#we are literally fighting in germany to keep our rights and to make sure the far right does not get into ANY leading positions

[gaysidesalad]

Unrelated but I'm mad

People arguing whether Elon musk did the H*tler salute, but he OPENLY SUPPORTS Germanys FURTHEST RIGHT legal political party

(you know, where all the Nazis go when they wanna be in the parlament)

And he said they're the only way Germany can be saved?

Like... Germany has had a good middle to left political streak these past decades, we're not doing bad, and you wanna go back to fachism? The thing that destroyed half of Europe and killed millions the last time Germany had it?

AHRGH I CAN'T WITH THIS GUY

[alpaca-clouds]

Why Democracy is Failing

Okay, let me talk about something a bit more drastic this week. Left wing politics and things along those lines - and a very central point: Democracy is failing. It is. Whether we want to see it or not. It is failing in the USA, and it is failing over here in Germany as well and several other countries. And... I am here to tell you, that this was always wanted.

Now, before I say anything else, let me recommend you the Podcast SceneOn Radio, especially the season "The Land that never has been yet", which deals centrally with democracy in the USA and how the USA never have been constructed to actually be democratic. It also deals with how these things interact with civil rights, but also all sorts of marginalizations.

See, here is the thing: Democracy had to be won from feudalism. And the thing we kinda are being kept from, is who won it and who implemented it.

The people in power were not "defeated". Yes, some people lost their heads (literally), but for the most part... democracy was not won. It was put in place by those people in power, who realized that the chance would be coming, whether they wanted it or not. So, they "relented" by being the one to offer democracy - but under the terms and conditions that were in their favor. Or to put it blatantly: They created a democratic system, which helped them still holding power over more people.

It is no accident that a lot of the early democracies either gave voting rights exclusively to the people owning land - or gave them otherwise more power. With people having to fight to get voting rights for everyone. It is no accident that voting rights for women and marginalized groups had to be fought for differently - and still are often taken away.

And what we see right now is just an effect of that. Even right now people of the owning class hold more influence. You will find that in basically all governments around a large chunk of the government itself is filled with people of the upper classes. Important politicians are from rich families, often from "old money". Folks of the "but what could a banana cost? 100 dollars?!" variety, basically. It is just much harder for people from other classes to make it in politics. Because getting oneself involved in politics takes both time and energy, things not readily available if you have to work 40+ hours in a normal job, while also taking care of your family.

Meanwhile politicians and also the parties are depedent on money. Both to advertise themselves, but also just to keep the lights on. And that money comes mostly from big companies, who know very well how to get around those regulations on how much they are allowed to give to politics and such. And of course this money is given with some strings in place. They want favorable regulations for their company or their industry.

Democracy cannot work like that. This is no "rule of the people", it is the rule of the rich. It is a plutocracy. And it was always meant to be that.

Could it be worse? Sure.

But... I mean, just in Germany. Most people are for the end of coal, but the government ignores them. Most people are for speed limits on our highways. But they are ignored. Most people support queer rights. Most people are for the expansion of worker rights - and guess who gets ignored. Heck, even most people are at least neutral, if not outright favorable towards immigration, but...

[positivlyfocused]

When A Nazi Salute Is, Isn’t, Then Is Again

Elon Musk is keeping the body politic guessing. He’s keeping others enraged and some others gleeful. People, generally, are going nuts about his latest gesture. Indeed, with Trump coming back into office, a lot of people are feeling really, really insecure. Meanwhile, the media are making advertising bank stoking fires of that insecurity.

Indeed, there’s no better time than now to see how powerful beliefs create reality. In seeing how powerful they’re playing out in current events, we as individuals can benefit from those examples. We can learn a thing or two, in other words.

How?

By using current events, which are reflections of our collective inner state, as tuning devices, thereby increasing our alignment to what it is we want. Doing that, we can actually become happier. Even while others are in emotional upheaval and with not a thing changing around us.

Let’s use what Elon Musk did last week as an example. Then let’s amplify our clarity and discover how a Nazi salute that was, wasn’t, then was again.

First a disclaimer and trigger warning

This post contains potentially offensive content. Whether you experience it that way depends on your beliefs. If you’re Jewish or progressive and sensitive about the long history of fascism in the world, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND YOU STOP READING RIGHT NOW.

SERIOUSLY, NAVIGATE AWAY FROM THIS PAGE. If you continue reading, and you make disparaging comments in the comment section, you are, for sure, going to be blocked because you can not control yourself. And this work, this Positively Focused practice, requires an extraordinary measure of self control.

Second disclaimer: I don’t have a dog in the fight that is US politics. It doesn’t matter what happens in politics to me because I’m the creator of my reality, not politicians. So while I’m diving into this political moment, the moment itself, and politics in general, are of little interest to me other than as learning experiences.

So I’m totally indifferent about what Elon Musk did. Ironically, because of that, I enjoy a broad perspective from which to understand what happened. What happened and why it happened. So, with the disclaimer down, let’s dive in.

So what happened?

At a rally following the Trump inauguration, Elon Musk took the stage. With great emotion, he expressed how important the past election was. Then he profusely thanked the audience for what he believes was doing the right thing: electing Trump. His thanks took the form of saying “I give my heart to you!”

Either right as or shortly after saying those words, he made a somewhat awkward gesture. With his right hand, he thumped his chest over his heart, then threw his hand outward, extending his right arm completely straight and upward. Immediately after, parts of the world went apoplectic.

The Southern Poverty Law Center said the gesture set off a “firestorm of controversy.” Meanwhile many US Politicians heavily criticized Musk for giving what they described as a “Nazi salute”. Also, according to the Associated Press, many right wing groups embraced the gesture, interpreting it similarly. Austria and Germany both called for banning Musk. And, of course, social media is equally ablaze with apoplectic opinions about Musk’s act.

Musk himself basically responded by saying “guys, give it a break.”

When a client sent me a cartoon depicting the act, it intrigued me. That’s because, as I wrote above in my disclaimer, I’m indifferent to politics. But I had a sense this event might offer a window into how people’s beliefs literally run them. That’s why I took interest.

What I found interesting was, the more I dove into this affair, the more empowered I became about what I know.

Momentum and Nazis

The first thing I did was go watch the original footage. Watching it perplexed me. I know what a Nazi salute looks like and what Musk did was not that. It didn’t surprise me that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an antisemitism watchdog group, agreed. Referring to the gesture, the group said Musk didn’t make a Nazi salute. Rather he “made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm”.

That’s what I saw.

It’s widely known that Musk is on the spectrum. He’s an awkward person. And he often appears uncomfortable in ordinary situations. Being on stage isn’t “ordinary” and I’m sure, for Musk, emotional expressions aren’t either. So what I saw in the gesture was an awkward guy expressing deep relief and thanking his audience in an equally awkward way.

That’s all.

But it doesn’t surprise me that people, especially politicians, went crazy over all this. Think about it. The left has been building up a lot of fear about Trump returning to the White House. Left-leaning, biased media has been doing the same. Individual progressives did the same thing too. Through social media they’ve enrolled a lot of people into the momentum of their trepidation. Their disgust with Trump includes expectations that his authoritarian speech defines the new president as a fascist. Maybe even a Nazi.

Consider all this focus has been underway since Trump’s last term. When a person focuses on something for a long time, that focus creates momentum. Get enough of that going and it will keep going on its own. Before long, that momentum will turn into physical reality. That reality will then prove “true” thoughts and beliefs that person focused on. Then the thoughts and beliefs will no longer be thoughts and beliefs. They’ll be the “Truth”.

Willing stooges 

When that happens, hardly anything will change that person’s mind about what they believe. What’s more, that person will see everything through the lens of that truth. 

So when Musk joined Trump during election season, everyone thinking Trump was a fascist lumped Musk in to that category. As Trump continued with his authoritarian speech, people’s truths were further confirmed. When Trump won, the emotional upheaval among liberals caused those same people to double down on their truths. Truths mainly based on fear-filled future expectations.

When Musk then got on stage and made his awkward gesture, of course liberals, many Jews, Holocaust rememberers, and more would interpret that gesture through their collective memory.

The problem is, a rich and well-documented history supports exactly what a Nazi salute is and what it isn’t. And Musk’s gesture fails the test of history. Furthermore, if some people had an ounce of self-control and reasoning capability they would have seen the difference between Musk’s gesture and a Nazi salute.

Instead, many people live their lives through their emotions. That’s not a good thing. Because when a person lives their lives through emotions, they give a lot of their power away. In other words, they become willing stooges for manipulators. And that’s what we’re seeing with the large number of biased media outlets.

Those outlets make a LOT of money off out-of-control people living through their emotions by triggering those people and keeping their attention on everything going wrong. It doesn’t matter if it’s ACAB, BLM or MAGA.

Here’s the thing: You don’t have to be one of those people!

Your next four years…

If you allow yourself to become one of those people, however, woe unto you. You’re limiting your future.

Allow yourself the empowerment that’s naturally yours, however, and you make your future unlimited. Indeed, the only limits an empowered person puts on the future are those limits which shape a future of their desires, thereby leaving everything else out.

In other words, an empowered person limits their now to include only those things that match what they want to see in the future. By “now” I’m including thoughts and beliefs they think, as well as things they share with others, whether through social media, or through their speech.

We can’t help but limit our future. That’s because our focus, the ability to put our attention in certain places, is only so broad. So whenever we focus, by definition, we’re placing limits. And when we do that, we allow into our experience only those things matching our focus.

That’s why those thinking Trump is a fascist and so is Musk saw only what they saw: a Nazi salute. But it wasn’t a Nazi salute, unless you think it was.

And if you do, well, you’re in for a very uncomfortable four years.

Meanwhile, for others, the next four years are going to be positively astounding. Want to know how? Consider joining this event I’ve planned for March. Have a MeetUp account? Go here.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Let me elaborate on this a bit. It was prompted by all the social history reading of WWII I have been doing on and off the past few months, plus the radio news from the time I have been listening to these past few days, colliding with someone sending me this video:

I know Abraham Piper is well known and popular and whatnot, but this is such an uninformed, simplistic, and baby-boomer take on the situation?

Surely a lot of WWII is due to the heavy impositions of Versailles on Germany, and also its decision to establish the Second Polish Republic (in gross terms, to keep Russia out and Germany down), plus its very dismissive treatment of Japan, and these are very relevant causes to talk about in terms of Hitler's raise to power and totalitarianism in Japan, and subsequent WWII. So, yeah, that way you can say WWI caused WWII. But that doesn't mean that in general the Silent Generation and the Greatest Generation as people caused WWII because they were stupid and war hungry and incapable of thinking of pacific solutions.

France and Britain tried to avoid war as much as they could. They literally "gave away" Austria and Czechoslovakia for the sake of peace, literally and explicitly, with Chamberlain's "peace for our time". But they could not concede Poland as well, not only for its strategic importance, but because of the specific agreement of the creation of the second republic that bound them to do as they did.

De Gaulle insisted for years in conversion of the Army into a fast and heavily motorized force (ironically, the Germans read and put in practice De Gaulle's book). Petain wouldn't hear of it, didn't want to think about it. De Gaulle proposed for France to attack first once war was declared, Petain refused. They built the Maginot line literally to make it a deterrent on attempting war on France by Germany. Vichy France and its refusal to continue the war from the colonies was heavily influenced by the horror of the prospect of war. Only dudes like Churchill and De Gaulle, very proud and choleric were dead on set on never surrendering because they understood the thing to be a fight for survival (I'd say they understood the wavelength in which Hitler's brain was working, because it was in a way a similar one to theirs in its stubborness). And ultimately, they were right. Germany ended up occupying Vichy France, and transporting thousands upon thousands of French men into semi-slave labor for the German war industry.

What about the US? It was honestly kind of surprising the level of smugness in the US neutrality that transpires in these radio programmes until the nazis took over Belgium. Very filled with a sense of superiority in America's peacefulness vis a vis the barbaric warmongering of the Europeans as perceived by them. There was even several declarations in the tone of "we have to remain neutral to preserve western culture within our confines and rebuild when these idiots are done". It is when Belgium is overtaken in a few days that the realization sinks: if France and then Britain surrender, then Germany has two very powerful navies with which to attack the US if they want, while the bulk of the US Navy is in the Pacific and the Panama Channel isn't even finished. Even though Churchill's declaration that Britain will never surrender and if invaded they would move to the dominions (implying the navy would be taken over to Canada) calmed things down a bit, it's only even then that military preparedness begins, but it DOES take the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor for the US to enter the war.

The Allies and the common people dreaded WWII as a repetition or even worse version of WWI, still fresh in everyone's minds.

The US also very much did not want to go to war.

Not even the Italian fascists were keen on going to war. Mussolini delayed entering the war as much as he could, and only did it when French surrender allowed Italy to profit from it, weakened Britain, and showed that Hitler had a confident chance of success (it's also at this time that the official discourse turns from "recovering what is rightfully ours" "defending poor oppressed German people in Poland" "erasing the injustices of the Treatise of Versailles" into "a new European order under the hegemony of Germany").

All pacific solutions led to occupation, plundering, forced labor, and holocaust.

The idea that the Silent Generation and the Greatest Generation were dumb nationalistic warmongers is one of the main thrusts of May 68 and parallel movements, which, you know, being 68, is full on young boomer dominion. The anti-Vietnam war movement did in a way cause an equation between American intervention in Vietnam and US intervention in WWII that leads the same way.

Some baby boomers changed their minds with time into a much more conservative mindset, but didn't change that basic assumption about their parents' generation. In guilt, they idealized the ones they had despised and hated into a venerated generation of unmatched strength, endurance, integrity and all sorts of associated virtues.

The general attitude of the boomer discourse (let it be understood that I'm using boomers as a generalization and not saying that all boomers are like this) to the right or to the left is rooted in all those personal sentiments about the generations that preceeded them, and very lacking in actually listening and trying to understand where were they coming from and what their life experiences were and how they shaped them. Which is very similar to the way the "Millennials ruined the X industry" discourse runs between boomers.

WWII wasn't caused specifically by a couple generations of stupid warmongers incapable of finding pacific solutions to problems. It was caused by the raise of fascism feeding off the disillusion, poverty, hopelessness and emptiness of youth and adults. Thinking that Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z cannot be affected by this is not only baseless, but contrafactual (remember ISIS/Daesh, anyone?), and I believe, dangerous.

There's something very ironic about Baby Boomers trying to shame Millennials and Gen Z by comparing them with The Greatest Generation, because, you know, Baby Boomers as a generation were hugely defined by their violent rejection of their parent's generation as the absolute worst, incompetent, corrupt, hypocritical, rigid, etc.

Millennial: a baby boomer told me I ruined everything :(

Greatest Generation:

[yourvanishinglove]

Every chance you had, you lied, pt. 4 (final main part)

Summary: The reader partakes in the battle between the Avengers, ultimately getting arrested along with Clint, Sam, Scott, and Wanda. But as we know, Steve rescues them. After their escape, the reader has an important decision to make: keep running with Steve and remain a fugitive forever, or go to Wakanda with Bucky and get the help they deserve. 

Warning: Mentions of arrest/imprisonment

A/N: Sorry this is so late again! I was sick over the holidays and then my mom got sick too! This is a great end to this main story, in my opinion. There will be an epilogue in the future. Thanks for all the support in this series. This is the very first series I’ve ever written. :3

The four of you were now fugitives. No matter what Bucky did or didn’t do, the government was after him, and after finding out your true identity, they were after you too. 

Steve and Sam called a few of their teammates and the plan was to escape to Siberia to find out exactly what was happening. To find the person who was framing Bucky. 

You all met in the Leipzig-Halle Airport where a huge fight broke out between Steve’s other teammates. 

You didn’t know any of them and found yourself fighting a bunch of people that you didn’t know. Steve told you just to make sure that you didn’t kill anyone. Apparently, all of these people were friends. 

Steve and Bucky escaped to a jet while you were fighting a red-haired woman, who you learned is Natasha. Right before your chance to escape with the duo, Natasha fired a small disk at you, it latching onto your body, sending an electric shock through your body, sending you to the ground.

She ran after the two, but you were able to claw the disk off of you, stopping the shock. 

Just before you could get up, two webs captured your hands, sticking them to the ground. “What the?” You muttered, looking around. A guy in a red and  blue suit jumped down in front of you.

“Sorry…Mr. Stark told me to.” The guy said, his voice sounding very young. No older than 16. 

A bunch of agents came surrounding you, pointing guns at you. 

“Stand down!” One of them yelled at you. 

“I’m literally already on the ground, dipshit,” you mutter. 

In the distance behind the agents, you could see the jet flying off in the distance. Bucky and Steve had made it. 

The agents arrested you along with Clint, Wanda, Scott, and Sam. They transported you all to a prison that was in the middle of the ocean. The Raft is what you heard them call it.

They took your weapons and put you in a straitjacket. “Is this really necessary?” You asked the guard. 

“Of course it is,” a man with blonde and gray hair stepped in front of the guard. “We heard about your break-out in Germany. You broke tempered glass with your bare hands. Not taking any chances with you.” The man leans over to the guard. “Make sure she’s sedated as well.”

“Yes, Secretary Ross.” The guard nods. 

“You think I’m gonna try breaking out of here?” 

“I have my suspicions. But if you try anything, it won’t be pretty. You’re lucky that you weren’t killed back in Berlin. The United States government would prefer you dead to pay for your crimes.”

“That was HYDRA, not me.” You shake your head. “It’s more complicated than you think.”

“A judge will see about that very soon. Take her to her cell. She makes one move, zap her.” The guards push me forward to a cell, bolting it closed behind me.

***

Y/N’s direct POV

It had been about a week and a half that we were locked up in the Raft. They only took me out of my straitjacket when they gave me food, a guard watching me the entire time. 

I knew how much the government hated me. Even if I didn’t remember my missions as the Crimson Angel, I figured that what I did was horrible. I think that’s the worst part of it all, not knowing who I killed. Whose families I ruined. Whose lives were completely destroyed because of me. 

When they’d shut the lights off at night in our cells, the memory of being in the HYDRA prison would come back to me. Being in that cell alone, with little food or water. I remember being in there for days in the dark. Only for the Winter Soldier to come in and beat me within an inch of my life. 

It was hard not to think about Bucky. It was hard not to be angry. I knew that he was under the same mind control that I was, if not worse, but knowing that Bucky knew everything about me while we were in Bucharest and said nothing…it was too much. 

I remember the day he saved me from the river. I woke up in a dingy apartment on a cold floor, a stranger wrapping bandages around my arm and torso. 

“W-who?” I muttered, completely unable to remember anything before. I had no recollection of where I was, how I got there, or even who I was. Everything was blank. Even the memories of HYDRA.

“You need to stay still.” He said to me. 

“Who are you? Where am I?” My voice was painfully hoarse, each breath I took felt like a thousand needles were piercing my lungs. 

That’s when his lies started. “Adrien. I found you by the river.”

I don’t know why he decided to lie then. Maybe to save me the pain of reliving everything over again, but I’d think I would’ve preferred to know then. At least I would’ve had the right to choose what I could do next. 

I’m interrupted from my recollection when the lights in our cells dim. We all look up, and someone walks out of the shadows. 

Steve Rogers. 

**

*Before Steve broke into the Raft* Steve’s POV

“Steve.” Bucky says to me on the Quinjet. 

“Yeah, Buck?”

“I know you don’t know her. But I need you to make sure you get her out too.” 

