#top tier writing to me

[always-a-joyful-note]

Never mind, I lied. I wish they'd stuck to the reverse harem tease instead of utterly crushing that fantasy with this angst of Tsumugi wishing she'd been born a man so she could keep her lovely friendships with these guys because the entertainment world is a cesspool of gossip and rumours

My favourite thing about i7 is that they did, actually, sort of try to give us that slight reverse harem vibes with the i7 boys and Tsumugi before they got bored and instead gave us a painful interrupted friendship between her and Gaku (with actually addressed romantic feelings on one side that once again showed us the brutality of show business), platonic bonds between the Takanashi Pro workers and the group, and even more power of friendship with the other units. Re:vale didnt even try to flirt with Tsumugi (the narrative had them way too focused on each other) and only Zool's Torao tried his shot with her but like...in the context of him being a serious creep

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you all for an incredible 500 days of love and support. I offer you: answers to questions that no one has asked.

(As always, more can be found in the tags <3)

[there-is-only-chaos]

In the finest of traditions, I have remained awake untill dawn comsuming the wares on ao3. There seems to be concensus in a few key points.

Wolverine finally figures out how to shut Deadpool up

Wade talks with his mouth full

The Honda Oddessy is both spacious and affordable

[morsmortish]

the name bartimaeus originates from the bible, a hybrid of the arabic word ‘bar’ (meaning “son”) and the greek word ‘timaeus’ (meaning “honourable”). the words put together create the name bartimaeus, meaning “honourable son”. within the bible, bartimaeus is a blind beggar on the side of the street who gets his vision restored due his unwavering faith in God.

so. bartimaeus ↦ bartemius. the irony of barty’s name being derived from a word meaning “honourable son”. the impact of his father naming him not just after himself, but also pushing all these expectations of ‘honour’ onto him from barty’s first breath. the blind beggar man reflecting barty’s own troubled youth, the struggles of never being seen/being able to see from the confines of the imperius curse. the beggar’s faith in a high power restoring his eyesight, in the same way barty gets his body autonomy restored by the freedom of joining voldemort and killing his father. barty and the beggar sharing this same undoubting belief in their own form of a god. both of them named the same.

[cosmicstarlatte]

Thirst/comfort???? How about Luci about to have sex with reader (their first time) and they cant at all relax? They're really tense and shaky because they know its gonna hurt. (Luci comforting reader during the whole thing? i dont know if this counts as a thirst)

-🍊Oranchi🍊

18+ nsfw headcanon // minors do not interact

Omg 😩💕!!!

Lucifer is a caretaker at heart and that extends to the bedroom. Depending on what u want huehue 😏

He knows if it's done right, it shouldn't be that painful. Of course he knows everyone is different but he assures you that he will try to make it the least painful as possible, 'slow and steady' is how it'll be done he tells you when he sees how nervous you are.

He would be so soft and sweet, he loves you and he wouldn't do anything to harm you. He would check in on you frequently through out the whole session. He'd be so gentle, praising you when he can.

"Look at how well you're taking my fingers already."

He'd press soft tender kisses to your face and neck as his warm lubed up fingers gently finger fuck you. He'd murmur a small "we can stop anytime you're uncomfortable my little lamb."

He will make sure you're as comfortable as you can be. After all, and perhaps there's some selfishness here, it'd hurt his pride if you didn't enjoy your first time with him.

"Mm...doing so good. The tip is already in, how are you feeling?" He asks and presses a sweet kiss to your forehead.

"Oh my little lamb wants more? Very well then." ⬦

also someone requested a virgin mc version of this back in june and I've been sitting on it ever since. perhaps I should continue to work on it?🫣

Lucifers part is actually done and idk if I wanna release that by itself or not in case I don't actually finish it... Decisions of an amateur writer. 😔

[sprout-gt]

G/t Movie Night

giant lying down on the couch, tiny resting on their chest watching the movie displayed on the laptop like a theater screen in front of them. the giant, however, has a hard time focusing on anything but the way that their friend/partner rises and falls ever slightly with every breath they take

alternatively, giant sitting up on the couch facing a widescreen TV. to the giant, it isn't anything special, but to the tiny craddled in the crook of their shoulder, the screen takes up so much of their vision, the characters larger than life.

the giant scoops a handful of buttery popcorn, and without any thought at all plucks one out and raises it to the tiny on their shoulder, who accepts it with both hands.

maybe they're watching a cheesy romcom, and with each heartfelt confession from the screen, the tiny on their friend/partner's shoulder can feel a warm blush start to creep up under them. (perhaps mercilessly teasing them about it). maybe the giant hears a near imperceptable wistful sigh or squeeful giggle next to their ear, and has to focus very hard not to crack into a huge smile. (or maybe they also tease them about it)

maybe they're watching a tense horror movie, and with each dread built jumpscare, the giant can feel the tiny curl up closer to their neck. the giant has to be very, very careful of not startling too hard or they might send the tiny toppling towards the couch. in the end, the giant gently picks the tiny off their shoulder and craddles them in their grasp against their chest. when the tiny rests their head aganist their friend/partner's chest, they can hear their spiking heartrate (and you better believe they're teasing them for it)

after the movie is over, all the popcorn long gone, they both spend a long time talking about the bad script or outdated effects, until the giant leans back on the couch and their breathing begins to slow and steady, the tiny tucked against their chest falling into an equally comfortable sleep listening to their deep heartbeat

[becca-e-barnes]

As a romantic, sentimental shit, I decided to add a little spin off to the Moving In series.

While I'm not a huge fan of Christmas, Christmas Eve always felt really special to me. Christmas Eve traditions in our family have changed a lot over the years but I'm really excited to start my own! I've been trying to imagine what my perfect Christmas Eve would be like next year and it'd be pretty damn close to this.

If you celebrate it, have a lovely Christmas tomorrow! If you don't, I hope you have a wonderful day!

There's no way to keep the cat off the twinkling fairy lights on the tree. You've tried every trick the internet could offer but nothing stops her; except her own sleepiness.

After a long afternoon fighting the lights (and losing), she's curled up in the armchair, peacefully sleeping.

The tree is safe.

For now.

"Your fluffy murderer is asleep." Bucky hums contentedly, pulling you impossibly closer to him on the sofa.

"Good." It's about time. Even the TV playing Olaf's Frozen Adventure doesn't seem to be disturbing her and she loves that movie.

You're surprised the heat hasn't knocked Bucky out yet. Between your body heat, the matching pyjamas you're both wearing and the glowing embers of the fire, you're surprised he's not asleep too.

"What's Santa bringing tomorrow?" Bucky teases, running his hand from your hip to your waist, slipping his hand under you top and letting it rest there.

"I don't know! Hopefully the stand mixer I asked for... Maybe some baking supplies... Some cat treats maybe." You smile at the thought and feel Bucky laughing against your back.

"That cat of yours has not made it onto the Nice List, sweetheart. No chance. Santa won't be visiting her." His lips are curled into a smile as they drift from your collar, up the back of your neck.

"She's been good the rest of the year. She's only been naughty since I put the tree up." You feel like you have to protest on her behalf, even though you know Santa will be bringing her plenty of cat treats.

"So there's hope for you too then if that's how Santa works. If he excuses short bursts of naughtiness, you might still make it." His hand trails its way back to your hip, slipping just under the waistband of your pyjama shorts.

"I've been good this year and you know it!" You tease, pressing your ass back against him.

"Oh see no, this is naughty." Bucky corrects you, kissing your neck with a little more pressure.

"I don't think so. You seem to like it so this is me being nice." You wiggle your ass against the front of his pyjamas, enjoying the evidence of his interest.

"Don't argue sweetheart, that'll put you firmly on the Naughty List." He knows you hate reasoning like that.

"Well, if you've been so good this year, what's Santa bringing you?"

There's a short pause but the kissing over your neck doesn't stop.

"I don't know... I don't need anything." He didn't ask you for anything for that same reason. "I have everything I need here."

"That's gross. Grow up." You know he can't see the way that made you smile so you're free to affectionately bully him for saying it.

"You're so right." He laughs, somehow shuffling even closer to you.

"I'm sure if I got down on my hands and knees in front of the tree and looked right in at the back, I could find a gift with your name on it." You go back to rubbing your ass against his crotch, tempting him to escalate.

"Sweetheart, that view alone would be enough of a gift." He's got a special way of making you feel like a temptation, without ever objectifying you. God, he's wonderful. "But I want to see that pretty face. I want to lay you down under your tree and unwrap my gift properly."

"Unwrapping your gift early will put you on the Naughty List!" You try to feign disgust at the very suggestion but really, that's all you want.

"Then I'll be the happiest man on the damn Naughty List this year." He laughs, scooping you up and laying you down on the plush carpet.

"You're more of a terror than the cat." You giggle before his lips are pressed to yours, kissing you with an intensity you really quite enjoy. His tongue slips past your lips, rubbing against your own and it's almost dizzying to start so intensely.

Your fingertips dig into his broad, muscular back and shoulders. It's easy to let need cloud your brain and he doesn't seem to mind as he sheds his pyjama top.

"We aren't matching anymore." You smile, reaching for the bottom of your own top, pulling it off in one swift motion.

"Excuse me. You're unwrapping my present for me." Bucky pretends to be horrified but your decision has its perks. He's now got full access to your breasts and it's like Christmas came early for him.

He wastes no time, sucking and kissing and licking your breasts. His tongue flicks over your stiff nipples, enjoying the way the sensation makes you squeal and writhe under his mouth.

"Bucky... Please." You whine after a while, desperate for him to move on.

"Someone's needy." Bucky smiles, raising an eyebrow before he reaches down to remove the bottom half of your pyjama set.

Fuck, he's not wrong. His fingertips trail against your sex, checking to see whether you're as aroused as you sound and he's almost surprised to find you are.

