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military-bluebells · 5 months ago

Text

oh captain, my captain

Fandom: Generation Kill

Pairings: Brad Colbert/Nate Fick, Q-tip/Christeson

Word Count: 8920

Summary: an eventful day in the life of Nate Fick, captain of the California Golden Bears Men's Swim Team

Author’s notes: Hi @screwby it is I, your Summer Exchange Gifter! I hope you enjoy this College Swim Team AU, I had a lot of fun with it!

AO3

4:45 AM

Nate would love to say that he woke up to the soft bleeping of his alarm, well-rested and ready for the day, but that would be a lie. In reality, he couldn’t be sure if he’d even slept last night, the boundary between awake and asleep blurred beyond recognition.

Staring up at the ceiling, he considered what would happen if he just... stayed in bed. It would be so easy to text Mike and say he’d picked something up from the weekend and give away his responsibility to someone far more experienced and skilled. Mike would know what to do with the chaos that was surely waiting to unfold this morning.

Nate took a deep breath and steeled himself: he’d chosen to take up the captaincy as a part of his transfer and he refused to be the kind of team captain that shirked his duties at the first sign of trouble.

He heaved himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, scrubbing at his eyes as he took a moment to gather the will to start the day. In an effort to motivate himself, he planned his next steps.

First, he’d go to the bathroom and shower, then he’d get dressed into his cycling gear, have breakfast, brush his teeth, check that his bag was packed properly, take out his dinner for this evening to defrost and then lock up and cycle to campus.

When the chill in the room finally started to make him shiver, he stood and made his way to the bathroom. He squinted under the bright lights, turning the shower up to the highest heat he'd be able to stand before making the fatal mistake of looking at his reflection in the cabinet mirror.

His bed hair was impressive given that he’d barely moved all night and his eyes were suitably bloodshot; with dark bruises under them, it would be obvious to even the most unobservant of the team that he hadn’t slept.

He sighed out a long breath before stepping out of his sleeping clothes and into the scolding shower. He was tempted to put his head under the warm spray and let the water soothe the aching muscles in his back, but he knew if he did, he couldn't guarantee he would ever leave. So, he washed and dried himself briskly before venturing back into his bedroom.

He wouldn’t have dreamed about cycling in a t-shirt and cycling shorts in February at Dartmouth, but California winters were much milder.

Breakfast consisted of oatmeal with milk, half a banana and one spoonful of peanut butter, along with as much water as he could stomach so soon after waking up.

He’d left his next pile of required reading on the table last night, so he carried on from where he’d left off, making notes between spoonfuls: the winter quarter’s finals were scheduled just before the final and most important event in the season, the NCAA Championships, and ever since that fact had become known, everyone on the team had been voicing their displeasure in increasing amounts as time dragged on.

Nate understood the frustration far too well, trying to balance senior-year grades and maintain good, consistent performances at meet after meet.

He’d tried his best to set up support networks, but he’d been acutely aware that he was stepping into an already established team hierarchy, and try as he might, he would inevitably step on toes.

He swallowed the last spoonful of his oatmeal and put the bowl in the empty sink to soak; he was suddenly glad he’d managed to catch up on all the washing up yesterday since it was unlikely he’d have the energy anytime soon.

He checked his backpack and grabbed his lunch from the fridge before manoeuvring his bike out from its spot behind the sofa and stepping out into the bracing chill of the morning.

5:45 AM

Usually, he would be third to arrive with Rudy already going through his changing room warm-up, Pappy sat on the bench opposite, nursing a coffee. Given the current circumstances, however, it wasn’t surprising that he was alone.

He got to work unlocking everything and propping the door to the pool open since it had a tenancy to stick at random times, before heading into the changing rooms. At least their practice kits had been washed on time this week, a small blessing.

He was rinsing off when Mike arrived; he glanced across, ready to take whatever Mike had to say, but there must have been something on his face because Mike just clapped him on the shoulder before rinsing off himself.

The silence extended until they were moving the whiteboard from the storeroom to the poolside.

“Well?” Nate said when it became clear that Mike wouldn’t start the inevitable conversation.

Mike raised an eyebrow, “Well what?” His eyes roamed over Nate’s face before he chuckled lowly, “Nate, no one is gonna get on your back for not predicting that a clumsy Stanford kid would drop a keg on Pappy’s foot and break it.”

“I gave them permission to go to the party,” Nate argued.

“Yes, you did,” Mike said evenly, “and with hindsight, maybe we shouldn’t have, but it’s been a good year for us, and the kids needed to let off a bit of steam before we refocused for the Pac-12 and NCAAs. I would have made the same decision.”

Nate hummed, conceding to the point with a rush of relief. There came a time when considering past decisions moved from being about reflection but self-flagellation, he told himself sternly.

While Mike copied the Monday morning practice timetable from the binder onto the whiteboard, Nate flipped through the afternoon practice binder.

“Our main priority is the relay,” Nate said, thinking out loud, “with Pappy out, we’ve lost our backstroke and our starter. It’ll be too much for Brunmeier to do the 4x50 medley relay as well as the 4x100.”

“Budweiser’s also our only competitor in the 100 and 200 now, and most people wouldn’t want to be filling Pappy’s shoes in the best of times,” Mike added.

“Do you think I should remove him from the 4x50?” Nate asked before thinking better of it, “No, that just adds more problems to our plate. I’ll talk to Lovell, Brad and Rudy.”

“Lovell I understand, but Brad and Rudy?”

Nate jerked his head up to find Coach Patterson peering over his shoulder at his notepad. Nate slid a glance to Mike, raising an eyebrow, but Mike just gave him an amused smile.

He wet his lips and then replied, “To take pressure off Brunmeier at the start, we need Trombley and Chaffin to put in solid times in the middle; Rudy looks after the breaststrokers and Brad’s been mentoring Trombley throughout the season so I thought it would be best if they took the lead there.”

Patterson tilted his head to the side before nodding his approval, “Good delegation Nate, and I agree. Now we just need a solution for the missing backstroker in the 4x100 medley relay.”

Nate tapped the end of his pen against his lip, “I could slot in for backstroke and we pull one of the freestylers with relay experience, Kocher or Poke, in to replace me.”

“That’s a possibility.” Patterson replied, “Your backstroke isn’t your strongest but not your weakest either, and Eric and Poke have been competing in the 4x100 freestyle so their skills should be up to date.”

“Except both Poke and Kocher have injuries that are in danger of flaring, and we’d lose Nate’s anchoring speed, not to mention our changeover, which has consistently been the fastest out of all of them.”

“I’m not sure what other options we have,” Nate said directly to Brad, who’d appeared at Mike’s elbow. He was still dripping from his rinse, water droplets trailing down his neck, pooling in the hollow of his throat before slipping down the middle divert of his chest, still shaved smooth like Nate’s own.

“What about one of the younger freestylers or one of your medley boys, Q-tip or Christenson?” Patterson asked.

Nate shook his head, “Stafford doesn’t have any relay experience, even at JV, and while I know Christeson would step up if asked to and would perform well, I’d rather we didn’t potentially undermine what has been an amazing freshman season for him.”

“The younger freestylers aren’t an option,” Brad pitched in, “we know they’ve been struggling with relay changeovers; they’ve had two disqualifications already and only Lilley and Gabe are trained on a 400. Poke’s mentioned that they’re still struggling with the jump to being senior in their division, they wouldn’t handle the added pressure.”

He paused to take a long drink from his bottle, Adam’s apple bobbing, but it was clear to Nate that he hadn’t finished.

“And I hate to say anything remotely complimentary about Encino Man, but he has faster splits than them at 400,” Brad added, putting the final nail in the coffin.

“You’ve been quiet Mike, any thoughts?” Patterson asked.

Nate glanced over at Mike, and he tracked Brad doing the same in his peripheral.

Mike’s mouth was twisted with faint resignation but also amusement, “I’ve been training the full program since Christmas, been signed off for meets.”

“And ready to come to stage a grand return in our hour of need?” Brad teased, though Nate could see the joy in his face and his voice.

“If you’ll have me.” Mike joked, raising an eyebrow towards him.

Nate didn’t think twice, the heavy weight that had been sitting on his chest lifting, “Of course.”

“That’s settled then,” Patterson said with a smile, “and just in time.”

6:15 AM

“Alright, gentleman,” Patterson called once Nate and Mike had finally corralled the boys out of the changing room, “you’ll all be glad to know we’re on taper until the Pac-12.”

It was a late start to the training briefing, but Rudy had arrived at six on the dot with Pappy in a university-sourced wheelchair, no doubt secured by Doc; not one of them would begrudge the boys time to tease and reassure themselves of Pappy’s health. He’d brought along the x-rays which had been gleefully passed around with many a following wince and grimace.

“Into your stroke teams for this morning; distances, pace and rest times are on the board, team leaders you’re responsible for monitoring.”

“Let’s get to it!” Nate called with a crisp clap.

The boys began to break away: the biggest group was of course the freestylers which had been subdivided into three groups with Kocher and Poke taking two underclassmen and Lovell taking three as a graduate. Rudy split off with Chaffin and Jacks to the breaststroke lane, and Nate watched on as Trombley followed Brad like a duckling up the whiteboard.

“I’m gonna head out with Budweiser,” Mike said, having positioned himself at his side.

“Good idea,” Nate replied, “I’m thinking I’ll keep Stafford, Christeson and I separate, that way we can train our sequence and go over our weakness from Stanford.”

“Good idea.” Mike echoed with a quirked lip.

Nate resisted the urge to roll his eyes because he could see Q-tip and Christeson making their way over, Q-tip gesturing wilding with one hand while the other arm stayed stagnant, draped over Christeson’s shoulder.

Nate knew that everyone on the team had breathed a sigh of relief when the two of them immediately became joined at the hip: it was easy to become rivals when you swam for the same team, in the same discipline and at the same level, but the two of them had been quick to build a solid if sometimes puzzling friendship. It had made his duties as their mentor far easier than he’d anticipated.

“Have you reflected on your performances from Stanford?” Nate asked once they were close enough.

“Yes sir, Captain sir!” Q-tip said with a wide grin.

“And?”

“And we think our dives were good, but I’m still struggling with turn from backstroke to breaststroke and Q-tip’s struggling with his butterfly pace,” Christeson said.

“Well, we’ll start with some warm-up lengths, look at the turning and the butterfly pace in the first hour, then I want us to practice in sequence.”

“What are you gonna work on?” Christeson asked as they walked over to their lane at the pool's far end.

The walk took them past Brad’s lane where he was standing on the starting block, obviously monitoring Trombley’s technique as he swam down the pool away from them. Just as he approached the opposite wall, Brad got into the ready position on the blocks, without a single readjustment; it was always a pleasure to witness one of the many reasons he was known as the Iceman.

Nate continued to watch as Brad’s calves and thigh muscles tensed in anticipation; the tanned skin of his legs were still smooth-looking and incredibly defined, the curve of his spine just enough for his fingers to hook around the base of the block, his jammers pulling slightly up the back of his thighs.

His timing was impeccable: as soon as Trombley’s hand touched the wall, Brad pushed off the block like the release of a spring, sailing smoothly into the pool at just the right angle. A textbook dive.

It was only then that Nate remembered Christeson had asked him a question but in the absence of a response, Christeson’s attention had been quickly reclaimed by Q-tip, who seemed to be explaining the history of a ‘beef’ between two rap artists Nate had never heard of.

God, that made him feel old.

7:45 AM

Considering he’d been dreading the morning; he was pleased with how it had gone.

By the end of the hour and a half, they’d cracked the problem with Christeson’s turn and drilled Q-tip’s butterfly kicks to perfection. The pair were obviously happy with their progress, grinning at each other when Nate dismissed them. They gravitated together on their way to the changing rooms, getting closer and closer until Q-tip was hanging off Christeson’s shoulder, cackling about something or other.

Personally, Nate’s splints were probably as good as they were going to get at the end of the college season, but he was happy with the consistency of his times; from his debrief with Mike, it was clear they were going to take a hit without Pappy, but Mike’s times weren’t far off the pace. With a clean start, turns, and changeovers, they might still be able to secure the win.

As he made his way to the changing rooms, he encountered a small gathering on the divide between the main pool and the diving pool, their heads tipped up towards the ceiling. Coming to stand at Brad’s side, he joined them, looking up to the 10m board where a diver was balancing on their toes on the very edge, their back to them. Nate couldn’t be sure, but he thought it was Walt by the blond hair.

He brought his arms up above his head and seemed to take a fortifying breath before he jumped up and away from the board, his head passing uncomfortably close to the board as he somersaulted. In what felt like less than a second, he was straightening and entering the water almost completely vertical.

Nate wondered sometimes, when he watched the divers, if this was how they felt while watching one of their races; knowing little about what was happening but being in awe anyway.

The group whistled and clapped as Walt swam to the edge of the pool, pushing himself up onto dry land; all the attention seemed to dawn on him, and he ducked his head, though there was a proud smile on his lips.

With no more action on the horizon, people dispersed, leaving only himself, Brad and Walt.

“I won’t pretend to know exactly what makes a perfect dive, but it looked good to me,” Nate said.

Walt smiled at him warmly, “Thanks, Captain.”

Brad seemed distracted, his head on swivel as he searched the area around them, “Where’s Ray?”

Walt’s face became pensive, “He said to Coach Barrett that he was gonna stick with dry training today, something about feeling stiff.”

“Right.” Brad had a unique ability to make a single word feel like a sentence.

Walt shrugged, his lips pressed together but he couldn’t stay, Coach Barrett calling him over to review his dive.

“Anything I should know about?” Nate asked nonchalantly as he and Brad walked to the changing rooms.

“Not yet sir, I believe I can square it away, but I’ll keep you appraised of the situation.”

Nate couldn’t help his amused smile: it hadn’t come as much of a surprise to find out that Brad had attended a military boarding school before coming to Cal, it was clear in the way he spoke, the way he led, in his discipline and tenacity. He was more than a little curious about the circumstances around his attendance, however, given the various comments about teenage delinquency that often passed between Brad’s closest friends.

“I know you will Brad, I’m assured of this,” Nate replied evenly though Brad obviously caught the teasing undertone if his grin was anything to go by.

When they crossed the threshold into the changing rooms, they were hit with a wall of sound; several different conversations all happening at once, the noise of running showers and bags being moved around. It had taken some getting used to the noise after the carefully segregated cliques that made up the team at Dartmouth, but Nate couldn’t ask for a better team atmosphere.

Brad broke away to join the huddle of senior swimmers around Pappy, so Nate grabbed his towel and went to shower.

When he entered, Q-tip seemed to be giving an impromptu rap performance to the group of younger swimmers, with Christeson in the stall next to him doing the adlibs.

Nate shook his head, grinning to himself as he rinsed off briskly: he had to cycle to the other side of the campus for his 9 am and he’d rather have time to talk to Evan about their presentation beforehand since the journalism major’s Mondays were always packed.

When he exited the showers, the main changing room had quietened down considerably. He dried and dressed, before approaching where Pappy had been set up while he waited for Rudy.

“Good to see you Pappy,” Nate said when he got close enough, “I know the boys felt more settled after seeing you.”

“Would’a been up anyhow, better to be at the pool than stuck at home,” Pappy replied with a resigned half-smile. He looked tired around the eyes but clean shaved apart from growing stubble along his upper lip. Nate assumed he was growing his moustache back now that there was no need to be completely shaved for streamlining. “I’d be on bed rest all the damn time if Rudy had his way.”

“Well, if you want an excuse to come here, Mike’s filling in for the relay and I’m sure he’d appreciate your expertise.”

Pappy raised an eyebrow, “That right?”

Nate nodded as he straightened out the straps on his cycling helmet, “He’s been cleared by Doc to compete and after you, he’s the best man for the job.”

"Ain't that the truth."

11:45 AM

His lecture and following lab went smoothly, and in a welcome twist, Evan’s study group had been cancelled due to a flat-wide food poisoning incident taking out four of the six members. This meant he had company in the study room he’d booked but they’d agreed that they’d spend at least the first hour focusing on their own work.

He finished up his notes for the last of his required reading and then set about drafting his essay outline. He was glad he and his academic advisor had scheduled his three required 3000-level courses with one in each semester because doing even two at the same time might have driven him to the brink. He’d made that mistake in the final semester of his junior year at Dartmouth, and it was probably at least 30% of the reason he’d transferred.

The rest of his courses this semester were amongst the easiest he’d ever had: his academic advisor here was extremely helpful, taking onboard his concerns with juggling his captaincy, meets, and the requirements for the Classics Major at Cal.

It’d been a nice surprise to find that he shared a course with Reporter, one of the college media reporters who also happened to be the swim team’s photographer: he’d become so isolated at Dartmouth, consumed by the swim team until he had no one but them. It was good to have a friend who couldn’t care less about swimming beyond getting good shots and good stories for the newspaper.

“Hey, Nate, I’ve got the photos from Stanford if you want to have a look. I think this one for the cover picture.” Evan spun his laptop around to show Nate the photo in question.

It was a picture of the whole team taken after the meet finished; they were all huddled under the official meet banner in their team wear, joyous in victory, medals hanging from necks and beaming smiles. He’d been ushered into the middle and given the task of holding the trophy. It struck the right balance between pride and professionalism.

“Good choice. I’m assuming there’s a less presentable version?” Nate said with a half-smile.

Evan chuckled, “Yeah,” He flicked across the screen and a different version appeared on the screen.

Immediately, Nate knew it would never be posted anywhere official since he could count at least three middle fingers, but it was a much better representation of the team’s close bonds.

At the foot of the picture, Trombley’s face was twisted in disgust as Q-tip and Christeson seemed to be trying to kiss his cheeks; the second row had obviously prepared in advance because they’d all had shades on, arranged in what he thought were imitations of the Men in Black poster; on his row, Mike was smiling down at the younger swimmers while Pappy’s head was tipped up to look at Rudy who was leaning over him and above his own head were a pair of bunny ears, Brad’s smirking face hovering above his left shoulder, his eyes on him.

“It’s pretty good quality so I was going to add it to the album for the end of the year.”

“Good idea.”

Evan smiled, but when Nate went to go back to his work, he said, “Just a couple of others to review,”

There was a picture of Rudy, roaring in the water after his win in the 100m breaststroke; a picture of Q-tip and Christeson, heads folded on top of one another as they napped; a shot of the freestylers on the blocks, both Poke and Lilley in the frame; a shot of him talking to Lovell, Mike and Pappy, gesturing with his left hand, his face focused. He couldn’t remember what he’d been talking about.

When his eyes dropped to the last picture, he almost had to clear his throat.

It was a picture of Brad standing behind the starting blocks, getting ready for his race. It had a beautiful composition, the other competitors blurred in the background, crouched down or sitting, headphones over their ears while Brad was in perfect resolution, standing tall with one hip cocked, no headphones. He hadn’t taken his team jacket off but it was unzipped to show the whole of his torso, the dip between his pecs and his lightly toned abs.

He hadn’t put on his cap yet; it was always the last thing he did. Nate had once heard him explain to Trombley that he preferred to take in the noise of the crowd before a race because then his concentration wouldn’t be broken as easily as if he’d been trying to block it out.

What made the picture piercing, however, was Brad’s stare: he was looking directly into the camera and his eyes seemed to challenge the person behind it, staring them down with focused icy blues.

A predator’s gaze.

"Good selection." Nate offered because taking a large gulp from his water bottle.

1:55 PM

After he’d finished a large chunk of his work, Evan had asked him to proofread his article for the college social media accounts about the victory over Stanford. There was nothing in the article about Pappy, but Evan did ask after him, first off the record because while he wasn’t a swimmer, he was a part of their team just like Walt and Ray, and then on the record. He agreed to hold off on any statement, and that he’d sent his draft article to him, Mike and Pappy to review before he posted it.

“Maybe we could release it tactically,” He’d mused with a mischievous glint in his eye, “catch the other teams out. Mike returning to meets is sure to put some fear into people, even if he’s only doing the medley.”

Nate had laughed but he noted the suggestion down to discuss with Patterson. At Dartmouth, that kind of thing would have been a given, victory by any means necessary but Nate didn’t want to replicate the things he’d been unknowingly complicit in.

Lunch consisted of a deli sandwich from the place opposite the science building that sponsored some of the swimmers. He added some yoghurt and a protein bar to complete the meal, making sure to fill up what would be his fifth bottle of water so far, and picked up an extra since next on the schedule was weight training with Coach Sixta.

He arrived on time and changed into his college workout gear, heading into the gym with the cooler full of water and several packets of gel.

