#it's gonna be my first time in england and in such a big city

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

i got the tickets to london.

[samkerrworshipper]

exhausted | barca femeni/alexia putellas x reader

reader has insomnia… but doesn’t tell her teammates alexia begins to figure it out though

was gonna make yall wait till tomorrow butttt i rlly can’t fucked lol

Sleep is something that has never come easy to you.

No matter how hard you try, no matter how much melatonin or herbal teas or meditation you tried, none of it worked.

You, quite simply, could not sleep.

It was fine when you were just a student, when you could dip out of your morning classes or sneak in a nap here and there between classes, when you didn’t have to make it through full days of work.

It was fine when you were playing for London City, when nobody cared about what you were doing, only if you could stop other players from getting past.

It had all changed though when the Barca offer had come in though.

It was known to every single footballer in the women's league that Barca had major injury problems, specifically in their backline, injuries that wouldn’t be resolved until long after the season was over.

You’d never thought though that some absences in Barcelona’s star squad would crate an opportunity for you, but for whatever reason, the Barca selectors had seen something in you, and even though it was mid season, had been desperate to sign you, it was a big move to go from England to Spain, but one you were more than happy to make for the sake of your career.

You’d never thought that the move from home would be so much more detrimental to your sleep schedule, but slowly you’d found yourself becoming more exhausted as you struggled to keep up with your new life.

There were a lot of things that were different about Spain, or more specifically the Barcelona Women’s team. When you were playing in London, training every couple of days and playing once a week, you could afford to miss some hours of sleep during the night, especially considering that nobody in London was concerned about making school a priority over there. You could take some naps during the day, laze around as much as you wanted and go to school whenever you could be bothered.

Barca was different, and not in a good way.

It was good for your football, internationally and just in general. Before Barca, you’d been more of a bench player then a starter for the England under 17s, but your game had lifted and you’d been a consistent starter in every tournament and friendly since.

You were exhausted, more than you’d ever been in your entire life, and you were sure it was starting to show.

It was hard enough being 16, in a foreign country, getting hardly any hours of sleep, training at least three hours a day as well as gym sessions and playing twice a week. Trying to be a full time student as well, it was completely unrealistic and it was starting to show.

“Nena, do you want to slow down on the energy drinks? Someone so itty bitty and young like you shouldn’t be consuming any caffeine, let alone two red bulls before noon, we’re lucky you aren’t pinging off the walls yet.”

Mapi’s hands are on your cheeks, pinching and squeezing them as if you are a baby. Instead of paying her any kind of attention you keep your eyes fixed on your laptop screen and lips pressed to the can of red bull that you’ve been tirelessly sipping at for the past couple of minutes.

Integrating into the team had been hard, but you’d actually become far closer with the crew of injured girls, mapi specifically, as well as her girlfriend Ingrid. Frido had also been one of the first people to welcome you, accompanied by two familiar English faces, Keira and Lucy.

Mapi particularly, had taken you under her wing, or had sort of adopted you in an older sister type fashion. It was sort of annoying, the older Spaniard was constantly talking, to the point where you’d learn to pretty much drown out everything that left her lips.

“If you keep touching my face then it won’t just be your knee that’ll be injured, your hands will be broken as well.”

Mapi frowns at you, her pinching fingers moving to brush loose hair from your face and rub at your temples, trying to rub away the frown lines deeply ingrained on your forehead.

“Wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning did we, nena? You know you’ll get wrinkles if you keep frowning like that, it’s not good for your little baby face.”

You shake your head in an attempt to get Mapi’s hands off of your face, it partially works, but not fully.

“María I am serious, you’ve got three seconds before I tear this can in half and use it to cut off your fingers, don’t you have rehab to do or something more entertaining than bothering me?”

Mapi’s hands fly up in surrender, something you are infinitely grateful for.

“Fine, you want to be grumpy then you can be grumpy by yourself, don’t come looking for me later when you’re bored of school and looking for some fun.”

You don’t bat an eyelid as Mapi retreats from your table.

You take another sip of your drink, praying that it’ll somehow make it easier for you to read the words on your laptop screen, even though it does absolutely nothing.

You’ve read the same page, over and over again and yet it’s done absolutely nothing to make you understand what it is you are supposed to be learning. It’s a mess of consonants and verbs, jumbled up words that just can’t seem to resonate in your brain.

Whilst Mapi has left, unbeknownst to you, you aren’t completely alone in the recovery room.

Alexia has been sitting on one of the massage tables, doing her exercises for the last hour, watching as you’ve gradually been getting far more frustrated with your work.

Alexia’s relationship with you so far has been… rocky.

The captain had made it clear from day one that whilst the club needed you, that your studies were going to be a priority alongside football. If you had known that you’d be going from doing as much school as you liked, to hours of online school everyday, you probably would have reconsidered your move to Spain, but you were here now and struggling more than you cared to admit.

Alexia knew something was up, beyond your clear hatred for school, she just wasn’t sure what yet but she was determined to find out why.

“Everything alright pequena?”

You practically jump at the sound of Alexia’s voice, hand clutching at your heart as you suddenly become aware of a presence in the room that you were unaware existed.

“Perfectly fine.”

You do well to recover from the shock, your eyes darting straight back to your screen almost as quickly as they had left it.

“You’ve been staring at the same page for the last twenty minutes.”

Alexia notices that your hands are shaking slightly, most likely due to the insane amounts of taurine that your body is processing.

“There’s a lot of writing on one page.”

You take another sip, finishing off the can and sliding it across the table.

“Mapi’s right, it’s not good for pequena’s like you to be drinking stuff like that, it’s bad for your brain cells, and don’t get me started on what it does to your body.”

Alexia moves to take a seat beside you at the table, her concern for you growing even more when she took a look at your face and realised how exhausted you looked.

“I don’t need the lecture, I’m poisoning my body, I’m aware of it, now can I please have slime peace so I can finish this off before training starts?”

Alexia isn’t anywhere near satisfied with your answer, she wants you to argue with her, not admit your wrongdoing like it’s nothing.

“Yes, you are, you aren’t an adult, you don’t need energy drinks, you will do perfectly fine without them.”

Your eyes leave the screen to look at Alexia for a second, a little exhale huffing out between your lips.

“Okay, whatever.”

Alexia can’t get past just how tired you look, so tired that you’re seemingly agreeing with her just to avoid conflict.

“Pequena, how about you take a break for a couple of minutes, go get some fresh air, I’m sure you can finish this up later.”

Alexia’s never let you finish school early, you don’t understand why she’s deciding to today.

“I need to get it done.”

Your body is so tense, Alexia’s scared that you’re going to pull a muscle just from how tight your body looks.

“I’m sure it can wait till later, you’ve been sitting here for two hours now, you need a break.”

Your hands are still shaking, and you’re as hunched over as possible without being asleep on top of your laptop.

“Alexia, I’m fine, I’ve just got to finish this and then I’ll be done.”

Alexia’s hand reaches up to meet your shaking one, somehow hoping that it’ll stop the frantic tremors.

“You’re taking a break, just go and spend some time in the team room, or go for a walk, just take fifteen minutes and I’ll next you when you need to be back. Go, now, I’m not asking.”

You slam your laptop closed with more aggression then Alexia’s seen from you all morning, your body dragging itself out of the room without any regards for your captain whatsoever.

Alexia begins to get worried when twenty minutes later, after multiple text messages, you are yet to return.

She knows you’re stressed, that school isn’t what you want to be focusing all of your energy on. But Alexia knows from personal experience how easy it is for somebody of your age with your kind of talent to disregard things like education, something that she believes is so crucial to any adult's life. You need options, Alexia is trying to give you them, even if you seem to hate them with every single fibre in your body.

Alexia decides to go looking for you once twenty five minutes have passed and you are nowhere in sight and have ignored every single one of her messages.

It doesn’t take her long to find you, although she does almost miss you.

Alexia peeks her head into the locker room, simply to ask if anyone has seen you, the room is silent and empty though.

She almost leaves, but just as she’s about to close the door, she spots your body, tucked up inside of your locker, your head tucked into your knees.

You look frightfully unrestful, you don’t look like most people look when they’re sleeping, most people look peaceful, you look bothered, like your body is fighting against the sleep that you so clearly need.

Alexia walks over to you, now more than ever she’s certain you’re sick, that you’ve caught some kind of cold that’s causing this exhaustion and the short tempered mood you’ve been in.

She brings the back of her palm up to your forehead, an action that has your eyes snapping opening immediately.

Alexia’s sort of surprised when she realises you’ve got no fever whatsoever, although she’s well aware that not all sicknesses result in fever, something about it is putting her off.

“Hola pequenita.”

It takes you a few seconds to realise where you are and what’s happening, but as soon as you do you are shaking Alexia’s hand from your face and pushing yourself out of your cube.

“Sorry, time completely slipped past me, I’ll head back now.”

Alexia’s hand grabs your forehand before you have the opportunity to slip past her, tugging you backwards until you’re standing directly in front of your captain, forced to look at her.

“Are you sick?”

Alexia isn’t sure what’s wrong, but it’s clear something is up and sickness is the clearest option. She knows that you are no stranger to energy drinks, she spends most of her time heckling at you to try and put down whatever drink you’ve got in your hands. She’s never seen you down two in such a short amount of time though and sickness would be a good explanation.

“No, I’m fine.”

Alexia can’t find any deceit in your words or mannerisms, it appears that you are being completely honest with her, something that makes Alexia even more confused. None of the tell-tale signs are there, you are telling the truth.

“I know you aren’t a stranger to a midday nap, but it’s unlike you to be so tired.”

Alexia’s arm moves from your forearm up to your face, gently tracing the deep purple bags that are sitting below your eyes. Her thumb is soft, it feels like she’s mending all of the fatigue that lies there, but as soon as her thumb moves it all comes back.

“I’m fine Capí, just stayed up a little bit later last night.”

Alexia can tell that’s a lie, a cover up from whatever it is that you’re hiding from her.

“Well see to it that you get into bed earlier tonight. The team is out on the pitch, I told Jona that you’d join them once finished up with your work that you’d head out but I think you need some fresh air. Better get moving.”

Alexia’s voice is ridged and your body reacts to it, reaching into your locker with more speed then she’s seen you work with all day, you grab your cleats and before Alexia has the chance to speak anymore you are marching out of the rooms and out towards the pitch.

It’s perplexing to Alexia, she hates being lied to, especially when it’s clear something is wrong. She waits in the locker room for a few minutes, trying to piece together the mystery yet she comes up with nothing.

Eventually she makes the decision to go out and watch the training, pitchside, maybe you’ll have perked up now that you’re out doing something you enjoy.

The first thing Alexia notices is how frantically you are playing, it’s unlike you to be sloppy and yet as she watches you it’s all she can observe.

You are sloppy, messy and uncalculated, something that you are normally the opposite of.

You are a technical player, something that has helped you settle into the Barcelona squad with ease, you adjusted to the Spanish way of playing without much fuss.

What Alexia is watching though, you look like a completely different player. You’re practically passing the ball directly to Salma, goal after goal being put through your legs and around your body. It’s embarrassing, and she’s certain other people are picking up on your abnormal behaviour, multiple people, specifically Ingrid coming to check on you and make sure everything is fine.

You shake all of them off, even though it’s clear that something is up and whatever that something is, it’s big and it’s affecting your game and mood majorly.

Alexia’s not surprised when Jona drags you from the field, already yelling at you and sending orders your way, what she is surprised by is the way that you don’t even flinch as he throws never ending criticism your way.

You just stare at him, neither nodding or trying to reply to him, Alexia’s not even sure if you’re hearing him, if you’re present enough to be listening to the words that are leaving his mouth. For a second she considers the possibility that you’re violently hungover or acting under the influence of some kind of substance, it would explain the drowsiness and weird behaviour.

The idea makes Alexia instantly filled with anger, you are 16 and she will take you to the grave if you’ve been touching any kinds of substances. She’s mad enough as it is over the energy drinks, and she’s going to express that when the two of you are in private later on, but the chance that you’ve consumed something illegal for someone of your age, it sends shivers down her spine.

Jona has you back out on the field before you can even begin to respond to his critiques, back into defence where you are brutally humbled time and time again by the likes of Aitana, Salma and Caro.

Alexia cringes every single time, she knows that you are struggling, what she’s completely unprepared for is for you to fully collapse on the field.

Caro volleys another ball over your head and for a second Alexia doesn’t even notice you crumpled up on the ground of the pitch, she’s too busy watching the sight of Caro’s ball perfectly managing to slot in behind Cata. It’s a truly beautiful goal, and truly there isn’t much you could have done about it.

She only notices you when Cata doesn’t turn around to grab the ball, instead, she rushes forwards, leaving the ball long forgotten beside the bottom right post. She’s rushing forwards, down to her knees, directly beside your crumpled up body.

Alexia jumps up from her spot immediately, running faster than she should considering the current state of her knee, it doesn’t matter to her though, seeing your tiny little body all clumped up against the grass terrifies her.

Cata’s smart, and apparently fast acting because before Alexia is sitting down next to you, Cata’s already got her shirt off, drenched it with her drink bottle and has it folded up over your forehead. The cold water seems to bring you back a little bit, your head jerking upwards in reaction to the sudden change of temperature across your skin.

Just as Alexia’s crouching down next to you, the medics are pushing everyone out of the way, kneeling down next to you and doing the same as Cata had done, placing wet towels across your skin. They’re treating it like you’ve got heat stroke and whilst Alexia is aware it’s a warmer day, she knows that whatever is wrong with you, it most definitely isn’t heat stroke.

One of the medics squirts some water onto your face, something that Alexia doesn’t like the look of, but it seems to bring you back awake, your eyes bursting open and blinking furiously as you take in your surroundings.

Alexia can see you panicking immediately, your eyes flashing to the multiple faces that are crowding your vision.

“Everyone take a step back, give her some space.”

The medics and your teammates take a step back, leaving Alexia to skoot herself closer to you. Her hand comes to rest on your face, gently brushing the water residue off.

“Hola nena, stay calm for me, you had a little fall, we’re going to get you inside now, do you think you can get up for me?”

You nod at Alexia, you can’t remember what happened but you don’t want to be on the floor any longer than you have to be.

Alexia helps you up and off the pitch, the medics leading the two of you inside.

Alexia immediately gets you situated on a table, the medics immediately getting their hands all over you.

“Test her heart for me please, and her caffeine and sugar levels. I’ll be right back nena, I’m just going to grab something from my locker, text me if you need anything.”

Alexia is inexplicably angry and she knows that if she spends any more time in a room with you she’s going to yell, or say something that she’s going to regret. If it wasn’t for all the doctors, she probably wouldn’t care but she doesn’t need to air out private situations in front of people who have no business in your private life.

So she stomps her way to the locker room, set on trying to detangle the mess of emotions that has developed deep in her gut ever since this morning.

It’s been longer than this morning, Alexia’s noticed oddities in your behaviour, ever since you’d arrived. The energy drinks, the constant eye bags, power naps whenever you could fit them in. You live by yourself, something that Alexia deeply disapproves of and after today she doesn’t think it should continue on like this. You’d requested your own apartment for two reasons, privacy and because you didn’t want to disturb the private life of your teammates.

Alexia wanted to punch a wall, or throw something. That was all that was running across her mind as she paced back and forth in the locker rooms.

All Alexia could think about was your body, crumpled up on the pitch and she had no idea why and no idea how to help you.

You were sitting in the medical room, by yourself, beside the many doctors and physios who were poking and attaching you to different things.

You were exhausted, you were finding it hard to keep your eyes open. You’d felt the same way all day, hitting the pitch had been too much, too hard, too much energy for your exhausted body.

You wished that you’d feel the same every night when you tried to go to sleep every night, but alas, it felt like as soon as you got into bed, or as soon as you tried to close your eyes sleep just avoided you.

Alexia was probably two laps of the locker room away from throwing her phone at a wall when Mapi walked in, weirded out by the sight of her best friend grinding her feet into the floor as she walked back and forth in the locker rooms.

“Ale?”

Alexia’s pacing doesn’t stop, but she does take a second to look up at María and for some reason the concernedly smiley face of her best friend seems to help the anger bubbling up inside her simmer down slightly.

“Alexia, what’s wrong?”

Alexia’s hands are fidgeting wildly in front of her, her fingers clicking and toying with each other.

“Somethings wrong with Nena, she’s exhausted and frantic and she looks like she hasn’t slept and she’s downing all those energy drinks and maybe they’re getting to her heart? Maybe that’s why she collapsed or maybe she’s sick but somethings wrong and I don’t know what and she collapsed right in front of my eyes.”

Normally, out of the two, Mapi is the one who confides in Alexia the most. Alexia isn’t an openly emotional person and when she is it’s with Olga, because for some reason that woman can get everything and anything out of her. Here though, it’s clear Alexia needs someone to de stress with and Mapi is happy to take up that role.

“It’s just her Alexia, she’s always tired and drinking energy drinks, it’s how the kids these days do it.”

Mapi’s words are supposed to soothe Alexia, honestly they do the complete opposite.

“But she shouldn’t, she’s an athlete, she shouldn’t need them. Mapi, I am telling you, something is seriously wrong, I can feel it. I know she’s always tired, but she looks like she hasn’s slept in weeks and I don’t know why.”

Mapi, for the sake of trying to calm Alexia down, decides that instead of trying to invalidate her worries, it’s best to just try and reason with Ale.

“Ale, how about we go see her, if somethings wrong I’m sure she’d tell us.”

Alexia nods at Mapi, taking the extended arm that her friend gives her and allowing the Zaragozan to lead her back to the physio room she’d previously been in.

When she returns, she’s relieved to see that you look a lot better than how you had on the pitch. There are still grass stains across your face, but you’re less pale than you were before and you’re sipping on a gatorade which somehow makes Alexia feel less guilty about the whole situation.

“Hola pequena.”

Your eyes manage to meet Alexia’s, something that kind of shocks her, considering just how weighed down your eyes seem to be by the deep purple bags underneath your eyes.

“Bon dia.”

Alexia would not call this a good morning, she couldn’t even call it an okay one.

“What’s wrong?”

Alexia’s focus is on the physios, not you, she’s saving you for later.

“Luckily, not a lot. I checked her heart and I couldn’t find any abnormalities, it’s clear that she’s tired, she’s told me she woke up a little bit earlier than normal this morning which paired with the warmer weather and some minor dehydration is probably the main cause. She’ll take today off, rest up, but I can’t find anything that would indicate any serious underlying problems so there isn’t any reason why I would say she couldn’t be back on the pitch tomorrow.”

It’s a positive sign, but not what Alexia wants to hear, she wants something to be wrong, so that she can get to the bottom of whatever is happening to you.

“Good, thank you, do you think you could give us the room for a couple of minutes, por favor?”

The physio smiles at Alexia, giving her a nod before leaving the room discreetly.

As soon as Alexia is certain he is no longer within hearing distance, she pivots on her heel, so she’s facing you directly.

“What are you hiding?”

It’s so ominous, even Mapi thinks it’s a little bit far-fetched, as a 16 year old, Mapi was probably hiding more than she was sharing, it’s not really a fair question.

“What am I hiding?”

It sounds like you're even struggling to get words out, your voice is just so tired, like it’s taking up so much energy for you to speak a few simple words.

