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astrovian · 4 years ago

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the official ranking of RA photoshoot outfits (pt. 1)

as @dykethorin said when I first proposed doing this particular ranking, “Some real Decisions™️ were made” with these shoots y’all

all photoshoot outfits (for part one) under the cut

the official ranking of Daniel Miller outfits here

the official ranking of Adam Price outfits here

the official ranking of Claude Becker outfits here

guys, I’m crying with laughter

hey quick question: what the fuck was this photoshoot??? (and also I need current RA in these poses)

it’s real nice to see a fun, loosey-goosey RA (before he established himself in the broody-character archetype) but there are so many questionable fashion choices here

when I started this list I had two options:

1) allow some leeway to the older photoshoots because, let’s be real, the early 2000s were an atrocious time for fashion that a lot of us would most rather forget we participated in

2) judge them by today’s standards, which is harsh but some of these outfits deserve it

naturally, I chose option #2

It’s so hard to even pick where to start. the too-loose pants? the ill-fitting suit jacket? The untucked dress shirt that is for some god-forsaken reason undone in two separate directions??

I have chosen one thing that sums the outfit up as a whole: what monster decided to put the shirt collar over the suit jacket????

the jazz hands scream “hey I’m a FUN guy” but the suit screams “I’m the yo-pro asshole at the office who is so unreliable you’re pretty sure some nepotism must surely have had an influence during the hiring process”

I originally said ‘I guess we should be glad there’s no surfer necklace’ but then I had the horrifying realisation that it’s a 50/50 shot as to whether that would improve this outfit or make it worse. and you know when there’s even slimmest chance a surfer necklace could improve an outfit somehow that it’s time to take a good hard look at yourself

1/10 just because this photoshoot made me genuinely laugh out loud

wait I’m sorry, what-

how on god’s green earth is this the same photoshoot (?) as guys, I’m crying with laughter????

the great thing about these lists is that you are getting my genuine reactions as I progress down the images. I had no idea this was the same photoshoot (?) until approximately 10 seconds after writing guys, I’m crying with laughter

this perfectly encapsulates the duality of man – one moment it’s all goofy jazz hands and the next it’s a hunk-of-the-week moment

this man and guys, I’m crying with laughter are the equivalent of looking at pictures of yourself in high school vs. in your 20s/30s/at your prime. the whiplash is insane

and why is he in front of barred windows?? it appears they were afraid of what would happen if this hunk escaped into the general population

I still can’t believe they kept the collar over the suit jacket though

I’m so conflicted guys, the urge to numerically rank this terrible outfit is strong but uh… as per usual shirtless ones aren’t fair/10

revenge of the killer surfer necklace

do you ever look back at a specific moment in time and are so thankful that someone took one tiny action? one small thing they did in the heat of the moment that probably seemed innocuous at the time but had far-reaching consequences? for example, it might something as simple as deciding to take a umbrella on a bright sunny day only for it to be extremely useful on the way home when the weather turns

this is how I feel about the person who decided RA could leave that top button closed for this shoot

if you squint, you can see the surfer necklace under that top button. and thank god you have to squint

this is such an early 2000s look though. that shirt by itself is fine and would actually look killer with a properly fitted suit nowadays. it’s the shirt dress and loose denim look with makes no sense to me

2/10 for a pretty uninspiring early 2000s outfit

revenge of the uh…

from the same shoot as revenge of the killer surfer necklace this loses .1 of a mark for adding a jacket, while pretty innocuous, to an already busy outfit

1.9/10

were we really that afraid of legs?

why were we, as a society, so obsessed with loose, ill-fitting pants? why were we so desperate to conceal legs from the general population? what secrets were we trying to hide? I understand the comfort factor on the hand, but on the other did anyone actually have eyes

the sneakers/suit combo I can definitely live with. but those pants (that I’m convinced must be pyjama pants in another life) turns it all into a sloppy, blurry mess

2.7/10

is it a bird? is it a plane? no, it’s… a floating RA?

what is it about photoshoots in the early 2000s where they just make no damn sense. it’s my opinion that the theme/concept of a shoot should not overshadow the subject, and that’s the correct opinion (as well as being the exact opposite as to what’s happening here)

maybe there was a hint or reason as to why floating wizard RA exists in the article that this shoot presumably came with, but I don’t get it. clearly I’m far too literal of a person and need to embrace my inner artist

looks pretty, still weird

moving on the entire point of this post, the outfit, I uh,… oh god

I’m pretty sure this the same (and similar, if not) outfit RA wore in the North & South behind-the-scenes, and how we as a society went from John Thornton’s stiff collar and top hat to this is amazing

maybe we were so obsessed with period dramas back then because it was a nice alternative to indulge our eyes in when we had to face the harsh, cold reality of modern fashion at the time

anyway – trust me, while I am all for a man in a necklace, let’s pray surfer necklaces never come back 2.9/10

I genuinely was looking up “pinstriped jacket jokes” because I couldn’t think of anything off the top of my head but then I realised I don’t need a joke here because pinstriped jackets are a joke all by themselves

I feel like there may be a situation where pinstriped suit jackets might grow on me, but this is not that situation

also I don’t really know where I stand on the belt, but I certainly think I’m leaning towards the ‘why’ part of the scale. if you’re gonna make a belt that prominent in a photoshoot, at least make it a fun belt

3/10

I’m noticing a trend in these photoshoots and it’s these horrific backgrounds

I will admit that the non-patterned suit jacket is going with the jeans a lot better here. but now that my attention isn’t focused on that, all I can see are the dress shoes. WHY DID YOU PUT DRESS SHOES WITH STRAIGHT-LEGGED JEANS???

please someone I am begging you, can we as a society get to tapered jeans already

3.3/10

did RA genuinely ever get put into any clothes that actually fitted him properly at this point in time?

look, I know I’ve been picking on the bootcut jeans & loose attire that plagued us in the early 2000s (or 2006, to be specific to this photoshoot). what can I say, it’s the low-hanging fruit. or loose-hanging, as the case may be

I do appreciate that rich brown leather jacket and that smile. but that’s where it stops. someone take dress shirts and dress shoes away from bootcut denim PLEASE

3.5/10

this is the bad-boy from your hometown in every rom-com ever

as with well this in an interesting development that I can’t say I disapprove of below, the lower rating is simply because from what we can see, it’s just a plain shirt. however, that dipped v-neck? mm-mmm

look at that smirk. this man knows what he’s doing to us, dammit.

why do you persist in hurting us this way 4/10

well this in an interesting development that I can’t say I disapprove of

god bless the person who said we need this shirt wet and clinging and only half-soaked

I’m so sad that I have to give this such a low ranking because uh… we’ve established I have a weakness for those biceps

this does also get bonus points for the creativity of “only this portion of your shirt needs to be wet for your close-up” but at the end of the day it is a solitary grey t-shirt even if it is floating in an attractive sea of muscles

4.5/10

the photographer really said ‘who gives a crap about the clothes’, huh?

an interesting shirt! but as much as I love RA’s face, we should be able to see more of the shirt (and the outfit) because uh… it’s hard to make a judgement call on a photoshoot outfit without that

also, it’s just so hard to concentrate on some of these with RA staring into my soul like that

*sigh* 4.6/10

hello sir, are you as kinky as your shirt?

this is one of the few occasions on which I will give the bootleg baggy jeans a pass. interesting choice to go shoeless for all outfits in this shoot – but the way the shirt is all crumpled is annoying me an incessant amount. I am begging you, someone pass this stylist an ironing board PLEASE

4.7/10 for a crinkle-cut RA

all that’s missing is the beer cans

I’m not sure of the short sleeves here. I think with the shirt open as well my brain doesn’t know where to look

HOWEVER, this is an RA from the early 2000s that I can get behind – largely because he’s not drowning in his denim

the nice, plain belt which matches with the shirt? excellent

interesting choice to go with the bare feet – this entire look (and the quality of that concrete floor) screams ‘we’re chilling at a summer party in your parent’s basement in the early 2000s’ if not for one thing – that couch is way too nice looking. am I being too pedantic about this? no. If you’re gonna go for the whole basement party look, you need a couch that’s falling apart and has at least one questionable stain on it

that being said, I would hang out in this man’s basement

it’s a shirtless one so once again, I cannot give a numerical answer/10

I’m not sure if this man is dangerous or is just an idiot

they may have been wanting RA to embrace his inner Daniel Miller here but that is NOT a jacket that should have its collar popped or if it is, it definitely should not be popped that much. just turn the intensity of that pop down by… at least 35%

this look is telling me to embrace my inner lacy, ruffled collar that men in England used to wear around the 1500 - 1600s. I hate it and refute it with every part of my soul

this is what happens when you embrace your inner Daniel a little bit too much 5.6/10

the return of the leg monster

not much to say about this except once again we are terrified to put RA’s legs into well-fitted pants. what secrets are hiding underneath those voluminous billows? will we ever know?

5.8/10

the one that crushed my hopes and dreams and then spat on my corpse

so I admit it, I got really excited because I thought that this was a leopard print shirt and I was like “this is something I did NOT know that I needed until right now”, even if I would argue that it could have been nice in a little bit of a brighter colour. no matter, I thought it was a nice subtle addition to this plain suit and was just very excited at the prospect of RA rocking leopard print even though I almost always hate leopard print in single every form it comes in

and then. upon zooming. a disappointing paisley. sorry, paisley lovers. I hate it

I would also argue here that the pocket square would have been nice in a plain, bright colour rather than another patterned item thrown into the mix. come on stylists, stop letting me down with your pocket squares

also if there is a point where a suit can be too shiny, I think we’ve found it. I could wax floors with that fabric and I’d rather be thinking about RA’s talent & good looks rather than imagining him being used as a human mop

the hand porn is uh… strong with this one 6/10

the hand porn one

the ring is a nice subtle touch but I can’t decide where I stand on this tie. for me, the checks are just a *wee* tad too small. so small that it I’m scared it will turn into one of those optical illusions with a number in it if I stare at it the tie for too long

the pocket square could also have not tried so hard to blend in with the rest of the suit jacket. give me some colour, baby!

Richard really needs to put his hand down so I can actually concentrate on the clothes 6.5/10

I’m just dotty for this one (I’m so sorry y’all)

so suave. so shiny. I wanna stroke that fabric so bad, it looks so soft

the dots bring a nice yet understated touch to a monotone outfit and GOOD LORD those thighs

they just had to pose him like this to torture us, I’m convinced. also they call him a “commanding gentleman” in the subtitle which is really just unnecessary to verbalise when he’s sitting like this

Someone put me in a rom-com with this man 7.2/10

the modern magician (at least he ain’t floating this time)

I know that the hat should be the focus of this shoot but I can’t get over those shoes

tangentially related, I have never understood why they make men’s dress shoes so excessively long and pointed. these certainly aren’t a good example of this but uh… I don’t understand why men’s dress shoes are clown shoes

I think part of what’s throwing me off is the sockless look. normally I can handle (and even love) it with some shoes but there’s something about the hem of those jeans and those shoes that turn them into slippers when worn sockless

I love the two-tone scarf but what really excites me is the plaid shirt that we can barely see. I’m eternally sad that they had RA hid it in this pose. and also, come one. you could’ve at least gotten a chair with an actual back to it. that can’t be good for his back at all

the one bonus of this outfit is the hat because when do we ever get RA in hats?? and hats that aren’t baseball caps?? a nice, rare touch. but also one which hides most of that face so…

can we talk about the fact that my gut tells me those jean cuffs have been deliberately turned up at the front and all I want in life is to reach into this image and flip them down 7.5/10

*pterodactyl noises*

holy macaroni. that demin shirt. and this shirt’s even a nice lighter denim colour??? and the v-neck?? SIR

I know he’s worn some faux-denim shirts in the last few years (see: Uncle Vanya rehearsal pics) but as outerwear? knocked it out of the park in this one

also I know this is a shirt not a jacket, but this shirt made me think about how I never realised how much I needed RA in jean jackets until today

It could be argued that a nice crew neck cut would work slightly better than the v-neck but that’s really a personal choice

a lovely respite for my weary eyes 7.7/10

a truly, truly blessed image. the sort of image that would bring you endless good luck

I know I’ve given a lot of pants crap on this list but these. these are the ones. these are doing the lord’s work for sure. and god bless the person who decided to shoot from this particular side angle.

and then the shirt?? I’m honestly afraid it may rip if he moves. I could leave or take the tie though. it’s not adding a whole lot to this outfit and I would much rather that shirt be uh… open at the top for a glimpse of uh… well. you know.

this RA outfit laughs in the face of all those early 2000s RA outfits 8.1/10

me running to open my phone every time an RA-related notification pops up

my only sadness is that this shoot was in black & white. we need more action-shot RA shoots!

also the subtle plaid?? *chef’s kiss*

well, I said ‘my only sadness’ but is it also me or are both ends of that tie strangely square? that is throwing me off from an otherwise spectacular photoshoot outfit, I won’t lie

8.5/10 for a man of action

this is what we all like to think we look on the way to work. hate to break it to ya - we don’t

god, that wind-ruffled hair. the rustic look provided by both the suit material & the photo editing. that stare over the top of that coffee mug. the casual ‘I just picked up the paper on my way out this morning’

words fail me

would it be weird if I said I would pay money to be able to run my hands through anyone’s hair that looks as soft and wind-swept as that 8.9/10

the comfiest RA

I love. love. love this outfit, especially the sweater. the pant colour goes extremely well with this one and I’m so glad they didn’t just stick him in jeans. the is the softest, comfiest RA and I love it. this is an RA who you can simultaneously share a beer and takeaway with at home, cuddling up on the sofa while you watch a film, as well as an RA who will take you out to eat fancy pasta at an upscale restaurant.

the choice of sitting on a stool is also great. my only real gripe here is the watch (and even that’s a minor one, really). the watch isn’t THAT bad, but it’s chunky face reminds me slightly of the watches boys in my class would wear in middle school. the watch could be a *wee wee tad* slicker, but really, I’m nitpicking here (and this is the only time I will admit to it)

the more I look at it, the more this becomes one of my fav RA pics. the slight smile. the relaxed pose. the hint of hand porn

weirdly, for some reason this picture gives me the exact same comfy and ‘just chilling out’ feeling as when I hear the song “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer 9.5/10

#richard armitage #yes this is a multi-part one because uh... there's a lot of photoshoots guys #also yes most of the early 2000s ones ended up at the bottom and I refuse to apologise for that

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writing-is-my-guilty-pleasure · 4 years ago

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Graduation || Kylo Ren x Reader

A/N: Based on an anonymous request - 'Hi can I get a Kylo Ren request where reader is from earth and studying in college and it’s her graduation soon so Kylo surprises her by showing up at her ceremony when they’ve been in a sort of long distance relationship and Kylo has told her many times he doesn’t see the need for her to have such qualifications when she’s to be empress but nevertheless he’s proud?? Thank you!!! :-)' - I presumed that college is the same as university in the UK and I ashamedly had to google if college is the same as university which it seems to be, so imma roll with that - reader is in early 20s.

Sorry if this isn’t what you pictured anon - this was the only way I could think of making this request work! So, as Earth itself is not a planet in the Star Wars universe, I've twisted things so it is - and the First Order was a terrible organisation, but under Kylo’s leadership has grown to be a more peaceful organisation. Also, wasn’t specified but I picture Earth to be a lot more futuristic, (kind of like Star Trek in the Chris Pine edition - a lot more technologically advanced, as Star Wars has a lot of advanced technology). A bit different to canon Star Wars, but I couldn’t see how the reader would be with Kylo when he’s as destructive as he is in Star Wars, especially when she’s a college student on Earth.

Star Wars Masterlist

Main Masterlist

“Hey Kylo!” You grinned as you answered a call on your data-pad, and Kylo’s face came into view, blurry for a moment as the video quality settled. You adjusted the camera as you pulled out various sheets of paper from your bag, as well as a few textbooks so that you could study and complete assignments while talking to Kylo. “How was your day?” You asked as you got started on your work.

“It was relatively dull, as usual.” Kylo said smoothly, dark eyes fixated on you fondly as you flicked through your textbooks to help with your assignment. “You know my usual routine - track down those who rebel against us, et cetera.” He mused, and you smiled as you worked. “How was yours?”

“Oh...busy, as usual.” You quoted him distractedly, jotting down notes on the subject you were currently studying for. “I had two different lectures today, and then I was doing work at lunch so it was a pretty full day for me.” You smiled tiredly at him through the screen. “So I’m a bit tired. I don’t have any lectures tomorrow, but I do have a shift at the campus cafe, so it’ll be another relatively busy day tomorrow as well.” You rubbed a hand over your face, trying to hide a yawn from Kylo.

“You know, once you become empress, you won’t need such qualifications.” Kylo spoke, leaning back in his chair resting his head in one hand. “It displeases me to see you so stressed and tired, when soon you’ll be living a life of luxury.” Even though his tone was disapproving and concerned, his low, calm voice always managed to soothe you.

“I know, Kylo, you’ve told me that many times since we started dating.” You laughed lightly, grinning at him, brushing some of your hair out of your eyes. “But you forget that before we met, I had a normal life, with relatively normal expectations.” You said, beginning to write your assignment. “I mean, I definitely had more opportunities than others considering that my parents are well known, but if they weren’t, I wouldn’t have met you!” You smiled as you spoke, not looking up from your work. “My parents wanted me to get these qualifications so that I could get a job, but that was before I met you,” You paused, eyes trailing over your notes. Your parents also wanted you to have a backup plan in case things turned sour between you and Kylo and you needed to support yourself, but you weren’t going to tell him that. They were just looking out for you. “And you know that I enjoy studying at college, being busy and working hard; it’s satisfying seeing hard work pay off.” You reminded him.

“We live such different lives.” Kylo murmured, reaching forwards to grab another data-pad, and started to type on the screen, presumably responding to a message to do with his job. “We both have busy days, yet I do worry for you sometimes.” You looked up at that, only to meet his gaze through the screen. “You seem tired every time we talk - I don’t want you to get overwhelmed with your work, Y/N.” You put down your pen, and rested your chin on your hands, waiting for him to continue. “And I have...bad news. It’s the reason I wanted to talk to you tonight.”

You knew what this was going to be about. Your graduation. You didn’t mind it if Kylo couldn’t make it; you knew that he was incredibly busy, and considering your relationship was mostly long distance, you knew he’d be working far away. You gestured for him to continue.

“I’m afraid that I am unable to make it to you graduation ceremony.” He spoke slowly, and you could hear the guilt in his voice and see it on his face. “I have tried everything I can to make it there, but it clashes with something that must be done out here.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m really sorry, sweetheart. You know that I’d much rather be there with you-”

"Ben." You interrupted, wanting nothing more than to hold his hand at that moment. “It’s okay. I knew there was a very small chance of you being able to make it.” You smiled encouragingly. “I admit I am a bit sad that you can’t come, but I’m not mad or devastated. You have a really busy and important job, and I don’t blame you at all.” You weren’t lying. You’d made sure throughout your relationship that the two of you were always honest with each other, and if there was a problem, the two of you would talk it out over a call, sometimes lasting for hours. The last thing you wanted was for your relationship to crumble as a result of your distance. Kylo let one of his rare smiles slip onto his face as you spoke, and resumed a more relaxed position in his chair.

“I...thank you for understanding.” Kylo replied once you had finished talking. “You...know that I love you, and I would never do anything to purposely hurt you.”

“I know.” You said gently, and after a few moments of silence, you changed the topic of conversation to something more cheerful, as you carried on with your assignments, with Kylo occasionally answering messages on his data-pad from people he worked with.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Once you’d finished the call, you sighed, running a hand through your hair, and reflected on how your relationship had grown since you first met.

The two of you met about four years ago, at one of the many conferences your parents were invited to. Even though you’d been to plenty of conferences before, your parents had reminded you time and time again, that this time the Solo family would be in attendance - your parents didn’t work for Han Solo and Leia Organa, but they were still regarded very highly amongst most people.

You knew when they entered, as everyone turned to the doorway, and grew silent for a brief moment of awe and general respect - Leia Organa, especially, was a force to be reckoned with, and earned all the respect people gave her. As you peered around your parents, you saw them enter, and then a boy, around your age, maybe a few years older, enter behind them. That must be their son, you thought to yourself as you watched him mingle in the crowd, not talking much to anyone, simply giving formal greeting when needing to.

