#i'm so excited for the new voice lines i have been thinking about the deliveries

[iridescentmirrorsgenshin]

I have all languages downloaded, but I switch to english when alhaitham and kaveh come up. all actors have different interpretations and it's all so interesting, alhaitham sounds near similar in all versions. japanese kaveh dub is more soft spoken, but it holds back his angrier/more intense lines. Korean ver kaveh is more deadpan, and chinese is here kaveh is the most jittery/ uptight in my opinion. In the english version kaveh is more passionate and alhaitham is a little more sarcastic but it definitely makes for the best banter , my favorite being the end of paradeofprov, that whole -thanks for letting me know all this- scene was near perfect delivery

oh that's really interesting that alhaitham sounds near similar in each dub? i really wish i could understand all the language so as to really grasp the different nuances hahaha yes i agree that EN kaveh is v passionate and i love that for him, it contrasts so nicely when he shows hesitance, especially when asking alhaitham if he's okay like in alhaitham's story quest, and then thanking him almost mutedly in a parade of providence, and when alhaitham questions him, he rises to it, and quite literally becomes the >:( emoji <3 their banter is honestly top tier, especially at the end of apop like the whole 'uh... wHAT' compared to other dubs where it's just 'what', like yes thank you for the flavour <33

[thatguywhofedme]

A lardy death to go

Chapter 1

The first experience

It was your first day on the job as a food delivery driver

You were excited for it and it was a job you needed, but you also heard about the horror stories a delivery driver could go through sometimes and you were expecting the worst

But you know there was also a good side to your line of work, seeing all the food you could get after work, getting to know your area more and especially when it comes to meeting new people, you never know what could happen and that was part of the excitement

Your first day went pretty well, you had your run of the mill customers (guy who doesn't tip, Karen's,etc.) But you had one final delivery that popped up and it was a big one, you had to park your car backwards at McDonald's just so you can fit the entire order in, then it was just a matter of following the gps

You thought it could have been for a party or something like a normal person would think, but my god you were wrong

You got in the driveway and realized that there was only one van parked in front of the house and thought it was weird but okay

You approached the front door and rang on the doorbell

You heard someone yelling "the door is uuuuff unlocked, you can bring it into the UUURRPP living room"

With that said, you opened the door and thought to yourself that the voice sounded out of breath just from talking which was odd to you

When you entered the house and went into the living room, that's when it all became clear to you

You saw someone sitting on their couch, demolishing what could have been the third kfc bucket and licking their fat finger after finishing the last chicken breast

"Aaaaahhh thank you for BOOOAARRPP coming in, I hate heaving my FFFFRRRRRHHHHHTTT fat ass from the couch to pick up my order"

It wasn't hard to understand why, with that fat face being lowered by a double chin that resembled a stack of pancakes, arms bigger than your own thighs, a belly that was resting between some jiggly, meaty thighs completed with a gigantic ass that was wider than the person who's on top of it

It was your first time seeing someone this big outside of sometimes watching "my 600lbs life", but you weren't hating it, on the contrary, you became really excited and horny by the sight of this behemoth

"Of course, the pleasure is all mine and I can understand not wanting to move after a good meal" you said after winking at them

They became flustered and started rubbing their big belly

"Well, I'm glad we can agree on this, but don't you think for a second this was a "good meal" for me, that was just an appetizer" they said giggling

"Well in that case, you better order up, we wouldn't want you to go hungry" you said as you slapped their belly

"I'll be back when you order something else, don't keep me waiting"

You left as they were completely in shock while being incredibly turned on, so much so they started digging into the order you just brought up and stuff themselves silly no matter how dirty they became

You got in your car and we're also in shocked, especially because of how you acted towards them, so confident, dominant and controlling

You kind of scared yourself a little, but you felt amazing and you couldn't wait for the fat whale to order more so you can tell them to eat up

Chapter 2

The routine

You became a regular at their house, delivering feast after feast each day for them to stuff themselves

You were also becoming an unabler to their diet, buying butter and lard to make the orders a "little" more fattening for your own pleasure

They told you they used to weigh 523lbs when they met you, but now, after 8 months, they were now at 612lbs, which they couldn't be more happy about

She explained to you what a feedee and feeder was after you asked them why they were willing to gain so much weight and that's when you realized you were a feeder And loving it

One night after finishing your delivery and realizing they were your last one, you decided to stay a little longer and see if you could feed them yourself

You opened the door and got into the living room where you saw them eating like the slobby pig they are

Their belly was enormous, almost reaching their ankle when they sat down

Their face has become even fatter, so much so they were now slurring their words sometimes because of how much they've grown

Their ass has become a new shelf, with packs of leftover food laying on it

Literally everything on their body has grown much fatter

"Heeeyy gorgeous… I'm sho happy to see UUUUURRPPPP your sexy ass in FFFRRRHHHTT aaaaahhh my living room"

Without saying a word, you go over and feed them the rest of their huge burger with some "small" sausages on the side

You didn't even wait for them to finish eating, you stuff bite after bite in their mouth whether their ready or not

You could hear them moaning and you also got a lot hornier as the minutes passed by

After the burgers, it was time for the sausages

"UUUUFFFF please, I'm…. not….. sure BUUUAAAARRRRRRPPPP I'll be….. able to finish all….. of this……"

"Listen carefully, because I won't say it twice

you wanted me as your feeder, you got it, you wanted me to personally deliver all your food, you got it

But now, I want you to finish everything I brought for you, otherwise, let's just say the food you see is not the only thing that's gonna go in your mouth, I found other ways of making you eat you massive pig !!!"

They couldn't believe how more dominant you have become and with what you said, you heard them almost yell, but realize they had just came on the sofa

"I'm sorry, did you just cum without me letting you ?"

They bit their lip and looked at you, face all red and sweaty with terrified eyes, they knew they had fucked up, even if they truly couldn't control themselves around you

"I…I…….yes i did"

You took the huge sausages beside them and began forcing them in their mouth one by one

"You better swallow every last one of them, you're already in for a big punishment, but I still want you to eat all of them you greedy pig"

Has they started to choke a little from the sheer amount you were putting in their mouth, their cheeks becoming so swollen they were turning red and with them struggling to breath, you knew you were doing the right thing for them to grow at the pace you want

After all the sausages have gone through their gullet, you saw them puffing just from having to breath because of how painfully stuffed their stomach was

"HUFFF…..HUFF…..HUFF….FUCK….ME……PLEASE…..FFFFRRRRRHHHHHTTT"

you heard them yell at you as they couldn't speak quieter then that from how exhausting it would have been

You took their meaty, jiggly, cellulite riden thighs apart as much as you could and lifted their gut up with a lot of effort, but when your head went in between, you knew they were going to get it tonight, they couldn't have all this fat to play with and not have someone fuck them senseless

When you started doing your thing, you felt perfectly at home, you knew there had to be more, more fat to love, enjoy, fuck and jiggle

You simply needed to make them fatter, even fatter than in your wildest fantasies and you knew they felt the same way

Chapter 3

Life goes on.... For now....

It had been a year ever since you fucked them senseless and in that time, you wouldn't have imagined what would happen afterwards

You didn't just deliver to their house anymore, you're now their caretakers and live in their house

Helping them with everything 24/7

It could be something as simple as helping them get up from the bed using the railings connected to them and the bariatric walker, going in the shower with them as they put their wide ass on the shower chair that was specially fitted for them while you take a sponge and wash in between their many, many rolls of jiggly lard, as well as letting them know their doing an amazing job as your fat piggy with a little "helping hand" from under their now almost unreachable fupa

Or it could also mean helping them with the oxygen tank they need to have with them at all times if they don't want to pass out from the exhausting movement that is moving their near immobile body from one room to another by changing the bottles when their empty

In any case, you're there to make sure they eat more each meal and get fatter by the hours

Speaking of which, you've grown darker with every pound they've gained and every fantasy they told you

From getting treated like a literal pig by never taking a shower, eating from a trough, doing everything on the floor form eating to fucking and making piggy sounds to being so fat, their heart struggles and hurts all the time and to suffocate the pain they can only open their mouth and let everything flow through to relieve the pain

As you were preparing their next feast, you were mesmerized by the enormous sight on the broken couch

They had grown so much ever since you became their at home feeder

Especially since the last bariatric scale you've gotten, which had a capacity of 750lbs said "error" while trying to weigh them a couple of months ago

They were finishing up their second cake by hand like the good piggy they were, and even that was getting difficult from them as their arms were becoming really heavy with all that fat hanging and their fingers becoming too fat to make any kinds of movement

Their flabby chest hanging on both sides of their body while their stretchmarks riden belly was touching the floor as they're cellulite covered ass was taking the entirety of the couch

They were always out of breath no matter what they did, with all that lard crushing their insides, you could understand why they had their cannula at all times, but that's perfect, you thought they look beautiful with their unhealthy look, bite after bite nearing another heart attack

Yes, I did say another, two months ago, while getting funnel fed a lard shake and getting fucked by you, they started to say how tight their chest was becoming as they swallowed the liquid, but as they were about to finish, they started to touch their chest where their heart was

"HONN..UUUURRRPPP..EEYYYY…..my heart….it'sh beating really….fassht….I think…..FRRRTTHHH…thish..ish….it……AWWWWW FUCK"

You weren't scared at all, ok the contrary, you took the tube out of their mouth, took the pizza nearby and started force feeding them while their heart was giving out

"YESSS, that's the moment we've been waiting for

EAT !!!! I want you to eat everything I give you no matter how bad it hurts

I want to see your heart pop as you take your last breath doing what you do best, stuffing your pig mouth"

You heard a moan escaping their mouth as they were clutching their heart, swallowing as fast as they could as you fed them with no signs of mercy

But after a while, they seem to have regained their composure and their heart wasn't hurting as much anymore

"HUFFFF….you know…..what…that meansh…?"

"What's that gorgeous ?"

"I'm not…..fat …..enough …yet…..feed…BOOOAARRPP……me….more…please

Feed…me….into my….early grave…like the slobby….mmmh…disgusting……piggy I am…..oink….oink"

From that day on, you've been even more unforgetful whit your feeding method

You've been putting weight gain powder,lard and melted butter in EVERYTHING

They were all but too happy to oblige and take everything you were giving them

You both knew there was no coming back, you had to make them so fat justovijg a little would cause some the risk of another heart attack to appear

You had to close those arteries and cover their heart in unhealthy coats of fat

You had to make them as unhealthy as possible no matter what it took

This is your piggy and the fun was just getting started

Chapter 4

The fatal one

As you walk through the hallway with your trolley with gallons of lard shakes, you realized how lucky you are of having the life you got

You're the caretaker to an immobile piggy who hasn't moved in a long time, their health getting worse by the day just the like you both want, it's gotten so bad that you had to fit a mechanized crane on top of them if you wanted to clean them or fucked them

Their health was now a mountain of obesity related issues

Ranging from at least type 2 diabetes, hypertension that as gone through the roof, multiple strokes a year which they called "ooopsies" which was the cutest name for them, their breathing was now so bad, the cpap was struggling to feed them fresh air

All in all, you've done an amazing job of feeding them without any restrictions and they did their part of keeping that belly packed to the point of exploding at any given time

You both knew they were certainly on the verge of having "the big one" as you called it as you entered their fully furnished bariatric room and looked at the display on top of them showing "1126 lbs" in bright red

"Hello there piggy, hope your ready for me to turn the feeding machine back on"

They could only blink as they couldn't really do anything anymore

Their body so completely engulfed by fat even talking was a restraint as the fat was pushing against their vocal cords and their arms were standing up, not because they wanted to, but because all the fat surrounding them was keeping them up with how much of the stuff there was

Their belly was so impressive it was spilling on both sides of their bariatric bed which was an achievement on itself

You've grown them to such an epic proportion even the bariatric bed was creaking just from how much weight there was to support

The bed's side rails had broken a long time just from the sheer force that was pushing on them when they tried to adjust themselves on the bed one last time before you both decided it was best to let the piggy themed face mask, which was both a feeding tube and an air cannula forcing as much oxygen as possible just for their lungs to feel something to work with, at all times to make them bloated at all times

You saw that the feeding tank was nearly empty, so you started taking the containers and pour the unhealthy liquid one after the other

You knew it was working when you hear a small moan coming front them meaning the flow was much better

After you were done, you sat on a nearby seat and started talking

"I know you don't have much time and you could die at any given times, which is why instead of being your bad death feeder, I wanted to thank you

Thank you for being your amazing self and becoming the fattest person to wanna eat themselves to death

Thank you for being the best feedee someone could ever ask for, you just kept on stuffing yourself no matter how hard it got or how bad it hurts,

But mostly, thank you for giving me this incredible opportunity, I couldn't have dreamed of a better life and it's all thanks to you

I love you and I'm by your side no matter what happens"

Tears started coming out and when you looked at them to see their reaction

They were also crying, their eyes getting red, the heart monitor going even faster

they were also trying to say something that was muffled by all the fat surrounding their face

You got up and told them

"Sorry baby, I couldn't hear you properly"

And in a very low whisper they said

'i…………..love …………..you………….too………."

You smiled, lifted their mask which hasn't been turned on yet and give them a passionate kiss

You were so happy in that moment and nothing could have changed that

But then, as the mask wasn't on them

They started to breath in an even more unsettling way

Their eyes started bulging as the hear monitor became ballistic with bpm's of 196 started showing

THIS WAS IT !!!!!!

You started the feeding machine back on and the lard began pouring again as they were truly struggling to stay alive, you were hornier than you've ever been and started straddling as much of their big belly as you could

Their face became reder and reder by the seconds, then it became purple with lard coming out of their mask as they struggle to swallow with what was happening

Until you saw the life in their eyes disappear and the heart monitor do a "beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee………" as you knew it had been fatal

Even as their body began turning white, you decided to let them machine on to finish the liquid

After 30 minutes, the tank was empty and the only part of their body with some color was their gut as you could see the redness of how bloated it was, but also surprised at the fact that it didn't explode from the inside

Unfortunately, after 9 years of being their feeder

it was all over

you were sad about it even if you knew this was coming a looooong time ago

You've lost them, but have accomplished your ultimate goal and their most important wish in life

feeding them to death

Chapter 5

Who's next ?!?

After what happened, you decided to go and not look back, not knowing what could have happened to you if you would have stayed until the police, medical crew and crane have arrived to lift their corpse out of their house

You kept it low key, out of the eye of anyone for 10 months, finding shelter in an old apartment building situated in a small town far away from where it all happened until you felt it was safe to go out again

You looked online for some news article about anything that could be related to you and them

Nothing ?

Surprisingly, no one as talked about it online, not even a news article

You were surprised but relieved at the same time

That's when you got out of your apartment and decided to go to the local grocery store for some supplies

You walked through the isles, looking for what you could have during the week

You were also reminiscing about your feedee while passing the lard on one of the shelves

You could never forget all the incredible experiences you've experienced while being with them

You smiled and chuckled remembering everything

Then, in one of the isle, your heart stopped

From the back, you saw a massive form on a mobility scooter, basket full of snacks and fattening food

You couldn't contain yourself from the sight of another morbidly obese person in front of you

It's been so long

You were craving it

The need to feed someone to another fatal heart attack

You found your next feedee and this time, you were going to make them even fatter

Even slobbier

Even more unhealthy

You had all the experience you needed and you were going to make this happen no matter what

This was the beginning to a new chapter of your life

You were more than ready for another piggy 🐽

[technicolorfamiliar]

The Passing of the Third Floor Back Dir. Berthold Viertel 1935

I think The Stranger could fix me.

I will never understand why more people don't reference this movie when talking about Connie's career. It's in his top five must-watch's for me, for sure.

The Passing of the Third Floor Back is not by any means a great or groundbreaking film. Some moments are shot well, some of the lighting is interesting, but over all there are relatively few bells and whistles, not that the film needs any. It's based on an older silent film based on a play, and that comes across in the film's focus being primarily on the story and character relationships. Some of the breakneck pacing doesn't really suit the dialogue or the story, but that was the style of filmmaking at the time. And that's why casting Connie as The Stranger was a brilliant move; his thoughtful and considered line delivery as well as his calm, grounded physicality disrupts the 1930s Britishness that defines the rest of the film. Casting another British actor as The Stranger may have worked depending on the actor, but Connie's otherness -- not only in his voice but also his height, demeanor, and fashion -- works in the character's favor… and the story's too.

The story of The Passing of the Third Floor Back is timeless because it's so true to life. People act out all the time without even realizing. They are cruel and unkind to others and themselves. It's contagious, if one or two people in a closed environment like a boarding house, workspace, team or club are overly negative and meanspirited, soon more and more people in that environment will start behaving similarly. At least that's been true in my experience. One person with a bad attitude or a tendency to gossip or be lazy or cliquish can slowly create a general atmosphere of bad behavior (especially so if that person is in a position of leadership).

The Stranger says of the other people in the boarding house, "It's not easy for them to see themselves. The illusions are so strong." Before he arrived, none of them were really seeing one another. They were reacting to their assumptions of one another, or to the worst versions of each other brought out by stress, living in close quarters, personal and interpersonal problems, etc. It took an outside perspective and the presence of someone seemingly different for them to begin to actually, finally see one another and themselves.

The single, 30-something Miss Kite's self-loathing presents as cruelty barely concealed by humor. But after a brief, sincere and openminded conversation with The Stranger, she dives into the wake of a huge steam boat to save Stasia (who really was asking to fall, I don't care how excited she was). When someone Miss Kite supposedly didn't care one iota about is suddenly in danger, she steps up without a second thought. She didn't do it for the recognition or attention, she put herself in harms way because it was the right thing to do, and afterward is treated like a hero. She's given a new source of self worth -- she realizes she can be brave. But it's not a one and done fix, she still reaches for her makeup when she sees her reflection after being in the water. But because she revealed her courage in the face of a crisis, people begin to see her differently, and hopefully so too she would gradually begin to see herself in a new light.

I really appreciate that The Stranger's influence isn't perfect. Everyone easily reverts back to their old ways, supposedly because of Mr. Wright acting against The Stranger, but they probably would have slipped into their old patterns regardless. The best The Stranger can hope for is to plant seeds of goodness in each of them. And just like people in real life, some people just aren't as receptive to change. After all, it's always harder to eliminate bad habits than it is to implement good ones.

I'm not sure what's going on with Mr. Wright. Does he know who or what The Stranger really is? Or is he just a dick? The movie probably would have worked without an openly antagonistic character. Wright could have just been creepy and gross in a normal creepy and gross way. I'm not sure we needed the scenes with him and The Stranger to play out the way they did. The more I think about it I feel like those scenes kind of cheapen the story. Most audiences are smart enough that you don't have to turn your script into an outright morality play for them to get the point. Those two scenes are probably the only thing I would have changed about the script. The Stranger and Wright needed to have a confrontation, but Wright insinuating that he knows The Stranger's motives and rules makes it seem like Wright is more than he appears to be and ehhh idk. The movie just doesn’t need it. In my opinion, anyway. It's like the writers were trying to say a bad guy can't just be a regular dude who does bad things. It would speak more to our reality, in 1935 as much as 2025, if Wright was just a regular person without any special knowledge or abilities who enjoys hurting and exploiting others. And it's interesting that he's a self-made man, someone who built himself up from nothing -- if this movie really wanted to say something it could have been about the nature of power and money being potentially corrosive to a person's soul. So as a formerly destitute person, Wright could have been a challenge for the audience as someone we want to empathize with deep down, because he raised himself up by his bootstraps and that makes him more relateable. But any empathy we may have had for Wright as a complicated character is destroyed when he outs himself as having some kind of special knowledge about The Stranger for some reason. I haven't read the book or the play, so I don't know if this dynamic originated in the source material or if it was an addition on the part of the screenwriters but it's unnecessary and treats the audience like they're too stupid to handle a morally complicated character.

I'm not going to do a character analysis of everyone in the film (today… maybe in the future lol), but it's worth talking about Stasia. I like that she's far from perfect, that her victimhood makes her act out even more than she probably would have otherwise. I like that she's not this naïve, innocent little kid. She's seen and been through some shit. And her armor is to be as mean-spirited and selfish as everyone else. She can give as good as she gets and, although she's clearly one of the more sensitive characters in the film, she's not a doormat. I mean, everyone calls her a useless little slut to her face all the time, no wonder she's as volatile as she is. She clearly has a conscience when most of the adults around her seem to lack any empathy at all until The Stranger arrives. Everyone in the house treats Stasia like she's an imbecile but she's likely the smartest out of all of them. She's the only one interested in nurturing something, the delicate white flower she keeps in a small pot. It's not clear how old Stasia is either. (Rene Ray was 23 - 24 when the film was made.) She's young enough that the landlady can threaten to send her back to whatever horrible orphanage or group home she was living in previously. But though she's a child, we get the impression from her interactions with Wright that she's lived a hard life, having to resort to thievery and very likely sex work to get by. But for as hard as her life has been when we meet her, she still maintains a childlike sense of wonder that finally gets to flourish when The Stranger comes into her life, and I just CAN'T TAKE IT. Stasia's the only one out of all those broken people who could have summoned The Stranger because, even if she's not perfect, even if she's damaged goods, she's the only one who is able to ask for "one decent person in the world." And we hope, we pray that the few days The Stranger spends with her will help her be that one decent person that someone else might need one day. UGH.

See, I love stories like this. For as mangled and beaten down as my own heart is, I love a story where someone good and full of love appears under mysterious circumstances to a bunch of messed up people. Usually these kinds of stories are centered around Christmas -- The Bishop's Wife: Carry Grant's Dudley helps David Niven and Loretta Young's marriage; Miracle on 34th Street: Edmund Gwenn's Santa Claus helps Natalie Wood and Maureen O'Hara believe in magic. While The Passing of the Third Floor Back isn't a Christmas movie and The Stranger isn't specifically called out as a supernatural being like Dudley the angel or Santa Claus, there are echoes of this story in those later films. There's almost as much suspension of disbelief in this film, and there may not be as much literal magic but the message and structure are basically the same. I mean, this movie is not subtle -- the boarding house is across the street from a church which we really only see when The Stranger arrives and departs. They don't really talk at all about God or Jesus like in The Bishop's Wife, but The Stranger embodies traditional virtues like hope, charity, and justice as well as values like patience, empathy, and honesty. It could very easily have been a Christmas movie if it had been made 5 - 10 years later. I guess the main difference is with those other movies, at the end you're left feeling like everything's going to be ok, everyone lives happily ever after. Here it's not such a sure thing. We hope Stasia and everyone else has healed permanently, but it seems incredibly tenuous. We hope The Stranger's work had lasting results, but there's no way to know for sure. Their new found hope in one another and themselves needs to be taken care of and nurtured regularly like Stasia's little flower UGHHHH, the s y m b o l i s m .

Obvs I have a lot I want to say about Connie's performance specifically, but here's a quote from him about the role from Feb 1, 1942 in the New York Herald Tribune:

"Evil can be strong and powerful, but it can never take the place of good. I felt this deeply at another time when playing the Christ-like character of the Stranger… My one aim was to play him as a man who wanted to give the world a lift, just as now the world so sadly needs a lift. The Stranger was the most difficult role I ever undertook. There was ever the danger of going too far. If for an instant it were made insincere, the part would fall to pieces.

"Another delicate question was that of appearance. I don't want to be blasphemous, but I played him as a well-dressed man… My one precaution in this respect was to keep the Stranger from any possibility of seeming theatrical. It struck me that those boarding-house people to whom he came might readily think of him as a traveler, even a traveling salesman, and so I had him wear a gray suit and carry a suitcase. His hair was well groomed, though white. But his face was not old. I tried to make him ageless.

