#someone tell me to just go buy the goddamn walker

[ethaninthewilde]

[to myself] you are allowed to use mobility aids. you are allowed to use sensory aids. you are allowed to use mobility aids. you are allowed to use aids to make your life easier. there is not a "level" of disabled you have to be be to use aids. you are allowed, you are allowed, you are allowed.

[to myself] you are not weak for using aids. it does not mean you are not trying. there is no pride in suffering. there is no shame in using help. you are allowed to make your life easier. you are allowed, you are allowed, you are allowed.

[ratonnhhaketon]

Still Breathing

Read on Ao3 | Next Chapter

Summary: Six months after the defeat of Thanos, the world is still in chaos. The threat of the Flag Smashers combined with the new headstrong Captain America means it's time for Valencia Zicari to help save the world one more time. But, in doing so, she also has to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship.

Warnings: Major TFATWS spoilers, Swearing, Angst, Fluff, Slow-Burn, John Walker (just in general)

A/N: HHH, new fic time! TFATWS has been consuming my brain these past few weeks and it was only a matter of time before I made another oc and wrote for Bucky. I’ve had this in the works since the first episode but I’m super excited to finally be ready to start posting! This fic will be relatively short but I do also plan on doing a prequel fic eventually to further flush out my marvel oc, Valencia Zicari. I apologize that this starts off kinda slow, with just two phone calls at the beginning, but it will pick up a lot in the upcoming chapters. In the meantime if you have any questions or comments about the fic or Val’s story, don’t hesitate to send them my way! Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1 - Your Number On Speed Dial

Bucky’s eyes shot open, his throat closing and lungs gasping for air. He felt the sweat covering his body, the thin blanket tangled between his legs. The cool metal of his dog tags swung against his chest as he sat up, chest heaving as he sucked in breaths and tried to regain his breathing. He looked around his surroundings, slowly calming down as he noticed he was in his apartment. 

Another goddamn nightmare. 

Realizing he was alone, Bucky instinctively reached up onto the chair next to him for his cellphone. He flipped open the phone, eyes squinting to adjust to the light of the small screen in front of him. He noticed the time, 3:08 am. While he knew that she would more than likely still be up and wouldn’t mind talking, he felt guilty for instinctively reaching out for her this late. Still, he let his hand press accept and after only two rings he heard her familiar voice pick up. 

“Hi Buck,” she said with a smile, exhaustion evident in her voice.

“Hi,” he replied with a hoarse voice, sleep still clinging to his vocal chords. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?” 

“I could ask you the same question,” she said with a small laugh. “But, yeah. Probably. I’ve been working my ass off trying to get in contact with Fury and nothing is working.”

“Not even through the SHIELD lines?”

She sighed, a hand coming up to rub at her temples. “I’ve tried, but he’s ‘on vacation’ and is only taking messages if they’re life or death.” 

“I mean, shouldn’t he be able to make an exception for you? Given, y’know..”

“Unfortunately I lost the ‘you’re my adoptive daughter’ privilege when I decided to grow up and join the Avengers.” Bucky chuckled in response, his nightmare finally starting to fade from the back of his mind. “I’m just.. worried about Wanda. The whole situation still isn’t sitting right with me, especially since any information has been classified and no one at all can access it.”

“Val,” Bucky said quietly, his metal hand coming up to rub against the chain hanging around his neck. “When was the last time you took a break?” 

He heard an audible sigh over the phone and a pause before she spoke up. “Not since half of the world disappeared.” 

“Well, how about this. Thursday, you finally put all of that aside for a few hours and we can grab lunch. I’ll buy.” 

She thought it over for a moment, Bucky’s breath hitching in his throat in the few seconds it took before she spoke up. “Yeah, that sounds nice. We can go to that sushi place you used to take me to.” 

“Sounds perfect, doll. I’ll see you then. Now go get some rest.” 

“You too, old man.” 

~~~~~

Valencia stood in the common room of the compound, a scowl present on her face as she watched the tv. John Walker’s Good Morning America interview was playing at a low volume. She hadn’t even met the man yet and already hated him. Partly because of how he talked about Steve without knowing the first thing about him, and partly because every journalist in the state of New York had been contacting her in an attempt to interview her about the new Captain America. Pulling her eyes away from the screen, she noticed her phone vibrating to announce an incoming call. She answered, a smile tugging at her lips for the first time in the past day. “Hey Bucky.”

“Hi,” he said shortly. She could feel the anger in his voice. “Have you seen the news?”

“Absolutely,” she replied, her scowl returning to her face. “Everyone has been bothering me about it for the past day. I had to tell Pepper that if one more reporter asked to take a statement from me I’d throw someone out of a window.”

“Jeez. Little harsh, don’t ya think?” 

“Probably,” she said with a small laugh. 

“Hey, have you talked to Sam recently?”

“Yeah, I was just talking to him earlier before you called. He was telling me about having to go to Munich today, something about the Flag Smashers? I don’t know, he didn’t really give me a lot of information.” 

“No, that's great. Thanks, doll. See you Thursday.” 

“Alright, Buck. See you then.” 

~~~~~

Any normal person would be astonished by the amount of trouble one person could get into in the span of 18 hours. But, in terms of being an Avenger, it’s just a normal Wednesday. Especially when it’s Sam and Bucky’s fault. But, Valencia still found a way to be freaking out when Pepper rushed into her room, shoving a phone into her face to announce that Bucky had a warrant out for his arrest. And had subsequently ended up in a Baltimore jail. 

In under an hour she had flown down to the city and found the facility Bucky was being held in. She pulled open the door to the jail, eyes quickly scanning the crowd of people before landing on Bucky’s literal partner in crime. 

She made a beeline straight for the dark haired man. “You want to explain to me what’s going on here, Sam Wilson?” Eyes narrowed, lips pulled into a tight line.

Upon seeing her he pushed himself out of his chair. “Val! How ya’ been? You been doing okay?”

“Oh cut the shit, Sam. You better have a good explanation for why I found out that Bucky not only had a warrant out for his arrest, but then ended up in a Baltimore jail leaving me to haul ass down here to figure out what in the hell is happening.” 

“First, I need you to calm down. Promise me you won’t freak out?” 

She glared at him. “Are you-” 

“Val,” he said in a stern tone. 

She let out a huff before nodding. “Alright, fine. I’m calm.”

“He helped me with that mission in Munich I told you about and then wanted to introduce me to someone in Baltimore. And he may have missed his therapy appointment in the process.”

“He missed-!” Val immediately yelled out, voice louder than anticipated, which drew the attention of the people around them. Sam put an arm around her shoulder and led the two of them over towards an unoccupied side of the room. “Sam, are you serious? He’s been doing so well! He put in so much effort to make sure he made the appointments and you let him go with you?”

“First of all, I told him repeatedly that I didn’t want him coming, but you know how stubborn he is.”

She let out a defeated sigh and dropped her hands to her sides. “So what do we do now?” 

“Well lucky for you they’re actually releasing him.” 

Before Val could reply she was cut off by the sound of heels clicking before a familiar voice spoke near them. “Sam. I’ve heard a lot about you.” She reached out to shake his hand. “I’m Dr. Raynor. I’m James’s therapist. It’s good to see you again, Valencia.” 

Val gave her a smile. “Good to see you too, doc.”

“So nice to meet you. You two already know each other?”

“I took Bucky to the first few of his appointments to make sure that he would, y’know, actually go. But that was before..” she waved a hand in the air, “everything.” 

Sam nodded. “Well thank you, Dr. Raynor, for getting him out.”

“Oh, that wasn’t me.” 

From across the room a booming voice spoke up, instantly grabbing their attention. “Christina!” The three of them all turned in unison and were met with none other than the new Captain America himself, taking pictures with a bunch of fans. “It’s great to see you again.” 

“You’ve got to be kidding me. You know him?” Sam spoke up with a frustrated sigh. 

“Yeah, we did some field ops back in the day.” 

“I heard you were working with Bucky, so I thought I’d step in.” Val watched as he approached the group, her arms instinctively crossing over her chest. “Miss Zicari, it’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve been trying to reach out for a formal introduction for several days now.”

“It’s Agent, actually. And unlike you I’ve had a lot of other pressing matters that required my attention.” 

“Right. Well, anyway. Bucky’s not gonna be following a strict schedule any longer.”

“What?”

“We haven’t finished our work. Who authorized this?”

“Um,” John used both hands to gesture up towards himself. “He’s too valuable of an asset to have tied up.” 

Val’s attention went from John to the sound of a metal door closing behind her. Her head turned towards the sound and she was met with none other than a familiar set of blue eyes side-eyeing the blonde man in front of her. She felt the corner of her mouth turn up in a half-smile as his head turned and saw hers. Almost instantly the token frown he wore at all times faded and turned into his own partial smile. She walked over to him, her arms finding their way around his neck subconsciously. “Hey, Buck,” she breathed as his arms wove around her middle, pulling their bodies flush together. 

“Hey to you too,” he said with a small laugh. “Pepper finally let you leave the compound?” 

She pulled away to look at him. “Less her letting me leave and more so her immediately getting me a flight and shoving me out the door when she found out you got arrested.”

“Alright lovebirds, break it up.” Dr. Raynor said from behind them. Val’s arms dropped to her side and before she had the chance to correct her, the woman spoke up again. “James, condition of your release, session now.” Bucky let out an audible groan, rolling his eyes slightly, to which Val couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle. “You too, Sam.”

“That’s okay, I’ll be out here with Val.”

“That wasn’t a request.” 

She pulled her phone from the pocket of her leather jacket and noticed an incoming call. “Just go, I’ll be outside. I gotta take this anyway.” Val walked outside of the jailhouse, sliding a thumb across the screen to answer the call in the process. She partially paid attention to what Pepper was telling her as the new Captain America walked past her, obviously checking her out with a side-eye as she leaned against the chipped bricks. Her eyes narrowed at him as he turned to steal another glance her way before turning her eyes away and down the opposite side of the road. 

“Yeah, he’s okay… no, I don’t know the specifics of how it works out with the pardon... I’ll keep you updated, but it doesn’t look like I’ll be back any time soon. I kinda feel like I’ll be joining the idiots on whatever they plan on doing next… Alright, I will. Keep me updated on the whole Westview situation and tell Morgan to stop stealing the snacks from my room. Oh, haha. Take care, Pepper.”  

As she hung up the phone she saw the door next to her swing open with a visibly angry Sam walking out of it. Bucky trudged out a few seconds later, looking angry but more upset than the man in front of him. As the door started to close behind him he saw Val and walked over to her.

“Do you think Steve was wrong about me?” She could tell he was fighting back tears by the way his voice cracked at the end.

Her hands cupped his face. “Bucky, no, absolutely not. Why would you say that?”

He looked away, not able to look her in the eye. After all the nights they spent together, her talking him down from a nightmare, reassuring him and chasing the negative thoughts away, he couldn’t admit that part of him still felt that same way. “It.. doesn’t matter.”

“If it’s making you this upset, then yes it does.” 

He let out a huff as her thumb began to lightly rub against the stubble on his cheek. “Sam shouldn’t have given up the shield.” 

“I know, Buck, I know. But there’s nothing we can do now, so let’s just try to figure out what’s happening with..” she lifted a hand from his face and used it to make vague gestures around them. “Everything right now.” 

The loud siren from a police cruiser halted their conversation, the sound making Val physically jump. She looked towards the source of the sound and scowled. This asshole again. “Gentlemen,” John’s eyes scanned Val’s figure quickly before adding, “and lady. Good to see you again.” Begrudgingly, she followed Sam and Bucky’s lead and walked towards the blonde haired man and his sidekick. “Look, if we divide ourselves we don’t stand a chance, you guys know that.” 

Sam crossed his arms over his chest. “So what do you got?”

“Should she be hearing this?” John gestured to Val. 

She scoffed. “I’m on board now, so out with it.” 

“Alright. Well the leader’s name is Karli Morgenthau. We’ve been targeting civilians that have been helping Karli move from place to place. They geotagged a location, then scrambled the signal. But our satellites have found their symbol popping up in various displaced communities all across Central and Eastern Europe. We think that she's taking the medicine she just stole to one of these camps.”

“Well there’s been hundreds of those put up across the planet since The Blip,” Valencia interjected. “So I guess you’ll have to look real hard.”

“Good thing I have 20/20 vision, huh?” John shot back, annoyance prevalent in his voice.

“Where is she now, Walker? Do you know?” Bucky spoke up, patience quickly being stretched thin.

“No, we don’t know, Bucky,” Walker’s voice rose dramatically. “It’s only a matter of time before we find out.” 

Bucky cocked his head to the side, eyes narrowing at the man in front of him. “Things are really tense for you, aren’t they Walker?” Val rested a gentle hand against Bucky’s chest, holding him back as a reminder not to do anything irrational- although she definitely wanted him to. 

Sam approached the super soldier, putting a hand in the air to further make him back off. “Take it easy. Look, Walker’s right. It is imperative that we find them and stop them. But you guys have rules of engagement and all kinds of authorizations you have to get. We're free agents. We're more.. flexible. So it wouldn't make sense for us to work with you.” 

The trio started to walk off before Walker stood up from the cruiser and spoke. “A word of advice, then.” The three of them turned to look at him once again. “Stay the hell out of my way.” 

Knowing that it wasn’t worth it to get a final word in, Sam put a hand on either of their shoulders and pushed them to keep walking away. Once they were a reasonable distance down the street, Val turned to Bucky and noticed he was deep in thought. “What’s on your mind, Buck?” she asked with a hand coming up to rest on his shoulder. 

“Well, I know what we have to do. When Isaiah said “my people”...” he trailed off, still staring ahead. 

“Oh, don’t take that to heart. That’s not what he meant-” Sam tried to correct him before Bucky cut him off. 

“No, he meant HYDRA.” He paused for a moment, feet coming to a stop as he looked between the pair next to him. “HYDRA used to be my people.” 

“Bucky,” Val spoke up cautiously.”

Sam scoffed. “Not a chance.” 

“Walker doesn’t have any leads.” 

“I know where you’re going with this, no.”

“He knows all of HYDRA’s secrets. Don’t you remember Siberia.” 

“Oh, you cannot be serious,” Val said as she dragged a tired hand over her face. 

“So you’re just gonna sit in a room with this guy?” 

Bucky hesitated for a moment, obviously not thinking about his idea that much ahead of time. “Y-yes.” 

Val sighed, shaking her head slightly. “Out of all your ideas, this has got to be the dumbest.” She looked at Sam, who shrugged his shoulders and nodded. “Fine. Let’s go see Zemo.”

[early2000smovieimagines]

Meeting and Dating Danny Walker

(Not my gif)(requested by anonymous/sorry about the wait, I had to get my hands on a copy of the movie)

(We’re just gonna pretend that Evelyn and him never got together, alright? Good. Also I’m not a historic genius so please don’t yell at me if this is factually inaccurate)

- You met Danny when you were stationed at Pearl Harbor as a mechanic. When Danny arrived at the hangar he was surprised to see you there crouched at the side of a plane with tools scattered around you.

- One of his friends caught him watching so he promptly informed him of who you were, making a joke about the two of you having to be “in close proximity”.

- Danny was immediately very nervous, he is so out of his element around new people… well new females, that he isn’t sure exactly what he should do. He stares for a little while longer getting caught by you in the process after which he all but runs out of the room. 

- Every time he sees you in the chow hall or around the base he can’t help but sneak glances at you, so much so that the girls at your table start to take notice. Against your own will you’re led over to the handsome young man catching him completely off guard. 

- Your “friends” introduce you between giggles. Danny can barely look into your eyes; his gaze just stays trained on the floor in front of him as opposed to the swarm of girls before him. He’s extremely uncomfortable but he manages to glance up and nod his head as a greeting complete with a tight lipped awkward little smile. You decide to relieve him of his torture and pull the girls away.

- Once you’re gone he curses at himself for not taking his chance but now that you’ve been “introduced” it becomes his mission to talk to you more. It starts with him greeting you whenever he sees you, then it evolves into mini conversations when you’re waiting in line for meals or working on one of the planes in the hangar, and finally he’s comfortable enough around you to just approach  and talk like friends. 

- You start to fall for Danny and well he’s absolutely in love with you but an army base isn’t the best place to get involved with someone so you try your best to just remain good friends. That goal doesn’t stick around for long after he shyly invites you to “see the harbor at sunset”. 

