#not even joking when i say i must have watched this clip at least thirty times

[sophaeros]

the strokes: in transit - 2001 tour (2004)

transcript:

unknown: oh, here's the gun.

fab, to julian: (dramatic voice) where'd you go, man, where'd you go, motherfucker? where'd you [inaudible], motherfucker?

julian: (crosstalk) kill me!

ryan: (crosstalk) hey guys, [inaudible] hey- rosemary has kids and stuff so she needs to go home.

fab: oh, shit. (to ryan, in a dramatic voice) yo, i don't like that mouth, man, i don't like how you run that mouth.

julian: (crosstalk) [inaudible] what about my kids?

julian: what about my fucking kids, ryan? what about little fabrizio? he hasn't eaten in three hours. (turns and slaps fab) shut up! don't do that (breaks off into laughter)

nick, off-screen: what're you filming, man?

/end transcript

[hualianff]

head empty, hands full (from petting your dog & holding your hand)

Modern AU where HC has been released from the military due to health reasons, both physical and mental. After serving for over a decade, HC struggles to adjust to life outside of the military and find another fulfilling purpose.

HX, an old comrade, convinces HC to adopt a puppy once he settles down back at home. A part of it has to do with the lingering PTSD and anxiety HC developed from being in the military.

Never having the opportunity to own pets in his childhood, HC quickly realizes that puppies need to be trained. A lot.

The largest pup of the litter he adopted was a wild card from the start. Even though HC knew he wanted her as a companion at first hand-lick, HC certainly can’t have the little vermin tearing up his sofa or peeing wherever she likes.

HC brings his puppy, E’Ming, to a top-rated training class. The first day consists of rambunctious puppies and puzzled new dog owners. HC internally breathes a sigh of relief knowing he isn’t the only one with an uncontrollable beast. However, one would think the more training sessions, the more progress would be made.

With E’Ming, it’s a little more difficult than that.

It’s honestly a bit embarrassing when the other dog owners can clip leashes onto their dog’s collars with a simple snap while HC has to full-on wrestle E’Ming to gain access to the ring where the leash attaches. Fortunately, E’Ming is quite a big puppy compared to the other dogs in class, even for a Dobermann. HC doesn’t have to worry too much about squishing her.

During the times E’Ming does not obey regardless of what HC says or does, the instructor comes over to personally help. The instructor’s name is Xie Lian, a youthful and gentle character who never fails to make HC’s heart race. It seems he isn’t the only one, as E’Ming listens to XL when told to sit, roll over, and high five. It takes HC five minutes to get her to sit–even when he dangles her favorite treat in front of her nose!

When XL introduced himself on the first day of class, he talked about his general love for animals, especially dogs. Since he was young, XL volunteered at a no-kill dog shelter where he would take part in cleaning the kennels and playing with the dogs. Since then, this passion has stayed with XL. 

XL is back in university after taking a years’ long break because he couldn’t afford school once his parents cut him off after not following in their family’s business footsteps.

He’s now studying to be a veterinarian and trains dogs on the side for money. As the first few weeks go by, HC can clearly see XL loves what he’s doing from the bottom of his heart.

HC’s exterior remains guarded but he grows to admire XL and his determination and compassion. It’s refreshing, a different type of dedication HC knows from the military. 

When XL works with E’Ming, HC spends time with Ruoye, XL’s own dog who he uses for demonstrations. Ruoye listens to HC without a problem–even nuzzles against HC’s hands for pets–meaning HC must be doing something right. (Ignoring the fact that XL has probably trained Ruoye flawlessly.)

During the third week, HC observes from the side as XL pampers E’Ming with praise after successfully completing three rounds of basic commands.

“Who’s a good girl!? Who’s a good girl!? Oh, I think it’s you. Yes, you’re the good girl, the bestest- '' XL coos as he strokes along E’Ming jaw, scratches behind her ears, then eventually rubs her belly as she rolls onto her back.

HC watches with starstruck eyes. Of course, XL knows what he’s doing. It doesn’t mean HC isn’t amazed by his work every time. At this point, HC is gradually learning that having a dog is not about molding E’Ming into the companion he expects her to be, but about working together to best meet both her and HC’s needs in their relationship. 

As XL finishes showering E’Ming with affection, he looks over and catches HC staring. HC, aware that his face must either be one of evident enamoration or resting bitch face, awkwardly clears his throat as he straightens his already rigid back. 

“You’re doing a great job with her,” HC says truthfully. His heart is warm and full from the interaction between his dog and XL. He wonders if E’Ming will ever act so carefree with him, going on to joke that, “Perhaps she would prefer to have you as her owner instead.”

XL laughs lightly as he slowly stands up. He shakes his head. “I highly doubt that. She just needs to know that she can trust you.”

Realizing her belly rubs are over with, E’Ming flips onto her feet with a confused whine. She goes to nudge at XL’s leg, tail wagging as XL pets her one last time. With a bark of satisfaction, E’Ming bounds over to HC. 

Judging by the excited expression on E’Ming face, HC can tell she is preparing to jump. HC does not encourage this behavior by any means. He is lucky that he is tall and strong enough to catch her sixty-pound body without toppling over. Other people do not have the same privilege, especially strangers who unknowingly entice E’Ming to come over.

But HC doesn’t have it in him today to scold her before she jumps. So he allows it. He allows E’Ming to leap into the air with the expectation to be caught by her owner’s arms and coddled against his warm chest.

The Dobermann happily licks HC’s neck. Saliva pools into HC’s collarbones. 

“See? You already have her trust. Additionally, you have the discipline and verbal cues down. The top thing I recommend to improve your teamwork is to be more expressive with her. It wouldn’t hurt to freely display your emotions to back up your commands, ” XL suggests. He walks a little closer until he stands right in front of HC. “This will let E’Ming know you trust her just as much.”

HC nods in understanding. Growing up and spending his youth in a constant cycle of order or obey, his default attitude is indifferent yet respectful. While HC is not overly eager to wear his emotions on his face, he’s willing to make an effort to change in hopes it will strengthen the bond he has with E’Ming.

To think, HC’s closest company he’s had over the last two months is an over-energetic, unhinged puppy. 

“All right. Thank you, Xie-xiansheng.”

“San Lang, how many times have I said that you can just call me Xie Lian? I’m only thirty-five; Xie-xiansheng makes me feel too old,” XL says, smiling. HC briefly thinks XL is the first person to smile at him like that. 

“My apologies.”

“No apologies needed, San Lang. If it’s not out of my place, may I ask how old you are?”

“Thirty-three.”

“Ah, so you’re my didi. How about San Lang refers to me as gege?”

HC doesn’t take more than three seconds to nod his affirmation. He bets none of the other participants get to call XL “gege.” Or at least, he hopes.

“Hmm. Gege sounds...nice.”

“I’m glad. I’ll see San Lang next week for our next session?” XL cheerfully asks. “We’ll be working on proper etiquette for walking your dog out in public.”

E’Ming lets out a high-pitched yip as she wiggles around in HC’s hold; almost as if she can understand XL’s words. 

Oh boy, the magic word to trigger every dog into a buzzing ball of energy. Walk.

HC leans down to put E’Ming back down on the ground but pauses when she growls lowly in warning.

This little brat, HC thinks with exasperation. XL patiently waits for them to leave since they are the last ones left before he closes up the training space.

HC conveys a look of “you win this time, but watch yourself” to E’Ming as he readjusts her in his arms. HC starts to walk towards the door with his spoiled dog snuggling up to his chest.

“Yes. See you next time, Gege.”

They exit the building, both anticipating next week’s class, with the instructor both dog and dog owner are hopelessly infatuated with.

[olivia200312]

Meeting Again~ Ratchet x Alister's Daughter! Lombax! Reader

Requested by the lovely @Teaganlombax: "How about Ratchet x Alister's daughter! Reader?"

This is Lombax reader obviously. Don't forget to choose what the reader is in requests. It makes the authors hard what to choose. -_-

Warning: I never played Crack In Time but I do saw the clips where Ratchet met Alister and the final battle.

Note: the pic goes to Insomniac Games!

--------------------------------------------

There was a beautiful young 18-year-old Lombax named Y/N Azimuth. That's right. She's Alister's daughter. She looked a lot like her dad except she had H/C hair and E/C eyes. Her father was a Four-Bolt Magistrate of the Lombax Praetorian Guard and an elder councilman for the Center for Advanced Lombax Research. The General lived once in Fastoon, the home planet of the Lombaxes. He was Kaden's best friend, who was Ratchet's father. But did you know that Y/N and Ratchet met each other as babies? Y/N was only born a week later so Ratchet was the oldest. Both Kaden and Alister were so happy when their kids were born.

Life was pretty normal until Taychon appeared with his big fat ass lies. He started to brainwash the Lombaxes with his plans. Kaden was the only that didn't trust that evil Cragmite. He warned Alister to not trust him, but the General didn't listen. And thanks to that, Alister made a huge mistake...

Kaden punched Alister in the face and was so angry at him. Taychon attacked the Lombaxes with his army. No one saw it coming. Many Lombaxes tried to hide, escape, and help others. Many were not so lucky and got killed. Lombaxes got their hands on the Dimensionator and escaped through the portal. They were in a Lombax Dimension. Kaden helped other Lombaxes to escape while his wife hid Ratchet. Once Kaden came back to get his wife and son, he relizead that she's gone. So Kaden went to get his son. Luckily, he managed to send his son to Solana Galaxy. Kaden was soon killed after that by Taychon. If you're wondering what happened to Alister, he took his daughter with him. His wife was killed. Alister flew to planet Torren IV that was located in Polaris Galaxy just like Fastoon. Alister at least found a place to live with his daughter. He trained her and watched her grow up.

That was years ago. Y/N was 18 now and does her best to help her father. She even wanted to impress him that she's strong and smart. She was busy cleaning her room while her father went off to check something. He told Y/N that he saw something so he went to check.

"Dear, can you come out, please? I have someone to introduce to you," It was Alister.

Someone, to introduce? That barely ever happened. That caught Y/N be surprised. She wasn't gonna lie. It was boring without having visitors. It would've been nice if she and Alister had some time to time.

Y/N came out and walked towards her dad and an... Lombax! A male Lombax around her age! Y/N's eyes grew wide in shock and in surprise. She saw that the Lombax had the same expression. But what was more shocking was that the new Lombax blushed. He couldn't help but find Y/N beautiful. Y/N was blushing too.

"Dear, meet Ratchet. Ratchet, meet my daughter, Y/N."

Ratchet and Y/N both shook hands while giving each other shy smiles. Alister couldn't help but chuckle. Once the greeting was over, Alister started to explain about Kaden, that Ratchet and Y/N met each other when they were babies and other stuff. Alister even gave his amulet to Ratchet so that he can see the pic of his father.

"I have so many questions. How do you know him?" Ratchet asked.

"Kaden and I were good friends. He was a great Lombax. Smart as they come. He was the first outsider to theorize that the Great Clock even existed."

Y/N was amazed by what she heard from her father. So Kaden was the first outsider to theorize that the Great Clock even existed? That's super cool!

"And this 'clock,' you think Clank's in there?"

Y/N looked at Ratchet. "Who's Clank?"

Ratchet looked at her and couldn't help but blush again. He then explained who Clank was and what happened to him. Y/N couldn't help but feel sorry. "I'm sorry to hear that."

Ratchet gave her a small smile that it was ok. It wasn't her fault after all.

Once Alister spoke, the two Lombaxes turned to Alister. "Clock is a rather crude translation of the runes on Quantos. Specifically, they say 'Keeper of time.' But, yes, I suspect he is." By that time, Alister was at a big chest and opened. "You see, according to Fongoid lore, the Zoni are the guardians of time. If your friend is connected to them, he must play some part in its operation." Alister then looked through the big chest. "Now, where are those blasted things?"

Ratchet was now looking at some papers that were hanging. So Zoni's took Clank? Ratchet was wondering what Clank was playing some parts. That's when he realized something. "Wait, I thought my father was the only one to stay behind when the Lombaxes left. Why didn't you go with them?" He was now facing Alister.

"Sometimes the universe has a cruel sense of humor," Alister said. What did he mean by that? Then the white Lombax found something that he had been looking for. "Ah! Here they are. Your father's Hoverboots. Ready for your first lesson?" He showed Kaden's Hoverboots to Ratchet.

Ratchet nodded with a smile.

"My daughter tested it out once. She's good at it."

Ratchet then looked amazed at Y/N, who blushed a bit.

Skip where the final battle holds~

"So, I can't talk you out of this, can I?" Ratchet asked. He was sad.

"Ratchet, we have been on many adventures, but the clock needs someone to protect it. It is what I was built for," Clank said and stuck his metal hand out to his best friend.

Ratchet then kneeled down and pulled Clank in a hug. Clank was shocked but accepted the hug. They both were best friends that never left each other. It was pretty sad, hard, and difficult when you had to leave your best friend for a good reason. Clank wanted to protect the clock.

Y/N smiled sadly at the scene. Even though when she never had a best friend, because she was only a baby when Fastoon got attacked, she knew that it was hard for Ratchet and Clank.

However, Alister was different. "Wait, so that's it? What about the Lombaxes?"

"They're not in danger. They've just moved on. And we'll find them. But the past stays where it is. Come on, pal. I'll walk you." He then looked at Y/N. "Wanna come?"

Y/N smiled. "Sure." She then went with Ratchet and Clank.

"You were never a sidekick. You know that, right?" Ratchet said.

"I always thought that you were the sidekick," Clank joked.

Y/N couldn't help but laugh. Ratchet and Clank joined too in the laughter. But the white Lombax behind was suddenly angry.

"Where are you going? This is your responsibility. You can't just walk away! The Lombaxes need us! Don't walk away from me! I said stop!" Then Alister shot his electricity towards Ratchet and it hit his chest! Y/N and Clank stopped in their tracks, shocked. Ratchet felt weak while holding his chest. Just as Y/N and Clank reached for Ratchet, it was... too late. He fell.

"Ratchet!" Y/N and Clank shouted. They both turned around to face Alister, but he wasn't happy. At all. How could he do this?! Y/N just met Ratchet again after so many years and now that?! Her father turned into a monster! He killed the hero that so many people knew! That's when Alister shot his weapon again towards Clank, who quickly moved out of the way.

Y/N and Clank looked at each other and nodded. They need to control the clock to set 6 minutes earlier to save Ratchet. Without him, they can't save the world.

Once Clank managed to turn the clock 6 minutes early, it was set in stop-motion. They saw Ratchet's shocking expression while the electric from Alister was close to him. Clank and Y/N looked at each other and nodded. Y/N ran at Ratchet and pinned him down just in time. The electric missed him.

Ratchet blushed bright red that Y/N was on top of him. Once both of them were up, they looked at Alister, who had an angry expression. Ratchet was shocked and serious. He knew that it was time to stop the General before it was too late, because if Alister managed to activate the clock, then the whole universe would die! It was a bomb! A trap!

Skip~

Ratchet, Y/N, and Clank managed to win against Alister. Y/N was sad that she fought against her own father, but she had no choice! Clank clearly said that they couldn't let him touch the lever.

Alister fell on his knees and arms defeated while Ratchet ran towards the lever, and tried to stop. The lever was big so Ratchet needed to use his whole power.

"No! What are you doing?!" Alister asked in an angry tone.

"Come on!" Ratchet said as he broke the lever.

"It's not working. Why isn't it working?!" Alister didn't understand.

"Because it's not a time machine, Alister! The clock isn't meant to alter time! Only keep it!" Ratchet answered angrily, hoping that he would finally understand.

"Thirty seconds until total system failure."

Alister had a guilty expression on his face, while Y/N and Ratchet tried to go further, but they were shot back.

"I'm so sorry," Alister said.

Ratchet and Y/N were about to try again, but Alister came to them, stopping them. "No. Let me."

Wait, what was he planning?

"What are you going to do?"

Once Alister arrived at his spot, he turned to look at Y/N with a sad and proud smile. "I'm proud of you, my daughter." He then looked towards Ratchet. "Take care of yourself, Ratchet. Please, take care of my daughter."

Y/N had tears in her eyes. Her father was going to sacrifice his life in order to stop the clock. Y/N watched how her dad used his weapon to replace the lever and started to push. Once Alister managed to push it fully, Ratchet quickly grabbed Y/N and ran together with Clank. Everything went black...

Once Ratchet and Clank were awake, it was silence. Was it over? There were only ticking sounds of the clock. Ratchet and Clank both stood up and look behind them. They were in shock once the saw Y/N crying silently, holding Alister Azimuth, who was now dead, on her lap. Her ears were dropped into sadness.

Ratchet felt sadness through his heart. He lost someone who knew about his father. Not only that, but Y/N lost her father as well, by sacrificing himself.

Ratchet walked towards Y/N. "Y/N?"

Y/N looked up with tears in her eyes. "He's gone..."

Ratchet looked with sadness. He was about to comfort Y/N, until he saw the amulet open, showing the photo of Alister and Kaden. Ratchet kneeled down and picked it up.

"He did a brave thing, Y/N, Ratchet. You both should be proud of him," Clank said.

"I-I am." That's only what Y/N said. She was proud of her father, but she wasn't ready to lose him. But if Alister didn't do that, then the universe could've been dead for good. She lost her mother while Fastoon got attacked, then years later, her father was now dead too. Alister was for sure with Y/N's mother now, both watching over their daughter and Ratchet, together with Ratchet's family.

Everyone was silent, not knowing what to say since Alister was gone...

When everyone came back to their sentence, they all took ready to go back home, now that the universe was rescued once again. Y/N took her father's weapon with her, in order to feel connected to him. Ratchet kept the amulet since Y/N had another one. They buried Alister somewhere peaceful and they all went back home. Ratchet let Y/N live with him since she had nowhere else to go. She visited her father's grave almost every day. Ratchet and Y/N started dating soon after, making their parents proud and happy.

It was sad to write this one. Sorry that it took so long. I got another request so hopefully, soon I can update fast. I'm planning to write one-shots of Kaden and Alister soon enough so stay tuned!

[turtlepated]

The Ghost and the She-wolf

Part 3

------ 

Heads up, this part is HELLA long, but I’ve been wanting to get through this exchange pretty much since the beginning!

Once again, Zhuk in all his variations belongs to @monsterlovinghours​ 

Tag list: @beetlejuicebeadoll​ , @insomni-snacc​, @do-ya-hear-that-sound , @young-erstill​ 

If I missed anybody I’​m sorry! 

Rough seas ahead, me hearties ;) 

-----

When Zhuk spoke of your “stateroom”, you had assumed he was making a joke at your expense. You were his prisoner, his enemy, naturally he meant to lock you in the brig to stew on your present predicament. So when the bosun opened a door that really led into a small cabin, you were surprised indeed. Surprise that was immediately followed by suspicion. What game was Zhuk playing with you now? The bosun remarked that you would remain here until called for by the captain and that dry clothes would be brought to you in short order. He closed the door with a definitive snap and you were left alone. You tried the handle at once, but it was locked from the outside. You couldn’t stop thinking about what you had witnessed on deck, how the sea serpent had obeyed his commands and deferred to his authority as surely as any horse had ever heeded it’s rider. How was such a thing possible? You began to pace feverishly in the cramped space, feeling more and more like a caged animal and growing angrier with each passing minute. The past several months of fruitless pursuit, the frustration, the loss of your ship and your crew… had he been baiting you all along? Why unleash his monster on you now? Why not before? Why had he saved you? The questions piled atop one another like a mounting wave, threatening to crash over you as you continued to pad back and forth from one wall to the other.

