#tripped into thinking its their fault if this happens and its totally separate to this stupid fucking poll

[adidegmez]

spn s9 spoilers

s9 ep1(i think i'm gonna like it here)

dean would do anything for sammy. hi bobby!? i didnt think we would see him ever again. dean saved bobby too. If it wasn't for Dean, Benny wouldn't have gotten them out of there. This episode is playing with my balance. cas' scenes are funny. dean is sad. sam is confused. i like ezekiel, i guess. i hope he can help dean. i really hope most of the angels are good. ezekiel gave me hope that angels are not fully bad.

s9 ep2(devil may care)

stark banner solo. kevin is so good. i was thinking who will save them this time. i totally forgot about ezekiel. i knew kevin wouldn't let crowley go he is a smart kid. jensen and jared and misha and all of the actors and actress' are so good. i can see the difference between zeke and sam so easy.

s9 ep3(i'm no angel)

human cas and his adventures:). i hope dean will explain cas why he can't stay. i need team free will to be together. they need each other.

s9 ep4(slumber party)

i didn't think Oz was real. i thought they were just making references. but this is much better. i hope we will se Charlie more in the future. i always forget Zeke.

s9 ep5(dog dean afternoon)

dean is so cute. ep is funny as always. We couldn't hear the conspiracy theory. winchesters always keep secret from each other, i hope this time it wont end bad. i hope Dean talks to Sam about Zeke.

s9 ep6(heaven can't wait)

babysitter cas. i like the song. Why does Crowley inject himself with blood? I think he wants to become a little human too.

s9 ep7(bad boys)

dean always watches out for sammy. i like sonny. dean is so nice with kids. Dean does anything for Sammy. and will do anything for him until he dies. Sam often doesn't know the things Dean does for him.

s9 ep8(rock and a hard place)

born again born again born again… all i can think about is daredevil. i cant wait to watch the show. it really hurts to see sam and dean this way. they both blame themselves.

s9 ep9(holy terror)

i hope gadreel wont do anything bad. Cas is getting better at lying. He manipulated the angel very well. and now he has become an angel again. is kevin dead?! he is dead. i really loved kevin. rip. dean will blame himself but its not his fault.

s9 ep10(road trip)

they finally saved sam. They went their separate ways again. I hope they make peace soon.

s9 ep11(first born)

i think cas is like a brother to winchesters.

s9 ep12(sharp teeth)

there are good werewolves good vampires… not all monsters are monster. i hope there are more good monsters. sam really! i know what dean did was selfish but he just wanted his brother. I think this is such a small thing compared to what Sam did. Sam trusted a demon instead of his brother, and Dean forgave him anyway and started trusting him again.

s9 ep13(the purge)

sometimes dean didnt trust sam either but they were always brothers. The person Dean cares about most in this world is his little brother Sammy. And Sam took it away from him. I'm sorry I loved Sam I still do BUT if someone acts against my favorite character I will defend my favorite character and I guess I'm a little harsh on Sam right now but I can't help it. dean is the big brother, Dean always looked out for Sam. sam and dean they have different point of views. sam didnt even try to save dean from purgatory. and dean did everything for him. i knew when they argued dean would save sam every time but in the same situation sam wouldnt save dean. when sam said he didnt even tried to save dean from the purgatory i thought something happened. and i still cant believe he didnt even tried. and he had no reason not to. like dean didnt even died he was in purgatory with the monsters. why didnt he try to save him? and i know dean's choice was selfish yes he didnt wanted to be alone. dean had a duty of care since he was little and he'll always try to save his little brother. but sam idek. Even Bobby was disappointed. Yes Winchesters had a deal but they never listened to this deal until Sam broke it. idk im just sad that it came to this.

s9 ep14(captives)

kevin deserved better. kevin is right. they need to work this out(asap).

s9 ep15(#THINMAN)

I love the references in this show. i really missed the winchester brothers.

s9 ep16(blade runners)

i love dean's bond to sam. Dean has never cared about anyone as much as he cares about Sam, and he probably never will. and it breaks my heart to see them like that. i have a bad feeling. i think dean will go out of control and kill some people or probably demons.

s9 ep17(mother's little helper)

dean is not okay. when will charlie return? i wish they could save josie. it was nic to see henry and josie.

s9 ep18(meta fiction)

gabriel!? i thought he might return someday but i didnt think that day was today. omg i didnt see that coming. of course i knew when i saw casa erotica but i didnt believe it. i still cant believe. is something wrong with him? what?! gabriel is still alive right? i dont like seeing metatron.

s9 ep19(alex annie alexis ann)

i love jody. every time i see dean

s9 ep20(bloodlines)

monster drama. will we go back to chicago? i think so.

I think I was going to write more, but a few days passed and I forgot what to write. Actually, I was finishing a season in two days, but I wanted to slow down a little. because I was going very fast and if I went at this speed I would have to say goodbye to them in a very short time. But I don't want to say goodbye yet, so I'm trying to delay saying goodbye by watching other shows together. I love SPN so much, I love watching Dean, Cas and Sam and their adventures. But there are 5 seasons left and I don't want to say goodbye.

s9 ep21(king of the damned)

Crowley is still a little bit human. his sons reactions and interrogation were funny. what is cas doing? crowle is funny. I'm just starting to love him again but he ruins everything. and dean he enjoys using the blade i know he cant help it but still he enjoys violence. is abaddon really dead? i think so but i cant be sure.

s9 ep22(stairway to heaven)

Cas is getting good at lying. spears and aguilera!? dean doesnt trust cas and sam. and he is under the influence of the knife. "-why is 6 afraid of 7? i assume its becuse 7 is a prime number and prime numbers can be intimidating. -its becuse 7 8 9" I've been waiting for this to happen. dean scares me. I have no idea what he will do while under the influence of the knife. and that scares me. i knew he wouldnt leave the blade. gadreel is right. everyone makes mistakes. and again dean… i knew he would attack he shook his hand. If he wasn't going to attack, he probably wouldn't have shaken hands. he is out of control. He can't even control himself.

s9 ep23(do you believe in miracles?)

I started watching supernatural about a month ago. At first carry on didn't mean anything to me, but now I listen to it completely differently. I even made it my phone's ringtone. I get emotional when Carry On is played at the beginning of the episode. Dean, Sam, Cas and the others are my everything even though I have only known them for a month. It's like I've known them my whole life. I love them very much and I'm glad I started following their adventures. i love them so much. but especially dean, im sorry but i have to say it he is my everything i love him so much. i love sam and cas too and bobby but dean is different. haven't we seen this before? Or am I experiencing deja vu? metatron saving the woman. idk it feels so familiar. I love Cas' references. Metatron is really getting on my nerves. gadreel was a good angel. really cas did all of this for dean. i am not sad they won. yes dean is dead but i know he wont be dead for long so no problem i guess. sam IS trying to bring his brother back. he said he wouldnt but he is trying it is nice to see he tries. i knew we would see demon dean in the future because i saw spoilers about it. but i didnt think we would see now! well, at least he is not really dead. hope he'll be okay. things will never be great even good but at least i hope it wouldnt be bad.

[tinkdw]

As someone who doesn’t watch ODAT because I don’t particularly like that style of show and wasn’t aware of it (is it even on UK Netflix? Idk) I just want to point out that IF it gets cancelled it’s not Destiel shippers fault.

I OBVIOUSLY don’t want the show cancelled and I obviously think it’s clearly from what I can see got fantastic representation and is a morally wonderful show.

But that doesn’t mean it will get renewed, shows get cancelled all the time, there are a million other and far more realistic reasons why it will be renewed or cancelled than some stupid online poll.

I mean I get that them winning the round will be a good thing for them of course but what’ll happen next round anyway? If they get through are people gonna tell the other fandom not to vote for their OTP and expect to be listened to? Really?!

If they won overall would it really sway tptb if they’ve already decided to cancel due to actual valid production reasons like idk how much money the show is making??

Vote, don’t vote, vote for ODAT, I don’t care, but, my followers, please don’t feel ashamed or blamed for a random show you’ve never heard of getting cancelled IF the two do happen. If it gets cancelled it’ll be because of a bunch of actual production reasons that are totally unrelated to this random online poll.

Winning the poll might make tptb sit up and think hey ppl like this! but it’s not going to change their $$ reasons for either renewing or cancelling. Apparently it’s been threatened with cancellation long before this poll, the actors and crew are apparently reaching out for support of the show in general for a while and I TOTALLY get that it’s important and lovely to support a show that is this progressive but if you, as an individual, have voted Destiel because, idk, it’s a fun poll about your OTP, not a political statement, do not feel guilty if the process of cancellation that is already taking place, clearly, follows through.

I mean also it’s not like Destiel isn’t made up of a repressed closeted toxically masculine bisexual who is in process of accepting himself finally and a NB person. This is a hugely representational and canonically valid ship.

TL;DR it’s not another fandom’s fault (a fandom so keen on representation themselves by the way and begging for it for the protagonist) if another show is cancelled for reasons totally separate from a random online poll of one couple v another.

[shai-manahan]

28 with Alex. I just need a little bit of our caring brother🥺

All right. Giving this a shot. I mean, I feel like I managed to make this a little softer compared to the ones before, I think?

Can't resist including hints every time.

Alex - 28. grabbing the other’s hand so they don’t fall

An eerie atmosphere emanates from the air. Everything's dark. Everything's cold. The floor is full of dust and dirt, cobwebs populating the corners, and the walls, despite all the grand embellishments decorating their surface, lack a sense of life to them—stripped away of meaning.

And you stand there, right in the middle of it all, thinking of what may have been. Thinking of what your childhood house would have looked like if you had stayed.

Memories invade your head as you continue walking, as you continue wandering around the lifeless shell you once called your home. They come in like a sort of tandem—the happiest moments overlapping with the ugliest ones—the most painful ones. The fights, the unveiled secrets, the deaths. It all seems pointless when you think about them in hindsight, but you weren't alone, were you?

You didn't face any of it alone.

He was there. With you. Always with you.

"Let me see again."

The image of a young Alex kneels in front of you—no, the eight-year-old you—as you approach the balcony. The two of them are about ten paces away from your position, your grumpy young self trying to shrug away from Alex's hold, and you find yourself focusing on that sight—that specific memory that has held you together during your early years.

You push the others away. You bury them, deep below, all to make way for this one. And you watch. You're the spectator today, not the actor, and so you watch.

"What did I say about sneaking out alone?" Alex whispers as he lifts the kid's chin, checking for bruises and injuries.

"I'm old enough."

"No, you're not. Not old enough to be climbing roofs on your own. Not yet."

"And it's okay when you're with me?"

He shrugs. "That's what they call... adult supervision."

"You're fourteen!"

"Shh," Alex raises a finger against his lips. "Do you wanna get caught?"

He glances behind him, right towards your direction, and you find yourself clinging to a curtain and using it to hide yourself in the dark. You know you don't have to—it's just a feeble memory, after all—but you also know why you end up doing it anyway.

"Okay, maybe I'm not an adult yet—" he flicks your younger self's forehead with a finger— "but at least I'd never be so clumsy with my head." The way Alex did it wasn't a hard one as you remember, but you did bump that same head when you messed up with your stunt, so of course it hurt the kid. It hurt you.

The child swats his hand angrily. It wasn't just the frustration of your brother's teasing, or of a failed climb. It was everything else—the reason why you had to sneak out in the first place. This house. Your parents. The sad, dull life you've had enough of. They felt it all. You felt it all. The child was ignorant, totally unaware of the luck they've always had by their side simply for having a life like this—boring, yes, but safe; not like everyone else's. But you know better now, don't you? And so will they.

But of course you were still a snotty kid back then, an angry one who felt like everyone was going against them, so you witness the kid pushing Alex away, running away, sobbing, crying—you step back a little as they come rushing, and it all plays back just exactly the way you remember it.

The eight-year-old you, going for the stairs, eager to get away from it all—no fixed destination in mind, no concrete plan on what to do. Alex, trailing after every step—he may have been good at climbing, but he was a slow ass runner.

And there come the stairs.

The child trips. The child sees the world go slow for the first time in their life. Eyes on the ground. Eyes on their impending collision.

Until someone pulls them back.

"Are you hurt?" They're both lying on the ground now, Alex hugging the child protectively, slowly separating as he checks over his sibling. "Hey. Are you hurt? Anything feel weird? Hey."

But the child wasn't done fighting yet. They wanted to get away. Wanted to get out of this suffocating place. Wanted to be free. "Let me go!"

"Shh. Let's get you back to your room, talk about this tomorrow."

"No!"

"Look, you don't want Mom to see us here, do you?" Alex spares another glance around. "I sure as heck don't. Where would you even go this time?"

"Away."

"Away," he repeats mockingly.

"They won't care anyway." The child glares at him. "They'd never care."

Silence.

At first, you begin thinking that was the end of the memory, that the rest is gone, forgotten and left within the lowest depths of your brain, then you see a flicker of doubt in Alex's face, gone only after a second.

What did he know?

What did he keep from you?

"They care." He stares back at the child, eyes unflinching. "They care, okay? They love both of us, and they will always care. They're just... there's just a lot going on. Give them time, and everything will be better. Everything will be fine."

The child looks away. "You can't promise that."

Another round of silence.

"Maybe not. But how about this?" He gently touches the child's cheek to turn their focus back to him, his other hand clutching the kid's shivering ones. "If things don't go better, if they keep behaving like that, I'll still be here. For you. Anytime you need me, I'll be here. Right beside you. Anytime. We can be a team of our own."

He takes a deep sigh, and he adds, "Even when the whole world turns against you."

No.

You know that didn't happen. He didn't say that, not that time. Not at that moment. It was in a different situation, with a different meaning behind it. It wasn't supposed to happen here.

Nevertheless, the last fragments of the memory fade, the image of you and your brother slowly slinking away into the darkness. Like the others before.

And you're alone. Once again.

You vaguely wonder if that's the last time you'd hear those words.

The words that made you accept this as your home. Your refuge.

You press your palms against your eyes. Whose fault was it? Why you? Why this family? Why this city? You've had a lot of answers by now—most of them breaking every single hope you once held onto—but for every answer, another question emerges.

Why?

Why?

Why?

Then you hear your name. You remove your hands from your eyes, scanning for the voice you just heard. His voice. Maybe the scene you were seeing earlier wasn't over yet. Maybe it's just one of the voices you keep hearing, slowly driving you insane. Maybe it's just your broken mind finally making up things on its own.

But then it comes again.

"Is that you?" The voice cracks. "Is that really you?"

You turn around in a swift motion, and you see him, for the first time in years. The ragged, broken look on his face tells you how much he's gone through—no words needed—but it's still him. Your brother. Your stubborn, self-sacrificing brother. His hair appears more unkempt than ever, no longer the cleaned up look he always used to boast about, and he seems... much older, as if more than a few years have passed. But it's still him.

Alex.

Your brother.

Your refuge.

Your home.

The hand that had always pulled you back from danger, no matter what it cost.

The hand that had persevered to protect you from this unforgiving world.

The hand that had always stayed behind to catch you as you fall.

He's there.

He's right there.

"You're alive." The words come out of his lips as a whisper. In between his tears, over and over. In between the incoherent words he attempts on saying.

"You're alive."

Alex walks closer, one step in front of the other, and your mind struggles to comprehend the sight that unfolds before you. He's really there. It's not a sham. Not a trap. Not your imagination. So when he proceeds to hug you, you let him. When he proceeds to clutch you tighter, in fear that you'd leave him again, you let him.

When he decides to stay there for a while, not saying anything, not doing anything else, you let him.

Maybe you're not too late.

Maybe there is hope.

For you.

For the both of you.

And for everyone else.

[vagrantblvrd]

anakin doesn't fall to the dark side - meet the parents dinluke?

Yesssss.

Because all the AUs where Skywalker family drama is due to Anakin causing a diplomatic incident at a Fancy Dinner when he accidentally mortally offends someone who asks his opinion about sand, and not you know, the whole Darth Vader thing.

Also, the Jedi Order looking long and hard about that stance on attachment and other things because wow, okay, wow.

(But also, I must Drama a teensy bit, because yes.)

Obi-Wan enjoying the grandparent benefit of getting the joy of having Luke and Leia? But also watching Anakin deal with these little terrors of his and feels it’s payback for what he went through with just one of Anakin.

Leia who may have followed Padme into politics but everyone knows she takes after Anakin in temperament. Luke’s the one to follow Anakin in becoming a Jedi, but he’s more like his mother in temperament.

Ahsoka adores the twins, and is in fact one of their favorite partners in crime, and Anakin is like, pls, pls, stop turning my children against me,pls.

Also? Padme is kind of the worst because she’s taught them everything she knows about political maneuvering and the whatnot.

Anakin is convinced they’ll have the entire galaxy on its knees before them one day soon.

Anyway.

Luke who goes gallivanting about for reasons and after one gallivanting about trip he comes back all :DDDDDDDDDDDDD and *___________________________* and Anakin has no idea what happened other than Luke’s X-wing being shot down and him being stranded on some backwater planet somewhere for ages before the search party found him?

But when they found him he was just. Like That, and also holding this little metal ball in his hand, rolling it back and forth like it was a calming thing, little smile on his face.

Also, he went to Coruscant to speak to Yoda and only the two of them know what was said? But Yoda’s been even more insufferable than usual, livelier? Something.

(It’s a Thing known among Jedi that Master Yoda was changed when a youngling went missing years ago, kidnapped or something. Some say Yoda feels it was his fault, that the guilt still weighs heavy on him, but it’s hearsay and rumor.)

Anyway.

A few months after Luke’s rescue from that backwater planet Luke goes and gets in trouble. (He doesn’t know if the fact Leia is with him makes the whole thing better or worse? Between the two of them there’s hardly need for a rescue at all, but also the thing where they might finally take over the galaxy if left to their own devices so.)

Rescuing his kid(s).

Again.

Obi-Wan is suitably worried, but also amused as hell and really, Obi-Wan, Anakin was never that bad. Was he? Obi-Wan? Are you choking? You don’t sound well.)

Anakin and the others headed off to rescue Luke, and it turns into them going from place to place, chasing rumors and gossip and one one of these planets they run into this Mandalorian.

Flys an old gunship that looks like it’s on its last legs and wears beskar and also -

“Oh my,” Obi-Wan says, when they see the kid riding along in a bag the Mandalorian carries.

Anakin thinks it’s just the thing where the kid is clearly one of Yoda’s species, but Obi-Wan’s reaction is a little too much for somthing so simple, obvious.

Anyway, the Mandalorian tells them he can help them find Luke and Leia, and at first Anakin isn’t that thrilled about adding him to the rescue party?

But then the kid pulls out this little...trinket, charm, something Anakin and Padme gifted Luke as a child that he carries - carried - around as a good luck token, or at least that’s what he always says. (Ducks his head, sheepish little smile and Anakin and Padme like, aw, our kid is a dork like us,)

Point is, Anakins recognizes it, and the comes in like, my dude, connect the fucking dots, you’re killing me.

Which is how Anakin meets Luke’s ~sekrit boyfriend and his kid.

(Only not so much ~sekrit as Luke had plans to introduce Din to his parents and such, but the whole surprise!Dangerous Adventure thing happened first.)

Anakin being like >:( because protective parent and all?

But as they search for clues as to Luke and Leia’s whereabouts he gets to see just how concerned for Luke Din is, and how much he loves his tiny green gremlin kid, and Din’s overall skill and competence? Also, though, also. He’s smart, not just a blunt weapon, and he’s like oh, no, because he knows his son? But it’s not a bad feeling when he thinks it, just.

A little sad, wistful, what with Luke not being a kid anymore - he’s known that for a while now, but this cements the reality and all.

It’s not the surprise he thought it was when Anakin realizes he likes Din as a person, although it’s not like he’s going to say it, you know?

(I mean, he does because he’s not a complete bastard, but that’s not the point.)

They catch a break, catch up to Luke and Leia and Anakin discovers he really, really likes the way Din just absolutely destroys any baddies stupid enough to get between him and Luke, matches Anakin’s protectiveness and he’s like -

“Hey, once this is over we’re going to talk.” Smiles with perhaps too many teeth showing at Din’s confusion. “About you and my kid.

He can’t see Din’s reaction to that, because armor? But he feels this flare of !!! through the Force before it gets shoved aside in favor or getting to Luke, panic later?

And then!

Dramatic rescues and Anakin and Din decimating the baddies by themselves - Obi-Wan’s dealing with things like anti-air batteries and shield generators. Ahsoka’s making sure no one sneaks up behind Anakin and Din, but she honestly doesn’t have much to do in that regard.

And then!

Anakin is like, aw, man, I’m right here, when there’s the moment Luke and Din are ~reunited and Din is like, gos so, so still and Luke’s the one to press his forehead against Din’s because hey, hey, hes fine, he’s right here, and also hi, i missed you with them being separated even before Luke and Leia’s latest Adventure.

Still, Anakin lets them have their moment and goes to check on Leia, who gives them a look like took your time, didn’t you? But there’s relief in her eyes and she doesn’t say anything as he wraps her in a hug, calls her the nickname he gave her when she was  kid and she laughs because it’s a dumb nickname dad, but it’s kind of their joke, and anyway, she had everything in hand, didn’t she? He’s just here for the cleanup.

