#probably gonna draw him more often in just dress pants even though the train part of his outfit is only exaggerated here

[sacrosanction]

— two things ive never drawn in one, this head angle and him smiling (or grinning here)

[aetheternity]

Sight, smell, touch, taste, sound and which one I believe would draw the Aot girls to you. Kinda Modern Au 🤷‍♀️ idk you be the judge.

(Pov: none of you asked for this but I got bored and decided to give it to you anyway.)

Mikasa

~Touch

The first time you touched her it was to pat her shoulder and tell her, "good luck" on a mission and she's been riding that high til the day she finally had you.

She was already so infatuated by you to the point that every bit of your touch became a daily necessity.

Locking you into her tight hugs late at night.

Pulling your lips back into hers whenever you try to escape.

She'll give you tiny kisses spread all over your face as soon as you wake up. And she's a huge fan of eskimo kisses. You might even trigger a little giggle from her when you initiate them.

She wants to rest her head on your chest and fall asleep to your heartbeat.

She's got your fingers perfectly knotted with hers in every situation.

Tangles your legs when the two of you are resting on the couch.

"I have to get up sometime Mikasa." Not today you don't.

Her favorite spot to scratch is your lower back. She softly circles her nails over that bit of skin after hiking your shirt up.

Please let her spend the day with you in her lap it's the perfect amount of intimate for her.

Annie

~Touch/Sound

One day you came to her with concern filling your eyes and hugged her even though you never had before. You simply told her, "I feel like something's wrong but I won't pry. Just know I'll be waiting for you to come back to me." So softly in her ear and despite her push back at first her feelings for you grew stronger everyday.

She grew to adore the smallest things about you.

The sounds of your low morning yawns before you kiss her face.

The warmth of your knee resting between her thighs

Loves when you whine her name. It sends heat flowing through her entire body. "What do you want?" (She'll pretend she hates it tho.)

Whenever you two are alone she has her head firmly placed on your chest, falling asleep to your heartbeat. Just like Mikasa (No you do not have to pee lay back down)

Loves when you card your fingers through her untied hair. (Sometimes you make her hum when you scratch the back of her head just right.)

She's gotta have your hands when you two are cuddling. Holding you like she's scared you're not really there.

Whisper in her ear and she just might shiver for you.

Laugh when she's sarcastic and watch the pretty pink color dust over her cheeks.

Tells you she loves you under her breath and melts when you say it back after kissing her cheek or neck.

Sasha

~(Sweet angel 🥺) Touch/taste

She held your hand like she'd always done with you and asked what you'd want your last meal in the world to be. Fucking around you said, "You." And the girl practically burst into flame. Meanwhile Connie at the opposite end of the table is mocking y'all talking about some, "Get a room already!" And then you did 😏

Oh, you just had some candy? She's biting your lips and sucking on your tongue.

Oh, your shampoo/body wash smells like banana, coconut, strawberries etc? She's got her face in your neck giving you little kisses. (Sometimes she'll give you a little kitten lick but it's fine cause you love it 😃).

She likes mutual feeding (ik that sounds weird idk how else to put it.) Like if you guys are eating popcorn together while watching a movie, she likes when you place the popcorn in her mouth and she does the same for you.

Licks the butter off your fingers when the popcorns gone.

When you stretch your arms next to her and then proceed to wrap them around her neck or waist she's in heaven.

Adores the feeling of your fingers splayed over her stomach right after she finished eating and the way you tease her by stroking her inner thigh.

Randomly jumps in the shower with you so that she can run her hands up and down every inch of your skin.

Sometimes she wakes you with a bunch of forehead kisses.

"Five more minutes please.." You beg

If you wake up before her though she'd love to be wrapped in your arms as she eats breakfast.

Hitch

~Sight (y'all already know my baby's a lil shallow)

It was like a movie scene. She saw you across the room during a small party for the anniversary of the military police first debut and she just had to have you. And bug you.. she stayed by your side as often as possible after that.

She'll laugh so that her compliments on your body sound less genuine but she means it every time.

And when you're not looking she's got her lip between her teeth, eyes working up and down your body.

"I wanna see you in this honestly." She'll say late at night handing you a picture and covering her face as you look at it.

"Reminds me of your pink dress?"

"Yeah! Yes.. that's the point we'll match."

Doesn't matter how long you've been dating. She'll always build a little tension before every kiss by looking directly at your lips then back into your eyes with a little smirk.

Whistles when you wear an outfit she recommended.

She never straight up says it but her favorite part of your body is the part you like the least.

Backwards ass compliments.

"You know orange isn't normally your color but today you made it work." And "You seem really confident despite wearing those pants."

Don't worry it's how she shows affection.

Makes you blush as often as possible because she just can't get enough of how gorgeous you are when you do.

Pieck

~Sight/taste

From the second she saw you she knew she had to get you out of your little bubble. You'd both done the warrior training as kids and you always kept to yourself. She thought a person like you looked like you had a lot of secrets. And she was gonna learn as many as possible. The older you guys got the more attractive you became to each other and you kinda fell back into the nervousness she thought she'd driven out of you. Eventually she got you to accidentally blurt a confession. Next thing you knew her tongue was pulling all conscious thought out of you.

Idk Pieck gives me the vibes that she'd always be looking for a way to stick her tongue down your throat?? (Just me?? Alright..)

She'll twirl you around with a hand around your waist. Unabashedly checking you out.

Loves long sweet kisses while she rests between your legs.

Will never stop smiling at you when you exit the shower in only a towel.

Brushes her lips over your stomach to wake you.

She's so enamored by the twinkle in your eye when you talk with the younger generation of warriors.

Playfully suggests you just walk around the house completely naked so she can really appreciate your body.

Her heart one hundred percent drops when she sees you sad for even a second.

Let her kiss you wherever she wants! It's a lot easier than arguing with her!

And she will try in some weird places. (She gives me body worshipper vibes.)

Yelena

~Sound

She heard about you due to rumors about your incredible fighting style. But what made her seek you out was the knowledge that you were next in line to become a titan shifter. It was hard to tell if her affection was due to interest in you as a person or your incredible fighting style but one day she asked you to live with her in the new world. Of course you said yes.

She loves the sound of you singing. (If you can sing) Sometimes she actively seeks you out and asks for you to sing to her.

Your war cries make her back arch (shh I didn't say that).

The second you guys started dating she developed a sixth sense of some sort where she just shows up if you're crying or if your day has been going terrible.

She just adores the sound of your voice and she can't get enough of it.

I could see her dragging you off some place where the two of you can just talk.

Within less than a week of dating you she's already got ways to get any noise she wants out of you.

Graze their neck with the tip of your nose for giggles and kiss the tips of their ears for I love you's.

That sort of thing.

Whenever you make a noise she hasn't heard before she's dying to force you to make it again.

Idk what it's called but I feel like Yelena has that thing where noises are attributed to colors in her brain. And at some point she explains all the colors she sees whenever you make certain noises.

Hange

~Sight/touch

Moblit had to take a.. short vacation after one of Hange's lab disasters nearly crippled him.. so Erwin had asked you to fill in and you said yes. It was only for a couple weeks and during that time Hange stuck to you like glue. Throwing an arm over your shoulder, stealing little glances and laughing loudly when you'd catch her. It felt like normal Hange stuff. But on the last night before Moblit's return, Hange was weirdly not.. Hange.. being quiet, filling in data and barely making eye contact. You asked if you'd done something wrong but Hange barely said anything back. Before you left she was nose deep in paperwork. You said your goodbyes and you were about to leave when Hange asked if you'd be willing to go on a date. When you looked back she hadn't even looked up but you smiled and nodded with a little yes and the rest was history.

It's a no brainer that you spent all your free time in Hange's lab to be Hange's other support system other than Moblit.

And when Moblit died, Hange's entire support system.

Her touch lingering on your lower back as you lean over to check her notes.

Completely enamored with the glint in your eye whenever the two of you come up with a sort of breakthrough.

Deadass pulls you into her lap at the most random times.

Oh hey the meeting finally finished? Yanks your frame right into her lap and laughs at the eye rolling of fellow colleagues.

Hange will say sorry but that blush on your face was so worth it and she's so glad she did it.

Rubs your back as you sleep on the work piled on your side of the desk.

Probably accidentally wakes you up a couple minutes after you fell asleep though.

Hange once sat you on her lap after a meeting right before Erwin tried to hand her some papers over the table. Without thinking she stood up to grab them and your face slammed into the table while her hips were pressed against your ass. Immediately getting everyone's attention. Safe to say you no longer sit next to Hange at meetings. (I had to add this even though it's a little off topic and random.)

Historia

~Smell (First one here.)

She had to share a room with you until she became queen. And almost every night she'd have some kind of nightmare about Ymir. You didn't mean to make a move but one night she crawled into your bed like she always had and you wrapped your arms around her shivering form like you always did. She had her nose trapped in your nape and you pressed a kiss to her forehead hoping it would stop her harsh breathing. And it did. She froze, the world froze, everything froze. You had leaned back to apologize for overstepping her boundaries and she kissed you back.

She'd gotten so comfortable with your scent that not only did it constantly lull her to sleep but always gave her a sense of security.

You're her security blanket. I don't make the rules.

Speaking of blankets. You gave her yours when she moved into the castle.

Whenever she gets even an hour alone she's trying to get you in the castle so she can sit in your lap and bury her nose in your nape like she always has.

She also steals your shirts and hoodies as often as possible until they smell like her then you have to take them back and cover them with your stink again.

Spending early mornings in the castle after washing your hair and her telling you over and over that she missed your smell.

It's legit like having a long distance relationship while being in the same place.

And she doesn't let you go until the last second before you both have to go back to work.

If you guys have time and you shop together she'll keep the candles that you believed smelled the best in her room.

All in all give Historia your shirts to wear cause she loves them/they look great on her.

Ymir

~Sight/touch

You're probably either super sweet like Krista or really sarcastic like her and that's what draws her to look more in depth into you. When she finally gets a chance to actually look at you fully without the odm gear she finds herself fixated, tracing your figure with her eyes. You guys finally become friends, who mutually enjoy bullying Reiner. But she finds that she hates it. Thinks you're teasing her every time you brush her fingertips without actually holding her dammed hand. One day she just reaches out and grabs you properly and doesn't let go. Yeah, you're dating now.

What can I say except, she likes running a finger over the lines on your palm.

She's always grabbing you out of nowhere but you don't mind. You just let her hold you.

"You look extra beautiful today, bet you'll look even better when I put a ring on your finger."

Puts her hands under your shirt with no fucking shame.

Stares at you and yells at the first person that mocks her. Reiner/Connie

Can and will find a way to smack your ass the second she gets you alone.

Trails little butterfly kisses over your shoulders when you're trying to get dressed in the morning.

Literally everything you do is weirdly skillful to her.

Like you're peeling a potato and she's like, "You're so amazing at that.."

Let her lean on you for absolutely no reason she loves it. 🤷‍♀️

(I realized after writing this that Annie and Armin have the same one even tho I don't ship them at all 😕)

[gstqaobc]

💜💜💜HI FROM PG💜💜💜

💜💜💜HI FROM PG💜💜💜

Hello there everybody! I thought I would send a message or a post and just let you all know that I miss you and I miss being a very active part of Skippy‘s blog!!

