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theasstour · 4 years ago

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𝐁𝐚𝐝 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐚.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 𝟏𝟎.𝟑𝐤 𝐍𝐁: 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞, 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐞𝐱𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭

Tuesday, 16 January 2018

When Y/N perched her glasses on her nose the next morning, about to get out of bed, she heard the door next to hers open. What had started out as a decent morning was now tainted by last night’s chat with Harry in her room. She flopped down onto her bed, looking up at her ceiling as everything dawned on her again. Harry asked her to be his fuck buddy so she could make him become more comfortable in bed, and in return she would get free tattoos. They would have sex and Harry would get better with more experience, and once he felt ready to, he would pursue others again. That was the deal.

Y/N wanted to have sex with Harry, she had admitted that to herself, but if he wasn’t any good in bed… was it even worth it? Some men just didn’t know how to please anyone in bed, what if he was a lost cause? She knew Harry, he wouldn’t have asked her if he wasn’t truly insecure about his performance in bed. It just felt like such an odd favour to be asking someone. Did he even find her attractive? Or did he just ask her because he knew she’d tell him like it is if he fucked up? Or because they had sex before and it was just easiest to ask her?

She heard something against her carpeted floor, a quiet sound she would not have heard if she hadn’t closed her windows at 4am because of a drunken gang of men making their way home from the pub. Sitting up in bed, she looked at her floor, not seeing anything until her eyes landed on the small slit between her floor and the door. A note.

She got up from her bed, reaching for the dressing gown that hung over her desk chair. She reached for it as she heard footsteps away from her door, hearing them leave down the stairs and to the kitchen. Though it had been years since she had seen or read his writing, it still felt as familiar to her as the inside of her home in Nottingham.

I’m sorry about last night, can we talk? H x

Right now, she wanted nothing less than to talk to Harry. But, taking a look at her phone, she recognised the date, saw a text from Chloe, and knew that avoiding Harry would be next to impossible. In about two hours, Chloe would come to their flat on Orsman Road so Mason and Harry could show her how to play the PlayStation. It would look stupid if Y/N wasn’t in the room with them, keeping them company. After all, she was the one that had made this meeting happen, the tie that linked Chloe to Mason and Harry in the first place. Who knew how awkward it would be if she wasn’t there.

She got her dressing gown off, put on some knickers and a bra, then rummaged through her drawers for something to wear. She settled on a black pleated mini skirt with fishnets underneath – along with shorts to keep the chafing away – and an oversized long-sleeve jumper in acid wash black and grey. The print on it was of Back to the Future, one of the only films Y/N managed to sit through. She didn’t have the attention span to sit for hours on end to watch a film, she much preferred series where she could just watch an episode and then pause. She didn’t have the attention span for films.

Tucking the front of the jumper into her skirt, Y/N studied herself in her mirror, smiling at the image. Today might bring on some very awkward moments, but at least she would look good.

She walked over to her door, putting her ear against it to listen for movements downstairs. Last thing she wanted to do was make herself some breakfast while Harry was watching her like a hawk, trying to read her mind to figure out what she was thinking. He was one of the most impatient people she knew, always eager to get on with whatever he wanted to do, always wanting an answer right away. Though she knew having sex with Harry, directing him, and giving him more confidence in the bedroom wouldn’t be a chore, it would probably be a lot of fun. What was stopping her was that, if she wanted to have sex, she expected to have good sex. Especially if she were going to have sex with this person multiple times. If this happened, she just had to hope Harry took her seriously and did what he could to better his lack of giving properly in bed.

She looked down at the note in her hand, reading it over again as she heard the front door downstairs open and then close again. Knowing that Mason would wake up five minutes before Chloe arrived and that Nathan would likely sing along to What is This Feeling? from Wicked on his way downstairs, the person that just left had to be Harry. Y/N therefore made her way downstairs and made her breakfast, quickly walking back upstairs so she could eat her breakfast in peace. While listening to Duda Beat, Y/N sat in her bed eating, wiggling her toes in her fishnets, drifting to a place far away from the flat in Hackney.

Music was a huge part of Y/N’s life, always had been. It felt weird if her room was silent or if she was walking someplace on her own without the company of an artist singing into her ears. Nathan would often get annoyed with her about how many songs she already knew when he just found them, or how she always managed to know the songs playing at all the clubs they were at. Music was one of the things she truly treasured in life, something that made her feel safe if the world around her was too quiet or too loud.

While deep in her own thoughts, Y/N didn’t hear the front door open and closing again. She thought she heard some whistling out in the corridor, but didn’t pay much attention to it until there was a knocking at someone else’s door. Just barely, she turned her music down to listen to what was going on.

“Mase?” Harry said, knocking again. “You up, mate?”

Mason must have answered somehow because Harry opened his door and walked in. She didn’t hear what happened next, just some muffled talking as Harry stood inside a still sleepy Mason’s room. Harry’s small laughter at something Mason said emanated from the room, and two seconds later, he was closing the door and walking over to the room opposite to Mason’s, knocking three times on there as well.

“Nath?”

“Come in, best friend!” Nathan sang and Harry opened the door not even a second later.

“Hiya, thought you’d need this one,” Harry said, Y/N could hear the smile in his voice.

“Oh, you absolute lifesaver,” Nathan said, gasping a little as he took whatever Harry was offering him.

“First week back at uni, thought it’d lighten the mood.”

“Harry, you’re a dream,” Nathan complimented, making Y/N roll her eyes. That compliment would easily get to Harry’s head and he’d be all cocky the rest of the day.

“I know, but thanks for the reminder,” Harry said, steps could be heard next.

“Don’t let her hear you say that,” Nathan commented, and Y/N knew they were talking about her. The door to Nathan’s room closed.

Next thing Y/N knew, three knocks sounded at her door. She stilled, mid-chew. Looking at her door, she suddenly started searching around her as if anything inside her room would help her escape the inevitable awkward moment that was about to ensue.

“Y/N?” Harry said, knocking again.

She got up from her bed, carefully putting her plate down on her desk as she continued to look around her room. Nothing could save her, so at least her room had to look somewhat presentable.

“Y/N, I know you’re up. I can hear your music.”

Running a hand over her make-up free face, Y/N walked over to her door. She opened it, seeing Harry leaned against her doorframe on the other side, the nearness of him making her take a small step backward. He was wearing a brown knitted oversized rib jumper over loose black jeans, a pair of black leather shoes with a chunky sole that he had forgotten to take off at the front door along with his black cord double breasted trench coat. The outfit was cosy and so effortlessly attractive in a soft sort of way. Admitting that to herself made Y/N infuriated. This man was only getting harder to resist by the second.

Y/N was too caught up in Harry’s outfit to see what he was holding. Once he saw her, he did the same as her, eyes scanning her entire body to take her in properly. His eyes lingered on her legs where her bare skin was exposed through her fishnets. His Adam’s apple bobbed and he cleared his throat as he stood upright again, a slight redness appearing in his cheeks.

“Thirsty?” he asked.

Y/N narrowed her eyes at him, but then she caught sight of what was in his hands. A cup carrier where two out of four coffees were taken, two left. One for Harry, one for Y/N. There was a normal hot-drink cup and a plastic cup for cold drinks.

“Iced latte, right?” Harry asked, holding the carrier out for Y/N to take her coffee. “That’s what you had when you popped by Footprint, at least.”

Y/N blinked. “How’d you know?”

Harry shrugged, giving her a smile.

Y/N took the iced latte, recognising that it was a different cup to the ones you normally got at Starbucks, Costa, or Caffé Nero. No, this was from one of those smaller cafés that he liked popping by. She was sure she would like it regardless, maybe even prefer it to the chain stores.

“Thank you,” she said, taken aback by Harry’s gesture. He had really gone out of his way to buy the entire flat a morning coffee.

“I owed you one,” Harry smiled.

“Yes, you did,” Y/N said, but the both of them could tell she didn’t mean it one bit. Silence settled over them, Y/N kept her eyes on the coffee as she felt Harry glance at her, not willing her to look up but just trying to find his words as if there was something he wanted to say, but didn’t know how to. Slowly, she glanced back up at him through her lashes, looking between his eyes as his lips parted.

“Did you get my note?”

Y/N felt her heart leap out of her chest. “Yes.”

“Can we? Talk?”

“Yes, but I’m… I need to eat my breakfast.”

“Oh, okay. Send me a text-“

“-Thank you so much for the coffee, Harry. Truly.” And then she closed her door, standing there with one hand on the doorknob and the other holding the iced latte Harry had just given her. It took a few seconds before she could hear Harry making his way back downstairs, most likely to take his coat and boots off, and maybe to make himself something to eat if he hadn’t done exactly that at the café he had just been to. The door to Mason’s room opened and Y/N heard him yawn as he started down the stairs, greeting Harry in his usual rumbling voice.

Y/N sat back down on her bed, looking down on the iced latte in her hands. It meant nothing. He had done the exact same thing for Mason and Nathan. But… something about someone going out of their way to buy you a coffee without you even needing to ask for it, was a level of intimate Y/N wasn’t sure she had reached with anyone before. This just told her that he cared for her; cared for her like he would care for Mason and Nathan. That thought warmed Y/N, and she was left just looking at the iced latte for another minute or two before she actually brought it up to her lips to drink it. She had been right before, she liked this one much better than the one she usually got at Costa.

An hour or two later, Chloe sent Y/N a text to tell her she was on her way, and 30 minutes after that, the doorbell rang. Y/N opened the door to her room and walked down the stairs just as Harry stood in the doorway of his room, watching Y/N fly past him to get to the door. As curious as she was to peek inside Harry’s room, she would have to do that another time.

“Hello?” Y/N said into the phone.

“Hiya, babe,” Chloe called on the other end, sounding as chipper as always.

“Walk up the steps, it’s the first door on the right,” Y/N explained before buzzing Chloe in. To make it easier, Y/N opened the door and waited there for her mate in the doorway, even though the cold air from the outside corridor seeped into the flat and made goosebumps appear up and down her exposed legs.

“Hi,” Chloe grinned as she walked up the steps, hugging Y/N once she reached the flat. “And hello, Harry, you alright?”

Y/N whipped around to see Harry standing there, leaning against the wall just beside the kitchen entrance. His hands were shoved into his jean pockets and a wry smile came across his lips, nodding at Chloe as she made her way inside.

“Ready to play some PlayStation?” he asked.

“Oh, more than ready,” Chloe grinned, taking her jacket off and hanging it on Y/N’s hanger. “I’m so tired of everyone playing the PlayStation in my flat and when I ask if they can show me how to play, they say they can’t be asked.” She rolled her eyes. “So, I’m very thankful for you and Mason.”

“Think Mason’s gonna be the main lecturer of this one,” Harry said. “I’m not nearly as good as he is.”

“I hope he’s a good teacher, then.”

“Only time will show,” Mason said as he came downstairs, wearing a pair of rugby shorts and a zip-up hoodie. “Alright?” he asked, leading the way into the living room.

“Splendid now,” Chloe grinned, following Mason into the living room. As she walked past Harry, Harry’s eyes fell on Y/N who stood put, trying to ignore the intensity of Harry’s glance. She knew he wanted to say something so she walked straight past him and after the other’s, not wishing to take the discussion Harry so clearly wanted to take at that very moment. Y/N sat down by the round dining table, expecting Harry to take the seat next to hers. For some reason, that made her sweat. She was suddenly nervous for some reason.

“Harry,” Chloe chimed. “You need to sit beside me in case Mason confuses me.”

“I’m not gonna confuse you,” Mason said.

“No, but in case I need another explanation for things, you know,” Chloe explained, smiling over at Harry. Y/N could sense Harry’s gaze on her, and then the free chair beside her, before he met Chloe’s eyes again.

“Alright,” he said, walking over to sit down on the couch to Chloe’s right, the closest of the three to Y/N who sat alone by the dining table. Mason turned the telly on and then started getting the PlayStation going, giving Chloe a console while he brought his own as he sat down beside her. Chloe’s eyes instantly fell to Mason’s bare thigh, meeting Y/N’s eyes with a smirk before she focused on the television in front of her.

“Y/N,” Harry said, scooting a little to the side. “You can come sit here, if you’d like. You could game with us.”

“No, I’m alright.”

Harry put his hand on the sofa. “If you-“

“-Hello, whores,” Nathan said as he walked down the stairs and into the kitchen in his purple kimono. The white and orange lilies on it glinted in the pale sunbeams that shone through the living room window. He took the free chair beside Y/N and brought it over to the window, plopped do in it while whipping his phone out from somewhere. Harry sat back in the spot he reserved for Y/N, looking over at her as he sat back against the couch, placing his arm on the arm rest. Y/N’s eyes instantly fell onto his hand and the veins that ran from his knuckles to his wrist, studying the way he balled his hand into a fist before he stretched his fingers. She felt herself salivate. Mentally punching herself out of her trance, Y/N swallowed and looked away from Harry. He must have noticed her staring.

“Oh, I love that, Nate,” Chloe grinned.

“Aw, thanks, darling,” he said, and Y/N could see how greatly he appreciated the compliment. After all, the people he lived with rarely gave him any of them.

“Is this just a normal morning for you lot?” Chloe asked, looking around at all of them.

“I mean,” Harry said, shrugging his shoulders. “Don’t think we have a status quo or anything. Anything’s normal if nothing’s odd.”

“Wow,” Nathan said. “Ground-breaking.”

Chloe laughed. “Aw, I wished I lived in your flat. This seems like so much fun compared to my one in minging Dinwiddy.”

“Have you, Thian, and Hayden started looking for places?” Y/N asked.

“Thian’s found a flat, but it’s all the way in Brixton.” She grimaced. “That’s ages away, even by tube.”

“We found this place in December our first year,” Nathan said. “Harry’s mum knew someone who knew someone, and here we are. Pretty decent for London, even though it’s cramped.”

“Yeah, I want all the credit for this,” Harry grinned, looking as smug as always. “I’m the best.”

“That’s subjective,” Y/N scoffed, making Harry look over at her and Chloe laugh again. She felt Harry’s gaze linger on her, but she refused to look back at him, knowing that it would be hard to glance away.

“Alright, Chloe,” Mason started. “We’ll play GTA, is that alright? It’s what we usually play.”

“Anything’s fine by me,” Chloe said.

For some reason, Y/N’s brain forgot what she had just told herself a few seconds prior, because her eyes locked with Harry’s, and suddenly her heart was doing something funny. It halted for a second, then began back up again. Last night’s conversation played in Y/N’s head as well as the note he had left under her door before he went out for breakfast that morning. The proposal had not left her alone for a single second, she was sure she had dreamt of it but didn’t remember the exact dream just then.

Looking away, her eyes landed on the telly before she glanced over at Nathan who sat with one foot slung over the other. His gaze was already on Y/N, a slight crease between his brows as he scanned Harry for two seconds, then back at Y/N again. She quickly looked away, pretending like nothing was happening, as if she hadn’t just been sharing a little-too-long look with Harry that obviously meant something. In the corner of her eye, Y/N could see Nathan leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knee with his phone in one hand, looking between Harry and Y/N with an almost knowing look that brought Y/N’s pulse up dangerously high. Mason was too busy teaching Chloe about the PlayStation and Chloe was too distracted by both Mason and Harry to even recognise something was going on beyond the couch they were sat on.

Y/N did not spare another look at Harry even though she could feel him staring at her, chewing on his bottom lip and clearly wanting her to glance back at him. Y/N knew Nathan was staring between them, trying to piece together what was going on, and she was not going to give him the satisfaction of finding out on his own. First she wanted to do that herself, to figure out what was going on and how they would go forth without Nathan putting his nose in business that was not his to meddle in. Y/N had a hard time breathing under Harry’s stare and Nathan making up conspiracy theories right across from her while Chloe and Mason were shooting and killing people on the telly. This was going to be a long morning.

Friday, 18 January 2018

The first Critical Reading 2 lecture of the semester had been slow. Their professor, Yvonne, had stood at the front of the lecture hall with her hands behind her back, walking up and down in front of her PowerPoint that was displayed on the wall behind her, and talked about The Yellow Wallpaper. In her mid-40s, her dark hair came to her shoulders and her ordinary green jumper over blue jeans, made her look like anyone else. Maybe that was why Y/N liked her lectures so much; she was just an ordinary woman. Chloe had fallen asleep during the lecture, resting her head on Annalise’s shoulder, while Hayden had been texting a bloke on Tinder, and only Thian and Y/N were paying any proper attention out of the five of them. Maybe the three others didn’t find this fascinating, but Y/N certainly did.

“Women were expected to be subordinate to their husbands and completely obedient, as well as take on strictly domestic roles inside the home,” Yvonne said at the front of the lecture hall. “Upper middle-class women, like the narrator, may go for long periods of time without even leaving the home. The story reveals that this arrangement had the effect of committing women to a state of naïveté, dependence, and ignorance.”

Y/N wrote down keywords in her notebook.

“John, the narrator’s husband, assumes he has the right to determine what’s best for his wife, and this authority is never questioned. He belittles her concerns, both concrete and the ones that arise as a result of her depression, and is said to brush her off and laugh at her when she speaks. He makes all the decisions about both of their lives.”

Y/N glanced up at Yvonne again.

“As such, she has no say in anything in her life, including her own health, and finds herself unable to even protest. The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, like many others, clearly disagreed with this state of things, and aimed to show the detrimental effect that came to women as a result of their lack of autonomy.”

Yvonne walked over to the computer, changing the slide of her PowerPoint and taking a moment to look up at it before she turned to the lecture hall again. It was just a picture of some old, decaying yellow wallpaper.

“The yellow wallpaper,” she started, clapping her hands together. “This is, of course, the most important symbol in the story. The narrator is immediately fascinated and disgusted by the yellow wallpaper, and her understanding and interpretation fluctuates and intensifies throughout the story.”

Thian flipped through the Norton Anthology that he had brought, finger skimming over The Yellow Wallpaper that was printed out on the page he had put an orange sticky note to so he could find and come back to it.

“The narrator, because she doesn’t have anything else to think about or other mental stimulation, being kept in that attic by her husband, turns to the yellow wallpaper as something to analyse and interpret. The pattern eventually comes into focus as bars, and then she sees a woman inside the pattern. This represents feeling trapped, as you may have already figured out.” Yvonne put her hands out as she continued to speak. “At the end of the story, the narrator believes that the woman has come out of the wallpaper. This indicates that the narrator has finally merged fully into her psychosis, and become one with the house and domesticated disconnect. She has become a mad woman.”

Y/N furrowed her brows, putting her pen down as she turned all her attention on Yvonne. Something about those last three words made her ears perk up.

“In Gothic literature, the mad woman hails from the dark side of Jane Eyre. Mr Rochester’s first wife, who barely appears in the text, but pops up only to terrify sweet Jane. The first wife is violently insane, and is kept away from the world, the badge of shame in Rochester’s life,” Yvonne said. “Her irrational behaviour somehow justifies him almost becoming a polygamist when he attempts to marry Jane. Only after Bertha, his mad wife, literally burns Rochester’s estate to the ground, dying in the process, are the lovebirds free to pursue their happy ending. Mad women are so inconvenient while they’re still alive.”

After the lecture, Y/N walked to her next seminar by herself. Chloe and Annalise were in a seminar together, while Thian and Hayden were in another one. On one hand, Y/N was lucky to be part of the seminar right after the lecture, which meant she could go do whatever she pleased afterwards without waiting around to be in the second seminar group, but on another hand, she wanted to be with her friends. That was all she managed to think about as she made her way down the corridor, walking past a horde of other students that were on their way to their lectures and seminars.

The corridors were of white concrete, the walls in between doors to lecture halls, seminar rooms, or exits to the either one of the quads either decorated with paintings of previous headmasters or headmistresses, or brochures or papers about different societies or sports events. In the past, there had been pictures up on the walls of old prime ministers, but the frames had always been taken down by students, or some wrote on the glass that protected the paintings, all kinds of vile words that had, in the end, resulted in the paintings being taken down, much to the students’ delight. The paintings of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher had been the ones to endure the worst of it, something Y/N wished she could have contributed with.

The ceiling high above was adorned with blue squares, lamps hanging down from some of them, while others were decorated in fine details that Y/N with her shitty eyesight couldn’t make out. The walks from the lecture hall 19 to seminar room 0-07 took about five minutes. She walked from seeing the North Quad out the windows to her left, to seeing the corridor that connected the two sides of the buildings together at the middle, to seeing the South Quad outside. Y/N hated summer, but she couldn’t wait for spring to arrive so she could spend her time between lectures and seminars outside in either one of the quads.

Y/N walked straight in when she arrived at seminar room 0-07. The seminar room was rather modern, with white walls, white ceiling, and grey carpeted floor, a blackboard hung on one wall, and a big round table in the middle of the room for everyone to be seated around. The chairs were a bright green, and the cushions that came with them matched, something that was supposed to brighten the room, but the chairs themselves were horrible to sit in. Especially for hours on end. Yvonne was already there, giving Y/N a broad smile and urging her to sit down with a warm, “welcome,” that made Y/N absolutely want to take a seat. However, as she made her way over to the table the ten people in the seminar group would be sitting around, Y/N’s eyes fell on a familiar face.

“Isla,” Y/N said, making the girl with the brown bushy hair who had her nose buried deep in the Norton Anthology in front of her, look up rather quickly at the sound of her name. An instant and warm feeling spread out from Y/N’s belly and all throughout her body, making her tingle with pure happiness.

“Y/N,” Isla said back, sitting up straighter.

Y/N let go of a slight chuckle before she walked over, sitting down beside her work friend. “I didn’t know you did English Lit.”

“I do.”

“I’ve never seen you in any of our lectures,” Y/N said.

“No, I’m usually in the very back or by one of the walls,” Isla explained. “I guess I just blend in with my surroundings.”

“Like a chameleon,” Y/N smiled, putting her notebook and Norton Anthology down on the table as well. “This is so bizarre. I didn’t know you even went to Helmond.”

“I’ve seen you at the front of the lectures with your friends, I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Oh, hun, you could never disturb me,” Y/N assured, wanting to give Isla’s shoulder a squeeze but unsure if her mate would appreciate that touch or not. “This made my day. I’ve had a… week, to put it that way, and this just made my day.”

Isla smiled, looking back down at the book in front of her.

“How’d you find the lecture?” Y/N asked.

“It was interesting. I really liked The Yellow Wallpaper, so it was easy to follow along,” Isla answered as another student entered the seminar room, two others following right after.

“Right? I love anything gothic.”

“No wonder, all you wear is black.”

Y/N gasped, putting a hand to her chest as her eyes grew wide, a grin appearing on her face before she laughed. Isla’s own face broke out into a smile before her neck grew red, she must have been anxious of how Y/N would react to her taking the piss. Trying not to make too much noise so the few people who had showed up so far wouldn’t stare at them like they were mad, the two girls put their hands in front of their mouths to stifle their laughter.

“You damn near chopped my head off, right there. Oh, my word,” Y/N laughed, Isla laughing with her. “Black is a good colour to wear. It’s an anonymous colour.”

“For someone so extroverted, it’s interesting that you want to remain somewhat anonymous,” Isla noted.

Y/N shrugged. “It’s become a habit.”

Isla furrowed her brows at that.

“Hey, are you doing anything later tonight?” Y/N asked.

Isla brought her pen up to her chin, tapping it a few times against her chin dimple. “That depends.”

Y/N smiled. “Would you want to come to this Uno Society that my mate’s hosting?”

The second the words were out of Y/N’s mouth, she could see a sort of light die out in Isla’s eyes. Though she already knew the answer, she was disappointed when Isla uttered a small, “I’ve got plans, I think.”

The words hadn’t been voiced, but they both knew Isla was lying. Y/N did not mind, though. She knew that some people’s social batteries only lasted so long, and that this might be enough socialising for Isla to last her a whole week, so she did not press the issue and Isla again. If coming to the Uno Society was something outside of Isla’s comfort zone, then Y/N would not pressure her into coming.

“That’s fine,” Y/N said, giving Isla a smile. “When’re you working next?”

Isla seemed grateful for the change in conversation topic, but just before she got to answer, Yvonne sat down by the table, looking around at each one of the students that were sat in each seat. She opened her notes, clearing her throat so that all the small chatter around the table would die out completely.

“The mad woman,” Yvonne started, smiling as she made eye contact with a few of her students. “Where does the madness come from? Is it already present in the character from birth? Or does it develop, or at least intensify, due to isolation imposed by men?” she asked, looking around the table at the students surrounding it. “Anyone?”

1 Night by Charli XCX and Mura Masa played over the speakers as Y/N walked through the door and into another seminar room later that same day. She mouthed an excuse at Hayden before she glanced around, looking for someplace to sit down. Her original table was already occupied by just enough people so she would have to find another group to join this time around. The idea of disturbing someone in the middle of a game wasn’t appealing, it was frankly something that made her heart beat a little too fast. But, Y/N knew she had to do it unless she just wanted to stand around and look like a proper twit. So, after a quick sweep of the room, Y/N settled on the table in the far corner. She walked over to it, quickly realising that she knew a few of those seated around it.

“Hi,” Y/N smiled as she came over, taking the seat next to Mason.

“Oh,” he smiled back. “Alright?”

