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brodygold · 7 months ago

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A Game For Bros

Nate and I had always been the same: two nerds, caught up in our own world of video games, D&D, and sci-fi movies. He’d been my best friend since high school, a skinny guy with messy brown hair, always wearing some oversized t-shirt of a superhero. Me? I wasn’t much different. Shorter, stockier, and always in retro game tees. We never got into sports—couldn’t care less, really. But that Saturday, when Nate invited me over to check out a new game, we did something a bit out of our comfort zone.

“I don’t usually go for sports games,” I said as I plopped onto his worn-out couch. The game case for The Golden Army: Rise of Champions sat on the coffee table, glowing in a strange golden light. “What made you pick this one?”

Nate shrugged as he plugged in the system. “The reviews were insane, man. People say it’s super immersive, like you actually feel the game.”

“Sounds cool enough,” I muttered, grabbing a soda. “Let’s see what it’s about.”

Nate’s apartment looked the same as always—cluttered with comic books, action figures, and old consoles. The screen flashed on, bathing the room in golden light as the title appeared: The Golden Army: Rise of Champions. The graphics were sharp, but what immediately caught my attention was how detailed the avatar customization was. We both laughed as we started making characters that were basically us but... stronger, taller, more athletic.

“Man, I wish I was this ripped in real life,” I said, chuckling as I bulked up my avatar.

Nate nodded, not looking up from his controller. “Same here, dude. If only, right?”

Once the game started, though, things got weird fast. It wasn’t like any sports game I’d ever played. It was too smooth, too real. Every movement of my character felt like it was coming from me, like my body was somehow connected to the screen. Nate was feeling it too; I could tell by how focused he’d gotten.

“This feels insane,” I muttered, my fingers flying over the controller as my avatar sprinted down the field. My skin tingled, and for a second, I thought it was just adrenaline from getting into the game.

“Yeah, it’s like... I can *feel* it,” Nate said, his voice lower, more serious than usual.

What I didn’t realize was that I really *was* feeling it. I was changing. My arms, once stocky but kind of soft, were slowly growing harder, leaner, and stronger. My biceps pushed against the fabric of my t-shirt, but I didn’t notice at first. I was too absorbed in the game. Nate wasn’t paying attention either, but he was changing too. His scrawny arms were swelling, his chest growing more defined, the lines of muscle slowly becoming visible under his shirt.

My legs were thickening, my calves bulging as they hardened. Nate’s shoulders broadened as his posture straightened, more relaxed, confident. His shaggy hair started to shift, styling itself into something neater and more athletic. It suited him.

Our avatar dominated the field. Every pass, every kick felt like it was coming straight from us. By the time the match ended, I noticed my t-shirt was stretched tight against my chest, clinging to muscles I didn’t remember having. But it felt normal. Like I’d always been this way. Nate was the same. His shirt had morphed into something sleeker, a fitted gold soccer jersey. I looked down, realizing mine had changed too. I wasn’t in my retro game tee anymore—I was in a gold jersey too, my name stitched across the back.

But we didn’t freak out. We didn’t question it. Why would we? We’d always been jocks, right? That’s how we met in the first place.

“Yo, that was sick, bro!” I grinned at Nate, flexing my now-defined arms. “We totally crushed that game.”

Nate smirked, his voice deeper now, his body lean and athletic. “Hell yeah, man. No one can take us down.”

The room around us had changed too, though we didn’t notice with how invested in the game we were. Gone were the stacks of comics and games. Instead, soccer trophies lined the shelves, photos of us in our golden jerseys, posing as champions of The Golden Army. It was as if our old lives had been erased, replaced entirely by something new.

As we kept playing, our minds continued to shift. I didn’t care about D&D or sci-fi movies anymore. All I could think about was training, getting stronger, being the best. Nate, once shy and quiet, was now exuding confidence. We were athletes, teammates, brothers on and off the field.

Our bodies had finished transforming. I looked over at Nate, admiring how ripped he was now. His short hair was clean, his jawline sharp. He looked... good. Really good. The thought lingered longer than it should have, but I didn’t push it away. Why would I? We’d always been close, but now there was something else there, something that had shifted between us.

I felt my heart race as I caught him looking at me the same way, his eyes lingering on my chest, my arms. The air between us felt electric, like something was pulling us together.

“Yo, Nate,” I started, feeling my pulse quicken. “You ever feel like... there’s more between us than just the game?”

Nate turned to me, his eyes locked on mine, and for a moment, the room was silent. Then he smirked, but there was something softer in his gaze. “Yeah, bro. I’ve been feeling that too.”

It happened without thinking. I reached out, grabbing his hand, and suddenly, I was pulling him closer. Our eyes met, and before I could stop myself, I kissed him. His lips were warm, firm, and everything clicked into place. It was like this was always meant to happen. Like this was who we were supposed to be.

When we finally pulled away, both of us were breathing hard. Nate looked at me, his grin returning. “Damn, bro. That was... intense.”

“Yeah,” I replied, still catching my breath. “But I think we’ve always had this, right? Just took us a while to figure it out.”

Nate nodded, his hand still on my chest, his thumb brushing against the fabric of my jersey. “Always. And now? We’ve got everything we need.”

We leaned in again, and this time, it felt even more right. We were no longer the nerdy duo, lost in games and fantasy worlds. We were champions—alpha jocks, leaders of The Golden Army—and we had found each other. As I held Nate close, our golden jerseys shining in the light, I knew that everything was just how it should be.

“Now how about round 2, bro?”

“Oh, you’re so on bro!”

#golden army #thegoldenteam #soccer tf #male transformation #jockification #golden team #gold #male tf #jock tf #gay

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callmearcturus · 4 months ago

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valonia47: IMO Dottie taught Ted avoidance and denial as the only allowed coping skills, which is how he ends up in England in the first place: avoiding the conflict and denying how bad his marriage has gotten. In that sense returning to Kansas is Ted breaking out of that and reconnecting with Henry on a regular basis instead of avoiding the inherent reminders of his relationship with his dad

two problems with this take, if you'll forgive my need to make a rebuttal.

ONE: Ted winding up in England because of conflict avoidance and denial is not how I read the situation at all. Hell, I don't think a man can move to another country without knowing things are bad, and every time he brings up Michelle, it's regarding the trouble in their marriage.

also, uh

given the entire fuckery with Dr. Jacob, I don't know if I actually agree at all with that take. Ted winds up in England because a pretty serious betrayal of trust.

this is one of the most interesting things the show does imo. like when Ted first talks about therapy and is dismissive/negative on it, I literally went "ah another otherwise progressive midwestern man who nonetheless doesn't like therapy" because bruh that's a thing for sure

and then ted tells sharon about his history of therapy and I was like "okay that's a little unusual but cmon ted you're better than this"

and then the fucking slap in the face happens and oh my fuck, Ted was right, he was manipulated by a fucking therapist holy shit, like all of his hesitations are entirely justified.

TWO: For Kansas to feel like a success for Ted, a LOT of shit would have needed to be done differently.

a. he needed to make the choice of his own volition, not because his mother pulled That Shit on him as punishment.

b. the show needed to actually show Kansas as living place that has support systems and people Ted loves. WHICH TO BE CLEAR: THE SHOW COULD HAVE DONE. fuck, if you want to read a fic that actually makes Ted moving back to Kansas make sense, I highly recommend Lafayette Goes To America, which I vouch for as a Missouri native is a loving and wonderful depiction of KCMO and why you'd want to live there.

c. why the fuck did they do that creepy fucking musical sting on the final shot of ted in kansas? i watched it with a friend who'd never seen the finale and they fucking gasped at it.

d. and this is a huge one for me is the trick each season with the opening/closing shots.

each season opens and closes on one character in a very deliberate move, like a reminder that you should be focusing on this person and the journey they've been on.

and it's not a necessarily positive journey.

with Rebecca, we watched her through season one transform from a hurt, vengeful, cruel person who was thrilled to ruin the lives of everyone around her if it helped her meet her goals into someone who finally recognized the gravity of their callousness.... but not before her actions led to the team being relegated.

with Nate, we watched him blossom as a tactician and strategist, and he winds up the head coach of West fucking Ham by the end..... but in the process, he loses everyone who supported him and he repeatedly fails to recreate those relationships in S3

with Ted, the show holds me down and kicks me repeatedly in the stomach until i admit i love a good tragedy I MEAN ted is successful, loved, respected, and supported by the people around him, he continues to work on himself in this place that he comes to adapt to and love... and instead of him asking "hey maybe i should review my custody arrangement and ask my son if he'd like to live here with me" he loses ALL OF THAT

there's this moment that makes the pain worse, this little (intentional? unintentional?) jab rebecca gives him. she begged this man to stay, offered to make him the best paid coach in the league, to personally assist in helping his family join him here, and he leaves.

it's a rejection. it's a rejection of richmond as meaningful, as people who love him, as his community and family. it hurts so fucking much.

none of them were worth trying for, ted? not rebecca, who held you tight when you had a panic attack? not trent, who detonated his career after shielding you from a press shitstorm? not roy, who came back to you and fucking quoted Jerry Maguire to your face, choosing to speak your language? fucking hell.

I blame Dottie for this, for how she looks at all the process Ted's made, resents it, and tears him back down. but the refutation of these people and their worth is part of the tragedy.

ANYWAY UH. I RESPECTFULLY DISAGREE. SORRY.

#ted lasso #ted lasso is a tragedy #ted lasso meta

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alicia-18 · 1 month ago

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Updated Masterlist

Started: 30/03/2025

Last Updated: 22/04/2025

Total Works: 20

Happy to take requests!

Eminem

Series

Second Choice - Eminem x Reader

Chapter One; Keeping things normal

Chapter Two; I think my dads gone crazy!

Chapter Three; Please lemme taste you Slim Shady!

Chapter Four; Very red, very short, very sexy

Chapter Five; Interrupted Dry Humping

Chapter Six; Album Announcement

Chapter Seven; Sweet on Slim

Chapter Eight; Silver Moon

Chapter Nine; Runaway

Chapter Ten; Nate

Chapter Eleven; Lions and Dream Guys

Chapter Twelve; Such a fuckin' perv, Mathers

Chapter Thirteen; Anxious Vomit

Chapter Fourteen; Superman

Requests

Can't keep his hands to himself

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Reviews

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

Friday the 13th

Reviews

Friday the 13th Part II

Friday the 13th Part IV

Random Thoughts

Scooby Doo

Fred Jones vs Shaggy Rogers : The Jock of Mystery Inc

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ecoustsaintmein · 3 months ago

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ghosts (part i of ????)

part two here

pairing: paddy x eoin; rating: M. slow burn.

this was the first time they'd had this conversation as eric and killian. but it was as if they'd had this conversation, many years ago, many times before.

(or, paddy mayne and eoin mcgonigal, reincarnated as eric love from 'starred up' and killian from 'angel'. they meet again, during the heights of the pandemic -- but they don't remember - until much, much, much later).

the next quack he saw after oliver was dr wilson, who was a no-nonsense scottish lady who struck fear more than deputy governor haynes ever did. she was young but wise for her years, with curly dark hair and spectacles and a soft dundonian accent. turned out she knew oliver baumer from some forensic psychiatry conference but it wasn't like eric to show that he's interested to know more. no, he didn't miss oliver, he said to her in their one-to-one session. he missed his dad, though.

seven years later, eric is allowed parole on the grounds of good behaviour. the world around him has changed, and so has he. is he fully rehabilitated? has that bloody posh quack oliver baumer cured him of his violence?

dr wilson told him she knew about haynes and cardew and the comings and goings of the previous corrupt prison regime. oliver blew the whistle and there had been a massive investigation and as a result, most of the inmates' cases were reviewed, including eric's.

