#pete saves the day it's really weird

[turnstileskyline]

The Oral History of Take This To Your Grave – transcription under the cut

The pages that are just photographs, I haven't included. This post is already long enough.

Things that happened in 2003: Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California. Teen Vogue published its first issue. The world lost Johnny Cash. Johnny Depp appeared as Captain Jack Sparrow for the first time. A third Lord of the Rings movie arrived. Patrick Stump, Pete Wentz, Joe Trohman, and Andy Hurley released Take This To Your Grave.

"About 21 years ago or so, as I was applying to colleges I would ultimately never go to, Fall Out Boy began as a little pop-punk side project of what we assumed was Pete's more serious band, Arma Angelus," Patrick wrote in a May 2023 social media post.

"We were sloppy and couldn't solidify a lineup, but the three of us (Pete, Joe, and I) were having way too much fun to give up on it."

"We were really rough around the edges. As an example of how rough, one of my favorite teachers pulled me aside after hearing the recording that would eventually become Evening Out With Your Girlfriend and tactfully said, 'What do you think your best instrument is, Patrick? Drums. It's drums. Probably not singing, Patrick.'"

"We went into Smart Studios with the Sean O'Keefe... So, there we were, 3/5 of a band with a singer who'd only been singing a year, no drummer, and one out of two guitarists. But we had the opportunity to record with Sean at Butch Vig's legendary studio.

"Eight or so months later, Fueled by Ramen would give us a contract to record the remaining songs. We'd sleep on floors, eat nothing but peanut butter and jelly, live in a van for the next three years, and somehow despite that, eventually play with Elton John and Taylor Swift and Jay-Z and for President Obama and the NFC championship, and all these other wildly unpredictable things. But none of that would ever come close to happening if Andy hadn't made it to the session and Joe hadn't dragged us kicking and screaming into being a band."

Two decades after its release, Take This To Your Grave sits comfortable in the Top 10 of Rolling Stone's 50 Greatest Pop-Punk Albums, edging out landmark records from Buzzcocks, Generation X, Green Day, The Offspring, Blink-182, and The Ramones.

It even ranked higher than Through Being Cool by Saves The Day and Jersey's Best Dancers from Lifetime, two records the guys in Fall Out Boy particularly revere.

Fall Out Boy's proper full-length debut on Fueled by Ramen is a deceptively smart, sugar-sweet, raw, energetic masterpiece owing as much to the bass player's pop culture passions, the singers deep love of R&B and soul, and their shared history in the hardcore scene as any pioneering punk band. Fall Out Boy's creative and commercial heights were still ahead, but Take This To Your Grave kicked it off, a harbinger for the enduring songwriting partnership between Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz, the eclectic contributions from Joe Trohman, and the propulsive powerhouse that is Andy Hurley.

The recordings document a special moment when Fall Out Boy was big in "the scene" but a "secret" from the mainstream. The band (and some of their friends) first sat down for an Oral History (which doubled as an Oral History of their origin story) with their old friend Ryan J. Downey, then Senior Editor for Alternative Press, upon the occasion of the album's 10th anniversary. What follows is an updated, sharper, and expanded version of that story, newly re-edited in 2023. As Patrick eloquently said: "Happy 20th birthday, Take This To Your Grave, you weird brilliant lightning strike accident of a record."

– Ryan J. Downey.

A Weird, Brilliant Lightning Strike Of A Record. The Oral History Of Fall Out Boy's Take This To Your Grave.

As told by:

Patrick Stump

Pete Wentz

Joe Trohman

Andy Hurley

Bob McLynn - Crush Music

Sean O'Keefe - Producer/Mixer

John Janick - Fueled By Ramen

Tim McIlrath - Rise Against

Mani Mostofi - Racetraitor

Chris Gutierrez - Arma Angelus

Mark Rose - Spitalfield

Sean Muttaqi - Uprising Records

Rory Felton - The Militia Group

Richard Reines - Drive-Thru Records

"To Feel No More Bitterness Forever" - From Hardcore to Softcore, 1998-2000

PETE WENTZ: When I got into hardcore, it was about discovering the world beyond yourself. There was a culture of trying to be a better person. That was part of what was so alluring about hardcore and punk for me. But for whatever reason, it shifted. Maybe this was just in Chicago, but it became less about the thought process behind it and more about moshing and breakdowns. There was a close-mindedness that felt very reactive.

TIM MCILRITH: I saw First Born many years ago, which was the first time I saw Pete and met him around then. This was '90s hardcore - p.c., vegan, activist kind of hardcore music. Pete was in many of those bands doing that kind of thing, and I was at many of those shows. The hardcore scene in Chicago was pretty small, so everyone kind of knew each other. I knew Andy Hurley as the drummer in Racetraitor. I was in a band called Baxter, so Pete always called me 'Baxter.' I was just 'Baxter' to a lot of those guys.

JOE TROHMAN: I was a young hardcore kid coming to the shows. The same way we all started doing bands. You're a shitty kid who goes to punk and hardcore shows, and you see the other bands playing, and you want to make friends with those guys because you want to play in bands too. Pete and I had a bit of a connection because we're from the same area. I was the youngest dude at most shows. I would see Extinction, Racetraitor, Burn It Down, and all the bands of that era.

WENTZ: My driver's license was suspended then, so Joe drove me everywhere. We listened to either Metalcore like Shai Hulud or pop-punk stuff like Screeching Weasel.

MCILRITH: I was in a band with Pete called Arma Angelus. I was like their fifth or sixth bass player. I wasn't doing anything musically when they hit me up to play bass, so I said, 'Of course.' I liked everyone in the band. We were rehearsing, playing a few shows here and there, with an ever-revolving cast of characters. We recorded a record together at the time. I even sing on that record, believe it or not, they gave me a vocal part. Around that same time, I began meeting with [bassist] Joe [Principe] about starting what would become Rise Against.

CHRIS GUTIERREZ: Wentz played me the Arma Angelus demo in the car. He said he wanted it to be a mix of Despair, Buried Alive, and Damnation A.D. He told me Tim was leaving to start another band - which ended up being Rise Against - and asked if I wanted to play bass.

TROHMAN: Pete asked me to fill in for a tour when I was 15. Pete had to call my dad to convince him to let me go. He did it, too. It was my first tour, in a shitty cargo van, with those dudes. They hazed the shit out of me. It was the best and worst experience. Best overall, worst at the time.

GUTIERREZ: Enthusiasm was starting to wane in Arma Angelus. Our drummer was really into cock-rock. It wasn't an ironic thing. He loved L.A. Guns, Whitesnake, and Hanoi Rocks. It drove Pete nuts because the scene was about Bleeding Through and Throwdown, not cock rock. He was frustrated that things weren't panning out for the band, and of course, there's a ceiling for how big a metalcore band can get, anyway.

MANI MOSTOFI: Pete had honed this tough guy persona, which I think was a defense mechanism. He had some volatile moments in his childhood. Underneath, he was a pretty sensitive and vulnerable person. After playing in every mosh-metal band in the Midwest and listening exclusively to Earth Crisis, Damnation A.D., Chokehold, and stuff like that for a long time, I think Pete wanted to do something fresh. He had gotten into Lifetime, Saves The Day, The Get Up Kids, and bands like that. Pete was at that moment where the softer side of him needed an outlet, and didn't want to hide behind mosh-machismo. I remember him telling me he wanted to start a band that more girls could listen to.

MCILRATH: Pete was talking about starting a pop-punk band. Bands like New Found Glory and Saves The Day were successful then. The whole pop-punk sound was accessible. Pete was just one of those guys destined for bigger things than screaming for mediocre hardcore bands in Chicago. He's a smart guy, a brilliant guy. All the endeavors he had taken on, even in the microcosm of the 1990s Chicago hardcore world, he put a lot of though into it. You could tell that if he were given a bigger receptacle to put that thought into, it could become something huge. He was always talented: lyrics, imagery, that whole thing. He was ahead of the curve. We were in this hardcore band from Chicago together, but we were both talking about endeavors beyond it.

TROHMAN: The drummer for Arma Angelus was moving. Pete and I talked about doing something different. It was just Pete and me at first. There was this thuggishness happening in the Chicago hardcore scene at that time that wasn't part of our vibe. It was cool, but it wasn't our thing.

MCILRITH: One day at Arma Angelus practice, Pete asked me, 'Are you going to do that thing with Joe?' I was like, 'Yeah, I think so.' He was like, 'You should do that, dude. Don't let this band hold you back. I'll be doing something else, too. We should be doing other things.' He was really ambitious. It was so amazing to me, too, because Pete was a guy who, at the time, was kind of learning how to play the bass. A guy who didn't really play an instrument will do down in history as one of the more brilliant musicians in Chicago. He had everything else in his corner. He knew how to do everything else. He needed to get some guys behind him because he had the rest covered. He had topics, themes, lyrics, artwork, this whole image he wanted to do, and he was uncompromising. He also tapped into something the rest of us were just waking up to: the advent of the internet. I mean, the internet wasn't new, but higher-speed internet was.

MOSTOFI: Joe was excited to be invited by Pete to do a band. Joe was the youngest in our crew by far, and Pete was the 'coolest' in a Fonzie sort of way. Joe deferred to Pete's judgement for years. But eventually, his whole life centered around bossy big-brother Pete. I think doing The Damned Things was for Joe what Fall Out Boy was for Pete, in a way. It was a way to find his own space within the group of friends. Unsurprisingly, Joe now plays a much more significant role in Fall Out Boy's music.

WENTZ: I wanted to do something easy and escapist. When Joe and I started the band, it was the worst band of all time. I feel like people said, 'Oh, yeah, you started Fall Out Boy to get big.' Dude, there was way more of a chance of every other band getting big in my head than Fall Out Boy. It was a side thing that was fun to do. Racetraitor and Extinction were big bands to me. We wanted to do pop-punk because it would be fun and hilarious. It was definitely on a lark. We weren't good. If it was an attempt at selling out, it was a very poor attempt.

MCILRITH: It was such a thing for people to move from hardcore bands to bands called 'emo' or pop-punk, as those bands were starting to get some radio play and signed to major labels. Everyone thought it was easy, but it's not as easy as that. Most guys we knew who tried it never did anything more successful than their hardcore bands. But Pete did it! And if anyone was going to, it was going to be him. He never did anything half-assed. He ended up playing bass in so many bands in Chicago, even though he could barely play the bass then, because simply putting him in your band meant you'd have a better show. He was just more into it. He knew more about dynamics, about getting a crowd to react to what you're doing than most people. Putting Pete in your band put you up a few notches.

"I'm Writing You A Chorus And Here Is Your Verse" - When Pete met Patrick, early 2001.

MARK ROSE: Patrick Stump played drums in this grindcore band called Grinding Process. They had put out a live split cassette tape.

PATRICK STUMP: My ambition always outweighed my ability or actual place in the world. I was a drummer and played in many bands and tried to finagle my way into better ones but never really managed. I was usually outgunned by the same two guys: this guy Rocky Senesce; I'm not sure if he's playing anymore, but he was amazing. And this other guy, De'Mar Hamilton, who is now in Plain White T's. We'd always go out for the same bands. I felt like I was pretty good, but then those guys just mopped the floor with me. I hadn't been playing music for a few months. I think my girlfriend dumped me. I was feeling down. I wasn't really into pop-punk or emo. I think at the time I was into Rhino Records box sets.

TROHMAN: I was at the Borders in Eden's Plaza in Wilmette, Illinois. My friend Arthur was asking me about Neurosis. Patrick just walked up and started talking to me.

STUMP: I was a bit arrogant and cocky, like a lot of young musicians. Joe was talking kind of loudly and I overheard him say something about Neurosis, and I think I came in kind of snotty, kind of correcting whatever they had said.

TROHMAN: We just started talking about music, and my buddy Arthur got shoved out of the conversation. I told him about the band we were starting. Pete was this local hardcore celebrity, which intrigued Patrick.

STUMP: I had similar conversations with any number of kids my age. This conversation didn't feel crazy special. That's one of the things that's real about [Joe and I meeting], and that's honest about it, that's it's not some 'love at first sight' thing where we started talking about music and 'Holy smokes, we're going to have the best band ever!' I had been in a lot of bands up until then. Hardcore was a couple of years away from me at that point. I was over it, but Pete was in real bands; that was interesting. Now I'm curious and I want to do this thing, or at least see what happens. Joe said they needed a drummer, guitar player, or singer, and I kind of bluffed and said I could do any one of those things for a pop-punk band. I'd had a lot of conversations about starting bands where I meet up with somebody and maybe try to figure out some songs and then we'd never see each other again. There were a lot of false starts and I assumed this would be just another one of those, but it would be fun for this one to be with the guy from Racetraitor and Extinction.

TROHMAN: He gave me the link to his MP3.com page. There were a few songs of him just playing acoustic and singing. He was awesome.

WENTZ: Joe told me we were going to this kid's house who would probably be our drummer but could also sing. He sent me a link to Patrick singing some acoustic thing, but the quality was so horrible it was hard to tell what it was. Patrick answered the door in some wild outfit. He looked like an emo kid but from the Endpoint era - dorky and cool. We went into the basement, and he was like, trying to set up his drums.

TROHMAN: Patrick has said many times that he intended to try out on drums. I was pushing for him to sing after hearing his demos. 'Hey! Sing for us!' I asked him to take out his acoustic guitar. He played songs from Saves The Day's Through Being Cool. I think he sang most of the record to us. We were thrilled. We had never been around someone who could sing like that.

WENTZ: I don't think Patrick thought we were cool at all. We were hanging out, and he started playing acoustic guitar. He started singing, and I realized he could sing any Saves The Day song. I was like, 'Wow, that's the way those bands sound! We should just have you sing.' It had to be serendipity because Patrick drumming and Joe singing is not the same band. I never thought about singing. It wasn't the type of thing I could sing. I knew I'd be playing bass. I didn't think it'd even go beyond a few practices. It didn't seem like the thing I was setting myself up to do for the next several years of my life in any way. I was going to college. It was just a fun getaway from the rest of life kind of thing to do.

STUMP: Andy was the first person we asked to play drums. Joe even brought him up in the Borders conversation. But Andy was too busy. He wasn't really interested, either, because we kind of sucked.

WENTZ: I wanted Hurley in the band, I was closest to him at the time, I had known him for a long time. I identified with him in the way that we were the younger dudes in our larger group. I tried to get him, but he was doing another band at the time, or multiple bands. He was Mani's go-to guy to play drums, always. I had asked him a few times. That should clue people into the fact that we weren't that good.

ANDY HURLEY: I knew Joe as 'Number One Fan.' We called him that because he was a huge fan of a band I was in, Kill The Slavemaster. When Fall Out Boy started, I was going to college full-time. I was in the band Project Rocket and I think The Kill Pill then, too.

MOSTOFI: After they got together the first or second time, Pete played me a recording and said, 'This is going to be big.' They had no songs, no name, no drummer. They could barely play their instruments. But Pete knew, and we believed him because we could see his drive and Patrick's potential. Patrick was prodigy. I imagine the first moment Pete heard him sing was probably like when I heard 15-year-old Andy Hurley play drums.

GUTIERREZ: One day at practice, Pete told me he had met some dudes with whom he was starting a pop-punk band. He said it would sound like a cross between New Found Glory and Lifetime. Then the more Fall Out Boy started to practice, the less active Arma Angelus became.

TROHMAN: We got hooked up with a friend named Ben Rose, who became our original drummer. We would practice in his parents' basement. We eventually wrote some pretty bad songs. I don't even have the demo. I have copies of Arma's demo, but I don't have that one.

MOSTOFI: We all knew that hardcore kids write better pop-punk songs than actual pop-punk kids. It had been proven. An experienced hardcore musician could bring a sense of aggression and urgency to the pop hooks in a way that a band like Yellowcard could never achieve. Pete and I had many conversations about this. He jokingly called it 'Softcore,' but that's precisely what it was. It's what he was going for. Take This To Your Grave sounds like Hot Topic, but it feels like CBGBs.

MCILRITH: Many hardcore guys who transitioned into pop-punk bands dumbed it down musically and lyrically. Fall Out Boy found a way to do it that wasn't dumbed down. They wrote music and lyrics that, if you listened closely, you could tell came from people who grew up into hardcore. Pete seemed to approach the song titles and lyrics the same way he attacked hardcore songs. You could see his signature on all of that.

STUMP: We all had very different ideas of what it should sound like. I signed up for Kid Dynamite, Strike Anywhere, or Dillinger Four. Pete was very into Lifetime and Saves The Day. I think both he and Joe were into New Found Glory and Blink-182. I still hadn't heard a lot of stuff. I was arrogant; I was a rock snob. I was over most pop-punk. But then I had this renaissance week where I was like, 'Man, you know what? I really do like The Descendents.' Like, the specific week I met Joe, it just happened to be that I was listening to a lot of Descendents. So, there was a part of me that was tickled by that idea. 'You know what? I'll try a pop-punk band. Why not?'

MOSTOFI: To be clear, they were trying to become a big band. But they did it by elevating radio-friendly pop punk, not debasing themselves for popularity. They were closely studying Drive-Thru Records bands like The Starting Line, who I couldn't stand. But they knew what they were doing. They extracted a few good elements from those bands and combined them with their other influences. Patrick never needed to be auto-tuned. He can sing. Pete never had to contrive this emotional depth. He always had it.

STUMP: The ideas for band names were obnoxious. At some point, Pete and I were arguing over it, and I think our first drummer, Ben Rose, who was in the hardcore band Strength In Numbers, suggested Fall Out Boy. Pete and I were like, 'Well, we don't hate that one. We'll keep it on the list.' But we never voted on a name.

"Fake It Like You Matter" - The Early Shows, 2001

The name Fall Out Boy made their shortlist, but their friends ultimately chose it for them. The line-up at the band's first show was Patrick Stump (sans guitar), Pete Wentz, Joe Trohman, drummer Ben Rose, and guitarist John Flamandan in his only FOB appearance.

STUMP: We didn't have a name at our two or three shows. We were basically booked as 'Pete's new band' as he was the most known of any of us. Pete and I were the artsy two.

TROHMAN: The rest of us had no idea what we were doing onstage.

STUMP: We took ourselves very seriously and completely different ideas on what was 'cool.' Pete at the time was somewhere between maybe Chuck Palahniuk and Charles Bukowski, and kind of New Romantic and Manchester stuff, so he had that in mind. The band names he suggested were long and verbose, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I was pretty much only into Tom Waits, so I wanted everything to be a reference to Tom Waits. The first show was at DePaul [University] in some cafeteria. The room looked a lot nicer than punk rock shows are supposed to look, like a room where you couldn't jump off the walls. We played with a band called Stillwell. I want to say one of the other bands played Black Sabbath's Black Sabbath in its entirety. We were out of place. We were tossing a few different names around. The singer for Stillwell was in earshot of the conversation so I was like 'Hey, settle this for us,' and told him whatever name it was, which I can't remember. 'What do you think of this name?' He goes, 'It sucks.' And the way he said it, there was this element to it, like, 'You guys probably suck, too, so whatever.' That was our first show. We played first and only had three songs. That was John's only show with us, and I never saw him again. I was just singing without a guitar, and I had never just sung before; that was horrifying. We blazed through those songs.

ROSE: Patrick had this shoulder-length hair. Watching these guys who were known for heavier stuff play pop-punk was strange. Pete was hopping around with the X's on his hands. Spitalfield was similar; we were kids playing another style of music who heard Texas Is The Reason and Get Up Kids and said, 'We have to start a band like this.'

MOSTOFI: The first show was a lot of fun. The musical side wasn't there, but Pete and Patrick's humor and charisma were front and center.

TROHMAN: I remember having a conversation with Mani about stage presence. He was telling me how important it was. Coalesce and The Dillinger Escape Plan would throw mic stands and cabinets. We loved that visual excitement and appeal. Years later, Patrick sang a Fall Out Boy song with Taylor Swift at Giants Stadium. It was such a great show to watch that I was reminded of how wise Mani was to give me that advice back then. Mani was like a mentor for me, honestly. He would always guide me through stuff.

MOSTOFI: Those guys grew up in Chicago, either playing in or seeing Extinction, Racetraitor, Los Crudos, and other bands that liked to talk and talk between songs. Fall Out Boy did that, and it was amazing. Patrick was awkward in a knowing and hilarious way. He'd say something odd, and then Pete would zing him. Or Pete would try to say something too cool, and Patrick would remind him they were nerds. These are very personal memories for me. Millions of people have seen the well-oiled machine, but so few of us saw those guys when they were so carefree.

TROHMAN: We had this goofy, bad first show, but all I can tell you was that I was determined to make this band work, no matter what.

STUMP: I kind of assumed that was the end of that. 'Whatever, on with our lives.' But Joe was very determined. He was going to pick us up for practice and we were going to keep playing shows. He was going to make the band happen whether the rest of us wanted to or not. That's how we got past show number one. John left the band because we only had three songs and he wasn't very interested. In the interim, I filled in on guitar. I didn't consider myself a guitar player. Our second show was a college show in Southern Illinois or something.

MCILRITH: That show was with my other band, The Killing Tree.

STUMP: We showed up late and played before The Killing Tree. There was no one there besides the bands and our friends. I think we had voted on some names. Pete said 'Hey, we're whatever!'; probably something very long. And someone yells out, 'Fuck that, no, you're Fall Out Boy!' Then when The Killing Tree was playing, Tim said, 'I want to thank Fall Out Boy.' Everyone looked up to Tim, so when he forced the name on us, it was fine. I was a diehard Simpsons fan, without question. I go pretty deep on The Simpsons. Joe and I would just rattle off Simpsons quotes. I used to do a lot of Simpsons impressions. Ben was very into Simpsons; he had a whole closet full of Simpsons action figures.