"God, you're so wet. I'm going to make this pretty little pussy gush for me." He slips a thick finger into you, followed by a second and he's thrilled to realise you'll be able to take him already. He can take the edge off for you now and then take his sweet time licking his own load out of your fluttering cunt once he's given you what you need.

"Please." You whimper, noticing he's offered you nothing awfully useful. He hasn't curled his fingers to stroke your walls, he hasn't moved at all actually.

"I wanted to take my time with you." Bucky begins, removing his fingers and taking off his pyjama bottoms. "But that's not what you want right now, is it?"

You shake your head, giving in to your own desperation freely, knowing he'd want you to be honest.

"That's okay, sweetheart. Let's take good care of you." The residual heat of the fire warms your bare skin as Bucky arranges your thighs, settling himself between your legs.

"Good girl." Bucky hums, dragging his thick, bare cock through the evidence of your arousal, coating himself in the slick mess between your legs. "So pretty for me."

He watches the way your body accommodates him so willingly and your whines remind him not to keep you waiting.

His thick, leaking tip presses to your entrance and the feeling of him sliding into you is breathtaking. It always is.

Both of you stop breathing for a few short seconds until he's slid the whole way home, buried as deep inside you as your bodies will allow.

"Hey, look at me." Bucky whispers, holding the side of your face gently with one hand, making you realise you'd closed your eyes.

"You're so beautiful, you know that?" He begins to pull back slowly before pressing back in, setting a slow rhythm.

If feels wrong not to tell him the same. It's wrong not to tell him how wonderful you think he is. It's not fair to let the moment pass without mentioning that you love getting to do this with him and be vulnerable but still feel safe. You love having him in your space and spending time together and getting to enjoy these tender, intimate moments at the most random of times. But those aren't thoughts for now. Those are thoughts for when you're both fully satisfied and cuddling together, breathless and tired and entirely aglow on this same carpet later this evening.

That feels right.

"You are the most incredible man I've ever met." You reply instead, tugging gently on his soft, dark hair to pull him into a kiss.

You hear him groan against your lips, offering the same intensity as before. He speeds up his thrusts to match his mouth, sliding in and out of you with purpose and a delightful need to spill his release into you as he's coaxing yours from you.

"Play with yourself." His instruction is clear and driven by his own need. He needs to feel you cum before he can allow himself to do the same and his orgasm really seems to have snuck up on him.

Your hand slips between your bodies with a practiced ease, finding the little bundle of nerves between your legs, rubbing it in tight circles.

"Good girl. Fuck, I wish you knew how you feel. So wet and soft and warm." He hasn't taken his eyes off your face and that only lets you see how pleasure is evident all over his. He's almost overwhelmed and it's so lovely to watch.

"Fuck, I'm so close." You whine, begging him not to change a single thing. Not his pace, not his angle, nothing. This is perfect.

"Cum for me, sweetheart. Go ahead, I'm right behind you. I've got you."

The release is all consuming for a good few seconds, your body fluttering and twitching, milking Bucky's from him and he so willingly gives it to you. He groans gentle praises as he works both of you through your highs, taking every ounce of pleasure he can get from you while giving you as much as possible.

When your peak and his have both subsided, he slips out of you, giving himself a second to catch his breath.

"If you weren't on the Naughty List before, you definitely are now." You giggle, kissing his forehead repeatedly.

"I'm just getting started." He smiles, kissing your lips before moving down your body to kiss between your thighs.

[alongtidesoflight]

so here's my honest thoughts on dragon age: the veilguard, after ~40 hours of playing. i finished the main quest after having finished all companion quests and major faction quests. just to clear up what content i saw, i played as an elven transmasc rook who is a member of the lords of fortune. he romanced lucanis (although after finishing the game i'm now leaning towards taash). i don't know what's happening in playthroughs that have a different race, gender identity, romance or faction going on.

full spoilers ahead, i mean it. don't read further if you want to avoid them. i don't want complaining about it in my asks.

oh and also, if you're worried because of a few negative reviews online i can comfort you by saying don't give a fuck about a certain big name youtuber who is very much tied to bethesda franchises giving this a negative review. i'll explain why.

i'm starting off with the things i liked

the game looks really pretty. i was worried it wouldn't feel like thedas anymore (with them trying to "focus on northern thedas only" i thought they'd make a clear cut in environmental design. they do and they don't. it's complicated. i'll elaborate on it when talking about the negative stuff). anyway it does. minrathous feels like kirkwall. treviso enchanted me like the winter palace did. the hossberg wetlands reminded me of the hinterlands and a couple other inquisition maps. arlathan looked like... arlathan. the crossroads were different, but familiar. overall i like the way it looks and feels. it's thedas, with a twist. it's a good one, and gives everything a solid but unique feel.

combat is top tier. if you're a hardcore dragon age player you WILL miss the tactical aspect of it for a bit, but i promise you, once you're used to the way the combat works, you will be lapping that shit up. and once you get to ability combos you'll mourn the control you used to have over your companions in battle a bit less

the MAIN quest and its story. i expected worse, way worse. and for a while the game even had me tricked (harr harr you'll get it in a second) it is Really That Much Worse. but holy shit was it good. i walked away satisfied ngl.

your choices have SOLID weight. there's consequences, good AND bad. i got minrathous blighted, ruled over by venatori, and the leader of the shadow dragons ultimately died because of my decisions. i made those at the beginning and throughout the game. he died at the end. DAVRIN died because i didn't expect what i was saying to have that much weight. i thought i was in the clear. he had hero status. well turns out, your choices can still get your companions killed even if you do everything right. i fucking love him. he shouldn't have made that sacrifice just because i told him to do everything it takes once.

the inquisitor, morrigan and dorian being there, surprisingly. there's also negatives to this though, see below.

speaking of companions dying and the inquisitor playing a bigger role: the final quest feels like me2's suicide mission. i was blown away by it and the fact that i got to see the results of all my efforts playing out in front of me.

bioware are NOT trying to redeem solas. they love him as a character yes, but i wasn't forced to see any good in him. he betrays you. he fucked my rook over twice. he fucked him over right back, for good this time (the veil wasn't torn down, i anchored it by binding him to it, he's doomed to uphold it). but solas really lives up to his name as the trickster elven god. rip to all the people who grew really attached to him over the years.

varric died. if you like him that's probably as hard reading it as it was watching it. varric died and the game lies about it until the very end. when the realisation hits, it hurts. but in the very best way.

the amount of care they put into gender expression and trans identities this time around. (i'll add onto this with negative points as well too).

rook feels very much ingrained in the world of thedas. he doesn't ask questions that expose the player to lore through dialogue as if he's stepped foot into thedas for the first time. those conversations feel very solid and good. i hope other faction players got as much joy out of this as i did.

and the things i didn't like and boy there's a lot unfortunately

the music. let's just get that out of the way holy shit. it doesn't feel like it belongs in this universe. it gets so incredibly sci-fi-y at times you'd think it's taken straight from mass effect andromeda. there's not a single song unique to veilguard that i really enjoyed. it broke my immersion, real bad. hearing a busker play the tavern songs from inquisition on a lute right after i killed some venatori with wobbly bass songs playing in the background is just odd. weird tonal shift. don't like it. it's made for people who like flashy light-weight cinema.

tevinter nights is required reading. the podcasts are required listening exercises. the game is so fast paced, especially at the start, that there's no time to introduce you to characters and how much weight their names carry in-game. i would not have known who half these people are if i hadn't skimmed over tevinter nights. i'd care even less about them than i already did. there is no time to get properly attached to them. people will act as if you're talking to a legend personified and you'll be thinking man goddamn which chapter of tevinter night were they in again and what did they do???

there's a weird mismatch with the animations. you'll have beautifully fluid ones, like emmrich casting spells. and then you'll have rook's face animating in the most unnatural manner that's sorta reminiscent of mass effect andromeda's "my face is tired" addison, when their emotions SHOULD be landing with the player rn instead.

i'm not vibing with the art style. sometimes it works. most of the time it doesn't. at points i felt like i was watching tangled.

that also brings me to some of the dialogue. same issue. i am watching frozen. i am watching tangled. someone on the writer's team really likes the adorkable trope. bellara is its victim.

for all the talk about identity, bioware sure doesn't like theirs. the grey warden armor got a redesign again and it just makes them look like a generic army. i hate it lol

in general, i don't like the armor design. the wardrobe/appearances system is fine, but it's just not helping if all the armors are just... kinda bland or downight bad looking? and don't get me started on the lords of fortune armor. that is orientalism personified.

the world states should have been carried over, full stop. i know they said they didn't because they want to separate what happens in the north from what happens in the south, which... i could have lived with that. but the inquisitor sends you letters that keep you up to date on... the south of thedas. you learn that there's a blight again, that people are standing strong but it's difficult, denerim's fallen, the rulers are taking care of it, orlais is fighting and they're successful for a while, etc etc. what's good bioware. i thought we don't care about the south this time around. why are you feeding me so much boring generic information. if you're not gonna show any of it and just write letters, then carrying the world state over should not have been an issue. i have a game dev background. those few lines of code would not have broken your budget or pushed your engine's limits. fuck right off.

this gripe of mine carries over to all the cameos. as a lord of fortune you have to deal with isabela a lot. it's fun. i missed her. you get to go drinking with her and taash and bellara! also my hawke romanced her. she's not mentioned once. they had the opportunity to put a sentence or two about her in there with not a lot of effort, trust me.

when varric dies, all she has is a single line about it. for gold, for fortune, for varric. she only says it if you interact with her on your way to the final push. that's not mandatory.

morrigan is there. kieran isn't. the old god soul that mythal and then solas absorbed? who cares at this point, the gods are dead now and solas is locked away for eternity. i suppose? why is morrigan there. she feels unneeded. i wish they'd just left her down south, at least that way i wouldn't have had to witness her god awful redesign.

