his life to at least make Emma and Norman survive gone to waste. I think it's actually very likely for him to get even more depressed and hopeless at Lambda, believing that now all his family is dead, and probably blaming himself for that. The fact that out of all his family he was the only one who survived - him, the one who out of them was the most ready and willing to die - must feel to him like the most cruel joke from destiny.

[For reference: until the very moment they finally met, also Norman didn't know the escape was successful.

Of course, Norman believed in Emma and in her plan, but what about cynical, realistic, I'm-depressed-since-I-was-one Ray?]

At Lambda, Ray is hopelessly stalling, obsessing on this kind of thoughts. His hatred for demons and, for extension, the world he lives in, is growing stronger and stronger. He's slowly sinking in the abyss of his own desperation. Now that all for him is lost, the only thought that keeps him from giving up on his life is one: the thirst of vengeance. A single, dark, rooted thought that somehow manages to be the one thing that keeps him going on. (Once taken on the Apollo facade, there probably was also a component of wanting to stop once and for all the suffering of thousands of children... But in all honesty, I believe with Ray the revenge component would be much stronger than it was with Norman.)

Let's take a moment to reflect on Ray's vindictive side, shall we? Of course, the main reason for Ray to set himself on fire was because according to him it was the safest way to make the others escape (honestly I think a big part of it was also because of him being suicidal kind of depressed, but that's not relevant to the point). But I believe another primary reason for his actions was his seek for revenge: you can clearly see it in his words full of hate and loathing. And I mean, I think that's pretty canon? Ray's beautiful theme in this moment of the anime is literally called “Ray's retaliation”.

That night Ray sought revenge for having ruined his six years plan to save his true friends (since Norman was ultimately shipped without him being able to do anything to save him), together with revenging all of his siblings he saw being led to death. Somehow, it was a moment for him to set all his anger free as his last testament leaving that cruel world.

But as for the Ray of the AU, he never got to experience that freeing moment! Instead, the anger inside of him kept growing stronger and stronger. And now that he believed the whole escape plan had failed and not a single child had survived, it's fair to assume his thirst for revenge would keep growing with it. And also, once again: this time there's no Emma to have a good influence on him.

Now imagine: after escaping Lamba, Ray meets Emma and Norman again!! He's overjoyed: for the longest time, he had thought he would have never got to see them again. He's ecstatic, overwhelmed with joy. In that moment, he swears to himself he'll never lose them again. Skip to the moment of the confrontation between the three of them, except this time it's Ray to expose his plan to exterminate the demons; when Emma randomly speaks her mind and says that, well, she actually doesn't find it very nice to eradicate an entire species, and that in fact she and Norman were already planning a fun trip to a deadly metaphysical place nobody ever came back from to reforge the promise. Needless to say, in the span of minutes Ray is back sinking deep into the abyss. He won't lose them again. He can't lose them again. And click boom, he goes “You know what Emma? Why don't you visit our Paradise Hideout a bit longer instead 😊🔪🔪🔪”

What I'm trying to say is: when the story starts, Ray has gone through all of the most dreadful and disturbing horrors; he's unstable, and depending on his fate when leaving Grace Field he could have easily swing from one extreme to the other. I think Emma greatly helped him overcome his hatred; but what would have been of him, hadn't she been there to support him? What if he only met people who shared his hatred for demons? What if Ray had the choice to kill them all?

[bad-bitch-beauchamp]

Songs About Me: Whisky & Song (CH9)

A dinner is had, Claire shares a page from her notebook, and the truth comes out.

READ ON AO3

Jamie’s kitchen, mid-evening, early December, Louisburg Square, Beacon Hill, Boston

Jamie poured a few more fingers of Glenfiddich 12 into both of the tumblers on the counter and set down the bottle. He’d bought the bottle the first night Claire had come to his townhouse, hoping she’d notice how he’d pay attention to the detail about her escape in Scotland. She had noticed, of course, and rewarded him with a windfall of kisses. It was the night she’d learned he had been her neighbor for longer than they’d known each other, and the whisky served as just another reminder of their close connection. That night had followed Jamie into his dreams that night. Dreams, of Claire. After that night, he’d made sure to always have a bottle of Glenfiddich on hand for repeat performances. Tonight, he was hoping for more of the same.

“... Can ye believe it, Sassenach! I mean, every party with those two is a wild one but this one -- Christ! -- it was really something else!” Jamie was sitting at his island barstool facing her, but Claire’s mind was a thousand miles away.

“Hm? Oh yes, I’m sure it was a fun time. What happened next?” she asked absently.

Jamie furrowed his brows for just a moment and watched while she took a rather large drink from her glass. “Weel, that was mostly the end of the story, ken,” he replied.

She nodded slowly and took another large drink. “Yer not usually a closed-mouthed woman, Claire,” he sighed. “Care to share what yer thinking about? Something’s clearly eating ye up over there.” When she didn’t replied, he grinned and added, “Yer thoughts are sae loud I can nearly here them from way over here.”

That got a small smile from her at last. As she opened her mouth to finally spill her words all over him, a loud vibration buzzed from Jamie’s phone on the quartz counter. Without needing to look, Claire knew exactly what was about to happen: a cute blonde face would light up the screen, Jamie would silence the phone, and it would be shoved out of sight. Refusing to see it happen again, Claire blurted out, “Are you seeing someone else?”

Jamie’s hand, reaching toward the phone, settled back into his lap. “Am I what?”

“We never did have the “we’re exclusive” conversation, so it’s really not a big deal if you are.” Seeing his confused expression she continued. “I mean, you’re a grown man, you can do what you want, and who am I to stop you?”

“Who are ye to me?” Jamie quietly muttered, more to himself than to her.

“...It’s so often, and I wouldn’t mind, but it seems like a lie by omission, and after my ex, I don’t do lying. Secrets, but not lies. It’s been two months together and I really like this, Jamie. If you’re going in a different direction than me, it’s cool, I just need to know because that’s really not what I’m trying to do here and honestly, I thought we were on the same page with what we wanted…”

“Claire, wait--”

“...and I thought we were making plans together and if that’s not what you want, I want to readjust. Actually, I’d rather get out of it altogether…”

“Sassenach--”

“I’m just going to go, okay? Thanks for dinner, it’s been really fun. I’m sure I’ll see you around,” Claire rambled. In the span of two minutes, she’d gone from complete silence to packing up her purse and heading to the entryway to the front door. Before she could reach the handle, a strong hand gripped her upper arm and spun her around. Crystal blue eyes burned into her.

“I’m no’ letting ye go until I explain. Then, you can make yer choice. I will no’ make ye stay, but I hope ye’ll wait around to listen to me. Just for a moment.” She shuffled on the floor, trying to look anywhere but at him. “Please, Claire. Please don’t go yet.” There was something in his voice, a pleading , that made her completely unable to walk away from him. She nodded, and followed him back to the barstools.

“I’m sorry if you feel like I misled ye, a nighean. Ye deserve only the truth, so ye’ll have it. The calls are from my friend Annalise.” Claire’s head snapped, eyes narrowed. “I take it ye remember her. Yes, my ex. She’s going through a terrible breakup with her boyfriend Charlie, and now that so many of us have left Scotland for here, she’s really feeling alone. Even though we dated, we’ve always considered each other verra good friends. She’s needed someone, and I’m trying to be there for her now, like she’s been for me.” Claire’s look softened, but only slightly. “Please, Claire. Ye have to believe I’d never hide anything from ye. She’s nothing more than a friend tae me.” He held both her hands in his tentatively, lest she tried to pull back.

“Why did you hide her from me? I’d never keep you from a friend, but Jamie, you have to understand. She’s a beautiful woman, and you were acting secretive, and--”

“Please dinna mistake dedication for secretiveness.”

“Dedication?”

“Aye. Dedication to ye. To our relationship. To our time together. Annalise is special to me, but nothing is as important tae me as you, Claire. Nothing. I’m trying my best to be a good friend for her, but nothing compares to ye. I don’t pick up the phone because I don’t want to take up my time with ye away on the phone. I didna consider how it must look to ye. Please know, ye are everything , to me.”

Claire blinked, trying to absorb the weight of what he’d told her. Still trying to process his admission and fighting through the fog of more than a few whiskies, a quiet but steady voice pulled her from her reverie.

“Yer face is my heart, Sassenach, and the love of you is my soul. Ye cannae tell by now?”

Her brow furrowed. Surely he didn’t say that. He didn’t mean that. He couldn’t have. Slowly, she moved her eyes from her hands in his up his chest, to his heartbeat pounding in his throat, to clear blue eyes.

“You… you love me?”

The edge of his mouth quirked up and his eyes crinkled in the corners. “Aye, I do. I’ve wanted ye from the moment ye fell into me at the bar, and I’ve loved ye since I found ye sitting in my shop, singing yer wee songs with the sunlight hitting ye from behind. I loved ye then, and I’ve loved ye every day since then. I loved ye then, and I love ye now, Claire.” He stood from his seat and stepped closer, bringing her to her feet. “I love you. No one else. I loved ye yesterday, today, tomorrow… as long as ye’ll have me, I will love you.”

Not for the first time, words were failing Claire. Whether it was hearing that Jamie Fraser loved her or the whisky, she couldn’t tell. Her eyes finally fell to his chest, brow still furrowed. Everything around her was heavy: the weight of his words, the alcohol in her veins, the scent of him so close to her -- all ocean spray and damp earth and old books -- looming over her, an arm draped around her wait and one in her hair… everything was so heavy. Breathe, Beauchamp. Finally having the confidence to face him yet again, she prepared to lay her feelings bare just has he had moments before. Meeting his eyes, she found apprehension. He thinks he said something wrong. He thinks he overstepped.

“Wait here.” She left a stunned Jamie in the kitchen and ran back to the front door when she left her purse. Returning with a black leather notebook in hand, she thumbed through the pages. Jamie watched in confused wonderment while she searched for something in particular. Finding what she was looking for, she handed the book to him. With a sigh, he sat back on the tall stool to read what was so important to her.

Scribbled on two adjacent pages were words scrawled in black ink. On the left, a column of French words strung together in Claire’s hand:

Je te laisserai des mots

En-dessous de ta porte

En-dessous de la lune qui chante

Tout près de la place où tes pieds passent

Cachés dans les trous d’un temps d’hiver

Et quand tu es seule pendant un instant…

Embrasse-moi,

Quand tu voudras

Embrasse-moi,

Quand tu voudras

Embrasse-me,

Quant tu voudras.

On the second page, with a few words scribbled out and replaced, lay another column:

I will leave you words

Under your door,

Below the singing moon

Near the place where you pass by

Hidden in the hole of wintertime

And when you’re alone

For a moment

Kiss me

Whenever you want

Kiss me

Whenever you want

Kiss me

Whenever you want.

A clear line of tears shimmered on red lashes, blue eyes became clearer. “You love me, too.” Blue sky met whisky. He stood, discarding the notebook on the counter. “Ye love me.” He couldn’t look away and continued toward her. He took her hands in his for the second time, searching her face for any sign of misunderstanding, finding none when she tearfully smiled and slowly nodded her affirmation. “Ye love me, too…?”

“Aye,” trying her best Scottish imitation, “I do.”