When Ben Solo was born, Leia and Han wanted their child’s name to remain private until he wished to reveal it to the public. Instead, he had chosen the name Kylo Ren, so that he could still be identified by appearance but wanted to keep his real name hidden and kept private. The family had fallen into a lot of controversy a few years ago; Kylo Ren had joined the First Order - an incredibly dangerous organisation that defied many of the beliefs and practises that Leia and Han preached. However, these beliefs must have greatly influenced Kylo, as after the previous leader, Snoke and unfortunately (and mysteriously) died, Kylo was in a powerful enough position to guide the First Order into a less violent rule, and he had been greatly credited for it.

Anyway, you’d been awkwardly wandering around the room, as you weren’t one for social interaction with complete strangers who were also mostly adults, and you just happened to bump into Kylo Ren himself, and there was the awkward: ‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t see you there,’ and ‘No, no, I wasn’t watching where I was going’ interaction, and maybe it was the fact that you two were the closest in age of any other guests, but the awkward meeting turned into a slightly less awkward introduction, and before you knew it the two of you had been talking for most of the event. You’d been in awe of him the whole time you were talking - you were nobody compared to him, and it helped that he was incredibly attractive, and surprisingly easy to talk to, despite how quiet he originally seemed. Something just clicked when you spoke - at first your conversations had been topical and less personal, but the longer you spoke the more you wanted to know about Kylo, and he was surprisingly funny, cracking a few jokes here and there, making you laugh more often than not.

The two of you kept in contact after the first meeting - your parents and Kylo’s parents had noticed the two of you talking in a corner of the room, and your parents had gladly introduced themselves to the Solo’s, (they’d been admirers for years, while you had never taken too much interest until you met Kylo.) and encouraged you to keep in touch with Kylo. At first it was probably because it was the Solo family, but after a while, talking to Kylo nearly everyday despite the distance you grew a lot happier, and even though you were glued to whatever screen you were using to communicate your parents were happy if you were happy.

After a few months of being friends, the two of you started to feel differently towards each other, and there was a while where the idea of calling him caused butterflies to squirm around in your stomach. Eventually you did confess your feelings towards him, surprising the both of you as it wasn’t like you to be that bold, but you didn’t start dating until a year later, (your parents didn’t want you dating until you were 18, coincidentally just when you had started college.) and it was then that Kylo realised he could trust you enough

So, the two of you have been together ever since, and it hadn’t been perfect. Long distance wasn’t easy in any way, and was extremely frustrating at times, but Kylo was so special to you that you really didn’t want to let him go; so the two of you have been making it work for almost four years, and neither of you had any intention of breaking it off anytime soon.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

The time had come; you’d written all the exams that needed to be written, had probably more than your fair share of stressing sessions over calls with Kylo, and it was finally your graduation day. You were incredibly relieved to be graduation, a little sad to leave all the good memories behind, but mostly relieved. And there was the fact that Kylo wouldn’t be attending the ceremony, which dimmed your smile significantly every time you thought about it.

As you and your classmates were all lining up to receive your certificate and accept your qualifications, you caught sight of your parents waving at you to gain your attention, and you smiled and waved back, blowing them a kiss.

“You okay?” You turned around, to see one of your best friends, Amelia, looking at you with concern laced in her expression. “Boyfriend troubles?” She asked sympathetically.

“Not really,” You sighed. “He couldn’t make it today, and I don’t blame him at all; but I just miss him. We’ve been doing a long-distance thing for about four years now, and today would have been a really good day to see him.” Your smile drooped slightly at the thought. “But apart from that, not much else is wrong. We’re graduating!” You threw an arm around her shoulder. “We should be celebrating, not talking about my relationship.”

“If you’re sure.” Amelia chuckled at your actions. “We should go out for drinks tomorrow or something - I have plans with my family tonight to celebrate.” She indicated to where her family was sitting, giving them a small wave as they waved frantically at her.

“Me too - my parents are taking me out to dinner.” Your smile widened at that. You’d missed spending quality time with your parents where you weren’t stressed out of your mind, so you were really looking forward to dinner.

The two of you exchanged small talk as the line to the stage grew smaller and smaller, until it was your turn to step onto the stage. Amelia gave you a little nudge forwards, and you took a deep breath before ascending the steps, exhaling to calm yourself. As you reached the head of your college, who greeted you with a smile, you glanced out into the crowd to see your parents, but something in the very edge of your peripheral made you look further, into the far corner of the crowd, where some family members were standing, as far more people had attended the ceremony than your college had anticipated. You inhaled sharply, and it took everything in you not to trip over your gown.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion. There, standing at the back of the crowd, dressed in an immaculate, and very formal black suit, stood Kylo. You beamed at him, feeling happy tears spring to your eyes, and the world went back to normal speed, as you accepted your diploma, had your picture taken and shook your Headmaster’s hand gratefully, and hurried down the steps to hug your parents.

Once they’d finished hugging you and pressing excessive amounts of kisses all over your cheeks, you left your diploma with them, and quickly and excitedly made your way over to Kylo. When you’d made it through the majority of the crowd, you broke into a run, letting out a laugh. Kylo grinned at you; one of the rare, truly happy grins, and opened his arms as you ran towards him. As you reached him, he swept you up into his arms, hugging you tightly as you clung to him like a human hermit.

“What are you doing here?” You asked joyfully, gazing at him adoringly as he finally put you down. “And when did you get here? How are you here, I thought you had an important meeting or something?” You chatted away, reaching up on your tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek.

“Luckily for me, and for you, the officer in charge of the meeting fell ill last night, so the meeting was cancelled. I got here as soon as I could.” He smiled down at you, pressing a kiss to your forehead in turn. “I couldn’t miss your graduation, sweetheart.” He murmured, and it made you wanted to melt into a puddle. He leaned down, kissing you softly, and you couldn’t help but smile as he kissed you. Eventually, he pulled away, gazing fondly at you. “I’m so proud of you, Y/N.” Your cheeks hurt from how hard you were smiling, and you were surprised you hadn’t cried from happiness.

“Come on,” You clasped his hand tightly, swinging it between the two of you. “Let’s go see my parents and get dinner, I’m starving.” You tugged on his arm lightly, and pulled him along to greet your parents.

#kylo ren #kylo ren x reader #ben solo #adam driver #kylo ren imagines #star wars #star wars imagines #star wars x reader #adam driver x reader #star wars the last jedi #star wars the force awakens #star wars the rise of skywalker

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catfish-and-the · 6 years ago

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aight ive been getting super emo over my favourite sunny eyed dreamboat boy mr sir van mccann so im just going to record my catb concert from three years ago here so it doesnt “wisp away with the sands of time” as i wrote in seventh grade (not after the catb concert) disclaimer i kno that some catb fans say that catb arent the same as they were way back when and im not here to counter that but this is what happened to me when catb were still small and it was 2015 and i know that things mustve changed but im here to document my own experience my hands are shaking btw

June 9 2015 - Varsity Theatre, Minneapolis MN

We got to the venue super early cos we wanted front row or something super fuckin close to front row and yeah man there were maybe like 5 people ahead of us super cool i had my clear backpack, my classic clear concert backpack, and im not really sure how we passed the time but eventually i was “sent on a mission” to see what lies in the alley between the venue and the adjacent building and so i walk over as casually as possible and i pass by the alley and turn my head and lo and behold tall boy Van is standing there in his green reflective sunglasses and dark outfit and i fuckign STOP cos van just he radiates this wonderful energy of that classic leo magnificence but hes smiling, hes friendly and he waves to me and i, being socially inexperienced, am too afraid to approach him so i wave back and WALK BACK THE WAY I CAME. so van watches me pass by the alley, wave at his wave, and then go back. super weird. i regret it but i think its funny. all i know is van smiled at me and he waved at me and i did something clumsy

concert: fuckin grand man i love the balcony, i love the red lights, i loved being second row dead center in front of dreamboat boy i love hourglass i still have my all time fav catb song rango on video fuckin class tops every concert ive been to so far bc i was second row (but am was so good too)

post concert: we were waiting s o l o n g for catb to come out. they didnt come out. I again was sent another mission back to the alley and there i saw a Very Tall Figure and was like fuck. somehow we approached and somehow I got pushed to the front so alas im standing in this narrow fucking alley at like midnight w a very tall man (whos beaming at me, sunglasses OFF) and since im in the front vans like approaching and i was yellin at myself like dont fuckign stand there bihinch so i muster the courage to meet him halfway and he greets me and holds out his hand for me to shake (I shake it) and here things start getting a little blurry in terms of order so here it is, most likely out of order but who will ever know for sure:

Somehow we hug. I forgot if i asked or if it just happendd but we hug. Hes very soft and very warm and he smiled.

i told him how great the concert was and how much i loved his music and how his concert “made my night.” He said something (while smiling) and then he said “youve just made my night” and of course i insist that hes made MY night cos like... no ones ever told me i meant something before so i told him again “you made my night” and HE SAYS “YOUVE MADE MINE” AGAIN LIKE BOY...... TAKE MY COMPLIMENT (he won the argument i left it at “no, you made my night”)

i remember that i got him a gift and a letter so at some point i pull it out and hand it to him. He smiles and says thank you, “i’ll be sure to read it” and tucks the letter into his chest pocket meanwhile i also hand him a little stuffed turtle and i, being a Weakling in social situations, quickly explain that i hope he likes it and that “im not sure if you like turtles, but-” and he cuts me off and reassures me that h eDOES like turtles and he takes the Little Turtle in his hand and bends down next to me (cos im small and van is Tall) and tells me about the time a fan gave him a little turtle bracelet ehich he wore almost all the time and pointed to his wrist of the arm he wore it with (i forget, oh dear. i believe it was his right?) (”but it broke”) and he looked at me and smiled while we were in that position his presence is very warm and then he straightens back up and holds the little turtle in his hand up against the golden streetlight where he “promises to take good care of it” and i swear the pure joy on his face the entire time made me fall in love (though it fell dormant until 2018)

At soe point i take a very bad, very poor quality selfy with van but to this day it remains on the back of my clear phonecase becasue we looked so happy despite the terrible lighting and it reminds me of him. van had to bend down next to me to take the picture, and his arm was around my shoulders. He was hesitant to stand back upright cos he thought i wanted ot take more. i didnt (another regret but boy do i treasure the one selfy)

I hand my phone to catbs old manager for group pics. He (the manager) and van take selfies on my phone, which i dont discover until later

we take group pictures. we r all happy. i havent looked at those.

i know its time to leave because i want the other fans to meet the band. I dont want to leave obviously. I ask van for another hug. I hold on to him very tight, and he does the same. i can only reach his collarbone, despite him bending down to reach me.

Van has an endearing way of hugging, ive noted, where we hug at the side (my right, his left) together while the other sides are kinda separate, not touching, but u have ur arms wrapped around eachother, my right arm underneath his left and onto his back while he can quite literally put his entire arm around me, the opposite arms are kind of around each other. I try to go onto my toes to hold on to him closer because he feels like a safe haven and he makes me feel like i belong somewhere and he makes me feel tranquil and warm and everything positive but not in the jittery excitement kind of way, just peaceful. I hold on to him very tight. its the last time.

We wave goodbye. its very cold without him despite being warm enough to wear a skirt and short sleeve

I go home and remember that i have another little turtle, but this one is blue and a bit worn (thus i gave van the green one). I name it Van and keep it on my bookshelf.

#sometimes when im upset i repeat these details to myself in order to ingrain it into my memory forever becasue #im so afraid of losing it and of losing the memory of him.#and this is why its so hard for me to believe that hes changed (for the Not Better) because when i met him #you couldnt mistake the pure happiness on his fasce and no one really has ever looked that way because of me before #and so ever since then i like to call van my best friend because tast how he made me feel like we were best frineds #but i know we arent and i think it would be sad to call him that when these days i do have friends so i call him my 'Best Fendi' cos hes a #'designer boy' and fendi is pretty close to friend in terms of spelling and ive realized the yellow lights are the yellow of fendi hahah #oh man im oging to cry i havent iver tried writing stories that are based off of this but ive never written anything so specific #like plotlines tossed this is what happened this is what i remember no characters to hide behind nothing this is it #its been htree years and i still havent gone back to listen to tyrants or watch my videos i know ill cry if i do #it was the first time i felt like i belonged somewhere because up until then the only friends i had were toxic friends #so i like to think of van as my first friend #ok im fuckign rambling now im going to stop here hahahhahhah #ignore me #june 9 2015 #if if if #this is why im so in denial of what youve been saying about van changing i just after that i couldnt believe #i cant believe that what they say and the boy i met are the same #even though rationally i know they are right but Emo Me loves to disregard it thus this blog is still functioning #with love letters and sappy tags and heart eyes #maybe i wont ever come to accept it #and so van became one of my fav boys not just catb as my top 4 bands but van himself #i dont knwo i dont have enough control over the english language to descrive everything i dont i wish i did #💚💚💚

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iphoenixrising · 7 years ago

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I can't stop thinking about your Dr!Tim verse (This isnt a prompt btw, I just wanted you to know that Ive been thinking about your writing and how much its inspired me. Sorry for how long this is). I keep imagining the man on the bridge being the hot topic on every news station and paper, even more than Batman and Robin. Everyone wants to know who he is. Is he ok? Did he give his life saving his fellow Gotham citizens? There are a lot of questions

(2)and few answers. Those in the loop are more than content to leave it that way,but somehow it gets leaked that Gothams new hero is a young prodigy doctor atGotham General. Tim is not made aware of this until he gets mobbed by reportersas he’s leaving his 36 hour shift and getting asked a lot of innapropriatepersonal questions. And it’s not nearly as funny as you seem to think it is,Jason.

(3)Of course his boyfriends quickly stop finding the situation funny once the joboffers from all over the world start rolling in. Dozens of them, all offeringthings like millions of dollars in salary, positions like chief of surgery, allin state of the art hospitals that are properly funded and don’t reside incities with crazy clown attacks. And it hurts because, how could they ask himto stay? How could they ask their genius sugar to tie himself down to a city

(4)that chews everyone in it up and spits them out, to be a doctor in a hospitalbarely scraping by, how could they ask their genius boy to refuse a once in alifetime opportunity to escape this shithole of a city and make something bigof himself, all to stay with two vigilantes who cant guarantee they’ll make ithome each night. They couldn’t do it, they want whats best for their boy, evenif it means he leaves them. They can’t ask him to stay.

(5)Damian of course has no such qualms about blackmailing, er requesting Drakestay in the city, and subsequently with his older brothers (Because if he hurtsthem, Damian will hurt Tim twice as bad). Which leads to a very awkwardconversation in which Damian threatens Tim not to leave, Tim is confusedbecause “who said anything about leaving?” And then they have a heartto heart about how Tim isn’t stuck at Gotham general, he chose that hospital.And that he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

So, hi babe :D Iknow this has been sitting in my inbox for a minute, sorry >.

Brilliant, babe. Justbrilliant.

I also get to play withanother back-and-forth I haven’t really gotten to yet in these little things,so I’m super excited for B and Tony Stark to just have a little snark-fest,yeah?

Tony showed up a fewweeks early for his quarterly “visit” to Gotham.

It’s disconcertingbecause Tony Stark goes between creating new innovations to privatelyconsulting around the US on the most dire of cases in need of a precise handand large enough ego to make miracles happen. He might have to do somebookkeeping even though Pepper is his CEO and runs his company with iron heels. When he’s not working, he has a nice relationship waiting for himat home.

All of it didn’t leaveTony much time to be running to Gotham before schedule to do someridiculous amount of pouting.

And yet?

Here they are.

When Tim actually getsto turn away from the stack of charts he’s updating, he has an oh shitmoment because Tony…isn’t immediately talking. No white coat, just asnazzy three-piece, arms crossed over his chest, and utterly

Silent.

Tim automaticallystands, taking in his old mentor from head to foot, looking for clues toadd to the inevitable diagnosis hovering in his brain pan.

(Because, you know, thattime when he was still a lowly bachelor and could take a month off of Mercy topretty much live in Tony’s facility while things like brain tumors threatenedhis Tony Stark’s life. His hands didn’t shake the whole time he was rootingaround that famous mound of grey matter–that’s when he knew he’d hit the bigleagues.)

“If you even think,”Tony starts, low and angry, “of taking the offer from UCLA over mine, Iwill be an even bigger asshole about your terrible life choices.”

Oh.

Oh shit.

Word has apparently gottenaround.

It started out with aquick blurb on the news, blurry camera phone picture of emergency workers andplain clothes civilians jumping to action in the middle of a crisis, a humaninterest story and all that. A glimmer of goodness among the chaos.

More picture with betterquality once the shock and aftermath died down, started to flood Social Media,even various videos of cables snapping and people running, trying not to gettrampled. One the media latched onto just happened to be of him carrying thelittle girl from the car and helping her mother up in the back of a truck tosend them to safety.

The one with himbreaking through the fallen debris made Dick gasp from the table where he waspatching his suit and Jay wrap a big hand around his ankle to squeeze.

The one where he almostlost his grip climbing the wall of broken shit and flaming car remains isprobably where someone saw the connection because the class of kids went on thenews, holding up colorful signs with Thank-You, Dr. Drake!

He was happy they allseemed fine and after an uncomfortable call from Channel 11 Gotham (howthey found out his name is still a mystery even though he suspects B is an evenbigger troll than he’d already surmised), in which he stipulated nocameras this time, went by the elementary school for a visit. They gripped hisnerd shirt with excited hands, and his arms are long enough for a lot ofhugs.

But while Channel 11agreed to his term of no cameras, no interviews, that didn’t really panout when it came to the story later on that night.

His picture flashed allover the damn place, the resident angel on the bridge as one Dr. Drakefrom Mercy General trying to save as many lives as he could. More video clipsand interviews after the fact (he’s so glad to see that Karmen and her mom areokay), and dammit, he’s being literally attacked outside thedouble doors to his ER after a very long shift without Steph. He mighthave been a little mean when he told them in no specific terms that he was onlytrying to make sure people didn’t, you know, die horribly, as is hisnormal, every-day job, and please let him go home where he can pass outfor a day or he’s going to lie down on someone’s shoes and take a nap.

Jay was predictablyentertained at the whole of it. Dick merely told him his kick-ass doctorinstincts deserved appropriate accolades.

Both of them areassholes, but still, they’re his assholes.

But eventually, likeeverything in Gotham, those videos became old news and the next wave ofinevitable oh shit became front and center. Which, should have meant hisfifteen seconds of fame was pretty much over (thankfully)–if he hadn’tstarted getting other interest.

Several offers startedcoming first by mail to the Penthouse, more by phone and email. Unassumingproper stationary with silver and gold lettering, bright voicemails about his“heroism” and obvious skill in emergency situations, emails from high-rankingdoctors or board members extending an invitation to visit their campus and seeif his career might be going in a new direction.

(Gag)

It was pretty easy atfirst, chucking those finely detailed introduction letters in the trashdiscreetly, sending back appreciative declines without Dick or Jason gettingwise as to how many there actually were.

(John Hopkinsthough…that one he had to think about)

A month later and thingsslacked off (or might be routed through Drake Industries so they stop coming tothe Penthouse). Apparently, though, the attention had been somewhat noticeable.

“I don’t know what youmay have heard, Tony, but–” he starts out calmly, putting the penpointedly down.

“Let me start with the shortlist,” it’s the usual sarcasm laying the mood, mimicking an imaginarychecklist, “John Hopkins, Department Head of Emergency Medicine. Mayo, General Surgery Residency Program Director. MassachusettsGeneral, Chief of Surgery. UCSF, Chief of Residents. UCLA, Chief of Staff.Cedars-Sinai, Neuroscience research grants out the ass. Sound morefamiliar?”

Well, there’s only oneway to get this conversation started.

Bonding over coffee.

Gathering up hischarts with a sigh, Tim shakes his head a little and grabs the cane he’s beenusing since his leg is finally starting to get with it (and no Steph,the House MD jokes were funny a week ago, now you need new material). Heshoos Tony out of the room and down the corridor to the chaos that is his ER.

“Notice I didn’tmention the very generous and consistent offer from StarkMedical, Tim,” because Tony really has nothing to be mad about per sayand falls in step beside him anyway, slowing down his unusually fast strides toaccount for the limp. “Because I’m not here to smooze.”

