#this conversation is them asking the real questions and then someone else interrupting while matt's thinking about the answer

[the-anchorless-moon]

Nonono go back tell us the parents' names

[cacoetheswriting]

champagne problems, ch.1

Spencer is in love with you, but you’re engaged to someone else. 

Chapter One: Bloodsport: You announce your engagement to the team, shattering Spencer's heart. A/N: chapter is titled after this song if you want to listen while reading. Word Count: 2.3k Warnings: mild cursing, heartbreak, unrequited / unreciprocated love, very angsty, this series is going to be a real slow burn babyyy

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-

Today was like any other day.

You woke up at your usual time to the sound of your alarm. You had coffee, and a quick bite to eat while aimlessly scrolling through the social media apps on your phone. You showered, brushed your teeth, got dressed, did your makeup. And when it was time to leave, you walked out the front door locking it behind you, hopped in your car, and drove to work. 

Today was like any other day. Except that it wasn’t. 

Today wasn't like any other day because while you carried out all of your menial morning tasks, you felt a little heavier. Rather your hand did. 

It was your birthday a couple of days ago. And while you had planned to spend with your boyfriend, Ethan, the universe had other plans and you were stuck out of town on a case. You weren’t mad about it, it was your job after all, and Ethan understood. His work hours were also unreliable.  

Plus you got to celebrate with the other people that mattered the most to you in world; your team. It may have not been they day you had envisioned, because who wants to spend their birthday at a gloomy prescient looking over gruesome crime scene photos, but your team made it special. Takeout, gallons of coffee, and shortly before midnight they surprised you with cake - which Luke slipped up was all Spencer’s idea. 

Little did you know the surprises would continue upon your return home. Ethan, down on one knee in the middle of your living room, surrounded by candles and about a dozen bouquets of roses.  

You took a deep breath before getting out of your car, and heading inside the building. Knowing your sudden engagement would come as a shock to the people you worked with, your second family, you were quite anxious about telling them. You were worried about how they would react. They didn't really know Ethan. They only met him a total of three times throughout the duration of your relationship meaning all the information they possessed was what you had told them - which in reality wasn’t all that much.  

Sitting down at your desk, you kept your hand on your lap. As usual you were the first to arrive meaning you had some time to figure out exactly how you were going to go about this. Your gut feeling was to tell Spencer first. You owed him at least that much giving everything the two of you had been through. 

But once again the universe had other plans. 

“Good morning sunshine!”, Garcia chimed as she crossed the bullpen. “It is so lovely to see your beautiful beautiful face. How was Scottsdale?” She asked stopping beside your desk. “You know, apart from all the murder.” 

“Uhm, it was-” 

“Wait! Before you answer me.” She interrupted while reaching into her handbag. “I wanted to give you this.” Seconds later she retrieved a gift, wrapped perfectly in glittery pink paper with a bright bow tied around it. “Happy Birthday!” 

“Penelope, you didn't have to.” 

“Shush now, of course I did.” She smiled. “Come on. Take it, take it.” 

Which is exactly what you did; completely forgetting about the two carat diamond that now graced your ring finger. 

The shriek that came out of Garcia’s mouth was enough to make you remember. But before you could snatch your hand back, hide it on your lap once again, she grabbed it and the ever so present smile on her face widened even more. 

“Oh my god! Oh my god!”, Garcia was jumping now, her hand still gripping yours as she examined the ring. “When did this happen? How did this happen? Oh I have so many questions!” Another excited shriek escaped her lips. “I’m going to hug you now, and then you’re going to tell me everything!” 

Garcia let your hand fall before bending down slightly to wrap her arms tightly around you. “Congratulations honey, this is so exciting!” She swayed the two of you side to side.

“What’s exciting?” Luke’s voice caused the two of you to break apart. 

“Well newbie, you should invest in a tux.” Penelope beamed. 

“I have a tux.” Luke furrowed his brows, slightly confused. “Wait, what?” He glanced between you and Garcia, waiting for an explanation. 

Taking in a quick breath, you got to your feet and lifted your hand to show him the ring. “Ethan proposed last night.”

Luke’s jaw fell open. “Holy smokes! Congratulations Y/N!” Dropping his bag to the floor, he pulled you into a quick embrace. “That’s huge news. I’m so happy for you.” 

Penelope cleared her throat. “I think you mean we are all happy for her.” Luke chuckled and rolled his eyes at the blonde. “Yes, yes.” 

One by one the team arrived. One by one you shared your news, and one by one they each congratulated you. 

Matt joked about giving him a hefty amount of notice so he could organise a babysitter. Luke asked how you’d feel if his date was Roxy. Dave offered his house as a possible venue; ”Won’t be the first wedding I host kid.”. While Tara, JJ, Emily, and Garcia were deep in discussion about organising your bridal shower.

In the midst of all the chaos you hadn't even realised that one person was missing. The person who’s reaction might not be as cheery as the rest of the group currently huddled around you.

Spencer was late for work. He cursed under his breath while waiting for the elevator. He didn't like to be late. Which is why it didn't happen often. Not because time-keeping overall was important to him. No. He made sure to arrive early each day because it was the only time of day he got to spend with you. Alone. 

It was the only time of day he had you all to himself.

As selfish as it may seem, it was the truth. Although he would never admit it to anyone because that would mean admitting his true feelings. And he couldn't do that. He had his chance. He blew it. Maybe he would get another in the future, he secretly hoped he would, but for now those interrupted mornings with you had to suffice. 

The brunette agent immediately noticed the team gathered at your desk. He thought the worst, but was quickly reassured you were okay when your honey-like laughter filled the bullpen. The sound was music to his ears. If he could, he’d listen to you laugh all day.

“So are you going to keep us guessing forever?” Tara asked intrigued. “How did Ethan do it?” 

Garcia clapped her hands. “Yes, tell us. Was it romantic? Oh, who am I kidding of course it was romantic. All proposals are.” 

Proposals? Spencer shook the thought away. No, he must have heard that incorrectly.

“Did he get down on one knee?” JJ asked with a smile. 

“I gotta give it to Ethan though cause that ring looks expensive. Being a surgeon must be nice.” Luke noted, causing Garcia to smack his bicep. “What?” He retorted shrugging his shoulders. “It’s just an observation.” “Keep your observations to yourself newbie.” 

“Why don’t we let Y/N breathe for a second?” Rossi chimed in. “I’ll treat everyone to lunch later and she can tell us the story then.” He suggested, glancing between the team. Everyone nodded in unison and scattered; just as Spencer approached. 

The second your gaze landed on him, you noticed the solemn look spread across his face. A sick feeling spread through you and you quickly wondered just how much he overheard. 

“Good morning doctor.” You greeted him, your lips pursed into a half-smile. 

“Good morning.” Spencer replied without looking at you. 

“How are you?” You asked as he took off his bag and placed it on the desk beside him. “I wondered where you were this morning.” You added, making conversation.

Spencer didn't respond. He couldn't bring himself to say anything. He couldn't even bare to meet your eyes; which were currently burning a hole into the side of his head. 

While he thought he misheard Garcia say something about proposals, he definitely heard JJ’s question and Luke mention Ethan, and the ring. Spencer usually stirred away from making assumptions, but this time all the evidence was there. He didn't have to ask. He knew. You were engaged. 

“Can-” You cleared your throat. “Can we go somewhere private and talk? I have something I need to tell you.”

“I can’t now.” He rasped. Before you got a chance to protest, the brunette doctor turned on his heel and rushed away. 

The reason he dashed away was you. Your engagement. He figured it out, overheard it, and now he needed to process this new information. You should have let him go, do it alone. You knew you shouldn't have followed him, that it would only make things worse, but you couldn't help yourself. There was a time where you thought Spencer was the love of your life. That the two of you would be getting married. And even though that didn't work out...

You grabbed his arm and using all of your strength you pulled him to a halt. The brunette doctor ran a hand through his already ruffled hair as you stepped in front of him. 

“Spencer, can we talk about this?” You asked, your hand falling back down to your side. “There is nothing to talk about Y/N.” Spencer huffed. “You’re engaged. I’m happy for you.” There was a distinct hurt in his voice. 

“This isn’t how I thought you would find out. I wanted you to be the first one to know but-” “It doesn’t matter Y/N.” He interrupted. 

“It matters to me Spencer.” 

“Why?” He asked in an ominous tone. His eyes darkened. “We broke up a long time ago. You don't owe me anything.” “Our breakup has nothing to do with this.” You protested. Spencer scoffed. “I don’t believe you. You’re not chasing down any of the other members of our team.” “Yeah, because they’re all genuinely happy for me.”

“You don't think I’m happy for you?”

“I know you're not.” 

Silence. Heavy-sitting, unbearable silence. The two of you simply stared at each other as if fighting an inaudible argument. Blood pressure rising, your heart was now hammering in your chest and you were sure he was even angrier than you.

Perhaps that last sentence came out harsher then you intended it to, but in your eyes it was the truth. Spencer had every right not to be happy for you. In fact, a large part of you expected him to react badly which is also another reason why you wanted him to be the first to know. 

You were right of course, you just didn't know it. 

The pain in his chest was insufferable. The jealousy, the anger, the sorrow. All of those feelings mixed inside of him and spread through his body like wildfire. He thought he was heartbroken before, back when you first started dating Ethan, but he was dead wrong. His head was spinning. He felt nauseous. It was hard to breathe. This was heartbreak.

See, Spencer was there when you and Ethan first met. Which in his mind made all of this so much worse. The team was working a local case, and the brunette agent got hurt. Not severely, but it was enough to make everyone worry so you volunteered to drive him to the hospital. While Spencer got checked out, you went to fetch him some jell-o. When you returned about twenty minutes later, you weren't alone anymore. 

You never told anyone the full story. Just that the surgeon spotted you in the cafeteria, and asked you out for coffee. Honestly, there wasn't much more to it than that. Well, apart from the tiny detail that your initial thought was to decline Ethan’s offer because you were secretly hoping to get back together with the brunette agent. 

The only reason you said yes to Ethan all those months ago was because he was a surgeon, and with both of your hectic schedules combined you never thought it would progress any further than that one coffee date. But it did. And overtime you moved on from Spencer, and learned to love the surgeon. The feeling isn't quite the same, but Ethan makes you feel good and at the end of the day that’s all that matters. Right?

“What do you want me to say Y/N?” Spencer asked, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence. “Do you want to hear how I think you’re rushing into this? Do you want me to tell you I think Ethan is bad for you? That you can do better?” Pause. “It’s not like my opinion will change anything.” 

You opened your mouth to say something but no words came out. Spencer sighed. “You’re engaged now. You’re going to marry Ethan, and I’m respecting your choice.” 

The look that spread across Spencer’s face was pure sadness. He tried not to show it, but you could read him like an open book. He was in pain. He was in pain and there was nothing you could possibly do that would in any way help him or make him feel any better.

“We both moved on Y/N. You deserve to be happy, even if I think the guy is a jerk.” Spencer stated. It was harsh, he knew that, but in his defence it wasn't entirely true. Yes, he thought Ethan was an ass but it was primarily because Spencer loved you still, and he knew he would continue to love you until the end of his days. In his eyes, Ethan didn't deserve you.

And Spencer tried to get over you. Once he knew that you and Ethan were serious, he really tried to get over you. Yet nothing he did worked; it is as if you are imbedded deep in his soul. If he was a selfish man, he would let you stay there forever making it your permanent home. But Spencer Reid wasn't selfish, far from it. And now you were engaged to someone that wasn't him. He had to cut the cord. Even if the feeling was going to crush him. 

“The only thing we share now is our work Y/N, nothing more.” And with that the brunette doctor walked away leaving you feeling lost, confused and slightly hurt. 

You at least thought he considered you a friend.

Loving you is a bloodsport. Fighting in a love war.

-

A/N: starting off the new year right with this angsty mini-series. honestly, i couldn't get the idea out of my head over the holidays so i hope you enjoy reading it as much as i am currently enjoying writing it! hope you liked the first chapter. i’d love to hear your feedback and what you think will happen next! if you would like to be added to a taglist, please let me know. thank you for your continuous support. with love, mal. x

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[allthingsfangirl101]

A Change of Heart Part 2–Matt Brody

Part 1

Wattpad request by psych0bxtch

Matt's POV

When I heard the flatline, my stomach dropped. The only thing I could hear other than the worst sound in the world was Summer sobbing violently as Mitch tried to keep her from collapsing to the floor.

"No," she kept sobbing. "She can't be. . . Please tell me she isn't. . . Mitch. . . She's my baby sister. . . Please."

"Keep trying," I said under my breath when I finally found my voice. Everyone looked at me as I cleared my throat and took a step towards the ambulance.

"Keep trying," I said louder as they slowly started to unhook Y/N's lifeless body from their machines. "You can't give up on her. She's. . . We need her."

I ignored Summer's questioning look and instead, my eyes glanced towards Y/N. Suddenly, my view of Y/N in the back of an ambulance changed to the last time we were alone together in the South Lifeguard Tower. I couldn't decide if I was more haunted by her laying there unmoving or the look in her eyes when I rejected her.

"I need her," I mumbled. I glanced over at Summer to see her tears slowly stopping.

"Matt?" She said under her breath.

We broke our eye contact when we heard them charging the defibrillator. I held my breath as we all waited to hear the heart monitor start beeping. As we impatiently waited, Summer walked over to me, but I didn't look away from the EMTs working on Y/N.

"What did you mean when you said you need her?" She asked, her voice barely a whisper. "Be very careful with your next words, Matt."

"I can't imagine my life without her," I blurted out. I kept my eyes on Y/N and the EMTs as I continued, "I hate that us almost losing her is what made me realize it."

"No," Summer cut me off, making me finally look at her. "You aren't doing this. Y/N is an amazing girl and you broke her. You broke her, Matt. She finally got the courage to tell you how she felt and you shot her down. Are you telling me that all this time. . . Or are you just suddenly realizing it because we might. . . No. My sister deserves better. Y/N deserves a guy who knows he wants to be with her. Not some Olympic Asshole who picks and chooses when he gets a girl."

I opened my mouth to respond but was interrupted when we heard a beautiful beep. You could hear us all sucking in a synced breath when we recognized the sound. We turned around and saw the EMTs letting out relieved sighs.

"She's back," an EMT said as he glanced over at us. "We got her back."

"Alert the surgical team at the nearest hospital," the other EMT started giving instructions. "We need to get her into surgery as soon as we get there."

The EMTs started talking indistinctly as they hooked her up to more machines. I jumped when they slammed the door shut and the ambulance sped off. I turned to say something to Summer but she was already jogging towards her car. CJ and Stephanie sent me matching glares before following Summer. Ronnie cleared his throat, awkwardly avoiding eye contact with me.

"We're going to the hospital," Mitch said with not even an ounce of emotion in his voice. "Want a ride?"

We rode to the hospital in silence. I watched the buildings zoom by, the anger in Summer's voice repeating over and over again. The glare she gave me sent chills down my spine just thinking about it.

She was right. Y/N is too good for me.

As we sat in the waiting room, I thought back to our conversation in the South Lifeguard Tower. The longer I thought about it, the more I realized I never shot her down. I didn't say anything to her. She assumed I didn't have feelings for her because I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything because I was too shocked.

I looked up and noticed Summer watching me with tears streaming down her face. She had numerous reasons to be pissed at me but the real reason was because of the conversation in the South Lifeguard Tower. I stood up, nervously wiping my hands on my shorts as I walked over to her.

"Don't," she said, her voice getting caught in her throat. "I don't care how guilty you feel about shooting my sister down. I have more important things to think about. Like how Y/N is fighting for her life on a surgery table right now."

"Summer," I stuttered. "Please just. . ."

"Stop!" She yelled, quickly standing up. "My sister is dying, Matt. I don't give a shit that you feel guilty for turning her down. You have no idea how much you hurt her."

"I didn't. . ." I stuttered.

"Of course not," she scoffed. "She took two weeks off from work. Want to know what she did during that time? She spent the entire two weeks crying her eyes out. She was embarrassed, defeated, humiliated, and felt like she couldn't face you. Here's the real kicker; she came back for you!"

"What do you mean?" I asked under my breath.

"You were losing it, Matt," she sighed. "We could all see it."

I looked behind her to see everyone else watching us with the same look on their faces. When I made eye contact with Mitch, he shook his head and looked around the waiting room.

"Summer," I said, my voice breaking as I turned back towards her.

"Enough," she said through her teeth. "Y/N doesn't deserve you, Matt Brody. She deserves better."

* * * * *

An hour later, we still hadn't heard anything from the doctors working to save Y/N's life. We sat in the waiting room of the ER, all of us on edge. Whenever someone walked through a door, we all jumped.

"For Ms. Y/N Quinn?"

We all jumped up, slightly surprising the doctor when he saw how many of us were there. He looked around, trying to figure out which one of us he needed to address first.

"I'm her sister," Summer said shakily as she took a step towards him. "Is she. . . Did she. . . Please tell me she's okay."

"Your sister is one hell of a fighter," the doctor smiled sweetly at her.

"She's okay?" Summer said with nothing but hope in her voice.

"For the most part," he said slowly.

"What does that mean?" Ronnie asked.

"Well," the doctor said, slightly clearing his throat. "As you know, they were able to restart her heart in the back of the ambulance but her vitals were too low when she got to the hospital. As we took her into an exam room, she stopped breathing again. After a few tests, we discovered that it wasn't just the drowning that almost killed her."

"What was it?" Summer asked, slightly taking a step closer to the doctor.

"A bullet."

My breath got stuck in my throat. I looked over at Summer to see her covering her mouth, trying to stop the sob.

"When the hell was she shot?" CJ asked under her breath.

"Underwater," Mitch mumbled to himself. We turned around to see him thinking about something.

"Mitch?" Summer said under her breath.

"Before I jumped in after her, I thought I heard something strange. If I hadn't hesitated. . . I'm so sorry, Summer. I heard the gunshot and that's what made me jump in after her. I should've done that sooner. I'm so sorry."

"This isn't your fault," she said gently. My heart dropped into my stomach when Summer glanced over at me.

"How is she?" Mitch asked.

"We got the bullet out," the doctor continued, "and stopped the bleeding, but she still lost a lot of blood during the surgery. I'm afraid she's slipped into a coma."

"When is she going to wake up?" Summer asked almost instantly.

"We can't be entirely sure," he sighed. "She could be asleep for a few more hours or a few more days. When a patient loses a lot of blood, their mind tends to shut off until that blood is reproduced. But I can assure you that we are doing everything we can to make her feel comfortable until she does. I can take you to see her, Ms. Quinn."

When the rest of us took a few steps closer to Summer and the doctor, he stopped us. "I'm sorry," he said, clearing his throat, "but only family can go into the ICU."

Even though we didn't like it, we sat back down. I intertwined my fingers, struggling to calm my nerves. The next few days were never-ending. While the others went home, I stayed sitting in the uncomfortable ER waiting room chair.

"Matt."

I jumped when I felt someone kick my foot. I looked up to see Mitch standing above me with his arms folded. He sighed as he slightly shook his head.

"Go home."

"I'm good," I said, clearing my throat.

"No, you're not," he sighed. "You haven't slept, you've barely eaten, and you look like shit. Not to mention that you reek."

"I'm not leaving," I said sleepily.

"Matt," he sighed again as he sat next to me. "I know you feel guilty for what happened to Y/N, but the boat fire had nothing to do with you. If anyone is to blame, it's me. I was the one who didn't jump in after her soon enough. I keep hearing that damn underwater gunshot. It replays in my mind and my dreams. This was my responsibility. All of your safety falls on me. I failed Y/N. And Summer."

I suddenly realized how much this has been weighing down on him. His shoulders were tense, his back was hunched, and his eyes were heavy.

"Mitch," I said, making him look at me, "Y/N wouldn't blame you for anything that's happened. You jumped in, you found her, you brought her back to the boat. You saved her, Mitch. All I did was break her heart."

"About that," Mitch said, clearing his throat to cover his laugh. "What the hell, man? She told you how she felt, you shut her down, then she gets hurt and that makes you suddenly have feelings for her?"

"First of all," I sighed, "I didn't shoot her down. I didn't respond right away and she took that as me not having feelings for her. Second, I didn't say anything about "suddenly" having feelings for her."

"Hold on," he said, more anger in his voice. "After all the shit that's gone down, you actually have feelings for her?"

When he looked at me, he saw my answer clearly written on my face. He scoffed as he looked away, slightly shaking his head. When he looked back at me, I felt like a kid about to get scolded by my father.

"Please tell me you realize how much of an asshole you are," he scoffed.

"Mitch," I stuttered.

"Y/N is an amazing girl. You'd be lucky to have someone like her interested in you. Honestly, you don't deserve her anymore. Hell, you didn't deserve her when she told you how she felt. And if you walk into that hospital room and confess to having feelings for her all along. . ."

He didn't finish his threat. Instead, he stood up and wiped his hands on his pants. He was about to walk away but stopped. He didn't bother to turn around as he spoke up.

"By the way," he said through his teeth, "She's awake."

I watched Mitch leave before slowly standing up. I made my way down the hallway, my nerves jumping all over the place the closer I got to her. I hesitated outside her room, continually wiping my sweaty hands on my pants. Whenever I reached for the door handle, I never made it all the way to it. As I tried to reach for the handle again, the door swung open.

"Matt," Summer gasped. She looked over her shoulder before quickly closing the door. "I don't think you should be here."

"Summer, please," I stuttered. "I just want to. . ."

"You've done enough."

* * * * *

After Summer stopped me from going into Y/N's room, I was even more determined to talk to her. I waited for Summer to leave before sneaking back down the hallway. I ducked into Y/N's room, my breath getting caught in my throat when I turned and saw Y/N asleep in the hospital bed.

I felt numb as I walked over and sat next to her. I hesitated to grab her hand because I didn't want to wake her up. Instead, I sat back in the uncomfortable chair and thought about the last conversation Y/N and I had.

~•~

"Your sister is looking for you," I said. I got concerned when I noticed her still facing away from me. I slowly walked over and grabbed the gauze that was frozen in her hand.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, not at all convincingly.

"Y/N," I elongated. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine," she said again, sounding less convincing than before.

"I'm in love with you."

I heard her suck in a breath the same time I sucked in one of my own. My mind instantly started going 100 miles an hour.

She was in love with me? Since when? Does everyone know? How could I not know?

"What?" I asked under my breath for clarity. I wanted, no needed to make sure I heard her right.

"Never mind," she stuttered. My heart sank when she started to leave the shack.

"Y/N," I said, trying to get her to look at me. My shoulders slightly sank when she remained facing the door. "What did you say?"

"Just forget it," she said quickly.

Right as she was about to leave, I quickly grabbed her hand and slowly turned her towards me. I tried to get her to look up at me but she kept her stare to the ground.

"Y/N?" I whispered. "Did you mean it? Are you really. . ."

"Yes," she forced out. When she finally looked up at me, her eyes sank. My heart clenched when I saw her struggling to hold back embarrassed tears.

"Y/N," I stuttered, "I'm not. . . It's not that . . . I'm sorry."

She roughly pulled her hand out of mine and cleared her throat like she was trying to get rid of a lump.

"Okay," she whispered.

"Y/N," I sighed.

"It's fine," she said before I could get a chance to explain what was going through my head. It wasn't that I didn't have feelings for her. The truth was, I wasn't sure how I felt about Y/N Quinn.

"I should umm. . . You're taking over, right? You're on the next shift? Okay, I'm gonna go then. Bye, Matt."

"Y/N," I said, trying to get her to stay and hear me out. "Please let's. . ."

I physically jumped when the South Lifeguard tower door shut between us. I sat on one of the extra chairs, my mind not stopping. I ran my fingers through my hair as Y/N's defeated and embarrassed look on her face was stuck in my head.