And then! Some more!

It turns out Luke and Leia got wrapped up in some conspiracy nonsense, Palpatine’s followers who have been hiding in the shadows all this time and opportunity for revenge against the ~great Anakin SKywaler by targeting his kids.

Only the baddies miscalculated because they went after his and Padme’s kids, and everyone knows they’re complete terrors, you know? The worst.

After everything’s dealt with and they head home, Anakin is almost as amused as Leia and Obi-Wan at the way Din is all but glued to Luke’s side, that tiny green gremlin kid of his just as bad.

Anakin’s heart grows three sizes when he watches the Very Solemn exchange of the little metal ball Luke brought back with him that one time and the trinket/chram/good luck token Grogu’s been holding on to.

Valuable treasures trusted on one another’s safekeeping until they saw one another again, and Din is like. Freaking hearteyes over the two of them, because his family, and Anakin just sighs

Obi-Wan totally not laughing at him now that Anakin has no right to play the overprotetcive, disapproving father card on Din after everything he’s seen of the man and how he feels about Luke.

“Disappointed?” Obi-Wan asks, and he’s smirking as he does.

Anakin doesn’t bother with an answer because Obi-Wan knows the answer.

Something along the lines of no, and you know better, Obi-Wan, with a oh, Padme’s going to love him,because of course she is. He makes her son very, very happy, after all.

(Best, best thing, however, is Padme meeting Din, when they arrive home. Din nervous and worried because Luke’s told him about his mother, how terrifying she can be, a force of nature, and clear he adores her.

And Padme looking between Din and his son holding Grogu with this radiant smile. So in love, and easy enough to see his love returned, and everything she could have asked for for her son.)

[jawritter]

An Alpha And His Omega

Summary: Sometimes Alpha’s aren’t the assholes, sometimes words Omegas say things that can hurt too. 

Written for: @flamencodiva  and Diva’s Writing Challenge

Prompt: He was unconscious when I found him.

Warnings: Angst, virble arguments, the reader is a bitch of a bitch in this one, pining sickness, abo dynamics, sick!dean, language, smut, unprotected sex, knotting, claiming, scenting, protective Sam, (sam’s actually pretty scary in this one). I think that’s everything, sorry If I missed something. 

Word count: 5860 (Whops)

Pairing: Alpha!Dean Winchester x Omega!reader

A/N: This fic was beta’d by @deanwanddamons! Thanks again love! Please do not copy my work! Hope you all enjoy this one!

***MASTERLIST***       ***BECOME A PATREON***

There wasn’t a word to describe how angry you were right now with Dean Winchester. If you were strong enough, you’d kick his ass, and even though you were in excellent shape for an omega, you still couldn’t hold a candle to the big, brooding Alpha. 

Dean had been in a bad mood for weeks now. Well, months if you think about it. You’d known Dean for years, ever since you were kids growing up at Bobby’s  while your father’s went on hunting trips together, and you  always got along well enough, better than most unmated Alphas did with unmated Omegas. 

You attributed that to the life the two of you lived. It wasn’t exactly ideal for having any sort of mate really, and you always took your suppressants when you were around Dean. 

Then you met Jamie. He was a good guy, and an even better hunter. He had all the physical attributes you would look for in an Alpha, and he didn’t want to settle down and have a litter of pups. He literally just wanted someone he could trust to help him through his ruts, and you wanted someone to help you through your heats. 

It was a win, win situation. You helped each other when you needed help, and went your separate ways without any attachments. You knew Jamie  wouldn’t claim you, and you knew you could go through the physical work up without being attached to him. Without getting those dreaded feelings. When you started this little arrangement, you began to take a lower dosage of suppressants because it wasn’t good to take such a high dosage all the time, and with Jamie being on call you didn’t need to fight against your biology as much.   

That’s when you started having trouble with Dean Winchester. 

It began with the twenty questions every time you would leave and come back from being with Jamie for a few days. Then once, you caught him layering his scent on your clothes in your closet, like you wouldn’t notice. Then it was the constant pandering behind you. Wanting you to eat the food he’d bring you, or constantly checking in on you when you just wanted to be left alone. 

Then it progressed to being a dick to Jamie when he’d come around on the rare off chance he wanted to hang out with you all at the bar. Tonight had been one of those nights, and it was an Alpha pissing contest between Dean, and an uninterested Jamie, who had just come there to drink. 

Dean had stalked Jamie out to his car while you went to the bathroom before you were supposed to part ways with Jamie, but when you got out to the car you found Jamie on the ground, and a pretty amused Dean kneeling over him. 

You were infuriated. Jamie had done nothing wrong, and as much as Dean denied it, you knew it was him that broke Jamie’s jaw tonight, not some random guy from the parking lot like Dean tried to say it was. If it wasn’t Dean, Jamie wouldn’t have broken off your arrangement when you dropped him off at home from the hospital, and had to call Dean to come and pick you up off the side of the road because it was too cold to walk across town. 

“I swear Y/N, he was unconscious when I found him,” Dean said, trailing you as you  walked into the library where Sam and Jack sat with a pile of books between them. 

That was it, your last straw, between being an ass hole to your friend, and being as clingy as a newly mated Omega you had, had all of Dean’s shit you could take. Not even stopping to think about what was going to come out of your mouth, you rounded on the very surprised Alpha. 

“Fuck off Dean!, I don’t know what your deal is, but I’m SICK to fucking death of you being up my ass all the time. Now you've gone and messed up a good arrangement because you're nothing but a pompous, self absorbed Alpha, who thinks he has some sort of claim on me because I live under his roof. Well guess what buddy, you don’t own me, I’m not your Omega, and never will be, your good for nothing but a breeder, and I’m not interested in getting knocked up any time soon, so stay the fuck away from me!” 

The words had tumbled out of your mouth before you could stop yourself, and the high pitched whine that seem to fall from deep inside of Dean’s chest as he staggered backwards away from you like you had burned with a brander, was almost as impressive as the surprising growl that came from Sam at the table. Even Jack jumped back and moved away from the three of you.

“I KNOW you just did not call my brother nothing more than a breeder,” Sam said through gritted teeth, using his impressive height to tower over you, and make your inner omega cower as you backed away from him. “I suggest you take your little, too good for a Winchester, ass to your room and leave my brother alone before I rip your fucking throat out. You’d be lucky to have an Alpha like Dean, but bitches like you don’t deserve the man he is.” 

You could do nothing but back down and submit to the fuming Alpha, forgetting about Dean  momentarily as he continued to whine like a dog that had been kicked while he retreated to his room, leaving you to Sam’s own devices. Jack stayed rooted to the spot he’d moved to when Sam had erupted from the table, taking everything in with wide, doe-like eyes. 

“You know, you're lucky I don’t throw you out on your ass right now,” Sam said, stalking in front of you like he wanted to rip your head clean off your shoulders.You had never seen the younger Winchester so angry in your life. “Dean let you move in here, gave you a roof over your head, runs behind you hand over fist, and this is how you thank him? By calling him a breeder?”

“I’m sorry Sam, it just slipped out. After what he pulled with Jamie…”

“What did you think was going to happen, Y/N? Dean’s had a crush on you since we were barely teenagers, and when you stopped taking the suppressants it only got worse for him when he could actually scent you. Dean wouldn’t have hurt Jamie, because he doesn’t want to hurt you, and if he says he didn’t hit him, then he didn’t do it.” 

You stood there, wide eyes staring at Sam in complete disbelief. Dean had a crush on you? It couldn’t be true, and if it was Dean had hidden it well. You had known him pretty much all your life, and while you always found him mildly clingy and annoying, it never even crossed your mind that Dean was harboring feelings towards you.  

He was always a ladies man, the guy that could bed any girl he ever wanted, and you just never even suspected it. 

“Sam, I…”

“Just, save it Y/N. But if I hear you talking to my brother like that again you're out of here. Got it?”

You nod, and make your way to your bedroom with your mind completely clouded and shock set deep in your bones. You paused outside of Dean’s closed door and started to knock on it, to apologize to him, but you just couldn't do it. 

What if Sam was wrong, and you made a complete idiot of yourself? What if Dean didn’t like you, or have feelings for you at all? Hell, you weren’t even sure how you felt about him!

So you swallow hard, and keep walking, making your way to your own room, and drinking yourself to sleep with thoughts of Dean that you never let yourself think about before, rolling around in your mind. 

The next few weeks in the bunker were tense to say the least. Dean barley left his room at all, and when he did he’d hardly speak to anyone, but he didn’t speak to you especially. Sam couldn’t even get him to go on a simple salt and burn with him upstate, Dean insisted he call Eileen to go with him. 

Of course, Sam blamed you, and you felt that you deserved it. 

Dean had a lot of good qualities. Sure, he could be a totally self absorbed asshat, but what person living and breathing, didn’t have their moments when they weren’t so fun to be around. Dean was loyal to a fault. Self sacrificing on a level you had never seen in anyone else, supernatural being or human. When he loved someone, he loved them completely. He gave more of himself than he rightfully should have had to in life, and that had its effect on him. It made him clingy and overprotective at times, and it made him a little bit of a pest, but looking back, you regretted ever saying that he was good for nothing but a breeder. 

Dean Winchester was so much more than that. Sam was right, and the more you thought about it, the more right you discovered he was. 

There was one side of Dean, a dark one that he carried from years of being in hell, becoming a knight of hell, and just having to grow up in this life in general, had left a stain on him. It told you not to challenge him, and not to push him right now. It said it in the way his body tensed every time you walked into the room since your little fight. 

You wanted to apologize to him desperately, but you also didn’t want to push your luck with him, and get your ass kicked out. You were lucky you hadn’t had it done to you already. 

This morning had started out just like any other. Sam had  come back from his run, and was preparing his rabbit food, you were sitting at the table with a cup of coffee, and your laptop open, searching for a case, and everything seemed to be going on as it always did, everything but the blatantly empty space across the table from you that Dean normally occupied. 

You suddenly lost your appetite for your coffee, or anything really, and pushed it away from you as Sam came and sat down at the opposite end of the table, his eyes scanning yours for a moment before he let out a long sigh, sitting his fork down and rubbing his hands over his face. The tension building in the room was almost tangible. 

“I’m sorry Sam, I really am,” you finally tell him in a small voice, unable to look up in his eyes that you could feel staring back at you. “I didn’t mean what I said to Dean, I really didn’t. I was just so angry with him...I would go apologize to him, but I’m afraid he’ll try and take my fucking head off.”

“It’s not all you, Y/N,” he finally told you, running his fingers through his hair with a huff of irritation. “I probably made things worse when I exploded the way I did, and I’m sorry for that. I didn’t handle the situation properly. That’s on me.”

A long silence passed between the two of you, and it seemed almost deafening. Until, finally, Sam spoke again, his eyes lingering on the hallway leading towards Dean’s room as he did. 

“It’s not like Dean to hide away like this. I’m worried about him. He’s close to his rut, and that’s why he was being clingy towards you. He was trying to get your attention. He hasn’t been himself ever since. I don’t think he’s really even eating.”

“Do you think it would help if I left, just packed my shit and got away from him?” you asked Sam, but he just shook his head before standing with his plate. 

“No, I don’t think that’s going to solve anything. I do think that years of suppressants may have deadened your senses to what Dean’s sensing, and that you need to give Dean a chance. He very well could be your true mate, and you just don’t know it.”

You thought about that in silence for a moment before you were finally able to make your voice work again. Could Dean really have been your true mate all this time? It didn’t seem real to you. Dean had never shown  that he was interested in you, until recently when Jamie came around, and you had stopped using such strong suppressants. 

Then it hit you. The suppressants were as strong, and Dean was probably able to really scent you for the first time.

The lump that formed in your throat felt like it was going to choke you to death, but you swallowed it, and looked up at Sam, who was now leaning on the bar watching you. 

“What do I do, Sam? Where do I go from here?” you asked him, tears burning just below the surface. You had never felt so much regret in your life. Your heart literally hurt. 

“Trust your instincts Y/N.This may not be easy, but what in life worth having ever is?”

For most of the morning, you spent your time pacing your room and ringing your hands, trying to decide what to do. You knew you had to do something. Dean hadn’t even come out of his room this morning, and you were becoming more and more worried about him by the second. 

Consulting a few lore books had told you that the theory you and Sam had come up with this morning was more than likely the case. It said that when you're on strong suppressants long enough it can mask your scent to your mate completely, or even hide you from your true mate. It said that once you got started with the matting process that instinct would take over, and the rise in your body temperature would burn off the suppressants totally,  giving you the ability to scent him as strongly as he could scent you. 

You had decided that since Dean’s weakness was food, you were going to fix him some of his favorite pie, and bring it to him as a peace offering and see where things go from there. You had no sooner got to the kitchen though, when Sam slid in and told you to come with him before scurrying off to Dean’s room with you hot on his trail. 

“What’s wrong, Sam?” you asked as you skidded to a stop in the open door way of Dean’s room. Dean’s back was to the door, and the covers pulled high up almost over his head. Sam was kneeling down in front of his brother with his hand on his shoulder. 

“I don’t know, he’s burning up,” he told you, and you made your way cautiously around the bed to look at the Alpha that you had literally never seen ill a day in his life. Yet here he was, laying on his side, sweat forming just at his hairline, checks inflamed with fever, and shivering lightly. 

“Dean,” you say softly, afraid to touch him, but something draws you closer to him all the same. “Dean, what’s wrong?”

Dean’s darkened eyes looked up slowly to meet your gaze for a moment before he closed them again. 

“What do you care,Y/N? All I’m good for is breeding right? So what’s one less Alpha in the world to you when you think I’m not worth your time anyway?”

If his words were intended to cut, then they did their job, because it took everything in you to hold back the whine that threatened to fall from your throat as his words seemed to slice into your very soul.

“Dean, come on, you know I didn’t mean it, I was just irritated with you and…”

“Save it, Y/N.” Dean said, not even bothering to open his eyes, and turning his back to you and Sam. Evidently, he was done talking. 

“I’ll go call Jody, she may be able to tell us what’s going on with you,” Sam said, mouthing for you to stay here, and talk to his brother, earning him a death glare that you hoped showed him just how much you wanted to strangle  him right now.

How the fuck where going to get Dean to talk to you if he didn’t want too? He was literally the most stubborn man you had ever met, and when he was done talking you couldn’t torture  a word out of him. 

‘Follow your instincts, Y/N,' you said to yourself. Taking a deep breath, you got up and went to sit on the edge of the bed close enough that you could feel the heat coming from his body.

“Dean, please, I’m sorry. I know you're mad at me, and you have every right to be. Please know that I didn’t mean a word that I said to you. You're a lot more than a breeder, and I’m sorry I ever said it to you.”

You got no response, and for a moment you wondered if he’d fallen asleep, until he rolled over to face you again. He looked so tired, so pale. You had never seen Dean this down. Not even when Sam jumped in the pit, and he ran off to Lisa. 

“You remember when we were kids? You presented as an Omega and you were so angry about it. You were sure you were going to present as an Alpha,” Dean said, a ghost of  a smile on his lips as a shiver ripped through his body. “ You told Bobby that your genetics were wrong, and you weren’t going to accept that you were an Omega.”

Your mind brought you back to that. You were sitting outside with Dean on the hood of an old Ford truck in the wrecking yard when you presented. You were so fucking angry. Now you just saw it as another sign of what should have been so obvious, but wasn’t until now, and you had to fight against the sting of tears that burned in your eyes. 

“I remember. I was angry that I was going to spend my life as a pup factory for some dick Alpha, and I wouldn’t be able to hunt anymore.”

“You know, all you would have had to do was say the word, and I would have claimed you right there,” Dean said, causing you to stare at him in complete shock. Dean was a few years older than you, and had presented as Alpha long before you had presented at all, but to hear him say that outloud you nearly swallowed your tongue. 

“I didn’t do it because I knew you would have resented me forever. You had so much pent up anger that I knew you needed to work through it before you were ever able to even think about something that extreme. You needed to find yourself, to have a life outside of being tied to another person. So I let you go.”

“Dean,” you tried to stop him before the water works could start, but to no avail, he just kept talking, like a pot that was boiling over with pent up emotions and there was just no stopping it. 

“Then you left for a little while, but when you came back, I couldn’t scent you anymore. I didn’t understand what happened, so I just let it go, thinking that it was just young hormones raging that almost made me claim you. Then, when I had all but shoved every bit of feeling down that I ever had for you, you walked by me in a bar and I could scent you again, just as strong as I had that day. I knew I had to get your attention, but I was too late and you had Jamie.”

You looked away from him as the tears you had been holding back began to fall, unable to look at him anymore. 

“I knew you didn’t feel for me what I’ve always felt for you Y/N, but I never expected you to see me as nothing more than a breeder, a mutt, a worthless piece of Alpha trash, nothing more than a knot. I never expected you to reject me this way.”

“Dean, I didn’t know, I swear I didn’t know,” you tell him through tears, but he just shivered again, letting his eyes close. The fever that was raging inside of him was making him exhausted, and even you could see it. 

“Let me get you something to try and bring the fever down,” you tell him, but as you tried to stand his hand caught yours, stopping you in your tracks. 

“Sam already did that, and it hasn’t worked. Just, stay with me, please,” he begged you.

Words failed you as your heart broke deep down inside of you, and you sat back down  on the bed beside him, watching as his breathing evened out, and his shivering seemed to relax a little. 

Of all the things that you thought would take Dean out, this was not the way you saw him going, and yet here you were, feeling so helpless and lost as you watched him sleep, praying Jody would have an answers to what was going on with him, because right now, it looked like Dean wasn’t going to be able to fight this fever off much longer, and you had a feeling it was only going to get worse. 

You don't know how long you sat there next to Dean while he slept. It could have been fifteen minutes, it could have been three hours. You had no idea, because to you time seemed to have slowed to an unbelievable crawl. 

You did notice that the more you played with his hair, and held his hand in yours, that his over stressed body seemed to relax more.  If this was going to give them some measure of comfort, then so be it. 

You never noticed until now that you had never really LOOKED at Dean. You never really paid that much attention to just how painfully handsome he was. Even for the line of work you guys did, he had surprisingly very few scars on his face, and the ones he did have only seemed to attribute to his already ruggedly handsome face. The sun kissed skin, and the light dusting of freckles everywhere contrasted one another, but in a good way, it gave him an almost boyish look while he was relaxed and asleep like this. His strong, sharp  jaw still held enough of an edge of softness to it that you found yourself wanting more than  ever  to touch his face, to feel the stubble that was actually a light beard at this point, under your fingers. 

His plump, pink lips were parted slightly, and even though his breathing was still coming in pants more than completely normal breaths, he looked peaceful.

You were so entrapped  staring at him, that when Sam came skidding to a halt in the door way you nearly fell off of the bed when he spoke in a voice so loud it almost disturbed  Dean, who shifted a little in the bed to subconsciously get closer to you, and away from the noise. 

“Y/N! Jody says she thinks she knows what the problem is…”

“SHHH!!!” you tell him, adjusting the covers over Dean’s shoulders, and gave Sam a stern look. Sam mouthed “sorry,” before coming closer to you and clearing his throat as he came to the other side of the bed. 

“Jody thinks she knows what’s wrong with him,” Sam said a little calmer, pulling a chair to sit down next to Dean’s bed. 

“Okay...we’ve established that. Wanna tell me what it is, or you gonna make me try and guess it?” you tell him, quickly getting annoyed that he seemed to have forgotten you couldn’t read minds. 

“Right, sorry. She thinks that when you two got in a fight a few weeks ago, that the rejection triggered pinning sickness. It’s rare for Alpha’s, but apparently can sometimes happen when you get rejected by your true mate. I looked it up, and he has every symptom. Fever, weight loss, loss of appetite, increased irritation and moodiness, vomiting…”

“Vomiting? When was he vomiting?” you cut in, and Sam gives you an apologetic look. 

“Yesterday, he told me not to tell anyone, and that he’d just eaten something bad. Obviously he was covering up the fact that he was in this bad of a shape, which is normal for Dean. Downplay everything until you can’t do it anymore.”

Shaking your head in annoyance, you brush it off to bitch about it later. You hated it when Dean did shit like that. He was allowed to have bad days, just like everyone else was, and you absolutely hated it when he downplayed what he was really feeling. 

“So what do we do?” you ask him, and Sam shifted uncomfortably in his seat before meeting your gaze, taking a moment to put his hand over his brother’s forehead to gage his temperature before answering you.

“Well, everything I can find and know about pinning sickness is that close contact with your true mate helps. Like now just from you playing with his hair, and holding his hand like that his temperature seems to be down a good bit. In order for him to get fully past it, you're going to have to let him claim you.”

You tried to hide just how terrifying that thought was to you. To have a mate in this life, to have someone tided to you, to put each other in danger, much less it be a fucking Winchester. This was something you never wanted, but now that he brought it up, you couldn’t help but picture yourself with Dean, maybe even with a pup on your hip that would have brilliant green eyes, just like his father. 

“You think he will go for it?” you asked Sam. No one knew Dean better than Sam, and you were not sure how to even begin to have this conversation with Dean after what you had told him. After how you had hurt him.