He pauses at the maindesk to arrange the charts in order, gets the approving nod from his favoriteHead Nurse.

“There’s story behindthis,” he fills in casually, “it’s more complicated than just–”

“You almost died,”Tony interrupts smoothly, “on a bridge. You ran around on a crumbling bridgeinstead of getting people the hell off while you got the hell off. Halfthe nation saw that guy with the crazy bat fetish catch someone out in openwater wearing purple scrubs, Tim.”

Well, none of that isa lie really.

Hands free, Tim gripsTony’s elbow and steers them pointedly into the break room, closes the door.With Dr. Stark roaming around Mercy, most everyone would stay clear unless somecatastrophe hits anyway.

He lets Tony stew fora few minutes while he makes a fresh pot of coffee and thinks very, very hardabout how this is going to go.

“You were worriedabout me,” Tim finally gives a half-grin in the face of Tony’s nope, andputs a fresh paper cup in his hand, “you can bluster all you want, but you wereworried, and I appreciate it.”

“That is absolute crapand you know it. I’m here to make sure no other hospitals or researchfacilities snatch you up, Drake. Not after all the effort I put into you overthe last few years.”

Sure, Tony. “The bridge. I survived. A lot of otherpeople survived, so you can ignore whatever crap the news stations aresaying–”

“All of it is true.You stupidly risked your life when the structural integrity was compromised,and since it just happened to involve that wing-nut in the cape, thenation is going to pay the fuck attention.”

Which is probably whyhe’s suddenly Mr. Popular in his field. Well, that does answer some questions.

“You’re taking thisout of proportion,” even if it’s fruitless, he’s still going to try,“there really haven’t been that many–”

“Twenty of the topfacilities in the world have made offers that would put this place to shame.Three of your last publications have shown up in recent journals. The nextsymposium you’re supposed to be at is already sold out.”

And well, shit.He…he didn’t know all of that.

“Besides, if I wasblowing it out of proportion, we wouldn’t be talking about it in thedeserted break room, Drake.”

Tim groans out loud,rubbing a tired hand down his face. How is he going to explain without soundinglike a complete moron?

“Tony, the offersare…nice, okay? I’m not going to say it isn’t cool to be wanted by someof these places. I mean Cedars… they have equipment and research facilitiesmost places couldn’t even dream of. Just the possibilities–”

A very pointedclearing of the throat makes him take a pause to breathe, count to ten becausehe has to get in the mindset to deal with Tony like this again (it’s been aminute) when he’s being incredibly stubborn.

Neither of them noticethe dark blue against black right at the side of the building, but the presenceunder the open window narrows white eyes and stays hidden in the Gotham shadow. Who even knew how long he’d been there.

“Excuse me,Cedars has equipment most facilities–aside from Stark Medical of course–couldn’teven dream of.”

The look he gets backis unimpressed at most, but Tim can see past the usual Tony Stark mask. Theexuding confidence is there like the nice, expensive suits he wears, but underneaththe brilliance and the snark, Tony’s eyes are bloodshot and the dark circlesunderneath look like bruises. He keeps his dominant hand in the pocket of hispants, probably to hide the slight tremble (which is why he isn’t wearing acoat, right? If Tony’s riding the sleep dep train, he won’t operate if hishands are starting to shake).

Tim eases back alittle, sips on his terrible sludge while idly thumbing his phone open.

“I’m very well awareof the opportunities right in front of you, Tim,” Tony starts moving, a shortwhirlwind of movement, activity, and energy. “I’m just saying–”

“What I told you ayear ago is still true,” Tim comes back, finishing up the quick text to one ofTony’s significant others, (just a little knowledge drop on how exhausted hismentor really is). He puts his phone away and crosses his arms over his chestin a firm sign of ‘this is how the discussion is going to go.’

“You can’t be serious.”And yes, that’s Tony Stark without all the touchy-feely, I care if you diekind of thing. “I’m outraged. I’m outraged on your behalf, Tim.”

“You can’t be,” hedeadpans.

“The hell I can’t.You’re going to stay here, in this death trap of a city and practicemedicine in this ill-equipped, dilapidated chop-shop hold-over from the secondWorld War–”

“Tony, c’mon.”

“While half thegoddamned world is out for you?! Do you have any idea what kindof direction your career could go if you accepted even one of thoseoffers?”

“I–”

“Anything else isliterally going to be professional suicide.”

“When you put it like that–”he snarks back, getting a little closer to his patience. It had taken longerthan usual because Tony, like Layla, needed to adults to lay it out for themonce and awhile.

“It’s time to listento reason, Tim. You’ve had plenty of time to try, I don’t know, winningthe Nobel for putting up with terrible conditions and homicidal maniacs withbomb fetishes. Isn’t it time you started challenging yourself again, and notby trying to die in this trash-dump city?”

And the shadowsoundlessly slides away in the night, leaving the conversation to finish up anecessary patrol. The rushing wind doesn’t take away anything he’s alreadylearned.

Dr. Drake, blissfullyunaware of the company, narrows his eyes dangerously, straightens up because dammit,he thought he handled this.

“I. Am. Not.Interested.” He tries, wondering if the emphasis counts. “As appealing as theresearch capabilities are, I’m not taking any of the offers. At all, atall. I’m staying right the fuck here where I choose to be.”

And he sees Tony startto open his mouth to start-up with another fast and furious argument on whyGotham is a cesspool of death and more death, but Tim walks right overanything he might have started in on by just getting right up in Tony’s faceand laying it all out.

“I appreciate the fuckout of the interest, Dr. Stark. Thanks but no thanks.”

“I need someone tocheck you out obviously.”

“I like ithere.”

“Oh? And what’s hername Mister I-Like-It-Here?”

“His name,Tony, and their names for your information.”

That has the intendedeffect and makes his old mentor pretty much pause on the next syllable.

“But just so you know,they aren’t the only reasons why I’m staying in Gotham City. It’s more thanbeing close to my parents’ graves or close to my best friend and my niece. It’smore than just finally coming home, Tony. I belong here. I’m neededhere. It’s dirty and dangerous and so fucking what if there’s a guy in aBat suit running around kicking the shit out of criminals? It’s my city,so no. I’m not going anywhere.”

And Tony just blinksdown at him for long moments, this scene so painfully familiar from their daysof arguing back and forth during his “internship” with Stark Medical. It hadn’ttaken him long to understand what needed to be done to make someone like TonyStark change his mind.

Get all up in his faceand drop some truth bombs.

“I really, really hatethis,” Tony finally replies flatly, but his eyes are scrunched in amusement.

“I know. If I ever dowant to leave it behind, then you know the first place I’m going to go,” Timcomes back more gently, giving Tony a smirk.

Even though he’sobvious not happy about it, some of the pissed off fades out of Tony’sstiff posture. “Promise me, Drake. No one gets to kill you before I pick yourbrain about the neuro-stimulation device we’re working on.”

And with the obviouspun, he leans over laughing until his damn leg starts to ache and Tony has tohold him up by the arm so he doesn’t fall over.

The very impressiveRolls Royce greets Dr. Stark when he finally makes his way out the front doorsto attempt finding some palatable coffee.

The older man waitingby the passenger-side door is familiar enough that a smile cuts across Tony’sface.

“Alfred! Long time, nosee.” He smirks at the irony since his “visits” to Gotham didn’t alwayscoordinate with Pepper’s insistence he at least be in the city for SMbusiness.

“Master Stark, apleasure to see you again, Sir.”

“Always. Let me guess.You have some incredible coffee in there waiting for me?”

“Of course, Sir. Flavoredjust how you prefer.”

“You are a master ofall things, Alfred. Don’t even let Bruce tell you any differently.”

“I shall remind him atevery opportunity. However, you may do me a service and tell him yourself,”Alfred opened the back door with a slight flourish to show the billionairehimself sitting in the back, drinking from a thick, glass tumbler.

“Aw, Bruce, is that autility belt under your shirt or are you just happy to see me?”

The surgeon foldshimself down to get in, eyes sparkling for the slight scowl on his old friend’sface. He pays little attention to Alfred getting back in the driver’s seat andstarting the car. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you didn’t trust me inyour city.”

Tony stick up hispointer fingers at the side of his head, wiggling them to mimic the ears on theside of the cowl.

He’s smiling likecrazy when B just rolls his eyes and takes a deep pull from the tumbler.“You’re early, even after you’ve been running the gambit at your facility andStark Industries for the past few weeks. Forgive me for being curious.”

“I had to see anotherdoctor about a job prospect.”

“The doctor we have amutual interest in?”

“That would be theone. Next time he needs to be saved, leave the tights at home. Don’t you have aWE helicopter for a reason?”

“And exactly how wouldI explain that one away?”

“You have PR people,Bruce, let them have a field day with ‘rich socialite accidentally savespeople on a crumbling bridge.’”

“That would make morework for me as Bruce Wayne. Batman is a better figurehead for that kind ofthing.”

“Figurehead? Oh,you mean the persona you’ve gone to great lengths to hide as some kindof myth or urban legend all these years? That guy just suddenly shows up in thedaytime?”

“He’s beenphotographed before, Tony. Sometimes even with other superheroes, likeSuperman and Wonder Woman. All drawback of being on a team.”

“Teams are wonderfulthings, Bruce.

“Says you.”

And from a pocket inthe door, Bruce finally has a little bit of mercy on the overworked genius bypulling out a warm travel mug with the Batman logo on the front.

Tony laughs maniacallyfor long, painful moments, earning another eye-roll. The contents, however, arejust as Alfred promised: full of caffeine and just as tasty.

After a long moment ofsatisfaction, Tony lays his head back on the cushy seat and just sighs.

“You’re pushingyourself too hard,” Bruce admonishes gently. “I’m going to send the WE chopperto pick up Jim and Steve instead.”

That wakes him up.

“Don’t you even dare,B. I’ll never forgive you.”

“I’ve made worseenemies.”

Tony doesn’t snortcoffee up his nose, but really, it’s a close thing.

“You obviously can’ttake care of yourself,” Bruce is his usual brusk, no-nonsense about it, butTony can see there’s already some kind of plan in the making. “I can seewhy the two of them have such a hard time with you.”

“Says the guy thatneeded an emergency arthroscopy for meniscus tears.”

“Then I guess I’m verylucky you were in town.”

Tony hums, but hiseyes are sparkling. “How is the knee doing by the way?”

“It hurts when I breaksomeone’s jaw. Other than that, it’s fine.” And because it’s Bruce, he wavesit away without a second thought.

Tony hums again, buthis eyes go down to the knee in question.

Bruce sips his drinkagain while Alfred continues driving and Tony makes him wait for it.

Finally, once they’repassing the old Mylar building, B looks at him head-on, “all right. What did hehave to say?”

Trying not to grin,Tony shrugs a shoulder, “you’ve got nothing to worry about. Drake is staying inGotham, even with the more-than-generous offer I’ve made him. Believe me, B,I’m not happy about it, but he doesn’t seem too keen on leaving Mercy General.”

And as Tony is well-awarein their long and industrious friendship, the real Bruce Wayne is like a closedbook, doesn’t let even the smallest twitch break his facade (well, except infront of his boys, which is when BatDad makes an appearance), but thesigns of relief are really hard to miss for someone that literally kept B’sright arm moving after that rotator cuff injury.

“Dick and Jay will behappy to hear that, I suppose.” Tony observes with false cheer becausehonestly, who wouldn’t put two and two together at this juncture.

(Bruce isn’t the onlydetective. As a surgeon, Tony has to deduce with little evidence, so it’s notreally a shocker to find out the vigilantes have a doctor for a sweetie. Smartmove all around.)

“…yes, they will.Tim…?”

“He didn’t have to.You just told me yourself, Mr. Wayne.”

At the frown, Tonygives himself a mental point. The day he can get one up on the Batman is reallya day he needs to remember.

“All right, fine. Jayand Dick might have mentioned he’s been getting attention outside Gotham. I’vealready taken some steps to try making it seem like staying in the city mightbe a better deal.”

And Tony’s jaw drops,“you’ve been trying to get Mercy to partner with WE! That’s why they aren’tplaying nice with Pepper! Bruce, you devil.”

“Demon, actually, ifyou believe the stories,” and now it’s Bruce smirking into his tumbler. “We’lltalk more about it over dinner. Besides, the Batcomputer is on the fritz again.You can dazzle me over filet mignon.”

“Flatterer. How can Ipossibly say no?”

Bruce taps theintercom to tell Alfred they’re ready to go back to the Manor and Dr. Starkwill be joining them for the evening. Alfred gives him an affirmative and the planis set into motion. If there just happens to be a comfortable surfacefor Tony to pass out on during the visit, well, the pictures for Jim and Stevewould be well-worth the effort.

The conversation withTony didn’t end well, leaving him with a mental hangover by the time his shiftis finally over.

Night hadn’t startedbreaking away into dawn yet, so he’s still walking by dark alleys where thestreet lights are flickering.

He gets out a, “whatthe fuck–!?” before he’s just suddenly swept up off his feet by a strongarm holding him up hundreds of feet in the air.

Really, he should beused to things like this by now.

Robin undoubtedly givesno shits about how tight he’s holding onto the doctor or, the obviousdifferences in their height as punctuated by the botched landing, putting himliterally on his ass.

“Wow, thanks for the warning,Rob. I really didn’t need legs anyway.”

In some way that mightactually show he’s sorry, Robin bends down to pick up the cane and handsit over so Tim can get back on his feet.

“Alright, what’s goingon? Where are you hurt?” He doesn’t bother with niceties, just grips Robin bythe bicep and turns him, uses the cane to hold the cape out of the way. “Pleasetell me no one stabbed you because wouldn’t that just be ironic?”

He sees no blood ortorn suit. Takes a second look just to make sure.

Robin, in a creepyparody of his conversation with Tony earlier in the evening, is silent.

“Rob? Robin, what isit?”

A litany of oh shitruns through his brain pain in the form of toxins, mind control, and bloodborne pathogens (oh my).

“I have beeninformed,” the youngest vigilante starts slowly, “you are considering other opportunitiesoutside of Gotham, Drake.”

He blinks once. Doesit again while staring down at the whiteouts.

“Opportunities? Rob–Dami,what are you talking about?”

“Facilities are vyingfor you, offering you more advantages than any in Gotham possibly could.I understand the temptation of such offers–”

“Whoa, what? Wait aminute. Just. Wait.”

“However,” Robin goeson, his tone low in the night, “I am here to offer you a bargain.”

And that in no waywhatsoever sound anything less than ominous. Like, ‘I’ll promise not to takeout your spleen’ kind ominous.

He leans down a littleso the crime fighter doesn’t have to look up at him, “First: yes, I’ve gottensome job offers. It’s nice they’re thinking of me, really, but those offers arebased off a one-time emergency incident, not because they’ve seen me inaction or know anything about my��hobbies. They’re not offering a jobto me, Dami. Do you get that?”

The ensuing silenceand Bat-stillness are signs of the younger processing.

“Besides, I choseto come back to Gotham when I could have gone pretty much anywhere after myinternship with Stark Medical. You have no idea how many places wantedme on staff after I survived Tony Stark. If I wanted a job outside of the city,I could have had it in spades. The point is I chose to be here. I wantedto stay, and that? Isn’t going to change, okay? No bargains, no threats,nothing. I’m not leaving–”

He stops himselfbefore saying I’m not leaving Dick and Jay because really, he isnot, repeat Not talking to Dami about his relationship. Poor kid mightbe traumatized for life, so nope, not happening.

(Their last littleconvo to the vibe of ‘harm my brother and I shall eviscerate you per one ofyour textbooks. I shall do it slowly and methodically. Your screams would nottrouble me’ turned into a pretty good discussion on the best possiblescenario in effectively ripping someone’s spine out. His argument against thelogistics of it had spurned Robin out of the killing mood).

The obvious relief inthe small crime fighter is right there in how his shoulders sag just slightly.

“So, you’re going tohave to put up with me saving your ass when you do stupid shit like take on anarmy of zombified Jokers without backup.”

“Then…I shall haveno other option but to deal with your meddling when necessary,” the youngerwaves off his concern, but a corner of his mouth is tilted up just enough tonotice.

It’s really nice ofDami to drop him off on his fire escape. Walking would have been fine, but whenyou can travel Air-Robin, well, why not?

He pushes his windowup and gingerly eases in, maneuvering the cane to steady his leg. Hands are onhim before his head is inside and he wacks himself a good one in surprise.

Dick is smiling gentlydown at him, still gripping his elbow to steady him.

“That sounded like ithurt,” is a failed attempt at a joke because the mirth doesn’t reach the darkblue of Dick’s eyes.

Oh. OH. Welp, that’swhere Dami got this nonsense from, is it?

His stern lecture isgoing to have to wait for at least one cup of half-way decent coffee because hereally need to wind it up so the message hits home.

Jay is already there,his chair pulled out from the kitchen table and the pot filled with somethingdarker than the night.

“Hi honey,” he tiredlycalls, “did my boys have a good time kicking the shit out of bad guys tonight?”

Making grabby hand athim, Dick is one of his hugging moods, and pretty much lifts him off hisfeet to nuzzle/carry him to the table where blessed coffee awaited. Fine.Lecture pending.

He gets a last goodnuzzle to the face before the smell of pizza hits and a plate appears in frontof him. Jason leans down to blow a breath across his jugular before his mouthpresses just enough to be a kiss, the usual effect takes his nerve endings up anotch or two before the tease pulls away.

The three of them eatin sluggish silence, the strain of their night jobs hitting a little close tohome. The call of a communal shower and their large, comfortable bed a siren’ssong to the over-worked, sleep-deprived do-gooders.

But Tim knows them bynow, knows what’s already running them further down.

Through the last yearof their relationship, they’d already been through the whole we’re puttingyou in danger just by being with you argument.

Yes, yes it possiblywas.

Yes, he is fullyaware.

Yes, he can make hisown choices fuck you very much. Apparently, his no, not changing mymind is going to come out for a second time tonight.

“Robin picked me up onthe way home,” he starts out while the two of them are finishing up and lookingless likely to start up arguing before he’s made his point.

“Dami was still out?”

“What? Baby Bat ain’tget enough in that warehouse down on 23rd?”

Tim finishes off hiscoffee and finally sets his eyes on first Jason and then Dick. “Going to ask mewhat he wanted?”

Both crime fighters gostill, doing that eye slide thing they can still pull off with a domino andhelmet.

“Lay it on us,Timmers.”

“He pretty much askedwhat offer I was accepting for some mystery job half a continent away,”and now he’s glaring, eyes narrowing when Dick looks quickly away and Jasonsits back with a tense jaw jutting out.

“Which is absolutelyfucking ridiculous considering I like right where the hell I am.Where could he have heard such a thing, I wonder?”

Oh yeah, that’s Dick’sguilty expression.

“It’s fine if theywant to offer me a position, but the nice thing about it is that I can politelydecline, you know.”

“Top twenty facilitiesin the world, Timmy?” Dick’s voice is softer than he’d like, shakingly unsurefor a vigilante that literally risks his life every night to keep peoplehe doesn’t even know safe. “That’s not something to take…lightly.”

His mouth drops openwith an are you even kidding me?

“‘Sides,” Jayintejects without really looking at him, “ain’t like this is the fucking centero’ the world fer a fella like you, Sweets. Smart, sassy, moves like yerass is on fucking fire when someone’s on the line. Ya got moreguts than anyone outta the cape I ever met.”

“Gotham doesn’t haveto be the hill you die on,” Dick picks up, looking down into the sludge left atthe bottom of his coffee mug, “we would absolutely understand andsupport you if you even wanted to look into any of these places–”

“Even go ta seewhatcha might be lookin’ at,” Jay shrugs indifferently, “make sure ya’d findsomewhere safe ta build a nest.”

“The kind oftechnology they could offer you would be, like, ground-breaking stuff and…andGotham just can’t give you that, Tim.”

“No motherfuckersgonna break inta yer shit, I guaran-fucking-tee ya on that.”

“It’s not just beingin the ER or in surgery, it’s moving up to management or teaching or being afull-time researcher with grants and–and everything.”

“Make a safe routethere n’ back, you feel me? Me n’ Dickie’ll scope it out a few days, check the scene.”

