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127-mile · 3 years

Text

Kiss and tell.

Pairing: Sicheng x female reader.

Genre: College!au, babysitting, horror | Fluff, angst, mature content.

Warnings: Fingering (it’s not detailed, I don’t know how to write smut), orgasm denial, kind of fear inducing phone calls, mention of Sicheng selling drugs, strong language.

Plot: You have to babysit on Halloween night, and invite Sicheng to join you. But something feels wrong when the phone starts to ring.

Word count: +5.1k.

A/N: This is part of the 90′s love collab by @quokkacore and formely by @/etherealereine | This is inspired by an urban legend. | The title has nothing to do with the story, I came up with the idea after.

"What are we doing tonight?"

You are startled when you feel hands on your waist from behind, and if you were not so acquainted with the perfume immediately intoxicating your sense, you would have freed yourself from the sudden embrace. "I don't know what you are doing, but I am working tonight."

The warmth against your back disappears, and you meet your boyfriend's gaze. "Working? It is Halloween, you can't work." he answers, and you scoff, pushing him away when he tries to grab your book. "Care to tell me how I am supposed to pay for food if I don't work?" he seems to think about ir, running his fingers through his hair.

"Why don't you ask your parents? You'll go back to work next week." you knew what he was about to say even before he opened his mouth. Not that he is an open book, but because it is a recurring conversation between you. "You think my parents are going to give me money to cover what I didn't get today, just because I preferred to go party and spend my saving in alcohol?"

"Why not?" you heave a sigh, you love your boyfriend, of course you do, but you are tired of this kind of conversation. It leads to the same ending every time. "Because my parents are not yours, Sicheng. If your parents can take care of all of your expenses despite you being an adult, mine can't."

"They do not cover all of my expenses! I work too, I have money of my own!" he says, a hand on his heart in faux offense. "Selling bad quality drugs is not a job, Sicheng, it is false advertising and tricking naive kids who think they will become cool if they get high before class."

"Now you are just being mean, Y/n." Sicheng sighs, and you shrug. "I just need to you to understand that I need to work, I can't call my parents for money when I feel like it. So I'm sorry, but you'll have to find something to do tonight, because I am not going out."

"Alright, whatever." he answers, and even though you were expecting him to leave and sulk, he stays. "I'm sorry, baby, I just wanted to have one last Halloween with you, that's all." you roll your eyes, and you put your hands on his cheeks. "You need to stop being dramatic, Sicheng. This is our last Halloween as students, not our last Halloween as a whole, except if you plan on breaking up with me once we graduate."

When he pursues his lips, and seems to think about it, you hit his shoulder. "Eh! Do you really have to think about it?" he tries to stay stoic, but he fails, because a smile brightens his face right away. "Of course I do not need to think about it! Why would I break up with you? Dummy."

"You are an idiot, Dong Sicheng." you mumble, and he leans to kiss the tip of your nose. "I am your idiot." he whispers, and you pretend to gag. "That's disgusting, what is wrong with you?" he rolls his eyes and he takes a step back. "So there is nothing I can do, or say to have you by my side tonight?"

"Nothing, I'm sorry." you are not really sorry, because you know your work is way more important than whatever party he was planning on bringing you to. "But," you start, and he straightens up. "maybe you could stop by around 10pm, to spend a little bit of time with me, what do you think?"

Sicheng's eyes widen and he cocks his head to the side. "Wait, really?" you nod, and you wonder when he is going to jump in place from the excitement you can see in his eyes. "You never asked me to come!" of course you never did, and for many reasons, but why not? "I know, but at least we'll be able to spend Halloween together. Okay, there will not be alcohol, or music, but we'll be together."

"I don't care about the alcohol or the music!" he exclaims, and you chuckle. "Alright then, come at around 10." you take a pencil out of your bag, and Sicheng hands ou his hand so you can write the address on the palm of his hand. "Don't lose it, I don't know their phone number so I won't be able to call you to give it again."

"Do not worry, I'm not going to use my hand at all!" he answers, and you heave a sigh. "You have class this afternoon, and you use this hand to write." he shrugs as he looks at the black ink bleed a bit onto his skin. "I won't write then, I'll listen, and remember everything." this is impossible, especially for Sicheng who can't focus for more than five minutes at time, but you trust him.

"Sicheng, we are going to be late, are you coming?" the young man turns around when he hears Johnny's voice behind him. "Yeah yeah, I'm coming." he gets up from the bench and he swings his backpack onto his right shoulder. "I have to go practice, but I'll see you later, alright?"

"I don't think I'll have time to wait for you after class, so you'll see me tonight, at 10. You better be on time, or I'm going to bed without you, alright?" he nods with fervor, and he leans to kiss you gently on the lips. "I'm never late."

"Careful with your hand!" you yell as he starts to run towards his friends who wolfwhistle at the public display of affection. "Promise!" he answers, and you are pretty sure you hear him curse at his friends before disappearing.

You put your book back in your bag, and you get up. Your afternoon classes are quite boring, but now that you know you will see Sicheng tongiht, it does not sound so bad.

"Alright, let's go over the rules one last time," the older woman says as she walks around the house to pick up random things off of the floor. "the kids have to do their homework, take their shower, and be ready to eat by 7 o'clock." you know better than to follow her around, so you hum to let her know that you are listening.

"I trust you to make them something healthy for dinner," she adds, and for the first time in five minutes, she finally stops walking. "you can take whatever you want from the fridge if you are hungry, or thirsty, make yourself at home."

"They are not allowed to watch television, candy either. They have to be in bed by 8:30, and because it is Friday, you can let them read, or play until 9, then you'll put them to bed and turn off the lights." she reads over a list of numbers she hands you. "This is the number of the restaurant, and the emergency numbers if you ever need them, which I hope you won't have to use."

"You can watch the television when the kids are in bed, and if you want to sleep, you can use the guest bedroom next to the downstair bathroom." the woman takes her coat, so you get up from the stool. "You can give one piece of candy per kids coming tonight, and I'll try not to come home too late."

"You need to relax," you say, and the lady takes a deep breath. "this is not the first time looking over the twins, I know what to do, I know the rules, and you can trust me, I'll respect them. Enjoy your date." the older woman puts her hand on your shoulder, and she nods. "I trust you, good evening. Kids, be good with Y/n!"

The two kids agree from the living room where they are playing, and the lady opens the door before disappearing in the car who's been waiting for her for at least ten minutes now. You close the door, and you join the boys in the living room.

"Alright kiddos, it is time to do your homework!" they both whine, because "it's friday, we can do them sunday" but in the end, you succeed, and you watch with a certain pride as they work on their calculus worksheet.

You, and the twins jump when you hear the doorbell, and you turn on your seat. It is probably children trick or treating, and you feel bad for leaving the twins alone, because they are not trick or treating, they are doing their homework, and it is sad, they should be allowed to be outside, in their little costumes instead of doing math.

"I'll be right back." you say as you stand up. You grab the bowl of candy, and you open the door. Three little vampires are watching you expectantly. "Oh my, I almost had a heart attack!" you gasp when they hiss and you try to stay quiet as the young man walking them around the neighborhood looks ready to die of embarrasment.

"Here you go." you drop candy in each of their little basket, and you close the door. Before putting the bowl back near the door, you pick a couple of candy and you put them on the table. "Let's make a deal, if you do not say anything to your mother, I'll let you have these candy."

"Deal!" the twins shout together, and you chuckle as you hand them the candy. "If you finish your math in the next five minutes, you'll have time to take a shower, and watch tv for a little while before dinner."

You know you should listen to the mother's rules, but you want to see them smile. You want them to feel comfortable around you, and how do you get kids' trust? You break one or two rules, and you let them do what they are usually not allowed to do.

Pretty quickly, the math homework are done, and the kids are in the shower. They are old enough to be left alone in the bathroom, you know they won't flood the room, well, at least, you hope they won't. You do not want to have to wipe the floor.

You soon find yourself busy cooking something for the twins that you forget all about Sicheng probably getting ready to meet you, if he did not lost the address like you said he would. At least, it gives you the opportunity to focus on what you are doing, and when the twins are back in their pajamas, the meal is not burnt, which is a victory.

"Veggies?" one of them says with a wince, and you sigh as you put the plates in front of them. "Your mother said to eat something healthy, it's good, trust me." you do not trust yourself on your cooking skills, but you can't say that to the kids or they'll end up spitting the food back into their plates, and thank you but no thank you.

During the meal, you have to stand up a few times to open the door to give candy to the children, and sometimes to college students trying to see if they still can get candy. Spoiler alert: they can.

And before you know it, the kids are in bed, and you are on the couch, all alone in this big house. A horror movie is screening on the television, but you barely watch it, your eyes are stuck on the clock above the doorframe leading to the staircase.

Ten more minutes, you think, smiling to yourself.

10:42 pm.

Sicheng is either late, lost, or could not read the address on his hand after practice. You wonder if you should sleep until the twins's mother comes back from her date, or if you should wait a few more minutes to give Sicheng the benefit of the doubt.

But when then more minutes pass, you stand up.

You grab the almost empty bowl of candy, and you settle it on the kitchen island, and you walk to the front door to make sure it is locked, and you are startled when you see two eyes looking at you through the window, but you heave a sigh of relief when you recognize Sicheng's smile.

"You are late, I shouldn't even let you in." you mumble as you open the door, and the young man takes a step forwards, until he is close enough that his nose almost touches yours. "I am late, you are right, but I am also crazy handsome tonight, so I know you will not leave me hanging in the dark and the cold. he answers, and you hate how right he is.

"What were you doing? Drinking with the boys? Hooking up with a mysterious disguised girl you found in Taeyong's basement?" he shakes his head, and you push yourself away from the door to let him pass. "I did drink a beer with the boys, but there was no mysterious girl in Taeyong's basement, just a rat."

You roll your eyes and you close the door. "We can't make noise, the twins are sleeping, and as much as I love you, their mother pays me well, so I don't want to lose them." you explain, and when you turn, you find yourself pressed against the wooden door. "You are the one who has to stay quiet, not me."

"I'm always quiet." Sicheng scoffs but before you can say anything to defend yourself, he kisses you. The kiss has nothing sweet to it, but you don’t mind one bit.

"Couch." you say after breaking the kiss for air, but Sicheng shakes his head. "We've done it once against the door, never again!" Sicheng seems to remember, and he starts to laugh so you hit him in the chest until he takes a step back.

"There is absolutely nothing funny about it! It was painful!" you mumble, but he thinks otherwise. He falls down on the couch, and before you can join him, the phone rings and you jump. The ringing comes from the kitchen, and it is so loud. It echoes against the walls, so you run to pick up, not wanting to wake up the twins.

"Are you even allowed to answer the phone?" Sicheng asks, shoulder pressed against the doorframe leading to the kitchen. "I don't know, maybe." you let a sigh of relief when the phone stops ringing, and you tense for a second when Sicheng wraps his arms around your waist. "So where were we."

You are about to turn around when the phone rings again, and you pick up right away. "Hello?" the other side of the line is silent, and you wonder if you should hang up, but soon, you hear a heavy breathing that brings shiver down your spine. "Hello? Can I help you? Miss Lee is absent at the moment."

"Have you checked on the kids?" the voice asks, and you frown. "What? Who are you?" feeling Sicheng's breathing against the back of your neck is not helping right now, and you try to shug him off of you. "You should check on the kids."

"But why?" before you can get an answer, the person hangs up. "What the fuck." you whisper, putting the phone back on its set. "What's up?" Sicheng asks, and you shake your head. "I don't know, someone asking me if I checked on the kids."

Sicheng hums, and you turn on your heels to face him. "That's probably a prank, you know, it's Halloween, and teenagers like to scare their neighbors." he is not wrong, you both did this kind of prank when you were still in high school.

"Come on, forget about it." he takes your hand, and he leads you back to the living room. He pushes you gently on the couch, and you settle on your back, Sicheng hovers over you, one leg on the couch, and the other on the floor for stability. His lips are close to yours, and you break the distance by taking his lower lip between your teeth, and he groans a little too loudly.

"I thought we had to be quiet." you say, and he rolls his eyes, his finges wandering underneath your top to feel how warm your skin feels against the coldness of his fingertips. "yeah yeah, whatever." his lips slide along your neck, mouthing at your jaw, and each bite is soothed by his tongue right away.

You close your eyes, trying to lose yourself into the feeling of Sicheng's mouth and fingers, but you can't quite get rid of the feeling in the pit of your stomach. You can't seem to forget about the sound of the breathing on the other side of the phone. Teenagers or not, it was scary.

When Sicheng opens his mouth to speak, you realize that you completely zoned out, and you look up at him. "What?" he sighs, and you feel his fingers against the button of your pants. "Can I?" he asks, and you nod. You definitely need to change your mind, and you know Sicheng's fingers are going to do wonders.

He prompts himself on one hand, and he uses the other to pop open the button of your pants, and to slide the zipper down, way too slowly for your liking. "Come on, don't be a tease." you whisper, and he chuckles. "Eager, aren't we?" little shit.

Sicheng likes to tease, but he decides otherwise tonight, as his hand slides inside of your pants and panties, fingers already through your folds. "Don't worry, I'll make you feel good." he whispers against your ear, and you bite your lower lip. His voice is so low, you would give everything you have to hear it more often.

(I’m bad at smut, so we’re leaving it at that, sorry.)

"Don't stop, please, I'm- I'm so fucking close." you say, and he tries to move his fingers deeper, but with your pants and panties around your thighs, it is hard for him to move as much as he would like, but he makes do. "Sicheng, Sicheng, Sicheng." you repeat his name, and he smirks. This is the most beautiful song he has ever heard.

You open your eyes wide when Sicheng stops moving, denying you of the orgasm you've been chasing for the past five minutes. "What the fuck?" you exclaim, and you notice how Sicheng's eyes veered towards the front door. "Did you hear?"

"Hear what?" you ask with clear annoyance in your voice, and you feel like crying when he pulls his fingers out and clean them on your pants, which is disgusting. He stands up, not even bothering to help you and he stops in front of the door. "I heard something."

How did he hear anything over your moans? You straighten up, buttoning your pants back and when you feel like your legs are back to normal, no longer shaking and feeling like jelly, you join him. He has his ear against the door, and he puts his index finger against his lip for you to stay quiet.

Once again, the phone rings, and makes you jump. Your heart misses a few beats, and it is honestly ready to jump out of your ribcage. "Do I answer?" you ask, your breathing quickening. "Yes, go." so you do just that. You go back to the kitchen and you pick up the phone.

You hear the heavy breathing right away this time, and even a chuckle when your own breathing hitches in your throat. The voice is masculine, there is no doubt. "Who are you? What do you want?" panic can be heard in your voice, and you do not even bother trying to sound calm.

"Did you check on the kids?" you close your eyes, trying your hardest not to hang up and lock yourself in one of the rooms of the house for the rest of the night. "It's just a prank, nothing more." you tell yourself, and when the man laughs, a real hearthy laugh this time, you realize that you said it out loud.

"Come on, this if your job as a babysitter, making sure the kids are alright. You wouldn't want anything to happen to them, right?" you shake your head even though no one is here to see it. "Check on the kids!" this time the voice is louder, and as cold as the bead of sweat rolling down your back.

"How do you-" before you can ask your question, you hear the beep signaling that the person has hung up. "Sicheng?" you turn around, but the young man is nowhere to be seen. You wander in the living room, and in the bathroom, but he is not here. "Sicheng, where are you?" you ask in a loud whisper, but you get nothing.

A kick on the living room window makes you scream, you cover your eyes with your hands, as if not seeing what happens would make it stop. "Please, please, please." you do not want to fucking die, not here, and not after being denied a fucking orgasm. When a hand lands on your shoulder, you turn and attack without looking at who or where you are hitting.

"Stop, Y/n, it's me!" Sicheng whines, taking a step back. When you open your eyes, you see him holding his stomach. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he asks, shaking his head. "What? You were gone, and someone knocked on the window, so I got scared!" you say, frantic.

"I was in the restroom and I didn't hear any knock." he answers right away, letting his arms fall back on his sides. "What was the sound you heard?" you ask, tilting your head to the side, you need to know, or you are going to cry on the spot. Well, you are already crying, you can feel tears running down your cheeks.

"Calm down baby, it was nothing, just a loud engine. I'm sorry if I scared you." he takes a step forwards, drying the tears on your face with his thumbs. "Calm down, it's okay." you shake your head, looking around. You came here so many times, and yet, this is the first time you do not feel comfortable in this house.

"This is not okay! Some madman is calling me, asking me to check on the kids, someone knocked on the window, this is not fucking okay!" he takes a deep breath, and he tries to smile, but he realizes that it might not be enough to reassure you. "It's just kids playing a trick on you."

"Well, they need to stop because it's not fucking funny, Halloween or not!" your voice breaks into a sob, and he pulls you against his chest. "Don't worry, if they call back, I'll answer and I'll tell them to stop before I find them and kick their ass, I do not care what age their are, I'll do it."

"Sit down." you sit down on a stool around the kitchen island, and he opens the fridge to pour a glass of water that he hands you. "Take a dreep breath, it's fine, alright?" you nod, sipping on the water. You are honestly surprised none of the kids came down to see what was going on after you screamed.

Wait.

You know the twins, and you know they are light sleepers. They would have woken up by now, you stand up, maybe a little too quickly because you see stars dancing, and Sicheng is quick to be by your side, trying to help you find your balance. "What is going on?" he asks, he sounds genuinely worried this time.

"The kids. There is something wrong with the kids! I screamed, they should be up, they never sleep over loud noises!" Sicheng stops you when you stry to walk to the staircase. "The man on the phone told me to check on them, what if he found a way in, and did something to them and that is why they are not waking up?"

"Come on, don't be silly. They are probably sleeping, they probably did not even hear you scream. This is a prank, Y/n, just a prank!" he sounds angry, and you frown. Sicheng is hard to anger, so it is not normal for him to react so quickly. Well, it is maybe not anger, but it is definitely impatience that you hear.

"Stay here, I'll go check on them if that makes you feel better. I won't wake them up, so they'll never know I was here." he forces you back down on the stool, and in less than twenty seconds, he is gone. You can hear the floor creaking under his weight, and you know when he stops to check the multiple doors.

Of course, of fucking course, now that Sicheng is gone, the phone rings again. You try to ignore it, you really try, but the sound is awful. It is loud, and it hurts your ears, so you have no choice than to stand up and picks up. "What the fuck do you want? The kids are fine! Who are you?"

The man giggles, and you hear nothing else for a minute or so. "Did you check on the kids yourself? Because you definitely should." you can't take it anymore, you have to know. You hang up, and you go up the stairs, you do not mind if you die, you just need to know what the fuck is going on, and who is playing with you.

One thing is sure, if you survive, and find whoever decided to play this little game, you are going to make his life a living hell.

Once you are upstairs, you stop in front of the kids' door. The door is closed, and once again, Sicheng is nowhere to be seen. You really wonder what he is doing, but of couse, you do not think he might have anything to do with what's been going on.

"Come on, you can do it." you push the door open, trying not to make it creaks, because you do not feel like explaining what is going on to two scared kids. The room is dark, but it is quiet. You hear their regular breaths and you could cry ouf ot relief. Sicheng was right, it is nothing but a prank.

You close the door, and start to go down the stairs. Something feels off, you think. You know the feeling of being watched even when you are supposed to be alone? Yeah, that's what you feel right now, but when you look over your shoulder, you see nothing but a long dark hallway. Maybe that's the problem. The constent darkness.

"Fucking hell." you almost trip over your own feet when a scratching sound is heard against one of the walls. You jump the last few steps, and fortunately, you fall back on your feet, but the pain in your ankles is almost too much.

"Have you checked on the kids?"

You turn your head so quick towards the voice that you know you'll be in pain tomorrow, and your eyes meet.."Johnny? What the fuck!" you exclaim, and the man laughs. This is the laugh you heard on the phone, but you did not recognize it with the constant sizzling. He is not alone in the living room, your friends are all there too.

"What?" you turn and see Sicheng halfway down the stairs, smiling like an idiot. "Happy Halloween my love!" you frown, and you let yourself fall on your butt. "You couldn't be there for Halloween, so we decided to bring Halloween to you."

You want to cry, but you also want to beat them. "I hate you all so fucking much. You have no idea how scared I was!" you look up at Sicheng who crouches down in front of you. "Is this why you were late? Is this why you disappeared earlier?" he nods, unable to stop smiling.

"Yeah, I had to open the back door for them." he leans in to kiss your forehead, and you close your eyes at the contact. You should be mad at him right now, but you are too tired for that. That's a problem for future you, and also for future Sicheng. He is going to regret that.