I had my second vaccination the Astrazeneca on Tuesday and had my doctor assessment yesterday and my arm is getting better it’s still is not 100% so I am taking it low and slow and using the dictation software. I know so many of you have left messages such kind words of love and support and I really really really appreciate them! And I want to say a special message to💜🙏🏻💜 CHERUB, 💜🙏🏻💜you know that you are  in my  prayers every single day. Jesus is with you he will never leave you or for sake you no matter what happens. I will be back probably in another week I think with if my arm continues as it is progressing.

Now I have a few things I wanna say about what’s happening here first I wanna say the visit to Scotland was a rousing success and as usual our Catherine slayed Fashion wise and interpersonal skills wise! I saw someone write a comment that they didn’t like her in the brown and the khaki but I had commented a couple of weeks ago when she wore that beautiful camel coloured coat that I wish she would wear browns and taupes more often so I was just elated to see her wear those long wide leg pants that were hemmed exactly as they should be not dragging on the ground! I just think that this couple can do no wrong and they both very well for the future! Now I am not biased by my affection for the Cambridge is at all ha ha Ha! By the way I received my Hold Still book this week and I also received from Royal Mail Her Majesty’s at 95th birthday stamp first day cover and coin which was reasonably price I think £20? Anyhow the book is very substantial and because of my left arm being the way it is I have yet to be able to look at it because it’s quite heavy and it is a huge book, but I am looking forward to the day when I can hold it and I can enjoy looking at the pictures! Again I say Catherine kudos to you on your fabulous projects! Catherine I also wonder if you’re stealing my word wowza because when you met with Mila for tea, you said wowza as she showed her dress twirling. I’m wondering are you borrowing from PG?? Aka me?? 😂😂😂🤣🤣Catherine you are most welcome to share the word while that I think we are the only two people on the planet that still say it ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!

OK now onto our Harry. Heads together in the UK and many other mental health organizations around the world are doing fabulous work. CBT or cognitive behavioural therapy, cognitive restructuring, EDMR, Hipnosis, that’s spelt wrong but hey I’m dictating hypnosis is spelled HYPNO either we go anyhow those are all legitimate therapies done when they’re done by trained professionals! One thing that has always driven me crazy about Oprah and Dr. Phil who is her who is her surrogate,  is they do mumbo-jumbo therapy on tv and have people share their just horrific interpersonal stories with an audience and a television audience! It just it just sickens me to make people so vulnerable for attention and ratings and money and advertising! When I saw Harry doing the tapping and whatever I just felt whether he was doing it for real or whether he’s towing the line as I believe it is just so wrong to show somebody at their most vulnerable!! It just sickens me.

However let’s let us ask ourselves why is this happening now? When ‘her’, l will continue to use the descriptor ‘her’ was doing all the talking a.k.a. lying because every time her lips move we know she’s lying and now she’s been silent. But for the last well since about the time that the Duke of Edinburgh passed away Harry allegedly has flown back to the to the United States where apparently he’s lived for two years one article said which surprises me but anyways what what’s truth and in articles. And he has been everywhere good morning America that all these Apple things with Oprah and celebrities and doing this and that and the other all for mental health!

You know sometimes it’s too much of a good thing. There’s a lot of excellent organizations in Canada there’s a CMH a Canadian mental health Association all over the world. But this constant stream of video and him in our face that’s not normal and the things he saying or lies and their provable lies that they’re not difficult at all. This is NOT NORMAL! IT IS A DELIBERATE OVERSATURATION FILLED WITH SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES IN THE VIDEOS, TRUST ME, SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES IN ADVERTISING IS REAL. TAKE A MAGNIFYING GLASS TO A FASHION MAGAZINE AND LOOK CLOSELY. YOU WILL BE AMAZED WHAT IS EMBEDDED IN THEM. JUST LIKE THE DISNEY VIDEOS THAT WERE SHOWN TO HAVE ADULT DRAWINGS.

In knowing Harry’s dedication to his Queen, his grandmother and his grandfather why on earth would he pick the first few days after the funeral to dig in like this and go so public? Why? We really must ask ourselves why? I will tell you why he is continuing to expose evil! There are all kinds of organizations that I’m not gonna name any “churches” some start with the letter S which many celebrities are members of Tom C is one. These organizations manipulate people and just like the NIXVM did in Canada. These backers are evil people and they’re willing to use people for anything in anyway at any purpose. The last picture I saw of Harry it was a video but I didn’t watch the video he looks so pale and so gaunt and so unwell that even though I believe he is doing the right thing and exposing all this and eventually hopefully eventually this will wrap up with him being free and everyone brought to justice let’s hope and pray, this is taking a terrible toll on him an absolute terrible toll. I have to again harken back to London scoop, everything has come to pass that she foretold way back several years ago when she came upon this information about this plot. I did a post one post last week where I propose the thought that the plot to integrate the British royal family began in the 1990s with princess Diana and I still believe that. I don’t know all the reasons or who the people would be but things things are just smelling very funny very very funny and I don’t mean funny as in laughter I mean funny as an off off off off!!!

So I say let us continue to pray for our Queen her family pray for the Cambridges, that they all stay safe and healthy the whole family to especially pray for Harry, whether do you think he’s doing his duty or you think he’s fallen under her trap and has become some whimpering child, pray for him all the more then because he needs it. If you really believe that he is he is doing this on his own free will because he’s mesmerized by her or he is woke and has become part of the woke world my goodness he needs more prayer than ever! To be released from these bondages!!

OK kids that’s my more than my two cents worth! As you all know it’s never one word thing with me I am very elaborative! I miss you all miss you and you all know who you are! Take care sending you all my love and prayers, PG!! I beg you all please don’t forget about me because I shall return I shall return!

To my dear Skippy, thank you for always being there. Thank you for relay messages. Most especially thank you for this safe space, your friendship and your prayers.

To my MM Anon/ Kensington Anon, thank you so much for your kind messages of love and support I have really appreciated it. I just feel like I’ve let everybody down by not being able to do the stories about the Cambridges. But I shall return soon hopefully in a week I’ll see how my arm is but it’s getting better hopefully in a week. I hope this finds you well, I hope you read this I don’t know if you ever checked my blog but if you do you will see this here.

💜🙂🙏🏻✝️💟PG💟✝️🙂🙏🏻💜

GSTQAOBC 🇨🇦🇬🇧🇦🇺🇳🇿

[alcalavicci]

1988 interview with Dean. This is a really good one and helps bring more of his life into perspective. Note: the newspaper originally censored his swearing, but I’ve put it back.

Guthman, Edward. "Dean Stockwell: Third Time's a Charm." The San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California), August 14, 1988.

“Six years ago, Dean Stockwell's acting career had turned to dust. Reduced to playing parts in unreleasable, made-in-Mexico movies that now make him cringe, Stockwell decided to chuck it all and get out of Hollywood.

“Along with his second wife, Joy, Stockwell moved to Santa Fe, settled down under the wide New Mexico sky and applied for a real estate license. He even placed an ad in Daily Variety to announce his exile: 'Dean Stockwell will help you with all your real estate needs in the new center of creative energy.'

“Stockwell never sold a house; he didn't need to. Instead, almost as soon as he'd relocated, things started happening to the former 1940s child star. It began with a small part in David Lynch's 'Dune,' and escalated with an important supporting role in Wim Wenders' highly regarded 'Paris, Texas.'

“Moving back to California to cash in on his fortune, Stockwell acted in 'Beverly Hills Cop II,' 'Gardens of Stone,' and 'To Live and Die in L.A.' He also played a cameo role, as Howard Hughes, in the newly released 'Tucker: The Man and His Dream.' And in 'Blue Velvet,' David Lynch's American nightmare, he delivered a chilling cameo as Ben, a waxlike, sexually ambiguous drug dealer.

“And now, at 52, Stockwell says he's found 'the favorite role I've had, by far.'

“The picture is 'Married to the Mob,' a dark, romantic comedy by Jonathan Demme ('Melvin and Howard,' 'Stop Making Sense') and Stockwell plays Mafia don Tony 'the Tiger' Russo. Wearing an Al Capone fedora and full-length vicuna coat, Tony is a rich, sardonic, larger-than-life character -- the kind Stockwell has never had a chance to play until now.

“Opening Friday at the Galaxy and UA the Movies, 'Married to the Mob' has been touted as Demme's first shot at a genuine box-office winner. Set in Long Island, New Jersey and Florida, it stars Michelle Pfeiffer as Angela DeMarco, a young Mafia wife who tries to start a new life when her husband, Frankie 'the Cucumber' DeMarco, is pumped full of lead during a hot-tub tryst at the Fantasia Motel.

“When Stockwell's character isn't ordering hits, drug deals and the dumping of toxic waste, he's lusting assiduously after the gorgeous widow. Meanwhile, bumbling FBI agent Mike Downey (played by Matthew Modine) is jumping through hoops trying to shadow Angela and 'catch Tony with his pants down.' Instead, he falls in love with Angela.

“During a recent luncheon interview, not far from his central California home, Stockwell spoke about the film, about his new happiness as the father of two children and about the bizarre trajectory of his long career. Dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and slacks, wearing a Panama hat and drawing first on a cigaret, later on a cigar, Stockwell emanates prosperity and calm.

“'I don't know why I was unemployed so long,' he says, reflecting on a fallow period that started in the '60s and lasted the better part of two decades. 'The only thing I can figure out in my own mind is that, for some reason or another, I was being made to wait until a certain time in my life when my talent would reach its full maturity and fruition.'

“Ironically, he says, he felt just as equipped 10 years ago to do the work he's doing now -- 'only I couldn't get fucking arrested.'

“Today, Stockwell sees harmony in the fact that his new success coincides with the arrival of two children. His son, Austin, will be 5 in November, and his daughter, Sophia, turns 3 this month. Inordinately proud and protective, he refuses to allow his children to be photographed, and also requests that the town in which he and his family reside not be named. (There were no children from his first marriage, to Millie Perkins, which lasted from 1960 to 1962.)

“'I want to make a lot of money and I want to put it away for my children,' he says. To that end, Stockwell has been snapping up job offers. 'A lot of people ask me, "How have you been able to choose these wonderful things you're doing? Have you been very selective?" And I have to tell them, "I haven't been choosing what I'm doing." Things have been coming and I've been accepting virtually anything that's come.'

“Stockwell's ambition is so great that, for the first time in his life, he actively pursues aspects of his career that he once shunned- interviews, for example.

“'My entire motivation in life is my family,' he says. 'I don't need to get an award. I don't need recognition. I've had that already. What I need is to provide. The best way I can provide is to be successful, and the best way I can be successful is to take advantage of all the things at my disposal to achieve that, one of which certainly is press.'

“Take a look at the young Stockwell, specifically the version that emerges from old magazine and newspaper interviews, and you meet another person altogether.

“Robbed of a normal childhood, Stockwell had made 22 films by the time he was 15 -- including 'The Boy with Green Hair,' 'Kim,' 'Anchors Aweigh,' and the Oscar-winning 'Gentleman's Agreement.' Working nonstop, he had a privileged life that millions of children probably envied, but he loathed it nonetheless.