"If Only You Knew I Was Terrified" - The Early Recordings, 2002-2003

Wentz's relationships in the hardcore scene led to Fall Out Boy's first official releases. A convoluted and rarely properly explained chain of events resulted in the Fall Out Boy/Project Rocket split EP and Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend. Both were issued by California's Uprising Records, whose discography included Racetraitor's first album and the debut EP by Burn It Down. The band traveled to Wisconsin to record their first proper demo with engineer Jared Logan, drummer for Uprising's 7 Angels 7 Plagues.

TROHMAN: This isn't to be confused with the demo we did in Ben's basement, which was like a tape demo. This was our first real demo.

STUMP: Between booking the demo and recording it, we lost Ben Rose. He was the greatest guy, but it wasn't working out musically. Pete and Joe decided I should play drums on the demo. But Jared is a sick drummer, so he just did it.

TROHMAN: We had gotten this great singer but went through a series of drummers that didn't work out. I had to be the one who kicked Ben out. Not long after, our friend Brett Bunting played with us. I don't think he really wanted to do it, which was a bummer.

STUMP: I showed up to record that demo, feeling pulled into it. I liked hanging out with the guys, but I was a rock snob who didn't really want to be making that type of music. The first few songs were really rough. We were sloppy. We barely practiced. Pete was in Arma Angelus. Joe was the guy determined to make it happen. We couldn't keep a drummer or guitar player, and I could barely play guitar. I didn't really want to be in Fall Out Boy. We had these crappy songs that kind of happened; it didn't feel like anything. Joe did the guitars. I go in to do the vocals, I put on the headphones, and it starts playing and was kind of not bad! It was pretty good, actually. I was shocked. That was the first time I was like, 'Maybe I am supposed to be in this band.' I enjoyed hearing it back.

SEAN MUTTAQI: Wentz and I were pretty tight. He sent me some demos, and while I didn't know it would get as big as it did, I knew it was special. Wentz had a clear vision. Of all the guys from that scene, he was the most singularly focused on taking things to the next level. He was ahead of the game with promotion and the early days of social media.

STUMP: Arma Angelus had been on Eulogy. We talked to them a bit and spoke to Uprising because they had put out Racetraitor. At some point, the demo got to Sean, and he decided to make it half of a split with Andy's band, Project Rocket. We were pretty happy with that.

HURLEY: It was kind of competitive for me at the time. Project Rocket and Fall Out Boy were both doing pop-punk/pop-rock, I met Patrick through the band. I didn't really know him before Fall Out Boy.

TROHMAN: We got this drummer, Mike Pareskuwicz, who had been in a hardcore band from Central Illinois called Subsist.

STUMP: Uprising wanted us to make an album. We thought that was cool, but we only had those three songs that were on the split. We were still figuring ourselves out. One of the times we were recording with Jared in the studio, for the split or the album, this guy T.J. Kunasch was there. He was like, 'Hey, do you guys need a guitarist?' And he joined.

MUTTAQI: I borrowed some money to get them back in the studio. The songwriting was cool on that record, but it was all rushed. The urgency to get something out led to the recording being subpar. Their new drummer looked the part but couldn't really play. They had already tracked the drums before they realized it didn't sound so hot.

STUMP: The recording experience was not fun. We had two days to do an entire album. Mike was an awesome dude, but he lived crazy far away, in Kanakee, Illinois, so the drive to Milwaukee wasn't easy for him. He had to work or something the next day. So, he did everything in one take and left. He played alone, without a click, so it was a ness to figure out. We had to guess where the guitar was supposed to go. None of us liked the songs because we had slapped them together. We thought it all sucked. But I thought, 'Well, at least it'll be cool to have something out.' Then a lot of time went by. Smaller labels were at the mercy of money, and it was crazy expensive to put out a record back then.

MUTTAQI: Our record was being rushed out to help generate some interest, but that interest was building before we could even get the record out. We were beholden to finances while changing distribution partners and dealing with other delays. The buck stops with me, yes, but I didn't have that much control over the scheduling.

WENTZ: It's not what I would consider the first Fall Out Boy record. Hurley isn't on it and he's an integral part of the Fall Out Boy sound. But it is part of the history, the legacy. NASA didn't go right to the moon. They did test flights in the desert. Those are our test flights in the desert. It's not something I'm ashamed of or have weird feelings about.

STUMP: It's kind of embarrassing to me. Evening Out... isn't representative of the band we became. I liked Sean a lot, so it's nothing against him. If anybody wants to check out the band in that era, I think the split EP is a lot cooler. Plus, Andy is on that one.

TROHMAN: T.J. was the guy who showed up to the show without a guitar. He was the guy that could never get it right, but he was in the band for a while because we wanted a second guitar player. He's a nice dude but wasn't great to be in a band with back then. One day he drove unprompted from Racine to Chicago to pick up some gear. I don't know how he got into my parents' house, but the next thing I knew, he was in my bedroom. I didn't like being woken up and kicked him out of the band from bed.

STUMP: Our friend Brian Bennance asked us to do a split 7" with 504 Plan, which was a big band to us. Brian offered to pay for us to record with Sean O'Keefe, which was also a big deal. Mike couldn't get the time off work to record with us. We asked Andy to play on the songs. He agreed to do it, but only if he could make it in time after recording an entire EP with his band, The Kill Pill, in Chicago, on the same day.

MOSTOFI: Andy and I started The Kill Pill shortly after Racetraitor split up, not long after Fall Out Boy had formed. We played a bunch of local shows together. The minute Andy finished tracking drums for our EP in Chicago, he raced to the other studio in Madison.

STUMP: I'm getting ready to record the drums myself, getting levels and checking the drums, pretty much ready to go. And then in walks Andy Hurley. I was a little bummed because I really wanted to play drums that day. But then Andy goes through it all in like two takes and fucking nailed the entire thing. He just knocked it out of the park. All of us were like, 'That's crazy!'

WENTZ: When Andy came in, It just felt different. It was one of those 'a-ha' moments.

STUMP: Sean leaned over to us and said, 'You need to get this guy in the band.'

SEAN O'KEEFE: We had a blast. We pumped It out. We did it fast and to analog tape. People believe it was very Pro Tools oriented, but it really was done to 24-track tape. Patrick sang his ass off.

STUMP: The songs we had were 'Dead On Arrival,' 'Saturday,' and 'Homesick at Space Camp. There are quite a few songs that ended up on Take This To You Grave where I wrote most of the lyrics but Pete titled them.

WENTZ: 'Space Camp' was a reference to the 1986 movie, SpaceCamp, and the idea of space camp. Space camp wasn't something anyone in my area went to. Maybe they did, but it was never an option for me. It seems like the little kid version of meeting Jay-Z. The idea was also: what if you, like Joaquin Phoenix in the movie, took off to outer space and wanted to get home? 'I made it to space and now I'm just homesick and want to hang out with my friends.' In the greater sense, it's about having it all, but it's still not enough. There's a pop culture reference in 'Saturday' that a lot of people miss. 'Pete and I attack the lost Astoria' was a reference to The Goonies, which was filmed in Astoria, Oregon.

HURLEY: I remember hearing those recordings, especially 'Dead on Arrival,' and Patrick's voice and how well written those songs were, especially relative to anything else I had done - I had a feeling that this could do something.

WENTZ: It seemed like it would stall out if we didn't get a solid drummer in the band soon. That was the link that we couldn't nail down. Patrick was always a big musical presence. He thinks and writes rhythmi-cally, and we couldn't get a drummer to do what he wanted or speak his language. Hurley was the first one that could. It's like hearing two drummers talk together when they really get it. It sounds like a foreign language because it's not something I'm keyed into. Patrick needed someone on a similar musical plane. I wasn't there. Joe was younger and was probably headed there.

HURLEY: When Patrick was doing harmonies, it was like Queen. He's such a brilliant dude. I was always in bands that did a record and then broke up. I felt like this was a band that could tour a lot like the hardcore bands we loved, even if we had to have day jobs, too.

"(Four) Tired Boys And A Broken Down Van" - The Early Tours, 2002-2003

STUMP: We booked a tour with Spitalfield, another Chicago band, who had records out, so they were a big deal to us. We replaced T.J. with a guy named Brandon Hamm. He was never officially in the band. He quit when we were practicing 'Saturday.' He goes, 'I don't like that. I don't want to do this anymore.' Pete talked with guitarist Chris Envy from Showoff, who had just broken up. Chris said, 'Yeah, I'll play in your band.' He came to two practices, then quit like two days before the tour. It was only a two-week tour, but Mike couldn't get the time off work from Best Buy, or maybe it was Blockbuster. We had to lose Mike, which was the hardest member change for me. It was unpleasant.

TROHMAN: We had been trying to get Andy to join the band for a while. Even back at that first Borders conversation, we talked about him, but he was too busy at the time.

STUMP: I borrowed one of Joe's guitars and jumped in the fire. We were in this legendarily shitty used van Pete had gotten. It belonged to some flower shop, so it had this ominously worn-out flower decal outside and no windows [except in the front]. Crappy brakes, no A/C, missing the rearview mirror, no seats in the back, only the driver's seat. About 10 minutes into the tour, we hit something. A tire exploded and slingshot into the passenger side mirror, sending glass flying into the van. We pulled over into some weird animal petting zoo. I remember thinking, 'This is a bad omen for this tour.' Spitalfield was awesome, and we became tight with them. Drew Brown, who was later in Weekend Nachos, was out with them, too. But most of the shows were canceled.

WENTZ: We'd end up in a town, and our show was canceled, or we'd have three days off. 'Let's just get on whatever show we can. Whatever, you can pay us in pizza.'

STUMP: We played in a pizza place. We basically blocked the line of people trying to order pizza, maybe a foot away from the shitty tables. Nobody is trying to watch a band. They're just there to eat pizza. And that was perhaps the biggest show we played on that tour. One of the best moments on the Spitalfied tour was in Lincoln, Nebraska. The local opener wasn't even there - they were at the bar across the street and showed up later with two people. Fall Out Boy played for Spitalfield, and Spitalfield played for Fall Out Boy. Even the sound guy had left. It was basically an empty room. It was miserable.

HURLEY: Even though we played a ton of shows in front of just the other bands, it was awesome. I've known Pete forever and always loved being in bands with him. After that tour, it was pretty much agreed that I would be in the band. I wanted to be in the band.

WENTZ: We would play literally any show in those days for free. We played Chain Reaction in Orange County with a bunch of metalcore bands. I want to say Underoath was one of them. I remember a lot of black shirts and crossed arms at those kinds of shows. STUMP: One thing that gets lost in the annals of history is Fall Out Boy, the discarded hardcore band. We played so many hardcore shows! The audiences were cool, but they were just like, 'This is OK, but we'd really rather be moshing right now.' Which was better than many of the receptions we got from pop-punk kids.

MOSTOFI: Pete made sure there was little division between the band and the audience. In hardcore, kids are encouraged to grab the mic. Pete was very conscious about making the crowd feel like friends. I saw them in Austin, Texas, in front of maybe ten kids. But it was very clear all ten of those kids felt like Pete's best friends. And they were, in a way.

MCILRITH: People started to get into social networking. That kind of thing was all new to us, and they were way ahead. They networked with their fans before any of us.

MOSTOFI: Pete shared a lot about his life online and was intimate as hell. It was a new type of scene. Pete extended the band's community as far as fiber optics let him.

ROSE: Pete was extremely driven. Looking back, I wish I had that killer instinct. During that tour; we played a show in Colorado. On the day of the show, we went to Kinko's to make flyers to hand out to college kids. Pete put ‘members of Saves The Day and Screeching Weasel’ on the flyer. He was just like, 'This will get people in.'

WENTZ: We booked a lot of our early shows through hardcore connections, and to some extent, that carries through to what Fall Out Boy shows are like today. If you come to see us play live, we're basically Slayer compared to everyone else when we play these pop radio shows. Some of that carries back to what you must do to avoid being heckled at hardcore shows. You may not like our music, but you will leave here respecting us. Not everyone is going to love you. Not everyone is going to give a shit. But you need to earn a crowd's respect. That was an important way for us to learn that.

MOSTOFI: All those dudes, except Andy, lived in this great apartment with our friend Brett Bunting, who was almost their drummer at one point. The proximity helped them gel.

STUMP: There were a lot of renegade last-minute shows where we'd just call and get added. We somehow ended up on a show with Head Automatica that way.

MCILRITH: At some point early on, they opened for Rise Against in a church basement in Downers Grove. We were doing well then; headlining that place was a big deal. Then Pete's band was coming up right behind us, and you could tell there was a lot of chatter about Fall Out Boy. I remember getting to the show, and there were many people there, many of whom I had never seen in the scene before. A lot of unfamiliar faces. A lot of people that wouldn't have normally found their way to the seedy Fireside Bowl in Chicago. These were young kids, and I was 21 then, so when I say young, I mean really young. Clearly, Fall Out Boy had tapped into something the rest of us had not. People were super excited to see them play and freaked out; there was a lot of enthusiasm at that show. After they finished, their fans bailed. They were dedicated. They wanted to see Fall Out Boy. They didn't necessarily want to see Rise Against play. That was my first clue that, 'Whoa, what Pete told me that day at Arma Angelus rehearsal is coming true. He was right.' Whatever he was doing was working.

"My Insides Are Copper, And I'd Like To Make Them Gold" - The Record Labels Come Calling, 2002

STUMP: The split EP was going to be a three-way split with 504 Plan, August Premier, and us at one point. But then the record just never happened. Brian backed out of putting it out. We asked him if we could do something else with the three songs and he didn't really seem to care. So, we started shopping the three songs as a demo. Pete ended up framing the rejection letters we got from a lot of pop-punk labels. But some were interested.

HURLEY: We wanted to be on Drive-Thru Records so bad. That was the label.

RICHARD REINES: After we started talking to them, I found the demo they had sent us in the office. I played it for my sister. We decided everything together. She liked them but wasn't as crazy about them as I was. We arranged with Pete to see them practice. We had started a new label called Rushmore. Fall Out Boy wasn't the best live band. We weren't thrilled [by the showcase]. But the songs were great. We both had to love a band to sign them, so my sister said, 'If you love them so much, let's sign them to Rushmore, not Drive Thru.'

HURLEY: We did a showcase for Richard and Stephanie Reines. They were just kind of like, 'Yeah, we have this side label thing. We'd be interested in having you on that.' I remember them saying they passed on Saves The Day and wished they would have put out Through Being Cool. But then they [basically] passed on us by offering to put us on Rushmore. We realized we could settle for that, but we knew it wasn't the right thing.

RORY FELTON: Kevin Knight had a website, TheScout, which always featured great new bands. I believe he shared the demo with us. I flew out to Chicago. Joe and Patrick picked me up at the airport. I saw them play at a VFW hall, Patrick drank an entire bottle of hot sauce on a dare at dinner, and then we all went to see the movie The Ring. I slept on the couch in their apartment, the one featured on the cover of Take This To Your Grave. Chad [Pearson], my partner, also flew out to meet with the band.

STUMP: It was a weird time to be a band because it was feast or famine. At first, no one wanted us. Then as soon as one label said, 'Maybe we'll give 'em a shot,' suddenly there's a frenzy of phone calls from record labels. We were getting our shirts printed by Victory Records. One day, we went to pick up shirts, and someone came downstairs and said, 'Um, guys? [Owner] Tony [Brummel] wants to see you.' We were like, 'Did we forget to pay an invoice?' He made us an offer on the spot. We said, 'That's awesome, but we need to think about it.' It was one of those 'now or never' kinds of things. I think we had even left the van running. It was that kind of sudden; we were overwhelmed by it.

HURLEY: They told me Tony said something like, 'You can be with the Nike of the record industry or the Keds of the record industry.'

STUMP: We'd get random calls at the apartment. 'Hey, I'm a manager with so-and-so.' I talked to some boy band manager who said, 'We think you'll be a good fit.'

TROHMAN: The idea of a manager was a ‘big-time' thing. I answered a call one day, and this guy is like, 'I'm the manager for the Butthole Surfers, and I'd really like to work with you guys.' I just said, Yeah, I really like the Butthole Surfers, but I'll have to call you back.' And I do love that band. But I just knew that wasn't the right thing.

STUMP: Not all the archetypes you always read about are true. The label guys aren't all out to get you. Some are total douchebags. But then there are a lot who are sweet and genuine. It's the same thing with managers. I really liked the Militia Group. They told us it was poor form to talk to us without a manager. They recommended Bob McLynn.

FELTON: We knew the guys at Crush from working with Acceptance and The Beautiful Mistake. We thought they'd be great for Fall Out Boy, so we sent the music to their team.

STUMP: They said Crush was their favorite management company and gave us their number. Crush's biggest band at the time was American Hi-Fi. Jonathan Daniels, the guy who started the company, sent a manager to see us. The guy was like, "This band sucks!' But Jonathan liked us and thought someone should do something with us. Bob was his youngest rookie manager. He had never managed anyone, and we had never been managed.

BOB MCLYNN: Someone else from my office who isn't with us anymore had seen them, but I hadn't seen them yet. At the time, we'd tried to manage Brand New; they went elsewhere, and I was bummed. Then we got the Fall Out Boy demo, and I was like, Wow. This sounds even better. This guy can really sing, and these songs are great.' I remember going at it hard after that whole thing. Fall Out Boy was my consolation prize. I don't know if they were talking to other managers or not, but Pete and I clicked.

TROHMAN: In addition to being really creative, Pete is really business savvy. We all have a bullshit detector these days, but Pete already had one back then. We met Bob, and we felt like this dude wouldn't fuck us over.

STUMP: We were the misfit toy that nobody else wanted. Bob really believed in us when nobody else did and when nobody believed in him. What's funny is that all the other managers at Crush were gone within a year. It was just Bob and Jonathan, and now they're partners. Bob was the weird New York Hardcore guy who scared me at the time.

TROHMAN: We felt safe with him. He's a big, hulking dude.

MCLYNN: We tried to make a deal with The Militia Group, but they wouldn't back off on a few things in the agreement. I told them those were deal breakers, opening the door to everyone else. I knew this band needed a shot to do bigger and better things.

TROHMAN: He told us not to sign with the label that recommended him to us. We thought there was something very honest about that.

MCLYNN: They paid all their dues. Those guys worked harder than any band I'd ever seen, and I was all about it. I had been in bands before and had just gotten out. I was getting out of the van just as these guys got into one. They busted their asses.

STUMP: A few labels basically said the same thing: they wanted to hear more. They weren't convinced we could write another song as good as 'Dead On Arrival.' I took that as a challenge. We returned to Sean a few months after those initial three songs, this time at Gravity Studios in Chicago. We recorded ‘Grenade Jumper' and 'Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy' in a night or two. 'Where is Your Boy' was my, 'Fine, you don't think I can write a fucking song? Here's your hit song, jerks!' But I must have pushed Pete pretty hard [arguing about the songs]. One night, as he and I drove with Joe, Pete said, 'Guys, I don't think I want to do this band anymore.' We talked about it for the rest of the ride home. I didn't want to be in the band in the first place! I was like, 'No! That's not fair! Don't leave me with this band! Don't make me kind of like this band, and then leave it! That's bullshit!' Pete didn't stay at the apartment that night. I called him at his parent's house. I told him I wasn't going to do the band without him. He was like, 'Don't break up your band over it.' I said, 'It's not my band. It's a band that you, Joe, and I started.' He was like, 'OK, I'll stick around.' And he came back with a vengeance.

WENTZ: It was maybe the first time we realized we could do these songs titles that didn't have much do with the song from the outside. Grand Theft Auto was such a big pop culture franchise. If you said the phrase back then, everyone recognized it. The play on words was about someone stealing your time in the fall. It was the earliest experimentation with that so it was a little simplistic compared to the stuff we did later. At the time, we'd tell someone the song title, and they'd say, 'You mean "Auto"'?

JOHN JANICK: I saw their name on fliers and thought it was strange. But I remembered it. Then I saw them on a flyer with one of our bands from Chicago, August Premier. I called them and asked about this band whose name I had seen on a few flyers now. They told me they were good and I should check it out. I heard an early version of a song online and instantly fell in love with it. Drive-Thru, The Militia Group, and a few majors tried to sign them. I was the odd man out. But I knew I wanted them right away.

HURLEY: Fueled By Ramen was co-owned by Vinnie [Fiorello] from Less Than Jake. It wasn't necessarily a band I grew up loving, but I had so much respect for them and what they had done and were doing.

JANICK: I randomly cold-called them at the apartment and spoke to Patrick. He told me I had to talk to Pete. I spoke to Pete later that day. We ended up talking on the phone for an hour. It was crazy. I never flew out there. I just got to know them over the phone.

MCLYNN: There were majors [interested], but I didn't want the band on a major right away. I knew they wouldn't understand the band. Rob Stevenson from Island Records knew all the indie labels were trying to sign Fall Out Boy. We did this first-ever incubator sort of deal. I also didn't want to stay on an indie forever; I felt we needed to develop and have a chance to do bigger and better things, but these indies didn't necessarily have radio staff. It was sort of the perfect scenario. Island gave us money to go on Fueled By Ramen, with whom we did a one-off. No one else would offer a one-off on an indie.

STUMP: They were the smallest of the labels involved, with the least 'gloss.' I said, 'I don't know about this, Pete.' Pete was the one who thought it was the smartest move. He pointed out that we could be a big fish in a small pond. So, we rolled the dice.

HURLEY: It was a one-record deal with Fueled By Ramen. We didn't necessarily get signed to Island, but they had the 'right of first refusal' [for the album following Take This To Your Grave]. It was an awesome deal. It was kind of unheard of, maybe, but there was a bunch of money coming from Island that we didn't have to recoup for promo type of things.

JANICK: The company was so focused on making sure we broke Fall Out Boy; any other label probably wouldn't have had that dedication. Pete and I talked for at least an hour every day. Pete and I became so close, so much so that we started Decaydance. It was his thing, but we ended up signing Panic! At The Disco, Gym Class Heroes, Cobra Starship.

GUTIERREZ: Who could predict Pete would A&R all those bands? There's no Panic! At The Disco or Gym Class Heroes without Wentz. He made them into celebrities.