"I hope you had fun, because it is over." you mumble as you stand up. You open the door, head tilted to the side, glancing at your friends one by one. "It is time to go home, you too Sicheng." Sicheng's eyes open so wide it is almost comical. You need to be alone to recover, because you are pretty sure your heart has not beat normally for an hour.

"What? Why?"

"Because I do not want to see you right now!" he nibbles on his lower lip, probably waiting for you to laugh, but you stay still. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you would freak out so much." he tries to explain, but you shake your head. He needs a taste of his own medicine. "I don't care, Sicheng, we'll talk about it later."

If Johnny sees you smile when Sicheng lowers his head, he says nothing about it, he just winks at you. They all get ready to leave the house when the phone rings, and they all stop dead in their tracks. "Oh come on, you are going to wake up the kids at some point, that's not funny."

"That's not us." you heave a long sigh, of course it is one of them. They probably asked another basketball player to help them out, so you walk to the kitchen and you take the phone. "What?" the breathing sounds different this time, and the voice is too. Lower than Johnny's, raspier even. "I think it is time for you to really check on the kids." you roll your eyes. "The kids are fine."

You turn to watch your friends when you hang up, and this time and you see something you have never seen in them: fear.

#nct imagines #nct scenarios #wayv imagines #wayv scenarios #winwin imagines #winwin scenarios #sicheng imagines #sicheng scenarios

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sunsetcurvetaintedhotdog · 3 years

Text

Flash From The Past ✩

Request: I have a request and I was asking if you cans do a ghost!Luke Patterson x alive!reader but she is older. Like in the 90s they were but then he died and she got older. But Julie had went through his journal or stuff and found a picture of them and he wrote a song like the Scene when he and Julie went to his parents house but the reader. I’m really bad at explaining things I just wanted to request an angst story please :) <3 Like a little of they’re romantic relationship and then show the aftermath of after he died and Julie kind a like confronts her with Luke like ep 8 <3

Warning: Angst, probably some grammar errors.

Word Count: 1,401

Song Used: “Somebody To You” By The Vamps

“Luke be careful your gonna hit the car in front!” I scolded him as were were entering the drive in movie parking lot. He dismissed me with a sway of his hand. “I’m an excellent driver love, no need to worry” He smiled at me before making an abrupt stop.

“LUKE!” I yelled at him. He just cheekily smiled at me and shrugged. “That’s his fault for going so slow then stopping not mine” I rolled my eyes. “Nothing ever your fault” I said. He looked at me after he finished parking. “You know it baby, I’m an angel” “Yea, yea, keep thinking that” I leaned forward and pecked his lips.

I stretched myself to the back seat to get the food and blankets we had brought and opened my door to get out of his truck. He also got out and slid the trunks small door down so we had space to lay down. We put the blankets and pillow where we wanted them and cuddled up to watch the movie.

After the movie was done I had my head on Luke’s shoulder, he rested his on top of mine. “I love you” I froze. That’s the first time he’s ever said that, I haven’t even said it yet. My eyes started to water and I lifted my head up to look at his eyes. “Yea?” I whispered. “Yea. I’m completely in love with you” he smiled at me. I leaned forward and kissed him like never before. The kiss lasted a few seconds before I pulled away. “I’m in love with you too” “Yea?” He whispered. “Yea.” I giggled and kissed him again.

“Shall we try this again?” Julie questioned from her keyboard looking towards the band. “Yes please. But remind us later there’s some Sunset Curve songs to show you.” Luke told Julie while standing up. Julie got intrigued and moved her mic to the side “Oh, show me now.” Luke nodded and went to reach for his song book next to him.

He looked at his notebook strangely. “Home is where my horse is?” He turned around “Reggie stop putting your country songs in my journal.” He side glanced at Reggie while throwing the paper out of his notebook into the guitar case. “That was a gift!” Reggie said offended. Luke rolled his eyes “thanks buddy.” He patted Reggie on the arm.

Luke turned back to Julie handing her his notebook. “I dog-eared the ones I think you would slay”. Julie started going through the pages until she reached a specific page that wasn’t dog- eared but caught her interest. “Somebody to you?” She questioned. Luke quickly got defensive. “That one isn’t dog- eared” he protested reaching for his notebook but Julie pulled it further away. “ “Look at me now I’m falling can’t even talk still stumbling” wow Luke I didn’t know you were such a romantic” she smirked at Luke. “That one is actually about-” Luke cut Alex off. “No one it’s about no one if you go to the next page there is one I think you’d like”. Julie dropped the subject since she saw Luke didn’t like talking about but she was still very interested.

Band practice couldn’t have gone worse Luke wasn’t focused after Julie mentioned the song. Y/N has been stuck in his head causing him to mess up. “Let’s take a break yea I’ll be back in an hour” Julie got up from her keyboard and walked out. “I’m out, gonna go hang with Willie” Alex disappeared. “Ima go see what Ray is up to” Reggie said and disappeared as well. Leaving Luke to entertain himself.

He couldn’t stop thinking about you. Where you married? Did you have kids? Did you move away? What happened after you found out he died? How did you cope with it?

Standing in front of the mirror making sure your outfit looked good you heard the house phone go off. You rushed downstairs and picked up the phone.

“Y/L/N Residence” you heard someone sniffle on the other side. “Y/N their gone” “Who’s gone?” you questioned. “Bobby talk to me! Who’s gone?” Panic started sinking in. “The boys they got food poisoning they’re dead Y/N” the phone fell from your hand and you dropped to your knees. You truly felt like you were dying. Tears where coming out of your eyes. The boys you have grown up with the love of your life was just taken away from you in a matter of hours. You were meant to see them preform tonight they weren’t supposed to go. Not yet. They were too young they had so much to live for.

It’s been two weeks you were invited to their funerals but you haven’t been able to leave your room yet. All you’ve done is cried until you fall asleep and repeat the same cycle everyday. Apart of you is missing and you don’t know if you’ll get through this. You’ve thrown everything that reminds you of them specially Luke in a box and told your mom to throw it away. (She didn’t throw it away) His shirts, guitar picks, hoodies, pictures, everything. You can’t bear it. It hurts a lot. Everything hurts. Your not gonna go to the funerals you can’t just stand there and get condolences from people who never really cared. You can’t pretend your ok.

“Julie you sure this is a good idea?” Luke questioned. They were on your doorstep. Julie had this great plan to give you a letter that she made Luke write for you. If you seemed stable enough she would tell you about her and the band. For now it was just the letter. The closure that you needed that you didn’t get back in 1995. Julie found you through your Instagram account apparently you became a photographer. One of her classmates is your son so he gave Julie the address. “I’m positive....um.. if it’s too much Luke you could go and I’ll tell you how it went.” Luke shook his head “no I’m good” Julie nodded. She reached forward and ringed the doorbell.

You answered the door and Luke’s breath hitched as soon as he saw you. He wanted to step forward and hug you and apologize for what he might have put you through but he can’t. You look almost the same just as beautiful but time has aged you. You and Julie started talking. She explained how she had found this song and a letter written at the bottom of the song page addressed to you. So she decided to bring it over. As you read the song you kept it together no tears. Luke is someone you thought about each day since the moment he passed.

It’s been 8 years since Luke passed away you are now 25 and have been traveling the world. Staying in Loz Feliz only made you sad you started your photograph career and have been traveling here and there. You haven’t meet anyone nearly as good as Luke so your still single. You don’t know if it’s guilt or if your the only one holding yourself back from dating again but you always put it off and say that you don’t have time for that. Will you ever go back to California? You don’t know.

After reading the letter you thanked Julie and she walked away you closed the door and slid down against it finally letting go of the tears you’ve been holding back. Things possibly couldn’t get worse, you thought you’d move on find someone who was just as great as Luke but you didn’t, you married someone you didn’t love and ended up getting a divorce. Having a kid and moving back with your mom in Loz Feliz. You weren’t happy. This letter didn’t make matters better your even sadder now it was like a flash from the past. Knowing that you could have had a future with Luke made your heart ache. He was your person, no one else.

On the other side of the door Luke stood there completely shocked that you didn’t react at all to his letter. Did you move on? Did you even care about him anymore? Was he only now a distant memory? What he didn’t know was that you were crying on the other side.

He disappeared back into the studio thinking about you. Maybe in a different life.

Sorry this request took so long I have been extremely busy because I had to get surgery but I finished it now. Hope you like it :)

@charliegillespiewife

#charlie gillespie #luke patterson imagine #luke patterson x reader #luke patterson x y/n #writing #charlie gillespie x reader #charlie gillespie x y/n #fanfic #jatp imagine #luke x reader

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vxmorpheus · 4 years

Text

It’s been 30 years

since she first landed, and 15 years since we lost contact with her and she died. We knew the day was going to come at some point, but it didn’t make it any easier. We watched her progress, enjoyed her photos, and played music to wake her up. Now, here we were, on Mars and I had a plan. I wanted to find her, not just for myself, but for everyone who cared, everyone who cried at our loss, everyone who wondered where she was and what state of disrepair she was in.

I quietly influenced where we should land, my crew had no idea what I planned on doing. I wasn’t even sure if they remembered her. Sure, over the past 15 years there were many others like her… but they weren’t her. She was only supposed to live for 90 days and she survived for 15 years. She shared so much with us… pictures, data, and she even discovered water (in the form of ice of course), and she shared her life with us from millions of miles away. I was determined to find her, to show her… we still remember everything you did for us.

We landed between Sunderland Point and Spirit point, not far from where she was last known to be, it took a couple of weeks to set up camp and set up our land rover, but when everything was said and done… we were here. At nights, I would stare out the window at the moons, the huge sky of stars, and the vast dry dusty horizon, it was beautiful. This is what she saw every night before ‘going to sleep’, this is what she lived under, this is where she had lived for 15 years, this is where she lied in permanent slumber. Being able to share this beauty and experience with others was a gift… But she was alone her entire life on Mars and she was alone when she died, in a physical sense. We were there but we couldn’t be there with her. She deserved to come back, she may be unable to come back to working order or back to Earth… but she deserved to come back into the human hands that built her, and loved her for what she was and what she did. The hands that played her music every day to wake her from her coma and sent the final message of I’ll Be Seeing You in hopes that maybe, one day, we will see her again.

In the morning, I told the crew I was going out to explorer. They told me to be careful, to not stray too far from camp, and to come back before nightfall. Getting on the land rover and driving around was… amazing, weird… alien, yet it felt as if I were driving in a desert on Earth. The land was vast, the terrain was difficult, it took hours to thoroughly search the small area I had marked for day one. In the end, she wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere I looked in the week that followed. I wanted to give up… but I couldn’t. She didn’t give up after 90 days, and neither will I. The search continued, I was asked questions by my crew about what I was doing. I wanted to tell them, but I was worried they would think I was stupid or would tell me to give up and that there was no hope in finding her, so… I told them I was mapping out the surrounding area, which in a sense is true. I was mapping out the area, just not for the reason they thought.

Days passed… then weeks… then months… with no luck. Not a single sign of her. But I still didn’t give up. I didn’t want to give up on my personal mission. It might sound weird, but I didn’t want to give up on her. I wanted her to be back with the people who cared and not at the hands of a merciless landscape. The sun was 3 hours from setting and I was on my way back from another failed exploration. Could she have moved? Could she have wandered aimlessly, searching for a way to communicate to us again, only to finally succumb to the dust storm? No… no that sounded stupid… right? But… no, it’s dumb to think such things. It makes no sense. I shook my head and looked off to my left, knowing the terrain by heart by now, I felt comfortable looking away for a time. I needed to clear my thoughts before getting back to base.

I idly hummed a song to myself, watching the land go by as I drove. I slammed on the breaks, almost causing the rover to tip over, but I swore I had just seen something. I tore my hands away from the steering wheel and slowly got out of the vehicle. I stepped alongside it, staring out to where I saw something reflect, and that’s when I saw the shine again. Taking a sharp inhale, I slowly walked over to the reflective object. It was covered in a heavy amount of dust, but some had blown off from a recent wind storm… I looked down at the large object if it weren’t for the storm, I would have never seen it… it just blended in with everything so well. I knelt down and dusted it off, the air caught in my lungs, and tears formed in my eyes.

It was her. It had to be her.

I desperately cleaned off everything I could and tried pulling at her to get her tires free from the 15 years of accumulated dust and dirt but she was stuck pretty hard. I crouched down to my knees and grabbed a rock, stabbing and digging at the dirt around her tires, and by the time I freed them… the sun was setting and it was getting cold. Running to the land rover, I dug around for rope to hitch her up to it. I hooked the rope to the rover and walked over to her, looking for the best way to tie her up and not break the fragile machinery. The only way I thought I could do this was by tying her up by her box body, the WEB. I was as careful as possible and even more careful as I towed her back to base. I was freezing cold by the time I saw base, the last bits of the sun just beginning to disappear. There were lights outside moving around, probably the crew doing last minute checks before heading to bed… That’s when a loud radio buzz came over my com before the captain’s voice yelled at me, asking where the hell I was, why I was so late coming back. The yelling continued until they showed their lights onto her, then there was a long silence that overcame them.

Once I parked the rover and got out, I fell down to my knees. I couldn’t feel my legs, I hadn’t moved them once on the way back. Everyone rushed over and helped me to the base to warm me up. I was setting into hypothermia, I couldn’t process anything anymore at that point. They threw so many questions at me, I just couldn’t understand anything they were saying, all that I thought about was, “at least she was found finally and she wasn’t alone. At least I’m not alone either…” before passing out. I thought I was dying… well… I guess, in a way, I was dying, but… since I wasn’t alone… since I had people around me who cared… they helped me. They saved me. When I came to some time later, a couple of days later, I was once again questioned on my reckless actions and what I had brought back to base. I told them everything. I told them how I searched for her every day, how I found her, why I wanted to find her, why I risked my stupid life to bring her back, who she was…

They didn’t believe me at first, so we took her to the garage with the land rover and began looking at her parts. We cleaned her out, checked all the hardware, and somehow… we were able to run diagnostics on her. She should have been a heap of junk on the Martian wasteland, but here she was… still in, mostly, one-piece and somewhat functional. We ignored everything for a while and just worked on her for a couple of days. Replacing a small part of her solar panels, shining light onto it, hoping for something… anything… but she didn’t wake up. We checked her body, checked everything we could… and retried again. We watched the computer eagerly, waiting for something, and there was something. There was a small bit of charge, we waited for hours but it hardly went up any.

She somehow charged to a small 5% and connected to our computer. We began receiving data slowly before she started to smoke, making us panic. One of the crew went to take the light away, but before he did… we received a message… or rather… she received our final message. I’ll Be Seeing You played for her while we sat there and watched…

I'll find you

In the morning sun

And when the night is new

I'll be looking at the moon

But I'll be seeing you…

Then… she powered down for the last time. Nothing we did brought her back. But… it’s for the best… it was time to let her go. It was her time to go. She stayed fighting for so long… just long enough for someone to find her… so she could hear our last message to her. Our love song for her. Our good-bye song to her. We all started crying as soon as we realized she was gone for good. Even though she was ‘just a machine’, she still meant things to us. We humanized her, gave her a name, watched her explore and discover new things, watched her age, and now… with a final good-bye… we watched her die.

We humanize the most mundane and inanimate things, we love them and care about them as if they were alive… and when they die or get destroyed… we grieve for them. We grieve for the humanity we put onto them, we grieve for something that felt like somebody, and that’s ok. It’s ok to grieve or something that seems so… abnormal or stupid… it’s not stupid or abnormal in the end though. It’s only human to love such a thing so deeply that you humanize it and miss it when it’s gone. And it hurts if we feel we never had the proper good-bye with them.

Knowing that Oppy, Opportunity, died, despite many attempts to wake her up, and then get sent the final song I’ll Be Seeing You is… touching, comforting even, but it still makes me incredibly sad. She was long since passed when we sent the final message, I’m not even sure if she truly received the good-bye she oh so deserved, which makes me cry even more to think about.

But maybe

Just maybe

We will be seeing you again one day.

#Oppy #opportunity #rip oppy #Ill be seeing you #nasa #space #opportunity rover #mars #short story #its ok to say good bye #its ok to be sad #creative writing #I'm not happy with this #I liked my first draft better #but tumblr snapped it away #i hope you like this

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the-bau-quinjet · 3 years

Text

the evolution of breaking up

Peter x Stark!reader

Summary: Snippets of you moving on from a bad breakup, frequently turning to your best friend, Peter.

Warnings: it's sad Taylor Swift hours, some choice words,

Word Count: 3252

a/n: inspired by a playlist called the evolution of breaking up that only has TS songs on it lol. Bold is direct or paraphrased lyrics

Masterlist

Peter is 90% sure he fell in love with you the day he met you.

He's 100% sure he fell in love with you within a week of knowing you.

Hell, he's so sure about it, he would tell you if not for one glaringly obvious problem: Jared.

Your boyfriend.

Your started dating Jared a few weeks before you met Peter. That is to say, a few weeks before Tony recruited Peter to join the Avengers.

Peter didn't have any problems with Jared, and he would never wish for you to get your heart broken, but he was definitely jealous.

It wasn't hard for him to love you. The two of you became fast friends. You always worked in the lab together, improving upon tech Tony already had or developing all new creations.

You also patrolled together. Peter had always enjoyed patrolling, but now that you went with him, time seemed to fly.

It was currently about 10:30 on a Friday about two and a half years after you and Peter met. You and Peter were supposed to patrol, but Tony said to take the night off for once.

You took the impromptu free time as the perfect opportunity to surprise Jared.

You left the tower around 5:30 and Peter hasn't heard from you since. Not that he expected to since you were going on a date. He was bored though.

Tony refused to let him tinker around in the lab, saying he needed a better work/life balance. He would've found the statement funny if it didn't feel so true.

He tried calling Ned, but he was out with Betty. MJ was busy with Brad, the two going to some horror movie marathon.

The only other person he really hung out with was you, and you were also on a date.

He wondered the various floors of the tower, looking for anything to do that would take his mind of you.

Eventually, he just set up camp in the shared living area, putting Star Wars on the massive TV and eating more popcorn than should be legal.

He was nearly asleep during Episode V when the ding of the elevator jolted him awake. Someone ran through the halls, quickly opening and closing the door to their room.

He sat up, intrigued by the behavior. As he walked down the hallway, he listened for any indication of someone else being there. Obviously whoever it was didn't want to talk, but that didn't mean he wasn't concerned.

He stopped outside your door, bringing his hand up to knock when he heard music softly playing through the door.

You told me you loved me, so why did you go away?

He froze with his fist raised, uneasy with the why you would put on such a sad song. His hand fell back to his side when he heard you sing along to the chorus.

"Never thought we'd have a last kiss. Never imagined we'd end like this."

The sound of you crying grew louder than the music, urging Peter to knock. He just wanted to make sure you knew he was there for you.

Hyping himself up, he knocked lightly. A few seconds later the music stopped. He listened as you shuffled toward the door, slowly pulling it open.

His heart broke at the sight of your puffy cheeks, red and tear stained.

"Hey Pete." You managed a small smile, happy to see your friend despite the less than stellar evening you had.

"Hey, I... you probably don't want to talk about it right now, but I'm here for when you do." He matched your small smile, trying not to make you feel any worse.

Apparently, he said the right thing because you pulled him into a bone crushing hug, burying your head in his chest as you cried.

He spent the next half hour rubbing your back as you cried, having moved to sit on the bed rather than stand in the doorway.

When your tears ended, he risked talking to you again.

"Did you want to talk about it tonight?" Peter was clearly unsure of himself in this situation.

You shook your head, wiping your face with the sleeves of your sweatshirt.

"No, I... He just..." Tears pooled again, but you blinked them away. "He said forever and always, but I guess he didn't mean it."

Peter held you as you cried again, eventually falling asleep. He tucked you into your bed, placing a water bottle on your nightstand and shutting off the lights as he left.

The next few days, you spent mostly holed up in your room. You had a playlist of sad Taylor Swift songs on repeat, letting yourself wallow.

Peter was worried. Tony was worried. Nat, Steve, Sam, Bucky, Wanda, Pepper, and Vision were worried.

"What'd she say when you talked to her?" The group questioned, all wanting nothing more than to cheer you up.

Peter sighed, wishing he had more information. "She just cried for like, 2 hours. Somewhere in the middle I asked if she wanted to talk, she said something about him not really meaning forever, and then she cried again."

They were all contemplating what to do when you walked in the room. Every pair of eyes were on you in an instant.

You sighed heavily, kind of glad you could address everyone at once. They've been like a family to you since you were born, so it only makes sense they would all be worried.

"Jared and I broke up." You felt like it was 2 and a half years wasted. You could feel the tightness in your throat threatening more tears, but you refused to cry over this boy any longer. "I'll be okay, I just... I remember it all too well right now."