“Buck-“

“Please. I’ve put her through hell. I’m the reason she’s in there. One of the reasons she’s who she is.  Please. Just make sure you get her out.” 

“I was gonna say “of course”, Buck.” I smirk. “I’ll make sure she gets out and that she’s safe. And I figured that…she can come with us. To Wakanda.” 

“Really?” Bucky looks relieved. 

“T’Challa wants to help you. He’ll understand her situation too. He said that there’s someone in Wakanda who can probably get rid of those triggers. Both of you can get the help you deserve.” 

“If she can even stand to be in the same room as me.” 

“Look, Buck.” I put my hand on his shoulder. You both have been through a lot, but she wouldn’t have done all of this if she didn’t care about you. I can tell that she’s struggling to differentiate the you that she met in Bucharest and the Winter Soldier. She could’ve run in Germany. But she went through with all this.” 

Bucky nods.

“We’re gonna get you both out of this, alright? I promise.” 

**

Y/N’s POV

Steve breaks all of you out of the cells, taking you out of your straitjacket. “Can’t believe they put you guys in this.” He tosses the jacket. 

“I’m fine. Just make sure Wanda’s okay.” You say. Over the time spent in the Raft, Wanda spoke to you about her past. How she lost her parents at a young age, her development of her powers, losing her brother. Such a sad story for someone so young. 

“Let’s get out of here.” You all make your escape out of the Raft and make it out to the Quinjet. The doors open and Bucky is standing at the entrance. 

You slow your stride, surprised to see him there. 

“Thanks for keeping it ready,” Steve says to Bucky, patting him on the back.

He turn back to you all. “Now let’s go. Ross is probably onto the power outage. Those generators alert the headquarters when activated.” You all rush onto the Quinjet and take off onto an uncharted course where Ross wouldn’t be able to track you.

You look over at Bucky and notice that his metal arm is gone. 

“My god, what happened?” You ask him.

“Stark.” He shrugged. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me. Are you okay?”

You nodded. “Yeah.” 

It was still hard looking at Bucky without getting emotional. You knew a different side of him while in Romania. The person you got to know in Bucharest was someone kind, caring, protective. And you knew that the person in front of you was the same person, but it was hard to separate the two after finding out that he was one of the people who tortured you for years. 

As you all fly on the uncharted course, Clint tells Steve to take him back home. 

“Clint, if you go, then you’ll—“

“I know, Cap. But…my family needs me. And I can’t have them become collateral. I retired because I kept missing things. They need me.” 

“And Cassie…” Scott speaks up. “I need to go back too.” 

“Even if it means you’re arrested.” 

“I’ll take that over the government going after my family.” Clint says.

“Go.” You say. Everyone turns their heads to look at you. “Don’t miss that opportunity. If you have someone who’s waiting for you…you should go.” 

Clint gives you an appreciative nod. 

“Okay…we’ll take you back. Sam, Wanda. What’s your plan?” 

“I’m behind you Cap. It’s not like I can go back home. Don’t have a job waiting for me.” 

“And I’m pretty sure Tony isn’t letting me back into the compound anytime soon.” Wanda says, crossing her arms. 

“Alright. Clint, Scott. We’ll take you back. And then the rest of us…we’re headed to Wakanda.” 

“Wakanda?” You ask. 

“You and Bucky can be safe in Wakanda. They’re offering you both asylum and a treatment. The government can’t come after you there.”

“A treatment?” 

“To help get HYDRA out of our heads.” Bucky speaks up. “They can help us, Y/N.” 

You never thought that you could be fixed. You thought that everything HYDRA programmed in you would be there forever. That every memory you had before HYDRA would never be recovered.

While listening to Clint, you realized that you had no one. No one who was waiting for you back home. You didn’t…have a home. You didn’t have many options. Maybe in Wakanda, something could change.

“Okay,” you nod. “I’ll go.” 

“You will?” Bucky kneels next to you.

“I want HYDRA out of my head. For good.” 

** 

Tags: @vicmc624​

[s1utspeare]

Hi darling

You write such an awesome metas on fictional character so I wanted you to ask that what's your thought on Huo Dao Fu.

😊

AH OMG!!! Your ask could not have come at a better time, cause I have a feeling this man’s gonna be an important part of my next fic, so I really should start figuring him out. He’s SUCH A LIL WEIRDO??? honestly i love him, even though he’s a total Bitch 97% of the time, but I think at heart he’s just Looking For Something, as are all the characters in this show. 

What really interests me about Huo Daofu are his character parallels with Wu Xie, and I think that’s where most of the conflict between them comes in. Wu Xie, whether he means to be or not, is the Focus of Jiumen a good seventy-five percent of the time. Not always in a positive manner, because in Sha Hai they were all about ready to kick his ass, and in Reboot he pisses them off pretty good with his Warehouse Eleven stunts, but there’s a level of attention on him that other members of the families don’t receive, and I think Huo Daofu notices that, and is like “hey wait a minute why is he getting all the spotlight I want some spotlight >:( He’s not even doing a good job why is everyone paying attention to him”

Cause this bitch. THIS BITCH. He tried to be that bitch. He TRIED SO HARD. He went to EUROPE. He went to EUROPE and got a fucking like??? medical degree???? Like he went to GERMANY??? who does that?? not fucking wu xie, that’s who. Wu Xie went and got like a history degree or some shit which was just par for the course. But HUO DAOFU. He was DIFFERENT. He was gonna be THE SHIT. He was gonna be the unabomber of Jiumen, was gonna blow all that shit up and then say “fuck u” and all the future generations of Jiumen children were gonna hear horror stories about how Unique and Wild Huo Daofu was and he was never gonna have to deal with any of them ever again. 

BUT THEN WU XIE DECIDED TO BE PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE AND HE DIDN’T EVEN DO ANYTHING OFF THE BEATEN PATH. HE LITERALLY JUST FOLLOWED WU SANXING AROUND FOR LIKE. A YEAR. AND EVERYONE LOST THEIR MINDS. Like if I had been Huo Daofu and tried SO HARD to be different from everyone else in my generation and then this Dumb Little History Twink kissed a Zhang and found some wild swamp treasure and everyone went nuts about it, I would have been pissed off too. 

Cause Jiumen is like. Annoying as hell, and everyone has a different way to deal with the fact that they’re a part of a treasure hunting org that has been around for hundreds of years and features immortals and weird-ass dudes with unbelievable martial arts skills and also Wu Sanxing. Xiaoge deals with them by Fucking Off Forever. Zhang Rishan deals with them by being The Most Competent Person In Any Given Room, and Huo Daofu deals with them by being The Biggest Bitch He Can Be, which isn’t even that much of a bitch, because there is always going to be a bigger bitch in Jiumen, and his name is Wu Xie. So it just backfires on him, because NO ONE GIVES A SINGLE FUCK. 

We’re introduced to him at Xiao Hua’s fake funeral (which lmao i love that) when he’s making some Evil Plans with the rest of Jiumen, but not for the same reasons, cause when they actually get to the desert, Huo Daofu does not care about the treasure pits. He doesn’t even go down into Gutongjing (I’m pretty sure), he just hangs out in the camps because he doesn’t CARE about the treasure, he just wants to keep Wu Xie from succeeding, wants to say, see, look, I can do things too, I can be clever and cunning, I can take them all down from the inside out and I don’t even need friends to do it. 

Huo Daofu is jealous of Wu Xie, I think, because Wu Xie is free of the confines of Jiumen, and Wu Xie has friends, and Wu Xie didn’t have to go to another country where he knew no one and didn’t even speak the language and work so hard and be fucking brilliant in ways that no one knows about and doesn’t always, always get overlooked in favor of someone who disregards everyone’s favor, but receives it anyway. 

So when Pangzi shows up with Wu Xie, half-dead, on Huo Daofu’s doorstep, I think a little vindictive part of him goes serves him right. 

But Huo Daofu is not a part of Jiumen in the ways that matter, and he’s a doctor, first and foremost. He took oaths because he wants to help people, he wants to save them, and even if he hates Wu Xie down in the pits of his stomach, he’s not just going to let him die. And so he follows Wu Xie to thunder city because, as he says, “I want to be there when you die.” He’s not going to kill him, he can’t do that, he’s a doctor, but that small, mean part of him wants to watch Wu Xie fall. 

(Also I love @kholran’s headcanon that Huo Daofu is Wu Xie’s bitchy ex, bc like YES??? OF COURSE???? like they had an on-again, off-again thing cause they were like “we’re not doing this with the Jiumen women” but they’re WAY TOO ALIKE and just ended up fighting all the time.)

Reboot loves the Rule of Threes, which is where an idea is repeated three times in order to create a pleasing pattern. Human brains love patterns, and so when we see the Iron Triangle, when we see the three pills that mark the stages of Wu Xie’s illness, when we see the three missing people from Sanshu’s journey, our brains go oh that’s important (and Reboot ALMOST kills the game, ALMOST knocks it out of the park, but then they have FOUR story arcs instead of THREE, and it drives me ABSOLUTELY FUCKING INSANE. WHY DID THEY DO THIS. WHY). 

And Huo Daofu is a FANTASTIC tri-tier replica of Wu Xie’s Greatest Hits, which are: 

Being a sort of outcast/family runaway (Wu Xie has very clearly said Fuck Everyone Who Isn’t Sanshu, and Huo Daofu has aligned himself with the Chen clan, because the Huo’s are like Fuck Men (which honestly good for them but pLEASE love ur special doctor boy he’s getting a Complex))

Acting based almost Solely on Emotions when in the Heat of the Moment (i.e. dropping his entire life to go play doctor with a man who will not calm down for any length of time in order to actual REST)

Solving problems that no person should be able to solve because he’s smart as shit 

Narratively, he’s a FANTASTIC foil for Wu Xie, because not only does he essentially hold this man’s life in his hands, but because he is what Wu Xie could have been if he hadn’t met Pangzi or Xiaoge, if he hadn’t had support from other people. And I don’t think that’s Huo Daofu’s fault, because he and Wu Xie are so, so similar. He just never got the people he needed, and its so clear that he’s achingly alone all of the time, so no wonder he’s jealous of Wu Xie and wants to become part of this little group so damn badly, even as he’s protesting and saying, “no, no, I want you to die, literally nothing would give me more pleasure, please die right now, I’m waiting.” 

Sure, he’s a flipper-flopper ass bitch, but he’s trying his best with what he’s got, and shit, that’s not a lot. He’s got zero support system. I mean why the fuck is he making street churros? Even Zhang Rishan, who has NO culinary expertise or connections whatsover, gets to live in a restaurant, while Huo Daofu has to make fried dough in an alley and then keep people from choking on their own lungs on his damn kitchen table. Someone please help this man. 

this is SO LONG i’m sorry but essentially I think that Huo Daofu is Like That because he’s trying so hard to be someone, and no one is paying any attention, and the person he would most relate to, Wu Xie, is off doing God knows what with his polycule of friends and Huo Daofu’s all by himself and like??? i would be SO FRUSTRATED??? please give this man a break and also give him Love??? like, this screenshot speaks VOLUMES (photo credit to @hey-its-wei) 

LOOK AT HIM!!!!! LOOK AT HOW FUCKING HAPPY HE LOOKS!!!! JUST TO BE THERE!!!! WITH A GROUP OF PEOPLE!!!!! WHO HAVE SEEN HIM AND LISTENED AND SAID “hey, you can come with us, we’ll take you, you don’t have to be alone anymore.” 

I said earlier that Huo Daofu, like everyone else in this series, was Looking For Something. And like many of our beloved Wu Crew, he was looking for a family. And look! He found them :)

[mccoyyy]

Bring historical accuracy to Carlisle's early life, pretty please 🥰

absolutely (and thank you @pandabooraccoon and the other two anons who asked something similar to this too I love you so much). I'm putting this under a read more cause, yeah

ok, to start of with I am nowhere near an expert, but this time period in history really fascinates me cause there was so much going on. 

so Carlisle was born in 1640′s London, and at the time there was a shit tonne of religious and political upheaval going on. You had the Union of Crowns, disagreements over the Church systems, covenanting, Civil War and Cromwell, Executions and the removal and restoration of the Monarchy. Shit was mad. But I’m gonna start with Carlisle’s dad (I’m going to call him Abraham but full credit for that one goes to @panlight​) cause I have so many thoughts

Abraham was a pastor in 1640. He most likely started working when he was breached and then took over as Pastor (Preacher) after his dad died. I’m going to say he was born around 1620, married in 1639ish and then Carlisle was born a year later. So he would be what, 20 when Carlisle was born. 

First of the bat, there is no way that Abraham would still be alive and kicking when Carlisle was 23. The life expectancy back then was just under 40, so a 43 year old Abraham cutting about burning witches (and we’ll get to that in just a moment) just isn’t realistic but neither are vampires so oh well. In terms of religion if were being historically accurate, then Abraham would have most likely been an Anglican pastor as that was the dominant form of church in England at the time and he would have been fucked up by the mob/church/general public/all of the above for being anything else

However, it gets sticky when you bring in the idea of Puritanism. I firmly believe that Abraham would have loved Cromwell and puritanism (cause I like to headcanon him as an utter dick) but if were doing that then it creates a problem. If Abe was a devout Protestant Anglican, he would have believed in the divine right of kings (a monarch has no authority other than the word of god and therefore doesn't need to listen to anyone else) and therefore seen Charles I as the mouth of God, and had issues with the whole execution thing, so if Abe was a Puritan, then he would probably have to be a Presbyterian (dominant form of church in Scotland and also the parliamentarians) but again, this causes problems cause no one really liked Presbyterianism (understatement). It’s possible that he could have been influenced by Cromwell and switched from Anglicanism but religion back then was very different to what it was now, it took a lot to get people to change their ideas over faith (see the plague) so I’m gonna go out on a limb and blame Charles I who first started to undermine parliament and try to start Absolutism which lead Abe to change his loyalties. Either that or he supported Cromwell’s agenda but didn’t agree with execution which is the most likely option tbh.

With Abraham out of the way, we can now move on to our boy. Carlisle, the son of a pastor in 1640, there is no fucking way that this dude didn’t know the year/date he was born. Know why? cause dates were recorded by none other than the fucking church. aka his father. Carlisle is just bad with dates but that's ok buddy i guess that happens when your like 300. Secondly, his dad wouldn’t have raised him. It would have been left up to his mum, but cause she wasn't around he would have been raised by a wet nurse until he was breeched and entered the adult world at the ripe and grown up age of six (at least I think but I’m not 100% sure) when he would have started helping his father with sermons, and received an education of some form (probably a clerics education). Either way, he would have been helping his father at a very young age and exposed to so much shit

Back to Abraham for a wee second. Smeyer writes that he hunted down and burned vampires but again, this isn’t likely. Vampire hunters did exist but not in London. They were most common in Bulgarian/Serbian beliefs and even then they were very different to the modern idea of vampire hunters. And secondly, they wouldn’t have been burned! pyres weren’t used in the 1600s and instead would probably have been killed through hangings, torture or trials to determine whether they were a witch or not. So the good news is, Carlisle didn’t have to watch women being burned alive from the age of like six, he would only have to watch women being drowned, tortured, disembowelled, branded and hanged! and not just women accused of being witches, but most likely Catholics too!

We don’t know much about Carlisle’s life from his birth to his ‘death’, so I’m gonna take creative liberty and make some stuff up. London in the 1640s was utterly awful. It was dark, bleak, and really smelly. He was pretty lucky in terms of the plague cause the only major outbreaks occurred just before him and just after him (1603, 25 and 65) but there would have been the odd outbreak. I like to believe that Carlisle was an argumentative little shit and from the age of like 10 argued with his dad about literally everything. Canon says that Carlisle didn’t agree with his fathers particular brand of faith, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say that whilst he was still a protestant, and most likely Anglican, he probably followed an early form of religious tolerance at the least. Lutheranism didn’t reach England until around the enlightenment so I don't want to call him that but it was in existence in Germany at the same time so others had probably moved towards it a little, it just didn't have a name. His tolerance probably came from watching his father punish Catholics from the age of six, and their main argument as he got older was probably regarding tolerance of Catholicism. As much as I hate to say it, its low key unrealistic that Carlisle wasn’t married as a human so that would probably have been another point of contest between Carlisle and Abraham.

During Cromwell’s puritan reign was the most prominent witch-hunting years too, so if were being really nit-picky then Abraham would probably have only started hunting witches or at least started doing it a lot more frequently than he previously did round about here.

Cromwell died in 1658, and the monarchy was restored in England in 1660, but Carlisle’s dad most likely still followed puritan ideals and was not happy with the restoration period, and again, the revival of Christmas, theatre and fun was something that 20 year old Carlisle and Abraham would have disagreed over. Carlisle would have taken over a lot of his fathers duties round about this time, leading sermons and all that because Abraham should have been dead by now so I guess smeyer can have that one.

And now we get up to our boy’s final years. And this is like shooting still targets. Carlisle was hunting vampires in London sewers when he got bit, and then crawled into a potato cellar where he writhed in agony for 3-4 days. Firstly, sewers. The London sewage system wasn’t built for one or two hundred years. London was so fucking smelly. Like so much so that if it was sunny the house of commons/Westminster had to be evacuated cause the (literal) shite in the Thames would have warmed up and became especially pungent, and it was only when it started to affect MP’s that they though that maybe they should do something about it (which is probably another reason that super-senses-vampire Carlisle boosted to France as soon as possible). So he wouldn’t have been fighting vampires in sewage systems, but instead an alley, slums, or even along or near the Thames if you want to keep the sewage aspect. 

After being bitten, it would have been pretty difficult for Carlisle to drag himself into a potato cellar because he’d be crawling for quite some time. Potatoes didn't become a staple crop in society for quite a while. They were about and people ate them, but were largely seen as food for the lower classes in society, and there certainly wouldn't have been cellars filled with them.

Also just as a little end note, plague devastated London 5 years after he was turned so literally my favourite headcanon to give Carlisle is that he blamed the outbreak on himself. Yes, he may have went along with the miasmic theory that Plague was caused by bad air instead of his fathers ‘divine punishment’ theories, but there’s nothing like a good bit of puritan guilt am I right? seeing and maybe helping with the plague (masks and so many herbs stuffed inside them would have blocked the smell of blood) is also what I like to think made Carlisle want to go into medicine.

And there you have it. A (sort of) accurate version of Carlisle’s and Abraham’s life. and again, disclaimer, I am nowhere near an expert, so there might be inaccuracies and mistakes here. But basically, smeyer please. Google is free. 

[pointnumbersixteen]

A Head Cannon Biography and Character Analysis and of the Captain, Part 5: Everything the Captain Does Wrong in the First Flashback of Reddy Weddy in Sixteen Points

Which finally gets us back to the flashback scenes in Reddy Weddy.

Is this about to be over 2,000 words shredding the command performance of my favorite character? Yes, it is, but I do it with all the love in the world.

I’ll start with the first scene, which starts out as a morning brief. It shows just how awful he is at the whole ‘leader of men’ thing. What did he do wrong? This is going to go on for a while. The TLDR version is: literally everything. There is not a single word or action of his in that scene that went right. And it had to be intentional, as Ben Willbond is an admitted military buff, he has to know what proper military bearing is supposed to look like, and he wrote the episode.

I should preface this with saying that I absolutely adore the Captain in this scene, with his silly, over-excitable and ridiculously awkward self. But the first time I saw it, the part of me that spent four years in the US army was screaming inside about how terrible his performance was as a CO. Just picture yourself as one of those respectable and sensible young military personnel sitting in the seats listening to him with the thought, ‘if the Germans come this is the guy that’s going to be responsible for me in battle,’ and try not to cringe just a little.

