#inspired by: my near inability to drive at night

[whataboutyouisamascot]

Vessel's inhuman night vision capabilities, versus IV's night blindness.

Ves had always wondered why IV startled so easily at night, the former always having to make his presence audibly known to avoid IV from escaping his body, until he walked directly into Vessel one night. Vessel, having received his extra eyes so long ago, could not fathom how somebody couldn't see anything in the dark. IV couldn't figure out how somebody could.

Whenever the four travelled by night, whether it be returning from a walk or while they were on tour, you would be hard pressed to find Vessel not by IV's side after they learned of his poor vision at night. A guiding hand on his hip, gently steering him away from any hidden obstacles.

The array of random, small bruises that littered IV's body that he collected from his habit of running directly into objects began to disappear, their presence never quite worrying to the others but had brought relief in their absence.

[frostbitedoesstuff]

So Koomaxx made another Star Rail Hunger Games video, and there was a moment in it that gave me a random spark of inspiration. I ended up writing a little fanfic of sorts in the comments section, and I figured I’d post it here too!

Spoilers for this video from here on out.

The sun slowly set in the horizon, marking the fifth night of this hellish game. Near the edge of the cliff stood Gepard and Lynx of the Landau siblings. An inseparable trio turned duo in a cruel twist of fate.

“Gepard,” Lynx spoke out, her voice tired yet full of sorrow. “I know things have been hard, I know. But…but…we still have each other. We’ve made it this far, against all odds. We’re Landaus. We can do this. I believe in us, and…I believe in you.”

Gepard scoffed bitterly. “You? You believe in me? Do you have the slightest idea what I’ve done? What I’ve become?”

Lynx opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off as Gepard continued to speak.

“Serval is gone. She’s dead. She died on the first day, Lynx. That…that changed me. Ever since that day, I’ve been feeling less and less like myself. I’ve been having nightmares every night…nightmares of her dying moments, the carnage…the sound of that explosive going off rings in my ears endlessly, haunting me, driving me crazy.”

His voice became strained, more distressed, more ashamed, more frantic.

“Now look what I’ve become! I’m a murderer! I’ve killed people who didn’t deserve it, I’ve killed people who couldn’t even defend themselves! I’m supposed to protect people, and now here I am, slaughtering people like some kind of sadist!”

Lynx’s eyes flitted across Gepard’s body, watching as his trembling hands began to clench and unclench with barely contained emotion. It was so much different from the calm and composed man she knew as her brother. Even in the midst of this mess, when they made their truce, he had seemed fine (as fine as he could have been, anyway). Had he really been hiding this pain and guilt up until now?

“You are so, so much better than me, Lynx,” He continued. “Serval was your sister too, and yet, you’ve been merciful, kind, considerate. Even in your grief, you didn’t allow that loss to change your principles. You’re strong...truly worthy of the Landau name. I’m just a monster, a monster that doesn’t deserve to live by your side.”

“No! No, that’s not true! I won’t let you talk about yourself that way!” Lynx shouted, tears welling up in her eyes as she too got emotional. “This game only has two objectives, to kill, and to survive! You had no choice but to become this way. These people…these people who put us here, they don’t care who deserves to live, they just want to see us die! They did this to you, Gepard, it’s not your fault!”

“Oh, it’s not my fault? This wasn’t my choice…is that what you think?” Gepard inquired, as if challenging her.

“Yes.” Lynx spoke without hesitation.

“Then, who have you killed, Lynx? If we have no choice but to kill, then…who have you killed?”

Lynx went to reply, before she suddenly froze.

She…didn’t have an answer. Nobody had died at her hands thus far. She stared up at Gepard, her expression clearly conveying her inability to provide an answer to his question.

Gepard stares back at her, his voice filling the tense silence. “Numby. Topaz. Misha.”

“What…?”

“I killed Numby, Topaz, and Misha. I almost got Welt too, but…he escaped. Do you understand now? The difference between us? I have ended people’s lives, and you have not. That’s enough proof that my actions were a choice.”

He went silent for a moment, before continuing, his voice quieter, but still firm. “That’s enough proof that you’re better than me.”

Lynx could feel her resolve crumbling as she scrambled to find a way to refute his statement. “B-But…but surely it was in self-defense, right…? Right?”

He stared for a short while longer before shaking his head in the negative. He hadn’t been attacked first. He didn’t even do it out of obligation. He did it because he wanted to, because there was a sick part of him that had emerged that wanted nothing more than to see other people suffer for what was taken from him.

To see people die the same way Serval had.

“You…You really have changed,” Lynx mumbled, before her voice began to increase in volume. “But…I still need you, Gepard. I need you here. Even if you’re not the same, I need you, I love you, you’re all I have left! You’re my brother, Gepard! Nothing you can do will change that!”

“I’m dangerous, Lynx! You should hate me, fear me, something! Something other than thinking I deserve to live after what I’ve done!” He yelled back at her, his patience starting to wear thin. Why couldn’t she get it, damnit?! Why wouldn’t she understand?!

“NO!” Lynx screamed, so loudly that Gepard was stunned into silence. She repeated herself, quieter, but still just as firm. “..No.”

Their eyes gazed into one another’s intensely, before Gepard’s narrowed in an emotion that Lynx couldn’t quite identify.

He took a step forward, his voice lower, more threatening. “Do you need me to prove it to you? Do you need me to prove that I’m dangerous?”

There was a flicker of fear in Lynx’s expression, before it hardened again. “Fine. Prove it. I know you wouldn’t hurt me.”

She thought he was bluffing.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought, too…” He murmured, as he walked closer, and closer, and closer.

“Gepard…you wouldn’t hurt me…right..?”

The silence after that sentence was spoken was ear-piercingly loud.

“…I’m sorry.”

Before Lynx could even think to ask what he meant, she was falling.

Gepard stood at the edge of the cliff, his entire body quaking as he heard Lynx’s scream grow quieter, and quieter, and quieter, before it cut off completely with a loud CRUNCH.

…Then she was gone.

(While you’re here, I also make Star Rail art! To see that, check me out at frostbitedoesfanart!)

[pascalpanic]

Blood, Sweat, and Tears (Javier Peña x f!Reader)- Chapter Four

Summary: You feel like shit and decide to work out the bug. Javier is not going to let that happen.

W/C: 2.5k

Warnings: language, mentions of illness (just a common cold), cavity-inducing fluff

A/N: Hi this is like, toothache-inducing fluff. Super cute idea from @softly-sad inspired this whole chapter! And BIG shoutout to @remmysbounty for being my sounding board/Colombian culture expert/brainstorming buddy!

previous chapter | next chapter

You’re a nurse; your immune system is hardy. The first year or so of working in hospitals led you to constantly feel ill, plagued by some bug or virus, but you powered through with help from your fellow nurses. It was to be expected, working in an environment surrounded by people, specifically ill ones.

That being said, you had caught a bug of some kind. It wasn’t too bad, not enough to disqualify you from work. It was simply a scratch in your throat, a throbbing temple that came and went, a few other mild symptoms and an inability to sleep.

This brief insomnia was what found you awake at 1:28 in the morning, joints aching. You’re hydrated, well-fed, and had even snuck a nap in during your break at work today. Everything should be fine, but your body aches, and you roll over in your bed with a groan. Sleep isn’t coming, isn’t anywhere near possible. You crack your neck as you sit up and decide the best course of action is to work out the aches. 

You sigh and get out of bed, changing out of your pajamas and into your workout clothes. Your mind wanders a little, wondering if you’ll catch Peña at this hour. It seems unlikely, but then again, the probability of anyone being at the gym at this hour is always low.

It’s a bit chilly in the air of the night, and you sigh as you walk out into the fresh air. You make your way to the gym, secretly hoping that you don’t run into Javier tonight. You’ll be the first to admit you look like shit, and you’re not going to be working out as hard as normal.

Luck isn’t on your side tonight, you sigh, as you enter the fitness center and find Javier running on the treadmill. He’s already quite into it, sweating and panting from the running. He turns as the door creaks open and stops the machine, smiling a little. It falls when he notices the dark rings around your eyes. “Hey.”

“Hi,” you say shyly, turning away from him to put your things in a locker. The twinge returns to your temple and you try your best not to groan at the annoying headache.

Javier turns off the treadmill and turns to look at your back. “I’ll just say it. You look like shit. Is something wrong?” he asks, crossing his arms, genuinely concerned.

“I feel like shit too,” you chuckle, running a hand over your ponytail.

His brow furrows as he looks at you. “Rough shift? I thought you said-”

You nod and cut him off. “I only work days for the next two weeks, yeah,” you say, turning to face him. “I’ve got some kind of bug or something. I feel like shit and I can’t sleep. I figured I’d come to the gym and try to work out if I was going to be awake, but…” you shrug and take a swig from your water bottle.

Javier shakes his head. “If you’re feeling like shit, working out isn’t going to be the answer.” He steps off the treadmill and wipes his face with the hem of his t-shirt, exposing unexpectedly strong abs that make you raise your eyebrows before quickly looking away. He walks over to the area by you, grabbing his bag. “If neither of us can sleep, why don’t we go get breakfast?” he offers, positioning himself so that you don’t have to move to see him. “There’s a little 24-hour place around here. I’ll buy, we’ll get you some hot coffee and food.”

You bite your lip, thinking you probably shouldn’t. “I came here to work out,” you say, a weak protest.

“That’s pointless if you’re feeling like shit,” Javier points out, and you nod.

“I guess that’s true.” You say and cross your arms.

Javier gives you a soft, gentle smile. “You’re a nurse. You know it’s true. Come on,” he tells you, and you finally crack a small smile too. Javier’s widens at that. “Alright hermosa, come on,” he tells you as he grabs his bag. “I drove here tonight. We’ll take my car?” he asks.

The thought of seeing the kind of car the man drives makes you smile a little wider. You hold back a giggle at the nickname, your heart fluttering helplessly in your chest. “As long as you’ll drive me home too,” you nod, and Javier nods back. 

You walk out to his car alongside him, where you discover he drives a beat-up wagon. You chuckle a little and get into the passenger side. It smells of cigarette smoke, which you find no surprise. There’s some kind of air freshener, at least, that masks the distinct smell but doesn’t hide it completely. Javier tosses his bag in the back and sits in the drivers’ seat. 

The drive to the restaurant is filled with a comfortable silence, the radio playing quietly. You relax in the seat of his car, his presence soothing. It’s a bit chilly, and you unintentionally shiver. Javier’s obviously still warm from working out and he notices the fact that you’re cold. “The heater’s busted,” he admits with an apologetic smile. “Here.” He reaches into the back and grabs a leather jacket, placing it on your lap. “Use my jacket.” 

The gesture makes you melt a little, and you nod, sliding it over your shoulders. It’s big on you, but it’s warm and comfortable and has a distinctive smell that you’re sure is Javier’s. There’s cologne and cigarette smoke and exhaust from the shitty car, and you smile as you snuggle into it. “Thank you,” you tell him as you look over at him, your heart completely in your eyes and unable to hide it.

He looks back at you and his stony face cracks into a smile. “No problem.”

A few minutes later, the car parks outside a small restaurant, dimly lit but clearly open. As you get out of the car and open the door to the restaurant, the smell of coffee wafts your way and soothes you as you breathe it in. Javier walks in behind you and a short and plump waitress calls his name excitedly. “Javi! How are you, mijo?” She asks, already bringing two mugs of coffee as she notices the two of you. “And who is this?” She asks again, handing you a mug.

Javier leads you to the small booth nearby and the two of you sit. He introduces you and you give a little wave, sipping your coffee and sighing at the warm liquid. The waitress chats with him, and you smile to yourself as you watch the two of them interact. He’s just as charming with her as he is with you, and it makes you chuckle. He orders something for the two of you (you don’t catch exactly what), and you lean against the cool leather of the booth, smiling at him as the waitress leaves to put in the order. “What?” he asks, cracking a small smile at the way you look at him.

You snuggle into his jacket and shrug. “You’re quite the charmer,” you tease, bringing the coffee to your lips to hide the growing smile. “What did you order us?”

��Sweet arepas,” he tells you, and you nod happily as you set it down. 

“Sounds wonderful,” you nod and set it down. “How was your day?” you ask, the quiet atmosphere of the small restaurant making your voice quieter and gentler. You’ve never asked him something like that, but he’s been tense all night. Well, what you assumed was tense- you didn’t know him extremely well. 

“Shitty,” he shakes his head as he admits it, sipping his own coffee before finishing his response. “We can’t find shit on Escobar or any of his men. It’s like they’re fucking ghosts or something: we can always see them and never catch them.”

You nod and listen, his quiet voice and the coffee soothing you. His voice is beautiful, you notice, and it’s just what you needed on a night like tonight. “That sounds hard,” you nod in agreement, your eyes showing your compassion.

Javier has come to love looking into your eyes. They always give away your thoughts and emotions. The way you look at him melts his heart. He has Steve and Connie and whatever prostitute he’s with, but they always already know the story or don’t care. You do. “It’s tough, yeah,” he says before he looks down at his coffee, the image of you bundled in his leather jacket threatening to make him smile. 

The arepas come not long after, and you sigh as you bite into the cinnamon-sugar dusted cornmeal cakes. Javier chuckles and smiles as he hears the noise. You notice the way his smile looks like it doesn’t come often, but it comes in full force when it does. It crinkles the edges of his eyes, leaves lines around his mouth, and makes him look like everything you want and more. He bites into one and it leaves the fine powder on his mustache. You snort and nearly spit out your coffee as you notice it.

“What?”

“Nothing,” you say quickly, hiding your face behind your mug. “Just got a little… something,” you say, gesturing to your face, to where his mustache would be. He brushes it and frowns as he notices the sugar falling out, and you giggle harder.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Javier says, amusement and teasing in his tone.

“Don’t make yourself so easy to laugh at,” you say with a quirked eyebrow, taking another bite of your arepa.

Javier shakes his head, that familiar small smile on his face: the one he always cracks around you no matter how hard he tries to hold back. He really does like you, he realizes in that moment, as he looks at you: happily chewing your food and wrapped in his leather jacket and probably getting powdered sugar and cinnamon on it but he can’t even bring himself to care because your big eyes are on his face and it makes him warm inside even if he’ll never admit it because goddamn would Steve tease him for the rest of eternity but he thinks he might be falling, and it makes that smile grow into a real one he can’t hold back.

He takes a sip of his coffee and forces himself to be the regular Javier, the flirty one who doesn’t let things mean something to him because he knows it’ll be gone soon anyway. “Sometimes I can’t believe you’re a nurse. Are you so mean and sarcastic to your patients?”

“Come by sometime and find out,” you tease. “Actually, don’t. That would mean you’d need a reason to be in the hospital.”

-

The rest of the night passes easily. You and Javier spend hours in that diner booth, drinking coffee and mindlessly munching on the arepas, which the kind waitress brings out several plates of throughout the night. She tells you that Javier doesn’t eat enough, and you believe it, and you watch as the plate slowly becomes empty every time, most of them going into Javier’s mouth and leaving more sugar on that mustache. You converse and tease and flirt and bare your life stories to each other, neither of you ever taking your eyes from the other’s face except for when the woman- Valeria, she tells you- brings more coffee and more food.

Javier looks at his watch for the first time that night, finding that it’s now 5:30 in the morning. “Shit. We’d better get you home, you need to work, don’t you?” “Don’t you too?” you ask in return, tilting your head and pulling the coat closer around yourself.

“Yeah, but that’s less important.” He leaves a Colombian bill on the table for payment and tip for Valeria, then stands, adjusting his clothing. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

You nod and stand, following Javier out to his car, parked on the street in front of the diner. Valeria calls out a goodbye to the both of and you wave, a soft smile on your face. There were kind people everywhere you went, you found, even in a place with so much trouble and violence. 

The sky is beginning to change colors as the sunrise approaches. The dark blue of the sky lightens near the horizon, and a bit of pastel orange tinges just where the outline of the city meets it. It’s beautiful, really. You watch the sky as Javier drives you home, as it slowly changes and a bit of the sun is starting to show.

Javier parks in front of your apartment, which you directed him to, and kills the engine. You look at him, confused. “I’ll walk you inside,” he says as if it’s obvious.

As you get out of the car, Javier follows and you shake your head. “No, it’s fine Javi,” you protest, but he walks to you and puts a hand on your arm. 

“I want you to be safe, and you know I carry a gun.”

“It’s 5:30 A.M. on a Tuesday, and you’re wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt,” you laugh, raising your eyebrow. He hasn’t touched you since you first shook hands when you met. His hand is large and strong and you can practically feel the warmth through the thick leather of his coat. “Oh, shit, sorry,” you say and start to shrug out of the coat, but he stops you, one hand on each arm. 

He shakes his head. “Keep it with you,” he says.

It’s a soft moment, the sun coming up in the eastern sky, Javier’s hands holding you through his coat, the one he gifted you when you were cold. You’re both silent for a moment, and Javier can’t help himself. He presses a soft kiss to your head, where your hairline and your forehead meet, murmuring your name into your skin. He’s so close to you, and you can smell his cologne and his sweat and his deodorant and cigarettes and coffee and it’s all so uniquely Javi that your breath stops for a moment before you throw your arms around his torso, hugging him. “Thank you,” you breathe into his chest, and you can feel him hum a soft noise that conveys ‘it’s no problem’, his arms wrapping back around you.

You both break away a moment later and you look up at him, a soft smile gracing your face and an equal one on his. “My hero,” you chuckle softly and press a brief kiss to his cheek. Javi chuckles softly at that, the warmth radiating from him tempting you to do more, but you stop yourself. You don’t want to give him your bug. “Thank you for tonight. It was much needed,” you tell him, pulling his leather jacket tight around yourself.

“I needed it too,” he nods. “Go inside. I’ll see you,” he says, his hands resting where his belt loops would be on his jeans. You can tell that’s a pose he strikes often.