“Somethings wrong, you’ve been drinking all these energy drinks, which are not only far too caffeinated but also extremely bad for you and you look like you haven’t slept properly in weeks.”

You want to tell Alexia that she’s right, you aren’t sleeping properly, you haven’t been your whole life, but she wouldn’t be the first person who tried to help you and has failed miserably in the process, it’s quite simple, sleep and you just simply do not work.

“Anyone from England would tell you that I just drink energy drinks, it’s not that deep Alexia.”

Mapi is teetering on the edge of having to hold Alexia back from causing you bodily harm.

“Deep? Collapsing on a pitch is not deep? It seems pretty deep to me amor, you can hardly talk, you could hardly read this morning, it’s clear something is wrong and I want to know what.”

You don’t know how to tell Alexia that something isn’t wrong, this is just you, or the new version of you in Spain. Your insomnia had always affected you, moving to Spain had seemed to make it worse but you’d always lived like this, ever since you could remember, sleep was just something that you could never have consistently.

“Nothings wrong, I am fine, I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

Alexia’s jaw sets and for a second Mapi does truly worry for you.

“I want you to not lie to my face.”

You visibly flinch at those words, you don’t want nor mean to lie to Alexia, but you figure you are saving yourself from a merry go round of painful conversations.

“I’m not lying.”

Alexia knows you are, she’s not stupid.

“Right, well you’ve got the day off, you’ll be coming home with me and staying with Olga and I until you look less like you are on the brink of a coma. María will go get your things.”

Mapi nods quickly at Alexia, walking out of the room as quickly as she can manage, leaving just you and Alexia.

Even though Alexia is mad, she begrudgingly helps you up from the bed, draping your arm over her shoulder to give you somebody to lean on as she walks the two of you out to her car. She’s just gotten you seated in the passenger seat and closed your door when Mapi pops up with your things. Before Alexia can hop into the car and get going, Mapi stops her.

“Be easy on her, si? She’s going through something and I know you want to know, I know you want to help her but whatever is wrong, she’s not talking about it for a reason. Maybe she doesn’t need you questioning her, just take a look, a proper look at her and see if you can get a better idea. For me?”

Alexia knows that Mapi won’t let go of her shirt without some kind of acknowledgement that she’s going to agree to her.

“Okay, I’ll go easy on her.”

It’s a half truth, Mapi seems to accept it though, letting go of Alexia’s shirt so that the Catalan can take her seat in her car and begin to drive the two of you home.

The car ride home is eerily silent, Alexia keeps her eyes focused on the road, her knuckles whitening from the grip she has on the steering wheel and her jaw so set that you begin to worry that her teeth must hurt from the constant clenching.

When the two of you pull up to Alexia’s house you’re feeling a lot better, your head is clearer and you don’t feel as broken as you had earlier.

You clamber out of the car, walking your way slowly to Alexia’s front door. Alexia bothers around with the keys, twisting them in the hole before opening up the door for the two of you.

“Ale? You’re home early.”

Olga’s voice filters in from the kitchen, the two of you making your way through until you spot her.

“Nena, is that you? I didn’t know we were going to have company, if I had I would have cleaned up a little bit for you.”

You shake your head at Olga, giving her a small smile that you’ve reserved just for Alexia’s partner.

“Go sit down on the couch, get your feet up.”

Alexia’s voice is stern, it immediately makes Olga frown at her.

Alexia allows her girlfriend to drag her from the kitchen and into their pantry.

“What’s with the mood?”

Olga’s happy space is her and Ale’s house, it’s supposed to be the one place that the both of them can get away from football and stress.

“Nena is hiding something, she collapsed at training and we don’t really know why but she does and she won’t tell us.”

Olga nods her head, the somehow younger but wiser woman putting on her thinking hat and trying to rationalise what Alexia is telling her.

“Don’t you think it would be smarter to try and be nice to her? I know that she’s fucked up, but it’s clear she just needs some love right now, maybe you should be giving it to her.”

Alexia thinks that Olga doesn’t understand the whole situation, she doesn’t see you everyday, doesn’t see how ragged you are and how deep this issue stems, but she also can’t not listen to her, the woman somehow tends to always be right and she can’t see why that would change now.

“Okay, okay.”

Olga smiles at her, getting up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to Alexia’s jaw before pushing her out of the pantry and back into the kitchen.

Alexia is unsurprised to find you dead asleep on her couch, your head lulled against one of her couch pillows. She’s glad, and decides to pocket the inevitable conversation she is going to have to have with you, instead opting to help her girlfriend make lunch.

You sleep for a total of 40 minutes, something that Alexia is less glad about. As soon as she notices you’re awake she’s forcing a bottle of water into your hands and two aspirins. You take them before she shoves them down your throat, taking multiple gulps of the water so Alexia didn’t have another reason to be mad with you.

To be fair, she looked a lot less mad than she had earlier, you wouldn’t even really describe how she looked as mad, more concerned.

Alexia sat down in front of you on the couch, taking a deep breath before she started speaking.

“I’m not going to force you to tell me anything, I understand that you are going through a lot, I just need you to know that I’m here for you, anything you need nena I am here to support you and try and help you however I think best.”

Alexia’s words cut deep for you, it’s a struggle for you not to break out in tears, as much as you really want to.

“I know Ale.”

She nods at you, holding back her own tears, there’s some kind of understanding between the two of you, that you aren’t going to cry or speak, just acknowledge each other for now.

“Olga’s made up the spare room for you, you’ll stay here until you’re in a better place. You’re welcome here and you’ll be no bother for the next couple of weeks.”

You nod your head, biting down on your tongue to stop yourself from arguing back to her.

The rest of the afternoon is fairly similar, you are fed by Olga and then spend the majority of the rest of the day lounging on the couch, occasionally falling asleep, but as Alexia notices, never for longer than 40 minutes. It’s like your body refuses to properly rest.

When dinner comes around you look just as exhausted as you had this morning, you just look a little bit less dead.

After dinner, you head off to bed, alexia’s glad, she’s hoping that you’ll have a nice long proper sleep and that all of this will be solved.

She’s wrong.

Instead of hopping into bed, you pull out your laptop, knowing that if you stand a chance at getting even two hours of sleep it’s not happening any time soon.

You work at your school work, completing the things you hadn’t finished earlier. When 12 o’clock rolls around, you force yourself away from your laptop and underneath the covers of alexia’s extremely comfortable spare bed.

You stare at the roof, every now and again you’ll twitch and for some reason it’ll hurt your brain. You play your favourite song over and over again in your head, praying that it’ll somehow lull you to sleep, it neves does. You stare at the ceiling and try to focus on the sound of the fan. You stare at the ceiling and wonder if the swirl pattern in it is mobing. You think about your favourite film and how the characters used to provide you so much peace. When you remember how much they meant to you, you let a few stray tears fall.

You stare at the ceiling.

Every once and a while, you’ll roll over and press your face into the pillows and pull the covers over your head and hope that if you hide somehow you’ll fall asleep.

Eventually, you’ll fall asleep.

Sometimes it takes hours, all for you to wake up half an hour later feeling as unsatisfied as ever.

It’s how you live, it’s the same routine every night, it’s your normal.

When 4am rolls around and you’ve managed to get a measly twenty minutes or so of sleep, you climb out of the sheets, annoyed that your glass of water is empty. Your eyes are dry and itchy with the feeling of needing to cry, you push that feeling deep into your gut, ignoring the desperate need to ignore your feelings in favour of keeping a strong face.

You try to be as quiet as possible, filling up your glass and taking a seat on Alexia’s couch, looking out of the window of her lounge room at the Barcelona skyline that lights up along her back fence.

“Nena is that you?”

You nearly jump out of your skin.

Alexia is standing in the kitchen, leaning up against the island, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and staring at you inquisitively.

“What are you doing awake?”

The words trigger something in you, it’s probably the half dazed state you’re in, the complete exhaustion and annoyance you’re experiencing at your inability to sleep, but all of a sudden, tears are dripping your face and you don’t know why or how.

Alexia freezes for a second, she’d expected something obviously, but crying was not one of those things.

She’s never seen you cry, she’s never had to deal with a teenager who is breaking down right in front of her eyes. She doesn’t know what to do, or how to help you, all she knows is that you are crying a lot and she is just standing and watching.

The problem solver in Alexia tells her that she has to do something, so she paces her way over to the couch, sitting down beside you and tentatively wrapping an arm around your shoulder. She doesn’t know whether or not it’s the right way to go, but it seems to pay off when you immediately relax into her, your head craning into the pocket of her neck and shoulder. Fresh, warm tears drip down onto Alexia’s skin.

Alexia is tense, her back as straight as a board. She doesn’t normally have to deal with this kind of thing, she doesn’t have to try and sympathise with feelings. She’s not an emotional person herself, she cries once a year normally and that’s on the anniversary of her fathers death.

“Nena, it’s okay, I’m here.”

Alexia’s words are calculated, strategic, like she’s reading them off of google or something. Truly, she doesn’t intend for them to come off that way, but it’s kind of just how they do.

Alexia waits for the tears to stop coming, she figures it has to happen, you can’t just cry forever.

The two of you sit like that, crisscrossed on the couch until you manage to compose yourself, until you’ve cried out all the annoyance and grievances over your current predicament.

In the past, your insomnia would stop you from sleeping for days, but eventually the exhaustion would catch up with you and you would get a good night or a few of sleep, but it had been weeks now of you living in Barcelona and sleep had been avoiding you the whole time.

“Nena, what’s wrong?”

Right now, it feels like everything is wrong, it feels like your whole world is upside and you want it to be normal, you want to just be able to close your eyes and get some fucking sleep.

“I can’t sleep.”

Alexia’s brow furrows.

“Well maybe you shouldn’t have had so many energy drinks, no?”

It’s the kind of reply you should have expected.

“No Alexia, I can’t sleep, I have insomnia.”

Alexia struggles with the translation in her head, in-som-ni-a?

“Sorry, what?”

You take a deep shaky breath, pulling your head away from Alexia’s chest so that you can rub the tears from your eyes with the sleeve of your shirt.

“Insomnia, I can’t sleep, medically. I have a condition that stops me from being able to sleep regularly.”

Alexia’s head all of a sudden starts working, she’s a little bit behind, it’s 4am after all and she’s struggling to keep her eyes open.

“You can’t sleep?”

You shake your head, Alexia wants to tell you that you’re being silly, but when she sees the pure heart break and exhaustion in your eyes she knows that you can’t be lying. You look so young, tear tracks all over your face and body caved in on itself.

“I can’t sleep.”

It makes more sense to alexia now, all the energy drinks, the exhaustion, the power naps.

“Have you talked to the team doctors about it, I’m sure they could give you medication or something that could make it better, this can’t go on forever, nena.”

You shake your head at Alexia, your exhaustion turning to fear.

“No and you have to promise you won’t either. I’ve been through it, the sleep tests, all of it. I won’t take drugs, you can't make me and I refuse to.”

It’s like you go from being a mellowed out version of yourself to an attack dog.

“Nena, you need help, you can’t keep playing when you can hardly keep yourself standing.”

You shake your head, so fast that Alexia worries you might pass out from the sudden and frequent movements.

“I’m not taking drugs, you can’t make me, I won’t do it.”

Alexia doesn’t know where this sudden defensiveness has come from, but she knows two things. She needs to make sure that you understand that she can be there for whatever you are going through whilst also trying to figure out what is your random refusal to not take medication.

“Wouldn’t it help some?”

It’s hard to explain your complete hatred for any kinds of drugs. You’d grown up in a household where your mom might as well have been a druggie with how little she was invested in your life and where your dad was a legitimate druggie.

You struggled to take paracetamol, let alone any kind of prescribed drug.

You were scared shitless that somehow, you would turn out like your father and that was the last thing you could ever want.

You didn’t come from a loving home, you didn’t come from a place where you got the newest cleats every year and the best training. You came from a home where grocery money was spent on cocaine and any football money was spent on heroin. You’d been lucky enough that you were good enough for England teams to notice you, for academies to notice you. You were always good enough that you didn’t have to fork out the extra money and if you did it was your own money.

That’s why you’d been so eager to get out of England, to come to Spain. It saved you from the lifestyle that you had been so desperate to get away from.

“I’m not going to take medication Ale.”

For a long time, you’d blamed the insomnia on the constant partying that happened at your house as a kid. Your dad was a revolving door house kind of person, there were always people inside of your house, women, druggies, sex workers, partiers. It was never ending, and for a logn while you’d just thought you couldn’t sleep because of the constant noise inside of your house. When you went away for your first camp at 11, you realised that just simply wasn’t it, you had a serious problem. Maybe it was a byproduct of always being in a house full of noise, or maybe it was just your fucked up ness, you just knew that somewhere along the way, everything in your brain started working backwards.

“Nena, you don’t have to take medication, but can you tell me why?”

You figure that you’ve already told Alexia too much, why stop now?

“My dad has drug problems, always has, probably always will. My mom was never really home as a kid, when she was it wasn’t pretty. I don’t want to turn out like them. That’s why I didn’t go home over the break”

Alexia’s heart drops. She’s been through her own problems with her family, her fathers death and so on. But she’s always had something and that is a safe place to go if she ever needs it. Her parents loved her, they did everything to protect her as a child, Alexia grew up in a space where she could be whoever she wanted and her parents would support her. You, to some extent, clearly didn’t and it explained a lot to her. It explained why you were so hesitant to accept help from anyone, and why you were such a lone wolf, you had to be for survival.

Alexia suddenly wraps her arms around you, all of a sudden feeling an overwhelming sense that she has to protect you, that you need her to keep you safe.

You’re crying again, it hurts less this time, it comes more from a place of exhaustion than annoyance and anger.

“I just want to rest Ale, I just want some peace.”

Alexia’s grip tightens, she’s compressing your bones in the best way possible.

“It’s okay nena, I’ve got you, it’s going to be okay.”

Alexia just holds you, until you exhaust yourself so much from the crying that you fall asleep.

She doesn’t want to wake you, not after everything you’ve just confessed to her, so she lays herself down on the couch, keeping you pulled tight to her chest as she drapes a blanket over the two of you and rests down against the pillows, deciding that she might as well get a few hours in for herself.

You wake up to the sun in your eyes and the smell of bacon and pancakes.

You feel better than you have in weeks, blinking the sleep away from your eyes and slowly sitting up as you adjust to your surroundings.

Alexia and Olga are in the kitchen, talking hushedly as Alexia cooks over the stove and Olga rocks with her from behind. It feels and looks intimate and you are so tempted to sneak out of the front door to leave them to their peace and avoid all the obvious issues that are going to have to be unpacked with your captain.

You’re seriously considering, but your plotting is stopped when Olga turns around to grab something and she spots you on the couch, conscious and awake.

“Bon Dia, nena.”

Alexia pivots as well, sending a smile towards you.

“Good morning, what time is it?”

Olga detaches herself from Alexia, moving towards the fridge.

“It’s just past six.”

2 and a half hours of sleep, that’s not bad at all, it’s better than you’ve had in weeks.

“Breakfast is almost done, if you want to take a seat at the table.”

You nod at Alexia, standing up from your spot on the couch and walking over to the dining table, taking a seat at the table and trying to tame your bed head whilst Alexia plates up the food.

The plate she hands you is full of food, bacon, toast, pancakes, sausages, fruit. It reminds you of home in a weird way, it’s not a truly traditional Spanish breakfast, more English and it seems like Ale’s done it for a reason.

She waits until you’ve started to tuck into your food before she starts speaking.

“I’ve scheduled a meeting with Jona and the medical team this morning, for you.”

Your boyd goes from relaxed and at peace to tense, Alexia knows it’s breaking your trust in a way, but she also knows that she’s now obligated to protect you.

“I told you I don't want doctors or drugs.”

Alexia takes a deep breath, looking over at Olga and being reminded that sometimes she has to do hard things.

“I know nena, and i’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to, I don’t think I could if I tried, but this can’t keep going. I did some research, there are some really good drugs for people that struggle like you, that aren’t addictive and can help lots. I’m not a doctor and neither are you. We don’t know about these things, it’s not our job, but there are people who do know about this stuff and they can try to help you, really help you. You can’t live like this, it’s not sustainable in any way, we need to find some way to fix this. Whether it’s therapy or medication or resting, you need something and you can’t provide it yourself.”

Alexia words are a punch to the gut, but they also make sense, she knows what she’s talking about.

“You promise that I won’t have to do anything I don’t want to?”

Alexia nods her head, she’s shocked that you’re already sort of agreeing with her.

“I promise nena, I just want to help you somehow, however that may be.”

You take a big bite of your food, and a gulp of the orange juice that Olga has set down next to you.

“I slept better than I have in months last night, because of you, I don’t know how or why but something you did made me sleep and if you think that I need help, then I can’t really argue with that. It needs to be on my own terms though.”

Alexia nods, this is so hard for you, accepting help, accepting that you have a problem that needs fixing.

“Of course nena.”

You nod, drawing all of your thoughts together.

“I think I need help Ale, I want help.”

[lottins-only]

I love you, it's ruining my life

Kylian X black!fem!reader

Author's Note: This is the first part of a childhood friends to lovers series I've planned. I'm new to this, so bear with me and let me know what you think!

  I. December 2012

Every evening after school, Y/N and Kylian would race to the park. Their bags slung over their shoulders, their laughs ringing across the paved path that led to the park that had been their stomping grounds since she could walk. Bondy was in the periphery, both literally and metaphorically, but childhood in the city as she remembered it was vibrant, fun, and inextricable from Kylian Mbappé. 

  At 12 years old, her lack of female friendships meant that she was a shadow to the neighborhood boys. Kylian was one of them; his mother Fayza, and her own mother had worked in the local primary school at the same time briefly, thus forging a strong and constant friendship. It had occurred to her as an adult that it must’ve been a deliberate step from Fayza to invite her to Kylian’s 12th birthday party, given her mothers concern at the time that she didn’t have many friends. It was true that she was largely friendless; she was shy, slow to open up, and had her nose in a book most of the time. But that birthday party changed everything. All of a sudden, the loud, energetic boy that lived and breathed football was her best friend.  And that was that. 

The sky was a dull gray on that cold December day. Y/N and Kylian made their way to one of multiple tall and imposing apartment buildings that littered Bondy, and that she and Kylian’s families shared. Their earlier kick about in the park with some of the kids from school had been cut short thanks to the biting cold. 

Y/N looked down at the cobblestones, softly humming a melody that had been stuck in her head all day. Beside her, she could hear Kylian bouncing his football, the rhythmic thud echoing softly. They were walking in tandem silently, as was routine for them. Y/N liked that about their friendship,  that she didn’t need to have to make conversation just for the sake of making conversation. 

“Ugh, not that One Direction song again” Kylian groaned. 

Y/N looked up, her breath forming little clouds in the chilly air. “Shut up, you know they’re awesome. How’d you even know it was their song I was humming?”

The tip of Kylian’s nose was adorably pink. “Maybe because you’ve been singing it all day? You know you’re never even gonna meet Zayn, let alone marry him”  

Y/N let out an indignant sigh. “Yes, I will! When he comes to Paris for their next concert, you’ll see. He’ll fall in love immediately and we’ll get married and move to England and have babies”

Kylian looked at her like she was crazy.

She continued, sighing dreamily. “ And then Harry, Liam, Louis and Niall will be my best friends”

It had been drizzling slightly as they walked but the intensity of the rain increased suddenly. Kylian pulled his jacket off and draped it over her head. 