First, starting with a bit of background: morning briefs are torture. They are the most boring things in the world. Everyone hates them. They’re one of those situations when you can just feel yourself slowly dying. Good commanders know that and try to keep them as short as possible. Bad commanders who don’t mind that their troops are silently hating them the whole time go on a bit longer, but even then, I don’t think I ever sat through one that made it through more than five or six points. The Captain’s very first line in the episode states that he is on POINT NUMBER SIXTEEN (the absurdity of which gave me the handle for this side-blog). His subordinates are blank faced. They’ve probably been tuning this tedious BS out since point number four.  

Second, point number sixteen is, to paraphrase, “Why am I still hearing laughter after hours? We are at war. Fun is banned.” In a stern lecture tone. No, Captain, pet, just because the army probably sucked all the joy out of your life, doesn’t mean that no one is allowed to be happy in the military, even during wartime. My dear, actually you should be encouraging them to decompress however they can, as long as it isn’t inappropriate or interfering with their duties, because war is stressful, even if you’re not on the front lines. The military in general is stressful, even when you’re not at war. Joking and horseplay- as long as it isn’t the sort of thing that isn’t going to get anyone injured- is good for morale. And modern militaries have morale officers for a reason. At this point, the man in the middle of the front row breaks his blank face momentarily to give the woman next to him a ‘can you believe this crap?’ look.  

Third, the Captain goes on and backs this up by essentially saying (again paraphrased), “I understand you all are bored, I’m bored, too, this shit is boring, but this is where the army stuck us so we have to deal.” Which again is the wrong answer. That is precisely how NOT to motivate people to do their best. This is a situation where the officer should try to generate enthusiasm amongst his subordinates for their roles. Even if he wanted to provide a similar sentiment, the word ‘bored’ never should have entered the equation. Everyone is bored most of the time in the military, but it’s not something the higher ranks acknowledge, because acknowledging it helps nothing. His statement should have been something more like, “I understand that some of you are frustrated that you’re not serving in combat, but what we’re doing here in support of the war effort is important, and it will take all of us doing our parts, both out there on the front, and back here in England, to win this thing.”

Next, when Havers comes in with the message for him, he speculates out loud about it being an answer to his pistol requisition. He shouldn’t have done this, and gets two wrong points for it.

The fourth is because while I find his excitement about that pistol endearing, like a little boy hoping for just the right present from Santa at Christmas (and still pining for it 75 years after his death, as noted in the ‘going to the shops’ game with Fannie in s2e4), it probably comes off as foolish or childish to his subordinates. The gun he really wants to have probably should not be the first thing that comes to his mind when communicating with command. There’s a war on. There have to be at least one or two things that are more important.

The fifth is because you’re not supposed to reveal any of your command requests to your subordinates until you know how they’re going to turn out, and then only the ones that are approved, because if you reveal you’ve requested something and it isn’t granted, particularly something as simple as being issued a side arm, it starts to look like higher command doesn’t favor you or have confidence in you. Which in his case is probably true. But that’s not something he should reveal to his troops by way of letting them know he requested a fancy new side arm and then never received one. He might as well have put a sign on his back that said, “Command trusts me so little they won’t even give me a gun.”

Sixth, when he reads the actual message, he just blurts out something to the order of, “good god, France has surrendered.” Which is not how the other people in the room should have received that information. There should have been some sort of measured, more dignified, official sounding announcement. “It’s my duty to inform you all that unfortunately France surrendered to the Germans yesterday,” or something of the sort at the bare minimum. But no, he just blurts it out. Well, Havers asks him what’s wrong after the “good god” part, but he still shouldn’t have blurted it out.

Seventh, and after blurting it out, he doesn’t add anything to it. France surrendering was a disaster for the British during WWII. It meant Germany was coming for them next. This would have been the time to reassure his men- and women- that although things might look grim, he was confident that high command had a plan and would have everything under control and that there was no way Germany would make it across the channel and that even if they did, the army would be ready. But no, he says nothing of the sort.

Eighth, in fact, he says nothing else to the people who had been present for his briefing at all. After Havers enters the room, he has neither eyes nor words for anyone else. Which is not professional at all.

Ninth, the way he looks at Havers throughout this scene, his face lights up, his voice cheers, his whole demeanor changes. He might have well had a neon sign glowing above his head that screamed ‘I’M GAY FOR THIS MAN!!!’ It would have been the only thing that could possibly be more obvious. When, again, being gay wasn’t okay at all in 1940’s England, and particularly not in the army. I love how incredibly unsubtle he is about his attractions while he clearly thinks he’s being subtle, but that’s not the way it would have been viewed by the people in the room.  

Tenth, in his excitement, the Captain just drops the message on the floor. Drops. It. On. The. Floor. He doesn’t even bother to pick it up. Even Havers gives him a funny look for this one. I say again, I find over-excited Cap adorable. His subordinates probably find this ridiculous, though. And if this were a man who was in charge of me and he’d just been giving me a tedious lecture about not laughing at night as part of a sixteen point morning brief, I’d find him ridiculous, too. At best.

Eleventh, then he immediately scrambles to the window and looks around wildly like he expects the Germans might be marching up Button House’s driveway as they speak. Which is plain silly, as Havers has to point to him. It’s obvious to anyone with sense that even if the Germans are going to invade, it will take them a while to organize an invasion, and Button House is unlikely to be one of the early strategic targets. But the Captain seems to forget this momentarily in his excitement and ends up looking silly in front of his subordinates. I’m pretty sure a few of them are laughing at him in the back.

Twelve, the fact that the Captain is clearly ridiculously excited about this development at all is another point against him, because he shouldn’t be. Of course, he’s excited about the renewed prospect of getting a chance to actually fight (see the previous part of this analysis for why he desperately wants such a thing) but that excitement is not good look. He’s thinking about what it means to him personally, rather than what it means to the military and the country as a whole. Again, the fall of France was a disaster for Britain. It means they’ve lost all of the battles they’ve fought to try to hold back the Germans in France. It means they’ve already lost thousands of men attempting to hold back the Germans in France and for nothing. It means they’ve lost their main ally, the ally the spent years successfully holding back Germany with in France in WWI and therefore implies that this war is going to be even worse than WWI, which was already unprecedentedly catastrophic. It means they’re alone against Germany and there’s a good chance that Germany will be invading soon. So, when they get this news and the Captain’s reaction is over-excitement, that does not look good for him. Nothing in this brief looks good for him, of course, but he just keeps digging the hole deeper.

Thirteen, his officer’s bearing (which as I mentioned in an earlier post as one of the indicators before Reddy Weddy of him probably not being a very good officer, as he maintains it well in emotionally neutral situations, but once emotions enter the picture it collapses) starts out fine when he’s actually giving the brief and then goes downhill once Havers enters the room and by the time he’s at the window, his body language is just… what are you even doing? He’s practically bouncing. Also, Cap, why are you randomly shouting? And what are you doing with your hands? (I wonder if he started carrying his pointy-stick everywhere because he couldn’t figure out otherwise what to do with his hands.) Of course, all of this is because he’s a magnificent over-excitable creature, but still… not a good look as a CO.

Fourteen, when they show the rest of the personnel in the room during this part of the scene, you can see clearly on the faces of the two men in from to the left of Havers (at ‘I don’t think they’ll be here just yet, sir’) that they think the Captain’s behavior is a joke… they fix their faces back to blank very quickly, but it’s there. I imagine what most of the men under his command felt for him was either ridicule or contempt, sadly. I feel sad for him, because I want my poor gay son to be loved and respected. But he isn’t in this situation and he doesn’t seem to either notice or care about this.  

Fifteen, Havers has to remind the Captain that protocol states they’re supposed to lock down the estate at this point, as the British actually were expecting the Germans to invade after France fell. He shouldn’t have had to have been prompted, particularly not in front of their subordinates.

Sixteen, Havers also has to pretend that the Captain ordered everyone else in the room to go carry out the lockdown, when he didn’t, just shouted vaguely about it being a good idea. Havers then sends them on their way, as it’s clear that in his own excitement, the Captain seems to have forgotten that he’s the one in charge and supposed to be leading and commanding. But I suppose it’s good that Havers took the initiative to get everyone else out of the room as quickly as possible, as this has been literally only like a minute of time, and I’d hate to see how much Cap could embarrass himself in two minutes.

 And there it is. I made this sixteen points long as an illustration of just how ridiculously long sixteen points actually is.  

 I won’t cover the part where the Captain and Havers were alone at the end of this scene, yet, as I’ll include it with the next written bit, which is going to be my analysis of their relationship. That might be a minute, because we’ve reach the end of the parts I actually had significantly written out. I’ve only outlined the Havers relationship section.

[msmarvelwrites]

The Winter Ghost - Part 13

Info: A Devastating car crash causes you to lose your memory and start over. The only thing left in the wreckage was the horrific nightmares which plagued your mind. If you knew what today would entail you would have just stayed in bed. But you didn’t and because of that, everything you knew was about to change.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader

Warnings: Swearing, angst, some smutty thoughts... 

w/c: 2.2k

A/N: Lucky number 13! I’m honestly so caught off gaurd by all the love Ive been receiving on The Winter Ghost. I see all your late night binge sessions and I am SO immensely greatful for your interest. When I first started writing this I didnt really think anything of it, but youve all lit a fire under my ass and for that, I thank you! So please, enjoy and reblog and like if you feel so inclined. 

His hot breath fanned across your face, sending you into a frenzy like state you had never known before. Heavy breathing, mostly on your part as he placed excruciatingly slow kisses across your jaw. You needed him. More than you’d ever needed anything in your life. It made you sick. 

“Are you afraid?” He asked in a low seductive voice. Swiftly he wrapped his metal fingers around your throat, applying enough pressure to make you gasp. You clawed at his chest, drunk on his murderous touch. You wanted him to make you hurt as bad as your heart did. You couldn't possibly hate a person more than you hated yourself right now. 

“Answer my question.” He shouted, sending a ripple of ecstasy through your body. 

“No. I could never,” You gasped, choking as the walls of your throat began to collapse. 

“Liar.” He sneered. 

You let out an involuntary moan. 

“You good, Y/n?” Sam asked, sitting next to you on the couch as he, Nat, Wanda and Shuri all ate breakfast around the kitchen island. Your hand was lightly wrapped around your neck where Bucky’s was just a moment ago. 

“Yeah, fine.” You squeeked.

But you weren't. You hadn’t been since that morning in the hallway with Bucky. You could still feel the sting he had left behind from his touch. What was wrong with you? You couldn't even begin to unpack that question. Psychiatric help would be a start, though. 

After your memory had returned, the nightmares seemed to subside, only to be replaced with the image of Bucky, devoid of all emotion, seething in rage at your quips. By the third night, you would have gladly have traded, knowing that this was so much worse. 

You couldn't keep excusing your vile thoughts as his fault. They weren't, not entirely. You were the one waking up a needy mess every morning.

“Hey.” Bucky's husky voice filled your senses causing you to stiffen at the sound. The team around you said their hello’s while you tried to refrain from gawking. You had done your very best to avoid him as much as you could, but there were only so many places to hide. Whenever you bumped into each other he would keep his head down and you would run in either direction.

“Steve’s on his way back today. He left to meet Vision and gather intel on an active Hydra base located somewhere on the border of Germany.” Wanda’s eyes lit up at the mention of the name. This must be the famous Android she's always gushing about.  

“Pack up… We ship out first thing tomorrow morning.” Bucky declared, peaking your interest. It had been way too long since you had been back in the field, this was amazing. You could feel the excitement bubbling out of your chest vanish when Bucky’s eyes glanced at you. 

“Y/n, you can uh, keep Shuri company while we're away.” You blinked at him, unsure if you had heard him correctly. 

“No fucking way.” You scoffed. You were not missing out on this opportunity to give Hydra a taste of their own ‘serum’, so to speak. 

‘Captain's orders.” He deadpanned, averting his gaze to the ceiling. You stared at him, lost for words with needy eyes. He’d never tell you, but it terrified him when you looked like that. Small, fragile, though he knew better. He would kill himself before he tainted you. But that didn't make the idea any less intriguing.

“And since when do you listen to Captain's orders?” Nat spoke up before you even got the chance. You nodded violently, looking back to Bucky who only sighed. 

“You know very well why she can't go.” He muttered, fighting tooth and nail not to look at you again. You could sense his uncomfortability but you couldn't look away. 

“She’s not going, then I’m not going.” Wanda sulked. 

“Me too.” Sam mocked her tone. “Seriously, Buck. She’s a tank, we could use her.” He finished, more serious this time. 

Bucky huffed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his flesh fingers. “You gotta take that up with Steve. He and I aren't really on the best of terms right now.” He spoke, annoyance dripping from the last sentence. 

“Easy, I’ll take care of it.” Nat said to Bucky, but she sent a wink at you. 

You were so excited you almost leaped from your seat. You couldn't wait to blow some shit up!

……………………………………….

The next morning you woke up extra early, just to get a jump on everything. Nat had fought with Steve all last night, but eventually he conceded on the sheer fact that if you were there, it would mean double the Wanda power. This was a big base, one he had known of for quite some time now, but it required extra attention. They had been working on recreating your serum, but so far to no avail. You knew exactly where they were going wrong of course. But Steve explained they had been testing it out of Hydra members. The lucky few who survived may not have your powers, but they were still strong. He’d need all the help he could get.

After you were packed you dragged your duffle to Shuri’s lab. She had been working on a few new weapons she wanted you to pack. Just in case, she said. You got there in no time flat, literally vibrating with excitement. 

“You're sure about this?” She asked. 

“Absolutely.” You beamed. She signed, and handed you a small ring. 

“What's this?” You asked, holding the small band in your fingers. 

“It’s a beacon. It will help you hold onto your borrowed energies for longer. It’s like a mini you, only better.” She paused, “Speaking of, are you going to tell me what's in that serum of yours or am I just going to have to keep guessing?”

“I think it’s better kept unsaid. That thing had already caused enough problems. No one should be burdened with it.”

“Maybe so.” She signed.

“Thank you Shuri. For everything.” You half heartedly smiled but before you could leave her arms were around you, pulling you into a hug. You sucked in a breath and tapped her on the back in reciprocation. Physically affection was never something you were good at showing, try as you may. 

When you finally pulled away she sent you a soft smile, and wished you good luck on the mission before you headed out the door. 

……………………..

“Nice of you to grace us with your presence.” Steve muttered, when you finally got to the jet when the rest of the team was loading up.

“It is, isn't it?” You spoke sweetly, throwing your duffle onto the jet. You still weren't really sure where you stood with Steve. Of course you knew of the famous Captain America, even if you didn't remember a few weeks ago. But never did you imagine he would be such a class act dick. Or maybe he was just that way with you? The idea made you smirk, knowing you were the only one to really piss off the Captain was honestly the highest form of flattery. 

You boarded the jet and noticed the rest if the team already suited up. The tactical gear Shuri had made you was tight, and Natasha was living proof of that. I mean, it wasn't fair she had the body of a trained ballerina and New York supermodel. The woman was easily the most beautiful woman you had ever seen while your gear clung to you in all the least flattering ways. 

You quickly shook off the self doubt. It didn't matter how you looked, you were here to kick some ass. 

Well, not exactly. 

That morning Steve had announced that while the rest of the team ‘kicked ass’ you and the Soviet spy would sneak into their mainframe and collect the data of whatever new evil scheme Hydra was working on. 

Though you weren't thrilled to be stuck on recon duty, it was better than nothing. Besides, you were just a little rusty. Though Nat and Sam kept you busy and Wanda had taught you all her tricks, you weren't sure that if it came down to it you'd be able to pull the trigger. 

Better safe than sorry. 

“Are you nervous?” Bucky spoke under his breath, his voice deep and rough. You shivered at the sound. You hadn't realised until this moment that he was seated directly behind you. 

“Are you?” You asked. You tried to add some bite to your words, but they left your lips softly. The tone seemed to surprise Bucky as much as it did you as he half expected to to tear his head off again.

“Sometimes. But, not now.”

“Oh yeah?” Words betraying you once again. 

Ignore him. 

Stop talking to him. 

Stop. Talking. 

Bucky's tongue slipped from between his lips, tugging on his bottom one slowly and effectively knocking you back from your annoying thought and to the glorious man sitting behind you. 

“Yeah. Got this new girl on our side. She’s a totally badass. I know she’ll watch my six.” He shrugged causing a small smile to pull at the corner of your mouth. 

“How do you know she won't just leave you for dead?” She asked, playing along. Part of you, however, was just a little curious. Part of you wanted to ask yourself the same question. In a second, would you protect the man who murdered Tommy? Honestly you weren't really sure. 

“Just a feeling.” He spoke so casually. So sure, you wanted to believe him. It would be easy enough to feed him to Hydra, but you and him both knew you wouldn't have the stomach for it. 

“Huh. You sound pretty confident in that.” You sneered sarcastically.

He just gave you a small shrug, leaning back into his seat and pulling his bluetooth earbuds out of his back pocket. He offered one to you casually. Before you could protest your arm shot out and took it, placing it in your right ear. 

“I like to listen to music before a mission. It calms me.” He suggested, opening his phone, scrolling through his songs before the intro to Highway to Hell began playing. 

A grin spread across your face “I love this song!” You beamed. 

“I know. I remember you telling me something about spending an entire year listening to AC/DC cause’ your dad loved their music. I downloaded a few of their albums after that. Not exactly what I’m used to, but definitely good ass kicking music.” He nodded. 

That stopped you dead in your tracks. You couldn't help the smile that faded quickly from your lips at his words. You were, to say the least, shocked. You must have mentioned your love for the band at some point, but honestly couldn't for the life of you remember when.  

But he did. And he listened to it because you liked them. 

“Huh.” You repeated, turning back around and trying to suppress the butterflies that began erupting out of your stomach. You could hear Bucky behind you drumming his hands on his thighs along to the song. You couldn't help but giggle at how offbeat he was.

“Take off in five minutes. Everyone ready?” Nat spoke through your coms. Everyone gave a thumb up as the jets engine whirled on, vibrating through the aircraft.

You listened carefully as your song faded away and the next one took its place. 

Do I wanna know? If this feeling flows both ways?

You could physically feel Bucky’s mood shift behind you. The Super Soldier serum granting you access to his quickened heart beat and the lyrics mirrored the every present emotions you had been feeling this week.

Sad to see you go. Was sorta’ hopin’ that you’d stay. 

You let your mind wander as you listened to Bucky hum along quietly to the song, low and soft. The sound sending chills down your spine as the memory of your dreams from the past few nights replayed over in your mind. 

Baby, we both know. That the nights were mainly made For sayin' things that you can't say tomorrow day.

Bucky’s lips trailed along your swollen throat, the feeling of pleasure over bruises he had left behind caused you to moan in ecstasy. The way he kissed you, not like before. This time full of lust and something dark. His hands dipped under your shirt, the feeling of hot and cold sending you over the edge as your eyes rolled back in your head. You wanted nothing more than for him to throw you against a wall, any wall and tear you limb from limb.

“I like this song too.” Bucky’s breath fanned across the back of your ear, rocketing you back to the Jet that was beginning to take off. You looked around the small space, praying that Bucky was the only one to notice your breath hitch in the back of your throat. 