Seeing the honesty, the vulnerability, in her eyes, he kissed her. No, not kissed. Absolutely devoured. He held her face in his large hands, cradling her against him. “Tell me.”

She leaned into the force of him, closing her eyes for just a moment. When she opened them to watch him, she hoped he could read her face as easily as he always said he could. Her hand covered his, and she smiled. “James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser, I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

His eyes danced over her face, memorizing her features in this moment. “Christ, Claire,” a single tear ran down his stubbled cheek. “To hear ye say it, it’s… it’s more than I ever imagined.”

She let out a trembling sigh, stroking his face, the path of his single tear with her thumb. His stare traveled downward in thought, meeting hers again in question. “The song from the shop, the one in French,” Claire smiled shyly, letting her gaze drop to the floor, and back up at him through wet lashes. “Is it… is that the one that…”

“I said I wrote about you sometimes,” she admitted, a smile unbidden breaking free from the corners of her mouth. “Do you like it?”

“Do I… Do I like it?” He wondered at this woman before him, in complete awe. “Aye, I love it. Nearly as much as I love you, mo chridhe.” Unable to hold himself back from her, he feverishly kissed her. A hand in her hair, an arm snaked around her waist, she was positively crushed to him. Claire moaned into his kisses, seeking purchase of him with her mouth. He only held her tighter with each kiss. Claire searched to bring them closer yet, but Jamie pulled away first. Breaking for air, he cupped her face gently, and stared into the face he’d treasure, he’d love , for the rest of his days. “You are everything, to me.”

[nazumichi]

WHAT HAPPENED IN TALES OF ARCADEIA DHKSBSO

OK SO SO SO SO

the tv series is so good, all of them are, so naturally I had very high hopes for the movie. Massive fucking mistake.

everything seemed to be going ok.

Spoilers under cut!

The gang was in Camelot after a big battle that resulted in Douxie (punk rock wizard guy) switching minds with narri (an all powerful nature spirit) so she couldn’t accidentally bring around the end of the world.

ok, cool, no issue there.

heres where things go weird. local badass alien princess aja appears in Camelot, and her boyfriend, regular jock Steve, gives her a big smooch. She freaks out. “If my counting is correct, that was our seventh kiss! In akiridion 5 (her home planet) that means there will be a baby!”and Steve is like “what the fuck. Wait you’re pregnant?? I’m gonna be a dad!!”

and then Krel, aja’s brother just appears in a burst of royal blue like “no. You’re pregnant.”

off to a great start! 

Hardly 20 minutes into the movie, there’s a mpreg arc. 

Great.

off to the second big bad moment. Not that it will be the last. 

Prior to this pregnancy scare, the main character, Jim, is going through a rough patch. Very much a “im not the trollhunter anymore. I’m not special, I’m just a regular kid.“ naturally, his mom and his changeling dad console him.

Then we learn they’re getting married and want Jim to be the best man. This isn’t a yikes moment, this is a “I’m going to cry this is everything I’ve ever wanted” moment.

spirits ever so slightly lifted, the gang splits up to take out the three powerful titans who want to wipe the entire planet clean, and start it anew.

awesome, cool.

we see Douxie, AARRRRGHHHH (massive super strong troll), and Nomura (haughty knife-wielding changeling), try to stop narri, who is under the control of her fellow evil elementals of fire and ice, from destroying brazil.

there’s a fight scene. Guess what happens. Guess.

Nomura fucking dies. She gets turned to stone and smashed into billions of tiny pieces by narri. Which is exactly how draal (her sort of troll boyfriend) died a couple episodes ago.

Don’t worry, this is fine, she definitely wasn’t my favourite character who’d changed so much in the span of 6 seasons, this is fine.

Ready for big yikes number 3?

Up in the cold wastelands of idk I wasn’t paying attention, a cold place, Jim and his parents are doing their best to stop the ice titans from destroying the super cold place that I can’t remember the name of.

Jim, in a rage of boyish anger, hefts a bomb like “i will blow up this ancient and extremely powerful god with a fucking hand grenade.”

And his dad, strickler, ever the voice of reason is like “no, silly! Use two hand grenades! Ugh fine, I’ll sacrifice myself to kill this thing. Take care of your mom for me, plus the THOUSANDS OF BABIES WE ADOPTED IN THE LAST SEASON, BTW. Toodles, young atlas!”

And then he fucking dies.

There’s some crying, from both the characters and myself.

So we usually have three changelings on set, strickler, Nomura, and notenrique, who is Claire’s adopted baby brother. Two have died. One has not made a single appearance. Go team!

Oh and guess what? The ice god didn’t even die. 👍

I’m not even gonna talk about the quest the alien siblings, Claire (Jim’s gf), Toby (Jim’s bestie), varvaatos (alien siblings guardian), Archie (cat-dragon who is Douxie’s bestie, and archies dad went on. That was a whole load of bull. But they did manage to secure a thing beginning with “k” that I forgot the name of. It can see into the past, future, and present elsewhere. Keep thing relic in mind, it will be useful later.

Remember Steve who’s pregnant? Yeah there’s a very graphic pregnancy scene. Like. Too graphic. His bestie/bf Eli helps him. And guess what the babies (there’s like 7) look like. Guess. They’re bio copies of Aja with Steve’s hair. I cannot make this shit up.

^ theres the happy mother.

Ok so there’s a big hero speech, all fine and dandy, Jim kills both the ice and fire gods, and realises that he is worth something, and his amulet didn’t make him a hero, really nice.

And then his bestie Toby sacrifices himself.

Toby dies. He dies. On screen.

I sobbed for a couple minutes, cursed mr del toro and all, I was an emotional wreck.

Now. Remember the time relic?

Every seen Madoka magica?

Jim uses it TO GO BACK IN TIME TO A BETTER UNIVERSE where he ISNT the trollhunter, TOBY, is, and if you’ve watched the series, you know that Trollhunters have a habit of befalling PAINFUL AND AGONISING DEATHS.

Jim doesn’t seen to perturbed by this, that it’s very likely that his bestie will die a very very painful death.

So the main cast never really meets. Yes, Jim and Toby continue to be friends. Jim gets closer to Claire. He introduces his changeling teacher strickler to his mom. We see a shot of douxie working in a regular store, which filled me with inhumane rage. We assume that the evil characters that got redeemed are still very evil.

We see no scenes of blinky and aarrgghhhh, none of the alien siblings. They’ve fucked off somewhere else.

I’m so FUCKING tired and so FUCKING disappointed. Goodnight.

[mimik-u]

Archive

Summary: As a part of the extensive process for documenting the war, Pearl and Blue Diamond prepare to have a conversation about Pink.

Prompt: One of the Diamonds interacts with a Pearl (either “our” Pearl, our “their” Pearl) post-CYM

Note: My gift to @runrundoyourstuff​ for our holiday gift exchange. Dani, your writing always inspires me—I’m always looking to it for your complex understanding of characters, your depth, and the beautiful way you have with words (always so thoughtful, even to the syllable). Thank you for all the wonderful conversations that we have. I’m so lucky to have you in my life!! And please check out her gift to me—Seasons! I’m so excited to read it, too!!!!

AO3 Link

—

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Steven reminds her for the fifteenth time since he woke up this morning and bounded down from the loft to interrupt her daily newspaper reading. He’s sitting on the corner of her desk in Little Homeschool now, one of his jacket sleeves scrunched up at the elbow and the other rolled down, leveling her a serious look beneath his bushy brow, mouth pressed into a thin line.

It strikes Pearl suddenly, and for no readily available reason, that her little boy has grown up somewhere in the space and span of two measly years.

Soon, if he keeps growing, he’ll be even taller than she is.

“Yes, you’ve made sure I’m aware of that,” she returns wryly, absently reshuffling her notes again. They’re half-English, half-gem glyph in a shorthand that only she understands, alternating languages from line to line depending on when glyphs were not sufficient enough to capture all those once-foreign concepts to gemkind: love, romance, the depths of sacrifice. Gems didn’t need symbols to encode for these complex sensations, even if they felt them, and perhaps especially if they did.

It was scary to love someone on Homeworld.

It was terrifying to love them so powerfully that you would risk your very gem for them.

Traitors were duly punished.

Survivors were rare in Era One.

(Garnet can attest to that.)

“I’m just sayin’,” he protests playfully, sounding rather like Amethyst, and even resembling her when he raises both of his palms in mock surrender. “I know this project is important and all, but it’s not as important as me knowing that you’re comfortable…”

Pearl places her papers down and straightens them neatly, all the while feeling the force of Steven’s expectant gaze.

The strength of his love.

It warms her all over.

It colors her pale face.

But when she finally glances up at him, even though her cheeks are assuredly pink, she keeps her voice and resolve firm.

(Though she’ll never say this to him, not now, not anymore—never again—he reminds her so much of his mother sometimes.)

(His kindness, his warmth, his goodness.)

(Because Rose wasn’t all bad—not really. Not to her, at least.)

“I’m fine, Steven,” she reassures him. “I promise. I wouldn’t have agreed in the first place if I wasn’t. This isn’t the first time I’ve done one of these recordings, and it won’t be the last either.”

“But never about… this, you know”—he makes a vague pointing gesture with his hand, struggling for the right words—“and never with a Diamond.”

He says the word Diamond nervously, like it’s one of the expletives that Amethyst has gotten more comfortable in dropping now that Steven is a bonafide teenager, and he’s simply waiting to see Pearl’s response, how she’ll react.

She certainly did give Amethyst one hell of a scolding the other day.

“This is history,” she returns quietly. “It’s painful history, yes… but that can’t be helped.”

“But it can!” He argues pointedly, his eyes wide and incredulous, his voice scratched around its strained edges. “You don’t have to share the things that have hurt you for the entire galaxy to see, Pearl. That isn’t what this is all about.”

“But I want to.” And there’s a sense of finality in her tone that closes a mouth that had already been half-wrenched open in preemptive protest. Pearl takes the opportunity to reach over then and place a hand on Steven’s jean-enclosed knee, smiling gently. “Of course, there are a couple of details I’ll keep to myself—keep between you and me—but for the most part, I’m ready to tell this part of the story. Indeed, I think it’s essential that I do.”

“For archival purposes?” Steven asks dryly, resignation in his voice, a little teenage petulance, too.

Pearl pats his knee once, laughs lightly, and then withdraws her hand.

“For closure,” she says simply, but then, because she knows it’s not enough for him, and she wants it to be enough for him, elaborates. Explains. (It isn’t quite justification, though.) “Two years ago, I was bound by your mother’s final command to never talk about what we did. And most of the time, I didn’t want to… I don’t think I could have forced myself to even if I tried. As you got older, though, as you learned more about your mother and all of her many… complexities…  as you began to have questions—so many important questions—I knew I needed to but couldn’t. And now…”

“You have a choice,” Steven finishes for her, realization washing across his face, unbending the protective sharpness in it.

“Exactly,” she nods approvingly, “and so I’ve thought about it… I’ve weighed everything out carefully… and I’ve come to the conclusion that this is what I want—to claim our history… even  though it’s painful, even if it still hurts. I’ve had trouble doing that before, even with secrets in my own volition, and I don’t want… I refuse to let that be me anymore, Steven. I don’t want to live with thousands-year old ghosts anymore.”