“The son of show-business parents -- his father, Harry Stockwell, was the voice of the Prince in 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,' and his mother, Betty Veronica, was a former stage dancer -- Stockwell made his professional debut at 7. It all happened by a fluke: when Stockwell accompanied his older brother, Guy, on a Broadway audition, the casting director took a liking to both boys, and cast each one. The play, aptly enough, was called 'Innocent Voyage,' and it led to an MGM contract for curly-haired Dean.

“From the beginning, the pressure on young Stockwell was intense. His parents had divorced when he was 6, and when his father defaulted on child-support payments, Dean reluctantly became the family provider. Over a six-year period, he averaged three to four films per year.

“At home, he says, 'There was a lot of friction... I was getting all the attention, but I hated it. [Guy] couldn't appreciate that, because he wasn't getting the attention. He had all these friends, his peer group, that he took for granted. I had none and I resented him for being able to live that way. I was fucking lonely.'

“When he was 13, chained to a seven-year contract, Stockwell was described by one magazine as 'a young rebel who despises acting and resents every moment it takes from his fleeting boyhood.' Many years later, Stockwell told columnist Hedda Hopper, 'Child actors exist in a sort of limbo between childhood and maturity and belong to neither. Adults take them too seriously and other children are either awed or hostile. A child actor can find friends in neither group.'

“Finally, Stockwell fled Hollywood when he was 16. He cut off his curly locks, started using his real name, Robert Stockwell, and for the next five years roamed the country, working menial jobs and disavowing his true identity. 'People that might have known me from seeing my films knew me as a young child,' he remembers. 'Now I was 17 and I wasn't that recognizable.'

“Around the time of his 21st birthday, Stockwell was pushing papers as mail boy to a Manhattan plumbing firm. 'Of all the jobs that I'd had in those intervening years,' he remembers. 'I think I hated that worse than anything. I came to the realization I had no training at anything. My primary education was very skimpy, very poor, and happened under the worst type of conditions. I was literally at the mercy of the world.'

“Most of Stockwell's childhood earnings were squandered by crooked accountants, he says, and he knew that the tiny sum being held in a trust wouldn't last forever. 'So I thought, "What am I gonna do? Well, let's go back and attack this [acting career] again, and see if I can do it a little more on my terms."'

“What followed for Stockwell was a brief but impressive 'second career.' He starred in the 1959 film 'Compulsion,' based on the Leopold-Loeb case of the '20s, and won a joint acting award with Orson Welles and Bradford Dillman at the Cannes Film Festival. He played the lead in the 1960 film of D. H. Lawrence's 'Sons and Lovers,' and in 1962 scored the plum role of Edmund Tyrone in Sidney Lumet's film version of 'Long Day's Journey Into Night,' holding his own alongside Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson and Jason Robards.

“Stockwell was winning the best parts, but found his attention drifting elsewhere. What was happening, he says, were the first signs of the '60s youth revolution. 'It captured my imagination as much as anybody's. And it represented to me -- I can see this in retrospect -- something in childhood that I had missed: the freedom and loving being alive, without responsibilities and work and having to report to the studio every day, and deal with fans and interviews and shit that I hated when I was a kid.'

“So Stockwell called his agent, said, 'I'm not workin',' and dropped out once again. When he tried to come back three years later, though, 'I found it very difficult, 'cause I'd been out-of-sight, out-of-mind.' What followed was a long period of marginal employment: He found some TV work, took parts in low-budget trash ('The Dunwich Horror') and occasional oddities (Dennis Hopper's 'The Last Movie') and co-directed a film with musician Neil Young ('Human Highway') but often just didn't work at all. At one point, he went 18 months without a job.

“Today, along with his buddy Hopper, Stockwell is enjoying a major career renaissance. And with his starring role in 'Married to the Mob,' he says, he's never felt more confident.

“'I knew before I started the film that this character was going to work in spades,' he says, adding that Demme, as director, deserves credit for taking a risk with such offbeat casting. Instead of picking Peter Falk, Vincent Gardenia or another ethnically identified actor to play the Mafia don, he went with Stockwell (who is actually half-Italian on his mother's side).

“Demme's inspiration occurred on a flight from Los Angeles to New York, when he opened a copy of the Hollywood Reporter. Stockwell had just changed agents, and in order to announce the fact, had taken out a full-page ad. Demme saw the picture, and instantly recognized his Tony.

“Weirdly enough, Stockwell made another film immediately prior to 'Married to the Mob': a Canadian feature called 'Palais Royale,' due for an October release, in which he plays a character almost identical to Tony Russo.

“'It's very curious,' he says. 'For all my years I'd never had a role like this come my way, and here it was twice. The Mafia don in New York, the Mafia don in Toronto, both of them colorful and charming and also threatening. And I just thought, "What am I gonna do? It's the same character." So I decided to do the same character in both those movies.'

“To take the coincidence 'one nauseating step further,' Stockwell says he's also got a part in the recently completed 'Backtrack,' Hopper's next film. This time he plays a corrupt mob lawyer, dropping the Italian accent for a generalized East Coast sound.

“It would be difficult to find a film actor who's busier than Stockwell at this moment. And it would be difficult to find anyone whose job history better illustrates the vicissitudes, serendipities and insecurity of a Hollywood career.

“Looking back on his misfortunes -- at the career that he was forced to accept as a child, and the humiliation he felt when he couldn't maintain it as an adult -- Stockwell says he's not bitter. 'When you reach your maturity, I think it behooves you to accept the fact that it's absolutely futile and fruitless even to speculate on changing anything in your life. All you can do is get embittered. So I accept everything that's happened as part of my life, and try to push it in a positive direction from the moment right now.'”

[xmxisxforxmaybe]

24, 17 and 11 (somewhere in the lower torso) with Elliot x male reader

24. drunk sex  17. one person clothed and the other naked  11. surprise discovery of an overly-sensitive body part

We are gonna go with “buzzed sex” instead of drunk. I am a consent purist when it comes to Elliot. This is pretty much pwp, though! I hope you enjoy ☺️ 

* * * * *

The party was just as painful as Elliot knew it would be, and there was only one reason he had even agreed to go—you.

Except he was two beers in and you were not there.

Elliot resolved that if he reached the bottom of his third beer and you had not walked through the door to Gideon’s loft, he was leaving. It was a ridiculous notion anyway—you being into him, and Elliot was sure that every time you met up, it would be the last.

Seated in the nook that had a window overlooking the city, Elliot watched the blinking lights as he took another long drink, the bottle sloshing as he lowered his hand. He swirled the remaining liquid before bringing the bottle back up to his lips to finish it off.

“Ready for another? Guess I’ve got some catching up to do.”

Elliot’s head whipped in the direction of your voice, and you frowned as he blinked up at you.

A million dollars … you’d give a million dollars to know what was going on inside of Elliot’s head, and you had actually said this to him once, earning your first outright laugh from him.

“If you found yourself inside of my head, I’d have to pay you a million dollars,” he had said, laughter fading from his lips as it was replaced by Elliot’s normal stoicism.

“Didn’t think you were gonna show,” Elliot finally said as he handed you his empty bottle.

“And miss a chance to see you?” you gave him a wink as you loosened your tie, then walked into the kitchen to fix yourself a stiff drink and retrieve another beer for Elliot. You gave Gideon a quick hug hello, and he gave you a knowing smile.

You shook your head at him, shrugged, then quickly made your way back to Elliot.

As you handed him his beer, Elliot asked, “Figure out why your boss’s bandwidth was being tunneled?”

“Fuck. You won’t even believe the reason.”

“Try me,” Elliot said, fixing you with one of those half-smiles that drove you crazy.

You knocked back your drink, then dove into the details.

* * * * *

Basking in the haze of just enough alcohol to make you feel good, you made your way up the stairs to Elliot’s apartment. There was an awkward conversation of “your place or mine” that had ensued when neither of you were able to tell the other one goodbye.

Since Elliot’s apartment was closer, you followed him onto the train and the ride passed in a heated silence, both of you hyperaware of the proximity of the other—the slight bump of thigh against thigh as the train rounded a corner, a brush of your hand against his as you pulled on the knee of your trousers while he pulled on the knee of his jeans which was accompanied by a quick exchange of furtive smiles.  

When you were finally inside and Elliot had locked the door, your eyes took a quick inventory of his place before you turned around to look at him.

He brushed his hand through his hair as his eyes travelled over your face before darting around the apartment as if he was surveying his space through your eyes.

It drove you wild when he fluffed his hair, and you often thought of nothing more than what it would be like to grasp a handful of it to tilt his head back while you got to mouth at that jawline of his.

Your desire for him drove you to close the distance, effectively pinning Elliot against the door without touching him. His eyes widened and he swallowed, hard, panic momentarily flashing across his features.  

“Hey—” your voice rang strong in Elliot’s ears. “Is this okay?”

His eyes focused on yours and he let out a breath. It took him a moment, but then the corners of his mouth quirked up and he held your gaze. “It is.”

“Thank god,” you mumbled as you stepped forward and leaned against the door, your hands coming to rest against the cool wood on either side of Elliot’s head.

Leaning down, you pressed your lips to his in a slow, heated kiss. You could feel his full lips moving beneath yours, parting to permit your exploration of his mouth. When Elliot’s hands reached out to grasp your hips, his thumbs settling just below your belt, you broke the kiss with a gasp for air and leaned your forehead against his.

“Tell me what you want.”

“I’ve—I’ve never had anyone ask that.”

“Well I’m asking. What do you want, Elliot?”

He gave your hips a squeeze and pushed forward. Your hands came down to rest at your sides and this time, Elliot’s mouth landed on yours. He pushed you back until your oxfords hit the edge of his mattress.

“Can I—“ Elliot faltered, his eyes looking anywhere but on your face.

“Anything,” you urged, your voice deep and soothing.

“Can I undress you?”

You chuckled and spread your arms like Jesus on the cross. “Have at it!”

Elliot smiled a real smile at your enthusiasm.

You let him undress you and you were unsurprised that it was in a manner that was slow and deliberate, like so many of the things Elliot did.

He kissed you, sweetly on the lips then hotly along your jaw and your neck. He kept his hands on your upper arms to steady himself, but when he moved under your chin to kiss the other side of your neck, he reached up and ran one hand through the short hairs on the back of your head.

You shivered, and Elliot was encouraged by your reaction. He pulled on your tie and tossed it to the floor, his hands working each button on your dress shirt while his lips kissed each patch of newly exposed skin.

You felt like you were vibrating with need when Elliot reached for your belt, your breath sucking in a sharp gasp. Elliot glanced up in concern, but you mumbled for him to please continue and even though the concern didn’t leave his eyes, he did.

As he worked open your trousers and they slid to the floor, Elliot relaxed as he saw the bulge beneath your underwear.

He reached for you, then stopped, his eyes flicking up to your face as they sought permission and a part of you wanted to stop him right there and hug him tight, assure him that you wanted him in every way a man could want another man.

When Elliot palmed your hard cock over the soft fabric of your boxer-briefs, you groaned and reached for his shoulders to steady yourself.

“You can lie down?” Elliot suggested, his pupils so dilated that his eyes looked black.

You gratefully fell back against the mattress and kicked at your trousers, realizing too late that they were caught.