Minutes or perhaps hours later, a knock at the door interrupted your agitated patrolling. A perfunctory play at consideration since you couldn’t open it even if you wanted. It opened and the bosun reappeared in the aperture with a cloth parcel balanced in one hand. “With regards from Captain Zhuk,” he said stiffly. You took it without answering and he shut the door. You lay the parcel on the bunk, eying it with mistrust. From Captain Zhuk, he’d said. You half expected it to be some sort of provocative ensemble, but you were surprised again when you untied the string, raised the neatly folded garment and it unfurled into a modest but opulent gown. It was beautifully made, sporting a sweetheart neckline that would be flattering without being revealing, a floor length skirt with a plain bustle and full fitted sleeves. You scowled at the colors, certain that Zhuk had purposefully chosen this gown to suit his own taste. The bodice was black velvet, while the long skirt, the high, open throat collar and sleeves bore vertical black and white stripes. To fasten the collar, there was a silk kerchief of green brocade provided, as well as a broach in the shape of a bright green jeweled beetle. 

Your lip curling in fury, you gave real consideration to stuffing the gown right out the small porthole over the bunk just to spite the smug cur. But the sorry state of your own clothing: ripped, torn and singed after your harrowing ordeal, damp and chilly as it clung to your skin and growing stiff from the salt, was enough to make you reconsider. Sighing harshly you changed into the dress and sat fuming on the bunk, waiting to be summoned like some ridiculous courtier. Outside the one small porthole, the light was fading as the sun set. By now you were in a towering temper and you were only a moment away from leaping to your feet and hammering on the door when it swung open once more to reveal the bosun. “This way,” he said, clipped but not impolite. You hesitated a moment before raising your head proudly and striding out after him. You may be a prisoner here, but you were still a captain of the Royal Navy and you would carry yourself with all the dignity and decorum of your office. You followed the bosun aft down the narrow passage, pausing before a large wooden door that must be the captain’s quarters. You inhaled deeply, steeling yourself as the bosun opened the door and ushered you inside. 

Zhuk’s cabin was certainly the largest on the ship, lit by dozens and dozens of gently flickering candles. Because of its location at the stern, the rear wall boasted five large glass windows. During the day they would offer the best light anywhere below decks, all the better for poring over charts and maps and ledgers. The wooden floor was entirely covered with thick, luxurious rugs from every corner of the world. An ornate bureau desk stood against the left wall, a large globe in a dark wood floor stand beside it. Positioned at the back of the room to take full advantage of the windows was Zhuk’s desk, a formidable wooden table with thick, carven legs that was scattered with charts, maps, books and the expected navigational tools. The throne-like chair stood empty behind it, broad and imposing as its occupant must be when he sat there. On the right hand wall you could see his bunk, piled with pillows and draped in quilts. In the very center of the room, underneath the wrought iron chandelier, a dinner table had been laid out with a veritable feast. 

The captain, also changed out of his drenched clothing, was meticulously lighting the candelabra and did not look up immediately as you entered. When you got a good look at his attire, you bristled. Just as you’d suspected, your wardrobe selection had been quite deliberate. Zhuk had bedecked himself in fine evening clothes consisting of a sleek black waistcoat with silver buttons, form fitting black breeches tucked into black leather boots that shone in the warm candlelight. His coat and tails, like your own outerwear, bore vertical black and white stripes. The cravat knotted at his throat was green brocade that matched the kerchief around your own neck. Zhuk did not acknowledge you until he was satisfied that all was in order, blowing out the lighting stick and discarding it. He flashed you a roguish grin as his gleaming eyes looked you up and down and you tensed, refusing to back down or squirm under his scrutiny. “Don’t you look lovely, volchitsa,” he purred. “Come, you must be famished.” He gestured grandly to one of the two chairs at either end of the table. You chose the one nearest the door, visibly tensing as Zhuk stepped closer to pull it out for you to sit. He chuckled at that, and his amusement at your guardedness only made your hackles raise higher. Zhuk settled himself in the chair opposite you with an easy grace that belied his large form. “No need for such hostility,” he tutted. “I’ve asked you here as my personal guest. Why not try and enjoy yourself, eh?” Your lip curled but you fought back the urge to rage and swear at the playful look that never seemed to leave his face. “I rather doubt that’s possible,” you replied through your teeth. 

Zhuk hummed thoughtfully, reaching for a tall bottle of clear liquid and pouring a measure into his own glass. You couldn’t read the Cyrillic lettering on the label, but if you had to guess the contents you’d be willing to bet it was vodka. He extended the neck toward you with eyebrows raised in invitation. You shook your head and watched as he raised the glass to his lips and took a long draught before setting it down with a satisfied sigh. “Why am I here?” you finally bit out, struggling mightily to remain at least somewhat civil. He paused halfway through carving the roasted chicken on a platter between you, regarding you with his glittering emerald eyes but he did not answer until he had finished serving the both of you. “As I told you on deck, volchitsa, you and I have much to discuss.” Zhuk took up his own utensils and promptly tucked in. Though your stomach was achingly empty and the smell wafting up from your own plate had you salivating, you refused to give him the satisfaction. “What shall we discuss then, hm?” you asked with cloying forced sweetness. “How you led me on a months-long merry chase all over the Pacific? Or perhaps you’d like to touch on all the pillaging and thievery, abductions and ransoms you’ve committed against honest, law-abiding men?” 

Despite your best efforts your voice was beginning to rise along with your anger. “Or maybe you’d like to illuminate me as to how it was you set a monster loose against my ship?!” You were on your feet now, your chest heaving with emotion as you glared daggers at the utterly unaffected man seated before you. Zhuk waited for you to get ahold of yourself again, demurely wiping his mouth with a cloth napkin before leaning forward on his elbows, his fingers linked together. “I rather admire you, Captain, I don’t mind telling you,” he began. “A merry chase, you called it?” He chuckled warmly. “Yes, very merry indeed. I have deeply enjoyed our little engagements, it’s been a long time since any opponent has proven such a welcome challenge. You are fearless, volchitsa, I would even go so far as to say you are reckless. As many times as I slipped your noose, still you would not alter your course. Why, may I ask?” 

You blinked, taken aback by his question. “Why? You’re a pirate! I am charged with putting a stop to your criminal activity!” Zhuk nodded solemnly, as if this was the answer he’d expected. “But of course. And you have certainly taken no half measures to do so. Do you recall that storm in the Banda Sea? Waves thirty feet high, wind that nearly tore the masts up by the roots.” You scoffed impatiently. “Of course, how could I not?” “Any sensible captain would have steered clear, gone around, found a safe place to wait it out. Yet you charged forward, right into the jaws of the shark.” “After you!” you snapped. “I won’t have you calling my leadership into question! Not when you did the very same thing yourself!” Zhuk laughed out loud at your defensive retort. “That I did, volchitsa, I do not deny it. But unlike you, I knew my ship would not founder. You had no such certainty, but it did not sway you. You knew what you were after and you pursued it with all your might no matter the cost; kak sobaka s kost’yu.” You had long since grown irritated with the verbal tennis match, but Zhuk had, perhaps unknowingly, presented you with something like a clue. Breathing deeply, you beat back your frustration at his teasing and attempted to pry more from him. “How could you possibly have known you would be safe? We were sailing through the same treacherous waters.” Zhuk chuckled again, and you could have sworn his emerald eyes shone in the candlelight. Maddeningly, he declined to answer.

“At any rate, we have nearly completed repairs,” he said. “We should be ready to sail at first light. You will remain aboard until we make port, and then you are free to go.” You gaped at him, certain he was teasing you again. “What?” you managed, unable to articulate anything more. “Wh… why? Why would you let me go? Why did you save me to begin with?!” Zhuk shrugged carelessly, as though it were of no real matter. “As I said, I admire you. It would be a shame to lose such an intrepid adversary.” You leapt to your feet, slamming both hands on the table before you and making the cutlery clatter. “I am not your plaything!” you seethed. “You have the blood of my crew on your hands, and you sit there and have the audacity to treat it like some perverse game!” At your outburst, all traces of mirth left Zhuk’s face at once. He didn’t look angry, per se, but he rose genteelly to his feet and mirrored your posture. “Carefully now, volchitsa. Do not lay your crewmen’s bodies at my feet. It is as I told you: I enjoyed our chase. It was you who elected to change the tone of our relationship with that trick you pulled. It was a very clever trick, though I doubt it falls under your rules of engagement, no?” You bit the inside of your cheek, knowing he was right but refusing to admit it, knowing that he could see that he had you. “I could not simply throw up my hands and surrender, sentencing my own men to death. You left me no choice, volchitsa. Once that bar is raised, it cannot be lowered again.” 

Your body was going numb. Was he right? You thought of what he had said about the storm, how you had ordered your crew to plunge into the tempest after the Perperuna. Hadn’t your own lieutenant urged you, begged you to turn around? To wait out the storm? You had ignored him, so fixated on the escaping pirate that everything else fell to the wayside. You had risked your life, your ship, your crews’ lives again and again in the name of this endeavor, and now you were the only one left. You sank heavily back into your seat, the room spinning as it began getting difficult to breathe. Dear God, he was right: you had brought this upon those brave men who followed you. Your obsession had spelled their doom, but you had been too blind to see it. Vaguely you realized that there was a shadow falling over you, and you turned to see him standing at your side. “Perhaps you should retire to your cabin, volchitsa,” he said gently. “It was not my intention to upset you, forgive me.” He called for the bosun, and while the two men were occupied speaking lowly in Russian, almost without thinking your fingers closed around the knife by your place setting, concealing it up your sleeve. 

Zhuk took you by the elbow with surprising tenderness as he pulled your chair back to let you stand. “I will send food and drink to you shortly. It seems you did not have much appetite.” You nodded mutely, allowing yourself to be shunted back off to your cell. True to his word, a short while later the bosun returned with a cloth sack of bread and cheese and a canteen of water. You couldn’t bring yourself to touch it, still lost in the revelation of what your actions had caused. The night dragged on, moonlight filtering into the room through the small porthole as you stared at nothing, your fingers turning the knife over and over. The ship was silent save for the lapping of the waves against the sides, the creaking of beams and the intermittent footfalls of the men. As if in a daze you stood and knelt by the door, peering through. Experimentally you inserted the blade of the knife into the opening. You took the cloth bundle, leaving the food behind and flattening out the cloth, feeding it under the narrow gap beneath the door. Rapping smartly on the handle of the knife you heard a metallic clink! and a muted thud as the key landed on the cloth. You pulled the cloth back to your side of the door, and the key with it. You took it in trembling fingers and let yourself out. Of it’s own accord your hand pulled the knife from the lock as you passed it by. The hallway outside your cabin was dark, illuminated only by one lantern at either end. To your left, at the end of the corridor, was the heavy door to Zhuk’s cabin. 

Your feet carried you mechanically forward, your mind still strangely blank. Something much deeper and more visceral was propelling you, and in the wake of the terrible understanding he had thrust upon you, you felt no compunction to stop and think about what you were doing. Your footsteps were smothered by the general ambiance of the ship: lapping waves and low voices from high over your head above decks. You watched your hand reach for the knob to Zhuk’s door but it felt strangely distant from you, as though you were not in command of it. It was not locked and the door gave with a soft creak when you pushed on it. The dining table was gone and the room dimly lit by only a few flickering candles on his desk. You moved slowly over the plush rugs as your eyes adjusted to the darkness. You spotted Zhuk reclined on his bunk, nearly obscured by luxurious tapestries that had been tacked up like bed curtains. Something cold and sharpish coiled in your gut like a poisonous snake as you padded closer, gripping the knife tightly in your fist. Your crew were gone, your ship no more, your hard-fought, hard-won career potentially over, and whatever twisted logic he had employed to confuse you, you knew it was his doing. 

Zhuk lay on his back with his arms draped across his middle, his head nestled in a pile of cushions. His barrel chest rose and fell with the soft succor of deep sleep, and for a moment some part of your brain thought how innocent he looked like that, his eyes closed, lips slightly parted. Your hand froze halfway as it raised above your head, the knife in your fist angled toward his heart. It was justice, it was cowardice, it was righteous, it was immoral, it was vengeance. Baring your gritted teeth you brought the blade down in a deadly arc, feeling the metal slice through the fabric of his tunic and the flesh beneath, a jarring grate as it met a rib and came to a stop when your fist thumped down on his chest. Zhuk’s eyes shot open in an instant, catching your gaze and holding it fast. For a terrible long moment you simply stared at one another in silence before his eyes traveled down the length of your arm to the knife handle protruding from his torso. Your mouth dropped open in shock when he looked back up at you with his usual smile. “Well, that seems rather definitive, doesn’t it volchitsa?” 

With a gasp you released the knife and staggered back until you bumped his desk, unable to tear your eyes away from the captain as he swung his long legs off the bunk to the floor and sat up. He reached down and yanked the knife from his chest with a small grunt of effort, but no blood welled forth. “I wondered what you thought to do with this,” he continued conversationally, waving the tableware for emphasis. “That is why I allowed you to take it and why no one stopped you coming in here. Most uncharitable, for a guest to stab their host.” You jumped and gave a tiny, involuntary cry of alarm when the bosun entered, flanked by two other crewmen. “Excellent timing. Gentlemen, it seems our hospitality is not appreciated. Perhaps the good captain needs time to think on her conduct. Escort her to the brig and see that she had plenty of time to reflect.”  

------

[Translation : kak sobaka s kost'yu – “like a dog with a bone” ]

Uh oh, maties!

Part 1

Part 2

[tentwentyninecompositions]

East Chicago Love Letter

12 DAYS PRIOR

“What time did you say she was flying in?” Myles questions as he continued to clip the ends of the floral arrangement. Dutch Hydrangeas and the Peony flower are Kary’s favorite. So as a small token of his love Enzo put together multiple bouquets for his wife. 

“Uh..should be around 8:30 maybe even nine o’clock. You think these look alright?” Enzo put the first bundle of flowers into an expensive, stained glass vase. He stepped back to get a better look at what he had put together. 

Myles finished off his bundle doing the same as his friend. Together in silence they admired the beautiful flowers that smell like a hint of lavender. Another one of Kary’s favorite things in life. 

“This is the nicest thing I’ve ever seen you do for anybody.” Myles spoke up. He went around to the other side of the kitchen to fish around the refrigerator for a drink. 

“Yeah man I know. I just want this night to go well. I’ve been planning this since her last trip. I know Kary inside and out so I know she’ll love this.” Enzo prides himself in knowing the things his wife loves, hates, and anything in between. “How could she not? I picked every one of these flowers myself, cut ‘em, washed ‘em...the whole nine man.” He chuckled. 

“I don’t doubt you on that at all. Kary is a very lucky woman to have you in her life. I’m always praying for y’all and you know my mama is too.” Myles began to clean up the mess he made in Enzo’s kitchen whilst sipping on his most beloved drink combination. Bourbon and apple juice. 

“Thank you brother, I really appreciate that.” The men returned the kitchen to its original clean state and went about their individual business. 

———  ———-

Later That Evening...

Glancing at the time of his watch Enzo blew out a sharp breath as he put the finishing touches on his anniversary dinner. After Myles left, Enzo spent the remainder of his alone time prepping his home for his wife’s arrival. Kary has been traveling non-stop for work for the past month, striking deals, meeting with designers, hosting events etc. Mrs. Warren has been a very busy woman. Being that today is the couples five year wedding anniversary Enzo thought he would prepare his wife’s favorite dish. That being chicken marsala in a Sherry cream sauce and brown butter risotto. He bought her three floral arrangements with each bundle having the stems wrapped in one hundred dollar bills. 

In addition to the flowers, Enzo splurged on several designer fragrance bottles, the finest brands of mascara and lipstick tubes in all of Kary’s favorite shades. The receipts from his shopping spree didn’t put the slightest dent in his bank account. When it boils down to love and showing his appreciation for his woman, Enzo will go above and beyond. 

ENZO 

Fastening the second button from the top on my shirt I picked up my brush to run over my hair for the fifth time. I don’t know why I feel so nervous to see my wife. Maybe it’s because she’s been gone for over four weeks and my anticipation has reached its peak. Coming home after a long day's work to go to bed alone put me in a funk for the first two weeks of Kary’s absence. 

Around the week three day two mark, I shook the chip off my shoulder and went back to my old routine. Five a.m., I go on my three mile run. Afterward, I go through my usual morning hit list before going to work. Step out for lunch around two-thirty and head over to the ring for seventy minutes exactly. By four o’clock I’m back to work and home by seven on the dot. And finally after weeks of forcing myself to get out of my own head I get the love of my life back. 

I’m nervous to see her but it’s a good kind of nervous. The sound of the door opening scared the hell out of me. That’s when I heard the most beautiful sound in the world. 

“Enzo, baby, I’m home.” 

My heart began pounding in my chest as I rushed to finish getting dressed. Cleaning up behind myself I sifted through my mental checklist to ensure part two of my plan runs efficiently. 

Taking a deep breath I cut the lights and left the room. I followed the sound of Kary’s ‘oohs’ and ‘oh my gods’ coming to find her in the kitchen. Her curiosity almost got her into trouble but she managed to keep her hands put. 

“I didn’t expect you until later.” I said. Kary glanced over her shoulder, her eyes lighting up at the sight of me. I told Myles this suit was a great idea. 

“I thought I would surprise you by catching an earlier flight. Clearly you had the same idea with surprises. You set all this up for me?” She shrugged off her coat and closed the distance between us. 

I took a moment to check out all of my efforts, happy with the turn out. With flowers, candles, her gifts displayed nicely, and the scent of the meal I prepared I definitely earned some points for this. Eager to minimize our distance I met her halfway drinking in every inch of her that I could with these barriers in between us. By barriers I do mean our clothes. She must’ve gotten a temporary room to clean up and change in because this scent lingering on her body and clothes is new to me. 

“You took..a shower...without me?” I spoke and exhaled in between kisses. Kary gets a good laugh out of me pretending to be upset with some things she does without me around. I’m never truly bothered but it’s fulfilling to make her laugh at silly shit. 

“This was an exception E, I needed some serious TLC after that long flight.” Backing up to cup my face in the palm of her hands Kary searched both of my eyes in silence. The expanding grin on her face inspired my own. 

“Why are you smiling so much?” I asked of her. 

“I could ask you the same thing but I already know it’s because you’re happy to see me. How much did you miss me?” Kary’s hands busied themselves with my clothes as she examined me from head to toe. 

“Oh I can show you better than I can tell you. Ready to eat? I cooked for you and it’s ready. As am I.” I joked. She and I laughed in richness and ventured to our kitchen together. 

She went back to admiring the layout of our house with me not able to keep my hands off of her. It took me all of five minutes to realize that her skirt is brand new. It’s one of those skirts that come to the knees with buttons going down the center seam. The only difference from this particular style of skirts and others is that this one is fitting. Kary will throw on a dress any time of year but a skirt, she rarely will purchase. 

“I like this new outfit. When did you get this?” Getting a feel for the fabric I expressed the pleasure it brought to me beneath my fingers. 

“I was feeling adventurous and this little number happened to be marked down seventy percent off. I had a feeling you’d like it.” Kary stepped ahead and hustled around the kitchen not waiting for me. My all time favorite thing to watch is Kary fending for herself when she’s hungry. Whenever her craving for food is magnified she gets this look in her eye. In the beginning of our relationship I would place a story behind every little thing that attracted me to her. 

Now I just identify the attraction as attraction. I find it appealing and arousing when she showcases her need for the basics in life. Her will to eat is at the top of that list. 

“Mm..mama’s hungry.” Chucking at her maneuvering swiftly to fix two plates I caught her eye. 

She flipped me the bird and motioned for me to come closer and help her out. “Mama is hungry for many many things. Was Myles here? I’m getting the sense that he was. That lingering trace of Polo is hitting me in the face.” 