Though his brow remains furrowed, though there’s something in the dark of his eyes that remains a little unsure, Steven nonetheless blinks to show that he’s heard her and nods solemnly to indicate that he understands.

It’s a simple gesture.

It means a lot.

And she smiles at him in radiant, weary relief.

A few months ago, Homeworld and Little Homeschool scholars had a conference to determine how best to record, preserve, and proliferate the history of the war, and all the events that resulted in Era Three. There are extensive gaps in Homeworld’s own archives, which had been scrubbed free of mentions of it in obedience to Yellow Diamond’s commands, and Little Homeschool, of course, being relatively new, doesn’t have an archive so much as it has a file cabinet in Pearl’s office that’s at the very least meticulously alphabetized. And so, they decided upon creating a universally accessible Archive, a series of recordings and documents and interviews delivered by gems and humans from both sides of the war, giving accounts of all that has happened in six thousand elapsed years.

Most of the Crystal Gems have done several recordings.

Garnet, Bismuth, and Pearl did one just last week on the Battle of the Ziggurat.

Biggs and a few other defected Homeworld soldiers have covered some of the minor battles.

Yellow and Blue Pearl have recorded a few on what it was like to be in the palace during the war.

And even the Diamonds themselves have proffered their perspectives whenever they’ve had the time.

Because the scholars emphasized early on that it was essential for all sides of the story to be brought to the table in order for the universe to get the fullest canvas of what it meant that Pink Diamond started a war that her half-human son would one day finish.

The minutiae of Homeworld politics.

All of the many battles.

The rebellion.

The beauty of Earth.

The aching desolation of Homeworld after the faked shattering.

Gems’ encounters with humans.

Humans’ encounters with gems.

The casualties.

The grief.

And what that does to a gem—to hold her comrade’s shards in her hands.

What it does to people.

The various townies have given their accounts of what it was like to live through alien invasion after alien invasion, to see their beloved Beach City upended so many times, right before their eyes.

War.

“When does it start?” Steven asks in a would-be-casual voice, straightening up from her desk and stretching his arms over his head before pulling them back down again. With a meticulousness she fancies he inherited from her, he finally fixes his sleeves, dragging the cuff of his left arm to perfectly match the length of the other.

“In ten minutes,” she replies.

“Do you want me to stay?” Lines crease his eyes even as he offers it. “I can if you need me to.”

He glances at the still dormant Holo-Crystal on the desk and just as quickly glances away, finding her face.

Searching her own gaze, even at the very moment she searches his, the both of them looking for something to be concerned about and unfailingly finding love.

Pearl knows for a fact that he doesn’t want to listen, that he’d rather not hear the sordid story all over again.

He’s seen it.

Goodness, he’s half-lived it through the mire of her own head.

But she also knows that if she asked him to, he would do it.

Just for her.

He’s selfless like that.

He’s Steven.

“Go,” she smiles softly at him, leaning back in her chair. “Get out of here. If you and Amethyst will grab the stuff from the store, I’ll make cookies for dessert tonight.”

Steven returns the gesture crookedly, and the relief in his eyes is almost mistakable for excitement.

“Chocolate chip?” His voice young, almost childlike.

“Do you even need to ask?” Her voice fond, always motherly.

“Thanks, Pearl!” He chuckles. He half-skips. He snatches his car keys from the desk and all but slaps the door handle. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

He winks his final goodbye, twists the knob and in a brief flash of golden sunlight, disappears into the day. The door clicks to a merry close behind the shuffle and haste of his heels.

And Pearl is left alone, hands templed delicately in her lap, staring at a deadened Holo-Crystal that’s lying almost forlornly on its side. 

Her smile slips away from her mouth like falling sand the moment she thinks she’s safe.

She shuffles her papers again.

She stares, very quietly, at the crystal.

She looks, just as pointedly, away.

Occupies herself by touching her notes again, raking her fingers over all the words that give a form to the one secret she had kept to herself for thousands upon thousands of years—not entirely out of her own will.

She wasn’t lying to Steven when she said that she wanted to do this.

She was lying about the fact that she was fine to do it.

Somehow, in the tangle of her own head, it makes sense to her that these sensations are not mutually exclusive. It’s perfectly compatible to want to do something that’s scary and still feel intensely scared about doing it.

Fear doesn’t stop at the threshold of a made decision. 

After all, if fear had ever stopped her from doing what she wanted, then she would have never loved Rose Quartz.

So she stares at the Holo-Crystal, and then she emphatically doesn’t.

Tries to distract herself.

(Eight minutes til…. seven.)

Fails. 

Abruptly gets out of her chair, a sudden restlessness in her lanky limbs, and begins to pace the floor, sunlight from the nearby window dusting her skin gold in square patches, in slivers. When only one minute remains, and the Holo-Crystal suddenly glows a bright, electric blue as a warning alert to a scheduled call, she throws herself back into the chair as forcibly as possible and tries to arrange her face into an expression that’s just as equally cool.

Focused.

Put together.

Fifty seconds…

She pushes a hand through her hair and hates herself for doing so; assuredly, she just ruffled it, and now her hair will be a rumpled mess on a hologram for time immemorial.

Thirty seconds…

What in stars’ name does she do with her hands? Arrange them on the desk? Temple them on her lap? Place them stiffly by her sides? She settles for some awkward combination of the three—templing them on the smooth surface of her desk with her elbows at stiff angles.

It’s highly uncomfortable.

Twenty seconds…

She could bail now, and Steven wouldn’t think the worse of her for it. She’d join him at the beach house after he returned from the grocery store, and he’d help her make the cookie dough and never say a word as to her cowardice. Perhaps he would even be relieved that she decided not to go through with her intentions in the first place. After all, they weren’t strictly necessary… that was one of his arguments even… someone else could do it… could tell her story… and it would all be the same.

Ten seconds…

But she wouldn’t be relieved.

She wouldn’t be proud of herself.

She could live with herself, yes, but she wouldn’t be able to forget that when the opportunity came to speak her truth freely, she refused to, denying a voice that had already been long denied.

So many times over.

From the very first moment she emerged into the world as a gem whose highest and only pleasure was to serve.

Five seconds… the Holo-Crystal begins to blink rapidly, throwing its frenetic hues in quick pulses across her desk.

And so she has to do this then.

Four seconds…

She wants to.

Three seconds…

It’s her narrative and no one else’s.

Two seconds…

Not even Rose’s.

One second…

Maybe especially not hers, even if she isn’t ready to admit that yet, to face that raw fact.

In a diamond shaped burst of energy, the Holo-Crystal throws its projection upwards with a series of gem glyphs that she reads with both trepidation and ease: ACCEPT FEED? YES OR NO?

Breaking the solemn temple of her fingers, swallowing her electric, jangling nerves, Pearl, against all her better judgment, presses yes, and the glyphs fall away, replaced by a live portrait of a gem who somehow looks exactly like Pearl feels. 

Arctic eyes wide.

Charcoaled beneath with thousands of years worth of shadows.

Brow furrowed with indecision.

With hesitancy.

With all the indelicate trappings of fear.

“Blue Diamond,” Pearl greets coolly, jerking her head in a stiff nod. Somewhere deep in her gem, an odd impulse to salute pulls at her facets.

“Pearl,” the Diamond returns softly, almost wonderingly—as though the name is unfamiliar on her tongue. In a way, it likely is. The Diamonds once viewed the Pearls as objects as opposed to gems and referred to them in such a way.

The Pearls.

Our Pearls.

They were interchangeable.

They were possessions.

In the Reef, they even came with accessories: staffs and wands and batons.

“Thank you for consenting to do this,” Pearl continues in that same clipped but professional tone. “I think this will be an important entry in the Archive.”

“Aye,” comes the quiet reply, thoughtful. “Yellow and White don’t quite understand it entirely yet, but there is rationality in this—in proffering the fullest account of our history for anyone to access it if they so choose. It’s about preserving her… all of our legacies—the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

Pearl is suddenly reminded that of the three remaining Diamonds, Blue was the one who upheld the human zoo, who perceived it as a relic and immortalized it as such.

Steven had told her about all of those bubbled Rose Quartzes.

Dozens of them.

Hundreds.

Made to cover the illusion of Rose’s identity.

Punished for a crime that they didn’t perpetrate. 

Perfectly preserved in stasis and purgatory for thousands of aching years.

“And so often the ugly,” Pearl emphasizes scathingly, and it’s a condemnation of them all—of Rose for making the Quartzes, of Pearl for being complicit, of Blue Diamond for imprisoning them and calling it mercy.

“Yes,” Blue agrees faintly, new lines forming beneath her eyes. “We did some terrible things…”

Her demureness and her honesty irritate Pearl for some reason—perhaps because she didn’t expect them, or perhaps because she very well did and still finds that they ring false, insincere, affected. How could they not in the face of millennia worth of cruelty and injustice? How can two years of positive growth overturn the effects of two hundred thousand?

Perhaps it’s simply that she believes in action as correctives and atonements.

Perhaps she doesn’t trust mere words, even though this is what this entire event is all about in the end—mere words. 

Perhaps she wants to see it in Blue Diamond’s eyes for herself—the change in them, the repentance.

And perhaps, at the very same time, she doesn’t want to look too closely in case she finds precisely what she’s looking for.

“Yes,” she repeats primly. “You did, and today is about looking backwards to that, about assessing all the things we did and didn’t do—on both sides of the war.”

Blue Diamond absorbs this all quietly, looking downwards, strands of silvery-blue hair falling from her neat parting and across her tall forehead.

“How exactly do we do that?” She asks. “Where do we even begin?”

Admittedly, they’re both excellent questions, and now it’s Pearl’s turn to glance down, to recognize the scrawl of all her neatly organized notes and suddenly realize that they feel insufficient for the task at hand, bare.

The word love crops up so many times, but nothing is said about the overwhelming force of that love—the all-consuming dimensions of it.

How Pearl would have been content to stay in Rose’s presence forever, and that alone would have been enough.

And how complicated that same love was.

How it was sometimes tangled in programming and servitude.

And how at other times, it was dangerous, bold, revolutionary, transcendent.

And how it hurt sometimes.

Perhaps even all the time.

Love so deep that it felt like pain.

Even English doesn’t have the capacity to describe those complexities of emotion.

Even language itself.

“Well,” she begins hesitantly, before she has all of her words in order, “when I press record… we simply have to… you know… talk about it, about everything that led up to the Corruption Song, sparing no detail.”

“Simple, is it?” Blue Diamond asks quietly, and there is slight admonishment in the question, ancient sadness in her geometric eyes, in all the lines and shadows beneath them.

“No,” Pearl replies, glancing away from the screen. “Not at all.”

Loving Pink Diamond was so many things.

It was not, in fact, simple.

“But it’s important,” she continues, her voice gaining strength, “maybe even necessary for us to at least try to tell our stories as fully as we can because she never felt like she could tell her own.”

“That must have been so lonely for her,” Blue whispers, anguished, the words half-caught in her throat.

Pearl forces herself to look at the diamond portrait again.

To search the other’s expression.

To acknowledge the truth in it.

The love.

The pain.

The love that feels so much like pain.

