#jesus christ I can hear the bullshit from a mile away

[skaruresonic]

the anti-DEI crowd when I tell them about the Ivory Bangle Lady and proceed to ask them where the Anglo-Saxons got their ivory grave goods from because there sure as shit weren't no elephants in 6th-century Britain:

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

I rant and rave about DiscoPunk performing and making albums and voguing together - but let the record show,

DiscoPunk goes fucking NUTS on Dance Dance Revolution

Pavitr and Gayatri are casuals that have a go on it at the arcade during their date nights 😊

For Miles and Gwen, it's a cute way to bond and tease each other, getting to know each other better and tripping over their collective four left-feet (You'd think Gwen would have the rhythm considering she's a dancer AND a drummer - but fam, Ballet is NOT the same as DDR)

But to DiscoPunk, this shit is NOT a game. To them DDR is a goddamn lifestyle.

Keep them away from that arcade cabinet because by God, they're here to wreck that shit. Bout to shake the whole place with it.

They're DDR Champions.

And that's ON TOP of Hobie's numerous Pac-Mac Champion wins, and his Space Invaders High-Score at the top of the credits list.

If you ever see the initials 'DSC0PNK' on a DRR machine? THAT'S THEM.

They play on EXPERT. They're not half-assing it. They're doing the arm motions and all

They're the couple that dance facing away from the screen, just to stunt on everyone there.

The ones that hop and switch dancepads with each other mid-song for fun.

Hobie's in his big-ass boots meanwhile Diane has on flip-flops. Neither are proper footwear for the intense athleticism they are engaging in. They do not care.

They only way they get away with it is telling Miguel they're 'Training'.

Of course Miguel knew that had to be a crock of bullshit. One afternoon that use that excuse.

Miguel lets them off the hook, but as soon as they leave, he asks Lyla - "They're making out or something, aren't they?"

And Lyla has to be the one to tell him. '....No, they're actually 'training'...'

Miguel raises an eyebrow. "For some reason, I'm not sure I believe you."

Lyla sighs. She pulls up the surveillance footage on Miguel's screen to show him that no, they are not making out, they're just hogging the fucking arcade machine in some Camden arcade going fucking nuts on a Dance Dance Revolution machine.

Miguel takes one look at them and thinks 'Fucking Boomers'

They take it so seriously. TOO seriously.

They'll fist-fight with any couple and even THINKS about clearing their high-score. Seriously, they're about to brawl with Felicia and Flash Thompson of Earth-1294 cause they topped their record-breaking High Score on Aqua's 'Barbie Girl'

- and now Diane and Hobie are training to beat their high score in Smile.dk's 'Butterfly'.

That's their together time.

Hobie can't dance for the fucking life of him but he CAN hit every single arrow on that screen eyes closed. And Diane has never touched a video game in her life - not even Tetris - but this ISN'T a game it's a COMPETITION goddamnit.

They just love being completely in synced with each other, they have full conversations while playing levels.

Hobie even learned how to hack it, so he could upload all kinda songs to the thing.

And when they play AGAINST each other, EVEN BETTER.

Jesus Christ almighty. The TRASH TALK.

Swinging limbs are each other to throw them off, sticking out their hands to cover the other one's screen.

DEATH GLARING at each other because yes Diane loves Hobie but she's not about to let him embarrass her up on this arcade, are you kidding me???

She's like "Think you can keep up with me, toothpicks?" (He has toothpicks for legs 😭😐)

"Who'd of thought the 'Disco Diva' would be 200 points behind, yeah?"

Do you understand? Do you see it???

DISCOPUNK Dance Dance Revolution

Miles and Gwen staring at them like 'Why are they so cute at everything!!!!! Why do our friends keep out-cute-ing us!!!'

Meanwhile Pavitr and Gayatri are secretly planning to take their title.

For three weeks straight, all you'll hear is Hobie and Diane yelling about the mysterious 'GP4E' duo that took down their score.

Little do they know that stands for 'Gayatri + Pavi 4Ever' (Pavi's idea, of course)

Now.. They must train.

There's an anomaly in 234? Who the hell cares!!! The arcade machine just got Cascada 'Everytime We Touch'!!!! THEY'RE BUSY!!!!!

[cgsf]

Men's Hockey (RPF) fanfiction recs:

Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick

"how to cherish your own shadow" 🔒 (E) by notthequiettype | 15,525 | Nolan thinks about praying. He thinks about TK, how good it's been to have him here, how easily they move around each other. He thinks about the stretch of days ahead of him once TK heads home. TK looks over and smiles, soft and crooked, and Nolan imagines leaning in to kiss him, pressing their bodies together. He smiles back.

"an illicit divide" 🔒 (E) by notthequiettype | 2,851 | TK unbuttons his shirt, opens his belt. He turns around and Patty's still standing in the doorway, a shoulder against the frame. "You coming over?" "Can't," Patty says, and drags his socked foot along the threshold between their rooms. "Against the rules."

"but i pinky promise i'll try" 🔒 (E) by anonymous | 12,152 | Nolan comes across one guy, just a scant two miles away, who actually has his face in his profile picture, which is a refreshing change. He’s cute, longish dark hair with a sneaky smile, and his name is Travis. Nolan has never started a conversation with anyone before, but again: antsy and horny.

"how winning is done" 🔒 (M) by jolach | 8,823 | Travis isn’t buying it. “Nah,” he says. “You’re not good.” He sees Patty whip his head around, ready to start shit, which normally Travis would be into, but– “You’re fucking...” he searches for a word, “awesome.” “Trav–” “You were a fucking monster out there tonight, that call was bullshit–” “Oh my God–” “You’re better at COD than me, I’ll never repeat that–” “–you don’t have to, we both know–” “You’re a goddamn smokeshow, you bagged a fucking NHL captain without even trying–” “Jesus fucking Christ,” Pat says.

"hear the river say your name" 🔒 (E) by notthequiettype | 2,481 | "Howdy's got plans, so." Pat says it like it's a whole explanation, low and easy. It's been a while since they've been in the same room, but the way they talk to each other, the half sentences and shorthand, it's all still there. They're good to go and Pat's leaving it up to him.

"teach me how to cry" 🔒 (NR) by notthequiettype | 693 | TK knows the second he hits the ice his season's done.

"Combative" 🔒 (E) by notthequiettype | 3,517 | "You know you could just fuck me without setting weird little benchmarks for yourself." "Yeah, but like, if I don't have a goal, how do I get better?"

"when i see your light shine" 🔒 (E) by notthequiettype | 4,700 | Patty says, "Hey" and TK pulls him into a hug, lets himself hang on slightly longer than is chill. Patty just spreads his big hand out between TK's shoulderblades and holds on back. When they pull back TK says, "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"this will be our year" 🔒 (E) by notthequiettype | 4,380 | When TK turns back around, there's a tall, handsome guy leaning on his elbow on the bar, two fingers rubbing at his temple under his shaggy hair. "What can I get you?" "What's the least annoying thing to order?" "For real or like how people are always asking bartenders what they like to make?" The corner of the guy's mouth twitches a little. The tops of his cheeks are flushed. "For real."

"absolute ultimate" 🔒 (E) by heroics | 4,669 | It’s a kind of ritual, now, that Travis and Pat spend at least the first night of every road trip at the hotel, bickering over the Discovery Channel.

"dial this lover’s heartache" 🔒 (E) by notthequiettype | 5,219 | TK hits Pat, 21, 7km away and pauses, mostly to size-up the bass hanging from his hand in his profile photo. TK swipes right because he likes Pat's wide, open-mouthed smile, like he's in the middle of a laugh, and the soft curve of belly sitting at his waistband in another shot. TK's not expecting the match to pop and it startles him into dropping his phone on the counter.

"just like this" 🔒 (E) by jesuisgrace | 1,144 | TK plays beautifully. He knows they should wait, but when TK rips his helmet off after the game and flips his disgusting, sweaty hair back, he wants to eat him alive.

"Slow and low" 🔒 (E) by bitter_leaf | 10,451 | “You really gave that girl a lap dance, eh?” “I fucking said I did, didn’t I—” Travis starts, irritated, because he just told Patty not half an hour ago that he did and— his stomach drops through the floor. Oh fuck. Oh shit. Oh no. No no no.

"take down some summer time" 🔒 (T) by manybumblebees | 2,507 | Summer is lake days and fishing and coolers full of beer, the boat kicking up spray in its wake, and Nolan coming to stand next to him on the deck in his too-short shorts, holding his forearm next to TK’s and complaining about his Irish skin, which burns and freckles but never tans.

"it's hard to look right at you (so here's my number)"🔒 (E) by backseats | 2,914 | “Why’d you, like…” Trav tries to kick his brain back into conversation-mode, momentarily distracted by the way Patty’s flushed all the way past his throat, down to the divot of his collarbone. “Why’d you call me, man?”

"Motivation" 🔒 (E) by connectknee | 4,696 | Kevin knows when to back off, the article said. He knows just when to shut up and leave Patty alone, something Travis has never known how to do.

"Strange Torpedo" 🔒 (E) by connectknee | 31,270 |In which TK is the unconventional first-grade teacher in charge of Nolan’s niece, and Nolan is trying to figure out what to do with his life after crashing out of hockey.

"Dead reckoning" 🔒 (E) by murkya | 10,768 | Patty came over after lunch, one eye hecticly red and his jaw occasionally grinding about as if something was wound too tight inside and he was stuck on trying to work it free.

"History, and other forms of strife" 🔒 (M) by murkya | 16,925 | Summer of ‘26, Nolan got traded to the Flyers. That was fine, just great. Shit happens.

"don't let me fall behind" 🔒 (T) by growlery writes | 2,187 | It happens quickly, too quickly, but this is how it ends: the guy is on the ground. The guy isn’t moving. Nolan is safe. There’s a knife in Travis’s side. Nolan is safe.

"keep it on a high note" 🔒 (E) by notthequiettype | 3,915 | Nolan has never been a particularly tactile person except for with the people he's been closest too. Nobody's expanded those boundaries like TK and Nolan likes the ease of it, that he has someone around all the time who he likes to be close to.

"hold on to your aftertaste" 🔒 (E) by notthequiettype | 8,305 | Kevin stops him at the door. "You are my beautiful, gay, virgin friend. And we are going to go take care of the one part of that description that's bothering you." It's strangely heartening and Nolan follows him in.

"Cheetle" 🔒 (E) by notthequiettype | 7,061 | Nolan made Travis kind of stupid in all these strange, inarticulable ways that didn't really have anything to do with how smart Travis wasn't, but instead were about like, how he felt.

"see you in the depths" 🔒 (E) by eversincewefellapart | 6,718 | "You're a virgin?" TK repeats incredulously.

"my heart is thrilled by the still of your hand" 🔒 (E) by callabang & manybumblebees | 3,139 | Patty tries a lot of shit to help with his migraines, but TK still isn't expecting to hear that he’s doing a “chastity cleanse” because Tazer said it would help him to “reset his mind.”

"save your first and last dance for me" 🔒 (E) by manybumblebees | 21,374 | They're several hours, a slow dance, and too many bright orange shots that taste of cinnamon and paint thinner into their joke date to G's wedding when TK looks up at Nolan and says, "Marry me." And that's just their first wedding of the summer.

"play with fire till your fingers burn" 🔒 (T) by manybumblebees | 6,048 | Nolan goes through his first NHL camp knowing three things about the guy in the next stall: 1. He talks a lot. 2. He likes to fish. 3. The ducks in his tattoo are named after the Ninja Turtles.

"port stanley is for lovers" 🔒 (T) by manybumblebees | 7,518 | “Imagine–” Nolan chokes out, trying to stop laughing long enough not to totally butcher the delivery on this. “Bro, imagine making a whole town think we’re hooking up because you couldn’t shut up about me.”

"i'm dying, i'm dying to touch" 🔒 (E) by anonymous | 2,023 | Patty won't look at him. He's not paying any attention to TK, sitting there shooting the shit with Raff like TK doesn't even fucking exist. Fuck it. Fuck him. Fuck this.

"like home" 🔒 (T) by anonymous | 4,595 | The entire season feels like it’s going on in the next room, like Nolan’s watching it through a one-way mirror. Him on one side, hockey on the other. And then it stops, the whole season, the structure he's been clawing himself along and against, and... It's not a good week.

"if you leave the light on" 🔒 (M) by countthestars | 7,753 | “Do you really want me to come to Winnipeg?” TK doesn’t mean to blurt it out, but he’s not good at being subtle or holding back or thinking through any of the possible terrible consequences for his actions before he’s already done them, so. The question’s just. Out there. Ball in Patty’s court.

"the new three's company" 🔒 (M) by blaahaj | 3,000 | There are probably better ways to seduce your teammate than asking him to have a threesome with you, but this is working out alright for Travis.

"let's get drunk, i’ll pour my heart out through my mouth" 🔒 (M) by anonymous | 7,139 | Holy fuck, did he pick someone up last night? Travis isn’t in the habit of waking up with strangers, not really, but at least he’s in his own bedroom, that doesn’t— Wait. He knows those shoes.

"a line that we can just go cross" 🔒 (M) by whiskey_in_tea | 3,266 | Travis thinks about when he chipped his own tooth: how it felt to run his tongue over the unfamiliar jagged edge of it, over and over and over again. That’s the only reason he got it fixed, is because he cut his tongue on it, worrying at it, and that seemed unnecessary. That seemed, like, bad. He imagines saying to Pats, I’m worried about your tongue.

"I'm Your Wreck" 🔒 (M) by whiskey_in_tea | 7,126 | “If I was gonna,” Nolan says. “With a guy. Why would it be you?” “Because you love me,” Travis says, smug, shit-eating grin on that ratfucker’s face as he walks over to where Nolan’s sitting on the bed. Nolan tries desperately to trace how this night got so out of control so quickly and comes up with only: this is what happens when you make friends with the craziest person on your crazy-ass team.

"wild thoughts" 🔒 (M) by whiskey_in_tea | 6,996 | Nolan watches Travis’ hands, browned from the summer, scarred by fishing hooks and trigger pulls and ice burns and god knows what else, as they finish putting dinner on its plate. That’s the thing about Travis: he understands how to make the life he wants for himself. He’s not stupid, except about the things he’s fucking stupid about.

"working for it all the time" 🔒 (E) by whiskey_in_tea | 8,105 | It’s just, like, Travis thinks, as Patty lets go of his wrists and they walk inside together, Patty saying something about dinner plans. With other guys, there’s this static zone between them. Travis doesn’t think about it because there’s nothing to think about. But with Patty… it could happen. Just technically. It is possible. The door is open, he thinks, for the possibility of something. Not that he wants something to happen. But Travis has to admit that he thinks about it. He does.

"Surveilled" 🔒 (M) by notthequiettype | 639 | The thing about TK is that he doesn't lack impulse control; it’s that his impulse control was getting in the way of his life, so he just kind of learned to suppress it.

"Horseshoe Lake" 🔒 (E) by notthequiettype | 5,386 | "So, what, you just came over in the middle of the night to like, end our lifelong friendship?"

"Eye to Eye" 🔒 (M) by canary | 4,077 | Five times TK asks Nolan to talk about it, and one time he doesn’t.

"never have i ever" 🔒 (E) by anonymous | 5,653 | “Never have I ever kissed a guy,” he said, without really thinking about it. Nolan didn’t respond right away, and Travis realized about five seconds too late that that was probably a really weird thing to say.

"same building, different views" 🔒 (E) by atswimtwobros | 5,636 | Patty’s not always easy to read but Travis can tell that he hates this, being held down while Travis just looks at him. He can feel Patty’s pulse thumping in his wrists.

"haven't left your bed since" 🔒 (E) by heroics | 6,002 | "So, is it a rule that all bassists have to be really stoic and hot?" Travis asks.

"second sun came past the glass" 🔒 (E) by heroics | 3,614 | When TK glances at him across the elevator, Nolan leans against the wall and lets himself stare back. They start going up, agonizingly slow, dinging past each level. He really hopes nobody else comes in.

"headed your way with the devil on my fucking shoulder" 🔒 (E) by eversincewefellapart | 5,434 | They've been rooming since September and TK had tried valiantly, in the beginning, to strike up a friendship. When that seemed impossible, he attempted to go for a casual acquaintanceship at the very least. But Nolan consistently and coldly turned his advances down each time, shrugging into his big purple and yellow Laurier sweaters with his snapback pulled low over his eyes. TK has still never seen him hang out with anyone. He apparently runs a one-man show.

"only demons come to mind" 🔒 (T) by manybumblebees | 3,727 | Next to Nolan, TK’s slamming his gear around and swearing, and that, too, is becoming routine.

"sunlight on our clean clothes" 🔒 (E) by sarcangel | 19,923 | “Turns out I have a thing for centers,” Travis started. It came out pretty good, just a little wobble. “Or, um. Mostly one center. A center. Like, 6’2”, born in Winnipeg. Virgo. Likes cabins, dogs, weird music with violins and shit—”

"great expectations" 🔒 (E) by atswimtwobros | 5,287 | It's starting to give Travis a little bit of a complex, is all. or: the small dick fic.

"Close ain't close enough" 🔒 (E) by bitter_leaf | 33,590 | They’ve only got three nights left before they head back to Philly, training camp starting up a little over a week after that. With a heavy heart, Travis realises that he’s gonna head back home and have to deal with this same stupid flickering torch that he’s been carrying since Patty got put on long term IR that just will not go out, no matter how much he tries—and fails—to ignore it.

"Call me out (bring you home)" 🔒 (M) by bitter_leaf | 19,319 | Nolan’s gaze flickers periodically to the rear-view mirror as he barrels down the highway, one shaky hand shoved under his thigh, the other slung over the wheel. The road is quiet now that he's clear of the city but he can’t bear the thought of getting pulled over and having to roll his window down for some bored traffic cop, tell him he’s heading across provincial borders in the middle of a pandemic to get Manitoba’s favourite son to rail the existential angst out of him.

"break my bones" 🔒 (E) by anonymous | 3,387 | Nolan’s been here enough times that he heads straight to the counter. He does a double-take when he sees the new barista, then immediately kicks himself for being obvious. It takes a surprising amount of concentration to order coffee while acting like he's never gotten off to videos of the guy getting fucked to within an inch of his life.

"pictures of success" 🔒 (E) by whiskey_in_tea | 16,171 | “The trick,” Travis is saying, “is to get past where the waves are breaking.” He gestures to where the water is rising like a wall in front of them. “See how it comes up and up, then it starts falling in on itself?” The ocean crumbles, collapses, sprays them with spume. It seems angry. What’s it so angry about?

"all candor and style in the crook of your smile" 🔒 (M) by p3trichor | 12,031 | It’s a photo of Nolan on his knees with someones’ fingers in his mouth, lips slick with spit. Travis flicks by it almost too fast and he’s only got seconds to decide if he wants to screenshot it, if he wants to just give up the ghost right then and there.

"but your heart got teeth" 🔒 (M) by countthestars | 6,619 | Patty’s gonna wolf out. Travis has never seen him do it before.

"i saw you in the water" 🔒 (E) by LouLa | 24,944 | “Why are you always collecting my garbage like a weird, violent crow?” Nolan asks, bewildered. Travis doesn’t have an answer for that, he just shoves at Nolan’s face instead.

"Nothing to Prove" 🔒 (E) by canary | 42,342 | Nolan picked a college based on two criteria. One: That it didn’t have a hockey program. Two: That it was in some random corner of the southern USA, where the air was thick enough to bite, and football was the only sport anyone talked about in October. He should have known his dumb ass was still going to fuck it up.

"Sugar Honey" 🔒 (T) by canary | 3,904 | TK had always liked color. TK had always liked Patty. TK had always liked it when Patty smiled, and it seemed like he smiled all the fucking time in Winnipeg.