Any reminisce of the idea that you had to stay away from Bucky shattered into a million pieces. The hate, still ever present, but you knew damn well that would be the best part. It only fueled your desire. He was going to be the death of you.

Or even better, you'd be the death of him...

.....................................................................................................................

A/N: Gah! Thank you for reading! And thank you to @cutie1365​ for being the best hype woman/ editor around lol. Leave a like or reblog if you wanna show some love. I hope yall’ are having a great week! 

@kalesrebellion​

@projectcampbell​

@calwitch​

[redstarwriting]

We’re Heroes

Avengers x Reader

Request: “I was wondering if you could do a All Avengers x Reader during Civil War? During the big fight scene, she is taken there with Clint and Wanda, but she’s not told why. And then when they get there, Tony and Cap try to get her to choice a side? She ends up Team Cap because it’s the right side, and everybody on the other team is afraid to hit since they all know her(she’s Peter’s age if that’s okay). If not I totally understand! I love your writing, thank you so much 💕”

Word Count: 956

Genre: Platonic

Warnings: swearing, Civil War airport fight, reader becomes a vigilante

A/N: I don’t really remember how the airport scene talking thing went down, so I definitely changed that up a bit. I also based the reader off of Hawks from My Hero Academia, so that’s why she has wings, I promise she’s not an OC she just has mutated abilities! I hope you enjoy this one! Sorry it’s so late, and thank you so much for the support! I’m happy you enjoy my writing. :)

───────────────────────────────────

You had no idea why you were in Germany right now. All you know is that Clint and Wanda showed up and told you to come with them, that you had a very important flight. So here you are. In Berlin. At an airport. With the rest of the Avengers. Now you knew that Tony and Steve were having some trouble and that everyone was tense about something, but you weren’t really invited to any of the government meetings they had. You were too busy with homework anyways. Even if you were a mutant, you still had high school to attend. Was it a little awkward because of the fact that you had wings? Well, yeah. But you still need an education.

“So… why are we here? And why couldn’t I just fly here, I have wings you know,” you ask, a little annoyed. Planes make your wings cramp up. You don’t like them all that much. “Why’d you bring the kid?” Bucky asks, and before you can reprimand him that you were in fact sixteen and therefore a teenager and not a kid, Wanda answers. “She has every right to be here. She’s a part of this team, after all.”

“Team? What team, Maximoff? I don’t see a team here,” Tony says, and she glares at him. “Woah now, Tony… what’s going on?” you ask, a little scared this time. This was quite literally your family. If something was happening, you had every right to know. Just like Wanda said. Tony sighs, looking at you. “Cap and I are having a bit of a disagreement. He’s wrong, I’m right, and he’s doing his best to further prove the fact that he’s wrong and I’m right.”

“Tony. Tell her what’s actually going on, or I will,” Steve says, and Tony gives him one of the dirtiest looks. “The U.N. wants to regulate our duties as superheroes; so, we don’t go in and destroy families and lives immediately. To do anything, we would need to be approved by the United Nations first, then go in. It prevents mass damage, and it’s the right thing to do, but Cap doesn’t think so” Tony says, and your eyebrows furrow together. “How is that… the right thing to do? We’re heroes… heroes don’t sit back while something is happening and wait for approval to help. We’re supposed to run headfirst into danger, risk and do whatever it takes to save anyone.”

“See, Tony. She understands,” Steve says and Tony groans. “(Y/n), kid. What if by doing that you hurt other people in the mass destruction you cause?”

“What about the people who will get even more hurt by sitting and waiting to do the right thing, Tony? The most efficient way to save lives is to solve the problem immediately, not wait for people to make the decision for you!” you exclaim, and he frowns. “Congratulations Cap. You have a new member on your team.”

Before you can say anything, everything starts going down. You find yourself facing off against Natasha, but she doesn’t even try to strike you. She keeps dodging your hits. “Do you really think we shouldn’t be allowed to help people, Nat?” you ask, going to hit her but being dodged again. “Listen, (Y/n), this is a really complicated situation. Please don’t make me fight you,” she pleads, and you frown. “But-”

She runs off, going to fight Clint instead of you. You look around, trying to find some way to help, but every time you go to fight someone, they completely disregard you and don’t fight back. The only one who tries to fight is Spider-Man, whoever that guy is. Even then, though, Tony cuts in, forcing him to leave you alone and you to leave him alone. “Tony, what the hell?” you scream, and he looks at you. “(Y/n), I’m not letting you get hurt over this,” he says and you frown. “This is a fight Tony. That’s what happens in fights.”

“This is a fight you never should have been brought into, (Y/n). No one wants to fight you because we all know you. We all care about you and having to fight you is the worst thing that could possibly happen.”

“Well, I don’t care! You all know I’m able to take hits! Seriously!” you yell, shooting some razor-sharp feathers at him, only for them to be shot away by his blasters. “Parker, immobilize her,” you hear Tony say, and suddenly your wings are covered in a sticky substance, and you fall over because of it. “Sorry, Miss! Just following orders!” you hear the other kid shout, and you groan, grabbing one of your feathers and cutting directly through his webs. “Oh, well that’s new,” he says before webbing away to go fight Steve. You look around, seeing your family all fighting one another.

“(Y/n),” you hear Steve say right next to you. You look over to see his concerned face. “Leave. If we lose this, they’ll throw all of us in jail. You’re too young for that.” To his surprise, you shake your head no. “I don’t care what the outcome is. I will fight anyone and everything if it means being able to help people. No matter the cost.”

Of course, he was right, and you all did end up in jail. But you didn’t care. Tony was wrong. And a minor inconvenience like. being locked up was nothing you couldn’t handle. Especially since you escaped anyways. You never stopped helping people, and sure you become somewhat of a vigilante and are now wanted internationally, but you literally did not care. Helping people is what you do.

And no one is about to stop you or put regulations on you.

[akegatacchi]

Sense8 AU!aftg

In the honor of absolutlynothing I’ve decided to put out there one of the many au I have on my phone and archive it there

Big shout out to @a-m-peengoo and @bluesuederose for participating in this mess with genius lines and always be there to bear my 36 ideas per hour. We did a masterpiece girls.

Here we go it’s gonna be long

The cluster:

Kevin: Nomi. He’s just a fuckin hacker who’s running away from his family (riko). When he’s bored, he spends nights crashing the Pentagon system for fun, and makes every screen in the White House play Best Exy Actions Compilation (the longest and hardest part is choosing one compilation to play).

Dan: Will. One of them have to keep them under control. Plus, Dan with a gun i can’t even-

Matt: Riley. Soft, blue strand of hair, a heart of gold, maternal. As a DJ. Yes. SO SOFT (he still knows how to box)

Allison: Capheus. Listen. Imagine Allison in high heels, skin tight leather pants, driving a bus. Also, a F1 pilot champion who can drive anything (even if it’s the first time)

Andrew: Wolfgang. Duh. Do I need to explain myself. Just think abt him saying “This is Berlin. Those are my people. And we go to our knees for no one”.Boy he does NOT like this situation, at all. Will keep the others out with sheer willpower and no blockers. The cluster’s deadliest weapon. PLUS HELLO???? ANDREW IN A PASTEL PINK BOMBER SHOOTING ON A HELICOPTER WITH A BAZOOKA????

Aaron: Felix? Sorta? not a senseate but a great doctor. Senses bullshit and when someone is in Andrew’s body real quick  (Andrew: says more than 2 sentences and is pleasant. Aaron:.....who’s that bitch where is my brother) . Later helps to manufacture blockers.

Neil: Kala. A pharmacist that uses his skill for arson and may or may not be running away from mafia/family matter and currently hiding in India. Him saying “Bring it, bitch” to Riko is my sexuality and Andrew’s. Can create explosives from a Fanta can and spices I mean it’s already canon in aftg. (plus andreil would work even better bc technically Neil can’t even touch Andrew for real)

Nicky: Lito. The drama, the sass. Also the scene where he discovers the Twinyard in Germany are his cousins would be hilarious. The scene where Lito seduces the nurse but with Nicky (“engaging into heterosexual activity? me????”) or the scene where Lito screams in the museum but with Nicky

Erik as Hernando. That’s it that’s the post.

Renee: Sun. I mean, a korean fighter lady in prison trying to be a better person and had a silent bffs relationship with a german gangster? Come on. Also. Allison in a bus and Renee doing art martials stuff. 

Riko: whispers i guess he can eat Allison’s high heels

Now the ~scenes~ (it’s just shitposting):

Aaron, on the verge on several break downs: wait so you have like … DJ Blue Matt and F1 pilot Allison Reynolds in your head? since when? ANDREW SINCE WHE-

*

Neil: what’s a better use of a multiple thousands dollars education than precise arson?????

*

Aaron: why does your boyfriend always end up burning things up?

Andrew: he lits up my heart as well

Aaron: FOR FUCK SAKE

*

Kevin, shocked and betrayed: is there a better sport than exy?

Aaron and Allison: YEAH A REALLY GOOD CAR RACE

*

Allison: you’re - you’re like the spirit of Lucy Liu. In Charlie’s Angels. I watch it once a day. Renee:.....that’s sweet actually :) 

*

Neil: does a molotov cocktail

Matt: I tHoUgHt yOu wErE a PhArMaCiSt

Neil: Yes? That’s PHYSICS

Matt: no that’s ARSON NEIL

Alternative:

Kevin: breaks into the Pentagon virtually

Neil: breaks into the Pentagon physically

Matt, again: i thought you were a PHARMACIST!!!! Neil: Yes I am??? That’s irrelevant

*

A senseate sibling, escaping, grabbing a vehicle at random: someone knows how to drive that?

Allison, in stilettos : no, but I sure will soon

*

Just Allison driving Renee around to fight people

*

Everytime someone mocks a senseate sibling Neil or Nicky shows up to roast them. Sometimes they do it both at the same time. It’s apocalyptic. The sass. The drama. 

They can also bullshit their way out of any situation. Neil is such a smooth liar and Nicky is just ridiculous. The FBI agent charged to arrest them somehow ends up crying abt childhood trauma while hugging a teddy bear.

Neil, caught in the act of making a string of explosives by the FBI guy: uuuuuuh….Nicky?

Nicky, currently dealing with a white mom in retail: somehow convince the FBI to buy christmas lights

(Yes Nicky works in retail bc his family cut ties with him but he hopes to be an actor.ON BROADWAY)

(From retail to actor to cluster negotiator real quick)

A  fuckin moron to Allison: a hottie like you driving a bus? what is this, hooker on wheels?

Neil: please let me have this one

Allison: seats back and enjoys Neil roasting him

Nicky: brings the popcorn

Nicky, to the FBI guy: You can’t arrest me Daryl I’m your long lost little brother

The FBI guy, a white man: My name is not Daryl Neil: THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO BELIEVE

The FBI guy, texting Neil (don’t ask): I guess I’m still in love with my ex

Nicky: aaaaaw we have to help this sweetheart

Neil: do you want me to burn his current boyfriend’s car, buddy?

(Nicky: DON’T REMIND HIM THAT HE’S SUPPOSED TO ARREST US)

*

A fuckin homophobe: ready to get your ass kicked, faggot?

Andrew: appears through Nicky

Nicky, smiling: fuck yeah, baby 

*

Andrew, between two bazooka shot, to Neil:  we’re nothing

*

Nicky, through Andrew, all cheery: Hi!!!! :D

(Aaron jumps like a scared cat)

*

Andrew: ready to kill ppl for mafia business

All the senseate siblings in the back minus Renee, eating popcorn and enjoying the show: Kick ass, Drew!

*

Andrew, on the hospital bed: has an emotional moment with Aaron

Aaron: sir or ma'am, idk who you are but it’s family only, I will ask you, as his doctor, to leave my brother’s body

*

Aaron: Andrew is2g if you’re making psychic love to that fuckin red hair rn i will-

*

Andrew each time a senseate is hurt: Aaron it’s for you

(Just Aaron doing med tutorials for a whole cluster while Andrew repeats it with a bored tone to everyone)

(Aaron, sighs: it is Neil again? Just let him bleed for a few minutes)

*

Neil, making bomb with kitchen stuff: If it means losing you then no

Andrew, falling in love: oh

*

Bad guy: You have no weapon, blondie!

Allison, with Renee and Dan behind her: Think again, sweetheart

*

They made a little “honorary cluster member” badge to Aaron (he does not cry STFU NEIL)

*

Dan and Neil both knows by heart the laws of different countries…..for very different reasons.

*

Luther: humiliates Nicky once again

Renee: calmly breaks his hand at dinner while smiling like an angel, all the while stopping Andrew from killing him with the other hand

*

Neil, a pharmacist: blowing shit up and arson

Aaron, a doctor, watching him: yk what hold my beer I know several ways to stop a man’s heart

*

The whole “You don’t know how to use a gun” “No, but you do” with andreil or matt and dan

*

Just Drew and Renee kicking some mafia asses together as buddies

(While Neil blows some shit up in the background and Allison/Nicky cheer)

*

Matt has the perfect ear too

Him and Kevin are the remote operation/communication team but one day all the fighters/criminals of the cluster are busy so they both start to fight as well and fuck they are good at it

Nicky: I expected this from Biceps Matt but Kevin??? You can land a kick like that???

Kevin, outraged: I WENT TO THE EXY OLYMPICS WHEN I WAS 16

*

Speaking of Kevin, they all call him “nerd” or “einstein”

Allison: so the nerd can fight uh

*

Aaron, counting down on his fingers: so you have F1 Pilot Superstar Allison Reynolds, former gold medalist and tech genius Kevin Day, a human diapason, a multilingual arsonist, World no.1 Taekwondo Champion Renee Walker, a cop, an actor…..what are you there for??

Andrew, literally a mafia king:....ice cream and crime?

*

Neil to Andrew, after the whole debacle with his father is out: You did know there were mafia out of Germany too, right?

Andrew: I can’t even have that for myself fuck this family

*

Dan, every time before each “mission”: okay guys I know we need to do it but I’d like to remind ALL of you *looks pointly at Neil and Andrew* it’s STILL illegal and morally dubious

Neil: …….like I said to Nicky, irrelevant *without missing a beat blows up the entire building and puts on stolen Gucci shades*

Alternative:

Neil: ok saint theresa why were you the one to suggest we explode Riko’s brain off then

Dan: ...don’t turn the conversation around me it’s about you

*

Allison “guess we’re detourning a place next” Reynolds and Kevin “It’s not that hard to pilot” Day

(Kevin: But why are you on a plane to Russia? I thought you were in India last time?

Neil:....don’t ask)

*

Aaron to Andrew, where they are trapped and betrayed: your boyfriend wouldn’t happen to know how to poison a whole room with gaz?

Neil: I was born for this moment

(Andrew: just bc you’re my brother doesn’t mean you have the right to dirty talk my boyfriend)

*

Andrew: be gay, do crime and eat ice cream

Nicky: AND BLOW NEIL’S D-

*

(before they know abt Neil’s past, when Andrew is angsty bc he caught feelings)

Andrew: You  shouldn��t get close to me, it’s dangerous, i’m mafia

Neil: oh haven’t you heard-

*

Jeremy, bouncing out of nowhere: Hey Kev ! Love how you BI-nary code ahah have you heard of the ARCHIPELAGO 

*

Neil, sipping tea: so my father is the Butcher

Matt:  okokokok coolcoolcoolcool yk what arson doesn’t sound like a bad idea after all

*

(this one is not funny sorry) but Neil taking over each time someone is hurt bc he is used to deal with it

“Give the pain to me”

*

Andrew and Aaron like to fuck around a lot with the whole sensate stuff (since only one of them is a sensate)

Bad guy: only one of you is a sensate, which one is it?

Twinyard, in a perfect and flat tone: try to guess

A bad guy is spying on Andrew and waiting to kill him in Germany, via a cam, thinking he’s safe BUT SUPRISE MOTHERFUCKER it was aaron dressed as Andrew in a mafia meeting and now you have to deal with a 5 feet tall mafia boy

*

For real tho they are a little protective of the normal doctor who heal them every time (yes even Neil but don’t tell him) so you bet something like that happens one day:

Aaron: comes home from work angry

Andrew, cleaning up blood or counting money: whassup shithead?

Aaron: There’s this older doctor he’s great and all but he’s a fuckin asshole to me he belittles me everyday bc i’m young and we lost a patient today bc he rathers humiliate me than let me save him 

Andrew, a dangerous glint in his eyes and a whole cluster behind him: oh?

Kevin, opens his computer and digs up dirt on him: give me a sec

Allison: I can roll over him with my truck

Neil: there is so many ways to mix two meds and kills him ON ACCIDENT

Dan: let’s see how he deals in prison

Nicky: oh this is going to be fun

Kevin, reciting facts like he’s reading a grocery list: so yeah he smuggles meds from the hospital so local drug dealers, illegally sells meds for himself on the black market, does tax evasion, is friend with a local senator and both of them are involved with minors….i have already several reservation at X hotel btw and cases of work harassment on nurses and interns, threats to others older doctors in serve, and OH. OH. We have a spanking kink on our hands too.

Every members of the cluster, turning to Nicky and Neil:....go wild

Nicky, giggling: not that’s it’s a shame when it’s consensual but not here so - let’s start with the spanking :D

Neil: Can I make him cry

No violence is used but the doctor is found on the floor drowning in his own tears after a few minutes and after an hour he’s resigned and leaving the country

Andrew was dressed as Aaron for that (that being: smuggling Neil and Nicky into the hospital to meet the doctor through him)  and sends him a selfie of a 5 feet surgeon and the man crying on the floor 

It’s their best memory as a family (Aaron hates Neil a little less after that)

Neil to Nicky: why did you stop me from pushing towards suicide??? He’s gonna do that in another country

(Kevin: no if I can help it)

Nicky: bc we don’t do that to people!

Neil, Andrew, Aaron, Allison:...........right

Neil: killing even indirectly is no good but destroying their life and humiliating them publically is good?

Nicky: YES!

Matt and Dan: WAIT NO

(Allison: don’t brother Neil you’ll just hurt your head)

(Neil, close to tears: but...but...but arson?? Andrew, with knives out: alright fuckers who broke his heart?)

*

Matt and Dan bc they’re fuckin weak to Neil: ITS OK BUDDY ARSON IS GOOD

*

I have to end on this note:

Storyline wise, Neil would have make the perfect Wolfgang too….if Wolfgang was a twink.

[hannahrose533]

Berlin

Levi x Eren

some smut

nsfw

Levi doesn’t know about the new model until he’s standing right in front of him – all six feet of tan skin, bright eyes and wiry muscles wrapped up tight in a package labelled Eren Jaeger.

Oh shit, Levi thinks.

“Levi,” Hanji grins, completely oblivious to the way Levi is standing frozen still with his camera slipping loose between sweaty fingers. “This is Eren. He’s our model for the upcoming summer shoot. Eren, this is Levi – he’s our lead photographer.”

“Yeah,” Eren says, and his voice is exactly like Levi remembers – suddenly he’s right back where he was ten years ago. “We’ve met.”

The only reason the slam of Eren’s knuckles into the side of his face doesn’t hurt half as much is because Levi has been preparing for it the moment he saw him.

.

It was late July and Levi had spent the last three years traveling across half the fucking world just to build up his portfolio.

He’d started in his birthplace of Paris and worked his way through Milan and London and New York, even a brief flit across Asia – Tokyo and Seoul mostly – before landing in Berlin.

He was starting to carve out his nook in the world of fashion photography, but he was still young – just scraping twenty-five by the time his one-sided love affair with Korea had sent him packing for Germany – and the newbies to the business didn’t get shit like fancy hotel rooms or bedsits.