“See you,” you nod and turn, heading into your apartment building. As you open the door, you turn, and Javier gives a little two fingered salute to you before getting back into his car.

taglist:

@wonderlandgabby​ @diogodxlot​

[sunshineandlov]

Present - Shigaraki x reader (birthday special)

Word count: 1,243

Warning: possible death in the beginning (honestly up to reader interpretation)

A/n: This is my second fic for Shigaraki’s birthday celebration. This was actually really fun to write. Fun fact, the inspiration for this comes from a whole truck of amiibo splatoons being stolen in 2015.

-

Destruction filled the night street. The sound of crumbling concrete and shattering glass was music to Shigaraki’s ears. The new Nomu tore anything and everything near with its enlarged claws, just as it had been instructed.

The villain smirked behind Father. The Nomu was performing well. Large claws protruding from its knuckles, great strength and speed. The only foreseeable problem was its slow reaction time and inability to move silently. Not ideal for a stealth mission, but good for brute force attacks.

Bright lights began to approach, hitting the Nomu’s black skin. A long white truck rolled closer and closer. Oblivious to the creature the same color as the road. Until it was too late.

Screeeeeeee!

The tires burned against the road. Whoever was driving swerved to miss the Nomu, but wasn't quick enough. The right side of the truck collided with the Nomu’s shoulder. It barely turned in time to see the rapidly approaching headlights before the collision. It was only knocked off balance while the truck's rear slide left until it hit the wall by the road.

The Nomu slowly turned and let out an enraged scream. It punched and tore at the truck. Digging and tearing, until its claw got caught in the back door of the trailer of the truck. The Nomu flung its arm in an attempt to get it off. Tug, tug, and pull! And finally the Nomu's claws were free, causing the vehicle to go flying onto the other side of the road. The blaring of an alarm sounded from the truck as it lay unoperational.

The heroes were coming. It would be one thing to stay, and let the Nomu curb stomp the heroes. But he wasn’t entirely sure of this Nomu’s strength yet, nor was he sure of just how many heroes were coming. No. It would be much more satisfying if he and the Nomu got away before the heroes could even arrive. How pathetic the heroes would look, and how frustrated and useless they would feel, if the villains escaped before they could even get there? Leaving behind only destruction. A sign of the devastation they could bring if they truly wanted to.

“Time to go back,” he beckoned the Nomu, slowly walking towards it.

If asked, he would have said that he did that so the Nomu could hear him. In all honesty, he really wanted to see the damage it caused up close. The tears it made in the truck. How fragile the whole city really was. How flawed the heroes truly were.

“And make it be quiet, it’s annoying me,” he added.

Without hesitation, the Nomu tore into the vehicle, until the noise suddenly stopped. As he stood there, he glanced over the damage that had been done.

The back door hatch had been torn off, leaving the battered trailer door hanging open. On a whim, he peered inside. A lot of the packages seemed damaged, one was torn open. He wandered into the truck, disintegrating the door on the way in, and he stared into the torn box. He tilted his head. It was hard to tell in the street light, but it looked like a new console. One he had wanted for a while.

He picked up the box with four fingers. He held it up, adjusting to see it better. Not just a console, but a video game too. One that he also wanted. The console didn’t even look like it was very damaged. At least the people packing knew how to do their job. He stared at it. Then walked away, carrying it under his arm.

“You gotta be kidding me!” you said involuntarily.

You stared at your phone and the email displayed on it.

“We regret to inform you that the delivery truck containing your package was intercepted in a villain attack. Your package cannot be found. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

You let out a long, frustrated sigh. “I was only trying to do something nice. Why?” you whined. “Those weren’t cheap either. Who knew that the video game, not just the console, could be so expensive?”

You had wanted to be nice and get something for Shigaraki, something he mentioned before when you were talking. He seemed more stressed and tense lately and you thought it would help him calm down. But now you wouldn’t know because some jerk stole it. The more you thought about it, the more angry and tired it made you.

Earlier when the package hadn’t come like you were told, you just assumed it was late and thought nothing of it. Now that you were fuming and frustrated that some villain stole Shigaraki’s gift, you almost wanted to just stay home. But you were only a block away from the bar, and you didn’t feel like getting this far to turn back.

You walked into the villain hangout. You took a seat at the bar. The temptation to mope got the best of you. You sighed, hit your head onto the table, and banged your fist on it.

Shigaraki took note of your behavior. “Is everything alright?”

“No!” You let out a long, frustrated breath. “I bought a brand new console and video game for you. And now I learn that some bozo stole it! I’m sorry.”

“What?!” he said. Angry that someone stole his present, and confused that you got something for him. “For me?”

“Yes,” your voice came out a combination of a groan and whine. “It was a video game console, and it wasn’t cheap.”

“When was it stolen?” he asked, half considering hunting this person down until he got it back.

“Two nights ago.”

Shigaraki paused in thought. The same night he tested out the Nomu.

“It was the newest one too. And I got a video game you mentioned along with it.”

Shigaraki froze. He quickly pulled out his phone and typed something in. "Was this the game?" He showed an online picture of it.

"Yeah! How did you know?"

"Because," he walked off before finishing his sentence. You waited for him, and he came back with a console and game that looked suspiciously like the ones you ordered. "I might already got them."

“What!?" You looked more closely. "Is this really it?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Get the box.”

Within a moment, you were both examining the cardboard box. You looked down at the tag and there it was. Your name and address displayed on the mangled box.

"I can’t believe it. You stole the present that I bought for you." Your attempts to stifle your laughs weakened. Thank goodness that had been the case.

"Why did you get it?"

"Because I wanted to? And you seemed more stressed."

"Are you sure it wasn't a birthday present?" He interrogated.

"No, I don't even know when your birthday is."

"Two days ago."

“Oh.” You laughed. “That was lucky. You actually got something on your birthday.”

“I still don’t know how you did that when you didn’t know.”

“Me neither.” You shook your head as your laughter died down. “You think I could borrow it sometime?” It was a joke, but you were partly serious, wondering if he actually would.

He didn’t answer.

“Shigaraki?”

“No.”

“Oh, come on! I bought it for you. And I promise I could beat you in that game if you let me.”

He considered it. “Maybe. But only on multiplayer when you're playing with me.”

“Deal!”

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

2020 Fics

Hi ya’ll! I took some inspiration from my girl @supernatural-jackles and did a round up of all the fics I posted this year! Anything from 2020 is below and organized by pairing. I never realized I did so many oneshots this year until now. I’m looking forward to what 2021 brings!

Dean: 78 Fics (35 oneshots, 32 imagines, 10 series, 1 drabble)

Sam: 6 fics (4 oneshots, 2 imagines)

Jensen: 20 Fics (16 oneshots, 3 imagines, 1 series)

Jared: 4 Fics (3 oneshots, 1 imagine)

No Pairing: 3 Fics (3 oneshots)

Poly Pairing: 3 Fics (2 oneshots, 1 imagine)

Other Characters: 1 Fic (1 oneshot)

Total 2020: 115 Fics (64 oneshots, 39 imagines, 11 series, 1 drabble)

Dean x reader

Out Of The Way (Part 2) (Bartender!Dean x reader) - The reader has been working at the bar for a while and things seem to be running smoothly as she and Dean continue to grow closer.

Creep (Dean x reader) - The reader runs into an old flame at the bar.

Girl’s Trip (Dean x reader) - Dean wakes up the reader and her friends after the reader’s bachorlette party in Vegas.

Quarantine (Doctor!Dean x Nurse!reader) - After an accident at work leaves the reader exposed to a dangerous virus, she has has to spend two weeks in quarantine with her ex-boyfriend, Dean.

Not Stupid (Dean x reader) (11x17 Rewrite) - After a hunt goes wrong, the reader and Sam are injured and it only gets worse from there.

Rough Ride (Dean x reader) (smut) - The reader gets in trouble with Dean on purpose but he’s going to make her work to get off.

Stranded (EMT!Dean x reader) (smut) - After a car accident, the reader and Dean are stranded on the side of the road in a storm and begin to bicker. When Dean nearly leaves, she incentivizes him to stay.

Anything For You (Michael!Dean x reader) (smut) - The reader has another one of her control lessons with Michael.

My Oh My (Alpha!Dean x omega!reader) (smut) - The reader and her next door neighbor Dean have an arrangement to help one another through heats and ruts or just to fool around when they feel like it. When the reader’s heat hits though, things go differently this time around.

Omega Mine (Omega!Dean x omega!reader) (smut) - After a long hunt, Dean’s heat hits him full on and triggers the reader’s as well. But Dean needs to be taken care of first, the reader has just the trick.

Hot Pink (Dean x reader) (smut) - After a hunt, Dean needs an extra roll of bandages and finds something intriguing in the reader’s bag.

Harder (AU Dom!Dean x sub!reader) (smut) - The reader has a bad day at work and needs Dean to help her unwind, even if she might take it too far.

Natural (Dean x reader) (smut) - After sharing their feelings for one another, the reader and Dean are finally about to get intimate. Only the reader gets nervous about how she might look downstairs.

The Game (Dean x reader) - After Dean’s death, the reader isn’t in great shape and would prefer to stay home and be miserable. But when she gets a letter from Dean, she soon starts playing a game he created for her in the event that he died to help her try to get the closure she needs.

Can’t Stand The Heat (Cowboy!Dean x reader) (smut) - After a long day at work, Dean comes home to a very warm reader in very little clothing.

Dry Spell (Dean x reader) (smut) - When Dean is cursed on a hunt, he discovers a few things belonging to him may be missing. It may be some time before they find a cure but the reader doesn’t see a problem with this.

Five Times I Fell For You (Dean x reader) - Five different times Dean has fallen in love with the reader over the course of their relationship.

Blank Slate (Actor!Dean x reader) - After losing her memories of her life with her family, the reader has to try and piece together what exactly happened to her with her husband’s help.

Mateless Mate (Alpha!Dean x Human!reader) - The reader moves into her new apartment and meets her Alpha neighbor, Dean. He seems friendly enough but he’s very adamant that he and the reader are going to be something more.

Mated For Life (Alpha!Dean x Omega!reader) - It’s not a good night when Dean’s father comes over unannounced to try and drag Dean on a hunt. Unfortunately, things go from bad to worse fast.

A New Kind Of Misery (Part 1) (Soulmate!Dean x Actress!reader) - After a night out, the reader wakes up the next day to discover her soulmate mark is now on her body. Except she has no idea who they are.

A New Kind Of Misery (Part 2) (Soulmate!Dean x Actress!reader) - After a night out, the reader wakes up the next day to discover her soulmate mark is now on her body. Except she has no idea who they are.

Somebody I Used To Know (Endverse!Dean x reader) - Months into the end of the world, the reader helps out a mysterious man she’s never seen before. He asks her to meet up with him where she learns she used to know him better than anyone.

One Room Left (Dean x reader) - Dean and the reader find out their motel room only has one bed. This ends up being a very good thing.

Roommates (AU!Dean x reader) - The reader’s roommate, Dean, is looking a little worse for wear after work one night. When he passes out on the couch, she knows something needs to change.

Snowed In (AU!Dean x reader) - The reader is staying over her best friend Dean’s house for the weekend due to a nasty winter storm. During a game of truth or dare, Dean makes an unusual dare that will make serious changes to their friendship.

What You Wish For (Prince!Dean x Princess!reader) - Princess Y/N isn’t pleased to have to attend a boring business dinner with the royal family of the neighboring kingdom. When she complains to her fairy godfather about it, she and a certain young prince get a lesson in being careful what you wish for.

Memories (Dean x reader) - When Dean discovers the reader has abilities she’s never told him about, he breaks things off. But when she wanders back into the Winchester’s lives a year later, he starts to realize there’s more to the situation than just a few lies.

Three’s Company (Dean x reader) (smut) - The reader discovers that the AU Dean that’s been living with them lately may have a thing for her. Dean’s known for a while though and is okay with letting the reader play out a certain desire of hers with the alternate Dean.

Change Of Plans (Dean x reader) - As the reader and Dean begin their romantic weekend away, mother nature decides to visit the reader a week early and throw off all of their plans. Dean however is intent on making sure the reader feels okay and is still enjoying their time together.

15 x 20 (Dean x reader) - This is a semi-rewrite of episode 15x20.

The Boss From Hell (Demon!Dean x reader) (smut) - After Hell rose up under the rule of Boyking Sam and took over the earth, the reader has found herself working for Hell Corp and trying to be as productive an employee as possible to save herself from death. When she gets a call to meet with Sam himself though, he has a new job for her, one involving seducing his demon brother.

Unspoken (Dean x reader) - Dean is cursed with the inability to speak unless a cure can be found. It begins to wear on him in more ways than one.

Pajama Man (Dean x reader) - For their first holiday season away from hunting, Dean decides to get everyone some Christmas themed pajamas and something a little extra to celebrate Hanukkah too.

Good Point (AU!Dean x reader) - The reader isn’t too happy when the number on the scale has gone up during quarantine despite their best efforts to be healthier recently. Dean however has a different viewpoint that helps put things into perspective.

Imagine…Demon Dean Catching You (Demon!Dean x reader)

Imagine…Secretly Dating Dean (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Meeting Your Online Date In Person (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Dean Debating Asking You Out (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Dean Noticing When You’re Down (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Meeting The Other Winchesters (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Running Into AU Dean (AU!Dean x AU!reader)

Imagine…A Day On The River (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Dean Being Cursed To Only Tell The Truth (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Counting Dean’s Freckles (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Dean On Game Night (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Dean’s First Sleepover (Daddy!Dean x reader)

Imagine…The Power Going Out (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Getting A Sunburn (Dean x reader)

Imagine…An Accidental Kiss (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Working Out With Dean (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Warming Up With Dean (Dean x reader)

Imagine…A Nighttime Hayride (Dean x reader)

Imagine…After A Bad Hunt (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Touch Football (AU!Dean x reader)

Imagine…Taking A Midnight Swim (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Sam Teasing You About Dean (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Nesting With Dean (Alpha!Dean x omega!reader)

Imagine…Running Into Your Ex (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Dean & His Babies (Daddy!Dean x reader)

Imagine…Dean Replacing Your Jacket With You Knowing (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Dean Teaching You To Drive Baby (Dean x reader)

Imagine…An Elf On The Shelf Following Dean (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Decorating The Bunker (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Getting A Card From Dean (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Dean Liking Harry Potter (Dean x reader)

Imagine…Dean Shoveling Snow (Dean x reader)

Not Losing You (Mechanic!Dean x reader) (Completed)

-The reader is pulled over on the side of the road when a man suddenly appears and proceeds to collapse in front of her. Little does she know, that may be a good thing for them both…

Make It Through The Night (Apocalypse!Dean x reader) (Completed)

- One year into the apocalypse, the reader finds herself in some trouble when a mysterious stranger shows up. When she finds out what exactly was the cause of the end of the world, she agrees to help him make things right…

The Shallows (Wildlife Agent!Dean x reader) (Completed)

-A few months after moving to a quiet little lake town on the edge of the state park, the reader has a near death experience and is saved by a man close by. When the police don’t take her seriously, he does and the pair stumble onto something bigger than they imagined…

My Little Secret (Mechanic!Dean x reader) (Completed)

-When a tragic accident happens, Dean takes a drastic measure in order to save the person he cares about most…

Still The One (Mechanic!Dean x reader) (Completed)

-When the reader’s childhood best friend, Dean, shows up at her door one night after a fight with his roommate, she invites him to stay. But things aren’t as simple as they seem…

The Wedding Date (AU!Dean x reader) (Completed)

- When the reader is in desperate need of a date to her sister’s wedding, she calls a service to fulfill the need and ends up meeting Dean Winchester…

A Nightmare In A Dream (Serial Killer!Dean x reader) (Completed)

- Six months after reuniting with the Winchesters and her brother, things are going good for the reader. She and Dean are happily together and occasionally stay with her brother, Matty, and Sam, who has been getting him used to normal life. Life appears to be heading in a good direction when the past has a way of creeping up again and dropping a bombshell on them all…

Strangers (Doctor!Dean x patient!reader) (Completed) - While getting a snack out of the vending machine, the reader bumps into a frustrated doctor who’s having a bad night and helps him get some perspective on things…

Home Bound (Dean x reader) (Dean’s POV) (Completed) - After defeating Chuck, Dean wakes up in the middle of nowhere Colorado four months after dying. He has no idea why he’s alive again or what’s going on. All he knows is his family is gone and he needs to get back home to figure out what brought him back to life and why. It’s easier said than done though in the middle of a brutal ice storm with Dean’s grief threatening to consume him every passing moment. Dean knows if he can just make it home, he’ll be okay again or so he hopes…

Soldier Boy (Superhero!Dean x reader) (Completed) - When the reader is saved by Soldier Boy, she isn’t all that happy with him. She makes an impression on him though which is perfect for her plans. But her simple job of getting Soldier Boy to fall for her for a little revenge isn’t so easy when she starts to see the man behind the mask…

You Ever…

_______

Sam x Reader

Heir To The Throne (Boyking!Sam x reader) (smut) - Sam’s had a hard day at work and needs to unwind.

Let Go (Dom!Sam x sub!reader) (smut) - The reader and Sam are beginning their new relationship but the reader has a few things to learn about being a sub.

Say It (Sam x reader) (smut) - The reader brings her bar hookup home and discovers that permission turns him a whole lot more than she thought it would.

Surprises (Sam x reader) (smut) - The reader has a few birthday surprises for Sam.

Sam’s Self-care Routine (Sam x reader)

Sex In The Impala (Sam x reader)

_______

Jensen x Reader

Breathe (Jensen x reader) (smut) - The reader is having an off day and wants to be left alone. Jensen on the other hand comes up with the perfect plan to make the reader feel wanted.

Twisted (Jensen x reader) - The reader goes to a sleepover at her boyfriend Jensen’s place but the night doesn’t end well when she starts feeling insecure.

Unexpected (Jensen x reader) - The reader and Jensen discover their odds of having children are low and look into adoption. When they end up fostering a teenager though, they realize what they thought they wanted might be right in front of them.