“You’ll catch a cold if you don’t stay dry” he said softly, and her heart almost burst. Then, more loudly, he said, “Ok, let’s say you marry Zayn. You’re going to have to fly between England and Spain a lot to watch me play. Why go through that? I say you divorce him and come live in Madrid with me”

Y/N burst out laughing. “How are you so sure you’ll play for Real Madrid?”

“I know I will” he said matter of factly. “And I know you’ll be a really good doctor, doing really cool things”

It was true, she’d  wanted to work in healthcare for as long as she remembered. Her favorite subjects in school were math and biology, sometimes chemistry. Besides, she liked the idea of a noble calling. Y/N was never loud and bold about her dreams, not like he was. She was pleased that he remembered that detail about her she rarely mentioned.

“So, in Madrid we’ll have a really big house with a really big pool” He continued, grinning. “We’ll let Ethan stay over, but only occasionally.”

Y/N stayed silent,  not letting her mind fantasize about such a future. 

Inside the apartment building they shared, they raced up the stairs and paused on the landing of the second floor. This was where Y/N’s apartment was located, and where they usually said their goodbyes before Kylian bounded up the stairs to the 4th floor. 

“Well, I’ll see you soon, yeah?” Y/N tugged at the fraying straps of her backpack before abruptly wrapping Kylian up in a hug. There would be 10 days of Christmas break, and although they lived two floors away from each other, there was no guarantee that they would see each other during that time. She would miss him, she knew. In those almost 2 years since his birthday party, Y/N and Kylian had grown inseparable. The neighborhood aunties had nicknamed them “the twins”, since one was rarely seen without the other. 

Kylian instinctively hugged her back, before pulling away. A broad and uncontrollable smile spread on his face as his eyes flickered to the ground and then back up to her. “Um.. actually, I’m traveling tomorrow” He said it in a hushed tone, even though the floor was completely empty and there was no chance that someone was eavesdropping on their conversation. 

“Traveling where?” Y/N frowned. Kylian hadn’t mentioned any travel plans for the break before. 

“To Madrid” He said with a grin.

Her eyes lit up. “Oh! Are you visiting your cousin there?”

“No, No. I’m going to go see Real Madrid. I was invited by the club, well by Zidane, actually. Papa and I are flying out tomorrow. It was a birthday surprise, they told me this morning” The words rushed out hurriedly, and Y/N could tell he was excited. 

This wasn’t the first time Kylian was being courted by football clubs. He was one of Europe’s most promising talents, after all. Especially in the last two years, he’d miss a couple days out of school to go see clubs in England, Spain and other cities in France with his parents. She didn’t know what went on during the visits, but he would always come back with exciting stories and  a glint in his eye that would last for days and weeks. She knew this one would be different though. This was Real Madrid, the club in whose jersey he slept at night. This was his dream come true. 

Y/N squealed and wrapped Kylian in a tighter hug, before  pulling away and lightly shoving his shoulder. “Oh my god. Congratulations, Kylian! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”

He grinned even more, shifting his weight from one leg to another. 

“I had to make sure it was real first” 

Y/N gave him an exaggerated frown.

“I’ll get you a souvenir from there. Something cool, I promise” He quickly said. 

She perked up at that before enveloping him in a third and final hug. “Have fun, okay. I know they’ll love you there” She murmured into his shoulder. They said their goodbyes and parted ways.

As she watched her best friend walk up the flight of stairs, it struck her:  this was it. Someday, he would go away and never come back. Bondy and everyone in it would just be a part of his origin story.

[wosofics00]

Sister

Part 1

Leah Williamson x Russo!Reader

Summary: Where R, who is alessias sister, hooks up with Leah after winning the euros…

Warnings: SMUT +18

Authors Note: This fic is a combination of two requests I got. Here’s the first part, I hope you enjoy it and stay tuned for more. ————————————————————————

It was the night after England had won the euros, to celebrate the historic win there was a big party in the teams hotel organised with their friends and families. As a footballer you can’t switch off often and you always have to make the right choices due to the public attention, but tonight was one of the few nights the girls could finally let loose. Winning to euros was definitely a good enough reason to get smashed, and even their captain has had a few drinks to many, stumbling over to one of her best friends.

„Hey Gorgia“ Leah lightly pulls Georgia towards her and pointing towards a blonde girl standing next to Alessia. „Who’s that?“ leah asks curiously. „Oh that’s less sister, don’t you know her?“ Georgia answers casually. „Her what?“ Leah answers surprised. „Her sister, y/n“ she clarifies but Leah is still in the dark. „I didn’t even know she had a sister…come on introduce me“ Leah then says which earns her a pointed look from Georgia. „No Leah. I don’t care with who you sleep outside of football but you can’t jeopardise the team dynamics by hitting on someone’s sister“ she states and Leah rolls her eyes. „Who said something about hooking up? I just wanna meet her“ she reasons which makes Georgia roll her eyes, knowing exactly where this will lead to. „Sure Lee..can’t you stick to breaking some random girls heart instead of your teammates sister?“ she asks but Leah is already on her way towards less and her sister. „If you don’t introduce me I’m gonna introduce myself“ Leah shrugs and leaves Georgia behind. 

After taking a jug from her drink and fastening her ponytail she joins less side. „Hey less are you having a good time?“ Leah grins and gives you a quick look with a dangerous twinkle in her eyes. „Oh Leah yeah!! And you?“ less stumbles over her words, clearly more than tipsy, which makes the other girls giggle. „Have you met y/n already?“ less adds and throws her arm around your shoulder. „that’s my little sister so be nice“ she introduces them. „Hey y/n I’m Leah“ Leah grins and extends her hand while looking into your eyes. „Hey Leah, nice to finally meet you“ you grin back and shake her hand. „Your sister is pretty drunk“ Leah grins which makes you giggle. „She just won the euros which makes me think you’re not drunk enough“ you answer. „oh I’m just better at covering up“ Leah chuckles and takes a sip of her drink. In the meantime less got dragged away by an equally drunk tooney which leaves Leah alone with you. 

„So let me buy you a drink and then you’ll tell me why I haven’t met you before.“ Leah adds and lightly strokes over your arm before heading towards the bar. After ordering some champagne for the both of you, you sit down with Leah at a more secluded spot, away from the noise of her teammates. „now, you don’t live in London right? I take big pride in knowing all the pretty girls around here“ Leah flirts shamelessly. You blush at the compliment and curse yourself for being so affected by Leah’s charme. Her reputation is well known and usually you’re no one for casual hook ups, but your dating live has been difficult to say the least and saying no to someone like Leah is just hard by itself. „no I’m not from London, I actually live in Italy at the moment but I’m not opposed to visiting the city a bit more often“ you smile sweetly and Leah face lights up. 

„Is that so? You know, I’ve always had a thing for Italians“ she smirks and scoots a bit closer. „So you fancy my sister as well? That’s a shame“ you sigh and Leah rolls her eyes. „You know exactly what I mean, and I could provide a comfortable bed to sleep in if you come and visit“ she says while laying  an arm around your shoulder. „Oh Leah, if I’m coming to your house I don’t plan on sleeping there“ you grin back and lean forward to whisper in Leah’s ear. „there are far more…satisfying activities to do in bed than sleeping“. Leah’s eyes widen and she even scoots closer, her hands stroking your arm lightly. „Meet me in my room in half an hour, number 200“ she whisper and pushes a key card into your hand before sliding out of the seat and disappearing in the crowd. 

You have to pull yourself together for a moment to process what just happened, and what’s about to happen in a few minutes. Having some time left you head for another drink when an even drunker less stumbles into your arms. „y/n where have you been?“ she slurs and throws her arm around you. You chuckle „just talking a bit, I see you haven’t stopped drinking“. Less shrugs „it’s not every day I win the euros…did you talk to Leah all the time?“ she asks. „You still remember that?“ you ask surprised. „Of course, you know I don’t blackout, probably gonna throw up but not black out. So did you talk to her all the time?“. You just nod, trying to avoid eye contact. „did she make a move on you? If yes I’m gonna kill her I swear“ less grumbles. 

You have to chuckle at how cute less gets when she’s protective but are also a bit concerned about your plans for the rest of the night. „Don’t worry lessi she’s very charming but not my type“. Less still looks a bit sceptic but nods „alright, just don’t let another girl hurt you again, you deserve so much more“ she pouts now and lays her head on your shoulder. „I’ll try my best“ you say and kiss her head before she pulls away again.

„I just remembered I promised mary to do some TikTok with her, do you wanna come along or are you fine without me?“ less asks and you shake your head. „I’m fine, actually I’m gonna leave in a few minutes I think, it’s already pretty late“. Less pouts but nods „alright take care“ she slurs again and you chuckle „you too, and have fun you deserve it“ you grin and hug her tightly. Alessias hugs are amazing and she gently hugs you back, even in a drunk state she manages to be soft and warm. „I will, Patrick already told me he has some fun surprise for tonight“ less giggles which makes you pull away. „Okay that’s my cue to leave“ you say and less laughs then rolls her eyes „prude“. „Perv“ you answer and show her the finger. Less laughs and gives you a kiss on the cheek „I’ll see you at mum and dads on Sunday?“ she asks and you nod to confirm. „Perfect now bye, I need shots“ less finally says before disappearing. 

When you look at the clock you realise you really have to head to Leah’s room now if you wanted to go through with it. You still had the chance to pull out but one thought about the other woman makes it easy to decide to head upstairs towards room 200, opening it with the key card and stepping inside a dimly lit room.

——————

„Leah?“ you ask a bit unsure. „Over here!“ she luckily answers and you follow the voice to turn around the corner. There lays Leah on a king size bed, in nothing but a set of red lingerie which makes your breath hitch. „Woah“ you just say and stand there, staring at her. „Hey there“ she smiles sweetly and sits up on her elbows. Her abs are flexed in this position and you can’t keep your eyes from drifting over her body. „You can touch me you know, come here“ Leah interrupts her thoughts and sits on the edge of the bed after pulling you after her. Now you’re standing between Leah’s legs and look down on her while playing with a strand of Leah’s long blond her which falls down her tanned body beautifully. „You look so hot“ you finally gain your voice again after being startled by the sight of Leah. „that was the plan“ Leah grins and pulls you closer by your thighs. Then you bow down and look her deep in the eyes, full of lust, before your lips crash together. The kiss starts soft but grows more and more heated. Soon it’s a full on make out session with Leah laying on her back, you on top of her. 

Finally you pull a bit back to gain some air, looking at a flustered Leah. „I’ve never done this before“ you confess and a frown forms on Leah’s face. „You’ve never had sex before?“ she asks and you shake your head. „I’ve had sex of course but never with someone…random. Only in relationships or with people I’ve known longer than you“ you explain and she nods understandingly while stroking up and down your waist. „we don’t have to go all the way today you know? I’m perfectly fine with getting to know you and maybe we could resume this in London some day“ she answers but you shake your head again. „No! I want this…so bad“ you blush at the confession „I’m really turned on by you“ you add and blush even more. „I see“ Leah grins confidently and keeps on stroking your waist, now under your top. „So you’re that horny you wanna sleep with a random woman like me?“ she asks and lets her hands wander to your back. „Yes“ you just manage to say, not able to concentrate on talking with Leah’s hands on you like this. „Ts ts ts so needy“ Leah grins and pushes your back down so you both are face to face. „Let me take care of that“ she says while looking in your eyes intensely. „Okay“ you just say and smile at her while not being able to hold the eye contact fully, too nervous about the situation. Leah leans a bit forward to whisper into your ear „if you feel uncomfortable just tell me“ she says and then turns you both around easily so she’s on top.

„I will now…no more talking“ you say decisively and grin up at her. Leah mirrors the grin before diving back in, kissing you hardly. It’s a short battle before Leah gains dominance of the kiss, using her going to explore your mouth while her hands are roaming over your body. First it’s your waist, shoulders, hands and back. Then she slowly glides towards your breasts, cupping your bra lightly. „You still wear way to many clothes“ she whispers before sitting up and helping you pull off your top. „Better“ she grins and looks down at you in awe. Then she resumes to take off your bra as well „even better“ she grins again and slowly starts playing with your nipples, watching your face closely. You try to hold the moan escaping your mouth but Leah soon realises that your breasts are extremely sensitive so she resumes getting to work there. „I wanna hear you baby“ Leah says and you just nods. 

When she bows down to take one of your nipples into your mouth she can’t hold in a loud moan anymore. „I’ve never seen someone enjoying nipple play that much“ Leah smirks up at you but you just nods and beg „keep going please“. Without a word Leah resumes her work with her mouth, stimulating your other breast with your mouth. After a while her hand wanders down, lips still around your nipple, sucking and licking it. She swiftly pulls down your skirt and panties, now having you completely naked in front of her. „Fuck“ she groans and takes a long look over your body. She quickly takes off her lingerie as way so she’s equally naked and lays down on you again. 

With her knee she gently spreads your legs and starts grinding against your clit. You hiss and can’t stop yourself from rocking against Leah’s leg yourself. „Please Leah“ you quietly beg and look at her, flustered with your lips swollen and hair a mess. „What please?“ she asks with a smirk while kissing your neck gently. „Please just…do something“ you response. „I’m doing something“ she grins again while grinding a bit harder against you. „You know what I mean“ you groan. „Say what you want“ she demands and starts sucking on your neck, at all the right spots which makes you moan again. „Fuck just…fuckk me please. I want to come so bad“ you finally confess and she smirks up at you.

„Of course I’m gonna fuck you, don’t worry about that“ she says and lets a hand slide down your stomach until it finds your center. „You’re so fucking wet“. „just for you Leah…please“ you whimper and her smirk grows even wider. „oh baby“ she says with a husky voice while leaning forward towards your ear again. „I’m going to ruin you, I’m going to fuck you so hard you won’t be able to walk tomorrow“ she says and bites your earlobe before letting her fingers runs through your folds. After a pierce look into her eyes she finally pushes two fingers into your tight pussy, clenching around them immediately. A loud moan escapes your mouth which is muffled by her kissing you passionately. She bites your lip and starts moving her fingers, first a bit slower to help you adjust, then harder and harder. „Do you like that?“ she grins down at you while playing with your nipple and fingering you roughly. „Fuck yes Leah, I haven’t been fucked in such a long time“ you confess and start moaning loudly again. „Oh yeah, I can feel how tight you are“ she answers while curling her fingers to hit all the rights spot in a punishing pace. Your cunt clenches and a loud moan escapes your mouth again, signalling Leah you’re getting closer and closer to coming.

So she suddenly pulls out her fingers „turn around“ she orderes and you obey embarrassingly quickly, way to eager for her to resume. „I’m gonna make you cum now“ she whispers in your ear and suddenly spanks your ass hardly. You can’t contain a moan again, loving to be taken rough like that. „You love it when I claim you right?“ she asks and you can hear the smirk in her voice. You nod, unable to form words but that’s not enough for her. „Answer me properly“ she orders and spanks you again. „Y-yes“ you whimper and push out your ass, signalling how desperate you are. „I’m gonna give you what you want“ she decides and pushes two fingers into you again, curling them and start moving them fast and hard. „Fuuck“ you moan again, burying your head in the mattress. „You can take more“ she decides, not leaving space for doubt. She then pulls you up by the hair and pushes three fingers into you, curling them once again which makes you scream out her name. „I’m gonna come Leah, please make me cum please“ you beg, almost pathetically. „Yes baby I’m gonna make you cum“ she says and circles your clit while keeping her movements inside you until you clench hard around her fingers accompanied with a long moan. „Good girl“ she whispers into your ear while pulling her fingers out and kisses your neck softly. „Fuck“ you just breath out and fall down on the bed, completely exhausted.

„That was so fucking good“ you say after a few minutes of just laying there while Leah was stroking your back. „I’m glad you enjoyed it“ Leah smiles softly and you turn your head a bit to see her properly. „Um should I…you know“ you offer to reciprocate the favour but can’t contain a yawn. „No seeing you like that was enough for me“ Leah grins and lies down next to you. „You can show me what that mouth can do when you’re visiting London someday“ she grins cheekily and you just chuckle then turn on your side to throw one arm around Leah’s waist. „I can’t wait“ you whisper and press a firm kiss onto her lips. After a few lazy kisses you lay your head on Leah’s chest, just relinquishing in the moment together, exhausted from the night you slowly drift away. After a while you can feel how Leah shifts and gets up but after a few seconds she climbs back into bed, pulling the sheets over you to and hold you close while pressing a good night kiss on your head.

————————————

I hope you enjoyed this, please leave feedback and comments, I’ve never done this before so I’m curious about your opinions!

[billthedrake]

DAD'S HABIT

It had become a birthday tradition. Ever since my parents' divorce, Dad would treat me each year to a guys' night in the city. I was a hockey player, and my father the textbook hockey dad, and we were both big Rangers fans. So every year, Dad would drive me to New York, where we'd spend two nights and catch a home game.

I think Dad thought I'd outgrow it as I got closer to graduation, but I enjoyed the father-son bonding time as much as he did. My father is a brash, blue-collar kind of guy. Very heart on his sleeve, but also not good at talking about emotional stuff. The divorce made him even more closed off, but I knew he always looked forward to his custody weekends with me. Even at the pissiest, moodiest points of my teenage years, I got it.

I could tell Dad was surprised after I went off to college - on a hockey scholarship at a New England college - when I asked if we were still doing my birthday trip.

"You bet, buddy," he beamed with barely contained excitement in his voice. "Though I guess we'll need to wait till your season's over."

So that's what we did. A few days later he got back to me wondering if I'd want to catch an away series in Boston later that spring. That's how a new tradition got started, going to different cities each April.... Chicago, Montreal, and now that I'm 22 this year the trip is in DC.

The first night, Dad and I found a sports bar, where we watched a couple of games, but mostly caught up. About school, life, and just boring stuff. Dad seemed to be in a good mood, chattier than normal, and just happier with life. His contracting work was going well, and he promised that he'd take me out for a nice steak dinner the next night.

I asked him if he was dating any one, but he just cocked a grin and shook his head. "Nothing serious," he said with an uncharacteristic blush. "I mean, your old man gets out there for a little fun now and then, but I don't know if I'm ready to date."

"Dad!" I objected with a laugh. The man had given me the birds and bees talk and had checked in with me a couple of times. I'd admitted to him that I'd become sexually active, though I made up more experience with women than I really had. But we weren't the kind of family who talked much about sex.

"Goddamnit, Joey," he chuckled. "You're not a kid any more. I figure you know the score."

"Yeah, I guess," I said, pressing my leg against my father's next to the bar. "Guess you don't get used to the idea of your parents having a life."

"Could probably use a little more of one, to be honest," Dad chimed. God, he was really opening up this evening. "What about you, son? I thought you'd be going steady with someone by now."

"Nah," I hemmed and hawed, trying to hide my embarrassment. I'd gotten real good at bullshitting with my buddies and my teammates but for some reason had a harder time lying to Dad.

My father's hand clasped on my shoulder. "s' OK, I'm not gonna pester you like your mother does," he said. "I guess I wouldn't be a good Dad if I didn't want to know what's going on in your life."

Looking into his gruffly handsome face and his puppy dog brown eyes, I was THIS close to telling him. About the gay thing, about my doubts, about how I wanted to tell everyone but was too fucking scared. How I seemed to be putting my life off until after college.