'what would you do, then,' eric once asked, 'if you manage to rehabilitate me? then you'd be out of work, won't ya?' but now eric realized that there were worse evils out there in the world that subsumes the hearts of men.

subsumes.

ha.

there was once a time when eric would laugh in the faces of those who would use big words like that. but since he spent more time with tyrone, hassan, ashley, dr wilson, he'd started reading and expanding his vocabulary. he's even started reading poetry.

sublimation was a word he recently learnt. dr wilson was drawing a timeline of his life and a map of his thought processes and how he came to be the way he was. some things in his past can't be changed, she said, but the way he responds to things, can be altered.

neville died of stage four prostate cancer five months ago. dr wilson fought for eric to be allowed to attend his dad's funeral. he even has a social worker now, nate, who is about the same age as he is, but is a tall, strapping bloke from liverpool with a heavy scouse accent. they talk shite about football and how neither of their teams were doing well in the prem.

then oliver visited him in prison, only to tell him that he's moving to new brunswick. where the hell's new brunswick? nova scotia, oliver said. new scotland?

canada, oliver nodded. because he said they needed psychologists there and the nhs pay was shite and for all his pains oliver wasn't a saint.

jews don't have saints, eric said. oliver looked at him for a moment before they both broke into laughter. well, eric shrugged. you're a saint enough for me. you've performed a miracle. i don't punch people when they smile at me wrong now.

five months later his parole application was accepted and he was free.

except. two months later the whole country went into lockdown.

and this was how he met that irish waif, killian, with the dark curls and the dark eyes and the accent no one can understand, especially when he spoke, words swallowed underneath that blue mask that everyone's got to wear.

he never got to witness that wide, easy smile of killian's in real life, until six months later, but then, that's another story.

they met as hospital volunteers in south london, during the height of the pandemic. they both live two flats apart on the same floor, in the same council tenancy building, just ten minutes walk from st george's.

but they weren't friends, not straight away. there was nothing memorable about killian apart from that shocking mop of unruly curls on his head and that awful accent, though eric's learnt to keep quiet and let killian repeat himself several times to the staff and patients on the ward; 'it's killian with a k, not a c like cillian murphy,' he'd said, pulling at his ID badge and pointing at his name. 'this is how i look like under this mask, by the way,' he says, and the patients will laugh. it's a terrible photo, worse than eric's own prison mugshot.

they were wary of each other just as eric was often wary of strangers. he's sublimated enough by being kind to patients and their relatives on the wards -- he doesn't need to continue wearing the same mask with other people.

his new social worker, subodh, once chided him for this.

everyone seemed to struggle with lockdown, but eric thrived. he's so used to isolation that he never ran out of ways to entertain himself.

the internet is a beautiful thing.

he didn't realize who it was, not at first. eric has his allowances and benefits and saves them up -- he's got no need for new trainers or clothes; and even with food he's rationing them up like he did in prison, he's not a glutton for mickey d's or domino's or that chinese takeaway across the street.

but eric's got urges, sometimes -- an urge that started out as a curiosity, ever since he found out that neville and ashley were together.

the internet is a beautiful thing.

eric's watched too many of those videos, now, but to say that he has a favourite or a type would be a stretch too far. he's even tried jacking off to them, but he couldn't even get hard -- not when all he could think about when he heard the men on screen moan was to think of ashley and his dad, together.

no.

he slammed his laptop shut (yes, the same laptop that he got for free from that scheme subodh signed him up for). he learnt how to use vpn. just because he spent his formative years in and out of prison doesn't make him a technological heathen.

but the next night he decided to watch some solo videos instead of acted porn, and this was how he ended up clicking on the profile of user @/cuchulainn1995.

he never shows his face, and despite the irish handle he speaks with an english (sussex?) accent. the first thing eric noticed is he's got a low, deep, growling voice, and such big hands, long beautiful fingers. one of the videos started with cu chulainn (that's how eric calls him now) wearing a white button-up shirt and slacks, but slowly he unbuttoned it and palms at his slacks, deft fingers unbuckling his belt. the hand motion on screen was slow, steady, confident. eric was utterly mesmerised by the way those hands floated across, like butterflies, as cu chulainn stripped down oh-ever-so-slowly.

he's wearing a lacy bra underneath the shirt, flat against his chest, and a lacy thong that could barely hold in his entire length. he's well hung, slim, but he hasn't even grown into his full girth yet, as he begins to pump himself through the lacy fabric.

against eric's will, he got hard too, as he watches this stranger tweaking his nipple under the bra and whispering filthy things about wanting to fuck a bad boy and wishing to destroy something beautiful. this man who talked of not wanting to be fucked, but to fuck. all while wearing that lacy bra and lacy thong that eric wanted to rip up with his teeth.

eric's never come so hard in his life.

maybe that's why all of those losers raided the tescos for toilet paper. for wanking to videos this good.

killian's the one who approached him first, at the canteen, while eric was flicking through the copy of 'oxford book of war poetry' he found amidst the old magazine stacks of hello! and ok! in the nursing office.

the blt sandwich was a bit dry, and the coffee stale. this was eric's excuse for coughing up his food and spluttering them all over the table, when killian sat in the chair in front of him and asked, 'what passing-bells for these who die as cattle?'

'what the fuck?' was eric's only illustrious response.

'-only the monstrous anger of the guns,' killian replied, voice muffled under the mask. 'wilfred owen.'

'i prefer robert graves.'

'of course.'

this was the first time they'd had this conversation as eric and killian. but it was as if they'd had this conversation, many years ago, many times before.

killian tore up his roll and dipped it in his golden vegetable soup. he pulled down his mask and ate voraciously. like he hadn't eaten in months.

it was the first time eric saw killian's face, in full.

killian smiled, as he licked soup off his fingertips, inadvertently making kissy noises as his lips left each finger. 'i prefer yeats,' he said, oblivious.

eric tried not to stare, he really did. there was something about the movement that was so familiar to him.

but he couldn't place it.

he also thought, that birthmark on killian's left hand looked familiar too --

but surely not?

eric's throwing money he doesn't have to cu chulainn, subscribing to his live videos and in his head thinks that he's having a parasocial relationship with this faceless man with a beautiful body, like one of those marble statues the brits pilfered from ancient greece.

his colouring was dark, gingery, and eric wondered if they were as coarse as his own hair. eric wondered if he was as dark, or darker in real life.

in the busy chatbox filled with filthy comments from horny subscribers, eric once gathered the strength to type, 'if ur english why the name cu chulainn?'

eric watched the slight pause in the body language, face unseen from the neck above. and then, for a split second, the sussex accent switched to a soft irish lilt, 'who says i'm english?', and eric thought, 'i've heard this voice before.'

but eric forgot everything when cu chulainn started his show, and when he called his audience a 'good boy'.

eric thought it was a private message just for him.

they bumped into each other, at the aldi queue for the self-service checkouts, a metre apart. eric eyed the shite killian's got in his basket -- bananas, spinach, macaroni, yorkshire tea and a bar of dairy milk. eric eyed his own -- pot noodles, crisps, rich tea biscuits. then killian waited for him outside, humming mindlessly, a foldable umbrella in hand. it's started drizzling -- then raining, hard, unheard of for tooting, before walking up to their flat together.

eric pulled up his hoodie and made a point not to stand under killian's umbrella, although he's getting drenched like a wet soppy dog and killian called him out for it. 'stop being an eejit and get under the brolly,' he said, without raising his voice, and eric acquiesced.

it's only natural that when the government announced that 'members of a household could be part of another household' as a 'support bubble', that eric became killian's.

and killian eric's.

subodh told him that it's good that he's found a friend, though under no circumstances did eric admit that killian was 'a friend'. they had nothing in common, he said. apart from the poetry and the football (why does he support liverpool? he's irish, for fuck's sake).

eric's been in killian's flat, which was a mirror image of his own, except that they were filled with the most bizarre trinkets when eric's was more spartan. killian never let him inside his bedroom, though, and eric's never pressed further.

killian grew herbs in his flat. a pot of chilli, too. there was a time when he grew up on a farm, he'd said, and everything he ate was from the land around him, because he learnt how to grow them. he learnt how to forage in the wild, he learnt how to slaughter animals. he's good with a machete and an axe too, he'd said, before he realized he'd said too much and fell silent.

this was when eric knew that there was more beyond the softness of killian's visage - there were dark secrets there, hidden behind those eyes, underneath those long, dark lashes.

eric spent more time at killian's flat than at his, since the support bubble rule was introduced. killian can cook. and for some reason, despite saying that he's living on benefits too, he's got subscriptions to all the streaming services and has the latest games on his ps.

eric wondered where he got the money from.

it didn't take long for him to find out.

in eric's defense, it was killian who told him to fetch his phone charger from the bedroom.

killian's bedroom, which for the past three months had been off limits to eric, because the door was always shut and killian had never invited him in, not even for a casual 'this is my room' tour. boundaries. if there's one thing he's learnt from oliver and dr wilson and the likes of 'em, it's to learn how to respect people's boundaries.

it's the grey wall and the bedspread that caught eric's eyes first. his first thought was, surely not. his second thought was, surely not.

it wasn't as if there were toys splayed across the room for eric to see. the room was pristine, unlike the mess that was the living room, but eric had just seen one of cu chulainn's videos yesterday and this was where he had sat.

and the laundry basket was in the corner of the room. there was no weird smells, no bras, no lacy thongs - but he noticed the slacks and the white button down shirt. killian had never worn slacks and a white shirt to work, he was always in his casual stripey t-shirt before he changes into scrubs, and then, oh then, there's his belt.

the belt.

the images of killian's fingers, on the ps controller, or when he picks up a brown roll and dips it into soup during lunch hour, come rushing back. the birthmark on the back of killian's left hand, as he unbuckles his belt and unzips his slacks and touches himself. the way his knuckles disappear as he works his fingers up into himself.

and he hears killian's irish lilt, now, in cu chulainn's forced english voice. eric realizes now that he's one of the men who's paid for the way that killian's living.

eric doesn't feel anger. he doesn't feel panic. he's floating, in this room, because he's always seen it through the pixels of his laptop screen, but never like this. he doesn't even know whether he wants to hate killian or hate himself, because at the end of the day eric was the one who had been searching for it, again and again, like a man obsessed; addicted. killian was just there, doing his thing.

killian had been here, last night, doing his thing. and eric had fantasised of doing more, imagined that he could be touched the same way, on this very same bed. eric leans down and touches the ikea bedspread, clean - it's as if killian's washed all the stains off of it from last night, and the room itself smells woody, citrus-y. it smells like killian.

it smells nice.

killian barges in and asks what's taking so long, wooden spoon in hand, flour dust on his nose and cheeks. he's attempting to make sausage rolls from scratch, he says.

eric's eyes glaze over, like he's neither here nor there. he only ever had sausage rolls from greggs and his own mum was a terrible cook, so homemade pastries were out of the question.

the phone charger is still plugged in at killian's bedside, where he's dumped his camera and lighting equipment in a storage box. eric pretends not to see it, and hands the phone charger to killian, careful not to let their fingers touch.

'you ok?' killian asks, concerned.

'yeah,' eric lies. 'it's just that, i've never been in your room before. it's nice,' he says --

-- which isn't a lie.

killian softens, as he tilts his head to one side and squints at eric. 'aye, because you never asked, ya daftie.'

it's almost fond.

some nights eric will wake up, alone in his bed, grouching. he remembers the night he was about to be executed by the prison guards, to make it look like he's hung himself, before neville saved him.

he dreamt of walking out of prison, with no one to greet him but a dreary, empty council flat near tooting broadway.

some nights, eric will wake up, alone in his bed, grouching. but this time, he doesn't remember that night when he was about to be executed the prison guards, to make it look like he's hung himself, before he ended up walloping all of them, before walking out into the hot desert sun.

he dreamt of walking out of prison, but this time killian is there, saying, 'the dead arose and appeared to many,' -- except this isn't killian and he isn't eric, and eric struggles to remember the name of this man who looks so much like killian and yet just isn't.

his mannerisms are still the same, though, from the way he stretches and yawns and grins like a cheshire cat, and he is as generous with his touches as killian was. this man laughs at his unfunny jokes about sweating in hospitals and nightclubs and getting someone's goat, and serves him soup from the gazelle that eric-who-is-not-eric has allegedly shot.

killian-who-is-not-killian smiles, as he licks the soup off his fingertips, inadvertently making kissy noises as his lips leave each finger, and eric thinks, oh.

oh.

paddy, he says.

eric wakes.

at lunchtime, killian shows him an empty notebook that one of the elderly patients had gifted him, on late shift last night. it's worn and battered, faded ink on the yellowed pages.

