#not to vague but like. name one book from my country i dare you guys.

[just-wublrful]

not to be obnoxious on main but classic literature is not global literature. it's western literature at best

[kaylorrehabcenter]

Rating Every Song on Fearless Based on How Gay it is

Hello friends! I still have a few song analyses in the pipeline (and one on Lover the album) but today in honor of Fearless (Taylor’s Edition) being announced and Love Story being released in a few hours I thought I’d do something fun to celebrate!

And you know what? Fuck my usual disclaimer, I am the word of god here. Try and change my mind about any of these. I dare you. (I kid I kid this isn’t that serious and you’re free to disagree <3)

1. Fearless 15/10

Everything about this song is so fucking gay oh my god. This isn’t a fruit, this is a whole ass edible arrangement. As a small rural town Gay (my hometown has a population of less that 4,000 and where I’m living now has a population of 2,500) this uh. Hits.

“And I don't know how it gets better than this/You take my hand and drag me head first, fearless”

Y’ALL

The idea of falling in love with someone who makes you less afraid of your homophobic small town…….it’s getting to me.

“My hands shake, I'm not usually this way but/You pull me in and I'm a little more brave/It's the first kiss, it's flawless, really something/It's fearless”

This is making me emotional, I'll be honest. I see so much of my friends and my experience in high school in this song. 

This quote I found on genius is from when the album was released on BMR’s website.

“When I wrote ‘Fearless,’ I wasn’t dating anyone. I wasn’t even in the beginning stages of dating anybody. I really was all by myself out on tour and I got this idea for a song about the best first date. I think sometimes when you’re writing love songs, you don’t write them about what you’re going through at the moment, you write about what you wish you had. So, this song is about the best first date I haven’t had yet.”

This just screams baby Tay writing gay folklore to me, about the gay stories she wish she had. Notice how there are no pronouns in this song??? Fruity I’m telling you.

All that to say. I’m crying because the linear note says “I loved you before I met you” and I want to go listen to Long Story Short and cry now.

2. Fifteen 1/10

Objectively pretty straight as she’s singing about her and Abigail’s dating boys in HS. And Taylor got with a senior guy. Good for her I suppose.

Unless he was one of the shitty ones in which case.

“This is life before you know who you're gonna be”

This however, is a cute line and the whole song makes me warm and nostalgic. You can also hear her crying after the line “and Abigail gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind” which makes me emo and I’m sure will take on new depth after Abigail’s divorce and hurt me even more.

Other highlights that make me sob include.

“When all you wanted was to be wanted/Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now/Back then I swore I was gonna marry him someday/But I realized some bigger dreams of mine”

Bigger dreams of hers indeed :’)

(Also how can you say she’s a gold star lesbian when this song exists. She was obviously dating boys in high school and even if you think she’s a lesbian. Comp het is a hell of a drug kids.)

3. Love Story 8/10

Tried to change the ending indeed.

This is THE Taylor Swift song, and maybe it’s the nostalgia talking but damn I still love it. Written because she wanted to change the ending of Romeo and Juliet (how anyone likes RandJ enough to want to rewrite I have no clue.) and/or because her parents didn’t approve of a guy she was seeing. (according to genius, it would’ve been too early for Joe J so it could possibly be Boys Like Girls frontman, his image did clash with hers and they did release some cute songs together. However if you want my take it’s probably folklore about Emily, take for what you will)

This song has very oft gay vibes with the ‘They don’t approve of our love angle!’ but uses male pronouns so points redacted for that. HOWEVER this is a very early use of ~the male perspective~ in Taylor’s songs and for that it deserves all the love.

“ So I sneak out to the garden to see you/We keep quiet, 'cause we're dead if they knew/So close your eyes/Escape this town for a little while”

More rural town angst!!!

Nothing gets me more than rural town angst.

“Romeo, save me, they're trying to tell me how to feel/This love is difficult, but it's real”

Originally the lyric was “this love is different”. Granted I do not remember the source, i’s just lore implanted into my brain, but make of that what you will.

“"Marry me, Juliet, you'll never have to be alone/I love you, and that's all I really know/I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress/It's a love story, baby, just say "Yes"”

Marry me Juliet from the male perspective :)

Also worth noting. This is Karlie’s (and Kim K’s lmao) favorite Taylor song which. While basic as hell. Makes this cover sad as hell to this former Kaylor. (thanks @swiftgron-get-married for the tears <3)

Also not to make this about a man AGAIN but the secret message is “Some day I’ll find this” AND SHE DID IM CRYING.

4. Hey Stephen 1/10

The one thing Camilla Cabello and I have in common is loving this song, so I have to live with that for the rest of my life.

This song is very painfully straight.

How can you think this woman is a gold star lesbian.

The only noteworthy thing is that this is one of the few songs she confirms who it’s about. The secret message is “Love and Theft” which is the name of a country music duo who went on to open her Fearless tour. Which, does make me side eye this song a little bit.

Still a cute song.

“Hey Stephen, boy, you might have me believing/I don't always have to be alone”

5. White Horse 1/10

Oh look. It’s track five. 

You know maybe this is just me being a bitch but in my ranking of track fives this is. Pretty low. Maybe on the bottom.

Like I don’t have a lot to say about it. 

She’s going through it over a guy. He was a cheating dickweazel. 

“'Cause I'm not your princess, this ain't a fairytale/I'm gonna find someone someday/Who might actually treat me well”

“Try and catch me now, oh/It's too late/To catch me now”

These lines hit though!!

And she found Joe!! Who treats her well!!!! And she isn’t the princess, she’s the prince who dropped her sword and knocked on her door!!! But this time if they come for them she’s ready!!!

Yes I will make every song about Long Story Short <3

6. You Belong With Me 5/10

Ah yes. The other THE Taylor Swift song.

You know. If I went to a high school with a cheerleading squad. And I had a crush on a cheerleader. I would blast this song. So for that it gets a 5/10. Otherwise. Fairly straight and fairly iconic.

7. Breathe 8/10

Well. We know this one is about a woman. (Emily Poe for those not in the know. Ha. A rhyme!) That alone has an 8/10. And it’s the first time she has a featured artist so bonus points for that!

It was nominated for a Grammy and it fucking lost to Jason Mraz. When’s the last time you thought about Jason Mraz.

I will not have Kaylor feels on a fucking Fearless song but damn is it VERY easy.

“Never a clean break, no one here to save me/You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand”

“It's 2 A.M, feeling like I just lost a friend/Hope you know it's not easy, easy for me”

Also this bridge? Goes off. HIGHLY underrated. 

8. Tell Me Why 3/10

You know. Maybe this album isn’t as gay as I once thought.

This song does bop though, not as good as her other angry songs on this album. But I can vibe with this you know. Why are you being an asshole mysterious man.

“You could write a book on how to ruin someone's perfect day”

This has to be one of baby Tay’s best burns. Damn. 

“Why do you have to make me feel small/So you can feel whole inside?/Why do you have to put down my dreams/So you're the only thing on my mind?”

Men ain’t shit kids. However, bonus points for the shade. 

9. You’re not Sorry 1/10

Ok, ok. Maybe this was a foolish endeavor.

Because yet again we have a very straight song. A good song. That was on Taylor’s episode of CSI. But oh dear. Very straight. Gets a measly one point. We started this post off so very very gay but damn. We seem to be nearing the end on a very straight note.

10. The Way I Loved You 20/10

Hey Remember what I said about this album being very straight.

WELL THAT WAS A LIE.

Is this a comphet album or am I projecting.

This is one of my favorite baby gay Taylor songs. Her masterful use of pronouns (he is sensible! And so incredible! And all my single friends are jealous! But I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain, when it was two am and I was cursing your name!) makes the other person she’s singing about completely vague, while we know she isn’t happy with whichever guy she’s dating.

Mayhaps an early reaction to PRomances?

Either way this song is so good, truly an underrated gay gem I mean. Look at it.

“Breaking down and coming undone/It's a roller coaster kind of rush/And I never knew I could feel that much/And that's the way I loved you”

AND THE BRIDGE. Do all of her gay songs just have kickass bridges?

“He can't see the smile I'm faking/And my heart's not breaking/'Cause I'm not feeling anything at all/And you were wild and crazy/Just so frustrating/Intoxicating, complicated/Got away by some mistake and now…”

Damn. I’m imaging this with 2020 vocals and fucking ascending.

Also please watch the live performance of it from the Fearless tour. It’s such a damn shame this got cut from the movie and some woman in the front row is wearing a cowboy hat. Everyone is holding up those cameras everyone had to have before smartphones. Taylor is being endearing. It’s a good time.

11. Forever and Always 6/10

Bonus points for the ~drama~ of it all. Added last minute to the album? The iconic throwing of the chair in live performances?? All of it very dramatique and for that we stan.

Still pretty straight.

Also Joe Jonas responded to the song and why do I find his response so damn funny. “It’s part of being a musician, I guess. You write songs about each other.”

This is another song where the idea of Taylor’s grown up vocals on this is………..whew

12. The Best Day 0/10

This gets zero points because it’s about her literal mom.

Still makes me cry.

God bless Andrea Swift indeed

13. Change 13/10

We start the official tracklist with a gay song. We end it with a gay song.

We will ignore that it was originally written for Scott and BMR and instead induct it into the hall of gay pride anthems, as it should be. 

“We're getting stronger now, finding things they never found/They might be bigger but we're faster and never scared/You can walk away, say we don't need this/But there's something in your eyes says we can beat this”

“This revolution, the time will come/For us to finally win/And we'll sing hallelujah, we'll sing hallelujah”

The music video is cringe though lol

14. Jump then Fall 10/10

This song is gay because I choose it to be. <3

Like. Picture baby Taylor writing this song and playing it on her guitar to a girl she has a crush on telling her that she’ll protect her and they’ll be safe and in love and happy together. Gah, maybe I’m ~projecting~ but this sweet ass song always gets me and is EASILY in my top five Taylor songs. Super underrated and hecking cute. 

“We're on the phone and without a warning/I realize your laugh is the best sound/I have ever heard”

Like. Look at this shit.

“I watch you talk, you didn't notice/I hear the words but all I can think is/We should be together”

Tell me this is about the first time you get a crush on a girl and she’s your best friend and she’s amazing and beautiful and you realize you kinda want to kiss her and you hope she wants to kiss you too.

“I had time to think it oh, over/And all I can say is come closer/Take a deep breath and jump then fall into me”

And she’s the Romeo who's going to protect her!!!!! She’s the knight in shining armor in this song and I love that for her??

“The bottom's gonna drop out from under our feet/I'll catch you, I'll catch you/When people say things that bring you to your knees/I'll catch you/The time is gonna come when you're so mad you could cry/But I'll hold you through the night until you smile”

I won’t divulge into full on analysis here because. This is what this post is about but PLEASE listen to this song more. It’s such a gay little gem.

15. Untouchable 9/10

How does she make a cover sound gay.

It sounds so gay.

“You got to come on, come on, say that we'll be together/Come on, come on, little taste of heaven”

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

16. Forever and Always Piano Version 1/10

This song gets 1/10 because I don’t like it. There. I said it.

17. Come in With the Rain 3/10

I can see why this is a bonus track. It doesn’t hit me as much as the other songs on the album.

But damn if I don’t want to scream sing this one driving down a high way.

18. Superstar 7/10

You can’t tell me this song is about a man. I simply won’t entertain the idea.

You cannot prove to me that this song is about a man. There is not a male pronoun in sight. 

>:)

19. The Other Side of the Door 6/10

Is this song about having a fight about being in the closet? Probably not. Will my gay little brain make it about that? Yep!

And that, funky little queer pals, is my gay rating of every Fearless song. Like and subscribe, #t3atmidnight

[root-admins]

SINoALICE x NieR Replicant - Weapon Stories

A complete compilation of all weapon stories from SINoALICE’s NieR Replicant collab... well, the ones that has lore to do with NieR anyways.

Whatever grammar mistakes/translation errors belongs to Pokelabo, and you will tell there are some. Most are stories are pretty self-explanatory tho.

Grimoire Weiss

We fought for what seemed like ages. To kill those things that took a twisted human form. To protect those precious to me, with my own hands. We were deceived for so long. Deceived by people in a land we've never been, whose faces we've never seen Issuing orders from a safe distance. We must have been in love. And despite the fact I couldn't save you, but I never got to thank you for saving me. These fragments glimmering deep in my depths... they seem to be the vague memories of people... the faded remnants of human wisdom... H-hold on! I’ll have you know my name is not “Booky Wooky!” You may call me "Grimoire Weiss" I am a great compendium of ancient wisdom. Treat me with respect!

Grimoire Noir

My name is the Black Book. Are you the king who will lead the world to salvation? Don't be so surprised, Your Majesty. For me, it is a simple matter to speak human words. I sympathize with your distress, Your Majesty. On this occasion, however, we have no choice but to let them deal with your sister. When sorrow overtakes you, you may come to me and speak of your tribulations. Reading is an admirable pursuit. Your Majesty--for me?? I shall peruse this volume if it comes on your recommendation... What is that? You think it odd for a book to read a book? Noir? I would prefer to dispense with this nickname. My name, Your Majesty, is the Black Book. I am a grand tome of human wisdom... thus, to refer to me by such a curious moniker is, dare I say, inappropriate.

Kaine’s Sword

She was slender, with smooth, white skin. The hint of a dark shadow in her expression highlighted her beautiful features. But something about the sword in her hand didn't seem to fit the picture. Anger, sorrow, hatred. When emotions overwhelmed her, she would swing the sword, so there was never a lack of blood to quench its thirst. The problem was that she couldn't put the sword down. A heart and body in constant conflict. No one in the world could understand her. And loneliness was eating her alive. The long war came to an end, and darkness devoured her. But her heart remained at peace. Because she faced fate in the arms of the one she loved.

Halua Head

File_25_10: Update Soon twins will be arriving. There is nothing at all in the white-walled, prison-like room except for a white bed. If only there were something to do in there... File_25_12: Update I went to look in on them, and the girl was kindly encouraging her anxious younger brother. The two of them had heavy expectations to fulfill. The weight of all humanity's hope bore down upon them. File_26_06: Update The day of the experiment, the girl passed me a letter. To the very end, she wanted someone to watch over her brother. Once I agreed, she quickly ran away. Report: Human Weapon Development Things seem to be progressing as expected with Experimental Subject A (Sister), but her condition has changed drastically. In her present state, she seems to have no sense of self. I am urgently beginning work on Experimental Subject B (Brother).

Devola & Popola’s Staff

－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ Dear Popola, Thanks for that soup recipe! My mom loved it!  －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ A note received from a child in the village. Does this mean they are developing a sense of self? －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ Dear Popola, Thanks to the medicine you gave me, I'm feeling a lot better, though I can't leave home yet. Just sending a note to say thanks. －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ According to our records, humans wrote their feelings down on pieces of paper, and sent them to others. Where did they learn to do such a thing? －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ Dear Popola, I like you a lot. Will you be my girlfriend? Waiting to hear back. －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ I simply cannot understand the things they have written on these scraps of paper. I feel an unfamiliar feeling, my heart saying “no”… －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ Dear Popola, Sorry I couldn't tell you in person, but I'm coming home late tonight. Go ahead and sleep if you're tired. －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－ Ah, Devola. No need to worry about me this way. Tee-hee.

Favorite Pot

Yonah, I learned a special recipe! When you eat it, all your injuries will be gone! Oh! I want everyone to feed it to those they care about!

The ingredients are deer meat, sea turtle eggs, fresh veggies and herbs from the garden, and lastly tons of scorpion claws! Next, fill a pot up with all your ingredients, place the top on, and let it simmer overnight! The white steam rising from it is just so mesmerizing. ...Oh! I think it's ready! Smell for a soft scent when you take the lid off. That means it's done! I can't wait to give it to grandpa.

Transience

"Rule 0: You have the right to disband a rule by vote." I am the king's aide and second-in-command. Until now, all rules have be absolute, however, a "Voting Rite" was held where citizens could vote to change rules. Now, let's see what sort of ballots were made...

"Rule 451: Consuming alcohol is forbidden during the daytime." And stated as the reason is: because I like drinking... Because it's anonymous, all these votes are based off selfish desires. We need to improve the system somehow that reflects public opinion.

"Rule 356: Royal inquiries are limited once per day." And stated as the reason is: because I long to be with the King more...? Could this Fyra's vote...? No. Of course not. She's not the type to be interested in love. Moving on...

"Rule 68: The King's aides are to forever serve at his side" Reason being: Thank you for all your hard work. You deserve a break once in awhile... Could this be from the King himself? I'm honored to have stood by your side all these years. And the citizens of this country are proud of your work. There's no doubt of it.

Note: After rigorous deliberation, "Rule 451: Consuming alcohol is forbidden during the daytime", the most voted for rule, was repealed.

Grimoire Weiss ver.1.224

My name is Grimoire Weiss. I am an ancient tome of profound wisdom. After awakening from my long slumber, I traveled the world with my most beloved friends. She was a woman lacking respect for her elders. She'd continuously talk down to me, calling me nothing but paper and even set me aflame. However... Her rash words were also the driving force that moved us all. He was a compassionate and gentle boy who loved his friends. His manor of dress was odd, but his kind words warmed everyone's hearts. This I know to be true. I wonder if he, too had felt any relief from his sins. He was a cheeky guy, but not one you could just leave behind. We've been through a number of rough times together. I'd tell ya about it, but... I'm running out of time. If... If only I had an arm... Then I could have...hugged...him...

Grimoire Rubrum

It's the silk of fate. Knowing you, I shall begin living a life of truth. It's the forbidden fruit. Protecting you, I shall sink into wisdom's abyss. Those are the flames of anxiety. Thinking of you, I shall endure eternity's darkness. That is a reunion of bitter tears. Who are they? Why is it not me who's besides you?

Kaine’s Dual Blades ver.1.224

I craved it. Blind violence and blood-thirsty carnage. And I found it. I finally found it. A vessel stained with anger and hatred, seeking vengeance for the murder of her parents. I possessed that woman and gave her "power." That power turned the woman into a beast. One swing of her blade was enough to cut through stone and her grazes healed in an instant. She began downing every foe before her in the name of vengeance. I was delighted to witness the fruition of my desires. The woman's destruction didn't end there. After having her revenge, she continued to exert her "power" for the sake of her friends. Along her journey, her anger and hatred showed signs of waning, however, I gave it no thought. All I desired was to continue bathing in her bloodshed. Because her body has reached its limit, her power has lost control. Still, in the midst of the clashing of blades, I could feel her desire to protect her friends. Yes, this is the violence and carnage I crave. But why is it deplorable and empty?

Devola & Popola’s Spear

Upon hearing an old lady from the village caught a cold, I immediately collected my medicinal herbs with some boiled water, and rushed out from the library. I nursed her and remained by her side until her symptoms calmed down. She was extremely grateful for it.

I read a picture book to a group of children from the village. It was of an old tale about a brave, courageous man who triumphs over evil. I watched their expressions alternated between joy to sorrow to the story's pacing. I'm glad they enjoyed it.

Devola and I performed a song for the people at the village tavern. In addition to the regulars who drank there, elders and children were part of the audience. At the end of our song, the entire crowd smiled and cheered.

Every day Devola and I have been staying late at the library thinking of a plan to make life easier for the villagers. They're indispensable "vessels" for the project, so we need to do what we can for them.

Letter to the Postman

I was in a dimly lit cabin when I met a kind man. He taught me how to write a letter. What should I write on a blank piece of paper...? ―――――――――――――――――――――――――――― ――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

Apparently, a letter should start off with the name of the person you want to give it to. Of course, I'd want it to be his. I hope he'll be able to read my sloppy handwriting... ―――――――――――――――――――――――――――― 　　Hans ――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

At the end of the letter should be the name of the person who wrote it. Of course, that would be the name he gave me. Is it odd my chest feels warm writing it...? ―――――――――――――――――――――――――――― 　　Hans 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Luiz ――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

And in-between these two names, I'm supposed to write how I feel. And tell him what I want the most. I wonder if he'll be happy to receive this...?

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――― 　　Hans, Thank you　Thank you　Thank you Thank you　Thank you　Thank you　Thank you 　Thank you　Thank you. Luiz ――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: King-Size Annual Amazing Spider-Man #16: “Who’s That Lady?”

October, 1982

In case you wondered why I would keep titling my posts Essential Avengers: Avengers its because sometimes the thing after the colon won’t be Avengers.

Maybe I should have titled this liveblog something else but I’m in too deep.

This sure is a fun, striking cover featuring an all-new, all-different, and all-terrific Captain Marvel.

Memorable.

You may not remember who Captain Marvel is. He has come up a couple times in Avengers but in modern times, ‘he’ is not going to connect intuitively with Captain Marvel, especially now that Marvel has won the long tug-of-war with DC.

Here’s some courtesy links to the time the Avengers crossed into the Thanos War storyline from the Captain Marvel book.

But the long story short is that Captain Marvel was invented to trademark squat the name Captain Marvel, was a Kree captain who went against his people to help Earth, became a super saiyan, fought Thanos a bunch, got cancer, and died. In fact, he died February 1982 so its fairly recent that Marvel killed him off but since they still want to trademark squat, they need another Captain Marvel.

Hence, this.

And I’m very excited about this hence.

So, I’ve read a couple of Spider-Man annuals included in trades or as singles over the years and its interesting how often they are used to promote a new character. Spider-Man is the ultimate hype man.

So the ultimate hype man is at a bus station as the captions tell us how amazing he is, when his spider-sense goes squiggle lines to a perfectly normal woman walking past.

And the issue title and Peter are both like “Who’s That Lady?”

Peter’s second thought is how hot she is because... eh, he doesn’t get married until 1987.

Peter Parker: “Wow! I’ve never seen anyone like her before... not in the port authority bus terminal! She’s... stunning! Yeah... so why am I getting a spider-sense tingle from her? I can’t believe that she’d present any sort of threat... but my spider-sense never reacted to out-and-out beauty before!”

And since he has fifteen spare minutes until his Good Pals Liz and Hary Osborn’s bus shows up, he decides to stalk her a little. Y’know. For the public safety??

Geez.

He also sees that she’s going into a Bad Neighborhood and throws in a little victim blame, why not.

Peter: “Whoops! She’s definitely an out-of-towner! Native New Yorkers know better than to stroll through this neighborhood -- especially dressed as well as she is! She’s practically asking to be mugged!”

But since (and this may come as a surprise to you) mild-mannered Peter Parker is in fact, the Amazing Spider-Man, he darts into an alley to change into his spider-jammies and play guardian angel.

Of course, the instant he goes to change clothes is the instant that a pair of individuals accost the mysterious woman.

The one who looks like Kisuke Urahara fallen on hard times grabs her purse and runs off. Mysterious Woman gives chase because hey, that’s her purse you creep!

But it was a weird ruse to lure her away to a more secluded area and guy two grabs the Mysterious Woman.

So she flips him over her back and hits the purse snatcher with him.

I’m liking where this is going.

Guy Two, aka Mojo but not that one, decides maybe a knife will make Mysterious Woman be more pliant.

So Mysterious Woman dodges the knife thrust and then kicks the shit out of Mojo.

I’m continue to liking where this is going.

Guy one (Scud) decides that not getting beaten up is the better part of valor and takes off.

Right into Spider-Man’s fist.

Ah, excellent. Every uppanced has come.

Spider-Man notices that Mysterious Woman is making his spider-sense buzz harder than ever and decides that instead of lurking, he should just come right out and ask her deal.

By which he means jump out from behind her and suddenly start talking because taking people by surprise is always a good idea.

Anyway, the Mysterious Woman assumes that Spider-Man was Scud and on instinct swivels around and does him a shove. A really hard shove into a pile of garbage that knocks him senseless.

“It happens in a split second! Even before Spider-Man’s feet can touch the ground... even as his special senses tell him that he’s made a serious mistake... a sudden burst of pure force sends him flying.”

Goes to show. Don’t sneak up on people? Yeah, probably.

Mysterious Woman is like oh shit I just knocked out Spider-Man god damn I gotta get my power under control.

Then she CHOOMs her pantsuit into oblivion and reveals that she was dressed in layers with a more super-something outfit underneath.

Which is impressive considering that her outfit has some kind of wings/cape that go from the back to the arms that would not have fit under the pantsuit jacket. And also the boots probably wouldn’t have fit under the heels.

All in all, this may be the greatest display of power so far.

She does have to put on the mask/cowl and gloves because there’s not much of a way for those to have fit underneath.... her skin?

The wing/cape also has a pocket which means its also practical.

Nice.

So Spider-Man comes to musing that maybe he shouldn’t leap right at someone his spider-sense is telling him is dangerous.

And then the Mysterious Woman takes off from the alley with a KLA-BOOM - seemingly turning into a bolt of lightning and lighting up the sky over the Empire State Building.

Spider-Man: “Who am I up against here? And do I really want to find out?”

That’s a pretty striking costume.

The white and black contrast nice and the nova burst icon looks rad.

Not a fan of masks that don’t cover up much of anything. At that point you may as well not wear one? And the cape doesn’t make much sense for her powers? But it also has a pocket for her keys so and cash which makes it practical so I guess it balances out.

But overall its striking and memorable.

So up on the Empire State Building, this Mysterious Woman introduced as Captain Marvel so I can drop the pretense and start calling her Captain Marvel and hey wait the cover said Captain Marvel too, I’ve lived a sham.

But Captain Marvel muses about how big New York is compared to New Orleans and leans right into the flashback zone, because its time for the all-new all-different all-terrific Captain Marvel’s entire origin.

Just jammed right into the middle of this annual.

Lt. Monica Rambeau worked as one of New Orleans’ harbor patrol.

And in this flashback zone, she was just passed up for promotion and is unhappy about it. According to her, she was better than any of the people chosen and thinks that she was passed up because she’s a woman.

The Harbormaster says that Actually Its Because You’re a Loose Cannon and Doesn’t Do Things By the Book and also how dare you accuse him of sexism, gtfo of his office.

Harbor patrol is basically like boat cops, right?

At least he didn’t ask for her gun and badge.

Monica stomps back to her office, which I guess she has despite being a lieutenant. Good on her!

Professor Andre LeClare, a war buddy of Monica’s grandfather, is waiting for her in her office to ask for help.

In the advanced physics field Professor LeClare is considered a bit of a crackpot and only one man ever listened to his theories. A Generalissimo Ernesto Ramirez, a South American dictator.

In hindsight, LeClare acknowledges that maybe he didn’t do due diligence before accepting a job from a dictator but he was the only one who offered to fund his research.

Professor LeClare had discovered a way from drawing energy from other universes and dimensions (which I vaguely remember as the plot of an Asimov novel) but whoops, the actual dictator wants to weaponize it.

LeClare flees the Vague South American Country after failing to dissuade Ramirez but the dictator is undaunted and gets LeClare’s former assistant Felipe Picaro to continue the work on an old oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Professor LeClare told the American government but nobody believed him. But if the weapon is completed it “will make the atomic bomb look like a wet match.”

Which: good lord.

Monica can understand why its hard to believe because she can barely believe it herself.

She’d also like to know what the professor even expect from her.

Professor LeClare: “Frankly, I’m not sure. I was hoping you could think of some way to convince the authorities. I had heard that you tend to approach things in a less orthodox manner than most.”

Monica, toasting with her Monica mug: “You’re not the only one who’s made that observation. Hmm... maybe I can think of something. After all, I have tomorrow off... and it is the least I could do for an old friend of the family.”

Seriously, that’s a cool mug, Monica.

The next morning, Monica takes LeClare out on a borrowed boat to go investigate the oil rig.

She’s going to investigate while the professor, and she is very clear on this, stays hidden on the boat.

Monica is a bit out of her depth here (nautical pun) because she doesn’t actually believe the professor, doesn’t have any jurisdiction out in the middle of the gulf, and even if she did doesn’t have any official backing from her boat cop boss. But she figures it won’t hurt to humor the old man.

Said old man also salutes her and calls her “mon capitaine” when she tells him to hide on the boat.

When she boats up to the oil rig, many armed guards politely tell her that this is private property and she needs to kindly gtfo.

But Monica has a secret weapon. You may have heard that she’s unorthodox and doesn’t do things by the book.

Her secret weapon is a winning smile but also a bikini.

Not only are all the guards ready to go ‘hey security isn’t as important as a woman in a bikini’ so is Dr. Picaro, the guy in charge on the rig.

Lets see Genis manage that.

So she manages to get a picnic with head honcho Picaro. Although he’s a creepy and stares a lot. But when she’s trying to sweet-talk him into spilling many of the beans, an intruder alarm goes off.

Guess who didn’t listen to the explicit instructions to stay on the boat, snuck onto the oil rig, tried to sabotage the project, and got caught?

Did you guess Professor LeClare? Because it was Professor LeClare.

Picaro is tickled to see his old boss here.

LeClare: “Picaro, you mustn’t use this device! You don’t understand the forces involved!”

Picaro: “I understand perfectly, LeClare! My energy disruptor, powered by the fruits of your theory, can totally obliterate any city within 200 miles!”

This shit is why Reed Richards is useless. You invent something useful like a device that steals energy from another universe and some asshole rolls in and goes ‘okay but can I make people explode with it?’

Wakanda invents the cure for cancer in a widely unpopular move, looks at the Marvel universe, and goes ‘someone is definitely going to try to turn this into a weapon, smh.’