“He was for a little while, yeah. He told me to pass on a hello to you. That fool tried so hard to stick around for dinner but you already know how that conversation went.” I took over the ship again ushering her to sit at the table. “You go off to work for a month straight and here you are still putting in time? I don’t believe you. When did you ever sleep?” 

“Fixing a plate is nothing compared to what I was doing over the past four weeks. You spent all this time preparing all of this for me. I think the least I can do is help out a little.” Here goes the bargaining. Typical, overachieving, non-stop working Kary Santos-Warren. 

“Oh come on. Save me the good wife speech baby, I know what you are capable of. What are you drinking tonight? Red..white..water..” Carrying her plate over to her I matched her smirk. 

“I think I’ll switch it up tonight. Do we still have that Brandy?” She questioned me about it. 

Tipping my head to her I walked back into the kitchen to grab a plate for myself and the Brandy. She and I were given this forty five year aged liquor for Christmas. I put it away towards the back of our liquor cabinet saving it for a special occasion. Tonight is the best reason to open this bad boy up. 

Kary volunteered to bless our evening and our meal. Her speech touched me in a few ways due to some things that she spoke on. 

“You’re getting emotional? Wow, this isn’t the Enzo I know and love. What’s changed, lover boy?” Her bare foot tickled my pant leg before she continued on with raising the bottom half with her toes. 

The coolness of her toe pads gave me chills but I embraced them all. I’ve missed this woman terribly so nothing she can do will get on my nerves. 

“I’m not being emotional. Your blessing touched me deeper than usual that’s all. Talk to me about your trip. How was it? I wanna know everything.” Kary spilled every detail of what her work trip was like, not leaving any information out. 

Setting my empty glass aside I folded my hands behind my plate, drinking in her existence. She helped herself to seconds of dinner signifying that I outdid myself. I do have a fourth course for her, which is her absolute favorite. 

Kary licked her knife clean and gently set it down, giving me this intense eye. “I must say babe, that was amazing. I can tell you took your time with the sherry. Myles must have been busting your balls about not screwing up my sauce huh?” 

“God, you are so fucking smart. Yes, Myles was giving me the hardest time about the dinner period to be honest with you. He was practically with me all day until I kicked him out.” Rising from my seat I picked up her plate and mine, taking them both to the kitchen. 

“Is there more? Because quiero mas, por favor..” Kary sang out from the dining room table.

“Give me five minutes and I’ll be right back.” I guaranteed her. Removing my infamous banana bread from the oven I set up a small plate neatly for us to share. Removing the Brandy from the shelf I poured her and I another serving, rejoining her once again. “For you my queen. Open.” Seeing Kary’s mouth open visibly made my erection go from a three to an honest ten.  

Her eyelids closed along with her mouth around the fork. “God, I have missed the satisfying taste of your baking. You are the only person I know that can bring me this type of joy from food alone. Happy anniversary my love. You’ve given me the best escape from reality, the best life, so much joy, peace and happiness. In all of the years we have been together, I have never once felt unhappy or unimportant. You are my everything babe.” 

Although Kary and I have had difficulty in the past trying to get pregnant, maybe tonight is the night. Mashallah.

[toledoendo]

Resetting the Bone -Part One

A/n: Trigger warnings: self harm, shame

Peter appeared in the doorframe like an apology that didn’t need to be spoken. His frame, swathed in Tony’s old MIT sweatshirt - the one with the cuffs so tattered it had holes for each of his fingers to get caught through - was as unassuming as he could make it. His skin was buzzing as he stepped in from the hallway and he hoped those in the kitchen couldn’t hear the broadcast of his nerves.

“Good morning, Peter.”

“Morning, kid.”

“Good morning.” Peter meekly responded to the greetings from Happy and Pepper. Each smiled in a way that Peter knew was meant to encourage his presence then they relaxed back into their tasks.

They had been great about giving him space, excusing his absence from family time, and not putting, really, any pressure on him to do anything when he’d stayed over. And, their greetings were always natural, normal, just like they’d been for years. He felt guilty, forcing them to watch over him like a child.

Morgan sped over to him breathlessly. She’d very obviously been waiting for him to appear, as she had been every morning he’d stayed with them the past two months. In her hand she had a little Band-Aid, just like she’d given him every morning. “I picked out a Hello Kitty one because I thought you’d like it.”

“Thanks, Mo.” Peter said. He glanced at Pepper who was clipping shut a plastic lunch box. He noticed her small smile thin slightly. Happy looked up from the road route he was studying on his phone. Peter swallowed. “I love it.”

“Can I put it on this time?”

An icy feeling ran down into his stomach. Morgan was being sweet, he knew that. She didn’t understand how Peter was sick. She had heard somewhere- how nobody could guess- that he was hurt on his left wrist. She knew he had done it. Not a bad guy.

It was a nightmare.

She’d come up with the idea that he needed a Band-Aid to keep on his wrist. Pride glowing on her face, she made sure he had one every morning. Peter wore it all day for her. The only time he hadn’t is when she handed him one with Spider-Man on it. That was trashed as soon as he could slink back to his room. If he wasn’t wearing the suit, not helping anybody, he figured he shouldn’t pretend he was still a hero.

Morgan kept giving him Band Aids every visit. She didn’t give up. She was being sweet. She was trying to take care of him. But he really wished she would stop!

“I—“ Peter didn’t want to say no again. But, how could he let her see?

He had new ones.

“Hey, Squirt,” Happy said. He was trying to give Peter an out. “Do I get to pick the music for the drive this time?”

Morgan didn’t even break her gaze with Peter. “No.” She said simply.

Peter said quietly, “Thanks, Mo, but I’ll put it on myself.” He shifted away from her falling face.

“Good call, Maguna,” Tony said, striding into the kitchen, “Happy can't be trusted with the radio.” Tony hoisted up his little girl and won a smile from her. “Too many buttons anyway.”

Relief eased through Peter’s chest as Tony and Happy began a familiar back and forth. Morgan’s giggles were sprinkled throughout. Tony had saved him again. Peter retreated to the countertop, away from the island where the others stood together.

“I’m picking the music for the drive.” Tony teased. He paused to send Peter a warm gaze from across the kitchen.

Peter gave him a smile back. Just like in the days when he was a teenager, he felt an urge to tell Tony… To tell Tony about the new cuts on his wrist — about his frustration that they were fading so fast, erased by the tide of his enhanced healing, when he wanted them to be something more —about the worry he felt about his special day planned with Morgan and how he didn’t want to go… But the guilt of withdrawing from her was too strong. Like always, the guilt decided. He would go.

Peter knew he couldn’t talk to him.

“No, Daddy!” Morgan laughed. “Pete gets to pick.” She looked over at him with an expression like she was giving him a present. Then she turned back to Tony. “Besides, you’re not going. Just me and Pete.”

“Ouch.” Tony laid a hand over his chest. He set Morgan down as he joked. “You may not remember, but you like having me around sometimes.”

Happy grumbled. “I don’t even get a mention. I’m going, too.”

Peter turned shyly away from the family. He pushed the left sleeve of the sweatshirt away from his wrist and stuck on the Hello Kitty Band-Aid, one side at a time. Yesterday’s Band-Aid was already removed. He did that as soon as he was closed off in his room every night. Yesterday’s had been a yellow one with a tiny rainbow on the center. It was crumpled in the wastebasket by his bed. Once the Hello Kitty one was affixed, he replaced the tattered sleeve.

Peter turned back. Pepper was watching him. She smiled gently. Then she gave him back his space.

Last night she had talked with him about today. They had worked together to plan a laid back outing for Morgan and Peter, something she would enjoy and would be easy on him. Pepper suggested the lemon grove nearby.

Morgan had become enamored by the idea of a lemonade stand. As much as Tony had spurned “capitalism for seven-year-olds”, Pepper thought the grove would be a quiet but open place where Peter could slip away if he needed. Peter thought about sunlight and the calm and nodded his approval.

“You can walk together and pick some lemons.” Pepper had said. “Happy can drive and take care of Morgan. After lunch, you can come back here and make the lemonade with me in the kitchen. You can take a break whenever you want. I can keep Morgan entertained.” She winked.

“I’m really sorry,” Peter said but Pepper shook her head. The way she looked at him was soft.

She wasn’t like May and never had been. Yet, in moments and certain movements - especially around their eyes, Peter could catch something. It must be specific to the way mothers look at their children. Peter blushed when he realized what he had thought. Even after so many adults had stepped in to love him like their own, May and Ben not the least, he was still so humbled and overjoyed to be treated as a son.

“I’m sure she’ll want to set up a stand in the yard.” Pepper chuckled, “Even though our closest neighbor is seven acres away.”

Peter smiled and looked down.

“The rest of the day we can spend in the yard. Tony and I will be around to take some of her attention. You can have some quiet before it’s time for your bus.” Pepper paused and her brow creased. “Don’t feel like you have to do this.”

“I really love being with her.” Peter assured her. “And I want Mo to have good memories with me. I’ve been…” ignoring her, he finished in his mind.

“You’re allowed to not be okay, Peter.”

He wondered, How long am I allowed to not be okay, though? But he didn’t say anything. They wordlessly cemented the plans and Pepper let him know that she would take care of everything. Then Tony came downstairs from putting Morgan to bed and asked if Peter wanted to take a walk down to the lake with him. Peter said he was tired; he went to his bedroom and removed the yellow Band Aid with the tiny rainbow.

In the kitchen, Tony said to Morgan, “Are you going to the lemon grove in a Buzz Lightyear gown?”

“Hmm.” Morgan smirked as if seriously considering it.

“How about you go get ready?” Tony said, sending her off. Morgan padded away at top speed. When she had left, he walked over to Peter.

Tony smiled at him and patted his shoulder. Then he reached for a mug from the cabinet and remarked playfully, “Who said you could wear my shirt?”

Peter snorted a little laugh. “You did.”

“Oh yeah,” Tony said, with no conviction, as he retrieved the coffee pot from the maker. Peter rolled his eyes. Tony became more of a dad by the day. “Whoever made coffee, bless your sainted soul!.”

“That,” said Pepper, “was Saint Harold.” She gestured to Happy.

“Of Audi,” Peter added, “Champion of Babysitters and Expired Firewalls.”

There was good-natured chuckling. It felt good. Peter felt something pull at the back of his mind. His smile was weighed down as a vague panic moved through his stomach. He wanted to cut. But why?

“The bugs won’t be bad during the morning, right?” Peter heard Tony ask. “There’s bug spray in trunk, I think.”

“I think they’ll be fine.” Pepper said. She stood and placed the three packed lunches in a backpack.

“But there’s sunscreen?” Tony asked. “I’m going to put some on Morgan before you go. Thirty minutes before sun exposure, you know. You need some, too, Pete.” He tapped Peter’s chest as he walked past.

Happy took the backpack from Pepper. “This ready?” He left to pack it in the car after she had nodded.

Peter shifted. “I guess I’ll get ready.”

Pepper looked at him in surprise. “You haven’t eaten.” She indicated the pot of oatmeal kept warm on the stovetop.

Peter backed away. “I had some protein bars in my room. The special kind that Tony made for my metabolism. I’m good.”

“Ok.” She said.

Peter left the kitchen and went upstairs to his bedroom.

[captainsuke]

seventeen/eighteen

Deran had been on edge lately, in the long stretches between surf comps and missing days, sometimes weeks where Adrian doesn't get to see him because he's too busy with Cody family stuff; Adrian had hoped a day blocked out for surfing would settle things. Maybe even dragging the day into an evening someplace quiet and private. But Deran had been late, his shoulders hitched up and tense like his mother was riding around on his back and that seemed to set the tone for the afternoon.

Deran's emotions are an unstable thing on a good day lately, explosive and dangerous to everyone including himself, and his embarrassment for being late had only served to annoy him more no matter how much Adrian had tried to stress that he was just glad he could make it at all.

Deran had seemed to be smoothing out, or at least calming down enough to enjoy the waves.

There's a few people out today - not so many that it was impossible to catch a wave – but Deran's glaring at a group of older guys, maybe late twenties-early thirties. They keep floating closer and closer to the spot Adrian and Deran have staked out, catching waves that by rights should have been theirs.

Adrian's seriously considering suggesting they pack it in – find that quiet private place and get off handful of times and see if that has any effect on Deran's shitty mood. He doesn't want to deal with this, the posturing and the insults and the fighting, not today. Not when he's supposed to be cheering Deran up, not pissing him off more.

He's paddling back to their spot after catching a wave when he realizes he's left it too late.

Deran's moved closer to the group of men, shoulders braced like he's got his pack of brothers behind him instead of just Adrian too far back to be any good at being back-up.

“Hey fuck you!” Deran's yelling right up in one's face.

“Fuck you too, you little pussy. Get the fuck outta here kid.” The guy shoves at Deran, whose hand shoots out shoves it back away from him.

“Don't fucking-”

a punch

“Hey!” Adrian yells as he fucking finally gets back.

Blood dripping from a split in Deran's lip but he doesn't look anything but annoyed.

“Come on, guys.” One of the friends says, tired.

“He's just kid, Rob.” Another says and Deran stiffens at the words.

The guy, Rob, snorts, looks away, mutters something derisive that Adrian can't hear but Deran makes an angry noise, the guy ignores him and starts paddling for a wave. Deran's face darkens and before Adrian can say anything he's going for the same wave.

They both managed to catch it, but they're too close and the clash before going down in a messy mash of body, waves and boards.

Adrian sees Deran's board fly up, maybe clips him from the way his body jolts, then falls beneath the wave crashing white water.

“Deran? Deran?!” Adrian doesn't know why he's yelling, he can't see anything, the waters too choppy, too foamy to see anything beneath it.

Rob's is paddling back red faced and angry but he looks around, almost worried when he realizes that Deran's not come back up.

Deran's board floats free and he's not coming up. Adrian paddles over to it, corrals it in and checks it over; the leash is intact but Deran's nowhere to be seen.

This can't be happening, Deran can hold his breath for a long fucking time but if he's knocked out that doesn't mean shit. This can't be happening, Adrian thinks, looking around wildly as if he's just not looking hard enough.

A hand shoot out of the ocean, grabbing Rob's wrist, The guy tries to jump back as Deran's head surfaces, and Adrian feels a swell of relief even though there's a dark look in his eyes that makes Adrian shiver in a way that has nothing to do with the wind that's picking up.

He watches as Deran's shoulders shift back as his chest expands, taking several deep breaths before dragging the guy down, both of them disappearing with Rob's high pitched shriek of terror.

There's a long silence as they all just float, Adrian with relief that his idiot best friend hasn't drowned himself, he doesn't particularly care about the other surfer, you start fights on the ocean eventually you're going to come up against someone whose more than ready to hit back. The other surfers seem to be in shock, they're half calling out, half just looking around like they can't believe what just happened.

They're both down for a long time.

Finally the guy pops up out of the ocean some fifty feet away from where they're all floating. He's half crying, half gasping for breath as he swims back to his friends and his board.

Deran surfaces lazily like he doesn't care one way or another if he ever breathes air again.

Seawater's dripping down Deran's face mixing with blood leaving lines of dark pink down the sides of his face, running down to stain the splashes of color on his wetsuit.

There's no more name calling, no bravado. The ocean's gone quiet as the group paddles back to the beach, watching Deran with wild eyes.

“Whose the pussy now?” Deran asks no one. His voice is mean, but not like Adrian's heard before; it's cold and wild, twisted into something unhinged. The look in his eyes as he watches them swim - run – away is no longer a warning, it's a dare, an invitation, begging for a fight, for a chance to prove something.

They stay out for a little longer but neither of them have their hearts in it. Deran's head is still steadily dripping blood and every fresh run of red fills Adrian with worry.

Is he swaying because of the tide, or is he about to drop from a concussion?

Finally, after Deran had bombed out on a particularly easy wave, Adrian decides they need to go in, Deran's just gonna keep getting more and more frustrated, fucking up simple shit and building himself up into a Mood, which Adrian is too tired to deal with on a good day.

“I'm beat, man,” Adrian says, as Deran scowls out at the horizon. “Wanna get something to eat? Chill for a bit?”

Deran looks at him, the two of them bobbing on the waves looking at each other, then he snots an impressive amount of seawater out of his nose, closes his eyes and finally looks as tired as he's no doubt been feeling all day, nodding

“Yeah, a'ight.”

By the time they get to the beach and hit the showers Deran's eyes are drooping in a way that makes Adrian's stomach flip in worry. He grabs Deran by the arm, jerks him around til his heads in the sunlight and maybe Adrian can see where the fuck all the bloods coming from.

“Hey! Ow, what the fuck?” He snaps pulling away, an arm coming up like he's expecting to need to guard himself, “Jesus Christ, what's your fucking problem?”

“I was worried, asshole!” he fires back and Deran's staring at him, mouth open, red spreading across his cheeks and burning the tips of his ears.

Deran shakes his head then drops down on one of the benches with his head bowed. There's a good size cut running through his hair near the crown, but it looks like it's just weeping blood now, not pouring out, maybe its not too deep, maybe it is okay.

Deran lets him fuss for longer than Adrian thinks is usual, so it must hurt some, but he only gets about a two second look at his pupils before Deran's standing up and toweling the last of the water off.

He's a sight with his wetsuit pushed down to his hips but Adrian is for once not just enjoying the view, not with the way he's gingerly trying to dry his hair, the towel coming back a little more red each time.

Adrian's fingers twitch to get another look but he holds off, he can wait til they're back at the house, when they're away from prying eyes.

“You know, Nico got me a video of years Mavericks, we could get take out and watch some real pros.”

Deran throws the towel at Adrian with a laughed fuck you.

“Hey I rode waves at Mavericks.”

“You were in the hospital for two days because you nearly drowned.”

“That was at the end!” Deran defends, “I rode ones before the last one.”

They joke about Deran's ill-fated trip to the big waves as they shove each other towards the scout. Joke like Adrian hadn't spent hours worrying when Craig and Deran hadn't returned from Princeton. When he'd had no way to contact them and he didn't dare go and ask Smurf because he knew Craig and Deran had run off, taken the five hundred mile roadtrip to Half Moon Bay without asking for permission and things were already weird at Casa Cody that month.

Anytime he'd spent at the Cody household lately had already been tense, every conversation between family had been filled with not so subtly hidden barbs and Adrian had to pretend he was too stupid to realize the reason behind all he interpersonal hostility was the lack of high stake heists in the news the last couple of months.

So he'd waited, worried, and when a pale Deran with dark rings around his eyes had come back late, boasting of the waves he'd ridden, the board he'd snapped and the time he'd spent held under by relentless waves, and when Deran was back and okay as he was going to get, Adrian had tucked that worry away . Because he knew the hell Dean would be getting at home, and he wouldn't make it hostile here as well.

Adrian thinks sometimes the only reason he and Deran have stayed so close is that Adrian knows when to push and when to let things go.

He throws the towel back, puts a flick on it so the wet part slaps Deran in the face.

“Fuck you, man.” Deran says, a smile in his voice, throwing the towel in the back of the scout and head towards his pile of clothes in the front seat.

Adrian's settling his board in the back when notices Deran's gone quiet. He looks up to see Deran's head bowed over his phone, fingers white where he's gripping it hard.

Adian doesn't need to ask to know what that's about and he feels a burst of rage. Can't Smurf leave him alone for one fucking day? Is one afternoon too much for Adrian to fucking ask?

He tries to tamp that rage down, be practical, some of their skate crew friends were talking about hitting the waves today, they could be still around to take Adrian home if Deran's gotta cut.

“I can get a ride from one of the guys, if you've gotta go.” Adrian keeps his tone even as he suggests it.

He's not mad at Deran, he tells himself, no matter how much Adrian might wish he'd stand up to his mom. They're still kids and Julia's sudden and complete fall from grace was still fresh enough in everyone's mind. No matter how much Adrian he'd love to see Deran out from under Smurf's thumb, he doesn't know if Deran would survive being cut from his brothers, thrown to the mercy of the world without anything but a propensity for violence and theft.