- Listen I cannot think of a better first date than that so please; if you haven't already, watch that scene, if not the entire movie. It is quite possibly one of the most romantic things I have ever seen. Sorry that I’m cheating you out of a first date and kiss scenario but I don’t want to just rewrite what happens there. 

- Lets just say everything went pretty much the same except you didn’t end up getting fully tangled in the hanging sheets. 

- The next day he asked if you’d be his and you couldn’t help but say yes. The two of you can’t stop smiling for the rest of the day knowing that you’re finally together.

- No matter how much time you spend together he’s always so happy to see you especially when you first start dating. You can see just how much he loves you from the way he reacts to you being near.

- Visiting him at his base whenever you can.

- He gets downright giddy around you, it’s really adorable the way his eyes light up and the way he giggles. He just can’t seem to control himself, he’s just a little boy in love.

- A lot of caressing and nuzzling. He uses any excuse he can to touch you.

- He’s very soft with you.

- You can make him flustered very easily and he doesn’t know how he feels about that fact. His ears will turn red (you can always tell he’s nervous if he touches his ears, it’s a little habit of his), he’ll start to fumble with his words. If you touch his chest you’ll feel his heart pounding.

- Writing letters and notes when you aren’t able to see each other for a while.

- Beach dates.

- Sunbathing together.

- Watching sunsets although he spends a lot of the time just looking at you.

- Cuddling in his car.

- He lets you wear his pilot jacket.

- He thinks it’s cute when you wear his sun glasses. After the first time he saw you wear them he always offers them up to you with this cute little smile on his face. 

- Teasing and joking with each other; your laugh is music to his ears.

- He carries a picture of you on him at all times.

- He sneaks you into his plane for a trip into the sky. He loves being able to impress you and share his love of flying with you.

- Getting to hear the history of places that you pass during your rendezvous in the sky.

- Helping him deal with his past and the trauma his father caused.

- Double dates with Rafe and Evelyn.

- Getting to hear all of his childhood stories. Him and Rafe both like to tell you about all the crazy things they did. 

- Listening to his proud stories of Rafe when he’s M.I.A. 

- Warm hugs.

- Holding hands.

- He’s more than happy to say he loves you pretty early on in the relationship. He’s faced with a lot of danger everyday and he doesn’t want to die without you knowing just how much you mean to him. 

- He’s always ready to defend you honor.

- Nose kisses.

- Fixing his tie when it gets all crooked.

- Tugging him closer by his dog tags.

- He definitely gets jealous and depending on the situation he can either get a little aggressive or just deflate and sink in his seat. 

- His best friends said it: he’s insecure. As much as you tell him that you love him he’s always going to second guess himself.

- And if you do want to keep your relationship a secret from, lets say your supervisors, then he’s going to feel kind awful about it even if he agrees on some level. 

“I just don’t want everybody to know about us.”

“No, no, cause that would be embarrassing right?” 

- Sometimes he’ll just agree with you no matter what he thinks which can be a good thing and a bad thing. He doesn’t want to fight with you but his actions may just lead to the two of you fighting anyway. It’s nothing you can’t resolve quickly and easily but it’s definitely something that will bother you in the moment. But don’t worry, the two of you don’t actually fight or argue all that much. You’re actually on the low side of the spectrum of couples arguing. 

- Sneaking away from the base so that you can spend some alone time together. 

- Being the first one to greet him every time he gets back from flying. 

- He’s always ready to comfort you whenever you’re nervous or scared. Just whenever you need him know that he’ll always be there.

- He needs a kiss a day and thats an order.

- He loves when you touch him, just the softness of your hands and the emotion behind your caresses. 

- Brushing away dirt and grease from his face after a long day at work. 

- You’ll jokingly; and not so jokingly, tell him that he looks good in a wife beater and he’ll shyly chuckle while he tries to play off how happy it made him. 

“Oh really now? Is that all I look good in?”

- He has you kiss his hand or wrist before he goes out flying or takes a trip somewhere. He likes being able to see your lipstick print on him whenever he misses you too much. 

- He likes to lay his head on your chest or in the crook of your neck whenever you cuddle. 

- He’s pretty damn strong and he likes to subtly show it off. Lifting you up with ease when he hugs or kisses you, carrying your bridal style, just happening to be in some state of undress while carrying some heavy box whenever you’re around. 

- Getting gifted little weed like flowers that he’s able to pick for you before he meets you somewhere. Sometimes he’ll get lucky and manage to get away from the station long enough to buy you a proper bouquet. It’s worth the trouble when he gets to see the smile on your face.

- He treats you like you’re the most precious thing in the world. 

- After the war is over the two of you get married; you have kids and live a perfect little life together in a nice rural area. 

-  AND YOU LIVE A LONG HAPPY LIFE, A LIFE HE GODDAMN DESERVES. 

[classlesstulip]

You had a run-in with what now??

A bearwalk. It's a Native American sorcerer who walks at night as a bear. Also known as a bear walker or as me'coubmoosa in Ojibwe.

My fam has a cabin up near Manastee, MI. It's in a forested, ridge-y area, and our land butts up against the local chieftain's home. We're all on pretty good terms with the local tribe, with our families going way back.

Well, one afternoon he hobbles over to our place and tells us to make sure we're all inside and tucked in by moonrise. Oh, and lock your goddamned doors, for fucksakes.

Why?

"Oh, there's going to be some bearwalkers out."

...the fuck?

"Yeah. My great great uncle? He was a bit of a bad dude. He sometimes likes to come by and start some Shit. He got the Holcomb's dog last winter."

That's...nice. Just, what IS it?

"Oh, sorry. My great great uncle was a medicine man gone bad. He likes to turn into a bear and eat people, now."

Great. Is this related to the one that chased me onto the top of the cabin yesterday?

"Naw, that's Ginger! She just hates people."

Thanks.

Anyway, night comes and all of us are tucked in. We're in front of the fireplace, eatin' snacks and drinkin' drinks. We double checked the doors and made sure that the Bat Window was secured (Mike the Bat pays his rent by eating skeeter's) and stuff. Old Chief also said to not answer any knocks, either.

Guess what? There was a knock at the door.

Al, my dumbass cousin, goes to answer it.

We all tackle the idiot (he's 12) and pin him while he's going on and on about how he's "from Detroit and he'll fuck anyone up".

(Al, your a 12 year-old white boy from Saint Clair Shores who is skinnier than a toothpick. Cut that gangster shit out.)

Well, turns out his sister dashed for the door. She opens is right before I pick her up, and on the other side is a Big Fuckin' Thing. I can't describe it other than that; it's Big, and it's a Fuckin' Thing.

It looked vaugly bearlike, but not quite. I know what bears look like. Shit, I got chased by one a few days before because she thought I was trying to steal her friggin' salmon! And that!?

That wasn't a bear.

So I look at it. It looks at me. And I look at it.

Cue the most awkward game of Lookie Lou ever.

"Sorry. No soliciters."

*confused groan*

"*points at door* No soliciters. Sorry. Have a nice night. *shuts door*"

The Thing must have sat there foor a good 10 minutes or so. We could hear it breathing. Then it just...gets up and walks off.

Next morning, Chief comes buy and asks how we're doing. Everyone tells him what happened, and he smacks Al upside the head. Then he gives Al's sis a paddling, too. Then he asks what the fuck I did.

"No soliciters. We have a sign."

He just looks at me like wtf? So, I show him our sign. The poor man is just flummoxed. They've had to put up with this for YEARS. Ocassionally, someone's gone missing.

And the bearwalker just fucked off because of a sign!?

Bullshit.

Well, now everybody in that area has "No Soliciting" signs bolted to all their outside doors, including the two-hole'r. Not had an issue since.

[argylemnwrites]

Fire Inside

Character: ??? 😮 ???

Pairing: Drake Walker x MC (Riley Liu) referenced

Book: The Royal Romance (The Royal Heir, various chapters)

Word Count: ~2100

Rating:  PG-13 (adult language)

Summary: Doing what needs to be done isn’t for the faint of heart. Sometimes channeling that fire inside will bring out enemies, but only the timid worry about that.

Author’s Note: So, this is something pretty different from what I usually write, but the idea popped into my head and wouldn’t leave me alone. I don’t know if anyone else will like this, but I had a lot of fun exploring motivations of this character. I just wanted to dislike this character for interesting reasons, not hate them for dumb reasons that lack all nuance. So, yeah, not trying to defend this character, just trying to make them a dislikable human instead of a silly, annoying trope.

Inspired by Day 4 of the Choices November Challenge - Rage. Tagging all my TRR peeps, so apologies if this isn’t your thing. Like I said, I know this isn’t my usual style.

How did that old saying go? You catch more flies with honey than vinegar? Something like that. She’d heard it plenty of times throughout her life. She just never really understood it.

It’s not that she didn’t get the intent; she wasn’t stupid. But she just didn’t quite get why anyone would want to catch flies in the first place. Swat those annoying buggers away. Let them live their life while she lived hers. Why would you want to attract nuisances when you could scare them off instead? And no point drawing them in to kill them. There would always be plenty more pests coming after them.

But growing up, everyone seemed to tell her she should be more nurturing, more caring. Buying her dolls for her birthday and for Christmas. Trying to get her to care for the chicks after the coyote got into the pen and ate the hen. Scolding her when she hadn’t held Bee’s hand and wiped away her tears with gentle thumbs and soothing words when she’d fallen from the tree and broken her arm, but instead had carried her back to the house, arm wrapped in her own shirt as a temporary sling. But her practical solution hadn’t been enough. She was supposed to tend to her sister’s emotional pain, not just the physical.

They all wanted her to be sugar, spice, and everything nice. Well, if that’s what little girls were supposed to be made of, it never made sense to Leona that everyone seemed to ignore the middle ingredient. You wouldn’t call two pieces of bread on either side of some sliced ham a bread sandwich. That’s a goddamn ham sandwich. So why did everyone think that girls should be sweet little angels, not spitfires full of heat and intensity? 

Leona was never cut out to play the damsel, dependent on someone else. She would fight for herself, fight for what she thought was her due. And she was never going to apologize for being that way. Her fire served her well. It’s how she got out of taking home ec in high school, instead getting herself a spot in shop class. She could live with rips in her clothes that she couldn’t mend well and food that filled her belly without winning a prize at the state fair for its flavors. But if the equipment on the ranch broke down, well being able to fix that herself would save her whole family time and money. And that just seemed a hell of a lot more useful than learning how to be a perfect little homemaker. 

Of course, in shop class, none of the boys or Mr. Linvel had viewed her as anything other than a novelty. She wasn’t sure which was worse, the boys who laughed at her anytime she made a mistake, or the ones who assumed she couldn’t do it herself, always coming over to “help” her. What they didn’t understand is that she never needed their help. They weren’t better than her just because their fathers had taught them those skills already. She would do it herself, no matter how many tries it took. 

Because the world was a harsh place. It never made sense to Leona that she was expected to stay soft. She didn’t understand how anyone could. But all the girls around her seemed to manage it just fine. Cathy and Linda and Susie braided each other’s hair and shared lipstick. They giggled and gossiped and swooned over Chip and Bobby and Kenny. They hugged each other and passed around hankies when those same idiot boys all fell head over heels for the new girl, Patty, with her bleached hair and bell-bottom jeans. They all cried over their Dolly Parton records, moaning about how “Jolene” was their song. Leona didn’t get it. Why waste any time on some boy who was inevitably gonna let you down?

But one by one, she watched them go off, get married, start their families. Cathy caught the eye of some traveling salesman, Linda finally got Bobby to put a ring on it, and Susie moved to Houston to go to secretarial school, but quit and got married 4 months after her first posting. And one by one, she watched them get broken, by bills and mortgages, by baby after baby, by unfaithful and cruel husbands. And as they cried on the front porch, wondering how they got to that point, a not-so-small portion of Leona kept thinking, “I told you so.” She didn’t feel bad for thinking it either. Because she knew what they thought of her. Bitter. Cold-hearted. Bitch.

But she took it all, because she knew that life wasn’t a fairy tale. It’s a series of hardships you just had to face head on. She told her sister that everyday, not wanting her to make the same mistakes that so many of the other girls made. And for a long time, it worked. It was just the two of them and Dad, taking care of things on the ranch. But eventually Bee wanted more. She wasn’t content, always dreaming of something different. She saved her money. Traveled. When she came back, she was full of stories. But she was different every time. Still could pull her share around the ranch, but she was teasing her hair. Had new blazers with shoulder pads in addition to her practical work clothes. Talked about some fancy-ass coffee drink she had at some restaurant. And then she saved enough to go overseas, coming back a few months later, holding hands with some fancy European asshole. Told Leona she was moving to some country called Cordonia to marry that man. Left the ranch without a backward glance, leaving Leona and Dad to manage it all. She made promises of coming back in a couple of years after Jackson’s service requirements were complete, but first a son came along, and then a daughter. And each year that went by, Leona knew that Bianca was never coming back. Sure enough, phone calls promising a move back next year soon became phone calls promising a vacation. The life they had known together was now a novelty, an escape, not a reality. She only did make it back to the ranch once with the kids.

Those two were lost causes, as far as Leona was concerned. Brought up in a world of gold and diamonds, parties and designer clothes. Hell, the boy was best friends with one of the princes. And when she was the one who had to bury Dad in the orchard all by herself, six feet down, right next to Momma, she knew she was the only one left in the family with any common sense or perspective. She just hoped that Bianca remembered a little bit of the toughness she’d tried to teach her when those ass-kissing, stuck-up nobles she’d surrounded herself with inevitably screwed her over.

Leona was surprised that Bianca lasted over there as long as she did, nearly two decades before it all came crashing down with Jackson’s death. But she did crash, hard. Her life fell apart. And who did she call up, but the sister she’d abandoned, left to carry on the family business all alone. And once again, she wanted Leona to be softer. To offer sympathy and comfort. Well, she offered a roof over her head and food in her belly when her so-called “friends” somehow couldn’t be bothered to spare a dollar. That would have to be comfort enough. 

She’d heard Bianca crying many nights. At first, she knew it was over her husband, a man who gave his life for some over-important royals, leaving behind his own goddamn family. And after years of watching her sister struggle to finally heal from that, the crying started again when Drake called, frantic, saying Savannah was gone, asking if by any chance she’d come to Texas. She recovered faster that time, though. Leona hoped that she was finally learning, that she was tougher. Stronger.

But that all came crashing down one fall morning, when Bianca bounded into the barn, telling Leona that not only was Savannah back in their lives, but that she had a baby. Baby Bee was a grandma. Not only that, but she was going back to the hellhole of Cordonia to see this baby and to watch Drake marry some fancy duchess of some sort. She was optimistic and energetic. It was as if she’d learned nothing from her first time there. 

They’d fought, Leona asking her sister how many times she was gonna get her hopes up about that place. Bianca saying that things would be better this time. Yeah, right. Leona had seen enough to know how this would end. Bianca brought her kids up in the world of posh nobles and fancy rich people. It was only a matter of time until they decided they were too good for her again.

But Bee ignored her warnings, not only flying out there for some pompous hoighty-toighty wedding, but offering to host Savannah’s wedding to some frickin’ Duke of snobbery, the same man who knocked her up and then neglected her and the baby not two years earlier. Amazing what you could get away with when you had money.

To make matters worse, Bee invited some motley crew of royals and nobles to come stay on the ranch for this wedding. They weren’t outwardly disdainful, so maybe they did learn some manners from their fancy pants educations, but still. Leona had a ranch to keep afloat. The last thing she needed was to babysit a group of rich kids playacting at being cowboys. 

She felt a little guilty selling info on Drake and his wife to the press. He was the most helpful of the group, and he was family, after all. He seemed to remember a few things from his visit as a child, seemed to have kept a handful of practical skills. But his wife was overeager, annoying, and seemed to think that she had something in common with Bianca and Leona just because she used to wait tables. That growing up in a fancy city like New York was somehow equal to hard, physical labor because she hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in her mouth. If he had chosen to marry someone like her, then he probably wasn’t much different than the rest of them. The fact that they were orchestrating some bizarre political move to get their kid onto the throne just sealed the deal for Leona. So she did what she had to do. Granted, they all ended up being much kinder than she’d guessed them to be. But their kindness wasn’t going to keep the ranch going long term, keep the hands hired and the electricity on. So, Leona kept on selling any info she had. Morality was all fine and dandy when you were privileged, but it had no place in the real world.

