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ubernoxa · 4 years ago

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The Token: A Guns N’ Roses Fanfiction

Chapter 14: Royaly Screwed

Story Summary: Story inspired by the movie She’s the Man. A female Duff is tired of dealing with the bullshit of trying to make it on the strip as a female bassist. Did Michelle think it through as she chopped her hair? Nope. All she knew was that she wanted to make it on the strip. If she had to mascarade as a guy, so it shall be.

Chapter Summary: Michelle’s (Duff’s) dinner with her roommates and Walter’s dad doesn’t go as smoothly as she hopes when she find out why Walter’s father is back in town

(Masterlist)

Taglist: @littlemisscare-all @smokeandmirrorz @aratbaby @slashscowboyboots @queen-crue @achiweyow @bitter-13-suite @white-lightning-625

AN: Sorry for the delay with all of my fics, this is defiantly a couple months overdue ❤️

I took a couple minutes to calm my breathing as I stared into the bathroom mirror. I barely recognized the figure before me. It was Michelle’s reflection that stared back at me. The brown haired wig concealed Duff’s blonde hair, and the dress was more pop than hard rock. Duff was hidden away behind the mask of Michelle, it was no longer the other way around.

Betsy’s threat of exposing me as Duff still felt heavy on my head. Everything, she could destroy everything. All it took was a couple words and I would be done, finished. No band would ever want me as their bassist, just due to my reputation.

I got this.

Everything is going to be okay.

Betsy is all bark and no bite.

You will be okay.

I continued mumbling these phrases over and over again until I calmed my breath down. I still had one card I had yet to show, Henry. Henry who worked with Walter’s father. Henry who worked in the music industry.

I glanced at myself one last time in the mirror before heading back to the table with my new plan in place.

Halion were the Kings of the strip, but Walter’s father worked for the record company that ran it. He was my greatest weapon and I needed him on my side.

I felt Nyx’s eyes on me when I returned to my table. I simply ignored him, and took another sip of the wine Walter’s father had ordered. Let him and whoever was watching watch. As any good performer would, I was going to give them a show. As if Betsy’s threat had turned on some switch, I began to play her wicked game.

“So tell me Michelle, how is the coffee shop these days?” I almost choked on my wine at Walter’s father’s question.

“My cousin came back, and my uncle gave her my job. She was going to school for business, and she recently graduated which means she gets my position,” the lie rolled off my tongue.

I offered Henry a smile as he placed his arm around me to comfort me.

Walter simply sent me a glare as I took another sip of my wine. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was actually fired because I got into a bloody fight at work or that I was leaning into Henry’s touch. I felt a little guilt for playing with his friend’s emotions, but that quickly evaporated. I was doing this for Guns N’ Roses, and if I broke some hearts on the way, let it be. Mine had already been ripped to shreds.

“That’s a shame, have you thought about suing?” I couldn’t hide the shock that crossed my face at Walter’s father’s words. Of course he would think of suing! He probably dealt with lawyers every day.

“Well I should add that I was the worst baker. I burned half of the cherry danishes I cooked. My uncle had moved me to coffee and customer only duty a few months back, so I figured it was only a matter of time...before I was let go,” I shrugged again, indulging in my half lie.

“Those cherry danishes, even the ones you overcooked were still pretty good. I remember visiting you one time at work, but you couldn’t talk because you were too busy dealing with an almost riot!” Macy added causing the table to erupt in giggles. I sent her a thankful glance for taking the attention off of me, even if it was only for a couple of seconds.

“Oh a riot of 70 year old retirees and rich middle aged entitled soccer moms? Now that’s a sight I would love to see,” Henry leaned in closer as he spoke and I couldn’t help in indulging with everyone else’s laughter that erupted at our table.

“Hey you laugh, but those old ladies have canes and they hurt!” I joked back.

“Do you need anything? Any refills?” I looked up at the waiter who was eyeing my wineglass and turned towards Walter’s father.

“You don’t need to ask Michelle,” Walter’s father sent me a warm smile as I asked.

“Yes please then,” I sounded like a giggly school girl only earning a small chuckle from Henry.

“Just don’t start dancing on tables,” I blushed at Henry’s whispered words as the memory of me dancing on the dining room table drunk on vodka flashed through my head. That was what? Two years ago?

“Come on, from what I recall you enjoyed the show,” I teased back.

“I did, but if I remember you had your eyes on someone else at the time,” my heart sunk as he hinted at my ex-boyfriend, Nyx. The same Nyx that was currently staring me down from another table.

“Well, tell me, who do I have my eyes on now?”

He sent a cocky smirk my way before taking off his suit coat. “Here, you seemed a bit cold.”

I sent him a confused glance before taking another sip of my wine. I was not cold at all? Had my completion given me away.

“Nyx had been undressing you despite having some whore on his lap, please put the coat on.” His words were more of a command this time.

I wanted to splash my wine in Henry’s face for what he was saying. Duff would have done that for calling Betsy a whore even though she threatened to expose me. Betsy and I were children of sunset strip and he had no right to insult her. Even if she was acting like a whore.

Actually, no, Duff would have done worse. Duff would have punched him in the face. But I wasn’t Duff right now, I was Michelle. Michelle wasn’t aggressive...anymore.

“Are you two okay?” I looked over at Macy as she spoke, without a doubt she recognized my uncomfortableness.

“Yes, Shelly is just being stubborn. She is cold and doesn’t want to take my jacket I'm offering her because she doesn’t want me to get cold,” he replied to Macy who clearly didn’t buy his story at all. It was rather unsettling how easy the lie rolled off of his tongue.

“Fine,” I let out a fake giggle before taking his jacket and putting it on. I didn’t miss the look Henry gave Macy when he looked over towards Nyx earning an understanding nod from Betsy.

“Ok, that smells amazing! Please tell me that that’s our food!” I asked as the air filled with the smell of roasted vegetables.

“Well I did order you fajitas for us to share, so that might be it,” Henry smiled back earning a soft smile from me. This smile was actually genuine, fajitas were always my favorite.

To my relief, Henry was right. The waiters began to place our dishes in front of us and I quickly thanked him before digging in. I couldn’t remember the last time I ate this good.

I remained focused on my dinner, only offering small talk every couple of minutes before our conversation was interrupted by a small squeal.

My face went hot when I looked over to see Nyx had ‘accidently’ ripped some of Besty’s blouse, momentarily exposing one of her breasts. I felt a tug on my heart as I watched her playfully slap Nyx. Was this my fault? Was Betsy acting like this because Nyx promised Pyxie a slot to perform on their up and coming tour?

I remained focused on my dinner as Walter’s father mumbled some choice words under his breath. Guilt flooded my bones before I could stop it. She was acting like a whore because I left her no other options. She was doing what she had to do to make it on Sunset Strip.

“Are you okay?” I looked up to see Walter’s father staring me down as he spoke.

“Yeah, just uhh…”

“Do you know her?” I nodded at Walter’s father’s words.

“I used to be in a band with her, Pyxie,” I added hoping he would look too much into my saddened tone.

“Used to be?”

“I left. The rock scene wasn’t my thing. The music was good, but the people weren’t tolerable,” I paused talking before I looked over at Beth and Nyx, “Exhibit A.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

As Walter’s father continued to talk, I became lost in my thoughts. Was I ever that wild? No, I reassured myself. Despite the rumors, I always had some

minor control over my situation when I was drunk. I guess that is part of the reason Nyx and I broke up.

“Yeah and I could show Shelly around!” My head snapped back into the conversation at the sound of my name. The nickname only Izzy was supposed to use.

“Show me around?” I asked, intrigued to see what they were talking about.

“Yeah, the music studio! Sadly I won’t be able to show you around first thing tomorrow morning because the three of us will be talking to the local bars to see about any rising stars to replace Halion. Would the afternoon work? Say 4ish?” I nodded feeling a pit grow in my stomach.

Turns out I had similar plans as Walter, Henry, and Walter’s father. Axl and I were also going to talk to local bars to get gigs. Maybe I could reschedule? I immediately shot down that idea. Axl wasn’t one to be tolerable when it came to changing plans on him, and he would most likely accuse me of not being devoted to the band. Slash and Izzy would understand, but Axl didn’t know.

Unless I told Axl that I was secretly Duff who is a girl and not a guy. Yeah, Axl totally wouldn’t overreact to that. I almost laughed at the idea of telling Axl that I was masquerading as Duff. Saying he would freak out was an understatement.

“What were those three bands you mentioned earlier?” Henry asked, his attention focused on Walter’s father,

“Truer Blindness, Falcon and Guns N’ Roses,” I almost choked on a pepper when he mentioned Guns N’ Roses.

I locked eyes with Macy, and I did my best to hide my panic.

“All those are rock bands, I thought you would be getting away from the rock scene after the mini hell Halion caused,” Walter asked. I tried to follow the bitterness in his tone. I hid the shock once I realized he was jealous that Henry knew about the bands his own father was looking into before his own son knew.

“I want to get out of the scene, but the payoff is always too good. A new band would have enough motivation to get an album done while costing the company minimal money. Once they get too big, then we would dump them. Usually rockstars start getting big heads after their first album. Which means I dump them after the second album,” Walter’s father clarified.

“Are there any standouts?” I shot Macy a glance as she spoke.

“True Blindness has been on the strip for a while, so they would have the potential to bring in a steady income. I am a bit concerned that no other label had picked them up. Falcon is a newer band that we have heard murmurs about. One of our competitor record companies is interested in them, so naturally I am as well. The big one I’m interested in seeing is Guns N’Roses. Apparently they are a bit wild, but they are new and draw in a big crowd whenever they perform. Guns N’ Roses is a definitely a wild card.” I remained frozen at Walter’s father’s words.

“Guns N’ Roses? That’s Duff’s band, right?” I nodded at Henry’s words.

“You know them?” Walter’ father’s words sent electricity through my veins.

“Yeah, I have made coffee for them,” I replied before returning back to my food.

I wasn’t just fucked, I was full on screwed.

#gnr fanfiction #guns n’ roses fanfic #gnr fanfic #gnr imagine #guns n’ roses fanfiction #guns n’ roses imagine #duff mckagan fanfiction #duff mckagan / oc #duff mckagan imagine #duff mckagan fanfic

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surveys-at-your-service · 4 years ago