"How the Future Knew" 🔒 (E) by canary | 63,728 | It had been some stupid, throwaway picture from the gym. He’d been shirtless, taken a selfie in the mirror between sets. Nolan hadn’t been thinking about it, really, just like, oh, my abs look pretty good for this late in the season, and he’d thrown it on the gram. It had made some horny Canadian’s “boys next door thirst trap compilation” post on Tumblr. Nolan hadn’t heard of Tumblr before but apparently it was a thing. He’d gotten like, thirty DMs about it.

"the space between your words" 🔒 (E) by TheNorthRemembers | 18,189 | Travis visits Nolan during the offseason and starts spiralling into his insecurities after being told by Nolan's sister that she doesn't like him.

"Made of Glass" 🔒 (M) by makeit_takeit | 14,689 | Inside the locker room it’s pure chaos, noise and people and Nolan immediately feels overwhelmed by the sheer volume of it all, both literal and metaphorical. His heart lurches and his gut tells him immediately, this is a bad idea, and you don’t belong here.

"Things We Missed" 🔒 (T) by makeit_takeit | 4,622 | It was literally, unquestionably, like - the dumbest thing he’s ever done, hooking up with Hallsy. Because Nolan is very - . Like, extremely, super, totally, literal-hours-of-his-life-lost-to-conversations-on-this-topic aware, that Travis Konecny is mad jealous of Taylor Hall.

"Last Ones Standing" 🔒 (E) by makeit_takeit | 22,772 | At the bottom of the ad there’s a link, and Travis finds his finger hovering over the screen, lip still caught between his teeth. “I mean,” he says very reasonably, speaking out loud to his empty apartment like some sort of possibly-crazy person, “just applying doesn’t mean anything. Maybe I just fill it out, and see what happens. It’s not like I’m really gonna get picked to be on TV, come on.”

"Just Getting Started" 🔒 (E) by canary | 10,719 | Several things clicked into place. “Are you trying to court me with Bud Lite Lime?” Nolan asked in disbelief. “Dunno,” Travis said, with his crooked smile. “Is it working?”

"body's in trouble" 🔒 (E) by cloudsandpassingevents | 55,915 | “I don’t know,” Nolan finally mumbles. “I’m not, like, trying to – ” the rest of the sentence gets stuck in his throat. He takes a sip of tea to force it back down. “Like. I wouldn’t do anything drastic. But, like.” He gestures vaguely at the air between them. “If you had a bike that was broken, you wouldn’t just keep it around anymore, you know? Like, it’d just be useless. You’d throw it away. So, like, if your body can’t do stuff that it’s supposed to be able to do, then…” he trails off, chewing on the corner of his lip. “What’s the point, you know,” he finally finishes.

"when the night falls" 🔒 (E) by anonymous | 16,519 | In which Travis is strangely fascinated by the moody guy who keeps showing up at his coffee shop right as he’s closing. Well. The dude is hot. It’s not that complicated, actually.

"River for the Sea" 🔒 (E) by LoveLeah | 39,152 | It’s not that Nolan’s, like, hugely fucking into Travis. He literally barely knows him, but obviously he’s hot, tan and athletic with nice hair and pretty eyes and this dark tattoo just dipping out from under the sleeve of his t-shirt, wrapping around the thick muscle of his bicep.

"Bathe with You in the Sea" 🔒 (M) by LoveLeah | 2,549 | “Chase told us something,” his mom says. Travis' body feels fire hot under his parka, sweaty and closed in. “He says he thinks you didn’t come because--Travis, he says you told him you were gay.”

"Breathing Room" 🔒 (E) by makeit_takeit | 16,149 | “I dunno, dude.” Travis chews on the inside of his cheek, rubs his hand over the whiskers on his chin to feel them bend and slide and prickle under his fingers. “You ever just get tired of being in the city all the time? Just seeing like – airport, hotel, arena, bus, airport, and that’s it?”

"faith between our teeth" 🔒 (E) by waytoobright | 10,602 | For Travis, it feels like home. He knows the streets up and down every block, and he’s been working at his family friend’s hot dog stand since he turned fourteen and was legally allowed to work in the state of New Jersey. He’s got friends who work at other restaurants and shops down the boardwalk and everyone still comes back every summer. They all come rolling into town during the first few weeks of sun and sand, and then the summer really begins.

"The Strangest Trip" 🔒 (E) by makeit_takeit | 19,562 | Pat’s at the bar, back turned to the speeches. He looks like always: big, beautiful, perfect in his almost-pink-but-still-technically-taupe suit. Hair slicked back off his face, jaw clenched and trying hard to hide how much he doesn’t want to be here, gripping his wine glass a little too tight. Just looking at him, Travis can feel the almost desperate pull in his chest, the longing.

"Two Halves of a Whole Idiot" 🔒 (E) by littleconnections | 19,089 | Nolan's hair is getting long too, flicking into his eyes and Travis sits on the shore and watches, the pulling in his gut both familiar and not. What if I kiss him, he thinks.

"Friends Don't Look At Friends That Way" 🔒 (E) by Matriaya | 5,519 | Travis knows as soon as Sara suggests a threesome that he's gonna pick Patty. Obviously. Patty’s his best friend, and they see each other’s dicks like every fucking day at the rink, and he’s definitely walked in on Patty boning a chick before, so it will just be like that only… together.

"Hot House Grapes" 🔒 (E) by LoveLeah for Matriaya | 7,636 | Even after TK told him; after he found out he and TK both liked guys, he hadn't thought about TK as anything more than just TK. Like, he hadn't thought he wasn't hot, but he'd just never thought that much about it at all. Then they came back from the summer after their junior year, and Nolan walked into their dorm, and TK was sprawled out shirtless on the bottom bunk, dark tan and smiling, and Nolan took one look at him and was like: oh.

"Twice As Many Stars" 🔒 (E) by TheNorthRemembers | 230,251 | “Told you,” Nolan says, and it’s meant to be teasing but somehow his voice trails off into something softer at the look on Travis’ face. It’s not really surprise or shock like Nolan had expected, not entirely anyway. There’s disappointment there too, mixed with defiance and sadness. “You can’t save everyone.” The character's death screen is still showing, and it feels mocking in a way Nolan didn’t quite see coming. “I had to try, though,” Travis still says, unmoving for another second before he musters up a smile and presses the controller into Nolan’s hand. “You always gotta try.”

"in the name of being honest" 🔒 (E) by coastalhighway | 51,655 | From the moment the Flyers had stepped on the ice, Nolan had tried to catch TK’s eye, tried to make him fucking look at Nolan, but— The entire goddamn time. The entire goddamn game, TK never once met his eyes.

"Coming Undone" (E) by Linsky | 3,184 | For the record: Travis does hook up. A completely normal amount, even. He finds girls on Tinder and totally does go out with them. Just, that’s a lot of work, and sometimes he’s tired from hockey, and it just seems easier to stick to messaging. It’s still sort of like hooking up.

"latibule" (E) by wolver | 40,601 | "You're Nolan Patrick, right?" The guy presses on whether he gets an answer or not (he doesn't), "Bro, it's sweet we get to play together. You're fucking sick; your stick-handling skills are off the charts, my man, this is gonna be so sweet." Nolan can fucking feel the vibrations of Travis stifling a laugh, but of course Travis isn't going to throw him a rescue line like the fucker that he is. All Nolan can really do is stare blankly -- his first choice of words are highly inappropriate and he smothers them into an unintelligible mumble.

"before the wave hits" 🔒 (E) by anonymous | 16,477 | It's not really a big deal, is the thing. It's just that Travis thinks it's kind of weird that they've been best friends for three years and he's never seen Patty's dick.

"let's get tangled up together" (E) by wolver | 3,236 | Patty's back. A slice in the life from training camp.

"he's kinda quiet (but his body ain’t)" 🔒 (E) by thestarsatnight | 2,956 | Nolan is looking at him and with soft, knowing eyes, because he knows exactly how taxing it is sometimes to manage anything past getting up, breathing, and going back to bed.

"Tazete Tazone" 🔒 (M) by soupbowlfulofsins | 7,464 | One drunk kiss does not a bromance make. So obviously, Travis and Nolan step up their bro-kissing game.

"So long, Honey" 🔒 (E) by TheNorthRemembers | 11,649 | Nolan and Travis have been friends since they've been kids and in love almost just as long. Nolan is a hockey player, but Travis isn't, but Nolan still comes home to him every off season.

"wouldn’t know where to start" 🔒 (M) by anonymous | 7,090 | Travis just keeps pressing, keeps touching Nolan the same way he always has, and waits for it to stop feeling normal. It never does.

"what we do when we stop thinkin" 🔒 (E) by Matriaya | 6,687 | Travis leans up and presses a kiss to Nolan’s cheek, right smack in the hollow of it, where the fuzz is starting to creep up. It’s no more than a second, lips on skin, barely a glance, but he can’t quite meet Nolan’s gaze as he pulls away. “For good luck!”

"Good For You" 🔒 (E) by TheNorthRemembers | 40,282 | Travis finds out that Nolan has a big dick and becomes obsessed with it, discovering some stuff about himself along the way. Nolan mostly just enjoys the ride.

"Does Anybody Know" 🔒 (E) by thestarsatnight | 3,509 | Kevin was beaming at him. “Better believe we’re gonna celebrate that hatty once this pandemic’s over, TikiBar.” “Sure, sure,” Travis said, bobbing his head. There was a lot he’d told these guys over the years, a lot that he’d shared with this team, but some things were just for him, even in the jumbled up excitement of his brain. Instead, he said, “Plenty of time for you to catch up, Hayesy,” and Kevin’s answering laugh was enough.

"Rattling Cages" (E) by LoveLeah | 48,562 | Nolan gets ditched, wears short-shorts, and tries to figure out his head. Travis buys a dildo, spends $2000 on Etsy, and makes a folder for all the Nolan pictures on his phone.

"worn but young" 🔒 (E) by grace | 28,525 | Somehow though, with Patty it’s all felt different so far, though he would never have guessed it would in a thousand years. Travis keeps looking back to check how far ahead he’s gotten and every time Patty is right there with him, pacing him quiet and calm. Acting like it’s normal to want the things with a friend that Travis wants, the constant closeness, acting like Travis isn’t bothering or taking from him at all. It makes Travis feel giddy inside, like bubbles fizzing.

"shines when the sunset shifts" 🔒 (E) by grace | 15,391 | Nolan feels all the things he’s been wanting to say to someone and can’t rise up and crowd in; a pressure, a weather system. I thought I was better. I’m not doing well. It is happening again. It will happen forever. Instead he says, “Does that hurt?”

"born to be crazy, born to be wild" 🔒 (E) by anonymous | 6,353 | Nolan was not throwing himself a pity party. Was he injured? Yes. Was he injured for the seven-millionth fucking time? Unfortunately. Had he succumbed, under the covers in the wee hours of the morning, to his weakest impulse, searching his name on Twitter? Also yes. Had that sent him into a shame spiral? Obviously.

"if you need me, i'm the same as i was" 🔒 (T) by donderwolk | 4,719 | TK clears his throat, tries to go for sultry again then, but it’s part of the bit now, a little in-joke between the two of them, says, “What are you wearing?”

"i miss this time, last year" 🔒 (M) by donderwolk | 18,048 | Travis calls him about two hours after the news drops, says nothing for a whole ten seconds, then comes out with just a, “Nolan.” It’s less a word, and more a sigh. A strange and desperate thing. They haven’t spoken in eight months.

"stuck in my head, heart, body" 🔒 (E) by donderwolk | 2,434 | God, what would TK even do if he just — showed up? Pretend, Nolan thinks. Knows, really. He’d pretend, at least for a little while, that Nolan standing on his doorstep in fucking Haddonfield unannounced and on Valentine’s Day was the most normal thing a guy could do.

"sing it in my sleep" (M) by fadeastride | 3,954 | It takes three days after leaving the bubble for Travis to check his phone. He deletes most of the texts unread, but there's one from Nolan that just says, "You should come see me."

"the most exciting thing I'd ever known" (T) by fadeastride | 3,072 | The first time Nolan starts to actually think about it, they're in Claude's backyard for some kind of "welcome spring" barbecue that's really an excuse to drink too much cheap beer and cook meat over a fire. Nolan's four, maybe five, beers in when he tells Travis that he's got the balance of one of those goats that walk sideways up mountains and that he could totally walk the fence like a balance beam. "You cannot," Travis says, smashing another bite of hamburger into his mouth.

"any thrill will do"🔒 (E) by hackysack | 8,372 | Pat copes with it the same way he’s been coping with every other part of the Philadelphia break-up: he goes on Grindr.

"hold (me) still" 🔒 (E) by notthequiettype & solarperigee | 3,343 | Nolan watches out of the corner of his eye as TK gets more and more jittery, before he finally springs to his feet, presses a kiss to Nolan's cheek, and announces, “I've gotta go jerk it so I'm not sitting here with a boner all game, 'kay?” Nolan doesn't know what drives him to say it, but the words are out before he can stop to think about them. “You can do it here, if you're quick about it.”

"occupying space" 🔒 (E) by toxica939 | 4,278 | Nolan loves him. The thought’s like a bruise. Something better left to poke at later, press down on, see if it hurts.

"I Wish That It Was Easy" 🔒 (E) by littleconnections | 10,393 | Getting stuck in a time loop has never made anyone realise their feelings any quicker.

"Someone Else's Solid Ground" (E) by Linsky | 21,757 | Nolan’s body has never been his friend.

••••••

That's 100!

[dyslexicoconut]

Big Dogs Attack the Pentagon

Chapter 1

“This is such bullshit.” The man let out a long groan as he threw his hands over his face as slowly sank into his office chair. Agent Jack Waters had spent the better part of the last year at his desk, working on filing reports and he still wasn’t adjusted to it. Jack looked at his computer screen, a blank PDF he had been working on for the last hour staring at him. In theory, this was one of the simplest forms that could be done, an evidence acquisition form, but in practice, it proved a most daunting task.

“Another day in paradise?”

Jack peered over his desk from his slouched position and over the cubicle wall as a familiar head looked back at him with a toothy grin.

“Hello Tony,” Jack grumbled.

“What's the matter Waters, a perfectly gloomy afternoon spent under fluorescent lights and in 6 square feet of a cubicle not enough to cheer you up?” Jack let out another groan and sank even further into the chair, barely even sitting in it at this point. 

“I know, shocking,” the sarcasm dripping from his words. “This is ridiculous, I shouldn’t even be here.”

“Well clearly someone disagrees with you, Do you ever think-”

“No.”

“That maybe-”

“No.”

“Just maybe-”

“No.”

“They have a point?” Jack forced himself back into a sitting position.

“No, no, no, no they don’t. I can understand a week or two of leave. Maybe, and I mean MAYBE a month, but six? It’s ridiculous! I’m a waste here, there’s someone lesser than me out on the field and I’m taking the seat of some pencil pusher who I’m sure would like to be here more than me.” Jack looked around, his voice getting louder than the hums and beeps of the office ambiance would allow. He turned back to Tony, using a much more controlled voice. “It’s just fucking bullshit.”

“I know buddy, it sucks,” Tony said in as genuine a tone he could muster. “But I’m sure you’re not long for this place, and I doubt they’re holding you for any malicious reason. I’m betting they just lost your paperwork, and this ‘extended leave’ nonsense is just them covering their asses.”

“Yeah maybe,” Jack said, clearly not convinced as he put his head in his hands. A silence fell over them, neither very sure how or interested in continuing to poke this bear. The silence lasted for so long that Jack briefly considered going back to work before Tony thankfully broke the silence.

“Oh, speaking of breakfast, did you hear that they’re taking away the coffee pot from the break room.” as the words left Tony’s mouth Jack whipped his head up, the look on his face as if he’d seen a ghost. 

“No, you’re fucking kidding me. Because of Jerry?”

“I mean legally they can’t say that it was because of him for defamation reasons, but I mean yeah what else could possibly cause it?” Jack, in disbelief, stood up and started pacing around his cubicle.

“God I still can’t believe that happened, how does someone almost drown in a coffee pot?” Jack and Tony stepped out of their cubicles and started walking down the aisle. 

“Yeah it’s ridiculous,” Tony replied, “but as part of the settlement and just to avoid anything else they’ve taken away all the coffeepots on the inner corridors, so if you want any coffee or tea or any of that shit you have to head all the way to the outer-western corridor.”

“Oh god.” Jack let out a groan that put all his others to shame. “God, how far is that even?” Tony mulled over the question for a moment.

“Hmm, well ballpark if you round the three then you get too fucking far. It’s like a quarter of a mile if you’re being generous, which I am.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jack muttered. “They expect people to walk a half-mile round trip just to get a cup of fucking coffee?

“Yup.”

“And we still can’t bring our own coffee in?”

“Nope.”

“What the fuck are we supposed to do then that’s a ridiculous conflict to have!”

“Well,” Tony whispered, “I hear it’s not official, but supposedly the new batch of interns they brought in are kind of exclusively for running coffee.”

“Huh,” Jack muttered, “that seems like a really convoluted solution to a problem that they kind of manufactured. I mean, it feels like the conflict is kind of forced on us just as a way to put in this new gimmick for no particular reason.”

“I mean yeah I can see that,” Tony replied, “but I guess sometimes that’s how life works, and you kind of need to accept the fact that it’s imperfect and move on. Maybe there will be some purpose for it to exist, and whoever made this decision knows what’s best and we just have to wait for ‘pages to turn,’ as it were.” Jack looked at Tony very quizzically, but eventually just shrugged.

They walked for a bit making idle chitchat before stopping at a large window, overlooking several hundred small white crosses. 

“Do you ever really grasp the scope of all this?” Jack asked while staring out the window.

“What do you mean? Tony responded, also not breaking away from the gaze out the window.

“I mean that all my time out in the field was just one random place to another, I never really spent time thinking about where I was.”

“Where you were physically or where you were spiritually?” Another long silence passed, but this one much less uncomfortable. 

“ I guess both, I never really stayed anywhere longer than a month, and after that, I was sent right along to the next mission. It always seemed easier to just make no connections or ties to the places I went, and in return, I’ve never really stopped looking forward. I guess in all the time I’ve been here, I never really thought about where ‘here’ was.” They both continued to look over the wave of white crosses and contemplated for a brief moment before Tony slapped Jack on the back.

“Well,” he said, “ That’s the way things happen down here, in The Pentagon, USA we learn to do them a bit differently.” Tony checked his watch and exclaimed, “Speaking of beans it is just about lunchtime, and I’m thinking we go see if we can make one of those interns grab us that coffee.” Tony turned away from the window and started walking, and after the briefest second, just as Jack started to see the world from a new point of view, he snapped out of it.

“Hell yeah Tony, I could use a cuppa joe!” he yelled, quickly catching up.

[shaunsummers]

Reunited, and It's in the Woods!

"It's not bullshit." Siren sneers as she feels the small form crumbling in her grasp. Without even seeing her face, it was easy to know that Tek was blushing red. Not the intended target but it was now a two for one; and it was hilarious. "It's just what happens when you fuck me right." She retorts as her head cocks back, one hand pseudo seductively running down Tek's arm.

In hearing the comment, and definitely crossfaded, Lilith snorts. "I mean, it was." Though, in feeling the wet against her skin, her gaze travels downward to discover that she had spilled her drink. "God dammit." With a sigh, she passes the half burned cigarette over to Shaun before opening the door. "I'll be right back, you can finish that."

"Fuck off, Siren." Devin rises from the log with struggle but manages to find her footing before flipping off Siren with an unsteady hand. "Fuck you guys. I'm gonna hang out with Shaun." She had noticed Lilith walking back into the cabin and this could only be seen as the golden opportunity. The chance to be the shining wingman of the night. "Bro!" Trekking up the incline to the porch, which felt like a mountain, Devin makes her way over to her buddy with cautioned steps and the grace of an ostrich in a sandstorm. "Bro." She repeats, finally having made the journey. Winded, her left sneaker then unintentionally kicks and catches one of the patio chairs, causing her to loose her footing and eat absolute ass against the pavement.