Picaro is so drunk on his own hype that he decides he might as well do the first test here and now. And by here I mean Fort Benning, Georgia and by do the first test I mean wipe it off the map.

I feel like even if you had a new super-weapon effective enough to make the atomic bomb look like a wet match, this isn’t a very strategic way to use it.

But that’s why they call it mad with power, not reasonable with power.

Monica has bit by bit started to believe the professor and at this point it doesn’t matter whether she thinks any of this is possible as long as Picaro does.

So she elbow shoves him out of the way and punches the machine to death.

Because Monica Rambeau.

Of course it explodes.

That’s the natural reaction to being punched by Monica Rambeau.

Good thing this wasn’t an active oil rig!

Back in New Orleans, a streak of light strikes a wharf and turns into Monica Rambeau.

She staggers around the wharf in a daze, dizzy and finding it hard to think, but knowing she has to find help for the professor. Who may or may not have just been in an explosion.

She bangs on a... I don’t know. Some kind of storeroom or something. And bangs on the locked door, looking for help. She feels that she needs to get inside.

And the next thing she knows she’s somehow inside, without, to her best knowledge, interacting at all with the door.

Kinda mysterious. But she explicitly decides to worry about that later. She spots a radio and decides to broadcast a mayday on naval frequencies.

She doesn’t notice that the radio is unplugged and not really connected to anything.

And in fairness, reality doesn’t notice either.

Some energy suffuses the microphone and broadcasts her mayday message to a boat out in the Gulf of Mexico. The radio operator acknowledges the mayday and wonders what kind of power the sender was using because it came across too loud too clear.

Hmmm. What a mysterious happening.

Could Monica have, through being caught in a lab accident, gained amazing and spectacular powers?

Why, of course!

What genre do you think you’re reading?

With the message sent out, Monica spares some time to worry about what the heck that happened to her and realize that wow its cold in here in just a swimsuit!

Luckily, the random building is a storage warehouse with racks of costumes left over from Mardi Gras! What luck!

Of course, Mardi Gras. Most of it is less than she’s already wearing.

But she manages to combine parts of several outfits into one combined outfit. And even puts on a mask to spare herself the embarrassment of being spotted dressed like this!

I like that her costume is literally just something she threw together. Although I now have to wonder what the original outfits she scavenged from were like.

Actually, what I really like is that her original goal was to find something warm to wear. But she has superpowers now so has a superhero brain and superhero brain says ‘costume.’

So Monica puts on a superhero costume, even though she just wanted some pants.

Now dressed, she wanders out into the wharf and notices bolts of energy shooting up into the sky from the direction of the oil rig.

Worried about the professor, Monica manages to transport herself in a bolt of light to the oil rig.

These are some user friendly powers.

When Monica arrives she finds a bunch of already unconscious guards strewn about the landing pad.

She runs into the oil rig just in time to see Picaro shoot the professor.

Dang.

Picaro: “This is your fault, LeClare! You must have sabotaged my disruptor panel! It was perfect... you hear, perfect!!”

Well. He was trying to sabotage it. You might have a point.

Monica kicks Picaro to get him to drop the gun and then rushes over to Professor LeClare.

She wants to get him to safety but LeClare tells her that no place is safe now.

LeClare: “Felipe... wouldn’t listen! The power was too unstable. Energy is flooding in from another universe. Breaking down the wall between worlds. The hole in the air... is getting bigger! Within a day, it will be planet-sized! And then, both universes will smash into each other. We are doomed!”

Monica wonders whether this would have happened anyway or whether, y’know, punching the experimental physics machine had any negative effects.

Who can say!

Monica ponders how you plug a hole in nothing. Right before the space-time hole sucks her in and jams her in like a cork in a vacuum cleaner.

But its working, somehow, for some reason! The hole is sealing up around her! Science!

Hurts like the dickens though.

And its probably going to crush her as it closes. Which isn’t ideal.

It’d create a time paradox, for one thing. We’re in flashback country still.

Picaro decides that with a strange woman stuck in a space-time whatsit, now is the best time to shoot the professor AGAIN just in case he wasn’t bleeding to death hard enough.

Monica rushes to stop this. Turning into energy quick as lightning and intercepting the bullet.

She can do this.

And blasting free of the dimensional hole also sealed it shut.

AND she disintegrates Picaro’s gun, shocking him senseless in the process.

That’s what I call a win-win-win. Good job, Monica!

She decides to leave him and the others on the oil rig to international law when the navy arrives. She grabs the professor and takes him away to get patched up.

One of the soldiers, barely conscious mumbles something to himself as he watches them go.

Soldier with a mustache: “<Captain? H-he called her his captain! But she saved us... hah-ha-ha... saved... hah-ha... all of us!> Capitan est maravilla... est maravilla! Capitan est maravilla!”

Do you remember the first rule of superhero names? I’ll remind you in a bit.

Two days later, Professor LeClare visits Monica at the Harbor Patrol HQ.

He has run Science! tests that have proven conclusively that Monica’s body “was transubstantiated by the dimensional interface!”

And Monica is like ‘english pls’ so LeClare explains “what it means is you can change your body into any form of electromagnetic energy! You can actually become a sentient packet of radio waves, light, even electricity! You can go through solid objects as x-rays! You can travel at the speed of light! What’s more, you can release a small amount of energy as a blast of pure force, with no appreciable loss of body mass!”

Blasts of pure force from the pure force dimension!

So basically, Monica can become any kind of energy and go pew pew. I think she became Green Lantern energy once, that time the Avengers and Justice League crossed over.

LeClare also brought a gift.

He had a copy made of Monica’s scavenged together mardi gras outfit costume. Which is sort of a ‘thanks?’ gift because maybe she wanted to design a costume that wasn’t a hodgepodge. But LeClare’s version is also made of unstable molecules.

You can just buy those, apparently.

But, if you can just buy those, apparently, then you definitely want to because they’re pretty durable and put up with all kinds of nonsense. Although, Monica’s random outfit could turn to energy and back already.

Monica is like ‘thanks?’ because she doesn’t know if she ever wants to use these powers again.

LeClare: “We all have a destiny to fufill, mon capitaine.”

Monica: “Will you stop calling me that? You know darn well that I’m only a lieutenant!”

LeClare: “Oh? Not in the eyes of some!”

And he pulls out a newspaper, in case she hadn’t seen the newspaper.

The headline is “Who is Capt. Marvel?” because when the navy arrived at the oil rig, they found mustache soldier hysterically saying “the captain is a marvel!” (or possibly “captain is wonderful”?) and not bothering to have learned Spanish, the navy assumes that he was saying Captain Marvel.

Anyway, remember the first rule of superhero names?

The first thing someone randomly shouts about you becomes your codename so I hope you like it.

Monica lucked out. Captain Marvel is a pretty sweet name. So sweet that she’ll have it stolen in like three different ways by other people. Poor Monica.

LeClare: “Monica, you can do things no man has ever dreamed of doing! Two days ago, you told me you took this job ‘to serve and protect’. Much good can be done with your powers... Captain Marvel!”

So then we get Monica quitting the boat cops, tossing her gun and badge on the harbormaster’s desk and telling him where he can shove it.

Monica: “I don’t need your little ranks or your little minds any more! I’ve already made captain... on my own!”

Monica’s ex-boss, presumably: ‘What a cryptic thing to say.’

LeClare asks if she’s sure about quitting. I assumed he was suggesting she quit when he was encouraging her to become a superhero but I guess not.

Monica says that she’s been wanting to quit for years because as long as that ‘tyrant’ was in charge what with his wanting to do things by the book, Monica was limited in what she could accomplish.

Ha ha ha oh thats a bad take thats a bad take on reasons why to quit being a (boat) cop.

‘If only it weren’t for all these RULES and PROCEDURES -shakes fist-’

So Monica walks off with LeClare, to a bright new beautiful tomorrow as a superhero.

Anyway, that’s the end of the flashback zone so now we’re back on the Empire State Building zone where Monica has been reminiscing this whole time.

Apparently that enormous flashback all happened only a few short weeks ago. She’s had a long and entirely off-screen superhero career in those weeks, probably.

But she needs SCIENCE! help and Professor LeClare has scienced as hard as he can already.

Captain Marvel Monica is suffering from energy buildup and she’s afraid she’s going to become as big a threat to the world as Picaro’s machine. If she doesn't’ consciously hold it in check, it would overcome her.

I imagine she hasn’t been sleeping much.

But this is New York and SCIENCE! help is visible on the skyline.

Meanwhile, Spider-Man has finally made it up the Empire State Building.

So that’s really why the flashback was so long, to give Spider-Slowpoke time to catch up.

Spider-Man: “There she is, bold as brass! I’ll slap a little webbing on her, and see what’s shaking! Or should I? What if she’s a good guy, and I’m misreading my senses? I’d look like a fool!”

Truly, social shame is the best reason not to sneak attack someone.

Spider-Man: “Naw, if she’s a good guy, she’ll understand that I couldn’t take any chances! Besides, my chest still smarts!”

... Dammit, Peter.

But when he shoots a webline, she ZOOMS out of the way. Coincidentally. She never even noticed he was there. Monica just found where she needed to head and headed there in a flash.

Spider-Man tries to find where she went by checking the binoculars she was using but the seeing-stuff expired and Spider-Man doesn’t have a quarter. He doesn’t even have a pocket.

A tourist child comes up to the viewing platform and asks who Spider-Man is.

Spider-Man: “No need to panic, kid. I’m Spider-Man.”

Tourist child: “Who’s panickin’? Besides, there ain’t no Spider-Man... my dad says he’s just a hoax the media barons cooked up to sell papers!”

Spider-Man: “I don’t want to argue, but I am Spider-Man. And I need a quarter -- it’s important!”

Tourist child: “I may be from Council Bluffs, but I’m not stupid! If you want a quarter, prove that you’re Spider-Man!”

Is Spider-Man desperate enough to perform for a child like a trained monkey?

Yes. Obviously.

Thankfully, all it takes is climbing up the wall and standing.

He gets his quarter and it didn’t cost too much dignity.

Spider-Man feeds the binoculars a quarter and sees what building Monica was looking at and decides this means trouble!

And swings off.

Leaving tourist child to tell his parents about this.

Tourist child: “Mom! Dad! I just met Spider-Man! Wait’ll I tell the guys back home! No, really, dad -- honest!”

Tourist dad: “Dougie, look out that door! Do you see anything? No. Spider-Man is just a creation of the Eastern establishment!”

Tourist mom: “Harold, I told you we shouldn’t have let him go out there! The air this high is too thin for a growing boy!”

Tourist child Dougie: “Aw, mom!”

Oof, that poor child.

But where is Monica and, much more slowly, Spider-Man heading?

The Baxter Building!

Fantastic Four guest star role?

Mmm, one-quarter of that.

When Monica arrives, the place looks like its been torn apart by some sort of Terrax because that’s what happened. Monica doesn’t know that it was specifically Terrax but she certainly guesses that some kind of battle-axe was to blame.

Only Ben Grimm is present and asks her who the heck she is.

Captain Marvel: “I... I’m Captain Marvel.”

The Thing: “Not unless ya came back from the dead by way of Denmark, ya ain’t! Marv died months ago. ‘Sides, he was a blond.”

Captain Marvel: “There was another Captain Marvel? I - I’m sorry... I didn’t know.”

The Thing: “Aw, don’t sweat it... Marv probably wouldn’t mind. I probably ain’t the only Thing in the world, either!”

I guess Captain Marvel wasn’t a very well-known superhero. Then again, maybe superheroes aren’t very well known outside of New York?

The tourists from Council Bluffs thought Spider-Man was a hoax and Monica was only aware of Spider-Man in a very vague ‘oh right I read about him’ sort of way.

Guess the Avengers and the Fantastic Four are the exceptions.

Anyway, Monica explains the situation to Ben that she might explode like a 1000 megaton bomb.

And unfortunately, Reed Richards Is Useless. Although in this case because he’s off on vacation with Sue at Martha’s Vineyard and there’s no way to reach him in time.

Ben comes up with another idea. Maybe the Avengers can help! Because he knows this is an Avengers liveblog and I need a certain amount of Avengers content or I wouldn’t be here.

Although really its because he has the vague sense that the Avengers seem to have a lot of science savvy.

When Ben punches up a call to the Avengers, Captain Marvel is like ‘kthx’ and zips along the transmission because time is very much a factor here!

Unfortunately frying the radio in the process because it wasn’t intended to take a whole energy person through it.

Spider-Man arrives just after Monica leaves (because see also: Spider-Slowpoke). He asks Ben if he saw her and Ben makes a statement that could, on its face, perhaps be misinterpreted.

The Thing: “See her? She just fried my radio! Dangdest thing I ever saw! She changed into a buncha radio waves and headed for Avengers mansion! I hope they can handle her before she explodes!”

Spider-Man: “Explodes? She explodes too?! She’s more of a menace than I thought!”

Hey. Hey, Peter. I don’t want to hear that from you. There’s a hilarious irony to you saying those words that I don’t think you grasp.

And he swings off to Avengers Mansion to go help deal with this cough menace, not hearing Ben trying to tell him he’s got the wrong idea.

The Mighty Marvel Misunderstanding fight tradition trumps sound waves.

Meanwhile, at Avengers Mansion, Iron Man is sitting down on a nice monitor duty, probably just enjoying the quiet when he receives a priority signal from the Fantastic Four.

SURPRISE ITS MONICA

I think what I like most is that Iron Man has apparently had to tell the FF to stop calling about Galactus.

The Avengers’ systems are also unable to handle the sudden energy discharge of an entire person, so Monica’s arrival messes up the mansion security systems and also Iron Man.

Whoops.

The security stunulators, that the Avengers totally have, suddenly start shooting at Jarvis. So you know they’re messed up because who would want to hurt that delightful man?

Captain Marvel is dismayed to find that bad things have happened because of her and Iron Man is like hey if that tone is sincere, maybe help me out? I’m stuck in my bricked armor, not naming any names, but a tiny spark across the chestplate will reset things.

Except, Captain Marvel can’t exactly dial back that much and that exactly so Iron Man is just stuck waiting for help.

Jarvis arrives to report on the security system and finds Captain Marvel standing over Iron Man. And Monica makes an admission which could, on its face, perhaps be misinterpreted.

Jarvis: “Master Iron Man! We’ve lost power all over the building and... what on Earth?!”

Captain Marvel: “My... my powers shut down his armor.”

Jarvis: “Shameless trollop! The other Avengers will not let this attack go unanswered!”

Geez, Jarvis! Rude!

That is a very impolite thing to say to someone!

Jarvis then runs off to try and find some other Avengers.

And he runs right into Spider-Man who has just arrived (and had to dodge past a crowd that assumes Spider-Man is somehow to blame for whatever is going on. Sucks when people assume the worst of you).

Jarvis doesn’t like to trust Spider-Man, knowing so little about him, but decides he doesn’t have any other choice.

Meanwhile, Captain Marvel is wandering through the hallways of Avengers Mansion. Since she couldn’t jump-start him, Iron Man suggested she lock herself in the adamantium containment chamber that the Avengers totally have in their lab.

Just in case she really does happen to explode.

Good ol’ Iron Man, thinking through the angles. Huh. I wonder if that chamber later gets repurposed into the Zero Chamber that brought Jack of Hearts so much misery before he too exploded.

Spider-Man sneak attacks Captain Marvel, finally getting to web her up. But with a mighty WOOMPF! she blasts free of the webbing.

Spider-Man: “You... you stretched my webbing! Even ripped it in places! But no one this side of the Juggernaut can do that!”

Captain Marvel: “Look, I’m sorry I blasted you earlier! If you want, we can settle accounts later... but not now! My time is running out!”

She does the Solar Flare, like a Goku, but Spider-Man uses the secret move of shutting his eyes. And then grabs her by the upper arms.

This might end the fight against some opponents but not the all-new all-different all-terrific Captain Marvel.

No, the fight ends two panels later. Monica turns her body into electricity so Spider-Man knocks her unconscious once she unzaps.

Hm. Considering she has enough power to blow up a city, she kind of has a glass jaw. Then again, she’s conspicuously trying not to explode. Doesn’t leave a lot of concentration for taking a hit.

Which was heckin’ rude of Pete.

And it happens that aside from being a dick move, this was also a very BAD thing to have done. I’ll let Iron Man sum it up.

Iron Man: “You young fool!”

Hah.

Hooo. Spider-Man is not coming off well in his own dang book, is he? Guess that’s part of being the hype man.

So, off-screen, the Wasp jump-started Iron Man’s armor with her Wasp sting. Because it’s bio-electricity, some of the times.

Iron Man: “The woman you K.O.ed came for help, not as an enemy! Now that she’s unconscious, she could explode any second -- unless we can leach off her excess power.”

Iron Man tells Spider-Man if he wants to make amends, to rip some cable out of the ceiling because of course the Avengers Mansion is riddled with high-induction cable.

Since the only thing they have immediately available that can handle the kind of power they need to siphon is Iron Man, he has Spider-Man wrap the unconscious Marvel in the cables and webs them to Iron Man’s iron nipples, or whatever those lugnuts are for.

In fact, since the webbing is non-conductive, he has Spider-Man cover him in it head to toe except for raised hands.

The Wasp: “Iron Man, are you sure your armor can withstand the stress?”

Iron Man: “No. If this doesn’t work... it’s been nice knowing you, Jan!”

And now Spider-Man, realizing that he triggered this by knocking out Monica and that Iron Man may possibly die from this, feels like a real asshole. A complete kneebiter.

Spider-Man: (Some hero I am! I try to stop what I think is a menace, and wind up causing something even worse. If they die...)

The Wasp: “Uh, Spider-Man? We really should get out of here -- just in case Iron Man can’t contain Captain Marvel’s power.”

Spider-Man: “Captain... Marvel? Did you say Captain Marvel?!?”

The Wasp: “No relation to the old one!”

Spider-Man: “Oh, that’s just dandy! I may have doomed a new Captain Marvel! Wasp, I feel like a total clod!”

And prepare to feel worse, Spider-Man! Because while you were feeling sorry for yourself, the energy has built up so much that there’s no time to actually get to a safe distance!

Spider-Man spins a web-barrier for himself and Wasp but echoes Iron Man’s “nice knowing you” when Wasp asks what happens if it doesn’t hold.

Lotta fatalism on this page.

Within the web cocoon, Iron Man shunts the energy from Captain Marvel into his own armor. And specifically into the repulsor ray generators.

Which is to say that he releases the excess energy by blasting two giant repulsor blasts through the mansion ceiling and into the sky.

I like this plan because its ridiculous.

I mean it works really well. Everybody is alive. The city didn’t explode. But it hinged on Iron Man blasting holes into his own house and into the sky. Today, it was he who was the sky light column as seen in movies.

The Thing finally arrives via cab, expecting that everything has gone to hell if Spider-Man got involved.

And to be fair, he’s not wrong, just arriving at the wrong moment to see the gone to hell. The Avengers have tidied up the hell by this point and are having a hangout sesh.

Everyone is hanging around to meet the new Captain Marvel. Its turned from a calamity to a “Sunday social” to quote Hawkeye.

I like that Captain Marvel and Captain America are shaking hands. And that he calls her captain.

I don’t remember who (probably Hawkeye? Or maybe Wonder Man? Some dick) in a later baseball game crossover between the east coast and West Coast Avengers where whoever refuses to call her Captain because only Captain America is captain in their mind. But Cap is just like ‘hello there fellow captain.’

I see that She-Hulk is back in her Iconic tm Duds of the white torn dress. Artists that weren’t working inside the actual Avengers book just had no idea what she was wearing. I think I can conclude that from a cover, a filler issue, and another book all depicting her in the Savage She-Hulk outfit.

Also, I don’t get the joke she’s making. Anyone have any idea?

Captain Marvel even covers for Spider-Man. When Ben asks her if she got her exploding problem sorted, she thanks the Avengers and Spider-Man.

Spider-Man: (That’s one I owe you, C.M.) “Why so surprised, Benjy? I’m always happy to help out another super-star!”

The Thing: “Well... I guess there’s a first time for everything!”

Time reminds Spider-Man that before this Avengers plot fell into his lap, that he had a Spider-Man plot going on.

Remember?

Harry and Liz arriving by bus?

So he rushes back to the bus stop and finds that nobody has paged Peter Parker while he’s been gone. He figures that Harry and Liz must have gotten tired of waiting and ditched.

But actually, their bus was delayed and they’ve only just now arrived. The timing worked out pretty well actually!

This is one time where, at the end of the day, things worked out for Peter Parker!

I mean. He had to be an asshole to drive the plot but that’s the Peter Parker experience to be honest. He does that sometimes. And today, his making things worse powers were used for good to hype up a new character.

But you can see from that next time box why I needed to cover this issue. Because Captain Marvel is going right from here to being in the Avengers book and this annual is the circumstances for how that happens.

You’re welcome.

I quite like Monica Rambeau. We don’t see a lot of her powers here aside from NYOOM and we don’t see her interact with the Avengers much aside from Iron Man briefly so that’s what I’m looking forward to. More of her become any energy powers and what her dynamic with the Avengers will be like.

I’m hype.

As an intro to her, I’m torn. Her origin was pretty cool. But the present day adventure didn’t let her be as cool because she was just trying not to explode. She did accidentally punk Spider-Man a few times and got the best of some muggers. Its fine.

It just feels like there’s a sudden, jarring shift between the triumphant new hero new powers new costume and even a supporting character and ‘actually i’m going to explode whoops.’

Follow @essential-avengers​. I’ve caught up on reposting by now. You could follow without ever having to interact with my Dark Crystal stuff or my many reblogs of cat stuff. But also maybe like and reblog.

[stolligaseptember]

Senior years, ice kissing and graduations

I'm a mess y’all.

__________________

It was oddly quiet after center ice. Dex, already in full-blown captain’s mode even though he stubbornly denied it to anyone who dared to say so directly to his face (which Nursey had learnt through extensive experience), corralled the rest of the team off to their dorms, making extra sure that the slightly trashed waffles were safely tucked away for the night. Ollie and Wicks had disappeared to their attic to- Nursey is not even going to entertain the rest of that thought, even if it was most likely not even close to as sordid as his sometimes too imaginative brain could run away to. Bitty had just smiled at them all, smile still watery but so, so genuine, before he had locked himself away in his room with his phone at the ready, his thumb most likely already on Jack’s speed dial.

Chowder had clasped Nursey’s shoulder, and Nursey had grasped onto his arm in return, and, for once, Nursey could appreciate the fact that words were redundant. Chowder had smiled at him as he had squeezed Nursey’s shoulder tighter, before explaining that he had to call Cait. Nursey let him go and waved him off, watching him disappear into his room too before stepping into his own, quietly closing the door behind himself.

Just staring into the dark room for a few moments, he then quickly shook the weird tension out of his shoulders and flicked the lights on. This was chill. It was chill.

Picking up some stray socks from the floor and tossing them into his already overfull hamper, he quickly gave up the mental strain of actually trying to be productive, picked up one of the countless of stray books that were always strewn around his room (his room, not theirs, not anymore, hadn’t been for a while now) and then collapsed into his bed, trying very hard not to think of anything at all.

Nursey wasn’t sure of how long he had been reading, was only aware of how the strophes and stanzas had slowly been replaced by the insides of his eyelids as he had quietly succumbed to the pressure of his creeping fatigue, but was quickly startled into awareness by his bedroom door being unceremoniously slammed open.

Letting his book fall the rest of the way down onto his chest, not bothering to bookmark where he had a vague memory of leaving off, he was only a little surprised by the sight that greeted him when he inclined his head to see what the ruckus was about. Dex was marching his way over the threshold as if he owned the place (which he had, once, at least in part), a tight hold on Chowder’s wrist as he was dragging him along. Stalking up to where Nursey was lying in his now lone single bed, Dex pushed very purposefully at Chowder’s shoulders until Chowder gets the hint and expertly climbed over Nursey’s reclined form in order to nestle himself between Nursey and the wall, as if he’d done it a million times before.

(Which he had.)

Dex, meanwhile, collapsed roughly on Nursey’s other side, the three of them really much too large to fit into the slim bed frame, and Dex ended up mostly on top of Nursey, one of his elbows digging into his ribs and Nursey’s abandoned book gliding down to prod painfully somewhere around his hip.

Nursey, halfway crushed under Dex’s weight, only had time to wheeze out a strangled “Wha-” before Chowder looked over at the both of them with a meaningful look.

“Dex is freaking out.”

“Shut up,” was Dex’s immediate reply, but he hadn’t bothered looking up from where he was still sprawled out over Nursey, and his voice lacked any of the heat that signaled that he really meant what he was saying.

Looking over to where Chowder was still getting comfortable on his left, a sight that was so achingly familiar in its normalcy, and to where Dex’s face was still hidden where it was buried in Nursey’s chest, as if they hadn’t been caught up in a silent war all day ever since Nursey had accidentally eaten the last egg at breakfast, the pieces of this abrupt invasion of his living space quickly fell into place.

“So frog cuddle pile it is.”

“Freaking out,” Chowder repeated.

“Shut. Up,” Dex growled, but the effect was entirely lost due to the way he snuggled even deeper into Nursey’s collarbone.

Chowder gave him another meaningful look, and Nursey slowly relaxed back into his pillows, more than accustomed to his role in this particular ritual. Chowder eventually got himself comfortable, the back of his head bumping into Nursey’s own, and Dex continued to just breathe methodically into the hollow of Nursey’s throat.

“So, Dexy,” Nursey slowly started once Dex’s breathing had finally evened out, his fingers quietly dancing through the fiery strands that their owner always so carefully cultivated, a privilege he always cherished during these moments. “What’s the freaking out about?”

Dex didn’t immediately answer, just continued to wordlessly press his face into Nursey’s chest, his steady breathing a soft rhythm against Nursey’s chest. And that, that prolonged silence, would have quietly aggravated Nursey a couple of years ago, hell even just a couple of months ago. Knowing Dex to be perfectly capable of answering, but withholding anyway, spurring Nursey to carefully start needling him, until it wasn’t careful anymore, until it was actively egging him and he would be pushing all of Dex’s wrong buttons and they’d be headfirst into a full blown fight with Nursey barely knowing how they ended up there.

But, they’d changed. They’d grown. They’d learned. It sounded ridiculous, that a few short months could change so much, but they had.

If anyone had told Nursey at the start of the year that Dex would end up as his new captain by a unanimous vote he would probably have laughed in their face. And yet. Here they were.

Dex eventually exhaled sharply before propping his chin up on Nursey’s chest, staring deeply into Nursey’s wall, as if it held all the secrets of the universe.

“That’s going to be us next year.”

And wasn’t that opening up the big black hole that Nursey had done his best of skirting around all night. Giving thoughts words meant giving them life, and this was one of those thoughts that Nursey had wanted to keep buried deep, deep underground in the depths of his subconscious for as long as humanly possible.

But this cuddle pile wasn’t for his benefit, as so he just smiled as he wound his finger’s a little more firmly into Dex’s hair.

“Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself there, Poindexter?” he asked, tugging lightly on the fine strands between his fingers. Dex immediately rewarded him with his cutting glare. “You might want to actually start your captain tenure before you start thinking about kissing the ice.”

“Shut up,” Dex ground out, but even to Nursey’s ears, which were attuned to catching every single nuance of Dex’s aggravations, it almost sounded fond.

“We’ll stick together though, won’t we?” Moving as one, something they rarely did out of skates or off the ice, they both looked over to Chowder, and Nursey was surprised to be met with a delicateness that they hadn’t seen or heard in years. It was so easy to forget, with how strong and sure of himself he had become these last couple of years, that Chowder was just as unsure of the future as the rest of them were at times. “Even if we end up in different parts of the country? We’ll still stick together, right?”

Not bearing to see that insecure look on his face even a second longer, Nursey couldn’t help but grin at him too.

“’Course we will,” he said as he scooted down lower into the bed, winding his free arm around Chowder’s shoulders and made use of the hand he still had in Dex’s hair to pull his head down onto his chest again. “We might be Wellies for life, but this” he said, gesturing as well as he could with his chin at the little triangle of them, “we’ll be frogs forever.”

Chowder chuckled softly, and it was one of those sounds that Nursey knew he would remember for the rest of his life, before he also scooted down lower until his position mirrored that of Dex’s, resting his head on that soft spot between Nursey’s collarbone and armpit. “I like that.”

“Just promise me we won’t name next year’s batch something ridiculous,” Dex said, his eyes already closed as he shifted more neatly onto his side, fitting himself more naturally against Nursey, and Nursey noticed that his book was no longer digging into his hip.

“No can do, captain, my captain,” he replied, smiling down at him, and for once didn’t have a single goddamn care if it was loopy. “We’ve got traditions to uphold.”

Dex grunted unhappily, but didn’t otherwise protest as he finally stilled, having gotten as comfortable as was possible while all three of them crammed together in Nursey’s tiny bed.

Nursey had half a mind asking if it wasn’t better if they moved this down to Dex’s alleged 5-star resort, but was sidetracked by Chowder’s whispered “I love you guys” as he also finally settled.

And nestled in between these two guys that he, frankly, was also quite ridiculously fond of, Nursey finally allowed the quiet of the night get to him too. He was careful not to skirt too closely to thoughts of senior years and ice kissing and graduations, but with Chowder’s weight next to him and the feeling of Dex’s hair under his fingertips, it was easier than he ever could have imagined.