'she stopped me in the corridor and told me i had to have it,' he says, 'and then she was gone.'

'which ward was this?' paddy asks. 'maybe she's just a bit off, ya know, with delirium.'

'aye, it was off rodney smith ward,' killian nods, before leafing through the pages again, carefully.

a note falls out.

'from paddy, to eoin,' killian reads out loud, squinting to make out the words.

'eoin,' eric says, weighing the word on his tongue, before deciding that he enjoys the way his lips have moved, the way his throat has closed, to form the lovely sound ringing between them.

'paddy,' killian agrees.

'so, the sand of the desert couldn't keep your soul buried, eh eoin?'

killian thinks, when he was growing up, his real da used to say: 'coincidence was god's way of being anonymous.'

but this isn't what he chooses to believe.

he believes it's more like poker: life won't always give him easy hands, but it'll be down to killian how he chooses to play it.

so he chooses to believe that it was out of his own free will that he chose to sit at that table and quoted wilfred owen at eric love.

he chooses to believe that it was out of his own free will that he chose to wait outside aldi in the pouring rain, umbrella in hand, to walk eric love home.

he chooses to believe that it was out of their own free will that they became friends, despite the dreams that he had been having lately: of quiet conversations in flimsy tents, of secret trysts under the desert moon.

'when it was the desert, and you, and me,' killian thinks --

only those words weren't his, nor were they eoin's, but from a fragment of eoin's soul that paddy's carried with him.

from egypt to sicily to normandy.

from dublin to ballymena to newtownards.

and now, to fucking tooting, of all places.

how poetic.

he couldn't find the woman again. she was, he thinks, not of white-european descent, and her accent was foreign, but killian had thought nothing of it when she handed him the notebook--

-- and disappeared.

the nurses had never seen her before, when killian attempted to describe her. and with everyone wearing masks, it became even harder to identify who killian was talking about, and the nurses looked at killian as if he was still hungover from whatever he'd smoked the night before.

killian will call her 'eve', he thinks,

and the notebook his forbidden fruit,

these phantom memories are akin to a serpent.

'take a bite,' they call out to killian;

-- and so he does.

this way, at least, he'll live.

tbc.

part two here

#paddy x eoin #paddy mayne #eoin mcgonigal #sas rogue heroes #eric love #i wrote this in the middle of a chest infection and not sleeping and i don't know if i'll ever finish it #i too am delirious and it probably shows in the prose #one day when i have regained my sanity i will reread this and clean this up and post it to ao3 #i urge you to at least watch 'angel' to get some of the references about why killian is the way he is #and also 'starred' up to get the prison references because some events which happened to eric in the film was reminiscent #of what also happened to paddy in the show #before anyone asks i'm not a londoner and idk i just like writing to wax romantic lyrical about the stops on the northern line

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thetarttfuldickhead · 1 year ago

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If there’s ever a TL spinoff featuring and the formation of a Richmond’s women’s team and not many of the original cast except for Keeley and Rebecca, I still need need it to start with Jamie dropping Keeley off at work, kissing her goodbye (SURPRISE LOOK AT THOSE TWO CUTIES BACK TOGETHER, Jeeley nation RISE) as she rushes into a meeting with Rebecca, and then Jamie disappears off to his own little adventures off-screen.

The whole episode runs, stuff, stuff, stuff, maybe a few cute/sexy messages from Jamie throughout the day, and it ends with Keeley coming home, humming to herself as she unlocks the door with a huge cup of takeaway coffee in hand, scrolling through her phone as she walks into the kitchen—

“Keeley,” a dark voice says from a corner and Keeley SHRIEKS and THERE’S COFFEE EVERYWHERE and ROY LURKING ABOUT like a creepy weirdo [affectionate].

“Fucking hell!” Keeley says, once she’s done shrieking.

“Sorry,” Roy says, looking zero percent sorry (‘cause you know he lurked on purpose, he’s all about that lurking lifestyle, and it’s their thing, innit).

He steps up to her, takes her in his arms, “Let me make it up to you.” And he kisses her, long and deep and with oh so much barely constrained heat and how could she not respond, even after he scared her half to death again, and even if—

Keeley pulls back a little, frowning and looking towards the door. “Where’s Jamie?”

“Left him doing video review and analysis with Nate, he won’t be back for another couple of hours.”

“Oh. Then I guess we can—“

What they can do is have Roy kiss her again, apparently, because that’s what he does, lifting her up as he goes, and she wraps her legs around his waist and he murmurs I fucking missed you work’s been fucking crazy this week and—

“Actually,” comes a voice from the door, “Nate’s niece called and there been a box emergency, so he let me home early.” And there’s Jamie now, leaning against the door frame and looking super casual about finding his girlfriend snogging his coach.

“Jamie!” Keeley exclaims, startled and with her lips swollen from Roy’s attention.

“Hi, babe,” he says, smiling as he swaggers over to them. “This a benefit for the elderly kind of thing, or have you got room for one more?” He winks at Roy, sticking his tongue out.

Roy scoffs and rolls his eyes because fucking muppet but he stills reaches out to pull Jamie in, kissing him with just as much passion as he just kissed Keeley. “Always,” he says simply. “But,” he adds, a glint of dark pleasure in his eyes, “since you’re being a prick about it, I think we’ll make you do all the work, right, Keeley?”

“Yeah, Royo,” Keeley agrees, feigning a thoughtful purse of her lips. “I think we will.”

“Yeah, okay, mint, yeah.” Jamie looks half-gone already.

And Keeley giggles and wraps her arms tight around her boys and she thinks that they’re wrong, those people that tell you that you can’t have it all.

#i don’t really want a spinoff #but i will take it for a cheating fake-out ot3 reveal #keeley jones #jamie tartt #roy kent #royjamiekeeley #ficlet #ish #my stuff

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claraxbarton · 4 months ago

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2024 (hrpf writing) in Review

So, looking back on 2024 and the things I wrote, I just wanted to take a moment to be kind to myself I guess and shout-out my 10 favorite fics I wrote this last year.

The list also has a few of my thoughts about the fics, just because like, I want to.

All below the cut - but first! Thank you so so so SO much to everyone who took the time to leave a comment on any of my fics. I can't say enough how much it means to know folx are out there reading and thinking and feeling about my words.

In no particular order, my favorite 10 fics I either started or finished in 2024:

Gold Rush MattDrai, E, 47k. The fic where Leon is very grumpy and very bitchy and very dumb, and also outed against his will and also against his will falls for Matthew Tkachuk. This took more research than I anticipated, because for some reason I am SO fixated on trying to make my fake things fit into canonical timelines. I think I did a good job developing Leon's voice - both in dialogue and internally. It's so difficult for me to write text message things and yet this fic is SO MUCH OF THAT. I think one of my all time favorite comments was on this fic, someone saying that they actually confused my Leon-press dialogue with real Leon-press and that... made me so happy.

Playing Favorites LarsDunn, E, 15k. Adam has a favorite camboy and then that camboy turns out to be a real person who gets a real job with the Kraken. (oh wow, this fic is like the NY Rangers worst nightmare, eh??) Anyway. Probably my first longer hrpf fic??? Technically started in December of 23, I feel so bad that it took 8 months to finish. Thanks everyone who stuck with that one. This fic let me indulge in my favorite thing - previous Adam/Leon, which will always be so so so close to my heart. I think this fic, like most Kraken centric fic (and like not even mine, how many of us get all heart eyes when we think about her?, was written because of the amazing support of @dwisp.

Each Night MattPoMo, E, 3k. Technically I'm listed the entire series, currently at 3 parts and currently the third is still a WIP. Matthew as a sex worker, Paul still comes to Florida to coach the Panthers. I'm enjoying getting to have Paul work through human feelings, Matthew being a brat, and, of course, all the miscommunication. Seriously am I capable of writing a fic that DOESN'T involve miscommunication? Unlikely.

As It Began WyJoMiro (and WyJoRoope in the series and of course WyJoMiroRoope), 4, 2.5k. Okay, of the 4 fics I'm listing, three involve sexwork. Huh. Moving along. Miro mistakes/assumes Wyatt is a sex worker and that, of course, leads to a four year relationship between Wyatt and Miro and Roope (yes again this is really listing the series and not just the one fic). Really enjoyed getting to write the different POVs with each installation, exploring how all three of these freaks evolve and, oh wow, MORE miscommunication??? In MY fic??

Say Yes (To Heaven)NateJo, E, 55k+ - the first WIP to make the list (which, for those of you wondering, WILL get updated this next week). Okay it's been five months of writing this one, a biological BDSM inspired by the amazing and foundational works of @angry-geno-is-score and @droumack. There's just something about Jo and Nate that is SO compelling, no matter the setting, but like, getting to play in this kind of world setting is fun and painful. I think the things I've enjoyed the most are bringing in outside perspectives - like Sid, and even Nate to an extent, and just trying to unwrap all of the mess.

Heavy Focus McMattDrai, M, 2.7k. Space-opera with space brats Matthew and Brady. This was silly and fun and like, I won't say it's the BEST thing I wrote in 2024, but it WAS one of the fics I had the most fun writing. And I know I skew angst like, maybe TOO hard, but, sometimes it IS fun to write the fun things.

Soft Rock WyJoRoope, RoopeMiro, E, 5.6k. Speaking of fun4fun. This WAS just silly. I'm so lucky that @coffeehound91 lets me shout about things, and we'd been shouting about a LuckyNumberSlevin WyJo thing and she had the great line about WyJo killing Bettman with a butterknife and well, it just unspooled into this fic. And like, let's be real, ALL of my fics that feature Wyatt, Roope and Miro in any combination are entirely the fault of CH and like, I am SO so grateful.

French Exit MattOthers, T, 5k. Another bio-BDSM fic. Another series. I just really love to write BratKing Matthew who is actually a total pushover and this series was really fun to write, because who doesn't want to write feral Panthers things and Matthew finding peace and success there lol.

Deep End NateJo, E, 3k. An a/b/o fic and it is... I still maintain, really, really filthy. I don't think I've ever written something that makes me yikes myself as much as this one does, so it's not a favorite for like, reasons that make sense. But still, this was a sharp turn for my usual and I did it. So. Good job me?

Greatest Hits LarsDunn, LarsLeon, DunnLeon, E, 1.7k. Okay, actually, why have I not further explored these three? I know I wrote several fics when them when I first started in hrpf at the end of '23, but I have move away from them and I just really think THIS fic was so much fun and the dynamics to explore between these three are... a lot.

OKAY that's my 10 favorite fics I wrote for 2024. Again, comments and the kudos and bookmarks mean so much. AND the asks!! Thanks to everyone who sends in asks -UTD anon and others, looking at you <3.

For 2025 I want to finish up the current 14?15? WIPs I've got going, and of course along the way write a lot more.

(seems wild to solicit feedback but like, if you have opinions on my 2024 work I certainly won't NOT want to hear them. Or read them.)