Mardi Gras (Jensen x reader) (smut) - A year after Jensen’s reign as King for Mardi Gras, the reader has a surprise for him. Only he has one for her as well.

Wrong Number (Jensen x reader) - An accidental text message leads to something more between Jensen and the reader.

Mated (Alpha!Jensen x Omega!reader) - The reader discovers that her old school classmate is in fact her true mate and she’s not sure how to feel about that at first.

Best Laid Plans (Jensen x reader) - When Jensen starts acting strange around the reader, she has a talk with Jared to ease her worries. In doing so, she reveals a secret of her own and may just put an end to her friendship with Jensen for good.

Love Notes (Jensen x reader) - After the show has finished filming, Jensen’s returned home and is feeling a little off. The reader decides to make a scavenger hunt to cheer him up with a fun surprise waiting at the end.

More Than Words (Jensen x reader) - The reader and her boyfriend Jensen have been together for years but she feels him slipping away when the physical distance between them starts affecting their relationship. She decides to end things for both their sakes when she feels him stop caring and tries to move on with her life. But an afternoon get together is going to change hers forever and she now has to figure out what that means for both her and Jensen.

Dark Little Places (Jensen x reader) - The reader makes an out of the blue comment about being happy which concerns Jensen that she might not be as happy as she seems to be.

All The Friends With Benefits (Jensen x reader) - The reader and Jensen are attending their friends Halloween party when they start flirting a little too hard for their own good.

I Got You (Part 1) (Jensen x reader) - The reader is celebrating her two year anniversary with her fiance when her best friend from childhood, Jensen, calls. Something’s wrong with him and he tries to play it off once he remembers what night it is for her but the reader isn’t budging and that may be a good thing for the both of them.

I Got You (Part 2) (Jensen x reader) - The reader has a quieter morning with Jensen while trying to convince him that he needs to talk to his family sooner rather than later if he wants to start feeling better.

The One Who Got Away (Jensen x reader) - While out with friends one night, the reader bumps into her old high school best friend, Jensen. They always had a will they, won’t they relationship but the reader finds things with Jensen don’t seem to be going as well she thinks they are.

Honey & Sweetheart (Jensen x reader) - The reader talks to Jensen and a special friend about struggling with parts of the finale.

Christmas Card (Photographer!Jensen x reader) - The reader and her family are getting some Christmas photos done when the reader inadvertently leaves her phone behind. When she goes to retrieve it, she gets to talking to the photographer.

The Glitter Prank (Jensen x reader)

Meeting Jensen Grocery Shopping (Jensen x reader)

Imagine…Jensen’s Self-care Routine (Jensen x reader)

Won’t You Stay (Jensen x Director!reader) (Completed)

- Having grown up with Ethan Y/L/N, one of Hollywood’s biggest and most loved stars, as a father, the reader is following in his footsteps and is directing her first movie. Even better, it’s the story she wrote and published years earlier, The Dark Woods, and her dad is set to play one of the leads. On the surface, her life seems perfect, even while she keeps the truth hidden. When the other lead actor drops out the first day of filming, they’re forced to find a replacement and fast. Jensen Ackles is an up and comer and seemingly knows the character inside and out. But he has a past too and the last thing either one of them wants is to get involved. But if they can get over their fears of being hurt again, they may find that they’re exactly what the other needs…

________

Jared x Reader

Saxx (Jared x reader) (smut) - The reader is determined to have Jared bottom for her tonight but first, she wants a special strip show from him.

A Texas Dream (Jared x reader) (smut) - After a shopping trip, Jared finds out the reader purchased a pair of her first authentic cowboy boots while the reader discovers that Jared really has a thing for them, even if he doesn’t want to admit it at first.

Reflect (Jared x reader) - Jared notices the reader shying away from him and suspects something serious with the way she views herself is going on.

Jared’s Self-Care Routine (Jared x reader)

_________

No Pairing 

Seeing Double (Part 2) (Alpha!Dean x Jensen) (platonic) - After the Winchesters show up at Jensen’s apartment, they discover getting the boys home may not be possible.

Beg For It (Lucifer x Michael) (smut) - Michael wants it again and Lucifer knows that. Tonight though, he wants to hear his brother beg.

Baby Brothers (Dean x sister!reader) - Dean shows up at the reader’s doorstep injured and looking for help. Little does he know, the reader is going to do more than fix up a few cuts for him.

________

Poly Pairing

Jared x Reader x Jensen

Silver Lining - After poor weather cancels their flight into Vancouver, the group rents a car in hopes of driving into town before filming is set to start. Unfortunately for them, their bad luck follows them and their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere.

Jenneel x reader (Jensen x Reader x Danneel)

Photos - The reader and Danneel have a small fight over a present for Jensen that leads to his intervening and a small confession.

Sam x reader x Dean

Imagine…Telling The Boys You’re Pregnant (Sam x reader x Dean)

_________

Benny x Reader

Dangerous (Benny x reader) (smut) - The reader gets injured on a hunt and gets in idea have some fun with her favorite vampire.

_______

[amelialincoln]

Haunted

“I’m not good at secrets,” Link complained as they pulled into the hospital parking lot. “Especially when it’s good news.” He glanced at Amelia with a wide, boyish grin on his face that made her chuckle.

“I know, babe.” She rolled her eyes. “You were telling Jo within seconds after I told you last time and we weren’t even sure that was good news yet.” Link’s eyes widened as his best friend’s name was mentioned.

“Shit, that’s gonna be hard.”

“Avoid her,” Amelia groaned, grabbing her work bag and opening the car door.

“Hey!” She glanced back to find Link waving a banana and a bottle of water.

“Not this again,” she muttered, remembering the constant nagging she received during her pregnancy with Scout. “We found out last night, Link, I don’t even qualify as pregnant yet.”

“And that’s where you're wrong. I put the prenatals in your purse. Remember the folic acid. We don’t want neural tube defects.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Amelia responded, grabbing the banana and water bottle from his wavering hands. “Wipe that grin off your face, everyone’s gonna know the moment you step into the E.R.”

“We’re having another baby,” Link sang, jogging a couple steps in front of her and glancing back with amusement.

“I hate you!” She called, trying to wipe the grin off her face as her husband waved goodbye without turning back.

Unlike Link, Amelia wasn’t paged for the upcoming trauma. Something she didn’t necessarily mind so she made the quick trip to her office instead. The room seemed stale from the week of time off they’d taken for their honeymoon. Scout’s face was priceless when the couple walked into the house last night after spending the week with Link’s parents. She wished they’d been able to spend more time with him but she promised they’d visit him at daycare, which Mer was dropping him off at for them midday. She fished through her bag finding that Link had gone a little overboard on snacks.

“Classic,” she muttered, knowing he’d probably end up eating half of them anyway. She took the prenatals easily, washing them down with the water bottle that her husband had provided and internally wishing she had a thermos full of coffee.

“Hey, are you not coming?” Maggie, stuck her head in Amelia’s office, breathless from running. “Big trauma? I’m sure you’re needed.”

“I didn’t get a page.” Amelia replied, now understanding Link's inability to keep good news to himself. Staring at Maggie’s happy expression made her want to blurt out the news so bad.

“Probably a mistake since you were off for the week. We need to catch up later over dinner or something. Just come with me now.” Her eyes flicked to the desk. “Whoa what’s with all the vitamins? You always made fun of my ‘bullshit’ morning routine.”

“Uh, Bali inspired me I guess,” Amelia sputtered.

“Ugh, I’m so jealous!” Maggie squealed. “Can’t wait to hear all about it.” Amelia nodded, following her sister as they joined the mass of doctors that were heading to the E.R.

[][][]

“Did you page, Amelia?” Was the first thing Link said to Bailey after their week off. Bailey stared at the ortho surgeon blankly, trying to control the chaos that E.R. was descending into. “Wha--”

“I made sure she wasn’t,” Webber affirmed, seeming to come out of nowhere. People were staggering around like zombies and Link swallowed uncomfortably.

“She can’t get near this today. Can we send a resident up to her office to distract her? Or just ask her to take the day off? Are you okay with being here?” He asked Webber, glancing around the room.

“I’m fine,” Richard affirmed to him and Bailey. “More of a drinker.”

“Amelia says it’s all the same.”

“If I wasn’t fine I would make that clear,” Richard shook his head. “I’ll find a resident for Shepherd. You’re needed in trauma four.” Link nodded, glancing around the E.R. once more before following the general surgeon into the crowded room.

[][][]

It was the smell that hit Amelia first as she and Maggie entered the E.R. It wasn’t like she hadn’t treated patients who reeked of weed before but the entire wing seemed to be exuding the smell of marijuana. She stumbled back slightly.

“What happened?”

“Train slid off the rails over that skate park on Elm where all the stoners hang out,” Teddy yelled over the commotion. “The majority of those injured are completely out of their minds. One of my guys tried to shoot himself up with saline. All the nurses are complaining about veins.”

“Oh,” Amelia swallowed, Teddy nodded and turned back to her patient who had begun to seize. “Little help, Shepherd?”

“Just a sec,” Amelia answered blankly, turning the corner abruptly to try and get away from the smell that was seeping into every pore of her scrubs. She pushed an intern aside before stumbling over to a waste bin and throwing up the contents of her breakfast. She tried to push the intrusive thoughts entering her mind away with no success. Her arms covered in needles, her head in a peaceful daze, Ryan. Every part of her wondered what her life would be like if he were still here, holding her, every night.

“Amelia!” A voice snapped her out of her thoughts before strong arms wrapped around her and pulled her up from her place against the wall. “Can you hear me?” She willed herself to answer, trying to focus on the familiar face that was shaking her shoulders forcefully. “Get out of the way!” Link shouted as hospital staff parted to allow for him to lead her out of the E.R. and into an on call room. “Amelia.” He pulled her into his chest, running concerned hands through her hair.

“The smell is covering me,” she mumbled, Ryan still flickering in her mind. Link nodded, pulling off his scrub top before removing hers, along with the rest of their clothes and tossing them into a waste bag.

“Go shower,” he motioned to the small bathroom connected to the room. “I’ll grab your clothes and be right back.”

“Don’t leave,” she begged, knowing that if he did she might find herself back in the E.R. surrounded by the very thing her mind was aching for. Link nodded, texting a quick message to Maggie before guiding her into the bathroom and turning on the shower head. Amelia’s thick hair absorbed smells quickly and he cleansed it until all that was left was the light fragrance of spring flowers before doing the same to his own. Maggie knocked on the door as Link wrapped Amelia into a towel and led her towards the bed.

“I’m sorry, this is all my fault,” Maggie exclaimed as she handed Link their clothes through the crack in the door.

“It’s okay, you couldn’t have known,” Link assured the worried cardio surgeon. “Bad day to come back,” he tried to joke, the worry in Maggie’s eyes didn’t lessen. “I’ll keep you updated,” he finally said. Maggie nodded, slowly shutting the door.

“Do you remember when we had that conversation after Scout was born?” Amelia’s voice came numbly from behind him. Link turned, making his way to the bed and placing a hand on her thigh before answering.

“Yeah. The one after I tried to propose to you the first time?” He willed his voice to be light.

“When I told you about wanting to get high before I went to bed and when I woke up and every so often when I was feeding Scout.” Link waited as her voice wavered. “It’s gotten better. Now it’s usually only right before I close my eyes at the end of the day. Just a little rush of euphoria I get that begs me to sneak out of our apartment and drive to a dispensary. And then I really think about it and I realize how much that would fuck up everything that I love the most. But the thought never goes away. It just lingers and waits until something like today happens. And then that little voice is suddenly screaming and I’m stuck trying to convince myself that my love for the people in my life trumps the love I have for the feeling of being high.”

“Does it?” Was all Link could think of to ask as he carefully slipped a tank top over her shivering chest.

“When there’s an E.R. full of people who have devoted themselves to feeling exactly what my body craves for every day, I’m not sure.” She answered truthfully, relaxing as he guided the tank top over her flat stomach. Link nodded, trying to suppress the impulse to yell at her about the condition she was in. “But then I remember that I’m a mother...and that I owe it to my kid...kids to be stable enough to bring another life into the world. Even though I know they’d be fine with just their dad.”

“We would not be fine,” Link acknowledged firmly, wanting to shake her out of the daze that she was in. “I would not be fine.” Amelia nodded blankly.

“Can you hold me?” Her voice was soft. “And can you describe our baby again? Like you were doing last night?” Link nodded, rolling up her shirt carefully and placing a gentle hand on the bottom of her abdomen.

“Mhmm,” he held back any tears that were threatening to fall from the thought of ever losing her. “Our baby is going to be a splitting image of her mother. With long chocolate curls and ocean blue eyes. Oh and stubborn, to the point where you can’t bother arguing with her because she is also always the smartest person in the room. She’ll have my nose and skin that actually sunburns. Which means she’ll have to learn to apply sunscreen like her dadda and not like her brother or mom. She’ll be upset about this first, wanting her mother’s perfectly tanned complexion but she’ll get used to it. She’ll have her mother’s body type, slim and athletic, but her dad’s height and, like Scout, she will…”

[lauravias]

The Zodiac Killer

The self-proclaimed Zodiac Killer is an unidentified American serial killer. He took credit of several murders in the San Francisco Bay Area between 1968 and 1969, but only five are directly linked to him. He taunted police and made threats through letters sent to newspapers in the area from 1969 to 1974. The police never caught him. The mystery surrounding the murders has inspired numerous books and movies, like Dirty Harry, in 1971, Zodiac, in 2007, and Awakening of the Zodiac, in 2017.

Zodiac Killer’s murders timeline

DEC. 20, 1968  The first confirmed murders attributed to the Zodiac Killer took place on the night of December 20, 1968, on Lake Herman Road, just inside Benicia city limits. The victims were high school students David Faraday and his girlfriend Betty Lou Jensen, who were shot to death in their car; shortly after 11:00 p.m., their bodies were found by Stella Borges, who lived nearby. 

Newspaper page about the murders of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen

JULY 4, 1969   Just before midnight on July 4, 1969, Darlene Ferrin and Mike Mageau, her boyfriend, were sitting in a parked car in Blue Rock Springs Park, Vallejo. A car parked beside them, almost immediately drove away, and then came back after 10 minutes; the driver exited the vehicle and approached the couple with a flashlight. He shot them seven times each. Within an hour, a man called the Vallejo Police Department to report and claim responsibility for the attack; he also took credit for the murders of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen of six and a half months earlier.

Photos of  David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen

SEPT. 27, 1969    On the evening of September 27, 1969, the Zodiac Killer approached Cecelia Shepard and her boyfriend Bryan Hartnell as they were picnicking on a shore of Lake Berryessa, in Napa County. The man was wearing a black hood with clip-on sunglasses over the eye-holes, and a bib-like device on his chest that had a circle-cross symbol on it. He approached them with a gun, claiming to be an escaped convict from a prison, and told Shepard to tie up Hartnell, before tying her up. The man drew a knife and stabbed them both repeatedly, badly injuring the couple, then went back to their car and drew the cross-circle symbol with the inscription "Vallejo/12-20-68/7-4-69/Sept 27–69–6:30/by knife". At 7.40 p.m. on the same day, he called the Napa Police Department, to report and claim responsibility for the attack. When the police arrived, Shepard was still alive and described the attacker; she died two days later at the hospital, while Hartnell survived.

Photos of Cecelia Shepard and  Bryan Hartnell

OCT. 11, 1969    Two weeks later, on October 11, 1969, taxi driver Paul Stine was found dead inside his taxi. He was shot in the head by a white male passenger, who had requested to be taken to Maple Street; for strange reasons Stine did not stop there but one block after, in Cherry Street. Three teenagers that lived across the street witnessed the passenger shooting Stine, and called the police while the crime was still occurring; they also stated that before running away, the man wiped the cab down. In the meantime, two policemen, Don Fouke and Eric Zelms, noticed a white man walking and entering inside one of the houses in the street; the suspect they were looking out for was supposedly black, and since the man they witnessed was white they did not stop him. As the murder did not seem to fit the Zodiac’s pattern it was initially thought to be a robbery, until the San Francisco Chronicle received a letter from the Zodiac Killer claiming the crime.

Crime scene of Paul Stine’s murder

MARCH 22, 1970    On the night of March 22, 1970, Kathleen Johns was driving with her newborn daughter on Highway 132 near Modesto, when a driver flashed his headlights at them. Johns pulled off the road and stopped, and so did the man; he told her that her right rear wheel was wobbling, and offered to tighten the lug nuts. After doing such, the man drove off, and when Johns pulled forward to re-enter the highway, the wheel almost immediately came off the car. The man came back and offered to drive her and her daughter to the nearest gas station. He drove them around for a long time, passing several gas stations, and when he stopped at an intersection Johns jumped out the car with her daughter and hid in a field. She later identified her kidnapper as the man depicted in a wanted poster for Paul Stine's murder, the Zodiac. Police never officially attributed the incident to the Zodiac.

Newspaper talking about Kathleen Johns kidnapping attempt

During the 1990s, many investigators claimed to have identified the Zodiac Killer; the most likely and most often cited suspect was Arthur Leigh Allen, a Vallejo schoolteacher who had been institutionalized for child molestation.            The police were able to create a sketch of the Zodiac, using the descriptions of several witnesses; for example, the three teenagers who saw the man leaving the scene of Paul Stine’s murder, and Kathleen Johns, who identified the man that tried to kidnap her from the sketch of the Zodiac. Despite the mounting evidence and the numerous suspects, the killer remained at large.

Sketch of the Zodiac Killer made by the San Francisco police department

Letters and cyphers

The Zodiac sent several letters containing cyphers to various newspapers located in San Francisco, the San Francisco Examiner, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Vallejo Times-Herald. The newspapers received the first letter on August 1, 1969, where the killer took credit for the Benicia and Vallejo murders. To convince the police that he was the author of the murders, he included details that only the killer could have known. Each letter was closed by a circle with a cross through it, that would later become the Zodiac Killer’s symbol. High school teacher Donald Harden and his wife, Bettye, were able to solve the first cypher. 