When he first arrived at Cal, he’d heard rumours about Coach Sixta, the way he talked, his suicide drills, and his pride in making students vomit and pass out. He would love to say there was nothing in the rumours, but that wouldn’t be the truth: in reality, there were bits and pieces that carried over.

It had taken Nate three months to be able to understand the Coach’s unique accent, cadence and intonation, his suicide drills and training programs were the stuff of nightmares, and he did take pride in pushing them all to their limits.

There had been a time around the November midterms when he’d worried about something kicking off between the boys and Sixta: he’d overheard quite a few disgruntled conversations and picked up that Sixta’s singling out of Pappy was not going down well within the team.

He wavered on what to do, unsure of the right path but knowing he had to do something to keep the team together. In the end, he’d spoken to Patterson who’d heard out his concerns and reassured him before directing him to speak to Sixta directly.

He hadn’t had time to do so before the chaos of the Minnesota Invitationals. Multiple disqualifications, sickness and the lingering shadow of Ray’s accident at the Trojan Diving Invitational had created a tense and volatile atmosphere that lingered even as they returned to In Season training.

After a very rough training session with Sixta that had pushed even Brad and Rudy to their limits, Nate had stayed behind to ask what the fuck the Coach was thinking, though he worldly slightly more politely. Slightly.

“Sometimes, what’s those boys needs is a common enemy,” He’d said with a knowing smile, “with a meet like that, they could’s be tearing each other to pieces. So, I work ‘em, hard enough that they brains stuff off and all they can think about is ‘fuck I wanna goddamn kill this motherfucker’. Stops ‘em from taking it out on each other.” He’d winked then, “I can take some youngins hatin’ me, I got’s skin made of leather, don’t you worry.”

It had opened his eyes and the next day he could see it, could see through the bullshit all the way to the care and precision that was weaved into every infuriating comment, every punishing exercise.

Did he agree with the tactic? No, because that level of deception felt like a disaster waiting to happen, but he couldn’t deny the effects, and he couldn’t prove that it wasn’t worth it. Dartmouth��s team had been ripping itself apart for decades, so long that it was baked into the very fabric of the team. At least here, they were united in their hatred. However, he had taken steps to prevent a complete mutiny, talking with the newly appointed team leaders – a role he’d created because he knew from experience that without networks, people easily fell through the cracks – about what Sixta’s angle was and advising Sixta to back off Pappy if he didn’t want to end up at the bottom of the pool before New Year.

Divisions now bridged, he almost looked forward to the gym session, wondering what crazy drill Sixta had invented just to make them wish for death.

“Hey, Captain,” Brad said as the boys started filling in, “can I speak with you?”

“Of course, Brad. What’s up?”

Brad’s lip twitched before smoothing out, “I think we should start drilling the relay sequence today, we need as much time as we can get to refine it.”

Nate nodded, “Good suggestion, I agree. I assume you’ve talked with Rudy and Mike?” He got a firm nod, “Right, after weights?”

“After weights,” Brad grinned, “If we survive of course.”

Nate laughed in spite of himself.

4:40 PM

They did survive. Just about.

While the rest of the team headed out for late afternoon classes and downtime, he, Mike, Brad, Rudy and Pappy made their way back to the pool.

Pappy was set up on a chair at the poolside with a timer and a clipboard. He took Rudy’s fussing with the air of someone who experienced it often, letting Rudy position his cast on a stool Mike had found in the storeroom and wrap a jacket around his shoulders.

“Good idea getting Pappy to come,” Mike said to Nate as he came to stand with him behind the starting block, “it’s rough going from being a competitor to sitting on the sidelines.”

Nate sent him a sympathetic look.

In the times he’d been at his lowest, when Schwetje and Griego had dropped all pretence and started actively making his life a living hell, he dreamed about having a teammate like Mike. He’d always been on Nate’s radar as a fellow medley swimmer, his most direct competition, a year older and with an all-roundedness that was the envy of everyone he competed against, including Nate.

In the NCAA last year, he’d been gracious in his solo victory, smiling genially as his team cheered with such an obvious love that Nate had felt almost sick: his own team had been silent, half of them uninterested and the other half glaring daggers at him.

So, when Nate had transferred, full of true excitement to swim for the first time in too long, he’d been devastated to learn that Mike had missed out on the Olympic trails due to a rotator cuff tendinopathy. However, a part of him had been perversely happy because without the Olympic ticket, Mike had stayed for a graduate course at Cal and since he hadn’t competed in his freshman year, he could still be part of the team, even though he’d technically been on medical leave.

Brad came to join them, and instead of his usual Cal jammers, he was wearing a black pair that had bright red and orange flames on them.

“They were a Hanukkah present from Ray,” Brad explained dryly when he and Mike raised their eyebrows, “he would feel incredibly insulted if I didn’t show due appreciation of his cultural awareness.”

Nate huffed a laugh and Brad smirked at him.

When Rudy finally joined them, happy that Pappy was as conformable as he could be, Mike hopped into the pool, and they lined up in order, Rudy then Brad then himself.

They did several sequences at half pace to warm up, focusing their attention on changeover timings and the technique of their dives. Interspersed between sets, Pappy gave them his observations as well as some tips for Mike’s start and general technique, but it was obvious from the outset that they weren’t going to have many problems. Mike slipped back into the pool like he’d been born for it, and while his changeovers with Rudy weren't to the level of Pappy and Rudy’s brand of borderline supernatural synchronicity, they’d be hard-pressed to find anyone better.

“My pace is slower than before,” Mike warned when they took a breather, rehydrating.

“We knew that going into this, everyone who does backstroke is slower than Pappy,” Brad replied succinctly.

Rudy put his arm around Mike's shoulder, “We can only do our best brother, it’s up to the universe to decide if that’s enough.”

“Well, I think we press some more out of the universe first,” Pappy replied, though his dry tone was peppered with fondness.

“Pappy, my man, you are always so wise.”

Nate shared a look with Brad and then they hid their smiles by taking sips of water.

That had been another adjustment from Dartmouth because while he knew there were a variety of colourful opinions on specific subjects throughout the boys, it seemed like they had an unspoken pact not to leave them out of the team, demonstrating a level of compartmentalisation beyond their years. It was nice to not have to worry about any consequences with the team if he was outed or chose to come out to them. Comfortable in a way he hadn’t been for all the years before.

“Well, if everyone’s ready, I say we try some full runs, see what times we’re putting in.”

“Oorah Captain,” Brad replied with a smirk.

7:20 PM

They put in several good times before deciding to call it quits, aware that they were on taper and shouldn’t be pushing too much.

Nate cycled home to have dinner and he’d planned to have some downtime, maybe call Mo to see how she was doing however, he got a text from Evan, asking him if he was free to work on their presentation as he’d would need to cancel their planned meet up due to work. So, instead of sitting down to catch up on one of the reality TV shows Steph had guilt-tripped him into watching with her, he grabbed his bag that he hadn’t even unpacked yet and cycled back to the campus library.

“Thanks, Nate,” Evan said when Nate eventually found him on the third floor of the library.

“No problem, have you read the material?”

For the midterm in their International Relations course, they were tasked with a joint presentation on an area chosen from the course material. Evan was easy to work with and their thoughts and opinions often aligned so they made quick work of drafting what exactly they wanted to cover.

“I know a good book about that,” Nate said when they started to discuss the specifics, “I used it in my junior year for another course, I’ll see if I can find it.”

He’d gotten to know the library at Cal quite well even in the few months he’d been there, so he made his way up to the top floor where the right section should be. There weren’t many people up this high because the majority of desks were on the first and third floors, so it was pretty quiet.

Except for the sound of whispering, followed by a solid thud and some other noises that Nate would charitably describe as suggestive. It seemed the top floor of the library was considered a good rendezvous point.

The noises quietened so Nate decided they must have heard his footsteps; he’d find the book he was looking at and leave them to it. Or, that had been the plan until he accidentally came across the stack where the people were, two people in fact, two very recognisable people.

“Really?” Nate couldn't help but say incredulously.

The pair jumped apart, but that did little to help disguise what they'd been doing. Q-tip’s signature bandana was on the floor, his hair was all over the place, and his baggy cargos were about an inch away from falling down, while Christeson’s plaid shirt was half unbuttoned exposing most of his chest, his jeans were definitely undone, and he was pressing himself against the stack like he was hoping he’d melt into it.

“Oh hey Cap,” Q-tip said with a wide grin.

Nate raised an eyebrow.

“Q-tip,” Christeson said through gritted teeth, glancing between him and Nate skittishly.

Q-tip blinked, “Chill Johnny, it’s cool. Right, Cap?”

He just sighed, rubbing between his eyes, “Please do not take this as a judgement on your… relationship?” he flicked his eyes between the pair who both flushed but looked at each other with that new relationship happiness, the giddiness that came from confessing and finding mutual feelings.

“The team including me will be very happy for you, but as your captain, I am asking you not to risk getting suspended from meets, the last thing we need right now is two more swimmers out before the fucking NCAA. Am I understood?”

“Yes sir.” Q-tip’s grin was wide and Christeson only had eyes for him, a soft fond smile.

Nate nodded once and turned sharply on his heels. Maybe he’d be able to find a copy of that book online.

8:15 PM

They managed to get a large chunk of the presentation done before they hit a roadblock that would take some more in-depth research to crack which at just after eight o’clock wasn’t a road to start down.

It was a nice enough night and the restlessness that had kept him up last night seemed to be building under his skin again, so he decided to go for a walk, leaving his bike locked outside the library. The campus was quiet at this time after the end of evening lectures but before students started to head to house parties and clubs.

He found himself walking towards the pool and to his surprise, he could see that the lights were still on through the frosted windows. He was sure he’d turned them off when they’d left their impromptu training session, but apparently not.

He made his way into the building and through the changing rooms, slipping his shoes and socks off before wandering out the propped-open door.

Not every light was on, only the ones over the diving pool, which was odd considering they’d had every light on earlier; however, Nate quickly spotted a familiar figure sitting on the edge of the diving pool, their legs dangling in the water.

Brad still had his flaming jammers on and from the back he had a clear view of the large piece on Brad’s back; he didn’t quite know what it was of – he didn’t think anyone did except maybe Ray – but the colours were vivid against Brad’s tanned skin, the base of the tattoo placed perfectly along the small of his back, spanning the whole way across, with the head of the highest face drawn the eye to the edge of Brad’s scapula.

Nate shook his head and went to sit next to him; his cycling shorts were short enough that he could dip his legs in. Brad didn’t seem to want to breach the silence, so Nate sat quietly, mulling over what he wanted to ask.

Brad wasn’t here to practice: he wasn’t damp like he’d been in the pool, he wouldn’t compromise his taper for fun, and he wouldn’t practice alone, knowing the risks. So, that begged the question, why was Brad here?

It was then that he saw Brad look up and so he followed.

On the edge of the 10m platform, a diver leaned down and began to bring themselves up into an armstand on the very edge. It was a little jerky, but the diver remained committed, extending until their legs were straight up, their toes pointed. Nate knew he was in a starting position for a specific type of dive, though he didn’t know which one exactly.

He was sure they couldn't wait that long to dive, “Don’t they have a time limit?”

“They do, but that’s not what Ray’s doing,” Brad explained softly.

Nate glanced across, “What is he doing?”

“Combatting the fear.”

Nate glanced back up. He’d visited the top of a 10m platform before, and he remembered looking over the edge and feeling the usual vertigo; the height hadn’t seemed real, more like some CGI from a movie. Ray remained perfectly still in his armstand.

“I thought divers trained out of it.”

“You can never kill natural survival instincts; you can only learn to control them. Walt still hates heights, but he can control it when he needs to.”

“And Ray?”

“I’d doubted that Ray had ever been born with survival instincts.” Brad sighed softly then, “but the accident seemed to knock something loose in that near-empty dome of his.”

Nate hummed. The Trojan Diving Invitational had been scheduled between their usual meets and the Minnesota Invitationals so almost the entire team had decided to turn out in support of the divers. The accident had happened so quickly that it blindsided everyone, and it was only when reviewing it on video that Nate was able to piece what happened together.

Ray had been on the 10m platform for the qualification round. He’d been in an armstand, getting ready to dive when one of his hands had gone out from under him. His face had hit the platform but because he’d been facing out towards the pool, he’d ended up falling off the edge. Nate still remembered the gasps of the crowd and the way Brad had flinched next to him, but Ray was a gold medallist for a reason. He’d somehow been able to complete a dive in his freefall and enter the water well.

Brad had been on the move almost from the second Ray hit the pool and Nate had followed as team captain. He’d never forget the way Brad’s face went deathly pale as Ray was helped out of the pool and came walking over to Doc: one side of his face had been a mess of blood, dipping down his neck and onto the floor.

Doc said it had looked worse than it was, he’d broken his nose and cut both his cheek and eyebrow, but he didn’t have any signs of concussion and while he’d been treated for shock, he’d been eager to get back to the qualifying, though he hadn’t been allowed to as a precaution. Nate remembered Ray joking about the wound to his pride being a bigger issue and how if he got scars, he’d looked cooler for the chicks.

“I didn’t realise it had affected him like that,” Nate said honestly. Maybe he should have kept a close eye, why did he think something like that wouldn’t have long-reaching effects?

Brad gave him a humourless smile, “It’s not your fault Nate. Ray will only let things slip when he’s ready.”

“And he’s ready now?”

“Yes. It’s being squared away Captain, no need to involve anyone else.”

Nate nodded, “I’ll take your word for it.” They both glanced up to the platform where Ray seemed to be taking a break, standing on the very edge of the platform sipping his water, his body relaxed.

A thought occurred to him, “You seemed to be speaking from experience earlier, about controlling survival instincts.”

Brad nodded a head, “I was afraid of the ocean as a child, the empty expanse of it."

Nate did a double take, “But, you scuba dive and surf.”

Brad smirked, raising one eyebrow, “I enjoy it now, I think, the feeling of overcoming fear itself.”

Nate snorted but found he couldn’t disagree, “I think if you’d told my parents I'd be a D1 swimmer when I was a kid, they would've gone into shock.” Brad gave him an intrigued look, “I was afraid of drowning as a kid. I wouldn’t even get into the bath without floaties.”

Brad laughed, belly deep, a grin splitting his face in half. Nate felt himself grin back and pressed on, “Really! I had to go to the swimming pool every day for months just to get me into the shallows.”

“And now look at you,” Brad said when he settled. A flash of something went across his eyes but Nate couldn't find it in himself to be surprised.

“And now look at me.” He repeated, softer.

“Hey, lovebirds!”

They both jolted, looking up. Ray had his hands on his hips, and he was far enough away that Nate couldn’t see his expression, though he knew deep down it was a shit-eating grin.

“What do you want Ray?” Brad shouted back.

“For you to watch this motherfucker!”

With that, Ray resumed his armstand on the very edge. He seemed to take a deep breath, going completely still before he let himself drop off the edge, kicking out, twisting several times, one arm across his body and one behind his head, before opening out and entering the water with a medium splash.

As soon as he breached the surface, he let out a whoop so loud it echoed around the room. Brad laughed joyously and Nate couldn't help but stare at the pride in his eyes.

9:00 PM

Nate stayed with Brad on the poolside as Ray completed several dives. When he was satisfied, he swam over to them and pulled himself out.

“Made up for the practice I missed.” He’d explained before shooting Brad a smirk and heading back to the changing rooms.

“I better change as well,” Brad said, though he didn’t immediately move.

“I’ll wait for you, I have to lock up.”

“I borrowed Mike’s keys- ” Brad went to explain but Nate cut him off, "Still my responsibility to double check.”

“Suit yourself.”

Nate followed Brad into the changing room, switching off all the main lights before shutting the access door to the pool. He waited outside the changing rooms, checking his phone, and catching up on whatever had been had been going on in the team group chat.

Oddly, he found a photo in the most recent texts. It was from Ray, obviously taken from the 10m platform, zoomed in on where he and Brad had been sitting. He hadn’t thought the space between them had been that small or that when he’d gestured, he breached Brad’s personal space that much but the cold hard evidence was right in front of him.

Even more confusingly, it was captioned, suck it losers!!!! (party face emoji)(money mouth emoji)

Immediately below was a message from Walt, Wrong group chat Ray

Nate decided it was better not to ask.

When they finally got out of the building, Ray darted off with a wave and an exaggerated wink, his phone already held up to his mouth as he almost shouted into to Walt that he’d finished practice and he'd better not have eaten his fucking pizza.

“Where did you chain your bicycle?” Brad asked when it was just the two of them.

“By the library,” then at the unspoken question, “I was working on a project with Evan,” then at Brad’s raised eyebrow, Nate huffed a laugh, “Reporter.”

“Ah, I see. Well, my bike’s parked not far there, I’ll walk with you.”

Nate had noticed that Brad was in his leathers instead of his usual board shorts and flip-flops, ever the Californian. They were mostly black but with sections of reflective white material and electric blue, close fitting and making Brad look even broader and taller. Given that he’d seen the man shirtless almost every day for the better part of seven months, he didn’t know why the leathers specifically were making his mouth drier.

Their conversation ebbed and webbed, moving naturally from topic to topic, eating the time away so subtly that before Nate knew it, they were at his bike.

“You were good, with Ray,” Nate said.

In the few times where Ray had clearly been hesitating or getting too much into his head, Brad had been ready with either a goading comment or a piece of constructive criticism, both options wheeled expertly. It wasn’t something people would assume about Brad: that he was good at comforting. His reputation preceded him, and almost everyone knew about the Iceman, the swimmer who held almost every record for butterfly both in his home state and at the interstate level.

They’d only ever been competitors in the medley relay, on different legs, but that had just meant that instead of watching McGraw’s choppy technique, his eyes had naturally drifted to the lane next door, to Brad’s perfect form, his perfect turns, his perfect changeovers.

They’d never spoken, until the disaster at the NCAA’s last year. His team had fallen apart as they were always going to, their medley relay a mess so catastrophic that by the time it had reached Nate’s leg, there’d been little he could do to salvage it, that is if he’d even tried.

He wasn’t proud of what he’d done, but he’d been so exhausted, so fed up, pushed past the brink of caring, of giving a fuck about his future in the sport.

They’d barely stepped into the changing rooms before Griego started to lay into him, Schwetje adding to it as he umm’d and ahh’d and not taken any fucking responsibility like a decent team captain would. Nate had been seething at that point and about to do something very stupid when Brad stepped in, his own team looming behind him.

Brad had said something polite sounding until the backhand finally registered. And oh, it had been glorious to watch the realisation place across Schwetje’s, McGraw’s and Griego’s faces. Griego had tried to square up but with Rudy on one side, his usual happy smile nowhere to be seen, and Mike on the other, he’d quickly squirrelled away, Schwetje still baffled, and McGraw shooting glances over at Nate, spineless as ever.

“Thank you,” he’d said when the Cal team had started to move away, “I think I was about to do something stupid.”

“Quite frankly, I’m impressed you haven’t already,” Brad had replied, “if I’d had those incompetent, shrivel-dicked, wet towels as teammates, I think I would have drowned them months ago.”

Nate had huffed a humourless laugh and dragged a hand down his face.

“It’s not your fault, Nate. You’ve got the skill and speed to be a top competitor. Mike’s always singing your praises; you're just unlucky that you're up against him,” Brad had looked him straight in the eyes and it had been the first time he’d had time to note their clear ice blue colour, “Your team’s holding you back, and I think you’re letting them, for what reason, well I can’t imagine.”

“You know you're part of the reason I transferred,” Nate found himself saying.

Brad cocked his head, “That so?”

Nate hummed as he unlocked the chain around his bike, “What you said to me after the medley relay last year, it just solidified what I’d already been thinking. Reassured me that I wasn’t just losing my mind.” He paused, “I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for that. This year has been the best of my life so far.”

There was that look in Brad’s eyes again, the intensity like the sun; it had happened so many times throughout the year, this tension that almost seemed to vibrate through the air when they looked at each other like they could truly see each other.

“I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do anything before the NCAAs,” Brad murmured, coming to stand close enough that Nate had to look up to meet his eyes, “but after that, I don’t want to be outdone.”

Nate laughed and then he was being kissed by Brad Colbert, wholly and unreservedly.

Their lips were chapped despite their best attempts at hydration, Brad’s hair was dry under his hand from chlorine just like Nate’s, but Brad’s hand on his face was warm against the cold night air and his heart thumped against his rib cage.

He couldn’t imagine anything better.

9:45 PM

They’d parted ways reluctantly but scheduled some time the next day to discuss where to go from here; as Nate got into bed, he just felt almost giddy, a small smile on his face as he lay down.