#hrpf #it's about me #2024 writing reveiw

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trentcrimminallybeautiful · 5 months ago

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2024 wrapped ! fic writing year in review ! whatever you want to call it ! even though it's the beginning of december !

i was tagged by: No one! I am doing it: Anyway !

note for my post specifically: some stats have been manually adjusted to account for "collection" fics (which i've largely stopped doing, but are still part of the stats in 2024) that have different oneshots in each chapter but count as one "work" on ao3. i'm also going to focus on my trentcrimminallybeautiful pseud and ted lasso related works for 99 percent of the post.

i spent so much time on this. and why? why. i have no idea. i don't know why i did this. i don't even have spotify.

special thanks to @fade-in-the-dark, for our long, riveting conversations, and @medecineformelancholy, whose clever thoughts and kind words have fueled many a fic-writing session <3

tags/rules & links to all fics mentioned under the cut.

rules: fuck da rules. post whatever stats you want. ao3 stats recommended for ease, but anything from quantitative (top 5 most bookmarked fic, most commented fic, most kudos'd fic, etc.; how many kudos/comments/bookmarks you got this year, longest/shortest, number of user subscriptions, top fandom written for, , word count, whatever you like) to qualitative (favorite fic written, favorite comment received, best smut/angst/fluff fic written, fic that was hardest to write, etc, get creative) to a secret third thing. it doesn't even have to be fanfiction you can talk about original fiction if you want. just have fun with it man. you can do plain text or fun little graphics. then tag some people. yay

tagging: no pressure, and you absolutely do not have to do the same level as what i've done, because i don't know why i did it at all. i mean you're welcome to, but please don't feel like you have to. you don't even have to do it at all, man. just have fun if you want to. hell, if you see this and i've not tagged you but you wanna do it, this is me tagging you. tag me as if i tagged you normally by name. it's fine. do it. and if you're tagged here and you don't wanna or whatever don't worry about it. it's cool. no problem

anyway, tagging: @mvshortcut get over here you rascal. @oflightningandstars @writer-and-thrasher @plentyghosts @fade-in-the-dark @thehouseofgrey @vamplanaut

all fics mentioned:

countdown, baby!

delayed reaction

fall into you, sweet thing

hold me down

lend you my lips

lightning and roses

mea culpa

melt like this

moonlight madness

{ pair / pretty / play }

rainy days

reflections

secure

stress relief

suffer the feathers for the song

vita nova

snippets, which were largely excluded from stats because it'd be a lot of work untangling them from one work tbh:

ted lasso tumblr snippets 3 - 8 through 12 done in 2024.

ted lasso snippets 4 - all done in 2024.

e-rated ted lasso snippets - just the fourth one done in 2024.

non ted lasso fics:

Bill Cipher Calls a Temporary Truce for Girl's Night????????? and other notes that Ford will HATE to read in the Journal later - Gravity Falls

dreams of falling - House MD

key without a lock - The Mysterious Benedict Society

The Did Nate Just Kill A Guy?!?! Job - Leverage

#tedependent #tedtrent #ted x trent #long post #my writing #gertspeak #im gonna tag this:#gertwrapped #so you can block this post if you want to lmao #described #trent crimm #ted lasso #since the majority of the fics are those #tag games #tag game

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dreams-of-me · 2 years ago

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Why Don't You Love Me?

Eren x Reader

Word Count: 2.1k

Warnings: domestic abuse!, toxic! Eren, semi-public sex, verbal abuse!, cervix kissing, deep penetration, vaginal penetration, creampie, overstimulation, AFAB Reader, BIPOC reader.

This is a prompt for my dear friend. She is a Yeagerist just like me and she deserves a fanfic that will make her coochie throb! This is based off the relationship between Nate and Maddie from Euphoria and I will not be taking and questions at this time.

"You're such an asshole leave me the fuck alone."

"Oh I'm the asshole because you want to show your ass to other men while you belong to me?"

" I don't belong to anyone but my fucking self, and if I were to belong to someone it wouldn't be you Eren. "

Eren's rage had reached his limit and grabbed you by your throat. He slammed you against the nearest wall and brought his lips close to your ears as he spoke slowly and calmly.

"Listen here bitch, you belong to me even if you don't want to. Even if we break up, you belong to me. You're mine got it."

You couldnt breathe Eren was at least a foot and a half taller than you and her was holding you up by your neck. You looked at him calmly as he spoke because even though the position you were in was painful and terrifying, you could not help yourself when the thought of him fucking you right up against the same wall. You were undeniably aroused by that little vein that popped out of Eren's neck as he spoke.

He let you down and you gasped for air as he walked away. You knew he could've killed you if he wanted but everything before this moment is really what kept you with him. Everything before this moment is what allowed the relization that everything he just told you is true. Even if he were to kill you, you'd be his.

Eren was the type of guy that was absolutely smoking hot and he knew it. Because he knew it he walked around Shiganshina Secondary School like he owned it. He was the social king, the football captain, the hottest guy in school, and average level intelligence. Unfortunately, this made it super apparent that he need a queen very soon as he was in his Junior Year and people were starting to believe that he was Gay from hanging around his best friend Armin so much and Mikasa didn't help as she looked at every girl that got close to him with a death stare.

Eren was also very picky. He didn't want a girl that was too tall or too short. About medium height. Had to be practically hairless, they need a nice rack and a fat ass. More importantly the needed to be confident. He also had a thing for POC girls, how their darker skin seemed to glow in the honey sunlight of golden hour. How the gold jewelry always complimented their skin, and the Lucious lips that was always beautifully adorned with all types of gloss. God, don't even get him started on how they smelled. Which is what brought him to you. You walked past him on the way to your class and he smelled warm vanilla and linen with a fruity scent. He turned around and watched you ass sway away from him as you entered your class.

Later that day he looked for you in the cafeteria. He spotted you with a teammate, Jean it looked like you were reviewing some class work so he walked over to you both.

"No Jean, this needs to be done by tomorrow so that we both have time to prepare to the game this Friday."

"Okay fine ill get it done as soon as I can. Oh what's up Yeager-"

"You're gorgeous. Give me your number?"

"You're not too bad yourself. Its XXX-XXX-XX34." You say confidently. Your lips move with such slow ease that he is entrapped hearing nothing but what he might imagine your moans sound like under him.

"I'll see you at the game this weekend QB 1, but hopefully. I get to see you sometime before that. Text me."

"Yeager, you're hot shit and everything but we have practice let's go."

Eren picked his jaw up off the floor as he watched your hair swing behind you as you walked, turned your head quickly to find him staring then winked. He felt is heart jolt and blood rush straight to his dick. That's the moment where he knew you had to be his queen.

"OH FUCK YES"

"I know, take it all for me."

"EREN FUCK"

"Dirty mouth, its okay I like that. Are you ready for me."

"Please please plea- AH FUCK"

"Fuuuuck."

You would assume this was a porno. You're in a dark and empty classroom blinds closed as the band plays the start of the halftime performance for the night. A classic, Seven Nation Army. The scent of popcorn and hotdogs from the concession stand was in full blast. This was their first game of the season and in the first two quarters Shiganshina's football team had a 21 point lead to 7 from the opposing team.

You had been texting Eren nonstop about everything. Talking about sweet nothings. Getting showered with compliments as well as the occasional gift at the end of the school day. A new set of nails, some lingerie shopping, and of course perfume for your collection. He loved how you smiled when he bought you things, and you adored that he bought you things. The make shift relationship you found yourself was perfect. At the end of the week the night of the game you found yourself holding hands with him walking down the hallway. He kissed you deeply and he told you to text him as he grabbed your ass before walking away.

You liked that Eren was sweet and although affectionate, he wasn't feening for sex...but you were. You'd drool as he'd send you pictures of himself fresh out of the shower after practice. Or when he wore those tight black t-shirts with a gold chain that hugged his arms and pectoral muscles just right. The way his jaw clenched when he focused as he pulled his hair back into a bun made your pussy clench with ease. You were done playing nice.

"Aw princess, did you think I forgot about you?"

"Shut up, no one gives a fuck about you or your ego."

You admit that your personality also changed when you got with him, you were the center attention because you were together, you had the best clothes and style because of him. Girl and guys alike all looked at you like the queen he made you out to be, and if you were his queen, Ymir so help you that your wouldn't take what's yours when you wanted it.

"Watch it Y/N, you know I like when you talk dirty but talking shit is different."

"What you're gonna let little old me bruise your fucking god complex? If I can do it than any other little fucker in this school can and you're just as much of a failure as your older brother and crazy ass father."

You also admit that you took that comment too far in trying to rile him up and unfortunately you paid the fucking price. Family is a sensitive topic for Eren and there is only so much teasing he can take before he snaps. And that's exactly what he did, at the drop of a hat he turned you around and grabbed you by the neck slamming you against the wall of the athletics building where you were both walking to practice.

"Listen up bitch, I don't care what you have to say about me but my family is off fucking limits, not that you would ever know or care about yours seeing as you're so fucking detached from them. "

You looked at him fighting to breathe eyes low and slightly seductive but tearing up as you were being held up by your neck to his height. You grasped at his hand for some leverage but his grip on your neck provided no such thing.

"You're fucking job is to walk around on my arm, look like the hottest bitch in heat that I picked up and suck my cock when I ask you to, questioning me, my athourity, or my family is not part of it and I never wanna hear shit from uppity slut like you… Got it”

He released his hold and you came crashing down.

Fighting to inhale oxygen into your lungs and coughing when the burn of the oxygen passes finally.

He stood there looking down at you unamused.

With a tear in your eye, you look up at him neck already beginning to bruise with a yellowish hue.

“Why don’t you love me?” you said being the most genuine you’ve every been in months.

He scoffed, picked you up and kissed you. Not like usual, not an apology for his abuse but proof that he does care for you in his own twisted way. And that was enough you felt. Enough for you.

He’s always loved doggy style, loved watching your plump ass clap back at him and wave in all it’s glory. So you weren’t surprised when he pushed you away from the kiss and turned you around. Bending you against the wall and hiking your cheer skirt up, pulling the shorts and panties down.

Next thing you knew you felt his dick pressed up against your rubbing against your ass “dumb questions get dumb answers”.

He rammed himself into you, filling you all the way up and sucking his teeth at your tightness. You couldn’t control your moans, he just fucked you so deeply and with so much intent that it was hard not to voice your every sensation.

“Ahh- Erennn”

“mhm say my name.”

“fuck eren, just like that”

You were getting whiplash because right when you said that he pulled out and turned you around again. Lifting you up so that your ankles locked around his hips. Nestling your drippy pussy on his tip.

He gripped both your ass cheeks and pressed you down, fully in-bedding himself in you.

“Fuckkkkkk, ahh it’s so deep”

“just how i like it.”

He continued his pace from earlier as you threw your head back in complete euphoria. He kept it going as if you weighed even less than a feather.

“You’re such a needy bitch, why didn’t you tell me you needed some dick earlier. All of this could’ve been avoided”

It fell on deaf ears obviously because the pain from your neck and the pleasure from your pussy we’re mixing soooo well.

“Ah- More, please more”

He did exactly that pushing himself deeper into you with every thrust, your wetness dripping on the pants of his uniform. He used that wetness to slip a finger in your ass and if you were full before you’re way over the limit now.

“Ngahhhh too muchhhh “

“what, you just asked for more. Take what i give you”

3 more thrusts in and you were cumming all over him, you held onto him for dear life clawing at his back knowing he’d pay for your new mani when you complain about it next week. You didn’t expect him to keep thrusting into you after you came.

“AHHH NOOO”

“Shut the fuck up”

He thrusted deeper, harder, but so much slower because he knew now that you were done he was next. He relished every second of your cries, how you were still fluttering around him but tightening as he pushed into you deeper.

You started shaking as your second orgasm finally took over and he came right along with you, groaning into you ear.

“Shiiiiiiitttttt, ahhh”

You were non-verbal, eyes rolled back as a stream of clear liquid made itself present between the both of you.

He kissed you again. Hotter, more passionate. Gripping the nape of your neck to push both of you deeper into it.

You wrapped your hands in his hair become slightly more conscious.

By the time you both were done practice had ended.

You both texted your coaches about not feeling well including a picture of your soaked uniform lying about “throwing up”.

You went the locker rooms, changed and walked to Eren’s car hand in hand.

You spent the night at his house, exhausted enough to not care about his 30 minute shower. But when he came back, god he smelled amazing. He wrapped you in the blanket before getting into bed himself.

You cuddled into his chest as he stared at the ceiling waiting for sleep to take him.

“what makes you think i don’t love you?”

you don’t respond, pretending to be asleep but with your head and heart wide awake. You know now, those word will never have to be said again

You fell asleep feeling happy, but nothing could prepare you for the week to come when the bruises took their final form…

#dreamsofme #eren smut #eren x reader #eren aot #eren jeager x reader #dark romanticism #tw overstimulation #tw abuse #mdni #aot fanfiction #fanfic

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acernusaurus · 9 months ago

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Legends' Gifts For The Avalance Baby's First Birthday

I was thinking about this for fic reasons but it quickly evolved into its own thing. Let me know if you've got any other ideas.