"I don't know how I feel about you," I mumbled to myself. "But I know I don't want to lose you."

~•~

I've always felt this pull towards Y/N. I just thought it was friendship. That is until she told me how she felt for me. I looked over at her, the guilt suffocating me.

"You don't get it," I whispered, shaking my head and looking away from her. "You left before I could explain. I wasn't stuttering that I didn't have feelings for you. I was stuttering that I wasn't sure. I know that's not better but. . ."

"Matt?"

My head snapped up when I heard my name weakly said. I was met with Y/N's Y/E/C eyes. I smiled as I scooted closer to her.

"Hi," I whispered.

"What are you doing here?"

"I had to see you," I started to ramble. "Look, I know things have been weird between us and I hate it. I absolutely hate this tension between us, Y/N. When you were gone, those were the worst two weeks of my life. I was miserable. I wanted to call you but Summer kept telling me to leave you alone."

"She what?" She asked softly but I kept talking.

"And then when you came back? I didn't know what to do or say. Whatever I rehearsed, didn't seem good enough. Then the boat fire. . . You were underwater for four and a half minutes. Mitch gave you CPR for the whole five-minute boat ride back to shore. The EMTs took over for three minutes before they hooked you up to the defibrillator. One minute and forty-two seconds later, you flatlined. That was the longest minute and forty-two seconds of my life."

"Matt," she said weakly, trying to interrupt me again.

"When you told me how you felt," I continued, "I didn't respond but not because I didn't have a response for you. It was because I was evaluating."

"Evaluating," she repeated. "Matt, what does that mean? Evaluating what?"

"Us," I said before I could stop myself. "I mean evaluating who you are to me. We've been good friends since you started at Baywatch, but I've always thought our relationship was stronger than just a simple friendship. And it wasn't until you left those two weeks that I realized it was a lot deeper than a simple friendship."

"What are you trying to say?" She asked hesitantly.

"I'm saying I have feelings for you," I said quickly. I watched as her eyes widened. She was studying me hard, probably trying to decide if I was being honest with her.

To help reassure her, I continued. "Y/N, I'm not just saying I have feelings for you because I almost lost you. I'm saying it because I didn't realize how I felt for you. I had a general idea but I wasn't sure exactly. I know this doesn't make much sense, but it's the truth. I care about you, Y/N, a lot. I'm sorry it took almost losing you for me to wake up and realize that I've loved you all this time."

I held my breath, waiting for her reaction. When her eyes filled with tears, I couldn't tell if they were happy tears or angry tears. The silence ate away at me, almost as much as the guilt.

"Please say something," I whispered. My breath got caught in my throat when she slowly smiled.

"Come here," she whispered.

I scooted the chair closer to Y/N's bed and grabbed her hand. I leaned down and pressed my lips to hers. The second our lips touched, we instantly started moving them in sync.

Every feeling I've felt since her confession intensified as we finally kissed. It was like everything we've been holding back, burst. Without breaking the kiss, I stood up and carefully crawled onto her bed until I was hovering over her. The kiss got heated as Y/N reached up, grabbed my shirt, and pulled me closer to her.

She moaned when I used the hand that wasn't holding me up to gently rub her hip. I smirked against her lips as I slowly slid that hand up her body. She gasped, breaking the kiss when I found and squeezed her boob. That surprised gasp turned into a painful one.

"Shit," I gasped, moving my weight off of her. "I'm so sorry, Y/N. I should've. . . You've been shot and I. . . I'm sorry. For everything. I never should've. . ."

"Matt," she whispered, cutting me off as she reached up and gently cupped my cheek in her hand. "It's okay."

"No," I stuttered. "It's not okay, Y/N. None of it is. I want to make it up to you. I need to make it up to you."

"Then take me on a date," she said so simply.

"What?"

"Take me on a date," she repeated.

I smiled, feeling like a giddy idiot as I laid down next to her. I let out a satisfied sigh as she immediately cuddled into my chest.

"As soon as you get out of here," I whispered, "I'm taking you on that date."

[holly-benji]

9X02 BRETTSEY REVIEW

Here I am today talking about my impressions of the 9x02 episode of Chicago fire. Ready? First of all let me tell you that: 1. English is not my first language, so forgive me some grammatical errors. 2. I have written a lot (maybe too much) so I hope you have the patience to get to the end. 3. It is not a post against Monica Raymund or Gabby Dawson. Just some of my considerations about it. I do not want to start any war.

Let us begin! I will try to analyze what happened for the different phases that followed during the episode

RESCUE SCENE:

I start by saying that Sylvie Brett is really badass. She's really grown up and I think it's going to be a real PIC for Mackey.

Moving on to Casey: "61 respond. Do YOU hear me?". I think that YOU has a great value for him. I think this phrase encapsulates all of Casey's concern about losing Brett. The face he makes immediately afterwards when no one answers on the radio is discouraging. And when he asks Stella "we should have seen them by now", he is looking for some support in Kidd (of the series tell me that nothing serious happened Stella please).

When Casey sees the wreckage of the ambulance he can’t wait to know if Sylvie is ok. First of all, for him is not ambulance 61, but Brett's ambulance. The difference is substantial. 

"Let me out". This scene is beautiful. Fortunately, after jumping out of a moving truck, Brett has already gotten out of the ambulance.

When Casey sees her, apart from screaming her name, he doesn't just ask her if she is okay. He looks at her everywhere, as if to see to himself that she is in one piece. Even afterwards he suggests to her to go to the hospital and when she refuses, he takes her to the truck to take her to the firehouse. With him. Brett's gaze is the mixture of being confused about the accident, and why Casey is there.

When Sylvie wants to save the crazy guy, he yells "Sylvie wait!". And then together they do what they do best. Saving lives.

IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN YOU

Of course Casey has to reach Brett to ask her once again if she is okay and tell her that he is glad if she is ok. What big scare did he get? But strangely enough when Brett asks him how he got there so quickly and why it was only him, he omits a few details in the reconstruction of how things went. Brett KNOWS him so the "it always been you" comes out of her. Remember that THE ONE she's been looking for for a long time, and she talks to Matt about in the 8x07 episode? She finally realized it was him all along. From the beginning of everything. And when she realizes that she practically told him that the key to everything is him, she tries to make up for the blunder she just made. In fact she says "such a good friend". Casey is amazed by this sentence, and wants to understand what else is underneath (because it can actually be sibylline), but is interrupted by Capp for the report.

SYLVIE AND STELLA

So Brett is in love with Casey. But she can't tell him. She doesn't want to tell him.

Let's make a brief summary of what happened between Brett and Casey from Sylvie's point of view. Gabby's departure marked a turning point for both of them. I think for both of them it was just a simple friendship at least until the episode 7x16. When Casey was almost shot with a gun. The two of them started talking more and more and became confidants of each other. Brett's feelings I think were initially seen in the 7x21 even if at the time as a simple attraction. She has been trying to suppress them ever since. It was said that they were not right. So she got engaged to Kyle and tried to carry on a meaningless relationship. In fact, not only did she want to suppress what she felt, she WAS CERTAIN that Casey would not have seen her any other way than as a friend and the 7x22 gave her confirmation. Casey involuntarily pushed her into the arms of another. After her return in the 8x03, Casey and Brett bonded more and more. And every time someone saw the chemistry that the two of them shared, she diminished. She did it with Olivia, Foster, Kidd and even Julie. Things changed in the 8x17 when Sylvie seriously started working on her feelings. In any case she became more and more convinced that the feelings she felt were not reciprocated, and mostly WRONG. He was still her best friend's ex, and she knew that he would not easily forget Dawson.

So when talking to Stella in this 9x02 SYLVIE DOES NOT WANT TO SPEAK TO CASEY BECAUSE IT IS SURE THAT HE IS NOT IN LOVE WITH HER, BUT THAT HE IS  IN LOVE WITH DAWSON. So she thinks the solution is to pretend this conversation never happened.

CASEY ASKS HER OUT, IN HIS OWN WAY

Casey wants to understand better the exchange of jokes that there have been between them in the dormitory. And on top of that he wants to ask her to get out of the 7x22, so I think it was the right time to do it considering that he could have lost her. The way he asks her out is very funny. How he claps and waves his hands. I HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS SIDE OF CASEY. The faces of Hermann and Mouch say it all.

THE DATE AT MOLLY’S

The way Casey gets up when he sees her and asks her if he can offer her something to drink, it makes me laugh my head off. He's in serious trouble: he doesn't know how to handle it.

Here the evening takes a completely unexpected turn. Gallo does what he should not do. He explains everything that happened at the beginning of the episode and Brett FOR THE FIRST TIME questions Casey's feelings. She asks herself "maybe he feels something for me?". The answer is clearly yes. Just look at their exchange of glances. One feels too much between the two of them. In any case, Dawson's shadow always makes itself felt in her head, and moreover she would like to kiss him but she can't because of a ban she has imposed herself. So she runs away. She is afraid.

The way Casey gets up is so sweet. He still doesn't understand what's wrong. But he knows there's something he did that Brett didn't take well.

AVOID CASEY

When the shift starts Casey tries to say goodbye to her, but she doesn't answer. On the contrary, she runs inside the firehouse. And the same thing happens when they are reassembling the ambulance door. Severide's words are prophetic. Sylvie avoids Casey because on the one hand she wants to kiss him, and on the other hand she is afraid that she will not be able to take Gabby's place and that there is no game for her. There will always be Dawson in first place. Casey realizes once again that something is wrong (he still can't figure out what it is though). But his look says it all, and Severide notices it too. And it gives him the best suggestion. UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT LOOK MEANS.

I would like to point out that Stella, Severide, Mouch, Hermann, Gallo, Capp and Tony all saw the connection that brettsey have. The whole firehouse know. Even Tony who speaks very little says for the first time his own ("we don't know what happened").

THE KISS

First of all I find it beautiful that Casey went to ask for explanations. Their "talk to me" is the key to everything. They have always confided in each other, and have done so very much in these two years (7x02 and 8x16 for example). Tell each other what's wrong is the basis of a solid relationship. Sylvie then reveals the reason and kisses him. She makes the first move. And I found it fantastic. Clearly Matt gives in immediately. I want to point out that during the kiss they smiled, even with their eyes. Their happiness could be felt in the air along with their sweetness. It was beautiful and I loved it as all the time there was delicacy. I don't think we need other words to describe it. And they both wanted it for a long time. At least from 7x21. What patience.

THE PROBLEM: GABBY DAWSON

Let us now analyze the Gabby Dawson problem. As I have already widely explained Sylvie is afraid because she could take a place that is complicated to replace at best. She fears the confrontation with the one and only woman she thinks Casey has loved and will love. So she decides to clarify this issue with him right away, and I find it an extremely mature attitude. I want to emphasize that until now Brett has had messed up stories, broken engagements, so now she is looking for THE ONE. She finally found him, but there is the Dawson problem. Let's remember that in the 8x09 Dawson came back and Matt ended up back in bed with her. Can you build something serious and lasting with a person who as soon as the ex returns there is a risk that he will end up in her bed? That's what Brett is afraid of. Maybe for him it's just a desire to have sex, while for Sylvie it's trying to make the choices to start a family. Let's try to unravel the skein, and clarify some of my points of view.

I loved the Dawseys, very much. I found them beautiful. Their story was all passion, and I loved it. Gabby was a tough girl, Casey was a good guy and I liked them a lot. Then at a certain point (maybe due to the problem of becoming parents), each of them started to take a different path, in fact to be precise Gabby did. Matt and Dawson communicated very little, especially in recent times, and the important decisions were ALWAYS AND ONLY HERS. She confronted Matt at the end, when the decision had already been made. I've always admired Dawson's resolution, but in some attitudes I found it exaggerated. The choice to try to have more children even with a pregnancy at risk ONLY HERS, the choice to move to Puerto Rico? ONLY HERS AND OVERALL IS THE ONE THAT LEAVES CASEY, THE ONE THAT SENDS PAPERS FOR DIVORCE. SHE RETURNS, THEN SHE LEAVES. The one that says if you want, there is always a place in my tent. 

Until now the decisions have been unilateral. Casey tries in his own way to make a new life for himself. He succeeds very hard. Initially he has a flirt with the journalist, then a flirt with the smart girl who interrupts immediately, and then from 8x03 let's say that his feelings for Brett, already present in my opinion from 7x19 at least ARE ALWAYS GROWN. 

But why when Sylvie asks, he doesn’t respond: “I love you”? Simple, he hasn't understood it yet. Let's understand each other. Matt can't explain how he feels about Sylvie because he has never felt it before. He has these strong feelings, totally new. Here, in addition to a strong passionate component (which the Dawseys certainly did not lack) there is a strong mental component that makes all the difference. Brett and Casey have very similar characters, something that certainly could not be said with Dawson and have created a deep friendship. Basically speak his actions for him. Jumping out of a truck, asking her nervously if she wants to go out with him. These are all attitudes that have not been seen in Matt Casey before. They are attitudes of a person who is in love. His not being able to answer is dictated by the fact that he has never faced the problem. He has never closed the door with Gabby and he has always left a gap, at first very big, that he believes that that is still open, but which actually lacks a small push to close it permanently. 

In essence Matt has to close definitively with the past and with all the drama that the relationship with Dawson has left. For example one of these is the problem of being rejected. This explains his nervousness towards Sylvie. He is not giving up completely. So Matt has to work on his emotions and he can't answer because he never asked himself the question. He took it for granted that he had moved on, but he hadn't put an end to it. I'm sure he will. Because he has to make his mind understand what his heart has already understood long ago. It must work on himselt and let off steam, talk to someone. These feelings for Brett have always been kept to himself. He has to shout it to the world instead.

Fortunately Matt and Sylvie are friend before lovers. They have built a strong foundation, and they are still communicating. I’m sure they will find their way back to each other.

I hope you enjoy my “review”. Let me know if there is something you want to add, or if you think I’m wrong. I’d like to chat with you, so write me!

Love you all, and always ship Brettsey!

I would also ask @hamburgerheroes if she wants to participate in the next reviews with her fantastic GIFs, and maybe alternate in the work if you like to comment together also the next episodes. Let me know. 

[spiltscribbles]

andreil, 85 and 16??

Notes: Thank you so much love!!! A reblog is worth a thousand stars!

.-

16 » “I’m going to kiss you now.”

85 » “Sometimes I really dislike you.”.”

.-

Neil’s never been to a wedding. 

He’s never seen two people exchanging vows. Has never watched their first dance after being declared as partners, or eve attended an actual reception. Hell, the closest Neil’s ever gotten to one  was whenever Allison would drag him down to watch reruns of Four Weddings with her if Renee was busy. 

All this to say, even with Neil’s minuscule wedding expertise, he still has the foresight to tell Matt that choosing the cake’s flavor seems like a very bride and groom sort of job, even if it’s a moot point considering that he’s already said as much a total of three times.

“I know, I know,” Matt tugs on the ends of his hair, eyes wide and frantic. “But we over booked like crazy and Dan has gotta check out something at the venue and my suit fitting’s in like a quarter of an hour and.”

“And you’re desperate?” Neil gathers.

“Completely,” Matt pouts. “And I know that it’s totally last minute and—“

“Okay,” Neil interrupts because he feels like it’s the right thing to say and he’d really rather not listen to Matt actually beg. “I can go for you guys.”

“Really!” Matt beams.

“Of course,” Neil shrugs.

Matt pulls him into a tight hug.  “You’re a life saver Neil my man.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Once he leaves Neil pulls out his phone from his sock drawer to text Andrew, asks him if he’d like to tag along. 

Andrew: Boyd already paid?

Me: Yes

Andrew: Fine, give me 5.

Suddenly going to this cake tasting doesn’t feel so entirely dreadful. 

.-

“Stop looking at the joint like it’s about to swallow you whole,” Andrew toots, absentmindedly thumbs a circle into the hand Neil’s got interlocked into his own. It’s a gentle moment, something casual. It’s one that Neil enjoys the most, brilliant in its simplicity. It makes him feel grounded, feel alive. It reminds him that he can have this now, a life composed of warm smiles and warmer friends and gets to call Andrew his person. His person who makes Neil feel understood and wonderful and abuzz with something so splendid that he can hardly describe it. 

“Am not looking at it like that,” Neil sniffs, gives a gentle squeeze to Andrew’s hand, likes the feeling of his touch calluses and soft palms, thinks that Andrew was born to be a walking contradiction and Neil was always meant to find him and hold on tight.

“Don’t tell me you’re not a fan of frills Neil?” Andrew goads, one brow cocked and half his mouth turned up in a smile that isn’t mean, but it’s not nice either. “Princess will have a conniption.”

“Sometimes I really dislike you,” Neil informs him in a deadpan, turns his attention to the brightly smiling redhead who’s welcoming them inside for their appointment.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Andrew says lowly, is close enough so that his hot tendrils of breath skirt against Neil’s neck and blatant enough so the aforementioned redhead starts to blush.

Oh joy.

.-

“Everyone here at Love At First Bite is dedicated to making your special day the most memorable of your lives,” the baker, Madeline, crows as they take their seats, eyes glittering with genuine mirth.

Neil elbow checks Andrew once he catches the grimace passing across his face at the comment, offers Madeline an apologetic grin. The one that always makes Allison pinch his cheek dotingly and Dan give into whatever plan he’s plotting out.

“So you guys take up a lot of weddings huh?” Neil asks her, genuinely curious.

“We’re the top bakery in the city, third year running,” she crows.

“Bet there’s some stiff competition in this wonderful town,” Andrew says wryly, utterly unimpressed. Though Madeline doesn’t seem to notice, only giggles and gets some color in her cheeks once more. 

“So I’ve pulled out some slices that we think will fit your wedding perfectly from our conversation last week, let me just grab them from the kitchen.” The door swings shut in her wake and Neil nearly jolts forwards with the realization. 

“She thinks ’s our wedding?”

“Hmm,” Andrew glances towards him, molten eyes squinted in confusion. 

“Madeline,” Neil begins to clarify. “She thinks that me and you— that we’re, that it’s our— She thinks it’s our wedding.” 

“Pretty terrified sounding Neil,” Andrew needles in a menacingly flat tone. “What, the thought of marrying me such a burden?”

Wait, what?  No that’s definitely not it! That’s not even close to what Neil was thinking. He doesn’t care that she thinks they’re the grooms, not even slightly. It’s kinda the exact opposite. More like he didn’t even think of the possibility until this moment, and now— well now it’s making him feel disoriented in the best of ways. Like their’s something warm and splendid coiling deep in his stomach and his insides are pulsing with the realness of that possibility.

Neil doesn’t get to tell Andrew as much because Madeline walks in right then, hands filled by carrying a platter of various slices of cake, and sporting an exciting grin all the while.

“So I know you guys were interested in the strawberry shortcake over the phone, but actually our carrot cake is a total favorite from our customers, and I think you two would just adore it!” She says without a moment to breathe between words.

“Whatever,” Andrew huffs, grabs for the plate she’s offering and stabs his fork into the dessert with way more force than necessary. 

“You guys are just so cute,” Madeline tells them, glowing as she hands another slice over to Neil. “Congratulations on the upcoming nuptials.”

“Thank you,” Neil says mostly because he knows Andrew isn’t in the mood to make small talk, besides this lady has been nothing but kind and doesn’t deserve their sourness seeping into her day also.

“So I hope I’m not intruding,” Madeline starts, inches closer as she prepares the next set of cakes for them to try. “But what was the proposal like? I always think those are just the most amazing stories from our patrons.”

“Yeah Neil,” Andrew quickly interjects, already having finished his slice and still sulking. “Why don’t you tell the nice lady how you proposed, practically begged, for me to marry you.”

Neil hates it when Andrew gets petty, hopes that the glare he’s directing his way is properly getting across that notion. 

“It was quiet.” He ends up telling Madeline, though his eyes never leave Andrew’s face— a face he’s spent countless hours tracing the lines of and memorizing each slope and valley. He use to only map it out with his eyes, but then he somehow— miraculously— got to do so with soft caresses and eventually sure kisses. It’s a beautiful face, Neil’s favorite face. A face he would spend an eon just staring at if Andrew had ever been patient or willing enough to let him.

“Something private?” Madeline surmises, reminds Neil that they actually have company and she’s waiting for him to answer the question at hand.

“Yeah,” Neil nods, slow but sure. “Our friends were all over the place for the holidays, but me and Andrew stayed home, just the pair of us and our cats.” He continues to explain, knows that the best lies always have as much truth as possible mixed into them, and yes, in fact this was their precise situation this year over Christmas. And it was also one of the times that Andrew made it so Neil’s heart blossomed with something remarkable. One of the most recent times he was sure that Andrew was his world.

 “I woke up, and I looked at him and I just knew it. So after he woke up and we made breakfast, I just took his hands in mine—“ Neil does that now, hesitantly because he never wants to overstep, but is reassured when Andrew’s own go pliant and he turns ever so slightly towards him. “So I look him straight in the eyes, and I told him that I love him, and I love all he’s brought into my world. I told him that I don’t want anything to ever change between us. We’re the one constant I’ve ever had in my life and I’m thankful for it every day.”

Madeline gushes with her fist pressed to her chest, and Andrew follies a nasty grimace her way for the interruption. Neil doesn’t falter though, just gazes at Andrew, thinks of how he’s always been so enthralled by him. Neil feels it in his bones how he loves him so thoroughly that it takes his breath away. 

“Then what,” Andrew prods, words hugged in a tender cadence that probably no one else could pick up on, but Neil recognizes it well, and it makes his chest thud with wanting.

“And then I asked you to marry me, to stay with me till the end of time.”

A pregnant pause spills over them and Neil feels every breath escape his lungs, is only settled down when Andrew tilts his pale head and lets the smallest of grins turn up the corners of his thin lips.

“And I said yes.”

“You said yes,” Neil repeats, equal parts bewildered and amazed.

“Of course I said yes,” Andrew sniffs, but the posturing doesn’t last, his features melting into something so achingly open that Neil wants to kiss him right then and there.

“Oh how precious,” Madeline squawks, and this time it’s Neil who casts her a nasty glare.

.-

They ultimately decide on the chocolate marble cake for the wedding, and as they walk out the bakery— hands still interlocked— Andrew turns to him, slightly smug.

“Pretty sappy shit you thought of on the spot,” Andrew goads, bright and beautiful and the one sure thing Neil’s ever known. 

“I wasn’t freaked out that she thought we were married dummy, I was freaked out I hadn’t gotten to ask you myself yet,” Neil tells him, totally indignant.

A thousand emotions suddenly pull at Andrew’s face, settling on an expression that Neil could only ever describe as aw.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” he says, words stripped from any pretense, and gazing at Neil as if he had placed all the stars in the sky. As if he were someone worth that sort of adoration. And God does Neil love him. “Yes or no”

“Yes Andrew, of course yes.”

Andrew’s Arms circle around his neck, and Neil clasps his hands on either side of his narrow waste, and they fit so perfectly that it’s hard not to think of it as fate.

Gingerly, their mouths slant over one another���s, lips cloaked in sugar and tasting like a forever Neil once only dreamed of.

[ripley95]

Echoes of Old Embers

Chapter 9

Pairing: F!Shepard/Kaidan Alenko

Rating: T

Chapter length: 3.8K

Story Synopsis:

After surviving the war, one of Shepard’s biggest regrets was rejecting Kaidan at Apollo’s. Fate has a way of bringing Jane and Kaidan back into each other’s lives. A misunderstanding with his family makes Kaidan and Shepard relive old history and question where they stand.

Link to Chapter 1 on AO3

Chapter Synopsis:

Kaidan and Shepard have a serious conversation that puts an emphasis on her regrets of going to the orchard.