"No mysterious light came or went with him. But when he was shown in his dingy room he took a flower from his coat and put it into a glass of water, then opened the blind and let in a gleam of sunlight. It was the simplicity of beauty you can make out of nothing. Of course, there was far more than that, something not quite of this world. The Stranger, like the Wandering Jew played by me earlier, was fantastic in a spiritual way."

I'm so glad we have quotes like this so we can kind of understand the way Connie thought about his work on this film, even several years later. The interview the quote is from must have been around the time he was doing Nazi Agent, which is another interesting point of comparison. The good brother in that film, Otto, is just an ordinary man but he's put in an extraordinary situation. The Stranger on the other hand is an extraordinary creature put in a very ordinary situation. Otto's goodness is human and relatable, or at least should be in the face of war and crimes against humanity. The Stranger is, like Connie said, Christ-like and therefore considered exceptional in his goodness. The love The Stranger has for humanity radiates out of him not through any special lighting effect but just by his calm openness.

(There are some interesting choices the filmmakers made with lighting. Throughout the film, The Stranger emerges from or is partly concealed shadows. I'm not sure if this was like The Spy in Black and a nod to Connie's past work in German Expressionist silent films or just a successful way to keep the character mysterious. Either way, I thought it was a good choice.)

For having top billing, Connie doesn’t have a lot of dialogue in the film, at least comparatively. And what lines are spoken are done so with such exceeding gentleness and softness. Some lines are almost whispered. He does raise his voice in a plea to Wright, but that's the only time. Even when he lets the boarders have it for attacking Stasia at the end of the film, he's intense without shouting at everyone. A lesser actor could NEVER.

Most of the time The Stranger is observing everyone else. I love watching him watch everyone, especially Stasia. When he arrives at the boarding house, he has very little to say at their dinner party but is busy watching how the boarders interact with one another. He's not merely gathering data, he's reacting to them internally. The Stranger clearly has feelings, but Connie's so incredibly masterful at subtlety, that I wonder if this wasn’t one of the bigger challenges of the film for him. Regardless of however hard he's working, he makes it look effortless. I love watching him watch Stasia have fun and experience joy when they all go out on the steam boat. You can see in the way he looks at her that he's so happy for her, that she gets to actually be a kid for a few hours.

Connie was really concerned about dropping the ball with this film. He, at least in interviews at the time*, was worried that stepping back from more obvious acting choices, in order to inhabit the character in the most authentic and appropriate way possible, wouldn't translate through a camera. It seems he thought he was taking a big risk with the way he chose to play The Stranger, and I agree.

The Stranger, as a performance, is THE perfect example of being vs showing one's art. And so we get one of the most interesting, soulful, deeply compassionate, empathetic, and gentle performances from a male actor during this era, especially in British filmmaking where actors were often either total caricatures or way too buttoned up to emote at all.

I mean, Connie's fans know he could broadcast sexual vibes through time and space, but here in this film he's affectionate without any expectation of reciprocity or sexual overtones. He's broadcasting real intimacy, in his confidential tone of speaking, in his hand on another character's shoulder or arm, in a quiet secretive look. This is a person who makes whoever he's with feel exceptional, like they're the only two people in the world in that moment. He's completely present. It's. So. Fucking. Good. Connie talked about wanting to give the world a lift, but he's also lifting up his scene partners! He brings out the best in whoever he's on screen with with this performance, the same way The Stranger lifts people up! Yes, I am yelling!

And what about The Stranger himself? It's never explicitly stated that he is anything other than a wanderer, a traveler looking for lodging. We don't get any exposition scenes of him before he arrives at the boarding house. The audience knows as little about him as the characters in the film do. He is completely mysterious, and yet everyone pretty much trusts him implicitly, with the exception of Wright of course. We know exactly three things about The Stranger: one -- he is Good and hopes to inspire good in others; two -- he came to the boarding house specifically because Stasia wanted (instead of needed, interesting…) someone like him in her life; three -- he cannot directly interfere with people's lives in order to accomplish a desired outcome. And that's all we need to know! I can't help thinking if this movie was made today, most filmmakers would add some unnecessary backstory for The Stranger. Let protagonists be mysterious, people! Audiences don't need to know everything! Let us draw our own conclusions! Personally I like the possibility that The Stranger is the physical embodiment of an abstract concept/s, but that's just me. My point is that it's GOOD to have characters that spark conversation and multiple interpretations, I LOVE IT DO MORE PLEASE.

This matters even more when people walk away from a film being truly touched by a character or performance. People went to see this movie when it came out and were flattened by Connie's take on The Stranger, an existing character. Unfortunately I can't find the articles or quotes where this was originally mentioned (there really needs to be some kind of text-only repository of Connie articles/interviews), but apparently some people were so affected by this film that they wrote beautiful, heart-wrenching letters to Connie. Some people were so deeply touched and claimed this film helped save them in some small way, saying it was exactly what they needed at that moment in their lives. That, in short, Connie was unbelievably successful in what he hoped to accomplish with his performance, that he was able to reach through the camera and offer something genuinely beautiful and hopeful to those who needed it. UGH.

Maybe my takes on The Passing of the Third Floor Back are not new or even particularly nuanced. People have been saying the same things about this film ever since its 1935 release. But it remains one of my favorite Conrad Veidt films, I mean, top shelf stuff. He's doing the most interesting internal work an actor can do, certainly for the 1930s. He stands head and shoulders, literally and figuratively, above his fellow cast members and indeed most of his peers at that time. The kind of inward, reflective, subtle work he is doing in this film wouldn't become commonplace for years.

There's so much more about this movie to unpack. I haven't even talked about the gramophone man and class discrimination. Or the queer coding of Miss Kite and Larkcom. Or Wright's death -- was it really just a heart attack or did The Stranger "interfere" by opening the window for the gramophone man to get in?? Or about how Connie was making this AND King of the Damned AT THE SAME TIME. The two films could not be more different. Blows my mind.

Anyway, tl;dr Connie understood the assignment and gave us something truly beautiful and special.

*"My Most Difficult Role", Conrad Veidt interviewed by Max Breen, June 29, 1935

[prolix-yuy]

I SPINNED THE WHEEL AND GOT HONEY BEAR AND I DONT KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS BUT IM EXCITED (I'm not gonna google it to keep the surprise factor lamdovdf) the position name made me instantly think of Dieter so I'll go with him <33

this is just so much fun thank you for the sleepover bby!! ILY

Sil, I would be honored to Honey Bear you! And Dieter is exactly the man I want to get down with, especially in this position!

Pairing: Dieter Bravo x F!Reader

Position: Honey Bear

Word Count: 1084

Warnings: Explicit, 18+ MINORS DNI, oral sex (m receiving), ass play, sexy wrestling, Dieter and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Notes: I wanted to do another funny-sweet one, and Dieter is just perfect for it. Plus if I was having a bad a day, I would also appreciate being pampered like this ;)

He’s been a little ball of frustration all day today, and enough is enough.

You try not to be too hard on him. His agent interrupted Saturday morning TV with news that he wasn’t getting the part he’d be practicing for. “They wanted someone younger, to appeal to the newer audiences.” He sulked through the next two episodes.

Then his sister called, and he retreated into the bedroom. His voice still carried through the closed door, switching back and forth angrily from Spanish to English. He stomped back to the couch and doomscrolled for two hours, his brows pulled together in a dark scowl. 

His final straw came when you heard him groaning, “You have GOT to be kidding me!” Venturing into the kitchen, cautious of the sourness of his day, you find him tapping his phone with increasing annoyance.

“What’s wrong?” you ask, moving to lean beside him. His whole frame is tight, frustration directed at the world around him wafting off in heady waves. 

“If I’m too fucking old and too fucking lazy to get anything I want, then fuck it, I’m going to order a pizza and not give a shit about the diet. But the fucking delivery app keeps crashing and I just would like one goddamn thing to work today!” He shoves his phone across the counter, your hand stopping it from skittering off the edge to add to his annoyance. 

“How about you go take a shower and we lay down for a little while?” you ask, lightly stroking Dieter’s back. He takes in a deep breath and whooshes it out, scrubbing at his face. 

“I’m sorry, it’s just been a shitty day,” he says, letting you tug him towards the master suite. 

“Everything gets better once you’re in bed,” you say, leading him to the shower. He groans quietly.

“Baby, I’m not really in the right headspace for that.” You cup his cheeks and rest his forehead against yours, tapping the tips of your noses together. 

“That’s not what I mean. We’ll cuddle up and put on a movie and when we get hungry I’ll make something. But right now, you’re gonna try and relax.” Switching on the shower, you usher him in and close the door behind him. He looks through the glass at you in the perfect imitation of a Sarah McLachlan dog shelter commercial, and you draw a little heart in the steam.

Giving him a few minutes to decompress, you turn down the fluffy bedspread and change out of your day clothes. Shuffling around in your drawers, you find the perfect outfit to don before Dieter steps out damp and loose. The towel wrapped around his waist lets you admire his soft broad body, dimples and divots you love mapping with your mouth. He’s slicked his hair back but a few errant curls poke out. 

“That was needed, thank you,” he says, pulling out some neon green boxer briefs and tugging them on. They make his butt look absolutely adorable, and his bulge sizeable. You really should get him more of those. As he approaches, a smile begins working its way across his face.

“What are you wearing?” he asks, kneeling on the edge of the bed as you pose dramatically in the pillows.

“Why Mr Bravo, don’t you recognize the white elephant gift of last Christmas Eve?” Draped over your body is a white T-shirt with a badly rendered line drawing of sexy lingerie where it would fall on your silhouette. You’d won it at a party, and the terrible quality matched with the hilarious design made you keep it in the back of your drawer. 

“I thought we ruined that,” he says, crawling up the bed to hover over you. The weight of the day is smoothing from his face, fingers curling around the hem of the shirt. “You’ve got much better underwear than this.” 

“Dieter, don’t you dare take off the Seduction Shirt!” you crow, squirming below him as he redoubles his efforts to get the hideous shirt off. You nip at his biceps, digging your fingers into his sides to tickle yourself free. He tries to keep up, chasing after your crawling form and yanking you back into his embrace. 

He gets it halfway up your stomach when you manage to roll you both, pinning him on his back with his knees folded over your shoulders. He’s full on laughing now, cheeks a ruddy red and coughing with exertion. You let him catch his breath until he looks down up at you, a warm smile across his face. Pushing his thighs up to his chest, he takes in a small gasp, pupils blow out and hands clenching. Gaze drifting down, you find him hard and twitching in his boxers, your tits pressing softly. Cautiously, you stroke your palm up his length. He throws his head back, stomach tensing.

“Do you want…”

“Please.”

You’re stripping his boxers off in record time, sliding down so you can take him into your mouth in one quick slide. He chokes, hips bucking as your practiced touch massages behind his balls. Keening and hissing, you set a fast pace to topple him into pleasure quickly, adding two fingers pressing firmly at his hole. He’s babbling as your lips slide up and down his shaft, sucking hard and swallowing around the thick intrusion. 

“Oh fuck, baby, I’m…” he begs, and pride swells when he cums down your throat not two minutes after you began. You love knowing exactly what makes Dieter explode, and how quickly you can achieve it. Easing him down, you climb up to snuggle into his open arms. 

“Don’t know why I said I wasn’t in the headspace, I’m always in the right mind for you,” Dieter says softly, lips dragging over your temple. You smirk into his chest.

“It’s the Seduction Shirt, works every time.”

Quicker than you expect he rolls you, pinning your hips and ripping the shirt over your head to discard in a corner of the room. 

“There, no advantage now,” he snarks, rubbing his scruffy face into your neck. Fighting against the ticklish touch, you koala bear around him and pull him down to entwine.

“So if anything happens now, it’s all thanks to my own sex appeal?” you ask with faux curiosity. Dieter pops his head out to bathe you in warmth you’ll never get enough of.

“Damn right.”

END

LJ’s Bangathon 2023

[galactic-johnny]

It's ya boi here, I watched the new Gundam Requiem for Vengeance. I wanted to hate it but it was actually kind of good (with some gripes). I would rather die than make a reddit post/comment about my opinion on media so I'm posting it here. I will be talking about spoilers and a non exhaustive list of thoughts.

I'll start with the bad.

So there's the character (not mecha) animation that many people poiinted out looks bad from all the traielrs. It's still not that good but I got used to it. If you look closely you can notice some animation errors that people have been posting screenshots of, but personally I didn't notice them mid watch so I wasn't bothered. The thing that did bother me was some of the sound design/mixing, like a Gouf is shooting the weakest sounding gatling gun ever. The voice acting is okay but there are parts in every episode where I was like "wow that was kind of a bad delivery". From my understanding the original script/voice recording is in english, and then theres a japanese dub translated back to japanese which I'm told from a japanese speaker also sounds weird.

The main thing I've seen people on reddit complain about, and the thing i have the most thoughts on, is it coming off as too much of a pro zeon stance and making gundam fans pro-titans. I'm mixed on this. So the director is a french guy who was wearing a zeon t-shirt in a promo video and said something like "we're excited to show you a story from the Zeon side of the war" which gave me bad vibes but I wanted to wait and see. The first episode has a part where it's trying to evoke the nazi parallels while a guy is giving a speech, but it doesn't have much more of that after the first episode.

Many redditors have pointed to the "the zaku has saved a lot of lives" line. My issue is: What happened a few hours earlier in context? Why do you think he would have positive feelings toward a Zaku? Discuss with your partner what we can infer about this character's background. My issues with people pointing to scenes like that and zeon soldiers talking about their war for independence is that do you think it makes sense for them to be like "btw our side is pretty fucked up, our guys have committed a bunch of atrocities" "oh yeah Loum, where we completely destroyed Side 5 and killed like 2 billion civilians". Basically I think it makes sense in context for Zeon characters to talk about the war like it's patriotic war for independence.

The problem is that the show doesn't really explain the context of the war that well, and it would probably help some people to mention it. Like mention that thing at Loum, explain the start of the war and the 3 second warning and how they've destroyed a bunch of civilian colonies, or that half the human population has died in this war, why the zeon soldiers hate the federation and the conditions that led to them starting the war, and most importantly at least mention the colony drop. I kind of wonder if they wanted to show the colony drop but they wanted to animate it and at some point in production an exec said "yeah no that's too time consuming and expensive, just skip that", but they really should mention that, its like the opening shot of the original Gundam 79.

The show is trying to be a One Year War side story from the perspective of Zeon soldiers, while also wanting to be an introduction for people have not watched Gundam that should be able to explain the context of the war and not glorify zeon too much while still making people care about the characters, doing so in a span of six 20 minute episodes. It's a difficult task and the creators did not seem up to it. I've watched most gundam TV shows, including all Gundam UC timeline stuff and read some of the manga, so I'm decently informed on Gundam, but if I were to show this to a friend that has never seen Gundam and want this to be their introduction I would probably let them know a few important things (like the colony drop). To be fair it has some things that are probably good for introducing someone to the setting, but yeah its leaving out some important stuff.

That's my take that no one asked for on that particular criticism.

There's also some obligatory newtype mentioned stuff because they want to introduce it to new people, but it doesn't play that much into the story and I'm just glad they didn't make newtypes that are basically jedi (cough cough thunderbolt).

So here's the good stuff.

The best part is easily the mecha battle animation. It's cool. I have a goblin brain which demands violence and likes giant robots fighting. The Ex Gundam is truly a menace every time it appears. The mobile suits weighty and there's a good amount of giant robot gore. The design is divisive but personally I was into it and seeing it may convince more people to be into it. The only thing I'm not into is the weird head and eyes on the model kit, but thought it looked much better in the show. There are some technical aspects of the fights that are a head scratcher but honestly I didn't care that much because goblin brain. Like the Gundam is getting circled by three Dopps, and leaps up and slices one with its beam saber, and like yeah imagine cutting down a super fast jet with your sword but also it was so cool and thats what matters. I also really liked the Zaku, Gouf, and GM. I really hope the Gouf and GM get model kits (not pbandai plz) and I would be the first to buy them. The only mobile suit design I didn't like was the Guntank but that's it. Basically the mobile suit fights are a visual treat and that's what I really wanted to see.

I don't have too much to say about most of the characters, but I thought the protagonist Iria Solarii was interesting as far as gundam protagonists go. She's a mother with a ~10 year old son, she had a husband who died a few months into the war and they were both musicians that were drafted(?) into the war but had a good thing going on before it started. The people around her have grown more bitter and vengeful the more they lose while her goal is to follow orders and survive the war so she can see her son again (I'll get back to this). 6 episodes probably isn't enough for the amount of characters they had but I liked Iria.

It accomplishes being a gritty OYW Gundam war story with cool battles and evoking emotions about the tragedy of war, which is basically the best I could have expected.

The thing I'm most mixed on is the ending/last 5 minutes. So far I've seen people saying they don't like it all. On one hand it's so anti climatic the way the random Gouf pilot, and they quickly show the Ex Gundam pilot was a teenager without much time, and Iria just changes her goal from "i want to see my son again" to "a federation child soldier died before my eyes, therefore I will keep fighting against the federation" and these things are sort of ungraceful.

But to me it also kind of works. Like the Ex Gundam pilot dies so suddenly and without fanfare, he won't be remembered or celebrated, and he's one of many teenage pilots in the federation, almost as though for every amuro and other gundam protagonists, there's another of this kid who's skills and accomplishments didn't matter and died as a cog in the machine. The Gouf pilot can't even comprehend that Solari was upset, all he say was the drone that killed the person he cares about. Solari saw the federation send a child to the front lines to help them shoot down the fleeing Zeons, she sees them as the monsters her friends saw and now feels more righteous killing them than she did before, because there is nothing that below them. The Ex Gundam pilot was just a kid, he felt he was righteous in slaughtering all the Zeons because they started this war and have killed many more of his own side. But his mercy is not rewarded because for everyone else the war has dehumanized and driven a wedge between these people. After the war ends the problems that caused it still aren't addressed which is why for decades it keeps repeating. It made Solari more vengeful than she was at the start so she believes she's righteous in staying with zeon remnants after the war ended.

So I think that a tragic, ungraceful, anticlimactic ending kind of worked with what it's going for. Like yeah it's a pretty bleak note and I think Gundam is better when it's both bleak and hopeful, but overall I'm more for the ending than against it.

[ysphcpb]

I’m glad to see more love for SOTUS! I think it’s still one of the best-written series in terms of character development, especially when you include SOTUS S and Our Skyy since you get to see them and their relationship develop over several years.

I’ve always been confused by people who say Krist isn’t a good actor. Nuances aside, his actual personality (loud, energetic, extroverted) is nothing like Arthit’s, and he was very young and new to acting when he took on the role of Arthit (quiet, restrained, shy).

Can you talk about your favorite acting moment from him in any of the SOTUS parts?

Same here, SOTUS (+ sequels) is one of my favourite shows for so many reasons, and one of them is how coherent and organic the character development is. I feel glad to have found these characters and been able to follow their story ♡

I had actually seen some instances of irl Krist, also had seen him in I'm Tee Me Too (so I already knew he's definitely not a bad actor), but it was how he handled SOTUS' Arthit - a much more colorful character - that really impressed me. I did try to narrow it down but can't pick just one acting moment that I like most, so here is a list instead 😅

1) SOTUS - EP.7

The way his voice quavers took me by surprise when I first watched this. I realised then that Arthit wasn't only touched by what the freshmen did and finally recognised them as his juniors, but he was also probably emotional that his days as a headhazer were coming to an end. Might have been a great responsibility he got talked into taking, might have been the busiest months he'd had to juggle studies and hazing activities, and could not comfortablly be himself, but still an unforgettable and meaningful experience for both him, his friends and his juniors.

2) SOTUS - EP.13

I love Arthit's hesitation before finally asking his question. From how I see it, he was worried if Kong could accept him and his self-perceived bad sides, if their relationship could even work, and if it's worth this risk of losing whatever seniour-juniour bond they were already having. In my view, he wasn't just struggling to decide whether he wanted to and was ready to be with Kongpob or not, but also worried whether Kong was ready to be with him, as well.

3) SOTUS S - EP.3

I adore Krist's choice of expressions and line delivery here. Arthit stops midsentence, comes up with a way to go around it, then agrees with himself, as if genuinely expecting Kong to find it convincing (Kong does not). This scene makes me smile everytime, I can't help but wonder to myself how could a person be this endearing.

4) SOTUS S - EP.12

This was more of a Singto scene (👏👏), but I also love Krist's reactions a lot. That initial look of betrayal and hurt quickly softens, then he looks away, engrossed in thoughts again. The lack of Arthit's inner voice in the series gives so much room for interpretation, but I see this as Arthit's realisation that perhaps his way of showing love and how private he prefers their relationship to be has failed to make Kongpob feel loved and assured. And that perhaps he's even more unfit for Kong than he already thought.

5) SOTUS S - EP.12

I could easily see and feel Arthit's anxiety here, but also his determination. He's not avoiding or running away anymore, since the person he loves got hurt because of it. It isn't easy for someone like Arthit to announce their relationship in front of the whole company, many of whom do not know him that well and probably have been gossiping about them since the incident. I feel so proud and admire his courage a lot.

6) SOTUS S - EP.13

I love Arthit's excited smile and the loving way he looks at Kong here, it's not something we get to see often. It's so heartwarming to see Arthit beaming with happiness and so certain of their future, that there's really nothing to fear anymore as long as they have each other.

7) Our Skyy - Arthit Kongpob

I thought the change of expression after he closes the door here was spot on. For Kong's sake, Arthit couldn't allow himself to appear sad and only when he's alone that he finally breaks and lets it out. It must have been draining to act like nothing was wrong that whole evening, and I think Krist did a great job portraying this.

Honorable mention: this interview is too long to be called a moment, but I love every acting moment in it. I have a feeling that KS just memorised the gist of what they needed to say and ad-libbed the rest, but every word and reaction still came out so natural and authentic, as if I were watching actual Arthit and Kongpob doing an interview.

[jajanvm-imbi]

Hazbin Hotel 4 episode premiere review Part 3

Part 1 | Part 2

I got my main criticisms out of the way so now I get to have fun and gush about the stuff I enjoyed and hopefully will continue to enjoy! Because honestly even though I think the writing and pacing are objectively bad, I'm still having fun with this series like I do with Helluva Boss, and its mainly for one reason:

The voice cast is singlehandedly carrying the show.

Viv may not be great at character design or storytelling, but if she's good at one thing she is damn good at casting.

The voice cast is perfect, they all understood the assignment. Like everyone who was saying the new cast was gonna be worse than the pilot cast for the sole reason that they weren't the pilot cast were just flat out wrong. They all ate and are all easily the most enjoyable part of the series.

Erika Henningsen was the perfect choice for Charlie, she fits the role of "Disney Princess in Hell" like a glove. She's bubbly and sweet and excitable and kind! She fits this role way better than she fit the role of Cady in the Mean Girls musical (I said what I said) She sounds so much like Mandy Moore as Rapunzel, another favorite character of mine!