“We would never wantto hold you back, baby. Not when the only thing Gotham has to offer you isexploding bridges and insane mad men that kidnap you and ninjas that are readyto attack at any second, and…and Timmy, you could never be safe, notreally, not here. Not even with us and B and Dami and everyone else,it’ll never be completely safe for you.”

“But fucking believeit, Timmers, we’ll make any place ya wanna lay yer head down as safe as wecan, yeah?”

“We…we love you, andwe want the best for you.”

“If leavin’ is what’sbest, Sweets, then we’ll make it fucking happen.”

It’s DIck’s voicecracking and Jay’s shiny, averted eyes that end it for him right then andthere.

He shoves himself upfrom the table abruptly, a jarring motion. The sound of the chair fallingbackwards a loud clatter against the softness of their voices. He keeps a handon the table top to walk around the damn thing and almost strangle Jason bylooping an arm around the base of his throat and pull the Red Hood into hischest. He holds out his other hand to Dick, glaring with the best of hisabilities.

It’s a tremulous thingwhen Dick rises tiredly out of his seat and takes that hand, lets Tim pull himover and secure the both of them to him.

“I’m going to say thisbecause it’s obvious the two of you are too tired to use your detective skillsfor anything more than superficial clues.”

Slowly, Jay’s face isin his stomach, arms wrapping around his waist while Dick secures his chest,the two of them almost holding him up.

“After all thefighting I’ve had to do to get here, to get this far, I’m not giving up jackshit. I run the gauntlet because that exactly where I want to be. I staywith my people because that’s my fucking team and no, I don’t wantor need another. I can watch Layla grow up into this kick ass little person andmake sure Steph has someone to Netflix and chill with while we kill a pint ofBen & Jerry’s. But what matters the most, what I can’t fucking give upis being here with the two of you in whatever capacity I can. Asyour boyfriend, as your surgeon, as the guy that is totally, you know, inlove with you. As someone that can share your lives like this. All of it isexactly what I want and what I get to choose. You two? Don’t get to tellme what’s best for me. I decide that. Got it?”

The quiet, still menattached to him give half-shuffling nods where they’re buried in him.

“I don’t want to hearanything else about leaving Gotham, like at all, okay? The answer is no.I’m not going anywhere to tour the facilities or listen to stupid speechesabout what they have to offer or how good the benefits package is. None of thatshit. They can’t offer me my ER, they can’t offer me time doing research in theBatCave, they can’t let me play around with alien DNA for a minute, and theycan’t give me you two. So? No. Case closed.”

Dick lets up justenough for him to tilt Jay’s head back and lean down to slide their lipstogether, giving the Red Hood a little something to seal the deal. Those eyesare bluer when he pulls back, making him smirk before he straightens up to giveDick the same treatment.

(Because they’re bothtall, he has to pull them down to effectively fuck his tongue in their mouths.Such a pain in the ass.)

When he pulls back,Dick gasps in a little, tightens his hold around Tim’s chest.

But the reliefpervades the air between them, giving him a reason to go a little more lax,just to feel them pretty much ready to hold him up completely.

“So the plan is,”he continues easily, one hand on the back of Jay’s neck to rub the tensionaway, and the other gripping Dick’s wrist tight enough to bruise tomorrow, “weget a nice, hot shower with plenty of scrubbing and maybe a little play time.Then, we climb in bed and pass the fuck out. You can fix your suits tomorrow,and we’ll all feel up to having dangerous acrobatic vigilante sex after about eight hours. If you’re both good,I’ll…I’ll wear that thing you got me for my birthday. Deal?”

He knows he’s alreadygot their acquiescence when both his boyfriends noticeably perk.

“That sounds like adeal to me,” Dick tries to be mock-grave, but he’s laughing in the back ofTim’s neck, running his nose over the knob of bone.

“Fucking righteous,Sweetheart. I been waiting ta see that.” Jay is grinning up at him with thatlook– all kinds of anticipation without any of the previous hesitation.

“Good. Peel yourselvesoff of me and lets get naked. For mostly clean purposes. Or not. Really, I’mpretty beyond compromised, so I’d probably like to make you both come at leastonce before I’m unconscious.”

“Sweet-talker,” Dickteases and steps to the side so he can be the first to lift their civilianboyfriend up in a princess hold that has become way too reminiscent in the pasttwo months.

“He’s just talkin’ my language, ‘at’s all, Baby Boy,” Jaystands to give him a fast n’ dirty before he gets their mugs to the sink andfills them with water to wash tomorrow. He hits the lights and follows his boysdown the hallway where slippery skin and things like I’m not giving upare waiting.

#doctor!tim #tim drake #jason todd #dick grayson #winter answers #my fic #my writing #this really was fun babe #bruce wayne #with guest star #tony stark #dr!tim

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unsettlingshortstories · 4 years ago

Text

The Other Place

Mary Gaitskill (2011)

My son, Douglas, loves to play with toy guns. He is thirteen. He loves video games in which people get killed. He loves violence on TV, especially if it’s funny. How did this happen? The way everything does, of course. One thing follows another, naturally.

Naturally, he looks like me: shorter than average, with a fine build, hazel eyes, and light-brown hair. Like me, he has a speech impediment and a condition called “essential tremor” that causes involuntary hand movements, which make him look more fragile than he is. He hates reading, but he is bright. He is interested in crows because he heard on a nature show that they are one of the only species that are more intelligent than they need to be to survive. He does beautiful, precise drawings of crows.

Mostly, though, he draws pictures of men holding guns. Or men hanging from nooses. Or men cutting up other men with chainsaws—in these pictures there are no faces, just figures holding chainsaws and figures being cut in two, with blood spraying out.

My wife, Marla, says that this is fine, as long as we balance it out with other things—family dinners, discussions of current events, sports, exposure to art and nature. But I don’t know. Douglas and I were sitting together in the living room last week, half watching the TV and checking e-mail, when an advertisement for a movie flashed across the screen: it was called “Captivity” and the ad showed a terrified blond girl in a cage, a tear running down her face. Doug didn’t speak or move. But I could feel his fascination, the suddenly deepening quality of it. And I don’t doubt that he could feel mine. We sat there and felt it together.

And then she was there, the woman in the car. In the room with my son, her black hair, her hard laugh, the wrinkled skin under her hard eyes, the sudden blood filling the white of her blue eye. There was excited music on the TV and then the ad ended. My son’s attention went elsewhere; she lingered.

When I was a kid, I liked walking through neighborhoods alone, looking at houses, seeing what people did to make them homes: the gardens, the statuary, the potted plants, the wind chimes. Late at night, if I couldn’t sleep, I would sometimes slip out my bedroom window and just spend an hour or so walking around. I loved it, especially in late spring, when it was starting to be warm and there were night sounds—crickets, birds, the whirring of bats, the occasional whooshing car, some lonely person’s TV. I loved the mysterious darkness of the trees, the way they moved against the sky if there was wind—big and heavy movements, but delicate, too, in all the subtle, reactive leaves. In that soft, blurry weather, people slept with their windows open; it was a small town and they weren’t afraid. Some houses—I’m thinking of two in particular, where the Legges and the Myers lived—had yards that I would actually hang around in at night. Once, when I was sitting on the Legges’ front porch, thinking about stealing a piece of their garden statuary, their cat came and sat with me. I petted him and when I got up and went for the statuary he followed me with his tail up. The Legges’ statues were elves, not corny, cute elves but sinister, wicked-looking elves, and I thought that one would look good in my room. But they were too heavy, so I just moved them around the yard.

I did things like that, dumb pranks that could only irritate those who noticed them: rearranging statuary, leaving weird stuff in mailboxes, looking into windows to see where people had dinner or left their personal things—or, in the case of the Legges, where their daughter, Jenna, slept. She was on the ground floor, her bed so close to the window that I could watch her chest rise and fall the way I watched the grass on their lawn stirring in the wind. The worst thing I did, probably, was put a giant marble in the Myers’ gas tank, which could’ve really caused a problem if it had rolled over the gas hole while one of the Myers was driving on the highway, but I guess it never did.

Mostly, though, I wasn’t interested in causing that kind of problem. I just wanted to sit and watch, to touch other people’s things, to drink in their lives. I suspect that it’s some version of these impulses that makes me the most successful real-estate agent in the Hudson Valley now: the ability to know what physical objects and surroundings will most please a person’s sense of identity and make him feel at home.

I wish that Doug had this sensitivity to the physical world, and the ability to drink from it. I’ve tried different things with him: I used to throw the ball with him out in the yard, but he got tired of that; he hates hiking and likes biking only if he has to get someplace. What’s working now a little bit is fishing, fly-fishing hip deep in the Hudson. An ideal picture of normal childhood.

I believe I had a normal childhood. But you have to go pretty far afield to find something people would call abnormal these days. My parents were divorced, and then my mother had boyfriends—but this was true of about half the kids I knew. She and my father fought, in the house, when they were together, and they went on fighting, on the phone, after they separated—loud, screaming fights sometimes. I didn’t love it, but I understood it; people fight. I was never afraid that my father was going to hurt her, or me. I had nightmares occasionally, in which he turned into a murderer and came after me, chasing me, getting closer, until I fell down, unable to make my legs move right. But I’ve read that this is one of those primitive fears which everybody secretly has; it bears little relation to what actually happens.

What actually happened: he forced me to play golf with him for hours when I visited on Saturdays, even though it seemed only to make him miserable. He’d curse himself if he missed a shot and then that would make him miss another one and he’d curse himself more. He’d whisper, “Oh, God,” and wipe his face if anything went wrong, or even if it didn’t, as if just being there were an ordeal, and then I had to feel sorry for him. He’d make these noises sometimes, painful grunts when he picked up the sack of clubs, and it put me on edge and even disgusted me.

Now, of course, I see it differently. I remembered those Saturdays when I was first teaching Doug how to cast, out in the back yard. I wasn’t much good myself yet, and I got tangled up in the bushes a couple of times. I could feel the boy’s flashing impatience; I felt my age, too. Then we went to work disentangling and he came closer to help me. We linked in concentration, and it occurred to me that the delicacy of the line and the fine movements needed to free it appealed to him the way drawing appealed to him, because of their beauty and precision.

Besides, he was a natural. When it was his turn to try, he kept his wrist stiff and gave the air a perfect little punch and zip—great cast. The next time, he got tangled up, but he was speedy about getting unstuck so that he could do it again. Even when the tremor acted up. Even when I lectured him on the laws of physics. It was a good day.

There is one not-normal thing you could point to in my childhood, which is that my mother, earlier in her life, before I was born, had occasionally worked as a prostitute. But I don’t think that counts, because I didn’t know about it as a child. I didn’t learn about it until six years ago, when I was thirty-eight and my mother was sick with a strain of flu that had killed a lot of people, most of them around her age. She was in the hospital and she was feverish and thought she was dying. She held my hand as she told me, her eyes sad half-moons, her lips still full and provocative. She said that she wanted me to know because she thought it might help me to understand some of the terrible things I’d heard my father say to her—things I mostly hadn’t even listened to. “It wasn’t anything really bad,” she said. “I just needed the money sometimes, between jobs. It’s not like I was a drug addict—it was just hard to make it in Manhattan. I only worked for good escort places. I never had a pimp or went out on the street. I never did anything perverted—I didn’t have to. I was beautiful. They’d pay just to be with me.”

Later, when she didn’t die, she was embarrassed that she’d told me. She laughed that raucous laugh of hers and said, “Way to go, Marcy! On your deathbed, tell your son you’re a whore and then don’t die!”

“It’s O.K.,” I said.

And it was. It frankly was not really even much of a surprise. It was her vanity that disgusted me, the way she undercut the confession with a preening, maudlin joke. I could not respect that even then.

I don’t think that my mom’s confession, or whatever it may have implied, had anything to do with what I think of as “it.” When I was growing up, there was, after all, no evidence of her past, nothing that could have affected me. But suddenly, when I was about fourteen, I started getting excited by the thought of girls being hurt. Or killed. A horror movie would be on TV, a girl in shorts would be running and screaming with some guy chasing her, and to me it was like porn. Even a scene where a sexy girl was getting her legs torn off by a shark—bingo. It was like pushing a button. My mom would be in the kitchen making dinner and talking on the phone, stirring and striding around with the phone tucked between her shoulder and her chin. Outside, cars would go by, or a dog would run across the lawn. My homework would be slowly getting done in my lap while this sexy girl was screaming “God help me!” and having her legs torn off. And I would go invisibly into an invisible world that I called “the other place.” Where I sometimes passively watched a killer and other times became one.

It’s true that I started drinking and drugging right about then. All my friends did. My mom tried to lay down the law, but I found ways around her. We’d go into the woods, me and usually Chet Wotazak and Jim Bonham, and we’d smoke weed we’d got from Chet’s brother, a local dealer named Dan, and drink cheap wine. We could sometimes get Chet’s dad to lend us a gun—in my memory he had an AK-47, though I don’t know how that’s possible—and we’d go out to a local junk yard and take turns shooting up toilets, the long tubes of fluorescent lights, whatever was there. Then we’d go to Chet’s house, up to his room, where we’d play loud music and tell dumb jokes and watch music videos in which disgusting things happened: snakes crawled over a little boy’s sleeping face and he woke up being chased by a psychopath in a huge truck; a girl was turned into a pig and then a cake and then the lead singer bit off her head.

You might think that the videos and the guns were part of it, that they encouraged my violent thoughts. But Chet and Jim were watching and doing the same things and they were not like me. They said mean things about girls, and they were disrespectful sometimes, but they didn’t want to hurt them, not really. They wanted to touch them and be touched by them; they wanted that more than anything. You could hear it in their voices and see it in their eyes, no matter what they said.

So I would sit with them and yet be completely apart from them, talking and laughing about normal things in a dark mash of music and snakes and children running from psychos and girls being eaten—images that took me someplace my friends couldn’t see, although it was right there in the room with us.

It was the same at home. My mother made dinner, talked on the phone, fought with my dad, had guys over. Our cat licked itself and ate from its dish. Around us, people cared about one another. Jenna Legge slept peacefully. But in the other place sexy girls—and sometimes ugly girls or older women—ran and screamed for help as an unstoppable, all-powerful killer came closer and closer. There was no school or sports or mom or dad or caring, and it was great.

I’ve told my wife about most of this, the drinking, the drugs, the murder fantasies. She understands, because she has her past, too: extreme sex, vandalizing cars, talking vulnerable girls into getting more drunk than they should on behalf of some guy. There’s a picture of her and another girl in bathing suits, the other girl chugging a beer that is being held by a guy so that it goes straight down her throat as her head is tipped way back. Another guy is watching, and my smiling wife is holding the girl’s hand. It’s a picture that foreshadows some kind of cruelty or misery, or maybe just a funny story to tell about throwing up in the bathroom later. Privately, I see no similarity between it and my death obsession. For my wife, the connection is drugs and alcohol; she believes that we were that way because we were both addicts expressing our pain and anger through violent fantasies and blind actions. The first time I took Doug out to fish, it was me on the hot golf course all over again. As we walked to the lake in our heavy boots and clothes, I could feel his irritation at the bugs and the brightness, the squalor of nature in his fastidious eyes. I told him that fly-fishing was like driving a sports car, as opposed to the Subaru of rod and reel. I went on about how anything beautiful had to be conquered. He just turned down his mouth.

He got interested, though, in tying on the fly; the simple elegance of the knot (the “fish-killer”) intrigued him. He laid it down the first time, too, placing the backcast perfectly in a space between trees. He gazed at the brown, light-wrinkled water with satisfaction. But when I put my hand on his shoulder I could feel him inwardly pull away.

As I got older, my night walks be came rarer, with a different, sadder feeling to them. I would go out when I was not drunk or high but in a quiet mood, wanting to be somewhere that was neither the normal social world nor the other place. A world where I could sit and feel the power of nature come up through my feet, and be near other people without them being near me. Where I could believe in and for a moment possess the goodness of their lives. Jenna Legge still slept on the ground floor and sometimes I would look in her window and watch her breathe, and, if I was lucky, see one of her developing breasts swell out of her nightgown.

I never thought of killing Jenna. I didn’t think about killing anyone I actually knew—not the girls I didn’t like at school or the few I had sex with. The first times I had sex, I was so caught up in the feeling of it that I didn’t even think about killing—I didn’t think about anything at all. But I didn’t have sex much. I was small, awkward, too quiet; I had that tremor. My expression must’ve been strange as I sat in class, feeling hidden in my other place, but outwardly visible to whoever looked—not that many did.

Then one day I was with Chet’s brother, Dan, on a drug drop; he happened to be giving me a ride because his drop, at the local college, was on the way to wherever I was going. It was a guy buying, but, when we arrived, a girl opened the door. She was pretty and she knew it, but whatever confidence that knowledge gave her was superficial. We stayed for a while and smoked the product with her and her boyfriend. The girl sat very erect and talked too much, as if she were smart, but there was a question at the end of everything she said. When we left, Dan said, “That’s the kind of lady I’d like to slap in the face.” I asked, “Why?” But I knew. I don’t remember what he said, because it didn’t matter. I already knew. And later, instead of making up a girl, I thought of that one.

I forgot to mention: one night when I was outside Jenna’s window, she opened her eyes and looked right at me. I was stunned, so stunned that I couldn’t move. There was nothing between us but a screen with a hole in it. She looked at me and blinked. I said, “Hi.” I held my breath; I had not spoken to her since third grade. But she just sighed, rolled over, and lay still. I stood there trembling for a long moment. And then, slowly and carefully, I walked through the yard and onto the sidewalk, back to my house.

I cut school the next day and the next, because I was scared that Jenna had told everybody and that I would be mocked. But eventually it became clear that nobody was saying anything, so I went back. In class, I looked at Jenna cautiously, then gratefully. But she did not return my look. At first, this moved me, made me consider her powerful. I tried insistently to catch her eye, to let her know what I felt. Finally our eyes met, and I realized that she didn’t understand why I was looking at her. I realized that although her eyes had been open that night, she had still been asleep. She had looked right at me, but she had not seen me at all.

And so one night, or early morning, really, I got out of bed, into my mother’s car, and drove to the campus to look for her��the college girl.

The campus was in a heavily wooded area bordering a nature preserve. The dorms were widely scattered, though some, resembling midsized family homes, were clustered together. The girl lived in one of those, but while I remembered the general location I couldn’t be sure which one it was. I couldn’t see into any of the windows, because even the open ones had blinds pulled down. While I was standing indecisively on a paved path between dorms, I saw two guys coming toward me. Quickly, I walked off into a section of trees and underbrush. I moved carefully through the thicket, coming to a wide field that led toward the nature preserve. The darkness deepened as I got farther from the dorms. I could feel things coming up from the ground—teeth and claws, eyes, crawling legs, and brainless eating mouths. A song played in my head, an enormously popular, romantic song about love and death that had supposedly made a bunch of teen-agers kill themselves.

Kids still listen to that song. I once heard it coming from the computer in our family room. When I went in and looked over Doug’s hunched shoulder, I realized that the song was being used as the soundtrack for a graphic video about a little boy in a mask murdering people. It was spellbinding, the yearning, eerie harmony of the song juxtaposed with terrified screaming; I told Doug to turn it off. He looked pissed, but he did it and went slumping out the door. I found it and watched it by myself later.

I went back to the campus many times. I went to avoid my mother as much as anything. Her new boyfriend was an asshole, and she whined when he was around. When he wasn’t around, she whined about him on the phone. Sometimes she called two people in a row to whine about exactly the same things that he’d said or done. Even when I played music loud so I couldn’t hear her, I could feel her. When that happened, I’d leave my music on so that she’d think I was still in my room and I’d go to the campus. I’d follow lone female students as closely as I could, and I’d feel the other place running against the membrane of the world, almost touching it. Why does it make sense to put romantic music together with a story about a little boy murdering people? Because it does make sense—only I don’t know how. It seems dimly to have to do with justice, with some wrong being avenged, but what? The hurts of childhood? The stupidity of life? The kid doesn’t seem to be having fun. Random murder just seems like a job he has to do. But why? Soon enough I realized that the college campus was the wrong place to think about making it real. It wasn’t an environment I could control; there were too many variables. I needed to get the girl someplace private. I needed to have certain things there. I needed to have a gun. I could find a place; there were deserted places. I could get a gun from Chet’s house; I knew where his father kept his. But the girl?