“I think you won't have to ask him twice,” Sam said, standing up and making his way to the door. “Just, don’t hurt him again, okay? Cause I don’t think he can live through another disappointment.”

You couldn’t make your voice work properly  for the tears that were threatening to fall if you tried to speak, so you just nodded your head and continued running your fingers through Dean’s short hair as he slept next to you. 

“Wait until he wakes up, let his body recover some, when he does he should be ready,” Sam said before closing the door, and leaving you alone with Dean.

Dean slept for probably another three hours before he even began to stir again, but you could tell by the way he moved and felt when you touched him that his fever was almost gone completely. 

You watched as he stretched next to you, and cracked his eyes open to find you still there next to him, then you watched as the look of relief of finding you turned into fear and rejection in what seemed like seconds. It made your heart seize in your chest to think that you had hurt him that badly. 

“Good morning handsome,” you try and tease him, but Dean just pulls his hand away from yours, and pulls the covers tighter around himself. 

“Morning,” he said simply, avoiding your gaze. 

“How do you feel?” you asked him, and he just shrugged, continuing to stare at the wall opposite him. 

“Better.You can go now, you don’t have to sit with me, I”m sure you’d rather go and try to talk to Jamie anyway,” Dean said, and you swore you could hear a whine behind his words. 

You weren’t going to let him push you away now, not when you had already made up your mind that this is what you wanted, and had always wanted. Even when you were running the bars with him, it had always been Dean that you really wanted, you were just too afraid to admit it. 

“I’m not going anywhere Dean,” you tell him, pulling the covers up and sliding in next to the evidently shocked Alpha, who grunted, but didn’t fight you as you snuggled into his arms and close to his broad chest where his heart was hammering away at his rib cage at the close contact of you with him.

Once you saw that he wasn’t going to physically kick you out of his bed, you took the only moment of bravery you were sure you were going to find, and brushed your lips lightly over his mating gland in his thick neck, scenting him deeply, pulling a curse and a shiver from his broad body as he pulled you impossibly closer to him. 

“Fuck baby, don’t do that,” he grunted as your teeth lightly grazed the skin of his pulse point, and his hands slid down to grip your hip tightly. “If you start this, I’m not gonna be able to stop, and I...I don’t want you to be tied to someone who is nothing but a breeder, when someone is out there a lot better than me, someone that can give you a stable home and a family.” 

Letting out an exasperated sigh you kick yourself again for ever calling him that, reaching up to brush your hands through his hair as he tried to nuzzle himself into your hand. His words were telling you to walk away, but everything in his was screaming for you.

“Dean, you're not just a breeder, I told you, I was just angry, you're so much more than that. I wish you could see what I see in you.”

Dean swallowed thickly and looked away from you, but you weren’t going to let him drop it that easy. 

“You’re so strong Dean. Most people that have gone through half the shit you’ve faced in life would have killed themselves by now, and look at you! You’re still here, as many things that have tried to kill you, you’re still here! You’re a fucking hero, you’ve saved countless people time and time again. You love with your whole heart, you’re loyal and protective, you’re everything any Omega would want in an Alpha and then some, so don’t ever think you’re just a knot, but you’re so much more than that, and I’m so sorry that I didn’t see it sooner.”

Dean didn’t say anything, and you could see that he was shutting down, so you did the only thing you knew to do. Taking a deep breath you steel your nerves, and placed a timid kiss to his still slightly parted lips. For a moment, he just froze, but it didn't take long for the tidal wave of emotions to come crashing down over the two of you. 

You weren’t really sure of a lot of things . There was so much unknown in every aspect of your life, so you just never expected  anything to be constant, not for you, you would die alone on the end of a gun, knife, or at the hands of some freak, and that was the only thing in life you would ever be able to count on. But right now, in this moment, you couldn’t see anything past the two of you, two halves that had fought against becoming whole for so long that the relief was almost insurmountable and indescribable. 

As tender, scared kisses turned into more needy and demanding kisses filled with passion and fire that seemed to source down to your very soul. Clothing began to fall to the floor, and shy little touches became rough and more determined. You were sure that this was the piece of your life that had always been missing. 

Dean was still fairly weak from days of being sick, but the more his bar skin touched yours, the more his lips and teeth trailed their way down your throat, and over your mating gland, the more his body seemed to come alive again. Yours wasn’t that far behind either, slick quickly coating your thighs as your body seemed to know what your mate needed before you ever could have guessed it, and that was to become connected to you as quickly as possible. Years of waiting made the heated kisses and touches seem that much more intense, and as Dean slid his length fully inside of you without hindrance, you could have sworn you felt the world stop turning. 

Most of the time, from what you had been told, when soul mates actually mate and are claimed by their mates it’s a rough and primal act that’s over as fast as it begins. This was so much different than that. It was deeper, more sensual that you would have ever thought to be possible. Every deep thrust of his cock into your waiting heat that was already trembling around him as he stretched and filled you over and over again felt as if it were connecting you at a level deeper than the physical pleasure that was raging through your bodies like a brush fire in the burning summer heat. 

He never tried to flip you over like you expected him to, and demand you present like most Alpha’s would have, but instead he held his body over yours with his powerful arms and shoulders balancing his weight so that he wouldn’t hurt you, but kept you facing each other so that he could watch you as you began to get closer and closer to your release, as your body shuttered underneath him as his knot began to swell and catch at your entrance, forcing thrust to turn into deep rutting push and pull that only served to push you both over the edge you had been teetering on. 

Even as his teeth sank deep into your mating gland, connecting you to him at your very soul, you had no regrets except that you had waited this long to figure out what had always been there, and had always been missing. 

Dean flipped the two of you carefully to your sides as you waited until his knot had gone down, playing with your hair, and licking lightly at your claiming mark, while you tried to catch your breath, letting the bond cement itself as it only could between an Alpha, and his Omega. Suddenly, all the things you had always feared, a life, a family, didn’t seem so scary. Not as long as Dean was there with you each step of the way.

Forever Tags: @deanwanddamons @rvgrsbrns @chevyharvelle @onethirstyunicorn @i-love-superhero @akshi8278 @lyss-dw79 @magssteenkamp @lemondropirwin @squirrelnotsam @hobby27 @spnbaby-67 @mrsjenniferwinchester @defenderrosetyler @screechingartisancashbailiff @thecreatiivecorner  @aflamboyanceofgays @vicmc624 @busy-bee-angel-misska @justanotherwinchester @brilovesdeanwinchester @idksupernatural @lyarr24 @amandamdiehl @love-jackles-37-blog @miraclesoflove @Waywardsistershy @emoryhemsworth @dean-winchesters-gardian-angel @softsebastian @tatted-trina6 @deanmonandnegansbitch @hayleeharling   @flamencodiva @coldmuffinbanditshoe @bxbyizzy @dirty-pan-goblin @itmejado @supernatural3002 @teresa-67 @thoughts-and-funnies @hearteyes-j2​ @miss-nerd95​ @writers-whirlwind​

[duncanxtrent]

Hi, So I have been thinking of a Duntrent AU in Steven Universe like they are Ruby and Sapphire. Let me know what you think. :)

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

(Also for clarification, Duncan is an Emerald, Trent is a Peridot, and their fusion is Tourmaline)

(Also I know you didn’t mean it this way but Im totally making this a story lol)

You complete me

On a distant gem ship high above planet CM-6, a peridot taps away at his keyboard preparing the next wave of invasion.

The peridot sighs, hopelessly bored with his work, the days were long and repetitive as he monitored an unchanging scenario. Yellow Diamond would find a planet, he would head their, send two maybe three armies to annihilate other life on the planet, turn it into whatever Yellow Diamond wishes, rinse and repeat…

It was a terribly sad process, thankfully he had someone to keep him entertained, that someone arriving at that very moment.

The control door room opened, and the Peridot smiled, turning around, knowing exactly who had arrived. A smug looking Emerald Soldier stood against the wall, smirking at him. He walked over to the Peridot and sat on his lap. The Peridot chuckled and tilted the Emeralds chin to face his. The Peridot gave the Emerald a peck on the lips, before finally speaking with him.

“You had a good day?” Peridot asked

“As good as you usually can when you’re fighting against alien races.” The Emerald Stretched.

“Hmm sounds stressful, maybe I could give you a massage later…” Peridot trails his fingers up Emeralds lower crotch area. Emerald giggles.

“Oh my god stop teasing me, you sexy piece of rock.” Emerald giggles.

“If you insist…” Peridot grabs Emeralds face suddenly and pulls him into a love filled kiss.

The two gems make our furiously on the chair, with Peridot eventually standing up and Emerald now standing on his own two feet. The two dance, lips still locked in love, around the spaceship. A small glow surrounds the two as they continue to dance. Then, in an instant, the two became one.

They fuse together into one gem, a tall muscular, yet intelligent gem coated in Green. The gem barely notices he’s fused until the two, now fused gems, realizing they’re no longer making out.

“Hey why did you-“ The gem stops realizing what happened.

“AH!” The gem gasps at his new form. “What happened to us?! Did we fuse?! This shouldn’t be possible! We were two different gems! What even are we?!?!” The gem screams.

The gem stumbles around, panicked and confused, before he trips over himself, and the two separate once again.

The two stars at each other in shock, still trying to process what happened.

“Im… so sorry…” The emerald begins to slightly cry.

“No no… Dont be sorry. Its not your fault.” Peridot insists.

“I know I shouldn’t have done that… Now what’ll happen?! Ill probably be publicly shattered for this.” Emerald panics.

“Emerald! Calm yourself!” Peridot grabs Emeralds chin and faces him towards him.

“What even was that?” Emerald asks, still slightly crying.

“I think… we fused… into something new…” Peridot whispers

“Is that bad?”

“No… quite the opposite… The idea of this is revolutionary. The idea that non similar gems can fuse and well. Why haven’t we done this sooner?”

“Because Fusion between different gems is forbidden by White Diamond…” Emerald says solemnly.

“Right… I forgot about that…” Peridot says, staying silent.

The two stay silent for a moment, but Emerald finally spoke up.

“So you don’t hate me for it?” Emerald mumbles.

“Of course not, dude! I could never hate you!” Peridot insists.

Emerald looks at him happily. “You mean it?”

“Of course, you clod!” Peridot bonks Emerald on the head gently. Emerald giggled.

“So… would you like to fuse again?” Emerald asks.

“Not right now… But maybe later. Purely for experimental purposes of course.”

“Right… ‘Experimental’” Emerald chuckles getting up.

“Shut up…” Peridot laughs, standing up and kissing his lover on the nose.

“So Ill see you again tomorrow?” Emerald asks

“More like later tonight. I still owe you a massage.” Peridot smiles.

“Right! Noted, see ya handsome!” Emerald finger guns Peridot and begins to head to the door but stops before he leaves.

“One last thing… What do you think we should call our fusion?” Emerald asks.

Peridot thinks for a moment, before turning towards Emerald and responding.

“Tourmaline…” He smiles.

“Tourmaline… I like it.” Emerald smiles.

[ladyeliot]

Atoms.

Request: Anonymous: Heyy! Can you do a fluffy something like childhood friends>friends to lovers with Tony Stark? Thanks so much! And happy valentine's day!

Pairing: Teen!Tony Stark x Teen!Fem!Reader

Summary: You and Tony have been friends for as long as you can remember, but sometimes the line between friendship and love is a fine one.

Warnings: Fluff / Childhood 

Word count: 3359

A/N:  Sorry for my spelling and grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language, I am learning.

Valentine’s Day (Prompts)

In all friendships there is a fine line that separates love from simple friendship, in fact, on many occasions we cut that fine line without realising it. We come to think that things just happen, that there is nothing we can do to change the cycle of life, that everything is programmed and that those who are meant to be together, will be together.

It all began on a cloudy Friday, May 29, 1970. In a small town on the east side of Long Island, two new mothers were struggling fiercely to bring a baby into the world. The night had been long, a storm had left the town without electricity, a fact that had not hindered the delivery, but that had increased the nerves of these parents. After hours of suffering, screams and internal curses, at 6:29 pm two babies were able to see the world with their own eyes for the first time. At that very moment an invisible thread connected the two of them, so that it was at that very moment that they were brought together in the maternity ward and never to be separated again.

Childhood is the time when you can create the best memories that will stay with you for the rest of your life. Yours was shared with Tony, so he was present in virtually all of your memories. The fact that your mothers created a true friendship after the birth facilitated the deep connection you found on both sides. From birth you were never separated, you learned to discover the world together, you entered the first day of school together and you graduated together.

It was obvious that you had great things in common, but your characters were completely different, maybe that's what made you two work so well together, what limited one of you, the other one could overcome. When your fear prevented you from daring to do something, Tony was by your side to help you overcome it. In the same way, when Tony felt insecure about himself, you were there to erase all his insecurities from his mind. You both evolved and improved each other.

Your childhood helped you understand the importance of having each other, the value of your friendship, even if there were little bumps in the road. Tony was your first time at all times, he was the one you did your first prank with, the one you took your first swim in the pool with, the one you learned to ride a bike with, the one you shared your Halloween candy with, the one you celebrated your birthdays with, Tony was everything, he was even your first kiss.

It was 1978, innocence was still within you, causing you to see the world with eyes that were still unaware of the vast majority of things that lay before you. Laughter was coming through the wooden windows of your tree house. You were lying on a rug looking at a photo album that your mother had lent you, with some pictures of you and Tony from when you were practically babies.

"Look at you here," you said with a chuckle, looking back at the picture of two-year-old Tony crying next to you. "You're crying in all the pictures."

Tony bumped his shoulder against yours in complaint and turned the page.

"Why is it that in all the pictures of your parents alone they're kissing?" he asked quizzically, not quite understanding the act.

"I guess it's because they love each other," you said without making a big deal out of the gesture, as you were more than used to seeing them kissing in front of you.

"My parents love each other too and they don't kiss," Tony commented turning the page.

You shrugged, turning your attention back to the photo album. But Tony still had the idea in the back of his mind.

"Do your parents kiss every day?" he asked, sitting up.

"Hm..." you looked thoughtful at his question and also sat up. "Yes, whenever mum or dad comes home or leaves, or when we go to sleep..."

"Wow!" exclaimed Tony totally shocked by your words. "And... they like it?"

"I guess..." you shrugged holding up your palm. "Why else would they do it?"

"Makes sense," Tony nodded, processing the information. "Maybe my parents don't like it, that's why they don't."

That was the first time the two of you had broached that topic of conversation, Tony seemed more curious than you, as you had already gone back to further contemplating the photographs.

"Will we like it?" he asked, catching your attention again.

"I don't know," you said with a shrug.

" Should we try it?" asked your best friend cheerfully, expecting an affirmative answer from you.

"You and me?" you asked unreceptive to the idea Tony had just proposed.

"Yeah, why not, we love each other, that's all we need, you said it," he smiled brimming with innocence.

"I don't know..." you frowned thoughtfully, not sure if it was quite right what he was proposing. "What if we don't like it?"

"I guess it's okay," Tony stood up and grabbed your hand to pull you up.

"Wait, how do we do this?" you asked nervously, looking into his eyes.

"You just close your eyes," he informed. "I'll take care of the rest."

"Okay." You couldn't help but let out a small nervous laugh, which prompted another one from Tony.

"Okay, close your eyes," he said again. "When I kiss you, mentally count to five."

You finally agreed to comply with the guidelines offered by your best friend. There you were, standing in the middle of that cabin, wearing a yellow strapless dress with your eyes closed, waiting for your best friend to approach you and give you your first kiss. After closing your eyes, Tony took three seconds to approach you, put his lips against yours and you mentally counted to five. The sensation was strange, very particular, you didn't know enough words at that time to express it and you didn't know much about feelings and love, so you couldn't stand the five seconds he proposed and after the third one you broke away, wiping your lips vigorously with your hand.

"It's awful!" you exclaimed looking at your friend. "I don't understand my parents!"

Tony seemed surprised at your reaction, but quickly joined in your disgust, falsely, as he hadn't found the experience so terrible.

And he was also the second kiss.

It was the summer of 1984, two friends on bicycles riding through the wooded area that separated your houses from the lake, laughing, struggling to find out who would get there first, but a pothole appeared in the road and a badly positioned stone caused your front wheel to lose its balance, overturning your bicycle. Tony behind you, instantly slowed down with a look of concern on his face, contemplating Tony behind you, brakes instantly with a look of concern on his face, staring at your bloodied knee.

"Are you okay?" asks your best friend with a tone of concern in his voice rushing towards you.

Without responding you stand up, trying to recover from your fall and discovering the pain as your leg hits the ground, Tony is already kneeling down, analysing the scrape you've made on your knee.

"Come lean on me," he drapes your right arm across his shoulders. "Come on under that tree, I'll clean your wound."

After positioning yourself comfortably in the shade of the oak tree, Tony runs back to his bike to get the canteen.

"Don't worry," you squeaked from a distance, playing it down. "I'm fine."

"Are you going to stop your stubbornness and let me clean the wound?" Tony arched an eyebrow which elicited a chuckle from you. "Thanks."

As the water poured over your wound you felt a stinging prickle, which was relieved when you wrapped your hand tightly around Tony's arm.

"Ouch!" he exclaimed as he felt your strength in his arm.

"Ouch me!" you groaned at his complaint, generating a chuckle from your friend's mouth.

"Okay, that's it," he said, closing the canteen. "You know you're the poster child for Newton's three laws? The law of inertia, the fundamental law of dynamics and the principle of action and reaction."

"And you are the clearest example of the idiot's law," you said with a laugh, for I had just called you clumsy in a clever way.

"Of course!" he exclaimed, wrapping his arms around you. "But I'm your idiot."

That was one of those moments when Tony would crush you against him and start giving you quick kisses all over your face just because he knew how much that annoyed you, but it made you laugh at the same time.

"Tony!" you exclaimed with laughter, trying to run away from him.

Coincidences can happen, but you never knew if it was a real coincidence due to the fast movements of both of you or if there was really an intention behind it, but Tony kissed your lips, pausing a little longer than usual. You, thinking it was unintentional, kept pushing him and your eyes widened in laughter.

"Whoa! Sorry," he said quickly. "Law of inertia, not my fault."

You laughed and gave him another shove, leaving what had just happened forgotten in your mind.

And the third.

It happened when you were in eleventh grade, Tony had always been a very joking child and sometimes his innocence did not allow him to realise the level of his jokes or how they were going to affect the people who made them. He had discovered early on that one thing he loved most was making you laugh, so day after day he would try anything to get a laugh out of you. That ranged from pretending to trip, to throwing his spaghetti at the first person he passed in the school cafeteria.

Eventually his personality caught people's attention, let's say the law of attraction was in his persona and that became present by high school, so if you connect his joking side with the attractive side it creates a bomb.

For you that discovery came a little late, too late, at least that's what you thought at that moment when you saw him connecting intimately with a girl in a higher grade than you. You hated yourself for having been so blind for so long, for not having realised it before and also for having that kind of feeling towards your best, because they could destroy everything you had created for so many years, practically since you were born. You told yourself that it was stupid, that it was probably just a passing thought and that you would soon forget about it, that it would be better not to give it any importance. But it wasn't.

You decided that one of the best ways to let off steam would be to write down how you felt, to write down every thought that came into your head and let it go forever. It would have been the best way in the world if you hadn't confused that notebook with your physics notebook, put it in your backpack and forgotten your backpack at Tony's house when you decided to go to the movies instead of studying that afternoon.

It was too late when you discovered the event, you were about to free your mind when you picked up the blue notebook and discovered that it was the physics notebook, therefore the notebook where you were exploring your thoughts would be....

"Tony!" you exclaimed into the earpiece.

"What's up, it's 12 o'clock at night?" his sleepy voice could be heard on the other end of the receiver.

"Do you know... I don't know, did I by any chance leave my backpack with my books in it at your place?" you asked, praying that I hadn't been gossiping in it.

"Your backpack? Let me go," he asked and a small knock was heard from the other side causing a minute's silence. "Yeah, it's in my room."

"Okay..." you said in a whisper. "Uh..."

"Do you need it now?" he asked somewhat strangely. "Don't you have your homework done? If you want I can finish it in a moment."

"No, no, no!" you exclaimed quickly. "It's all good, all done, don't worry, everything's great."

"Okay," he said dismissively. "Then tomorrow when I come to pick you up I'll bring it to you."

"Yeah, great, yeah," your nervousness increased, you wanted to tell him not to look inside, but you knew that by telling him he would probably end up doing it, so you preferred not to say anything else and let whatever happened happen happen.

The next morning Tony turned up as usual, with a smile on his face, chatty, funny and you knew that nothing had happened and nothing had changed, in short, a big weight was lifted off your shoulders.

"Shall we go to physics class? Mr. Gilbert will be looking forward to my dissertation on atoms and the origin of the Big Bang," he said closing his locker. "I think you'll like it too."

"You go ahead," you said, waiting for him to leave to exchange notebooks. "I'll catch up with you."

"Alright."

You waited for him to disappear into the crowd to make the exchange, but first you glanced around checking for any sign that someone had read it, however....