Blake Roman's performance???? As Angel??? Hello sir???? My jaw was on the floor during Angel's scene with Valentino because I was absolutely blown away by his performance. It was heartbreaking and raw and impactful, a stellar performance. I have a good feeling Blake Roman is gonna get the Alex Brightman treatment after this winning combination of his performance as Angel Dust and his Broadway debut in "Harmony: A New Musical". Blake Roman is a STAR

Speaking of Alex Brightman, man do I love his voice. I've been on the Alex Brightman stan train for years now, waaaaaaaaay before Helluva Boss. I've loved Alex Brightman since his performance as Dewy Finn in the School of Rock Musical (which is criminally underrated. There could not have been a better casting decision for Dewy) Hearing Alex Brightman sing a more rock style song for the first time since his School of Rock days was so so wonderful. "Hell is Forever" was the best part of ep 1 there I said it. Not to mention his performance as Sir Pentious is also quite enjoyable. All of his voice work has gotten him so much positive exposure too! I'm so glad he's getting all the love and attention he deserves after being so underrated for so long. Its like the universe is apologizing for kicking Beetlejuice out of the Winter Garden Theater and replacing it with the Music Man and also robbing him of his Tony back in 2019. (Alex Brightman deserved Best Male Lead in a Musical at the 2019 Tony's argue with the wall)

Christian Borle as Vox was such a fun choice! I've also been a Christian Borle stan for many years now, since I listened to the "Legally Blonde" musical for the first time back in 2017 where he played Emmett Forrest. I'm always happy to hear one of my Broadway faves perform in something, and I was thrilled to find out he was going to be part of the cast!

Lili Cooper as Velvette was also a pleasant surprise! She killed it. She's brash and loud and confident and the accent was a nice touch too! Loved her as Sandy in the Spongebob musical, love her as Velvette.

I don't really have much to say about the rest of the main and supporting cast, they all sound great! I can't wait to hear Jeremy Jordan as Lucifer, Leslie Kritzer as Roise and Darren Criss as St. Peter!

And last but not least, Amir Talai as Alastor. Holy shit is he fun! Amir Talai was the voice that inspired Alastor in the first place, so I'm glad they got him in the cast! I kept seeing people say that he wasn't "intimidating enough" as a Alastor and that he was much weaker than Edward Bosco and all I have to say is:

How does it feel to be wrong?

Because Amir Talai ATE THIS UP. He devoured. Not a CRUMB IN SIGHT. I get all giggly when I hear him sing "let's begin", its so playfully sinister and perfect and lovely. Every single line delivery is perfect.

But even with such a spectacularly talented Broadway cast, the decision to make Hazbin a full on musical was.....interesting. Helluva Boss is similar because they have at least one song per episode, but Hazbin has two, and sometimes they're kind of shoehorned in with no buildup. Ep 3 is the biggest offender of this. I enjoyed Lili Cooper singing "Respectless" but the song was unnecessary. Neither one of the songs in ep 3 made any sense and honestly felt like they were there to fill the quota of "two songs per episode". "It Starts With Sorry" in ep 2 was also kinda weird, but not unforgivable.

The best songs so far are easily "Stayed Gone", "Poison" and "Losers, Baby". All three are bangers and everyone slayed. "Happy Day in Hell" is fun, feels like a typical Disney song, and "Hell is Forever" also slaps, but both songs have a lot of unnecessary swearing that throws them off course.

So yep that's pretty much it for my positives about Hazbin! I'll happily keep watching Hazbin just to hear the cast continuing to slay.

[kamenriderliveblog]

OKAY so I've seen the first two episodes of the Ultraman Z English dub and here are my thoughts on some of the voices (it's good news, go watch the dub):

Zeno Robinson as Haruki: He's great! Right now he's my favourite. He brings a lot of energy to the role and I was very endeared from the word go (specifically the part in the first episode with Haruki saving a dog). I can think of so many moments that I'm excited to see! I'm not gonna spoil them just in case but I know they are coming and it's making me rub my hands together like a weird little gremlin.

Matt Shipman as Z: Z was probably the one I was most worried about because I'm very partial to Tasuku Hatanaka's Z and Z is one of by favourite Ultras in general. Overall he sounded more mature than I expected, but I don't think that's a bad thing? It's always kind of been my headcanon that Z is trying very, very, VERY hard to look dependable and cool during the events of the series because it's his first time on Earth and he wants to make a good impression, and Matt Shipman's delivery lines right up with that. (I also keep forgetting that Z isn't nearly as goofy in-series as he is in the voice drama.) Honestly I wasn't totally sold on his voice until the scene in episode 2 when Haruki starts being more formal. I'm not sure if the little voice crack when he says "that's enough" was on purpose, but it's perfect.

It's also interesting to see the differences in adaptation here. In the original, Z is more creeped out by Haruki being so humble but he keeps his composure. In the dub, he's surprised and we get to see his serious front crack just a bit. This isn't a complaint by the way; I just think it's interesting that different adaptations can bring out different sides of the characters sometimes. Also it's very, very funny that Z says "ultra-obsequious" in the dub. Him pulling a word like "obsequious" out of nowhere really sells that he talks weird. "I request your aid, dude" in the first episode nearly made me choke on my tea.

Mick Lauer as Juggler: I think it's a bit too early to for me to make a decision on this one, because the Orb influence is too strong and I keep wanting to hear a more trickster-like element to his voice. I did like that kind of threatening edge in Mick Lauer's voice in the second episode though!

Mallorie Rodak as Yoko: It's kind of ridiculous how well her voice fits? If you told me that Rima Matsuda was a native English speaker and came back to dub herself, I would honestly believe you. I'm so, so excited to hear her take on Yoko in the last few episodes (if you know, you know)!

Macy Anne Johnson as Yuka: You can really tell that Macy Anne Johnson is having a lot of fun, and that makes her a joy to watch/listen to, honestly. She's probably my second favourite performance. I'm wondering if people might be put off by her energy, but it worked for me!

Sean Schemmel as Zero: I honestly really like Sean Schemmel as Zero! I was pretty lukewarm about Zero's voice in The Destined Crossroad English dub because I didn't feel that they managed to capture his rough around the edges, almost delinquent-like vibe, but I think this voice does a way better job of getting that roughness across. Also this means that Zero is Goku and that's just great lmao

[theangryjikooker]

Hey, TAJ!

I highly appreciate your answer. Free passes to the Agust-D concert! I would've begged you to let me tag along 🥺 But, I have to agree that the third installment is far superior. I love listening to the songs from Yoongi as Suga of BTS, Prod. Suga, and Agust-D. Can you share your experience when you attended the concert?

Also, Letter. I listened to it on repeat on YouTube (I know there's no official version, and I'm bummed about that, but the more that I listen to it, the more I fall in love with it. Just all elements from the song and the emotions from Jimin's voice and delivery). If I may ask, what did you think about the live version?

I'm hoping we can still have a second album from Jimin before he does MS, but I'm not rushing. I'm just greedy wanting more music from him.

I think that there's a rumor about when JK's album would probably be released but, still waiting for an official announcement. I loved all the songs that JK either composed/written/majorly contributed to; trying not to set expectations and patiently wait for it.

And this got too long again. Sorry about that! 😅

I'm actually not a huge concertgoer. Ironically, in my new line of work, a solid perk is getting highly coveted concert tickets. My friends definitely reap more out of this than I do.

Is there anything to say about the Agust D concert that hasn't already been said? I just hate to sound repetitive, but Yoongi is 100% my kind of performer. He's very versatile as an artist, and it's fascinating to me that someone who has historically taken a behind-the-scenes approach does exceptionally well on his own.

This is more of a personal preference, and one I put more stock into (for better or worse), but part of what makes him exciting as a performer is that he can dance, rap, and sing, but he can also play his own instruments. I'm not implying that the other members couldn't be as successful just because they don't play instruments, but it's far more engaging to me when an artist can.

And for a "small" human, he takes up a whole stage with ease, and he exuded the same energy you would expect out of an OT7 concert. Genuinely, it was an amazing experience. 10/10 would go again.

As for Jimin's live version of Letter, he literally sounds like his studio version. What's not to love? I have no complaints. I don't mean to come across as dismissive because Letter really is a lovely song, but my music tastes are more of the high energy variety. I maintain that Letter (along with Like Crazy) are my favorite tracks off his album, but JitB and D-Day are more of my speed overall. I also hope Jimin has an opportunity to release a sophomore album, but I don't know if I want it to be released just for it to be released due to time constraints because I think that would be doing him and his abilities a disservice.

Not that you asked, but since you mentioned Jungkook, I'm just going to vaguely vent here about this because I have so many feelings on this. I'm not going into detail about this because there was still a degree of separation, and I didn't hear it from the horse's mouth (a.k.a. take with a grain of salt, but also he sucks), but from what I understood, it seemed very obvious that SB isn't particularly interested in OT7. And I love Jungkook, I do, and he deserves his opportunities, but at the same time, I really don't want SB to sink his claws into Jungkook. I will literally throw hands.

[allthemusic]

Week ending: 9th May

Oooh, two number ones. Not only that, but two number ones that I don't actually know at all - these could literally be anything, I've not even heard of them. Exciting times!

Rock-A-Billy - Guy Mitchell (peaked at Number 1)

Well, I do know Guy Mitchell. I think of all the pre-rock and roll artists, he's possibly adapted the best to the new style of music, and this song's title suggests to me that he's making another bid to stay relevant. How successful will he be? I guess we'll see...

We start with some moderately energetic guitars and hand clapping, which is then spoiled by some of the world's laziest lyrics, as Guy sings rock-a-billy, rock-a-billy, rock-a-billy, rock, rock-a-billy, rock-a-billy, rock, rock. Seriously, that's the whole chorus. It's like somebody at the record company said gee, this rock and roll thing's hot, and I hear there's a genre called rockabilly, let's just repeat that a whole lot, the kids will love it!

It's not horrible, that said. First we get a verse about rockabilly's history, and how some people think it came from Tennessee / Then spread on out to the lone prairie. And then we also get a verse that's basically Guy giving us instructions for dancing, telling us to grab yourself a partner, lose the blues / Wear your store-bought clothes and your stompin' shoes, and later to wiggle like a trout. Which are both charming enough, if a bit odd. But I guess that's the point - if rock and roll are for the young, cool city folks, rockabilly's its weird hillbilly mirror version, less glam, but no less energetic and wild. At least in theory, it is - I'm not convinced that Guy Mitchell has any actual authentic country-boy cred, for all that he repeats the word "rockabilly" a tonne in the chorus, and so the song's kind of lacking in the grit you get in a lot of "real" rockabilly songs.

I do enjoy the fact that they've included not one but two gear-shift key changes. We've had a severe lack of cheesy key changes so far, more's the pity. Two feels a little excessive, but I'm not complaining at all. This song's a cheese-fest anyway, what's there to lose?

Actually, the more I listen, the more I'm thankful for the key changes, because without them, the song would get very monotonous. There's not a huge amount of variation between the verses and the chorus, and there's not much in the way of instrumental breaks or solos to break up the track, either. If you didn't have the key changes, it would just be a straight-up brutally boring gallop towards the finish line.

I have to be honest, this song is leaving me a little cold. I think it's the cynicism of it all. It definitely feels like an attempt to cash in on a trend, and while Guy's voice and general vibe are good for it, it doesn't feel like the most natural thing ever, or like much actual passion's been put into it. Compare this to Little Richard's yowling and bawling - the emotional whammy isn't even comparable.

Butterfly - Andy Williams (1)

Okay, we're starting out with the same sort of strummy guitar/banjo, clicks, claps and vocal aaaah backing that we got at the start of Singing the Blues. And overall, this has a similar vibe to that song, with some bluesy piano and some backing singers going doo-doo-wah throughout. It sets us up in a sort of blue, mopey mood that continues throughout the song.

Andy's got a voice that works for it, too - he croons in a way that's not a million miles from Elvis, with a lot of emphasis on some notes, and less on others, and a pretty emotional delivery, overall, with these little uh sounds on the end of lines. It's cool, legitimately.

But the musical elements are the least memorable aspects of this song, because... yikes, those lyrics. I kind of like them, but they're definitely of their era. First we learn how Andy's girl is a bit of a floozy, as he sings about how You tell me you love me, you say you'll be true / Then you fly around with somebody new. He's still crazy about her, but she flits around like a butterfly, so he decides to break up, telling us about how You treat me mean, you're makin' me cry / I've made up my mind to tell you goodbye. But to no avail, she's simply the troublin' kind, and so, in the creepiest line of the lot, we learn that I love you so much I know what I'll do / I'm clippin' your wings, your flyin' is through.

Ugh. It's so gross and creepy, a real predatory, serial killer line. Its only redeeming feature is that I could imagine it being used to brilliant ironic effect in a horror movie. I don't even know what "clippin' your wings" would mean, in this context - I think that's what makes it so awful! It could be so many different terrible things, and Andy sings it in this mild-mannered, sweet way that just makes the dissonance worse - urgh!

I do enjoy the metaphor of it all. And when I divorce the lyrics from the possible creepiness behind them, I do kind of like the song. Heck, I even like it as an ironic serial killer ballad. But boy, is Andy pushing it here!

It's at this point that I also need to shout out the backing singer in the back half who just does a solitary bom periodically. That, and the quote on the cover of the version I'm listening to, which describes Andy as "one of those he-males who slays the females". Which isn't doing much for the serial killer accusations, honestly.

I did weirdly enjoy both of those songs, but I'm under no illusions that they were the best songs ever to reach Number 1. Still, one felt a bit more genuine, even if that genuineness was creepy, and that has to earn it the top spot this week, as opposed to Guy's blatant attempt to cash in on a trend.

Favourite song of the bunch: Butterfly

[hatboyproject]

First, you are a legend. Second, I have finally broken down and started playing thru the ME trilogy thanks to (a) my ability to take a sabbatical, and (b) a friend buying me the legendary edition, and (c) threats of violence from my loved ones should I not play it. I've finished ME2 and I am 100% not booting up ME3 if there's snowball's chance in hell that the LE version of your mod is dropping any time soon.

*sings* you're not our bitch and you're not a machine * I'm a fic writer, I expect nothing. And I know this stuff takes forever and I 1000% expect the answer to be 'no' but the only thing I am inquiring is whether there is an updated ETA for your mod. OR if you have need for a legendary edition beta tester. OR if I can send you cash money to help offset the time being spent on a labor of love. OR if I should say -f- it and get my hands on the original edition of ME3 so the hatboy mod you've already (gloriously) provided us, works.

Also thank you for giving me hope that I will get to play a Shoker option, which makes the most sense thematically and narratively and I am aghast at what bioware chose to do with Joker (and EDI, wtf). You're doing god's work.

Just this week, I got some of the updated synths I've been waiting for, but I'm still waiting on BroShep.

I am still working on HBLE, don't you worry! In between writing fic myself, doing a painting, and a playthrough of ME3 to refamiliarise myself with its pacing, I have been going in and putting some necessary setup stuff in place, which is all very boring and un-exciting and not really showcase-able. Big chunks of the structure have been built, but most of the audio work has to be done, still.

In the OT, a lot of work had been done before I had the ability to read a line to the synth myself and have it transpose the voice directly, which noticeably improves delivery. So much so that it is difficult to use a lot of the previous edition's takes. This has the knock-on effect of the line needing to be re-animated because, of course, the timings of everything are now different with the new audio. There are very few lines whose takes will not be re-done.

Fortunately, however, I have my lipsync automation tools, and I'm much better at animating now than when I started. So it takes a lot less time this go-around... but still time!

Sadly and wonderfully, this is a massive mod and is much more than just a straight port. If it was a straight port, it'd have been done already. I would apologise for that, but I like to think the end result will be worth it, haha!

I am adding new content this time, including an entire conversation about his sister that you can unlock by completing some vanilla dialogues.

I am so glad that you've been enjoying your time with Mass Effect and that my mod is on your list of things to do. In what I am sure is the most shocking statement of the century, I agree that Joker is the most thematically satisfying romance for Shepard. I can't wait to get it to you! I promise, I am doing my best and there's nobody who wants it in your hands more than me.

Regarding testing, it's not quite in a state where it can be tested just yet. A few conversations work (first convo, EDI body convo, EDI discussion, some ambients) but nothing else yet.

Regarding supporting me, I do have a Ko-Fi. You can find a link to it in the pinned post, and donations absolutely do help my creative efforts, and I go a little feral when I see someone has donated. But as always, I want to make it clear; The Hatboy Project is free and will never be gated in any way. Everyone gets the same release at the same time. All you have to do is own a legit copy of the game... Which you already do!

Excitement like yours helps keep me going. Thank you so much.

Edit: lmao my link is not in my pinned post lol rofl it's hatboyproject.ko-fi.com tho

[existslikepristin]

Impromptu Review

Thanks for editing this one goes to momirene and Worldsover, and for helpful beta reading feedback from them and one dork who wants to remain anonymous.

Tags: TheLounge, Red Velvet, SNSD (Girl's Generation), Joy, Sunny, loneliness, potential traumatization of cats, a hoard of hell-themed sex toys, a strap on, a butt plug with Jiu's face in it, and bisexual problems.

The front door of Sunny’s apartment swung open so fast that Joy felt a breeze from the vacuum it left behind.

“Joy! You’re here!”

Joy blinked. “Yeah, I said I would come over.”

“It’s been so long since we’ve met up! Come in, come in!”

“It’s only been like a month though.”

Sunny grabbed Joy’s hands and pulled her through the doorway. “It feels like so much longer than that!”

Joy smiled and took her shoes off in the entryway. “You seem more excited than usual.”

“What? How so?”

“Well for one,” Joy said, pointing at the kitchen, “It looks like you prepared for a whole party in here.”

The kitchen’s island was covered in plates of snacks and several variations of alcoholic beverages. Additionally, Sunny was noticeably sweaty, like she had just run around the house preparing for guests. Joy figured it would be best not to bring that up.

“What? No. That? That’s… yeah, that’s a lot of food, isn’t it?” Sunny’s posture drooped, as if she’d already expended all of her energy on her greeting.

Joy pulled her into a side hug. Her height served to straighten Sunny back up. “What’s going on, girl?”

Sunny sighed and leaned her head on Joy’s chest. “I dunno. I’m just excited. Haven’t had a good social night any time recently.”

“Aw! But what about these cutie kitties?”

Sogeum popped her head out from behind the wall and gave Joy her signature droopy, grim stare without so much as a meow. As soon as Joy shuffled in her direction though, she turned and went back into the living room.

“Well, you know. Can’t really have a real conversation with the cats.”

Joy hummed her agreement and stepped into the kitchen. “I’m always happy to talk to you Sunny. They don’t call SM a family for nothing.”

Sunny groaned, loudly.

“Um. Okay,” Joy said when Sunny didn’t elaborate. “Not a family? Just a bunch of really close friends?”

“Yeah, that’ll work better. Not a fan of the family motif.”

Joy picked up a cracker and chomped down. “Gonna… explain? Family is normally a positive thing, isn’t it?”

Sunny grabbed a bottle of wine and yanked the cork out. “Yeah, totally, for sure. Hey, do you like Chardonnay?”

“I…” Joy didn’t want to skirt around whatever issue Sunny was having, but was well-aware of her stubbornness. “I sure do.”

As fancy glasses of white wine were generously poured, Joy made note of Sunny’s slow, unsteady movements. She worried that perhaps Sunny had already started drinking, or wasn’t getting enough sleep.

* * *

“Can you believe that, Joy?”

“No way. It’s just inhuman.”

“Completely! It’s not like green onions are suddenly more expensive to dry out!”

The conversation had started with gossip and cheese snacking when the sun was high. As the sun set, the discussion shifted to the price of instant meals, and the snack plates were all but empty. Joy had to fight the constant urge to fall asleep, as the topics were never much more interesting than that. But she let Sunny lead the talking as much as possible.

Joy was simply relieved that Sunny called her over before diving into her liquor storage. “You should start a petition to regulate the price. I’d be the first to sign it.”

Sunny’s tipsy grin matched Joy’s. Though the alcohol consumption had been slow-going, they had been doing it for several hours. “Oh that would be great press. ‘Washed up idol upset with ramen manufacturers.’”

With an exaggerated roll of the eyes, Joy pointed at a set of boxes in the corner of the living room, currently being used as a lookout tower by Sogeum. “You’re not washed up yet. Look at all of those sponsor gifts. Those weren’t here last time I came over… Wait, they weren’t, were they?”

Sunny giggled. “No, they’re, uh… new.”

Their corporate sponsors weren’t something that Joy, Sunny, or any of the other SM idols discussed often. There were usually so many vying for their attention that it was pointless trying to keep track. But Joy reasoned, somewhat drunkenly, that talking about it might be therapeutic to someone so down on their social status. “Who are they from, anyway?”

A blush deepened the red of Sunny’s already tipsy-glowing cheeks. “Uh… Nobody. Just a regular sponsor, ya know?”

Joy grinned. “Oh, come on. You can tell me. What am I gonna do? Call a press conference to tell the tabloids who’s contributing to your paycheck?”

Sunny rolled her eyes. She shot off the couch, spilling a drop or two of her wine in the process. From Joy’s naturally higher perspective, Sunny didn’t seem that much taller. “Fine,” she said, wobbling, “but you better not make fun of me.”

“I’ll make fun of you for other reasons, like how much I love you, bitch!” Joy blinked at her own shouting. She didn’t know when the alcohol had hit her, but she was beginning to think that she was a little more intoxicated than she previously thought.

Thankfully, the joviality in her voice seemed to encourage Sunny to play along. She set her wine on the coffee table and picked one of the smaller boxes off of the pile. “Disclosure first! We haven’t agreed to any deals yet. They sent me this stuff to try to convince me to shill it. I didn’t reach out to them.”

Joy waved the disclosure off like a mosquito, but Sunny still tossed the box in her direction. The weight inside of it was awkwardly distributed. Joy attempted to catch it, but it wound up ricocheting off the tips of her fingers and nearly knocking over an open, mostly full bottle of soju.

“The fuck is in this thing?”

“I’ve got some ideas but I just know who it’s from. Open it and find out.”

Joy tore into the box with no regard for the care that went into the packaging, which itself was surprisingly discreet. A smirk cracked her lips when she thought about what sorts of deliveries required such discretion. But the smirk faded right away when she got a view of the inside and realized that the packager apparently had the same idea.

Inside was a pair of plastic sheets wrapped asymmetrically around a roughly water bottle sized blob of blood red silicone. A small bit of pink cardboard advertised it as a five-speed, rotation-simulating, self-cleaning, pattern-switching, USB-charging, automatically-lubricating, remote-controlled vibrator with a speaker at the bottom for replicating a set of desired moans and a specialized charging dock.

Joy cleared her throat and stared at the horrifically fancy dildo, and its label, “Dante’s Dive,” unsure if she should toss it back to Sunny, considering it was clearly a personal item.

Sunny reached into what was left of the box, procuring a pretty little decorated card. “Dear Ms. Lee, we at Second Ring Inc were very pleased to hear your impromptu review of our products on a recent episode of ‘Welp, I Guess We’re Talking About This Now’ and wished to send you some additional items to show our appreciation. These are in no way a request for further public review,” Sunny was briefly interrupted by Joy’s disapproving snort, “but should you be interested in a partnership, we have included a phone number at which I, the chief executive officer, Lee Youngjoon, may be reached. Optionally, my username--”

Joy missed a few words as she was shocked by the extreme sound emitted by the vibrator when she pushed a button on the remote control.

“--is ‘worldsover’. As you know, Second Ring specializes in sexual wellness products, of which we’ve sent you a wide variety. They can be enjoyed by couples, or can serve as a fantastic outlet for power singles like yourself…”

Sunny trailed off. Joy was afraid she knew what was coming. “Damn, Sunny. You say so much as three words on national television and they scramble to get right up on your ass, eh?”