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Survey #364

“you wanna know what zeus said to narcissus? / ‘you’d better watch yourself’“

Do you change your type of music regularly? Nah. I've ben all about metal and rock since middle school. Would you want to visit Tokyo, Japan, someday? It's not actually on my bucket list or anything, but I'd do it. Do you curse like a sailor? Sailors are better than I am, aha... Do you hear trains pass by where you live? No. Ever been in a race? Haha, no. Last time you’ve eaten a taco? I hate tacos. Do you like horses? Sure do! Do you like Starburst? omg YES. What is your favourite wild animal? MEERKATS!!!!!! :') Do you like hamsters? They're very cute, but I've never met a nice one. Do you eat bananas? Yeah, I like bananas, but I'm VERY picky with how ripe it is. There's like, barely a two-day span where I'm willing to eat them. What is your favourite bookstore? I don't have one. What is your favorite fast food joint? Sonic. Do you sweat easily? Ugh, you haven't the slightest idea. As a side effect of one (or two?) of my prescriptions, I have I N S A N E hyperhidrosis. I can stand outside for a millisecond in like 70 degree weather and I'm already sweating. If you could move (and SERIOUSLY think about this) where would you move? All factors considered, being entirely realistic, the mountain-y region of western NC. Why would you go there? I want to stay in NC to at least not be a massive ways away from my family, and I loooove mountains. Plus, there's a lot of cool places on the other end of the state. Do you want to travel? Yes. I want to see so much more than this boring 'ole state. What was the last vaccination you got? For Covid. Have there ever been any forest or grass fires in your area? There have been wildfires towards the beach, I believe? Any time it happened we would always get the smoke all the way where we live. Are you Italian? Not to my knowledge. Do you own an acoustic guitar? No. What is something you have given a lot of thought to lately? My physical health. When did you last swallow your beliefs to avoid an argument or confrontation? Recently. Can you roll your own cigarettes? I've never smoked, so. Are you mentally strong? I think so. I hope so. Are you physically strong? I am like, comically weak. Are you heartbroken right now? No. Do you ever get complimented on your eyes? What color are they? It's happened, but it's definitely not a regular thing or whatever. They're grayish blue. What facial feature do you like the best on a person? I'd say I'm most attracted to pretty eyes. What is the weirdest animal you’ve ever held? I helped hold a massive snake as a kid (I don't remember what it was), and I've also held a rose hair tarantula. I can't think of any truly strange animals by my opinion, really. Do you get extremely hyper when under the influence of sugar? No. Sugar seems to have zero effect on me, probably because I'm over-exposed to it thanks to soda... What about caffeine? Not at all, likely for the aforementioned reason. Have you ever tried any drugs? If so, did you regret it? Besides alcohol, no. I don't regret having drank as it was never a lot. Do you have any pregnant friends? A high school acquaintance is pregnant. I THINK she's the only one now? I swear I see a new pregnancy announcement on Facebook like every two days, and mind you I don't even have all that many "friends." That being said, I may definitely be forgetting someone. When ordering food, what do you usually get as a drink? Depending on whether they have Pepsi or Coke products, either Mountain Dew or Coke. When drawing something, do you try to be super precise or do you not care? I am so, so, SO obsessive over getting everything right, but things never come out as good as I want them to/imagine them. Have you actually read Twilight? I haven't. What about Harry Potter? Never read any of those, either. I started one in elementary school, but didn't get very far at all. Out of the two, which is better? I have like no interest in either, so. How often do you read books? It various. I go through like reading episodes, and then I don't read for months. Are you the jealous type? I'm not like, an insanely jealous person, but it's still the worst it's ever been at this point in my life. I hate it. Are you the type of person who gets jealous of people’s pasts? Nah, no reason to. Do you know anyone who faints at the sight of blood? Not blood, I think, but needles and drawing blood, yes. I know my dad's fainted at least once at the doctor, and Jason fainted when I was getting blood drawn at the ER. What colors are the eyes of your family members? Just about everyone has brown eyes but me, I think my maternal grandpa, and my brother. Are you related to anyone with red hair? Not to my knowledge. Were you a chubby baby? No, I was pretty average. What’s something that makes you incredibly nervous? Social situations with strangers especially. Asking for things. Public speaking/presenting. What’s the latest you’ve ever stayed up to finish homework/a project? God, I remember there was this one night in particular where I stayed up SO late, but I don't remember the exact time. I think I actually cried because I was so stressed and tired. How many vegetarians do you know? In my personal life, I don't believe I know any, but I could be wrong. Have you ever had problems falling asleep in class? I never did, even though I was always tired. Have you ever been on the barrier or front row at a concert? No. Favorite episode of Spongebob? The pizza one, probably. Or the Hash Slinging Slasher episode. What bug frightens you most? Wasps, probably. Are your parents supportive of you? Yes. <3 How often do you take the train to go places? I've never been on a train. Have you ever participated in a mock trial, or a real trial? No. Do you own a pocketknife, or any other kind of multi-tool? No. What was the last thing you took a video of? Hm... I honestly don't remember. What’s something that used to really stress you out, but doesn’t anymore? Thunderstorms. Have you ever had famous neighbors? No. Pick your three favourite vegetables. Broccoli, green beans, and uh... I'm blanking... Habitually I wanna say "corn," but I know it's not technically a veggie, but starch. Have you ever broken a movie or game disc? I think I have? What is your favourite type of cookie? Chocolate chip. Can you rap freestyle? Or at least sing raps from songs? Ha, no. Have you ever shared a house with a significant other? Yeah. Do you scream at scary parts in a horror flick? No. I might jump a bit, but not always. What do you spend most of your time doing? Watching YouTube. Do you really care what’s going on in celebrities' lives? More like the YouTubers I watch. Have you ever broken a plate/bowl? Accidentally by dropping them. When was the last time you felt like you didn’t have a care in the world? I couldn't begin to guess. Has anyone ever drunk called/texted you? No. Can you do a backwards london bridges? God no, I'd bust my back. What smiley do you use the most on the computer? (: maybe. Or :') Are any of your pets “overweight”? No, but why is "overweight" in quotations as if overweight pets aren't a real and serious issue? Has anyone ever bought you a ring? Yeah. On a scale 1-10, how funny are you? I honestly don't think I'm funny at all, so I'd put myself at a 1. Pretty recently though it was very surprising and flattering to have my dad and older sister point out that I'm "hilarious" with my wry sense of humor. I don't see it, but I mean, it was surely appreciated. What’s a song that is overplayed but you still like it anyway? I barely ever listen to the radio, yet I still know "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen is played a lot, but I could never get tired of it. Are you excited for Christmas? Christmastime is my favorite time of year nowadays, mainly because of how excited my niece and nephew always are, and we spend most of Christmas Day and usually Christmas Eve with them. I love the weather, the focus on togetherness, all that. What are you thankful for? Man, a lot. I try my best to never overlook all the truly amazing things I do have, like a loving and supportive family, a home, food and safe water, Internet haha, access to medical care (regardless of the complaints I have about American healthcare)... I've got a lot of bad going on in my life, but I've also got a great amount of good things, too. What do you think would be the hardest thing for you to give up on? Internet. What’s your favorite color combination? Maaan, don't do this. I really don't know. Probably two pastels, idk. Do you have any internet friends? I have more Internet friends than I do "real life" ones. What was the last song you listened to? "Deep Six" by Marilyn Manson earlier. How are you feeling right now? My arm is really sore from my second Covid shot, and I'm also having trouble breathing thanks to the dog (apparently, I'm allergic to whatever she is). I know it sounds bad, but I cannot wait 'til she's gone (from this house, no we're of course not euthanizing her). What color is the shirt you’re wearing? Burgundy. Do you play video games? Yeah, just not as much as I used to. Have you ever been to a club and had someone slip something into your drink? I've never been to a club period, and I don't plan on it. Do you know anyone who’s done ecstasy? Not to my knowledge, anyway. Are you on birth control? Yes, but only to regulate and soothe my menstrual cycle. My cramps were insufferable prior. Does your sibling have a significant other? All but my younger sister. Like she's in contact with who she calls "contenders," haha, but she isn't officially dating anyone. She's MEGA picky with who she dates. Have you ever cried at a real wedding? Yes, because it was very triggering to my PTSD. Any idea what you want for your next birthday? That's quiiite a whiles away, so I have plenty of time to think about that. I don't know if I'll be employed by then and thus able to buy some things myself, but I'll just say I won't be (because I'm I think rationally fearful that's where I'll still be). For Christmas I plan on just asking for a new terrarium for Venus plus better materials for it (like a proper temp gauge and hygrometer, etc.), and with that taken care of, then I might be interested in asking for a hognose for my bday, but idk. I'd want to ensure (s)he starts out with a perfect terrarium, and seeing as I want a hoggie morph, that's a lot of money in one go that idk if I'd be comfortable asking. So I'unno, maybe I'll go for a tattoo again. Wow, this was a lot of rambling for something so far off, pardon me haha. Are there any gadgets of yours that need charging right now? My Nintendo DS Lite, actually. I can't find the darn charger for it, and I really need to so I can bring it to Ashley's again for the kids to play the Pokemon game I have that they love. Aubree especially is really into it, and she adores Pikachu and Eevee. :') Which awards show would you wanna go to the most (e.g Oscars, Grammys etc.)? I don't even know what most award shows are for, if I'm being honest. I'm not really interested. What colour is your keyboard? Black, but each key glows red. Have you ever been called a skank/slut because of the way you dress? No. Are you a fan of acrylic nails? Not for myself; I think they'd drive me insane. I do, however, think they look nice on others.

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''deep six'' by marilyn manson

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comicweek · 4 years ago

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Alternative cuts to films do not exist in a vacuum, they exist in proximity to what came before. There is no Richard Donner cut of Superman II without the Richard Lester rendition. The dueling cuts of Stazione Termini by Vittorio De Sica without its U.S. counterpart Indiscretion of an American Wife overseen by David O. Selznick. Francis Ford Coppola’s many alternative cuts, most recently offering forward Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. Or pretty much every every film Zack Snyder has ever directed.

1222 days ago, I wondered if the theatrical cut of Justice League was “bad”

No, but that doesn’t mean it is good either. It never gets the chance to become more than what it is: a big, standard, hollow F/X film actively trying not to be bad and stay under 120 minutes.

How does this new four-hour version, split into 8 sequences (prologue, epilogue Part 1-6), compare? Original director Zack Snyder’s vision for Justice League isn’t trying to be anything but itself and that willingness makes for an immensely more engaging film. On a basic technical level the new color grading on this film, removing all the garish, oversaturated colors (most notably the red filter during the film’s final action sequence) with something that fit the lighting and hard shadows that cinematographer Fabian Wagner used makes for a more enjoyable viewing experience.

This new version of the film deviates in three significant ways.

Instead of being presented in a more standard widescreen aspect ratio it is displayed at 1.33:1, on most screens that means black bars on the left and right of the screen. As a viewing experience this was fine, I found it oddly focusing after-while, but I’m also used to watching stuff on Criterion Channel. More importantly Snyder and Wagner composed their shots with this ratio in mind, so everything looks spectacular. Please do not change your display settings and cut off the picture in the process.

The other major technical deviation that has gotten lots of attention is the runtime of 242 minutes or 4 hours and 2 minutes. The same runtime as Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet from 1996. While some have disregarded it as excessive and needless, or a sign of streaming bloat, in practice it feels like the synthesis of old and the new distribution strategies. Putting this cut out in theaters just wouldn’t happen in today’s context, but there was a time when roadshow theatrical screenings existed. The blockbuster musicals of the 60s are the primary modern example of this, it was the initial distribution plan for Richard Donner’s Superman – a film composed of Superman I and II. The existence of this cut of the film is also entirely due to the technological and economic shifts involving streaming. There is no economic motive for Warner Bros. to put this out if it wasn’t for HBOMax. In the world of streaming spending $70 million dollars and some marketing money for what will eventually be 8 hours and 4 minutes’ worth of novel content, once the black and white Justice is Grey edition is released, makes all the sense in the world. In a world where Netflix has made binging content a mode of viewing, why not let it be four hours long. The film has chapter markers for each of the 6 parts on the timeline for easier viewing. I watched it over the course of two nights, but my Dad stayed up the whole night and watched it in one shot.

The film is also rated ‘R’ by the MPAA, but like most things MPAA related it helps to expose their farcical nature. Justice League is a pretty soft ‘R’ due to a pair of effective ‘F’ bombs and some blood splatter. There isn’t egregious gore just the recognition that when you throw someone up against a stone wall hard enough that they leave an indentation there should be some red ink left over and Steppenwolf (Ciarán Hinds) has a giant electro axe that cuts things. The recognition of bodily fluids helps put the lie to PG-13’s violent non-violence and acceptability. Snyder justified this decision saying “If you don’t address the actual violence as violence, to me, you’re lowering the stakes on all levels. If the superhero smashes the car, and the whole car explodes, and you just see the guy kind of crawl out of the wreckage, and you’re like, oh okay, it’s still PG-13, the fact you don’t show the blood is a technicality. The violence is still there. I want a true depiction of the violence. I don’t want to sugarcoat it.”

I would caution expecting Zack Snyder’s Justice League to be a brooding fest of darkness because of this R-rating. Mostly because that characterization of Snyder’s oeuvre misses the real delicate character work that goes on them and the continual interrogation of myth-making. Just because he uses these characters to ask large existential questions in a stylistic manner doesn’t make him the Gen-X meathead people assume him to be. Snyder’s Justice League is likely second to Man of Steel as his least ironic film. Outside of the history lesson about Darkseid’s pre-historical invasion of Earth, there isn’t many reflexive elements like the rest of his films.

If Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – The Ultimate Edition was “deconstruction” (though I agree with Kieron Gillen if you start with deconstruction, it’s not actually that it’s just construction) – consider Justice League reconstruction. The previous film was a meditation on the modern world and how media interfaces create bubbles and shallow, if not false, perceptions. Justice League turns back the clock into pre-History and positing the superhero as a figure has always been around and amongst human culture. It’s not too dissimilar to M. Night Shyamalan work in the Eastrail 177 Trilogy, except realized in a very Zack Snyder manner of the film fantasy epic. Along with its run time the scale and grandeur Snyder and his crew deliver pushes the film closer to generic and stylistic territory occupied by Excalibur and The Lord of the Rings trilogy than a traditional superhero film. Like most Western fantasy, Snyder’s Justice League is a film that is ultimately about the value of multiculturalism and need to work together. In case anyone missed the condemnation of xenophobia in the last film. Diana(Gal Gadot) works through some of her own assumptions about Arthur Curry(Jason Momoa) throughout the film. One of the largest differences between the cuts is how Zack Snyder’s Justice League inputs and expands on pretty much every person of color’s presence in the film compared to the erasure seen in Justice League (2017).

Full Review - HERE

#zack snyder's justice league #justice league #zack snyder #dceu #thoughts #movie review

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trash-muse · 4 years ago

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Flashback: A Long Trail of Ashes

WHO: John Constantine and Asmodel @dark-musngs WHAT: Flashback - July 2000 - First meeting between a punk ass magician and a not-yet-corrupted angel.

There was a sudden burst of music and drunken revelry as the side door of a London pub opened and a lean eighteen year old man exited with a swagger in his boot clad step. The summer air was warm and sticky and not at all ideal for wearing tight purple jeans and a leather jacket, but that didn’t stop the young man dressing like a rejected 70s punk aesthetic.

“Constantine!”

John Constantine whirled around, flashing a devilish grin. “Evening lads,” he greeted the four men that approached him, demeanor calm to the point of arrogance. “Nice night for a stroll, yeah?”

“Sod off, Constantine.” The leader of the men shuffled forward, asserting dominance. “You have some nerve showing your face ‘round here. Especially after what you did.”

“And what did I apparently do?” John continued, the other man’s temper clearly ready to boil over as John’s flippant question added fuel to the fire.

“You cheated!” The man got into John’s personal space, shoving him hard into the solid brick wall of the pub. “You used your little magic tricks to win and now you’re gonna pay.”

“Not my fault you were daft enough to bet your house. I should be thanking you, the bed is very comfortable.” John replied, riling the other man up further. Really he should be doing the opposite, trying to soothe the man’s ire and make an escape. But it seemed John was itching for some kind of action and if that action was an uneven fight in an alley then so be it.

The man swung at him, his closed fist missing as John weaseled his way out. One of the others then lunged for him and John swung back, fist connecting with jaw. It didn’t take much for a scrappy brawl to break out. Four to one, odds not in John’s favour. However, the young magician did put up a good fight, proving he was a nasty piece of work as he had claimed to be so many times before.

There was no way he could win though. Arms pinned behind his back by two of the blokes, John braced himself as the leader went to punch his head in. But the hit never landed. White light filled the little alleyway and when John opened his eyes again, the other men were gone.

“What the…?” John rose to his feet from his knees, looking around flabbergasted. Had he been hit that hard he blacked out? John questioned himself, bringing a hand to his forehead and quickly withdrew it again, hissing in pain from a split eyebrow.

Suddenly movement caught his attention and John curiously moved toward it. “Hey!” He called out, realising the silhouette up ahead was actually a person. “Hey… who are you? Did you cause that light?”

---

You’re not supposed to get involved…

Asmodel found herself repeating that phrase over and over again as she kept watch over the troublesome human. She had griped for days when she had received the assignment - a task usually given to a much lower rank of angel. Like a guardian or heaven forbid, a cherub. Cheery winged balls of energy. It was a warning for sure but for what she wasn’t sure. After Lucifer’s fall, heaven remained on high alert of any defecting angels, even to the point where they seemed a bit overly paranoid.

So the assignment had grown more interesting as the boy and the trouble he attracted grew. He probably stocked up all his close calls and last minute victories as coincidences, but it was busy work for the all-powerful angel keeping an eye on him. Heaven deemed him worthy of something, if not just to piss of hell, so she simply followed orders to keep him alive. Bare minimum of course, but alive all the same.

….except when he’s about to die in a common alleyway brawl!

Az cursed under her breath as she quickly had to step in, her presence lighting up the alleyway instantly. Thankfully there weren’t any other humans besides the three and John, so as the light died down she quickly stepped into the shadows so to blend into the surroundings. She wasn’t quite counting on Constantine to call her out though. Pausing where she was, she slowly turned to face the mess of a human. “Light?” she held up a small flashlight in her hand. “You mean this?”

---

John jogged slightly to catch up, boot clad feet clunking heavily against the old stone street in the alley. A lazy smile crawled across his features as he was finally able to make out the woman’s appearance. “Yeah, light.” He repeated himself, eyes drifting down to the apparent source of light she held, a chuckle erupting from his lips. “Ah… right… must have meant that.”

Of course, John didn’t believe that for one second. There was no way the little flashlight could light up the whole alley the way it did. But John wasn’t going to call his savior a liar. That would just be rude.

“Anyway, love, while completely unnecessary, I do appreciate the assistance. So, thank you.” He spoke in a polite but rather dismissive tone, figuring the woman probably had better places to be.

---

Az cursed under her breath as she heard him coming up behind her, not taking her off-handed explanation as a sign that she wasn’t interested in further conversation. She pocketed the phone and glanced over to him as she felt his eyes on her. Cheeky as always.