----

"Siren...." Tek groans, the scalding only intensifying as she doubles down and touches her. What a hell of a reunion. And at a loss to grope onto anything else, she surfaces to take another nerve-calming hit of the ganja. More powerful than that, though, was raising up just in time to see Devin rock her own shit. She immediately busts out laughing, tears already collecting at the edges of her eyes. "Broken collarbone, dude!" She taunts loudly, beaming. YEEAHHHHH, eat shit!

Shaun's gaze turns downwards as hers does, but she easily and immediately looks away. "Can do," She takes it, double fisting the cigarettes, but still can't help but to shout back inside and poke at her a little. "But you're cut off!" Turning back around, her brow only rises in humor as she watches Devin shamble up as the shittiest zombie in a game of charades. "Bro?" She erupts into laughter as Devin bites it. "Jesus Christ." She chastises in amusement, but still sets the tumbled chair upright and tucks the extra cigarette casually between Devin's lips as she gathers her up, carefully pouring what was left of her into the chair. She needed a free hand, and hell, Devin was so fucked up she probably wouldn't question it. "The closest hospital is probably thirty miles away, shit."

[devilfic]

❝eddie, my love❞

plot: there’s a song with his name in it and you listen to it under the moon. you won’t mind if he joins you, right? pairing: eddie munson x gn!reader. cw: fluff, established relationship. words: 1.1k.

a/n: can you guess what I was looking at while writing this tonight

Eddie kinda gets why people think he’s uncouth. When he’s hauling himself up and over your backyard fence, experienced enough to know how not to alert your neighbors, he wonders what guys like Jason Carver are good at. Throwing balls full of air with heads even fuller, he thinks, and then immediately puts Jason Carver out of his mind at the sight of you.

It was a testament to how well he knew you that he found you exactly where he expected to. Your parents’ backyard was a sweet oasis away from the mundanity of Hawkins, a little slice of heaven that Eddie wasn’t used to. Flowers and stepping stones and heavy trees older than him hanging low to the ground and there you are in the midst of it, curled up on a blanket in the grass with your neck craned up to the night sky.

It was a full moon tonight. A bright one. “It’s a supermoon. When the moon is closest to the earth,” you’d told him a week ago, and though he rarely remembers to keep track of dates and times, he remembered penciling it into his uncle’s calendar on the fridge just in case.

He would’ve come to you anyway, but the moon gives him a good excuse.

You’ve got your headphones on and he can faintly hear a piano melody coming from your walkman. You don’t become aware that he’s there until he crouches behind you and pulls the headphones off, nearly sending you into orbit with the moon itself, “M’love.” He greets, simply.

You, on the other hand, swear like a sailor, “Jesus fucking Christ, Munson! I could’ve died from a heart attack!” Eddie snickers, and then when you shove him back on his unsteady perch sending him falling into the grass, he full on belly laughs. It’s not long before your anger wears off and you join him in the grass, smiling behind your hand. “If you keep jumping my fence, my dad’s gonna notice.”

“Bullshit. I’ve sneaked into your room plenty of times and he’s never noticed,” You groan at Eddie’s confidence, scandalized, “old man should be lucky I’m not some ruffian coming to steal you away or he’d be woefully unprepared.”

“Oh, are you not?”

A spark of mischief lights Eddie’s eyes. Or maybe it’s the moonlight. He reaches a hand out to cup the back of your neck, cool rings battling against the summer heat on your skin. You must’ve been out here since sunset. “Well, you won’t take me up on that road trip I keep talking about. I’m running out of options that don’t involve blackmail.” 

“We just graduated, Eddie.”

Eddie rolls his eyes as though he hadn’t been counting down to the day so that he could take you far away from this shitty town. He had so many plans. He’d fix up the van so it could fit a mattress in the back and then the two of you could travel wherever you like. LA was only 2,000 miles away. 

In reality, he hadn’t the money or the time. As free as he’d like to be, he was in no shape for that grand road trip, though it didn’t stop him from daydreaming. Even if it wasn’t LA but a city two hours away, or even if you didn’t go further than the cornfields, he’d make it work somehow. In every possible way, you were always there in the dream. 

“I could take you to see a million night skies. A billion.”

“There’s only one and I can see it just fine from here.”

Well, you had him there. You flipped onto your side and cuddled against him, hand resting on his chest to play with his guitar pick, giving you both a full view of the bright moon overhead. Eddie had never been particularly moved by nature the way you were—your gushing over a constant, never changing fact of life had puzzled him at first. The moon got this full every month, got this white and close every few months, and yet you looked at it with such unabashed awe. Eddie felt like you were looking into some hidden galaxy far, far, away, enthralled by the same moon he barely noticed every night.

But when you looked at it like that, he couldn’t help seeing it differently.

A few minutes pass by before Eddie makes out the noise coming from your headphones now resting around your neck. “Is that… is that my name?”

Your hand at his chest clenches a little around the pick, snuggling your face a further away from his line of sight, “Maybe.”

The lyrics are soft over the sound of cicadas and sprinklers. His name—or rather, his nickname—is sung in a falsetto, suffixed by the endearment “my love” playing over a dreamy arrangement. The song is short but repeats, and Eddie begins to feel something shift in him at the thought that he’d found you, staring lovingly up at the moon, listening to a song with his name over and over. 

Perhaps it was a coincidence. “You just say it all the time, it’s kinda funny,” you mumble, glancing up at him beneath your lashes like you’d been caught scribbling your name next to “Munson” in your diary, “‘my love’. It fits perfectly.”

Eddie’s breath is hard to catch, “Do you… think of me every time you hear it?”

You nod, eyes casting downward to watch his chest rise and fall with every lovesick breath. 

Eddie’s eyes trail back up to the moon. It’s still big and almost hard to look at on a night like tonight, reflecting the sun at him, but it’s a little easier to see why you find it so beautiful. Eddie brings his hand up to your shoulder and brings you closer, never close enough, but as close as your human bodies allow. “I guess one moon is plenty for you. You’d probably cream your pants if you had a million of these things.”

“I would not.”

“Yeah, you would,” Eddie almost cackles, enjoying the way you smack his chest to try and keep him quiet, “you’d leave me for the moon.”

“I’m seriously considering it.”

“Bullshit.” And just for good measure, Eddie flips over until he’s blocking said moon from your sight, straddling you against the green grass. His hair trickles down like a rain shower and tickles your cheeks until he leans down and places a heavy kiss to your lips, intent to stake his claim against the wretched rock in the sky. You kiss him back even as you laugh in between your mouths. 

“I’ll write you a song.” Eddie whispers breathlessly against your mouth, lips turned up into a dumb grin.

He loves the way your sweet eyes widen at that. “You’ll what?”

“I’ll write you a song. So we’re even.” He says, as if your romanticism is a competition or an affront to his character, a declaration that you were more enamored with him than he you. He would prove you wrong yet. He would like to keep having reasons to prove you wrong for a long time. “A song with your name in it.”

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 316: We've Had One, Yes, But What About Second Explosion

Previously on BnHA: Deku was all “[powers up like whoa because it’s time to end the fight]”, and he saved Overhaul from getting not-shot, and then smashed up Nagant’s arm with the power of his new rechargeable super knees. Nagant was all “yoooo this kid is crazy strong whaaaat, it’s like he’s some kind of protagonist or something.” Deku was all “I AM A PROTAGONIST, ACTUALLY, DO YOU WANT TO JOIN FORCES AND FIGHT BAD GUYS WITH ME?” Nagant was all “ah shit why the hell no -- ” and then AFO was all “SURPRISE” and everyone was all “?!?!?!” and AFO was all “TIME TO EXPLODE NOW” and made Nagant explode because he’s an absolute fucking dick. And then Hawks showed up, because Horikoshi just wanted to stuff as many plot points as humanly possible into a single chapter I guess.

Today on BnHA: Hawks is all “good job giving motivational shounen redemption speeches Deku but I’ll take it from here” and screams very earnestly right in Nagant’s face until she finally wakes up. Nagant is all “oh hey it’s my successor, you seem surprisingly unfucked-up from your own HPSC tenure, how did you manage that?” Hawks is all “fandom is going to love hearing this one, but basically it’s because I’m very upbeat and also I had the world’s best role model Endeavor to look up to,” and I swear this man stirs the pot on purpose, but damn it I still love him so damn much. Overhaul is all “HELLO AGAIN, JUST A REMINDER THAT, THE BOSS!!” and Deku is all “MAYBE TAKE TWO SECONDS TO REFLECT ON HOW YOU TORTURED A LITTLE GIRL,” which, thank you, lol. Nagant is all “btw AFO’s hiding in a house in the woods”, and so Deku and the gang go to the house in the woods. Video recording!AFO is all “hi I’m AFO welcome to Jackass” and blows up the house. Sometimes I wonder if this manga is just a weird dream.

I am once again reading the Bean version because I think it was actually the best out of all three translations last week. and that is surprisingly including Viz’s. “faux” is not nearly as entertaining as “knockoff”, and also I have literally no idea why Caleb thought Deku was saying the Third’s lines lol

oh hey, Endeavor’s here too! not that you’d ever be able to tell from this first panel lmao

glad you received All Might’s call, mysterious unidentified glowing smudge

oh snap he says he’s weaker in the rain. is that why AFO told Nagant to attack then?? except that as we discussed the other day, I believe that AFO fully intended for Nagant to lose the fight, so him giving her info that would give her an advantage doesn’t really fit in with that. maybe he wanted Deku to be separated from Endeavor and the rest for maximum angst, though

btw Deku’s eyes are unsurprisingly back to the new normal here

alas, the angst continues. I say, pretending like I’m not totally eating it up each and every week and writing essay after essay about it lol

anyway so apparently Hawks can’t actually fly lmao. he was just yeeting himself with style

for some reason this is the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen omfg. wave to Hawks, kids! say “bye, Hawks!”

j/k of course Deku is catching them. -- except???

wow so he was just running on fumes there at the end. well, good to know there is actually a limit to his shenanigans, particularly regarding this new “knockoff” 100% OFA. it will definitely not alleviate any of the discourse, but it’s good for my own peace of mind because it’s solid confirmation that he still needs his pals in order to win this thing

anyway, but on to the rest of this conversation, which is basically Deku deducing what we all deduced last week -- AFO implanted some sort of trap into Nagant when he gave her Air Walk. though I’d still like to get the actual details from AFO and/or Horikoshi, because this was particularly wild even by quirk standards lol

omgggggg

she still has a face after all!! so it’s confirmed, Horikoshi has no idea what “blowing up” actually means. we might have guessed, based on what happened to Toga in the MVA arc, and also based on everything Katsuki does ever, but shhh

so now Hawks is all “NAGANT PLEASE WAKE UP, IF I SHOUT MY NAME AT YOU WILL THAT DO THE TRICK”

this is actually kind of touching though because even though we all know (or most of us acknowledge at any rate) that Hawks is a pretty caring person, it’s rare to see him actually panic over someone’s welfare like this

oh shit Horikoshi is really doubling down on it

I wonder how much Hawks knew about what really happened between Nagant and the HPSC. regardless, he probably sees her as a kindred spirit of sorts, and I’m more than happy for Deku to pass the redemption torch onto him now that he’s on the scene. like no offense Deku but they actually know each other and stuff lol

DAMMIT NAGANT CAN’T YOU SEE HOW LOUD HE IS YELLING

apparently being freed from his HPSC shackles has finally given Hawks the space to embrace his own inner shounen protagonist. is there anything more shounen than trying to motivationally scream someone awake when they’re lying in your arms inches from death?? 100% guaranteed to work

!!! IS THIS NAGANT’S POV OMG

SO SHE IS ALIVE. THANK GOD. Horikoshi doesn’t want to meet with my emotional distress lawyer today after all

love how she’s all “just gonna stir up the weekly Hawks Discourse pot here by implying that he probably committed a lot of Atrocities just like I did, so now people can get all hopped up about that, even though there’s no evidence he’s ever killed anyone aside from that one horrible ‘damned-if-you-do...’ situation with Twice.” no one asked for your provocative speculation young lady!! trust me Nagant, our rabbles don’t need the rousing lol

but nice save there with the “so how are your eyes so untainted” well you see it’s because even when he was following the HPSC’s orders he always went to great lengths never to go against his own moral compass. which just to be clear was incredibly difficult, and led to a ton of pain and suffering on his part, because the life of a spy is basically just one impossible situation after another. but in spite of that he never stopped trying to do his best to help people. I don’t really know where this tangent came from or is leading to, lol, but anyway p.s.a. I love Hawks a lot and he’s a good kid dammit

oh shit??!?

how is the League always able to swing all these fancy forest mansions. where do they find them. how many do they have

so Deku’s dropping them -- very roughly, not sure if he was reacting to finally getting AFO’s location, or if his energy really is giving out -- and now Nagant’s saying that AFO hired other villains as well. well of course he did. gotta keep chipping away at OFA’s ninth successor little by little

now Nagant is asking Hawks how he’s able to keep making “that” face. I assume she’s again talking about the fact that he somehow didn’t let the HPSC wear down his spirit

oh my god???

thanks for stuffing this chapter to the brim with good nutritional Hawks Feels, Horikoshi. what a good. he just keeps on trudging forward undeterred no matter what bullshit comes his way. what a steadfast little guy. I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM DISCOURSE MY SWEET SUNSHINE

lmaoooo

“SPOTTED THIS DUDE JUST CHILLING OUT THERE ON THE ROOF WITH NO ARMS, SEEMED PRETTY SUS” good job Endeavor

anyway so you don’t really need me to tell you that Overhaul is immediately starting in with the “BUT THE BOSS WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE ME TO THE BOSS YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD TAKE ME TO THE BOSS�� stuff again. but I will go ahead and tell you anyway. so yeah. he’s doing that

OMG YOU GUYS LOOK AT DEKU’S “of all the fucking assholes to just randomly drop in on my life once again why did it have to be you” FACE THOUGH, OMG

fun fact, if you go back to chapters 124 through 160, there was an entire story arc where Overhaul imprisoned and tortured a little girl. yeah, I know!! suuuuuuuuper evil. anyways just an interesting little anecdote for you all that’s somewhat relevant to the current situation

OMG, YES. FUCK YES, DEKU

THEN WHAT ABOUT SPARING ONE FOR HER!!! YES!!! EXACTLY!!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, SOMEONE GETS IT

HERE’S THE PANEL OF DEKU SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING I’M SAYING LOL

(ETA: so apparently there’s some discourse about this because some people are interpreting this as Deku saying “you should apologize to Eri”, which would obviously be a terrible idea even if Overhaul actually wanted to do that, because Eri shouldn’t ever have to see him again. however I just want to point out that there is a HUGE difference between saying “it would be nice if you could direct that feeling of regret/being sorry towards Eri as well”, vs saying “you should also apologize to her.” all Deku is doing is rightfully pointing out that Overhaul has hurt way more people than just his boss, and if he really is remorseful, then he should extend those feelings of remorse to Eri and the rest as well. it’s not a directive to take any specific action, and I’m 1000% sure no one at U.A. would let Overhaul within 100 miles of Eri ever again.

tl;dr “try feeling remorse sometime” =/= “do you want me to fly you over to U.A. right now to surprise the little girl you traumatized”, lol.)

[slings an arm around Deku’s shoulders] you’re a good kid. I like you. I don’t know if I tell you that enough, but it’s true

meanwhile here is Overhaul’s “spare... a thought... for Eri...???????” face sigh

the struggle is real y’all

(ETA: and that’s... the last we ever saw of Overhaul, I guess? well all right then. I assume Deku will make good on his promise, so we know he’ll get that little bit of closure before going back to jail or whatever, and I confess I’m more than fine with leaving the rest of it open-ended, especially given his character’s history. I think this was pretty generous all things considered.)

lmao holy shit

All Might what did you do to those tiki torch guys?? did you thrash them. did you give ‘em those hands. did you deliver their own asses to them complete with a sticker reminding them Amazon Prime Day is on June 21. we missed out goddammit

so Endeavor, who wasn’t the one he was asking, is telling him that they captured (well let’s be real, Deku captured, give the credit where it’s due) Nagant and Overhaul. and so I guess they’re going to take Nagant to the ER now

fire is no one’s weakness

-- oh my GOD I scrolled down and audibly gasped

[is politely but firmly approached and asked to remove my arm from Deku’s shoulder by the physical manifestation of all this Dekuangst] “we’re sorry, he’s not allowed to have visitors right now” oh shit, my bad. [goes to stand behind a police barricade]

lmao what. did you run out of room on the previous page

what an exaggerated fade to black lmao

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I actually can’t see what he’s reacting to so maybe I’m just seriously jumping the gun here lol, but THE HELL WITH IT. the next panel appears to be a cut to Haibori Forest, so I’m just gonna go ahead and declare that Deku ran off on his own all wounded to go have more Dekuangst, just like I manifested. now go call Katsuki goddammit

[scrolls three more inches down] oh

yeah so like I said, Deku is walking very slowly a few feet in front of Endeavor, who’s telling him to wait up. yep. we’ve all gotta be so careful to not just jump to conclusions. I know we’re excited but still

anyway, so! welcome back to Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods (ARE YOU GUYS DATING) and Edgeshot! have fun walking into this obvious trap lol

dammit Deku why are you so determined to tempt fate

[monkey puppet meme faces]

OH MY GOD THIS IS PURE GRADE-A CHEESY COMIC BOOK VILLAIN 101 SHIT AND I’M HERE FOR IT

that’s such a weird way of clapping who claps like that

unlike certain other people who shan’t be named, AFO doesn’t feel the need to inexplicably take his shirt off when recording sinister villain monologues. I think we’re all pretty grateful for that

high fives to everyone who called it!! yep yep

anyway so this whole scene has major booby-trap vibes, which I’m enjoying immensely even though I don’t think anything is really going to come of it lol. probably just another long-winded AFO Speech. but wouldn’t it be funny if like the ceiling started lowering down to try and squish Deku afterwards lol

(ETA: well the explosion was still pretty funny too ngl.)

ffff

[“Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies]

anyway so yeah. he’s just hitting up all of his usual villain talking points. we get it, you’re so smart and you see right through the thin veneers of society and people who don’t conform are left to fend for themselves and labeled as villains and history is written by the victors, and blah blah blah dude are you just jumping randomly from one soundbyte to another lol. literally what are you talking about. what does this have to do with you blowing up Nagant

-- holy shit??

[”Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies MORE?????]

LOL WHAT

BRO. WHAT IS WITH YOU. DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO LAY ANY OTHER KIND OF FUCKING TRAP GOOD LORD

“YOU’RE NEXT” THE CALLBACK?? THE PARALLELS?? THOUGH WHEN ALL MIGHT POINTED HE MADE IT LOOK WAY COOLER. AFO’S POINTING JUST LOOKS LIKE SMOKEY THE BEAR

HAS ANYONE CHECKED IN ON KAMUI WOODS I HEAR HE IS WEAK TO FIRE?? THE ONLY ONE WHO IS, APPARENTLY

r.i.p. to this particular forest mansion. don’t worry they have a ton of backups

remember last week when I said maybe AFO thinks explosions are gauche. well never mind. he fucking loves explosions

anyway so that’s the end of BnHA, everyone. hope you enjoyed. it was a good ride while it lasted. see you all, good luck in your travels

[lihikainanea]

LEIIII, CAN WE PLEASE TALK ABOUT BILL AND TIGER GOING THE THE MET GALA BILL FuCkINg HeR iN ThE ReStRoOm????????????????