“Can I join your next round?” she asked, looking from Mason, to Kai, to the other three men seated around the table.

“Yeah, of course,” Mason said. “Just be patient, not too long since we started this one.”

“Of course,” Y/N smiled, sitting back in her chair and taking another quick look around the room. Studying each person on each table.

“Why’re you late, then?” Mason asked, nudging Y/N so she would know he was talking to her.

“Made some feijão tropeiro for dinner, had a nap, woke up ten minutes before I had to be here ‘cause my alarm didn’t go off. Phone’s dead,” Y/N explained. “Took the tube, but you know how all public transit’s always so slow when you need it to hurry along.”

Mason smiled. “Feels like that, doesn’t it?”

“Yet to see you at The Stag’s Head again, Y/N,” Kai said, grinning from ear to ear.

“She’s not as keen on a pint as I usually am,” Mason retorted.

“No, just haven’t had the time. I’ll have to pop by sometime soon.”

“Yeah, tag along with Mase, Nath, and H,” Kai continued. “H told me your fave cocktail’s Sex on the Beach. I’ll make you that if you’re not too keen on a pint. Actually,” Kai grinned, holding his hand out. “I might be the best bartender you’ll ever meet. My hands – these guys –“ He held up his other hand as well. “-Are the hands of God.”

“Pack it up, dicksplat,” Mason said, motioning for Kai to continue his round.

Kai howled, his laughter booming through the seminar room. Though deep and rumbling, Kai’s laughter was infectious and Y/N found herself smiling at him as he came down from his high, shaking his head and looking down at his cards. He dealt his round, glancing back over at Y/N.

“Did you know Mason’s funny?” Kai asked. “Mason, you can be funny sometimes.”

“You say that as if it shocks you. You literally laugh at me every single day.”

“Someone needs to laugh at you or else you’d cry yourself to sleep.”

Mason laughed at Kai, glancing down at his cards to focus on them for now. Y/N took this moment to look around her again, studying each face at each table.

“He’s not here,” Mason said, making Y/N’s head whip around in his direction.

“What?”

“Harry,” he elaborated. “He’s not here.”

Y/N furrowed her brows, crossing her arms over her chest as she watched Mason play for another moment. “I wasn’t looking for him.”

“It’s okay if you were.”

“It’d be weird if I was.”

“What’s going on with you and Harry?” Kai asked, a slight lift to his bushy brows as his eyes darted between Y/N and Mason.

“Absolutely nothing,” Y/N answered, hoping they didn’t notice her lying in the way she refused to meet their eyes. “I simply started thinking about him and thought I’d see if he was here.”

“So, you were checking to see if he was here,” Mason smirked.

Y/N rolled her eyes. “Men are so annoying.”

“Is something going on?” Kai asked again.

“You know, I could’ve just told you where he is right off the bat if you had just asked me about him,” Mason said.

“I don’t care where he is.”

“Are you and Harry a thing?” Kai asked for the millionth time.

“You’re nosier than Harry,” Y/N retorted, rolling her eyes at Kai who only laughed again. She met Mason’s eyes. “I don’t care where he is.”

Mason grinned. “He’s at work.”

Of fucking course he is, Y/N thought to herself, looking away from Mason again as his smirk widened. Y/N zoned out as the boys around the table continued to play Uno, only sometimes participating in whatever was going on when one of them shouted something or they laughed. Her thoughts were only on the proposal Harry had come with, one that intrigued Y/N more and more with each passing day. It had been four days since he asked her to help him get confident in bed and in return he would give her free tattoos.

Free tattoos. If she was getting free tattoos and good sex in the end, then the deal seemed pretty decent. After all, there were quite a few tattoos she wanted, most of them being those that Marcela had on her body, and then numerous she wanted to get herself. If she actually went through with this, then she was going to milk it for what it was worth. She was going to be proper tattooed up, looking so hot that it would be hard for her to keep her hands off herself.

It didn’t take too long until they were about to start another round, so Y/N joined in, playing until they were done a little over an hour later. When it’s time for them to pack up, Y/N walked over to her mates to apologise for coming in a bit late, something Hayden did not mind in the slightest. While that was happening, Nathan, Mase, and Kai were chatting by the exit door, waiting for Y/N to catch up so they could start on their way back to the flat and The Stag’s Head. In between talking to her friends, Y/N glanced over at them to make sure they hadn’t left yet, and at one point, she saw Nathan shake his head and raised his brows at Mason who only nodded his head in affirmation of what he had just said. Nathan looked back over at Y/N who only frowned at him, unsure what he was trying to tell her.

The walk back to the flat was slow, Mason stopping by a chippy on the way so he could get himself some dinner. He insisted on stopping if he wanted to get a proper bite in of his fish or chips, something that ultimately made Kai late for his shift at Stag’s Head. Mason was chill about it as always, reassuring Kai that his boss wouldn’t mind, he hadn’t shoved Harry’s head through a wall when he came in late while he worked there, he would surely not do that to Kai.

“Look at the size of ya,” Mason reasoned, only making Kai laugh, though Y/N could sense the muscle man was too stressed to put his entire heart into it.

The entire way back to Orsman Street, Nathan barely said a word. To Y/N, at least. He did not mind talking to Kai or Mason, but he hadn’t paid Y/N as much attention as he usually did, something that made her draw the conclusion that something was up. She didn’t try to press him about it while they were walking, not wanting to do it in front of the two others who obviously had nothing to do with this.

They said goodbye once they reached the flat, watching as Kai ran into The Stag’s Head and through the crowd of people that had already gathered in the pub. Y/N pulled her phone out of her purse, wanting to check the time, only to remember again that it had died earlier and she had forgotten to charge it afterwards. She would just have to charge it when she got to her room.

Mason opened the doors for everyone, taking his shoes off while still eating his fish and chips, strolling up to his room to finish it in there before probably having a shower. Y/N followed first after him, Nathan quick on her heels and, for some odd reason, breathing down her neck. She glanced over her shoulder at him, giving him a glare before she continued on her way up the stairs, but Nathan only glared back at her, walking just as close behind her as he had done since they got back to the flat.

Y/N opened the door to her room, sitting down by her desk and putting her phone down to charge as Nathan slammed his hands against the frames on either side of her door. Y/N jumped, looking over at Nathan whose expression looked absolutely manic.

“Right,” he started, looking over his shoulder to make sure the door to Mason’s room was closed before he glanced back at Y/N. In the meantime, she opened her laptop, keeping her eyes on Nathan. “I’ve been keeping my mouth shut about this for too long.”

She blinked. “What’s up?”

“What is going on with you and Harry?” Nathan hissed, brown eyes boring into Y/N’s soul.

She just blinked some more, staring at Nathan while she put two and two together. Mason must have snitched; he must have told Nathan while they were talking after Uno that Y/N had been looking after Harry. With that information and the staring – on Harry’s part – earlier that week, Nathan had put two and two together. That was why he was fuming and hadn’t bothered to give Y/N any sort of attention on their way back from uni.

“’Cause I can tell something’s been up. First he won’t stop staring at you when Chloe’s over, and now you go asking around about him at Uno.”

“I didn’t go asking around,” Y/N said, narrowing her eyes at him.

“You must really think I’m stupid,” Nathan retorted, raising his eyebrows at her, bobbing his head along as he spoke, something he usually did when he tried to get a point across.

“No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She started shaking her leg.

“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about. What’s happened between you and Harry?”

“Nothing, Nath. We’re just friends.”

Nathan scoffed. “That’s the most rubbish thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Weird when that’s the truth.”

“I know something’s up,” he said, pointing a threatening finger at her.

Y/N sighed just as something like the terrace door banging shut sounded from downstairs. “Listen, you forced me to live with him. I’m just making the best of the situation you’ve put me in. I’m just making nice.”

“By sucking his dick?”

“That’s derogatory, Nathan.”

Nathan bowed his head lower, eye almost twitching with the intensity in which he was staring her down. “Something can’t not be up. My intuition is telling me something’s going on.”

Y/N let out a dry laugh. “Your intuition is doing you dirty then.”

Footsteps up the stairs had Nathan stop just as he was about to retort back, but he glanced over his shoulder instead, Y/N peering out from between Nathan and the doorframe. His curls appeared first, and then he was looking over at them, giving them that wry smile that had his right dimple deepen against his cheek. He was wearing all black, his tee shirt tucked into his black jeans, the sleeves of his tee shirt rolled up over his shoulders. Y/N hated how nice his arms looked like that.

“Alright?” Harry asked, voice just as deep and sensual as it always was. It hit Y/N like a train coming head on each time she heard his voice after some time of not. Harry’s eyes were on Nathan for a small second before they landed on Y/N, lingering there a little too long before he approached his door.

“We’re exhausted,” Nathan groaned, slumping against the doorframe.

“Same,” Harry said, looking down at his right hand, flexing his fingers. Y/N was unable to look away. “My arm feels like it’s gonna fall off, been vibrating all night holding the tattoo gun.”

Y/N bit her lips together.

“Uno Society alright?” he asked, looking solely at Y/N now. She wanted to shout at him to stop, to pay most attention to Nathan so he would stop giving them a hard time.

“Fine,” Y/N answered quickly.

Harry smiled at her, lightly nodding his head once. “Good.”

Y/N looked away, feeling her entire face heat up as she continued to feel Harry’s stare on her. She logged into Facebook to look at the family groupchat which she knew had most likely blown up since she last checked her phone. Her papai would go absolutely mad if she didn’t at least check the chat once every few hours.

“I’ll leave you two to it then, I guess,” Harry said, opening the door into his room. “Night, Nath.”

“Night, Haz.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

It was hard to not look at Harry, but Y/N managed a, “Hm,” in response before she focused all her attention back on writing her e-mail address and password into Facebook. The door to Harry’s room closed and the second he couldn’t see them, Nathan turned to Y/N. He gawked at her while making a sound akin to dinosaurs’.

“’Goodnight, Y/N’?!” he hissed, still sounding crazed like he had done a second earlier. He rushed into Y/N’s room, closing the door behind him so quickly and soundlessly it made Y/N think of all the other times they had rushed into each other’s rooms like this growing up.

“He’s just wishing me goodnight, Nathan, why’re you making up conspiracy theories?”

“Oh, that’s all there is to it, isn’t it?!” he whisper shouted, still sounding crazy.

Y/N rolled her eyes and clicked on the ‘log in’ button on Facebook, done with listening to any more of Nathan’s stupid theories. Doing so, she was immediately brought to the home page, displaying the 99+ messages that had been sent in the family groupchat. Y/N sighed, about to open the chat when she let her eyes drift, landing on something that made her pause.

“Harry obviously wants to-“ But Nathan stopped as well, eyes falling on Y/N’s laptop screen and seeing what she was seeing. “Kit.” It sounded like he said it more to himself than anything else, reminding himself of who that was a picture of. “Kit and Finian.”

The picture in front of them was from inside a pub, two men, clearly drunk, standing in the middle of the picture while a group of others were surrounding them. Kit had his left arm wrapped around Finian’s waist, a broad smile on his face, showing off crooked teeth and a slight, dark stubble. His styled black hair was rather nicely kept considering he was under the influence, and his small forehead and pointy nose glistened with sweat. The tank top he was wearing showed off his well-defined muscles, something Y/N knew Marcela had found attractive about her boyfriend.

Finian beside Kit was a little chubbier, wearing a baby blue polo shirt while he had an arm slung over his best friend’s shoulders. His brown hair was longer than Kit and had also been ruined by numerous hair-ruffles and fixes in the mirror since he started drinking. He was singing along to a song, eyes shut and a huge smile on his face.

Finian and Kit had known each other for years, Y/N was unsure how they had become friends. Marcela had met Kit while she went to University of Manchester, and the two had been together since her first year there. He was five years older than her, so ten years older than Y/N, and she had never had any sort of particular relationship to him. He would come by their house in Nottingham every once in a while, eat dinner with the family, but would more often than not stay put in Manchester. Y/N was always positioned next to him at family gatherings, and though she didn’t mind because they rarely talked, it still made her blood boil when she thought about it now. If she had just finished him off or gotten Marcela to break up with him, maybe her older sister would still be alive.

There had been found drops of Kit’s blood in the cabin after he disappeared, but that was nothing compared to the amount of blood belonging to Marcela that had been found there. Kit’s car was gone and all of his belongings with it. The police had stated that there was no doubt about it; Kit had killed Marcela, maybe by accident, maybe intentionally, and had hidden her body somewhere before running off. Three years had passed since then, and there had not been a single trace of Kit. He remained hidden. Some tipped the police about him, stating that they had seen him someplace far away from Newport, Wales. He had been sighted in England, Scotland, France, Morocco, and in Indonesia. Still, to this day when “sightings” of Kit were getting fewer and the days went on by, Y/N thought all the sightings weren’t him. If he had planned to kill her sister, he would have planned it out, she knew it.

The police and the population of Newport along with neighbouring towns had all searched the woods around the cabin, but Marcela’s body had not been found and neither had Kit. Nothing had been found; there were no definite answers. Except for one, at least to Y/N: Kit had killed Marcela, and he was still on the run.

Not able to look at his face any longer, Y/N’s eyes landed on the caption to the photo. Someone she knew from school had commented on it, making it appear on her dashboard, because it would never have found its way to her if not. It angered Y/N that people posted pictures of Kit as if he wasn’t a deranged murderer. The date showed 8th September last year. On the anniversary of Marcela’s murder. Y/N looked at the person who had posted it, Graham Bartlett, another one of Kit’s friends.

Miss you two everyday. #FindKitAndFin.

Y/N blinked. “Find… Find Kit and Fin?” she asked, frowning at the laptop screen in front of her.

Nathan leaned on the back of her chair. “You don’t know about Finian?”

“Obvs not.”

Nathan inhaled slowly. “Just a few days after Marcela died and Kit disappeared, Finian vanished as well.”

Y/N just stared at the picture, now not able to take her eyes off of Finian. She had seen him outside her house sometimes, just barely talked to him. He seemed like a typical bloke that thought he was better looking than he actually was, someone that made girls uncomfortable. He had picked up Kit from their house in Nottingham when Kit had stayed over and Marcela and Kit had fought, or he had just picked up the both of them sometimes to drive them back to Nottingham. He always seemed to hang out by his car, always leaning against it or smirking from the driver’s seat.

“He disappeared?”

“Yeah,” Nathan answered. “No one’s seen him in three years, four now coming September.”

“There’s not a trace of him?”

“No. He lived alone, so no one noticed ‘cause he rarely answered his phone, except his boss. He always answered him. So, when he didn’t even pick up when his boss was calling, they knew something was up,” Nathan explained. “His flat looked just the same as always when the police entered, though. It looks like he just left for the shop.”

“His car was gone?”

“Yeah.”

Y/N continued to just stare at Finian on the picture in front of her. “How… How didn’t I know about this?”

“Y/N, your sister had just been killed, you had other things on your mind than Kit’s vanished mate,” Nathan assured her. “Besides, someone might have told you. After all, there are big chunks of the following year that you can’t remember.”

Y/N nodded, closing her eyes for a few seconds before exiting out of Facebook. She couldn’t look at them any longer. Rage was bubbling inside her like a kettle about to boil over. What if Kit drove his car someplace and parked it where no one can find it, and then Finian came to get him? What if they drove away from the cabin because they knew that someone would eventually turn up, so it was better to be far away as fast as possible? Did they take Marcela’s body with them? Or is she still in Kit’s car, wherever that was? The thought made Y/N physically sick and she slammed her laptop shut.

Monday, 22 January 2018

Y/N put her white oversized jumper over her head, liking how the chunky knit felt against her freezing form. She had made the mistake of keeping her window open all night when she usually just opened it for a tad bit before going to bed, then closing it before she actually went to sleep, so her room was absolutely freezing when she woke up, something that resulted in her pulling out her thick jumper. Her black lace halterneck bralette showed at her neck and the open collar of the jumper, but Y/N did not care. The bralette was super cute, anyone who glimpsed it would be lucky. Running her hands over her black mum jeans, Y/N shoved her glasses further up the bridge of her nose before she walked out of her room, getting ready to walk downstairs to the kitchen to make herself some breakfast.

Y/N halted at the top of the stairs, glimpsing a very familiar, broad and muscular back where it stood on the terrace at the bottom of the stairs. Y/N could see something else black along his back, but she couldn’t make it out through the white of his tank top. She swallowed thickly as she stopped in the middle of the staircase, tightening her hold on the railing. He just looked so effortlessly… so fucking good. So good. It made her heart beat faster just looking at him. Though she had had her answer ready for a while now, she had just not found the right moment to tell him, but this seemed as good a time as any. So, taking a massive breath in through her mouth and then out through her nose, Y/N proceeded down the rest of the stairs and over to the terrace door.

She knocked on the glass twice, making Harry look over his shoulder rather abruptly to see who was there. At the sight of her, his eyes grew a little wide, but he stepped to the side, letting Y/N come out onto their small terrace. Harry held onto his tea mug bringing it up to his lips as he let his eyes travel down Y/N’s body as quickly as possible. At that, it was physically impossible for Y/N to do the same to him.

He was wearing his loose black jeans again, but this time he only wore a white tank top to go with it, tucked into his jeans. The collar went so low that Y/N could see Harry’s two dragon tattoos, the red one over the left side of his chest and the black one on his right one. It had been a while since she had seen those. The thought of Harry having more tattoos hidden under his clothes on parts of himself that other people rarely got to see-

“-Fine,” Y/N said, interrupting her own thoughts. She held her hands up, letting them fall to her sides as she met Harry’s eyes again. “I’ll do it.”

There was a slight pause as Harry’s face went from slightly smug to absolutely bewildered, blinking rapidly as if he had to check if this was all real and not some made up daydream. “You’re… You’re saying yes?”

“Are you deaf?”

“You’re going to teach me how to be good-“

“-Shush!” Y/N hissed, taking a step closer to Harry with a finger in front of her mouth, eyes wide. “Let’s keep this between us and not all of Hackney.”

Harry let a small smile show, a light chuckle leaving his lips, even though his searching eyes told her he was still in disbelief. “But you’re not just taking the piss, we’re actually gonna do this?”

“Yes.”

Y/N could see Harry’s grip on his mug tighten as he bit his bottom lip. “Yeah… alright…” he mumbled under his breath. “I wish there was a chair out here, I feel like my knees are gonna give out.”

“Oh,” Y/N said, looking around them as if a chair was just going to materialise out of thin air. “I-“

“-I’ve also been trying to get you alone to say sorry,” Harry said, leaning against the brick wall. “I feel like I put a lot of pressure on you to say yes ‘cause I was so desperate, I didn’t really think a whole lot about anything other than just getting the question out into the open and for you to at least consider it. But in retrospect, I realise I should’ve stopped after your first ‘what the fuck is wrong with you’, but I didn’t, and I understand how stupid that was of me.” He sipped his tea, eyes on the inside of his mug before he locked eyes with her again. “If you want to stop this, at any time, or if you don’t even want to start now, that’s completely fine. All I care about is that you feel comfortable doing this. I not only appreciate you considering it and also doing it, but I also really want to have sex with you. I’m… well…” His eyes fell to his tea again, then at Y/N’s feet. “You’re so pretty, and I’ve always thought that.”

A few moments pass when the two of them are silent, the distant sounds of London waking up to a new day keeping them company as they both let this moment wash over them. Y/N’s eyes did not leave Harry and she noticed the slight pink hue that appeared over his cheekbones, and something told her that wasn’t the cold temperature and the wind of the canal’s doing.

“I’ve always thought the same about you,” she said, meeting Harry’s eyes when he looked up at her.

Hundreds of memories from a life before this one in London flashed past them as they stood there, suddenly remembering everything that had brought them to this very moment right here. Y/N wondered that, if they hadn’t had sex that one time three, almost four years ago, would Harry still have suggested this? She didn’t think he ever would have, even though they were both very sexually attracted to one another.

“This can’t go past sex,” Y/N said, breaking the silence once again. “It’s never going to become something more, at least not on my end, and I expect that from you too. Promise me we’re just gonna have sex, I’m going to make you feel more confident in bed, and then we can move past this without looking at one another any differently, okay?”

“I promise.”

“And you give me as many free tattoos as I want. However big.”

Harry smiled. “Of course.”

“Good.”

Harry bit his bottom lip, eyes resting on the bralette strap that was visible at Y/N’s neck. He quickly looked up again. “I want you to want to have sex with me, Y/N.”

Y/N exhaled slowly, giving Harry a reassuring smile. “I do. I’ve wanted to for a while. Your predicament just took me off guard.”

“If you at any point don’t want to continue, I’ll understand, and we’ll stop.”

“Naturally.”

Harry nodded, his brain working as he thought about something. “Now… Do you… Do we…”

Y/N just looked at him.

“Do you need me to buy anything?” he asked, to which Y/N continued to just look at him. “Lube? Condoms? Toys?”

She drew in a sharp breath, feeling her heartbeat quicken drastically. “You know what, buy whatever you want, whatever you need. I don’t care.” She put her hand on the doorknob, about to enter the flat.

“Oh! Also!” Harry exclaimed. “My birthday is next week, I’m celebrating with some mates and the flat at a teammates house, wanna come with? You can ask Chloe and the rest to come if you wanna.”

Y/N flashed a tight-lipped smile. “I’m flattered, but I’m working, I’m afraid.”

“Bugger.”

“Truly,” Y/N said, really meaning it. “I’ll leave a note under your door when our first… time will be.” She paused. “First session, maybe? We’ve already had our first time.”

Harry shrugged.

“Well, I’ll leave a note under your door when that first session will be.”

Harry grinned. “Can’t wait.”

“And leave that grin in your room, I don’t want to see you being all smug when we have a go that first time.”

His grin only widened. “Love, when I’m with you, fighting that grin is like fighting an oncoming tornado. I can’t win.”

Y/N rolled her eyes as Harry laughed. She walked back inside to go make herself something to eat while she felt Harry’s eyes on her the whole time, watching her through the window. Despite herself, Y/N found herself smiling as well.

NEXT UPDATE: Sunday, 18th April, 9PM GMT!

Huge thanks to my AMAZING beta readers! 🏛️ @aileenacoustic 🏛️ @devil-in-bw-the-sheets 🏛️ @sunflowerstache 🏛️ @fromyourstrulyh 🏛️

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READ TWO CHAPTERS AHEAD ON PATREON | CHECK OUT THE OTHER FIVE EXCLUSIVE PATREON STORIES HERE!

#harry styles #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles smut #harry styles fluff #harry styles angst #harry styles fic #:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDD #PLSSS COME TALK

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mrwinterr · 4 years ago

Text

All For You

Pairing: David Budd x Female Reader

Summary: After the incident on the train that night, David returns to the apartment replaying different scenarios in his head had things gone wrong; specifically, one with you involved.

Warnings: Smut 18+ (consensual and unprotected sex, snuggle-fuck, vaginal penetration and fingering, breath play, some roughness and dirty talk). Infidelity. Language. Sad vibes.

Disclaimer: Bodyguard (2018) TV series spoilers. This may effectively spoil episode one if you haven’t watched the show. This is set towards the beginning of the episode, but before the rest of the series plays out.

Title Inspiration: “All For You” by Night Riots

A/N: 1) The song mentioned above is beautiful. Please give it a listen. It sets the mood for this piece. 2) Here’s to our fragile babe.

It was late when David made it back to the apartment. The room was dark, all the lights were shut off, but there’s a considerable amount that shone out from the window of the city, illuminating his path around, and there was a faint smell of food that filled his nostrils from the half empty box of cold pizza laid out on the coffee table in front of the television.

The small details sent a warm feeling throughout his body. Countless memories scrolled in his head as he looked over at the empty couch, thinking back to all the times he’d watch you eat food there while your favorite show that season was on, him joining you to cheer on your hometown sports team, the both of you falling asleep during a movie. He swore y’all dined more at that coffee table than the table in the kitchen.

He lifted the lid of the box and thought if he was really hungry or not. It had his favorite toppings on it, but no matter how appealing the dish was, tonight’s events were too fresh and powerful to brush aside.

He had successfully foiled a terrorist attack on the train taking him and his kids back home. David had been through a lot during his term in Afghanistan, but he’d never been more scared in his life than when he thought about all the things he’d be robbed of had Nadia pushed the button on the trigger of the bomb strapped around her.

Ella and Charlie always came first in his life. His children meant the entire world to him. As much as David loved the time he had with them even if it was the dreading moments of having to send them back to their mother, he cherished every single second. The weekend the three of them spent at his mother’s was what he needed to help him clear his head. It’s insane to think just how quickly life can turn around.

After properly storing the food into the refrigerator, he shrugs his jacket off and sets his footwear against the wall and out of the way before heading towards his room except he never goes inside. He looks over to the room across and he can see you tucked and in bed from the slit of your opened door.

So many thoughts run through David’s mind, he feels like he could explode at any minute. The world was a mess enough as it is. The war didn’t do or leave him any favors. His unpredictable moods left him and his wife Vicky estranged. He couldn’t be there all the time for Ella and Charlie as they had to bounce back and forth between each parent. The only light in all of this was knocked out in the next room.