"Turn This Up And I'll Tune You Out" - The Making of Take This To You Grave, 2003

The versions of "Dead on Arrival," "Saturday," and "Homesick at Space Camp" from the first sessions with Andy on drums are what appear on the album. "Grand Theft Autumn/Where is Your Boy" and "Grenade Jumper" are the demo versions recorded later in Chicago. O'Keefe recorded the music for the rest of the songs at Smart Studios once again. They knocked out the remaining songs in just nine days. Sean and Patrick snuck into Gravity Studios in the middle of the night to track vocals in the dead of winter. Patrick sang those seven songs from two to five in the morning in those sessions.

STUMP: John Janick basically said, ‘I'll buy those five songs and we'll make them part of the album, and here's some money to go record seven more.'

MCLYNN: It was a true indie deal with Fueled by Ramen. I think we got between $15,000 and $18,000 all-in to make the album. The band slept on the studio floor some nights.

STUMP: From a recording standpoint, it was amazing. It was very pro, we had Sean, all this gear, the fun studio accoutrements were there. It was competitive with anything we did afterward. But meanwhile, we're still four broke idiots.

WENTZ: We fibbed to our parents about what we were doing. I was supposed to be in school. I didn't have access to money or a credit card. I don't think any of us did.

STUMP: I don't think we slept anywhere we could shower, which was horrifying. There was a girl that Andy's girlfriend at the time went to school with who let us sleep on her floor, but we'd be there for maybe four hours at a time. It was crazy.

HURLEY: Once, Patrick thought it would be a good idea to spray this citrus bathroom spray under his arms like deodorant. It just destroyed him because it's not made for that. But it was all an awesome adventure.

WENTZ: We were so green we didn't really know how studios worked. Every day there was soda for the band. We asked, 'Could you take that soda money and buy us peanut butter, jelly, and bread?' which they did. I hear that stuff in some ways when I listen to that album.

HURLEY: Sean pushed us. He was such a perfectionist, which was awesome. I felt like, ‘This is what a real professional band does.' It was our first real studio experience.

WENTZ: Seeing the Nirvana Nevermind plaque on the wall was mind-blowing. They showed us the mic that had been used on that album.

HURLEY: The mic that Kurt Cobain used, that was pretty awesome, crazy, legendary, and cool. But we didn't get to use it.

WENTZ: They said only Shirley Manson] from Garbage could use it.

O'KEEFE: Those dudes were all straight edge at the time. It came up in conversation that I had smoked weed once a few months before. That started this joke that I was this huge stoner, which obviously I wasn't. They'd call me 'Scoobie Snacks O'Keefe' and all these things. When they turned in the art for the record, they thanked me with like ten different stoner nicknames - 'Dimebag O'Keefe' and stuff like that. The record company made Pete take like seven of them out because they said it was excessively ridiculous.

WENTZ: Sean was very helpful. He worked within the budget and took us more seriously than anyone else other than Patrick. There were no cameras around. There was no documentation. There was nothing to indicate this would be some ‘legendary' session. There are 12 songs on the album because those were all the songs we had. There was no pomp or circumstance or anything to suggest it would be an 'important’ record.

STUMP: Pete and I were starting to carve out our niches. When Pete [re-committed himself to the band], it felt like he had a list of things in his head he wanted to do right. Lyrics were on that list. He wasn't playing around anymore. I wrote the majority of the lyrics up to that point - ‘Saturday,' 'Dead on Arrival,' ‘Where's Your Boy?,’ ‘Grenade Jumper,' and ‘Homesick at Space Camp.' I was an artsy-fartsy dude who didn't want to be in a pop-punk band, so I was going really easy on the lyrics. I wasn't taking them seriously. When I look back on it, I did write some alright stuff. But I wasn't trying. Pete doesn't fuck around like that, and he does not take that kindly. When we returned to the studio, he started picking apart every word, every syllable. He started giving me [notes]. I got so exasperated at one point I was like, ‘You just write the fucking lyrics, dude. Just give me your lyrics, and I'll write around them.' Kind of angrily. So, he did. We hadn't quite figured out how to do it, though. I would write a song, scrap my lyrics, and try to fit his into where mine had been. It was exhausting. It was a rough process. It made both of us unhappy.

MCLYNN: I came from the post-hardcore scene in New York and wasn't a big fan of the pop-punk stuff happening. What struck me with these guys was the phenomenal lyrics and Patrick's insane voice. Many guys in these kinds of bands can sing alright, but Patrick was like a real singer. This guy had soul. He'd take these great lyrics Pete wrote and combine it with that soul, and that's what made their unique sound. They both put their hearts on their sleeves when they wrote together.

STUMP: We had a massive fight over 'Chicago is So Two Years Ago.' I didn't even want to record that song. I was being precious with things that were mine. Part of me thought the band wouldn't work out, and I'd go to college and do some music alone. I had a skeletal version of 'Chicago...'. I was playing it to myself in the lobby of the studio. I didn't know anyone was listening. Sean was walking by and wanted to [introduce it to the others]. I kind of lost my song. I was very precious about it. Pete didn't like some of the lyrics, so we fought. We argued over each word, one at a time. 'Tell That Mick...' was also a pretty big fight. Pete ended up throwing out all my words on that one. That was the first song where he wrote the entire set of lyrics. My only change was light that smoke' instead of ‘cigarette' because I didn't have enough syllables to say 'cigarette.' Everything else was verbatim what he handed to me. I realized I must really want to be in this band at this point if I'm willing to put up with this much fuss. The sound was always more important to me - the rhythm of the words, alliteration, syncopation - was all very exciting. Pete didn't care about any of that. He was all meaning. He didn't care how good the words sounded if they weren't amazing when you read them. Man, did we fight about that. We fought for nine days straight while not sleeping and smelling like shit. It was one long argument, but I think some of the best moments resulted from that.

WENTZ: In 'Calm Before the Storm,' Patrick wrote the line, 'There's a song on the radio that says, 'Let's Get This Party Started' which is a direct reference to Pink's 2001 song 'Get the Party Started.' 'Tell That Mick He Just Made My List of Things to Do Today' is a line from the movie Rushmore. I thought we'd catch a little more flack for that, but even when we played it in Ireland, there was none of that. It's embraced, more like a shoutout.

STUMP: Pete and I met up on a lot of the same pop culture. He was more into '80s stuff than I was. One of the first things we talked about were Wes Anderson movies.

WENTZ: Another thing driving that song title was the knowledge that our fanbase wouldn't necessarily be familiar with Wes Anderson. It could be something that not only inspired us but something fans could also go check out. People don't ask us about that song so much now, but in that era, we'd answer and tell them to go watch Rushmore. You gotta see this movie. This line is a hilarious part of it.' Hopefully some people did. I encountered Jason Schwartzman at a party once. We didn't get to talk about the movie, but he was the sweetest human, and I was just geeking out. He told me he was writing a film with Wes Anderson about a train trip in India. I wanted to know about the writing process. He was like, 'Well, he's in New York City, I'm in LA. It's crazy because I'm on the phone all the time and my ear gets really hot.' That's the anecdote I got, and I loved it.

O'KEEFE: They're totally different people who approach making music from entirely different angles. It's cool to see them work. Pete would want a certain lyric. Patrick was focused on the phrasing. Pete would say the words were stupid and hand Patrick a revision, and Patrick would say I can't sing those the way I need to sing this. They would go through ten revisions for one song. I thought I would lose my mind with both of them, but then they would find it, and it would be fantastic. When they work together, it lights up. It takes on a life of its own. It's not always happy. There's a lot of push and pull, and each is trying to get their thing. With Take This To Your Grave, we never let anything go until all three of us were happy. Those guys were made to do this together.

WENTZ: A lot of the little things weren't a big deal, but those were things that [felt like] major decisions. I didn't want 'Where Is Your Boy' on Take This To Your Grave.

JANICK: I freaked out. I called Bob and said, 'We must put this song on the album! It's one of the biggest songs.' He agreed. We called Pete and talked about it; he was cool about it and heard us out.

WENTZ: I thought many things were humongous, and they just weren't. They didn't matter one way or another.

"Our Lawyer Made Us Change The (Album Cover)" - That Photo On Take This To Your Grave, 2003

STUMP: The band was rooted in nostalgia from early on. The '80s references were very much Pete's aesthetic. He had an idea for the cover. It ended up being his girlfriend at the time, face down on the bed, exhausted, in his bedroom. That was his bedroom in our apartment. His room was full of toys, '80s cereals. If we ended up with the Abbey Road cover of pop-punk, that original one was Sgt. Pepper's. But we couldn't legally clear any of the stuff in the photo. Darth Vader, Count Chocula…

WENTZ: There's a bunch of junk in there: a Morrissey poster, I think a Cher poster, Edward Scissorhands. We submitted it to Fueled by Ramen, and they were like, 'We can't clear any of this stuff.’ The original album cover did eventually come out on the vinyl version.

STUMP: The photo that ended up being the cover was simply a promo photo for that album cycle. We had to scramble. I was pushing the Blue Note jazz records feel. That's why the CD looks a bit like vinyl and why our names are listed on the front. I wanted a live photo on the cover. Pete liked the Blue Note idea but didn't like the live photo idea. I also made the fateful decision to have my name listed as 'Stump' rather than Stumph.

WENTZ: What we used was initially supposed to be the back cover. I remember someone in the band being pissed about it forever. Not everyone was into having our names on the cover. It was a strange thing to do at the time. But had the original cover been used, it wouldn't have been as iconic as what we ended up with. It wouldn't have been a conversation piece. That stupid futon in our house was busted in the middle. We're sitting close to each other because the futon was broken. The exposed brick wall was because it was the worst apartment ever. It makes me wonder: How many of these are accidental moments? At the time, there was nothing iconic about it. If we had a bigger budget, we probably would have ended up with a goofier cover that no one would have cared about.

STUMP: One of the things I liked about the cover was that it went along with something Pete had always said. I'm sure people will find this ironic, but Pete had always wanted to create a culture with the band where it was about all four guys and not just one guy. He had the foresight to even think about things like that. I didn't think anyone would give a fuck about our band! At the time, it was The Pete Wentz Band to most people. With that album cover, he was trying to reject that and [demonstrate] that all four of us mattered. A lot of people still don't get that, but whatever. I liked that element of the cover. It felt like a team. It felt like Voltron. It wasn't what I like to call 'the flying V photo' where the singer is squarely in the center, the most important, and everyone else is nearest the camera in order of 'importance.' The drummer would be in the very back. Maybe the DJ guy who scratches records was behind the drummer.

"You Need Him. I Could Be Him. Where Is Your Boy Tonight?" - The Dynamics of Punk Pop's Fab 4, 2003

Patrick seemed like something of the anti-frontman, never hogging the spotlight and often shrinking underneath his baseball hat. Wentz was more talkative, more out front on stage and in interviews, in a way that felt unprecedented for a bass player who wasn't also singing. In some ways, Fall Out Boy operated as a two-headed dictatorship. Wentz and Stump are in the car's front seat while Joe and Andy ride in the back.

STUMP: There is a lot of truth to that. Somebody must be in the front seat, no question. But the analogy doesn't really work for us; were more like a Swiss Army knife. You've got all these different attachments, but they are all part of the same thing. When you need one specific tool, the rest go back into the handle. That was how the band functioned and still does in many ways. Pete didn't want anyone to get screwed. Some things we've done might not have been the best business decision but were the right human decision. That was very much Pete's thing. I was 19 and very reactionary. If someone pissed me off, I'd be like, 'Screw them forever!' But Pete was very tactful. He was the business guy. Joe was active on the internet. He wouldn't stop believing in this band. He was the promotions guy. Andy was an honest instrumentalist: ‘I'm a drummer, and I'm going to be the best fucking drummer I can be.' He is very disciplined. None of us were that way aside from him. I was the dictator in the studio. I didn't know what producing was at the time or how it worked, but in retrospect, I've produced a lot of records because I'm an asshole in the studio. I'm a nice guy, but I'm not the nicest guy in the studio. It's a lot easier to know what you don't want. We carved out those roles early. We were very dependent on each other.

MCLYNN: I remember sitting in Japan with those guys. None of them were drinking then, but I was drinking plenty. It was happening there, their first time over, and all the shows were sold out. I remember looking at Pete and Patrick and telling Pete, ‘You're the luckiest guy in the world because you found this guy.' Patrick laughed. Then I turned to Patrick and said the same thing to him. Because really, they're yin and yang. They fit together so perfectly. The fact that Patrick found this guy with this vision, Pete had everything for the band laid out in his mind. Patrick, how he can sing, and what he did with Pete's lyrics - no one else could have done that. We tried it, even with the Black Cards project in 2010. We'd find these vocalists. Pete would write lyrics, and they'd try to form them into songs, but they just couldn't do it the way Patrick could. Pete has notebooks full of stuff that Patrick turns into songs. Not only can he sing like that, but how he turns those into songs is an art unto itself. It's really the combination of those two guys that make Fall Out Boy what it is. They're fortunate they found each other.

"I Could Walk This Fine Line Between Elation And Success. We All Know Which Way I'm Going To Strike The Stake Between My Chest" - Fall Out Boy Hits the Mainstream, 2003

Released on May 6, 2003, Take This To Your Grave massively connected with fans. (Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girlfriend arrived in stores less than two months earlier.) While Take This To Your Grave didn't crack the Billboard 200 upon its release, it eventually spent 30 weeks on the charts. From Under the Cork Tree debuted in the Top 10 just two years later, largely on Grave's momentum. 2007's Infinity on High bowed at #1.

WENTZ: I remember noticing it was getting insane when we would do in-stores. We'd still play anywhere. That was our deal. We liked being able to sell our stuff in the stores, too. It would turn into a riot. We played a Hollister at the mall in Schaumburg, Illinois. A lot of these stores were pretty corporate with a lot of rules, but Hollister would let us rip. Our merch guy was wearing board shorts, took this surfboard off the wall, and started crowd-surfing with it during the last song. I remember thinking things had gotten insane right at that moment.

HURLEY: When we toured with Less Than Jake, there were these samplers with two of their songs and two of ours. Giving those out was a surreal moment. To have real promotion for a record... It wasn't just an ad in a 'zine or something. It was awesome.

MCLYNN: They toured with The Reunion Show, Knockout, and Punch-line. One of their first big tours as an opening act was with MEST. There would be sold-out shows with 1,000 kids, and they would be singing along to Fall Out Boy much louder than to MEST. It was like, 'What's going on here?' It was the same deal with Less Than Jake. It really started catching fire months into the album being out. You just knew something was happening. As a headliner, they went from 500-capacity clubs to 1500 - 2000 capacity venues.

WENTZ: We always wanted to play The Metro in Chicago. It got awkward when they started asking us to play after this band or that band. There were bands we grew up with that were now smaller than us. Headlining The Metro was just wild. My parents came.

MCLYNN: There was a week on Warped Tour, and there was some beel because these guys were up-and-comers, and some of the bands that were a little more established weren't too happy. They were getting a little shit on Warped Tour that week, sort of their initiation. They were on this little, shitty stage. So many kids showed up to watch them in Detroit, and the kids rushed the stage, and it collapsed. The PA failed after like three songs. They finished with an acapella, 'Where is Your Boy,’ and the whole crowd sang along.

WENTZ: That's when every show started ending in a riot because it couldn't be contained. We ended up getting banned from a lot of venues because the entire crowd would end up onstage. It was pure energy. We'd be billed on tour as the opening band, and the promoter would tell us we had to close the show or else everyone would leave after we played. We were a good band to have that happen to because there wasn't any ego. We were just like, "Oh, that's weird.' It was just bizarre. When my parents saw it was this wid thing, they said, 'OK, yeah, maybe take a year off from college.' That year is still going on.

MCLYNN: That Warped Tour was when the band's first big magazine cover, by far, hit the stands. I give a lot of credit to Norman Wonderly and Mike Shea at Alternative Press. They saw what was happening with Fall Out Boy and were like, 'We know it's early with you guys, but we want to give you a cover.' It was the biggest thing to happen to any of us. It really helped kick it to another level. It helped stoke the fires that were burning. This is back when bands like Green Day, Blink-182, and No Doubt still sold millions of records left and right. It was a leap of faith for AP to step out on Fall Out Boy the way they did.

STUMP: That was our first big cover. It was crazy. My parents flipped out. That wasn't a small zine. It was a magazine my mom could find in a bookstore and tell her friends. It was a shocking time. It's still like that. Once the surrealism starts, it never ends. I was onstage with Taylor Swift ten years later. That statement just sounds insane. It's fucking crazy. But when I was onstage, I just fell into it. I wasn't thinking about how crazy it was until afterward. It was the same thing with the AP cover. We were so busy that it was just another one of those things we were doing that day. When we left, I was like, 'Holy fuck! We're on the cover of a magazine! One that I read! I have a subscription to that!'

HURLEY: Getting an 'In The Studio' blurb was a big deal. I remember seeing bands 'in the studio' and thinking, Man, I would love to be in that and have people care that we're in the studio.' There were more minor things, but that was our first big cover.

STUMP: One thing I remember about the photo shoot is I was asked to take off my hat. I was forced to take it off and had been wearing that hat for a while. I never wanted to be the lead singer. I always hoped to be a second guitarist with a backup singer role. I lobbied to find someone else to be the proper singer. But here I was, being the lead singer, and I fucking hated it. When I was a drummer, I was always behind something. Somehow the hat thing started. Pete gave me a hat instead of throwing it away - I think it's the one I'm wearing on the cover of Take This To Your Grave. It became like my Linus blanket. I had my hat, and I could permanently hide. You couldn't see my eyes or much of me, and I was very comfortable that way. The AP cover shoot was the first time someone asked me to remove it. My mom has a poster of that cover in her house, and every time I see it, I see the fear on my face - just trying to maintain composure while filled with terror and insecurity. ‘Why is there a camera on me?'

JANICK: We pounded the pavement every week for two years. We believed early on that something great was going to happen. As we moved to 100,000 and 200,000 albums, there were points where everything was tipping. When they were on the cover of Alternative Press. When they did Warped for five days, and the stage collapsed. We went into Christmas with the band selling 2000 to 3000 a week and in the listening stations at Hot Topic. Fueled By Ramen had never had anything like that before.

MOSTOFI: Pete and I used to joke that if he weren't straight edge, he would have likely been sent to prison or worse at some point before Fall Out Boy. Pete has a predisposition to addictive behavior and chemical dependency. This is something we talked about a lot back in the day. Straight Edge helped him avoid some of the traps of adolescence.

WENTZ: I was straight edge at the time. I don't think our band would have been so successful without that. The bands we were touring with were partying like crazy. Straight Edge helped solidify the relationship between the four of us. We were playing for the love of music, not for partying or girls or stuff like that. We liked being little maniacs running around. Hurley and I were kind of the younger brothers of the hardcore kids we were in bands with. This was an attempt to get out of that shadow a little bit. Nobody is going to compare this band to Racetraitor. You know when you don't want to do exactly what your dad or older brother does? There was a little bit of that.

"Take This To Your Grave, And I'll Take It To Mine" - The Legacy of Take This To Your Grave, 2003-2023

Take This To Your Grave represents a time before the paparazzi followed Wentz to Starbucks, before marriages and children, Disney soundtracks, and all the highs and lows of an illustrious career. The album altered the course for everyone involved with its creation. Crush Music added Miley Cyrus, Green Day, and Weezer to their roster. Fueled By Ramen signed Twenty One Pilots, Paramore, A Day To Remember, and All Time Low.

STUMP: I'm so proud of Take This To Your Grave. I had no idea how much people were going to react to it. I didn't know Fall Out Boy was that good of a band. We were this shitty post-hardcore band that decided to do a bunch of pop-punk before I went to college, and Pete went back to opening for Hatebreed. That was the plan. Somehow this record happened. To explain to people now how beautiful and accidental that record was is difficult. It seems like it had to have been planned, but no, we were that shitty band that opened for 25 Ta Life.

HURLEY: We wanted to make a record as perfect as Saves The Day's Through Being Cool. A front-to-back perfect collection of songs. That was our obsession with Take This To Your Grave. We were just trying to make a record that could be compared in any way to that record. There's just something special about when the four of us came together.

WENTZ: It blows my mind when I hear people talking about Take This To Your Grave or see people including it on lists because it was just this tiny personal thing. It was very barebones. That was all we had, and we gave everything we had to it. Maybe that's how these big iconic bands feel about those records, too. Perhaps that's how James Hetfield feels when we talk about Kill 'Em All. That album was probably the last moment many people had of having us as their band that their little brother didn't know about. I have those feelings about certain bands, too. 'This band was mine. That was the last time I could talk about them at school without anyone knowing who the fuck I was talking about.' That was the case with Take This To Your Grave.

TROHMAN: Before Save Rock N' Roll, there was a rumor that we would come back with one new song and then do a Take This To Your Grave tenth-anniversary tour. But we weren't going to do what people thought we would do. We weren't going to [wear out] our old material by just returning from the hiatus with a Take This To Your Grave tour.

WENTZ: We've been asked why we haven't done a Take This To Your Grave tour. In some ways, it's more respectful not to do that. It would feel like we were taking advantage of where that record sits, what it means to people and us.

HURLEY: When Metallica released Death Magnetic, I loved the record, but I feel like Load and Reload were better in a way, because you knew that's what they wanted to do.

TROHMAN: Some people want us to make Grave again, but I'm not 17. It would be hard to do something like that without it being contrived. Were proud of those songs. We know that’s where we came from. We know the album is an important part of our history.

STUMP: There's always going to be a Take This To Your Grave purist fan who wants that forever: But no matter what we do, we cannot give you 2003. It'll never happen again. I know the feeling, because I've lived it with my favorite bands, too. But there's a whole other chunk of our fans who have grown with us and followed this journey we're on. We were this happy accident that somehow came together. It’s tempting to plagarize yourself. But it’s way more satisfying and exciting to surprise yourself.