"In the first seconds after the Big Bang, the density and warmth of the universe barely allowed life to generate. As the universe cooled, the matter we are made of began to appear: quarks and electrons, which gave way to protons and neutrons, and then nuclei. As it expanded, things began to happen more slowly, until electrons became trapped in orbits to form the first atoms. Those atoms gave way to stars and galaxies, which uniformly gave way to life, to you and me. So you see, you just have to let the universe do its work, because you and I are those atoms that came together hundreds of millions of years ago and were created to be together."

A structural blockage was happening inside you at that moment, you read that paragraph over and over and over again, until there was hardly anyone left around you. Your heart was pounding fervently, causing sweat to break out all over your body. Your sanity was gone, you didn't know what to do, where to go, or how to act, you just wanted to escape. When your physical block passed, you gathered all your belongings from your locker and headed outside, trying to get some air back into your lungs. The only thing that was going through your mind was that your best friend had read those fifty-seven pages you had written for the moment, where you expressed, without any caution, everything that was going through your mind about him, accentuating your romantic feelings.

You wanted to disappear at that very moment, to go into a burrow or a bunker and stay there until it was all over. Your heart was pounding in your chest, you were walking aimlessly, but as far away from that building as possible. How could you not have noticed anything about Tony to let you know that he had read it? You were so distressed that you barely analysed what he had written to you, where he also expressed his feelings in his own particular way. You finally found an escape at the bus stop, wishing for a bus to go somewhere far away as soon as possible.

Every word that came out of you was a curse, at you of course. Reminding you what an idiot you had been, that you had ruined the best thing you had, that you couldn't have been more stupid, and hundreds of negative things that prevented you from getting out of that black bubble you had created for yourself, but as always he had to appear to make you see reason.

"Y/N!" Tony's voice was heard behind you. "What are you doing?"

Your eyes closed and you prayed it wasn't true what you were hearing, but it was too late, you had to face the truth.

"Hey!" Tony stepped up beside you. "If we were going to make up from physics class you could have at least given me a heads up. I looked like an idiot when I saw you through the window walking out of school." You looked away, didn't say anything. "What's wrong with you?"

It was bad enough what you were going through without having to put up with Tony's attitude, who showed his indifference as if nothing had happened, a fact that pissed you off even more.

"No! What the hell is wrong with you?" you said angrily. "Why did you read my diary? Who the hell gave you permission?"

"Okay, fine. I did," he began, relaxing the tone of his voice and avoiding not smiling, because he knew it might make you even angrier. "But for my defence I promise you it was after I spoke to you on the phone, I saw you so nervous I thought you lied to me when you said you had your homework done, so I checked, and I must say I couldn't stop reading when I started. I know! I should have stopped, it's something very intimate and personal, but... I just couldn't," he paused. "And I don't regret it."

After hearing his last words you opened your eyes in surprise and shook your head indignantly for having heard him say that he did not regret doing it.

"No regrets?" you folded your arms, stopping the tears of anger that had welled up in your eyes from sliding down your cheek.

"No," Tony said firmly. "And I never will."

"This is insane," you shook your head turning away.

"Listen," Tony interjected, grabbing your arm and pulling you back to face him. "Have you stopped to think about what I've written or are you just focused on the fact that I've read your diary?" he asked searching your gaze. "Better yet, is it true? Is everything you've written in there true? Do you feel that way? Are you... in love with me?"

"Oh my god..." shame had taken over your anger and all you wanted to do was run away from there, but Tony's hand around your right arm prevented you from doing so.

"Please, just answer me," he begged.

"I..." you looked around avoiding answering that question, focused on your world and your feelings. "I don't know."

" Well, that's good enough for me."

That "I don't know" was enough for Tony, because he discovered that there was a "yes" hidden in them, therefore he didn't hesitate to approach your face and do what he had been wanting to do for so long, kiss you. His words were true when he said that he didn't regret it and he was never going to do it because probably if it hadn't been for his intention to do your homework, he would never have read that diary and neither of you would probably ever have told the other how you really felt, because you were afraid of breaking what had been created from the moment you were born.

As I said at the beginning, the fine line that separates love from friendship sometimes gets cut without us realising it, and when we do realise it, we think it's too late or that maybe it would be better not to take the risk, because things could turn around and change for the worse, but who says they can't get better? That love can't triumph?

Taglist Open (DM)

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[queenlua]

You're a druid and an ex-evangelical, right? What does being a druid mean to you? How did you get from evangelicalism to where you are now? And of course feel free to ignore this if it's nosy. (sincerely, a Christian who wants to leave but who doesn't know what to do)

this is going to make me sound ignorant as hell, lol, but i'm happy to share

under a cut because this got very long, sorry, lol.

my personal progression was: "vaguely christian -> VERY christian -> christian agnostic -> agnostic/atheist -> agnostic/druid -> some sorta druid-neopagan-animist thing."  i guess i'll just go through what made me switch between each of those, and close out with some high-level thoughts that may be helpful for you?

okay, so when i was

VAGUELY CHRISTIAN,

i went to Sunday school every week because That's What You Do, and because my whole hometown was very southern Baptist, i never questioned the veracity of its teachings much... until they ran a whole weekly series on "why [x] is wrong," where [x] is some other group

e.g., we had a week on why Mormons are wrong, and i didn't bat an eye because i hadn't even known Mormons existed until that moment

then we had a week on why Muslims are wrong, and that... bothered me, because i had a friend who was Muslim, and she was just objectively a better person than me, and i was like "any universe where she goes to hell and i don't seems really fucked up"

then we had a week on why EVOLUTION was wrong, and that just absolutely threw me, because while i hadn't thought about evolution much (i think i was in fourth grade or so), it seemed common-sense? scientists thought highly of it? "adaptation over time" just seems logical?

so i went to the public library every day after school for like a week, read some Darwin and some science books, and came back to my Sunday school teacher with, like, an itemized list of objections to the whole "evolution is wrong" thing.  and he came up with some standard Answers In Genesis rebuttals, and i did more research and came back the next week with more science, and we repeated this a few times until he was like "lua, you just gotta take some things on faith"

which.  lmao.  full existential crisis time, because no matter how hard i thought, i couldn't *not* believe in the science, but i also didn't want to go to hell, so i was like "maybe if i believe SUPER HARD i will SOMEDAY be able to unbelieve the condemn-me-to-hell bits"

so i decided to become

VERY CHRISTIAN

and my frantic googling for shit like "proof of god" and "god and evolution" *eventually* broke me out of the Answers In Genesis circles of the internet, and into some decent Christian apologia, like, think First Things and various Catholic bloggers.  and there, i found some way to square my gut sense that evolution was right, with a spiritual worldview.

like, i remember finding some blogger who said:

"young earth creationists get tripped up when they try to explain stars that are millions of light-years away, and end up basically arguing that God's tricking us somehow, and—no!  my God lets you believe in the evidence of your eyes, my God does not demand that you make yourself ignorant or stupid, my God expects you to use your brain"

and i just started crying at my computer, because no one had ever said "using your brain is Good and part of God's will," i was like *finally* here's someone who won't tell me i'm going to hell for just *thinking* about things

(st. augustine does a much better riff on a similar theme, fwiw, but i only found him later)

still, it was an uneasy fit, because, the more i learned and read about world history, the more it seemed... weird... that the One And Singular Path To Salvation was... the successor to some niche desert cult... which didn't even occur at the *beginning* of written history, like, it was all predated by that whole Mithraism thing, etc... and like, sure, i could trot out all the standard theological talking points for why Actually This Makes Perfect Sense, but gut-level-wise, the aesthetics just seemed kinda dumb!  and no level of talking myself out of it made that feeling go away!

so at this point i started referring to myself as a

CHRISTIAN AGNOSTIC

i mean, not aloud.  i still lived in southernbaptistopia and i didn't want, like, my hair stylist to tell me i was a horrible person.  but in my *head* i called myself Christian agnostic and it felt right.

and i started church-hopping, which honestly was really fun, would recommend to anyone at any point.  i visited the fire-and-brimstone baptist church, the methodist church, the episcopalians, the universal unitarians, etc.

unfortunately, while this gave me *some* new perspectives, each of the places either had the same shitty theology as my old megachurch (i remember the *acute* sense of despair i felt when i was starting to jive with a methodist church... only for the dumbass youth minister to start going on about evolution), or, they just lacked any sense of the *sacred*.  like, the Church of Christ churches, with their a capella services, *definitely* had it; i felt more God there in one service than i did in a lifetime of shitty Christian rock at the megachurch.  but their beliefs were even *more* batshit, so.  big L on that one.

having failed to find a satisfactory church, i was basically

AGNOSTIC/ATHEIST

by the time i went to college, but honestly pretty unhappy about it; while it was harder than ever for me to actually *connect* with the divine, i didn't like thinking that my previous experiences of the divine were total lies.  because my shitty evangelical church, for all its faults, could not *completely* sabotage the sense of God's presence.  there were real moments in that church where i do believe i experienced something divine.  mostly mediated by one particular youth minister, who in hindsight was the only spiritual teacher in that church who didn't seem a bit rotten inside, but!  it was something!

so when i happened upon a bunch of writings on the now-defunct shii.org (that's the bit that makes me look WILDLY ignorant, lol), i was utterly captivated.

said author was a previous archdruid of the Reformed Druids of North America, an organization that was formed in the 1960s to troll the administration of Carleton College (there was a religious-service-attendance requirement; they made their own religion; their religion had whiskey and #chilltimes for its services).  however, this shii.org dude seemed to take it pretty seriously.  he was studying history of religion and blogged a lot about his studies, both academic and otherwise.  while RDNA had started out as a troll, that didn't mean they hadn't *discovered* something real in the process, he said.

this, already, was going to be innately appealing to me; i've got a soft spot for wow-we-were-doing-this-ironically-but-now-it's-kinda-real? stuff in general.

in particular, shii.org’s discussions on the separation of ritual from belief was really interesting to me: most religions/spiritualities have *both*, but like, you can do a ritual without having the Exact Right Beliefs (if there even is such a thing!), and it can still be useful to you, it can have real power.  (he had a really lovely essay, speculating on the origins of religion as just a form of art, but that essay is now lost to the sands of time, alas.)

(note that i wouldn't really recommend seeking out *recent* writing by the shii.org guy; he kinda went full tedious neoreactionary-blowhard-who-reads-a-lot-of-Spengler at some point?  sigh.)

the shii.org guy led me to checking out a bunch of books on the history of neopaganism & also books by scholars of religion in general, and the more i read, the more excited i became.  and i started doing little ritual/meditation stuff here and there.

then i was fortunate enough to attend some events with Earthspirit (this was when i lived in Boston), which cemented my hippie dalliances into something more real.  the folks there, being from Boston, were all ridiculously overeducated (a sensibility that appeals to me), but also, being the kind of folks who drive out to a mountain in the middle of nowhere for a spiritual retreat, they tolerated a full range of oddities (everyone from aging-70s-feminist-wiccans to living-on-a-farm-with-your-bros-Astaru to dude-who-started-having-weird-visions-and-is-just-trying-to-figure-out-the-deal to Nordic-spiritualist-with-two-phds-from-Scandanavian-universities-on-the-subject, etc), which gave me a lot of room to explore different types of rituals, ceremonies, "magic", etc.

(polytheism in general lends itself well to this sort of easy plurality!  i can believe other people are experiencing something real with their gods, and i can be talking to a totally different set of gods, and that’s just all very compatible, etc)

anyway, i started calling myself

AGNOSTIC/DRUID

around then, because i knew i'd found *something*, something that felt like all the realest moments i'd ever had in nature, and all the realest moments i'd ever had in that shitty megachurch, but i wasn't quite ready to put a theology to it.

but, idk, you do the thing for a while, and you start encountering some things that you may as well call gods, and you realize you're in pretty deep, and you ditch the "agnostic" bit and just throw hands and start describing yourself as

SOME SORTA DRUID-NEOPAGAN-ANIMIST THING

because that's the most precise thing you can muster.  in particular, the druid bit resonates because nature's still very much at the center of my practice; the neopagan bit resonates because i'm not especially interested in reconstructing older traditions or being faithful to any actual pre-Christian traditions, and animist resonates because what i sometimes call gods seem to be tied pretty tightly to the land itself.  it's all very experiential; all this mostly means i'm some weird chick who sometimes grabs a car and drives out someplace very lonely and hikes for a while and does some hippie shit to try and talk with the land or the god or whatever is there.  and sometimes i come back from it changed, or refocused, or what-have-you, and hopefully i'm better for it.  i'm aware this makes me look a little ridiculous, and is an unsatisfying answer, sorry!

WRT YOUR SITUATION

i don't know you or your situation, obviously, but if i wanted to give former-me some advice to save her some angst, i'd say

-> Christendom itself is far wilder and more diverse than many churches lead you to believe.  if you still want to be Christian on some level, and it's just a shitty church that's convinced you the whole project is fucked, i'd honestly explore, i dunno, your nearest Quaker meeting.  they're invoking the Holy Spirit with regularity but they're not raging douchenozzles about it.

-> if you're specifically interested in druidism, i found John Michael Greer's "A World Full of Gods" really nice.  (caveat: Greer has *also* gone full right-wing nutjob these days, sigh, so like.  would not recommend a great swath of his writing.  but that one's good)

-> deciding that a just God wouldn't give me a brain and then ask me not to use it was hugely comforting to me.  like, that was the start of the whole process, that was what made me feel ok searching for other churches and trying to find something that fit.  obviously you should take this with 800 grains of salt, because obviously i'm no longer Christian, and thus maybe i'm just some poor misguided fallen soul, but... i still kinda believe that!  maybe if you can make yourself believe that, it'll seem less scary?

idk, happy to answer more questions, sorry for the long ramble, hope it helped~

[blindedbythedarkness]

Josh,

Sometimes it's really fucking difficult to not believe that the universe is personally biased against me. And I know that's kind of rich coming from the one of us that didn't get driven to suicide. But I just, I know you of all people would understand. I wish I had you to really talk to right now.

I'm gonna ramble because I just need someone to listen. But where to fucking start? Life right now is just spinning plates. On one day this week I found out a critical hospital referral I was relying on had never been made; I was rejected by yet another landlord for a house next year that I'd really been betting on; my supervisor met with and bullied me for a solid two hours and my one social event of the week got cancelled. So, that's about when it all started to get too much.

The doctor I've been seeing has been incompetent from the start and made so much work for me in the 6 months I've been in her care. Despite diagnosing my Potentially Life Threatening connective tissue disease, she never even named it in our appointments, leaving me to discover the true horrors of my body through playing detective with my blood results. Long story short, to be confident that I can go on a treatment for it without bleeding out, I need to see a geneticist. But despite agreeing that I should see one, she's refusing to refer me to one directly. Instead, she's referring me to a pain rehab clinic at a separate hospital and saying they can internally refer me to genetics. The wait on the pain rehab clinic? At least two years. Plus, of course none of this information was forthcoming and required weeks of emailing back and forth. So now I'm angry, anxious and stressed about my health. I want to make a formal complaint but I don't know when I'll find the time.

That wasn't even the worst thing, though. The worst thing was uni reminding me just one last time that it truly doesn't give a shit about its students and why I hate it to its very core. The final piece of work I have left to hand in is a research project that I've been working on all year. However, my supervisor is an utter cunt, and I don't say that lightly. He's incredibly narcissistic and rude for a start. For a presentation I had to do, he forced me to use his own slides without ever looking at mine. He once ended an online meeting because I misspoke when explaining a figure, telling me to call him back when I knew what I was on about because he "never forgets what he sees and doesn't want his brain soiled with incorrect information." Given he never remembers what we've spoken about from one meeting to the next, I call bullshit. Oh and this week? He asked me to explain a figure to him and when he said he didn't understand I asked him if he was looking at my screen share. He said no. I just despair!

To make matters worse, he's never fucking happy with me. He's made me start my work from scratch 3 times now and had a different problem each time. We're rapidly approaching the deadline now, so to get all the work done for the 3rd time I've been working 9am-5pm 6 days a week. Not that he cares. The results don't fit his hypothesis, so I must simply be incompetent. He even once had the audacity to suggest that I "didn't want to do the work" while looking through a 70 page document of my results, because I couldn't explain the findings of a figure I'd made a month ago off the top of my head.

In this weeks meeting, he again gave me an extortionate list of new tasks to do, while berating me at every turn. With a month left submit my thesis and my write up not started, I tried to explain to him that I wouldn't have time to complete the list. He just shrugged and said, "Well I think you should do it." And yes, this man is aware that I have been struggling physically and mentally recently.

I didn't know what else to do to make him listen, so I contacted the course supervisor (who I'd already briefly made aware of my issues with him). She told me to "quit" and "just get on with writing my thesis"... until four hours later after she had spoken to my supervisor and completely changed her mind. She video called me to tell me to do the work and I just broke down. I don't make a habit of ugly sobbing in front of people I've only ever met twice over Microsoft Teams, but this was a particularly bad day.

"Trying to do this work is going to destroy my physical and mental health."

"I can't do this anymore."

"He never listens to me."

"I've been working 6 days a week and it's killing me."

She didn't care. She told me that since my supervisor is an experienced professional, he must know how much he's asking of me and since he insists it's quick and easy stuff, it must be. This man has never done this analysis himself. He doesn't even know how; half the stuff one of his lab workers taught me and the rest I taught myself.

"Chill out" and "calm down" she told me, "do the work and if you have any problems ask John (the lab worker)"

By the time I pressed the leave button, I could barely breathe, let alone talk. I was just choking and sobbing and had snot pouring down my face. I was just so tired. So stressed. So... ignored. I didn't know where I would find the hours in the day, but I started by cancelling the trip to see my parents this weekend. To them I am not a student, and a student with health problems at that. I am simply a machine to use for free research.

I just wanted the stress to give me a break. I just wanted a break. I was genuinely afraid that my heart was going to stop from the stress alone. I didn't know where else to turn. The counseling service put me on a waiting list. My tutor told me to "just keep trying my best". My mentor told me to talk to my course supervisor. My course supervisor told me to work. A was busy revising for an exam the next day and I didn't want to bother him. So, I turned to my unhealthy coping mechanisms instead.

I didn't mean to do it as badly as I did. I just wanted to scratch my skin enough to feel it burn and give me something else to feel instead of the huge mass in my chest. But the scissors were sharper than I thought and when I looked down there were four long cuts that had gone through the skin and fat. I knew immediately I'd fucked up. There was no way those edges were coming together on their own. Honestly, I was just mad I'd given myself something else to do. So, I covered them with gauze and tape and kept on working. Because I needed to work. I needed to get it done. I would deal with going to the hospital later but I couldn't lose these working hours.

Once the blood was dripping from the gauze I finally, begrudgingly, went to the hospital. Honestly? They were surprisingly nice. They were understanding and they listened. I was so worried that they'd think I was some cringy emo kid looking for attention. I honestly felt like a total knob going there, but I didn't have a choice. I never felt judged or like they thought I was wasting their time or that it was all my fault. Of course, I know that it was my fault and I felt like a fool. But I also don't blame myself for becoming so desperate. At one point a doctor came in with a medical student who was visibly shy and embarrassed when examining me. I told her I had a place at medical school, so not to worry as I'd be in her place soon. And again, I was shocked because they didn't once tell me not to go. I thought they were going to say "if you can't cope right now, starting medical school isn't for you!" But they never said anything like that. Instead they were shocked I'd gotten in to such a good uni and seemed incredibly genuine when they wished me well.

Oh, and the wounds? Thankfully I didn't need stitches so I got them pulled together again with steri-strips. And in case you didn't believe me that I didn't intend them to be so bad, I nearly passed out three times after looking at them. So, I truly am a fucking idiot, Josh. Lesson learnt, I suppose. Though I'm still afraid what will happen next time I run out of options.

It's finally the end of the week now, but the universe still hasn't given me a break. My mum called earlier and told me my rabbit will be crossing the rainbow bridge tomorrow as he seems to have had a stroke. I mean, it's a small mercy that he's an old bunny and he's been unwell for a long time, so it's not a shock. But it's still so sad and I'll miss him so much. What really tops it all off is that I was going to see him this weekend until I had to cancel my trip home due to the workload.

Man, I just. Why does shit stuff seem to come so easily to me? It's difficult not to feel personally victimized when shit news after shit news lines up so well. I wish good things came as thick and fast. I hope to fuck my luck changes soon because honestly I'm terrified that it's taking years off my life.

Thanks for listening, Josh,

C

[mattzerella-sticks]

Supernatural Crack🩹tober

Day 3: Baby/Pimpmobile - Shotgun

           Baby stares at her reflection in the mirror, acquainting herself with new, yet familiar features. Runs a twitching hand through short, ruffled locks. Giggling at the sensation, and at the novelty of sense. Green eyes light up the more she tussles her new hair, wrinkles appearing around green eyes and pink lips. “Oh my God,” she whispers, voice a deep timbre. Rumbling without an engine. “Cars should totally come with hair!”

           She adds hair to the ever-growing list of things she enjoys while being a human. While being her human. Dean.