Aside from his comrades, not a lot of people stuck around long enough to tolerate the new version of himself that returned from the war. The relationship between David and you was something that never reached its potential. It was one of those never in the right moment sort of things. You met during your days at University. You had loved another before him and when studying abroad proved a long-distance relationship wasn’t possible, by the time you came back to graduate David was in love with someone else.

Soon enough, he was married with two children. You held no distaste for Vicky at all. You felt for her when she divulged to you about David’s episodes. The pair of you still communicated and you often found yourself watching over Ella and Charlie while she or David were busy with work.

When David’s PTSD started to get really serious and he profusely refused to get help, Vicky no longer felt safe with him in the house, she had no choice but to kick him out. You knew she was only doing it for the sake of Ella and Charlie, but secretly you already knew she was moving on.

You welcomed David into your apartment and let him stay for as long as he needed granted you had a spare room he could occupy. There was no sense in denying you always loved him and would support whatever his heart desired whether that meant helping him repair his relationship with Vicky or not.

It doesn’t go without saying that there have been casual slip-ups. You had both kissed before, felt one another, and even satisfied the other, but all that still didn’t define the relationship. He was still legally married to Vicky. The topic of their relationship was almost forbidden. You knew David held a high amount of respect for you and you couldn’t blame him for not knowing where his heart stood.

It hurt to see how much torment he got left with from trying to defend his country and you’d experienced first-hand those very episodes Vicky talked about and more. Time after time, there’d be arguments enough to deduce you to tears from his booming voice and ill words when the proposition of him seeking professional help arose. Then other times he’d break down right in front of you.

Grateful he hadn’t exhibited any violent behavior yet, as much care as you could offer to him, you knew that you still had to watch out for yourself too. Again, you’d always love David, whatever version of him. The same one you fell in love with was still in there. Your heart had ached for David’s well-being. If you could heal him with just your touch, you’d do it. Everything you did was all for David.

The room that offered him a preview of you compelled him enough to slip through the crack. It wasn’t uncommon for either of you to slide into the other's bed at this point. He removes his shirt and jeans, setting them on a nearby chair, and gently sits down at the end of your bed.

Given the events of the past 24 hours, the last thing he wanted was to be alone. If things had gone wrong, you would be alone.

The only sounds that could be heard were of the bustling city outside and if he paid close enough attention, which he did, your soft sighs of slumber were also audible. He leaned his elbows on top of his knees and stared straight into his reflection in the mirror of your vanity that was set in front of him.

David couldn’t help but think of all the possible outcomes that might’ve happened had he not been able to stop the attack.

First, he thought about Ella and Charlie and their safety foremost. At only ten and eight years old, they had so much to live for. If they were taken with him and the other passengers, he hated to imagine how Vicky would feel.

Vicky was another thought and how broken beyond repair they were at. He had felt so stupid thinking he could try and make a move on her hours ago. She was already adjusting to her new life without him. He also felt guilty and ashamed because he felt as if by that advance he was betraying you.

You were a thought in of itself. The second his life was in danger and he came face-to-face with the suicide bomber, he knew he was going to leave this world without ever setting things straight between you two. All the things he shared with Vicky, their wedding, their honeymoon, the birth of their children - all of those life moments he once dreamed of sharing with you, without him, you’d end up sharing with someone else.

There’s nothing stopping you from doing that right now with him alive actually. He could lose you regardless of the outcome on the train, but when life flashes in front of your eyes and the main source of your survival and happiness are at the forefront of your attention, you want nothing more than to seize opportunities at the second chance you’re given. It was a wakeup call.

David diverts his eyes from himself and over to your sleeping figure. He studied the peaceful aura you radiated, with the rise and fall of your body and soft breathing, you were quiet in a world so full of noise. While he held so much admiration for you, he also envied you. You had your life under control, at least enough to let you rest at night. However, David couldn’t hold that against you because you tried tirelessly to help him.

By some miracle, he was able to coax Nadia into trusting him and surrender. He lived to see another day and perhaps this was the world telling him this was his chance with you. Aside from his doomed relationship with Vicky, there was really nothing in the way of you two being together this time. He survived a war and tonight...and you were right there. Could he really live a life without him proclaiming his love for you? And that was it for David. He’d had enough.

He moves over to the space behind you, your back facing him. He carefully draws the blanket draped over your body up so he could get under them with you. The covers settle in their new spot on the lower halves of your bodies, just barely above the hips, and David starts to run his hand on the smooth skin of your exposed arm.

The contact stirs you awake, but your eyelids weigh too heavy to open them in your tired state. You’d fought for as long as your body could allow you to, waiting for David, before succumbing to sleep. You revel in his tender touch, the warmth of his body transferring onto yours, and not realizing your body starts to rub up against his until you feel the puffs of his hot breath behind your ear along with a string of small incoherent noises.

By now, the front of his body is flushed and parallel behind yours, his legs tangled with your legs. The hand that was previously caressing your arm had snaked its way around your midsection resting on your abdomen, cheekingly on the patch of skin that wasn’t covered by the ridden-up camisole. You reach down and grab that hand to bring it up and place it at your breastbone, allowing him to feel the beat of your heart, with your fingers interlocked. Never had either one of you felt perfectly fit with another than with each other.

Featherweight kisses are stamped all around the back and crook of your neck, causing a shiver to run down your spine, creating a domino effect that rippled through your body as your legs, still weaved in his, start to tousle with one another. The top of his thighs occasionally brushing the underside of your panties increasing the friction and your grip on his hand grows tighter. When his tongue licks along the shell of your ear, you let out a breathy response from being caught off guard by his actions.

You’re not in control of your body anymore as your hips buck backwards and grind rough up against his groin on their own. You loved to hear him, whether it be his ragged breathing or the sultry moans or the filthy words that spewed out of his luscious lips - whatever because it was you that caused it.

The hand that was held hostage by yours against your sternum, trapped between each breast, broke free. Now in control, it snuck underneath the thin clothing material, and back to its previous position in front of your breasts before grabbing a handful of flesh. Your shirt twisted and stretched from the movements, and all your hand could do was go along for the ride as he kneaded your breasts.

When he had his fill, his hand wandered all over your body, abandoning yours, as it ran along your ribs, your curves, your hips and then slithered into the front of your panties. The palm of his hand ignites a tingle in your lower region until his fingers glide along the slit of your pussy, and in an up-and-down motion gathering some of your arousal. Once his digits are wet enough, he settles them on your clit and begins rubbing small, delicate circles. Your breathing increases and your free hand reaches out to grab a hold of the bed sheets due to the pressure he applied every now and then.

He switches up the routine by taking turns rubbing your clit and teasing the entrance of your opening, to gradually and expertly slipping in and giving a curl or two inside of you.

“You feel that?” He asks, his finger hooking inside, “I can feel you,” he says before extending the digit to dive in deeper. David comments huskily in your ear, “so wet,” then teasingly nibbling on it, “so warm...and ready for me.”

Your arousal overflowing, slicking your thighs and staining the bed. His fingers were beginning to move faster, running off course, and just begging for the dam to break. The lewd wet noises mixed in with the moans, you choke out a gasp, no longer able to keep hold of the reservoir as you come from his handy work. His wet hand grips your waist in an attempt to hold you still all while you’re drowning in the pleasure.

You mumble swears into the side of the pillow while also trying to wipe the sweat that had built up around your forehead on the fabric. You’re not sure what brought that on, but who were you to complain? His release is your pleasure. Whatever he needed to work out, you were more than willing to be at his disposal.

Shuffling noises could be heard behind you, but you’re still recovering from the first orgasm. It’s not until the crotch of your panties are being pushed to the side and you feel the tip of his bare cock, the velvety skin rubbing harshly between your folds, when he pushes in your eyes snap open. There’s a slight sting at the intrusion with every inch of his thick cock sinking in deeper and deeper, stretching you out. He’s got almost a death grip on your hips as he basks in the warmth of your walls. His hand loosens its hold only to hoist your leg up, as it now rests on the bed, giving him more room to properly fuck you. All you can hear is his jagged and warm breaths pounding at your eardrum.

The force of his thrusts pushes you little by little away from him, he has to wrap his arms around you to keep you in place. Now unable to escape his embrace, you hold onto his forearms tightly as hip hips continue to collide into yours.

“Oh-oh my...God,” you can barely muster up a full sentence, “Fuck! Dav-...you’re-...it feels so good, David,” and it sounds as if the words are being knocked out of your mouth with each thrust. He liked hearing his name spill from your lips and as if you read his mind you give him that until your throat is dry and the intensity of his actions render you unable to do so.

Your hands itching to grab a hold of any part of him, you release your death grip on the bed sheets and reach behind you, over your head, and fist a handful of his short dark hair. It’s hot and sweaty, but you don’t care because the noise you pull out from deep in his throat ignites a new spark in the pit of your stomach and your walls to involuntarily squeeze his length.

He reluctantly pulls out of you and presses your body down to lie flat on your back. The fervor coursing through his veins causes him to pull your underwear all the way down your legs, a light snap could be heard from the rough tug indicating the damage done. After he peels off the sweat stained top off of your body and rids himself completely of his boxers, David settles in between your legs, braces one hand on the side of your head to support himself as the other cradles it.

David brushes the matted hair away from your face. It’s still considerably dark and only the moonlight that peaks through the slit of the drawn curtains help his eyes settle on you and take in the vulnerable look on your face; both bare open for the other. You can feel the ridge of the head of his cock glide against your clit and you wonder why he’s taking so long to finish what he started.

“David, please,” you plead softly. Your hand had come up to trace the outline of his jaw, the first signs of an early stubble pricking the skin on the palm of your hand.

He nods in response and slowly slides his body down a few inches to glide right back in. Your back arches and presses up against his, your hardened nipples poke into the soft faint tresses of hair on his chest. David’s hips ground into yours in wavelike motions, hitting deeper and deeper. He dips his head down closer to you, your mouth hung open in ecstasy, allowing him to tug your bottom lip with his teeth then sucking on the full muscle. David runs his tongue along it to soothe the swollenness before dipping in the cavern of your mouth.

Your tongues instantly collide with one another’s. Your eyes shut tightly, wetness pooling at the corners from the ardent passion radiating from both you and David’s actions. He felt so damn good. You wished you could have this, be like this with him, for the rest of your days, but the reality of it all wasn’t going to just hand it to you so easily. His children, Vicky, his profession, his PTSD - despite all those, you’d go through it all. All for David.

You pull your mouth off his for some air. You open your eyes to see him staring right into you. The bright blue eyes turned a deeper shade, almost black in the night and from want, but you could still make out the sadness behind them. The tears that had run down the side of your face for him burn your ears. Now more than anything you wanted to make him feel good, even if it was only temporary. He needed this release.

“It’s okay,” you’re still struggling to communicate, trying to block the pleasure so you can speak properly, “it’s okay, David...you can use me,” finding one of his hands in yours and finally giving him permission.

David stills, eyes never leaving yours, he’s looking for confirmation that he heard you right. Why would you want him to do that to you? His heart swelled at the notion that you trusted him, but he couldn’t trust himself. He didn’t want to hurt you.

You see his mouth open and close, but nothing audible comes out, so you take the initiative and grab the hand that wasn’t supporting him over your frame. You crane your head back, baring yourself to him, and then place his hand on the column of your neck, his fingers settling themselves around it naturally. He shakes his head in protest, you start to feel his hand slipping away, but you’re quick to reposition his hand back on you.

“Are you sure? I might not be able to stop,” he says hesitantly. Your eyes silently let him know you’re certain. This time he nods and leans in for a bruising kiss to your lips, the close proximity of his face momentarily blocks your airway. When he pulls away, he gives you a few seconds to transition.

The quick and sharp thrusts don’t make it easy because that alone knocked the wind out of you, yet you won’t deny the sweet sensation of his dick probing your spot. The pleasure is almost enough to do the job on its own until the pressure from David’s fingers around your throat tightens gradually.

You’re rendered helpless underneath David as he gets back into rhythm. He maneuvers his legs to get him into a slight kneeling position, lifting your hips up, your legs dangle off his thick thighs, but this allows for him to use the hand previously supporting him to join the other on your neck. The realization of him kicking it up a notch sends a warning signal to your brain and you suddenly start to get scared. Sure, you trusted David, but that didn’t block out the fact that he still wasn’t stable.

You struggle to swallow down any fear and even to widen your eyes as his grip grows tighter and tighter. You can’t even gurgle out a whimper of protest. You’re lucky enough to raise your arms and bring your hands on his and desperately attempt to pry his fingers off you. You stare right back at David and notice his empty eyes. He wasn’t in control anymore and you didn’t dare think who he was seeing in front of him instead of you.

In a heat of frenzy, your legs kick up wildly, frantically trying to push his body off yours. Your efforts prove successful as David’s body falters, however only letting his full body weight collapse on you. Before your vision turns black, you manage to pull one hand away from your neck, creating a sense of ease to creep back in, but the hard look on his face crushes your hopes when you think you’ve lost him.

“Dav-“ you attempt to speak, “David,” his name comes out choppy, but you’re able to get something out. “David, it’s me…,” you plead, hoping that’s enough to bring him back.

“David, please,” the grip of his hand might as well have been iron shut around your neck, you’re like an animal clawing at a door. So just when you think that wasn’t enough, that you weren’t enough, you use the last bit of oxygen to admit your feelings, “I’m sorry, David…” you swore you saw his eyes blink, but nothing changed until your next three words, “I love you,” that all movements ceased. You’d given up, but he stayed hovered over you in shock. Then he instantly lets go allowing oxygen to start flowing through you regularly again.

David slides out and off of you, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed in a sitting position with his back to you once more, a hand over his mouth. He can’t believe he’d actually lost control of himself around you. He saw you had trusted him, but he knew he wasn’t well. He should’ve never let you go through with it. He could’ve unintentionally killed you.

You greedily sucked air back into your system and rubbed the soreness on your neck before looking over to David. His sobs wreck his body and you can tell by the slight whimpers and sniffling sounds. You pull yourself up, paying no mind to any modesty, and scoot closer to him. You cautiously lie your head against his back. You feel his body stiffen a bit, so you begin to softly trace the lines of battle scars that scattered his back, delicate touches on the soft tissue, hoping to calm him down.

“David, it’s okay,” your voice is a little hoarse, but it’s still audible and clear, “I’m okay,” you assure him. He finally turns his body around to face you and your heart breaks at the distress on his beautiful face. You feel guilty you let him do this, but you’re not allowed to feel sorry for yourself too long because David wanted to talk about something else.

“You love me?” He questions and your mouth hangs open, at a loss of words, because you’ve already forgotten that you let that slip. There’s a forlorn look of hope etched along his features and your heart stops. There’s no sense in denying it any longer. If it hadn’t been clear before it sure as hell would be by the end of the night.

You nod and confirm, “always...I’ve always loved you, David.” There wasn’t a need to explain for how long. The admission of feelings alone were enough for David to forget about all the wasted time as he dove in, his lips in search of yours again.

He keeps a hand at the back of your head to keep you close, more “I love you’s” spewing from your mouth each time your lips separate for a split second before reattaching themselves. The declaration never goes deaf on both your ears, hearts beating faster and faster.

With your lips resisting to pull away from one another, you manage to crawl onto his lap, straddling him, the moment reignites the fire inside you. You rise up on your knees, giving you a slight height advantage, you brace one hand on his shoulder, the other reaches down between your bodies to grip his still hardened cock. It’s hot and heavy and slightly sticky in your hand as you rub the tip of the head along the pathway to your entrance, effectively coating him for an easy route.

“Let me show you how much I love you,” you say with bated breath and focused only on him, “please.” Not much convincing was needed, and David’s cock slips back in your wet heat with no protest. You sink all the way down, grinding your hips in circular motions, your clit rubbing against his skin and ensuring he’s bottomed out.

“Oh, you feel good,” he says, voice growing deeper, and at first he’s cautious before laying his hands back on you, but they settle on the sides of your hips and begin to help guide you up and down his cock, “too good,” he growls when you quickly catch on with the movements.

He’s able to drag your bodies to the center of the bed, but when the boiling point rises back up, you push him down, lean back with your hands on his legs to support you, and head thrown back. David picks his head up and the position allows for him to see not only your naked body but how your pussy engulfs his cock repeatedly sending him into overdrive.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” David chants each time his cock is hidden inside you and he resorts to chewing on his bottom lip to contain the expletives.

You feel his hand reach behind you, grabbing a handful of your ass, his strength pulls you in closer by the hips so he’s in all the way once more, you can feel his balls pressed up tight against your bottom, then your body topples over his. You brace your palms of his pecs to prevent you from falling headfirst into him, but his other hand is already at the back of your head bringing your lips back to each other. David’s hips start bucking up into yours to get you back into the groove, but the ache in your legs don’t allow you to perform at 100% anymore.

David rolls your bodies over, with you underneath, and his hips quicken in pace. Your body heaves uncontrollably as you’re close to the edge again and the sweat glistening on your skin has David’s mouthwatering.

“You’re so fucking perfect,” he comments sliding a hand down your slick body from between the valley of your breasts and to the top of your mound. He wants to say I love you so badly but feels the moment he does he’d break down once more. He knew he loved you and always had too, but in his mind, he didn’t want to give you the hope of having to live with his damaged self. You didn’t need to hear it though because you could feel it.

“Come on, baby,” you encourage him, “give it to me, David,” and your hands finding a new spot on his firm ass to pull him in deeper, “I want it all,” you resort to a begging tactic. It deems successful when you start to feel the sting of each brutal thrust of his hip bones knock into yours causing you to hiss and your nails to dig into his buttocks as he chases sweet euphoria.

He tackles it at the finish line, stilling deep inside of you, and the feeling of his cum spraying straight into your spot, spurts in different intervals, is more than enough to help you tackle your own release. Your legs keep his body locked in, waiting for the aftershocks to subside, he’s quivering from your walls uncontrollably contracting tight around his cock and he does so much as to let out groans in gratification.

Once the waves of pleasure die down, your limbs drop, and he carefully pulls out. He doesn’t know if it was a mistake or not watching his sensitive cock emerge from you, covered in a glossy coat from your release, and his seed spilling out of you slowly then slide down your sore lower half and stain the bed sheets because it begins to elicit more dirty thoughts, but both of your heavy breathing and aching bodies help suggest to put those ideas away for now.

In these rare moments, you were enough to help him block out the world’s harsh realities. He doesn’t regret Ella and Charlie, but never stops wondering how it’d been like if he had kids with you first. Had he waited just a little bit longer for you, but what was the point in dwelling in any of that now? The internal conflict in his mind caused droplets of tears to splash against your cheeks and you start to notice his hurt.

All you do is wrap your arms back around him to pull him into your loving embrace, him nuzzling his face in the crook of your neck and you placing kisses on his head while also running your fingers through his hair. Both of you can feel each other’s heart beats returning to its regular cardiac rhythms. The heavy breathing starts to fade away and the faint sounds of the city start to take over once more as you both begin to drift off.

David would work. He’d work on himself for you. You deserve the best version of him. It was going to take a lot of hard work and willpower, and there would sure to be many obstacles, but now that life presented him with a second chance and allowed him the privilege to be loved by you, he desired nothing more than to return the same compassion. All for you. It was always there within him to love you but locked away when it found no hope or chance to be fulfilled.

He didn’t dare think about what the following morning at work had in store for him or what would result in the catalyst of it all because in that moment he had you with him.

A/N: There are only two shows I’d willingly have my memory wiped of just for the thrill in rewatching: Prison Break and Bodyguard. I’d have said Twin Peaks, but that’s always going to lie a mystery within. & maybe GoT, but that ruined my life. Anyway, give this some love for our fragile babe! Thank you for reading!

#mrwinterr writes #david budd imagine #david budd smut #richard madden imagine #richard madden smut #david budd x reader #david budd x y/n #richard madden x y/n #david budd x yn #richard madden x yn #bodyguard imagine

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i-dont-want-your-hysteria · 4 years ago

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The Hangover (Def Leppard x Reader)

(Happy birthday to my blog!! To celebrate 3 years of the place where I concentrate my insane Leppard obsession, I thought I’d celebrate by posting the FIRST Def Leppard fanfic I EVER wrote ((which I have NEVER posted anywhere before!)) I began writing this exactly 3 years ago today- the day I made this blog ((February 19th, 2018))- and officially finished it about a year later. This is not intended as a romantic/sexual fic, it’s simply just an x reader in which the reader is basically one of the guys. In other words, it’s on crack.)

((I am aware this is kind of cringe-worthy at times... but I still like a lot of things about it. While I revised it very slightly before queuing it, I was still 16 when I started writing this, okay... gimme a break...))

(Illustration by @paper-sxn)

Words: 8,684 Prompt: Dublin, 1984. You’re with the Leppards in their early pre-Hysteria era house. You all wake up with hangovers after a boozed-up night at home, and you each try to put the pieces of the previous night back together. Meanwhile, you’re praying that one particular piece won’t fit in anywhere... (partially inspired by the “Blitzgiving” and “The Pineapple Incident” episodes of How I Met Your Mother)

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Gently piercing white light made its way through the windows of the bedroom. It hit your eyelids, and it hit your brain, igniting a brief but killer headache. As your eyes clasped together more, you turned your face into the gloriously soft pillow. For a second you asked yourself why you would have a headache so early in the morning, but then…

You laughed quietly into the bed, recalling without warning some vague happenings from the night before. There wasn’t much you remembered, but you clearly saw the image of the guys flat out drunk at some point (you along with them). There were some blips of you all singing together, Sav hanging from a door frame, you chugging some scotch, Joe chugging some vodka, Steve’s hair being in pigtails, and you think Phil might’ve been giving you a lap dance... or vice versa. It was, all in all, hysterical (at least- that’s what you wanted to think).

Other than those faint events, unfortunately, the night was gone. Still, you were thrilled that it happened. Crazy times with your boys were always good.

You rubbed your eyes, ready for more sleep to combat the pounding in your head. When you did, they opened a little, and you realized… this wasn't your room you were in. Squinting around, you noticed that you were sleeping in Phil’s room instead of yours.

Oh, it’s not that much of a problem, you mused, I’m sure he doesn’t mind. I’ve woken up to worse in this place.

You let your eyes close again easily, and you found peace as you began to fall under again. That is, until you felt someone move next to you.

When it happened, you became aware of the warmth coming from someone else in the bed. They only shifted in their sleep a little bit before going still again. Your eyes went wide, and you held your breath. You don’t remember getting into bed with someone (in fact, you don’t remember getting into bed at all). Turning your head, you looked to see what sort of stranger was in bed with you currently. Instead of a stranger, scraggly blonde hair over a kind and shy face met your sight, and you were instantly calmed upon realizing that it was just Steve. That was good, that was good, but why were you and Steve sleeping in Phil’s bed? You were sure you didn’t have sex last night- at least, not with Steve. This tiny moment of appeasement and confusion was cut short by the faint sound of guitar chords coming from downstairs. The music echoed to your ears, signaling that it had to be Phil, and that he was playing the opening to Bringin On the Heartbreak. Cautiously taking the covers off you- not wanting to wake Steve- you felt obliged to go to the other guitarist. When you stood up and began walking, you nearly fell forward from the sudden vertigo of your hangover. You had to hold onto the counter of Phil’s dresser for extra support, and that’s when your reflection in his mirror caught your eye. Not only that, but that’s when your outfit also caught your eye. One of the guys’ Union Jack tank tops had been slipped over you somehow, and two hand prints were on either side of your face in dried paint; one was blue, one was green. "What…?“ you whispered, touching your face and feeling the shirt on you. It seemed to fit you alright, which made you wonder whose it really was. You were also in black underwear, and nothing else. While eyeing yourself, you took notice of Steve in the reflection. You now saw a few big red lipstick stains on his face, untouched and unsmudged. It was pretty cute, you had to admit, but another thing that came to your attention was that it wasn’t you who was wearing the lipstick at the moment. So then who kissed Steve all over his face? You treaded carefully down the hallway, putting one foot in front of the other and dragging a hand on the wall for support. The melody of the distant guitar didn’t cease the whole time you trekked through the house to get to Phil. When the chords of the song dragged on to the part where the vocals should have begun, no vocals came. Everything in the house looked remarkably the same (despite everything you remember from last night). There were large, ripped pieces of cardboard in the middle of the hallway; scattered out as if leaving a trail. Alongside that, there was a piece of paper labeled “pay 2 the orerr of Rick: one fuckin bendee straw” in what may have been Sav’s handwriting on top of the stairs, and blue paint smudged on the railing going downwards (guaranteeing that whoever did that eventually got to your face, too).

Step by step you descended as the scenery of the house teetered around you (a little too reminiscent of Me & My Wine, you would add). When you reached the bottom of the stairs and looked into the living room, sure enough, Phil was there, strumming away.

“But it’s easy come and easy go…” he hummed.