You turned to your dad, eyes welling up again. "I'm sorry I ignored when you said to run as fast as I can from all the boys I ever met." You chuckled, trying to relieve the tension.

Tony pulled you into a tight hug. "You'll be okay again, princess." You nodded, leaning into the hug. Everyone ended up piling on, offering you words of comfort through the group hug.

A couple weeks later, and you honestly felt better. Not all the way, but enough to want to go out with friends again. You went roller skating with Peter, MJ, and Ned.

It was the next logical step, going out with friends. It made sense. It was working.

Until you saw him. Jared was there with some other girl, skating without a care in the world. Of course, he saw you. He had the audacity to smile and wave, as if he didn't just break your heart.

When he walked up to you, you knew you had enough.

"Don't you smile at me and ask me how I've been. Don't you say you've missed me if you don't want me again." You spit the words at him, trying to hide how much it hurt. You turned away from him, nearly running from the rink before you even put the skates on.

You friends followed you out, profusely denying the need for your abundant apologies.

Ned and MJ hugged you before leaving, figuring less people would be better for you. Peter took you back to the tower, trying to help soothe the lingering ache.

"I just don't understand." You whispered from the passenger side of the car. "Why would he want to break a perfectly good heart?"

Peter struggled to come up with an answer, knowing nothing he said would really fix it.

"You'll find someone else. Someone who won't break your heart." He settled on a vague nod toward the future, knowing anything else could lead to him potentially ruining your friendship.

Unbeknownst to Peter, his words broke your heart just a little more. You always had a soft spot for Peter, and the few weeks you've been broken up from Jared have made you see him in a new light.

Of course, you wouldn't make a move though. Not yet. You didn't want him to think he was just a rebound. He's your best friend. It's too important to mess up with feelings.

You woke up the next morning with a slew of messages from Jared.

This is me swallowing my pride... telling you I'm sorry for that night.

I go back to December all the time.

It turns out freedom ain't nothing but missing you.

I'm wishing I realized what I had when you were mine.

You deleted them immediately, not wanting to fall back into his trap. Ultimately though, you decided to respond. You wanted to lay it all out that he missed his chance. You were over him, even if it still hurt.

I've lived, and I've learned. Had you, got burned. I'm over it, Jared. Leave me alone.

Then you deleted his contact and blocked the number. He couldn't just say those hurtful things to you and then pretend like it was a mistake. He meant every word he said that night, even if he doesn't believe it now.

Another week went by without incident. You were all smiles all the time, really moving on from him and the pain he put you through.

Then you got a letter. It looked like a card, so you figured it was an early Valentine's card.

Opening it up proved it to be just that.

The inside read:

"I don't wanna miss you like this. I don't wanna need you this way. Come back. Be here."

Signed from Jared with hearts.

Of course you chose to open the card as soon as you got it, with everyone watching.

Your expression fell as the words sank in, knowing he was still trying did weird things to your heart. It made you question everything. Did he really care about you? Was he just bored?

You stared at the card for what felt like an eternity before ripping it up and rolling your eyes.

Of course he doesn't care. Nobody who says to your face that they never loved you cares.

"What was that?" Wanda asked, curious about the mixture of emotions present on your face.

"A load of utter horse shit." You huffed a laugh as you threw away the pieces.

"Language!" Tony called, always taking the opportunity to tease Steve.

"Well it was!" You defended, eager to move on from the conversation. They all stared at you expectantly, clearly waiting for an explanation. "It was from Jared." You were glad Peter was sitting next to you. Just the mention of his name had him rubbing your back, trying to make it easier for you.

"You know, now that I'm sitting here thinking it through. I've never been anywhere cold as him."

You felt another group hug coming on, so you quickly excused yourself to shower, reassuring everyone that you were fine.

You were laying on the floor, feet up against the wall, just staring at the ceiling when Bucky and Peter walked into the gym to train with you.

"Hey, Y/N." Bucky called, a questioning look in his eyes.

"What's going on in your head?" Peter added, spelling out the question for you.

"I knew he was trouble when I met him." You answered him honestly. "And yet, I still said yes when he asked me out." You shook your head, still staring at the ceiling.

"Hey, hindsight is 20/20. Don't beat yourself up about it." Bucky chimed in, knowing how it feels to blame yourself for things that weren't your fault.

"Are you offering then?" You stood up, accepting Peter's hand to aid you. You brushed any lingering dirt from your clothes, laughing at Bucky's confused expression. "For me to beat you up instead?"

The three of you had a good laugh before you got to work training.

Three months post breakup and you're feeling great. At least, you're feeling great most of the time.

"Hey Y/N! What are you doing tonight?" Peter questioned as he walked up beside you in the lab, pulling out the tools he'll need.

"I don't know, nothing specific I guess." You try to remember any plans you had, but nothing comes to mind.

"Perfect. MJ, Ned, and I are going to go roller skating again. I thought maybe you'd wanna come?" He's clearly nervous, unsure if this would help or hinder your progress.

You nod your head, thinking it over. "You know what, I'm in." The determination in your voice catches Peter off guard.

"Cool, um, great. I guess you're doing better then?" He's still nervous, but eager to finally get you to fully open up to someone about everything.

"Yep. Anytime I get sad, I think of something shitty he did to remind me I'm better off." You smile, knowing he was going to ask for examples.

"Really? Like what?" You can't help but laugh lightly, enjoying how well you know Peter.

"Some vague things, like how he would look at me when he was annoyed. Like those eyes add insult to injury, you know?" He nods, but doesn't really understand.

"Or more specific examples, like that birthday party where you all kept asking me about him, and I made excuses, but truth is he just blew me off. That one honestly should've been the moment I knew."

"He did what?" Peter was livid, but trying to contain the rage to that of a concerned friend rather than jealous crush.

"Eh, I'm over it. It's pretty easy to focus on the bad aspects of the relationship when it ended so badly." You shrug, turning back to the circuit board you were working on.

"How, um, how exactly did it end?" He wondered aloud, knowing you hadn't fully told anyone yet. He watched as you tensed slightly before shaking it off.

"That's a story for another time Pete." You managed a tight smile, not wanting to delve into that conversation just yet.

"You have got to be fucking kidding me." You mumbled under your breath.

You had been skating with Peter, Ned, and MJ for about an hour when he walked in.

Peter followed your line of sight, trying to understand your mumbling. When his eyes caught sight of Jared, he panicked.

"Y/N, I'm so sorry! I really thought this would help you this time." He rubbed his hands down his face, silently cursing himself for putting you in this position again.

"Don't worry about it Pete. I'm more prepared to handle it this time around." You laughed, watching out of the corner of your eye as Jared approached you.

"Y/N... I, uh, I've been trying to talk to you." He started boldy, not really caring that you weren't even looking at him.

You did your best to ignore him, but he grabbed your arm to stop you from skating away.

"Y/N, come on-"

"No." You spit at him, not letting him get under your skin. "People like you always want back the love they pushed aside, but people like me are gone forever when you say goodbye."

You yanked your arm out of his hand, turning back to your friends. "Let's keep skating. I have no reason to run away."

Peter watched, bewildered as you confidently skated across the rink.

The morning of what would be your three year anniversary with Jared felt weird. You weren't upset anymore, but the lingering nostalgia of celebrating an anniversary clung to you.

You deleted the email reminding you of the plans you were supposed to have that evening.

You sighed heavily as you walked into the kitchen, still trying to clear your head.

"You good?" Peter questioned, easily spotting that something was off.

"Yeah, it's just... I don't miss him. At all. I'm over it, but today would've been our anniversary..."

Peter nodded, trying to understand what you were feeling.

"It's strange to think the songs we used to sing, the smiles, the flowers, everything... is gone." You told him the truth, trying not to hide your feelings.

Maybe you should be over it by now, but you spent the majority of your high school career with that guy. It sucks to think it was all a waste.

He pulled you into a hug, rubbing your back to comfort you.

"I mean, not to state the obvious, but I didn't get my perfect fantasy with Jared." You huffed, rolling your eyes.

"You'll find your perfect someone." He smiled, unaware of the fluttering in your stomach telling you that maybe you already had.

"Yeah, someone who won't say to my face that he never really loved me." You muttered, feeling the rage burn inside you again.

"He's an ass." You hugged him tighter, enjoyed the feeling of being in his arms.

Peter slowed as he walked past your door, listening as the songs changed. He recognized the intro as a song from folklore, but he wasn't sure exactly which one.

"I'm doing good. I'm on some new shit." You sang loudly unaware of listening ears outside the door.

Peter smiled, walking away so as not to interrupt your healing process again.

Meanwhile, you floated around your room, nearly screaming the along to the breakup songs as you finally rid yourself of any lingering items relating to Jared.

"But it's wonderful to see that it never phased you!" You grinned as you threw it all away, ready to fully move on.

When the elevator doors opened, Peter was assaulted with the blaring sounds of none other than Taylor Swift.

Apparently, you moved your dance party from your room to the living room, thinking you had the space to yourself for a little while.

He watched as you danced around the room, singing and smiling to your heart's content.

"So he calls me up, and he's like 'I still love you' and I'm like, "I'm just, this is exhausting you know, like..." You caught Peter's smile out of the corner of your eye, fully turning to look at him as you belted out the next line. "We are never getting back together. Like ever. Noooo."

You grab his hands, forcing him to dance and twirl around with you as the song comes to an end.

"I take it your really feeling better." Peter smiles, overjoyed to see you looking so exuberant.

"I am." You nod, keeping it simple.

"No more thoughts about Jared?" He questioned, smiling when you didn't even flinch at his name.

"Nope. I forgot that he existed." You smiled cheekily, still dancing although you turned the music down.

"That's good, then." Peter smiled, suddenly nervous. If you truly had moved on, maybe now was his chance.

"Hey Pete?" You questioned, smiling shyly.

"Yeah?" He stood in front of you, unsure of where this was going.

"I realized something this morning." You whispered, nervous for his response, but dying to tell him the truth.

"Yeah?" He waited, eager to know what you were hiding.

You pressed a quick kiss to his lips before pulling back, watching as he slowly grinned.

"Why'd you do that?" He asked, stunned but grinning like an idiot.

"'Cause, I like you," you smiled, but quickly added 'but I know that it's delicate."

"I wouldn't worry too much about that." He stated, wrapping his arms around your waist.

"No?" You leaned into his touch, feeling like you were on cloud nine.

"Nope. Cause I like you too."

He pulled you in for a deeper kiss, celebrating the beginning of this new stage of your relationship.

Permanent tag list:

@averyhotchner @jesuswasnotawhiteman

#peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker x y/n #marvel #maarvel fic #mcu #peter parker fluff #peter parker angst #peter parker fic #avengers x reader #peter parker x Stark!reader

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florrickandassociates · 3 years

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TGF Thoughts: 5x10-- And the violence spread.

So, that’s it for season five. I’m still trying to sort out how I feel about the season as a whole and Wackner’s arc. I’m hopeful that writing this will help me decide.

This episode has a Previously, and it’s rather conventional. I’m guessing it’s here to bookend the season, with conveying information being only a secondary objective.

Did we see Rivi scream, “You’re done, Wacko, you’re done! Canceled! Canceled!” in the last episode or is that new to this previously? I feel like I absolutely would’ve had things to say about a) Wackner being called “Wacko,” which has been RIGHT THERE this whole time, and b) the use of “Canceled,” which is a thing Rivi would never say but is VERY thematic (you know, cancel culture and also Wackner having a TV show and also this being a TV show that’s wrapping up* Wackner’s arc).

* The way things end this episode, I’d say we’re done with Wackner. The Kings have said they aren’t sure about the plan for season six, so never say never, but I think that if we see Wackner again, it will be as part of a different arc.

I went back to 5x09 and while we do see the same shots of Rivi screaming, whatever he’s saying in 5x09 is in Spanish. So either he was saying this in Spanish or the dialogue here is totally new.

I’m a little sad that I knew in advance Robert King had directed this episode, because I want to know how long it would’ve taken me to guess. I’d like to think this first shot, of Diane flopping down on her bed in a very pretty floral print dress, then Kurt flopping down in the opposite direction, would’ve given it away. We usually don’t get shots that are both striking and kinda balanced unless RK’s directing.

This also has some big season three opener vibes—the scene where Diane turns to Kurt and says, “I’m happy,” thus jinxing the entire season.

Diane and Kurt are about to go on vacation, which means, of course, that Diane and Kurt are definitely not about to go on vacation. I’ve watched 12 seasons of this show; I know all the tricks!

If I didn’t get it from the initial staging of the opening shot, the camera panning to Diane and Kurt’s suitcases and then back would’ve been another clue that RK directed. He ALWAYS has the camera in motion.

I love that Diane’s travel outfit is a dress you could wear to a fancy party and a statement necklace. Of course it is.

And if I needed evidence that RK and MK wrote this episode (which I didn’t; it is a finale so I knew they wrote it), Diane quoting Waiting for Godot is a clue there.

I really should read Waiting for Godot, shouldn’t I?

“Wow. Educated and a good lay,” Kurt responds. I know that the political stuff between Diane and Kurt can get more than a little murky, but banter like this reminds me why they stay together and why politics never drive them apart. Also, it’s really nice to see Diane and Kurt have some fun banter that isn’t about politics.

And Diane making kissing noises and asking Kurt to meet her halfway! This just feels like I’m spying on someone’s private life and I love it. Not in a voyeuristic way, since this is actually a little uncomfortably private, but in a, “ah, yes, these do feel like real people” way. This is the kind of “a little goes a long way” character moment I always want more of, and Kings episodes ALWAYS include stuff like this.

And there it is. The phone rings as Diane and Kurt are about to start out for the airport. Diane thinks the call must be for Kurt, but it’s for her. It’s a very flustered Liz, informing her that STR Laurie’s execs are on their way to the office for a surprise visit.

If the Diane/Kurt scene didn’t tell me that Robert King directed, I almost certainly would’ve gotten it from the sudden cut to Liz, walking through the hallways and doing a million things at once with a ton of background noise. No one loves chaos the way Robert King loves chaos.

This episode STRONGLY reminds me of the Wife season five finale. It is equally chaotic and also spins a ton of plates. But, mostly, the similarity I see between the two episodes is that they are both extremely fun and captivating to watch because of how much momentum they have, but everything just feels slightly hollow and not exactly focused on the thing you want to see.

(Shout out to my friend Ryan, who messaged me the 5x22 comparison before I could message it to him!)

I decided I should rewatch the first few minutes of 5x22. I am now 15 minutes into 5x22 of Wife and 2 minutes into 5x10 of Fight. Oops.

Apparently, STR Laurie planned a surprise visit because they heard RL was dysfunctional. You don’t say!

I felt like 5x09 concluded with STR Laurie being won over by Allegra and the RL team, so this is a bit of a surprising place to start the episode. But, since Diane seems surprised too, I’ll allow it.

Now Liz and Diane have 90 minutes to agree on a financial plan! Kurt’s on the phone with the airline before Diane even hangs up with Liz.

Diane is determined not to lose out on her vacation and asks Kurt to change the flight to 8:00. “Kurt, we are going on this vacation if it kills me!” is a line I would worry was foreshadowing on basically any other show.

The RL/STRL PowerPoint template is pretty ugly. They want to call 2021 their best year yet, thanks to the deal between Rivi and Plum Meadow Farms we saw last week. Even though we saw champagne and signatures, the deal isn’t done yet because Plum Meadow can back out if Rivi goes to jail.

RK also loves close-ups more than any other director on the show; I do not love close-ups.

The Plum Meadow deal is such a big deal that for the quarter, they go from $45 million to $5 million without it. They should just not say numbers. I can believe it’s big enough to take them from a modest profit to being behind projections or whatever, but I can’t believe that they have $5 million in other business and $40 million on this one deal.

It seems that Rivi was arrested. I don’t think it is ever said in this episode why. I assume the arrest relates to his behavior in Wackner’s court, since there were police officers there, and I suppose that Rivi is a big enough deal the police would actually take him to real court, but are we not going to address the weirdness of Rivi being arrested in a fake court where his employees are being tried, then taken to a real court by the same people who just an episode ago were disillusioned with real court? This seems like a plot point.

Carmen on a frantic phone call in the backseat of a car feels very 7x22.

Who is James that Carmen has in her contacts!? And why does everyone always put Liz in their contacts as “Elizabeth Reddick” when everyone calls her Liz?

Carmen calls Marissa to go argue in Vinetta’s court since she’s on Rivi duty. Carmen doesn’t take Marissa’s job in Wackner’s court seriously and then notes that this instruction is coming straight from Liz, so Marissa falls in line.

Wackner’s case of the week is about rural Illinois wanting to form its own state separate from Chicago. There’s a farmer who feels like his tax money is only going to the big city and he wants it to stay in his community.

They’ve just now added stage lighting to the set of Wackner Rules, dunno why they wouldn’t have done that earlier!

I don’t know what standing you’d have to have to bring a case about wanting to divide the state in two to court, or if this is even something a court would or should decide, but, sure, Wackner and Cord, go for it. There are no rules!

This map splitting Illinois into two new states that Cord is holding is a dumb prop because Galena, where this farmer is from, is in the same section as Chicago. Do I pause every reference to Chicago on this show and then google information to see if the writers bothered to look it up or pretend they’ve ever set foot in Chicago? You know I do.

“Secession!” the audience screams. Does the audience of Wackner Rules really want to see this?

A Good Fight Short! And it really is short: “Stop this obsession with secession and breaking up the Union. It’s boring and it’s dumb, end of song.” I feel like that’s the thesis statement for this episode, or one of them (that this episode seems to have about ten thesis statements is kind of my problem with this episode, tbh). This episode is very much about danger of things becoming too fractured—the COTW, the copycat courts, the firm drama—and I feel like the writers come around to just saying no, this is enough, we need structure and consistency.

But more on that later. MUCH more on that later.

Marissa is swearing more because “the world has required it.” She notes this to Wackner as she calls him out on the secession case. Cord barges in.

Take a look at the employee of the month poster on the back of the door at 5:39. Then at 5:40, look at what’s in the box just to the right of the center of the screen: it’s an employee of the month poster with Wackner on it! Cute easter egg. (Would Marissa definitely notice this and have questions? Yes. Is this here as a cute easter egg for eagle-eyed fans? Almost certainly.)

“Insane is just one step away from reality if you get people to believe, and you know what makes people believe? TV.” Cord explains when Marissa asks how they can possibly be litigating this case. That’s thesis statements two and three, folks. The first is that if you get people to believe, then anything is possible, which sounds like a tagline for a Disney movie but is actually super dangerous; the second is that reality TV is a way to persuade people and change opinions.

So we’ve got: (1) Factions are bad. (2) People are persuadable and the rules don’t actually matter. (3) Reality TV changes minds. Let’s see if there are more.

(Yes, these theses do kind of add up to a whole—The rules don’t matter, so if you persuade people, through reality tv, you get factions of people believing their own sets of rules and facts—but what I'm interested in tracking throughout this episode is how well the writers actually bring these theses together.)

(And this is setting aside that key themes in previous episodes, that I think many of us were looking for resolution on, included outlining the flaws with the extant “real” justice system and exploring the role of prison in the justice system. From this episode, I don’t think the writers ever intended to really tackle either of those issues. That’s fine—I'm not sure that TGF has something to say about prison abolition and I don’t want a thought experiment where the writers actually try to fix the legal system—but feels a bit disjointed. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but 5x08 and 5x09 needed to do a better, clearer job of setting up this finale. The key themes of Wackner’s arc were always present, but they needed to slowly narrow the scope so the resolution felt inevitable and clear. Instead, we spent time on things like parking spaces (when we could’ve had a real plot about how Wackner’s court gains legitimacy through violence, incarceration, and playing on people’s frustration with the real systems) and Del’s focus groups (when we could’ve instead done a plot about Wackner gaining fans who wanted to use his methods to do ill). Everything I just mentioned in the parentheticals is in the show! It’s not subtext! We see it all! We see Cord use violence and prisons to enforce Wackner’s rulings; we see the cops turn to Wackner out of frustration; we see that the people drawn to Wackner Rules and to Wackner’s court are increasingly sounding more and more like right-wing populists! I can’t be too hard on this arc because, again, all these ideas are there. I’m not coming up with them on my own!)

I’m just saying: this ending would’ve been a lot clearer and a lot more interesting had the writers focused on what I mentioned above instead of the distractions of the last two episodes.

Whew, that was a ramble. Hope you’re ready for more rambles.

On a similar note, I’d like to reiterate my problems with how the writers used Marissa after the private prison reveal. I don’t have much more to say than what I wrote last week, but it’s another example of the same problem. Marissa objecting to Wackner’s court because she notices what it’s becoming and how Cord plans to use it for political gain (two Illinoises (??) changes the Senate and the Electoral College...) always was going to be part of the endgame. Marissa only seriously objecting after the fourth or fifth line Wackner crosses feels bizarre.