Read to Chapter 9 on AO3

Tumblr Links:

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14

Read the chapter here below the cut:

Shepard made her way down the stairs after her conversation with Libby. Kaidan was probably awake by now, so she figured it was as good a time as any to seek him out. As she made her way down to the foyer, she noticed some new arrivals.

"Oh, there she is," Raiya said, after hearing Shepard on the steps.

Maisie was standing behind her sister, holding a young child, presumably Austin, Raiya's son. Maisie was practically bouncing with energy and a big grin on her face. Shepard knew that her excitement was only in part for seeing her nephew again after so long. She figured it was mostly for getting to see if the fruits of her labour were effective in deceiving her brother-in-law. Shepard wasn't quite as concerned about it anymore, knowing that Libby wasn't mad at her. Still, she was interested in knowing if she could pull off being someone else all the same.

Shepard made her way to the bottom of the steps with a smile. She noticed Kaidan off to the side, leaning against the entryway to the living room. As soon as he saw her, he had a big, dumb grin on his face, clearly trying to contain any outward reaction to her new look. At least he seemed to catch on to what they were doing and didn't say anything to give away her real identity.

"Jane, this is Matt," Raiya said, drawing Shepard's attention back to them. "And that's my son, Austin."

"Hi, Austin," she said with a wave and a smile. He shyly clung to his aunt for protection. She then turned to Raiya's husband, who was distractedly struggling with all of his bags and trying to set them down, "and it's nice to finally meet you, Matt."

"Sorry, Jane, was it? We knew Kaidan was bringing someone, but I never got a name," he said, as he extended his hand as a welcoming gesture.

"Yup, that's it," Shepard said with a smile, shaking his hand.

Maisie snorted from behind them, Raiya giving her a glare that promised death if she were to give away what was going on. Matt looked at them with only slight confusion, seeming as though that was a pretty standard occurrence between the two of them.

Matt had to laugh at Shepard, shaking his head. "Well, good. Correct me if I get it wrong. I can be bad with names. It's nice to meet you too.”

Shepard offered him a warm smile in acknowledgement.

"Anyway, we should probably go put your bags away. I think Kaidan and Jane were just about to be sitting down to breakfast," Raiya said.

"Ah. Message received loud and clear," Matt said with a chuckle. "Didn't mean to be interrupting anything. I look forward to getting to know you better, Jane."

"Thanks, the feeling is mutual," she still smiled back at him kindly.

Matt nodded at her as he and Raiya went upstairs. Maisie followed after them, Austin still in her arms.

"So, did Jane look familiar at all?" Shepard could hear Maisie ask, apparently barely able to contain herself as they reached the top of the stairs.

Kaidan walked over to where Shepard was standing, and they continued to listen to the muffled conversation.

"Now that you mention it, she does look a little familiar. Why? Please don't tell me I already knew her and just made a fool of myself?"

"Oh, you know her, all right. That was Commander Shepard," Maisie said with excitement.

"Haha, very funny," Matt said, thinking it was a joke. There was a moment of silence before he finally spoke again, this time, the tone of his voice more serious. "She's joking, right?"

"No, she's not. That really was Commander Shepard," Raiya confirmed.

There was another moment of silence. Shepard could almost picture the mortification that was likely on Matt's face right now.

"You can't be serious. And you let me act like that in front of her? She's going to think I'm an idiot! I have to go apologise."

"For what? Not knowing who she was? Relax, she's cool." Maisie said with a laugh, clearly finding entertainment in Matt's torment.

"Should I say something?" Shepard asked Kaidan.

He had a big grin on his face, finding entertainment in the situation. "After what you guys put him through, I think he deserves to be put out of his misery."

She agreed and yelled up the stairs. "It's okay Matt, you were perfectly charming," Shepard said, hoping that was enough to suffice.

"They could hear all of that?!" Matt said, sounding horrified.

"Seriously, Matt, it's fine," Kaidan reassured.

"If you say so," he responded, not sounding convinced in the least. "I don’t think I'll never be able to show my face around her ever again," he said more quietly. He was trying to avoid their conversation from being overheard more, but it wasn't sufficient.

Shepard decided that was enough eavesdropping for her tastes, and turned to Kaidan with a grimace, feeling bad.

"I should probably go apologise to him later. I didn't mean to be pulling one over on him," she said.

"Oh, so this wasn't meant to be a practical joke?" Kaidan asked with a shit-eating grin on his face, clearly eyeing her new hair.

"On someone I don't even know? Definitely not," she said, at least happy that Kaidan was taking a playful tone on the matter, and was making her feel better about it.

"So what's this all about then? Did coming to meet my family put you into some kind of quarter-life crisis or something? I know they can be a lot, but this is a bit over the top," he said, his smirk wider than ever.

Taking him up on his playful attitude towards it, she leaned her hip out dramatically, running her hand over her hair before flaunting it. "What, you don't like it?"

"I didn't say that." Kaidan's smile became more subdued, the playfulness leaving his eyes. "You look good," he said, looking at her seriously.

Shepard was dumbfounded by the sudden change in tone and caught off guard by the admission. She didn't know what to say, or how to take it. She figured it didn’t really matter. She was trying to avoid romantic feelings. That hadn’t changed. Who knows, maybe he was just being nice. She steeled herself, making sure to temper her response. The best she could come up with was a "Thanks.” and a half-assed smile. “So, uh, did I hear something about breakfast?" she asked, avoiding eye contact.

"Uh, yeah," he said, pointing towards the coffee table and sofa in the living room. "Mom and I cooked. I grabbed us some plates."

"Great! I'm starving," she said, making way for the couch, not wanting to linger on their awkwardness.

She sat down in front of the smaller plate, the other one obviously being Kaidan's helping with a much healthier size for someone with the caloric requirements of a biotic. It looked amazing. It was a full cooked breakfast with eggs, bacon and toast all arranged nicely, with a cup of coffee on the side. He likely didn't know that Shepard already had a cup earlier. She wouldn't complain, though, especially after the lack of sleep for the majority of the previous night. It all felt luxurious compared to the colourless oatmeal that the hospital usually served her thanks to their low rations on just about everything else. She waited for Kaidan to sit next to her before she started eating. She grabbed a strip of bacon and let out an audible sigh as she slumped back into the couch.

"Damn, Kaidan, your family sure knows how to cook."

"The bacon was all me. I told you I was good at it."

"Hmm, well, I suppose you didn't have any garlic to burn this time," she said teasingly.

"Hey, now, that was a good steak."

She let out another sigh at the memory, "Yeah, it really was," she smiled at him, lost in the nostalgia of it. "That was a good day," she said. One of the only good days throughout the war, in no small part, thanks to him. She wouldn't ever want to go back to that time for so many reasons, but she missed the camaraderie they shared while they were still on the Normandy together. In a lot of ways, this felt like that. Except, now it was filled with a lot of awkwardness and regret.

He leaned back into the couch, too, his own strip of bacon in hand. "It was, wasn't it?" he said with a smile that Shepard matched before the conversation dulled into them both enjoying their breakfast. Neither of them particularly wanted to revisit memories of the war. After a few bites, Shepard turned to Kaidan, noticing that he had been staring at her.

"What?" she asked, noticing his look of amusement returning.

"So, I have to assume that this is why you disappeared this morning," he said, finally pointing to her hair again.

Shepard laughed, realising that she still hadn't given him an explanation. "Ah, right. Yeah. Kidnapped by your sisters, I'm afraid. I only just managed to make an escape for it right before coming down here."

"That explains a lot. So what happened? Did Maisie force you to do it? I can have a talk with her if she's bothering you. I mean… more than she's already been causing trouble."

"Oh, no. No need for that. Aside from the whole misunderstanding, your family's been great. Really. I actually did this for Libby. With Raiya and Maisie's help, of course."

"Ah, okay," he said, finally putting all of the pieces together. "That makes a lot more sense now. Has she seen it yet?"

"She has," Shepard nodded.

"And how did that go?"

"Surprisingly well, actually. She's just having a bit of a rough time, but I think things have been successfully smoothed over between us."

"Good," he said, sitting back on the couch and relaxing a bit more. "That's good."

Another moment of silence passed between them.

"Everything okay?" she asked.

"I didn't say it before, but after I saw her reaction yesterday, I felt like a bit of an idiot. I think she's always felt a little left out of this family. She and I are both the middle children. That usually means we'd be the ones getting the least attention. Because of my biotics and everything that went on at Jump Zero, I got a lot of special treatment from the family. I think that resulted in her feeling completely left out most of the time when we were growing up. This wedding was supposed to be about her, and now I've gone and taken that too."

Shepard nodded at that in quiet contemplation. She could understand the predicament. Maybe it wasn't all fun and games growing up with a lot of siblings after all. "If it's any consolation, when I talked to her, it didn’t sound like she was upset with you. Maybe she wouldn't have told me, though, since everyone has gotten the impression that we're dating," she said with a weird emphasis on the word. She noticed a weird expression on Kaidan’s face that she couldn't quite read. She figured the assumptions were just getting to him too. "But anyway, she seems like she's putting a lot of stress on herself over everything. She misses your dad. I wouldn't be surprised if she's feeling a little alone right now, but I don't think her outburst was really about you taking her day away from her."

"Well, that's good to know, but I think I should go talk to her later all the same."

"I think she'd like that," Shepard said honestly. Libby did seem like she could use some more emotional support than she'd been getting through all of this. Maybe it would give them both a chance to talk about their dad more.

Kaidan glanced at her. It looked like he was unsure of what to say. He let out a sigh. "Can I admit something?"

Shepard looked at him, confused as her heart began to flutter. "Always."

"I'm really glad you came, even with this whole mess. When I saw you in Vancouver and heard you needed a place to stay, I was almost glad for it. I think our talk in the cabin yesterday made me realise why."

Shepard perked her head up slightly to show that she was listening intently.

"Did I tell you that this is only the second time I've seen them all since I got back to Earth?"

"No, I don't think you ever mentioned that."

"I still remember the day I got here, and it wasn't a happy one, at least, not for me."

Shepard looked at him curiously.

"Don't get me wrong, I loved seeing my family. I missed them. It was a relief knowing that they were okay, and of course, they were happy to see me. Things weren't so simple on my end, though. To them, me coming home was like an answer to their prayers. I had been MIA, so knowing that I was safe was something to celebrate. But to me, coming back to Earth was just confirmation that my dad was really gone. For them, their whole focus was me providing them with something to celebrate and be happy about. It was like I was filling a void. I couldn’t take that away from them. But the whole time I was here, it just felt like something was missing. It felt wrong. I forced my happiness for their sake, but I'll admit there was a part of me that was dreading coming back here. I guess I just liked the idea that I'd have someone else to focus on. Have a distraction so I could be that for them again when this is supposed to be a happy occasion."

Shepard paused with the severity of the statement. She could understand wanting something to make those feelings easier. She could see herself serving as a good distraction for that, though she was sad about the circumstances of why he needed one. Of course she'd be that for him, though. It was even enough to make her feel a little less regret for coming out here, knowing that her presence might make things easier on him.

"Well, you've served as a good distraction in my moment of need. Least I can do is offer you the same," she said with a halfhearted grin, hoping that it was a casual enough statement. If circumstances had been different, she'd say something like she'd always be that for him whenever he needed it, but she knew she couldn't be promising things like that anymore.

Kaidan's eyes softened at the gesture. "I'm glad I could have been that for you. But still, I'm sorry things have turned into such a mess here. I never meant for things to get so out of hand. I just hope you don't regret coming."

It was like he was reading her mind or something. Maybe she wasn't as good at hiding it as she thought she was. Of course she regretted it, just not in the way he thought. The more misunderstandings happened, the more she wished they were real. She wished that they had woken up in the cabin with smiles on their faces and light kisses as they cuddled more deeply without a care in the world, instead of quickly and embarrassingly separating themselves. She wished that she could have gone through his family photos with him at her side, hearing every one of his stories associated with them. She wished that she could hug him now while he was struggling to come to terms with losing his father. She wanted her admission to Raiya to mean something, and her efforts to appease Libby to be the first of many bonding moments. As much as she hated to admit it, she wished Maisie would get to flaunt the fact that she was right about her and Kaidan's relationship this whole time.

"Don't worry. I don't regret it," she said, practically lying straight to his face.

"Well, good. I'm glad. I'd hate for you to feel unwelcome here."

Shepard nodded at the irony of it, as she huffed out a laugh. "I think if anything, I'm probably a little too welcome."

"Right," Kaidan said with a sigh. "I'll have to figure out how to deal with everyone eventually. I'm not really sure how to get them to see reason on this one."

"That might be difficult, especially after this morning," Shepard admitted, though, she already regretted it, not knowing how to explain this one without saying too much.

"What happened this morning?"

"Oh, uh, nothing new,” Shepard amended quickly, trying to think of something. “Raiya and I just had a long discussion. Maisie had already gotten to her.”

"Ah, well, I guess I should have expected that," he said to Shepard's relief, glad that he didn’t prod more. "I don't know if it would do any good at this point, but I can call a family meeting to let everyone know we're really not together if it would make you feel better."

The thought of that gave Shepard an internal sense of panic. "I appreciate the thought, but if it's all the same to you, it might be best to leave the lectures about that until after we leave. Libby's already had enough stress with everything, and this week really should be about her. We should probably try not to add more drama than there already is," she said. She really didn't want to burden Libby with more drama, but a big part of her was worried about the ramifications from Raiya now too. She had confided in her, and telling her that there was no relationship after admitting that she loved Kaidan felt like it would be a betrayal of her trust that she was gracious to give in the first place. Shepard figured that would have the potential to add a considerable amount of drama. This was meant to be an important time for their family and she wasn't about to ruin it or make things worse for Libby. She could deal with the fallout later, after the Alenkos had all enjoyed this time together.

Kaidan looked at her more seriously after that. "Okay. If that's really how you want to deal with it, I'm fine with that. I just don't want you to feel uncomfortable while you're here."

"It's fine. I'd rather not make things any worse than they already are. If we act casually enough and just don't confirm anything, maybe they'll drop it."

Kaidan looked at her and nodded in confirmation, the air filled with silence.

"Oh, there you two are," they both heard from behind them. They sat up straight and practically whipped around, startled by the suddenness. Ada was standing at the bottom of the steps.

Kaidan and Shepard looked at each other a little shocked for not having heard her come down the stairs. They hadn't even considered that they were having this conversation so out in the open until now.

Ada staggered momentarily, as she caught sight of Shepard. "Well, you certainly look different. I hope my daughter didn't put you up to that," she said, referencing Shepard’s new hair.

"It's a long story, but don't worry about it. Nothing was done against my will," she said with a small laugh.

"I suppose I'll have to take your word for it. But anyway, there's still so much to be done before tomorrow. Would the two of you mind giving me some help?"

"Of course, mom," Kaidan said, already getting off the couch to help.

"Great. The lawn needs to be mowed, and there's a bunch of dead branches on the ground out there."

"Sure thing. But Jane's still recovering, so she should probably sit out."

"Oh, don't you worry about that. I already had plans to put her to work helping me out in the kitchen. That way, she can still take it easy."

"I don't know if you want to do that," Kaidan said with a laugh. "She's a spacer, military brat. She's used to eating rations or cafeteria food. I don't think she's cooked a day in her life."

Shepard gave him a disgruntled look as she also stood from the couch, meeting them in the foyer. "Hey! I can cook."

"Sandwiches aren't cooking," he said with a teasing grin.

"Is this supposed to be some kind of payback for saying that you burned the garlic or something?"

Kaidan gave her a defensive look. "No, nothing like that. Just want to give my mom a fair warning," he said with a smirk.

"Oh, hush. It's just food prep, Kaidan. I'm not going to make her cook anything. I'm sure she can peel some carrots," Ada said.

"That, I can do," Shepard said with a smile.

"See? Perfect," she said, giving them both a satisfied grin. "Now stop teasing her, and Jane, you can meet me in the kitchen when you're ready," she said, bustling her way over there.

"You think you'll be okay in there alone with her?" Kaidan asked.

Shepard let out a small chuckle. "I've been in plenty worse situations than food prep, Kaidan. I think I'll be fine. The carrots, on the other hand… well, we'll just have to see about that."

That brought a smile back to Kaidan's face. "I wasn't talking about the carrots, Shepard, but I think you know that. It can be intimidating to be around parents. Especially if she might have gotten the idea that we're together."

"Yeah," she said, still looking slightly amused with herself. "Well, I've already been stuck with each of your sisters at some point or another today. I'm sure I'll be fine with your mom, too."

"All right, if you're really sure."

"Something tells me there's no backing down from your mother," she said, as she went back to pick up her and Kaidan's dishes.

"There really isn't. She's a force to be reckoned with. But then again, so are you."

Shepard smiled at that. "That may be true, but it's one thing to be up against a reaper. It's another thing entirely being up against parents. I'm not so sure I could win in a fight against your mom."

"You're not instilling much confidence here, Jane. You sure you're going to be okay left alone with her?"

"It was a joke," Shepard said with a grin. "I'm sure she'll be fine."

"Okay," he finally agreed. "But if you need anything, don't hesitate to come out and flag me down."

"Thanks. I'll keep that in mind," she said as she finally walked off towards the kitchen. Kaidan's mother seemed to be the least prodding of the bunch somehow, so she really hoped it would be fine. All she had to do was keep her foot out of her mouth… Then again, maybe that was something to worry about after all.

[kaleidescope-writes]

Heart of Audrilluria- Chapter XVI; King

Modern Fairytale AU

Prince King!Tom Hiddleston x Thief! Reader

Warnings: Angst, King POV, suspense

“So I believe that in the future, the alliance between our countries will continue to grow and both our people will prosper now that you are king,” the older earl concluded. Thomas was dragged into a conversation that droned on for the past ten minutes. A conversation that was in no means urgent and could have waited for after he spent his precious time convincing the love of his life that they should pursue a relationship. It was painful. “You make an excellent point sir,” Thomas said politely, desperately hoping to end the conversation there and then. He needed to get back to her. He needed to be with her. “Thank you, your highness,” the earl smiled proudly, “I see your eyes wandering. I’ll let you enjoy your party. After all, it is your night.” Thomas thanked him quickly before making his way through the crowd, eyes always searching her. 

He walked around aimlessly, looking for Y/N’s face in the sea of guests in the ballroom. Every Time he made eye contact with someone, he was disappointed that the eyes he met weren’t hers. He continues to search for her, growing more frustrated as the time passes by. Growing more frustrated each time he looks around the room unsuccessful. Thomas stopped for a moment, standing near the bar. He began to look around the room from a still position. After a moment, he realized he wouldn’t find her standing still. He resumed his pace around the room, considering going up to the balcony in case she was still waiting for him up there. 

It’s been about twenty minutes, he thought, surely she must be down here by now. Maybe she was talking to Amelie. Maybe she was outside because she felt that it was too stuffy in doors. Wherever she was, he needed to find her. Wherever she was, she needed to know he lov--

Thomas’s thoughts were interrupted by a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Augustus and Charles giving him proud smiles. Strange proud smiles. “Your majesty,” Charles bowed playfully, Augustus following his lead. Thomas gave them a heavy sigh, turning back to continue his search for Y/N. “Not now, I’m a bit occupied at the moment,” he replied bitterly. Charles and Augustus looked at each other in confusion. “But you called for us,” Augustus almost asked. Thomas perked up at his words, turning to his friend in confusion. He never called for them. He never even thought about having someone find them for him. 

“I did not,” he muttered in confusion. The men exchanged confused looks as they tried to figure out what happened to cause this. “You asked the footman to fetch us because you wanted to talk,” Charles said, trying to understand what exactly was going on. “I haven’t spoken to anyone but one of the earls,” Thomas explained, still not understanding why they thought he asked someone to call for them. “There has to be some mistake then,” Augustus reasoned. “Who told the two of you I was looking for you?” Thomas asked, wanting to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. First Y/N disappears, now this? “It was a footman,” Augustus spoke, looking around to find and point to the footman that led him in Thomas’s direction. He was unable to find said footman and his confusion grew. 

“Well, whatever is going on, help me find her,” Thomas dismissed. He began to walk around again, this time with Charles and Augustus following close behind. “I thought that you would have convinced her by now,” Charles questioned, struggling to keep up with Thomas’s pace. “I was going to, but right as I was leani-- I was interrupted,” Thomas explained, eyes searching the room to see that emerald dress and loose curls. There weren't too many people in the room, and rarely anyone wore green. This shouldn’t be as hard as it was. Unless she wasn’t in the ballroom. 

Thomas stopped suddenly, turning to face both men following him. “Where were the two of you when the footman approached you?” he asked in an urgent tone. “We were near the door facing the driveway,” Augustus explained, “But why does that matt--” “Was there anyone else there?” Thomas interrupted. “No,” Charles confirmed. Thomas looked away for a moment, thinking of all the places he didn’t look. 

Upstairs. Thomas rushed out of the ballroom at an even faster pace, with Charles and Augustus barely able to keep up with him. Reaching the stairs he brought Y/N to earlier in the evening. He began the climb up to the second floor, Charles and Augustus still following close behind the hurried man. Once he’d reached the top of the stairs, he made his way down the hall to the office where he thought she would be waiting. 

Thomas stopped his fast paced trudge when his eyes caught a group of security guards and footman surrounding the door of the guarded room. Bewildered by this strange occurrence, he approached them cautiously. “What happened?” he questioned, looking to one of the security guards. “The guards assigned to the room abandoned their post,” the guard explained to him. Thomas gave him a look of horror. “Do we know who it was?” Charles asked, having listened to what the guard told his cousin. “We are not sure, but the replica is missing. We’re in the process of locking down the castle,” he declared. Thomas began to walk to the door of the room, reaching to turn the doorknob and walk in. He began to examine the room, noticing nothing other than the replica’s absence. He walked deeper into the room, still examining everything he could to see if anything led him to a suspect. Charles entered the room after Thomas, walking past him to the furthest side of the room. Thomas was in a partial shock. He’d originally came up here to look for Y/N, but what he found was something he’d hoped would never happen. 

“Thomas,”Charles began, catching his attention and causing him to turn to where Charles stood in front of the desk. “They left a note. And something else.” Thomas hurried over to where his cousin stood. Looking at the note scribbled onto a small piece of paper that looked to be tor from a bigger page. He picked it up to open it, causing the item rolled inside the note to slip out. 

It was the sapphire heart copy from the replica. He took it in his left hand while still holding on to the paper in his right. Thomas unfolded the paper and read the message inside. Suddenly, he dropped both items, losing his balance and having to lean on the desk for support. No, it couldn’t. SHE couldn’t. He looked back down at the note, reading it over and over in his head. No matter how much he wanted to be delusional, no matter how much he wanted this to not be real, he couldn’t change the words written on the small slip of paper. 

“Real or fake, this shouldn’t belong to me.” 

Thomas felt like he couldn’t breathe. All that time, trying to convince her they were good together. All that time promising he would be there for her. All that time, and this is why she was here. This is why she stayed with him. Not because of anything she felt. But because she wanted to steal from him. His heart stopped beating for a moment. The entire time he knew her, she was only here for the necklace. 

“Thomas!” Charles called to him, “What is it? What does it say?” Thomas didn’t look up at him, he didn’t speak, and he didn’t look away from the note. Taking in a few breaths, he slammed his hand onto the note and harshly slid it in his cousin’s direction. He couldn’t be in that room. His emotions were starting to betray him. 

Suddenly, he stood up from his position and stormed out of the room towards the balcony. He didn't stop when the guards called to him. He didn’t stop when Augustus asked what was wrong. He just kept walking towards the one place he needed to be. Once he reached the door to the office, he swung it open powerfully. He stormed inside and made his way to the door leading to the balcony. He opened those doors in a similar manner, walking inside and looking down at the railing. Thomas let the majority of his weight fall unto his elbows as they settled on the concrete. 