It was too late. Sunny was already tipping up the bottom of the soju bottle. A few drops spluttered back out of her mouth as Joy pushed it back down. “Sunny! You’ve said it yourself! You don’t want to get married!”

“Doesn’t mean I’m not still lonely!”

Joy wrapped her arms around Sunny. “You’ve got me. And a million other friends!”

“Fans don’t count.” Sunny’s voice was partially muffled by Joy’s shoulder.

“Ouch. Time for me to delete my Sone club membership. But fine. A hundred other friends. It’s not just me. It’s my members. Your members. And plenty of others. All of NCT would be--Okay, nevermind. Aespa though! They love you too.”

“But I don't want to inconvenience you." Sunny ended so matter-of-factly that Joy had to pause to process the short conversation.

"You know how… You know how you take a road trip, and there's a road block, or really bad construction, and you have to take a detour?"

"Yeah. I'm a detour."

"Come on, Sunny. What you are is the scenic route!”

There was a long silence.

“Was that the end of the metaphor?” Sunny eventually asked.

“I am very drunk.”

“You’re not that drunk.”

“Drunk enough to be shit at metaphors.”

“It’s…” Sunny extricated herself from Joy’s hug. “It’s okay. I think I know what you’re getting at, and I appreciate it. It’s just that a few words don’t really fix a brain, you know?”

Joy nodded slowly, watching as Sogeum casually stalked across the room. “Yup. But believe me. I’m here for you, at least. So if you need a friend, or some company, I’m at the top of your list.”

The cat plopped herself on the floor, right up against Sunny’s leg. Joy giggled. “Fuck off, kitty. I just said I was the top.”

It seemed the topic of conversation was ready to change. Sunny smiled, and it was enough to indicate her understanding.

“So!” Joy moved things along. “A pile of free, top of the line sex toys in your living room. What’s a young woman to do about that?”

Sunny snorted. “Well I’m not going to masturbate while I have company over, that’s for sure.” She grabbed another box from the pile and handed it over, doing her best not to disturb Sogeum’s new resting place.

The new box took mere seconds to open, this time revealing a black silicone butt plug with a red gem in the base. The casing suggested that a picture could be inserted beneath the gem, and it appeared there was one already there as an example. Joy had to flip it around to a variety of angles before she could make out that it contained a headshot of Dreamcatcher’s Jiu making finger hearts on her cheeks. She cocked her head, wondering if the image had actually been authorized.

Another box swapped between the womens’ hands. It took Joy a little longer to open than the last, but it turned out to be that way for a good reason, given that it was gently holding some fragile cargo: A red-tinted glass bottle of lube, labeled as “Juice from the Fruit of The Tree.” The lengthy product title had a snake winding through the letters.

“Well now they’re just really doubling down on this theme, aren’t they?” Sunny asked as she worked out how to open the next package, using her bottle opener as a makeshift knife.

Joy laughed and picked up yet another, now eager to see what kind of wild object it would contain. “Yeah, they really are! No lie, they’re starting to give me some ideas. Talk about sinful.”

“‘Oh I know,’” Sunny mocked the company, as SM artists often did, fingers still struggling to find their way under the first cardboard flap. “‘Let’s send Sunny a whole pile of sex junk. Bet she’s sinful enough to use it all.’ Like, come on Love-eye, or whatever your name is. What’s a single woman gonna do with all this? Hold up a pillow fort?”

“Hey, maybe he doesn’t know you’re single. Maybe there’s some stuff in here that takes two to tangle with… Fuck. Choerry’s got me using alliterations.”

Sunny barely managed to get her fingers inside the box, but her knuckles were turning white from the tightness of it. It seemed that she had left a portion of the packing tape uncut. “I said I was single on the show, though. I don’t think there will be any couples’ toys in here.”

“Oooh, I’m gonna make it a bet now.” Joy smirked. Her next sentence bypassed her verbal filter through the holes left in it by the alcohol. “If you get that thing open and there’s a strap on inside, you have to fuck me with it!”

A jerk of her arms snapped the remainder of the packing tape. Sunny chuckled. “You’re on. There’s no way it is.”

Joy had to admit that Sunny had a point, considering how small the package was. Surely it couldn’t fit a series of leather straps, or a dildo any larger than a couple of inches in any direction. The little voice in the back of her mind that told her making such an offer was stupid quieted down somewhat.

There was a moment of quiet. Sogeum rolled away from Sunny and made her way to the kitchen. Joy picked up another box, confident that she hadn’t just placed herself in an awkward situation. Sunny shook her head, amused. And then…

“J-Joy?”

Joy looked back, but wasn’t quite sure what she was looking at. It was a sort of mass of black string with some silver discs hanging off of it. Another piece of pink paper fluttered to the floor, where Joy picked it up and read aloud.

“‘The Obol.’ As Charon ferried Dante across the Styx and into the hole that is Hell, so too shall this state-of-the-art magnetic harness ferry our exclusive Dante’s Dive dildo into your… partner’s hole…”

There was more to be read, but both women seemed to get the point. The only sound in the room came from Sogeum chomping through some hard cat food in the kitchen. Slowly, their eyes raised and met. They both spoke at the same moment.

“That was a bet’s a joke bet right?”

Their drunken minds needed a moment to detangle their words into distinct sentences. Sunny’s “That was a joke, right?” and Joy’s “A bet’s a bet.”

Sunny started again first. “You know, we don’t have to.”

“I will if you want to.”

Every sentence being exchanged was followed by a palpable stillness. Joy’s heart beat loudly in her own ears, and she swore she could hear Sunny’s too.

“Do you… want to fuck me with that, Sunny?”

Sunny answered instantly. “Yup.”

There was a flurry of action, though it was slowed here and there by a tipsy stumble or two. Sunny gathered up an armful of the items on her coffee table, both sex toys and the bottle of soju, and sprinted for the bedroom. Joy rushed after her, messily attempting and failing to remove some of her clothes on the way.

Sogeum was spooked by the sudden kerfuffle and fled out of sight.

The bedroom was no less hectic. Sunny dropped everything on the bed except the soju, which she took one more swig of directly from the bottle before setting it dangerously close to the edge of her desk. She wiggled out of her shirt and bra, which attracted Joy’s attention instantly.

Joy struck at Sunny’s cleavage, wrapping her fingers as far as they could go around the legendary orbs, and her lips around one of the budding tips. Their differences in height made it awkward, but they very soon found their way to a horizontal state that eased that tension. Unfortunately, it was not on the bed, but on the floor, but they weren’t about to let something like that stop them.

What clothes they were still wearing exploded off their bodies. Joy’s shorts and shirt, Sunny’s pants and socks. All of it ended up in different sections of the room, thrown under and over furniture.

Joy was no stranger to encounters like this, and neither was Sunny. They had shared countless stories with each other… and some spit. But neither had considered their prior make out sessions to be precursors to explicitly sexual action. For her part, however, Joy considered this one differently, and Sunny’s hands searching half-blindly for Joy’s ass confirmed to her that Sunny thought the same.

Backs arched. Legs ground against one another. Open mouths met, trading the alcoholic scents that the women no longer cared to distinguish. Their minds had devoted themselves entirely to the search for physical pleasure.

A lot of exploratory prodding led Sunny’s fingers to the entrance to Joy’s pussy, failing to notice the number of pokes that ended up at Joy's exit. She took some time familiarizing herself with the drenched outer folds.

Joy, however, noticed the poking at her ass. Her mind swam with serotonin, thoughts of other people, and alcoholic fumes that seemed to rearrange the letters of her thoughts into nonsense. Or possibly into inspiration.

Inspiration relevant to the happenings at the prior year's award shows, that is.

Joy tried to pull back the moment Sunny’s fingers dipped inside her. She had opened her mouth to speak but instead groaned and arched herself further into Sunny’s grip on her sanity. "S-Sunny. B-bed."

At least that message was received loud and clear. Sunny dragged her fingers against Joy’s G-spot as she, disappointingly, pulled them out, nearly causing Joy to scream. The same fingers plunged into Joy’s mouth and quieted her as she diligently sucked her own juices from them.

The action transferred to the bed. Fingers immediately found their places again, and Joy bounced on her back in time with Sunny’s brutal shoves. Packaging bounced all around them. It was like a desperate, distracted game of Vegetable Shinobi for Joy, swiping at the jumping dildo. Sunny’s fingers were divine, eye-wateringly so, but Joy wanted something unholy.

Sunny muttered Joy’s name, catching her attention again. She lifted her head to meet for yet another imprecise kiss. Their legs twisted around each other. Joy could hear the desperation in Sunny’s moans, vibrating all the way down her throat, burning like the alcohol. She snaked a hand between them and found Sunny’s clit.

The moans freed themselves as Sunny bucked backward, almost out of Joy’s longer reach. Joy noted the exceptional reaction, and flipped Sunny onto her back, following immediately and putting herself in the position of power Sunny had initiated.

“You’re gonna fuck me with the strap on… right, Sunny?”

Sunny’s eyes widened, and she grabbed the toys.

“No, not yet,” Joy stalled in her most seductive voice. She slid down, nearly falling off the bed, and wrenched Sunny’s legs wide open with her elbows.

Sunny clenched her fingers around the hell-themed dildo for dear life. Joy’s name poured through her lips over and over again as Joy’s lips poured over her pussy.

Joy had to fight Sunny’s strength to keep her spread thighs from clamping around her head. She wanted to keep hearing her senior beg, loud and clear. To that end, she dug in her tongue, unable to penetrate far, but far enough to open Sunny up and feel the wetness flow into her mouth.

“Please… Joy… I’m close… Joy, please! Joy, don’t stop!”

The thought flitted through Joy’s head, that perhaps denying Sunny her orgasm would be fun, but something about the way she said it made Joy wonder if Sunny’s neediness was rooted in her loneliness, more than in her desire to get off. She shifted herself to wrap her arms under Sunny’s legs and pulled. It wasn’t possible for them to be any physically closer than they were, but she wanted to make it feel like they could be.

Sunny’s voice cracked, choked, and broke into a scream. Joy winced as her tongue was squeezed uncomfortably, but she wasn’t about to stop. The back arches, hair grasping, and pained gasps that followed were worth it.

Joy kept it up until Sunny’s body fell back down and her muscles relaxed. Only then, she removed herself to ask, “Need a break before my turn?”

A smile crept up Sunny’s mouth. Her fingers tightened around the dildo she still had in her hand. “Get… back down here.”

If there was any benefit Joy appreciated most about idol training, it was recovery speed, and Sunny still had it. Joy picked up the strap, quickly figuring out how it was supposed to fit and sliding it up Sunny’s legs. The motion doubled as her approach for another make out.

Of course, Joy was still immensely horny. Her interest in making out with Sunny was overshadowed by her desire to get fucked savagely, but she had the wherewithal to hold out, to let it happen naturally. She was always good at letting others take the lead. Whether they led from the top or from the bottom didn’t especially matter to her.

The alcohol made her more impatient than usual though. She forced herself to wait for the five-speed pounding she’d get, but she ground herself against Sunny’s leg in the meantime. Thankfully she didn’t have to wait long. Sunny threw her to the side and attached the vibrator to the unusual strap with very little trouble. Joy fingered herself as she watched.

“Fuck, yes, Sunny. This is going to be so goo--”

Sunny practically tackled Joy. Their lips collided again, strap hovering somewhere between Joy’s legs, but not close enough for her to feel it.

The moment she did, though, Joy grabbed Sunny’s ass and pulled. The lack of accuracy was made up for by the inhuman amount of lubrication present; both Joy’s and the curious synthetic compound that the dildo exuded seemingly of its own volition.

It was almost too much for Joy. The dildo was certainly longer than any she had used before, and bottoming out at full speed meant it hit her rather painfully in the cervix. She hissed, but otherwise just readjusted her legs in Sunny’s way to prevent the same thing from happening so easily again.

The strap held the dildo in place on Sunny’s body well. Despite its genuinely small frame, it seemed to prevent all wiggling. Every one of Sunny’s movements, including the less delicate, more intoxicated ones, translated to sensations that felt to Joy like a biologically attached dick, albeit with a plethora of extra features.

"You're so pretty, Joy," Sunny said. Even though she was doing all the work now, she wasn't nearly as winded as before. Knowing she’d affected Sunny made Joy grin into another kiss.

“No you,” Joy said with a smirk. She knew this would be good, but she truly underestimated how great it would be to see Sunny’s famous tits jiggling with the effort of fucking her. The sheen of sweat covering them would ensure the night wouldn’t be forgotten, even if Joy had another drink or two.

Joy’s first orgasm struck quickly and unexpectedly. Her breath stopped and a shudder spiked through her body from her core to the tips of her toes and fingers and head. The ability to think normally left her for a brief moment. She only kept the fleeting question of whether or not Sunny was able to feel Joy’s climax. Stars popped in and out of existence, obscuring Joy’s view of Sunny’s fantastic body.

It all faded relatively soon after, but it wasn’t enough for Joy. As soon as her lungs refilled, she screamed, “More! Sunny! Fuck me! Fuck me! Oh god!” She was practically numb everywhere, except for every square inch of her that the dildo rubbed, slid, and vibrated against. Her arms and legs wrapped around Sunny on their own.

Joy, eyes half closed, barely registered when Sunny slowed down to grab and open the extra package. She did, however, notice the sudden prodding feeling at her asshole.

“Sun--”

She couldn’t even finish Sunny’s name before something slipped its way into her butt. Her vision cleared up enough to see that even while she continued thrusting, Sunny had one hand tucked between them, and it was the source of the extra intrusion.

A couple more thrusts though, and Joy was lost to the pleasure again. She started to pant instead of scream or moan, or perhaps she was whimpering, or speaking fluent Polish. Joy couldn’t have said one way or the other. Another orgasm hit. And another. And another. She knew some time was passing between each one, but whether it was seconds or days between no longer mattered. Her mind was fading out of existence.

Until, that is, it wasn’t.

With seemingly no provocation, Joy suddenly remembered Cheungae. She had been meaning to talk to Sunny about him before they had gotten drunk. Her mind wandered, far, far more than it normally would during such intense sex.

Cheungae had taken her out several times since their first, less-than-professional meeting at the MAMAs with Wheein. Even though Joy knew he was struggling financially, he always insisted on paying for coffee, but would give up if he saw the bill when Joy took him to some of the much higher end restaurants.

He was always so polite, genuine, and humble. He didn’t even question when Joy told him they couldn’t be in a relationship, but instead insisted that they could be friends. Joy wondered if it was fair to him that she was treating him as a boyfriend in every way but name while she was still having a grand old time fucking everyone else in the industry. Cheungae knew about it, but wasn’t part of it.

And yet, sex with Cheungae made Joy feel good. Great, even. She could recreate the sensations in her mind for days afterward. His slim, toned figure hovering over her, his face contorted beautifully in adorable agony, his admittedly mediocre cock managing to hit her just right with every move. She couldn’t stop picturing him.

Another orgasm smashed through Joy’s illusion. The mental image of perfectly human Cheungae was instantly replaced with the very physical image of god-like Sunny. As tended to happen, Joy held her breath as the climax coursed through her. Her muscles contracted until she was holding Sunny in a deathly grip.

“F-fuck. Sunn-ny. Slow… slow down.”

It seemed that the request was desperately needed by both lovers, because rather than simply slow down, Sunny fell over. Joy’s pussy immediately craved to be filled again, but she knew she needed to clear her head. And besides that, she still had an odd full sensation. When her muscles relaxed enough for her to move of her own volition, she reached beneath herself and recoiled again at the feeling of a drenched butt plug. Her fingertips carried a puddle of mixed cum and lube back up.

“I’m sorry… Joy… I think that’s all I have left in me,” Sunny said between gasps.

Joy made note of her own throat and how dry it was. Whatever sound she was making while she borderline hallucinated, she’d be regretting it for a while. “All good. I was losing my sanity. That was unbelievable.”

Sunny giggled. It sounded painful. “The vibrator… or the surprise plug?”

Joy giggled back. “The plug was definitely a surprise. Was that the one with Jiu's face in it?”

“Mhm.”

“Cool,” Joy sat up, her head swimming in the aftermath. “But I just think it was you using the stuff that made it so good.”

Sunny seemed invigorated by the compliments. She smiled and reached under the bed, making some noise and bringing up a bottle of water. The two of them swapped it back and forth until it was empty and then collapsed into one another, idly feeling each others' bodies up the whole time.

“Does that mean you’re up for another… night like this? Or day?” Sunny asked as she fondled Joy’s tits. It sounded like she had sobered up, at least most of the way. Joy was too afraid of what she would see to look at a clock.

“You fucking know it,” Joy responded while she brushed her fingers up and down Sunny’s inner thighs. It was a reflex for her to agree, but she cringed inwardly as soon as she did, realizing how much more sober she had become herself, and how she wished she wasn’t. She was thinking about Cheungae again.

There was a barrage of light kisses all over her face, neck, and chest. Sunny looked far too happy for Joy to feel okay about retracting her statement.

“Maybe not right now though,” Joy said, just in case Sunny was already getting ideas. “We should really get to bed.”

She didn’t hear any arguments. They simply got up, and only long enough to flip up the duvet, flinging all of the remaining sex toys off, and jumped underneath.

It took a minute for Joy to realize she needed to remove the surprise butt plug. It was easy enough, and she ended up tossing it to the floor without looking at it.

Joy wrapped herself around Sunny. She was usually the big spoon, not that it bothered her. Sunny’s bare back felt comfortably hot against her chest and stomach. Cheungae liked being the big spoon too. He’d swap with her all the time…

“Hey, Sunny?”

“Mmm?” Sunny was on the verge of sleep, it seemed.

Joy lowered her voice, barely above a whisper. “Have you ever thought about… Settling down, I guess? Just being with one person?”

She didn’t expect Sunny to have an immense store of wisdom, but she hoped for more than what she got: a snore.

“Good night to you too, Sunny.”

[seasonofthewicth]

nobody does it like you do - act 6

The final part!! I hope this is a satisfying conclusion! Thank you so much to everyone who has reblogged/commented/shared - it has meant so much. Special thank you again to @morganofthewildfire I'd still be working away at this fic if it wasn't for you, I don't know I ever would have finished it off. Your comments and analysis helped me so much and made this fic better than I could have alone, I'm so grateful.

13k - masterlist - ao3

--

There are five weeks between the eventful wrap party and her first day shooting the Netflix miniseries in Antica. Five weeks for Aelin to sort her shit.

It’s ambitious, and probably unattainable, but she needs a goal.

She needs something to draw her mind away from Rifthold and the director she knows is no longer there.

She gives herself a week of self pity. A week of lying around her sparsely decorated and impersonal Orynth apartment dwelling and pointedly ignoring the headlines she knows have been released. Elide let her know only one picture was captured of her with tears in her eyes leaving the party. Only one and gods bless Elide she shut it down.

Aelin lies on her uncomfortable couch in well-worn pyjamas with unwashed hair and runs through the photos on her phone of her and Fenrys, her and Manon, and the group of them together on set doing whatever shit they used to do.

She spends more time than she should like that. She sits there until her coffee table is overflowing with takeaway wrappers and Aedion and Elide have stopped texting more than once a day. She’s awful for ignoring them but she’s still mortified.

She hasn’t been able to look Aedion in the eyes since he dropped her back at her apartment after their long flight home from Rifthold. He didn’t say much. After he managed to again get her out of the party with minimal press she had cried, curled up between Aedion and Lysandra in their bed, and he didn’t offer judgement or instruction.

He just held her, whispering words she can’t remember but appreciates anyway. Now she hasn’t replied to any of his texts.

She hasn’t texted Fenrys or Manon either. She doesn’t know what to say.

She knows Fenrys jumped immediately into another movie, an action movie she knows he’s been chomping at the bit to get training for, and Manon into the second series of her show that she’s probably too famous for now.

They’re busy. They’ll understand. At least that’s what she tells herself.

The worst thing she does in that week is pour over the photos she has of Rowan. She didn’t realise she had so many but her camera roll is full of silver and green.

There are photos of just him, looking like Rowan, tall and handsome and understatedly happy, smiling covert little smiles at Aelin behind the camera. He was used to her instructing him to pose by the end of filming, she loved snapping away as he did anything. Eating, sleeping, smiling, everything - if it was Rowan she wanted it captured.

Now every photo is a knife to the chest.

The ones of the two of them together are worse, they twist the knife, pain splicing through her until she can hardly breathe. There are pictures of their cheeks pressed together, eyes shining, some serious, some silly. In all of them Aelin can clearly see her own happiness.

She can’t stop looking at them even as tears swell in her eyes and her throat gets tight.

For one week.

Until it’s been seven days since her flight landed back in Orynth and she gets up off her couch and deletes them. She almost doesn’t, her thumb hovers over the button for a good minute before she presses down but then it’s done and they’re gone. She showers and changes her clothes, she throws away all the rubbish on her coffee table and makes a plan.

Filming the movie with all of them it was easy to feel better than she did before, surrounded by new and exciting things, new people who didn’t know her before or treat her differently because of it. It was easy to lose herself in who she was there and with them.

Now though, she’s back to real life and real life lasts for an uneventful three weeks.

She tries what she can, she reads, she runs, she bakes, she teaches herself how to knit. None of it is satisfying and it's hard to make it stick. It’s all boring and never quite captures her attention the way she hopes. Never captures her attention enough to tear it away from Rowan and Rifthold.

A week before she flies out to Antica it changes.

She stumbles upon the change, completely accidentally, and she doesn’t realise what she’s needed until it's right in front of her.

Her usual run route is obstructed by construction and so she takes a left where she usually takes a right, heading down into the west side of the city, the side she doesn’t often frequent.

She used to. She used to spend hours strolling the streets letting the warmth of the sun and Sam’s hand in hers settle into her skin as they observed the numerous bakeries and small boutiques. Thankfully the scenery appears to have changed since.

The chill breeze of the September Orynth air teases the loose strands of hair tickling her face as she comes to a stop outside the sleek shop front. The wooden panels are painted a dark, glossy black and the windows are polished so brightly they reflect what’s left of the sunlight.

Music of Mistward the sign reads in curved, white lettering.

She can see her reflection in the shop window, her cheeks flushed, hair unruly, her running gear nowhere near to what would be appropriate attire for the shop dripping in class but she can’t turn away.

A bell tinkles as she pushes through the door, her headphones gripped tight in her fist as the gentle jazz playing over the sound system greets her. She doesn’t like jazz, it’s not her thing, but along with the musk of wood in the air it’s soothing in welcoming her in.

She passes walls of guitars and violins until she reaches the instrument that caught her eye. It’s sleek, black lid propped open revealing the elegant strings, pulled tight in neat lines. The sharp contrast of the keys against each other, bright against the deep black of the case. Her fingers ghost over them, dying to press down.

She hasn’t played since those days in Rowan’s Doranelle home. She’s wanted to, longed to feel the cool keys under her fingertips and the flood of the music pouring out of her, but the cheap keyboard in her Orynth apartment wouldn’t do Rowan’s beautiful instrument justice.

Aelin would rather not play at all than attempt a cheap imitation of what she felt there.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” A voice sounds behind her, low and raspy but cheerful all the same.

She turns, taking in the older man, his grey hair cut short and his classic shirt and slacks pressed crisp. She glances back to the piano before facing him fully.

“Stunning,” she breathes.

The man steps forwards and offers her his hand. She slips her hand into his and he pumps firmly as he introduces himself.

“Emrys,” he says. “Welcome to Music of Mistward.”