“Unnecessary?” she repeated in amusement they fell into step. “If I’m not mistaken, you were about to have your ass handed to you.” Her dark eyes flickered over to him before with a subtle smirk.

---

“I had it under control,” John bit back, tone slightly defensive. He didn’t know what he would have done but he would have thought of something. He always thought of something.

The sass of the young woman was refreshing and her accent rather intriguing - definitely not local. Although, to be fair, neither was he. But he was willing to bet he was a lot closer to home than she was.

“But let’s not get into it, yeah?” John retreated on the pending bickering before it could even kick off. “So, my avenging angel, you got a name? Always like to know the name of someone before I buy them a drink.”

---

“I’d hate to see what it looks like when you don’t have it under control.” Az smirked as he tried to save face, as if she hadn’t seen him plenty of times failing to have similar moments under control. She paused as he invited her out for a drink. Always the sweet talker - if only he knew how accurate avenging angel was in this case.

“Azra.” She turned to face him, looking up at him indifferently. “And I don’t drink.”

---

“Never happen.” John smirked in reply, finding it easy to joke around with the young woman. Despite having never met her before, there was an air of familiarity about her. Like they had known each other for years. However, John paid it no mind.

Azra. Not a common name heard in those parts. Fitting for such an intriguing woman.

John had to chuckle at her indifference. “How about something to eat then? There are a few places still open. What do you feel like? Or don’t you do that either?”

---

Az rolled her eyes as he continued to badger her. He didn’t quit. She should have expected this when she interceded, honestly it was what had stopped her from stepping in personally before, but she just couldn’t help herself this time. She sighed, raising a brow as she contemplated just wiping his memory and moving on. It was just such a hassle.

“…I can eat and you don’t seem to be familiar with someone turning you down. So sure, a quick bite won’t hurt.”

---

A cheeky grin responded to Azra’s banter about being unfamiliar with someone turning him down. John was charming, cocky and persistent. All traits the blonde tried to use to his advantage. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. However as Azra continued it was clear John was winning her over.

“It definitely won’t hurt.” John replied, keeping in step with her. “So what do you feel like? There’s a pub down there that does chips but it gets a bit rowdy this time of night.” He nodded in the direction they were headed. “Or we could catch the tube to a little pizza place near King’s Cross. They shut soon but I know the owner, they’ll let us in after closing.”

“Or… if you don’t think it too forward. We can go back to mine and I can make you breakfast for dinner.”

---

Az took a moment to consider the options. More human interaction wasn’t exactly what she had hoped for tonight but it could be safer than more one on one time with his ridiculous self. Although, knowing John, going somewhere rowdy was just asking for trouble and she didn’t want to step in to stop another brawl - once a night was enough without exposing herself.

She raised a brow as she looked up to him skeptically. “Is that what you say to get a girl to go home with you?” It was a good border between sweet and sleezy, so how many times had he offered it in the past? “Fine, breakfast it is.”

---

John waited patiently as Azra mulled over the options. He wouldn’t pressure her into spending more time with him - though he found her intriguing, he did respect the young woman’s boundaries. However, Azra wasn’t saying no.

“Usually I’m the one being invited, not doing the inviting.” John’s apartment wasn’t exactly the most glamorous of venues. It was literally one bed with a small kitchenette and bathroom. Some closets had bigger square footage. But despite not having much room for guests over, it was safe and kept him off the street. “And not always a girl.”

His smile broadened as his offer was accepted. “Good choice,” John said before reaching out a hand to pause her steps forward, guiding Azra to cross the road with him. “What do you usually have for breakfast?”

---

“Of course. A pretty face offers you food and I doubt you say no.” she chuckled because little did he know, but she was well versed in the life of John Constantine. And maybe she should have known better than to agree - after all, she was supposed to be looking on from afar, not interacting with him face to face like this. It was against the guidelines and procedures….so maybe that thrill was why she ended up agreeing.

She followed his directed path, letting him lead despite knowing their intended destination already. “I don’t usually have much time for breakfast, so whatever is available will do.”

---

“Of course not.” John grinned at her chuckle. “Be rude of me if I did.” He did lead quite the colourful life but he also had enough respect for those he was with to not tell everyone about who he was with and what exactly they got up to.

John gave Azra a look of disbelief when she said she didn’t have breakfast, although there was no scolding behind his gaze. “Azra, my dear, you are in for a treat.”

He hopped the stairs up to his apartment building door two at a time and let himself into the old terrace house, holding the door open so Azra may enter first. Directly in front of the entry way was a sharp set of stairs upward - of which, John climbed, moved around the small landing and climbed a further set of stairs.

“It’s not much, but it’s home.” John opened the door to his humble one room apartment. “There’s no sofa, but promise the bed’s clean if you want a seat.”

---

Azra followed him up the steps - all the steps - until they finally reached his little apartment. It was…quaint. Definitely showed that he didn’t spend too much time there. She observed the small space as she entered, looking around with a somewhat critical eye before taking a seat gingerly on the bed as he offered her a seat.

“What’s so important about breakfast?” she asked indifferently, her gaze shifting back to focus on him as he moved about the small kitchen area. She couldn’t stay long but she could play along with this idea of entertaining that he had in mind.

#c: asmodel #muse: john constantine #past: 2000 #flashback: a long trail of ashes

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bangtanlalaland · 5 years ago

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Can u write a Drabble where you’re making out in jimin’s car and you’re straddling him and all of a sudden he starts fingering u and grabbing your boobs oops-

omg! thank you for the request, lovelyyyy :))))

honda civic | pjm (m.)

𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 ⟶ best friend!park jimin x female reader

𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒆 ⟶ smut, pwp

𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕 ⟶ 789

𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔 ⟶ mentions of alcohol consumption, a lil exhibitionism¿? (not really), swearing, dirty talk, making out, fingering, pet names (kinda), squirting

It’s sundress season. Yes, that’s a thing. Where the high temps are in the 90’s and the lows are in the 70’s. It’s HOT. You praise whoever invented dresses because you couldn’t imagine wearing anything else in this heat. You just finished a lengthy day at the music festival with your best friend: Jimin Park. After endless amounts of dancing and jumping mixed with bottomless booze, the sun started to set and your body felt everything coming down.

The alcohol having consumed you two. Both yours and Jimin’s hormones heightened to its peak. Which is why you’re now tipsy and making out in his Honda Civic. The air conditioner blasting on full speed. Jimin’s car parallel parked onto a busy street. Cars and other beings roaming about. Literally anyone could see you two. Did either of you care? Of course not.

“What are we doing, Jimin?” You slip in between kisses. Jimin’s juicy, strawberry-tinted lips smashing with yours.

“What feels right. I mean.. it does feel right, right?” You simply moan and nod. The velvety feel of his tongue glides across your bottom lip. Once you grant him access, pools of wetness gush from your core. Relishing in the feel of his warm, wet tongue dancing with yours. Just the thought of what his tongue would feel like slithering in between your folds creates even more gushes.

“Mmm, come here, Y/N.” Jimin grabs your hands and guides you to straddle on top of him. You gaze into his coffee, almond-shaped eyes. His hands run along your curves, taking in the delightful sight of your being.

“Fuck, why haven’t I realized how sexy you are?”

You blush at his dear compliment. Your palms guide through his luscious blonde waves, tugging them as you crash your lips onto his. His hands trail down to grope and squeeze your ass. You grind against him, needing a relief from your now clenching core. You moan into his mouth when a stinging sensation approaches on your bottom, from his hand making contact.

“Mmm. Going to be a good girl and cum hard for me, princess?”

You “mmhmm” in between kisses. Then the stinging sensation appears yet again, causing a gasp from you.

“I can’t hear you.”

“Yes! I’m going to be good for you, Jiminie.”

“Such a good princess.”

Jimin presses another tasty kiss onto your lips, easing his hands toward your tits. Caressing them, while sliding his tongue from your neck and placing a wet kiss on your jaw. He pulls away and pops two of his fingers in his mouth, getting them nice and wet. Your thoughts register slowly from the alcohol, not realizing that he already slipped under your dress and into your lace thong. The pads of his digits rubbing along your drenched folds, your hips buck forward attempting to get some sort of friction.

“Fuck, are you really this soaked for me? For your own best friend?” He gives your sensitive bud a light pinch, gaining a yelp from you.

“Fuck… me.” You frown when he pulls his digits out of you and you clench around nothing.

“Look at how wet you are.”

With a sexy grin, he shows you your strings of wetness clinging to his digits. He pushes his fingers into your mouth to give you a taste of your own self. Then proceeds to push his fingers inside of your pulsing pussy. Your head cocks back, letting out a lengthy moan. He slowly pumps his fingers into your pussy and uses his thumb to rub your clit in circles.

“F-fuck, Jimin..” He grins at your expression, as you’re completely lost in the nostalgic feeling.

“Look at you such a horny, wet mess for your best friend. Don’t you know anyone could see us right now?”

He pumps faster into you, squelching noises from your wetness can be heard. Your eyes closing shut and your walls clenching around him.

“They could see me fingering my best friend’s, tight, pretty pussy.”

You tug onto his waves, “Ahhh, Jiminie please. I want to cum.”

He twists his digits inside of you, and rubs against your g-spot. Your toes curl, and your grip on his hair tightens more. He curves his fingers inside you, mimicking the “come here” motion. Your walls contract, all while the tight feeling in the pit of your tummy grows tighter and splash.

Gushes of your pussy juice squirt all over Jimin’s thighs. Drenching his tight jeans and leaking onto the drivers seat. Your nails graze against his exposed biceps as your orgasm washes over you.

“Jiminie!”

Legs trembling, eyes rolling back; you call out his name as if it’s a chant.

“That’s right, princess. Cum all over your best friend’s fingers just like that.”

#bts jimin #jimin smut #bts drabble #jimin drabble #magicshopnet #kpopwritersclub #bangtanlalaland

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illfoandillfie · 5 years ago

Text

Quiet In The Library 3

SERIES MASTERLIST

Request: Pretty please can you do a quiet in the library part 3 ?? 😁your writing is Top Notch I looovve the way you write roger! Congrats on 1000 followers you deserve them all!!! 💕💕

Please can u write more about quiet in the library ? This is so fucking good I’m super fan 🥺 maybe reader can be a little cocky for once like teasing him at a show or something then Roger get his revenge visiting her again 🥰 if you don’t feel it that alright, I love ur writing anyway !!! (Probably one of the best at writing smut especially)

Pairing: 70s!Roger Taylor x Reader

Warnings: SMUT (18+), dom!Rog, sub!Reader, public sex, library sex, spanking, unprotected sex,

Words: 2777

A/N: Written as part of my 1000 follower celebration, I got 2 requests for this one! I’ve been meaning to do a QITL 3 for a while and actually planned to have dom!reader in it but that was before I felt comfortable writing dom!reader and I kept putting it off so maybe I’ll write a QITL 4 at some point 🤷‍♀️

Taglist: @laedymoon @dtfrogertaylor @ezmina98 @vee-ndetta @atomic-watermelon @kellypenac @labessieisallama @deakyclicks @jennyggggrrr @drowseoftaylor @hannafuckingsucks @i-cant-hangout-im-drumming @queenmylovely

When Roger called and invited you to watch him play you were excited for two reasons. Number one, you genuinely enjoyed the music and watching the boys play was always a good time, especially now they’d found a slightly larger audience to play for. And, number two, you felt like you could get a little payback. You’d spent weeks of work unable to think of anything but the ways Roger had used you among the non-fiction shelves. There was a small stain on the carpet in the back row, a lingering souvenir from Roger’s last visit, and every time you saw it you were hit by a flurry of memories and the sudden need to get off. It was only fair for you to give him a taste of his own medicine and after all, this was essentially Roger’s workplace, unconventional is it was. So, with that in mind, you got ready in an outfit that could only be described as the complete opposite of your workwear. There was no room for knee length skirts or smart ponytails. Instead you opted for a short skirt and a plunging neckline. You let your hair down and did your makeup, anything to make Roger hot under the collar.

They were still setting up when you arrived and headed backstage, but you caught Roger’s eye and blew him a kiss. “Well look at you. Very different to last time I saw you,” he said as he came over and hugged you in greeting. “Yes well, that’s what you get for visiting me at work. I told you that was the least sexy outfit I owned.” “And what does that make this outfit?” “Well I thought it was definitely one of my sexier options, wouldn’t you say?” you twirled a strand of hair around your finger as you spoke. “I might go so far as to call it slutty.” “Bit rude –” “I said might!” “But not completely incorrect.” At that moment Brian walked over, “Rog c’mon we’re- oh Y/N! Hi,” “Hey Bri,” you gave him a quick hug too, hoping Roger was looking at your short skirt riding up as you pushed yourself onto tiptoes. “We were just discussing Y/N’s outfit. Seems out sweet little librarian is in the mood to pick up,” “Thanks Bri for telling him about my job, by the way, so glad he knows now.” Brian rubbed his neck sheepishly, “Sorry. I was drunk and it slipped out.” “How’d you even find out? I never told anyone,” “Saw you there a few months ago. Kept meaning to ask you about it but it always slipped my mind.” “Yeah well, this one,” you jerked your thumb at Roger, “has been a right shit about it,” “You love it,” Roger said with a grin, “anyway Bri, what’d you want?” “Oh shit, yeah. We’ve gotta go get ready. Are you gonna be here after the show?” “Course she will be. Unless she finds some poor bloke to take home,” “I’ll be here, front row the whole time. Wouldn’t miss your show for the best lay in the world.” “That’s cause the best lay’s up there playing,” Roger winked at you and then he and Brian disappeared behind a door leaving you to head out to the crowd and take your spot up front.

It was useless to try and get Roger’s attention while he played. Between sitting at the back of the stage, his shithouse eyesight, and his complete focus on playing, there was no chance in hell he’d even be able to see you let. Instead you got yourself a drink and settled in to watch the show, chatting occasionally to a excited girl beside you. She’d snuck out for the night just to see them and maybe try to hit on Roger. You looked her up and down, “Roger is very cute. Shame really,” “What’s a shame? “You haven’t heard? Roger’s already got a girlfriend. Hopelessly devoted to her apparently,” you sighed for dramatic effect, “I heard he’s been looking at rings and everything. Shame the rest of us can’t have a shot with him, but at least the other three are still single.” “Oh,” she looked disappointed but you saw her eyes flick from John to Freddie to Brian and back again as if she were comparing her options, “Thanks for the heads up.” She turned back to the stage, her eyes now glued to the bassist. That was your competition taken care of, although there was bound to be more of them out there.