It wasn’t until Riley was screaming at her, yelling about how she would never forgive Leona, hand protectively placed across her very pregnant belly, that she saw something more than kind but spoiled little princess. She saw pure anger, fire-forged and intense. She saw rage and hunger. She saw someone that maybe had been hardened by life, but kept that intensity hidden away, covering her true strength with silliness and laughter.

Leona couldn’t be sure, of course. She barely knew the woman, and she had no illusion that she and this woman would be bonding as in-laws going forward, so she probably wouldn’t get the chance to find out. She had never been naive, after all. She knew that bridge was burned. But she wasn’t one for regrets. She’d made her choices, and while she’d hoped maybe her nephew would understand her reasons, calm his wife down, she wasn’t surprised when that didn’t happen. So she went back to Texas, to her parents’ ranch. To her ranch, really. What was done was done.

She hadn’t anticipated her sister’s anger. Bee had never been the overly-protective, Momma-bear type, after all. But she’d yelled, alright. Told her off about betraying the family. Selling out her own nephew. Making it so that Drake and Riley were never going to be willing to bring the grandbaby to visit. Bianca expected grovelling, contrition, regret. But she wasn’t going to get that. Leona had the fire raging inside of her to keep moving forward; she would never apologize for that. And if anyone took issue with that, well that was just their own damn problem. No one else was going to solve it for them. Certainly not Leona. Anyone who expected such a weakness could just go fuck themselves.

Tags: @choicesnovemberchallenge @dcbbw @mfackenthal @yaushie @jovialyouthmusic @iplaydrake @gibbles82 @drakewalkerisreal @riley–walker @thequeenofcronuts @notoriouscs @butindeed @octobereighth @ao719​

[miusiu]

my got 8x03 thoughts here so i don’t spam twit again.....

Things i liked about this ep:

- Sansa (as always) -- “I’m not abandoning my people”, her being a witty queen whilst telling tyrion his witty comments wouldn’t be helpful in the battle above, her leaving her place of relative safety, having to battle with her terror to go and defend her people, even if it was futile and just buying them a few minutes (cue sobbing)

- sansa doing all that in front of dany’s Advisory Team, varys specifically, and letting them see that on top of all the practical planning for war and for her people, she’s genuinely here every step of the way to defend the north and anyone in it

- arya. every goddamn scene of her

- all of arya’s s1 callbacks, not today to the god of death and then running of to destroy the walking embodiment of death.... who else could ever!!!!!!! and her passing on the true stark knowledge of stick em with the pointy end

- arya’s video game stealth mission in the library... we love the last of us

- on that note, arya and sansa working together and trusting each other in every moment of their season 7 and 8 lives yas queens

- arya and the hound  best surrogate father/daughtership, and that including sandor working thru his fire thing for her

- mel being a badass with all her fire magicksz and the #tension she always brings to any scene she’s in... 

- mel getting that lovely peaceful end, on her own terms, after fighting and winning a battle for all humanity

- the dragonriders being almost totally useless, dragonfire being useless against Mx Night King... u can’t have all that power and just have everything go ur way

- beric’s T pose as he got stabbed to death... we love you jesus

- lyanna mormont being the absolute legend that she is and always will be she is living and well and she’s going to continue house mormont’s name :) 

- dani truly did nothing i have to laugh...

- grey worm surviving bc we WILL get that GW/missandei honeymoon in naath so help me god

- jorah completing his journey and dying in time for dani to lose any kind of moral compass that she had if she ever listened to him

- i just realised when the hound/mel leave the room they’d been in with arya.... they just had to kill wight!beric... it hurts........ 

- the fact that they had barely a chance to speak bc the dialogue from these writers is so extremely hit and miss lmao

- jon being a dumbass as usual and trying to fight the NK one on one without considering the field of corpses he’s running into... also the plot hole of dragonfire not burning said corpses before that. yes i liked it

- drogon just ollying outtie from dani once again... loyal son

- the night king being a bad bitch at hand to hand combat bc he’s like 8000 years old

we know for sure there’s gonna be a dance of dragons 2.0 because all that sfx money is being put into another, better-lit, sequence of dragons fighting mid-air and not ghost

things i didn’t like:

- killing lyanna............ a tween gal with the world at her toiny feet..... and in such a violent way lol it was jsutksljflsdf like they can make her badass without putting the viewer thru watching a child get brutalised

- how only two characters you could truly class as Main characters died.... the no-stakes battle of LIFE AND DEATH isn’t rly being sold to us as viewers when u only see brienne/jaime/tormund/gendry fighting in the courtyard of winterfel like.... it’s beyond the wall 2.0 and this time the other half of old married couple beric and thoros died

- they reanimate the fuckin dead in winterfell and we don’t get a single #memory come back to undead life from the crypts? not explicitly? u don’t have to retraumatise the characters but put SOME stakes in, emotional or physical, please.... 

- the crypts were never gonna be safe, but the amount of times it was emphasised how safe it was in 8x02... really they didn’t do anything with those scenes, they didn’t have the shireen stand-in come to the forefront....

- also they coulda focused on sansa actually fighting the wights but ok... it’s like all of her scenes in this were 90% complete without real payoff and i just have to infer it, being a sansa stan 4 lyf

- dani’s two foreign armies, being moc, just uhhhh being brought over to die..... en masse.... just one single named character that gets to magically survive against all odds

- ik that theon was supposed to be best at archery but the fact that he just magically was the last ironborn defender around bran to go......im glad he got his redemption n shit but omg i once again must laugh

- genuinely couldn’t tell u if rhaegal is alive but seeing as every other main character is here i’m sure he’s fine

- the reawightening, the second round of troops of the dead, was all nice and dramatic but did they really not have a strategy for this? reallly?  after hardhome?

- i feel like edd’s death was death number 40029 where sam Isn’t Moving and someone Needs to Save him and they Die Because Of It and i’m not about this... man’s killed a white walker let him live without guilt for three seconds

-jon just avoiding the dead dragon fire by the skin of his teeth fifty times... a good diversion from miss arya’s mad dash across winterfell but omg was ex-king in the north rly gonna FIGHT A WIGHT DRAGON WITH NOWT BUT A VALYRIAN STEEL SWORDDDDD

tldr

arya is that bitch. im happy for mel, witch queen

[c-bulletaftermidnight]

Ok I said I wouldn’t ask but your TFA answer was so awesome I’m curious - things you liked/disliked about TLJ?

Oh boy, oh boy

Liked:

_ Uuuh. Kylo becoming Supreme Leader and cementing himself as the true villain I guess since it’s interesting to work on it’s gonna the political & military landscape of the FO??

_ Kylo being shown off again as a good tactician when fucking up the Raddus.

_I’m glad Phasma’s gone. 

-Finn & Rey hugging at the end of the movie that’s it.

That’s it. 

Dislikes:

_ The worldbuilding has been fucked up just to respond to Rian’s whims when he have barely any explications about the context.

_ Fucking bad designs everywhere. 

_Boring cinematography except a few times. 

_ The fucking zooms-in and Kylo looking like he’s stuck in a washing machines when he barrels rolls around the TIE Silencer. 

_ The FO is suddendly overpowered with money and personnal. The loss of SKB has like no impact on the organization. This episode should have explored to their backstory but Rian simply didn’t care.

_ Everybody in this movie shut off their brains. 

_ Hux went from “officer didn’t had not much battle experience” to a total joke. His traumas due to his upbringing are ignored and his sufferings are reduced into supposed moments of comedy .And it’s not like Rian didn’t knows his past, he even gave him a first name. Hell he didn’ even bother explain Hux’s past to Domhnall and he discovered that his character had a first name when an interviewer asked him about it (Domnhall seemed pretty angry about it since he invest himself a lot in reserches and stuff for the characters he plays.) Knowing how Domhnall had to improvise the blaster scene, i’m sure he would have objected even more of Rian’s decisions.  His purpose half of the movie is to do Huxposition on the bridge, being totally incompetent and thrown around. It’s gonna be hard for JJ to repair this and have the audience take him seriously as a villain. 

 _ Poe, well, I never cared much about his character. I even tried to read the comics but I felt barely nothing about him. But I was hoping TLJ would help but instead they managed to makes me hate his character. The Poe/Holdo arc was badly written. There was many ways to make an arc like that make sense but also more emotionnal for these two characters. I hate how one second they makes him this macho man who keeps understimating lady officers but a second after, the female characters are “haha, I like him ;)”   Yeah sure. 

_Finn’s arc who is reduced as total coward and a joke and where war has to be explained to him (a fucking child-soldier) by a woman that constantly think about hurting him when he mentions Rey, the person he is close to the most and then is forced as a potential love-interest to him for some reasons. The DJ explanations are just bad (of course, the Resistance has to buy weapons. We knows that Rian, thx) The suicide run was also pretty stupid. Also the fact that him and Rey didn’t reuniting on the Supremacy screams so much Rian wanting them to interact as less as possible in the movie. Finn deserves better.

_ Rey’s arc. Can we even talk about an arc? Her character regressed. As if she didn’t dealt with years of abuse and survival on Jakku and as if Kylo never tortured her and hurt her closed ones. Hell she even get tortured twice in the space of two days because of Kylo. The Force-skype stuff feels so forced. Adam & Daisy only have good chemistry when their characters are set against each other. Rey talks about how she is scared of the Force within her but we see her then has no problem to deal with it and master everything in one second (rendering the existence of jedi school pretty useless like you just have to download the Force-powers of a master jedi and that’s it. The Force.exe is installed. ) The small training scene where she cut the rock looks pretty stupid, her sword fighting position is pretty bad during it. Going to the dark side has no consequences on her. She has no agency. Replace the word “Force” by the plot and you’ll see what I mean. 

_ Luke. Has someone who has to deal with depression, I think showing Luke as irritated and stuff can makes sense. I kinda relate since my temper changed a lot. I had a lot of patience & kindness but now, everything irritate me (from a member of my family intruding in my space to hearing the ringing of the phone) I’m scared to see my friends, I feel like a walking failure that I will never be satisfied about myself or will satisfy my parents, I just want to be left alone & if this lead me to die that way, then so be it. The problem is how wonky the writing leading-up to this Luke is bad. Everything is about to make us feels sad for Kylo (I don’t). Kylo’s turning against his family upon learning that he is the grandson of one of the most dangerous war criminal would makes senses. Luke blaming himself because he felt he failed to help his nephew after years of work instead of randomly popping his lightsaber would have made more sense. Luke’s grieving all his others students would make more sense. Luke attempting to reason Kylo after the massacre but still failing would make sense. Luke looking for a solution on the island and then failing to find one, thus made him feel unable to see his sister face to face would makes more sense. There’s is barely any emotionnal moments for Luke and the Final holographic showdown feels like they absolutely wanted to avoid Kylo to kill Luke directly (like c’mon, he’s been committing war crimes since the first minutes of TFA)

_ Kylo. TLJ is a bad attempt at Kylo’s pity fest.It’s interesting that his traumas are acknowledged while the other character’s are pretty ignored despite having a tragic’s past that should impact them as well. Everything is about him. Most of his actions are pretty villainous, he’s no grey character like people are trying to force us to believe because he looks sad. This is an humanized villain arc (which he didn’t need after seeing TFA), not a redemption one. At least he is now the main villain too, so there’s tha (But the “Uwu save ben solo” stuff going around spoil my liking of him as a villain. I’m not here to see whether Kylo is gonna turn LS for a third time in ep9. It would be too repetitive at this point) I just hate the “ You are truely Han solo’s son”line because it is obvious he is more like his mother. Only father figures are important to the characters in SW, it seems. Also the goddamn scar being moved on his eyes but it doesn’t impair his vision despite being cut by a freaking lightsaber. Like Rian could have gave us a legit explanation why Kylo was weakened & needed Rey to fight the preoatarians guards: Losing an eye would be an huge handicap tha het is not used to yet so he needed help to take the throne. 

_ Leïa is only here to looks sad and for Kylo’s momentarily manpain (and Marry Poppying around space). Like really, you reduce Leïa fucking Organa too that?? The woman ready to move time and space just for the sake of saving freedom? the princess of Alderaan who saw her planet being destroyed but kept up on? the woman who was mainly in charge of the strategizing of Hoth’s evacuation? The woman who was willing to stay on Bespin just for the sake of massacring stormtroopers because Vader gave Han away to Boba Fett & would have stayed if Lando didn’t pulled her off to the Falcon? The woman who had to face the galactic backlash of her being Vader’s daughter but still kept on? A woman full of anger but also sense of duty?

_ Rose, rose, rose… I was excited to meet her so imagine my disappointment upon discovering she was just here to lecture & push around Finn & being forced as another love interest that doesn’t even work. It’s like she forgot that her sister died the same day and that she should still be grieving. We don’t even get to see her use her mechanic’s skills in the whole story. The message about her character makes no sense between her last line in tlj and all the destructions she is willing to provoke (not all the ppl working at Canto bight are rich, has it show in the Canto Bight book) or let happens. KMT doesn’t deserve that. 

_ Yoda’s appearing bcos I hate this hypocrite of a gremlin and was expecting for Luke to dunk him in the sea. 

_ Chewie, the glorified cab driver.

_ The battles are a huge clusterfuck & the most badly written space battle I have ever seen. 

_The way Poe’s piloting skills feels to OP when you compare to other pilots, in particular in recently RO. 

_D’qar’s battle is a fucking tactical mess. Everyone has been conviniently dumb down. Same during the slow-mo chase. What’s even the point of bringing the whole fleet of star destroyers if they are just useless.

_ Bad infiltration scene on the Supremacy on the same level as RO’s one. I’m just tired of infiltration scenes in SW. Please stop that shit. 

_ The preotarian guard fight is a choregraphic mess that has no stakes for the characters. Everyone is just waiting for their cue and twirling around. It’s like it was shooted in one go. And there is a difference between Luke in ROTJ kicking a blaster out of the hand of a foe looking bad due to technical problems of the time. And a knife suddendly being edited out at the last minute because the mc would have die then

_ Crait. A good example on how not taking in account the worldbuilding that could be used in battle. So you’re gonna tell me that the Resistance decided to hide away in a base with no issue other than big metallic door in the front? Sounds like a good plan.

_ Leïa never taking command of the battle and strategizing and letting Poe deal with all that despite that she is the general that Poe is a demoted member of the Navy who caused a shit-ton of mess among the Resistance like 30 minutes ago

_ Hux is still depicted in a idiotic way & using bad tactics again. If this is supposed to be a movie about the characters learning about their mistakes,well it didn’t do its job.

_ What is even the use of the third cannon of the gorrilla walkers??

_ What was even the point to use these old speeders besides for being destroyed?

_ Rey shooting down 3 TIES in one shot seems to break a lot of SW physics. Her disappearing of the whole fight shows how much Rian didn’t care abt her character beyond having her interact with Kylo.

_ Y’know, I have Battlefront 2 and in the game there is mining tunnels on the battlefield that you can use to hide. In the movie they are not present, the whole Resistance sit dumbly in trench and just wait to be massacred. I was hoping those tunnels would re-appear in the movies & would be used to sink the walkers by bringing them down with bomb used for mining but nope. The image of walkers falling in a sinkhole, provoking a storm of red dust, coloring the outfits,armors and vehicles in red would have been pretty badass to see.

_ The ramming canon trained on like 10 kilometers instead of using the gorrilla walkers designs and adding to them the mini death-stars canons. They can’t use it all the time tho bcos it would need to cool down before shooting again. Aren’t these supposed to be artillery vehicles ffs???

_ The Resistance not even rigging their escape ships with bombs so if the FO penetrated their base, they can at least cripple them by exploding them. So much for a group that is supposed to be specialized in guerrilla warfare.

_ Talking about guerrilla warfare, i was expecting at least a pursuit and firefight in the mines. No use of the worldbuilding during battle scenarios once again. 

_ Leïa should have been the one to confront Kylo, not Luke. Showing her willing to fight her own son and dies during it for the freedom of the galaxy would have been a good way to send her off and building her as this strong, resilient, legendary leader willing to fight her own family for the good cause. It would have been a good middle finger to people who slandered her upon learning she was Vader’s daughter.

_ Rey effortlessly levitating these rocks. Showing her struggle would have made the ending scene more rewarding.