Half of Elliot’s mouth pulled into a smile as he said, “Let me,” and reached to remove your shoes.

After discarding your shoes, socks, and trousers, Elliot looked at you with resolve and quickly divested you of your underwear. Sitting up on your elbows, you watched him as his eyes raked over your body. He reached to the front of his jeans and adjusted his own bulge.

Elliot seemed to sigh in appreciation, and when he unzipped and shrugged out of his black hoodie, you could see the slight flush coloring the base of his neck. If this was enough to make him hot, you could only imagine what he’d look like underneath you, his cock in your hand … or in your mouth.

“We still good?” you ask, desperate for Elliot to touch you.

“Yes,” he said as he nodded and finally moved, crawling between your legs and settling on top of you.

If kissing Elliot was heaven, you couldn’t even think of a word divine enough for what it felt like to make out with him—to have his body rutting against yours, his hot hands on your skin, roaming over every inch they could reach. When Elliot began to kiss down your chest, his hands squeezing at your pecs as he lapped along your happy trail, you groaned with appreciation for his touch.

The noise you made emboldened Elliot and he kissed along your abdomen, dipping his tongue into your bellybutton before he moved to nibble at your hips.

Another groan slipped from deep within your chest as Elliot’s teeth and tongue worked along the groove of one hip then the other, and you had no idea you were so sensitive there.

You thought it could have a lot to do with how pretty Elliot’s face looked with his eyes shut as his tongue poked out and soothed the nips he had taken, probably marking you.

Your cock wept at the thought of waking up to tiny bruises on your hips made by him.

“Elliot,” you whispered. “Fuck. Your mouth is so hot.”

Elliot looked up and tilted his head, a slightly wicked gleam in his eye as he broke your gaze and looked back to your cock. When he bent his head and his tongue slid along your slit, lapping up your precum, you bit your lip and begged your body not to betray you.

“Christ,” you hissed, unable to watch as his hot mouth engulfed your cock. You pushed away focusing on just how good he felt around you to draw out your orgasm. You labored to control your breathing and when you finally could, you looked down and watched Elliot’s head bobbing up and down, his hand working the base of your dick as he finally popped off your tip to catch his breath.

“El—Elliot. Come here,” you begged, your cheeks hot, your lip almost bitten bloody.

When Elliot saw what a mess you were, he shot up and settled on top of you again, your mouths crashing together in a sloppy kiss.

What was it Elliot always said?

Control is an illusion.

And your control was gone—not even so much as a breath of pretense was left as you pawed at Elliot’s clothed body, your hands grasping at his back, his ass, and working your way around to his hard dick.

“Can I touch you?” you panted into his mouth.

“Yes,” he hissed. “I want to come with you.”

“Oh, yes. Yes. Elliot. I want that.”

Elliot’s hand wound around you as you opened his jeans, reaching into the waistband of his underwear and pulling out his cock just enough to get a good grip on him.

His dick was velvetyhot in your hand and Elliot, for the first time moaned.

You wanted to tattoo every staccato note of that moan on your body.

“Fuck, El! Just like that,” you breathed as he tightened his grip and began to pump. “Te—tell me what you like.”

Elliot moaned again and you shuddered with pleasure, your hand gripping him tighter, but Elliot shifted his hips.

“Looser—just a little, oh. Oh, ye-yeah,” he stammered out as you adjusted the way you were stroking him.

“Like that?”

“Like that,” Elliot answered, his eyes shut in pleasure and you realized he looked just as beautiful as you knew he would as he came undone.

Each of you concentrated on pleasuring the other, but Elliot had you so worked up that it wasn’t long before you were spilling cum all over his hand. He pumped you through your orgasm and as your livewire nerves receded to sparks, you rolled Elliot onto his back.

You ran your cum-covered cock along his and Elliot moaned once more, his ruined hand falling off of your cock and to the side as you slickened him up before resuming pumping him. With your slick cum, it wasn’t long before Elliot cried out and spilled into your hand, his cum stretching out in ropes all over his black t-shirt.

You gave him one final squeeze and watched as a few more drops of cum fell from his tip and then you softened your grip, your circled hand petting him lightly for another few strokes before you stopped.

Elliot’s eyes were shut and his cheeks were flushed. His lower lip held the marks from his teeth and you knew that next time, you were going to watch his face as he came.

You basked in his quiet until he opened his eyes and gave you a tentative smile.

“That was . . . nice,” he murmured in that low monotone.

“Better than nice, I’d say.”

“Do you . . . have to go?” Elliot asked quietly.

Your eyebrows furrowed with concern and you wiped your hand off on your thigh before you reached up and grasped his face, forcing his eyes to stay still on yours.

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes.”

“I hope you don’t snore,” you said, grinning wide as he softly chuckled.

[aion-rsa]

Anya Taylor-Joy Infiltrates the Boys’ Club of Chess in The Queen’s Gambit

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Netflix’s period piece miniseries The Queen’s Gambit spans a decade in the life of fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy), a wunderkind whose natural aptitude for anticipating her opponents’ moves is blunted by her addiction to the tranquilizer pills with which she credits her wins. Following gawky teenage Beth through her early tournaments in the 1950s to the aloof redheaded beauty wowing spectators in Europe in the ’60s—and leaving a trail of defeated men in her wake—the seven-hour series was faced with the challenge of making every chess scene equally thrilling to enthusiasts and non-fans alike.

The key, Taylor-Joy explains to Den of Geek, was in having every single game be recognizably unique. “[Series creator and director] Scott [Frank] and I would have a lot of conversations about both the chess and the addiction scenes, and how we were going to make each of them different and each of them fresh,” she says. “Because this show is seven and a half hours, and if a lot of that is the same chess game, people are gonna wander off.”

The cast and crew imbued each chess match with specific emotion, matching Beth’s personal and professional growth, and unique physicality. For the latter, that involved bringing in chess consultant Bruce Pandolfini (who also consulted on Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel on which the series is based) and grandmaster Garry Kasparov to plan out the series’ many games down to every gambit and checkmate. Because neither Taylor-Joy nor her on-screen competitors had played much chess prior to shooting, treating the gameplay as choreography helped them pick up the moves.

“I saw the whole thing as a dance,” explains Taylor-Joy, a former ballet dancer. “I saw learning the choreography as dance, but just with your fingers.”

Costar Harry Melling, who plays one of Beth’s early rivals Harry Beltik, agrees that the authenticity was found in the tactile movements of the pieces themselves.

“One of the most important things in terms of the choreography was the feel of the pieces,” he says, “about how you take pieces—whether you slide it across the board or whether you lift it up or put it down. All of these little details [are] what makes it look like you’ve been doing it your entire life.”

“It’s like riding a horse,” says Thomas Brodie-Sangster, whose chess champion Benny Watts is known for a distinctive leather duster and laconic attitude. “It doesn’t really matter if you can ride a horse, it’s more about if you can get on the horse and get off the horse and look cool doing it. That’s what people pick up on; it shows that you actually look comfortable doing it.”

While Beltik and Benny are as fictional as Beth, the actors were encouraged to draw inspiration from current and historical grandmasters on which to base their characters’ games. “Every game in the show is based on a real game,” Brodie-Sangster says. “If you’ve got a really keen eye, you can probably recognize games from across the history of chess.” He modeled Benny’s moves after Bobby Fischer, while Melling devoted a lot of time to watching current World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen play.

“That was really fascinating,” Melling says, “because I knew nothing about chess whatsoever—so [I was] starting from ground zero, really, working out how these people operate, what makes them tick.”

Equally important as the dance steps were the dance partners. Taylor-Joy credits the originality of each sequence to who Beth is playing at that moment in time—like Townes (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), a hunky competitor who flusters young Beth. “The first time that Beth plays Townes, it’s the first time that she’s ever liked somebody that she’s playing opposite against,” she says, “so she wants to win, but she doesn’t necessarily enjoy seeing him crumble, which is a new experience for her.”

Taylor-Joy soon found the game as dramatic as Beth does. “For her, it is life or death,” she says. “This is her intellect being challenged, and her intellect is the only thing she has any faith in. So I definitely felt the pressure, and then—whenever she’s playing with somebody—the power high of that.”

It’s no surprise that Beth gets a power high from defeating her male opponents, as it is a very insular boys’ club into which she enters as a dowdily-dressed teenager in the ’50s. For her first match with Beltik at the Kentucky Chess Championship, Melling says, the former is very much in his element, “and then she sort of enters his sphere, and he becomes completely in awe of her talent, and he knows that she’s a better player than him. His bubble gets burst very quick.”

Though Benny saunters into their first match together, Brodie-Sangster acknowledges that there is also an immediate spark with Beth. “Her presence is a bit of a surprise, and a bit of an enigma for him,” he says. “She is very much in a man’s world and doesn’t really look like she really fits in there; neither does he, and I think there’s a kind of connection there.”

Beth grows up in the world of chess, both as an aspiring grandmaster and as a young woman. Taylor-Joy had a blast playing so many different versions of Beth, though she laughs recalling how Frank initially asked her how young she thought she could play. Fourteen or fifteen was her answer—“eight, you’re gonna have to get another actor to do that one”—and so she portrays Beth from her inelegant teenage years through to her mid-twenties.

Over the course of the series, we witness Beths who are alternately brilliant and awkward, shy and sexy, on top of the world and extremely vulnerable. “Because [the show] takes its time and because you do grow with her, you as an audience are allowed insight into why she is the way she is,” Taylor-Joy says. “You see the things that shape her, and you see her grow from it, and you understand why she’s grown in that direction.” 

To move between those many phases, she would devise her own backstories for the different Beths: “She starts off walking very clumsily and awkwardly and almost side-to-side, and then I was like, ‘Oh, and this is the first time she’s ever seen an Audrey Hepburn movie’ and she starts wearing the black pants and the turtleneck and starts standing differently, if a boy’s around. And just trying on different personalities, as I think we all do, especially in that age range, and probably into our adult life. It was really fun.”

In contrast to her male opponents and love interests who inhabit the same sphere, the two key women in Beth’s life exist almost entirely outside of the chess world. Fellow orphan Jolene (Moses Ingram) shows her the ropes at the orphanage, much like an older sister, but resentment stretches between them when Beth is adopted and Jolene is left behind.

“It’s all in how they’ve grown up with each other and gotten to know each other,” says the theatrically trained Ingram of her first on-screen role and the difficult emotional history between Beth and Jolene. “I think people that truly love one another certainly get the very best, but also the very worst, of each other. When you can see someone that deeply, you can’t help but be locked in to one another.”

Complicating their relationship is the fact that preteen Jolene is the one who introduces eight-year-old Beth to the tranquilizer pills to which she immediately becomes addicted. “Jolene was just teaching her how to cope in the only way that Jolene has learned how to cope,” Ingram explains, but that simple act irrevocably shapes Beth’s approach to chess for the next decade. Initially used to “even out” the orphans’ disposition (and then later banned for their habit-forming tendencies), the pills help Beth envision a chessboard in the shadows of her bedroom ceiling at night. Taylor-Joy says she would track Beth’s mental and emotional state not just by the different matches, but by how the ghostly chess pieces appear to her: “Sometimes they’re familiar, sometimes they’re very threatening, it all very much depends on where she’s at.”