“Aelin,” she says, surprised to hear her voice thick.

“Great to meet you, Aelin,” Emrys says with an ancient smile. He nods towards the piano. “Do you play?”

“No,” she says and Emrys’ smile flickers. “Yes, I mean I used to. I want to,” is what she settles on.

He nods, satisfied, before taking a step closer to the piano. He runs a hand over the top, almost reverently and smiles to himself.

“Antique,” he starts, “almost one hundred years old but well loved. I acquired it recently - here we deal mostly in antique instruments, it’s a passion for both myself and my husband. The previous owner only sold it to me when she inherited it and didn’t know how to play, she wanted it to find a good home.”

He shares a smile with her as if she’s in on the joke but her breathing still hasn’t settled.

“Satin Ebony finish,” Emrys continues, “eighty-eight keys, all original but preserved to the highest quality. Accompanying bench, cut with refreshed velvet. I don’t know in all my years I’ve seen such a fine instrument as old as this.”

Aelin glances back to the piano, it’s big, it won’t fit in her apartment in Orynth but she doesn’t care. She can… adjust. She hasn’t felt a pull like this in a while, she doesn’t want to deny it when she does.

“How much?” she almost demands from the man in front of her.

He appraises her and she knows what he sees. Her bedraggled state and the tension through her shoulders doesn’t give the impression of someone with this much cash to throw around. She abruptly ignores that the way she probably can afford this is because of Rowan’s movie.

When he doesn’t speak she repeats herself, more firmly. “How much?”

“Our price includes delivery and tuning on arrival.” He seems apprehensive of telling her the truth. Aelin waits.

When he finally reveals the figure Aelin blinks. And then she extends her hand. “I’ll take it.”

To his credit Emrys just nods, shaking her hand. “You don’t want to at least play it first?”

Aelin feels the smirk she hasn’t worn in a while creep onto her face. “Is there a risk you’re pulling a fast one on me?”

Emrys returns her smile, a playful glint in his eye. “Not a chance, Aelin. Please follow me to the register where I can take your details.”

Aelin almost stumbles. Almost, but then recovers.

“Any chance I can pay a deposit and then let you know where you’ll be delivering sometime soon?”

Emrys winks knowingly. “Absolutely.”

She follows him to the counter, signs away part of a disgustingly large total of money but leaves with a sense of satisfaction. It’s an accomplishment, a step for purely selfish reasons.

The first thing she does when she leaves the shop is call Elide.

Aelin meets her new therapist two days before she flies out to Antica.

She hasn’t called her old one in months and thinks that’s probably a sign. And she’s all about changes at the moment.

She isn’t shooting in Antica for too long, only a couple of months until she’s back in Orynth and then back to Rifthhold for press. Her stomach drops everytime the thought wanders into her head.

She’s excited to be back in Rifthold, but the company is daunting.

Fenrys and Manon will easily be pissed at her disappearance. She knows Manon will play aloof but she also knows she’ll be upset, Fenrys too. Aelin didn’t mean to hurt them, didn’t mean to drop off the face of the Earth, and she knows she’s let them down but Fenrys and Manon remind her of Rowan. She couldn’t trust the conversation not to eventually steer towards him and Aelin isn’t ready for that.

Their break-up feels weirdly anticlimactic. After everything they built to, Aelin just dipped.

She knows it seems that way to Rowan at least. She hasn’t texted him, or rang him or anything since the party. She’s wanted to, wanted more than anything to hear his voice as she cried, but it’s not fair to him to drag it out and she knows that. She knew when she drew the line she had to stay on her side of it, no matter how much it hurt.

She had cried until her head pounded and her throat was raw. She cried until her eyes itched with no tears left to fall, until all that came out of her was hoarse screeches as she ached to hear him call her Fireheart one last time.

But no one needs to know that, she had kept it as hidden as she could.

She definitely didn’t need any more paparazzi pictures of her with red-rimmed eyes looking downtrodden. She couldn’t bear the thought of Rowan, or worse her mother, seeing them.

She knows Fenrys and Manon; Aedion, Lysandra and Elide would see through her flimsy excuses and so it was easier to stay quiet.

She’s not thinking about facing them yet. She supposes that will be something that likely comes up with this new therapist, but so far on her own, she’s choosing avoidance.

She gets Maeve’s number from Dorian, and she comes highly recommended by a number of Dorian’s other high profile clients. She’s well-versed in non-disclosure agreements, secret sessions and back street exits; she feels like the perfect fit for Aelin.

Unofficially, Dorian lets her know Maeve takes no shit, and that’s also just what Aelin needs.

They agree to online sessions while she’s in Antica, but Maeve recommended an initial meeting and Aelin is open to all of her suggestions.

Their first hour is not directly her most life changing but it’s a start.

“Welcome, Aelin,” Maeve says, sweeping an arm out towards the firm-looking, orange couch in the centre of the room.

Aelin takes a seat, mutters her thanks and glances around the room.

The room should feel cold with the exposed brick and minimalistic decor, the only furniture being the couch Aelin perches on, the almost regal armchair Maeve reclines in and a lamp, but it doesn’t and she gets comfortable tucking her feet beneath her thighs and leaning against the arm.

“So,” Maeve begins, surveying her in the way only a true professional can. “Let’s get started.”

Aelin feels bare beneath her gaze, and like everything about Maeve and her practise it should be unnerving but she just blinks against the scrutiny.

“Why are you here today? You could start with sharing why you have made this appointment.”

And isn’t that the million gold-mark question?

Aelin takes a deep breath through her nose and raises her chin.

“I don’t want to move backwards,” she admits. “Or maybe I just want to know I’ve actually moved forwards.”

Maeve’s expression stays calm, but Aelin knows she’d be smirking if she could. She’s well aware of how therapy works but even so, speaking her thoughts aloud can help to verify them in her own mind.

Aelin hopes so at least.

Their hour is over quickly and Aelin is resolved that Maeve is a good fit, reassured in Dorian’s claim that the woman takes no shit. Her all-knowing assessment of Aelin should have been unsettling but the frank dissection is what she needs.

Online therapy, especially fitting it around shooting might be a challenge but it’s for the best. As much as she values her independence and standing on her own two feet, Aelin is big enough to admit that facing her mother again may require some professional guidance. Seeing Rowan too, but again, she’s not thinking about that yet.

Antica is hot and Aelin is sweaty within seconds of stepping out of the air-conditioned luxury of the airport. That feeling lasts the entire time she’s there, disrupting the otherwise enjoyable time she has shooting the series.

Her new co-stars are fine, they invite her out with them and make her smile but she can’t help as though a part of her is always comparing them to who and what she left in Rifthold. Aelin tries her best to enjoy her time there with them, she hosts dinner parties and invites them to a game of Aedion’s but nothing quite hits the same as her time spent on The Crescent City.

She rationalises it to Maeve, that The Crescent City was a big turning point in her life and that it has nothing to do with Rowan, Fenrys or Manon, but she’s not sure she even believes it herself.

She spends the rest of her time in Antica trying to convince herself, and Maeve, that she’s moving past it. That she’s moving forwards or else she’ll move backwards. She’s not sure how much of it is futile.

The Crescent City is done, whether she likes it or not, and she can’t deny it changed her in ways she didn’t expect. It’s a hard pill to swallow that maybe it changed her beyond return to how she was before. She also can’t quite figure out whether she thinks that’s a bad thing or not.

They have a dinner for the core cast and crew, including Rowan, once they’re all back in Rifthold for the beginning of the press cycle. They have one night to reacquaint before they’re shoved into the whirlwind that is interviews, photoshoots and promotion.

She’s seen the trailer already and it’s just as she expected but more. It’s dark and dreary with flashes of brightness from herself and Fenrys and she’d want to watch it if she chanced a viewing as a member of the public.

What is surreal, is to see herself in a polished version of the film they were creating. Or at least a part of it.

She said each of the lines, rehearsed them over and over until they fell off her tongue without thought, but she still doesn’t recognise the girl in the trailer. A droplet of pride slips down her chest at the realisation that it’s not Aelin in the trailer but Feyre. She knows she’s good, has known it all along, but the realisation and reaffirmation is ecstasy better than any drug.

She hovers outside the restaurant, watching through the window, needing a couple more seconds before she submits herself to the assault of them all again. She still hasn’t replied to either Fenrys or Manon and the thought presses on her like lead but it’s too late to change that now.

If she’s honest she’s concerning herself with Fenrys and Manon in the hopes of distracting herself from the fact that she’s seconds away from Rowan. Seconds away from him in the flesh, his solid body in front of her that she had learned almost as well as her own.

Her palms are clammy and she wipes them against the fabric of her trousers. The upcoming interviews and photoshoots will all be styled for her and so she’s relishing in her last moments for a while of truly dressing like Aelin.

She takes a step towards the restaurant door, the tip of her trainer bumping the wood when a voice sounds behind her.

“Well, hello there, Stranger.”

Aelin braces herself, hand paused outstretched where it had been reaching for the door.

She turns, biting her lip as she faces Fenrys. He looks the same as he did, skin still golden, eyes still dancing with mischief, but his golden curls are trimmed shorter than the last time she saw him. His expression is carefully blank.

“I- Hi… um,” she stumbles over the words. “I’ve missed you.”

Fenrys breaks almost immediately. “Oh thank the fucking gods.”

He surges forwards and wraps her into a tight hug. Aelin clings to him, fighting the tears in her eyes as she buries her face in his chest. She’s gone far too long without this, without him, and it’s all her own fault.

“Do you have any idea how much I missed you?” Fenrys asks. “Oh wait, no you don’t. I’m assuming your phone broke, or was stolen or something since you never replied to any of my texts letting you know.”

Aelin knows her cheeks are stained pink. “I’m sorry,” she admits.

“I know.” His voice softens, losing the teasing edge as he presses a gentle kiss to her cheek.

He pauses before he speaks again, his eyes running over her face. “You could have texted me anytime, you know. Manon too. I know you might forget or try to convince yourself otherwise, but we are your friends. You could have called us about literally anything.”

Aelin feels like she could cry. She’s not sure that she isn’t.

“It doesn’t have to be about anything serious, especially not related to the movie,” or Rowan he doesn’t say but Aelin hears it. “We just wanted to hear your stupid voice.”

Aelin pouts. “My voice isn’t stupid.”

She pokes her tongue out as he rolls his eyes, easily falling back into the dynamic they had shaped a few months ago.

“Not what I meant,” he says before pausing, taking her in as she stands in front of him. “You can’t lose us that easily, you know. We’re like rats or fleas or something. Hard to get rid of.”

“Nice,” she comments, but her chest is tight at his words.

He smiles at her before adding, “and you had fucking better text me back.”

Aelin laughs through the sniffles he’s kindly ignoring. She pulls her phone out of her pocket and finds his contact. Hi she sends and feels his phone buzz against her.

“Much better,” he says and releases her from his arms. “Now, are you ready for a night of the finest dining all on the studio credit card?”

Aelin laughs again. “Lead the way.”

He shoots her a wink and waltzes ahead to hold the door open for her.

Fenrys’ presence shouldn’t reassure her the way it does, especially after the way she has treated him but she clings to him anyway. He’s her buffer for now, a crutch for tonight and tonight only. Once tonight is over and tomorrow begins she and Rowan can be professional, they managed it for months during filming and this should be no different.

Rowan still looks the way he did the night she broke his heart.

His silver hair falls elegantly over his forehead as he bends his head to talk to Manon, the pair of them are engrossed in a conversation as she and Fenrys walk over, not spotting them yet. She loves his hair, loves the thick silver waves and the way they feel between her fingers. She loves the way any attempt he makes to arrange the thick strands is never quite able to tame the beast. She loves the shirt he has on, with the sleeves rolled up exposing inches of tanned skin and dark ink, the same worn green cotton she wore numerous times around his living room all those months ago. She can still remember the feel of it against her bare skin.

His smile is the same, his green eyes crinkling as his lips barely part as he does his best to hold it back.

His smile is the same until he spots her.

He catches sight of her when she reaches the table and his smile drops, the shutters closing over his expression so fast she wouldn’t know he knew how to smile had she not just seen it.

It tears her chest in two and any attempt at a smile on her part is futile. It’s all she can do to make it to her seat without stumbling and she’s sure she misses any other greetings she gets as she slumps onto the chair opposite Manon. She absently notes Fenrys dropping in at her side.

She can’t look away from Rowan, her eyes scanning to try and find anything that distinguishes him from the man she loved all those months ago. She finds nothing. He’s still Rowan and Aelin still… fuck.

He recovers before she does, ever the collected courtier, clearing his throat and nodding.

“Aelin,” he says and she adores the sound of her name on his tongue.

“Hi Rowan,” she manages and hears how weak she sounds. Rowan hears it too. She can tell from the purse of his lips and the tension in the hand he rests along the back of Manon’s chair.

Aelin allows her eyes to drift to Manon and she finally catches the thunderous expression the younger girl wears.

“Hi,” she whispers and Manon blinks.

“Hi?” Manon repeats incredulously.

Aelin is fucked.

“Five months and I get a hi?”

It’s loud and a few heads turn their way. It’s simultaneously mortifying and everything Aelin deserves.

“I’m sorry,” she says plainly.

She could lie, make up some useless excuses but in the end there’s nothing else but the truth and if Manon wants her to grovel she will, she’s just not sure this is the time or place.

Fenrys shares her thoughts. “Later, Manon,” he says, gently.

Rowan’s eyes stay firmly glued to the tablecloth as Manon frowns, seemingly unwilling to let it go.

After a few seconds, seconds Aelin spends waiting for the ground to open up and swallow her, Manon nods. She nods and turns to Fenrys, demanding to know what he’s ordering. And just like that Aelin has a moment to catch her breath.

She knew this dinner wouldn’t be easy, knew she’d be walking into the lion's den of her own making, but she hadn’t expected it to be as hard. Hadn’t expected seeing Rowan to feel like a slap, hadn’t expected Manon’s hurt to scrape across her skin leaving her raw.

She tries not to think she deserves it, Maeve would only raise a brow as if to say we’ve been over this. The thought is sobering, and she manages to lift her head.

It is what it is, what’s done is done and she can only apologise and move forwards.

As much as she tries to resist, Aelin finds herself watching Rowan throughout the night. It’s scary how familiar he feels, he should feel like a stranger, but he feels like she knows him too well. He laughs when she expects, rolls his eyes when she predicts. He orders what she thought he would and he sips away at an orange juice the way he did the first dinner they all had together.

Aelin already feels so different than she did the last time she was in Rifthold and he seems unchanged.

She observes for most of the night, feeling drained despite her minimal contributions to the conversations. She speaks when spoken to and actively avoids speaking when Rowan does, she definitely doesn’t respond to anything he says even though she wants to at least twice and wants to laugh a couple more.

She makes it through and clings to Fenrys again as they all leave, linking her arm through his as they leave the restaurant. He knows what she’s doing but graciously guides her out of the building. Once on the pavement outside the restaurant he pauses and turns to her.

“What hotel are you staying in while you’re here?”

The rest of the group are milling about, calling taxis and bidding their farewells. Aelin doesn’t know how she’s getting back yet, she’s assuming she’ll split a ride with someone.

“Um, the Glass Castle, I think,” she says, desperately trying to recall the name of the hotel she dumped her bags in a few hours earlier.

“Boo,” Fenrys laughs, pointing his thumb down. “They’ve got me in the Torre Cesme. Think I’m ages away from you.”

Aelin laughs, disappointed but ready to order her own taxi back when a voice she didn’t expect sounds.

“I’ve just ordered a cab to the Glass Castle, I’m staying there too. You can jump in if you want.”

Rowan.

She shoots Fenrys a panicked look but his expression is pure glee.

“That would be great thanks, Boss,” Fenrys says, shrugging his arm out of hers and nudging her towards Rowan.

“No problem, Boyo.” Rowan offers Fenrys a dark grin at the nickname and the sight of it stills her. It’s new, he used to roll his eyes whenever Fenrys would drop it into conversation, but now Rowan’s playing along. And the grin, the curl of the lips and the narrowing of the eyes, it’s sexy as fuck.

It’s only taken one night and she’s back in the danger zone. She doesn’t want to be, hell, she wants him to take her back to his hotel room and peel off her clothes but this is Rowan. She’s spent the last few months trying to get over him, falling into bed with him the first night she sees him again would not likely be defined as progress.

He’s also not likely to want that after what she did.

“You don’t have to,” she says. The first direct thing she’s said to him since their greeting.

“I know.” A slight shrug of his broad shoulders. “But we’re going to the same place, it wouldn’t seem logical to take different cars.”

Logic. That’s all it is.

“Right.” She doesn’t think she’s ever felt so awkward with him, not even at the start. “Thank you,” she says, following him to the car.

Fenrys shoots her a grin as he slips into his own taxi. Traitor.

Rowan holds the door open for her and slips in behind her. She tries not to think anything of the fact he could have easily taken the front seat.

The ride is silent apart from the easy chit chat he makes with the driver, another thing she’s not sure she noticed him do before, and she stares out the window as the city passes by. The streets of Rifthold are not her home but she feels a brightness as she glances down the curving roads, spotting groups of people milling about enjoying the night.

She knows the first call she made to Elide in weeks was the right call. Elide is the only person she’d trust with her bank account and access to real estate listings. The link to the flat her friend had sent over has stayed open in her browser since she got it.

It’s modern with classic twists, situated in a recently renovated old warehouse with miles of exposed brick and rustic wooden panelling. She loves the master bedroom the most, with its adjoining en suite with a huge bathtub she can picture herself soaking in. She has a viewing booked in two days but doubts she’ll even need it.

It’s not long before the taxi pulls up outside the hotel and she follows Rowan through the glass doors. He presses the button for the lifts and Aelin shifts in the awkward silence.

Awkward is not something she’s used to with Rowan. Or it wasn’t before.

The doors slide open and again she follows him inside.

He pauses with a hand hovering over the buttons for the floors. “Which floor?”

“Nine.”

Aelin hates these one word exchanges compared to the hours they used to share talking about everything and nothing. She can’t believe this is the man she was so vulnerable with.

His short huff of laughter drags her gaze to his face.

“What?”

“Makes sense,” is what he says, shaking his head and pressing only the button for the ninth floor.

The ride takes seconds, a minute at most, filled with the silence between them.

When the doors open to the ninth floor she steps out, determined not to follow him again, and she feels him follow her. Even now she’s so aware of his powerful body and the way he moves it. She shouldn’t be so attracted to the power emanating from him, from the breadth of his shoulders to the sureness of his steps. She wants him, doesn’t think she ever stopped, except now he’s the forbidden fruit. Forbidden only by her own actions.

She reaches her door, room 905, but pauses with her key tucked in her hand.

“Thanks for letting me share your cab,” she says, finding herself desperate not to say goodbye yet. “I can transfer you for half.”

That finally, finally, cracks a whisper of a smile but she’s not sure she enjoys his laughter if it’s at her. “Don’t worry about it.”

That should be the end of it, she should open her door and shut it behind her, they have a few weeks ahead of them that will be hard enough without any complications.

She left him and he seems gracious enough to have mostly moved past it.

“It was good to see you, Aelin,” he says, seemingly unwilling to let the night end as well. She doesn’t let the seed of hope sprout because what would be the point?

Nevertheless, Aelin smiles, leaning back against her door.

Rowan continues, “even if I wasn’t sure how the night was going to go.”

Her attention is spiked. “What do you mean?”

She can’t lie, a part of her expects him to back down at the edge to her voice. He doesn’t.

“I wasn’t sure if you were going to pretend nothing ever happened between us.”

She blinks, giving herself a second to process.

Maybe this isn’t the same Rowan from all those months ago. That night he let her walk away from him, gods know she needed it, but a dark little part of her had wanted him to fight her harder. Fight harder for her. When he hadn’t she’d taken it as her sign.

She knows the expectation was toxic, if he had fought her it would have only pissed her off, but she wishes she’d had someone to tell her it was the wrong choice. It would have helped to hear in the moment, rather than be faced with Rowan months down the line that she wants and can’t have.

The Rowan in front of her, the third Rowan she’s known, stares her down. His eyes peel away each of the layers she’s worked with Maeve for months to don in a second.

“I wouldn’t do that to you.”

It’s honest and maybe she’s not the same Aelin as a few months ago either.

That’s what she had asked for that night in the cool air, to move past them with as little commotion as possible, stirring up as little attention as they could. She hadn’t wanted to let them eclipse the movie and yet that ended up being exactly what she had accomplished.

Now though, Aelin knows better.

Rowan nods as his eyes dart across her face. He seems to step closer without realising. Aelin notes the motion, still so aware of him and his proximity to her.

His tongue darts out to wet his lower lip. “I was so angry at you for leaving.”

Aelin loses her breath at his confession.

Eventually she manages, “was?”

He looks away from her, glancing down the dark hallway, his jaw tight. When she’s with him she forgets about the world around them, there’s probably-definitely-CCTV in this hallway but he’s here and she can’t let him go yet.

His fists curl and uncurl as he takes a deep breath.

“Was,” he says shortly. “I was so angry at you, the way you did what you did was shit.”

Aelin swallows. He’s not wrong.

“I know.”

“But now I don’t know.” She lifts her eyes to his, swimming in the openness she doesn’t deserve. And fuck that. That is such bullshit. She meets his stare, returning all that he isn’t saying. “I spent a long time thinking about it, thinking about you, and it took me a while but now I get it.”

That hurts more than she expects. She didn’t expect him to be all over her the minute they reunited but his understanding was always a kicker.

“I know why you did it,” he continues. “And that took most of the wind out of my sails.”

Aelin frowns. He can’t possibly know why.

“I don’t think you do.” He tilts his head, an invitation for her to expand. “Or you’d know that nothing has changed.”

“Hasn’t it?”

His question throws her. Completely.

She tilts her head up to look at him, closer to her than he’s been all night, pushing her to keep being honest with him.

She’s dazed being this close to him again after so long, the green of his eyes stronger than she remembers. Or maybe her brain had assured her the memory of him couldn’t have been real.

“I don’t know,” she admits, unable to fight the way her body leans into him.

His teeth graze his lower lip and she follows the motion.

He’s silent for a beat too long and her skin is thrumming under his attention. She doesn’t know how she’s gone this long without him, she doesn’t know how she thought she’d survive never having him again.

“Let me know when you figure it out,” he says finally, drawing back and a rush of cool air fills the space he had taken. “Goodnight Aelin.”

He turns and she watches his back down the hallway. He slips easily into a room a few doors down and she’s left watching the path he’d taken, feeling the weight of his eyes on her lips.

Her head thuds against the door as she screws her eyes shut. She wants to scream, wants to chase him down the hall, wants to fly back to Orynth where she was safe.

She doesn’t do any of those things.

She tucks herself into her hotel room and readies herself for the whirlwind that’s about to hit. These next few weeks are going to be hard, not just dealing with the Rowan situation, but she can’t fight the excitement she feels.

Fuck. She’s back in Rifthold, back where she loves, doing what she was born to do.

This is big. She can feel it.

The Crescent City is not her first project, and so she’s been a part of press cycles before, she knows how they go. What she doesn’t know is how a press cycle for something like this works.

The only word she can find is insanity.

There are somehow earlier mornings than they had while shooting and often longer days. She gets poked and prodded in hair and make-up for hours before they spend all day sat in a hotel room filming repetitive interviews for various magazines.