dorian at least feels as if he belongs in this story. the shadow dragons are a crucial part to protecting minrathous. he's also weirdly underutilised. isabela and morrigan had more lines than him in my playthrough.

on the topic of romance: bro that was underwhelming. no, genuinely. you know when romance picked up a bit? after the point of no return. i heard maybe two lines of companion banter about it before that. maybe i missed something which i honestly doubt, but romance did not play much of a role in lucanis's storyline. i saved his grandmother as he wished me to (and if you read tevinter nights you know she was rather abusive and their relationship not the healthiest) and told him to focus on his family. a reunified family my rook wasn't even introduced to as a partner at the end of all that.

really, do not buy this game if you're only in it for the romances. others might be better, lucanis's basically gave me nothing. except for an outing (the second coffee date i had with him, it was getting repetitive) all of it played out once i committed to the final quest. the sex scene was a fade to black. annoyingly right after davrin died. if you're looking for well paced and good spice, pick up something else. the sweet talk and the final goodbye were nice though.

for all the good the ever-presence of gender identity does, it is brought up in such a disruptive manner too. it doesn't even play out naturally if you CHOOSE the lines that are meant to be said. hearing the words trans and non-binary in this setting doesn't feel right, and i'm saying this as a trans guy. i think it could have been handled more gracefully. the amount of times my rook went "i'm a MAN" as if he's about to start drumming on his chest and roaring any second now got super nerve-grating. "i'm so glad you're into me... the me who is trans. remember?" just. tell me one trans person who'd talk like that to a person they've grown close with and are trying to romance. this game doesn't handle sexuality well, so all this hey my body might not look like the way you're expecting it to look talk amounts to nothing anyway. i feel about this the way i feel about krem: this is partial exposition to trans experiences... packaged up for cis consumption. the ONLY exception to that is interacting with taash. holy shit was all of that heartwarming and bro did it feel good and natural to talk to them about theirs and rook's gender.

rivain and nevarra are new locations added by veilguard. they're also incredibly underwhelming, small and constricted maps. rivain is a coastline with a few ruins. the hall of valor is a partial ruin nestled into a cave on a beach, with a fighting pit. isabela is there in her skimpy outfit commentating your pit fights. that's it. i'm sorry if you were looking for a bustling pirate cove or whatever. you're not gonna get it. the nevarran crypts btw are a long ass dungeon crawl. that's it.

speaking of maps. i thought people were being dramatic when they said you're gonna be fighting the same enemies on them again and again. i thought they were figure of speeching it. they're not. you WILL fight the same amount of enemies. in the same spot. every time you reload the map. best to stay on a map and clear out the enemies and do as much questing on that map as you can before leaving, because you WILL have to do it all over again once you return.

the three choices i made for my inquisitor didn't matter lol she didn't have to face solas and therefore couldn't stop him at any cost as she had sworn (maybe because my rook tricked solas into binding himself to the veil, there was also an option to fight him. would she have stepped in? who knows). blackwall wasn't mentioned. and either her using a small amount of her forces in the final fight was the reason the civilians of minrathous fared so well..... or it just didn't matter. ultimately i think she had very little impact on anything

[emeryleewho]

There's a dynamic that I really love and it's "character who's super cool, really impressive, everyone highly respects because is so impressive" and then their best friend/sibling/child who just thinks they're the world's biggest fucking loser.

[compacflt]

For the requests/open inbox, this may not be the lane you're looking for, but you made a throw a way mention in a response to the ask about Ice's enforcement of DADT that Bradley and Ice probably got into it at one point about Ice being totally okay with DADT as a policy (which I love your read on Ice being like, 'yeah, nobody should ask and nobody should tell. what's the problem here?') I would love to see that argument go down. Or honestly, just any Ice and Bradley interaction after the reconciliation that suits your fancy. I find that dynamic in your world super interesting. Bradley sees him as a father, Ice sees him as the person whose father I killed. I love the drama.

Five times Ice was so obviously Rooster’s dad + one time he explicitly wasn’t.

[Carole. 1994.]

He’s such a nervous man. Usually that’s not the word people associate with him. Nervous? Never! But he is. Carole Bradshaw’s more a religious woman than a spiritual one. She’s never put any stock into “chockras” or “ouras” or whatever the other girls her age were fooling around with in the late sixties and early seventies. But she does believe that you can understand a person just by looking at him or her, and when she looks at Tom Kazansky, she sees a little anxious creature, shivering in the cold, like one of those tiny spindly dogs who always needs a sweater. Maybe it’s her southern maternal instincts, something primal and animalistic inside her, I need to take care of you—and when he nudges her with a nervous shivering shoulder and whispers, “Can I bum a smoke?” —she reaches down to take his hand and says, “I only have one left. We’ll have to share.”

She knows she makes him nervous. His ears are red, and so’s the back of his neck. It’s early on a Saturday morning, and the church is crowded, and he’s self-conscious about the fact that she’s holding his hand. Good. It’s so rare she gets to make a man nervous anymore. She waves to Bradley, proud in his little striped button-down and his little blue bow-tie, where he’s lined-up with all the other aspiring pianists against the stage along the far wall, under the bare postmodern crucifix. The recital isn’t going to start for another five, ten minutes, and it’s organized by age, so Bradley’s somewhere in the middle. If Tom Kazansky needs a smoke, Carole Bradshaw will bum him a smoke.

They exit out the side door, and the low murmuring of the other proud parents in the church fades to the quiet of the alley. Birds chirping nearby. The sound of a latecoming car on gravel somewhere far away. Her cigarette and the flick of his lighter, her eyes on his mouth and his puff of smoke—it’s lit. He takes a drag, closes his eyes, then passes it to her. “Sorry to make you share,” she says, and she’s watching the red flush creep up the side of his throat with a silent pleasure. When she takes her own pull, she looks down to see that the filter’s gone the sweet red-pink of her old lipstick. Kind of like a kiss, sharing a cigarette.

“That’s okay,” he says. Nervous spindly little dog. “Uh, what’s he playing?”

“Beethoven. ‘Für Elise.’” Then, before he can think to judge, she goes on quickly: “It’s more complicated than you’d think. Goes up and down and all over the place.”

“It’s a good song,” Tom Kazansky says, “though I don’t know too much about piano.” He pauses. “I’m learning a little German, though. I think it’s E-leez-ah. She must’ve been an alright girl if Beethoven wrote a song for her.”

Carole Bradshaw doesn’t know what to say to that. So she says this instead: “Thank you for coming. It made Bradley—well, over the moon, I guess.”

Tom Kazansky smiles shyly. “Sorry Maverick couldn’t come. I know he wanted to.”

Of course he brings up Pete Mitchell. Drags her back into reality. “He’s in Washington again, isn’t he?”

“Correct.” He reaches out for the cigarette; she gives it to him. “TOPGUN’s biggest advocate. I keep telling him he should go into politics. I just talked to him yesterday—he told me he went to the Natural History Smithsonian on Wednesday—he bought Bradley a dinosaur picture book, I think. Does Bradley like dinosaurs?”

Carole Bradshaw shrugs. What nine-year-old boy doesn’t like dinosaurs, but… “He’s more into sea life these days. Whales, sharks, fish.”

“Some fish used to be dinosaurs, they think,” says Tom Kazansky, clearly just trying to fill the silence. Ears red, lips red. Smoke out of his mouth like a fire-breathing dragon.

Carole Bradshaw doesn’t know how much dinosaur history she actually believes. So she says, “It’s still really nice of you to come. You know, Bradley—Bradley thinks of you and Maverick as his—well, his fathers, I s’pose. So it’s nice for you to be here.”

She watches his reaction—just nervousness. Straight anxiety. He doesn’t meet her eyes, like she’s just kicked him in the ribs. He does not want to be Bradley’s father. 

She says, “You don’t have to sign any papers, Tom. You don’t have to put a kid seat in your car. I’m just saying. Don’t worry about it.”

He says, “I can hear the kids starting inside—we should probably go back in.”

So Carole Bradshaw drops the cigarette butt to the ground and steps on it with the bottom of her flat. They go inside, and wait for a kindergartener to finish an overly simple “Canon in D” to take their seats again. She takes his hand. He lets her. After another half-hour, Bradley sits down on the bench in front of the hand-me-down Steinway and busts out “Für Elise” without a single missed note. It still shocks her, sometimes, to watch him play—it still shocks her, sometimes, that she is the mother of all that talent. And now maybe Tom Kazansky is the father of all that talent. How did that happen?

At the end of the recital, Tom Kazansky lets go of her hand. She knew he would. Knew his fatherhood is only temporary. But he lets go of her hand to accept Bradley’s great-big hug in the parking lot: “Gosling, that was so good.” Bradley’s proud smile is missing a few teeth. It makes Tom Kazansky laugh.

And after he drops them off at home, and peels away with a wave and a smile, Carole Bradshaw lights another cigarette from the half-full pack she’d brought with her to the recital and brings Bradley out to the backyard so he can play and she can watch him. But before she lets him go, she looks down at him and says flatly, “If kids at school ask you about Uncle Tom and Uncle Pete—you need to tell them they’re just friends.”

And in his eyes, she can see the confusion of a little boy who hadn’t been aware that Tom Kazansky and Pete Mitchell were anything other than just friends—the confusion of a little boy learning about duplicity for the first time in his life. 

“Okay,” he says, so she lets him go.

—

[Maverick. 1998.]

“Don’t go easy on him,” Maverick hollers breathlessly over his shoulder, fishing around in the ice chest in the sand for two cans of Coors; “He just joined the J.R.O.T.C.; don’t go easy on him; he’s tougher than all your squadrons combined; beat him into the dirt…”

“Thanks, Uncle Mav,” shouts Bradley from across the volleyball court, where he’s getting initiated into one of the volleyball teams of younger fighter pilots. 