Cord does NOT like that there is another court, and wants to protect Wackner’s IP. Wackner, as we saw last episode, does not feel threatened by the other court. In fact, he seems to be excited by it.

I love Liz questioning Diane’s outfit like it’s unprofessional. It’s a little low-cut and showy, but I don’t think unprofessional is the word I’d use for it.

Now they have 45 minutes to decide The Future Of The Firm and Diane wants to be considered a name partner. Oh, that debate is still raging?! Every time I think it’s done it comes back, which should probably be a sign to Diane that her options are to leave and start something new, jettison Madeline and the others, or step down. Staying on as name partner and calling it a black firm is just not an option.

“Diane, there is a split in the firm that...” Liz starts, before asking some associates to leave the room. Ha! The reveal Liz and Diane aren’t alone is a pretty fun touch.

“The Black equity partners don’t want to be in your work group,” Liz informs Diane. “Because they think they’ll be punished by this firm?” Diane asks. “No, that’s paranoia. We don’t punish here,” Liz responds. “Of course you do. My fracking client. My union client. The Black lawyers who work on those cases—they're considered traitors” Diane says. “Because those CEOs are racists,” Liz counters.

Lots going on here, and I’m not sure I understand it all. Why would the equity partners—who are partners—feel like they’re being punished by being in Diane’s work group? (And also what does a “work group” mean and why haven’t they talked about it in the past?) When Diane starts talking about the lawyers who staff her clients, she’s not talking about equity partners; she is talking about associates.

And people are giving associates shit for working on Diane’s clients whom they happen to be staffed on!? That’s sad, though believable.

“So what do we do? Only bring in clients who can pass the racial smell test?” Diane asks. I mean, actually, yes. IF the goal is to be a black firm and to have that designation mean something in moral terms rather than marketing terms, then yes.

“It’s okay if you’re a drug kingpin like Rivi, but it’s not okay if you want me as lead attorney?” Diane says. Also, yes. Diane makes good points here.

“Diane, this is not about you,” Liz counters. Um, sure, but it has to be about something, Liz. Unless you’re trying to build a firm you don’t control that makes 88% of its revenue from a drug dealer (40 million out of 45 million this quarter = 88%; I told you they shouldn’t give me numbers) but happens to have black people in charge, you have to grapple with this question. I don’t think anyone who’s fighting for the firm to be a black-led (not owned, bc STRL) business is the type of person who thinks that having a black-led firm that does all the same shit as any other firm is in itself a good thing, so you NEED to address your client list. Madeline is anti-Rivi, anti-Cord, anti-Wolfe-Coleman (the rapist guy), pro-social justice, and pro having a black led firm.

“I mean, why... why do white people personalize this?” Liz asks. “Oh, now I’m just a white person?” Diane responds. I... don’t know what to do with this! Liz is right that Diane is taking this personally; Diane is right that Liz needs to deal with the rest of the client list. But no one is saying the things that REALLY need to be said: That all their decisions are meaningless in the shadow of STRL, and that deciding to be a black led firm isn’t the end of the discussion if they haven’t decided what types of clients they want to have.

“What happened, Liz? Last year we were intent on an all-female-run law firm,” Diane starts. Oh, THIS AGAIN! Diane never learns, does she? She never seems to realize that no one she’s approached with this idea is NEARLY as in love with it as she is. She probably still wonders to herself why Alicia—who partnered with her at the end of season seven basically just because it was the easiest, most frictionless thing to do—didn't seem more committed to their firm.

“Diane, there is history here that we are trying to...” Liz says, but Diane cuts in to note that women (women like Diane Lockhart!) have history too! In fact, she’s spent “35 years fighting gender discrimination to get to this position.” “And we have spent 400 years fighting racial discrimination to try and, you know...” Liz starts, before cutting herself off to get back to the ticking clock.

Sigh. Just talk about the actual thing instead of talking around the thing, guys. Diane is obviously deserving of A name partnership, in the abstract. This is an undeniable fact. And while Diane is definitely making this about herself rather than the big picture, I don’t think Liz trying to trump Diane’s 35 year career with the history of black people is going to win her any arguments? Like, just say what you mean and say it clearly. What Liz, I think, wants to express is that Diane’s individual accomplishments aren’t the issue here and everyone thinks she’s deserving (though Liz suggested Diane was not deserving a few episodes ago, which I didn’t understand then and don’t understand now). The problem is that Diane is trying to fight a battle that’s about something much larger than herself with, “but I'm a good lawyer!”

And that’s KIND OF what Liz is saying here, if I add all her sentences up and read between the lines, but, again, why not just say it?

“Alright, now we have 43 minutes to fix race relations, gender relations. STR Laurie’s gonna fire our asses, and you know it,” Liz says. I am curious what that would look like. Wouldn’t that just mean that STRL wouldn’t control them anymore? I’m sure being fired would be bad and all, but wouldn’t it free them from the contract they wanted out of last year?

“Let’s split the firm down the middle. I hire half the lawyers, you hire the other half,” Diane suggests. What does this mean? Why are you hiring your employees? Huh?

“You hire the white associates, and I hire the black associates?” Liz confirms. This seems like a very bad idea that would make things a lot worse and open them up to lawsuits! I also still do not know what they’re even talking about. And I don’t know why Allegra isn’t a part of this conversation.

“I’m not saying it’s good. I’m just saying it’s what we’re left with. It's what we can agree on,” Diane says. I really wish I understood what “hire” meant in this context because I don’t understand why they have to split anything or why this has to be done now and I don’t understand why this would possibly be a good solution. Can you imagine the backlash when people realize all the white people report to Diane and all the black people to Liz and that people were taken off of the accounts they’ve worked on for years to accomplish this? And this must be something that the employees would know about eventually; otherwise they could just randomly assign half to Liz and half to Diane.

I’m sad Madeline isn’t in this episode because I feel like we needed to see more of her POV as well as the associate POV. I don’t really understand the divides at play within the firm or what the staff and other partners are asking for, but I suspect it isn’t this.

Hallucination Jesus is back, and at least there’s actually a point to him this time (he shows up when Jay is in Vinetta’s court and reminds Jay that Vinetta will rule based on her religious beliefs). I still dislike the hallucinations.

Jay advises Marissa, who is Jewish, to talk a lot about Jesus in her defense.

Charmaine Bingwa is really great as Carmen, and obviously she is not fluent in Spanish, but it’s so funny to me that the only time you can hear that she’s Australian is when she’s trying to say Oscar like she’s speaking Spanish.

"I know you’re hiding something when you speak English,” Rivi says to Carmen. Heh.

“Community court” is such a nice, unthreatening term for referring to Wackner and his copy cats. Thanks for that, Carmen!

It’s a smart plan to mention Jesus a lot, I guess, but Jay and Marissa both should’ve realized that Vinetta is too smart to tolerate obvious pandering. I’m a little surprised Jay doesn’t get up and argue since Marissa is, obviously, not familiar with the New Testament.

Marissa wins this round with facts and logic.

Why is the judge who was handling Rivi’s previous charge now in bond court? Make it make sense.

I like that Carmen calls out the ASA for swearing hahaha

Why... would this Matteo kid just casually mention he was holding a gun, omg.

In Vinetta’s court, you can be charged with murder and tried because... you had a gun and also there were murders at other times. Coolcoolcool no problems here.

Community courts for civil cases? Sure. That’s basically arbitration. Community courts for criminal cases? Bad, bad, bad idea.

Vinetta’s reasoning: “Those murders happened on our street, and the police haven’t convicted anyone because they don’t care. We care. This is self-defense. And how is it different from your court?” Aside from the whole imprisoning people in her basement thing, Vinetta’s not wrong. I almost brought this up last week but hesitated because I couldn’t remember the details enough to decide if I wanted to recommend it, but there’s a book I read a few years ago that seems relevant here: Ghettoside by Jill Leovy. Again, been a while so don’t take this as a wholehearted endorsement or anything, but from what I remember, the central issue at the heart of the book (it’s non-fiction) is that a poor black community (I think in LA?) doesn’t trust the police (in part) because the police don’t solve murders, and then with no way of getting justice through the court system, there’s more violence as a stand-in for justice. https://www.vox.com/2016/8/26/12631962/ghettoside-jill-leovy-black-crime

I’m not sure if that’s QUITE what Vinetta is saying but it seems similar, and it’s a decent point (though not a justification for her court). Why should she trust the system to improve her community when it’s ignored her community for years?

I like that the writers chose two very different, very understandable characters for their community courts. It’s easy to see why Wackner and Vinetta feel the need for alternative courts; it’s easy to see why others would trust them. This arc doesn’t really work unless there’s a legitimate frustration with existing systems...

Marissa calls Wackner’s court a “joke,” which she should understand by now isn’t the case. (Marissa’s smart; she knew it wasn’t a joke the second she saw David Cord get involved.)

Vinetta accuses Wackner of copying her court, which alarms Marissa. This isn’t addressed again, and I don’t know if it’s true! I could really go either way on this. On the one hand, I absolutely believe that Wackner saw/heard about it, liked it, and did it himself without thinking much of it—and if this is the case, then the ending where Vinetta gets in trouble for violating Wackner’s IP is a lot more of a gut punch. On the other hand, I don’t really feel like the seeds for this were planted. We see Wackner innovate a lot and try new things and he has an explanation for why he does everything—how much of that is Vinetta? And Vinetta clearly watches the show and likes it or she wouldn’t have recognized Marissa, so it’s a little hard for me to just believe her claim when literally all I know about her is she has a court that looks like Wackner’s and she is aware of and feels positively towards Wackner rules. Also, Wackner knows about Vinetta’s court (from Marissa) and sounded excited about it last episode. Sure, he didn’t necessarily know which one it was, exactly, but I assume if he’d copied the idea and then heard about a case involving people from the exact same community where he found the idea... his reaction would be different. So IDK. My reasons for doubting Vinetta’s claim are probably based a little too much in things I’m not meant to spend that much time paying attention to.

“I fucked up. It’s in the same court, but now it’s a murder case,” Marissa tells Diane. I do like hearing characters admit when they fucked up!

Diane hears that STRL is delayed, so she heads out to help Matteo. When she goes to change into her pantsuit, she finds that she’s grabbed Kurt’s bag by mistake. “Of course. That makes sense,” she reacts.

Diane pushes her flight to the next day, also telling Kurt, “And yes, for some reason, I took your suit instead of mine, so fuck it.” I love it when the characters feel like real people.

I am not sure why Kurt is getting to the office when Diane is leaving or why Kurt is there—to pick Diane up on the way to the airport, maybe?

Carter Schmidt walks into RL at the worst possible time, threating to blow up the Plum Meadow deal. Another 5x10 to Wife 5x22 similarity: he’s in both episodes.

Liz heads out to help Carmen with Rivi, and then STRL arrives. Oops.

Credits!

One thing about Wackner’s court that should definitely be a warning sign even though it seems noble: he ignores just about every warning sign, like this rowdy crowd screaming WE LOVE YOU WACKNER or the potential interests at play in a case about secession, because he thinks his fair judgement can overcome these obstacles. If the world worked that way, there’d be no need for his court in the first place.

Is anyone representing the State of Illinois in this trial? If not, then... how is it happening?

Dr. Goat, some dude who claims to have some hidden historical document about how Illinois is actually two states, is clearly making stuff up and yet Wackner indulges him and Cord. I feel about this the same way as I feel about the Devil’s Advocate: That Wackner would not allow this to go on for more than five seconds before calling bullshit and therefore there is no reason I should have to sit through it.

Why is some guy screaming, “No taxation without representation” like dude you absolutely have representation. But of course, I’m expecting him to be logical, and the point is that he is not.

Dr. Goat’s Latin phrases—shock!-- don’t actually translate into anything like what he said. Even though this information is verifiable by a quick google search, the crowd starts screaming “Liar!!!!” at Marissa. If only I could say this felt unrealistic.

Wackner asks Dr. Goat to bring in the document.

“You look like you’re heading to the beach,” Vinetta says to Diane, who looks like she’s heading somewhere but definitely not to the beach. Vinetta asks where Diane was headed on vacation. Diane says she’s headed to Lake Como, and unnecessarily clarifies that “It’s in Italy.” She assumes Vinetta doesn’t know that... but Vinetta does.

“So you’ve been there before?” Vinetta probes when Diane says it’s beautiful there. “Just once. We don’t get away often. We thought we’d splurge,” Diane says. Vinetta stares at her and smiles, and Diane hits her head on a basket that’s hanging in Vinetta’s kitchen. If I just write out the dialogue here, it sounds like a perfectly average conversation, but everything about this conversation is so charged: Diane is afraid to look like a wealthy white woman; Vinetta’s pleasantness is pretty clearly also a way of sizing up Diane.

Vinetta shows Diane pictures of neighborhood children and young adults killed as a consequence of gang violence. You can see she’s not trying to do anything other than help her community, even if her methods are highly questionable.

Diane argues that Matteo should be given over to the police; Vinetta disagrees: “The police haven’t arrested anyone for those murders, any of these. Since the BLM movement, they’ve pulled back from our streets. No one’s coming to help. That’s why I started this court. It’s not a joke to us.” Wait I’m sorry did Vinetta just blame lack of good detective work in black communities on... the BLM movement?!?!?! Is there any foundation to this!? Why can’t it just be that the police weren’t actually doing a good job of policing/finding justice and were being antagonistic towards the community instead of being helpful and no one trusted them?? That explanation is literally right there.

Jay suggests the Jesus strategy, again.

“It’s women! We could just move on, install men,” STRL guy says. I don’t know if he’s joking, but ugh. Also, what is RL if it has neither Diane nor Liz? A bunch of lawyers who will all promptly quit when they see their bosses get fired and a few opportunists?

Kurt is watching golf in Diane’s office, and the STRL people love it. Of course Kurt accidentally makes friends with them.

Court stuff happens. It’s not good for Rivi, and then Liz and Carmen come up with a theory: Plum Meadow is stalling the deal so they can find Rivi’s more stable second and make a deal with them instead.

Wackner giving Dr. Goat a single point on his stupid little board, for any reason related to his obviously fake totally unverified document, is dangerous. Why would you signal to a crowd that’s clearly not interested in fact that they have a point? That’s basically egging them on.

I know Wackner’s judgment is obviously not 100% sound—need I remind you of the PRIVATE PRISONS?-- but I thought it was more sound than this.

Wackner shows off his knowledge of paper and proves that Dr. Goat’s document is a fake. Why... did he just give Dr. Goat a point???

Or is he moving the point from Dr. Goat to Marissa?

Dr. Goat sounds like a fake name I would call a character in my recaps long past the point of anyone other than myself remembering the joke. (See: Mr. Elk)

“The truth is ugly. The only thing uglier is not pursuing it,” Wackner tells Marissa. How is taking on a case about very obvious falsehoods, funded by someone with a vested interest in the case, that gets people riled up, some noble pursuit of truth?

STRL and Kurt are now drinking and discussing hunting, while Diane’s arguing for Matteo in Vinetta’s living room. Vinetta is—as was always obvious, sorry Jay—far too smart to fall for this patronizing bullshit. She screams at Diane and plays back a recording (on a baby monitor) of Diane coaching Matteo to lie about his faith.

Soooooo yeah no you can’t do that, that is bad, recording conversations between lawyers and their clients is not good even if it leads to you exposing their schemes...

Then Vinetta places Diane under arrest, which obviously isn’t going to end well for Vinetta.

Liz and Carmen suggest a post-nup to Rivi to see if Isabel is planning on turning on him.

“I’m going to have to kill her,” Rivi says sadly. I don’t think Rivi will ever kill Isabel because we already did that with Bishop.

I’m going to assume that Diane chooses to stay in basement prison instead of calling one of the many, MANY, MANY people she could call to get her out/take down Vinetta because she doesn’t want the situation to be publicized or further deteriorate. That said, it’s really not clear why Diane just accepts being sentenced to basement prison with a cell phone.

Love the STRL man looking at that picture of Diane and HRC. They’ve gotten so much mileage out of that photo.

Wackner’s court has no rules, but at least since it has no rules, I can’t complain about how its rules make no sense!

What is this, debate practice?! Ugggghhhhh I can’t deal with this case for much longer.

Marissa takes a breath, then decides to pursue a strategy she knows could blow everything up.

“Then why care what Judge Wackner decides? Why should you defer to him? Why defer to anyone?” Cord says that’s the point—the people have decided to trust Wackner. “So if you don’t like this court’s decision, you’ll just start a new one?” Marissa asks. “I guess,” Cord concedes.

“So then why does this matter? This court?” “It matters only insofar as we continue to agree that it matters,” Cord says. “So if you don’t like Judge Wackner’s rulings, you can just ignore them and create a new court?”

Good point, Marissa. Good point. (Does this count as a thesis?)

“I’m guessing that I will like the way the judge decides,” Cord says. Well, that’s basically a threat.

Wackner takes a break and heads to chambers—without Marissa.

Kurt goes to visit Diane in basement jail. He’s granted a conjugal visit, which means Matteo gets moved up to the bedroom so Diane and Kurt can have some alone time.

Diane is staring at an image of Lake Como in her cell. I thought it was odd she brought a printout of her vacation destination with her, so I LOVED the line where she explains that Vinetta printed it out for her. COLD. (You know who also would’ve done this if they’d for some reason had a basement prison? Bree Van de Kamp. You know what show DID do a basement prison arc I’d rather forget? Desperate Housewives!)

I love how Diane responds to basement prison by making jokes non-stop.

“I thought the craziness would end with 2020,” Diane says. Nope.

Kurt brought alcohol; Diane brought pot gummies.

I love that Kurt has never had pot before. I was going to say that I bet Diane’s had a few experiences with recreational drugs when I remembered we had a whole damn season of Diane microdosing.

Christine and Gary’s acting and their chemistry really bring these basement prison scenes to life. The writing and directing are really sharp, but it’s the actors who make these scenes something special. You can tell Diane and Kurt love each other a lot. You can tell they’re disappointed about their vacation and exhausted by the chaos of the day. You can tell they’re in disbelief over this situation but also find it funny.

Didn’t Rivi and Isabel have an adult daughter who died of COVID a few episodes ago? Weird she isn’t mentioned in this scene. Maybe from a different marriage/relationship?

Isabel called the SA’s office because she thinks Rivi’s a threat? I think this is a power play.

Heh, Carmen saying, “Shut a black woman up!?” in disbelief in court. Love it.

Isabel instead flips her story and supports her husband and fights for his release. With no intervention from Plum Meadow, this gets the judge to free Rivi. I don’t really understand what��s happened here or why. I get the resolution, but I don’t get why Isabel called the SA or why this went away so quickly. I still don’t even get why Rivi’s been arrested.

Diane and Kurt put up Christmas lights for ambiance and talk about how they never go on vacation.

“I wanna see the pyramids on this coast!” drunk & high Kurt insists, hilariously. “I mean hemisphere. I like the Aztecs. They, they care about people.” I’m not going to transcribe the rest of the dialogue because it loses its magic when you’re not watching the scene.

After some fun banter about travel and movies, Diane changes the topic. “I should quit, shouldn’t I? That judge upstairs? She looked at me like I was the most entitled white bitch on the planet. And that’s the way they look at me at work.”

Kurt tries to say that’s not true, but Diane knows it is: “Yes they do. I’m the top Karen. And why do I care? I mean, I... I could find another firm. I could quit. I can’t impose my will on people who don’t want me.”

YES. I see a lot of debate over what the “right” thing to do is here. But I think we are long past “right” and “wrong.” At a certain point, this stops being about absolute moral truths. If Diane doesn’t have the respect of her partners and employees, that is a very real problem for the firm and for Diane. How can she continue to impose her will on a firm that doesn’t want her, all the while claiming to be an ally? (The back half of that sentence is the most important part.) Forget whether or not Diane “should” have to step down. Forget what’s “fair.” If the non-Diane leadership of RL thinks the firm should be a black firm, and the employees of RL think so too, and Diane just doubles down on her white feminism, she’s creating an even bigger problem for herself and ruining her reputation in the process.

Kurt stands up on the prison cot and warns Diane she might make a decision she’ll regret. This scene is so cute. Why can’t other shows do drug trips where the characters just act silly and have great chemistry? Why does it always have to be some profound meditation on death whenever characters get high?