A couple of days after the murder of Paul Stine, on October 15, 1969, the San Francisco Chronicle received another letter from the Zodiac, where he took credit for the murder; this is also the first letter in which the killer uses the name “Zodiac”. At the end of the letter, the killer mused that he would next shoot out the tire of a school bus and "pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out". The Zodiac Killer continued sending letters to the San Francisco Chronicle, where he claimed to have committed several more murders and mocked the police for their inability to catch him. The letters stopped in 1974.

In 2020, after 51 years, one of the messages written in code and attributed to the Zodiac Killer has been solved. The cypher does not reveal the killer's identity, however, it confirms his image as an attention-seeking killer who revelled in terrorizing the Bay Area in the late 1960s. 

The three men who decrypted the code are David Oranchak, a software developer in Virginia, Sam Blake, an applied mathematician in Melbourne, Australia, and Jarl Van Eycke, a warehouse operator and computer programmer in Belgium. The F.B.I., which employs a team of code-crackers in its Cryptanalysis and Racketeering Records Unit, said they had verified Mr Oranchak’s claim of having broken the code. 

It read: “I hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me that wasn’t me on the TV show which brings up a point about me I am not afraid of the gas chamber because it will send me to paradice all the sooner because I now have enough slaves to work for me where everyone else has nothing when they reach paradice so they are afraid of death I am not afraid because I know that my new life is life will be an easy one in paradice death.”

Though he had claimed to be responsible for 37 deaths, no Zodiac victims have been discovered since 1969, and in both the known and presumed Zodiac murders no suspect was ever arrested. Since the Faraday-Jensen murders, the inability to identify the Zodiac Killer has continued to frustrate law enforcement.

Sources:

Zodiac Killer - Biography

The coded message has been solved - New York Times

Zodiac Killer -  Wikipedia

Zodiac Killer Timeline - San Francisco Chronicle

[vasiliquemort]

Hi I saw your post about wanting requests about Secunda and I just wanted to say... I absolutely love the game, no lie at all. The prose is so beautiful and poetic, it inspires me! I love all of the characters of course but there's just something so heady about the allure of Tizian as your soulmate and I love him so much... I don't know exactly what to request that wouldn't be spoilers, but. if you have facts to share about Tizian? that would be amazing!! Thank you for all your hard work!!

Thank you so, so much!! *--* 

In fact, you can probably guess that Tizian is the most special for me - this is a character that I have been thinking about for a long time and for whom I have very related feelings. I am sincerely glad that you also loved him, and your question put me into a state of such inspired frenzy that I decided to specially make a small drawing to please myself and you;з

 This is not much, but it helped me to get out of a completely devastated creative state, so thank you so much, and I am just bursting with pride that my words and art could inspire someone~ 

There, after the cutout, there are quite a few different things that in one way or another mattered when I wrote Tizian, and which may seem interesting. Words on different topics - sources of inspiration, general motivations, connections with other characters and trends in relationships, some words about Edwardis, Charet and Cybele also. A lot and rather generalized, simple and non-artistic language, but I hope you will like it;*** 

Thank you so much again;з

Tizian's cultural origins are quite diverse, but to a greater extent I imagine him as a Georgian - a man from the warm lands of a dark vineyard, a man of the sea and the refined gloom of a medieval city. But he is a traveler and absorbs culture and traditions as much as he wants, and other sources of inspiration were Mongolian, Greek and Persian culture. He has a southern sensuality and temperament, but at the same time a cold-blooded disposition and a refined gloom of the north. He changes his guises, and the modern empire of magicians, the new Epirus, which was inspired by old Rome, influenced Tizian's perception of himself as a man and a magician dramatically. At the same time, the old Epirus is more based on the Macedonian and Persian empires. 

As I said, Tizian was the first for me in all respects, and, as with the creation of other characters, the Mill, a Russian folk group, greatly influenced me. Their songs have many elements that inspired Secunda and my view of creativity - ballad “Road of Dream” about kindred souls found in the world of dreams, “Believe” about the raven lord of the underworld of Colchis, who offers himself and his helping hand, as well as "Tristan" about the faithful and powerful knight-changer, and, of course “Night Mare”. Charet, for example, was inspired by the song "Hold Me", where it is sung about the king of snakes, who transformed the one who was enlisted for him alike himself and later stole them, and "My Joy" about the loving embodiment of the logos, the demon burning from the inability to be near his human. Holt was inspired primarily by “The Queen” about the lady falcon, the mistress of the northern mountains, who also comes to her bard in her dreams, but remains as distant as a star, a ghost, and partly “Winter”, and “the Lord of Mountain Roads”. 

Tizian was inspired by different characters, or rather my own idea of ​​the villain-sorcerer with all the primal passion and sophistication of the demonic image of the night. Initially he was inspired, for example, by Pitch Black or Walter Padick (Matthew McConaughey), but over time this feeling has become very blurred. Now I draw him after Lisa Edelstein, especially thanks to her curls, striking eyes, refined smile and general refined femininity, which is amazingly easy and pleasant to interpret. In my work, the idea of ​​hyperfeminity and androgyny is in itself important, and Tizian dances between them all the time, although he remains the most masculine and close to the traditional idea of ​​a man from all other LIs. 

Tizian is extremely manipulative, he is one of those who everywhere demonstrates amazing openness and sensuality to the majority of those around him - he is a talented negotiator and diplomat, everywhere uses his natural softness and sensuality, hiding under them an unfeigned rapacity and cold calculation. He is attentive and careful, always trying to play a seemingly unsuccessful situation in his favor, Tizian does not feel any shame, playing on the feelings of others, always remaining impartial and alienated inside, but hardly worth driving him into a corner, he will strike mercilessly and deadly. He loves to confuse people with his contrasts, rumors about him are gloomy and frightening, and he will gladly use any disguise that falls into his hands. 

But his attitude to the Archon is strikingly different - the character scares and attracts him, and every word you say will affect his train of thought - from the very beginning he builds intrigues and subtle games in an attempt to get closer. He is cold and passionate, distant and loving at the same time - his need and love are sincere, but he is infinitely careful and manipulative while trying to achieve reciprocal feelings. In his relationship with Archon, the imbalance of power is constantly playing, and, as with all LIs, the whole process consists in liberation from these boundaries and dangerous dependencies. But Tizian under no circumstances will become a source of danger and burdens for the Archon - on the contrary, in his plans to be the first and main ally on your side, he will try to use all the resources and opportunities available to himself to support your ambitions - and he is selfish enough so that at the same time he was not affected by the needs of others. Depending on what the Archon needs from him, Titian will behave differently - outwardly, he can either leave the appearance of mutually beneficial business relations based on the exchange of power and resources, or he will emphasize their connection, alone or in plain sight, and push the Archon by all means into a waiting embrace. 

His followers do not seem to him as a family, with a big stretch they can be friends for him - in them he sees a personal interest and treats them the same way as they used to treat him - a tool and a resource. He is a talented and cautious leader, but he always treats people with deep calculation - he had a family that he was deprived of, and he does not easily replace someone, he is not able to love a random person enough. He is deprived of constancy and peace, although all his life he strives and needs them, therefore the only constant that he is able to afford is his soul mate, and for most of his life his thoughts and motivation have always been aimed at this opportunity to get everything he needs. next to them. He is very dangerous if something stands in his way, he has no other place or opportunity to realize himself, he is aware and terrified of his tendencies, but still carefully feeds his demons. 

 Tizian is a talented necromancer and is especially drawn to the dark arts - this is the gift of his patron, Cybele, but from his unobvious talents is the reading of runes and the creation of skillful witchcraft. In reality, he is not as interested in power and knowledge as he wants to appear - his needs and interests are met by few, he is more likely to spend time reading poetry and historical chronicles than aimless greed of arcanic knowledge. Of course, he is greedy and all-consuming in his rage, and in the worst moments his temperament quickly picks up, but anger and a thirst to dominate is not the quality that he would like to see in himself. 

Once in the south, he will face many difficulties and concerns, but, like for the Archon, these lands will not be something that broke him. He is disappointed in the Secunda’s society and its orders, but not surprised, for him these difficulties are just one more step on a long path, he has no special expectations, but he knows exactly what he needs right now. Tizian is a man who needs amazingly simple and understandable things, but is forced to build long multi-walkers in order to achieve these goals. 

In relationships, I would describe Tizian primarily as a person who is amazingly gentle and affectionate - for him there is a significant difference between how he is obliged to deal with the Archon who will not give anything beyond their own benefit, and the Archon who really loves and wants see him near. Tizian doesn't care about power or domination, but he is a person who is easy and pleasant to rely on - usually he will let you do and decide whatever you see fit, but he is always at arm's length if you need his help. First of all, Tizian seeks calmness and comfort, he is amazingly gentle and homey, if you know how to handle him correctly.

The first meeting with him can be described as a moment of instant recognition - as if you see a person with whom you have passed your whole life, but this is not a moment of longing and desperate need, this feeling is very soft and pacifying in itself. In this situation, the Archon will be obliged to maintain their distance and be careful, while Tizian suffers from a lack of attention and a desire to be closer. For Tizian, this will be the right time to demonstrate his ability to influence people and how he can wrap his abilities for the Archon, although to society their relationship will immediately seem strained and cold. Their real meeting, when they can be alone, will have a special impact on Tizian, but at the beginning of a relationship he prefers to play from a distance, watching your actions very closely. He is very open with his desires and feelings, but will allow you to close the distance on your own, he seems invariably reserved and careful, but he has an incredible temperament and passion, which is very easy to let flare up. 

 Titian builds a special bond with Edwardis, their motivations and life experiences are almost identical, and although they have a sharp difference in temperament and position in society, they have a strong relationship based on mutual benefit, interests and respect. These relationships cannot be called paternal or brotherly, they prefer to maintain a respectful distance and observe each other from the sidelines, preferring to influence the Archon separately, without mixing their feelings and attention. But Tizian has the same tendencies as Edwardis - his life was destroyed by a witch hunt, but even if he was not born a magician, he would have to live in a society and under the hand of traditions and laws that are insensitive and inhuman to anyone. Cybele guided him, gave him her own guiding star and the promise of a future he desperately needs - and thereby endowed him with a crushing rage and cruelty that swept away everything else. But as long Tizian will get what he needs so badly, as long he will be next to the Archon, the snake will twist into a ball, and he will become a completely different person - his natural gentleness and caution will be revealed, he has an amazingly gentle and calm disposition and many other possibilities self-realization, not only manipulating and inflicting pain for the sake of survival and personal gain. 

With Charet, as already mentioned in novel, Tizian's relations are very difficult - in one of the outcomes they can create a powerful triad with the Archon, uniting to take care of them and their interests, in the other outcome he will be the best ally if the Archon wants reject their patron. In both cases, Tizian has the most advantages, Cybele knows him very well - as well as the fact that he can change the dynamics of the Archon's relationship with Charet for the better, and at the same time remain happy and satisfied in all respects. At the same time, Tizian has more opportunities and desire to oppose both Charet and even the Archon themselves, he is ready to go against his kindred spirit, if by this he will push them towards liberation from burdens and vices, if then they can be with him forever in the halls of Cybele Tizian tends to be an external, destructive or creative, force, and he is no stranger to being a villain for sake of himself and his soulmate. 

The personification of Cybele is a mare, and Tizian has always had a tender love for horses, like a nomad he was always attached to them. He lost them in order to move to the islands - but in his belongings remains the skull of his old friend, Morena, whom he summons when he needs her. The mare who appeared in dreams was Cybele - in the subtle worlds the patrons are associated with their vassals, in the same way the Archon always feels the movement of the scales of snakes on their skin. In turn, Cybele is a Greek and Roman goddess who personifies the feminine principle, whose lamia priestesses dressed in black horse hair and worshiped the night. Her priestesses were always chosen from the most beautiful and skillful in lovewomen, but they were just as striking and dangerous, as the appearance of a black mare in dreams could be both an omen of death and great love. In the same way, another mare goddess, Hecate, patronized horse breeding and dark magic, she also led the Wild Hunt, raising crowds of the dead, red-eyed dogs and demons in the night.

[kiwi-stan]

Crave

Description: AU Harry’s a struggling songwriter until a song about being in lofe with his best friend puts him on the map. My contribution to the pick your poison challenge that @oh-honey-styles​ @for-fucks-sake-h​ and @andwhenshesays​ organized. I haven’t written in so long but this has been a fun way to get back into it now that I have more downtime!

Warnings: None aside from me taking liberties with the process of how writing a song actually works 

Harry’s family had thought he was insane for dropping out of university and moving to LA to try songwriting professionally. And a few years in, he was starting to think that they were right. He hadn’t expected to start working with big names right away, but after two years, he had been hoping to move beyond indie artists who had about a thousand monthly listeners on Spotify. Songwriting was his dream. He loved music, loved creating it, but didn’t want the fame. The inability to step outside without being recognized, the scrutiny, the media attention. He wanted to stay behind the scenes. But he was beginning to think about packing it up, moving back home, and finishing his college degree and getting some boring office job. Until you called and announced that you had found a job in LA after graduating and would be moving. 

You’d been Harry’s best friend since you were both small, when some little boy knocked you off the monkey bars at the park and Harry’s protective instincts-already sharp even back then-had rushed over to check if you were okay. There had been a few awkward years in middle school, when he’d been teased by friends for having a girl friend who wasn’t a girlfriend, but that had resolved itself during a very awkward party where you’d played seven minutes together and had mutually agreed that kissing each other was too weird. Aside from that, your friendship had been solid all throughout school, and had even weathered Harry moving to LA. In fact, you were one of the few people from his hometown that he’d kept in contact with. His parents had cut off contact (and financial support) when he’d dropped out of school without warning, and his emails with his sister were infrequent as she was trying to keep up a positive relationship with their parents. He didn’t really have any LA friends either, a few casual acquaintances but no one who he felt like he could really talk to. 

On the day that you arrived, Harry drove to the airport to pick you up. By the time he navigated traffic and dealt with the nightmare of parking at LAX, it was nearly an hour after your flight had landed and half an hour after you’d sent a text saying that you’d claimed your bags. As he entered the terminal, he was worried that you would be angry about him being late. You never were the type to get annoyed about little things like that and from your video chats you didn’t seem to have changed all that much, but two years was a long time and it could bring about a lot of change in a person. He glanced around the room, full of happy reunions and stressed out men in suits setting out on business trips, when he finally spotted you, nestled in a corner and perched on your suitcase. It was like something out of a movie, how you looked up from your phone just as he spotted you, the two of you locked eyes, and you sprang to your feet and ran toward him, throwing your arms around him in an enthusiastic hug and squealing “Harry”. 

“Sorry I’m late.” There were so many things he wanted to say to you, how much he missed you, how happy he was that you were moving, stories he hadn’t wanted to tell over FaceTime. But for some reason, an apology was the first thing that popped out of his mouth. “Traffic was horrible then I had to park…” 

You pulled away from him to wave a hand, dismissing his apology and Harry got his first real look at you. He’d noticed from your Facetime chats that you’d changed your hair to a shorter style and that you’d started wearing more makeup, both choices that were probably seen as “more professional”. Otherwise, you looked about the same, but seeing you in person he noticed that there was a difference in the way you carried yourself. You seemed older, more mature, with the kind of confidence that he assumed came from graduating college and moving across the country on your own. He wondered if he had the same aura around him. “I missed you.” You said, picking up your suitcase and dragging Harry away from his thoughts. “And I cannot thank you enough for letting me stay with you.” You’d explained over FaceTime that the job you’d been offered had wanted you to start right away, not even considering that you would need time to deal with the logistics of moving or finding a place to live. Lucky for you, Harry had stepped in. 

“I missed you too,” Harry took your suitcase from you, dragging it behind him and tugging it toward the exit. “And don’t say that until you see my place.” 

******* 

You’d been worried that things with Harry would have changed in the two years that he’d been gone. But as he took the long drive back to his apartment, you slipped right back into your old friendship, joking and swapping stories. You updated him about what all of your old high school friends were up to and he told you stories about all the weird LA types that he’d met. You’d never admit this, but you’d been worried that he might have turned into one of them since he left, burning sage and displaying an unhealthy obsession posting to Instagram. He seemed like his old self in texts and on your video chats, but you had thought he might be hiding that part of him. You were relieved to see that Harry was still his old self. However, a new set of worries about Harry sprouted as he turned into his neighborhood. 

Harry had alluded to money troubles while you’d been apart, so you had known that he wasn’t living in Beverly Hills. However, you also weren’t really expecting dark streets, abandoned buildings, and liquor stores with bars over the windows. Harry parked outside a seedy looking building and led you up to his apartment, which was the size of a shoebox and overwhelmed with cardboard boxes full of your things. He’d been nice enough to tell you to ship some of your things to his address, though he hadn’t mentioned how tiny his apartment was. By the time Harry had cleared everything off the futon so you could sleep, you’d seen three roaches scurry across the floor and you’d made your mind up. 

“Once I find a place you’re moving in with me.” Harry opened his mouth to protest, but you held firm. “Don’t argue. Why didn’t you tell me you were living in a shithole?” You glanced around the small space and another problem occurred to you. “Where exactly are you planning to sleep?” 

“The floor I guess,” He said, gesturing to the sliver of space near the lone window that wasn’t occupied by furniture or boxes. 

You shook your head, thinking back to the roaches you’d seen and the shag carpet that probably hadn’t been cleaned since the 70s. “No way. You’re sleeping with me. It’s not like we haven’t done it before.” It might feel a little strange after your time apart, but back before he dropped out Harry had slept in your tiny twin bed in your dorm room tons of times, sometimes because he’d had a fight with his roommate, sometimes because he was drunk and your room was closer, and sometimes just because he was lonely. You couldn’t even count the number of times you and Harry had slept together platonically. However, a few hours later, when you finally nestled under the covers together-with Harry’s body pressed up against yours, he was big on cuddling (and the small bed didn’t leave you much room to spread out anyway)-you found yourself wondering why something felt different. 