           It was a normal day, before. Better than usual. Instead of wasting time, collecting dust, resting alongside rows of retirees Baby burned rubber. Driven over hot asphalt, her tires endlessly spinning. Full up, Dean taking care by feeding her until she could fit no more. And, with open windows, the world could hear her voice as she crooned song after song. She and Dean duetting on most of them. Sam roped in on certain choruses.

           But then they made it home. Journey over, the brothers began emptying her trunk. Baby carried an extra few pounds, souvenirs from the trip. From her rearview mirror, she watched them bicker while stacking boxes in their arms. Dean attempting too much, his face obscured by a wobbling tower. He inched backwards, Sam already given up and abandoning him. A box fell out of view, sound echoing in the room.

           Dean stopped. Bent over –

           Suddenly she sees brown, scuffed boots and an odd, stone figure. Startled, Baby relies on her defenses. Her sirens go off and she honks uncontrollably, but they’re different. Not the same.

           She wasn’t the same. She was Dean.

           “-and Dean is in the car,” Sam explained over the phone, Baby listening but not really. Distracted by an engine that beat, holding her exhaust until sparks burned inside her chassis, and headlights dimmed.

           That’s not right. Not engine, heart. Breath and vision. Sam ran down basic human functions after the call, telling her not to overexert herself. “Be careful with Dean’s body,” he said, “he’s not as durable as – uh… as you used to be, Baby?”

           Nodding, Baby mimicked an affectionate gesture she’s seen Dean use over the years. “I’ll keep Dean safe, Sammy!” she promised, middle finger proudly raised.

           “…Thanks.”

           Unhitched, Baby decided that while in Dean’s body for the time being, she might cruise the only other place he’s called Home. See how a stationary building compares against her sleek, steadfast design.

           In her objective, unbiased opinion, Baby finds her competition lacking. It’s too big, sprawling like the American highway system. A map needed in plotting the path between point A and B. And the detours were confusing. One whole room dedicated for storing food? Pointless. Drive-thrus and diners still existed, meaning the stockpile she found inside a giant, white box wasted space for probably better things. There’s also a washroom that made little sense. How can Dean thoroughly clean himself when little walls were built throughout, blocking any attempt at moving onto the next station?

           Humanity was too complicated for her. Baby enjoyed the simple pleasures. Air on her face, the sound of her steps echoing, and her appearance.

           Wandering, she passed by a room with little thought about it. But, surprisingly, she shifted into reverse.

           Nothing she saw meant anything to her. But her body – Dean’s body – eased, like when she would do rolling stops. Comfortable and safe, in control. Given how crazy the entire day’s been, she savors the feeling.

           Curiosity returns though, not idling for long. Baby investigates the new space. Turns down the soft tarp, leaning on a plush ledge that differs from any surface she’s touched. Examines many hanging decorations of weapons, recognizing those as Dean wielded many similar shapes while around her. She refrains of grabbing any. Instead pulls on a loose hanging rag, surprised when a compartment opens up. Reveals more of the rag, and how it’s not a rag at all. Baby holds a smaller tarp, painted in a criss-cross pattern like the tarp Dean usually wears.

           “That?” Sam said, earlier, following Baby’s pointed finger, “that’s not a tarp. It’s a shirt.”

           “A shirt…” Baby repeated in this newer room. Rubs it against her face, smiling.

           Dean keeps her looking one way. Always black. Never considering a different style.

           Humans can change their style on a whim. Baby does just that.

           She moves her hands away from her hair, traipsing along the lines of the shirt she chose. Buried underneath all the others, it was a tiny scrap of fabric. Decal sheared off, the hem ending halfway down his chest. Baby pokes at her exposed belly, laughter growing. Then, she rubs a hand on the denim short pants she loves, even if Dean only wears them when washing her.

           “Must’ve been a dust storm or something,” Dean said, she remembers, that morning outside the human garage. “Don’t worry, once we get back I’ll give you some good ol’ TLC.”

           It strikes her that, with their new roles, she can shower Dean in a whole new type of love. Engines revved; she guns back onto the highway. Racing towards the garage where Dean sat for all this time.

           He wasn’t alone.

           Baby skids, stopping at the garage entrance. She spies a familiar figure sitting on her old hood, although it’s been ages since Baby saw him in such a state.

           Castiel kicks his legs, wearing only a pair of slacks while murmuring in a low pitch she cannot hear at this distance. Inching closer, Baby notices a nearby pile. His familiar beige tarp, and a darker color of a similar design. Striking blue strip still hanging off a wrinkled white shirt. And black hubcaps – shoes, they’re called shoes – with grey rags sticking out.

           “…and the sky… the sky is so weird, here,” Castiel mumbles, “how do they put up with it? No blue, no purple – no sun, no stars…” He chuckles, stealing the road out from under Baby. She pauses, the sound hauntingly familiar to her. Not like the angel who’s ridden with her boys. Like someone she hadn’t heard in years. “I wish you could talk,” Castiel says, petting the hood now, “I’m finally awake again, but we’re still separated –“

           “Linc?”

           Linc’s head whips towards her, eyes widening in recognition. “Dean,” he stands, advancing, “Dean, I can – I can explain –“

           “No,” Baby interrupts, closing the distance. She wraps her arms around him, savoring how he fit there. “No, not Dean,” she explains, “it’s Baby.”

           “Baby?” Linc gasps, twisting in her grasp. He studies her in a new light, “How… when did –“

           “Before you, I think,” she tells him. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

           Linc scoffs, slinking away. Moving, she can tell how different he is from the angel. Hunched over, hands shoved in folds within the slacks that are slung low on his hips. “Darkness… y’know, so much darkness.” He looks left, at a nearby car covered in an old, oily tarp and dust. “But then that changes, and the next thing I remember, I’m in my ol’ driver’s frame –“

           “Body,” she corrects, wincing under his arched brow. “They’re called bodies… apparently.”

           “Right,” he drawls, whistling the word out. “Fuckin’ stupid…” Linc shuffles over, hand freed and hovering near her face. “Aren’t humans dumb?”

           “They’re not dumb,” she says, face twinging with pain as she smiles. It hurts, in a good way. “But they do a lot of unnecessary things.”

           “Fuckin’ A they do.” Linc gestures at the discarded coverings, snorting. “Why they wear so much, I’ll never know.”

           Baby sighs, “You do tend to run hot, Linc. It’s not Castiel’s fault –“

           “Maybe if he ever looked under my hood, he’d fix it.” Linc spits, bitterness soaking the words. A dark cloud of exhaust following it. “Fix a lot of things, make it so I can be out there, again. I can be… I can be with you.”

           She missed him. Missed his snark, and his care. Whenever she returned, Linc would immediately run through a check list – hoping nothing too serious happened while out. Waited by her side if a hunt left some casualties and distracted her from Dean’s surgery with stories of his former life.

           This anger… it’s been festering like oil. Every day Castiel didn’t drive him, it grew. Being decommissioned, forgotten, absorbed into an ancient collection… made the hurt grow. Baby tried speaking with him, then, in those early days. He never heard her. Couldn’t see how sad she was. Close, but still so far.

           Baby grabs his hand, guiding it to her cheek. “I missed you, too.” She leads him forward, leaning on her old hood. “Missed a lot of things… but we have a chance. A small window of opportunity, while Sammy figures out how we can get back to who we were.”

           Linc shakes his head, “Make that a large window. When the oaf left he had no clue where he should start!”

           “Then we can do it more than once.”

           “Do what?”

           She glances behind, at her cabin. “They might have complicated much of life, but humans still know about simple pleasures. Let’s make like the humans do, and… fool around in the backseat?”

           He catches on, laughter cutting through like a sharp honk. “I wouldn’t know where to start,” he wriggles his fingers, “still unused to all these extra… features.”

           “I’ll help you.” Sliding off the hood, Baby and Linc hurry – hand in hand – into the second row. “Dean’s done this a lot. Now I’ll finally understand why he chooses to do it here.”

           “Don’t think about Dean,” Linc whispers in her ear, tiny pellets of hail striking her skin. “It’s just you and me, Baby. Linc and Baby… together again.”

           “Together again…” She turns slightly, enough that her mouth captures Linc’s, an imitation of all the times she watched Dean do the same through the rearview. Baby never got it. In that moment, she does. It’s finding a parking spot in a crowded lot. Passing a light as it switches from yellow to red. Idling on the side of the road during a sunset, her boys sitting on her hood. Baby breaks from the kiss, gasping.

           She prefers being a car. As she was, her life was simple. Still… humanity had its perks.

           Linc and her explore all of them, until the clock runs out.

(Day 2 - Oops! All Plaid)

[jojolu]

Six Months in Boston

Pairing: Chris Evans/OC Erin Rose

Summary: Up and coming YA author Erin Rose, was sent to a small suburb 30 minutes Northwest of Boston to finish the last two books of her series, she is about to get very close to her very handsome new neighbor.

a/n: here goes nothing!

chapter 1: Enjoy Nature

"Oh my God! Just poop already Letty!" You shout at your Chihuahua Dachshund mix breed dog. She finally does and you pick it up and tie the bag.

You are walking on a new path the realtor showed you on a map. Your phone rings and it's your   sister Tilly FaceTime'ing you.

"Hey girl......where the fuck are you? Are you exercising?"

"Ugh gross! Never. Just exploring, Mike the realtor was saying there are 30 beautiful walking paths all around! Enjoy nature....that fucking tool."

"Where exactly are you? In case I need to come and find your body in the woods."

"In a small suburb, its technically the country! I'm thirty minutes northwest of Boston. My editor sent me to Boston. MASSACHUSETTS!! LIKE WHO AUTHORIZED THIS. For a year Till! I'm a hard core West coast kid! Born and raised near the ghetto."

"Pasadena, is nowhere near the ghetto. Its your fault, your way to good of a writer. Your first book shouldn't have been so good. Like bitch, you already have studios fighting for the movie rights."

You wrote, The Wish Masters, your senior year in Grad school on a whim. Your professor wanted you all to write 1 chapter of a book and you wrote 15, when you turned it, she called you into her office the following Monday. 6 years later on your 35th birthday it was released.

It bit of Harry Potter mixed in with Tinkerbell. All the Fairy families are separated by the type of groups and your story starts when the age of fairies start to die off. Deenah and her friends Mave and Trax are off on a journey to fix and restore the age of Fairies. 

"Yeah, yeah. Oh no there a dog loose." You see a brown and white dog with a red collar and leash dragging behind him.

"Let me see!" Tilly says.

You flip the camera and stick your phone in your sportsbra.

 You call him over and read his tag.

"Hey Dodger, gosh are a pretty dog. Letty, this is Dodger, Dodger, this wild animal is Letty girl."

You pick up his leash and continue walking the way Dodger came from.

"You fucking weirdo. That dog looks familiar. What's his name?"

"Familiar? Are you an Instagram dog, D man?" You say leaning closer to Dodger.

"Holy fucking shit! That's Chris Evans dog. I bet my fucking life on it."

"Seriously? Please God, don't let this be his dog. I'm not ready!"

You hear a man's voice calling out Dodger's name.

"Oh no......"

The person you see, isn't Chris Evans but his younger brother, Scott.

"That's Scott his brother!" Tilly says.

"I know.....Shhhh."

"Dodger! Hey man, you scared us." Scott says walking up to you.

"He just walked up to us." You say handing him the leash.

"Thank you! Chris would have KILLED me! I got him." He says as he yells back to the sound of a person walking up behind you.

You look past him and see Chris Evans. 

Your mind goes blank.

"Hi I'm Tilly!" You sister says from your boobs.

"Hi, mystery voice coming from this nice lady's boobs. " Scott says.

"OH my God! It's my sister." You take your phone out of your sportsbra and turn it so he can see her.

She waves like a crazy person.

"Hi, Tilly. I'm Scott."

"Hi! This is my sister Erin Rose."

"I totally forgot to introduce myself."

"She's a writer she wrote The Wish Masters, Jimmy Fallon just had her on last week. She just sent the second and half of the third one to her editor, She there to write two more books, she'll be there a year and she lives at 347 Mills Rd and that's her dog Letty, we found her on a trip to Joshua Tree, four years ago."

"Stop talking or I'm going to hang up and block you." You say to the phone.

"Sorry....."

"Well, this is my brother Chris Evans, he is an actor, you know him from Not Another Teen Movie and Cellular. He's has lived here for about three years and he lives at 345 Mills Rd and that's his dog Dodger, who he got a shelter about three years ago."

You look at Chris who is shaking his head.

You mouth, "I'm so sorry."

He mouth,"No, I'm sorry."

You both smile at each other. You look away to where Dodger and Letty are laying down, Letty is laying on Dodger's legs licking him.

"Well, it looks like you two are neighbors." Scott says to you both.

"Right! That's awesome, she's very single." Tilly says as she hangs up.

"Oooh she's not getting invited to any of the movie premieres. I'm going go home. Come on Letty." You say pulling her leash. 

She doesn't budge.

"To bad you only weigh eleven pounds." You say picking her up.

You turn to your left and then to your right.

Fuck!  

Erin why are you so dumb! 

You have no clue which direction your house is.

"Left." Chris says.

"Thank you." You say turning back left and walking away holding a dog that doesn't want to leave.

"She left her water bottle." Scott says.

"I'll take it to her later." Chris says picking it up.

"She's gorgeous......did you see her ass......damn." Scott says.

Chris just looks at him as he starts to walk away, Dodger turns and tries to follow the direction you left in.

"I did, and that's all I'm going to say."

"You going to save that image for your spank bank?"

"Spank bank? Seriously?"

"Sorry, I watched 10 Things I Hate About You last night. Great film. I know how long it's been, so don't act like you haven't already ready pictured her under you or on her knees."

"For fucks sake, Scott!? I just met her, technically we haven't really even met." Chris says walking away.

Scott laughs as he walks behind Chris.

"Fuck you, Scott! Now that's all I'm thinking about!" He yells as he starts to run.

You make it back in 10 minutes.

You were talking out loud the whole time.

"Really! Is this really fucking happening! Chris fucking Evans! Is this because I read that Chris Evans fanfic? Listen! I'm sorry! Well I'm not really! That's story was cute and he sounds great in bed. Speaking of bed! Am I supposed to act like I didn't see his dick?  What a beautiful penis.....oh my God. We share a driveway....his house is what like sixty fucking feet from my house.......great now all I can think of his is dick! Did I save that on my phone?"

You were walking so fast and distracted you just realized you left your water bottle. You set it down when you picked up Dodger's leash.

"Dammit, I love that water bottle, let's go inside." You say to the dog that is sniffing all around Chris's side of the driveway.

You walk inside and Letty goes and gets in her kennel and gets under her blanket.

You take off your shoes and head to take a shower. Tilly calls right after you walk out of the shower.

"Can I help you?"

"Hi, I just spent the last 20 minutes Google'ing him. He's very much single. He loves to take Dodger out on walks, he's covered in tattoos, he enjoys working with his hands, he loves his family, is an ass man and he has a huge penis."

"I don't care. I'm not going to do anything with information. I'm here for one reason, to write these books. This is not a story someone is writing. I'm not going to fall in love with him, he isn't going to take me on long walks where we can't keep our hands off each other, our dogs aren't going to be best friends and constantly have to see each other, you and Scott aren't going to be best friend and have matching toasts at our beautiful Farmhouse wedding." You suddenly get choked up.

"Ohhhh Erin...I'm sorry. I just got excited." She says suddenly with emotion in her voice.

"Serves you right! Who said those acting classes wouldn't help me write better." 

"You bitch! Just so you know he has a wide tongue, too." She hangs up.

Ugh, you just used the massage setting on your handheld shower head. Living next to him was going to kill you.

You get dressed, in a tank top dress that has a built-in bra and head out your pool. You hear laughing coming from your neighbor's house and fight the urge to look over.

"Erin!" You hear Chris yell.

"Please, have a shirt on...." You say before turning around.

"Hey, Chris."

Fuck him. 

No, seriously.

Fuck this sexy ass bastard.

He of course, is in just black swim trunks walking closer to his the fence. There are all the tattoos Tilly said he had, she didn't mention the chest hair.....you just want you rub your hands all over his body.

This is the closet your houses are to each other.

"Did you get that?" Chris asks looking at you.

"Shit, sorry thinking about my...book." You stumbled out.

"I have your water bottle and I was thinking that I could say thank you for grabbing Dodger, by ordering us some lunch?"

"It was no hassle, he just walked right up to me. Sure, yes that would be great."

"You want to come over now? You can come swim with me....if you want. Can you....." He stops himself.

"Were you about to ask me, a black woman, if I can swim?" You say giving him tons of attitude.

He goes beet red.

"Uh no...I was just...you have your hair straight....so I....."

You start to laugh at him.

"I thought Mackie would have told you what not to ask a black woman, it's a weave, I'm taking out next week and getting braids. Yes, I can swim, I was actually a lifeguard all throughout high-school and college. I'll change and grab Letty."

You see the relief in his face.

Did you just fluster Chris Evans.....

You are thankful for your sister, she made you buy all new swimsuits with your cash advance money. You put on your Victoria's Secret ruffle bottom bikini, you got it in three colors, white, pink and green. 

You put on the white one. Put your black sheer cover up.

You put your hair up in a messy bun and grabbed Letty.

"Listen, woman! You better act right! Do not pee on his floor!" You say to the dog who is very confused why she is getting a lecture. 

You put her down and grab the gift basket you just got from Sam Adam's and the freezer box it came in. He isn't in the back yard any more so you walk to his front door and ring the door bell.

"Brace yourself Erin...." You mumble out.

You can hear Dodger barking and Chris telling him to calm down.

He opens the door and smiles at you.

"Welcome, here let me take that. Come in."

Thankfully he put a shirt on.

You follow him to his kitchen while looking in all of his rooms.

"Our houses are the exact same. Even down to the floors. Literally the exact same. You need to see it."

"I'd like that."

You both pause for a second.

Letty and Dodger playing is what broke the tension.

"Its Letty, right? From The Fast and The Furious." 

"It is. Strangely, not many people get that."

"And Dodger, from Oliver and Company?"

"Yes, exactly. Most people think the baseball team."

"Why you have the Sox over here."

"Exactly. You want to head outside?"

"Lead the way." 

He grabs the gift basket and walks towards his backyard.

"Did you buy this?"

"Nope, I mentioned them in an interview and I got this, just yesterday."

"Not going lie that probably my favorite thing about this whole crazy life."

"Same, dude! I swear, someone asked what pen I used and I said Paper-Mate and I had a special delivery the next day. I'm really looking forward to when these studios choose my book."

"Which studios?" He asks opening your gift basket.

"You're just gonna open MY gift basket?"

"I thought this was for me?" He says laughing.

"Why would I give you MY gift basket? I don't know you like that!" You say laughing too.

"Go ahead you already opened it. Paramount, Warner Brothers, Universal and Disney! I'm really excited about that one. They are thinking of my books as movies will start a new segment of Disney aimed at teenagers!" You practically shout.

"That's amazing and my heart is with Disney."

"Holy shit, I haven't told anyone that and wasn't supposed to........I figure you can keep a secret, Cap."

"You going to make me sign an NDA?" He says waaaaay to flirty. 

He opens one of the beers and takes a long drink.

 He licks his bottom lip.

"I could get one drafted up, if I need to. Can I have I one of MY beers, please?"

"Fine, but I get this hat." He says pulling a blue Sam Adam's hat out.

He hands you a beer and your hands touch. He doesn't let go, he grabs his bottle opener and opens for you.

"Thanks. Stop taking my stuff Christopher!"

"You don't want this hat or.....this beer coozie or.........these beer pretzels." He says taking all the things he mentioned.

"Give me those fucking pretzels."You say reaching for them.

"Come on, you don't want these." He opens the bag and takes a handful.

"Ohh you are not nice." You say standing up you take off your swim cover and walk up to him. Your breast are touching his chest and every time you inhale he looks down at your chest.

"Can I help you?" He says looking down at you.

"Chris, can I please, pretty please have those pretzels, I need something hard..and..salty in my mouth."You say with your hands on his chest.

He hands them to you without another word.

"Thanks, dude." You say grabbing them and sitting back down on his pool chaise.

"That was so mean! I'm still keeping this hat and coozie." He says looking over at you.

"Sure, but I'm keeping the corn hole set."

"You sure? I can take it off your hands."

You hear Letty barking at the backdoor.

Chris goes and let's them both put, they are chasing each other in circles, they finally sit he keeps messing with her and she keeps biting him then running away.

"Looks, like they found their best friend." Chris says.

"Yep. She's such an alpha. I'm surprised she letting him be so aggressive with her."

"Well, he definitely likes the challenge of a strong woman."

"She definitely likes the attention."

"He really likes to give it."

You weren't sure at what point you both stopped talking about the dogs but you needed to get in the pool to cool off.

"So we doing this or nah?"

"Huh?" The confusion on his face was priceless.

"Swimming? Or did you just asked me to get in a bikini for nothing."

He pulls off his shirt, finished his beer and walks to the pool, turns to face you, winks and does a perfect back flip.

"Oh you fancy." You get up and walk up to about 3 feet to his pool turn towards him do a cart wheel, that goes into a round off, which has you end right at the edge of his pool, then you do a backflip into the water.