Then, while I was in the car with my mom one day, we saw a guy hitchhiking. He was middle-aged and fucked-up-looking, and my mom—we were stopped at a light—remarked that nobody in their right mind would pick him up. Two seconds later, somebody pulled over for him. My mom laughed.

I started hitchhiking. Most of the people who picked me up were men, but there were women, too. No one was scared of me. I was almost eighteen by then, but I was still small and quiet-looking. Women picked me up because they were concerned about me.

I didn’t really plan to do it. I just wanted to feel the gun in my pocket and look at the woman and know that I could do it. There was this one—a thirtyish blonde with breasts that I could see through her open coat. But then she said that she was pregnant and I started thinking about what if I was killing the baby?

Doug had a lot of nightmares when he was a baby, by which I mean between the ages of two and four. When he cried out in his sleep, it was usually Marla who went to him. But one night she was sick and I told her to stay in bed while I went to comfort the boy. He was still crying “Mommy!” when I sat on the bed, and I felt his anxiety at seeing me instead of his mother, felt the moment of hesitation in his body before he came into my arms, vibrating rather than trembling, sweating and fragrant with emotion. He had dreamed that he was home alone and it was dark, and he was calling for his mother, but she wasn’t there. “Daddy, Daddy,” he wept, “there was a sick lady with red eyes and Mommy wouldn’t come. Where is Mommy?”

That may’ve been the first time I truly remembered her, the woman in the car. It was so intense a moment that in a bizarre intersection of impossible feelings I got an erection with my crying child in my arms. But it lasted only a moment. I picked Doug up and carried him into our bedroom so that he could see his mother and nestle against her. I stayed awake nearly all night watching them.

The day it happened was a bright day, but windy and cold, and my mom would not shut up. I just wanted to watch a movie, but even with the TV turned up loud—I guess that’s why she kept talking; she didn’t think I could hear her—I couldn’t blot out the sound of her yakking about how ashamed this asshole made her feel. I whispered, “If you’re so ashamed, why do you talk about it?” She said, “It all goes back to being fucking molested.” She lowered her voice; the only words I caught were “fucking corny.” I went out into the hallway to listen. “The worst of it was that he wouldn’t look at me,” she said. I could almost hear her pacing around, the phone tucked against her shoulder. “That’s why I fall for these passive-aggressive types who turn me on and then make me feel ashamed.” Whoever she was talking to must have said something funny then, because she laughed. I left the TV on and walked out. I took the gun, but more for protection against perverts than the other thing.

I gave my boy that dream as surely as if I’d handed it to him. But I’ve given him a lot of other things, too. The first time he caught a fish he responded to my encouraging words with a bright glance that I will never forget. We let that one go, but only after he had held it in his hands, cold and quick, muscle with eyes and a heart, scales specked with yellow and red, and one tiny orange fin. Then the next one, bigger, leaping to break the rippling murk—I said, “Don’t point the rod at the fish. Keep the tip up, keep it up”—and he listened to me and he brought it in. There is a picture of it on the corkboard in his room, the fish in the net, the lure bristling in its crude mouth. I have another picture, too, of him smiling triumphantly, holding it in his hands, its shining, still living body fully extended.

She was older than I’d wanted, forty or so, but still good-looking. She had a voice that was strong and lifeless at the same time. She had black hair and she wore tight black pants. She did not have a wedding ring, which meant that maybe no one would miss her. She picked me up on a lightly travelled forty-five-mile-an-hour road. She was listening to a talk show on the radio and she asked if I wanted to hear music instead. I said no, I liked talk shows.

“Yeah?” she said. “Why?”

“Because I’m interested in current events.”

“I’m not,” she said. “I just listen to this shit because the voices relax me. I don’t really care what they’re talking about.”

They were talking about a war somewhere. Bombs were exploding in markets where people bought vegetables; somebody’s legs had been blown off. We turned onto a road with a few cars, but none close to us.

“You don’t care?”

“No, why should I? Oh, about this?” She paused. There was something about a little boy being rushed to an overcrowded hospital. “Yeah, that’s bad. But it’s not like we can do anything about it.” On the radio, foreign people cried.

I took the gun out of my pocket.

I said, “Do you have kids?”

“No,” she said. “Why?”

“Take me to Old Post Road. I’m going to the abandoned house there.”

“I’m not going by there, but I can get you pretty close. So why do you care about current events? I didn’t give a shit at your age.”

“Take me there or I’ll kill you.”

She cocked her head and wrinkled her brow, as if she were trying to be sure she’d heard right. Then she looked down at the gun, and cut her eyes up at me; quickly, she looked back at the road. The car picked up speed.

“Take the next right or you’ll die.” My voice at that moment came not from me but from the other place. My whole body felt like an erection. She hit the right-turn signal. There was a long moment as we approached the crucial road. The voices on the radio roared ecstatically.

She pulled over to the shoulder.

“What are you doing?”

She put the car in park.

“Turn right or you die!”

She unbuckled her seat belt and turned to face me. “I’m ready,” she said. She leaned back and gripped the steering wheel with one hand, as if to steady herself. With her free hand, she tapped herself between the eyes—bright, hot blue, rimmed with red. “Put it here,” she said. “Go for it.”

A car went by. Somebody in the passenger seat glanced at us blankly. “I don’t want to do it here. There’s witnesses. You need to take me to the place.”

“What witnesses? That car’s not stopping—nobody’s going to stop unless the emergency lights are on and they’re not, look.”

“But if I shoot you in the head the blood will spray on the window and somebody could see.” It was my own voice again: the power was gone. The people on the radio kept talking. Suddenly I felt my heart beating.

“O.K., then do it here.” She opened her jacket to show me her chest. “Nobody’ll hear. When you’re done you can move me to the passenger seat and drive the car wherever.”

“Get into the passenger seat now and I’ll do it.”

She laughed, hard. Her eyes were crazy. They were crazy the way an animal can be crazy in a tiny cage. “Hell, no. I’m not going to your place with you. You do it here, motherfucker.”

I realized then that her hair was a wig, and a cheap one. For some reason, that made her seem even crazier. I held my gun hand against my body to hide the tremor.

“Come on, honey,” she said. “Go for it.”

Like a star, a red dot appeared in the white of her left eye. The normal place and the other place were turning into the same place, quick but slow, the way a car accident is quick but slow. I stared. The blood spread raggedly across her eye. She shifted her eyes from my face to a spot somewhere outside the car and fixed them there. I fought the urge to turn and see what she was looking at. She shifted her eyes again. She looked me deep in the face.

“Well?” she said. “Are you going to do it or not?”

Words appeared in my head, like a sign reading “I Don’t Want To.”

She leaned forward and turned on the emergency lights. “Get out of my car,” she said quietly. “You’re wasting my time.”

As soon as I got out, she hit the gas and burned rubber. I walked into the field next to the road, without an idea of where I might go. I realized after she was gone that she might call the police, but I felt in my gut that she would not—in the other place there are no police, and she was from the other place.

Still, as I walked I took the bullets out of the gun and scattered them, kicking snow over them and stamping it down. I walked a long time, shivering horribly. I came across a drainage pipe and threw the empty gun into it. I thought, I should’ve gut-shot her—that’s what I should’ve done. And then got her to the abandoned house. I should’ve gut-shot the bitch. But I knew why I hadn’t. She’d been shot already, from the inside. If she had been somebody different I might actually have done it. But somehow the wig-haired woman had changed the channel and I don’t even know if she’d meant to.

The fly bobbing on the brown, gentle water. The long grasses so green that they cast a fine, bright green on the brown water. The primitive fish mouth straining for water and finding it as my son releases it in the shallows. Its murky vanishing.

The blood bursting in her eye, poor woman, poor mother. My mother died of colon cancer just nine months ago. Shortly after that, it occurred to me that the woman had been wearing that awful wig because she was sick and undergoing chemo. Though of course I don’t know.

The hurts of childhood that must be avenged: so small and so huge. Before I grew up and stopped thinking about her, I thought about that woman a lot. About what would’ve happened if I’d got her there, to the abandoned house. I don’t remember anymore the details of these thoughts, only that they were distorted, swollen, blurred: broken face, broken voice, broken body left dying on the floor, watching me go with dimming, despairing eyes.

These pictures are faded now and far away. But they can still make me feel something.

The second time I put my hand on Doug’s shoulder, he didn’t move away inside; he was too busy tuning in to the line and the lure. Somewhere in him is the other place. It’s quiet now, but I know it’s there. I also know that he won’t be alone with it. He won’t know that I’m there with him, because we will never speak of it. But I will be there. He will not be alone with that.

0 notes

siderealscribblings · 7 years ago

Text

It Wasn’t Me [Alya&Marinette Gen]

[Ao3]

Alya never thought she would live to see the day that akuma would be seen as less of a threat and more of an annoyance.

Like most sane human beings, the first akuma that terrorized Paris put the fear of God in her. Stoneheart actually kept Alya up that night, flashlight pointed at the window and an oversized rolling pin she stole from Marinette under one arm if Hawkmoth decided to step to her.

But at some point, the people of Paris had to adjust to the fact that, on occasion, their city would be besieged by otherworldly creatures.

It was a fact of life no one really questioned anymore. More often than not, rampaging akuma were met with eye-rolls and sighs of annoyance from Parisians who simply shuffled into the nearest building, and waited for Ladybug and Chat Noir to show up and put the creature down so they could go about their days. To be blunt, the sheen of living in a super-powered city had worn off, to the point that akuma attack were like random apartment fires; unfortunate, but nothing out of the ordinary.

And unfortunately, nothing to cancel school over.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The klaxon blaring jerked Alya out of her pre-lunch stupor, knee banging on the desk as Miss Bustier just glared up at the newly installed Akuma Alarm.

“Alright, I suppose we’ll have to get to presentations after this superhero nonsense is settled,” Miss Bustier sighed, closing her textbook and pressing a button underneath the desk that lowered heavy iron bars over the classroom windows. It didn’t take long for Mayor Andre to update Chloe’s school’s security features, though Alya privately wondered what metal bars were supposed to do against supervillains. Alya figured it was some kind of political ploy to make it look like he had the situation in hand just in time for election season; she had to admit, the headline Mayor Andre Installs Security in Schools! read better than Mayor Andre’s Head Firmly Lodged Up His Own Rectum!

“Looks as though we’re all accounted for…except for the usual suspects,” Miss Bustier sighed, eyes falling on the seat next to Nino. “Does anyone know where Mr. Agreste and Ms. Dupain-Cheng are?”

“Have you checked the broom closet?” Nino suggested, ignoring the snicker from Kim and Chloe’s disgusted scoff. Alya glanced at the empty seat beside her with a small snort and roll of her eyes; ever since the akuma drills started, Marinette and Adrien had a supernatural talent for disappearing off to some quiet corner for some alone time, usually before the alarm even sounded. She didn’t know what part of being besieged by horrifying monsters prompted the urge to make out with her new boyfriend, but Alya was glad that Marinette’s love trials had finally born some fruit.

Frankly, Marinette’s romantic hysterics were beginning to grate on Alya, and she was glad that things had quieted down…which meant that Alya had more time to devote to her first and truest love.

Journalism.

“Psst,” Alya said, leaning back and glancing up at Nino. “Is the fight close by?”

“Across the street, according to Twitter” Nino muttered, glancing at his phone behind his textbook. “Been going on for a while; want a distraction?”

“As much as you can give me,” Alya said, sliding out of her seat and preparing to run. “Can you run Marinette’s bookbag to her on your way home? She left it behind when she went to go suck face with your boy.”

“Not a problem,” Nino chuckled, casually sliding his book closer and closer to the edge of the table.

As soon as Nino’s textbook hit the floor with an echoing slam, Alya was off like a shot, creeping out the door and down the hall as quickly and quietly as she could. She was sure Miss Bustier saw her, but her teacher had about as much respect for the sanctity of akuma drills as Paris had for Hawkmoth. As long as she caught the footage and got back before class started up again, Miss Bustier wasn’t going to bust her chops too badly; the fact that Adrien and Marinette got to use akuma as an excuse to suck face scot-free was a testament to that.

Jogging quickly down the hallway and ducking below any classroom windows, Alya made her way to the stairs leading to the roof, taking them two at a time as her eyes were glued to the Akuma tag livefeed. As Ladybug and Chat Noir got better at their jobs, keeping the Ladyblog stocked with content became harder and harder. Often times, she would arrive on the scene with just enough time to catch Ladybug cleaning up and the duo disappearing over the rooftops.

Surprisingly, pictures of Ladybug and Chat Noir’s fleeing backsides weren’t as much of a hit with the people of Paris as Alya thought they would be. She needed some quality footage of something other than blurry superhero butt before she lost Ladyblog followers to the slew of ham-and-egger fanblogs that were looking to dethrone Alya as the Peter Parker of Paris.

Bursting through the door to the roof, Alya blinked in the afternoon light, spinning around wildly for any sign of the commotion. For a moment, she thought the fight was still going on, then a wave of fluttering ladybugs washed over the roof, mending the patches as a single white butterfly floated away over the school building.

“Damn it!” Alya swore, kicking the air-conditioner with a resounding clang. Another fight and another missed opportunity to get some much needed Ladyblog content. At this rate, she would almost be better off reblogging low-res Twitter videos other people had captured; at least then the RSS feed would be filled with something more than whatever she managed to capture at the time.

Sighing dejectedly, Alya turned to head back down the stairs when a flash of red caught her eye. Freezing, she watched Ladybug swing up onto the roof, one arm wrapped around the waist of a frazzled and rattled looking Adrien.

“You okay?” Ladybug asked, setting Adrien down on the roof as gingerly as she could as Alya ducked behind the air conditioner, pulling her phone back out and zeroing in on the pair.

“Fine, fine,” Adrien said, dusting his pants off. “Got a little too close for comfort, that’s all.”

Hello front page content, Alya thought to herself, snapping a few quick shots before switching to video. Weeks of Ladyblog drought were about to be lifted with a video feed of Ladybug rescuing one of the biggest heartthrobs in Paris.

“More than a little close,” Ladybug said, brushing a strand of hair off Adrien’s shirt in an oddly familiar way. If she had known Adrien was such good friends with Ladybug, Alya might have hit him up for a more in depth interview or something. “Your butt nearly got singed by that fireball!”

“Well, something told me you’d save it before it got too crispy,” Adrien said, eyebrows waggling a little bit. “I know how much you like it~”

Ladybug laughed, and before Alya could guess what it was, Ladybugs hands snaked around the sides of Adrien’s jeans, firmly grasping the butt she apparently had saved from certain fiery destruction.

Alya blinked, throat drying and ears ringing as her camera caught her heroine openly groping Adrien Agreste’s backside, torn between a desire to run and a desire to rugby tackle Ladybug away from Adrien. How dare she make a pass at someone after saving their lives! It was…trashy! Not to mention creepy and so un-Ladybug that Alya’s skin crawled. Where did Ladybug get off groping civilians after pulling them out of harm’s way?

“I guess I do,” Ladybug said, and before Alya could vault the air-conditioning unit and crane kick Ladybug in the head, Adrien leaned in, cupping the sides of Ladybug’s face, and kissing her full on the mouth.

And just like that, Alya’s rage had a fresh target to sink its teeth into.

As soon as Ladybug’s figure disappeared from the rooftop, Adrien turned around and nearly had a heart attack as he came face to face with an exceptionally furious looking Alya.

“Ah!” Adrien squeaked, nearly jumping as he could practically feel the killing intent radiating off Alya. “A-Alya? Wh-when did you get h-”

“What…the…hell?!” Alya spat, brandishing her phone at Adrien screen first so he could see the still image of him kissing Ladybug blown up in horrifying high definition.

“I-I-I-I-I,” Adrien stammered, eyes darting between the photograph and Alya’s burning expression. “I-It’s not what it l-looks like! Sh-She totally kissed me! I didn’t-”

Adrien let out a squawk like a giraffe dying of esophageal cancer as Alya swiped right, showing a picture of Adrien hoisting Ladybug up off her feet, legs wrapped around his waist as he pressed her against the wall.

“Oh, my mistake,” Alya sneered. “I supposed this is just a picture of her ass grabbing your hand then!”

“I know…I know this looks bad,” Adrien said, taking a deep breath as his face threatened to overheat. “But-”

“I’m not interested in your half-assed excuses!” Alya said, jabbing her finger into Adrien’s chest. “Does Marinette know?”

“Well…th-that’s kind of a complicated story,” Adrien laughed anxiously, fidgeting as Alya pressed her finger harder into his chest.

“Un-complicate it,” Alya hissed, brandishing her phone as she turned towards the stairwell. “Today...because all of Paris is gonna find out about this tomorrow.”

Alya left him with that and a cold, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Oh god…I’m gonna get Gwen Stacy’d.”

Marinette hadn’t taken two steps out of the broom closet before Adrien cornered her, nearly collided with her, and gently guided her back into the chlorine scented confines where she had transformed a moment before.

“Whoa there, tiger,” Marinette chuckled, hands gripping Adrien’s lapels as he shut and locked the door behind him. “If you wanted a little more private time, all you had to do was ask~”

She leaned in to kiss him again, and instead met his fingertips as Adrien raised a hand to block her lips. His frazzled expression muffled the thrill of being tucked away in a broom cupboard with her boyfriend, and even in the dim light she could see that something was terribly wrong.

“Alya…is going…to kill me,” Adrien panted, hands gripping Marinette’s shoulders in terror.

“…you didn’t forget to do your part of the history project, did you?” Marinette sighed. “Because if you did-”

“She saw us,” Adrien said emphatically. “Kissing!”

“…gonna have to be a little bit more specific,” Marinette said, shaking her head. “Was that this morning? Or after first period? Or after lunch? Or after the-”

Marinette let out a pained squeak like a seal suffering from tonsillitis, hands covering her mouth as her eyes flew open. “Nooooooooooooooo,” she moaned. “Noooooo nonononononononono!”

“I know!” Adrien hissed.

“Tell me she didn’t document it,” Marinette pleaded.

“It’s Alya!” Adrien groaned. “She got live video and half an album of photos she’s gonna post on the Ladyblog tomorrow!”

“She’s gonna-” Marinette trailed off. “…did you see them?”

“What, the photos?”

“Yeah did we look…good at least?” Marinette asked, scratching the back of her neck.

“Yeah, our super-hot makeout session is going to be broadcasted on the internet for everyone, including Hawkmoth, to see!” Adrien whimpered, sliding down the door and burying his face in his knees.

“Okay, okay, relax,” Marinette sighed, tugging Adrien back to his feet. “I will talk to her and stop her from running those pictures.”

“How?” Adrien asked.

“I don’t know…maybe she’ll buy the fact that you’re dating both of us?” Marinette suggested.

“As…nice of an image that is, I think any excuses you give are gonna get chalked up as you covering for my flagrant indecency,” Adrien said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Besides, Alya’s lifelong dream has always been to-”

“-expose a high ranking sociopolitical figure in a scathing journalistic expose,” Marinette sighed, shaking her head. “Well…maybe Ladybug can get through to her.”

“I’m pretty sure Ladybug is number two on her hit list after what happened today,” Adrien said.

“Well, what’s she gonna do; clobber me in the head with the cricket bat she keeps in her closet?” Marinette snorted, rapping her temple. “Supersuit, remember?”

Adrien chewed on his lip. “You know what you’re gonna do?”

“No, but when has that ever stopped me before?” Marinette chuckled, leaning in and pecking him on the lips. “My entire M.O. involves flying by the seat of my pants and hoping things turn out okay.”

“Good that you’re experienced then, because it’s the seat of my pants that’s on the line,” Adrien said, shaking his head. “I knew costumed-makeouts were going to bite us in the butt one of these days.”

“Heyheyhey, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater here,” Marinette said, holding a hand out. “Costumed makeouts are a pillar of our relationship and we both know it.”

“You’re right,” Adrien sighed, scratching his cheek. “Couldn’t hurt to be more discreet about it.”

“I’ll remember that next time an alley cat lands on my balcony,” Marinette chuckled, tweaking Adrien’s nose. “I’ll take care of everything; promise.”

“I’m sure you will,” Adrien said with a small sigh as Marinette unlocked the door. “Wanna hang out tonight?”

“Can’t,” Marinette said, pausing as she turned to leave long enough to fix Adrien with a rosy-cheeked smile and a small wink. “I have to cat-sit for a friend.”

“Cat-sit?” Adrien said, watching her go for a long moment before letting out a soft, “Ohhhhh.”