***********

Harry started writing a song that night, about being in love with your best friend. He didn’t have the whole thing right away, which wasn’t usually how he wrote. Usually inspiration came fast, and he could write a whole song in the burst of manic energy he got when it struck. The chorus came that first night when you slept together, about you pressed up against him in a city full of dark alleys. 

The rest came to him slowly over the next few months, as you started your job and found a slightly better apartment to live in. With your entry level salary it wasn’t anything fancy, but it was in an area that made you feel safer and had two bedrooms, though Harry found that he slept worse without you near him and spent many nights tossing and turning before finally falling into a fitful sleep around 3 AM. 

Though you’d been basically joined at the hip since you were young, you and Harry hadn’t shared space like this before. The apartment was still small, which meant that you and Harry were still constantly tripping over each other. Harry had thought it might be annoying, and had even worried that it would fracture your friendship, but it hadn’t. Living together seemed almost natural for the two of you. It meant that he could hear you singing when you came home from work, which meant that you had a good day and would be in the mood to cook something elaborate for dinner, or when you slammed the front door and he knew that you’d had a bad day and that he should order your favorite take out. He found your bobby pins all over the bathroom floor, he sat and watched The Bachelor with you on Monday nights, and he stole your fuzzy socks as the nights started getting cooler. Harry worked on his song while you were at work when he wasn’t at writing sessions for other people, and by the time he finished he felt that it was the best thing he’d ever written. 

Harry knew exactly why the song (currently cryptically titled with an anagram of your name) was the best of anything he’d written so far. Typically he used a lot of creative license when he wrote, writing about things that happened to him long ago, about things that happened to friends of his, about completely made up scenarios, or anything that inspired him really. But he never really wrote about his own life. This was the first time, and it was his first song to really come from the heart. 

After finally perfecting the song, Harry recorded a quick demo on his phone, then sent it off to Jeff, a big-name record producer he’d met a few months back. They’d met during a recording session for some pink-haired indie singer. Though Jeff hadn’t really liked the indie girl and her bananies-and-avacadies voice as he’d joked to Harry, he’d liked Harry’s writing style a lot. He’d slipped Harry his phone number and had told him to send along some of his strongest work. Harry had come close to sending a few things before, but had chickened out at the last minute. Nothing he’d done before was his strongest work, and he knew that. The song about you, he felt good enough to send. 

Harry finally worked up the courage to press the send button during one of his sleepless nights. He hoped that Jeff hadn’t deleted his number, or if he had that he would be willing to listen to a voice message from a random stranger. Since it was nearly 1 am, he was surprised to get a message back almost immediately. Love it Harry. Let’s talk.  Followed by a meeting time and location. 

******* 

A few weeks later, you arrived home (you had been surprised at how quickly you came to think of your new apartment in a new city as “home”, but you came to the conclusion that it was all because Harry was there) to Harry humming a song you didn’t recognize as he cleaned the apartment. He looked up when he saw you, dropping the broom and drawing you into a hug. “Hey!” He swayed you back and forth a few times as he held you. You had forgotten that little tic of his, but the motion reminded you of how much you loved it. It always made you feel safe and comforted, probably because it replicated the motion of a mother rocking a baby. And it was something Harry only did when he was really happy. 

“What happened?” You asked once he let you go. Harry hadn’t seemed sad exactly, but you’d had the feeling that being isolated from his family and under almost constant money and career stress were starting to get to him. You hadn’t seen him happy like this since you were in college together and he aced a difficult Music Theory final. 

“I think we should go out tonight. Somewhere nice-ish.” 

This piqued your interest even more. Even combining your incomes, you still weren’t really on a going-out-regularly-in-LA budget. Something had happened. Something big. “Harry, tell me what’s going on.” 

“I wrote a song a few weeks ago and The Heartbreakers want it.” 

Your jaw dropped at the mention of the group who had shot to fame almost overnight a few years ago after one of their songs went viral on SoundCloud. Unlike some other indie groups that had scored mainstream hits and had faded to irrelevancy after a few weeks, The Heartbreakers had hired a good management team and were able to capitalize on the hit to become one of the biggest groups on the planet. “Harry, that’s amazing!” You threw your arms around him again. “But how? What? I didn’t even think you knew them? And I thought they wrote all their own stuff?” 

Harry pulled back enough to look at you and gave a little laugh at all of your questions. His hands stayed around your waist, your arms around his neck. “That’s what they say. They use ghostwriters basically. I had to sign an NDA and got an advance that’s basically hush money.” You frowned, not really liking the thought that Harry wasn’t going to get any credit for his work. “Hey no, that’s just how it works sometimes,” He added, noticing your facial expression. “The music industry isn’t pretty. I knew that going in and I kind of expected it. Producers and other writers have their own kind of underworld. The important people will know that I wrote it. This will lead to more big stuff for me. I know. I wouldn’t have given the song away if I didn’t.” 

Noticing that you still didn’t look happy, Harry was quick to change the subject. “As for how, I don’t know them. At all. It all went through this producer, Jeff, that I met a few months back. He wanted to hear some of my stuff, but nothing ever seemed good enough until I wrote this song. I sent it to him, he loved it and thought it would work with their sound. He took it to them and they wanted it. I’ve never even met them.” 

“Will you get to?” You said, thinking that you would at least want to shake someone’s hand before handing off a piece of art that you created to them and letting them act like it was theirs. 

Harry nodded. “I have to go in for a writing session and be there while they record in case they want to make any tweaks. Which they probably will. Change a word, get a third and all that.” Your frown returned at the mention of the unfair way that royalties were distributed. Harry noticed. “But this will still be really big for me. It’s the right move. I know.” 

You studied him for a moment, looking for any sign of hesitation. “I trust you.” Realizing that you’d been holding each other for an awkward amount of time, and that it felt surprisingly good to have your best friend holding you, his big hands solid at your waist and your fingers toying with the curls at the back of his neck, you stepped away. “I’d love to hear it. Do you have a recording yet?” Harry looked alarmed. “What? Has the NDA got you scared?” You teased. Harry could be shy about sharing his work, but he’d always been open about it with you. He called you his guinea pig, you were often the first one to hear new songs. 

“I just wrote it a few weeks ago. I got really inspired seeing you again, I guess.” Harry said, suddenly seeming shy. 

“Harry that’s so sweet.” You asked, unable to keep the emotion out of your voice. No one had ever written or created anything for you before, and as far as you knew you hadn’t inspired anything either (aside from some crude messages in the boy’s locker room back in high school that Harry had taken a Sharpie to almost immediately after they popped up). 

“But I can’t play it for you. I don’t own it anymore. I already signed it over.” 

“Harry, we’re alone in our apartment. No one’s gonna know.” 

“I know, I know.” Harry picked up his broom and went back to his sweeping, obviously nervous. “It’s a little unpolished though.” 

“That never stopped you before.” Harry had played you things that were completely unfinished before, sometimes even when he just had a few chords together or two lines of lyrics. 

“I really think the Heartbreakers will do it better than me. I think the first time you hear it, it should be their version.” 

“At least tell me what it’s called.” 

“It doesn’t have a name,” Harry said a little too fast. “Or at least right now. When it actually gets released they’ll find something marketable, I’m sure. Do you want to go to a club tonight, or just dinner?” 

You accepted Harry’s abrupt change of subject and decided not to push it, but you spent the entire evening (both dinner and a club, Harry wanted to splurge since he knew his so-called hush money would be kicking in soon) wondering why Harry didn’t want you to hear the song. 

*********

“So,” Jeff began as the final recording session for the song, which had been renamed “Crave” wrapped up. The Heartbreakers had left for the day, and Harry and Jeff had hung back to do some final mixing. Harry didn’t really need to be there either, but Jeff wanted his approval on the final version of the song and he seemed happy for the company. “You never told me who this song is about.” 

“Who says it's about anyone?” Harry asked, trying not to sound harsh. Despite the fact that they’d been working closely together on Crave, they weren’t good enough friends where they could be quite so honest with each other. 

“Every song is about someone. Especially ones this heartfelt.” Jeff let the song play once through. The Heartbreakers had changed very little lyrically, adding a lyric to the chorus about craving the person the song was addressed to (which was where they’d drawn the title from). They’d changed a bit more when it came to the music itself, switching from the indie playing-in-a-coffeshop vibe that Harry had intended, to a rockier sound. Harry thought it sounded much better that way, it was something that he wouldn’t have tried with such a sweet song, and he knew that he’d made the right decision in signing the song away. As the final songs of the song drifted away, Jeff turned to Harry again. “So I’m guessing it’s a lady friend of yours from back in school and who you once played seven minutes in heaven with,” Jeff began, referencing the first verse of the song where Harry had written about first meeting you when you were kids. “Who you now find yourself in love with because she sings like a lark when she’s happy, leaves bobby pins all over the place, and makes you chocolate milkshakes when you’re sad.” 

Harry felt his cheeks heat up as Jeff named more details from elsewhere in the song, all things that pointed directly to your friendship with him. “My best friend from back in school. She just moved out here and we’ve been living together and...I don’t even really know what it is, if it was the time apart or if it’s different now that we’re older or because we’re living together. But yeah, I love her.” It was the first time Harry had said it out loud and it felt like a weight off his shoulders. 

“Have you told her yet?”

Harry shook his head. “I’m worried about ruining the friendship.” 

“Do you think she feels the same way?” 

Harry considered it, how you had let him hold you for far too long the night he first told you about selling the song, how you always made spinach for him as a side when you cooked even though you hated it, how much your hands brushed when he took you on tours of his favorite places in LA, if those were all just friendly gestures or if it meant something more. “Maybe? But she’s probably thinking the same thing about ruining the friendship.” Harry knew you well enough to know that you were a little too pragmatic sometimes when it came to relationships. 

“You should tell her.” Jeff regarded Harry with a serious look. “The second she hears the song she’s going to figure it out. The Heartbreaker’s last single was number one on the Billboard chart for six weeks and played on KIIS once an hour every day for a month after its release. You don’t want her finding out that her best friend is in love with her when she hears the song in Trader Joe’s. It’ll mean way more coming directly from you.” 

******* 

“Does this look okay? What do you even wear to a listening party anyway?” You asked, stepping in front of Harry and twirling around, letting him examine your dress. 

Harry gave you a quick once over. “What you’ve got on is fine. You look great.” 

The simple compliment sent a little rush of excitement through you, the saw way you felt when previous boyfriends had complimented you before you set out on a date. With you in your dress and Harry also dressed up, the two of you looked a bit like you were setting out on a proper date, but you stopped yourself from going down that line of thinking. There was no way to know if he felt the same way. You studied Harry instead, drinking in his slicked back hair, black shirt with the little white hearts on it, and black pants. Realizing that you were staring, you changed the subject. 

“You’re sure it’s okay if I come?” A listening party seemed like something so secret, something that only music industry people got to attend, like the parties the cool kids threw in high school. But Harry had seemed excited when he invited you along, even though he’d had to present you with an NDA at the same time and had told you not to bring your phone or it would be confiscated at the door. The listening party was for people from the label and was being held a few weeks before the official release of the single, and preventing leaks was essential, Harry had explained. 

Harry nodded. “Yeah. It’s gonna be real small. Just the band, some people from the label, me, and Jeff. All people who are already aware that they don’t write their own music.” Harry looked like there was something more he wanted to say, but instead he just pulled on his sport coat. “Ready?” 

Harry was quiet for the drive to the private club where the party was being held, letting one of his Spotify playlists play as he navigated LA’s busy streets. He didn’t speak until he found parking at the club. You reached for the door to exit the car, but froze when Harry said, “Wait.” You waited. Harry took a deep breath before speaking. “I just want you to know that the song is about you. I just want you to hear it, knowing that, and tell me what you think after.” 

You wanted to press for more information. That was incredibly vague, and if anything it just left you with more questions. But Harry was nervous enough, you could tell from the way he’d adjusted his hair several times during the drive and the fact that he was avoiding eye contact with you now. Not wanting to stress him out anymore, you decided not to push it. You leaned over to kiss him on the cheek, ignoring how natural it felt. Maybe it was just the dim lighting from the streets lights, but you could have sworn that Harry was blushing. “I’m sure I’ll love it. I mean, writing a song about me is already nicer than anything any of my ex-boyfriend have done.” You realized a few seconds too late that maybe comparing your best friend to your exes wasn’t the best move. “And everything else you’ve written has taken my breath away. I’m sure this won’t be any different.” You added, trying to cover the awkward moment. 

Harry turned to you, looking happier and more confident now. “Let’s go.” He walked around to your side of the car and opened the door for you, even taking your hand to help you out of the car. Because no LA party could really start without time for networking first, you spent the first part of the party following Harry around like a baby duckling as he made his rounds to talk to the band and the industry executives. You’d been a little worried that you would feel like a fish out of water, or worse that Harry would leave you by the bar and make the rounds on his own. Harry had never been the type to social climb, but you were fully aware of the fact that this was his biggest career opportunity yet, so you weren’t sure how he would react. But you were worried for nothing, because Harry kept you by his side the entire night, introduced you to everyone by name, and tried hard to include you in the conversation, even though you were so starstruck most of the night that you ended up feeling tongue tied. 

As someone from the label raised his voice to announce that they would be playing the song soon, Harry pulled you to a table and introduced you to Jeff. 

“Ah, the famous muse,” Jeff shook your hand before giving Harry a knowing look. “Harry’s told you about the song?” 

“Just that it’s about me. I haven’t heard it yet.” 

“You’re in for a treat.” He told you with a smile, shooting Harry another look. Before you had time to further ponder what was going on, a label executive's voice at the front of the room drew your attention as he introduced “Crave”. 

As the song played, you were blown away. Harry had written a beautiful song, and though you’d initially been worried about him giving the song away you had to admit that The Heartbreakers had done it justice. But what surprised you the most was that it was a love song, and every single word of the song pointed to you, to things you had Harry had done together or to your little idiosyncrasies. Harry loved you, and had for a while. 

As the final notes of the song faded away, Harry grabbed your hand and pulled you outside the club, clearly wanting whatever happened next to be just between the two of you. You stood bathed beneath a streetlight, with drunks exiting nearby clubs stumbling past you. “So, what’d you think?” Harry asked, smiling shyly at you. 

“Harry, I loved it. I love you.” You said, throwing your arms around him. Saying it felt so right, so natural, even though it was the first time you’d said those words to Harry. 

Harry slid his arms around you and pulled you closer to him. “I love you.” He said quietly, before he pressed his lips to yours for a kiss that had been a long time coming. 

[xmxisxforxmaybe]

The Thing™️

Hi, y’all! This is how I return my love to all of you who like/comment/reblog/follow and give me soSOso much love. Thanks for sticking with me, and I hope you enjoy reading this piece as much as I enjoyed writing it, considering it required me to intently study The Thing™️ to maintain inspiration.

Summary/Warning: Rami knows what The Thing™️ does to you, but you don’t know that he knows . . . until now. Pretty much PWP, but I think it’s also loving and fluffy. But smutty. So, so smutty. Under 18s, begone, please.

GIF Credit: @s-k-y-w-a-l-k-e-r​

Shifting in your chair, you crossed your legs as you pushed your plate away, full from the pleasant meal. The restaurant was crowded, a dimly lit, opulent place where the dark wood of the tables matched the wood on the walls and the ceiling, giving it an intimate feel despite the din of so many voices. The laughter of your good friends sounded around the table as they enjoyed their after-dinner drinks; you took in their smiling faces which were intermittently crossing between shadow and soft light from the low lamps that lined the middle of the table. You felt happy, secure, and as you moved your eyes to the striking man sitting across from you, you thought about how much of that happiness was thanks to him.  

Your eyes lingered on Rami’s face as his attention turned to you, his smile still broad as he held your gaze, but slowly, that smile slipped as his tongue swiped over his bottom lip, his cheeks subtly sinking in as he pressed his lips together before they returned to their full, pursed glory. His bottom lip glistened when he caught the light of the lamp as he leaned forward to answer a friend’s question two seats down.

And now you were done for, capable of doing nothing more than praying for the check to come so you could go home and pull that bottom lip into your mouth, sucking on it until Rami groaned—

“Y/N? Do you remember the name of that bookshop on West 69th near Columbus Ave?” the friend on your left asked.

His attention returned at the mention of your name, Rami looked at you expectantly.

“I—it was called, uh, Shop Around the Corner after the store in the movie,” you said, composing yourself.

Your eyes flicked to Rami and—for fuck’s sake!

He did it again.

The movement of his lips was cut short this time as a bout of laughter from the other end of the table caught his attention and he turned away from your heated gaze, seemingly noticing nothing unusual about your stuttered response.  

Your check did come soon, and as Rami helped you into your coat, he whispered in your ear that the car was waiting. The two of you doled out another round of goodbyes to your friends before Rami quickly ushered you out of the side entrance.

He chattered about how nice of an evening it was for the entirety of the short drive, leaving you needing only to agree and nod in response. Rami didn’t comment once on your subdued engagement, clearly oblivious to your desire to spend the evening worshipping one another’s bodies in an attempt to satisfy the desperate ache he was entirely at fault for causing.

Rami gave no indication that he was in the mood for sex as he hung both of your coats up in the hall closet of your recently purchased loft in the city, nor when he walked back to his bedroom closet, unbuttoning his black blazer and sliding it off his shoulders.

Your lips turned down in a slight frown as you stepped out of your heels and picked them up to walk them back to your own closet.

“Did you call Jas back about Mom’s birthday?” Rami called across the room.

“I have not,” you answered, placing your jewelry in the bowl on top of the dresser in the middle of your closet.

You let your short, shimmery dress fall to the floor before you stepped out of it and picked it up again, checking for any stains before you placed it back on its hanger.

“Want anything before bed?” Rami asked from the open door of your closet, his hands hidden in the pockets of his black lounge pants, his torso covered by the white undershirt he had worn for the evening beneath his white dress shirt.

“Mmm . . . yeah,” you said as you moved to the center of your closet to rummage through the drawer for a sleepshirt. “I could go for a night-cap.”