Deran's carefully blank face crumples for a moment before he pulls it back together. When he looks up he pastes on a grin he obviously isn't feeling, shrugging with an exaggerated I don't care.

“Nah, fuck it, I got time, it's fine.” He says though the way he scratches at his neck as he texts back an answer says that's probably a lie. Adrian let's him have it, sometimes if you said something enough it could become a sort of truth.

The short drive back to the house Adrian shares with Chad is mostly silent, Deran and Adrian both half starting to say something – anything – and then failing, in between the ding of Deran's phone's notifications, the harsh noise making Deran's shoulders pull up tight with tension.

When they finally pull up in front of Adrian's house, Deran swallows a couple of time before finally speaking.

“Sorry, man.” Deran says, his voice sounding rough as he stares straight ahead, like he can't look at Adrian.

“It's okay,” Adrian shrugs, “Give us a call when you can.”

Adrian reaches a hand out but Deran flinches back, shoulders flexing outward like he's trying to pretend he didn't just do it, like he's trying to pull together the posture of someone who didn't give a fuck, like he's not looking around wild eyed like he's somehow impossibly expecting his mom to be hiding outside Adrian's house waiting to catch him acting gay.

Adrian doesn't know how he has the energy for it, all tense muscles and constant self correction, Deran cares so much he makes Adrian tired just watching him try to please everyone while yelling loudly about how he doesn't care.

Adrian sighs and lets it go as Deran looks down at his lap hair falling down to cover his face.

Neither of them say much as Adrian retrieves his board, pats the Scout as he passes behind it.

He calls out a see you as he walks away and gets a grunt in reply.

Out of the corner of his eye, as he unlocks the door, he can see Deran staring at him, a weird almost wistful look on his face. Adrian thinks of turning back, of waving goodbye, of telling him he's a fucking pussy, of stalking back and kissing him in the broad daylight and to hell with everyone and everything.

Instead he lets Deran have his moment of private regret, and swears one day it's gonna be different.

[kademaki]

Pepper Spray

Hux x Reader 

based off the AU   “I was trying to ask for directions and you accidentally pepper sprayed me cause you thought I was your stalker.”

“I should have left earlier.”You thought to yourself as you walked through the now dark parking lot on the edge of campus.  You had spent the last few hours studying in the library and hadn’t noticed as the sun started to dip in the sky.  That’s how you found yourself walking alone through campus late at night.  Though your campus was located in a big city, this was the more peaceful residential side of the city.  There were few people walking around and even though there were many street lights lighting your way, it still gave you nerves to walk around alone at night.  Not to mention that for the past few months you felt like you had been followed by one of your classmates.  He was in one of your classes last semester and had barely spoken to you all even when you were assigned to a group project together.  But when the semester had ended, you started running into him everywhere.  The library, the gym where you swore he watched you on the treadmill while he lifted dumbbells, the university coffee shop where he ordered water and sat at the table next to you when the shop always had plenty of seats open away from you.  You weren’t sure if he could be considered a stalker or not until you were walking home to your off-campus apartment and saw him standing outside across the street. You knew it was your apartment because your apartment was actually a house you rented a room in with other students and the only other neighbor on that side was a small family. You had walked back to campus and asked your roommate to text you when he left.  Since then, you didn't want to walk home alone at night no matter how short the walk was.

“Good thing pepper spray is only a misdemeanor if I use it in self-defense.” You joked to yourself as you pulled the cylinder from your pocket as you neared the gate signifying an entrance to the university. You bundled yourself tighter as a gust of wind reminded you that it was barely thirty degrees outside tonight.  You had surely picked the best night to make the walk home alone.  You stopped as you got close to the gate to put on your headphones and play some music on your phone to distract you and help motivate you to rush home away from the cold.  With your headphones on, you pushed through the turnstile.  It was cold as ice and you put your hands on it to push it, yet another reason you wished you had left earlier.  When it was this late, the main entrances to campus were closed and you could only exit or enter through the turnstiles activated by your student identification card.  You swore as you blew on your fingers trying to warm them.   If you hadn’t been trying to warm your fingers you would have noticed the tall dark figure coming towards you from across the street. 

“I hope Jenna turned the heat up when she got home.  There’s no way my room isn’t freezing in this weather…” you pulled out your phone to text your roommate as you started down the street.  You didn’t hear the voice saying ‘excuse me’ over your music. Just as you passed under a street lamp, you felt a hand on your shoulder and whirled around to see a tall dark figure obscured in the glare from the streetlamp holding a cloth in their outstretched hand.  “Oh shit, it's Kylo! Is that chloroform?  This is how I die isn’t it?” was your first reaction.  Your second reaction was to slide the safety off of your pepper spray and spray it directly into the stranger’s face.  You watched, now spraying pepper spray wildly in the stranger’s direction as he took a few steps back. 

As he stepped back into the light from the street lamp, you realized, “Kylo doesn’t have red hair? Shit. Oh no, did I just pepper spray the wrong guy?!” You pulled your headphones out and quickly ran over to the red-headed stranger.  Without your headphones, you could hear his groans as he rubbed his eyes trying to wipe the spray away.

“Are you okay?! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to pepper spray you- well I did but that’s because I thought you were this guy who’s been stalking me because he found out where I live even though I’ve never told him-”  The man groaned and you decided you should probably stop talking. He didn’t need to hear about your problems after you had just pepper sprayed him.  You stared at him for a moment before remembering you had your water bottle.  “Hey, I have my water bottle. My mouth has been on it but-” 

“That would have been great five minutes ago.” The stranger said with a clipped accent, pulling the water bottle from your hand and tilting his head the side and pouring it over his eyes, letting the water fall across his face to the ground.  After a few moments, he straightened and handed you the bottle. You finally got a good look at him.  His eyes were almost as red as his hair from the pepper spray.  He was tall like Kylo, but maybe an inch or two shy of Kylo’s height, his frame was thin and muscular not like Kylo’s thick and bulging frame.  He also had an accent, he wasn’t from the area… you had really messed this one up.

“To think, my intentions were to ask you for directions since the campus map was useless and you pepper spray me.” He gestured to the crumpled paper on the ground. 

“The campus map?” you replayed the event back in your head, that must have been the cloth you thought you saw in his hand. You questioned why he needed a map when your university campus wasn’t that large to begin with, after a few days, it's impossible to get lost.  “Why did you need a map this late at night?” 

“I needed to go the Public Safety office for a new I.D. card since I just transferred from another campus.  They sent  me the map for the campus upstate but not the city’s campus by mistake so I was hoping to get directions from another student but I don’t think Public Safety will let me take my photo like this.”  He said gesturing to his irritated red eyes and splotchy face.  

“I’m so sorry, I know they’ll let you get a new I.D. card but you might have to retake it when you haven’t…” you trailed off,“when you haven’t just been pepper sprayed by another student. Good job, Jenna will never let me live this down.”  

“Well I need to get my picture taken either way, do you think you could give me directions to Public Safety? Everything is still a little blurry but I think I can make it there.”  

“I can take you, it’s the least I can do after...you know, pepper spraying you.  Worst case scenario I can explain what happened and maybe they’ll go easy on you. They can be kind of rude if they think you injured yourself messing around. I’m Y/N.”  You said offering your hand to him. 

“ I’m Armitage.” He shook your hand and the two of you set off towards Public Safety.

↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭↭

                    Seven Months Later

“I’m going to die, I don’t think I can do this.  This is too much.” you cried into your pillow.

“You’re not going to die Y/N.  You’ve been preparing for a while, it’s just final exams.” Armitage said rolling his eyes.  “You’ve studied every day for the past two weeks. You’ll do fine.”

You rolled over at stared at him from your spot on your bed. The bags under his eyes seemed larger than normal as you watched him typing away on his laptop seated at the desk across the room.  It was finals week and the two of you had spent nearly every waking moment writing papers and studying for exams together.  “I know but I don’t feel ready. Remind again why I thought it was a good idea to take this many classes at once? Three of my finals are back to back. I don’t get a break to rest in between them.”  You huffed. 

Armitage looked up from his laptop, “One of those finals is simply turning in a paper you’ve already written,  you only need to study for two finals that day.”  You groaned and shoved your face into your pillow.  You sighed as you heard the wheels to the chair squeak as Armitage got up from the desk and cross the room to you before you felt his fingers running through your hair.  

“You’ve come this far.  You’ve put in time and effort into studying, you’re going to do fine.” You felt him press a kiss to the top of your head before walking back to the desk.  “Just trust your instincts while taking the exam.  Your instincts haven't failed you yet have they?” 

“ ‘Trust my instincts.’ You say that like my instincts didn’t tell me to pepper spray you when we first met.” You groaned, hearing Armitage’s small laugh from across the room. 

“Yes, but look where we are now.  If it hadn’t been for your instincts, we might have a had a normal first meeting and you wouldn’t have felt compelled to treat me to coffee every day for a month to make up for it. You would have just pointed me in the right direction and never spoken to me again.” 

You closed your eyes and thought about how you made yourself treat Armitage to coffee at the university coffee shop and how your friendship had started before morphing into your current relationship.  You ended up spending so much time together at the coffee shop, studying together and complaining about your professors that you couldn’t have predicted how your relationship would turn out.  Thinking about the coffee shop made you think about finals week and rolled face down.  You groaned internally when you heard Armitage let out a deep sigh, great now you were stressing him out too.

You felt the space on the bed next you to sink under Armitage’s weight before his arms wrapped around your frame.  “Let’s make a deal.  As much as we should be studying, let’s build one of the blanket forts you love so much, watch a few episodes of whatever your favorite show is and forget about class for a little bit. After that, we’ll start writing our final papers together. How does that sound?” 

You nodded and watched him slide off the bed and struggle to start constructing your blanket fort.  At first, he had been reluctant to make one with you since he considered a waste of time but he came around to making them with you ever since he saw how happy making them made you.  Who knew that pepper spraying the wrong person by mistake would have led you finding happiness months later.

[marvels-bunch]

12 Hours

Twelve hours. That’s how long they have to make it for. That’s how long they have to fight for. They just need to survive twelve hours in order to see the next day.

Tony is just look for the bastard that killed his parents. Peter just wants to help people make it to see the morning. Thor and Bruce are stranded and just looking for shelter. Sam, Steve, and Bucky are just trying to get to a safe place. Natasha and Clint are leading the resistance.

“Tony this won’t solve anything,” Rhodey told him. Tony ignored him and continued to load the guns he was planning to use tonight. He’s heard this speech before and another time was not going to make him change his mind.

“Tony,” Rhodey said, “Would you just listen to me?” Tony looked up at him.

“I already got this speech from Happy and Pepper. I don’t need to hear it from you either Rhodey.

For years I thought my parents’ death was an accident. I blamed my dad for being the reason I pretty much grew up alone for so many years only to find out it wasn’t a fucking accident. That they were killed! Especially by that bastard. I can’t do much, but at the very least I can do this for them.”

Rhodey sighed. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back before looking back at Tony.

“Then I’m coming with you tonight,” He said. Tony froze. He stopped what he was doing and stared at Rhodey.

“What?”

“You heard me. If I can’t talk you out of this, then I’m going with you. If you don’t find who you’re looking for then at least I can make sure you don’t die tonight. Last thing I want or need is for my best friend to die anytime soon.”

Tony narrowed his eyes. He was trying to detect any sign that Rhodey was lying, but he couldn’t. James Rhodes was being completely honest and serious about this.

“Okay. We have four hours till it starts. Enough time to get you prepared,” Tony said and headed out of the room. Rhodey did not hesitate to follow him out.

When the bell rang Peter jogged over to his locker. There was only four hours before tonight and he had to make sure he was ready. As he grabbed what he needed before leaving his best friends, MJ and Ned, came up to him. MJ leaned against the locker next to him and Ned stood next to her. Peter didn’t have to look at them to know what was coming.

“You don’t have to do this Parker,” MJ said.

“I know MJ, but if I don’t, who will?” He argued. She sighed in frustration.

“We’re fifteen. People our age shouldn’t even be going out tonight!”

“I know that! But innocent people die on this night every year and I just want to help those people. Just because people can’t call for help doesn’t mean I can’t help!”

“Pete we just don’t want you getting hurt,” Ned told him.

Peter closed his locker and looked at his friends. “I’ve been doing this for like three years now guys. I know what I’m doing.”

“People are getting more violent each year. Who knows what could happen,” Ned argued.

“Just trust that I’ll be okay,” He told them. The two shared a skeptical look but reluctantly dropped the subject. Peter smiled gratefully at them for it.

“So how did you guys do on that chemistry test?” Peter asked, deciding to change the topic. The least he could do was take their minds off of it. Though he knew they were both still thinking about it.

Bruce couldn’t stop tapping his foot as his nerves grew. Thor must have sensed it because he took a hand off the wheel to grab Bruce’s hand.

“Don’t be so worried. Everything’s going to be fine,” Thor reassured. Bruce nodded.

“Yeah not like we’re driving into the city four hours before Purge night just because your brother wanted to,” Bruce responded.

“It will be a quick visit. And we’re almost there anyways. Loki just wanted to see the ring and catch up. Thirty minutes at the most then back home,” Thor promised. Bruce let out a deep breath and nodded.

Thor squeezed Bruce’s hand “Worry not Odinson, we’ll be okay tonight.”

Bruce let out a little laugh.

“I’m not Odinson,” Bruce said quietly. Thor grinned.

“Not yet! But by this time next year you will be.”

Bruce smiled and glanced down at his hand. The black ring on Bruce’s left hand was a simple one, yet it meant the world to him. He never thought he’d ever be engaged. Especially to someone as amazing as Thor. But for once Bruce wasn’t complaining. He was going to enjoy and love the relationship he somehow achieved.

“This time next year, but it’s going to be Banner-Odinson,” Bruce told him. Thor glanced at Bruce and sent him a smile.

“Of course. Though I’m not sure how Loki will react knowing I will be accepting the name Banner before Odinson,” Thor joked. Bruce shrugged.

“We could always not tell him and leave it as a surprise,” Bruce suggested. Thor chuckled and pressed a kiss to Bruce’s hand.

“I knew you were the brains in this relationship,” He said.

“And what does that make you?” Bruce teased.

“The lucky bastard that gets to be with you,” Thor said without hesitation. Bruce blushed and hid his face, but he could tell Thor was smiling at him.

“Just shut up and drive Odinson,” Bruce said causing Thor to laugh at him.

Steve and the boys watched the news as they spoke about the Purge. Steve shook his head wondering what the country had come to. Bucky scoffed when he saw tourist coming in for the night.

“Murder tourism? What kind of bullshit is that?” He said. He shook his head and went back to wiping down the counter.

“This is our country boys,” Sam said quietly. It hurt to know that this was the country they lived in. All three of them fought for this country and it did not sit well with them that it had a whole night dedicated for people to get away with crimes like murder. It just wasn’t the country they believed in.

Steve ignored the news not wanting to see the hear about the casualties from last year. He looked up as the door opened and smiled at three kids that came into his store. They greeted Steve then launched into some frantic whispering. Steve watched the news again as the kids walked around. He turned around when the kids had made their way up to the register.

As the kids put down their snacks and drinks he began to ring them up. He noticed one of them kid, a girl, nudge the two boys and nodded towards the tv.

“That’s gonna be twenty-three fifty,” Steve said as he bagged the items. He looked up to see all three teens still watching the television. He glanced to see the news channel playing clips from last year. He quickly grabbed the remote from next to him and turned it off, hoping nothing too graphic came up. They looked back at him and one of the boys gave him paid him for their things.

“Stay safe tonight kids,” Steve said as he gave them the bag. They nodded and walked out of the store quietly.

“Is the store going to be okay tonight?” Bucky asked.

“Checked in with the insurance and I have it covered,” Steve reassured.

“Will we be okay?” Sam asked.

“We always are,” Steve said.

“Doesn’t mean we always will be,” Sam said quietly.

“We will be Sam. It’s gonna be okay. Now you two get to work. We still have another two more hours before we officially close for the night,” Steve told them.

“Come on this way,” Clint said leading a family of three, a mom and two kids, towards one of the free spaces they had.

“You guys get these two mattresses, a few of blankets and pillows, and I’ll also bring you guys a little water and food,” Clint told them. The mother smiled gratefully at him.

“Thank you,” She said quietly. Clint smiled.

“It’s no problem ma’am.” A little giggle interrupted Clint. He looked down at the baby in the mother’s arms and smiled. “I’ll also check to see if we have anything for this little guy.”

“Barton,” Someone called out. Clint turned to see his best friend and partner, Natasha Romanoff, waiting for him. He nodded and walked towards her after saying goodbye to the family.

As Clint joined Nat he heard someone approaching them. He turned around to see the girl that was from the family he just brought in.

“Everything okay?” He asked.

“You guys are Shield right? The anti-Purge group?” She questioned. He nodded.

“I want to join,” She told them. Natasha and Clint shared a look.

“Why do you want to join the resistance?” Clint asked her.

“Because this night is bullshit and I’ve met too many good people who died on this night in the past. And I don’t want my baby brother growing up while this night is still a thing,” She explained. Natasha smirked, clearly impressed by this girl.

“What’s your name kid?” She asked.

“Stella.”

“And how old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Sorry kid, we don’t let minors fight. But come back to us if you’re still willing to fight when you’re eighteen,” Clint told her.

“Eighteen.” Stella nodded before making her way back to her mom and brother.

“I like her. She definitely has what it takes,” Nat said. Clint nodded.

“Two years and she’ll join us,” Clint told her. Nat nodded.

“Finish helping that family and come find me. Fury wants us to look over some things before tonight. And we still need to check out some other neighborhoods,” Nat said. Clint nodded. He gave her a kiss on the cheek before walking away.

“Be there in a bit Tasha,” He promised.

[wozman23]

An Ode To Conan (AKA Conan Ode’Brien)

The year was 1995... or maybe '94... or at least sometime around then, give or take a year. I had just entered, or would be entering middle school, at age eleven... or twelve. With a new school came a later bedtime. So around that time I discovered two things: Saturday Night Live, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. That was when my world changed.

For as long as I can remember, I've been a silly kid. My parents even used to throw an extra letter in my name and call me “Jokey.” Occasionally, they still do. But now, looking back, nearly 25 years later, I don't know if I'd have ever predicted just how much of my joking nature I'd be able to maintain at this point in my life. Today, at 37, if you ask me to sum up my personality in two words, they'd be “weird” and “funny.” As most age, they lose those traits. They'd instead define themselves as a “Personal Trainer” or a “Civil Engineer.” But I'm still just “weird” and “funny” - a goofball rebelling against the notion of “growing up.” I stubbornly keep the letter 'y' on the end of my name when most Josephs my age pick a more mature alternative. I have little interest in being anything else, and aspire for nothing more.

Much of that is thanks to a tall, freckled, red-headed idol I found on the late night airwaves of NBC, who danced as if he had strings on his hips and let people touch his nipple. I grew up watching cartoons like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Disney movies with comedic voice actors, and blockbuster movies like Ghostbusters and Mrs. Doubtfire, but I'd never seen anything as wildly experimental as Late Night. The (arguably) grown man at the helm still retained such a whimsical, silly, absurd outlook on life. He was a big kid, just having fun. It blew my mind. I was hooked. And it showed me that even if I was weird, I wasn't alone.