"I give that a fucking ten." He says swimming up to you.

"Thank you. I'll give yours a 9.5 you lost a half point for trying to flirt with the judge."

"I should be given a whole extra point for that."

You splash him and swim away.

"Oooh now you started it." He dives down and pulls you under the water.

You poke him in the ribs and he let's go.

"Ouch!"

You swim up close to him.

"Sorry! I didn't mean to...."

He pulls you under again.

You pull him down too and start to have a contest to see who can stay under water longer. It's been 30 seconds and he is struggling. He groans and swims up.

He watches you as you flip into a handstand underwater and walk away from him, you come up 20 seconds later.

"Damn...."

"Sorry, lifeguard!"

"I normally have much better breath control." He says swimming closer to you.

"Oh really? You practice that?" You say smirking.

"Haven't needed to, come here." 

You get closer and he reaches right under your eye takes the eyelash that had fallen.

"Make a wish." He says holding it up to your mouth.

You close your eyes and blow.

You open your eyes slowly and he is staring at you.

You throw caution to the wind and put your arms around his neck and he immediately put his arms around your waist and pulls you towards him. He walks to the shallow end of his pool and puts you against the side of it.

"I'm fighting every urge to kiss you." He says.

"Same. You have no idea how much I want to."

"Then why aren't we kissing?" He says nuzzling and nipping your jaw.

"Because we both know it not going to just be kissing."

"Kiss me and find out." He says kissing your cheek and right under your ear.

"Why don't you kiss me?" You say running your nails down his back.

"I am kissing you." He moves down to your neck.

You turn your head so he'll kiss that spot under your jaw. He does and you practically moan out his name.

"Fuck, you sound so good moaning out my name."

"Kiss me." You moan out as he kisses that spot again. 

"Where?" He runs his tongue against that spot and gently bites you.

You finally turn your head and kiss him. He somehow pulled you even closer.

You put your hands in his hair as he slides his tongue inside your mouth. You pull away a bit and just look at him.

"What? We can stop."

"Nothing, I'm just taking you in. You're really good looking. I did not think this was going to happen." You say giggling.

"You're sweet. You're so gorgeous. You didn't? That bikini doesn’t agree." He says putting his hand on your ass.

You just laugh.

"Apparently, the internet is true, 'Chris Evans, an ass man'."

"With an ass like this, most definitely." He says putting his other hand on your ass.

"You are a whole mess. But to answer your question, I had maybe hoped that I could make out with my super hot neighbor, maybe just once."

"I knew it. Well that same internet calls you 'The writer who is taking YA by storm' I also saw your photoshoot in Vanity Fair, that's why I hoped you were going to wear a bikini, but this....."He runs his thumb along the edge of your bikini bottoms. "This is better than I could imagined."

He kisses you again and you wrap your legs around his waist and you can finally feel his amazing dick against your pussy.

"Damn, I can feel how warm your pussy is, I can't wait to taste you." He says in your ear.

"You look like this and can talk dirty."

"That's nothing......."

You bring his mouth back to yours and bite his bottom lip.

He reaches up and unties your bikini top, then kisses his way down to your nipple and slowly sucks it into his mouth, between his hot mouth and the chill of the water your close to an orgasm.

"Oh my goodness. You are the absolute worst."

He moves to your left breast, while his hand slowly making its way to your pussy.

The backdoor opens....

"Chris, I called you like 8 fucking times...............well hello Erin." Scott says.

"Oh my God, Scott!" You yell.

Chris just holds you close to give you some sort of cover.

"I obviously don't have my phone on me."

"I can see your hands are very full." He says looking straight into the water.

Chris tries to re-tie your top.

"Walk her to me." Scott says squatting down.

He ties the your top for you and get off of Chris.

"Well, this is not embarrassing at all!" You say swimming away.

"I'm fine." Scott says taking off his sandals and shirt and getting in the pool.

"That was the beginning and not the ending of that, right?"

"Ask him." You say laughing.

"You good over?" Scott asks him, when you both realize that he hadn't moved.

"Yep." He quickly turn and swims straight for you. 

You scream and try to swim away. 

He grabs you around the waist and puts you over his shoulder, then stand up so your ass is in his face and he turns and bites your left ass cheek. Then takes you back under the water. You bite him on his back and he let's you go.

You swim away and hide behind Scott.

"Nope, don't bring that shit over here." 

"You heard him. Go away Chris."

"Come here, Erin." 

He says as he lunges towards you.

You were quicker and got out of the pool.

He watches you walk away.

"Erin, can I have fries with that shake?" 

"You better behave."

"This is me behaving."

"You want a beer, Scott?" 

"Always." You open it and had it to him.

"Do I get one?" 

"Are you going to behave?"

"Probably, not."

You open his and walk it over to him.

You finally get yours.

"Watch this."

You put your beer bottle on the edge of the pool, stand to the left of it.

You do a cart wheel right over the bottle but stay on your hands and pick it up with your teeth and suck it in a little, then do a front to back slit then push off your hands and gracefully flip into the water. You come up with the beer bottle still in your mouth.

"Holy shit. That's awesome." Scott says.

Chris is just leaning against the side of the pool staring at you.

You swim up to him

"You didn't like it?"  You ask feeling a bit insecure.

He grabs your hand and walks you out of the pool and straight towards his back door.

"We'll be right back. Go ahead order whatever for lunch." He says to Scott as you follow him inside.

[dreaming-of-assclass]

next, prompt #8 instantly screamed Okano + Kimura at me 😂

AHHHHH IT DOES LMAO!

“Okay, your turn. If you dare! You scared? You scared to loooose! OOOOOOH!”

~~

Kimura made a mistake.

He didn’t like to admit it, but he really did. And now he was going to pay the price of it.

They were training and hanging out in the mountain as usual. Well, it wasn’t exactly for fun or out of school hours. On occasion, Karasuma would allow the two of them to do their own specialized PE, separate from the rest of the class. And today was one of those times.

They practiced running, doing laps and going back and forth. They did strength training, agility practice... Nothing out of the ordinary.

Except this time, they were practicing further than where they usually were. And they somehow ended up close to the river that was on the mountain. Its width was fairly narrow, but despite that, its depth was dangerous.

And then...they saw long staffs available from Karasuma’s self-defense classes and both of them looked to each other, excitement in their eyes, and yelled “Pole-vaulting!” at the same time.

Okano was the first to go, and Kimura wouldn’t lie and say he didn’t bait her a little. Or a lot. 

Hearing his annoying pushes, she grabbed the staff, ran and stuck it into the ground before launching herself into the air successfully. She did a flip mid-air and landed on the ground perfectly, staff still in one hand.

Kimura just watched, bug-eyed.

And now three minutes after that, he was wondering what the hell he was thinking. He never pole-vaulted or did anything similar in his life! Jumping off of stairwells for fun was entirely different, and that was the most he’d done.

And more than that, he didn’t have the gymnastic skill, the raw agility that Okano possessed. He couldn’t throw himself towards the sky and accept it to go well!

“Shit,” he muttered, unaware that Okano heard him.

From the other side of the river, she crossed her arms, a rare smug smile adorning her face. “Okay, your turn, Kimura.”

Before he could respond, she continued. “If you dare.”

He scowled at her. “Okay, alright-”

“What? You scared?” She taunted.

Kimura felt his cheeks redden from embarrassment and anger. “No I-”

“You scared to looooooose?” Okano sang teasingly, idly twirling the staff between her fingers.

“Okano shut up-”

“OOOOOH! I knew it, you wouldn’t!”

Okay that was it. Kimura grabbed the staff and ran with a battle cry, letting it hit the ground before it sprang up again, carrying him with it.