Ray and Nora

They would give a useful invention and/or magical charm. I'm thinking something that would make parents' lives easier without being an untested, potentially dangerous device around an infant/toddler.

Kendra and/or Carter

Separate or together (I'm not really a fan of the comics direction) I think they would get the most normal gifts as the people who have been parents many times.

Mick

Crème brûlée torch. 'It's for food' is his only explanation when anyone questions it.

Jax

Custom made plastic throwing stars

(Curse AI for being evil and forcing me to Photoshop my own dang nonsense)

Nate and Zari

A set of funny/cute shirts. Stuff like: 'Future ninja', 'My favorite uncle is a Historian', gamer stuff, etc. And maybe something from the ancestors that they say every baby should have.

Behrad

I feel like he would write the baby a song as his gift. And when it ends up on his first album in his own time the kid can't tell anyone about it being hers.

Gary

I think he'd stick with simple: stuffed octopus. Or go way too wild and try to buy everything.

Wally

A trinket from his travels.

Zari

Mithra Merch. Zari doesn't even need to bring it from the future. She happens to know a certain influencer's passwords and promo codes and puts the baby on the list for a very large Dragon Girl fan package.

Charlie

Bass guitar. 100% stolen from someone famous.

Mona

A ton of kids books

Astra

Astra would waffle over what babies want for their birthday and then finally just settle on giving her money.

Spooner

Mushroom plush. It was supposed to be a joke but it becomes the kids main lovey because kids are delightfully unpredictable.

(I didn't expect to have a picture for this one but I stumbled across this while shopping and it was perfect)

Gwyn

Haunted doll (not intentionally). Zari lends Gwyn $50, which already freaks him out (inflation calculator says it's ~$900). And when he tries to go to the mall he walks into the Macy's (a name he recognizes) but enters through the underwear-section door and he instantly turns back around to walk out. Eventually he finds an antique store with this perfectly acceptable children's gift and she is 100% haunted but the ghost is chill.

(I cruised through the doll aisle at a thrift store to find one I liked for this)

Gideon

Gideon has only known one baby personally so I think she'd go with some hot 22nd century or historic toy that was Jonas' favorite as a baby. Or she'd pick the toy with the best reviews at the exact time of the birthday.

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alexanderwales · 3 months ago

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Book Review: Fall; or, Dodge in Hell

I stayed up late to finish Fall; or, Dodge in Hell. I had initially thought that I would give it a proper review, but I'm not really sure that it's suited to that. [Edit: This is, by some measure, a proper review, spoilers follow.]

I'm pretty sure that I got this book on preorder whenever it came out, as I'm a fan of Stephenson. The blurb was essentially "you remember Dodge from Reamde? He gets uploaded to the cloud!" And I thought "yeah, from Stephenson? I'd read that". And then it showed up on my doorstep, and I read a chapter, and wasn't really feeling its hook in me, so I read something else instead, and the "to read" pile grew larger, and eventually Fall moved down to the basement, where books only rarely escape from. I started reading it again mostly to have a break from Nate Silver's new book.

Fall can be divided roughly in three, though they're not actual books. The first part is everything in the Meatverse, the second part is most of what goes on with Dodge in the Bitverse, and the third part is the Quest that makes up the last third of the book.

The Meatverse stuff is good, the Quest is goodish, and the Dodge stuff is bad. Unfortunately, it's all interwoven, and the ending is pretty crap, though I don't expect anything else from Stephenson.

Neal Stephenson is, fundamentally, an ideas guy. You read him for his ideas, because there's a new one on every page, illuminating something that's caught his mind, and you bask in the way he puts things, what he calls forth, and then ... kind of suffer through all the stuff where you're just not interested. That's my opinion on how to read him, anyway, and I do think it applies to some other scifi authors as well.

The reason I think the Bitverse section sucks is that it's repeating the same "trick" over and over and over, which is that the Land is being built piece by piece, and Dodge is deriving the world from a combination of base principles and half-memories of life before he died. I mostly found this annoying after the eighth time it happened, and it was all made worse by the way it was written, which is in a sort of overhanded biblical way that grated on me.

The whole thrust of this virtual world being created from nothing is also stupid in a way that I'd be willing to accept for the sake of a novel, if anything was ever made of it. Dodge essentially hallucinates the entire Land, and others follow after him, and there's a Pantheon that's formed because of unequal distribution of processing power, and ... unfortunately I agree with El, the ostensible villain, who complains that no, this is absolutely not what the afterlife for humans should be, mistakes were made, why are people still stuck in physical forms, why is there hunger and need, why does this world show no ambition in providing for the people within it, either physically, intellectually, or spiritually?

And rather than looking in on what's happening and being horrified about it, the people of the Meatverse just keep adding on more processing power and booting up more scanned people into it, and I don't really understand the tenets of the worldbuilding here. Surely a billionaire would look at this and say "wow, that sucks, now that we have better brain-scanning and understanding of all this, maybe we get a better virtual heaven that has some interoperability with the Meatverse and actually preserves identity in some way".

But no, what starts as an experiment becomes something out of control and all-consuming. What happened to any competing attempts at a different "afterlife", if any, are left as an exercise for the reader. The book ends with the implication that biological humanity is just going to die out and be entirely contained within the virtual realm, tended to by bots. The idea of anyone disagreeing with this plan (or eventuality) and what they might do about it is left as an exercise to the reader. It seems to me like a grim fate, albeit maybe a better one that humanity is actually destined for.

I also think that one of the most interesting tricks the novel can pull, given its conceit, is to have interplay between Meatverse and Bitverse, ways in which the events of one impact the other. And this, sadly, does not amount to much in the end. A lot of it is left as an exercise for the reader, including what's going to happen in the aftermath of the final battle. That people from Meatverse become people in Bitverse is not really played with all that much. That the Meatverse can, in some sense, communicate with the Bitverse is not given all that much thought either. And direct interaction of Meatverse with Bitverse in any way beyond insertion of souls is used only once and never again, in spite of all the incentive to do so. All feels like it comes up short.

The last bit of the novel, with the Quest, I actually did enjoy ... but I enjoyed it as a fantasy novel more than I enjoyed it as a part of this novel. It goes along at a nice pace, it's written pretty well (if with the occasional bits of Stephenson's characteristic abruptness), there are interesting ideas sewn into it ... but the final battle isn't satisfying, there are no clever tricks or turns that complete the thing, and far too much is left opaque, unsaid, and left off the page. I enjoyed it anyhow.

Overall, I'm going to say this is probably my least favorite Stephenson book, mostly because I come for the ideas, and some of the ideas are retreading very well-worn ground for me (cryonics, virtualization, worldbuilding), while others seem a bit too half-baked. It's got all the usual Stephenson flaws, which is always a little disappointing, because ... come on, writing a good ending is a skill, you can learn this skill.

I'll still read the next one though, if there is one.

#fall or dodge in hell #reviews

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fanficfanattic · 4 months ago

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Merry Mini-Fic-Mas @readwing!

Tyler knew things changed, of course they did, and you didn’t play for Ted Lasso without realizing that to an extreme. He figured it would have changed even more so once The Roy Kent became head coach.

He’d missed out on Lasso’s last season, having jumped ship before promotion only to end up on a team that was relegated the season he played for them. At least one of those teammates had started a rumor that he was cursed.

And maybe they were right since he ended up going back to his previous club, Richmond, rather than being able to make a true club jump.

Still, football was football, so at least the game didn’t go changing on him.

And the second day of preseason training showed him what else hadn’t changed either:

Jamie Tartt and Roy Kent butted heads just like always. The big difference being that Tartt did what he was told on the pitch, so Lasso’s lessons must have stuck with him somewhat.

He hadn’t planned to get in the middle of it at all. He really hadn’t. But then Tartt set up a perfect volley and he had to take it, didn’t he?

“What did you just say to me you little prick!” Was what Kent yelled at him.

“I said ‘you know I’m right!’ Do you need to get your ears checked, granddad?” Was Tartt’s response, so Tyler stepped right up to add—

“Maybe his eyesight too, eh Tartt? Since you don’t see as well at night, Kent, who gets to be Head Coach for our evening games?” It might have come out a little too aggressive, rather than the little bit teasing that he’d meant. Excuse him, nobody is perfect.

Except. Except the tone must have mattered a great deal because the room went eerily quiet, making Roja’s gasp sound louder than life. He almost gasped himself when both Tartt and Kent turned in unison to stare him down.

“Oi!” Coach Kent broke the silence. Then, like a finely tuned clock, Tartt wove into the dressing down. “You don’t talk to the gaffer like that!”

“You talk to him like that all the time!” And maybe he said that a little petulantly. Because their head coach had the right to call him on his shit. McAdoo had a right to as well even though he wasn’t exercising it right then.

But Tartt wasn’t in any kind of position of power. And he thought he got to have a say? Not on his life. What Tyler had failed to notice and take into account is that Jamie did have a stake in the matter. Just not as a footballer.

“Actually, I don’t talk to our gaffer like that! I talk to my best friend Roy like that. The only time Coach refers to me as a prick is when he activates Prick Mode during a match. My best friend Roy uses it all the time. It’s affectionate like.”

Head Coach Roy fucking Kent ignored the claim of affection to instead eviscerate his player.

“This is your problem, Shannon. You don’t pay attention to details. And you don’t ask questions when you don’t understand something. But that stops today! You need to be able to do see beyond your nose for Total Football to work.

So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re adding an extra hour of film review at the end of every training day. If you don’t understand something, you’ll ask Coach Nate about it the next morning before training starts. And then Coach Beard will test your knowledge while you run laps before you’ll be able to join morning training.

If he doesn’t assure me that you’re improving, each week, we’ll revisit your ability to play. Sound fair?”

He tried to school the shock off his face so he could reply but it didn’t work so he choked out “Ye…yes Gaf-“

“That was a rhetorical question mate. He wasn’t actually asking your opinion. Good luck!” Tartt blasted a beaming smile at him before turning back to his best friend Roy.

“Can we do kebabs tonight?”

“Fuck no, you little idiot. I don’t care if it’s ‘only preseason’. You-“ and he cut off as the door to the coaching office closed behind him.

#vitriolic best buds trope #jamie tartt #roy kent #tyler shannon #cause i needed a villian #ficmas gift

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ash-and-books · 1 month ago

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Rating: 4/5

Book Blurb:

Gossip Girl meets The Sopranos in this fast-paced drama about a teenage mafia heiress who would do anything to avenge her family, even join forces with her handsome enemy. Inside the tony suburb of Scarsdale is New York’s worst-kept secret: The mob runs everything, and the Nicastro family is at the center. Seventeen-year-old Tasha Nicastro lives a life of glitz and glamour, but she has no idea her family harbors a dark truth. Tasha might look like your classic high school mean girl, but behind the designer clothes is a sharpshooter who knows how to bring anyone to their knees. The only person who has ever gotten under her skin is her former best friend, Leo Danesi, the youngest son of the Nicastro family’s rivals. After Leo returns to New York older and more handsome, Tasha thinks he’ll be the worst of her problems—until the life she thought she knew takes a violent, shocking turn. When her father and beloved older sister are murdered before her eyes, Tasha learns the dark truth: Her family runs the most powerful Mafia branch in New York, and now she’s set to inherit it all. Tasha vows vengeance on the mysterious new mob behind the hit, but she can’t do it alone. She needs someone who already knows the underground world to help track them down. And that person is none other than Leo, the heir to his own family’s dangerous empire. But Tasha is a Nicastro. She’s been raised in the company of killers, and there’s absolutely nothing she won’t do to avenge her family. That is, if the enemy doesn’t put her in gold chains first. Perfect for fans of:

Mafia Romances

Second Chance Romance

Rivals-to-Lovers

Thrillers

Mysteries

Review:

Gossip Girl meets Mafia story as a teen heiress inherits her father's mafia legacy and the first thing on her to do list is to find his murderer... but that means getting help from her former crush who also happens to be from a rival mafia family.... who her father put a hit on when they were younger, talk about complicated. Tasha Nicastro always thought her family's wealth came from her father being an upstanding citizen.... until he is gunned down at her party along with her sister and she is suddenly told that he has been grooming her to become the heir to his mafia kingdom all along. Tasha doesn't know the first thing about running a mob but what she does know is that she wants revenge and she'll do anything to find her family's killer.... even team up with the one person she knows she should hate, her former crush and childhood friend, Leo Danesi. It doesn't help that Leo is also the heir to a rival mob family... a family that her father had placed a hit on... and had orchestrated the murder of Leo's father. Leo and Tasha have a complicated history, but Leo has a secret, he's still in love with Tasha and can't say no to her, and if helping her find the hitman who is coming for her family means he can potentially stop a killer from going after his family as well, why not. Plus it can give him time with Tasha and keep her ex boyfriend Ravi out of the picture. Tasha and Leo delve deeper and deeper into the mob world... but the closer they get to the truth the more danger they will be in and betrayal is always closer to home than either of them know.... can they make it out alive? Okay this was so much fun because it definitely leaned heavily into the Gossip Girl with a touch of mafia mystery. Leo, my sweet sweet Leo, he was so in love with Tasha it was adorable. The romance was really fun and I am a sucker for childhood friends to enemies to lovers. THAT ENDING.?!?!?! Please tell me there is a book two and we get it soon because I NEED A BOOK 2 TO FIX THAT ENDING. This was as if Blair and Nate from Gossip Girl but put in mob romance, like it sounds weird but it absolutely works. Tasha isn't afraid to scheme and do whatever is needed to get what she wants while Leo is caring, supportive, and an investigator that has her back. This was such a fun read and I can't wait for the next book (please I'm begging).