She and Fenrys are genuinely friends and yet they still have to put on a show in front of the cameras. She plays up her laughter when he cracks a joke and he makes sure to never look away from her for longer than two seconds when she speaks or a producer behind the camera makes a comment.

She loves Fenrys but it’s exhausting. Her only blessing is that for most of her engagements she’s with Fenrys and Manon with Rowan conducting his own interviews separately as she had hoped.

Sometimes though, given their relatively similar ages and general level of chemistry, they get grouped together.

The four of them are filming a video for Buzzfeed, filling in a quiz to find out which character from The Crescent City they’re most like. She’s unsurprised to discover her result is Rhysand and it’s fun even if her heart does pound every time she has to act like she’s unfazed and friendly with Rowan.

There’s a moment, just a moment, where she almost breaks from her friendly and unbothered interview persona. It’s her turn to read the question, what item could you not survive without on a desert island?

It’s Rowan that speaks. “Her shampoo,” he says, “it’s jasmine.”

There’s a split second where she doesn’t speak, where all she can do is stare at Rowan, stunned that he remembered and thought to mention it now.

In that split second she’s transported back to memories of them together in the shower at her rented apartment, kissing lazily under the spray after spending hours between her sheets. She remembers dumping the shampoo into her hand and then onto his head, massaging his thick locks and surrounding them in the scent of jasmine.

She remembers how he kissed her neck as she did, trailing his hands over her silky curves, slick with the soap, with his kisses building in heat until her hands dropped to his shoulders. He’d lavished kisses down her chest until he’d jerked back, shampoo in his eyes and she’d laughed until he was safe and pressed his lips again to hers, continuing where he’d left off.

She’s shocked he’d bring this up when there’s a camera on the two of them and she can only imagine the comments it will spark. She’s not sure she cares if it keeps Rowan’s eyes on her.

“It’s luxurious for a reason,” she says when she recovers, tossing her thick locks over her shoulder. “Well worth it.”

She doesn’t miss the flicker in his own mask at her comment.

That kind of interaction will no doubt ignite the sparks she’d only ever wanted to avoid.

As the press cycle goes on and on, and they get closer and closer to the premiere it only becomes harder for her conviction to hold.

She tests her own argument, the clear line she drew in the sand, when she manages to keep it professional with Rowan and she’s not sure where that leaves her. She had thought they would overshadow everything about the project and now she’s not sure.

She said nothing had changed and he had challenged her.

She’s still not sure who’s in the right.

Everything is simultaneously completely new and exactly the same. Rowan is still gorgeous, still charming in his own reserved way, still almost reverent when he talks about his craft throughout interviews. He still talks with his hands and Aelin still can’t draw her eyes away from their motions, she still craves the touch of them on her skin. He’s still seven years older than her and the director of her big break.

Yet there are differences.

They’re still often on the same page, offering similar answers and backing each other up but now he never backs down from a challenge. Now he doesn’t hold back those comments she knows he was always dying to let slip. She should be annoyed, everytime he drops a line that pushes her to expand a little part of her wants to roll her eyes.

She doesn’t though. Her blood heats and her skin prickles. She loves this with him. Loves the dance they play, the teasing, verbal games that shouldn’t start her off but do. She loves the smirk he wears when they end up down that path, and she knows she wears it’s mirror image.

She always ends up squirming in her seat and it should be wrong but it isn’t. The cameras can’t see below their chests and the flush in her cheeks could easily be from the warmth of the day.

She’s beginning to wonder if she’s powerless against Rowan Whitethorn. If she’s powerless against the green of his eyes or the curl of his accent. The slant of his brows or the points of his teeth when he smiles.

She doesn’t know that it’s just one thing. It’s all of the things, it’s all of him, and more so than ever she’s completely fucked.

But they aren’t talking outside of the interviews and photoshoots, and the knowledge of which hotel room is his itches her toes every night. It would be so easy to sneak down the hall, to knock on the door and slot her lips to his when he opened.

It’s only a couple of nights before the premiere when the temptation becomes too much. She’s been around Rowan all day, surrounded by the smell of his aftershave, the notes of pine and freshness and Rowan and it’s too much. She strides down the hallway, resolved in her decision and closes her fingers over the button for the lift.

She needs to be elsewhere or she’ll make some bad decisions.

She’s come so far, survived months without him, she can’t cave due to proximity.

The hotel bar is deserted when she walks in and makes a beeline to the bartender. Yeah, maybe after her wobble at the wrap party a bar isn’t the best decision she could make but her options are limited. Trying to sleep with Rowan is, after all, probably the worst of both options.

“Just a sparkling water please,” she says to the barman who nods and returns a moment later.

“Put it on my tab.” A voice from the end of the bar.

A laugh bubbles out of her chest as she closes her fingers around her glass. Of course he’s here. She should have spotted Rowan the minute she walked in and it’s cruel that the reason she didn’t was that her thoughts were too wrapped up in him.

“Be careful what you sign up for,” she says as she walks over, her steps measured as she comes to a stop before him. Her hips swing of their own accord and his eyes dart up and down the length of her. “I can put a number of these away.”

The smile he gives her is surprisingly unguarded. It seems he’s done holding himself back too. Aelin loves it.

“I don’t doubt it,” he says, nodding at the stool next to him. She obliges as he speaks again. “It’s hard to switch off sometimes.”

He’s always on the same page as she is. Aelin shrugs, taking a sip of the drink he bought her.

They’re quiet for a moment, both unsure of how to break the silence between them when one of the last things they knew was the taste of each other’s lips.

“I keep thinking I’ll get used to it, that one day this will just be my job, but I never do,” Aelin says eventually, tracing a fingertip through the condensation gathered on her glass.

Rowan nods, smiling softly down at the bar and taking a sip of his own drink. An orange juice as usual.

“It’s hard to sleep at the end of days like today,” he says. “It’s why I’m in here.”

The bar is dark at the late hour, and quiet with no one else in there but them and the bartender. There’s something about the late hour, the darkness and the stillness surrounding them a break from the recent rush, that feels a little bit too close. She feels a little too exposed under the weight of his gaze but she rolls her shoulders back and leans an elbow on the bar as she turns towards him.

“I thought you’d be used to all of this by now,” she says and he cocks his head.

“Why?” His question is coy, begging her to expand.

“This is not your first rodeo and all of that,” she says with a smile.

Rowan laughs softly, the sound curving around her like an embrace.

“It can still be overwhelming after your first big movie,” he says gently, but with an edge to his voice that she needs to immediately get rid of.

“I don’t doubt that,” is what she whispers and his brow seems to soften, sensing her lack of malice.

She hates the way they’re in the position where he assumes the worst of her. She has to make that change.

“I don’t think if I get to do this for the rest of my life that it would ever feel normal.”

“No,” Rowan agrees, “I don’t think it could.”

“So then we need this film to do well.” Aelin shifts on the stool, finding herself leaning closer to him without conscious thought. He doesn’t retreat. He stands his ground until they’re only inches apart. “Lest we find ourselves fading into obscurity.”

“I doubt you ever could,” he says with a laugh and it’s the best thing she’s ever heard.

As he looks at her, his expression soft in the dim light, his smile holds something special for her and her chest lifts that she managed it. That he was willing to give that to her.

“My agent sent over the initial critic reviews earlier,” he says and her stomach plummets.

“And?” she demands, her voice wobbling slightly. Her confidence from a minute ago vanished.

This is the moment where she could sink, the moment this could all be over.

“And they’re good,” he almost whispers.

“Good,” she repeats and it’s not a question but he nods.

She wants to throw herself at him at the news, a couple of months ago she wouldn’t have even hesitated, but now she sits clenching her fists and trying not to smile too wide. It feels like a waste. She’ll never get this feeling again.

She turns to him and he’s smiling so she does what she’s wanted to for months. Aelin leans forwards and wraps an arm over his shoulders, pressing her chest to his.

His arms slip up slowly over her shoulders at first, unsure but gaining confidence as he tightens his grip around her, drawing her further into his chest. Aelin laughs a little, throwing her other arm around him and resting her face against his shoulder.

It’s not enough, it never could be with him, but it will do. She’s just happy he didn’t push her away.

Eventually, after a length of time that feels far too short, she pulls back to see him gazing down at her with an expression she can’t name. His brows are drawn in with his lips gently parted. He’s happy but apprehensive, open but distant. Aelin will take what she can and the distance between them has always been too far.

She wants nothing more than to close it, to draw herself into him and he into her, but she can’t. They’re here for one thing and one thing only and she refuses after what they’ve been through to mess it up again.

She knows he can read her own expression but she doesn’t care. She’ll hide from everyone and anyone but she’s realising she could never hide from him.

She wants Rowan, will probably want him for the rest of her life, but she made the call and he’s wrong, things haven’t changed.

Apart from all of the things that have.

The day of the premiere Aelin feels sick.

Her stomach twists and she tosses and turns all night and the dark circles under her eyes are brutal as a result. Her make-up artist tuts but diligently packs concealer on until Aelin looks well rested. Or as close as she can.

She’s trying not to think of the stretch of carpet she’ll have to walk tonight, a smile plastered across her face as she poses for the hundreds of cameras. Their premiere is one of the biggest of the season and, along with Fenrys, she’s the star.

She’ll have nowhere to hide.

Aelin sits in front of her mirror, her hair and make-up are done but she’s yet to get dressed. She takes herself in, making sure to note every strand of hair to every line of her lips, feeling as though she needs to remember this moment. The moment before it all explodes.

They’ve been building to this for almost a year now and this is as close to a culmination as she’ll get.

Her dress is something fierce. Endless, flowing velvet in the darkest shade of black. Long sleeves and a fitted bodice with an almost indecent dip in the back. The dress would be modest without that cut out, she can’t wear any underwear it dips so low.

It would be a simple dress, some might even dare to say boring, if it weren’t for the back. The majority of the fabric that remains is covered in gold embroidery taking the form of a dragon, coiled to strike. Aelin adored the dress the moment her stylist revealed it to her. She didn’t consider any of the other dresses, didn’t even acknowledge them as options.

The dress is what she needs, something strong, something to help her hold her head up high. She can walk the red carpet and stare down every single person who doubted her and know that they were wrong.

Aelin doesn’t need their approval. She doesn’t need the reassurance of faceless commenters, she doesn’t need the support of the magazines and the newspapers. She doesn’t need her mother’s approval. On anything.

Aelin is confident and self-assured and she can walk the red carpet knowing that.

Her sessions with Maeve have helped to reassure her stance, but she’s realising day by day she’s known it all along. It’s just taken a little bit of digging to uncover it.

She slips into her dress and it slides on like a second skin. She takes in her appearance, the arch of her brow and the red smirk of her lips makes her look intriguing, like a confident young woman.

Aelin was born to be an actress but she’s proud to say the sight in the mirror is real.

She poses for a few photos before she’s led out of her room and into the car, waiting to take her to the theatre.

She spends the ride in silence, barely listening to the jabbering of the aide in the car with her, and she focuses her thoughts on the calm before the storm. She takes deep breaths and centres herself the way Maeve has taught, she knows this could so easily be overwhelming but she’s determined to enjoy it.

The car stills and she can hear the noise of the crowd outside. She takes a final deep breath and allows her lips to spread into a smile. This one is genuine, nothing forced about it, and she pauses for one last beat.

This is big and Aelin is ready.

The car door opens and the sound hits her like a wave, slamming down onto her and it's so loud she can hardly think.

This is it. This is the moment she has dreamed of.

The nights where this image was all she could cling to to make it through could never have compared to how it feels standing here now, screams of her own name wrapping around her and urging her on.

Her steps are slow and purposeful as she glides down the path forged for her, the red carpet beneath her stilettos is plush and bright. She pauses where she’s instructed, rolling her shoulders back and smirking at the cameras with a hand on her hip.

She knows she looks incredible and the shouts of the photographers do nothing to change her mind. They are here for her, they’re all here for what she has accomplished, along with Fenrys, Manon, Chaol and Rowan and everyone else involved.

There are so many forces upon her, the flashing of the lights, the screams and shouts calling her name or Fenrys’, the magnitude of what this is could knock down a lesser individual but all it does is raise Aelin up.

She’s been through worse than this and survived, she’ll stare down the lense of all of these cameras, of everyone who has ever spoken her name and she won’t cower, she won’t just survive. She’ll thrive.

A warm hand lands on her waist and somehow the flashes of the cameras explode.

“Hey, golden girl.” Fenrys’ words are almost hard to hear even though his lips brush her ear. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Aelin wraps her arm around his back and grins, “I thought I’d at least show my face.”

He returns her smile and together they pose for the cameras, their shoulders back and smiles confident. She’s not sure this could be better.

Until she turns slightly to her left and gets flashes of silver where she and Fenrys are gold.

Rowan and Manon, posing for their own pictures mere metres away. He looks spectacular, the deep black of his tuxedo doing nothing but bringing out the depth of his tan and the shine of his silver hair.

He’s smiling his public smile and it’s gorgeous even though it’s not her favourite of his smiles, she loves the private ones he used to save just for her, and her own smile falters at the sight.

She’s here with Fenrys and it’s not wrong but it doesn’t feel right. The arm around her waist shouldn’t belong to Fenrys.

She should be where Manon is, smiling up at Rowan while they marvel at what they’ve accomplished. She knows her smile has dropped and she fumbles for anything to plaster onto her expression other than the longing she feels for Rowan.

As if she’d called his name he turns to her, green colliding with blue, and she knows he feels the same.

And that hurts far more than all of the months they spent apart.

All the months she spent hurting, trying to deny what she always knew, trying to pretend that they were anything other than a force of nature. They had been an eclipse, threatening to over take all of this but she was wrong. Rowan was wrong too.

It doesn’t matter whether everything or nothing has changed because she wasn’t right in the first place.

She should have known better than to think that whatever flimsy decision she made could halt what they were, what they should be.

She can only hope he forgives her. She can only hope he feels the same.

But the thing about this new Rowan is that she can’t read him the way she used to read her Rowan, she can’t tell if the way he steels himself and turns away from her is a dismissal or if the look they shared had been just as painful for him as it had been for her.

“A masterpiece.” - Rifthold Reporter

“Fenrys Moonbeam shines alongside Aelin Ashryver in The Crescent City. See our full review here.” - Wyrd Stone

“Latest Rowan Whitethorn flick smashes Box Office records.” - Valg Weekly

“Unapologetic, daring and thought provoking. Award nominations expected to follow for The Crescent City.” - Terrasen Tribune

Her phone has not stopped buzzing for the past four days.

Dorian texts every waking hour with the updates he gets, the numbers coming in and all her latest offers. It’s surreal. She knew they were good but she’s not sure she ever really expected this. Aedion texts her a picture every time he sees or hears her name, it should be terrifying the frequency with which he texts her but she has to fight back her smile each time he does.

She managed to find an hour the night before to call Lysandra and the majority of their call had consisted of Aelin repeatedly asking what the fuck was happening while Lysandra cackled down the phone.

She’d even got a text from Lorcan. It was alright, he’d written. Followed by, I hope I die before ever having to watch you make out with someone like that again.

She’d sent three middle finger emojis and a kissy face in response.

Now is probably not the best time to move to a different country but she’d signed her name on the papers two days before the premiere and Rifthold is calling, irrespective of the fact she’s only been back in Orynth for two days.

Most of her stuff headed out yesterday with the moving company leaving Aelin with two suitcases to fly back to Rifthold with tomorrow.

There’s one last place she needs to go before she heads back to finally get a good night's sleep before her flight tomorrow. She’s never set foot in this graveyard before, she’s never had the courage to dare before, but she’s emboldened. By the success of the movie, by her progress in the past year, by her sessions with Maeve. This has felt like a natural step.

The shining, black headstone is understated and classy and completely to his taste.

Sam Cortland. Beloved son and brother, taken far too soon.

Aelin waits with her head bowed, allowing all of her emotions to rush through her veins. She doesn’t fight them, it would be pointless to try, and she embraces the tears that gather. Eventually she steps forwards, placing the smooth, small stone on the crest of the headstone.

She rests her hand on the cool stone for a moment before sinking down and crossing her legs beneath her as she leans against it.

“I’ve missed you,” she says aloud, “I can almost hear you telling me to stop being such a sappy shit. I can’t help it, it’s been too long since I’ve seen you.”

She pauses, letting the wind drift through the field sweeping her words away.

There’s no one else here but her and Sam, no one else she’d want to hear her confession.

“I wonder what you would have made of all this. I think you’d tell me to enjoy it all, to not miss a moment, and I’m not. I’m just choosing the ones I want to savour. And this is one of them, Sam. I wish you’d been there with me, you would have loved it, the cameras, the lights, everything.

“I have to keep pinching myself to know it’s real, I did it, and I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to come and see you.”

She sighs, letting her head tip back to rest against the stone. She didn’t prepare anything to say, didn’t realise she’d even want to speak to the open air but here she is.

“I’m not the same Aelin as the girl you knew anymore,” she says after a few moments of silence. “I didn’t think I would have the capacity to love again after you but I did, and I feel terribly guilty that I do. I have to remind myself that this is what you would have wanted, you would have wanted me to be happy.”

The silence in the field is more than an answer enough. So typically Sam to give her an answer without so much as speaking a word.

“I was happy,” she says, trailing a fingertip along the words etched into the stone. “I will be again.”

A faint haze of sunlight drifts through the Orynth autumn clouds, a whisper compared to the chorus of brightness she misses in Rifthold, and she stands, brushing off the dirt from her jeans. She touches the stone one last time before turning and heading out of the graveyard.

Her visit was years overdue but her chest didn’t crack open the way she had expected, the tears hadn’t been relentless the way she had expected. She’ll visit him again the next time she’s back in Orynth, probably visiting Elide and Lorcan for Yulemass, and she’ll visit again and again for as long as she lives.

But for now, she has a plane to catch.

Months later and two days before the Oscars, when they’re all back in town for the ceremony held in her new home city of Rifthold, Fenrys throws another party.

She’s managed, this time, to stay in touch with Fenrys and Manon, having made up with the younger girl before the press cycle had finished. Aelin knows her upset was real but partly suspects the animosity was a front. She even finds herself participating in the group chat with the three of them and Rowan. She’s only texted him one to one once to wish him a happy birthday and they had caught up briefly but not texted since.

She’s missed him in a different way to the last time she missed him. This time missing him doesn’t feel necessary, it feels wrong not to text him, wrong to be away from him and she’s itching to see him again.

It’s no one's birthday this time but they’re all together again to celebrate, no matter the results they’ll see in two days. Aelin is very carefully measuring her excitement about her own nomination for best actress. Fenrys is up for best actor, Rowan best director and the movie best picture.

She’d almost dropped her phone in the toilet when she found out from Dorian a few weeks ago.

The party is small but still in full swing by the time she arrives. Big names from the industry, all in town for the ceremony, are scattered all around Fenrys’ Rifthold apartment. He’d bought a place here not long after Aelin and she’s secretly relieved she’s not the only one so moved by their experience.

She waves to a few people she knows and tries to stay calm when she spots Sartaq Khagan in the corner chatting away to a small group of people. Holy shit Fenrys has some famous friends.

Aelin finds herself a glass, tops her orange juice off with a splash of lemonade and begins her rounds. So many more people want to talk to her after the movie dropped.

Her mother had been one of them, and Aelin’s thumb had hovered over the accept button for a moment before decidedly pressing decline. She had blocked her mother’s number a moment later, and then she had made some calls closing the bank account her mother kept topped up and arranging for every penny she’d ever received from Evalin Ashryver to be paid back.

It had hurt, emotionally and financially, especially in the month she’d moved to Rifthold, but it had been worth it. To never let Evalin pass any judgement over her life again was a relief worth any cost. Aelin’s hoping there’s a possibility she could end up with a reward.

She doesn’t know how long she spends talking to big name after big name and it’s a realisation that drops onto her that she fits in here. Aelin Ashryver is a big name. No matter the outcome of the ceremony she has prospects, already a number of projects lined up and she’s loving every minute of it.

She drains her cup for the third time tonight and heads back into the kitchen. She’s barely seen Fenrys all night, and she doesn’t even know if Manon is here.

She frowns into the fridge, there was definitely a full bottle of orange juice in here the last time she topped herself up. She shuts the fridge and spins around.

“Looking for this?”

She should have known.

Rowan looks predictably gorgeous in the dim kitchen lighting. All tanned skin and silver smiles. He’s dressed in her favourite look of his too, worn denim jeans and a soft cotton shirt.

It’s the softness in his gaze that really takes her though, it seems the animosity from the last time they saw each other has faded if not disappeared. Her chest squeezes at the thought. She has no idea what could have triggered it but she will take it.

“Nope,” she says, stepping over to where he stands with an arm braced against the counter at his side, the other holding out a bottle of orange juice. “I was hoping Fenrys would have some chocolate in there but I guess this will have to do.”

She takes the bottle from him, her fingertips brushing his and she feels her cheeks heat at the innocent brush.

His smile is genuine and she knows what he’s remembering because she’s thinking of it too. The first time she visited his house during filming and their moment in the kitchen. They’ve been through cycles, she supposes, but hopefully now for the better.

“I’m sure we can find you some somewhere in here,” he says as she fills her cup, pulling open the cupboard next to his head.

Aelin smirks. “I’m going to leave the rummaging through Fenrys’ cupboards to you. You could find anything in there.”

Rowan winces, closing the door before returning her smile. This is friendly and the hope that’s been planted in her chest begins to sprout.

“Yeah, maybe not,” he says with a conspiratorial smile. “We wouldn’t want to risk it.”

Aelin pauses for a moment, taking in the glory of him in front of her. He’s still Rowan, he’s still tall and deliciously broad. His silver hair is slightly more grown out and there are a couple more lines around his eyes but she doesn’t care, in fact it’s charming. He’s still and always will be stunning. She takes a sip of her drink before she takes one of her biggest risks so far.

“I’ve missed you,” she says, not daring to look away from his face.

He bites his lip, his tongue darting out to soothe the skin before he speaks. “I’ve missed you too.”

The smile that spreads across her face is all too telling but he’s smiling too so she doesn’t think it matters. He definitely feels the same and she’d be annoyed at the months she spent worrying but the relief is too sweet.

“Good,” is what she says, far too happy they’re here to bother with pretending she’s anything other than ecstatic. “Congrats on your nomination.”

His eyes dart to the floor and then back up at her, he’s too modest about his own skill and Aelin adores it. “Thank you,” he says softly, “you too.”

“Thanks,” she says. “I couldn’t have done it without you. All of you.”

“Me neither,” Rowan says.

He’s close to her now, closer than he has been to her for months and her skin cries out for contact. She almost can’t believe she’s here now, talking to Rowan without any animosity, days before the Oscars that she’s nominated in.

The smile that takes over her face is completely of its own accord. She’s floating and it seems Rowan is too if the beat they share, exchanging incredulous smiles, is anything to go by.

“It’s crazy, right?”

She’s been asking herself the question for so long it seems only natural it slips out to him.

He laughs softly, and the rough sound curls straight to her core.

“Definitely,” he agrees, his voice low. “I don’t think last time felt like this.”

Aelin slaps a gentle hand to his chest and ignores the thrill that shoots through her at the eventual contact. “I get it, this is not your first nomination.”

Rowan rolls his eyes and she didn’t know how much she missed this, playing with him. She adores his reaction every time, the begrudging amusement he only lets shine through to make her smile.

“Some of us have never been nominated before, this is all completely new.” Aelin takes a sip of her drink. “I had to give up my social media accounts to Elide, it got so crazy.”

Something flickers over Rowan’s face at her comment. “Really?”