FIRST OF ALL, I have this like, weird interest in fashion over the past two years or so. I've never particularly been into it, but now my instagram is mainly fashion inspo and like, who is this person???? I've never considered myself fashionable, much less interested in fashion and now I swear to god I spend Sunday afternoons ~judging people~ and looking up latest fashion trends and how to wear things and I am just LOVING IT. And since nobody asked, I'm going to go ahead and list you my top fucking fashion ABSOLUTELY DO FUCKING NOT pet peeves:

1) Matching pantsuits. Hello, no. I know the designers that are trying to bring this back, and it's a hard no for me dawg. I am in my almost mid thirties and I ain't trying to look like a fucking old maid, thanks. These will never be fashionable. Just stop.

2) Derby shoes. These literally don't go with anything. I'm not sorry. If you're that committed to huge, clunky, ugly fucking shoes, get clogs. I ain't saying you have to wear heels, not at all. But find yourself some nice oxfords, a nice loafer, hell even some mules--and they will be infinitely nicer than fucking derby shoes.

3) Layering. No, kids. Baum und Pferdgarten, I love you. I do. I have a few of your dresses. But ya'll motherfuckers need to stop with this pajama-esque, mixed and clashing pattern, oversized bullshit looks that you call fashion. There is a way to wear slouchy, and babes, THAT AIN'T IT. YOU LITERALLY LOOK LIKE A FUCKING WARHOL PAINTING THREW UP ON YOU. Mixing patterns is cool, we like that, but Jesus Christ it has to have some consistency.

alright, now onto the actual ask.

All of this to say, I kept a keen eye on the Met Gala this year and I was...perplexed. At best. Horrified, at worst.

So like, tiger right? There's little else in the world that tiger hates as much as Bill's outwardly Hollywood side. The parties. The schmoozing. And I mean, she knows it's part of his life so that's fine, but in fairness--Bill also abhors this side. He loathes it. And he's been to the Met gala once, which notoriously never allows a +1 unless that +1 is famous, but low and behold--by some stroke of luck--Bill's invitation this year allows for it.

"No." tiger says immediately.

"You don't even know what I'm going to ask!" he exclaims.

"I know what that is," she points to the invitation in his hand, "And no."

It's a hard no. It takes Bill weeks--because like, tiger ain't Hollywood. She doesn't want to do the dress. She doesn't want the mingling with fucking celebrity guests. She doesn't want the paparazzi. She wants none of it. But like, eventually--after so much begging--eventually Bill gets her to agree. His stylist will get a dress for her. Hair and make up is taken care of. Bill promises her that she can just slip in the back, sit at the table, and have cocktails to her heart's galore while he walks the red carpet. She doesn't have to be photographed--and truth be told, tiger's a nobody so people aren't really interested in photographing her anyway. That's fine by her.

The dress worries her, because tiger isn't exactly celebrity material but the stylist is so kind in taking measurements. Bill handles everything--the flights, the make up reservations, the hair appointments. On the day of, he checks them into the Bowery Hotel and then tiger doesn't have to worry about a thing. He shoves a fluffy robe at her, and then there's just a flurry of activity--massages first. Breakfast after. A stint in the steam room--which they absolutely have sex in. Facials. Manicures--for both. A light lunch. And then the bell rings and in come a flurry of a team ready to glamorize them--Bill's favourite groomer, his stylist, tiger's make up artist, her hair stylist. The primping process is the longest tiger has ever been through--but there's wine, there's snacks, her Big Dude is right beside her looking handsome as all hell. And when tiger puts on a dress that is worth more than she makes in a year, when her hair is all done up and her make up is perfect--she begrudgingly admits to him that yes, Beeeeeel, she does feel pretty.

"You look stunning kid," he praises, pressing a gentle kiss on her cheek. To her slight embarrassment (but secret joy), he hands his phone off to his assistant and asks for a few pictures.

And like, here's the thing right? The Met Gala has a strict policy: no spouses or couples seated together. Seriously, it's a thing. Look it up. And while tiger is mildly freaking out about that, she calms down considerably when she does see a name tag at her table that she recognizes.

Alex. Skarsgård.

Tiger smiles, Bill grimaces.

And that's what starts it, right? Bill is at a table far away but not too far, and right where he can keep her in his line of sights. He knows she wasn't looking forward to this so he wants to keep an eye on her, but then like....why the fuck does she look like she's having so much fun? Alex is cracking the whole table up, being his usual charismatic self. Tiger is laughing, guffawing actually, beyond control--her hand on his, clutching his forearm. Bill barely even makes conversation with his own table, he's staring so intently at the two of them and tiger looking like she's having the best night of her life.

Bill's blood is boiling. It boils even more when he sees tiger make a face at her main plate--her nose wrinkling, her lip curled in disgust--and without missing a beat Alex's fork swoops over, plucks all the green onions from her food, and tiger smiles gratefully at him. Bill slams his napkin down on the table.

"Excuse me," he mutters in response to the curious glances. And then he stalks over, heads right to her table, and he's so silent that she jumps a mile when she hears his voice in her ear from behind her.

"A word, kid?" he says.

"But the food just--"

"Now." he says insistently. He holds a hand out to her, helps her push her chair back and stand. But then he's basically dragging her to a restroom, and poor tiger isn't quite used to heels this high.

"Hang on bud," she pleads, "I'm not that coordinated."

But he doesn't hang on. Instead he reaches back, loops a strong arm around her waist and basically carries her on his side to the bathroom. Tiger's feet don't hit the floor for a good 200 feet. And once inside the bathroom, he locks the door and glares at her.

"If that dress wasn't couture, I'd have you on your fucking knees kid," he threatens. Tiger's eyes get wide.

"What did I do?" she asks innocently. Bill just glares.

"Having a good time, are you? Having the best night ever?" he accuses.

Tiger is starting to get a feeling what this is about, and oh man--she's about to rile her Big Dude up. Dressed to the nines, in a public place, surrounded by riches, and Bill is about to get a bit possessive over her? Tiger is a sucker for it every time.

"Yes," she plays into it, "Alex is being amazing. He's so--"

She doesn't get to finish the sentence, because Bill growls and lunges for her, pinning her back against the cool tile.

"You are mine," he snarls. Tiger just tilts her chin up, bites onto his bottom lip.

"Prove it." she challenges.

The roar Bill lets out is fucking feral. Tiger doesn't even have time to react before her dress is pulled up, he yanks his belt undone, and he's slamming into her. She moans, and he grabs her face in his hand.

"Don't come," he snarls, "Don't you dare come."

And like the good girl she is for him--she doesn't. She grits her teeth, tries to stave it off even as he slams deep into her, growls as his release fills her up, bites her neck hard enough to leave a mark. She whimpers, her knees wobbly, and tries to reach for a tissue.

"No," he grabs her hand.

"But it's messy," she pleads. But another glare is enough to silence her, and he swiftly pulls her panties up, smoothes her dress back down.

"You're going to sit there, full of my come for the rest of the night," he tells her, "And I want you to think of that, I want you to feel it, every time you look at him."

"Bill--" she whimpers. He silences her with a rough kiss.

"Go on," he said, "Back to your seat."

On shaky legs, she turns and tries to walk out as nonchalant as possible. He waits a few minutes before exiting, going to find his seat and sitting back down. He keeps an eye on her for the rest of the evening, but he doesn't even have to--every time he looks over at her, she's already staring at him--her eyes wide, needy, her knees pressed tightly together.

[whentheynameyoujoy]

So the ATLA Movie Is... Good, Actually?

Just kidding, of course it’s not, it’s so bad it sucked the paint off my walls. But after ten years of people pointing out its glaring flaws, why would anyone bother talking about this garbage heap if not to go the other direction? So here’s a very brief and very superficial list of things the movie does get kinda... not atrociously wrong.

And they won’t be fake hipster pokes, like “It’s fun to laugh at”, “The Rifftrax for this is OK”, or “Kudos to the actress for managing to say we believe in our beliefs as much as they believe in theirs with a straight face”.

(though now that I mentioned it, it is fun to laugh at, the Rifftrax for this is OK, and massive props indeed.)

Rasta Iroh

Yes, I know it’s not exactly the aesthetic of the real Iroh or that it makes no cultural sense for him to sport this do when no one else in the racebended Indian “OMFG what were you thinking Shyamalan” Nation does but goddamn, long-haired dudes are my one mortal weakness and I will ogle the hell out of him.

Jesus is that a man bun I see that’s it mum I’ve been deaded

Yue’s hair

No.

Now we’re talking. Yue’s hair turned white when the Moon spirit gave her life, so it makes sense for it to go black again when she sacrifices herself to revive the koi fish. It’s a neat detail I find myself expecting whenever I rewatch the scene in the show. Yes, I realize it’d be a pointless hassle to animate since she, unlike in the movie, immediately goes on to become the Moon herself but still. I like.

The Blue Spirit’s mop

Zuko, hun, what’s with the dance-off?

First of all, I want to imagine that Zuko the Theatre Nerd was about to leave his ship with just the mask like in the show but then stuck his head into the cleaning cupboard and went, “Yeah, more coverage might be good, even though it do seem mighty fried to shit”.

Which makes me giggle. I like to giggle.

And secondly, the hair’s movement is what makes the static mess of the Blue Spirit’s solo fight scene appear at least bit more dynamic because God knows the cinematography isn’t doing it.

Any particular reason why it’s at the edge of the action, shot all boring-like?

Now, I get why circular shots would be reserved for Aang while he’s in the practice area and then used once the two join forces. What I don’t get is why Aang’s part of the action scene has a defined visual style while Zuko’s delegated to a few stationary wide shots from afar as though he’s a tertiary goon, meaning that when the time comes to combine the respective pieces of cinema language and visually convey collaboration, there’s not really much to combine.

But as long as Zuko is stuck in this static mess, it’s that awesome disaster on his head flopping about that draws the eye, helping me understand that something even is going on over there.

It also prevents me from paying much attention to how the extras are mostly just staying put and a lot of the hits don’t land, so that’s good.

The music slaps

James Newton Howard is too good for this.

Pls ignore that the word “gods” is used in the ATLA universe

I can’t be the only one who constantly uses this piece to daydream about writing specific fanfic scenes instead of, you know, actually sitting down and writing them. It’s just so good at communicating a sense of sorrow while speaking of rebirth that I find myself getting misty-eyed whenever I listen to it. Unfailingly, the soundtrack as a whole manages to break through the mile-thick crust of horrible acting, confusing writing, and uninspired cinematography and make me feel things. And considering how everything on screen is working against it, that’s no small feat.

Imagine what a powerful experience it would be if the score was used in service of an actual movie.

Dev Patel

No wonder since he’s the only one in the film occupying that crucial intersection between “is a good actor” and “was given something to work with”. It also doesn’t hurt that he breaks with the trend of actors starring in martial arts flicks despite never having done any martial art.

And all EIP-jokes about “stiff and humorless” aside, he’s a pretty decent Zuko considering how abridged this version of the character is. A while ago, I remember hearing a reviewer say that with his comedic chops, Patel should have been cast as Sokka. And on one hand, yes, god, absolutely, I need to see that asap. But on the other? He captures all layers of Book 1!Zuko, the desperate obsession, rage, and self-loathing, and at the same time gives you a peek at the soft momma’s boy dork that’s buried underneath. For Christ sakes, he exudes intensity and ambivalence even when acting against an emotionless hunk of wood that’s giving him nothing in return.

Oh, and I guess there’s a tree in the frame.

Ba dum tss

What can I say, the guy’s good.

Showing vs telling

OK, so this movie is all tell and no show, except for one single moment. And it’s the exact moment where the original goes in the other direction in terms of how information is conveyed.

See, I never liked this. The revelation is preceded by Iroh giving advice to Zuko who scolds him for nagging. Iroh then apologizes, moves in to say the line above, and is interrupted by Zuko who seems rather uncomfortable with Iroh laying his feelings out like this. And once they’re out, Zuko verbally confirms that he knew already and Iroh didn’t need to bother.

All this extraneous information and pussyfooting ends up weakening what should be a profound scene that reveals to us, the viewers, how deep the relationship between these two in fact runs.

Compare to the movie where Dadroh acts like a parent by fussing and worrying, with Sonion needing a single look to tell him and us that he understands what it’s all really about.

It’s genuinely efficient and just good.

No Cataang

Fine, a bit mean-girl bitchy from me since I only start minding the ship in Book 3. And probably unintentional on the part of the creators since there are moments where I think they’re trying to set the romance up? There’s a, well, an attempt to recreate the famous introductory shot of fateful meaningful destiny of meaningness, there’s some slight note of saving each other’s bacon going on, I’m pretty sure they’re the only ones in the film who smile, and oh, right, Katara’s shoved into her post-canon useless role where she doesn’t ever do anything, and is all about Aang right from the get go.

Yes, I will blame the “executive producers” because a) I’m incredibly petty, and b) it’s perfectly in line with their vision of the character so why the hell not.

Hilariously, none of it reads on screen because the actors are just... yeah. These poor kids are struggling so much with delivering their own lines and portraying their own characters they don’t seem to have any strength left to create something between them. To be fair, the bare-bones shot-reverse shot style of their scenes doesn’t exactly lend itself to the idea they occupy the same universe, let alone are friends or each other’s crushes.

And I enjoy this immensely because it allows me to forget the depressing horror show Katara’s life turns into post ATLA.

Yes Zutara

I need to delve into this because it’s fucking hilarious. So in a movie which fails to establish the original’s central romance so spectacularly that if Aang got lost in a crowd I don’t believe Katara would notice, SomEOnE thought it’d be a good idea to add an utterly unnecessary non-canon moment where Zuko for some reason feels the need to pause his character-defining hunt for the Avatar which otherwise has him ignore everything and snap at everyone, and explain his central conflict to an unconscious peasant he doesn’t know, complete with gently pushing the hair from the pretty girl’s the soulmate’s the Water Tribe Ambassador’s the Fire Lady’s the love of his life’s her face away, AFTER his uncle nagged him twice to find a girl and settle down.

I just wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page and this is what we really saw.

Celibate Avatars

I have no idea why the decision was made, if TPTB thought expecting viewers to understand the story through the lens of Buddhism would be too much, or if the “executive producers” already worked their retconny magic. What I do know, however, is that there’s a big shift in worldbuilding and Aang’s struggle with his role as the Avatar stops being a personal conflict defined by a) his grief for Air Nomads, b) his notion of being robbed of the loved ones in his life, and c) the selfish attachment to Katara he confuses with true love. Instead, what he has a difficulty to accept is apparently a general notion of who Avatars are supposed to be, i.e. a fantasy version of Catholic monks, no family and worldly relations, period.

I guess either someone understood the original’s portrayal of de/attachment as “hermit no freaky”, or thought the audience would so why not go there outright.

Now, do I like this on its own? No, God no, it makes the world infinitely poorer and changes the story from an exploration of ideas which aren’t all that ingrained in the West, to a cliché tropester about a Catholic priest going Protestant so that he could be with a girl.

At least I assume that’s where they were going to take this eventually.

I mean, I think the direction was “look conflicted, this isn’t the final stage of your journey”?

But consider this—the show went there, it built on the concepts of Eastern philosophy and touched upon the ideas of spiritual awakening, only to swerve in the end and strongly imply they’re bullshit and Aang should have never wasted his time with them.

So honestly, I much prefer scanty worldbuilding to an insulting retcon by a damn rock.

Multiracial Air Nomads

Probably the most substantial “no hint of irony” point on this list and a genuinely good addition to the universe’s worldbuilding.

See, the notion of the elemental nations being perfectly separate and never mingling before Sozin has always been sketchy but it’s especially ridiculous in the case of airbenders. It never made sense to me for all airbenders to be Air Nomads and for all Air Nomads to be monks and for all monks to be chilling at the temples all the time to facilitate a quick everyone-dies genocide should an imperialistic warlord ever decide to commit one.

Because committing everyone to a single way of life at a handful of places kinda goes against the central philosophy behind airbending. Like the freedom and nomadism part.

Instead, there should be more variety to the airbending culture, with some staying at the temples as monks, hermits, and teachers while others live as nomads, travelling the world and creating more airbenders, with the resulting children in turn being influenced by the non-airbending cultures they grew up in.

And thus, not only should airbenders not be modeled after a single culture to create a one-size-fits-all lifestyle, but they should have the most diverse and dynamic culture out of the four nations.

And it’d be precisely this diversity which would pave way for an eventual reveal that some of them survived, that their complete extermination is impossible.

Because they’re everywhere.

You know.

Like air.

[sunlightdances]

Everybody Knows I’m Torn Apart

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Fem!Reader Rating: PG-13 for canonical descriptions of injuries and swearing. Summary: You manage to call Dean a few miles away from the bunker. Despite your injuries, you tell him the basics: you lost too much blood, you need a ride, you’re pretty sure you’re going to pass out soon. His gruff voice over the phone is the last thing you hear before you physically can’t keep your eyes open anymore. Author’s Note: I can’t stop reading/writing hurt/comfort fics. This is shorter than I wanted it to be, but I’m trying to find my muse again. Bear with me, pals. Disclaimer: Lyrics inset and title come from the NEEDTOBREATHE song “Mercy’s Shore”. I don’t own Dean or Supernatural. There’s also some dialogue in there very close to a scene from “Band of Brothers” which I also don’t own. Bonus points if you can spot it.

My arms are tired and weary These wounds are on full display I've tried every door in the hallway There's just nowhere that I feel safe

You manage to call Dean a few miles away from the bunker. Despite your injuries, you tell him the basics: you lost too much blood, you need a ride, you’re pretty sure you’re going to pass out soon.

His voice over the phone is the last thing you hear before you physically can’t keep your eyes open anymore. He’s shouting at you when you don’t respond, yelling at you to stay awake, dammit, but you can’t. You can’t.

You’re barely conscious when a rumble starts in the distance. Dimly, you feel relief wash over you. It gives you a push - you try to straighten up in your seat and cry out when the gash in your side pulls hard.

The driver’s side door opens so quickly you almost fall sideways, and then there’s a familiar pair of green eyes boring into yours.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Hi, Dean. You should see the other guy.”

“Where?” He asks gruffly, eyes flitting over you, looking for injuries.

“My left side.” You grunt, “A knife. Also, maybe a bullet in my right shoulder.”

His eyes flash. “Maybe?”

“Pretty sure.”

He swears again and more gently than you expect, he leans in so you can put your arm around his shoulders. His other arm goes under your knees and slowly he lifts you out of the car.

“Don’t go to sleep,” he warns, “Keep your eyes open. Sam’s waiting in the infirmary when we get back.”

You groan, “S’gonna hurt--” Your speech is a little slurred, vision a little blurry. God, you want to close your eyes. You’re so tired.

“Yeah, well. Not gonna hurt worse than getting stabbed and shot.”

“You sound mad.” You say quietly when he stops near the Impala, setting you down so you can lean against the side of the car. He opens the door and looks like he wants to pick you up again, but you protest, waving him off. He helps you still, lowering you into the passenger seat, and then he’s shutting the door, the sudden silence overwhelming you.

When he gets in the car, he turns the key in the ignition and looks at you, “I’m not mad. I’m-- you’re hurt, you get that? Really badly hurt.”

“I called for help, didn’t I?”

He starts to drive. “Shouldn’t be hunting on your own anymore.”

You don’t say anything. This is an old argument. For a man who spent much of his formative years on his own, learning how to kill anything and everything, he’s so against you doing it.

When you first met him, you thought it was nothing but old school sexism. Women shouldn’t fight alone, the same old bullshit you’ve been putting up with for years. After you got to know him and Sam, you realized it was different - it came from a place of fierce loyalty, of friendship, of protectiveness. He wanted his friends close, even though he put up a front.

Ever since he was four years old and was told to protect his brother, he’s taken that mentality with everyone he’s ever met. Dean Winchester, the protector.

Sam meets you in the garage, hefting you out of the passenger seat before you can get a word out. His face is pinched in worry, and he curses when his hand slips from where it had gripped your waist, slick with blood.

“You’re getting blood all over my jeans,” he comments, trying to keep the mood light.