As soon as the music stopped you made your way backstage again and latched onto Roger’s arm. For the rest of the night you were basically glued to him, making it very obvious you wanted him. You even went so far as to sit on his lap at one point, intentionally wriggling your arse against his crotch in an attempt to make him hard. “Thought you wanted to score tonight?” he asked you while the others were distracted, “why’re you hanging round here?” “Maybe I want something specific, something I don’t think just anyone could give me,” “Alright love, I know what you’re doing,” “Other than trying to get you alone?” “This is a shitty attempt at payback, isn’t it?” “I don’t know what you mean,” you hoped you didn’t sound too obvious. “You made it so obvious,” he laughed. “All I’m trying to do is get laid Rog. I have a late start tomorrow cause I’m on locking up duty and I thought I might have some fun,” “You think you’re being clever but I’m on to you,” “Ugh fine. I should have just let that slut from the crowd have you,” “What slut?” You waved your hand like you were shooing away a fly, “Just this chick I got talking to. She came here wanting to fuck you but I convinced her to go after Deaky instead. Told her you already had a girl.” “Are you kidding?” “Nope,” you laughed, “might have also told her you were looking to propose to your girlfriend.” “Y/N! Christ you’re going to ruin my chances with every girl that comes to our shows. If that rumour spreads I swear to god.” “Oh it’ll be fine. There’ll be plenty who don’t care how married you are.” “Thats not the point! God you’re really in for it now.” You rolled your eyes and stood up, “Well, I guess I’m gonna go home then since you’ve ruined my fun. I’ll see you next time, say bye to the others for me.”

The next day work went without a hitch. There was no sign of Roger at all, although you were so busy all day he completely slipped your mind. It wasn’t until you were getting ready to lock up that you remembered his promise to get back at you. You moved to flip the sign on the door to CLOSED and managed to reach it just as Roger pushed it open. “We’re closed Rog,” “You talking the library or your legs?” he said as he barged inside. You stepped out of his way, shutting the door behind him. As soon as you turned away from the door he had you pushed up against the wall, one hand beside your head so he was leaning into your personal space. “Told you I was going to come back,” “You did,” “Was that what you were trying to get last night? Missed being a dirty slut for me and decided to get all dressed up to remind me you’ve got a cunt with my name on it?” “No, I got all dressed up to try and fuck you in your workplace,” “Didn’t turn out that way though.” he dropped his other hand towards your thigh, “lift it up for me.” Without thinking you grabbed your skirt and pulled it up. Roger laughed, “I swear you get easier every time I come here. Undo those buttons I wanna see your tits.” His fingers landed on your pussy and you hurried to do as he asked, letting your skirt fall over his wrist as you pulled each button loose until your shirt was open to your midriff, the bottom of it still tucked into your skirt. “Good girl,” he said softly, moving both hands to your chest, pushing your shirt aside and teasing your nipples, “but being a slut for me now isn’t going to change last night. You need a lesson in who’s in charge here. Bend over your desk.” You whined as he tugged your nipples before letting you go and pushing you towards your desk.

You placed your palms flat on the desk, bent at the waist, and waited. “No. Down,” he pressed on your back until you buckled, your chest pressed against the smooth surface as your moved your arms to hold onto the opposite edge. There was a rustle of fabric as Roger pushed your skirt up again, exposing your arse to the room. “You’re already wet,” he didn’t sound surprised. He didn’t touch you, either. It was what you wanted most, just a light touch on your hip even, but he refused, instead running his fingers along the edge of the desk. Over the pamphlets about the Dewey Decimal System, tapping lightly against the jar your pens were standing in, until he came to rest on a book left there earlier. You weren’t sure what it was but it seemed to interest Roger. He picked it up, flipped through a few pages, examined the hard cover, tested how well he could hold it in one hand. “Keep count,” was the only warning you got before he brought the book down against your arse. “Shit, one,” “Speak up. You’re closed remember, no one around to hear you except me.” “Two,” “Who’s in charge here?” “You are Sir. Three,” He kept spanking you with the book and you kept counting, the sting only getting worse with each one. You hissed through your teeth at a particularly hard smack, trying to remember which number you were up to when you heard a noise outside. A woman’s heels clicking against the concrete pavement. “I thought you were closed,” Roger said softly, dropping his raised arm, the book falling to cover the bulge in his jeans. “We are. Fuck Rog, hide,” you stood and tugged your shirt back into place, though there was no hope of getting all the buttons done up. Roger straightened the back of your skirt just as the door was pushed open and a woman wearing the same uniform as you stepped inside. “Y/N, you’re still here?” “Just finishing locking up, Kathy, what are you doing back?” “Oh I just finished the groceries and realised I left my book here,” “You mean this one?” you took the book from Roger, stepping in front of him in the hopes Kathy wouldn’t notice his dilemma, “I wondered who it belonged to. Lucky I didn’t chuck it in with the rest of the returns,” “Y/N, who’s this?” “I’m Roger,” he said sticking out his hand from behind you. You could have hit him as you tried to remember which hand he’d used to touch your pussy. “He’s a friend of mine.” “Was in the area and thought I’d off Y/N a lift home since it’s already dark out.” “Well that’s nice of you,” Kathy’s eyes flicked from your unbuttoned and ruffled shirt to Roger, half standing behind you, to you flushed cheeks to the book she was holding, “At work Y/N? Kinky. Just don’t leave any stains or anything.” “I don’t know what you mean Kathy,” “Mmhmm, you can explain it to me tomorrow then, I’ll leave you to it.” She left with a last look at Roger and a chuckle.

As soon as the door was shut behind her you turned around and slapped Roger’s shoulder, “you knob! Louder there's no one to hear but me,” your shitty imitation of his voice made Roger laugh, “almost got caught with my arse out.” “Well at least you still had knickers on.” “Gee thanks. Kathy totally knew what was going on though, and now she’s going to badger me for details and I’m going to have to make her swear not to tell anyone.” “Geeze you’re secretive. So what if she knows?” “So what? I don’t want my co-workers to know about my sex life thanks. Especially not about us having sex here. I hope your happy,” “Not really. In case you didn’t realise I’ve got this boner that needs taking care of.” “Even after nearly getting caught?” “Love, nearly getting caught only made it harder.” “Jesus,” Roger laughed, “oh c’mon, don’t act like you weren’t turned on by it too. Remember when you gave me head and the person was on the other side of the shelves?” “Vividly,” “I bet you do. I bet you think about it while you finger yourself. Maybe think about that person coming round the shelf and watching while I fucked your throat,” he backed you up against the desk as he spoke, the edge of it pressing into your arse as he pressed his hard-on into your thigh. You whimpered, unable to resist his demanding tone. “You want me to fuck you?” “Please,” “Hop up on the desk for me. Gonna fuck you right here where you sit every day. Where your co-workers sit Where your boss sits.” His hands were on your waist as you wriggled back onto the desk, “I know how blushy and wet you get from being in the back rows where I’ve used you before. But those places are too easy to avoid. I want you to think about what I do to you from the moment you get to work to the moment you leave. I want my cock to be on your mind constantly. I want to be able to walk in here and know that you’re already wet for me.” Once more he pushed your skirt up, exposing you completely when he impatiently tugged your underwear off, “I want you to sit down in the morning and remember how good it feels,” he quickly undid his fly and pushed his pants down, “to be full,” he dragged his cock along your folds making your breath hitch, “of me.” You let out a squeaky, “oh!” as he entered you, one hand slipping behind your back to hold you up as his other grabbed your leg. You wrapped your arms around his neck and hooked your ankle around him as best you could when he pulled back and sank into you again. “Fuck,” you whined as he thrust into you again. “Louder.” You shook you head, trying not to moan. “C’mon, I know you want to. It’s your one chance to be loud here, not going to waste it are you?” “Rog,” “Louder. Want you loud enough to draw a fucking crowd.” You gave in, moaning wantonly as he fucked you harder. “That’s it, let everyone hear what a whore you are,” he was panting, “rub your clit.” Your breath hitched as you followed his direction and found your clit, circling it with your thumb. You could feel the pressure building, only strengthened as Roger leaned into your neck and began sucking at your skin. A string of moans and whined expletives tumbled from your lips and you weren’t sure you’d have been able to turn the volume down even if Roger had demanded it. All you could do was cry out as you hit your release. Roger continued to pound into you, half to keep your high going and half to reach his own. Even as your orgasm subsided, leaving you with a few lingering aftershocks and a heightened sensitivity, he kept going, his breath coming in rough pants. It took you whining his name for him to finally cum, biting down on your throat.

“Jesus Rog,” you said softly when he finally let you hop off the desk, “what are you, a fucking vampire?” “God could you imagine how hot I’d be?” “Alright Dracula, calm down. Can you hand me those tissues over there?” “How come?” “So I can clean up the mess we’ve made,” you pointed at the desk where a small puddle of evidence remained. “What do you have to do before you’re finished closing up?” “Umm, make sure the windows are shut and back room is locked. Then I’ve just gotta get the lights and lock the front door. Tissues?” you impatiently stuck out your hand. “You don’t need tissues because you’re going to lick it up like a good little slut. And then, if you’re lucky, I’ll take you back to mine and make you beg for more.”

#my writing #roger taylor x reader #roger taylor smut #roger taylor imagine #this is a bit of a throwback!!#QITL was like the second fic i ever wrote i think #not much has changed tho #i still want 70s rog to top the shit out of me #1000 follower celebration

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justforbooks · 5 years ago

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The greatest year for books ever?

Several years including 1862, 1899 and 1950 could be considered literature’s very best. But one year towers above these, writes Jane Ciabattari.

The year 1925 was a golden moment in literary history. Ernest Hemingway’s first book, In Our Time, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway and F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby were all published that year. As were Gertrude Stein’s The Making of Americans, John Dos Passos’ Manhattan Transfer, Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy and Sinclair Lewis’s Arrowsmith, among others. In fact, 1925 may well be literature’s greatest year.

But how could one even go about determining the finest 12 months in publishing history? Well, first, by searching for a cluster of landmark books: debut books or major masterpieces published that year. Next, by evaluating their lasting impact: do these books continue to enthrall readers and explore our human dilemmas and joys in memorable ways? And then by asking: did the books published in this year alter the course of literature? Did they influence literary form or content, or introduce key stylistic innovations?

Books that came out in 1862, for instance, included Dostoevsky’s House of the Dead, Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons. But Gustave Flaubert’s novel of that year, Sallambo, set in Carthage during the 3rd Century BC, was no match for Madame Bovary. George Eliot’s historical novel Romola and Anthony Trollope’s Orley Farm were also disappointments.

The year 1899 is another contender for literature’s best. Kate Chopin’s seminal work The Awakening was published then, as was Frank Norris’s McTeague and two Joseph Conrad classics – Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim (serialised in Blackwood’s Magazine). But Tolstoy’s last novel Resurrection, published also in 1899, was more shaped by his religious and political ideals than a powerful sense of character; and Henry James’ The Awkward Age was a failed experiment – a novel written almost entirely in dialogue.

And in 1950 there were published books from Isaac Asimov (I, Robot), Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles), Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train), Doris Lessing (The Grass Is Singing) and CS Lewis (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe). But other great fiction writers produced lesser works that year – Ernest Hemingway’s minor Across the River and into the Trees; Jack Kerouac’s The Town and the City, written under the influence of Thomas Wolfe; John Steinbeck’s poorly received play-in-novel-format Burning Bright and Evelyn Waugh’s only historical novel, the Empress Helena (Roman emperor Constantine’s Christian mother goes in search of relics of the Cross).

But 1925 brought something unique – a vibrant cultural outpouring, multiple landmark books and a paradigm shift in prose style. Literary work that year reflected a world in the aftermath of tremendous upheaval. The brutality of World War One, with some 16 million dead and 70 million mobilised to fight, had left its mark on the Lost Generation. In Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf created the indelible shell-shocked veteran Septimus Smith, “with hazel eyes which had that look of apprehension in them which makes complete strangers apprehensive too. The world has raised its whip; where will it descend?”

Looking inward

The solid external world of the realists and naturalists was giving way to the shifting perceptions of the modernist ‘I’. Mrs Dalloway, which covers one day as Clarissa Dalloway prepares for a party – and Septimus Smith for his demise – is a landmark modernist novel. Its narrative is rooted in the flow of consciousness, with dreams, fantasies and vague perceptions gaining unprecedented expression. Woolf’s stylistic breakthrough reflected a changing perception of reality. Proust was also all the rage at this moment, as Scott Moncrieff’s translation of Remembrance of Things Past’s third volume was just out. Woolf admired Proust’s “astonishing vibration and saturation and intensification”.

The year 1925 also contributed to the culmination of Gertrude Stein’s career. She had moved to Paris in 1903 and established a Saturday evening salon that eventually included Ernest Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound and Sherwood Anderson, as well as artists Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Stein responded to her immersion in the Parisian avant-garde by writing The Making of Americans, which was published in 1925, more than a decade after its completion. In over 900 pages of stream-of-consciousness, Stein tells of “the old people in a new world, the new people made out of the old,” and describes an American “space of time that is filled always filled with moving”. Early critics like Edmund Wilson couldn’t finish Stein’s complex web of repetition, but she has been credited with foreshadowing postmodernism and making key stylistic breakthroughs, including using the continuous present and a nearly musical word choice. As Anderson put it: “For me, the work of Gertrude Stein consists in a rebuilding, an entirely new recasting of life, in the city of words.”

Stein’s experiments with language influenced Hemingway’s signature sparseness. Beginning with the autobiographical Nick Adams stories in his first book, 1925’s In Our Time, his fiction is characterised by pared-down prose, with symbolic meaning lying beneath the surface. Nick witnesses birth and suicide as a young boy accompanying his father, a doctor, to deliver a baby in the Michigan woods. He is exposed to urban crime when two Chicago hitmen come to his small town. And as a war veteran trying to keep his memories at bay, he gravitates toward the familiar pleasures of camping and fishing: "He had made his camp. He was settled. Nothing could touch him."

Modern times

The midpoint of the Roaring ‘20s was a time of rare prosperity and upward mobility in the United States. The stock market seemed destined to climb forever, and the American Dream seemed within the grasp of the masses. 1925 was special, though. In New York, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer and other writers of the Harlem Renaissance were given a definitive showcase that year in the anthology The New Negro, edited by Alain Locke. At the same time Harold Ross launched a revolutionary and risky weekly magazine called The New Yorker, which featured portraits of Manhattan socialites and their adventures and offered what would be a treasured showcase for short stories ever since.