MCILRITH: Fall Out Boy is an important band for so many reasons. I know people don't expect the singer of Rise Against to say that, but they really are. If nothing else, they created so much dialog and conversation within not just a scene but an international scene. They were smart. They got accused of being this kiddie pop punk band, but they did smart things with their success. I say that, especially as a guy who grew up playing in the same Chicago hardcore bands that would go on and confront be-ing a part of mainstream music. Mainstream music and the mainstream world are machines that can chew your band up if you don't have your head on straight when you get into it. It's a fast-moving river, and you need to know what direction you're going in before you get into it. If you don't and you hesitate, it'll take you for a ride. Knowing those guys, they went into it with a really good idea. That's something that the hardcore instilled in all of us. Knowing where you stand on those things, we cut our teeth on the hardcore scene, and it made us ready for anything that the world could throw at us, including the giant music industry.

[lexkent]

clex fic rec part 1:

Identical Series by Lanning (400,450 words) summary: Lex loses everything, and finds something better.

If He Would Fall by sabershadowkat (5,291 words) summary: Lex realizes Clark will always catch him.

Most Regretted by Tallihensia (5,062 words) summary: A meteor mutant shows Clark what he will most regret in his future. Will Clark learn from it?

Reconcilable Differences by astolat (38,799 words) summary: Luthor Family Values.

Soothing out the Hurts by Tallihensia (4,977 words) summary: If one learns to harm people, one must also learn to heal. Superman accidentally hurts Lex and decides he has to make up for it.

The Perfect Life by A_Fallen_Sister (9,042 words) summary: A little Thanksgiving tale. Lex and Clark have been angst-free for years, but life is not entirely without problems.

To Legends by Tallihensia (655 words) summary: A final toast to legends.

Ants And Other Higher Lifeforms by Dayspring (3,123 words) summary: He really didn't want to come back as an ant.

Escape Velocity by Bagheera (7,119 words) summary: What if the meteor rocks had given Lex super speed?

Two Halves by Dolimir (31,254 words) summary: A 'what if' Lex found Clark before the Kents did story.

Lex and Clark: the New Adventures of Superman by arysteia (16,816 words) summary: Evil-doers have seized control of the Daily Planet building. Can Clark save the day, rescue Lois, Perry and Jimmy, and reconcile with Lex, all without revealing his secret identity?

Of Gods and Men by Lenore (17,176 words) summary: What does it mean to be great?

i think that possibly maybe i'm falling for you by Nicnac (3,058 words) summary: After the incident with Duncan, Lex is quietly asked to transfer to a different school. Lionel decides to send him to Smallville High as punishment for his misconduct, and Lex is chosen as that year's Scarecrow. Luckily, he's saved by local college student and unofficial town hero, Clark Kent.

Sealed with a Kiss by laceymcbain (28,613 words) summary: Pete: "We're standing in Lex's office with Lana serving coffee right outside and I'm waiting for you to kiss me so we can see if you poison me or not. That's weird, Clark--even by Smallville standards."

Not a Villain by Tallihensia (156,782 words) summary: When Clark makes a discovery about Conner, honor forces him to tell Lex. Lex comes by to see for himself.

Dancing at The Purple Parrot by laceymcbain (17,965 words) summary: Lex couldn’t believe it, but the man seemed to be blushing. An awkward stripper in plaid who was blushing. “Oh, no,” Lex murmured to himself. “Oh God, no.”

Fixing Things by Tallihensia (45,049 words) summary: Lex Luthor is his father's fix-it man for failing companies. But when Lex unexpectedly comes across Clark Kent again, can he fix what went wrong between them eight years ago? And will Clark let him? Through the meteor mutants trying to kill them, Clark and Lex try to find their way again.

Someone To Watch Over Me by Dolimir (22,034 words) summary: What if the government had stepped in and collected people affected by the meteors when Clark was still a toddler?

Lover's Choice by Tallihensia (3,383 words) summary: Lex's old lover wants him back in her cold embrace. Clark doesn't want to let him go.

Catharsis by arysteia (4,285 words) summary: Aristotle says that tragedy purges the negative emotions of the audience. Can angsty porn purge the negative emotions of the Smallville audience? Let's give it a shot. Lex finally calls Clark on a few things.

Devil's Deal by Bagheera (29,560 words) summary: Lex sells his soul to the devil to bring his son back from the dead. Can Clark get it back for him? 

Cookie Dough & Candy Hearts by Dayspring (3,853 words) summary: Lex, liquor, and Martha Kent make for an interesting Valentine's Day.

iHero by I I B N F (iibnf) (80,571 words) summary: Bitten by a radioactive CD player, Lex gets super powers and just about everything he ever wanted, not that he'd ever admit he wanted what he gets.

Cooking Considered As One Of The Fine Arts by Caro (thestarsexist) (2,906 words) summary: Sometimes part of being a good mother is knowing the best chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Manifest Destiny by Liviapenn (24,180 words) summary: Giant robots and things exploding.

The Lost Soul by tasabian (4,975 words) summary: When a malicious act of magic separates Clark's soul from his body, only one person realizes how to help him.

Run by Dayspring (31,667 words) summary: "The castle blew up right after I dragged him from the shower. We've…we've been running ever since." 

The Reset by tasabian (4,764 words) summary: An unexpected portal opening in Smallville causes Lex Luthor from 2002 to trade places with Lex Luthor from 2018. How will it change the timeline as we know it?

Purple by Dayspring (13,922 words) summary: Martha doesn't need an advanced degree in Art to figure it out, but Jonathan might.

Shadows & Stone: Smallville Stories by laceymcbain (83,680 words) summary: Lex's evening has scored particularly high on the Luthor Scale of Tragic Dates. When he confesses to Toby that he thinks he's destined to be alone, an eavesdropping Clark is determined to change his mind.

Pheromones by Tallihensia (4,009 words) summary: Lex and Batman take on the Bee Queen. It doesn't quite end up the way they planned and Superman has to step in to save Lex.

Time and Chance by Dayspring (111,267 words) summary: Lex is pregnant. Nobody's happy. This is an mpreg (male pregnancy story). But this isn't one of those funny, life-is-great mpregs. It's full of bad days and sad days and people being ordinary pain-in-the-butts.

A Mad Season by Dolimir (22,683 words) summary: An AU look at what might have happened if all of Lex's Smallville memories had been erased when Lionel ordered electroshock therapy.

Golden by CJAndre, Noelle (28,676 words) summary: Lex smirked at his wishful thinking, but he knew that whatever the situation, he could handle it. Then, confronted with the sight in front of him, he realized that maybe he couldn't handle it at all.

Memoirs Of An Alien Who Fell To Earth by Dayspring (10,566 words) summary: See the title. FUTUREFIC.

Feel free to message me if you'd like trigger warnings on any specific fic listed. There's some very dark content here and not all is tagged.

Also @clarklexlois has an excellent clex fic rec list with descriptions, and it's actually what got me into fanfic!💖

[mind-lost-in-the-stars]

Incorrect Quotes! incorrect quotes!!

———

Ruth: Where's Steph?

Richie: Don't worry, I'll find them.

Richie, shouting: Pete sucks!

Steph, distantly: Pete is the best person ever! Fuck you!

Richie: Found them.

———

Max: I don’t have anything against you, but I can make up lots of reasons to attack you!!

———

Max: *shoves their hand in the slot of a toaster*

Pete: …

Max: …I get confused sometimes.

Pete: Me too.

———

Pete: I am going to need you to swear-

Steph: Fuck.

Pete:

Pete: ...swear as in promise.

———

Richie: Get on my level!

Grace: Unfortunately, to "get on your level" I'd need a boat trip to the Mariana Trench and a pair of cinderblock shoes.

———

Max: Wait you like me? For my personality?

Richie: I know, I was surprised too.

———

Steph: Wasn't icarly that guy that girlbossed too close to the sun because he was down for Apollo?

Richie: ICARUS?

———

Pete: So, Grace is no longer allowed to take the trash out at night.

Steph: Why?

Pete: Because I've caught them trying to train raccoons to fight five times in a row.

Grace, arms crossed and pouting: You'll be thanking me when the third raccoon battalion saves your ass.

———

Steph: It doesn’t have a bone.

Max: Then why is it called a boner?

———

Pete: Can you come out?

Richie: Yeah gimme a minute…

Richie: Pete, I’m gay.

Pete: I know that. Come out to the car.

Richie: Okay.

Richie: Car, I’m gay.

———

Grace: Good morning. As you begin your day, remember that violence is always an option and often the answer.

Steph:

Grace:

Steph: ...Please, go back to bed.

———

Pete: When I first met you, I thought you were weird and annoying.

Ruth: And?

Pete: And you are.

———

Grace: They don’t make them like me no more. I’m the last of my kind.

Ruth: Thank god.

———

Max: I am so horny and angry all the time.

———

Grace: I am so horny and angry all the time.

———

Max: So anyways have y'all seen Pete?

Richie: I think they went in Steph's room 'studying'.

Grace: Doubt that. I heard groans there.

*Meanwhile in Steph's room*

Pete and Steph, fighting:

———

Grace: I feel like doing something stupid.

Ruth: I’m stupid, do me.

———

*At a speed dating event*

Richie: Oh wow, people are really shallow.

Grace: Consider it a background check. For example: Do you have a death certificate?

Richie: *Checks their pulse* Sorry, not yet.

Grace: Good, I'm not fucking a ghost again.

———

Pete: Make her pussy wet not her eyes.

Steph: Make his dick hard not his life.

Max: Break her bed not her heart.

Ruth: Play with her boobs not her feelings.

Richie: Get on his dick not his nerves.

Grace: Always salt your pasta while boiling it.

———

I’ll prolly do some TGWDLM and Black Friday soon, but I gotta sleep now lol

[hotheadedhero]

The Velvet Weaver - Part 1

A/N: So, I see the occasional meme or story about Spiderman/Tmnt crossovers and it reminded me of a fic idea I had from years and years ago. After all this time, I have finally decided to write it

Michelangelo x Reader

Warnings: quite dialogue heavy (I haven't figured out how to do it effectively yet so sorry), sickeningly sweet reciprocated feelings, because, yes, I can write something other than angst, I swear

New York City: resident to a colourful array of personalities and no stranger to weird occurrences. Although, weird may be putting it lightly. You’ve bare witness to many peculiar happenings all across your beloved home, some scarier than others, the most terrifying of all being the attempted alien raid last year. It felt like a real-life doomsday; an end to everything and everyone you hold dear to you. People were ready to accept their fates but the strange spacecraft disappeared almost as quickly as it had arrived. No one knows how. Any explanation curated by the news agencies and the police may convince the citizens but you know better, you have your theories. Or, you have one theory: New York has a group of secret heroes. It sounds far-fetched but it isn’t that different from your current circumstances.

Just before the attempted invasion, something bizarre happened to you - something spectacular. Granted, that’s not how you felt about it at first but you like how things have turned out for you and this given name, ‘Velvet Weaver’. You were a bit dubious about the paper's choice of vigilante name at first but it made sense; you took inspiration from the spider that bit you, giving you your powers, and incorporated velvet accents into your hooded jumper. It was actually rather cute for a spider, sporting a ladybug design on its back. At the time of finding it dead in your shirt, you wanted to burn all the clothes you were wearing but you rather feel bad for the little creature now. Who knew that all it would take to overcome a mild fear was to be bit by one and gain powers?

Safe to say, your hometown has seen its fair share of oddities, so you’re willing to bet a gamble on not being the only crime fighter in these streets. You take care of the day and these theorised mystery heroes the night. It’s as though you’re a team. Granted, a team that’s never met each other but you’re doing the same job, fighting the same fight - share the same ideals as far as you can tell. Assuming you’re correct in guessing that there are multiple of them, you would love to meet them all someday. There’s a reason for the mask, the hidden identity, but it’s isolating. If there are people out there who understand, maybe it won’t feel so lonely anymore. Until you cross paths, however, you’ll just have to continue this little solo act of yours.

The alarm on your watch beeps, signalling the end of your vigilante-ing for the day. As good a time as any. With the flick of your wrist, you connect to one of the many buildings that litter this city and propel yourself into the air. Your other hand extends to shoot another stream of webbing, this to and fro exchange allowing you to swing above the crowded streets effortlessly. Gliding through the air, the rush of wind against your body is invigorating, a reminder that you are alive and free. The city sprawls beneath you, a tapestry of lives that fit into the system, one you used to be a part of and now look at you. Whilst everyone is down there, you get to enjoy the spoils of being up here, watching it all turn into a blur, honking cars and chatter fading into the background. You smile behind the mask when kids point out your swinging form and jump around with unbridled joy. This really is a great job. If not for saving lives then at least for the happy stomps of children that look up to you.

As you approach the pizzeria, you catch a glimpse of the neon sign flickering - Pete’s Pizzas. You land gracefully in the alleyway just to the left of it, your heart still racing as you quickly scan your surroundings. The streets are packed with people enjoying their spring break, laughter and conversation filling the air. You take a moment to catch your breath before quickly wiggling out of the shoddily crafted clothes you dub your hero costume in exchange for your uniform, feeling the weight of your dual identity settle comfortably on your shoulders. It’s a juggle, especially with college, but something needs to pay the bills and last you checked, ‘vigilante’ isn’t a recognised career choice.

“Velvet Weaver,” you whisper to yourself, a corny smile creeping onto your face. “Hero by day, pizza delivery girl by night.” Somehow you feel like it should be the other way around.

Shoving your costume into your rucksack, you dart into the pizzeria, the bell above the door jingling cheerfully. The familiar scent of melted cheese and spices envelops you, a comforting reminder of your second- no, third life. 

“Hey, just in time!” your boss, Peter, calls out, his hands dusted with flour. “We’ve got a big order for the downtown crowd. Think you can handle it?”

“Do I think I can handle it?” you echo quietly, moving your hair up and out of your face and winking. “You can count on me.”

He only shakes his head at your typical enthusiasm, setting the last box to this tower of pizza for you to take. You’re going to have to drive carefully if these stand a chance of remaining intact. It isn’t as though your moped skills need a check but times like this make you wish you had a car just for the convenience. One thing at a time, girl. You have enough going on in your life without worrying about passing a driving exam.

Stepping back outside with your hoard of cooked dough, you glance up at the skyline. The sun is beginning to set, casting a warm orange glow over the city and you can only hope that the people of New York are making the most of it for those who can’t. You quickly pull out the order slip; the address is familiar, one you’ve delivered to before many times. That’s ideal. You can cut through the better-known shortcuts to avoid the rush. If only you could master the art of swinging whilst carrying pizza. You’d be there in no time. 

With the chosen route, you manage to miss most of the nastier traffic spots, getting to the building with some time to spare. As you step into the bustling lobby, you exchange pleasantries with the doorman - a gentle spirit whose oak-ish appearance still has you stumped for his age - and he greets you with a knowing smile.

“Hey, Cecil, how many have they got up there this time?” you ask as you walk past him, being mindful to raise your voice enough for his hearing aid. 

“Count your boxes again and take a guess,” he remarks satirically and slowly, although smiling enough that the wrinkles on his face almost cover his eyes. It reminds you of one of those dog breeds you can never remember the name of. “I’m surprised the floor hasn’t fallen through from the sheer mass of them.”

You snicker and raise the pizzas in your grasp. “Let’s hope these aren’t the last drop to the dam then, yeah?”

Fond of the joy you bring to his monotonous job, he quietly laughs with you before you have to disappear off into the elevator. When you reach the desired floor, you trudge along to the apartment in question, having it committed to muscle memory. You knock on the door, albeit trickily with the boxes, and it swings open to reveal a group of college students, laughter spilling out into the hallway. As they hand you the cash, you can’t help but feel a part of their joy, if only for a moment. It’s a fleeting connection, but it’s enough to remind you that while you may be a masked vigilante, you’re also just a young adult trying to make a living. This tightness in your chest threatens to throw you off your rhythm but you shake it off. The night is still young and you can already feel the pulls of the shadows calling you back into your other life, but for now, you embrace the slice of normalcy, knowing that soon enough Velvet Weaver will return to the rooftops, ready to face whatever challenges await her.

With a few deliveries under your belt, you make your way back from the next one, the city lights begin to twinkle around you. It’s looking to be a good shift, steadying into a quieter night with bigger gaps between each order. Just as you arrive back at the pizzeria, Pete’s gotten off the phone, slumping into his next batch of dough. Uh oh. You recognise that look all too well and it takes all your might to not cackle at the poor man.

“And who might that have been?” You know the answer but it’s always fun to question in your sing-song sort of way.

“As if you need to ask,” he grumbles, rolling out the base and saucing it. “It’s that little admirer of yours.”

The smile stretching out your cheeks only makes him groan louder and he hides himself in his task. This particular admirer he speaks of has been a faithful customer since before you started working here; one of Kevin’s regular drop-offs that somehow turned into yours. Shift patterns change around from time to time. What are you to do?

Dramatically, you fall into the nearest wall, draping an arm over your eyes with an exaggerated sigh, “Oh, Pete, my oh-most favourite boss in the world, do we not have your blessing?”

He raises a floured brow and points at you with the ladle, flicking drops of sauce on the counter. “You’ll get my blessing when this guy stops askin’ you to meet him in weird locations, not to even mention the fact that you ain’t once seen his face. I don’t like it.”

Well, he’s got you there, no point denying that. Despite the laughter you’ve shared with this one customer, not once have you seen what he looks like and he always orders his pizzas to be brought to run-down buildings. You’re also almost certain that he’s using a pseudonym, too. Who in the 21st century is called ‘Michelangelo’?

You would be worried about having some weirdo stalker on your radar if you didn’t think you could handle yourself. You know you can. No question about it. And even after everything, even if there are still doubts in the back of your mind, your “danger sense” as you call it - the title is a work in progress - has never once gone off around him. It only ever rings in your nerves when someone intends to inflict you harm. With all that said, he’s really just a sweet guy: playful flirt, very complimentative, a good spirit, plus he’s one of very few who gets your humour. One may or may not say that you’re developing a little crush on him but that’s strictly confidential, much like most of everything else in your haphazardly organised life.

“I’ll be careful, Pete. You know me,” you say, attempting to sound more confident for his sake.

Pete knows that you’ll do what you can to keep safe. That isn’t the problem. It’s everyone else in this damn city he doesn’t trust. He grumbles again and reminds you about speed dial for the hundredth time before you can disappear again with the order and scoot off. You know he worries and that this all comes from a place of care. You almost wish you could tell him about your abilities just to calm his nerves but chances are he’d only become more concerned seeing as you put yourself in harm's way every day. All the more reason to live a life of secrecy, not only to protect yourself but those around you, too.

The location looms ahead, its cracked walls and broken pillars giving it an eerie charm, but you brush off any lingering doubts, reminding yourself that you’ve faced far scarier things in your life than a creepy building. Besides, your instincts have never let you down before. You park your scooter just outside of the half-reconstructed car park, finding the irony in not using it, and carry the boxes the rest of the way. This must have been one of the structures that got damaged during the alien fiasco. Weird. This guy has chosen a few of those for these drop-offs, now that you think about it. A harmless coincidence, or does it mean something?

“It’s pizza time.”

Your voice echoes around the piles of work sand and concrete as you step further into the mouth of the ground floor. It’s a strange phrase and you’re not entirely sure how it started but it’s become the calling card to announce your arrival. One of the support beams has a small hunk of money beside it, so you walk over there and place the boxes down on a slab of concrete just to the right.

“My pizza hero!” you hear him bellow with excitement, making you smile. 

“Ah, well, you know me,” you say casually, “just saving the city one slice at a time.”

You hear him laugh as you crouch down to collect the odd assortment of change. It’s part of the routine: he remains hidden and you pick at the chump change he’s left out for you but you don’t mind. A paying customer is a paying customer. You’ll be more shocked the day he chooses or manages to use something larger than a 5 dollar note.

You haven’t even had a chance to count it before you hear him speak again, “Sorry, babycakes, I’m a dollar short this time round.”

“Don’t sweat it. I’m sure I can make an exception for my favourite customer,” you muse, leaning back against the pillar. 

“You’re the best!” He shifts around behind you, and it takes a lot not to peak around and see him. “You sure I can’t make it up to you, though?”

“Can I see you?” you suddenly ask, not having a chance to think before the words blurt out of your mouth. Knowing that he’s just on the other side of this concrete beam is pulling at your curiosity more than usual. It takes a hot second until you realise and you breathe out a casual attempt at laughing it off. “I promise I’m not the superficial type.”

Despite how rude you feel, he’s quick to respond in his usual jovialness, “Aw, what? I was told this would be a blind date.”

“I’m not entirely sure that’s what they meant when they called it that.” You shake your head but you’re not offended by his attempts to hide the true nature of his secrecy. That would make you a massive hypocrite. “But, hey, who am I to get into other peoples’ business? I’m sure you got your reasons.”

“Thanks for understanding. I’ll have that extra dollar next time.” 

“You better,” you joke, pushing yourself off from the tall, grey column. “Have a good night, Mikey.”

He wishes you the same and you leave a little slower than usual. Every time you walk away, you’re reminded of that Greek story about Orpheus and how he couldn’t look back at his wife until he left the underworld. It makes you wonder if, like that story, you would risk losing a faithful customer - someone you consider a friend at this point - by merely chancing a glance at him. You’d hate to tarnish these interactions over being nosy, so you prod along and scoot off, preparing for the rest of the night ahead of you.

Bright, blue eyes watch you whizz off and make a quick grab for the boxes before having to disappear, too. With each interaction you share, Mikey becomes more guilt-ridden. Personally, he sees no problem with revealing himself to you. It isn’t as though he and his brothers haven’t got human allies at all. Okay, so you may have a shock to the system but everyone gets over that eventually. Much like with everything else, however, his brothers’ words are final. “Keep anything about your identity to a minimum,” they’ll say, “and don’t eat all of the pizza!”. Right. If they didn’t want him to eat it, they should collect it themselves rather than leaving the leg work to him. At least, that’s what he would have said - all changed when you blessed him with being his favourite pizza delivery girl. A very pretty one at that. Even where his brothers warn him to be careful, he can’t stop himself from stealing the odd glance when you don’t notice.