*Spoiler: Tasha's sister faked her death and murdered her father. She is the current mob boss that Tasha has been trying to find. Leo's brother Carter was working with Tasha's sister. Leo and Tasha hook up and tell each other their feelings. Tasha confronts her sister and apprehends her with the help of the other mob family... only by agreeing to marry Ravi (who she no longer loves). The book ends with Leo finding out that Tasha is engaged to Ravi as he walks away. *

Release Date: March 18, 2025

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

#book review #bookish #in the company of killers

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zalrb · 2 months ago

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PLL 3x12 Review - As Per Anon Request

Oh Hanna, honey, your crying is terrible.

Obviously I didn't watch the previous episode but if the recording is meant to prove Garret's innocence with Maya, why didn't Spencer give it to her mother?

They really wanted Blair for Spencer's wardrobe but she looks like she should be dropping off her daughter at Dartmouth or Barnard or something.

I'm sorry I do not believe Hanna doesn't know Basic Instinct. Hanna would watch Basic Instinct before Spencer.

Lmao Emily is so unnecessarily aggy like 80% of the time

Emily is literally the only one who dresses normally

"If anyone needs an intervention it's me." Stop trying to be interesting, Aria.

LMAO MONA DOESN'T EVEN LOOK LIKE A NURSE. CAN WE NOT.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, I ALMOST KILLED YOU." "With a pink furry lamp, Hanna?" the only time I've ever liked Caleb's delivery.

"You guys won't be showing up there alone." Because I, another teenager, will be there. But I'm a boy!

Mona scared you out of the hospital, Caleb, sit DOWN.

Toby STAYS leaving Rosewood and for no real reason.

"Oh, please, don't let me go." Spencer, WHY?

Spin the camera all you want, this was anticlimactic, they're anticlimactic.

"Spencer, I know who you are. You never have to say you're sorry." Yeah, yeah, the Love Story quote "Love is never having to say you're sorry". You two don't earn this, though. I need some angst in my angst and some chemistry in my chemistry.

Every time I see Ezria, they're either in the same room not interacting with each other or being together and looking strained. If the whole point is that it's domestic bliss and they can just be in each other's space doing different things but being content, at least give me

"But why did you give up teaching?"

YEAH, EZRA. TELL US

"No, no, it's not OK" Aria, stay out of grown folks' business, please, you CHILD.

Hanna coming out of the shower with full eye shadow is so on brand for this show.

Hanna: Is [the gun] loaded?

Caleb:

How is hiding a gun YOU brought to MY house in MY drawer making the situation better? This shit only works when Scorsese does it and it happened because Henry pistol whipped the shit out of the man who tried to sexually assault Karen and then told her to hide the gun afterwards, can we PLEASE. Jax would never and Jax did A LOT.

"And remember, there's two of them and four of us." Caleb, A isn't human.

Toby and Spencer's sex scene is not great. And every time he tries to nuzzle her it's just ... awkward. They still did better than Klaroline.

"Please tell me you have Maya's bag because I am SO ready for this to be over" again, this new A hasn't done anything for Spencer and Toby to be where they are. She just has to communicate with him. Like at least Mona tried to kill him.

The fact that they just left the grave dug up is hilarious.

I wondered if they were going to do a Peyton-esque Derek storyline with Nate. Apparently the answer is yes.

oh my god they're taking so long with this just so caleb can show up with the gun.

Emily's eyebrows are eyebrowing.

So, Emily is roughed up and nearly stabbed by stalker Harper and has already nearly suffocated, so she's nearly died twice and Aria hasn't nearly died once yet?

Oh, I thought they were actually going to do a Chekhov's gun.

CALEB GETS SHOT BEFORE ARIA GETS HURT? She's pissing me off.

Also, idk, man, Hanna sees Caleb in that stretcher, she should run to the audience and Aria and Spencer have to hold her back.

I like how because Caleb was actually shot no one cares that Emily stabbed someone and nearly died.

Mona was so underutliized.

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hacash · 2 years ago

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I saw a couple of reviews saying there wasn’t enough football being shown in season 3, this is why Ted Lasso is ‘losing its touch’, we’re not seeing enough of the significant moments on the pitch etc etc; so because I’m a pedantic little fucker I decided to science the shit out of this. Bare in mind, ‘no football featured’ means no matches, so with that in mind:

Season 1

Pilot – No football featured

Biscuits – Richmond’s bad loss against Crystal Palace, not shown

Trent Crimm: The Independent – no football featured

For the Children – no football featured

Tan Lines – Richmond’s win against Unknown, match shown

Two Aces – No football featured

Make Rebecca Great Again – Richmond’s significant win against Everton, match not shown

The Diamond Dogs – No football featured

All Apologies – No football featured

The Hope That Kills You – Richmond lose against Man City, match shown

Season 2

Goodbye Earl – Richmond draws against Nottingham, match shown (sorry Dani…)

Lavender – No football featured

Do the Right-est Thing – Richmond lose against Coventry after Sam’s protest, match not shown

Carol of the Bells – No football featured

Rainbow – Richmond undergo a bad streak and then play Sheffield Wednesday, match not shown (but the run-up is)

The Signal – Richmond win against Tottenham, match shown (but not the crucial victory)

Headspace – No football featured

Man City – Richmond lose against Man City, match shown

Beard After Hours – No football featured

No Weddings and a Funeral – No football featured

Midnight Train to Royston – Sam scores a hat-trick, not shown

Inverting the Pyramid of Success – Richmond win against Brentford, match shown

Season 3

Smells Like Mean Spirit – No football featured

(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea – Richmond ties with Chelsea, match shown

4-5-1 – Zava leads Richmond to victory, series of matches shown

Big Week – Richmond lose to West Ham, match shown

Signs – Richmond experience a bad run of losses, aftermath of matches shown

Sunflowers – Richmond lose to Ajax, aftermath of match shown

The Strings That Bind Us – Richmond lose to Arsenal, match shown

We’ll Never Have Paris – Richmond enjoy a winning streak, only the reactions shown

La Locker Room Aux Folles – Richmond win against Brighton, match shown (but not Colin’s turnaround)

I’d say we’re actually seeing a lot more football this season than we have done before. The pattern of not having all the significant moments on the pitch portrayed is something Ted Lasso has been doing since season 1, after all. Remember the win at Everton? Nate’s magnificent ‘Park The Bus’ over Tottenham? Sam’s hat-trick? Isaac getting his mojo back on the field? Nope, neither do I, because we didn’t see them. In a way they’re not nearly as important as the character development off the field that surrounds it, and the show’s always been very honest about that.

After all, the cast do a great job, but with the exception of Cristo Fernandez, they’re not footballers - they were never going to be expected to do all the work on the pitch. Now there might be something of an argument for saying ‘but we’re less emotionally invested in where the team are placing in the league’ this season - but if I’m honest, I remember approaching both the s1 and s2 finales thinking ‘oh that’s where they are in the league?! god, I forgot we were supposed to be keeping track of that’. Football has always been a supporting role in this show, not the star.

Anyway, EXCUSE ME SIR THIS IS THE FOOTBALL ADJACENT SHOW NOT SOCCER SATURDAY THANK YOU

#ted lasso

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fablesrose · 2 years ago

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S2 Ch 4 - The Beantown Bailout Job

Series Rewrite Masterlist

Pairing: Eliot Spencer x Ford!Reader

Description: The team is reunited in Boston and help a father-daughter pair with the mob.

Words: 5498

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke up a little earlier than I normally do, got dressed and walked across the hall. I entered with my spare key and started making breakfast and coffee.

After the whole deal with Blackpoole, Nate was looking for a fresh start, and he decided that that would look like living close to me in Boston. He stayed with me for a few weeks while he got his stuff in order, and then the condo across the hall opened up. He decided to stay close. I didn’t mind, it meant I could keep an eye on him, make sure he was doing okay, especially since he stopped drinking, almost cold turkey.

I heard him walk down the stairs, “what are you doing here?

I looked up to see him in a well pressed suit, “well, it’s your first day at this new job isn’t it?”

I finished up the breakfast I was making right as the coffee maker indicated it was done. I handed them both to him at the counter before dishing myself a plate.

“Thank you, y/n.” He started to sip on his mug, “Do you have work going on today?”

“I’m vetting possible clients, but no projects, why?”

“Just curious. Uh, Sophie has a musical tonight, here in Boston. Do you wanna come with me?”

“Sure, sounds fun.” I halfway entertained the idea of everyone else being there, but the chances of that were slim. But imagining seeing Eliot again was still a bit fun.

He left shortly after, I finished cleaning up and returned to my own apartment. It was only a few hours later when I heard the door across the hall slam closed. I quickly called Nate.

“Yeah?”

“Was that you that just slammed your door closed?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you doing back already? It’s not even lunch time.”

“I quit.”

“What?”

“It was just too much.”

I sighed, “Okay.”

“I also helped this girl and her dad get out of a car wreck.”

“What?!”

“I’m a bit worried about them, something seems off. I might go visit them in the hospital again sometime…”

“Okay…”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay.”

The things this man gets himself into…

He knocked on my door that evening, walking in when I called him. I looked at the outfit he was wearing and looked at my own to see we were both in a nicer casual.

“Cool, let me grab my keys.”

We arrived at the theater with plenty of time to spare. As we looked around the opening foyer I heard a voice at the front desk.

“Parker. No, just one name.”

I touched Nate’s arm to point out that Parker was here. Soon as we looked around, I saw that the rest of the crew had come as well. We greeted each other before Sophie came out and said hi.

“I didn’t know you could sing,” Hardison commented to Sophie.

“You know, not as well as I act, but yeah.”

Hardison and Parker made a bit of horrified eye contact that left me confused. Hardison saw this and shook his head as if to say, ‘don’t ask.’

There was an awkward moment between Nate and Sophie before Sophie insisted on us all meeting up afterwards before she dashed off.

I guess it was time for the show.

It was awful, and that’s all that needs to be said.

We all went to McRory’s pub after the show. Sophie was distraught as Parker rad some of the reviews.

“Never before has a production of The Sound of Music made me root for the Nazis.”

I cringed a bit in sympathy.

Eliot sat down at the bar with Nate, he was surprised that he had stopped drinking, “how do you know about this place then?”

“We rent condos upstairs,” I told him.

“Condos? Plural?”

I looked at Nate, “we each needed our own space.”

Eliot only nodded.

Sophie stopped Parker, “No there is nothing you can say to make me feel better.”

“I know what can make you feel better. We should steal something.”

Nate opposed.

“Yes, we could do it together!” Sophie finally seemed excited.

“I like this. Get right back up on the bike.” Eliot commented

“Bike of crime,” Parker added.