He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Meanwhile

just guys being dudes

(a low-quality picture from an iPhone, green shrubbery at the edges, the lighting from the streetlamp glaring, but in the dead centre, a couple kissing, standing so close together, they made one shadow. The height difference, hair colours, bike leathers and cycling shorts unmistakeable)

pay up suckersssss!!!! (tongue-out emoji)

Poke: you cheating motherfucker!

Kocher: Finally, thought this shit would never end

Rudy: happy for them brother!

Walt: I’ll deduct it from what you owe me

you’re such a sweetheart Walter! (kissy face emoji)

Walt: (rolling eyes emoji)

california’s no.1 tall freak

Don’t think I didn’t see you, Ray

Send me a copy of the photo and I’ll consider sparing you from a watery grave.

#hbowarsummer24 #generation kill #bradnate #nate fick #brad colbert #q tip stafford #john christeson #q-tip x christeson #my fics

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jadelotusflower · 2 months ago

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Stargate rewatch: 2x04 - The Gamekeeper

"Where there's a garden, there's snakes." Jack coming in with the pessimism, but it's a nice Goa'uld metaphor.

Oh hey, Daniel has allergies again!

This is a Jonathan Glassner episode (with Brad Wright sharing the story credit), directed by Martin Wood.

Time to get strapped into the Trauma Chair!

Jack finds himself back in East Germany, 1982 on a failed mission, Teal'c finds himself with hair.

And Kawalsky is here! I love it when they bring back Kawalsky, it's a shame he doesn't get much to do.

Jack thinks the chairs were a time machine, Teal'c concedes it's possible - park that plot until the end of the season, boys.

Meanwhile Sam and Daniel are at the New York Museum of Art (I assume the Met?) wearing outfits that I unironically love. I'd totally wear that hoodie. Sam's skirt and boots are also a vibe.

Note the spiral device on the door behind them that signifies the exit (although they don't know it). I couldn't see a designated exit in the scene with Jack and Teal'c though.

Daniel says he's been to the museum "many times" which is pretty dark since that's where his parent's died.

When Daniel brushes off the museum employee who tells them the exhibit isn't open she just smiles and walks away - she doesn't get paid enough to care, lol.

Daniel's parents are Claire and Melburn Jackson (the latter will show up again next season as Seth), who are tragically squished by a big block of stone that they were standing under instead of beside for some reason. To her credit, Claire is worried that the slab is swinging but Melburn assures her it's okay - oof.

Jack's attempts to change the outcome of the mission and the Keeper reveals himself. It's Dwight Schultz (Murdoch in The A-Team and Barclay in Star Trek: Next Gen) doing a good job despite his ridiculous hat.

Some of us don't need fancy tech to replay the terrible moments of our lives over and over again - our brains handle that just fine (well certainly not fine…you know what I mean).

Jack decides to sit this one out, while Daniel makes some ineffectual efforts to coax his parents out from underneath the swinging slab of squish. Irreverence aside, it is kind of horrifying to think that Daniel actually witnessed his parents die as a young child - it's not stated here, but a later episode reveals he was eight years old.

Ultimately, they discover that no matter what they do they can't change their history, which could actually be some helpful therapy (and isn't a worlds away from prolonged exposure treatment for PTSD) - but the Keeper isn't trying to help them, and it begs the question of if they had explored all the options, whether he would have eventually allowed them to succeed in changing the events - otherwise where would the satisfaction for the residents?

Aw, his parents call him Danny.

Also, Daniel's eye condition seems to be genetic. Or I've finally cracked the case and his eyesight isn't that bad, but he wears his glasses most of the time anyway to feel closer to his parents - he went into the same profession after all.

It's interesting that the Keeper doesn't choose more recent traumas of Jack and Daniel's lives that they both feel a huge amount of guilt for and wish they could change - Charlie's death and the abduction of Sha're. Perhaps those events are too raw for the Keeper to extract entertainment value from.

Or perhaps those memories are less accessible because the trauma is so fresh - these are events that drive Jack and Daniel and the Keeper wants them trapped, not remind them of why they’re fighting. The failed mission where Jack’s commander died and the death of Daniel’s parents are foundational memories, but they’re not directly relevant to their lives on SG-1 and so safer for the Keeper to have them explore.

Just look at this hat!

The Keeper reveals he was unable to access Teal'c or Sam's minds - the first indication that Sam's physiology has been altered following her possession by Jolinar.

We have the classic fake release from the virtual reality, but not before we have a briefing scene where we're two for two with Daniel wearing his glasses on his head and being the only person drinking coffee.

Daniel also wants to go back and free the residents, he’s fully team Interference now. This week Jack’s team Not Our Problem.

"General without meaning (this time) to sound like a smartass, are you cracked?" LOL

Jack smelt a rat from the beginning, but it's when fake!Hammond mentions him having the chance to see his son that he knows it’s all a lie. George would absolutely never say that.

I have to admit, the idea of being able to project yourself into not only any memory, but anywhere you can imagine is kind of appealing - kind of like a Holodeck. It's the never leaving - and being kept against your will - that's the issue.

We're getting into Matrix territory here with virtual world vs real world, two years before that film was released (although of course it was hardly the first to deal with constructed realities). Would you be happy in a simulation where you could go anywhere and do anything you could imagine, even if it wasn’t “real”? Honestly, maybe, but after 1000 years you’d want to go out and see the flowers.

Daniel puts his glasses back on in the middle of the conversation with the residents for no discernible reason, and I know I'm hung up on this, but as someone who generally tries to make sense of things on a Watsonian level (even if accepting that some things only have a Doylist reason) I can't help but be distracted by it.

"Haven't you people missed me at all?" I have!

The Keeper running around still steepling his fingers is kinda hilarious.

Bye Trauma Chair, see you - inexplicably - in season 8.

And Daniel's glasses are back on his head, I give up.

"YOU ARE RUINING THE GARDEN!" The Keeper's indigence at the residents picking the flowers, lol. I love it when an actor just commits to a role.

Ultimately this is an episode about control - Jack and Daniel have no control over what happened in the past, they have to accept it no matter how they might wonder if things could have gone differently. The Keeper has valid reasons for fearing the residents may destroy the world like they did before and therefore wanting to keep them contained in the virtual world, but that’s not his choice to make, and he must cede their free will to nurture or destroy.

#jlf watches #stargate sg-1 #stargate rewatch #2x04 the gamekeeper #jack o'neill #daniel jackson

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hitman-two · 2 years ago

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Brad Colbert Smutty HCs

Happy New Year Smutty Motherfuckers! Godfather would be proud disturbed. ▸ They don’t call him Big Boy Brad for nothing. That’s a lie. No one calls him that. Except you.

▸ Blowjobs are Brad’s bestfriend. He refrains from placing his hand in your hair and gripping your hair, unless he knows you’re comfortable with it, but he has incredible self-restrain when it comes to you. Perhaps annoyingly so for you when you just want him to fall apart beneath you. However, as soon as your lips engulf him inch by inch, that self restraint wavers as he rolls his eyes back to a fluttering close, parts his lips and lets out a sigh/exhale of breath. Almost like it was the most relaxing thing he’s ever had. ▸ You could’ve given him a blowjob only hours prior and he’d still have this reaction every single time.

▸ Brad is an extremely private man. Unlike Ray, there’d be no semi-public shenanigans whatsoever. But he will, very subtly, tease you in public. No one else notices, but you know Brad well enough to know exactly what he’s up to. ▸ Despite not being adventurous publicly, he has no issue taking you in every single room. You eat at the table? That’s where he’ll eat too - if you catch the drift... -wink- ▸ He loves when you ride him. Loves watching you bounce up and down. Loves gripping your hips and thrusting up into you. Adores watching you throw your head back in pleasure. ▸ You know that scene from True Blood? Eric x Nora, Season 5, Episode 11? That particular scenario too. You're still straddling him, but it's that rough, desperate closeness. ▸ It may seem like he uses you the first night he’s home, but he doesn’t. Try to take it as a compliment. He’s spent months without you. He’s had the occasional combat jack to you, but it’s never the same - and since being in a relationship with you, he’s found himself not having as many combat jacks as Ray assumes he has. So, as soon as you get home, it’s a very desperate ’I miss you’ fuck. It’s desperate, intense and over within a few minutes. He’s asleep soon after. And pretty much checked out until early hours of the following morning. But it’s not using you for sex. No. So far from it. He’s wanted nothing more to come home to you and be with you in the most intimate way possible… He’s placed you first, over the need for sleep. Otherwise he would’ve come home and just crashed. ▸ He’s a gentle-fuck. Can fuck roughly but he’s still gentle about it. Which may or may not annoy you, depending on how badly you want him to put all his strength to good use. This is his second relationship and he doesn’t want to fuck it up so he’s always very cautious. ▸ One way to make him completely come undone? Take advantage of when he’s soaking in the bath. Come in and sit on the edge of the bathtub. Have a little chat before it turns suggestive. Dip your hand beneath the water… You’re able to pull out the little gasps and moans from him. And also a whine when your hand leaves him and you leave him, alone, in the bathtub as you saunter out of the bathroom. Make no mistake though. Soon, you’ll hear the splosh of the water as Brad gets out and pins you to the bed within three quick strides of his long legs (holy shit did I just create a smutty one-shot idea here? Excuse me while I steal my own idea). ▸ Brad loves receiving. As submissive as it sounds, he loves it. But make no mistake. He is far from submissive. He still carries an air of dominance about him. Sergeant leader and all. ▸ A little kink of his is when you call him by his rank. He’s heard it from his men before, doesn’t really talk about what happens when he’s deployed… but hearing you say *’Yes Sergeant’* in the most submissive manner…. Oh god, it excites the Marine more than receiving a proper recon mission that allows his warrior spirit to finally shine. ▸ It’s not all about Brad though. He gives you just as much pleasure and attention as you give him. Many times it’s him lifting you up on the counter and letting his hands roam over your body. Fingers that are trained for violence, just ghosting over your skin, over your sensitive areas…ducking beneath YOUR his tee, trailing upwards until he hears that little gasp from you. Brings that little smile from him and his lips are ghosting over your neck. Just soft foreplay until one of you snap and then he’s carrying you to the bedroom where you’ll never know whether he’ll be taking you a little roughly or will be taking his sweet time with you. Either/or, Big Boy Brad never disappoints. ▸ He grunts softly more than he moans. And gasps a lot more than he’ll ever admit. But that’s only privy to you.

I can see this particular HC going one of two ways; ▸ Brad and his porn mags: He uses those magazines to get him off because he doesn’t want to be thinking about you. He misses you like crazy but you are literally the only damn good thing in his life, aside from his bike, and some romantic chivalrous part of him doesn’t want to taint that. So he purposefully puts you out of his mind. Or, he’s a guy. He uses it to get himself started but ends up closing his eyes and finishing to thoughts of you, abandoning the magazine altogether. Honestly, half the time he wonders why he even brings it with him. (No, he does not carry a picture of you while overseas. Absolutely not. Most especially when Ray shares the same Humvee as him.) ▸ Now normally Brad does not like to be disturbed when he's working on his bike. That's his personal time. Leave him alone. But no way can he resist watching you come out in one of his tee's, lingerie underwear (or none!). Soon your otherwise clean skin will have grease marks painted all over it as he sits you on his bike... gasps and moans echoing through the garage (there's a reason why Brad doesn't like having close neighbours).*

|| Disclaimers: I did write most of these specifically for a friend. One of them I had already HC’d with Brad/Nate a year ago. The rest were just too good to not share on my blog.

*Another smutty one-shot? Also if you don't agree with any of it, that's totally fine. This is just coming from my perspective. Regardless, I hope this was enjoyable to read. A particular HC listed, regarding Ray, might've made more sense if I posted Ray's HC list first. Oh well. Like our Lieutenant, I only ever get what's passed on from Godfather (Godfather ragrats everything)

#Brad Colbert Smut #Brad colbert x Reader #Brad colbert x Reader smut #Combat Jack Spice Rack #It's New Years and I'm sat on Tumblr writing smut HCs over Marines who would be absolutely disgusted #What a way to end 2022 #But I'm online with the same type of people so CHEERS!

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mlobsters · 1 year ago

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supernatural s9e21 king of the damned (w. eugenie ross-leming, brad buckner)

LOL cas you can let go now

dear lord i'm tired after just the recap. angels, metatron/gadreel, abaddon, crowley and his addiction, hellhounds, etc etc

angel handcuffed, slow clompy walk, "is that him??" cas appears. i giggled, not gonna lie

CASTIEL That brings me to why you're here. We have a prisoner. It's an angel from Metatron's inner circle. I need to know what they're planning, but so far, he's revealed nothing. DEAN So, you're done with the rough stuff, and you want us to be your goons? CASTIEL Well, you've had success at these situations before. If you don't want to do it, I understand. DEAN Who says I don't want to do it?

blegh. you know how i feel about the torture stuff, especially in relation to dean. and cas calling them in specifically just to torture information out of this angel. for a just cause though, of course, that makes it okay :|

truly enjoying sam's hair this season combined with very proportionately sized sideburns and now that we're finally less orange looking consistently. lookin good mister padalecki. dean looks like a slight wreck and like he's dissociating

wow show and boys, solving a problem without torture???? i am impressed! (seriously thank you eugenie and brad)

so much smiling and getting to put on this manipulative little show for the dude, fun to watch

cute cute (ignoring this whole abaddon bringing his son from the 1700s thing to force his hand is.... whatever this is)

GAVIN You sold your soul?! Sold it?! For an extra three inches of willy?!

did we know this? i feel like maybe but i can't remeber lol

so i wonder how much was shaved, he has enough hair i think he could have an undercut there and still have more than enough. wonder if that's part of why i like it so much more. i know i've seen him with it up in a bun a couple times so i could go see when that was but that's waaaay too much effort

oh, dean and his slice and dice mark of cain flashback. again, fic gave me the impression the mark was going to be central to goings on but there's just so many subplots nothing really is central

maybe they should just keep a couple pairs of nitrile gloves on hand so, for example, they don't have to raw dog rifling through a corpse. a very slimy corpse

okay so crowley used sam and dean's go word and dean isn't telling sam because? (because he's not making good decisions either) and being all shifty

CASTIEL Just as poor judgement undid you all those centuries ago, your mistaken trust in Metatron will bring you down again.

rich coming from you, cas 😂

okay weird fake solid blue birds. twitter product placement?? LOL

CROWLEY Hello, Dean. Love the crazy bloodlust in your eyes.

must be really smitten now. bye abaddon, you were moderately fun and very beautiful to look at

CROWLEY You owe me. Do I get no credit for warning you this was a trap? [SAM looks perplexed.] CROWLEY "Poughkeepsie" ring a bell? I sense drama.

his gleeful little laugh was cute

DEAN Well, I don't know what to tell you. Them's the rules. He goes back. SAM The lore all says the same thing -- you change any one thing in the past, the ripple effect impacts everything that follows. CROWLEY Please. No one bends the rules like you two bend the rules.

made me laugh, points being made!

CROWLEY I'll cheer the day when the last trace of humanity leaves me. Feelings.

relatable

DEAN First time I touched that Blade...I knew. I knew that I wouldn't be stopped. I knew I would take down Abaddon and anything else if I had to. And it wasn't a hero thing. You know, it wasn't... It was just calm. I knew. And I had to go it alone, Sammy. SAM Oh. Of course. So it was just another time where you had to protect me. DEAN You could've gotten nabbed by Abaddon, and she could've bargained her way out. We couldn't afford to screw this up.

okay but dean how about you have that conversation beforehand instead. asking for permission/begging for forgiveness

also can't remember sam turning in his seat like that before in one of these feelings-laden chats, really means business. so... effusive in his concern and everything lately

sam's soaking up all the empathy leaking out of dean

SAM Look...I'm glad it worked out, okay? I am. And I'm glad the Blade gives you strength or calm or whatever, but, Dean, I got to say... I'm starting to think the Blade is doing something else, too. DEAN Yeah? Like what? SAM I don't know. Like, something to you. Look... I'm thinking until we know for sure that we're gonna kill off Crowley, why don't we store the Blade somewhere distant? Lock it up somewhere safe? Okay? DEAN No.

well i'm glad we get to hear about the effects of the mark/blade combo finally. it's really been the backburner plotline. again i know what it leads to, but not how we get there

this episode made the angel politics about as tolerable/interesting as i think they can get, so woo for that (missing the days of cas popping in and getting irritated because he's in the middle of an offscreen war)

#supernatural #spnwatch #spn 9x21 #eugenie ross leming #brad buckner

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likes-words-and-shrimp · 2 years ago

Note

I feel like someone will fling ToS your way, so I'll say Trigun!

Trigun it is! (Also spoilers to anyone who hasn't seen at least the Trigun og anime so watch out!)

the first character i ever fell in love with:

I'll say this is Vash for me. He's a fun guy, he's sweet! I've only ever really seen the OG anime but the way he goes about his pacifism is really striking and also he is voiced by Johnny Young Bosch which is a plus.

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not:

So I watched the OG anime but I actually just finished watching it a few months ago LOL. And I've only seen two episodes of Stampede. So I guess this question doesn't really apply. Haven't grown to dislike a once-liked character just yet.

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not:

Same as above, probably not long enough to experience this lol. But so far I'm fine with any ship.

my ultimate favorite character™:

I do just really like Vash!! Love and peace~ But also there's Milly, who is amazing. I hope Stampede will have her eventually.

prettiest character:

It Vash... That one episode where he grows out his long hair and is wearing suspenders and!!? That's a good one, I loved that look for him.

my most hated character:

Hm, unsure who I hate, and even the villains I like in their own awful ways. Maybe Legato because holy heck this dude is insane.

my OTP:

I don't really have one for this fandom but I've been leaning towards Vash/Meryl! But I also see the appeal of Vash/Wolfwood.

my NOTP:

Don't have one! Right now I'm good with anything.

favorite episode:

I actually really like that flashback episode of young Vash and Knives as kids and with Rem. I actually saw this one episode so many years back and I had NO idea what was even going on but it imprinted on me. First episode of OG anime is also just so very good?? Honestly love every part of that.

saddest death:

I FORGET THE GUY'S NAME (Oh it's Brad apparently!) but the guy from the grounded SEEDs ship who jumps in front of Vash to block gunshots from the girl who was a controlled puppet. This is more sad because of Vash's reaction to it, and the death itself felt unexpected? Idk it stuck with me.

OH YEAH AND WOLFWOOD I'm not sure why that didn't come up in my head first oops but him dying alone in that church,,, help.

favorite and least favorite season:

okay there's only been one season of the OG anime and I still need to see Stampede so I'll have to pass on this one.

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate:

Don't have one I think. This can very well change later!

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave:

I do like Knives because there is something so deeply messed up about him. But I haven't seen him in Stampede yet so lol.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave:

Milly deserves the world. Also Vash... Vash you go through so much god damn.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship:

Don't really have one yet. I put in yet because I know Knives/Vash is a thing and I feel I'd be intrigued by it haha.

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship:

I think Milly/Wolfwood is pretty cute??? I kinda forget about them a little but then I see art and, oh yeah, they had some fun moments! And then Wolfwood died :(

#thanks for the ask!#sorry my lore is restricted to the old anime #I do want to read the manga too #trigun times

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castle-dominion · 1 year ago

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6x2 dreamworld

Castle still hasn't told becks that esposito thinks dreamworld is a thing. Or yk say "I heard abt it for derek storm"

There was only one existing "vial" of toxin? I mean like...

& then isn't US healthcare rly bad?

Is castle allowed in the investigation now?

"You told esposito?"

I think BRONSON thought it did

Lol castle, who is dying, is doing better than beckett.

Only an hour or two? how close is their thinking? he has 10-12 hours living & then another 1-2 hours?

reporter's gonna be dead

sleep when I'm dead" lol

RC: And if it doesn’t work out, I’ll be out of your hair by the end of the day.

RmC: Is he always such a character?

You know, cops lie to you all the time. Be careful.

Just having this convo in a coffee shop?

IDK much abt this, I've seen it before & I'm still confused.

RmC is talking so slowly...

Oh heck yeah, the sec of defense is SO hiding stuff.

He has a slight lisp, his S is an SH.

Beckett is too much of a homicide cop, she talks to people firmly instead of being polite to this guy.

If it indeed does exist.

Is he lying when becks asked him abt valkyrie?

how much of the toxin do they HAVE?

Wasn't that beckett's ringtone in earlier seasons?

If I'm not there tomorrow <3 <3 <3

Martha KNOWS something is wrong.

Oof those "see you tomorrow"s dsjlskdjfslkdjf

The washington monument lol.

Love dual citizenship.

K but how is the antidote administered?