Rami remained in the door frame, now leaning against it as he watched you change. You reached back and unhooked your bra, your breasts bouncing free as you sighed with relief. You glanced up and smirked as Rami’s eyes were clearly focused on your chest, watching until you slipped your dark blue sleepshirt over your head.

He looked up and smiled sweetly as if he hadn’t been doing anything other than casually chatting.

Without speaking, he turned and walked out to the kitchen while you changed out of your fancy undies and put on a comfortable pair of cotton ones. As you snapped the bands around your bum into place, you began to forget about how worked up Rami had inadvertently made you after dinner, nearly forgetting it entirely as you settled onto your large, living room sofa.

You were scrolling through your phone when a glass of red wine appeared in your peripheral vision. You flicked the apps shut and hit the sleep button, muttering a quiet thanks as you reached for the glass.

You took a sip as Rami settled into the chair just across from you, taking a swallow of his own wine before setting the glass on the table beside him. When you looked up, he was watching you, and when he knew your eyes were locked on his, he did it.

The Thing.

Your eyes narrowed and you shifted on the couch, stretching out your legs and placing your feet on the floor.

“Rami,” you said, your voice low.

“Yes?” he asked with a lift of his brow, a perfectly neutral expression on his face.

You said nothing, continuing to look at him, wondering, for the first time if he knew exactly what that lip bite did to you.

As your silence stretched, Rami reached for his glass and took a long drink. You watched him swallow and your lips parted, your mouth working as you very slightly bit down on your bottom lip as you thought about just how aware Rami was of the effect of that thing he did on you.

Rami shifted, spreading his legs a little farther apart, watching your eyes flick to his lap before crawling back up to meet his.

“Was there something you wanted to ask me?”

“You know, don’t you? You’ve known all along what that—that thing you do does to me.”

Rami was a brilliant actor, but without the protection of a character to hide behind, he was a horrible liar. You never worried about him cheating on you, not because you knew he was irrevocably in love with you, and not because you knew he’d never hurt you, but simply because he’d never be able to hide it from you. He had yet to pull off a special Christmas gift or a birthday surprise without giving it away days, sometimes weeks in advance.

It was an endearing quality, his inability to lie a running joke, and one of the many reasons you loved him.

Rami’s lips quirked up at the corners, his eyes filling with a sparkle of mischief, but he didn’t speak, which was another sign of knowing he got caught. If he opened his mouth, only the truth would come out.

Rami took another drink, hoping to distract your glower, but you weren’t about to back down. You had to hear him say it.

“Rami. Do you know what that does to me?”

This time he laughed, a soft chuckle as he shifted his eyes over your body, unwilling to meet your gaze, an adorable awkwardness settling over him as he moved his knees in and his fingers drummed on the arm of the chair in no discernable pattern.

“I didn’t think you’d ever guess I figured it out—I have a lot of idiosyncrasies,” he said, his eyes finally sliding up to yours.

“So many. But that one . . . that one has a very specific effect on me, of which you’ve been reaping quite the benefit for a long time now.”

“It’s all a part of the game, though isn’t it? Part of what keeps it exciting?”

You picked up your glass and took a long drink, watching Rami over the rim as he continued to fidget.

Standing, you placed your wine back on the side-table before crossing the few steps to Rami’s chair. He closed his knees, silently inviting you to slide onto his lap.

Once you settled onto his thighs, you rested your hands on his shoulders close to his neck, your fingers ghosting over the soft material of his shirt.

“Why do you feel the need to still seduce me? You could just give me a smack on the ass and say, ‘let’s bone, babe’ and I’d be down.”

Rami giggled, a sweet, low sound in the back of his throat. His hands moved to wrap around your wrists, resting over them as he looked up at you, his eyes a greyish blue in the soft light of your home.

“Where’s the creativity in that?”

You shook your head, a crooked smile of happiness lighting up your features.

Until he did it again, very slowly, and very provocatively.  

Your eyes widened and your mouth dropped open in feigned shock.

“You are such a little slut!”

He laughed, quickly wrapping his arms around your body and pulling you close, hugging you tight against him so his face pressed into your chest. You lowered your head to rest your cheek against his shiny-soft curls that still smelled faintly of the pomade he used that morning to style them.

Rami turned his head and angled his face up, kissing the base of your throat.

You hummed in appreciation, and he released his hold on you, just enough so he could reach more of your neck. You pulled your hair to the side to encourage him to continue his trajectory, his tongue now licking a path to the base of your ear.

Rami nipped at this sensitive spot before he pulled the skin into his mouth, sucking gently and causing a shivery wave of arousal to shoot through your body.  

His hands had already snaked under your sleep shirt, and you felt his fingertips gently slide up your back from hip to neck until he hooked his hands over your shoulders and pushed you down to grind into his lap.

You both moaned.

Your eyes opened lazily, and you let them wander over his face, taking in his pink-tinged cheeks and his shiny lips, thinking that no one on earth could compete with Rami’s beauty when he was like this.

Running a hand through his hair, you twined your fingers within his strands and grasped them gently, pulling his head back enough for you to kiss him properly.

He tasted a little sweet from the wine, and you wasted no time in deepening the kiss, losing yourself to the sensation of his tongue sliding into your mouth and the feeling of his lips as they mimicked the movement of your own.

You tugged a little harder on his hair, pulling a tiny gasp from Rami’s throat so you could trace your tongue over his upper lip, then over that damned lower lip, but before you could capture it, Rami squeezed your ass.

“Bed.”

You huffed, frustrated at the interruption until Rami elaborated.

“Promise I’ll make it worth your while.”

Before you knew it, he was pushing you back onto the bed, and pulling his shirt off. He shuffled out of his lounge pants as you pulled your sleep shirt over your head and chucked it onto the floor. Rami’s fingers hooked your underwear and slid them quickly off your body.

He placed hasty, sloppy kisses across your chest and your stomach, making it perfectly clear he was interested only in burying his face between your thighs. He nipped lightly at the skin on your stomach before he spread your legs and licked a long, flat stripe over your folds.  

You shuddered with pleasure, knowing you were shamefully wet for him already.

Despite his initial hurry to get you naked, he was taking his time now, tasting every bit of you by using slow, teasing licks. He had pulled each of your lips into his mouth before he laved at your center, pushing his tongue inside of you as deeply as he could.

“Rami,” you breathed, your hand reaching for his curls as he chuckled, knowing what you wanted.

Rami’s lips were soon attached to your clit, lightly sucking. He was pacing himself, determined to draw an incredible orgasm out of you as he patiently worked with his mouth. He kept his fingers on your thighs, steadying them as they tried to twitch shut from the stimulation that was bordering on too much and definitely not enough.

He sucked a little harder before releasing your clit and switching to using the tip of his tongue to stimulate you. The breathy, involuntary little noises he made as he worked you toward a climax built to pleased grunts of satisfaction as if he lived for being surrounded by the taste of you.

You could feel your cheeks heating up, flushing as your orgasm formed; you were completely at his mercy until you gave him the final direction he needed to push you over the edge.

“Your mouth, Rami, your mouth,” you whispered as he switched back to sucking on your clit, this time with more gusto.

You sighed and moaned, your breath catching in your throat as he continued and you arched your back as your eyes rolled up and shut.

“Yes, Rami, yes. Don’t stop, don’t stop,” you muttered, your mind barely able to form cohesive strings of words as the heat moved through your body, creeping down your chest and into your abdominal muscles, which were now trembling as your orgasm became imminent.

You felt the pressure of Rami’s fingers on your thighs as he stabilized them, humming around your clit as his own breathing increased from the effort he was putting in to get you off with only his mouth.

And the thought of him—of his body, his face, and that fucking THING he did with his mouth—was enough to send the heat that had been building in your core straight to the bundle of nerves under Rami’s lips.

Your orgasm was strong, coming in waves, your body quivering as the intense pleasure rolled over you again and again as Rami continued the movements of his lips and his tongue, not letting up, humming around you as you moaned his name, muddling it with a chorus of yesses. When your thighs relaxed, Rami loosened his hold but still twirled his tongue around your clit until you moved out of his reach, panting and pressing your thighs shut.

Slowly, you came back to yourself and looked down to see Rami on his haunches, proud as a peacock for bringing you such unrestrained pleasure, his hand moving over and around his mouth to swipe at the excess evidence of your orgasm.

And of course he did the thing, pressing his lips together for a long moment after his tongue had licked off the last remnants of your arousal.

“Come here,” you growled, sitting up to grab him as you spread your legs and he settled between them, sliding his aching cock into you in a smooth, practiced motion.

Both of you groaned at the contact, clutching onto each other as Rami set a slow pace, letting you kiss him, delighting in the taste of yourself on his lips as you were finally able to do what you thought about at dinner, sucking his bottom lip into your mouth, sliding your tongue over the skin before releasing it with a soft pop.

“Y/N,” Rami moaned. “You feel so good.”

“So good,” you echoed, pushing your hips up to meet his.

You dragged your nails down his back, loving the way the muscles flexed as he moved, but Rami was far too excited to keep the slow pace. You knew he wanted to fuck when he pulled back and settled in a kneeling position. He grabbed your hips and pulled you toward him, angling himself back into your body, thrusting shallowly, lazily for all of a few seconds before he looked at you and thrust into you so hard your breasts bounced at the contact.

And he didn’t stop.

Rami’s thumbs were going to leave tiny bruises on your hipbones as he held you in place while he fucked you; you grabbed your breasts to keep them from bouncing around with the force of his thrusts, knowing he loved this—loved watching you touching yourself as you felt your body responding to the force of his cock.

“Is this what you wanted earlier?” Rami panted. “When you gave me that look across the table? Wanted me to fuck you like this?”

“Yes,” you panted back. “Yes, yes, yes!”

“Looked so good tonight—always look so good,” Rami paused as he slowed his thrusts and pulled back, almost all the way out of you.

“You—”

Rami slammed into you and then slowly pulled back out again, leaving just the tip of his dick inside your slick center.

“Drive—”

“Oh, god,” you moaned, your eyes rolling back as he slammed into you again.

“Me—”

You were an incoherent mess of moans and words as he did it again, forgoing trying to anchor your breasts now and stretching up to clutch at the edge of the mattress.

“Crazy,” he finished with one final slam as you felt him come inside of you, his cock emptying, spending itself in a way that always drove you crazy.

“Fucking hell,” you muttered, your chest heaving as Rami bent to swipe a lick over each of your nipples, pulling one into his mouth and sucking hard, causing you to swat at him as he giggled and released the over-sensitive flesh as he flopped onto his back, his own chest sweaty, rising and falling quickly from his exertion.

You could feel him stretch out beside you, his leg flush against yours as he reached up to stretch, his hands lightly resting around two slats in the headboard.

“You drive me pretty crazy, too,” you said as you looked over at him, taking in his gorgeous profile, his skin so brown and smooth in the dim lighting that filtered up from the living room.

“I know. And I know just how to do it, too,” he said with a smirk before he turned his head to face you. “Now that you know my signature move, it’s only fair you tell me yours.”

“Who says I have one?”

“Everyone has one.”

“And you haven’t figured out what mine is?”

“Well, existing works really well,” Rami flirted, his voice sexy and low in this utterly relaxed state. “Every time I see you, think about you, hear your voice, smell your perfume, I want to be near you, I just . . . want you.”

“Mmmm. That’s sweet.”

“But we both know that’s not it.”

“We do,” you confirmed with a grin. “Guess I’ll just be keeping my secret a little longer than you kept yours.”

“What if I tease it out of you,” Rami said, as he rolled over, his thigh sliding between your legs as he rested half on top of you. His hand slid between your bodies and he ran his fingers through his handy-work before he lightly circled over your still-sensitive clit.

“You can certainly try,” you said with a tiny gasp as he applied more pressure.

“And try, and try, and try,” Rami grinned as he bent to kiss you.

[pennylogue]

thoughts on “together forever”

that tired way steven trudged down the stairs :( steven please just build a warp pad near connie’s college.

i don’t know what i’m more surprised about--steven opening with ruby, or how aggressively he did it. he got very emotional very fast! i’m kinda disappointed, however, that the gems still aren’t clocking how badly things are going for steven. wasn’t she at all worried about how lost he sounded? and she later admits that she knew he was going to propose no matter, and tells him a soulmate’s not going to fill the hole in his life. and then he goes to emotional eat and tells him not to do that. alright, garnet, i’m glad you’re helping him realize why his approach was poorly thought out but like...part of constructive criticism is giving suggestions, not just telling them why everything they’re doing is a bad idea, and i hope they address some of this later on. this line of thought is partially inspired by beaniekitten, who has some interesting thoughts on garnet’s actions throughout the episode.

it was nice, however, how they wove the theme of ruby and sapphire doing their own things into the set-up, and i really enjoy seeing a little more of them having a healthier and less codependent relationship! ruby being a scout leader is adorable and a great callback to her being a cowboy, and sapphire’s class is...well, it’s less adorable, but the idea of teaching gems to calculate the future is interesting. in other mediums, i’ve seen immortals being able to predict the future simply by recognizing patterns across time, and gems can live for thousands of years...

after that leak i think everyone was wondering what could possibly drive steven to propose. of fucking course it was these two useless lesbians. their hopeless optimism and the silly, musical-style tone really sold the plausibility of steven suddenly doing something so over the top, i’ll give them that.

based solely on the promo image, i predicted steven would be shopping for his proposal and that it would be a musical number. and i mean, he was humming...you know what? we take those.

man, they sure brought the fluff this episode. and lots of connverse fanservice. i mean a callback to the first time they met? a picnic? cute conversations? the gorgeous sunset lighting, those expressions, and the song? crewniverse always brings the fluff before the really painful parts. your mileage may vary if this is a kind of compensation or if it just makes the sadness hurt more, but either way, it’s effective. it’s extra sad, though, since it’s framed around a nice layer of steven’s worsening mental state.

that fucking song. it was absolutely gorgeous and i’m so happy they didn’t wait till the end of the series to break out the full power of zach callison’s vocal chords yet again. but the foreboding. like the entire time she’s thinking he means it metaphorically but honey. no these lyrics are so cute but he really means “i’d rather be me with you”. and “wherever we go/ I already trust/ I'd know what to do if it were us/ I'd know what to say/ I'd know how to be...” like rip my heart out why don’t you. “i can't think of any other thing in the world I would rather do,” yeah he literally actually can’t. why is everything beautiful in steven universe simultaneously a cry for help.

the chill that run through my heart on the shot of him getting down on one knee. like, why did they have to sell this so cute. they even use the glow bracelet. it’s interesting, actually, that a proposal steven’s making because “connie’s his future” is so focused on their past--very thematically appropriate. tho tbh it’s not like he could use a ring. that would just be weird. imagine going to a jewelry store and buying a ring set with a gem that’s half you.

they didn’t even have the picnic hhhhh

i’m a bit amused about how worried people were that connie was going to be steven’s therapist, considering how healthy her approach to their relationship is. she does her best to make time for him without compromising on her own needs. her reaction to the proposal is incredibly reasonable and very sweet--this relationship is not gonna become codependent on her watch, hell no. (tbh i’m more worried about her ridiculous study schedule than anything else about her.) she’s got an anchor and a direction, she’s looking into the future while he’s stuck in the present. her reaction to the proposal was “not now”, not “no”. thing is, connie’s thinking in the terms of decades, because the way she sees it, they have all the time in the world. but right now, despite all of steven’s worry about the future, he’s very much stuck in the present. and the present is: connie’s pulling away and just rejected his proposal and he can’t deal with that

steven putting his hand in one pocket, “i’m fine” and forcing a smile is so steven and so. painful.

re: the crater explosion. i love the bookend, setting up in the beginning of the episode that he’s doing this sinking thing when he has to separate from connie...and then at the end, despite his half-baked attempt to improve the situation, he feels even worse than before.

and he really lies there well into the night night huh. fucking fantastic.

so yeah this entire thing really works as a one and done of the whole ptsd thing next episode. like steven really does feel like the world ended because the response to his out of the blue proposal was a “not yet.” what was that about steven’s inability to not treat every situation as life and death having negative effects on his wellbeing? talk about show don’t tell.

[theinquisitivej]

SteamHeart Episode 19 Reactions

Chapter 19: The Woman on the Zinc Mine

The final cover of SteamHeart is really something else - and yes, I’m going to be using it more for these posts as I go on.

You can listen to the full episode here.

         Having arrived in Missouri, the party make their way to the zinc mines where “Agent Z” resides. Abigail is uneasy as she assesses the fortifications, reminding herself of her time at Weirwood where, due to her position as one of Katherine’s most trusted seconds, protection and fortification of a small-scale settlement and its population was a daily concern that she became heavily involved with. Abigail knows what’s needed to keep a residence safe from those who would take advantage of isolated settlements cut off from the protection of densely inhabited civilisation, and the appearance of the yard in front of them doesn’t reassure her. They’re shown in by Jae-Hyun, a stoic gentleman who cuts a striking figure in his bowler hat. As he asks them not to get his boss too excited before introducing her, we see the bone-collecting, piano-playing, enterprising Tabitha for the first time in a long, long while. We see why Jae-Hyun said what he did when she steps out in the late stages of pregnancy, telling us that while Jae-Hyun may be rather serious and stern in character, he is nevertheless deeply caring and protective of the woman he works for.

         Abigail once again demonstrates her open affection for the people she forms connections with, being the first to greet Tabitha, immediately stepping forward to excitedly, but tenderly hug her friend who she hasn’t seen in ages. Tabitha tells her and the group that, while there are other mines here and there, she’s proud to say that hers is the source of most of the zinc that gets sent to the government. Hearing this and the way she discusses the state of things at this site she has taken responsibility for is impressive as hell, and another fine example of New Century continuously providing us with examples of inspiring women in positions of power who have a real aptitude for it. It’s also especially encouraging to learn that Tabitha has achieved all of this during her pregnancy. First, that’s an impressively short timescale for her to have set all this up. And second, I appreciate this story showing us a female character whose agency isn’t suddenly taken away once she’s pregnant. Tabitha had a goal in mind, and she was highly motivated to make it a reality; her pregnancy is obviously a big deal, and it will undoubtedly affect things moving forward, but it doesn’t change her drive or her capability, and that’s really cool to see.