“I think I like starting over. I like the chutes and ladders of life. I mean, I want the corner office, but then I wanna slip back to the beginning and fight for the corner office. I mean, I think maybe it’s better that I don’t get the top spot,” Diane says. LOVE to hear her admit this. I’m not sure I would’ve come to this conclusion on my own, and it sounds like it’s a bit more about how the writers like to write (you know, the “we love our characters to always be underdogs”) than Diane, but... you know what? I believe it. I fully believe it. Diane LOVES to fight, LOVES to feel like she’s in the right, LOVES power plays and to be making progress. She LOVES winning. The fact that she isn’t just choosing to retire right now, even though she’s past retirement age and has a great reputation, is in itself enough for me to believe that she would find it fun to repeatedly start over.

Plus, it’s a fun new direction for the show to take in season six, because they’ll get the same sense of conflict without the actual conflict. This season’s arc was firm drama and resulted in a firm name change... but it didn’t feel like a knock-off of Hitting the Fan. Diane trying to work her way back into power (I assume by becoming a better actual ally, otherwise doesn’t she just end up in the same exact situation?) should also provide conflict without being repetitive.

Hahahahahaha Kurt immediately reacting to this serious statement by being incredibly silly and horny and then Diane singing “I Touch Myself” to him, man, I love these two. I want to know the story behind this song choice.

Wackner emerges from his chambers. The score is tied. Wackner calls Cord corrupt and notes that they can’t just decide to call Downstate Illinois a new state based on his ruling. Now it’s thesis time!

“I was taken by Mr. Cord’s arguments of individualism. So much of our country has been built on people finding their own way, not being held back by bureaucracy. Yet, if we only follow individualism, that way lies chaos. And that was not the point of this court. Or at least not my point. Judgment for the defense. There will be no Downstate Illinois.”

“If we only follow individualism, that way lies chaos.” is probably the clearest of the many theses of this episode. To recap, we have:

(1) Factions are bad. (2) People are persuadable and the rules don’t actually matter. (3) Reality TV changes minds. (4) Institutions only exist when we collectively agree they exist (5) Individualism = chaos.

But let’s put a pin in this for now and let the chaos of individualism play out.

The crowd does not like Wackner’s decision, and decides that an appropriate way to express their displeasure is to make anti-Semitic remarks towards Marissa and then start throwing chairs. What nice people.

As the crowd goes totally 1/6 on Wackner’s court (thanks for pointing this out to me, Ryan—I cannot believe I didn’t make the connection myself!), the door slamming into the desk finally pays off since Marissa and Wackner are able to use it to keep the crowd from reaching them.

They immediately turn to the police, or they would, if they could get service. I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that as soon as things get bad, they want to involve the existing system.

Wackner Rules is, somehow, still taping in the midst of all the chaos. I don’t know if I think they’d air this, but someone certainly would. (I wonder if any of the cameras we see in these scenes are actually the cameras filming the other angles of the riot.)

Cord shakes his head and walks out, unharmed.

“You think they’ll kill us?” “I think they might,” Marissa and Wackner fret.

“My dad said the whole world would be a better place if everybody realized they were in the minority. ‘No matter where you are,’ he said, ‘Make sure you keep an eye on the exits, and make sure you’re closer to the exit than the Cossacks are to the entrance.’” Marissa says. Love Eli Gold coming through with thesis number 6 (and maybe thesis number 7).

“Your dad sounds a little paranoid,” Wackner says, correctly. Remember how I mentioned I accidentally wound up watching 5x22? Eli calls Alicia and responds to her hello with, “DISASTER!!!!” I miss him.

“He was, but he wasn’t wrong. He said, ‘Stay away from parades. They’re cute until they’re not. And don’t trust any pope who was Hitler Youth.” “What’s that law called?” “Godwin’s Law. My dad said anybody who argued for Godwin’s Law has never been near an actual crowd. Crowds love you, they hug you. Then they grab a gun and try to kill you.”

“Why? Why do they do that?” “I don’t know. Hate is fun. It’s clear-cut.”

I really like all of this. It is a little preachy, but it isn’t wrong and it’s self-aware. And, more importantly, it’s in character. I absolutely believe that Marissa would tell lots of stories about Eli in a moment of extreme stress. It’s nostalgic, probably comforting, and it also helps her feel like she’s on the right side with the right arguments. So, even backed into a corner, she’s still a winner: she has theory on her side.

Wackner speaks a foreign language (I do not know what language but I wish I did) and says, “A guy could get killed doing this,” which makes him and Marissa laugh as things crash around them.

Idk about you all, but I couldn’t really get myself to actually worry about their safety during this scene. Maybe Wackner’s, just a little, but I got the sense we were supposed to focus more on the chaos and destruction and monologuing than on the actual danger. That’s not to say the stakes didn’t feel high, but rather to say that this didn’t feel like an action sequence where you don’t know what’s going to happen next. The point was to watch the court fall and think about why it fell, not to worry about if Marissa would live.

Diane and Kurt are woken up by sirens and loud noises. The cops arrive and are shocked to find professionally dressed white people in a basement cell. They let Diane and Kurt out with compassion, but scream, “don’t you fucking move” to the people on the floor.

“It’s okay, they didn’t do anything,” Diane says. This is, as I theorized earlier, probably why Diane just sits there until her punishment blows over instead of escalating things.

If the cops weren’t there to free Diane, why were they there? Why, because they like David Cord and David Cord has gotten Chicago PD officers to protect Wackner’s IP.

If I had to say one thing in favor of Vinetta being the originator of the community court idea, it would be that it’s SUCH a gut punch to watch Diane and Kurt walk away from their bizarre little adventure as Vinetta gets arrested in the background, and it hits ten times as hard if Vinetta’s only being charged because some white guy is claiming IP that’s actually hers.

(I think Vinetta is probably, at this point, actually being arrested for imprisoning people illegally, but, still.)

“Pfft. Some judge,” one of the cops who adores Wackner says of Vinetta. Racist much?

Marissa and Wackner emerge from the backroom. “I think I better get back to work,” she says, meaning her RL job. "Me too,” Wackner says, grabbing a Copy Coop apron. He’s an employee of ten years.

I don’t think this lands as well as it’s meant to. I think the point is supposed to be that Wackner’s just some guy—not a billionaire, not an academic, not a judge, not a lawyer—with an idea. But it’s a little too neat. And it doesn’t explain how Wackner financed his court initially, nor does it explain why he has basically unlimited access to Copy Coop space and resources. I’d buy it if he were the OWNER of Copy Coop, but I have so many questions about him being an employee.

Diane tells Liz she’s actually going on vacation this time, and they laugh about how Kurt bonded with STRL.

“I want you and Allegra to be name partners. I’ll be an equity partner,” Diane says. “Why?” Liz asks. “Five years ago, when I hit rock bottom, this firm took me in. So I don’t like the idea of splitting this firm in two. And I can’t lead if no one will follow.” “And your clients?” “We’ll manage them together.” YES! I love this. I don’t love it because I necessarily think it had to go this way, but because it’s so refreshing to see Diane say that she actually is willing to take a step back because she cares about the firm and the people there more than she cares about being a name partner. This isn’t something we usually see. When we hear “this firm took x in” it’s usually being said incredulously against someone who’s decided to leave and steal clients (cough, Hitting the Fan, cough).

It’s been pretty clear for most of this arc that Diane and Liz like working together and they like their firm, but that no one (other than Diane, I guess) is willing to let RL lose its status as a black firm, and that the employees and equity partners weren’t going to be satisfied until Diane stepped down. Diane really had three options: Stay and piss everyone off and claim the whole firm for herself, quit and go somewhere else and totally abandon the good working dynamic she had, or step down and put her money where her mouth is.

Also yeah the clients were never actually going to be an issue! They were only an issue because Diane intentionally went about informing them she was stepping down in a way she knew would make them worry!

“I think I need to prove myself,” Diane says. I’m not sure that’s the key issue or that she can ever prove herself fully, but we’ll worry about that next year.

“I missed you,” Liz says. “I’m here,” Diane replies. “I know. Thank you,” Liz says.

Diane decides she’s going to move downstairs so Allegra can have her office. I think there’s another office on this floor, since she, Adrian and Liz all had offices. This feels a little bit like Diane’s in love with the idea of making things difficult for herself and maybe hasn’t fully grasped the point, but, you know, I’ll take it.

Diane tells Kurt her decision and he asks if it was the right thing to do. She says she doesn’t know—but she says it with a smile. Kurt notes he’s going hunting next month with the STRL folks and will put in a good word for her. Ah, yes, because STRL still controls all of this and all of this is moot! Thanks for the reminder Kurt! Diane says she wants in on the hunting trip. Of course.

And the elevator doors close. Remember how closing elevator doors was a motif earlier this season??? It’s back!

Then we get a little coda with Wackner Rules airing a new episode that’s just violence and destruction. This sequence seems to straddle the line between being there for thematic reasons for the viewers and there to show what happened in the show’s universe, but I think it’s main purpose is theme, so I will not go on a full rant questioning why Del would want to air this.

A white blonde lady in an apron watches the destruction of Wackner Rules. She looks concerned. “That was violet,” she says with dismay. And then we see she’s holding a guy in a jail cell in her kitchen.

And then we see other courts, as America the Beautiful plays. One’s in a garage debating kicking someone out of the neighborhood; another is across the street about the same case. There’s one in Oregon about secession. There’s one among Tiki Torch Nazis deciding only white people can own property. There’s (inexplicably) one about pronouns. There’s one with arm wrestling, one that happens while sky diving, and a bunch of others. It’s pretty ridiculous, and not necessarily in a good way. It feels at once like the natural extension of the Wackner Rules show and like an over the top parody you’d see on another show. Tiki Torch Nazis screaming “only white people can own property!” is the opposite of subtle writing. Tonally, this sequence feels more like the zany humor of Desperate Housewives or the insanity of BrainDead than anything TGF has done before (and TGF’s been plenty surreal), and it doesn’t quite work for me. It feels like it is trying to prove a point in the corniest, most on the nose way possible. It almost feels like it’s parodying its own plotlines.

On my first watch, this ending for Wackner left me stumped. I knew the writers were making an argument against individualism (Wackner’s speech + the repeated references to The Apprentice) and cults of personality. But I couldn’t figure out a real life analogue to Wackner’s court, and since this ending was so obviously trying to be About Something, that bugged me. Sure, that last sequence could be an argument against people making community courts, but WERE people making community courts? I didn’t see the urgency.

And then I talked to @mimeparadox. And as soon as he said that it was about factions and people playing by their own sets of rules beyond the justice system, it clicked. I’d been looking for Wackner’s plot to be a commentary on the legal system. It is much broader than that. It’s a commentary on the weakening of democratic systems (the Big Lie, etc.), more broadly, and Wackner and his common-sense approach are just a way to get liberal viewers to go along for the ride.

Now that I understand the point, or what I think is the point, I like this conclusion. Circumventing the system leads to chaos; that’s why we have institutions and bureaucracy, and I think the show is arguing that these institutions should still be respected despite their flaws. The many theses of this episode all come together to make this point (though the reality TV stuff is a little more tenuous and I'm a little shocked we got through all of this without any commentary on social media?): If we stop having a shared belief in institutions and instead follow individual leaders (whom we may learn about through reality TV), the rules will stop mattering and we’ll end up with a fractured country and widespread violence.

But, and maybe this is just about me being upset I missed both the obvious 1/6 parallels AND the point of the arc the first time through this episode (my defensive side feels the need to also note I first watched this episode at like 5 am when I was barely awake), I don’t know that I actually think this episode does a great job of driving its point home. There are SO many moving pieces to the Wackner plot and SO many references. There are so many threads we never return to from earlier in the season, and there’s so much that strains credulity (like Wackner taking Dr. Goat seriously for more than a split second). It’s pretty clear what the themes are—even though I’m saying I missed the point my first time through, I've hit on all these themes separately in past recaps and posts—but, I dunno, something about this episode just feels scattered. Maybe it’s all the moving pieces, maybe it’s all the moments where it sounds like the characters are voicing related ideas that don’t quite snap together to form one coherent picture, or maybe it’s that Wackner’s plot gets two endings (the actual ending + the coda) and it’s up to the viewer to put together how they relate.

I really don’t know. At the end of the day, I think there was a little too much going on with Wackner and that the writers needed to use the episodes between the private prison reveal and the finale to narrow—not broaden—the scope of what they were trying to do with Wackner. But I also think that what they were doing with Wackner was really, really smart and original. I don’t think I can overstate how impressed I am that the writers took an idea that sounded, frankly, awful when I first heard about it and turned it into something captivating and insightful that I was happy to spend nine weeks watching.

Overall, a few bad episodes aside, I thought season five was the strongest season of TGF yet. I haven’t seen this show be so focused in... well, maybe ever. Having two overarching plots that received consistent development and felt like they were happening in the same universe at the same time REALLY helps make season five feel like a coherent whole, and I can’t wait to rewatch it.

#tgf thoughts #the good fight

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myhauntedsalem · 4 years

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Funeral Home Workers Describe The Creepiest Thing They’ve Witnessed On The Job

1. Corpse sits up all by itself

“My neighbor awhile back before I moved was a mortician. One night he had a body he was preparing for a very early morning wake or service (whatever was going on, it was unusual, and it required him to work into the wee hours of the morning on this particular corpse).

So as he’s working on it, he turned his back to grab some tools or supplies, and the angle he was standing at with regard to the corpse left the body visible just out of the corner of his eye.

As he was looking down at whatever tools he was getting, in the corner of his eye he saw the body slowly start to sit up.

His fight/flight instinct immediately kicked in, and he ran to the stairs as fast as he possibly could, but he was so clumsy trying to get up the stairs he tripped and was pretty much crawling and clawing his way to the top.

He was just near the top before his senses finally came back, and he knew it was rigor mortis. He collected himself and started to laugh at how absurd it all was.

He had been doing this for 15 to 20 years at that point, and he had never had a freak out like that before where instinct overtook knowledge and experience.

He actually sheepishly admitted he had to go clean himself because he had soiled his pants in the panic.”

2. Dead man holds on to medical technician

“I used to work in tissue recovery. My least favorite part was prepping a donor for recovery, as it included shaving the arms/legs. Once, we had a donor who was very freshly deceased. I held his hand to shave his arm, and his fingers curled around my hand as rigor mortis set in.

That was exceptionally creepy.”

3. They groan as they are moved

“If the deceased have a lungful of air, then moving them causes it to release. When the air travels through their throat, you get some minor vocalization, but it’s usually just a liquidy gurgle. It still gets me sometimes, though, if I’m working alone.”

4. Lights flicker every time a new body is brought in

“I’m a nurse, and the only place I’ve ever seen the lights flicker is just outside the morgue. They are fine almost all of the time but when we bring a body down the lights always flicker. Really creeps me out.”

5. A body shivers in the presence of a living one

“I was filling out paperwork over one of the bodies while working late when it shuddered. Never saw that before or after, no explanation.”

6. Funeral home lights go on and off by themselves

“I’ve only experienced something one time and that was around 10PM, after two years with no activity at the location. I had turned all the lights off in the chapel, and when I went to check the casket door, the lights turned back on. I was nowhere near the switch.”

7. Ceremonial doves are devoured by hawks

“I’m a funeral director/embalmer and I have seen… just so many bad funerals. One that really stood out was the time that a family released doves in a rural cemetery, after being told not to, and a hawk ripped one to pieces.”

8. A woman with a glass eye requested it be left open for her service

“I was a part-time funeral director’s assistant. We once had an elderly woman with a glass eye who requested it be kept wide open for the service. Gave me a hell of a fright when I saw her in her casket.”

9. Man has his dead dog waiting for him at funeral home

“My mother worked in a funeral home. One day, she was asked to go up in the attic to look for some old records, and came across a baby coffin. She went to move it with her foot, and could tell it wasn’t empty. Immediately went back downstairs and asked the director about it.

Apparently it’s a client’s embalmed dog that’s being stored until he dies, so that they can be buried together upon his death.”

10. Identical twin shows up to funeral in the same outfit as his deceased brother

“My mom works in the funeral business. Sometimes I would come to work with her and help her set up the chapel for a service.

One service in particular was of a little boy who drowned. His parents dressed his identical twin brother in the same outfit as him for the funeral.”

11. Funeral workers dress as clowns for a funeral

“We had a clown one time. This person was buried in full clown costume with makeup and all.

At the family’s request, the funeral directors were clowns too. They supplied costume and did our makeup. Family and friends had one teardrop painted on near the eye.”

12. Funeral tech is asked to clean eyes that aren’t there

“One of the creepiest for me was having to clean a gentleman up…I was supposed to clean his eyes, as well.

Opened those up only to see two empty sockets. No eyes. Apparently, it was a post-autopsy embalming.”

13. A man punches a corpse while paying his last respects

“I worked at a funeral home for a while when I was a teenager. After an open casket viewing a man came in saying he wanted to pay his respects privately. No big deal, that is fairly common.

We led him into the viewing room, opened up the casket and told him to take his time.

A couple of minutes later we’re sitting in the office and hear a really loud popping sound, followed by running and the door slamming.

We ran into the viewing room and the deceased’s mouth was hanging open and the skin was odd looking. The best we can figure is that he punched the guy and took off”

14. Woman tries to steal her child’s body during the funeral

“I have a sad one from a funeral director’s perspective. Separated parents were mourning the loss of their toddler at the visitation before the funeral. The mom was grieving unlike any mother I’ve seen grieve over the loss of a child – almost fake.

She proceeded to pick up the deceased child, “hide” him in her coat, and walked out the door when no one was looking.

The other funeral director I work with found the mom running to her car where he stopped her and grabbed the kid. We found out two months later that the mother and her new boyfriend had physically abused the kid.”

15. Decomposition so bad, that cremation was only viable option

“A man was brought into us after lying dead in his garage for 3 weeks in the summertime. He was covered in bugs, his skin was black and green, and the skin sloshed right off the bone. I couldn’t do anything for that case, he was cremated.”

16. Woman’s hair and nails keep falling out

“We were prepping and washing the body of a 90 year old woman. One of her toenails fell off, and the hair on her head kept falling out. It took a good 3 hours to get her hair put back in one strand of hair at a time to make it look acceptable.”

17. A man brings his new girlfriend to his wife’s funeral

“Both my parents are funeral directors. At one service, the wife of an older gentleman had passed away. The widower showed up to the funeral with his new girlfriend who was much younger and was wearing a very revealing outfit.

Whenever the husband would begin to cry, the girlfriend would bring his head to her bosom to comfort him while stroking his hair.

Shortly after the ceremony ended, the husband asked one of the funeral directors about the flowers from the funeral.

He wanted to know if he could take them with him for the wedding he was having that weekend with his new fiancé.”

#Funeral Home Workers Describe The Creepiest Thing They’ve Witnessed On The Job #paranormal #ghost and hauntings #ghost and spirits #haunted salem #myhauntedsalem

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sadachmesarthim · 3 years

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peter learns to shut the fuck up challenge

oh my god hi okay i’m (kind of) freshly back to tumblr and haven’t written content like this in over half a decade please be nice to me i am a broken 21 year old who can’t take criticism for shit

marvel cinematic universe: peter!centric, eventually starker

content: graphic depictions of violence, extremis!flash, selective mutism, brief talks of dying but it’s not that bad tbh, slightly aged up peter (he’s 18), use of slurs and derogatory terms, both in reference to self and someone else

summary: peter’s taken enough shit in his life. he lost his parents, he lost ben, he’s dealt with the number of shitty men may brought home - flash was like the cherry on top of the shit sundae. after a particularly bad day of taunting, peter is fed up, and decides to teach flash a lesson - but our baby boy is in for a big surprise when he discovers he isn’t the only freak kid at midtown tech.

............................................................................................................................

Peter'd been categorized as a loudmouth for years - by May, his friends at school, the Avengers he fought (and fought beside) in Berlin.

Never able to stop his nervous ramblings, his mouth tended to run away with him. He somehow never developed a filter, often getting himself into quite a bit of trouble. Usually his pretty face and quick thinking kept him from any real repercussions.

But there was one such instance he... couldn’t exactly get out of.

He'd been struggling with Flash's bullying for years. He'd called Peter names, hurled slurs, spat out indecencies - normally, Peter could take it. But after the bite... they all landed so much harder.

Peter didn't understand it - spiders didn't have emotions, did they?? Even if they did, that doesn't explain why he's so sensitive. If anything, you'd think the bite would make him aggressive, or argumentative, or angry - spiders were predators, not pussies. What was his problem?

He'd finally had enough one day at the end of his senior year. Flash was being particularly snide - excitement from graduation pushing his normal antics into overdrive.

"Oh come on, Penis. You gonna fight back one of these days or are you just gonna keep hanging your sad faggot head around town?" Flash followed him out of the school building, laughing at his own "joke".

What he wasn't prepared for was an actual answer to his question.

"Yeah, actually. I will."