The absurdity of Conan and Late Night continues to be unrivaled, even to this day. There was a Masturbating Bear, who just went to town on this oddly nondescript jock strappy looking thing, Preparation H Raymond, an overly goofy looking character, with buck teeth and massive ears, who sang songs about applying a cream to irritated buttholes, and Triumph The Insult Comic Dog, who eviscerated Star Wars nerds and crashed the Westminster Dog Show. Clutch Cargo bits, where moving mouths were inserted into pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Jackson, and Bill Clinton, always brought the laughs in the early days, with both Robert Smigel's impressions and the disregard for making things look authentic. The In The Year 2000/3000 bits provided the rapid fire jokes of randomness that I aspire to write today, one of my favorites being: “Babies will start listening to dance music when Lady Gaga teams up with The Goo Goo Dolls to form the super group, Gaga Goo Goo.” Other recurring bits like Celebrity Survey, SAT Analogies, and Made-For-TV Movie Castings provided similar repeatable formats that brought laughs night after night, as did Actual Items, a swipe at Leno's Headline's bit. If They Mated provided us with the horrors of what the love child of two celebrities would look like, in worst case scenarios. Desk driving bits and car chase spoofs with model towns and cars always delivered. There were the silly Satellite TV Channel bits, with the standout, the Men Without Hats Conversation Channel, as well as the truly pointless – yet my all-time favorite character – Cactus Chef Playing ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ on the Flute, created solely to poke fun at the criticism that the show was absurd. Conan Sings A Lullaby was always some macabre fun. At one point, The Walker Texas Ranger lever swept the nation, ultimately resulting in one of the oddest clips ever to grace television. “...Walker told me I have AIDS.” Constant cameos delighted, with frequent appearances from Larry King and Abe Vigoda, who were both always willing to go the extra mile for a laugh. And occasionally, my beloved comedy worlds would combine with someone from SNL like Will Ferrell showing up, dressed as a sexy leprechaun, or engaging in some other antics. Jim Gaffigan birthed the Pale Force cartoon. Hornymanatee.com became a thing. Remote bits, like Conan playing old timey baseball, were always instant classics. Plus, the show birthed the idea of travel shows, with trips to places like Finland and Toronto - the second of which has one of my other favorite remote bits, Conan training with the Toronto Maple Leafs. So much memorable, silly, recklessly avant-garde stuff happened in those years of Late Night. And all the best moments happened when Conan acknowledged the astronomical stupidity of it all. It was always a pleasure to watch, and it all felt expertly crafted just for me.

In the end, a program that got off to a rocky start, fighting off cancellation time and time again, blossomed over the course of fifteen years into a comedy juggernaut and bastion of brilliant buffoonery for my generation. It was practically perfection.

Then the first transition happened...

Like many, I was apprehensive about the switch to The Tonight Show. It was great to see Conan inherit what was formerly known as the pinnacle of late night talk shows, but I wondered if America was ready to watch a bear play with his dick at 11:30pm, especially the demographic that had enjoyed Leno's far more traditional approach. I think we now have that answer. NBC managed to repeat their past mistakes, and fumbled another smooth transition of hosts. Things got kind of ugly, but Conan managed to land on his feet at TBS, where his show continued to run for another eleven years, giving him and his employees - who had relocated to Los Angeles at the start of The Tonight Show - steady work.

The one issue with the migration was that Conan no longer retained the rights to any of his intellectual property. Exceptions were made, but most of this bits and characters were absent from the now titled show, Conan. There was also one less show a week. However, new bits were concocted regularly, like Coffee Table Books That Didn't Sell, Basic Cable Name That Tune, and NBA Mascots That Should Never Dunk. New characters were spawned, like Minty, the Candy Cane That Briefly Fell on the Ground, Punxsutawney Dr. Phil - The best Dr. Phil bit since Letterman’s Words of Wisdom - and Wikibear. Will Forte showed up atop a stuffed buffalo as network owner, Ted Turner. Experimental stand-up sets, like Tig Notaro pushing a stool around or Jon Dore & Rory Scovel being double booked provided some of the best stand-up sets ever. Embracing a digital, web-based format, they introduced new segments like Clueless Gamer, catering to my love of video games. There was Puppy Conan, and Mini Conan. Plus, they doubled down on travel shows, creating the Conan Without Borders series, which I believe to be Conan's best work to date, and a shining example of who he is as a person. There were Fan Corrections, which allowed me to influence his show for five minutes, and throw my own zaniness into the world, and back at the man who stoked the funny fire in me. At some point in life, I may achieve greater things, or have children, but I may still always say that the greatest day of my life was the day I was on Conan.  

So Conan did have bright spots, but to me things were never quite the same. They were still good, but not amazing. Slowly it felt like things were beginning to decline. Longtime writer/performer Brian McCann left to return to New York. A while later, so did Brian Stack, finding a job with Colbert. The show was eventually cut to a thirty minute format. They spun it like it was a good change for the show. I however had my reservations. While I'd hoped for more experimental comedy, it seemed like the first half of the show was cut in favor of still getting in sizeable celebrity interviews. The band was gone, as were the options for nightly music acts. That meant no more fantastic moments like me discovering Lukas Graham with his subdued “7 Years” performance. Stand-up was pretty much gone too, which meant no more killer sets like Gary Gulman's bit on state abbreviations or Ismo's foreign take on the use of the word “ass” in English linguistics. Occasional product placement reared its ugly head. They had to keep the lights on, and they found a way to. So I continued to watch practically every show over the course of the eleven years.

When the pandemic hit, I found myself with more free time. So I decided to check out the Team Coco podcasts, cherry picking from the best guests of Conan O'Brien Needs A Friend, The Three Questions with Andy Richter, and Inside CONAN: An Important Hollywood Podcast. Never having paid attention to any podcasts, I found a love for them. And sometime amidst the pandemic, watching Conan interview some random celebrity, from some show I probably didn't care about, through Zoom, I kind of became at peace with the idea of a nightly Conan program ending.

From middle school, to high school, and then to college, I tuned in when I could. Without the luxury of the internet in its currently glory, or DVRs, I'd tape episodes on a VCR. Barring two or three episode of Conan that I missed while working two jobs, I've seen every episode of Conan, every Tonight Show, and a good streak leading into the end of Late Night. But I will admit that towards the end, it has sometimes felt like a chore.

One thing I didn't drag my feet on was attending tapings. It was one of the first things I did when I came to LA. Over the past few years I was fortunate to get to attend three tapings of Conan. In hindsight, I probably would have went more often. I brought family and friends along with me when they visited, but the treat was primarily for me. When he announced that the final few weeks of shows might have an audience, I knew I must go. I put in for two tapings, and fortunately the stars aligned for the third to last show with Seth Rogen. I was hoping for Ferrell, or Sandler, but it was great! It was the first show where masks were optional and it went recklessly off the rails. Like Conan, I've never been into pot. It's another of the things I enjoy about him. Like him, I don't really have a problem with it, but I've never tried it because I don't think it's for me. I’m the same way with alcohol. With a friend in town this week, I tried one of the beers he bought. I hated it, but I struggled through it. I’ll occasionally drink some fruity wine cooler but that’s about it. So seeing him reluctantly try the joint Seth handed him because he didn't care since the show was wrapping was great. Unseen in the TV edit was that after that segment, Conan and his producer, Jeff Ross, had a lengthy discussion as the band played. As the band wrapped up, Conan came back up and said to expect a rough edit on the show since they wouldn't be able to air them smoking. Turns out they could, which made for good TV. It was a symbolic moment where a man who's spend his entire career blazing his own trail – no pun intended - did so once more, knowing he had nothing to lose. I also put in a ticket request for the last show on the morning of because registration reopened for some reason, but I never got a confirmation. I'm excited to watch it tonight, but also sad to see things come to and end. But at least I can say I was there in the end.

For 28 years Conan and cast have delivered the show they wanted to make. Contrastingly, compared to the other late night shows, its always been far more apolitical, which I appreciate. Comedy to me is about dissociation. It's why I favor and write left-brained jokes about random subjects. No one really needs to hear another hackneyed Trump or Biden joke. Regardless of the state of the world, I could tune in to Conan for a mostly unbiased, silly outlook on the world. Conan always seemed to bring out the best in the guests too, making his show the premier show to tune into when someone was out in the circuit promoting something. Even the stereotypical animal segments or cooking segments provided ample laughs.

Most of the talk will be about Conan himself. But a very large part of what has always made Conan's shows great wasn't even him. A large cast of stellar writers and performers brought countless characters to life. Brian McCann and Brian Stack were longtime favorites. There was the No-Reason-To-Live Guy with his kayak, Hannigan the Traveling Salesman, Artie Kendall the Singing Ghost, and The Interrupter, to name just a few. Even people who had no business performing were utilized brilliantly, like original announcer Joel Godard or Max Weinberg both acting like creeps and perverts, trombone player Richie "LaBamba" Rosenberg being a dolt, and graphic designer Pierre Bernard in his deadpan Recliner of Rage segments. Jordan Schlansky was a comedy well. Andy Richter also deserves more praise. His quick wit makes him the perfect sidekick. I can't even begin to enumerate the amount of instance in which he was lightning fast with a witty response to someone or something. His more recent Sports Blast segments were absurdly stupid, and his Hillbilly Handfishing remote stands out as one of the best.

The late night talk show concept is built around volume. With 4368 episodes among three iterations of shows, there's a lot of time to fill. Things didn't always work, but most of the time they did. That's what you get when you experiment and evolve the medium. I've been thinking a lot about my history with the show, and it's amazing just how many silly bits, characters, and moments still bounce around in my noggin. I've only covered a small sample of the many great moments over the years. It's always seemed really weird to me that Conan has kind of been the underdog. To me, no one holds a candle to his brilliance. I can only liken attending his tapings to a few other experiences: the time I finally got to see Michael Jordan play as a Wizard, or Rush's final R40 tour – three great entities who may not have been at the height of their careers, but were still massively impressive none the less. Conan concluding tonight is very bittersweet. The future is uncertain. The details for his HBO Max show are nebulous. It's going to be far more small scale. I've always admired how much Conan has taken care of his cast and crew. He paid his writers during the strike, and his entire crew during the pandemic. But they will certainly fracture now. Will any of the writing staff follow? Will longtime performer Dan Cronin be there? Will Andy be back? Time will tell, but until then, television, the internet, and the world of comedy, will be a little less funny. In many ways, I wish we lived in a world we he still hosted Late Night, or a successful Tonight Show. But the late night landscape has changed a lot in the last few decades, so who’s to say this wasn’t the better timeline. If there’s one thing I cling on to that keeps me hopeful about the future, it’s Conan’s closing monologue from Late Night. Especially its ending: "It's time for Conan to grow up... and I assure you that's just not going to happen. I can't. This is who I am, for better or worse. It's just, I don't know how."

That hits me just as hard as it did in ‘09, if not harder. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The guy that started hosting in ‘93 is the same guy we see today. He’s still just as childish, just as absurd, just as brilliant, and a man of integrity. And as long as he is, so too will I be.

[whipped-for-kpop-fics]

Take Me Home

Taehyungx Y/N smut

When there is a power cut, you go down to the dog shelter where you work and find Taehyung already there waiting for you.

Keep that long af choker in mind ;)

You had been happily watching a movie, curled up under the covers of your bed when suddenly, your power went out. For a few moments, you just sat there, thinking it was another power fluctuation, they happened often in your building as the wiring was old and the landlord too cheap to fix it. When the power didn't come on like usual, you kicked your covers off with an annoyed groan.

"If he cut my power again, I'm taking his arse to court." You grumble to yourself as you locate your phone and turn on the flashlight before getting up and padding through your apartment. It wouldn't have been the first time your landlord had cut your power. The last time was because you had a party, which you alerted everyone in the building too and even invited some, and it went on ten minutes after your estimated end time. Your landlord was petty, to say the least.

As soon as you opened your front door, your eyebrows raised in surprise. The hallway was also pitch black. You scanned your light around, accidentally flashing it into your neighbour's eyes.

"Ah! Y/N!" He screeched.

"Shit, sorry, Kook." You quickly lowered your phone. "Your power out too, huh?"

"Yeah, I thought he was being a dick again but, he never turns the hall light off." You both sighed heavily.

"Guess it's a blackout." You turned and entered your apartment, Jungkook following you without invitation, not that he really needed one. You had both lived there for so long that you were really close, the fact that there was only a two year age gap between you aided your friendship.

You reached your living room window and pulled up the blind, seeing the entire neighbourhood without light.

"Well, there goes my date tonight," Jungkook grumbled, flopping onto your couch.

"Doesn't she live across town? The lights are probably on there."

"Yeah but...there goes my date tonight." He repeated and you rolled your eyes. Jungkook was always acting as if he was annoyed when one of his dates with his new plaything went wrong but really, he loved it. He never wanted to go on the dates, she always arranged them and just told him to be somewhere, she never asked his permission to date but Jungkook didn't have the heart to tell her he wasn't interested in her like that anymore. "Looks like you get the pleasure of my company tonight." Even though you were still gazing out the window, back to him, you knew he was grinning that cheeky smile of his.

"Sorry, Kook but if the power is out in the neighbourhood, that means the shelter is in the dark."

"Oh, yeah." You could hear the pout in his voice. "I can come along!"

"You know I can't just bring people along like that, it's a high-end shelter, Jungkook, they want all their staff checked." You rolled your eyes, finding all the background checks you had to go through to work at the dog shelter ridiculous.

"Can't you like, vouch for me?"

"If you want to play with dogs, go visit Yoongi."

"He never lets me near Holly." Jungkook scoffed. "Or anyone. He's so protective of him. You got Tae a job, why not me?" He started to whine as he followed you to your room but you shut the door in his face so you could get out of your pjs and into casual clothes. "Why can't you just ask him out like a normal person? Why did you have to give him the job you know I've wanted for ages?"

"I didn't give him the job for that reason, Jungkook." You replied.

"Yeah right!" He snorted. "You wanted more time with him, alone, you want to get in his pants." He sang teasingly, giggling at the unimpressed expression you shot him when you opened your door, fully dressed.

"Yeah, being surrounded by dogs all the time is definitely how I seduce people." Jungkook giggled at your sarcastic tone. You walked around him and to the front door where you slipped on your shoes and jacket, picking up your keys from the hook.

"Well, one of you better make a move soon because I'm sick of the tension." He announced walking through the open doorway to exit your apartment. You followed him out and locked up your home.

"Just go masturbate or whatever it is you do when the power cuts." You sighed, waving a hand dismissively at him.

"You don't need to tell me twice." He giggled then skipped back down the hall to his own front door that was still wide open. Sometimes, you really thought Jungkook had no fear either that or he's way too trusting of people. "Have fun with Taehyung, Y/N!"

"Have fun with your hand." You heard him giggle one last time before his door closed. You quickly zipped up your jacket and rushed down the stairs to get to your place of work as quick as possible.

***

You were surprised to find Taehyung stood outside of the main doors when you arrived.

"Oh, Taehyung." You greeted. He smiled at you, shuffling from foot to foot. "What're you doing out here? You must be freezing."

"Jen hasn't cut me a key yet." He explained, teeth almost chattering.

"I'll do one tomorrow, she'll never get around to it. Memory of a sieve that one." You spoke, unlocking the front door and ushering him inside. You locked the door behind you and walked straight through the reception to the back, where all the dogs were. You sighed in relief seeing the lights on and the room was at the perfect temperature. "The backup generator kicked in." You announced before turning to look at Taehyung. He was still hugging himself for warmth and your lips dropped at the sight. Now that you were inside, under lighting, you could see his nose was bright red and his lips had turned to turn blue. "How long were you out there?" You sighed, taking off your coat as you walked over to him. "Why didn't you call me?"

"I did." You gave him a confused look as you wrapped your jacket around him. You felt the pockets them the pockets of your jeans before groaning.

"I'm such an idiot, I must've left it at home in my rush."

"I-I guessed as much." He chuckled. "So I called Jungkook and it took him a while to answer but he said you were on your way so I just stayed here."

"Idiot." You started to rub his upper arms over the material of both of your jackets, in an attempt to warm him up. "You can go home once you've warmed up, the generator should be fine for tonight and hopefully the power will be fixed by the morning. I'll be fine watching them tonight."

"There's almost thirty dogs here, Y/N, I'm not letting you look after them alone. Besides, it wouldn't feel right, leaving you here like that, this building isn't safe enough. Someone could get in and, hurt you." He frowned at the thought. You smiled at him, laughing lightly. "I'm serious! It's not a laughing matter, Y/N! They could do really bad things to you!"

"I just think it's cute you're worried about that. The thought never crossed my mind."

"See, that proves it, you need me."

"I need you?" He nodded firmly and you smiled again. "Okay Tae, you can stay tonight if you really want." His cheeks stretched as his unique boxy smile spread his lips. You found yourself smiling just that little bit wider. "Let's go to the playroom, it's always warmest." He nodded and took your hand making you yelp at how cold his skin was. "Jeez Tae, I think we're going to have to brainstorm how to warm you up, you're like ice."

"You could always cuddle me?" He offered cheekily as you lead him to the large room. The walls were lined with various dog toys and accessories. Your cheeks tinged at the innocent suggestion but you didn't respond. His smile fell into a frown. "I'll play!" He spoke, trying to change the subject quick before things grew tenser between you two. He pulled away from you and over to the wall.

You watched amused, from your place on the large beanbag by the heater, as Taehyung started to play with the toys. Slowly, he warmed up until both of your jackets were removed from his body and hung up on the hooks near the door.

"I'm so tempted to put a collar on you." You joked and he looked over at you.

"Do you think they'd fit?" He mused, picking one from the shelf, leash attached, before walking over and kneeling in front of you. He held it out and you raised an eyebrow. "I've always been curious."

"You're a strange one." You laughed but took the collar from him all the same. Once you had unhooked the leash, you shuffled forward, trying your best to ignore his large hands then placed on your knees, and wrapped the leather around his neck. You fastened it and leaned back to look at him better. "Only you could look good in a dog collar." You laughed lightly.

"I do?" He grinned when you nodded. "Ah, that's good."

"It is?

"Yeah."

"Why?" He shrugged. "Definitely a strange one." You picked up the leash and clipped it onto the metal ring on his throat. You kept the handle in your hand as you looked back up at him. "Looks like I have another puppy to look after tonight, huh?" You grinned but he didn't return the smile like you expected. He looked oddly serious, a look in his eyes you couldn't name. "Tae?"

"You've always said you want a puppy of your own." He licked his lips and your stomach flipped as his fingers inched up onto your thighs slowly. "I'd be more than willing to go home with you." His already deep voice had dropped lower and it shot straight between your legs, heat suddenly pooling there. "I'd be so good for you." He leaned closer until his nose almost touched yours, his eyes heavy-lidded, gaze on your lips, watching how they parted at his suggestions. "You don't need to teach me anything, Y/N, I know lots of good tricks I'd be willing to show you." Even though he was talking so bravely, his breath came out in nervous shudders. "I've wanted to go home with you since we first met. Kookie told me you work here and I talked about dogs so much hoping you'd offer me a place here so I could be near you more."

"Don't you like dogs? I don't you love dogs."

"I do but, not as much as I like you." He confessed, leaning back slightly so he could look in your eyes and see your reaction. "Please tell me you feel the same way. Jungkook has been telling me all the time that you like me back and that I should make a move."

"Funny, he's been telling me the same thing every day since we met." You mused. "I only offered you the job to be near you more." Taeehyung's face lit up and you giggled. "You really do look like a puppy right now, so cute." You cooed, pinching his cheeks. He whined and pushed your hands away. "What? Don't you want to be cute? You usually love being called cute."

"Not right now. I want to be called something else." You tilted your head curiously and he smirked before pulling you closer by hooking his hands under your legs. You yelped and fell onto your back on the beanbag. Slowly, Taehyung hovered over you, his right hand pressing into the material next to your head to hold himself up while his left stroked your thigh.

"Hm?" You tried to hold back your smirk but he caught it and realised you were teasing him. "What is that?"