“You’re…” you mumbled, burped a little, and continued, “Awake. How?” He stopped playing and crossed his arms, quietly sassing you, “Ah, she rises again. You regrettin’ anything yet?” You blinked and rubbed your eyes, scratching a little bit of paint off of your face and inquiring in a scratchy, tired tone, “I guess so… but- how? You, how?” Phil took off his guitar and stood up with his hands in his pockets, “Because I barely drank at all last night, and I also sure as hell didn’t shag Steve in someone else’s bed!” “How do you mean- I didn’t- wait- and Steve- what?” you rubbed your head, getting dizzy, causing Phil to guide you to the couch. “I didn’t- I didn’t shag Steve last night,” you insisted. “Mm hmm,” the guitarist hummed disapprovingly, “Alright.” “What the hell are you on about?” Phil smirked evilly and laughed, “He carried you upstairs, we heard the door close, and then some rather happy noises were heard, so we all just assumed-!” “That’s not-” you swallowed and lay your head back on the couch, “-a valid assumption.” “Oh, you poor thing,” came the sarcastic remark, “You really don’t remember, do you?” “Well I figured if I ever fucked any one of you I would- you know- remember it!” you raised your voice at him, then rubbed your temples. “I’m touched, really. But I’ll fill you in a bit,” Phil yanked up his guitar he’d put down, placed himself next to you, and played the into to “Ballroom Blitz”. Then a bit of the night came back to you. “Oh... that’s what started it all, didn’t it?”

~The night before~ Rick began banging out a tune on his drum kit in the house with you, Sav, and Steve sitting close by, them being at the ready with their guitars. “You ready, Steve?” you mimicked the original lyrics. “Uh-huh,” he replied exactly like Steve Priest in the original song. “Savy?” you said next. “Yeah,” Sav bopped his head to the beat. “Rick?” “Okay.” “Alright, fellas,” you called out, “Let’s go!” The two guitarists let their instruments ring out around the house, playing the all-too-familar tune. As soon as they started this, the front door opened, and none other than Phil and Joe walked in. Joe was holding a bag that was weighed down by the mass inside it (a painfully obvious sign that there were a few bottles of booze). Although the two of them weren’t talking, they were physically hushed upon hearing the situation you and the others had created. “Oh life’s been getting so hard, living with the things you do to me…” you sang lowly and quietly along with the music being made, just to make sure the musicians knew their places. You noticed Phil run out of the room in excitement, and into the one where he keeps his guitars. Joe, on the other hand, stayed put and watched the rest of you from afar, fighting a smile. “My dreams are getting so strange, I’d like to tell you everything I see…” You stood up, and Joe began walking towards you when you called out the next line of the song, “Oh- I see a man in the back, as a matter of fact, his eyes are as red as a sun!” Joe chimed in without warning at the next line, putting an arm on your shoulder and pointing at you, “And the girl in the corner, let no one ignore her, ‘cos she thinks she’s the passionate one!” *** “It’s, it’s a ballroom blitz, it's, it's a ballroom blitz,” Phil sang the ending teasingly to you when he put his guitar back. It felt like he was rubbing his energy in your face (since you lacked it). Before Phil could continue, Joe suddenly appeared in the doorway. “Yeah! It’s a ballroom blitz!” he announced, throwing his arms into the air and taking a bow. He sounded a bit tipsy still. Joe was wearing his Union Jack shorts, but no shirt. Instead of a shirt, though, he had the words “PROPERTY OF DEF LEPPARD” sloppily painted across his chest in blue and green paint. Right over his nipples there were also two handprints, almost exactly matching the ones on your face. Joe stumbled in the doorway, falling to his knees and groaning in discomfort, “Ohh... probably should’ve stayed in bed.” Phil sluggishly trekked over to the singer and pulled him partially to his feet, yanking him towards the couch, “Oh yeah? And by ‘bed’, you mean-?” “Definitely not the bathtub.” Joe assured him, but winked at you. “No matter where you slept, it’s still not as bad as where she slept,” Phil pointed at you, “And what she did there.” “Why? What’d you do?” Joe’s tipsiness wore away in his sentence, making him sound genuinely concerned and curious. You rolled your eyes, knowing exactly what Phil was going to say, “Phil, I-” “It’s not what she did, it’s who she did- she shagged Steve in my bed!” the guitarist accused you again while pointing a finger. Immediately Joe exclaimed, “Nice!” and held up a hand to high-five you. “Joe!” you scolded him, surprised that he took this as good news. “Oh-uh, not… nice?” he took away the offer of a high-five and scratched the back of his head awkwardly instead, “Also, is that my shirt?” You took a look down at the Union Jack tank top you were wearing and back at Joe’s torso. Then something clicked in your head. “Ohh…” you continued staring at Joe’s chest, feeling yourself blush as old memories unraveled in your head, “I think... I think I remember something else that happened last night.” *** You were all drunk; it was no lie. After your quick jam session, there was a booze-filled music fest going on in the house. Joe had even put on his Union Jack outfit, pretending he was getting ready for a show. At one particular point of this “festival” you'd all created, records were being played, and you ended up dancing in front of Joe to REO Speedwagon’s “Take It On the Run”. “You’re bringing up your white lines, you’re pullin’ on a bedroom eyes, you say you’re going home, but I won’t say when,” you sang the wrong lyrics as you swayed and drunkingly made flirty faces at Joe on the couch. Sav, meanwhile, was playing with some old craft paint off in the corner. The blue and green substances were all over his hands (but somehow, one color managed to stay on each hand). “Yeah, you dance for him, Y/N!” Rick cheered you on from the kitchen as Steve and Phil sat on the couch. Phil was perfectly sober, and Steve was giggling and laying with his head on Phil’s lap. You, on the other hand, were now moving closer to the singer, almost like you were giving him a lap dance. “You take it on the run, baby,” you sang along, slowly taking Joe’s Union Jack tank top off of him (with no objections from below), “If that’s the way you wanna, baby...” In return to Joe being shirtless, you slowly took off your own shirt (triggering wolf-whistles and cheers from the guys) to replace it with Joe’s tank. “Sav, mark him up!” you ordered the painted bassist in the corner as you tried to dress yourself. He happily made his way over to you and questioned, “What should I mark him with?” A single hazy idea came to you, and you eagerly whispered it into Sav’s ear. He giggled in response, and proceeded to move over to Joe, drawing something on his chest in the paint. To keep Joe from looking at what it was, you went behind the chair and covered his eyes, ordering coyly, “No peeking!” “All done!” Sav announced and retreated back to whatever he was doing in the corner. “Now, wait, Sav!” you sped over to him, lifted his hands up, and double high-fived him, getting the paint on your hands as well. To finish off what Sav had started, you ran back over to Joe on the chair, and slapped your hands on his chest, right over his nipples. Laughter erupted from everyone in the room (including Joe) and you repeated Sav’s words. “All done!” Joe gazed down at the words “PROPERTY OF DEF LEPPARD” on his chest as you continued to dance to the song playing. “You’re mine, now! You take it on the run, baby... if that’s the way you want it, baby...” Joe tried to tell you in a sexy voice, “Am I your baby now?” “If that’s the way you want it baby,” you repeated the words from the song to him, “Now I’m done dancing for you! Somebody dance for me!” Steve began pointing at everyone individually, childishly suggesting, “It should be, eenie, meenie, miney, Phil!” “Why me?” Phil laughed in objection as you took a seat across the room. “Because you’re not wasted,” his terror twin argued, poking him on the nose. The sober guitarist looked over at you with happy anticipation, awaiting a comment, while all you did was wiggle your fingers at him with a goofy grin. After that, you returned the gesture to the man on his lap, giving Steve a sexy wink. *** “Oh my god...” you put your head in your hands shamefully as Phil and Joe giggled at the memory of the previous night, “I can’t believe I did all that...” “That was a treat!” Phil laughed, hugging you from the side and pulling you closer to him in consolation, “It was funny! We never get to see that side of you!” “There’s a certain reason why you don’t...” you moaned with embarrassment, then asked out of guilty curiosity, “How many times did I grab your ass during that lap dance...?" Phil thought for a bit before telling you, “Four. Well- four and a half...” You gave a loud groan of protest as Joe laughed and slumped back into the couch. “Oh, you only did those things because you weren’t thinking!” Phil consoled you, swayed back and forth with you in his arms. Joe chimed in, “Yeah, and see what happens when you don’t think? You do! Most importantly, you do Steve!” “I didn't do Steve!” you shot your head up and yelled at Joe. You received only laughs and snorts from both men in reply. Suddenly, Sav appeared on the staircase and began singing “Squeeze Box” by The Who with a tired yet cheeky smirk, “Mama’s got a squeeze box she wears on her chest, and when Stephen comes home, he never gets no rest-” Joe and Phil joined into his song with, “Cos' she’s playin’ all night, and the music’s alright! Mama’s got a squeeze box, Stephen never sleeps at night!” You just put your head back in your hands, trying not to accept your fate of being teased. You didn’t want to think that you possibly shagged Steve. He always seemed so innocent to you in a way, and you feared that this would kill your friendship. If everything the boys said was true, you would never hear the end of it, and you don’t even know what Steve would think of you from now on. Was it possible that he remembered anything about the night before? “It didn’t happen, it didn’t happen...” you repeated to yourself in a whisper as Phil unwrapped his arms from you. Sav came all the way down the stairs; his body language making him look grumpy with the world, but his tired grin signaling that he was pleased with seeing you. “Oh, it happened, sunshine!” the frizzy-haired bassist laughed, but quickly regretted it and rubbed his head with his still-painted hands, “Ah- yep, it happened. You could probably hear you two up the whole damn street.” As Sav wearily joined you all on the couch, Joe complained, “Sounds like that was a treat; I wish I remembered it!” Phil was caught off guard at the comment. His head turned to Joe in the blink of an eye and gasped, “Wait, you don’t remember hearing them?!” “I wish I could say I do, but there’s nothing there,” Joe stood up after he spoke, and quickly held onto the wall nearby. His hand went over his stomach as he whined, “Oh... fuck, Y/N, why did you make me race you last night?" “'Race me'?” you squinted as you inquired, “Race you with what?” Joe didn’t answer, but slowly took steps into the kitchen, using the wall as his guide. His answer came when you, Sav, and Phil all heard him throw up into the sink. You sighed, resting your hands over your eyes, trying to remember the cause of Joe’s sickness, “Oh no, was that really my idea?” *** “Look what I found!” you trotted into the room tipsily, holding two bottles; one of scotch, one of vodka, “Only half full! Who wants em?” While you weren’t full-on drunk, it was no secret that the title wasn’t that far away. After your little Ballroom Blitz, it was one beer after the next, then it was digging into the fancy liquors that Phil and Joe had just brought home. Your judgment was impaired, no doubt about it, and so was the judgment of all the guys. Joe even changed into his normal live-show-only Union Jack tank top, claiming that he was gonna "put on a show." The only one who was still sane and sober was Phil, who seemed to be staying away from your poison. Upon registering your sacred offer of alcohol, Rick ran forward, chanting, “Me! Me!” You lifted the bottles away from him, commanding, “Uh-uh! I get the scotch.” “Oh, bollocks, then you can keep the vodka,” the young drummer grumbled and turned away from you. Just as Rick rejected your offering, Joe sprung up and eagerly trotted over while shouting happily, “I’ll take it!” “Sold!” you handed the bottle over to him, “Betcha can’t finish before me!” “Betcha I can!” he sneered back before taking the cap off his bottle. There was no official “ready, set, go” for the race; you both just kind of went for it without any saying. While your throat and stomach were already protesting your actions (and you could almost sense that Joe’s were doing the same), you didn’t stop once; neither of you did. You held up your bottle and announced, “Done!” Looking over, you saw Joe was also finished. “I finished first!” “Nuh-uh!” you insisted, “It had to be me! Tell him, guys!” The four others hadn’t been paying attention to you and Joe’s little competition; they were instead focused on a box that Sav had pulled out from a cupboard. From the box they pulled out bottles of paint and various types of used makeup.

Joe scolded them all in a more sober manner, “Oh come on, you lot weren’t even watching!” “Yeah, yeah, it was probably a tie, anyways,” Rick chuckled, pulling out more items from the box. “This box is much more interesting, too," Phil protested, holding up a stick of lipstick as Sav held up two bottles of paint, "This is a box of makeup that I had for me and the lads in Girl! Just look at it all! Think we can have some fun with this?" "Oh, piss off," you threw the empty bottle onto the couch, "We need some music." Joe had slumped down onto a chair, and you stumbled your way over to the shelf with all the records on it, flipping through and eyeing them all as carefully as your body would let you. After only a few seconds of searching, your eyes lit up at a discovery. "Here's a good one!" you exclaimed as you pulled out a copy of Hi Infidelityby REO Speedwagon, "Let's give it a spin!" ***

Joe wandered back into the room and fell onto the empty couch with a grumble. “Sorry, Joe...” you muttered over to him, realizing that you pressured him into more consumption of the booze. “It was probably gonna happen anyway...” he admitted, wiping his hands over his face, “It’s was my stupid choice to go through with it.” “Woah,” Phil pointed out out of nowhere, looking at you with great surprise, “What’s that on your neck?” You felt your heart drop into your stomach. “What!?” you shot up from where you sat (bringing on more dizziness), and rushed over to a mirror. Once your dizziness subsided, and you could finally see your reflection, the pink shape of a hickey on the side of your neck was now clearly conspicuous. You wondered how you hadn't noticed it before. Joe exclaimed with a smug and proud grin, “Is that from Steve!?” You groaned angrily, feeling yourself become more and more defeated. “I can’t believe it,” you gasped, slapping a hand over the mark, “Something did happen between us-!” “Y/N,” Phil pointed out again, “There’s lipstick on your thigh...” Looking down at your legs, you saw that he was right. There was a single red symbol on your right thigh that marked a kiss from the night before. Upon seeing this, what you saw when you woke up popped into your head. “Looks like Steve went to town down there,” Sav smirked at you, only wanting to rub it in more. “Guys,” you softly noted, “That wasn’t Steve... he has lipstick marks all over his face from someone else...” The three men all exchanged confused looks with each other. There was a dead end to the story of the previous night. None of them knew how to solve the mystery of the lipstick. Not even Phil, who was as good as sober 12 hours ago, didn’t have any input. Sav suddenly blurted out, “Wait a minute, I know what happened- I think...” No one said anything, but eagerly leaned forward, ready to hear the tale the bassist had to tell. “You lot remember how we found that box of old makeup last night?” he began, “Well, I walked into the bathroom with you afterwards, Y/N...” *** Rick looked at himself in the mirror in the bathroom, carefully applying the makeup to his lips, and being extra careful to not get it on the blazer he was wearing. The drummer put on his best suit just to see how it would look with the makeup he was putting on. He thought he was doing a good job for the most part; he didn’t look half bad at all! It was far easier than he expected it to be, and wondered if he was good enough to help you with your makeup at times. Thinking of you seemed to have made you appear in the doorway next to him. Both of your hands were still covered in paint. “Sink,” was all you commanded of the drummer. He moved without a word and you began to wash your hands. At the same instant, Sav appeared nearby. He grabbed the doorframe and began to swing from it, leaving conspicuous handprints afterwards. “Aren’t you gonna wash up, too?” Rick crossed his arms to sass him. “Nah, I want the colors, they’re makin’ me feel- colorful...” Sav grinned, walking over to you at the sink, requesting, “C’mere.” You looked up, only to have your face taken in Sav’s paint-covered hands. He softly giggled as you squared your vision in on him with a sneer. “Rude,” you teased, then went back to washing your hands; paint now all over your face. “What’s really rude,” Rick pulled back the shower curtain and taking a step into the tub, “Is you two interrupting my makeup time! Good night!” He sat himself down in the tub and laid himself down as if he was going to sleep.

Before he had the chance to catch some shut-eye, you marched over to the tub and objected, “Rick, if you’re gonna sleep, I want a goodnight kiss first.” Without another word, Rick sat up and planted a kiss on your thigh (since it was closest to him). There was now a bright red imprint of his lips on your leg. “Thank you.” you smiled down at him, “Now goodnight.” “Don’t leave the water on, you hear?” Sav nagged him, pointing a colored finger, “You’ll drown." Rick chuckled with his eyes closed, “I’ll drink myself out. I'm in a drinkin mood, anyways." “Oh yeah? You haven’t got a straw or anything,” the intoxicated bassist continued to argue with him. “Then don’t let me drown! Get one!" “I’ll get you one later. I’ll just-“ Sav burped, and continued, “I’ll write a note or something.” “Sounds good, mate,” Rick slumped further into the tub and pulled the curtain closed, “Now you gonna stay here all night?” “Actually,” you noted out loud to yourself, different alcoholic emotions boiling up inside you, “I wanna go downstairs- I just need to see Steve- like right now...!" You turned on your heels, speeding past Sav and flying back down the stairs. *** “So that explains the paint on my face, and the paper in the hallway, and the lipstick, but what happened after that?” you asked Sav, as you were now slumped on top of Phil’s arm again. “Beats me,” Sav ran his still-painted hands through his hair, “That’s all I’ve got.” “But wait, if you said that Rick fell asleep in the bathtub...” Phil began his sentence, only for you and the other two men to exchange knowing looks with each other. All four of you immediately sprung up and rushed (as much as you could) up the stairs and into the bathroom. Upon getting there, Phil flung back the shower curtain to reveal a partially awake Rick, dressed in a suit, and still wearing the lipstick from the night before. “Mornin’,” he groaned as he stretched, then winced, “Ah, fuck- sleeping in here wasn’t the best idea for me neck.” Sav looked back at the paint on the doorframe and asked the drummer, “So then why did you sleep in here?” “Oh,” Rick looked around the tub, stating as-a-matter-of-factly, “The porcelain keeps the suit from wrinkling. I guess drunk me was very careful last night.” “I’ll say,” Joe complemented, “The lipstick’s still holding up pretty well.” Phil halted the conversation, “Wait, so you were in here when I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night?” Rick chuckled, “Yeah, and let me tell you, for a smaller guy, you’ve got a big bladder.” “Wait,” you slowly turned and pointed at Joe, “I thought you said you slept in the bathtub-?” He gave you a cocky smirk in return, “I told you, ‘definitely not the bathtub’...” Rick sleepily laughed and pointed at you, “Ha- Y/N, you look like Joe!” “Why, just because of the shirt?” you inquired, pointing at Joe’s tank top on you. “And the paint!” Rick corrected you, “I can’t believe you guys didn’t wash it off yet!” In a second, you felt a rush of worry upon realizing that Rick hadn’t said anything about you and Steve yet. It made you suddenly come to the possible conclusion that he may not know about it all. “Wait,” Phil snapped his fingers, “So you do remember some stuff from last night?” “Yeah, a bit, I think. Why?” “Philip Kenneth Collen, don’t you fucking dare....” you growled at him in an almost pleading manner, rubbing your temples and grinding your teeth. “What do you remember?” Phil asked him, not giving any sort of reaction to your begging. Rick thought for a few seconds, clearly as hungover as the rest of you. It didn’t take him long to list off some brief happenings he recalled. “Well, I remember us singing Sweet, there was a lap dance, I remember- uh, being denied a bottle of scotch, there was, uh... there was lipstick... and did I try to ice-skate on pieces of cardboard down the hall...?” “Is that why there’s cardboard all down the hallway?” you motioned towards the door. Rick gave you a big proud smile and a nod in response. “So...” Joe looked around, definitely looking eager, “What’s the last thing you remember before falling asleep?” Rick rested his head back on the tub again, thinking as hard as his hungover mind would let him. You hoped to every god there was that he didn’t say anything about Steve. “Just Phil comin’ in here and having a long piss, that’s all.” came the verdict. “You sure you didn’t hear-“ Phil anxiously began to ask him, but got a hand slapped over his mouth by you. “No!” you yelled on impulse, sending more daggers through your burned-out head. All eyes were now on you, and silence fell. For a few tense seconds, you stared into Phil’s eyes, sending him visual messages of both threats and desperate requests. “...what the hell happened last night?” Rick broke the silence in a tone of utter confusion, knowing that something more serious than what he remembered had taken place. You pulled your hand back from Phil’s face, “Yuck, Phil, come on!” “You licked her hand, didn’t you?” asked Sav. “Yes,” Phil confirmed, and continued without missing a beat, “And I’m glad you asked that, Rick, cos' I know what happened after Y/N and Sav paid you a visit last night.” “Phil, if you love me in any way, shape, or form, you will not tell Rick what happened,” you begged to him as you began to walk out the bathroom door, heading back downstairs to wallow in more of your shameful hangover, “I refuse to believe it happened until there’s hard proof.” “Well what more proof do you want? A positive pregnancy test?” Phil shrugged, but suddenly slapped his own hand over his mouth, realizing what he’d just said. You shot him an angry look. You were too tired to have it out with him, so you stumbled away. Right about now, you were ready to give up and accept the fact that you probably did shag Steve. Phil turned to Rick, gaping, and slowly began to speak again, "Right... so last night, after those two were in here, I think that’s when they came back downstairs..." *** "So why are you tying up my hair again?" a drunk Steve asked Phil, who was happily putting his hair into pigtails. "Because I knew you’d look pretty, and I knew you wouldn't object, either," the other guitarist laughed evilly as he finished tying the second bundle of golden locks together, "There, you're all done now." "Cool... I think," Steve tilted his head, staring at himself in the mirror on the wall as footsteps began pounding their way down the stairs. "I think you look pretty, Steve. Pretty, pretty, pretty," Joe giggled as he was flipped off by the pig-tailed guitarist. As this happened, you trampled the stairs in your descent, calling out, “Steve- Steve! Come here!” More than happy to be ripped away from Phil’s pigtailed plans, he let you run up to him as you belted out, “I’ve got an idea...!” He didn’t say anything, but he did let you whisper something in his ear. The second he heard your idea, his eyes lit up and an evil smirk crossed his face. Steve was always in the mood for causing terror. You pulled back and exchanged the same look of understanding with the guitarist. He stared at you with a sort of appreciation, and without another word, swept you off your feet, carrying you bridal style now. With a quick smooch to your lips, he began carrying you up the stairs as you giggled with some sort of glee. Phil’s jaw dropped, looking at Joe with astonishment in the process. The singer’s face mirrored the exact same expression. “I should’ve bloody known...” Phil gasped in astonishment, “She’s been eyeing him up real funny all night... I can’t fucking believe it!” Sav came down the stairs slowly, his life depending on the railing as he dragged his hand on it. He left a long streak of blue paint as he did so. “What’s gotten into their pants?” “Each other, apparently,” Joe scoffed, taking a sip of a beer he found, “Lord knows how the hell that happened.” *** You were all sitting back on the couches in the living room, all seemingly regretting the night before (you knew you most certainly were). Everyone knew that the end of Phil’s story was the true ending of the night. Now there was really a dead end to the whole tale. “I can’t believe it,” you whispered with sorrowful acceptance, “Me and Steve...? What happened next?” Joe scoffed, “Well that’s kind of a stupid question.” “That’s where it ends, Y/N. I went up to bed afterwards, only to hear-“ Phil cleared his throat to impersonate you and Steve, “‘Oh, Steve! Yes!’ coming from my room! So after an immense helping of disapproval, I slept in Rick’s room.” “No, no, that can’t be it!” you insisted, “Guys, what really happened next?” “Can’t say,” Joe mumbled, holding his head. “Sorry, mate,” Rick apologized. Sav remained silent, but looked apologetic. “That can’t be where it ends...!” you persisted, “Sav? Tell me I’m right!” Sav rolled in his lips, and darted his eyes away from you. You continued to stare at him suspiciously, but no one else thought anything of it. Phil tried to finalize your fate sympathetically, “Give it up, Y/N, at least it’s all over now.” “But it still happened! What am I gonna say to Steve when he wakes up? You know what- no. It didn’t happen, I refuse to believe that it did.” “How much more proof do you want?” Rick shrugged, pointing at Phil and Sav, trying to make you face the terrible truth, “They both heard ya, and Steve even gave you a hickey.” You hung your head, thinking you might just decide to cry out of shame. Yes, you loved Steve, just as you loved anyone else in the band, but you never had (or planned to have) any sort of sexual relationship with them. Even if you ever did, you were afraid it would ruin everything your friendship had stood for. “Sav, what’s wrong, mate?” Joe asked out of the blue. The bassist in question was still avoiding the conversation, staying eerily silent and weaving his hands together. At this point, you noticed that he was also blushing. “That wasn’t Steve.” he stated bluntly, still not looking at you. “What wasn’t Steve?” you asked as you stared at him dead on, your heart now pounding. “That hickey... that wasn’t Steve,” he paused, “That was me.” Immediately you gasped and slapped a hand over the mark on your neck. “What?!” the other three exclaimed. Joe and Rick immediately hissed at the searing pain their outbursts caused. “Sav, what the hell?!” you scolded him, finally happy that you weren’t the only one being called out for their mistakes. “Now before you say anything else,” he finally looked at you and held up a hand, “It was your idea.” Your face fell, softly asking him, “What do you mean?” “Well, after you and Steve-you know- and only Joe and I were downstairs, you actually came back down, too- wipe that smug look off your face, Joe. You’re not entirely innocent here, either.” *** You stumbled down the stairs, giggling to yourself. Your mission was now accomplished, and Steve was asleep upstairs. In a word, you were pleased. In two words, you were still drunk. Records were still being played when you returned to the living room, and Joe currently had his copy of Sheer Heart Attack on the turntable. “She Makes Me (Stormtrooper In Stilettos)”flowed softly from its speakers. “There’s our killer queen!” Joe cooed to you happily. He was now sprawled out on the couch, two empty beer bottles on the floor beside him. Sav wasn’t too far off. The paints on his hands were now dry, and he was reclined in a chair across the room, twiddling a bottle in his hand. They both looked ready for bed, and it made you wonder how they held out for this long. The singer slurred on with an interested smirk, “You two have fun?" Sav spoke up with a scoff-like laugh, “Sure sounded like it!" “Oh, you know it,” you gave them a wink, setting yourself down on the couch next to Joe, “Guess Phil finally ditched, huh?” “Yeah, the wanker went to bed- but you’ve lost your pants!” he gestured to your black underwear, made room for you to lay down with him, and took you in his arms like a teddy bear with a sigh of appeasement. You reached back and playfully poked at Joe’s dimple, “Steve's fault." “Well, that’s no good,” Sav objected, pushing the footrest of the chair in and returning to a sitting position. “What isn’t?” Joe asked him, "Steve gettin' into it with her?" “No, that cuddlin' you're doing- it’s boring. You stay like that, you’ll fall asleep on me!” He was certainly right about this. With you in Joe’s arms and his face nuzzling into your hair like some sort of animal, he was already falling asleep. “What do you want us to do?” you chuckled, thinking that Sav was only jealous of his friend. Joe mumbled happily into your hair, “How 'bout you just do me like Steve, and we’ll be good.” At this point, you noticed the feeling of something pressing lightly against the bottom of your back; a certain weight where Joe’s hips were, and a weight that wasn’t there at first. “Joe,” you whined at him, “You’re fucking gross.” He chuckled, then slowly moved his hips to lightly rub himself against you, a low quiet moan rising in his throat from the temporary pleasure it provided. “Ah- Joe!” you protested again, reaching back and hitting him as best as you could. You wiggled out of his embrace as he burst into giggles like he had just accomplished something. Sav, on the other hand, cringed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re even hornier than when you’re sober!” you grabbed a pillow and whacked Joe with it. “You’re one to talk! You just shagged Steve!” he smirked evilly, "Why not me?" “Ha! The only way I’ll do you is by some miracle, or at least a dare,” you threw yourself onto the other couch, picking up a nearly empty beer bottle and pouring whatever was left into your mouth. Sav’s eyes finally lit up, “That’s what we oughta do- truth or dare!” “Ooh, sounds like terrible fun,” you turned yourself so you were sitting upside-down on the couch, “Sav, truth or dare?” “How come he gets to go first?” asked Joe, “I wanna get down to business!” “Dare,” Sav declared, ignoring the singer’s objections. Immediately, your intoxicated mind thought of a scheme. Despite the plan you and Steve had executed ever so perfectly, you were still a child seeking more terror. You knew Joe wanted you, and it was no secret either, so how exactly would you use Sav to reign terror over him? You wanted something to rub in Joe’s face- something that would leave a mark on him. “I dare you to-" you clumsily pointed to your neck, "Gimme a hickey.” Joe's jaw dropped with offense and jealousy; exactly as you had expected. Sav began to laugh rather loudly at the request, and stood up, now understanding your true intention of making Joe jealous. “C’mere,” he motioned with his hand. More than happy to obey the command, you strutted over to him and paused, waiting for him to make the first move. He took a step so your bodies were practically pressing together, moved your hair out of the way on your neck, and dove right in. You smiled with glee, taking in the feeling of Sav’s mouth and tongue moving over your skin (as well as Joe’s groans of protest coming from a few feet away). As the bassist sucked on your neck without hesitation, it only made you think of one thing: “Wow, there’s definitely gonna be a mark after this.” *** Rick and Phil were staring at Sav with their mouths open in shock. You kept a hand over the mark he left on your neck to prevent everyone from looking any more than they already had. “So, wait, if it was you who gave me this, why didn’t you say anything before when we said it was Steve?” you asked Sav, more suspicious than outraged now. “I- ah, didn’t... wanna say anything...” he looked away, beginning to blush again, “I guess I was too embarrassed." “I think the only person who should be embarrassed is you, Joe,” Rick turned his attention back to the singer, “You fuckin dry humped her!” Joe exclaimed in his own defense, “Yeah, and I don’t even remember it! It’s not my fault- I was drunk and horny!” “See! Just like me and Steve! I don’t remember shagging him, either! So I guess we’re even.” “Even Stephen,” Phil scoffed. You slumped into the couch more, staring blankly ahead and realizing, “So I pretty much got to second base with all of you last night...?” “I think you made it all the way home with Steve,” Rick pointed out. “Thanks, Rick,” you kept your head hung, “I feel like a slut.” “You mean you’re not?” Phil joked, only to be hit in the arm by Sav.