He meets the Jaegers through a mutual friend and Carla graciously welcomes him into their home for as long as he plans on staying in Berlin. They live just far enough out of the city to be away from the clutter and bustle of central life, but near enough to it to count. They have room, she says, and their son would be delighted by the company.

All Levi has to his name at this point is about fifty Euros and his camera so he’s not really in any position to say no.

He accepts her offer and hitches a ride back to their house just on the outskirts of the city where concrete gives way to dirt and the red stained smog of the sky turns a bitter blue.

Stepping out of the back of the pickup he raps loudly on the side of the vehicle to let the driver know his help was appreciated before slinging his bag up over his shoulder and stepping away from the ensuing spray of dust as the wheels spit gravel and grit that stings his eyes as the car races away.

Rather suddenly Levi is alone in front of a two story country-style house with nothing but the clothes on his back and the camera heavy and beautiful in his bag.

The door shudders open in a rusted squeal and a boy steps out – the son, Levi supposes.

“Sie müssen Levi sein, richtig?” He asks as he shuts the door.

Levi shakes his head to let the kid know that he doesn’t speak a word of German.

The kid frowns; although Levi can’t really see much of his face from where he’s standing under the shadows cast by the roof, only the burnished shine of brown hair and the golden glint of sun-beaten skin.

Levi doesn’t think the kid would understand French so he takes a wild stab and asks: “English?”

An expression of intense relief skids over his face and the kid says flawlessly and with only the barest blip of accent: “You’re Levi, right? That photographer guy that’s staying with us for a while.”

Levi goes to answer – probably with something snarky and terribly rude – but the kid chooses this exact moment to step out from beneath the midday shadows and for the first time Levi properly sees his face.

The back of his neck is hot from the sun and his eyes are still watering from the spew of dust left behind by his ride – his words trip and stumble at his lips and suddenly it’s all very hard to breathe.

Eren’s gorgeous in a way that is purely physical – face cut in perfect angles and lips curved in just the right way – but it’s his eyes that do it to him.

Levi can’t look away from those eyes.

.

“Its fine,” Levi says for the third time around a fistful of tissues, wincing not just at the way his nose feels raw and tender beneath his bloody fingers, but at the way his voice comes out funny as voices do when you can’t breathe through your fucking nose. “Its fine, Hanji; it’ll stop in a moment.”

“I can’t believe it,” Hanji says again – the third time herself – as she holds out a box of tissues. Levi gratefully takes another dozen. “That’s so unlike him. I mean, I know he has a temper but I’ve never seen him attack someone unprovoked like that.”

It wasn’t unprovoked, Levi thinks but doesn’t say aloud as he drops the soggy tissues in his hand so they splat loudly in the bathroom sink and looks up into the mirror.

Eren had done a good number on him. For one punch that came completely out of the blue with no windup it probably couldn’t have been much worse if he’d tried.

Levi’s nose wasn’t broken – thank fuck for small mercies – but it was bruising fast in a way that let the spread of bumpy purple sprawl out under his eyes as well. Levi didn’t normally look like the most well rested person in the world, but on the same note the bags underneath his eyes weren’t usually violet either.

Kid should have been a boxer instead of a model – Levi would certainly bet on him.

Levi glances down and makes a noise of disgust. His nose might not be bleeding anymore, but his hands are a revolting mess of fast clotting blood that’s making his palms tacky and brown as it dries.

Without a word Hanji reaches past and turns on the tap for him and Levi grunts out his thanks as he sticks his hands beneath the gush of water and lets slip an audible sigh.

“So,” Hanji says when Levi makes no attempt to speak. “You and Eren, huh?”

Levi’s blood runs as cold as the water feels on his skin. “I don’t know what you mean,” he lies.

Hanji snorts and sets aside the box of tissues she’d been carrying. “I know a break-up punch when I see one, Levi. That?” She waves at Levi’s miscoloured face. “That right there is definitely the work of a break-up punch.”

The sharp shriek of the soap dispenser as Levi pours copious amounts on his palms isn’t enough to drown her out.

“So my question,” Hanji continues, “is when? Because Eren’s only just recently broken out as a model. He only came to the states about three years ago – and I know you haven’t had any interaction with him seeing as how he’s actually spent the better part of his stay jumping between here and Toronto.”

“Hanji,” Levi says tiredly as he leaves the tap running and reaches for some paper towel. “Just let it go, okay?”

Hanji’s watching him carefully in the mirror and Levi wants nothing more than to just walk away and end this whole conversation here but he can’t – not won’t, literally can’t – because his palms still itch with the feel of his own blood and Levi can’t handle his camera until he knows they’re clean, that he won’t dirty his only precious thing.

He squirts more soap on his hands and avoids Hanji’s eyes.

He’s tired. He’s just so, so tired.

“Now that I think about it,” Hanji says, “you’ve been to Berlin, haven’t you?”

“Hanji,” Levi warns.

“But that would have been nearly ten years ago, wouldn’t it?” She muses.

“Hanji,” he hisses again, and her name comes out like a curse. He pulls his hands out from the basin and slams the tap off with his elbow, dripping water and soap suds as he tears more paper towel free. “Just let it go.”

Levi kicks open the bathroom door with enough force that it slams vicious and unrelenting behind him as he exits, leaving Hanji watching him with concerned eyes by the sink.

He stalks down the hallway until he’s far enough away from the bathroom that he feels okay to fumble his phone free and hit fucking number one speed-dial.

Erwin picks up after two rings. “Levi,” he greets easily. “I assume this is about Eren?”

Levi grits his teeth together hard enough he’s surprised they don’t chip as he fights down the burgeoning sense of betrayal. “You didn’t even think you should warn me?”

“I thought it might be best if you weren’t given a chance to run. You have a history of resorting to extreme means to escape small problems.”

“Fuck you,” he hisses. “I told you –.”

“You told me if I ever sent you to Berlin you’d quit on the spot. I haven’t sent you to Berlin, Levi; Berlin has come to you.”

Levi sucks in a deep breath and follows that up with another as he tries to keep from screaming down the phone at Erwin because twelve year-old tantrums rarely solve problems and Erwin is still technically his boss.

“What are you playing at?”

“Eren is a talented model,” Erwin says firmly. “We are lucky to be working with him. I’m sorry but your past with him does not nullify his value to us; not everything is about you. This discussion is over.”

Levi hangs up without another word before he does something he’ll really regret.

The hallway is empty enough that Levi can lean against the wall and close his eyes without risking an awkward explanation, grinding the palms of his hands into his sockets and ignoring the way it flares up the bruising burn.

Eren Jaeger was from ten years in his past and Levi had been so sure that would be where he’d stay for the rest of ever. He’d never thought – never allowed himself to believe – that their paths would ever cross again, not in this lifetime.

There’s a photo Levi has in a shoebox in his apartment that he hasn’t looked at since he put it there eight years ago. He’s not even thought of it in at least three.

Ten years ago in Berlin he’d taken seven photos of Eren Jaeger and deleted every single one except the last.

Levi lets out an uneven breath and drops his hands from his eyes.

His face feels like it’s on fire and he suspects it might take a good few days for the swelling to go down enough that he can properly use his camera.

He thinks of Eren lying on the floor in the Jaeger household, his eyes closed and his shoulders rising up and down in even breaths, the blue of Levi’s blanket around his bare shoulders; how for that brief second when Levi had peered through his camera everything had felt right.

His face hurts and he can feel his nose bleeding again.

It’s probably no less than he deserves.

.

“I still don’t get why I can’t come with you when you go into the city,” Eren whines as he kicks his feet absently against the wooden beams of the underside of the deck. “Do you even understand how boring it is just to hang around here all day? Fuck, I swear I’m going insane.”

“Oi, watch your language shithead,” Levi scolds but doesn’t look up from where he’s cleaning the various lenses of his camera. “If your mother hears you talking like that I’m the one who’s going to cop the blame.”

Eren smirks and leans back on his hands, peering at Levi over his shoulder. “Well maybe you should just let me come with you into Berlin and I’ll make an effort to clean up my language.”

Levi snorts as he carefully wipes the delicate glass with a cloth. “Your parents think you’re the sweetest little thing when in reality you’re nothing but a manipulative little shit.”

“What can I say; I’m learning from the best.”

It was dry and hot and Levi doesn’t understand why it’s making him so desperately uncomfortable when he’d been to much hotter countries before. He’d had a stint in Australia during the middle of December, yet he didn’t sweat nearly as much as he is now sitting cross-legged on the floor of the guest room with the sliding glass door open to the veranda out front, Eren sitting with his legs hanging over the side as he bugged Levi in that way that fifteen year old boys bugged everybody they met.

Eren lets out a sigh and flops backwards against the decking in a spray of lanky limbs. “It’s too hot for this,” he mumbles as his eyes slip closed.

Levi tries not to stare at the line of his neck, the sweat trickling down to lick at his collarbone, easily visible beneath the neck of his shirt which was too large on him and gliding loose at his shoulder.

It feels like there’s a rock in Levi’s stomach and his throat goes very dry.

“If the heat’s bothering you that much piss off and take a shower or something; leave me the fuck alone,” he rasps and turns his attention back to the unassembled camera, trying desperately to ignore the way his hands shake.

Eren pouts and rolls over, opening up his eyes to watch Levi click and unlick his lenses.

Levi has been here long enough by now to build up a certain – immunity wasn’t the word – tolerance against Eren’s gaze, but when he looks at him like that; nothing but sheer intensity in blue-green eyes … Levi can hardly take it.

“What are you doing?” Eren asks.

Levi doesn’t look, only reaches for another lens. “Making sure I keep my camera in good condition,” he says steadily. “Otherwise I’d ruin the lenses.”

“Is your camera that important to you?” Eren asks and he’s still doing it – looking at Levi like this whole thing is the most important thing in the world to him right now.

“Very,” Levi answers.

“Why?”

“Because,” he says as places the cloth down and reaches for some cotton buds, “it was the very first thing I ever bought for me.”

They fall into silence for a moment, the only sounds the gentle swabbing of cotton buds against the delicate curve of the lens and the outside chirp of cicadas.

“Can I help?” Eren asks and Levi falters.

“With the cleaning?” He specifies, and Eren simply nods.

He means to say ‘no’ – he means to tell Eren that this camera is too precious to him to be handled by a brat who doesn’t know the first thing about photography – but Eren just looks so earnest; like all he wants in life right now is for Levi to let him help.

Levi sighs and pats the floorboards next to him and Eren scurries over eagerly.

“If you drop this,” Levi threatens as he passes Eren his camera, “I fucking swear I’ll kill you and leave you somewhere to be turned to pig shit.”

“Yes, sir,” Eren grins like the brat he is, but his hands are soft and gentle as he weighs it between his fingers and Levi knows without a doubt that Eren would probably sooner cut off his own arm than damage the camera now knowing how much Levi values it.

They sit silently, knees bumping as Levi passes a cotton swab to Eren, watching critically as he starts to clean the camera. He’s not actually doing that bad of a job, if Levi is honest, but it’s not perfect and when it comes to his work everything has to be perfect.

“More like…” he pauses and Eren raises an eyebrow.

“More like what?”

“I don’t know – just not like that.”

Eren sighs and it is loud and obvious and clearly faked. He looks Levi right in the eye. “Well,” he says as he settles in closer and drifts his hands to hover over Levi’s lap, “if I’m doing such a bad job, you’ll just have to show me then, won’t you?”

Eren’s looking right at him, meeting his eyes without flinching, and he knows exactly what he’s doing – Levi can fucking see it in the sharp corners of his mouth, the intensity of his gaze; can feel it in the way he’s brushing much too close to be accidental and leaning in near enough to be nothing short of completely intentional.

Levi has no clue what he’s doing – why he’s reaching for Eren’s hands when he should be putting as much distance between them as possible – but he keeps going anyway, fingers wrapping loose around Eren’s as he guides his wrist slowly in a circle.

They stay like that long after the camera is clean.

.

The thing about photo studios is that they’re always unerringly bright – lit in sprays of artificial light that bounce off sheets of silver here and camera flashes that flare like the sun there.

It’s never really bothered Levi before – it’s his playground, his reason to live – but the thing is he’d never had to try and work with two black eyes before.

Hanji had kept her mouth shut about what had happened and nobody had actually been game enough to ask why Levi looked like he went three rounds with a heavy weight boxer and then some, but he can feel the concerned glances flicked his way every time his back is turned.

It’s all Levi can do to grit his teeth and act professional.

“To the left,” he calls and Eren moves flawlessly, tilting his head so that Levi has a better view of his perfectly angled jawline.

He raises his camera and clicks.

Last time he’d seen Eren he’d been fifteen with more testosterone than brains and a body that was just crossing the line from teenage awkwardness in fits and starts, barely taller than Levi. Now he had an entire five inches on him and was muscular in that lanky way that everybody wanted to be but so few managed.

He looked like a model – he was a model.

Levi raises his camera and Eren’s eyes flicker over, meeting his own for a brief, powerful second.

Then he looks away.

Breathe, Levi reminds himself as he clicks another photo. You’re thirty-five now and you can handle this.

Somebody calls an end to the shoot and as Eren steps out of the light his skin almost ripples in a golden glow.

Levi cannot handle this.

Eren had been gorgeous enough when he was fifteen and had no clue about the effect he had on people. At twenty-four he looks like a fucking sex-god and knows it.

Levi steps away from the shoot set-up and waits patiently for a techie to unplug his camera before he heads for the table in the office where he keeps his padded camera bag. He’s come a long way from the twenty-something that stepped off the back of a pickup in Germany with one set of clothes and a satchel over his shoulder and one of the perks is being able to afford nice things like memory-foam cases.

The office is empty and Levi breathes a sigh of relief as he places his camera gently on the table and zips open his camera bag.

“Good work today,” Eren says behind him and Levi jumps – he’d never even heard him come in.

Eren’s face is unreadable and Levi has no clue how fucking quickly he must have changed to be standing there so easily in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

Levi watches him cautiously. “You’re not going to punch me again, are you?” He asks. “Because you got a free hit in last time but I will hit you back if you try again.”

Eren snorts and holds up his palms in the universal symbol of surrender. “I’m not stupid; I know if it came to a fight you could probably kick my ass. I’ve seen how surprisingly toned you are.”

It’s an innocent comment but a loaded statement and Levi just wishes fervently and with passion that he had perfected a method of coping with his problems that didn’t just involve running away until they could no longer catch him.

Eren was one problem he never thought would, and look where that got him now.

Eren’s gaze flicks behind Levi and he nods at the table. “Is that the same camera?”

Is that the same camera I used to seduce you ten years ago in another country entirely?

Levi turns away from him and busies himself with slipping it back into the case, nestling it comfortably in the foam. “Yeah. I told you before it was important to me.”

Eren laughs. “Oh, I wasn’t sure. I mean, you’ve got a bit of a history of leaving things behind.”

Levi tells himself that the comment doesn’t hurt – that it shouldn’t hurt because it was the fucking truth – but the words still lance and barb all the same and suddenly instead of just being hurt he’s angry too.

Levi spins around and takes a step forward until he’s in Eren’s space, grabbing him by the shirt and yanking him down to eye level. Something that somehow both is and isn’t shock flits over Eren’s face but he makes no move to escape, only raises a hand to grab Levi’s wrist to keep the pair of them steady.

“Listen to me you complete shit for brains retard,” Levi hisses. “I know I fucked up, but it’s been ten years and I’m sorry. Whether you choose to believe me is your own problem, but I will not have you come into my workplace and remind me that I screwed up. It was a mistake and I regret it every day, but you sassing me every time I see you isn’t going to make it go away.”

Something complicated was happening on Eren’s face and he opens his mouth to say something only to shut it again and laugh – a breathless painful twist of a sound as his eyes slip closed.

“Jesus fuck, you don’t get anything, do you?” He asks, and Levi feels like he should be offended but before he can make up his mind Eren is speaking again. “I just… God, Levi. I was fifteen and I was so fucking in love with you that I barely knew what to do with myself when you were around.”

There’s something tight in Levi’s throat and it hurts to breathe past it, but he does anyway. “I know,” he says.

Eren’s eyes fly open and suddenly he grips Levi’s wrist hard enough that Levi’s hand flies open on reflex and Eren’s shirt slips from his fingers, but Eren makes no move to step away only to step in closer, backing Levi against the table with frightening ease and never letting go once.

“No,” he says, and Levi can see the anger plain on his face. “You don’t know. You know why you don’t know? Because when I woke up you were gone. Do you realize how fucking dumb I felt standing in the kitchen with your teeth marks on my neck listening to my mother tell me you’d left for Paris while I was sleeping?” He laughs again but this one is more self-deprecating, a good deal angrier. “It wasn’t like I had any illusions that it was anything more than a fucking joke to you – but it was serious to me.”

Levi’s heart is beating too fast and he can barely think past the nerves live-wiring hot from where Eren’s skin is touching his, but he tries anyway. “You were fifteen,” he says and somehow his voice doesn’t waver. “You were fifteen and there was no way out that didn’t involve hurting you. I shouldn’t have done it at all; but I did and after that all I could do was damage control.”

“Well then,” Eren snaps, his hold almost painful now. “You didn’t do a fucking good job of that, did you?”

Levi closes his eyes and says for what feels like the thousandth time but will still never feel like enough: “I’m sorry.”

It’s silent for a moment except for the steady thump of Levi’s heart and Eren’s harsh breaths.

After a moment Eren’s fingers loosen and Levi’s hand slides free.

“Whatever,” Eren says and Levi has never heard him sound so exhausted. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Levi doesn’t open his eyes; just breathes deeply until he feels Eren step away, the thump of his footsteps as he turns towards the office door.

“Levi?” He says, and it’s only the way it sounds more like a statement than a question that makes Levi look.

Eren is standing still by the door, one hand on the frame and his head turned slightly although he’s not actually looking at him. Levi can see the minute flex of his fingertips against the wood like his fingers want to curl into a fist.

His jaw tightens.

“You were the reason I became a model,” he says.

And then he’s gone.

.

It’d been building for a while between them, but somehow Levi is still unprepared when the dam breaks.

Levi’s shirtless – “fuck, don’t look at me like that Eren, it’s too hot for shirts” – and they’re in his room with nothing but the slow whirl of the fan above for company and the steady shuffle of Eren sorting through some of his photos as he lays sprawled on his stomach on the floorboards, shirt hitching slightly and shorts barely hanging onto his hips.

Levi’s camera is in his hands and it takes everything he has not to just raise it then and there and snap a photo.

Eren shifts slightly and his shirt catches on a loose nail in the floor.

“Eren,” Levi says and points when Eren glances at him. “Carla’s not going to be pleased if you tear your shirt.”

Eren groans and sits up, placing the photos he was flicking through reverently aside – and something in Levi aches at that, the way they’re important to Eren just because they’re important to him – and tugging at the hem with slender fingers.

“Fuck it,” he says, and then repeats with deliberate intent: “It’s too hot for shirts.”

Please no, Levi thinks desperately but Eren’s hands have already slipped under the fabric and he’s stripping it off – not just taking, because Eren Jaeger doesn’t do things by halves, but stripping – and Levi cannot look away from the flex of his spine, the contours of his developing chest, the lines of his collarbone.

He’s beaded with sweat all over.

Levi can barely breathe and his fingers hurt from how tight he’s squeezing his camera.