“I’m real sorry, Sam,” you reply sarcastically, wincing at every step he takes that lurches you in his arms.

On the table, you pass out from the pain.

When you wake, your shoulder and side are throbbing, and there’s two familiar forms slumped in chairs in opposite corners.

“Ow,” you mutter, trying to sit up.

Dean rouses, hearing you struggling, and surges to his feet, hands on your shoulders to keep you steady, careful of the new packed gauze on one side. “Sam got it out,” he says quietly. “You’ll be alright.”

“Nothing wounded but my pride.”

“That’s not funny.” He murmurs, sighing. “You lost a lot of blood.”

You stop his fussing with a hand on his arm. “Dean?”

He exhales hard through his nose.

“I’m sorry,” you say. “I didn’t know who else to call. I just make jokes because… I don’t know. Trying to lighten the mood?”

He scowls, but it’s not as fierce. “Yeah, well. Do it when your life isn’t on the line, will you?”

He gives your good shoulder a quick squeeze, so you know he’s not completely pissed, but you still feel a little sheepish. You don’t mean to get yourself into trouble, you really don’t.

And -- maybe he’s right. It’s nice to hunt with other people sometimes. Hurts more when they leave or get killed, though, and you think that’s the root of it. Saving yourself from the potential loss.

You sleep a few more hours and when you wake up, there’s clinking of silverware coming from down the hall. You smell food and your stomach growls. You struggle to get to your feet, and notice idly that you’re wearing a shirt that’s two sizes too large. You remember how torn and bloody your own clothes were when Dean got to you, and have to resist the urge to tug up the neckline and inhale that comforting scent - whatever laundry soap they use and something else unique to Dean.

You make your way to the kitchen slowly. Every step pulls your stitches and you groan when you finally get to the doorframe, leaning against it.

“What are you doing?” Sam demands, “if you rip out those stitches—“

“Sit down.” Dean is on his feet too, pointing at the empty chair.

“I got hungry!”

Sam crosses his arms over his chest, doing his best big brother impression, and you shrink under the weight of his disappointment, sinking into the chair to his left. Slowly. Carefully. You try to tell yourself you’re not in a lot of pain, but you think it’s obvious, even with how you’re trying to pretend everything is normal.

“I would have brought you something.” Dean says, standing and grabbing another plate, starting to pile it up with eggs and sausage and pancakes. They really go all out for breakfast in this household, and you’ve missed it.

Conversation is quiet during breakfast, but you try to lighten the mood here and there, aware of Dean watching you like a hawk everytime you grimace when you move too quickly. Sam stares at you until you eat everything on your plate and drink two glasses of water, and then sends you back to bed with strict instructions to stay there for the next few hours.

“It’s so boring!” You say, not embarrassed about the whine in your voice.

(Okay, maybe a little bit.)

Dean rolls his eyes. “Come on,” he says, turning you around by the elbow and almost marching you from the room. “We’ll play video games or something until you get tired.”

An hour later, you’re on the third game of Mario Kart, and you’re fuming.

“You’re-- you’re cheating!”

“Or,” Dean says, pointing, “consider this -- you just suck.”

“Hey!” You protest, trying not to laugh. “That’s rude. I’m wounded.”

Dean rolls his eyes, but his face goes a little serious. “That’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

He shakes his head. “You’re so damn reckless, you know that?”

“I don’t mean to be.” You look down at your hands, embarrassed for how much you’ve worried the two Winchesters. “I thought I could handle it.”

He sighs. “I don’t mean-- you can handle it. Usually.” He smirks at you. “I care about you,” he says quietly, the confession ringing in the air. “I worry about you when you’re out there alone. You don’t have to do it alone anymore.”

You have no idea what to say.

He’s so sincere - the truth of his words and the weight of what he’s saying clear in the expression on his face.

“Dean--”

“Why don’t you just stay here? With us?” He asks, looking hurt. “All the times we’ve offered and you’ve never…” He stops himself, picking at a loose thread on the comforter.

You shrug. You’re not ready to have this conversation with him, though you suppose it’s inevitable. “There’s never really been anywhere I felt safe.”

Dean’s eyes are imploring, so you continue, even though you really don’t want to make yourself this vulnerable.

“I do, though, with you. And that scares me a little.” You shrug, acutely aware of his eyes on you. You feel like he can see right through you, see what you’re not saying. “I feel like I could be safe here, and that’s-- I’ve never had that before.”

Dean leans forward on his knees, hands clasped together. “I used to feel like that,” he confides. “Before we found this place. We never had any place that felt like home. That felt safe.”

You wonder if Dean knows he has this affect on people - that they so desperately want to hear what he has to say, that they want his approval, almost. Validation from Dean means everything. From a man who keeps everything so close to the vest, the fact that he’s letting you see this part of him means everything.

“I don’t want to keep running.” Your words are like a whisper.

“Then stay,” he counters simply, with a shrug. “Stay.”

[magniloquent-raven]

@bambixxblue wrote this absolutely gorgeous piece and i got a little carried away writing my take on billy’s pov and so here we are lol pls enjoy!!

--

Billy always figured rock bottom for him would be something Shakespearean. Self-inflicted tragedy. Family bullshit gone too far. Madness and mayhem and spectacle. 

He did not picture this. Dying slowly of boredom, too fucking exhausted to even stay pissed at Max. When he got to Hawkins all he had was his anger. With the ocean two thousand miles away and his first and only relationship ended with an awkward, “Clean break, y’know? Don’t really...want to do long distance.” The guy couldn’t even make eye contact when he said it. But then, he never could stomach looking at Billy’s bruises. 

It felt empty. Their breakup. Billy barely felt anything afterwards, and that numbness had...grown. Spread. Without any of the things he used to give a shit about, he’s drifting tetherless and cold and so fucking lonely. He hit rock bottom in Hawkins, Indiana, when he shrugged off Max’s needling because he just can’t bring himself to fucking care anymore. 

She’s noticed, he knows she has, he isn’t subtle. He isn’t terrorizing her anymore and she’s started to poke at him again. Hesitant, asking about innocuous shit, trying to figure out if he’s forgiven her, but he can’t tell her it isn’t as simple as that. So he ignores her. 

As much as he can, anyways, he’s still playing the big brother in front of Neil. Driving her around and shit, pretending he isn’t counting the days until he graduates and he can ditch her. This town. Everything. 

He hasn’t found anything in Hawkins worth sticking around for. It’s not like he has friends here. Tommy and his posturing, Carol and her wandering eyes, they don’t give a fuck about him. None of the people who hang around him do, they’re just idiots trying to seem cooler than they are. Or get in his pants.

Makes pretending easy, at least. It’s not like there’s a shortage of girls to hit on. 

Even though he kind of wishes there were. Wishes going through the motions didn’t make him feel so sick, didn’t leave his stomach hollow and his heart heavy. With girls back in California it was...whatever. It was fine. Something to do. It made him feel wanted, and that was enough sometimes. But now… now he knows what it’s supposed to feel like, and he hates how wrong anything else is. 

There was this one girl, Heather, and talking to her was actually nice. They got along well enough that he didn’t have to fake laughing at her jokes, smiled a little more real around her. Except the whole time she was playing with her hair, and biting her lip, and he had to act like that was what he was focused on, not the fact that they could actually be friends if that was something he was letting himself do. 

Because Hawkins isn’t worth his time. It isn’t. Fuck this town and fuck Indiana and fuck trying to make this shithole more bearable because having one conversation with someone he actually got along with opened up a chasm in his fucking chest. He cried himself to sleep that night. Felt everything he’d been pushing away since he moved to Hawkins. All the ways he missed California, and feeling like he belonged somewhere. 

The taste of salt made it worse. He hated crying. Biting his lip hard enough to draw blood and holding his breath until it hurt because he couldn’t make a fucking sound or Neil would hear him. He’d always hated it. But especially now. When the taste of salt makes him ache for things he can’t have anymore. Nights by the pier, stolen kisses that tasted like cheap beer and the saltwater still on their lips. Afternoons spent teaching Max to surf. The precious few memories of his mother, sunshine in her hair and sand between their toes. 

He avoided Heather after that. Hadn’t exactly started keeping to himself as much as...trying to disappear into a role. The one Hawkins High had assigned him. Brash outsider, newcomer, bad boy, whatever. He made damn sure that was all anyone would see him as. Acted the part. Didn’t talk about anything that mattered. 

And he kept driving Max around. To school, mostly, since they were both going to the same one, which was fucking weird, but made shit easier. To the arcade sometimes. And to her little nerd club.

She’s talked about it, he’s sure, but he couldn’t be bothered to listen. It was enough that he got her there, he didn’t need to know what she was doing once he dropped her off.

But she still chatters away, gushing about having friends and talking to people who get her. He’s not jealous. He isn’t. 

He turns the music up a little and ignores her scowl at the obvious brush-off.

He also ignores how hard she slams the door when she gets out. It’s passive-aggressive, but they’ve perfected being assholes to each other in several languages by now. She doesn’t flip him off as she stomps away though, and he’s not sure if that’s progress. 

Billy’s itching for a cigarette. Neil hates it when he smokes around the house, and if he brings Max back stinking like Marlboro Reds... well it wouldn’t be good. So he can’t even smoke in his own fucking car.

But it’s cold as fuck in Indiana and his leather jacket isn’t enough.

He shifts in his seat. Fuck it. He’ll wait. He can smoke anywhere that isn’t the high school fucking parking lot. He’s about to take off, one hand on the steering wheel, when he looks up and-- 

Oh. Fuck. 

There’s another car in the parking lot. There’s… fuck the car, there’s this guy in the driver’s seat, and--

Forget Indiana being cold, he’s suddenly warmer than the California sun, could heat the whole damn state with what’s unfurling in his chest. 

Because...because holy fuck. 

He was already looking at Billy, with big fuckin’ doe eyes, soft lashed and expressive, and sparkling with something Billy doesn’t quite have a name for. 

And somewhere in the back of his brain he remembers Tommy whining about some guy, some guy who drove a beemer, always toting those kids around. Max talking about one of her friends’ babysitter or whatever, talked about him like he hung the fucking moon, and--

And Billy kind of gets it now. Understands the fuss over Steve goddamn Harrington. 

The smile tugging at the corners of Steve’s mouth-- that mouth, goddamn-- is...it’s soft and small, and weirdly intimate considering they’re making eye-contact through two sheets of glass. Billy almost feels like he’s intruding on a moment, except...the warmth in Steve’s eyes is inviting. Makes him feel more at ease than he’s been in...ever. 

Jesus fucking Christ, the way the September sun makes Steve shine, his thick brown hair well-kept and glossy, the faded remnants of a summer tan making his skin glow. He’s beautiful. Like a work of fucking art, somehow made flesh and living in Indiana of all places. Billy could spend hours looking at the lines of his profile, the cut of his shoulders, the way his hair falls across his forehead.

Three seconds and one smile. That’s all it took to make him waver. To light him up and make him forget about not caring, about keeping his distance and running the second he gets the chance.

He’s run from a lot of things in his life. Some things he regrets, but he knows he wouldn’t regret anything like he’d regret running from this. 

So he smiles back. Almost. Enough. Enough to bring a pretty flush to Steve’s cheeks. 

Yeah, this is going to be fun.

[jemej3m]

HAVE U EVER THOUGHT OF A BAND!AU?? i love band au's and ur work!!! (not to mention but i think u would write an excellent drummer!andrew)

are you kidding me??? have i ever thought of a band au? bruh i breathe band au’s

also, i wanted this to be soft, so have some childhood friends starting a band out of their mum’s garage :DD

*

“Can I now?”

Neil ducked his head, trying not to show Andrew his grin. “No, ‘Drew.”

Andrew cocked his head. “How about now?”

Neil turned around and arched a singular eyebrow at the man. “You cannot shove your drum stick through Kevin’s brain, Andrew. Not now: not ever.”

“I hate you,” he muttered. Neil just grinned. 

“You say the sweetest things to me, ‘Drew.” With that, he turned and continued to tune his acoustic. Behind him, Andrew was going bright red. 

What started as a friendly, neighbourhood band had turned into something else entirely: Neil and Andrew were cramped backstage, tuning and warming up. Kevin was probably talking to his mom on the phone, whilst Nicky was most certainly trying to escape their security detail and go flirt with fans in the event centre’s foyer. He could charm a crowd. 

They’d started the band up when they were just kids: Neil remembered Kevin grabbing him by the sleeve and dragging him across the street, where he’d noticed the three Dobson boys setting up instruments in their garage: Nicky on bass, Aaron on keyboard and Andrew on his drumkit. 

Neil, having been only 11 whilst the others were 12 or 13, wasn’t as outspoken or enthusiastic about joining them as Kevin was. 

“Come on, Neil,” Kevin insisted, dragging him by the elbow. “I’ll sing and you play the guitar. Okay?”

“It might be fun, Neil,” his sister, Dan, insisted, giving him a gentle push out the door. “It’s just messing around in a garage band. Nothing serious.”

If little Neil knew where he’d be, nine years later, he probably would’ve spontaneously combusted out of paranoia and fear. 

Adult Neil still got anxious - he always wanted to perform his best - but it’d taken years of gigs and scouts and labels to work them up to where they were now. It was a gradual process, which definitely helped the whole stage-fright thing. 

“What are you thinking about?” Andrew inquired, sitting down behind Neil and hooking his chin over Neil’s shoulder. He smiled, leaning back against his best friend. 

“Just stuff,” he responded. “How we got here. Where we’ll go.”

“Next stop on the tour is D.C.”

“Funny.”

“Yes,” Andrew agreed, deadpan. “That’s what I’m known for.”

Neil just laughed, getting to his feet. “We’d better get ready before Kevin comes back.”

“Your brother is the worst,” Andrew grunted, following suit. 

“At least we’re not related,” Neil grinned, jostling Andrew’s shoulder. “You can’t talk: you’re Aaron’s twin.”

Andrew just pointed a stick at Neil in warning. 

*

The lights were flashing. Audience screaming. Neil opened his eyes out of his reverie and looked to his counterparts: Nicky was rushing up and down the front lines, giving out as many hugs as he could. Kevin was waving and blowing kisses. And Andrew - 

He stood behind his drumkit, shirtless and dripping with sweat. He still bore his armbands, brimming with blades and secrets, and in his hands he loosely held his favourite pair of drumsticks, a pair Betsy had bought him, one’s he’d been careful to not break. 

Neil’s mouth was dry as he walked over to where Andrew stood. A spotlight blazed from above, shrouding Andrew’s head and illuminating his hair like a golden halo. He looked angelic. He was angelic. 

“You were amazing,” Neil said, voice lost under the cacophony of the crowd. His hand was reached out, gently brushing the bare skin of Andrew’s bicep. He didn’t know what he was doing anymore: the post-show euphoria was driving him. 

Andrew didn’t need to hear him. He could read lips. Read intentions. 

They were ushered off the stage soon after, Neil’s ears still ringing, his fingertips still burning. Andrew tugged on a fresh shirt, a towel around his neck. He had the most laborious job out of all of them, save maybe Kevin. Neil looked away from the way his hair curled at the nape of his neck. 

“Good show,” Kevin panted, sweat sticking his hair to his forehead. Neil nodded, the exhaustion of playing for four hours settling in. His shoulders ached, fingertips raw with playing both his guitar and the keyboard (Neil filled Aaron’s vacancy when he’d fucked off to college) whilst his throat ached from countless harmonies and backups he sung for Kevin. 

Genuine praise from Kevin was rare and prized for their band, and was usually reserved to the few moments after a performance finished. Then he’d go back to his regularly scheduled criticisms and evaluations. 

“Wasn’t it?” Nicky grinned. “We are such hot shit sometimes! Anyway,” he slung his guitar off to the side, careless. Neil winced a little. “I’ve got a cutie waiting in my car, apparently.” He winked. “His name’s Erik and he’s built like a wall. I’ll see y’all tomorrow!” 

“Jesus Christ,” Kevin said, not unkindly. They were all used to Nicky’s antics by now. He looked back to Neil. “You gonna stay with Andrew or me?”

Neil narrowed his eyes. Was he going to stay with his brother or his best friend? The choice wasn’t exactly hard to make. 

Kevin put up his hands. “What? I thought you two’d had a lover’s spat or something, before the show.”

“Kevin,” Andrew warned, voice low. 

“You guys weren’t as synthesised as you usually are,” Kevin continued. “Did Neil say something, again? Neil, what did you do?”

“Kevin,” Andrew snapped. 

The man took his final warning with a grain of salt and rolled his eyes, peeling off to cool down and head back to the hotel. He left Neil standing in the middle of the corridor, baffled. What the fuck was he talking about? A lover’s spat?

“Don’t think too hard, junkie,” Andrew muttered, fingers hooked into the collar of Neil’s shirt. “He’s just sprouting his usual bullshit.” But Andrew couldn’t look him in the eyes. 

“Right,” Neil agreed, smiling weakly. “You’re right. Sorry.”

“Shut up,” Andrew tugged him down the corridor with a finger hooked through Neil’s belt loop. 

Neil went willingly. He always went willingly with Andrew. There was no one else in the world that he trusted more.

*

“What do you mean, you’re not a thing?”

Neil paused with his fingertips up to the door, ready to push it open. It seemed as though he had stumbled upon a conversation - perhaps not for Neil’s ears. 

“He’s not interested,” Andrew said, sounding exhausted. “And I’m not about to pressure him into something he doesn’t want.”

Huh. Maybe they were talking about a new guy. Andrew didn’t date that often - or very successfully - and he was usually not willing to talk to Neil about it whenever it did happen. Neil wasn’t quite sure why but respected his boundaries nevertheless. He just didn’t know that Andrew went to Kevin about it. 

Neil wondered who it was, this time. Roland? He’d been the most long-term thing Andrew had ever attempted. No, Andrew said he wasn’t interested in Roland. Unless he was lying. 

Andrew doesn’t lie to me, Neil reminded himself. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kevin insisted. “He’s been in love with you ever since he first saw you. Don’t give me that look, Andrew. Put away your knives.”

“Do you think so?” Andrew asked, voice low. Gravelly. Tainted by disbelief.

Something in Neil’s chest tightened. He sounded…hopeful. Neil was arbitrarily jealous. Who was this guy? 

Wait, why was Neil jealous?

He pushed against the door, ignoring the way that the two of them shifted so that it didn’t look like they were engaged in conversation. 

“We’re loading up the bus,” he supplied. “Time to get moving.”

And if Neil noticed the way that Andrew walked around him, careful not to brush their knuckles, well. 

He didn’t say anything. 

*

By the end of the third week, Neil couldn’t handle it anymore. He wasn’t sure what he’d done, or why Andrew was so adamant in avoiding him, but he hated it. He hadn’t felt this isolated since his early years when his father would shut him in a wardrobe and his mother would scold him for eliciting his father’s ire, before both of his parents died and Wymack adopted him into his strange little family, brought him into the tiny cul de sac  where Betsy Dobson and Abby Winfield lived with their own collections of abandoned kids. 

“Andrew,” he mumbled as he watched Andrew tuck himself into his own bed. They were sleeping in the same hotel room but they were millions of miles away from each other. Neil felt stiff and confused. 

Resigned, he shut the light off. 

*

“Fix it,” Kevin demanded. 

“Fix what?”

“Just tell him already. It’s getting nauseating.” 

Neil narrowed his eyes. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Kevin threw Neil’s lyric notepad back at him. “‘Living limbless, lost, lonely, ever since you went and left me’? What do you mean, what am I talking about? I thought you two were already together - now he’s saying you were never interested? What the fuck, Neil. You’ve been practically married for years.” 

Neil blinked. “Me and -”

“Andrew, yes, who else?” Kevin continued, irritable as he scrawled down new ideas. “You’re so fucking dense sometimes - ow!” 