You’ve only ever and continue to be friendly with him. He always tries in his best efforts to make you laugh during the short encounters because he reckons you just have the sweetest laugh he’s ever heard. The guy falls more and more in love with you every time you talk. That’s why it kills him a little more each time when he can’t just walk out in front of you and say, “Hey, it’s me,” with a big grin and open arms. Even as he jets back home on his board, twirling through various sewers, he tries to think of ways that this can happen.

Namely, he thinks about how the humans he and his brothers befriended became their friends in the first place. They met April after she was caught up in that subway station - an indirect save but a save nonetheless. Vern, granted, was via her and Raph trying to save his brothers from turning into green mulch. And then Casey after he helped April with those Foot soldiers. All instances that have something to do with danger and being saved. Are they only allowed to meet people under those circumstances? He doesn’t want to wish danger upon you. Not ever. It’s just one of those times where he kinda, sort of, maybe wouldn’t mind if it meant finally being able to reveal himself to you. He could totally rescue you and finally ask you out on a date! No more eye-sore buildings or abandoned warehouses.

The mutant slumps back into the couch when he arrives home and exhales lethargically. Living in the dream world there, Mikey. For now, he’ll just have to make the most of those few minutes he gets during each delivery. This pizza, however, will not be savoured the same way. He flicks the TV on and dives into the beautiful disc of flavour, barely catching the string of cheese off his lip when the news broadcasts its latest interesting scoop.

“... back on our ‘Velvet’ hour, New York’s very own costumed crusader has done it again, this time preventing a public bus from falling off the Brooklyn Bridge after a massive crash.”

Mikey leans forward in his seat as the screen cuts to a scrappily recorded viewing of the very events from earlier today. Sure enough, The Velvet Weaver is swinging around the side of the bridge, performing impressive acrobatic abilities, and shooting a sticky substance from her wrists to create a large blanket of webbing, preventing the bus from toppling over into the water. Heroics is one thing but he loves how this chick does it in style, truly taking claim to friendly badass in his opinion.

“And to think, her efforts are still unrecognised,” the reporter continues when they show her again and the camera pans out to reveal their guest, the head of the New York Police Department. “Chief Vincent, despite what you’ve said in previous press conferences about the dangers of this figure, The Velvet Weaver continues to prove that she is a guardian of the people.”

“With powers that can’t be mitigated whilst she roams around doing as she pleases. Police officers go through years of education and training before they are entrusted with people’s lives, yet this girl thinks she can handle that responsibility because what? She’s strong? She can climb on walls? One of these days, she’s going to mess up. What then? We can’t guarantee that she won’t go into hysterics, or even what will become of our people when that happens. We could have a super-powered breakdown on our hands. Either she can come quietly and reveal herself under peaceful pretence, or we will have to bring her in by force. For the sake of civilian safety and resources, we’d like to avoid the latter.” She then turns to face the camera, addressing it directly. “I believe I am being more than generous with these terms. The choice is yours.”

Chortling mockingly, Mikey blows raspberries at the TV and kicks back into comfort with his next bite. “Kinda hypocritical.”

“There’s nothing hypocritical about it,” Leo says as he comes for his box of pizza. “She doesn’t have just cause to be responsible for innocent lives.”

“Someone sounds jealous.” Their red-clad brother joins in, sharing a glance with his youngest as he takes part at the expense of their leader. He’s not particularly keen on this self-proclaimed protector of the city either but poking fun at Leonardo is much more fun.

“Jealousy has nothing to do with it, Raph. She’s a kid playing dress-up, not thinking about the repercussions of her actions.”

“And here I thought we were the only ones.” Donatello is the last to come for his food, leaning back in his chair with a slice. “That hypocrisy you were talking about, Mikey?”

“Yeah! What makes us so different?”

Leo’s head bloats up with the oncoming headache and he pinches the space between his eyes. Why do his brothers have to be so argumentative when it comes to these things? They know as much as he does why this is a problem. At least, he knows that Raph and Donnie do. He shouldn’t always have to be the one to spell it out.

“We are a team. We’re trained, we make plans. We don’t just rush in without thinking. She’s got no backup, no structure. It’s dangerous.” His fingers jut out with every reason he has to give, and he knows he could give plenty more. “She’s just out there acting on impulse, and that’s reckless.”

“You’re just mad because she doesn’t follow the rules.”

“Rules are there for a reason, Mikey.”

“Well, I think she’s cool,” he continues to defend, even when the other two don’t. He knows any word on his side was just at their leader’s expense, and when his brothers leave the debate completely, he mumbles to himself, “It’s nice to know we’re not the only crime fighters out there, ya know?”

Sure, there’s the police to consider but they’re more hardstrung on the do’s and don’ts than Leo is. What a shock, right? The only exception to the rule is how the chief has allowed them to continue protecting the city as they have done for the last few years. Maybe the same could be true for this new hero on the block if they can just talk it over. He has hope for that possibility. After all, there are a lot of questions he’d like to ask her. She must have a cool origin story or something.

Mikey is halfway into his pizza when his brainiac brother’s computer starts blaring. Guess that’s enough of lazing around. They’ve got some action for the night! Although, talk about bad timing. He hasn’t even had a chance to finish off his food yet. No time like the present, ay?

___

Honestly, I could have kept it as one part like I originally planned but it's become a longer story than I first intended, hence, I gotta break it up a bit

I'm going bed now

[amphibimations]

Choose your own adventure comic, poll below!

You spend a very long time trying to decide what shape to make Pete. You immediately decide against a human or cow shape; A human would be too boring, and you don’t want to even try making something imaginary like a cow. The decision you struggle with is whether it will be a rat or a dragon… you really like both animals.

You decide you like dragons a bit more, so you gather up a mound of dirt and sculpt it into the shape of a tiny wyvern. You were thinking about rats so much while sculpting that it ends up looking a bit rat-like… that’s fine. It’s still clearly a dragon, even with the whiskers. 

You take a little stick and carve his name into his forehead (it’s the only thing you know how to spell in Shebic), and then you use petramancy to bring him to life!!!

He doesn’t need any instructions from you, he automatically knows what to do. You’ve made Pete so many times that he can basically read your mind. He runs off and starts searching the pitcher plants and sundews, quickly finding plenty of little bones. You’re so proud of him.

He drops the skeletons he's collected so far at your feet, and then turns around and runs off again to collect even more. Suddenly, you hear soft hoofbeats approaching. You turn around and see…

YOUR ARCH NEMESIS!!!!! ... It’s Heather Destrier. She thinks she’s so much better than you just because she’s a year older and knows history facts and is the daughter of a baroness. She thinks she’s better even though she has a weird haircut and a weird dad. One time she put a worm in your food when you weren’t looking. And she’s always saying mean things. Mean things like… “Ugh, what are YOU doing here?? You’re like, a two hour walk from your house… Did you get lost?? Is your brain made of dirt?? Is your dirt-brain the reason you’re always playing in the mud? That's so embarrassing for you.” Heather says.

You bet she’s just jealous that you can make a golem and she can’t. It doesn’t stop you from feeling angry. More than angry, though, you’re confused. Why is Heather riding her unicorn all the way out here? Right now, you two are at the farthest point into the bog you feel comfortable going. If a person goes much further they start running into the fairies, the harpies, the water monsters. They start running into the deceptive blankets of ground that float above the water and suck you in when you make a wrong step. Heather could die if she rides out there. You think about what you should say next.

Your first thought is that warning her away from the bog will be a great opportunity to call her an idiot, and just insult her in general. And she'll totally owe you one for saving her.

Your second thought is: why even warn her! If she gets lost that’s her own fault. You should skip straight to the insults. You could even remind her that her dress is illegal. She hates that.

Your third thought is…maybe you should try to stop her from going any further… by force. She needs to be saved from her own stupid decisions!! You could use magic to knock her off her unicorn! It would totally be for a good and moral reason. And not just because you want to knock her off her unicorn. 

This collaborative choose-your-own-adventure comic is called Codex Calluna. A new page will be posted every Saturday evening (est). If you would like to, reblogs mean more people will be able to see this and participate! 

Archive blog with only the comic pages: here Page one

[calciumdeficientt]

Could you do some headcanons for Gary or Trent, and my oc, Suki? Thanks if U do!

Yesss ofccccc Gary and Trent will be posted now and ill give suki her own special post ^v^

TRENT NORTHWICK & GARY SMITH HCS

GARY SMITH

Gary…. Gary Gary Gary oh how you were so so so wasted by not being in free roam. I guess if i strain i can kinda see why he wasn’t around because, naturally people would incessantly kick the shit out of him

Biggest gossiper in the school, knocks Christy out of the park. He’s really really good at starting rumours because he knows just the right amount of ludicrous bullshit that needs to be added in order to make people want to spread it, while not having it die off by making it completely and utterly bonkers.

The slouch is definitely purposeful, he thought that standing up too straight would make him look too nerdy so he defaulted to this sort of weird grinch/ dr doom pose, he pays for this decision with really bad neck and upper back cramps but he’s simply too cool for meds of any kind including pain meds. Often what he does to get a kick out of Petey is to crack his neck really close to his ear ans laugh as poor Pete squirms in discomfort.

Got stuck in the Regina George headgear/back brace combo after jimmy threw them both of the roof into crabblesnitch’s office after the final showdown. He was in the hospital for a good long while, recuperating and making up for lost time on his meds before he was carted off to happy volts

Wrote down every single aspect of his plan for total bullworth domination in excruciating detail in a notebook that he kept tucked under his mattress, the first page was entitled “GARY’S EVIL PLAN” in all caps, in a heavy metal font, in red sharpie that bled through the next few pages. He would add to it nightly, and check stuff off when he was done with it. Insanely stupid and equally, insanely funny.

Doesn’t actually talk that way, like at all, its very much an act that he uses to make himself seem all cool and mysterious. He’s only ever slipped once or twice, and then instantly got on the defensive and gaslit whoever heard him (most likely poor Pete) its commitment to the bit that most could only dream of obtaining.

Got in so much shit for his special little bullworth vest, its technically not in violation of any uniform policies, a fact that he valiantly defended against the prefects, the faculty and everyone else that questioned it until they eventually just let him off with it.

Definitely a promising young politician if they decide he’s stable enough to leave happy volts, he’s charismatic, not terrible with words, and just generally immoral. He’s the perfect politician for the modern age.

TRENT NORTHWICK

Trent Trent Trent,i know a theatre kid when i see one. Definitely big on the more modern stuff compared the the older musicals, he just prefers the style of singing a little better, he finds it more expressive. However, he’ll take west side story over hamilton any day, dont get it twisted.

He saves money as best he can and goes to voice lessons pretty regularly, as well as intermittent dance lessons. He knows to make it in Hollywood you’ve got to be a triple threat and he certainly does plan to be a triple threat when he eventually runs off into the sunset to pursue his dream of going to audition after audition until he eventually lands himself a starring role in an allergy medicine commercial

Takes pride in his appearance, every few weeks he bleaches his roots and trims his own hair. He’s the only one that knows how to do it the way he likes, and it saves a lot of money for his voice lessons

Trent is a very thoughtful friend, he acts all aloof to save face but he likes to remember the little things about his friends, birthdays, favourite foods, so on and so forth. Enough to make him look good but not enough to make it look creepy or obsessive. He’s got a reputation to uphold damn it! But also he just wants to do right by his friends

He wants to let people know that he’s a man of many emotions, that’s why acting is such a good outlet for him, its not really acting, its his true self that’s simply being read as an act

Such a big sentimentalist, Trent is a scrapbooker, he keeps everything, no matter how small or insignificant seeming, dates it and sticks it in his scrapbook. He figures once he gets some sort of neurological condition from all the head trauma he’ll be able to look back on his high school years, lovingly documented by his teenage self

He was kinda bummed when Kirby dragged him out of line during movie tickets, he was all for going to see that movie, in fact he’d already found a leaked version of it online so he could look really tough during the scary parts and maybe hold Kirby’s hand if and i mean IF the smaller jock had gotten scared. It’s not a huge deal though, after Kirby had calmed down a little, they went and threw rocks into open windows at Harrington House

Of all the kissable boys, i think Trent is hard to beat in terms of accepting his sexuality. Trent is pretty vocal about his bisexuality, and doesnt really give two shits if people are offended by it. This is a kid who really knows himself, and the Trentman never claimed to be a man of the people, he strives to be his true, authentic self as far as the parameters of a high school bully in 2006 will allow, and for that i salute him.

[raikantopenis]

Theerapanyakul Foundation Hospital

What would happen if the Theerapanyakuls were a dynasty of doctors instead of criminals? - A silly and self indulgent AU

Korn: cardiac surgeon, transplant specialist. Classic god complex paired with irrealistic expectations for everyone, especially his own children.

Kinn: general surgeon, colorectal surgery specialist. Temperamental, but meticulous. Expects people to read his mind. Fucked (almost) every OR nurse he worked with. He chose a surgical speciality to appease his father, but honestly he would have preferred something less invasive.

Tankhun: Planned to go into cardiac surgery, but avoids contact with patients after a traumatic experience. Works in theoretic medicine. Has unlimited research funds thanks to his family, which he uses to model the pathophysiology of extremely rare diseases in goldfish. There's like a grand total of 5 people around the world who understand his papers. They are actually groundbreaking, just in a very niche area.

Kim: still a singer, gives no fucks.

Vegas: maxillofacial surgeon. Failed to get in medschool on the first try, so he did Dentistry first and then General Medicine. Hardcore. Despite being fucking terrifying, maxillofacial surgery is not as well respected as Kinn's field.

Macau: is not expected to go into medschool. If he had to chose a speciality, he'd like to become an ortho bro.

Porsche: young hotshot paramedic. Thinks he knows better than everyone, and flirts with everything that moves. Very dedicated. Patients love him, doctors hate him. Absolutely no work-life balance.

Chay: is told not to pursue a carreer in healthcare daily by a very tired Porsche Pete: prenatal ICU nurse. Looks and acts adorable. The literal strongest.

Arm: biostatistican of Tankhun. Riddled with the impossible task of turning the weird fish his boss plopped down his desk into coherent data.

Pol: jack of all trades. Has been observed to work in every department, but no one's really sure what his actual role is. (It's committing medical malpractice for Tankhun.)

Big: the only male nurse in the general surgery ward Kinn has not fucked. (Actually, every nurse in the hospital is male, because Kinnporsche) Is vocally planning murder every time he has to register a patient Porsche has brought in, and read the complete bullshit Porsche calls "documentation".

Ken: secretly works shifts at general surgery and maxillofacial surgery as well. Biggest gossip.

Chan: That nurse. Queen of the motherfucking needles. Can create venous access in a geriatric patients with no functioning veins by throwing a canule at him like a darts. His department would probably run smoother if he was in charge and not some stupid doctor.

Tay: anesthesiologist. Highly skilled but prefers to work behind the scenes. Spends most of his day solving crossword puzzles and reading fashion magazines in the OR, while complaining that Kinn takes too long (again), and he'll have to work overtime (again). He is always correct. Saved Kinn's ass multiple times. 

Time: OBGYN. Chronically late. Dismissive attitude. Not only did he fuck every nurse, intern and assistant, he fucked some husbands of his patients as well.

Nampheung: dermatologist. Does not age.

Gun: Failed to get into medschool.

[questionableratatouille00]

Wԋαƚ Iϝ Iƚ’ʂ Uʂ?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x GN!Reader

Summary: After an incident involving the Quantum Realm brings forth the Zombie Apocalypse, you are forced to comprise a team of survivors to reach Wakanda, the only human sanctuary left. But is the apocalypse really a great time to develop feelings for a Super Soldier?

Warnings: Themes of death, hurt/comfort, angst. Side/main character death?? (Not Bucky or Reader) Fire, violence. Let me know if I need to tag anything else!

Note: This very loosely follows the relative idea of the What If..? episode. Thank you to @buckylattes for sending me this idea!

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

“This is day forty-nine since the apocalypse started. And Bucky and I may be the last survivors in the United States.”

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

The sound of the leaves crunching under your feet filled the warm and crisp air as you trudged through the forest. Occasionally, a gentle breeze would blow through the air, which felt quite nice in comparison to the autumn warmth.

"So..Steve and Tony got in some kind of fight?" Bruce stuttered out, breaking the silence.

"Yep." You confirmed.

"And..the Avengers broke up? Like One Direction?"

"Yep."

“And then got back together?”

“Uh-huh.”

"And there are zombies now?"

"Seems like it." You sighed.

“And the Avengers are zombies, too?”

“Dr. Banner.” Okoye chided.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just—y’know, it’s—“

“Weird?” Peter Parker guessed, smiling softly. “Yeah. We know.”

You frowned at the kid’s statement. You, Bucky, and Peter were the only Avengers on Earth to not be affected. Or at least, to your knowledge.

“Go find the kid. We’re..we’re gonna need all the help we can get.” Tony had mumbled to you. Steve nodded, pursing his lips. 

“I’ll call Kate and Yelena,” Clint said, looking at Natasha. Wanda grasped Vision’s hand, looking up at him anxiously.

“Anyone know how to get in touch with Thor?” Steve looked up from his feet, arms crossed.

“That’s a negative, Captain Rogers.” Vision’s voice was smooth and neutral. “Mr. Odinson does not have a communication device to contact us.”

You gave Bucky’s right shoulder a friendly and comforting squeeze before you walked out of the room. You knew Peter’s address, you’d visited his apartment before with Tony. 

Before you knew it, Earth was basically gone. That was over a month ago. You’d quickly found fellow survivors and made somewhat of a team with them. Peter, Bucky, Okoye, some guy named Kurt, Sharon Carter, you, and John Walker. And now, Bruce Banner.

“We need to find a base,” Bucky said, just loud enough to be heard.

“Sergeant Barnes is correct.” Okoye agreed. “Nightfall is approaching.”

“Pete, where’s that camera thingy you recorded your video on?” You asked, looking back at him. He’d made a little movie on how to survive the apocalypse soon after you’d saved him from the hoard of zombies outside of his apartment. It was a cute video, though the circumstances weren’t exactly great, or even good. It would’ve made a good school project, though.

Part of it was about hygiene, and Bucky starred in that section, albeit unwillingly. Bucky hadn’t said anything, but you could see the discomfort on his face when Peter showed you all the finished product. Bucky had been in the shower, rotated in a way where you luckily couldn’t see anything. He’d been ambushed by Peter and Kurt, the latter being lifted off the ground by his own neck, which had Bucky’s metal fingers wrapped around it. In private, Bucky had hinted that he was uncomfortable with the clip, and you’d gone to talk to Peter about it without saying anything.

You’d explained to him that ambushing anybody, but especially a Super Soldier—particularly a traumatized one who also happened to be a veteran—in the shower was not cool. Peter had apologized profusely, going back and removing the clip. You’d asked him not to say anything to Bucky, knowing that Bucky wouldn’t have wanted attention to be brought to it.

You could tell by the way Bucky’s eyes flicked to you when Peter showed the clip to Bruce that he’d noticed.

“Oh—uh—here.” He said, pulling the small camera from a pocket before tossing it to you. You caught it with ease. The apocalypse was no place for a lack of hand-eye coordination. You tucked it in the front pocket of your backpack.

“Won’t that thing run out of battery?” Bruce questioned, and you chuckled. “No. Peter and Stark made it a while back. It runs on an extremely tiny arc reactor. I’ve been keeping logs of every day—sometimes twice a day—since two days after the apocalypse started. So..yeah.” Sometimes others would make them, but none were as detailed or formal as yours.

“Jesus Christ," Bruce mumbled out. "Oh. I just realized--I haven't properly met most of you. I'm Bruce." He stuttered, picking at his fingernails.

"John Walker, Captain America." The annoying blonde spoke up. You were surprised he hadn't already shoved that fact down Bruce's throat yet. Normally, he wouldn't shut his mouth.

"I'm sorry--what?" Bruce looked at you, brows furrowed, wanting to see if you were agreeing or not.

"Turns out the government really doesn't like their favorite child going against 117 countries. So they gave the title--and a non-vibranium dupe of the shield--to this asshole." You explained, rolling your eyes.

"Right.." Bruce processed. John looked like he was going to say something, before Bucky shot him a glare, silencing him.

"I'm Sharon Carter. Former SHIELD agent." Sharon introduced herself, and Bruce smiled at her. Peter, Okoye, Kurt, and even Bucky introduced themselves, but you mainly focused on choosing where to go.

For some reason, you ended up being the 'leader' of the group. Maybe it was because you found everybody, maybe it was because you were the one who'd been an official Avenger the longest.

"Where are we going?" Bruce questioned. He'd followed you and the rest of the group into the woods.

"Well, the end goal is Wakanda. Right now, we're somewhere in New York. Phones don't work, and we come across maps every so often. Unfortunately, it's not like people posted map-selling stands in the middle of forests. Public spaces aren't the best places to be anymore." You spun around to look at everyone, walking backward.

"Wakanda may be the last human sanctuary on Earth." Okoye filled him in. "Our force fields would prevent the..undead from ever reaching our people."

"You sure did pick an odd time to visit the States," Bruce noted.

"I swore an oath. My king disappeared along with the Avengers." She replied.

"Right." Bruce exhaled.

"There should be an old Avengers safehouse up ahead. We stayed there after that one mission in February last year." You nudged Bucky with your shoulder as he caught up to you. He nodded slightly, chewing on his bottom lip.

"You okay?" You lowered your voice, trying to at least make the conversation slightly private. He glanced at you, before giving you the smallest of shrugs.

"Come on, it should only be a little farther." You called over your shoulder, beginning to pick up the pace. The sun was going to set soon, and night was not a time to potentially fight zombies.