Actually, letting sleep finally overtake him that night was the easiest thing he had ever done.

[touchmycoat]

kinktober: day 7

I am LATE. Working on the Marco-centric piece and got all the fragments. Just shifting them around until they do what I want ;; So here’s another cop-out fic (but I’m genuinely wanting to develop this into a stupid romcom situation)

References @watermelon-chan‘s BEAUTIFUL fuckable!Marco design

Day 7: massage

Ace’s moans of pleasure got quickly out of hand. And, Sabo thought incredulously, checking the clock on his phone, it’s been all of five minutes.

“Here?”

“Yeah, yeah that’s g—Oh, motherFUCKER—”

“Alright.” Sabo punctuated his interruption with a loud slam of the backroom door. “That’s enough.”

“Something wrong?” the massage therapist—goddamn Marlboro or whatever the fuck his name was—had the audacity to ask, all innocent-like.

“Sabo,” Ace grunted into the hole in the bed, where his face was no doubt distended stupidly like the stupid fucker he was. “You’ve gotta give Marco a go. His hands are magical.”

“This is a place of business,” Sabo hissed, channeling all his rage and stress and something fucking else at the only righteous cause on hand. He jabbed a finger in Mobert's direction. “Tone it down.”

“Me?” The guy was just a massage therapist, not a surgeon like he was all pretending to be, holding his hands up like that, glistening with oil. At least they were off of Ace's body now, which was absolutely what mattered. “Shall I just do my job less well then yoi?”

“Don't you dare!” came Ace's protest, the bloody traitor. He hadn't even bothered lifting his face from the pillow. “Put your hands back right now!”

“I think your boyfriend's gonna rip my hands off if I do,” Medward drawled, fixing Sabo with a flat, unimpressed look. That, flatteringly, was what got Ace's head up.

“He's my agent.” Oh how Sabo loved it when Ace corrected strangers so vehemently about the nature of their relationship. It would really convince any stranger that Ace had nothing but absolutely platonic feelings for Sabo. That was Ace—the best MMA fighter in the country and a phenomenal actor. It could break Sabo's heart. “Not my boyfriend.”

Whatever Sabo's expression was giving away, Marrison had the actual audacity to look sorry for Sabo, hands still hovering. Sabo quickly schooled his face into something more appropriate for the situation; that is, a cool snarl for the massage therapist, whose expression morphed immediately back to unimpressed.

“C'mon Sabo,” Ace was beginning to whine. Sabo busied himself with staring Monathan down instead of meeting those eyes turned big and beseeching. “We only have him booked for half an hour. And my shoulder actually still kinda hurts.”

The massage must've been really damn good, if Ace was pulling out the big guns already to get Sabo to capitulate. And capitulate Sabo did, clenching his fists so he didn't flip off fucking Mephistopheles over there with the trendy haircut and stupidly buff forearms. That'd be unprofessional, and definitely grounds for a bad Yelp review—Koala and Nami would absolutely kill him.

“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. Mamanda looked immediately smug, until Sabo yanked one of the chairs lining the side of the room forward, slamming himself down onto it with vicious abandon. “But I'm staying.”

“Wha—”

“Sure!”

Mister Forearms-with-the-Trimmed-Beard looked down at the back of Ace's head, mouth agape.

“Wouldn't you be more relaxed with your agent not in the room yoi?” he tried to coax.

“Nah, Sabo's great,” Ace hummed happily, with all the cheeriness of a man who thought every problem was uncomplicatedly resolved. “We're good in here.”

“I—”

“What's wrong?” Sabo goaded, “performance issues with an audience?”

“I am a professional,” Mantucket breathed, brows all furrowed and his big masculine face looking all serious as he started kneading at Ace's back again. Little happy huffs of pleasure were already coming from the direction of Ace's head. “I don't need a chaperone yoi.”

Especially not one as belligerent as you. Sabo heard that loud and clear.

“Professional,” Sabo snorted. “Is that what you call being fully erect since you walked in?”

“Sabo—!”

“Okay, I've had enough.”

Massage therapist was across the room in the space of a blink, wiping his hands clean on a towel and hoisting his bag up at the same time with motions of controlled fury. Ace, scrambling upright, was glaring at Sabo too (but not before, Sabo noted with satisfaction, guiltily eyeing the front of Micycle's pants, where of course there was no inappropriate sign of sexual attraction that Sabo was sure the douchebag felt toward Ace, because who wouldn't).

“Marco, wait—” Clearly realizing that this wasn't something that could be resolved in the moment (not unless Sabo did something drastic and completely unnecessary, like apologize), Ace sighed awkwardly and scratched the back of his head. “I really am sorry. Um, I'll stay in touch?”

“Figuratively speaking,” Sabo couldn't help but add, inspiring a loud scoff of incredulity from Marco the Massage Therapist, the damn bastard who had to come in and be good at his job and get all those noises out of Ace all while looking like that. Never mind Sabo had called him first. Asshole had it coming.

Ace flung a towel at Sabo's face, and Sabo didn't dodge it. Out of respect for Ace.

“If I pick up the phone and he's on the other end, that's it yoi,” Marco warned Ace, standing at the door. “I'll speak to you as my patient. That's it.”

“...Okay, thank you for your time today!” Ace called weakly, as Marco's back (and what a stupidly thin shirt he was wearing) retreated down the hallway. His smile dropped away, the moment Marco was out of sight. “Great. Sabo. You dick.”

“I was protecting your virtue from an obvious creep, you're welcome.”

“Creep—you're crazy! Okay, fine, maybe I shouldn't have been yelling so loud, but he's honestly, really, truly the best one you've ever hired! That knot that's bothered me for ages? He got it out in seconds!” With a deep and beleaguered sigh, Ace flopped back onto the bed, torso still bare and vaguely glistening with oil. Sabo swallowed. “Great. Now I'll never get a good massage again for as long as I live.”

“You're such a drama queen.” And because Sabo loved Ace, he let the appropriate amount of irony suffuse his tone, getting a little chuckle in response. “Hand it here then.”

A quirked eyebrow. “What?”

“The massage oil.” Cracking his knuckles, Sabo approached the massage table, trying to examine Ace's toned body with a critical eye, not the eyes of some jerk inappropriately lusting after a man way out of his league. Marco really was a creep. “If that scrawny little man can do it, so can I.”

[cryptidkieren]

come around (4/6)

hi guys!! im sorry this took so long to get out, but these chapters are steadily getting longer (over 5000 on this one alone!!) and im working 2 jobs so balancing all that has been fun :)

yesterday was my BIRTHDAY so i cranked out the last 2000 words to get it out asap

hope you like it! 💛💛

ao3 link

-----

Crowley slept for a week and a half.

Aziraphale barely left his side during the first few days. He was strung as tight as a bow, his anxiety through the roof, as he waited for Heaven or Hell to come after them.

They didn’t, though, thank- someone.

By the time the angel finally calmed down enough to roam the apartment freely, Crowley’s wounds had healed completely. Only a thin white scar was left of the gaping wound on his chest, thankfully, though he knew the demon would be cross. Having gone close to 300 years without another miraculously healed injury would leave him a bit sour now that his streak was broken. Removing scars from their corporations that were healed with divine (or occult, on occasion) powers was difficult, so it was better in the long run to leave them be.

Aziraphale was prepared to deal with his pouting and snark, only because he knew how close Crowley had come to total destruction.

In his weaker moments, Aziraphale wished he had laid waste to Hastur that day in the alley for daring to harm his demon. The guilt would come rushing in, of course, even though he knew it was more than the revolting demon deserved.

He was less guilty about the righteous anger he felt towards the Archangels.

The angel didn’t know when they would come for him after the stunt he pulled with Uriel’s dagger, but he knew it would happen like he knew how he would react.

Aziraphale had chosen his side, after all, and nothing would get in his way of protecting Crowley.

-----

The day before the Winter Solstice, Crowley finally woke up.

Aziraphale had just returned to the sparse flat after checking in at the book shop, a take out cup of tea steaming in his hand, when saw his companion shuffling out of the bedroom. He nearly dropped the cup when he saw how the demon looked.

Crowley looked like death warmed over, his skin paler than normal from being inside for so long. His hair was a right mess and he was still without a shirt, his dark boxers slung low on his hips. The late afternoon sun streamed through the picture windows of the living room, setting the entire apartment ablaze in warm golden light.

He imagined this was a glimpse of what Crowley was like before he Fell.

“‘Lo, ‘Ziraphale,” he yawned, completely oblivious to Aziraphale’s inner turmoil. The demon lurched towards him suddenly, forcing a very undignified noise out of the angel.

The paper cup was stolen from his hand as Aziraphale blushed hotly, silently cursing his racing heart to Hell and back. Crowley hummed as he sipped on the tea, grimacing comically when he swallowed.

“Ugh, you always make your tea too sweet, angel.” The demon peered at him, his amber eyes still a little foggy with sleep. His cheeks were a bit flushed, faint pillow creases marking one side of his face, good Lord- “Why’re you so red? You alright?”

“It’s cold!” Aziraphale blurted out in a panic as his heart practically beat out of his chest. “Very cold, yes! Wasn’t very prepared, to be honest, those winds could sweep someone off their feet!”

Crowley scrutinized him a moment longer before appearing to accept the explanation, as inane as it was. The angel felt his ears burn as chagrin filled him, pressing a hand to his face before following the demon into the kitchen.

Propped up on the high bar stools at the island counter, Crowley sat hunched over the warm cup, the plastic lid tossed to the side. He looked about ready to fall back to sleep, despite how long he had been out already.

“How are you feeling, Crowley?” Aziraphale asked as he struggled to get onto the next seat at the counter. This happened every time, they were too bloody tall-

The demon snorted as he watched the angel wrestle himself onto the stool. “Loads better, honestly. Though I’m not really digging the new addition, if you know what I mean.” He gestured to the long scar across his chest with a sneer.

“I don’t think it’s terrible,” Aziraphale puffed, slightly out of breath from his battle with the chair. “It’s dashing, I think. Though I suppose you’re pleased that the one on your arm is gone.”

He reached over to touch the area of Crowley’s bicep where the cut had previously been. The skin there was perfect, as if nothing had happened in the first place. Non-miraculously healed injuries that befell them usually disappeared without a trace after a few days, so after taking out the stitches a day later, the demon was right as rain.

Aziraphale suddenly realized he was stroking the area where the injury had occupied and felt a wave of embarrassment wash over him. He glanced up at the demon, his cheeks flaming, as he stuttered out an apology. Crowley seemed a bit red himself as he bit into his bottom lip and turned his head away.

It was stiflingly quiet between them for a moment, the angel’s awkwardness growing by the second.

“Well!” Aziraphale yelped, a few octaves higher than he would’ve liked. “It’s good you woke up when you did, my dear, since Anathema’s party is tomorrow night!”

“Is it really?” Crowley sounded just like he always did, if a bit choked. The angel felt his heart drop a bit at the clear intent to dismiss what just happened. It was what he wanted, of course, but…

“I can’t believe I let Hastur, of all people, catch me by surprise and send me into a week long coma,” the demon lamented, almost knocking over the tea when he dropped his head into his hand dramatically.

“It was a week and a half, actually,” Aziraphale interrupted softly. He picked up the discarded cup lid to fiddle with, but mostly so he wouldn’t have to look the demon in the eyes. “A very long week and a half, but only just that. It could’ve been much worse.”

Crowley was silent for a short time after that. So when a cool hand covered his own, it forced Aziraphale to look up at his companion. His eyes swam with regret and fondness and- something else the angel couldn’t name.

“I am sorry, Aziraphale, for putting you through that,” the demon said equally softly. “But I’m just as glad that you were there. I don’t think any other angel could’ve scared Hastur so completely.”

Aziraphale smiled at the demon’s grin, patting his hand gently and, after a second of hesitation, dared to leave it there. “I’m glad I was there too, dear. Now, let’s head to the parlour to wrap these presents before tomorrow finds us. I waited for you.”

Crowley’s smile widened as his eyes sparkled with mischief, the sheer beauty of him making the angel lose his breath. Before he knew it, the demon had taken off towards the living room, where the presents had been piled high when the angel had nothing better to do.

Aziraphale found his lost breath and heaved a sigh, following after his demon. Crowley was going to be the death of him, he was sure.

-----

The following morning was hectic, to say the least. They had both fallen asleep on the living room rug, empty wine glasses knocked over and bits of wrapping paper strewn about. Aziraphale had been so relieved to have his friend back that the exhaustion that had plagued him from the day in the alley caught up, knocking him unconscious for the first time in a few decades after a glass too many. All of the presents had to be piled into the back of the Bentley, completely blocking the rear window, to Aziraphale’s distress.

Crowley had reassured him (“It’ll be fine, angel, I’ve been driving since they invented the car!”) but the angel wasn’t convinced.

They were on the road shortly after, though not before coming to a sort of compromise to keep them both sane during the trip. The music would be a touch louder than Aziraphale liked it, while Crowley drove a few notches slower than he preferred (if only to protect his leather armrests from the angel’s whiteknuckled grip).

Once they left London proper, the scenery flew by. The rolling green hills that usually surrounded the road were covered in powdery snow. It was almost blindingly white in the midmorning sun, making everything feel like a storybook.

It was peaceful, in a way their lives hadn’t been since moving to London all those centuries ago. The complete absence of towering buildings, the smell of the streets, and the ever present aura of so many people in one place was staggering compared to the open, quiet hills of the country.

Aziraphale’s thoughts aimlessly drifted during the ride. Crowley was surprisingly silent, only humming idly along with the long standing Queen tape. Before they knew it, the small sign for Tadfield village was upon them and they were rolling down the ancient cobbled streets.

Jasmine Cottage was as lovely as ever, even in the dead of winter. The expected greenery that surrounded the house was replaced with bare branches and copious amounts of snow. A large evergreen wreath, strung with holly, sprigs of rosemary, and white ribbon, hung on the front door. It sang of home: a warm meal, fire in the hearth, a good conversation deep into the night.

A group of bicycles were haphazardly piled by the front gate. The beginnings of a snowman stood off in the garden, where two heavily clothed figures were pushing the vague approximation of the head. The other two children in the garden were engaged in what looked to be a snowball fight to the death. A scream of laughter was heard as snow was pushed down the back of a coat.

Aziraphale smiled, catching Crowley’s eye across the center console as they pulled up to park. The demon had his own smile, a touch fonder than his own. He always knew Crowley had a soft spot for children, but it was especially tender for this group.

A chorus of “Mr. Crowley! Mr. Zira!” erupted as they clambered out of the Bentley. The two beings were almost tossed into the snow when the Them made impact, their hugs tight enough combined to knock the wind out of them.

“Hello, children!” wheezed Aziraphale, grinning widely through the pain. His hands came up to pat the two heads closest to him, which happened to be Pepper and Wensleydale. He heard Crowley issue a similar greeting to Adam and Brian, who had clung just as tightly to the demon. “Would you mind releasing me? Getting a tad hard to breathe, you see.”

“Actually,” Wensleydale started, causing Pepper to groan next to him. Thankfully, they let go of the angel before the boy got started on his expected commentary. “If you were really asphyxiating, your body would prioritize getting air into your lungs before speaking, so if you can talk you have plenty of air.”

“That’s fascinating, my boy,” Aziraphale tugged the boy’s hat down his forehead, eliciting a giggle. “I’ll keep that in mind next time I find myself struggling for air.”

Pepper snorted. “You’re an angel, Mr. Zira, it’s not like you need to breathe anyway.”

“Well, when you’ve up kept a habit for close to 6,000 years, it’s hard to break.”

“Quite right on that, angel,” Crowley smirked at him, causing the angel to roll his eyes back. “How’s things inside, Adam? Christmas in full swing and whatnot?”

“Oh, don’t call it Christmas, please,” Brian begged. The other children nodded solemnly around him, looking far too haunted. “Anathema will be very cross if you call it Christmas.”

“He’s right, you know,” called the woman in question, startling everyone gathered in the front garden. She smirked at them from her position of leaning against one of the posts by the door, appearing quite pleased with herself. Her long, dark hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, curls spilling about freely, as her sweater-clad shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. “Now, come inside before you all freeze to death. Don’t think I didn’t see you shove snow down Pepper’s jacket, Brian.”

Crowley and Aziraphale exchanged looks before ushering the children indoors. The presents that had taken over the backseat of the Bentley were miraculously placed under the modest size pine tree in the front room, but who could really tell how they got there?

Anathema and Newton had really outdone themselves, though the angel had nothing to base it against. The cottage was warm and homey, the smell of cooking meat and vegetables mixing pleasantly with the burning fire in the hearth. Boughs of evergreen and vines of ivy braided with red or white ribbon consisted of most of the decorations, though Aziraphale warily eyed the sprig of mistletoe hanging in the doorway of the living room; he would have to keep himself on his toes not to get caught under it.

“Wow,” remarked Crowley, peering above his glasses at the decorations. His eye seemed to have caught on the mistletoe, too. “Looks great.”

“Oh, Newt actually did most of the decorating,” Anathema called from the kitchen, where the children had followed after shedding their outerwear at the door. Aziraphale knew the demon well enough to know he rolled his eyes at their mess before snapping his fingers, all of the coats hung up and the snow boots neatly lined against the wall. Their own coats were also magically off them and onto the hooks on the walls. Chuckling, the angel led him after the group and into the very messy kitchen.

Bowls were strewn about the counters, spoons abandoned in their own sticky mess, flour dusted almost everything in sight, and there was Newton, standing at the stove with a spatula and a grin for the newcomers. “So glad you two could make it, considering London is so far.”

“Pah,” Crowley scoffed dramatically, prompting a round of giggles from the children and a fond smile from the angel beside him. “Nothing is too far for the Bentley, Newton.”

“Newt, please, Mr. Fell.”

“Then it’s Crowley to you, Newt,” The two shook hands, all very manly like. Aziraphale had to stifle a laugh.

“Well, now that we’ve introduced ourselves again,” Anathema rolled her eyes, though her grin gave her away. “Does anyone want wine?”

Aziraphale and Crowley graciously accepted glasses, while the children were given a stern look from the witch when they asked for the same. They were each given sparkling cider instead, so there were no further complaints.

The small group drank quietly for a moment before Anathema set down her glass.

“Alright then, does anyone want to help me decorate the tree?”

Predictably, the Them jumped at the request, running and shouting their way back to the living room. The sound of something glass shattering echoed back to the adults just as the witch yelled “Don't’ run in the house!” She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose under her glasses before pointing a severe finger at her boyfriend.

“We’re not having children any time soon.”

Newt only blinked, squeaking out a small “Yes, dear,” before the woman stormed off after the group of children.

Aziraphale grabbed the forgotten wine glass, watching as Crowley chuckled and turning Newt back to the stove firmly. Before the angel followed after Anathema, he heard his companion ask “How can you operate a stove without it exploding? I thought all machines were your enemy.”

The young man’s reply went unheard, instead drowned out by four pre-teens all loudly talking over each other. Aziraphale paused as he reached the doorway to the parlour, his smile growing as he watched this little group of humans they had claimed.

Anathema, her arms crossed tightly and her expression dark, only had to raise a hand to gain complete silence. A broken picture frame laid at her feet, the shards of glass scattered on the worn wood.

“I don’t want excuses,” she said quietly, since she had all of their attention. “I just want to know who broke it.”

A moment of stillness, the hesitance palpable in the air, before Adam stepped forward.

“I-I did, I’m sorry,” he murmured. He kept his eyes averted from hers, absolutely radiating regret and shame.

Anathema crouched a bit to be on eyelevel with the boy. She caught his gaze by ducking her head, a small smile on her face. “And what have we learned from this?”

“Not to run in the house…?”

“Right!” The witch’s smile widened as she stood back up. All of the children looked confused.

“You’re- You’re not going to yell? That I broke the picture?” Adam asked. His dark eyebrows were knit together, his nose scrunching up.

Anathema just put her hands on her hips. “Of course not. You already know you did something wrong and you apologized for it, so what would yelling accomplish? I’d just hurt my throat and it’s Solstice! No one should be sad today!”

Aziraphale hid his smile behind his glass, twitching his fingers to fix the broken frame. It flew back onto the table it previously occupied, the glass perfectly intact. A beautiful picture of Tonantzin, the Native Mexican goddess, sat in the frame.

The woman glanced back at him, her smile still in place as she nodded in thanks. She turned back to the group, who were inspecting the perfectly fine picture frame. “Do you guys want to set up the candles to burn later? You can make the shape whatever you want, as long as it connects together.”

The children wholeheartedly agreed to the task, immediately getting to work on the pile of long candles on the coffee table.

The angel handed Anathema her glass of wine when she joined him by the doorway. Her smile was bright as they watched the Them argue about what sort of shape they should make.

“They’re quite the handful, eh?” Aziraphale nudged her with a grin of his own.

The woman laughed into her glass. “Yeah, but they’re good kids. They’ve been helping me get this place together on the weekends.”

“I must say, you’re quite good with them,” the angel sipped at his wine, his smile fond as Brian and Adam broke out in a candlestick sword fight. “You’ll make a fantastic mother, should you choose to have any of your own.”

Anathema blushed, her smile growing wider as she looked at him. “Do you think so? Newt and I are young still, but I think I might want kids someday. Especially if they turn out like this lot.” She gestured to the children with her glass. Her eyes, hidden behind her circular glasses, were bright with emotion.

Aziraphale felt his chest tighten as he watched this young woman who he had come to admire and respect. One of his hands came up to lightly rest on her shoulder, bringing her attention back to him. “Of course I do, my dear. You and Newton will make wonderful, if entertaining, parents one day. You don't need a prophecy to tell you that.” He patted her shoulder gently as she hid her grin in her wine.

“My mother would kill me if I didn’t have a binding ceremony first. She’s still a little old fashioned that way.” Anathema giggled, her blush not receding the slightest. “What about you and Crowley, though? How long have you been married?”

Now it was the angel’s turn to flush in embarrassment. “Ah- Well, we’re not actually m-married.”

The woman raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Oh? Are you two just not for it? That’s understandable.”

“W-We’re actually not… Together. Like that. Romantically.”

At that, Anathema’s brows tried to merge with her hairline. “Really? That’s honestly quite- Oh, the invitation must have confused you both, sorry about that. I just assumed-”

“No no, it’s no problem, my dear,” Aziraphale waved off her apology, desperately trying to hide his burning face in his wine glass.

He knew it was over for him when a suspicious look entered Anathema’s eye.

“So… Does he know that you’re obviously in love with him?”

Aziraphale choked on his wine, briefly drawing the attention of the children. They quickly went back to their job when they saw he was alright. The witch hadn’t taken her eyes off him, cataloguing his reaction stoically.

“I-I don’t-”

All she had to do to cut the angel off was lift one of her dark brows, in a move quite reminiscent of Crowley. A moment passed between them, a battle of wills; one that Aziraphale quickly lost with a noisy sigh.

“He… Doesn’t. Feel that way about me, you see.”

Anathema then, to the angel’s surprise, snorted in disbelief. “Are you blind? He so obviously looks at you like you hung the moon, Aziraphale.”

“He really does,” piped in Adam from the couch. The other three nodded vigorously behind him. “That is, if you’re talking about Mr. Crowley. Though I suppose he would be quite put out if another person looked at you like my parents look at each other. I know my dad gets huffy when guys talk to my mom like he does.”

The angel buried his burning face in his hands, the drained wine glass hanging from his fingers. Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, Crowley’s voice was suddenly right next to him.

“Alright then, what’s going on in here?”

The room was silent, no one was even breathing, before the Them broke out into giggles.

Aziraphale raised his eyes from his hands, looking at the group of humans in confusion. Even Anathema and the freshly washed Newt were chuckling. The only one who wasn’t was Crowley, who looked just as confounded as him.

Crowley. Who was standing next to the angel. Under the living room doorway.

They both seemed to understand at the same moment, tilting their heads back to gaze at the pretty sprig of mistletoe hanging above them. Aziraphale felt his already blushing cheeks positively ignite just as Crowley’s face did the same.

They blinked at each other, a moment of embarrassed hesitation passing between them, before the demon scoffed.

Aziraphale felt gentle fingers on his chin tugging him towards his companion. His own fingers tightened rather involuntarily around the delicate stem of his empty wine glass. This wasn’t how the angel imagined how their first kiss would go-

“Relax, angel,” murmured Crowley, only inches from his face. His wine-laced breath was warm where it hit Aziraphale’s mouth. The angel felt faint, as he was reminded of the similar encounter they had in the former St. Beryl convent, as mortifying as that was. If the demon didn’t do something, he was going to-

A soft pair of lips firmly pressed against his cheek, just beside his mouth. Crowley pulled away with a loud ‘smack!’ which caused the children to start laughing again. The demon looked entirely too pleased with himself.

“Did you lot really think I’d give you a free show?”

The front door opened behind them suddenly, allowing the figures of Shadwell and Madame Tracey in from the cold. The two newcomers hadn’t immediately noticed the gathering, as Shadwell was complaining about something or other in his rough brogue.

When they did notice the group, all staring at the two red faced supernatural beings, Madame Tracey only quirked a smile while her companion looked at them in confusion. “Ay, what’s all this, then? Yer waitin’ for a photo or what?”

-----

The rest of the evening passed rather comfortably after that. Wine and tea were given to the older couple and presents were passed around. The group of children gathered the most, of course, but everyone got at least one present from their otherworldly friends.

Anathema in particular was delighted by the ancient pagan books Aziraphale had gifted her, swearing to keep them safe and preserved under her care. The talisman Crowley gave her and Newt to protect the cottage against anyone who wished to do them harm was also greeted with equal enthusiasm.

Aziraphale had to nudge the demon with a grin for that one. Crowley only responded with a huff, his cheeks coloring as he muttered about “necessary precautions.”

Dinner was marvelous, though a bit pedestrian by the angel’s usual standards. Newt had turned out to be a very proficient cook, though the amount of compliments he received turned him bashful. The wine flowed as much as the laughter did, smaller pairs or groups having several conversations at once.

They continued to drink, popping open the bottle of champagne that Madame Tracey had brought around sunset. Someone had put on music at some point, soft guitar and piano mixing together to create a cozy atmosphere, though Aziraphale couldn’t tell who did to save his life.

He was comfortably chatting with Anathema and Madame Tracey in the living room when he saw Crowley flapping his arms around in a strange dance with the children. Adam and Pepper were the best at the dance, from what the angel could tell, though Wensleydale and Brian were nowhere near as bad as Crowley.

Aziraphale snorted into his half empty glass. “C-Crowley, dear, what on earth are you doing?”

“It’s called a ‘flosser!’” The demon was grinning widely, his glasses abandoned at some point in the evening, allowing his slitted eyes to sparkle with amusement.

Pepper sniggered as the boys groaned around her. “It’s not ‘flosser,’ Mr. Crowley! It’s ‘flossing!’”

The group on the couch devolved into giggles as Crowley dramatically rolled his eyes, his hips still swinging out of time with his arms and making him look quite foolish. The children continued to perform their strange dance when the demon broke off from the line, tossing himself inelegantly to sit at Aziraphale’s feet. His back was warm and solid against the angel’s shins.

Aziraphale quickly found his glass emptied.

The music on the radio changed just as the Them abandoned their dance in lieu of playing their half finished board game. Crowley, who the angel assumed had fallen asleep since he hadn’t moved in a bit, perked up as a gentle guitar sounded through the machine. He tilted his head back with a wicked grin, essentially planting it in Aziraphale’s lap.

“Want to show them real dancing, angel?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale blinked in surprise, a little woozy from the amount of glasses he had emptied during the visit. “I don’t th-think I’ll be up to a gavotte currently, dear. Think I might’ve had a tad too much.” He wiggled his glass with a smile, making Anathema and Madame Tracey laugh next to him.

Crowley rolled his eyes as he stood, taking the still wiggling glass from the angel’s hands. “That’s not dancing, Aziraphale, no one wants to see that.” It was quickly passed off to one of the women and suddenly the angel was pulled to his feet.

He stumbled a bit on the rug, firm hands holding onto his arms and keeping him upright. Crowley smirked at him as they stood in the middle of the room. “C’mon now, angel, you never let me teach you the waltz in the 17th century! You owe me!”

“I don’t believe there’s enough room for a waltz, Crowley,” Aziraphale raised an eyebrow at the demon, trying to hold in his laughter at the silly excuse. He knew how much Crowley enjoyed dancing, making up crazier and more inappropriate dance trends as the centuries went on just to get a laugh. “Not quite a ballroom in Versailles, I’m afraid.”

“We’ll make due,” the demon nodded decisively, already reaching for the angel’s waist.

Aziraphale suddenly realised how bad of an idea this was.

“Ah- Well- I can’t really dance, you see,” he stuttered out as one of his hands was captured in Crowley’s own. The demon only stared at him blankly, looking unimpressed. Aziraphale held out for a moment, trying to convince him to let it go, before sighing and giving in.

Crowley’s shoulder was firm under his hand, the angel couldn’t help but notice. He tried to hide his warm face by staring at their feet.

The demon spun them in a slow, easy box step, murmuring encouragement as they went. Aziraphale eventually gained confidence after not stepping on his partner’s foot, allowing Crowley to speed up the dance to match the music.