& how MUCH toxin/antidote is there? Maybe it is a rly small thing & he DOES have it in his backpack but it's so small u didn't notice at first.

RC: Thanks. For letting me be a part of this.

Vilante: When you write your next novel, maybe you’ll find a place for a dashing Colombian American federal agent.

RC: Consider it done.

Rasheed: (laughs) You have a gift for making every fact sound sinister.

That's cops for ya.

But you left AFTER he did...

Oh he was following him & then they talked & then it didn't matter who left first.

Here's the plot: Rasheed saw Bronson holding the dead body of a young woman, Bronson pulled a gun on him, they kept it a secret.

Bronson thinks rasheed told someone.

He could come up with a lie like that, plenty of people do.

Btw bronson was in that car for ages, what if he exposed other ppl to that toxin babes? Also did they ever figure out who planted the aeresol toxin in his car?

"We've been trying to highlight things for years, we didn't realize that the highlighters were black" -the fbi

Not since typewriters. i & W. & the music too.

Love a good old transcript. https://dustjackets.fandom.com/wiki/6x02_transcript

INT – TWELFTH PRECINCT BULLPEN

KEVIN RYAN and JAVIER ESPOSITO exit the elevator.

KEVIN RYAN:

I just always thought that you and I would have kids together.

All the fangirls: wHat.?

(clipped)

Martha going to rysposito for help <3

Castle & his bad coffee lol.

It is his death, he can joke about it if he wants.

Lol typing.

Dun dun dun, valkyrie is the servant girl who is getting killed in there. Whoops.

Dun dun dun he mentioned dreamworld.

Vilante is me: But if he wanted to silence Bronson, why would he go to the trouble of setting him up first? And none of this explains the theft of the toxin.

So confused.

lmao waterboarding the truth out of secretary reed.

My man has a NICE house

"the woman whose husband is dying"

Ask him "then tell me who to actually ask about!"

rysposito calling beckett & castle's mom & all this stuff...kjsdkfhsjdk

She's smart but risked her job on it.

Also yeah castle is getting more shortness of breath, how long does he have now?

The reporter boy claimed the body of the servant agent?

Why would the reporter, Brad, have given up his information earlier in the episode then?

It's one of the oldest motives there is.

RC: I was given less than a day to live just a little less than a day ago

(i shouldn't find that funny)

Man has a nice apartment, too bad Castle doesn't have his writer vest tho

WOULD he have all that info in his house? is he that messy?

But maybe becks should call the doc anyway so he can administer it bro...

Oh now that is sick (so cool & poetic tho)

You & your stupid hunches <3.

Looks a bit like the guy from the show mum & lil bro are watching. oliver queen.

The sugarbowl

Also nobody knew he had an appointement for an interview with the wife? rly?

Castle *falls*

anTidote babe.

Oh Castle is going to wake up & trip this guy lol.

Oh it's mccord,, not castle. too bad. Good how she trusted her partner's hunches tho.

So castle almost dies & then makes a full recovery?

INT – HOSPITAL

KB: Castle.

Her voice is soft over the beep of the machines. She reaches out to stroke his neck.

KB: Castle.

He hums as he travels back into wakefulness.

KB: Hey.

She smiles.

RC: Hi. I had the strangest dream and you were there.

MR: Oh, thank God.

AC: Hey Dad.

RC: And you were there and you were there.

They grab is hand.

Pi: Hey Mr. C. I did some healing reiki on you. Looks like it worked.

RC: (dryly) And you were there.

(I love Pi. Lives in amsterdam where shrooms & weed are legal, lived in costa rica & went home with Alexis even tho he doesn't have a passport, later on becomes a bee counting biologist or smth, lights up sage, practices reiki, he is a very culturally learned man.)

Ooh th emusic djfksldfsdkjflskjd

Beckett chill, it's like when you let drug dealers off the hook bc they help with your murder investigation. You do that all the time.

That's what partners do <3 <3 <3

I think I got some clips from this one...

#castle 6x2 quote #castle 6x2 spoilers #castle 6x2 #the valkyrie/dreamworld episodes

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adelaidedrubman · 2 years ago

Text

5 SONG OTP PLAYLIST

was tagged by @bluemojave my beloved to list five songs that fit my ships! (i also added lyric excerpts because i’m an insufferable menace.) sending tags out to @blackreaches @florbelles @henbased @heroofpenamstan @belorage @marivenah @ishwaris @dihardys @strafethesesinners @jackiesarch @shallow-gravy @beautiful-delirium @confidentandgood @purplehairsecretlair @snake-in-the-garden @schoute @poeti-kat @indorilnerevarine and anyone else who wants to play, as usual head empty + on mobile

1. cosmonauts - fiona apple

your face ignites a fuse to my patience / whatever you do, it’s gonna be wrong / there’s no time to interrupt the detonation / be good to me before you’re gone / when i met you, i was fine with my nothing / i grew with you and now i’ve changed / what i’ve become is something i can’t be without your loving / be good to me, it isn’t a game

2. pink steam - sonic youth

i just come by to run you over / i just come by to see you quiver / you can come, you can slip inside, babe / killer eyes and a burnin’ heart, babe / don’t you know you need no other / i’m the man who loves your mother

3. that don’t impress me much - shania twain

i never knew a guy who carried a mirror in his pocket / and a comb up his sleeve — just in case / and all that extra hold gel in your hair oughta lock it / ’cause heaven forbid it should fall outta place

oh-oh, you think you’re special / oh-oh, you think you're something else / okay, so you’re brad pitt

that don’t impress me much / so you got the looks, but have you got the touch? / now, don’t get me wrong — yeah, i think you’re alright / but that won’t keep me warm in the middle of the night / that don’t impress me much

4. in spite of ourselves - john prine ft. iris dement

she thinks all my jokes are corny / convict movies make her horny / she likes ketchup on her scrambled eggs / swears like a sailor when she shaves her legs / she takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’ / i’m never gonna let her go

he’s got more balls than a big brass monkey / he’s a whacked-out weirdo and a lovebug junkie / sly as a fox and crazy as a loon / payday comes and he’s howlin’ at the moon / he’s my baby, i don’t mean maybe / never gonna let him go

in spite of ourselves, we’ll end up a-sittin’ on a rainbow / against all odds, honey, we’re the big door prize / we’re gonna spite our noses right off of our faces / there won’t be nothin’ but big old hearts dancin’ in our eyes

5. you so done - noga erez

touch without leaving traces / scar me in hidden places, inside / don’t get my mom all worried / not now (kids these days) / losers outplay other losers / guess what that makes the two of us? / rooftop, city shines at sunrise / i’ll let you watch while i jump

what a joke, what a joke you made me / what’s a queen to a joker? tell me / what’s a laugh to a self-destructive me? / what’s a prayer to a death wish? / you so / joke, joke, a jo-joke you made me / a queen to a joker, tell me / what’s home to a claustrophobic? / what’s a sea to a dead fish?

1. seasons bloom - kacy hill

and now i’m seeing your face in the moonlight / i swear that i couldn’t love you more if i tried / but now i’m seeing your face in the moonlight / oh, and you’re making me cry

it’s all the world that i could want / you make me feel like i belong / it’s all the world that i could want / seasons blooming in your arms

2. chemicals react - aly & aj

were you right? was i wrong? / were you weak? was i strong? / yeah, both of us broken caught in a moment / we lived and we loved and we hurt and we jumped, yeah / but the planets all aligned / when you looked into my eyes / and just like that, the chemicals react / the chemicals react

3. angels - the xx

and every day / i am learning about you / the things that no one else sees / and the end comes too soon / like dreaming of angels / and leaving without them / and leaving without them

being as in love with you as i am / being as in love with you as i am / being as in love with you as i am / being as in love, love, love / love, love, love / love, love, love

and with words unspoken / a silent devotion / i know you know what i mean / and the end is unknown / but i think i’m ready / as long as you’re with me

4. omg - gryffin & carly rae jepsen

no chemical could recreate our chemistry / got what i need, need, need / i’m technical but i lose sensibility / when you’re next to me / i feel a boom, feel a bang / inside my soul, love / when you lay me down / when you do it that way i lose control of / all my senses now

5. somebody like me - st. vincent

paint yourself white / clip on the wings / climb high to the top of a building / does it make you an angel / or some kind of freak / to believe enough / in somebody like me? / baby

oh, i (oh, i), guess we’ll see / who was the freak

dress up in white / slip on the ring / walk straight down the aisle / to the violin strings / does it make you a genius or / the fool of the week / to believe enough / in somebody like me? / baby

#also tried to do a decent amount of songs my characters would actually listen to here #that don’t impress me much was actually the hardest to pick an excerpt on.#replace car with plane in the third verse and they literally all fit. but ultimately the hair gel roast won out.#otp: stop bothering these nice folks #otp: a neurochemical con job

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squib-2006 · 2 years ago

Text

Previous/next/first

I am going to rewatch one episode of ninjago a day until I ether give up or finish I will put my thoughts down as I watch it and rate each episode out of ten.

Day 4

Season 1 episode 4 never trust a snake

The fucking falcon talking scared the shit out of me

This whole sequence I never liked because it has no bearing on the identity of the green ninja and jut took time up

Rip Zane’s forehead

Bros being bros

Kai stole coles voice again :( (6)

This is why you listen Silly ninja

Snek bros

Poor Lloyd

I hate the stupid green ninja contest it’s so stupid

More wu mumbo jumbo

These tombs aren’t hidden well

Oh pythor you stupid silly British Snek man I missed you

Poor Lloyd hopefully this won’t traumatize him in the future

Lloyd on a bike is adorable

Why the fudge are they so happy at braking the no walking on grass rule at four weapons kai and nya aren’t even there to care

Look brad and uh what’s his names clones

Those babies are freaky looking

Long neck Snek

Pythor be putting ideas into Lloyds head

Hugs? D:

No bad pythor don’t touch the child

Zane did a whole ass flip to hit that button. And some people say he’s not extra

Any time i see the og bounty fly I smile because it looks so good. Unlike the movie version that stuck its ugly two heads and ruined it.

Why is this school on a mountain. Who thought it would be a good idea too put it on a mountain. This just seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen when some kid jumps the fence and falls off the cliff

Lloyds a skaterboi

The immediate skepticism when jay says he has an idea makes me laugh

Rip that lizard

The clicks as Lloyd walks on the roof sound so nice

Wow that’s a lot of damage

Cole saying stay out of school kid is funny because he is supposed to be in school

Elevator music 10/10

Also jay taking the elevator is such a jay thing to do

Gross

Cole you are a dumbass how could you not see the rope between your legs

I totally didn’t see that coming

He seems genuinely terrified of the ninja. Like jay could kill you kid

Wu pulled the full name you are in big trouble Lloyd

All those punishments seem harsh guys

Now this is what you should do with a misbehaving child. Not punish them but help them learn from their mistakes. If you just punish a child they will only fear the punishment and only avoid the mistake if they know they will be punished. Just talking to the kid and trying to get them to understand what they are doing is wrong is a much better alternative, and in the future can stop the kid from having a semi mental breakdown in the middle of class because she made a mistake and now the teacher is emailing mom and the kid will lose toys or electronic privileges, and is Terrified of being yelled at in the car for two hours about how your embarrassing the parent.

But wu is doing a good thing here

Also wu being a great uncle

And not telling Lloyd that his dad who for all wu knows didn’t give two craps about Lloyd, that his dad would do all these things for him is so sweet

I love that line

Even though in real life that advice could be incredibly toxic in certain situations it’s still a nice thought that people that are mean or don’t like you can be simply delt with by making them your friend

Also did Lego not have ANY other hair for young lloyd. Cuz literally every other young child character in this season uses the same hair

Final thoughts

This episode was ok. It dragged in the beginning but had a great end. I loved how they had pythor manipulate lloyd into doing what he wants. And then wu taking Lloyd in afterwards AND NOT PUNISH him was great too. Over all I give this episode a 6.5/10

#ninjago #lego ninjago #ninjago rewatch #day 4

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inknopewetrust · 2 years ago

Note

Oh baby part two thoughts:

(This is much shorter sorry but I’m very sleep deprived)

Ugh I forgot how much I dislike girls like Carol

THE HAND ON THE LOWER BACK - YES SIR I’LL DO ANYTHING YOU WANT SIR

Jesus Christ Eddie I’m already in love you don’t need to pull out the leather jacket too

Oh Katie Yang you legend (unintentional wingmen *chef’s kiss*)

Oh fun little fact - I rewatched ST2 three times before realising Tina is Sarah Cameron from Outer Banks which was one of my favourite shows on Netflix for a while

I love this classroom reflection and Eddie’s little comments

“Could you imagine miss perfect and the freak having a baby?” FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF CAROL - I’VE ALREADY BOUGHT THE FUCKING MINIVAN AND CAR SEATS

Oof protective Eddie just hits different man

I wish we had seen more of the Hellfire Club in the show, the love they have for each other is so sweet and pure and I love those boys

Edward Bartholomew Theodore Munson IV you could ask me to walk around a sewer in my nicest white pants and shoes and I would ask for how long JUST ASK ME OUT

Good lord I do not miss Season 2 Stancy and god do I hope that’s not the direction they’re going in for ST5

Oh man being an Aussie - losing ONJ sucked but Sandy is a rite of passage - I’m pretty sure every Aussie girl has dressed like her at least once and that brings me some comfort

The Party in Season 2 are still so baby and I miss it

Yes YES - grovel Edward, beg for my forgiveness

“He looks so cool…” - so it was brotherly love at first sight for Dustin huh

And I love how you’ve depicted that even Eddie has some internal biases - he hates being called freak or hearing his friends being teased and yet he uses the nickname Zombie Kid for Will - it’s perfect characterisation

Fuck now I want kids with Eddie

Also I want to go watch Rocky Horror with the young adults of ST so bad - Nancy and Steve are Janet and Brad to a T (at least the first season)

I love men with long hair - bonus points if it’s curly - I can’t explain I just *clenches fist*

Bilbo not acting up so his parents can fall further for each other - love it

“I think I’m a Frenchie who wants to be a Rizzo.” - holy shit *incredible*

Oh fuck it’s all gonna go wrong at the party isn’t it

I CANNOT WAIT FOR YOU TO READ PART 3

ONJ is a cultural icon and as an American who grew up obsessed with grease because of my mom, having her legacy admired in my fic is my way of honoring her. I also wrote it before she passed so it makes it bittersweet.

Katie Yang is a fucking legend and she will come in clutch during part 3. Just you wait!

#answered

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rosiehunterwolf · 3 years ago

Text

Twinkle, Twinkle, Are You There?

Prompts: Stars and Trauma

Word Count: 5,498

Characters: Lloyd (with reflection on Kai)

Timeline: During episode 82 (Dread on Arrival), with flashbacks to earlier seasons

Trigger Warnings: Claustrophobia, Kidnapping, PTSD, Self-Deprecation, Starvation, Dehydration

Summary: All he wanted to do was help his team. It was his mistakes that got them into this mess, after all. It would make sense that he was the one to get them out of it. But if there’s one thing Lloyd’s learned over the course of his life, it’s that things don’t have a habit of going his way.

That, and the fact that stars don’t make very good company.

Read on FFN.net

Read on Ao3

Tumblr work under the cut

The night was crisp and clear, with a blackness that enveloped the city in a blanket of stillness, the kind that only befell in the late summer. The city was quiet except for the faint sound of wailing sirens in the distance.

And, much closer, the shuffling of footsteps and clanking of chains.

“What do you want with me?” Lloyd hissed, yanking tightly at the restraints.

“Quiet, Garmadon,” Harumi hissed, and the chains suddenly tightened, causing him to nearly lose his footing as she stalked towards him. “For too long have I remained silent while you blathered on. No longer am I the Quiet One. Now it is my turn to speak.”

“Oh, so now I can’t even talk? I’m not your slave, Harumi.”

She grinned. “No, you certainly are not. But your time will come, don’t you worry.”

Her words sent a trickle of dread down his spine, and he gritted his teeth. “You won’t get away with this. My friends will stop you, and-”

Harumi laughed, long and cold. “Your friends? They are too late. There is no way those pesky little ninja will be able to stop us. Even if they do manage to get here before your father is freed, do you really think that they’ll try to stop us when you’re in danger?”

Lloyd’s throat ran dry. “What are you going to do to me?”

Harumi smirked. “What do you think? After everything you’ve done to me?” She laughed at the look on his face. “Don’t worry. I need you alive. For now. Dead bait isn’t half as effective as it is alive, after all.”

Silence stretched on as the Sons of Garmadon hauled him up a staircase. Killow shoved him from behind, and he stumbled, being sharply tugged back up by the Sons of Garmadon holding his chains. Lloyd grimaced, looking away.

After a few moments, Harumi began to sing softly. “The spider’s in the house, sleep, sleep. The spider bit the mouse-

Lloyd gritted his teeth. He had used to think that song was cute, but now it just put him on edge. Feeling anger surge up inside him, he felt the sudden urge to yell at her.

“So this is your true face without the mask. No wonder you covered it.”

“What did I say about speaking?” Harumi hissed, whipping around. “You think you’re so cocky, but you haven’t won. Far from it. How does it feel to lose for once, Lloyd?”

“Where are you taking me?”

Harumi tut-tutted, shaking her head. “So many questions. Normally, I would not appease you. But I feel like this will be of great interest to you.” She glanced at him, waiting for a reaction, but he remained silent. She sighed. “This is where the palace used to be. Trapped here all my life, I discovered something truly extraordinary. The destruction of the palace was something that had to be done, but… we took care to protect this place. The Temple of Resurrection.”

Lloyd swallowed. The Temple of… oh gosh, she really is going to do it. She’s really going to bring him back. She’s crazy, so crazy-

Harumi turned away from him as they reached a set of double doors. Pushing them open, she revealed a courtyard stretching out in front of them. Sons of Garmadon milled around, stopping and stepping to the side to clear a path as they caught sight of Harumi. A pedestal rose up in the middle of the space, and off to the side was a contraption with two cages. One was empty, the other-

“Mom!”

“Lloyd! What happened? Are you okay?”

One of the Sons of Garmadon poked a spear at her cage, silencing her.

“Let her go, Harumi. This is between us, and only us.”

Harumi laughed. “What has been between us? Your incompetence as the city’s protector by causing the release of the Great Devourer? Or something else? Because only one of those things are true, Lloyd. And honestly, that was entirely your fault. I’m just picking up the pieces.”

Leaning forward and letting her long, white hair swish close to his face, she whispered. “There is nothing between us, Lloyd. And there never has been.”

He jerked away, hating himself as an ache spread through his chest. He was losing nothing by letting go of her. He was better off without her. If only his stupid heart would just understand that.

“Aww, honey,” Harumi cooed, a mock look of pity on her face. “The truth hurts, doesn’t it? Nothing is more powerful than a blow to the heart. Especially on you.”

To his horror, Lloyd felt tears welling up in his eyes, and blinked furiously to disperse them. “Please, Harumi. This is my fault. Do whatever you want to me. But my mom is innocent. Let her go.”

“You’re right, this is all your fault. Which is precisely why I need to keep her around. I know you, Lloyd. You’d be far too happy to take the punishment yourself. One of your little ninja friends would’ve been ideal… you would’ve done anything I asked you then… but she’ll have to do for now. Knowing you, she should be enough.”

Turning towards the Sons of Garmadon restraining him, she flicked a hand at them. “Put him in the cage. I want the utmost security on him.”

His captors nodded, and his chains were yanked sharply, and he was roughly thrown into the cage, his breath knocked out of him for a moment.

His head spinning, he glanced up, seeing the long, curved metal bars stretching above him. A cold trickle of déjà vu slipped down his spine as the reality of his situation fully hit him.

No. No, no, no- Lloyd stumbled to his feet, lurching towards the cage door, just as it was slammed in his face.

“You’re not goin’ anywhere, kid. Behave yourself.”

He felt his heart rate pick up as the familiar panic began to set in. He couldn’t- this couldn’t be happening again. Not a damn cage again.

He- he was the green ninja. He was supposed to- he was supposed to look after his team, to lead them, but he- he always got caught and thrown in a stupid cage.

He threw himself against the bars, gripping them tightly as he leaned his face towards the sky, drinking in the fresh air. It was so small in here, he wanted to get out, to go home-

But that was always how it ended up, wasn’t it? Lloyd was always the one getting caught, always the one the others had to go out of their way to save.

He was a burden. An incompetent, helpless burden. This whole thing was his fault, just like it always was, because he was too weak to stop anyone from taking advantage of him. Him and his dumb, dumb heart.

And he had the nerve to call himself a ninja.