_ The news of the Battle of Crait spreading super fast despite that the Resistance official journalist, Suralinda Javos wasn’t even present during it for documenting or something.

_ Broom boy & the way it is implied that he might join the Resistance or something because of his Force-powers. A fucking child.Involved in a war. I thought Finn being a child-soldier was bad thing?

And I’ll stop there for now, because there is so many problems with this movie, i’m never gonna be finished with it. 

[lokirogersgirl]

Kitty

Characters: Negan x Kat

Request: Negan discovers that one of the members of Alexandria used to be a pornstar. She buys his silence the only she knows best.

Summary: porn watching, smut, explicit, language, fingering, unsafe sex, negan being a smug asshole, the usual.

—————————————————————

When I was 18 I was hired as an adult film actor. Or as people better know it, a pornstar. I was known pretty well in the community. I did pornos for about 5 years, and the only reason I stopped was because the fucking world became full of walkers. I never told anyone about my past because I didn’t want them to see me in a different way, or to judge me. So I kept it to myself.

I never expected anyone to find out, until Negan came into our community. I had heard about him from Rick, but I’d never come face to face with the man. Until today.

I was walking down the street when I heard a loud voice from behind me. I saw a tall man with a leather jacket, and a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire over his shoulder. I watched as he shouted at Rick, throwing profanities and threatening him. I watched as Rick bowed his head in submission. I watched carefully. I was too invested in what was happening to notice someone come up from behind me. I felt a strong pair of arms grab me roughly. “Who the fuck are you?” Asked the voice. I struggled, “Get the fuck off me!” I yelled, kicking the man in the groin.

He groaned in pain then shouted, “Ah, fuck! You stupid bitch!” He yelled, as he got up from the ground, charging toward me. He suddenly stopped and backed up when a loud booming voice interjected. “Hey! Simon. What the fuck is goin’ on over here.” The tall man in the jacket who I assumed to be Negan yelled. “Tell that dirty fuck to get the fucking fuck off of me!” I yelled back. I had my head down, looking at my arms, annoyed by the fact that there were already bruises forming from the man’s grip.

“Negan, she was over here fucking snoopin’ around. Stickin’ her pretty little head where it don’t fuckin’ belong.” Simon told Negan. I could feel Negan staring at me, I looked up at him.

Almost immediately he squinted at me, a large smile coming to form onto his face. I raised an eyebrow. “What the fuck is your problem?” I asked with an annoyed voice. He started laughing, rubbing his hands together he whistled. “Ho-lyyy fuck!” He yelled.

He didn’t know. He couldn’t, I thought to myself.

“Simon go search the other fuckin’ houses for some shit. I’m gonna have a little talk with this lil’ troublemaker.” He yelled to Simon without taking his eyes on me. He seemed surprised to see me, as if he recognized me, like he knew me.

He grabbed my arm, pulling me up he looked at me before smirking. “I am gonna have some fucking fun with you, honey.” He told me before pulling me inside a house, leaving Rick outside confused, and annoyed.

When we got inside I ripped my arm from his grasp. He looked me up and down. I gulped, “What is your fucking problem? If you could stop fucking staring at me that’d be fan-fucking-tastic.” I spoke sarcastically. I stepped back, “Well pardon my goddamn french.” He laughed. “I’m just thinkin, you look a whole fucking lot like this hot as fuck pornstar I used to watch all the goddamn time..” He scratched his beard. I froze.

No fucking way.

I paled, shaking my head, I laughed nervously. “No, I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He nodded, prowling slowly towards me. “Yes you fucking do, Kitty Kat.” I closed my eyes as he spoke the stage name I hadn’t heard in years. I bit my lip, “You can’t tell anyone.” He laughed, putting his thumb on my chin he smirked. “Well I hadn’t planned on it but now that you mention it.. Maybe i’ll let Rick the Prick know about how one of his trusty fucking fighters likes it when her pretty kitty is pet.”

I squeezed my eyes, feeling shame run through my body. “No, please. Don’t, they’ll never treat me the same. I’ll do anything.. Please.” I pleaded with him. He looked at me, “Anything?” He asked with a smirk on his lips. I nodded, “Anything, just don’t tell them. Please.” He looked deep in thought, I looked down. Wondering what he might make me do. I could feel the world coming down around me, unsure of what could happen right now.

“I want you to remake my fucking favorite porno. With me.”

My jaw went slack, I shook my head rapidly. “No. Nope. Fuck no.” He sighed at my reaction. “Fine, I guess I’ll just go tell fuckin’ Rick about all your dirty fucking adventures.” He walked to the door and opened it, I ran over and grabbed his arm.

He opened his mouth to say something but I grabbed the back of his neck, pulling his lips to mine. He groaned in surprise, his gloved hand ran down to my ass, palming it roughly. I felt a pang of arousal shoot through me at his action. I bit his lip softly. Pushing him onto the couch I straddled his lips, leaning down I whispered in his ear, “Tell me your favorite one.” I bit on his ear lobe softly. He moaned, running his hands over my body. “Mmmh, my favorite is that school girl shit you do.. Fuck, that shit gets me harder than a fucking diamond.”

I giggled innocently, grinding my hips against his softly, causing him to let out a series of small groans. I could feel a moisture pooling in my lace panties. I moaned softly, rolling my hips against his pants. I could feel the large outline of his hardened cock against my shorts. He put his hands on my waist, controlling my movements against him, causing his moans to become louder. I braced my hands on his chest, throwing my head back. “Ahh, mmh. Fuck, Sir.” I moaned out, biting my lip.

“Fuck.. God, keep calling me that, sugar.” He breathily spoke to me. I moaned at how needy his voice sounded. He continued to grind my hips against his, he took his hands off my waist, moving down he unbuttoned my daisy dukes, I lifted my hips, helping him get them off of me. He moved me so his knee was between my legs. He grabbed my hair, pulling me down he whispered with a raspy voice, “Get yourself off babygirl, grind on my fucking leg like the needy slut you are.” I groaned at his words, rocking my lips against his leg I moaned loudly at the feeling of his denim pants against my swollen clit. “Fuck, atta’ girl..”

He smirked as he saw my eyes close in pleasure. His hands were on my body again, one hand smacked my ass, causing a stinging sensation on my ass, bringing my pleasure to another level. The other hand worked my shirt off, revealing my lace bra. He pulled the cup down, massaging my breast before rolling my nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

I gasped, becoming a moaning mess right in front of him. “Ah, mhh fuck.. Holy.. Oh god Sir, please.. I need you so fucking bad..” He bit his lip, watching me. Ignoring my pleads, he unbuckled his belt and unzipped his jeans. Pushing them down slightly he pulled his throbbing cock out. I gawked at it, he fisted himself, causing me to moan as I watched him pleasure himself at the sight of me.

I started riding his thigh harder, desperate for my release. He kept pumping his hard cock with a gloved hand. I moaned as I approached my awaiting orgasm, I could feel my juices leaking onto his jeans as I rode him like a stallion. “Holy fuck baby.. Jesus, you see what you fucking do to me? And shit, look at you.. Fuck baby ride me harder..” I did as he ordered, I moaned one last time before I fell over the edge, my body spasmed as my juices gushed out, soaking the denim material beneath me. I arched my back, feeling the powerful pleasure feeling wash over me like a waterfall.

He groaned at the sight of me releasing, he rubbed himself faster. I watched, biting my lip I grabbed his wrist, stopping him. The loss of stimulation made him raise his lips. I giggled, climbing off his lap I got between his knees, licking the pre-come ready to fall. I sucked his tip, bracing myself I lowered my head, taking him in completely. Years of blow jobs made me basically an expert at deep throating. He groaned as I swallowed around him, my throat milking him dry.

“Ahh, ahh, oh fuck.. Do not fucking stop that, mmph.” He bit his lip hard. I let him thrust his hips up. He groaned as I let him fuck my mouth. I swallowed around him each time. Pulling back I sucked on just his tip, causing his body to tense up. I could tell he was right there, leaning down I swallowed him completely. His hips bucked up, shooting his hot cum down my throat, I continued to swallow him until he stopped. Pulled my mouth off of him softly. When I looked at him his head was leaned back, mouth open and eyes closed. He had completely surrendered to the pleasure.

I let out a small giggle, causing him to look up at me. “You. Are fucking amazing..” He said as he slid his hand between my legs, keeping the eye contact with me. He pushed my panties to the side, sliding a large finger inside of me. I moaned, keeping my eyes open. He watched as I found pleasure in his touch. He thrust his finger inside of me, making my close my eyes, unable to hold them open any longer. He smirked, using my release as a lube he collected the gushing liquid, rubbing it over his cock he pushed me so I was laying on the couch. I could feel my aching clit begging for his touch.

He stroked his cock a few more times, he positioned himself at my entrance, pushing into me. I winced at the feeling of him stretching my tight walls. His eyes rolled back. “Holy fuck! You are fucking tight at shit!” He yelled in excitement. I smiled as he started to thrust roughly into me, his face was tense as he pushed his throbbing cock into my tight walls, feeling them squeeze him like a vice. He groaned, “Shit baby.. You are gonna make me bust one so fuckin’ fast with that hot little pussy of yours, holy fuck I thought the porn was good. That shit does not do you fucking justice.” I whined at his words, “Oh god, thank you sir.. Fuck..” I moaned out to him.

He pounded into me, my purrs filling the house. Negan’s pace didn’t falter as his hand came down to rub my clit fast. The motion causing me to clench around him in seconds, I screamed his name as he helped me cum for the second time. The feeling of my walls squeezing him tightly made his body twitch as his thrusts became sloppier. He groaned as he pulled out quickly he jerked off his soaked and throbbing cock. His white hot spurts of cum coating my abdomen. He smirked as he looked at it, I looked at my stomach. Bringing my finger down, I dipped my finger in the substance, bringing it to his lips I coated them in his essence.

He stared at me in confusion. I pulled his head down, meeting his lips with a heated kiss. He groaned as I swiped my tongue over his lips, cleaning the cum off his lush lips. He squeezed my hips at the intimate action. I smirked against his lips as he slid his tongue into my mouth, tasting himself in the kiss.

The two of us laid there tangled up in eachother for an hour, before I stood up. Putting my panties and shorts on he looked at me, his brows furrowed. “The fuck you doin’?” He asked. “I’m going home? Duh.” I lied. He frowned. “Oh. Okay.” I smiled at his reaction, jumping on his chest I giggled, “I’m going home with you, baby.” He grinned, his face lighting up like a child on Christmas. “Really?” I nodded. “Well fuck princess.” He smirked, leaning into my neck he kissed the spot where my neck and shoulder met, sucking on the area. A bruise forming. I laughed at his antics. “What are you doing you fucker?” He chuckled, “Makin’ sure they know who you belong to.” I shook my head.

“Whatever, Negan.”

“Let’s go, Kitty Kat.”

[braedens]

you write a lot of married sterek and sterek with kids, do you think you could write something about divorced sterek? like a little angsty, but something cute?

this has been in my drafts for forever so i’m glad to finally kick myself to finish it!!! you can also read it here on ao3

“Stiles?”

Stiles is laughing, hard, something his coworkers said, a joke that probably wasn’t even that funny, but they’ve been up all day going to workshops and seminars, that they really needed to destress and grab a drink. They found the closest bar to the hotel.

He hears his name though, which causes him to stop laughing and look away from his friends, because he’s in Chicago, over 1,400 miles away from Beacon Hills, so he’s really concerned on how anyone here could know his name.

But he looks up, and his chest burns. Not because of the whiskey, no. It burns from the phantom feeling of the hands that used to graze it, rough and calloused, yet warm and comforting. His heart beats incredibly fast, but not like it used to when he’d see that face, full of excitement and enamor. It beats like it’s going to pull from his chest, a feeling he can only really associate with a panic attack.

“Derek?”

It’s a sunny day in Beacon Hills, and summer has been good to Stiles Stilinski. He saved enough money to fly home for the summer from George Washington to see his dad and his friends.

And of course, Derek.

Despite Stiles’ constant efforts to convince Derek to move DC with him, Derek stayed in Beacon Hills, living with Cora and owning a bookstore, which was more Cora’s idea than anyones. So Stiles cherishes times like this, where he can walk hand in hand with his boyfriend down the street, even if it’s only for a couple times a year.

“You know, we’ve never talked about what we’ll do when I graduate.” Stiles turns to Derek, squeezing his hand in his as they walk past some restaurants, towards the park.

“You still have another year before you graduate college.”

“Which means we only have a year to plan the rest of our lives together!”

Derek chuckles.

Stiles continues to egg him on, and they find a park bench to themselves, dog walkers and children on bikes pass them, but they fall comfortably against each other, hands still twined together in Derek’s lap.

“You’ll be working for the FBI when you graduate,” Derek says, as if this isn’t something Stiles brings up daily to him.

Stiles turns to him, his brows upturned. “Your point?”

“I don’t want to distract you, you know that.” Derek sighs.

“Hate to break it to you, big guy,” Stiles presses closer to Derek. “But that’s the whole point of relationships. You distract me constantly. That’s how it works.”

“You don’t distract me,” Derek says, a small smile tugging at his lips.

This time, both of Stiles’ brows raise. “Oh yeah? So you’re telling me the picture I sent you last month didn’t have you hiding in your office for an hour at the bookstore?” he smiles smugly. As much as Derek likes to act cool and collected, he can’t deny that after four years of dating, Stiles knows all his weak spots.

Derek’s ears grow rosy, and Stiles outright laughs. He doesn’t stop himself from leaning in and peppering kisses to Derek’s cheek and neck, and it makes his heart swell how Derek doesn’t even squirm away, just melts into it.

When Stiles deems his attack sufficient, he presses his chin to Derek’s shoulder, letting Derek rest his head against his as a cool breeze hits them.

“Promise me I won’t lose you?” Stiles whispers, his breath tickling Derek’s ear as his gaze falls to a little girl and her puppy in the grass in front of them. Because he’s always feared that, in the back of his head. That the time they spend apart will show them that they do best just like that; from a distance.

He feels Derek’s hand grow firm in his, a thumb sweeping on the back of his hand. It’s comforting, almost like Derek doesn’t have to say anything. But, Derek does say something, because if he’s known Stiles for this long, he knows words mean more than anything.

“You won’t lose me.”

“What are you doing here?” Stiles spits out immediately, and he doesn’t have time to assess if his tone was more scared than stern, but Derek is just standing there, behind the counter of the bar, a binder in his hand, and his eyes wide and mouth slightly open. And Stiles feels just as stunned as Derek looks. 

Derek blinks again, and has a look of realization that he’s actually living this moment. “I- I own this bar.”

“What?” Stiles asks, not even trying to hide the shock in his voice. 

It’s been two years since he’s seen that face. Which means Stiles and Derek hadn’t seen each other in three years. No visits, not calls, no texts. Not even a pass by. 

Derek looks… older. Not just by age. He looks exhausted, like he’s aging too fast. Which, makes no real sense considering he’s a werewolf. 

“Stiles, you didn’t tell us you were friends with the bar owner. No wonder you chose this place.”

He whisks his head around so goddamn fast. “Shut up, Ed!”

He turns back, and Derek is still standing there, and Stiles notices his jaw is clenched, like he’s gearing for battle. “I had no idea, really.”

“What are you doing in Chicago?” Derek asks, tucking the binder in his hand in a space under the shelf. 

“We’re here for a convention. For work,” he gestures to his friends, knowing it’s enough information for Derek to know it’s for the FBI. 

Derek just nods once at him, and Stiles really can’t figure out how they’re supposed to feel right now, in this moment, looking at Derek Hale. He’s about to ask Derek something, anything really. How have you been? Why are you here? Since when did you own a bar? But he doesn’t get the chance, because-

“Mario?” Derek calls, and a guy ringing up orders on the other end of the bar, look back. 

“Yeah, boss?”

“Put their tabs on my name, I’ll take care of them.” He gestures to Stiles’ and his coworkers. His eyes fall back to Stiles, who just blinks, still in a bit of shock. 

“Uh, you don’t have to d-” Stiles starts, but Derek raises his hand, and it shuts Stiles up. 

“Have a good night, Stiles.” is all he says, and before he walks away, Stiles swears he sees the smallest hint of a smile on his lips. A ghost of a smile that Derek used to brandish for him in their most private moments, when he needed it the most. 

Before Stiles can even say thank you, Derek is walking back into a small hallway, probably heading back to his office.