Neil stuck out his tongue, satisfied with the large black line his thrown pen had left behind. He fished out another pen from his bag and kept writing, letting Kevin’s banter distract him from how painful his chest felt. 

*

The tour was ending. They were looping back to South Carolina. Andrew hardly looked at him anymore, let alone spoke to him. Kevin looked at Neil with pity. Nicky tried to cheer everyone up with icecream. 

Neil couldn’t understand why they were falling apart. What had he done? What had he said? 

The screams irked him. They sounded less ecstatic and more afraid. Neil was falling apart onstage, overthinking. They’d just played for Charleston, one of their last stops on the tour. 

The curtains came down. Neil couldn’t move. The others were already off the stage. Neil couldn’t breathe. 

“Neil,” Andrew said. He couldn’t look Andrew in the eye. How was he to explain that Andrew’s estrangement had left him in such a miserable state that he could hardly perform without breaking down? 

“Neil, look at me.” 

Neil closed his eyes. “Whatever I did - I’m sorr -” 

“Abram,” Andrew whispered, before pressing a bruising kiss to Neil’s lips. His eyes flew open, though he didn’t move. It didn’t matter: Not a moment later, Andrew ricocheted back, hand over his own mouth. In his other hand, his favourite drumsticks snapped, falling to the floor in uneven halves. 

By the time Neil had opened his mouth, Andrew was gone. 

Neil spent the drive to the pub they’d chosen to ride out their performance high in silence. Andrew was stoic and unmoving, silent despite Nicky’s attempts at conversation. When they arrived, Neil felt like he wanted to throw up. 

It was bustling at the late hour, but dark enough to slip in unnoticed. Neil followed Andrew up to the bar: at one point, someone shoved into Andrew and Neil felt him press Neil against the marble top, warm from shoulder to shin. Neil wanted to lean back into him. He wanted Andrew to look at him, to talk to him. He wanted Andrew back. He wanted Andrew. 

Quickly, he turned around, ignoring the bar tender when he asked if he was sure he wanted a virgin martini. Andrew was right there, pupils blown, cheeks red. Angry. 

He was furious. 

“Andrew,” Neil insisted. “Why -” 

He grabbed the tray of drinks and disappeared before Neil could form a sentence. 

And - well. Neil wasn’t known for subordination. 

He waited patiently for the others to get drunk and disappear into the crowd, like they always did. Sometimes Nicky dragged Neil with him, if the night was right. Andrew usually just sat, patiently waiting for his family to return to him. His whiskey sips were cautious and slow. 

Tonight was different. As soon as they were alone, Andrew stood, knocked back the entire glass and strode towards the exit. Neil let his breath hitch and followed, almost jogging in order to keep up with Andrew’s stride. 

“Andrew, this is insane,” he said as they walked down the street, leaving the bar behind. “I’m losing my mind here. Why won’t you talk to me? Why won’t you even look at me? What did I do?” 

“Exist,” Andrew snarled, hands curled into fists and shoved into the pockets of his denim jacket. 

Neil ran ahead of him, almost tripping over the uneven sidewalk. They’d walked far enough that they seemed to have removed themselves from any remnants of the club, and instead were stood in front of a circular, patheon-esque church and its haphazard graveyard. 

Andrew stopped walking and stared. In the moonlight his skin was pale enough to be translucent. 

“Tell me,” Neil whispered. “Truth for truth. We promised, Andrew. To never lie, to never leave. Why did you kiss me?”

“You promised,” Andrew corrected him. “I swore I would have your back. Does that have to constitute being attached at the hip?” 

Neil crossed his arms, petulant. 

Andrew’s sigh was aggravated. “It was never meant to be a problem.”

“What was?”

“You.”

“Andrew -” 

Fingers curled in the collar of his shirt, then slipped across the warm skin at the nape of his neck, then tangled themselves into Neil’s hair. Andrew pulled their foreheads together, squeezing his eyes closed too tight. Neil wanted to iron out the crease between his brows. 

“‘Drew?”

“Shut up,” the man croaked. “Shut up. Shut up.”

“Andrew,” Neil said, weakly. “I wanted to kiss you.” 

Andrew’s nails dug into Neil’s scalp. “No you didn’t.”

“Yes,” his fingers carefully found their way onto Andrew’s jaw, forcing the man to look up at him. “I did.” 

Andrew just swallowed, red-cheeked. 

Neil pulled Andrew closer, head dropping to Andrew’s shoulder. His heart throbbed like a drumbeat, heavy and insistent and never, ever out of time. “Is that what this is about?”

“No,” Andrew lied. 

“I think I like you, ‘Drew,” Neil whispered into the skin of Andrew’s neck. “I think I really do.” 

“I hate you,” Andrew managed, sliding his hands around Neil’s waist and holding him close under the Charleston moonlight. “I hate you.” 

“I know,” Neil managed, closing his eyes. It made a lot more sense, now. 

Between their erratic breathing and racing pulses, a drumbeat formed. 

[thewintermusketeer]

This started off as a little reddie drabble to cheer up @skinks , based off her tags and thirsting for bill hader, particularly inspired by this post. It’s now over 1.5k and I absolutely did not read it over before punting it off to my love @benevolentbridgetroll to look over, so if this makes sense it is only due to her help.

Disclaimer: I have not seen the movie/read the book/am not part of this fandom so this is purely based of the SCU (skinks cinematic universe).

They’ve been couch shopping. Of all the things, that’s the catalyst. If Eddie were a pessimist (which he’s not, he’s just sensible, Christ, Richie, it is literally my job to think about worst case scenarios) then he’d say the whole ‘being stabbed in the face and then stabbed again in an even more vital area, in a manner commonly called impaling’ had messed with his judgement. However, that would imply that something else is messing with his reasoning, and Eddie has been through enough therapy by now to understand exactly which thoughts and behaviours are his own. And this? Unfortunately, this is all Eddie.

Anyway, the issue is that Richie sat on a couch. A couch that they were buying together, because they live together. They live together, and they cook together (or rather Eddie tries to cook healthily, and then when he ruins it Richie makes something with far too much fat and salt in it, that’s still better than take out at least). They go shopping for groceries together. They’re the most boring middle-aged couple in the world, and yet neither of them have actually got the balls to call themselves one. They both know there’s something there. Something hanging in the space between them, important words swallowed behind more and more insults because Eddie never thought he’d feel like he’d die if he didn’t hear another ‘yo mama’ joke. It was strong enough for Eddie to move to Florida with Richie, to get away from New York and Myra, even if the latter was something he’d have done anyway, as soon as his memories started coming back. But it’s still unsaid. Not acted upon.

And Eddie is pretty sure they’d have stayed like that for a while longer, in a holding pattern made comfortable by the fact it’s not comfortable; Richie pushes him, dares him and goads him like he did when they were children, and Eddie still can’t believe he forgot how it feels to want to shove Richie right in his stupid square face, even as he can’t stop laughing. Richie makes him feel like life is actually worth living, and not something to be calculated and analysed and rationed. Of course, Richie also makes him feel fucking horny. Which is exactly the problem.

Richie sat on a show couch – and Eddie doesn’t even want to think about how many other fucking people have been near that thing – and Eddie barely stopped himself from crawling onto his lap right there in the shop and jerking off onto his shitty logo t-shirt. He was wearing converse for Christ’s sake. Shoes that provide no fucking ankle or arch support. No forty-year-old man should look sexy wearing converse and a baseball cap. And yet Eddie wanted to measure the exact diameter of Richie’s chest using his thighs. Maybe years of being called a loser and a square had sunk in, subliminally, because the fucking stupid rectangular breadth of Richie’s chest had made Eddie feel crazy.  He wanted to be wrapped up in Richie’s gorilla arms, wanted to feel the gentle scratch of his arm hair against his own bare skin. Wanted to watch the clench of Richie’s hands against the back of the sofa if Eddie dropped to his knees in front of him, telling him not to touch his fucking hair until he’d washed his hands, Jesus Christ. Wanted to see if Richie would laugh during sex, as well.

But he didn’t. Instead they bought the couch, after he’d checked the fire regulations. He had left the shop with Richie, who’d slung one arm around his shoulders, and the weight of his arm, the warmth of him against Eddie’s side, was as reassuring as it was a turn-on.

“Guess we’re parents now, Eds. Or, we will be when our bouncing baby boy gets delivered next week.” Eddie feels the laugh building in Richie’s chest before he even speaks. “I’m so glad you kept your figure though, babe, a couch that big must’ve been murder on your hips.”

“You’d know all about bad hips, fuck face, or am I imagining the old man complaining I heard this morning?” Eddie would say he’d replied on autopilot, but a larger portion of his brain than he liked to admit was always focused on Richie, like a radio that always tuned back to one station.

“It’s not my fault your mom rode me so hard last night, is it?”

Eddie hadn’t been able to stop his snort. Forty fucking years old and the same joke was still funny. He’d looked out the corner of his eyes at the dumb smile Richie was sporting, all because he’d made him laugh. Richie needed a shave and stepping outside the air conditioned shop was enough to make his glasses steam up a bit, but it hadn’t stop Eddie’s raging, improbable thoughts about the line of his jaw beneath the stubble, about how he wanted to turn it into a slip n’ slide with his dick. About how he wanted to feel the bob of his Adam’s apple fucking massaging Eddie’s armpit, or something. 

Eddie hadn’t even realised they’d reached the car until Richie’s arm left his shoulders as he walked round to the passenger door. But now he was here, sat in the driver’s seat of the car – of course I’m fucking driving Richie, you drive at about 100 miles an hour even though you get car sick – sweat drying on his skin as the A/C blew, unable to tear his eyes away from the long, be-denimed legs that were currently folding themselves into the car. The slight jolt of the car’s suspension as Richie settled the breadth of his shoulders against the seat felt like it went straight to Eddie’s dick.

Fuck it. Fuck this ‘unsaid thing’ bullshit. Fuck pussyfooting around, when the two of them already share a life together. Fuck Richie Tozier in particular, and hopefully fucking soon.

“What’s wrong? Have I got something on my face? I don’t think I do, I’ve been told that that’s unfortunately just how my face is.” Richie’s eyebrows look like they’re attempting to perform the macarena with the kind of enthusiasm only seen at an eight year old’s birthday party when cake time is announced. Eddie wants to lick them.

“Should I get a cool face scar? I mean you’re really pulling it off - ” Eddie cuts Richie off with his mouth. He was aiming for Richie’s lips but he’ll take the chin he gets, mouthing openly, the stubble stinging his lips.

“Wha-” Richie gets out, more an exhalation of air that Eddie feels against his face. He steals Richie’s next breath, kissing him properly, one hand leaning across to brace him against Richie’s thigh. One of Richie’s hands comes up to cradle his face and fuck, Eddie wants it to never leave his body, wants it on his face and his neck and his legs and his back, and to hold it with their fingers interlaced like a promise. Richie pulls back just far enough to press a kiss to the scar on his cheek and Eddie feels like he might cry.

Instead, he says, “I love you. Dickwad.” The insult is tacked on the end almost as an afterthought, because for all it’s funny to insult each other, Eddie wants Richie to know how serious he’s being. The problem is that the moment feels too serious. They’re in their own little bubble in the car, but Eddie is still acutely aware of the people walking past on the other sidewalk, can hear the sounds of traffic. He suddenly wishes it was just the two of them, back in the home they’re making together with their terrible decorating choices and the orthopaedic mattress Eddie is now hoping they’ll be sharing.

Richie’s face turns soft. “I wanted to say it first, asshole. Always stealing my thunder. I can’t have anything in this relationship. Didn’t even get to choose our anniversary date.”

Eddie tightens his grip on the thigh beneath his hand, sliding his fingers down onto Richie’s inseam; Richie’s legs spread gratifyingly fast, and Eddie can’t help but lean back in for another kiss. Richie seems to be trying to suck his tongue into his mouth this time, and he can’t help but be extremely into it. They’re only interrupted by a honk from a passing car, and Eddie is reminded again that getting home is a good idea. He separates himself from Richie reluctantly and fastens his seat belt, raising an eyebrow at Richie until he does the same. He starts the engine, but just before he prepares to pull out the parking space he considers Richie’s last statement.

“You can decide our anniversary if you propose. Of course, your mom might get there first, but if you think about exactly what you want do to when we get back to the house, it might net you preferential treatment.”

Richie looks a bit dazed. “You want a list, baby? I can do that, Mr Sexy Analyst. Alphabetical?”

The look Eddie levels him is particularly judgemental. He cannot believe he’s about to fuck this man. “Chronological, moron.”

“Anything you want, Eds.”

Eddie doesn’t think Richie knows exactly how long that list is. He’s looking forward to finding out himself.

[stories-sometimes]

I’ve Made A Huge Mistake {9/?}

Peter Parker x Reader, Quentin Beck x Reader

Summary: Peter just wanted to enjoy his trip to Europe, maybe even confess his feelings to his best friends.But along came a mysterious new hero to ruin those plans. Peter and his class are aged up and in college.

Warnings: Violence in later chapters, manipulation, age gap, smut

Word Count: 1565

Main Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Beck was fuming, he’d actually liked Peter, but he was too focused on his plan. Nothing was going to get in his way. He stormed back into the hotel room. She’d be heartbroken when she found out, he hadn’t anticipated that and now had to rewrite much of his meticulous plan. 

“Hey, what’s happened?” She asked as he slammed the door behind him. He froze, trying to think of a plausible excuse outside of ‘I just killed your best friend’.

“There’s another.” He lied.

“What?”

“There’s another elemental, in London”

“I thought the one in Prague was the final one, you said that was the last one.”

“It was the last one on my planet, it was the one that destroyed my home. I didn’t get a chance to see it.” Beck replied, fuelling all his current anger into this bullshit story. 

“We should call Peter, you’ll need his help.” He clenched his jaw at the mention of the younger man. “I can’t get through to him, but you should try.”

“We don’t need to call him, he’s going back to New York.”

“He’ll come back straight away.” She tried to reason.

“Just forget about him.” Beck snapped, grabbing her upper arm and pushing her against the wall. She gasped in shock. This pushed Beck out of his head, switching back into the persona he’d so carefully formed. “I’m sorry, I’m just stressed about another elemental.” He whispered, trailing his hands down from her arm to her waist. “I can’t lose you again.” Beck faked a sob. And just as he’d hoped, her sympathetic side came out, reaching her hand out to the top of his neck, soothingly stroking over the base of his scalp.

“Don’t worry, I understand. I’m not going anywhere.” He cupped her face.

“Promise me.” He pleaded convincingly. Part of him was being honest, as much as she was another part of his plan, but he was growing accustomed to having her around. He looked forward to seeing her, she brought a certain sense of comfort with her. Gently, Beck ran his finger along her bottom lip.

“I promise, relax.” She reassured him. Still, he looked worried. “I can help you relax.” She suggested.

“Oh really, how are you gonna do that?” Gently, Beck ran his thumb along her bottom lip, dragging it down. She took it in her mouth, sucking on it gently, maintaining eye contact with Beck. “That all you gonna do?” He teased, she playfully hit him in the chest in response.

“Give me a second.” She said before dropping to her knees, slowly unbuckling his belt, unzipping his jeans and dragging them down. His dick, already hard, slapped against his stomach. She darted her tongue, tracing it over his head. She took his dick in her mouth, slowly moving forward. Instantly, he weaved his hands into her hair, guiding her further down. He groaned as he heard her gag. When she pushed her hands on his thighs he let her off. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” She nodded, catching her breathe, “Sorry, I don’t really know what to do.”

“Hey, don’t apologise. You have done this before.”

“Kinda, he came as soon as I put my mouth on him, so I don’t really think it counts.”

“You want me to guide you through it?”

“Yes sir.” She looked up at him pleadingly, her face far too innocent for what she was about to do. Just how Beck liked it.

“Open your mouth,” She obeyed immediately, “Relax your throat, and let me do the work.” He pushed back into her mouth, letting out a loud moan. “That’s good baby.” He felt her moan around him at the praise. “You like that, hearing me tell you how good you feel. How fucking gorgeous you look wrapped around my cock.” He relished in the control he had over her. Quickly, he began to thrust harder, getting deeper. He kept his hands on her head, moving her as he wished. The pressure built up as he made her gag again, watching the tears threaten to spill from her eyes. “Breathe through your nose, relax baby.” Soon, he came with a groan, holding her in place. 

“How was that?” She said once she had swallowed, her voice slightly hoarse.

“Jesus Christ, you so fucking amazing.” He helped her back up to her feet. “You look so beautiful right now.” He took in her now dishevelled appearance, messy hair, swollen lips and a tear in her eye, all because of him. He could definitely get used to it.

“Did it help sir?” She asked.

“Absolutely, and as much as I’d love to carry this on, we need to get to London.”

A few hours later they pulled up to a hotel in London. Their bags were taken up to the room.

“What’s wrong?” Beck asked when he heard her groan.

“Nothing, it’s just none of my texts are going through to any of my friends.” She complained.

“It’s probably just no signal in a new country."

“You go unpack,” He instructed, “I need to scope out the area for when the elemental attacks. I’ll be back in a couple hours.”

“Good luck.” She replied, leaning up to give him a quick kiss. The room was just as upscale as the others, Beck was clearly getting used to the high-life, booking another five-star hotel. Everything went smoothly as she pulled out their possessions, moving them to wardrobes and draws. That was until she picked up his suit. Curiosity got the better of her and she inspected it, admiring it up close. She traced her finger over the scale-like design of the sleeve. When she got to the wrist, she felt a metal object under the fabric. She flipped the sleeve inside out to get a closer look. There was a thin piece of technology, sending a flash of recognition through her brain. She examined it further, praying it wasn’t what she thought it was. An overwhelming sick feeling rose through her. 

“I’ve made a huge mistake.”

She rushed to her phone, calling Peter urgently. When it went to voicemail she tried MJ, then Ned, then anyone who might have any contact with Peter. No call went through. She ran out of the hotel room, down to the payphones in the lobby. Once again she called Peter, who once again, didn’t pick up. So she tried MJ again.

“Hello.” She heard MJ, the other girl’s voice soothing her panic slightly.

“MJ, are you with Peter?”

“Oh god, are you okay? Please tell me you’re safe.”

“I need to talk to Peter.” She repeated.

“He went to Berlin, he went to find you. Look, I know Peter is Spiderman, and Beck’s lying, I need to know if you are safe.”

“I don’t know, he’s out. But I found this illusion tech in his suit.”

“Yeah, he’s been using that to create the elementals, and drones to destroy the cities.” MJ explained.

“I think he used to work for Stark Industries.”

“What?”

“I’ve seen this tech before, I’ve used it. I’d tag along with Peter to Tony’s lab a few times, and there was one time I was running tests on how a prosthetic I designed would work. Tony let me use the illusion tech. And I remember him ranting about the unstable guy who made it, wasted potential, all that. It was the exact same technology in the suit, being used by some probably unstable liar.

“Holy shit.”

“I don’t know what to do.” She said between heavy, panicked breaths.

“Okay, okay,” MJ tried to think of a plan as rapidly as she could, “You gotta stay calm, pretend everything’s fine. Don’t let Beck know that you know. Don’t make him angry until you’re safe and away from him.”

“I can’t get ahold of Peter.”

“Me neither. But I’ll, I’ll tell Ned, he’ll know who to call. Breath, be careful.”

“Thank you.” She whispered.

“We’re gonna get help.” As soon as the call was over, she went back up to the hotel room, putting the suit away to seem as though she’d never touched it. She took deep breaths, trying to calm herself back down. When Beck returned she’d managed to relax herself. While her heart was racing 100 miles a minute, and her mind felt as though it was about to implode, she managed to remain calm on the outside.

“Hey, how’d it go?” She asked, accepting him when he leaned down to kiss her.

“As well as it could’ve gone. I know London more, so I should be able to fight off the elemental better.” She watched him lie so effortlessly, angry at herself for falling for it. “But I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“So what do you wanna do?”