Eren drops his shirt to the ground with a relieved sigh, raising his arms over his head in a careless stretch. “Much better,” he groans and his eyes flick up to look at Levi and there’s something in them that he doesn’t know how to name. “What?”

“I want to take your picture,” Levi blurts before he can think – before he realizes he’s asking a half-naked fifteen year old boy this question.

Eren blinks at him. “Sure, if you want. I thought you only took photos of like, models and stuff though.”

“Only for a living,” Levi says more calmly than he actually feels as he raises his camera. “I take photos of anything I find beautiful. You ready?”

Eren stares at him and Levi has a suspicion he’s not actually breathing. “Uh, yeah. Whenever is good.”

Eren sits back a bit, rolls his shoulder unintentionally as he leans so his palms are splayed behind him on the floor.

His neck is shiny with sweat and through the viewfinder Levi sees a drop cling to his neck.

He snaps a picture.

It wasn’t like Levi didn’t know – he knew alright. He’d known since the first night Eren had snuck into his room with a grin and a really bad lie that he wanted Levi’s help on his homework. Had known with the way Eren always sat too close, always listened too carefully.

Eren Jaeger’s crush on him was as obvious to him as the inherent beauty of film grain and darkrooms – Levi had just been hoping the fact that he returned the sentiment two fold hadn’t been.

Eren takes in a breath and changes positions slightly, tilting his head and lengthening his neck with a kind of natural ease and grace that was completely at odds with the awkward spread of his shoulders, the way his limbs were gangly in their growth.

Levi snaps another photo and the sound of the shutter going off is achingly loud.

Eren glances up from beneath his lashes and there is something about it that seems intentional in a way that makes all of Levi’s blood run hot at once.

“What should I be doing?” He asks, voice so low and quiet it was almost a murmur.

“Just…” Levi breathes. “Whatever you want.”

Eren’s eyes darken. “Whatever I want?” He repeats – and then he smiles.

Before Levi can realize his intentions Eren has unbuttoned his shorts, unzipped his fly so that Levi can see the black fabric of his boxer-briefs and is leaning backwards on his elbows with his pants barely fucking on looking like a pinup from an adult magazine.

Levi can’t move – the camera is still in his hands.

“Well?” Eren asks, and his voice is low and silky and the faint burr of his accent makes the breath hiss out of Levi all at once. “I was promised you’d be taking pictures.”

Levi swallows deeply and gets to his knees for a better angle, hearing the uneven creak of the floorboards beneath him as he manages to steady the camera in his hands and take another shot.

Eren’s eyes drift from his face, tracing down his body eagerly and coming to a rest on the definite erection Levi has been sporting since Eren all but made taking his shirt off into a fucking striptease.

“Oi,” Levi rasps and Eren’s eyes flick back up but his cheeks are flushed desperately and his breathing is more panting than anything else now. Levi can barely see the green of his irises, his pupils blown wide.

He clicks another photo, shuffles nearer on his knees and takes another and he just keeps moving closer until he’s hovering above Eren, kneeling between his spread legs and close enough that all he’d have to do is shift his hips to brush his groin against Eren’s.

Eren is so painfully and obviously aroused that he’s nearly trembling with it all as Levi aims the camera down at him – and Levi wonders how they’d look if someone took a picture of the both of them right now, shirtless and sweaty and desperately hard for each other.

Levi’s fingers are shaking so much he can barely press the shutter button and every exhale he makes sounds like it could be his last.

Eren’s eyes close and a drop of sweat rolls down his face to curve along his upper lip and Levi has never wanted to  taste anything so badly in his whole life.

“Fuck,” he spits and throws – throws – his camera aside.

The noises Eren makes as Levi’s lips crash into his are needy and pained and desperate – pitched gasps and groans as Levi forcibly knocks him flat to the ground, his hands on Eren’s waist as Eren’s own fingers fly up to clutch hard and tight in Levi’s hair.

“Levi,” he all but moans and Levi’s hips stutter all on their own, pushing down against Eren’s and making him shout as they start grinding together desperately without a single thought, just mindless pressure and pain.

It briefly crosses Levi’s mind that Carla and Grisha were out – that’s it, that’s why Eren was even in his room in the first place – and the relief he feels is immense and overwhelming because he doesn’t think he could stop himself right now if he tried.

“Eren,” he gasps as Eren somehow manages to get his legs around his waist. “Fuck, Eren. I need you to – shit – I need you to slow down.”

Eren whines at that and just ruts them together harder yet and Levi’s vision starts to waver black, the tightness in his gut stretching so taut he feels like nothing short of a grenade.

He’s not going to last long.

Levi fumbles with Eren’s pants, pushing them down far enough that he manages to slide his hand into Eren’s boxers and wrap his fingers around him, feeling the hot weight and wetness as he squeezes.

The sound Eren makes against his lips is a ripped gasp and the grip he has in Levi’s hair should be painful but everything is just intense heat and crippling pleasure and all it does is add a sharp spike in sensation that tears a groan from him as he slides his hand along Eren’s erection in a slick pump.

“Levi, Levi,” Eren gasps and his legs are tight at Levi’s waist and he’s pushing his hips up fervently into his hand, positively writhing beneath him, head titlted back and sweat rippling across his face as he groans and groans, bucking without pause into Levi’s hand.

Levi can’t – he just can’t. Everything is Eren and he doesn’t know why he’s been fighting against this for so long because he’s never felt so good in his life, never wants to not feel this good again, and he thinks he could probably come just from feeling Eren twitching and wet in his hand, seeing how truly desperate he is for him.

“Levi,” Eren pants as one hand slips from his hair to cradle the back of his neck like Eren is holding on for dear life. “I’m going to – I want – please,” he gasps. “I need you to – not just – not just me, okay? I want…” The rest of his sentence trails off but his eyes are suddenly focused and intense, locked completely with Levi’s own. “Please.”

And it’s the same eyes that Levi saw a month ago when he stood outside of this very house covered in travel-grime and sweat and he’s helpless against it, powerless to do anything but bury his face in the crook of Eren’s neck and groan as he fumbles his hand free and manages to finally steady his shaking fingers enough to dig them under his waistband and tug down. Eren raises his hips to help them slide free – moaning as the elastic drags over his dick – before finally pooling at his ankles and being kicked free.

Just like that Eren is naked and panting and flushed beneath Levi, dick hard and slick against his abs and stomach heaving with every desperate inhale and exhale.

Levi wants to touch him – leave nothing untouched – wants to burn this moment into Eren’s skin forever, to make it so every inch of him will remember all the things Levi is going to do to him.

More than that – he wants Eren to want it too. He needs Eren to need him as much as he needs Eren right now.

Eren’s fingers tighten on his shoulders. “Please,” he says again and his voice cracks. “Levi, please.”

Levi swears and it’s all he can do to press a kiss to Eren’s exposed throat before he turns to fumble blindly in his satchel which is lying abandoned behind him.

It takes several painful seconds of searching with his fingertips before he manages to feel the crinkle of the needed little silver packages that have been at the bottom of his bag untouched for all his stay in Berlin.

When he turns back Eren is watching him with wide eyes.

“If you want me to stop,” he says, “you need to tell me now. Eren, I can’t –.”

Eren is shaking his head before Levi can even finish speaking. “What I need,” he says, and he sounds almost coherent, “is for you to get the fuck back over here and touch me before I have to do it myself.”

Christ, Levi thinks as he leans forward and shoves Eren back on the floor as he somehow manages to rip a package of lube open with his teeth because he doesn’t trust himself not to drop it with his fingers. Jesus fucking Christ – I’m doomed.

He opens Eren up as slowly as he possibly can, listening intently for any sign that this is too much, that Eren needs him to stop, but the only thing Eren does is breathe evenly and deeply through the initial uncomfortableness as Levi’s first finger slides slick but deep in him, digging his nails hard enough into Levi’s shoulder blades that he feels the skin break.

It shouldn’t turn him on but it does because everything right now has narrowed to Eren’s touch on his skin and the sound he makes when Levi spreads him open with another finger, leaning forward to take a nipple gently between his teeth so that the pained hiss turns into a groan.

By the time he has a third finger in he manages to find Eren’s prostate, scraping against it as he presses so that Eren actually cries out and clings to Levi in a shaking, sobbing mess as he pushes back on his fingers, trying to get him to find the spot again and Levi just can’t hold out anymore.

He pulls away and Eren makes a garbled complaint that Levi can’t even understand because he slipped back into German a while ago, but when he sees Levi tearing open the condom packet his breath hitches and he turns his head away, but the way his dick is twitching against his stomach tells Levi it’s out of embarrassment rather than fear.

Still, he pauses as he settles between Eren’s legs and smooths one hand along his cheek until he can once again see the green – so fucking intense, god – of Eren’s eyes.

“Okay?” He asks, and he hasn’t touched his own cock once and he’s so fucking hard and desperate but he needs one final affirmation from Eren before he can allow himself to do this.

Eren’s lashes cast spider-web shadows on his cheeks as his eyes close and he raises one arm to cover them, but he nods firmly, gripping at Levi’s shoulder with a hand.

Levi takes a breath and pushes in.

It takes everything he has not to hold Eren down and fuck him mercilessly – he feels his breath knocked out of him as Eren tenses around him and he’d known Eren was a virgin but any memories Levi has about first-time sex are foggy at best so he’s completely unprepared for the way Eren’s body feels so tight it rips every last piece of oxygen from him as thoroughly as if he’d stepped into a vacuum.

Eren’s hiding his face behind his arm but his chest is rising and falling so rapidly that Levi feels a flare of alarm. “Hey,” he coaxes as he takes Eren’s wrist to pull his arm away. Eren resists for a second but ultimately allows Levi to move it. “Do you need me to stop?”

The idea of stopping is nearly physically painful with the way his cock is throbbing and his brain is urging him to just slam his hips forward, but Levi’s not a fucking animal and if this is too much – if Eren can’t – he’ll end it as easily as he’d begun it.

“That’s not…” Eren’s voice is hoarse and gasping. “Just… Slowly, okay?”

Levi bends and presses a kiss to his forehead before he starts them at a rhythm.

It’s so slow it hurts but with each steady roll of his hips Eren grows less and less tense, arms coming up to circle Levi’s back as he makes an effort to move with him, face buried in Levi’s shoulder until Levi manages to find his sweet spot and he lets out a strangled shout and presses his fingers hard enough into Levi’s back to bruise.

“Again,” he begs and Levi angles and pushes and is rewarded by a strained groan as Eren buckles beneath him and urges Levi’s hips harder and harder – faster, faster, faster.

“Fuck,” Levi gasps as he presses his hands into the floor either side of Eren’s twisting body, thrusting with abandon and feeling the clench in his stomach, the white-out of his vision. Eren’s so warm and hot and fucking beautiful and Levi’s not going to be able to hold out any longer he’s –

Eren cries out and tenses around him hard, back arching off the floor and eyes flying wide open as his orgasm hits.

The sight of him – the hot feel of his come spurting against his stomach – is too much for Levi and he shudders desperately as he feels everything inside him snap and he’s only dimly aware of one of his hands on Eren’s hips as he holds him to the ground, of pushing himself deep inside of him, but it’s all background noise to the thrumming in his head and the hot spill of his blood. “Eren,” he gasps aloud; and he keeps on gasping it until he can see again.

They’re both still, panting against each other’s skins, and it takes Levi a long moment before he can move, pulling out of Eren as gently as he can. A small hiss of pain escapes him anyway and Levi can do nothing but press his lips to his collarbone in apology because he might not remember much about his first time but he does remember how raw it tends to leave you.

He doesn’t look at Eren as he shuffles back, stripping the condom off and tying it as he drops it in the bin by his desk before grabbing a handful of tissues and wiping Eren’s come off his stomach.

Levi doesn’t really know what to do now – if there’s a protocol for this. Everything in him is screaming to just do up his pants, find a shirt and run as far away as he possibly can.

Eren’s still lying on his back but he’s staring at the ceiling, not even looking at him.

Levi wonders if he’s just fucked things up beyond repair because Eren is fifteen – and he knows he hasn’t done anything technically illegal; consent in Germany is fourteen so Eren’s been legal for close to two years – but illegal and wrong don’t always coincide.

“I don’t suppose,” Eren says into the silence and Levi starts, “that I could convince you to just stop thinking about things for a second and lie down with me?”

Eren looks at him and smiles – eyes bright and clear but tired in a way that losing your virginity to a man ten years your senior will leave you.

Levi hesitates – considers just getting up and bolting – but Eren’s just staring at him wordlessly with nick and scrapes from Levi’s teeth on his neck and bruises from his fingers on his waist and Levi doesn’t want to say no.

Slowly – and Levi doesn’t know who he thinks will bolt if he moves too quickly; him or Eren – he crawls along the floor until he’s by Eren’s side and it’s too hot for this, they’re covered in sweat from heat and sex and it is definitely too hot for this, but when Eren cautiously takes his arm and drapes it behind his shoulders Levi can’t help but pull him close.

They stay like that for so long Levi loses track of time. At some point the sun goes down and Eren’s breathing goes from being deep and measured to soft and even and Levi realizes he’s fallen asleep.

He’s twenty-five years old and he’s lying on a floor in Berlin with his arms around a teenager whose virginity he’s just taken.

Levi closes his eyes and breathes deeply through the sheer onslaught of panic.

Eren is fifteen and has his whole life ahead of him and if the Jaegers learn that Levi has essentially deflowered their barely-legal teenage son he can’t even pretend he knows the shit show that would go down.

He turns his head slightly and feels the brush of Eren’s dark hair against his chin as he looks down at him.

He’s gorgeous and tenacious and everything he says and does makes Levi never want to let him go.

It’s that thought more than anything – the possessive urge to stay and give up on all his dreams, to put aside his rising status as an international photographer and fuck what anybody else thought – that galvanises Levi into action.

Slowly, so as not wake Eren, he shifts his arm from underneath him and rolls away.

Eren’s eyes flutter slightly but he doesn’t wake as Levi gets to his feet, doesn’t stir when Levi drags the blanket off his bed and drops it over him.

It’s a mark of how few possessions he has that he manages to be packed in under five minutes.

Standing at the doorway with his bag slung over one shoulder and his camera in his hands Levi feels inexplicably lost. He doesn’t know what he’s doing – where the fuck he plans on going now – and it’s all he can do just to take a moment to stare at Eren, the naked sprawl of his skin and the snarls of his hair brushing loose along his brow.

This will be the last time Levi ever sees him.

The snap of his shutter is lonely and loud in the room and by the time Eren wakes up five hours later – confused and hurt and alone – Levi is on a plane to France.

.

Levi doesn’t remember how he figured out where Eren lives – doesn’t remember anything that seems to have happened before that fifth drink, really – but somehow he’s standing out front of his apartment door with no clue how he got there.

Eren answers after the first knock and Levi doesn’t wait to catch the look of shock or disgust or whatever else he’d be after discovering Levi standing outside at one in the morning, only steps in so suddenly Eren has no choice but to step back and kicks the door aggressively closed behind him.

“What –.” Eren starts to say but Levi reaches up and grabs his shirt and shoves;topples them both to the ground in one fluid movement so that Eren is sprawled on his back and Levi is straddling his waist, legs folded either side of his hips while his fingers clench tight in Eren’s shirt – the second time in less than twenty-four hours.

“Do you hate me?” He growls and Eren just gapes.

“Levi, what the –.”

“It’s a simple question, you shithead. Four words and a question mark – don’t act like you can’t fucking understand me. Do you hate me?”

Eren just stares up at him with wide eyes and Levi can’t – he’s just so fucking angry. Angry because Eren had to come back into his life, angry because he couldn’t fucking leave well enough alone, angry because Eren had grown up in ten years but still managed to be exactly the same person and angry because some part of him thinks he’s been stuck on standstill ever since the day he left Eren lying there on the floor.

He was just angry.

“Are you drunk?” Eren asks after a pause and Levi averts his gaze. Eren sighs, runs a hand through his hair and somehow manages to look more exasperated than anything else, like Levi hadn’t just stalked him to his goddamn apartment and practically assaulted him. “Do you need me to like, I don’t know, call a cab for you or something?”

Levi narrows his eyes and tightens his grip on Eren’s shirt, settling himself properly on his chest so that Eren winces under the pressure of his weight. “I can walk home just fine,” – except for the fact he probably can’t, because he doesn’t even remember getting here, doesn’t even really remember where here is – “and I’ll leave just as soon as you answer my question.”

“Levi,” Eren says, and Levi can hear the patronizing tone before he even starts speaking, feels it boil his blood because ten years ago Eren worshiped the ground he walked on and now here he is speaking like Levi is a particularly dull child – he doesn’t know why he’s so upset when this is exactly what he should want. “You’re drunk off your face and white as a sheet. We’ve got work tomorrow, so you should probably go home.”

“Answer the question.”

“Or alternatively,” Eren proposes without skipping a beat, “you can sleep on the sofa if you think you can’t make it back to your apartment.”

It occurs to Levi that Eren is dodging the question but the realization doesn’t make it to anywhere in his brain that is saturated with ten ounces of vodka. “You don’t want me in your apartment,” he scoffs.

“Whether I want you in my apartment or not isn’t the point,” Eren hisses. “You’re drunk and unfortunately you’re here and I’m not the kind of person to let a co-worker – fuck, anybody – walk home when they’re too smashed to see straight.”

Levi closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath but doesn’t move from his perch, feeling the steady rise of Eren’s chest beneath his thighs. “All you have to say is ‘yes’ and I’m gone,” he says. “One word is all it takes, Eren. Do you hate me?”

Eren stays silent beneath him.

Levi’s eyes fly open and without meaning to – without thinking about what he’s doing – he yanks Eren up by his shirt so their faces are barely half an inch apart. “I need you to tell me you hate me,” he snaps. “I – just – fuck. You need to say yes – why the fuck won’t you say it? Is this your way of getting revenge? You think if you just stay silent long enough you’ll hurt me so bad I can’t recover? Fuck, I always knew you were a manipulative shit. Is that what this is about, Eren? Revenge?”

“I don’t know what this is about because I have no clue what the fuck you’re saying!” Eren roars so suddenly that Levi’s heart freezes because he’s never heard Eren raise his voice like that– never seen that look on his face before.

Bad move, he thinks suddenly, abort.

Levi goes to move, to dismount and back away as quickly as possible, but he’s drunk and Eren’s not and he stands no chance when Eren lurches to his knees with enough force that Levi falls to the ground, Eren looming over him, boxing him in with hands either side of his head as he glares down at Levi with enough intensity that something that had been unhinged in his mind since he’d decided drinking away his sorrows was the best course of action slots into place.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” Eren spits. “Do you want the truth, Levi? Because the truth is I’ve spent ten years of my life being pissed off at you but not once in all of those years have I ever thought I hated you.”

No, Levi thinks as he stares blankly up at him, fingers curling into fists at his sides because this isn’t going the way he needs it to go. He needs Eren to say it – he needs Eren to tell him how much he hates him, how despicable and horrible he is. He needs Eren to cut off that last connection between them because Levi can’t do it himself.

He needs to give up on Eren and yet Eren is – typically – making it all very difficult.

“You’ve been so hung up on the fact that I was fifteen that it seems to slip your mind that I’m not anymore.” Eren’s jaw is set in that distinct way he’s had all of his life, a tight line of effortless tension as he breathes in shallow breaths. “I was so angry at you – I still fucking am – but more than that, I thought if I ever met you again I’d like you to treat me like I’m worth something. I thought…” Eren trails off and makes a pained noise. “I thought it’d be nice if – just once – you could look at me the way you look at the world through your camera.”