Stiles plops back down on his bar stool, silent, and the glass of whiskey in front of him looks like the last thing he wants in his body, stomach churning at the sight. 

“Dude!” Karl says excitedly, “Your friend is the best, Stilinski.”

Stiles turns to his coworkers, who nod agreeing. 

“He’s not my friend,” Stiles says, and well, he’s not wrong. 

“Pretty cool for someone who’s not a friend,” Jack adds, taking the opportunity to wave Mario down to order another round.

Ed quirks a brow. “ Wait, if he’s not your friend, who is he?”

A hundred names run through Stiles’ mind at the question. Memories, conversations. Private moments. Things that have been suppressed bubble up in his subconscious again, and his mouth feels dry. 

Against better judgment, he throws the rest of the whiskey back, letting the sting in his throat remind him of the last three years before he turns to Ed.

“He’s my ex-husband.”

Derek pushed the door to the hotel room open with one hand, the other splayed across Stiles’ back. Stiles would help him really, but he has his hands buys running through Derek’s hair, his mouth occupied by pulling Derek’s bottom lip between his.

There’s flowers and balloons covering the room, but neither one of them seem to notice, the only thing seeming to matter is the other in front of them; brushes of lips, whispers of admirations, sure movements.

Derek pushes Stiles towards the bed, letting it hit the back of his knees and fall on his back, but not before he pulls Derek down with him by his tie.

Derek falls over him with an ‘umf’, and Stiles actually giggles. And pretty soon, Derek is joining him until they’re a mix of laughter and soft kisses in dress shirts.

“We’re married,” Stiles sighs, and he’s giggling again. “Like, actually fucking married.”

Derek’s grin is soft and happy. “Yeah, I was there, Stiles.”

They both were. And so were all their friends and family, all together to celebrate them finally tying the knot. It was a beautiful ceremony, and an even more amazing celebration, but Stiles was practically buzzing the last few hours of the party to just get back and have some alone time with his husband. His husband.

“It just took us so long to get here,” Stiles sighs, nudging her hose up against Derek’s cheek. “I was getting a little nervous after eight years of dating.”

Derek sits up, cradling Stiles lap between his legs. Stiles’ hands instinctively move to rest on Derek’s thighs.

“I love you, Stiles,” Derek says, a serious look on his face. “And I promised you I wasn’t going anywhere. And I meant it. You’re it for me.”

Stiles feels his heart swell at the words. He knows Derek is usually the quiet one. Stiles is the loud, chatterbox with something to say. But he knows that Derek tries to put more effort into using his words, especially around Stiles.

Really, you should have heard Derek’s vows. Stiles was so shocked that Derek even had that much to say, let alone have the beautiful stream of words be meant for him. He was bawling almost instantly, barely holding it together to recite his vows back to Derek.

He reaches up to grab Derek’s neck, his fingers grazing the hair at the nape of his neck. Derek leans back into it

“Holy shit, I love you so much Derek,” he whispers fondly, slowly dragging Derek down to greet his lips with a kiss. “Get ready to spend the rest of your life with this dork,” he mumbles in between kisses.

Derek pulls away just a breath. “Can’t wait.”

It’s 2:30 AM in Chicago, and Stiles should really be in bed. After the convention and the night of drinks with his coworkers, he’d love nothing more than to have curled into a ball in his hotel room and fell asleep. But he’s always been a restless soul, especially when he has something eating him away.

Which is why he finds himself outside the bar he was at earlier- Derek’s bar, which he now can see the sign outside the door. The Fox and the Wolf.

Clever, Stiles thinks to himself.

It’s well past it’s closing time, and through the small window in the door, he can see the bartender, Mario, cleaning up. Which means Derek is inside, too.

So, Stiles does the only logical thing he can think of in that moment.

He paces.

He walks up and down the pavement, hands shoved in his pockets, mumbling to himself. He literally hasn’t seen Derek in three years, and he’s had enough experience with the supernatural that things just don’t happen in the world. There’s a reason for everything. So, logically, there has to be a reason that of all the places Stiles could have gone for a convention, it just so happens to be across the street from the bar Derek just happens to own, right?

Or maybe he’s over-thinking it?

There’s one thing Stiles does take into consideration; he thought he’d be more upset seeing Derek after so long. He always had the thought in the back of his head, of what would happen if he ran into Derek after the divorce. Would he glare at him? Yell? Or ignore him completely?

What he didn’t expect was to feel…nostalgic. It was like looking at a different life, right in the face. Right in front of him.

He was with Derek for eleven years, dammit. He was a 32 year old FBI agent, he can walk inside a fucking bar and talk to his ex-husband like a normal person, okay?

Stiles is amping himself up with those words, and it’s enough to give him the courage to take a deep breath, put on his game face, and beeline for the door.

His plan is derailed, however, when the door swings open outwards and hits him right in the face.

“So, that’s it, then?” Stiles says, his voice low, trying to keep it from cracking.

Derek sits across from him at their dining room table, hands folded at the edge of the table, and the coward can’t even bear to look Stiles in the eye.

Between them, a manila envelope.

“Stiles, please.” Derek pleads, his voice soft, and Stiles fucking hates him for using that voice. For taking something he always associated with comfort and joy, and use it now so he’ll only remember it like this.

He feels tears well in his eyes again, but he doesn’t move to wipe them away.

Stiles doesn’t think either of them expected it to go this far. What started with Stiles’ busy work schedule manifested into a spiral of arguments and distrust, until it seemed like every part of their marriage was just…frustration.

And Stiles tried, he really did. He cut back on hours, he worked from home when he could. And Derek made an effort to try to be more open, to trust Stiles more.

But apparently it wasn’t enough.

The thing is, after eleven years, you think you know everything about a person, down to what they’ll do next. You’d think that much time meant you had know every inch of a person. But sometimes you come home to your husband and a stapled packet of divorce papers, and you realize that you could be with someone your whole life and still never really know them.

He crosses his arms. “We’re not going to try to work this out? You’re just giving up on us?” Stiles bites, glaring at Derek, who stays quiet.  “Would you fucking look at me, at least?”

Derek slowly meets his eyes, and there are tired lines around his eyes and mouth. Despite his features, he looks younger, hunched in on himself like a child.

“What else can we do, Stiles?” He says slowly, and Stiles knows he’s trying to keep his cool, which just pisses him off even more. Like they’re just having a casual discussion about forgetting to pick up some milk, not their entire relationship.

It’s quiet between them for a long time, because Stiles had already done his fair share of yelling and screaming, and crying for that matter. And he’s tired.

“You promised,” is all Stiles says, and he pushes back from the table, standing up, and padding upstairs to the bedroom, leaving Derek alone with his envelope.

“Holy fuck!”

Stiles brings his hands up to his nose, and he already knows it’s bleeding, so he tips his head back.

“Stiles, are you okay?”

Derek is there, next to him, and Stiles is able to catch his furrowed brows as he glares at his bloody nose.

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” he says, but he can already feel his head getting light, and there’s a throbbing in his temple.

He feels a hand on his back, and he’s being directed inside, Derek following behind him.

“Come on, go sit. Get you cleaned up.”

The bar is empty now, and Stiles defeatedly takes a seat at a stool at the bar while Derek goes behind it, and throws a cloth napkin at Stiles’ face.

“Hey!” he yells defensively, using his free hand to try (and fail) to catch it. He quickly replaces his bloody hand with the napkin and finally tips his head back down, and when he catches Derek’s eyes, he really wasn’t expecting them to look so soft. He remembers those eyes.

It’s quiet between them for a long time, only the faint sound of drunk strangers walking down the street and the occasional car horn filling the bar.

“So,” Stiles draws out, napkin still pressed to his nose. “When did you start owning bars?”

Derek sighs, arms crossed and looking a little huffy.

“What are you doing here, Stiles?”

“I asked you first.”

Derek gives in, only because Stiles is pretty sure he knows that he could hold this argument all night. Stiles was always the persistent one.

He watches Derek rest his forearms on the bar. “I bought it when I moved here.” When Stiles doesn’t say anything in response, Derek takes it as a tell that it’s not a sufficient answer.

“Cora found us a new pack, after-” Derek gestures between the two of them, and it’s enough of an answer. “They’re nice. The alpha had this old shop he didn’t know what to do with, and Cora convinced him that we were prime retail owners since we owned the bookstore.”

Derek glances around the bar, and Stiles watches a small smile spread on his lips, and he can feel the pride Derek has for this dingy bar. “He let me contract it, and I’ve always kinda wanted to own a bar. Books were always Laura’s thing.”

“You found a new pack?” Stiles asks, because of course that’s what he took away from the story. But Derek knows him to well, and raises a brow.

“Stiles,” he says, which makes him rolls his eyes.

“Okay! I just, I don’t know. Something just compelled me to come here.” He throws the napkin down on the counter, and Derek walks around the counter to sit in the bar stool next to him, and Stiles is hyper-aware that this is the closest they’ve been to each other since three years. “Can you blame me?”

“Are you mad at me?” Derek asks.

Logically, he should be. Derek had opted for a divorce, before even considering how they could work out their issues. He had left Stiles to pick up the pieces of what had been almost a third of his life, and just move on. Talk of building a house, having kids, growing old together, all thrown away.

But, Stiles also knows that he didn’t make it easy. As he looked back at their marriage, most of their problems revolved around his stubbornness, and Derek’s trust issues. But, he should have given Derek more credit. After Kate, and Jennifer, Stiles had tried so hard to be the love Derek deserved, but as years went on, he got comfortable. Which meant Derek grew skeptical again.

“I used to be,” Stiles says, quietly. “I used to be so fucking mad. And not just you, but myself, too. I would lie awake every night for the first few months, just trying to figure out where exactly it went wrong. But eventually, I got over it. I realized what my part was in this, and found out how to forgive myself.”

Derek just nods.

“Are you still mad at me?”

“No,” Derek says quickly, shaking his head. “I was never mad at you. I was mad at myself, if anything. I was a coward back then.”

“Are you kidding me?” Stiles argues, and turns in his stool to have his body face Derek. “I was the one in the wrong. And I didn’t do anything but make you feel like you had to put up with it. And with everything you’d been through, that was royally fucked up with me.”

“I know this is weird of me to say, but I’m proud of you for ending the marriage.” Derek gives him a weird look. “Okay, that was weird phrasing, I’ll admit. I wasn’t happy about it. But if there’s one thing I look back to now, it’s that I’m proud that you were able to be strong enough to realize when you were unhappy and leave.”

He knows Derek is clicking to what he says. Stiles was the only person Derek had dated after Kate and Jennifer. And both of those relationship made Derek felt guilty enough to stay in them. So if Stiles was going to take anything good out of their divorce, it’s that he’s glad Derek could be strong and stick up for himself.

“Is that why you didn’t fight it after I gave you the papers?” Derek asks. Stiles looks away, and stays quiet. He just shrugs.

They both draw out long breaths, and sit in silence for a few minutes. And to Stiles’ surprise, it’s not awkward. If anything, it’s kind of comforting.

“I miss you,” Derek suddenly says, and it’s so quiet, that Stiles barely hears it in the empty bar. And when he looks at Derek, he sees streams of tears running down Derek’s cheeks.

And Stiles can’t really help it, but he feels his eyes well up, too, because after three years, he’s never admitted out loud what he feared would break him.

“I miss you, too.” Stiles says back, and their gazes lock, and despite the tears spilling, Stiles give Derek a small smile.

After a few more minutes of silence and wiping of tears, they deem the night an end. Derek walks Stiles out the door, locking the bar up behind him.

“I’m sorry, again, for just showing up.” Stiles says, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

Derek shakes his head, pocketing his keys. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Welp,” Stiles looks back towards his hotel. “I guess I should head back. Busy day tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Derek agrees.

It’s awkward for a second, but Stiles’ mind kind of just goes ‘fuck it’, and he steps forward, arms outstretched, and he feels a little better when Derek’s arms open as well, and they hug.

His arms wrap around Derek’s middle, and he feels Derek’s arms wrap around his shoulders. And really, he intended for this hug to last a second or two, but…

It feels like home, Derek’s arms. If he doesn’t think, and breathes in, he remembers the good. The small moments of love and happiness that filled their relationship, like how Derek would always be waiting in the airport for Stiles when he’d fly home, arms open and grin wide. Or how he’d sneak up behind him in the mornings that Stiles would make breakfast, wrapping his arms around his waist, and kiss his neck in the early morning light.

He wonders if Derek is thinking of the same things, because he doesn’t move to part either, and Stiles swears he feels him nuzzle into his neck and breathe in. It makes him wonder if Derek’s wolf still considers him home, too.

It’s a minute or two before they let go, and Stiles steps back.

“I’ll see you, Derek.”

Derek nods.

“See ya, Stiles.”

He unlocks his hotel room door, and Ed is passed out in the Queen bed closet to the door, his snores echoing in the room. He has the urge to call Scott and tell him everything, but he deems that a morning conversation. Overcome with exhaustion, Stiles strips down to his boxers and drags himself to bed, hoping to at least get some sleep before the rest of the day. But right before he dozes off, his phone lights up on  the nightstand.

He picks it up, and his heart skips a beat at the name, one he never really brought himself to delete from his phone.

Derek:

Would you want to get dinner tomorrow?

And in the privacy of his room, he allows himself to smile wide, for no real reason than his euphoric feeling of being a teenager again.

Derek’s chimes again.

If you want.

He types back a reply.

Stiles:

I’d like that. Pick a place and I’m there.

Derek types back almost immediately.

Promise?

It’s just one word, but it weighs so heavenly between them. But Stiles doesn’t believe in fate, no. Only in the order of the universe. And maybe, the universe is giving him a fresh start. A chance for new promises. And maybe the first promise can just be a dinner.

I promise.

[imaginesethrollins]

Kid

Spoilers for Negan’s character. You’ve been warned.

Pairing: Negan X Young!Reader

Summary: At the end of the world you end up with Negan. Your use to be coach. (I suck at summaries...)

Warnings: Swearing

Word Count: 2800+

You sat beside Negan at the large campfire, his arm was draped around your shoulders. “We’ll be eaten good tonight fellas!” You look up at Richard who was carrying a large deer over his shoulders. 

He was one of the group's hunters. Negan smiled. There was whistling and hollering going around the campfire from other survivors. You looked up and watched the sun fade in the sky. Great, the night was falling.

“You okay, Kid? I thought you’d be fucking happy with this?” You look to Negan and shrug. Negan was your coach before all this. You were the only member of your family that managed to get out alive. 

Negan found you covered in walkers blood and dirt. You were looking through a small shop, trying to find something other than candy bars.

“Y/n? Is that you? Y/n Y/L/N?” You turned around and found yourself looking at a familiar face. “Coach Negan?” He looked relieved. 

Negan moved across the small space and wrapped you in his arms. “Oh my fucking god…it’s so good to see a familiar fucking face that is…rotten.”

You slowly wrapped your arms around him. “I know…” It was awhile before you both pulled away. “Are you here all the fuck alone?” You nodded your head slowly. “Yeah.” 

“No family?” You shook your head. “Fucking Christ…Well, me and you then, Kid. Together. You’re with me from now fucking on.”

“First thing is to get you cleaned the fuck up some. There's a river near the place I’m staying. Cause holy shit do you look like a dead fuck.” 

You scoffed. “You should see your-fucking-self.” “Watch your goddamn fucking mouth!”

“Really, Coach Negan?” He laughed a little. “You’re still young…So until you’re older, watch your fucking mouth. And don’t call me that. I’m not your fucking coach anymore. I’m just Negan.”

You picked over your food, beans, and deer. Yum. Negan was scarfing his in as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks. Chitchat could be heard around the fire, as well as groans in the far distances.

You looked to the woods when sticks cracked. No one else heard. “Negan…There’s something in the woods.” You elbowed him. 

With his mouth full of meat, he looked to the tree line, nothing came out. “There ain’t shit out there. Re-fucking-lax”

You anxiously watched the tree line until Negan elbowed you. “Are you gonna fucking eat or not. Cause if you aren’t, I’ll gladly take it.” You looked at your plate before handing it to him.

“I was only joking.” You shook your head and pushed the plate towards him when he tried to give it back. “I’m not hungry. Eat before someone else wants it.” Negan didn’t argue it any further. 