Except this time, it had been so, so, much worse. This time was different from the time with the Serpentine, or even Morro. This time, so many more people’s lives were going to be endangered because of him. Because his stupid, soft heart had decided to trust the girl that was now going to destroy the city.

Again, he had ruined everything.

My friends will fix my mistakes. She won’t win.

Harumi’s words echoed back to him. “Even if they do manage to get here before your father is freed, do you really think that they’ll try to stop us when you’re in danger?”

She was right. He hated that she was right. He was glad his friends loved him, but sometimes it would just be so much easier if they saved the city instead of him.

Opening his eyes, he gazed at the sky above. The night was moonless, the only light coming from the spattering of stars across the sky.

Those damn stars were always there. Why wouldn’t they just leave him alone?

---

The Lost City of Ouroboros, 2012

Lloyd eyed the lock at the front of his cage warily. Ugh, if only I had a pin.

Not that it mattered, anyway. The night was too dark for him to be able to see properly enough to pick the lock. And even if he did manage to get out, he wasn’t exactly unguarded. The city was crawling with Serpentine. And he didn’t stand a chance of sneaking- or fighting- his way past all of them, thanks to the ninja’s refusal to let him train with them.

His frustration dissipated quickly, and he glanced down at his hands, wringing the edge of his black hoodie. No, that wasn’t fair. The ninja had risked their lives trying to save him today. It hadn’t been that long ago that they had met- he was just some bratty kid they had fished off the street, one that had messed everything up for them. They didn’t owe him anything. The fact that they had done as much as they had for him, well-

It was a bit overwhelming, to be honest. No one had ever cared for Lloyd like that before.

The Darkley’s students had always hated him. He was lucky to go a week without being beat up or having bugs left in his bed. Brad had sort of been a friend, he guessed- but in the end, even he had abandoned him.

His mom had left him high and dry at Darkley’s- he didn’t even remember her. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to. And she obviously hadn’t cared enough to come back, or even to write, so… he didn’t think that was an issue he would have to worry about anytime soon.

And his father-

Lloyd really wanted to have hope for his father. He really did. But it seemed like whatever he did, it wasn’t enough. Why hadn’t his dad visited him or even sent him letters, like the other boys’ parents?

Releasing the Serpentine had been Lloyd’s last hope that his father would notice him. But, like everything else, it hadn’t worked. And now he realized that he had hurt people by doing it, too. Good, innocent people, like the ninja.

They were the closest thing he had to a family, now.

But that was just Lloyd being dumb. He had made life very difficult for all of them. Why would any of them ever return those feelings back? He was just making a fool of himself by even entertaining such a notion. Forgiveness was never that easy, something he knew firsthand.

But then they had come back for him, anyway, and Lloyd was left wondering if they really did care. They had fought so hard for him. Maybe he was a part of something, finally. He was afraid to hope.

And then they had nearly died, and he had taken it all back.

He wanted them to save him, to bring him back to the Bounty, to care for him, to love him like no one had before. But he couldn’t ask them to risk their own selves for him. He was an outsider to their family. He hadn’t been there over the past months, the past memories. He was just the bratty kid. Maybe they cared about him now, but they wouldn’t give up that safety and security just for him. He didn’t want them to.

He had tried to remind himself that this was what he wanted as he had watched them flee on the Samurai X mech, watched them take the Golden Weapons to safety. Good. That was much more important than him. They could come back for him any time. Everything was going to be okay.

But then, why did his chest feel so hollow as the mech flew into the distance, smaller and smaller until it was gone? Why hadn’t that feeling gone away even now, hours later?

Lloyd shrugged his shoulders, as if the motion could shake the feeling off. The bars of the cage dug into his back- although not as bad as when he had been shoved into lockers back at Darkley’s, it wasn’t a pleasant reminder- and he shifted, trying to get comfortable, but it was no use. Instead, he tried to focus his gaze outside the cage. Ourorboros was much less active at this time of night, but there were still too many snakes lurking around for his liking. Lloyd hated the sound of their scales slithering across the ground. He had thought, after Uncle Wu had taken him aboard the Bounty, and read him that book, that he would never have to see another snake again. What had he been thinking, going after the Serpentine like he did? Sure, he wanted to prove himself, but he was no ninja. He didn’t even want to be here.

He hadn’t really felt like it had been a choice, though. He had just wanted to fix his mistakes. But he had dug himself into a hole too deep for someone as little as him to climb out of. And going after the Serpentine had only made it deeper.

If only he was cool and awesome, like the ninja. They would know what to do.

He turned his gaze up to the sky, if only to look at something other than Serpentine. The moon was nowhere to be seen, but the stars shone down brightly on him, abundant out here in the desert. Lloyd stared up at them, breathless.

He had grown up in Darkley’s, which had been on the edge of Ninjago City, and after he had been kicked out, in those long weeks before he had come up with the brilliant- or now, he was realizing, insanely stupid- plan to release the Serpentine, he had only ventured farther into the city, hoping to find food and a place to sleep.

The point was, Lloyd had always been a city kid. Before he had gotten captured, he had never been out in the blistering sun in the Sea of Sand, where Jay had grown up, or in the depths of Birchwood Forest, former home of Zane, or even to the small little village of Ignacia where Kai and Nya had once called home. In the thick of the city, he was used to light pollution brightening the skies, the nights dull with only a scattering of stars visible.

But now, out here, in the middle of the desert, the night sky couldn’t be more different. The darkness above him was littered with so many bright, white specks that Lloyd couldn’t believe that so many stars even existed. Darkley’s had taught them typical school curriculum alongside their villainy lessons- in which Lloyd had been told that there were billions of stars in the galaxy, but he hadn’t really believed it before now.

Now, he was sure there must be trillions.

He remembered the ninja’s long nights on watch, and wondered how many stars were visible from his uncle’s monastery, and if the ninja liked to watch them, too. He did remember one night- when he was being a particular pain, Kai had dragged him outside with him in hopes that he would calm down. Lloyd hadn’t been paying much attention to the stars that night- too distracted to look up.

He would pay more attention next time. He bet that Kai would watch the stars with him. The red ninja had sat so patiently with him then, mostly quiet but making conversation every once and a while before they had settled back into the easy bouts of silence. He had even made Kai laugh once. That happy, rich sound had sent warmth spreading through Lloyd’s chest. He hadn’t really known what to make of it then, but now, sitting here, cold and alone except for Serpentine, Lloyd longed for that warmth again.

He wished Kai was here now.

Well, not here-here, he didn’t want him to be captured too, obviously, but he wanted to be with him, somewhere safe, far from any Serpentine, where they could watch the stars in peace.

Maybe they could’ve been, right now, if Lloyd hadn’t been such an idiot.

As much as he hated the fear that clamped at his chest anytime a Serpentine rattled too near, he hated the feeling of hopelessness and uselessness even more. Why did he have to mess up everything all the time? If it weren’t for him, the ninja could be having those peaceful evenings still, out on the rooftop.

Next time, he would be smarter. Next time, he would be a better brother. A better asset to the team.

But at this point, he wasn’t even sure if next time would be an option. He had read plenty of editions of Starfarer in his lifetime, and people like Lloyd didn’t usually get second chances.

But that hurt too much to think about. Instead, he turned to gaze at the stars.

That was the good thing about the stars, he supposed. No matter where he went, what he did, or how badly he messed up, they never left him.

---

The Fire Temple, 2012

Lloyd pulled his knees closer to his chest as hot, bubbling lava gurgled below him. For once, he was glad to have the bars around him- although he wasn’t sure how much protection they would be if the lava seeped up towards him. The Serpentine seemed to think that the volcano was perfectly safe, barely dazed by the oozing molten around them, but Lloyd wasn’t so sure.

At the very least, the heat was sweltering down here, where his cage sat only a few feet away from where the rock dropped way into the vat of lava. Serpentine perched on many of the other rocks jutting out of the lava, chipping away at them as they searched for the third Fangblade. Lloyd bit his lip, hoping they didn’t take the whole volcano down with them.

He kicked absently at a bit of rock that had strayed into the cage, watching as it fell down, into the lava with a gloop.

This sucked. He had been in this stupid cage for about a week now, and he was so tired and scared. Somehow, he hadn’t really expected this. In his mind’s eye, he had imagined getting gobbled up by the Serpentine after a day or two, or maybe even getting rescued. He hadn’t thought it would go on this long.

He tried to be like the ninja- to put on a brave face, stay strong, come up with a plan- but nothing came to him. He wasn’t a ninja. He just wanted his dad.

Nibbling on his lip, he looked up at the chunk of sky that he could see through the opening in the volcano. It was a much more limited view than the one he had seen back in Ouroboros, but the stars were still there, as bright and unyielding as ever.

These ones were especially fascinating, the lava casting a gentle glow on the stars, staining them a faint, burnt orange color. They almost seemed to pulse gently with the flickering lava, and Lloyd let himself forget about everything for a moment, just watching them.

It could’ve almost been peaceful, if it weren’t for his situation.

He leaned his head against the bars of the cage, despite the uncomfortableness. A slight quiver reverberated through the floor, reminding him of the unstableness of the ground beneath him.

Trying to think about something else, he turned his thoughts to the ninja instead. He wondered what they were doing now. Realistically, he knew they were probably trying to find a way to stop the Serpentine- maybe even coming to save him. He knew the idea should’ve brought him comfort, but for some reason, it just made his stomach ache. He didn’t want his friends to get hurt because of him.

Instead, he imagined them hanging out at the monastery. Jay flopped over the couch with a Starfarer comic (one he had probably stolen from Lloyd), Zane and Nya sprawled out on the floor as they played Stratego, glaring at each other icily from time to time, and Kai and Cole duking it out in Fist-to-Face 2, Kai balancing on his knees and practically smashing his controller as he got more agitated, while Cole’s demeanor was much more relaxed, although there was a fierce concentration in his eyes.

Lloyd let a smile play on his lips. The image felt so vivid, so real, and he clutched onto it, longing desperately for some connection- any connection- to the others.

Tears blurred his vision. It wasn’t enough, just imagining them. He needed them. He was going crazy in here, and the slimy Serpentine were terrible company.

Looking back up at the sky, he let his gaze fall on the North Star. Lloyd didn’t know much about constellations or different stars, but he knew that one. It wasn’t too hard to spot, especially on this dark night- bigger and brighter than all the rest.

Lloyd remembered what Brad had told him back at school- that supposedly you could see this star from anywhere. It was a guide, a wayfinder, a path back to home.

Biting his lip, he glanced around to see if anyone was watching him. No one was- of course they weren’t, why would they be- so he turned his gaze on the North Star and whispered under his breath.

“Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight.”

Closing his eyes, he thought the wish in his head as hard as he could- saying it out loud would make it not come true, of course- and hoped against all odds, that this time, for once, his wish would actually be granted.

Opening his eyes again, he fixated on the star again.

Maybe, wherever the ninja were, they were watching that star, too.

---

Stiix, 2015

If there was ever a time in his life that Lloyd had wished he had brought a jacket with him, it was now.

Not that he had really had an opportunity to get a jacket in the first place- it would’ve had to been when he had first gone down to investigate that stupid museum robbery, weeks ago at this point- but his point still stood. He was freezing.

A cold breeze rattled eerily through the bars of his cage, swaying it slightly, and Lloyd pulled the dirty, worn mess that was his gi tighter around him. Alright, he got that Morro wanted him to suffer in every way possible, but did he really have to hang his cage all the way up here?

Another gust rocked the cage a little harder, and Lloyd grabbed hold of the bars, whiteknuckling as he tried not to look at the churning waters of the lake not too far to his right. It was all too easy to imagine the cage rolling into the dark, choppy waves if a strong enough gust were to knock him loose.

The hands that gripped the cage bars were pale and trembling, so that Lloyd barely recognized them as his own. He cursed himself- even this brief, fleeting moment of relief from Morro’s possession really wasn’t much of a relief at all because of how much his body was screaming in agony. He was so weak, and even if, by some miracle, an opportunity was presented for him to escape, he would never be able to take it. He wasn’t even sure if he could move.

As if to accentuate his point, Lloyd’s stomach suddenly growled loudly, agonizing cramps ripping through it as he curled in on himself, moaning. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had eaten. He bit his lip, trying to distract himself from the unbearable hunger pangs. Even Cole’s nasty chili sounded heavenly about now, and he felt himself start to cry as he thought of the black ninja, wishing his friend was here now, with or without food.

But the only person there was Ronin. Lloyd craned his neck to peer through the hole in the roof of the man’s pawn shop. Ronin was scowling, his hands securely tied up behind his back as he glared at the floor. He was looking a little better than he had a half hour ago, his skin less of an ashy shade, and some of the color seeping back into his cheeks, but he still was slumped over weakly, trembling slightly.

Even though Lloyd hardly knew him, he felt his heart go out to the man. He was one of the few people in Ninjago who knew how it felt, to be possessed by a ghost- and honestly, Lloyd was impressed that Ronin had recovered this much in such a short amount of time. The first time Lloyd had been released from Morro’s grip, it… well, he preferred not to relive the memories, but it had not been pretty.

Suddenly, he caught sight of a flicker of translucent green glide past Ronin, and Lloyd lurched back from the edge, pressing his back against the opposite side of the cage, gasping. He was still lurking around. Lloyd didn’t even want to look at him, he didn’t want to think about how, all too soon, the ghost would be slipping back inside him, filling his mind, taking over his bones-

Lloyd cut off the flow of thoughts violently, breathing heavily as he tried to contain it. He- he couldn’t think about that now. There would be plenty of time for trauma later, but now his poor body couldn’t handle anymore.

Trying to get his pounding heart to slow, Lloyd swallowed- and immediately regretted it as his throat seared. Ow, he groaned silently, not daring to speak. His throat felt impossibly dry- Morro had given him some water a little while ago, after he was safely out of Lloyd’s body, but the stale, warm liquid had done little to alleviate the raging heat in his throat. Just the thought of water made his head throb, and Lloyd clutched tightly onto the bars, trying not to pass out.

He had barely gotten over his dizzy spell when his stomach suddenly cramped again, loud gurgles and whines bubbling from it as he braced himself.

The pain came much worse than any time before, and it was only the promise of pain from his throat that kept him from crying out. The cramping continued to flare for much longer than usual, and Lloyd began breathing heavier, tears pricking his eyes as he prayed for relief, which came a few moments later, slowly and reluctantly.

Dammit, I haven’t had it this bad since my days wandering the streets, back when I was nine. How long has it been since I last ate?

He hoped Morro would feed him soon. The ghost would need to put some fuel in Lloyd’s body if he wanted to continue to use it, and Lloyd wasn’t sure how much longer he could run without food. If he didn’t get anything soon, he would probably have to ask Morro to give him something, which was always humiliating because the ghost always found some way to make him beg for what he wanted.

It wasn’t like he could ask for anything in this state, anyway. Why did it feel like every part of his body was actively trying to kill him?

Needing something- anything- to distract him from his pain, he found himself looking up for the first time since he had been there.

The night skies of Stiix were breathtaking, stars littering the air like glitter. Even with everything going on, Lloyd felt himself stop for a minute, taking in the beauty of it all.

It would’ve been a perfect night to go stargazing, back home.

Lloyd’s fascination with the stars hadn’t faded since his capture in the desert all those years ago, and he had kept his promise to himself to keep watching them. The others would accompany him once in a while, although he sensed that it was mostly just so that he wouldn’t be alone.

Kai’s feelings, however, had always been more genuine. He and his friend had spent hours studying the different constellations, charting the stars, and going out on the prime stargazing nights. The outings weren’t just about the stars, either. They would chat for hours- about silly things, serious things, or nothing at all. Out there, alone in the darkness, it had just been the two of them and the stars. There had been something intimate and comforting about it, especially on the hard nights. If he was having nightmares again, all he would have to do was wake Kai up and they would go, no questions asked. Sometimes they talked about it, sometimes they didn’t. But what was important was that Kai was always there, as unfading and unfaltering as the stars themselves.

Yet here he was, the stars shining above him, and Kai was miles from here. The last time he had seen him, Lloyd had tried to kill him. His best friend.

No, he reminded himself fiercely. That was Morro in control then. I saved Kai’s life by fighting back.

But he should’ve done more. He had seen his friend escape with cuts and wounds, while Kai had tried so hard to not hurt Lloyd.

Damn, none of that mattered. Kai would forgive him, he always did. Lloyd just wanted to see him again. He’d know what to say to make Lloyd feel better.

Or, at least, he would just hug him. Lloyd really wanted to be held. The only person who had touched him recently was the ghosts, who more so phased through him than touched him.

Wrapping his arms around himself, he looked up at the stars again. Maybe Kai was staring up at them now, too, thinking of him.

The thought made a smile flicker across his lips, and for a moment, he thought he felt a shoulder pressing against his.

He turned his head. No one was there. Of course they weren’t.

Lloyd looked back at the stars desperately, longing for the sensation again. But, unsurprisingly, nothing happened. He had just imagined it.

It was just Lloyd and the stars, together again, yet lonelier than ever.

---

The Temple of Resurrection, Present Day

Lloyd gasped, blinking back the tears that were welling in his eyes. The sky above him came into sharper focus as he did so. But this time, when he gazed up, he didn’t get the little skip in his heart he always felt when watching the stars. Perhaps it had something to do with being so deep in the city, but they felt colder and more distant than usual.

Even the stars were against him tonight, it seemed.

Maybe his luck had finally run out.

That was probably for the best. It seemed like every time Lloyd got himself captured, Kai managed to plunge himself headfirst into danger, and would almost get himself killed.

Lloyd really hated that about him. If Kai ever died trying to save him, he would never forgive himself. It would be better for everyone if they stayed far away from here.

But then Harumi will succeed in bringing my father back.

Lloyd put his head down. He didn’t know what to do. He just wanted everyone to be safe, but he always managed to mess things up, to throw a wrench in their plans.

And this time, he had messed up so much worse. His father was going to come back, the city was going to be destroyed, Harumi was going to win.

And this time, he didn’t know how to fix it.

Suddenly, a flash caught the edge of his vision, and Lloyd whipped his head towards it, sucking in his breath. A shooting star. He hadn’t seen one of those in years.

Those are lucky, he thought, unbidden. For special wishes.

He was being silly. That was just a dumb old superstition. He wasn’t a little kid anymore, he had stopped wishing on stars a long time ago.

“Make a wish, Lloyd.”

“Go away, Kai,” he grumbled. “You’re not really here. The last thing I need is the Sons of Garmadon laughing at me for talking to myself.”

The red ninja pointed to the sky. “You’re going to miss it.”

“I’m not going to wish on that stupid star, okay?”

“Why won’t you do it anymore? I miss when we used to talk about the stars.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not a kid anymore.”

“It’s never too late, bud.”

“Yes, it is!”

“Why?”

“Just leave me alone!”

When he looked up again, Kai- or rather, the illusion of Kai- was gone.

“... because I can’t,” he whispered, to whom, he didn’t know. “Not anymore. My life hasn’t been that simple for a long time. Even the luckiest of wishing stars isn’t going to change that.”

Closing his eyes, he blocked out the twinkling lights above him, letting his vision succumb to blackness.

#ninjago #ninbingo #my fic #rosie writes #ninjago lloyd #ninjago kai #ninjago harumi #this was supposed to be lloyd reflecting on his whole family...#but it turned into just kai #figures XD #FINALLY i felt like i was never going to finish this one lol #oof and sorry it was so angsty #that just kind of... happened lol #hope you enjoyed!#reblogs appreciated!

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hockeyboysiguess · 4 years ago

Text

Lines and Sunshine

a/n: this is based on a tiktok i saw and it immediately gave me matty vibes! also shoutout to @nolypats for getting me through this one when i had one scene and nothing else in mind to write.

warnings: swearing

word count: 4K

You sighed as you let yourself fall down onto the couch. Your drink sloshed a little in your cup, splashing onto the back of your hand with a few drops landing on the arm of the curly-haired boy next to you. Matthew groaned and shook his arm with a disgusted look on his face.

“You’re the worst,” he lamented. “How dare you?”

“I dared. I did. I delivered,” you countered smoothly. “Nice to know your carefully curated appearance of four t-shirts, three pairs of gym shorts, and a cut-off sleeve Nike jacket will fall apart if two drops of beer fall on your bare arm that you can easily wipe off.”

“I carefully picked this particular shirt and shorts combination today and did not plan for wet spots on my arm and an overwhelming odor of beer to be part of the ensemble. You’re ruining me here, honey,” Matthew joked back, a mischievous smile playing on his lips as he spoke to you.