Unfortunately, where Beth is often at is relying too much on the pills to help her focus during chess games, believing herself unable to triumph when not in her altered state. Her dilemma is complicated by the fact that the tranquilizer pills come back into her life care of her adoptive mother Alma Wheatley (Marielle Heller), who initially comes off as a stereotypical ’50s housewife who can’t function without “Mother’s Little Helper.” (Though the pills go by the fictional name Xanzolam in the series, they seem to be a cousin of Azolam and other benzodiazepines.)

In the past four years, Heller has been best known behind the camera, as the director of such celebrated films as The Diary of a Teenage Girl (for which she also wrote the screenplay), Can You Ever Forgive Me?, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and What the Constitution Means to Me. While Heller had always referenced her history as an actor as “part of my superpower as a director,” she says that she began to feel like “a fraud” when directing stars like Tom Hanks or Matthew Rhys. “I started to feel like, ‘Do I even remember what that feels like, to be an actor, to be asked to do these things, to be asked to go into these certain emotional places?’”

So when Frank, a long-time friend, invited her to join the series and spend a few months shooting in Berlin, Heller saw it as the perfect opportunity to, in her words, “keep my street cred as a director who was an actor.” As a director who seeks out projects about the uncomfortable things that people don’t talk about, Heller found that Alma embodied those same sensibilities: “She’s someone who has a lot of pain in her past, and that makes her most interesting; she’s not some version of a ’50s housewife that doesn’t feel real. So much of what I try to do as a director is to tap into that thing that has made somebody the way they are.”

Despite mother and daughter’s initial friction, as Beth carves out her niche in the chess world, and Alma begins accompanying her on her more glamorous tournaments, the older woman is inspired to revisit her own long-abandoned dreams of devoting her life to a creative pursuit. “For Alma,” Heller says, “she had this dream deferred. She was somebody who wanted to be a pianist and artist and never could, and that’s a pain that I feel is very human, and I totally connected to.”

What’s remarkable about The Queen’s Gambit is that each of its female characters experiences a different and specific struggle for the time period. “Scott did that really beautifully,” Ingram says of playing adult Jolene, advocating for change during the Civil Rights movement while Beth is moving up through the ranks of the chess world. “He didn’t let us forget what point in time we were in the world—we’re in the ’60s, in the smack-dab [middle] of civil unrest, because people aren’t being treated fairly. And I loved that Jolene is out front and being a crusader, being a champion for change, when very clearly all she’s known is white people her whole life. So it was beautiful to see that she’s found herself later, in changing the world—trying to, at least.”

In that endeavor, Jolene describes herself as a radical, though Ingram also feels that the word was a fitting theme for the series overall.

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“I think it’s radical that Beth, as a woman, is this far into the chess world at this point in time,” she says. “It’s unheard of that she’s there, and everyone’s shocked by it. It’s definitely a story of radical love, and radical faith.”

The Queen’s Gambit premieres October 23 on Netflix.

The post Anya Taylor-Joy Infiltrates the Boys’ Club of Chess in The Queen’s Gambit appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[salty-ironstrange-shipper]

From the Top: Prologue

Summary: Personally, I think the MCU would be much better as a love story between Stephen Strange and Tony Stark. Don't you? Starting from Iron Man, and going all the way to Endgame, with all the appropriate stops in between. Let's take it from the top. (warning for mild sexual content)

“This thing on?”

. . .

“Hey, Miss Potts. If you or Rhodey find this recording, don’t feel bad about this. Part of the journey is the end.”

. . .

“Just for the record, being adrift in space with zero promise of Rescue is more fun than it sounds. Food and water ran out . . . four days ago . . . oxygen’ll run out tomorrow morning, and that’ll be it.”

. . .

“Stephen, if you’re . . . there somewhere . . . when I drift off, I’ll be with you again. I can’t wait.”

— 2008-2010 —

They first met at a party.

This one was organized by the hospital to raise money. It was also Stephen's first upper-class party like that, and he had been more nervous that he would like to admit. He was alone unless you counted the other, more experienced doctors who were also there and who immediately fucked off and did something else as soon as they got there, leaving him alone at the bar. Stephen resisted a sigh and took a drink.

Across the room, Tony was growing increasingly bored listening to doctors fight to get his funding. He planned to give it regardless, but he usually enjoyed it when people fought for his attention. Tonight though, he was looking for something . . . different.

He looked past the doctors around the room, marking off options in his head. Boring, boring, bad in bed, cries during sex . . . huh. His eyes landed on a man standing at the bar. That’s new. Dark hair, unblemished skin, tall and slender without being skinny, young, but not too young. Looked like he was trying to hide how uncomfortable he was. Not exactly a challenge, but Tony wasn't looking for one.

“Yeah, okay, bye.” He left the doctors behind, eyes trained on his newest target. The man didn’t seem to notice him at first. Tony took the time to look him up and down before asking, “Bored?”

To his credit, the man barely seemed surprised to see him. Or maybe he just didn’t recognize Tony. Bit insulting, it’s my party, but fine.

He nodded. “A bit.”

“My bad.” He held out his hand for the doctor to shake. “Tony Stark.” There we go. There was recognition in the man’s eyes, but he didn’t react apart from that, merely shaking Tony’s hand.

“Stephen Strange.”

Tony smiled and opened his mouth.

“Whatever it is, don’t.”

Tony chuckled, plucking a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. “You’ve probably heard just about every ‘strange pun’ under the sun, huh?”

“Twice. It got old around the time I started to speak.”

“Sounds like you could use something new.” Tony turned towards him, angling his head so that his attention was fully on the other man.

Stephen seemed to realize immediately what he meant. He took his time looking over Tony before a smirk slid over his face. “Projecting, much? What, are you tired of the same one-night-stands?”

Tony smiled. “Knew you’d heard of me.” He took a long draw of his drink. “So what do you think? Want to be my something new for the night?”

“If you think you can keep up with me.”

“Cocky. I like that in a man.”

“Really? The version I heard is that you like it in you.”

Tony arched a brow. “Planning to join that list?”

Stephen ‘hmmed’, sliding a hand over Tony’s free one. “Mister Stark . . . you’re going to beg me to join it.

Tony snorted, looking Stephen over his glass of champagne. “I've never begged for anything in my life.”

Stephen smirked. “Then I will be honored to be the first.”

Tony laughed, louder than he meant to. “Oh, I’m gonna have fun with you.”

“Well”, Stephen muttered to himself, walking up to his apartment, “I can add that to my list of achievements. First person to ever make Tony Stark beg in bed.” It was the best night he’d had in a while, but now he was exhausted from staying awake so long and getting up early, not to mention the party. At least I don’t have anything to do today, he thought, falling into bed. So naturally he was forced to wake up four hours later to go to the hospital.

“I’m going to murder Nick,” Stephen said when he got a chance to talk to Christine. Christ, residency was even worse than med school.

“It’s not his fault he’s sick,” Christine said half-heartedly.

“Yes it is.”

Christine rolled her eyes and walked off, probably having better things to do than put up with his bitching. Stephen downed a cup of coffee as quickly as he could, having little time before he had to go back to work. Sometimes he wondered why he bothered before reminding himself that the rewards were worth the effort.

Stephen was about to get back to work when his phone chimed. He looked down, wondering who was texting him when pretty much everyone he cared to talk to was at the hospital.

I'm not hungry. Let's get dinner. — You know who I am

Stephen stared at the phone. How the hell did he get my phone number?

. . .

Okay, that was a stupid question. The man was a genius who owned a tech company, it probably took him two seconds.

He considered ignoring it, but if he was honest with himself, he didn’t want to. If nothing else, Tony Stark was new and interesting, two things his life was decidedly lacking lately.

Eyes on the clock, he texted, Can’t right now. Work. Then, Will you still be up at 3?

It’s like you know me.

Stephen didn’t realize he was smiling until someone snapped at him to get back to work.

It was not a walk in the park to date Tony Stark.

The first few weeks were like a dream. When they actually sat down to have a conversation, Tony was surprised by how intelligent Stephen was and how much he genuinely enjoyed speaking to him. It wasn’t long before he was thinking up every excuse he could to stay in New York, even relocating business meetings that would have been in California only to blow them off in favor of showing Stephen off and lavishing him with gifts. But they were two months into their relationship, and he didn’t know how he thought it could last.

Honestly, it was kind of a stupid fight. They were having sex at Stephen’s apartment — he had repeatedly turned down Tony’s offers to buy him a better one — when Tony, curled around Stephen’s back as he fucked into him, said, “God, you’re such a slut, so desperate for my cock, such a fucking whore—”

Stephen turned, pushing Tony away with hands and feet. “Get off— get off of me!”

Confused, Tony did as he was told, staring at Stephen as he got out of bed and started to get dressed. “What’s wrong?”

Stephen paused, his pants haphazardly hanging around his waist, Tony’s shirt only half on him. “Are you fucking serious? What, do you think I don’t get called that enough already by your ‘friends’?”

Tony did know. He could hardly go three days without someone making a smartass comment about his boyfriend who was ten years younger than him and had little status or resources of his own. Normally he could shrug it off, but tensions were high between them as Stephen had grown more unsettled with Tony’s job and company.

Not that Tony was willing to admit that Stephen might have a point. “Well personally, I thought gold-digging slut suited you better.” He winced when he saw the angry, hate-filled look on Stephen’s face, immediately regretting what he said. “I didn’t mean that—”

“Get out,” Stephen said in a low, cold tone. “Get out. I don’t want you in my apartment.”

“Stephen—”

“No, if all I am is your hooker than I’m sure you can find a cheaper one who’s willing to put up with you. It is New York, afterall.” He started throwing Tony’s clothes at him, realizing halfway through that he was wearing his shirt. He took it off and threw that too. “Get. OUT!”

Soon Tony was standing outside the apartment with his shirt and shoes in hand and wondering how he fucked up so badly.

“Come here often?”

Stephen started at the familiar voice, rolling his eyes when he saw Tony. “Not anymore. The company is terrible.”

“I deserved that.” It had been three weeks since their disastrous breakup, and Tony was no longer too proud to admit that he missed the doctor. And he thought that enough time had passed that Stephen wasn’t as angry as he’d been when he changed the locks on his apartment and blocked his number.

“And much more.” Maybe not.

“I know. And I want to make it up to you.”

Stephen scoffed. “What, the prostitutes in Malibu aren’t up to your high standards?”

“I apologized for that.”

“No, you didn’t actually.”

Tony thought back. “Oh. Well, I meant to. To be fair, you didn’t really give me a chance.”

“And why should I now?” Stephen demanded, looking him in the eye for the first time since he got here.”

“Because the suite I'm staying in has a private hot tub.”

Stephen paused. “That does sound fun.”

Tony smiled, knowing he’d already won. If Stephen were really as upset as he seemed, nothing would have swayed him. But if Stephen wanted him to grovel a bit, then he could do that.

“Plus,” Tony said, reaching into his pocket, “I got you something.” He set the box on the counter, standing back to let Stephen choose whether or not to take it.

Luckily, resisting temptation had never been one of Stephen’s strengths. After a brief moment of curiosity, he took the box, his eyes widening a fraction when he saw the label on the top. He looked up at Tony. “Are you serious?”