Anathema and Newt joined them after a few minutes, spinning around in circles and laughing instead of actually dancing the waltz. Madame Tracey could be heard trying to convince Shadwell to dance, to no avail. Soon, though, the older woman was led in by Adam, making everyone smile.

The ethereal and occult pair eventually slowed their dance, only rocking in a slow circle in one spot. They had moved quite close together and Aziraphale, in all his tipsy brilliance, had rested his head against Crowley’s shoulder. He was very comfortable, if a bit bony.

“This is nice,” the angel sighed, his eyes closed. He felt more than heard the demon chuckle.

“It is,” he agreed. His voice was softer than normal, a touch deeper. Aziraphale quite liked it. “And we could’ve been doing it this whole time, too.”

Aziraphale hummed. The combination of the alcohol, the slow dance, and Crowley’s warmth was lulling him to sleep, so he chalked up the kiss he felt on his brow to his impending dreams.

“I think it’s time to go, darling,” the demon whispered. They had stopped dancing, standing in the living room wrapped up in each other. The angel hummed again, already half asleep in Crowley’s arms.

He heard a soft laugh as an arm wrapped around his waist, tugging him along. Murmured voices surrounded Aziraphale as he was moved through the cottage, his steps stumbling and clunky.

He woke a bit more when a blast of cold air hit him square in the face. They had gotten outside, his coat somehow on without his input. The full moon above them provided ample light to see, though they didn’t really need it. The snow shined in the light, making everything else seem washed out in comparison. It was quite beautiful, even the half asleep angel could recognize that.

Crowley helped him get into the Bentley, actually lifting his feet into the car when Aziraphale forgot to.

“Honestly, angel, I can’t take you anywhere,” he joked, his breath coming out in little puffs of steam. His skin was white in the moonlight, glowing like the snow that surrounded them. ‘He's quite beautiful, isn't he,’ thought the angel distantly.

The demon started to move back to close the door when Aziraphale reached for him.

“We should stay,” the angel muttered.

“What? Stay? You’re about to pass out.”

“Hmm, no, not stay stay, but get out of the city.”

Crowley was silent, causing Aziraphale to pry his eyes open (when did they close?) to see what was wrong. He was just standing there, the angel’s hand still on his wrist, looking- hopeful? Confused? Oh, he was too tired for subtlety.

“I’m asking you to run away to the country with me, Crowley.” Aziraphale grinned sleepily at him, his eyes already sliding shut again. The angel felt his hand taken off Crowley and tucked gently into his lap. He was drifting off again when he felt something brush against his cheek, almost lovingly, and a sigh.

The door was shut and the driver’s side opened, the engine rumbling to life under them. The cab was immediately filled with heated air, forcing the angel to fall further into sleep.

Before succumbing totally to his dreams, Aziraphale swore he felt fingers lace through his own and another soft sigh from beside him.

The angel was asleep before he knew it.

-----

[beginning] // [previous chapter] // [next chapter]

[everlarkficquestions]

Sunday Stumped Day 26

It’s another Sunday Stumped Day.

Sometimes we straight out get stumped.  So each week on Sunday we’ll post of a list of asks that we need your help on.

If you have an answer to any of these shoot us a message/ask/reply with the Post number and the fic number and we’ll add it and give you a shout out with our thanks. Any links you can provide will also be super helpful.

Thanks!

Post 1 , Post 2 , Post 3, Post 4, Post 5, Post 6, Post 7, Post 8, Post 9, Post 10, Post 11, Post 12, Post 13, Post 14, Post 15, Post 16, Post 17, Post 18, Post 19, Post 20, Post 21, Post 22 , Post 23, Post 24, and Post 25 can be found here - and there are still fics we need your help with.

413.  kloryu9 said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi! Do you know of any fics in which Haymitch and Katniss are the ones that go to the quarter quell? Thanks!

FOUND!  Here are a few:

Hope In the Darkness That I Will See the Light - deathmallow

Sacrifice - HungerGamesLoverr

Portrait of a Victor - sponsormusings (Must be logged in to read)

What if Haymitch went into the Quarter Quell instead of Peeta? -                 fandomnerd66   (Hayniss)

miniature rock dwellers - openended        

Ravenous  - kellybellefiction                  

A Tribute’s Strength  -  HooperMolly  

Blood and Ashes -  by lovegameofthrones. Unfortunately it is no longer available.

Thank you @shesasurvivor

414.  wan4life said to everlarkficquestions:

Looking for a fic where Peeta gets the courage to talk to Katniss in school and they slowly start dating before the games. It's a complete fic. Everything is the same but Peeta has more courage to talk to her.

FOUND!

Last Wish by  Alliswell

My First Date with Katniss Everdeen by  holymfwickee

74th Hunger Games Challenge: We Always Were by Jaime Sommers

Thank you @alliswell21 and @cowrintimrousbeastie.

415.  howhowthecaraba said to everlarkficquestions:

hi do you guys know of any fics where katniss and peeta are forced to marry in a historical time? i tried looking in your masterlists but i could only find stories set in historical time or arranged marriage in modern times

416.  i-am-batman-chick said to everlarkficquestions:

Hey I love your page. I was wondering if you could help me find a story. I dont remember much but I think they were in the games and they had would lift each others shirt up and press themselves against each other to know that they were real. Thank you.

FOUND!

The Light Up Series by theatricalveggie

As If You Have a Choice (Light Up Series - Book 1)

I'll Be Right Beside You   (Light Up Series - Book 2)

Even if You Cannot Hear My Voice   (Light Up Series - Book 3)

Thank you @sunsetsrmydreams and @thestuckinbed!

417.  loverme11 said to everlarkficquestions:

do you know the fic where katniss thinks she's pregnant Nd leaves peeta and goes across the world. also do you know the fic where katniss leaves peeta because he proposes to her and she doesn't want to get married so she leaves.

POSSIBLY!

Hello by  Peetabreadgirl

OR

Better Life by Pookieh  (Katniss goes around the country, not the world.  Must be logged into AO3 to read)

OR

Trying To Get It Right by sponsormusings 

Thank you @sunsetsrmydreams,  @cowrintimrousbeastie and @fangirlingoverquotes 

418.  redhoodhungergames said to everlarkficquestions:

Any fics where katniss has a baby but for some reason peeta has to go or they break up or something? Similar it comes back to you.

POSSIBLY!

I Don't Wanna Live Forever.... chele20035

Thank you @cowrintimrousbeastie.

419.  sopvln said to everlarkficquestions:

There was a fic that was cannon-divergent where Katniss had a piece of sea glass that she kept from D4 from the tour and it reminded her of peeta?? Can’t remember the name

POSSIBLY!

Either Way by  bellissimaanima

Thank you @stjohn27

420.  sunsetsrmydreams said to everlarkficquestions:

Happy holidays!!! I'm looking for a fic where Katniss watches Peeta wrestle at a festival and when he wins, they crown him king for the night and he get to pick his queen. He weaves through the crowd to crown Katniss. They dance and I think he kisses her. Any help would be wonderful! Thank You

FOUND!

Unreaped by thedragonwaiting

Thank you @butrfac14

421.  darth-kage5400 said to everlarkficquestions:

I was looking out for a fic I had read once awhile ago about Peeta and Katniss having a daughter who was born in a forest when Katniss and Galway with their families ran away to the forest only to return two years later when the capitol had been overthrown already and Peeta, a war hero nicknamed "The Phoenix" leads a lonely life with all his family killed in the rebellion...

422.  darth-kage5400 said to everlarkficquestions:

Also there was this another one about Peeta and Katniss having a daughter (again) conceived by them both partaking in a wild drunken night... and Peeta, after uncovering the truth, leaves behind his prospect ful life ahead to take residence in the seams as a miner... In fact it had a name eerily like - the third everdeen, the other everdeen, or the third sister... however exactly what, deluded me and I cannot seem to find the fic at all...

FOUND!

Seam Girls by  AyYouFiction

Thank you @sunsetsrmydreams, @thestuckinbed, @alliswell21, and @stjohn27.

423.  gabzep said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi! I’m looking for a fic where Peeta came back but doesn’t remember being in love with Katniss but still wants to heal with her. Someone is trying to kill her(coins sister or a group from 13). When in 4 they have to fight her in some water cave. Peeta gets hurt has to have surgery and when he wakes up he keeps saying over and over that he remembers. Doctors don’t understand and try to keep her out but she forces her way pass them. He tells her he remembers he loves her. I think it was in ffn

424.  oranges1837 said to everlarkficquestions:

hi! i can’t seem to remember the name or author but it’s a fic set in district 13 with multiple different povs from characters. there’s one chapter where gale beats peeta in his hospital bed due to him supposedly hurting katniss with a lunch tray. sorry this is very vague. thank you!

FOUND!

Rekindling by  ShiningCity

Thank you @stjohn27

425.  amazinglovers747 said to everlarkficquestions:

I'm looking for a fic where I think men and women are separated and Katniss and a bunch of other girls were in a flying craft to meet their randomly chosen husbands and it got shot down and Peeta found her and her foot was hurt. They fall in love and there's a revolution and some people Katniss knows come to rescue her and plan on leaving the next morning and Katniss and Peeta make love that night and Katniss stays. 9 months later the come back and Katniss is pregnant. Sound familiar?

FOUND!

Hatched by mega-aulover 

Thank you @mega-aulover and @katnissdoesnotfollowback

426.  m0ther-of-dragons said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi it was a fic where Katniss has a nightmare where Peet’s comforts her and gale realizes its not going to work between them, or Katniss having a nightmare and Gale can’t comfort her Thanks!

POSSIBLY!

Intimate Bystander by burkygirl

Thank you @fangirlingoverfanquotes!

427.  amazinglovers747 said to everlarkficquestions:

I'm looking for a fic where it's Peeta's birthday and no one says anything to him about it and he feels sorry for himself and Katniss takes him to the lake and they have sex as her way of showing him how much she needs him and when they head home there's a surprise party for him.

FOUND!

Betrayal by Gabzep

Thank you @butrfac14

428. mvictoria00 said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi! I was curious if you know the name of a fanfic that included only Peeta going to the games and wins, then after returning to District 12 he asks Katniss to live with him? Or something similar to that?

FOUND!

The Miner’s Wife by MockingJayFlyingFree 

OR

Kinship by misshoneywell (Must be logged into AO3 to read)

OR

Keep the Blood in Your Head and  And Keep Your Feet on the Ground  by atetheredmind (Must be logged into AO3 to read them)

OR

Maybe It's Just Me by bleedtoloveher

Thank you @sunsetsrmydreams,  @cowrintimrousbeastie and @eggplant8

429. fangirlingoverquotes said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi! I was wondering if you have a list where Peeta and Katniss are at some doet of party and play drinking games? Like never have i ever or thruth or dare? Thank you!

FOUND!

Seven Minutes, Seven Years, and Six Kisses by  nonemoreblack (Must be logged into AO3 to read)

Thank you @cowrintimrousbeastie

430.  jsth2obooks said to everlarkficquestions:

Hello. I'm looking for a gift I read couple years ago. It's one of those "not all of it" fics where katnisss actually explains her feeling to peeta and they start a relationship. She eventually gtes pregnant and they have a dog together (w/peeta). The author also had some quotes from the previous chapters that she would add to the current chapter. She also wrote for all books in the triolgy. Thanks so much I'm advance

UPDATED!

FOUND!

Someone To Watch Over Me by  ArthursCamelot

My Last Breath by  ArthursCamelot 

Come Rain or Come Shine by  ArthursCamelot 

Thank you @sunsetsrmydreams and @stjohn27

431.  belensitax3 said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi I’m looking for a fic of where Katniss left peeta to go to Europe . I think peeta was a photographer in this fic.

FOUND!

Trying To Get It Right by  sponsormusings  (Must be logged into AO3 to read)

Thank you @cowrintimrousbeastie

432.  iamupsidedown said to everlarkficquestions:

Hi! Looking for a fic in which Katniss and Peeta are best friends. They're at Gale's party, drunk and she blows some smoke at him and then they mess around in a coat closet. Ring any bells? Keep up the amazing work!

FOUND!

Best Laid Plans by atetheredmind (muttpeeta) (Must be logged into AO3 to read)

Thank you @idoinneedyou, @butrfac14, and @eggplant8.

Do any of these fics ring a bell? Please let us know!

[desdemonafictional]

27 Club

Original fiction

short story (rough draft)

zombies/disturbing imagery

--

The guard at the gate was wearing sunglasses. It was ten o’clock at night.

“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all, “it’s at capacity. No more tickets.”

 “Lynda’s my ride home,” Althea said. Her nose ring flashed as her nostrils flared. “She can’t just go now! I’ve got work in the morning!”

“Please,” Lynda said. She was wearing one of the four identical Fight Club t-shirts she’d bought from the sales rack at the Wal-Mart and chopped up in a series of miniscule different ways in search of some kind of post-corporate statement. This was the one that Althea had made: the most daring cut and the clumsiest stitches. “I’ll just hang out at the merch table, I promise.”

The venue was out at the edge of town, a long way from either of their homes. They had been over at Craig’s house, talking about the scene lately, when Althea casually unfolded the letter of invitation she had received the night before from a friend of a friend down at the club, resplendent with one small, free ticket. In strange old-fashioned type it listed the times and the location of the venue, and Althea, by name. They passed the paper around and around, but nobody seemed to know who had booked the stadium out at the edge of town. Kent Kinley, who had been drinking Sierra Mist and vodka at the back table, knew almost every single band that passed through, even the dad-rock ones, and he had no idea who or what the performers were.

 “It’s probably Reignstorm’s side project,” Althea said. She leaned forward, cleavage flashing under her tank top. “Mcleod’s been awfully cagey the last couple times I’ve talked to him.”

“I don’t think so, Thea,” Kent had said. “He can barely fill a venue downtown, and the stadium is big.”

Lynda watched Althea consider a series of propositions with the careful poise of a judge presiding over a courtroom, egging the argument on each time it threatened to die down again, and she had thought: this is something Althea likes. And then, as if someone else had opened up her mouth and spoken out of it, she had said: “If you want to check it out, I’ll drive you.”

The look on Althea’s face as her attention finally fell on Lynda—delight, calculation, shrewd interest—made Lynda feel ten years old again, holding out the glittering creature she’d snared to the pretty girl on the swing set whose brown curls flashed gold in the sunshine. The Althea of that distant playground and the Althea of this queenly basement court never seemed so much the same as that moment. Her heart fluttered like a butterfly in her child hands.

Just like it always had been, by the time Lynda realized what she’d done, it was too late to back out.

So here they were, just the two of them together again for the first time in almost a decade, as Althea gradually got more and more bent out of shape yelling at the bouncer. Lynda hung back, unconsciously hovering just outside of the splash zone. At the gate there were posters for old country singers and some pop star’s reunion tour, but nothing with tonight’s dates, and nothing that seemed to match the sound coming over the wall. From the moment she’d stepped out of the car it had seemed to clutch at her, a bass thump that rattled the pebbles on the sidewalk, a rhythm like it was running to catch up with itself and tripping forward into terror.

She jumped as Althea grabbed her hand, startled by the sudden touch and unnerved by the darkness. “Fine!” Althea said, “the band sounds shitty anyway!”

Lynda trotted after her, trying to keep up, until they were well out of sight of the bouncer or the gate. The sound of something like a violin gasped over the top of the wall, setting Lynda’s teeth on edge. It seemed to keen, more like a wounded animal than an instrument.

Althea skidded to a stop. “Okay,” she said, “stand next to the wall. Back up to it.”

Lynda slowly scooted towards the wall, until Althea impatiently pushed her flat against it and pushed a finger into the concrete right at the top of her head. She glanced up from it like she was measuring. Her brown curls flashed green and gold in the street lights. “Shit. You’re not tall enough,” she said. “I won’t be able to pull you up after me.”

Lynda looked from the top of the wall to the marker-finger to Althea, who was scanning the sidewalk. She did not want to hop a fence, and she certainly did not want to get any closer to that keening whine on the other side of the wall, but it had been her idea to come out here and she couldn’t afford to back out now. She had no idea how she’d managed to pull off even this much. Althea had hardly said ten words to her in a month of Craig’s Friday night basement parties, despite how much she’d tried to make herself available for conversation. It had seemed like such mystic serendipity when Althea had first seen her shopping for shirts in the Wal-Mart, stepping out of the aisles like a ghost from a childhood dream. Grown up but still somehow the same as ever, in her winged eyeliner and shrewd eyes, she had paused at the sale rack and Lynda had said – “Althea? Is that you?”

That Althea had spoken to her, remembered her, and extended her casual invitation to basement Friday nights? Incredible enough. But that she had come back across town with Lynda, like it was the easiest thing in the world, to supervise the slicing and stitching of shirts? That whole day seemed unreal to her now. In the sunlight that poured through the carport, Althea had threaded a needle with her beautiful but clumsy hands, talking about music, making the air shine with her laughter. She held a shirt up to the light. Scissors flashed in her grip. For months, Lynda had been raking through the glitter and kohl, trying to find that Althea again.

What had she come here for if not to catch Althea’s attention? What was the point of any of this if she gave up what little gain she’d made now?

“What about the trash can?” Lynda said.

Althea peered down the curve of the wall and spotted the trash can, one of the vaguely coffin shaped kind with the ashtray on top. Teeth flashed under her shiny dark lips. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s try that.”

With the can tipped over on its side, Lynda was almost able to stand on it and touch the top of the wall. She boosted up Althea, who huffed and puffed and pulled herself up onto the flat top of the wall, and then pulled Lynda, who was lighter, up off the trash can after her. From the top of the wall the whole stadium was bathed in lavender light, pulsing and flashing. They lay there for a moment, panting into their elbows, as the whine of the music plunged right through them and dripped down onto the street on the other side. The stage was set with what looked like enormous crystals, maybe carved ice, jutting up into the light. Whoever was on stage was howling into a microphone, not without some melody but with—Lynda couldn’t think of a better way to say it—a brutal kind of mourning. Beside her, Althea sucked in a sudden breath.

“Son of a bitch,” Althea said, and the same time that a man’s voice from the other side of the wall called, “Hey, is somebody—”

“Jump,” Althea whispered, and then she vaulted down onto the grass, landing in a crouch.

Lynda broke out in a cold sweat, hesitating for a moment too long between two bad alternatives, thinking of her ankles and her ribs, and then finally rolled off after Althea just as the first beam of a flashlight passed through the darkness beside her. Her wrists screamed as they hit the ground. Her boots broke right through the soft turf.

“How are we going to get back out?” she wheezed.

Althea was already straightening up, brushing off her dirty hands on her jeans. “Same as everyone else,” she said. “Through the door.”

“But the bouncer—”

“We’ll just leave with the crowd. No problem.” She had turned her attention on the stage, to the howling performer, her eyes narrow with interest. “I feel like I recognize him,” she said. “Let’s get a closer look.”

Hadn’t the bouncer said the venue was full? The crowd seemed awfully small to Lynda, who had expected a production big enough to account for ice sculptures and a light show to attract at least a couple hundred. It seemed like it was just the enormous thrashing mosh pit, and whoever was up in that box they’d erected over it. She’d never seen anything like it. Opera houses she’d seen, sure, with viewing boxes. Actual sports stadiums too. But never anything quite like this.

“He kind of looks like Nathan,” Althea said. She was squinting down at the stage, trying to block the strobe lights with her hand. “You wouldn’t know Nathan, he stopped coming around before you got involved. Craig was sure he was about a year away from signing on with somebody, he had this killer EP he’d produced himself. Some of the guys think he just ditched us for the LA scene but I’m sure he didn’t, he wouldn’t have gone without saying anything—”

As they circled the hill above the mosh, Lynda looked down into the heaving crowd and drew her arms up around herself, unnerved and unhappy and unsure why. Something about the figures below felt wrong, like furniture in a familiar house all moved slightly to the left, like the way the legs of a spider move.

“He would have at least told me,” Althea said, “he never would have left without telling me.”

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be here,” Lynda whispered, dashing to catch up from where she’d lagged behind.

“Did you think we jumped the fence for our health?” Althea said. “Come on, there’s a space in front of that thing. We can get a good look from there.”

The spectator’s box glinted up at them, a pavilion of curtains and shadowy bodies mounted on strata just high enough to put it at the same height as the stage. It hovered over the sea of frothing bodies like a pirogue floating over the bayou.

“Indie artists are so flaky,” Althea muttered, “I don’t know what it is about them, one day they’re vaping into a paper bag in your parent’s basement and the next day they’re just gone! No calls, no texts, not so much as a hey thank you for the mix CD I really liked the folk metal.”

As the hill dipped down into the bottom of the stadium, a hundred upraised, grasping hands lay at Lynda’s feet. She watched them, blue and purple in the relentless alien light, pumping their fists in time to a catastrophic breakdown. Some of their fingers seemed mashed and flattened, boneless against the dark. Digits seemed to flop from their knuckles. Lynda did not want to go down into that mass.

“Must be a private event,” Althea said, still shading her eyes as she peered through the gloom to the pavilion. “Probably some bougie wanna-be rockers with cash to burn. What do you think would happen if I just walked right in there? I could probably jump from the edge of this hill. Do you think they’d notice?”

“Althea,” Lynda said, “I don’t like this. I think we should go.”

“Where are you gonna go?” Althea said. “Bouncer’s still out there.”

“Couldn’t we just,” Lynda said, “wait in the girl’s room until it’s over?”

“Yeah, that’s where I wanna spend my Friday night, in a trashed bathroom ten feet away from the actual show. Christ Lynda, it’s like fifth grade all over again. Well I’m not missing out on the party because you’re afraid of a ten dollar Target ouija board this time, so you can stay or you can make a break for it, but you’re on your own.”

Lynda rapidly blinked away any water her eyes before it could think of becoming tears. It was fine, it was nothing to cry about, it was just—Althea being Althea. She didn’t mean to be hurtful. It was just these new contact lenses irritating her eyes, that’s what she would say…

“That is Nathan!” Althea shouted, grabbing a fist full of Lynda’s shirt all at once and shaking her. “That rat! He got signed and he didn’t tell me!”

Lynda found herself being dragged forward by the collar, the hasty stitches down her sides popping and tearing against the force of it. As she stumbled down the hill, her feet seemed to touch the ground so little that it felt as if she was flying, or falling. They descended, hair whipping out behind them, and Lynda thought for a moment that she met the eye of someone inside the pavilion—for a crystalline moment, a pair of eyes almost glowing with the lights from the stage, narrowed on her. And then they were down in the pit, with the rest of the crowd, looking up at Nathan’s sunken face. It was hard to see what Althea found so interesting in him; his skin was drawn tight around his bones like paper around a frame, his knuckles clutching the microphone seemed like the segments of some sickly worm. Althea shrieked and waved up at him, doing her best to be heard over the deafening noise, but Lynda drew back from the stage.

There was no security in sight. Bodies bumped and thumped into each other, never quite crossing the invisible line between the front row and the bottom of the stage. There was no gate. As Lynda turned back to find someone in the crowd who might stop and explain it to her, she found herself face to face with a man caught in the frothing, wide-eyed throes of an overdose, his eyes fixed on the stage above as he was bounced from shoulder to shoulder in the fray. He never fell. He only continued to surge forward and stagger back, blue in the face and white at the lips, his eyes as glassy as a corpse’s, his hands reaching up, up—

Lynda tore out of Althea’s grip, almost clawing at the grass in her hurry to get up the hill again, like a child so frightened to climb the dark staircase that she went on all fours. She collapsed partway up, remembering Althea too late. She couldn’t go back. She couldn’t go forward. She scrambled up onto her back and drew her knees up to her chest, watching the crowd thrash below her in numb dread. Who were they? What were they? In the flashing darkness she could just make out one jawless horror, skin blown back and glittering sticky with what had to be blood. At their head Althea was still shouting at the stage, jumping in time to the music as it coughed and howled. There was no rest for the band between melodies. They plunged forward without a pause for breath, or water, or tuning.

A persistent flash of motion at the edge of Lynda’s vision drew her finally away from the macabre scene before her. Inside the pavilion—now almost level with her again—a figure was beckoning her forward. They gestured to the gap between the hill and the banister, miming something like a leap across the gap. Their beautiful high cheekbones and darkly shadowed eyes could have been male or female or anything in-between, but their expression was like the sharp interest of a child watching an insect, fingers already green with the guts of previous playmates. Lynda looked from the stage, to Althea bobbing furiously in the ghastly crowd, and finally back to the pavilion. What had shaken Lynda down to her gut, Althea hadn’t even noticed. Right now, Lynda knew from dismal experience, she was a buzzing fly at the edge of Althea’s vision. Her eye was always fixed on the next big thing, and tonight that thing was Nathan. Maybe if Lynda knew something, maybe if Lynda could bring her something bigger and juicier than Nathan, she could lure Althea up away from that damn stage. What other option was there? Lynda climbed to her feet and, with a breath so deep her chest ached, took a running leap at the edge of the pavilion.

         The edge of the banister punched the wind out of her chest. As she scrabbled to pull herself over, eyes watering, the beautiful stranger only watched with delight. Lynda slid to the floor of the pavilion, panting, and looked for the first time at the inside of the spectator’s box. There were maybe a dozen people lounging across the array of furniture, drinking something pale and bubbly from crystal flutes. The ones nearest her all watched surreptitiously from the corners of their eyes.

         “Look at you,” said the one who had beckoned her over the gap, showing a set of pearly shark-tipped teeth. “I don’t believe you were invited to the show.”

         Lynda pushed herself up, a hand on the banister. “Sorry,” she said, “it was Althea’s idea. Sorry. We didn’t realize it was a private event. Is this, like, somebody’s sweet sixteen?”

         But even as she said it, she knew that couldn’t be right. What kind of birthday party was full of scores of dying metal heads? The stranger wore a jacket that was something like a military dress uniform, glinting with silver buttons, too sharp and clean to be entirely punk. They were all like that up here, sharp and clean and whole and strange, none of them a day over thirty or an hour under eighteen. One, with her long hair pulled back like shining raven’s wings, lifted her hand and took a drink from a passing tray without ever looking away from Lynda.

She swallowed.  “I’m Lynda, with a ‘Y’,” she said, as she always did, face hot with embarrassment. She was aware that no amount of stylish ‘Y’s could make her name sound any less like an advertisement for mom-jeans. She knew that, and she still insisted on doing it, the same as she’d done since she’d first introduced herself to Althea a decade ago, lying to feel a little closer, a little cooler. The day they met, Althea had already been a kind of royalty, with her fairy tale name and her endless curls. A fifth grade lie she’d lived ever since. By the time Althea left, everything that had been Linda Dacule was lost in the world of the false “Y” forever.

“Hello, Lynda with a ‘Y’,” the stranger said. “You can call me Robin Goodfellow. What do you think of the show?”

She glanced back down at the pit, but only for a moment. She couldn’t bear to look for any longer. “What’s wrong with them?” she asked. “They should be in so much pain. Some of them look like they’d keel right over if everyone else stopped shoving them around.”

Robin leaned over the banister, flashing eyes fixed on the world below. “I think rock’n roll is immortal, don’t you?” they said. “It’s a religion. It’s got its pantheon of saints, its Kurt Cobains and its Janice Joplins. If you live fast and die young, you can go on forever. Your friend gets it.”

Lynda followed their gaze, trying to spot whatever they were looking at, but all she could make out was the 27CLUB emblazoned across the drum set on stage. She shifted uncomfortably against the banister. “I’m sorry?” she said.

“Your friend,” Robin said. “She’s one of those girls who’s going places. Maybe not everyone likes her, but she’s always welcome. She’s bright, but not too bright. When she walks into the room, everyone makes a little more room for her.”

“Uh,” Lynda said. “She’s always been like that.”

At the front of the crowd, Althea had stopped shouting for Nathan’s attention. Now her hands reached up, as if in supplication, and she surged with the same urgent need as the rest of the crowd. Standing where she was at the head of them all, it was almost as if they were following her, riding her tide against the unforgiving shore. Out of all of them, she was the only one perfectly whole, a queen among the legions.

 “Out by twenty-five, dead or alive,” Robin remarked.

Lynda looked down at the crowd. There was something too perfect about their synchronization, something inhuman in the rhythm of their surge. She was certain that if she could see Althea’s eyes now, they would be as black and hollow as Nathan’s.

“Why don’t I feel it?” she said. “What’s so special about me?”

“Special?” Robin repeated, delighted. “There’s nothing special about you! You’re absolutely ordinary. Designated driver Lynda. Boring, supportive, ordinary Lynda. That’s why you can’t feel what she feels. She’s a star, and you’re just a stage hand!”

Lynda went red in the face, fixing her furious stare at her boots. Surely she was more than that. No matter how she shook out her memory, she could find nothing else but dutiful offering after dutiful offering, a pair of clapping hands, a set of keys—a no one, an empty space. Even when they were children, Lynda had had trouble keeping Althea’s attention. The world was so big, and Althea wanted all of it. When they were thirteen, the world had finally won the war for Althea’s love. Lynda had watched the car door close on Althea and the boy with the brand new driver’s permit, and even then she had known that it was ending. 

“We should,” Lynda said, “we should go. Sorry for crashing your party.”

“She won’t go with you,” Robin said. “You can try, if you want. She won’t, though.”

“Why not?” Lynda said.

“There’s nowhere to go from here,” Robin said. “This is the cutting edge, Lynda with a ‘Y’. The bleeding edge. Even if you managed to drag her home, she’d only dream of us.”