This couldn’t be happening. This was a misunderstanding. He would see her later tonight and she would have no idea of what was happening. She was completely innocent, she had to be. As much as Thomas tried to convince himself that this was some funny coincidence, a part of him deep down felt like he’d already known the truth. She’s a thief, a part of him thought, she just used you to get what she wanted.

She never felt the same for you.

Thomas let tears fall freely down his face. How could this happen? Why would she do this? The only woman he ever truly loved and she betrays him like this. Why? Was he not enough? Did she not feel anything for him? Was she ever interested in him? 

Thomas shook his head, allowing more tears to fall from his face. She used him. And he let her. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to confront her. A part of him wants to know the truth from her side. But another part wants to never see her again. Even if it hurts him more than this. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N:........ I’m so sorry!! I promise it will get better soon, you just have to wait a few more chapters. Anyway, I love you guys so much!! Thanks for all the support!! What did you guys think? Feel free to send me feedback as it is both welcomed and encouraged. I love you all, stay safe out there, and I’ll see you tomorrow for Chapter 17!!!

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[sunsetinmyvein]

I Know That I’ll Lose - Chapter Nine - My Irregular Heartbeat

They finally had a full break day between two shows in the same city. It had taken five weeks to get one, but now it was here at least. However, Y/N/N knew better than to assume this break day would actually be used for something crazy like a break. No, of course not. Because knowing Matty, it was not a surprise at all that he dragged the band to a nearby studio he had heard about to try and smash out this idea that had been stuck in his head for a few days now. They all seemed more than happy enough to follow him on this endeavour, and watching them work as such a cohesive unit was very interesting. It was easily apparent that they had been together for so long, because they could practically read each other’s minds. Before George had even finished his sentence on the idea he had, Adam was already playing it, or Ross was already trying to fine-tune the melody. The four of them all worked on the same wavelength. She supposed that was just a part of working together for as long as they had. But maybe that was also why they had worked together for as long as they had, because they understood each other.

“Matty, we’re gonna record a few bits. Did you have lyrics in mind?” George asked with an eyebrow raised.

“Sort of. I’ll go check what I had written down.” He nodded, picking up his guitar and strolling out of the recording room and into another section of the studio. She had figured that there was no point in hanging around only to potentially interrupt the other boys’ recordings, so she followed him out to wherever he was headed.

He led her through the halls down into a small studio space with a desk at one end and a few couches at the other, not seeming to mind that she had followed. This seemed more like a track editing room than anything else. Matty sat himself down in the desk chair in the studio, pulling his guitar onto his lap. His notebook that she frequently saw him with was placed on the desk in front of him. He played the same melody that she had heard them go over numerous times in the recording area, making sure that it was fresh in his mind. Every now and again in between the melodies he glanced at his open notebook lying on the desk, sometimes scribbling something or crossing something out. A small smile was playing on his lips as he tried to get the rhythm of the words in line with what he was going for. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to recreate something he already had in mind or write something entirely new, but either way he seemed completely engrossed in it. This was the sort of moment where she would’ve admitted she had feelings for him if he asked - the sort of moment when she could be caught off guard enough by the genuine nature of the situation to tell the truth. A moment like this when it was just the two of them without the jokes, without the front Matty put up sometimes, a moment seemingly without the bet. Him just being himself and not trying to impress or be something else. But this wasn’t the Matty that was about to press her for confirmation on something that he already knew. Because at this current point, he didn’t want to play that game. He didn’t need to. He was comfortable in this instant with how things were. And she just wanted the peacefulness of it all to remain for a bit longer, so she wasn’t exactly about to throw a spanner in the works and fuck it all up by telling him.

  It was a good while before he was knocked out of the trance that he was in and looked across the room at her. He’d been so far down the rabbit hole of his own creativity that he had forgotten that there was another person in the room with him. For how much time had passed, he had figured that she might’ve been waiting patiently to ask him how long was going to be left, but she just stared back at him with a neutral expression. “You’ve been rather quiet.” He stated, scrawling a quick line down in his notebook.

“Would you rather I interrupt you while you’re trying to write a song?” She asked in confusion.

“I mean… you’re welcome to.” He offered.

“How do you write your lyrics?” She asked, eyeing the pages he kept glancing towards.

He pondered on the question for a moment. “Typically, I write to fit the rhythm of the song first and foremost. Like we had the tune for It’s Not Living before we had the lyrics and I wrote around that. But usually I just imagine a real situation, I amplify it, I make it slightly more romantic and idealistic, and I write about it. That search of trying to find something that makes me truly happy, of being on that precipice of finding it, is a lot of what my music is made up of.” He explained. She just gave a small nod in response. He waited for her to add something else, or ask something else, but she didn’t, she just watched him. “What?” He asked eventually with a frown.

“It’s just nice watching you do what you do best and seeing you so content.” She admitted with a shrug. “It’s rare to see you not being all cocky and loud.”

He gave a quiet laugh at that, adjusting the capo a fret down on the neck of his guitar. “You know full well that all that’s just an act.” Her eyebrows shot up in surprise at his blunt honesty. Maybe the genuine vibes in the room were not one-sided. “It’s a self-defence mechanism. If I act like I am those things, then it’s easier to not fall back on the more negative shit.”

  “But song writing is a really important thing in my life.” He continued, “I’d kill myself without music. Immediately. Life is pointless without music for me.” He paused for a moment, but she knew better by this stage in their friendship than to try and interject when he was following a train of thought. “If you think about it, the first time that you learn about something - like a first kiss, for example - is through cinema. It looks beautiful and it’s soundtracked. That’s very important.” He looked up at her, giving her a pointed look for emphasis. “I remember the first time I went to kiss a girl, the first thing that I was aware of was that there was no music playing. And I didn’t like that.” He frowned at the memory, before glancing down at his guitar and starting the riff over again. It had a very different feel to it than the other songs that they’d put out from Notes. The melody and style of guitar he was playing almost reminded her of Chocolate. “Music doesn’t exist physically. Yet it commands every facet of my personality. It has the power to command people how to feel - music can command someone how to feel on an emotional level uncontrollably. I just find that so fascinating.” He mused. A soft knock at the door pulled him out of his thoughts.

“How’d you go Matt?” George asked as he popped his head in through the door.

“I think I have some decent stuff.” He smiled with a nod in his friends’ direction as he handed over his notebook.

  The five of them regrouped in the recording area, playing over what they had tracked to make sure they were happy with it before Matty pitched a few of the lyrical ideas he had gotten together. It was interesting to listen in as the song took shape. Once everyone was satisfied that they were heading in the right direction, they packed away their gear for the day.

“Congrats on a job well done, boys.” George grinned as they stepped out onto the street. “Should we put the gear away and grab a drink to reward ourselves?” He suggested as he started heading in the direction of their buses. Thankfully for his arms- shoulders- back, he hadn’t had to set up his entire kit, just the elements of it that were unique to his setup.

“That sounds like a good plan.” Ross agreed. Once everything was packed away safely, they trekked to the nearest pub for an afternoon drink. Matty and Y/N/N took a seat up at the bar to sort out drinks for the group, while the other three found themselves a table to settle in at. The bartender who came over to serve the two of them seemed to have been having a dull day, because Matty noticed that as opposed to taking any orders, all he wanted to do was yap on about everything except alcohol. ‘How’s your day been?’ ‘Where are you from?’ ‘What do you do?’ He knew that a Tuesday afternoon probably wasn’t a very busy time for a pub, but he wasn’t there to share his life story. And it didn’t help that despite his best attempt to usher things along and get his hard-earned drink, his present company was indulging this stranger.

  He didn’t like how chatty this guy was being with her, and more importantly how chatty she was being with him. The feeling of it sat weirdly in his chest and made him feel like the third wheel when celebrating his own achievement. He only had a limited amount time left if he was going to get her to fess up. Only a week left of the tour before they went back to their respective homes. Allowing her to flirt with bartenders was only going to hinder that. So, in an attempt to bring her thoughts back to where he wanted them, and perhaps to get a rise out of her, in the middle of their conversation he nonchalantly took her hand that had been sitting on top of the bar in his. There was a pause in her sentence as he did this while she tried to work out what he was playing at. She looked down at their hands in confusion, glancing over to Matty only to see him still scrolling through his phone resting in his other hand. They’d never held hands before, and this certainly didn’t seem like the time or place to suddenly start doing that. But despite this, the plan had worked in his favour.

“I, uh,” The bartended cleared his throat awkwardly. “I’ll go get those drinks, then.” He nodded. As soon as he walked away to get their drinks, Matty released her hand which she promptly pulled in closer to herself.

  “The hell was that for?” She asked with a frown as soon as the bartender was out of earshot.

“What?” He asked without looking away from his phone.

“That.” She repeated as she waved the hand in question in his direction to catch his attention.

“Oh.” He slipped his phone back into his pocket, finally turning to look at her. “I just felt like maybe you’d be wanting to get back to the guys to-”

“What gave you the impression that I’d want that?” She interrupted with a frown.

“I’d like to think I know a thing or two about your wants and desires.” Normally him saying something like that would’ve tripped her up, would’ve forced her to think carefully about what her next move was. It usually would’ve ticked the right boxes of flirty and self-assured. But the juxtaposition between this Matty and the one that she’d seen no more than an hour ago in the studio was too startling. To go from genuine to cocky so quickly, the 180 practically gave her whiplash. And thinking that he had the right to make that call on her behalf, even if she was just being friendly and patient with the bartender? If he was chasing a reaction out of her, he was certainly about to get one. 

  “You don’t know what I want.” She fired at him. The tone in her voice hadn’t been what he was expecting, but it didn’t click until it was too late.

“I think I do.” He shot back. She could tell that he was trying to work that lilt of electric confidence into his tone, but that wasn’t going to work. He’d already said more than enough. Those four words pushed her over the edge. She’d felt like maybe Matty was getting somewhere with being an overall more sincere person to be around, but it turned out that he was still pulling the same shit as what he was months ago to get attention.

“It’s entirely unfair of you to decide what I want when you don’t even know what you want.” She spat back, the venom thick in her tone as she pushed herself back from the bar and headed towards the bathroom.

  Oh no. Again. He had gone and fucked it up again. He had been doing so well and now the pieces of his plan quickly shattered around him. He was fucking up one of the best friendships he’d ever had, all for a brief attempt at attention seeking. Fuck. He pulled a hand through his hair in frustration as he tried to think of a quick and easy way to backtrack – but there was no rewind for this. There was no rewind to fix those times when his egotistical impulsiveness shone through. What had seemed like a good idea only left him feeling worse. One negative feeling had just been replaced by a far stronger one. What was worse, was that he’d also roped her into his never-ending cycle of feeling shitty. He approached his friends sitting at their table towards the back of the bar, hoping that maybe they could offer some insight into how he could fix this.

“Guys, I-”

“Sort it out.” George interrupted, not caring to hear Matty go on a fifteen-minute-long explanation of whatever he’d done wrong. He’d seen Y/N/N walk away from the bar in a huff, and she gave that boy endless chances for whatever reason. To make her leave, Matty must’ve been a proper wanker.

“But-”

“You did it, you fix it.” He said with a dismissive hand wave. Ross and Adam just threw him apologetic looks, not overly wanting to get involved either.

  Their time at the bar had, unsurprisingly, come to an abrupt close after that. Once they’d finished their first round in a state of awkward chit chat, everyone seemed in mutual agreement that it was time to go. Matty mostly remained in his own head as he drank, trying to think of how to make up for what he’d done, and if he wasn’t gonna talk about it, neither was she. Once they left the bar, they headed back to their hotel that had been booked for the night. A minor perk of having more than one show in a single city, other than potential days off, was that they didn’t have to stay on the bus. This was a huge relief to George, Ross and Adam as they all struggled to fit comfortably in bus bunks. Pretty much as soon as she had closed her hotel room door behind her, she’d received a text from the offending frontman. Part of her wanted to ignore it, but morbid curiosity got the better of her.

5:23pm Will you be free in an hour?

5:24pm Why?

5:26pm Room 406

5:26pm What makes you think that I’m free?

5:30pm Are you saying that you’re not?

5:35pm Room 406 in an hour

  Against her better judgement, she begrudgingly did as requested and went to his room for six thirty. Despite that she was still mad at him for being such an ass, at the end of the day he was her friend and she didn’t want to end this time with him feeling resentful. As she reached out to knock on his door, she saw that it was slightly ajar. She pushed it open, calling out his name as she took a few cautious steps inside. The standard hotel room couch that was against the far wall in her room had been dragged over to be in front of the TV, the duvet was pulled off of the bed and draped over the back of it, and there was a bowl of popcorn sitting on the TV unit. “What is this?” She asked as her brows furrowed in confusion. An all too familiar curly mop of hair stuck its head around the corner as she said that.

“This… is me trying to make up for being a bit of a knob earlier.” He explained, making his way over to the other side of the couch. “I know that I took a genuine thing and twisted it into something insincere and selfish. I thought that we could pull a movie up on the telly and maybe have a couple of drinks? Quiet night in. Just us.” He offered.

“Well, the movie sounds okay, I guess.” She started as she looked at the selection screen that he’d already pulled up on the TV. “But I think I’m over drinking for today.”

“That’s, erm, fair enough,” He nodded. In hindsight, he probably could’ve predicted that. But he’d been a bit roped up during the last hour trying to think of what best to say. Not that he’d made much progress on that front, either. “Sorry, I make excuses to drink when I’m nervous.” He added sheepishly as he scratched at the back of his neck.

  She watched him with curiosity as he took a seat on the couch, motioning for her to sit down next to him. A few moments passed as she considered the offer. How fast he was jumping from sincere to arrogant today was unsettling. She felt like she was going around in circles in her head. “No funny business. I promise.” He said, holding his hand over his heart for emphasis.

She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to scope out if he was telling the truth. “Okay…” She eventually conceded as she sat down. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his side as he started scrolling through movie options. At first, she went to move back from him. Experience, and forewarning from Adam, probably should’ve been enough to stop her from falling too much into this. But… She had to admit that it was pretty cold this time of year, and Matty was pretty damn warm. And it was nice. It was nice that he was trying to make up for his shitty actions with kind ones. It was nice that he had made an effort to try and cover up his usual smell of cigarette smoke and weed with hotel room soap, even if it didn’t quite do the trick. Spending time with just him was nice. The companionship, minus the bullshit and the charade they had going on sometimes, was sorely needed for the both of them. It had been quite a while since Matty had someone in his life that he could be like this with and he didn’t want to fuck that up. He supposed that the guys probably wouldn’t complain if he did it to them, but that wouldn’t really give the same effect. This felt comforting. It melted her resolve for being mad at him, and steeled his about how much time he wanted to spend around her. But he avoided thinking about the warm feeling in his chest too much. At the moment, he was trying to be apologetic and genuine. And this moment - this moment of the two of them sitting on the couch in quiet discussion over what movie to kill their time with - he suddenly realised was about as genuine as he had felt in a long time.

  For once it wasn’t fake, or a staged situation that he had fabricated to work in his favour. It was real. Which should have been worrying. Past Matthew Healy would’ve either needed to put up false pretenses to feel in control or would’ve just straight up escaped from it. But this felt strangely like where he was meant to be. He wasn’t entirely sure when he started feeling like he was past that point in his life. That point where he moped around, being depressed and dwelling on past mistakes that he couldn’t fix. Altering situations until he felt in control of them. Where he spent 90% of his time putting up a front so that people didn’t constantly ask him how he was doing and then he had to think about how he was doing. But somewhere along the lines in the last few months, he had stopped having that dread that he wasn’t doing the correct thing. That he had fucked something up, or was on the verge of it. He felt like maybe he was finally… on the right track? He glanced at the girl sitting next to him. Maybe the company had done him a lot better than he expected it to. He had hoped it would be enough of a distraction that he could at least not think about his depressed state of mind for a little while. What he hadn’t anticipated was that the company would pull him out of that state of mind entirely. The sudden realisation that he was actually doing okay these days was quite surprising.

“Are you gonna pick a movie?” She asked as she looked up at him, only to catch him looking back at her instead of at the TV. “What?”

“Thanks.” He blurted out.

“For?” She frowned.

“Hanging out with this loser for a whole tour.” He answered with a chuckle. “You didn’t have to come out here. You don’t have to put up with me like you do. I know I said it once before, but company makes things a lot easier for me. Five weeks with you…” He paused, actually looking somewhat… embarrassed? “It’s done me a lot of good, I think.” He finally admitted. 

  He really was taking this attempt at making up for being a dickhead earlier seriously. “It’s, uh,” She cleared her throat to try and regain her mental composure. “It was in my best interests to take up the offer. So, it’s really nothing.”

“Not to me, it’s not.” He replied casually. He dropped the subject after that, turning his attention back to what movie they were meant to be watching. The two of them settled into a comfortable silence, happy to let the atmosphere between them speak for itself. Hearing his steady heartbeat as she leaned into him was like a metronome, like white noise, the sound of it was enough to stabilise her thoughts after such a chaotic day. It wasn’t long before the two of them passed out. She’d woken up eventually to see the TV that they had fallen asleep watching still playing. Matty’s arm was also still draped around her waist, though the two of them had slid quite a bit further down the couch than how they were originally sitting. After some careful shuffling to retrieve her phone without disturbing him, she discovered that it was nearly two in the morning. It was probably in her best interests to move over to an actual bed instead of spending the night on a hotel room couch. Work for the show tomorrow would be difficult if she couldn’t bend her neck to the left. She started to sit up, pulling herself up on the couch slightly and moving to swing her legs over the side. But she was quickly stopped in her tracks when a deep voice broke the silence.

“Stay.” She heard Matty mumble quietly as his arm tightened around her. She was unsure that she’d heard him right. “Please.” He added, just above a whisper. Had she not been looking right at him as he said it, she would’ve missed it. She was still rather tired, and the couch was pretty comfortable. Who was she to deny him such a simple request?

  * * *

  Matty woke up the next morning with a hell of a stiff neck and a feeling that he desperately needed to crack his left knee, but he somehow felt more well rested than what he had in months. The fogginess slowly cleared from his brain as his eyes refocused on the TV in front of him. But before he had the chance to stretch out his aching limbs, Y/N/N beat him to the punch and sat up, reaching her arms up above her head with a loud yawn.

“I’m sorry, about yesterday.” He muttered; his voice still hoarse with sleep.

“I know,” She nodded as she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “I’m sorry, too.” She added, flashing a small smile in his direction. The band had a show later that day, but Matty was pretty sure that he had an interview in the next couple of hours.

“I have to start getting ready.” He sighed, sitting up slightly on the couch. “I’ve got somewhere to be before midday.”

“Well, thank you for last night.” She said as she watched him stand up.

“It’s cool.” He shrugged. “I’m gonna go back to being a flirtatious piece of shit now, okay? But not a dickhead.” He punctuated that last point with a serious look. She just stared at him, waiting for him to continue. “It’s easier.” He shrugged. Easier than what? But there wasn’t much time to ponder that, because he made short work of getting ready and when left to her own devices it only made sense for her to head back to her own room to do the same. By ten that morning Matty was on his way to his interview, and the other four members of their posse found a nice café nearby to have breakfast in.

  Y/N/N found herself sat at a small table in said café with George, watching quietly as he fiddled around on his laptop. Adam and Ross had elected to kill some time in the record store next door, having already eaten this morning. But this was of no worry to them, because it was always nice to hang out with George one on one. He had such a down to earth personality and he was exceedingly good at keeping those around him calm and level-headed. However, at the moment she could see the concentration and slight stress in his features as he tried to wrap his head around what he was working on.

“How’s the track going?” She asked after a few moments.

“It’s… going.” He laughed as he took a sip of his coffee. “I’m piecing together those bits we recorded yesterday. Slow but sure progress.” He nodded.

“How’s it sounding?” She clarified. He shuffled around the table slightly so that she could get a view of the screen.

“Why don’t you tell me?” He asked as he slipped the headset off and handed it to her. “I’m trying to sort out a few of the production kinks. So, what do you reckon, this?” He played a snippet of the track. She listened carefully, trying to pick up the nuances of it. It sounded good. “Or this?” He played the same snippet again but she could hear a few minor changes this time. But to determine the exact differences was hard. It reminded her of being at an eye exam when the optometrist asked you if you preferred slide one or slide two and to you, they felt more or less the same.

“I, uh…” She handed the headset back as she tried to think of a reasonable response. It was a struggle to try and give him a straight answer. “They’re both good?” She eventually offered. “I’m sorry, I’m probably not the person to ask.” She added with a laugh.

“It’s all right.” He chuckled. “I’ll get the boys to look over it with me later.” He said with a shrug as a waiter brought their meals over. It was as good a time as any for a break, so he shut his laptop and left that work for later. 

  With the rest of the band busy enjoying their late breakfast at the café, Matty had been forced out to a one on one interview at some local venue. It bothered him every now and again that certain interviewers only ever wanted to chat to him, and not the whole band. After all, he’d be nowhere if not for them. He wished that he could get away with being the quiet one, the one who just got to sit there and zone out. But he’d signed his fate in this band long ago. Everyone knew by now that he was the charismatic loud mouth who had all the answers (or just talked until people forgot the original question). So, he made himself somewhat presentable and went out to the theatre that the interviewer wanted to meet him at. It was set to be a quick, video interview which worked well for him. Rock up, yap on a bit about the band, smile at the camera, be back in time for a joint before soundcheck.

  “So, we had a list sent in to us of a bunch of questions relating to each of the songs from your first self-titled album. Would you mind if we asked some?” The interviewer asked, flipping over to the next page in her notebook.

“Go for it.” He shrugged, pushing back into the wall he was leaning against.

“The question for The City: If you could fall in love in any city, what would it be and why?” She asked as she held the mic out to him.

“London. It’s probably my favourite city.” He answered with a firm nod.

“The one for Money is: Have you ever taken drugs?” She questioned, looking across at him.

“Yes.” He answered bluntly, trying his best not to roll his eyes. He was fairly certain that was pretty common knowledge at this point in his very public personal life.

“For Chocolate: Do you have a problem with authority?”

He snorted a laugh before answering, “Yes.”

  “Heart Out: Do you have feelings for someone and wish they were reciprocated?” She asked.

He opened his mouth to answer with the default response but the words seemed to stall in his throat. His answer was going to be ‘no’, but the more he thought about it the more he realised that might be lying. Technically the bet he had was all about getting someone to reciprocate feelings. It was kind of the entire point. “Uh… yeah.” He said with a nod, hoping that she didn’t pry any more on the matter.

She let out an interested ‘ooo’ and he couldn’t help but grimace slightly at what he knew was about to come. “Would you pursue these feelings?” The interviewer asked with curiosity.

He thought on that for a moment. Strictly speaking, the bet was quite literally a case of pursuing them. But he was certain that she meant pursuing them in a more relationship-wise sort of way and less in the way that he was going about it. The more he thought on this, the more he found himself feeling nervous about his answer. It had been a long time since he’d been properly close with someone, especially in any capacity like last night. It was probably just that. Just circumstance. And he had an inkling that if he dwelled on it for too long, he’d lose his motivation for the bet and he knew that he was only ever getting closer by the day.  “Maybe in a more forgiving set of social circumstances.” He answered eventually.

  She continued on without saying anything else on the topic, “This one is for Sex: Have you ever been with someone who already had a partner?” She asked. He let out a sigh of relief that they had moved away from a topic he was trying to avoid investing too much thought in before answering the question.