You began watching the tree line and when more sticks crack and leafs rustled, it got Negan’s attention. “I heard. Must be a dead fuck…”

You stood up and unsheathed your knife. “I’ll check.” He reached out and grabbed the back of your jeans as if you were a small child. 

“The fuck you will.” One of the guys stood when he saw your knife. “A dead one?” You shrugged. “We heard movement in the trees.” 

He unsheathed his knife. “I’ll go with you.” He nodded his head towards the woods. Negan reluctantly lets go of the back of your pants.

You walk beside the guy, your knife held tightly in your hand. “Ahhh! There it is…” You look to your right and see the thing stumbling around. 

He grabs the thing and sinks his knife through its head. “Watch out!” You hiss. Another stumbles towards him and you move fast. He spins as you stick your knife through it, his knife nicking your arm. “Shit! I’m sorry.”

You do a scan over of the area and sigh. “I think that was the last one…Let’s get out of here.” The guy bit his cheek. “I’m sorry…I didn’t see you move.” You shake your head and place your hand over the small wound. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

When you return. Negan was standing with his arms folded over his chest, scowling. You walk towards him and many eyes follow you.

Everyone knew how Negan got with you. Overprotective was an overstatement.  “Let me fucking see.” He hissed.

You remove your hand and he grabbed your arm. Negan inspected the cut. You looked over at the guy and he smiled sheepishly at you. 

Negan sent a glare that had him turning away. “It’s not the big of a deal. A small nick.” He scoffs. “Yeah, a small nick now. What the fuck happens next time?!”

“Don’t yell…Please!” You plead. He squints his eyes. “I’m gonna fucking yell. What the fuck I am going to do is beat his goddamn face in!” 

You place your hands on his chest. “Negan! Stop! It’s not a big deal!” People look up at him, eyes following his every move. “Negan, please…just don’t.”

“Not a big deal! That fucking asshole motherfucking fuck could have gotten you killed!” Negan yelled, pointing towards the guy. “Negan!”

You sat with your back against the gym lockers, blood was splattered on your shirt. You knew you should get up and move, your teacher would notice your absence and come looking for you.

 But you couldn’t seem to get a flying fuck. You were 95% sure your nose was broken and your jaw bruised.

You heard the squeak of the locker room doors, followed by heavy footsteps. Coach Negan. “Y/N! Are you fucking in here!?” You stayed quiet, pressing yourself further into the lockers. 

Negan came around the corner and stopped upon seeing you. “What the fuck fucking happened to you, Kid?” He crouched down in front of you. He tilted your head to one side then the other. “Fucking Christ…Who did this to you?”

You just stared at him. “Y/n…Who fucking did this?” “No one.” Negan sighed and touched your nose to which you hissed. “Are you going to tell me or are we going to do this the fucking hard way?” You stayed quiet. “The hard way. Of fucking course.”

“You couldn’t just make it easy on yourself…But when I find the fuck out who did this, you can bet your sweet fucking ass that they will be fucking taken care of.”

You sat on the tailgate of Negan’s truck as he dug through his backpack for his first aid kit. You kicked your legs back and forth, watching them swing. “Remember when you had to snap my nose back into place?” You chuckled.

His eye flickered over to you, not in the slightest amused. “I remember how much it hurt and the cracking noise it made was terrible…I never thanked you for everything you did for me in school. You were the best teacher I ever had.”

Negan looked at you and smiled at little. He grabbed your arm and wiped the nick with an alcohol wipe. “You were my best fucking student…Always listened, never skipped and not to mention the fact you never took my fucking lenience for granted.”

Once Negan placed a band-aid over nick and packed everything up, he hopped onto the tailgate beside you and rested his hand on your knee, giving it a squeeze. “Who the fuck would have thought we’d end up here together, huh?”

You nodded your head. “Yeah, I know…It’s crazy.”

You slung your bag over your shoulder and began your walk home. Snow cover the ground and when the wind kicked up it sent a chill up your spine.

A honk of a horn grabbed your attention. Looking up you see Coach Negan in his truck. He was waving you over. “What the fuck kid! Don’t you got a ride home?”

You shook your head. “My parents are working.” He nodded his head. “What fucking street do you live on?” 

You rubbed the back of your neck. “Um…Oak.” Negan jerked his head in the direction of the passenger's seat. “Coach…No, it’s fine…I don’t mind walking.”

“Kid, it’s 30 below. Get the fuck in the truck and let me drive you home.” You heard snickers coming from behind you. It was the kids that broken your nose and bruised your jaw. 

“Getting a ride home from the coach! What a loser!” You heard one of them say.

“Coach…I’m fine. Thank you for the offer.”  “You really just fucking love doing things the hard way don’t you?”

You sighed as the heat warmed your frozen body.“You said you were fine fucking walking!” You held your hands in front of the vet and gave him a side eye.

“How’s your nose feeling?” You leaned back into the seat of the truck. “Fine.” Negan sighed. “I’m fucking sorry that they didn’t do anything to those little shits.” You shrug. “Not your fault.”

“If those little fucks bother you again you let me fucking know. I’ll put them in their goddamn fucking place.” You looked over at him. Biting your lip, you nod. 

“Okay…”

The sun was rising and you had yet to go to sleep. Negan was fast asleep in the bed of his pickup. You were sitting on the hood, knees brought to your chest. You normally slept in the cab of the truck, laid across the seats.

Negan didn’t want you sleeping out in the open, he’d prefer knowing you were locked in the truck cab, away from any threats. Walker and human ones alike.

You would never finish high school. You would never go to college and make something of yourself. You would never get married or have kids. You would never buy your first car or home. You would forever be stuck with this world. Dead or alive. Never progressing in life.

Someone clearing their throat grabbed your attention. You look up and find Negan standing there, hair tussled from sleep, weapons belt loosely on his hips. “What the fuck are you doing up, Kid?”

You shrug. “Couldn’t sleep.” Negan sighed and leaned against the hood. “Did you fucking sleep at all?” You shook your head. “No…” He sighed again. “What the fuck am I going to do with you?” You smile at little. “I ask myself that about you.”

You watch as other people began exited their tents. The proclaimed leader of the group was starting the fire. It was freezing out today, you could see your breath and you knew what that meant. Snow would be fall soon.

“We need to go on a run before it snows and makes it a lot harder to get around.” You nod your head in agreement. “Are you up for a run today?”

Negan never went on runs without you and you were never allowed to go on runs without him. He didn’t want any of these ‘Pricks’ as he put it, to do anything to you, take advantage of you.

“Yeah.” He nodded his head. “Okay. Just me and you today.”

You were looking through a store. Negan was a couple of aisles down, searching the shelves for anything of use. You found a couple cans of corn and green beans. Which you weren’t complaining. Food was food.

You grabbed what was left of some granola bars and managed to find a box of brownie bites and instant coffee. You zipped your backpack and walked over to Negan. He was looking through the pharmacy now, stuffing an extra bag full of whatever was left.

“Find anything good?” Negan asked. “Corn, green beans, granola bars.” You left out the brownie bite and coffee because you had no intentions on sharing those with the group and you knew Negan didn’t like hiding things from them. 

You didn’t care. These things were rare to come across and you weren’t sharing. Point-blank.

“You?” He shrugged. “Not fucking really.” You looked up when you heard banging on the store door. “I think it’s time we head out.” Negan nodded. “Yeah guess fucking so.”

When you made it back to the camp sight, you were both shocked to find it filled with walkers. People were screaming. Negan got out of the truck yelling at you to stay inside. You didn’t listen, of course.

You were quick to slid from the truck and unholster your gun. Shooting a few walkers that stumbled towards Negan. He knifed a few and shoved others away while trying to save as many unharmed people as possible.

But there was too many and the farther you moved into camp, the more you were becoming surround. 

Your gun clicked a few times, signaling you had no bullets left. You threw the gun on the ground and picked up a baseball bat. You swung it at walkers head.

You looked around, you no longer could see Negan. Panic set in. Did he get bitten? Was he being eaten alive like these other people? Did he leave?

You swung the bat into a walker as you made a b-line for the trees. You looked around, trying to spot Negan. 

You couldn’t. Walkers stumbled towards you. Too many for you to take out single handily without a gun.

You’d run and circle back around to the camp. Surely Negan wouldn’t leave without you. So that’s what you did. 

You took off through the woods, hopping over tree roots and ducking under branches, dodging walkers that stumbled their way through the woods.

Once you burst through the trees back at camp. You froze. Every walker was dead. Very few people were still alive. You walked into the camp, people who sat on the ground next to a dead loved one looked up at you.

You looked at the walkers, trying to see if any were Negan. You couldn’t even tell someone the walkers were people still. Their faces were smashed. You ran a hand down your face. “He…He left.”

You turned around and found the guy who was with you in the woods the other day. “Negan. He left after clearing the walkers.”

You slowly sunk to the ground. “Without me…” The guy wiped the blood off his face and nodded his head. “He…He didn’t seem to notice you weren’t with him…or he just assumed you died.”

You glared at him, the same glare Negan would give him. He looked away. “Sorry.” You were

Sometime later...

How the hell did you end up here? Oh yeah, that’s right! Because your small ass fucking group thought they could challenge this guy. Who he was, was a mystery to you. 

Your leader spoke little of him or the threats that were given to your group. He always claimed he could “handle it.”

This guy wanted to take you all in. Have you work for him. You leader thought it was an option. So he said no, well clearly this guy doesn’t like being told that. 

You were all just going to leave. Leave the area, the state if you could, but it was like the were watching you.

Once you hit the road, they got ahold of all of you and here you are. On your knees in the middle of the road waiting for this guy dramatic entrance. You stared at the ground, hand firmly planted on the road.

You didn’t look up when you heard the thud of boots on the pavement, nor when you heard him clear his throat. “Hi…I’m Negan.” Your body visibly tensed. It was Negan. You could tell by the voice.

“I do not appreciate you trying to fucking leave! Not one fucking bit.” You closed your eyes. You couldn’t will yourself to look up at him. 

“It’s not fucking cool! At fucking all! I open my arms to you and you spit in my fucking face! Then you tried! Oh, you fucking tried and failed to kill my fucking men!”

You took a deep breath and looked up. His back was to you, but you could tell it was him. 

“I open my goddamn fucking arms to you fucking people and that is what the fuck I get in return! You are going to fucking see on not fucking cool that shit is!”

You looked down once he turned. “Oh yes, the fuck you are!” You watched the ground as his boots appeared in front of you. 

“Oh, this fucking one here doesn’t want to fucking look at me!” You felt his gloved hand grab you chin.

Negan pulled your face up and your eyes locked. You watched his smirk fall and it gets replaced by shock. You hadn’t realized you had tears in your eyes until Negan moved his hand from your chin to wipe them away.

“Jesus Christ, Kid. You’re alive.”

[andymieintus]

Oh my God 4 TIMES? Talk about all of them! Or just your favorite parts I'm sorry if you don't want to

omg okay

im gonna put this under a read more because theres four different stories and theyre quite long but basically this is the story of my budding acquaintanceship with andy mientus

just stick with me here because they keep getting better with each time

so the first time i met him was at the bway flea market in september and it was just a quick lil meet and greet thing with him and michael and tbh michael was SO NICE and i was SO NERVOUS that i don’t even think i made eye contact with andy once

then the second time, this is where it starts getting wild (this was less than a month ago wtf)

so i went to go see wicked in orlando and after the show i walked around the building to find the stagedoor. and once i found it i went back to my car, which was in a parking garage about a five-minute walk away. once i got there, i grabbed the gift i had gotten for andy (i don’t wanna say what it was because yall will think im ridiculous for buying this for him but lets just say it was a gift he had expressed wanting and it was vvvvv expensive) and then i walked back to the theater. so i was walking to the stagedoor when i saw the group of people that had been there earlier walking towards me (away from stagedoor) so i was like “oh no did i miss him oh no oh no oh no” but then i looked behind the group of people and ANDY WAS RIGHT THERE WALKING TOWARDS ME

so naturally im like !!!!!!! and hes just texting and walking and im like do i approach him?? do i not approach him??? but i wasn’t about to let my anxiety stop me from meeting him so i was like “oh! andy! hi!” and he looked up at me and he’s real cute and he was like “oh, hi!” and then he walked over to me

and i gave him his gift and he was super gracious about it it was super sweet and then i asked how he was and he was like “i’m good, i’m feeling a bit under the weather right now” and i told him to feel better ya know things like that and we got a picture it was cute

and so it was kinda just the right moment for us to part ways so we were about to do that when it turns out we were going in the same direction. i was going back to the parking garage and he was gonna wait on his uber and so we ended up walking side by side

so he was like “so how did u like the show?” and i was like wWELL because i had missed the first act due to forgetting my tickets at home and having to go back and get them because im a dumbass and i told him this and he goes “OH NO and most of my parts are in act one!!!!” and he was laughing and my heart melted i just love him and i was like IM SORRY but u were still great in march of witch hunters and everything and he was like awww thnx

and so then we said our goodbyes and he thanked me again for the gift and he was like “well hopefully you’ll get to see the show again sometime” and i was like “oh yeah definitely” knowing full well that i already had tickets for four more dates in tampa

so then we parted ways and he was just standing there and i was standing at a crosswalk like twenty feet away and i had to wait for it to say i could go and i just. we made eye contact it was awkward but then it said i could walk and i RAN

but IT GETS BETTER so i went back to my car and tweeted him thanking him for stopping and everything and then i started driving home and i called my best friend to rant to her about the whole thing

so after i hung up the phone all i saw on my screen was a twitter notif that said

Andy Mientus

Also, I’m sorry if I was a little despondent- my stomach is

and i FLIPPED OUT and checked my twitter and he had followed me and everything and i immediately called my best friend back and was like like WHAT DO I DO and she was like “well u could start by reading the dm” 

so basically andy had opened my gift and he was FREAKING OUT idk if i wanna post the full thing on here because ya know privacy but he was so sweet and he had sent me this paragraph saying that the gift was “crazy generous” and he was like r u sure u don’t want to keep it for urself??? and then he said “No one has ever given me something so generous before so I’m like, panicking lol” and then he apologized for if he seemed tired because his stomach was acting up, which he said hes “a wuss about”

so i literally pulled over to respond to this boy’s goddamn dm and i was like no u keep it i got it for u things like that and he responded saying wow thank u and then he told me that he wanted to post about it everywhere but he didn’t want people to think they should spend a bunch of money on him to buy a shoutout and then like five minutes later he complimented my art and the stones i got him as well and i just responded like omg no i never expected u to post about them and even if u do u don’t have to say it was a gift or anything

so that was the first night and im still so… shook

but the third time i met him got even better,,, (this was this past tuesday)

so i went to go see wicked in tampa and earlier andy had tweeted me saying that yes he was gonna be on and he was gonna stagedoor that night so i was hype

so after the show i went down to stagedoor and there were literally only two other guys there. and the stagedoor is kinda like,,, its a clear glass door and you can see into this lobby area from outside and i saw andy in the lobby area and he was talking to like a security guard or smth and i was like ohshitohshitohshit because i knew he was about to come out and i think its natural to get nervous when things like this happen

so he finally walked out and he went up to the two guys standing a little bit away from me and he goes “hey man.” and they talked for approximately 2 seconds and then andy looked at me and he just…….. okay andy has this face he does where he get really excited and he opens his mouth and his eyes get really big its like a mix between the :o and the :D face and HE LOOKED AT ME AND DID THAT

so the next thing i know, andy mientus is walking towards me with his arms open and he’s hugging me and im hugging him and my face is in his jacket and hes like “HI!!! how are you??!” and im like “IM SO GOOD”

and he says “so u finally saw act one” and i was like “i did” and he was like “howd you like it?” and i was like IT WAS SO GOOD and i told him that hes actually a pretty good dancer and his eyes get all big and he puts his hand over his heart and he goes “REALLY?” and i was like ya!! and he told me “oh my god thank u so much i had to work so hard to make it look that way” it was the purest thing

and idk how it came up but i told him that i was coming back to see the show on friday (which was like,, two days ago now oh my god) and he goes “friday? ur seeing it on friday?” and i was like “yea friday night”  and he goes “…….would youuuuu wanna go on a tour backstage with me that night?? because we do this thing with broadwaycares where the actors give people who donate a certain amount tours backstage and if u wanna just tag along we can just hang out”

and at this point my brain is going a mile a minute and i was like “omg yeah sure” and i probably said “that’s awesome” and “that’s so nice” at least eight times each

and he was like “okay great! u can just walk in through the stagedoor that night and tell those guys in there that ur with me and they should get it all figured out” and i was like…….. this is my life now

so that was about it for my third time but THIS FRIDAY was my most recent encounter with mr. mientus and whew what a story

on my way to the show, andy dmed me again on twitter and he was like “whats ur name for the list tonight?” and i told him while freaking out because not only did he remember that i was coming but he remembered my twitter and then he was like okay cool i don’t think you’ll need ur ID or anything and then he sent me another message that said “Enjoy the show and see you after!”