Levi stares at him, at the way his expression has slipped from fury to wistfulness to earnestness all in the course of a single confession. The furrow between his brows is familiar – the light in his eyes and the tight corners of his mouth.

It’s the same expression it’s always been.

Levi’s drunk – he’s sobered up some since coming here, but he’s still drunk enough to count – so when he speaks, when the words blurt out of his mouth like fucking verbal diarrhoea, he chooses to blame it on that.

“I still have a photo of you,” he says and Eren’s eyes go wide. “The last one I ever took – snapped it as I was walking out the door.” He laughs, low and a little desperate. “It’s pathetic, isn’t it? I deleted every copy of the other shots and kept that one all because I remember thinking ‘this is the last time I’ll ever see him’ – and yet here you are; because apparently it’s not enough to fuck up my life without meaning to ten years ago, you have to do it again now.”

“You’re drunk,” Eren says, but he says it like he’s trying to convince himself of something.

“I am,” Levi admits. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not telling you the truth.”

Eren moves; shifting in closer so his body is lying pretty much parallel to Levi’s, lowering himself down onto his elbow to free his hands so he can cup Levi’s face gently between them, stroking his thumbs over the bruising beneath his eyes.

Levi’s breath falters and all he can see above him is green.

“If I were to kiss you,” Eren whispers and the words ghost soft over Levi’s skin, “would you let me?”

God yes, Levi thinks but no words come out of his mouth – it’s like his brain froze somewhere between admitting that he’s never been – never will be – over Eren Jaeger and now this whole situation is no longer in his hands.

Eren pushes his hair out of his eyes and it’s so tender and careful and the way that Eren is looking at him isn’t much better.

“You don’t have to answer me now,” Eren says. “And if you did I wouldn’t hold you to it. Actually, no. Never mind. Forget it. You’re still drunk and I just, I shouldn’t…”

Eren goes to move back and finally something in Levi snaps into life as Eren shifts to his knees and away from him.

He doesn’t think – doesn’t stop to doubt himself or remember – only reaches up to fist his hand in Eren’s hair and yank him back to him.

It’s been ten years since the last time they did this and Levi can feel every single one of them in the way that Eren responds to his kiss – that is to say immediately and with skill and confidence that hadn’t been there before, but the clear enthusiasm with which he whole-heartedly devotes himself to it is exactly the same.

The feel of his lips moving against his own, the soft push as he manoeuvres Levi’s mouth open and deepens the kiss with a careful flick of his tongue – all of it fills something up inside of Levi that hasn’t been whole since Berlin.

Levi’s drunk enough that it could have devolved into sex right then and there, but it’s Eren who pulls away first, pressing one last quick peck to Levi’s lips.

“Where are you going?” Levi demands as Eren moves away from him, making grabbing gestures in his general direction. “Get the fuck back down here.”

Eren smiles and catches one of his hands, bringing it up to his lips and laying a light kiss along his knuckles. “No, if we’re doing this we’re doing it right,” he says, and his voice is so determined that Levi suddenly doesn’t doubt that they can do this. “I don’t think sex while you’re drunk is a good idea right now.”

“Says you,” Levi snorts but he allows Eren to pull him up. “I think it’s an excellent idea.”

Eren laughs and doesn’t let go of his hand as he leads him through the apartment. “Of course you do; and if you still think that when you wake up maybe we’ll give it a shot.”

“When I wake up?” Levi asks and raises an eyebrow.

“Well,” Eren mulls as he pushes open the door to the bedroom. “I did say you could stay at my apartment tonight. I’m even going to be nice and say you don’t have to take the couch.”

“How generous,” Levi says when what he really means is: are we really going to try this after everything that’s happened and Eren squeezes his hand when what he really means is: I’m willing to try if you are.

It’s dark in the room when Eren clicks the door shut and Levi sits down on the edge of the bed and waits.

He doesn’t wait long.

For a gesture that is so traditionally associated with the erotic there’s nothing even remotely sexual about it when Eren slips his fingers under the hem of Levi’s shirt and levers it over his head, folding it neatly at the end of the bed because he remembers how much Levi hates crumpled clothing. Levi reaches up and helps Eren out of his; expertly folding it atop of his own because he knows Eren won’t do it himself.

The covers rustle loudly as they slip under them and – for a moment – Levi can’t bring himself to actually close the little strip of no-man’s land between them because last time he let himself hold Eren everything had gone to shit.

“You’re thinking too much again,” Eren says and it comes out rather quiet in the moon painted silence of the bedroom.

Levi closes his eyes and works to still the panicked thrumming of his heart. The combination of nerves and alcohol is making him dizzy in an uncomfortable way.

“Hey,” Eren says, and Levi feels his fingers on his arms as he slides in close. “You alright?”

No, Levi thinks desperately because he’s a little afraid this is all a dream; that maybe Eren did show up in his life three days ago but the fist to his face sent him into a coma along the way.

It seems like the only rational explanation right now.

“If this whole thing turns out to be because of brain swelling, I swear I’ll hunt you down and murder you myself,” Levi whispers into Eren’s shoulder and feels the way he shakes with laughter against him.

“You say the most romantic things,” Eren snickers, but his fingers comb softly though his hair and Levi can feel him sombre up. “I’m not saying this is going to be easy. I’m not going to pretend that you didn’t hurt me, but I’m starting to realize it was a lot more about hurting each other. We were young and you were stupid,” Levi snorts into his skin and Eren allows himself a brief smile before continuing, “and we both fucked each other up good.  It’s not going to fix itself overnight, but I’m thinking we just might get there in the end.”

Levi sucks in a deep breath and then another and everything smells like warmth and summer and Berlin – like Eren.

He could get used to this, he thinks as Eren’s fingers trace shapeless patterns on his shoulders, the warmth at his side and the skin so close to his – he could get used to it.

.

Levi’s life is a mess for a year and a half before he caves and calls Erwin.

“I fucked up,” he says the second he answers the phone. “I fucked up so bad, Erwin, I really did.”

Erwin doesn’t ask him what he means or where he is or even what he’s been doing since he left a note on the Jaeger’s kitchen table nearly eighteen months ago and vanished without a trace. He doesn’t even pause or go silent or ask why Levi is calling him now of all times; the only thing he says is: “What do you need?”

Erwin gets him on the first flight from Amsterdam to New York and is waiting for him at Kennedy when his plane lands nine hours later.

“You reek,” he says by way of greeting and it’s a mark of how well he knows him that he doesn’t even try to take his bag, only hands him a coffee and turns to walk, expecting Levi to follow him without a word.

He does.

There’s a car outside with Hanji at the wheel and when Levi slides into the backseat looking like a fucking bum she simply grins and asks if he’d settle the debate that 90’s rock will always be better than 80’s, thank you very much Erwin.

Levi doesn’t say a word, just watches as New York whizzes by outside the window and wonders vaguely when he let himself gets so bad that his hands shake hard enough that he can’t even hold his camera.

They pull in at a hotel and Hanji hands the keys over to the valet before sauntering off towards the nearest shopping centre with the intention of probably buying Levi a whole new wardrobe, wiggling her fingers over her shoulder at him as she goes.

Erwin checks him into a sprawling room on the thirteenth floor and doesn’t comment when Levi veers straight for the bathroom upon arrival and shuts the door firmly behind himself.

He looks at the shower – large and gorgeous and spacious – and imagines trying to stand for long enough to get clean, imagines not and collapsing on the tiles so Erwin has to kick down the door and drag his naked, shivering ass to the emergency room.

Levi turns to the tub and tries not to be ashamed of how badly his legs shake as he strips off and slides in, holding heavily to the rim as he goes because the fucking bathtub is nearly as deep as he is tall when he sits down.

Because Levi is someone who has spent the past several months with infrequent access to things like soap and shampoo he stays in the bathroom for over an hour and washes his hair no less than six times until strands of it come away in his soaped up hands and his fingertips start to swell from the constant rubbing.

He goes to get out only to discover that sometime in the last seventy-odd minutes his legs had given up on him and he can do nothing but slosh water everywhere as he staggers to his knees on the ground, sopping wet and cold and trembling.

His vision goes black and he can’t move, only sink to the floor and try to breathe through the way the room spins fast enough around him that he’s almost sick on the expensive marble beneath him.

He hears the door creak behind him but if he opens his eyes to look he’ll be sick.

“You’re a mess,” Erwin says bluntly and Levi laughs so hard he ends up winded.

Erwin waits until Levi’s breathing evens out and his vision comes back in sprays of shuddering colour before he approaches, tossing a towel over his shoulders so that it settles on his damp skin and Levi levers himself upright, pulling the towel around him as he leans against the bath for support.

Erwin’s sleeves are rolled up to his elbows as he bends over to unplug the tub and the sharp rattle of the water draining is unnecessarily loud in Levi’s ears.

“Hanji dropped some clothes off,” Erwin says. “Do you want me to bring them in?”

Levi considers his chances of being able to stand long enough to get on a fucking pair of pants and then considers the alternative of having Erwin dress him like a toddler. His pride is in fucking tatters as it is sitting butt-fuck naked on the floor of a hotel room he hadn’t even paid for and he doesn’t think he could handle the idea of sinking even lower.

He shakes his head. “I’ll just sit here for a second,” he says as nonchalantly as he can. “Catch my breath.”

Erwin eyes him in that completely impassive way he has before sighing and lowering himself to the floor to sit beside him without a word.

The wall across from the tub is completely made up of mirrors and Levi has been making a concentrated effort not to look since he’d realized, but with Erwin sitting quietly beside him and soft shivers racking his shoulders he finds his eyes drawn to it.

He’s pale and skinny and his hair has grown long enough that it licks at his shoulders and his eyes are sallow and rimmed black. Levi hasn’t even made a token attempt at modesty with the towel only hanging loose around his shoulders and his shuddering frame is visibly gaunt.

There are obvious needle marks in the insides of his elbows.

Erwin meets his eyes in the mirror and Levi looks away.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Erwin asks, voice casual like asking after lunch plans. “I’m not going to make you but I can’t help until I know what I’m dealing with.”

Levi closes his eyes and feels his stomach twist again because he doesn’t even know where to begin. He chooses to go for the simplest explanation.

“I fucked the Jaeger's fifteen year old kid,” he says tiredly. “And, if I’m being honest, I probably would have done it again if I’d stuck around.”

It’s silent except for the drip of water.

“Well,” Erwin says after a considerable pause, “if I had been aware you planned on sleeping with their barely-legal son I might not have told them that you’d be the perfect guest to have in their home.”

Levi snorts and the way it almost hurts is pathetic. “I’m fully aware I fucked up.”

“The thing is; I don’t think you are. You made a mistake – but running off all over Europe for eighteen months making a thousand more doesn’t solve anything. What did you think you were accomplishing by disappearing off the map? You can’t unfuck Eren by torturing yourself like this.”

“I’m not torturing myself,” Levi snaps.

“Levi,” Erwin says without missing a beat. “You can’t even hold your camera right now. Forget whatever you’ve been doing in the interim; that alone tells me everything I need to know.”

Levi wants to laugh at him – or maybe at himself – but he’s tired and thin and cold. The best he can do is shrug because Erwin’s right and Levi has been doing a lot of stupid shit since Berlin; diving into the seediest worlds of fashion and photography until he emerged in a completely different world entirely.

It had been a distraction from dreaming about green eyes and gold skin and every time it didn’t work – every time Levi woke hard and panting with the taste of Eren on his lips – the angrier he got.

“I don’t know what to do,” Levi admits suddenly, and runs shaky fingers through his hair. The towel slips off the flex of his shoulders. “You’re right. Fuck. I’m a goddamn mess. I don’t even remember the last time I worked. I don’t remember the last time I took a fucking picture.” He laughs even though he knows it’ll hurt and he’s not wrong. “Look at me; I’m sitting naked on the floor of a bathroom because I don’t trust myself not to fall the moment I stand up. If this isn’t rock bottom I don’t know what is.”

Levi doesn’t really know how to cry – doesn’t remember the last time he did, if ever – so the most he’s capable of doing with his sheer frustration is squeezing his fingers into fists as his shoulders shake.

There’s the sound of expensive shoes on water-slick marble as Erwin gets back to his feet, dusting his hands lightly on his trousers as he stands. “You might not have been aware during your little spree of self-pity, but in the past few months quite a few of your photos have made it into well respected magazines,” Erwin says evenly and Levi frowns, uncertain where he was taking this. “It’s probably just as well you disappeared for no verifiable reason because at least nobody has seen the wreck you’ve become. Your reputation is still intact and your work admired.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Levi asks flatly as Erwin bends to pick up the fallen towel, draping it carefully over Levi’s shoulders again before extending a hand to help him to his feet. Levi stares at it for a moment before taking it and letting Erwin slowly pull him up. His legs ache and the action leaves him annoyingly breathless but he doesn’t fall.

“What I’m trying to say is you can still come back. One of my lead photographers quit just the other week and I’ve not yet looked into hiring a new one.”

“You want me to work for you?” Levi asks skeptically as his fingers slip from Erwin’s.

“If you’d like,” Erwin says neutrally. “I’m not offering you a job just as a friend; I’m offering you a job because of your talent.”

Levi considers it for a moment and then decides why the fuck not. It’s not like he’s got other plans and he thinks he’s probably done with the international circuit for a while.

“I’m homeless and poor and I’m probably going to go through the worst detox in the world in the next few weeks,” he says flatly to Erwin as he raises his fingers to the edge of the towel, pulling it closer around him. “I’m going to be hell to be around for a while until I get back on my feet and if you ever ask me to go anywhere near Berlin I’ll probably quit on the spot.” He raises an eyebrow. “Is that okay with you?”

“Sounds perfect,” Erwin agrees.

Six months later Levi has an apartment with his name on the lease and a job with fucking dental benefits.

People at work call him ‘Sir’ and Levi can’t remember the last time someone who wasn’t a back-alley drug dealer looked at him and saw a ‘Sir’.

Nobody asks what he did while he was on what Erwin has explained as a Hiatus and nobody asks why there isn’t a single photo he’s published from his time in Berlin.

The truth is Levi has a lot of photos from Berlin – of the fashion shows and the magazines that commissioned him – and he’d thought about publishing them once or twice because Hanji seemed to be a firm believer in better late than never, but every time he looks at them he’s reminded of long days shirtless beneath the soft whirl of his fan and the way Eren laughed.

Levi gives the whole lot to Erwin and tells him to do as he pleases; which is evidently nothing, because he never sees them again.

The photos of Eren are a different story entirely.

The first time Levi picks up his camera again and sees them he panics.

He’d never actually looked at them after they were taken and it’s highly possible that it had been the last time he’d used his camera since. He’d all but forgotten their existence so busy pushing anything and everything related to Eren to the back of his mind.

They seem endless as he flicks through and Levi wants nothing more than to delete them all – to never have to be reminded of the way Eren’s face flushed when aroused or how his eyes clouded dark when Levi towered over him.

So he does.

His finger on the delete button is heavy as he mashes it repeatedly and watches Eren’s face vanish in seconds. He hits it again and again – six times endlessly.

The last photo stops him in his tracks.

It’s Eren still but it’s not the seductive sprawl of his body, the smirk on his lips – it’s that one last photo Levi snapped as he walked out the door.

He needs to delete it.

Eren’s gone and they’re done and Levi just needs to let it go.

He’s over it now. He’s moved on.

He prints the picture off ten minutes later and deletes the digital from his camera. He can’t explain to himself why he does it without sounding pathetic – only that of all the photos that came from Berlin; this is the only one that feels beautiful.

The only problem is the moment he has it in his hand, he knows he’s never going to be able to look at it again.

The photo goes in a box at the back of his closet and never comes out.

He knows he’s not moving on – can’t possibly be if he can’t bear not to have a reminder of Berlin – but as he closes the closet door he convinces himself he will.

He’ll get over Eren Jaeger one day and in the meantime he’s willing to wait.

.

Levi wakes up to soft morning sunlight and green eyes.

“Hey,” Eren smiles as Levi blinks blearily at him.

“What time is it?” He rasps, staring groggily at the way Eren’s hair stood up in all directions like he was actually a dog rather than a goddamn model.

“Just past nine.”

Levi frowns. “We’re late for work.”

“Already called Erwin,” Eren says in reply. He raises his brow and smirks. “Somehow, he didn’t seem all that surprised to hear from me. He says the both of us should take the day off.”

Levi starts and goes to sit up only for Eren to grab his wrist and haul him back down. “You told him?”

“No, no,” Eren assures him as he strokes his fingers soothingly along Levi’s arm in a way that relaxes him embarrassingly fast. “He just seemed to know.”

It does sound like Erwin, Levi has to admit, and while he doesn’t think Erwin is quite devious enough to have plotted this outcome from the start – although he would certainly be capable of it – he thinks that Erwin probably considered it a pleasant bonus.

Reluctantly Levi relaxes back into the mattress and Eren immediately shuffles in closer, tilting Levi’s jaw with two fingers and smiling at him.

“I have gross morning breath,” Levi warns.

Eren laughs. “I really could care less,” he says and leans in to kiss him.

The kiss is lazy and pointless in a way that none of their kisses in the past had been – there is nothing intentional in the way they move their lips; no desired outcome or objective. It’s just Levi’s hands on Eren’s bare shoulders and Eren’s hair tickling his face. When Eren pulls back after a solid minute it takes everything Levi has not to just stare at him blankly.

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to do that,” Eren whispers like it’s a secret and something in Levi breaks.

“I love you,” he blurts. “You’re a little shit and you annoy the fucking piss out of me and probably will until the day I die; but fucking hell, I love you.”

Eren’s mouth drops and he stares at him for such a long moment that Levi’s heart trips in his chest and he digs his fingers into Eren’s shoulders to keep from rolling out of bed and running because it’s about time he took a chance on something.

“You’re … you’re not just saying that to shut me up or something, are you?” Eren asks, although his voice is weak and his eyes are wide.

Levi huffs and nudges him in the calf with his toe. “Have I ever done something so stupid?”

And then – slowly, like the sun coming out on a cloudy day – Eren smiles; stupidly happy and a little baffled but mostly like Levi’s just given him a fucking gold ring and asked him if he fancies a trip to the altar.

He doesn’t say anything back and Levi doesn’t need to hear it anyway; Levi has never been a fan of words because it’s all too easy to lie, but Eren has never been a fan of actions because ten years ago Levi taught him they’re easy enough to walk away from.

“We should probably go shower,” Eren says as he tucks his face into the small of Levi’s neck and places a gentle kiss to his throat. “You smell like you’ve been rolling around behind the bar at the world’s most illegal nightclub.”

Levi snorts but threads his fingers through Eren’s hair and tries to act like the honest domesticity of the situation isn’t vaguely frightening. “And by shower do you mean actually shower or something else entirely?”

Eren smirks against his skin. “That depends,” he says, “on your definition of ‘something else entirely’.”

Levi’s not sure on his definition but Eren’s apparently involves pinning Levi to the shower wall by his hips and sucking him off with such ease that Levi is hissing out curses with his fingers in Eren’s hair to avoid coming in under five minutes.

“Fuck,” he swears as Eren does a thing with his tongue that makes him throw his head back hard enough to hurt when it hits the wall.

Eren pulls away. “Too quick?” He asks, and it should sound like he’s teasing but instead it just sounds like he’s genuinely wondering if he needs to slow down or not.