"Guess."

"Pretty?" He shook his head. "Handsome?"

"No, but getting closer."

"Beautiful." Another shake of his head as he lowered until his lips brushed over your neck and you let him, craning your neck so he had as much access as possible in that position. "Hm, gorgeous?" He growled and bit down on your skin, fed up of your teasing. You giggled and tugged on the leash you still held. He leant up, eyes sparkling as he eyed the material in your hands. "How about the sexiest guy I've ever laid my eyes on?" He looked back at you and nodded. "And soon, my hands." His eyes darkened and he dropped back down to press his lips to yours hungrily. You dropped the handle to run your hands up his chest, feeling as much of him as you could. He hummed in pleasure as you touched him, letting his left hand wander over your body too.

Your lips left one another for Taehyung to look down at you with eyes so dark you couldn't tell the difference between his pupil and iris.

"I know you won't take me home now but tomorrow?" He asked hopefully. You didn't hesitate to nod. "I can't wait."

"Neither can I, literally so I guess we'll have to find a way to occupy ourselves until then." The glint in your eyes made Taehyung whine needily. "Your lips are still purple." You noted, running your fingertips over them gently.

"I know how to warm them up." He grinned and shuffled back. You pouted but it quickly lifted into a grin to match his when his fingers started to work on your jeans. You helped him undo them and remove them from your legs, kicking your shoes off in the process. His hands travelled the expanse of your legs, his hungry gaze following until he met your underwear. He glared at the thin material obstructing his view before yanking them down harshly, almost ripping them in the process. "I've thought about how you'd look so many times." He hummed, lowering down onto his elbows between your thighs and staring in slack-jawed admiration at your wet heat. "This is so much better, you're wet already, fuck, you really want this as much as me, huh?"

"If not more." His eyes flickered up to you, disbelief written on his features.

"Impossible." You rolled your eyes, a gasp escaping your lips when he suddenly dove in, his lips meeting you and pleasuring you instantly. Taehyung wasted no time with teasing you, he went straight for pleasure, flicking out his tongue and sucking on your clit while you moaned and gripped the bean bag under you. His index finger started circle your entrance and you squirmed impatiently earning a chuckle to vibrate against your clit. You moaned at the pleasure that shot through your body and he took the chance to push his finger into you, causing your moan to turn higher in pitch. He only pumped it a few times before adding a second, groaning at the feel of your walls clinging to his digits.

Your hands fumbled around, looking for the leash but it had fallen out of your reach so you settled for gripping the collar and dragging him up to your level. His eyes were wide at the unexpected action but it was clear he liked it.

"No more Tae, I need you." He groaned and crashed his lips to yours. You didn't complain when he removed his fingers from you and seconds later, you heard his zipper undo. You let go of the collar to allow him to break from the kiss and kneel up. Your eyes watched as he pushed his jeans and boxers down his thighs without hesitation. He wrapped his right hand around his erection and stroked himself slowly while staring at your entrance, his left hand holding your right leg out so he got a good view. You whimpered impatiently and lifted slightly so you could grab the leash and pull him back down ontop of you, letting your body fall back down. His lips found yours while he lined his tip with your entrance, rubbing it over your wet folds to gain some of your lubrication first. He was taking too long for your liking so you rolled your hips up, making him slide into you slightly. He moaned lowly and took your lead, pushing his erection further into you until he couldn't any further.

"Fuck, baby, you're so tight, I can't even get my dick in your properly."

"Not my fault your dick is huge." You retorted and he grinned smugly at your comment before thrusting shallowly.

Taehyung pushed up onto his hands so he could watch as he fucked you slowly. He groaned in annoyance when his jumper fell into his view. He stopped to pull out and lean back. As soon as his jumper and t-shirt were off of his body, he slid back into you, his hips rocking harder and faster than before.a Your fingers gripped his waist as moans of pleasure left your lips.

"Faster Tae." You breathed out and he complied instantly. A hiss left his lips when your nails dug into his skin but it only spurred him on and he fucked you harder into the beanbag. You knew you were moving with every thrust but you couldn't do a thing about it. Luckily, Taehyung noticed every time you slid too far and pulled you back by your hips. Every time he did so, he would hit you deeper and rougher and you'd mewl loudly, clawing at his sides.

"Fuck, no." He groaned after the fifth time and gripped your wrists, stopping his hip movements. You whined in complaint and pouted at him. "You're going to make me cum too soon if you keep doing that." He wrapped the leash around your wrists and secured it so you couldn't move, not even bothering to unclip it from the collar he still wore before returning to fucking you.

With every thrust, your hands would hit against Taehyung's chest and even though it didn't bother him, it was annoying you so you hooked your fingers under the collar and gripped it, simultaneously pulling him down closer to you. He growled at your rough actions and kissed you. It was messy and desperate but you didn't care, you were just as bad, too lost in pleasure and the moment to care for how your kisses came out.

Taehyung changed his position slightly, one more comfortable to him at that angle and instantly, you reacted, arching your back towards him and moaning loudly. "Shit baby, that's it, isn't it?" He panted, watching in awe as your face contorted with every thrust. With the new angle, he hit particularly deep within you while rubbing against your g-spot and you were practically seeing stars.

"Taehyung...." You moaned, fisting the material in your hands tighter.

"You going to cum?" You nodded madly. "I want to feel you cum around me. I want to cum but not until you do. I want to cum together." You whimpered at his confession, feeling yourself teetering on the edge. "Fuck, wait, wait for me baby." He pleaded, speeding up his thrusts, chasing his own climax. "Please please please just hold out for a few...more...." He grunted, his hips losing rhythm. You opened your eyes quickly to see he had his closed tightly, focusing on the pleasure to bring it on quicker. Suddenly his eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped. You could tell he was right there so you pulled him down for one last messy kiss. It only lasted a few seconds before your orgasm hit you and his hit him a split second after.

Taehyung's hips juddered against your rolling ones until you both came down from your highs and he dropped down ontop of you, his forehead pressed to your shoulder.

The two of you laid there like there for a while, until you spoke.

"Can you get off me, my hands are numb." You spoke with a pout. He chuckled and obeyed your wish, moving up. He unbuckled the collar from his neck, giving you your hands back then untied the leash, taking the items from you to set them aside. He smiled at you as he pulled his boxers and jeans back up, watching you rub feeling back into your hands as you sat up. Taehyung located your underwear and helped you get them on, shortly followed by your jeans. "Thank you. "

"No thank you, that was great." He beamed dopily and you chuckled. "So, tomorrow, we should go on a date."

"No." His smile dropped and you giggled, shuffling closer to him to hold his face. "I said I'd take you home tomorrow, Taehyung."

"Oh, you still want to?"

"After that, so fucking much." He giggled and kissed you gently. "And then when we've recuperated from all the fun we're going to have, then we can go on a date."

"That sounds like a great plan to me."

[dfnews]

Season 7 or 8, I'm not sure - Episode 1 First Aired: February 26, 2018

Episode Recap of "In Love in Switzerland"

From TV Guide: "In the Season premiere, Joy and Austin finally get to enjoy some alone time in Switzerland after saying "I do." Meanwhile, Joe and Kendra get their engagement photos taken; and the siblings help Jinger and Jeremy move into their new house." The house moving is the next episode.

I’m back! My recap season of life has returned and I pledge to make my recaps shorter so I can have a life. I always say that but then find too much stuff to comment on.

1. The season begins a few days after Joy’s wedding way back in May 2017. They show the clip of their first kiss and I swear they faked it. I can see no lip on lip action. This may be a precursor to Gideon’s faked home birth episode. Yeah, I know, I’m speculating. But some conspiracy is obviously going on there. Jessa, Jinger, and pulled off the show Jill, talk about how barriers break down after you say, "I do". Barriers that shouldn’t have been up in the first place except for the saving yourself for marriage if that is your choice. Barriers don’t make for a great understanding of who you are marrying. As for Jill, Derick is a liar. Pulling your family off the show means just that. That’s what you said and it isn’t what you did. You are a lying hypocrite.

2. TLC again airs the honeymoon suite that has occurred in all of the previous marriages to much my horror and snark. Why must they show off the deflowering room? Joy is happy to have thirty minutes to read the Bible with Austin before flying off to Switzerland on TLC’s dime. She is most likely already pregnant at this point.  Austin has always wanted to go to the Swiss Alps and marrying Joy made that dream come true. They debate who is going to be the better skier and I hope they both break legs. Yep, I’m already bored and need a wake me up. They drive up to the airport and abandon their car out front for a tow truck to take care of for them. I guess they were too distracted by the thought of sweet Swiss sex to care about their car.  Austin talks about being able to navigate their own lives without any outside guidance all while a crew from TLC films his every move. You’re not on your own yet, buddy.

3. 24 hours later, they are finally in Geneva, Switzerland and are very tired and horny. After solving both those problems they go out for lunch at a fondue place. The waiters tease them with a French menu but then later give them a menu in English. Joy is then bewildered by sparkling water. She calls it water with gas. As bewildering as water is for Joy, the cheese fondue is mind blowing. Austin checks out the other diners using his phone to figure out how to eat cheese fondue. The waiter instructs them on how to fundue but Austin does it wrong and burns his mouth. I wonder who instructed them on how to fundue in the honeymoon suite that first night. Dip it in and swirl it around. Suffer some serious burns if done wrong.  End up with an after taste of morning sickness if done without thinking. Too much fondueing  leads to weight gain and sleepless nights. Who knew cheese was so dangerous. Too much fondue can also lead to yodeling. Joy is set up by TLC and some local yodelers to try her old yodeling skills in the restaurant. Talking head Duggars try their yodeling skills as well. You can tell they have all seen The Sound of Music. They all do the yodel from that movie. Jessa and Ben are interviewed separately here. I wonder why. They don’t show much but Joy does pretty well with her yodeling skills. Austin just continued to stuff his mouth with cheese.

4. Joeken are taking their engagement photos back in Arkansas. Jinger wasn’t available to take them so another ATI trained photographer, Elizabeth Shoemaker, is in charge. Elizabeth is a long-time Duggar friend and Gothardite who is now wearing jeans!  Joy is amazed by sparkling water and I am amazed by Gothardite women who are breaking free from legalistic rules. Joeken brought Kendra’s younger sister, Lauren, to chaperone because Kendra says the desire to jump each others bones is too strong for them to be trusted alone. When will these kids develop some self-control? The photographer tells Joe to put his hand on Kendra’s waist and Joe seeks the approval of Lauren. What is wrong with these young adults? They are so emotionally stunted. Joeken are now allowing a few more sidehugs, hand holding, and I love yous, throughout their engagement days but holding out on kissing, sex, and really getting to know each other for after the wedding. Joe says the wedding is for the girl and for her to look back on and remember. I guess the honeymoon night is for the guy. The producers ask the talking head Duggars which Duggar guy is next for a relationship. There isn’t a lot of confidence in John. John just needs to run off and elope and stop with his families’ silly games.

5. Joystin take a chocolate making class. This is the typical honeymoon activity for these people. In the class they meet a couple who have been married for eleven years and have five kids and their advice to Joystin is to have a lot of kids. Seriously?!! Did Jim Bob arrange this ahead of time? They are in the same cooking class as a Swiss couple with five kids which they admit is a lot in Switzerland? Talk about coincidence. The brainwashing continues out of Arkansas. Joy says God won’t give you more kids than you can handle which is sad when some are only blessed with two or three or even none. They must think God thinks those women are incompetent. Does Joy know about those big families who abuse and neglect their kids? The Turpins, the Willises, the Rodriguezes, and so many more, including her own parents? Michelle couldn’t handle all her kids, she has admitted this, without depending on her own little village to raise her children. Don’t these people ever think beyond the silly little catch phrases they are taught?

6. Hang gliding time. A lot of death jokes happen here. I think they’re all freakin' insane! At least when Josh and Anna went parasailing on their honeymoon they had the water to fall into. Joy lands by belly flopping on baby Gideon. I’m sure hang gliding is pretty safe and controlled but just watching it gave me a panic attack. I’m rewinding back to chocolate class to ease my nerves.

7. JinJer finally show up on the show to play a safer sport. It’s tennis time for these two. I have taken tennis classes myself so my nerves are calming down until the producers make it a big point of showing Jeremy and then Jinger exiting their car in modern day clothing that doesn’t fit into the Duggar tin box. Jinger in a short skort and a sleeveless top and Jeremy is wearing what looks like a bathing suit that doesn’t quite match his shirt. What happened to his vane style? They are both competitive and sweaty. The producers spring a strange question on the Duggar talking heads as the tennis scene is playing. They ask, “What seed are you in the Duggar family?” Seed is a tennis term which of course they are clueless about. They all look terribly confused which I don’t blame them. They all watch football, not tennis. The producers know the family lacks diversity and are clueless about most things. Jessa claims to be a watermelon seed and Jed is the seed of Jim Bob and Michelle which is sadly accurate. My seed in tennis is the bench warmer as Jeremy's was in soccer. Jeremy beats Jinger and I imagine Jinger taking secret tennis lessons from a pro and you know how that usually ends up. Next season on Counting On: Jinger courts the tennis pro and Jeremy seeds himself.

8. Back to the honeymoon of cheese, chocolate and terror.  Joystin are now heading to Zermatt to go skiing but first they must buy tickets for the train. They hold up the ticket line by trying to buy a ticket in German but fail. They get yelled by some guy in German…I think. They flirt on the train and kiss through some tunnels. How Freudian. They worry about there being no snow on the glacier. Just wait a few years. Climate change is working on that. They finally find snow and hope a magically arranged by TLC ski instructor would pop up out of thin air but I guess TLC decided watching them flail and fall would be more fun. They actually both do pretty well except for not knowing how to stop. Joy later stands on the mountain barefoot because that is her natural state of being and her boots were too damn tight.

9. The episode ends with them packing up to go home which is a lie because they were out of the country for two or three weeks and ended up in Israel for awhile.  Anyway, besides the lie, it was a nice travelogue episode. I hope to go to Switzerland someday so it was nice to see the scenery. You won’t catch me hang gliding though. Hell no! Chocolate making and eating is my thing!

[magic5ball]

Nature Trail to Hell Arc III: The Blood Curse of Tako Shak (5)

Chapter 5: The Part Where I FINALLY Get to Tako Shak

           I spent seven days in that monster reflecting on my sins, though it does depend on your definition of ‘reflecting on sins’. Mine is looking at the sun and playing rock-paper-scissors. I even managed to win every single game I played, though this didn’t exactly make me feel better about being trapped in an oversized sponge. Or leaving F-Bomb for that matter, even if it was the right thing to do. I had to drink the water from Karma Chameleon’s skin, vampire style, and as for food, I just didn’t eat. I wondered if I might be trapped in the thing forever, but as the days went by, I found the space around me was getting tighter and tighter until ‘POP!’ out I burst from the reptile’s back like some alien parasite. I looked at the limp corpse below me. Sun must have dried it out. Speaking of which, if you ever decide to get one of those magic grow animals, remember to keep them out of sunlight, so they don’t start shrinking. Think of them like little spongey vampires.

           So where was I again? Oh right! I was in the woods, feeling all balmy because of the noonday heat (PA can get pretty hot in the summer). Not bad on its’ own, but when combined with an empty stomach (apple rings are one of the least filling foods in the world. Heck, if I had to choose between air and apple rings for a weeklong hike through a desert wasteland, I’d choose the air, no question) made me feel a bit delirious. And when I get delirious, I make bad decisions. This wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d landed near some dime-a-dozen suburb, but the luck of the Tostigs works in mysterious ways, and when I emerged from the forest it was in front of none other than a friendly neighborhood Tako Shak.

           If you’ve never been to planet Earth before (or maybe just some guy dwelling in a bunker in the wake of the inevitable Takopacalypse), Tako Shak is a Mexican themed fast food chain. The largest in the world, actually. Also, the Tako isn’t a play on ‘taco’. It’s short for Takoyaki. For why they did that, your guess is as good as mine.

They say it all started in the sixties (as these things usually do) with some hippie named Marty Dinklemann. Marty had opened a Taco stand, but it wasn’t doing real well, because hippies who make good business decisions hadn’t been invented yet. Anyway, one day Marty decided to snort a can of churro sugar and had this bogus dream where the Devil said he was going to claim his soul unless Dinklemann kept expanding his fast food franchise. Well, Dinklemann was sure it was just a bad trip, but he really didn’t want to take any chances. The next day he got a tan, legally changed his name to Guadalupe ‘Loopy’ Sanchez and made fast food history. At the time I walked right through those automatic sliding doors, there were over a billion Tako Shak’s worldwide, five of which sit right in the Arctic Circle. As for Sanchez, nobody’s seen him in over thirty years. Word has it his body started rotting, so they put his brain in a nuclear-powered robot underneath their headquarters in Death Valley, Nevada.

           But I’m getting ahead of myself. So there I was, sweltering delirious in the summer heat to the point I might as well have been drunk when I swaggered in, hoping I could at least use the bathroom, to which the greasy faced creep manning the register pointed to some sign telling me yesterday a new policy had been enacted, so only staff and customers could take the old wiz. Wouldn’t have been a problem, except I didn’t have any money on me. In fact, I had less than no money on me, seeing as I was in debt from those apple rings. You know you’re in financial straits when you can’t afford a churro that, if I was doing the math right, cost a whopping negative five cents!

For a moment I thought of bartering off my tommy gun, but that thing was just too awesome to part with.

           However, there was something I could afford, something that, despite being delirious from heat, I somehow remembered. You see, Tako Shak is a fast food chain, and like any fast food chain worth its’ salt packets, it had a secret menu. I first heard rumors about it back in second grade, when my friend Mayes and I watched the legendary B-Movie ‘Nature Trail to Hell Part 9: Shak of Darkness’. In it, there’s a scene where the characters talk about what they want to order from Tako Shak, unaware that the fry cook is actually a serial killer who baked their friends into tako meat (which was somehow still more appetizing than the real deal). As we were watching, we noticed there was this two second clip where the audio had been weirdly distorted. After that, we spent hours on the internet, desperately trying to find out why. (Okay, so maybe half that time was wasted playing LEGO Racing. Sue me.) We finally hit a breakthrough when we accidentally hacked into an 18 years or older chatroom, where this guy said that apparently the edited part revealed a clue to discovering the Shak’s secret menu. A couple more hours, Mayes discovered said secret menu involved watching the employee training video. Several phone calls, secret messages, decimated evidence, one FBI investigation, and several bouts of ‘pretty pretty please’ later, me and my friend Mayes finally got a video tape. THE video tape. (think of it as a black, overweight DVD. Who is also a rectangle.) After fiddling around with the tape a bit, we saw none other than Sanchez’s brain himself list off the menu, most of which had too many vitamins and minerals and not enough Silly Cheez for Mayes and I to ever buy.

But there was one thing on that menu, one I still remembered that cost something I didn’t exactly have on my person. In fact, you could say it was my person.

I looked into the pale face, the dark, sunken eyes, the sickle fangs that, had I been more aware, would have betrayed the cashier as a hippie. Instead, I raised a finger.

“One Blood Curse, please.”

The cashier looked at me like I’d just asked him for the square root of gilbitydop (27, if you’re curious), then he went to the back of the store.

“Hey Boss! Do we carry anything called a ‘Blood Curse’?”

A few minutes later, he emerged from the back with a piece of paper and a plastic knife.

“Well, little guy, it’s you’re lucky day. It seems like we do have the droid you’re looking for! Just sign here please.”

In one swift motion he nicked my finger with the knife. Barely thinking, I signed the contract with my own blood. Tako Shak officially owned my soul.