“Didn’t you earlier tell me how great your new lives were?” Nate asked.

“Yeah, well, I stole the Hope Diamond.” Parker said, “Then I put it back. Yeah, because I was bored. Didn’t care.”

“I spent three days hacking the White House email. No buzz.”

“See?” Sophie pointed.

“But we are doing some pretty hinky stuff in Pakistan. Hinky…”

“Look, I’m miserable. They’re miserable…” Sophie said to Nate before asking Eliot, “Okay, what have you been doing the last six months?”

He hesitated, “I was in Pakistan…”

I raised an eyebrow at him, but he just shrugged.

“You… You see what you did?” Hardison asked Nate, “You took the world’s best criminals, hitter, hacker, grifter, thief. You took us and you broke us.”

“No, no. I… What I did, I taught you how to help people. That’s all.” Nate argued.

“Exactly.”

“This is the problem with being the good guy! It gets under your skin.” Eliot explained.

I just took a sip of my mild drink, watching this all happen.

“Look Nate,” Sophie said, “you have to have some poor little lost soul somewhere who needs a little extra legal aid.”

“Look, we agreed that we would just move on.”

“Yeah, but… we’re thieves!”

“Not me! Look, it was great. It was fun, it was wonderful while it lasted, but, you know, I was drunk for most of the time to be honest with you-”

“But you were good,” Eliot interrupted.

“You were the best.”

“We were the best.”

I smiled over my glass, watching them wear Nate down. This was good for him, they were good for him.

“Listen, I owe all of you, and I’m very proud of what we did, I really am, but… I got my life back and I intend to keep it that way.”

My smile fell. I tried to stare him down, but Nate was pointedly avoiding eye contact.

“And I am not a thief.” He stood from the bar and walked out, “it was great to see all of ya. Good night.”

I stood as well, “I’m sorry about him, maybe stick around town for a while? It was nice to see you guys again.”

“Don’t worry about it y/n. It was good to see you too.” Eliot said before everyone else said their goodbyes.

I caught up to Nate on the stairs.

“‘I got my life back?’ Nate, you don’t know what to do with yourself anymore!”

“Y/n, I’m going straight. I’m gonna get a job, a normal job! I’ll figure it out.”

“You better, because these guys saved you better than I ever could. Don’t throw them away.”

He looked at me, “Okay.”

“Okay, I’m going to bed. Don’t stay up too late.”

He waved me off as I stepped into my apartment. I contemplated working a bit more, but decided against it and went straight up to my room and crashed.

The next day I felt bad for what I said. I looked at the clock and figured he would probably be up by now, even if he quit his job. I walked across the hall, but could hear lots of things happening inside Nate’s apartment.

I knocked on the door and gently pushed it open, sticking my head in. “Nate?”

“Get out of there!”

“What?” I saw Nate was on the couch and he was looking towards the kitchen. I stepped in further to see that the whole crew was there in Nate’s apartment.

Nate looked over to me and waved me in further into the apartment as if to say, ‘fine, come on in.’

“What are you guys doing here? Get all this stuff out of here, you’re planning something I know it. Come on, get out of my house, out!” Nate got off the couch and started trying to shew the team away.

“Someone tried to kill you last night.”

“What?!”

Everyone snapped their heads over to me with a slightly guilty expression.

“I’m fine.”

Eliot turned back to Nate, “What do you want us to do man? You want us to just blow town, let you figure it out?”

“Yes, actually, that’s exactly what I want you to do.”

“Nate.” I gave him a pointed look, “what did we talk about last night? If someone tried to kill you then we’re gonna need some help.”

“We’re nothing y/n, you’re not getting involved with this.”

“Bullcrap, I’m a grown ass woman, and you obviously are acting like a child!”

Sophie interjected, not letting that go too far, “We found the phone number of the hospital in your pocket, Nate. We know what you did. We know you saved that guy’s life and the little girl, and we’re all really proud of you!”

I sat next to Eliot at the table, Parker on my other side, dressed like a nun, as he applauded Nate.

“Look, nobody else is gonna help that guy and his little girl, okay?” Hardison said seriously, “that’s what we do, we help people.”

Nate just continued to make coffee.

“By the way, I compared Sophie’s description of your attacker to the accident footage from the security camera.” He typed away at his laptop, “Do you realize that on average, people are caught on security cameras thirteen times a day?”

“That’s crazy,” I commented and Hardison nodded at me.

“It is crazy, but we can track him…” He trailed off, “I lost him in this.”

I peaked over the table to see the man on camera take papers out of the briefcase he stole from the man in the crash and dash off.

“Yeah, well, I found this empty briefcase belonging to Matt Kerrigan at that intersection” Eliot told Nate who was becoming more interested.

“It’s, uh, Boston Commonwealth Bank right?”

“No,” Nate corrected, “First Independent Boston. That’s where Kerrigan works, come on.”

I smiled, Hardison seeming to have the same thought as me.

“Who’s this guy?” Eliot pointed at the laptop, and I followed where he was pointing.

“You don’t know, do you? It’s Kerrigan’s boss, that guy, Leary.” Nate brushed off the stares he got from the crew.

“Well, who’s the other guy?”

“It’s not clear enough for facial recognition.”

“Well the problem is, those two cats went down to the safety deposit boxes.”

Parker stood, “which is the only room in every bank with absolutely no cameras.”

“Which means we up, baby,” Hardison stood and finished his priest outfit to fit with Parker’s nun. “They tried to kill Kerrigan for what was in the briefcase… We’re gonna steal it back.” He continued as the two of them left.

Eliot laughed, “She’s dressed that way because she’s doin’ a con…”

“What, you thought she was dressed like a nun for no reason?” Nate asked.

“It’s Parker,” Eliot pointed out.

“I didn’t question it either Nate,” I raised my hand. Eliot pointed at me appreciatively.

“Well, fair enough,” Nate conceded. “Okay, I want you out of my house, out.” Naate continued after a moment. He explained that he was going to get cleaned up and he wasn’t involved with any of it. He wanted everything out of his house.

After he went up stairs I turned to Sophie and Eliot who were still there, “you guys can stay, if you need to hide from him pop over to my place across the hall.” I stood from the table and walked towards the door, “keep me in the loop please, I wanna know what's going on!”

“We will, y/n, thank you!” Sophie called.

I heard Eliot mention something about all of Nate’s sports channels before I closed the door behind me.

It was a few hours later when Sophie called me back over to Nate’s place. I saw that they had really set up shop in his living room, practically begging for his participation. They gave me a quick recap of what happened, Parker and Hardison going to the bank and retrieving the files Kerrigan had, and then Eliot going to the mob’s fake businesses running into some mob people in the process.

Eliot unpacked a duffel, “This is all the stuff I found in the warehouse, in the boxes.”

Clothing and calendars clearly from the ‘80s were tossed around. I laughed as Parker put on a jacket with the largest shoulder pads I had ever seen.

“This stuff hasn’t left the warehouse since the 1980s” Sophie commented.

“I feel like a robot,” Parker swung her arms around while in the jacket.

“Wait, so if these are supposed to be just fake businesses, how come their financials are so squeaky clean?” Sophie asked.

I tilted my head and was about to speak when Nate beat me to it.

“Because they’re fake businesses.” He paused and tried to justify himself a bit before he continued when no one else commented, “Sophie, how do you catch mob guys?”

“Uh, two glasses of Chianti and a story about my grandma in Sicily.”

“How does the government catch mob guys?” He amended.

“Taxes,” multiple people answered.

“Eh, that’s how they got Capone,” Hardison commented.

“That’s how they get everybody,” Sophie added, “they never get you for the crime, they always get you for the taxes. It’s not really fair.”

“So thirty years ago the O’Hares got very smart,” Nate started with his explanation. “You see, they set up all these shell companies: fake sales, fake receipts. They launder all their money through them.”

“And everybody in the family gets a salary,” Hardison realizes. “Yeah, they pay withholding, payroll taxes, pension. It’s all old school.”

“That’s why the businesses are clean,” Eliot adds, “They’re dirty from the inside.”

I found it fascinating how they bounced off each other so easily, it almost seemed like it was rehearsed. Like perhaps they were egging Nate on.

“Well, yeah, if you have a body in the trunk of your car, you’re gonna drive under the speed limit, aren’t you?” Nate explained.

“You know, when you’re sober your metaphors get creepier,” Parker tells him.

“I mean, he’s not wrong though.” Everyone turned towards me and I shrugged.

“But, wait wait,” Hardison interjects, “that still doesn’t explain the last six months of running up bad loans.”

“All from a bank that’s about to close” Sophie mentions.

“Close?” Nate asked. “No, not close. Get bailed out.” Nate stood from where he was perched on his desk and approached us, “Look, we got a banker in the pocket of the mob. Mob takes out bad loans, cleans out the bank, knowing, three days from now, the government’s gonna come along and then, you know, bail the bank out.”

Eliot sat next to me on the couch as Nate stepped to the front of the group as he explained their operation. I smiled at him and how his knee brushed against mine before turning back to Nate.

“I mean, it’s perfect. You know, I don’t even think it’s illegal. It’s…” He paused, looking out the window before turning back to us, “I mean, if we were gonna do this… this job…”

“Just this one job,” Sophie said.

“Yes, just this one… I mean the con you’d wanna do…”

“Hypothetically,” Hardison added.

“Hypothetically, you know, is the turnabout, of course.”

“Ohh, that is a good one!” Sophie cheers.

I looked back and forth from her to Nate. I have never felt so lost.

“You know, it takes five people to do the turnabout,” Eliot mentions.

“That’s true, there's just four of us,” Sophie said.

“And a half,” Eliot glances at me with a shrug, “just saying.”

I smirked as Nate glared at the two of us.

“One more person, hmm,” Parker eggs a bit.

“Yeah, we gotta scare the banker into turning against the mob,” Nate said contemplatively. “Alright. Alright, we’ll do this job, just this one.”

The rest humbly agreed with him, acting as if it were a surprise.

“Hardison, you and Parker, you’re gonna be on the badge,” Nate directed. “Eliot, sheepdog. Sophie-”

“Ice queen!” She completed.

“And I’m the bag man. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go call a professional killer who tried to murder me and arrange to meet him in an isolated location.”

I slowly raised my hand.

“You are going to stay here. You’ll be lucky if you get to participate in this one.”

I sighed, “Fair… I guess. Can you tell me what a turnabout con is?”

“All in due time.” He walked off, presumably to make his phone call.

“See that? He did miss us!” Sophie awed.

“More than he’d like to admit, that’s for sure,” I looked at all of them before adding, “but I didn’t tell you that.”

They all smiled and nodded, Hardison making a zipped lips motion.

Everyone got ready for their respective roles, and while I wasn’t involved, they let me out of the apartment to observe, and maybe help a little. I came along with Hardison, Parker, and Eliot. I waited around the corner until Eliot finished his intimidating stare passing by Leary. When he came around the corner, he handed me a few of the mini explosive charges to help place them on the wall of the bank.

“Hey, this detonator, if I’m around the corner, is it still gonna be in range?” Eliot asked Hardison while we walked away.

“Should be. I haven’t worked out all the kinks yet… Sometimes the things just go off,” Hardison answered.

I blanched a bit, “What?”

Eliot stopped him, “Wait, hey. I thought you said this thing was safe.”

“Mostly. Mostly safe. I was very specific. Sometimes the frequencies get messed up.”

“What frequencies, man? Huh? I got these things in my pants,” Eliot scrambled, reaching into his pockets.

“Like, uh, you know, a garage door opener, a car alarm.”

Just then a woman came out of the bank and accidentally set off her car alarm near us. Eliot and I flinched and I became very aware of the few left over explosives in my hand.

I quickly shoved them into Hardison’s hands, “take them.”

Eliot was still digging them out of his pockets when Parker asked Hardison, “what are the odds that Eliot’s crotch will actually explode?”

“Dammit Hardison,” Eliot exclaimed as he walked off.

I cringed in sympathy while Hardison laughed. He called Sophie to get an update. Everything seemed to be going to plan with Nate and Sophie having an in with the mob and we went to meet them back at Nate’s apartment with the exception of Eliot who would stick around for Leary. He would set off the explosives acting like gunshots once he came out of the bank.