Peter turned around, grabbing Flash by the straps of his backpack. He glanced around, checking for spectators, before shoving his bully into a secluded alley just ahead of them.

Flash, surprised (but not entirely put off), worked himself free of the backpack and slid behind the smaller boy. Sure, Peter was enhanced, but Flash still had a good head on him height wise.

"Finally decide to manhandle me back, huh Parker? That's so cute." Flash smirked, looking him up and down as he crowded Peter into the corner. "If you're feeling so big and brave, go ahead."

Peter looked up, confusion warping his soft features. Flash... wanted Peter to hit him? Why?

Before he could actually ask, he found himself collapsing on the ground, gasping for air. Flash drew his fist back, shaking off the punch he'd just thrown into Peter's side. He snatched his bag off the ground, tossing it away from Peter & beside a nearby dumpster.

"Christ, you look so pathetic down there! I almost forgot how small you were for a second," he laughed, taking a second to gloat. "Come on, Parker. What happened to finally fighting back?"

Peter'd always been a bit overzealous - I mean, c’mon, the kid grew up listening to stories about Steve Rogers for fucks sake, how could he not develop an underdog complex? He'd spent his childhood defending his family name, his teens protecting May from overzealous asshole boyfriends, and the most recent few watching over all of Queens.

So yeah, of course Peter was going to take this opportunity to kick some ass if he could.

He struggled to his feet and stumbled forward, regaining his balance and breath as he met Flash's eyes. The tiny success was short lived, though, as he felt himself flying backward and up into the brick wall behind him. What the actual fuck?

Peter's senses never failed him - and yet, they just had, twice in the last five minutes! What the fuck? How was Flash able to hit him without warning? How was Flash able to throw him?

The confusion must've been all over his face - Flash laughed as Peter crumpled & didn't attempt to get up again. He crowded into Peter's space, getting close to the little spider's ear.

"You really think you're the only special one in Queens, don't you Penis? You think you're the only one that can break a grown man in half?" Peter groaned, wincing at the pain behind his eyes. "Newsflash, freak. You're not special, you're not important, and you're not leaving this alley alive."

It was then, as Peter glanced back up, that Flash's eyes were glowing a sick green-grey unlike anything he'd ever seem. The senses that'd previously failed him so tragically now did a full 180, sending a wave of cortisol through his system. The need to runclimbswingescapego washed over him, the spider inside completely overriding the human.

As if he'd read Peter's mind, Flash quickly grabbed him by the throat, cutting off both his airway and any potential escape route. He squeezed hard, dragging Peter up the wall until they could look each other in the eye. He crowded closer, setting Peter's skin on fire in the worst way possible.

Peter was choking, clawing at the hand on his throat and trying to kick the monster in front of him away. Flash, annoyed, tightened his grip until Peter's hands dropped and his face turned purple.

Flash chuckled, dropping a now barely conscious Peter into a puddle on the rocky ground. He opted to trade his hands for the steel toed boots he'd so carefully laced up that morning, lips curling as the idea took shape in his head.

The first kicks landed on Peter's stomach, forcing air and blood from his mouth. The next were more stomps than anything, not aimed with any thought or finesse. Each landed heavier than the first, quickly pushing Peter toward a complete blackout. The spider was still screaming, but Peter couldn't do jack shit about it.

He lay back, resigned to his fate. I'm going to die here, he thought, desperately wishing he'd just kept his fucking mouth shut. A little bit of bullying was so much better than dying a week before graduation.

But, somehow, he didn't. Sure, Flash beat him all to shit - May had the hospital bill and the new grey hairs to prove it. But Peter lived.

It took Flash a while to get it all out of his system. The more pain he inflicted, the brighter his eyes got, slowly taking over any illusion of empathy his once brown irises had. He did, eventually, tire, and grow bored of kicking the same stunned spider. When he’d had his fill, he reached down for his backpack, hooking it onto his shoulder and smiling to himself.

Before leaving, though, he turned back to Peter, crouching down and settling mere inches from his face.

“Looks like I got Peter Parker to finally shut the fuck up.” Flash looked down at him as he rose, spitting on Peter’s face as a last hurrah before ditching him and the alley completely.

Peter crawled his way out of the alley after Flash left, blood soaking his shirt and face so swollen he was nearly unrecognizable. He dragged himself to the nearest shop, the kind (and very distraught) owner calling an ambulance the second she'd seen him.

............................................................................................................................

6 weeks later he was back to 100%, diploma in hand, ready to get the fuck out of Queens and up to Cambridge. He'd spent enough time being coddled, people hovering over him and tending to wounds he knew would take care of themselves. These took significantly longer, the extent of the damage worse than anyone thought - but he still healed, and was ready to stretch all eight of his metaphorical legs and get back to school.

The only problem? He couldn't speak.

Okay okay, maybe that's a bit dramatic - his vocal cords and tongue and everything still worked perfectly fine. But every time Peter opened his mouth, words failed him.

It was like Flash's hand was back around his throat, forcing air out of him and the words back inside. How the fuck was he supposed to go to school if he was effectively mute? Peter’d learned Italian in school, not ASL (a choice he was quickly regretting), but even if he had, he wasn't sure his hands would be willing to speak for him either. All forms of effective communication were stolen from him.

He had less than a month before he was supposed to be in the MIT dorms and starting class. 90% of his prereqs required group discussion and verbal participation, so Peter was well and truly fucked if he couldn't figure this out.

Besides, what superhero couldn't talk? How lame was that? Half of his whole schtick was sassy one-liners. At this point, Spiderman was becoming synonymous with snark!

His first night back in May's apartment, he cried himself to sleep thinking about it. This sudden feeling - all grief and loss and shattered expectations he didn't even know he had... his whole world was suddenly gone, and he didn't know what the fuck to do.

The worst part?

He didn't even have the words to ask for help.

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leejeongz · 4 years

Text

PETTY

genre: fluff w a tiny bit of angst, enemies to lovers

member: treasure’s jihoon

word count: 2.3k

never in your life had you realised how much you hated biology until you had to study the carbon cycle, which is pretty ironic considering you cared so much about the environment. you could tell your classmates felt the same way too, most of them were doodling or whispering or just generally looking like they’d rather be anywhere else.

“i’m not sure you’re all getting this” your teacher realised, giving up on her powerpoint and going to sit down “how about you tell me what the carbon cycle is. this can go towards your grade, this can be your presentation!” she got more excited with every word coming out of her mouth “present to me the carbon cycle! this time next week, dress nice, it's going to be recorded. okay, you can leave early for today, gives you more time to work on the presentation” she smiled sarcastically, dismissing you all.

dumping all of your stuff into your backpack, you sighed rather loudly. you teacher looked over towards you, the teacher you could have murdered right now. “i hope i get to hear that volume from you during your presentation y/n” she joked. she was a nice lady, well she was usually nice to you, you had a similar sense of humour, but she could be lazy at times, maybe it was because she’d already got her qualifications, as she kept reminding you all.

“hurry up” you looked up to see your seatmate haruto had waited for you and was planning on walking home with you.

both of you were pretty puzzled by the task since your teacher had told you nothing and so you decided to sit in the library until the end of the school day, trying to figure out what was going on, rather than going home and winging it.

“i mean, i think i get it now” he announced, looking up from his book which he secretly had hidden his phone in “i’d help you but i don’t want our presentations to be so similar that mrs ‘i’m too lazy to teach you anything so do it yourself’ thinks we copied from each other”

you gave him a dirty look, knowing he was joking. “well then maybe i will no longer be your seatmate, no more cute stationery for you, unlucky pal”.

“now now, don’t be too hasty” he said while packing his things up once again “my friend said he can help you”.

Haruto had been obsessed with setting you up these days, ever since you told him you were ready for a relationship, he’d been trying to make one happen. now was the perfect opportunity to hook you up with yet another one of his friends, it was an unlikely relationship, he thought, but who knows.

“who? which boy is it this time? do you even have any friends left?” you asked.

“his name is jihoon, he got an A* for biology so i think he’s qualified enough to teach you.” he presented to you his phone with a picture of him on it.

you knew exactly who he was talking about. park jihoon. the name sent shivers down your spine. he was the head boy at your school when you first moved there. you had such bad memories of him. he once “accidentally” spilled water all over your work in the library, he always told you off for your uniform being “a mess” even though it was always immaculate, you saw him litter on numerous occasions and to make things worse, he tried to a rumour that your old school had lice and that you’d probably brought them with you. luckily not many people believed him, a lot of people shared the same opinion as you: there was just no way he was a nice guy.

“yeah, i don’t think it’s gonna happen” you scratched the back of your head “people whose name start with j… i’ve been warned about them”

“literally shut up that’s the most pathetic excuse i've ever heard. i’ve just sent you his address and he’s already agreed”

you couldn’t really not go now… you weren’t a bad person like jihoon was so you didn’t want to let anyone down. you put on your school hoodie and some leggings in a rush to get to jihoon’s house on time, it was the other side of the city and you didn’t want to be late, especially considering how bad the bus service was.

when you arrived, you suddenly remembered how attractive this boy was and it made you even more unwilling to knock on his door, how could someone so mean be blessed with such a nice face? before you even had the chance to consider knocking, a smiling young boy answered the door.

“hi! i’m-“ he stopped, making eye contact with you for the first time. he stood tall in what you presumed was a new sweatshirt and jeans, your heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. “you? you want my help? is this some kind of joke?” he scoffed “i guess you can come in” he shut the door behind you while whispering “the audacity” under his breath.

you sat on his scratch free leather sofa, it was brown and matched perfectly with the freshly decorated living room, you gathered he’d just moved there, probably his first house. you thought it was funny how his cute hello kitty socks really juxtaposed the whole vibe of the house, a small smile forming on your face. you were so caught up in your thoughts you didn’t even realise he’d asked you a question.

“did i say you could sit down?” he asked sternly. you never really knew what you did wrong to him, you just kind of… accepted it.

“right yes sorry” you stood up and awkwardly adjusted the hem hoodie. “uhh so it’s on the carbon cycle and i have no clue-“

“i know what it’s on you idiot, i wasn't gonna agree if i didn’t, was i?” he interrupted “well are you gonna sit down then?” he asked only to receive an eye roll from you as you sat down again.

you placed your bag next to you and pulled out your laptop. positioning it on his coffee table, you failed to notice jihoon had already left the room.

“what’s that?” he asked, placing two glasses of juice on the table “is it from the 90s?” he asked, following it up with an extremely condescending laugh.

you looked up at him, the heat radiating off your face resulting from a mixture of anger and sadness. “what did i do? why have you hated me since day one huh?” you finally snapped, it’s a shame jihoon barely heard you though.

“i’m gonna presume you asked why i hate you and the answer is” he cleared his throat “your old school”.

your face had definitely cooled down by this point “my old school?” you laughed.

“as head boy it was pretty much my job to hate any other school and the students there, just a shame you were one i guess” he confessed, his stern face softened as he spoke. “it was petty really, but petty is my middle name so what can i say?”

“i can tell” you responded, eyes narrowing as a sarcastic smile formed on your face. “shall we get to work now?” you asked, not wanting to waste any more time with him because somehow it made it even worse that the reason he hated you was just your old school.

“oh did he not tell you?” you looked at him puzzled and shook your head. “tonight we were just supposed to get acquainted because i don’t have much time, i’m going out later and i want to look fresh for the ladies.” he pulled twice on his sweatshirt, that typical cliche “cool guy” action just suited him for some reason. “so we have like 3 hours that’s all.”

“what, 3 hours won’t be enough to complete this?” you could have cried thinking about it, throwing your head back when you saw that jihoon had shook his head. “i’m gonna have to come over again aren’t i?” you asked, dreading the answer you already knew you were going to receive.

“fraid so” he responded.

it took some time, but you finally came around to the idea, not that you had a choice, you couldn’t do this without him. you reached into your bag once again, this time pulling out your metal straw and placing it into the orange beverage on the table.

“ooo fancy” jihoon cooed, eyes following your hands. “let me get mine” he got up, dashing to the kitchen and returning with his pink, silicone straw. “save he turtles, am i right?” you naturally laughed along with him which you soon stopped when you realised you were joking? with park jihoon?

throughout the next half an hour there were countless incidents which were similar, only you’d begun to let yourself laugh. were you maybe finally starting to like this boy too? this is the closest you’d ever felt to liking one of haruto’s friends, it just felt weird that it had to be him.

as if on queue, you received a phone call from haruto. you answered sheepishly, not wanting to distract jihoon who was now intensely staring at his phone as if he was waiting for an important message. “hey ruto, can you text me instead?” you requested. before he could answer, you put the phone down. a few seconds later your phone chimed.

ruto 🍩: how is it going? made any moves yet? i mean done any work yet? ;)

you tutted as you read the message which caught jihoons attention. “what is it?” he inquired, getting out of his chair and moving your bag. he sat down right next to you and peeked over your shoulder. the intimacy was nice, you didn’t like that it was nice, but it was.

“a little privacy please?” you moved your phone from his eye line and turned to face the other way.

you: i kind of like him ya know? it’s too early to tell. i mean i don’t hate him now i guess 🤷🏻‍♀️

swoosh, away your message went. had you really just told him that you liked someone you used to hate?

ruto 🍩: interesting… i’ll have a word with him.

a certain panic set in, but you couldn’t do anything about it when you heard a beeping noise coming from jihoon’s kitchen. you suspected it was a fire alarm, the way he abruptly got up and rushed in there.

“it’s ruined” he shouted, there was a hint of anger in his voice that seemed familiar. you hesitantly walked towards his kitchen and asked what he’d supposedly ruined. “nothing it’s nothing, just go back and start working, we can do it in 2 hours if you work fast. are you capable of that?”. the soft jihoon that you were just getting used to had suddenly disappeared, it felt like a kick in the stomach and you knew your presentation wasn’t gonna be great now.

for the next hour or so you worked tirelessly on the presentation, now making a poster instead of a powerpoint since what jihoon wanted to do, you HAD to do right now. there was undiable tension in the air, neither of you wanted to talk about it but it didn’t stop you from being curious. an occasional phone buzz broke the silence, but neither of you checked your notifications. not until you once again threw yourself back into his sofa, this time your head was in your hands. you understood nothing going on in your poster and the “help” you were getting was minimal.

jihoon grabbed his phone, not really sure on what to do when he saw you.

haruto: yes jihoon, they like you now make your move

haruto: bro… ur silence is concerning what’s going on there?

he gently placed his phone on the glass table, slightly moving the oversized poster, brushing your leg as it moved and catching your attention.

he stood up from the carpet and sat beside you.

“i’m sorry i flipped like that on you” he whispered while his hand made its way to your knee. “we can come back to it tomorrow” he glanced at you.

“wont you be hungover, or won’t you be trying to shoo away some one night stand? i know your type” you sniffled through tears. no one had seen you cry before but for some reason you didn’t feel embarrassed.

“well actually i’ve decided to not go out tonight. i have a netflix account that isn’t getting used and i was wondering” he started, shuffling closer to you “if you wanted to watch something with me? you know, just to take your mind off things” his eyes widened looking back at the disastrous poster in front of him.

“maybe” you thought for a while, remembering what haruto said he was gonna do and realising he’d probably done it “on one condition” you smirked.

“what is it?” he flirted, prepared to do anything for you. by now he’d somehow managed to wrap his arm around your shoulders too, just adding to the ambiance he’d created in 0.2 seconds.

“tell me what you ruined in the kitchen” you begged.

“it was-“ he paused for a second, wondering if he should tell you or just show you. he pulled his arm from around you and quickly went to get the tray from the kitchen. “i attempted to bake some cookies in the shape of clouds and the sea and cows, but as you can see they are definitely not medium rare, more well done i’d say. i was thinking we could have filmed a little video with them tomorrow or something when they were cool as your presentation. kinda glad they burnt, why would i want to waste such a good idea on you” he emphasised the “you” and faked heaved, a teasing tone evident in his voice.

“we could still ice them or paint them or something” you enthused.

“anything to spend more time with me, huh?” he teased further, foreshadowing the future of your relationship with each other.

🔅please let me know what you think about this! i’m not really confident posting it so any feedback would be much appreciated! i also just wanna say that the character i made up for jihoon does not reflect him as a person! i’m sure he’s not an evil person irl i just wrote this for entertainment🔅

#treasure #treasure imagines #treasure fluff #park jihoon #park jihoon imagines #park jihoon fluff #jihoon #jihoon imagines #jihoon fluff #treasure jihoon

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billiejs · 4 years

Text

Three times the boys are blown away by pop culture and new technologies (and one time when Julie can’t resist the 90s)

Julie and the Phantoms, Julie/Luke, the timelines are not super accurate but bear with me, 1.9k

ALEX is obsessed with the Harry Potter books

Luke checks his phone again for the seventh time in the past ten minutes, his guitar hanging from his shoulders.

“DUDE!” He shouts out, eyebrows furrowed. “Are you gonna join us or what? We were supposed to start rehearsing half an hour ago!”

Alex’s head peeks from the loft: he’s laying on the pavement beside the sofa, and his eyes are barely visible from behind a battered copy of a book.

Julie sighs. Luke looks ready to blow Alex off, but she’s pretty sure it’ll make no difference.

“I’m sorry! I’m nearly finished with this chapter, I swear!” Alex turns a page, eyes glued to the book.

“You said that three chapters ago!” Luke’s eyes bulge out and he turns to Julie, pointing frantically upwards. “Is he serious? Are you serious?”

Julie opens her mouth, but she’s not sure of what to say. Alex has been like that for the past three days.

“Hey guys,” Reggie strides in, an open bag of Doritos in one hand and an aura of complete calm around him. Julie hadn’t even noticed he’d left. “Here Luke, you look nervous. Have some of these.”

Luke looks at Julie, then at Reggie, then he shoves his hand in the bag of chips and starts munching angrily on a handful of Doritos.

“Hey, ‘lex!” Reggie happily calls out. “Want some Doritos?”

“Not now, I’m reading!”

“IT SHOULD BE, NOT NOW I’M PLAYING!”

“Luke, calm down.” Julie pleads, “He’s about to finish the book anyway.”

“Whatcha reading, Alex?” Reggie calls out to the loft.

“It’s those damn Harry Potter things.” Luke seethes. “It’s like he can’t stop reading, he’s obsessed! Am I the only one who remembers we have a gig in four days?”

Reggie nods sympathetically at Luke.

“Yeah man. But that’s a really cool story, I watched the films with Carlos last week,” Reggie mimics a brain explosion. “I was mind blown. Hey Alex, which one are you reading?”

“Half-Blood Prince.” Alex replies, “And I’m almost done so…”

“Ohhh that’s a good one. Did you already get to the part where Dumbledore dies?”

A stunned silence falls over the studio.

“Oh, boy.” Julie covers her face with her hands. A heavy rumble of footsteps announces Alex’s descent from the loft: his hair is sticking in weird directions and his eyes are bloodshot. He looks at Reggie like he’s ready to murder him.

“Dumbledore what now?” Alex hisses, stepping forward.

“Dies. Snape kills him. Were you there yet?”

Alex points his drumstick at Reggie’s face like it’s a magic wand.

“NO, I WAS NOT!” Alex shouts. “HOW COULD YOU, REGGIE?”

Before either Julie or Luke can do anything to stop him, Alex throws himself at Reggie and they both roll around the floor, trying to get on top of each other. Julie slips an arm around Luke’s waist to give him a comforting squeeze.

“We’re not going to get anything done today if we let them do this.” She reminds him. Reggie is currently smacking Alex with a throw pillow and Luke observes attentively.

“Just a little more. Alex deserved it.”

LUKE adores School of Rock

“Your boyfriend,” Alex comes into the kitchen with his hands on his hips and glares at Julie, “Is a hypocrite.”

Julie, on her tiptoes to reach a jar of strawberry jam on the top shelf, just stares back.

“Be a little less specific, will you?”

“Come see for yourself.” Alex grabs her by the hand and pulls her all the way to the studio, where Luke is currently busy playing a guitar solo kneeling on the floor, hair drenched in sweat.

“NO YOU’RE NOT HARDCORE,” he shouts, “UNLESS YOU LIVE HARDCORE!”

“Ah,” Julie stands back and enjoys the show. “Luke, have you been watching School of Rock again?”

“No,” Luke lies, smiling like Julie’s just brought the sun back after a dark winter. “Maybe?”

Julie purses her lips, smiling. She gets why Luke identifies so much with that movie. Jack Black’s love for rock music and the whole ‘stick it to the Man’ talk are all Luke is about.

“You got mad at me for wanting to read Harry Potter instead of playing…” Alex accuses.

“But I am playing.” Luke protests, his fingers sliding on his guitar to play a riff that Julie’s pretty sure he’s stealing from Hendrix.