F Scott Fitzgerald dubbed this flamboyant postwar American era “the Jazz Age”. Alcohol flowed freely despite Prohibition; flappers followed the sober suffragettes into a time of sexual freedom. New wealth was spreading the riches and opening doors to players like Fitzgerald’s immortal character Jay Gatsby, whose fortune was rumoured to be based on bootlegging. The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, gives a portrait both tawdry and touching, as Gatsby remakes himself in a doomed attempt to win the love of the wealthy Daisy Buchanan. The tarnished American Dream also was central that year to Theodore Dreiser’s naturalist masterpiece, An American Tragedy. Dreiser based the novel on a real criminal case, in which a young man murders his pregnant mistress in an attempt to marry into an upper class family, and is executed by electric chair. Also ripped from the headlines, Sinclair Lewis’s realistic 1925 novel Arrowsmith was a first in exploring the influence of science on American culture. Lewis wrote of the medical training, practice and ethical dilemmas facing a physician involved in high-level scientific research.

These books weren’t just original, even revolutionary, creations – they were helping to establish the very idea of modernity, to make sense of the times. Perhaps 1925 is literature’s most important year simply because no other 12-month span features such a dialogue between literature and real life. Certainly that’s the case in terms of how new technologies – the automobile, the cinema – shook up literary form in 1925. John Dos Passos’ Manhattan Transfer introduced the cinematic narrative form to the novel. New York, presented in fragments as if it were a movie montage on the page, is the novel’s collective protagonist, the inhuman industrialised city presented as a flow of images and characters passing at high speed. "Declaration of war… rumble of drums... Commencement of hostilities in a long parade through the empty rain lashed streets,” Dos Passos writes. “Extra, extra, extra. Santa Claus shoots daughter he has tried to attack. Slays Self With Shotgun." Sinclair Lewis called Manhattan Transfer "the vast and blazing dawn we have awaited. It may be the foundation of a whole new school of fiction."

Was 1925 the greatest year in literature? The ultimate proof, 90 years later, is the shape-shifting the novel has undergone, still based on these early inspirations – and the continuing resonance of Nick Adams, Jay Gatsby and Clarissa Dalloway. These characters from a transformative time are still enthralling generations of new readers.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS

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purplesurveys · 4 years ago

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1030

1. What did you do on the last nice weather day? I’m guessing ‘nice’ here universally means sunny and fair, even though that isn’t my weather of choice. But that said, yesterday I just stayed indoors and caught up on rest by binge-watching Friends, which I haven’t done in a while. I also ordered another embroidery kit online since my first kit, which I had mostly used as a trial since I’ve never done one before, has since run out of the given floss.

2. What do you love the most about your work? I work in an agency, so I’m not forced to do PR under just one company which I think would get boring for me pretty quickly. With the nature of my work, it’s fun working with many different brands/companies at one time because I get to be exposed to and learn about different industries, and I’m also challenged to come up with campaigns that would best fit the different groups that we work with which is always fun. Also, PR is a great way to keep up with the trends and always remain hip because I always know about upcoming campaigns or promos before they’re even unveiled to the public, lol.

3. What do you think about what is going on in the world today? I think wealthy people and big corporations are a crucial, if not the main, root of the world’s problems and it’s frustrating that the task of mitigating those issues is always delegated to everyone below them.

4. What is your favorite way to work out? By not doing so, hahaha.

5. What motivates you? I don’t know if anything has been lately. I’ve been taking life slowly and easily these days and I’m allowing myself to just go through the motions as I digest all these big adjustments currently going on in my life. For now I’m not putting any pressure on myself to be motivated to do anything big. I’m still a little overwhelmed with everything as it is.

...where’s #6?

7. What is something people do that drives you crazy? When people need something from you so they message you, but do unnecessary small talk before asking for a favor. The fact that they need my help does not bother me; the fact that they are only talking to me because they need something from me does not bother me. It’s the small talk that irks me. I’ll be ready to help anybody at any time and it doesn’t matter how long it’s been since we’ve spoken – but just go ahead and ask for the damn thing and don’t waste my time trying to sound like you care about what’s going on in my life.

8. What are some things on your bucket list? Go to Wrestlemania, travel with my own funds, have my own place, have kids.

9. What are some of your deal breakers in a relationship? Do I even have any? Gab dropped so many red flags in our relationship that should have been dealbreakers and my dumb, ever-forgiving ass always saw past them. I think the thing with me is that I think I have a list of dealbreakers, but when actually confronted with them I’m too afraid to speak out about it, so I just forgive and forget and eventually they just stop being dealbreakers. I have to work on that.

10. What do you never leave your house without? My top three are phone, keys, wallet. And of course, as a given – a face mask and face shield.

11. What was your most memorable vacation? Sagada and Singapore/Malaysia, since that was my first trip abroad.

12. Do you have any phobias? Needles and fire.

13. What is your favorite ethnic food? Indian, Thai, Indonesian, and Korean. 14. I love Italian/Thai etc. Would you like to go to my favorite place sometime? I love both, though I like Thai a tad bit more. And yessss, I’m always open to anyone’s recommendations so long as it’s got something to do with food.

15. What TV shows have you binged lately? I’ve been rewatching Friends again and I’m in between seasons 5–7, which I believe to be the show’s peak. Currently, I’m several episodes away from the Ross/Elizabeth storyline and Chandler’s proposal.

16. Send me a funny meme that you shared recently. I haven’t been active on social media, so I haven’t seen any new memes lately. I hate missing out.

17. What do you hate about technology? This is more nitpickiness on my end than anything else, but battery power. I hate being constantly cautious over my gadget running out of power or dying on me especially when I’m out. I often find myself wishing for technology to evolve to the point that we won’t need batteries or to charge stuff anymore, which idek if it’s even possible haha.

18. What sites do you find yourself visiting the most? YouTube, by a mile.

19. Do you have any favorite apps? Again, YouTube. I also like going through Reddit at the end of the day.

20. What is the best part of your day? Any point I don’t find myself feeling miserable.

21. What time period would you like to visit the most, if you could time travel? 70′s punk/rock scene, maybe? < Ooh, this is a good one. Also, late 90s Attitude Era-era WWF/E. And whenever Pompeii was around.

22. What scents do you really enjoy? (a certain flower, cut grass, fireplace, perfume) Bakeries, a newly-cleaned hotel room, coffee shops.

23. What is something that you are terrible at? Giving and following directions, drawing, and cooking.

24. What are some favorites on your playlist right now? Because I mentioned The Japanese House on a survey last night, I am ALL over Saw You In A Dream again. Seriously, god-tier. One of my favorites ever. Outside of that, haven’t been listening to music lately because I’m still sad; but I might find myself back on Spotify soon. As much as I haven’t been tuning into music, I do miss it.

25. What comedy movie is your favorite? Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Also, a bit of a garbage choice but White Chicks.

26. Have you ever meditated? No. I don’t think I have the patience/required attention span for it.

27. What is your dream job? I wanted to be in PR. I currently work at an agency which is my dream for now so yay for me achieving that, but like I’ve said before it would be such a dream come true if I can come work for WWE, my dream company, in any capacity. Getting to work for their in-house PR team would be the perfect icing on the cake.

28. What comes to mind when you think of a great moment in your life? Being in a relationship, and how much I miss that feeling. Now that I’ve experienced both singlehood and having an SO, I can definitely decide that I don’t particularly enjoy being by myself.

29. What do you miss the most about college? The independence I learned to gain. My campus was such a freeing environment and it allowed me to grow so much, to wear whatever I want, to join whatever protest or rally was going on, to meet new people, to hear different perspectives from my classmates. I miss being there.

30. Whenever you text it makes me smile! ???

31. What are you planning this weekend? My weekend is nearly over, actually...for the remaining 10 hours and 20 minutes of it, I willllll probably just watch a bunch of wrestling and maybe find something to watch on Netflix just so that I have something interesting to share for the weekly check-in tomorrow with the team.

32. Who is your favorite band? Paramore, but you knew that already.

33. How do you like to spend your free time? If I manage to find a few free minutes while at work, I gobble that shit up by lying in bed and finding a video to watch. On weekends I like doing embroidery, taking surveys, maybe even find a black hole of articles to read on Wikipedia. I’m also looking forward to playing video games once I’ve finally bought the ones I’ve been eyeing to get.

34. What do you like about springtime? I don’t know. I can’t relate, we don’t have that season.

35. Is your personality similar to anyone in your family? I’m most similar with my mom, but I share traits with my dad as well.

36. How have you handled having to stay in? It was sucky at first, but after eight months you kinda get used to it and just make the most out of things you can do only at home.

37. Are you able to work at home? Yeah, we’re all on a WFH set-up right now.

38. How would your friends describe you? The most popular opinion would probably be ‘shy.’

39. Did you ever take a really big risk? Sure.

40. What do you want to be known or remembered for? Anything but negatively.

#survey #surveys

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babbushka · 5 years ago

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Two Doves (4/6)

Drafted into a war he didn’t want to fight, Flip Zimmerman comes home to a country that doesn’t want him. With your help, he works through it all.

Flip Zimmerman x Reader

Word count: 8.3k, warnings: N*FW, violence, graphic description of injury, war, gun violence, mild assault against reader

----------------

I was not a combat soldier, So, I was relatively safe, unless Our helicopter was shot at, unless Our jeep hit a land mine, unless Our base camp was rocketed, unless The enemy breached the perimeter. We were, after all, in a war zone.

-- Unknown

Flip sits in one of the only bases they have, reading a newspaper in a language he doesn’t speak. He’s mostly in it for the distraction, makes up his own crossword as he sips his beer.

He’s in a club, really. What a weird place, he thinks, a club. It’s dark and damp and entirely made of straw, but it’s a club. There’s music playing off a crackling radio, surprisingly good signal for where they are in the middle of nowhere. Flip’s got his feet propped up on the table and the toe of his boots sway back and forth to the rhythm of it. For whatever reason, they’re playing swing music, even though it’s the 70s. Well, just barely, anyway.

The booze flows and the soldiers drink it.

Some of them drink too much.

Some don’t drink at all, and Flip commends them for that. He doesn’t think he could – doesn’t think he would want to get through this thing sober, this war.

He’s not the only one who takes notice of a boy – because really that’s what he is, a boy – stealing a spot at the bar, sidling up and asking only for a coca-cola. They notice and they snicker and they frown, and they conspire.

Flip knows what they’re going to do, and he’s already rolling his eyes, already returning to the newspaper he can’t understand.

“Hey new kid!” One of the older guys shouts, getting the attention of a brand new recruit, fresh-faced bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Flip gives him all of a month before that cheerful nature goes away, is hardened by the reality of war. He hates that he thinks it, but he thinks it nonetheless.

“Yeah?” The boy asks, sounding very much like he’s trying to be nonchalant, and failing.

They all wind up surrounding him, and Flip watches carefully from him spot in the back of the club, watches in case he needs to go break up anything. It’s not that he doesn’t have friends among those people, it’s just that he’s only going to be here for a couple more months, his year coming to an end, and he figures it’s better just to get through it with your head down and try not to get killed.

“What’s your name?” They ask, and the boy puffs his chest out in a way that makes Flip roll his eyes once again.

“Eric Costell.” He tells them, and they laugh.

“Well Cost-ell,” The older guy with a big mustache and a shaved head crosses his arms menacingly, “Looks like you ain’t been informed on the way things work around here.”

“Oh yeah?” Eric asks, “And how do they work?”

Flip has to admit, the kid’s got guts, to talk like that to someone like that. The other men all mumble to themselves in an agreement of Flip’s own assessment, maybe this kid isn’t just another pipsqueak.

“If you want to sit with us, you have to drink with us.” Mr. Mustache says, and Eric falters for a moment.

“I can’t.” He winces, making them all jeer.

“What was that, rookie?” Someone else asks, probably the bartender, Flip doesn’t know.

“’M not old enough to drink.” Eric says like he’s ashamed, and Flip does look up now, does take interest, because that’s not fucking fair.

“But old enough to go to war, ain’t that fuckin’ something?” The bartender sucks his teeth and shakes his head, and all of the men sober up enough to realize just how young this kid is. “None of us is gonna tell on you, so here – drink up.”

Something filled with flames slides across the bar counter, and Eric catches it with ease. He peers into it and Flip knows what’s coming, he knows.

“What is it?” Eric asks, and they just laugh, because of course the kid wouldn’t know.

“That right there is what we call The Devil – straight rum and a little fire. You down all that? You can sit with us.” They say, and bless him, Eric lifts the glass to his lips and chugs.

They all watch, stunned, as Eric downs the last of the rum. Maybe he didn’t know what the hell he was getting himself into, didn’t know so he couldn’t be prepared for the worst, but in the blink of an eye the drink is gone, and Eric is shouting from the burn.

The men all burst into cheers and douse the kid in beer, whistle and clap their hands, an initiation bravely competed.

Sooner than the glass is set back on the bar counter, have the men all broken out into song. Flip watches Eric’s face carefully, watches watches watches as his smile starts to fade when he listens to the words, the morbid lyrics that those men are so blind to now:

“You’re goin’ home in a body bag, doo-dah, doo-dah, you’re goin’ home in a body bag, all the doo-dah day!”

----------------

He savors it, the feeling of you.

A man possessed he can’t help but fuck you with such intensity as this.

He wants to visit the station yes, but first – first he must have his fill of you; he’s so in love, so grateful, so fucking turned on by the way you look, taste, smell feel. He’s in love, and he’s desperate, and you give him everything all the time. You’re giving him everything now.

“I missed this – so much – oh, oh (Y/N).” Flip can’t help but hold you too harshly, grip on you destined to leave bruises in its wake.

You’re an angel underneath him, with the way your wet hair splays across the towel covered pillow.

“Flip please, it’s good – so so good.” You’re moaning, high and loud, and it’s music to his ears, a symphony of sounds made by him, for him.

The undulation of his hips wreck you, and he can feel just how tight you’re clenching around his cock, can feel the spasms of your cunt all around him as he makes you come, as your mouth drops into a perfect O, as you cling to him as your orgasm ripples through you.

Behind your eyelids are dancing stars, they rattle and shake with the force of his thrusts. He presses kiss after kiss in between your tits, licks at the sweat that’s collected there, and he comes, not soon after. He lets his arms give out just a little so he comes crashing down on top of you, sandwiching your body between his chest and the mattress.

This really beat jacking off all by himself in the middle of the night, that was for fucking sure, he thought with a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” You ask with a grin, cracking an eye and craning your face up towards him.

You loop your arms around his neck and he rolls you both over, trying his best to stay inside you, to keep you filled for as long as he can get away with.

“I feel drunk.” He replies, because he does, and he laughs again.

It feels good to laugh, he thinks, even if it’s because he’s out of it. Everything is hazy and warm, floaty.

“Oh really, all because of me?” You muse, wiggling your hips and making him groan at the feeling.

“Yeah, you and this pussy.” He bites at your throat as he pushes his cock further into you in a half-hearted thrust, really too tired to do much more than be silly, cock starting to go soft. You moan and gasp anyway, and it makes Flip smile.

“Are you sure you want to go in today? We can always go tomorrow.” You try being cheeky, but Flip shakes his head, much to your mock disappointment.