Once Nate came back and it was determined he was no worse for wear, he decided he was going to go visit the Kerrigans.

“Do you want me to come with you?” I asked, while I knew he was much better with hospitals now, it didn’t hurt to have someone with him.

He contemplated for a second before nodding.

Once we arrived at the father’s hospital room, we approached the daughter sitting next to him. Nate said hi first and then introduced me to her. I sat next to her with Nate standing on the other side of the bed.

She was fiddling with a necklace she had on, but stopped when she noticed I had noticed, “Nervous habit.”

I nodded, “what is that?”

She picked it up again to look at it, “St. Brigid. My mother’s name. Dad got it for me after she died.”

“So how are you doing?” Nate asked her after a moment.

Her face twisted in disappointment, “They say the accident is his fault.”

“No,” Nate quickly replied, “No, now listen, your dad, he found some papers at work, and he was trying to figure out what they meant, and he got a little too close to something…”

“No, but it’s not his fault. It was my fault," she insisted.

I placed my hand on her shoulder, “No, no, it wasn’t your fault.”

“He said something was bothering him at work. I told him to call the police, and now… now they…” she trailed off before speaking again. “There are wolves in the world. That’s what dad says, ‘be careful, Zoe. There are wolves in the world.’”

Nate nodded and circled the bed to crouch next to her, “He was not wrong.”

She grasped her father’s hand, “so the world’s just like this, huh? Bad people do bad things, and they always get away with it. Nobody stops them.”

I looked at Nate who had the same grim look on his face as I did. We stayed for a little bit longer, but it soon came time to get back.

The plan was coming to its final act. Hardison passed out new earbuds while explaining that they were more comfortable and even better than before. I put one in and realized that they were more comfortable than I remembered them.

“Okay, if this works, our friend Mr. Leary, he goes to the State Police, he runs, he spills his guts. Eliot, make sure he gets there.”

“I’m on it.”

“Wait, Eliot,” Nate called him, looking at me.

He turned back.

“Take y/n with you. Keep her safe, please. She should be good with surveillance.”

I smiled before following Eliot.

Nate grabbed my arm when I passed, “Be careful.”

“I will.”

We didn’t talk much when watching for Leary. We quickly followed when he got in his car and drove off. Everything seemed to be going great at first. Nate was talking to the O’Hares when Leary started making a few wrong turns if he were going to the police.

“Eliot, where is he going?”

He grunted, “I don’t know yet.”

Soon he pulled into the harbor and we quickly swung around to the other side before following on foot.

“Eliot, y/n, is Leary with the cops? We don’t have a lot of room for error,” Nate asked through the comms.

“Uh, slight problem Nate,” I responded.

“Leary drove down to the waterfront, dumped his car. He’s headin’ right for you.” Eliot tucked me behind him when Leary walked past.

“He was supposed to go to the cops.”

“Well then I don’t know what he’s doing,” Eliot responded to Nate before turning to me. “I’m gonna follow him, you go back to the car, I don’t know what’s going on. Stay safe and out of sight from the mob guys.”

I opened my mouth, but didn’t say anything. I quickly closed it and nodded before turning back towards the car we came in. As much as I wanted to help, I was in way over my head here. On the way to the car, there was a group of mob guys approaching. I quickly ducked behind some junk and debris and held my breath as they passed by my hiding spot. I peeked around to see that there was one who stuck around the area of my escape route. Luckily he was far enough away to not notice me, but if I moved too much, or tried to run, that wasn’t guaranteed.

I whispered, hoping Hardison was right that the comm would pick it up, “Eliot, be careful, there's mob guys coming your way.”

“Okay, guys, it’s not O’Hare,” I heard Nate through my comm.

“What?” Sophie asked.

“Uh, no. O’Hare is not the boss is what I’m saying.”

“No. This whole con was built around O’Hare.”

“Ooh, they’re probably gonna shoot Nate in the face,” Parker said.

“Uh, Parker, I can hear you.”

I bit my lip, trying not to make a sound. I kept peeking around to see that the mob guy was still there, just smoking a cigarette leisurely.

Parker apologized as Sophie emphasized our predicament.

“Alright, listen, we’re gonna have to make this one up as we go.”

I listened as Nate talked to O’Hare and Leary, trying to smooth over some wrinkles. I peeked out again to see the guy had finished his cigarette and walked off in the same direction as the previous group. I waited for him to pass and get far enough away before dashing off to the car. Luckily there was nobody else in the way of me getting further from the warehouse. I slipped in the car with a sigh of relief and locked myself in. I eagerly listened to my comm to find out what was going on.

There was some grunting and rustling that seemed to come from Eliot, “Alright, alright!”

“Eliot?” I asked, “Are you okay?”

I only heard an intentional hum in reply before Eliot whispered to someone, “You better know what you’re doing.”

There was a beat before Nate called, “Hey, hey, he’s got a state trooper badge!”

I could hear other people talking, but not what they were saying before Eliot whispered a “woah.”

Then I heard more clearly from O’Hare, “you kill him. I fixed Kerrigan’s breaks, I’m not killing a cop!”

“Look, you screwed up Kerrigan!” Leary replied.

“No, uh, he’s right. You’re right. He’s-” Nate stuttered along before he was cut off by what sounded like gunshots.

I yelled, “Nate? Eliot? Guys, what’s going on?!”

Hardison responded in my ear, “it’s all good, just stay put, we got this.”

Sophie started speaking in character, “has he got a wire? Come on Ford, get with it! Check him for a wire!”

I sighed in relief, they’ve got this.

“Yes, right on it,” Nate responded.

“This isn’t how we do it in Boston,” I heard O’Hare say.

“Really? This is exactly how we do it in London, except we usually use a razor blade.”

I shivered at the connotation, Sophie could be scary while in character.

“No wire… He has his cellphone though!” Nate called.

“Hit redial, see who he called,” Sophie said to Leary once he said there was no speed dial number saved. “Leary, right? Annie Kroy,” Sophie introduced herself, “nice little number with the banks there. It’s a shame the rest of your operation’s a bit of a balls-up.”

I heard someone’s phone ringing before Leary asked, “O’Hare? Why was a cop’s last phone call to you?”

I was confused too, I thought back and Eliot never called O’Hare. I realized though, that Nate was supposed to call O’Hare after Eliot and I left. Nate must have given them his phone instead!

“This is… This is a setup,” O’Hare tried to explain.

“How is this a setup?” Leary asked. “She shot the cop.”

“Yeah, and he’s the one that dialed the phone,” Sophie added.

“You didn’t want us to shoot him either, did you?” Leary accused, “Why, did you know him?”

“It wasn’t like that! Come on, you know I was in this thing from the beginning.”

I smiled hearing them bicker and turn on each other. This team sure does know how to create chaos.

“Why… why would I be involved?”

Leary called for his people to follow him, so I assumed O’Hare ran away.

Eliot stashed the car in a spot where I could see Hardison and Parker peel around the corner towards the warehouse where it sounded like they picked up O’Hare. I listened as they got O’Hare to admit to the bank fraud, Leary’s part in it, as well as the Kerrigan hit.

“Yes!” I cheered, “Hardison, did you record that?”

I heard it played back in my ear as a confirmation.

“Those were the state cops who questioned me!” Leary was back in the warehouse, supposedly with Sophie and Nate.

“Well, do they got any evidence?” Sophie asked.

“No, no, nothing real, just O’Hare’s word against mine.”

“And no documents?”

“No. No, no, I have those. But Kerrigan saw them.”

“And there’s just one problem,” Nate said, “we’re screwed if he wakes up.”

“He won’t,” Leary replied, “Kerrigan’s the last loose end. I’ll take care of him myself.”

“Hey, hey! Whoa, whoa, wait. What about him?”

“Him? Hey, I never touched him. Your fingerprints are all over him. I’ll clean up my mess, you clean up yours.”

I scoffed at how much of a scummy guy Leary was, “Did he really just say that?”

“Afraid so, y/n,” Nate replied. “So, how’d you do it?”

I heard a grunt from Eliot, “Detonator… Ketchup.”

“Ah, the classics.”

“Is that what those gunshots were?” I asked.

“Yes, dear, Eliot had a lovely death scene,” Sophie answered excitedly.

Eliot met me back at the car, sliding into the driver's seat.

“Are you okay?” I asked one more time.

He smiled at me, “Yeah, I might be a little sore, but fine.” He looked down at his chest, “need a new shirt though.”

I looked at his shirt, and sure enough, he had holes and ketchup everywhere causing me to laugh.

“Were you okay?” He asked me as he put the car in drive.

“Yeah, just had to play hide and seek with some mob guys before getting here, but all good. I was entertained listening to the whole affair from here.”

He rolled his eyes with a smirk as we drove back to the apartment.

It was a few days later when Kerrigan was well enough to come into the pub where Nate handed over a check. It was from the IRS for Kerrigan finding the tax fraud. He thanked us and started to walk away, but Zoe stayed for a moment.

She hugged me and then Nate, thanking us as well. “There are wolves in the world,” she said while looking at all of us, “but sometimes they’re the good guys, I guess.” She took Nate’s hand and placed what I saw was her necklace in it.

Nate admired it after she walked away.

“Still your last job?” Sophie asked him.

“Well, uh, maybe, um” Nate stumbled over his words, “I mean, you know, until I find a job I like enough, you know, to stay out of the bars.”

“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” Hardison said.

“And then I’m out, I’m done.”

The others agreed half heartedly, as if they didn’t believe him. For the record, I didn’t either. Eliot, Parker, and Hardison left, and I followed shortly after, leaving Nate and Sophie alone. It was a crazy life they all led, and I couldn’t help but think I couldn’t wait until the next time.

I climbed the stairs and glanced at Nate’s door to see it slightly ajar. Curious, I pushed it open and peaked in. Inside I saw Hardison start to set up some TVs.

“Hello?”

He looked up at me, “Oh, hey! You wanna come help me level this?”

I approached cautiously, but helped nevertheless, “What are these for?”

“These are awesome for briefings and watching cameras, sports too.”

“Where’s Parker and Eliot?”

“She’s grabbing some stuff, Eliot’s working next door.”

“Next door-”

The door opened and shut and I looked over to see Nate walk in.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What are you doing there?” He said once he saw us.

“I’m runnin’ this CAT-5 cable to the-”

“Oh, no, no, no, no. You don’t understand. I don’t want to have these monitors in my apartment,” he explained before turning to me, “and why are you helping him?”

I shrugged, “I just didn’t ask questions.”

“Coming through!” Parker came in holding a large painting.

Nate backtracked towards her, “No! Parker, no! Not that painting! I don’t ever want to see that painting.”

Parker stopped and waved it in front of her as she spoke in a funny voice, “Hi, I’m old Nate and I live here too!”

“You can’t just break in here and start hanging stuff…”

Hardison stopped him, “For repairs and renovations, your landlord has full access to your dwellings. It’s in the lease.”

That made me pause, “What?”

“What are you doing reading my lease?”

“I bought the building!”

“You bought the…”

“You’re our landlord?” I hesitantly fist bumped Hardison when he offered it.

I flinched when a chainsaw noise started and followed Nate when he found where the noise was coming from. The chainsaw was coming from the other side of the wall through to Nate’s apartment.

Nate repeated no when he saw what was happening, but it was futile. Eliot walked in after cutting out a makeshift door covered in sawdust. He looked very proud of himself, but with the cloud of dust that came out, I couldn’t react other than sneeze.

Nate coughed before turning to me, “why didn’t they do this to your apartment? You’re the one who wanted them around.”

“Whoa,” Eliot said.

“We’re not gonna crash a lady’s apartment,” Hardison finished as if it were a no-brainer.

I huffed out a laugh and a shrug, not fighting it when Hardison and Parker wrapped their arms around Nate and I’s shoulders. What a day.

Tags: @isoldeahlstrom @kniselle

#eliot spencer x reader #eliot spencer #leverage #rewrite #slow burn #multichapter #nate ford #sophie devereaux #alec hardison #parker #ford!reader

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