You breathed out a sigh of relief when you could finally see the safehouse in the distance. It was a cabin in the middle of the woods, which made it a great place to stay in an apocalypse, at least for a little while.

"There's two bedrooms, two bathrooms." You announced. You put the code into the tiny pad by the door, before stepping inside.

You let out a sigh as you set your backpack on the floor against the couch. Everyone else followed suit, John and Peter sitting on opposite ends of the old couch.

Deciding to raid the pantry and see what you had, you rubbed your hands on your face. You'd risked it and went to a grocery store a few days ago, all of you filling your bags with as many non-perishable food items as you could.

"Okay, there's peanut butter, canned corn, some dried fruit, rice, bottled water, some trail mix packs, and canned..pineapple." You listed off. "And then whatever we're carrying."

"You wanna go through it all?" Sharon asked, and you shrugged. "Not really. I'm fucking exhausted." You held your forehead in your hand, closing your eyes.

"I can do it if you want." She offered, and you nodded. "Okay. Thanks, Sharon. I'm going to shower." You told her, opening your eyes and lifting your head up.

"You should take one of the beds. No offense, but you look like you need it." She smiles slightly, and you groan. "Wow, thanks. And I'll be fine. One of you should take it."

"Y/n, take the damn bed. Share if you want. But you're sleeping in a bed tonight." She decides, and you're too tired to argue with her. You accept your defeat and sigh. "Fine."

"Wonderful. You and Bucky can share that room. Okoye and I will take the other one, and Peter can take the couch. Kurt, Bruce, and Walker will be fine on the carpet." She assured.

“How’s your leg?” She’d injured herself yesterday, falling from the roof of a one-story building.

“Hurts like a bitch, but I’ll be fine. And don’t try and distract me. Go shower.” She smiled at the end. It reminded you of Natasha, in a way. You missed Natasha dearly.

"Okay." You agreed finally, taking out any food you had in your bag before taking it to the bathroom with you. You had a few outfits, just enough for maybe three or four days, and then a pair of shorts and a tank top to sleep in. You could stretch that to a week and a half if you felt clean enough to not wash your clothes.

You showered quickly before getting dressed in your shorts and tank top, walking into a bedroom.

Bucky sat on the bed, messing with his dog tags. His hair was wet.

“How was your shower?” You attempted to strike up a conversation. He shrugged in response, clearly tired.

“Did Sharon finish seeing what food we have?”

“Yeah.” He bit his lip, looking down at his hands. “Do you think he’s alive?”

You nearly asked who ‘he’ was, but after a second you figured it out. “I..don’t know, Bucky. But Steve’s strong. You and I both know that.”

He nodded, but it was clear that he wasn’t convinced. You pulled back the covers of the bed, before laying down.

“C’mere.” You said, the only light in the room was the tiny lamp that barely worked. You made room for him in your arms. Though you and Bucky weren’t anything more than friends, you’d gotten used to sleeping like this. It helped a little, in more ways than one. It helped him with his nightmares, and it helped with your anxiety.

He rested his head against your chest, draping his right arm over you.

The two of you fell asleep like that, comfortable in each other’s embrace.

Until Bucky started mumbling something, waking you up. “What the hell..” You grumbled before you realized what was happening. Right before he started screaming himself awake, you shook him.

His eyes flew open and he gasped, gripping your shoulders tightly. You waited for him to realize that he was safe and that the ‘danger’ was gone. His eyes began to water, though he tried to blink away the tears.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay. You’re safe. Promise.” You reassured him. He let himself calm down, exhaling slowly.

“Good job. Do you..want to talk about it?”

He looked at you, unsure. “Not much to talk about.”

“I’ll always listen. You know that.”

“I wasn’t there for him.” He confessed, eyes watering again. “Steve. I didn’t..I couldn’t..” He reached for his face, wiping at his eyes.

“Bucky, none of that was your fault. None of this is your fault at all. You didn’t start the fucking apocalypse.” You began to rub soothing circles into his back.

“All I had to do was shoot.” He made eye contact with you. Your heart burned at the sight of his pink nose and teary eyes.

You didn’t really know what to say. In theory, you could say the perfect thing that comforts him immediately. But the truth is that whenever you’re actually in a situation like that, all of that stuff goes right out the window.

“Close your eyes. Okay? I know this stuff hurts, but you really do need rest.” Your mind went back to Natasha.

He nodded finally, closing his eyes. You did the same.

It was the smell of burning wood that woke you up.

You blinked yourself awake, eyes stinging from the smoke. You gasped, choking on air as you took in your surroundings. The room was on fire. You shook Bucky awake, and he took a second to register what was happening.

“Shit!” He exclaimed, kicking the blankets off the two of you.

Without thinking, he busted down the bedroom door, revealing the slightly less burning living room. Peter’s face was the first one you saw, and you raced to him. “We have to get out of here!” You screamed over the sound of rooms collapsing.

“There’s hordes of them out there!” He shouted back, clutching your arms.

“The Spider-Child is right!” Okoye called to you as she threw Sharon’s arm over her shoulder, supporting the blonde’s weight.

“Well, would you rather try and get out of here or would you like to burn to death?” John cut in. “I would rather not burn!” Kurt pointed out, and Bruce nodded beside him.

“Okay. Okay. Come on, we’re gonna bust through the side door. Are they surrounding the house?” You began to plan, though you were panicking on the inside.

“I don’t know. I only saw them from the front door.” Sharon wheezed.

“I hate those odds and I don’t think our chances are even decent, but there’s no other option. When I say go, race through that door!” You directed. Checking to make sure everybody was accounted for, you gave yourself a final nod of encouragement. John was able to get Sharon onto his back.

“Go!” You shrieked, making sure that you were the last one to bolt out.

“I see them!” Peter screamed.

“Doesn’t matter! Keep going!” Bucky commanded, but they were only getting closer.

The sound of something crashing against the forest floor made you gasp.

“They can knock trees over?!” Peter kept glancing over his shoulder.

“They are getting a bit close!” Kurt yelled out. You looked over your shoulder, seeing John struggling to run with Sharon on his back. You stopped, and when Bucky began to slow down to see why, you put your hand on his back, guiding him forward. “Go.” You told him, as you went to help John.

“You can’t carry me and I can’t run,” Sharon said darkly. “John, put me down.”

The crowds of zombies chasing you were only catching up.

“Sharon, we’re not leaving you.” Your voice raised in pitch, anxiety settling in.

“Sharon.” John panted. “Come on, we gotta keep going.” He tried to stabilize her, to keep her still against his back, but she managed to break his hold on her.

“Sharon—stop! Stop, Sharon, please!” You begged, your eyes watering up.

“I can’t lose another friend. Come on, don’t be like this.” John grabbed her wrist, but she pulled away.

“Take them all to Wakanda for me, okay?” She asked, giving you a soft smile.

“Sharon!” You cried out as John gripped your wrist, keeping you from chasing after her as she staggered into the horde of undead.

“We could’ve..that—she didn’t have to—“ You gasped, beginning to hyperventilate. “Yeah, I know, but we have to keep going.” John’s hand remained wrapped around your wrist. It felt too tight. It hurt.

“Let go of me.” You said as you sprinted with him.

“There’s only more of them!” Bruce stressed, and you wondered how he didn’t get whiplash from looking around between you all so fast.

“Go right!” Bucky took charge, and everyone obeyed. You kept pace with Bucky, knowing that he was running slower on purpose. The serum enhances his speed, so there was no reason he couldn’t have just bolted and gotten to safety. You admired his loyalty.

Everyone—minus you and Bucky—made it away from the main group of zombies before a large tree fell. It was burning. The only thing that you’d noticed was burning was the house.

“Zombie enhanced. Not good!” Bruce shouted.

“What do we do?” Peter tried to find a solution. You took a deep breath.

“Run!”

“What?” John, Okoye, Bruce, and Kurt all looked back at you and Bucky.

“We’ll find another way! We’ll find you!” Bucky agreed.

Peter shook his head, mouth opened slightly like he was about to protest. You hoped that this didn’t fuck him up too bad. He already had enough trauma.

“Come on!” Okoye filled in the role of ‘leader’. She was a general, after all. She was born for this.

You turned to Bucky, grabbing his arm and trying to find a way around the zombies. “Move! Move! Move!” Your voice went higher in pitch every time you said it. You wove through clusters of them, though you were still in your pajamas.

You ran through the woods, but it was still dark out. The moon was the only thing keeping you from not being able to see anything at all, and you were thankful.

“How fast can they go?” You shrieked as they began to pick up the pace.

“Y/n, go! I’ll hold them off!” Bucky began to slow down.

“What? No!”

“Just go!” He stopped suddenly, and you tumbled to the ground, trying to do the same.

“No! Not without you!” You howled, and he accepted his defeat, racing back towards you and grabbing you as you stood up.

Not without you. I love you.

Bucky and you ran through the dark woods, breathing heavily, palms sweating. You managed to trip over a tree root, pulling Bucky down with you. Just your luck, you managed to trip at the top of a hill, and you rolled down it with Bucky. Dirt and dead leaves crunched under you and scratched at your legs and arms, pine needles getting stuck in your hair and in Bucky’s.

“Fucking hell..” You groaned as you stopped rolling.

“This is not as pleasant as those fall candles said it would be.” Bucky breathed, and you laughed. You’d shown him some fall candles in a store you were raiding, one being Rolling in Leaves.

“Yeah. I agree.” You choked out.

“Come on, we gotta find..” He trailed off.

“They’re long gone, Buck. We’ll..just have to meet them in Wakanda.” You stood, helping him up.

“Don’t ever pull that shit again.” You said after a moment of walking. “What?” Bucky looked at you, not knowing what you were talking about. “That sacrifice bullshit.” You clarified. “Never fucking again.”

“Okay.” He said blankly.

“Promise me.”

“I promise.” He made direct eye contact with you as he said it.

“Good. We should find somewhere to stay for the night. I’m exhausted.”

The two of you walked for maybe an hour more or so before Bucky pointed something out in the distance. “There. Those are caves.”

You looked where he was pointing, and sure enough, they were caves.

Another hour later and you’d been able to sort through the bags and see what you had. Bucky had been smart and saved the bags from the fire.

“Why do you care? About..my life?” He broke the silence.

“Why would I not?” He shrugged in response. “Because you’re one of the only people I have left. And..I care about you, Bucky. A hell of a lot.”

“I care about you too.” He breathed, and it was clear he meant it. His gaze drifted down, towards your lips. He cleared his throat awkwardly, eyes shifting elsewhere.

“Bucky—“

“Kiss me.”

“I—what?”

“I want you..to kiss me.” The former Winter Soldier, one of the few Super Soldiers on the planet, wanted to kiss you. And who were you to say no? You felt the same way.

You leaned it at the same time, your lips against his, both of your hearts beating faster than they ever have before.

The kiss ended when you pressed your forehead to his. Bucky’s fingers tangled with yours, your knees pressed against his.

“If I have to be with anyone in this situation, I’m glad it’s you.” You whispered.

“Me too.”

“Wait a second. Can you check the front pocket of my bag and see if the little camera thing is in there?” You asked him, and he nodded, reaching over to open the front pocket of your backpack. He handed you the small device. Maybe it was weird to end a moment like that with asking for a camera, but you needed to be sure.

“Think it survived the fall?” He questioned.

“Let’s find out. If it does, maybe we can use the parts to make some kind of communication device. Maybe we can contact someone in Wakanda with it.” You pressed record. A small little light came on off the side of the camera, and you grinned. “It works.”

Now that you were recording, you realized that you might as well film your log.

“The safe house burned down. We got split up from the group. Sharon..Sharon’s gone.” You said grimly. “We have no contact with the rest of the group, and no way of knowing if they’re alive or not.” You spoke to the camera, eyes never really staying focused on one thing for more than a minute.

“This is day..forty-nine?” You glanced at Bucky, who was nodding. “Forty-nine. Day forty-nine since the apocalypse started. And Bucky and I may be the last survivors in the United States.”

[elapsed-spiral]

Pre-season 2 OFMD fic list

It's less than two weeks till we get our ships wrecked, so here's my (presumably) final pre-season 2 fic list. Have a read if you wanna pass the improbably long days before the season premieres!

This list got out of control so I added some handy symbols: 🎧 = podfic available 💜 = personal favourite ⭐ = fics you may have heard about? I don’t know, I don’t have a sense for this stuff.

Cool collaboration(s) you should read immediately:

🎧💜Work Experience: what if Ed went to meet Stede when the Revenge ran aground? And what if Ed became a member of Stede’s crew? And what if things kept escalating and… Canon AU. Mature. Co-written with Shearwater.

Really no excuse for how stupid these ones are:

Watch Out, Here I Come: what if Stede had been intentionally seducing Ed? Teen

Once More, With Feeling: what if Frenchie just fixed the season 1 finale fiasco because he’s the most capable guy on the ship? Teen

Talent Show: what if Ed was crass about his sexual preferences? Explicit

Capsize on Your Thighs: what if Ed rebounded onto Calico Jack at the end of season 1? Ed/CJ and Ed/Stede (but Ed/Stede is endgame, natch). Explicit

🎧💜Your Feedback is Important to Us: what if Stede started holding open cabin hours to allow the crew to air their grievances (but was also very repressed and horny over Ed)? Explicit

Oh no Ed’s working through gender/class stuff (but make it funny):

Finery: Ed gets to wear a dress, Stede spontaneously combusts. Explicit

Tell More Tales: Stede isn’t the only writer aboard the Revenge. Explicit

🎧💜Lovers and Madmen: Ed is hellbent on marrying Stede. Explici

🎧 Save the Date: Ed 'attends' a wedding. Unfortunately, so does Stede. Short S2 alternative reunion fic. Teen

AUs no-one asked for:

Novel/novella length

🎧💜Restructuring: modern AU where Stede loses his fortune before meeting Ed, but Ed’s still got more money than you can shake a fucking stick at. Only problem is, Stede lies and says he’s wealthy and Ed lies and says he isn’t. Like the show, it’s a romcom about trauma. Explicit

🎧💜⭐Baddy Zaddy: Bridget Jones’s Diary style, former porn star turned sex shop owner!Ed/still unfortunately landed gentry!Stede. Novel length modern AU. Explicit

💜⭐Prize Every Time: You’ve Got Mail-y secret pen pals but also business rivals. Novel length modern AU. Explicit

Conflict of Interest: lawyer!Stede/businessman!Ed (read: gangster). Modern AU. Explicit

Shorter uns

Intergalactic Tango: Space Waltz AU. Mature

🎧💜Trade Descriptions Act: bailiff!Ed/estate agent!Stede. Identity theft but make it meet cute. Modern AU. Teen

Your Favourite Song: locksmith!Ed/museum curator!Stede. Kinktober fill that somehow isn’t E rated. Modern AU. Teen

⭐Draft Letter to Restaurant Downstairs: Google Docs AU with a (slightly) interactive element. Modern SMAU. Teen

Blind Date: Stede and Jeffrey Fettering go on a blind date at Ed’s restaurant. I think you know where this is going. Modern AU. Explicit

Different Dimension: ficlet that crams four and a bit AUs into 850 words. Modern AU. Teen

Stuck Still: British holiday resort AU feat. events manager!Stede and bartender turned fairy!Ed (it makes sense in the story I swear). Modern AU. Explicit

💜On the Job: “kidnapping” meet cute (but not actually. Again, I swear it makes sense in the story I swear). Modern AU. Explicit

Starring Jason Statham: another weird meet cute, courtesy of Jack and the Fast and Furious franchise. Stede/Jack, Ed/Jack and Ed/Stede (Ed/Stede is once again end game). Modern AU. Teen

West Ham Is for Lovers: Lucius has a new job. It’s going fine. Completely, totally fine. A meet cute fic about meet cutes. Ed/Stede but also Lucius/Pete, Lucius/Fang, Lucius/Izzy and Lucius/Olu/Jim. Modern AU. Teen

💜Conventional: back in the 00s, Ed was in a very famous movie franchise. Nowadays, he does the convention circuit. Modern AU. Explicit

🎧💜Proud: Ed attends Pride to get free mum hugs, Stede attends Pride to give free dad hugs. Modern AU. Teen

KrakenAir: Stede and the crew are heading to Benidorm to celebrate Stede coming out. That is, if Stede’s all expenses spared KrakenAir flight ever departs. Modern SMAU. Teen

Very Poor, Becoming Good: aspiring Gentleman Backpacker Stede Bonnet is adventure bound when he meets fellow traveller Ed Teach at an empty hostel. Now if they could just find the owner… Modern AU. Explicit

💜Stolen by the Gentleman Thief: Ed is a lonely gay guy in his late forties whose favourite book is historical softcore porn. Luckily, there’s a weird meet cute about to happen. Modern AU. Explicit

Live Sex Show: Columnist Ed Teach recommends that Stede Bonnet shake up his monotonous life by doing something weird. Modern AU. Teen

💜Continue Making Progress: Kraken Driving School has a terrible new student. Luckily, Ed and Stede both have a lot to offer one another. Modern AU. Explicit

Oh no there’s been a containment breach (aka non-Blackbonnet fics):

💜We Do What We Like (and We Like What We Do): a brief history of Ed and Jack. Explicit (Ed/CJ)

Fealty: Stede and Izzy make one another even more miserable. Mature (Stede/Izzy)

💜Contra Proferentem: Ed is a high powered lawyer and Professor of Law at the University of Cambridge. Lucius is not a high powered lawyer but he is a lecturer of English Lit at the University of Cambridge. Stede own a very nice cafe. Explicit (platonic Ed/Lucius, Ed/Stede, no cheating involved)

[deathofacupid]

advice from one who can't take their own | peter parker

summary: you're rather good at giving out love advice, just not as good at taking it.

peter had been so weird lately. as if he was hiding something from her, one big secret. no, not spiderman. y/n already knew that. it's not like she'd walked into him wearing boxers and  holding his suit.

good times.

this was different and she could tell. but y/n had a plan. a well-ish formulated plan. they had study sessions every week, always on wednesdays, the same day she would find out what that cheeky bastard was hiding.

y/n stuffed her bag with her school notebooks, and dumping whatever else was in her locker in there. zipping it up, she saw peter in the corner of her eye and walked over to him, picking her words out carefully.

"hi, pete. we're still up for today at yours, right? you, mj, ned, and i?"

he turned around to face you rather quickly, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water as he searched for words. it was like he'd forgotten all the english he'd spent 17 years of his life learning.

"um, uh, yes, yeah. totally up. like, so freaking up. i-in the sky and... mhm," he cringed so hard at his word choice and she furrowed her brows together.

this was the weird she had been talking about.

"...okay. you good? you seem kinda, uh... never mind. see you then." she hadn't even bothered to further address it, turning on her heels and leaving the school. oh, well. y/n would figure it out in about 2 hours and 12 minutes exactly. (she was rather looking forward to finding out.)

peter let out a breath he hadn't known he was even holding as he slammed his locker shut and rested his forehead against it. why was he so terrible at this? why hadn't she caught on yet? wasn't he being so blatantly obvious about it?

mj and ned had figured it out fast. ned, for god sakes could put two and two together, so why couldn't y/n? it was save him so much time. and embarrassment. so much embarrassment. peter groaned in frustration as he headed back to his place, walking excruciatingly slowly on purpose. 

maybe he could come up with some last minute excuse for spider-man or something. peter knew she'd understand.

no, he told himself, i'm not chickening out. it's cool. i'm cool. ice cool.

he could be chill about this, he had to. after all, it's not like their friendship was riding on this.

when he got home, he barely mumbled a "hi" to aunt may and went to go sulk in his room. this boy was so sure that she didn't like him back, but sooner or later, y/n would find out, and he'd rather it be from him than anyone else.

if he could be spider-man, swinging around the city in a skintight suit, why couldn't he confess to his school-boy crush.

except it wasn't a crush.

he was in love, and at least he could admit that to himself.

peter trudged over to his desking, deciding he could use a distraction. he pulled out his notebook, only used for blueprints and other spidermanly stuff, and started on a new web cartridge design. only gods know how long he sat there for, and whether or not his butt was sore by then.

"hey."

peter yelped, snapping his neck towards the door, pausing momentarily as he got a weird sense of deja-vu.

just ned.

"dude, what are you doing here already," he glanced at the time, "you know we've got practically an hour, right?"

"12 minutes," peter's eyes widened, as he didn't realize that much time had passed. "but technicalities aside, i didn't really have anything better to do, so i thought 'might as well live up to the title of guy in the chair.' also, why'd you shriek like that? don't you have your peter tingle, or whatever?"

"what? what do you mean, shriek? i don't shriek!"

"that was a shriek. very high-pitched, bro. i don't think my cousin could even hit that note... and she's a 9 year-old girl," ned snickered.

"okay, well," scoffed peter, very offended by ned's claim, "my yell was manly. and second, it's not. my. peter. tingle! spidey-senses, man! i can't have peter tingle catching on! it's not badass!"

"but leprechauning around the city in tights is?" mj asked.

"jeezus, mj. just say hello like a normal person," peter sighed.

"how come you didn't shriek when she walked in?" ned narrowed his eyes at the brunet.

"because i knew she was there!"

"wait, peter shieks?" mj piped in.

"yes, i- i mean, no! not the point! it's cause my senses only detect threats, moron!"

"so i'm a threat, now?" she rose an eyebrow.

"well... you can be scary," the wallcrawler admitted.

ned insisted, "i can be scary, too!"

"...sure," mj shrugged. "look, you're one of my best friends and all peter, but watching you dance around y/n is getting boring. just ask her out already," he practically got whiplash from that subject change.

"no!"

"why?"

"because i- i can't!"

"but you like her? and she likes you back?"

"who likes who?" the h/c colored hair girl asked, just walking in.

"uh," peter hesitated, if he said his own name then she would think he wasn't interested. so that left but one option.

"ned does! like someone, i mean," peter stammered out.