         We get set up with something akin to a sidequest, though it’s a sidequest that aligns with the group’s main journey as they set out for Wind Doors to study and interact with. Tabitha’s running low on people to secure this place, and the supply line has been interfered with by groups who either want to profit off the zinc, or otherwise just cause trouble and have their way. She’s called for help multiple times, but nothing’s come of it. Tabitha suggests she show the group the local Wind Door, and then they can move on to Jefferson to request a garrison for backup. The problem, however, is that while Tabitha and her group have held out up till now, she’s weeks, possibly even days away from giving birth, and the crew of SteamHeart aren’t planning on leaving her, particularly James, as the only doctor at hand. What with this being fiction, I’m inclined to agree that odds are Tabitha will go into labour right as the group comes under attack.

         We move on to a section narrated by Jeremy; the group’s first encounter with a Wind Door. The journey of this sequence is powerful and compelling. Jeremy’s anticipation as he approaches a portal to another world, the manifestation of everything that drives him, is intensely felt as he describes the scene as if he were looking at the most beautiful painting. You get the impression that, even if he wasn’t recording his thoughts like this, this majestic scene of something singular and otherworldly being hidden in this obscure corner of the world would nevertheless be burned into his memory forever. The conversation about finding/making a ladder tall enough for someone to reach the portal makes it plain, however, that even if what would happen next did not occur, his dream of throwing himself at the portal and seeing what happens next was an impossibility. Jeremy chides himself for not thinking of bringing a ladder, but the truth is it would be unlikely for a 30 foot step-ladder to exist, making one would take time they don’t have, and, even if they did manage all of that, they still wouldn’t be able to chance someone inadvertently falling through the other side, presumably to their death, considering the height of the Wind Door. There’s too many factors at play which make the tantalising idea of touching this door to another world an impossibility. When Abigail begins to close the portal (looking absolutely striking as she does so with her billowing green coat and red hair as she channels her dormant powers, in an act that’s very akin to the most memorable Jean Grey moments), it pains Jeremy and the curious reader. The music combines with his narration to create a sense of something amazing happening, but at the cost of another amazing thing being taken out of this world forever. My favourite line is a simple one; as Abigail exclaims “I’m doing it!” with a great effort as she closes the portal, Matt Wardle’s delivery of Jeremy’s comment “And she really was” conveys the character’s recognition of his teammate’s achievement, and that, despite his disappointment at coming so close but falling short of his own goal, he is compassionate towards others and genuinely acknowledges what a feat Abigail is managing. The story near the beginning of SteamHeart in which the young Jeremy turns back home midway through his journey to a potentially wondrous sight for the sake of his friend told us that, for as much as Jeremy is intensely driven by his desire to see the magical and the indescribable, he does not put the safety and happiness of others before his own ambition. He demonstrates that again here, acknowledging the success that Abigail has achieved. Though it is hard not to feel some of his regret as he looks back at the site as they leave to get Tabitha back home, remembering the beautiful picture that was there a few moments ago, and now only seeing a place like any other. Its “out of date flag” shows just how forgotten by the world this place is, and how the Wind Door it once housed now has that same status of being a thing of the past.

         So yeah, no time to celebrate the portal being closed and thereby proving that this mission is doable and their struggles aren’t all for nought – Tabitha’s gone into labour! Luckily a doctor is at hand with James present, which very nearly wasn’t the case before the team showed up. So, with any luck, this should all go relatively smoothly and without any interruption, right?

…anyway, the team return to the mine and set Tabitha up in her bedroom. Hours pass, and gradually the room is reduced to just Tabitha and James as they head into a long night together. Harry enters, and asks to speak with Tabitha alone. Before James leaves, however, she intercepts him to ask a question which catches him off-guard; will he and Abigail get married one day? I mean, it’s definitely a question that’s been on shippers, er, I mean readers and listeners’ minds, so I’m just glad someone came out and asked it straight out. This scene is relayed via James’ narration, and in addition to the answer he gives Harry, we also get a glimpse of what’s been on his mind – how Abigail closed the portal on her own while he could do nothing, reinforcing the impression James has of him being “surplus to requirement” next to Abigail when it comes to their shared endowment. The pragmatic James is finding it difficult to come to terms with his inability to contribute in any way to a task of such great importance, and the good doctor seems to feel so much responsibility, whether it’s for lives that could’ve been saved if he had made different decisions, or for his patients, or for the condition he has been given. What good is this ability if it does nothing but hinder his skills as a doctor? All of these thoughts make a prospective relationship with Abigail difficult for James to envision, so he tells Harry no, thinking that his response has disappointed her. But…hmm. I’m not so sure.

         James leaves, and the role of narrator passes to Tabitha. She doesn’t have much of an idea what Harry would want with her, focusing on trying not to lash out when her next contraction comes around. Harry works her way to what she really wants to ask Tabitha, commenting on how she’s having this baby without a man around, how that’s not wrong and in fact really freaking brave, and finally tries to confirm her suspicions by asking Tabitha if she likes men, anticipating the answer to be no. The conversation that follows is sweet, wholesome, and just very healthy to hear. Tabitha plays the role of a really helpful schoolteacher – like, the kind of schoolteacher who should exist and should be teaching young people everywhere about the range of sexual orientations that exist and makes young developing people feel less awkward and less alone for feeling differently to heteronormative peers. Tabitha gently asks Harry if she’s feeling conflicted, not pushing her in any direction, but giving her the chance to air what’s been on her mind and in her heart.

         We listen to Harry as she reasons out what she’s been feeling, thinking that she’s expected to land a husband, and, if that was to be the case, then James fit the bill pretty well as someone she respects and who exhibits many of the qualities she likes in people, such as kindness, intelligence, and politeness. But even with all that on paper, the key ingredient of buzzing attraction isn’t there for her, unlike how it is with… well, when the conversation turns towards Abigail, and her pre-existing relationship with Tabitha, it becomes clear who Harry really has a thing for. Tabitha confesses that she and Abigail “spent a little time together” when they last saw each other, which, okay, is a surprise! Not that they would get together for a bit, as the way Abigail talked with Tabitha and thought about her, you could certainly see an attraction there. I guess I just never put two and two together and figured out that they might already have hooked up (and that explains Abigail’s hushed comments earlier on in the episode when she says that if she’d had known Tabitha was pregnant when they met, she would have done…something, differently).

         Anyway, Harry’s excited to hear Abigail likes boys and girls, and now says that yes, she really does have a crush on Abigail. Have I mentioned before that shipping can be so much fun in your favourite ongoing storylines with casts of lovable, fully formed characters? Well it is, and this is great, I love it. What I don’t love is the sad fact they go over next – that America’s current laws state that women aren’t allowed to marry other women. That, and the moment of tearful resignation Harry shows as she believes she can’t marry who she wants and must instead marry a man, are both heart-breaking. But fortunately, Tabitha is there to tell her that that’s not at all the case. In fact, there are other things she can do, either with herself or together with other women. Harry’s inquiring mind and aptitude for breaking difficult concepts down and understanding them as a series of mechanics drives her to ask Tabitha for guidance on being intimate with another person. A contraction comes at this moment, as Tabitha had expected, but instead of this making her hostile to Harry as she had feared it would, Harry holds her to support her through it, and when given an out when James comes back in to ask if she needs help, she reassures him and tells him to leave them alone for a little while longer. The music is calming as these two women talk, and we depart this scene, leaving the rest of the conversation to them as Tabitha continues to help Harry grow more comfortable with who she is and who she wants.

[free-martinis]

Words by ROBIN SWITHINBANK 

Photography by MATT HOLYOAK

Styling byGARETH SCOURFIELD

“It’s not the kind of thing you’d expect to hear a movie star say, at least, not one who has starred in some of the highest-grossing films of all time. ‘I’m not part of the Hollywood A-list,’ says Martin Freeman, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I’m genuinely not. No. Nowhere near.’

That might sound unduly modest, but the thing is, despite appearing as the titular figure in Peter Jackson’s $3bn Hobbit super-franchise; despite being part of Marvel’s universe (twice, most recently in Black Panther); despite appearing alongside the likes of Billy Bob Thornton (as Lester Nygaard in the Coen-brothers-inspired TV hit Fargo) and Benedict Cumberbatch (as Dr John Watson in Sherlock); and despite being an Emmy and BAFTA-award winning actor (both for Sherlock), he’s not.

‘For a lot of people, the Hobbit was played by Bilbo Baggins,’ he says, that familiar look of knowing resignation writ large across his face. Surely playing the heroic halfling has transformed his career and spun him into the red-carpet superstar galaxy? ‘I don’t know how many people after that thought: “Get me that guy.” I genuinely don’t know. It didn’t feel like it made a massive difference to me. Honest to God.’ Perhaps that will explain where he keeps those awards. ‘On my roof,’ he quips. ‘So people can see them.’

It’s tempting to cast Freeman as unhappy. There’s certainly a tension in him. In person, he’s courteous and engaged – he says words like ‘genuinely’ and ‘literally’ often and fervently – but there’s a sharpness to his opinions, and there’s plenty that riles him. That said, he seems at one with his lot. Mostly. ‘I will allow myself to be proud of that,’ he says of his awards, clearly trying not to big himself up. ‘I do alright. I do OK.’

Martin Freeman might have done some blockbusters in his time, but his first love is independent film. His latest vehicle is Ghost Stories, a proper spooky, throw-your-popcorn-in-the-air fright fest. It’s also an anthology – the fashionable format of our time – featuring the mercurial talents of Paul Whitehouse, Alex Lawther and Andy Nyman. Freeman appears in the third and final act as a wealthy city trader with a ghost problem no prominent psychiatrist has been able to explain. It’s a bleak piece, but it’s funny, too, particularly when Freeman’s natural comic talents are front and centre.

‘People are being hit badly. I’d happily vote for someone who’s going to tax me more’

It is also, for reasons that can’t be explained without spoiling the film, another reminder that the 46-year-old is one of our most versatile actors (‘To be a good comic actor means you’re a good actor, right?’). We spend 10 minutes discussing the film, which Nyman co-wrote and co-directed with Jeremy ‘League of Gentlemen’ Dyson, before it dawns on us that we can’t really talk about it. Not on paper, anyway. One salient detail gets the full treatment, before Freeman jumps in: ‘Don’t give that away, for f**k’s sake!’ he implores. ‘This is my first interview for the film and I’ve already f**ked it up…’

Freeman is not known for his candour. He doesn’t do a lot of interviews and he’s no self publicist (he’s not on social media), only letting it slip that he and Sherlock co-star Amanda Abbington had split after two kids and 16 years together in an interview with the FT a year after the event. Is he with anyone now? ‘Well,’ he says, folding his arms. ‘I would never tell you if I was.’

Conversation about his background and family is therefore a bit stilted. He was born in Aldershot and grew up the youngest of five siblings in Teddington (‘yes, those are the facts.’). His parents split not long after he was born, but he recalls a happy home. ‘We kissed a lot and hugged a lot,’ he says. ‘I mean, it wasn’t The Brady Bunch – we also f**king screamed and shouted a lot.’

They were creative, too, a ‘showy-offy family, no wallflowers’. He’s the only career actor, a path he was encouraged to follow, particularly by his mother, who never got the chance. ‘I was only met with support,’ he says. ‘I didn’t have to leave home, I wasn’t booted out. I know people who faced active hostility from their parents, because it’s so unsafe and it’s in the lap of the gods whether you’ll be able to feed yourself or not.’

These days, Freeman is certainly able to feed himself. Over the past 20 years, his talents have served him well. His big break came in The Office, the mockumentary cringeathon that also made household names of Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Mackenzie Crook. ‘I’m very proud of it,’ he says of the show that in 2004 became the first British sitcom to win a Golden Globe for Best Television Series – Comedy or Musical. ‘I still think it’s a phenomenal show. And I still think the central performance [Gervais’s] is one of the best things I’ve ever seen, let alone acted with. I could not have wanted a better break.’

The apocryphal stories surrounding the show are legion, but the one about him originally auditioning to play Gareth, Crook’s character and the butt of all the jokes, rather than Tim, is true. Gervais and his co-creator Merchant spotted something in Freeman audiences have come to know him by. ‘The Office is basically a room full of Laurels and one Hardy, which is Tim,’ Gervais once told The Sun. ‘Tim’s character is pretty common in comedy – that person who thinks they’re better than everyone else, but it doesn’t seem to get them anywhere.’

For a time, it seemed Freeman might suffer the same fate. He became known as the guy that did ‘that face’. He once appeared on Never Mind the Buzzcocks and was invited by host Simon Amstell to do a ‘sigh-off’ with Gavin & Stacey’s routinely put-upon Mathew Horne. Did he worry he’d never lose that tag? ‘Yeah, I was nervous about that,’ he admits. ‘The thing is, I can do that face. But that face, it’s Oliver Hardy’s face. Not my face. He did it 70 years before I did. That’s just me channelling Oliver Hardy.’ Gervais was right, then.

During the mid-2000s, he picked up roles in Love Actually and Hot Fuzz, and played the lead in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Then came Sherlock, The Hobbit, Fargo, the awards and a lot more public attention. ‘I was out last night, having a drink with a friend, walking around town. There are people following you around with camera phones in your face – it’s not pleasant.’

The public is never far from Freeman’s mind. He’s openly political, not exactly in a ‘Ladies and gentleman, the next President of the United States of America’ kind of way (we’ve established he’s not Hollywood – he doesn’t even own a home in the US), but he did front a party political broadcast for the Labour Party in 2015 and endorsed Jeremy Corbyn’s successful leadership bid later that year. A question about fairness opens the floodgates. ‘I do genuinely think this Government is f**king up. I really do,’ he says. ‘And that’s not to say that a Labour Government would be doing much better. But I think people are being hit genuinely really badly, who shouldn’t be. That’s why I’d happily vote for someone who’s going to tax me more.’

Pardon? ‘I think I should be taxed more. I’ve got more money than a lot of people. In my lifetime, there have always been homeless people. Now there’s even more. Food banks, and people being made homeless by not being able to afford their houses, and not enough social housing being made or built, and austerity on and on and on… I don’t know what we expect to happen, but if you’re doing that and cutting the police, what the f**k do you think is going to happen?’

‘We’re getting more polarised. The inability to see the other side is a problem. Social media has helped do away with nuance’

He’s only too conscious of the conflict in being a very wealthy movie star who thinks more should be done to support the disenfranchised. ‘I get it,’ he says. ‘I get why people say: “Who is this prick?” I get it. Most people aren’t as lucky as me. That’s just the truth. So I can see easily why it comes across as pontificating, why it comes across as being champagne socialist. Which is what we’re all called, as soon as you’re not on the dole. If you’re vaguely famous and say anything left wing, it’s a very easy stick to hit you with.’

That’s the natural framework of popular discourse, though, surely? A binary response is easiest. ‘But we’re getting more polarised,’ he retorts. ‘Definitely. The inability to see the other side is a problem. Unless someone is actually driving down your street in a Panzer, then I think you have to keep dialogue. Social media has helped do away with nuance. If me and you have a disagreement here, we can still have a cup of tea. But we do it on social media – then you’re a Nazi.

‘We can’t go on like that. I will easily say I think Trump is a vile pig, but I don’t think every single person who votes Republican is a vile pig. That would be crazy. And I certainly don’t think that about everyone who votes Conservative. It’s not my team. It’s not my party. But do I know Conservatives? Do I like ’em? ’Course I do. Can I not stand some Labour people? Yeah, I can’t stand some of them. So, my hope would be, genuinely, that we start to put our phones down for a minute, and actually not get involved in these f**king wars, which are so safe to have, and so self-righteous… It costs you nothing to be an armchair activist.’

In Ghost Stories the themes of guilt, good and bad and choice run through the piece, holding it together. In one particularly chilling scene, Freeman’s character utters the deliciously portentous line, ‘I didn’t believe in evil until that night…’ He was brought up a Catholic, but isn’t ‘card-carrying’ now. Does he think the film is a modern parable, a wake-up call to burst our secular bubble?

‘Maybe,’ he says reluctantly. ‘I’m one of the only people who I know in my world who isn’t an atheist. I like the questions. That’s where the interesting stuff happens. I’m equally uneasy with hardcore unquestioning atheists as I am with born-again Christians with their hands in the air and their eyes closed. In the same way that yes, I’m of the Left, but there are people and things about the Left that make me very uncomfortable. The sort of unquestioning, demonising of anyone who doesn’t agree with you, kind of thing. I see that in atheists – if you don’t agree with me, you’re intrinsically a moron. And that isn’t helpful. The older I get, the more I realise you need dialogue.’

This, it seems, is the real Freeman. Vocal, ardent, yet nuanced. But he’s not claiming the soapbox. ‘Let’s face it, I wasn’t a very good omen in 2015,’ he says of his virtual doorstepping days. ‘I don’t want my voice to be a political voice. I’m not some political genius. There’s one thing I’m good at, and it’s acting. I have absolute faith in my ability to do that.’

Like it or not, he has a voice. Thank goodness, it’s not the hashtaggable, awards-season friendly voice of many of his fellow actors. He’s more balanced than that. More open to argument. That’s what we saw – and loved – in Tim. In Lester. In Bilbo. In Freeman, we see life’s ambiguousness, its ludicrousness, its ordinariness.

Freeman has to go. He’s got ‘kiddy things’ to do. He’s an active father when he’s not working, and frankly, I’m holding him up. In a flash, he’s gone.

[hcwlingccmmandcs]

Drunk Girl

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Word Count: 1,726 (oof it’s a long one)

Warnings: Drunk women, bar scene, nothing else really

A/N: It’s not really a relationship fic, and doesn’t have any fluff or anything, but it’s Bucky being a gentleman and I thought it was cute. Also, this fic is inspired by Chris Janson’s “Drunk Girl”. 