“It was, I think,” Pearl murmurs. “She wanted to be everyone else but herself—on that day. On all the days afterwards as we recovered the shards of our companions, as we had to fight their corrupted selves. Maybe even until the very end when she became Steven.”

And this, she thinks, is the fundamental truth of Rose Quartz above all, one she doesn’t think she’ll share with the rest of the universe, one she thinks will keep between herself and Steven and now… Blue Diamond.

Rose loved the entire world.

She was moved by it. Endlessly.

She loathed herself.

And seemingly the entire world—Pearl included—pedestalized her.

“We did that to her,” Blue says, and there’s venom in her voice, an air of admission. She brings her tall hands upwards and spiders them across her face. “We… I… never told her that she was good enough. I required her facets to be perfect and scolded her—punished her—every time she so much as toed our harsh lines.”

“You never told her that you loved her,” Pearl says, and there’s solemnity in her voice, an air of accusation. She clenches her own hands on top of the surface of her notes.

Glyphs interspersed with words.

Pain.

Love.

Grief.

“And when you finally showed that you did,” Pearl continues, closing her eyes at the memory of a world being swallowed in white light, of a sky being rent by the echoes of so many thousands of gems screaming to the same tune of the Diamonds’ feral, wailing song, “you destroyed nearly an entire population to do it… all of you… together.”

“Yes,” Blue Diamond can only utter between the gaps in her fingertips.

There is nothing else she can really say.

No defense against the indefensible.

“This is the story we have to tell,” Pearl finishes unsparingly, and yet, at the very moment she does, she leans backwards in her chair, suddenly exhausted, completely drained, as though she’s already done all the telling and the reckoning and the processing and the labor.

But she’s only scarcely begun.

They both have.

“Not only for this project… but for ourselves, too. We owe ourselves that, at least—the ability to claim everything that we’ve done.”

“Or”—Blue finally lets her hands fall away from her face, leaving only the carnage of overbright eyes behind—“that has been done to you.”

She’s talking about her own atrocities—this Pearl immediately intuits—but Pearl thinks about a different Diamond instead.

A covered mouth.

A hibiscus flower.

And command to never speak of this again.

Because no one can know.

“Yes,” Pearl can only utter.

There is nothing else she can really say.

No defense against the indefensible.

They lapse into silence then, the static from the hologram’s particles humming in the still air.

“It’s a tragic story,” Blue Diamond says, “but I believe you're correct… we have to tell it anyway. For that very reason—so other gems will know the truth… and remember it… remember her.”

Pearl slowly reaches forward to grab the Holo-Crystal, her fingers hovering just above the recording mechanism.

“It’s a story about love,” she quietly asserts, renegade defiance in her voice. “About all different kinds of it, really.”

“The good, the bad, and the ugly.”

And so often the ugly.

“It was complicated,” Pearl only says and presses record.

It’s not an admission here; she's already admitted to this fact—several times over.

To anyone who will listen.

(No one really does.)

Rather, it's a tiny kindness.

Maybe to Blue Diamond.

Maybe to herself.

And maybe even to the memory of the long dead ghost who sits in the space of the thousands of lightyears between them, hands beneath her chin, smiling gently at some beautiful thing that she just saw.

A flower, perhaps.

A human.

An infinite, changing sky.

A world where she could perhaps learn to love herself in the same way that she loved others.

Entirely.

[strayfreckles]

all on you.

☕︎︎ hwang hyunjin x reader (ft. ryujin, felix, & yeji); highschool au, friends-to-lovers au, barista au, bulletpoint fic.

maybe you would’ve gotten out of highschool with your emotions (and pride) unscathed if it weren’t for hwang hyunjin and his so-called romantic, obnoxious—and, in your case, unfortunately effective—antics.

includes: fluff, angst (especially in the middle), mutual pining, somewhat slow burn (?), gn!reader, barista!reader, a hefty amount of swearing, the only consistent thing you’ll see here is how utterly terrible this is, fluctuating humor

notes: this was requested by a wonderful anon! before you dive in, i’d like to inform you that this is my first fic of any kind, so please tread gently 😔✋ though constructive criticism is appreciated !! hope you enjoy (and hopefully not cringe too much sdkdnkdks) <33

wordcount: 2.8k

let me be the first to say that you absolutely abhor romance films with every existing fiber and cell in your body.

like, you cannot physically withstand the atrocity that is occurring right before your very eyes and you have to tear your gaze away before you bash your head to the nearest table.

and though you do admit that you’re overreacting sometimes

you also admit that you’re a massive dumbass for falling prey to one of the most common—and one of the most infuriating tropes—that is falling for your best friend.

yeah, hwang hyunjin? that boy holds your heart between his palms and with every smile you fall deeper and deeper

you’ve known that kid since you started eating crayons in elementary, and since then you’d been attached at the hip, clung to each other through all the clownery of middle school

finding each other in places is like a sixth sense; it only takes you both less than a minute to find the other before startling them with a quiet “hey, you”

but time is impatient, and that timid, starry-eyed boy you knew became the dimpled heartthrob come highschool—geared with the smarts and the talents and love-laced words that sent boys and girls running after him

but to you he was always just that kid who nearly consumed clay cakes because “it looked so real!”

until he wasn’t

it just came to you like a blow to the face, in the middle of sophomore year, sitting on hyunjin’s bedroom floor on a weekend trying to cram revise for your upcoming exams

you decided to take a quick break, and made the mistake of looking at hyunjin

and my oh my was he stunning

every laugh that tumbled from his lips sounded like a fucking symphony

and the bastard was just playing with kkami !!

he looked so damn soft as he planted kisses on his coat

every single constellation you knew was embedded in his irises

haha heartbeat go brrrrrrr

and maybe all you wanted was for him to never stop smiling, because he looked the most beautiful when he did, and maybe you wanted to brush his hair away from his face because you couldn’t see his eyes all that well and what the fuck—

you just malfunctioned

because that was your best friend

he noticed you staring, of course, and had the audacity to smirk, and in a second you wanted to set yourself on fire

“y/n, i know i look good, but at least try to be subtle.”

“you look like a low-budget minion, hyunjin.”

“i’d rather be a minion than a shabbier version of gru, thank you.”

(many fists were thrown that day, and hyunjin learned not to pick fun at your clothing lest that he face humiliation)

for the first few months you were in constant denial, even going so far as to blame hyunjin himself for forcing you to watch countless romcoms on your weekly sleepovers

but once you catch hyunjin staring at you with that fond look in his eyes, one he’s carried since childhood, your heart finally has the courage to murmur into the concaves of your chest, i am in love

it gets worse around senior year

the summer after junior year you land yourself a job at miroh café, a coffee shop at the heart of the town bc you’re broke as fuck and you need the cash

and, as expected, hyunjin becomes a frequent patron

he’s armed with a pickup line every single time he orders

and every single time you have to tell your heart to calm the fuck down he’s always been like this c’mon gimme a break

it’s even gone to the point where the regulars mistake him as your boyfriend

and as if your conscience nagging you 24/7 wasn’t enough mental baggage, your coworkers and fellow seniors, felix and ryujin, decided to weigh in

“if that isn’t the look of someone who’s simping over you then i don’t know what is,” ryujin nudges you, and from the repetitive force you’ve sustained from the past week you’re surprised your ribs aren’t bruised yet.

“you act like you’re not in the same dance crew,” you scoff, “ryujin, he flirts with everyone—he even had the balls to hit on chan!”

“let me remind you that denial is always the first stage of falling in love,” felix chirps, cheerful as he replenishes the pain au chocolat in the display.

“and let me remind you that i’m holding a very hot cup of coffee straight out of the machine; ‘accidents’ can happen, felix.”

of course, you weren’t in denial—you’d been past that stage long ago

it’s just that you didn’t wanna give yourself false hope

you didn’t want to lose this beautiful thing with him that’s lasted for nearly a decade because of your stupid emotions

so you’ve trained yourself to remain indifferent to the many compliments and lines he sent your way, hoping that if you could fool the others into thinking he didn’t affect you, maybe you could fool yourself, too

but oh ho ho, do i have some news for you (☞ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)☞

you don’t know how hyunjin’s pulse speeds up whenever he sees a handwritten note on his coffee wishing him good luck

you don’t know how often he forces himself to stop staring at you whenever you’re not looking

you don’t know how stupidly happy it makes him when he sees you smile

especially when he’s the reason why.

maybe everything about you makes hwang hyunjin happy

and maybe if you weren’t so kind and gentle and considerate during the times he lost a competition then maybe he wouldn’t have fallen this hard

but you were (and still are)

during the times you cried from laughter at all his antics

or cracked a smile at one of his pickup lines

he’d think that maybe—just maybe—he could stand a chance

but every time he did, he’d spiral into self-doubt

because there’s no way you would ever fall for him

you’re the kindest, most talented person hyunjin has ever known who deserves the universe

and he’s just… him

even if he did plan to confess, he’d be putting everything at stake; you’re too important to him, losing you would be a loss too heavy for him to bear

so he’s content with playing this role

even if the idea of you being with someone else hurts him so much

he’s content with reminding you everyday—even if it isn’t direct—that your mind is like no other, and that anybody would be blessed to have you

you both think it's always going to be like this

with you struggling to keep your feelings from showing

and hyunjin battling his inner demons

and those left to perceive the “discreet” ogling across the room and the hidden yearning in your voices are none other than (you guessed it!) felix and ryujin 🤩

it was funny the first few months

but now it’s just plain frustrating and they want nothing more than to bash your two oblivious heads together because y’all !! are !! idiots !!

no matter how much they persist, they’re always met with either a sad, gentle smile with a shake of the head or a monotonous “ha. you’re really funny.”

both have considered dropping your asses but they can’t because they love y’all too much

so all they can do is hope for a change

and change does indeed arrive when september rolls around

dance practice has just ended and hyunjin feels hyped because it’s movie night and he can’t wait to cry to kimi no na wa again

and lowkey stare at you for the entirety of the film

he exits his dance crew’s studio and is about to go straight to 7/11 for snacks when he spots the team’s newest recruit by the road, waiting for a ride home

hwang yeji’s only moved here two months ago and in a short span of time she’s already become one of the well-liked kids at school

but she’s a kind & humble sweetheart who deserves all the love & attention !!

so being the good sport he is, hyunjin approaches yeji with the brightest grin, having only talked to her a few times prior

“hey, there! yeji!” when the girl turns to him, her smile looks and feels like liquid sunshine. “waiting for your date?”

yeji turns rosy when he asks, like she does when everyone teases her about her special someone, who she’s been crushing on for weeks and who she finally had the courage to ask out. “c’mon, stop that. i don’t even know if they like me like that—they probably think it’s just another friendly date.”

“they’re a fool if they don’t end up liking you after, then,” hyunjin quips, hoping the bitterness doesn’t seep into his tone and wishing he has half the luck and strength yeji has, and she laughs.

“you know them, actually.”

“oh?”