“She can dream all she wants,” Lynda said, “but we’re going.”

“Pearls before swine,” Robin said, clicking their tongue. “Do you have any idea how many hundreds of thousands of kids are dying to join this party?”

“It doesn’t seem like so many,” Lynda said, looking pointedly down at the pit.

“Well not everybody has what it takes,” Robin said, with a shrug. “You certainly don’t.”

Lynda tightened her fists.

“Oh, no, don’t be angry. Why don’t you stay a while,” Robin said, soothing now, voice softening. “Have a drink with us. Watch the show. You’ll have something interesting to talk about when you go home, won’t you? And with Althea gone, people will be looking for someone interesting to talk to. You know you don’t have to be a stage hand all your life, Lynda with a ‘Y’. Have a drink with us.”

As smoothly as a clockwork scene, a server passed just beyond them. Robin reached out, lifting a single glass of champagne from the silver platter as it went. Not a drop spilled in their hand. They held it out to her, bubbles glowing in its pale depths.

“Besides,” Robin added, “we both know you’re too afraid to go back down there. You can’t even walk home in the dark alone. You slept with the closet light on until you were sixteen. That’s awfully old for such things.”

Lynda paused with her hand half way to the offered glass, shaken. What—what had she been doing? She snatched back her hand and retreated.

“Thank you for having us,” she said, heels sliding across the floor. “Enjoy the rest of your party.”

“She won’t thank you for it!” Robin called after her. “She won’t love you for it! How could anyone ever care for an ordinary thing like you?”

Lynda paused, one foot on the banister. She would have liked to turn and say, no, that was a lie. But the truth was, she didn’t know. She was afraid that Robin was right. She was afraid of everything that lay below her, the clawing pit and the howling singers and Althea’s dead black eyes. With another deep breath, Lynda climbed over the banister and leapt down to the slope of the hill. I am afraid, she thought, but if I just move fast enough—it’s like the stairs, you have to climb them so fast that there’s no time to think about it. You have to run.

Lynda flew down the hill, down past the grasping hands of the pit, past the breakers that surged towards her, down to where Althea was. She battered away scores of reaching arms. “Althea,” she gasped, “we have to go, we have to—”

The moment she put her hand on Althea’s shoulder, the crowd broke over her. Their bloodied and boneless and grasping hands closed around her, dragging her away from Althea, who was deaf to everything but the stage. Stitches pulled and snapped down the sides of Lynda’s butchered Wal-Mart shirt. Hands smeared their gore across her skin, endless fingers slimy with sweat, nails tacky with blood. Hairs all down her arms prickled under the chill ooze. She was afraid to try and pry them all off—if she let go of Althea, she was certain they would drag her back under before she could peel herself free.

“Althea!” she shouted, “listen to me, you know me!”

Althea didn’t so much as flinch. A heavy hand clutched at Lynda’s neck, fingers digging into her windpipe. She coughed.

“Thea!” she said. “Look at me! God damn it, will you look at me for once in your life!”

Althea reached for the stage, her fingers grasping at the limelight, her eyes reflecting back the glittering darkness. She was gone, she was as surely gone as she had been when Chase Conner looked at her first the first time in eighth grade, with his new learner’s permit and his acoustic guitar, and his mysterious high school savvy. Lynda had never been enough to hold her back. There was a gulf of a hundred unanswered texts between them, more than half a decade of silence, and all the little lies that Lynda had built this bridge to her out of, starting with the first paltry “Y”. She didn’t even like folk metal! But she had pretended to, for an excuse to sit next to Althea on Friday nights in Craig’s basement, picking through the glittering queen to find shards of the girl beneath. The girl who couldn’t hold a needle properly, who sat in the evening for hours and laughed at her own stitches, that girl could—that girl might—

“Why is nothing ever enough?” Her fingers slipped over Althea’s shoulder, fear and sweat threatening to tear them free. “Why am I never enough?”

Tears burned her eyes as she dug her nails into Althea’s arm. She’d thought that serendipitous day in the carport meant something, that it was the start of something, but maybe she had only been kidding herself. Maybe there had never been anything to resurrect.

“Just tell me you want to stay!” Lynda shouted. “Thea, if you tell me you want to stay I’ll let go! Just say something to me, anything! I loved you, I loved you and I love you and if you didn’t love me then that’s fine, but at least have the decency to tell me goodbye!”

There was a glint of light on Althea’s cheek. It startled Lynda. Her hand flinched open, just for a moment, but long enough for the clawing of the crowd to drag her back, their ruined but relentless fingers closing over her shoulders, drawing her back into the froth and ooze of bodies frozen as if forever in the moment of their deaths. She reached—her sweating fingers slipped—and Althea caught her, hand tight around wrist. Althea’s face was wet as she pulled, locking her grip and reeling Lynda back out of the crowd, over the invisible line that kept the pit at bay. Lynda fell into her arms as she finally broke free. They stumbled back against the edge of the stage, where the thud of the drums rumbled straight through their bodies. Althea said something, weak and lost in the wash of the music. In front of them, the pit threw themselves against that invisible edge endlessly, maybe reaching for the two of them, maybe just reaching—

Althea took hold of Lynda and ran. They crested the hill, passed the pavilion full of glittering, unblinking eyes, flew past the empty merch stand, and crashed into the ticketing area. Behind the booth, the bouncer turned his blank sunglasses to face them.

Lynda froze on the threshold, with the howl of the stage behind her and the icy silence of the ticketing ahead. The bouncer sat perfectly still. His face was expressionless. Althea pulled her friend close against her side and walked slowly past the booth. He followed them like an owl, his head slowly turning, as if his eyes were pinned in place behind those glasses.

“Goodnight,” Lynda whispered to him, fixing straight ahead until she couldn’t see him anymore. She did not look back.

The street outside was silent and dark. Not even the relentless thump of the drums could be heard through the wall, which had nearly vibrated before. Her ears rang with the deafening quiet. At her heel, a playbill from last week’s show skittered over the concrete, caught in the wind. She shivered, wondering if the bouncer was still watching them but too terrified to check.

“What was that,” Althea said, sounding as dry-mouthed and miserable as if she was caught in a brutal hangover. “What the hell was that.”

Lynda hesitated. “I don’t think it’s a place many people leave,” she said. “They wanted you to stay.”

“Oh,” Althea said, screwing up her face. Even sweaty and miserable and scowling, there was still something about her. “They were singing about diamonds,” she said, rubbing ineffectually at her smeared cheek. “And dry flowers—yellow petals—the sound of drowning—”

“Let’s get you home,” Lynda said, scanning the parking lot for a sign of her car. “You’re in no condition to go anywhere else.”

“It was so goddamn sad,” Althea mumbled. For a moment, her cheek rested against Lynda’s shoulder. “They were singing it for me. I could see Nathan’s eyes…”

Althea reached up clumsily, fingers bumping the skin below Lynda’s eye. Lynda froze.

 “You used to wear glasses,” Althea said. “Why’d you stop wearing glasses?”

Lynda felt herself soften, carefully closing her hand around Althea’s. “You said they were lame.”

Althea made a sound half like a snort and slumped against her side. Her flannel jacket flapped in the wind, the only sound on a silent street. “Did I say that?”

“Two weeks ago,” Lynda said. “In the kitchen. You poured me a vodka cranberry.”

Althea pulled back her fingers, gentle as the flutter of an insect’s wings. Her nails glinted as golden as her hair, a halo of mussed curls against the street light. “Damn,” she said. “Why the hell did I say that.”

She shook her head. The playbill skittered away from their tired feet, twisted in the wind, and melted away into the night.

“I heard your voice,” she said, “in the song. Yellow petals—the loneliest thing I ever heard—and then I heard your voice.”

[geekymoviemom]

His Name is Peter

Tony tries to deal with the immediate aftermath of Thanos' snap.

Rated: T for language

Disclaimer: While I've seen every MCU movie, some dozens of times, I've only managed to see Infinity War twice, and I'm not that familiar with the canon comic-book material. Also, SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't yet seen Infinity War, please read at your own risk!

Tony wasn't aware—not that he really cared anyway—how much time had passed since… since it happened. He could've been sitting there on that desolate rock for minutes, days, or even centuries for all he knew, cradling all that remained of the kid against his heart. His haunted eyes stared blankly at the endless toxic wasteland that was Titan, as Peter's terrified voice reverberated through his head.

"I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go, sir, please! I don't wanna go!"

Peter was a brilliant kid, as bright as they come, and so strong he could stop a speeding runaway bus with his bare hands. But yet at the end, after witnessing four other people fade into oblivion, he was just as terrified to die as any other teenage boy.

Even so, his last words were meant for Tony, to help comfort him. Because that's the kind of person that Peter was. Always looking out for everyone else.

"I'm sorry."

Around Tony, everything else was still. Even the slight breeze had faded away as soon as the ashes of the dead were sufficiently scattered. It's as if the rest of the universe was as stunned as he.

And why shouldn't it be, really?

They had lost.

They had lost, and now Peter was gone. Turned to ash, along with Strange, Quill, the bug lady, Mr. Clean, and whoever else had faded away. Was Pepper still alive? Rhodey? Happy? Bruce? Aunt May?

Tony had no way of knowing. He was still stuck out here, in goddamn space.

He drew in a shaky breath, his lungs burning from the dry, stale air and the intense throbbing of the stab wound in his abdomen. Clenching his left hand into a fist around Peter's ashes, he brought it to his lips, squeezing his eyes closed. His fingers turned numb they were so tightly clenched, and his breathing grew more and more erratic as his body rocked back and forth, his shoulders shaking with the effort of trying to hold himself together.

He was having a panic attack.

No, no, please, not here! he thought. He clenched his teeth, trying to remember what his doctor had told him about managing these symptoms when they arose. Back at home when this sort of thing would happen he'd usually find something to tinker with to help occupy his mind. Program a new upgrade to the kid's suit. Work on that new computer for Pepper. Rebuild Rhodey's new spinal support. Try and come up with a dampening field for the Avengers Complex so Vision would have to quit walking through the damn walls all the time and scaring everyone.

Why didn't he go home, like I told him? Damn kid, never listened to me when it was important.

"The boy. Was he your son?"

Tony jumped at the sound of the low, soft, mechanical-sounding voice. He'd completely forgotten that he wasn't alone out here. The bluish-green robot girl, what was her name again? She was still here.

Slowly, he turned his head, his breaths still coming in stilted gasps as he studied the girl's androidish face. She wasn't crying—perhaps she was unable to cry—but her shoulders sagged and her eyes were half-lidded. Tony could vaguely remember someone mentioning that Gamora was her sister, so perhaps she was grieving for her loss too.

"No, not exactly," Tony said, forcing the words past the lump in his throat the size of his mini arc reactor. "He was my—, my—"

He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence. Peter was his son, really. Even if not by blood, Peter was as good as Tony's son. Tony sure thought of him as such.

"He fought bravely," she said, in that same soft voice. "You should be proud."

I was already proud of him, Tony thought. I didn't need him to fight off a monstrous, mad, space demon obsessed with balancing the universe to be proud of him.

"I know he did," he said instead, pressing his ashes-stained hand to his chest. "He always did."

The girl took a step back, eyeing Tony up and down.

"You're injured," she stated. "I can fix Quill's ship, get us out of here. Back to your home planet."

"Sure, yeah," Tony replied with a half-hearted shrug, wincing as the slight movement sent another jagged jolt of pain through his body. Guess he won't be offering to help. Any other time he would've jumped at the chance to tinker around with alien technology, but this was hardly any other time.

The girl worked quickly, and as she practically dragged Tony into the co-pilot's seat, she handed him a small bottle of some yellowish liquid and fired up the engines. Tony laid his head back against the headrest, trying to ignore the fact that the entire ship smelled like a basket full of sweaty gym socks. He swallowed hard at the rising bile in his throat, willing his heart rate to slow down and his breathing to even out. The last thing he needed was to vomit here, all over this rust bucket spaceship. That surely wouldn't help the awful stench at all, and would also likely tear open his abdominal wound. As it was, he barely had enough nanoparticles left to keep it closed until they could get to Earth.

Stabbed with his own damn weapon. How poetic.

"Drink," the girl said, gesturing to the bottle she'd placed in Tony's right hand. "You've lost a lot of blood and are dehydrated."

"I'm all right," said Tony dismissively. The thick, yellow liquid looked revolting, and Tony suspected it would taste even worse, and then he really would have to puke.

"You're in pain," she insisted. "It will help."

Rolling his eyes, Tony huffed out a sharp breath and twisted the cap off the bottle, taking two large gulps as quickly as he could, trying not to let the liquid touch his tongue. Thankfully it wasn't as bad as he'd feared, and he did notice a slight decrease in the throbbing pain of his wound.

Unfortunately, it only made the ache in his heart that much more prominent.

"Where should we land on your planet?" the girl asked as they took off.

Letting out a sigh, Tony shook his head. His first thought was New York, at the upstate Avengers Complex. Surely there'd be people there who would help them.

Wouldn't there? Or were they all dead now?

"Wakanda," he said a few seconds later. He's not quite sure what made him think of the remote African country, home to most of the world's vibranium, except that when Bruce first explained to him about the immense threat posed by Thanos, right before all hell broke loose in New York City, he was more frightened than Tony had ever seen him. That T'Challa guy was one kick-ass dude, or at least he was at the airport fight in Leipzig. If Bruce did in fact call Steve Rogers on that damn Nokia flip phone, Tony could see Steve directing him to Wakanda.

Bruce also saw—or at least Tony hoped that he saw—Tony fly up to Squidward's donut ship, after the kid, so he'd know they'd be coming from space.

"Wakanda," Tony repeated. "It's located on the second-largest continent on Earth."

The girl nodded, adjusted a couple controls, and settled back into her chair, closing her eyes. Tony did the same, trying to breathe through his mouth, relieved that she didn't seem to want to talk any more than was necessary.

The next thing he knew the android was poking him awake. "They're asking for identification," she said gruffly. "Apparently they don't like mine."

She pointed to a button the console, presumably the communications channel. Tony groaned as he leaned forward, clearing his dry, scratchy throat.

"This is Tony Stark," he said in the most authoritative tone he could muster. "I need to speak with Bruce Banner."

Please Bruce, be there.

There was a loud burst of static, followed by Bruce's relieved voice. "Good God, Tony," he said over the crackly radio. "It really is you. Hold on, we gotta open some force shield or something, then we'll send landing coordinates."

"Might wanna have a hospital bay ready," Tony said, grimacing as he pressed his arm into his bloody abdomen. "I took a pretty bad one up there."

"Don't worry, we'll take care of ya," Bruce assured him. "We're just all relieved to find you."

Tony didn't dare ask who "we" were. He knew he'd find out soon enough.

Bruce was there, waiting with a teenage girl with elaborately braided dark hair and some sort of floating stretcher as soon as the ship jolted to a stop. Tony hesitated only for a second before climbing onto the stretcher and curling onto his side. As embarrassed as he was to be seen so wounded and defeated, he didn't trust himself to be able to walk right now.

They took him into a brightly lit room filled with technology the likes of which Tony had never seen before. If he hadn't been so delirious with grief and pain he would've been quite impressed with the machinery and gadgetry that he was able to glimpse. As it was, he could barely keep his eyes open as the girl—Shuri, Bruce said her name was—started to work on him, mumbling constantly under her breath about having to fix yet another broken white boy.

Once Shuri announced she was done for the time being, she gave Tony some water and pulled a blanket over him, telling him to try and get some rest. Tony opened one eye, intending to utter a thanks, but was stopped short by the immense sadness he saw in her deep brown eyes. She must've lost someone in the purge too.

Against his will, Tony fell almost immediately into a dream, likely hastened by whatever painkiller Shuri had slipped into his water. He saw Peter, his innocent brown eyes wide as he took in the sight of Tony just casually sitting in the living room of his Queens apartment. The look of pure hero-worship that lit up his boyish face, as if meeting Tony Stark—in his own home, no less—was the best thing that had ever happened to him in all his fifteen years of life.

"I can't go to Germany," he'd said a few minutes later, after Tony revealed what he knew about Peter and his abilities, and Peter stopped trying to pretend that Tony was somehow mistaken. Tony was never mistaken about this sort of thing.

"Why not?" asked Tony.

"Ah," Peter stammered. "Cause I got… homework."

It had taken all of Tony's self-control to not laugh out loud at that statement. Tony's own schooling was so convoluted as a child, with skipping grades and special tutors. And it was a very rare occasion at MIT where Tony actually completed an assignment as assigned by his professors, instead of simply submitting one of his own inventions for credit. But here was this kid, who appeared to be almost as smart as Tony himself was at his age, saying he couldn't leave because he needed to do homework.

Peter Parker was about as pure as they came. It was one of the things that drew Tony to him the most. The almost overwhelming urge to protect him from all the bad things in the world, all the things that Tony had to deal with growing up as Howard Stark's son. The anger he felt at the airport when Steve dropped that terminal on his head was so intense it frightened him, as was the deep sense of horror and dread he felt when he spotted Peter lying motionless on the tarmac only minutes later.

Tony shuddered as he jerked awake, groaning as he shifted on the firm but strangely comfortable platform. Through the large windows he could see that darkness had fallen, and the room where he resided was still and quiet. Drawing in a deep breath, Tony clutched his ashes-stained hand to his chest, squeezing his eyes closed.

"Are you in pain?" a voice asked through the darkness, startling him. He hadn't realized anyone else was here.

"No," Tony replied, even though it was a lie. The throbbing in his abdomen was gone, the deep wound closed by whatever fancy healing technology Shuri had used on him. Bruce told him when she was nearly finished that he'd been lucky; a couple centimeters closer to the midline and Tony would've completely bled out only minutes after being stabbed, nanotechnology or not.

"Liar," said Shuri as she stepped closer, so Tony could see her face. "You cannot hide it; I can see it in your eyes. You are in a great deal of pain."

Tony looked away, uneasy under her piercing gaze. "This isn't healable pain," he muttered.

"You lost someone," she said. It was a statement, not a question. Everyone left alive had lost someone. "Who was it?"

The scratchiness in the back of his throat intensified, and Tony shook his head, his jaw clenched and his lips pursed. "His name was Peter," he whispered.

"And he was your friend?" asked Shuri. "This Peter?"

"No," said Tony as burning hot tears pricked his eyes. He tightened his left hand into a shaky fist. "He wasn't my friend. He was… he was… like a son to me."

Shuri nodded, her lower lip trembling slightly. "I understand this pain, Tony Stark." She held out her arms, sweeping them around the room filled with every type of gadget imaginable, and some that weren't. "Unfortunately, with all of my knowledge and technology, I have no way to heal it."

"You lost someone too," Tony said.

"Yes," replied Shuri. "My brother, our king."

Our king.

She meant T'Challa, the Black Panther. Shuri was his younger sister.

"Try and sleep now, Tony Stark," she said. "There is nothing else we can do at this moment."

Tony nodded in reply, even as he knew that further sleep would be elusive. Shuri placed her hand lightly on his shoulder before retreating silently back to whatever corner she'd come from.

After the fight in Germany, as Tony got to know Peter better, the protectiveness he felt for the kid only intensified. Tony could tell Peter was impressed by him. After all, most people were, although Tony suspected it was due more to his Iron Man persona than because he was Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. But what Peter didn't realize, and likely never did, was that Tony was just as impressed by him. If not even more so.

Tony had never wanted for anything, at least materialistically. His father's immense wealth gave him access to the best materials and technology that money could buy. Peter, on the other hand, had to work with whatever he could scrounge up from the Dumpsters around his school and apartment. That old Macintosh computer sitting on the second hand desk in his bedroom? Peter had found that ancient thing sitting outside the back door of a computer repair shop, and after asking the shop owner's permission to take it home, proceeded to turn it into something that was actually useable, instead of just a twenty pound paperweight.

Of course in the months following the fight with Cap, Tony slowly funneled enough money towards Peter—through various anonymous methods—to not only revamp his room, complete with the best new Macintosh he could justify giving a high school kid, but also update his new Spider Suit with the best artificial intelligence system that Tony could think up. The AI that Peter had so aptly named, Karen.

The suit that Tony then confiscated from Peter after the ferry incident, when Peter's lies and disobedience had forced Tony into a proverbial corner. He'd hoped the humiliation of Peter being dumped back at home with nothing except a pair of pink Hello Kitty pajama pants and a too-large New York souvenir t-shirt would be enough to knock some sense into the kid, but alas, he was wrong. All it did was bring Peter back to his friendly-neighborhood, working-class, build-everything-himself roots.

And after Peter brought down that plane, and subsequently turned down Tony's invitation to come and live at the Avengers Complex, Tony rewarded him for his newfound maturity by returning his Spider Suit, complete with brand-new Karen upgrades, not one but two tracking devices, and a new, even better parachute, designed to dematerialize if it became submerged in water.

He also put item 17-A—the Iron Spider Suit—on permanent standby with F.R.I.D.A.Y., just in case.

But in the end, not even the best and most technologically advanced suit Tony could dream up was enough to save Peter. Once again, Tony had failed.

Tony curled his left hand under his chin and closed his eyes. He'd refused to allow Shuri to clean it while she was working on him, not wanting the last remains of Peter to be simply washed away, like unwanted dirt. He wanted to cling to them just a bit longer.

He wasn't yet ready to let go.

XXXX

As the first slivers of dawn crept up over the mountains in the distance, Tony gave up the pretense of trying to sleep and sat up, wincing as various joints popped and groaned in protest. As much as he hated to admit it, he wasn't as young as he used to be.

Glancing around, he noticed he was alone in the large room. Shuri must've slipped out at some point, perhaps going off to try and catch some sleep. There was a glass of water next to his platform, along with something that looked like the Wadandan version of a granola bar. Tony reached for the water glass, his hand shaking as he brought it to his lips, nearly choking as the cool liquid slid past his parched throat.

He was still gasping for breath when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," he croaked, quickly chugging another gulp of water.

He was expecting Shuri to come walking through the door. Or maybe Bruce, or even Rhodey; Bruce had told him that Rhodey survived Thanos' snap.

He absolutely was not expecting to see Steve Rogers enter the room, looking more bedraggled and defeated than Tony had ever seen him.

Almost instantly Tony felt his jaw tighten at the sight of his former teammate-turned-fugitive. Although obviously still very fit, Steve looked rough, as though the years he'd spent running from the law had actually been tough on him. His hair was longer than he'd worn it before, he had a shaggy beard that aged him at least ten years, and although Tony could still make out the star and stripes on his dusty uniform, it was so stripped down from its usual patriotic verve that they were barely recognizable.

Was this was Steve meant about showing his dark side?

Steve paused right inside the room, a tentative expression on his bearded face. Tony's upper lip curled, and that old feeling of wanting to punch him in his perfect teeth flared up in his chest, as if it had been only moments before that Steve had left him lying on the freezing concrete floor of that Hydra facility in Siberia.

Where Steve had dropped his shield—the shield Howard Stark had made for him—next to Tony's prone body as he dragged an injured Bucky What's-his-face away.

"Tony—" Steve started, taking a couple steps towards him.

"What the hell do you want?" Tony interrupted, each word shooting from his mouth like a blast from his palm repulsors.

Steve stopped in his tracks, raising his hands up in surrender. "I'm not here to fight with you, Tony."

The eerie calmness in Steve's voice only served to make Tony angrier. "No?" he snapped, dangling his legs over the side of the platform. "Let me guess, the soldier's finally had enough fighting?"

"Tony, this isn't helping anything!" Steve retorted. His hands dropped back to his sides, and he took another step towards Tony. "I'm only here to—"

"Did you know he was only a kid?" Tony demanded. "When you dropped an entire fucking airline terminal on top of his head, did you know he was just a kid? DID YOU?"

"He wasn't just an ordinary kid, Tony—"

"He was MY KID!" screamed Tony, slamming his fist against the platform. "He was my kid, my responsibility, and you tried to fucking kill him! You laid him out and dropped a hundred ton terminal on his head!"

"I'm sorry!" shouted Steve. He crossed the distance to Tony's platform in three strides, his chest heaving, his fists clenched at his sides. "I'm sorry, Tony, okay? But maybe you shouldn't've brought someone so young in on it in the first place!"

A fresh wave of grief bubbled up in Tony's chest, and he slumped back against the platform, his eyes trained on his ashes-stained palm. "It doesn't matter now anyway. He's gone. We lost."

Steve let out an enormous sigh. "Tony, you're not the only person who's lost someone. Everyone here has lost someone, people they loved. But if someone dies on our watch, we don't give up. Remember?"

"Don't you say that to me," warned Tony, his upper lip curling into a sneer. "Don't you dare say that to me right now. Look around you, Rogers. We've lost. Even you should be able to see that."

"Not necessarily, Tony," said Steve quietly. "Bruce and Shuri have been talking; apparently she was able to learn some things from the Mind Stone… before it was taken by Thanos. Nebula is working with her now. Thor's on his way to pick up Barton and Lang. Once they get here, we can start to work on a plan."

"Plan?" asked Tony, nearly spitting the word. "What plan? What in the hell can be done about… this?" He pointed out the large window, at the battle carnage still littering the vast plain outside.

"I don't know," Steve answered. "I'm not the brains of this organization." He paused, cocking his head as he drew in a deep breath. "They could use your help, Tony. They're working in a makeshift lab at the moment since this one was damaged, but..."

Tony pursed his lips, shaking his head as he thought. Peter was always the optimistic one, not him. Tony always planned for the worst. It's what drove him to upload the near constant updates to the suits, both his and Peter's. It's what drove him to ask Aunt May to list him as an emergency contact for Peter at his school. It's what drove him to invite Peter to come and stay at the Avengers Complex on weekends, so he could see for himself what Peter was up to, not fully trusting the boy's vague phone updates since the battle with Vulture.

What help could he possibly be to anyone right now?

"I don't—" Tony started, but then stopped. He could almost hear Peter's kind voice in his head.

"We should help them, Mr. Stark. They're counting on us."

"Bruce got ahold of Pepper, Tony," Steve said. "She's on her way."

Tony's head snapped up at the unexpected news. Pepper was alive. She was on her way.

Pepper loved Peter, and Peter adored "Ms Pepper" just as much. Tony even caught Peter sleeping on her shoulder in the media room of the Avengers Complex late one Saturday night, after a particularly tough week of school. They'd been watching The Empire Strikes Back for the umpteenth time.

Pepper would be able to mourn with him. She'd understand some of what he's going through.

Okay, kid. Let's help them.

"All right, fine," said Tony, slowly sliding off the platform. "Lead the way, Cap."

With a single nod, Steve turned around and headed for the door. Tony clutched his aching left arm in his hand as he followed, glancing up at the sky through the window, noticing the thick grey clouds gathering overhead. His arm always ached worse when it rained.

He wasn't able to save Peter from Thanos' snap. But maybe, just maybe, with their combined minds and a bit of luck, Tony would somehow be able to avenge him.

After all, Strange did say there was one possibility for victory. One possibility, even out of millions, was at least better than none.

"What was his name?" asked Steve as they turned a corner. "The kid? Spider-Man?"

"Peter," replied Tony, flexing his hand. "His name is Peter."

I love reviews more than Tony loves his suits. ;) I can't wait to hear what you think!

[fearofaherobrine]

Roleplay Server Log #296

“Nameless Server, Trender and the Passports, Deerheart’s Pottery Lesson”

[???] Has wandered far from any builds, just wandering in the woods.  His clothes a bit more tattered then when he first arrived-

[Grinny] Is cleaning his ass on the carpet in the middle of the vine room-

[Doc] is talking to Yaunfen and catches him- Grinny! If you're having trouble pooping you need to say something! Don't wipe your butt on the rug!

[Grinny] - Fuck you!

[Doc] That was overly mean.

[Yaunfen] you said fuck to Mada. Bad kitty!

[Grinny] Hisses at Yaunfen-

[Yaunfen] hisses back -

[Doc] Now now, let's not fight. But seriously Grinny, are you having an issue?

[Grinny] - No

[Doc] Gestures at the rug- then can we not? Please?

[Grinny] - Nah, it bothers you so I'm gonna keep doing it

[Yaunfen] you made a stinky! Maybe you need a bath!

[Grinny] - Don't you dare!

[Doc] swats out the soiled wool blocks resignedly and replaces them with cobbles instead

[Grinny] Grumbles and swats at Doc-

[Doc] the claws glance off hir boot- you can only have one since you're being naughty. - Xe sets a white wool block on the surface of the floor. - I'll fix the others whenever I have time-

[Yaunfen] grumpy cat

[Grinny] Huffs and starts sauntering off- By the way, that love struck idiot with no name wandered off

[Doc] How long ago?

[Grinny] - Maybe a few days

[Doc] oh damn it. I've been so busy....

[Grinny] - Well then it sucks to be you

[Yaunfen] takes out a lollipop and licks it- adventure?

[Doc] Don't be a pissant Grinny, the worst that can happen is he'll get lost .

[Grinny] - Whatever

[Doc] turns to Yaunfen- yes, time to go server hunting

[Yaunfen] Yay! Do I get to ride?

[Doc] Yes you do

-the two flip forms as they venture outside and Yaunfen climbs aboard Doc before Xe goes flying off low towards the servers place signal

[???] Is just sitting in the shade of a tree-

[Doc] touches down and Yaunfen hops off, prancing happily with a much smaller lollipop- there you are, did you get lost?