In the back, I could hear maniacal laughter as lightning flashed outside, despite it having been totally cloudless just a few seconds earlier. Only then did it dawn on me just how stupid what I did was. In one final, twisted joke, just as I tried to dash out, to back out of the worst mistake I’d ever made, a black tentacle emerged from behind the register, dragging me to my DOOM.

[friendsgwssanalysis]

S2E11: “The One with the Lesbian Wedding”

Season 2, episode 11, “The One with the Lesbian Wedding,” opens with Ross talking with his ex-wife, Carol, and her partner Susan. (Backstory here: Carol left Ross for Susan after discovering she was a lesbian.) They reveal that they are planning a wedding, which Ross has a strong reaction to. He returns to the apartment of Monica and Rachel (two of the other “friends”) to process what he’s heard. Monica, Ross’s sister, consoles him on the fact that his former partner is getting remarried. This remarriage is presented as the primary concern--it’s something of a secondary blow, though a humorous/ironic one, that it’s going to be a lesbian wedding. The attempted humor here is driven home by both dialogue and subtextual cues. A laugh track plays when Carol and Susan reveal that they’re getting married, just thirty seconds into the episode; Ross immediately responds with an “I pronounce you man and wife” joke (the joke being that this quintessential nuptial phrase doesn’t “work” with this relationship); we then cut to the cheery opening sequence, whose montage includes a clip where Ross kisses Joey (both heterosexual male characters) on New Year’s Eve, just to underscore the fact that same-sex kissing is a joke.

On the couches of her apartment, Monica helps Ross understand why it is important to Carol and Susan to get married, comparing it to a straight wedding and saying that they deserve to show everyone their love in the same way that straight people do (2:44). The gay jokes mostly calm down until the final scene when the friends actually attend the wedding. Here, we see that Monica’s pep talk was even more effective for Ross than we might have thought--he ends up walking his ex-wife down the aisle after her family drops out of attending at the last minute. Joey and Chandler, two straight male roommates and the buddy-comedic relief to this charged scene, mingle among the crowd at the wedding (presumably all lesbians) and bemoan the fact that they can’t find dates. Joey laments, “I feel like Superman without my powers” (17:47). Chandler at first jokes to a short-haired white woman, “I shouldn’t even bother preparing a [pickup] line, should I?” (21:00) before circling back to her later in the evening with a desperate, “Penis, schmenis, we’re all people!” (21:50). 

An important subplot to this episode is the appearance of Rachel’s mom, who arrives to visit Rachel and also let her know that she is thinking of leaving Rachel’s father. Rachel is thrilled at the opportunity to show off her New York apartment and barista career to her mom, as she knows both her parents were disappointed by her refusal to marry Barry (a wealthy, highly eligible former suitor of hers). But in fact, Rachel’s mom is so impressed with her life that she confesses she wishes she had her same independence and youth; she says, sadly, “You didn't marry your Barry, honey, but I married mine” (16:15). This subplot sets up a parallel with the lesbian wedding, suggesting that marriage for true love’s sake could never be wrong when compared to marriages of convenience.

All in all, this episode does not come across as explicitly condemning same-sex marriage; many consider it groundbreaking, as it was the first depiction of a lesbian wedding on television (“Here's The Carol And Susan Scene That Was Banned From Friends: News”). It is, however, something of an uncomfortable watch in 2020, as the characters have a very “grin and bear it” attitude toward actually attending the wedding (because it’s filled with lesbians!). Phoebe (a straight female member of the “friends”) ends up getting asked out for a drink by an unnamed butch (Lea DeLaria) and accepts, not realizing the romantic connotations; Rachel’s mom relishes in the sexual attention she’s being granted. The wedding scene itself is a nexus of lesbian stereotypes, especially whiteness (most everyone in the crowd is white), “frumpiness” (the characters are rather unfashionably attired, cutting a contrast to Rachel’s Ralph Lauren sensibilities), and promiscuity (the lesbians are so desperate/predatory that they resort to trying to pick up straight women!). Susan and Carol’s characters, too, are one-dimensional and are set up as plot punchlines to Ross’s love life, rather than fully fledged people. Friends does not really engage with intersectionality and appears to be attempting to “isolate its variables,” at least in this episode, by only focusing on sexuality (and gender, to a lesser extent) and never discussing race. Because the main cast is all white, this has the effect of portraying whiteness as an invisible, “default” race that does not need to be acknowledged nor examined. The characters are oblivious to the ways it impacts their lives. This holds true for the majority of the show, in fact, which does not feature a major Black role until the penultimate season (Munzenrieder). In this particular episode, all the speaking roles are white; some Black extras appear in the background of the coffee shop, one as a patron and one as a server, conveying the idea that New York’s residents of color are “scenery” at best and a lower, serving class at worst.

In a show that largely eschews discussion of social issues, I found Friends’s depiction of a lesbian wedding to be positive, in the mildest, most lukewarm sort of way. As mentioned previously, the parallels between the main wedding plot and that of Rachel’s mom’s divorce seem to highlight the importance of marrying for true love, rather than being cajoled into an unideal marriage by societal pressures. Rachel exemplifies this by choosing to leave Barry and remain independent; Carol and Susan do this by defying heteronormativity to get married; Rachel’s mom accepts her difficult separation from her husband, and bonds with her daughter in the process. I saw this particular episode of the show as reaching for a statement on women’s rights to self-determination (as well as a bland endorsement for same-sex marriage). For all its whiteness and other problems, Friends is at least perfectly balanced along binary gender lines, with three main male characters and three main female characters, and at least pretends to be equally interested in the lives of all six. The women are not really treated as a joke for the sake of the men, as the show hinges on the ensemble nature of the cast. Unfortunately, because everything must be couched in comedy (which often punches down, in this show), this episode stops shy of saying anything too bold on either marriage rights or women’s rights. Ripples, at the best; definitely not waves (especially considering the fact that the titular wedding scene itself was excised in many networks across the United States when it originally aired [Dommu]).

 Works Cited:

Dommu, Rose. “'Friends' Lesbian Wedding Was 'Blocked Out' by Certain Affiliaties.” OUT, Out Magazine, 7 Feb. 2019, www.out.com/popnography/2019/2/07/friends-lesbian-wedding-was-blocked-out-certain-affiliaties. 

“Here's The Carol And Susan Scene That Was Banned From Friends: News.” Comedy Central UK, The Paramount UK Partnership Trading, www.comedycentral.co.uk/news/heres-the-carol-and-susan-scene-that-was-banned-from-friends. 

Munzenrieder, Kyle. “'Friends' Co-Creator Struggles With the Show's Very White Legacy.” W Magazine, Bustle Digital Group, 8 June 2020, www.wmagazine.com/story/friends-co-creator-marta-kauffman-regrets-white-legacy-90s-sitcom/. 

"The One with the Lesbian Wedding." Friends: The Complete Second Season, written by Doty Abrams, directed by Thomas Schlamme, Warner Brothers, 1996.

[dong-hyucks]

can you do a spy au with one of the dreamies? she/her pronouns please :) ily~ - baby anon

fear is our enemy. | na jaemin [1]

➳ genre. spy!au, future!au, angst, minor fluff➳ warnings. mentions of blood and death, character death in later chapters, swearing➳ word count. 4.4k+➳ author’s note. lmao this was supposed to be a oneshot but oops // i stopped procrastinating to write this for nana’s birthday :))) - admin. jade➳ synopsis. [Y/N] Park, the adopted daughter of late director Park Minjun, crosses paths with Na Jaemin, a spy known for his aloof tendencies. 

➳ masterlists. | 1. | 2. | 3. | 4. | 5. | 6. | 7. | 8. | 9. | epilogue. 

   You stared down the target, your arms outstretched, pistol armed. Breathing slowly through your nostrils you let your eyes focus on the target’s head. In a single movement, a bullet shot from the .44 Magnum, piercing the target successfully.

   “Nice shot.”

   You spun on her heel, pressing the barrel of the gun against the chest of whomever stood behind you. You only relaxed upon seeing his face, relenting with a sigh. “What do you want, Chenle?” you asked the hacker, shoving the gun into the holster strapped around your thigh. “I told you not to interrupt me while I’m training.”

   Zhong Chenle rolled his eyes, wrapping an arm around your shoulder despite the glare you sent his way. “Taeyong called for you,” he beamed, “been trying for half an hour apparently, and you know how he gets when he has to wait.” Sending you a mischievous grin, he pushed you out of the practice room. “It was nice knowing you,” he sung.

   You refrained yourself from flipping the younger male off. Despite having worked with him for a couple of years, his constant enthusiasm still got to you from time to time. Grumbling under your breath about being interrupted, you made your way down the halls of NCT headquarters. As you walked, you fiddled with the holster strap nervously. Not that you’d ever admit that you were nervous, anyway. Even through your prior annoyance, you knew Chenle was right.

   An impatient Lee Taeyong was never a good one.

   It wasn’t long before you reached his office. Taking a deep breath, you pushed the doors open, not bothering to knock. Taeyong was sat behind his desk, as always, a slight scowl painted onto his features. His fingers tapped against his wooden desk as he leaned back. He almost instantly locked eyes with you, the feeling of being under his glare making you shudder.

   Before you stood a male, one you had never seen before. He had yet to turn around, but his hair was much lighter than the other spies you had worked with beforehand. The man wore a blue pinstripe suit, perfectly tailored to fit his sturdy yet thin frame. When he did glance over at you, you felt your breath catch in your throat. To put it bluntly, the man in front of you was gorgeous. Everything about him just yelled ‘model.’ You heard someone clear his throat. Turning your attention to Taeyong, you ignored the way your face heated up slightly. The man chuckled, having obviously caught you in the act of checking him out.

   “When you’re done checking each other out, I have a mission for the both of you,” Taeyong began, resting his chin in the palm of his hand. His voice was cold, just as it usually was but with an edge to it. You assumed it was because of your late presence. “You have no choice in the matter.” You raised a brow. The mission must be important, since you usually have a say in whether or not you take missions.

   “We’ve had a break in. Yesterday at roughly 21:00, DH noticed suspicious activity in the vault while watching the security tapes,” at the mention of the young hacker, Taeyong’s frown deepened. “When he went to investigate, he was knocked out with chloroform. We’re now missing seven top secret documents.”

   Beside you, the man stiffened. You felt yourself grow angry at the thought of Lee Donghyuck, unconscious and drugged. The man had, after all, been like a brother to you since you joined the organization. He was the first one to befriend you in the hellish world that you worked in.

   “The two of you are NCT’s smartest spies. We’ve already identified one of the perpetrators, we just need you to go undercover and retrieve the documents.” Taeyong fished through his desk drawer, pulling out a manila folder. He tossed it onto the desk, gesturing for you and the male to look at its contents. You did, finding pictures of two men, both clad in black. Only one of them was masked, the other merely wore a cap and bowed his head. His attempt to stay hidden failed, however, when he had glanced at one of the security cameras. Your eyes widened at the picture. Though blurry, you could recognize him clear as day.

   “That’s Byun Baekhyun, thirty-five years old. We suspect his accomplice is Kim Jongdae, his jail-buddy, based on height and probable weight.” Taeyong furrowed his brows together, “We can’t be sure, since his face is covered. Anyway, they’re regulars at the Seven Luck Casino in Busan. They’ve been seen countless times by the staff– every Saturday at exactly seven, Byun will come in with a few friends of his. They all go under different names though.”

   The man beside you crossed his arms. “Why do we have to go undercover? We know where he’ll be, we can just ambush him when he least expects it and get it over with.”

   “He’s apart of EXO,” you mumbled under your breath, your chest tightening. “They were an underground crime syndicate before Byun, Kim, and another; Do Kyungsoo, were arrested for murder. Every member had their profiles leaked by some unknown source. All of them were almost arrested before they escaped. Only three other members got caught. The rest just,” you paused, taking a moment to trace the indents on your pistol. “– disappeared.”

   The male looked surprised at your knowledge, but Taeyong wasn’t phased. “We’ve had some altercations with them in the past, but this is the first time since they disappeared that they’ve gone anywhere near us,” he informed the man.

   “Then shouldn’t I go alone?” The male shifted his weight, not meeting your gaze. “If you’ve had contact with them in the past, wouldn’t they recognize her?” He nodded in your direction. You narrowed your eyes at his condescending tone. He stood straight with a cocky air surrounding him. You nearly scoffed. He had no idea who he was dealing with.

   “Agent 127 wasn’t apart of NCT back then. Neither were you, another reason why the two of you are the best fit for this mission.” Taeyong closed the folder. “We’ll have 323 and 423 there with you. They won’t interfere with your mission unless you instruct them to. They’ll only be there for backup,” Taeyong glanced at the two of you, his eyes dark. You nodded, not questioning the director. “I sincerely hope you will not need them.”

   “Sir, if I may–”

   “Dismissed.” With that, Taeyong brushed the man off. While you turned to leave, the man stayed rooted to his spot. You felt tempted to pull him away, he obviously didn’t know how Taeyong took people who denied his word. However, the thought of Taeyong exploding at him sounded far more amusing. You stopped outside of the office, a growing smirk playing your lips like a violin.

   “Sir–”

   You heard a thud, presumably something Taeyong had banged against the table. “I said, dismissed, Agent. Do I need to tell you twice?”

   There was silence before the man exited, walking past you completely. You snorted, even the way he walked seemed pompously arrogant. “You must be a newbie,” you commented, pushing yourself off of the wall you had once been leaning on. He turned to you, glowering. “Everyone who’s spent more than a week here knows how Taeyong is. Didn’t help that I was late,” you shrugged.

   He stared at you, his gaze lingering for a moment longer, before he abruptly turned and walked off. You followed closely, clasping your hands behind your back. “You have a name, Mr. Tall, dark, and moody?” He looked annoyed at your ‘nickname’ for him, a scowl on his face. You nearly laughed at how much he resembled Taeyong in that single moment. “At least give me a fake one; we’re going undercover Saturday, I’ve gotta call you something.”

   He paused for a moment, “Nana.”

   You stopped dead in your tracks. Nana seemed to notice and glanced over his shoulder at you quizzically. You chuckled in amusement, “Nana? Seriously?” He growled at you under his breath, his glare hardening. “Might as well call you my grandmother. If that’s really your name, then damn, you must’ve had one rough childhood.”

   Nana’s mood seemed to have dropped drastically. If he wasn’t annoyed before, he surely was now. His stare was harsh and his form was rigid as he sent hate toward you through his eyes. “My childhood is none of your business,” he spat, turning to walk away again. And again, you followed.

   “Woah, man,” you walked ahead of him, raising your arms in defence. “It was a joke. You know, something people say to induce laughter? That sorta’ thing.” Nana sent yet another glare at you before jogging down the corridor, disappearing down a flight of stairs. You huffed, “What’s his problem?”

   Shaking your head, you headed back to the practice room. When you got there, Chenle was still present; this time with Mark Lee, a gunman. “Hey look, the woman of honor is back!” he exclaimed upon seeing you. You scoffed, cocking your gun. “What’d the boss want you for?”

   You rolled your shoulders back, stepping behind the table covered with ammunition. “New mission with a newbie. He’s a total asshole, though.” You picked out a certain clip, inserting it into the magazine. “Name’s Nana, apparently.”

   You heard Mark cough, the sound directing your attention away from the bullet-riddled targets on the other side of the room. Mark looked shocked, wide eyed, open mouth. “Nana? You’re working with Na Jaemin?” he asked quietly. Chenle gasped, eyes shifting from Mark to you.

   “Jaemin?”

   Mark nodded. “He’s a new recruit, yeah, but he’s skilled. Rumor has it, he stopped an entire mafia from mass murder on his own.” Mark looked as if he were mentally admiring Nana, or rather– Jaemin, as he spoke. Chenle rolled his eyes at the older male’s clear admiration toward him.

   He crossed his arms, a small frown appearing. “Well, I’ve heard rumors that he paralyzed his past partner,” Chenle harshly whispered, brows furrowed in concern. “Apparently Jaemin,” he uttered his name with disgust, “let him get hit by a train. He was lucky he didn’t die, but the poor guy hasn’t been able to walk since. Practically lost his entire career thanks to your little role model, Mark.” You shuddered at the thought of Jaemin letting someone get struck by such a fast moving vehicle.

   Mark gaped, “I hadn’t heard that one.” He turned to you with worry, “Don’t go near any trains with him, okay? Maybe he’ll do that to you too!” His voice was hushed as he spoke, leaning in ever so slightly as he did. You rolled your eyes at Mark’s behaviour; typical of him to go from admiring someone to practically cowering in fear.

   Honestly, it was surprising he was even a gunman– he was too much of a sweetheart for such a job.

   “Stop trying to psych me out, guys,” you huffed, shaking your head in an attempt of forgetting Chenle’s story. “We’re only partners for this mission. After that, I can ignore him all I like.” You missed their relieved expressions when you turned to face the targets once again. “Besides, Renjun and Jeno are going to be present; if he tries anything suspicious I can just call them for backup.”

   The boys simply watched as you shot at each of the target’s heads skillfully, never missing. Your late father had been the past director of NCT, so as you grew up you learned how to use a variety of weapons. Through his teachings, Taeyong was able to confidently hire you with little to no worry. Lucky for you– you’ve heard brutal stories from other spies in the agency about the ridiculous training regimen.

   You heard a beep, most likely from a phone, but chose to ignore it. From the corner of your eye, you could see Chenle pressing his phone against his ear. He let out a sigh, a sound that was equivalent to that of a mouse compared to the deafening bang of a gunshot. “[Y/N],” he called. You whipped your head in his direction, slightly annoyed at the constant interruptions.

   “Your partner’s causing a ruckus in the basement,” Chenle scoffed. “Management wants you to take care of it.”

   You let out a groan. You had forgotten about NCT’s seventh rule; you are responsible for your partner’s safety and behaviour. You shoved the pistol into your holster for the second time in the past hour. You walked out, your irritance obvious in your walk. You could hear Mark and Chenle following you, the two whispering to each other loudly.

   The three of you headed to the basement, using the elevator instead of the stairs you had watched Jaemin stomp down moments before. When the elevator dinged, you headed out. Almost immediately, you could hear yelling, coupled with the familiar sound of a fist colliding with skin. Turning a corner, you were immediately faced with Jaemin, hovering over a boy – whose, you had no idea since Jaemin was covering him – his collar collected in his fists.

   “Jaemin,” you exclaimed, rushing over. Only then did you see the boy. Anger coursed through your veins when you saw the blood dripping from Donghyuck’s nose, the quickly forming bruise on his jaw that stood out against his skin. Donghyuck was merely a hacker, though he was trained in physical combat and with guns, it was no doubt that Jaemin, a spy, would be stronger. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” you demanded, pushing the man off of Donghyuck.

   You didn’t notice how stiff Jaemin looked as he stared at you with wide eyes. “You okay?” you asked Donghyuck, helping him up. You barely spared Jaemin a glance as you headed back toward Mark and Chenle, who had been watching with agape jaws. Mark was quick to act, helping you move Donghyuck to the elevator.

   “You’re getting all beat up lately,” Mark said with a light tone. “You should start carrying a gun around with you.”

   Donghyuck rolled his eyes, “I’m a hacker, [Y/N]. Most don’t even know of my work, much less will they come after me. Even if they did, I practically live in HQ; we have insane security.” You gave Donghyuck a dirty look. Catching it, he shrugged. “Okay, we have a few cracks, but normally it’s pretty insane.”

   Chenle chuckled, pressing the button to the third floor; the mini hospital wing. “Still,” you pressed on, wiping the blood away from his face with your jacket sleeve. “You’re apart of NCT. I’m surprised Taeyong doesn’t already make you guys carry guns.”