Just then, you all heard the sound of movement upstairs. Your heart stopped and your blood ran cold; Steve was awake now. Everyone's jaws hit the floor, and for a second, you thought they were all afraid of what you were fearing. "He's awake..." Rick announced in a sing-song voice, teasing you. “Oh no...” you gasped quietly, “Oh no, oh no! Oh god, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna say to him?!” “Hate to break it to ya, but this isn’t necessarily our problem!” Joe shrugged in a panic, hearing Steve’s footsteps get closer. “But guys! You’ve gotta help me! You’re his best friends! What should I say to him?!” “Just act like it didn’t happen! Maybe he doesn’t remember-?” Sav proposed. Rick suggested, “Just straight up ask him if he remembers anything!” “Just get out of here!” Phil made a swatting motion towards the other room. “None of those are gonna do me any good! It still happened!” you yelled at them in a whisper, “I have to live that with that fact, even if neither of us have any memory of it to live with!” It was too late for any salvation; Steve was already at the top of the stairs. The band members held their breath, and- without words or warning- all scrambled out of the living room. “No!” you whispered, “Guys- wait!” You caught Rick by the wrist when he stood up. “Rick, c’mon, please don’t leave me here!” you begged. He yanked out of your grip and apologetically condemned you, “Sorry, Y/N, but this is your business.” As the four of them retreated, you tried to bolt after them. As soon as you hit the doorway, however, Phil turned around and pushed you back on the couch nearby as slowly as he could. It was so sudden that you were on your back before you knew it, and they were all gone. “Hey!” you called out after them, “Assholes!” Steve’s voice suddenly came to your ears (rather closely, too), “What’s their problem?” You jumped, “Ah- Steve!” He had a silent step, and made it down the stairs and across the room without making a sound. He also looked just as he did a little while ago when you first woke up; scraggly hair, lipstick stains all over his face, but no visible evidence of a hangover. “Hey, wow,” you forced an awkward chuckle at him, “Nice- uh, nice- lipstick...” Steve slumped down onto a chair and grumbled, “Thanks. Who even did this to me? Doesn’t look like it was you.” “That was, that was Rick- I’m assuming... I don’t remember that happening and I don’t think he does, either. He’s still got the lipstick on, too.” He played off the remark with a tired smile, “Oh, nice... last night really was something, wasn’t it?” Heat rushed to your face, and you tried to look away without being conspicuous. “Ha ha... yeah... really something!” you faked your amusement for him, now wondering if he was implying anything about the previous night. Steve leaned forward and asked, “Do you remember Sav and the paint? That was pretty funny, wasn’t it?” Still blushing, you darted your eyes around the room and nodded in agreement, “Mm hmm, yeah... he was like a toddler or something.” He sunk back into the chair again and closed his eyes, reminiscing about the events of the previous night. For a second you thought you were in the clear, and that maybe he didn’t remember the specific event that Phil and Sav did.

That illusion was shattered when his eyes snapped open, whispering “Wait a minute”, and sitting back up. Immediately, your heart dropped into your stomach.

“How did our plan go?” he questioned quietly, figuring that the others were still somewhere nearby and listening. “P-plan?” you stuttered, partially afraid of what he meant, but partially caught off guard, “What plan?” “You know-” he whispered again, thinking you remembered, “It was your idea. Did they believe it? We were convincing enough?" You darted your eyes down to the floor, confused, but also embarrassed. 'Convincing'? What did that mean? "Oh come on, don’t tell me you don’t remember!” he smiled playfully. As you stared at him with fearful confusion in your eyes and redness on your cheeks, his smile was suddenly wiped away. He muttered under his breath as his face fell, "Oh... you don't remember... bloody hell, okay, this is gonna be hard to explain..." "Then explain it, because I'm really fucking confused..." your voice wavered with a sarcastic chuckle. Steve sighed and leaned forward, slowly weaving his hands together. He didn't know where to begin. "This is one of the few things I remember from last night..." he started off, "And there's no way to make this sound... good... in any way, but you came up with the idea of us pretending to shag- like making noises and shit like that- to trick the others into thinking we really did. For some reason I thought it was a great idea, and I'm pretty sure I carried you upstairs, too.” Instantly, a huge weight was lifted off your shoulders. It wasn't real; you didn't shag Steve, and he could even tell the guys himself! You blew out a big sigh of relief, and slumped back into the couch, closing your eyes. "Oh, god," you slowly panted, "What a huge relief- I suppose we were really convincing, then." "Why d'you say that?" You laughed tiredly, now feeling rather thankful for your raging hangover, "The guys are all convinced that we fucked last night. Only Phil and Sav seem to remember it, though. They've been hounding me about it all morning. I kept telling them it couldn't be true- and I was right!" "What, would it be so bad if we actually did?" he teased you in a hushed voice. "Well, I've had to live my day so far under the impression it did happen. I was teased, ridiculed, embarrassed, and felt guilty about it. I was afraid it'd ruin our friendship if it was true... I was kinda hoping you didn't remember so we could just forget..." The red in your face returned all over again. Steve, however, didn't seem bothered. "If you really want to, we can keep pretending it happened and steer into the act; give em' what they want." "What? No!" you laughed out loud, standing up, "You're crazy, Clark! I think I better go tell the others the bad news. They'll be disappointed-ha!" You walked across the room to go find the others and disclose unto them the "bad news", giving Steve a pat on the shoulder when you passed him. Once you were gone and out of sight, Steve also blew out a big sigh of relief. "She didn't remember anything," he thought to himself, "That was a close one." While he knew you two didn't go all the way the previous night, he figured if you didn't remember it, then it was for the best you didn't find out. It was nothing serious; just a bit of fooling around, really. Just a bit of drunked-up teasing, and nothing more. The guys had no proof that anything actually happened between you two, and you were about to tell them the partial truth anyway, so why say something to reignite the suspicion? After all, they were all hungover to begin with, so there wasn't much memory of the whole affair, either. "Thank god for these hangovers,"Steve thought, "Thank god. I couldnt've asked for anything more." ~Epilogue~ When you got to the top of the stairs, Steve put you on your feet and spun you around. "You ready?" he whispered, childish excitement in his voice. You nodded with equal excitement, "Take me away, Clark." The two of you began eagerly walking hand-in-hand to whatever room you pleased, but before either of you had the chance to pick one, the bathroom door opened, Rick popped his head out and commanded, "Stop right there!" Both you and Steve froze and looked at him. He still had his lipstick and his suit on, and a kind of serious look overtaking his face. A finger was kept in a pointing position at you, a few large pieces of cardboard were underneath his other arm, and he slowly took steps down the hall to meet you. Neither of you moved, but both of you waited. When Rick got to you, he didn't say a word, but did take Steve's face in his hands (dropping the cardboard in the process), and proceeded to the kiss the man all over his face.

Steve remained silent, and let Rick have his way until he decided to stop. When he did, there were several lipstick stains on various parts of the blonde's face.

"Thanks, mate," Steve muttered sarcastically as Rick kicked some of the cardboard pieces in different directions. He then stepped on two of them, trying to slide down the hall on them as if they were ice skates. When he got back to the bathroom, he went back inside and shut the door again.

Without another word, you turned Steve's face toward you, gave him a peck on the cheek as Rick had done, and kicked open the door behind you (which just so happened to be Phil's bedroom). You both fell back into the room, giggling with makeshift lust in your eyes.

After all, you had to make this authentic, right?

#def leppard #def leppard fanfic #def leppard x reader fanfic #def leppard x reader #steve clark #phil collen #rick savage #rick allen #joe elliott #original content #i'm still proud of this ngl #it was hard tying up the loose ends but i had a LOT of fun writing this throughout 2018

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charmingly-helpless · 2 years ago

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natasha's letter to yelena

Summary: Natasha addresses a letter to Yelena.

Warnings: mention of PTSD

August 14, 2018 Hey, Yelena.

It's been a little over three weeks since Thanos snapped away 50% of all living creatures. Since Thanos snapped away you. We found him when he used the stones again, and we went to space to kill him. Unfortunately, the stones were gone by the time we got to him. We did kill him, though, so at least we have that satisfaction. We don't know how to get the stones back, though.

By the way, I've gotta take you with me to space one day-- I think you'd love it.

The Avengers, what's left of them, we're all working our very hardest to try to get the world back up and running. It's easier said than done, but the pain is still very fresh. I keep thinking back to that day, what things I could have done differently. What we all could have done differently.

The streets of Manhattan have never been more quiet. Almost everything is deserted, and I'm starting to think that every single person in New York was wiped away.

Stefaniya has been working from New York to track down the Widows that relocated before Thanos. She hasn't had any luck yet. Speaking of, the Widows left at the facility are doing okay. I check in with them once every week over the phone, and they're holding down the fort until we find a way to get you, Melina, and Alexei back. Most of the Widows have moved out, though.

A couple days ago, Tony came back from space. He's not doing okay, but we're hoping that he'll get better physically as the days go by. As for his mental health... Well, who even is mentally stable these days?

We have some new members of the team, by the way. Carol Danvers; she glows and she can fly and lift an entire spaceship with one arm. I think you would like her. We also have Rocket, who's a raccoon that talks. And Nebula, who happens to be Thanos's adopted daughter. But she's been helping us out, so I think we can trust her. A little bit.

I'm doing as okay as you can expect. Some days are harder than others, but I'm holding myself strong for the sake of the others. Someone needs to keep us up and running.

Stefaniya... She's really struggling. I think she has PTSD from the fight against Red Room. And when I let her fight with us in Wakanda, it triggered an episode. It's all my fault. I shouldn't have called her for help; she was perfectly safe working with you. She hasn't had another episode since then, but she's having very vivid nightmares. Almost every night, I wake up to hear her screaming in her room. She's isolating herself from me and the Avengers, and as much as I'm tempted to override the lock on her door and go in and hug her, I want to respect her boundaries. Even if it pains me.

When she's not in her room, she's in the gym. She's taken up ballet again, which I've done, too. That's just about the only time she lets me be in the same room as her, and we dance side by side in silence. I think that she finds somewhat of a peace in it-- reliving the controlled environment of the Red Room. I'm far more out of practice than she is, but it's nice being able to see her when we cross paths in the gym. Anywhere else, though, it seems like all she does is try to pick a fight with me. Whether it's over me walking too loud, or I'm bothering her, distracting her... It hurts. I'm used to this stuff from the Avengers, anyone else, really. But it hurts so much more from her because I think I'm in love with her.

Sorry. I'm not trying to dump all of our problems on you. I just really need to let it out somewhere.

I really miss you, so does Stefaniya. She really needs you right now. I'll bring you back, I promise.

Till we meet again.

Your sister, Natasha R.

Next chapter

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanov #black widow #black widow fanfiction #yelena belova #natasha romanov x fem!oc #marvel #marvel fanfiction #natasha romanoff fanfiction #sapphic natasha romanoff #aroace yelena belova #infinity war #avengers: infinity war

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magnusmysteries · 3 years ago

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Part 32: When Rituals Fail

The Magnus Archives was a horror podcast. It is now completed. Many of the show’s mysteries were never explained on the show. I intend to explain them. Spoilers for the show, but also spoilers if you wanna solve these mysteries yourself.

Elias thought that the reason the rituals failed was because the fears could never be separated. That it would be impossible to bring just one through, it had to be all. I think he was wrong, for three reasons.

First reason. Here’s a quote from Elias, where he explains why it is impossible to separate the fears “To try and create a world with only the Buried makes as much sense as trying to conceive a world with only down.”

But we have seen such a world. Quote from Entombed “This is forever deep below creation. Where the weight of existence bears down. This is The Buried, and we are alive. There isn’t even an up.”

The Buried is a world without the Hunt. The Hunt can’t reach Daisy there, because the Hunt and Buried are opposites (See Part 3). Elias uses the absence of up, as an example of an impossibility. But John says in the Buried there is no up. I think this was specifically written to clue us in to Elias being wrong.

Second reason, every time we hear of a ritual there is always a reason why they fail. The reason isn’t always obvious, but I’ll go through most of them in this post. Elias based his conclusion on the assumption that there was no reason for the Dark’s ritual to fail. He was wrong, as I’ll explain.

Every attempted ritual, except the ones involving John and Agnes, has a group of people choosing something related to the fear. (With a broad definition of choice.) If only one person does not make the choice, the ritual fails.

The Lonely. A group of people in an apartment building were all supposed to choose to be lonely (rather than move out of the nice cheap apartment). Gertrude wrote about it in a paper, the people got help, they weren’t lonely, the ritual failed.

The Slaughter. The soldiers are supposed to brutally murder each other. But the statement giver doesn’t like killing. He is not swayed by the music, he does not join in on the violence. The ritual fails.

The Hunt. Daisy speculated this failed because the Hunt doesn’t like to complete things. She was wrong. The people were supposed to join in the obsession of the hunt, to kill vampires and probably to die. But the statement giver was only pretending to be obsessed, the ritual fails.

The Corruption. This is from the episode Love Bombing. (John was wrong that the Prentiss attack was a grand ritual.) Here the choice is to love. First they take care of a sick dog. That is, they love it. Then they have to love and join the monster mass of people.

The part where they have to say they love each other, it's a test, to see if they are ready for the ritual. The protagonist did not love the other woman, and so she is told to leave. She is jeopardizing the ritual.

Note that she is not forced to leave, or killed. Had there been force or violence the ritual would have failed. That’s another rule for the rituals.

I think when she left, it was already too late and the ritual failed. Or maybe it failed when it got blown up. Probably by Gertrude.

I think nobody in the cult was working for the Corruption originally. The Corruption just found a cult that was really into love and thought "Jackpot! Send in the dog!"

The Buried. The choice here is for everyone in town to get into the pit at the same time. When the statement giver comes to town, he is told to leave. But not forced, significantly. He is jeopardizing the ritual, because he might not climb into the pit with the others.

The statement giver has a “dream” where he willingly climbs into the pit and puts his arm into the hole. Though it’s not really a dream. This is a test, and he passed. Whoever’s in charge decides to go ahead with the ritual.

This is a mistake. The statement giver does not go into the pit with the others. A woman in the pit suddenly begins to scream. Not because she is in the pit, but because she noticed the statement giver is not in the pit. She knows the ritual is about to fail and it does.

Later Gertrude shows up and dumps Jan Kilbride into the pit. She thinks she stopped the ritual, but she was too late. The ritual had already failed.

The Flesh. The choice is for everyone to throw meat into the pit. (I’m guessing they also all have to die from exhaustion and get thrown in the pit or jump in, but we don’t see that part). When Tom Haan notices Lucia Wright is present, he hands her meat. He hopes she will take it and join in, which she does. Had she not done so, the ritual would have failed. If she had left, the ritual would have failed. If Tom had killed her or forced her to join in, the ritual would have failed.

The ritual fails anyway, because Gertrude blows it up.

The Spiral. Quote from Michael “A thousand staring morsels stood, and not one of them believed themselves sane to look upon it.”

If one of the humans there had believed themselves to be sane the ritual would have failed.

Actually there was a person there who believed they were sane. More from Michael: “Michael did not go mad, though no words you could have said would have convinced him otherwise. (...) If Michael thought he had lost his mind, it was only because what he saw with crystal clarity was simply not something that could be real. But Gertrude Robinson did not waver. (...) She gave no indication that she saw anything more or less than was expected. Hers was not a mind that left room for doubt.”

Gertrude didn’t realize, but there was no need to sacrifice Michael Shelley. The ritual would have failed simply by her presence.

The Stranger. When John and the gang set up the explosives to blow up the Unknowing, Nikola does nothing to stop them. She knows they are there. She waits until they have set up the explosives before she starts the ritual.

There are no other victims there than the Magnus crew. They are the ones that are supposed to make the choice. The choice they are supposed to make is to use logic and reason during the Unknowing. Nikola has to give them a chance to win, and part of that is she lets them set up the explosives.

In the 1787 attempt at the Unknowing, the ritual is stopped by a soldier from the Slaughter. The soldier is not confused: “I was sure he was a soldier, and he was nothing but a soldier.”

In Nemesis Gertrude speculates that the Unknowing can only be stopped if the explosives are detonated from within Unknowing. Meaning, someone has to “choose” to use enough reason to set it off.

Just four victims is a small number. But I think John counts extra, since he is the Archivist and should be harder to confuse.

Maybe Elias made a deal with Nicola, told her about their plan. After all, Elias wants John to get blown up, to get the End scar.

Elias advised John not to bring Tim to the ritual. Tim seems pretty suicidal at this point, earlier he dared Elias to kill him. Elias is worried that if Tim is the one to blow up the ritual, John won’t get the End scar.

The ritual fails because Basira reasons her way out. Or maybe it fails because Breekon uses violence against Daisy, not sure.

John is at first very confused, but then he starts to see more clearly. That is because the ritual is already failing, because of Basira (or Breekon). There is no need for Tim to blow up the place and sacrifice himself.

The Eye. We don’t know much about Elias' first attempt at a ritual, but it seemed to take place in the panopticon prison, with Elias in the middle, watching the prisoners around him. The prisoners were probably supposed to make some kind of choice, and at least one of them failed to do so.

The Dark. The darkness ritual first begins to collapse at Hither Green, where it is led by Natalie.

Quote from Manuella “Natalie and the others followed, but they did not truly understand. Not truly, with their talk of peace and unity and Mr. Pitch. A friendly name, to try and hide from a concept they couldn’t grasp.”

In the episode Police Light the darkness creature inside Rayner is trying to get a new host, by entering Callum Brody. Then the police intervene and shoot Rayner, saving Brody from being possessed. But a droplet of the monster hits the police officer Altman. Altman is in the process of being possessed. Then Altman is stabbed and killed by Natalie Ennis.

There is misdirection here. We are supposed to believe that Natalie stabbed Altman because he was a cop. But actually she killed him because he was possessed. She was secretly working against the darkness cult.

Why? Gertrude must at this point have realized how a ritual will fail if one person makes the wrong choice. She must have talked with Natalie and explained to her that Mr. Pitch is a lie. That the Darkness is not about peace and unity. So because of Natalie the ritual failed.

The third reason for why Elias is wrong is the most important, and I’ll cover it in the next post.

If Elias is wrong that a ritual must draw in all the fears at once, why is it that no ritual has succeeded throughout all of history? I think there just hadn’t been that many attempts.

In Family Business Gerard says if a ritual fails, it takes centuries to build up enough power to attempt one again. Yet we hear of several ritual attempts happening very close together in time: the Lonely circa 2007, the Spiral sometime after 2007, the Buried in 2008, the Flesh in 2008, the Corruption circa 2012, the Dark in 2015, the Stranger in 2017 and the Eye in 2018. How can that be?

In the Architecture of Fear, Smirke says he wrote down several rituals. Since Smirke lived a couple of hundred years ago, it could mean most of his rituals were attempted back then, and that’s why most of them were due to be attempted again around 2007. But that gives us the same problem, just further back in time. Why was it that most of the rituals could have been attempted about the same time, back when Smirke wrote them down?

I think the reason was, most of the powers had never attempted a ritual before Smirke designed them. The Powers have no creativity (see Part 9) and could not have attempted a ritual until a person came up with one. Smirke says he is unsure if all the powers had rituals before he put pen to paper.

I think there were two rituals that Smirke designed that were attempted relatively long after his death. The Slaughter ritual probably needed a great war to succeed, and therefore did not happen until War War 2. And the Hunt ritual took over a hundred years to set up, as it included two groups of explorers from over a hundred years apart.

Three rituals predate Smirke’s creations, those of the Dark, The Vast and the Stranger.

Smirke got his ideas for rituals after hearing of the ritual of the Dark. In Heart of Darkness, Manuella implies her ritual had been planned for three hundred years, after the failure that birthed the thing inside Rayner. I think when Flamsteed drowned Reimer in The Movement of the Heavens, he stopped the first ritual of the Dark. Reimer was drowned May 2 1715. On May 3 1715 there was a Total Eclipse that could be seen in London. (That date is from real life, not mentioned on the show.) I think that’s when the first Darkness ritual was gonna happen.

The first Unknowing happened in 1787, Smirke was born in 1780. So unless he invented it as a child, it predates him.

In Big Picture Simon talks about the last ritual he attempted, in 1853. That implies he’s had at least one earlier attempt. Simon became an avatar in the 1500s, so he’d probably only had time to do two ritual attempts in total.

#the magnus archives #tma #magnuspod #elias bouchard #gertrude robinson

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lonely-queen · 3 years ago

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moving on - a short personal essay

Revisiting tumblr just for having a platform that allows more characters than twitter so here we go!

2 months ago (today - 27th July 2021) not for the first time I moved to a new home. And not for the first time it had been my own 4 walls now. From late 2017 till May 2021 I used to live in a shared apartment along with 2 other girls. I personally closed the acta of these persons and deleted them from my life. So I have no words left wasting for them.