Maverick flashes him a thumbs-up and finds his T-shirt on the first bleacher bench, pulls it on with one hand, and then hops up the rest of the benches to sit with Ice, who’s got his CVN-65 ballcap on and a book open in his lap and is offering informal career advice to one of the other lieutenants: “Yeah, so, in my opinion, it’s all down to what you think you can stomach… If you want me to look over your C.V., I can totally do that—I think I’m free Monday at around thirteen-hundred, if you want to stop in to talk. Not a problem. Not a problem. Alright. See you later.” He watches the lieutenant go, then lolls his head over to look at Maverick, who’s tossing an ice-cold can of Coors up and down. “Hey. Good game. —Coors, Mav? This is an insult.” But he takes the offered can anyway, looking out onto the court, where Bradley—fourteen and just entering his beanpole phase of evolution—is currently spiking the ball. “Cool.” It’s a nice summer Saturday, a casual opportunity for the officers of Miramar to socialize with their families (Ice is wearing a golf shirt and jeans), and by now pretty much everyone knows that Maverick Mitchell’s raising his friend’s kid and that he and Captain Kazansky are good friends, so this is pretty nice. Not much to hide.

“C’mon,” Maverick says, popping open his own can, “you and I were having a scintillating conversation, a few minutes ago.” He’s hunting around for the sunscreen so the tops of his feet don’t burn to ashes in the sun.

“Scintillating. That’s a big word for you. Wow.”

“You’re rubbing off on me, Sir Reads-a-lot—”

“See, that’s funny,” Ice interjects, “because I seem to recall, before you so-rudely interrupted me to go play volleyball with the kids, I was telling you that it’s really not that interesting. It’s actually, Maverick, quite boring.”

“Well, I’m intrigued now. Go on. Finish it off, I wanna know.”

Ice slaps his book shut and gives the long tired sigh of a man who is very self-conscious about the fact that he’s about to turn forty. He pops the tab on his can of Coors and huffs in exasperation when it foams all over his hand. “I mean it, my family history’s really not that interesting. Typical eastern-European immigrant shitshow. U.S. officials change one letter in our last name and everyone loses their goddamn minds… Actually, that story might be apocryphal, I keep forgetting which former Soviet Socialist Republic I’m actually from, I just can’t remember, all the borders got redrawn so many times, one of ‘em…”

Maverick smiles and pulls his TOPGUN ballcap back down onto his head, tugs the brim down low over his eyes so he can tip his head back and not go blind from the summer sunshine. He’d thought Ice would be reluctant to share his family history, but it turns out that most people are just afraid to ask him, and he’s actually pretty eager to talk, if you just ask. Maybe over-eager. He’s rambling. Maverick cuts him off: “Yeah, you do have a left curve to you, don’t you. Genetic.”

The dirty joke strikes Ice dumb for a second, but then he forges ahead, wisely choosing not to engage. He keeps going, oblivious to the fact that Maverick’s not really listening… “Anyway, my grandfather was Jewish, but he died literally the second he stepped foot in America, so it doesn’t count…my grandmother was Orthodox, crazy story how they ended up together; actually, that story’s probably apocryphal, too…she’s the one who raised me, pretty much. I told you that. She brought my dad out to Southern California when he was a little kid, but I don’t know if you’ve noticed, So-Cal’s not exactly the Mecca of Orthodox churches or anything, so he wasn’t very religious at all… My mom was from Milwaukee, I think. Or maybe Minneappolis. Some kinda Protestant. Forget which kind. The preachy kind. But then she died and I didn’t have to go to church anymore, so I didn’t.”

“You just never believed?” Maverick mumbles, half-joking.

“Nah. I mean, I always had too many questions no one wanted to answer. For instance: okay, say you’re bad. Say you commit sin…”

“I’ve never sinned, sir. You’re talking hypothetically.”

“Right. Me, neither. Hypothetically speaking. So you go to Hell. Well, the devil’s there, too, ‘cause he’s a sinner, too. But why’s he want to punish you? What does he get out of it? You’re both in the same boat!”

“Probably a sexual thing,” says Maverick, watching the purple-green imprints of the sun dance around behind his eyelids. “He probably gets off on it. The devil, I mean.”

Ice laughs and laughs. “Sure. Try saying that in front of my mom and see if you survived. I learned pretty early on that they don’t want you to be too curious. So I kept all my questions to myself.” He’s also joking, not taking this super seriously, but that’s a pretty in-character answer. “What about you, Mav?”

“If I’ve told you my family’s history once, I’ve told you a thousand times…” That’s a joke. Maverick’s the one who doesn’t like talking about his family history. Ice hasn’t heard any of it, and for good reason. Maybe someday he’ll tell him about it. “Later. But, remember, I used to be Southern Baptist? Jesus, I was serious into that shit, Ice.”

Ice snorts. “Yeah, right. You.”

“Not joking. I had about eighty girlfriends between fourteen and eighteen, but that’s the most pious I’ve ever been. Lotsa loopholes to make my relationships biblical. Was thinking about being a youth pastor. —I’m not joking. It was my whole personality, for a while. Most of my childhood, anyway.”

Ice is still laughing in disbelief. “Oh, yeah? And then what happened?”

Maverick smiles. “…Got hooked on sinning.” 

“…Yeah,” Ice replies, and Maverick can hear the nervous smirk in his voice, “I guess I’d know a little something about that.”

And normally that would be the end of the conversation. But Maverick’s feeling a little sun-drunk, a little giddy, and he’ll never, ever, ever grow out of instigating stupid arguments with Ice just for the fun of it. From beneath the brim of his ballcap he mutters, “…You think Carole’s brainwashing her kid?”

Ice huffs a laugh, and says through a lazy yawn, “I’m not militant in my atheism, no.” But he, also, will never, ever, ever grow out of instigating stupid arguments with Maverick just for the fun of it, and his curiosity’s clearly been piqued. He stews in it for a second before he snaps, “Do you think Carole’s brainwashing her kid?”

“I’m just saying she has him readin’ outta the Bible, like, five times a day. She sends him to church camp. Does something to a kid.” He has no dog in this fight, but this is fun.

“And what did it do to you?” Ice says, reaching down to shove his shoulder good-naturedly. “Weren’t you just telling me not five seconds ago how you used to be the perfect model of Christian charity?” Maverick mumbles a retort sleepily; Ice pushes on through it: “Bradley’s a human being. Either he grows out of it like you did, or he doesn’t, in which case, whatever, land of the free. That’s the First Amendment. You swore an oath to the Constitution. Maybe you should read it.”

“I’ve read it. I’m not Congress, shithead. How’s it go, you want me to cite it to you directly, ‘Congress shall make no law…’ actually, I don’t know what comes after that. Got me there.”

“Don’t call me shithead, dipshit. And whatever. Good thing he’s Carole’s kid and not yours, then. He’s got a mom who wants him to go to church. It’s up to him if he wants to listen to her or not. That’s growing up.”

Maverick tips up the brim of his ballcap to look at him, sprawled out in the bleachers very unprofessionally for the CO of this entire volleyball court, and snaps back, “Well, he’s a little bit my kid. The same way he’s a little bit your kid.” 

Ice just flicks his sunglasses down onto his nose and purses his lips and neither confirms nor denies this allegation. 

They watch the game together for a while, Ice’s toes pressed against Maverick’s lower back discreetly, trying to work their way under Maverick’s T-shirt. Until one of the young pilots approaches a few minutes later: “Sir!” / “What’s that kid’s call sign again?” Ice mumbles to Maverick, prodding him with his foot. / “Hooker.” / “No shit.” / “Sir!” says Hooker again. / “Which one of us, kid?” says Maverick. / “Captain Kazansky, sir. We’ve got a spot opening up. Wanna play?”

Maverick looks up at Ice expectantly. Ice sighs and harrumphs and waffles for a minute— “I’m too old for this shit.”

“Sir,” says Maverick, “it’s not a competition, but if it were, I’d be winning.” 

Lighting the fire of competition under Ice like that is always a good strategy. He rolls his eyes, but immediately stands and tugs off his shirt and rolls up the cuffs of his jeans; “I’ll only play if I can play with the kid.” 

So Maverick watches the teams get scrambled again with a smile, and sits up to watch Ice join Bradley in the sand. Bradley’s only just now taller than Ice, and Ice clearly isn’t used to having to reach up to curl an arm around his shoulders to strategize, his eyes narrowed like an eagle’s, staring down the competition. Maverick can read his lips from across the pitch: Alright, kid, I’ve been watching for a while, and I think I know these guys’ strengths and weaknesses…okay, here’s what we’re gonna do… And the game begins when Bradley spikes the ball.

Ice won’t always be this fun, this down-to-earth, this human. The admiralty and the guilt and the grief of the years to come will strip it all away from him, bring him back to the cold, remove him from his own humanity. And maybe, even if it isn’t conscious, Maverick can recognize that, right now, watching Ice dive into the sand with a laugh: this summer sunshine is only temporary. It’s gonna have to end at some point. So he doesn’t take it for granted. He keeps his eyes open and watches and tries to commit it to memory.

And after the game, Ice and Bradley come over so Ice can finish his beer and put his shirt and his baseball cap back on, and Maverick can make fun of them for losing. And: “What were you guys talking about for so long before the game?” Bradley asks Maverick with a grin.

“Whether or not your mom’s brainwashing you,” Maverick says.

“Oh!” Bradley says mildly. “…No, I don’t think so!”

“Oh, that’s a great start,” Ice laughs. “You would’ve made a great Soviet. No, I don’t think I’m getting brainwashed. Hey, by the way, Gosling, if you want a beer, Maverick and I won’t tell anyone.”

“Aw, really?” whispers Bradley. “Thanks, Uncle Ice!” And he races down the bleachers towards the ice chest in the sand.