“Open it and find out,” Tony said with a sly smile.

Still looking at him, Stephen obeyed, delicately lifting the watch out. “Jesus, Tony.” The watch was perfectly designed, made of shining platinum and steel, with a white face and black leather band.

“You said you wanted it,” Tony said.

Stephen frowned. “When?”

“Don’t know,” Tony lied, distinctly remembering when Stephen had brought it up when they were lying in bed together. “Thought you’d appreciate it.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Stephen’s mouth. “You’re laying it on pretty thick, don’t you think?”

“Is it working?”

Stephen couldn’t help a small smile. “It’s incredibly ostentatious. And, I’m sure, ridiculously expensive.”

“Oh good, you like it.”

For the first time in weeks, Tony heard Stephen laugh.

They lasted two months.

So they continued, apart for a few weeks, together longer, much to the annoyance of everyone who knew them. Christine, especially, grew tired of Stephen’s periods of whining, mooning, and bitching. But it was worst in November of 2008. That year, Stephen’s birthday just so happened to intersect with his relationship with Tony. And Tony, being the show-off he was, wanted to plan something big.

Christine still doesn’t know how she got roped into helping him.

“Now, for Stephen’s sake, and hoping we can keep this out of the tabloids—” a problem she never thought she’d have— “let’s try to keep it low-key and classy.”

“I agree completely,” Tony said. “How many strippers do you think we need?”

Jesus fucking Christ.

The party ended up taking place on an island in the Caribbean. There were two hundred people, of whom Stephen knew around ten, plus about two dozen strippers, and a champagne tower that someone knocked over, and then someone else cut their tongue open on the broken glass when they tried licking up the champagne from the floor. Stephen and Tony missed this because they were having sex on a completely different part of the island. Christine never went to another one of Tony’s parties.

When the next year rolled around, Tony and Stephen were decidedly not together. Work was stressing him out, and the idea of taking a break for his birthday was laughable. He only got home at four am. When Stephen fell into bed, he was annoyed to realize that he couldn’t fall asleep. His apartment was too . . . quiet. Quiet and empty. He just lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.

“What the fuck am I doing?” Sighing, he sat up and grabbed his phone. 5:21. He groaned, running ideas through his head for something to take his mind off of how fucking depressing this was before he remembered hearing about Tony being in the city for a conference.

The last thing he’d wanted when he woke up that morning was to see Tony. It was just a reminder of how things had changed since the year before, of how they were never going to work because they could barely stand to be around each other for more than a month.

But I miss him.

He waited a few minutes before calling him. “Hey. I . . . heard you were in New York.”

Thirty minutes later, Stephen was screaming Tony's name into a pillow and had completely forgotten about why he was upset.

At least until afterwards when Tony kissed his cheek and whispered, “Happy birthday.”

Christine sat listening to Stephen complain about Tony, who was of course in New York again, clearly expecting Stephen to fall into his bed later, and Stephen was saying that that would definitely not happen for the third time that year. Once he paused for breath, Christine said, “You know Stephen, every time Tony turns up in New York again — which he does ten times as much as he did before he met you — you insist that nothing's going to happen and you'll just ignore him. Then you say it was just a one-night stand and it didn't mean anything. Two days later, you're singing his praises, talking about how thoughtful he can be and how things really weren't that bad before and there was no reason this time couldn't be better, and can we just skip to that part already? Because honestly, that is when you're at your least unbearable during this whole thing.”

Stephen flushed. “That's not—”

“It has been exactly like this every time for three. Years. Three years! Just fuck him and get it over with.”

Stephen bristled, sitting back and refusing to speak to her for the rest of the day. Christine was perfectly fine with that.

Later, when Stephen was laying back against Tony’s arm with the blankets over them, he asked Tony, “Why do we keep doing this? I know the reasons we never work — all of them — but why do you keep coming back?”

Tony chuckled, rolling over to grab a complimentary bottle of champagne from the hotel room’s nightstand. “Three years and you’re just now asking?”

“It was on my mind.” He kicked at Tony’s leg. “Come on, Tony. If this was just sex, you could go to anyone. You wouldn’t have to fly across the country and fuck up your schedule even more every two weeks.”

“Bold of you to assume I have a schedule.” He gulped down some of the champagne and offered it to Stephen, who refused.

“Just answer me, Tony.”

Tony sighed, thinking about it with one hand curled around the neck of the bottle. “You're charming . . .”

“Charming?” That was about the last thing he would use to describe himself, but Tony seemed serious.

Tony nodded. “Charming, and smart, and witty, and nicer than you seem. And I . . . miss you. When we're not together, I miss you.”

Stephen stared at him, stunned. He knew why he was still there. Tony Stark was . . . electric. He was life personified. Stephen was drunk on him.

But he never realized that his infatuation was so . . . mutual.

Stephen pulled Tony back down to the bed, taking the bottle and dropping it gently to the floor. “Get some sleep. You have a lot to do tomorrow.”

Tony groaned. “Ugh, don’t remind me. Next time, you come to California so I don’t have to make two trips in two days.”

“Or you could just not decide to fly to New York at the last minute when you know you’ll have to go back and go to Afghanistan right after.”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous.”

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[flamehairedwritings]

Queen of the Night

Characters: Steve Rogers x Plus-Size!Female Reader

Words: 3,111

Rating: M, 16+ ONLY

A/N: Hi, there. This has been written for @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan‘s Full Figured Fantasy Challenge with the prompt: ‘There is no wrong way to have a body’. 

It’s a very personal story so I hope you enjoy.

This story contains swearing and bad intrusive thoughts about your body.

Summary: At a Stark party, it’s up for debate who’s more uncomfortable; you or Steve Rogers.

EDIT: Read Part II here.

MASTERLIST

Please don’t copy, steal or repost my work; credit does not count. 

You should’ve known you’d regret it.

Yet you’d felt confident at the time.

Sexy, even, and that wasn’t something you often felt.

Oh my God, I look fucking amazing.

That had been two weeks ago when you were alone in your bedroom and the lighting had been warm and the mirror had been angled perfectly, as it always was.

Now, at Stark’s party, surrounded by bright lights, photographers and all the beautiful and elite of the city, you’re feeling very differently.

Why did I have to go with a fucking body-con.

The dress is gold, clings to you and stops just above your knees. You have no way of hiding and you so desperately want to. You can’t even leave; you’ve retreated to the furthest corner of the large room where’s it moderately quieter and where no members of the paparazzi are lurking. Even the thought of walking across the room, passing people, passing the photographers outside again, is making you sweat and your chest tighten; you have to keep switching the empty glass from one hand to the other so it won’t slip from your warm palms.

“Another one, ma’am?” 

Oh, fuck off.

The waitress has returned, a full glass on her tray. She’s giving you the same look as before which she probably thinks is coming off as kindly sympathetic but it’s just pitying. Sheer, fuck-off pitying. 

“Yes, thank you.” You smile politely, swapping your glass for the one she offers.

She gives the same chummy smile as before, then turns and leaves. 

You release a breath and take a long sip, your gaze flicking about the room. 

Everyone’s here tonight, all members of the Avengers, field agents and agents you work with in the offices, which should be comforting but is, in fact, the complete opposite.

You work with these people. You’ve all seen each other at your emotional best and worst. You’ve all seen each other without make-up, in sweats, greasy-haired, huge red spots on your faces, and no one bats an eyelid. 

So why is this different?

You know why. No one’s ever seen you in anything tighter than a pant suit.

Stop feeling like shit, it’s so ridiculous.

It’s not like they don’t know you’re fat, fuller figured, plus-sized, large, curvy, whatever word people want to use to define your body, it’s not like they don’t know. It’s not some great secret. It’s just different when you’re sat at your desk helping to save lives because that’s the sole focus.

Now, here, the focus is on each other. It’s a party; people go to parties to fuck, drink and dance. It’s the only chance you all get to relax a little and let go some what. The Avengers can’t, not at these things, they have to be ‘the face’ and act accordingly, but the agents can go relatively wild. You know they’ll all be gossiping about who fucked who tomorrow.

You wonder if they’ll gossip about you, too.

It won’t be cruel. You get on with everyone you work with; you’re never without a witty comment, you’re damn good at your job and you always bring baked goods in for Friday breakfast.  

It’ll be the same as the waitress, though. It’ll be pitying, grateful-it’s-not-them whispering about how brave you were to wear the dress, how proud they were that you did it. You’ve already had a few comments of ‘Yes, girl!’ and ‘Holy shit, look at you!’ from colleagues as you passed them to get to this safe corner, but it just sounded so false, too forced. Like they knew you needed the confidence boost.

Go home.

How, though? You’ve led high-risk missions on the other side of the world through an ear-piece and helped negotiate with one of the most temperamental crime lords in the world but you can’t walk across a damn room, order a damn cab and go home.

“Hey.”

Oh, thank fuck.

Turning at the quiet voice, you are welcomed by the sight of the only person in the room probably more uncomfortable than you; Steve Rogers.

And you’ve never felt more relieved.

“Hi,” you answer, matching his smile as he stands at your side, hands in his pockets and his eyes on the steadily escalating dance-off in the centre of the room; Agent Barton’s still winning.

“Not gonna show everyone how it’s done?”

“I will when you do.”

He exhales a laugh, one corner of his mouth rising higher than the other. “I’ll let you know when hell freezes over.” 

Silence falls as you sip your drink and he continues to watch his team members dance, Sam Wilson literally throwing his hat into the ring and becoming a strong contender for the winner, and it’s wonderfully comfortable.

You’ve collaborated with Steve on nearly every single one of his missions outside of the Avengers Initiative, and over that time an easy, what you dare to call friendship has formed, one born from the trust you’ve both earned from one another and the respect in your logical, like-minded way of thinking. You were also one of the few who didn’t lobby hard to collaborate with him when he joined SHIELD; sure, you’d made the application, same as everyone else because who wouldn’t want to work with Captain America, but you hadn’t gone out of your way to ‘bump’ into him during training or sent him a hand-written, 13 page letter detailing how he had inspired you to become an agent. 

You were nervous before your final interview, having made it to the last three applicants, but you knew you wouldn’t think it the end of the world if you didn’t get the job. Then you’d entered the room and found you’d be having a one-to-one interview with Captain Steve Rogers.

You’d never spoken to him before, only seen him in halls and meetings, and as he rose from his chair and shook your hand, you’d tried very hard to ignore the fact you were shaking hands with a living legend and icon. Albeit a tired but very polite living legend and icon.

He didn’t want to be there but you weren’t offended; this wasn’t how he was used to doing things. He was used to being given information, being dropped into the mission zone and figuring out for himself how best to work through it. He probably wasn’t thrilled at the notion of having someone with less experience in his ear giving him updates every few minutes, making sure he ticked boxes and advising what would be best to do.

In fact, you’d told him that. That had been your opening introduction. You had no idea where it had come from. You weren’t usually that bold with superiors unless it mattered, but something in you had told you this was a time when it mattered. You’d told him that and more, saying you would guide when guidance was needed and advise when advising was needed.

He had blinked in surprise then sat back in his chair and smiled.