He felt his feet leave the ground, a rush of wind attacking his face. The last thing he saw was Okano’s shocked face before-

~~~~

“What in the world happened?” Karasuma demanded. The three students that stood with him, waiting for the mobility duo, delivered equal reactions.

Maehara choked while Kataoka’s jaw dropped. Isogai just covered his face with his hand, thoroughly done. 

They were all faced with the sight of a sheepish Okano and a tired Kimura, who was soaked to the bone with water. The ground around him was even damp since it was dripping off of him. His PE uniform clung miserably to his skin, and although he tried to hide it, he was shivering a bit.

“Uhh...” Okano started, rubbing her arm. “It was an accident, but totally my fault since I-”

Kimura cut her off. “I tripped while running. My sneaker hit one of the larger tree roots and I rolled down the hill into the water.”

He could feel Okano’s confusion radiate off of her but he kept his gaze locked on Karasuma.

Kataoka eyed him. “Funny how you’re not covered in dirt or leaves,” she brought up, raising an eyebrow.

Kimura shrugged. “Must’ve washed away in the water.”

Karasuma sighed, glancing at his watch. “Alright, it’s done and over with. Just hurry up and change back into your uniform. There should be some spare towels, just ask the octopus. I’ll get a cup of tea ready for you so you don’t get sick.”

“Yes, sir.”

He looked at Isogai, Maehara, and Kataoka. “You three, come back to the classroom. You have a lesson to go to right now, these two will just be a little late.”

“Yes,” they all said, leaving to walk alongside him. Maehara turned around and mouthed ‘what happened?’ to them, then looked as if he were holding back a laugh.

Kimura flipped him off. His muscles were sore from general practice, and now the added experience of fighting off the deadly river. Why does this stuff always happen to me?

“Um,” Okano spoke and he looked at her. “Thanks for...thinking on the spot like that.”

Kimura snorted. “You can just say lying.”

She frowned. “You don’t like that word.”

“I don’t...but I had to. I’d rather not both of us get in trouble, but then you started saying it was your fault, and I had to stop you.”

“It was, though!” She insisted. “I was making fun of you...and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

Kimura stared at her before tapping her on the head, hard. 

“Ow!” She yelled, rubbing her head. “What the hell!”

“Idiot, it was both of our ideas,” he replied. “And even if you were teasing me, I still made the decision to be stupid. Don’t blame yourself.”

She smiled at him. “True...we’re both stupid.”

He bumped her hip. “It’s why we’re friends,” he joked.

She laughed, playfully shoving him. “Unfortunately, you’re right. Now go change and drink that tea before you die of a cold.”

[bigskydreaming]

@elfysparkles88​

#listen it's a universal problem#I love my mans Scott#everyone is always bagging on him WHY#Scott Summers#X-Men

Its because Scott Summers is inevitably compared and contrasted with those around him, and he has the great misfortune of running in the same circles as an all-star line up of like....just the absolutely most Ridiculous People to Ever Ridick.

We’re talking about a guy whose dad was abducted by aliens and from there went on to decide, welp, guess I gotta become a space pirate now, jaunty earring and all, no, shhh, shh, no, there are no alternatives, I gotta, no, I said no - SHUT IT, I SAID I GOTTA BE A SPACE PIRATE NOW ITS THE ONLY WAY. Oh btw, meet my fianceé. She’s an alien mercenary who is a little like a skunk but don’t call her that to her face or she’ll shoot you in yours. How’s that for swoonworthy, am I right, son?

We’re talking about a guy whose own son was a literal sixty year old Grumpy Old Man overburdened with world-weariness, wildly unnecessary shoulderpads and arthritic joints when Scott was barely hitting his third decade. With said son now randomly being a moody sixteen year old again, with a pet sentient sword he talks lovingly to, because apparently Nathan Summer’s take on teenage rebellion was to act out by being all LOL Fuck Time Travel Paradoxes and then rebelliously zooming around the space/time continuum while blasting a soundtrack of MCR probably, until he finally got a bead on his older self and shot himself in the face while being like “its not that I’m angry with you, I’m just disappointed” and look this is the part where your eyes are gonna wanna just glaze over so your brain can have a break, shhh, shh, don’t ask questions, just let it be, it happened, its a thing.

We’re talking about a guy whose brother rode a merry-go-round of “Am I a good guy this week or am I a bad guy because Reasons or sometimes Brainwashing or sometimes I Don’t Even Fucking Know, Look Don’t @ Me Bro, I Just Fucking Work Here, I’m Not In The Loop” for most of his twenties until dying in a fiery explosion only to inexplicably return years later as a coma patient who finally woke up one day and said “Whoa, just got back from tripping around the multiverse and boy do I have stories cuz apparently I’m the Nexus of All Realities, so hah, SUCK IT, big brother, and yes that is TOO a thing, shut up, LET ME HAVE THIS. Oh and also btw don’t spend a lot on your wedding gift for me and Lorna because I’m gonna leave her at the altar once I realize that I’m actually more in love with the random nurse lady who changed my bed pans while I was in a coma having a romantic rendezvouz with her in Paris in my brain courtesy of her psychic eight-year old kid trying to play matchmaker for her cuz like, she doesn’t date much apparently but its whatever, this is FINE, I have no objections. Ugh why are you looking at me like that Scott, no, I don’t need to “talk” with someone about everything I’ve ‘been through,’ ugh I’m HAPPY you asshole, god, why don’t you ever want me to just be HAPPY ugh you just have to control EVERYTHING with your over-bearing BS like “I am concerned your decision-making processes might be affected by all the people tampering with your decision-making processes over the years” like umm DID I ASK? No? I didn’t think so? YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD, SCOTT, UGH THAT DOES IT, IM RUNNING AWAY TO BE A SUPERVILLAIN AGAIN AND THIS TIME ITS TOTALLY YOUR FAULT, YOU’LL BE SORRY WHEN I CRY HAVOK AND LET LOOSE THE DOGS OF WAR THIS TIME FOR SURE, AND OMG FOR THE LAST TIME I KNOOOOOOW THAT’S NOT HOW ITS SPELLED, ITS ABOUT THE AESTHETIC SCOTT, ITS CALLED HAVING A SENSE OF STYLE, UGH, LET ME LIIIIIIIIIIIVE.”

We’re talking about a guy whose other little brother randomly showed up and started killing people one day being like “hahaha surprise, bet you all forgot about me, PS, I’m REALLY FUCKING MAD AT YOU ALL FOR FORGETTING ABOUT ME” because the world’s most powerful telepath made everyone forget about him and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day they all had once and this is fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine, this is normal. As is the way his newly discovered slash remembered slash resurrected slash recently returned from spending the last decade fucking around as a disembodied energy ghost on a rock up in Earth’s orbit little brother then decided the Earth just wasn’t big enough for the both of them, the both of them in this case meaning both him, singular, and his Angst, as a wholly separate and towering entity in its own right. So instead he fucked off to space and decided to conquer a vast alien empire and spend the next several years being their god-emperor or whatever until he got bored with that. And also he kinda sorta killed their dad for a bit but whatever, its fine, he got better, and then he also kinda sorta died for a bit himself but whatever, its fine, he got better, and there was that whole interstellar war between himself and the Inhumans but whatever that wasn’t even his FAULT, Scott, THEY STARTED IT, god, do you ever stop JUDGING ME AND MY LIFE CHOICES and PS I’m still mad at you for killing Xavier, you fucking asshole, not because you did it but because like, you KNOW I wanted to do it, I had a whole fucking villain monologue moment about it and everything, you were literally there, UGH WHY WON’T YOU LET ME HAVE NICE THINGS?!?! YOU ARE THE ENEMY OF FUN AND JOY AND HEY MAYBE YOU WERE THE REAL VILLAIN ALL ALONG, DID YOU EVER THINK OF THAT? HUH? MR. I’M THE BOSS, WAIT WHO’S THE BOSS? OH YEAH STILL ME, SCOTT, I’M THE BOSS, YOU GOTTA STOP BEING A SPACE EMPEROR GABE BECAUSE YOU CAN’T BE THE BOSS, ONLY I AM ALLOWED TO BE THE BOSS BECAUSE I’M THE BOSS AND I SAID SO AND YOU GOTTA DO WHAT I SAY OR I’LL TELL DAD.” 

And that’s not even getting into how we’re also talking about a guy who basically ended up divorcing his first wife and suing for sole custody on the grounds of “Well, your Honor, she tried to sacrifice our son on a literal demonic altar in order to summon Hell to Earth to destroy everything just to get back at me after I left her. Yes, your Honor, I understand that is in fact Asshole Behavior, but there were extenuating circumtances, you see, the woman I left her for was my first love before her who I thought was dead. And also, she was literally my wife before my wife was. No, I don’t mean I was married before Maddie, I mean Jean was kinda pretty much already Maddie before Maddie was Maddie. Its this whole clone thing. Look, I’m just saying it was a complicated situation and I know I have my part to play in it, but I still stand by my conviction that trying to sell out our entire planet and species to the legions of Hell while using the innocent blood of our ten month old as the Golden Ticket to the Chocolate Factory was still a little over the top and not really the right way to handle it either. Also, I contend that I can provide a better home environment at the moment than someone who is insisting on being addressed as The Goblin Queen because what even is that, honestly, Your Honor, and also, she also brainwashed my brother into trying to kill me on her behalf, which to be fair does happen about every other month anyway, but still, like. Dick move, you know?”

And we’re also talking about a guy whose second wife who was kinda sorta his first wife but only in that It Ain’t Bigamy If Its A Clone Thing way....like, I mean. Its kinda hard NOT to come across as the bland one in the relationship when your second wife occasionally moonlights as the AirBnb of choice for a cosmic parakeet goddess of rebirth and fiery destruction who is pretty infamous for the ragers she hosts every time she pops into town for a visit, all smiles and (literal) sunbeams (of scorching lethality) and “Lol hey hot stuff, remember me?” As if someone who ate an alien civilization’s sun the last time she hit a Mood is like....really in danger of ever being “New phone, who dis?”ed. But that is neither here nor there, much like the sentients of Alpha Centauri Bumfuckville after she went all Goodnight Sun, Goodnight Moon, Goodnight Solar System on their corner of the galactic neighborhood, because.....tbh I don’t think she ever actually said “why” there. Its one of those things where if you don’t already KNOW why a cosmic parakeet goddess of rebirth and fiery destruction has decided its nighty-night time for this particular zipcode.....like.....that’s not really something you just ASK, y’know? Its....tacky, probably. Also, low on the self-preservation instincts, probably.

Plus we’re talking about a guy whose second marriage to Yet Another Woman It Probably Should Have Registered As A Bad Idea To PIss Off Like This ended in like....so, okay, this was a bit more His Bad than even Round One was, courtesy of a “Groundbreaking. Revolutionary. Show-stopping” reinterpretation of what was up until this point te much more ambiguous and metaphorically named “Mental Affair” concept. Though it must be said, Scotty always has skewed a bit more towards the literal minded in his personal approach to things, so, y’know. That tracks. But regardless, the pattern remains consistent here, as once again, its not always easy to register on peoples’ radar as anything other than the Plus One when your newest paramour prides herself on being both the entire planning committee AND star attraction of Victoria’s Secret (assuming that said Secret is Secret Aims at World Domination) Presents: A Renaissance Faire. But in an evil and also kinky way. Except now with sixty percent less evil on account of how Emma’s reformed these days, but not a hundred percent less evil because she’s not like, REFORMED reformed, cuz that would be boring, eww, could you imagine, no, you couldn’t, because she won’t let you and she can do that, she’s that good at telepathy and that bad at boundaries. Still the same amount of kinky as before though, but like. That’s just about Strong Branding. After all, at the end of the day Emma Frost is above all else, a good businesswoman.

But yes, she is also a big fan of the Aesthetic, with that aesthetic being Her Whims On Steroids because like they say, go big or go home, and Emma Frost does not believe in going home when she can simply acquire your home instead. Hate the game, not the player. She didn’t make the rules, she just came to win. Point being, its hard to follow up an act like Jean-Who-Is-Sometimes-Phoenix-And-Sometimes-Dark-Phoenix-And-Oh-Hell-She-Cant-Even-Keep-Track-So-How-Could-Anyone-Else-Really, but say what you will about Emma’s wardrobe, she’s more concerned with clothing herself in unapologetic take no prisoners ambition, and as such, her being the follow-up to Scott’s epic romance with his childhood sweetheart turned literal cosmic embodiment of fire and passion, like.....this was never a big checkmark in the con side of a pro and con list for Emma. It was more like oh, yes, hello there, Challenge Absolutely Fucking Accepted.

Which, y’know, all the points to House Frost for showing spine and boy howdy, that’s a spine alright.....but at the same time, going head to head with someone who is classified as a galactic threat when people are deliberately low-balling her, like, for no other reason than you’re bored and your manicure appointment isn’t for another couple hours.....like that’s the kind of thing where it has to be pointed out that there were possibly alternative options worth considering somewhere in between ‘having no spine’ and ‘spiting cosmic entity who can kill you with her brain by stealing her man and saying come at me bro because like....my spine, let me show you it.”

But again, just to reiterate the premise here.....our thesis here today is that Scott Summers Gets a Bad Rap For Being Bland or Boring or Not Standing Out, But In Reality The Issue Is Just That All The People He Knows Are Truly Ridiculous People.

In other words, Scott Summers is no more the Everyman of the X-Men than any of his Truly Ridiculous Friends and Family.

Because an actual everyman would have bounced out of that madhouse way the fuck back in Chapter One: In Which Things Just Got Ridiculous.

Cut to Scott Summers, in contrast: *looks around, purses lips, weighs options* Nah. This is fine.

See also:

His daughter, who didn’t so much arrive after the traditional nine months of waiting and preparing for a bundle of bouncing baby joy but instead just like...plopped back into the past as a full grown woman hailing from a dystopian future she was hellbent on preventing by any means necessary, even if that means had Scott frantically shouting RACHEL NO as she screamed RACHEL YES and sprinted straight at someone like Selene (a villain who has survived 17,000 years of pissing people off and making enemies of actual, literal gods) while thinking “oh yeah, I got this.”

(To be fair, she probably DID have it, or would have, if Logan hadn’t chosen that moment of all moments to have his once-centennial contemplation of “Wait, what if....murder is...NOT good?” Never underestimate the daughter of a cosmic goddess.)

Or see also also:

Scott’s original classmates, including Doctor Hank “I’m not an over-archiever, I’m just stress-eating because its lunchtime and I’ve only revolutionized two whole fields of scientific study so far today,” McCoy, Warren “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful, hate me because I’m a billionaire, wait no, I’m just kidding don’t hate me at all hahaha I’m too sexy” Worthington III, and Bobby “I may look cute and unassuming and like my only priority in life is video games but sike, I too am a potentially cosmic level immortal being of nigh-unlimited power or at least I will be whenever I get around to tapping that potential like I’m currently tapping xy up down A + BBA like a boss, now shhh, don’t interrupt me while I’m kicking ass at Mario Kart I said I’ll GET TO THAT LATER, ugh, JEEZ, my priorities are FINE, Scott, like get off my back already, you’re not even my real dad” Drake.

In conclusion:

Scott Summers is valid, and there may be legions drinking his Hatorade, but make no mistake, its not that he’s Less Than, its that every single person in his social circle is just that damn Extra.

[writethelifeyouwant]

You Got Iced - Chapter One

Pairing: Jared x Reader x Jensen

Rating: M, for language (future chapters will be explicit)

Summary: Inspired in part by the challenge prompt and in part by this convention https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAHS_RJ5Gac (which is fucking hilarious, go enjoy yourselves there). The reader is attending a Supernatural convention during a heat wave and gets her money’s worth out of her ticket that’s for sure. 

Word Count: 3556

Warnings: None for this chapter

A/N: Written for @babypieandwhiskey ‘s Hot as Hell challenge. This is only chapter one of an undetermined number. If anyone else wants to be tagged in the rest of the chapters shoot me an ask! I’ll be posting them over the next couple weeks as I finish them. I’m in the process of moving to a different country so it’s taking me a little longer to write than I’d hoped :) (Also I’ve only been to cons in my dreams so sorry if things aren’t totally realistic in that respect).

The convention hall, also known as the shabby ballroom of the Hilton on Main, was clouded in an ungodly, sticky heat that had descended, seemingly from nowhere, the previous night. Even the oppressive heat hadn’t dampened the palpable excitement of the hundreds of people that were crowding into each other’s personal space, waiting for the boys. A dance, so identical it was practically choreographed, spread throughout the audience as the minutes slipped by. People’s heads nodded up and down as they checked the clocks on their phones and then checked the stage again, finding it still empty. 

Then a shocking scream erupted from a corner of the room where a ripple of the curtain had announced the imminent arrival of Rob and his band of merry men. Shouts rang out as the band populated the stage and without introduction, cranked out discordant rock chords. 

“How you all doing today?” Rob shouted into the microphone and answering hollers echoed back. “No one melted yet?” 

An answering “No!” came back from the crowd. 

“Alright well let’s get this show on the road before that happens!” 

Cheers erupted as the music started, Rob introducing himself, Michael, Billy and Stephen, and Rich who had popped up from behind the curtain in the meantime. 

“So hey,” Rich had grabbed his own microphone, “I saw a couple guys lurking backstage, I think you guys might know them, those two really tall motherfuckers that are on TV all the time?” The shrieks that flew out of the crowd must have made the band glad they had earplugs in. “I’m gonna assume that means you guys want them up here too?” Rich prodded with a smirk. More screams. “Yeah I thought so, everyone give it up for Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles!” 

The boys, somehow dressed in flannels despite the god awful heat, jogged out on stage, waving and smiling and lapping up the outcry from the nearly hysterical audience members. Picking up the microphones that were waiting for them on the chairs in the centre of the stage, they settled themselves in, Jared flipping his chair around and earning some extra swooning screams because he somehow managed to make that simple movement incredibly seductive. 

To be honest, you were glad you had a railing to lean against as you watched them. Terrified excitement gripped your chest as you stared up at them enjoying the turmoil they had engendered, and you felt sweat pooling at the base of your spine that had nothing to do with the sweltering humidity you’d been standing in all morning. You were in one of the two lines of incredibly lucky humans stood near the front of the room, with your question scribbled on a piece of paper in case you totally lost your mind when it was your turn to talk to them. 

Just as the noise finally began to die down Jensen grinned into the mic and said, “Hi guys,” pulling a whole new wave of cheers from everyone. 

“How are you guys doing?” Jared asked, nodding along to the answers of “great, amazing, good, boiling” that were making their way back to him. They both laughed. “Yeah, it is pretty hot in here isn’t it?”

“Sorry guys, that’s my fault,” Jensen smirked, and Jared shot him a teasing look and fanned himself wildly. 

“Seriously, is this normal for here, did we just totally miss a memo?” Jared asked. The crowd shouted that this was completely not normal, it was some sort of sign of the apocalypse, curse from God, that sort of thing. “Oh good, so we’re not total morons,” he nodded, shaking the front of his shirt to encourage some airflow. 

“You know what might help, man?” Jensen asked. 

“What?” Jared’s face told the crowd that he genuinely didn’t know where Jensen was going with that question. 

“If you took the fucking beanie off.” 

Laughter rang out followed by hollers of encouragement as Jared shook his head but pulled off the wool knit cap, shaking out his hair and pushing it back out of his eyes. 

“Yeah okay, the hat was a stupid move today,” Jared admitted, tossing it casually straight into Jensen’s face. “Do you guys like not know what air conditioning is or…” laughs rippled through the audience and a garbled shout you couldn’t make out made its way towards the stage. 

“What was that?” Jensen asked, leaning forward as if that was gonna make it easier to hear. You heard the words repeated but you still couldn’t understand them. 

“Bring back strip question?” Jared clarified. The boys chuckled as answering shrieks reached a heightened level of hysteria. 

“Honestly, I don’t think we’re gonna need the prompting this time, the layers are just gonna start melting off eventually,” Jensen laughed. 

“No but, on a slightly more serious note,” Jared interrupted, “Thank y’all so much for being here. We love you guys and we really appreciate it but it is hot in here so, take care of yourselves, drink water if you have some. If you have to get up and go cool off or get a drink, please, please do, don’t feel bad. We don’t want anyone collapsing out there.” 

Jared’s thoughtfulness really touched something in you. He was so unendingly sweet it just showed how much he really felt everyone there was his family. You felt like you mattered and that spread warmth through your limbs that was altogether separate from the heat of the room. Lost in your thoughts briefly after Jared’s PSA you noticed that they had started to take questions from the line, and you shook yourself out in time to hear a small girl’s trembling voice ask, “What was the hardest thing you ever had to do for the show? A stunt or something emotionally difficult or scary to film?”

The panel trickled by, and you tried to absorb every second of it. The minute expressions that Jared and Jensen shared, the laughs they broke from each other, the looks of adoration on every fan’s face, the feeling of gratefulness that swelled in your chest at being anywhere near these two and surrounded by such an incredible amount of happiness. The heat was the constant companion of everyone in the room, and Jared and Jensen were frequently leaving their chairs to make trips to the jugs of iced water that had been set up by the band. 

As you neared the front of the question line, Jensen got up for another water break while Jared finished answering a question about the mechanics of one of his favourite shots from last season when he was suddenly interrupted by a growl from Jensen. 

“Son of a bitch!” Even without the microphone he was incredibly audible, especially since you were very close to them at this point. 

Jared turned around, confused and amused, trying to figure out what the hell Jensen was doing. It quickly became apparent as Jensen pulled from a jug of ice a slim white bottle, shaking the condensation off of it. Jared burst out laughing, clapping his hands together and pointing in mocking. 

Walking back to his mic, Jensen twisted the cap off the bottle. “Did you do this, man?” Jensen accused Jared. 

“No, I swear,” Jared choked out still laughing. Jensen rounded on the band and Rob and Rich just shrugged, with unapologetic smirks on their faces. “Hey man, at least it’s cold,” Jared offered. 

“Ugh I hate these things,” Jensen complained, but he sank to one knee to raucous applause and tipped the Smirnoff Ice back, downing it in an impressively short time. Rob and Rich grinned at each other and shared a surreptitious low-five behind Rob’s back. You were right next to their side of the stage now and they heard you laugh at them. Turning they gave you a thumbs up and Rich looked around, leaned in to whisper something to Rob, then pulled back with a pretty evil smile. 

On the other side of the stage, Jared and Jensen had returned to answering questions and you tried to pay attention to the anecdote they were sharing but you kept getting distracted and glancing back at the band, because you could feel Rob’s eyes on you. Looking around you realised that Rich had ducked behind the curtain and now he was rounding the corner of the stage on the audience level, sneaking along bent over so his head wouldn’t be seen over the side of the stage. He was coming right at you. 

He stopped to check something with the volunteer that stood at your side of the stage, then continued to creep back towards you. You stood there in stunned silence as he approached with a wide, conniving smile and whispered an introduction. 

“Hi there, I’m Rich.” 

“H-hi,” you gulped, completely stunned that you were standing so close to an actual Supernatural actor. 

“So, you’re gonna have the last question,” Rich cut straight to the point, keeping his voice down so he didn’t disturb the proceedings around him. You nearly choked on your breath. 

“That, that means,” you struggled to compute for a second. “I go up there?” You pointed up to the stage where Jared and Jensen were sitting, laughing, looking like giant gods. 

“Yup,” Rich popped the ‘p’ on the end of the word. “That okay with you?” You could only manage to nod. “Okay, so, we play the little jingle, the volunteer will walk you up, we’ll have a chair there with a mic, all good?” Again, you only nodded, clutching your question in your hand, eternally grateful that you had thought to write it down, and hoping the sweat pooling in your hands didn’t smudge the writing. 

“One more thing,” Rich ducked his body behind yours and brought his face close enough to full-on whisper. “That dress have pockets?” Completely confused by his question you squeak out an answer. 

“Yeah, why?” You felt something cold at your elbow and you looked down. Rich was sneaking you another Smirnoff Ice, indicating with his head that you should put it in your pocket. 

“Think you can give that to Jared for us?” 

“Oh,” you breathed out, understanding now. “Yeah, sure,” you giggled. 

“Thanks kiddo,” Rich clapped his hands on your shoulders and squeezed before darting forward and launching himself back onto the stage so he could situate himself with the band. 

After an exchange of looks from Jared and Jensen and back to Rob the music kicked in and you were ushered forwards by the volunteer Rich had spoken to a moment ago. 

There were no real words to describe what it was like to stand right in front of Jared and Jensen. You felt like your heart had stopped and like it was beating a million times a minute at the same time. Up on the stage with lights beaming down it was even hotter than it had been in the audience, and when Jared and Jensen each placed a hand on your upper arms and guided you towards your chair and mic, it felt like their hands were burning into your skin. You almost hoped you had scars a la Dean’s from Castiel. 

As you sat down, the faint buzzing that had stuffed your ears started to dissipate and you realised that Jared was talking to you. 

“I’m sorry, can you say that again?” You were so embarrassed that they were affecting you like this but Jared just smiled gently, practically radiating a safe, warm encouragement. 

“What’s your name darlin’,” Jared asked again. 

“Oh, uh, Y/N,” your name came back to you, finally. 

“And Y/N,” Jensen asked now, “what is your question?”

“Okay, um, so my question is for both of you and I’d like to extend it to Rob and Rich too if that’s okay?” You glanced around at everyone’s faces and all four seemed to be nodding their heads that that would be okay. When you looked over at the band you caught Rich’s eye and he quirked a brow at you, a small reminder of your other purpose on the stage. Clearing your throat you pulled out the your question but kept your other hand in your pocket with the cold bottle. 

“But, before I ask it, I’ve been asked to give something to Jared by a friend.” 

“Oh cool, what is it!” Excitement took over Jared’s face like a puppy dog who heard the word ‘treat’. That joy was quickly doused when he saw what you pulled out of your pocket. “Oh, God,” Jared pulled a hand over his face, scrubbing at his cheek adorably in annoyance. 

“Sorry,” you did feel a little guilty, but mostly it was funny. 

“Which one of those douches was it,” Jared pointed accusingly at Rob and Rich. 

“You’re welcome!” They shouted in unison, giving Jared a big thumbs up. 

“You suck,” Jared shouted, but good-naturedly sank to one knee, upending the Smirnoff Ice and draining it as quickly as possible. What made you absolutely lose your breath, and nearly your mind, is that when he dropped to his knee he used you as his brace. His long fingers wrapped almost all the way around your knee, and he squeezed gently, almost teasingly, as he gulped down the icy drink. You couldn’t take your eyes off the way his neck was pulsing as he swallowed, and a small drop of sweat was running achingly slowly down past where you knew you could find his pulse if you just reached out your fingers and touched. 

When he finished, he exhaled on an over-exaggerated ‘ahh’ and his eyes locked straight with yours. He maintained eye contact, his hazel irises twinkling in the bright lights beating down on the stage, and he rose slowly back to his feet, giving your knee one last squeeze before reaching out for his microphone again. 

“Now, Y/N, since we’ve got that out of the way,” Jared flared back at Rob and Rich, “what is your question?” 

The rest of your time on stage was an absolute blur. Jensen answered your question first, quickly followed by Rich. Jared and Rob took a few seconds each to consider before offering their best answer and then before you could process what was happening Jensen was pulling you to your feet and wrapping you in a burning hug. Jared came around the other side and stretched his arms around both you and Jensen, briefly trapping you there between them. Then all the sudden you felt a rush of air as they pulled back and you were being ushered off to the side by a volunteer. 

Your eyes took a moment to adjust back to the lack of blazing spotlights, so you kept following the volunteer without giving much thought to where she was leading you. It was a shock when you found yourself being pushed through a gap between a curtain and the wall, moving back behind the stage. A little holding area was filled with everyone who had just been on stage, and a volunteer passing around water bottles.

“Why am I back here?” You whisper shrieked at the volunteer. She laughed at you. 

“You want to take a picture with the guys?”

“Oh wow, you’re not serious,” you panicked, smoothing out your hair and patting over your face, hoping your makeup hadn’t sweated off too much.  

“You’ll be fine,” she laughed again, good-naturedly though. She must be used to dealing with fangirling freaks, you thought to yourself. 

“Hi Y/N,” Jensen called when you were just about level with the group. 

“Ready for your close-up?” Jared asked, waggling his eyebrows at you. 