You rolled your eyes at him and took a sip of your drink with a smile against the edge of the cup. Matthew gave you a soft nudge with his shoulder in response to your eye roll, which you shook off. The couch next to you shifted suddenly, causing you to break eye contact as the movement rocked you away from Matthew. You turned your head to find that Brady’s sudden weight as he plopped next to you on the couch was the culprit for tipping you almost sideways on the couch.

“Hey, Brads,” you said with a bright smile to him, giving his cup a tap with yours as a greeting.

“Hey, hey,” he replied. “Enjoying the party?”

Matthew and Brady were throwing this joint party together before they left St. Louis to return to Calgary and Ottawa respectively for training camp next week. You’d tried to argue they should call the party “Yoo-hoo, Big Summer Blowout” like from Frozen, yours and Brady’s favorite, and Matthew’s absolute least favorite, Disney princess movie. Matthew had axed the suggestion, something you’d tried incredibly hard to get him to budge on. You’d almost succeeded too when you brought out your best puppy dog eyes, but Matthew had found some extra resolve from somewhere inside and pushed you off, insisting the party remain nameless, which was cooler apparently. You thought it was bull and told him so.

“You’re thinking that I should’ve let you name this after Frozen, aren't you?” Matthew called you out instead of letting you answer Brady’s question. “You’re fucking ridiculous.”

“And you love me for it,” you finished for him with a sharp nod of your head, your ponytail swinging with your sudden movement.

Matthew shook his head, but didn’t disagree, as he turned his attention toward the party. You sighed and let you head fall onto Matthew’s shoulder. He didn’t look at you, but he shifted and threw an arm over the back of the couch behind you to make himself into a more comfortable head rest for you. You sighed in appreciation.

“You haven’t had enough alcohol to get over the hump,” Matthew informed you. “You’re in your ‘I’ve had two drinks and now I’m a sleepy ho’ zone.”

“You don’t have to call me out like that,” you mumbled to him, making him chuckle and give you a small squeeze around your shoulders in reply.

“It’s my job as your friend to call you out on your bullshit,” he laughed as he spoke. “If I stopped, you’d need to demote me to friendly acquaintance and we all know it’s a slippery slope from there to casual acquaintance to that guy you know that plays hockey right into that guy you used to know that plays hockey. I don’t like that career path for myself, personally, so I’m going to keep doing what I was hired to do and call you out on your shit.”

You’d met Matthew and Brady a few years ago at house party of a mutual friend’s not entirely unlike this one, sending the boys off before their hockey season kicked into full gear back then. You’d met Brady first and hit it off instantly, finding kinship in being taller than your older siblings after the constant verbal and physical abuse you suffered at their hands growing up. He’d still introduced you to Matthew that night though, something he swore to this day was his biggest mistake because Matthew had immediately stolen you right from Brady and declared you were his friend first, before Brady’s. You’d tried to fight, but Matthew was persistent and you had the same sense of humor as him.

Plus, the dimples, the curls, and the coy smile drew you in. You remembered thinking he was cute when you first met him, but also that nothing could ever come of it, so you had forced yourself past that initial feeling and had been his friend ever since with no regrets. Despite the distance, you two had remained close since that day. The two of you made a pretty formidable team when you were on the same wavelength about something. You were pretty sure it might be better for everyone in your potentially shared warpaths that you weren’t around each other as much as you would be if you lived in the same city.

As the night dragged on, the party shrank in size, but the group of people relaxing in the couch area on the patio grew with Matthew and Brady’s closest friends. You’d been up and down a few times to fill your drink, but Matthew always saved you the seat right next to him. He never forgot about you, not even for a second, something you always appreciated.

You felt your phone buzz in your back pocket. You sighed as you lifted your hips and grab it from your back pocket and sighed again when you saw who texted. Aaron. You read the text quickly. He was asking you if you wanted to come over after you were done with the party. Aaron was... fine. That was the best word you had for Aaron. He was nice, polite, decent in bed, and completely unextraordinary in every single way possible. You weren’t seeing anyone else and neither was he, but he wasn’t your boyfriend. Neither one of you really wanted that. Aaron was fine for now, hence why he’d stuck around for six months. He hadn’t done anything to earn you wanting to promote him from casual fling and hadn’t done anything to make you want to get rid of him either. He met your few needs, you met his, and that’s all that mattered to either of you.

“Oh, is that Aaron?”

Matthew’s voice pulled you out of your thoughts and back into the moment. You shrugged instead of actually answered. You didn’t really want to get into what he thought of Aaron right now. He’d told you that he thought Aaron was basically the human equivalent of beige wallpaper and he couldn’t understand why you talked to him the first and only time you’d let them interact. You’d kept them apart ever since.

“So it was Aaron.” Matthew answered his own question in a curious tone. “Thinking of ditching me and Brads here for him?”

“I’m not going anywhere unless you keep making comments like that,” you sang softly with a layer of caution for Matthew coating your voice as you brought your cup to your lips for another sip.

Matthew chuffed a little under your admonishment of him, but he pressed on.

“Okay, so how long have you been talking to this guy again?”

Matthew leaned forward as he asked you the question, his hands lacing together as he braced his weight onto his forearms pressed against his thighs. He raised an eyebrow at you as he waited for you to answer.

“Six months,” you replied, taking a sip of your drink to cover a sly smile that tried to rise as you continued by asking, “why?”

Matthew skipped over your question with a wave of a hand as he shifted back onto the couch, his large frame pressing into the cushions of the back of the couch. He nodded softly, one of his hands moving to his chin, scratching at the stubble there as he thought.

“And you’re not talking to anyone else?” he asked you, his pitch raising higher than normal at the end of his question.

“No,” you said firmly, pressing the red cup between your palms as you watched Matthew react to your answer.

“And he’s not talking to anyone else?” Matthew followed up after a moment of thought.

“Uh, no,” you laughed with a soft shake of your head, thinking that one-sided exclusivity didn’t do anyone any good. Kind of ruined the whole exclusivity concept if only half of the team was playing the same game.

Matthew nodded in fake understanding. You knew him well enough to know he was playing some long game you didn’t know anything about. He carded a hand through his curls, shaking them out a little with a sigh.

“So he’s your boyfriend then, right? He has to be by now and you just forgot to tell me,” Matthew continued.

You shook your head softly, “No, he’s not.”

Matthew groaned and let his head fall back, hovering over the back edge of the couch. He drummed his fingers on the exposed skin of this thigh just south of the edge of his shorts. He nodded softly and tightened his lips before lifting his head. You could’ve sworn you heard him whisper a soft, “Fuck it,” to himself, but you weren’t sure if you’d heard it or imagined it. Matthew sighed as he sat up, the words starting to flow out of his mouth as he turned towards you and locked his baby blue eyes with yours.

“So like, I’m confused here. Six months being exclusive with this dude and he’s not your boyfriend. Is he confused? Like, does he want you or not? Because he’s holding up the fucking line here!”

You opened your mouth to respond, but no words came as Matthew’s blue eyes looked deep into yours, deep into you, and as your friends circled around you started hollering and clapping. Brady next to you was particularly loud, but it was all relative. Everything else was muffled compared to how loud the silence between you and Matthew was in that moment. His eyes were tracking across your face, from the wideness of your eyes, to the wrinkles in your forehead from your surprised expression, to the tight, firm line of your lips you’d closed as you tried to figure out what to do, what to say. Matthew telling you he had been waiting the whole time you’d been seeing Aaron at the very least had beyond blindsided you.

Matthew closed his eyes softly and began to nod in understanding, curls bouncing with the movement. His tongue poked out between his teeth as a sad, forced smile pulled at his mouth. He sighed as his smile widened, but it wasn’t the smile you’d grown to know from him. It was something entirely new. He stood up without another word and headed into the house. You let out a deep breath you hadn’t realized you’d been holding when the patio door shut behind him.

“He’s planned how he wanted to tell you like, six-hundred ways, but that was definitely not one of them,” Brady laughed next to you. You turned your head toward Brady, your surprised look somehow impossibly intensifying, making Brady laugh harder. “Oh yeah, he’s liked you for years now. You’ve just never lined up. You had that boyfriend, then he was sort of seeing that girl, now there’s Aaron, who is super boring by the way. He’s been trying, but the timing has never worked out for him. Got to give the guy some credit for finally growing a pair and telling you though, even if that wasn’t exactly pretty.”

“How long?” you asked, choking on the word.

You cleared your throat and repeated the question again. Brady shrugged in response.

“I don’t know, probably since that first party honestly. He made me introduce you to him when he saw us talking. Guess he thought you were cute.”

Brady said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, like he was simply ordering orange juice with brunch at a diner on Sunday morning. For you, it made your world tilt violently on its axis. Matthew was always never an option. He was so not an option you had all but deleted every memory of every thought of finding him attractive. Apparently, completely unknown to you, he’d been an option the entire time.

You stood up quickly from the couch, your fingers already pulling up Aaron’s contact information even though you didn’t have a plan on what to say to him. You knew you needed to see the sun in your life again and you knew Aaron wasn’t it. Aaron wasn’t the sun; he was a gray cloud. He was kind enough and unproblematic enough to never rain on your life. He protected you from some UV exposure, meaning bad one night stands and societally named walks of shame, but he was keeping you cool and complacent with you life. You never felt warmth on your skin from him. There was no heat, no love, no passion. A cloudy day was fine for a while. Aaron was fine for a while. You wanted the sun and you knew who it was.

Your mom had said it the first time you’d invited Matthew over to watch a movie with you a couple of week after that party where you met. While he could be your resident pain in the ass, he charmed your mother instantly, a fact he rubbed in every now an again because your mom, like everyone, was fine, but not thrilled, with Aaron’s existence.

“That boy is like sunshine, I swear,” she told you. “You light up when he walks in the room.”

Matthew was the sun. You wanted, needed, to feel the sun on your skin. You’d been standing near it for so long. You needed to know what it felt like to actually stand in the light.

You walked into the house, turning the opposite direction of where you’d seen Matthew turn when he walked in. You shut the door of the front office behind you to try to give you some privacy for this. You were completely unprepared and there was a serious risk you might try and compare Aaron to a raincloud at this point if you talked to him, but there wasn’t ever going to be a better time for this. Aaron answered on the third ring, like clockwork, like he knew you too well in the worst, most superficial ways.

“Hey,” he spoke softly and steadily, as always. “Is something wrong? Need me to come pick you up?”

“Uh, no, I’m good,” you mumbled out before hastily adding a quick, “thanks.”

You cleared your throat before you tried to continue.

“Hey, Aaron.” You cleared your throat again, trying in vain to bring the pitch of your voice down. “This might be out of left field here, but what are we doing here?”

“What do you mean?” he replied after a slightly too long pause. “Are you not okay with this anymore?”

You sighed and tucked some errant strands of hair that had escaped your ponytail behind your ear as you tried to collect your thoughts.

“That’s the thing Aaron,” you breathed out. “I’m tired of things being okay. This has always just been okay and you know it. This has never been a heart-stopping, Earth-shattering, scream-how-you-feel-in-front-of-a-room-full-of-people kind of thing. And I want that, Aaron. I want passion and I want things this doesn’t have, has never had, and won’t have because that’s not us. This is just, it’s fine, Aaron. But I’m sick of fine.”

You heard Aaron breathe out harshly, not unlike how you had before you’d let all of those feelings come out. You hadn’t realized exactly where you’d been going when you opened your mouth, but you knew you’d arrived at the right thing by the end.

“Honestly, so am I.”

You almost dropped the phone at his words. You had been expecting every reaction ranging from tears to screaming to silence. Agreement wasn’t a response you’d planned for. You’d thrown it out instantly, like you do with Jokers when you open a new deck of cards because they can’t possibly be in play. There aren’t any games that actually utilize them. There wasn’t a scenario you were prepared for where Aaron agreed with you.

“What?” you managed to get out. “You agree with me?”

Aaron laughed softly before saying, “Honestly, yeah. I hope you don’t think I’m being rude when I say this. You’re a great person, but this was just something casual for both of us and I think it’s just gone on longer than we planned since we both got into it thinking it would go bad before we were two months in. It never went bad, so we kept doing it. You and I are kind of alike in that way. Unless something makes us go off the rails, as long as the train has three out of five stars, we’ll stay on it forever basically.”

“That’s not rude. It’s exactly how I feel,” you told him, making him laugh again. You scrunched your nose up before adding, “Sorry, that probably sounded a little too relieved, huh?”

“No, no,” Aaron chuckled. “It’s real and fine and I feel it too.”

You sighed and leaned back against the nearby desk, trying to will your nervous heartbeat to slow down for a second. You nodded softly, trying to come up with words to say.

“What are you still doing on the phone? Go get him. Go get your real guy.”

You paused. You weren’t sure if you’d heard Aaron right. You racked your brain, trying to remember if you’d let anything slip out that could have pointed you ending things toward Matthew. Aaron might have not been your guy, but he was still a good guy and deserved better than thinking you’d dumped him for someone else.

“Matthew,” Aaron added before you could speak. “He finally plucked up the courage and said something, huh? About fucking time, Chucky.”

“You knew?” you asked breathlessly. “Did everyone know but me?”

“Uh, yeah, pretty much,” Aaron informed you, laughter edging at his voice again. “So, go get him. Hang up already! No hard feelings. I’ll see you around, okay?”

Aaron hung up for you. You slowly slid your phone into your back pocket, trying to collect your thoughts. Was what you were doing sort of sudden and crazy? Probably. It didn’t feel that way though. It felt like this was exactly what you should be doing.

Your feet carried you toward the kitchen where you assumed Matthew still was, most likely freaking out about ruining your friendship. You found him with his head hung low, one of his hands supporting him by gripping the edge of the counter behind him and the other feverishly raking through his curls. He was mumbling to himself, trying to gather his thoughts like you just had been.

“You want to finish having this conversation with yourself or can I interrupt?”

Matthew’s head snapped up and over toward you. His eyes soften when they connected with yours, before that same sad smile from outside came back onto his face. You knew what it was now, the unidentifiable emotion on his face. Pain. Looking at you, looking at what he thought was your rejection hurt him. He was trying to deal with it as best he could, but he was barely holding himself together.

“Well, you’ve already interrupted, so I feel like the least you could do is come into the kitchen,” Matthew replied, waving you in with his free hand.

“Matthew-”

“No, let me,” he cut you off as you started stepping toward him. “I’m sorry. I totally threw that at you in front of everyone. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t cool. And you have Aaron, I guess, so you’re not even really single, so it was really stupid to say. I’m really sorry and I hope-”

“Matthew Tkachuk, shut up for once in your life,” you said exasperatedly as you reached him.

He opened his mouth to speak, but then your hands grabbed his and he couldn’t focus on anything other than how it felt. His eyes were locked on your hands as you let your fingers intertwine with his.

“I ended it,” you told him.

“You what?” Matthew choked out as his eyes snapped up to yours. “With Aaron? Just now?”

“Yeah,” you laughed a little. “He actually took it really well. Turns out he’d been feeling a little stuck too, I guess.”

“Mm, solid,” was all Matthew had to say in reply as his attention turned back to your hands wrapped around his larger one. He wouldn’t let himself get his hopes up about what they meant for him right now. Just because you were getting rid of Aaron, didn’t mean that was permanent or that you were picking him instead.

He started to gently squeeze your hand with his, letting his large hand dwarf both of yours and he softly moved his thumb in smooth circle over the back of your hand. The small act, the smallest of possible movements, still was far more intimate than anything you’d felt in six months with Aaron. This was what it was supposed to feel like.

“There’s no line, Matthew.” You spoke softly and steadily, willing your words to wrap around him and take away any temporary pain your hesitation caused him. “There’s only you. You’re the one I want.”

Matthew didn’t need to double check. He knew you were sure from your tone. In the blink of an eye, his hands were on your waist, hoisting you up onto the kitchen counter as his lips crashed to yours for the first time. One of your hands tangled itself into his curls and the other rested on his broad chest, anchoring you to him.

He felt like sunshine on the first warm spring day of the year. Your skin soaked up that first light willingly, relishing in what it had missed as his warmth thawed the permafrost from your bones.

“Jesus,” you breathed out when he finally pulled back. “You’ve know how to kiss like that the whole time and you didn’t just try and do that to get my attention? Damn, Tkachuk.”

Matthew blushed softly, a new reaction to your words you immediately threw into your favorite column of reactions to pull out of him, noting you needed to make it happen more often. He smiled softly at first, but as he looked at you, his smile wouldn’t stop growing until it was spread wide across his face.

“I’ll make a note of it.” He paused to slide his hands under your thighs and lift you off the counter in one smooth motion. He guided your legs around his waist as your hands braced the back of his neck for support. “You know, for the next time I try to confess my feelings for a girl in front of all of my friends .”

“Mm, hope you don’t have any plans to try and use that advice anytime soon,” you teased him back as he carried you out of the kitchen and towards his room.

“Honestly, I already threw that note away. What did it say again?” he asked you jokingly, giving you a quick peck on the lips as he walked.

“It was just a little notice letting you know I’ve moved you to boyfriend status,” you replied with a shrug, but your smile betrayed you.

“Before I even show you all the tricks up my sleeve? Damn, mind if I show you anyway? I’ve got some pretty good ones that just might blow your mind.”

Matthew threw you a quick wink as he pushed his bedroom door open with his back just to make sure you knew exactly what he was referring to, leaving nothing open to misinterpretation.

“Oh really now? Try me, sunshine. I’ve got all night.”

#Matthew Tkachuk #matthew tkachuk imagine #matthew tkachuk fanfic #nhl fanfic #nhl fanfiction #nhl fic #nhl blurbs #nhl imagine #Hockey Fanfiction #hockey writing #hockey imagine

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actuallybarb · 4 years ago

Text

The Aftermath ~ Part 2

Summary: y/n gets knocked around by a water monster, has secret-sharing time with peter, and decides mj is more important than her pride. sleep deprivation and caffeine consumption are definitely involved.

Pairing: peter parker x reader

Warnings: swearing, angst, fluff, mysterio being a dick, trauma, it’s marvel what did you expect

Word Count: 3978 give or take

A/N: endgame is canon, *vomits*, but we’ve all got a thing for broken peter parker, even if all i want is his never ending happiness

///////////

“I can’t believe you punched Flash.” Brad, of course, decided to sit next to me on the gondola ride to the hotel. Figures.

“You better believe it, ‘cuz it actually happened.” I tried to pay as little attention to him as possible and just take pictures on my phone, but he kept talking.

“Why don’t you like me?”

I groaned. “Because, Brad, you ask stupid questions like that.”

We pulled up to the hotel and were all sufficiently underwhelmed.

“It’s flooded!”

“The hotel is sinking?”

I considered helping the hotel out, at least while we stayed at it, but there wasn’t much hope left for it. I took my room key and thanked my lucky stars I didn’t have a room on the ground level. In fact, I was sharing with MJ. I waited patiently behind her as she jiggled the door open.

“Is it safe to assume the building will crumble any second now?”

MJ burst out laughing. “I think that’s an understatement.”

“If I get TB, I’m suing.”

“The hotel?”

“Harrington.”

She smiled. “C’mon, let’s get outside before we drown.”

We walked along the water and let the sun happily reflect on our exhausted faces. Everyone was enjoying themselves, but I was starting to feel queasy. It was almost imperceptible, but I could feel the city moving with the water, and it was making me sick. I started lagging back and tried to find my “sea legs,” but Peter noticed and stuck back too. “You alright?”

I plastered on a weak smile. “That long flight is catching up with me. I’m just going to grab an espresso, I’ll meet up with you guys soon.” He looked at me one more time before nodding and meeting the rest of the group.

I didn’t completely lie — I was getting an espresso. But I wasn’t going to catch up with them, at least, not for a while. I needed to get away from the water, even just for a little bit.

I can’t fly, per se. I can control the air currents around me and change them how I want them too, like I did on the airplane with the turbulence. I can do that with most elements, (except wood, I hate wood) and that gives me a heightened awareness of them. I’m basically the Avatar and the characters from Percy Jackson. All I have to do is shave my head and tattoo blue arrows on my body. (And, yes, I did watch all seven seasons of the two series and read all ten Percy Jackson books to actually figure out what the hell it was that I could do. It helped. Clearly.)

I just lifted myself to the top of the coffee shop. I’m a sucker for espresso, I like to be close to it. The distance helped. I felt grounded enough to walk on the normal streets of Venice again, but when I touched down, I suddenly lurched to the right.

“What the hell,” I muttered. I got my answer soon enough. A huge river monster was crashing its giant water arms on anything it could see. And I was directly in its path. “Oh, shit.”

I shouldn’t have been as terrified as I was. I mean, come on, I can control water. Dissipate the water man, Y/N, I can almost hear you yelling at me. Shut up, I was scared. This thing was twice as tall as any of the buildings, and it had a direct path to anywhere in the city. Me, a seventeen year old girl, against that? Not a good idea.