Since then it had been the easiest of partnerships. You trusted each other’s judgements, rarely, strongly, disagreed and you both actually, genuinely got on very well. He didn’t mind in the middle of a mission if you started talking about a TV series you were watching, and you didn’t mind that he often called you ‘Hepburn’, a nickname born from when, a couple of months into your new role, he’d told you you’d reminded him of Katharine Hepburn with your assertive opening statement.

At times he’d had to defend you to your superiors for not bringing him in when they’d advised or not reporting him when he’d done something they’d prohibited, and you had got him out of more situations than you cared to count. 

You could read each other irritatingly well, so there is no doubt in your mind he knows how uncomfortable you are and the reason for it.

Great.

Drawing his eyes away after a few minutes as Sam is seemingly declared the winner, though Barton seems to just be calling a time-out, Steve looks to you.

“You seem to have done the impossible in this place and found a quiet corner.”

Oh, fuck, is he going to broach the subject now? Why did I wear this fucking dress?

You raise your eyebrows as you nod at the small table before you with an obnoxiously large floral arrangement on it which you’d been using as cover, though he’d still found you. 

“I can’t take all the credit, that’s doing most of the work.”

Then, beyond the flowers, you spot a middle-aged couple whispering to each other as they near, one of them trying, and failing, to subtly either film or take a picture of Steve.

“Oh, don’t look now, we’ve been spotted, Captain,” you murmur, glancing up at him.

He exhales a quiet sigh as his teeth briefly graze over his lower lip. “I’m sorry, I’ve ruined your peace.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it, I was thinking of leaving now, anyway.”

Once I’d stopped being a child and made my legs work.

“Yeah, me, too.” Gazing over your head, you can see the plan he’s forming. “Come on.” 

Gently tapping a finger tip against your hand, he then passes behind you and opens the door to your left.

Oh my God, that was unlocked the whole time?

Holding it open for you, he gestures with his head for you to pass through. 

You don’t need telling twice. 

“You memorised the layout of the place, didn’t you?”

He glances over at you, looking nowhere near as sheepish as the situation probably demands. “Well, it makes for an easier exit.”

The wind carries your laugh. 

He’d taken the lead after you’d passed through the door and had known every turn to take, almost as if he’d spent the night before planning various escape routes. 

Thank God.

You’d eventually come out behind the building and you’d just arched an eyebrow at him as you spotted his car parked across the street.

Again, thank God.

Then, as you’d gotten in to the car, he’d said something that was even more amazing than getting you out of there.

“You fancy getting pizza?”

“Am I ever going to say no to that?”

He’d laughed at your faux-incredulous response, but you had hesitated for a moment. Eating, in this dress, feeling as you were..?

But then you’d thought, Fuck it, I want pizza.

And that’s how you found yourself sitting on a bench with Steve, a box of pizza between you, gazing out across a lake.

“Do you want the last slice?”

You really do, but... Having had five slices, sat there in a gold dress that makes you stand out like a shining star in the night sky, you wonder for the first time what Steve thinks when he sees you.

You hate the thought as soon as it enters your head.

You’ve gotten this far without thinking it about him; you think it with nearly everyone else you see, but you’d been raised with the idea of Steve just being this golden boy who was kind to everyone, never had a bad or judgemental thought about anyone. It was rare you and Steve were really in front of each other, so much of your work was over the phone or earpiece or through video calls. Even in briefings you’d be sat at a table and you’d be carrying a pile of folders in front of you. It hadn’t crossed your mind to think about what he thought of your body, until now.

“You all right, Hepburn?”

You’re pulled from your intrusive thoughts by his question and shift your gaze over to him. 

“Hm? Yeah, sure, just in a bit of a food coma, that’s all.” Even you can hear how forced your laugh is. “You have it.”

He eyes you for a moment before lifting the slice and taking a large bite.

“Thanks for escaping with me, by the way. You really have been with me every single step of the way.”

Oh, God.

This is the beginning of his roundabout, old man way of getting you to open up, you know it is.

“Nearly every step,” you counter, unable to stop a smile from forming despite yourself.

“Oh yeah,” he muses through a mouthful. “Panama. Say, where were you again?”

“In Ibiza, holidaying for the first time in ten years. You ever heard of a holiday? You should try it sometime.”

“I think I have. Wasn’t that invented in the 60s?”

He wipes his mouth with a napkin as you laugh and, damn it, let your guard down.

“What’s going on, Hepburn?” he asks gently, dropping the half-eaten slice back into the box and wiping the grease from his hands. “What’s going on in that brain?”

Your smile falters as you look at him. A quiet breath you realise you’ve been holding leaves you. Looking down at your hands, you fiddle with a ring on your finger.

He waits patiently, keeping his gaze on you.

Just say it.

“Steve... What do you think when you look at me?”

It nearly kills you to say it. You don’t want to know the answer. You don’t want to listen to him. You want to be far away, back in your bedroom with three covers over you and your laptop balanced on your thighs, watching your new favourite show. You want to escape again.

Steve blinks. He hadn’t known what to expect but it certainly wasn’t that.

“I think you’re a very intelligent, debatably hilarious person who I like and I want to be around.”

Your hands pause. Your eyes flick over to him. “... That’s it?”

He blinks again, now feeling rather sheepish. “Do you want more? You are hilarious, you know, it’s not debatable and ─ “

“No,” you quickly cut him off before he gets too carried away. “Well, yes, no, I just thought...”

“You thought what?” he presses after you trail off.

Lifting your gaze to the night sky, you blow out a breath and a second after it, it all just comes out.

“My body, Steve, I thought you’d say something about my body because, you know, how could you not? I know you’re probably just being polite but, come on, it’s the first thing people see when they look at me, you know. It’s not exactly avoidable. I know how people think, Steve, even if they’re my friend they must think some bullshit sympathy thing every time they look at me, you know, people in this world can’t just look at someone for their personality and, I know, I know, I’m more than my body, it doesn’t matter what other people think, I know all that, I tell myself all of that and most days I believe it, I really do, most days I don’t care but sometimes it’s just, some days are hard, especially when I decide to wear a bright fucking gold dress that shows every part of my body and I don’t like it, I don’t like the way I look sometimes and I hate that, I hate that I just can’t... Get over it.”

Another breath rushes out of you, slightly shuddered, and you beg yourself not to cry.

Oh, God, please don’t cry, please don’t fucking cry now.

He doesn’t say anything and you can’t look at him.

Then you feel his hand gently settle over yours, seizing your hands from their playing with the ring again.

“Take it from someone who’s had two very different ones; there is no wrong way to have a body.”

You finally look at him, and it’s not pity you find in his eyes, but understanding. Real, genuine understanding.

“People are going to think bullshit things,” he continues as you stare at him, his hand remaining over yours, a gentle smile on his lips, “They’re gonna take one look at you and think they’ve got you all figured out. But none of that matters. I know it’s hard to not think about it, but they don’t know a damn thing about you, what you’re really like. Those kinds of people aren’t worth knowing, anyway. It’s never how you look but what you do and how you behave that stays with people. I know it takes some time to unlearn society’s ‘rules’ and start really learning to love yourself but it can be done.” He squeezes your hand lightly. “And I wasn’t kidding, you’re incredibly intelligent, you’re kind, you’re funny, and that’s what I see when I look at you. I see the person that you are.”

You have to remind yourself to breathe. His smile widens a little more as you squeeze his hand in return, your lips lifting into a smile that almost matches his.

“Thank you, Steve,” you murmur, afraid if you speak any louder that your voice might crack with emotion.

“Don’t mention it,” he answers, the pad of his thumb brushing over your knuckles. “I’ve been there.”

Clearing your throat, you feel real relief as you quietly confide, “I just wish I hadn’t worn something so tight and bright, you know.”

Steve shakes his head. “I’m glad you did, Hepburn. Otherwise I would never have found you behind those damn flowers and I wouldn’t be here now with my favourite person.”

You feel your cheeks flush as you arch an eyebrow. “I’m your favourite person, huh?”

“Yeah, you are.” You think you see the faintest hint of colour rise on his own cheeks as he releases your hand and sits back. “I look forward to talking to you every day. Even when you ramble on about the Netflix.”

You laugh as he smiles, knowing that gets you every damn time.

“Y’know, now that you mention it, last night I started a show─”

“Okay, all right.” Steve closes the pizza box and wipes his hands on his thighs, feigning a sigh of resignation. “Before you start and I can’t get a word in, I think this calls for sundaes.”

“Really?”

“Yep. Always gotta have dessert.” Getting to his feet, he turns to you, then pauses, and a corner of his mouth lifts higher than the other. 

“Oh, God, what? Is there sauce on my face?”

“No, you’re fine, Hepburn,” he laughs as your hands fly up to your face. “Just look like the damn queen of the night is all.”

Your eyebrows shoot up as your cheeks flush again. “Oh...” Clearing your throat, you smile as you tilt your head. “That how you talk to all the girls back in the day, huh?”

He laughs as you get to your feet, holding out his hand to you. “No, that one’s just for you.”

Let me know if you’d like to be tagged or removed in my future work!

Tagged: @fearandloathing-in-missouri, @persephone-divine, @jobean12-blog, @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan

[corrahdarling]

Summer - Ch. 7 - Apologies

             The rest of the day seemed to creep by for Summer. The thought of running to the University and falling at Tom’s feet to beg for forgiveness, crossed her mind more times than she could count. She knew that was a bad idea, and to be perfectly honest, she didn’t even know if he’d want to see her.         She tried to keep her mind off of the situation with Jake, because every time he crossed her mind, she wanted to be sick. The anxiety was eating away at her… what if he told the Dean that he had caught his teacher in bed with a student? Tom would be out of a job… probably ruined for life, and she would be expelled from College at the most important time in her career. It was her dumb luck, that the only person she wanted to run to was miles away, teaching a class on Shakespearean Language… and it would be too risky to run to him anyway. She was mad at herself for getting into this situation. If her jealousy hadn’t gotten the best of her, she wouldn’t have dragged Jake to Azzurro’s, and he would have never found out about their relationship. Good job, Summer.

              She figured that keeping her Tuesday night meeting with Tom was a bad idea… plus, barricading herself in her room for the rest of the day sounded better. She had homework to get done for his class, anyway, which took her the better part of her afternoon. It was something that should have only taken her thirty minutes, only her mind kept wandering to the night before. She sighed, closed her eyes, and laid her forehead on the cool wooden desk. She would have been convinced that she had been dreaming when Tom let the ‘l-word’ slip, if he hadn’t reminded her this morning. Love. This brilliant, amazing, handsome man had told her he loved her, but she couldn’t repeat it. There was no way she was ready for that.

            Chloe poked her head through the door. “Hey, are you gonna stay in here all day?”

            “I thought about it.”

            “Come on, Juliet, forget about Romeo for a while. Let’s watch a movie… I just ordered a pizza. Come o-on, I’ve already got Magic Mike loaded in the blu-ray player. We’re gonna stuff our faces and stare at Channing Tatum’s ass.”

           Summer laughed as Chloe grabbed her wrist and started pulling. “Okay, okay, I’m coming.”

           “Good… Mike and Big Dick Richie aren’t going to wait around forever…” 

           After the pizza was gone, and the movie was over, the girls sat on the couch, cuddled underneath a fleece blanket. 