“I just wanna spend time with my girl.” He gently caressed her face. She leaned into his touch, just like she would’ve done before, and smiled shyly, just like she would’ve done before. His hand moved to cup her face fully. “So the real question is what do you wanna do?”

“We can just cuddle, watch a film.” She suggested. Beck nodded, leading her to the plush bed. Once they got comfortable, Beck moved her legs over his, draping his arm over her, pulling her into him. She tried to relax into his touch, act as though everything was completely fine. And it scared the absolute shit out of her.

Taglist Open:

@cool-ontherun-world 

@eleventhdoctorsangel 

@chubby-tink

@eridanuswave

@squishychar1ie

@sincerely-cronch

@charmed-asylum

@lukesbabylon

[chickensarentcheap]

Best Part of Me -Chapter 77

Warnings: none

Tagging: @innerpaperexpertcloud​, @alievans007​, @c-a-v-a-l-r-y​

“Easiest way to do this is to park on the east side of the Sultana Kamal Bridge,” Esme instructs,  face emotionless and eyes riveted on the road in front of them.

The closer they get to the city center, the more powerful the anxiety grows; gnawing at her stomach and tying it into knots and painfully tightening her chest. The mere thought of being in Bangladesh itself has been nerve wracking enough, but being minutes from the downtown core and from the single most traumatic event of her life has her body and mind rebelling. Incessant nausea accompanied by a pounding headache; her heart thundering in her chest and sweat gathering at her temples and along the nape of her neck.  She feels light headed and repeatedly wrings her perspiration slicked hands together and bounces her leg up and down. The beginning of the ride had been tolerable, but when weather beaten high rises and smaller, derelict apartments began to appear on the horizon, the situation became far too real. It’s terrifying and puts her already frazzled nerves on high alert, and there’s nothing she wants more than to tell Koen to stop and turn around; go back to the house and get someone else to do the dirty work. To find a way back to Mumbai and her children; wait the situation out and hope  and pray that they can go home sooner rather than later.   But it isn’t that easy. She can’t simply walk away and wash her hands of it. Not when Neysa and Aarev are being held captive and especially not when her own family is being threatened.  There’s not a single escape   that doesn’t involve going directly into town. And unfortunately, the quickest way in -and out- is over that bridge.

“You sure about that?” Koen asks, a frown curving his lips. “Doesn’t seem easy. Or smart for that matter.”

“It’s way too crowded right downtown,” she reasons. “Especially at this time of the day. This is prime market hours. I’ve been here; I know what the streets are like and I know they’re crowded and damn near impossible to navigate in a car.”

“And if shit goes down, we have a hell of a long way back to our ride,” he informs her.

“If shit goes down, it won’t matter where we’re parked. Thirty inches away, thirty feet, thirty yards, thirty miles. If something goes wrong, we won’t make it back to the car no matter how close it is.”

“So how do we get back? If something does fuck up?”

“We don’t. At least not until nightfall. We find somewhere safe to hunker down until things have calmed and we can start moving again. And that’s IF we get that far. You do realize what will happen to us if we’re caught, right? If Asif’s people catch on or the cops figure out we’re connected to Tyler? Chances are, we won’t survive long enough to see the sun go down.”

“Jesus Christ…”

“I know places where we can hide out if we need to. But they’re only good if we can get to them. We have to get into town and be smart and be quick. The longer we’re there, the higher the chance of things going to shit. I learned that the hard way. I don’t want you to learn it too.”

“But if we…”

“You have to listen to me!” Esme snaps, and he blinks at the force in her voice. “I’ve been here before. I know the city and I know the market area and I am telling you that the best thing to do is park on the east side of the bridge. There’s a clearing there; it’s where we got Ovi out. And if you want to get out of this, you’ll learn from my mistakes. Because I made enough of them seven years ago and I don't want to make any now. I have too much to lose and I won’t let you fuck this up!”

Silence descends on the car, and she places an elbow on the ledge of her window and her palm against her forehead. Eyes closed as she battles both increasing nausea and the flood of tears that threaten to escape. It’s all too much; the sunlight glistening of the waters of the Buraganga, the cityscape in the near horizon, the faint outline and expanse of the bridge in the distance, even Amir Asif’s home -still occupied and majestic; looming down river.

“I’m sorry,” her voice trembles. . “I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

“That was hardly yelling, kiddo. You’d make a great third wife if you think THAT’S yelling.”

She manages a small laugh. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I’m just stressed and tired and scared. And this baby has me hormonal as fuck already.”

“You know, that last part could have been prevented had you just told him to roll over and go to sleep,” Koen teases, then drops a hand from the steering wheel and lays it on the back of her neck, gently massaging. “It’s okay, sunshine. I get it. I understand.”

“This place...Dhaka...that bridge...it’s nothing but horrible memories and a lot of suffering and a lot of trauma and nightmares and bullshit. I do NOT want to be here. I don’t even want to be in Bangladesh. Or Mumbai. I just want to be home; with my husband and my kids and my dogs. I want to wake up in the morning to the sound of the ocean and fall asleep to it at night. And I want to sit on my back porch and watch my kids play and hear them giggle and squeal. And I want to cuddle up to my husband knowing he’s safe and sound and that there’s no one out there that wants to hurt him. That’s all I want. And I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

“It’s not. It’s definitely not.”

“I almost lost him to this place once, and I don’t want the second time to be successful. I know I pride myself in being a strong, independent woman, but I can’t lose him. I CAN do this life alone...raise the kids by myself...but I don’t want to. That man is my entire world; he’s my best friend and he’s my lover and he’s my confidant. He’s my ‘person’. And if that makes me weak and pathetic for saying all that, I don’t give a shit. It’s true. I love him in a way I thought I could never love another human being. And I’m not ready to let that go. To let HIM go.”

“It won’t come to that,” Koen assures her. “I’ll see to it. That it doesn’t happen.”

“Tyler showed up at a time in my life when I’d given up on ever trusting a man again. Mark was a terrible person, he destroyed me in every possible way and Tyler came along and he picked up those pieces and put them back together and he never once complained about it. He just did it. In his own way.  He always talks about how I saved him, but he doesn’t realize he did the same thing for me. That he saved me in every possible way a person can be saved. If I'd never met him, I probably wouldn’t even be here. Because I was just as much of a mess as he was and just as ready to give up on everything.”

“I never realized it was that bad. That YOU were that bad.”

“There’s a lot of things people don’t know.  That only Tyler knows. But believe me when I say that I was broken and I was lost and he found me. We found EACH OTHER.  And he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t care how cliche it sounds or who hears me say it. It’s the truth. And I didn’t let Mahajan or Asif’s people take him from me. I didn’t let them the first time, and I won’t let it happen this time either.”

“You’re a tough little shit," Koen praises. “You know that?”

“A tough little shit bawling like a baby in front of you? Yeah, that screams tough.”  She uses the backs of her hands to wipe the tears from her cheeks. “Don’t tell Tyler I got like this, okay? He worries enough. He doesn’t need to know about my mental breakdown.”

“Your secret is safe with me, kiddo. But I’m afraid I have some things to say that might make you cry some more.”

“”Oh great! Just what I need; looking like a wreck on the job.”

“Now this is all between me and you, because we both know how embarrassed he gets about feelings and emotions and all of that crap. Just between us, yeah?”

Esme nods.

“First, I have to start off by letting you know that he is wildly and crazily, head over heels,  in love with you. More than he thinks he could ever possibly tell you. So if he doesn’t say it a lot, just know he’s feeling it.  That every time he looks at you, he sees his entire world in front of him. The most beautiful, incredible woman on the planet.”

“He told you that? That came out of his mouth? Was he drunk?”

“Stone cold sober. He does say things WHILE he’s drunk, but those are triple x rated, so…”

Esme laughs. “Of course they are.”

“He is terrified of losing you. Right scared shitless. And he isn’t scared of much and he certainly doesn’t admit what he IS scared of. He doesn't want to do this life without you, and he’s pretty convinced he wouldn’t be able to. I’ve seen women come and go out of his life; mostly one night stands or girls in different places he could go to for getting his rocks off.”

“Nik?”

“Nik meant nothing. He’s not lying when he says that. There wasn’t anything there; at least not for him. And I knew his ex. Sarah. Spent some time with her.”

“”Yeah, I had the pleasure of meeting her. When they shipped him from the hospital here to the one in Sydney.  That was a...pleasant...experience.”

“He thought he was in love with her.  High school sweetheart, mother of his first kid. She treated him like complete shit and they’re both at fault for how that whole thing ended up. But when you came along? When I first met you at the hospital and I talked to him about you? I could tell you were different. That what he was FEELING was different. And I saw how he looked at you; how his whole face just lit up when you walked into the room. The way he’d smile at you and how the whole tone of his voice would change when he talked to you. He had it bad even then; I could tell.”

“Maybe he was still caught in the afterglow of those five days.”

“It was more than that. We all knew it. And I’ve known Tyler a long time; I’ve seen him at his worst. And when you came along, I could see how badly he wanted to change. How much he wanted to be the man you needed him to be. That you deserved. And he worked at it. He STILL works at it. You could have easily walked away after Dhaka. Even with a baby in your belly.”

“I didn’t want to walk away.” Esme says. “I wanted to be with him. I wanted to see if we could make something out of nothing. And we did. We made something so amazing.”

“No way he was letting you go. He knew he had a good thing.  He wasn’t going to fuck that up.”

“We were both a mess. And somehow we’ve managed to not make an even bigger one and not totally screw up our children.”

“Those kids are incredible. They’re beautiful. The best of both of you. And they’re here because you looked past just how messed up their daddy was and you saw the potential in him. He was screwed up, but you still managed to see he was a good person...a good man...under all that. And you gave him a chance. To prove that he mattered. That his life meant something.”

“His life has always meant something to me. And it means everything to his kids. He’s our entire existence. He’s the one that keeps it all together when it feels like it’s falling apart. And it WILL fall apart; if something happens to him. If he doesn’t make it out of here…”

“He will,” Koen insists. “I’ll make sure of it. I’ll make sure he gets out and gets back to you and those littles. I promise.”

She gives a  small, hopeful smile.

“And thank you. For taking care of him like you do. For giving him this life. And for loving him like you do.”

“Your voice…” her voice cracks once more. “...you are going to make me cry again..”

“Some things just need to be said,” he reasons, and runs a palm over the top of her head and down her hair. “Just in case.”

****

“We have a problem.”

It’s difficult to make out what she’s saying; a mixture of poor signal and the near deafening sound of vehicle horns blasting and impatient, flustered yelling of people gathered around her. But there’s no mistaking THAT tone of voice. Fear and worry and a whole lot of anxiety.  He had  just managed to fall asleep -a combination of pure mental exhaustion and another handful of meds- when the phone rang; startling him awake and leaning him disoriented and lightheaded. The extra dose of dilaudid making his head spinning; drowsy despite the nap and sweat beading across his forehead and the back of his neck.  And he grimaces as he sits up on the couch, wincing as he stretches his legs out in front of him and then reaches across his body to rub his shoulder. All those drugs and it STILL persists; that dull, incessant throb deep within the joint and the numbness in his hand.

“What’s wrong? You okay?”

“We parked on the south side of the Sultana Kamal bridge. I figured it was easier to walk in then deal with the traffic and the crowds around the market.”

“Good thinking.” he praises. “Definitely the best way to go. What's the problem?”

“They’ve locked the bridge down. All of the bridges, apparently. They’re not letting anyone through without showing proper ID.”

“You got it, yeah? The one Anil got for you?”

“I do. But that’s not the point. If they’re doing this, they know you’re here. How the hell would they know? We were so careful; coming from the airport.  How do they know you’re here?”

“I have no idea.”

“Someone is feeding these people information. Someone inside. You need to call Anil and let him what’s going on; tell him he needs to figure this out. How are you supposed to do an extraction if you can’t even get into the city? They will kill you on sight, Tyler.”

“I’ll have to figure that out. Is it just the cops?”

“Military too. This is some serious fucking deja vu. As if being on this bridge isn’t bad enough…”

“Are you okay?”

“Not really,” Esme admits. “They have pictures of my husband that they’re comparing to everyone that walks or drives across. So no; I’m not okay.”

“I need you to stay calm. I need you to get over the bridge, get shit done, and get back here safe and sound. I know it sucks; being there on the bridge. But I need you to stay calm. If they see you freaking out, they’ll know something is up. So I need you to settle down.”

“What do we do? If we can’t get out? What do you want us to do? If they lock the city down completely?”

“You call me. You call me and I’ll come and get you. You find somewhere to hide you and I will find a way to get there and get you out.”

“They’ll kill you. If they see you…”

“Better me than you.”

“And if we get caught?”

“Don’t fight them. Let them take you. You fight, they’ll make it worse on you. And if that happens...IF you get caught...I still come get you. Right now, I need you to just relax and get shit done, okay? In and out. No mistakes. Not a single fucking one.”

She gives an uneasy laugh. “No pressure, right?”

“You’ll be alright. You’ve got this. You’ve done this kind of thing hundreds of times.”

“Not when there’s so much at stake, I haven’t. I feel sick. Like really sick.”

“You’re working yourself up. Just try and stay calm. I wish I was there with you; I wish I was the one keeping an eye on you.”

“I wish that too. I’d feel a lot better about all of this if you were here.”

“And it should be me. With you.”

“Koen has things under control. I trust him. Not in the same way I trust or as hard and as deep as I trust you, but…”

“You’re going to be okay. You run into any trouble, you call me. You call me and I’ll get you out.”

“I love you, Tyler. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too. You’ve got this. I know you too.”

“I’ll call if I need to,” she promises, and then disconnects the call.

Sighing heavily, he tosses his cell onto the coffee table and then leans forward and places his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.   It’s his worst nightmare; her out on the street without him to keep an eye on her. As much as he trusts Koen and knows his friend would stop at nothing to keep her safe, he also knows Koen’s limits. He hasn’t been on the job that long, and despite his years in the military, he simply doesn’t have the skill level or the experience that Tyler has. And it's hard as hell. Being able to do nothing but sit back and wait while his entire heart is out there walking around, putting itself in danger.

He feels nauseous, and both his head and his heart pound furiously. He squeezes his eyes shut and drops his chin to his chest; attempting to steady himself -and his nerves- with long, slow intakes of breath through constricted lungs. It’s the start of a panic attack; he recognizes the fast, irregular heartbeat and the twisting and knotting in his chest and stomach, the perspiration that dampens his hairline. All he can think of is the worst case scenario; Asif’s people grabbing her and spending days...even weeks...making her beg for mercy and eventually death. Doing disgusting and horrendous things to her; abusing her in ways that will make his nightmares seem tame. And they’ll make sure he witnesses it; whether it be through photographs or videos or even forcing her to call him.

His eyes snap open as he reaches for his cell phone; prepared to call Anil and let him know of the hurdles awaiting him in the city center. Pausing when his eyes fall on the bottle of meds sitting nearby. He’s already tripled the recommended daily dose and it’s not even past noon. But there’s no denying the pain; the throbbing in his shoulder and knee and the gnawing in his stomach. And his hands violently tremble as he reaches for the bottle, resorting to using his teeth to twist off the cap. Feeling shame and guilt as he lets four pills drop into his mouth and then swallows them dry.

****

“Something’s not right,” Esme says, as she drops her cell phone into her bag.

The heat is stifling and the humidity nearly unbearable; the Dhaka sun bright and punishing as it beats down on the pedestrians crammed shoulder to shoulder on the bridge. She refuses to acknowledge her surroundings. Choosing to walk along the curb as opposed to near the railing; keeping her eyes straight ahead and never looking down at the ground or out at the river. It’s still too hard; the memories still so fresh and vivid.  Easily able to recall the exact spot in the cracked and dirty sidewalk when he’d been dying in her arms and she’d resorted to sticking her fingers in his neck to save his life. She can still hear the staccato of gunfire and the cries of the wounded and dying and smell spent lead and spilt gasoline. Still able to see the burnt out shells of cars and trucks and mangled, bloody bodies.

“There’s nothing right about any of this,” Koen grumbles, a hand resting protectively on the small of her back, keeping her half a step in front of him as they make their way to the checkpoint.

“That’s true. But I meant with Tyler. Something isn’t right with him.”

“He seemed fine this morning.”

“He is FAR from fine. Things have gotten so much worse since the night he was jumped. The pain is intense and he’s suffering more and more and I don’t know what else I can do for him, other than forcing him to go to the doctor when we get home.”

“Just keep loving on him like you do and taking care of him. I know he appreciates it; Even if he won’t admit. And Lord knows he’s stressed and he’s worried and he’s got a lot on his mind. Makes sense he’s not himself.”

“It’s more than that. He didn’t sound like himself. He sounded...off. He didn’t sound like Tyler. I KNOW his voice; I know its changes and all the different ways it can sound depending on his mood. And that? I haven’t heard that Tyler in a long time. Since our battle trying to beat Oxy. He almost sounds like he’s on it; he’s groggy and just out of it and his accent is even thicker. It’s hard to explain.”

“He was probably napping. You probably woke him up.”

“No. I know what he sounds like when he first gets up in the morning or when he wakes with the baby. It wasn’t that. I know it wasn’t. It’s weird, right? That I notice those things? The changes in his voice? That must seem weird to you.”

“He’s your husband; You spend that long with someone, you notice things. Even the smallest of them.”

“How come you didn’t stay married?” she asks. “Why didn’t any of your wives work out?”

“Marriage isn’t for everyone, sunshine. I happen to be one of those who can’t be married AND happy. I just can’t. Can’t be tied down like that. I like not having to answer to anyone. Doing what I want, when I want.’

“But did you love either of them?”

“Love is...subjective.”

“Humour is subjective. Love is love. You either feel it or you don’t. So did you? Love either of them? Tyler said he liked the second one. What was her name? Kim? He said she was really nice; that she seemed crazy about you. How come you didn’t hang onto her?”

“She was friends with Sarah. His ex. So once they split up for good, it kind of made things difficult between Kim and I. I know he fucked up...HUGE…but I also know what she was like. I know she was always cheating on him and doing him wrong. A lot of us didn’t even think the kid was his.”

Esme arches a brow. “Really?”

“We had our doubts. For good reason, too. He’s never told you that?”

“No. I guess he’s never felt a reason to. But knowing Tyler, it wouldn’t have mattered to him if Austin wasn’t really his. He would have loved him and taken care of him anyway.”

“That big heart of his is going to be his downfall one day.”

“Nik doubted Millie. Hell. I think Tyler even doubted Millie when I first got pregnant. Which is understandable.; I totally didn’t blame him for questioning it. But her? Even when Millie was a baby and even a toddler, she tried putting it in his head that Millie wasn’t his.”

“Which is bullshit,” Koen says. “I mean look at the kid and look at the father.”

“Right? She looks just like him! There’s no way he could ever deny her. Nik’s been a thorn in my side since day one. And I just…” she grimaces and lays a hand against her stomach. “...oh god...I feel so sick.”

“It’s the heat,” Koen reasons. “You shouldn’t be standing out in it like this.”

“It’s everything. The heat, the noise, all the people, the smell of the water...” she draws the neck of her t-shirt over her mouth and nose. “...this isn’t good.”

He moves his hand up to the back of her neck, keeping her moving forward. And when they reach the front of the line, he rummages through her bag for her ID and presents it -along with his own- to the police officer manning the checkpoint.

“Bandha,” the officer orders in Bengali, motioning for Esme to remove the shirt from her face and the ball cap from her head. “Bandha!”

“Now what’s the point of that?” Koen questions. “She’s clearly not the bloke in the picture you got there. She’s clearly not a bloke at all.”

The officer ignores him, pulling a second picture out from underneath the photo of Tyler. A black and white shot of her from the job in Ireland. When she’d sported short, red hair and glasses. And she feels her stomach jump clear into her throat.