So, like any logical human being, I ran. And I still got clobbered with water and ended up actually falling into the water. Let me just tell you, Italy needs to get a Brita, ‘cause their river is nasty.

But, once I was actually in the water, the river monster looked a lot less intimidating. Sure, the water was churning around and sucking everything into its path, but I was in my element — literally. I got close to it, like, really close. I pushed against the flow of the water and tried to stop the monster from forming, and it worked, for a little bit. It slowed down, and I got some newfound momentum, when all of the sudden, it all stopped, and tons of water crashed to the surface. That was my cue to leave, but then something caught my eye. A flash of metal was in the water. Luck would have it, though, that I could bend water and metal (shout out to Toph Beifong). I latched onto the metal and pulled it close to me, but I couldn’t make out what it was. Didn’t mean I would trash it though, this water was disgusting enough. I tucked it in my pocket and started swimming to the surface.

I got out of the water actually pretty close to the rest of the class, but I was the only one completely drenched.

“Oh, Y/N, good! We’re all here,” Mr. Harrington celebrated. “Let’s get back to the hotel, your families will want to know you’re all fine.”

“You’re soaked.”

I shivered, even though it wasn’t cold. The temperature difference between the water and the air was enough to make me shake. “Astute observation, Brad.”

“Here, you can have my jacket.”

“Thanks, but I don’t want it.” I kept walking and managed to bump into Peter. “You got wet too?”

“Just splashed. Did you get thrown in?”

“Yeah, the bastard caught me by surprise. I’m okay, just cold.”

“Here.” Peter slung his backpack around and took out a mostly dry sweatshirt. He gestured it my way, but I didn’t take it. “It’s just a jacket, Y/N. You’ll get a cold with your hair dripping all around you.”

I knew that wasn’t how colds worked, but I took it anyway and let it soak in the water from my hair. It helped, surprisingly, at least making me not shiver. We made it back to the hotel with no other complications, aside from Flash tripping over his own shoelace because he was too busy recording for his Instagram followers to pay attention to where he was going. I quickly went upstairs and changed out of my clothes, putting on a pair of sweats and a sweatshirt that used to belong to Jessica. The room had a tiny balcony, and I took advantage of it and laid out all of my clothes and Peter’s sweatshirt. The last thing MJ or I needed was a puddle of water to slip in.

I went back downstairs and sat close to the top of the stairs, not wanting to get anywhere near the water at the bottom. MJ was a few steps below me, and Peter was leaning against the stairs, talking to someone on the phone. He hung up, and I slipped past MJ and wrapped around to the phone. I was about to dial, when I remembered something. “Hey, Peter.”

“What’s up?”

I pulled him away from the stairs and whispered, “Is the plan still working?”

“The—oh, that plan. Uh, yeah, I think so. I got her this necklace of a black dahlia from a glass shop, and I want to give it to her at the top of the Eiffel Tower.”

I smiled. “That’s adorable. I’m going to use the phone, do you mind?”

“Oh, sorry, I’ll get out of your way.” We smiled at each other, then I grabbed the receiver and dialed.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mom, it’s Y/N.”

“Oh my—John, it’s her. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Harrington wanted all of us to call our parents, so this is me, doing my due diligence. We’re still set for Paris tomorrow, so I’ll call you then, okay? Love you.” I didn’t even really wait for them to respond before I hung up. Truth was, I didn’t want to talk to them. I didn’t really want to talk to anyone, but I had to make one more phone call.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Jess, it’s Y/N. You watch the news nonstop, so I figured I’d call, let you know I’m okay.”

“Thank god, I was so worried about you. What happened?”

“This water monster literally came out of nowhere and knocked me straight into the murky junk, it was disgusting.”

“Were you able to help at all?” Jess was one of two other people in the world who knew about what I could do. She was the one who bought me the tv shows and books, of course she knew.

“I slowed it down at some point, but then all of a sudden it just dissipated, it was weird. I did find this weird metal thing in the water, I picked it up. I’ll send you a picture of it when I get the chance.”

“Okay. Call me soon, got it?”

“Count on it. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

I wasn’t in the mood to talk anymore, so I walked up the stairs, ready to succumb to the moldy mattress in my room. Unfortunately, I had to collect my clothes.

Everything was nearly dry, and Peter’s sweatshirt was definitely dry, so I brought them inside. I almost didn’t want to give Peter his sweatshirt back, just because it was so soft, but knowing him, it was probably the only one he brought, so I walked the ten feet to his front door and knocked. I wasn’t told not to enter, so I turned the knob and walked in. “Hey, Pete, I—“ I stopped with my hand by my face, terrified. A small dart was less than an inch away from my palm. I turned to the man in the corner who was holding the gun. “Did you just try to shoot me?”

“You’re the one who came barging in.” The scary looking guy with the eyepatch leaned forward. “What’s your name?”

I laughed heartlessly. “Ha, yeah, like I’m going to tell the man who just pulled a gun on me.” I looked at Peter and threw his jacket at him. “I brought this back.” Then I turned to the man in the chair. I crunched the dart, letting it fold on top of itself before his eyes, then I let it fall to the floor. “You can keep that.” I looked at Peter one more time, then slammed the door on my way out.

MJ was laying on her bed when I walked back in, but she could tell something was up. She had impeccable observational skills. “You good?”

I was pacing, a bad habit I picked up after The Snap first happened. “I just need to look something up.”

“Well, the hotel might be sinking, but they’ve at least got good wifi.”

I finally sat and opened my laptop, then turned on my VPN and put the whole device on ‘incognito mode.’ I had some serious investigations to conduct, I didn’t need the government to see what I was doing. Okay, I only had one serious investigation, but that could possibly have lead to more, so I kept my guard up.

First search: scary-looking black man with an eyepatch. The guy’s face was the first image that popped up. Nick Fury. Ex-director of SHIELD before all of that went to shit. Now he’s running some ‘underground’ SHIELD, I guess. Now I know the guy’s name.

But why was he talking to Peter? And why did he shoot me?

I was up all night doing research. Not just on Nick Fury, but on the metal piece I had found in the water, the Avengers, and as much as I could find on Peter Parker himself. Sooner than I thought, the sun peeked between the curtains at the window and MJ’s alarm came blaring through the speakers on her phone.

“Morning,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes and finally taking a break from my computer screen.

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Are you going to yell at me if I say no?” MJ just pursed her lips. I knew she wouldn’t.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve pulled an all nighter. At least this one was productive.

“What’s on your bed?” She picked up a small spring and looked it over before putting it back beside the rest of the pieces of the metal thing. “Did you take apart your toothbrush?”

I chuckled. “No, I found this thing in the river when I got knocked in. I didn’t know what it was, so I took it apart.”

“Have you figured it out?”

“Not yet.” I rubbed my eyes again and groaned. “We’re going to Paris today, right?”

“Yeah.” MJ stood and stretched and I caught the smallest smile on her face when she replied. I smiled too and packed up my project. Something for another late night.

We were escorted outside with our luggage in tow, but Mr. Harrington happily informed us we would be taking a bus to Prague instead of a train to Paris. You’ve got to be kidding.

Peter was walking to the bus in front of me, but I grabbed his arm and dragged him away. “What the hell, Peter?”

“You can control metal?” He was in awe. His admiration would’ve been flattering if I wasn’t so pissed.

“You had Nick Fury in your room last night. I almost got shot last night. What the hell is going on?”

“It was only a tranquilizer, you would’ve been fine—“

“That’s not the point, Parker!” I basically hissed at him. He looked a little surprised that I was so upset. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down enough to not start shouting. “We were attacked by a water monster, I almost got shot, I didn’t sleep, and now four people in the world know what I can do, so give me some damn answers, because I sure as hell deserve them.”

Peter looked around, like he was looking for an escape, but I was ready. I might not have slept in almost 48 hours, but I wasn’t going to let him get away so easily.

Then Harrington was calling us over to the bus. Perfect timing.

“Can we talk on the bus?”

I nodded and let him lead the way to the back. Surprisingly we were the only ones that occupied those seats and the ones surrounding, but that’s what happens when you get a bunch of nerds in the same vehicle—they all sit in the front. He sat low in his seat, and I did the same, and I let him start the conversation. Prying it out of him wouldn’t be too successful, I figured, not with something like this.

We got fifteen minutes out of the city before he started talking. “Fury wanted me to go with him to meet this guy who defeated the Elemental yesterday.”

“Why you? And what’s an Elemental?”

“The water monster, it’s called an Elemental. And he asked me because I’m—I’m,” his voice dropped to an even lower whisper, “I’m Spider-Man.”

I almost didn’t believe him.

I almost burst out laughing at the hilarity of it all. Peter Parker, Spider-Man? Ridiculous.

But, remember, I learned from Toph Beifong. I can tell when people are lying.

And Peter?

Peter wasn’t lying.

Well, shit.

How do I even respond to something like that?

“Okay.” Good one. “Who was the other guy you met with?”

“You—you’re not surprised?”

Oh, young Parker, I was dumbfounded. But I had learned two years earlier how to control my heart rate, so he would never know how freaked out I actually was.

“You saw me stop a dart mid-air, Peter, you being Spider-Man is hardly out of the ordinary.”

He looked relieved, but he still hadn’t answered my question.

“Who was the other guy?”

“Oh. His name is Quentin Beck. He’s—“ another low whisper, “he’s from an alternate universe. He fought the Elementals before, and he and them got sucked into our universe when Tha—Hulk brought everyone back.” He didn’t look me in the eye when he talked about the snaps. I wouldn’t either, but I felt the little blip his heart made at the mention of Thanos’s name, so I didn’t push. Even though Quentin Beck and his story sounded like bullshit.

“Do you have a picture of him?” Peter looked at me skeptically, but hooked up his mask to his phone. A somewhat blurry picture of Quentin Beck popped up, and he sent it to me, but he didn’t seem happy about it. “I just want to know who to look out for. If I start chucking rocks at people, I don’t want to hit the wrong one.” The lie seemed to relax him a little bit. It wasn’t a complete lie, I did want to know who to look out for, but I also wanted to find this guy in our universe. “What’s the plan now?”

“They think another one will pop up in Prague—“

“Peter, we’re driving toward Prague. Shouldn’t we be going away from it?”

“I have to help fight this thing—“

“Let the Beck guy do it!” My voice had risen above a whisper and Peter quickly shushed me. “He’s done it before, he can do it again.”

“They need my help, I can—“

“Peter.” He kept muttering, convincing himself he needed to help, but I wasn’t having it. “You don’t have to save the world, Peter.”

That got him to shut up.

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t owe the world a goddamn thing.”

“Help me.” That got me to shut up. “Help me fight the Elemental.”

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“Because you’re one of the only people who can! The next one that’s coming, they’re pretty sure it’s the fire elemental, and any time it absorbs metal it can get stronger. You can help us beat it by keeping the metal away from it!”

Oh. He didn’t know I could do more than that.

“Peter, I — ”

“Please.” Peter Parker had the best puppy-dog eyes I had ever seen in my life. But I wasn’t convinced.

“I’m here for a school trip, Pete, not to save the world.”

It’s like I sucker punched him. He deflated immediately and looked away, and I got up and moved a few rows ahead.

I wasn’t opposed to helping, but I didn’t want to get near Quentin Beck until I had a full story on him. And that would take a lot of research and caffeine.

“Hey, Eugene.” We had stopped for a bathroom break and he was still using his phone to update his Instagram followers on all of the happenings on our way to Prague.

“Are you here to break my jaw again, Y/L/N?”

I looked at his face and didn’t see any swelling, barely any discoloration. “Nope, you’re healing nicely, I’m impressed. Do you have a hotspot?”

“Why do you think I have a hotspot?”

“Because you’ve been on your phone the entire trip.”

“What will you do for me if I let you on it?”

I rolled my eyes and groaned. Of course he would ask for a favor. “Anything. Within reason.”

“Can I cash in on the favor later?”

Goddamnit. “Sure, whatever.”

He laughed maniacally. “Okay, Flash Hotspot is the user, and spidermanrocks is the password, no spaces, no caps.”

“Really, Eugene, you went with that password?” I almost had to laugh. He would have an aneurysm if he knew who was really Spider-Man.

“What?”

“It’s a bit obvious, don’t you think?”

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. What were you doing with Parker?”

“Plotting the downfall of the European Union.” I let out a laugh. “We were talking about the water monster, and how there’s a light festival in Prague that’d be cool to go to.”

“Gonna go on a date with Penis Parker?”

“I was actually thinking about asking Brad.” That made Flash laugh, and I smiled myself. “But seriously, stop calling him that.”

“Whatever.”

Peter looked flustered as he got back on the bus, but I didn’t pry. But Brad looked awfully smug as he sat beside MJ. Focus, Y/N, you have to find Quentin Beck. I hunkered down in my seat and slipped my headphones over my ears, then logged onto Flash’s hotspot and got to work.

The number of illegal websites I went on was not something I’m willing to admit out loud, but I couldn’t find anything. Not a single facial-recognition scan showed any results for Quentin Beck, and I tried as many as I could get my hands on. But the more I looked at his face, the more I felt like I’d seen him before. And honestly, it was pissing me off.

I stared at the image on my phone, and I had a gut feeling it had to do with Tony Stark. This Beck guy was somehow connected to Stark. It’s like the answer was on the tip of my tongue. I rubbed my temples in frustration, wishing I could just reach into my memory and pull out the information when it hit me. “Memory, you’re so stupid, Y/N.”

Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing, affectionately called B.A.R.F. was presented by Tony Stark at a lecture he did at MIT almost seven years ago. But this guy had released a paper about it six months before—a guy named Quentin Beck. I remembered reading about it for a school project, and the picture of the guy was the same person Peter met.

“There’s no way.”

I looked up the article, and sure enough, I was right. Quentin Beck was the scientist behind the technology, and he was an employee for Stark Industries when the article was published.

Great, now I had to break into Stark Industries and access their archives while on a hotspot provided by Eugene Thompson. Lucky for me, we pulled into the parking lot for our much improved hotel, which meant free wifi. Unlucky for me, Mr. Harrington now felt he needed to start bossing us around, considering he was the teacher. Which meant I had to put my investigations to the side. For now.

“Okay, kids, grab your room keys, same roommates as before. Meet back in the lobby at five o’clock for the light festival!”

MJ and I dragged our cases up to the third floor. We each chose a bed, but she was moody, more than her usual angst. But I didn’t have time to play therapist. “Did we get a wifi password?”

“Uh, yeah.” She passed over the card after logging in herself and sat on her bed, glancing back at me every ten seconds.

I was typing away madly, but her stares were making me uncomfortable. “Why are you staring?”

She looked away quickly. “I’m not staring.”

“You were totally staring.” I kept clicking and typing. “What?”

“What are you looking for? I know you stayed up all last night on your computer.”

To tell or not to tell, that is the question. Not a very hard one, but it’s still the question. This secret isn’t mine to make public, though. “I’m trying to prove someone wrong.”

“Who?”

I hesitated. “Peter.”

“Why do you need to prove him wrong?”

“Because he’s gotten his idyllic little hopes up and I want to squash them like a bug.” I glanced at her and smirked. “I’m kidding. I just don’t think he’s right about something, and I’m proving it.”

She nodded, not entirely convinced. “You’re coming to the light festival, right?”

I looked at her. Really looked at her. She was pulling her long sleeves over her wrists and switching her weight from foot to foot—uncomfortable as hell. I gave her a genuine smile and closed my computer. “Wouldn’t miss it. Wanna help me figure out what to wear?”

Friends come before saving the world any day.

tags: @eridanuswave @vampirestrawberries

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker series #peter parker oneshot #marvel #marvel comics #reader insert #peter parker x mj #ned leeds #michelle jones #flash thompson #spiderman far from home #mcu #spiderman #avengers

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like-a-bag-of-potatoes · 4 years ago

Text

Playing With Fire - Brotherly Advice

A/N: So this is my first crack at Chicago fire fanfiction, so don't judge too hard, alright? This will unfold from the beginning of season three, so if you haven't watched it yet, but plan to; SPOILER ALERT! I tried to follow along with the storyline of the show, but some things have been changed. Shout out to my superawesome beta @thorne93, you rock!

Fandom: Chicago Fire

Pairing: Kelly Severide x Beth (OFC)

Warnings: Implied sexytimes. Language probably.

Wordcount: 3001

Breakfast was long forgotten as Beth and Kelly were tangled up between her sheets, exploring each other’s bodies as they both chased a release.

As Beth was catching her breath, she looked over at him, taking in his profile. He was gorgeous, that was pretty obvious, but underneath all that there was a genuinely good heart too. How did she know that? First of all it was from how others spoke of him, and secondly, she could feel it when she looked into those bright blue eyes of his. She knew she was treading on thin ice here, but that was an issue for another time. Right now she just wanted to enjoy this time with him.

“It's rude to stare, you know,” he suddenly said, eyes trained on the ceiling as a smile crept to his plump lips.

She knew it was futile to try and lie her way out of that one. “I think I'm gonna cancel dinner with my brother and help out at Molly’s instead,” she said thoughtfully.

The day before, there had been a pretty serious accident where a truck from another company had rammed into truck 81. Everyone at 81 was whole, but the driver of the other truck was in pretty bad shape. Herrmann had volunteered up Molly’s to host a fundraiser for the injured firefighter, Molina, and his family.

“You sure?” Kelly asked, lazily running his fingers up and down her arm.

“Yeah. This is more important,” she assured. “Besides, I'm like 90 percent sure he only wants to meet up because mom ordered him to check up on me.”

“You could invite him to Molly’s for a drink instead,” he suggested.

It was a nice thought on his account, but for Beth that really wasn't an option. “Maybe,” she said absentmindedly.

“So this is your oldest brother?” Kelly could feel her nodding her head. “And how many do you have?”

“Six,” she stated simply.

“You have six siblings?” he asked, his brows shooting up.

“Yup. Six older brothers,” she confirmed. “Told you I had a big family.”

“Wow… wish I knew that before I took you home the other night,” he joked.

She playfully shoved his shoulder before sitting up. “Story of my life,” she joked. Beth leaned over and grabbed Kelly’s shirt from the floor, pulling it over her head.

He laid back on the bed, arms behind his head as he watched her. “So what do they do, these brothers of yours?”

“They’re cops,” she said simply.

“All of them?” Now it was his turn to sit up on the bed.

“Yeah. Except Brad, who’s a lawyer.”

“So you have five older brothers who are cops?”

Beth chuckled. This was normally the reaction she got when she told people about her family. The only thing that was a little unusual was that Kelly wasn't sprinting for the door already. “One in homicide, one in organised crime, one in vice, and two still in uniform,” she summarised. “They’re harmless though,” she added.

Kelly pulled on his boxers before he followed Beth into the kitchen to dig into the breakfast she had made for them. As she loaded up their plates with eggs, bacon, and pancakes, he poured them each a generous cup of coffee. They placed everything on the table and Kelly sat down.

She was on her way to take a seat as well when Kelly grabbed her and pulled her into his lap, making her squeal before a laugh took over. “What are you doing?” she asked, falling serious again as she looked into his eyes.

A large hand cupped her cheek, his calloused fingers rough against her velvet skin. He coaxed her gently to lean down so he could kiss her lips again. “Can't help it,” he said with a cheeky grin. “You look way too hot in my shirt.”

Beth gave him another quick kiss, humming into his lips as she moved her hands up his sculpted chest. “You look really hot without your shirt, too,” she countered before getting back to her feet.

Kelly watched her intently as she rounded the table and took a seat, that smile still on his lips.

Breakfast was followed by a long, steamy shower. It was truly a great morning, but as they had both dried up and were clothed again a sort of weird tension hung over them. It wasn't really bad or awkward in any way. It just felt more like a ‘now what?’ moment. Like ‘we just had a lot of amazing sex and now we don't have anything to talk about’ kinda deal.

They both looked at each other for a moment and then Beth laughed a little nervously. “Did things just get weird?” she wondered, looking up at Kelly who mirrored her laugh.

“A little bit, yeah,” he agreed, bobbing his head slightly.

She took a few steps forward to close the space between them and then wrapped her arms around his waist. “It's been a really good morning, though,” she said with a coy smile on her lips.

Kelly hummed in agreement before he dipped his head down and kissed her. “I wish I could stay and do more of this-” he gave her another quick kiss -”but I have some things I need to get done today,” he said.

“That's alright. We can pick this back up another time,” she said with a smile. “If you want to that is,” she added hastily, not wanting him to think she was presuming anything.