   Donghyuck and Chenle shrugged nonchalantly. The elevator dinged quickly after, and the four of you hastily brought Donghyuck to one of the nearby beds. Moon Taeil, one of the resident doctors of NCT, saw the four of you and shook his head. He made his way over, raising a brow at Donghyuck’s beat up state. “Again, Donghyuck? You were just here yesterday, if you keep getting attacked like this it’d be best you carried a weapon of some sort.”

   “See,” you and Mark chorused.

   “Oh, leave us alone,” Chenle stuck his tongue out.

   Taeil chuckled at your interaction, before waving toward Donghyuck. “Come to the X-Ray room, judging by your state there’s a possibility of a fracture or break.” Mark moved to help Donghyuck to the aforementioned room. You saw another doctor come out of one of the rooms, glancing up at the three with confusion.

   “Hey,” he said, looking over at you. “What’d he do this time?”

   You let yourself laugh. “Got beat up by my weirdo of a partner.” You glanced over his shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be helping? You’re Taeil’s assistant after all.”

   The assistant, whom everyone knew as Jung Jaehyun, shrugged. “It doesn’t take two guys to do an X-Ray, unless the patient’s hostile or something.”

   “Have you met Donghyuck?”

   There was a pause. “Good point. I’ll get going then,” Jaehyun bowed his head toward you and Chenle before scurrying off in the direction Taeil, Mark, and Donghyuck had disappeared to.

   You let your gaze linger on the doors that swung back and forth as Jaehyun passed through them before leaving with Chenle.

   Morning came, and it came far too quickly for your liking. With barely an hour’s worth of sleep, you were forced to get up to go to work. Sometimes you wished you lived a normal life, one that didn’t include the guns and violence, all so you can get a good night’s rest. Then again, anything other than your job now seemed boring to you.

   You couldn’t sleep that night. Your thoughts had been too preoccupied for sleep to even become an option. All you could think of was Donghyuck and Jaemin. On one hand, you were truly worried about Donghyuck, but on the other hand you were curious about your partner. Rumors were rumors, but what Chenle had told you seemed to stand out in your mind. The way he carried himself made him seem unapproachable, not to mention the arrogant yet impudent way he spoke.

   It didn’t take long before you arrived at NCT headquarters. Though you had a car, you always preferred to walk since you only lived a block away from the main building. “Morning,” Nakamoto Yuta, a security guard, smiled at you as he let you enter.

   “Morning.”

   You passed by many other people; staff members and spies alike. Most of them, however, weren’t as chipper as Yuta could be in the mornings and just ignored your presence completely. Fine by me, you thought.

   “Hey,” a voice grumbled from behind you. You turned to see Jaemin standing before you, hands shoved in his pockets as he avoided eye contact with you. He was wearing another pinstripe suit, this time in black. “Taeyong wanted you to know that we’re leaving for Busan at 20:00. Tomorrow’s Saturday, so he wants us to get prepared before the mission.”

   “Why couldn’t he just,” you shrugged, “text me instead of having you be a messenger for him?”

   “Apparently, you never answer your phone.”

   “Well, touché.”

   He merely rolled his eyes before spinning on his heel and turning away. Before you had the chance to even continue heading to the hospital wing, he stopped and turned. He took a step forward, the movement hesitant. “How’d you know my name?”

   You cocked a brow at him. “That’s confidential,” you quipped, crossing your arms in a defiant manner. Jaemin frowned as he hunched forward, his bangs hanging over his eyes slightly.

   Before you could even say anything else, Jaemin really did turn away and walk off. Only when he disappeared from your view did you continue on to the hospital wing.

   When you got there, Mark and Chenle were already surrounding Donghyuck’s bed, all three speaking eagerly about something. When Chenle spotted you walking toward them he hastily shut the pair up by covering their mouths. You watched in amusement as they complained, their whines muffled by Chenle’s hands, completely oblivious to your presence.

   “Okay, I expect this from Donghyuck, but you Mark? Weren’t you trained to pick up on quiet noises? Including footsteps?”

   Both Mark and Donghyuck jumped simultaneously, whipping around to find you standing there. “[Y/N],” Mark stuttered. You merely chuckled, moving to stand beside Chenle. He avoided eye contact, as did Mark and Donghyuck. You raised a brow at their suspicious activity, placing a hand on your hip as you stared each of them down. They were all being suspicious.

   Noticing your side eye, Chenle laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck as he finally turned to look at you. “We were just talking about,” he paused looking to Mark and Donghyuck for help. When they both coughed, he sent a glare in their direction. “We were talking about girls,” he sounded unsure, his smile forced and body rigid.

   You nodded slowly, not believing a word he said. “Sure. Anyway, I just wanted to visit. I’ll be leaving for Busan with Jaemin later.” Donghyuck winced at the mention of him. You caught the worried looks Mark and Chenle were sending you and sighed. “I’ll be careful, don’t worry. If he tries anything weird, I’ll send a bullet through his shoulder or something.”

   Donghyuck still looked concerned but nodded. You glanced over your shoulder. No one else was in the hospital wing, other than Taeil, Jaehyun, and a new doctor you didn’t know the name of. “Hey, could you do me a favour?” you requested, glancing at the two hackers. “When you have time, could you possibly find out about Jaemin?”

   Mark looked incredulous, staring at you with a small frown. “What ever happened to we’re only partners, I can ignore him later?”

   You snorted, “I will ignore him after the mission, I’d just like to know more about his background. Something about him is off.”

   “Like his sanity?”

   You chuckled at Chenle’s comment, shaking your head. “No, something else.” Glancing at your wrist watch, you began to step back. “I’ll get going then,” you smiled toward Donghyuck, “recover well. I should be back by Monday at the latest.” You waved toward the men, walking off toward the elevator.

   To your surprise, Taeyong was in the elevator when it arrived. You stepped in, keeping your distance as you pressed the button to the fifth floor. “I’m assuming you know the departure time,” Taeyong surmised. “I could care less about what you do until then, but when the time comes a few of the guards will come get you.” You nodded.

   Reaching into the pocket of his blazer, he handed you an envelope. “Inside will be your identification and a summary of your character. Study it, become it, then dispose of it. Byun’s smart; you knew of his role in EXO before it disbanded. If you come on too strong, he’ll figure something’s up and you’ll be in danger.” The elevator stopped on your floor.

   Taking the envelope, you stepped out, turning just before the elevator doors closed. Taeyong stared back, looking void of emotion as he nodded at you. “Good luck, Agent 127.”

   You stood there for a moment, unmoving, before making your way to the main ammunition room. You thumbed the envelope, tracing its edges as you walked. The only noise you could hear, other than your own breathing, was the quiet tapping of your shoes against the tiled floor. As you reached the ammunition room, you pressed a hand against the scanner on the wall. After a second, the door opened on its own.

   Almost instantly, you saw a man hunched over one of the desks. You immediately recognized the clothing and stature, freezing in the doorway. After hearing the door open, Jaemin glanced over his shoulder. When his eyes laid upon your form, he looked away. Shaking your head, you moved toward the far wall, ignoring his presence completely.

   He watched as you picked out a couple of guns along with the necessary clips. When you finished loading the weapons, you turned to see him staring at you. “What?” you questioned, switching your Magnum with a Berreta M9 as you spoke. You packed a S&T Motiv K14 into a spare case and brought it off of the desk. Jaemin’s gaze lingered on you for a while before he went back to loading a few guns. You furrowed your brows before exiting, the large steel pocket door closing behind you automatically.

   Jaemin truly was odd, to say the least.

   True to Taeyong’s word, a couple of guards had found you a little before the departure time, both equipped with a packed suitcase for your new character. You had been on the top floor, practicing your sniper skills. The sniper room took up practically the whole of the top floor, so it did take the guards a while to find your exact location (since you had left your tracked phone in the lockers near the entrance). The drive to the private airport, owned by NCT, was quiet for the most part. Every once in awhile, Johnny Seo– the main guard, would crack a joke and Ten, the guard whose real name you didn’t know, would laugh.

   “We’re here,” Johnny announced, parking the car. You climbed out of the vehicle, thanking the two quietly before ascending the stairs to the entrance. Inside, Jaemin was already waiting for you, dressed differently from when you had seen him earlier in the day. This time, he was wearing a simple white button up, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, coupled with slacks. You had to stop yourself from staring. Even you had to admit Jaemin looked great with his light brown hair almost messily pushed out of his face.

   “You’re late,” he grumbled. You scoffed, glancing down at your watch. It was only five past the given time, you were hardly late. Jaemin glanced down at your clothes, the bomber jacket you had been wearing slightly dirty from when you had been laying on your stomach during practice. He gestured toward the restroom, “There’s a dress in there for you, a wig too, probably.” You scrunched your nose up at the thought of wearing a dress but complied.

   Leaving Jaemin, you headed to the restroom, locking the door behind you. In the envelope Taeyong had given you, you had found out that your ‘new name’ was Kim Hyonhui, a name you rolled your eyes at, an employee at TCN Inc. Hyonhui was a completely different person from you. Hyonhui’s character was the disloyal and seductive wife of Kim Hansol– or rather, Jaemin.

   True to Jaemin’s word, there was a neatly folded dress on top of the counter. Beside it was a long, black wig. Grumbling under your breath, you slid the dress on and carefully placed the wig atop your head, hiding your natural hair effortlessly. Soon after, you spotted a pair of heels on the ground. You nearly groaned– if you detested anything more than dresses, it was heels. You inspected the shoes, recognizing the style. There was a secret compartment in the back, perfect for hiding spare clips or drug capsules.

   You walked out of the restroom, watching your feet to make sure you don’t trip. As you walked with your head down, Jaemin looked over after hearing the clicking of your heels against the hardwood floor. He quickly looked away, trying to appear nonchalant.

   When you reached him, a man walked into the room. He wore a pilot uniform, making it obvious that he was the pilot. “The plane is ready,” he said upon walking up to the two of you.

   You and Jaemin locked eyes before nodding. Together, you followed the pilot outside to the private plane.

   Off to Busan.

⇢ next

[tiny-smallest]

an inch at a time

Rating: G Characters: Sammy, Alice, mention of various characters Warnings: none really besides the usual fucked-up shenanigans of a BATIM fic? Ask to tag. Description: Healing is slow, steady work, especially after so much unrelenting trauma. Sammy Lawrence has yet to really grasp that. But there's one person who might be able to reach him...

Also on AO3!

So I uh. Got really inspired by the Sammy twitter takeover thing and wrote Over the Rainbow fluff that I only remembered was super impossible halfway through, because Sammy was not saved in human form. 

(I only just barely remembered in time that Alice was left mute in this au, which ended up working out in my favor, honestly.) 

I hope you enjoy it anyway, @upperstories. Without further ado...

Sammy Lawrence was not a man given to wearing his heart on his sleeve. A stone cold cynic, the man learned early in life to keep one’s cards close to his chest. Feelings were not for talking about, especially when they were tangled and confused 24/7 and he would frankly rather forget the large majority of what those feelings were tied to. But every once in a while, as with most tragedies, the effects were inescapable, and physical reminders forced unpleasant self-reflection.

He was, at least, a little handsome– the horrors that plagued his life and stole so many years from him, so much of himself, had not been much kinder to his memories, but he remembered that bit, at least. He vaguely remembered feeling at ease with his appearance, and that he worked diligently to be presentable. He remembered he had long-ish hair, at least considering the times, and that he kept it in a little ponytail. He could not remember the color. Was it blonde or brown? It wasn’t a question worth considering when Henry led him and the toons into the light again, because all that mattered in that moment was the light– the air, the breeze, the colors and trees and sky.

But all highs come and go, and the high that came with freedom, of course, did too. Swiftly and without mercy.

Seeing himself in a mirror again thirty years and unspeakable evils later was likely going to go down as one of the most surreal moments of his life. A stranger stared back out at him, one with so many forehead lines, and crow’s feet, and pale, sickly skin. What could barely be qualified as hair was scraggly and gray, the ink having ravaged it to near obliteration. He looked like a late term cancer patient, except the truly disturbing part was barely being able to even recognize the reflection as himself.

Was that even himself?

Who was he, anymore?

Staring at the man in the mirror as if he might move independently, Sammy backed out of the room.

Getting him to use the bathroom after that was a hassle.

Worse still was the decision that what was left of his hair had to go. It took nearly a week and many arguments before Mary could finally get the man to sit in the kitchen, clipping away at his hair while Sammy stared with a dull emptiness at the wall. The notion of going to a barber looking like this was too humiliating and so this was the compromise.

Even after all this time, he still had such little say over what happened to his own being, didn’t he?

He wished that the thought would at least inspire some sort of slow burn inside him. Being angry was much better than this numbness, even if it wasn’t loud or explosive. But things seldom went as Sammy wanted, and this time was of no exception.

An hour later found Sammy in the bathroom, the longest time he’d lingered in there since first catching sight of his reflection, staring at his bald head. Henry and Mary both promised that this was for the better, that this would encourage new hair to grow in, that this was a first step towards recovery. But all he could feel was his insides twisting, crying out that yet again, something had been taken from him.

How was he supposed to feel about this?

A hand tugged on his pants.

“Hello, my dear.” The automatic response fell from his mouth, his subconscious miles ahead of coherent thought and easily recognizing the gesture as something the mute Alice would do to get someone’s attention. Tearing his gaze from the mirror, he glanced over his shoulder and downwards at the little angel, feeling his tense body soften as if a switch had been flipped. “Can I help you?”

Her pretty little face twisted into a look of massive concentration, her hands raising and slowly moving about with the clumsiness of someone unsure if they’re doing something correctly or not. Sammy raised an eyebrow and she repeated the motion, and it was then that he realized she was attempting to use the thing called sign language that she was learning to make up for her lack of a voice.

<You look so sad. Can I help you?>

Dear little thing. Her very soul had been robbed from her when her voice was taken, and yet she was still concerned more about others than herself. His heart swelled a little with love and at the same time, withered with shame. He would never be that selfless, most likely. “No, I’m afraid not.”

<Are you sure? What are you so sad about?> She paused for a moment, frowning in frustration as she attempted to sign the next bit out but halted. Sammy watched, waiting for her to figure it out. <Mary says sometimes talking about the problem makes> Another stop. With a sigh, she produced a pad and paper. Mary says that sometimes talking about the problem makes a solution clear.

He wanted to be angry, but again, found no strength, even in his ocean of salt, to be so. “It’s a cute idea, but it doesn’t work so well in practice.”

Humor me. She tapped the pen against the sentence, a stern little frown puckering up her face.

Sammy blinked in surprise. Well then. It seemed like Alice had some of her bite back.

“It’s private.”

I know. But letting people past walls feels better.

“No, it doesn’t.” The reaction was instinct, like taking a hand away from an accidentally touched hot object.

Yes it does. She was tapping her foot now.

“How would you know?” he snapped, finally finding that ire he’d been trying to tap into and immediately regretting it as she leveled him with a glare that put his to shame.

Because it’s not like I didn’t suffer too, you know, and I see what bottling it up does to people. Bendy doesn’t like to talk any more than you do.

He winced. “… I’m sorry.” Just a few minutes ago he’d admired her selflessness and then he tried to step all over it. Why must he be a jerk at every available opportunity when he wasn’t being a sad, wet blanket?

It wasn’t like he wanted to not enjoy life. It just didn’t feel very possible at times. A lot of the time. The longer the days dragged on, the further away that feeling of light and joy from the first few moments of freedom felt. It was like he’d learned to fly for all of a day and now had cinderblocks on his feet.

I know you’re hurting. I won’t tell anyone anything you tell me. Tell. Hah. She couldn’t speak. There was an ironic joke in there somewhere-

Was… was that a bitter little smile touching the corners of her mouth? She saw it too, and…

His heart twisted. Alice didn’t deserve to feel that kind of poison in her. Bitterness was his weapon for so much of his life, that much he remembered, and he also remembered it leaving him pretty incapable of actually talking to people, shutting them out at most opportunities.

Such was the nature of walls.

That sudden thought gave him pause. Yeah. Such was the nature of walls. Did… he really want to spend the rest of his life, however long that might be, using that defense mechanism as his weapon? Keeping everyone out? He lost thirty years because Joey had a goddamn god complex. How much more time could he afford to lose?

… Did he want to look back, another thirty years from now on his deathbed, all alone, with only himself to blame for it?

“… You promise, don’t you?” It felt like such a childish thing to say, but there was no way he wanted any of this to get back to… anyone else, if he were being honest.

She nodded, her face relaxing into hope so strong it made him ache. Well, there was no backing out now.

“I hate this.” Very specific, Sammy. “I hate how… empty everything feels. I remember that day we finally left the studio and it was so- magical- it was like- like walking on air! And now…”

He gestured furiously to his reflection, scowling at it. “Now this! Look at this! I’m no more in control of anything inside or outside of me now than I was then! The things he did are still there! I remember anytime I look at myself! I hate looking at myself! I’m- old! Empty! I’m-”

Broken. Sad. Afraid.

A sudden weight at his waist nearly knocked the wind out of him and he looked down, raising his arms to find Alice clinging to his midsection. He forgot how much strength the toons could have in those noodle arms depending on their emotions- wait was she crying!?

… Had he said that aloud?

Shit.

Sammy hugged her, feeling panic build rapidly in his chest. Shit shit shit. She’s crying what does he do!?

“I’m sorry I- did I say that out loud? I didn’t mean- I didn’t mean to upset you Alice dear, please don’t- please don’t cry?”

Yeah, this right here was why he was pretty sure he’d never planned on kids.

She nodded into him. Okay, so that answered his earlier question with painful clarity. Shit. Again.

Why couldn’t he be half as eloquent with words as he was with music?

“I’m sorry, little angel. I shouldn’t-” He broke off as she let go of him, scribbling on her writing pad.

No, I’m glad you told me. You needed to get that out.

“What good did it do anyone?” All it did was make Alice upset and make Sammy feel gross for dumping his stupid, upsetting thoughts on a girl already facing her own problems.

Well now that I know what hurts, I have words.

“… All right.” God knew he didn’t have a right to stop her now that they’d both just opened this festering wound. He may as well allow her to continue.

You feel helpless and scared, and you’re frustrated that things don’t feel as good as they did at first when we all got out. You’re afraid it won’t ever feel that good again, and you hate being reminded of all the bad things that happened. Everything hurts all the time and you don’t know when it’ll stop.

Yeah, that was an accurate summary. He swallowed. She tugged on him and he leaned down, stiffening in surprise when she touched his bald head.

After giving it a pat, she went on. But it will. It’ll stop. Things will get better. It’ll be slow, like something growing, but it’ll come.

“Something growing…?”

Think of it like flowers. They don’t bloom in a day. They grow slowly. Progress is measured in inches. Each day is another inch.

The tiniest smile quirked the corners of his mouth. “… Like hair?”

She smiled. Like hair.

He straightened and looked at himself in the mirror before turning back to her.

“Thank you.”

You’re welcome.

“Let’s go; the bathroom is starting to feel cramped with us just… loitering in it. I can… show you the music I was working on? Maybe you could help, if you want? I’m a little stuck. Could use a second opinion.” She beamed, flouncing out of the bathroom with a happy little hop. Sammy glanced back at the mirror.

Maybe it really would get better. Eventually. With people who cared about him, even when he dragged his heels and said stupid things.

Days would pass. He’d been through worse. The knots would loosen. The sun would put some color back into his skin. Working at Mary’s bakery might maybe improve his social skills. He’d make music. Relearn the needed muscle memory to play instruments. He’d put on weight and get used to eating and sleeping on a normal basis again. The walls might lower. His relapses would get fewer and further inbetween. His hair would grow.

He turned and left the bathroom.

I figured he probably forgets to eat and sleep since the ink and its magic basically rendered him capable of living without either.

Next on “I forgot a key element of the au” if I can figure out how to stitch the scenes together: Sammy is the only adult human at home, faced with three distressed toons at two in the morning, and isn’t good with words, what do.