“Yeah,” she says, her eyes darting across his face trying to decipher the expression. “She’s always had access and I still do so I can post if I want to but it just became a lot. It stopped being fun when I would see what people were saying, whether it was good or bad I don’t want to see it anymore.”

Rowan nods before his eyes lock onto hers, the intensity in his expression shreds her control.

“And you said nothing had changed?”

Aelin gets it now.

She shifts her weight, leaning as close to him as she can without sliding herself completely into the circle of his arms. “I was wrong. Lots of things have changed,” she says, her voice quiet but strong. “And lots of things are now right that weren’t before.”

She doesn’t mean to skirt around the truth, hiding in veiled words and double meanings, but as always, Rowan sees her. He sees her meaning and he smiles. It’s the most beautiful smile Aelin has ever seen him wear.

“I’ve been looking for you two.”

Fenrys bursts into the kitchen, startling Aelin back from Rowan. She hides her guilty smile in her drink and notices Rowan doing the same. Fenrys just grins, clearly enjoying whatever he thinks he’s seeing.

“You’re missing out, we’re playing kings in the living room if you want to join?”

Rowan glances at her before he turns back to Fenrys. “I think we’re good, thanks.”

Fenrys’ smile turns smug and Aelin resists the temptation to flip him off. She’s in too good of a mood to be annoyed at him.

“Okay, see you later, lovebirds,” Fenrys says, already on his way back out of the door.

Aelin pretends she isn’t blushing as she turns back to Rowan, his green eyes shining.

“This might sound crazy,” he says with an alluring tilt to his lips, “but do you want to get out of here?”

She’s reached a point she truly never thought she would.

She’s an Oscar-nominated lead actress in a box-office-record-breaking movie.

She’s happy, healthy and out from underneath the thumb of Evalin Ashryver.

The part that’s most uplifting, the part that has her unable to wipe the smile off her face as she strolls down the streets of Rifthold, is the arm she has tucked through Rowan’s.

They’ve been walking for a little while, enjoying the cool night air and the ease with which they managed to sneak out of Fenrys’ party. Her heels are killing her and Rowan very graciously offers her an arm to lean on and each time she takes a step in time with him she smiles.

“I never thought I’d like doing television,” he says.

She didn’t know he’d taken on a miniseries, similar to the one she’d done after filming, but she’s loving the recap she’s getting of the months they’ve been apart. The chill of the air is more than fought off by the warmth of Rowan by her side. The streets are mercifully empty and she can bask in the knowledge that it’s just the two of them out here, that they’re insignificant, that anyone who sees them will immediately dismiss them.

“I always thought I’d stick to movies, singular stories but I enjoyed it. I guess change can be good.”

Aelin laughs softly and squeezes his arm. He looks down to her, a question written in the slant of his brow.

“Change can definitely be good,” she says as she takes in the sights of the skyscrapers surrounding them. “I would know that I suppose.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I bought a flat recently.”

“You did?”

He’s so graciously giving her the floor to say what she needs to say and she holds his arm even tighter.

“It’s right here in Rifthold.” Aelin avoids his gaze, lest he think it’s a speedy invitation and that that’s all this is. “I bought it just after we were back here for press, I realised that I adore Rifthold and being here. I missed it when I wasn’t here and I don’t feel there’s anything holding me in Orynth anymore.”

Rowan laughs softly, his feet scuffing the floor.

“What?” she demands.

“I swear I’m not following you,” he says and she feels a smile creep onto her face. “I bought a loft here too.”

Aelin gasps. “But your house was gorgeous!”

Rowan’s smile twists as he looks away from her. “I didn’t say I sold the house.”

Aelin cackles as she squeezes his arm, the sound joyous and bright as it echoes around them. “I knew being Mr Big-Name-Director has its perks.”

“It does,” he agrees with a smirk.

Aelin wants to kiss that smirk. Wants to pull him down and twist her fingers through his hair as his own tangle along her skin.

Instead she says, “I copied you somewhat too.”

He only raises a brow.

“I bought a piano like the one in your house. It was too big for my old flat in Orynth and so I knew what I had to do.”

“That’s good,” he says as his arm drops out of hers. She almost pouts until he instead tangles their fingers together. Her smile says it all, reflected back in his own. “You play beautifully.”

“Thank you.” Her cheeks are glowing. “You’ll have to come over and I’ll play for you sometime, neighbour.”

“I’d love to.”

Aelin slows, using the hand tangled with his to pull him to a stop too. Her free hand trails a gentle path up his chest before coming to rest at his collar, her fingertips tracing the golden skin peeking out from his shirt. His free hand finds her waist.

They’re close, closer than they have been in such a long time when he speaks.

“I don’t know what you think has or hasn’t changed.” His hand leaves hers to cup her cheek. “But I still feel the way I used to about you.”

Her heart takes off, pounding within her chest.

“I do too, Rowan.” Some of the easiest words she’s ever said to him. There’s something about the way the streetlights shine through the silver tips of his hair and the way his calloused fingers feel between hers that she’s feeling brave. “I loved you then and I love you now.”

His eyes flicker across her face as his smile dawns, taking over his face as he smiles so brightly. This is all she’s ever wanted, to have a Rowan like this, with pure, unfiltered happiness in his eyes as he looks at her.

“You love me?”

“I do. To whatever end.”

His lips are barely a whisper from hers and she only acknowledges the thought that they’re in public for long enough to realise she doesn’t care.

“And I love you.”

His words are simple, but sweet. They wash over her and settle into her skin as his lips land on hers. He kisses her with what she can only describe as love. His lips pour devotion onto her and his hands light a fire inside her as he tastes her tongue.

They kiss for longer than she can keep a track of, wrapped up together illuminated only by the street lighting. She’s missed this, missed him, and she can’t help but feel right when his hands are on her. She can’t help but feel right as she stretches onto her toes to throw herself into his kiss.

This was never wrong, this was one of the first things she knew was right.

She loves him and he loves her and nothing and nobody else matters.

She doesn’t win the Oscar, and neither does Rowan. Fenrys does and she screams herself hoarse cheering him on as he makes his way to the stage.

The moment that takes the cake is when The Crescent City takes best picture. She takes to the stage with some of her best friends to recognise what they achieved together and maybe she is a soppy shit but she definitely cries. Fenrys laughs at her and Manon grins but Rowan just throws his arm around her shoulders and it's worth it.

Afterwards, she logs into her Instagram account for the first time in a long time. She posts a picture of Rowan looking absolutely delicious with his tux unbuttoned and his bow tie hanging untied around his neck with a greasy burger in one hand and hers in his other.

Posting him is a statement but she doesn’t care. In fact, she wants the world to know. She wants the world to know that nobody does it like he does. Nobody does it like they do.

[odd-birds-and-booksellers]

“Alex…” Jo interrupts, her hand slowly curing round his, the one resting on her bump. He can feel his lips trembling as the tears he’d fought so hard to keep at bay begin to fall. 

"I put glow in the dark stars up.” He whispered. "So she can't be dead."

On one of the rare occasions, Alex and Jo’s days off don’t coincide, Alex finds himself wishing for a six-hour surgery, hell he’d rather be removing splinters than deciding between lemon sherbet and soft daffodil. To say he was excited about the impending arrival of their second child would be an understatement but completing the ridiculously long list Jo had left him to do this morning before rushing off with Robin felt more like torture.

He understood though, with only two months to go everything seemed to pile up on them, the quiet calm they had mistaken for panic when Robin was on the way paled in comparison when they were trying to juggle two full time demanding careers, a new puppy, a new baby and a toddler whose main goal in life seemed to be giving his parents a heart attack with the many hiding places he could find.

And this is how Alex found himself staring into the abyss of a million Amazon boxes that Jo had somehow managed to sneak by him, with various shades of yellow paint cans dotted around.

He understood Jo’s desire to make everything perfect, she’d been that way since she’d stepped out of the loft bathroom over two years ago, her hands shaking as she lifted the test towards him clearly displaying two lines. He swears they both had good intentions when Robin was born, he wouldn’t be spoiled, there wouldn't be gifts that make up for missing birthdays or missing bedtimes, they’d be honest about mommy and daddy having to work hard for everything they have and yet they couldn’t seem to stop themselves, because the luxury of giving their son and now their daughter everything they’d never had brought more happiness to Jo and Alex then maybe their children would ever understand. There could never be a single second their children doubted how loved and wanted they truly were, so it didn’t matter if their daughter would be in with them for the first few months, her room had to be finished before she arrived.

Their daughter...he smiles at the mere thought of her, their daughter, who likes to kick when their reading Robins bedtime stories, or plays the guitar on Jo’s rib cage until Alex sings along softly with her in the early hours of the morning, their daughter who’d refused to make herself seen for the first two scans.

It’s only when Alex finishes the last coat of soft daffodil that he hears the faint ringing of his phone above the radio. Shuffling down the ladder he wipes the back of his hand on his shirt as he hears the familiar ringtone sound again making Alex frown as he manages to navigate his way through the maze of boxes he's built around himself.

There’s a slight twitch in his chest as he begins down the stairs hearing his phone fall quiet only to start up again seconds later. He finds it still plugged in by the coffee machine where he’d left it, glancing at the screen to see he had twelve missed calls and three voicemails.

There's a definite twitch in his chest now as he clicks play on Jo's first voicemail, his lips twitching up at the sound of Robin's singing. They sounded like they were still in the car as Jo listed off a few more things she needed him to do.

"Hey, sorry I know you said not to go overboard but there are two more deliveries coming today so make sure to listen out for them and oh oh...if you get a chance to go grocery shopping we need...well we need pretty much everything but get me those cupcakes with the oranges on them and oh erm..." She paused after taking a slightly heavy breath. "I do not feel great today, maybe I can get someone to take over my surgeries. Oh and don’t forget to get the box of baby clothes down from the attic will you...okay... I love you, Alex, I’ll call you later."

He frowned quickly, bypassing the message Meredith had left, assuming it was whatever love triangle tragedy she had that day. He finds Jo's second message. There was no greeting to this one, only Jo's panicked voice.

"Why aren’t you answering the phone Alex? What’s the point of having one if you don’t ever answer it?”

His phone beeped again, signalling another message had been left, this time from Meredith again.

"Alex, where the hell are you? You need to be here now. I don't know if Jo is trying not to worry you but Carina is having her admitted so get over here before I leave work and drag you here myself.”

He felt his heart begin to drop in his chest as he hit replay, trying to piece together what was happening. Before he even knew it his feet were carrying him towards the front door, keys in hand as he rushed out. His entire mind had narrowed in on one simple need: to get to Jo.

He couldn't think of much else as he drove, he doesn’t even remember his route to the hospital he just remembers being at home and then bursting through the doors of Grey Sloan. He was severely out of breath by the time he caught sight of Meredith outside the maternity ward talking quietly with Bailey.

The best thing about Meredith, and what made her excel as a doctor, was that she was damn good in a crisis. So she knew the minute their eyes met that Alex just needed Jo. As soon as he’s within reach she wraps an arm around his shoulder—which felt way too much like condolences for Alex's liking and leads him through the doors where Carina was already waiting. This had to be a mistake. Jo was fine last night. Their daughter was fine last night. He’d felt her kicking as they’d talked. They’d talked about his mom's upcoming visit, and maybe going to see Amber and her family for Christmas or inviting them here.

"—I know. It's awful." Carina mutters her eyes on Jo's chart. The intern beside her nodded in agreement.

"I hope Dr Karev shows up before the ultrasound. She shouldn't have to deal with that alone." The intern responds.

“He’s here,” Carina whispers as she looks up, hearing Alex and Meredith footsteps as she tucks the chart under her arm. “If you can go set up the ultrasound while I talk to him.”

"Of course."

Alex gulps at the sorrow on Carina’s face as she steps closer, it's all too much for him as he averts his gaze down to the floor, his eyes catching on the silver band around his finger, splattered with yellow paint from earlier.

"What's going on?" Alex asks, hearing his voice crack as Meredith drops her hand from his back.

"Alex, you need to take a breath and pull yourself together because right now Jo needs you.”

He doesn't respond to Mer, doesn't even look at her as he raises his gaze back towards Carina, “What’s going on?” He repeats, his voice lower this time.

"Jo's in premature labour. She mentioned a couple of hours ago that she had some pretty bad Braxton Hicks, but then she timed them and they were too close together and too regular. So she paged me, and when I checked her cervix had already begun to open-”

Alex found himself nodding along but Carina’s words soon faded to quiet buzz in his ears. His fingers are already twitching to hold Jo. This couldn’t be happening, not to them. Not now.

"Okay." He whispers his voice dangerously low as he blinks back tears, desperately trying to pull himself together when everything in him was burning. Please don’t do this, please don’t take her from us, please don’t do this to her . He can feel his nails digging into the palm of his hand, the only way he's sure he’s still alive is the dull pain he feels as he takes a deep breath gathering himself slowly. Suddenly his doctor brain kicks in as he begins to ask what they are doing to fix this, listing everything he knew like he wasn’t surrounded by some of the best doctors he knew.

Carina nods, her words still buzzing in Alex’s head as she explains the past couple of hours, Jo’s contractions stopped an hour ago, her cervix hasn't opened any further.

“We’re just waiting to do an ultrasound...it really needs to be done right away.”

“Right...what's the problem then?”

“She’s refusing Alex, won't let anyone near her.”

Alex shakes his head, that's not true. Jo wouldn’t...she would never do anything that could harm their baby. She wouldn’t refuse medical care. He watches as Meredith shoots another look to Carina who sighs, tilting her head in a way that has Alex’s heart dropping into his stomach. “I tried earlier with the stethoscope to find the heartbeat...and was unsuccessful.”

"Alex, do you understand? We couldn't find a heartbeat. Dr DeLuca tried and I did too. Even Jo tried...now she’s refusing the ultrasound, she won’t let anyone touch her."

The childish reaction was quick and automatic. "Maybe you didn’t try hard enough, you didn’t do it right, okay? You know you should check properly.”

Carina took a deep breath. "Alex, I'm sorry. I’m going to do an ultrasound, of course, but…I don't know. It's usually easy to hear it with a stethoscope at twenty-eight weeks. Intrauterine deaths happen and there's not much—"

He felt like he couldn't breathe. His hand was clutching at his chest trying to feel the air filling his lungs but he couldn’t feel a thing as everything went fuzzy again. "Stop. Just shut up. You don’t know Jo. You don’t know our…"

"I'm so, so, s o sorry, Alex," Mer whispered. "I know how much you wanted her."

He felt his eyes burning. "I still want her. And you're wrong because I just felt her kick last night. She was kicking when I sang—she always does that. She does. So she can't be dead."

He chokes on his words. “She’s not...dead.”

There’s a quiet discussion mainly between Carina and Meredith who seems to be answering for Alex as they both guide him towards a door at the end of the corridor:

He has to stand outside the door for a full minute as he tries to get a hold of himself. He doesn’t want his face to show how truly scared he is at this moment.

When he does finally gather himself enough to step into the room he notices how the curtains were pulled, blocking almost all of the sunlight from the otherwise dark room. Jo was curled up onto her side, her entire body tucked protectively around Robin's sleeping frame. She hadn't even lifted her head or made a move to turn when the door shut behind Alex, and that terrified him so deeply that he couldn't even move. It had all suddenly gotten very real.

He walked slowly around the bed so he could see her face, he needed to meet her eyes or he’d never believe any of this was true. But as he rounded the bed he was met with her blank stare, blinking slowly as she took in his form.

"Robin needs to go home. I don't want him to have to see any more of this." She said quietly. She made no move to speak about what was going on. She was emotionless and it terrified him. Suddenly flashbacks of the first time he’d ever seen her look so shut down came to mind. When she’d first met her biological mother. When she’d shut down and left him out in the cold. He wasn’t sure he could survive it back then, he’d needed her so much but now he was certain he’d never survive without her.

Alex turned his focus to his son, who was asleep with his face scrunched up against Jo’s chest, his chubby hands resting on the swell of her stomach.

"I can get Mer to take him home with her." He told Jo quietly, he couldn't find any other words to say, it seemed neither could she.

Jo just nods in response but makes no effort to move. Alex could tell by her hand curling tighter around Robin's back that she wasn’t quite ready to let him go yet.

He’s not sure how much time passes next, as he takes a seat carefully on the edge of the bed. Reaching out gingerly to run his hands softly across Jo's cheek. And it’s in that moment when their eyes meet, his thumb tracing the already dried tear tracks down her face that they break. She lifts her right arm gathering a handful of his shirt tightly pulling him closer, pressing her cheek against his chest so she could hear his steady heartbeat. She doesn't say anything and for a second she’s silent before the sob she must’ve been holding back erupts from her and Alex can feel the tears begin to soak through his T-shirt. He feels powerless, all he can do is keep a steady arm wrapped around his wife holding her tightly to him. That was what hurt him the most about this. He couldn't do anything to take her pain away. He couldn’t fix this.

“Jo…Jo Carina is waiting to do an ultrasound…we need…we need to be sure.” Alex sighs trying to keep his tears at bay as she continues to shake in his arms. “Why won’t you let her help?”

"I didn't want anyone else." She finally admits, loosening her grip enough that he can see her face, her lips trembling as she speaks. The sight alone sends another sharp stab through Alex’s heart. "I didn't want anyone. I wanted you. I wanted—I wanted you to make it better."

Alex nods, wishing with everything in him that he could make any of this better. He lets out a shaky breath as Jo settles back down so her head was resting on his chest, her face pressing into his collarbone. He knows it is selfish, he knows it might kill them both but he can’t help reaching out over Robin's little body and pressing his hand to her stomach. He waits a moment…before pressing again, still waiting to feel the usual response. He hears Jo's breath hitch as she too waits for the little nudge of their daughter's feet, he knows she’s usually responded by now but he waits, he just keeps waiting. He thinks sort of him will always be waiting for that little kick…he thinks this moment might be frozen in time. Not us. This happens to people, but not us. Maybe it wasn’t fair to think like that, after all, every day he sees the worst card parents could ever be handed in life and yet he says the same lines about support groups and doing everything he could and not once did he think he’d ever need to hear those words.

He doesn’t know how long he keeps his hand there just waiting. "I just finished painting the nursery. I went with soft daffodils but if you prefer lemon sherbet we can change it…we can pick whatever colour you want, and I know I said we didn’t need a new crib but if you want that fancy one we’ll-“

“Alex…” Jo interrupts, her hand slowly curling around his own on her bump. He can feel his own lips trembling as the tears he’d fought so hard to keep at bay begin to fall.

"I put glow in the dark stars up.” He whispered. "So she can't be dead."

There’s no logic to what he said. There’s no truth to his reasoning but he believes it. Jo winces at his words or more likely one word in particular. He feels her drag his hand down to where Robin's tiny hands rest, a little reminder of what they still have.

Alex moves closer to them, pulling Robin gently onto his chest, sliding over and opening his arms for Jo. Letting her sink into him. She rests against him like she no longer has the strength to hold herself up.

“I'm sorry. I thought it was nothing more than Braxton Hicks. Can you believe that? I’m a freaking doctor and I couldn’t tell the difference between Braxton hicks and labour. I should have known better. I did this. This is my fault—"

Alex cuts her off, shushing her. "It's not your fault," he assures her. Life was unfair. He knew that. But this pain Jo didn’t deserve. Not his children. Not Robin. Not their new little girl with the stars on her ceiling. Not his family. They hadn't built this together for it to be broken.

"Please don't cry," she pleaded, her voice wavering. "Please don't, it terrifies me. I'm already so scared, Alex. I'm so scared."

Alex just nods, swallowing deeply as he pulls her tighter against his side. It was true that everything had changed once he'd had children. He no longer understood how he had lived without them. And he was realizing that everything he gained could be taken just as easily. He knew that, if this baby really were gone, there would be nothing he could do to ever fix the pain that would settle in Jo's heart or his own for that matter.

He feels Robin begin to stir against him and he forces a smile on his face and kisses his head, smiling genuinely when the little one lifts his arms, reaching out for his father in an instant.

"Daddy” He cheered, his little fists gripping Alex’s T-shirt as he shifted him higher up his chest. He settles his palm on the back of his head and kisses his head again.

"Robin, how would you feel about playing with Ellis, Bailey and Zola tonight?" He asks him carefully.

Robin is as stubborn as his mother. "Scout?" He suggests instead.

"Yeah okay, we can see if Uncle Link will take you. You can play with Scout and then mommy and daddy will see you when you wake up." He knows Robin has no real clue on what’s happening around him but he knew Jo had been right. He didn't need to be here.

Robin lifts his head and peers down at Jo. He seemed to be thinking hard about the proposition before shaking his head fiercely.

"No."

No was his new favourite word and Alex was already sick of hearing it. He strokes his hair back as he meets eyes with Jo. Her tears are still falling steadily. Her hands spread out over her stomach and he knew she was waiting to feel something still.

"No, I want mommy," Robin insists. His little face mustering up what Alex assumed was a scowl as he reached over to wrap his hand around one of Jo's curls hanging loose in front of her face. Alex didn’t have it in him to battle Robin today, it’s not like he wanted to let go of Jo either.

They were out of time to decide what to do about Robin because Carina was already wheeling in the ultrasound. Jo tensed beside him, her hand gripping his tightly as he rose from his place on the bed lifting Robin with him.

"I can't. Please." She whispers and if possible his heart cracked even more.

She was hanging on by a thin thread, but she was hanging onto him. They could survive this…they could survive it together. He lifts Robin higher up his chest, gently cradling Robin's head to his shoulder as the little one's legs wrapped around him.

Alex stared at the swell of Jo’s stomach, the same stomach he'd kissed just last night and singing old country songs much to Jo's amusement. There was no way…there was no way she was…he’d just finished her room…the paint was still wet. Her name is written in stars above her crib. She can’t be.

Alex didn't even realize he was crying until Carina flashes him a sympathetic smile. Robin lifts his head as he squirms in his fathers’ tight grip, peering up at him with a frown. Reaching out to touch his cheeks with his small hands.

"Daddy sad?” He whispers curiously. Alex was torn because there’s no way of explaining this to their toddler and he doesn't want to scare him. Instead, he settles for pressing him back against his chest, his little face squeezed against his neck because while he didn’t want him to watch he also couldn’t bear to let him go.

He watches as Carina helps Jo to sit up. It was too much to watch, the way her whole body shakes as her cries shook through her. He reached for her hand, laying limp by her side, his hand covering hers as he threaded their fingers together. She squeezes his hand back, gripping onto him like he was the only thing stopping her from coming undone. Her hand in his gave him a spark of hope that maybe no matter what happened next they’d make it together, as long they just kept holding on.

He almost dropped Robin in paralyzing relief when the familiar whooshing of the heartbeat filled the room. He lets out a cry of relief as he shakes his head. Alex presses his face back into Robin's hair and squeezes Jo's hand tightly, his heart still pounding away.

"Why wasn't she moving?" Jo asks, her voice hoarse. "I tried everything and she wouldn't move. And why couldn't you find it before?"

"Babies don't move much if at all during labour," Carina explained. "And I don't know. I listened for such a long time.” Once again Alex’s mind blocks out the surrounding noise until it’s a quiet buzz. Instead, he focuses on the image of their baby girl on the screen, the feel of Robin's hot breath against his neck and Jo's hand still clutching his tightly. His family. He’s had these images ever since they’d decided to try for a second…maybe even longer, before Robin, before he and Jo had even got married he’d had this whole dream…Jo, their kids and the house they’d live in and the life they’d live. “But you'll have to be on strict bed rest for the rest of this pregnancy, and even then there's no way to know how long you can prolong labour. If we can keep her from being born for at least a month she’ll be in a much better position."