Maverick watches Ice watch him go, fingers still pinching the brim of his CVN-65 ballcap, clearly worrying about something the way Ice always is. 

Then he looks down at Maverick, stares openly for a minute, and says, “You don’t think we’re teaching him to rebel too much, do you?”

—

[Bradley. 2000.]

“Kiddo! You’re here early!” It was Uncle Ice, walking through his own front door, catching a glimpse of Bradley watching the Astros-Nats game on the TV. He was still in uniform, but smiling wide, and he set his bag down near the couch and leaned over to ruffle Bradley’s hair goodnaturedly.

“Practice ended early today.”

“Oh, okay. Cool. Maverick should be home soon, still at work—your mom’ll be here in about an hour—she told me to put the chicken breasts in the oven, but you know me, every time I use this oven I set off the fire alarm, so you oughta help me with that…”

“And,” Bradley said, watching Uncle Ice wash his hands in the kitchen sink, “I got here early because I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh, sure!” chirped Uncle Ice. Then he paused, sensing a trap. “What about?”

“Advice,” Bradley mumbled. He took a deep breath, and stood to follow Uncle Ice into the kitchen “I was just—I was just curious. If you had any advice for me joining the Navy. You know, with me being gay, and all. How do I—I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. It’s kinda been weighing on me. Do you have any advice?”

Uncle Ice was still drying his hands off on a kitchen towel. Rubbing them red and raw. And when he raised his head to speak, there was something dull and startled in his eyes: “I don’t, um—no, I don’t—I don’t know anything about that. —You should ask Uncle Maverick about that.”

“I did,” Bradley said desperately, because he had. Yes, he’d gone to Uncle Mav first. “He—he told me to talk to you.”

“…Oh,” said Uncle Ice, now standing in front of a shelf to return one of his books to it. This surprised him. Maybe hurt him a little. “No. I—I, I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“But—”

“And there are probably better people to ask than me or Maverick. I—I don’t know—that’s not really my…I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

Uncle Ice swallowed, put the book back on the shelf, then clasped his hands together and set them on the shelf, too, as if leaning over his captain’s desk to chastise someone. He blinked for a long moment. Clearly shifting gears. Becoming someone else so easily. Why couldn’t Bradley do that? “But I can tell you this,” he said, and his voice had gone grave and dim, “and I know you and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on politics—but I can tell you this, professionally, because I respect you, and I care about you, a lot—you’re going to have to keep it a secret.”

Dismayed, Bradley said, “Why?”

“Why’s a funny question to ask about something like this,” said Uncle Ice curtly. He shrugged. “Why? Because it’s the law. That’s why.”

Bradley swung his bat at the hornets’ nest. This was always dangerous with Uncle Ice. “It shouldn’t be a law. Don’t you think?”

“Doesn’t matter what I think. It’s the law. And we get paid to enforce the law, internationally speaking. And the military doesn’t work if personnel refuse to follow the rules in broad daylight. So.” He trailed his fingertip along the spines of all his precious books, then eventually found a different one, started flipping through it absentmindedly. “And even if it weren’t the law, it’d still get enforced extrajudicially. You know what that means?” He did that, when he was intentionally being cruel; used big words that Bradley didn’t know to make himself sound smarter. “It means outside the law. The way people talk to you. The way people respect you or don’t respect you. And this business, the one you want to go into, is all about respect. Being a pilot is kind of like being a knight: you have to be noble, you have to be honorable, you have to respect your service and your adversaries and yourself. And because I respect you, and because I care about you a lot, I’m just telling you the truth—you’re going to have to keep it a secret.”

Bradley blinked. There was something crushing and overwhelming about the truth—maybe the fact that it was the truth, maybe the fact that he hated the fact that it was the truth. It made sense. But it also meant his future was unspeakably bleak. He tried to speak over the lump in his throat when he said, “Yeah. That’s what Maverick told me, too.” And what he’d wanted to hear from Uncle Ice was that Uncle Mav was telling a lie. 

Something went soft and slightly wounded in Uncle Ice’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” Uncle Ice said gently. “I wish I could give you better advice than that. But that’s all I know. I don’t know any more than that.”

“Don’t you want to know more than that?”

“No.”

And thus did the generational gap widen into a chasm. 

—

[February 2003.]

Dear SN Bradshaw, / Please call/email/write me back when you get a chance. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[August 2003.]

Dear AN Bradshaw, / I hope you’re doing all right. I hope at some point you and I can get in touch to talk. Please let me know if there is some other address I should be sending my letters to. I am not sure if they are finding you. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[May 2004.]

Dear AN Bradshaw, / I wanted to congratulate you on your acceptance to college. Yours is a very good AE program & you should feel very proud. Please let me know if there’s anything you might need as you prepare to start your first year. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[August 2010.]

Dear LT Bradshaw, / I wanted to let you know that I’ll be at NAS Oceana for a conference from December 6-9. I understand that’s your neck of the woods—would you be interested in having dinner with me on either that Tuesday or Wednesday night? I would love to hear how you’ve been doing. You can reach my secretary at the number below. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[October 2014.]

Dear LT Bradshaw, / We Maverick and I want to wish you a Happy Birthday 30th Birthday. We heard you are deployed out in the Atlantic now—we hope you will be able to enjoy the enclosed gift card when you make it back to terra firma. Our updated personal cell numbers are below. / HAPPY BIRTHDAY! FROM UNCLE MAVERICK & Uncle Iceman.

…

“Haven’t heard back from the kid yet.”

“…You think we ever will?”

The longest silence.

—

[Pacific Air Type Commander Beau Simpson. 2016.]

You could see it in the way they held themselves. An utmost similarity. Aristocratic propriety. Maybe a little sense of entitlement: look how hard we’ve worked to be here. All three of them had it. More accurately: Captain Mitchell and Admiral Kazansky both had it, and had passed it down to their son.

“Captain Mitchell.” Everyone was watching. The sun had only just set; the sky was melting from horizon-red through orange and yellow and teal up to midnight black above them.

“It’s an honor, sir,” said Captain Mitchell, accepting Admiral Kazansky’s handshake. God, you’d never know it by looking at them. Half the people here on this Roosevelt flight deck knew about them, but they were so convincing that more people weren’t sure. TYCOM Simpson glanced at Rear Admiral Bates, who glanced back in confusion—I thought they were…? They were, TYCOM Simpson signaled, just abnormally good at keeping it a secret.

“Honor’s all mine, Captain,” said Admiral Kazansky, and he passed by without a second glance.

And when he made it down the line of aviators to Lieutenant Bradshaw—you could see it. The similarity in the way they held themselves. Straight and rigid and unyielding. Cold and dismissive beyond belief, even to each other. Admiral Kazansky held out a hand. Lieutenant Bradshaw took it, but refused to make eye contact. Quiet rebellion under the radar: Admiral Kazansky had taught him well. 

TYCOM Simpson glanced at Captain Mitchell, to gauge his reaction. And for once, he and Captain Mitchell were clearly thinking the exact same thing.

Like father, like son.

You could see it in their stubborn determination. How far they were willing to go. How hard they were willing to push. How long they were willing to hold their own hands to the fire, if it meant the familiar painful comfort of staying warm. “Ice-cold, huh?” TYCOM Simpson asked him the next morning, trying to pin down their strategy, trying to secure a guarantee that their family would do what their country asked of them, even if that meant death. Even if that meant the ultimate sacrifice.

“Only when I have to be,” replied Admiral Kazansky, which meant always, and—soon thereafter, he ordered Lieutenant Bradshaw to his death.

But also, Lieutenant Bradshaw went willingly, too.

“Dagger One is hit.”

“Dagger Two is hit.”

Loss is supposed to hit a man in stages. Isn’t that the truth? —Not so for Admiral Kazansky, whom grief obviously swallowed whole in just an instant. He did not break, or bend under its weight. Just stood there staring at the E-2D AWACS screen with wide wounded eyes—not disbelieving eyes. They were gone. Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Bradshaw were gone. He was in no denial whatsoever. He had leapt straight to acceptance.

“Sir,” said TYCOM Simpson hesitantly, and he reached out to touch him—the stars on his shoulder—guide him back to reality—what must it be like, to lose a son?—to willingly forfeit your family?—

But before he could make contact, Admiral Kazansky drew a breath, moved away, and closed his eyes for just a second. Perfectly composed, even with the waters of grief closing over his head, even with three dozen observers in this C2 room all scrutinizing him for his response. Perfectly composed. How did he do it? How could he manage? How was he possibly still this proud?

“Vice Admiral Simpson,” he said calmly, “I relinquish my command to you, until you deem me necessary to return to my post.”

“Sir,” said Rear Admiral Bates, darting panicked, sympathetic eyes to TYCOM Simpson, but it was too late—Admiral Kazansky was already leaving the room. Head held high and steady. 

Some confusing weeks later, after Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Bradshaw returned from the dead, TYCOM Simpson and Rear Admiral Bates would casually debrief the mission together in the lobby bar of the Waldorf-Astoria in Washington, D.C. No hard liquor, just beers. Just barely enough alcohol to give them an excuse to philosophize. “You think pride is a sin or a virtue?” TYCOM Simpson found himself asking, tracing the rim of his gilt-edged Stella Artois glass with a finger, after having recounted the above testimony.

“Neither,” said Rear Admiral Bates. “Gotta be a vice.”

“A vice.”

“Yeah. Good men die because of pride, bad men die because of pride…we send our sons to battle because of pride…wars are fought and won and lost because of pride… every war in human history, when you boil it down, begins when someone says, ‘You’re wrong and I’m right, and I’m proud of my own righteousness, proud enough to kill, proud enough to die, proud enough to send my sons to die…’”

“Oh, okay. That’s the root of all human conflict, then, according to you, Warlock. Okay.”

Rear Admiral Bates smiled and laughed at himself, too. Pride, he mouthed. Then shook his head. “We’re a proud species. It’s our vice.”