The phrase “To delete” certain things outside of the internet-world is actually my key message already. With my move I closed many doors even, tho, if I wanted to or I had to for peace of my mind. I broke up with the chapter of my old life constantly living in compromising and holding back what’s important for me. I am not afraid of telling the harsh truth and my honest thoughts, because - let’s be honest - I’m not into sweet talk hoping my fellows understand a problem that way.

For Example: One chapter that got hashly interrupted was the friendship between my former neighbor. The reason I could’t move on as there was nothing is because he knew combining the room mates situation, COVID-19, fear or keeping the job etc. caused a lot of pressure and stress for me. He constantly gave me the reason being a second-class friend without realizing. Even after we’ve spoken about that he didn’t get it. The very last situation we were into, he offered me helping out for my move. So I told him if he can spare a little of his time just for carrying my possessions into the truck I’m good. Saturday, the 1st of May came and there was no single sign of him until... He sended me a picture. It was a selfie of him standing in front of my truck accompanied by the words “Oh so sad you’re moving away”. There was never the intention of actually helping me because he was going to meet his more-prefered-friends and he actually switched my words by saying “You never asked me to help you” even, tho, he offered it to me.

Actually the fact that I explain this anecdote that detailed shows I’m still lying to myself: I haven’t ended this chapter yet. I, again, pretend to not care.

So I asked myself why am I that deeply connected to people I know it’s not worth it? My parents told me it really isn’t worth it and it shouldn’t affect my emotions that hard.

I’ve been talking to my Mother, who has been diagnosed with burn out and depression back in 2018 and she guided in herself into psychiaric supervision. She has a lot of things to let go herself. I somehow got the feeling of looking in a mirror. So we’ve been talking to one of the specialists she knew from that establishment.

They were telling me there is a chance of a deep sitting depression based in our genetics since we show certain similarities. The thing is I stopped that right there. Yes, maybe I should keep talking to psychologists but I’m avoiding talking about such things. I think, by starting a new life, like I did in my new apartment, helps to improve.

What else I am doing? I was told it helps keeping the mind busy. I almost every day go to the gym so I can listen to upbeat songs and almost every night I take quiet walks because the next other thing I’d do is laying fetal positioned in my bed crying. So instead I go home exhausted, go to sleep, wake up for work and repeat. Also living my creative mind as much as I can by creating the things I like... Not only sketches or photos. But, well, even writing things down. Still I’d say every other week I have episodes of feeling myself so heavy I can barely move. I try to balance these things like rain and sun and I jut deal with this as it belongs to me.

The Moral: Since Covid started I’ve been through a roller coaster of joy and the absolute opposite. I can build stress and pressure caused by persons I cannot stand. So for a while I’m not afraid anymore of blocking people out of my life. And seriously it feels so much better not able seeing people giving me bad vibes and even more pressure on instagram or facebook (however I’m not actively using facebook, so that’s the most healthy way). And I’ve learned how to do the same with people around me and I keep working on it.

My very last words are you, yes You! Just keep up with the favourite things you like to do. Either it’s collecting toys or creating artworks or whatever. Things you enjoy doing makes live enjoying much easily either.

For now I have nothing more to say. xxR

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madamewriterofwrongs · 4 years ago

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Tagged by: @fyeahbuddie @tylerhunklin @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels @gracieli @oneawkwardcookie

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome work!

Like I said in another post, I don’t have favourites, exactly. I have fics that others enjoyed, fics I’m proud of, fics I wish more people had read, etc. I’ll try and talk about why I picked these five pieces.

Faith, Trust, and Magic (BBC Merlin - Merlin/Morgana) Chapter 3/? 5381 Words

A rewrite of episode 2x03 “The Nightmare Begins” where Merlin helps Morgana with her magic.

Technically, the first chapter of this series was written in 2018 but this year, I plotted the entire story and posted two more chapters. The concept is one I’m quite passionate about and I really want to finish it one day. Unlike the hilarious theory that barely anything would have to change in canon for Merlin and Arthur to be together, I believe everything would have been different if Merlin had helped Morgana when she was coming into her magic. This one decision would have changed the entire series. I want to give Morgana a happy ending.

Spark of Joy (9-1-1 - Buck & Maddie) Chapter 1/1 3076 Words

Firefam Christmas Party 2021 from the Buckley siblings’ perspectives.

This is one of my worst performing fics but rereading it (or thinking about it) makes me happy. It’s pure gentleness/contentment and especially at the beginning of my time in the 911 fandom, I was in love with the idea of letting the people of the 118 find peace in their lives. Give them a break! So I wrote this piece that was like a snapshot of how good life could be for the Buckley siblings and had these little sparks of hope for the future. Despite it’s low stats, I really enjoyed writing and reading this fic. It gives me the warm and fuzzies.

Love Me Well (9-1-1 - Buck/Eddie) Chapter 1/1 2626 Words

Soulmate AU in which Eddie remembers but Buck meets him for the first time in every life.

I don’t think I’ve ever done prompt fills before this year and this was one of my first ones. While I still prefer to use purely my imagination, I had fun trying to think of what @zeethebooknerd might enjoy within the world my brain was creating based on the prompt she gave me. This was also one of my first AUs (I love reading them but I never really wrote them before). A lot of firsts. On top of that, I got super soft and emo over the boys in my head, and let my inner hopelessly dramatic romantic out to play - something I started doing more of after this.

Speaking of firsts.

Use Your Words (9-1-1 - Buck/Eddie) Chapter 1/1 4236 Words

Part 5 in the Show and Tell Series where Eddie gets out of his head while getting head.

Honestly, I really like the Show and Tell series and the more research/work I put into the entries, the more proud I feel about what I’m creating. Use Your Words was particularly difficult because I had never written smut before. I also have less than stellar sexual education, so I did a lot of research to make sure I was at least writing something anatomically correct. In the series, I introduced an Eddie that used sex as a way of avoiding intimacy in relationships but was working on opening up to his boyfriend. I also introduced an Eddie who was learning to ask for things that he wanted (in essence, he was allowing himself to be selfish). Combining the two made a lot of sense to me, so I decided to challenge myself as a writer and create this entry.

Unashamed (9-1-1 - Buck/Eddie) Chapter 12/12 17178 Words

A series of married Buddie getting into awkward hi-jinx because they can’t stop flirting with each other.

I mean for one: I so rarely finish a series. In fact, this is the first time I finished a series in years so for that alone, I’m proud. I also managed to turn a 900 word crack-fic into a 12 chapter story so, again, yay. This was still a part of me ‘contentment’ obsession so there’s lots of happy things in there. I challenged myself to write the entire thing from an outside perspective which was really fun and created a lot of second-hand embarrassment. But there’s also a chapter about polyamorous acceptance, and queer love in the workplace, and dealing with rejection. I didn’t intend to put that much work into to it but I found it wasn’t really in me to just slap something together.

I’m cheating and picking a sixth. Sue me, Buck.

Finding Home (9-1-1 - Buck/Eddie) Chapter 1/1 1038 Words

Two boys lie in bed and one of them tells a love story.

I wrote this one on my phone in the middle of the night because it was just rolling around in my head and would not let me sleep. I don’t think it’s my strongest piece, and it wasn’t the first or last time I would have to pull out my phone in the middle of the night to write story notes that refused to leave me be. The reason I chose this one is because it marks a shift in my mind. Before this year (really, May 2020), I barely wrote. I wrote the @midweekupdate every week, I even completed NaNoWriMo with an original novel. But I was rarely inspired to just write. I didn’t have words and phrases plague me until I had to relinquish them upon the world. But that’s what this was. And it still happens every once in a while. Where I have things in my head that I just have to write (if you follow me, you might see midnight posts under the CJ Writes Things tag that make zero sense but sound kind of pretty). Writing this gave me hope that this thing I love isn’t gone even when I have dark periods.

Tagging: @zeethebooknerd @elisela @softboiidiaz @oliverstark @rydergrace @florenceandthemachine @eddiediaz @fyeahbuddie @bellakitse @howtosingit @from-nova

#tagging things #cj writes things #2020 review

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what-breaks-my-heart · 4 years ago

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I was tagged by @its-chelisey-stuff (WE LITERALLY JUST KNEW EACH OTHER BECAUSE OF MORE THAN FRIENDS)

1. What is the colour of your hairbrush? I don’t have a hairbrush but I have a comb 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

2. Name a food you never eat. Seafood because of allergies. I can eat fish and crabs though. Basically anything that stores sea water (apart from fish).

3. Are you typically too warm or too cold? IT’S ALWAYS TOO HOT HERE. I miss the UK where I can just layer up if it gets too cold.

4. What were you doing 45 minutes ago? I just woke up 😂😂

5. What’s your favourite candy bar? Are there candy bars which are not chocolate???

6. Have you ever been to a professional sports game? Does esports count? I went to Kuala Lumpur DotA 2 Major in 2018. Otherwise, I didn’t go to any.

7. What is the last thing you said out loud? “I’m printing it!”

8. What is your favourite ice cream? Strawberry. Life is already bitter as is.

9. What was the last thing you had to drink? Tea. I just had breakfast.

10. Do you like your wallet? Indifferent.

11. What was the last thing you ate? Fried rice. Not Uncle Roger’s style because I am not Chinese.

12. Did you buy any new clothes last weekend? Big fat nope.

13. What was the last sporting event you watched? DotA 2 online tournament. I have a team I have been supporting since I started watching it in 2015 and their game started really late last night (time zone thing)

14. What is your favourite flavor of popcorn? Just the plain one.

15. Who was the last person you sent a text message to? I texted my friend (whom I managed to make him watch his first kdrama) from school to prepare a box of tissue before watching episode 15 of More than Friends.

16. Ever been camping? Camping was an annual thing back in my primary school.

17. Do you take vitamins? I don’t go out under the sun, if that’s what you mean. But no, I don’t take supplements because I am too lazy.

18. Do you regularly attend a place of worship? Not since the pandemic.

19. Do you have a tan? At this rate, I call it sunburn. But I haven’t gone out much (apart from going to work as and when needed, groceries, and taking my car for a spin) since the pandemic so the tan line is becoming fader.

20. Do you prefer chinese or pizza? Pineapple on pizza. Sue me!

21. Do you drink your soda through a straw? I pour it into a glass and drink it like a champ. But I also try to reduce single-use plastics in my daily life.

22. What colour of socks do you usually wear? Black is always the safe option (yes it tells a lot about my personality huh)

23. Do you ever drive above the speed limit? Yes, but only where the speed limit is stupidly too low. Otherwise, I rarely drive above 100 km/h.

24. What terrifies you? The list is too long, it should probably be a separate post. I project my issues on the shows that I watch so every now and then you would see me analysing characters or incidents while projecting my issues.

25. Look to your left, what do you see? A broken mirror (in my bedroom), just the perfect metaphor for my twisted perspectives in life.

26. What chore do you hate most? Scrubbing the toilet.

27. What do you think of when you hear an Australian accent? Please talk slowly so I can understand you (also applicable to any other languages tbh).

28. What’s your favorite soda? Carbonated lemonade.

29. Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive thru? I prefer hitting the Drive Thru so I can eat my food in front of my laptop in peace.

30. What’s your favourite number? 3 and its first 3 multiples

31. Who was the last person you talked to? My brother, when I passed him the printed material he asked me to print early in the morning for his chess coaching session (he’s a chess coach, yes).

32. Favourite meat? Chicken, because it’s the easiest to be eaten.

33. Last song you listened to? Late Regret by Ong Seong Wu (More than Friends OST). I even listened to the 1-hour loop on YouTube while editing my screencaps last night. And it took longer than the editing process so I also listened to the video with hangul and English lyrics afterwards. I am more comfortable with hangul than the romanisation so I guess my pathetic Korean lessons paid off.

34. Last book you read? I can’t even remember the last time I read a book. Probably mid last year?

35. Favourite day of the week? Saturday.

36. Can you say the alphabet backwards? Haven’t tried 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

37. How do you like your coffee? Latte. But I am not a coffee drinker and only started drinking occasionally this year due to the amount of work I had to put in during the first half of this year (yes, even during the pandemic)

38. Favourite pair of shoes? I only have 2 pairs of shoes to even have any favourite. 1 pair for work and another for casual wear.

39. Time you normally get up? Half past 6 if I have to go to the office. Otherwise, I’ll wake up for morning prayer and continue sleeping until half an hour before I have to clock in. On weekends, I continue sleeping until closer to 10 o’clock. If I stayed up the night, probably closer to noon.

40. Which do you prefer, sunrise or sunset? Sunset all the way, because it’s the beginning of my favourite time of the day. Yes, I’m a vampire who loves the night. I also love necks

41. How many blankets on your bed? One and only. It’s too hot to wear even a thin blanket but it gets cold around 3 am so I have to be prepared.

42. Describe your kitchen plates. I like the design of Portmeirion table set from the early 2000s.

43. Describe your kitchen at the moment. It’s not photography material, but it’s not dirty or messy or anything.

44. Do you have a favourite alcoholic drink? I don’t drink.

45. Do you play cards? No. I don’t play anything that requires other people to join me (yes, I am a lone ranger).

46. What colour is your car? The Nissan partner and distributor in my country calls it Dark Metal Grey. It does look nice.

47. Can you change a tire? I can, but I wouldn’t. With free towing service, why should I bother?

48. Your favourite state or province? I was practically born and raised here so I cannot pick a favourite.

49. Favourite job you’ve had? I would say my previous job, because our team had a fantastic working relationship, and everyone was crazy enough to entertain my antics as the maknae.

tagging: @kdramastuff (I know you don’t do this stuff but I just wanna tag you :p) @becausenothingtodo @aromaticcedarwood @dramaintherain @dohyunsoo @kuronekonerochan @park-joonyoung @psalm40speakstome @myechoecho @ambedoanxiety @outside-seoul (that is 10 tags right because I only tag the first one to annoy her :ppp)

#i got tagged #tagging stuff #tagging game #tag game #I don't remember how to tag this lol #personal

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nellie-elizabeth · 4 years ago

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Supernatural: Despair (15x18)

I'm having an out of body experience, I cannot believe this. Last night was legitimately one of the weirdest nights of my life, and not just because of *gestures broadly* but also because of *gestures broadly* and myriad other small but still totally bizarre personal things coming at me from all angles... strap in, y'all, I've got some shit to say.

Cons:

We're gonna talk about it. Ohhhh, we're gonna talk about it. But let's start with some other shit before we get there.

So... are we ignoring "Dean was willing to let Jack sacrifice himself" or something? Like there was that moment with Sam and Dean where they talked about it, and Dean apologizes for pulling a gun on Sam, and Sam is like "oh it's okay Dean, no worries." But at the beginning of this episode, Dean seems to be just as worried for Jack, and as protective of him, as the others, with absolutely no acknowledgment of what happened in the last episode. This... should have mattered. There should have been some regrouping and some serious talks about this. Seriously.

The Thanos snap thing... guys, when Infinity War did it in 2018, it was kind of fun and shocking and cool, and we knew the deaths wouldn't be permanent but it was still wild to watch our heroes react to such an immense loss and then leave us all in limbo for a year. This... is not that. The sheer tone-deafness of having this episode contain a moment of domesticity for AU!Charlie and her cool egg-making girlfriend Stevie, only to have Stevie vanish... and then to end the episode with the biggest queer-bait/bury your gays moment imaginable... like...

Okay, sorry, no, saving the Destiel thing until I've sorted out the rest of this nonsense. The point is, seems pretty clear that the deaths in this episode (other than Cas') are temporary, and Supernatural already has the biggest power creep problem of any show I've ever seen... they really couldn't think of another way to up the stakes for the ending, other than doing the thing where everyone gets killed? Didn't... Crowley... already do this to them several seasons back? Am I hallucinating? There's nothing new under the sun with this show.

Why does this show introduce things and resolve them in a single episode? Like, big, huge things? We just figured out Death was trying to double-cross them, and now by the end she's dead? This show either limps along and does nothing, or speeds through plot stuff at lightning-speed. These last two episodes were big and dramatic and full of Plot but in a way where it all feels kind of unreal. Pacing issues like whoa.

And speaking of. Ahem. Okay. Let's... let's do this. I have some things about the Destiel scene that I'm going to put in the "pros" section below, and hopefully as you read on you'll understand why it's really hard for me to be black and white about it. If I had to, if I had to determine whether I am "happy" or "sad" or "grateful" or "angry" I'd say... sad and angry, 97%? Like? Let's dive in, here.

Setting aside the larger context, a couple of smaller notes:

Acting-wise, what the fuck was Jensen doing in this scene? Misha was acting his whole heart out and Jensen gave him nothing to play off of. I don't understand how Jensen accidentally played Dean so obviously in love with Cas all this time, and then in this moment, no-homo'd it so fucking hard. Even the stage directions in the script page that was floating around said that Dean didn't reciprocate. That's dumb, like, in a shipping sense it's disappointing, but also... Dean, what was your face doing while Cas gave his whole monologue about how amazing you are? What a great and loving man you are? Even if he hadn't ended the whole thing by saying "I love you" and then dying right in front of your eyes, surely you would have been feeling some kind of way about the whole situation?

Also, the scene was shot so awkwardly, there was too much space between them, and then Cas pushes Dean out of the way and he just sits there on the floor with Pikachu-face while The Empty opens up and takes Death and Cas away, making these weird shocked noises... Supernatural often has awkward pacing when dramatic things are happening in action scenes, where certain people have to stand still like it's not their turn on the initiative order in a D&D fight or something, and this was one of the more embarrassing and awkward examples of that.

Cas' deal with The Empty has not been brought up practically since it happened. Cas has been sidelined as a character a lot this season, the past couple seasons, really, but we had this hanging over our heads, right? When Cas says "I've figured it out, true happiness isn't in having, it's just in saying it", the moment doesn't really work on a character level, because we didn't get to see Cas do any of that figuring out. We didn't know he was curious about his true happiness, we didn't know it was an internal struggle/debate for him, wondering what it could be. A lot of Destiel people wanted it to be Dean confessing his love to Cas, and that being the true happiness... but of course that would never happen in a million years. Others thought it would be "yay we defeated the big evil, we can all be a happy family together," oh snap, I'm too happy, goodbye. Which would have been... weirdly anticlimactic, but at least would have made some level of narrative sense. This idea that telling Dean how he feels would bring Cas peace is... well, it's okay, it's fine in isolation, but there's no buildup to it, no tension to his moment of "realization."

And now to fry some bigger fish...

Let's forget about the fact that we never thought this would happen to begin with. Is it actually... worse that it did? Seriously, queer angel man confesses his love to stoic human man who stands there without making a single expression, and the act of confessing said love, knowing it's not reciprocated, knowing he won't get to be with Dean or even be near him ever again, is enough to make Castiel so truly happy that he's willing to die peacefully and forever, all in the act of saving Dean's life? Is that not... like... textbook homophobia? People toss around "bury your gays" a lot and I think what they're missing is that the trope doesn't automatically apply just because a queer character dies. It means a queer character dies because of their queerness, or they are revealed to be queer but can't get any measure of happiness and then they die immediately. This is textbook that. The act of confessing his GAY LOVE is what KILLED CAS. It's a one-to-one sequence of events. It's not a coincidence that Cas died right after saying this. Saying this is what made him die. That's... appalling. Truly, in a very real sense, it's appalling.

Another thing I haven't seen people talk about much is the manufactured nature of this sacrifice. We just found out Billie was going to turn on them at the end of the last episode. If Cas was going to die in a sacrifice-y way, did it have to happen now when Billie was basically just knocking on the door trying to get at Dean for a last-minute revenge thing, even though Billie was already at death's door? This was so contrived, like, can Cas not whoosh them away to somewhere else? Keep them running until Billie succumbs? I get that it wouldn't have been easy, and maybe Billie could have caught up to them anyway, but my point is, they manufactured this moment to be "the only way" that Dean could survive, making Cas' sacrifice so noble and necessary or whatever... but I was sitting there thinking there's got to be another way. If they'd wanted to write in another way, there could have been. The inevitability felt so very contrived. And, as mentioned, the impact of dying on this show has lost all meaning, so even Billie trying to kill Dean, squeezing his heart in his chest, did absolutely nothing for me. I knew he'd be fine, because there are two more episodes left. And if Cas hadn't been there to do what he did, Dean would still have been fine because he's Dean. Am I making any sense?

We have two more episodes left. I am... fairly confident Misha won't be in those episodes. All context, both within the show and without, points to that. I truly think that after all this time, he gets the only ending in the whole show that's unambiguously unsalvageable and tragic. We have a world where the afterlife exists and people can hang out there, but The Empty is a different beast, and this means Cas is... gone. Permanently. Like, his consciousness no longer exists, he's caput. They could bring him back from The Empty, in fact, they've already done it once... but if they decide not to, that's just... where we leave things, and that's brutal and unnecessarily grim. The other characters, even if we get an end-of-show TPK (which would be STUPID, more on that later), could at least have canon or implied-canon reunions in the afterlife. If we don't see Eileen again, we can get the implied ending of her coming back to life, or Sam dying and joining her in Heaven. Same with Charlie, with Charlie's new girlfriend, with Bobby, with Donna, with every other character that's died along the way, including Mary Winchester and OG Charlie, OG Bobby, whatever you want. The fact that Cas gets this, after everything, is truly the part I'm the most sad about, setting aside love confessions entirely.

So as I said, two more episodes. I'm worried that Cas dying is gonna get swallowed up with everyone dying and not get its due, thus making the confession completely isolated. Like, here you go, gays, have this one scene, which, in isolation is quite heartfelt from Cas' perspective, but can be carefully boxed up and not touched for the last two hours of the show. If they don't want to touch on how this would affect Dean specifically, they don't have to. He can be generally angsty and sad about Cas, but they could get away with never bringing it up again, and that is some grade-A level bullshit right there, my friends. At minimum, Dean needs to tell Sam about this. He probably won't, but he should, if the show has any sense of integrity left in its bones.

Ahem. Like I said, I have... lots of thoughts. More on Destiel later, but let's turn to the "Pros" section and talk about some other aspects of this incredibly crowded episode.

Pros:

Despite my issues with everything that didn't get resolved re: Dean letting Jack die, I did kind of like the "to somehow" scene, because it was a nice little breather for the brothers, it solidified them as being on the same side to the bitter end, that despite all the crazy shit they've been through, that they've put each other through, they'll have this as a bedrock at the end of the day. I'm not a brothers-only sort of fan, at all, in fact, I think a brothers-only ending betrays most of what's beautiful about this show in its good moments. But they are the stars, they are the protagonists, they should be the center of their own story, and I like it when we get check-ins like this, that shows how unshakable they are underneath all the other crap.

Charlie and Stevie... okay, cute that their names are like that, cute that Charlie said: "I liked the way she handled herself" and that's how they got together... eggs are cute, whatever... and if these deaths are impermanent, which... come on... they have to be, I do like that Charlie gets to have a girlfriend and be happy as a hunter and as someone's partner.

I liked the tense car ride with Sam texting Eileen, with Dean, Jack, and Cas all silent in the car with him... that was a nice moment of solidarity, all of them entirely on the same page about being there for Sam and helping Eileen however they could... even knowing the futility. What were they going to do when they got there? That was a great tension-building moment, in isolation, even though the deaths are likely temporary.

Cas and Jack's talk was good, I'll admit I've definitely been won over by Cas and Sam as Jack's dads... Dean too, once upon a time, but dude needs to do some groveling before he gets to be Dad again, seriously. It's nice that in the midst of all the chaos, there was a check-in moment. Jack is the embodiment of a lot of our end-game themes, here. He had a noble destiny to sacrifice himself, and then it fizzled out and didn't work, and now he's just left in the aftermath, not sure what to do with himself. It was important that Cas tell him that Jack is worthy of love and family, even if he's not "useful" in the way he thought he could be. Definitely nice to have that nailed in.

If we're following the Infinity War/Endgame line, the last two episodes will be majority Sam, Dean, and Jack, but at the last moment there will be a way to reverse it, and everyone else will come back in a moment of triumph. But probably not so much Castiel, which... well... see above complaints. The point is, seeing Charlie, Bobby, Donna, Eileen, etc. all burst forth for one final moment of glory could be really cool, if they manage to stick the landing with it. It'll be an incredibly manufactured sense of triumph and nostalgia, but it will probably work on me because it's been... guys, I don't know if you know this, but it's been kind of an emotional year. :)

I will say, working under the assumption that the dead characters will come back, I'm actually oddly... not mad about Donna dying. It was actually a legitimately shocking twist. A rule was set up: if a person had died before and been resurrected, or if a person was from another universe, they could be Thanos snapped by Billie. Makes sense. Sam and Dean are in danger because of all their deaths, Jack and Cas aren't safe for the same reason. Charlie, Bobby, Eileen... sure. But Donna should have been safe, given the parameters we started with.

And then Dean and Cas are confronting Billie, she says she's not killing anyone, we realize it must be Chuck... and then Donna, who isn't from another world, who has never died... GONE. I gasped.