“The person who wrote this list does know that I wrote these songs, yeah?” He laughed loudly. “Like, they’re about me. You can assume that they’re from my perspective.” The interviewer scrapped the remaining questions on the list after that and let him get back to his day. He went back. He smoked his joint. He soundchecked. He hung out with his friends. He played a show. He continued about the usual tour routine. But the realisation was starting to settle in that they only had three shows left. Only six days until the tour was over. Matty felt like time was closing in on him.

  The next day as they drove to the third to last show, he found himself sitting in the back lounge - his feet up on the seat next to him, watching the rain trickle down the glass and the road pass behind them. His mind kept being dragged back to that question he had been asked in the interview. He’d always held an interest in Y/N/N, that much he was well aware of since the day that they’d met. But since he’d gotten so roped up in his determination to get her to confess her feelings, he’d lost sight of his own. Whenever she’d asked him back in that bar what his end game was, he had said that he didn’t know. At the time that seemed like a reasonable enough answer, his state of mind wasn’t the best and he wasn’t in a position to be committing to anything new, much less a relationship. And he’d done his best to make sure that she was aware of that so that he didn’t feel like he was putting her under false pretenses. But it had been months now, he’d come to realise he was in a much more stable place mentally and emotionally, and yet he still didn’t have any true direction. What was he going to do once she told him? He needed an answer. Soon. The tour had less than a week left. He was knocked out of his thoughts by the sound of footsteps approaching behind him.

“What’re you doin’, Matt?” George asked as he leaned against the door frame.

“Just vibin’.” He shot back. The drummer rolled his eyes. “Being contemplative.” He elaborated with a shrug, taking a sip of the tea sitting in his lap.

“About?” He asked, stepping into the room and taking a seat opposite his friend.

“To say what you want – it’s hard, innit?” George knew better than to answer a rhetorical question like that and instead waited for Matty continue. “I’ve spent so much of my life thinking about the future and worrying about stuff. Worrying about shit that I can’t change. And I’m starting to feel like maybe I should be worrying about the things that I can.”

  George could sense where this conversation was going. That Matty was getting close to the realisation that his feelings for Y/N/N were considerably less superficial than he gave them credit for. He wasn’t sure what had brought on this epiphany in his best friend, but the vibe of this conversation was telling him that he was on the right track to sorting out his own head. A little voice in the back of his mind reminded him of that bet that he had made with Adam and Ross. Was now his chance to let Matty in on the secret that everyone else knew? Or should he let his friend work his way there himself?

“I think that maybe you need to think about how far you’ve come, mate.” He resigned with a sigh. Letting Matty come to the discovery himself was probably going to be the best course of action. “You’re not the same person that you were ten years ago, even if you still make similarly dumb mistakes from time to time. What mattered to you then might not be the same things that you want to take into your future.”

Matty looked back over at his friend with a confused frown, hearing in his voice George wasn’t giving him all of the information that he had. “What’re you getting’ at?” He asked as George stood up.

“Consider what makes you happy, work your way up from there.” He explained, patting his friend’s shoulder as he walked back out of the back lounge. 

  * * *

  George’s advice perhaps could’ve been slightly… more blunt, and to the point. Because what Matty found makes him happy was often instant gratification. And what he wanted most at this exact moment was to win that damn bet. There was one show left on their tour before everyone headed back home. One show to get her to crack. He had to pull out all of the stops if he was going to make this count. But this was what he had spent the last six weeks working out. What were the best things to get a reaction – what worked and what didn’t. Now was his time to shine and prove that he wasn’t just blindly fumbling in the dark. It was a few hours before they were set to play, stage setup was done, merch was set up. He was pretty certain that the majority of his friends were on the bus waiting for soundcheck. Now was the time. Matty sent her a text to come to the green room to help him out with something and then waited patiently. He worried slightly when he hadn’t received a reply at first, but within a few minutes he heard footsteps approaching. This was it. Show time.

  “Yeah, what’s-” Her sentence suddenly wasn’t able to complete itself and she had to do a double take as she caught sight of the man in front of her. Matty was leaning against the table in the middle of the green room, cigarette in hand, staring lazily down at his phone sitting on his knee. For whatever reason he hadn’t bothered to button up the suit shirt that he was wearing, and his hair looked like he hadn’t touched it in days. He was even wearing the same ripped jeans she’d seen him wear at the last show. It was possibly one of the most casual looks that she had seen him in of late, and she fucking hated that despite this, he looked hot as hell. She hated it even more that he was almost definitely well aware of this information and probably also well aware of the way that it was making the synapses in her brain short out. He glanced up eventually, letting the smoke out of his lungs and putting his cigarette out in the ash tray sitting next to him.

“Can I ask a favour of you?” He asked as he pushed himself up off of the table. That annoying level confidence that he seemed to radiate was practically like static electricity in the room.

“Anythi-“ She started, before clearing her throat anxiously and trying to get her thoughts together. Her brain seemed to have just fallen right out of her skull as she crossed the threshold into this room. “I mean, uh-” And it was extremely hard to concentrate on finding it again with Matty approaching her looking like that. “yeah. What’s up?” She asked, deciding to look at the ground instead.

  His index finger came to rest under her chin before pulling her gaze back up to his. Fuck. Having to look into his chocolate brown eyes when he was acting like this, it made this whole situation all too difficult to resist. He leaned in slightly closer before speaking. “If I were trying to impress a girl who would be watching the show tonight, do you think that this would suffice?”

“Absolutely.” She blurted out without thinking.

“Good to know.” He chuckled as he brushed past her and out the door of the green room. She turned around, looking in the direction that he had gone in confusion. What had just happened? Surely that ordeal wasn’t coincidental? The tone in his voice was too suggestive for any of that to have been a fluke. He’d intentionally caught her interest and then left her drooling over him. Why would- suddenly it clicked. That cocky bastard fucking knew that he had won, and he just walked away. He didn’t even press the topic of the bet at all. “See you at soundcheck.” His voice echoed back down the hallway. That absolute fucker. Unfortunately for her, six weeks trapped in close quarters with Matthew Healy had done exactly what she had predicted it might. It made her feelings for him so much worse. Tonight was going to be difficult.  She was unsure if her heart rate would be able to survive through soundcheck, let alone nearly two hours of watching him on stage. Maybe she could just skip the show? No, he’d definitely find a way for her to be there. By the time she’d finished psyching herself up to tolerate a couple of songs in soundcheck, the band were nearly ready to go.

  As she walked up to the barrier of the pit, she heard Matty call her name. “Watch this.” Matty grinned, making a motion to the rest of the band. Do I have to? The familiar starting notes of The Sound started filling the empty stadium. Of course. Of course. Should she really have expected any less of him than to play this song? The annoying thing was that in this frame of mind and with him… like that, she couldn’t do anything but watch him. His direct interaction with her as they ran through the song was minimal, instead he racked his brain for the things that he’d done on stage in the past that he’d caught her watching. And it worked a treat. Her attention was trained on him the entire time. As the song came to an end, her brain felt absolutely fried. He must’ve recognised her half-dazed state because he jumped down into the space between the barrier and the stage to put the final nail in the coffin. He leant across the metal railing, and for a brief moment she thought he might’ve been about to kiss her. She was pretty certain that she might spontaneously combust if he did.

“You could just tell me, you know.” He whispered. Her heart hammered against her ribcage as she tried to compose her thoughts. After a few seconds he moved back, meeting her gaze and seeing how flustered she was.

“Fuck you.” She mumbled with her last hint of tenacity and desire to win a futile bet, tearing her eyes away from him to look behind him at the screens on the stage.

“You could if you’d like.” He quipped with a knowing look. She was suddenly dragged back to the weekend that she’d met him. That damn radio interview he’d pulled her into. It was nearly five months ago now since he’d pulled that stunt on her. Had it really been that long..? “Suit yourself, love.” He said with a chuckle as he hopped back up on stage. 

Last Chapter

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[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Episode 32 Review: Sea Fever

{ Not available on YouTube }

{ Full Synopses/Recaps: Debby Graham | Bryan Gruszka }

{ Screencaps }

I apologize for the delay in posting this review. Once again, I’ve been busy in real life and didn’t have enough time to work on it last week. (And so soon after starting my Shadow Over Seventh Heaven review series!) But now I’m back and I have enough time to write about my favorite show again--and, in a week or so, hopefully enough to continue my other review series as well.

This is the first episode to differ completely from the Lost Episode summaries published in various U.S. and Canadian newspapers--and therefore probably the point at which the original outline and the final one began to diverge. Episode 30′s summary described an event that happened in the episode, but whose cause appears to have been changed during forced rewrites; last episode’s was still accurate after revisions; but this one’s summary is the first to describe a scene absent from the final, aired episode. (More on that later.)

Shall we begin this review? This episode features some of the darkest Jean Paul (yes, Jean Paul!) dialogue thus far, along with many entertaining facial expressions as multiple characters feast on the scenery. It’s a wild ride with a genuinely scary scene, and, if you like those things, I think you’ll enjoy it.

We open right where last episode left off, with Elizabeth reacting to Jacques’ little comment about Holly and how he would stake her life in a bet that Vangie couldn’t contact Erica in the planned séance. ”Jean Paul,” she shouts, “your inference that I would harm my daughter to take her fortune for my own is insulting and in bad taste: something I’d never expect of you!”

The handsome devil replies, “Your strong defense against a simple query lends credence to a simple supposition”--which is just a fancier, less archaic way of saying “the lady doth protest too much.”

She flounces and runs into Vangie at the door--figuratively, not literally, although that would be amusing. “You interrupted Mrs. Marshall’s romantic exit from which there might be no return,” Jacques comments, which sounds suspiciously like foreshadowing.

The conversation drifts to the séance and how Jacques is most definitely not going to back down because he’s not a coward, and then, suddenly,

Vangie SCREAMS!

Apparently, every time a female character other than Raxl screams, she has to try eating her hand immediately afterwards.

She’s screaming because she can sense that someone is tampering with the cryonics capsule. And, at the same time that this happens, Jacques also de-possesses Jean Paul:

I’ll let these headache faces speak for themselves.

Jean Paul who threatens to kill anyone who tampers with the capsule. Very nice (not)! Normally, I find his concern for Erica romantic, but this is going too far. He reminds me of the captain in the CBS Radio Mystery Theater episode "Sea Fever" (also by Ian Martin) who…well, I don't want to spoil the ending, but let's just say that he is even crazier in love than Jean Paul. It isn’t one of the best CBSRMT dramas, but it will likely chill your bones. It certainly chilled mine.

Love this shot of Colin Fox backacting while Paisley Maxwell and Angela Roland stare at him with wide-open eyes. This episode is full of unintentionally funny facial expressions.

Jean Paul hurries back to Maljardin with Elizabeth and Vangie, and heads to the crypt immediately to see Raxl about the capsule. She recaps to him about the capsule tank’s malfunctioning in the previous episode. He asks who discovered it; she tells him Dan, which only makes him more suspicious of him. SHe also recaps to him about how Alison and Dan are searching for the cyanide that he stole from the lab. “Everyone questions my changes of mood,” he shouts. “Now I must question changes in others!...There is danger hiding everywhere on Maljardin. It has a history that has plagued the family, that will plague all who pry into my affairs!"

While Vangie questions the sincerity of Elizabeth’s devotion to Jean Paul above, Jean Paul leaves red flowers on the cryocapsule and announces his planned next moves to his love: “Erica, my dove, now [there] are some people here on our island who would destroy the process by which you will be returned to me and fill my arms again, but I promise you, no one, no one under any consequences [line flub], will live again if he or she causes you to remain forever dead!"

A beautiful shot of Jean Paul with flowers for Erica.

When Raxl next joins Jean Paul in the crypt, she tells him that “only the priestess of the Serpent knows what is really on their minds.” Jean Paul mentions that she has told him before about the human sacrifices that the priestesses used to perform on the island--which is not recap (as we have only heard her tell Matt about them so far), so she must have told him sometime before Erica’s death. She insists that, although that was true long ago, their altar has not been used for them since Jacques's time.

“But, if his evil can rise again, as you fear,” he begins, implying that he wants to start making blood sacrifices.

“No! Please, M’sieu, no!” Raxl interrupts.

“I will do what has to be done, Raxl. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Raxl draws the Sign of the Great Serpent in the air and the same Great Serpent symbol that's in the Temple appears on screen. It’s a cool effect and not something that’s ever seen in any other episode.

She leaves the crypt, looking back at Jean Paul a few times, probably in complete disbelief that he wants her, daughter of the unseen Priestess of the Serpent, to sacrifice Dan and any other troublesome guests to protect against THE DEVIL JACQUES ELOI DES MONDES. This is a shocking new low for Jean Paul Desmond, and shows the darker side of his character. This is a man who, even without a curse and even when he is not possessed, is capable of murder because of his obsession with his love interest. This is a male yandere.

She sees Matt in the Great Hall, who tells her that he’s searched all over Maljardin and that there must be many hidden rooms there. It turns out they have both searched in every room they know about and still have found neither the missing cyanide nor the conjure doll and silver pin. He demands that she tell him the legend of Maljardin and that old black magic. And so we learn from her some very important background information, some of which is never brought up again:

Where there is evil, there is magic. Where there is magic, strange things happen, but first there must be evil, and there is!...Before the time of Jacques Eloi des Mondes, when this house first stood, it was a palace of kings and there were many people here until this island became his!…Only the greedy and foolish [natives] remained, and none who left ever returned.

There is a curse here, Reverend: him, that devil!

The implication is that Jacques did not build the château, but took it from someone else, which connects to his revelation about a month earlier that he was a “free looter”--or, in other words, a pirate. Matt argues that Jacques cannot still hold control over Maljardin because he died three hundred years ago, but Raxl says that “for some of us, three hundred years is but the span of a single lifetime,” indirectly revealing her true age to him.

She smiles at him right after she reveals to him that she’s centuries old. I think this is the first time Raxl smiles on the show, and the only time in the entire Maljardin arc.

Matt asks about the natives who stayed on the island, and Raxl says of them, “They died very soon. It was the curse on Maljardin. Have you ever seen a man who has lost his soul, Reverend? Their eyes down, the fishermen no longer fish, the children cease to play. They do no more than sit and wait [for death]...Since then, no native has ever tried to settle on Maljardin.” Only Vangie, the Conjure Woman, can go back and forth to and from the island “on the wings of the Great Serpent,” but she, too, is destined to die someday on Maljardin.

At the end of this scene, Vangie enters and adds that she doesn’t know when she’ll die, because the tarot cards did not (and cannot?) give her an exact date. This would seem to make her death on the show a foregone conclusion, but that may or may not be the case. (I say that not only to avoid spoilers, but also because the show and the original scripts give the Conjure Woman radically different fates, as we shall explore in future reviews.)

Meanwhile, down in the crypt, Jean Paul is still talking to Erica about how he is determined to kill anyone who interferes with the cryonics process when Jacques starts intruding on his mind. Like in Episode 27, the special effects team illustrates this by superimposing Jacques’ face from the portrait over that of Jean Paul when he is talking to him:

The best example from this episode.

None of Jacques’ lines in this scene are as funny as those of the old, pre-Lost Episode era Jacques, even if Fox-C still delivers the devil’s lines with the same amount of sarcasm and relish as before. His best line this time around is, in my not-so-humble opinion, “Suppose we just whisper so dear Erica may sleep.” I miss early Jacques’ jokes already--yes, even the ham-handed, cornball puns--and it hasn’t even been a week’s worth of episodes since the last.

We cut to Raxl and Vangie in the Great Hall, discussing the upcoming séance. Vangie says that she wants to find out if Erica’s spirit genuinely wants Jean Paul to continue mourning her and keeping her frozen. She insists that Raxl let her touch the cryocapsule before the séance, most likely to get a sense of Erica’s energy before they perform the ceremony.

Jean Paul: “What are you doing!”

Raxl: “Please, M’sieu. The Conjure Woman is trying to help.”

Jean Paul: “Only for a séance, Vangie. Erica must remain undisturbed.” Vangie: “And if you don’t like what you learn?” Jean Paul: “I’ll face that--when the time comes!”

The Lost Episode summary indicates that, at some point in the original draft, Raxl and Vangie had a conversation about Jacques, and Raxl would have told her how she can tell him and Jean Paul apart. As I’m sure many of you have realized, Raxl and Vangie oscillate between knowing that Jean Paul is being possessed and merely suspecting, depending on the episode. In the original Episode 32, Raxl would have known when Jacques is controlling Jean Paul’s body and Vangie would have only suspected until after Raxl explained. Ruling out all obvious non-diegetic clues such as the vanishing portrait shots and Jacques’ theme music, she could have said any number of things, including:

His energy/aura changes (although, logically, Vangie would notice that, too).

He wears the ring from the portrait (which we know is diegetic, because Elizabeth commented on it in Episode 13).

He opens his eyes really wide and makes silly faces.

He makes corny puns Never mind, we’re not doing that anymore.

He acts far too cheerful for a man who is supposedly mourning his dead wife.

He talks about kippers.

Etc.

I suppose we’ll never know which one(s) she mentioned, but I suspect #1, #2, and/or #5. Anyway, Jean Paul leaves to return upstairs and Vangie continues whatever she started doing with the capsule. He orders Jacques to “stop turning people against [him],” which he refuses to do, threatening to keep Erica dead if he doesn’t shut up about it.

“When we really get into the battle, someone has to die,” quips Jacques.

“Perhaps it will be you!” shouts Jean Paul in response.

“Or you, Jean Paul Desmond,” the handsome devil replies. “Or will you be preceded by one of our guests? Now let me see. A likely candidate could be...”

Jean Paul turns away from the roars of laughter, and the episode ends before Jacques can name the guest(s) he plans to murder.

Could it be Vangie? Or Holly? Dan? Alison? Even Elizabeth?

This episode was a fun one to watch, and probably the first review I’ve completed in only one day since sometime last winter. Jean Paul’s willingness to put everyone’s life on the proverbial line to save Erica shows a dark side to his nature that mostly vanishes at the end of this story arc--which is a shame, because I find morally ambiguous antihero Jean Paul the most interesting version of his character. I recommend this one, if you have access to it.

Coming up next: A Quito-centric episode where the detained guests learn shocking truths about Jean Paul’s manservant.

{ <- Previous: Episode 31   ||   Next: Episode 33 -> }

[welllpthisishappening]

Of Babies and Hockey Mascots

It had been a very long time since the mascot of the Philadelphia Flyers had made Matthew Jones want to scream in fear. He was, after all, a grown man. But being a grown man also meant seeing other adults in his life have kids. And Roland had always been very popular in Philadelphia.

------

This was/is and continues to be exceptionally self-indulgent next gen Blue Line hockey fic. Because life is life and good things happen in this universe. Also because I write them that way. So, here’s like almost 4K of Matt Jones, his girlfriend, his parents and both Roland and Henry ragging on Matt Jones for being terrified of Gritty. And the Rangers play hockey tomorrow. So.

This one goes out directly to @shireness-says for being an absolute, goddamn delight at all times. Also, also @optomisticgirl for constantly letting me bounce ideas off her, @stealing-vengence because I didn’t have these words to send last night and @distant-rose just for, like, existing. 

This is the video mentioned in the story.

------

“Babe.”

Matt didn’t answer. 

“Babe.”

Nothing. If he didn’t answer, then Claire would definitely go back to sleep and it was stupid and petulant and—“Babe,” she said, that one sounding less like an endearment and more like the audible and understandable sound of middle-of-the-night frustration. She jabbed him in the ribs. 

Matt groaned. 

“Answer your phone, Matthew.”

He hissed in a breath, burying his face into the pillow like that would make the phone stop, but that was a pipe dream and Claire’s nails absolutely left marks on his skin when she scratched down his side. 

“I got it, I got it, I—“ 

The phone fell on the floor. 

“Oh my God,” Claire grumbled. 

None of Matt’s muscles appreciated when he leaned over the side of the bed, fingers scrambling for a phone that was somehow still ringing and sounded as if it were getting louder with each passing second and—

“Someone better be dead,” he growled, barely moving his thumb away from the screen after he swiped before lifting it to his ear. 

He hadn’t checked who was calling. 

That was definitely his first mistake.

Well, second. Maybe third, actually. 

He’d gotten hit pretty hard after that turnover in the zone and he should have just started shutting his phone off at night. Like several dozen years earlier. So those probably took precedence. 

And the tongue click on the other end made it blatantly obvious who it was anyway. 

“No one is dead,” Dad said. “That’s kind of the whole point of this call, actually.”

Matt blinked. Once, twice, three times, probably to match up with the number of mistakes and—he would absolutely blame whatever time it actually was for how long it took him to realize what was going on. 

“Oh, shit.”

Dad sighed. And it sounded like Mom laughed. 

It must have been nearly three in the morning. 

“Got there, huh?” Dad asked. “That was a good pass in the third, by the way. Almost made up for the turnover and—“

“—You do not get to critique my turnovers right now. It is the middle of the night and that was just like…your greatest weakness and—“

“—And not really the point,” Mom called, what sounded like the couch creaking in the background and they must have been in the living room. Waiting. Or something that sounded a little more familial and far less menacing. 

“It’s not really the point,” Dad admitted, voice turning a little repentant. “But it was a really good pass, the legend of the wrists continues—“

Mom sounded like she was growling. 

There was a quiet scuffle on the other end of the phone, Claire’s laugh working its way under Matt’s skin when she pressed her head into the curve of his shoulder, reaching a hand up to brush away far-too-long curls because they were in the middle of a playoff run and he desperately needed to go back to sleep, but—

“It’s a boy,” Mom announced, and of all the very sore muscles that made up Matt’s current bodily structure, he hadn’t ever really expected his cheeks to ache quite that much. 

Or so suddenly. 

Smiling like an idiot would do that though. 

“Oh, shit.”

“Mattie, you can’t keep saying that over and over. It’s just—it’s not the world’s best reaction.”

“I know, I know, I just—a boy, for real?”

“You knew that,” Claire mumbled, nosing at his collarbone and he could feel her smile too. His stomach felt like it had thrown into his throat. 

“Yeah, I know I did, I just—“

“—Used up all those well-thought out responses in post, huh?” Mom asked, and maybe they were all just smiling like idiots. That made him feel a little better. 

It had been a really good pass. 

“Something like that,” Matt muttered. He ran his fingers through his hair, tugging lightly as if that would wake him up, but the prospect of Roland and Lizzie’s kid had already done a pretty good job of that and Claire only gasped softly when he pulled her up with him. “Is everything—I mean, everything went ok, right? No one’s—“

“Everyone’s fine, kid,” Dad said, clearly on speaker now and that was probably for the best. “Except maybe Liam who—“

“—According to El, snapped at several different orderlies, demanded hourly updates from the nurse and—“

“—Wait, wait,” Matt interrupted. “Hourly? This was a multiple hours thing? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

Nothing.

Huh. That was annoying. 

“Well,” he prompted, “the resounding echo of your own silence is pretty deafening. Who else was there? Why didn’t Rol call?”

“Presumably because he’s staring at his kid like they’re the greatest thing in the entire world,” Dad said reasonably. 

Matt slumped against the pillows. “I’m going to blame the turnover. For, you know—being a dick.”

“Matthew!’

“Mom, you don’t get to ground me anymore, I just—“

“—Henry was there,” Dad finished. “He’d been planning on coming back here, but something about fate or whatever and he got delayed in Atlanta, so he rerouted to Philly and from what Gina said, he was the only rational one and Rol kept walking in and out of the room. Rumor has it there was quite a lot of pinching the bridge of his nose.”

“He does that when he gets nervous.”

“I can’t imagine why he’d feel that way in this scenario.”

“But everything’s ok, right? I mean—with Lizzie and Rol, the nose thing aside and—“

“That’s very normal,” Mom mumbled, another telltale tongue click from Dad and Claire kissed Matt’s shoulder that time. “Some would say even calm compared to other reactions.”