TYCOM Simpson was thinking about the two proudest men he knew, Admiral Kazansky and Lieutenant Bradshaw, and wondered what it was, exactly, that had driven a wedge between them, you’re wrong and I’m right and I’m proud enough of my own righteousness to send you to your death/inflict my death upon you… And then he remembered the warnings he’d previously received about Lieutenant Bradshaw and Lieutenant Seresin and their open relationship, and then he remembered Admiral Kazansky coldly shaking Captain Mitchell’s hand… and he wondered if the wedge between them was exactly that: the matter of pride.

—

[Tom. 2018.]

“Merry Christmas and a happy new year, and all that,” says Pete, raising his glass and reaching over the dining table to clink rims with Tom and then Bradley. “A good year! A really good year! —Sorry your guy couldn’t be here, Rooster. We’ll call him tonight before you go. Tell him we miss him.”

“Where is he again?” Tom asks.

“Washington,” Bradley says with a smile. “Big conference at the Pentagon. I’ll see him next week.”

“You know,” Pete says with a sly grin directed at Tom, “I’ve never actually heard the story of how you two got together.” 

“Oh,” Bradley says, shrugging as he tears open a dinner roll, “not that interesting. Pretty much what you’d expect. Inter-squadron competition-turned-sexual tension. Not exactly within regs, but we did meet each other before D.A.D.T. got repealed, so it wasn’t like we’d’ve ever been within regs, either…” (All the while, Tom’s smirking over the rim of his wine glass at Pete, No, Mav, I’m not gonna tell him I had them reassigned to the same boat…) “We broke up when I got sent to TOPGUN. But we figured it out eventually.”

“Glad you did. Sorry he couldn’t be here.”

Bradley hesitates, then says, “You know what I just realized? I never heard how you two got together…! You’ve never told me that story!”

Tom glances over at Pete, do you want to take this or shall I, and when Pete motions all yours, he sighs and says, “Uh, we don’t really know. We’ve just been telling people nineteen-eighty-six because it’s easy. But in a much more real sense…” He thinks about it, then shrugs. “Whatever. If you really want to know. In nineteen-ninety-three, right after I came back to San Diego to take command at Miramar, he and I had a drunken one-night stand. By accident. Which then turned into twenty-five years of accidental one-night stands. So.”

“Oh, c’mon. You guys bought a house together.”

“Yeah, that,” says Pete, “that was, uh, to facilitate the accidental one-night stands. Make it more convenient for everyone.”

“Cut out the middle-man,” Tom supplies, then shrugs again at the look on Bradley’s face. “That’s our story, kid. It’s not super romantic. We weren’t thinking about it that way. We didn’t know how.”

Pete raises the wine bottle to refill Tom’s glass—though it’s still halfway full—and then raises his eyebrows when he “notices” the bottle’s empty. Changes the subject as he stands: “Okay, what’s everyone feeling? Red, white, what’s next?”

“Red,” Tom says absently. “Anything big, I guess—first cab you see…” But then he thinks about it, and he amends his order before Pete leaves earshot: “Actually—we’ve got that petite sirah we gotta drink—two-thousand-four. Israeli. Might be somewhere in the back, sorry. But now’s a good occasion, I think, to bust it out for the holidays. No reason to save it.”

“Israeli sirah two-thousand-four,” Pete repeats, “okay. I got that.” 

Then he steps outside, leaving Tom and Bradley alone. It’s not awkward—they’ve worked really hard over the last two years to make it not-awkward, after the mission—but human beings are human beings. Prideful, stubborn creatures. There will always be a little guilt between the two of them, and a little blame.

“I have to be honest,” Tom says after a moment, interested in being honest for Bradley’s sake, “sorry we don’t have a better story to give you, about us. It is a little hard to talk about.”

“Why?”

“Well—we don’t know the words we’re supposed to use, for one. It’s your generation who sets the standard for that kind of thing. You young people. We’re a little out-of-date. And…well. I guess we’re just jealous of you. It’s hard to talk about.”

“Jealous?” Bradley repeats quizzically. “Why?”

Tom leans back in his chair and really thinks through what he wants to say. This is one of those impromptu speeches you never really intend to make, but are probably still important to get off your chest. “Maverick and I,” he starts carefully, “will never stop feeling guilty about what we did to you. Ever. You need to know that.” And when Bradley scoffs and huffs and tries to interrupt, he goes on, “Not just pulling your papers from the Academy. It goes back further than that. We will always feel like we deprived you of your father. The merits of that feeling are debatable, sure, but it’s a fact of life. A fact of our lives, anyway. And it’s dictated so much of how we live, and how we’ve lived, over the past thirty years. Part of the reason I came back to Miramar in nineteen-ninety-three was to be with you and your mom. Because I felt I owed you that, in return for what I’d taken.”

“You didn’t kill him,” Bradley says. “Or, at least, I never blamed you for killing him. You or Maverick both. You guys were my dads. You didn’t take anything from me. —Excepting the obvious, the Academy, but that was mostly my mom, I guess, so, whatever.”

“I’m just telling you what our lives have been like since the day I met you. Why we did what we did.”

“Okay. But I still don’t understand why you’re jealous.”

Tom smiles, a little faintly. “Because the other part of the reason I came back to Miramar in nineteen-ninety-three was to be with Maverick,” he says, “and I’m jealous of you because I didn’t recognize that at the time. —Everyone hopes, when they have kids—because, look, I’m not your dad, but you are my kid, really—everyone hopes they can bring their kid into a better world than the one they had when they were a kid, and we did. But no one prepares you for how jealous you get when your kid grows up in a better world than you did. I’m not sure people your age understand how hard it was for us when we were your age.”

“I do.”

“Sure, but I don’t think you do. I—I didn’t…” He sighs. “I never meant to fall in love with Mitchell. He never meant to fall in love with me. There certainly were men in relationships in the Navy back then who could make it work—we weren’t those guys. We looked down on those guys. Most people did. And when you were an officer, your job security and your paycheck relied on your subordinates’ respect for you. If we’d rocked the boat, traded away our respect for our relationship, well, we’d have each other, but we’d be out of a job. And then, if we’d been fired—what did we kill all those people for? For nothing! What a waste of all the lives we took! It wouldn’t have been honorable. Would’ve disrespected the Navy, our careers, the men we killed. So we didn’t talk about our relationship. You know that. Didn’t talk about who we were, or what we were doing, or why, because we were afraid of losing our own honor. Didn’t talk about it until the day you two died and came back from the dead. That’s what it took. Maverick still hates talking about some of that stuff, all the labels, all the words—that’s why I sent him to get a bottle at the back of the fridge, he might be out there a while…”

“Cunning,” Bradley says softly, but leaves the space open after he speaks.

Tom looks away. “Maybe this is getting too deep into the weeds. I’m just trying to tell you what it’s been like for us. Not sure how much of this you want to hear.”

“All of it. —All of it.”

Tom clears his throat. “…Well, Maverick keeps trying to convince me that we never wasted any time. And I know there is some truth to that—we didn’t start out liking each other at all—even if we’d been as brave as people your age are nowadays, even if we’d been open with each other about that kind of stuff, we still probably wouldn’t have ended up together. I mean, we really didn’t like each other. Especially right after your dad died, and especially after you left, in two-thousand-two. So maybe it was better for us in the long run that we didn’t talk about it. But I look back on the thirty years I’ve spent with him, and…it still all feels like a waste to me.” Maybe he really is too deep into the weeds. But he just wants Bradley to understand. “Look, Mitchell is, beyond any possible shadow of a doubt, the love of my life. Always has been and always will be. Right? —I just wish I’d known that at the time. I’m jealous of you because you’re exactly the age I was when I came back to Miramar to be with you and your mom and Maverick, and you’re already married, and you won’t ever have to sacrifice any of your honor for your marriage. You’re one of the most respected men in the Navy.”

“So are you, Ice, and you’re also married to another man.”

“I’ll remind you, though it hurts a little, that I’m almost exactly a quarter-century older than you, and you and I got married within a week of each other. I had to wait for times to change.” He holds Bradley’s gaze for a moment, then finishes the last of his dinner and sets his fork down on his plate. “So, if you were ever wondering why Mav and I are a little bitter around you and Jake, well, it’s because we are.”

“Oh,” says Bradley. “See, I always thought it was just because you and Maverick are both notoriously bitter people.”

“We are,” Tom admits through a laugh. Then he continues, “But—you should also know how proud of you we both are. How proud of you we’ve both always been. We’re not very brave men—well, we are, of course, but maybe not in the way that matters. It’s pretty gratifying to have a kid who’s braver than you are. Every parent’s dream, whether we want to admit it or not. You’re brave enough for all of us.”

It’s at this moment that Pete opens the garage door and sticks his head inside and hollers, “Ice, I can’t find it. What about a merlot? Can we do a merlot?”

“No, baby, the sirah,” Tom answers without turning his head. “It’s on the second shelf, you might—have to rearrange some of the bottles—we have too much wine. We need to drink more, me and you.”

“Not a problem,” says Pete, and he shuts the door again.

“It’s on the third shelf,” Tom tells Bradley in an aside. “He’ll find it eventually. He would’ve tried to change the subject six times by now. —The previous Secretary of the Army—he actually just got married this week, I think; I need to send a card—also gay. He and his partner invited Maverick and me out to dinner the last time we were in D.C. Most uncomfortable I’ve ever seen Mav in my whole life. Asking us questions like, ‘How did you guys get together…?’ ‘Was it easier for you guys because you were in the Navy…?’ ‘When did you…know…?’” When Bradley laughs, Tom does, too. It’s really nice, it turns out, to joke about this stuff with someone who understands. “We just made our answers up out of thin air. I was uncomfortable too, admittedly. That’s what I’m saying. Mav and I never learned the vocabulary to answer questions like that.”