Instead I gave a silent nod of acknowledgment and turned my head back up to the big TV screen behind the bar. Dad followed suit.

***

We were three beers in when Dad said the day was catching up with him. "It's early though, you should stay out," he urged. "Have some fun."

I almost said no, but it was barely 9 o'clock, and a part of me wanted to take advantage of some independent time. I told Dad I'd maybe stay out for a while longer.

"You got the spare room key, right?"

I told him I did. "I won't be out long," I said.

"I hope you are," he chuckled. "Seriously, enjoy yourself, Joey," he said as he got up from his bar stool. I try to not to perv on my old man but seeing him in his casual jeans and sweatshirt, it was hard not to admire his sturdy body. I mean, Dad's got a beer belly but otherwise is pretty damn solid. I felt his strength as he gave my shoulder one last squeeze before bidding me good night.

I gave it maybe five minutes after he left, then I downed my drink and found my way to the Metro to Dupont Circle. I'd only been to a gay bar twice before, and each time was nerve wracking as hell. But something about being in a different city made me feel anonymous. I felt giddy and excited as I walked the blocks to some bar I found on Google.

Maybe I picked the wrong place, or maybe it was too early, but the bar was dead. I may have been anonymous, but I stuck out in the place, the only dude under 40 in a place of older man. That would have been fine. I mean, I kind of get turned on by men in their late 30s, or 40s and 50s. But a couple of obnoxious guys made a beeline for me in turn, as soon as I got my beer. I tried to do the thanks but no thanks, thing but they wouldn't fucking let up. It brought out my whole anxiety about being in the place to begin with. I didn't even finish my beer, I just bolted out of there.

The whole way back to the hotel, I was frustrated and maybe a little mad at myself. I maybe should have tried another bar, but at this point I wasn't in the mood.

I tried to be quiet when I got back to the hotel room. There was the click of the key card, but other than that I slipped into the room silently, so I wouldn't wake Dad. It took me a second to realize that the light was on, and that Dad was hardly asleep. I was a few steps in the room, far enough to see half of the beds, when I realized what the fuck was happening.

"You like that cock, Daddy?" the voice was youthful and masculine, and it seemed to match the very attractive athletic younger guy who was boning my father doggy style.

My beefy bodied old man was bracing himself on all fours and actually bucking his meaty ass back against every hard thrust. If I wasn't hard yet, that sight alone made my cock feel more rigid than I'd ever felt.

"You know it, buddy," my father growled in that deep, loud voice of his. "Pound my fucking hole." God, Dad was being really loud and his sex talk seemed to echo off the walls. I hoped to God there was soundproofing, then realized I hadn't heard anything before stepping into the room.

The young dude just gripped Dad's waist and used the leverage to pull my father's body back and forth onto his shaft. "You wanna do the scene we talked about, man?" the guys asked, quiet in his voice now.

Dad nodded and blushed beet red. "Yeah, let's go for it."

The top's chest seemed to puff proudly. I couldn't believe they'd not noticed me. Hell, I couldn't believe I had the balls or the stupidity to just stand there and watch them. But they were so caught up in their mating. The man's hips now slowed to a slow sexy grind and he leaned forward and kissed along Dad's thick shoulder and neck. "I've wanted to do this for so long, Dad," he growled. "After every hockey practice."

"Oh god, yeah, Joey!" my father hissed, not as loud this time.

WHAT THE FUCK!?!

My heart pounded and my dick throbbed, but my mind was in a major head-fuck place now. I was actually hyperventilating, and the voyeurism had gone from a sexual turnon to a sense of invading Dad's privacy, or seeing something I shouldn't have seen. I backed out as quietly as I entered, and let the door open and shut as silently as I could.

"Fuck!" I hissed to myself as I stood in the hallway, feeling my heart race. I tried to gather my thoughts to something that would get my dick to go down. It half worked, but not fully. I thought of going somewhere else for a while, even the hotel lobby. But I had to know. Know who'd been fucking Dad. Probably not a boyfriend, cause Dad never came to DC. Maybe some dude from Grindr, I don't know.

It took ten minutes, maybe a little more. I waited down the hall, by the elevator bank, and when I heard the click of the door, I peered out. The first one was a different room, but the second, a minute later, was from ours. I pretended like I was I just coming from the elevators and walked slowly down the hall. The dude was busy with his phone as he walked, texting or something so I could get a good look at him. I'd seen his body in profile, but now that I saw him head on, wearing joggers and a zip up pullover, I could make out that he was almost a dead ringer for me! Blue eyes to my brown, and higher cheekbones, but otherwise there was so much similar. Same height, same athletic build, same dark brown hair, same jockish demeanor.

"Hey," he grunted in acknowledgement as we passed. Bro to bro.

"Hey," I said, nervously, trying to pass it off as a normal exchange. He kept on his way, and I paused at the room door, wondering if he'd look back. He never did.

I wasn't quiet this time. I wanted to give Dad time notice. I shut the door loudly and called out, "Hey Dad."

"Hey, buddy," he called out. He was lying back in bed, watching some sports news on the TV with the volume turned down. Wearing only a thin pair of gym shorts, his body was relaxed and I got a good chance to admire his muscle. Big bulging arms, rounded shoulders, and full hard pecs. Dad's surprisingly smooth for a guy his age, but there was a dusting of hair on his chest and torso... finer and lighter colored than my own body hair. Below his pecs there was some extra weight... more than middle aged spread, I guess, though his beer belly was shy of a full gut. On Dad it looked hot. The thin fabric didn't leave too much to the imagination, but my father's genitals were soft so didn't form too much of a package. And in some ways those thighs stole the show, with a rounded curve and palpable meatiness. They were hairier than his upper body but not outright furry.

I couldn't believe this man, my father, had just taken dick like a porn star.

I snapped out of my perving reverie and rifled though my bag for my own pair of shorts. No way was I sleeping in just underwear tonight. I even pulled out some compression to layer underneath, to keep any boner in check.

I ducked into the bathroom to piss, change, brush my teeth, and just collect myself. When I got out, bare chested as Dad, he was still on the other bed, absorbed in whatever boring sports talk program was on. I couldn't believe how nonchalant he was being. Then again, maybe getting laid puts you in that kind of mood.

I settled onto the other double bed and pretended to be interested in the TV. I'd sneak glanced over at my father, to get a look at his half naked body but also to imagine that forbidden spot between his legs, deep in his ass. No way did he have the chance to shower off after sex, and I just knew that cleft and hole were still wet with lube.... and if the guy didn't put on a condom, then cum as well.

I had to lift my leg and surreptitiously reach down to pinch the base of my cock to tame the hardon. Compression would only do so much.

"Have fun tonight?" Dad finally asked. "I thought you'd be out longer."

The messed up thing was that I felt guilty for coming back too early, of not giving my father enough time to hook up with a dude. "It was all right," I said. "Just wasn't feeling it."

He looked over at me, his brown eyes filled with normal fatherly concern. "Yeah, buddy? I figured a good looking dude like you would be able to score a hot girl for the night."

"Dad!" I objected.

"What?" he asked. As if his concern were just a normal dad's male bonding with his son. In another instance it might be, but I knew now that Dad got off on the idea of me fucking. That's why he was always asking me about girls.

I had every intention of playing dumb. Of just filing this evening back into my memory bank for stroke sessions. Because this was potentially explosive stuff.

Instead I picked up that stick of emotional TNT. "I, um, saw you guys... just now... earlier," I eked out through a shaky voice.

Dad's relaxed, happy go lucky face turned dead serious. "Oh," he said. "I thought I head the door click." He looked at me and I just knew what he was thinking. He was trying to figure out just how much I'd seen. "Sorry you had to see that Joey."

"Guess I should have picked up the hint you wanted some alone time," I said. Trying to pass it off like Dad was my dorm roommate needing to get laid. I even forced a chuckle to make light of the weirdness.

Dad turned off the TV and turned toward me. God, I wished he wasn't looking so hot just then. Chest and arm muscle bulging as his body pivoted toward me. "I'm serious, Joe... I didn't mean.... Damnit... I guess you know now... your old man likes to have a little fun now and then."

It was none of my business, but curiosity won out. "He wasn't your boyfriend or anything, was he?" I mean, it didn't seem likely but I had to know if I was getting a step dad my age.

He shook his head. "Nothing like that, son," he said, pausing before adding, "It's just, well, sometimes I splurge on a hustler."

It was a weird first reaction, but I was a little mad that Dad paid that dude when any number of men would be lucky to fuck him. But as the memory of that primal scene flashed in my head, I was getting rock hard again. "Dad, I'm pretty sure you don't need to pay anyone."

Dad's eyes were on me intently now. Deciding how to take my comment. "Sometimes I want someone who's not gonna pass judgment," he said quietly. Damn he was making himself vulnerable now, for sure.

I was too. Meeting his gaze, I said, less quietly now, "I'm not gonna pass judgment, Dad."

"No?" he asked. I could hear his voice catch in his throat.

"Nope. And I hope you don't pass judgment on me," I replied.

"What would I...?" Dad started to ask before he let out a surprised, "oh!"

I'd pulled my legs out and was revealing my hardon to dad. Even beneath the shorts and through the compression, my ridge of college-jock cock was visible. My heart raced nervously but I also sat up proudly in bed and spread my legs further to show my dick off to my father.

"Fuck, you're big, Joey," he gapsed, without thinking before he took his eyes off my crotch and looked back up at me. "How long?"

"I dunno, Dad," I said. "Maybe 7 and a half inches. Almost eight."

"Shit," he grunted. Then shook his head. "But I meant how long have you had a thing for me?"

"Honest, Dad?" I replied. "I don't know. Maybe longer than I realized."

He nodded, taking in the information.

I looked over at my father and could see his dick firming up to a spike again in those shorts. "How long have you had a thing for me, Dad?"

"Maybe longer than I realized, too," he shot back, now sitting up on the bed, facing me. "I swear Joey, I tried not to go there, but you grew into such a hot fucking stud."

I'd had sex with men a couple of times before, and I'd enjoyed the naughty thrill of it. But this just seemed to click, the mutual sexual attraction. The fact Dad was as boned for me as I was for him made me wish we weren't father and son.

Then again, that was the thrill of it, too.

With a playful grin, I hooked my thumbs in my shorts and pulled them up over my boner. Dad was silent and his attention fixated watching this simple, taboo act. I slid off the shorts and the compression and let my long, thick cock ride up. It was fully engorged and stood up from my treasure trail at a rigid angle.

Dad gulped again and looked up at me. "We doing this, son?"

"Yeah, Dad," I hissed, scooting off the bed and standing up. Horniness winning out over my nerves. "We're fucking doing this."

I heard a low rumble as my butch father scooted over and with one hand on my leg to guide me, he took me into his mouth.

"Holy fuck!" I gasped. At first it was just the sheer forbidden fact that my own father was licking and now sucking my bone. But quickly I was going wild at realizing how frickin' good Dad was at this. Not going for the kill, he gave slow, sensual head that seemed to be worshipful and did the trick of working me up to a boil without sending me over the edge.

I'd had guys suck my dick a couple of times, but I'd never fully gotten a blowjob, not for real. Dad was giving me my first.

"Dad," I hissed, spreading my legs to brace my body and running my fingers softly through his light-brown hair to encourage him. I rode out the incredible incestuous pleasure, then had to put on the breaks. "Dad..." I urged, using my fingers to nudge his skull back off me. "I don't wanna cum yet."

My father let out a soft, deep growl as my wet thick prick cleared his lips. And just as quickly as he'd taken me into his mouth, his face dove down to start tonguing and kissing my balls.

"You've turned into such a stud, all right," I heard him say between kisses. "Big fucking balls, too."

I'd had two hookups with older men. Men Dad's age. One was fun, the other I felt a little skeeved out by the man's lecherous fixation on my youth. But with Dad, I responded instantly to his worshipful lust for me. Something about it brought out both my loving and aggressive side. Holding the back of his head, I pulled him roughly into my crotch, then relaxed my grip and patted his head affectionately. Dad seemed to love that.

"I wanna fuck you, Dad," I let out. As I said the words, I knew they were a messed up thing to think, much less say. I was so horny, though, and after seeing Dad practically slut out earlier, my dick was doing the thinking for me.

Dad pulled back, spit on his lips and excitement in his brown eyes. "Yeah, Joey?"

If I didn't know before, I had a pretty good confirmation that Dad had thought a LOT about that very idea. His hand stroked my spit-wet prick, as if he was sizing up how much he'd feel my size.

A nagging doubt hit me. Not incest, but my inexperience. "I might not have the moves that hustler did, but I wanna bone you, Dad."

Dad leaned back, his burly body on display for me, with its hard blue-collar muscle and that extra bulk. He was beautiful and my cock twitched seeing his masculine build offered before me. "How you want me? On all fours?"

I stepped back for a better view, shaking my head. "Face to face," I growled, feeling my cock twitch. I'd had my experiences with men and a hell of a lot of self time with porn. This was better than both combined. "I wanna make out with my dad while I fuck him."

"Joey," Dad grunted, scrambling up to lie back on the bed. I was following him, already greedily tugging at the waist band of his shorts. The elastic snagged on his erection, but he helped me work it over and off his thighs, before I pulled the shorts off and tossed them aside. "This is SO fucking wrong, son," he hissed, and I knew we were on the same wavelength. Riding that taboo.

"Fuck yeah, it's wrong," I growled, the words almost catching in my throat I was so turned on. "A son shouldn't wanna fuck his father."

Dad honest to god whimpered at that. Or maybe it was the feel of my hardon nudging along his thigh as I leaned down and claimed a kiss.

This itself was a line crossed, more than the cocksucking, more than the sex talk. I was French kissing my own father and he was sucking my tongue into his mouth before battling it with his own. We grunted into our kiss, humping our heated bodies and feeling that incredible flesh-on-flesh contact.

This desire had been bottled up so deep inside me, but this evening had brought it out so quickly, I knew it was always there. Knew my father had been deep in my psyche as I masturbated all these years. Knew he was an implicit comparison for any man I went for.

I'd have to ask Dad where I fit into his fantasies, or if there were other men, young men, in his life. All I knew now was how hungrily he held me and felt up my hockey-jock body and spread his legs, inviting me in, then wrapping those feet around to guide me to enter him.

I wasn't hustler-skilled, so I had to reach down and guide my rigid cock to root around for his entrance. But that escort had left a good amount of lube there, and as I nudged my father's recently-fucked pucker, I could tell there was a good deal of cum, too. The idea excited me and made me jealous at the same time. That fucker should have been paying Dad for the privilege...

I thrust inside my old man. Between the suddenness and my size, it was a LOT for Dad to take. Turns out the man liked it that way. He growled into our kiss and used his heels against my strong ass to urge me on.

I didn't need my invitation engraved. I let my body and my hormonal need take over. I fucked Dad, maybe just shy of rough, but definitely hard. And the faster and deeper I went the more the big man's body responded beneath me.

"Fuck me, Joe," he grunted as I broke the kiss and leaned up to get a good look at the man I was shafting, the man who made me.

"You love your son's cock in you?" I prodded.

"Fuck yeah," Dad replied. "Hot fucking incest."

That alone about got me to cum. My hips were a blur of motion and I was THIS close to orgasm.

"Open your mouth, Dad," I urged. I don't know what possessed me to do this, but I think I'd seen it a porn video and something about Dad's need made me wanna try it.

My father opened his mouth and I did it. I spit right into it, hitting the back of his throat like a bullseye target.

Dad actually fucking whimpered once I did.

I hawked some more spit and let it fly once more. And that did it, I was cumming HARD. Harder than I ever had in my life. My hips were now longer thrusting madly but giving a couple of deep jerks into my dad's guts to add my seed to that hustler's.

Dad was rock hard against my abs as we made out and held each other. Holding on to each other and not wanting this father-son fuck to end.

After a couple of minutes I realized I didn't have to end. Dad hadn't gotten off, and I was still rock hard. I could probably go for another... yeah, I could definitely go for another. My hips began a soft, shallow thrust, enough for Dad to feel it inside him.

"You going for another, Joey?" he asked, surprised and excited.

I nodded, smiling down on my father. His hair was matted down with sweat and he had a vulnerable edge to his handsome looks. I felt a strange sexual domination over my old man, but a hell a lot of love, too. It was all in the mix.

"You ever been fucked all night, Dad?" I asked, putting on my deepest, sternest voice I could manage. Yeah, maybe it was a boast, but at that point I felt I had it in me. In any case, I wanted to try.

"God, Joe," Dad hissed. His hands openly massaged my arm muscle, not as big and round as his guns but still with that athletic harness from sports and working out regularly.

I grinned, feeling playful as hell. "Is that a 'God, Joe,' I can't handle that? Or a 'God, Joe, please fuck me all night, Joe'?" I teased.

I felt Dad's heels on my ass cheeks again. "God, Joe, please fuck me all night, Joe.... son."

"You got it... Dad."

[the1975attheirverybest]

A Brief History of Time

A/N: sorry this request took a minute. My mental health as been trash lately and I feel like it’s starting to affect my writing. Hope this can still bring a smile to your faces though. Or at least make the person who requested it happy. Let me know what you think!

Warnings: none.

—-

“When I said I wanted to go for a walk, I didn’t realize it was gonna be raining.” She groaned, using her purse as a makeshift rain hat to protect herself from the rain.

“What, you call this rain? That’s not real rain. We’re in Manchester, baby.” Matty smiled, looking up at the sky as raindrops landed in his hair.

“What else would I call it?”

“Spitting.” He stated matter-of-factly.

“Is that a Manchester thing?”

“Could be? I think it’s just an England thing to be honest.” He shrugged, watching her frown with every raindrop that landed on her clothes. “Alright, alright, you big baby. let’s find you an umbrella.”

***

“This was their last one.” Matty called out as he emerged out of the store. “You got really lucky- allow me.” He opened the umbrella for her, sticking his arm out, and gesturing for her to get underneath it. “M’lady.” She hopped closer to it, relieved at the shelter it provided. Matty held the umbrella up for her while she wrapped her fingers around his arm, huddling in to share in the cover with him.

“All better now?” He smiled down at her.

“Mhm.” She reached up, kissing his lips as a gesture of gratitude. “You know what would be even better, though?”

“What, my love?”

“If we could stop at that Starbucks over there. I think a coffee might be nice.”

“You want a coffee? Alright. But we’re absolutely NOT going into a Starbucks. I know a better place.”

“It’s gonna be really far away, isn’t it?”

Matty said nothing, simply smiling as he sprinted down the street, causing her to giggle and speed up to keep up with him.

***

“Oh, hey, look. It’s The Deaf Institute.” Matty stopped in his tracks abruptly, pointing at the building. A smile crept its way onto his face as he walked closer to the front door, leaning in to take a peak through the glass.

She couldn’t help but smile as well as she watched him visibly light up at the sight of the place whispering exclamations to himself.

“It’s where we had our first proper 1975 show, you know.”

“Really?”

“Yeah…like, just when we were starting to attract attention. We played here and it fucking blew my mind that people knew the lyrics to ‘The City.’” Matty’s eyes twinkled with pride as he recalled the night, a decade ago. He couldn’t believe how quickly his whole life had changed.

“Hey, let’s go in there.” She whispered in his ear, as if sharing a secret plan.