“Not our music!” Alex protests. “And before you even think about suggesting it, no, we’re not going to dress up in school uniforms for our next gig.”

“You would rock a skirt, though.” Reggie points out.

“I would,” Alex flips his hair out, “And knee socks too. But can we please get to practicing now?”

“It’s just, such a good story,” Luke tells Julie in a dreamy tone later that evening, while he’s splayed out in the garden squinting at the sky. There’s way too much light pollution to see any stars though. “I mean, the guy has a dream, and not only he manages to stay true to himself despite everyone going against him, he also inspires younger kids to do the same!”

“Yeah, I know,” Julie laughs, petting Luke’s head in her lap. “You see yourself in him.”

“I do,” Luke grins. “But I’m much better looking.”

Julie lightly pulls at the hair on the back of his neck.

“And people think Reggie is the vain one…”

Luke laughs, nestling more comfortably against her touch. Ever since they’ve become human again, he can’t seem to get enough.

“You know what I was thinking…” he begins, tentatively.

“No.”

“You didn’t even let me speak.”

“I already know what you’re going to say.”

Luke sits up, making puppy eyes at her.

“Come on, Jules! It would be epic!”

Julie sighs, taking Luke’s hands in hers and looking him straight into his eyes.

“No, Luke. You’re not stage diving at our next gig.”

REGGIE can’t get enough of Siri

“Guys, I think something is wrong with Reggie.” Julie announces nervously, twisting her hands as she walks into the living room. Alex and Luke are sprawled in front of the Tv and don’t look half as worried as she thinks they should.

“And you’re only noticing this now?” Alex arches his eyebrows, unbothered.

“I’m serious, guys! Come see!”

Julie guides them upstairs to the room that’s become Reggie’s, and they all peek from the semi-closed door.

“Hey, Siri,” they hear Reggie say, “Does anyone ever ask you, like, how are you?”

“I’m fine, thank you. Helping you makes me happy.”

“That’s very nice, thanks Siri.” Reggie sighs happily, kicking his feet up on his bed. “You never judge me, even when I asked you what a wi-fey was.”

“I don’t know what a wi-fey is. Were you looking for Wi-Fi?”

“I was!” Reggie slaps himself in the forehead. “You get me so well. Here, play our song Stand Tall, it’s one of my favorites.”

“Now playing: Stand Tall, by Julie and the Phantoms on Spotify.”

Outside in the corridor, Julie gestures frantically towards the room.

“See what I mean?” She whispers, “That can’t possibly be okay.”

“Think he feels a little lonely?” Alex scratches the back of his head.

“I mean, he’s basically using Siri as a therapist so…”

“I think you’re overreacting,” Luke shrugs. “He’s always liked robots. Siri is basically a talking computer, Reggie digs that stuff.

Another happy sigh from Reggie as the song ends has them all listening intently.

“So, this is one of the new songs. Sometimes I think to the fact that I actually died and lost my whole family and it’s a bit much, you know what I mean? I would like to find my parents, I think.”

“Here are all the results I found for ‘parents’”

“Wait, you can do that?” Reggie sits up on his bed, his mouth hanging open. “I thought you could only call the pizza guys!”

“Calling: pizza guy.”

“Siri, you’re a blessing!” Reggie is enraptured. “I was feeling sad and you call pizza! It’s like you can read my mind!”

“He shouldn’t be talking to Siri when he feels sad,” Julie hisses. Alex has sort of caught onto her concerns, but Luke merely giggles.

“I bet he’s going to call the milkshake place next.”

“Siri,” Reggie says as soon as he’s placed his pizza order, “Can we call Gordon’s Milkshack next? I have a craving for a chocolate banana shake.”

“Called it!”

(Bonus: JULIE discovers the Spice Girls)

Luke knows that one of Julie’s favorite parts of hanging out with them is introducing new technologies and pop culture wonders for the Millennials and Gen Z experience; she does this thing where she tilts her head to the right while she watches them discover something new and has a cute little smile Luke can’t get tired of seeing.

He’s tried to do the same for her, but it seems that she already knows everything about the early 90’s.

Except one day, he’s walking into the studio a little earlier than usual and finds it occupied by a Julie like he’s never seen her before, flailing her arms around and shaking her hips to the beat of a sugary pop song he knows all too well.

“If you wanna be my lover…”

Luke slaps a hand on his mouth and hides behind the door, watching Julie belt out Scary’s rap verse in perfect time. When the song ends, he comes out of his hiding spot with a cheek-splitting grin.

“That was amazing!”

“Luke!” Julie’s cheeks are blazing, but Luke can’t tell if it’s embarrassment or rage. Probably both.

“Before you say anything,” Luke holds up his hands, “I was here for only a minute, but you rocked every single second of it.”

“Yeah, I like the Spice Girls, okay?” Julie nervously twists her hair into a ponytail and refuses to look him in the eyes. “I was going through a playlist and it came up, it’s good fun!”

“Hey, no judgment!” Luke laughs, cupping her heated cheek in his hand and pulling her forward or a quick kiss. “You’re almost seventeen now, basically an adult. You can listen to whatever you want.”

Julie smiles against his lips and kisses him again, humming the melody of Wannabe as he does.

“Good thing your friends love me,” Luke laughs.

“We have the same friends, I’m not sure it counts.”

Reggie and Alex choose that very moment to barge in, as if they’d been summoned.

“Practice time!” Reggie announces, pinching Luke’s waist and sneaking out of reach immediately. “No more love-birding here.”

Alex reaches Julie’s laptop that’s still plugged into the sound system.

“Oh, let’s see what your love tunes are…”

“NO!” Julie’s horrified shout comes too late, because Alex is already doubled over laughing.

Luke leaves her to shout about privacy while Say you’ll be there blasts over the speakers.

“I’ll be right back guys.” He says, stepping out of the studio. He’s got an idea and there’s no time to waste.

Luke fishes his phone from his pocket and scans through his contact list. Reggie’s right: these touch screen thingies are pretty cool after all.

“What do you want?” A shrill, annoyed voice comes up from the other end of the line.

“Hello to you too, Carrie,” Luke smiles through the phone.

“Is Julie sick? Did she find out about the surprise party? Is this why you’re calling?” Carrie’s tone sounds accusatory, and Luke just knows that there is no way he’ll ever be able to get along with her. She is the spawn of his traitor ex bandmate after all.

“No, but that’s why I’m calling you.” He explains, “How would Dirty Candy like to become Julie’s favorite performance of the party?”

There’s a pause.

“I’m listening.”

Luke grins. He’s about to win the best-boyfriend-in-the-universe award.

“I hope you’re ready to Spice it up, Carrie.”

_______________________________________________ Thank you for reading! I know the Spice Girls are late 90s so the boys wouldn’t really know them, but bear with me. Feel free to drop a prompt in my askbox if you’d like! More minifics (x)

#jatp #julie and the phantoms #juke #jukebox #jatp minific #not that mini actually but alas #my fics #juke fics #jatp fanfic

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ivyuns · 4 years

Text

moral of the story ❆

han jisung

genre: angst

word count: 2.8k

warnings: hella sad breakups + cheating + language

A/N: listen to moral of the story by ashe + i need to stop falling asleep while writing, istg this was better in my brian

part one | part two

masterlist

so i never really knew you, god i really tried to.

you started dating your best friend since you were a kid and never regretted one bit of the memories you two shared. you knew dating an idol would be tough but jisung never made it hard for you. sure some stays didn’t accept you, but stray kids was there to help you get through it. after two years of the relationship, it was still healthy or that’s what you wish it was.

stray kids was currently in japan for their tour for two months and god, you missed your boyfriend. the past now four months was hell for you. jisung started to stay in the studio all day and night, then coming home for two hours then went back to the studio. you would stay up for him to come home then him just ignoring you, feeling neglected. all you wanted from him was at least one ‘i love you’. you don’t even remember when was the last time he said it to you.

thought we could really this but, really i was foolish.

you could remember the day he was head over heels for you before he asked you out. exactly two years ago, hyunjin who was jisung’s best friend had told you that jisung had a crush on you. you never understood since you always saw jisung flirting with other girls which broke your heart. you wish you were the only girl for him.

you ignored hyunjin and continued walking to your next class til someone pulled you back and kissed your lips. you widen your eyes as you see it’s your best friend kissing you; han jisung. your mind can’t process anything after you just had your first kiss by a man you loved ever since you were a kid. a for this day, you won’t forget about that very special moment of yours.

4 months go by and you and jisung had your first fight. it was stupid. so stupid. you visited jisung after changbin texted you to come feed your baby since he was producing songs at such a late time. you made his favorite meal and drove to the jyp building where jisung was.

you showed your id to the scanner to open the security door for the building and was greeted by jyp himself. “hello y/n! here looking for you boyfriend?” he laughed. you smiled and did a 90 degree bow. “hi jinyoung!” and laughed. “ah y/n, you don’t need to be so polite. your mother taught you so well! anyways, jisung is the studio room where he always is.” he patted your back and left after you said a thank you.

you go to the room where he is and there you see, a stress jisung with his hair messy and eye bags under his eyes. you go up to him and placed the bag of food in front of him. jisung automatically looks up and sees your beautiful face, his one and only. he smiles with tired eyes and hugs you.

“baby when did you get here?” he muttered and peppers you with his kisses. “like 5 minutes ago, your boss kept me for a minute.” jisung quickly lets his arm loosen around you and panicked. “did he ask to break up with me!?” he lightly shouted. “no baby, he was telling me where you were” you smiled. jisung exhaled our loud, thankful for jyp for accepting you.

you two cuddled on the chair til jisung let’s you have a sneak peak of their new song. you strected your limbs and felt your hand touch a random button. the music was peaceful til all you heard was statics. your head faced jisung’s as he let go of your body, making you stand up while he went to check on the song that was saved on his laptop.

jisung’s hands started to pull his hair off of his scalp as he tried to not yell at you but failed. “are you serious y/n?! that took weeks to finish and you just corrupted the file!” jisung shouted. your lips quivered in fear, not knowing how to reply. “jisung, babe, you can make a new one. its oka-” .. “no its not okay!”. words after words, jisung had a few ugly words spit out of his lips that made you feel more useless. “all you do is come here and annoy me and the boys when we need to work our asses off. just because we act nice to you doesnt mean the boys always have a soft spot for you in their heart. just go and never come back. why did i even like you in the first plac-” jisung was cut off by a door slamming shut.

oh how much did he regret saying those words to you. he knew you were insecure, especially when you feel like youre bothering others. he sat down in his chair and wiped the tears off of his face after seeing the face look you had before you left, full of fear.

you on the other hand was walking to the exit of the building with you head down. ‘hes not going to run after me anyways’.

you walked inside your apartment, full of sadness as you can’t get the words jisung had said about you out of your head. you lay on your cold and empty, but soft bed. looking beside you is where jisung is supposed to be at. turning to your bedside table, you see a picture of you and jisung on your first date as an official couple. you had a cotton candy cone in your hand as you tried to feed a piece to jisung til he kissed your lips. how grateful you were for hyunjin to take a picture of that very special of yours.

tears started falling as you drifted to sleep, not noticing the missed calls and messages from stray kids, especially jisung.

the fight had lasted for almost two week and you felt like shit. you haven’t ate a full meal and haven’t left your bed unless it was for your hygiene reasons.

you stood up a bit too fast and stared feeling weak. you shrugged it off and continued walking to your bathroom which was connected to your room. as you turn on the bathroom lights, your eyes were blinded and started to see black and fell.

jisung on the other hand felt so different. his mind wouldn’t focus on the music, instead it was you. he went to your apartment the past 5 days to talk to you only to see the pin number to enter your apartment to change. first he tried your anniversary day with him, then his birthday, then your birthday, then day when you and jisung got your very first couple pet but nothing worked. today, he went by as he left notes under the doormat everytime he came by, only to see the notes untouched when he went to place another one.

he felt something bad had happened to you so he quickly ran to the dorm to search where you placed the ‘emergency key’ for your place in case something happened. jisung bursted through the entry way of the dorm as he scared the other ‘00 liners. “woah hyung, what are you doing?” seungmin asked.

“i’m trying to find the key for y/n apartment” jisung panted while looking everywhere, “you know the one for emergencies?” hyunjin stood up with his keychain in his hand. “oh you mean this one?” and showed the key with a little picture of you and jisung on it.

jisung immediately grabs the keychain and runs back to your place with a yelling hyunjin behind him, telling him to be careful.

he arrives at your place and places the key into the lock. he rushes to every room to see if his sunshine is in one of the room. he went upstairs and to the room. he saw the bed looking all cold, even feeling cold with your phone thrown at the wall in the corner and picture frames of you and jisung faced down. he went to the closet and felt relived as you didn’t try to run away. lastly, he went to the bathroom and rushed to your cold figure.

he sees your pale figure and realizes you’re not breathing. tears sprung out of jisungs eyes as he rushed you to the hospital.

“i’m so sorry baby”.

you woke up with the sun beaming to the room, a unfamiliar room. you turn your head to see jisung with his hands linked to yours and tears staining his face as he peacefully sleep. your hands twitch and jisung lifts his head quickly. he looks at your with worry eyes and hugs you, “im sorry my love. if i didnt yell at you that night, you wouldnt be in this state. im so sorry y/n.” jisung sobs into your shoulder.

“jisung, baby, its fine. as long as you realize your mistake and come back, its fine. thank you but what happened? why am i here?” your smiled coming down as it dropped as you remembered what happened.

“the doctors said you were lacking nutrients for your body and lost a lot of weight. those could making you feel lightheaded and a risk of passing out. god y/n, if i didn’t go back to the place, you would still be laying on the bathroom floor with no help.” jisung starts to sob even more as you bring his head to your chest, hugging him and telling him ‘it’s okay’.

i said ‘some people fall in love’ with the wrong people sometimes.

you came home after a long day of work. you unlocked your door to see jisung’s shoes on the side and smiled. you walked upstairs and you swore you heard a female voice .. on a call?

the bedroom door was cracked open so you quietly eavesdropped. “i gotta go babes, y/n is home” jisung whispered to the phone. babes? “ok sungie i’ll see you later!” a high pitch voice came out of the phone.

jisung got up from the bed and went to open the door, looking for you as you pretended you just came up from the stairs. “hi baby, how was work?” jisung asks innocently. “it was a lot. can we cuddle?” you went up to him and hugged him. jisung nodded and led you to the bed to cuddle, eventually falling asleep.

it was currently 2 am and you woke up with jisung still sleeping next to you. you almost fell back asleep til you heard a notification from jisungs phone. as his screen lit up, you saw the name of the sender and it broke you.

jiseo 💗

i thought you’re coming over baby ?

please don’t tell me you’re with that bitch still.

i thought you were gonna break up with her today babe?

so this is why hes been so distant. you put the phone away and fall into your slumber, wishing it was just a nightmare.

some mistakes get made. that’s alright that’s okay.

you waved a goodbye to jisung and the boys as they headed to their plane for their japan tour. the night before, you talked to their manager and asking if you could follow along. the manager agreed so now you wait for the next day to go to japan.

you packed all your belongings and headed to the airport. you passed security and handed you ticket to board the plane. as the plane took off, a notification lit up your phone.

jisung baby 🐿💕

hi baby we just finished rehearsing

i miss you already

y/n 💓

i miss you too, stay safe baby <3

after sending jisung a quick message, you exited the app and saw your wallpaper of you and jisung on your first year anniversary date. where the relationship was still full of love. a tear fell onto your screen, missing the feeling of being loved by your significant other. after a little session of your crying, you decided to take a nap of the remainder of the trip.

you think that you’re in love when you’re really in pain.

you arrived at the airport close to where stray kids was touring at. you had called their manager to pick you up, also letting him know you had landed safely to see your jisung.

you waiting about 10 minutes til you saw a car window roll down in front of you, yelling your name. you looked up and saw the driver, noticing it’s their manager. you got up and brought your luggage to the car with the help of him.

during the car trip back to their hotel, you told the manager about you and jisung. you tell him how he’s been really distant and you don’t feel loved again. all he tells you is that everything will be okay and he’s probably just stress from all the comeback and producing.

you two arrived at the hotel and walked in. the manager gives you an extra key card to jisung’s shared room with jeongin. “what if jeongin is in the room with him?” you asked him, feeling worried. “ah don’t worry y/n. i told jeongin that you’re coming to surprise jisung so he’s in the room with seungmin and changbin.” he reassured you. you thanked him and went to the door number of where your boyfriend was staying.

you put the card in the key holder and opens it. you walk inside and lift up your head to see a naked jisung and a naked girl under him. seeing the sweat glistening on his perfect golden skin and hearing moans and grunts made you sick. this must be the jiseo he’s been talking to.

“han jisung!” you yelled out to get the two people’s attention. jisung quickly turns his head to the door to see you with tears falling down your cheeks.

“baby i-” you cut off jisung.

“no! now i know you’re so distant to me. because you cheated on me. i came here to surprise you, not to see you put your dick in someone.” you paused for a second after harshly wiping the tears falling. “i don’t understand what i did wrong jisung. w-was this 2 years just a joke to you? our best friend days?” you sobbed. at this point, the girl who was under jisung had escape from his embrace and ran away after putting on her clothes.

“y/n i can explain!” you roll your eyes in annoyance, not wanting to hear his side after you found out everything. “explain what!? that you’ve been cheating on me? i loved you even when you still went behind my back and cheat on me.” your fingers touched the promise ring on your left ring from jisung which was from your first anniversary.

“jisung, from today and so on, we’re broken up. please don’t try to contact me.” you took off your ring and threw it to him. you grabbed the handle of your luggage and left his room. after hearing the door shut, loud sobs left you as changbin who heard everything went to comfort you.

jisung, who heard your sobs aftwr the door shuts made him feel weak. he doesn’t even know why he ended up cheating on you. you were the best girlfriend anyone could ask for and he just ruined everything.

he went to pick up the ring and saw the inside of the ring. ‘sunshine <3’ he read. jisung slid down the wall with the ring still in his hand and started bawling. ‘i’m sorry y/n’.

after the comfort from changbin, you broke the hug. “changbin, please tell jisung i said thank you for everything and his stuff will be on his bed.” thanking changbin and gathered you stuff and flew back to korea after spending your savings in under a day for a jerk.

you got back to your place and quickly went to pack jisungs gifts he gave you, his hoodies, and the memories placed in the photo frames. from best friends to lovers, and now exes. looking at the pictures made you cry more. after what he did, you still love him.

finally getting everything together, you went to go to the boys dorm to return jisungs stuff. you entered his bedroom and placed the box on his bed, waiting for his arrival. you went to look for a paper and pen and wrote:

‘ily’

after putting the materials back where they were, you saw a picture frame of you and jisung on his nightstand. you grabbed the frame and opened his nightstand drawer to storage it, only seeing something that caught your eyes; a small black velvet box. you open it to see a diamond ring. a ring you always dreamed of.

quickly putting the items back in his drawer, you looked at the whole dorm, reminiscing the memories made here. you left the key that jisung had gave you on the table and opened the front door. making sure to lock it before you leave. wiping the tear the threaten the fall after remembering the ring he was going to propose to you with, you shut the door and went back to your apartment.

in the end its better for me. thats the moral of the story babe.

END <3

lmao i might just do a part two-

149 notes · View notes

florenceandthemachine · 4 years

Note

sleeping in the same room with buck is proving to be extremely annoying to eddie because at 2am, they'll be trying to sleep and buck will randomly start singing this is halloween from the damn nightmare before christmas and it's the middle of fucking june, and the only way eddie can get him to stop is to kiss him (for the first time)

“Wait, what do you mean you’ve never seen Toy Story?”

Eddie’s voice is in a weird balance of shock and accusatory, the tone making Buck squirm a little on the couch. Chris had all but conned (well, not really, Buck was just a sucker who didn’t know how to say no) Buck and Eddie into a movie night to start off what was affectionately being called ‘birthday week’.

After all, it wasn’t every day that your kid turned ten. Double digits were a big deal—Buck may not know the Toy Story, but even he knows that.

“I don’t know, no? We weren’t really a Disney family growing up.”

“How is that possible?? You’re basically a Disney prince!”

Eddie has that look on his face, the one he gets whenever Buck tells him something that he thought was normal about his childhood—it’s a combination of sad, and desperate, and a little angry, though Buck can’t figure out why—but he has figured out that defending his childhood doesn’t usually go as well as he hoped.

(“I had food and shelter. What more could I ask for?” Buck asks, one particularly exasperating night, after Eddie gives him that look again. Eddie’s response is so soft, Buck almost misses the “So much more.”)

So they watch Toy Story. It’s not a bad movie, at least. It’s... nicely made. He definitely doesn’t feel his entire body tighten up as the toys strap themselves to a rocket and race after a moving truck. And in no way does he breathe a sigh of relief when they fall through the sunroof.