Tags: (IDK man I’m just tagging a couple of my favorite people. If any of you are not comfortable reading this material, please don’t feel obligated to. Also, if you never wanna be tagged by me again, let me know. No hard feelings.) @captainrogerss @bionic-buckyb @bucky-plums-barnes @buckyforbreakfast

The small dive bar nestled into the red brick buildings of New York was flooded with music and people of all levels of sobriety. Some people were… more inebriated than others, like the bachelorette party that rented out a whole two booths to fit all the scantily clad women in the group. There was another group of girls giggling along the bar counter, close to the small makeshift stage that was usually reserved for karaoke and open mic nights.

On the other side of the sobriety spectrum, and also on the other end of the bar, was Bucky. Thanks to his enhanced cells, he couldn’t get drunk. Much to his dismay, since encounters with a certain (and occasionally ant-sized) coworker would be better if he was drunk enough to forget about the man altogether. Whatever serum ran through his veins was a different one than whatever Steve had, but the inability to get drunk was certainly a common side effect.

The girls giggling at the other end of the bar had been eyeing him all night, their drunken conversations with each other somehow involving Bucky. They, too, all varied stages of sobriety. Some of them enthusiastically nodded while a few others shook their heads warily. One of the drunker women picked up her handbag and strutted towards Bucky, her steps swaying.

“Hi,” she says as she nearly plops into the barstool next to him, smiling like a fool. Bucky found it contagious and smiled back.

“Hey,” he returns, his eyes quickly glancing over her before returning to her eyes. Her black dress was a few inches above knee-length, and the neckline collared around her neck. From what he could tell in the brief glance, it complimented her form. She looked beautiful, when she just sat there, staring up at him expectantly.

“I’m Y/N,” she blurts, almost as if she'd grown impatient waiting for him to announce his name first.

“Bucky. It's nice to meet you, doll,” he says, letting her shake his right hand curtly.

“You too,” she beamed, her eyes cloudy. “So, are you gonna buy me a drink?”

Bucky snorts at her bluntness, making her giggle. “What kind of drink would you like?” he asks, lazily waving his hand through the air to get the bartender’s attention.

“A daiquiri. Strawberry watermelon,” she answers before giggling again. “I'm kidding. I want tequila!” She lifts her arms up and cheers for the alcohol.

Once the bartender comes over, Bucky asks how many drinks she's had. The bartender shrugs slightly and says that Y/N is close to be cut off. Bucky orders and pays for her last drink, a blended margarita.

“I said tequila,” Y/N pouts, poking his chest.

“Margaritas are tequila,” Bucky reasons, chuckling a little. “I figured you should have a little bit more substance than a shot, especially if I’m buying.”

“Fine… I forgive you… if only because you're cute with your whole mysterious look,” she murmurs, slightly leaning her shoulder towards him. She rests her other elbow on the bar and props her head on it, waiting for her drink.

“My whole mysterious look? I wasn't aware I had that sort of thing going on,” he laughs a little, watching her.

“Well, you do. With your long hair all tied back, your dark clothes, the glove you haven't taken off your left hand yet.” Bucky stiffens slightly at the mention of his left hand, but she doesn't notice it. “You totally have this mysterious guy look down.”

“Is that what brought you over here?” he asks, tilting his head slightly.

“Sorta. My friends dared me to come over here to try to get your number. And I took the challenge,” she admits, placing her cheek in her hand to look at him. “Also, yeah you're cute.”

“Well, thank you,” he says just as the bartender sets a margarita in front of Y/N.

“So,” she starts, turning fully to him and sipping on the frozen drink. “Who are you, really? You're alone at a bar, looking gothic and sad, and you have yet to order another drink for yourself.” She points to the empty Scotch glass in front of him, proving her own point. “Why are you here?”

“Getting real philosophical in the bar, aren't we?” he chuckles and she pushes him slightly while giggling. “If you mean ‘here’ as in the bar, I'm trying to forget about some stuff,” he answers, not totally lying but also not completely telling the truth either.

“Me too,” she admits sluggishly, pulling his hand up with one of hers, just to high-five it with the other. He chuckles again. “Exes, I'm telling you. The reason to get this drunk.”

“Really? I thought a pretty woman like you would be hard to give up,” he tells her, not really processing his own thoughts.

“Oh, he tried not to, but also got another woman because I want enough, I guess,” she says mindlessly, sipping her drink. “You think I'm pretty?”

Bucky nods slightly. “I do, but I also think you might be obscenely drunk and won’t remember most of this encounter, if not all.”

“I probably won't, but I can try, Blue Eyes,” she giggles.

The rest of the night, it’s Y/N talking on and on about whatever her mind comes up with and Bucky listening intently. She nurses her margarita, knowing full well it’s her last for the night.

She doesn't see the little smile on his lips when her face lights up at a topic she’s passionate about, or the way his eyes seem to lock only on hers, as if he was forgetting the world around them.

That little smile fades when the bartender announces that it's closing time. Y/N pouts a little as Bucky stands up and offers her help out of her barstool. She takes his hand and lets him pull her up, then she tugs his arm over her shoulder when she feels unbalanced in her heels. He chuckles softly and leads her out of the bar, keeping her from toppling over.

“So… where to next?” she giggles, looking up at him with a sort of gleam in her eye. Bucky smiles softly.

“You're too drunk to drive yourself home, so... “ he says, looking down at her and thinking of what to do. “Let's get you home, yeah? Where's your car?”

She points to it, one of the last cars in the parking lot. “Why my car?” she asks.

“Because drunk women and motorcycles don't work out,” he reasons with her, watching as she nods.

“Yep, you're totally dark and mysterious.” Bucky snorts and helps her into the passenger seat and buckles her in. He gets into the driver’s and starts up the car before heading out of the parking lot.

She lazily points him towards her place, yawning as she reclines her seat.

“Here, tell me your address so you can sleep,” he says, glancing at her before quickly looking back at the road. Her dress was starting to ride higher on her thigh, but Bucky made a point not to stare at her legs, keeping his eyes forward.

“The… Mercer apartments… unit 8B,” she slurs before yawning again and turning into her side, facing him as she fell asleep in her seat.

Bucky smiled a little bit at her little snores as he drove to the apartment building he’s passed a couple times on his trips around the town, knowing where it was. He drove around the parking lot, searching for the best way to get to her apartment before finally parking and shutting the car off. Quietly, he made his way around the car to her side, careful not to wake her up as he closed and opened doors.

Gently scooping her into his arms, he keeps her clutch resting on her stomach as he carries her inside the building and up the stairs. He uses the hand looped under her knees to unlock and open her door before making his way through her small and cozy apartment.

The kitchen and dining room bled into the living area, though the dining table looked like it wasn't used for much except stacking mail. It was almost completely dark, except for the city lights seeping in through the big windows near the couch and television set.

The door to her bedroom was left open, luckily, and Bucky placed her on her queen-sized bed. He took off her shoes and set them on the floor before setting her clutch on her nightstand.

Bucky tucked a blanket over her sleeping form, his gaze soft as he looks at her. She was a beautiful woman, but he's glad that he was the one to make sure she got home safely. The night could've gone a lot worse for her if she had met a different guy, one that wasn't such a gentleman. He sighed softly and wrote her a note from the sticky note pad on her dresser.

‘Y/N,

I had a great time with you tonight. At the end of it, you were very drunk, and I worried about how you would get home. I hope you don't mind that I drove you home and made sure you slept in your own bed. When you wake up, text me to let me know you're okay, alright?

Bucky - (xxx) xxx-xxxx’

Leaving the note next to her handbag, he walked out of her apartment, locked the door, and dropped her keys through the metal mail slot in the door. He sighed again, smiling a little to himself as he pulled out his phone and called his best friend Steve to pick him up.

“What are you doing out so late? And why are you at an apartment?” Steve questions him, footsteps in the background.

“I had to make sure this dame got home alright. Just get here,” Bucky explains briefly before hanging up on his friend. Soon enough, Steve pulls up to the parking lot and takes Bucky back to the tower, leaving his bike at the bar for the night. Within minutes of being in his own bed, the brunet passes out.

The next morning, Bucky woke up to a text from an unknown number.

‘Thank you, Bucky. For everything you did last night. It was really sweet of you. Also, I'm okay, just nursing a killer headache.’

He couldn’t keep the answering smile off his face for the rest of the day.

[allfandomxreader]

Fading Light

Pairings: Billy Hargrove x Reader

Words: 1,255

Warnings: Language probably 

A/N: This was inspired by the song Evermore from Beauty and the Beast. I’m not adding a summary because I don’t want to give anything away. I really enjoyed writing this so I hope you enjoy reading it! I’m going to start working on some requested stuff tonight, thank you guys for being patient with me, I know it’s taken me awhile to do some.

Over the years I had no choice but to become independent. After my mom left I built walls around myself so high nobody bothered to climb them. I shut people out, became angry and cold. As the years drew on I morphed into my father, so much that when I looked in the mirror I swore he was the one looking back at me. I became content with who I was, the school bully, the player.

Each of these personas meant no one would get close to me, I wouldn’t get attached, and I would never be heartbroken.

I never needed anyone. I know now that was far from the truth.

It’s hard to say when I fell in love with her, I’d guess somewhere in the second semester of our senior year. Y/N sat in the corner of the science room near the window. On sunny days the natural light made her glow, she was the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid my eyes on. On rainy days the grey hue made her stand out, almost as if she was the light in the midst of the darkness. In many ways, she was; for me at least.

I knew immediately that the walls I spent years building would crumble when it came to her.

I was speechless when I made my way to introduce myself. Y/N stared at me as if I was insane, she clearly had no interest but that didn’t stop my persistence. Day after day I sat beside her, striking up random conversations. Being beside her made me feel warm, genuinely happy, and for once, not alone.

It took months for me to build up the courage to ask her out, she was just so out of my league, so out of the ordinary from the girls who usually were wrapped around my finger.

Y/N was intelligent beyond words, her heart held kindness the world couldn’t imagine, this girl was too perfect for me to even fathom.

You can imagine my surprise when she said yes after the first time I asked.

When she sat in the car beside me I drove five miles under the speed limit. I refused to take the risk of anything happening to her, I’d never be able to forgive myself if Y/N were to get hurt.

A lot of firsts happened in that old Camaro. Our first date was at the drive-in, she roped me into seeing The Breakfast Club and I didn’t complain once. Her laugh filled my car with joy during the first hour, I barely watched the movie that night, too engrossed with the girl who sat beside me.

Our first kiss happened that same night, as our laughter died down we looked each other longingly. We slowly leaned into one another, our lips felt like magic when they finally touched, it was the closest to heaven I’ll ever be.

Our first time occurred in the backseat, I parked the car on a deserted backroad and we were on each other within seconds. I’d love to go into more detail, but she’d kill me if I do.

Two months ago she waved a crisp envelope in my face, she beamed at me while I unfolded the enclosed paper. Y/N screamed in excitement as I finished reading her acceptance letter for college, she threw her arms around my neck holding me tightly as adrenaline sent jitters through her body.

Of course, I was thrilled and beyond proud of what she accomplished, her getting into her dream college was a huge milestone and I couldn’t be happier.

However, I knew by the end of the summer she would be states away and deep down I knew where that would leave us.

Two weeks ago she sauntered up the steps to my porch. Tears stained her cheeks when I answered the door, I attempted to fold her into my arms but she refused to let me touch her. She claimed it would only make things harder for the both of us, I wish that were true.

Y/N had no choice but to end everything we had built that day, we both knew our relationship couldn’t withstand the miles between us.

Y/N will always be with me, it won’t be physically but she will always be apart of me. Despite her inability to be beside me, she will continue to torment me. I can hear her voice in my head at night, sometimes I’ll see her in faces of strangers I pass on the sidewalk or hear her singing along to the radio even if she isn’t in my car.

Even though her ghost still harasses me, just the thought of her can put me at ease. Some nights when my father has had too much to drink or even just to pick a fight his fist would find my face.

It’s different now, in the months prior I’d find myself standing at her doorstep, bloody and beaten. She’d take care of me and clean the physical and emotional wounds my father keeps reopening.

But now, I’m left with distant memories of her fingertips that would delicately run over my purple skin, the song she hummed each and every time would calm the rage that flourishes inside me. That had to be enough.

Night after night I lay awake in the darkness, remembering how she’d sometimes sneak through my window. Y/N claimed she couldn’t sleep without me anymore, she’d just toss and turn all night. At first, I didn’t believe her, but now I understand. I waste minute after minute, hour after hour basking in the loneliness the four walls provided.

I keep the window open now just in case she decides to reappear, I fool myself thinking she’d be there and never leave my side again.

I hate being selfish, I hate wanting Y/N to stay here with me, I hate wishing she never left. I hate that the only light I knew is diminishing. I hate that she isn’t here to stand out anymore and even on the days that are sunny all I see is grey. I can’t hold her back, she deserves so much better than what I could give, she deserves to follow her dreams. I just wish I could be apart of them too.

Y/N will never leave me, her new home is in the back of my head, watching over everything I do. Even as she leaves to live out her life, she will continue to inspire me. She taught me that it’s okay to need someone every now and then, to build fences instead of walls, to love even if it means getting hurt, and boy did I get hurt. But she was worth it.

I drive around the small town pulling up to a stoplight. When she was around we’d always kiss when the car came to a halt.

Out of habit, I look to where she should be, only to be welcomed by an empty seat. The time has come for the days to drag on for what feels like forever, to reminisce in the past, to only think about everything that might have been if she stayed, to wait and see if she’ll ever return.

When the light turns green, I take off down the road, swerving around pedestrians. The ignition rips through the quiet street as I step on the gas harder.

I drive twenty miles over the speed limit now.

Tags: @superfrankie111

[steelandstars]

(Star!) System Design

For the last week or so I’ve worked on completely overhauling the code that creates, stores, loads and instantiates the main map and star systems.  

HISTORY

My aim when starting this project was to test my dev skills by essentially cloning Petroglyph’s 2006 Empire at War. Early versions of the UI were essentially identical in layout (though certainly nowhere near as good looking or functional honestly), and the map was portrayed as a web of static planets with connections existing between them. Every planet had 4 slots, one ground slot and three space slots, and units could be moved between the slots or drag and dropped to a connected planet. Pathfinding was relatively simple, a graph was generated based on "safe” connections and regenerated whenever ownership of a location changed. Movement was handled by dijkstras, and since there was never a connection passing ‘through’ another planet without connecting there was never any need for collision avoidance.  Planets had separate space and ground queues, and units were slightly customizable, but the emphasis was really more on traditional rts gameplay.  It was all functional, but honestly just not particularly fun or inspiring to work on.  Very little effort was put into making things pretty, I mean honestly there wasn't a heck of a lot I could do on the tech side without an artist to make a couple of royalty free sprites connected by a line stand out. 

Please don’t run screaming just yet.

Round 2 started when I decided to ditch the node based approach entirely for a more open ended design inspired by Battlestar Galactica. Under this design Locations (planets, space stations, basically anything persistent on the campaign map that can house data) are defined in relation to a Star.  A star (or some equivalent like a black hole) exists at the center of the system, and all child locations orbit it, with orbit defined by distance and rate of revolution. There’s no ‘real’ physics underlying this to save performance, it’s simply a rotation around the star as a pivot point.  The map was still completely 2d and existed only in the ui space. At this point I integrated Aron Granberg’s A* solution (since we had to avoid driving through other planets on the way to our destination) but given the relatively small scale movement was always pretty clunky. Another major problem was the inability to show scale in a way that didn't make camera movement tedious.

This change was made in one night with a whole lot of espresso, and marked the end of a focus on campaign map development for awhile.  Overall, I was very happy with this change graphically. I never set out to make a visually impressive game, I don’t have the budget or expertise for that, but this was crisp, clean and functional. I had plentiful sources for royalty free sprites that could within the art style, and in a pinch it wasn't terrible difficult to throw together low resolution assets. This aesthetic also matched with the pixel art characters and 2d combat (at this point the ships were sprites, not models).  The game could, and maybe should, have stayed at this point graphically.

BUT IT DIDN’T

So as it turns out, I can’t resist a sale. Unity’s Asset Store had a sale on the Space Graphics Toolkit for New Years and I splurged a bit.  I wasn’t happy with some of the limitations 2d was placing on me, notably the inability to incline orbits and the difficult of having complex planetary systems with many moons and moons of moons. I could have solved this by just spacing things out more, and maybe that is what I should have done, but ultimately I wanted the ‘wow’ factor and dynamic physics/lighting features that would only come with a 3d implementation.

Switching to 3d was actually incredibly simple, and performance was not impacted in the slightest. The only significant changes needed in the code were to add an instantiate mesh call and some scaling math, a repo for loaded planet assets and to swap from the 2d physics system to the 3d one, along with switching from IPointer.... to OnMouse... events. The switch opened upon entire array of new possibilities: inclined orbits, eccentricity, and just generally more complex visual effects.

The camera was also shifted from a top-down orthographic to a perspective fly cam.

The dynamic lighting effects really add to the scene, excited to see it with some post processing later on. Planetary UI elements still need to be updated to adapt to camera rotation.

For the time being Ive been pretty content to just generate a decently realized solar system, the main task moving forward will be to experiment on generating new planets and generating interesting and alien solar system configurations that ‘make sense’ at a glance, even if they're not technically realistic. I’d also like to spend some time working on adding volumetric nebulae/storms that apply an effect to fleets stationed within, and ‘dynamic’ objects like comets on an extrasolar trajectory. This more complex campaign map also brings up the option of having combat play out directly in the campaign scene rather than splitting the game into campaign and combat scenes.

The slots from the earliest incarnation actually still exist, probably the longest surviving ‘feature’ of the game really. In the newest version however they're dynamic, each slot holds a single fleet, and they are generated radially around the planet, visible when hovered, and with a single ground slot within the planet.  Ground units can no longer swim through space, they need to be loaded onto ships now.