"oh. you do? does she know? wait, wait, who is it?"

"yeah, peter, who is it?" ned hissed.

mj snickered, getting ready to watch the chaos unravel.

"he doesn't wanna tell, e-embarrassed, i guess. and he hasn't told her yet... because... he's afraid she'll reject him," peter replied.

"aw, ned," y/n reassured him.

"yeah, and he really, really likes this girl. he loves her, honestly. it- it's like, um, now that he's met her, he knows where he belongs, 'cause she's a part of him. when i- he sees her, it's as if space and time became the finest point imaginable, as if time collapsed into one tiny speck and exploded at light speed.

"it's as if his universe begins and ends with her. he could run forever, search forever, but in the end, every path leads right back to her. it's like she lights up everything, j-just wherever she goes. like, she's beauty. she's happiness. she's love. all these wonderful emotions curdled up into this ball inside of him, waiting to burst, because- because he loves her," he finished, bright red and out of breath.

maybe he could be a poet, if nothing else.

y/n was bewildered. and so confused. he had this look in his eyes, unlike anything she'd seen before. like he really wanted something, urging to get it. there was purity in his eyes, a wholesomeness that makes her shiver with emotion. it felt like he was talking to her in that moment. like no one else existed.

just them. in their own walls, constricted and laced with contentment and something else.

"well," she said quietly, getting over her shock, "if he can repeat those words to his mystery girl, then he's got this in the bag."

"but what if i- he messes up? and their friendship gets ruined?"

"it's worth it. he deserves to tell her that, and she deserves to hear it. and if she doesn't feel the same, don't bother. she isn't the one."

they were so close together, inches away from their lips meeting, so lost in each other, they didn't notice mj drag ned out by his ear.

"and if i was the one who said that to you? would i- would i have this in the bag?"

y/n nodded slowly, gathering her newfound courage to kiss him.

so she did.

it was everything. all her pent up emotion flooded out of her, pushing into the kiss. it felt like they fit. a click. as if they were each other's last puzzle pieces, the satisfaction of it rustling in.

"i take it you weren't talking about ned?" she asked softly.

"no," peter chuckled. "you know, you give pretty good advice. even if you can't take your own."

and he kissed her again.

it was even better this time.

[bow-of-aros]

Nitrogen, Erbium, Deuterium

Summary:

Richie's had a very long day, and he just wants to go home and relax with the little family he's created. Too bad Paul and Ted are competitive about the WORST things.

This story was prompted by my lovely ☁️ anon on and it grew bigger than I thought it would. I've grown very very attached to this little family they're so important to me. Rip Richie and Peter for real though, I really put them through the younger-sibling ringer. Hope that you guys enjoy!! <33

It’s been a long day. Richie had to stay late after school to work on his chemistry project, something that he really didn’t care about but was worth an upsetting amount of his grade. He’s not totally sure how he got roped into AP chem, just that Pete wanted to take it but he didn’t want to take it alone and Ruth has a longstanding feud with chemistry in any form.

Anyway, Peter had gotten his work done in advance like a smart person, and he’d invited Richie to come over and hang out after he finished up with his project, so he was now on his way to the Spankoffski house. Not like it was much of a house, more like a very cramped apartment space that miraculously housed the most cluttered person Richie’s ever met, and Peter.

It’s weird if he thinks about it too long. Richie and Peter had become friends years ago, and Peter’s always been a little reserved. Sure, he was a total genius and was probably going to win some Nobel prize in the future, but he couldn’t talk to anyone outside of Richie and Ruth to save his life.

And he was related to Ted Spankoffski?!

Richie’s been hearing stories about him ever since he started living with his uncle Paul. It started off as his annoying co-worker, always bothering him about trips to Beanie’s or making inappropriate comments towards every girl they worked with. Then it gradually shifted into his co-worker Ted who actually wasn’t that bad after getting to know him, even though he’s still loud and obnoxious and annoying.

Then, one day Peter brought up this guy Paul that his brother just won’t shut the fuck up about and Richie lost his shit. Sure, he’d known that Pete had an older brother, and distantly he probably remembered that his name was Ted, but connecting his geeky best friend who would rather study for a test than go out to a movie to the well-known ‘town sleazeball’ hadn’t even occurred to him.

That had changed the first time he saw them in a room together.

First off, the resemblance was uncanny. Cut Pete’s hair and stick a fake mustache on him and they could basically be the same person. Richie finally learned where the cutting snark that seemed to appear out of nowhere came from, watching those two have a conversation was one of the most entertaining and also confusing things he’d ever witnessed in his life.

Peter relaxed around Ted in a way that Richie rarely ever saw. He was always tense for one reason or another but, for some reason, one half-compliment and a ruffle to his hair from Ted was all it took for him to finally take a break.

Richie had been jealous when he first saw them. Despite being over a decade apart in age they were brothers, they messed with each other and constantly complained about something the other had done, but they so clearly cared about each other. Ted had known that Peter was trans even before Richie and, when his parents hadn’t taken it well, Ted immediately took his little brother in.

He’s never seen two people so completely different and yet so obviously related in his entire life.

All this is to say, when Richie pushed the door open to shrieking laughter, he wasn’t exactly surprised. He left his shoes by the front door and dropped his bag somewhere, making a mental note to move it somewhere else later as he peeked into the living room.

Ted’s got Peter half-pinned to the couch, rolling his eyes as Peter denies something or other, “Plehehehease Ted! I dihihihidn’t tell him I swear!”

Richie can’t exactly see what’s going on but, if he had to guess, he’d say that Ted was clawing at Pete’s ribs by how red his face is.

Of course, that’s when Pete catches his eye, “Richie! Rihihihichie help mehehehe!”

Before Richie can back away and spend the next however long staying out of this most recent argument, Ted’s head snaps around and his grin widens when his gaze lands on Richie.

“Hey, kid!” He calls, “Come here, maybe you can help us sort this out!”

And Richie really doesn’t like how he says that, so he says, “Uh, I’m good, actually! I think I’m gonna go get some water or something.”

Ted just scoffs at him, “PAUL!” Oh great, apparently his uncle’s here too.

From a couple of rooms over Richie hears a “You don’t have to yell, Ted! What do you need?”

“Tell your punk-ass nephew to get in here and help me out!”

Ted doesn’t even finish his sentence before Paul’s standing at Richie’s side, staring at Pete’s predicament with an amused look on his face. Peter just looks like he’s grateful for the break and starts carefully trying to slide out from under his brother.

When Peter sees that Paul’s made an appearance, he immediately starts calling out to him, “Paul! Paul tell Ted that I didn’t tell you that his favourite movie is Love, Actually!”

Richie can’t help letting out a snort at that because really? And then the more he thinks about it the more it actually kinda makes sense.

Ted points a threatening finger at him before turning to Paul, “Well?”

Silence grows as Paul contemplates. Pete’s looking at him pleadingly, meanwhile, Ted’s just staring at him with this dopey-ass look because they’re in love or some shit.

Look, just because Peter and Richie had been conspiring to get Ted and Paul together for the past few months and finally succeeded, doesn’t mean that they’re not kind of disgusted when they’re gross about it. Richie almost finds himself missing the time before they got together before immediately regretting it because, no, the pining had been way worse.

“Sorry Pete,” Paul shrugs, bringing Richie back to the present, “You know I don’t like to lie.”

Richie turns to see a mischievous smirk on his uncle’s face as Pete’s frantic nonononono’s fade back into laughter.

“Damn, Uncle Paul,” He whispers, “That was cold.”

His uncle just grins before leaning in to say, “Actually, Pete didn’t tell me. I saw it on Ted’s IMDB page that he doesn’t think I know about. It’s the only one with ten full stars and his comment is that it makes him cry every time he watches it.”

That punches a startled laugh out of Richie because he did not expect Paul of all people to play dirty like that. Richie really likes Ted, he’s like the older brother that he’d always wanted growing up, but seeing Paul come out of his shell a little more each day fills him with a sort of gratefulness that he doesn’t really know how to express.

Just then, Peter shrieks and Ted exclaims, “Shit, Petey! You’re worse than Richie is there!”

Richie’s ears are burning because Ted shoots him a wink while squeezing at Pete’s knees and he’s suddenly very aware that he’s only wearing shorts.

At least Ted’s preoccupied at the moment.

“What?” Paul laughs, slinging an arm around his shoulder, “Not a chance, Spankoffski. Richie basically screams if you so much as look at his knees.”

Richie takes back everything he thought about being grateful. Ted sucks. And Paul sucks.

And Paul’s dragging him into the living room before he can slip away, arguing with Ted all the while.

“Look. I guarantee you that Richie’s worse. I mean, I haven’t even gotten started and he’s already smiling!” Shit, he was really hoping that nobody had noticed that.

Ted pulls Pete off to the side a bit so that Paul can push Richie down on the couch. He’s learned that fighting only makes things worse, so he just exchanges nervous glances with his best friend and hopes that this doesn’t get too out of hand.

“No way! Petey has this little spot on the back of his ribs that—”

“Shut the fuck up, Ted!” Peter frantically interrupts him, but they keep talking like he didn’t even speak.

“Oh, yeah? Well I haven’t even told you about Richie’s elbows, I mean—”

“Uncle Paul!” Oh God, Richie’s dead. He looks over at Pete who seems equally as panicked and corrects himself: They’re both dead.

Ted stares down at Richie incredulously, “Really kid? Your elbows?”

“Hey!” Richie presses his arms tight against his sides, “It’s not like I can help it!”

He just gets a scoff in response, “Whatever you say, Richie.” Then, Ted looks at Paul, a competitive fire sparking in his eyes, “Here, I’ll prove it to you that my dork is way worse than your dork.”

Peter’s eyes go wide at that and he immediately starts shoving at Ted’s hands that are trying to worm their way between his body and the couch. “Ted! Stay away from me you fucking asshole!”

It’s a valiant effort, but Ted manages to wrest his brother’s arms away and start poking around, “Alright, now where was it? It’s gotta be here somewhe—”

“NO! Tehehehed plehehehease!” Richie winces in sympathy as Pete crumbles.

And then he also makes a mental note of where Ted’s attacking for later.

Just in case.

Ted crows in triumph, “Aha! See?” He gestures to the frantic, cackling mess that Peter’s become, “Bet you can’t beat that!”

A chill crawls up Richie’s spine as Paul quirks an eyebrow at Ted before looking down at him. “Feel like helping me out here? You don’t want Ted and Peter to win this one, do you?”

Richie’s already shaking his head before his uncle even finishes his sentence, “Actually, I am so okay with them winning this one! It really isn’t that bad—Uncle Paul you don’t have to do this!” Paul manages to pull Richie’s arm away from his body with an ease that would be embarrassing if he wasn’t distracted.

Like, Richie isn’t weak, he just didn’t think that Paul would be strong.

Something touches down on Richie’s arm and he nearly jumps out of his skin, shrinking back as much as the couch will allow.

“Uncle Paul?” He musters up his most pathetic look, “Come on. Please don’t do this to me.”

Paul looks over at Pete, babbling pleas as he desperately tugs at Ted’s arm, and then at Ted, smiling gleefully at his assumed victory. Then he gives Richie a grin that’s half fond, half pure evil, and says “Sorry kiddo, desperate times call for desperate measures.”

As light as can be, Paul starts tracing imaginary paths down Richie’s arm, drawing nonsensical patterns in the crook of his elbow and Richie is gone. He knows it’s a weird spot, and he’s okay with that! It means that nobody’s going to try anything, and Richie can preserve what little dignity he has left.

But Paul knows, and he’s using it against him, and Richie’s dying.

“Uncle Pahahahahaul! PlehehEHEHEASE! Nonononono nohohohot thehehere! SHIT!” Ted and Paul are talking to each other, probably debating who’s worse out of their two victims, but Richie’s not paying much attention to the words as he does his level best to crawl out of his fucking skin.

He’s pretty sure he knows what Pete’s going through next to him, he knows from personal experience that the fastest way to get his best friend to cave is to latch onto a spot and claw into it. Richie’s only been subjected to a Ted Spankoffski tickle attack a few times, but that man is ruthless. He’s got eighteen years of being a big brother under his belt and is using every last one of them to dig in just enough to make Peter screech and flail, but not enough for it to hurt.

Richie’s currently going through his own version of Hell, the half-coherent begging he manages to get out mingling with Peter’s to the point where he’s not sure who’s saying what.

The Lipschitz household had never been particularly affectionate. His dad would occasionally grab his shoulder roughly to jostle him around in what he probably thought was a manly display of some sort of love, so Richie wasn’t exactly used to touch. Definitely nothing gentle.

So when Paul, endlessly awkward and terrified of doing something that would hurt Richie, lightly ran a hand down Richie’s spine in an attempt to comfort him, he might have let out an embarrassing squeak.

And when Ruth, endlessly touch-starved and constantly needing to fidget, had run her nails across his wrist and lit up with glee at the shriek he let out, he’d essentially been doomed.

So now, in the ultimate culmination of the exploitation of his weakness, Richie’s kicking and screeching at what essentially equates to the feeling of a very small spider crawling down his arm.

Over.

And over.

And over.

“Uncle Pahahahaul! I cahahahan’t!” He’s switched to drawing distracted circles in Richie’s elbow, still arguing with Ted, and Richie honestly might explode if he keeps it up. “MEHEHERCY! I gihihihihihive! Nohohoho mohohohore!”

He can hear echoes of his pleas beside him, and Peter’s whipping out the big guns on this one. “Teheheheheddy! Teddy you wihihihihihin! I’m sohohohorry! Plehehehease!”

As nice as this is, the warm, playful atmosphere that settles into him and whispers family into his ear, not that he’d ever actually admit it, Richie’s grateful when Paul heaves himself up, leaving Richie to collapse into Peter as they both try to recover.

There’s a slight wheeze to his breathing, and Peter has a couple of tears running down his face from laughing so hard, but they both manage to suck in slightly dramatic breaths as their family looks down at them.

“You guys,” Peter gasps, “Are evil.”

Richie nods tiredly in agreement, “Yeah. Holy shit.”

Paul just smiles as Ted leans in to ruffle Peter’s hair, then Richie’s. “Yeah, well. Good news for you two, we’ve declared this a tie. Turns out that both you geeks are stupidly ticklish in weird-ass places. Congrats!”

They flip him twin birds, then quickly stumble over apologies when Ted fakes a lunge towards them.

He settles back next to Paul with a satisfied grin, “It’s nice to know I still got it. Why don’t we let the kids take a nap while we order some dinner? Chinese sound good with you two?”

“Not napping,” Richie mutters, eyes already half-shut, “But I like Chinese.”

“Mhm.” Peter falls down onto his back, pulling Richie down with him.

The last thing Richie feels before he drifts off is a hand smoothing down his hair, and then he falls asleep with a smile on his face and a comforting warmth telling him that, no matter what happens, everything’s going to be just fine with his little makeshift family by his side.

[brightlotusmoon]

Comedian Pete Holmes was a good Christian guy. Then his wife left him, and things got weird. | CNN

You write about your mystical experiences on mushrooms, how they opened your eyes to new spiritual ideas. But did you ever think “OK, this is just a result of the mushrooms?” Like, how pot makes you hungry, but there’s not really any deeper meaning to it.

That’s a great point, and you have to ask that question. Obviously, you go like, what does it say that there’s a chemical that does this? Really, the only important question is, what is the drug doing? LSD or mushrooms plays with your consciousness. People tell me this all the time. They’re like, “I don’t understand. I took mushrooms. And I just saw clowns coming out of my belly button or whatever.”

That sounds terrifying.

Yeah. Depends on their mood that day, I guess. But I was like, it’s not necessarily what you see, it’s what you’re seeing with. So when consciousness is played with, it makes you aware of the play of consciousness. And there’s that great TED talk about the hallucinations we’re having right now that we agree on. The hallucination we agree on is what we call reality.

So what is your conception of God now, as opposed to your evangelical days?

I see God is as awareness. And it’s something that we’re not equal to, but that we’re participating with. And the best chance we have at experiencing it and feeling it is not just having an ecstatic experience. It’s finding your dignified, inherent place in its flow, through using myth, metaphor, ritual, chanting, meditation. We’re trying to wake up not just to a new set of beliefs, but to our place in the river. And there’s all this resistance. And that’s all ego stuff. And there’s all these all these, like, you know, headaches and whatever. And when we’re quiet, and when we quiet that stuff down, and we can feel and identify with our piece of “divine awareness” then that’s when you’ll kind of find your flow.

[redprotons]

First Aid - DoctorRose Bingo

Summary:

Rose ends up hurt on the estate at a time where the Doctor is avoiding her at all costs.

Notes:

warnings: minor description of injury, hint of past turbulent relationship, emotional angst, swearing.

Embarrassed, really. She was embarrassed more than anything. She’d lost count how many planets and people she helped save – not that she ever counted, but still, she knew it was a LOT. She’d faced death hundreds of times, outsmarted aliens; Ice Warriors, Slitheen, the flood. She’d done all that and come out with barely a scratch, and she trips down the stairs… just off of the estate… stairs she’d walked up and down her whole life, and, she was pretty sure,  broken her arm.

God, what a bloody plonker she was, the throbbing pain was well deserved.

For a while she just sat on the steps, staring into space. Part of her thought she was in shock, but shock that she’d been hurt like this, this after everything else that had tried to kill her in the last week alone.

It was her own fault, though.

She’d spotted Jimmy’s mother in Tesco. A wretched woman who she once tried so hard to please, but no matter what she did there was always something wrong. She’d go to sleep crying some nights over dishes stacked the wrong way. And the worst thing was, because Jimmy was Jimmy, she truly believed it was her who was in the wrong – that she was being too sensitive, too much of a bitch, too whiny. Well, she wasn’t such an idiot these days - ha. She strode right up to the hag and gave her a piece of her mind, and maybe, just a little, looking to reassure herself. She launched into how her son was a horrible piece of shit who manipulated women – because she knew she was not the first,  she was just convinced into believing otherwise back then – and bled them dry, and it was no surprise because she was a horrible mother in which her perfect little angel could do no wrong,  and thank God her family got her out before he dragged her down with him.

She was expecting a fight – screams of ‘how dare you talk to me like that!'.

Instead, Laura Stone burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably.

Jimmy was dead, killed way back in the Auton invasion.

Utterly mortified, she fumbled out an apology and left, her cheeks burning, fully accepting, that from now on until she perished,  she’d have to walk a mile out of her way to the Sainsbury's local further down the road.

It felt weird. She wasn’t sad he was dead… or maybe she was. It was all sort of muddled. She was absolutely in love with him at one point in her life after all – would do anything for him. But the fact it was Jimmy was almost insignificant. No, it was more because someone from her past had died. Someone she knew from school had lost their life to the adventures she lived every day. It made it real; the danger. The fact that she could die, that her mum, that this world's Jackie Tyler, could really die. That Mickey might be dead, but now she would never know.

It was more difficult to convince herself it would never happen to the people she cared about, when it already, in a way, had. And she'd not had a clue.

Maybe Jack had died after all, and the Doctor decided to let her live in ignorance.

It scared her, and that horrid niggle in her stomach lingering from Pete's Jackie's death intensified.

Taking a deep breath in, and an even longer breath out, Rose pushed it all down. Scared or not, it didn’t change the fact that her arm hurt… a lot. She would need to see someone about it and, as much as she had figured out, she had three options.

One, find the Doctor. She didn’t have anyway to contact him, but the Tardis wasn’t parked far away. She could call her mum to let her know something came up, and wait in the console room. He'd eventually come back from wherever he’d actually gone to hide from her. With all the advanced medical equipment on the Tardis, a broken bone would basically be first aid. She’d probably be able to go home for dinner, her mum none the wiser.

Two, call her mum to come and get her. They’d go to A&E, and she’d get patched up the old-fashioned way. And it takes so long to be seen, the Doctor would eventually worry something was wrong… she hoped, and call her. She’d lie, she’d stay a few days with her mum, and, with how he was acting at the moment, she doubted he'd notice.

And three, tell neither of them, and go to the Tardis and see if she could work out how to heal her arm herself.

At this present moment in time, she was leaning more towards three. The Doctor was being weird with her lately. Whether it was because of Mickey and Pete world’s Pete, or the whole France incident, she didn’t know, but he'd avoid her one adventure, then not leave her side the next. There was a dread in her gut that told her it was because he was getting ready to give her the chuck. Which she didn’t really want at the moment, and especially now. The Doctor made her feel safe, despite how much of an arse he could be, and with this sudden reality check, she wanted to be somewhere safe right now. But if he saw her hurt, and from such a stupid accident, it might speed up the process. And also, he was so annoyingly curious and bloody nosy, that he’d know the whole Jimmy story by the end of it, and she was, admittedly, ashamed of that chapter in her life… and sometimes,  with this new-new doctor, she wondered if the same thing was happening all over again.

So, then there was her mum. With Mickey, and now Jimmy, she was extra sensitive. She missed home and missed her family and friends. She’d even made a plan to see Shareen while they were here. But her mum was also nosy, and she would question why she didn’t want to go to the Doctor to get sorted, and then she’d have to say, and then her mum would slap the Doctor into a new face,  shout bloody murder at him, and threaten to cut off his crown jewels if he didn’t clean up his act.

Rose smiled despite herself.

The Doctor would never admit it, but he feared Jackie. Yet, more than Jackie, he feared any sort of social uncomfortableness. In his current body especially. He’d run to the Tardis and never come back. She’d have to get a job, and go back to the Rose she was before him. Which, she now realised, wasn’t that far below the surface as she initially thought.

Grimacing, she heaved herself off the step, walking in the direction of the Tardis.

So… three it was.

“Rose?” the Doctor asked, popping his head up through the grating just as she reached the corridor.

Her shoulders slumped, of course he was there – typical.

She plastered on a smile before she turned around. “Yeah?” she asked cheerfully.