Bradley starts taking their plates to the sink. What a good kid. “You know,” he says from the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder when Tom joins him at the counter, “it’s so funny you bitch that you and Mav don’t have a romantic love story, or whatever. When I was a kid, you and him were literally the pinnacle of romance.”

“Oh, really.”

“Yeah. There’s something romantic about the secret, too. When Jake and I made our relationship official—the first time—I begged him to keep it a secret just for a little while. You know; it was sexy, for a few minutes! Something only he and I knew!”

“And you immediately discovered how awful it is, I’m sure,” Tom says noncommittally. “I’m jealous of you that you learned that lesson young. —Yeah, real romantic. Maverick and I could’ve ended each other’s careers fourteen thousand times over. Real romantic.”

“And trusted each other not to,” Bradley points out—

—which makes Tom reconsider. 

Yeah, okay, maybe it’s a little romantic. The way Grimm’s fairytales, once you wipe away all the blood, are just a little romantic. “I’m of the opinion that the only thing getting old is good for is looking back on your life through rose-colored glasses. Sure. Historical revisionism it is. It was a little romantic.”

“What’s a little romantic?” says Pete, stepping into the kitchen and triumphantly brandishing his 2004 petite sirah; “Have I missed something funny? —It was on the third shelf, by the way. Could’ve told me that before I went and reorganized the whole fridge.”

Tom graciously accepts the half-annoyed kiss to the cheek, and answers, “Nothing you would’ve laughed at, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, one of those conversations,” says Pete, hunting around in the drawer for the corkscrew. “If you were planning on continuing, I can go out and rearrange the wine bottles by region instead of by year—” and scoffs when Tom kisses him back to reassure him, conversation’s over.

“Did you know,” Bradley says, “your husband is now openly calling you the love of his life?”

“Oh, yeah,” says Pete with a smile, popping the cork from the bottleneck, “he tells me that all the time. Nothing new.” Tops up their glasses, then deftly changes the subject: “Oh, gosh. I never asked. This is the big news. How are you and Hangman enjoying SOUTHCOM?”

“Oh, God,” says Bradley, rolling his eyes. “Let me tell you…”

“I think we did good,” Pete says later that night—they’re alone now, so he’s fine talking—as he tugs loose the tucked sheets to clamber into bed, and when Tom moves to turn off the light he adds, “No, you can keep reading.”

Tom sets his book down onto his chest and pulls his glasses off anyway. “Well, you and I are known for doing ‘good,’” he muses after a second. “We’re pretty universally renowned for being good at stuff. But, regarding what in particular? —Raising our kid?”

“Yeah. We did good.”

Actually, they didn’t do very well at all. But of course that’s not what Pete means. Pete means: it’s shocking and stunningly fortunate that they did as poorly as they did and still somehow ended up with such a good kid. Tom’s looking up at the ceiling and feeling very small. “How did that happen? Genuinely, how did that happen? I did always build getting married into my plan for my life—but I never thought far enough ahead to consider having kids. And now you and I have a kid who’s in his thirties. How’d that happen? I remember when he could barely walk!”

Pete yawns and rolls over onto his side and closes his eyes. “You and I have a kid who earned a Medal of Honor.”

“I know exactly how that happened” —and doesn’t like to think about it too much. “I suppose we’re just a family of overachievers. A lot of failing upwards, you and me. Somehow we failed our way upwards into a very happy lifelong relationship, a superstar kid…a few dozen medals each, ourselves…”

“That’s life,” says Pete sleepily.

“That is not most people’s lives. You’re aware that our lives look nothing like the average person’s life, right? You understand that?”

“That’s our life.”

Tom considers this. Yeah, it is their life. Wild how that happens. 

He smiles at the singular word life, sets his book on the nightstand, presses a kiss to Pete’s bare shoulder, and turns off the light.

[ahamkara-apologist]

Also can I just say that as someone who's been daydreaming up scenarios where Eramis gets captured/taken into custody by the Vanguard to work with them and Eido for her redemption arc for like. 2 years now. That I am over the moon that 'Eramis gets captured by the Vanguard and receives the help she needs while she fights the whole way down, tempered only by Eido' is an actual, canonical thing right now

[happy74827]

So… I just watched Godzilla x Kong: New Empire and I just have two things to say {spoiler free}

-Kong and Zilla are so sibling coded

-Trapper.

…That’s all. Goodnight 🫡

[bitethedustfools]

TWST story idea (8)

Inspired by a certain beast tamer Yuu post from a long time ago. Can't remember the name, sorry.

Yuu got called a beast tamer, but the only beast they have is Grim. Comparing to Kalim, who has a whole zoo, and Rook the Hunter, who has tendencies to attract animals, as well as Riddle with his hedgehogs and flamingos, the title beast tamer should have been handed to either three of them instead of Yuu.

It was a joke. Yuu knew it the moment Crowley called them a beast tamer, perhaps to flatter them into accepting a job or something, but no matter, Yuu is a joke in everyone's eyes.

Yuu is getting sick of getting asked if they have any animals or why they are called a beast tamer and so on. They don't know how to answer those, even if they do, it's not like it's going to improve their situation anyway.

Pissed off and feeling very petty, Yuu decided to tackle this the only way they know how. All those games are not for nothing, and Yuu ks going to put it to good use. Yuu is prepared for this. The time has come, and Yuu will not stand still when they are questioned again.

Yuu is gonna catch 'em all!

Yuu immediately goes on an adventure to snatch some monsters in the wilderness, and what do you know? Yuu is really a beast tamer. The monsters they brought home speak volumes.

"What's that? Oh, I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the purring of my gigantic chimera right next to me. Simply put, f*ck off!"

"How did I find Cerberus? I rowed myself to the underworld, you f*cker! Don't you dare call him fake! Go eat him, Cerby!"

"Oh damn. My phoenix set someone on fire. Hey, hey! It's going to be alright, I heard the phoenix is a bird of rebirth. You're going to be fine."

"Yes, I have a griffin, yes, I have a unicorn, a pegasus, a basilisk, and also yes, I have a bunch of normal animals too. You know what I don't have? Thaumarks. Pay up, b*tch. I need to feed my babies."

It goes without fail that a different beast will accompany Yuu and Grim to class, and due to this, it's not that easy to approach Yuu anymore. The beasts are effective bodyguards. There are no more jokes about a beast tamer; Yuu is the real deal now.

The boys could go deal with school and overblots; Yuu is gonna do the equivalent of farm life in the ramshackle dorm.

A different outlook would be instead of taming beasts, Yuu tamed people instead. Yuu is getting sick of these rude people so they decided to make the bullies their 'pet'.

Savanaclaw is the first victim since most unruly and undisciplined students came from here. Since this is a dorm filled with beastmen, naturally, power rules the weak is a norm.

Yuu did something that straight-up made the Savanaclaw students docile and obedient through incredible violence, harsh discipline, and volcano-like anger. The students that followed Yuu were either full of simps or simply out of fear or respect.

Second would be Diasomnia and Yuu obtain them without lifting a finger, believe it or not. Malleus is already wrapped around Yuu's finger since the beginning, if the respected housewarden and heir to the Briar Valley is like this, it only prompted the others to follow Yuu as well. They will treat Yuu like royalty. Simply put, Yuu got the whole package without asking.

…

Couldn't decide who's next. My brain ain't braining anymore. For those who wish to use the prompt, do tag me please. I want to read.

[pterodactylterrace]

All the folks of kings landing are rioting because they aren’t happy with the variety of food being offered. They don’t want fish anymore, they want something else.

My autistic ass heard that they were eating the same thing everyday and was like “I don’t see the problem. That is my ideal.” I have like 4 meals I rotate indefinitely for myself. Sure I will try new things, but in general I could eat the same four things for the rest of my life and be perfectly fine.

Also pretty pissed off that they weren’t upset that they were starving. They were upset because they were sick of fish. Literally choosing beggars. The fuck, Condal? Has he never met a poor person before? We don’t care what the food is as long as we eat that day.

[daisychainsandbowties]

any imodna fic recs??

🥺 i really like imodna but it’s not a pairing i read much fic of aside from the occasional snippet on here while i’m gaying in the tag, but these are the few i have read & really loved 🥰💖

///

let’s just go and fall in love// read this the night of the kiss and. oh my god. beautiful beautiful. by @sharkodaktyl

the veins grow in slow// the prose. oh my god the prose in this one. by @foibles-fables

where the spirit meets the bones// this one makes me consider eating flowers (good) by @somethingwritey

a soul is a wild thing// daemon au. this one is… they are both the strangest girls and it’s breathtaking. by @unicyclehippo

high speed connection// streamer au. this is incredible 🙏😌. by @wvearp

[wexhappyxfew]

“Don’t leave my sight again” for Kennedy and Bucky! Only if you want! I love your writing! <3

HI SWEET ANON!!!!! thank you so so much for popping this in the askbox and for the love on my writing! it means SO MUCH!! i had a lot of fun with this one - we went in a direction i wanted to explore a bit more with the kennedy x bucky dynamic, especially their ever-present bickering about sports with their (respective) red sox and yankees, hehe. i really enjoyed this prompt because i could still utilize the dynamic i wanted, but inject the prompt into the writing in a way that was more heartfelt and meaningful than anything, so, please enjoy!! :D

lips itching to grin

(a/n): kennedy x bucky girlies, we're back and better than ever and focusing on the early days again with these two, specifically in the ever-present baseball rivalry (with a side of heartfelt and slightly flirty banter that neither side may or may have not predicted.....). ps: there's a whole lot of baseball references in here along with a deep dive into the red sox and yankees baseball almanac of 1942 players, as (to preface) they discuss a yankees x red sox game from 1942, with some of their own perspectives (though we enter the conversation in the middle lol). please enjoy!!! <3333

"Alright, well, runners on first and second, game-tying run at second, bottom of the 5th," Kennedy started, as she watched Paulina offer one of the newer replacements a dance as Billie Holiday sung with those swing trumpets over their heads, "you got Joe DiMaggio coming up with two outs. Dick Newsome's already at 78 pitches."