“I thought you wanted a coffee…”

“Just a quick look around. I wanna see!”

“Alright, then.” Matty held the door open for her. “After you.”

“You’re such a gentleman.” She teased.

The place bustled with energy. The warm orange -red lights giving everything a golden glow. The space was by no means huge, but it was definitely packed. The walls lined with promotional posters of upcoming events. Some announced comedy shows, others were for bands and up and coming artists. She found herself imaging a 24 year old Matty, excitedly bouncing around the place. The image made her heart flutter with joy.

“I mean, at the time, the place felt enormous to us. We didn’t even have that many songs yet, I can’t believe we managed to put together a set list.” He laughed. “Oh my god. Look how low the stage is. In my mind, I was way above the crowd. This can’t be more than a few inches.” He giggled at the power of his memory to exaggerate the details of such a concrete moment.

An idea popped into her head. She pulled her phone out, typing “the 1975 the deaf institute,” into the search engine. “Oh my god, look! It’s on YouTube!” She held her phone up to his face, watching as he chuckled dramatically. “Look at my fuckin hair. What a wanker!” He shook his head.

“Hey, Matty? I have an idea. Go stand over there. I wanna take a picture of you. Re-create this original moment.”

“Babe-“

“Nope. I’m not taking no for an answer. Go!”

Begrudgingly, Matty did as she said, standing in the same corner that he clung to 10 years ago, smiling at her.

“Iconic! I’m making that my phone background.” She announced, proud of herself for having made him do it.

Within moments, a group of friends at the bar had recognized him and walked over to say hello.

She stood a short distance away, watching, and brimming with pride as he shook the fans’ hands and posed for pictures with them.

“Thank you. Nice to meet you!” He waved at them on the way out, flinging his arm around her and getting ready to open his umbrella again.

The rain had picked up when they stepped back out onto the street. It was definitely no longer just ‘spitting.’

“We’re having our afterparty at The Deaf Institute, you know? Like after our Manchester show.” Matty informed her as the building began to disappear behind them.

The pitter-patter of the rain against their umbrella was too loud for them to hold a conversation. They walked side by side, in silence, Matty occasionally pulling her to him and kissing her forehead.

“What- the- fu-“ Matty’s face dropped, pausing at the sidewalk.

“What? What is it, baby?”

“This- this was supposed to be the coffee shop.”

She looked around, confused. “Where?”

“Exactly! It’s gone! This- here!” He pointed to a partially demolished building. “This is where George and I would come get a coffee sometimes. Adam and Ross hated it. I mean, they’re right, it was shit, but it was all we could afford when we were kids, so- I can’t believe it’s gone!”

“I hate to interrupt your nostalgic grief, but umm, you were purposefully bringing me to a shitty coffee place?”

Matty smiled, his reminiscent bubble popping instantly. He shook his head. “It’s shit in a good way. You know when somethings so bad that it’s actually kinda good?”

“Nope. No, sorry, I do not.” The coffee snob in her finding his logic unacceptable.

He chuckled, taking her hand in his and resuming their walk once again. “C’mon. Let’s keep walking. We’ll find something eventually.”

***

“Do you like Manchester?” He looked down at her face. The rain had finally stopped, so he closed the umbrella, using his now free arm to keep her close to him as they walked on.

“You know what? I think I do, actually. Plus, you seem to love it, and I like seeing you so happy.”

“Think I’d like to raise my kids here.” Matty blurted out, unthinkingly.

“You-you think about having kids?”

“Yeah, I mean….you know. Someday. Don’t you?”

“Y-yeah. Yeah, me too. I guess I just didn’t realize you were thinking about stuff like this- like, where you’d raise them.”

“Can’t help it. When I’m here, it’s kind of all I want.”

She felt a warm and fuzzy tingle in her stomach at the thought of Matty raising his kids in the place that had brought him up. She thought it was sweet that he’d considered something like that.

Matty had seen something that made him stop right away. She hadn’t realized it until she felt his arm pull her back like an anchor, and when she turned around to see what he was looking at, she noticed the posters herself.

“Wow…record shop?”

“No, it’s a club actually.”

“Look! The Arctic Monkeys.” She giggled, pointing to the poster, having noticed that The 1975’s own ILWYS poster was hanging just a few rows below.

“You think you’re teasing me, but I’m genuinely an Arctic Monkeys fan so, I don’t mind.” Matty laughed.

“Yeah, you’re probably the only person who doesn’t hate their new album.”

“Hey! No slagging off my boy, Alex.”

“Did you just…call Alex Turner ‘your boy’ ?” She shook her head.

“Don’t care what Twitter says. He and I get on and I think their song ‘Perfect Sense,’ is fucking mint.”

“Alright, well, we’ve been walking for like an hour and I still don’t have coffee. Can we please go to Starbucks now?”

***

They sat on the bench by the river, sipping their coffee and enjoying watching the birds land and dip into the water for a drink.

When Matty turned to look into her eyes, he noticed that she was shivering. Quietly, he took off his long, black coat and wrapped it around her, laughing to himself at the sight of her being swallowed whole by the fabric.

“Thank you, babe.” She kissed his hand.“Where’d you get this coat, anyway?”

“Stole it off the wardrobe department. Patricia found it for a photo shoot, but I liked it too much to let it go, so…”

“So, I’m wrapped up in stolen goods is what you’re telling me.”

“But doesn’t the fabric feel really nice, though?”

“I….can’t lie, it does.” She conceded, closing her eyes and enjoying the whiff of Matty’s cologne that flooded her senses when a gust of air rattled the coat around her body.

“If you’re too cold, we could just go home.”

“No, please. I’m having the best afternoon. Let’s stay for a little while.”

[fandomsandfairytales]

Live reactions to Quigley Down Under

Basically a form of liveblogging. I wrote all this down while I was watching the movie.

Putting a "keep reading" cut here because ~spoilers~

The bullet points are split up by lines every now and then, usually based on scene. I'm leaving my phone typos in there for amusement purposes and adding in occasional brackets for clarification.

[Opening scene in the boat] Oooooo he's got manners

AND SASS!

[thought this but didn't write it down at the time] Very good introduction to his character, effectively shows us what his character is like with one interaction right off the bat

Very Max Way like, helping Cora

Also yuck to those guys

Lol to him insulting and then totally doing away with those guys [my autocorrected it to "bugs" and it's not wrong]

My name isn't Roy - gives off "don't call me Shirley" vibes a bit

This man is so sick and tired of everything in this country not even 10 minutes in

They got a body!

LOL at "we sent them back to England"

Trying to grasp the plot here

The look in his eyes is saying "What if I'm actually Roy?" at about 13 min

Severus Snape voice!! [Alan Rickman came onscreen and said "Matthew Quigley"]

Fancy specs there [about the gun]

Cora admitting she doesn’t know him!

Here we gooooooo

Got earplugs sir?

Oooooo he’s got SKILLS [shooting the bucket from far away]

Knew he would, of course, lol

That deserter guy's got VERY blue eyes

Dunno if Alan Ricjmsn [Rickman] is reminding me of someone else or just himself

Well that was a fast execution

Aha, I think it’s Ben Barnes as the Darkling, a bit [the person Alan Rickman was reminding me of, because of the facial expressions]

“yOu WeRe AcTuAllY IN dOdGe CiTy???”

This guy [Quigley] is such an American

Jack Pearson vibes hair & facial hair

Why are u so proud of your mint jelly sir

Aha more plot

OoooOOOOO

“Your American Indian” I’m going to skin u alive

What is that box for? Oh, cigars

This Marston guy is so rude

Ugh white supremacy

He’s making me bristle every other word

I’m wondering if Quigley is gonna become an outlaw

The tears in his eyes!!!!

LOL GET THROWN OUT

The outlaw part might be happening faster than I thought XD

GET WRECKED

Lolllll at the turnabout

Also the guys being afraid bc of the long shot rifle XD

YRAHHH PUT UR FEET UP ON THE TABLE

Lol they’re trying to ambush him

Of course it was the slave who got him bc nobody listens or expects them

Cora is so brave!

I KNEW THEY WERE GONNA THROW TJEM TOFETJER

enemies to lovers via being dumped in the desert, let’s go

Stunning landscape

Oh no, he doesn’t have his gun. Sad

Those rickety wagon wheels!

LOL the whisper

Oooooo he’s gonna knife em

Oh he put down the gun. Big mistake

Cool theme!!! The music!

YES HE CAN SHOOT FROM THERE

YOU CAN DI IT MISRER WYIGKEY

he’s giving beat up Walt Longmire

“On a new job it’s quite common for things not to go well at first” 😂 love how they both laugh

Also she’s lowkey giving Mallory from Studio C character vibes

The way she just leaves the hoop there on the ground

Also serious Thorne and Cress vibes

Had that the moment they said “dump them in the desert” They’re really dying ooof

You’re not just going to LEAVE HER THERE ARE U Of course not. Bc you’re a man with morals

Ouch that sunburn doesn’t look fun

This is also giving Walt Longmire dragging Henry through the desert

The moon!!!

They so want us to think it’s Quigley and Cora [the two people the British guys brought in]

Nope, lol

Aha!!! The guys he killed

Lol GET WRECKED

Aboriginal people!

That shot of the silhouettes against the sun is beautiful

Interesting

More Max Way chivalry vibes! “You okay?”

“The shady side of dead” is a cool phrase

Lolll to the kangaroo bit

Oh, grubs

Her accent is making me think of Ed in the movie where they take the babies [Raising Arizona]

“I don’t eat things that are still moving” then kill it first

Cool montage!

Cora backstory??!

The slow zoom in on her is so nice

Wait. Did she actually kill her baby? The poor woman

Dang

SGE WAS TRYINH TO SAVE HER AND THE BABY!!?!!!!!!!

“I know, cause I watched him leave” ughhhh (around 50 mins in)

This poor man just got trauma dumped on

Oh they’re gone!

Is he playing along with her?!

Oh NOOOOO

The way she’s running even if she can’t do anything. She cares so fiercely

Those guys deserve to die

GET RHEM GET THEMMMMM

Lolll yeah she’s not making this any easier for him

Yay he did good!!!!

This man is like Walt Longmire and Jack Pearson combined

“Are you trying to get your head blown off?” Lowkey Riser and Billie vibes to me

Oh 😭

“I could’ve used some help up there” wdym? she didn’t have a weapon

Awww the hand over her hands

Her smile looks like the aww yeah lady

Literally burst out laughing at “I’m cold.” I see EXACTLY what you’re trying to do there sweetheart

LOL to the flirtation

Oh she’s taking her corset off

He’s sweet

LOL

“Matthew”

“I’m not sharing my bed til I know who’s in it” completely and legitimately fair and you should be that way

This is a man hard pressed to deal with her

So very American Cowboy looking at 57 min

Interestinggggg about her not remembering the night before

I feel like O’Flynn’s going to become more important or something

“Not again!!!” Spider-Man school teacher vibes

And something else too I think ^

“Matthew Quigley is really starting to annoy me.” GOOD

The whole “are we lost” exchange was interesting and amusing, you can see him starting to get it

NOOOO

IM GOING TO KILL THEM TOO Idc that it’s a movie

GOOD THOSE MEN SHOULD FALL

I love Cora so much. Her compassion is beautiful

He feels it too even though he doesn’t say anything

I hope she gets to kill someone too

Lol his sass

“Or I’ll let you live” what a threat

“It’s only 20 miles past the bingabong!”

“You only got one shot left in that shooter. Make the most of it” WOW

Don’t worry Cora I’m sure he’s fine

My heart is going to break

This baby

Him on top of those rocks is a cool sight

This is really turning into that movie with Ed and Hi, isn’t it, lol

I like the lighting in that cave

Hmmmmm Idk if it’s a good idea to leave her alone

I’m scared she’s gonna get kidnapped

“You’re the only man on this continent that would ask me what I think” oh man

Awww “little bit”

The deadpan stare at her asking to find her some other clothes

Very American Cowboy of him galloping off. This is the first time he’s actually been alone since getting here

YEAHHHH RIDE HARD

TJE EPIC MUSIC

Yah! Yah! Get your woman and the baby sustenance!!!

Missed where the long coat came from

Definitely a Longmire shot of him on his horse

Cowboy town here

Doc Brown lookin guy

“She ain’t my woman” yeah yeah they all say that

I’ve been called a lot of things ma’am but never that - Riser way vibes

NO NOT THE KID

Oh NOOOO

Not dingoes

Look at those tails those are good dog actors

NO DONT SMOTHER HIM

KILL THE DINGOES

You have the chance to change history

GOOD LADY

GET THE DOGGIES

Dang I didn���t know dingoes were cannibals

Lollll yes take the gold

Mhmmmm u gotta get back

GUN FIGHT GUJ GOHNY [I don't even know what I was trying to type there)

EPIC MUSIC

He has a habit of throwing ppl through windows doesn’t he, including himself?

FIREEE

Hopefully nobody’s in there

Put your bandada over your mouth!!! Good

Seriously more Jack Pearson vibes with a house on fire

LOLLLL to him jumping syreakght thru the roof

You’re just giving him holes to shoot throuh

Oh nvm he’s out

NOOOOO NOT THE MOM

Whoa okayyyy we are knocking the horse over

YEAHHHH “go tell Marston I’m coming after him” definitely reminds me of something but can’t remember what. Maybe Once Upon a Time “tell the evil Queen we’re coming" or something

“Oh, shut up”

None of these guys want to go, do they? Lol

I hope that black guy does something

Bandana over mouth like Riser on his bike

I knew she was still alive

Awww. She’s back in her old mind. “I killed the Comanches”

And the way he understands and goes “didn’t get any sage hens, but I got the next best thing”

Oh, he GOT HER A DRESS

I like how we see them coming over the same hill he came over

Now giving Court Jesysr [Court Jester which is another movie] vibes with him with the baby

Oh her earrings are pretty too

Uhhh should I be scared that she won’t give the baby back? Oh nvm

Love the fade to white transition

He looks like a general sitting there

Ohhhh is it only one bed type scenario??? I see I see

Oh he’s going off without her!

LOLLL she’s awake

The scene with them!!! Emotions!

That theme again

OH. The way he looks back at her. Tears in my eyes

Nice transition into the house

This fluffy haired guy reminds me of someone

The zoom in!

Oh fluffy haired guy is a Scotsman!! Or something, judging by his glengarry. Not his accent tho

Now I’m wondering. Do horses usually run into their home barn/area and rear when they’ve lost a rider who’s dead?

Lol, they’re all going to be tired, but I bet Quigley got sleep

Alan Rickman is giving me Nic Cage as Hi vibes [once again, character from Raising Arizona]

Is that O’Flynn riding?

Horse chase!!!

Oh goodness. Those poor horses.

“On ya feet ya lazy mongrels!” [Adrian Von Ziegler reference]

“Move you gutless bloody wonder” lollll

Got all the grass on him naturally, you wouldn’t see that nowadays, it’d be all brushed off by hair and makeup

Oh NO

noooooooo

Oh gosh he’s being dragged through the desert?!

Not fun not fun

Knew O’Flynn would come up again

I want that slave guy to kill Marston so bad

“What? Nothing clever to say?” Severus Snape vibes

The way if he stood up straight he’d be taller than the other two—

Oh fluffy haired guy IS wearing a kilt isn’t he?! Wait nvm he’s not, thought so bc of his coat

Okay his name is Dobkin, that’s who he is

“Some men are born in the wrong century. I think I was born on the wrong continent.”

What are you WAITING for???

This ain’t Dodge City - that again?

HAAAAAAAAA

I had honestly really wanted the slave to kill him so that he would be the one actually driving the action here lol

Marston dying in the sand is giving Dr. Brenner from Stranger Things dying

“Never said I didn’t know how to use it” mwahaha

The slave guy is back tho!

Yeah he got his gun!

Wait was HE the one who fired at the other two?

Yes!!! The aboriginal ladies!!! And the man! BE FREEEEEEEE

Oh that makes me so happy

Love the dunking the face in the barrel

Lollll here come the British

Oh he is NOT in the mood is he

Snorted at the guy interrupting the other one reading off that long paper

“In short, this paperwork says we can hang you.”

Oh?? Hmm????

YESSSSSSSS Im not surprised!!!

The aborigine people!!

….he’s giving the ”you were saying?” look

Yay! The aborigine man who was a slave seems to have been the one to bring them back!

And now he’s all alone here on this big ol ranch

Ohh goodness

Oh SHE LOOKS SO PRETTY

SHE’S SO PRETTY IN RED

Ohhhhhh he’s gonna say “Roy” isn’t he

I yelled YEAHHHH

Cobb? I didn’t realize that was her last name

Two, of course, he’s staring into her eyes [not sure what I meant by "two"—I think that was an autocorrect of something else]

She was so right about her being pretty in red

Ooooioooo she called him by his name!

She mussed up his hair!!!

Love the traditional still on the kiss and fade to black, very nice

Catch me clapping like it's a movie theater, lol

Thank! You! SO MUCH for telling us no animals were harmed or killed in the making of this movie. That matters to me

Those are some cool names for the aboriginal group

I’ve come to be fond of the theme track :)

A very good movie and a good way to spend Saturday evening.

1990, okay! Would've thought it was a bit older.

And no ads the entire time, huh. [I figured out after this that it's because I was watching it on the TV at my friend's place, who I'm housesitting for currently, and she told me she has YouTube without ads. I'm SO glad I chose to watch the movie while I'm here XD]

@thegreenleavesofspring bc I know you want to see this :)

[variousqueerthings]

8 11 32 PLEASE!

HELLOOOOO AND THANK YOUUUUUU! also I remembered how much I overthink when looking at these whoops

8. Describe your gender without using any words traditionally related to gender: You know the opening to the Mr Bean series? Mr Bean gets beamed down onto earth and then it's implied that everyone Mr Bean does after that is literally because of being an alien, but it's never actually confirmed in the text? that but like. with a much more extensive wardrobe

11. Favorite (or just one you love) piece of LGBT media?: WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME???? I'm gonna give u three out of Many that are perfect. and I'm going to connect them to a Theme (I'VE CONNECTED THE DOTS). the thing is that these movies are movies that have at some point held me gently and guided me into a greater understanding of the queer community and history generally, as well as my own feeling of place within this community

My Beautiful Laundrette: This is one of my personal seminal queer movies, I watched it as a young'un/baby queer and it's just. Oh. such softness amidst the violence of the times, and the thing is that the softness is something that saves the main characters from the violence, both as potential perpetrators and victims (and how those can be blurred concepts to begin with). the core of it is two men who come back together amidst the height of neo-nazi anti-immigration 80s England, one of whom is Pakistani British and the other a white skinhead. And they open a laundrette together. This movie is sweet, I promise! it also features one of the subtly hottest moments to me in film history, in which one of them licks the others' neck in public while being watched on one side by Pakistani family members and on the other by white racists but it's angled so none of them see it!