His face dropped instantly. “What happened!” he asked, springing out of the gap in the grating and rushing over to her. His eyes were fixed on one side of her cheek, and she realised she must’ve hit her face as she tumbled. With the pain from her arm, she hadn’t noticed.

“It’s nothing.” she said.

 “It doesn’t look like nothing.” he accused.

  Yeah, well, he hadn’t noticed her arm yet. She didn’t say anything.

The Doctor pressed his lips together. There was an argument there, a demand, but he didn’t voice it. “Come on.” he said instead. “Let’s get that healed up.”

Then he took her hand, the broken one. The pain had already been getting worse the closer she got to the Tardis. She guessed it was the shock wearing off. His grip was sharp, and it really, really hurt. She couldn’t hold back the sob.

The Doctor let go instantly. “Rose?” he asked, the concern, and absolute horror that he’d hurt her, clear in his voice.

But the pain was too much. She’d been trying to be brave – be strong with everything she was feeling, but this was her limit. She started crying. He quickly scanned her with the screwdriver. God, she was so embarrassed.

“Okay, Rose, listen to me you’ll be fine. Rose? I’ll fix this, I promise.” She nodded through her tears. “Just stay here, don’t move. I’ll be right back.” he said, before rushing off into the depths of the Tardis.

When he returned, there was a ratty old gym bag slung over his shoulder. He must’ve sprinted the whole way, because he was out of breath, which he rarely was - all the running he did coupled with his ‘superior biology’ he loved to mention… all the time.

He was really worried.

“Okay, this -” he began jovially, unzipping the bag and pulling out a clunky metal tube cast that looked akin to a torture device crossed with a rusty cyberman arm. “- is the best bone healer of the 97th century, will fix you up in a jiffy.” he explained. “Just need to tune it up a bit and run a scan so it heals you nice and proper.” He beamed at her, an invitation – or maybe a plea – for any sort of positive response.

She felt too awful to muster the effort. She just wanted him to heal her up. She nodded.

The smile slid off his face, and he got to work. He was gentle, oh so very gentle, despite the clear tenseness in his shoulders as he worked – the way his jaw was set.

The machine made an ungodly rattling sound when he switched it on. A wave of tiredness crashed over her, while, at the same time, the pain dissipated and lifted her mood.

“Better?” he asked cheerfully.

She yawned and forced out a smile. “Yeah, thanks.” she said, and saw a little of that tension leave him. She knew he was going to ask, so she spoke before he had the chance. “I better get back to mum’s then.” she said. “She’ll be wanting the milk for her tea.”

“Did someone attack you.” he asked darkly, all preambles gone from his voice.

 Her face fell. She hadn’t thought he’d drop the façade so quickly. Unable to meet his eye, she fiddled with her sleeve. “It’s so stupid.” she said. “I tripped down the steps at the back of Spring.”

The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Spring?”

“The block with that little post office.” she clarified.

“Ah.” He studied her for a long moment. “And you tripped?”

“Yeah.” She didn’t look up.

“Rose.” From the tone of his voice it was obvious he didn’t believe her.

“It’s true!” she protested. “That’s why I didn’t say because it’s so bloody embarrassing – alright!” she snapped back at him.

He gaped stupidly for the second it took him to work everything out. Why was he so smart?

“It was that loose pave-stone, wasn’t it? That one you yourself warned me about. You’re always careful on those steps since you cut your knee open when you were a child – that’s what you said.” He was mad now. “Something happened. What was it? And more importantly, why’d you try and sneak off by yourself and not tell me.”

“I don’t have to tell you everything.” she bit back on the defensive. “You never do.”

He gaped at her, thrown that she’d brought such a topic up. Admittedly, she was a little startled herself. The conversation stopped and the hum of the Tardis filled the space. But the Doctor had to know. “Did someone push you? And you might as well tell me now, because you’ll know I’ll find out.”

Her fury bubbled over. He was threatening her like she was a Dalek, or a Cybermen or something. “Oh so you care again now? Make up your mind!”

The Doctor’s brows furrowed, then morphed into outrage. “Of course I care! Why would you ever think otherwise!”

She was the one baffled now – surely he couldn’t be that unaware of himself. “Oh, wow." she scoffed, remembering who she was talking to. "Okay, what about Sarah-Jane, you said you wouldn’t leave me, and then we end up on a spaceship where you leave me and Mickey to go… ‘dance’ with some French queen, without having anyway to get back? What about that time in after Rome – I mean we actually kissed, and then on Plass-6 you put me on a different team to you for a whole week, and worse with that arsehole robot Mars-65? And what about now!? You spent the whole time we were on Pete’s world with me, and now were here you’ve been hiding away on the Tardis for days… or wherever you’re lying about being!” she yelled.

 Her breaths came out harsh while he just stood. She hadn’t planned on it all coming out, but it’d been building for so long, and she was so angry at him, it’d just sort of happened. Part of her wanted to apologise, but the other part of her thought, fuck it. All of it was how she really felt, and she shouldn't back down this time. “You know what? I’m going back to mum's for a few nights, so if you want to leave me behind, here’s your chance.”

Shereen took one look at her and hugged her tight. Honestly, it was what she needed. They ordered take-out and stuffed their faces with chocolates watching scary films. It was like she was a kid again. Yet, her mind kept wondering to the Doctor and his stupid puppy-dog eyes. She’d left before he healed the bruise on her face, so every time she laughed, he was there with her.

Oh, please, please, let the Tardis still be there when she got home.

She stayed another two nights at Shereen’s. They had a lot to catch up on, but really, the longer she stayed the more she could avoid the absolution of seeing the empty space where the Tardis was last parked.

As she rounded the corner, she held her breath, trying to prepare herself. The Doctor out of her life for good... oh, what had she done? She should’ve just shut up and said nothing… but it was too late now. She was brave, and she would face this.

The Tardis was still there.

Rose’s whole body unwound right to the core – the soul. He was still here. A smile lit up her face. Her walk turned into a jog towards the most brilliant blue box in the universe. She turned the key, stopping just as she opened the doors. She had to remember how she left things, she needed to brace herself.

He wasn’t there. She tried the usual places, the library, his workshop, the kitchen. Nothing.

“Mum have you seen –“

The Doctor poked his head cautiously around the hallway from the living room, like he’d taken a biscuit from the tin, and she knew he was the guilty party.

All the tension left. She smiled at him. “You’re here.”

Believing it safe, he stepped fully into the corridor. “Well I didn’t have a choice, she’s keeping me hostage.” he said, pointing to Jackie.

“Oh, give over. What are you like, honestly.” her mum complained, thwacking him on the arm as she walked over to Rose and gave her a big hug. “Have a nice time? Feeling better?”

She smiled. “Yeah, I did, yeah. Like we were kids again.”

The Doctor smiled at that.

“Right, there’s dinner in the oven if you want. I’m off to see Bev – she’s down for the week, over in Eltham, that guy she used to date Martin, he’s got a flat down there now, said he’d put her up, and you know what Bev’s like. She’s been asking for you, be nice for her to see you before you run off. Mind you, you know she’ll bring up that year bad-driver here brought you back – twelve hours my arse.” She gave Rose a kiss on the cheek, and reached behind her for the house keys.

The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry.” he added flatly.

She gave her mum another hug, grateful that she was making herself scarce so they could talk. “I will, promise.”

Rose could hear the hoover in the flat above, banging against the walls. For a while the two of them just stood watching each other, the Doctor rocking on his heals, his hands deep in his pockets.

“You said a few days. But then when you didn’t come back, I worried something else happened, so I asked Jackie. She told me you were at Shereen’s… been a prisoner ever since.” He gave a half-smirk, an invitation to joke.

She couldn’t help it. She smirked back, just for a moment. “What else did she say?”

His expression turned serious. “That you ran into an ex-boyfriend’s mother in the shops, and she upset you.” He paused, reconsidering whether or not to push on. “She didn’t tell me why.”

Thank you, mum, Rose thought. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

He studied her up and down. “Fair enough.” he said, dropping it, even though he hated not knowing things, especially about her. “It’s not because I care one second and not the next.” he said, throwing Rose off balance. She was sure they'd fall back into the same old routine, where they ran off to the next adventure and pretended stuff like this never happened. “It’s because I care too much, it terrifies me so I run, but I can never stay away for long.”

Rose’s jaw dropped. Her mind whirled so much it became a thick dough of goop. She tried to clear it, snap back. “Why are you telling me this?” she wondered out loud. “I mean we never talk about this stuff.”

The Doctor scoffed. “Why? Because you asked me to leave, Rose, and that’s only one step away from you leaving on your own, and I – I don’t want you to go.”

Okay now her head was really properly spinning.

He nodded to her arm. “I’m sorry I hurt you.” and she heard what he really meant.

She was taking it all in, but apparently, he wanted her to say something. “Am I?” he prodded fearfully.

Her brows furrowed, not putting it together. “Are you, what?”

“Going to lose you.” he said, the slightest crack in his voice, so quiet Rose convinced herself she was imagining it.

She straightened, standing tall. “Depends, if you keep messing me about.” she stated. “We act like we’re together; it feels like we’re together, but then you run off, or avoid me, and leave me wondering what I’ve done, or if I’ve read things wrong. So.” She stared him down. “Are we? No... wait.. do you want to be?”

The Doctor balked, his eyes wide. He shuttered his expression.

“And don’t lie.” she added. “Or say what you think you want me to hear.”

She waited, watching him in apprehension. He didn’t look at her, keeping his gaze on the carpet.

“Yes.” he said at last.

Oh.

She fumbled with her hands, not quite sure what to do next. She hadn’t expected this to happen quite so easily. “Right. Well. Okay then, will you stop running away from me now?”

He nodded weakly. “Yeah.”

Again she waited, but he didn’t look up. “Right, so… do you want to go down the chippy, then we can half what mum made for us?”

He glanced up at her, befuddled, his brow furrowed. “That’s it?” he asked disbelievingly.

She shrugged. “Well… yeah. Unless you have anything to add?”

He shook his head, unable to hide his utter relief. “No... nothing from me.”

“Right, good…. so… chips?”

He beamed. “Chips! Oh, yes!”

Walking through the estate, she felt his hand gingerly brush against hers before he took it. She linked arms instead, so she could snuggle into him. He let out a breath, and she felt the tension leave his body.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” he asked. “You don’t have to tell me what happened, but I need to know when you’re hurt.”

She pondered for a moment, then smirked at him. “Well, my face still hurts a little.” she admitted. “Don’t suppose you’ve got anything for it?”

He smiled at her, true gratefulness in his eyes. “Oh, Rose Tyler, I have just the thing.”

[trustmeifyoudare]

When Did Texting Slang Become This Complicated

“The Supervillain: Evil

The Superheroes: Trapped

Conclusion: We are Frigged”

Viperion gave Argos a weird look. “Why are you talking like that?”

“No reason.”

The villain laughed from above them. “Wow you heroes are pathetic. I trapped you in like five minutes.”

Argos rolled his eyes. “It was six minutes actually.”

Viperion put his hand on his partner’s shoulder and gave it an awkward pat. “You- you aren’t helping.”

“Oh.”

“It’s okay Bro, you are trying. You’ll get it next time.”

“There will be no next time!” the villain said from above them but the pair ignored him. 

“Do you really think that?” Argos asked, hiding his face so that Viperion couldn’t see his blush, but the action only made Viperion walk closer to him. Both of his hands were on Argos’ shoulders now. 

“I know so, Babe.”

Argos’ eyes widened. “What.”

“Bro. I meant bro. I know so Bro.”

Argos tried to hide his pout. Was he just…… brother-zoned???

“Oh for Pete’s sake,” the villain said above them before loudly saying, “ You heroes couldn’t even figure out that a kiss would destroy my powers.”

Sadly the pair were too lost in each other's eyes to hear. 

The villain screamed in frustration. “I hope that no one KISSES and BREAKS MY POWER because that is my WEAKNESS.”

Viperion looked away from Argos, still not hearing the shouts from above. “Actually that was a lie.”

Argos’ heart dropped to the floor. He wasn’t even loved as a brother. He was a fricken stranger. Heart: broken.

Viperion continued. “I did actually mean to say Babe. Because, I think you are very cute.”

Cute…. as in….. some texting term that meant ‘The Worst Person On Earth™.’ 

Argos didn’t know what to say. “Oh.” He started backing away.

Viperion cupped his head in his hands, keeping him from backing away anymore. “No, you are more than cute. You are fricken beautiful.”

More texting slang. Viperion really hated him that badly.

“Can- can I kiss you.”

From up above the villain started cheering, but Argos couldn’t comprehend what was being said. First Viperion tells him he hates him, but now he wants to take him to a Kiss concert. He stared up blankly at his partner.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” They both go awkwardly silent as Viperion reaches into his pocket and pulls out a Hershey Kiss. He hands it over to Argos. “I remember you saying that you liked chocolate once.”

“God! No! Stop!” The villain jumps down to the same level as the duo. He rips off his helmet revealing himself to be Chat Noir. “You need to kiss on the lips.”

They still didn’t notice him. Argos looks down at the chocolate, then back up at Viperion. “You… got this for me?”

“Of course.”

Argos walked forward to grab it, and in the process of doing so Chat Noir extended his staff, tripping him. Argos falls straight on Viperion, landing in his arms. Lips on the other’s lips. Neither of them breaks contact for a few seconds.

Chat Noir walks towards them. “You defeated the villain with a true love’s kiss!”

They still ignore him, gazing into each other’s eyes like Narcissus at himself, drowning in the reflection.

Chat throws down the helmet. “Why do I even try.”

And the day was saved. Truly. Because this stopped Chat Noir from going crazy by watching the two of them pretend they weren’t in love every single akuma attack.

…

Why does that sound familiar.

[anjumbai]

The Bear: thoughts

"You're watching the fire and you're thinking, 'If I don't do anything, this place will burn down and all my anxiety will go away with it."

IMDB: 8.6

I finished this show 2 days ago and I'm eagerly waiting for a third season. The final episode of season 2 was rather cumbersome considering the amazing moments the show had given us so far. Thanks to Jamie Lee Curtis and Pete for saving the final episode. "saving" is an exaggeration I guess. The episode wasn't bad but I think it used such a weird method to convey such a heavy message that it just did not sit right with me. Does that destroy the show's quality? Not at all. The Bear is an absolutely amazing show that I wanna watch more of.

The show held onto its pace from episode 1 and never let go of it. The pilot episode was such a masterpiece at portraying what the show stood for. It really makes you appreciate restaurant workers I guess.

Jeremy Allen White is a phenomenal actor. How can somebody look so offended and 'done with your shit' all the freaking time. And that one take 17 minute scene episode was just a masterclass. It was one of the most intense episodes I've ever seen. Pulling off such a long one take scene alone seems extremely difficult. And to pull it off with such intensity, hats off. And that monologue by Carmy is something I still go and re-watch time to time. He is capable of portraying real emotions in a really profound way that makes you attached to the screen.

Jamie Lee Curtis was definitely an amazing part of the show. Showing up for just 2 episodes, she showed incredible experience and stole the scenes just like that. The final episode of season 2 really did break my heart- I wanna know more of what happened to their family. I really do.

And my guy Richie. He had the best character development in the show. I absolutely loved that episode highlighting his struggles. How working in the best restaurant in the world helped him learn what he's good at and find his place in the world.

Characters like Claire and Sydney didn't stand out much to me. I do understand why Sydney was being Sydney. Part of it could be that she seems sane and level headed and that she didn't need all that character development like all the rest. And I understand Claire and I really enjoyed Carmie being happy for once. Though I did love that she was used as a decision device for Carmie, to choose between the restaurant and her. But I don't think doing that particular moment while keeping a fridge door between the two was the best idea.

And also, the fact that they find the money and can finally be debt free, they choose to say no. Sounds like a really bad business decision. Like pay the full amount and then ask for some money isn't that better. But I guess 800k is more than 500k, if I remember the amount correctly.

Overall, 8.5/10. Eagerly waiting for another season.

[buildarocketboys]

Written for the day 6 @febuwhump, "you lied to me". Crossposted to AO3 here.

Pete kidnaps Patrick.

Please heed the tags!

Pete brings him a drink from the bar.

Patrick's eyes focus on him as he pushes through the crowd around the bar, burning so bright that Patrick has no eyes for anyone else. Certainly not the girl stroking his arm.

"Here you go, baby," Pete says, handing him his drink and slipping his now-free arm around his waist, glaring at the girl. She narrows her eyes at him before slinking off, tail between her legs.

"Saved you," Pete breathes hotly in his ear.

Patrick shakes his head, although he can't hide how pleased he is. "She wasn't doing any harm."

"Patrick! She was older than me. You are a young, nubile, hot property of 17 years old. She was perving on someone who wasn't even legal!" Pete's hand slips lower, fondling Patrick's ass.

Patrick raises his eyebrows. "If she's a perv, what does that make you?"

Patrick is fascinated by the way Pete's eyes flutter closed, the way his Adam's apple bobs up and down as he swallows and bites his lip, expression darkening. "Patrick-"

Patrick bats at his arm lightly. "I was joking!" He wasn't, really, but- he wishes Pete's hand hadn't disappeared from his ass. If Pete is a perv, Patrick is happy to be perved on.

He takes a sip of his drink to stop him from staring at Pete's mouth. Then he frowns.

"What's in this drink, Pete?" he asks. "It tastes kind of weird."

"It's rum and coke," says Pete, eyebrows drawing together. His eye is twitching a little. "I don't know what you mean." He laughs a little too loudly. "Unless that chick spiked your drink!"

Patrick rolls his eyes and downs his drink so he doesn't have to taste it for too long.

That's the last thing he remembers until he wakes up in Pete's basement.

He doesn't realize anything is wrong at first. His head hurts, his mouth is drier than the Sahara and his vision is kind of fuzzy, but it's not the first time he's woken up hungover in Pete's basement after a house party. Sure, he usually ends up in Pete's bed, but-

But he wasn't at a house party.

He blinks his eyes open properly, raising his hand against the fluorescent light on the ceiling. He squints toward the door, which is closed. He opens his mouth to call Pete's name, and then realizes there's a strip of fabric tied over his mouth, and another wad of material stuffed inside. It's soaked up most of the moisture in Patrick's mouth, which explains why it feels so dry. He tries to pull it away from his face, but his fingers are clumsy and uncoordinated.

Patrick feels the first twinge of fear then, but he pushes it down. He calls Pete anyway, his voice muffled by the fabric. Then he shouts louder.

He gives up, his voice hoarse. This is probably Pete's idea of a prank, he thinks.

But there's a seed of doubt in his mind. Pete's pranks are stupid, and annoying, and sometimes gross. But they're rarely cruel.

Patrick sits up on the sofa and notices for the first time that he's naked apart from his underwear. What the hell had happened last night?

He sticks his hand in his underwear, checking- well. Just checking. He's not yet ready to acknowledge what he suspects might be going on here.

He braces himself, and stands up. The world wobbles a bit, but then rights itself. He stumbles to the door. This is gonna be so embarrassing, especially if Pete's not in to explain, but he has no idea what the time is or what happened last night, and he wants answers.

The door is locked.

Patrick sinks to the floor and his stomach sinks with him. He's starting to feel real fear. 

Did Pete lock him in here? Who else would have locked him in what he's certain is Pete's basement?

He feels sick to his stomach.

He raises his fist to hammer on the door, to bring someone down to let him out, but he hesitates. What if Pete's mom comes down? He doesn't want her to see him like this. And he doesn't want to get Pete in trouble.

Even if he's kidnapped you? asks the little voice in his head that he's trying to ignore.

He waits for several more minutes, hoping against hope Pete will open the door and come in grinning, laughing at Patrick for falling for it.

When Pete doesn't appear, Patrick takes a deep breath and hammers on the door, yelling as loud as he possibly can through the gag. It's only several minutes later, his voice going hoarse, when he hears the key turning in his lock.

He scrambles back from the door just in time to see Pete swing it open and step in.

He's so relieved to see Pete that he doesn't even consider running for it.

Pete pushes the door shut behind him, leaning back against it. "Calm down," he says. "Don't want to destroy your pretty voice, do we now?"

Patrick glares at Pete. He feels tears prick at his eyes and blinks them away angrily.

"'Oo lie do me," he says.

Pete raises his eyebrows. "What was that?" He pulls the gag down and tugs the was of material out of his mouth, leaving his fingers in there.

"You lied to me," Patrick says, a little more clearly, trying to spit Pete's fingers out of his mouth. Pete backs off, holding his hands up, but he's smirking a little - almost in spite of himself.

"What are you talking about?"

Patrick scowls. "I asked you what was in the drink. You said it was rum and coke."

"It was rum and coke," Pete says slowly, like Patrick is a bit dim. 

"Yeah, and Rohypnol!" Patrick spits.

Pete looks hurt. "I was looking after you, Patrick!"

Patrick frowns, uncertain for a second. "By gagging me and locking me in your basement?"

Pete is silent. He just looks at Patrick with his big sad eyes, and Patrick's always been a sucker for him, even now, even when he's spiked his drink and stripped him naked and gagged him and locked him in the basement.

Patrick sighs. "Is this some kind of stupid prank or something?"

Pete shrugs and shakes his head, looking pained.

Patrick feels ice gush into his stomach. "Did you spike my drink?" he asks heavily. Looking Pete in the eye. Like that'll make him tell the truth. Like Patrick has any power over him here. Like he ever did.

Pete doesn't answer. Patrick wants to think that maybe it wasn't Pete who spiked his drink; maybe it was that girl, somehow, like Pete had said. Pete would never hurt him.

Even though all the evidence points to otherwise.

Patrick waits. When Pete doesn't seem inclined to answer, Patrick takes a deep breath and asks his last question. "Are you gonna let me out of here?"

Pete shakes his head, refusing to meet Patrick's eye. He turns toward the door. "I'm sorry, Patrick," he says. He gags Patrick again, more tightly this time, and backs out of the room. He shuts the door behind him.

Patrick hears the click of the lock echoing in his ears for hours afterward.