so after the show, i was nervous as hell and he dmed me right after he had gotten offstage apparently and it just said “Come through the stage door” like yes andy i know but i didn’t actually see the dm until i was going home lol

so i walked to the stagedoor and i saw andy in the back of the lobby area just chillin and im just now realizing that he was there to pick me up aw and so i walked in and the security guard at the desk next to me started FREAKING OUT he was like “WHO ARE YOU YOURE NOT ALLOWED IN HERE” and andy started walking over and he was like “oh no shes with me” and i kinda just gestured towards him and the guard let us go lol

so we walked back to where andy had been standing which was near some doors and he goes “hey” and i was like “hey!” and then he opened his arms again and i thought to myself “i love my life” before hugging him and then he called out to the security guard that had just yelled at me and he was like “hey can we get buzzed in” (referring to them opening the doors for us to let us go backstage) and he said to me “thanks for coming!” and i was like “thanks for having me” and apparently the security guard had not heard him earlier so andy waves his arm over towards the desk and shouts “HEY CAN WE GET BUZZED IN” but then someone opened the door from the inside so he was like “oh! nevermind lets go on a touuuuur follow me”

then we went through the doors and he was like “so this is backstage” and hes like walking in front of me and HE WALKS SO FAST I WAS TRYNA KEEP UP and usually im the fast walker but no and then he showed me the hair and makeup department since the door was open and then we went through some double doors (he held the door open for me what a gentleman) and suddenly i was on stage right backstage of wicked

so the other people who were supposed to be going on the tour had to be gathered up and guided backstage and everything so me and andy had time to talk for like literally ten minutes and we talked about where hes currently living and the election (i talked about politics with andy mientus rt ur goals) and the show and all of the huge props around us and things like that we went over a variety of topics

then all of the people who were going on the tour arrived and there were probably like 8 of them and they all just walked in on me and andy talking and i wasn’t even mad that they interrupted us i was like…… i feel like i shouldn’t be here but it was all good

so i wont go through the whole tour but just know that andy is THE CUTEST TOUR GUIDE most of the people on the tour had literally no clue about anything in theatre (andy had explained to me that this would probably happen) so he explained stuff really well and he knows so much about wicked and the show and im never gonna watch it the same way again

so once the tour was over (it was probably like twenty minutes long) he was like “well i think that’s it! thank u guys so much for coming and donating and seeing the show i hope u liked my tour” and then he was like “now im gonna walk u guys out to stagedoor… maybe you’ll get to sign some autographs for people” and everyone laughed but i was just like ur stupid

and then he led us out but on the way he showed us the wardrobe department because it was open and the sign in sheet and stuff so that was cool and then we got to the door to enter the lobby area so he was saying bye to all of us and holding the door open to let us all out and when i was going out he looked at me and went “hey” and i was like “hey” and he went in for a big hug it was the best moment of my life and singlehandedly saved my 2017 and he was like “i’ll see ya” and i was like “oh im coming back im seeing the show again next weekend” and he was like “oh okay great!!! i’ll see u then!” hes the sweetest lil angel and then i left so yeah that’s been my life as of late

tldr; ive hugged andy mientus three separate times and he knows who i am and hes the most kind person you will ever meet and i can’t wait to see him again

[nickatnightwalker-blog]

@sorcieresque  the hot gossip is murder

nickatnightwalker hey sup damian killed two guys right before he got here

sorcieresque I would ask you to excuse me and make you repeat yourself but that would be... Overkill.

nickatnightwalker shitty pun

sorcieresque I can't work like this. How do you know this. Did he tell you, or did you follow him into his evil lair and find out while hiding behind his coffin. How deep in shit are you, so to speak.

nickatnightwalker oh extremely ' he just fucking told me like hey yo sup i ate humans

nickatnightwalker ok actually that's not how it happened it happened because i was like bitch can you try not being intentionally cryptic and ominous for once because i for one am not enjoying feeling like a happy meal and he was like lmao oh my bad youre too good to eat and i was like yeah ofc i am and he was like anyway i ate two wannabe rapists and i was like cool and then i made plans to meet up with him anyway but then you almost killed a scotsman so that kinda threw me off my game so, shit status: deep as fuck

sorcieresque Are you planning to be a rapist.

nickatnightwalker holy shit daisy

sorcieresque

Then there's nothing to worry about.

nickatnightwalker yes actually i was just about to join alpha sigma fratfuck no there are things to worry about actually

sorcieresque I would kill and eat you myself.

nickatnightwalker yeah bitch youd do that if the line was too long at mcdonalds

sorcieresque I love McDonalds.

sorcieresque ):

nickatnightwalker daisy listen i AM mcdonalds

sorcieresque Everyone can be McDonalds if you're not a pussy.

nickatnightwalker AYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY im not making a cannibalism joke anyway daise what the fuck is his criteria for being 'too good to eat' like, is it hard crime?  petty crime? being annoying because if that's the case i am absolutely fucked in the most unsatisfying of ways do i have to sit around and wait for this light yagami ass fuck to decide my moral worth as a human vs my potential deliciousness

sorcieresque Kill him before he kills you, of course.

nickatnightwalker done and done

sorcieresque That was fast.

nickatnightwalker do you honestly think i havent had a wooden stake strapped to my thigh like a supernatural bond girl from the moment i realized the absolute magnitude of my stupidity

sorcieresque Did he happen to mention any other weaknesses. What's the other half of the report, Walker.

nickatnightwalker that's it!  that's it! that's the whole report! the other part of the report is that, breaking news, i am an immense dumbfuck!

sorcieresque Both the Quran and silver repel him. Are you certain that a stake to the heart would do the trick.

sorcieresque I'm not playing around.

nickatnightwalker you said it would, didn't you? he said decapitation

sorcieresque Hmm. I didn't think to take that comment seriously, but now that you mention it. We must take precautions. Carry a hatchet on us at all times.

nickatnightwalker hey you're fucking around but im trying to weigh the implications that taking a human life have on a dude's life

sorcieresque Well, he seems terribly well-adjusted.

nickatnightwalker yeah just like us

sorcieresque Buuuuuuuuuurn.

sorcieresque I've started carrying my dagger with me. The silver one. I suggest you do the same.

nickatnightwalker do you happen to have another silver one

sorcieresque We can order one online.

nickatnightwalker oh in that case there's more that i need

sorcieresque Your tab is always open.

nickatnightwalker damian apparently doesnt need a tab you think i could talk him into buying me an antique vampire hunting kit off ebay

sorcieresque I think anything is possible if you're somewhat in distress and also compliment his abs.

nickatnightwalker i am that and could do that at any given moment

nickatnightwalker ok honestly that's half the problem

nickatnightwalker or like actually both halves of the problem houston, we have a lot of problems

sorcieresque This is Houston. Name those problems.

nickatnightwalker 1. he told me he killed 2 dudes and i was like cool hmu later? that's it that's the problem i've been here three weeks and im already chill with murder

sorcieresque I love this school. Is this a date.

nickatnightwalker no i need to go to the greenhouse to get evil-repelling plants like a fucking hippie but there's something fucked up living in there

nickatnightwalker besides, i can test them on him

sorcieresque I'll lend you my dagger. In exchange for some of whatever you collect here.

nickatnightwalker deal ok but also:  explain what's wrong with me

sorcieresque Your estranged relationship with your mother makes it difficult for you to form strong bonds with the women in  your life, and your difficult relationship with your father makes you both jealous of and crave anything remotely phallus-shaped. And you want to fuck your mother.

nickatnightwalker yep you got it

sorcieresque Thank you. I know.

nickatnightwalker i dont even know any girls

sorcieresque Me neither.

nickatnightwalker never been friends with one in my life

sorcieresque It's because of your estranged relationship with your mother. I already explained this.

nickatnightwalker youve met my dad can you look me in the eye and tell me i have a mother

sorcieresque That would require me to think about your father's sexual escapedes.

nickatnightwalker can you look me in the eye and tell me youve ever walked into our apartment and had a choice but to think about them

sorcieresque That would require me to re-experience the trauma, and I'd rather not.

nickatnightwalker at least you have the choice

sorcieresque They were offering counselling yesterday.

nickatnightwalker yeah im gonna have to give that a hard pass im pretty sure that's only for the near death experience crew so, you can go i guess

sorcieresque Please. My issues are what give me my wistful air of mystery and high class weariness of the world.

nickatnightwalker rrrrrrrrrright and not what give you your charming personality quirks like.  idk.  murderous rage?

sorcieresque Never heard of her.

nickatnightwalker really, cause i saw her the other day Today at 3:44 AM

sorcieresque Was she pretty.

nickatnightwalker goddamn she was gorgeous sadly also covered in blood pretty sure i saw a freshman throw up

sorcieresque She sounds like a dame to die for.

nickatnightwalker someone almost did not to be yknow flippant but i believe you lost the respect of several people in the room that night

sorcieresque Scandalized/Indignant gasp!

sorcieresque Well you know. I never had a strong male figure in my life to show me right from wrong.

nickatnightwalker good thing all that's changed now

sorcieresque Ohh, Mr. Wolff, Ooh.

nickatnightwalker and i shall leave my rolex on

[lenixsocial]

My Rules:

For someone with an Orphan Disease there is a lot of things to consider. Here’s my own personal take on it.

• I know me. I know me better than you know me. I inhabit this body. My condition is called “Glycogen Storage Disease Type 2” or “Pompe Disease” •NOT• “I’ll just assume you can’t do something and dismiss it”. Godsakes! Let me flipping try!

• There is a very important difference between Muscular Dystrophy and GSD Type 2. They are related, but it’s NOT THE SAME. I feel it’s absolutely relevant to tell people EXACTLY the name of it when they ask. Maybe it’ll cajole them into asking questions and maybe they’ll have an interest in it and seek out info online and donate to the http://www.agsdus.org/join.php .

• If I’m taking a new drug or going for a new treatment DON’T tell me it’ll be fine. You don’t know, and I’m a realist. I read medical sites and drug information. I know the risks and I don’t need your platitudes. If you want to comfort me and tell me you feel bad for me, or say “I know you’re scared, I’m here for you” would be great.

• At the moment I DO NOT require the use of a walker. This may change suddenly without warning. But those things are unwieldy and are a pain to use, and actually slow me down further. They also make me bend over which doesn’t help my back any. Don’t assume I need one. Don’t take away my cane and give me one.

• I take frequent and persistent stops when walking, and if I’m in the grocery store (or anywhere with carts) and I’m walking (I prefer the auto carts but sometimes they are all in use) I seriously try and scope out poles or shelving in every aisle I go down to find places to park my cart so I can ram the cart into it and suck in a deep breath so I can continue.

• On another note. I move slow and I lumber along. It takes me about 30 minutes to walk three city blocks with rest breaks.

• I love outside. I’m inside most of the day, and unless I’m feeling really crummy, I want to go outside. Especially to places with people and life.

• I miss my friends and co-workers so damn much. I don’t miss the problems at my job one damn bit, and I never thought in a million years I could miss my friends and co-workers as much as I do.

• I miss being useful. So damn much. I was a FT Sales Associate. I did that for almost 14 years. Same company. Same store. I earned the respect and admiration of all my managers and staff. I was good at my job. Damn good. I will literally LEAP at the opportunity to talk shop. Beds? I’m your guy. Vacs? Yup. TV’s? I can do that. Fitness Equipment? That too. I know A LOT. If someone asks me; I will talk your ears off! I loved helping people and I still do. Everyone needs to feel useful.

• You can’t see my scars, but they’re there. Yeah, I can stand up when in a motorized cart in a store, yeah, I can forego it totally when it runs out of juice, and yeah I know I get looks for it. Go fuck yourself. Not every disability has big neon arrows pointing at it.

• Similarly, if you are overly religious. I respect you. That’s the choice you made. I’m agnostic. That’s the choice I made. I will let you pray for me, that’s fine. If that makes you feel better, I’m all for it. I draw the line at you placing your hands on me in a very crowded retail store and screaming Bible verses and telling Satan to “be gone from this man!” and carrying on. That’s uncomfortable and it makes a scene. I don’t want to cause a bigger scene by screaming at you to cut it out. So I have to take it (this has happened about four times in the past six months). • I have breathing problems. It’s why I need my bipap at night. In the day, the breaths are easier to control and usually are fine when seated. When walking, it can get overwhelming. I have a cane and it helps but sometimes I just can’t get enough air in. So then I have to put the can in front of me and push into it and get more air. It looks weird but it works.

• Don’t exclude me from activities. “Oh! You can’t go. It’s too much walking”. Look…they’ve probably got wheelchairs or auto carts, and if they don’t, I can buy a wheelchair for $20 from the internet or $5 at goodwill. Don’t tell me I can’t do something.

• I have a hellacious gastrointestinal issue. This means I’m never quite sure if what I put in me will have me writhing around in pain two hours later it cause heartburn or give me GI distress. I’d honestly prefer it if someone else chose what to eat. Unless I have an immediate response. Part of my frustration is being so unsure and pissing everyone off who wants something else.

• One last thing: Don’t assume since I have this disease that I can’t travel or take a goddamn vacation to get away from it and remind me I’m fucking human. It’s hard fighting this thing and constant ribbing that I can’t go on vacation (mainly my family’s objections) because of my condition is fucking stupid. They also bitch when I go to a casino or dinner out. Shit! I’m surprised they don’t bitch when I walk a foot out my damn door!

I felt I just needed to get that out.

Thank You.

[eridianshores-blog]

Bitchin’ Haul - Starships Style

Here where I live, in the WF, there isn’t all that much east or north of town, so I make my rounds to what is there less frequently.  To the south we’ve got Raleigh and all its hugeness; to the west is Durham which definitely has a few spots worth checking out once or twice a month; southwest is Cary, and Cary can be a great place for finding new stuff...sometimes anyway.  If you go east far enough you’ll hit Selma, which I went to by accident after turning the wrong way out of a parking lot, and they had an amazing Walmart.  Further east is Smithfield, of some renown for its outlet mall, and it features a Toys R Us Express, which is like a crappy strip mall version of TRU.  We went there once...for some reason it was blazing hot in there and the trip was a 100% bust.  If you just barely go east you’ll end up in Knightdale.  There’s nothing much to write home about, but there is a Walmart and Target worth checking and it’s not that far.  Southeast is Zebulon, and I don’t really know of anything down there except for one of the last remaining Roses, but my son did find some pretty neat stuff he’d been looking for for a long time.  I’d tell you what he found but it’s a lot to explain.  Now north...well...there really isn’t anything north.  Maybe Oxford, but that’s quite a drive.  The one glimmer of hope is a Walmart in Louisburg.  And that’s where I went this morning.

I had to meet the ex at a Post Office in Louisburg so that she could get passports made for the kids for a cruise she’s planning for summer, or maybe Spring Break.  So we meet up and she’s got the full brood in tow: all 4 of her kids (hey now, only ONE of them is mine!) and 2 smaller children she was babysitting.  So the ex did all the important stuff, all I had to do was flash my license around and sign some shit.  My son and I played with one of the babies, while the oldest kid took care of the second youngest who was pushing the youngest around in a stroller.  The ex had the final baby strapped to her back.

Somehow or another we got through our hour-long visit to that cramped little post office without much screaming or crying and absolutely no dirty diapers.  I’ll admit I had a little bit of fun playing with the teeny tiny babies, and I think I actually impressed my son a little at my ability to handle them.

Now the Louisburg Walmart is “technically” on my radar, but it hasn’t yet yielded anything amazing.  I went in today with zero expectations and walked out 20 minutes later, $70 lighter.

Not a bad score, eh? I'm tellin' you, those Mandalorian Talons sell like crack on eBay!