“Look, my wife isn’t feeling well,” Koen explains, as he wraps an arm around her shoulders and draws her tight into his side. “We just found out a few days ago that we’re having a baby; our first. And she hasn’t been having a good go of it and the sun’s making it worse. It's obvious she’s not a bloke and she’s definitely not the girl in that picture. So unless you want her throwing up all over the place…”

“I really do feel sick,” she whimpers. “I need to get somewhere to puke.”

“I know, honey,” he presses a kiss to her temple. “And I’m sure this nice policeman understands.”

The officer looks towards the nearest colleague -likely a higher ranked officer -for help. And receives a nod to allow them to pass.

“Have you seen them?” The first officer inquires, showing the two pictures in her face.

“Haven’t seen them a day in my life,” Koen says, and quickly whisks her away.

****

“That was way too fucking close!” Esme finally allows herself a sigh of relief three blocks later, and tucks her hair back under her baseball hat. “Why the hell would they have a picture of me?”

“Asif’s people aren’t stupid. If they know Tyler’s in town, they also know he’s not dumb enough to show his hand just yet. Guess they figured he’d send you in his place.”

“This is fucked. Way more than I first thought it was. How do they even know Tyler is here? Nathan made the most sense as the mole; he disappears and then shows up out of the blue, being held captive by them? A week and a half later? That makes no sense. They would have let us know if they had him. They take pride in shit like that.”

“So you don’t think it’s him now?”

“I still don’t trust him. Something IS shady about him. But he wouldn’t know that Tyler is here. So there has to be someone else; someone on the inside. Two moles.”

“That’s reaching, don’t you think?”

“It’s the only way any of this makes sense. Nathan was the one who told Mahajan’s man where Tyler was that night and what areas of his body to target. They knew, Koen; they knew to go after his shoulder, knee, AND back. They even went after his neck; right where he was shot and the surgeon had to repair that vein. They knew. And then Nathan takes off and doesn’t show up until a week and a half later?”

“But they have him,” he argues.  “Asif’s people. They have him and they’re fucking him up pretty good.”

“It’s all bullshit. I’m sure of it. And there has to be a way to prove it. Tyler can’t just go in there trusting him. He can’t. There has to be a way to find out Nathan is in on this. We just have to figure out what it is.”

“Whoa...whoa...whoa...you and I don’t need to do shit. We’re doing enough being here.”

“I’m going to ask them to let me see him with my own two eyes. When we find out where he is, I want to go in and see him for myself. I’ll know if he’s lying or not.”

“Are you fucking insane?  You can’t go into something like that. That is not your job.”

“If it prevents Tyler from going in and Nathan backstabbing him? I’ll do it.”

“You think he wants you to? You think he wants you to go in there? Put yourself...and that baby...at risk? He’d never allow that.”

“I don’t need his permission.”

“Normally I’d agree with you, but this is fucked. This is a horrible idea. Let someone else figure it out. This is not up to you. You’re doing enough. MORE than enough.”

“But if I…”

“No more,” he orders. “I won’t hear of this. Not a single word more. You mention it again, I will tell him. Hear me?”

“I hear you. I wont talk about it again. It was just an idea.”

“A stupid ass idea.”

She rolls her eyes.

“So what are we looking for?” he inquires, a hand on her shoulder as her eyes scour the market.

“It’s not WHAT I’m looking for. It’s WHO I’m looking for.  And I’m hoping he’s still here.”

“You want to be a little more specific, or…”

“I met a vendor the first time we were here. He sold handmade jewellery. Tyler got me this…” she holds up her right hand; showing off the simple braided leather and beaded bracelet she sports. “...from him. But he’s way more valuable than just his jewellery. He keeps his ear to the ground. BOTH ears. He was able to find out things for me like that…” she snaps her thumb and index finger together. “...and if he’s still here, I’m hoping he can still help.”

“A lot can change in seven years,” Koen reasons.

“Nothing has changed here. It still looks the same, sounds the same, smells the same. That’s where we stayed,”  she nods towards a rundown hotel across the street. “Third floor, second room. The balcony that has the rug hanging over the railing. THAT hasn’t even changed. I bet the toilet is still broken and I bet they haven’t painted the dirty walls or put in a proper shower head. Nothing’s changed; not a goddamn thing.”

For several minutes she searches the market. Attempting to blend in with the other shoppers; making small talk with both buyers and vendors, picking up various objects and studying them, purchasing  food items for the safe house and small trinkets that would appeal to the kids. Koen sticks close to her side; hand never leaving the small of her back, never speaking yet offering pleasant smiles and nods in greeting.

“Here! Over here!” she suddenly exclaims, grabbing him by the wrist and yanking him behind her. Pausing at a vendor tucked alongside of a busy laundry, nervously rocking back and forth on her heels chewing on her bottom lip as she waits for the owner to finish up with a customer. And she notices the look on the older man’s face when he regards her; his eyes narrowed and head tilted to the side. And she sees the glimmer of recognition. “Do you remember me?” she asks. “I know you’ve seen a lot of people since we met, but…” she removes her head and shakes her hair free. “...do you? When we first met, you commented on my hair. About how long it was and how the sun made the red in it sparkle. Do you remember?”

A bright, wide smile spreads from ear to ear. “My friend!” he gleefully cries, and hurries around the side of the table to warmly embrace her. “You haven’t changed a bit!” He presses a kiss to each cheek. “As beautiful as ever!”

“Thank you. But believe me, I’ve changed a lot. How are you? You look wonderful.  Life’s been treating you kind?”

“It’s been fair to me. I can’t complain. Well I could,  but no one would listen,” he chuckles. “You’re back! In Dhaka?”

“Just for a few days. For work.”

“And your husband? He is still your husband?”

“He is. He is still hanging in there. We have five kids now.”

“Five children! Big family. Last time I saw you, you just had the one. A little girl.”

“Amelia. Millie. She just turned six. And she’s so smart and so beautiful. She looks just like her daddy. They’re back at the hotel; the kids wanted to go swimming and he offered to stay behind to take them.”

“Good guy that one!”

“Yeah, he is. A very good guy.And this is my brother. Kyle.” She lays a hand on Koen’s shoulder. “The one I told you about.”

“The fireman?”

“That’s me,” Koen smiles, abandoning his accent  and shaking the hand offered to him. “Thought I’d keep little sis company.”

“I was wondering if you could help us.” Esme says, and begins admiring and surveying items for sale when she notices curious bystanders watching them intently. “I could really, really, REALLY use your help.”

“With what?”

“I need information. Do you still have an ear to the ground? You still have people you can trust?”

He nods.

“Have you seen the picture floating around? The man everyone is looking for? The mercenary?”

“Looks very much like your husband. I only saw him with a  hat on when he was here though. And sunglasses. So I couldn’t say for sure. I didn’t think it was him. A mercenary? That doesn’t seem like a job for someone like him. He was always so friendly and good to me.”

“His name is Tyler Rake. My husband. And he IS a mercenary. Seven years ago, we came here to find a kid that had been taken by Amir Asif.”

“Mahajan’s kid?”

“That’s why we were here. And we found him and everything went to shit. All that trouble on the bridge? That was us. That was ALL us. And I need your help again. And I’m willing to pay. I’m willing to pay VERY well.”

“What do you need?”

“Amir Asif is dead, but in some ways, he’s very much alive. I know he has people trying to avenge him. Carrying on his business. And they've grabbed friends of ours.”

“A woman and a teenage boy,” the vendor says. “And a mercenary.”

“I work for the people that want them back. I need to get word to Asif’s people that I’m in town and I’m ready to negotiate. That I have access to the money they asked for, but I’d rather talk first. And I need proof of life. For all three.”

The vendor nods slowly.

“Can you do it? Get the word out? To the right people?”

“I can.”

“But will you. Will you do that for me?”

“I will.”

“I need it done right away. As soon as I walk away. It’s important it gets done right away.”  She reaches into her bag and pulls out a pen and small notebook, tossing open the cover and hastily scribbling her cell number. “Tell them to text first. They text with a number that  I or one of my people can call. Tell them we want to talk and start negotiations. ASAP. But  nothing will happen unless we see with our own eyes that everyone is alive. That is the only way they’ll get what they want. Tell them I’m in charge. Not them. And that I’ll give them their money, but I’m NOT giving them the man they want. That’s non negotiable and it’s never going to happen.”  She tears the paper from the notebook, then removes a hundred dollars from her wallet and hands both to the vendor. “Thank you.”

“This is too much!” he exclaims. “Way too much! You are too generous!”

“You deserve way more than that, believe me. Thank you. You have no idea how much this means  to me.”

“At least take something.” he says. “For yourself. Your children. Especially your little girl.”

Selecting three  bracelets -for herself, Millie, and Addie-, she slips her hat back onto her head and bids farewell, giving an appreciative smile and a small wave as other customers approach.   And she grabs  Koen tightly by the hand as they slip into the crowd.

*****

He doesn’t hear the phone until it’s on the second ring, and he hastily  rinses the soap and shampoo from his body and hair, leaving the water running as he tosses open the door. Wincing and limping as he hurries across the room and grabs the cell from the ledge of the sink. He’d thought a shower - alternating between ice cold and steaming hot- would help alleviate both the fogginess in his brain and the multitude of aches inhabiting his body. But so far it’s done nothing.

“Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine.”  Relief rushes through him at the sound of her voice. Much calmer...brighter...than it was the first time around. “We just got back to the car. It didn’t start out too good though.”

He uses his shoulder to hold his phone to his ear and snags a towel from the back of the door, loosely wrapping it around his waist. “What happened?”

“They had my picture. At the checkpoint.”

“What the fuck..”

“It was an old one. From Ireland. When I had glasses and my hair was red and short. I almost passed out, I swear.  And I had my hat on and my shirt over my mouth and nose because the smell of the water was going to make me puke and they were going to make me take both off.”

“Jesus Christ…”

“Koen handled it. He told them I was his wife and that it was pretty obvious that I wasn’t the guy or the girl in the pictures. That I was pregnant and feeling sick and unless they wanted me puking everywhere, they’d let me through.”

“And they bought it?”

“Yup. But that was a close call. Way too close. And then I saw  Farhad. On the way back across the bridge.”

“Did he see you?”

“No. I pretended I needed to tie my shoe and by the time I stood back up, he was past us already. I swear...when I saw him...I have never been that angry in my entire life. I know he was just a kid when he almost killed you, but I was so fucking angry. He’s out there walking around like nothing ever happened and meanwhile he’s caused so many fucking problems! If you run into him, you better end him once and for all.”

He uses a second towel to vigorously rub at his hair as he heads out into the bedroom. “Esme…”

“I mean it, Tyler. I won’t have peace until he’s dead. He’s not a kid anymore. There’s no reason to spare him now.”

“Baby, that’s revenge.”

“And sometimes revenge is needed. And I need it. I need that peace of mind that I haven’t had in seven years. So if you run into him…”

“What’s the chances of that? That I’ll actually run into him?”  He hasn’t told her about Farhad’s involvement in Neysa and Aarav’s capture, or the pain and suffering he’s been inflicting on them.  Nothing good will come of that; it will serve only to stoke that already simmering fury and need for revenge that’s been eating away at her for seven years.

“What’s the chances I’d run into him on the bridge?”

He sighs, then grabs his discarded jeans from the back of the chair by the window.

“That little bastard is still out there, walking around. Look at the damage he’s caused. To you. To me. To us. He shouldn’t get away with that. He deserves to pay for what he did. HE NEEDS to pay.”

“You’re just working yourself up. That’s the let down from the adrenaline talking. Or the hormones. Maybe a mix of both. In an hour you won’t feel this way.”

“I’ve felt this way for seven years. It’s not just going to go away. Not unless I know he’s gone.”

“We’ll talk about this when you get back. Talk. Not fight. There’s no sense getting into it now. Everything else went okay?”

“I got the word out. I don’t think we’ll have to wait very long.”

“You’re fucking amazing. And I love you. So much.”

“I love you too.  I just wanted to let you know that we’re okay. I know you were probably worrying yourself sick. And Koen did a great job. He kept an eye on me; not a single hair on my hair was disturbed.”

“So he lives to see another day.”

“Basically,” she laughs. “I’ll see you soon.”

“You definitely will,” he assures her, then presses END on his cell.

****

“That was pretty fucking intense,” Koen declares, as he guns the ignition and peels out of the clearing, leaving a cloud of dirt and dust in his wake.

“Right? I nearly peed myself a couple of times. You saved my ass on that bridge. And you go to live out one of your fantasies.  You got me to be your wife for a few minutes.”

“I would have preferred a few minutes of something else, if you know what I mean.”

“Well you’ll have to keep dreaming about THAT. I’m a one man woman. You’ll have to live vicariously through him.”

“Lucky bastard,” Koen grumbles.

“He knows it too. But I’m pretty lucky myself. That’s something I should probably tell him more often. Even hard asses  probably like to feel appreciated once in a while.”

“You ask me, you SHOW him how much you appreciate him.”

She smiles at that.

“So that was him? The guy on that bridge. That was Farhad?”

“Yeah,” Esme nods. “That was him. The little prick that shot Tyler in the neck. From behind. A total bitch move.”

“He looks like a little bitch.”

“That kid almost took everything from me before it even started. He’s the reason I can’t let go of that place. The things I saw, the things I had to do? That’s all because of that fucking kid. And I can’t forgive him and I can’t move on; I can’t leave the place behind if he’s still here. I just can’t. What if Tyler did die that day? I would have gone home and found out about Millie and I would have gone through it all by myself.   She never would have known her dad. I wouldn’t even have had a picture to show her. All that I would have had was those five days in Dhaka. Those memories of it. That’s it.”

“But he DIDN'T die,” Koen points out. “He made it. Because of you. If you hadn’t stepped up and put your ass on the line…”

“Don’t do that,” she begs. “Don’t put me on a pedestal. I did what I had to do because I felt he deserved to live. And because selfishly, I wanted more time with him. But I don’t deserve praise and I don’t deserve praise for doing something anyone would have done.”

“Not anyone would have done it and you know that. You saved him. And not just on that bridge, either.”

“I just don’t feel comfortable with it; people thanking me and praising me and thinking so highly of me. Tyler deserved to live and that’s why I did it.  Because he’d more than made up for the mistakes he’d made and he deserved another chance.”

“And not everybody would see it that way, either. Would see HIM that way.”

“Well I saw him that way. I’ll always see him that way. And that’s why I want revenge. For him.”

“You want the  kid to die?”

Esme nods. “And if that makes me a bad person, so be it. But it’ll give me peace. I’ll finally be able to let go of this place. I NEED to let go of it.”

“I’ll do it,” Koen offers. “I’ll take care of the kid. For Tyler. For you.”

“You’d do that? For us?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I would.”

[thebattlelost]

A Christmas tale of one idiot. Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house screaming was heard as he was killing his spouse with blood splatter on everything including the mouse the children up stairs are laid up in their beds coughing and sneezing with Covid 19 temperatures soaring with breathing becoming harder I am sure Santa Klause will likely find them long dead. Do I have your attention just a reminder that we now have two more days until Christmas where more suicides are recorded then any other day of the year so when someone says to me "Have a happy holiday"  I want to throw up making me want to pick up a big rock wrap it in the prettiest Christmas paper place a pretty bow on it then smile as I throw it through their God damn window while I am screaming "here bitch is your fucking HoHoHo,"  Then all of the Christmas lights hanging everywhere I can see on everything they can find looking making it look like a stupid Disney movie causing the cost of electricity to go up giving all the crooks, the ones in suites the greedy bastards who care about nothing but themselves besides that, it hurts my eyes so bad that I want to break every single bulb-like it is a bubble wrapper or start taking target practice and shoot every mother fucking one of them then take the wire that's a lot of copper for the scrappers out there and wrap it around those executive necks then hang them up by the chimney with  care as I fill the house with gas and a yuletide log then light it on fire causing a mile wide explosion so Santa Clause would not miss out on the carnage and so he can look down right at me and kiss me ass from the air   then when the carolers come howling all of those stupid songs that hurt my ears wearing ridiculous clothes that   a clown would not even wear making me want to take my hose turn it on full blast and spray them down like two dogs humping and a partridge in a pear tree, then go to my room and turn the lock then place a note on my door that says I killed Santa Clause right down Santa clause lane so Christmas would be canceled for cutting me off on the road due to the fact that he is an asshole. so take your damn cheer and Happy New Year and shove them up to your ass. I mean everywhere you go you will see the best of all humanity putting up Christmas trees with all that shiny tinsel of Red and green buying overpriced gifts standing in line for hours to buy presents with money they do not have to spend in the first place using all their rent and bill cash on people they do not even like or who do not care about them, I mean really who in the hell needs ten stuffed animals that cost twenty cents to make in all shapes and sizes bending you over the table costing ridiculous prices or ugly sweaters that make you sick or crappy tasting fruitcakes that have been around since Nixon was in office while they are killing trees tearing down the rain forestand filling up the dumps with billions of tons of trash and litter all for what the hallmark channel made up  all the holidays that are supposed to be celebrating the day our Lord and King Baby Jesus Christ and maybe even baby Yoda was born, another thing you know what I bet Jesus was pissed off growing up only getting one gift with a card that said, Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas because if that were me I would be like Whoa "yo hey  whats this bitch one gift you cheap mother beeeeeeep" I will smite your ass and flood your crops, hey dad will you send a plague of wasp, I mean what is the deal with holiday spirit because there is nothing at all to cheer about, I mean the poor keep getting poorer living on the streets they got no money for presents, hell that cannot even eat, you have the television showing all the specials the ones where everyone gets presents making those unfortunate children feel like shit, because of who they were born into Imean I guess they get the gift of their father being locked away in prison who spent all the Christmas money on cocaine bail and woman for beating his mother half to death who is nothing but a whore drug addict passed out on the floor of the kitchen so hey kid have yourself a Merry Christmas I hope you get presents but he won't instead, he will be a foster kid living from home to home oh and son Happy Holidays even though your parents died a day ago hit and killed by a fucking drunk driver coming home from a Christmas party full of holiday spirit then walked away without a scratch saying, I did not do it there you go kid your parents were in the car on the way home sorry but Happy Holidays we saved the presents they are a little soaked with and guts oh wait there is you dads eye t will take that. Then you have the ones at home to face the dark all alone they want to laugh and smile but can't because of mental health they have depression or anxiety or some other form of a mental kind of disability no one to help them they never believe them only saying things like take a pill or twenty just fake a smile until they find them hanging by a rope by the chimney with care, dead who knows how long they been hanging there or holding a gun still, been dead two weeks all red and green and it ain't no Christmas spirit that blood splatter or sitting in a car that is full of presents and cookies and candy smothered and covered by carbon monoxide and oh hear that Christmas music blaring full of the Happy New Year where you find the addicts on the streets trying to snort up all of the white powder or the ice that has fallen or those heroes in places unknown fighting and dying for what? jingle bells and IEDs singing all they want for Christmas is their arms or legs they were blown away when they stopped and searched foreign Santas and his elves carrying a hundred pounds of explosive and radioactive Christmas toys so I say screw the holidays take your cheers I do not want to hear about Rudolph or a snowman or how those rich kids got fifty thousand dollars worth of toys but threw them all away and   killed their parents because they did not get what they asked for so take your jingle or I will kick your balls and tell Santa that if he comes here he will see naughty when I Claus his eyes out then shoot his reindeer mounting their heads on my wall,  so all of you greedy  suit-wearing bottom dollar soul-sucking corporations stop shoving your Christmas bullshit down the throats of those who have nothing at all to give, stop harassing our kids and charging forty dollars at the overcrowded malls to see your crappy looking smells like he has been drinking child molesting fake Kris Kringle figuring the kids will throw a fit so the parents will have to spend all that money. so take your HoHoHo and shove it up your holiday spirit and go back to hell with the other demons. 

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night, Poet Richard M Knittle Jr. A Poet's Journey