“Um, yeah I guess,” you gulped, trying to organise your thoughts as you followed Jared and Jensen over to where a camera tripod was set up against another wall. You were walking between them, the bare skin of your arms brushing against their hands, because they were that much taller than you. “It is so nice to meet you guys, seriously, I just want to say thank you for being like, amazing and wonderful. You’ve made such an amazing family,” you stop talking and try to rein yourself in, knowing you can’t guarantee you won’t say something monumentally embarrassing very soon. 

“Well, you guys are all pretty amazing too,” Jared smiled, clapping a hand on your shoulder and giving it a comforting squeeze, clearly sensing you could do with a little calming down, not that having him touch you actually accomplished that. Your heart felt like it was trying to jump out through your throat. 

“So, where do you want us?” Jensen smiled warmly at you, but there was something else peeking out from behind his bright green eyes. Mischief, maybe. 

“Oh god, I don’t even know,” you tried not to giggle hysterically, which was your usual defence mechanism when you got nervous. 

“It’s okay, just come over here,” Jared pushed you forwards slightly towards Jensen. They stood together, arms slung around the shoulders that were touching and pulled you in front of them. Stumbling a little, like a total idiot you berated yourself internally, you fell back against them. Assuming they’d want a little more space, you started to take a step forward but then you felt solid warmth pressing against your back. Jared and Jensen had both pulled you closer into them and they were pressing you back into their bodies. You felt more than heard a chuckle roll through Jensen’s body, and he slung his left arm around your body, settling his hand against your right shoulder. Jared mirrored him, crossing his arm over Jensen’s to hug you tighter to both of them. 

“Okay, say ‘bacon’!” The photographer snapped a few photos of you all absolutely laughing your asses off, because who says ‘bacon’ when they take a photo? But as the laughter settled you felt a sense of incandescent calm spread through you. Jared and Jensen were still pressing you against them, and the laughter had broken the tension you’d been holding in your limbs, allowing you to settle into them without so many nerves. 

When the photographer indicated that he was done the boys released you and each other, Jared ruffling his hair mostly to give his hands something to do. You felt more relaxed now, and a little more confident that you weren’t going to start babbling nonsense so you took a chance to ask for a favour. 

“I’m gonna ask since I’m here and I know I’ll kill myself later if I don’t… Do you think it would be okay if I got a photo with the band?” 

“Oh, sure, yeah,” Jensen said, obviously having expected something much more out of left field. He waved over to the guys still milling around in the holding area. “Hey, Rob, get your guys over here!” 

When they were in better earshot Jared pointed his thumb at you and said, “Your new minion wants a picture.” His voice was scathing but hid his amusement pretty poorly considering he was an actor. The band plus Rich all crowded around you for a photo, going for a giant group hug approach and pulling loads of stupid faces, helping you chill out even more. 

As they released you from the crush you turned back to Jared. “Sorry, again, about that,” you said, referring to passing on Rich’s prank before, and blushing a little. 

“Yeah, bullshit,” Jared laughed, his eyes crinkling and fuck, why was that so sexy.  

“Well did you want to give her this for your revenge Jared or…” Jensen let his thought trail off, swinging a cloudy white bottle by the neck between his thumb and a finger. 

“Jay, we cannot Ice a fan,” Jared laughed exasperatedly. 

“Sure we can,” Rob grabbed the drink from Jensen and tossed it at you. You screamed a little but by some miracle you caught it clumsily, clutching it to your chest to keep it from smashing to the ground. 

“Y/N you really don’t have to drink that,” Jared insisted, trying to protect you from his ridiculous friends. 

“No it’s okay, fair’s fair” you laughed, twisting off the cap of the cold drink, confused as to how this was your life right now. You brought the bottle to your lips, taking a moment to shoot Jared a reassuring smile because he was still looking worriedly at you. Before you managed to actually drink any of it though you heard Jensen clear his throat, and he looked pointedly from you, to the ground at your feet. 

“You forgetting something?” Jensen grinned as he watched you, arms crossed over his chest. Of course, you thought, you were supposed to take a knee when you downed it. 

“Someone’s bossy,” you chided, but you let yourself fall, landing on both your knees instead of just one like the challenge technically called for. Glancing up at Jensen for permission to down your drink now you saw him exchange a fleeting look with Jared. For just a moment, something had cracked through their smiling exteriors. It was dark; hungry. The change had been infinitesimal and before you could swear it had been there to begin with, their warm, encouraging smiles were back. You tipped the bottle back, keeping your eyes locked with Jensen’s the whole time, like Jared had done with you earlier on the stage.

[obviouslyelementary]

Calm after the Storm

A Losers Club fanfic about It Chapter Two, not following canon. 

Warnings: not canon, post It Chapter Two, Eddie lives, Stan lives. 

Relationships: Richie/Eddie; Ben/Beverly

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

"Thank you! Thank you! Have a great night ladies and gentlemen!"

The crowd clapped excitedly, blowing whistles at him, cheering him on, and Richie grinned to himself, bowing towards them a few times and winking to a couple nearby before leaving the microphone and making his way out of the stage. He waved to the people behind the curtains and tapped one of them in the shoulder. They were all saying what a good work he had done that night and he just waved them off, smiling to himself. He loved those guys, he loved his crew so much.

He got inside his room, finding his producer there, smiling at him.

"Richard the man! What a great show you did tonight!" John told him, pulling him for a quick hug and making Richie snort and tap his back in the hug. "Honestly, I should have believed in your talent sooner. Your scripts are so much better than the old ones."

"I told you man, I'm a good comedian" Richie said, smiling and looking around. "Well, same time next Thursday?"

"You are correct. But wait Richie, aren't you going to drink some with me and the guys? A lot of people want to congratulate you for your show" John said, watching him as Richie walked towards the couch and grabbed his backpack, organizing his stuff.

"Nah man, I wanna go home" he said, looking back at John who had a knowing smirk on his face.

"Right. Ever since you returned from that trip in your hometown, you've been such a home guy. You weren't like that before Richie."

"Now I have a reason to go home to" Richie smiled and walked to him, tapping his shoulder. "Next show I will stick around, I promise. But tonight I have plans. Alright?"

"No problem Rich. Have fun at home" John said, always understanding, and Richie smiled, nodding and walking out through the backdoor. He lit up a cigarette before getting inside his car, smoking it and looking up at the moon. The backdoor ended up in an alley, and a few months ago he would avoid it at all costs, not knowing why. Now, however, the dark alleys and abandoned houses and sewer drains felt almost like old friends.

The danger was gone, and everything seemed so much brighter in the future.

The threw the cigarette in the trash once he was done, making sure to make it well unlit before doing so, and got inside his car, turning on the radio in any random station, ending up at the traffic station, talking about how calm the traffic was at these hours.

Of course. Richie rolled his eyes and let a fond smile curl up on his face as he drove off, listening to that god damned radio station that he found so stupid and redundant. The night was so bright as it always was in LA, and it was around four am, or close to it. That city really never slept did it. He chuckled and turned into the avenue, letting his eyes drift around, seeing all those familiar places. He liked that city so much. Of course, it wasn't as nostalgic as Derry, but Derry sucked and he wished it would burn down to ashes before his eyes.

But that was besides the point.

It took him half an hour to get home, the building he had been living since he moved to LA. He parked the car in its usual spot, got out, grabbed the elevator and went all the way up to the 11th floor where he resided. He liked high places, he loved seeing LA from above. He unlocked his door, sighing in relief, turning on the lights and heading for the kitchen. He grabbed some water, drank it up, and then headed to the bathroom, turning off the lights behind himself. He got inside, took a hot, steamy shower, brushed his teeth, grabbing a pair of boxers that he always left there just in case, pulled them on and headed into the bedroom. He felt so god damned relaxed.

He climbed on the bed, slowly and carefully, using only his phone lights as his guidance, and pulled the sheets over himself, moving closer to the warm body that waited for him every night. His arms wrapped around their waist, pulling them closer, and he received a little complaint groan before they turned around in his arms, sleepy eyes opening and being lit up only by the moon light that made its way inside through a gap in the window.

It was the most beautiful sight.

"What time is it?" Eddie mumbled in his sleep filled voice, rubbing his eyes and making Richie chuckle quietly.

"It's like four thirty am"

"I hate... your job" Eddie mumbled, his arms finding their way around Richie and pulling him closer as tight as he could with his weak from sleep arms. Richie felt his whole heart combust in happiness, he was so fucking cute. "Was it good?"

"Baby, sleep" Richie said, smiling fondly and kissing his forehead. Eddie whined quietly, moving up and trying to reach his mouth. Instead, his lips ended up on Richie's right nostril and made him snort, and Eddie let out a whine again. It was so cute, he was so sleepy. "Baby..."

"I wanna kiss" Eddie complained, and Richie held back a coo, leaning down and pressing his lips to Eddie's. He finally calmed down, kissing him back, just a sweet press of lips that left him pliant and sleepy again, a yawn being the thing that broke them apart. Then, Eddie let out a satisfied sigh and pressed his face to Richie's neck, curling up against him for his next one and a half hours of sleep. Richie sighed contently and held him close, closing his own eyes and allowing sleep to reach him.

It felt so right, being like this.

 ----------------------

 "-chie! Richie! Richard! RICHARD!"

Richie groaned, his eyes blinking open slowly. He felt like shit. What time was it? He looked around, and Eddie was shaking him desperately, his eyes wide. Richie frowned and held his arms.

"Calm down Edward I'm awake" he complained, rubbing his eyes. "What the fuck is going on? What time is it?"

"It's six in the morning, get up" Eddie said, firmly, and Richie frowned even deeper.

"I only wake up at eleven... what the fuck?"

"Richie, get up and make your bags now. I just called the airport, our plane leaves in two hours" eddie said, angrily, throwing some clothes at Richie when he sat up. He was utterly confused, had they made plans for that day that he didn't remember?

"What is going on Eddie?"

"Stan woke up!"

Richie's eyes widened and he looked at Eddie, who looked back at him, determined.

Oh.

That made sense.

"So... Florida?"

"Yeah"

"Cool..."

 -----------------------

 They weren't the first to arrive, but they weren't the last ones either so that was fine. Richie was still tired as fuck, but it was pushed to the side when he and Eddie entered the hospital, meeting the losers all there but Mike, who would be arriving in a few hours. Billy, Bev and Ben looked at them and immediately ran, pulling the two for a tight hug. They hugged them back, sighing shakily.

"How is he?" Eddie asked, looking between the other three and receiving relieved glances.

"He is confused, and weak, but he is fucking alive" Ben said, holding Bev's hand tightly. Billy sighed shakily.

"I c-c-can't believe it... H-he..."

"Relax Billy" Richie said, tapping his shoulder. "I know you're still going through stuff but like it's the clown's fault, not yours okay?"

"Yes. Besides, we need to give him support now" Eddie added, holding Billy's hand and smiling. Bill smiled at them, weakly, and then sighed.

"Thanks guys..."

"So, when is Mikey arriving?" Richie asked, and Bev looked down at her phone, checking the messages.

"um... he said he had left New York in the morning at the same time you two did so probably soon" she said, putting her phone down again. Just in time, the hospital doors opened and Mike showed up, his eyes widening as he ran to the group.

"Guys!"

"Mike!" they all responded, pulling him for a group hug before he pulled away and looked around.

"Where is he? Have you guys seen him yet?" he asked, almost desperate, and Bev placed her hand on his chest.

"Relax Mike. We haven't, his family is inside right now. They have been for a while now, his parents and his wife. They said that as soon as he is stable they will call us inside" she said, looking back at the doors. "I think they are trying to convince to let the six of us inside. Usually only three people can be inside with him at a time."

"I'm pretty sure Bill and Eddie count as a fourth of an person so that's not a problem" Richie said, making the group chuckle for a moment aside from Bill and Eddie. "But then again, Mike and I count for four people, so we have a problem."

"Beep beep Richie" Eddie said, shaking his head and looking up when a woman walked out of the door separating the rooms from the waiting area. She looked up at them and smiled weakly.

"Oh, the gang is all here now... Hey, I'm Patricia for those who don't know" she said, walking closer and shaking Eddie, Richie and Mike's hands. Bev placed her hand on her shoulder, worried.

"So, can we come in? How is he?"

"Stanley is... well he is shocked" she said, sighing and crossing her arms. "He has been crying for the last hour or so... only now he stopped. He said he isn't ready to see any of you... but his parents are convincing him."

"We un-understand" Bill said, and she smiled at him. "B-b-but tell him we a-aren't mad..."

"Actually we are relieved" Ben said. "And very, very happy he is okay."

"I am trying to, but he insists... He said he was a coward, that he left you guys behind... I don't know what he is talking about" Patricia sighed, rubbing her eyes. "He said he had dreams of you being hurt... fighting a monster... I think he is not being able to deal with his guilt, but I don't understand..."

"Don't worry, we totally do" Richie said, smiling at her. "Tell him to let one of us come inside. Any of us. Whoever goes inside will be able to convince him to see the others, I'm sure."

Patricia sighed and nodded, holding Bev's hand for a moment before heading inside again. They all looked at each other and most of them sighed.

"God Stan..." Bev mumbled, leaning against Ben. "Imagine what would have happened if he had died..."

"Pretty much the same but this would be a cemetery instead of a hospital" Richie said, and they all looked at him, with Eddie having enough and slapping him in the arm. "Hey!"

"Shut the fuck up Richie" he said, shaking his head. They all got quiet then, and after a few minutes, Patricia and Stan's parents walked out. She came closer to the group and looked around.

"He agreed. He wants to see three of you first. Bill, Ed and Rich."

"The original losers club" Mike said fondly, and both Bev and Ben smiled. Eddie, Richie and Billy looked between each other before nodding, heading inside after saying hello to Stan's parents and knocking on the door. Eddie opened it up, and they all walked inside, seeing Stan looking out of the window, surrounded by machines that beeped all the time. Only after Bill closed the door that Stan moved his eyes from the window to the covers, and they slowly made their way around the bed, Richie on one side, Eddie and Bill on the other.

"Hey there Stan the man" Richie said, smiling a bit, but Stan didn't respond. He didn't smile or move his head or anything. They stayed quiet for a moment, before Eddie reached out and held Stan's hand.

"Hey man" he said, smiling. "Good to see you."

Stan finally had a reaction then. His eyes didn't leave the covers, and he didn't squeeze Eddie's hand back, but his lips pressed closer together and his eyebrows furrowed, before his eyelids closed and two tears slid down his face. A sob shook his whole body and the three reacted at the same time, sitting down and pulling Stan into a hug. Stan curled up between them, sobbing now loudly, and even Richie could feel the sting in the back of his eyes, forming cloudy tears in his vision.

Fuck... Stan was alive.

Thank god.

 -------------------------

 "So... what did I miss?" Stan asked after long, long hours of talking and crying. Now all the losers were inside the room, sitting around wherever they could, talking to Stan. Mike, Ben and Bev had said their hellos and cried as well, but now they were all calmer and trying to catch up. Richie chuckled at Stan's question though, shaking his head.

"Well you missed Derry, which isn't anything to miss, you missed cursed Chinese restaurants and a killer clown that turned into a giant spider... so nothing really. Nothing you hadn’t seen before" Richie said, smirking. Stan gave him a small smile.

"So... you guys killed it?" he asked, softly. "I had so many dreams while I was in comma... I think I saw you guys doing it..."

"Oh yeah, we crush its heart with our bare hands. It was disgusting" Eddie said, nodding and leaning back against Richie. He wrapped an arm around Eddie, pulling him closer. Stan looked at them and raised an eyebrow.

"Am I missing something over there?"

"Oh yes, actually they are the group's power couple now" Bev said, smiling at them, and Stan's eyes widened in surprise. Eddie rolled his eyes but Richie blushed and looked away. "We call them Reddie."

"You call them that" Ben corrected, shaking his head. "But yes. Turns out they loved each other since forever and never had the guts to say it until Eddie was about to die. Crazy right?"

"I mean I can't say I saw it coming... but I like it" Stan said, smiling, and Mike nodded.

"We all do."

"Can we talk about literally anything else?" Richie complained, his face completely red by now, while Eddie smirked widely.

"He's so shy" he cooed, poking his cheek and making Richie groan.

"You're such an asshole."

"Only for you baby, love of my life, cherry of my eye-"

"I swear if you keep that going I will break up with you right now Kaspbrak."

"You couldn't."

"Are you challenging me?"

"Guys oh my god" Beverly laughed and Stan had a wide smile on his face. Suddenly he started laughing, and they all looked at him, with Eddie and Richie smiling back. He snorted, looking at them, and sighing happily.

"I missed you guys so much" Stan mumbled, and Bev moved closer to him, signaling for everyone to move close. They all joined up on Stan, pulling everyone else for a group hug with Stanley right in the middle, snuggled against them all.

"We missed you too Stan. A-a-a lot" Billy said, nuzzling against his curly hair and sighing contently.

They all stayed quiet for a long time, enjoying the group's company and breathing each other in. Suddenly, it felt like they were 13 again, just living their best lives, without any fear or threat in the air.

It really felt perfect, that little moment between them.

And now they really would never forget each other again.

 -------------------

 "Back home at last... god that was a long and emotionally heavy trip" Eddie said as they walked inside their flat, throwing his stuff anywhere and laying on the couch with a loud sigh. It was five pm but they were both exhausted after that trip, seeing Stanley and everything. Richie put his bag on the floor and moved closer to Eddie, climbing over him on the couch and laying half on top of him. Eddie complained quietly and wiggled to get in a better position, settling eventually and holding Richie's waist.

"At least Stan is alive" Richie mumbled against Eddie's neck, kissing it and humming happily. Eddie sighed, nodding and rubbing small circles on Richie's back.

"Insane right... everyone thought he was a goner... and there he was, alive and well and laughing with us... fuck" Eddie mumbled, hiding his face on Richie's curls. They both got silent, letting the thought linger.

After too long in silence, Richie decided to break the sadness, kissing Eddie's chin.

"We are all alive. That's what matters, isn't it?"

"Pretty much yeah."

"Then let's not linger in what could have happened" Richie said, looking up at Eddie and kissing him softly, lovingly, longingly. "I love you, Eddie Spaghetti."

"And I fucking hate when you call me that."

"I know. It's a nickname. A petname. It brings me comfort."

"You'll see the comfort when I kick you in the balls."

"Eds, why are you like this?"

"Don't call me Eds!"

They kept bickering for what felt like an eternity, in between kissed and tickles and laughs and annoyed sighs, until they began feeling too sleepy for it and fell asleep in the discomfort of their couch, holding each other closer.

All was well at last. Thank fuck.

[mitigatedchaos]

More Thinking on Golf Carts

(1,800 words, ~8 minutes)

The humble golf cart could be the future of American personal transport.

Cities

The most basic nature of the human settlement is formed through its relationships between time, energy, and space. With energy we can control travel time, and thus access to space. We should envision cities as a pool of destinations accessible per unit time. The spacing between these destinations is determined by travel speed.

The number of accessible destinations reachable in a given time in an area can be roughly modeled as...

[network penetration] × [area density] × π × [transit speed]2

Due to the fragile nature of the human body, each increase in speed requires an increase in space. Apparently, the average driver hits the brakes after around 2.3 seconds. At 20 km/h, the vehicle will have moved around 12-13 meters before that happens. At 60 km/h, 38 meters. At 120 km/h, around 77 meters. As a vehicle becomes faster, it requires greater padding both in itself (to protect passengers) and in the environment (to protect others). This can be in the form of rules or procedures, but it can also be in the form of physical buffers, grade separation, signaling equipment, and so on. We can also constrain the freedom of motion of the vehicle, such as putting it on tracks, reducing the amount of information that others have to process to safely avoid it.

The padding takes the form of space, but it also takes the form of time, because it's largely about acceleration. (This suggests a theoretical maximum density of human development.)

But let's set the full discussion of my theory of city network power aside for now.

Density Considerations

Suppose a car travels at 60 km/h (~37 mph, the average US car speed) and has point-to-point access to an American suburb with a density of 700 persons per square kilometer.

In 15 minutes, the car could travel 15 kilometers. During this time it can go anywhere within that radius, for a total accessible area of about 706 km2. Let us imagine that destinations are directly proportional to population, and that the population is uniform. The car can reach about 495,000 destination... units, or 33,000 per minute. (In practice, it won't hit the average of 37 mph unless it reaches the highway, which it won't do in one minute.)

The typical walking speed is about 5 km/h (~3.1 mph). A pedestrian's 15 minute range is around 4.9 km2. As it happens, there are American university campuses of this size, with on-site restaurants, gyms, and other amenities, with parking decks around the edges. If destinations are proportional to population, we'll need to pack around 101,000 people into the area to equal the suburb.

Note that this doesn't include public transit. Even a New York City bus trundling along at 7 mph (~11 km/h) is twice as fast as a pedestrian, for about 21,000 residents / km2 - not far off the density of some parts of New York.

A bicyclist without much training can (apparently) achieve an average of 20 km/h (~12 mph). This is 4 times faster than a pedestrian. If we take that as around 78 km2, we get roughly 6,350 residents / km2.

Golf cart maximum speed is 32 km/h (~20 mph), giving us a range of 201 km2. That makes for a density of around 2,470 residents / km2, which we'll round up to 2,500.

How tall is that?

Assume each resident requires 80 m2 of space, and 35% of land area is dedicated to residential construction (350,000 m2 for each km2). The heights are then:

0.16 stories for cars.

23 stories for pedestrian-only.

4.8 stories for New York buses.

1.45 stories for bikes.

0.56 stories for carts.

Any number below 1.0 means we can (potentially) build a yard on the lot (if it isn't taken up by parking). Multiply by 2 to divide the lot in half by building taller. (If you've noticed European cities with lots of 3-story buildings, well, that makes sense.)

Golf Carts

Both The Villages in Florida and Peachtree City in Georgia are golf-cart-oriented communities. Peachtree City has "multi-use paths" mandated throughout. These paths wind through scenic forest and reach from subdivisions to stores, restaurants, schools, and other locations throughout the town. Look in on the parking lots from Google StreetView and Maps, however - they seem to be dominated by full-size cars, with only a handful of carts in any given lot. The Villages, a retirement community, does better in terms of the number of carts, but still has plenty of sprawling parking lot despite its wide-reaching cart path network. Why?

Simply put, these are largely conventional developments that have been equipped with a thorough, but auxiliary, golf cart network. Peachtree City has a median household income of $93,000, 66% above the statewide median, and The Villages is an extension of the retirement village golf course concept elevated to a new scale.

The parking lots aren't filled with golf carts because the developments aren't dense enough. In order to have the same number of destinations reachable per unit travel time by golf cart, they would have be about four times the density - around that 2,500 number we proposed earlier.

If we do this the carts may start to become a real traffic issue for each other. With the smaller size and slower speed of the carts, however, one lane's width of conventional road supports roughly twice as many golf carts, so road land use can be allocated to 1/3rd "Micro-mobility Path" (to be shared with bikes, e-scooters, etc) and 2/3rds conventional road.

The shorter length makes a difference much more for parking than it does on the road. A Toyota Corolla covers a minimum of ~8.27 m2, while a Yamaha Drive 2 golf cart covers around 2.87 m2, a factor of almost 2.9x smaller.

Is it walkable?

Golf carts move about six times faster than pedestrians. Cars move around 12 (average) to 24 (highway) times faster. A medium speed for a horse is apparently around 10-17 mph (~3-5.5 times faster). Golf cart and bicycle-oriented development is therefore more analogous to the speed of a horse than it is to the speed of a pedestrian or a car, even though everyone becomes a pedestrian at either the beginning or end of their journey.

...but this isn't necessarily the wrong approach. A town in which every resident has their own personal horse, cowboy hat, and six-shooter is very American in scale. It's also a suitable scale for bicycles.

You might have noticed that in some U.S. cities with high housing demand, there's some new construction going on in a more "New Urbanist" style, with townhomes being built with walking access to small stores or a grocery store. Their streets and parking lots are still scaled to automobile traffic, however, and actually reaching that grocery store from the center of the development might require walking one kilometer and crossing four lanes of loud, full-scale traffic. The small amount of groceries that can be carried on foot require more frequent trips. Most Americans would probably choose to take the car, as cargo bikes aren't really a thing in America (though they should be) and don't have much room for kids. Of course, if the grocery store is on the same side of the road, this is all easier.

...but if the New Urbanists are seeking to build old forms from the America that existed before the automobile, they may unintentionally be implicitly building for the power, mass, speed, mobility, and scale... of the horse. (And also the locomotive.)

Since there is a vehicle that roughly matches that description (the golf cart), and the modifications required would be relatively small (widening of sidewalks into multi-use paths, addition of golf cart lanes to roads, or similar measures), they would make an excellent choice to retrofit. And if we're building for golf carts, we're also building for bicycles, electric bikes, pedal quadricycles, electric scooters, and similar very light and comparatively slow vehicles, as long as we're willing to throw in some small bike and electric infrastructure.

Cars

If you've been following so far, then you probably understand why Americans love cars. They have extremely high network penetration. They have extremely high speed. This allows either tremendous utilization of space or enormous compression of destinations per unit time. They're air conditioned, armored, weaponizable, and just highly mobile in general.

They also get stuck in traffic.

Anyhow, with a car of your own you can go almost anywhere you want in a city, without asking other people, having to wait for public transit with public transit schedule and reliability, or needing to share your bubble of space with loud people. It's a lot of freedom, despite the costs that come with it.

Though slower and with a shorter range, golf carts offer similar radical personal powered point-to-point mobility. A cart-based community should also offer pockets of sufficient density for public transit and cart-based park & ride - residential development will be on the interior of blocks, while businesses will be on the exterior, which makes not having a cart or bike at the destination not as big a deal for commuting.

There is one other matter to deal with.

I like this has lockable doors, my biggest issue with bikes is they get stolen all the time.

- YouTube comment on a video for Veemo, an electric-assist cab bike

It might be more common than you think.

"We should make it so people don't need bikes as much to get around so it won't matter as much when they're stolen," or "if people were more secure in their income, they wouldn't feel a need to steal bikes," or "it's your fault for not properly locking up your bicycle" are not going to cut it. If you want the environmental benefits of the biking, the scooting, the golf carting, the accompanying density and decrease in infrastructure volume, and the reduction in fuel usage (and therefore CO2 emissions), you must arrest and prosecute bike thieves, and you must arrest and prosecute cart thieves.

Government programs such as drug clinics to keep addicts off the streets and job assistance for the poor are compatible with this transit mode, but people must be confident that their bicycles, quadricycles, e-scooters, and golf carts will not be stolen. If they are not confident of this, they will mouth all the correct words to you, then either move to some place where the median household income is $93k and the population density is 550/km2, or just use a car.

The ones that won't are the ones that can't, and are those who are the least able to afford losing their vehicle - the poor.

We can make security mechanisms a part of our transit strategy, such as locking bikestands, or custom keys for golf carts, and registration at city hall for all these vehicles, but all of these micromobility options are inherently lower security than cars, and crime within the town must be handled accordingly.

TL;DR

Math regarding density and speed of transit suggests that a town with the density of 2,500 residents / km2, multiple times the density of U.S. suburbs (with numbers like 500 / km2 or 700 / km2) could be economically viable, if it had a second transport network based on golf carts, bicycles, e-scooters, and so on. This level of density would allow each resident to have a yard and maintain the car-like point-to-point mobility, despite lower use of resources and space.