Alya’s stomach churned unpleasantly on her walk home, darkly glowering at the sidewalk as she struggled to make sense of the waves of conflicting emotions that bubbled up inside her.

Angry? Check. Disgusted? Check. Indignant? Double-Check. Betrayed?

…maybe just a touch.

Much as Alya believed herself to be a realist, she was a romantic in so many ways; one didn’t found a superhero fan-blog on pure journalistic cynicism. Alya wouldn’t have been so heartbroken by Ladybug’s homewrecking if she hadn’t expected so much better of her. Ladybug was a superhero for the love of God; she should have been above trifling in other people’s relationships for a cheap thrill.

And then there was Adrien.

Part of Alya still didn’t want to believe that Adrien was capable of being such a selfish prig, even if she had the photographic evidence to back it up. He had been nothing but boyfriend-of-the-year material since he and Marinette had suddenly announced their relationship almost six months before, coincidentally coinciding with the first verified Ladynoir kiss just a few days earlier. Alya still had a hard time computing the possibility that someone who treated his girlfriend like the sun that lit up his heavens would go behind her back and apparently carry on with a superhero who was also in a relationship.

A small, petty part of Alya thought Adrien deserved whatever Chat Noir was going to do to him for putting hands on his lady.

Slamming the front door behind her, Alya barely said a word to her mother as she trudged up the stairs towards her room, phone heavy in her pocket as she mulled over what to do with her purloined pictures. Running them on the Ladyblog had been her immediate, gut reaction, but doing so would humiliate Marinette on a city-wide level. Marinette didn’t cry often, but when she did she was an ugly crier who burned through tissue boxes mopping up all the liquid that poured out of her face.

And then there was the problem of Ladybug’s partner; did Alya have a responsibility to let him know his girlfriend was sucking face with some rich little daddy’s boy? Even if Adrien never came clean, Chat Noir didn’t deserve the public shaming and disillusion of the only force keeping Hawkmoth from running roughshod over the city. Moreover, did Adrien cheating on Marinette warrant getting Cataclysm’d right in the face?

(It did, but Alya didn’t know if she could be responsible for it.)

With a frustrated grumble, Alya threw her door open, tossing her bookbag onto her bed-

“Ow!”

-and pegging Ladybug square in the face with it.

Alya let out a startled yelp as Ladybug tumbled backwards, off the bed and out of sight of her mother who stuck her head in the door.

“Everything alright, honey?” Marlene said, craning her head into Alya’s room as she moved to block any part of Ladybug that might have been sticking out.

“Y-Yeah, everything’s fine!” Alya said with a small laugh. “I just saw a big disgusting bug on my bed, but I managed to take care of it, okaythanksloveyoubye!”

Alya closed the door in her mother’s face, locking it as she turned around in time to see Ladybug slowly getting to her feet, rubbing the spot where the bookbag collided with her head.

“Did that hurt?” Alya asked as Ladybug stood up.

“Not really,” Ladybug said. “J-Just kind of a reflex that doesn’t-”

“Just kidding; I don’t actually care,” Alya spat. “What the hell are you doing here?! How did you even get in?!”

“Wh-Who, me?” Ladybug chuckled. “W-Well, I was just in the neighborhood a-and I saw your window open, and I-I thought I’d stop in and check on my number one-”

“Try again.”

“Okay, I know you saw me and A-Adrien being…intimate on the roof after the battle,” Ladybug said, pressing her fingers together. “But-”

“…how do you know I caught you and Adrien making out?” Alya said, crossing her arms. “That wasn’t more than an hour ago, and Adrien left school right after it happened.”

Ladybug paled, blinking owlishly as she appeared to be struggling to come up with an answer. “I…uh…th-the ladybugs told me!”

“The…ladybugs told you?” Alya said, squinting suspiciously. “You can…talk to ladybugs can you?”

“N-Not just ladybugs,” Ladybug said, crossing and uncrossing her legs. “Pillbugs…small beetles…I-I think I talked to an aphid once…which is weird because I think ladybugs eat-”

“Funny, I thought Adrien would have tattled to you after I threatened to expose your sad little charade for the whole city to see,” Alya snorted humorlessly.

“…yeah, should have gone with that,” Ladybug muttered under her breath.

“Pardon?”

“Look, the…the ladybugs clued me in about the talk you had with Adrien,” Ladybug said, standing up off her desk. “I know you’re planning on running that image on the Ladyblog, but-”

“Why? Don’t you want the world to know that you’re sucking face with Gabriel Agreste’s son?” Alya sneered. “Wouldn’t that just be killer for your reputation?”

“I know what we’re doing is…wrong,” Ladybug said with a wince. “But if you run that picture, Adrien’s going to be in serious, serious danger!”

Alya knew this, of course, and as much as she thirsted for Adrien’s blood for breaking Marinette’s heart like this, she also didn’t want to see him dead at the hands of Hawkmoth’s akuma…or Chat Noir’s jealous rage. No amount of infidelity was worth actually killing him over…but Alya didn’t much feel like telling Ladybug that.

“Adrien, Adrien, Adrien!” Alya hissed, stamping her foot. “That’s all anyone cares about! What about Marinette, huh? Do you even care you’re macking on her boyfriend or can your Lucky Charm patch up the homes you wreck too? And what about your own boyfriend?! Or was he just some kind of placeholder until you could snag what you really wanted?”

To Alya’s surprise, Ladybug had nothing to say in her own defense, opening and closing her mouth several times to no avail, so Alya filled the silence with a curt, “I don’t know why but…I thought you were better than this.”

Ladybug didn’t look nearly as abashed as Alya thought she should have; in fact, as she delivered what she thought was a pretty scathing burn, all Ladybug could seem to do was smile ever so slightly, almost…proudly?

“I’m sorry that I, uh, disappointed you,” Ladybug said, swallowing her smile as Alya glared at her. “I just…didn’t think you’d be so defensive about your friend.”

“Best friend,” Alya corrected with a small snort. “What, you thought I’d let this slide because I’ve staked my journalistic career on you?”

“Little bit,” Ladybug muttered. “Does…nothing I’ve done earn m-me a little credit?”

“…not where Marinette’s concerned,” Alya said quietly. “You may be number one in everyone else’s book…but you’re always going to be number two in mine.”

Alya expected Ladybug to do any number of things; beg, bribe, blackmail in an effort to keep the pictures of her kissing Adrien from leaking to the press…but she didn’t expect Ladybug to immediately burst into tears.

There were few situations more awkward than watching a superhero start sniffling in your room, knowing what was going to happen but being powerless to stop a full-blown superpowered blubber-fest that was unfurling before her. It was like finding out that she cared so much about Marinette was all it took to push her over the edge as tears slowly started to spill out of the corners of her eyes.

“Oh…oh God,” Alya groaned as Ladybug started sniffling, face crumpling and nose running as she tried to hold her tears back. “Are…you gonna be okay?”

“I-I’m f-fine,” Ladybug sniffled, wiping her nose on the back of her sleeve. “It’s j-just…M-Marinette is l-lucky to have a f-friend who c-cares so m-much about her. Sh-she’s r-really…she’s really…”

Whatever shred of hero-worship Alya felt for Ladybug withered as she saw Paris’ greatest champion reduced to a blubbering wreck before her, crying like she was watching a compilation of animals waiting for their dead owners to come home. Casting about for something to offer her, Alya slid a tissue box across her desk with a small sigh.

“Are you sure?” Alya sighed, more exasperated than sympathetic as she reached out to pat Ladybug on the shoulder. “Because you’re leaking like a bargain bucket over…here…”

Something about Ladybug’s pathetic display of emotion struck a chord in Alya who, up until this point, had failed to see all the pieces laid out before her. She had struggled with the seemingly contradictory image of Ladybug and Adrien cheating on their respective partners, something about the whole situation irking her in a way she couldn’t quite explain. But Ladybug’s tears triggered something, and as Alya watched tissue after tissue soaked and wadded in the trash, she realized three fundamental truths at the exact same time;

1) Adrien was a good, good boy and someone who would never cheat on his girlfriend.

2) Ladybug, likewise, was a very, very good person, and likewise unlikely to cheat on her boyfriend.

3) The fact that Alya saw Adrien and Ladybug making out didn’t change the fact that neither of them were the kind of person to cheat on their partners.

Which could only mean that they weren’t actually cheating...which could only mean one thing.

Alya stumbled backwards a little, falling onto her bed with a small ooph as she stared wide-eyed at the girl before her. Ladybug paused her sniffling to glance up at Alya, taking in her best friend’s reaction with confusion that slowly gave way to mounting horror that seemed to cut through the waterworks.

And yet, in spite of the shock, Marinette supposed she always knew that Alya would be the first person to figure it out on her own.

“Oh…my…god,” Alya breathed, mouth hanging as her finger slowly extended in Ladybug’s direction before drifting over to a framed picture of Alya and Marinette.

“No!” Ladybug said quickly, shaking her head. “Nononononononononono!”

“Adrien wasn’t cheating, was he?” Alya said, smile slowly spreading across her face.

“No, h-he’s a super big cheater!” Ladybug stammered. “Total creep! So am I; tell the whole city about-”

The speed with which Alya crossed her bedroom and picked the babbling superheroine up in a stomach squeezing hug surprised Ladybug into silence. She could feel how big Alya’s grin was by how her cheeks strained against hers, but almost as soon as she realized her friend’s delight, Alya pulled back from the hug, ineffectually slapping Ladybug on the shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“I…” There was no point in lying anymore; to do so would be to insult Alya’s intelligence and strain their friendship even further. “…what gave it away?”

“Couple of things, but mostly the fact that no one blows through tissues like you do,” Alya snickered, poking her best friend in one of her stomach spots.

“Ugh, this is why I don’t cry in front of other people,” Marinette chuckled, rubbing her eyes with her palms. “I can’t be the only ugly crier in Paris, can I?”

“Well, no, but,” Alya trailed off with a small sigh. “Well…I guess I should have known Adrien wasn’t the cheating type.”

“I’m happy that you took my side over his anyway,” Marinette said, leaning against the desk. “Sorry for the waterworks…it’s just…”

Marinette trailed off with a bashful chuckle. “I guess…it’s nice to know there’s someone who likes me more than…Ladybug.”

“Uh…correct me if I’m wrong here, but aren’t you Ladybug?” Alya chuckled, bumping her hip against Marinette’s as she saddled up beside her.

“Yeah, but…you ever wonder if someone likes you for…you or just what you can do for them?” Marinette sighed, tilting her head back as she looked up at the ceiling.

“…you’re not worried about that with Adrien, are you?” Alya asked.

“No…it’s just…well, he fell in love with Ladybug-”

“Who is you,” Alya interjected.

“-so…bleghhh, it’s not something I think about all the time, you know,” Marinette sighed, scratching the back of her neck. “Just…nice to know for sure that there are people who prefer Marinette to Super Polkadotted Spandex Marinette.”

“Hey,” Alya said, turning to face her costumed best friend with a soft smile. “I liked Marinette a hell of a lot longer than I liked Ladybug. And even though I don’t have to pick between the two of you…I’d still choose you-you over super-you any day of the week.”

Alya never thought she’d be in a position to make Ladybug cry twice in one day, but the moment Marinette’s eyes welled up, Alya was quick with the last of her tissues. “Okay, okay, I’m out of paper, so unless you can conjure some more with your superpowers, you gotta stop crying in my room.”

“S-Sorry,” Marinette said, waving her hands in front of her face and hopping from foot to foot in a uniquely Marinette gesture. “It’s been kind of a day.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Alya said, pulling out her phone. “I’ll…delete the pictures of you and Adrien making out. I promise.”

“Well…” Marinette said, scuffing her foot on the bedroom floor. “Can you like…oh…I don’t know…”

“I sent you the pics,” Alya sighed, shaking her head with a small smirk. “You and Adrien photograph pretty well, even if I wanted to throttle you when I took them.”

“Thanks,” Marinette said, scratching her cheek with a small laugh. “I owe you one.”

“Funny you should mention that,” Alya said, pulling out a piece of paper with a toothy, vulpine smile. “What would you say to a personal interview?”

#my writing #mlfanfic #alya and marinette friendship #mlfanfiction

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rhysie-cakes314 · 6 years ago

Text

Day 18- Cryptid

This chapter makes a reference to the chapter "Revenge."

I love Tony and Clint together. I think their banter is hilarious, and my running headcanon that they are hyper-competitive and prank each other keeps me going sometimes. So, I decided they needed some alone time. Also 'Tony Talks' are now a part of my avengers family. Take that as you will.

Warnings for vague discussion of alcohol abuse, and mentions of child abuse.

Summary:

Phil Coulson had never seen two grown men this into a debate about Bigfoot. That's right, Bigfoot. He watched from his perch in the corner of the room while Tony and Clint argued back and forth about the existence of the furry beast. They were both drunk, and somewhere between giggly and screaming. Phil wasn't sure he even needed to watch movies anymore when he had entertainment like this right at home.

The story of how Tony and Clint went camping, just to try and find Bigfoot, and came back a little closer.

“There is no way in Hell that he exists and I haven’t seen him,” Clint insisted. “I’ve been all over North America and hunted in every forest. If Bigfoot was real, I would have seen him, and probably shot him. I’m Hawkeye for god’s sake!”

Tony clicked on another blurry video of the supposed cryptid. “You of all people, Clint,” he shook his head. “I thought if anyone would be a believer-”

“Me!? I can’t believe you of all people think he could exist! You’re the genius scientist! Why would there be one singular example of a species that has lived all this time, never been caught, or even caught in a clear picture? With modern cameras? You basically have to try to make a picture or video with that bad of quality,” the archer gestured wildly at the screen, spilling some of his drink.

Tony jumped to his feet and staggered over to the bar. He was pouring more liquor. This had been his first night off in weeks, and damn, he had needed this. The glass slid away from him as he recorked the bourbon. Tony stared at the spot it had been, confused. Tilting his head and reaching forward to investigate, he suddenly noticed the figure in his periphery he somehow hadn’t noticed. Maybe he should stop.

Phil watched the debacle, amused. It took the genius and embarrassingly long amount of time to notice him sitting there at the bar. “I think you’ve had enough,” he commented, and Tony was looking at him blankly. Then it all must have clicked into place, because Tony was laughing and slapping Phil’s shoulder.

“Whatever you say, Agent no-fun, I’m a-okay!” Tony spun on his heel, making to head back towards the couch where Clint was engrossed in yet another video. The two had somehow ended up on the topic of Bigfoot towards the end of movie night, and had been arguing about it since. The world spun just a bit further than he expected, and Tony stumbled, landing half standing, half in Phil’s arms against his lap. He looked up and met the agent’s gaze and winked. “You come here often?” he dropped his voice down to a sultry tone.

Taking everything in stride as usual, Phil just raised an eyebrow, looking down at his inebriated friend. Tony saw the way his lips twitched, though, and he grinned, victorious. An almost smile! That was basically the equivalent of a guffaw from Phil Coulson.

“Hey! Get off my man!” Clint called from the couch. That seemed to remind Tony of their debate. He pushed off Phil, flirtation forgotten, and jumped onto the couch, sticking his socks in Clint’s face. The squawk he let it out was totally worth the ensuing wrestling match that ended up with Tony pinned on the ground.

“Uncle!” Clint let up and Tony rolled over, deciding the floor was fine anyway. “Seriously, though, we’ve been to the Savage Lands! We’ve met monsters galore, plus he could just be a mutant, only one explained. Boom.” He threw up a fist in victory.

“You’re cracked. Oh, Steve!” Clint noticed the man enter the room first. Everyone besides the three of them had left the room a long time ago, and Steve was in pajamas now. “Tell your boy-toy that Bigfoot is a myth.”

Steve and Phil shared amused expressions across the room. It was nice to see Tony unwinding, though why he was on the floor was a mystery. The brunette propped himself up on his elbows, waiting expectantly for Steve’s input. “Well…”

“Keep in mind that I can withhold sex,” Tony interrupted.

“That’s not fair!”

Steve chuckled. “As if you could resist me, Tony. I’d have to say I think he might be real. Buck had a cousin who definitely saw him once.”

“A friend of a friend? How cliché,” Clint scoffed over Tony’s loud ‘ha!’

“You know what? I’m gonna prove it.” Tony sat up, pointing an accusatory finger at his adversary. “You, me, we’re going camping for the weekend. JARVIS, calculate which forest will be most likely to have Bigfoot.”

“Of course, Sir.”

Steve reached out a hand until Tony took it to stand up. “Come on, Tony, you hate camping. Remember the spider-bite?” That had been a terrible adventure.

“I hate allowing Clint to think he’s won more,” he replied very seriously. “Plus this time we’ll actually have a way to call for help if we need it.”

“According to the most believable sightings and the climates which would best suit the creature in October, I suggest you camp in Sierra National Forest of California.” JARVIS said.

“Wait, don’t I get a say in this?” Clint asked. Tony crossed his arms with a smirk, knowing Clint wasn’t going to pass up the chance to embarrass Tony with a bet. “Okay, you’re right. You’re on, winner gets to choose loser’s songs for the next karaoke night.”

“Perfect. We’ll leave tomorrow and come back on Monday.” Steve crossed his arms, pursing his lips in annoyance until Tony added, “As long as Cap’s alright with it, that is.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “But don’t forget how cold it is at night this time of year.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah, mom.”

…

One of Tony’s jets was parked outside the western edge of the forest. Grabbing their packs, Tony and Clint began their hike to find a good campsite near coordinates JARVIS gave them where they were most likely to encounter Bigfoot. “How are we going to entertain ourselves for three days?” Clint asked, mostly thinking aloud as they walked.

Tony thought about that, realizing he had never spent this much time with just Clint before. What if they got sick of each other? What did Clint like to do? Tony assumed he probably enjoyed shooting things, knew he enjoyed video games but that wasn’t really possible out here… “Good question. We could play games or something, maybe you could teach me to shoot with a bow.”

The way the archer’s head whipped around with a wide grin was a little scary. “You’d really want to learn? I could show you so many tricks!”

Tony held up his hands, “Whoa there, Robin Hood, don’t get ahead of yourself. I’ve never even shot a regular target with your primitive weaponry.”

Clint got that mischievous glint to his eyes that Tony had learned to be wary of. “You’ll regret calling my weaponry primitive by the end of this weekend, mark my words.”

Tony smirked. “I doubt it. I was a weapons designer, remember? A handgun seems a bit primitive to me.”

The archer raised both eyebrows in disbelief, the hint of laughter there. “We’ll see.” He turned as they continued walking and scanning for a good spot to set up camp. “Anyway, I’d actually enjoy teaching you to shoot, I think. Nobody is ever really interested in it.”

“Yeah, it could be fun,” Tony replied warmly. “I like learning new skills.” They came upon a small clearing that seemed as good a spot as any and wordlessly agreed to set up camp. That finished, Clint’s stomach decided it was the perfect time to rumble. “Let’s save the lessons for later though, you sound hungry. You hunt I’ll make a fire?”

“Sounds good to me. I bet I can have an animal ready to be cooked before you finish setting up the fire,” Clint prodded, wiggling his eyebrows. It was a stupid look.

“Oh, you’re on.” They both took off in opposite directions in a rush, Clint with his bow, and Tony to gather wood. Clint may be a perfect shot, but he was crazy if he thought he’d win this one. He had to find an animal, kill it, lug it back, skin it, and butcher it. All Tony had to do was gather wood, use some rocks to border a pit, and get some tinder. It’d be a piece of cake.

The last log of Tony’s little log cabin pyramid set up he had going and stepped back to admire his work. If Tony Stark was going to build a fire, it was going to be the best fire you’ve ever seen. He wondered idly if the two of them were capable of not competing. Looking back, everything they did tended to take on at least a slightly competitive quality. The curiosity as to why, now that he’d noticed it, was going to eat him up until he figured it out. Maybe Clint would have a good idea about it.

The tinder on top of the base, surrounded by the other logs above and beside, was not lighting the way it should. Clint had already dragged back a mule deer and was nearly finished skinning the giant buck, and Tony’s perfect setup wouldn’t light. He had read plenty on camping, used to do it with JARVIS even, Tony knew how to start a fire, damnit. The problem was that everything was damp. He hadn’t noticed it on the hike here, but it must’ve rained recently. That damn hawkeyed archer had probably noticed it and that’s why he was so confident in the bet. Tony narrowed his eyes in concentration, Clint was forgetting that he was a genius. He’d solve this.