"Easy," Bucky offers as Paulina and the replacement move out towards the center of the floor and start dancing - Kennedy likes seeing her smile, "DiMaggio hits an RBI double and makes it to second base. Then you ain't even tied up anymore. Score's 4-3."

"But," Kennedy started, glancing upwards at him with a look as she tilted her head, a smile on her cheeks, "you got Charlie Keller up next. Getting to that point in your roster where it gets a little….hairy."

"Says the one with Joe Cronin on your-"

"Focus." Kennedy said snapping in front of his face, bringing a smirk onto his lips as he looked back at her, "We're talking about the fucking Yankees right now, Bucky."

"Don't call them the fucking Yankees."

"They're the fucking Yankees to me, got it?" she said and she watched Bucky turn from his position leaned up backwards against the bar to actually facing her, "What?"

"You get really passionate about your Red Sox, huh?" he said, leaning his hand up against the side of his face and watching her, "I'd hate to mess with you-"

"You already have." she told him in a sing-song voice as she turned and took a sip of her beer and looked out to the dance floor again, "Try growing up as the only girl in a house full of brothers. You either play baseball or you are the baseball, I'm afraid." Bucky snickered at that and sipped his own drink - bourbon maybe, she could smell it on his lips from here.

"What the hell kinda baseball did the Farley brothers play?"

"Wouldn't you like to know."

"Clearly not that great of baseball, you're all Red Sox fans."

"Says the one who willingly became a Yankees fan."

"Willingly-"

"At least I grew up in the area! It makes sense!"

"Can't knock me, Yankees' got a fan all the way from Wisconisn - can't say the same about other teams now, huh?" Bucky said leaning towards her with a grin, "Gotcha there, huh?" Kennedy watched him.

"Bill Dickey comes up and goes out swinging," Kennedy said, staring him down, "Red Ruffing's taken outta the game. Atley Donald's up on the mound. Johnny Pesky's up to bat. Donald walks him. Tony Lupien comes up - an absolute bomb outta the field. Rest of the game is a no-go. Red Sox win. 6-4."

"For someone who despises the Yankees, you sure do know a whole lot about them." Bucky said, sipping his drink again, "It's cute. You trying to impress me with that Yankees stuff."

"I just know a whole lot about games where my Red Sox win," Kennedy mouthed back, the tops of her cheeks burning, "you'd know if I was trying to impress you."

"When's that happened?"

"Never."

"Huh."

"Exactly." she said, sending him a look and he smirked again, his eyes watching her in that manner they always seemed to, "What's that look for?"

"What'd you usually play?" he asked her, that lazy grin growing on his face, "C'mon, I know you were probably in a group of kids that got together to play. What were ya? No….let me guess. First base, you're pretty tall." She stared at him and raised a brow. "No?"

"What about this," she started, standing up straight and holding out her arms, "screams first base, huh?"

"Fine. Shortstop. Speedy, quick-witted-"

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"Don't get in over your head."

"Continue…." Kennedy said with a smirk.

"Shortstop." Bucky said, "Final answer."

"Ding-ding, you're correct," she said with a smile, "usually my older brother and I fought over that position. He usually gave in."

"You were convincing enough." Bucky said, sipping his drink again.

"I was better than him." she offered back, catching that look on his face, "What, like it's hard to believe?"

"Nah, nah," Bucky said shaking his head back and forth and grinning, before avoiding her questioning entirely, "you like hitting?"

"Usually was middle of the pack, sometimes cleanup, I flip-flopped." she said with a winning smirk, "Wasn't often I got cleanup though, my older brother, he's a fucking giant, like 6 foot 5 or something - Bobby - he usually could drive in any and all runners. Sometimes he let me in the spot. It was usually some stupid fight we'd have, but he'd let me have my ways sometimes. Which was nice." Bucky grinned at her again and she couldn't tell whether that was just how he decided to look at people or if there was something else going on behind those eyes and that smile. But she just left it for the time being and took to sipping her drink again.

An upbeat Ozzie Nelson beat came over above them, which immediately sent Kennedy thinking of home again - its summer, the windows are open, her mother's got the radio playing the music she always used when cleaning the house; a mix of Artie Shaw, Billie Holiday, Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. Sometimes even some Ray Noble. Any sort of music as such would remind her of that time in her youth, racing around the house with her brothers, this music in her ears, the kitchen smelling like lemon soap and freshly scrubbed, the linens hanging outside, the sound of her mother sweeping and shooing away her brothers or their dog, Gunny.

"My ma loves this music," Kennedy said with a smile, looking out to the dance floor as people danced and clung onto one another, as if it were the only thing they had apart from those flying coffins - human touch, more important than anything when they were here, "she played it all the time at home."

"She a big band fan?" Bucky asked her, and she looked to him with a smile and nodded. The corners of his eyes grew soft - she noticed he did that sometimes when he was really listening to you; really, really listening. When she had first noticed it, she'd been taken back at the intensity with which he would watch and listen, but he did it so subtly she had never really noticed until now.

"Always has been." Kennedy said with a nod, "I mean, with five sons and one daughter, there isn't a whole lot of space to listen to quiet jazz, or…something or other. Everyone always wanted big band being played." Bucky let out a bark of a chuckle and then got quiet again, glancing her way with that cautious look painted on his face. He knocked her shoulder lightly.

"And you?" he asked her, a slightly playful look on his face, lips itching to grin again.

"What about me?"

"What do you like?" he asked her, "What does Kennedy Farley dance around to her when no one's looking?" Kennedy couldn't help but laugh, a real genuine laugh and shake her head.

"Usually Benny Goodman or Glenn Miller."

"Like mother, like daughter." Bucky said with a smile, "What's she doing now ya think? Your ma?" Kennedy shrugged, feeling slightly homesick at the thought of her Ma, at home, with all her children off to war, or college, or school, her husband off to work, leaving her in that big house all alone. Her stomach twisted unpleasantly and she couldn't fight the sad expression off her face.

"Probably getting dinner ready - she makes a damn good beef stew. Chop the carrots, onions, celery. Let the beef sit and marinate for a while. The whole house would smell almost like Christmas Eve," Kennedy said softly, before quirking out a grin, "waiting for Dad to get home from work." She stared at Bucky who watched her back. "Your ma?"

"Much of the same probably." Bucky said, leaning up against the bar and schooling his features evenly, "Cooking up dinner, waiting for my dad to get home." Bucky smiled almost bittersweetly. "Wish she didn't have to be there alone, ya know?"

"Yeah," Kennedy said quickly, her emotions warping with her intense want to berate him yet again over baseball, but her softer side took over and she looked at him, "I don't doubt though if I went home, she'd be telling me 'Don't leave my sight again.'" Kennedy said with a small smile. "Broke her damn heart for me to come out here. Only daughter. One of the youngest." Bucky watched her, his face quiet, his expressions even and he seemed at once, intently focused purely on her.

"She didn't want me to come." Kennedy told him honestly, feeling like if she didn't get it off her chest now, she never would tell a soul, "Here. Flying B-17s, being a gunner, getting my hands on a .50 cal. She hated the idea of all of it. But I guess she let me go because she knew it was what I wanted. What I needed. For me." She looked over at Bucky and saw nothing but that gentle, fond expression on his face. She smiled slightly. He smiled right back, almost instantly.

"Well, I'm glad you're here," he said, watching as her face morphed from sadness to mild surprise, to which he laughed at, "yeah, I swear to ya, Farley. I really am. Hey, who was it that saw you shooting that .50 cal back in training and hand-picked you for my gunners, alright?" She was quiet. "That was me."

"And then of course Birdie took you under her wing and the rest is history, but I didn't forget that at some point in time, you were one of my waist gunners," he said, knocking her shoulder lightly again, "a good one at that, you know that?" Just hearing Birdie's name made her heart squeeze.

"It's really nothing special-"

"You shot Expert, Farley," he said, holding her gaze with a firm look, "that sends eyes wandering, I promise ya."

Oh.

She watched him for a moment before her fingers were getting twitchy and she needed something for them and to get herself to look away from that look in his eyes.

"Cigarette?" she asked him, pulling from his gaze to dig her hand into her pockets and produce the slightly crumpled cigarette packet she always had on hand. He watched her before slowly nodding.

"Sure." he said, as she innately popped open the top and produced two cigarettes, sliding one onto her lip and the other into his own hands, "Thanks."

"The least I could do for a compliment like that." she said, almost bashfully, as he placed it on his lip with a chuckle.

"First time anyone's ever told you that?"

"People don't tell me a whole lot of things like that ever so," Kennedy started, before attempting to smile, "yeah, first time for everything" Bucky watched her curiously as he produced a lighter and leaned forward to light up her cigarette before doing his own.

"Really?" he asked her, almost surprised - why would he need to act surprised, why did he even bother to care? She nodded. Bucky watched her for a moment, fingertips drumming against his cigarette as he stared at her; his gaze not one she was entirely even turning away from or wanting to.

"Cleanup." She stared at him, raising a brow.

"Tell Bobby Farley that you shoulda been in cleanup in the lineup." Bucky said, turning towards the bar again and calling for another drink, "Shortstops are usually closer to the top of the lineup anyway, right?" Kennedy watched him, her heart pounding.

"Bucky-"

"I woulda put you in that clean-up spot any day of the week, believe me." he said, smiling at her, with a grin, before turning to the bar and getting his drink. And she recited deep from within her mind, something Bobby Farley had taught her well and good in their screaming matches - 4th slot in the lineup, cleanup spot, usually one of the more or most important players in the lineup; they're powerful, drive in runs and more than anything are one thing - consistent.