[???] - Hm?  Oh, no.  I've just been wandering

[Doc] Sorry to be a pest then. Your fellow servers decided to become real so they've been off server for a couple of weeks now

[???] - That would explain how empty the seed feels

[Doc] They'll be back soon enough, apparently they can auto adjust to their surroundings. Currently they both look human, it's odd.

[???] - Ah...  You know, I wonder how long it took the others to realize their names...

[Doc] Flux in not sure, she might have chosen her own. I sometimes wonder if Deerheart came with hers to indicate why she was formed.

[Yaunfen] Mada named me!

[???] - It's just, I can feel it on the tip of my tongue, but it just won't come out yet

[Doc] Do you want me to look at your files? It might be there

[???] - You can try

[Yaunfen] curls up next to Doc as they loaf comfortably- [Doc] pulls out hir command block and pushes it up against his foot- lets see what we have here-

[???] Watches curiously-

-The coding is complex, like the other servers but the file Doc is looking for is being evasive-

[Doc] How odd, it's like it's trying to get away so I can't read it...

[Yaunfen] Can't we just give him a name? Splender gave Pinwheel one!

[???] - It wouldn't feel right kiddo

[Yaunfen] Sad face-

[Doc] Have you tried meditating at all? I've heard good things about it.

[???] - Meditating?

[Doc] I have a friend who's a witch. She balanced Flux's energy for her so she'd stop corrupting things accidentally. You just take slow deep breaths and try to think about nothing. It's supposed to relax you so you can think more clearly.

[???] - I can try

[Doc] just do this - Xe takes long, slow breaths in through hir nostrils and out through hir parted lips. Just try to relax everything and not move.

[Yaunfen] is imitating Doc

[???] Imitates Doc, all around them energies begin stirring and coalescing around them in waves-

[Yaunfen] Lets out a little yawn-

[???] His eyes snap open and he sways a little- Woah...

[Doc] What is it?!

[???] - I may not know my name, but I do know what I embody

[Doc] What is it? You seem like a vital person. Something nature oriented I bet.

[???] Smirks- The wild

[Doc] for better or for worse I bet. The passive and hostile mobs forces in tandem

[???] - Well, that's one thing solved!  I'm sure the name will come along soon enough!

[Yaunfen] leans over and is making soft snores with hir head on Doc's paw-

[Doc] You're probably right, it's good progress at least.

[???] - I think your little one needs tending to

[Doc] leans over to give the little dragon a kiss on one of their horns. Xe curls hir tail around to cover the child with hir fluff. - they're safe with me.

[???] - I think I'll just go wander some more

[Doc] just don't be a stranger okay? Call for help over the chat if you need it.

[???] - Will do

[CP] Has been pacing nearly nonstop and had increased the temperature in the bunker due to agitation-

[Deer] - CP calm down, you're turning this into a sauna

[Notch] is up and moving around a bit, but still feels poorly.

[Flux] - CP, why don't you go outside for a bit?

[CP] - No need to

[Notch] I'm not looking forward to this, but I think it's probably time to head out.

[Flux] - Are you sure?  There's not that much of a rush...

[Notch] There's the cop to take into account...

[CP] - Well who all will be going then?

[Deer] - I'd like to go

[Flux] - I am most certainly going

[Notch] You know I'll have to take a plane right? It's gonna be rather boring.

[CP] - Not necessarily, I think you can still pay cash for trains...

[Notch] Across an ocean?

[CP] Shrugs- Boat?

[Notch] Again. Across an ocean? That could take more time then we have. I mean we can go on a cruise someday if you really want too.

[CP] - Oh fuck no!

[Notch] I didn't think so.

[CP] - Fine then, I'll just go ahead and teleport us to Dawn's island then...

[Notch] Is everything arranged? I know it's short notice...

[CP] - Who cares

[Notch] Sighs-

[CP] Reaches out and grabs a bit of each of them and concentrates, one moment they're in the bunker and the next they are on a sandy beach-

[Notch] Looks around. - well this is pretty.

[CP] - Yeah yeah, whatever.  Let's go find Dawn- Starts storming off

[Mort] Is cutting the long grass in the yard shorter with a scythe.

[Deer] - Ah!  Mort!

[Mort] Hello? Do I.. know you?

[Deer] - It's me!  Deer!

[Mort] Deerheart? What happened to your.... - waves his hand vaguely around his head-

[Flux] - Our programming allowed us to adjust so we would not stand out as much

[Mort] Oh!

[Dawn] Is coming down off a ladder, with several roof shingles and a hammer- So I presume the other vision is Flux? And Markus. Nice to see you going irl again.

[Notch] It needed to be done.

[CP] Is at the back of the group-

[Flux] - It is good to see you again Dawn

[Notch] Blinks suddenly - Oh crap....

[CP] - What?

[Notch] I need my passport....

[CP] Starts laughing- You're going to get screwed over by that!?

[Flux] - Passport?

[Deer] - What's that?

[Notch] They'll check it when I re-enter the country! It's supposed to be traceable remember?

[Mort] It's shows your identity when you're in a different contry.

[CP] - Do you even know where it is?

[Notch] In a box under my bed.

[CP] - Well then it sucks to be you

[Deer] - CP that's mean, go get it

[Flux] - If it's required to get in...

[Dawn] If it makes you feel any better I did get you one thing you'll need.

[Notch] Hmm?

[Dawn] Opens the front door and drags out a decent looking suitcase that was obviously bought second-hand. - I got some loose clothes too, and the basic toothbrush, toothpaste and deodorant combo for travellers.

[Notch] That's very thoughtful.

[Dawn] No problem.

[Flux] - How are Deer and I supposed to get in then if we do not have this passport item?

[Deer] - Ohhh, that might be a problem

[Notch] Helpless look.

[Dawn] I thought you guys could copy things?

[CP] - Copy yes, but making it match them would be very difficult

[Dawn] Then I don't know. I can get you a ticket, but you still have to pass airport security.

[Deer] - CP, what about your teleportation abilities, could we just meet Notch there?

[CP] - Well yes, but that doesn't mean I want to

[Notch] Either way I still need my passport. -hopeless tone.

[CP] - Oh for fucks sake fine!  I'll be right back- He teleports over to Notch's apartment into his bedroom, keeping his eyes closed until he's down low enough so the glow won't be visible from the outside.  Opening his eyes he casts around for the bed and starts reaching under

-There's a shoe box with worn edges near the wall. Along with several single socks, a koosh ball, a lot of spare change and a mario amibo.

[CP] Grabs the koosh ball and then drags out the box out and opens it-

-the box has a passport and some old photos. A birth certificate and some bank register books.

[CP] Grabs the passport and teleports back to the island before throwing it at Notch- Here's your fucking passport!

[Notch] gets swatted in the face with it- ow.

[Dawn] Could Doc do something with it? The security stuff is tiny digital printing after all.

[CP] - Oh fuck no, they do not need to be involved, I can go talk to Slender and see how he manages it

[Samhedi] wanders out and investigates Deerheart's feet. The other hens stay a few steps behind him, just hunting for bugs-

[Deer] - Awww, hello birdy- Is hesitant to touch it

[Flux] Looks at the black rooster curiously-

[CP] Teleports off-

[Samhedi] Curious head cock and the beak opens and closes slowly-

[Mort] It's okay, he's friendly. You can pick him up if you want.

[Deer] Touches him and shudders- Oh....  That's distracting...

[Dawn] He's just a rooster. I mean he's a bit unusual since he can't make noise, but that's all.

[Deer] - I see, but now I know what Doc was talking about when they said everything was distracting...

[Dawn] I guess if you're used to lower detail I can understand. - turns to Flux- How are your energies faring?

[Samhedi] Firmly sits on Deerheart's foot.

[Flux] - Well, I believe...

[Deer] Looks at the rooster- Oh, okay

[Samhedi] Settles into being warm, his feathers are extremely fluffy-

[Dawn] Rubs her hands together and passes them over Flux's front slowly- Muuuuch better. Especially your lower chakras. Been having fun?

[Notch] Turns a bit pink.

[Flux] - You mean intercourse?  Yes

[Dawn] Not the most romantic way to put it, but I'm happy for you. I can feel the love radiating off of Markus here. You found a good one.

-Some of the hens sit down next to Samhedi, effectively surrounding Deerheart-

[Deer] - I think they like me

[Mort] You have peaceful energies. They're sensitive from hanging around us. Hey... you want to see my latest artwork?

[Deer] - Sure, but somebody might need to move these guys

[Mort] You have cats right? Same technique

[Deer] Carefully gets her foot out from under the rooster- Okay, I think I got it

[Mort] You've got it. Come on over here, heads for the side of the house-

[Deer] Follows curiously-

-There's a shed with an open side in the shade of the house, there's a kiln and a kick wheel and several shelves of pottery at the back.

[Deer] - Did you make all of this?

[Mort] Oh yes. Dawn taught me, but she only keeps a few favorite pieces in the house. The rest goes to the shop. I'm still practicing. It's kinda hard when your fingers are so poky.

[Deer] - I would guess so...  The only things we can make out of clay at home are flower pots and bricks

[Mort] Aww... I think you'd like the wheel, you seem like someone who appreciates getting dirty.

[Deer] - Yeah, I miss my hooves though

[Mort] Will Doc fix them when you go back?

[Deer] - They should just transition back...  But that...  Wheel, thing is interesting

[Mort] Here, I'll show you how to use it. Just sit right here - Indicates a small stool that will put the round part of the wheel between her spread legs-

[Deer] Sits down and carefully touches the wheel-

-The metal is cool and grooved in a circle, it turns a little as she bumps it sitting down-

[Deer] - All this seems so weird...

[Mort] How come? - He's taking a big ball of wet white clay out of a bucket-

[Deer] - I'm just not used to it and there's so much detail

[Mort] Pulls up a chair next to her- Then I guess relish it for being a new experience. I gotta slam it, I'm saying so I don't startle you.

[Deer] - Okay

[Mort] Bashes the ball of clay against the center of the wheel- It won't stick otherwise.

[Deer] - So what do you do?

[Mort] try just kicking the pedal on the right to get a feel for it. It makes the whole thing spin. - He puts a bowl of water next to her.

[Deer] Gives it a kick, it's a bit rough on her tender feet-

[Mort] You don't have to kick it hard, just kinda pump the pedal -

-The wheel spins around slowly-

[Deer] Tries it, she's fascinated by the motion of the wheel-

[Mort] To start out, You gotta get it symmetrical - He dips his hands in the water and presses one on top of the lump and the other on the side, making it into a puck shape as the wheel turns it

[Deer] Watches closely-

[Mort] Now you can play with it. Wet your hands, try spinning it and stick your thumb in the middle as it goes.

[Deer] Dips her hands into the water and puts them on the clay, she is quickly distracted by the feel-

-The spinning mass forms a hole around her thumb and the grainy clay is slightly scratchy as it burrs past her wet fingers.

[Deer] - I can't...  I can't draw away from the feeling of this...

[Mort] You don't have too. Just use your hands, kinda pinch from the outside and the inside at the same time with one hand.

[Deer] Moves her hands and shudders-

-The clay rises in a decent wall under her hands, it's kind of a tube now.

[Deer] Pinches too hard-

-The wall collapses and a little rind peels off the top and flips away into the basin under the wheel-

[Mort] whoops! That's okay. Just be gentle. - He pressses a hand next to hers, lowering the wall of the tube so it looks more like a puck again-

[Deer] - This is kinda overwhelming, I'm not used to feeling so much

[Mort] Good or bad?

[Deer] - Good, but overwhelming

[Mort] Smiles- Try again then. I'll fire whatever you make and you can take it home with you.

[Deer] Nods and starts over again-

-The wall rises under her fingers again and gets to a decent height-

[Mort] Much better-

[Deer] - Now what?

[Mort] What do you want it to be? It can be a bowl or a vase, or a big mug. A plate wouldn't be much of a challenge, but handles and legs and things can be added later.

[Deer] - Let's just start with a bowl

[Mort] Then put your fingers around the edge and guide it outwards a little-

[Deer] Follows the instructions carefully-

-The edges flow outward a bit and the tube becomes more bowl shaped-

[Deer] - Accidentally scraps her foot on the wheel and hisses in a breathe-

[Mort] You okay?

[Deer] - Scraped myself

[Mort] Checks her foot-

-There's a bit of blood coming from where she scraped herself-

[Mort] Aww, here, I'll get some clean water. Just let the wheel slow to a stop on it's own.

[Deer] - Okay

-The wheel cranks around to a standstill and the bowl looks pretty nice for a first try.

[Mort] Puts a bowl of clean cool water by her foot to rinse off in.

[Deer] Sticks her foot in- Thank you

[Mort] Looks over her work- You're welcome. And it's okay. It needs to dry on the wheel a bit before I can cut it off. Tell you what, pick a color combo and I'll finish it for you. It'll need to dry for at least three days before it can be fired anyway.

[Deer] Thinks for a moment- Hmmm, purple and yellow

[Mort] I've got kind of a plum color and a yellow, is that okay?

[Deer] - Sure!

[CP] Teleports back with a couple of small books in his possession-

[Notch] Jumps as Cp appears rather close to him-

[Dawn] eyebrow-

[CP] - Well, learned a lot about how the other pasta's get back to the manor if they aren't there when it moves

[Dawn] Do tell.

[CP] Holds up the books- These are basically blank passports with a bit of Slender power embedded in them, more specifically their power to bend what others perceive.  A bit of blood from Deer and Flux will bind these to them and anybody who looks at them other than those two will see a legitimate passport

[Dawn] Niiiice trick. Though making a blood oath with a book implies a certain level of trust.

[CP] Or necessity after having to retrieve the others a number of times

[Notch] ... I wish you would have gotten three...

[CP] - Why?

[Notch] Mine doesn't have a stamp showing I left Sweden in any legitimate way....

[CP] - And that's my problem how?

[Notch] Sadly-  I didn't say it was...

[Dawn] it would have made things easier.

[CP] - I don't wanna go get another one though!

[Notch] Looks down- I'll just... deal with it..

[Dawn] Gives Cp a look because he's being shitty to his dad.

[CP] Ignores the look-

-There's a bit of static amongst the tree's-

[Flux] - Will not having this stamp cause problems?

[Notch] I have no idea. I guess I can just make something up. But I risk getting in more trouble by lying.

[Dawn] Gets a crawly sensation on her neck and is looking a bit more alert.

-There's a bit of movement amongst the tree's before Trender comes out-

[Flux] Takes Notch's hand- Then use mine, I'm sure with CP's help I can get over there without the use of a plane

[Dawn] Friend of yours?

[CP] - Fucking Nether

[Trender] - I'm sorry to intrude, but brother sent me

[Dawn] Slender I presume?

[Trender] - Yes, I am Trender by the way, a pleasure to meet you, not so much your clothes

[Dawn] Dawn Razor, charmed I'm sure. What's wrong with my clothes? I was working on the roof when everyone showed up.

[CP] - It's his thing, just ignore it.  Why are you here?

[Trender] Holds up two more books- Brother happened to scan your mind while you were making your request and realized two books would not be enough

[Notch] Grateful tone- Thank you for that. It was my fault partially for not remembering that I needed exit stamps from where I was too.

[Trender] - Yes, and one for Herobrine as well

[CP] - Why the fuck do I need one!?  I don't need to go on the fucking plane!

[Notch] Peanuts?

[Dawn] Little chuckle-

[CP] - Does it look like I can even fit in one of those tiny ass seats?

[Trender] Sighs-

[Dawn] I can maybe get an upgrade? It's short notice and it won't be cheap....

[Trender] - Cost does not have to be a problem, I can easily reimburse you

[Dawn] That's very kind of you. What's your deal anyway? You look like a fashionista and it looks tailored too. You sew your own gear? It's very nice.

[Trender] - Yes, I do make my own clothes, I tend to feed off of the confidence when people are happy with what they are wearing.  Thus why I will find proper clothes for them or make them for them

[Dawn] You know... maybe I can do you a favor as well. I'm bad about hoarding stuff I'll never get around to using, Stay here a sec. I'll  be right back.

[Notch] Watches her go and then looks up at Trender. - The party was decent if you're wondering. Everyone looked really nice.

[Trender] - Ah, that's good.  I'm glad it was enjoyed

[Notch] You shoulda seen Doc's outfit. Cp about had a coronary.

[Trender] - Oh really?  With your permission, I could see it in your mind

[Notch] Really? Okay- He focuses on the memory of Doc leaving in hir short dress and long boots accompanied by Yaunfen in their little bowtie.

[Trender] - Could be a bit better fitted, but otherwise passable

[Dawn] Comes back with a rather large cookie tin-

[Trender] Glances at it curiously-

[Dawn] I've had these forever, take them with my blessings- She opens the tin and holds it up. The sunlight glitters on the contents. It's full of beautiful antique buttons grouped onto little strings to keep the matching ones together. There's metal and crystal and delicately cut glass. - I never wear fancy clothes anyway. Attracts too much attention in my line of work- grins-

[Trender] Lifts some of these to inspect- Ah, these can definitely be put to use-  He takes the tin from her

[CP] - Can you go now?

[Trender] - Oh alright, here are the books- He hands over the books and then teleports away

[Notch] a bit too late- Thanks-

[CP] Throws a book at Notch-

[Notch] Gets hit in the chest with it and just picks it up resignedly. - Dawn? Can you hold onto my other one for safekeeping? It's probably illegal to have two.

[Dawn] Gladly - takes it.

[Notch] How do I do this? Just prick myself with something and make a print?

[CP] - As far as I can tell, yes

[Notch] Can I borrow your sword?

[CP] Rolls his eyes but holds the sword out-

[Notch] Pricks his thumb on the tip and the little bit of blood dribbles down the blue diamond surface. Then makes a bloody print on the book with it before sticking his finger in his mouth.

[Flux] Looks at her own book before reaching out for the sword as well, her blood color is much darker, almost a purple, but just red enough to pass as human-

[Mort] Takes out a wire on two little sticks and wraps it around his hands like a garotte- Watch this. This is how you get the pot off. - He draws the wire under the pot along the surface of the wheel like someone cutting cheese. - Then you just scoot it off. I'll put it on the table for now to dry. We should probably see what the others are up too anyway. I'll take it from here.

[Deer] - Oh!  Right, they're probably about ready to go

[Deer] Hurries back over to the group- Are we ready to go?

[Dawn] Did you have fun? You're both covered in clay droplets.

[Mort] We had a nice little lesson.

[Deer] - Guess I did get a bit dirty

[CP] - You do realize you'll have to put your shoes on, right?

[Deer] Whines-

[Dawn] Yeah... some places won't even let you in if you don't have shoes on.

[Mort] [who is only wearing a pair of shorts over his bare pelvic bones] Or a shirt either.

[Deer] - But I prefer being naked!

[Mort] Amen sister. Well I like having my waist covered, but otherwise. Yeah.

[CP] Tosses the third book at Deer] - Just get a bit of your blood on this

[Deer] - Why?

[CP] - So you can get through customs

[Dawn] It's irritating but it keeps people from getting suspicious

[Deer] - CP, can I use your sword?

[CP] Groans but moves the sword towards her-

[Deer] Cuts herself and marks the book-

[CP] - Can we go now?

[vivalaskristie]

Chapter 6 All the Single Ladies

Book: The Royal Romance (AU)

Series Premise: Parallel, behind the scenes, Madeleine and Bastien

A/N: This is my first series, my first AU, because Madeleine and Bastien needed to smash.  I posted and then pulled it because it wasn’t quite right.  It’s still a work in progress.

Warnings for this series: The first sex scenes I’ve ever written, bad language, sneaking around, alcohol, general mischief and the occasional academic symposium.

Chapter 1 Prelude

Chapter 2 Drinks on a Yacht

Chapter 3 A Dark and Stormy Night

Chapter 4 Meanwhile, Back At The Palace

Chapter 5 She’s Gone

Permatags:  @speedyoperarascalparty @burnsoslow @dcbbw @emceesynonymroll @stopforamoment

“Well this is quite a hiding place you’ve found for yourself, Maddie.”

Madeleine looked up from her book toward the source of that familiar voice. She’d had 2 weeks of nobody saying her name without some sort of title in front of it. 

“Well I guess I’m It now, Livvie.”  She smiled at her longtime friend as Olivia sat down on the chaise next to hers and made herself comfortable. 

“You certainly are. In fact I don’t think there’s ever been an It girl like you before.”

“How did you find me?  Did anybody follow you?” Madeleine had to ask, even though she knew that nobody could move around the world undetected like the Duchess of Lythikos. She was a ninja when she needed to be.

Olivia thought about making some wisecrack about her lofty stealth skills, but she knew that Madeleine was genuinely concerned. “No, Maddie. Not even my pilot knows why I’m here. I’m just glad you picked someplace warm. I was afraid you’d be in England somewhere in some terrible Norman castle ruin.” 

Madeleine smiled gratefully. She’d missed Olivia’s company. Ever since they’d all parted after high school, there had been a distance between the group of girls who had once been so close. None of them had chosen to be in whatever competition they found themselves in. They never saw themselves as rivals.

They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, nodding to accept refills of their drinks. The beach wasn’t crowded, in fact, there were only about a dozen other people sharing it with them, and they were all there because they were of the privileged few who knew how to get access. They all left each other alone, with no curious glances, no questions, no surreptitious selfies that just happened to capture something interesting in the background. This island in the Maldives raised the concept of “privacy” to new levels.

“So are you here to check on me out of the goodness of your kind heart, or is there more?”  

Olivia’s sharp features twisted into an appreciative smirk. The only time that she wasn’t the smartest person in the room was when Madeleine was also in attendance.

“My dear, there’s some intrigue brewing in dear old Cordonia. You need to be aware of it.”

“Nope. I’m done there. I’ve decided to go back to Oxford. I’ve got a place on a research team and they’re delighted to have me. Cordonia can blow.”  Madeleine crossed her arms and felt a rush of adrenaline–she hadn’t told anyone from home about her plans yet, and saying it out loud made it real.

Olivia had always been so proud of Madeleine’s drive. Damn, she always did her own thing whether it fit into anyone else’s plans or not. This wasn’t going to be easy. “The new Crown Prince needs to find a bride.”

Madeleine cracked a laugh before she could stop herself. Oh no no no. She was no longer part of the royal marriage stable, thank you very much. She took a sip of her cocktail and shook her head.

“They’re making it a contest.”

“Of course they are, the fucking vultures. God forbid we make any of our own choices. Who are the other ponies?  Hana?  Penelope? Kiana?”

“Oh so you’ve seen this episode already,” Olivia cackled. “Yes, they’ve gotten the gang back together for young Liam’s approval. If it matters, the word is that he’s not thrilled either. Regina has cooked this up.”

Madeleine frowned. If the Queen was behind this, chances are she’d had some help from scurrilous sources. Her mother was the Queen’s cousin. They weren’t exactly friends, but they operated with similar objectives. They paired up when it suited them. “This smells like Adelaide.”  

Olivia raised her glass in salute. “Five points to the Countess for cracking the code.”

“Shit.”

“You’ve got that right.”

“Have you talked to Hana and Pen and Ki?  Where are they on this?”  Madeleine had begun strategizing without even realizing it.

“About where we are. We all know our lines. But this isn’t like 2 years ago when Leo came sniffing around us all. We’ve done this already. None of us wants to play anymore.”

“Who do they want to win?”

“You.”

“Shit.”

Olivia laughed again, a loud and cynical bark. “Oh my darling Maddie. Look at you already giving two shits about this.”

***

Bastien couldn’t help himself. He liked Liam. The new Crown Prince was smart and serious and aware of his place in the world in a way that Leo had never been. Cordonia would be in good hands with this man on the throne. The transition had gone smoothly because Liam demanded it. It was flawlessly executed. He had a pack of lifelong friends who would grow nicely into their roles as his advisors. The excitement over the abdication and dramatic disappearance of the jilted bride-to-be had faded as the nation turned its attention to the new heir. Cordonia was going to be fine.

His days were long and busy. He’d been hearing about vague future plans for Prince Liam but his focus was on the present and immediate future. Anything beyond the next week was still a variable.

His nights were long and decidedly not busy. He’d finally broken down and texted Madeleine, “checking on you” with no expectation of a reply. He received one the next day and it put him immediately at ease. It was a selfie with the sea and the sky behind her. She was tanned to a lovely golden brown and she looked relaxed and happy. He stared at it a hundred times a day. He wanted more than anything to go to wherever she was, but it was impossible. They were impossible.

Two weeks later, things started happening. He received a request for a meeting with Liam’s chief of staff. Cleaning crews were seen around the palace, airing out long-ignored spaces and polishing the fixtures. The King and Queen abruptly departed for a “vacation” that was not set up like a vacation at all. Nobody asked questions, and that alone was enough to make him suspicious.

His meeting with Liam’s team confirmed all of his suspicions and planted dozens more. This was not going to be good. The Queen had decided that Liam needed to marry ASAP, and since he didn’t have any serious prospects, wouldn’t it be fun to make a spectacle of it with the world watching?  They already had all the players, because everybody knew the “girls”–that made Bastien crazy, because these “girls” were grown women with lives and plans of their own. When they told him who the leading candidate was, he almost walked out of the room. Oh for fucks sake, he thought. What century are they living in?  Regina had obviously been spending booze-fueled afternoons with her dear cousin Adelaide. This was not an idea that was hatched from goodwill or kind intentions. No, it was a fucking circus. He was disgusted. 

He didn’t know who was in on it yet, so he didn’t dare reach out to Madeleine. Hana was in Asia with her family, and Penelope was in the middle of the annual dog show circuit. Kiana was at a UN summit in Geneva. Olivia was off the grid, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary. He’d learned not to ask questions about the Duchess of Lythikos and her, um, proclivities. He’d seen her whip a dagger from somewhere underneath an evening gown once and plant it in the wall less than an inch from someone who’d irritated her. She legit scared him.

As he left the meeting with Liam’s team, he felt a hand on his arm. “Bastien, got a minute?”  He turned to see Drake Walker, Liam’s best friend. Drake was also the son of Bastien’s former mentor, who’d been killed in the line of duty. Bastien always had a minute for Drake Walker.

“Yeah, of course. What’s up?”

“Is there any way we could take Liam out of the country for some unstructured fun before the Queen’s beauty pageant begins?  He’s stressing about it. He thinks his whole life is already mapped out. I’d like to remind him that it doesn’t have to be.”

Bastien felt a surge of affection for Drake. He was such a good guy. Liam was lucky to have him. “Absolutely. Let me know what you’d like to do, and I’ll prep a team for it.”

“Thanks, Bas. You’re the best. We’re looking at a weekend in Manhattan, just the five of us. No fuss, if we can avoid it.”

“You got it. Book it and send me the details.”  Bastien was relieved that Liam had real friends looking out for him. A trip to New York was just what he needed. What could possibly go wrong?  

He was on his way to the next item on his schedule when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out and read the text.

I’m home. 

She knows, he thought. Someone warned her before she got ambushed. He didn’t know who the guardian angel was, but he was grateful. He replied Welcome back. Laying low?

Yes. Needed to be here to put out some fires.

He smiled. She wasn’t going to jump into formation without a fight. 

***

“No, mother, I am not going to marry Liam.”

Adelaide swirled her glass as she rolled her eyes. “Madeleine, you’ve been given a reprieve. This is your chance for redemption. You can show the world that you are good enough to be a queen.”

That stung as it always had. “Good enough” was never good enough for Madeleine’s parents. They didn’t care about her accomplishments; only the reviews were important. She might as well put herself on Yelp and open up the comments.

“Mother, you cannot force me to do this. I do not require redemption. I have obligations that I must fulfill and I will not change my plans.”

Adelaide looked at her daughter with disdain. “Really, Madeleine, what good is another degree?  You’re a countess. You don’t need more school. You need a partner, someone who can elevate you to your rightful place. You’re going to the palace next week and you’re going to get that boy to marry you.”  She drained her glass and waved it vaguely, signaling the footman to refill it. 

There was no point in arguing with her. Adelaide and her husband Godfrey were of the opinion that the only use for a daughter was for the procurement of a significant husband. It had taken years for Madeleine to unlearn her place in their world. She left Adelaide to her scotch and Godfrey to his scorn and she went up to her rooms. 

She opened up the group chat on her phone. It was so good to be in touch with her friends again, all at once. They had missed each other so much!  There was a lot to catch up on; they just needed to get past this one last show.

It’s done. I’ll be at the palace next week. See you soon xoxo.

The replies hit immediately.

PLACES EVERYBODY!

GAME ON, BITCHES

Un pour tous et tous pour un!

Buckle up, Cordonia, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

It was good to have friends.

She debated about texting Bastien. She knew where his loyalties lie. She couldn’t put him in a position where he had to choose between her and the Family–of course he would have to choose them. But god, she wanted him to know that she wasn’t playing this round for real. She’d had a lot of time to think lately, and the realization that her possibilities went so far beyond just marrying well had stunned her. She wasn’t about to let it go.

Do you trust me?

Bastien read the words and everything around him stopped. This was new. They only had the moments as they happened. They’d never talked about things like trust or feelings or the future. Those were beyond the moment. What was she doing?

I trust you.