“No, I want to get it over with. The sooner I see everyone and let them know I’m back, the better.” He pulls out of you and you wince, feeling his come slide out of you. You’d talk to him about that later, he knew. But you look so beautiful that he can’t help it, feels entirely completely whole when he’s lying next to you like this, with the bright sunshine of late morning making the room warm and buttery. “Besides, then we won’t have to worry about them coming ‘round and interrupting.”

You nod, and flop over onto your back, chest heaving just a bit. Flip reaches over and grabs his towel from the shower, and wipes you both down, takes extra extra care to be gentle with you in a way that has your stomach fluttering from the touch.

He forgets sometimes, that while he’s been away and all alone, so too have you.

You may not have been in constant peril, but there was something almost as dangerous as the loneliness that he can tell has seeped into your bones, the way you’ve become touch-starved. He has two years to make up for it, because he knows – he knows – that you haven’t gotten affection like this from anyone in his absence. He knows that you wouldn’t have wanted it from anyone else, but him.

Now he’s home, and he has you now, can hold you close and press kisses all over you and can fuck you and laugh with you and and and, but the damage is still there.

You turn over to face him once you’re both clean, reach out and tuck some of his still-damp hair behind his exposed ear as he faces you too.

“They’ve missed you, they really have.” You say, meaning the boys down at the station, and that fills him with a strange sort of relief.

“Jimmy take good care of you like I asked?” He asks lowly, twining his fingers with yours, the two of you just holding hands and comparing the lengths of your fingers lazily.

“You bet.” You reply, chuckling to yourself a little. Flip wants to ask what that little laugh means, wants to hear the stories that you’re bound to have, but you continue, “And Harry and Bridges. You know even Landers offered his help?”

“No way.” Flip’s eyebrows raise in disbelief, but you nod as if to say, I know, right?

“Way,” You laugh, “I spent a lot of time at the station but, after a while…”

The laugh trails away, and he remembers one of your tapes, the way you said seeing his empty desk has become too painful. He can’t imagine it, he can’t. At least in ‘Nam there were no reminders of you. Here, there were reminders of him everywhere.

He’s amazed at your strength, at your ability to not go crazy. He would have.

“I know.” He says, brings your hand up to his lips to kiss the knuckles there, press them to his cheek. “I’m home now.”

“Yeah you are.” You grin, all trace of sadness forgotten in the novelty of having him close once more, smiling as you straddle him to wrestle, “If you ever leave me like that again I’m gonna kill you!”

“Good, no one else is allowed to.” Flip is laughing, and you’re laughing, and for a minute things feel like they’re going to be okay.

----------------

They’re headed off somewhere, god knows where, He doesn’t ask too many questions anymore. He wonders how long until he can hear from you again, wonders when the next mail drop is going to be. He’s starting to crave your voice.

You were so fucking smart, to think of the idea for the tapes. He had cried the first time you sent them, cried when he heard you talking about everything and nothing, just talking. He wished he could talk back to you in real time, wished he could call you, hear you laugh.

He missed your laugh, desperately.

They’re walking through the jungle, soft calls of birds and chirp of insects the only noise for miles. The team before them came through and cleared everything out, killed all the enemies, so there was little to fear for in that particular moment.

Flip was glad for moments like those, it gave him some time to think.

“Hi.” A voice asked, interrupting his thoughts. “Can I walk with you?”

Flip turned to see the face of young Eric, who was smiling at him despite the gap in his teeth. Strangely, Flip thought that was brave, insecure about his own set of pearly whites.

Eric was waiting expectantly for an answer, and Flip found himself nodding, for whatever reason.

“Sure thing.” He replies, and the boy sticks his hand out for a shake, like he must’ve seen his father do once upon a time.

“I’m Eric.” He offers, and Flip takes it, shuffles his gun onto his other arm to do so.

“Flip, good to meet you.” Flip returns the introduction, sets his eyes back to the path in front of them as their platoon walks and walks and walks.

“It’s great to meet you too! I was talking to some of the other guys and they all say you’re a real great shot.” Eric beams, and Flip finds it flattering, if a little sad.

“Yeah, expert.” He says, points his index finger out like a pistol and clicks the trigger of his thumb. It makes the kid laugh.

“No shit?” He shakes his head, “That’s crazy. I’ve never shot anything before now, had to learn just for this.”

Flip’s eyebrows shoot up, and something parental and protective inside him flares up. He changes his mind, he gives the kid a month before he’s dead.

“Really?” Flip asks, because he just has to know, “Where are you from?”

“Colorado.” The boy replies sheepishly, like he’s been scolded, and Flip thinks if he gets one more surprising piece of information he’s going to have to wake up, because life isn’t as coincidental as this.

“No fuckin’ kidding, Colorado Springs.” He says, and Eric laughs once again.

“Aurora!” He says, and damn, he could throw a skipping stone and probably hit Eric’s house.

Well, maybe not, but still.

Flip wishes he had a cigarette.

They keep walking.

“Oh well that makes sense, city boy.” Flip can’t help but tease, and Eric sighs dramatically. Flip has half a mind to tell him to keep quiet, that there could be people listening, waiting, watching.

But they step over dead bodies of fallen enemies on their path, and Flip thinks better of it.

“That’s what they all keep saying.” Eric replies, before chuffing up like some big shot, “But I think I proved them wrong with The Devil.”

“Yeah I saw that.” Flip mutters, and Eric’s expression falls at the response, “Hey, just so you know, you don’t have to do everything they tell you to.”

Eric nods, lets out a small smile.

“I know, but I wanted to fit in. I know what these kind of guys are like.” He says with enough wisdom in his voice that Flip has to wonder what he was doing here and not in college, “You been here long?”

“Only a couple months, but this is my second tour.” Flip explains, felt the need to explain himself to this kid.

He didn’t know, there was just something about him.

Eric’s eyebrows shot up, and for the first time he looked truly surprised.

“You came back?” He asks incredulously, making Flip shrug one shoulder.

“Not my choice.” He responds, and Erics nods.

“I didn’t think it was any of our choice.” He says.

They keep walking.

----------------

It takes all of three seconds for people to start recognizing him, when you and Flip enter the station.

He barely has any time to soak in the atmosphere, the familiarity of the ringing phones and garbled voices on the walkie-talkies all overlapping, before someone lets out an excited shout.

“Detective Zimmerman!” Phyllis, the secretary near the lobby drops her coffee in her excitement to rush over to the two of you, wasting no time to wrap her short arms around his wide middle.

Her declaration of his return has the entire station practically swarming, a big crowd of beat cops and detectives alike, all shaking his hand or patting him on the back, cheering and whistling, applause just for him.

He doesn’t deserve it, doesn’t deserve their applause, but he doesn’t have a chance to tell them that.

“Is that Flip?” He hears someone ask, and just like yours, he’d recognize that voice anywhere when it calls out an excited, “Flip!”

“Jimmy!” Flip finds himself laughing as his best friend, lifelong best friend Jimmy Creek, cuts through the crowd, jumps onto him with happy tears.

“No fucking way!” Jimmy is beaming, shouting and hollering and laughing, and Flip won’t let go, not even as they shake and smack each other’s sides, “No! Fucking! Way!”

Flip’s cheeks hurt by the time he finally puts his friend down, the two of them clasping each other’s shoulders and circling one another like two eager puppies who haven’t seen each other in a long time.

“You let your hair grow!”

“You got massive, were you always this big?”

“Copying my goatee I see.”

“Well someone had to step up to fill your big shoes.”

They went back and forth until Flip’s cheeks started to hurt from smiling, until everything quieted down enough for Landers, Flip’s rival, arch enemy for all intents and purposes, to stick his hand out in a sincere greeting.

“I’ll be fuckin’ damned, welcome home Zimmerman.” He says, and Flip doesn’t waste any time shaking it, putting all the past troubles behind him.

He’s realized that arch enemies really aren’t that serious, in the grand scheme of life. Not really.

“It’s good to be home.” Flip replies, and you’re getting all choked up again just from the sight, just from seeing him here surrounded by people who love him, people who care about him.

He holds your hand in his own as the old ladies in the station kiss your cheek and congratulate you for his return, as Phyllis reaches up and tugs on his ear.

“You had us worried sick you piece of shit.” She scowls entirely playfully, and Flip waves her off with a big grin.

“Who’re you calling a piece of shit you old hag?” He shoots back, and she just laughs and laughs gives him one more squeeze just because she can, just because they all can now that he’s home.

The crowd parts like the red sea and everyone goes quiet. Flip turns to look at what’s caused the disturbance, when he sees a familiar head of salt and pepper hair.

“What’s going on here?” Bridges demands, voice booming, imposing.

Flip suddenly feels like he’s fucked up a case, is about to be scolded.

“Chief I – ” He starts, but Bridges holds a hand up and gives him a stern look.

“You better get over here right now…and give me a hug.” He orders, and really, who is Flip to disobey?

He would never admit it, not in a million years, but Bridges had always felt like a father to Flip, and that hug means more to him than he could probably articulate.

“Hey chief.” Flip whispers, as he and Bridges pat one another on the back, a strong embrace.

“Welcome home Phil.” Bridges pulls back and looks him in the eye, gives his shoulder a healthy shake, “We’re glad you made it back in one piece.”

“Yeah you and me both.” Flip laughs, and the whole station laughs too, and you’re just right by his side crying enough to make everyone get misty-eyed, everyone who isn’t already in tears that is.

“You must just be thrilled.” Jimmy says, nudging you with his elbow, and you nod with a wet smile, glancing up at your man.

“Oh you know I am – I tried convincing him to hold off until tomorrow so I could have him all to myself a little while longer.” You wink, and another round of whistles and cheers erupt.

“I don’t blame you, it was a long two years.” Bridges nods understandingly.

“Yeah you’re telling me.” Flip says, and makes sure to look at everyone as he pulls you close to him, “Thank you, you guys, this was a really warm welcome.”

There’s another round of applause again, and people go back to their lives, back to their work. How funny, he thinks, that this was the greatest interruption of their day, probably of their week? He almost envies them for how they can go right back to it, right back to their desks.

Flip looks at you and looks at Bridges and Jimmy and the station and he doesn’t even think about it when he says,

“I was wondering when I’m expected back at work.”

You frown, they all frown, like he’s said something wrong.

“Flip you just got back.” You want more time – no, need more time, with him.

When he had gone to war the first time he took off an entire month before he went back to the station, and that hadn’t been nearly as intense as this deployment, not nearly as harrowing. The last time he had stayed with you and you’d spent all your time in the garden or the bedroom or the mountains.

He saw the worry in your eyes, that he maybe didn’t want to be with you, that he wanted to run right back to the station and leave those sun drenched kisses behind, but that was far from it. He just wanted some semblance of a normal routine again, that was all. He wishes he knew how to explain that with just a squeeze of his hand in your own.

He tries anyway.

“No I know, I know.” He says, and he looks at you and you get it, somehow you get it, “I just meant when is standard?”

“Whenever you want. Just give us a week heads-up, and it’ll be like nothing ever happened.” Bridges trails off, scratches the back of his neck, “Unless…”

“Unless what?” Flip frowns, they haven’t replaced him, have they?

Bridges looks at you and nod just the slightest bit, and Flip wants to know what’s going on.

“You’re okay to handle guns and all that still?” Bridges asks and Flip almost wants to sigh of relief.

“Guns have never been the issue.” Flip reassures him.

“Good to know.” Bridges says with as much of a smile as Flip is ever going to get out of him. “Just because you know, we hear stories sometimes, soldiers coming back, going beserk. Gunfire sets them off, makes them crazy.”

“Nah you don’t have to worry about that with me, promise.” Flip replies, and all the weird tension evaporates.

Jimmy elbows his way back into the conversation and you smile as you watch how excited he is to talk to Flip, finally talk to him after all this time.

“Jesus we really missed you you know? Basketball’s not the same – the fuckin’ firefighters beat us last year and they are so damn smug about it.” Jimmy rolls his eyes but Flip isn’t really paying attention.

“Hey, where is everyone?” He asks, and everyone goes real quiet.

With the excitement of the day died down, Flip can tell there’s not nearly as many people as there normally are in the station. Too many empty desks and not nearly enough people roaming around. You, Jimmy, and Bridges all look at one another, as if to silently determine who is going to speak first.

“Big protest downtown, the city’s asked us to keep cops stationed. You know, just in case things get out of hand.” Bridges says, and you immediately sigh in frustration.

“I don’t like it.” You say right away with a shake of your head, and Flip frowns.

“Protest for what?” He asks, looking at you.

He always looks at you.

“The war.” You reply simply, and he’s stunned.

“What, still?” There had been protests going on and on about the war since the turn of the decade, he thought that everyone had said all that they needed to say already.

“There’s some sort of debate going on, for the presidency. People have shown up to use the opportunity to talk about the war, you know, demonstrate.” You explained, and ah, he thinks, that would explain it.

“People aren’t happy. They’re really not happy, Flip.” Jimmy sighs and you’re practically simmering.

“I don’t think the cops should be there, with the tensions as they are I don’t think it’s a good idea and I’ve told Bridges that.” You say, the only person who could ever really get away with telling the chief of police what to do.

“Can we go down there?” Flip asks, and you cast your gaze down, and Flip wonders what the hell he missed, while he was gone.

“They’re not very kind, to the vets.” You whisper, and he has to pinch your chin between his fingers, has to bring it back up to meet his eyes. “I don’t want you to get upset.”

“I’m just curious.” He says, leans down to kiss you softly, “Please?”

He wants to know the state of the world, wants to know what’s going on. He was gone for so long, he has so much catching up to do, he wants to know.

You have pain in your eyes, and Flip wants to know why.

----------------

“Say, what are you listening to?” Eric asks one evening, a month or so into them being friends.

Because that’s what they’ve become, somehow. Somehow through all of it, they’ve become pretty good friends.

It’s dark outside, and they’re all awake still, huddled by a very small fire, small enough that no one would see it, if they were looking. Flip’s got his headphones on, got the volume turned just loud enough that he can hear, but not too loud so that he can’t hear if something goes on around him.

He immediately clicks the play/pause button on the player, now that Eric’s here.

“Tapes, my wife sends them to me.” Flip holds up the cassette player, and Eric lights a cigarette from the flames of the small fire.

“What like music?” He asks, offers one to Flip.

Flip has never been more grateful for a light in a long long time.

He takes a drag and for the first time in months, his lungs are flooded with the all too familiar taste of nicotine and tar, and when he exhales it’s with a relief he hasn’t felt in ages.

“Yeah, and just her talking. She tells me about stuff going on at home, keeps me up to date with everything I’m missing.” He says, and he almost has half a mind to let him listen, but he decides not to. He’s protective, of you, of your voice. It’s the one thing he has sacred, and he doesn’t want to give it away just yet.