Can you see what I found?  For the record, I snagged 2 of the 2017 Hot Wheels Retro Entertainment pieces, the Batmobile and the Back to the Future DeLorean in Hover Mode.  Cool huh?  Just the tip of the iceberg.  As I started looking at displays on the ends of aisles, I saw just how many Hot Wheels Star Wars Starships they had.  Sure, it was the usual mix of Imperial Shuttles and Rey’s Speeder that tend to clutter the shelves of some Walmarts, but wait a minute - Mandalorian Talon Fighters!  I already have one of these, but back when they came out, they were scarce and people were desperate to buy them off of eBay.  Back then I was able to scoop up 7 or 8 extras for $5 each and I offloaded them in a matter of days for $10 a pop.  In and of itself that’s not a bad idea, however, these things have managed to stay rare, and people are asking anywhere from $15 to $64 (not kidding) for a single ship.

Of course we gotta be smart and look at one they’re actually selling for.  Most are falling in the $10 to $20 range with a few $25′s and damn, one poor bastard who dropped $50 on one.  Right now the lowest priced one for sale is $16.49 plus free shipping.  Honestly I would be more than happy to catch $15 a piece for these guys as long as I can move ‘em relatively quickly.  That covers the whole cost of my purchases and puts me up $5!  I guess I failed to mention it, but in case you didn’t do the math, that’s 5 Mandalorian Talons I’ve got under my belt!

The rest of what I found I have never seen for sale in a store, anywhere.  I bought 2 TIE Strikers (I have one from Hasbro’s Titanium Series and I have a battle-damaged one that came in a 2-pack), 2 AT-STs (are these official “Chicken Walkers”?), and 2 AT-ACTs (AT-ATs with a brick of orange cargo in the middle).  That’s a damn decent haul if I say so myself.

I still haven’t had any luck with the 2-pack contain the Millennium Falcon and TIE Interceptor, and from the back of the AT-ST I just found out about another 2-pack featuring the AT-ST and that Imperial Hovertank thingy from Rogue One.  Friday my kid has early release, so I plan on resting up good and doing some serious searching with our afternoon.  I definitely want to do my Cary rounds (TRU, a very worth Target, and the B&N where I found that freakin’ ARC Fighter), plus there’s allegedly a Roses nearby (can be really great for rare stuff that no one ever grabbed and/or shit that’s been outta production for a while) and there’s that weird old K-mart right there on the edge of Cary and Raleigh which totally has some weird and unexpected shit every few visits.

I’d really like to squeeze in Durham as well, but that whole circuit can be grueling.  We’ve got a TRU, an eclectic Target, and a sometimes-awesome Walmart in the area.  If we pack on a few more miles, we can get over to Southpointe, which has a decent B&N (first place I saw a Jyn Erso car in the wild!) and then a toy store in the mall that I think has some potential if we can hit it at the right time.  There’s also a Target nearby that has consistently had some of the newest toys to be found anywhere, often times weeks before I see the stuff anywhere else.  Rancor 2-pack?  Carbonite Han?  Imperial Freaking Guard!?  I gotta know.  The hunt is on.  Good news is that we can go hunting Saturday and/or Sunday too (more like or, 3 days in a row is a bit much even for me, of course it all depends on how successful you are...massive success can bring about satiation, though it can also be inspiring and energizing...failure can leave you dejected and doubtful about continued searching, then again it can also be inspiring and energizing).

Ideally I’d like to do my hunting during the week if possible, when way less people are combing through toy sections ready to buy anything their kids point at.  Fridays are generally alright, but it seems like lots of families or parents willing to grab a toy for their kids start pouring in late Saturday morning, and from there it’s all downhill.  Of course there are other collectors out there too, and I’m sure we’re snatching shit out from under each other’s noses all the time without even knowing it.

What’s been eating me up lately though is that Luke / Rancor discovery.  Had I seen it pop up on eBay a week later or even 2 I could write it off as good luck.  But with no other sellers and the bidding getting so high, my mind is constantly doing flips just thinking about what the hell might be sitting on a shelf, right now, and how close someone who wants it might just be.  That Boba / Bossk pack is just as weird; ultimately I’m grateful (I think) that I was able to snag it for only $30, but I wonder how high it would’ve risen to?  And what about Carbonite Han / Jabba? Are there a couple of these 2-packs just floating around out there too?  Maybe whoever got ‘em doesn’t have a thing to do with eBay, which is 100% plausible.  IT HURTS ME BRAIN.

Oh well, I really should be thankful.  Hell I might be the only person outside of any Hot Wheels insiders that has both the Rancor and Bossk 2-packs...wouldn’t that be cool...?

Stay tuned ladies and gents.  I’m ‘bout to do some serious bitching regarding these goddamn “Japan-only” amiibos...

Update: As I took the time to put the finishing touches on this post, i.e. straightening out the HTML, adding the pic, etc., I've already sold 2 of the Talons!

[thesinglesjukebox]

KASHER QUON FT. TEEJAYX6 - DYNAMIC DUO

[6.27]

By our own popular demand!

Ian Mathers: I cannot wait for the blurb here that's going to explain to me why this whole thing just feels off to me, because god knows I don't have the background knowledge or vocabulary for it. In the meantime it mostly just reminds me of After Last Season. I love After Last Season. [7]

Andy Hutchins: Indebted to the long-running tradition of paranoiac rap and strides made more recently by fellow Michigander Tee Grizzley's relentless flows spilling over at bar's end, Kasher Quon and Teejayx6 embark on an instantly legendary cataloging of what being young, dumb, and so full of ways to hustle and scam sounds like in 2019. Dish detergent as a lean ingredient? Sure. Scamming your own nephew(s) with fake Js and/or fraudulent iPhone purchases? Sure. The endgame here is admirably low-budget, too: Flying Spirit is not even close to enviable. "I just went to Walmart, and I tore that bitch down" is a legitimate aspirational flex, and you get the sense that this is an improbable inversion of the age-old rapping just to get a rep, with the penny-ante schemes being touted by kids unafraid of being called small-timers or unaware of why that would even be a problem. And if "Dynamic Duo" were about a minute shorter, it would not tick past the point of an electrifying thrill ride into what chemistry on a rap song can be and into an exercise sure to exhaust the listener. Something tells me Kasher and Teejay will keep going, though. [6]

Maxwell Cavaseno: For arguably the last two or three years (at minimum), it's been a poorly kept secret that Detroit has become the best city of the rap game. Atlanta? Self-rewriting hogwash sounding just as generic as NYC did in the mid '00s. Los Angeles? Still depending on rappers who've taken over nine years to gain any sort of traction outside of its own city walls and would rather keep going back to the well from tired old icons. Chicago? Their best rapper MOVED OUT, and now they're best represented by a sanctimonious theater kid working out his ABDL-related complex in public. Sickening! No, Detroit has been THE place to be, thanks to a frantic paced scene built on Scamming, Sniping, and Sleaziness. Plenty of my peers, in response to "Dynamic Duo," have been confounded and astonished at how seemingly extreme and hysterical the record sounds, but once you've heard the likes of Pablo Skywalkin or Rocaine, that this city has produced, you get it. The maniacal offbeat flows, the stressed out hyperactive minor key piano licks over the Mannie Fresh-indebted throwback drums, the vivid detail as these men describe going on The Dark Net and buying your (YES YOURS READER!) social security numbers to make Venmo into a frenzied honeypot. Believe me when I tell you that Kasher Quon and Teejayx6 are some of the youngest to do it, but they're astonishingly normal for this scene. If this is the record that puts The Motor City back on the map, then I'm all the happier! But approach with caution! [8]

Alex Clifton: I want to make it absolutely clear that this is one of the worst things I have ever heard. I also listened to it four times in a row. It's not just bad but unforgivably bad, inept and cringey and something that could only exist in the era of YouTube. I don't mind small-time guys trying to make a song and sounding endearingly bad; usually in those cases, though, you have an idea of the song, a notion of what the artist wanted it to be. There is, however, no redeeming musical quality to this track. I can't even call it a song because that implies structure and melody and some sort of forethought as opposed to whatever the hell this is. The best part of this contraption is the beat, which is the repetitive Phoenix Wright soundtrack from hell mixed with a bad trap drum. Honestly it wouldn't be so bad if it had literally any variation other than randomly going up or down. And then the rap starts. I can't. I literally can't. I could rap better than these dudes, and I am the kind of person who karaokes Taylor goddamn Swift whenever I can. And yet this performance is hypnotic? Every time I listen to this I am struck anew by its utter badness. This isn't Maroon 5 phoning-it-in bad, nor Lukas Graham full-of-shit pomposity bad; it's just a literal trainwreck of words thrown about with no care as to order or sense. Throw in some absolute what-the-fuck lines ("stingy with my sauce like Mr. Krabs" is my current favourite) and this thing throws me for a loop each time I hear it. I hate this bloody thing and it won't leave my brain. It is worth mentioning that the video is a solid [10]. [0]

David Sheffieck: This is a vertiginous experience, mashing together a beat like a mid-'80s car chase with the high wire act of Kasher Quon and Teejayx6 swapping and overlapping lines at a headlong, near-breathless pace. It's technically dazzling and (more importantly) fun: a thrill-ride built from quotable lines, wild boasts, and a sense that nothing's impossible. Maybe the best song I've heard all year -- and without question the most exciting. [10]

Crystal Leww: There's a moment in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse where Miles Morales scores a 0 on a test and his teacher gives him a 100 instead, because "You have to know all the answers to get all of them wrong; you're trying to fail out." That pretty much sums up how I feel about "Dynamic Duo." I would never play this in a club or a car and would never hope that anyone ever plays it on the radio where others would be trapped into listening to this. There is so much chaotic, bad energy stuffed into this seemingly never-ending track of rap verses. Both Kasher Quon and Teejayx6 are somehow off beat for every single beat, which sounds so cheaply made on knockoff Garage Band. Everyone involved knew every single thing they were supposed to do in rap music and decided to do exactly the opposite. That's beautiful to me -- that's high art. [8]

Will Adams: Admittedly, this is the first time in a while that a song has evoked the feeling of "I'm losing my fucking mind," so I can't not give points for that. [5]

Joshua Copperman: I am 100% not the target audience. But nothing exists and has ever existed in a vacuum. This was going to find its way to me eventually, even though it was not made for me, a writer-type person who can't be called a critic because to people of a certain age the word brings to mind not not Christgau, not Zoladz, not even Fantano, but, like, Doug Walker. Then it brings up Lizzo. Yet I know the feeling of something being so deeply your thing that you become irrepressibly On Brand. This sound collage of absurd punchlines is baffling to me -- this is what most people probably hear when they say they hate SoundCloud rap. And then you have the writers that would view it as punk, flying in the face of everyone trying to analyze it. But that wasn't the intention. It was a duo fooling around and going music-Twitter viral, maybe for the wrong reasons. It's easy to imagine someone liking it in spite of other music, not because they genuinely enjoy it. But watching my Twitter feed briefly explode with excitement was a beautiful moment. "Dynamic Duo" doesn't transcend its trappings -- the punchlines are given no room to breathe, and the beat is too busy. But it works enough that the irony-drenched recesses of music twitter paused for only a moment. That's plenty. [6]

Ryo Miyauchi: Leave it to Detroit rappers to continue and celebrate an exercise in rap practiced in the earliest wave of the genre. "Dynamic Duo" gets off the rails pretty quick with Kasher Quon foregoing some attempt at narrative of him and Teejayx6 getting ambushed, and it instead becomes a competition of who can one-up the other in humor, raunchiness and violence. A thrilling, off-the-cuff freestyle feel flows throughout: bits like handling mom's bills on Comcast.com and entering Wal-Mart with a frown can only come from a wild stream of consciousness, rushing to grab any word and rhyme that comes first. It's been a while to witness not only this intense of baton passing between two rappers but also for one to inspire a better bar out of another with each succession. [8]

Alfred Soto: The tinny beat is the point, the off-the-beat rapping perhaps. Intentions are for lawyers, not critics. To enjoy "Dynamic Duo" is to relish the can-you-top-this? vulgarity of who did what to which women. Quon and Teejayx6 could go on for sixteen more verses, by which point every other kid on the playground would've returned to class and called the disciplinarian. When they don't flex their imagination for the sake of cruelty, it works, which is about half the time. [5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: Trapped on the precipice between never wanting to hear this again and wanting an extended cut and I think the latter is winning. Please send help. [6]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

[thatkidwiththeunkepthair]

Just a Guy in a Bar.

A Jartin spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy.  Where Joseph is just a guy in a bar and Martin is also just a guy in a bar.  

Title: Just a Guy in a Bar.

Characters: Joseph Ikeda, Martin Understan, Jo the Bartender.

Pairings: Jartin.

Joseph put the beer down on the counter before he signaled to the bartender.  

“Another beer, please? I need to forget why I’m here,” Joseph said with a puffing sigh.  Another goddamned guy taking off in the middle of the date.

At least this one paid for the meal before he jumped ship, Joseph thought to himself. Last one just hopped out the window in the bathroom.

Joseph took the beer from the bartender and smiled, lifting the beer in thanks.  He looked thoroughly exhausted.  After this beer, he’d go home.  He’d go home and try his luck again next week.  That was all that he could do at this point, honestly.  He doubted there were any cute guys in the bar that would look past the wheelchair.  

He glanced down at the wheelchair that sat beside his bar stool.  He hated that damn wheelchair.  He wished he was one of those guys with CP that could use walker or crutches.

Joseph paused for a moment.

On second thought, that would make it harder for me to get any, he reasoned. At least I can get some still.  Maybe I’ll hit the gay bar next week.  Better chances of getting a guy.

Joseph took a final drink of his beer and looked up at the bartender.  He grabbed his wallet from the chest pocket of his jacket.  He pulled out a twenty, raising it to the man.

“Thanks,” he said, getting ready to transfer down to his wheelchair again.  Joseph used his hands to pull his legs closer to the wheelchair and glanced back at the bartender.

The man glanced down at the money and then pointed to one of the men at the other end of the bar.  

“He took the tab for your drinks,” the bartender explained.  He pressed the money closer to Joseph and gestured to the wallet. “Put the money away.  You have one more drink on the house from him, if you’d like.  Go take it over with him.”

Joseph almost choked on his spit when he realized that someone was going to pay for his bar tab tonight. He’d put away three beers tonight and, while he drank the cheapest beer around, he didn’t want to take someone home tonight.  His apartment was a mess and he lived with his twin brother while he went through his residency.  

The bartender laughed at the look on Joseph’s face.  

“Go on! Straighten your clothes, and head out!”

Jospeh shot him a bit of a look.

“Joe, you know damn good and well that nothing about me is straight.  Even my spine is crooked,” he deadpanned.  Joe laughed and shook his head before he gestured to the man at the other end of the bar.  

“He’s cute,” Joe teased.

Joseph finally let out a groan and began to reason with himself.  The red-haired man at the other end of the bar was fairly cute, even with the crooked nose and the fact that his hair flopped into his face.  

“You tell him he has to come over here, and I will buy him a drink if I don’t have to do a million transfers.  I don’t want to throw myself down to the ground a million times tonight.” Joseph held a finger out to Jo, his eyes harsh with seriousness.  God, Joseph was glad he wasn’t drunk.  

Jo gave the man a thumb up and turned to walk towards the other man at the end of the bar.  Joseph watched as Jo spoke, the man spoke back, and then the man got up.  Holy shit, they wanted to get a drink with him.

Joseph smoothed back his ruffled shirt and ran a hand through his hair.  Why didn’t he actualy take a shower before he left the hospital and started drinking?  He was so goddamn tired too.  Why did he want to go out after a 16-hour shift?

Oh.  Yeah.  The kid dying on his shift.  God, that one would haunt him until the day he died.

The man slid into the bar stool next to Joseph.  He smiled at Joseph and leaned on his hands.

“What’s your name?”

Joseph laughed, throwing his head back and shaking his head.

“Me?” he questioned. “I’m just a guy in a bar, trying to forget a shitty day and an even shittier date.”

The man nodded, smiling.

“I’m Martin.  Well, Mr. Guy-In-A-Bar, you want to get a drink with me?”

“I’d love to.”

Joseph shared a smile with Martin.  Jo passed him a beer, and a scotch for Martin.  He gestured for a cheer with Martin, who did the same.  The tipped their glasses back and drank deeply.

Tonight, Joseph was just a guy in a bar.

Tomorrow, he went back to being the surgical resident in a wheelchair.  

But tonight, Joseph was just a guy in a bar.