Kelly chuckled at how nervous she got. “I'd like that very much,” he assured, emphasizing his statement with another kiss. “I'll see you at Molly’s later?” he wondered, not really wanting to let go of her just yet.

“Absolutely,” she smiled.

After Kelly had left that morning, she hadn't been able to focus on anything other than replaying the memories of their time together, and now she was back at work, serving drinks for everyone that had come to show support for Molina and his family. The mood was surprisingly alright considering.

“How’s Cruz doing?” Beth asked Gabby when they found a moment to talk. Cruz had been the one driving truck 51, and was now accused of running a light and causing the accident that left Molina fighting for his life.

“As good as can be expected,” Gabby said. “I do have some other news though,” she said to Beth, Otis, and Herrmann. “Casey and I broke up.” Beth was confused by the smile on both Gabby and Matt’s faces.

Otis and Herrmann looked confused for a second too, until Gabby spoke again.

“Good thing is, now I can fill the candidate slot at truck 81. If you'll have me?”

There were pretty strict rules when it came to personal relationships on the job, but now it seemed as though Matt and Gabby had found a way to work around that. All they had to do was postpone their wedding for a year, until Gabby had completed her candidacy.

“Congratulations,” Beth said with a big smile as she hugged her friend.

The conversation stopped there as a tall, dark haired man with a thick beard interrupted them. “Beth?”

She looked up at him and her smile faltered. “Brad? What the hell?”

“Nice to see you too, sis,” he said, not offering up a smile.

Beth looked at her watch. He should be about ready for take off now, so why the hell was he here? She watched as he introduced himself to Gabby, Herrmann, Otis, and Matt, before her eyes found Kelly at a table far from the bar. The last thing she wanted right now was for them to meet. She looked up at her brother and nodded towards the end of the bar to get him to follow her.

“Why are you here?” she asked. It came out a little ruder than she had planned. “I thought you’d be on a plane back to New York by now.” She tried to ignore the curious eyes that were on them.

“I moved my flight to tomorrow,” he stated simply. “Look… we didn't leave things on the best terms, and I wanted to make up for that,” he said in a serious tone.

“Alright…” she dragged, not really sure what to do with that. “I appreciate the gesture, but I'm working, and I don't really have the time to get into this with you right now.”

Brad was a big man, over six feet tall, broad shoulders, and an intense gaze. The thick, yet well groomed beard didn't exactly soften his looks either. He had a very authoritative aura around him that Beth always crumpled under. It was the culmination of having to be the man of the house at only fourteen and then growing into a successful lawyer. He was used to being treated with respect, used to getting his way, and it didn't matter if you were a random stranger on the street, a client, or his baby sister. Brad would get his way, because his way was the only way. That's why they had butted heads so much over the years, and why they had a huge fight the day that Beth left New York.

“Okay. Let me stay for a few drinks at least, meet some of your new friends.” This was far from a request or a question. Beth knew that the best way to not get into this with him right now was to just let him have his drinks and then hope he left without a commotion.

Brad made his way down the bar again and took a seat next to Otis, asking Beth to get him a whiskey. As she dropped a couple of ice cubes in the glass, she could feel her hands shaking and her anxiety rising.

“Let me tell you, Brad,” Herrmann started. “Beth is the best damn bartender Molly’s has ever seen. Great gal too. We’re lucky to have her,” he praised. It was sweet of him, really, but she knew that Brad would find a way to diminish this.

“Oh yeah? I'm glad to hear that,” Brad said. “Good for you, sis.” Beth gave him a stern look. She was probably the only one that could hear the sarcasm behind his pretended politeness, and she feared what was to come next. “What? I'm not allowed to be happy for you?”

“Come on,” she pleaded, but he was already getting started.

“I'm serious, Beth. I was worried when you left your respectable job at the NYFD - one with a promising future, I might add - but it's nice to see that you have landed on both feet in this dive bar.”

“Hey-” Herrmann exclaimed, not understanding how this conversation had taken such a sour turn.

“Outside,” Beth said through gritted teeth. “Now.”

Brad had a sly smile on his lips as he got up from his seat and started making his way outside. He needed this confrontation with his sister, because in his mind, there wasn't an argument that he couldn't win.

“What the actual fuck, Brad?” Beth shouted as soon as the door closed behind her. “This is my work. Those people you were talking to are my bosses, and my friends.”

He sighed. “Sorry. You’re right. That was kind of a dick move.”

“No shit.”

“Look,” he started, taking a step closer to her as his features softened again, and Beth could see the loving and compassionate brother she knew still existed under his hard exterior. “I've missed you - we all have. Sunday dinners aren't the same without you.”

“I miss you guys too, but I'm trying to start fresh here, and you can't just waltz in here and be all critical and judgemental,” she explained in a calm voice.

“I know. And that's not why I'm here either,” he assured. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope that he gave to her. “It's a plane ticket for tomorrow morning,” he explained. “I want you to come home with me.”

Her heart sank in her chest as anger coursed through her entire body. She should have seen this coming a mile away, but he had completely blindsided her. “I'm building a life for myself here. I have an apartment, a job I love, and friends. I can't just leave. And more importantly; I don't want to.”

“You had all those things back home too, but you had no problem leaving that behind… that and your family,” he pushed.

“That's not fair, you know why I left.”

“You said that you needed space and time. You've had that,” he argued.

“I needed to leave New York behind, you know that. That place just holds too many bad memories for me.” She felt that familiar lump in her throat, but she swallowed it. She couldn't let him see her cry, she couldn't show him any weakness. “It doesn't mean I've left you guys,” she tried to explain.

“You know, when you go through a rough time, you ask for help. You don't run away,” he pressed. This was the exact argument they had the day she left.

Beth didn't know that Kelly had a clear view of them from where he sat inside, and frankly, she was too angry at her brother to even consider the fact that anyone could hear or see their argument.

“I didn't run away,” she snapped. “And I did ask for help - hell -I begged for help, but none of you gave it to me.” Now her eyes welled with tears and her throat burned, but she would not give him the satisfaction.

“Because it was always for him, and never for yourself.”

Kelly saw the tears in her eyes through the window, leapt from his seat and made a beeline for the door. He had no idea what was going on or what he was going to do - or if it was even his place - but he needed to do something.

“Helping him would have helped me, but you guys turned your back on him - on both of us.” Her lower lip quivered, but she bit it back.

“He turned his back on all of us first. He was a piece of shit, Beth, but you didn't want to see it… nothing we said or did-”

Kelly came out just as Beth took a step closer to her brother and pressed an envelope to his chest.

“He was our father, and he was sick,” she said in a warning tone, staring into her brother's eyes with as much resolve and determination that she could muster up.

“Everything alright here?” Kelly asked from behind Beth.

Brad's eyes flew to the stranger as he sized him up. “Everything is fine here,” he said courtly.

“I wasn't talking to you,” Kelly clarified.

“We’re fine,” Beth said, not taking her eyes off her brother for even a second. “Brad was just leaving.” It was hard to explain, but just knowing that Kelly was there, that she had someone in her corner, helped her stand her ground.

Silence followed as the two of them just stared at each other. It was Brad who admitted defeat first, knowing that his sister wouldn't back down here. He hated losing, but continuing this argument meant airing their dirty laundry in front of a stranger, and he was too proud to do that. “I hope you change your mind,” he said softly.

“I won't,” she assured. “I'm good here.”

Brad looked at Kelly and shook his head disapprovingly before he gave Beth's arm a squeeze, and then he said goodbye.

She followed him with her eyes as he crossed the street and got into a car he probably had rented at the airport. She could feel Kelly behind her now, even before his hand landed on her lower back.

“You okay?” he asked, worry in his voice.

“I'm fine,” she said flatly. She turned around and looked up at him, seeing the concern on his handsome face. “Sorry about that.”

It was very clear to him that she wasn't fine, but he didn't want to push her to talk to him. Besides, he didn't really know what sort of role he filled in her life right now, and if it was even his place to ask. “Don't apologize,” he assured, squeezing her arm. “If you want to talk, I'm -”

“I don't want to talk,” she said, cutting him off before he could even finish his sentence. “Just want a drink.”

“Then let's go get you a drink,” he offered with a smile.

The two of them went back inside and before she even reached the bar, Gabby had a shot ready for her. Beth took the glass and threw the drink back before slamming the glass back on the counter for Gabby to fill it up again.

“Your brother is quite the charmer,” Herrmann commented as Beth threw back shot number two. He had absolutely no filter this man, which was just one of the many things that made Beth like him.

“He's normally not like this,” she lied. “Things are just a little tense since I left. I'm sorry for bringing it here though. It won't happen again.”

“Don't worry about it, sweetheart,” Herrmann assured, patting her on the back.

Beth went back to work and Kelly joined his friends again. The two of them didn't really interact much through the rest of the evening, and it left him with an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Around one a.m, Herrmann told Beth to take the rest of the night off, he could clearly see that her head wasn't in the game, and so he sent her home. Beth dug her phone from her purse as soon as she stepped outside and typed a quick text to Kelly.

Walk me home?

Then she waited for about half a minute before he came through the door, and the two of them went back to her apartment.

If you want a tag, just shoot me an ASK and we’ll make that happen.

Remember that I have a monthly “raffle” where one person who has reblogged and commented on my work will receive a personalized drabble. You enter once with a reblog, and twice with a reblog and comment.

If you like what you read, press that little reblog button, maybe leave me a little comment. Feedback is a great source of inspiration for me.

Tags: @campingmonkey @deansgirl215

#Kelly Severide #kelly severide x reader #kelly severide fanfiction #kelly severide fanfic #Chicago Fire #chicago fire fanfic #chicago fire fanfiction #kelly severide series #PF

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myhockeyworld87 · 4 years ago

Text

Afraid - David Pastrnak

Word Count: 2,418

Requested: Yes

POV: Reader

Warnings: Language

Notes: I can’t find the original request, but this is the one someone wanted me to write with the Bruins and I was going to change it to the Stars, so I hope this ends up being ok. Happy Reading!

The first thing you realized when you met David, or Pasta, as everyone else called him, was that he wasn't afraid of anything. He wasn't afraid to drop the gloves and fight when he was on the ice, even though it worried the hell out of you; and he surely wasn't afraid to kill any of the gross and nasty bugs that would fly or crawl into your place. When you watched a scary movie, you were constantly hiding your head into his chest. His teammates would try to get the upper hand on him all the time, pulling pranks on him, but nothing seemed to make him flinch.

You were at one of the Bruins get together early on in the season, hanging by the pool when Jake tried to scare him by slithering a snake down his shoulder. It was an elaborate plan, he and Marchand were up on the roof, while Krug was distracting Pasta. They dropped the fake reptile down onto him perfectly; though David just laughed and continued on with his conversation as if nothing happened.

It was after that, that Jake cornered you and asked for your help. "Come on, (Y/N), you've got to know something that he's afraid of."

"Honestly, I can't think of a thing."

"Nothing at all? What about bears attacking him or fear of heights?" You made a face at him as if to say are you kidding me. He needed to think bigger. "We really need your help here."

"I'll try and think of something." It was two weeks later when you were lying in bed with Pasta, watching some nonsense on television, that it came to you. You weren't sure what it was, but there was a noise in the house that had both of you looking at each other. David went to investigate and found nothing. "Maybe it's a ghost," you teased.

"Shut up, that's not funny." He said crawling back under the covers.

"David, you're not afraid of a little ghost are you?" He just smirked at you, not saying a word. "What is my big strong hockey player scared of the boogeyman?"

He flipped you on your back, looming over you then, causing you to gasp as he pressed his erection into your body. "Mmm, nothing to be afraid of here." He breathed out, then pulled your shirt up kissing his way up to your breasts. "I don't see any ghosts here either, but maybe I should do a thorough investigation." He then proceeded to strip your body and comb every inch of it with his mouth before making you beg for him inside you.

It was about a week later when you were finally able to give Jake the idea. "You really think that would get him?" He asked.

"I mean it's worth a try."

Jake had an elaborate scheme; he'd rented out a bed and breakfast for the guys to stay at overnight. He'd made arrangements with the owner to have some hair-raising events happen throughout the night to make it seem as if the place was haunted. "I'm not going if you don't go." Pasta insisted.

"But isn't this a team thing, not a couple's thing." You knew what was going to happen and didn't want any parts of it.

"So, we can make it a couples thing. I don't get to see you enough as it is." He grabbed you around the waist and pulled you close. "I'm not spending one of my nights at home without you." He kissed your lips then and you melted. "Come on, I'll call Marchy and see if he and Kat can get someone to watch the kids for the night. I'm sure they could use a night off. Maybe Torey will bring Mel too."

"Yeah, and what about Jake? He'll be all alone." It was a last-ditch effort, for you knew your boyfriend could be stubborn when he wanted to. "Maybe he needs this guy time or something."

"If you invite Sara, he'll be fine. You know he's been working on dating her for a while now. This will just help them out a bit. You know, nudge them in the right direction."

The fact that Sara had been bugging you to set her up with Jake, didn't help. If she found out about something like this, she'd kill you for not inviting her. "Call Jake and make sure it's ok with him first."

"He'll be fine with it." When you swatted his chest, he sighed. "Ouch, alright I'll call him." Of course, Jake was fine with everything; he and Marchy were dying to scare the wits out of Pasta for years. You packed an overnight bag for both of you to stay in the country bed and breakfast. Jake and Sara drove with the two of you, while the other four went in Marchand's car. The two- and half-hour drive was beautiful as the leaves on the trees were covered in vibrant shades of orange, red, and yellow.

The house was a giant old Victorian home, that looked warm and inviting; if you didn't know what was going to happen you'd actually want to just come for the weekend and get away. "Wow, this place is beautiful," Sara exclaimed while you were getting out of the car.

"Yeah, nice call Jake," Pasta added as the two guys grabbed your overnight bags. You glared over at Jake, who just smirked back. The other four pulled in next to you guys and soon everyone was being shown to their rooms. Your little group explored the town, doing wine tasting, and checking out the local flavor the town had to offer. After a wonderful dinner your host had made, she started to tell you the legend of the home.

"It was built back in the 1800s, right before the civil war. You know Massachusetts played a significant role in the antislavery movement." Everyone was listening with rapt attention. "This house held some very important strategy meetings in it. Well, that was until one night, when rebel spies came in and slaughter two generals right in their beds. They say sometimes at night they still roam these halls plotting their revenge." You saw Sara's eyes widen at the tale, as the girl was definitely afraid of the supernatural. "Well on that note, I'll leave you all to it. Make yourselves at home, and if you need anything we're right next door. I'll be back in the morning to make everyone breakfast." There were a round of goodnights and a bunch of thank-yous before she added. "Oh, there's also a Ouija board if you interested in seeing if their spirits are still here." With that, she headed out the door.

"Oh, no we are not doing that." Sara was the first to say.

"Come on babe," Jake said to her, though part of you wondered when he started using the term of endearment. "It'll be fun. It's not like this place is haunted or anything."

"Yeah, I can't see the harm in it," Brad added. "As long as no one pushes the little letter mover."

"It's a planchette, dummy," Katrina responded, swiping her hubby upside the head.

"How do you know this?"

"I know lots of things, but you never ask." Jake was already bringing out the board to play. You could see a slight hesitation in David's eyes and while you knew the entire thing was set up you weren't that keen on playing with a device used to contact the spirit world.

"Come on it'll be a good time. Now everyone put one finger on the…"

"Planchette," Kat supplied again.

"Yeah, what she said." He went and shut the lights off, leaving the room basked in the glow of the flickering candles in the room.

"I'm not so sure about this." You reiterated just to make it known that you were not in on this.

"It's fine (Y/N), you have Pasta to protect you. He's not afraid of anything. Are you?"

"What me, afraid?" He shook his head, but you still heard a slight hitch in his voice. "Never."

"Alright, let's get to it." Everyone put a finger on the cursor. "Spirit of this house, we ask you to let us know you are hear." The small wooden shape moved over to the word 'yes.'

"Somebody moved that," Krug yelled out, to which everyone answered not me. "This is fucked up."

"Ask it something else," Mel encouraged.

"Can you give us a sign?" Jake said now looking up into the room as if the spirit was somehow hovering above you. The curtains on the window, which were open, suddenly closed. Everyone gasping as they did.

Sara pulled her finger off the planchette. "I don't want to play this anymore."

"Alright which one of you assholes is pulling the cord," Pasta asked.

"How the hell are we suppose to do that when we're not even close to it," Marchand answered.

"Spirit make your presence known," Jake asked again before anyone could question anything else happening. It took a second, but then you felt a warm breeze waft into the room, a ghostly figure taking form in the reflection of the glass of the picture hanging on the wall. You gasped and pointed, taken back slightly even though you knew it was only a parlor trick. It disappeared as fast as it came.

"This isn't funny anymore," Mel told everyone in the room and you wondered if their husbands had let them in on the joke. From the look on her face that was at least not the case with Mel.

"Oh, it's harmless, here let me try." Kat chimed in. "Spirit tell us who you are?" the cursor glided across the board to the letters G-E-N-E-R-A-L. "General who?" It then moved to M-E-A-G-H-E-R. "General Meager, were you killed in the civil war?" Kat really seemed to be getting into the game even more so as it moved to yes.

Krug got in on the questions, asking, "Were you murdered here?" The planchette moved back again to yes, only this time a candle blew out with it.

"Maybe we shouldn't be doing this, guys. I think we're scaring the girls here." Pasta said a slight tremble in his voice.

"You aren't scared are you Pasta?" Jake teased. The word 'NO' came out much sharper than intended. "Give us another sign." The lights to the room went on and off several times, and you knew Jake had to be controlling it with some remote.

There were more questions, which were met with moves of the cursor answering them. Of course, Marchand had to ask another question to have something spooky happen. "Were you secretly a spy?" The cursor moved quickly up to the word no and there was a loud crash in the room off to the side. Everyone screamed, well at least you girls did but even the guys gasped as the noise startled all of you.

"I think you angered it," Jake told the group.

"All right, I think we've all had enough of this little game guys." Pasta chided the men. "You're frightening the girls." You could also tell that he was scared as well. His leg hadn't stopped shaking; it was a definite sign he was nervous.

"Admit it, man, you're afraid as well." Jake taunted him. You weren't sure if it was enough to get David to admit anything, but then the candle levitated off the table; not more than an inch but it had you clutching Pasta's arm.

"Fine, this is freaking me the fuck out. Now, knock it off."

"I….we…" Jake's voice was trembling with fear. "Didn't do that."

"Fuck no man," Marchy added and suddenly the room got hot as if all the air had been sucked out of it. Torey pushed the board away, signaling an end to the game. "This isn't funny anymore."

"Turn the damn lights on Jake," David yelled, and Jake got up to turn them back on, only when he flicked the switch nothing happened. He did it about five times repeatedly and nothing happened.

"Seriously, Jake this is not funny at all." You screamed and huddled closer to David. It was then that you heard a ghostly voice moaning out in pain. The sound sent shivers up your spine. Suddenly the painting on the wall, crashed to the floor, splintering the glass in little pieces. Everyone shrieked.

"I'm not doing this; I swear to god!" Jake whimpered out completely scared now like the rest of you. Marchy and Krug echoing that they weren't involved in this either.

"I think we should leave," Sara whined, but you totally agreed.

"Oh my god," Mel gasped out, pointing over to the mirror where blood was dripping down. You had no clue what was happening but there was no way in hell you were staying at this place.

"Holy Fuck!" You heard Brad, or maybe it was Jake, yell; perhaps it was both. It was then that you felt Pasta shaking beside you. Automatically, you assumed it was from being just as afraid as all of you. That was until you heard his loud bark of laughter.

"What the?" It was your thoughts, but Debrusk was the one to give it voice.

Just then the lights came on, Pasta still laughing hysterically. He pulled a remote out of his pocket. "You fools thought that you could get me, but looks like I got you instead."

You pulled away from him and smacked him hard on the shoulder, where he mouthed out an 'ow.' "Not funny David, not funny at all."

"Oh, I beg to differ sweetheart. The looks on all of your faces are quite funny."

"Wait this whole thing was a setup?" Sara asked.

"Yes," Pasta admitted, before continuing. "These three thought they could scare me, but I turned it around on them. I told you I'm not afraid of anything." Suddenly, all the candles on the table blew out, even though the air didn't stir. "Haha, very funny guys, but the joke is over."

"I thought you did that," Jake said.

Pasta shook his head no, while everyone else looked at each other. "Maybe, you should stay someplace else for the night," David admitted, somewhat shaken by what happened. Everyone agreed and headed upstairs to go grab their things. What no one saw was the smirk on your face, for in the end, you were the one who had the upper hand on them all.

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