City of Lost Souls: Listen, Rosa Von Praunheim's documentation of trans people (and generally queer people) is so so important for our community and you should check him out, but this film in particular is such a wild fucking ride that is hard to explain. a bunch of queer artists in 80s Berlin (and this movie was made in the 80s so you get some real footage of that great big wall) just like... fuck around? share intense elder wisdom? connect? sing! (oh yeah, it's kind of a musical, a trashy punky musical). This is some of the real deep magic of queer connection. there's an iconic moment in this film (there are several) in which a trans woman picks up a one-night stand and explains to him that she's trans and he's like. "eh no idea what all of that means, but you're saying you're a woman right? great!" and it's just Fine

Desire Lines: listen this movie... I'm almost hesitant to recommend it, because I feel so personally affected by it and it's a one-of-a-kind (so far) insight into transmasculine gay culture that is just. deeply precious and not understood by a lot of even the wider queer community. myself and every transmasc person I know who's seen it have felt somewhat transcendent about it, the way you do the first time you see yourself as (positively) visible in this way, it's almost too much. it's a documentary at heart, but quite experimental in elements of its structure, with parts of it being a fictional telling of a middle-aged iranian trans man who works in an archive and is told of the history of trans men's inclusion in gay bathhouses, lou sullivan, and personal testimonies from gay transmasc people. sometimes you don't notice how deprived you've been until something gives you real oxygen

Hon. mentions: Joyland, Great Freedom, Die Beautiful my personal favourite queer films of 2023, still have me by the throat!!!

32. Do you do arts and crafts? Post a pic of a project you've done: okay I will share a picture of something, but I need to go take a picture when I have a sec. It's not complete, but I've started a little zine that's just a big collection of euphemisms and ways of talking about queerness and it's such a fascinating, fun project that's made me think more expansively about how queerness gets talked about, whether it's in the past or present (or potential futures), within and without the community, as modern, or bigoted, or outdated, or fun, or out-of-the-box, or specific, etc. -- it's very far from done, but I can give a sense of just how many words/phrases/concepts I've picked up + imagery I want to include + the construction of the zine itself, which has a few little secrets to it

[nikrei]

May Comics Round Up!

I didn't think I got all that much read this month, but it looks like there's a decent amount!

Swamp Thing (71-90) (1988-1990)

Swamp Thing tells a good story as always, and is delightfully messed up in many ways. Intertwined a bit with the start of Hellblazer at this point, so read them together!

The Demon (1-4) (1987)

Missed this mini last month, so grabbed it this time around. A pretty good sequel to the 70s run, and ends with Etrigan kissing Blood on the mouth as they break up, so I think it's a success.

Invasion Event (1-8 + all tie-ins) (1989)

This is a fun event! It is also where the term 'meta-human' originates, so check it out if you wanna get that history.

New Guardians (6-12) (1989)

Sort of a mediocre run overall. Definitely groundbreaking, but you can tell that the guy with the vision left after the first couple of issues (because dc wouldn't let him be as progressive as he wanted to be with the story). Makes me wonder if Tom continues to be a fully enlightened being when he shows up in GL issues after this (if he doesn't they're all cowards)

Plastic Man (1-4) (1988-1989)

A fun gag comic mini. Good for an intro to the character, and it's neat how each issue starts with detailed "serious" comic art that then becomes v stylized and fun.

The Spectre (21-31) (1989)

Oh boy did this go places in the finish. The first half of this run has an entirely different vibe then the second half and neither of them really do it for me.

Dr. Fate (1-14) (1988-1989)

Look the new Dr Fate is sooo wierd, they are just wildly going places with this whole thing. Old Lord of Order Nabu is now a grumpy couch potato, the new Dr Fate duo have no idea what they're doing and consist of a kid that's been aged up to adulthood and his v young stepmom, and also they are soulmates. No idea where they at gonna go with this after they've killed Eric off.

Hellblazer (1-26) (1988-1990)

I like this one a lot, as serious titles go. It really is amusing the difference between Constantine in this title and in Swamp Thing. In his own title he struggles to travel around England, hitchhiking and train hopping and the like, compared to how he's jetsetting around the world in Swamp Thing.

The Question (Annual 2-33) (1989)

The Question is always quality, and also Shiva showed back up!! Many things happen, and also Hub City is literally the worst. Gotham and Bloodhaven think that they are the worst but it is 100% Hub City sorry guys.

Action Comics Weekly (609-641) (1988-1989)

Or at least the bits that were Black Canary/Dead Man/Phantom Stranger/Nightwing/Speedy/The Demon/Phantom Lady (i am not immune to the power of tits okay). These little stories were all really fun, and super easy to miss if you don't have a reading list to follow (I was following a Roy list, then backed up to catch the Dinah stories story) However, the Demon story there at the end had Jason and Etrigan back together already, so I looked up a reading list for him and discovered:

Cosmic Odyssey (1-4) (1988)

Read this to find out how Etrigan and Jason got back together. I love the fourth world. I have many things to say about it and I have written out some of that already. Jim Starlin is my enemy.

Secret Origins (26-38) (1988-1989)

Catching up on folks changed backstories for the post crisis era pretty much

Green Arrow (14-16) (1989)

Only just got started on Arrow at the end of the month! I'll read more now!

Bonus: weeks 5-9 of the Comic Kon superboy reading club! We've finally made it to the Superboy solo! But boy, does that start off getting caught in every big event around, the extra credit has to work hard!

[69bitterbeingz]

IF YOU'RE GONNA BE DUMB || CH. 8

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DISCLAIMER: This is a reupload from my prev account! best to follow the fic through ao3 [linked below] to avoid any future issues PAIRINGS - johnny knoxville, bam margera, steve-o, chris pontius, ryan dunn x female reader WARNINGS - swearing, drinking

ao3 version

Waking up to the sounds of sheep bleating and birdsong was much gentler on a hangover headache than police sirens and general city bustle. Granted, you couldn’t speak for everyone, but right now you were content to stare at your ceiling in serenity compared to shoving your face in the pillow at home. You reached for your phone to check the time and groaned when you saw 8:47 am - you knew if you didn’t get up yourself, somebody would wake you against your will, and frankly that wasn’t something you wanted to face. So, with creaking bones and a head too heavy for your neck, you clambered out of bed and shuffled to the door to hopefully score the bathroom first. Though, you froze when you stepped through the door, sucking the air sharply through your teeth and gripping the frame with a white knuckled grip. You glanced down, and despaired when you saw shiny, sharp fragments with flat tops. Tacks . You scowled at your feet, then scowled at whoever had emerged from down the hall.

“Ah, mornin’.” 

You pointed down, then at the man trying not to snigger at your obvious irritation.

“I’m getting you back for this, Knoxville.” He couldn’t hold back his laughter any longer as you started picking the tacks out of the soles of your feet one by one, wincing as you plucked each one. “Do you know how hungover I am right now? Too much for this shit.”

“It wakes you up though.” Johnny teased, patting your back when you were done. Your face very pointedly said ‘ that’s not funny’ , but he wasn’t too bothered. He leaned down and scooped the tacks up in his large hand. “I know what’ll cheer you up, let’s booby trap Jeff.” You hated to admit it, but he was right, it would make you feel better. You didn’t hem and haw much longer, just ushered him over to the other end of the hall.

Despite the not-so-ideal start, a couple painkillers [courtesy of Steve-O] later and you were ready for whatever stupid shit the guys had planned for the day. Though they directed you to drive through to Sunbury-on-Thames, they neglected to tell you what exactly was planned - and in their defence, you didn’t ask - but you had an inkling when you pulled into the car park of a rugby club. You sucked the air through your teeth, then tentatively glanced back at the guys in the backseat as Johnny and Chris started the camera.

“So we’re here in merry old England, and Mr. Pontius and I overdid it a little last night, and we’re about to practise rugby with the London Irish, a professional rugby team.”

Chris winced; “I do not feel good…”

“You’re about to feel a lot worse.” You mumbled under your breath, and they both failed to hold back giggles. They looked like utter shit honestly, shaking like dogs in an alleyway as they watched the team train out on the pitch. You probably looked just as bad but at least you weren’t about to get tackled to the cold hard dirt. 

“You know how much this is gonna hurt, yeah?” You asked, leaning over the metal rail while Johnny swung his leg back and forth, a weird way to stretch but if it works it works. Chris shivered, clutching his arms close to his chest.

“They’re pretty big boys…” It was probably the most apprehensive you’ve ever heard Chris be about grappling large men; Johnny laughed bitterly.

“I’m sure we can take ‘em.” He didn’t sound sure at all. Chris turned to you with puppy dog eyes.

“You gonna patch me up if I get killed out there?” You got it was a joke, but you were positive that at least half of him was serious. You rolled your eyes, smacking a hand on his shoulder and giving it a sympathetic squeeze.

“How am I gonna patch you up if you’re dead?”

“Do I get a patch up too, doc?” Johnny scooched up closer to you and hung his arm around your shoulders; he had such a habit of that now, and it always made your cheeks red. Nonetheless, you ignored it and nudged his ribs.

“Nah, you’re a goner too.”

“Thanks for having confidence in us.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

Then they were called up to start the stunt, so you bade them farewell and watched from the sidelines as Johnny was given a mouth guard and he started his intro.

“Hi I’m Johnny Knoxville, and this is rugby.”

Putting it bluntly, it was a bloodbath. To their credit, they really gave it their best shot, but they were no match for trained professionals double their size. It was kind of like watching a nature documentary, like when a pack of predators chase down the two prey animals that were unlucky enough to be separated from the herd. Not to say it wasn’t entertaining, because it was really entertaining, but you couldn’t imagine letting an entire rugby team tackle you to the grass, let alone doing it hungover . As you watched on in slightly concerned amusement, you couldn’t help but respect their dedication to the bit. They’d do damn near anything for good footage, huh? Could you officially label them as martyrs yet?

The players seemed disappointed when the camera crew called the end of the shoot - no doubt they had a good time throwing around such willing participants, but Johnny and Chris probably wouldn’t last much longer like that. It was all in good fun, the team lifting the guys up in the air at the end, but that didn’t mean Johnny wasn’t bloodied by it all. They nodded at the players, then limped off the pitch towards the awaiting crew. You winced when you took note of Johnny’s bloody nose, maybe you had a pack of tissues somewhere…?

“Hey, lookit us, not dead.” Johnny managed to smile through his aches and pains, making you grin with knitted brows. 

“Yeah, congrats on defeating all odds.” You rummaged around in your pockets to find what you were looking for, and once you had it in hand, you reached up to Johnny’s face and gently dabbed at the drying blood. He seemed taken aback, raised eyebrows and pursed lips, but he didn’t stop you from cleaning him up. His eye twitched when you nudged the side of his nose, and you frowned. “Does it hurt?"

“Uh, yeah, kinda.”

“It’s… probably not broken, at least.” 

Johnny didn’t seem to be listening, just stared at you and unknowingly leaned towards your light touch. He was about as clean as you could manage, without getting in there with a damp cloth to scrub away whatever dried on, but he looked better than he did before.

“You should get it checked out though. I mean, looks fine, but just in case, right?” You suggested, shoving the bloodied tissue back in your pocket and leaving your hand there to shield it from the frigid cold of the pitch. Johnny blinked, seemingly pulling himself out of the trance he was in. He smiled, a serene smile you weren’t quite sure you’d seen before, as if he just figured something out.

“...You’re real sweet, y’know that?” He asked, and it was your turn to be surprised. You didn’t need to respond, he just grinned wider and wrapped his arm around your shoulders, leading you to where the rest of the crew were stood. “You’re sweeter than you let on, don’t think you even realise. Just thought I’d tell ya.”

You couldn’t bring yourself to look him in the eye, feeling like a bashful teenager - man, what’s your deal? Thankfully, you didn’t have to dwell on it much longer.

“ Hey! ” Chris called from the distance, seemingly forgetting he was still in nothing but a jockstrap. “C’mon, we’re going for drinks!”

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

It was twilight by the time the taxi reached your place, twinkly stars starting to light up the expansive sky. The hours following the shoot were a bit of a blur, pints upon pints washing away your brains into a slurry, just the way you liked it. Most of the crew hung back at the bar, but the Jackasses - namely Chris and Steve-O - had some bright ideas involving the sheep that populated the surrounding fields. So, you hopped out of the black cab and ran over to the fences separating the poor sheep from the real animals. 

“What if it bites my dick?” Chris giggled dopily, discarding his last beer bottle near the wood fencing. You were all standing a few feet from some grazing sheep, completely ignoring the presence of the four drunk idiots encroaching on their space. Johnny shoved Chris, giggling along with him.

“Bet you’d like that, huh?”

“ No way, man!”

“They’re not gonna fuckin’ do anything, they’re just sheep.” You added, unsteady on your feet as you pushed Chris as well. “Not like they got horns.”

“You’re not scared of sheep, are you?” Steve-O taunted, jabbing Chris’ arm, and he finally relented.

“Alright, alright!”

He ran up to the sheep, arms out wide as he prepared to scoop one up, but of course they all fled in different directions, baa- ing in defiance. It seemed to set off a chain reaction, sheep calling out across the fields to each other as if an alarm had been triggered. Maybe it had, maybe they were all warning each other of the weirdo charging at them like a wayward border collie. Johnny cackled with his whole body, throwing himself back before taking off after Chris, intending to do god knows what . You were starting not to care anymore as the world spun around you, the pin prick stars in the inky black sky swirling in long streaks over your head. The dizziness rattled your skull, your eyes feeling like they might pop out from the pressure, so you opted for sitting on the soft dewy grass instead. Your head soon steadied, though you still swayed ever so slightly from side to side. Without realising, you slumped backwards and hit the ground, but you didn’t mind. The sky was more inviting to look at than your shoes.

“Hey.”

A man was standing over you, buzzed head and enlarged pupils. 

“Heya.”

“You good?”

“Watchin’ the stars. ‘M not running after sheep, there’s shit all over the fields...”

Steve-O sat next to you, hugging his knees to his chest and craning his head up to look at the stars too. He took a swig of his beer as you started to ramble.

“It’s nice out here… can finally see the stars. No.. what’s it called? Light pollution, right? Never see the stars anymore.” You pouted at the thought. “You ever lived somewhere with nice stars?”

“Hm?” He hummed, turning his head so he could see your face, your cheeks and nose bitten red by the cold winds.

“Where were you before LA? Doubt you started there.”

Steve-O sniggered low and gravelly. “I was found in some flea market circus in Florida.”

“You say that like you’re a fuckin’... pound dog. ”

“Sure am.” He took another swig.

“Didn’t know you were in a circus.”

“I went to clown college, dude.”

“Well, that I did know…” You trailed off, watching an aeroplane steadily cross the sky. The lights blinked on and off in a hypnotic rhythm, and you suddenly remembered something from earlier. “Knoxville said I was nice…”

“Yea?”

“Yeah.”

“What about it?”

“Jus’ weird to hear.”

“Why’s that weird?” Steve-O snorted, letting go of his legs to lie down next to you. “You’re nice, not a big deal.”

“Even when I’m getting mouthy with bar security?”

Steve-O shrugged, grinning to himself. “You like to pick fights, who cares? Everyone likes to fuckin’ pick fights. Why are you so resistant to being called nice, anyway ? You’d rather be a total bitch?”

“I don’t.” You tried to think but it was just giving you a headache. “It’s not like that, I don’t… feel it is all. I don’t know.” You reached out in hopes he’d let you have a swig of his beer, but instead he bumped it against your head - fair enough. You let your arm fall to the ground in defeat. “...I don’t think Mila likes me.”

Steve-O pulled a confused face. “Mila…? Is he the blonde guy that lives with you?”

“Yeah, he doesn’t like me. He got pissy at me right before I came.”

“...Ok?” Steve-O shrugged. “Dude, who fucking cares if he doesn’t like you? Not everyone’s gonna like you, not your problem. Do you like him? ”

You paused; surely you must like him a little to agree to move in with him? Surely you like him a little if you formed a band with the guy? At the end of the day, you consider him a friend…

“Who gives a shit anyway, you got other friends.” Steve-O concluded, finishing his beer and tossing it away. In a drunken moment of vulnerability, you turned to Steve-O.

“Do you like me?”

He looked at you like you were being a total weirdo. “...Yeah, I wouldn’t hang out with you if I didn’t like you. Stop getting fucked up over nothing.”

With that, Steve-O got up and chased after Johnny and Chris, leaving you lying there in the grass. You weren’t quite lucid enough to dwell on your conversation in any meaningful way, so you simply let it wash over you as a thing that happened. Blindly, you patted down your pockets to find your phone, then flipped it open to check the time. However, you got sidetracked by a voicemail that was left for you from Bam. When did he call you? You didn’t even notice your phone ring…

“ [Y/n], hope you’re getting some decent shit out there. Me ‘n Dunn were talking, you should come down to West Chester when you get back, my brother’s band is playing a show and it’s about time you actually saw ‘em. Promise it won’t be lame, we’ll keep you entertained. Bet it’ll be more interesting than fuckin’ England, anyway.”

Beep.

You smiled to yourself, you need to remember to call him back. 

Clumsily, you got up from the ground and brushed the dirt off your ass. In the distance, you could hear whooping and sheep bleating, so you figured they were still occupied with tormenting those innocent sheep. You stretched your arms behind you, cracked your back, and started on your way towards them. When you finally appeared on the horizon, Chris was the first to notice you and ran up to you with a giddy smile.

“I grabbed one! It kicked like hell.” 

Looking down, you could see the red marks on his bare legs.

“I gotta get Knoxville back for the thumbtacks this morning.” 

“What do you wanna do?”

“Let’s drag him through sheep shit.”

[blindrapture]

SUNDAY JUNE 26TH, 2011 ("Fears. There's the rub.")

[This is another one where the formatting on tumblr just won't work right. I recommend the Website version for the ideal read.]

10:30 AM In case you’re wondering, that last bit wasn’t, like, some demon sneaking in and writing “Rapture is coming” into my journal while I was asleep. No. I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about what Rogers had said. So I just.. wrote it down and thought. I haven’t been talking much lately. I’m just.. I dunno. Lost in thought.

11:02 AM - Rabbit holes are key to Rapture - Rabbit holes are growing (according to Harlequin) - All this was started by…? (“Doctor Cloud?”) - This is not Rapture. Rapture is coming. I’ve done some thinking. And I’ve deduced that oh my god I need more information. I need to learn more about the things. The monsters.

Except they’re not monsters, are they? That’s what Mist the Harlequin told me. She called herself a “goddess.” Or something. But is that true? Is that false? I really don’t know. I have no way of knowing. Rogers said something about fears. Do gods have fears? I need to look into this more.

11:11 AM I wish I could get some answers. I’m gonna ask the generic family about things. About Rogers.

11:20 AM Alright, they don’t mind me writing this stuff down as we talk. “Rogers was a very good child. The doctors told us he was” mumble “we still don’t believe that. He’s just… a savant.” They might be right about that. He certainly knew a lot more about what’s going on than anyone I’d met. “We, I.. we don’t know who would want to kill him. He had no enemies, nothing to hide.” Meredith is crying. “On the way down here, Rogers was” interrupted, that was Bill, Richard doesn’t want him talking about that. Noted. “Can you not ask about Rogers, please?”

I asked about the Exodus. About America. “We heard about the Exodus when we were nearing London a few weeks ago. London was quite.. impossible for us to enter. So we turned back and found some flyers about the Exodus and Liverpool, and.. here we are. “We don’t have any real reason for going to America besides survival. England is theirs now. Staying for much longer would be stupid.” I asked about “them.” “Rogers knew a lot ab” Bill was interrupted again. Richard “Rogers called them.. there was this phrase he used a lot. Some old English word.. and then ‘abomination.’ So we just call them abominations.” ..Eldritch? When I said that, Bill’s face lit up. Hit the nail on the head, I suppose. “Whatever they are, they’re abominations, they are not of this world, not of God. They shouldn’t be here. But they are.”