Maybe another day, maybe he’ll play the tapes that have the music, or the books that you read – but this one he wants to keep just for himself.

He thinks he sees a shooting star flit across the night sky.

“Do you miss her?” Eric asks, and for the first time since he left, Flip feels the tight sting of tears in his eyes.

“Like hell, kid.” He whispers, voice cracking just a little, “Like hell.”

Flip and Eric lay down, lay staring up at the stars in the night sky, and Flip looks for another one, makes a wish on it.

He wishes you’re okay, you’re safe.

“Do you got a picture of her?” Eric asks, and Flip is eager to show you off.

He fishes around in his jacket and pulls out the pocket watch that had been passed down to him, clicks it open and reveals the image of you.

“Yeah, that’s her,” Flip whispers, lets his finger trace the curve of your cheek, “That’s my (Y/N).”

Eric studies you for a moment, and when he looks up at Flip it’s with great admiration in his eyes.

“She’s really pretty.” He says, and Flip chuckles wetly.

“Yeah, she is. Don’t know why she married this ugly mug.” He teases, just trying to lift his own spirits.

Eric knows, and he laughs too, punches Flip lightly on the arm.

“Guess she must really love you, huh?” He grins, sticks the cigarette in the gap of his teeth.

“Yeah, she does.” Flip says softly as he carefully closes the watch, presses it against his chest, right over his heart. “Do you have anyone back home that you miss?”

Eric is silent for a moment, watching the stars. Flip wonders what he wishes for, when another one streaks across the inky black expanse of space.

“No, not really. Just my mama.” Eric says softly, “But I don’t think that counts.”

“Of course it counts. Never underestimate the love of your ma.” Flip shakes his head, “She send you letters?”

“Yeah, and my friends back home do too, but it isn’t the same as a wife.” Eric says, and well, Flip isn’t going to say he’s wrong.

“Nothing’s the same as that.” He agrees, the two of them smoking in companionable silence.

After a while, Flip thinks Eric’s fallen asleep, from the silence, from the way he breathes. Flip lets his own eyes close, lets himself just listen to the crackling sound of the fire, before he knows it’ll have to be put out. Someone is awake as a lookout, he knows, but it’s still too risky with them in the jungle like this.

It’s all too risky.

“What’s she like?” Eric asks, but Flip isn’t paying that close attention.

“Hm?” He asks, opening his eyes again.

“Your wife, what’s she like?” Eric asks again, and Flip hums to himself.

“You know how sometimes in your dreams you feel like you can do anything, be anything? How you’re flying high above the world and everything seems so small below you, like you’re walking on the clouds and there’s nothing but light and warmth and happiness? How everything just kind of feels good, and you’re laughing but you don’t know why?”

“Uh huh.” Eric says, real soft.

“She’s like that.” Flip says, even softer.

Above them, another star shoots by.

----------------

You and Flip depart in the truck after saying goodbye to your friends, and are quiet on the drive downtown.

He parks the truck on a side street somewhere, and though you’re nowhere near the park where the big protest is being held, you’re already in the midst of the demonstration. There is a great parade of people going down main street, cars and bikes and pedestrians alike, all marching in time.

He helps you out of the truck and shuts the door behind you, grateful for the anonymity of the baseball cap he keeps on the dash, grateful for your closeness. There are some men in the familiar uniforms of a soldier who had just come back.

Some have their sleeves pinned back where their arms had been blown off, others are pushed in wheelchairs, legs rendered useless by bombs or gunshots or disease. Some are cleanshaven, some are scruffy, some still have bandages wrapped around their face, disfigured and torn to pieces. Flip feels his stomach sink, as he looks at them, looks at the wounds they carry. He is painfully aware of how lucky he is, painfully aware of how he came out of that war unscathed.

Did he? He wonders, did he really?

Better than those men, that’s for sure. Better than those who didn’t come out of it at all.

And as Flip walks with his arm tightly wound around your waist, walks through the sea of angry signs and chanting voices, walks up and down the streets lined with hatred and disdain, one thing is made immensely clear: there would be no parades for men like him.

No banners to be waved, no cheering or applause to greet him, no champagne kisses or confetti like they had showered his father before him. He sees the pain and anger in their eyes, hears the insults they spray like acid, feels the movement in the Earth as feet stomp in time to songs of supposed peace – all while jeering and spitting at the men who just wanted to return home to their wives and mothers, men too young to have done any different, men too tired to stop them now.

He thinks of his uniform, wrinkled and discarded still on the floor of your bedroom, and wonders if he had worn it today, would there be rocks raining down on his head just as hard as those bullets had been?

The answer is yes, Flip finds. And while that cruel reality is one he now must live with, somehow, the look on your face breaks his heart more than anything else.

“Are you okay?” He asks, and you think that’s an absurd thing to ask, in the moment, how he can be so concerned with you, when it’s him they hate.

“It’s hard hearing them say all this awful shit.” You reply softly, and Flip doesn’t have a moment to reply when you whip your head around to the sound of sneakers and heels on pavement, rumble of the earth for an entire different reason, “Why are people running? Ow – hey!”

Someone runs right in between the two of you, and Flip loses his hold on your waist, watches as you get knocked down to the ground.

It’s like a dam has broken, and now all the people who had been walking in one direction are stampeding in the other, towards the two of you, splitting you up.

“(Y/N)!” Flip shouts, because he’s lost sight of you, can’t see your face anymore.

“Flip!” You scream, frantic, but he can’t see you – he can’t see you and he feels the cold familiar dread of terror grip his chest as he spins around and around, desperately seeking you.

But you’re not there, and Flip is caught in a sea of people, can’t see you, can’t hear your voice, and his breathing is out of control, too fast, too heavy, he can feel people pushing and shoving him, and he has to run along with them because he knows, he knows if he stands still he’ll be run over, and then he won’t have a chance of finding you at all.

----------------

Ash, dust, smoke. Fire. There’s so much fire.

He doesn’t know where he is, he’s scrambling, trying to find something sturdy he can lean up against. He trips over something, and crashes hard to the ground, his gun scattering away from him. Fuck fuck fuck, he reaches for it, manages to grab just the strap of it, manages to get back up until something – someone grabs his ankle.

He’s about to shake it off when he hears a cough, a horrible trembling cough.

“Flip!” It’s Eric, and he’s crying, on the verge of screaming, “Flip, please help!”

It’s too dangerous for them to be there, in the middle of the village as bullets and bombs rain down on the straw huts, as the enemy has caught up to them, as they’re killing everything in sight. It’s too dangerous for Flip to crouch down and hold this child, but that’s what he does.

“Hey, calm down, you have to calm down.” Flip says, trying to figure out what’s wrong, reaching for Eric’s hands – until he realizes.

He tries not to retch as his fist closes around the bloody end of a wrist.

Eric is shaking, convulsing, and Flip doesn’t know what to do.

“I don’t want to die, please don’t let me die.” He moans, cries out in pain, face covered in snot and tears and blood and dirt and and and.

Flip does the only thing he knows, picks the kid up and carries him somewhere safe, searches for somewhere safe. Eric’s too out of it to notice, to notice Flip running running running with him in his arms.

“You’re going to be okay, I promise – Eric! I promise.” He says, not sure if he’s telling the truth, not sure if this kid is going to make it. He tells him anyway, because the last thing he’ll do is let this kid give up hope.

He’d be damned, if he let this kid give up.

“Okay okay okay.” Eric chants, and Flip’s breathing in too much smoke, has to get low, they have to get low or else they’re both going to die.

He kicks the door of one of the small houses down, finds it blissfully empty, lays Eric down who immediately goes to cradle his wrist. Flip’s never seen that much blood, and he panics even though he tries not to let it show.

“How did this happen?” Flip asks, searching for something, anything in his bags, searching for his first aid kit.

“I don’t – I don’t know.” Eric cries and cries, and Flip nods, tries to keep steady as he finds some gauze.

It’s not going to be enough, but it’s all he has, all they both have.

“You’ll be okay, just need to stop the bleeding” Flip talks him through it, talks and talks and talks because this kid is closing his eyes and he knows that if Eric closes his eyes, they’re not going to open again. “Hey – look at me, you have to stay awake okay?” He snaps his fingers, and Eric nods.

“Tell my mama I love her, if I die, you have to promise to tell my mama.” He cries, grabs Flip’s hand with his own. “Promise me.”

Flip stares at him hard, covers Eric’s hand with his other, gives it a bloody squeeze.

“You’re not going to die.” Flip says resolutely, like it’s fact, like it’s final, like he has any say in the matter.

The gauze isn’t enough, so he takes off his shirt, rips a long strip from the hem and wraps wraps wraps this kid’s wrist. They’re both sweating all over, sweating and covered in filth, but they can’t stay there forever.

“We need a fucking medic!” Flip shouts, screams, before hoisting Eric over his shoulder like he were some great fireman, before going back out into the fray.

Outside the flames roar up and Flip has to go back out there to shoot, but he can’t leave him, can’t leave Eric behind.

He won’t leave anyone behind.

----------------

Things happen in slow motion – or maybe that’s just you. Maybe you hit your head when you fell, maybe the world isn’t spinning at all, maybe it’s just you.

You scream for him, shout his name again and again, but it doesn’t do any good. There are too many other screams – how the fuck did it go so south so fast? You knew you didn’t want the cops there, you knew it would be a bad idea, but with tear gas in the air your eyes are stinging and you can’t see anyone, can’t see anything.

Your heart is beating too quickly, so quickly you’re almost afraid of a heart attack, terrified of dying without Flip. You’re so fucking scared in fact, that you don’t even realize it when you bump into someone, and you’re immediately apologizing before you can even register who it is.

She’s beautiful, young. Her hair is in a big afro and she wears a black leatherjacket, even though it’s the middle of summer. Her round glasses have a splattering of blood on them, from where she’s been knocked in the head, presumably by a cop.

“Are you alright?” You ask immediately, and the girl is so surprised that you asked, that she takes a moment to respond.

“Yes – yeah I’m okay.” She says, but you’re already fishing around in your purse for a handkerchief, a tissue, anything to offer her.

“You’re bleeding, here, please take this.” You tell her as you press a small square of cotton into her shaking palms, as you strain through the foggy air to search for someone who could help. “I don’t know where the paramedics are.”

“It’s okay, I’ve had worse.” The girl waves you off, but you shake your head.

“That doesn’t make it okay.” You refuse the handkerchief when she tries to give it back, “No, you keep it, I’ve lost my husband, I have to find him.”

“Good luck.” The girl says, and for a minute, you want to ask her her name, want to see if maybe she needs help finding someone too, but then she’s gone, running away.

“Thanks.” You say softly to yourself, before trying to think about where to even begin.

There’s nothing, nothing but the sounds of sirens and chanting, screaming as the protest turns more and more violent. All you can think about is your husband, where Flip is, if he’s okay, if he’s safe. Your feet carry you deeper and deeper into the streets, into the park, soft green grass crunching under your shoes.

“Hell no, we won’t go! Hell no, we won’t go!” Rings out through megaphones in a discordant amalgamation of sounds, a delay from not being properly in time.

You had to give it to the protesters, they never quit, not even when their knees were being taken out by police batons, not when they were pepper sprayed or hauled into the back of cars with flashing lights.

“Oh shit, oh shit – Flip!” You think you see him, think you see his baseball cap, and you run to him, run with open arms and a strong wave of relief floods through you when you grab his elbow, “Fuck – Flip!!”

“Are you lost?” The man asks, entirely too pleased to see you, and you realize very quickly he is not your man, not Flip at all, and you start to grow hysteric.

Where is he where is he where is he?

“Oh I’m sorry – I’m – I thought you were someone else.” You’re already trying to leave, but the man grips your elbow, yanks you back.

“Come on why don’t you come with me, huh?” He asks, and you can smell booze on his breath, even though it’s the middle of the day, even though there’s chaos all around.

“No no no please, let me go – ” You manage to wrestle out of his grip but only get a few steps before he’s grabbing the back of your shirt, and you punch him in the gut on instinct.

“Hell no, we won’t go! Hell no, we won’t go!” They keep chanting and chanting and you can almost feel yourself losing your mind, can feel the words in your brain, until this stranger backhands you across the face for hitting him, sends you stumbling down to the ground.

You’re in shock, and you’re about to scream when out of nowhere someone else’s fists are flying, knocking this stranger back and away, and you quickly stand up so you don’t get trampled in the chaos.

“Don’t you fucking touch her.” Flip has snapped, is beating the shit out of this guy, this random man who managed to split the corner of your mouth with the way he hit you, must have worn a ring or something to manage it.

“Flip!” You cry out in relief, try to pull your husband off of this man, not wanting him to get hurt. Now that you’ve found him, all that you want is to leave, all that you want is to go back home.

“I’ll kill you, I’ll fucking kill you for what you just did to her.” Flip’s screaming, red in the face and spitting, and not letting up, not stopping as his fists beat beat beat this man’s face into oblivion.

“Flip please – please let’s just go home.” You’re begging, but you can’t snap him out of it, you can’t.

You notice you’re close enough to the street to see news vans, more and more cops, more guns and cans of gas and you’re panicking in earnest now, now the chants have changed, now everyone has turned their attention to the

“The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!” The protesters stick their middle fingers up, they sneer, they chant and yell and shout and laugh and scream and all your panic comes to a tipping point when you see the great green machines slowly make their way through the tear gas.

“Flip there are tanks, we have to go.” You say, and that gets through to him, that for whatever reason makes him drop this stranger, and with bloodied hands he takes yours gently, leads you through the crowd.

Wasn’t this supposed to have just been a peaceful protest? When did it become a riot? You don’t know, can’t tell, don’t care. You don’t care. All you want is to go home, to go back to your safe bedroom with your husband, with Flip.

He’s leading you expertly through the crowd and the park, until you’re at the edge of the tear gas, until you can breathe properly without coughing. It’s much less chaotic here, where it’s clear, where you can see. Flip is checking you frantically, trying to stop the bleeding on your lip, crushing you to him and holding you tight. You can’t imagine how he must be feeling, being separated from you like that.

You thank every one of your lucky stars that he found you.

“You’re okay , you’re okay, okay we’re going, I’m sorry – I’m sorry.” Flip just keeps apologizing, and you cup his face in your hands, kiss him deeply, so deeply, kiss him as people are being beaten and ruined not one hundred feet away.

You find you don’t care about them, still too shaken from being torn apart.

“It’s okay, let’s just get out of here.” You say, and Flip nods, leads you to the car.

He always had such a good sense of direction, your man.

You hold hands the entire ride back to the house, back to the nice manicured lawns of your neighborhood, beautiful houses silently existing together and yet with enough property between them that they can exist apart too.