***

The following week as Madeleine was preparing to go back to the palace, Bastien was putting the final plans in place to secure Liam’s pre-bachelor-party party in New York. It was not an official visit, no galas, no banquets, no ribbon cuttings or bouquets. Five guys on a 3-day pub crawl, tailed by Bastien himself and the ten best members of his team. He hadn’t heard anything more from Madeleine, but he saw that five of the best suites in the palace were being prepared for the suitors. He was dying to ask questions, to find out what was happening.

He trusted her.

Chapter 7

[chiseler]

CRAIG BALDWIN IN RETRENCH MODE

By way of brief introduction for the unfamiliar, San Francisco-based filmmaker, archivist, curator and artist Craig Baldwin is widely regarded as a kind of figurehead, a holdover crazy beatnik artist from SF’s pre-tech boom days. He’s also been hailed as one of the country’s most respected culture jammers, and a brilliant American original.

While most Hollywood films, he says, simply regurgitate the same tired old stories over and over, “old wine in new bottles,” as he puts it, Baldwin is trying to put new wine in old bottles, telling new stories in a new way. Referring to himself as a media cannibal, since the late ‘70s he’s been doing this by plundering the culture itself, salvaging discarded, forgotten movies and media clips, industrial and educational films, archive footage, TV ads, soundtracks, infomercials, found images, anything he can get his hands on, repurposing, recombining and reorganizing them. He edits all this cultural detritus together to create video collage essays and narratives which put these old recognizable faces and scenes into a whole new context, turning this existing media back on itself, telling stories that interweave historical facts, conspiracy theory, critical theory, science fiction, anti-corporate and imperial commentary and film history, all with a sly sense of grim humor.

His 1992 film Tribulation 99, for instance, maps out the dark and frighteningly true history of American foreign policy in Latin America from the end of World War II through the Reagan Era and beyond. Far from being another dry PBS doc, the whole thing is disguised as a sci-fi conspiracy film about evil android replicants (like Castro) and a race of alien lizard people living in the hollow earth. But that’s merely a simple-minded thumbnail sketch of a film which, like his others, is a deeply complex artistic experiment.

But on with the story.

While touring with his 1999 film Spectres of the Spectrum, Baldwin says he began receiving some strange emails. The film, in his own inimitable style, was an exploded narrative documentary which traced out the intertwining evolutions of electronic telecommunications and military technology, this time disguised as a low-budget sci fi time-travel film about an underground revolutionary on the run from the government with his psychic teenage daughter.. For the first time here Baldwin included narrative sequences with sets and actors, those scenes interwoven with a collage of old TB shows, educational and industrial films, genre pictures and commercials. Along its tangled route, Spectres included a passing reference to pioneering rocket scientist Jack Parsons and his one-time close friend L. Ron Hubbard, who embezzled Parsons’ life savings before sailing off to found the Church of Scientology. That was all it took to get on the scientologist’s bad side, it seems, and when Baldwin returned home to San Francisco, he found a vaguely sinister letter waiting for him on Church of Scientology letterhead. That’s when he started developing the idea for his next film.

“You’re going to threaten me?

He recalls thinking at the time. “Okay then, I’m going to come right at you.”

The idea came into sharper focus not long afterward when he stumbled across John Carter’s biography, Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons (Feral House). Parsons, along with being a seminal figure at the dawn of the U.S. aerospace program and founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, was also deeply involved with the occult. Beyond his relationship with Hubbard, Parsons was also connected with Marjorie Cameron, who would play such a major role in what would come to be known as the New Age movement. On top of it all, Parsons was being groomed by Aliester Crowley himself to take over the OTO. Then everything went to hell.

“When I saw Sex and Rockets in a bookstore in Olympia, Washington—I was on tour, and I remember that day—my hair stood on end,” says Baldwin, now 65. “My father worked for Aerojet, the company that Jack Parsons founded. I’m not making this up. I’m so close to this aerospace story and I am where I am right now because my father moved to Sacramento and took this Job. I also understood the whole thing with the psychedelics and the connections and the subcultures. So it was a perfect thing for me.”

The resulting film, Mock Up on Mu, was released in 2008. Again employing his trademark media collage with newly-shot narrative scenes, and again disguised as a low-budget sci-fi thriller, the film not only explored the tangled relationships between Parsons, Hubbard, Cameron and Crowley, but also traced out the deeply interconnected growth of the space program and the spiritual movement in post-war California.

In the years  following Mock Up on Mu’s release, another major Parsons biography came out, as well as a couple high-profile films (both narrative and documentary) about Scientology. Now Ridley Scott is working on a miniseries of his own about Parsons.

“So he’s entered the public consciousness, at least far enough that Ridley Scott can get ahold of him,” says Baldwin, who has always been cursed to be a few years ahead of the curve.  “This may have changed, but I heard Scott was going to make a twelve-part miniseries. There’s so much material there, so many twists and turns it’s almost impossible to embrace. I’m not beating my chest here, I’m just saying X marks the spot. In the end, though, it may have been all that material, all those twists and turns, that caused trouble for the film in his mind.

In retrospect, he says Mock Up on Mu was too long,, took too long to make, and took up too much of his time and energy in general. In the nearly ten years since Mock Up on Mu was released, Baldwin has made a few shorts, began staging film performances involving multiple projectors on lazy Susan’s enhanced by avant-garde soundtracks, and put much of his energy into overseeing Other Cinema, the film collective and microcinema that showcases the work of other documentary filmmakers. He also became embroiled in an epic legal battle after the landlord announced an astronomical rent hike on the storefront space that serves as not only his home, office and studio, but also home to Other Cinema as well as housing his massive film archive. Although he eventually won a five-year lease extension (accompanied by a forty-three percent rent hike), the wounds inflicted by the case still linger, and he admits things have been very rough. Through it all, however, he’s been planning out his next feature. This time  he knew he had to change his approach.

“I struggled to get the whole thing into a story and then I overdid it,” he says now of the Parsons film. “I was stung by it. It was too overdetermined, it was trying too hard.  There were too many things that didn’t work out. It was two hours of people talking. Walking around in these silly spacesuits spouting all this information, because I tried to include everything.  I was wincing, so I decided I wanted to contract. I’m showing short films all the time, I’m doing these performances. The scale is perfect. Mu was too ostentatious, too bombastic. An experimental sort-of biopic. There’s not even a name for it. So I call it a compilation narrative or a collage narrative. I can’t name another person who’s doing this, so I get an A for effort. But I had to retread a little bit.”

Guy Debord

Baldwin says the two books that had the greatest impact on him were William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch and Guy Debord’s Situationist manifesto Society of the Spectacle, which were released originally just a few years apart on Paris’ Left Bank. As an artist long obsessed with, as well as a product of, post-war subcultures, it was Rich territory. So his next film. Invisible Insurrection, began as the idea of an imagined  meeting between two of the twentieth century’s most radical thinkers at the Beat Hotel in Paris.

“I don’t want to make the same mistake with Invisible Insurrection, but it’s the same thing. In the case of Parsons it was the post-war milieu in Southern California. Invisible Insurrection is about ten, fifteen years later, but it’s the post-war milieu in Paris. But that’s a good thing. It’s based in social history, which is what my films are supposed to be about, kind of dissecting them. It’s good if you have a story, especially if it’s a true story. For me it was already getting too complicated, because you had Burroughs, but there were already too many films about Burroughs. Then there’s Debord, and that’s problematic, because I can already see I might fall prey to being accused of spectacularizing Debord. Exactly what he was opposed to. But he’s the one who held copyright on himself, he’s the one who made all these films about himself. He made seven films, and some of them contain details about his life. So he already committed the sin of trying to make a visual representation out of it. I don’t want to make another biopic about a very interesting intellectual. I mean, I do, but don’t dare. So I’m going to add a third guy just to confuse things even more.”

Alexander Trocchi

The third figure in question is Scottish expatriate writer Alexander Trocchi, author of Young Adam, Cain’s Book, and a handful of pornographic novels published by Maurice Girodious’ Olympia Press. Like Burroughs and Debord, Trocchi was a deeply damaged character who had his own struggles with heroin addiction and a troubled and troubling home life. But as editor of the Paris-based literary journal Merlin, Trocchi introduced English-speaking readers to the work of Samuel Beckett and countless other new and radical voices. Over the years, Trocchi had direct involvement with the Beats, the Situationists, and later the hippies, and for Baldwin that was the key.

“This guy Trocchi is the way in,” he says. “Burroughs has been covered, so that would look derivative. Debord is good, but it would look like I tried to gloss him up, to doll him up. No one’s covered Trocchi. There was that movie Young Adam based on his first novel, which was just a so-so movie. But you can see it’s deep, it’s a complex story. I don’t know that I could make a film about Trocchi that people would respond to same way they respond to the other two guys. Trocchi’s kind of a lesser figure, but he crossed through all these subcultures, he helped form the triangle connecting the Beats, the Situationists and the hippies. You couldn’t invent someone who was more central to the subcultural changes in this whole period I’m talking about.  So I’m thinking the perspective should be moved, more through a person who could be Trocchi. I could do it in the first person.”

One possible, if limiting, route into the material, he speculated, might be an adaptation of Trocchi’s best known work, the notorious 1960 novel Cain’s Book.

“Maybe that would give me my personal entry,” Baldwin says. “But then again do I want to cover that book? No. The stories should be told about ‘great men,’ but I’m not the one to do it. I want to do something about the relationships, the juxtaposition, the collage of different ideas in a particularly overheated environment, where you’ve got May ’68 on the horizon, you’ve got people writing these super radical experimental works , you’ve got this fantastic publishing house, you’ve got gangsters involved. The little cafes, the Beat Hotel and on and on. I want to create a hall of mirrors, so to speak. There can’t be that much depth, but it’s all in the interaction. So I’m not going to do Cain’s Book, because I want to talk a little bit about what Trocchi did with LSD, and his ideas about the School of the Streets when he started writing for the Situationist International journal. I don’t want to be stuck in that period when he was on the barge on the East River.”

The idea for another way in came after seeing Abigail child’s recent documentary, Acts and Intermissions: Emma Goldman in America.

“I know Abby and love Abby. We have an understanding,” he says. “She’s a way better filmmaker than me. She did this first person thing where she was Emma, and that’s where I got the idea. And the film she made is an hour long. Maybe that would be a better way.”

Another hint toward a change in direction came through the work of prolific activist filmmaker Travis Wilkerson.

“He inserts himself into his movies, kinda like writing. A level of personal subjectivity you don’t see enough in my movies. I want to make something with more personal subjectivity., to tell the story from within instead of hurling it like a collage against the wall. So I’m kind of shifting the axis. It’s not going to be a big wrestling match between Burroughs and Debord. I’m going to enter into it as if I was a hanger-on. I haven’t made much progress with the film. I live with it every day. There’s a tower of books here that’s ten, fifteen books high. It’s gonna fall at any moment. I’m sure you’ve read most of them. I really have to take a little more time to study the material and find my way in. I want to keep it under eighty minutes. My thing is maximalism, that’s for sure, but I don’t need to tire people out. I think my last one was a hundred and twelve minutes of just maximum collage. I’m going to be a little more intelligent and nuanced.

Still from Spectres of the Spectrum

“The way I work is on paper, by the way,” Baldwin went on. “I’m not really a computer guy. I mean I’m surrounded by people who are much more capable than me on the computer. Thank god I got them. So I write little scribbled notes. It’s very Beat. I have mountains of these notes. I need to go through them. I need to create the space where I can concentrate on the material and find a way in. It’ll be a roman a clef, based on a true story, but slightly fictionalized. It could be very personal. I could go in as Trocchi or as someone else. Maybe his son, who committed suicide by jumping off a building. It would be a little easier on people’s systems than this bold barrage thing. I’m committed to that aesthetic, but you need to control it somehow. So I’m gonna try and reign the thing in.

“I have plenty of material here, about a hundred films are sitting there that are just awesome. I have this German Invisible Man, if you can believe such a seedy movie would come out in Germany in black and white in the early Sixties. It’s impossible to imagine. And back to the whole ventriloquism thing, I got my actors in that and another thing. Who was the woman who just died, the transvestite from the Warhol crowd? {Maria Montez} She went to France and was in this terrible existential movie where both of the leads die. I’m using that as source material as well, and about a thousand black and white films from the late Fifties and early Sixties. I have all these travelogues so I have all these locales and don’t have to go to France to shoot them myself. I don’t have to go climb the Eiffel Tower—I already have the Eiffel Tower.

“It will take more nuance. More subtlety. More poetry, and less bombast. Less bells and whistles. More of a literary style, more emphasis on the writing. I’m going to do something about this period in history that lead to me. But it’s not going to be a straight on profile., it’s going to be something from within. It’s gonna be more of a personal diary or confession.”

At this point, all these years after the idea first began simmering, he says he’s relieved he didn’t get a two-year burst of energy early on and start working immediately. As things stand he’s had the chance to think it through more carefully, especially in the wake of Mock Up on Mu.

Stills from Mu

“Well, I took it back into the shop,” he says. “It is a true underground film, like back in the day, like Jack Smith, just getting his friends to shoot or be in the movie, doing their own things. That’s authentic, that’s legit, that’s one way to make a movie. It’s hardly done anymore now, because of the emphasis on professionalism. You can’t get things like that out anymore. I mean you can put it on YouTube where it would be seen by all these people twenty years younger than me who don’t have a clue what ‘experimental’ means. Like the people on my street, just to get me pissed off again. There are three ice cream stores within one block. Three! Can you believe it? That’s what people are doing.  That’s the world I’m living in, constantly tearing my hair out.”

Given all that Baldwin has faced over these past few years, it’s easy to understand why progress on the film has been slow. Apart from the legal battle to remain in what has been his home and studio for the past quarter-century, he’s also had to contend with renovations which left the building without a working bathroom for four months, ongoing economic pressures, the recent election, the recent deaths of several friends, and the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland, which sent lingering shockwaves through the Bay Area’s DIY community. It’s been a lot to deal with and scrabble through.  “So the film’s in retrench mode right now,” he says. “But it’s going to come out.”

by Jim Knipfel

[dontthinkaboutzimbits]

The Book of Mormon AU Absolutely No One Wanted

Note: Idk anything and the day I do research is the day I storm heaven and devour God. 

The Zimmermanns are Mormons. They move down from Canada to Mormon city stronghold of your choice for vague reasons.

That afternoon a young, well-dressed man comes to their door with a tin of cookies and a smile.

“Hi! I’m Eric Bittle and I live down the street. Just wanted to make a good impression before you go to church! You probably won’t see much of me after.” 

Of course it’s Jack who answers the door and receives the cookies, and he’s so awkward and stunned by literally the cutest ray of sunshine in all of Mormon Stronghold that he doesn’t think to ask what Bittle means. “Um, thank you.” And then he closes the door.

The Zimmermanns are greeted warmly by the community that weekend, so warmly they get several warnings to stay the heck away from that Bittle fellow.

Several elders have been by Bittle’s house to give him literature and invite him to the church. He’s always very polite, friendly even, but he’s really… gay unsettling.

On top of that, the inside of his house is kinda unconventional. Like, there’s a lot of dribbly candles. Black pillar candles. Candles shaped like skulls. There’s incense everywhere, and herbs drying upside down by the windows. There are animal bones, picked clean by scavengers and bleached by the sun, apparently somehow acquired and resting in a curio cabinet. Bittle keeps strange dolls, terrible faceless things that smell like rosemary and earth, in cupboards and drawers. And there’s a rabbit, a fat brown fluffy thing with floppy ears, that he talks to like it understands.

They think Bittle might be a witch. And almost definitely gay. And a bad influence besides.

But he’s also very friendly and bakes more sweets than he could possibly eat, which created something of a conundrum. The elders fought each other to be the ones to visit him nearly weekly, but the church as a whole disapproved of any of their members being within a hundred feet of Bittle’s front door. 

But it’s very anticlimactic.

The Zimmermanns see Bittle from time to time. He waves cheerfully when they go by, or says good morning if they cross paths on the sidewalk. Jack finds his eyes following Bittle when he goes to grab his mail, or walks down the road to grab a coffee.

Jack, of course, is straight. There was an incident with Elder Parson at his last church—

(a series of incidents, or one looooong incident, it was too difficult to say. But at the end Jack knew the feel of stubble scraping across his chin, too hot hands pressed into his lower back, the way two erections feel rubbing together. And he knew what it felt like to be ruined; not sullied as some would believe, but spoiled. To know that there was this, all along, and he would never get to taste it again. Never get to have him again. Ruined.)

--but he likes girls. Girls are nice, lovely to look at and lovelier to hold. He tries to imagine having a wife one day, but he can’t get the picture to focus right.

Some weeks pass. Jack gets the occasional postcard from Elder Parson, the first one had a picture of the New York skyline, the second and third ones were from Uganda, a country in Africa. Like the Lion King. But it’s all very dull at the Mormon Stronghold.

Jack makes a couple friends. There’s a guy everyone calls Shitty (Jack still doesn’t know his first name) and a woman named Larissa and there’s Adam and Justin. They all do cool church stuff but pretty soon Shitty starts inviting Jack to not-church related stuff. And it’s nice. Very safe, minimally diverting, but nice.

“Brah, I’m taking you to the witch’s lair.”

At first Jack thinks Shitty is going to take him to a bar or something, but instead they turn down his street, walk right up to Bittle’s door and ring the doorbell.

Bittle answers. He’s wearing a blue apron, and there’s flour in his hair, a mixing bowl full of batter under one arm. “Oh, hello Elder Knight, Elder Zimmermann. What can I do for you nice boys?”

“Greetings sir or madam do you have a moment to talk about the Book of Mormon?”

Bittle throws his head back and cackles. It’s a bright sound. Jack has never been so grateful for Shitty’s ridiculous motor mouth in his entire life. “I always have time for you, Mr. Knight. Come on in, you can lick the bowl.”

Bittle sits them down at a comfortable couch and serves them herbal tea and scones before returning back to the kitchen to put the brownie batter in the oven. Jack can’t stop looking around. “You get used to it,” Shitty murmurs.

There are candles everywhere—dribbly ones and tall black ones and ones shaped like skulls. There are strange structures made of wire and string hanging from the ceiling, bundles of herbs to dry by the windows, a faceless handmade doll on the coffee table. This is most certainly the house of a witch, for all that it smells like baking.

Shitty bites into a scone and makes the most pornographic noise Jack has heard him make so far. “Bits!” he yells, spraying crumbs across the room. “What is in these?”

Bittle sticks his head into the room. “Lots and lots of love,” he beams.

This was nothing like any other visit Jack had done. He was an ace proselytizer; he could push literature like no one’s business. But this wasn’t about getting right with God. Bittle—Bitty was a nickname, apparently—plopped himself onto the couch beside Jack and they talked. They ate scones and drank hot herbal tea and they talked about football and hockey, and about the weather, and about politics.  Bitty updated Shitty and Jack about the most recent family drama, this time regarding jam (Jack had no idea you could make jam until today). And at the end Shitty dropped one of the new pamphlets on the foyer table on their way out, winking at Jack like this was a very conspiratorial move. Jack is carrying a plate of brownies, still warm. He barely has any memory of asking if he could have a corner piece.

They’re all corner pieces. He only saw one square baking pan go in that oven, but he counts eight corner brownies. He’s afraid that if he questions it the universe will catch wise and make half of his brownies disappear.

“Jack, sweetie, should you really be eating what that Eric Bittle made?” He knows Bittle makes his mom uneasy, and that the stories about him floating around at church worries her. “You don’t have to have any if you don’t want,” he says, which is not what he wanted to say but it was probably the right thing to say, because for all that his dad could get competitive Alicia Zimmermann has never in her life turned down a dare.

“What is in these? Oh my goodness! Jack, remind me to get the recipe from him. Don’t look at me like that, you know darn well I can bake.”

Bob comes home a little later and tries a brownie. He cries. Jack has to hide the remaining three brownies because he has plans for them. Ice cream plans. With sprinkles.

The infighting to visit Bitty’s house is mostly between Lardo/Shitty/Jack and Ransom/Holster groups, so half the time they all go as one huge frankengroup. The first time Bitty just takes a moment to admire them from the doorway while they settle onto his couch.

“Gosh! I don’t think I’ve ever had so many well-dressed young men in my house before. You know, I had a dream that started like this.”

Bitty always says something like that and it always makes Jack’s ears burn. Ransom and Holster and Shitty hoot and holler, because it’s nothing to them. Bitty’s gay. It’s not a big deal. It’s just that sometimes Jack gets a prickle of jealousy. Just a little. Because Bitty can openly admire men—Ransom and Holster have an entire “gun show” routine that makes Bitty laugh every time—and Jack can’t.

He can’t notice the sparkle of his eyes when he’s talking about the topic du jour.

Can’t notice the way his skilled hands peel an apple.

The way he rolls his sleeves up to the elbows, or the way his forearms look when he kneads dough out on the counter.

The softness in his voice when he scoops up his rabbit and puts her on the other side of the baby gate so no one steps on her by mistake.

Jack’s not allowed to notice. Because he’s not gay.

He and Shitty are on Bittle’s doorstep when Shitty grabs his phone from his pocket and frowns at it. “Sorry, brah. Something’s come up at home.” His mouth twists in the special way he reserves for paternal drama. “Go on without me,” he sighs, and slouches back the way they’d come, face stormy at being cheated out of pie.

For some reason it doesn’t occur to Jack that he’ll be alone in Bittle’s house, with Bitty, until he’s on the couch, sipping hot herbal tea while Bitty bumps around the kitchen, putting things away. Bitty comes and sits on the couch with him and Jack scrambles for something to say, anything, but all that comes out is “euh…”

Luckily Bitty can conjure conversation out of thin air. “So how’s church?”

Church. Jack can talk about church. So he does. This one is a lot bigger than his last one. More people and more politics too. Right now they’re raising money for a new roof and there’s going to be a bake sale. “But nothing as good as what you make,” he adds, matter of fact because it’s true.

He’s never seen Bitty blush before. “Oh, you charmer,” he laughs, and now Jack’s ears are hot.

“You know I’d help out if I could. But I don’t think any of the, um, church goers would buy anything at the bake sale if they knew I had something to do with it.”

“That’s not true,” Jack says, but he can still hear the way his own mother questioned Bitty’s brownies.

The corner of Bitty’s mouth lifts up but he looks sad. “You’re sweet.” Jack has never been sweet before. Well-behaved as a child, polite as a man, but never sweet. But the word doesn’t sound like a lie, not out of Bitty’s mouth.

“What do you believe in?” Bitty’s eyebrows make for his hairline but Jack never made it a habit to retract his questions. “Do you have a god at all?” He picks up a faceless doll from the coffee table. Something inside crunches drily. “What is this?” Bitty’s face is inscrutable. He holds out a hand and Jack drops the doll into his palm. His hand comes away smelling like rosemary, and basil, and autumn leaves.

“Jack.” He’s only ever been Elder Zimmermann, or sometimes Mister Zimmermann, before. “Jack, I can’t tell you everything you want to know. I don’t have a holy book to show you, or little pamphlets I can leave on your table. There isn’t a website I can direct you to. But I’m never going to come to your church. I’m sorry, I thought you knew.”

“I do know,” he says, feeling unbelievably stupid. Making a Mormon out of Bittle had never been the goal of these visits. “I just…I barely know about your beliefs.” I barely know you, he doesn’t say. “I guess I’m curious, is all.”

His face is still inscrutable, which Jack supposes is better than offended. Or he thinks so until Bitty says, “I think you should go.”

“Come back tomorrow,” he adds quickly, because Jack’s face keeps giving himself away. “I’ll know more of what to tell you then. I have a lot to think about.”

[evalocity]

The whining of the heart, a Cole Sprouse x Reader Fanfic (Part 2/4)

Part 1 here

Summary : You’ve been chosen as the actress playing Jellybean Jones in the second season of Riverdale so welcome ! As you get along with the rest of the cast, the tension is rising when you discover that you might be stuck in the middle of a love triangle between the boy playing your brother and the girl playing his girlfriend..

Warnings : Making out, alcohol, I wasn’t a good girl when I wrote this but there’s no smut so here we go.

Note from the author : Alright so turns out Jell is a ten years old girl even tough there clearly was not an age gap of 5 years in the picture of Jughead and his sister. Soo what we are going to do is being oblivious to this while we read this fanfic alright ? ;)

Number of words : 1188

Y/N : Your name 

L/N : Last name

Tiny taglist stikes again : @under-dah-sea @riverdalexoxo @forever604

@addcolortomysky girl I made this fanfic so now you can be Jellybean’s actress and date Cole. I love you too ;)

You had spent the first part of the night casually eating with the rest of the cast at a pub, before you would all go to Cole’s place. It was fun, you were sitting between Kj and Cole and in front of Camila and Lili, simply being happy that you already had friends in this city and this country that you didn’t know. 

“So, Y/N, do you like Vancouver ?” Camila asked before taking a sip of her red wine. 

“I didn’t really have much time to explore the city yet..” You answered shyly. 

“You should totally come with Cole and I sometimes then” Lili added, smiling. “The city is so great in daylight” 

You saw Cole wink at Lili and the girl blush, making you uncomfortable. 

“Oh come on Y/N” you thought.“You barely know the man and you expected that the wink this morning would be a special thing between you two ? Stop dreaming...”

Wait. Did you think the last part ? Or did you hear it..?

“Y/N ? Stop dreaming girl and come back to us” The voice of Kj said. 

“Hmm..what ?” You asked vaguely, coming back to earth. 

“The waitress wants you to pay” Kj replied with an amused look. 

“Oh. Oh, yeah sure” You said, looking embarrassed as the girl handed you the bill. 

64$ ? Yikes. Life in Vancouver wasn’t for free.  

“Do you daydream often ?” Cole asked, his piercing blue eyes looking directly at you as you gave the waitress the cash. 

“To my shame, quite a lot” You admitted. 

The five of you left, Camila, Kj and Lili giggling in front of Cole and yourself. 

“You’re coming with us to my place ?” The boy asked. 

“Sure” You answered. “What are we going to do there ?”  

“Get wasted of course !” Camila exclaimed, turning around to look at you, a smile lighting up her whole face. 

This girl was definitely pretty and so was Lili. 

You felt a bit out of place. You always considered yourself as average-looking and the two girls in front of you looked like damned models. 

Swallowing the bitter taste of your thoughts, you cleared your mind and focused on casually talking to your new friends while Kj was driving you all to Cole’s apartment... 

“Let’s play Never have I ever !” Camila said after taking her third shot of Vodka. 

“Yass gurl I’m with you !” Lili replied, her smile stretching her cheeks. 

And so, you all formed a circle in the middle of Cole’s living room, and Camila took a mighty tone. 

“Alright easy one. Never have I ever kissed someone of the same sex” 

Camila, Lili and Kj took a shooter and you were looking at them, giggling as you were getting a bit tipsy. 

“Really KJ ?” Lili asked with a wink. 

“He was damn hot” The guy answered, making all of you laugh. 

“Alright” Cole said. “My turn. Never have I ever fallen in love at first sight” 

“Awn Cole” Lili said as they both looked at each other. “You’re such a romantic”

The guy shook his head with a smirk on his lips as he and you took a shooter. 

You were so quick to fall in love...wasn’t it the case right now ? 

“My tuurn now !” Kj announced. “Never have I ever....wanted to hook up with someone here.”

KJ and Camila had their jaw almost falling off as Cole, Lili and yourself took a shooter, making the three of you red. 

“Wow.” Camila said, most likely drunk at this point. “Alright how about we play some Truth or Dare ?” 

“Sounds good” answered Lili, looking at you with a weird expression on her face. 

“Okay..Y/N Truth or Dare ?” Cole asked, looking at you with his own weird expression on the face. 

It was so confusing ! Were you the only one on this earth not being able to read people like an open book ? 

“Truth” you whispered softly, feeling a bit more drunk. 

“Okay, hum describe your first kiss”

Wow. embarrassing. how to describe something that never happened ? 

“I--I never had a..a first kiss” you mumbled, embarrassed. 

Great. Now you felt like a twelve years old girl in a world of adults. 

“Excuse me ?!” Camila said, shocked. 

“Oh..” Cole said, looking even more embarrassed than you, that is if it was possible at that point. “Sorry, I didn’t want to make this awkward” 

“Good job Cole” KJ said with a nervous laugh. 

“Hey Y/N, it’s your turn” Lili said, saving the situation as you thanked her with a single look. 

“Yeah, hum, KJ. Truth or Dare ?” 

“Dare.” 

“Exchange your shirt with the person on your left” 

Camila and KJ looked at each other with a smirk on their lips as they got up and went to the bathroom, leaving Lili, Cole and you alone. 

“So” Cole said, clearing his throat. “How come you’ve never kissed anyone before ?” 

“I’m an average-looking girl from Texas” You answered. “Boys could have way better around.” 

“That’s not true” Lili gently replied. 

“You’re really cute, don’t worry” Cole said as he lighted up a cigarette. 

“Thanks..”

You could see Lili through the smoke, looking sad as she starred at the ground. 

Was it because Cole said that you were cute ? You couldn’t think about it for much longer as KJ and Camila came out of the bathroom, the raven haired girl wearing a shirt way too big and the handsome boy wearing a tight top. 

“Sexy dude” Cole said as KJ smiled. 

“Alright who’s turn is it ?” Camila asked. 

“I think it’s mine” Lili said as she looked at Cole right after taking a shot of rhum. 

“Cole. Truth or Dare ?” 