I asked about the rabbit holes. “Portals to Hell, I say. I don’t care for them; we try our best to avoid them at all costs. Y’know the first one I went in took me to a world of nothing but toilets? It was this big city, industrial, completely normal. Except every time you thought you’d see a human, there was a toilet, instead. Not of this world! Ridiculous.” They have to get going somewhere soon. My last question: Camper Festival. “I’ve heard of that. I’ve heard the name, not much about it. But it’s really good. I hear it’s the best thing to come out of this apocalypse, lots of the oldies, the kind of music they don't make anymore. Listen, we’ve really got to get going.”

12:39 PM I’m looking around town. Donnie didn’t want to come. She said she’s feeling a little under the weather. I’ll make sure to look for medicine of some sort.

1:16 PM I couldn’t find anything. Returned to the inn. Wednesday can’t come any faster.

1:30 PM The innkeeper’s calling another headcount meeting.

2:00 PM Innkeeper says we’re all here, except for the deceased from yesterday. She gave her usual precautions, and said we’re having a five o’ clock curfew this time. Some people argued that the Massacrer will just kill people before then; curfews don’t matter to psychos. The innkeeper stood her ground.

2:34 PM Donnie’s really got a bad cold. She has a nasty headache and can’t stop coughing and sneezing. And I have no idea where any medicine is.

3:07 PM Taking another look in town. There’s gotta be something.

4:10 PM Noth … ..okay. It was that same old woman again. She was standing in the inn hallway. Now she’s gone. o_o; ..anyway, I found nothing. It’s nearly curfew.

5:49 PM Donnie doesn’t want me hugging her. She doesn’t want me catching whatever it is she has. Jordan is a sad spidercat now. ._.

7:24 PM I’m wondering a lot of things. What kind of cold might Donnie have? I mean, chances are it’s just a normal flu, but.. considering all these foreign creatures leaking who knows what into the atmosphere… I’m gonna try not to think about that. >_<

8:52 PM SCREAM WHERE

8:53 PM All the people are coming out of their rooms. Who screamed?

8:54 PM Innkeeper’s doing her headcount.

8:56 PM A lady from down the hall is dead. Her head was cut off entirely. Cleanly, too. I get the feeling it was our Masky. But that may be stating the obvious.

10:02 PM We were all questioned. I was here with Donnie; Donnie attested to it and I have this journal here, too. So every night, someone dies. But we’re getting out of here, and there’s gotta be somewhere around thirty of us. I think we’ll be fine. Either way, I’m getting some goddamn sleep.

(Attached: “Ah. Fears. There’s the rub. And the perfect jumping-off point for me to share another anecdote that this brings to mind. I mentioned some logs back that I had done some time in Aegyptus. Well, when I first arrived, date something like 90 CE, I knew nothing of the local languages so I feigned myself a mute and took residence in Memphis.

I hid in an abandoned store for a few weeks, stealing food and learning bits and pieces of dialogue from observing the locals. My clothes, I found lying on the street. Probably stole them too. I didn’t know how long I intended on staying, only that I refused to leave that time period, not when I knew at that point what I had just discovered– but that’s a story that requires far more context and so will have to wait awhile.

Before I knew it, I was standing before the the Great Temple of Ptah, listening to two people nearby speaking in English.

---Amazing what they do for us.

--- Pfft, yeah. All this effort. We don’t even care.

--- It’s not like we can just tell them we don’t want it.

--- Well, yeah, they’ll likely fight another war or something.

I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from until

I looked up and saw two people standing atop the front gates. Having no way to get up there, I called up to them, asking if I could speak.

Within a second, one of them suddenly appeared in front of me, the other one still climbing down. The one who had teleported bore the head of a jackal as a mask, the one climbing down wore bright white clothes with a long black beard.

The jackal-faced man asked me what I wished to discuss, throwing in a ‘mortal’ for good measure.

-- Ah, so you’re Fears, I said with much relief. This, however, only offended him.

--- What? ’Fears?’ Is that what they’re calling us now? Hey, Osiris! They’re calling us 'Fears’ now! Osiris, out of breath by the time he got to the ground, wiped sweat from his forehead and rolled his eyes.

--- Cute, but I wish they’d stick with 'god.’ I’m getting tired of all these epithets, and why do people insist on calling me a 'Lord?’ I decided to clarify.

--No, nobody’s calling you that yet. I, uh. I’m not from around here. I actually just wanted to know why you guys are speaking in English.

The two gods looked at each other in confusion. Osiris said, --- We’re not, foreign one. We speak in the ancient tongue known only to us gods. Your puny ears interpret it as whatever you’re used to.

Jackal guy added, --- But what is 'English?’ That doesn’t sound like the name of any language I’ve heard of.

-- Never mind, you answered my question, we’re good.

I didn’t want to say I was from the future; that struck me as kind of a no-no with time traveling.

--- Say, you’re a god too, aren’t you? The jackal guy asked, sounding enthusiastic.

I looked around to see if anyone was watching. No one in sight.

--..yeah. I’m Thoth.

The two of them gave a look as if they knew my secret.

--- You look awfully young today, Thoth, said Osiris. Last I saw you, you were on death’s door.

I just lowered my eyes. He laughed.

--- Unless you’re gifted with the ability to traverse time itself or something?

The two of them laughed at this until they saw my expression. Jackal-face asked if I really could. I quietly nodded. They looked at each other with awe then proceeded to ask me all kinds of questions, to which I replied by asking if we could go somewhere more private.

Before I knew it, we had been teleported to some glade within a forest who knows where. Awaiting us was a woman in a single large green garment. I was formally introduced to the whole lot: Jackal-face was known by many names including Anubis and Hades, Osiris also had the name Dis Pater, and the woman called herself Aura.

Anubis told Aura of my abilities, and I clarified that it’s not so much an ability as more of.. a possibility.

-- And I certainly can’t choose where or when I go. I go where the Empty City takes me, I guess.

Then I realized it wasn’t called that yet and the others assumed I was being poetic.

-- So what do you guys have powers over?

--- I see to every soul in the afterlife, every being that has passed away comes under my rule, declared Osiris.

--- I control the gales and the airs that come with it, followed Aura.

--- I judge people, added Anubis.

--- He and I, Osiris clarified, work in tandem. He’s the groundskeeper for the afterlife, to wax words. He is responsible for making sure none of my undead might have too much power.

-- As for me, I.. wander throughout space and time, writing and observing. I take it you guys have encountered me before?

Aura smiled and pointed at my book. --- Many times. You would never explain why your appearance altered, but you would always have that same tome.

-- Did I ever show any powers?

--- Not often. Sometimes, you could snap your fingers and take a human’s memories away, she said.

--- Oh, shouted Anubis, and you seem able to communicate with Olympus itself!

-- Olympus?

--- It’s one of the great mysteries of our kind. A sprawling jungle of houses built with materials no human has ever aspired to. It accompanied us on our journey from the stars, though we know not its ontology.

Sounded like the Empty City to me. I thought for a bit about what else to ask.

-- ..is there a god in this time by the name of Ptah?

Osiris recognized the name as belonging to the one he called Hephaestus, and then he and Anubis left to go and get him, leaving Aura and I alone to question each other.

--- Are there still gods in your time?

-- Uh-huh. You change quite a bit, though. I’m still trying to figure out who Anubis is in the future.

--- Of course we change, for many of us embody the nature of change itself. We have powers unrivaled by any beasts of the cosmos; such powers as us cannot stay stagnant.

-- Tell that to humans in power.

--- Ah, but we aren’t humans, dearest.

-- Many of us were, I’d imagine.

She looked at me funny. That’s when Anubis ran in, requesting that we come with him. Ah, but unfortunately even to proceed with this anecdote would require much context. So I’ll have to leave this note at the conversation above and urge the reading return to Jordan’s journals.”)

[PREV LOG] [TABLE OF CONTENTS] [NEXT LOG]

[takiki16]

if jamie tartt is like david beckham .... [white man, english, huge following, big name] which mls team will he join and where will he base his eventual ownership team and which talented star will be buy to headline the whole thing

LKSDFJ;LSKDFJDS

Jack Grealish you have been dethroned by the Becks and his unbeatable smoove aura...he stole your Ted Lassona are you just gonna sit there and take it...

I am taking a flying stab at this and begging any actual EPL fans plus anyone who's followed MLS for more than a year to forgive me. I also need SOMEONE ELSE to chart Jamie's likely career trajectory WITHIN the EPL...whether Roy actually manages to win the league with Richmond, how they cope with Champions League drama, etc etc. But ALL THAT ASIDE, here we go - Jamie Tartt's grand soft-retirement in the MLS!

Ted absolutely BEGS Jamie to choose Sporting KC. Its like...three hours and change from Wichita to Kansas City, but that is NOTHING to the Big Peppy Energy of a single midwestern dad who was unfortunately forced away from his club of adopted sons by the bad choices of certain writers' rooms. Ted sends texts. He sends emails. He sends hand-written letters. He starts a very enthusiastic one-man campaign on twitter (#tarttkc4lyfe!) and even gets the KC mascot, Blue the Dog, to shout out Earl Greyhound on Instagram in a bid to get Jamie to come. In a truly below-the-belt move, Ted takes a picture of Henry in a Sporting KC #10 jersey that has "Tartt" on the back and sends it to Jamie. Henry is wearing his Very Saddest Face. Roy and Beard both separately text Ted to call out dirty tactics, but Ted cannot be shamed on this front. The stakes are too high.

Of course, Jamie does NOT go to Sporting KC, even for Ted (maybe. He thinks about it. A little. A lot). When Euro stars soft-retire in the US, they make their choices based on which large, attractive global city they want to live in. I know, I know - financially speaking, all cities with ownership groups big enough to have an MLS franchise are "global cities," not just the coastal powerhouses. However, it is extremely funny to me personally to assume that the Grealish-Tartt link is strong and that Jamie doesn't recognize an unlabelled map of England, much less the US. If a city hasn't been regularly on the news or doesn't have a clock featuring its local time behind the hotel reception desk, Jamie probably doesn't know much about it. Realistically, Jamie is likely going to choose from among LA, New York, Miami, and maybe Chicago. Mayyyyybe Orlando, depending on how long Bumbercatch has to convince him that Disney is actually horribly evil and Jamie should not be swayed by the glittering lights of the Magic Kingdom or the steady stream of talented U22 Brazilian players feeding to Orlando City SC.

Assuming Messi is still in MLS at this point in the Ted Lasso universe, Miami IS GOING to be Jamie's first choice. I know that Jamie was futzing around with the false 9 role and sitting in the enganche pocket behind Dani and Colin in 3x07, but IN MY HEART Jamie is a true no.9 and what striker doesn't love goals on a plate! MIAMI HAS THE GREATEST PLAYMAKER IN THE WORLD currently playing for them, and all the stupid Zava problems would melt away once Jamie starts scoring hattricks off of three or four of those perfect eye of the needle assists per game. Keeley gets a bunch of sexy beachwear, Jamie gets sunburnt to hell on the sand somewhere, Roy blissfully fistfights someone in a Publix where no one knows who he is, the DREAM LIVES ON.

HOWEVER, Miami also doesn't have any more Designated Player slots, and Jamie (1) isn't an old Barcelona buddy who will come for peanuts GAM money and (2) is a big enough name in his own right that he can demand a star DP slot at another club. Miami is probably off the table. The ACTUAL most realistic possibilities are LA and New York, with NY being slightly in the lead just based on vibes. Assuming AGAIN that the Grealish-Tartt link is strong, Jamie might end up at NYCFC. They are low to mid-table, sporting-wise, but they are owned by City Group and are considered Manchester City's sister club in New York. Lampard, Pirlo, and Villa were their first DPs in their debut season in 2015. If Jamie forgets that relegation isn't a thing in MLS and wants to be in a club that semi-regularly makes the playoffs, the NY Red Bulls are nearby...ish. Hey, if New Jersey is good enough for the WORLD CUP it's good enough for Baby Tartt!

If Jamie goes full Beckham and ends up in LA, he probably goes to the Galaxy. LAFC is the stronger team and prides itself on a loud, noisy supporters' culture - Gareth Bale spent a year there before the WC in 2022 - but I just cannot resist the Beckham vibes. And honestly, Jamie Tartt getting to live the Zava storyline from the other side and coming to the second-worst Western conference team of 2023 to lift them out of their slump is probably its own comedy spinoff. Also, imagining Jamie playing the Rose Bowl during El Trafico on the Fourth of July in front of a bunch of random actors is hilarious.

AND. FINALLY. If Jamie Tartt gets the Beckham/Messi retirement package and gets to purchase ownership stakes in a new MLS franchise upon retirement???

Ted starts begging for Jamie to come to Wichita again, but this time as a TEAM OWNER. He offers to coach for free. He offers to PAY to coach. He offers to BUY SHARES HIMSELF with all that gotdam EPL money that Rebecca was paying him during the show. However, sadly, Kansas City beat Wichita to the punch. I...have got NO CLUE where Jamie opens his MLS team tbh, bc as of right now MLS's business model is to muscle in on cities with their own existing USL football culture, buy out the franchise, and turn all of the club's history into soulless corporate marketing dreck. San Diego, I am so, so sorry.

Actually you know what, in THIS UNIVERSE, Jamie somehow finds a way to turn his retirement benefits into an investment into San Diego Loyal and helping them bid to join MLS. This prevents that extremely disappointing San Diego FC badge from ever becoming a reality.

I also have no idea what big-name star Jamie would invite to be his first DP - most of the Greyhounds were either Jamie's age or older, which means that as Jamie is retiring they are also retiring. IT would have to be like...a younger player that Jamie had some kind of relationship with when he was still in the EPL - NAME YOUR FAVORITE YOUNGSTER HERE!!!! After they have had a brilliant European career and are ready to soft-retire, of course!

(baby tartt if you could help MY hometown club in [redacted] to get its shit together and put in an MLS bid before Messi leaves...)

[thinkhappythxughts]

https://www.tumblr.com/thinkhappythxughts/715679906573484032/tw-transphobia-the-terfs-trying-to-screen?source=share

hi there! sorry, this is sort of a weird ask — feel free to ignore.

i’m just a queer trans person who’s wanted to transition for years but my family is not really on board with it. i was really hoping to go to uni and transition there, and Edinburgh is one of the places I’ve been aiming to apply to. except… the city seems so transphobic?^ as someone who seems to have been there/knows a bit abt the uni, i was wondering if you wouldn’t mind talking about the city a little bit, in regards to this, if you would up to it? weirdly enough i do know lots of people who live there, i just don’t know them well enough to ask stuff like this dhjgfdjfb

hi there anon!

so firstly, full disclosure that I haven't lived in Edinburgh for about a year now, but my sister still does so I visit all the time. Generally, I think the city is a great place to live if you're trans, or queer in general. There's a great queer scene with clubs and sober spaces, Edinburgh pride is great, Portobello (Porty) pride is well worth a visit and only a bus from the city centre, Glasgow pride is also great if you can get the train across. Events like the terf screening are absolutely an outlier, stuff like that is gonna happen in big cities just due to numbers - it is the capital of Scotland after all. Occasionally there are random terf stickers on lampposts, but i've seen at least twice as many pro-trans stickers about. In regards to that screening, the number of people who turned out to protest far outnumbered the people actually there to see the stupid film, and the protest was supported by the uni's staff pride network (i know because my sister was there on their behalf as an organiser/first-aider hah)

on that note, i think edinburgh uni is also pretty good for trans stuff - I wasn't out as trans yet when i was at uni, but I had friends who were trans and they didn't seem to have any issues on the uni/admin side of things. The uni has a pretty good student pride society, and as i mentioned, there's a staff pride network, so there's a solid bunch of staff who would be in your corner if you did have any issues. The uni's student support in general is okay - the general standard for that stuff honestly isn't great in the UK, and I wouldn't say edinburgh's is amazing, but they did help me out a couple of times (with non-lgbt stuff).

you'll probably know more about me than the applications process for uni in regards to chosen name etc, and it depends if you're applying through UCAS (in the UK) or if you're abroad, so i'll leave you to more knowledgeable people on that. I would say that if you apply in your chosen name, any post you receive about applications will be in the name you apply with, so keep that in mind if the people you live with aren't supportive - terribly sorry that you're in that situation, by the way. It really does get better once you're away from them.

in regards to transition, if you're wanting to be referred to a GIC, you'll likely be referred to Chalmers centre, which seems to have a waiting time of about 2 years currently - that sounds like a lot but from what i can gather, that's quite a lot lower than most places in the UK (i'm in NE england and my nearest centre isn't even taking referrals because their waiting list is 6+years long 😭). Once you're registered with a GP you should be able to ask them about a referral and they can give you more info.

overall I think that Scotland is probably just a better place to live if you're trans in the UK - scottish parliament supported self-ID (i'm actually unsure if this has come into effect yet, need to do some googling) and if they weren't under the UK gov, they were going introduce legal third gender options too. The SNP and scottish parliamentary partiers absolutely have some outspoken transphobes, but they're much more of an outlier than in westminster, so generally i think the outlook for trans people is just way more positive in Scotland - I'm certainly planning to move back there as soon as the circumstances line up for me. It's pretty scary everywhere in the UK right now in terms of policy (and general attitude, to an extent) but yeah i think overall Edinburgh and Scotland in general are your best bet.

If you have any more questions or anything i'm happy to chat! Absolute best of luck to you, no matter where you end up, both with your transition and uni in general 💜

[asteria-argo]

📔. ---maybe something about Jamie because I am absolutely feral for how you write him

Okay so Obviosuly I have to talk about my soft apocalypse au, which I've written a flash fic for already here if anyone is interested. But Asteria, I hear you cry, what the fuck even is a soft apocalypse?

SIMPLE, a soft apocalypse is essentially I am a big old baby who doesn't actually like apocalypse media because the inherent violence and cruelty and suffering of it all makes me feel bad inside but does enjoy post apocalypse vibes and aestheticism! So a soft apocalypse is basically the world ending through non violent means, and people coming together in the aftermath to rebuild because I believe in the indomitable human spirit and also that violence is not inherent to humanity and that is a hill I am going to die on.

also this got really long so a majority of it's gonna be under the cut.

ONTO the actual au and also specifically the Jamie of it all. In my head, the world ends due to a bunch of massive natural disasters that lead to the collapse of the world as we know it. For the first few years after this happens, there is a general sense of violence and anarchy that makes surviving difficult and scary. Ted and Beard were in england when it happened at some kind of conference for American football don't ask me the details this is a half thought out plot device. They get stranded in England because travel becomes virtually impossible. This does not stop Ted, who is trying to get back to Michelle. No Henry, because this is happening when everyone is a bit younger than their canon counter parts. What does stop Ted however, is Beard getting gravely injured in their attempts to find a way home. This is how Ted and Beard end up at Nelson Road.

Nelson Road, at the time of Ted and Beards arrival, is essentially Rebecca's fortress. She's there alone, and has been pretty much since the world ended. She tells herself it's best that way, because survival is hard enough when your only looking out for yourself, but then Ted turns up at her doorstep with his injured friend and he's the first genuinely kind person she's met in years. She lets them stay, it's supposed to be temporary, because she doesn't trust them and they still want to get home. It does not end up being temporary. That's a whole other post in itself.