It was a moment like that, that really made you appreciate the beauty of your home. Flip had bought it for the two of you to live in ages ago, and had transformed it from a bit of a shabby dwelling into a gorgeous house – into a home. It wasn’t lost on you that this was the first time the both of you pulled up to the house together in years.

Hand-laid brick in variegated shades of grey complimented the light grey tiles of the roof, which sat atop a beautiful cream colored second story with mustard colored trimmings and front door. You smiled at the little porch that Flip had built with Jimmy one summer, smiled at the green green green lawn that Flip used to always cut, smiled at the full trees that let sunlight dapple on the both of you as you walked up to the house.

How strange, to think of the events of the day, to think of the events of the past forty-eight hours, while unlocking the screen and front door.

“Oh! Hold on, I need to check the mail.” You kiss Flip on the cheek, going back to the mailbox at the edge of the street. There’s not much, just the newspaper and a couple timely bills, but you frown slightly when there’s a small handwritten letter addressed to Flip. He hadn’t gotten any mail in quite some time, being away and all.

“Everything okay?” He asks, exhausted.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. There’s just something here for you.” You reply, trying to read the return address, only there isn’t one, but the stamp is from Colorado, so you figure it must be from someone you know.

Flip is waving you over, and you go right back to him, stepping through the threshold and letting out a big sigh of relief in the foyer. You try handing him the letter but he shakes his head, puts the stack of mail on the table by the entryway and simply holds you to him.

“I’ll look at it later,” He says, burying his face into your neck, cradling the back of your head, “You were right, we shouldn’t have gone.” He muffles into your skin, and you just sigh, hold him too.

“There’s no way you could have known it would turn out like this.” You whisper, your fingers curling in the hair at the base of his neck, hating the way he shakes.

“I feel sick,” He starts, all choked up, throat tight and you’re immediately soothing him, immediately kissing his cheek, trying to calm him as he hiccups, “For putting you in danger like that.”

“Hey, look at me.” You say, firmly but not unkindly. “You found me. You’ll always find me.”

Flip nods, but he still cries, and you let him. Sometimes people just need to cry.

You think if anyone needs to, it’s Flip.

“Let me make you lunch?” You whisper, wanting to at the very least give him something small to smile about.

It works, and soon he’s chuckling, just at the absurdity of the day, at the rollercoaster of the day. It’s not even two p.m., he realizes as he checks the grandfather clock against the wall.

How can it only be barely two o’clock?

“Okay, yeah, lunch. Lunch is good.” He admits, as his stomach growls, not used to being able to eat whenever he wants, after two years of closely rationed meals.

“That’s what I thought.” You beam, kissing him once more before walking into the kitchen with a, “And no you are not allowed to help.”

And in the kitchen the two of you feed each other bites of muffins and cake, enjoy salads and sandwiches and glasses of juice, and you keep the tv and the radio off, content to live in your own little bubble, at least for a while.

At the very least, for a while.

----------------

Tagging some friends! As always, if you’d like to be added or removed, please just let me know :) @dreamboatdriver @kylo-renne @callmehopeless @kyloxfem @formerly-anonhamster @thepilotanon @solotriplets @fullofbees @spinebarrel @bourbonboredom @driverficarchive @rosalynbair @redhairedfeistynerd @glitzescape @adamsnacc-kler @ladygrey03 @venusianmaiden marvelous-blog-221 @edwardseyelashes @softcrybabykid @tinyplanet-explorers

#reader insert #flip zimmerman x reader #flip x reader #my writing #two doves #blackkklansman

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theladylovingcrow · 5 years ago

Text

New Places, Friendly Faces (Sanny) Pt 1

Author (As known on Various sites): Lady Lover- Rockfic, Luluthechoosingcrow - AO3, theladylovingcrow - Deviantart and Wattpad, @sammy_bluebells - Instagram, @imacrowcawcaw - main Tumblr, @theladylovingcrow - writing/art Tumblr, @insannywestan - Sanny shipping Tumblr

Fandom: Greta Van Fleet

Pairing: Sam Kiszka/Danny Wagner (Sanny), lil bit of Danny/Ronnie but he's quickly swept away with Sam

Length: about 2k

Warnings/Tags: Alternate Universe, Diner AU, No band AU, fluff, some angst, awkwardness, first dates, you know the ones where person A's date is failing and person B comes and sits with them, sorry i forgot what its called but that, hand holding, flirting, Sanny

Summary: Danny was nervous; he had been building up the courage for *weeks* to arrange a date, and now.... He wasn't quite sure what to think of the situation he found himself in. The night certainly wasn't going as he had expected it to - and his emotions had never ridden a roller coaster this fast. Hell, the beautiful angel holding his hand wasn't even the one he had arranged to meet 2 hours ago.

Author's Notes: I don't know what inspired me to do this but I'm very very happy with how it's turning out (and I've never written a longer-ish multi chapter story before, so this is interesting!) I would hate for Danny to not know the Kiszkas growing up, but hey I think I made their first meeting pretty damn cute!

Also, just FYI this is set roughly in late January of whatever year, so the twins are supposed to be 20, Ronnie is 18 I think, Danny just turned 18, and Sam is 17 (I think I did all the math right but idk) HOWEVER it wasn't until I finished that I realized I absolutely did not make their appearances congruent with what they would have looked like then.... Sam and Danny look like 2018 ish but the twins also look like their high school selves :( Idk sorry

Also, because Sam is 17, this will not be posted on Rockfic and will be marked as underage, though I'm not planning for it to get dirty

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Danny had been taping his foot for the past fifteen minutes.

He usually didn't do that, it wasn't his nervous tick of non-choice, but Michelle hadn't showed up yet, and it was nearing eight.

Checking his watch, Danny watched the hand tick to 7:58 and then looked up, peering around the restaurant he was in.

Diner, he corrected himself. It was a homey, 1960's American diner, a little more exposed timbers and bear carvings than checkered tiles and jukeboxes, but that's what you got in Michigan. The building was low and sturdy, a log structure with a river rock chimney over the grills in back. Every single wall was decorated with various signed pictures of celebrities that had passed through, local newspaper articles about Gerald and Fern's Homestyle Grill, old handsaws, vintage pop signs, and a million other trinkets and posters chosen by the owners (Gerald and Fern, he assumed, though they'd probably passed on considering how old the place looked to be).

It was a nice restaurant, Danny thought; the atmosphere was welcoming and calm despite the occasional clamor from the kitchen, and the decor was very interesting to look at. Plus, the waitress that had directed him to a window booth and brought him some water was just gorgeous.

'Don't think that! You're on a date, idiot' Danny scolded himself, shaking his head. Well, he was technically waiting for the date to start, seeing as she hadn't showed up yet. But, he still shouldn't be admiring another girl like that when his wasn't there - that would just make him an asshole.

But maybe Michelle was a little bit of an asshole because she said she'd meet him at 7 o'clock and it was now 8:06- 'Stop. It.' Danny scolded himself again, mentally smacking himself upside the head.

'Didn't your mother ever tell you to assume the best of people?' One voice asked.

'Of course!' Another Danny answered.

'Well, then, she probably got stuck in traffic, or her dog threw up in her car, or she hit a bad pothole, or her mom made her go to the store, or-'

'Okay, I get it! She probably doesn't mean to be so late,' Danny conceded, concluding the conversation he was having with himself. Maybe the waitress was right and he had been sitting there by himself for a little too long.

Of course, being the nice girl she was, the waitress - Ronnie her name was Ronnie - had stopped by periodically whenever she had a minute to chat with him or finally bring him some coffee after he had given in to the craving.

Danny looked down at the small bouquet wilting on the table and sighed. Looked like this date was a bust, just like the few others he'd attempted, and he'd actually been very excited to see her. In fact, it was Michelle who had suggested this Gerald's Grill when he had shyly asked her out in Biology.

He had finally made up his mind to just stop wasting Ronnie's time and go home when a group of boys came trouping in, wet from the snow but in exuberant spirits and, apparently, "In great need of some refreshment, Ronnie dear!"

That made him want to pack up and get out even faster because, honestly, he didn't need any more knowing looks or judgement right now, but the last boy to walk in made him freeze with his coat halfway on.

The kid looked about Danny's age, roughly the same height but a whole lot skinnier. He had on skin tight jeans, scuffed hiking boots, and a red woolen coat. When he turned to talk to Ronnie, Danny could see the Tom Petty hoodie beneath the jacket and some silver necklaces.

'Nice,' he thought, 'seems like a cool guy: good taste in music and fashion.'

Also, 'Fucking gorgeous'.

What made him pause his leaving, though, wasnt the guy's body but his face - his sculpted brows, insanely high cheekbones, pink lips, and long lashes; all framed by the healthiest looking head of hair Danny had ever seen, second only to his own, or possibly one of the guy's he had come in with (the one who yelled for Ronnie) that had rather impressive, long curls styled to look like 70's mutton chops. There was something naggingly familiar about his features, but Danny couldn't place it.

Ronnie rolled her eyes and pointed the group of boys to a large table in the Eastern corner of the diner.

She snagged some menus and followed behind them, though another guy, this one also with long hair (he was having some competition here) grown out Justin Beiber style (okay, maybe not) said; "We don't need those, Ronnie, I'm pretty sure Sammy here has the whole menu memorized by now. Right, Sam-a-lam-a?"

The intruiging boy nodded, starting to recite off what sounded like a very accurate, detailed account of the diner's menu, prices and everything. Danny was surprised at the slight raspy, smokers quality of his voice, but it was pleasant, in a way.

After the fourth item or so, Ronnie stopped "Sammy" with a swat to the shoulder, shaking her heading and muttering "stupid genius" under her breath. He grinned up at her, wiggling his eyebrows and asking for a round of Vernors, pretty please, Ronnie-kins.

Holy shit, they were siblings! That's what had been buzzing at the back of his head for the past couple minutes; those mouths and cheekbones, seductive eyes, that lovely hair. The guy was Ronnie's brother (and no wonder he was so beautiful then).

Squinting, Danny watched the party in the corner. Two of the other guys, 70's hair and Justin Beiber (though he felt bad calling him that since he seemed cool and, hey, he'd had the same 'do when trying to grow his out) were laughing at something Ronnie said, leaning on each other and behaving the exact same way, down to their blinks.

Twins! Danny could tell because he had two cousins, also twins, that acted exactly like that. Wait, though.... they looked awfully similar to-

More siblings?! Jesus, how many kids did this family have? He hoped the four were all, for the sake of their parents.

He guessed that the twins were a little older, so either "Sammy" or Ronnie had to be the youngest, though they all looked awfully similar in age.

'Seriously, how do their parents handle that?' Especially with the attractive, flirty twins, beautiful daughter, and the super smart supermodel - it had to be several handfuls raising a house like that. Danny suddenly felt a bit more sympathy for his parents, even with just having to deal with him and his little sister.

Ronnie sashayed away, calling over her shoulder for the boys to keep it down. They all hooted and hollered in response, seeing as Danny was the only other patron to bother at the moment.

Danny slowly sat back down, curious as to what interesting conversations he would hear from the group. The twin with curly hair was currently talking to a larger guy on the other side of the table about the "carefully curated sensuality" of Led Zeppelin's Prescence, which alone made him want to stay.

Not to mention, he could continue to observe the hot guy that was immediately fascinating him like few people did. Danny wasn't deluded enough to think it was love at first sight - though it was definitely a fair amount of lust - but there was something about the other boy that made him want to track his every move down to the blinking of his eyes.

"Woah there, creepy much? Chill out, he probably doesn't even like guys anyways," Danny muttered to himself, hoping that his staring wasn't obvious enough to make "Sammy" aware of it. He loved to people watch - and admire, but hated the uncomfortable confrontation of acknowledging that he had been doing so.

Supermodel boy twisted in his chair, looking at one of the many things on the wall - though it made Danny's breath catch because, could he tell? - when he caught Danny's eye. He smiled at Danny, making him smile a little tightly and nod in return.

At that moment, Ronnie came out of the back with a platter of glass pop bottles and a notebook tucked into her apron pocket, using her hip to close the swinging half-door to the area behind the counter. She smiled at Danny as he passed, murmuring a soft "I'll be right back with you," before continuing on to her brothers' table.

Gorgeous boy laughed - a surprisingly obnoxious, though maybe endearing, braying one - and reached out a fine boned hand, plucking a bottle from the tray before she could set it down. He took a long swallow, throat visibly working and eyes half closed, head tipped back. Danny quickly averted his own eyes unless he started drooling onto the tabletop.

Ronnie came over to him after a minute, refilling his coffee and insisting that she get him a piece of pie, on the house. He didn't have the heart to tell her no, not after more than an hour of sitting there pitifully, and especially not now that he knew her gorgeous brothers (or at least one of them, the prettiest, too) knew he was there. It would be incredibly embarrassing for them to know that he was stood up and alone; Danny wanted to give off a good impression, for some reason.

Ronnie walked away again, hips swaying, and disappeared into the back. "Sammy" laughed at the table in the corner and Danny's eyes shot to him, watching how he played with his straw between those two pillowy lips.

He started sweating a little bit, considering who he thought was more attractive (not like either of them would be interested in him, but). Ronnie was curvy and kind and beautiful, but Sam was lean and charismatic and had the most lovely facial structure Danny had ever seen.

'Ugh, bisexual problems', Danny thought. No one else would have know what he was talking about if they were there, though, since he had never mentioned it to his parents nor his few friends.

He wondered, idly - because he really was out of their league and it would never, ever happen - what his family would think if he brought either of them home. Ronnie would be sure to elicit absolute delight from his mother after her admonishment for getting a girlfriend in the first place (despite the fact that he was allowed to do what he wanted now that he was 18, Danny's mom still saw him as her little boy). Ronnie's brother, he wasn't sure; it's not like they were homophobic, but Danny was certain that him bringing home a guy out of nowhere would be quite the shock.

They'd warm up to Sam (he didn't want to call him "Sammy"; it felt too familiar to he polite, though he did like that), he was sure. His parents would be impressed by his intelligence and be charmed by his jokes, and tell Danny that they were glad he had found such a nice boyfriend.

Danny drifted off into a daydream of what it would be like to date Sam, to take him to family holiday meals and go out hiking with him and cuddle up on a late winter afternoon like this one. He rested his head on his hand, letting his eyes go unfocused as he envisioned the imaginary world in which he had an 11/10 boyfriend.

"Hey, I've got your pie. Mind if I sit and eat mine with you?"

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@satans-helper @okietrish @lazingonsunday @bigthighsandstupidguys @karrotkate @oblvions @lantern-inthenight @mountainofthefleet seriously PLEASE tell me if anyone else wants to be tagged in Sanny and I'll add it to my list because I guessed these peeps last time and got it right but I can't remember if there's anyone else

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