The movie was nice, but the bet part of the evening is, by far, Chris falling asleep against his arm. It didn’t register immediately—he just put his arm around Chris instinctively to keep him comfortable—but as the credits roll, Buck can’t help but smile as he looks down. Somewhere in between gently pulling Chris’ glasses off and scooping the little man into his arms, he catches Eddie’s gaze, and he actually feels his breath catch in his throat.

Because the look on Eddie’s face fills Buck with want. Buck’s seen it before—the soft, dreamy look that Eddie gets more often than not when Buck and Chris interact with one another—but lately, he’s been noticing it more and more, when Chris is nowhere around, at work, on calls, when they’re just hanging out, and it’s dangerous enough that Buck catches himself seeking it out.

Which is a terrible idea, really, one that would only end poorly for him.

Buck clears his throat to break the spell, nodding to the crutches that Chris left by the couch as Eddie jumps up. “Wanna grab those, and we can get little man to bed?”

Eddie doesn’t know when Chris and Buck fell so in synch with one another, but it lifted a weight on his heart that he didn’t even know was there, knowing that even though Chris didn’t trust easily, he could still trust those that deserved it. He followed Buck’s lead as they got to his room, and had to literally grab onto the doorframe to steady himself as Buck tucked Chris in and kissed his forehead.

Wishing Buck a goodnight was never easy, but somehow that night was harder than it had ever been. Eddie wanted to reach out, to tell him to wait, to stay, but all he could do was swallow and smile and wave when Buck pulled out of the driveway.

Unfortunately, fires did not wait for birthday weeks, and Eddie and Buck were both stuck on an overnight shift a few days later. The beginning of the shift had started out easily enough—back to back calls could keep anyone busy—but Buck felt himself lagging as the night wore on.

Around three AM, Eddie swooped in and saved him, as he had a knack of doing. Pulling Buck into the media room, he all but dragged him over to the couch, picking a DVD off of the shelf and putting it in as he claimed his space next to Buck. As soon as the Disney castle became clear in the opening credits, Buck snorted, turning toward Eddie as he rose his brow.

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. Chris said Disney would be good for you. If I don’t at least try to fill this apparently horrendous gap in your life, I’m not sure he’ll ever speak to me again.” Eddie said defensively, raising his hands in surrender as Buck laughed. It was always nice to know that Eddie was a full grown man who was so totally bent to the whims of his son.

More dads could be like that, Buck thought.

He had to admit, though, he definitely didn’t expect what was coming next. While Toy Story had been emotional, the Lion King was kind of a fucking wreck, hitting him with sucker punches left and right in the first half hour of the movie.

“What the fuck.” Buck actually found himself whispering as the dust cleared, only to be confronted with Mufasa’s whole fucking corpse, because apparently that passed for okay in a G rated kids movie in the 90′s. “Eddie, what the actual fuck!” he said again as Simba entered the scene, not entirely proud of how his voice cracked.

Eddie must have heard it too, because the movie was immediately paused, Eddie giving him a concerned once-over before he had to actually hide a smile, the bastard. “Eddie, it’s not funny! This is fucked up! How is this a kids movie!” Buck hissed, reaching out to shove Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie did laugh at that, even if it was a quiet one, and Buck found himself smiling in spite of himself.

“You want me to continue the movie, or do you need a break?” Eddie teased, but Buck could see it for what it was, an easy out. Waving his hand as he wiped at his cheeks, he sunk deeper into the couch, watching as the scene continued. He didn’t realize how close he had been to Eddie until the other male spoke, voice low in the darkness. “You know, whenever something like this gets to Christopher, he usually lets me hold his hand... just a thought.”

Buck almost laughed at the absurdity of the offer until he turned and faced Eddie head on, the words dying in his throat as he saw just how... soft Eddie looked. The trace of teasing was long since gone, the only proof that he had spoken were the way his lips were slightly parted, and Buck felt color rise in his cheeks once again as he shrugged.

“Well... I suppose that would be alright. If you do it for Chris, anyway.” he murmured, letting himself move a little closer to Eddie, their shoulders and arms flush against the soft fabric of the cushion beneath them. He felt a shiver dance along his spine as Eddie gently brushed his thumb over Buck’s wrist, never breaking eye contact, and Buck could feel himself drawn in, moving in closer, until—

—until he jumped about a foot in the air as the siren went off, awake and more high-strung than ever as Eddie doubled over laughing.

(The call was a false alarm—and as annoying as that was, when they got back to the firehouse and finished the movie, Eddie didn’t let go of him until they were off the clock that morning. So, Buck reasoned, it wasn’t all bad.)

Chris had all but begged to have a sleepover the night before his birthday, and who was Buck to say no?

Granted, he thought that Chris would be inviting his friends over, like, friends from school, and not just Buck, but... that was fine by him.

(Eddie was a gracious host, at least—he seemed to realize how weird Chris’ request was, and he had given Buck about ten outs at work before Buck had easily shut him up. They had been... flirting? For lack of a better word, for the past few days, and Buck wasn’t afraid to use that to his advantage.

“Eddie, are you telling me you don’t want me to come over and stay the night?” he asked, a grin spreading on his face as Eddie blushed, he actually blushed, and just like that, Buck knew he won that conversation.)

He figured he may as well move up the ranks in Chris’ friend group, so he showed up with pizza and soda, depositing his winnings onto the kitchen counter before joining his Diaz boys on the couch. “Alright, nearly birthday boy, what’s the movie pick for tonight?” he said with a grin, the juxtaposition of Chris’ answering smile and Eddie’s near grimace catching him for a loop.

“Nightmare Before Christmas!” Chris almost shouted, as Eddie let out a sigh. “It’s his favorite movie.” he explained, making sure that Chris was looking forward before mouthing “I hate it.” Buck only barely managed to catch his laugh as he sat beside the pair, pizza at the ready.

The movie wasn’t bad, honestly, but even then Buck could absolutely understand how Eddie suffered through the movie whenever Chris demanded. The kid was absolutely entrapped in the entire movie, from skeleton to Santa Claus (”Sandy Claws”, Chris corrected, and Eddie actually groaned).

One good thing, though, was that the movie was short.

The bad thing about the movie was that meant Chris could ask to watch it again, and neither Buck nor Eddie could find it in their heart to say no.

The other bad thing—the worst thing, even—was that no matter how hard Buck tried, even as Chris was tucked in and read to, he could not get some of the fucking songs out of his head. He didn’t know the words. Hell, he barely knew the tune. But that didn’t stop him from humming as he and Eddie got ready for bed.

They were no strangers to sharing a bed—when you were on a twenty four hour shift, you slept where you could, and if that meant sharing a bed, it meant sharing a bed. At the very least, Eddie didn’t have a twin sized bunk. Buck also wasn't a stranger to death threats, which Eddie was full of the longer that Buck hummed.

“Buck, please.” Eddie groaned, one hand reaching over to smack Buck on the chest. “You’re cute and all, and I love how much you’re enjoying your Disney binge and I love that you’re having a good time but if you don’t shut up right now and get some sleep I will actually kill you.”

Needless to say, it works, though probably not for the reasons Eddie intended. Buck can almost feel Eddie drifting off again beside him when he clears his throat—ignoring Eddie’s groan—as he says “You think I’m cute, huh?”

Buck actually felt Eddie freeze for a minute before he rolled over, and the smug grin on Bucks’ face only grew as he came face to face with a scowling Eddie.

“Yeah, I do. You got a problem with that?”

Buck’s smirk softened into an outright beaming grin, only encouraged as Eddie started to smile back at him. He brought his hand up to Eddie’s hip as they both moved closer together—Buck let his eyes close as he tugged Eddie chest to chest—and then they were kissing.

It was soft, and it was sweet, and it was perfect.

The best part, though was the blush that was painted across Eddie’s cheeks when Buck opened his eyes. He brought his hand up from Eddie’s hip to his cheek, stroking it with his thumb. Eddie was cute as fuck, and that was undeniable, but... Buck couldn’t help himself.

He brought Eddie back into another kiss, painfully—unpleasantly—aware that a kiss was about as far as they would be able to go tonight, with an impatient Chris in the next room.

That might have been part of the reason that Buck decided to open his mouth—the other reason was probably because he was a child at heart, and nothing would ever change that.

“You’re blushing, you’re blushing! I can’t believe my eyes.”

Eddie actually beamed for a moment, before realization clicked on his face, and he shoved Buck away, groaning as he covered his face with his hands.

“Buck, oh my GOD.”

#buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #buddiefic #911 #christopher diaz #nightmare before christmas #crackfic #flospeaks #floanswers #mutually assured devotion

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banashee · 4 years

Link

Part 2/2 of Tony setting the kitchen on fire for @hopelessly-me :D ♥

Enjoy ♥

...Honey, it’s still fucking frozen.

One day, Clint finally caves.

“Tony. You know I love you, but please - let me show you how to cook. I can’t take it anymore.” he tells him over ice cold dinner. The archer pokes a piece of meat with his fork to prove his point.

Tony nods slowly, but he also says,

“Last time it was burned. So now I cooked it for less time.”

Clint blinks at him, knocking on his plate with the meat, which results in a solid noise.

“...Honey, it’s still fucking frozen.”

“...Okay, yeah.” Tony sighs, shoving the plate away from himself.

“Sorry, I know the last few months of my cooking haven’t been pleasant. At least I didn’t burn the house down yet.” he adds, with a small smile to lighten the mood, but it is clear he is not happy with his results.

“The alarm didn’t go off in a while, that’s progress, right?” Clint shoots back a lopsided smile, before he continues,

“Honestly though, I don’t mean to be condescending because that’s probably how I sound, and I’m really sorry for that, but… I know you’re trying, and I know you don’t like help with things… In general, and I get that. But don’t you think that it would be better in the long run?”

Their hands meet over the table, warm and solid as they squeeze and hold on, thumbs caressing each other. Clint and Tony have been home to one another for a long time now, and they know with a bone deep certainty that they can talk about things without making a personal vendetta of it, no matter how small or big the issue is. It’s just not how they work - what they have is easy going and it always has been.

A casual friendship with benefits quickly turned into more, and after months of pining and awkwardness, they finally got a move on and figured out their feelings for each other. That talk had been halting and even more awkward than the weeks before, but it led to mutual three-word-sentences and a future full of happiness.

Tony smiles, squeezing the other man’s hand as he asks,

“So, you don’t mind having to show me basic shit like cooking eggs without burning them to a crisp?”

“No, of course not. I love you and I love cooking - there really is no downside here if you ask me.”

“Alright, then. Thanks, Babe.” Tony leans forward for a kiss, which Clint is all too happy to give him. The cold dinner on the table is almost forgotten in the next few minutes, but as it turns out, it is the perfect opportunity to start.

“Okay, so, let’s put this back into the pan and crank the heat up. You want this to be warm and cooked through entirely. Then you - Tony… Please put down the salt shaker.”

“I have salt and I am not afraid to use it!”

“Yes I know, and that’s a problem! No, go away with that!” Laughing, the two of them tackle each other through the kitchen, until they end up pushed against the counter, foreheads touching and giggling like lovesick teenagers.

“Will you give up on any harsh decisions regarding the salt?” Clint asks, in a mock-serious tone that is actually a pretty good impression of what Phil Coulson sounds like, and Tony grins at him, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief.

“I am small and salty. Never.” he tries to snatch back the salt shaker, attempting to distract Clint with more makeout opportunities. He leans in, pulling Tony close with one arm and holding the salt shaker up over his head with the other - it’s a dick move, but it works. His boyfriends sputtering at the offensive act only makes Clint laugh more, but they need to flip the meat in the pan before their dinner burns once again, so their bickering is interrupted.

A little while later, their dinner is actually warm and not only edible, but really, really good at that. Tony is still surprised that they managed to save it, especially since there have been instances where this would have been simply impossible. But then again, he is lucky enough to have a partner who knows how to save messed up food, given there is a way left to salvage it in the first place.

“What’s the worst that ever happened to you while cooking?” Tony casually asks another night, while he is chopping vegetables into accurate cubes - they’re making stir fry, and the task at hand is easy and repetitive enough to chat away. Besides, he is used to handiwork, so this is totally doable.

Clint shoots him a knowing, amused look.

“...I almost set my kitchen in the SHIELD bunk on fire. It was like three in the morning and I couldn’t sleep, so I wanted to make a dessert with flambé bananas. Well, let’s just say it didn’t go as planned and my neighbours fucking hated my guts for setting off the fire alarm in the middle of the night… That was about 15 years ago, and goddammit, some people still bring it up.”

Tony laughs, loudly.

“Well, thank fuck you know what you’re doing now - imagine the two of us being Fire Hazards together, the tower would have burned to the ground ages ago. Imagine SHIELD on our asses for it. Or worse, Cap.”

Slowly, he shakes his head. No one wants to see Steve’s “I am very disappointed in you”-face if they can help it. To be fair, when it doesn’t come to cooking, and more like, battles or developing weapons, the two of them combined are still a fire hazard. But that’s different, really.

Clint, however, stops chopping with his knife mid air, head crooked to the side as he gently lowers it onto the cutting board. Then, he asks, completely straight faced,

“...Did I ever tell you that Fury has backup-plans, just in case the two of us should be going rogue?”

Putting down his knife as well, Tony fixes his partner in a suspicious stare. Despite everything, this is news to him, and he is about 90% sure that at least on this occasion, Clint isn’t fucking with him. Also, this is totally something he’d expect Fury to do. The man is paranoid, and Tony definitely wouldn’t put such a thing past him.

“Wait what? No, you didn’t. Spill.”

With a laugh, Clint tells him,

“Ever since Nat went undercover as your PA and it was clear that both of us would be part of the Avengers, Fury put protocols in place - covered a lot of hypothetical situations, actually, it was quite funny to read. I think the short version is he knows both of us and our, dare I say, slightly chaotic tendencies…”

With a snort of laughter, Tony collapses against the counter. This is putting it lightly and they both know it, but he enjoys hearing the story.

Clint continues,

“Technically I’m not supposed to know that, but Tasha told me about it. She laughed for like, 10 minutes straight. Me, too, by the way.”

“I bet - heh, sorry i can’t” it takes a bit for Tony to calm down enough to say,

“I bet he put a lot more protocols in place ever since he got wind of us being an item. Honestly I’d love to see that list.”

The corners of his mouth are still twitching, and he wipes amused tears out of his eyes as he keeps cackling away.

“Oh hey, we should do a dramatic reading of that form!” he says then, and Clint is laughing too hard to answer, but he nods, vegetables forgotten on the counter for several minutes.

He only barely manages to stop Lucky from stealing the chicken right off of the counter, which only makes him laugh harder as he tries to hold his dog back by the collar. Once again, Lucky looks like he is judging his humans - even his one remaining eye is pretty expressive.

Once they have calmed down a bit, they continue. Tony is about to put the vegetables into the frying pan, but Clint stops him.

“Wait. Put in the onions and garlic first, let them get glassy and then add the rest of it in. One after the other. Hardest stuff first, softest last. That way you have everything cooked through without having some parts mushy in the end.” he explains, which is met with a surprised noise from his boyfriend.

“Huh, that makes sense. Cooking is logical, after all.” Tony says, as if that’s news to him - truth be told, it probably is.

“Of course it’s logical. What did you think?” Clint asks, even though he already knows the answer.

“Magic? I don’t fucking know” Tony shrugs, but he looks very much satisfied. Even more so once everything is done. The stir fry turned out perfect, and the pasta only boiled over once - the kitchen is a mess, but the food is amazing, so it comes to no surprise that one after one, the other Avengers show up in the kitchen like a bunch of hungry sharks. Food always brings them together, especially if the delicious smells are wafting through the tower.

Apart from the obvious - having to eat, having to help out and later on, hating the SHIELD cafeteria with a burning passion - this is why Clint learned how to cook in the first place. Food brings people together, brings in company.

As someone who spent most of his life either lonely or socially awkward or both, Clint learned early on that if he feeds people, they will stick around - at least for a bit. It is a long standing habit, and although he genuinely loves cooking and baking, because it’s fun and relaxing, the people aspect is a big motivation as well.

Feeding people keeps them around and Clint recognizes that this might be a little sad. But he can’t deny that he likes doing it, one of the reasons being that, making food for someone shows that you care. As much as his social skills suck sometimes, Clint likes to take care of the people around him, especially loved ones.

Lucky for him, there is almost always someone around, here in the tower, to enjoy whatever he spent the day cooking or baking. Especially if either Steve or Thor are home, he knows nothing will stay untouched for long. While those two will eat anything and everything that isn’t nailed down, Clint knows that Tony is usually a bit of a picky eater, but he will try everything Clint makes, because he knows from experience that it’s always good. He does have a bit of a sweet tooth though. Bruce on the other hand prefers savory things, which is why he himself is cooking a lot of spicy, indian food, but he will also happily go to town on a loaf of bread fresh out of the oven.

Natasha, much like Phil and Pepper whenever they’re around, has a huge sweet tooth - whenever there are cookies or cake or anything else, she is the first to creep into the kitchen. Oftentimes, she steals balls of cookie dough and bowls with batter remaining in them. It gets even worse when Phil is around, because the two of them will team up to get all the sweet things - It’s highly classified, but you can totally buy Agent Coulson with sweet things.

Clint knows all of this, especially since he’s known Phil and Nat for many many years. Therefore, he counts in whatever they are likely going to steal whenever he is baking - he’s known their systematic approach for ages now, but he doesn’t mind it. Not at all.

Later that same night, Clint is sprawled out in bed, legs tangled with Tony’s and one arm wrapped around him. His head is pillowed on the other man's shoulder, face pressed into his favourite spot - the crook of Tony’s neck. Restless fingers are lightly scratching his scalp, and the even breathing of his dog by their feet are almost lulling him to sleep. His other hand is lazily tracing invisible patterns on Tony’s back, fingers creeping under his shirt and against warm, smooth skin. The happy hum he gets in response causes small vibrations to travel through his entire body, even when he can’t hear it.

They drift off to sleep like this, and when they are in the kitchen the next morning, Clint asks, as Tony keeps an suspicious eye on the scrambled eggs,

“Do you want to bake bread with me later? We can use it tomorrow for french toast.”

“...I’ll have to touch wet dough, do I?”

“...Ideally, yes. But it’s fun, I promise. Careful, your eggs.” he adds, and Tony jumps to flip them - just in time - no harm done. He lets out a sigh of relief. As it turns out, having someone close to help him get a hang of this really helps. Besides, Clint is a good teacher, and the whole love thing helps a lot. Just spending time together, really - and the compliments from their other teammates for last night’s dinner for example. All of it makes him want to keep going.

“Okay, let’s do it” Tony says, and the happy smile on his boyfriend's face is more than enough motivation to say “yes” again the next time he asks if he wants to bake.

As it turns out, baking is a whole different thing than cooking, which takes him by surprise. Especially since he needs to be a lot more accurate for this, while with cooking, there is at least a little bit of freestyling allowed. With baking? Not so much.

“It’s sticky. Ew. Babe, why? Why did you do this to me?” Tony complains, making a face as he holds up his hands that are covered in admittedly clingy bread dough - he’s not quite sure he actually likes doing this.

“It needs more flour - hold on.” Clint scrapes off as much dough from his hands as he can, carefully grabs the paper bag with two fingers and sprinkles a little bit more flour in both mixing bowls.

“Try again, it should work itself out. If it cleans out the bowl we’re good.”

“You said this was fun… Oh hey, that’s actually better now!” Tony exclaims in surprise, relieved that his bread dough isn’t nearly as sticky anymore - now, he can knead it with his hands without thinking of hacking them off right after. Truth be told, he is starting to see the fun part of this whole thing now.

“See? You’re doing great by the way.” Clint tells him, a warm and happy feeling spreading out in his chest. He is incredibly happy to be able to have this - to have Tony by his side in the first place. Words can’t express how much he loves this man, and he hopes that Tony knows nonetheless.

“I’ve got a pretty good teacher - you should meet him some time. He’s got amazing arms and an even better ass.” Tony is grinning over at Clint, absolutely not checking out those very much appreciated body parts while he does so. They have been together for quite some time, but the attraction to one another has not died down - not at all.

“Oh, does he now?”

“Very much so.”

Cheesy flirting and easy banter is what they do best, and by the time their dough is covered and resting, Clint and Tony disappear upstairs and into the bedroom. They lose their clothes on the way, leaving a trail through the entire apartment until they fall into bed, wrapped tightly around one another and laughing in between kisses and wandering hands.

There is plenty of time to pass until the bread is ready to be baked, after all.

*+~

Prompt 10: Teaching

#banashee writes #marvel fanfiction #ironhawk #65 Random Prompts

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