“yeah! y/n l/n?”

oh.

o h

hyunjin can only blink at her dumbly, feeling like a thousand arrows are digging into his skin

you… with hwang yeji?

is that why you asked about her the other day? because you like her back? and that her feelings are far from being one-sided?

watching a dark cloud loom over his features, yeji thinks about asking if he’s okay when he blurts out an inaudible excuse as he walks away, zooming past the convenience store when he does

when he heads off he doesn’t even look at where he’s going, relying solely on muscle memory

he feels like he wants to grow smaller, biting his lower lip and clenching his hands into fists

he doesn’t even know why he’s upset

you were never his to lose

why would he regret what couldn’t be in the first place?

when his feet instinctively halt in front of miroh café, all he can do is stare blankly at the glass doors, at your figure behind the counter

but he wills himself to move away again, and when he does he clashes with another body

“hey, watch where you’re... hyunjin?”

ryujin stares at him with her mouth half agape, and she flinches when she sees his eyes glistening, his face flushed with the shade of pure heartbreak

“did you know about them?” he’s afraid to raise his voice, because doing so would mean there’s no stopping his emotions, “about… y/n and yeji?”

the lack of response provides the answer, and hyunjin walks away from the block

that afternoon, a cup of coffee with his name scrawled on the front went forgotten on the countertop

that evening, hyunjin doesn’t show for your monthly tradition for the first time in five years

you spend the rest of your evening obsessively checking your phone for text from him, wracking your brain for reasons he couldn’t come

of course, there are multiple reasons: like schoolwork (you are seniors, after all) and the upcoming dance competition

but you know he would text you over the slightest inconvenience, so why isn’t he saying a thing?

you rack your brain for anything you might’ve done, and your chest tightens when you think that maybe—just maybe—he’s finally caught on to you

you try to distract yourself with other thoughts as you lie wide awake in your bed: like your midterm exams, the nearing debate tournament… your date with yeji

bright, splendid hwang yeji who shares the wittiest jokes in biology and has the most colorful personality around

the first time you spent time with her she made you smile so wide it made your cheeks hurt

her laugh is the loveliest one you’ve ever heard; like dewy lavender fields beneath the spring sunshine

but every time you hear it you’re reminded that it isn’t hyunjin’s laugh, that you aren’t with him and every time you realize it you wanna cry

bc yeji’s been nothing but sweet and considerate this whole time and you’re more than guilty at the fact that all her attentions will be wasted because of you and your stupidity

you barely escape the wrath of crying yourself to sleep when you finally doze off when the clock hit two am

the next day at school, you both barely even make eye-contact

even the underclassmen who’ve heard the frequent calls of your names feel uneasy when they don’t hear hyunjin’s high-pitched voice or your shrill tones

felix especially, who’s experienced the trauma of sitting in between you two at history and feeling the tension that nearly chokes him

you’re more than terrified to look at him at him in the eye, terrified that once you do you’ll realize he doesn’t gaze at you the same way anymore

something inside hyunjin aches every time he spares you a glance, because every time he does it’s painfully obvious that he’s always been hopeless

in all honesty, hyunjin wouldn’t have shown his face at all if it weren’t for the tiny thread of patience inside ryujin snapping

so here he is, inside miroh a quarter before closing time

felix’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head when he sees him, so he sends a pointed look to his coworker,

“what did you do?” he murmurs. ryujin’s eyes are sharp when she looks at him, and he feels his blood run cold.

“what i needed to.”

no, she didn’t threaten to kill his entire family, if that’s what you’re wondering

she merely gave him… a warning

so one can imagine the surprise you feel when you emerge from the staff room, and felix drags ryujin outside to give you privacy

you both remain silent once they’re gone, neither one of you moving in place

until quiet words escape your mouth, and the familiar greeting makes hyunjin’s heart clench:

“hey, you.”

he doesn’t make a sound, so you continue, the tension heavy

“you owe me three dollars, by the way. i just wasted a perfectly good iced latte with the other day when you didn’t…”

when you trail off, hyunjin opens his mouth to let out an apology, and he realizes with a start that the words tumbling out are completely different:

“why didn’t you tell me?”

“what?”

“why didn’t you tell me about yeji?” hyunjin’s eyes begin to quiver when they meet yours, “we’re best friends, aren’t we?”

your jaw tightens, i told you. best friends. nothing more. “because you worry too much about everything; if i’d told you about us then you’d—”

“y/n, we’ve been together for a decade!” hyunjin intervenes, “we’re always going to worry about each other, whether you like it or not. and this— this is… i…”

every coherent thought vanishes as hyunjin grapples for more things to say. he knows he’s being selfish, undoubtedly so, but he wants you. he wants you so, so bad. the fight in him leaves until, eventually, all that’s left to say is the truth: “please, don’t go. don’t go… with her.”

your heart is close to breaking your ribcage when you stare at his face, you wait for him to say anything, to justify why he’s said it, but when the quiet settles, all you can see is red

“this is why i don’t tell you about these things,” you grit, trembling violently. “when i do, you say— say stuff that make me believe that you feel the same way i do when you actually don’t.

“and i hate you so much but in the end it’s all my fault because i’m the idiot who caught feelings for their best friend and—”

hyunjin doesn’t let you add anything else, because his lips are on yours and you’re overwhelmed with the feeling of him, him, him

the kiss doesn’t leave any room for doubt; he’s shaking, and his legs might give out, but he wants you to know that everything he feels is real

you’re both gasping for air when you pull away, but his hands still linger on your face and he traces the edge of your mouth, and you can do nothing but pull him closer by the waist

“still hate me now?” he asks, and you chuckle breathlessly, putting your forehead on his.

“yes, very much so,” you look at him tenderly, and he yelps when you pinch him gently, “this is all on you, y’know. if it weren’t for your godforsaken romcoms, we wouldn’t have ended up like this.”

“but if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have ended up with a boyfriend, amirite? ow, shit— i’m kidding!”

bonus!

“oh, thank fuck,” felix exhales, looking through the windows one more time before ambling beside ryujin, who looks pleased with herself as she places her apron on the crook of her elbow. “so, spill: what did you tell hyunjin?”

she smiles, “i told him not to give up before he’s even tried anything; sometimes, there are people who are worth taking that risk for.”

just as felix is about to commend her for sounding the most wholesome he’s heard her, she adds: “and i threatened to revoke my tutelage—his ass is failing calculus so hard.”

[whirlybirdwhat]

Heyo~ I just wanted to say that your fanfics have inspired me to write my owns, they're so good!!

But my writing isn't nearly as good, do you have any advices for this starting writer? <3

oh my gosh anon !!!!!! im ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ !! im so glad they inspire you, and I wish you all the best on your writing!!! you got this, and please link them if/when you post!!!! 👀👀👀

as for advice - i got a few things!

first off, your writing is yours, and - especially in fic - there isn't necessarily a type of 'good' writing, just different skill sets! for instance, i find that my weak point is dialogue, while im great at worldbuilding + emotions. another writer might be the opposite, but it doesn't mean my writing is 'bad' and theirs is 'good' or the reverse, simply that we have different strengths! as you grow as a writer, you will find your strengths and learn to grow them, and your weak points! there is truly no standard, so don't put yourself down!!

moving on to more advice however - (EDIT: theres a tldr at the bottom because sorry, i rambled a bit!!)

1. write. it doesn't matter where, it doesn't matter when, it doesn't matter how! I have written fics on sticky notes in the middle of class (whiskey peak chapter of esom) on discord in the span of a few hours (make a choice (turncoat hero)) and in my notes apps (the ace/yamato fic i posted)!! if you learn to write anywhere you please, this will keep ideas from leaving your mind, and allow you to get into the zone that there doesn't have to be a set time to write!

2. length never matters for a fic. If 100 words is all it takes to write what you want to write, then 100 words is all it takes! don't let the general adoration for long fics to scare you off from writing, and write what you're comfortable with. I know writers who only write chapter fics, and writers who will only write one shots (then there's me, who tries to do both at once lol.)

3. when i am lost with the plot of a fic, the first thing i do is draft an outline of what i want to happen next. this is just a simple bullet point outline, in the general fashion of, say

- luffy gets a different hat post pirate king

- monkey steals hat

- luffy calls for zoro

- zoro sleeping?? sanji kicks him then fight

- the monkey is revealed as the red haired pirates monkey

- shanks shows up "miss me anchor?" party time

brief, follows a simple set of actions, perhaps one or two lines that i thought of while writing, and gives me a skeleton to follow so that when i lose myself in a fic i know where i can go next. Some people find it useful to do this at the beginning with a super detailed plot, and others never write a outline at all! it depends again on how you grow as a writer, so don't be afraid to try different things out when you approach a fic

4. stuck on a part? writer block? can't focus? get up drink a glass of water, and get back to writing! i find this helps me get refocused on writing when i am stuck, a little body 'wake up' as you will.

5. never EVER delete a scene from a fic. never. NEVER. move that scene to another doc, put it in a 'scrapped writing' folder, idc, but never delete it entirely. it helps you grow as a writer, and you can always put the scene back/reword it, etc. i cannot count on my hands how many times i have reworked a previously scrapped portion of a fic and came out the better for it!

6. having multiple wips is okay!! celebrate it even!! i always have at least five docs for five separate fics up on my computer at all times so i can shuffle between them when writing and write what im inspire for in that moment. its okay if you never make headway on one of them, as long as the ideas keep flowing

7. want to get something out quick? word wars are your friend - set a timer for 15 minutes, and write as many words as you can. this is especially fun if you have someone doing it with you, so you can compare counts at the end and share your story!!

8. writing, like all art, takes time. and, generally, there is a chance you will write faster when you first set out to write then you will later, because later, you will be more conscious of your word choices and be more deliberate and careful in your plot, rather than just churning out works. It's okay if you don't churn out 5k a day - writing is not an obligation!

9. have. fun. im serious! write what you want to write, even if it seems no one will love it or like it or want to read it - write what brings you joy, what makes you smile, even if it's something that's been done a thousand times before!! this is what fic is, for your own personal enjoyment. Additionally, do not be discouraged if there's a low amount of reviews for something you put your heart and soul. it sucks ass, yes, (i have a couple fics i love which have only gotten like, a quarter of attention of some of my other fics) but ultimately, the idea you wrote down is one you want to see in the world!! it doesn't quite matter what anyone else likes.

10. grammarly, word counter, word, etc - anything with a spellcheck is your best friend, and will generally catch things you miss if you cant find someone to proofread for you. additionally, if you want to be more critical of your fic, look for friends tto give constructive critcism, but know that you absolutely do not have to accept it from any stranger online unless you asked specifically for it.

11. fanon is fanon and popular headcanons are popular headcanons and both are absolutely not canon. you do NOT have to follow it if you do not want to.

12. read!!! i read a lot of fic, a lot of published books, and each has something i really enjoy and apply to my own fics.

13. to reiterate again just... write. write and write and write. i have over 300k posted to ao3 rn, and more in my docs. you will not improve your writing to any standard that you set for yourself unless you write!! always practice!! learn from your mistakes!! grow!!! you will improve with time, i promise, just go out and write what makes you happy anon!!

tl;dr have fun, write a lot wherever and whenever, and write for yourself before anyone else. you will improve with time as a writer the more you practice, and it doesn't ever matter how long your work is.

if you want more specific advice on formatting fic/general rules/ your first time posting, feel free to send another ask!! but for now, i wish you the best of luck anon and a very 👀👀👀👀 at your future fics!!!