“This is not an answer to my question, just sly jabs at Dad for being a freak and—“

“—I will absolutely ground you, Matthew,” Dad cut in, a distinct lack of any actual frustration. “Also, today is not the season-opener. So, I can’t see how the two situations are even remotely comparable.”

Matt hummed. 

Claire might have mumbled something that sounded a hell of a lot like this family is crazy, which—well, fair. 

“And,” Mom continued, “I wasn’t really being sly about it. I thought that was a pretty obvious commentary on Dad’s nerves.”

“A name, Mom. Does the kid have a name?”

She hissed in a breath. 

And Matt waited. Or, tried. Doing his best to temper his impatience because he was only a little annoyed Henry had been there when he hadn’t and that was absolutely insane. 

Seriously, it was all that turnover’s fault. 

He hoped Roland hadn’t seen that. 

He’d never hear the end of it. 

“Mom. Do I have to guess? I’m not going to be able to guess, I—“

“Noah Miller Locksley,” she finished, and Matt nearly dropped the phone again. 

He swallowed. More than once, tongue darting between suddenly dry lips because he’d started breathing through his mouth at some point, the way his eyes falling shut having nothing to do with how utterly and completely exhausted he was. 

“Oh shit,” Claire whispered. “That’s good.”

Matt made another noise — something he was only vaguely hopeful sounded like an agreement. “Did Aunt Gina cry?”

“She absolutely wept according to several reliable sources,” Dad answered. 

“Were those all just Henry?”

“And El. Who told me this while crying rather hard.”

“God, that’s so stupid.”

“In the realm of exceptionally stupid, yeah.”

“Idiot,” Claire mumbled, and it might have just been a trick of the minimal light in their room, but Matt would have sworn her eyes had gone a bit glossy too. He blinked several times. 

So as not to also be accused of idiocy.

And Matt’s phone buzzed in his hand. 

“There it is,” Mom muttered fondly, Matt’s hand shaking when he glanced down at the screen and a group text that was very active for the middle of the night. 

Roland Locksley, 2:47 a.m. :: image attached ::

Noah Miller Locksley. Ten fingers, ten toes. Seven pounds, eight ounces. Far more hair than expected, which we assume means he’s some kind of super baby. 

Do not send us hockey sticks, I will punch you all in the face. 

Matt scoffed, a quick sniffle and tears on his cheeks that he hadn’t really planned on, but seemed pretty inevitable for the parents of a kid who had absolutely fought over who got to use him on their side of the aisle at their wedding. 

Claire kissed his cheek. 

He didn’t read the rest of the messages — Peggy sending at least ten in a row and Chris’ didn’t look like much more than the same gif of Roland celebrating a playoff goal four seasons before, Leo’s all just several lines of exclamation points — tugging the phone back up to his ear and his own parents were definitely smiling. 

Beaming, probably. 

“I’m going to buy that kid so much team-branded merch,” Matt said. “All blue. Only blue.”

Dad chuckled. “I’m sure Roland will genuinely appreciate that.”

“How many hats do you think one hospital goes through with its baby population every day?”

“This is why you answer the questions and don’t ask them, kid.”

“That’s a serious question.”

“Make sure you ask Lizzie that later.”

“Don’t ask Lizzie that later,” Mom countered, and the couch made another noise. “And it really was a good pass in the third.”

“Ah ha! I thought you said that wasn’t the point of the conversation!”

“I mean—not a huge point, but definitely a sidebar and,” her voice dropped low like there wasn’t another person sitting directly next to her, “Dad nearly destroyed the chair when he jumped out of it. So.”

“So?”

“So,” Mom echoed. “Something paternal.”

“Yuh huh.”

“Go back to sleep, Mattie.”

“Sure thing, Mom.”

She one-hundred percent narrowed her eyes at the air in front of her, several dozen blocks away, but Matt still wasn’t all that worried about getting grounded and the small flutter of feeling in the pit of his stomach didn’t disappear when he woke up the next morning. 

He only checked one of his text messages. 

Dad, 8:15 a.m. The chair would have deserved to get wrecked in celebration of that pass. I’m proud of you, kid.

Matt, 8:17 a.m. Something, something, you’ve got a pretty solid head start on best dad. 

Don’t tell Henry I said that. 

Dad, 8:18 a.m. The something really made the message. I will not tell Henry. 

And it all probably would have been fine — more photos of Noah while he was sleeping and being held and the group text had several thoughts on Roland’s technique when Lizzie sent a video of him rocking their kid back and forth in the middle of the hospital room. But then that same video got several gazillion retweets and likes and Matt had to go to film and skate and he didn’t really forget, but—

“Christ, Jones, is your phone going to explode?”

Matt shook his hair away from his eyes, tossing his practice jersey into the hamper a few feet away and it was a legitimate question. The stupid thing was buzzing and ringing at the same time, wobbling precariously on the top shelf of his locker, like it was getting ready to take flight.

He really needed to start checking who was calling before he answered the phone. Because Henry was already talking. 

On video. 

“Matt, Matt, Matt, listen, I need you to not check the group text and—“

“—Wait, what? Why do you sound like you’re out of breath?”

“Are you in the locker room?”

“I am in the middle of a series. I have skate and I need to go to PT and—“

“—Go in the hallway.”

“What?”

“The hallway,” Henry repeated, sounding as if he were issuing declarations or possibly grounding his own kids and Matt was twenty-nine. He needed to stop thinking about getting grounded so much. “Now.”

Matt widened his eyes, but Henry’s expression didn’t change, clearly tucked in the corner of a hospital with particularly aggressive overhead lighting. 

“Fine, fine,” he grumbled. It only took a few moments, not bothering to grab his sandals when he hadn’t even had time to take his socks off yet, slumping down the wall almost as soon as the sounds from the locker room dimmed behind him. “You look like you’re about to tell me that they’re taking away my assist from last night.”

“That was a ridiculous pass.”

“Ridiculous here, meaning—“

“Good, obviously,” Henry sighed, an obviously exhausted hand running over his face. 

“You sleep at all, old man? Where are your kids?”

“At my apartment? With my wife? What kind of question is that?”

“You’re really stressing me out.”

“Did you look at the group text yet?”

Matt shook his head slowly, some of that pleasant fluttering and general good that had made it easier to skate on such sore muscles disappearing. “I get the feeling I should have, though.”

“No, that’s—Matt, that’s the point. I—ok—“

The footsteps that moved down the hallway in a hospital with particularly aggressive overhead lighting in Philadelphia, weren’t all that loud — presumably because he hadn’t gotten much sleep what with having a baby to take care of, but then Matt also felt kind of bad about referring to Noah solely as a baby less than twenty-four hours after he’d been born and Roland looked torn between hysterics and…mostly hysterics. 

“Are you kidding me, Matthew?” he balked, sliding down next to Henry slowly enough that it took several moments for him to find his way into the phone frame. 

Matt arched an eyebrow. 

Henry sighed. 

“Seriously, why wasn’t this something I knew about?”

“Should you be out here? Shouldn’t you be like—I don’t know, documenting Noah’s every move or making sure Lizzie is—”

“—Lizzie told him to come out here for reasons we’ll get to that are not my fault,” Henry finished. 

Matt’s eyebrows could not get higher. 

And Roland rolled his eyes. “Ok, well, thanks for that vote of father-like confidence—“

“I’m not your father, Locksley, that sentence didn’t even make sense.”

“You want to acknowledge how cute my kid is…or?”

“Obviously,” Matt snapped, a weird counterbalance to the way the ends of his mouth tugged up. “He’s a super cute kid. I’m going to buy you twenty hockey sticks that are all legit, pro size.”

“I’m already kind of annoyed with you, so that’s not helping.”

“What could you possibly have to be annoyed with? Aren’t you just, I don’t know, buoyed by emotion and those father-like feelings?”

“Good use of the word buoyed,” Henry mumbled, Matt’s eyes flickering his direction. He still looked a little nervous. 

“What’s going on? I feel like I’m missing something.”

“Nah uh,” Roland objected, “you’re the one holding out on us, Matthew. It’s—how do you even play here?”

Matt tilted his head. The fluttering was gone completely, replaced by something that felt like entirely unwelcome dread and he nearly yanked several pieces of hair out of his head when he ran his fingers through it. 

Henry grimaced. 

“This is not my fault.”

“So you’ve mentioned.”

“I never told.”

“Yuh huh.”

“But, uh—ok, are you by yourself? Because…just maybe look at the group text and see what this stupid team did.”

Roland had to put his hand over his mouth. Presumably so he wouldn’t disturb the other babies. With his laughter. 

Matt wondered how long they were required to wear hats.

And it only took a few scrolls back for Roland to find it, brandishing his screen towards Henry’s — the whole phone call almost understandable because Chris had posted the video and he didn’t know, no one really knew, it was a stupid, childlike fear that he’d absolute, positively, shaken as a grown man with a very serious girlfriend he was really considering proposing to at some point and—

“Oh, fuck,” Matt gasped, pushing his arm out like that would stop the video from playing or the goddamn Flyers mascot from moving around so much in said video. 

Roland snickered. 

Matt squeezed his eyes shut, whatever filler music the Flyers had used in the video sounding impossibly loud. As if it were heightened by his fear 

Of goddamn Gritty. 

He was decorating a locker — streamers and balloons, every move making his stupid eyes rattle around because the eyes hadn’t changed in years and Matt still hated him with every fiber of his being. As if there were totally normal. 

The video didn’t end. 

It seemed to last forever, Gritty glancing back at the camera every few seconds — presumably just to remind Matt that his eyes defied the laws of gravity — but then the locker was decorated and the sign said Welcome Baby, Locksley and Matt could not remember the last time he took a deep breath. 

Roland had given up on trying to hide his laugh. 

“Why did that happen?” Matt hissed, rolling his shoulders like that would make him look more adult or less terrified of another grown adult in a costume. “You’re not even on this team anymore. You are—“

“—A beloved alum, it seems,” Roland alum. “Oh Captain, my captain and all that.”

“Isn’t he dead in that poem?”

“Honestly?”

Matt glanced at Henry, the color in his cheeks nothing do with embarrassment and more with Gritty. “This has taken a pretty morbid turn, don’t you think?”

“Why is the mascot decorating a locker that isn’t yours, Rol?” Matt demanded. 

“I’m very popular on this team. Still, or whatever. Plus, you know—the kid is exceptionally cute.”

“God, that’s not fair.”

“Say the kid is cute, Matthew.”

“Obviously I think the kid is cute. God, you are so annoying.”

“Tired,” Henry amended. “He’s tired.”

Roland nodded. “That too. And maybe a little delirious on like—I don’t know, joy? Is that lame?”

“Yes,” Matt nodded “But nice too. Dad said Gina cried.”

“Wept. Seriously. Shoulders shaking, sniffles. It was not dignified at all. Made the whole thing.”

“You’re a giant freak, you know that?”

“Lizzie’s going to call you later, she’s got—“

More footsteps. Those ones with a distinct squeak that came from those very specific shoes nurses wore and the woman smiled when she noticed both Henry and Roland. 

On the floor. 

“Mrs. Locksley is awake again,” the nurse said, “and, uh—well, she’d like to know why you didn’t wake her up if you were going to—“ Roland’s eyes widened. And Matt laughed that time. 

“She wants to know why they’re ragging me about the video without her, isn’t she?” he asked. 

The nurse nodded. 

“Maybe I should just ask her to marry me again,” Roland mused. “That’s romantic, right?”

“I mean the kid was a pretty good sign that you were into your own wife, honestly.”

“True, true, c’mon. I bet she’s got scathing opinions.”

She did. For several straight minutes, a gurgling Noah resting across her chest and that didn’t do much to stop Lizzie’s right hand from flying through the air while she talked. 

Matt chewed on his lower lip. 

“What I can’t understand,” Roland mused, slumped in one of the few chairs the hospital room seemed to offer, “is why we didn’t know you were so terrified of the mascot? You play here all the time.”

“Never came up.”

“Matt.”

“What? When would I have told you that? And would that not have ended with you trying to get me to run into the stupid thing every time was at Wells Fargo?”

“Eh, yeah, that’s probably true.”

“It’s one-hundred percent true,” Henry said. 

“And how did you know, exactly?”

“Oh, I’ve known forever. Matt was—I don’t know, little, little. Like a baby and Killian was on the road in Philly and he lost his mind when Gritty came on TV. Just one of those fundamental fears, I guess.”

“Is that a thing?”

“See,” Matt challenged, “we shouldn’t be talking about that stupid monster because then you’re going to mess your kid up after less than a day.”

Lizzie glared at him. “You’re a jerk.”

“I’m only going to buy you Rangers gear.”

“Please, you’re going to take it from the team store.”

“Eh, column A, column B.”

“Still stealing,” Roland muttered, head lolling back. 

“Whatever. Go to sleep. I’ve got to go back to the locker room and acknowledge PT and—“

“—A will yell at you if you blow that off,” Lizzie interrupted, her own eyelashes fluttering and Henry was already moving towards the door. “Just, you know, on principle.”

“I know, that’s why I’m trying to end this conversation with you.”

“Charmer.”

“Mmhm, hey you want to know a secret?”

Lizzie cracked open one eye. Noah was definitely already asleep. And still as cute as ever. “Did you cry?”

“How’d you know that?”

“Please,” she scoffed. “I know everything about you.”

“You did not know about Gritty.”

“I knew there was a reason you hated being on the ice for too long during warmups here. And it wasn’t that hard to put two and two together. Who do you think told Henry the message was in the group chat?”

“You were reading the group chat?”

“It was a genuinely insane pass last night. You guys going to win tomorrow?”

“An attempt will certainly be made.”

Lizzie laughed, soft and obviously exhausted, a heaviness to her that hadn’t been there before, but wasn’t altogether bad. Almost like she was more…something. Good. Protective. Maybe even understanding. 

“I will probably fall asleep during the game,” she warned. 

“Ah, well, you did just have a kid, so…”

“Exactly.”

A voice called for him from the other end of the hall, one side of Lizzie’s mouth ticking up when she slumped further into the hospital bed. “Score the kid a goal, huh?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

He did. In the third period. A quick stick and impossibly fast wrists, no mascot in New York to terrorize infants and Matt grinned when Claire found him outside the locker room later that night, a bag with a Rangers onesie clutched in her hand.  

[sp4c3-0ddity]

cliche “what I would do differently in season 8″ post

Warning:  contains plance and some kallura bias

Disclaimer:  my memory on the season (especially some details and the order of certain events) is already rather hazy, and this is more focused on characters and relationships than on plot, with which i was mostly pleased (and it’s probably crap besides)

all right here we go:

first of all when Hunk gives Lance the run-down of the Voltron tv show and mentions that it hints at romance between Keith and Allura, Lance doesn’t react except to maybe look uncomfortable. Hunk is surprised he doesn’t have anything else to say about it and wonders why he’s unusually subdued, and Lance admits Veronica (not Hunk, who’s more aware of the dynamics within the team) is encouraging him to ask Allura out. Hunk wonders what’s stopping him and Lance, still a little cagey about it, says he doesn’t know but decides he’s gonna...so he does and Allura accepts reluctantly with Romelle’s encouragement as portrayed

Pidge still agrees to go shopping with Allura but when it comes to bartering for the dress the Unilu fixates on her glasses as a “Voltron collectible”. she’s reluctant for a good second before admitting she never needed them anyway (implied they were an emotional crutch while her family was missing more than anything else) and handing them over

Coran still puts Lance through his paces but in a less humorous and more uncomfortable fashion that implies he might be a little out of his depth

after the mall Pidge, not wanting to return to her “imprisonment” on the eve of leaving Earth again, goes off to watch the sunset. Lance finds her, and at first she’s a little stiff until he teases her about her “appreciation” for something so mundane (to her). Pidge muses it’s not so mundane if it could be the last time she ever sees it, then wonders what he’s doing with her when he should be getting ready for his date, but before he answers Keith interrupts. Pidge takes the opportunity to leave (she’s still grounded and Romelle and/or Rizavi have probably suffered for covering for her). Lance properly apologizes to Keith for his antagonism

the date isn’t awkward, Lance’s family still likes Allura and she appreciates their warmth, but something is still wrong and, when they’re off alone. Allura looks like she’s on the brink of saying something (after the tree healing incident) when Lance confesses he’d liked her for a long time and had a good time with her that night but that he realizes they’re better as friends. Allura breathes a sigh of relief that she didn’t have to break his heart because she agrees and doesn’t really have time to dabble in a romance anyway and they share an amiable hug

Krolia (because i missed her) is in “Battle Scars” and makes the realization that they’re dealing with Ranveig’s monster and communicates a warning seconds before Keith does

in the Olkarion episode Pidge’s grief bonds her more strongly to the Green Lion, which is how she connects with the planet enough to view its last moments. Lance and Hunk show a bit more concern for her and both comfort her (Allura’s still with her most of the time and insists she’ll be safe with her when they go with Keith to deter the weblum). also the Olkari refugees contact the Coalition after the fact and Pidge (and the Holts) greets them and they all mourn Ryner and the rest that didn’t survive their planet’s destruction. Pidge carries the anger with her for most of the rest of the season (so she now has another personal stake in seeing Honerva defeated)

the team splits as Lance/Pidge and Allura/Hunk. Ezor is actually dead and Acxa made the whole thing up to get Zethrid to surrender, but the Olkari guy does repent after Pidge and Keith “chat” with him about his choices (i.e. survivor’s guilt when he learns Olkarion was destroyed) so he still saves the ATLAS’ crew’s butts later

Honerva doesn’t drain the Guardian but rather takes it hostage to siphon off its quintessence. she still retrieves Lotor’s body and Sincline and they’re still on the verge of slicing the Red Lion (i.e. Lance) - made more meaningful since they’re explicitly friends and not romantically entangled - when Allura’s about to spear Honerva

rather than Lance, Keith gives Allura reassurance (and there’s no “romantic” mush but Kinkade still rebukes Rizavi for spying on a private conversation). also Krolia is interviewed alongside Kolivan, ostensibly to remind him of things he might’ve forgotten. she’s also shown reacting to Coran’s...excessiveness; there’s a brief glimpse of Pidge and Lance playing the new game while Rizavi observes they’re at it again and wonders if they’ll let her play seeing as she helped Pidge procure it, right in time for Hunk to interrupt and ask if they’ll taste something for him

Allura says that, after some rest, she’ll remove the “entities” from the other Altean colonists (she never does because...the one she removed from Tova ends up in her). all of them (especially Coran) are reluctant to leave her for the Clear Day carnival but she insists they go (Keith maybe gives her one last look before agreeing). alongside Lotor she hallucinates versions of Keith (who says he senses no hostile intent from it and that Lotor did have good intentions so maybe she should trust him), Shiro (who reminds her that he once had a direct link to Haggar’s mind, but if she knows about it she can use it to her advantage), and Coran (who tells her she’d be honoring her father’s memory experimenting with something he once did) in turn. Allura, despite her skepticism because she knows this isn’t real, sees no recourse and promises them that she’ll give it up as soon as they no longer need it

meanwhile at the carnival Hunk and Keith still get stuck on the ride (it was a Highlight). callback to “Space Mall”, Lance and Pidge go off together. when she doesn’t get enough tickets to earn the “best” prize, Lance cheers her up by challenging her to a pricey and rigged carnival game that he almost wins...which is when Pidge suffers the family portrait for more tokens. they retry, Lance wins and relinquishes his prize to Pidge, who may or may not blush only to observe he might be a good sharpshooter after all

(Pidge and Hunk both question how Shiro won at arm-wrestling without an elbow)

Coran is the most adamant about Allura not using the entity, though the others are still doubtful. Keith confronts her properly about it after the meeting, but Allura shuts his protests down by saying they need to defeat Honerva even at the cost of one of their lives (possibly alludes to his near-sacrifice at Naxzela)

Lance has a “wtf” moment when his bayard turns into the sword. he and Alfor only talk briefly about his appreciation for Allura before telling him he really should train in using that thing

Alfor to Allura about Keith:  why is the red one in the Black Lion??

(possibly he also comments on his quintessence-sense...because someone should)

Trigel lowkey chides Pidge for neglecting her connections with people outside her family while also commenting on her kinda adoption of the Olkari

when Alfor is incredulous about Allura’s use of the entity (even Zarkon reminds her of the damage it caused) she insists it was the only way (Keith, internally:  i told her so); the Paladins, horrified, stop her from tormenting a younger Zarkon with the memories of what his older/possessed self did, and she has a moment where she’s incredulous about what she’s doing/what she’s become; she promises that she’ll happily destroy the entity once they reach the end of the line

Allura admits to Coran that she saw her father while in Honerva’s mindscape. Coran begs her one last time to release the entity only for her to admit she’ll need someone else’s help

and when she’s recovering (when was that in the season?? can’t remember) everyone visits her, but it’s Lance reassuring Keith that Allura will be all right rather than the other way around...and he admits to remembering the “bonding moment”, Keith is like i knew it and rubs it in Lance’s face while still seeming troubled

Pidge still assists Slav and Sam but Trigel’s (and Slav’s hehe) reprimand sort of sticks with her and before they do battle she tells her teammates how much they all mean to her (maybe prefaces it with “i’m not good with people but you guys taught me how to be better”). there’s a group hug, but Lance lingers and they hug properly while she tells him that he’ll do great and he says that he knows (and he means it)

Battle proceeds. Maybe a little trimmed down so Lance, at some point, can “properly” bond with the Red Lion

Allura shows Honerva her work and tells her they can fix it if only she releases the Guardian. Honerva agrees, but it’s not enough and Allura reluctantly admits a life must be given too (and that the entity must be destroyed), at which point her teammates (Keith’s loudest, again bringing up his near-sacrifice at Naxzela as the wrong answer) protest...and Honerva offers something, that she started this and that she’ll finish it too and that Allura should live the life she never got to. she even uses the last of her power to take back the entity

“one year later”, Allura is shown mourning the person Honerva (and Zarkon) was by erecting a memorial to Alfor and to the Alteans that perished when Zarkon destroyed the planet and when Lotor harvested the colonists’ quintessence. she mentions to a few former colonists that they should never forget the mistakes of the past but learn from them, and she’s shown with Romelle and Coran, who begins briefing her on what Keith’s been up to with the Galra...

Pidge is with Matt, finishing up Chip (eh might as well keep it). he teases her about being late to her “date”, but Pidge insists it’s not a date (because all her other ex-teammates will be there)

the seven of them reminisce

Pidge works with her family but she’s also an ambassador spreading science ideas around the universe. Lance is an instructor at the Garrison (he basically has Iverson’s old job probably), and they’re implied to be happily in a relationship. Keith’s fate is pretty much the same but it’s mentioned he gets inspiration from Allura and her memories of old Altea. ditto Hunk

the show ends with Allura’s coronation as queen rather than Shiro’s wedding (though it can be implied he, attending wearing his black Garrison uniform, met Someone at the celebration afterward), and the Lions flying their separate ways, ostensibly to return when the universe needs Voltron again

[b-kitsune]

Many ways to say I love you: Day Eight.

Kidge-a-palooza 2019 Prompt: Discourage. Pairing: Kidge (VLD) Universe: Lesbian!AU. Status: Part 1/2.

Keith was worried, and her heart trembled slightly when she couldn't see Pidge anywhere in the bar seats. She had stood up for five seconds to greet an old high school friend with whom she had lost contact for many years, and it was enough time to lose her among the sea of ​​people in that place.

Where the hell had she gone?

''Keith, is everything okay?'' She heard Hunk at her side when he watched her worried, she nodded with a growl coming out of her throat.

''Yeah, I've just lost sight of someone.''

''Awww, have you finally got a girlfriend after all these years? I'm very proud of you!''

''It's ... Actually a friend.''