           “Chloe, what am I going to do if I get kicked out of school? I have no back up plan, this is the only thing I want to do.”

           Chloe grabbed her friends hand and squeezed. “You are not getting kicked out of school… You know Jake would never tell on you two.”

           “I don’t know… I’ve never seen him that angry.”

           “Well, Summer… Jake loves you. He has for a while. I’m sure it hurt him to see what he saw this morning. Give him time to cool down, and talk to him. You’ve told him before that you just don’t like him like that, right?”

          “Yes… more than once.”

          Chloe nodded. “Maybe you can talk to him after class in the morning…”

          “That’s a bad idea… not with Tom there. I’ve got to smooth things over with him too, and the last thing I need is for him to see Jake and I talking.” She let out a frustrated groan. “I can’t believe I hurt two men in less than five minutes.”

           “You are pretty hot, Summer. That’s what happens.”

           “Sure, Chloe. I’ve got to get to bed. Got class bright and early… can’t wait!”

          “Ooh, I detect sarcasm in your voice…”

           “Ya think? Goodnight…”

           “Night! Love you!”

          “You too.” Summer smiled and traipsed into her bedroom, collapsing on her bed. She was beyond mentally exhausted, and was ready to get the next day over with. She turned to her stomach and huffed, before turning to her side… and finally her back. Every way she turned, all she could smell was Tom on her rose-colored sheets… almost like tobacco and oak moss… seductive, charming and masculine. Just like him. She tossed and turned for what seemed like hours, just imagining that he was there beside her, only realizing after opening her eyes that he wasn’t. Her eyes closed one last time that night, before drifting into a fitful, nervous sleep. 

          Four hours later, Summer awoke and immediately there was a pit in her stomach. She knew what that day could possibly hold… losing a friend in Jake… and a lover in Tom. Slowly, she rolled over and looked at her alarm clock.

           “Shit!” It was 8:15, and she had class at 9. She could hear rain splattering on her window, which made her morning even better. Being from the South, she wasn’t used to much rain, so all of the precipitation here in Seattle was something that still threw her for a loop. She jumped into the shower, giving herself a quick scrub, before wrapping her towel haphazardly around her. She threw her trusty red stain on her lips and cheeks, and a layer of mascara on her lashes. Her hair went up into a topknot, still smelling of Tom and sex… she didn’t have a choice, there was no time to wash it. 

           Sliding into a pair of cropped, dark denim pants, and a fitted, light plum t-shirt, she decided to throw on an oatmeal colored, three-quarter sleeve wool cardigan… since it looked chilly outside. She slipped her handy navy Converses on her feet before grabbing her bags and darting out the door. She couldn’t be late, giving Tom one more reason to be mad at her.

            Luckily, traffic was moving pretty quickly that morning, so she made it to the University in record time, nearly skidding into a parking spot near the door. She still had five minutes. Clutching her bags tightly, she wiped her feet on the doormat and made her way down the hall. Her stomach was absolutely turning, and as she passed Tom’s office, she noticed his door was closed and the lights were off. He must already be in class. So much for talking to him now…  

       She ducked into the lecture hall, and as she caught sight of Tom, her breath hitched in her throat. He was dressed a little more casually today in lovely, tight, dark denim trousers, a white dress shirt, and a baby blue lightweight sweater on top. His hair styled haphazardly, but perfectly, and the slight stubble on his face made her mind wander to a place it shouldn’t be… like back to her bed… with him.

       Sweet Baby Jesus, take me now.

      She cleared her throat, and passed him, ultimately drawing his attention to her.  

      “Summer.” He greeted her.

      “Morning, Dr. Hiddleston.”

      “Running late, are we?”

      “A little. Sorry…” 

      She slid into her desk, and took her notebook and textbook out of her bag, as he began to speak. 

       “Good morning, students. Please pass up your homework from Monday.” Summer’s hand went into her bag, retrieving the paper, and peeked over at Jake from the corner of her eye. She handed her homework to the girl in front of her as she finally looked over at him. She might as well breach the subject now.

      “Morning, Jake.”

      “Hey, Summer… I was beginning to think you weren’t coming to class.”

      “Yeah, I overslept… Didn’t get much sleep last night.”

      “Have company?” He asked sarcastically.

      “No, Jake. I was up all night thinking. I need to apologize to you. I’m very sorry about everything, and the way it all happened. I shouldn’t have used you the way I did, and I’m sorry you walked in on…” Suddenly she remembered where she was. “…my company and me.”

      He nodded slowly. “You aren’t going to see him anymore, then? Right?”

      “Jake… I…” 

      “Summer, you can’t see him anymore. You know it’s not right. I know you don’t want to be with me… I understand that now… But you can’t be with him. He’s not right for you.”

       She had hoped he would have found some compassion in the last day, and would tell her that he understood that she wanted to be with Tom… and all would be good. Apparently, that hadn’t happened.  

       “Please… Jake, I really think that is my personal business.”

      He shook his head. “Let me tell you something. I care about you, but if you don’t stop seeing him, I will go to the Dean.”

      “Summer, would you and Jake like to share your conversation with the rest of the class?”

      She gasped, as she felt hot tears began to sting her eyes. “No, Dr. Hiddleston, I’m sorry.”

     He gave her a curt nod, as he went on with his lecture. 

     She turned away from Jake, even though he was still watching her. She couldn’t believe he had given her that ultimatum. She didn’t want to give Tom up, and she didn’t want to give up her career… but, it seemed like Jake was going to make her decide. One or the other... She couldn't have both. She silently wiped a couple of tears from her eyes, as she trained them on Tom. He could see that she was upset, and so could several other people in the class. She wasn’t normally emotional, especially in public, but this was an altogether different emotion. It was like she almost knew that her relationship with Tom was over, and now it was time to mourn.

       “Many different scholars have used public records from Shakespeare’s hometown Stratford-upon-Avon, to understand the sexual behavior of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. It was a much different time then, guys. Sexual misconduct was not blatant under the eye of Queen Elizabeth, who was often referred to as the Virgin Queen, and the church or the state did not tolerate adultery, incontinence or pre-marital sex. In other words, if you cheated on your spouse, couldn’t maintain an erection, or had sex before marriage, you’d be punished under the Queen’s rule. In fact, Stratford records give record of prosecution for fornication, and in spite of the danger of punishment, evidence shows that Shakespeare himself engaged in pre-marital sex, as his wife Anne Hathaway was already pregnant at the time of their marriage. It seems as though he escaped prosecution for this and escaped “scot-free.” Shakespeare’s personal sexual experiences are reflected in his writing. In Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” Rosalind discusses pre-marital sex, and in his Sonnet 151, Shakespeare gives an “extraordinary description of an erection, detailing the rising and the falling of the penis.” The class giggled as Tom returned back to the lectern. “Next time, come prepared for me to lecture for a complete hour about how scandalous Elizabethan theatre was.”

        The class mumbled. 

        “Oh, come now. It won't be that bad.” He grinned. “Now, turn to page 24 in your textbook, answer the four essay questions listed about A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and turn it in. After that you may go for the day.”

        Everyone groaned and reached into their bags for paper, and flipped to the page in their textbooks. Maybe if Summer took a while to do this, she would be able to talk to Tom before leaving. The more people that got up, the better she felt. Only, there was one person that didn’t get up even though he was finished… Jake. He was going to sit there until she got up… He was going to watch her like a hawk from here on out.

         She huffed as she added her name to the top of her paper, and underneath it, in tiny letters, she wrote the words. “I’m sorry.” She stood and began to walk to the front of the room, and heard Jake’s boots on the wooden floor behind her, matching her step for step. Approaching the lectern, she slipped her paper onto the wooden surface. 

         “Thank you, Summer.” Tom said as he looked into her eyes. She wished she knew what he was thinking at that moment as he looked at her… she couldn’t tell if his mind was filled with love… or hate… forgiveness… or contempt… and that broke her heart.

         Jake cleared his throat and stepped beside her, sliding his paper on top of hers.  

        “Thank you, Jake.” 

        Jake didn’t reply, prompting Summer to look up at him,  but he just stared at Tom, narrowing his eyes at the Professor. Tom didn’t back down, reciprocating the hateful glare, and Summer saw his jaw clench and release beneath the skin of his beautiful face.

       “Let’s go, Summer.” Jake ordered as he finally looked down to her, nodding his head toward the door.

       She gave Tom one last pleading look, before turning and exiting the room, feeling Jake so close behind her that she could hear his deep breaths. 

       “Summer.” He tried to stop her as she sped up and bustled toward her car. His long legs quickly caught up with her as he reached out and wrapped his hand around her arm. “Summer!”

       “Let go of me, Jake.” She spoke quietly, not wanting to draw attention to them. Squirming, she tried to wrench herself out of his grip, but it was impossible… he was much too strong.  

      “You know, I care about you, and I’m just trying to protect you.”

      She looked from his hand squeezing her arm to his eyes. “By hurting me?”

      “Stay away from him, Summer. That’s the last warning I am going to give you.”  

      Her mouth dropped open at his words and forcefulness. Jake had never been aggressive toward her until now, and it should have scared her… but, really, it just pissed her off.

       “How dare you? We’ve been through so much... you are one of my best friends… and you treat me like this?”

       “What’s going on out here?” Tom trotted over to the pair, rage filling his eyes. “Jake, let go of Summer, now.”  

       “This is none of your business, Dr. Hiddleston.”

       Tom stepped closer and whispered. “Summer is my fucking business. If you have a problem, you can take it up with me. Now, let her go home.”  

       Jake released her arm, but not before giving her a tiny shove. Both men looked at her expectantly as she turned and bustled to her car. Her trusty Toyota couldn’t get her out of there fast enough as she watched Tom and Jake standing there watching her. Was every day going to be like this from now on? She wouldn’t be able to handle it if they were. By the time she arrived back at her apartment, she was in hysterics. Chloe met her at the door and wrapped her arms around her friend. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s sit on the couch. Tell me what happened.”

___________________________         Summer laid on her bed later that day. It had actually turned into a lovely afternoon, so she raised her window, and let the cool breeze flow into her room. She tried to think of a way out of her situation, but every scenario was a dead end. None of them ended with a happy Summer… she either had her career, or the man she wanted. None of the possibilities left her with both. Suddenly, her phone buzzed beside her. Before swiping her finger across the screen, she saw it was a text from a number she didn’t know.

               3:46 P.M.           Are you okay?

              3:47 P.M.             Who is this?                   -S

                       3:49 P.M. You know who this is, my darling.

             3:51 P.M.  No, I’m not fine. I miss you.                -S

             3:53 P.M. I miss you too, darling. I promise that I will let nothing get in our way… or no one. Do you believe that? Will you tough this out with me?

             3:55 P.M.                 Yes.                  -S

             3:57 P.M.  That’s what I wanted to hear.          I’ll see you soon.

         She read back over the texts more times than she could count, and each time it made her feel a little better. Now, they would just have to be extra secretive. Not only keeping their relationship hidden from the world… but an over protective Jake, as well. That might prove to be a challenge… but she was up for it. She loved Tom. She could finally admit it to herself… now, admitting it to him might be a little harder. To learn to love, she would need a really good teacher…                                     … and she knew just the man for the job.