[hiscyarika]

When We Were Young

Word Count: 3.6k

Pairing: Javier Peña x Reader

Summary: Reader is the woman that Javier left behind on the day they were to be married. She sees him again ten years later, when he returns to Laredo for a short break from hunting Escobar.

Warning(s): Angst, Strong Language 

A/N: This is the first Javier fic that I’ve ever written, so if there are any glaring factual errors, please let me know. This is based off the song by Adele but I listened to this version as I wrote. I encourage you to listen to it as you read for the Full Experience.

Masterlist 

Tag Lists

There is nothing special about your Thursday afternoon trip to the little grocery store on the corner. You’re always in and out in about twenty minutes with the few things that you need to get through another week in your little Texas apartment. You always smile and wave at the pharmacist behind the counter. You chat with the elderly woman, Elaine, that always comes at the same time you do, helping her get the two cans of green beans she needs when she can’t reach the shelf.

It was the same every time.

Until you reached for the loaf of bread on the highest shelf of the aisle.

A much larger hand lands on top of yours, though immediately is drawn back at the contact. You hear a soft apology and a half-hearted chuckle. The sound of the man’s voice sends your heart racing, and you turn to face him.

You take a step back as you meet the eyes of Javier Peña, the bread long forgotten as a quiet gasp escapes your lips. It’s been years since the last time you saw him, since he left you standing on the altar of the little church down the street. He’d moved to Colombia without a word to you, leaving his entire life behind to chase after Pablo Escobar. You only knew what happened to him after that day because his family was so close to yours.

“Javier…,” you finally breathe, hating the way your chest is constricting and your throat is growing tight with the threat of tears. You shouldn’t be this upset. You should be angry. He left you without a word and still years later you’ve never gotten an apology either.

Javier feels his heart sink to his stomach when he realizes that it’s you standing in front of him. It’s been nearly a decade since the last time he saw you. The years have been kind to you, much more so than they’ve been to him. He has so many things that he wants to say to you now, so many questions he wants to ask, but instead he keeps his mouth shut.

He murmurs your name in reply, giving a slight nod of his head. There are a thousand things running through your head, but you settle on the simplest question of them all. “What are you doing here?” It’s not a demand. You’re simply curious. After all, he’s been the talk of the town since he started working with the DEA to take down Escobar. And with the drug lord still out there, you’re not sure why he would choose now to come back to Laredo.

Javier doesn’t answer immediately, trying to process the fact that your first instinct was not to lose your temper. He deserved that and more after the suffering he had put you through. He can still remember his father’s voice on the other end of the phone, not sparing any detail of your pain when they’d told you that your groom had run off.  Just the thought leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

“I, uh...have some time off. My partner pretty much demanded that I get out of Colombia and come back home for a little while. Bastard practically shipped me off himself,” he told you, his hands coming to rest on his hips.

“Does anyone know you’re home yet?,” you ask. He had to have kept his arrival a secret for you to not have known he was coming. Word travels fast in your small corner of Texas. Word about Javier Peña travels even faster.

Javier shakes his head. “Just Pops. He asked me to make a run for a few things so now everybody in Laredo will know before tomorrow morning.” He shakes his head slightly. He never wanted to be a celebrity.

“Well, tell the family I said hi. I should...get going,” you say softly. You move past Javier and head for the door. Your weekly shopping trip will have to wait.

Javier quickly turns to follow you, his hand darting out to catch your forearm. “Wait! I...I wanna talk to you, if you’ll let me. Let me buy you a drink one night while I’m here,” he pleads, his expression softening as you stop in your tracks and look at him again. He doesn’t try to hold on when you take your arm from his grasp.

“I don’t know about that, Javi. It was a long time ago. I’ve moved on and let go.” Even as the words escape your mouth though, you know they’re not true. For a while you thought you had truly healed from the loss of losing Javier, but with him standing in front of you now, you know that there’s at least a small part of you that will always love him, will always ache for what could have been.

“Please. I–”

“Goodbye, Javi. Welcome home,” you interject, cutting him off before he can say anything else, before you can lose the composure that you’re already barely holding on to.

With that, you leave the little grocery store and start the short walk back to your apartment. You have to force yourself not to look back. That would be the straw to break the camel’s back.

Javier watches you for as long as he can, and even when you’ve gone beyond his eyeshot he still stands there, frozen in place and time. He’s always known that leaving you behind was wrong, but seeing you again now, it’s made him realize that not showing up that day was the worst mistake of his life.

---

When you shut the door of your apartment behind you, the tears you’ve been holding back finally escape you, falling in silent waves down your cheeks. The flood of longing drowns you, leaving your chest aching as you stand there, wondering what the hell you’re supposed to do with yourself now.

Pulling yourself together for just a moment, you go into your kitchen, taking the half-empty bottle of red wine from your refrigerator and taking it upstairs to your room. You’ve already been forced to walk memory lane, you might as well finish the course.

There’s a box buried in the back of your closet. It’s no bigger than a shoebox, and years of neglect have left it dented and beaten. It takes you some time to find it, but when you do, the tears start all over again. The only indication of its contents are the two words written on the lid in Javier’s handwriting: “Mi Amor.” You sink to the floor with the box tucked under your arm and the bottle of wine in your hand. Settling with your back against your nightstand, you take a swig straight from the bottle before opening the box.

The first thing you pull from the box is a set of old Polaroids. The dates are all written on the back, spanning from your late teen years until just a few months before your would-have-been nuptials. They’re all pictures of you and Javier, and you find yourself smiling wistfully at a candid your mother took the day you helped move him into his dorm at Texas A&I. He’s got his arms wrapped around you from behind, face buried in the crook of your neck. Your face is bright with a smile, but the old picture is hiding the tears you remember blurring your vision. He’d only be a few hours away, but anything more than right down the road had been too far.

You go through more of the box, steadily draining the bottle of wine at your side until it’s finally empty. You’ve found old keepsakes, like the dried-out corsage from senior prom and a stolen takeout menu that you’d sketched his face onto during a dinner date. There’s old letters from your college separation, filled with lofty promises and declarations of love. All are lovely reminders of what had been.

It’s not until you find a wedding invitation near the bottom that you really begin to fall apart.

Your grandmother had insisted on getting them made, even though you didn’t think it was necessary. Everyone in Laredo knew when and where the wedding was, and to you and Javier it didn’t matter much how many people showed up in the end. You run your thumb along the edges of the thick cardstock, warped and yellowed from a decade of sitting untouched. You then hold it close to your chest, taking care not to let your tears fall onto it and further damage it.

If you had been entirely sober, you would think this whole display was pathetic. Things are different now. You’re not a lovestruck young woman eagerly awaiting a new chapter of life. You’ve made a life for yourself, diving headfirst into your career. It’s a life without Javier, one that you can’t even wish to bring him into. And yet, that’s exactly what you’ve found yourself doing.

You come undone when you get to the bottom of the box.

You didn’t know they were there. You don’t know how they made it to this box. Your best guess is your mother. But in a tiny drawstring pouch are three rings: your engagement ring and the two silver bands meant for you and Javier.

Sharp, painful sobs break from your chest. You throw everything haphazardly back into the box and press the lid back down. With as much force as you can muster, you push it across the floor, watching it slide until it hits the wall and comes to a stop. You rest your head back against your nightstand, squeezing your eyes shut. It feels like you’re in that back room of the church again, surrounded by yours and Javier’s family, the world crashing around you as his father delivers the news that Javier is gone.

You hate him. You hate him for what he did to you, what his return is doing to you now.

But you’ll be damned before you admit that you don’t still love him too.

---

You’re not sure why you let your mother drag you back to the Peñas’ ranch two nights later. Though you didn’t tell her about your run-in with Javier at the store, she knows he’s home. She knows that he’ll be there. Hell, Pops had arranged the little get together just to celebrate his son’s unexpected homecoming.

And yet you’ve taken more care with your appearance than normal, being more careful with your makeup and making sure that while your outfit isn’t overdressed for the evening, it still looks nice. You’re at war with yourself, wanting to be angry and distant with Javier, but you know that there’s no way you can hold yourself to that. And you’re sure that he won’t let the night pass without trying to talk to you again, without trying to make you understand why things ended the way that they did.

You sigh softly as you walk with your mother to the old barn. It’s been cleaned up and turned into an event venue, and your heart clenches as you realize that this was where your wedding reception should have been.

Your heartbreak doesn’t last long, because before you even see him coming, Javier’s dad has you wrapped up in a tight hug, which you are more than happy to return. You love this man like family, and he’s done nothing but treat you like his own daughter for most of your life. It’s a good thing you came. It probably would have broken the old man’s heart if you hadn’t.

“It means a lot that you came, hija. I know it’s not easy for you to see him again,” he tells you, keeping his voice quiet enough that you’re the only one that hears him.

You just shake your head slightly. “You couldn’t keep me away if you tried, Pops. It’s good to see you,” you reply.

He chuckles and pinches your cheek gently before letting you go, and as he moves on to greet your mother, you go to take a seat at one of the many tables set up in the barn. There’s already a decent number of people, which makes it easier for you to remain undetected. It doesn’t take you long to spot Javier, though. He’s surrounded by a small group of people: his aunt and a couple of his cousins, all of them undoubtedly wondering about his adventures in Colombia. He’s too busy to try and steal you away anytime soon.

When your mother joins you again, the two of you make your way to the long table filled with various dinner options. Your stomach growls in anticipation. One of the best things about being adopted into the Peña family is the food. As you put your plate together, you chat with his uncle who moves down the other side of the table. Slowly, you find yourself relaxing and finding peace in being surrounded by so many wonderful people.

You take your seat again, and other members of the family start approaching you, all of them glad to see you. You laugh as Danny pulls you to your feet and brings you to the dance floor, but quickly lose yourself in all the fun. It’s the most fun you’ve had in a long time, and you certainly haven’t been this relaxed since Javier came back.

You’re so absorbed in dancing around and switching partners that you don’t notice that Javier has joined until he’s taken your hands in his and pulled you to him. You stop in your tracks then, freezing as you realize just how close the two of you are. You can feel his body heat. He’s just as warm as you remember. Suddenly you can’t breathe and you feel like the walls are closing in on you.

Javier releases his hold on you and you look quickly around you, glad that no one seems to have noticed the interaction. You walk away without a word, trying to make your way out of the barn. You need some fresh air and some distance from all of the people.

“...She’s the one Jav left on their wedding day. Poor thing,” you hear.

The words make you turn on your heels, and you find that there are more people looking between you and Javier than you had originally accounted for. Tears gather in your eyes and you make a swift exit from the barn. You hadn’t wanted to become the center of attention. In fact, it was the one thing you had prayed that you would be able to avoid tonight.

Outside, the air is much cooler. There’s a breeze blowing through the Texas air, and gradually you feel your lungs opening again. You start walking, with no true destination in mind. You can’t bring yourself to go back inside and face everyone again, to face Javier.

You find yourself in the middle of one of the pastures. All of the horses have been brought in for the night, leaving you out there on your own. You take in a deep breath, looking up at the endless sea of stars above you. The noise of the barn has faded. From this distance you can’t even see the lights from inside anymore. You let the atmosphere calm you again.