And the hits kept coming... Billie is dying because Dean killed her with that small wound, and didn't even know it. That's another excellent twist. The past two episodes, back to back, have kept me on my toes about who to ultimately be afraid of. Chuck? Billie? The Empty? It's so much better than this slow march to Chuck vs. Sam and Dean that we've been getting all season, even if we do loop around to Chuck again as the final Big Bad.

The Empty is actually quite a complex, interesting idea for a villain, this entity that doesn't get involved in petty squabbles, doesn't have personal vendettas, but actually just wants to sleep and be left alone. Having Meg be the Empty's face here at the end is also a nice touch. I wish we could have had more of this, truthfully, and I'm curious how The Empty will play a role in how things shake out, if at all.

So... I want to go back to something I've been saying these past couple episodes, about how if this show has a grimdark ending, it will be a betrayal of everything they've set up. It will be so stupid that my anger will manifest in yet another round of hysterical giggles. What I suspect is that we'll get something peaceful, something where trauma will linger but people will get to start anew. Maybe Jack creates a new world outside of Chuck's power. Maybe Sam and Dean take over as God and the Darkness, as some people suggested, and Jack is the new Death. Maybe maybe maybe. Bottom line, I could be satisfied with the majority of this ending, and I can even (obliquely, reluctantly) understand that they wanted one final perma-death to really make the stakes feel higher. If they aren't killing off the Winchesters, that leaves Castiel. So what I'm saying in this paragraph is basically that I'm not guaranteed to despise the ending of this show yet. They could still get it right.

God, that sounds pretty bleak, doesn't it?

Before I end this, I want to talk about, as promised, the few Destiel-related points that I'd classify as "pros", albeit with a big asterisk.

First off, Misha clearly found the moment very cathartic, and he pulled out all the stops, and, in isolation, the confession was hella romantic and quite poignant. Without context, just reading these lines? "The one thing I want, it's something I know I can't have" and "because you cared, I cared. I cared about you, I cared about Sam, I cared about Jack, I cared about the whole world because of you..." like, that's some premium content, I won't lie. I also kind of enjoy the idea that Cas finds happiness in saying the words out loud, in being true to who he is. I hate a lot about what happened to Cas here, but if Cas' arc, in its totality, is about embracing humanity, and Dean is the anchor to that, this really does come full circle. He pulled Dean out of Hell, he saved him, he loved him, he'll die for him, and in accepting that love, that human love, he is finally at peace with who he is. Now, mind my comments above, I'm still not happy, but I can see how in one sense, this is narratively poignant. And if others are satisfied with it, I'm happy for them.

(Added bonus, while Jensen's acting was WACK for the majority of that scene, I did like the ending shot, the silence, him not answering Sam's call, crying silently into his hands. That was very nicely shot and acted, I thought.)

Secondly, and this isn't actually praise for the show, it's more a... meta experience? I have to say, the idea that Destiel became sort of canon, but in the most homophobic way possible, in the year 2020, while we're all still waiting for election results to come in is... one of the wildest, most hilarious things to ever have happened to me. I mean it, last night sitting alone in my house I kept cackling loudly to myself, in complete and utter disbelief. I saw Tumblr explode in a way that hasn't happened in years. I was transported back in time nearly a full decade, to the person I was when I started writing these reviews, or even before that, when I was new to Supernatural, new to the whole concept of being truly involved in a fandom.

Here's the thing... I never. Ever. EVER. Thought we would get any sort of textual confirmation. I thought at most, if they went for a happy ending for everyone, we'd get Dean and Cas as hunting partners, and we could all fill in the post-canon gaps. I once told my sister that I'd be happy with a one-sided love confession from Cas to Dean, because that part was practically canon before last night, and in a way, I am happy. I'm happy that this crazy thing actually happened, and if nothing else, all of those clowns can put away their makeup. I was never with them. I never believed, and there's this sliver of me that's happy to have been wrong. It's completely bogus how it happened, but the fact that we live in a reality where it happened is still kind of tripping me out in a major way. So I'm happy, I'm... flabbergasted, but I'm experiencing a very unique, unprecedented soup of emotions this morning and I never would have felt like this if Cas had died with a no homo parting.

And that's the thing, they let it be unambiguously about Dean, not just in that one moment, but all along, and that's really satisfying in a meta narrative sense that when everyone was reading it as "Castiel is in love with Dean," they were... correct. It doesn't really matter when they decided this, in last night's episode they made it crystal-clear that it wasn't a whim, wasn't a recent development, in-universe. This has been Cas' truth from very, very early on, his entire experience since meeting Dean has been shaped by him, he's loved him all this time. That... I don't know, it's absolutely bonkers that this is all we're going to get, but it does mean something, if you want to let it.

Welcome back to 2012, Tumblr. Last night was a wild ride, I won't deny.

I'm giving the episode a bad score, but I just want to say the Destiel scene gets a simultaneous infinity-out-of-ten and also zero-out-of-ten, imploding the multiverse instantly. That's where I'm at, folks. Insert gif of Chidi dropping Peeps into a big pot of chili. I'm gonna go take a nap.

6/10

#review #supernatural #supernatural review #spn #spn 15x18 #destiel #i'm experiencing actual shock #i keep laughing #but like #you know how sometimes people laugh or smile inappropriately at funerals?#it feels like that

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ranma-rewatch · 4 years ago

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Episode 24: Cool Runnings! The Race of the Snowmen

I cannot believe it’s here. Welcome back to the Ranma Rewatch, and it’s time to finish the Phoenix Pill story arc with this episode. I think. I’m pretty sure. I...do not remember this episode at all, really. Like I said last week, most of what I can recall is from the mockery of a YouTuber I used to follow. But I am unshackled from his opinion! I watch this episode with new eyes! Let us see what sights I shall witness!

...

I should have listened.

I wasn’t prepared for this.

So, here’s the plot. They’re on a snowy mountain. Why? No clue, I guess they just wanted to go skiing. Ranma isn’t skiing, Cologne shows up, they start to fight a little, and she reveals that there’s some competition going on, and the winner gets a date with Shampoo and if Ranma wins he gets the Phoenix Pill.

Everyone gets made because of the date with Shampoo part, even though...like, it’s really obvious that he’s just doing it for the pill. There’s a lot of forced conflict over that, and it ends up being just Cologne vs Ranma. It looks like he’s winning, she offers to make this all about their duel. If he wins, he gets the pill, if she loses, he has to marry Shampoo.

When Ranma accepts those terms, she immediately starts wiping the floor with him, and nothing he does makes a difference. In the end, the only way to win is to get Shampoo’s help. She turns into her cat form, which terrifies Ranma until he starts using Cat-Fu. That is actually able to kick Cologne’s butt, and eventually she gives up and hands over the pill. Ranma turns back to his uncursed state, happy to be cured, but he did it in a women’s bath so he looks like a pervert. THE END.

I’m...going to start by talking about the few things I liked here. I think having Cat-Fu being the way to defeat Cologne is a pretty cool idea, especially since it was that story that began this arc. Little bit of a full-circle thing.

There was a decent smattering of cute Akane stuff, and I like that she once again is the one who can immediately calm down the raging Cat Ranma. Not only that, but the Shampoo stuff wasn’t bad. The episode showed off her more scheming side, as she was happy to use Cologne’s plan as a way to steal Ranma’s affections and get a date from him, but in the end she was also happy to work against that plan just to help Ranma out. Plus, Ranma purposefully playing on her love for him was a pretty classic Ranma thing to do.

That’s all my niceness.

This was, by my estimation, one of the biggest drops in animation quality I’ve ever seen. That episode of Gurren Lagann where everyone is super off model? That looks like that show at its best compared to this episode. There’s just...so little animation, and what we do have is frequently full of errors. It’s an action-heavy episode, too, and none of it looks good.

It was bad-funny at first, but after a while...it just became hard to watch. So much reused animation, so many errors, so much still shots. I am not an animation person! I normally don’t care about any of this! But is actively made watching this more difficult.

It’s also just...an underwhelming way to end the arc. They’re just randomly in the mountains, no reason why. Cologne bets everything on a fight against Ranma, he finds a way to win, here’s the pill. Some of the ideas could have worked, I think, if given proper backing. But there’s just nothing here.

Not only that, but wow the dub was bad here. Not only was this a case where, because I preferred Cologne’s Japanese actress and she was in it a lot it was better, but also because the translation for the dub was terrible. There’s one line change that is so baffling, it turns a kind of okay line into something incomprehensible. I was looking forward to my watch on the sub, if only so I could figure out what had just happened.

Hey, why not, the arc is done, let’s talk about Cologne. Neither of her voice actresses are incredibly well known, but at least her Japanese voice actress, Miyoko Aso, has also been Pinako Rockbell in Fullmetal Alchemist and Shoga from Inuyasha. (She also passed away in 2018, after living quite a long life. Rest in peace.) The english voice actress, Elan Ross Gibson, is also fairly unknown, with her biggest work being as Baba in one of the Dragon Ball Z dubs.

As I mentioned before, they do play the character differently. They’re both going for “wizened old woman”, but Gibson’s Cologne is a lot more...toothless? She mostly sounds tired and bored. Aso gave the character a lot more life, more energy, and it’s that performance that’s working much better for me so far.

As a character, Cologne is...okay. She’s a very old Amazon warrior, the first character to appear who is, flat out, far stronger than Ranma. She serves as both an obstacle, what with the whole pressure point scenario, and a mentor, teaching him his signature move. There’s a sense that as much as she is trying to get one particular thing for him, namely marrying Shampoo, she’s also interested in seeing how he’ll develop, she’s impressed by his potential to grow stronger.

That said, she’s not even close to being among my favorite characters. She’s useful for dispensing exposition or teaching techniques, but her plots to get Ranma to marry Shampoo just...feel kind of boring to me. That’s genuinely all I have to say about her, at least for now. But who knows? Maybe one day my tune will change with this rewatch.

Y’all, I think it’s obvious, but I didn’t like this episode. I have no hesitation saying it was worse that Dr. Tofu’s mom’s episode. But the real question is: is it worse than the clip show? One was basically nothing, the other the active presence of bad. How you weigh one versus the other is a matter of personal preference, but for me, I’m going to say this episode was worse. At the very least, the season 1 finale had the animation from good episodes to show us.

Episode 7: Enter Ryoga, the Eternal ‘Lost Boy’

Episode 12: A Woman's Love is War! The Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 15: Enter Shampoo, the Gung-Ho Girl! I Put My Life in Your Hands

Episode 9: True Confessions! A Girl's Hair is Her Life!

Episode 2: School is No Place for Horsing Around

Episode 19: Clash of the Delivery Girls! The Martial Arts Takeout Race

Episode 6: Akane's Lost Love... These Things Happen, You Know

Episode 13: A Tear in a Girl-Delinquent's Eye? The End of the Martial Arts Rhythmic Gymnastics Challenge!

Episode 23: Enter Mousse! The Fist of the White Swan

Episode 17: I Love You, Ranma! Please Don’t Say Goodbye

Episode 20: You Really Do Hate Cats!

Episode 16: Shampoo's Revenge! The Shiatsu Technique That Steals Heart and Soul

Episode 8: School is a Battlefield! Ranma vs. Ryoga

Episode 11: Ranma Meets Love Head-On! Enter the Delinquent Juvenile Gymnast!

Episode 4: Ranma and...Ranma? If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

Episode 5: Love Me to the Bone! The Compound Fracture of Akane's Heart

Episode 1: Here’s Ranma

Episode 22: Behold! The 'Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire' Technique

Episode 3: A Sudden Storm of Love

Episode 21: This Ol' Gal's the Leader of the Amazon Tribe!

Episode 10: P-P-P-Chan! He's Good For Nothin'

Episode 14: Pelvic Fortune-Telling? Ranma is the No. One Bride in Japan

Episode 18: I Am a Man! Ranma's Going Back to China!?

Episode 24: Cool Runnings! The Race of the Snowmen

But that’s it! The story arc is done, and next week...I can’t believe it. I’m so happy! With next week’s “The Abduction of P-Chan”, we’re starting a little arc I’ve been dying to revisit for ages! If you’re watching it on the Hulu order, then you’ve already seen it, but I’ll talk more about that next time! See you then!

#episode 24 #Cool Runnings! The Race of the Snowmen #ranma 1/2 #ranma saotome #akane tendo #shampoo #Cologne #anime analysis #anime rewatch

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duhragonball · 5 years ago

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youtube

Gonna take a minute and pour one out for Dragon Ball Z Abridged.

I feel bad for Team Four Star, because the series actually ended in 2018, when they published the epilogue to Episode 60, and they seemed kind of uncertain about whether they’d continue or not. The final moments of Episode 60 had a teaser for “Season 4″ (the Buu Arc), which was supposed to be this big confirmation that they were really going to go through with it after all.

But almost immediately after that, they started trying to manage fans’ expectations, talking about doing S4 differently, and releasing the episodes in a different timetable, and probably nothing would actually happen until 2020 or 2021. All I really expected was their treatment of Movie 9 (the Bojack one), since that was next in line, and they seemed fairly confident in their ability to tackle that one movie.

Then came the announcement in 2019 that Bojack wasn’t going well, and then they postponed Movie 9 indefinitely, and now here we are. I feel bad for these guys because they clearly regret that it took them this long to finally admit that they couldn’t go on. Copyright issues are the main logistical reason for ending the series. They’re not a fan group anymore, they’ve been a business for years, and they can’t afford to have their YouTube channel taken down over a show full of IP they don’t own. But that was an issue three years ago. The bigger problem is burnout.

I’ve experienced this before myself, and I could kind of sense it from TFS when Lani talked about how hard a time they were having doing the Bojack parody. They spoke of Bojack Unbound like it was just so impossible to get a good script going, and maybe it is a tough nut to crack, but I just couldn’t help but wonder if the movie was really the trouble. They had several months away from DBZA, only to come back to it and have an even harder time writing new stuff for it. And yet they didn’t want to give up, because it should have been a fresh start, and yet it just wouldn’t come together.

Some naive part of me hopes that they’ll get their groove back and tackle Season 4 one of these years, but I’ve already kind of made peace with it never becoming a reality. I’m more worried for the fate of TFS’ other projects, which I keep hearing about, but I never seem to see. My fear is that their burnout goes beyond DBZA, and they just haven’t realized it yet. I hope not, because they’ve got this murderer’s row of creative talent, and I’m totally cool with following their original stuff.

I guess what I’m really concerned about is that this could happen to me some day. Well, like I said, it already happened to me once, but it was more of a professional burnout, and once I changed jobs and got back on track, I was fine again. I had my internet presence to fall back on as a refuge. They say if you do what you love you’ll never work a day in your life, but that kind of sounds like putting all your eggs in one basket. I like to write, and I draw stuff once or twice a decade, but if that was my job, it would be sheer hell trying to force myself through a period where I just didn’t feel creative. I’ve watched a few TFS videos where I get the sense that there’s been some periods of low morale, where they have this whole brick-and-mortar building where they have to play video games and be funny for a living and they just don’t feel it. And when that happens, where do you go from there? I hope Team Four Star can find an answer.

Anyway, I discovered DBZA back in the fall of 2010, when I was somewhere in Month 2 of a four-month unemployment. There’s some other hard times I’ve been through where looking forward to their next episode helped me get through it, but... I don’t know, burning through those first dozen episodes in 2010 seems to stick out for me. I just liked that there was something new in the fandom. Before 2010, I couldn’t really tell that there was a DBZ fandom at all, so it was a relief to see people who were even more passionate about it than I was. I just really needed to see that at the time. I know there’s other DBZ fans who think Abridged is dumb or jumped the shark a long time ago, but the point is that I probably wouldn’t even be aware of those folks without DBZA. So I’m grateful for that.

I’m also grateful for this. TFS may not have made it to Bojack and Buu, but they got Perfect Cell sworn in as the mayor of Sassy City, Sassyland.

youtube

#dragon ball #dragon ball z abridged #team four star

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millennialdemon · 4 years ago

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the anime based on a game based on an anime: episode 1

1. The protagonist of this grimdark fantasy series being named Ethan is really sending me. Like really Ethan, like a student working in retail for the summer? ETHAN? A list of fantasy names and we chose Ethan. For our gritty fantasy anime based on a game based on an anime, we think uhhh, Ethan is a good fit. ETHAN?

2. The script writing is awful. That first scene after the pointless nightmare where Ethan wakes up and talks to his pregnant wife who is feeding a local orphan? The dialogue was noticeably generic -- Oh honey I’m so glad you’re okay, I had a nightmare but nevermind that I love my pregnant wife. Oh Miss Protagonist’s Wife your cooking is soooo good thank you for feeding an orphan like me! Nonsense you’re a part of this family, you’ll be like an older sibling for my baby! Haha yeah my wife is a great cook! We’re going to go hunting now dear see you this afternoon! What is this, the opener for every mediocre sitcom ever?

I just... it was such a flaccid introductory scene and it told us everything and nothing, in the worst ways possible. We knew everything we needed to know about them by the time the scene was over: Paired with the first scene (which is a prophetic nightmare in which the wife and boy die) it told us immediately that these characters are disposable, but I would argue even without the nightmare proceeding it, that would still have been evident just by how thoughtlessly they are introduced. And then we aren’t told anything else about them once their role of “will die in 15 minutes” is established: We didn’t get a view into their actual personalities beyond being props for Ethan’s also paper-thin character and there was no sense of anyone’s lives outside of what was happening on the screen. There was no development of the setting, of the times, of what their life is like in a meaningful capacity. “It’s a grim fantasy and they are getting by” isn’t nearly enough of a set up for these characters to a) matter and b) not be predictable.

3. And speaking of that first scene of the prophetic nightmare... the handling of “foreshadowing” was even worse than the ultra generic dialogue and cookie-cutter characters dying for man pain. “Foreshadowing” in quotes because it’s not even foreshadowing, it’s functionally just spoilers. When the anime opened on the nightmare of everyone dying I thought, this is so bad, surely this won’t happen, and instead this prophecy of what is to come will be challenged by the narrative and not unfold this way, because otherwise what is the point of showing it to us now?

But no, everything did unfold exactly like Ethan dreamed it would. And an additional kicker, when Ethan and his boy go hunting, he makes some vague “It would be bad if a dragon showed up” comment that is accompanied with a flashback to his nightmare that we just saw not even 10 minutes ago when the episode started. Skip the flashback and sub in a laugh track if the writing is going to be so on the nose!

But perhaps that makes sense, since Netflix got a director (Shinya Sugai) that worked on a grand total of 1 anime before this in 2018, that according to MAL, 66 users watched.

Really though -- How about we get rid of the nightmare entirely and spend that waste of time developing the characters and setting even a little bit, and just have the story go along normally until Ethan and the boy meet the drunk guards at the old fort? Have the boy ask why there are even guards stationed at a fort in this peaceful fishing village, and don’t even answer the question, just leave it in the air. The “pointless” fort EXISTING at all would have been enough to make the audience say “hmmmm, something is fishy here, and no one is prepared for it.”

But instead we get: Prophetic nightmare of everyone dying. Cut to everything being peachy keen and great! See old fort and go ask why they are there and have the captain explain they are there to defend the town from dragons. Have Ethan think Man, it would suck if a dragon showed up! flashback to the prophetic dream we just saw 8 minutes ago Oh shit, is that a DRAGON? I CAN’T BELIEVE IT, MY BEAUTIFUL WIIIIIIIIFE...

If it were even a little bit self-aware, it would be parody.

#:Dragon's Dogma #dragon's dogma

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nazezdha321 · 4 years ago

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parting shot

With this tag game, I want to know the answers to these five (5) questions and then tag 5 or more mutuals. Wasn’t tagged but want to join? Join in ! Everyone is an essential part of this fandom! Name from @ agent.of.shield_ on Instagram ( @agents-of-fangirling ) who had a great idea to post a picture of yourself with a drink (or just a drink) and tag it #partingshot as a finale goodbye to the show (which I also am going to post tomorrow on IG).

I was tagged by @aleksandrachaev, who is probably my best fandom friend (I love you Kat <3). I will be posting my parting shot picture here on tumblr later today as well.

Where were you in life when you first started to watching AoS?

I don’t think I started watching Agents of SHIELD until early last year, or maaaybe late 2018. I was and still am super into Marvel and I had heard some stuff about Agents of SHIELD and wanted to try it. I didn’t get too into the show until season 1 episode 9, Repairs. I fell in love with Melinda May’s character and just had to know what happened to her. I didn’t get into the fic writing part of the fandom until late 2019 and I got my tumblr in early 2020.

Where are you now?

Honestly? I’ve gone through some pretty messed up stuff lately and Agents of SHIELD has been the one constant. Shit has really hit the fan at this point in my life and I’m just grateful that AoS is here to provide me with some much-needed distraction.

What character development arc (or storyline in general) did you love the most?

May. She intrigued me from the beginning I think and after Repairs, I was hooked. I went absolutely insane after Melinda (season 2 episode 17). I finally understood everything that had happened to her, I started drawing parallels - yeah I got really into it. When I (finally) made @mossintheconcrete watch AoS, she can confirm that I literally only talk about that episode. And then watching her grow, watching her make peace with it, watching her change for the better until she ends realizing that she has raised an Inhuman girl (two of them!)... the irony just gets to me every time. And now with her weird emotion superpower thing... well, like @aleksandrachaev texted me: “FULL CIRCLE BITCHES!!!” (yeah I’m never getting over that).

What will you miss the most?

I... wow. Big Question. I think some of the fandom is going to collectively move on pretty soon. Or maybe we’ll wait together for a few years and slowly start drifting apart. People find new obsessions, they leave their old ones behind. And I am really going to miss this fandom when we start fracturing because I don’t move on very well. I don’t really let things go. And I just haven’t come to terms with it yet so I’m just going to hold onto this as long as I can.

Favorite quote?

Hmmm. I think I’m going to have to go with:

“We never have to say goodbye.”

People I’m tagging: @que-mint-tea @springmagpies and @zeeboomblebee if you haven’t done this already :)

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let-it-raines · 5 years ago

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What a Wicked Game {12/15}

Killian met her in a pub on a rainy night in March. Going inside was only supposed to be a way for him to avoid the rain and fight off the demons in his head. It was a place for him to pass through, not stay. But then he was charmed by a blonde woman with a quick wit who had absolutely no interest in him or who he was.

That was a first. It was also the beginning of Emma Nolan helping to bring him back to life. It was the beginning of everything.

Five years later, with their worlds crumbling around them, Killian can’t help but wonder if this is the end of the peace they have known now that his family knows about his relationship. It wouldn’t be a problem if his father wasn’t the King of England.

rating: mature

a/n: thank you to the mods at @captainswanbigbang for running this event and helping to encourage writers to finish their wonderful stories, to @resident-of-storybrooke for reading all these words, and to @captainsjedi for making the beautiful artwork ❤️

ao3: beginning | current

tumblr: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |

-/-

October 19th, 2018

October dawns bright and warm, but as it settles in, the warmth disappears into a chill and the brightness of the sky turns to the gray for which London is often known. Leaves are still in the midst of changing colors, from a dull green to vibrant oranges and reds that contrast the sky, and Emma finds herself staring out the large window in Killian’s bedroom to look at the leaves falling from a tree and drifting through the air until they eventually land on the edge of the roof. It’s been seven weeks since she slept in her own bed and had her parents just down the hall from her, and as weird as it’s been, she’s thankful for this.

She’s thankful that every day she is actively making the choice to be with Killian and to work at adjusting to all of the complications that come with this life.

It’s more than a lot, but as she looks down at her arm and sees it without the ugly white plaster and stretches her arms above her head without any pain, Emma reminds herself that time and a little extra care can heal things. The immediate reaction and pain doesn’t stay. It changes and lessens. Her body is healing, her heart too, and the darkness that surrounded her for all of August seems to have almost been extinguished.

Nothing about this has been easy, but Emma doesn’t want to retreat back and walk away again. She still believes that her reasons were sound, that she had to do it in order to take care of herself and protect her heart, and in a weird way, coming out on the other side has made her thankful for it.

Getting into a car crash and possibly almost dying because photographers wanted a picture of her sitting in a car after they found out about she and Killian’s breakup wasn’t great. She could have done without that. She still could. And she definitely won’t be getting in a car on a rainy night anytime soon.

Her physical scars may be lessening, most of them non-existent now, but she’s not ready for that. She’s not ready for a lot of things, but when has she ever been?

“Darling,” Killian calls out, and she gets a little smile on her face at how much his accent thickens on that word, “do you know where my solid navy tie is? It should be with all of the others, but I can’t find it.”

“Where did you last see it?”

“If I bloody well knew that, I wouldn’t be asking where it is.”

He pokes his head out of the bathroom before walking outside and finishing the buttons on his dress shirt. He looks handsome today in his navy pants and light blue dress shirt, and she really doesn’t see why he needs to wear a tie when he looks fine without it. Royal dress code or something. She doesn’t know. Over the past few weeks as she’s isolated herself in Killian’s apartment at Kensington or wandered over to Liam and Elsa’s to spend time with Elsa, she’s found herself going through guidebooks that Elsa had made when she got engaged to Liam. There are all these rules and regulations from how to cross your legs to what nail polish she’s supposed to wear, and while Emma thinks a lot of it is bullshit, it’s the territory that comes with being in this relationship.