He comes back down to reality when he feels Jo tug at his hand, she’s looking up at him expectantly. “There’s our girl,” He whispers, leaning closer, pressing a quiet kiss to her hair, not even glancing at Carina as she backs out of the room to give them a moment.

"What if I have to give birth soon?" She mumbled into his shirt. "What if we lose her anyway?"

He shook his head firmly. "We won't.”

He kisses her forehead and glances down at Robin before turning back to Jo. She was looking at him with that look. The one that communicated very clearly that she trusted him with everything in her.

Alex set his hands on her stomach and let out another relieved breath.

"God." He said quietly. She set her hand over his and caressed the back of his hand with her thumb.

Jo's expression twists with guilt. "I’m so sorry...this is all my fault. I've been overworking myself. I always think I can do so much more than I can and our girl is suffering because of it. Maybe I'm not fit to be a mother."

Alex shook his head. "If you're not fit to be a mother, Jo, no one is. Hell, you know what an unfit parent looks like and you are not one."

She opens her mouth to say something else, but abruptly she stops, her eyes widening slightly in surprise. Her expression goes from shock to joy in no time at all as she grabs his hands gently and moves them back to her stomach, pressing down lightly. Alex feels a familiar, returning nudge, gentle and soft, but definitely there. He laughs giddily and locks eyes with Jo, pleased when she laughs in return. He moves around the bed, leaning over Jo so he could press a kiss to the spot he'd last felt the nudge. He keeps his cheek pressed against her soft skin for a moment, whispering a quiet ‘I love you.’ before looking back at Jo’s teary gaze.

"Robin, come here. Come feel your sister." He tells the toddler. Alex tugs him up into his lap and helps guide his hand to the spot he'd just kissed. He applies slight pressure and laughs at the joyous giggle Robin gives when he feels the baby move underneath his hand.

"That's your little sister."

Robin looked up at her father and smiled but the tiny movements didn’t keep his attention for long as he began to climb out of Alex’s grip, into Jo's welcoming arms.

“It’s gonna be okay Jo. We’re gonna be okay.”

Jo looks up at him. Tears still trailing down her face but the sparkle missing from her gaze earlier was slowly making its way back.

He smiles gently, reaching out to cup her face in his hands, rubbing his thumbs softly over the wet trails her tears left. "Everything’s gonna be okay.” He promised. "You'll see."

And she did. A little over two months later their baby girl made her entrance into the world, a little less dramatic than her brother as she’d been monitored so closely, that it was no surprise when she decided to join everyone. With her brown eyes sparkling with the same warmth as her mother’s and a full head of hair she was every little bit perfect as Alex had imagined. A little taste of heaven.

“Hey, baby…welcome home.” Alex grinned as he pulled open the door to the nursery, ushering in Robin who proudly displayed the teddy he’d chosen for his baby sister as Jo slowly made her way inside. She’d been too afraid to step inside since the incident, she claimed it would jinx it.

“Oh wow…” She hummed happily looking down at the bundle in her arms, who as predicted was still asleep and had no understanding of the magnitude of the moment happening around her. “Aren’t you a lucky girl P?”

“Mommy… I see…you sit.” Robin yelps, pulling Jo from the bottom of her cardigan towards the new rocking chair set up in the corner. Jo is all too happy to take a seat, allowing Robin to catch sight of his baby sister.

“It’s perfect Alex…Thank you.” Jo mumbles after a minute, catching Alex’s eye who had taken the moment to settle against the door frame and just watch his family.

He smiles softly, before pushing up off the frame heading towards the window. “You haven’t seen the best bit.” He pulls the blinds down slowly, letting darkness take over the room leaving only the glowing stars for light.

Robin gasped as he looked around in wonder but Jo's eyes remained trained on Alex. “I love you.” She whispers.

“I love you.” Alex grins, kneeling down beside the chair as he runs his hand across their daughter's head. “I love you all…now look up.”

Tilting her head, Jo looked up at the ceiling and gasped. The stars trailed up the wall and right above the crib, they clustered together, spelling out their dear daughter's name.

Peyton.

-

Yes. This is a day late. But it's also very on-brand for me so.

This one-shot is part of the What Could've Been universe so if you haven't read them I would thoroughly recommend reading them, you find them all under my master post on Tumblr.

Also, I made all the medical crap up, so don't come for me with corrections...I don't care.

[jokertrap-ran]

(光与夜之恋 Light and Night) Main Story Chapter 3-3: 海水与火焰 Seawater & Flames Translation

“Secretly snapping shots of me again? What, was last time not enough?"

*Light and Night Master-list *Spoiler free: Translations will remain under cut *Join the Light & Night Discord (＾▽＾)~ ♪ *Main story tag will be #For Light and Night

The original plan for Lin Yao’s fitting session was postponed by her agency at the very last minute. After busying for a couple more days, the weekends were here in a blink of an eye.

Following Evan’s suggestion, I’d selected a new apartment that was small, but pretty good in every other aspect, and moved in without a hitch.

It was coincidentally sundown by the time I’d finished decorating my new home. The setting sun was lazily snuggled up high amongst the clouds that touched the building. Guangqi City was dyed in a beautiful pinkish-purple, assimilating into the very glow of the sunset itself.

I was nestled up comfortably on my sofa, admiring the beautiful scenery and enjoying the rare moment of peace.

Ding-dong!

The doorbell rang.

Delivery Man: Hello. Fresh flowers for you.

MC: ?

An’an had sent me a huge bouquet of baby's breath. It had a card attached to it, wishing me a smooth move into my new apartment.

❖☆———————————★❖

An'an: Got the flowers yet?

MC: Yeah! They're especially pretty~

An'an: You're welcome! But, seeing as you've already received them… I have a teeny-tiny request~

MC: Why do I have a bad feeling about this already…?

An'an: Aw, come on, man. Didn't I tell you that I was going to be interviewing my idol's race team next week?

An'an: It’s their test run tomorrow and it’s also a Sunday, so I’m asking you to come and check them out with me!

An'an: Please? Pretty please? Pretty please with a cherry on top? You know I love you best, baby!

MC: ...Fine.

An'an: I’ll send you the location later and see you at their training location at 10 AM tomorrow! Be there, or be square!

❖☆———————————★❖

Hence, I woke up early the next day due to the location being somewhere out in the outskirts of the city.

MC: Turn left at 998 Sunset Street and go straight till the end…

MC: Then you’ll see the Glitter Bullet race team's name… Oh, here it is.

A real race track was much more of a spectacular sight to behold compared to what I’d seen on television.

The long and winding race track was akin to that of a python’s body; so long that it seemed never-ending, surrounding a square plot of grass. The dark red tented fabric canopy bearing the team’s name stood right in the centre of the racetrack like an open umbrella.

❖☆———————————★❖

MC: What a spectacle…

Everything about the racetrack marvelled me, almost as if I’d accidentally stepped into a whole new world.

Training racecars raced past me, roaring as they went. The visceral heat and the deafening roars of the engines as they zipped past were so exciting that they made everyone's heart race.

I walked to the auditorium, finding a shaded area to sit.

Down at the tracks was what was probably a mock competition. The roaring of the racecars that zipped past was sometimes high-pitched, and sometimes low.

❖☆———————————★❖

The one at the head of them all was a red racecar that was both steady and equally speedy. After a couple of laps, it had firmly locked its place as No.1 on the racetrack.

I stared at the skull pattern on it. It looked really familiar…

I whipped out my phone and zoomed in on it using the camera and confirmed it. My eyes weren’t fooling me after all.

MC: The pattern on it looks exactly just like the pendant Osborn wears!

❖☆———————————★❖

Is that his racecar? As the thought flashed past my mind, I was compelled to raise my phone and press the button on the shutter.

Suddenly, a sharp sound rang out in the chaos of noise.

The yellow racecar that had been snapping at the red one’s heels the entire time had suddenly started accelerating, just like a lion that had just woken up, radiating an unstoppable and unrelenting aura as it went. It swerved with astonishing speed and a sharp screech of its tires, perfectly bypassing the bend in the road before swiftly overtaking the red racecar!

It was like a dash of gold light in the middle of a group, making everything in the surroundings lose out in comparison.

In a blink of an eye, that racecar put a huge distance between itself and the others.

MC: The red racecar got overtaken!

Only the last lap remained before this competition was over. I couldn't help gripping tightly to the railings as I silently rooted for the red racecar.

However, it was the yellow racecar that had been first to cross the finish line in the end.

MC: He still lost out…

I sighed, growing increasingly curious about just which godly being was behind the wheel of the yellow racecar.

MC: ...Osborn's so good at this; I wonder who won against him?

A tall and big figure came out of the yellow racecar, removing his helmet and reaching a hand up to somewhat fix his helmet-mussed hair.

MC: ...Osborn!? That red racecar isn't being driven by him!?

❖☆———————————★❖

It was at that moment that my phone vibrated to life.

An'an: I needa tell you something very important… Please don't smack me!

An'an: A last-minute issue cropped up with the latest issue of the magazine I'm on, so I've got to rush back to the publishing company right now...

MC: I'm… already here, though…

An'an: I'm so, so, sorry for making you go there for nothing…

MC: Don't worry about it. I don't have any plans for today anyway. Besides, I just saw their test run.

An'an: For real!? Did you snap any pics of my idol? Can you send them to me!?

MC: Sure thing. I snapped one aplenty…

Suddenly, I recalled the big, horrid, and terrible screw-up that had transpired earlier. My voice had never died that quickly right then and there. Not only did I fail to get a single shot of her idol, but I'd also taken pictures of EVERYTHING but him.

MC: ...Err, I'll snap a couple more and send them all to you later.

An'an: You're really the bestest bestie! Gotta go, the editor-in-chief's after my arse. Bye bye~

After hanging up, I immediately fell into a moment of depression as I stared at the stream of pictures of the red racecar in the gallery. Is there a second mock competition, by any chance? Otherwise, how am I going to explain this to her…?

??: And whose fangirl is this? What are you squatting here for?

MC: !

The sudden voice that came out of nowhere startled me. I shot up immediately only to meet a pair of eyes that had been half-narrowed into a smile.

I didn't know when he came here, but Osborn was now standing by my side. There he stood under the dazzling sunlight with both hands in his pockets, leaning lazily against the railings with his eyebrows raised.

I felt a little light-headed. Perhaps it was because I had my head down for too long and had gotten up way too quickly, but I abruptly stumbled two steps backwards.

He grabbed onto my arm with a small chuckle.

MC: ...Thanks.

Osborn: Secretly snapping shots of me again? What, was last time not enough?

He leaned down, his gaze landing on the camera interface that was still open on my phone, the smile playing at his lips never once falling.

MC: As if! I’m helping my friend take some pictures. She needs to use it for her interviews!

Osborn: Oh? So what did you take?

MC: Uh, well…

MC: I just casually snapped a couple of pictures of things like your racecar and… the red one… and all…

Osborn: Really? Then what do you think of my driving?

MC: Amazing! Never thought that you'd clinch first in the end like that!

MC: You drove fast and furious during the last lap, but you were also very steady at the wheel! And the part where you finally overtook your opponent at the very last moment was also way too brilliant!

Osborn: Then why'd you only take photos of one who came in 2nd?

I froze. That was when it finally hit me that he'd already seen the camera interface that had been on my phone display earlier.

Osborn causally folded his arms, awaiting my answer with a playful look on his face.

I could only look to the side ever so awkwardly, softly muttering in response.

MC: Because they were leading at the start, so I thought…

MC: Plus, the skull pattern that was on it was just like your pendant, so that's why I...

Osborn was stunned for a while before he let out a laugh.

Osborn: That was the pattern for the last season.

Osborn: I never knew that you'd done your research on me that well.

There was an obvious teasing lilt to his voice. I flushed red, immediately snapping in denial.

MC: I only take extra notice when it comes to patterns! I blame my work habits!

MC: Who told you to be so slow at the start…

Utterly amused, Osborn narrowed his eyes into a smile, leaning down towards me.

Osborn: Do you know that you should never say "slow" to a racer?

MC: ……

I subconsciously shook my head. Osborn nodded moments after he'd leaned in closer.

Osborn: Boy, you sure are easy to intimidate.

Moments after he backed away, he casually placed his hands into his pockets, his smile growing bigger.

Osborn: Come on.

MC:

...Where to?

Osborn: Don't you wanna snap some shots? I'll lead the way.

❖☆————— ⊹ For Light & Night⊹ —————★❖

Previous Part: (Chapter 3-1) | Next Part: (Chapter 3-5)

[fangirl-everythang]

Happy Father's Day Part 3

Summary: 3/3 Well, its the last part.

Warning: Sad, Mentions Death.

Word Count: 2269

"Harry? " I answer the phone.

"It's not Harry but glad you know your numbers." that high pitch annoying ass voice squeals. Rubbing my stomach, the baby's in go position and any day now my oven will be done baking. And of course, this bitch is answering his phone.

"Well bye-bye just thought you should know where he was at. " In the background, I hear Harry's voice going on about something so it must be true. Hanging up I sigh letting the hot tears roll down my cheeks. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I blame myself really, I let him back into my life and this doesn't surprise me. I gotta pee.

Waddling over to the bathroom door a gasp leaves my mouth feeling the surge of liquids fall between my legs. Holy shit. My water broke! Fuck gotta go. Thankful my bag was already in the car. Harry had insisted once I hit the 36-week mark claiming Styles's are either early or fashionably late.

Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. My knuckles turning white as I grasp the wheel. Nope, I'm not pushing anything out of my vagina. Can't do it. I refuse.

The contraction going away after a few brief moments of completely unreasonable pain. Dialing the numbers, I know by second nature, thankfully she picks up on the fourth ring.

"I don't think you should drive y/n"

" Just call 911. I'm almost there! " Gemma ecstatically shouts. She's just like her brother, "Where's Harrold? "

I put the seatbelt on and wince. It's just 28 minutes I can do this. "He's with his whore."

I can hear an audible gasp, "he wouldn't he's so excited for Athena"

"Well I just called him and she answered. " I grunt keeping my eyes on the two lanes ahead of me. Fuck I hate merging lanes people don't know how to drive.

"I'll be at the hospital as soon as possible but my phones gonna-" the line went dead. She did say she was on like 10% oh well.

I can do this just focus y/n. "Hear that baby girl we're almost there, hang on okay Hunny. " I say as a reminder to myself that soon I'll be leaving with another human with me.

6 miles to go that's what I'm talking about, another sharp pain spreads throughout my abdomen while waiting for the light to turn green. "OH COME ON. FOR FUCKS SAKE!" they're getting closer by the minute. Shit. Arriving at a four-way intersection. I'm relieved to be at a red light, the contractions are longer and much more frequent. "Almost there Athena, this is the last light and a straight shot from there."

Abruptly my car is jerked forward with a sharp impact pushing to the oncoming lights. All I see are lights from both directions colliding with my 3,000-pound piece of metal. Sounds of shattering glass and sirens are the last thing I hear before it all fades to black.

||||||||||||||||

Harry's POV

"Has anyone seen Mr. Style's phone?" The helpful aid asked around the dressing room. I could've sworn I put it down for a moment. Y/n could go into labor any minute now and how I am supposed to know. Fuck. I'm stupid.

I was supposed to be here to perform and list nominees and then go back home to y/n. I can't wait to propose to her, she's all I could ever want and she's giving me the most wonderful gift I could ever ask for. Running a hand through my damp hair, the lights really build a sweat, I hear a familiar voice. "Looking for this lover? " she asks slipping my phone into my pocket.

"Good luck at home. " she smiles and winks. Before I could question it she walks away.

Looking down at the device my heart skips a beat, I have 146 missed calls. And I've been gone for 5 hours. Seeing Gemma's name on the screen again I swipe to answer.

"Hell-"

"Harry," she says sniffling.

"Gemma what's wrong? did I miss it? Oh my god I hope not"

"I think it would be best if you came now Harry." she breaks her voice cracking.

"Gem what?"

"Listen Harry, she needs you right now so please." she cries. Not needing another word, I tell Jackson the address and that I need to be there as fast as possible, 45 minutes later we're pulling into the Labor and Delivery section of the hospital.

"Congrats Harry!" Jackson says letting me out at the door. "Thank you!" I beam back at him.

Seeing Gemma, her eyes are puffy with tears still flowing. "Gem what's wro-," a sharp pain to my right cheek stings. Never has Gemma hit me like that, well not since I cut her prom dress. "How could you Harry? Cheat on her again WITH TAYLOR for Christ sakes!" She yells.

"I didn't cheat," I explain to my sister as calm as I can.

She looks at me with wild eyes pulling me into a hallway with fewer people, "Then what happened Harrold?" I clench my jaw instead of speaking, how dare she accuse me of cheating on my pregnant soon-to-be fiancé. Y/n Styles has a great catch don't you think?

"Is she here yet? Gem where are they?" I ask ready to see my new family.

She begins crying again "Harry there was an accident." Those five words make my breathing come to a halt. My heart shatters in a million pieces "Is Y/n okay? What happened?" She begins walking me to a door. "This one," she points. Looking through the glass I see y/n with bruises and cuts to her beautiful face, her stomach nearly deflated from when I last saw her this morning, a cast on a swollen leg of hers, and a sling holding a very damaged arm. Tears brim at my eyes looking at my love on that hospital bed. "She's awake." Gemma walks past me running to the outside.

I gently knock on the door, waiting for a response which I don't get. "Y/n?" I approach her almost as If I were going to help an injured puppy. "Hey love" I smile at her which she glares at me and then turns wincing in pain. "You wanted this didn't you Harry?" I look at her confused. "This is probably great for you, a way out. Well leave." She states using whatever energy she can find.

"Baby I didn't want- I want you and Athena" She breaks down in uncontrollable tears.

"You were with that her and couldn't even bother to pick up your phone!" she screams. "Y/n I wasn-" a knock at the door interrupts my sentence, "Come in" She says glaring at me as a nurse opens the door.

"Hey there Mama, we have a visitor." the nurse wheel in a tiny cart that has a bunch of equipment coming from it. She looks at me and asks Y/n, "Is this dad?" she nods and rolls her eyes. "About time you made it!" She smiles my way. Placing the beautiful baby in front of us. She's so small and fragile. "The doctor will be in shortly to talk to you." She states picking up the tiny child and putting her in Y/n's arm.

"Hi pumpkin," Y/n coos into her ear. "Guess who decided to show?" She smiles, a tear falling from the corner of her eye. She nods her head towards me as I go to hold her. She's so soft and precious. Her small eyes have a gorgeous mix of both mine and Y/n's. She has such a cute round face, I couldn't imagine her looking any different.

"Hi there angel, I'm so sorry I was late." I see a spot dampen on her blanket that surrounds her, knowing that I'm crying. Her small eyes shining like twinkling stars. So small I can feel her fragile body between my large hands.

Another knock before the door opens when several doctors walk in. "Mrs. Y/ln, unfortunately, we have some bad news,"

"Oh, hello there Mr. Styles." They state acknowledging my existence. One of the female doctors places a black and white image on the lighted board illuminating the small figure.

"Unfortunately, due to the accident, Athena has suffered from what we call a fetomaternal hemorrhage."

"What exactly are you saying?" Y/n ask looking at the child still in my arms.

The slightly shorter male doctor points to the image. "This is an abscess of blood in the brain. Unfortunately, the risk is too large to operate. I'd give her another day at most."

"You m-mean," Tears start pouring down her face" I was so scared she was hurt. I-I promise I saw the light it was red, and I-I stopped but," She began heaving losing more air with each word. I gently rub her back as I cradle Athena with one arm.

"She's still being monitored but I'm afraid she won't have much longer." The first doctor breaks the silence. "According to the police report the car that struck you from behind happened to be a drunk driver, Gage Joyce." I can feel the anger surging through me. "I remember the clashing of metal, glass breaking, the sirens but it all went b-black." She mumbles, seemingly remembering the awful experience. I grab her hand in hopes of comforting her but it doesn't seem to work.

"After striking your car at 72 mph it had ample force to push your vehicle into the opposite traffic. Your vehicle took the most impact and was hit by four other cars. On scene, EMT's said you were in and out of consciousness mumbling about a baby. Taken and brought to the L&D." he finishes.

"Fetomaternal hemorrhages are often caused by trauma and sometimes can be revered but in this case, we've done all we can do." They all frown looking at the small girl still in my arms.

"No, there's got to be more you can bloody do! We're in a hospital for Christ sakes!" I exclaim, passing my daughter to the love of my life. She gently caresses her soft skin. She's literally a perfect combination of us. I cannot lose my family.

"You can leave, thank you all for your help." y/n says quietly, they oblige by her wishes and leave us with our daughter.

"Harry," she wipes a tear from her face cautious of the IV placed on her hand, "If what they say is true, I just want to spend time with her." She sniffles. I nod understanding. She looks back at the small being in her arms, "Hi pretty girl, Mommy's so happy to meet you," she unfolds the blanket from her. I sit next to her on the small bed in the room that smells of sterilization. Placing my finger near hers' she wraps her small hand around my thumb, her grip so tight for someone so small. Y/n kisses her forehead, "Harry," she runs her finger along her small legs.

"Can you sing the song?" nodding and softly singing Isn't she Lovely by Stevie Wonder, in the small hospital bed as our new life falls asleep. All night I watch her little chest rise and fall allowing y/n to get some rest soon following my two loves.

By the early morning, nurses are rushing in because of the loud beeping from the monitor, waking y/n and I. It feels like everything is happening so fast but in slow motion right in front of me. Those three words are the ones I didn't want to hear. "No! no. I have to take her home. She's gotta go home..." Y/n screams, not being able to see her face due to the tears in my eyes falling and rebuilding themselves faster than the speed of light. "Call it." One of the nurses shouts.

"Time of Death 6:18 am March 7th, 2019"

As they cleared out the room, I see her small lifeless body curled into a blanket, almost as if she were sleeping, but no longer do breaths fall from her small heart-shaped lips.

//////////////////////////

Y/n hasn't said a word since we got in the car. It's been four days since we lost Athena. She slowly climbs into the car, still sore from the accident and birth. I go to the backseat holding back my emotions and putting the empty car-seat in the trunk of the car that should have been holding three of us.

Starting the silent journey back home she continues to look out of the window, a frown etched on her mouth, tears rolling down her cheeks as she instinctively touches her somewhat deflated stomach. What kind of sick joke is this?

"Harry why were you with her?" she asks me looking down at what used to be her baby bump.

"I wasn't love, she took my phone while I was on stage." She just nods and remains silent until we pull up to the flat. She begins walking up the stairs as best she can. "Y/n wait, let me help."

"No Harry!" She yells. Pain evident in her voice, ignoring her I open the door and help her inside. "Harry I can't do this." I stare at her confused, "What can't you do y/n?"

"Us Harry. I can't look at you and not think of her." She sobs.

"Y/n we can-" I try to reason with her.

"No Harry, please just go." She whispers.

"I'm not losing both of you," I state holding back my own sobs. I feel like everything feels like it's getting smaller around me, suffocating in grief.

"You already have."

A/N: What can I say I have a thing for dark endings. Anyways I really appreciate the support loves. I hope you enjoy these! Right now I've been working on a Loki piece, I'm so excited for it. I changed the writing style tho, so it's not 1st person per usual. I think it's going pretty well so far.

xoxo Janelle