Javier watches you leave. He listens as the loud chatter begins to die down, replaced by the quiet musings of his family as they look back and forth between the two of you. He wants nothing more than to run after you, to escape the eyes that are trained on him, the voices that declare his sins for all to hear.

His head is hung as he makes his way to his father’s table, a sigh escaping his lips as he drops himself into a chair.

“Síguela,” his father commands. Follow her.

Javier looks his father in the eyes, sees their hardened gaze. He doesn’t have to be told twice. He’s lost you once. He can’t let it happen again.

You don’t even hear his footsteps in the grass.

“I need you to hear me out,” he says, the sudden voice startling you.

“Go back, Javier. Before you give them something else to whisper about,” you demand. You don’t want to hear what he has to say. You just want to be left alone. You’re ready to go back home, despite the night being so young.

You turn to face him, finding him standing with his hands on his hips, his chest heaving with a sigh. “Please. Just let me say this and then you can go about the rest of your life hating me. But you have to know that I never wanted to hurt you,” he says. His voice is getting louder with his mounting frustration. You feel your blood boiling in your veins, adrenaline sending your emotions to an unprecedented and volatile high.

“It doesn’t matter if you meant to hurt me or not! It happened!,” you yell back at him, finally losing your temper. You’re grateful for the few feet that separate the two of you. You’re not sure you could resist the urge to slap him across the face if you were close enough to do it.

“Listen, I–”

“No, Javier. You listen,” you seethe. “I loved you. I fucking loved you with every fiber of my being. I had my whole life with you planned. And then you left me at the fucking altar. Gone. Vanished. To godforsaken Colombia to fight off the drug lords. The only reason I knew what happened to you was because of your dad!”

“I wanted to tell y–”

“Shut your goddamn mouth, Peña. I’m not done. Not even close,” you tell him. You can hardly breathe now as you lay into him, letting him have every bit of the anger and the hurt that you have been bottling up for almost ten years. This is the release that you hadn’t even realized that you needed. It feels good. Freeing.

“And what happens then? You become a fucking celebrity. Everybody wants to know where Javier Peña has gone off to and what kind of heroics he’s been performing to save the world from the cocaine crisis. Me? I’m just the poor dear that got left behind. Oh, you know who she is right? You know she’s still never been married? It’s a shame, but did you know he’s off in Colombia now? I heard he’s become quite the ladies man.We’re all so proud of him.” You mock the women that talk about you like you’re not standing right next to them.

Javier closes the distance between you, taking you by the forearms and holding you close to him. And then his arms are wrapped around you and your face is buried in his chest. You can feel his heart pounding against your cheek. His hand comes up to cradle the back of your head, which is now tucked under his chin. There’s nothing that can stop the sobs from escaping you as your anger immediately melts down into anguish.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, hermosa. Please…,” he begs you.

“Don’t call me that,” you say, though you don’t have the strength left in you to give it any force.

“Leaving you...it’s the worst mistake I’ve ever made. But I couldn’t bring you to Colombia. And I couldn’t have you following me. It was easier to leave you than to run the risk of having to bury you. That doesn’t make what I did right. There’s nothing that I can do to make it right. You can hate me if that makes it better, pero te quiero, amor de mi vida.” Those last words are desperate and strained. He’s just a few words away from breaking down with you. He wants so badly for you to understand that he hates himself for what he’s done to you.

You pull back just enough to look at him. “What did you say?,” you ask breathlessly.

“Te quiero, amor de mi vida,” he rasps.

“No,” you cry in disbelief.

“Yes,” he insists, “Not a day has gone by that I didn’t wish I could change things.”

“Damn you, Javier…,” you whisper.

He cups your cheek in one hand. “You can go on hating me forever. That’s fine. As long as you know that I love you.”

You gaze up at him, taking in every detail of his face, all the new wrinkles and lines that weren’t there before. But he’s still just as beautiful as the last day you saw him so long ago. Colombia has hardened him, made him rough where he was once smooth. But he’s still the same man whose memory lives in the box on your bedroom floor. He’s still the man you loved when you were young. He’s still your Javier.

“I could never hate you, Javi. Not forever,” you murmur. You watch as his whole face softens. “Tú eres el amor de mi vida…”

And then his lips are on yours, one hand still on your cheek and the other pulling your waist closer. You close your eyes, both of your hands gripping his shoulders. You hold onto him for dear life as all of your pain and longing seeps into the kiss. Finally all the broken pieces of you are whole again, your soul reunited with its other half.

You’ve waited a long time for Javier Peña to come back home to you.

---

Tags: @theforceofdisney​ @aerynwrites​ @hail-doodles​ @murdermewithbooks​

[sweetiejunie]

sHE’S brOKen

Summary: I guess this is better than nothing, right?

Genre: smut, angst

Yeonjun x reader

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

You’ve known him for as long as you could remember. You’ve seen him fall in and out of love with so many girls you couldn’t even count anymore. You’ve talked him through every crush, every slump and every heartbreak he’s ever had. And the worse part? You knew he would never fall for you. Why?

Because, you had fallen for him first.

—

“You know what? Fuck her!”

Yeonjun had recently broke up with his girlfriend of three months. He had found out that she had been cheating on him with another guy so no doubt, he ended things. And that’s how he ended up here, ranting to you once again. It was the usual, you sat on the couch listening while he paced around your living room. He had gone through almost ten thousand different emotions in the span of ten minutes. Okay, maybe that’s exaggerating. But you get the point.

“I don’t need her anyway!”

You wanted to tell him how much more he deserved. He didn’t deserve to be cheated on, no one did. Especially him. Three months doesn’t seem like a long time, but yeonjun treated her like he wanted her to be his last. He always did that. Every relationship was as if they were his first love. But time and time again, he ended up in your apartment heartbroken. This boy deserved everything. He deserved someone kind that, for once, would treat him like the king he is. And you wanted to give him that. But you could never admit that.

“I’m fucking done with relationships. I should just go find someone to be friends with benefits with.”

He said this every time. But every time he tried, he just ended up coming back to you crying over his ex and how being friends with benefits wasn’t satisfactory enough for him. Days later, you would see him walking hand in hand with someone new he picked up. And every time, you wished you were the new girl with him, but you never were. It was just an endless cycle. Whenever yeonjun was heartbroken, you felt hopeful that maybe he’d pick you. And whenever yeonjun felt hopefully about his relationship, you were heartbroken.

Sighing, you realised you had been quiet this whole time. Maybe if you said something it would put an end to this. Interrupting his rant, which seemed more like a soliloquy by this point, you took a breath, “fuck sake yeonjun, you say that all the time. You want a friends with benefits but that always only lasts for like a week! You always end up just dating another girl that never treats you right! Either find someone to fuck or find someone better, I wish for once you could just make up mind!”

And then yeonjun went silent. He stood there, just staring at you, biting on his lips. Looking as if someone had just kicked his puppy. Shit.... Were you too harsh? Maybe you shouldn’t have said anything. The last thing you wanted to do was hurt him.

Just as you were about to open your mouth to apologise, yeonjun beat you to it, “you know what? You’re right. All my relationships always fail and i guess I haven’t found the right person to be friends with benefits with. I know the point is to have no strings attached but i think i still need to find someone that i know and trust.But this time i think i found the right girl.”

You listened to his words carefully. Realising that his tone was smug rather than remorseful. A smirk pulled at his lips as he made his way closer to you. Your eyes widened as you studied his actions. Once he reached the edge of the couch where you were seated, he leaned down to look you in the eyes, his arms on either side of you, caging you between the cushions and him.

“You.”

You swallowed hard. Coming from him, that word was intimidating, making your heart race.

“I’ve known you for forever, we trust each other and we see each other all the time. I know you haven’t had a boyfriend in god knows how long, you must be really needy by this point. And friends got to help each other out right?” He spoke, the same smug grin still on his face. “Only if you want to, of course.”

A thousand thoughts ran through your head. You knew this was a bad idea. Feelings and meaningless sex should never mix but... you wanted him. If you could never be with him romantically, maybe this was the next best option. The only foreseeable future was one of you being hurt and heartbroken, wondering why yeonjun doesn’t love you the way you wanted him to. But as you mind was clouded with every pro and con you could think of, your body, or maybe it was your heart, acted for you and pulled him into a kiss.

Fuck.

Taking that as your answer, yeonjun grabbed the back of your neck, deepening the kiss. It wasn’t a rough, sloppy kiss. Instead, it was soft, gentle and passionate. After a few seconds, you pulled away. Wanting to tell yeonjun that this was a mistake, that you shouldn’t be doing this but when you looked into his eyes, you saw lust. Lust, that your heart wanted to, so badly, mistake for love.

“Let’s go to my room,” the moment that line escaped your lips, you regretted it. But no matter how much your mind was telling you to stop, your body wouldn’t.

Smiling, yeonjun picked you up bridal style, kissing you again as he made his way to your bedroom. He had been over to your place so many time, he practically knew the entire layout by muscle memory. Throwing you onto the bed, he stripped himself of his shirt. Grinning when he felt your gaze on him.

“See something you like doll?” he asked rhetorically, smugness behind his voice.

Leaving his shirt to fall to the ground, he climbed on the bed, hovering over you, getting you to wrap your legs around his waist. Connecting your lips once more before littering kisses along your jaw and neck, lightly sucking and licking on the skin as he went. Sneaking one of his hands underneath your shirt, he lifted your back slightly and unhooking your bra with ease. Gently massaged your breats, pinching on playing with your nipples until they were fully erect.

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” halting his kisses and he looked up to your face.

Afraid that your common sense could kick in at any time, you chose to reply him with a small whine, wrapping your arms around his shoulders, pushing his head back to your neck wanting him to continue. Getting the hint, yeonjun continued with his assult. His hand moving further south, slipping under your shorts. Feeling and teasing you through your soaked panties.

“Baby girl already so wet for me?” He said, satisfied with the mess he’s created.

You threw your head back, whimpering at the feeling. You knew the pet names he was using was just for the sake of the moment but how you wished he actually meant them. It was playing your heart and you hated it. It hurt, but you could get yourself to pull the plug. You really wished your body could listen to your head instead of that thing in your chest.

Yeonjuns fingers circled your clothed clit, adding the pressure you so desired. Watching how your expression changed, he loved the way your mouth hung open as struggled moans left your lips.

“Don’t tease yeonjun, please.”

“So eager. If i had known, i might have thought of this earlier. Get out of your for me will you?” He replied, tugging at the waist band of your shorts. “Your shirt is so thin i dont know why you bother to wear one anyway,” helping you get rid of your clothing, discarding them somewhere in the room.

You had been naked in front of yeonjun before. Not completely butt naked but you two were so close you would practically change in front of each other at times, with zero hesitation. You figured this shouldnt be too different, since feelings weren’t supposed to be involved. But you could help but feel self conscious, this meant more to you than yeonjun would ever know. Returning to his position above you, he kissed his way down your body and stopped right under your belly button and skipping to your inner thighs. Placing slow, open mouth misses until he reach your pussy. Pausing just for a second to admire the glory in front of him, right before placing a final kiss on your clit.

“Fuck, yeonjun,” you moaned.