“Dare.” 

“Okay, I dare you to kiss the person here that you want to hook up with” 

Cole looked with round eyes at the blonde haired girl.                                         

You missed a heartbeat when the boy leaned on to kiss you.

You coud now tell that kissing someone felt really good. Or maybe Cole was just an awesome kisser. But anyways, you felt like in heaven for a minute there.

“Damn dude.” KJ said, breaking the moment. “You’ve known her for less than 24 hours and you already have a crush on her ?” 

Cole didn’t answer and instead took a shot of rhum. 

“It’s getting awkward, I think we should just call a taxi” Camila said as she got up. “Who’s coming ?” 

Lili and KJ both got up too and left after telling Cole and you goodbye. 

“I’ll take another taxi” you told the boy, embarrassed as you were alone now in the apartment. 

“I’m sorry” he said, deeply looking at you. “I hope this first kiss wasn’t too bad” 

You could feel the alcohol boiling in your blood as you took with both of your hands Cole’s face and kissed him again. The guy took your thighs and put you on a table, his lips never letting yours go. 

You suddenly felt dizzy as everything became blurry and you closed your eyes..

“Woah, Y/N ? Girl stay with me...” 

[smkkbert]

In my daughter’s eyes (2 of 12)

- The first sequel to The best mistake -

Summary: Six months after the birth of their daughter Mae Oliver and Felicity live in Boston as a young family. Going to college and raising a baby is more difficult than either of them could have seen coming. Especially Oliver seems to have trouble settling down in the new city. When he finally finds new friends, he soon finds himself being dragged back into old behavior. Will he realize before he risks everything he built the last months?

Rating: Teen

Previous chapters: 1 or Ao3

Special thanks to Diva Alex @pr0fessi0nal-fangurl for editing this story! And Happy Birthday to @ligiapimenta!

Oliver let out a frustrated sigh which earned him a scolding gaze from the kind of nerdy looking girl at the table next to him. He quickly put on a smile, wordlessly apologizing for daring to disrupt the silence in the library. The girl just perked up an eyebrow for a moment and lowered her eyes back to the book she was reading but not without rolling her eyes in annoyance before.

Yeah, Oliver might have forgotten that his charm only worked on one nerdy girl and that was the one that was probably already on her way home to pick up their daughter from their friends. On Mondays he dropped Mae at the Diggles and Felicity picked her up after her last class. Unlike when he was home first Felicity just didn’t cook – which was probably better for both of their health – but ordered takeout for them.

Suppressing another sigh because he didn’t want to attract the studying girl’s disapproving eyes once more, Oliver pulled his phone from the pocket of his leather jacket. He smiled when he saw the photo of the lock screen. It was the first photo he had taken of his little family in the hospital the day Mae had been born. In the last six months he had never changed it. He had saved thousands of photos of his two girls and him on his phone, but this was still his favorite one.

When a sigh escaped his lips after all, the nerdy girl’s eyes found his face immediately, basically throwing daggers at him. Oliver quickly focused back on his phone, avoiding her gaze and opened the text messenger.

The nerdy girl – though looking completely different from her – reminded him of Felicity. Before they had been together, he had been in the library of their high school exactly one time. It wasn’t his usual place to spend time, but he had needed to find some books for an English assignment that he had needed in order to get a good grade. He had been texting Tommy and laughed loudly, disrupting the quiet in the library. When his laughter had become too much for her, Felicity had come over to his table and reminded him to be quiet, being quite loud herself as she had done so. Oliver wouldn’t say it had been love at first sight, but he had come to the library more often after that. He hadn’t studied, though. Instead he had watched the cute blonde that had given him hell for daring to disrupt the quiet of the library. There had just been something about her…

Smiling, Oliver texted Felicity.

O: Gonna be home late. I have to read a text I don’t understand a word of yet.

F: For your Russian class?

O: No, it’s actually English but I wouldn’t understand it more or less if it was Russian…

F: XD Poor you! Do you want me to wait for you with dinner?

Oliver hesitated for a moment. Breakfast was often cut short and they spent lunch separated at their colleges except for the weekends. That was why they usually tried very hard to have dinner together, so they could tell each other about their days and spend some time with Mae together. It wasn’t easy to explain, but with how crazy their life was routines like that were quite important to them. Always having dinner together was one of them, always spending Tuesday evenings together for example a different one. Oliver didn’t like to disrupt their dinner routine, but he and Felicity both knew that sometimes there was no other option and since he needed to work through this text, there wasn’t another way now.

O: It might get late. :( Just order Chinese. I can heat that up later.

F: Okay. I am on my way home now. See you later. xoxo

O: See you later. <3

He looked at the photo of his lock screen for a moment longer before he put his phone away and stuck his nose back into the book. Studying had never been his strong suit. Oliver wasn’t stupid or anything, but he also wasn’t a genius like Felicity was. During the first time they had been together, when they had still been in high school and been meeting in secret, she had helped him studying… especially for Biology. Shaking his head, Oliver propped his head up onto his hand and started reading the text for the umpteenth time.

“Oliver Queen!”

At the sound of his name Oliver lifted his head back up. He turned around to where the voice had come from, seeing a guy that was vaguely familiar walking towards him. He was tall, had a craggy face and severely gelled hair. He was smiling at him like they were old friends, but Oliver couldn’t remember if he should know him from Starling of if they were sitting in the same class.

Before he could figure out how he knew that guy, a movement at the corner of his eye attract his attention and Oliver turned around to see the nerdy girl packing her things. With her books in her arms and a last scolding look into his direction she left the quiet zone. Oliver puckered his lips. One more person he would probably never become friends with.

Oliver didn’t have much time to think about that though because the next moment the vaguely familiar guy sat down next to him. He still smiled widely, giving Oliver a quick look up and down before he said, “Good to see you again, Ollie. It’s been… I don’t know… I think the last time we met was Tommy’s sixteenth birthday.”

“Sebastian,” Oliver finally said. “I didn’t recognize you at first.”

Sebastian chuckled, moving a hand through his hair. “Well, puberty has been good on me.”

That was probably an understatement Oliver thought to himself but nodded his head nonetheless. The last time he had seen Sebastian Blood had indeed been during one of Tommy’s birthday parties. He had been smaller back then, not really having hit a growth spurt at that time. Tommy had known him from somewhere and brought him into their circle of friends. He hadn’t stayed there long since his parents’ divorce had pushed his mother to move to the other end of the country with him.

“First Carrie, now you,” Oliver said with a chuckle and shook his head. “It’s weird seeing so many familiar faces here all of a sudden.”

Sebastian grinned. “From what Carrie told me it’s rather because of your changed lifestyle than ours, though. That hasn’t changed that much after all.”

Oliver released a low sigh. He hadn’t thought much about Carrie since his short encounter with her last week. He had been annoyed about her reaction to the news that he was a father, but he hadn’t cared much about it. He was used to people reacting to it like that anyway.

“So Carrie told you about Madeleine?”

“I have seen you and who I suppose is your girlfriend with a baby in the park last weekend when I was jogging,” Sebastian replied. “I wasn’t sure because I am not that much interested in the tabloids to know if the stories about you being a teenage dad were true, but Carrie confirmed it after she met you.”

“Carrie and you are…”

“Oh, no!” Sebastian laughed, shaking his head. “I think Carrie is just one level of craziness too much for me.”

“But you are friends?”

Sebastian shrugged his shoulders. “Kind of. Anyway, you have a child which I guess isn’t that surprising. I am surprised you are a father, though, if you know what I mean.”

Oliver pressed his lips together and pulled them into his mouth, thinking about what to say. Sebastian’s words didn’t exactly sound like he was judging him. He seemed to be interested in Oliver’s change of attitude. Admittedly, the version of Oliver Sebastian had gotten to known years ago probably would have left Felicity alone with the responsibility. Oliver had changed and wasn’t that guy anymore, though.

“I love Felicity and Mae,” he simply replied, shrugging his shoulders.

“Well, I guess that is all that matters,” Sebastian told him, “though I guess it’s not easy. I mean I remember your parents…”

Oliver chuckled. “My mom was very firmly against us having this baby at the beginning. My dad supported us, though, and my mom came around when she realized I wouldn’t change my mind about it. Now they are both hopelessly in love with Mae. She wraps everyone around her little finger in an instance.”

Sebastian nodded slowly. “I don’t know if I am allowed to ask…”

“You’re actually the first person who knows me from high school and still decides to ask questions instead of judging about what has happened from the person I was before, so ask whatever you want.”

“Was the baby planned? I mean from the way you say your mother was against it and Felicity… that’s your girlfriend, right?”

Oliver nodded. “Yes, Felicity is my girlfriend. I love her and I loved her before she got pregnant. When we found out she was having a baby, we were both shocked. It took some time and some terrible headaches to get used to the idea but at the end we decided to do this together and that is what we do now.”

“And she didn’t… help making the pregnancy-“

“No,” Oliver interrupted immediately, shaking his head vehemently. “No, she didn’t. If you knew her, you’d know she didn’t. She’s not that kind of person, not at all.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I just-“

“Let’s forget about that.”

Sebastian smiled with relief, nodding. “Thanks.”

Apart from him being forced to take responsibility by his parents, Felicity being a gold digger was probably the most prominent rumor about him and her. Of course with his heritage the assumption that someone was using a pregnancy to become part of the rich and famous Queen Family seemed to be natural. It still annoyed him that people thought about Felicity like that, though. She wasn’t like that and if people ever took the time to really get to know her, they’d know that. Instead they just judged by what they thought they knew and didn’t give her a chance.

“Sounds like you are happy.”

Oliver nodded. Smiling, he released a low sigh. “It’s exhausting at times, but I can’t imagine it any other way anymore.”

Sebastian nodded. “I barely know how to handle college. I could never imagine raising a baby at the same time.”

“Felicity and I are a good team,” Oliver replied and chuckled. “And to be honest raising Mae feels a lot easier than college. Once you know which cry means she’s hungry, which one says she is tired and which one is her call for attention, it’s really easy. It took me a few weeks to figure out but since then she’s the easiest baby in the world, very content with everything.” He gestured at his book. “This is a thousand times more difficult.”

Chuckling, Sebastian leaned over and took a look at the book. “Is that for the philosophy class about critical thinking by Professor Stein?”

“Yes,” Oliver said, frowning. “Are you in the class too? I haven’t noticed you there…”

“That is because I am notably absent,” Sebastian replied with an amused grin. “My parents threaten to take me from college here if I don’t put some more effort into it, though. I was thinking about building a study group. Some others already agreed to come over to my place on Wednesday. Maybe you want to come too if that works with your daughter.”

“That would be my rescue.” Oliver laughed. “I don’t understand a word of what the text tries to tell me. I think I read the first sentences ten times already.”

“Professor Stein is said to put high requirements on his students, so I didn’t even try reading a thing,” Sebastian admitted. “I invited some other friends to come over to my place too, so we can all study together. Maybe you know someone who’d be interested?”

Oliver shook his head. “I don’t really have friends here yet. When people hear my name, they immediately remember what they read in the gossip magazines and think I am just a party boy. The party people would be disappointed and the others don’t even give me a chance.”

“Sounds like you’re caught between two stools.”

“Kind of,” Oliver replied with a sigh.

Sebastian smiled. “So you’re coming?”

“Absolutely.” Oliver nodded and shut the book. “I could use the help.”

“We could all use some help,” Sebastian told him, “and I will introduce you to a few people.”

“Thanks.”

“Not for that,” Sebastian said and waved it off. “I’ll text you my address and the time. I think I still have an old number of yours-“

“I still have the same I always had.”

“Perfect,” Sebastian said. “In that case see you on Wednesday?”

Oliver nodded. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Great. Bye, man.”

“Bye.”

When Sebastian left, Oliver leaned back in the chair with a sigh of relief. A study group really was going to solve the two problems he had. It would help him with the studying and he would get to know some people. He had known that with time everything would be fixed.

* * * * *

“First floor,” Felicity said with playfully changed voice.

She bent her arms a little more and with that brought Mae, who she was holding over her, closer to her face. The little girl squealed with excitement, knowing exactly that one of her favorite things about the elevator game was going to come now. She was kicking her legs and wiggling with her arms, so Felicity almost had trouble to keep her in place. As good as that game served as training for the muscles in her arms, holding up seventeen wildly moving pounds with her hands wasn’t exactly as easy as it sounded.

“Ground floor,” Felicity said and immediately Mae grew quiet, looking at her mother with her eyes wide open and smiling at her happily. Slowly Felicity bent her arms even more until Mae’s nose bumped against hers gently. “Pling!”

Mae laughed with delight, infecting Felicity immediately. She lowered her daughter onto her chest completely, and Mae propped her upper body up on her forearms quickly, so she could pull herself a little bit up her mother’s body. She put one of her tiny hands to Felicity’s face and lowered her open lips to her mother’s mouth, giving her one of her slobbery kisses. Her little tongue swiped over Felicity’s firmly closed lips, leaving a thick layer of spit there.

When the baby’s lips lifted from her mother’s, Felicity quickly swiped the spit away. She muttered a “Thanks”, thinking to herself that the little girl really needed to learn how to kiss with her lips closed. Since she had discovered the fun of kissing, she had kissed with her lips wide open. What she loved the most was kissing Oliver’s nose like that. It always looked like she was trying to eat it. Felicity was sure that was going to bring problems soon now that Mae was slowly starting to teethe. Mae wasn’t exactly careful with her kisses, so it was only a matter of time until that wouldn’t take a good end.

Mae moved a little bit up Felicity’s body, putting both of her tiny hands to her mother’s face. She lowered her face until her nose bumped against Felicity’s like it had during the game and Mae squealed wildly in excitement. She looked at her mother expectantly.

“Do you want to play the elevator game again?” Felicity asked and Mae squealed once again. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Just when she was about to hoist Mae back up, Felicity heard the front door being opened. She frowned. Oliver had texted her that he was going to be home late. Being thirty minutes late was not late enough for Felicity to think he would text her to not wait for him with dinner, so either something had happened that he had come home sooner after all or someone was breaking into her apartment. Felicity puckered her lips. What were the odds for a burglary in the middle of the day?

“Felicity?”

Apparently there was nothing she had to worry about.

Felicity sat up and with Mae on her hip she walked towards the small hall where Oliver was just slipping out of his shoes.

“Looks like daddy’s home already,” Felicity said.

Mae released a loud wail and her eyes welled up with tears.

“Hey, that’s not how we react when daddy’s coming home,” Oliver complained mildly and walked over to them. He took Mae from Felicity’s arms, pecking first Felicity’s lips and then Mae’s cheek. “We are happy when daddy is coming home.”

He tickled Mae’s tummy, smiling at her encouragingly. The little girl only cried out loudly and rubbed her teary eyes with her tiny hands. Her cheeks took on a deep red color when the tears started falling from her eyes. Oliver rubbed his hand over her back soothingly and kissed her forehead.

“Hey, what’s going on with you?”

“Daddy got in the way of another round of the elevator game, didn’t he?” Felicity asked, tickling one of Mae’s feet, but even that wasn’t enough to cheer the little girl up.

“Awww,” Oliver said, rocking the crying baby up and down on his hip. “Do you want to play a different game with daddy?”

“No,” Felicity replied immediately, shaking her head. She knew exactly what game Oliver had in mind. “No, no, no. Oliver, we talked about this. We are not playing the plane game when mommy is around and has to see this because mommy might get a heart attack.”

“Just turn around then,” Oliver suggested. When Felicity cocked her head and perked up an eyebrow, he smiled innocently. “Come on, she loves the game. It will cheer her up in no time and you know I am being careful.”

“I don’t know…”

Oliver turned Mae in his arms and lifted her, so their faces were on the same level and they were both looking at Felicity. He pushed his bottom lip forward, giving her a pleading look while more and more tears were streaming down Mae’s face. Felicity rolled her eyes, admitting defeat.

“But just one time,” Felicity said strictly, “and be careful.”

“Has daddy ever been not careful?”

Oliver was looking at Mae, hoisting her up a little more, but Felicity knew he was actually talking to her. Her front teeth buried into her bottom lip when she watched with held breath how Oliver hoisted up Mae a little more. The little girl grew quiet immediately though her eyes were still filled with tears. She probably knew exactly what game her daddy wanted to play with her and unlike her mommy she was excited about it.

Oliver bent his arms and threw her up in the air. Okay, her little body actually barely left his safe hands for more than an inch and even then his hands stayed loosely around her body. Felicity knew that their daughter was safe with Oliver, but she really couldn’t watch this game without her stomach protesting painfully even though Mae’s sobs had turned into happy giggles instantly.

“Okay, that’s enough of the wild playing,” Felicity said quickly and stepped towards Oliver, taking Mae from him. When Oliver gave her a look, she quickly changed the subject. “What are you doing home already? I thought it was going to take much longer.”

“I was studying in the library and met Sebastian Blood. I know him from Starling. He was friends with Tommy, but his parents got divorced and-“

“If this is a longer story, I suggest we go into the living room and sit down,” Felicity interrupted him. Smiling, she took his hand and tugged at it to pull him with her into the living room. They sat down on the couch opposite to each other, Mae in Felicity’s lap. Her little hands were playing with some strands of her mother’s hair. “So what did this Sebastian want?”

“He asked me to join a study group for my philosophy class. He is in the same class and doesn’t really understand the subject either, so he invited some friends to his place on Wednesday and now that I’ve said it I remember that you told me that you have study group on Wednesday that I totally forgot about.” Oliver pressed his lips together and pulled them into his mouth. “I’m sorry. I am going to text Sebastian and tell him that I need to pass because-“

“Let’s maybe ask Laurel if she can watch Mae before you cancel for Wednesday,” Felicity suggested. “When she was over for dinner last week, she complained that she doesn’t get to see Mae as often as she wished she would. I am sure that she wouldn’t mind babysitting her if she has time. That way we can both go to our study groups and Mae would be in good hands.”

Oliver nodded slowly before he puckered his lips. “Do you think she’d take care of Mae every Wednesday?”

Felicity chuckled. “Don’t worry. I just ask Ray and Curtis to reschedule our group to some other day.”

“Are you sure?” Oliver asked.

When Mae reached out her hands for him, he took her from Felicity’s lap and pulled her close to him. Smiling, Felicity watched their daughter playing with Oliver’s fingers like she had never seen fingers before. She lifted his hand and was about to suck at his fingers, so Felicity quickly grabbed the pacifier from the armrest and held it out for Mae. She leaned forward, closing her lips around the silicon and if it wasn’t for Oliver’s hands on her waist, she would have probably lost her balance and fell face-forward into the cushions. Sitting on her own did not belong to the things Mae was able to do yet. The doctor had said that this might take another two to three months for her to learn.

Stroking her fingers over Mae’s rosy cheek, she looked back up at Oliver, finding his expectant eyes on her. With a smile on her lips she took his hand and stroked her thumb over the knuckles of his hand.

“I am sure Ray and Curtis won’t mind. Besides, we are only three people, so it shouldn’t be that hard to find a different day to study,” Felicity told him. “Besides, I think this – knowing that you might actually find some people to become friends with – is the happiest I have seen you in awhile, so I will do everything in my power to make sure it will stay like that.”

Oliver watched her for a long moment and pulled Mae closer to him. “You do know that you and Mae make me happy.”

It was statement, not a question. Oliver knew that she knew because there hadn’t been a day since Mae had been born that Felicity had had any reason to doubt this. Even when Mae had had terrible colic and she had been crying nonstop, so Oliver and Felicity had both been exhausted and nervous wrecks, she had known that he loved her and that he loved Mae.

“We all need friends, Oliver,” she told him. “What would I do if I hadn’t had Lyla or Ray and Curtis or Laurel here? Who would I complain to about you?”

Oliver cocked his head. “You complain about me?”

“Only when you play the plane game with Mae,” Felicity replied in a murmur, shooting him a quick smile. “Anyway, I am really happy you decided to stay in Boston despite the rocky start.”

“I was sure that with time everything would get solved,” Oliver told her.

Felicity nodded, watching him intensely. She puckered her lips, wondering if she should say what else was on her mind. After Oliver had finally found someone to become friends with, she didn’t want to ruin that for him. It was just that she remembered very clearly that not that long ago Oliver had mentioned once more that he had met someone he had known before and who didn’t seem to understand that he was not the person he used to be before like almost nobody in college had understood it.

Tommy had been the only one of his friends that had stuck around. Everyone else had turned their backs on Oliver. Making people believe that you were a teenage parent was hard. Making people believe that you were a teenage parent after you spent quite some time earning the reputation as a party- and playboy seemed to be even harder.

“I can see you thinking.”

“You do?” Felicity asked with a chuckle, not really doubting it because Oliver just knew her like that.

“You do that thing with your eyebrow,” Oliver replied with a smile, pointing at her forehead and Felicity lifted her fingers to it automatically. “What’s going on?”

“It’s just that… and don’t get me wrong… does he know about Mae?”

“Of course he does.”

“Oh,” Felicity said and chuckled, shaking her head. “I am sorry. It’s just that when you mentioned meeting an old friend last week you said that friend didn’t really get that you are not the same person as you have been before, so I thought maybe you would have just… you know… kept that little piece of information to yourself… for now.”

“I would never keep Mae a secret.”

“I know,” Felicity hurried to say, feeling even guiltier than she had when asking the question already. She framed his face with her hands and gave him a lingering kiss. “It was just that you were so unhappy about not having friends yet that I would actually understand if you kept her a secret from people at first. That way they could get to know you and wouldn’t judge you from the start.”

“That was never an option.”

“I’m sorry,” Felicity whispered. “I didn’t mean to-“

“No, no, it’s okay,” Oliver hurried to say, taking one of her hands from his face and holding it in his hand. Mae grabbed her parents’ linked fingers and played with their thumbs, distracting Oliver and Felicity for a short moment before they looked back at each other. “I do think it would be easier to find friends without Mae, but… She’s part of my life and I don’t want any friends who don’t accept her. I was angry when Carrie just assumed I was forced to stay with you and Mae because she didn’t want to accept that I love the both of you. Sebastian is different, though. He… might have some prejudices, but he asked instead of just assuming. He was really interested in finding out what was rumor and what was true. I think he accepts that I have changed and I guess he changed too. He might still party a lot, but…”

Oliver shrugged his shoulders and Felicity smiled. “That sounds really good. I would be really happy if this worked for you.”

Again Oliver nodded. “I think it will. Sebastian was always a rather good guy.”

Felicity smiled, squeezing his hand. “One question, though.”

“Shoot.”

“Who exactly is Carrie?”

“Hm?” Oliver asked.

“You mentioned a Carrie,” Felicity said, narrowing her eyes slightly.

“Oh, the old friend I met last week,” Oliver replied, puckering his lips. “I didn’t mention that she was a girl?”

“No, you must have forgotten.”

“Oh,” Oliver said slowly. “Sorry.”

Felicity nodded, pressing her lips together so firmly that she was sure they were white. Her hand held firmly onto Oliver’s, her gaze burning right under his skin. Oliver cocked his head, perking up an eyebrow. When Felicity stayed silent, he took Mae and lay her down on the fluffy carpet. Immediately she started rolling around and playing with the long fibers. Oliver looked back at Felicity, once more cocking his head.

“Are you jealous?”

“No,” Felicity said firmly, shaking her head. “That would be completely stupid because you only love me and we have a child together and we are happy. Besides, you already said that you didn’t like the way that Carrie-girl talked about our family. There is absolutely no reason for me to be jealous. It has to be a coincident that my fingertips are tickling with the need to claw someone’s eyes out.”

Oliver watched her for a long moment before he chuckled. He put his hands to her hips and pulled her towards him until she was straddling his lap. Straightening up, he captured her lips with his gently. Without any hesitation she melted against him. Her fingers played with the short hair at the back of his head and with a sigh she opened her lips to him. When Oliver lay back, he put an arm around her back and took her with him, so she was lying on top of.

Felicity was about to deepen the kiss just a little bit more when Mae released a squealing sound. Their lips parted, both their heads turning to look at their daughter. Felicity rested her cheek down against his, moving her head slightly so she could enjoy the delicious scratching of his stubble against her delicate skin.

Mae was lying on her back, looking at her parents with a wide smile on her lips. Her feet were up in the air, her fingers moving in the carpet. She was the sweetest baby girl in the world Felicity realized once more.

“She looks tired,” Oliver said.

Felicity chuckled. “Lyla said her nap was cut short, so I guess she is going to fall asleep very early tonight.”

“Hm…” Oliver hummed and slowly moved his fingertips up and down her back. “That sounds like something I like.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, hon. I am sure it will take some more hours before she falls asleep. If she falls asleep now, it’s not going to last long.”

Oliver turned his head back and looked at Felicity again. “Did you have dinner already?”

“Nope,” Felicity replied with a smile, “which is great because now we can have dinner together. Should I order Chinese?”

“How about I take you out to the Chinese restaurant instead?” Oliver suggested. “It’s right around the corner and it’s been awhile since we have gone out together the last time. Besides, if Mae is tired, we have good chances to be able to sit through dinner without any interruption.”

Felicity smiled. It really had been a long time since they have gone out together. Actually, now that she thought about it, they had never really gone out together. Their relationship had started in secret and then she had been pregnant and not felt like going out and before they had known it, they had been parents and moved to Boston and there had never been the time.

“I don’t think we have ever been out to dinner together.”

Oliver frowned, obviously thinking back to the last months they had shared and a memory of them having dinner together in a nice restaurant. When he didn’t seem to be able to find one, he looked back at Felicity.

“We really never did?” he asked, his frown deepening. “How have been together for months and never went out to dinner together?”

Felicity shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t think there is much about our relationship that went the normal way.”

He chuckled. “That might be true and admittedly going out to dinner might also not exactly been the kind of dating people do in high school.”

“Not that we would know about how normal dates in high school work,” Felicity replied with a short look at Mae.

“So, Felicity,” Oliver started slowly, “after more than one and a half years of  a relationship, having a baby together and moving across the country into a shared apartment, would you like to go out to dinner with me?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think your idea to go out to have dinner together just comes so unexpected and… too fast for me?” They looked at each other for a moment before they both burst out into laughter. Felicity pecked his lips and got up. “I’ll change and then we can go.”

“Mae and I will be waiting for you to get ready.”

Stepping into the frame of the door, Felicity turned around and watched her little family. Oliver rolled from the couch slowly, lowering his body onto the carpet next to Mae. Putting one arm around the little girl, he pulled her against him and started peppering her cheek with lots of kisses.

Felicity smiled. She knew Oliver hadn’t really been unhappy these last weeks, but it was definitely good to see him as happy as this again. He really was happy now and that made her happy.

@just-arrow @secretglimpses @promiseyoullbepatientwithme @bytemegeekette @felicity-said--yes @phanseptiic @mariel-olandag @orangeisorange @aguscha333 @whentheheavenfades @aussieforgood @emmaamelia95 @smoakingskye @seaolicity @ourwritinginvein @lightwoodhook @1022bridgetp @felicityqueenforever @leagueofolicity17 @yryssss @myhauntedblacksoul @somewhatinvisible @sherlock44 @sinceriouslybea @arrowsalways @olivyflavescentdeer @olicitys-castle @ofnothingcharming @boo-ritz-radley @vaelisamaza @smoakedandcharmed @alexisa1206 @mysaudadespt2 @florence-bubbles @addictiontelly @queens-of-arrows @memcjo @hysterical-for-joshifer @oswinelevenforever @olicitylovemaking @bandanab310 @mymusiclove101 @lynslogic @scarletqueen23 @olicityshipper19 @alex-wesley @arrows-4ever @unabashedlynerdypatrol @louehmysoul @ligiapimenta @chattyyana @charlie-leau @coal000 @samcrowleys @sherrynoconan @ishippolivia @julianegomesqueen @malafle @miriam1779 @charlinert @melaux @ontheolicityship @hiddenchamb3r @myshipperlife @wrightainsley @lexi9515 @ladygreenwood @multi-fandom-crazy-fangirl @morinamel @mje-thomas @kebarr @canadianheartgirl @nannett2307 @almondblossomme @paarti12 @kathrynelizabeth89 @imdfabulous @cutearrowgirl @mrt2501 @insecureneuroticcontrolfreakk @mecha1330 @arsipaci14 @o-li-ci-ty @mzminx @chellemanalastas @salasvia @brandis91 @cainc3 @clarkesoverwatch @morganmiguess @pr0fessi0nal-fangurl @iamisalima @nessafra @sammaldonado9 @jonhdiggle @niki-is-amazing @universed-posts @hopeful-warrior @senoritaswiftie @bellemmie @stygian-omada-fan @iheartarrow @olicityovereverything @oliverfel4 @navyaarsha @fandoms-breathe-life @simone4mcswarek @olicity-in-the-heart @fullychippedcreation @geemarie @eternal-olicity @everything-but-normal-cat @tookurmatches @myarroworld @tjmartinez @pleasantfanandstudent @itsmagnoliagirl @j69confessional @scentedcolorpirate @icanica74 @felollie @javinancupil @tjmartinez98 @certainmentalityface @tatianadamaceno @ryelew @wildwillowzepplin @kath4703 @missafairy @letsplaymurde-r @lipizette @positivepiper @nuttymilkshakehologram @laksagirl @ccdimples88 @mcmret04-deactivated20170212 @turnupthemusicandscream (If you want to be tagged or untagged, just let me know. :))