Emma will paint her nails ballet slipper pink and cross her legs at the ankle every damn day if that’s what it takes. What she won’t do is be suffocated by the press and by Brennan.

What she won’t do is make Killian leave his family and break his mom’s heart simply because she couldn’t handle the pressure.

If he wants to leave, if it is truly his decision outside of her, she’s more than happy for them to live their lives in a simpler way where Killian doesn’t have to worry about where his solid navy tie is. Leaving may be in their future, but they’ll cross that bridge when they get to it.

But if they’re staying and doing this, she wants to make the best out of the situation. She wants to work with charities that help empower women and children. She wants to do that for men too, to educate them on the intricacies over an ever-changing world. She wants to do good and be good. This family is insane, the money and the traditions and the vault full of actual tiaras like something out of a movie, but they can use their privilege to do good.

Emma knows what it’s like to not have this kind of privilege, and now she may be in a position to help.

“Cool down, Casanova. No need to get all snippy over your tie. Where are you even going today?”

“The opening of a hospital wing and then I’m meeting with a slew of new security guards to interview.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

Killian arches a brow. “Haven’t you spent enough time in hospitals lately?”

“I meant to the interviews, dumbass. Isn’t this for my security, too?”

Killian fidgets with the neck of his shirt, buttoning and then unbuttoning it so that black tufts of chest hair show. “Aye, but I figured I’d go through the candidates first, and then you could meet the top few to see which ones you’re most comfortable with.”

“I can come with you. It’s really not a big deal. I don’t have any plans for the day.”

“Swan, it’s fine. I promise.” Killian walks over to her and sits down on the edge of the bed next to her before taking her hand and bringing it to his mouth. “This is a dreadfully boring process, and my father is unfortunately going to be there for some of it, though I’ll likely leave the room when he does his own interviews. I don’t - after August, he’s convinced that I can’t pick out my own security team.”

“August was...I mean, he was selling information about us because his dad is sick and can’t afford the surgeries and medication back in America. He was willing to risk prison to save his dad. That’s not something you could have predicted.”

A part of Emma understands the words she’s telling Killian, but the other part of her wants to punch August’s fucking teeth out for making her life hell and inadvertently causing her crash.

“You’ve met Brennan. You know how he can be. I could do everything perfectly, but one screw up that’s outside of my control, and I’m incompetent.”

“Your dad sucks.”

Killian leans his head back with his laugh before leaning forward and pressing his lips to her knuckles once more. “In three words, you’ve managed to sum up quite a bit of my life.”

“I’m magical like that.”

“That you are, my love. That you are.” Killian sighs and blinks at her a few times. She thinks he’s going to say something to her, but then there’s a slight shake of his head and she knows the moment has passed. “Give me a little more time, and I swear I’ll talk to him. Seriously. He and I may never get along, but that’s okay. I simply need him to publicly accept you and to sign off on all of these protection measures for you.”

“Killian, you know you don’t have to do - ”

“No, I do. I will do everything I can to protect you, and if that means I have to have an actual conversation with my father where I don’t leave the room until I get what I want, I will. We’ve missed so much time not talking and not taking action. I don’t want to miss any more.”

Emma leans forward and presses her mouth to Killian’s cheek. “I love you. You should wear the white and navy striped tie instead of the solid one.”

He raises his hand to his forehead as he stands from the bed. “Aye, that’s a good idea.”

“And babe?”

“Yeah, love?”

“If Graham Humbert doesn’t make it to the final interview stage for security, Ruby and I will both be pissed at you. He’s who I want protecting me.”

“That doesn’t terrify me as much as it should.”

“Ruby will be vicious.”

“Eh.”

“I can withhold sex, and you just got that back.”

Killian mock gasps, placing his hand over his heart. “You’re a liar, Emma Nolan. I know you find me too attractive to ever do that.”

He catches the pillow she throws with annoying ease, and she hates him for it.

(Not really.)

After Killian leaves, Emma falls back into bed and thinks that she’ll spend her day watching Netflix or doing something else as equally lazy. What better way is there to spend her last day of being twenty-five?

None.

But that lasts approximately two episodes of a show before guilt nags at her, and she’s moving the covers off of her legs and standing from the bed with a frown etched on her lips and the idea that she needs to clean something. Cleaning is not at all her thing unless she’s working at the pub, but she’s been pretty much on vacation (if vacation included recovering from a car crash and having a million talks with your boyfriend over all of the problems in your relationship) for two months, and she’s probably genetically unable to not work for such long periods of time.

She’s in a literal palace, even if it’s nothing like any of the movies or shows, and instead of relaxing, she wants to clean up the spots Killian has let go over the past few weeks from not having a maid to aid him in his ridiculously specific cleaning rituals.

What even is her life?

She starts in the kitchen, going through Killian’s fridge and throwing out everything that’s expired or has gone bad, and she quickly moves on from that to vacuuming every rug and sweeping or dusting the places that get missed. It’s a lot, and if it wasn’t for the music that is playing over the system, she’d have quit hours ago. She’s about to quit now when she remembers just how messy Killian’s closet is because of her absolute inability to hang up her own clothes.

They’ve probably had more fights about that than, oh, you know, whether or not the actual King of England wants to behead her or not.

(Currently, they’re leaning more toward him wanting to lock her away in a dungeon so she can’t cause any more unintentional media frenzies. It’s apparently less dramatic than a beheading because at least she gets to live...this is a weird train of thought.)

Emma’s phone starts ringing, and she pulls it out of her pocket to answer as she walks up the stairs.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, sweetheart,” David greets. “How are you feeling today? Old? Young? Like your life is over because you’re getting closer to late-twenties than early-twenties?”

“You are the most encouraging person alive.”

“I try.”

Emma chuckles and turns down the hallway to go into the bedroom, picking up her bra from where Killian must have tossed it last night and placing it in the hamper. “I’m fine. Killian’s at work opening a new hospital wing, apparently. I’m cleaning. How are you? What are you guys up to today?”

“I’m sorry. Did you say you were cleaning? Are we sure that you don’t have a concussion?”

“Your dad jokes are not good.”

“Every joke I’ve told since the day you were born has been a dad joke, and they’ve all been fabulous.”

She groans and walks into the closet before placing her phone on the table in the center of the room and putting it on speaker so she can do a little work before she loses momentum.

“I’m taking your dad joke privileges away, and to answer your question, I really am fine. I’m just messy, and Killian hasn’t had any of his usual staff in the apartment while I’ve been here. I think the whole August thing freaked him out so that he doesn’t trust anyone around me.”

“Someone close to him was selling information about you that harmed you. I’d be freaked out too. Hell, I am freaked out. If I wouldn’t get arrested for assault, I’d confront the guy.”

Everyone she loves wants to punch everyone who has hurt her, but they all stop themselves because of the fear of getting arrested for assault…she’s not sure if that’s flattering or concerning.

“What are you and Mom up to today?” she questions again, wanting to change the subject. She doesn’t want to talk about all of the shitty stuff that’s been happening to her lately. All she wants is to pick up all of her sweaters from the ground and figure out which ones need to be washed. Focusing on the bad is not how she’s going to move forward.

(And maybe not having to see August Booth’s face.)

“Your mom is downstairs with Will going over some possible menu changes, and I’ve been told I’m not allowed in the pub until I fix whatever is up with this toilet.”

“Ah, so you called me to procrastinate on doing that?”

“You know me so well.”

Emma fills in her dad on everything that’s been going on over the past few days. She tells him that her arm almost doesn’t feel weird anymore and that Ruby came over for dinner two nights again and brought Graham along with her. David is nearly as shocked by that as she was. This might be the longest relationship Ruby has ever had, and it’s good to see her so happy. It’s good that Emma likes Graham in that he’s dating her best friend and also might be protecting Emma’s life from now on if his next round of interviews goes well. In return, her dad gives her far too much information on the date he and her mom went on last night, and then he spends at least ten minutes talking about the difference in two brands of tomatoes.

All the while Emma has almost the entire closet (seriously, her dad talked for way too long and gave too much information about the date like he was talking to a friend and not his daughter) cleaned up. When she moves a pair of jeans that are on Killian’s side of the closet, she finds his solid blue navy tie he was searching for earlier.

“Ha,” she mumbles before reaching down to grab the tie.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says to her dad before tugging on the tie and pulling it up only for a small black box to roll out of it and tumble down onto the ground. “Holy shit.”

“Emma, are you okay?” David asks, but Emma barely hears him over the pounding of her heart. There might as well be an entire drumline in the room.

“Emma?”

“Y-yeah,” she lies even as her fingers tug so tightly on the tie that it might tear. “Hey, Dad? Has Killian talked to you about any...future type things?”

“What do you mean?”

Emma huffs and goes to pick up the box. They could be earrings, right? Or a necklace? Or another ring? She’s got a sapphire one she wears on her right hand. Killian has given her a ring before that wasn’t an engagement ring. That doesn’t mean what’s in this box is one. He buys her jewelry, and it’s not a big deal.

Except…

When the hell did he have time to get this?

How long has he had it? What made him decide to get it? When does he plan on using it? Does he still plan on using it after their breakup?

“You know what I mean. Has he - you know what,” Emma decides, placing the box on the table, “never mind. Don’t tell me anything. I think I’m going to have to call you back later.”

“Whatever you want,” David sighs, confused. “I love you, kiddo.”

“I love you, too, Dad.”

And then the phone line disconnects and she’s left with nothing except for the sound of that damn drumline and the jewelry box that she doesn’t know what to do with. She’s not going to look. She can’t look. There’s no good that would come out of it.

She really wants to look.

Like, really.

“No,” Emma tells herself, grabbing the box off the table and moving to put it back where it must have been before it got tangled in her jeans and in the tie. She puts the tie back for good measure as well, and she’s absolutely going to bite her tongue on bragging about finding the tie when Killian gets home.

He wants to marry her.

She wants to marry him.

Maybe cleaning was worth something.

-/-

Killian comes home that night with grilled cheese sandwiches, which he hates, and onion rings from Ruby’s grandmother’s restaurant, and she doesn’t think she’s ever loved him more.

He tells her that Graham has moved onto the final selections even with Brennan’s hounding and worry over Graham not being trained in the same way as their usual security.

Emma knows that she wants him to be the one who’s hired. She’s not going to trust anyone else, not after everything that’s happened.

-/-

He doesn’t give her any kind of jewelry for her birthday the next day, and she knows what was in the box.

There’s no definite proof, but Emma knows.

Right now, where they are, she’s not ready to get married, but she will be someday. Probably soon. So if Killian were to ask her, she’d say yes over and over again, but the actual getting married part would have to be put on hold until her emotions, Killian’s too, were a little less chaotic.

Love is a really funny thing.

-/-

November 10th, 2018

The cool of the marble pebbles Emma’s skin as Killian helps guide her on top of the counter. His fingers inch over the back of her thighs and up behind her knees where she’s sensitive, and she giggles into his neck while trying to keep herself from bursting into hysterical laughter. Killian keeps the apartment so warm that she didn’t bother to put on anything more than her sleep shorts and a t-shirt last night before going to bed, and she’s regretting that now with every shift over her body over the countertop. But Killian is warm, especially when he steps in between her thighs and she hooks her ankles around his back right over his ass, and every touch of his fingers, gentle and teasing, brings a little more fire to her body.

Especially if he’d stop trying to tickle her while hotly running his tongue down the side of her throat and leaving open-mouthed kisses there.

He’s particularly good at those, and she could spend day after day close to him as he covers her body with affectionate words and delicate brushes of lips that turn into more.

Really, that’s been the last two months, even with her having to wear that atrocious cast for most of it, but they found simple ways to fix that. Being apart and not having those beautiful blue eyes to look into or that laugh to hear after a funny joke was absolutely torture, and having him back in her life, having him back as her person, is something Emma doesn’t ever want to take for granted again.

She will inevitably. It’s human nature. But she doesn’t want to.

Being with Killian is the easy thing. Fighting off the demons is what makes it difficult, but fighting off the demons and conquering them has made her realize that good things often come after struggles that seem impossible.

She’s a sentimental fool now, and she doesn’t care.

(Finding the engagement ring two weeks ago has made her even more sentimental.)

She especially doesn’t care as Killian’s tongue dips into her collarbone and his hands snake up underneath her shirt, warm palms against cool skin in a combination of which she’ll never tire. Emma knows that Killian is a sentimental fool now too. He was before, definitely more than her, but she can see all of the little ways he’s being more affectionate than he was before.

That’s saying something.

But his affection has been obvious lately. In the mornings, she always wakes to him curled around her, hand resting between her breasts and chin nuzzled into the back of her neck. That’s not how they sleep, not usually, so she knows that he does that when he wakes up in the morning while she’s still sleeping. He’s always touching her - hands intertwined, arm around her waist, ankles hooked together - like he’s looking for constant reassurance that she’s real.

That they’re real.

Killian has gone to war for her on multiple occasions, and she has seen the intensity and the fighting spirit that he possesses. She watched him break down over her accident and watched him absolutely vilify every single press association that was involved in that incident or any of the ones that have attacked her in the past or stolen private information from her. She’s watched him deal with the Neal interviews that seem to keep coming despite their falsities, and she’s watched him do absolutely everything that he can to protect her.

Emma never wanted protection or help. She thought that it made her weak to not be able to handle things on her own, but that was wrong.

All of it.

People are going to tell you who you are your whole life. You have to punch back and say “no, this is who I am.” If you want people to look at you differently, make them. If you want to change things, you’re going to have to go out there and change them yourself. Because there are no fairy godmothers in this world.

But there are supportive partners who punch back with you or stand to the side and cheer you on when you need it the most.

“I hate these bloody shorts,” Killian mumbles into her skin as the deep timbre of his voice vibrates down her spine. “I seem to both want you in them and out of them all at once.”

“That’s quite the conundrum you have going on, Jones.”

Killian chuckles before nipping at her jaw and pulling back so that she sees his eyes are blown black. “You are the conundrum, Nolan,” he softly says as his thumbs ghost over both of her nipples, slowly but surely bringing them to peaks. “It’s a funny thing. I seem to always want you. I want you in the mornings, at night, in the middle of the damn day…”

Emma hums while pleasure continues to curl between her thighs, and she wraps her arms loosely around his neck, playing with his hair and running the gemstone of her ring down the back of his neck. “Tell me more about this wanting me in the morning thing.”

The look on his face is positively dirty, and it’s exactly what she wants. So when his hands leave her breasts and move to take her shirt off, she stretches her arms in the air and allows him to undress her until the warm air of the heater is touching her skin. Killian shifts against her so that she can feel his length brushing against where she wants him, a perfect fit in a position that shouldn’t be comfortable, and she melts at his touch as the roughness of his unshaven scruff scratches against her neck and down her sternum to be between her breasts.

“You’re a damn temptress,” he mutters, voice deep and raspy with sleep still lingering. “I wake up and see the smoothness of your skin laid out before me, and my mind is only filled with thoughts of you. I’ve never wanted someone like this.”

“Funny thing, I feel the same way.”

“Do you now?” His fingers tug into her shorts and her underwear, and she lifts her hips as he pulls them down and off of her ankles so that she’s left bare before him, the marble chilling her skin has goosebumps pop up and spread over her.

“I do. Most definitely. You’re quite the catch.”

Killian laughs as he captures her lips, so soft and pliant and warm, with her own. There’s something to be said for kissing just for the sake of kissing, the feeling it sends through her body, and when Emma gently runs her tongue across his bottom lip, asking for entrance, he gladly grants it, tangling their tongues together in one of his favorite dances. She’s definitely picked a partner who knows what he’s doing.

Emma runs her hands through the hair at the nape of his neck and keeps her hand anchored there while the other runs up his spine, soft little taps of her fingertips against the bone underneath his shirt. They stay that way for awhile, lips moving together, until Emma’s hand leaves his hair to move underneath his shirt as well, pulling up at the material until he pulls back and tugs it over his head.

“I feel like we’re on a little bit more equal footing now. You were wearing too many clothes.”

“Was I? I hadn’t noticed. I was a little bit distracted by how unsanitary it’s going to be for us to fuck in the kitchen.”

“That’s literally never stopped you before.”

He huffs and leans forward to kiss her, slow and so impossibly thorough that she feels it all the way down to her toes. “I know,” he grins. “Are you okay up there, or do you want to move upstairs?”

“As long as you don’t hit my head into a cabinet, I’m fine.”

“You’re so beautiful, my love,” he whispers against her skin, kissing the tops of her breasts as her eyelids flutter closed and she recovers from the whiplash in the change of his tone. “I remember the first time I saw you, Emma,” he speaks into her skin as his nose drags along her stomach and arousal tugs at her belly. “You were – are so bloody gorgeous, the curls of your ponytail framing your face and the dark of your eyelashes looking down at me as you told me to get my soggy ass out of the booth.”

“I didn’t say that,” she protests, running her hand through the hair and tugging him down closer to where she’s desperately aching for her.

There’s something about the night that they met that Killian always thinks about. It’s a frequent remembrance, this conversation one they’ve had before, and Emma knows that in moments where Killian is nostalgic, where he’s thinking about how much she means to him, his mind goes back to that night and piecing together all of the circumstances for their meeting.

She doesn’t care how it happened. Just that it did.

No one was ever supposed to love her or treasure her like this. This wasn’t supposed to be how it is for her. She wasn’t supposed to get the good guy. It wasn’t in the cards.

Life has apparently decided to deal her a new hand altogether.

“But you were thinking it,” he whispers against skin, lips pressing against her small tattoo and lingering there. She thought getting that might be a mistake, that the desperation was too much, but over the past few weeks, Killian has held onto it like a glimmer of hope. She did the same. “You looked so frustrated with me, like how dare I walk into your pub in order to get out of the rain.”

“Shameful, really,” she teases, and when she opens her mouth to say something else, she can’t, her throat suddenly too tight to speak while the entirety of the English language escapes from her brain.

Killian’s hands hook around the back of her knees, and this time there’s no playful teasing. Instead, he spreads her legs further apart and bends down to his own knees. She’s about to make a joke about him not hurting himself, a tease over his twenty-ninth birthday last month and how dramatic he was over being nearly thirty, but then he’s kissing her exactly where she wants him, where she needs him.

His tongue drags roughly against her like a perfected routine, and Emma’s eyes tighten. She can’t bear to open them, but then she does and sees the dark mess of hair between the paleness of her thighs. Even more than that, she sees the blue of his eyes under the hood of his eyelid, and she wonders if today is going to be the day that this is all too much for her.

Never.

Killian shifts underneath her, his right hand leaving the curve of her knee to join with his tongue as he kisses her and kisses her and kisses her. Moans filter between them, hers and his, and the tension could be cut with one of the knives that’s in the drawer beneath her ass. It’s all too much - too much pleasure and want and love - and when he slips two fingers into her and curls them, she gasps out his name as a chant that never seems to stop.

“Magnificent,” he mumbles, the sound of his voice like liquid fire in her veins. “Bloody magnificent. Your noises, my darling. Fuck.”

There’s something about knowing that Killian is as affected by things like this as she is, even if he’s the one giving all of the pleasure, and that with the combination of his mouth moving over her bundle of nerves and his fingers moving within her as her falling apart little by little, like the waves cresting onto the shore.

Damn.

Killian presses a kiss to where she’s still fluttering before moving to her thigh, light touches that are nothing more than a blink, a whisper. When he rises from the ground, he grunts, probably from having his knees pressed into hardwood for so long, but she doesn’t think about that for too long when she can feel him hard against her and pressing into her thigh. “Mmm,” Emma hums, pulling herself up and tugging Killian closer to her so that she buries her face in his neck, kissing the straining cord. “You are wonderful.” “Ah, well, that tends to be your reaction after we do something like that.” “Are you fishing for compliments?” “Never.” She chuckles while he does the same, and even without looking, she knows that his eyes are crinkled, joy written across his face.

“Do you want to move upstairs or…”

“Upstairs. Definitely upstairs.”

They move quickly, neither of them in the mood to wait, and while it would have been faster to move to the couch in the living room, this is better. Killian falls back to the bed with laughter on his lips, and Emma immediately hooks her thumbs into his sweats and pulls them down as much as she can before he lifts his hips off the bed to help her out, kicking them off his ankles and onto the floor while she is busy kissing up his thigh, her hand running up his length, feeling the warm hardness in her palms.

“Emma,” Killian moans, voice gruntled. She smirks into his thigh and keeps her hand on his length.

“I am romancing you, Killian,” she promises against his lightning bolt scar before crawling up his body, peppering open mouthed kisses against the trail of his chest hair until she’s leaning over his mouth, her folds teasing him at their hips. “Like you do to me.”

“Darling - ”

“Your eyes, even blown black with desire like they are right now,” she whispers, circling her hips above him to lightly grind down, “are the most gorgeous blue I’ve ever seen.”

She touches his face then, running her fingers over his jaw. “I love your stubble, how it’s black with a little bit of red peppered in, and I love when you don’t shave for a few days and it’s full and just the right mix of soft and prickly. I love the way it feels when you rub it against my cheek in the mornings when you’re waking me up or how it feels against the inside of my thighs.”

She kisses his jaw, running her tongue behind her lips, and the grunt Killian makes curls as little bursts of fire down her spine.

“I love,” she says, running her hands down his biceps as she sits on his lap, right below where she knows he wants her, “the strength of your arms when you hold me, no matter what the occasion. And I love,” she moves her hands through the hair at his chest as Killian twitches beneath her touch, “this hair and how it pokes through the top of all of your shirts. I love the ways that your eyes crinkle when you’re truly smiling.”

I love that you love me enough to want to marry me, she thinks to herself before saying. “I love that you fight for me every day no matter the circumstances.”

She rises on her legs and scoots forward, guiding him to her entrance before slowly, slowly, slowly sinking down onto him. It’s a perfect fit. Maybe not physically, but emotionally, and Killian’s hands grapple for her hips, nails digging into skin. She doesn’t think he’s ever been this quiet for such a long period of time during sex.

“And mostly, at least for our purposes right now, what I love is the feeling of you inside me, thick and full and perfect.”

At that, she starts to move, rolling her hips against him, and it feels so goddamn good that her brief stint as the verbose one in the relationship has ended and Killian is the one to start muttering words of encouragement and curses that would have anyone blushing. She sets a slow, unhurried pace that she knows will draw out pleasure, but Killian doesn’t let her do that for long before he takes control of their movements, speeding up the pace as he thrusts up into her. She lets out a whimper as he hits the exact right spot, and Killian captures the next one with his mouth, kissing her like a man starved of affection and like it’s not ten in the morning.

Suddenly, Killian grabs her hips and rolls them over to change their position, his body encasing hers. He mutters a “bloody fuck” when she clenches her thighs to try to keep him from slipping out, and Emma throws her head back with laughter even if she shouldn’t.

Killian nips at her neck, but she can feel his smile too.

He must be able to tell that she’s getting close, rising higher and higher to her peak, because he releases her hips to grab her wrists, sliding his hands until their fingers are interlaced above her head. He tilts his hips so that his thrusts catch her clit. Her breath hitches and her legs wrap around his backside, and Emma might actually melt. She thinks that she has. Her limbs are all jelly, and Killian isn’t much better above her.

This is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

There are a million things they should probably do today, but they never seem to move away from bed besides getting food from the kitchen. That’s what she’d been trying to do this morning when Killian distracted her, but she’s not going to complain. This is good and nice and Emma could wrap herself in these blankets and in Killian for the rest of time.

When she wakes later, it’s to the slap of a hand to her skin, and Emma immediately flinches and jolts up, blinking into the darkness.

“Ow, shit, Killian. What was that for?”

“I was just making sure you’re here,” he mumbles, voice groggy.

“By slapping me?”

“Killian,” a voice says, and Emma realizes that Killian is on the phone. He might not even realize he’s on the phone. “Killian are you there? “Killian, have you heard a single word I’ve said?”

Liam. He’s talking to Liam.

Holy shit. Why is Liam calling him in the middle of the night?

“I’ll be honest, no. I’m still mostly asleep.”

“Asleep my ass,” Emma mumbles before reaching over to put the call on speaker phone so she doesn’t have to keep straining her ears to hear him. Killian grumbles something, but she ignores him as she settles herself underneath his arm. “Liam, what’s wrong? Is everyone okay?”

“Elsa is in labor, and we sent all of our nannies home for the night. Can the two of you watch Alex for us?”

“Of course,” Emma sighs. “Bring him over when you guys leave, okay?”

“I will, lass. Thank you.”

“It’s not a problem,” Killian promises, finally waking up. “Congratulations, brother.” At that, the line goes dead, and Emma immediately moves to get out of bed only for Killian tugs her back into him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Emma raises a brow and motions down to the distinct lack of clothes on both of their bodies. “I know Alex is about to have a sibling, which is definite proof of his parents having sex, but I don’t want to be the one to have to explain why his uncle was having a naked sleepover with me.”

“Really? You don’t want to explain sex to a toddler? Shocker.”

She huffs and leans forward to brush her lips over his forehead. “Congratulations on being an uncle again, babe.”

Emma hears his swallow as his head nods up and down in affirmation. “Thanks, love. Let’s go put on some clothes so we don’t scar the lad.”

-/-

The next chapter is technically the last official chapter. How is that even possible? Thank you all for coming along for this ride ❤️

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