You had no idea how yeonjun was still in his tight jeans, it must have hurt like crazy right now. Yet, he was still able to keep his composure. While your mind was preoccupied, Yeonjun had started darting his tongue in and out of you, lapping up any of your juices there was, his nose pressed against your clit. Your thoughts cleared as all you could focus on was how good he was making you feel. You knew it was wrong, but it felt so right.

Reaching down, you grabbed his hair in your fists, attempting to pull him closer to you, as if that was possible. Moving his mouth back to your bundle of nerves, he replaced his tongue with his finger, pumping in and out of you at a painfully slow pace.

“Faster, yeonjun. Please. You feel so good,” you pleaded, kicking you head back against your pillow, hoping he would give you what you needed.

“Whatever you want, baby girl,” he replied, adding one more finger and pumping faster, curling and massaging that sweet spot inside of you over and over.

As your moans got louder, yeonjun felt you contracting around his fingers, using his free hand to keep your thighs apart. The next thing you knew, yeonjun pulled his fingers out and crawled back up to meet you face to face, sucking his fingers clean.

“So sweet. I would ask you to return the favour... But you could always do that next time. And i really just want to fuck you right now,” he leaned down to growl in your ear, “is that alright?”

Nodding, you heard him start to undo his belt. The metal clinking and hitting the floor, follow by the sound of his zipper and his jeans joining his belt shortly after.

“Shit...,” you heard him cuss.

“What?”

“Do you have condoms?” He asked, you could tell he was frustrated with himself.

“Don’t worry, I’m on the pill,” you assured.

“Oh? Were you expecting this? You’re filthier than i thought.”

His statement made you blush. Well, you weren’t expecting this specifically. But you did hope one day it would have got to this, just in a more romantic way.

Lining himself up with your entrance, he rubbed the tip against your folds, gathering the wetness from your previous orgasm before slowly sliding just the tip in. His leaned down, kissing you again to distract you from the pain as you moaned into his mouth. Giving you a minute to adjust before pushing all the way in, groaning at how warm and tight you felt around him.

“You feel so good. Are you alright?” He asked, seeing your eyes screwed shut, your mouth agape, your breathing heavy.

A nodded a second after he asked, wanting him to start moving. You knew shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as you were, but you couldn’t help it. The stretch he gave you felt blissful and you just wanted to remember this moment.

Noticing that you were starting to relax and calm down, he took it as a sign to start moving. Pulling out to the point only his tip was still in you and then snapping his hips back. He repeated this action, loving the way your moans echoed in his ears louder and louder the faster he got. Admiring how his dick would disappear in you, coming back out covered in your slick juices. You wrapped your legs around his waist once more, allowing him to hit even deeper inside you. The new angle allowing him to continuously rub against your g spot.

“You take me so well baby girl.”

“Yeonjun dont stop.” The exact opposite of what you should have been staying. “Fuck, im cumming.”

“Come for me baby,” Yeonjun said between grunts, slowing his movements momentarily to help ride you through your high.

A high pitch whine coming from your mouth as you came undone, breathing quickening. Feeling your walls spasm around him, yeonjun knew he wouldn’t last any longer. He thrusted into you hard one last time, burying himself to the hilt before filling you up to the brim.

You stayed like that for a while, your sweaty bodies pressed against each other, lungs struggling for air. After your breathing had stabled a bit, yeonjun pulled out. Sitting back, watching his cum leak out of you. Noticing his stare, you started to get insecure, trying to cover yourself up with your blanket.

“Oh, don’t get shy with me after we just did that y/n,” he chuckled.

Plopping down next to you, he grabbed the blanket out if your hands and draped it over the two of you. There it was, he was back to calling you by your name. You shouldn’t have bothered you as much it did, but the more you tried to shut your thoughts, the louder they became. You rolled over so that your back was facing him. Tears had started to fill your eyes and you weren’t sure why. Well, thats a lie. You knew why. You knew exactly why. Burying yourself further into the blanket you tried to hide your sniffles. But of course, yeonjun still noticed. He always noticed.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, concern laced in his voice. Propping himself up on his forearm, he leaning over you, trying to get you to face him.

Shaking your head, you answered with a simple lie, “nothing.”

“Y/N... if i hurt you, you should tell me. I’ll never forgive myself.”

“No, you didn’t. I promise. It’s... something else,” you lied again. This time turning to face him, giving him a reassuring smile. He did hurt you, just not in the way he thought. And for the most part, it was your own fault.

“If you want to talk about it, you know I’m always here to listen,” he smiled, stroking your hair gently. A feeling you loved over the years. One you got used to, but you knew was nothing more than a friendly gesture.

Once again you nodded. He laid back down, pulling you into his chest and right then, all you could focus on was his heartbeat. How perfectly synced it was with yours. And that was it, the end of the conversation, the end of the night. The next day you woke up and yeonjun was gone. Off to practice you presumed, he always had practice on a Saturday morning. You knew you would still see him later that day, but your heart ached.

Yeonjun was so close, yet so far. Laying in your bed, you realised that maybe you were just destined to be friends.

Huh, friends. You never thought a word could sound so bitter.

.

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Wrote this at 4am one night. Was feeling kinda sad so figured why not make the most of it and write to get my mind off it~ Hope u liked this! ♡

Masterlist

[itubainaretro]

In a parallel universe everything’s the same as in this one, except coronavirus isn’t a thing and everything is just as it was supposed to be all along. Without the madness that a pandemic can cause going to concerts is still a thing, Love On Tour is still happening and Sander is just as excited as Robbe to be waiting in line for Harry Styles’ concert.

Sander used to tease Robbe for liking Harry until the day he asked Robbe why he liked Harry so much and the younger boy answered him by saying he loved the way Harry wasn’t afraid of being exactly who he was and how the way he was so unapologetically himself inspired Robbe to be proud of who he was too, not to mention he was really talented and his songs were great, and also that Treat People With Kindness were both Harry and Robbe’s moto in life. Sander was sold, he understood exactly what Robbe was saying because he felt the same way towards Bowie.

That’s why he decided to give it a go and listen to his music. In all seriousness Sander wasn’t even surprised when found out he loved most of his songs, both from his self titled album and his lastest one, Fine Line, because the guy really was good. Sander loved his lyrics and their meaning, and how he could see many of them in his and Robbe’s life, especially Fine Line. When he heard those lyrics his heart broke and was sewn back in the span of 6 minutes and 20 seconds and all he could think about while listening to it was that day back in December when Robbe found him at the Academy and how he kept saying that it was okay, that Robbe was right there with him, and wasn’t that what Robbe was trying to say all along? That they’d be alright? As soon as the song finished Sander had made his mind up and he was determined to get them tickets for his concert in Antwerp.

And he did, by some kind of miracle he found out there were still some tickets available so he got them. When Robbe found out about Sander’s surprise he couldn’t believe it and he had the biggest smile Sander has ever seen plastered on his face for about two weeks straight.

So fast foward to the 25th of May and here’s where they are now: waiting in line at the Sportpaleis to see Harry Styles’ Love On Tour.

They’ve been buzzing with energy the whole day, that good type of anxiousness before a concert flowing through their veins while they wait, finding everything amusing and loving every second of it.

As soon as the gate opens and they get inside the venue, Sander makes sure to lead them first to the place where they’re selling Harry’s merch because he wants Robbe to have a souvenir from the concert, whichever it may be.

When they get there Robbe lifts an eyebrow and looks questioningly at Sander.

“You can choose whatever you want”, Sander smiles.

Robbe looks incredulely at him, “No I can’t, they’re too expensive.”

“Nothing’s too expensive for you, cutie”, Sander winks and gives Robbe a kiss on his cheek.

When Robbe still hasn’t moved, Sander tells him once again to go pick something and he can’t really say he’s surprised when Robbe choses the yellow Treat People With Kindness t-shirt, so he happily pays for it and they go find their seats.

The wait for the concert to finally begin is filled with conversation, music, laughter and excitement, especially those last minutes before the start, when the lights go out and they wait for Harry to show up at any moment now.

When the first chords of Golden start playing the whole place erupts in screams and Sander doesn’t think he’s ever seen Robbe this happy in his life. Hell, he doesn’t think he himself has ever been this happy in his life. The atmosphere is insanely good and they’re already having the best time and Harry hasn’t even finished the first song of the night yet.

It goes on like this for the rest of night - they have fun, sing, dance and laugh because Harry is ridiculous sometimes and so are they, especially when they’re dancing, and it feels so good to let go like this, forget that the world exists even if it’s only for a couple of hours, and live in the moment being themselves. They particularly love when Harry makes a little speech and talks about love and how every form of love is valid and that this is a place for them to be who they are, love who they want to love and to be proud.

They almost lose their voices singing to Sunflower vol. 6, Robbe’s favourite, and Kiwi, which Harry sings two times just for good measure. Canyon Moon lifts everybody's moods after his slower songs are played and by the end of the concert everybody goes insane during Lights Up. When this particular song comes up Sander can’t take his eyes off of Robbe while he sings to every word of the song, feeling proud of his boyfriend for knowing exactly who he is and being out and proud about it. He can’t stop himself from kissing the life out of his smiley lips as soon as Harry finishes singing the last verse of the song and Robbe has this really sweet and dopey smile on his face. And if during She Robbe and Sander kinda forget that they’re in the middle of a concert with thousands of people around them and make out a little more than they should in public, well, Mitch’s solo is too good to go to waste.

The first chords of the last song starts playing and as soon as Sander recognizes it’s Fine Line he hugs Robbe from behind and Robbe immediately intertwines his fingers with Sander’s and holds their hands above his heart. When Sander first heard the song and thought about that day in December he told Robbe about it and mentioned how this was probably his favourite song of Harry’s, so it kinda became their song. They move slowly to it while they sing the lyrics almost to themselves only, with hushed voices and soft tones, and it’s the most beautiful thing either of them has ever experienced. When the song crescends while Harry sings the chorus Sander feels emotional and he knows he’s not the only one, he can feel Robbe’s heart beating faster, and he can’t help himself when tears fall down his face when the outro comes up and Harry finally sings we’ll be alright. He buries his face on Robbe’s neck and he feels like he’s never felt happier and safer in his entire life.

Right there in the middle of thousands of screaming fans, when Robbe turns around and hugs him properly, by the end of the song, Sander feels like that moment is just for them.

After holding each other for a little bit longer, Robbe kisses Sander and thanks him for the millionth time for doing this for him.

“I did this for you as much as I did it for me, love. I kinda love the guy now too, you know?” Sander smiles at Robbe and gives him a kiss on the nose.

While they wait for things to get a little less chaotic so they can leave safely, they go through the photos they took during the concert and show each other their favourites.

“I think I’ll post this one”, Robbe shows Sander the photo he took of the crowd holding their pride flags while Harry sang on the background.

Sander nods and shows Robbe his phone, “I like mine better.”

Robbe rolls his eyes but can’t help a smile from coming up on his face, “Sap.”

Sander hugs him once again and Robbe kisses whatever part of Sander’s body is closest to him in the moment, which ends up being his neck, “I love you, baby”, his voice is muffled on his boyfriend’s skin.

“I love you too”, Sander says after pressing a kiss to his head.

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their ig’s posts:

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i hope you liked it! keep in mind that english is not my first language and no one proof read this so all mistakes are mine.

dedicated to my baby @lightinthed4rk

treat people with kindness, lovelies