“Having trouble over there?” Clint asked smugly.

“No, you?” Tony shot back.

“Nope! Almost finished.”

“Good for you,” Tony muttered. Remembering an accident that happened once in the lab, he suddenly had an idea. The flurry of movement caught Clint off guard, and he watched with interest as Tony pulled out his cell phone and quickly disassembled it, holding up the battery in triumph. “You lose, Barton!” Clint gaped in a mixture of awe and horror as Tony reached up his shirt and pulled out the arc reactor. Tony’s face only showed a small twitch that indicated Tony feeling a thing. Tony took the wire that connected the reactor to the electromagnet, and touched it to the uncovered metal of his phone’s lithium ion battery. The resulting sparks were numerous, and hotter than what someone can get with banging rocks together or twirling sticks by hand. Despite the dampness, the kindling burst into flame, and the fire continued to burn steadily after that. Tony yanked his hands back, only catching a few sparks on his skin. “Agh! Youch, that’s hot.” He hissed. Sitting back from his crouch and recasing the reactor, Tony met Clint’s stare with a satisfied grin.

Tony Stark was a madman. Clint couldn’t believe he was only just now finding out. They had lived together and worked together for years, but he had never imagined how mad the genius was. “What the actual fuck?” he blurted out.

Not the reaction he had been expecting, Tony studied Clint’s horrified expression. “What do you mean?” He gestured to the fire he had created with his genius, “Fire lit, I win.”

“You took out the thing that keeps you alive and destroyed your cell phone just to win a stupid contest against me!?” Clint’s voice rose a few octaves. He was kind of feeling off-kilter. Maybe going to the woods alone with a mad-scientist wasn’t a great idea. At least for his mental health.

Somehow, Tony looked even more confused. “It’s not like I die if it’s only out for a few seconds, chill. Plus I’m a billionaire, maybe trillionaire I don’t remember, Pepper would know, but the point is I can replace my phone battery no problem. You’re just salty I won.” Tony crossed his arms with a smugness the situation surely did not warrant. “C’mon, get the food finished, I’m hungry.”

The archer shook his head in disbelief, returning to his work. When Tony put it that way, it seemed almost logical, but Tony always managed to make crazy things sound logical. The man had burned himself with sparks from a device he needed to live like the risk was a non-factor. He was bringing this up next time Cap or Phil tried to harass him for being reckless. Tony made him look like the most cautious man alive. He decided to put the image of Tony pulling out the reactor out of his head. It was playing over and over in his mind, and Clint wouldn’t have thought he’d be so affected by a simple action like that, but to him it had looked akin to someone stabbing themselves or something. And that was his friend, his family member. All of the Avengers probably subconsciously equated the blue light in Tony’s chest with him being alive.

By the time they were done eating and packing away the leftovers in bear-proof, freshness-preserving containers of Tony’s design for dinner, it was somewhere in the late afternoon. “So,” Clint ventured. “How are we going to find your mythical creature?”

“Possibly mythical,” Tony corrected automatically. “I thought about the spread of sightings and decided that Bigfoot is most likely a species and not just one creature, but it probably doesn’t live in packs, given that no one has ever seen multiple together.”

Clint rolled his eyes. He couldn’t believe Tony believed this stuff. “Or that I’ve never seen any,” he muttered.

“Hush. You asked for the plan. Anyway, I think we can stay within this one general area, because each Bigfoot probably stays within their territory that they mark, probably with urine. It’d be much harder to find one in three days if we were going on the assumption of only one in the entirety of this forest. JARVIS and I agree that the species is probably nocturnal, so I thought you and I could take shifts at night a little ways away to see if we can spot him, since he probably wouldn’t approach the campsite.” Tony rummaged around in the tent behind him, pulling out his bag. “I brought us night-vision goggles!” he held them up in excitement.

Clint snatched one, examining it closely. “You thought this through more than I expected,” he admitted finally.

“Well duh, I think everything through,” Tony scoffed. Given the myriad of instances Clint could cite where that was clearly not the case, he decided it was a pointless debate. He would never win it without one of the others to back him up.

“We’ve got lots of daylight left, then, wanna learn to shoot?”

Tony shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

They practiced for hours. Tony was surprisingly promising for a novice, but he struggled to hold the arrow back without shaking, which made aim difficult. “I’m trying to be still, but it’s so hard to pull back!” he whined. Clint laughed but with no malice. He could still remember what building up the muscles for this was like, and Tony probably never needed to use his trapezius, deltoid, and triceps with his fighting style. The man was lean and strong, had to be to pilot the suit, but his upper back was not his strong suit. “I’m going to be so sore tomorrow,” Tony sighed, letting loose another shaky arrow.

“You’re a natural though,” Clint encouraged. Tony scowled like he didn’t believe it. “What, would I be the one to lie to make you feel better?”

“You’ve got a point, bird-brain.” They got dinner and decided Clint would take the first shift of the night, since Tony’s body was more worn out from their archery lessons. Clint decided to talk Tony into something more relaxing tomorrow.

…

The night had been uneventful and boring as hell. Clint nearly fell asleep on his branch a couple times purely out of boredom. Tony reported a similar experience, but was still confident in his endeavor to prove the existence to Clint. Plus, the weekend was going to be a success for him either way.

“We should go swimming today,” Clint decided halfway through their late morning meal. It was nice to have no schedule to keep, and he was actually shocked that Tony had come up with the idea given this was usually his crazy work month. Whatever was motivating the change, Clint enjoyed a less manic Tony. The genius could get too high strung.

Tony spluttered a little, coughing before drinking some more to calm down. Clint hadn’t even noticed that he was drinking from a flask, and not his water bottle. He frowned. “Perhaps not,” Tony finally managed. When no further explanation came, Clint pressed it.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to,” Tony snapped. He looked surprised himself at the harsh reaction. “Sorry, I just, I don’t like swimming.” The discomfort was obvious.

This wasn’t their thing, Tony and Clint didn’t talk feelings, they goofed around and teased each other. Everyone on the team had had at least one of their ‘Tony Talks’ as they had been deemed, everyone except Clint. Clint heard about them only in hearsay, but a Tony Talk was apparently always eye-opening for both parties. Tony kept things close to his chest for the most part, Clint did too, so whenever a Tony Talk did happen, whether it was because the two people got really drunk, or because a duo mission got unexpectedly serious and adrenaline pushed truths out of the closet, it was a big deal.

Clint never took it personally, their relationship was fine as it was. Friendly rivalry and casual fun defined most of it, but they both knew they’d do anything for each other. And if he was being honest with himself, he wasn’t sure he wanted a Tony Talk. There’s no way he would escape without revealing himself as well, and there was a reason only Nat and Phil really knew him. Giving people your trust was a very dangerous game. Whenever he thought about trying to be more open, Barney’s face haunted his dreams to remind him that even your brother can turn on you.

But Tony and he were gonna be here all weekend. Maybe this was finally the time to let their relationship grow, even if only a little. Plus, Tony had chosen to take a break in his busy schedule to go on a trip with him. There had to be something more to that than just Bigfoot, right? Tony hated camping. He felt like he owed it to the genius a little to try to be there, not just shrug off the man’s discomfort.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked quietly. Tony looked over, surprised, then quickly averted his eyes.

“I mean, it’s not a big deal,” he muttered.

And Clint could leave it at that. But this was so uncharacteristic of Tony. He was usually all bravado and deflection, this seemed unsure. The man who practically lead the Avengers as much as Cap made it clear when you weren’t allowed to broach a subject. This was only a half-hearted deflection; Clint took the leap that he wanted it pushed.

“Tony, look at me.” Tony looked like it pained him to do so, but he also looked grateful when he saw that Clint was taking this seriously. “It clearly is something, and you need to know you can tell me anything. I know we fool around a lot, but I would never make fun of you for anything real. You know that, right?”

Tony nodded. He bit his lip, unsure. “I know, it just always sounds stupid when I say it out loud.” He shifted into a more comfortable decision. “I don’t like it when people see my chest,” he admitted with a blush.

That… was not at all where Clint had thought this was going. He kind of thought they were going to get into a PTSD talk about the torture in Afghanistan, which Tony’s file was vague on but Clint knew it involved semi-drowning. The bastards hadn’t even waterboarded Tony, no, they literally held him down in barrels. The risk of actually drowning was real. But no, now that he thought about it, Clint had never seen Tony shirtless. He’d seen pictures of course, anyone with the internet could, but they were all from before the arc reactor. Clint wondered if all the women Tony had still had one night stands with after had seen him, or if he’d just kept his shirt on during sex. “I don’t have any glowing parts, but I’ll show you my scars if you show me yours?” he tried to keep it light, let Tony know it was okay if he didn’t want to, but toe the line so the man didn’t think he was being mocked.

Tony studied his friend’s face. And they were friends, he knew that, but he also knew that he and Clint had never really talked about serious stuff. There was sort of an unspoken agreement that if one of them came to the other upset, it was to escape talking about it, to escape everything and just get drunk and be stupid. This was new territory, but Clint didn’t show any hint of this being a game. “You first.” he eventually broke the yawning silence between them.

Clint didn’t say anything, just took off his t-shirt and placed it in his lap. He had never been self-conscious about his body before, but being studied made him feel a little like squirming.

“Tell me what they’re from, please,” Tony said quietly. It was so strangely intimate, but it also didn’t feel weird like it should. This was his drinking buddy, but also the guy who had to have his back on the battlefield. If he could let Tony hold his life in his hands, which he definitely has before, then he can talk about scars.

So he did. “This one here was from my dad, where the belt buckle caught me just right,” Tony just nodded, face blank. “Um, this one was me getting caught on a barbed wire fence while robbing a mansion, that was in my Circus of Crime days. These two are both stab wounds from pocket knives in different bar fights. The one over here is from Barney.” Clint swallowed. Tony gave him a small smile; it said ‘I understand.’ “And this one was a sniper shot in Budapest. I can’t really remember the smaller ones.” He shrugged. There were so many scars over the years, it wasn’t really possible to keep track.

Tony scrubbed his hands over his face, looking his age for once. It was easy to forget that he was older than most of them, well, older than all the naturally aging people. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked you to do that, this is so weird, I’m being stupid.”

“No, you’re not,” Clint cut him off. “And it’s okay. Sometimes things have to be a little weird to feel safe. We’re family. If talking about scars makes you feel okay about yours, then I have no problems with it.”

Tony looked so lost for a moment, eyes glassy, but he blinked and he was fine. Clint could almost believe he had imagined it if Tony didn’t take a long drag from the flask he brought. “Right. Yeah. Um,” he paused, “oh fuck it.” He pulled off his t-shirt and it all made a little more sense.

Sure, Clint had a lot of scars, like anyone in the hero business that didn’t have special healing factors, but Tony’s scars weren’t normal. The skin around the arc reactor was all scar tissue, jagged and pink, with longer scars here and there jutting out like hands on a clock. It had never really occurred to Clint before just how much of Tony’s chest must be missing. A lot of the sternum was probably gone, which meant the ribs there were probably a little more free floating than they should be. That or wedged against the metal. There’s no way his heart and lungs weren’t being pushed out of the way by it, misplaced. He knew how big the reactor was, how had he never thought about this?

The rest of Tony’s obvious scars were ones Clint knew about, things that had happened since the Avengers Initiative began.There were other smaller ones, but they might as well be invisible next to the chest piece. Clint realized he had been staring, and looked up to see Tony watching him nervously. “I don’t really need to tell you what they’re from, do I?” he asked, sarcastic smile plastered on his face in an attempt to hide the fear. This is when Tony always expected people to run screaming.

Clint allowed his own lips to form a lopsided smile. “No, I suppose you don’t. Thank you, for trusting me.”

Tony gave a jerky nod. “Let’s just get it out of the way, because I know you’re thinking about it. Ask whatever questions you want then we can go swimming and stop being mushy.”

The bluntness surprised a laugh out of Clint. “That’s fair, I am curious. Does it affect your breathing?”

“My lung capacity is diminished by about 40%, a little more on my left than on the right since my heart’s being shoved over that way.”

“Do you feel it?”

“Everyday. I forget about it sometimes, but it’s still that cold, hard, knot in my chest making it harder to breathe. It took a long time to get used to.”

“Does the casing ever burn you?”

Tony actually chuckled, and it seemed like this was getting easier. “Well I can’t go suntanning anymore. Actually, the bigger problem is in the cold, the metal gets colder quicker, and it kind of saps the heat away from its surrounding. So I get hypothermia a lot easier. I think the scar tissue is the only reason I haven’t gotten frostbite from it.”

“I can’t believe you built that in a cave,” Clint admitted. It was probably the one thing that had always impressed him the most about Tony.

“It’s not like I wasn’t surrounded by tech to scavenge from,” Tony shrugged it off. “They gave me whatever I asked for, thought I was building a bomb.”

“Just take the compliment, shellhead. Let’s go swimming.”

…

Somehow a relaxing swim in the stream turned into another contest. Tony decided that they should race. When that ended predictably (hadn’t they just talked about Tony’s lack of lung capacity?) Tony suggested they see who can catch a fish with their bare hands first. Clint almost felt bad when he won that too, the way Tony slumped in defeat for a moment, but it was quickly shrugged off. Overall they had a good time.

They decided to stick with the same schedule for watch that night. Tony was confident that this was the night. Bigfoot was gonna show. Clint nestled into another tree with his night-vision goggles on, bow on his back. He scanned the forest, seeing the occasional fox and hearing some coyotes in the distance. The wind chill was worse up in the trees, so he hugged his arms around himself to keep warm. It seemed a little unbelievable if he let himself think to hard about the fact that he was sitting in a tree in California in the middle of the night all because Thor had asked about the ‘Midgardian Bigfoot’ he had heard about on the ‘internets.’

Tony was ready. It hadn’t been part of the plan to have a heart to heart that day, but it definitely worked in his favor. Clint’s guard was down more than usual. He seemed slightly less hypervigilant than usual around Tony, and it had to be a subconscious trust thing. Granted, slightly less hypervigilant from the great Hawkeye still meant very hypervigilant, but this was Tony’s best chance for revenge. Tony was going to break Clint’s winning streak in their scream contest this year if it killed him. Well, not literally. Probably.

Natasha had been helping him learn to sneak better. He was already naturally light on his feet, plus he had the advantage of being light, but no one was better suited to sneaking than Black widow. Tony liked to think he had gotten pretty good. The tent made no sound as he exited, and he carefully avoided every leaf or twig as he approached the tree Clint was in. He looked up, studying his best chance, calculating lengths from one branch to another compared to his arm’s reach, as well as which branches could most likely hold his weight. Plan mapped out, he silently began the climb up the tree behind Clint’s. The archer wasn’t even scanning in the direction of the tent since they assumed that’s not where Bigfoot would be.

The slight rustle in the leaves above Clint only happened during a breeze, so he thought nothing of it. Just once, he heard a sudden rustling noise, but when he looked up, a bird was flying away into the night. There was no reason to expect anyone out here. It was an impromptu trip. So when the branch just behind him made a cracking noise, he moved on instinct, decades of training taking over in an instant.

Of course the last fucking branch was Tony’s only miscalculation. It must have already been structurally compromised on the underside, because it was definitely big enough to hold his weight with no sound this close to the tree trunk. The cracking sound gave him away, so it was now or never. “Boo!” he yelled as loud as possible just as Clint screamed and suddenly he was falling backward.

The archer watched helplessly while Tony fell to the ground below, the thump of his body landing in dead leaves and rolling a little making him wince. How had he thought sneaking up on a trained SHIELD agent was a good plan? Clint had efficiently flipped the assailant over, knocking each hand roughly to disarm him in case, and let go to watch them fall. There was no way he could’ve known it was Tony until it was too late. Everything had happened so fast, plus with the night vision goggles on, Tony looked kind of like a blurry bright blob, details like his goatee disappearing in the resolution of the lenses. Clint took the goggles off and strapped them to his belt, quickly climbing down after Tony. His natural night vision was better anyway.

“Tony! Oh my god, please be alive.”

Tony was still lying on the ground, but Clint could see he was moving as he neared the bottom. He groaned. “I win!” he taunted, raising his head to look at Clint before dropping it back to the ground. “Ow.”

Clint knelt down beside him, doing a cursory once over. “You are not seriously talking about the damn scream contest right now, are you?” This solidified Clint’s theory from the day before. Tony was an actual mad man.

“But I finally beat you,” Tony actually whined. Clint kind of wanted to slap him.

“Where are you hurt?” he asked instead.

Tony went to sit up, hissing when he moved his left arm. Clint let him use his shoulder to grip with the uninjured arm and helped the man sit up. “Not sure.” Tony wiggled different parts of his body, occasional hisses and yelps. “Definitely left shoulder and arm, right ankle, and possibly a couple ribs. I must’ve done something to my ankle on the branch when you ninja-flipped me, and landed on my left side, although better than my neck I suppose,” he added as an afterthought.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Clint let his anger out, now that he knew Tony wasn’t dying or something. “You know I’m a trained combatant, that sneaking up on me in the dark, in a tree no less, is a terrible idea! Probably the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, and honestly? I thought you were supposed to be a genius and I let it go when you pulled out your reactor just to start a fire faster but seriously, what is wrong with you!?”

Tony was staring at him petulantly, and Clint was reminded of a toddler in trouble. “Can I answer now or do you need to let off more steam?” he had the gall to be sarcastic and raise an unimpressed eyebrow at Clint. He was so tempted to punch the man in the nose and honestly? He’d probably do it if Steve wouldn’t kill him for it.

“That’s it, I’m leaving you here on your own. You can figure out how to hop on one leg back to camp because I can’t handle you right now.” He stood up and began to walk away.

He couldn’t actually be walking away, right? He was joking, he had to be. “Wait! No, I’ll shut up just help me get to the tent at least.”

Clint closed his eyes and counted to ten. How Steve dealt with this all the time was a mystery for the ages. He walked back and silently helped the smaller man up, to lean on him. Tony kept his mouth shut, limping back to camp, where Clint unceremoniously dropped him outside the tent. The fire was still slightly burning embers, so he scooted over, shivering. Clint watched him curl up, one arm cradled awkwardly to his chest, the other wrapped around his knees, and his injured ankle gingerly placed on the ground while he just stared into the glowing embers with a thousand-yard-stare.

The sight made Tony look so small. The anger bled out of Clint, leaving behind exhaustion and pity. He sighed, setting about to rekindle the flames. When he settled down on the other side of the fire, Tony still hadn’t looked away from the flames. “Look,” Clint said tiredly, but Tony didn’t react. “I’m sorry I flew off the handle,” he tried.

Tony shook his head slightly, almost imperceptible. His lips barely moved as he murmured, “Don’t apologize, I deserved it.”

This was going nowhere. He was clearly in one of his Stark-patented sulks. “I guess we’ll leave in the morning?” Tony made a movement that might have been a one armed shrug, but it was hard to tell. Clint thought he caught a mumbled ‘yeah, whatever’ but his hearing aids could only do so much. “Tony, please, talk to me.”

His eyes slid up, meeting Clint’s, but he otherwise remained unmoved. “What.”

God, it was like pulling teeth. Clint growled in frustration, tugging at his hair for a moment. “Can you just, I don’t know, explain it to me?”

“Explain what? I’m really not sure why you’re mad at me,” Tony finally reacted, shifting to face Clint more fully. He looked stricken. “I thought we were having a fun weekend, and then I find out you’ve been, I don’t know, sitting on something about the arc reactor instead of just telling me you were upset, and I don’t know what to think! I can get it if you hate me, it would make sense, but this up and down where one minute you’re telling me about your scars so I’ll feel better and the next you’re yelling at me like a child, I just don’t know what you want.”

The sudden, overwhelming desire to laugh took hold of Clint for a moment, but he thankfully stifled it. There’s no way Tony would take that well. “I’m not really sure how we got to this point either, to be honest. I think,” but Tony stopped him with a finger in a ‘wait a minute’ gesture.

“If we’re about to really get into this, I need to get comfortable,” he started trying to scoot himself over toward the tent with one leg, on his butt, and only the opposite arm to balance. It was stupid. Clint jumped up and was over to the tent in minutes.