So, Ted, Beard and Rebecca are now holding down the fort of Nelson Road, and unfortunately for Rebecca, now that she's got Ted's bleeding heart on her team there's no way she's getting away without picking up any more strays. And more strays does she get!

They actually find Nate first, who had been camping out in Nelson Road for just as long as Rebecca but stayed completely hidden, which is surprisingly easy to do when your in a big ass football stadium with only one other person. Ted stumbles across him and brings him into the main fold. Next is Roy and Keeley, who have been traveling together for a few years. Roy is looking for his sister, Keeley is just looking for somewhere to be, they run into Ted while they're all scavenging in the ruins of the city and he offers them a place at Nelson Road for as long as they'd like. Rebecca tries to be upset about it, but Keeley worms her way into her heart so quick and Roy ends up being a very useful asset in terms of supply scavenging. More people start appearing who need somewhere to stay, or supplies that Nelson Road has, and eventually Nelson Road has it's own small community that is thriving, helping each other survive and live.

Sam is actually the first member of the team Ted finds, and the key aspect of this au is that the team are children in the apocalypse, born and raised in the end of the world. Sam is the youngest, at about 8 years old. Ted finds him, and Sam is looking for his father who he lost while traveling. Ted takes Sam back to Nelson Road and promises to keep him safe and help him find his father. After Sam, Ted just seems to keep finding kids with nowhere else to go. Colin, Isaac, Jan Maas, Bumbercatch, everybody is eventually at Nelson Road. Ted is the one put in charge of managing the kids since he's the one who keeps finding them, and thats fine by him.

Jamie is one of the last of the team members to be found, and he's actually found by Roy. I've mentioned scavenging a couple of times now, which is pretty self explanatory. It's dangerous, both because it's a lawless land and because most buildings are extremely structurally unsound thanks to earth quakes and general corrosion. It's somewhat necessary though, for crucial supplies like medicine or clothes and such, So, usually the people who do it are the most physically fit of a group. Roy is usually the one who scavenges for Nelson Road, Keeley comes with him sometimes, Ted and Beard do as well.

Jamie, who is about 10 years old in this AU, is a scavenger for his dad. While at this point in time, most people are settled into small communities, Jamie's dad and his friends are not. They travel from place to place with the intention of trading the shit they find to communities in need of supplies for shit that they want. One day, Jamie gets trapped in a building while on a scavenge, and rather than going looking for him or even just waiting a bit longer, James Sr cuts his losses and takes off, leaving Jamie stranded in Richmond. Jamie makes the best of a bad situation, and sets up a little home base in the ruins of a coffee shop. It's not sustainable, but he's 10 years old and doesn't have a better option. One day, while on a scavenge, Roy ends up in Jamie's coffee shop and almost gets knifed by a semi feral 10 year old. Roy drags him back to Nelson Road kicking and screaming, because whats he supposed to do? leave a kid out here to die? no.

Jamie is, to put it lightly, a fucking menace. He wasn't raised in a community like most of the other kids so he's got no frame of reference for how to socialize with them, he doesn't trust any one at Nelson Road as far as he could throw them, and if not for the fact they were providing him with food and shelter, he absolutely would have run the first chance he had. Getting Jamie to stop threatening to stab people with his pocket knife is a Long and drawn out process. It takes a while, but Jamie does eventually settle in at Nelson Road, he starts to make friends and bond with the others and feel a bit more safe. It doesn't come about until they find Dani though.

One of the main rules for the kids at Nelson Road is that they aren't actually allowed to leave the stadium. Most of the kids follow that rule really well, because it is in fact dangerous and scary outside the stadium. Jamie sucks at following this rule, because his frame of reference for dangerous and/scary is extremely warped. This ends up being a good thing though, because one day when Jamie sneaks out, he finds Dani, who is injured and hiding under a half collapsed bridge. Jamie, up until that point, always had a pretty selfish view of survival thanks to that being what his dad taught him and if he had still been with his dad, he probably would have ignored Dani entirely. But he'd been at Nelson Road for a while at that point, and as dumb as he thought the people help people shit they were preaching was, Dani was basically his age, and he was hurt, and Jamie knew that they'd help him.

So, Jamie drags Dani back to Nelson Road with him, uncaring of the fact he will probably get in trouble for sneaking out again after already having been told off for it a few times at that point. They do help Dani, just like Jamie thought they would, and he still gets lectured for sneaking out, but they also tell him that he did the right thing and that they were proud of him for it, and it switches something on in his brain. Also Dani had basically imprinted on him and decided they were best friends now, so Jamie had no choice but to start hanging out with the other kids because Dani is the friendliest guy alive.

I love this au more than life itself but I'll probably never write a longfic for it. Just know I have EVEN MORE thoughts on it stored in my brain if you have any questions.

[dinosaur-stickers]

About me!

I’m Alex, they/them pronouns. This is a side blog for all things football. (Soccer lmfao.) I’m canadian. I’m gonna call it soccer sometimes. I’ll call it football other times. My dad’s from England. My mum’s from Argentina, but moved to England when she was in her late teens.

Teams I support:

• Manchester City, the team I support above all others. (I was born there. Don’t call me a plastic fan. I’ve supported them since I was three. It’s the team my dad supports, he introduced me.)

• Liverpool, I support them if they’re not playing City, or unless them winning directly hurts city in some way. (I have a friend who got me hooked.)

• Am I an Arsenal fan? Not really. But I like a lot of their players and will post about them.

• FC Bayern, I didn’t used to, but then Alphonso Davies signed and I had to support my fellow Canadians.

• Ac Milan, idk why. I just do.

• Vancouver Whitecaps. Shut tf up I know they’re shit but that’s my home team. (Vancouver is more home to me now than Manchester, lived here for twelve years now.)

I’m a writer, @ dinosaur_stickers on AO3.

Yes, I take prompts! Just stick them in my ask box and I’ll post them on AO3.

Request whatever you want, but I WILL NOT WRITE:

• Smut

• Pedophilia/Underage

• Any super graphic violence

• x reader’s or in first or second person.

• Super big age gaps, even if they’re both over 18 or whatever the legal age is. (Eg: won’t write 23 and a 46 year old together) Just follow the “Younger character’s age X2 then -7 rule” and everything’s good.

Looking for any posts about my specific fics? just search the fic name in the filter thingy!

Sometimes I talk about figure skating, not often tho! (there are limits to what i’ll put on my main blog) all of that will be under the tag alex’s axels, so feel free to ignore that.

Me! (And my cat, Jordie)

[abbygrabska]

Rise Of The Cybermen

We are all hanging out in the tardis. The Doctor and Rose are both slumped in their chairs while Mickey and I stand by the console.

The two of them are telling a story to Mickey while I listen silently. We’re all hanging out in the Tardis; the Doctor and Rose are both slumped in their chairs, telling the story of a past adventure, while Micky and I stand by the console.

“Um, what’re you doing that for?” The Doctor asks, looking over at us

I glance at Mickey, who’s been holding his finger on a button for at least half an hour.

“Cos you told me to…”

The Doctor blinks, “When was that…?” I roll my eyes, “About half an hour ago. And you told him not to let go until you said so.”

“Um,” The Doctor pauses, “You can let go now.”

Mickey lets go of the button, “How long’s it been since I could’ve stopped?”

“Ten minutes… twenty… twenty-nine?”

“You just forgot me!”

The Doctor tries to justify ignoring him, “No, no no! I was just… I was just… I was calibrating. I was just… no, I know exactly what I’m doing.” Then the tardis console violently explodes, sparks and flames flying everywhere. We fall to the floor as the tardis shakes.

We all fall to the floor.

The Doctor scrambles to his knees, frantically trying to operate the console.

“What’s happening?!” I shout.

“The time vortex is gone! That’s impossible, it’s just gone!” He sees something on the screen, “Brace yourselves! We’re gonna crash!”

The tardis lurches and we’re thrown backward. Gas masks fall from the ceiling, and all the lights have gone out, leaving us in the dark.

“Everyone alright? Rose, Mickey, Abby?”

The three of us answer before we all stand slowly.

The Doctor looks at the rotor and the console, “She’s dead.”

There’s a clicking noise as the engines cool down, and smoke rises from the console.

“The tardis is dead.” He whispers, slowly walking around the console.

“You can fix it?” Rose asks.

“There’s nothing to fix. She’s perished.” He pulls a lever back and forth fruitlessly, “The last tardis in the universe… extinct.”

“We can get help, yeah?”

“Where from?”

“Well, we’ve landed, we’ve gotta be somewhere.” I say, walking to the door with Mickey.

“We fell out of the vortex, through the void, into nothingness. We’re in some sort of no-place… the silent realm… the lost dimension…”

Mickey looks out the open door, “Otherwise known as London!” He laughs and steps out, and the rest of us slowly follow.

“London, England, Earth. Hold on…” He jumps off the low wall and picks a paper out of a dustbin, looking at the cover, “First of February this year, not exactly far-flung, is it?”

Rose jumps down and looks over his shoulder.

The Doctor jumps down and looks around, offering me a hand to help me down, “So, this is London.”

I ignore his hand, getting down by myself.

“Yep.”

“Your city.”

“That’s the one.”

“Just as we left it.”

“Bang on.”

“And that includes the zeppelins?” I ask, staring at the sky.

The other two humans turn to look.

“What the hell…?”

“That’s beautiful.”

“Okay. So, it’s London with a big international zeppelin festival.”

“This is not your world.”

“But if the date’s the same…” He seems to work it out, “It’s a parallel, right? Am I right? Like a parallel Earth where they’ve got Zeppelins, am I right? I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Must be.” “So, a parallel world where…” Rose trails off, I turn in the direction she’s facing. 

“Oh, come on. You see it in films. Like an alternative to our world where everything’s the same but a little bit different, like… I dunno - traffic lights are blue, Tony Blair never got elected…”

I interrupt Mickey, “And he’s still alive…”

“A parallel world and my dad’s still alive…” She makes her way over to the poster.

I join her and offer my hand in support, which she takes.

“Don’t look at it, Rose. Don’t even think about it. This is not your world.”

“But he’s my dad… and…” She touches the poster, and the picture of Pete springs to life for a moment, saying ‘trust me on this’ with a wink and a thumbs up.

Rose steps back, “Oh, that’s weird. But he’s real! He’s a success! He was always planning these daft little schemes; health-food drinks, and stuff. Everyone said they were useless. But he did it.”

The Doctor suddenly grabs her by the shoulders, “Rose, if you’ve ever trusted me, then listen to me now. Stop looking at it! Your father’s dead. He died when you were six months old. That is not your Pete. That is a Pete. For all we know he’s got his own Jackie, his own Rose. His own daughter who is someone else, but not you. You can’t see him. Not ever.” Rose gives a tiny nod. I squeeze her hand in comfort.

Rose and I stroll along the bank of the Thames. We sit down on a bench and Rose opens her phone. Footage of the news plays. We watch for a few moments before she closes it.

The Doctor and Mickey walk towards us.

“There you are! You all right? No applause, I fixed it!” The Doctor shows us a power cell, “Twenty-four hours, then we’re flying back to reality.” He sits down next to me and holds the power cell up to show Rose.

His grin fades as he notices the phone in Rose’s hands, “What is it?”

“My phone connected. There’s this Cybus Network, it finds your phone. It gave me internet access.”

“Rose, whatever it says, this is the wrong world.”

“I don’t exist.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s no Rose Tyler. I was never born. There’s Pete, my dad, and Jackie… He still married mum… but they never had kids.”

“Give me that phone.” He tries to grab the phone from her.

Rose pulls it away from his grasp, “They’re rich. They’ve got a house and cars, and everything they want.” She pauses, “But they haven’t got me.”

She stands up, walks away from the bench, and turns to face the Doctor, “I’ve gotta see him.” “You can’t.”

“I just wanna see him.”

“I can’t let you!”

“You said twenty-four hours!”

“You can’t become their daughter, that’s not the way it works! Mickey, Abby, tell her.”

I share a look with Mickey, and we both stand.

“Twenty-four hours, yeah?”

“Where’re you two going?”

“We can do what we want!” I snap when he reaches for my hand.

Rose starts walking backward in the opposite direction, “I’ve got the address and everything.”

The Doctor looks from me and Mickey to Rose, “Stay where you are, all of you! Rose, come back here! Mickey, Abby, come back here right now!”

“I just wanna see him.”

“Yeah, We’ve got things to see and all.”

The Doctor looks between Mickey and me, “Like what?”

“None of your business.” I glare.

“I’m sorry. I’ve gotta go.” 

The Doctor turns between the three of us. We’re all walking away.

I gesture to Rose, “Go on then. Mickey’ll keep me safe and you’ll keep Rose safe. We’ve got twenty-four hours to do whatever we want.”

The Doctor runs after Rose.

We walk alongside a factory, there’s a group of military barring up the road ahead.

A soldier approaches us. “Are we alright to get past?”

“Yeah. No, bother. Curfew doesn’t start ‘til ten.”

Mickey and I share a confused look but continue.

Once we get past the barrier I tell him, “I’m gonna go see my grandma, meet you back here in a few hours.”

I approach the Powell estate and climb the stairs up to my old flat. Right when I go to knock on the door, it opens.

My eyes widen in complete shock, it’s me standing in the doorway.

She looks at me in confusion, before her eyes widen, “Oh, my gosh…” She pulls me inside the flat.

“I always knew there were parallel universes! I just didn’t realize that when I reached out, one would respond!”

I look at her bewildered, “What the fuck do you mean respond?”

She pulls me over to grandma’s bedroom and opens the door. She waltzes in and turns on the lights.

“I’ve been studying parallel universes for ages, I even built a machine to try and reach one.” She pulls a sheet off of an airway radio, “It’s made from old radios and some ear-pods from Cybus.”

“You built a functional multiversal communication device?” I gush, “I thought that would be impossible! How did you do that?”

“Well, the transmitter from Cybus is the most advanced stuff around, though I suspect your world has something better if it brought you here to my universe. I had to hook it to the closest power grid just to turn it on for a minute. And the only thing the radio picked up on was this beautiful singing. Then the whole block's power went out.” She rubs the back of her neck, “Luckily no one found out it was me, ‘cause the security cameras lost power which meant the footage was lost.”

“Singing?” I furrow my brows, realizing something, “The tardis sings to me all the time.”

“What’s a tardis?”

“The tardis is a spaceship, it stands for time and relative dimensions in space. She’s the last one in the universe, and she’s fully sentient.”

“You have a sentient spaceship?!” She grabs my shoulders.

“Yeah, well it’s not mine, it’s my… friends. He’s from a different planet, one that invented time travel. Anyways, the tardis communicates telepathically, so if she knew it was a variant of me then she must have looked into your head. That’s why you heard the singing.”

“But why did that cause you to come to my universe?”

“I’m not quite sure. The tardis has a habit of taking us where we need to go, as opposed to where we want to. Ya know, to help people. There must be something very wrong in this universe for her to nearly die getting here.”

“Well, aside from everyone having those Cybus things in their ears all the time, which I didn’t get, 'cause I’m not stupid I’ve seen way too many disaster movies for that. There have been homeless people going missing off the streets into these big Cybus trailers. Which unnerves me because what the fuck are they doing with the homeless people?”

“Yeah, that sounds weird. Do you have any theories?” I ask.

“Yes, but Ricky never lets me get a word in, he thinks all my theories are stupid because I believe in the multiverse.”

“Does Ricky happen to have a blind grandmother that he used to live with?”

“Yes! Do you have a Ricky in your world?”

“Kinda, except his name is Mickey and in my world, his grandma died a while back. Speaking off, what happened to our grandma?”

“She’s dead. And there’s nothing left for me in the states since our family died when I was twelve.” “That’s not what happened in my world. Though I guess anything could happen considering Rose was never born here.”

“Who’s Rose?”

“Our best friend, and Mickey’s sort of girlfriend, they’re going through a thing right now so…”

“So Mickey’s not your boyfriend? Ricky’s mine.”

I make a face of disgust, “That makes me uncomfortable. Mostly because the entire time I’ve known him, they’ve been dating.”

“That makes sense, though I’m curious about the friend who you said has the time machine.”

“Oh, that’s the Doctor, he’s my… oh god, I don’t think we ever made it official.” “Made what official?”

“I’m in love with him, and up until the other day I thought he was in love with me, but then he made out with Madame de Pompadour right in front of me and I’ve been mad at him ever since.”

“No!”

“Yes, and I’ve risked my life to save him from certain death!”

“What an asshole!”

“I know!”

We talk for about two hours about random things, including the Doctor and what differences we have in our lives, and I figured out her name is Gabby. Her phone rings.

“Oh, I’ve got to get this, it’s Ricky.” She picks it up, “Hey babe, you’ll never believe what just— Oh? That’s great, I’ll be there in a minute. Yeah, love yo—” She awkwardly puts the phone down.

“He never lets you get a word in does he?”

“Not really.”

“Then why are you still with him?”

“I don’t know. It’s better than being alone all the time.” She shrugs, “Anyways, let’s go, they’re picking us up in the van.”

We exit the flat and gun it down the stairs, right as we exit the estate, a van pulls up and the doors open.

She gets in and pulls me with her.

“Mrs. Moore, Jake, Ricky, this is Abby, she’s me from an alternate universe. Abby this is Mrs. Moore, Jake, and Ricky.” She seems to notice Mickey in the passenger seat, “Oh! This must be your alternate universe counterpart!”

Ricky looks at her, “What are you going on about?”

“My theories about there being a multiverse were right! And apparently, it drew in a spaceship from an alternate universe.” She smiles.

“Oh, that explains this one.” Ricky gestures to Mickey, “Hang on, how did you draw in a spaceship?”

“I told you the machine I built would work, and it did, it drew in a tardis, that’s the spaceship's name.”

“That’s great, babe.” We pull up to an address and Jake and Rickey crouch in the bushes.

“I’ve identified the address. It belongs to Peter Tyler. The Vitex millionaire.” I look at my variant in concern, “We gotta get in there.”

Mickey nods, “Yeah seriously.”

I watch Ricky run out and fire guns at the Cybermen.

Rose fusses with his coat.

Gabby, Mickey, and I run toward them.

“Rose! That’s not me. That’s like… the other one.”

Rose stares at him, then at Ricky.

“Oh, as if things weren’t bad enough, there’s two Mickeys!”

“Don’t talk about him like that!” Gabby and I chime in unison.

The Doctor turns to look at us, blinks and looks back at the robots.

“We’re surrounded…”

Ricky raises his gun.

“Put the gun down. Bullets won’t stop them.”

Jake ignores this and fires a rally. 

The Doctor pushes his gun aside, “No! Stop shooting, now!” He straightens and addresses the surrounding robots, “We surrender! Hands up…” We all stick our hands up, “There’s no need to damage us, we’re good stock. We volunteer for the upgrade program. Take us to be processed.”

“You are rogue elements.”

“But we surrender.” “You are incompatible.”

“But this is a surrender!” “You will be deleted.”

The Doctor starts shouting, “But we’re surrendering! Listen to me, we surrender!” “You are inferior. Man will be reborn as Cybermen but you will perish under maximum deletion.”

The Cyberman raises its arm and reaches toward the Doctor.