She answered in a faint whisper that it cost Hunk to listen when they approached the bars for a drink. But he definitely didn't overlook the way she had said it. The girl who was missing at the bar was someone important to Keith.

''Will not you go find her?''

''No, she must be with Shiro on the terrace. If she had left, she would have called me.'' She answered without further ado while taking a sip of black vodka when it was delivered. While a curiously ornate drink came into Hunk's hands. Keith looked at him curiously.

''What? I like cocktails, they are cute and sweet.''

''Okay, I'm the least likely person to recriminate you for what you drink.'' Keith answered with a shrug.

''Is Shiro also in this bar too?''

Hunk asked interested, Shiro had been his martial arts teacher many years ago and remembered him with real appreciation. Keith's older brother was a kind and talented person who always knew what to say at the right time.

''Sure, although we prefer the less ... Noisy, we knew this place thanks to Allura, a friend of the university. And it has good music, unlike many others.''

''I see.'' Hunk drank a little more of his own cocktail.

''And what have you done? Since you moved to California, we didn't hear from you again, not even Lance knew about you.''

''Yeah, well ... It's been difficult years, my mother got sick and we had to take care of her. But everything is fine now.''

''I'm glad to hear it, buddy.''

Keith smiled in sympathy when Hunk began to talk about what he had done when he moved to his mother's hometown. She had missed him quite a bit in recent years, but she couldn't keep her concentration when Pidge's face rested on her thoughts in her mind.

She sensed that she was outside with Shiro, and she assumed that if she looked out the window Keith could see her smoking next to her brother, away from the noise inside.

The problem was that Pidge didn't want her company at that moment, she was rejecting her completely and Keith couldn't blame her.

However, it was all Lance's fault, not hers. Her stupid best friend turned out to be a terribly toxic relationship for the poor girl during the time they spent together, and Pidge's heart ended up shattered some months ago. He had thrown her the day when Pidge found him kissing with another girl in his apartment, the bastard didn't even apologize when she demanded explanations. Subsequently, Lance didn't even prove to be sorry when she was confronted the next day when things were a little calmer and Pidge needed to pick up some things she had left in his apartment when they spent some nights together.

Keith could be angry with Lance and want to break his face for making her cry, completely oblivious to how they were both becoming in the last time, but deep-down Keith knew that something like this would happen sooner or later. Lance had never shown any real interest in Pidge before they started dating, she was sure he didn't even know her real name.

It hurt to see Pidge through the corridors of the university labs with a stony, expressionless face, swallowing pain to perform in the final examinations as if nothing had happened. When in the background Keith knew that all she wanted to do was scream in pain for her beloved love.

And Keith ... She was lost in a stupid crush that would never be reciprocated.

She loved the foolish Katherine Holt from the day she saw her in an advanced physics class, she approached her with a random question and since then they began to get closer and closer, getting to introduce themselves to their own families. Pidge had congenial almost immediately with Shiro and her parents, and Keith had found a friendly rivalry with Matt when they met, the Holt family was always very kind to her when she visited them.

She had come to think illusively, that maybe her feelings could be reciprocated by that pretty girl with big glasses. But when she introduced her to Lance, she knew immediately that she would never have a chance with Katie Holt. Being rejected even before confessing.

Baby, I don't feel so good

Six words you never understood

Keith moaned audibly when she heard that song that resonated on the bar loudspeakers, preferring to go outside to light a cigar and stop complaining. Hunk preferred to remain silent and accompany her. Anyway, he had lost his friends for many hours, and being with Keith to relive old times was much more fun.

Four days has never felt so long

If three's a crowd and two was us

One slipped away

When Keith reached the door and lit the first cigar of the night, she felt that her chest was hit by a person. She was, in general, a fairly tall woman compared to the average, thanks to her mother's Russian heritage, so it used to happen regularly that low women tended to hit her by accident.

I just wanna make you feel okay

But all you do is look the other way, mm

But when she looked down, she realized it was Pidge who had decided to bury her face between her chest. While holding her tightly around her waist.

I can't tell you how much I wish I didn't wanna stay

I just kinda wish you were gay

Keith groaned defeated when her heart was painfully compressed, the damn girl was stupidly adorable without even trying. She had fallen so deep for her. Hunk for his part preferred to ignore them and go to Shiro when he saw him in the distance sitting in one of the chairs.

Is there a reason we're not through?

Is there a 12 step just for you?

Our conversation's all in blue

''Keith, I feel dizzy.''

''That's because you've been drinking too much, shorty.''

She responded like a big sister scolding her for her bad behavior, she was drunk up and could barely stay on her own feet. Keith looked up and saw Shiro laughing with Adam when he greeted Hunk in a warm embrace, the idiot hadn't realized how much Pidge had drunk while flirting with his co-worker.

To spare my pride

To give your lack of interest an explanation

Do not say I'm not your type

Keith took her by the waist with one hand, while with the other she took her cigar to exhale the smoke away from her face, walking towards an area where they wouldn't interrupt the way of the people who walked around. Pidge watched her, curious, with those big eyes full of life while leaning much more on the body of Keith.

''Keith, Keith ...'' She repeated, again and again when she staggered around her body, Keith breathed trying to find some patience. ''Why do you have a boy's name?''

''I already told you, my mother thought it was nice and neutral.''

''I like it.'' Without realizing, Pidge took her cigar to take a deep breath while briefly closing her eyes. Keith looked at her resignedly, had definitely drunk too much. ''It's strange, like you.''

''Thank you?'' Responded resentfully. So Pidge stroked the outline of her cheek with a downcast look.

''No, don't get mad, I mean I like it, like you. It's the best name ... I swear it.''

''I understand you, Pidge. It's okay.''

Just say that I'm not your preferred sexual orientation

I'm so selfish

But you make me feel helpless, yeah

Keith had to do something with Pidge's hands. She was being too cheeky stroking her while wiggling around her. She had to be patient, wherever she was, or else she could do something that would end their friendship. Keith couldn't help but, inside her mind, an inner voice told her that it was what she wanted, that she was tempting her to kiss her and take whatever she wanted from her.

I just wanna make you feel okay

But all you do is look the other way

I can not tell you how much I wish I did not want to stay

But Keith knew it was impossible. She told herself to discourage her real intentions. Even with Pidge's breath gently touching the contour of her collarbone, and her hands holding her waist tightly to try to bring her closer to her body, in a vain attempt not to fall cause of her drunkenness.

''You're the only good thing I have left in this life.'' Pidge said, dragging the words in her mouth. ''I'd be so lost if you left me, Keith... Never get mad at me, please.''

''I would never get mad at you.'' She answered while watching her take the last puffs of her stolen cigar. ''I love you so much to get away from me.''

''Seriously?'' Pidge asked temptingly, with a cheeky smile when she got closer and closer to her. ''How much do you love me, Keith? More than Lance?''

''Of course more than Lance!''

That name bothered her for a moment, seeing herself being compared to him didn't generate a good taste in her mouth, much less in a situation where she had so close to Pidge that the distance became tiny, almost reaching to taste her lips. If Keith was close enough, surely, she could ...

''You know? Every day I wonder ... Again, and again, something that hasn't let me sleep.''

''Oh yeah? What?'' Whispered, without breaking eye contact with those golden eyes that just kept open.

''Something that makes me think you would be mad at me if I told you ...''

''I will not get mad.''

''Because you love me.'' Pidge replied Keith nodded. ''But maybe... Sometimes when you're so good to me, I wonder ... How would it have been to kiss you instead of Lance that night ...''

''Kiss me ...'' Keith repeated, drinking from the image she had of Pidge at that moment, with her lips open, her face flushed, and her eyes needy. ''You are drunk.''

''Yes.'' Shrugged. ''But I also imagine it, again and again, as it would have been, and the next night, and the next, and the next ...''

Their lips collided as they both approached, gently, unhurriedly. Being so natural that at no time did they feel bad with the touch of the other. Slowly savoring the taste of their mouths, they held each other tightly when they felt the taste of black vodka and tobacco mingling with each other, like something toxic, intoxicating, suffocating in brief moments when they didn't go away in a long time.

I just wish you were gay

I just wish you were gay

Pidge closed her eyes, letting herself be carried away by the moment she had waited so long since she realized that her feelings weren't purely platonic. Keith never did, thinking that if she closed her eyes and lost the image of her at any moment, it would vanish like a broken dream.

I just wish you were gay

It was a kind and slow kiss, which was repeated that night before and after leaving the bar. Continued in Keith's apartment when they needed a little more privacy, and continued, again, and again, and again...

[vagrantblvrd]

(not!)Fic prompt: FAHC!Michael has seen *some important person from pre-criminal days* in LS and, even more unfortunately, they saw him and were glad to reconnect. How's the electrician business these days?

Wherein the important person is his BFF he met when they were kids.

This Kerry kid. (Because I love the early AH videos with him in them.)

He was smaller than Michael and quiet enough that bullies zeroed in on him every damn time. And Michael learned early on he had no fucking tolerance for those kind of assholes.

It wasn’t like Kerry couldn’t take care of himself just fine on his own. Could come up with these wonderful little schemes that had the bullies landing themselves in trouble, but that wouldn’t stop the assholes from picking on him in the moment. (Didn’t stop them from stealing his lunch money or shoving him down when they were little, getting meaner the older they got and realized Kerry was A Problem to them.)

And Michael, okay.

He’s got a great scowl, a better glare, and an amazing right hook.

Taught the bullies that sure, Kerry was trouble on his own. Would find a way to make them sorry sooner or later, but Michael? Bet your ass he’d make you sorry right fucking now if he caught them hassling Kerry.

It was always this joke between them, because Kerry wasn’t helpless, twisty little mind aside. Took some martial arts lessons once, got real interested in parkour after seeing some videos or whatever.

Michael knows he can take care of himself, so it turns into this joke that Michael’s his White Knight and all that, and it’s great. (Embarrassing at times when their other friends lay it on thick, but whatever.)

But then they get older and Michael starts getting involved in sketchy shit. Starts out with this job working for a friend of the family who happens to be an electrician. Does a lot of shit that – technically speaking – he shouldn’t because he doesn’t have the right certifications/whatevers for it, but his boss and coworkers teach him on the side.

Gets paid under the table because it’s a favor, right?

But then his boss asks him for another favor, running messages and making side deliveries and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on after a while.

Still, the money’s good and he keeps his mouth shut.

But Kerry’s getting curious/suspicious because Michael starts to shut him out. Doesn’t want Kerry getting involved because Kerry’s one of those people who’s Going Somewhere, okay? Michael can tell.

He’s got a talent for writing. Wants to work in film or television, maybe both one day.

Michael gets sucked deeper into things of questionable legality and pushes Kerry away at the same time until he gets caught up in something big. No chance to back out because he knows too much and there are ~subtle threats made against his family if he tries to go to the cops, so he goes along with it and it’s the most terrifying thing he’s ever been involved in.

(He doesn’t kill anyone – not then, but he sees the aftermath of what the assholes he’s tangled up with have done and knows he’s fucked his life up but good this time.

Works with that gang – he’s in a fucking gang - until some rival gang comes through and kills the lot of them. Just miss him because he was out running an errand or leaving a message for someone and came back to fine the place up in flame.

And then he fucking runs for it.

Makes up some bullshit reason for his family – and runs. Takes what money has has saved up, raids a few stashes/caches his gang had around town and gets the hell out.

Bounces around from gang to gang, crew to crew until he hits Los Santos and the Fakes eventually pick him up.

He’s more cynical, jaded now. Done a  lot of shit he never thought he would – could – do and worse, and at first he thinks the Fakes are going to be more of the same. (They’ve got the goddamned Vagabond with them, of fucking course they’re going to be more of the same, if not worse.)

But then there’s Jack, and Jeremy. Gavin when he comes back from a job for Burnie, favor for an old friend. Lindsay and Trevor and Matt. The rest of B-Team and Alfredo just showing up one day. All these idiots that make him realize they’re different from everything he’s used to.

Stops expecting the worst from them – notices how careful they are about things when it comes to him. Not coddling him, but careful, like they give a fuck about him as anything other than an attack dog or weapon to point at their enemies.

Sees the way the damn Vagabond is so at ease with them, this guy he’s heard stories about for fucking ever who will bicker good-naturedly with everyone, let Gavin pull him into the stupidest arguments. Get excited about the dumbest shit with Jeremy. (Fucking calls them the Battle Buddies, what the fuck???)

And then!

He’s casing an art gallery for a future heist when he bumps into this guy.

Short, mouse-quiet, and so polite -

“Michael?”

His heart fucking stops in his chest for a moment because it’s fucking Kerry.

This little idiot who used to give Michael shit just because, sly little smile and glint in his eyes and that dumb laugh of his.

Best friend since they were little, and what are the fucking odds???

But Michael can’t make a scene, come off as suspicious when the crew’s been planning this heist for ages and if he blows it they’re not going to be happy.

So he plays the game, right.

Doesn’t have to pretend to be shocked to see Kerry because he is, but everything after that is an outright lie of not heavily edited.

Tells him he’s got his life together now (he does), has a great job (he does), and good friends and the whatnot out here. (He does, even if they’re all assholes.)

Kerry gets this wistful little smile because he’s honestly glad for Michael, but the whole Michael being an asshole to him and his family for their own fucking good way back when.

Tells Michael he’s in Los Santos to meet with studio executives and the whatnot about some scripts he’s been shopping around, isn’t that great, Michael???

It so totally is, but Michael is kind of panicking because Kerry’s also telling him he’s been looking for a place to live in Los Santos because he can’t keep flying back and forth the way he’s been.

Because wow, all of the lies Michael’s just given to Kerry will unravel the next time the Fakes make the news and Michael’s old mugshot hits the screen. (Surveillance videos and the whatnot as well. Whatever footage the have of him from the latest clusterfuck of a heist.)

Is trying to find a way out of the conversation when one of the others calls him to ask how it’s going and he uses it to escape.

Thinks that’s the end of things with Kerry, that he’s going to find out about Michael’s shitty lying ass on the news like everyone else, but then!

They keep running into one another and Kerry guilts Michael into meeting him for lunch one day and Michael can’t weasel his way out of no matter how he tries.

Dresses ~incognito with a hoodie and big stupid sunglasses he borrowed off Gavin. (Not the gold-framed monstrosities he’s so fond of but something almost as terrible and ungodly expensive.)

Pretty obvious he’s trying NOT to be noticed, and Kerry invited him to the kind of place various movie stars and the whatnot go to sometimes, paparazzi lurking outside like vultures hoping to catch a glimpse of some of them.

Michael gets looks, everyone trying to figure out if they know him from something – he looks familiar, don’t you think? - when he pull the hood down and takes the sunglasses off because the lighting inside is too dim to keep them on.

Kerry keeps shooting him these little looks but he doesn’t ask about it and Michael doesn’t offer any explanations.

They have a lovely lunch wherein Michael realizes Kerry knows more about what happened with Michael than he expected, but before he can ask Kerry what the fuck he thinks he’s doing his phone rings.

It’s some minor crew crisis they need his help with, and he makes his escape yet again.

REALLY doesn’t expect to see Kerry again after that, but a week or so later Gavin and Jeremy go out to grab this super specific car they need for the heist.

Problem is, the driver refuses to budge (and also name drops Michael). Bewildered and slightly alarmed by this turn of events they bring the guy back to the warehouse/wherever the crew is working out of at the time and -

“Hey, Michael!”

It’s Kerry.

It’s fucking Kerry.

Kerry who seems completely unfazed by being abducted (carjacked???) by the Fakes or seeing Michael (voluntarily) working with them.

“Uh, yeah,” Jeremy says, all awkward like. “There was a situation???”

Everyone looks at Michael who is just OH SHIT and having flashbacks t the times when he worked with assholes who threatened his family and loved ones. Threatened Kerry, this idiot who’s one of the stupidest smart people he knows. (Michael knows a lot of people like that really. Just look at his crew for God’s sake.)

“So anyway,” Kerry says, after introducing himself to the others. “We were interrupted at lunch the other day? I didn’t get to tell you about this script I’ve been working on for years now.”

Since high school even, and the moment he starts talking everyone else is like OH SHIT because look, okay.

Kerry script is about these two dumb kids who were BFFs until one of them got into trouble – got in over their head.

And this idiot, okay, this idiot thought the only thing he could do to protect his family and loved ones was to push them away even as he got deeper and deeper into trouble.

Michael’s told the crew enough about his past to realize Kerry is nowhere in the neighborhood of being subtle about this, is in fact really fucking mad, so they clear the hell out to let Michael handle things.

Michael watches the cowards run (doesn’t blame them, but fucking hell they could have taken him too, okay) and then looks back at Kerry who’s run out of steam.

Got to the bit where the friend left behind starts to piece things together just as they graduate from college. Thanks to the passage of time and whatnot he’s got the right perspective to look back and realize something Wasn’t Right with his BFF. That he’s been looking for answers for a long fucking time, managed to alienate people who thought Michael just turned into an asshole, showed his true colors at last. Finally got a solid lead, and wouldn’t you know it, his career path after college leads him right where he needs to be. Gives him the perfect cover – everyone knows Los Santos is crime-ridden, that people like him are looking for that next big script studios will fight over. Love a good crime-suspense-whatever thriller, so him poking into things won’t seem too out of character or draw too much suspicion.

“I, uh. Haven’t figured out the ending?” Kerry says, because it all depends on Michael who is just -

“What.”

Kerry acts like he has no idea what Michael’s on about and rambles about changing names and locations, fudging some details but everyone who knows them even a little bit will know it’s about them.

“You fucking idiot,” Michael says, because Kerry -

He’s not horrified at what Michael’s become, or maybe he’s ignoring the ugly parts – maybe he he just doesn’t know.

Whichever it is, he shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t have tried to look for Michael (because look at him and tries to get him to leave, scare him off but Kerry knows him too well. Trusts that Michael would never knowingly hurt him (when he’s not being a complete idiot) and that he sure as  won’t kill him.

“Yeah, so,” Kerry says, and squints up at Michael. “What do you think about it?”

Michael thinks Kerry’s a goddamned idiot, and he tries to convince him to leave, forget he ever saw Michael -

“Uh, that’s not going to work?”

Because word got back to some studio heads that Kerry was seen with this guy who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mogar, and does Kerry know if he’d be interested in this move about the Fakes? (They’ve searched everywhere but no one comes close to the kind for the kind of presence they want, and people say that guy had it, you know? They’re willing to offer Kerry a job working on the script or whatever if he can.)

“What.”

Kerry just laughs because yeah, no, he shut that down real fast, but!

He did get an offer to work on a script for a made for TV movie about the Fakes (WHAT) and did Michael know there are other projects about them in the works? Amazing, really.

Michael has no idea what’s going on anymore, and that’s when the others come back and Kerry tells them all about the various film and tv projects about them and they’re all weirdly interested.

Fucking Ryan perks up because hey, theater background and does Kerry know when the casting calls for these projects go out???

It devolves into the weirdest fucking day of Michael’s life – which, you know, is saying a lot since he got suckered into joining the Fakes – and Kerry totally laughing at him.

(Michael doesn’t miss the way the tension Kerry’s been holding the whole damn time starts to ease up as he gets to know the others, realizes there’s a reason Michael’s been with them as long as he has. One that doesn’t have a damn thing about being scared of them or for his family and loved ones being used against him by them.)

Eventually he manages to convince Kerry to go back to his hotel under the promise of meeting with him again. (As long as Kerry keeps his trap shut about the heist and so forth, which he does.)

When the heist is over Michael goes to meet with Kerry, has lunch at some posh little cafe and this time he notices the attention they get.

Since the initial reunion months back Kerry’s gotten something of a name around town. Has a show in the works and studios are fighting over that script of his – this shit-eating smirk on his face when he tells Michael about it. (Also tells him if he wants to know how it ends he might be able to get him into an early screening before it comes out??? >:DDDDDDDD)

Michael is so Annoyed at Kerry, but the little idiot’s successful the way he knew he would be and try as Michael does, he can’t stop him from popping up around the penthouse or wherever else the crew is hanging out.

Proves to Michael he knows damn well “what Michael’s become” and doesn’t give a damn about any of it because he’s still Michael, isn’t he.

Is so fucking sorry he wasn’t there to help when Michael needed him the way Michael was always there for him before, but he wants to make up for it now if Michael will let him.

Michael’s like NO, but Kerry’s insistent and hard to say no to and eventually he just gives up trying to keep him out of shit because Kerry’s just not having it this time around.

Gets to know the others and may or may not pull strings to get Ryan a role on his show – recurring – or an audition for one of the Fake AH crew projects.

Ironically, the casting director and whoever else don’t think he has that je ne sais quoi the Vagabond has? But he’s perfect for the role of Beardo or the Golden Boy depending on the projects. Either way he’ll have to cut his hair for the part(s) if he signs on.

Everyone loses it over that, and the whole Team Same Voice thing gets way out of control for a while, because idiots.

Kerry is for how realistic/dark and gritty his scripts and the whatnot are and never ever lets on that’s because they’re all based on stories the crew tells him.

And then!

When the main idiots decide to retire, let B-Team take up the mantle from them, Kerry ends up working on this documentary project about the Fakes. Funded by the Fakes themselves through a shell company or whatever and all the segments of interviews where the interviewees fae is blurred out and voice is modulated to hide their identity?

The actual Fakes, from the main six on down to B-Team, and it’s like those moments in reality shows where the cast tears into one another like they think no one’s going to find out what they said.

It’s glorious and chaotic and gets mixed reviews because people think Kerry made everything up – that it’s an experiment, and is just a bunch of paid actors going off-script or working with a terrible one?Kerry and the Fakes are freaking dying over all of it because it’s basically a confession to every fucking crime they ever pulled in Los Santos and half the world thinks it’s a joke.

And then, idk, shenanigans?

Someone realizing years and years after the fact that that one mystery actor who was seen with Kerry was actually the real Mogar. That Kerry had close ties with the Fakes for years and the “actors” in that documentary of his was actually the whole fucking crew pulling one last joke on the world.

Meanwhile, everyone’s living up on some tropical island they bought years ago and safe from the cops of FIB or whoever.

~ The End ~

[calligraphist-artemisia]

Lets Make a Date

Summary: Pidge invites Lance to join her and some family friends for dinner, but neglects to tell him that one of those friends is the renowned pilot of the Kerberos Mission, Takashi Shirogane. (An AU where the Kerberos Mission succeeded and the Galra never captured the crew.)

Pairing: Shance, mildly Kidge

Also posted on AO3 and fanfiction.net (under the username “kishirokitsune”)

I got a request for a fic where Lance has a huge crush on Shiro (in addition to his hero-worship) and couldn’t resist. This was just too much fun to write!

Lets Make a Date

-

“You should have dinner with me tomorrow,” Pidge told him. “Matt and I are going out with some family friends and I could use someone on my side who won't bring up embarrassing childhood stories.”

And Lance, like a fool, had agreed to it without question, figuring it was just dinner with Matt and Pidge. Nothing could go wrong with that. Pidge would definitely warn him if she was inviting him to dinner with, say, famed astro-pilot Takashi Shirogane.

Oh wait.

That was exactly something she would do, because she was simultaneously the best and worst friend ever. (She was, of course, tied for that position with Hunk, who was his BFF and always would be.)

It was too late for him to panic. Too late to work out an excuse as to why he couldn't make it. By the time he realized who he was having dinner with, he was already standing across from Takashi Shirogane.

“Call me Shiro, please,” he said, politely reaching out for a handshake.

Lance wondered if anyone else could tell that he was trembling slightly as he took Shiro's hand. “I'm gay. I mean Lance! I'm Lance!”

Oh no.

Oh no.