“For god’s sake, Tony, just ask me to get something for you.”

“Fine.” And he didn’t need to look so offended at being helped. “Can you grab me my hoodie jacket with the flask?”

Clint watched Tony take a long drag of his liquor while he settled himself back on the ground. Tony motioned with his hand for Clint to continue from before, placing the hoodie on his lap like a blanket. “Okay, that for one. Why do you have a flask this weekend? Do you always have one?”

Tony stared at the container in his hand. “Old habits, I guess. My dear old dad gave me my first one when I was a kid. Always having it with me kind of made me feel like we had something in common.” The bitterness laced through his words. It did give them something in common, Tony knew it. He probably drank too much. But he never piloted the armour drunk, didn’t put others at risk, and that was good enough for him.

“Scratch that, that’s a can of worms we can save for another time.” Tony grimaced but said nothing. “I think there’s been some undercurrent to our interactions lately that I’m not sure what it is, but there’s a tension. Like none of our games are just games anymore, maybe.”

Tony thought about that. “You might be onto something. I admit I’ve been even more averse to losing than usual.”

“I’ll take some of the blame for that, too.” Clint admitted. “I compete with everyone, but I definitely feel more invested when it’s you.”

Tony nodded, like that rang true for him as well. “You’re my only competition,” he said.

That stopped Clint’s line of thought short. “What? Why?”

Tony unscrewed the flask, thought better of it, and screwed it shut again. “Well think about it. Out of the official team, Coulson not included because he helps more in the background, you’re the only other normal human. You and I don’t have anything but our natural skills and tech.”

A lot of little things began to click into place for Clint. “This is about belonging on the Avengers, isn’t it,” it wasn’t a question. Tony nodded, expression twisted in a self-deprecating smile. “I can relate to that. We both have to work harder to keep up with the others. I always thought that’s why we worked so well together, we have to hold each other up to the standards of all the powered ups. I don’t want it to be a competition where one of us belongs and the other doesn’t, I would lose.” He let out his own self-deprecating chuckle.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, you win at everything! My only thing is my genius, and you’re plenty intelligent yourself, so where does that leave me? Sure, I’ve got the money, but I’ll keep funding everyone even after I die. And I’m not going to be able to do this forever, I’m getting older, what if I get alzheimer's or something?” There was a frantic note to his tone.

“And what if I go blind or get a permanent injury? Tony, any one of us could be permanently benched for a number of reasons, except maybe Thor. Even Bruce sometimes can’t control the Hulk, and that makes him a liability. Steve and Nat are hardly invulnerable. That’s the business, everything is fluid and tentative.”

Fuck it. Tony took another couple swallows from the flask. “What are we supposed to do with ourselves when we’re done with the Avengers?”

Clint shrugged. It was something he had definitely thought about, but he preferred to deal with problems as they came. Tony was the one always stuck in the possible futures. “We’ll always be a family.”

“Yeah I guess you’re right.” They sat in companionable silence for a while, just listening to the crackle of burning wood. “Oh!” Clint startled from his thoughts, glancing up. “Where are your night vision goggles?”

“Uh, I think I left them on the ground when you fell.”

Tony tossed his over. “Here, take mine and go get them.”

Clint groaned. “Do I have to? It’s not like you can’t afford new ones.”

“Quit your griping, birdbrain. I built cameras into them so we could catch Bigfoot on film! What if he showed up while we were gone?” Tony grinned in excitement.

“You’ve got to be kidding me! I was starting to think maybe this was all a ploy just for the sneaking up on me, but no, you really think there’s a cryptid out there.”

Tony looked personally affronted. “Of course I do. Cryptids are everywhere, you sad, sad, nonbeliever.”

The walk back the next morning was slow. Tony had to take a few breaks, but these injuries were child’s play for them. They were still able to joke around and have fun while they walked. “I can’t believe I finally got a Tony Talk,” Clint thought aloud as they neared the jet.

“A what?” Tony shot him an amused look.

“Oh my god, you don’t know?” They settled into their seats after Clint packed everything in.

“Know what!” Tony exclaimed impatiently.

Clint laughed. “They’re a legend. Everyone on the team had had a Tony Talk but me. It’s like a rare look at the real you that’s supposed to always be life altering.”

Tony scoffed. “That’s ridiculous, you’re making this up. Sounds like a Ted Talk.”

Clint just shook his head, smiling knowingly. “Don’t believe me? Ask the others.”

…

The Avengers had been gathered into the movie room to watch whatever Tony was demanding they watch. Everyone had already finished scolding the man for coming back from simple camping all banged up. The previous evening’s dinner had consisted of a series of lectures, followed by a hilariously flustered Tony finding out that yes, Tony Talks were a thing. He had fled the scene then, spending the night in his lab reviewing footage from their night vision goggles.

“Alright, what is this all about?” Steve asked.

“JARVIS queue up the segment we talked about. Lady and gentleman, I present to you, Bigfoot!”

Clint jumped forward off the couch, watching the footage carefully. It was clearly from his goggles on the second night, the angle odd from their spot on the ground. Sure enough, an unnaturally large humanoid figure strutted across the scene, slowed down to a frame by frame. Showed again at normal speed, the furry figure was a blur across the screen. Whatever it was was fast. Unfortunately, because it was night vision footage, Clint couldn’t make out the fine details, but even he had to admit it looked like a Bigfoot. “I can’t believe it,” he whispered as Tony cackled maniacally.

#thearkoctoberchallenge2018 #marvel #fanfic #fanfiction #tony stark #clint barton #avengers #avengers as a family #bigfoot

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smileyisawesomeable · 8 years ago

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BECAUSE @pk-hellfire MADE ME Louis was very tired of fake farmers trying to get into his pants. Just because he was a country music millionaire didn't mean he was gonna marry any two-bit hack who thought riding bareback was a sex position. YeeHawmony, Cowboy Mingle, and Wranglr were terrible sites, meant for wannabe riders and people who didn't know how to stick a seed in the ground, let alone grow it. Plus, nobody believed he was The Louis Tomlinson™ and when they did, they only dated him for money. Gay cowboys were hard to come by, and Louis gave up on his dreams of marriage and love, raising his own children along with cows, chickens, and horses. Niall was sick of him whining about his need for a down-home boy, so he went searching all over the internet for a way to find an authentic farmer dating site. Louis was losing hope, and his song writing went as dry as his love life. Zayn, his manager, was worried about Louis's well being, so he joined Niall on late-night searches and calls to obscure dating services. When asked who they wanted to sign up, the reply of the famous star's name made workers hang up. How was Louis supposed to find love as a cowboy in this high-tech world? Finally, 8 months after Louis's last album released, his phone rang. At 2:27 in the morning, three hours before he had to be awake, he found his solution. Niall screamed into his ear, despite being twenty yards away in the guest ranch, wanting him to get on his laptop and search up Farmers Only. He told Niall to fuck off, and go to bed. But because he was so desperate, and somewhat sleep deprived, he picked up his laptop and clicked on Google. Seventeen minutes later, he fell asleep on the keyboard, spelling his name Lou Tinson and submitting his form. Right at 5:30 the rooster crowed, awakening Louis with a start. His laptop slipped out of his arms in his sleep, laying closed on the floor, completely forgotten along with the night's events. A morning of chores, including but not limited to cleaning the pig pen, gathering eggs, brushing horses (2), and checking the cows and fences, made his back ache and had his heart screaming in loneliness. After lunch, Louis had to do house chores, and found his laptop on the floor for a reason he didn't know. Out of curiosity, he opened the lid and stared at the screen in disbelief. There was his blurry picture, and his email, but the wrong name posted on a profile he didn't remember making. He had no idea how to handle the idea that a "fan" had broken into his house, took pictures of him, and posted it without him even waking up. Louis finally snapped to attention, called Zayn and Niall, demanding that they come over immediately to help him, no explanation given, just a plea for help. When they came, Louis begged them to check the cameras he installed after fans found out his address. Niall was confused, but this wasn't exactly unlike his best friend. Zayn was sketched out, running to the living room, flipping the TV on and reviewing last night's video log. Nobody in, nobody out. Nothing. "Lou, what are you so worried about? Your house was dead last night," said the thick, Bradford accent. Louis turned around, opened his laptop, and showed them his crazy screen most likely filled with requests to get muddy. Once Niall saw, he died laughing. He showed Louis and Zayn his phone record, and explained the situation to the perplexed boys. Zayn finally understood and began to laugh with Niall, reading the profile of "Lou Tinson" and laughing at the endearing, yet slightly misspelled, biography. Louis thought they were evil, laughing at him in his sleep deprived haze, but he had to follow along when he realized how badly he'd overreacted. After the boys left, back to their daily lives, Louis continued to clean the house, ignoring his constantly pinging laptop. It seemed every cowboy wanted a taste of the beautiful, yet blurry pictured boy. Finally, his chores were done and his curiosity, for the second time that day, got the very best of him. With a sigh, he lay on his couch, armed with popcorn and a can of coke, ready to laugh at the ridiculous things people had offered him. He turned Netflix on to the cutest Christmas carol he could find, ready for the fast-approaching season. In the time it took for him to get the movie on, his laptop chimed eight times. He stuffed his mouth full of popcorn, and pulled up the minimized tab. There were 63 messages. All from the same person, a Hal Stiles. His photo was just as low-quality as Louis's, biography so similar he could only laugh. Hal loved fishing, biking, riding horses, and he mentioned that he had his own little farm close to Holmes Chapel. Hal seemed perfect for Louis, but 63 messages in the time it took Louis to clean his property? He seemed desperate. REALLY desperate. During this inner monologue, his screen showed two new messages. Louis though it may be best to actually read the messages before making a decision, because his momma raised him right, to never judge a book by its cover. The messages were poorly written, looked like his drunk texts: U r cute nd i like u Ur hair is prety Can u ride horses?? I need a new daddy Jeez, this guy didn't seem to beat around the bush. Hal seemed like a funny guy, though. There was determination in his many texts, and a Louis could only imagine how easy it would be to start a conversation. Before he could stop himself, Louis was sending a message: Are you always this forward or was there a big hoedown last night? A message came almost instantly, giving a phone number. Louis was perplexed but he wanted to see where this was going. He texted the number his "name" and said hi with a smile. Then he waited. Louis never got the message he was hoping for, but instead, two movies and half a beer later, his phone rang with an Hal's number. Immediately, Louis picked up. A young voice screamed in his ear, a dog barked, and a deep voice screamed about the tickle monster. What had he gotten into? Finally, Harry realized that his phone was on, and he was being listened to, because he picked up the phone, with a rush of apologies. It had only been 4 minutes, and the person on the other side was more amused than angered. "You're fine, love! But your name is Hal right?" The deep voice laughed. What an odd day. First his daughter, taking his phone to text weird people, then this. Weird caller with no clue of his actual name. "No, my name is Harry. But, not to be rude, who are you?" Louis was lost. "I'm Louis. I texted you earlier, after you gave me your number, remember?" "Umm, no. I don't give out my cell number normally. My daughter plays on it. I think you have the wrong number?" Hal, or Harry, replied with a confused voice. "Wait," he added, "Are you on Farmers Only?" Then the voice sighed. "Yes, I signed up for it last night. Why?" Lou replied, ready to hang up on this drunken mess. He sat in silence for a few minutes, waiting for a reply. "My daughter. Well, my daughter is special. She loves to sign me up for things. She's only six, but she thinks she can set me up. I caught her messaging someone today and I think it was you." Harry sounded close to tears, sighing between every few words. "When this sunk in, Louis found himself laughing, a sound that made Harry's heart leap. It sounded warm and comforting. "That's fine, mate. I was a little confused at the forwardness of you "needing a new daddy" anyways," Louis finally joked, wiping tears away from laughing too hard. There was an audible gasp on the other side. "Trust me, she's 6. There is no way she would mean it that way!" Luna was as special as the character she was named after, always up to something Harry had to solve eventually, but he wouldn't have it any other way. "Look, Louis. I really didn't mean to get your hopes up because I'm not ready for anything serious, but you seem like a nice guy. How about I make this up to you with drinks? Friday night?" Harry said, ready to make this unfortunate event to the poor bloke on the other side of the line. "Y'know what, Harry? That sounds mighty fine."

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archivesofelle · 8 years ago

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21 things I learned before turning 21

Give yourself a positive environment. Surround yourself with people who have a positive impact on your life and delete those who don’t. If someone has a negative impact on you and/or your mental health, even if it’s a family member, stop seeing him/her. You are a product of your environment, but it comes to you to make your environment as good as possible. This works IRL and online. Surround yourself (IRL) with friends who won’t judge you, take time to choose your online friends because you have all the options in the world, follow celebrities who have a positive impact on your like and on the world. Swim in positivity.

The awkward teenager phase is a real thing. It might take more time for you to come out of it, but you will. Give yourself time, don’t rush in, and you’ll be fine and look back at your teenage-self smiling because even though you were a little stupid at times, you had a good time.

Learn to love yourself before loving others. You come first. Learning to love myself is honestly the hardest personal thing I ever had to do, but it’s oh so worth it. It’s ok to take things slow, because it’s really hard, but don’t lose yourself. You matter. Find things about yourself that you like, and show the world that this is good about you. Don’t let others doubt about that. If you’re confident about your qualities, others won’t even start to doubt them. And go back to my point number one: surround yourself with positive and loving people who will hep you in this journey. Love yourself, and respect yourself.

It’s ok to be scarred of new experiences. But don’t let that fear stop you from doing it. A friend once told me: “the greatest things are on the other side of fear”. It’s true. If it’s scary, it’s worth it. Well, except if the scary thing is a wild animal attacking you, then you should definitely be scarred and run. But scarred of going abroad? Of doing that thing that you’ve always wanted to try but been too scarred to? Of talking to a stranger that looks cool? Do it. It might not end exactly as you imagined, it might even result in you hating it, but you’ve learned and grown and accumulated experience. So go. Leave your family home for a while. Go skydiving, join a school club, talk to that classmate. Live. Experiences are always a good thing, even when they seem bad.

Feel all your emotions. It’s ok to feel happy, sad, depressed, excited, scarred, everything. All your emotions are valid. Let yourself feel them. You cannot be happy all the time, don’t set yourself that goal. Without the sad parts, how could you recognize happiness? How could you even know what happiness feels like? So let yourself be sad, cry yourself to sleep from time to time, shout out of anger when you need to. But then, allow yourself to dance when you’re excited, to laugh out loud when you feel happy, and to sing with friends when you feel like doing so. Feel all your emotion, 100%, because they make you human.

Travel as much as you can. Abroad if possible, but I know it’s expensive. So travel to that town close to yours for a day. Go explore your own country. And of course, if you have enough money, go see the world. But I don’t mean: go see the monuments ranked on Buzzfeed as “top 10 places to see before you die”. I mean, go out of your country, and discover another culture, another way of living, other foods, other habits, other languages, other people. Talk to strangers, learn how other people live and feel and think and grow. Expand your thoughts with the thoughts of others. Accept that what you’ve always believed might be wrong, or at least might not be the only truth. And if you ever have the opportunity, go live in another country. You’ll never learn more about yourself than when moving out of your home country; learn about what is really important to you, what you will and will not miss about home. Traveling is the best thing in life.

Be different. And accept that it’s a good thing. That it’s a great thing: it’s what makes you you. Whether it’s physical, psychological, personality-wise, differences are amazing and should be celebrated. So what is your ears look weird, if you don’t like dogs and if you cannot process emotions the same way others do? Learn from your differences. Learn from how people might mock them and how it might hurt you, to never hurt anyone in return the same way. Respect everyone’s singularity.

It’s ok not to know who you are. At whatever age you might be. It’s ok not to know what you want to do when you grow up,what label you identify with, what religion or political party you recognize yourself in. It’s ok to be lost, even if it seems like everyone else knows who they are. They don’t. They are just as lost as you are. It’s all just pretend.

Learn languages. I don’t care what language, be it English or Gaelic or sign language or Thai. Learn one. You’ll be able to communicate with more people (which is already pretty cool), it makes up for a fun fact, it’s a great way to develop your brain and your logic, and you’ll actually learn things about yourself along the way. You open yourself to new books and songs and movies and TV shows. Just pick one, and learn it.

Learn how to cook. You’ll get really bored of pre-made meals when you move out otherwise. I’m not talking about 5-stars meal, but basic food. It’s a good investment for life. Learn the basics,and learn how to make the foods that makes you happy. You need to be able to provide yourself with your own comfort food. It’s easier that it looks. Just google it. Also, always have the basics ingredients to make your number one comfort food. you’ll thank me later.

You’ll get along with your family so much better once you move out of home. You might not believe me (either because it’s already great, or because it’s so bad you don’t believe it can ever be good), but its true.

Treat yourself. Buy your favorite food/drink, buy yourself that thing you’ve been wanting for ever. Work your ass off, and then congratulate yourself because you’ve done great. Or just because you’ve tried and that was already a huge accomplishment for you. Well done. As Ashima Shiraishi would say: “All of us are rock climbers everyday facing our own v14s. Just climb through it.”. [Go watch her Ted Talk, it will make more sense I promise].

Let yourself be a kid from time to time. Yes, you might feel “too old” for that, but really? Do a puzzle, go down a slide, watch your old favorite cartoon, get on a swing, eat kid ice cream. There is no shame in that. And which 20 years old doesn’t secretly want to do a puzzle and eat kid ice cream? Have fun.

Learn how to take care of your own body. Know how your body works, what it needs, and apply. You might need sport to survive, you might not, you might need to eat more or less food than other people. And that’s ok. Just learn the way your body works and act in consequence. Accept that it’s how it works and no other way, that you can’t change it. Your body is great just the way it is.

Don’t seek materialistic goods, seek experiences.Don’t ask for a phone or a computer for Christmas, ask for a concert ticket or a week-end getaway with friends. You will need a new phone in less than 5-10 years. But those memories from this concert or this getaway? They’ll last for ever. Experiences are so much better than any materialistic present will ever be.

Be good to people. To all people. Even the ones you don’t like. It’s ok not to like someone, hell it’s ok to hate someone. But that doesn’t allow you to be rude, or mean, or disrespectful. Be nice, as much as you don’t want to. You don’t have to be friends with those people (once again, see my number one point), but respecting others is really important. It’s the key to be respected. Don’t bash what you hate, promote what your love, as Lilly Singh would say.

Be a feminist. Support other girls, support other boys, support other human beings. Everyone wins in the fight for gender equality. Learn about the subject, do your research, learn how important gender equality is to boys, girls, and non-binary people. I’m not asking you to go down the street with a placard fighting for the end of the salary gap. But communication and education on the subject is key. So talk to people, be proud of being a feminist, and respect all humans equally.

Do your best at school. That does not mean “be the best at school”. That means: do your personal best, give 100% of what you have, and whatever results you get will be enough. Believe in your ability to succeed. Give all you have towards your goals. Do your best at school to have options about your future. But choose between those options with your heat. So what if you “have the capabilities to go to med school”, but you’re passionate with arts and want to go to art school. Go to art school. But give 300% of what you have in art school and be the best version of yourself.

Take pictures. Be in the pictures. Even if you think you look terrible. 1) Your older-self won’t think you look terrible, and 2) the memories are important, you will cherish them. Take pictures with your friends, lots of them. You will love looking back at them and remembering all those times, even with a blurry picture of yourself doing a weird face.

Don’t let adults/older people diminish the good things in your generations. Old people have always said and will always say “young people are weird and lazy”,and that everything was so much better when they were young. Don’t let them take the joy of being young away from you. Yes, things were and are different, but different does not mean bad. Be young, enjoy everything that characterizes your generation, enjoy that “ridiculous boy-band” and that “frustrating piece of technology”. You have only one shot at being young, don’t waste it because older people think it’s ridiculous. Don’t try to be/appear/seem older, enjoy every part of being young. Being young is awesome.

Be passionate about what your love. Listen to your favorite song on repeat for two weeks non-stop. Cover your room in posters of your favorite artist. Lean your favorite movie or TV show by heart. Have a fan account. Paint, draw, write.Be passionate about everything you like, be so excited when you talk about your passion that others have no choice but to smile at how happy you look talking about it. Passionate people are my favorite kind of people. Invest all your time in your passion, whatever it may be. Don’t let others criticize your passion. Passionate people accomplish great things because they five all they have to their passion. Find your passion, and live your passion.

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