A burst of heat rose to his cheeks, growing worse when Pidge nudged him with a knowing grin. The man next to Shiro covered his mouth and coughed discretely in an attempt to hide his amusement.  (Holy crow, it was Keith. Of course it was Keith there to witness him making a complete and utter fool of himself. He'd never live it down.)

Shiro's smile was kind. “It's nice to meet you, Lance.”

After that mortifying introduction, Lance gratefully sat down between Pidge and Matt, glad to keep some distance between himself and Keith, who sat on the other side of Pidge. Unfortunately, that still left Lance directly across from Shiro.

Glaring at Pidge proved ineffective, as she merely winked at him and then turned to strike up a conversation with Keith.

The traitor.

“You know, Shiro, Lance is a pilot as well,” Matt said.

Nope.

Lance was done.

He was one-hundred percent done with anyone with the last name “Holt”. They were all determined to get him to make a fool of himself. Well, he wasn't going to allow it. He wasn't going to play their games. He wasn't-

“Really?” Shiro asked, leaning forward in interest.

Lance wanted to sink into the floor. “I'm just a cargo pilot. It's not a big deal,” he mumbled, shrugging it off.

But Shiro continued to look at him as though he was someone fascinating and worth talking to more; as though a simple cargo pilot was someone important. Lance flushed under the attention.

“I wouldn't say that. Cargo pilots are the backbone of the Galaxy Garrison. Without you, no one would be able to do their job,” Shiro said. “You never know what you'll be asked to transport – it could be delicate technology or food supplies. Important equipment that needs to arrive swiftly and safely. There's a lot you have to take into consideration, and that's no small task.”

Lance could feel his blush spreading across his cheeks, burning its way to his ears. That was honestly the nicest thing he'd ever heard someone say about his job, and he could tell that Shiro genuinely meant every word.

“I guess so... It's just, I always wanted to be able to see parts of space that no one else has. To be someone people look up to,” Lance admitted. “Being a cargo pilot is okay, but it's not my dream.”

Shiro smiled. “Well, I can't promise it's all as exciting as you hope. It's a long road to get assigned the types of missions you want, but I think you have the drive to do it. Don't give up. Not if it's something you really want.”

The waitress interrupted before Lance could come up with a good response, and soon after the focus became what to order.

“Pasta or steak?” Pidge quietly mused next to him.

“Shiro and I are paying, so get whatever you'd like. We are here to celebrate, after all,” Matt told them.

Lance looked up from his menu. “Wait, what are we celebrating?”

“Katie has been picked as Keith's flight partner,” Shiro said, sounding proud as he looked at the two of them.

“Picked. Marched to Iverson's office to demand she be paired with Keith. Same difference,” Matt said with a cheeky grin.

Pidge's blush as she pretended not to hear Matt was definitely something worth investigating. But later. Maybe he'd wait a few days and then bring it up just to watch her sputter. It sounded like appropriate revenge for: (a) neglecting to inform him that Shiro was eating with them, and (b) not telling him the dinner was to celebrate.

(And also, he needed a little more time to process what was happening to his left, because seriously? She had a crush on Keith of all people? Keith, with that stupid haircut and horrendous fashion sense? Pidge had the worst taste.)

“Well, I guess that explains why Admiral Sanda looked like she was about to start spitting fire. She was pushing hard for you to be matched with Griffin,” Shiro remarked.

Pidge crinkled her nose. “I think I'd rather drop out.”

Keith looked at her as though she was the most incredible thing he'd ever seen, and Lance had never been happier to see a waitress return with their tray of drinks, because if he had to watch that for much longer he knew he'd say something regrettable.

Lance gave his order first, and while the others were giving theirs, he pulled out his phone to secretly text Hunk.

To: Hunk | So did u no about Pidge and mullet being flight partners?

Hunk responded almost immediately. 'Yeah, Pidge told me this morning. How's dinner? I wish I could be there.'

To: Hunk | Weird. P sure they're flirting now. Am I in the twilight zone? Am I dreaming??

To: Lance | Nah, if it were one of your dreams Shiro would be shirtless. He's not, is he? Because that would be weird. And inappropriate.

Lance's fingers spazzed over the touchscreen, punching a bunch of letters. 'asdfghjlkajs'

To: Hunk | No

To: Hunk | how do u no that?

To: Hunk | u knew???

To: Hunk | u knew and u didn't tell me????

To: Hunk | friendship over.

Hunk waited until Lance was finished with his panic texting and then responded with one final message: 'Lol, we knew it was the only way you'd show up. You're welcome.'

Lance scowled at his phone.

“Is everything alright, Lance?” Shiro asked.

“Fine!” Lance's voice went a little higher pitched than he liked. “I'm fine. I just, uh – Hunk, our friend, is texting me. That's all.”

“He's in the engineering department, right? You know, if you want to go into space, you'll need a good engineer. Someone you can work well with. Being a pilot isn't a solo gig,” Shiro advised.

Lance shook his head. “Nah, Hunk hates flying. Though...”

Actually, it wasn't a bad idea. Hunk would need to figure out how to handle his motion sickness at some point and there was no one he'd rather team up with than his best buddy. He should probably consider a back-up plan, but the thought of working together with Hunk was so appealing.

He glanced up at Shiro, who was still smiling at him. “I'll think about it. Thanks, Shiro.”

“It's no problem. And if you need any help, just let me know. I wouldn't mind lending you my old notes or any tips I've learned over the years,” Shiro said.

Holy crow. He had to be dreaming.

Lance wasn't sure if he even managed another intelligent response for the rest of dinner. There was so much to think about. So many possibilities. His heart raced at the thought of it all.

For so long he'd held Shiro up as a beacon of what he wanted to be. It'd been full hero-worship when he first started at the Garrison, and after seeing the man around campus a number of times, had budded into a tiny crush. But sitting there and listening to him joke around with Matt and Pidge and watching the brotherly affection he shared with Keith, he became something much more real to Lance.

And as dinner came to a close and they all began to go their separate ways, Lance found that he didn't feel as nervous anymore. Before he left, he even managed a proper: “It was nice to meet you, Shiro.”

Five minutes into his walk home, his phone buzzed with a message from Pidge.

To: Lance | Shiro thinks you're cute and I gave him your number. ;)

Lance grinned the rest of the way home.

[theinquisitivej]

SteamHeart Episode 19 Reactions

Chapter 19: The Woman on the Zinc Mine

The final cover of SteamHeart is really something else - and yes, I’m going to be using it more for these posts as I go on.

You can listen to the full episode here.

         Having arrived in Missouri, the party make their way to the zinc mines where “Agent Z” resides. Abigail is uneasy as she assesses the fortifications, reminding herself of her time at Weirwood where, due to her position as one of Katherine’s most trusted seconds, protection and fortification of a small-scale settlement and its population was a daily concern that she became heavily involved with. Abigail knows what’s needed to keep a residence safe from those who would take advantage of isolated settlements cut off from the protection of densely inhabited civilisation, and the appearance of the yard in front of them doesn’t reassure her. They’re shown in by Jae-Hyun, a stoic gentleman who cuts a striking figure in his bowler hat. As he asks them not to get his boss too excited before introducing her, we see the bone-collecting, piano-playing, enterprising Tabitha for the first time in a long, long while. We see why Jae-Hyun said what he did when she steps out in the late stages of pregnancy, telling us that while Jae-Hyun may be rather serious and stern in character, he is nevertheless deeply caring and protective of the woman he works for.

         Abigail once again demonstrates her open affection for the people she forms connections with, being the first to greet Tabitha, immediately stepping forward to excitedly, but tenderly hug her friend who she hasn’t seen in ages. Tabitha tells her and the group that, while there are other mines here and there, she’s proud to say that hers is the source of most of the zinc that gets sent to the government. Hearing this and the way she discusses the state of things at this site she has taken responsibility for is impressive as hell, and another fine example of New Century continuously providing us with examples of inspiring women in positions of power who have a real aptitude for it. It’s also especially encouraging to learn that Tabitha has achieved all of this during her pregnancy. First, that’s an impressively short timescale for her to have set all this up. And second, I appreciate this story showing us a female character whose agency isn’t suddenly taken away once she’s pregnant. Tabitha had a goal in mind, and she was highly motivated to make it a reality; her pregnancy is obviously a big deal, and it will undoubtedly affect things moving forward, but it doesn’t change her drive or her capability, and that’s really cool to see.

         We get set up with something akin to a sidequest, though it’s a sidequest that aligns with the group’s main journey as they set out for Wind Doors to study and interact with. Tabitha’s running low on people to secure this place, and the supply line has been interfered with by groups who either want to profit off the zinc, or otherwise just cause trouble and have their way. She’s called for help multiple times, but nothing’s come of it. Tabitha suggests she show the group the local Wind Door, and then they can move on to Jefferson to request a garrison for backup. The problem, however, is that while Tabitha and her group have held out up till now, she’s weeks, possibly even days away from giving birth, and the crew of SteamHeart aren’t planning on leaving her, particularly James, as the only doctor at hand. What with this being fiction, I’m inclined to agree that odds are Tabitha will go into labour right as the group comes under attack.

         We move on to a section narrated by Jeremy; the group’s first encounter with a Wind Door. The journey of this sequence is powerful and compelling. Jeremy’s anticipation as he approaches a portal to another world, the manifestation of everything that drives him, is intensely felt as he describes the scene as if he were looking at the most beautiful painting. You get the impression that, even if he wasn’t recording his thoughts like this, this majestic scene of something singular and otherworldly being hidden in this obscure corner of the world would nevertheless be burned into his memory forever. The conversation about finding/making a ladder tall enough for someone to reach the portal makes it plain, however, that even if what would happen next did not occur, his dream of throwing himself at the portal and seeing what happens next was an impossibility. Jeremy chides himself for not thinking of bringing a ladder, but the truth is it would be unlikely for a 30 foot step-ladder to exist, making one would take time they don’t have, and, even if they did manage all of that, they still wouldn’t be able to chance someone inadvertently falling through the other side, presumably to their death, considering the height of the Wind Door. There’s too many factors at play which make the tantalising idea of touching this door to another world an impossibility. When Abigail begins to close the portal (looking absolutely striking as she does so with her billowing green coat and red hair as she channels her dormant powers, in an act that’s very akin to the most memorable Jean Grey moments), it pains Jeremy and the curious reader. The music combines with his narration to create a sense of something amazing happening, but at the cost of another amazing thing being taken out of this world forever. My favourite line is a simple one; as Abigail exclaims “I’m doing it!” with a great effort as she closes the portal, Matt Wardle’s delivery of Jeremy’s comment “And she really was” conveys the character’s recognition of his teammate’s achievement, and that, despite his disappointment at coming so close but falling short of his own goal, he is compassionate towards others and genuinely acknowledges what a feat Abigail is managing. The story near the beginning of SteamHeart in which the young Jeremy turns back home midway through his journey to a potentially wondrous sight for the sake of his friend told us that, for as much as Jeremy is intensely driven by his desire to see the magical and the indescribable, he does not put the safety and happiness of others before his own ambition. He demonstrates that again here, acknowledging the success that Abigail has achieved. Though it is hard not to feel some of his regret as he looks back at the site as they leave to get Tabitha back home, remembering the beautiful picture that was there a few moments ago, and now only seeing a place like any other. Its “out of date flag” shows just how forgotten by the world this place is, and how the Wind Door it once housed now has that same status of being a thing of the past.

         So yeah, no time to celebrate the portal being closed and thereby proving that this mission is doable and their struggles aren’t all for nought – Tabitha’s gone into labour! Luckily a doctor is at hand with James present, which very nearly wasn’t the case before the team showed up. So, with any luck, this should all go relatively smoothly and without any interruption, right?

…anyway, the team return to the mine and set Tabitha up in her bedroom. Hours pass, and gradually the room is reduced to just Tabitha and James as they head into a long night together. Harry enters, and asks to speak with Tabitha alone. Before James leaves, however, she intercepts him to ask a question which catches him off-guard; will he and Abigail get married one day? I mean, it’s definitely a question that’s been on shippers, er, I mean readers and listeners’ minds, so I’m just glad someone came out and asked it straight out. This scene is relayed via James’ narration, and in addition to the answer he gives Harry, we also get a glimpse of what’s been on his mind – how Abigail closed the portal on her own while he could do nothing, reinforcing the impression James has of him being “surplus to requirement” next to Abigail when it comes to their shared endowment. The pragmatic James is finding it difficult to come to terms with his inability to contribute in any way to a task of such great importance, and the good doctor seems to feel so much responsibility, whether it’s for lives that could’ve been saved if he had made different decisions, or for his patients, or for the condition he has been given. What good is this ability if it does nothing but hinder his skills as a doctor? All of these thoughts make a prospective relationship with Abigail difficult for James to envision, so he tells Harry no, thinking that his response has disappointed her. But…hmm. I’m not so sure.

         James leaves, and the role of narrator passes to Tabitha. She doesn’t have much of an idea what Harry would want with her, focusing on trying not to lash out when her next contraction comes around. Harry works her way to what she really wants to ask Tabitha, commenting on how she’s having this baby without a man around, how that’s not wrong and in fact really freaking brave, and finally tries to confirm her suspicions by asking Tabitha if she likes men, anticipating the answer to be no. The conversation that follows is sweet, wholesome, and just very healthy to hear. Tabitha plays the role of a really helpful schoolteacher – like, the kind of schoolteacher who should exist and should be teaching young people everywhere about the range of sexual orientations that exist and makes young developing people feel less awkward and less alone for feeling differently to heteronormative peers. Tabitha gently asks Harry if she’s feeling conflicted, not pushing her in any direction, but giving her the chance to air what’s been on her mind and in her heart.

         We listen to Harry as she reasons out what she’s been feeling, thinking that she’s expected to land a husband, and, if that was to be the case, then James fit the bill pretty well as someone she respects and who exhibits many of the qualities she likes in people, such as kindness, intelligence, and politeness. But even with all that on paper, the key ingredient of buzzing attraction isn’t there for her, unlike how it is with… well, when the conversation turns towards Abigail, and her pre-existing relationship with Tabitha, it becomes clear who Harry really has a thing for. Tabitha confesses that she and Abigail “spent a little time together” when they last saw each other, which, okay, is a surprise! Not that they would get together for a bit, as the way Abigail talked with Tabitha and thought about her, you could certainly see an attraction there. I guess I just never put two and two together and figured out that they might already have hooked up (and that explains Abigail’s hushed comments earlier on in the episode when she says that if she’d had known Tabitha was pregnant when they met, she would have done…something, differently).

         Anyway, Harry’s excited to hear Abigail likes boys and girls, and now says that yes, she really does have a crush on Abigail. Have I mentioned before that shipping can be so much fun in your favourite ongoing storylines with casts of lovable, fully formed characters? Well it is, and this is great, I love it. What I don’t love is the sad fact they go over next – that America’s current laws state that women aren’t allowed to marry other women. That, and the moment of tearful resignation Harry shows as she believes she can’t marry who she wants and must instead marry a man, are both heart-breaking. But fortunately, Tabitha is there to tell her that that’s not at all the case. In fact, there are other things she can do, either with herself or together with other women. Harry’s inquiring mind and aptitude for breaking difficult concepts down and understanding them as a series of mechanics drives her to ask Tabitha for guidance on being intimate with another person. A contraction comes at this moment, as Tabitha had expected, but instead of this making her hostile to Harry as she had feared it would, Harry holds her to support her through it, and when given an out when James comes back in to ask if she needs help, she reassures him and tells him to leave them alone for a little while longer. The music is calming as these two women talk, and we depart this scene, leaving the rest of the conversation to them as Tabitha continues to help Harry grow more comfortable with who she is and who she wants.

[douxreviews]

Star Trek: Discovery - ‘Brother’ Review

"Space: The Final Frontier. Above us, around us, within us. We have always looked to the stars to discover who we are."

By nature I love brevity: Star Trek: Discovery takes a long, clean breath of fresh air in this big, bold premiere that sheds the burdens of Season One and lets them roll down the hill behind.

Star Trek: Enterprise was canceled in 2005. And in the Fall of that year, as shows premiered, fans were faced with a sad reality: for the first time in 28 years, a new season of Star Trek was not among them. And for 12 years, this continued. And then we Discovered a new frontier. Breaking the silence of more than a decade, Star Trek: Discovery was a sign that Trek was not dead.

But of course, it was not without its flaws. Discovery Season One had issues with its tone and its dialogue. The crew, above and beyond their stilted, grandiose speech, rarely seemed like a family, or even a group of people who like each other. And the levels of anxiety and brooding were at dangerously high levels. We're talking Superman from Batman v. Superman levels of anxiety and brooding.

The fans pointed out these issues, though the good parts still remained (excepting the 'fans' who actively went out of their way to be openly hostile towards the series, its creators, and its viewers). And the team behind Discovery listened. 'Brother' benefits from a light and relaxed tone that feels like the lifting of a heavy curtain. The crew speaks in a generally human and natural manner, and they work together like a tight family. Brooding is nowhere to be seen, and the anxiety present is of a different sort than the cloud of deep worry that permeated Season One. Instead the viewer felt more of an empathetic concern about the characters and their lives.

The first and most immediate effect of 'Brother' is, in fact, to distance the show from its past mistakes. Associating these issues with the influence of Captain Lorca makes a lot of sense from a story perspective, even if the creators' insistence that all the darker elements were only a result of him doesn't quite sit right. From the outset, Captain Pike makes it clear that he is very different from Lorca. Everything about his manner and bearing suggests a completely different man from Jason Isaacs' power-hungry warmonger. But Pike is no Kirk, either, as one might anticipate. Anson Mount gives his Pike a humility and a grounded feel that Kirk never quite developed.

The other proverbial elephant on the starship is the presence of Spock. Though the adult version of our beloved half-Vulcan does not appear, his importance in the events of 'Brother' and the impact the mere allusion to the character has on the series is clear. We learn that he and Burnham's strained relationship is the result of her decisions, not his. It's clear she views him and his legacy as an oppressive force in her life, perhaps as a standard she could never live up to? There's a great shot that really sums this up, when young Spock makes his holo-dragon. The dragon moves toward Burnham, and roars at her, and Spock walks in through its mouth. I think that's how she sees Spock.

Sarek and Burnham's conversation about reverence also factors in. This show has decided to include a character that most fans undoubtedly have a lot of reverence for. But to make him a useful character, with an arc and a purpose, reverence is not enough. The massive weight of Spock's impact on Star Trek and the fans' adoration of him will be a problem that Discovery will have to deal with.

Moving to our regular cast, I loved how they were dealt with here. The other side of Lorca's effect on the Disco crew is that such a major and personal adversary has brought them together and made them rely on each other. All of the returning cast felt like a family around each other, and their interactions made the ship feel like a real workplace run by a real team. This is a major improvement from last season.

It looks like Burnham's journey this season will be thoroughly intertwined with Spock's. I look forward to seeing her relationship with him and how it develops, but I do hope they give her a role to play apart from and outside of the shadow of her foster brother. Likewise, Stamets seems overshadowed by the impact of someone else. Everything around him reminds him of his lost love Dr. Culber, and he's having a very hard time dealing with it. It seems like the end of this episode was enough to get him at least a little bit excited about science again, though it's unlikely that this is the end of his plotline about leaving the ship. With Wilson Cruz brought on as a full cast member for this season, it'll be interesting to see where this goes.

Tilly and Saru don't seem to have much in the way of an arc yet, but I'm sure this will change. I expect most of Tilly's story this season will have something to do with her enrollment in the Command Training Program. Saru mentioned his sister Siranna, from the Short Trek 'The Brightest Star,' and the showrunners have stated that we may see other Kelpians this season, so expect to see a visit to Saru's home planet of Kaminar sometime in the future. Maybe siblings will continue to be a theme this season.

Overall, 'Brother' was a pretty epic way to kick off the new season. It's fun and engaging, with a lot of potential. I can't wait to see where we go from here.

Strange New Worlds:

This section will record the planets the Disco visits and the places they go. Not a whole lot of that in this particular episode.

New Life and New Civilizations:

Here I'll keep track of all the new species, ideas, and cultures the crew encounters. Again, nothing in the way of that here.

Pensees (Thoughts):

-Mia Kirshner (Amanda) looks a lot like Amy Adams. She also really resembles Amanda from TOS, so that's nice.

-Stamets has a botanist friend aboard the Enterprise.

-In keeping with the Trek tradition of altering the intro, we have some brand new graphics added to the opening theme.

-Regulation 19, Section C allows a higher-ranking officer to take command of a starship in one of three contingencies: 1. An imminent threat; 2. The lives of Federation citizens are in danger; 3. There is no more qualified officer available to deal with the situation.

-I love Doug Jones' Saru walk. It's just so much fun to watch.

-That's the first shot we've gotten of a turbo lift running through a starship in all of Trek, if memory serves. Pretty cool, too.

-Another Alice in Wonderland nod. Also, holo-candles.

-Sarek mentioned that he's reached out to Klingon High Chancellor L'Rell (Mary Chieffo), and she had no explanation for the red bursts either.

-The Captain goes on the away mission, in true Trek tradition.

-There was a bit of Spock's Jellyfish ship from Star Trek (2009) in the design of the pods they flew.

-How cool was the pod sequence? Also, it was admittedly rather satisfying to see Olson Connelly get his comeuppance when he failed to pull his chute crashed and died because of the dumb risk he took.

-One of the ads loaded at the wrong time when I watched this the first time. The long ad break split a shot in half.

-I liked Reno (Tig Notaro). The idea of using an engineering approach to medicine is interesting, although I wouldn't want to be one of the first patients it was tried on.

-The Red Angel is still very much an unknown. I partially expect it will have something to do with the Klingons, if not only because they seem from the trailers to have a big role to play.

-The asteroid material wouldn't beam up. That's intriguing. It may be the key to fixing the spore drive, too, as it looks from the trailer that we'll be jumping again this season.

-'Not every cage is a prison, nor every loss eternal.' That's very interesting, and it has a lot of significance for Pike.

-It makes sense that the crew of the Enterprise would have issues with sitting out the war while on their five-year mission.

-The Disco's new Doctor is named Dr. Pollard.

-One of the names in the credits was 'Matt Decker.'

-A lot of references to faith/religion and related subjects in this episode. I don't think it's necessarily significant, but I thought it was worth noting.

-Alex Kurtzman directed this episode. I thought he did a great job; maybe he should stick to that instead of the whole coming up with ideas thing. I'm still baffled by the seriously weird and unsettling bits about Klingon anatomy from Season One.

Quotes:

Amanda: "I bless you, Michael... all my life."

Pike: "Do not covet thy neighbor's starship, Commander."

Pike: "Why didn't we think of that, Connelly? Think of all the syllables that gave their lives."

Pike: "Sometimes it's wise to keep your expectations low, Commander. That way we're never disappointed." Advice to the audience, perhaps?

Tilly: "I put her in a Utility closet, and I put you in there. I'm drunk on power."

Stamets: "Tilly, you are... incandescent. You're going to become a magnificent Captain because you do everything out of love. But I need you to repeat after me. I will say..." Tilly: "I will say..." Stamets: "Fewer things." Tilly: "Fewer thi- okay."

Sarek: "Spock has great reverence for his mother, but reverence tends to-" Burnham: "Fill up the room." It's the shot of Burnham's fairly empty quarters just as she interrupts that sells this one.

Pike: "Detmer - fly... good."

Pike: "I was expecting a red thing. Where's my damn red thing?"

Pike: "Spock asked the most amazing questions. It's completely logical, yet somehow able to make everyone see that logic was the beginning of the picture and not the end."

Burnham: "There are so many things I wish I'd said to you; so many things I want to say now. I'm too late, aren't I? I can only pray I don't lose you again... brother."

A strong, solid premiere. 5 out of 6 damn red things.

CoramDeo is interested in things.