“It’s going to be over very quickly if you keep that up,” he warns and Eren laughs at him but lets Levi tug him back up for a kiss.

Levi’s arms are around Eren’s shoulders as Eren grinds against him with enough force that Levi is all but helplessly pinned to the wall beneath him. It’s been a long time and Eren’s fucking grown and not just goddamn physically either; the way he moves is much more practiced and Levi tries to stamp down on the jealousy that pumps through him at the thought.

“Levi,” Eren groans as he sucks a bruise against his neck, rutting their hips together easily. The water makes their cocks drag against each other with just the right amount of friction and when Eren manages to get a hand between them to jerk them both off Levi rakes his nails hard enough down the length of his spine that Eren nearly shouts.

It’s over pretty quickly after that – Eren squeezes so hard that Levi near goddamn sees stars and everything whites out for one pure, blissful minute as he comes.

When he settles back down to reality his forehead is resting in the crook of Eren’s neck and Eren’s fingers are loose on his hips – the spray of the showerhead is alarmingly cool on his heated skin.

“Wow,” Eren says into his hair and Levi snorts.

“Don’t pretend like you haven’t had completely mind-blowing sex that knocks this out of the water,” he mutters and he feels Eren’s fingers tighten on his hips.

“It’s not about the sex you have but who you have it with,” Eren replies and Levi’s heart actually freezes because he may not believe in the value of words, but he’s about a hundred percent sure Eren just told him that this is then, now and forever.

“You’re an idiot,” he says into his shoulder and tries to fight the smile he can feel building. “You’re a fucking dork. I have no clue what I see in you.”

“Well,” Eren ponders and Levi can feel him smirking against his forehead, “someone told me a long time ago that he only takes pictures of things he finds beautiful and I like to think he might have been talking about more than the fact I grew up to become a model.”

Levi closes his eyes shut and grins.

He’s thirty-five years old and standing naked under a shower with the man he’s spent the last ten years thinking was a dead-end. Tomorrow he’s going to have to go into work wearing Eren’s teeth marks on his neck and he’s sure makeup is going to flip when they see the scratches he just left on Eren’s back. Erwin’s going to be unbearably smug about the whole thing and Hanji’s going to be completely insufferable.

Levi finds for the first time in his life he really doesn’t care.

“You know what,” he says as he moves his lips to hover over Eren’s.

“What?” Eren smiles against his mouth.

“I think you might be right,” he says, and pulls him down for a kiss.

[bbarnestan]

supposed // s. rogers

Summary: It’s Steve’s birthday and you’ve sent him a letter, two years after civil war, where you stood on Tony’s side. It’s all pre Infinity War, though.

Pairing: Steve x Reader

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: its literally just angst, a panic attack (they’re different for everyone, I’m basing this on personal experiences and web research), I guess, also maybe like 1 or 2 swear words

Author’s Note: This is my first oneshot in ages (and on tumblr), cause I’m totally procrastinating all my WIPs and I have been for weeks oops. Anyways, I’d love some feedback. Requests are open, too! (:

italics = letter

Steve was honestly surprised when T‘Challa told him someone had sent him a birthday letter. Then he started wondering who knew they were in Wakanda and would care enough to send him a letter. There was only one person in either of these categories.

While you were the only person, he could think of that would do this, he didn’t dare to get his hopes up. He knew he wouldn’t be able to bear the disappointment – no, the heartbreak – if it wasn’t.

Steve had fought in the war, he had punched countless Nazis in the face, was close to death so many times and here he was, scared to read a birthday letter. He wasn’t sure if he was more scared to find out the letter wasn’t sent by you or that it was.

“Well, are you going to open it or just stare at the envelope?”

His head whipped up, his eyes meeting Natasha’s. He had been lost in his thoughts, remembering days where things between the two of you were so easy. “Honestly? I have no idea.”

“You can keep being scared or you can read the letter and maybe even get closure. I’ll be in the training room if you want to talk about it.”

Steve had tuned her out halfway through her sentence. He didn’t know what to think.

He took the letter from the table it was laying on and went to his room first. He could still make that decision in the privacy of his quarters. Maybe he was panicking over nothing and it wasn’t even from you. But who else-

He had to stop. He would go crazy over this if he didn’t. So, he ripped open the envelope, as he pushed his door close behind him. Might as well just get it over with it, before he worried more than necessary.

And then he saw your handwriting. He recognised it immediately. Steve felt his heart skip a beat and had to force himself not to drop the letter immediately.  Taking a deep breath, he tried composing himself. He felt weirdly exposed even in the privacy of his room as he leaned against his door.

 Hi Steve,

He couldn’t even get over his name in your handwriting, how was he going to get through the whole letter? He blinked a few times, pushing back the tears.

I suppose it’s been quite some time, huh? I have no idea where I’m going with this, but your birthday is coming up, so I felt like I should say something. I’m going to be honest here, I just, I can’t go on like this. I don’t go a day without thinking about you.

Me neither, sweetheart, was all he could think.  Steve never stopped thinking about you. You were the thread he was hanging onto; you had been ever since the two of you met in 2012, now you were gone, and he didn’t know what to do.

I need closure.

Oh god, he did, too. No - He didn’t want closure, he probably needed it, but he didn’t care, he didn’t want it. All he wanted was you.

I’m not sure if I hope you do too, so this doesn’t seem completely ridiculous or if I hope you don’t because I don’t want you to suffer like I do.

Reading this shattered the pieces of his heart that were left after the fight in Germany. He had been in pieces, but now, it seemed like all those pieces fell to even more pieces. He couldn’t take it. But he also couldn’t stop reading; desperately soaking in every word you gave him.

I don’t even know if I’m going to send you this letter. There’s been so many I haven’t sent. Tony’s found some of them and threatened if I wrote more, he would send one of them, or maybe all of them.

This was the first time in ages, he agreed with Tony. He chuckled, but the only thing that came out was a sob. He hadn’t even realised he was crying. It hurt somewhere deep in his heart, his stomach, his whole body was in agony. He never knew words could hurt like this. You were writing more letters for him.

It’s been two years. For two years I woke up morning for morning hoping to see your face and I fell asleep hoping, that maybe tomorrow I would. It’s irrational, I know.

Not that irrational. He was hoping too. He could feel his face puffing up as he wiped away the tears with his sleeve, so they wouldn’t drop onto the letter and stain the writing. Your writing.

What I wanted to say is, I’m sorry. There are so many things I’m sorry about. I’m sorry about hurting you, about not being able to support you and even a little bit about signing the accords. I didn’t think it would entail this.

You shouldn’t be sorry. He should be. This was his fault, not yours. He was the one going against the government yet again.

What I’m not sorry for is standing with what I think is right. Sure, we had different opinions two years ago, but that’s what makes us ourselves, right? I don’t know if I did the right thing, but I still think that we can’t just do whatever we want. If anyone else were to do what we did, they’d be long in jail by now, but we aren’t (Partly because you broke some of our friends out, which I really admire). The system may not work perfectly, but it’s there for a reason. There are laws and no matter how powerful we are, some of them even we should have to follow.

And god damn it, he agreed, but he just couldn’t sign. Not after Hydra and especially not with Bucky alive.  But still, he agreed. You both had different opinions. You were right. This was what made you and him. You were always right.

You know, I was really happy when I heard that you and Bucky got out alive and were safe. I was happy, because not only are you okay, but you also finally have your best friend back. I hope he’s okay. You never got to introduce me to him like you wanted to. I’m sorry about that, too.

He had never felt as much relief as he had when he knew you came out of the fight in Germany unscathed. Steve had always told you how you and Bucky would get along great and how he wanted to introduce the girl of his dreams to his best friend, but couldn’t because the latter was dead, and now he wasn’t but Steve still couldn’t. He hadn’t thought about it like that before. It broke his heart all over again.

I know a lot has happened between us and the government is technically forbidding me to even sent you this letter, because they say you’re an international fugitive, which I guess, you are. I don’t like to think about that, but I still do. Every day.

He did, too. Breathing was slowly getting hard, with all his crying. His chest was getting tighter.

I don’t like them calling you a criminal. It just seems so wrong. I do like that you’re doing what you think it’s right. It’s one of the things that made me fall in love with you. You always just wanted to do the right thing.

Even if he was experiencing his heartbreak all over, his heart still skipped a beat at the mention of you falling in love with him. He couldn’t stand a version of this world, where the two of you didn’t love each other, and he was scared he might have to.

I miss you. I wasn’t going to write that because I know you’ll feel guilty about not being here, but I couldn’t help myself.

Oh, did you know him well. Of course, he did. You didn’t even know how many times he almost surrendered to some government, just because of how much he missed you.

It still hurts a lot. At first it seemed so unreal, but then fighting in Germany made the one thing I never wanted to happen come true. I never wanted anything to come between us. What we had was too good for that. We didn’t deserve that. We’re good people. We had something good and I felt like it was going to last. I felt like we were made to last. I felt like you were the one.

He couldn’t hold himself up anymore. As Steve slowly slid down the door into a sitting position, he was reminded of the time before he was a super soldier. He could never breathe clearly and his chest always felt so tight. It reminded him a lot of that right now, because, shit, he had never felt like he felt about you before. You were the only one for him out there.

No. I feel like you’re the one. I still do. During all of this, I never stopped loving you and I don’t think I ever will. Nor will I ever love anyone like I love you.

He felt the butterflies in his stomach. But he also felt so wrong. This was all wrong. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Your love wasn’t supposed to be suffocated by the system; it was supposed to stay afloat, no matter who tried to drown it. And it kind of did, but it still felt so wrong. Right now, everything felt so wrong to him. He didn’t know how to breathe. His mouth was so dry. And his chest just felt so so tight.

But we didn’t last. The world came in between us, quite literally, as you are now half a world away from New York and I’m still here, just like I’ve always been. I guess we just weren’t supposed to be. I can’t imagine any other way this could have ended, any opportunity for us to be, but I also still can’t imagine a world without you in it.

You had to be ‘supposed to be’. He didn’t know how to handle that. He didn’t know how to exist without you. You hadn’t seen each other in two years, but nothing ever felt final enough to say you weren’t in his life anymore, even thoug, technically, you weren’t. Maybe you were just both in denial.

And then I always realise, that I don’t have to, because you’re not here and you can’t be here, and you won’t be here. I don’t have to imagine it because I am living it.

No. he didn’t want that. He never wanted that. There was no air in his lungs. He felt like he was suffocating. He didn’t even feel the tears running down his cheeks anymore, but he was sure they were still there. There was panic anchored in his chest. It was bubbling up his throat and he couldn’t stop it. It was filling his whole being.

I’m sorry it had to end this way. I’m sorry it had to end. Just that. Doesn’t matter which way, I just never wanted us to end. I really thought we were made to last.

He was the one that should be sorry. He was, but you didn’t know that. He couldn’t move. The panic was taking over his whole body, paralysing him. His throat felt dry. He couldn’t hold the sobs in anymore.

I’m sorry we weren’t made to be and I’m sorry that we won’t happen again. We had a good run and we both have to move on now. Maybe you already have. I don’t know if I ever really will. But I’ll pretend I did from now on. I’m going to stop writing letters I’ll never send and maybe I’ll even give this one to Tony and let him send it to you.

He wouldn’t ever move on from you. There was no moving on from someone like you. From a love like the one you shared. He didn’t know if he was sobbing or just whimpering now, there was probably some of both. It was almost pathetic, but he knew, there was no moving on from a love like yours.

Maybe I’ll get closure from this. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I won’t ever find closure, but that’s okay, too.

Nothing was okay for Steve. He didn’t want to move on; he didn’t want closure. He just wanted to hold you. He wanted to be able to love you.

I’m happy we had as much time together as possible, and even though I miss you and it hurts a lot; I don’t regret any of it. The only thing I regret is the future we won’t ever have. I could never regret loving you.

This shook him to his very core. He hadn’t ever felt pain like this. It was a burning inside him. Not even freezing to what would have been death for anyone but him, was this painful. The pain he felt, was violent, cruel, but still only inside of him. He didn’t know how to handle that. He didn’t know how to make the tears stop. He didn’t even know how to move. You were the last thread he was hanging onto and he had no clue where he would be falling.

Maybe the day where the world needs the Avengers again will come. Let’s be real here, it will. And we’ll meet again, and maybe the world won’t stand against us. Maybe this just wasn’t our time. I’m kind of hoping it wasn’t, as bad as that sounds, but that would mean we still had a chance. I don’t want to live in a world, where we don’t stand a chance.

It had to. He didn’t want to live in that kind of world either.. They were made to last. They had to. Because there was no one else who could catch him if he fell. You had caught him once and he had to count on you to do it again. You had to still have a chance.

I will always love you, Steve and if I face the truth, I’ll probably always be waiting for you. I’m positive you’re the love of my life and life just doesn’t like me.

He was sobbing, whimpering, mumbling incoherent words. He wanted to scream. He couldn’t. All he could do was sit on the floor and cry. He wanted to scream. Scream at the world. Scream how much he loved you. Scream for the pain to stop. But he couldn’t. He just sat there, weeping.

I’m sorry it has to be like this.

Steve was sorry too. He was sorry that he didn’t have the strength to do anything about it. He was sorry, he was holding onto a thread, maybe already falling, when he should be flying. He should be saving whatever you had left, but he was sitting there, just crying, unable to move. The panic was still spread throughout all of him. He was sorry he was counting on you to catch him, instead of catching you.

I’m sorry we don’t get to have the future we deserve.

He was so, so sorry. He was so sorry; he couldn’t be the man you deserved.

Happy Birthday, Steve.

Your letter had found an end, but his tears, the panic didn’t. He didn’t know if he would ever find an end. Over the last two years he had been surpressing them, but they were always there. They had grown familiar, inside of him. Now they were out in the open and he didn’t have the first idea how to put them back inside. There might not be an end to this madness. And he knew even less if it would be the happy ever after you both deserved.

[thejosh1980]

Don't you know that you're toxic?

I was in a toxic relationship...

In fact I have been in a few... But the last one is the one I can still remember in some detail...

The first few, well they were immature drunk and disorderly scenarios. They are not important in this story, other than you should be aware I was pretty repetitive towards my approach to relationships back then.

The story I would like tell is about the 7 year old relationship that ended in March 2019.

This particular relationship had the biggest effect on me, my well being, and my happiness. And even though I married an amazing woman earlier this year, that last relationship is still a reminder of the baggage I have held onto since my first relationship.

It's time I unloaded that baggage and shed my skin.... Even if it's just a little bit... You know, small steps...

So, lets call my ex “Grumpy”...

In fact that's a name an American girlfriend of a drummer of a band we were watching called her once in Germany, literally minutes after meeting her. I should have seen that red flag even back then...

Look, Grumpy isn't a bad person, deep down I think she means well... But she just hasn't been able to get past her past... She wont let go of any stubborn insecurities, learn new coping mechanisms, and she wont forgive herself, or you for that matter... At least that's what I've experienced with her.

It's like whenever things don't go her way, whenever she's frustrated or doesn't know how to cope, she'd revert back to a 14 year old girl, which is when she had troubles with her Mum.

I mean honestly, who didn't have troubled teenage years??

I'm not saying she doesn't have a right to feel pain about some significant event or trauma, but she surely can't hold it over my head and expect me to hang around, forever...

During our relationship, I explained to her, that when I went into therapy (which at the beginning she thankfully helped me do) I had no idea what to expect. But I knew I couldn't continue the way I was and expect a happy outcome.

It took a long time, but I processed many of the issues and events of my past, which in turn helped my current situation and had a positive effect on my future. I learned new ways on how to cope with current problems, insecurities and learn to take responsibility for my actions and choices in life...

I forgave my Dad for not being a good father. I understand, he just didn't know better and chose not to learn how later in life... It's no excuse but I find some comfort in knowing I wasn't the problem. These days, I can be comfortable in his presence, no longer hoping for the Dad I've always needed, but enjoy his company for what it is...

I forgave my sister for her misgivings. She's a tough cookie, and very jealous of me. I think she's very jealous of my relationship with Mum, but my sister hasn't taken responsibility for her actions, and therefore it will be a long road before I can trust her, but I'm totally OK with that. She has her problems, and they are not mine to take responsibility for, anymore.

My grandparents on both sides were hard work over the years. I thought it was my fault too! But really it was their lack of empathy and understanding that created an atmosphere of negativity. They had every opportunity to be a good example to an impressionable young me. Luckily I learned to forgive them, even if I didn't actually say that to them while they were still alive. I forgave them and myself for contributing to the escalation, rather than finding resolution.

Grumpy knew I did this (and more) in therapy, and refused to consider it.

Now in all fairness, I originally refused to entertain the idea of counseling too, as I had a negative experience in my younger days (just like Grumpy), but when I reached my first breakdown around 2014 in a foreign country, I knew I needed help and I asked...

You know, I know she's still hurting over her past...

How can I tell?

Because it's been 18 months since I broke up with her, and she continues to create drama, instead of “adulting” and talking to me about it.

She's had every opportunity to deal with these post break up problems we all have had to go through like an adult (you know, splitting up the household belongings etc), without fail each time she has deflected, ignored, created more drama, lied or done something else that shows me, she has not recognized her part in our story.

Let's face it, it takes 2 to tango...

I've come to realize she treated me the way she did during our relationship, because she took me for granted. She thought I'd never have the courage or strength to actually leave her. I sure proved her wrong, didn't I!!!

We started our relationship drunk, and continued like that for 2 or so years. Grumpy and I could drink a lot, and did... We both were a bit rounder then too! We were never fully honest with each other or ourselves. I would say, we probably should have just been a short term fling, because we both weren't ready for long term, but we dived in anyhow...

That journey got me here, and that's totally fine. I have no regrets...

In case you didn't know, I wasn't a very strong person back then. I had little self esteem, and little self worth. So it was easy for both of us to “beat on” each other verbally and not resolve any issues. That's easy to do when someone just can't listen without demeaning you, without taking your feelings and smashing them against the wall... I was always ALWAYS in trouble. She was too sometimes back then... We both were in trouble...

As time went on with my therapy I processed a lot of things, and became ready for long term... I also knew I wanted to move back home, down under, eventually. That would be a hard decision, with or without Grumpy. I just couldn't imagine piling on more stress on top of stress with that relationship. I came to realize there was no future there unless something changed. We had to listen to each other, we had to trust each other, we had to respect each other.

I know I am not perfect, but surely if I can forgive her for things, she could step my way a little... Couldn't she? Didn't she have the power to learn to forgive? I mean really forgive someone and love them for all their faults? Didn't she have the power to grow? Unfortunately she didn't... I knew she didn't process anything because she was bringing up stuff from 2 or 3 or 6 years ago...

When I sobered up and seriously got into therapy, I had no idea what road it would take me down... But after talking about all my family issues, social anxiety issues and depression, the last thing was Grumpy. It took almost 5 years to get to the point where I acknowledged I was unhappy, I realized I didn't trust her and I couldn't see a future with her...

I just couldn't talk to her anymore. We just didn't trust each other anymore... That's the point...

The day we broke up, I had written her a letter, and I read her this letter. I read out a letter I had spent weeks writing making sure my adult words were being used (because without the letter I knew I'd revert to something less mature and less communicative). I clearly stated after trying many times, trying for years to correct our problems, I had come to realize we couldn't go forward. I decided we would break up to save each other from unnecessary pain. I couldn't see any steps going in the right direction in our relationship anymore...

I loved her, but it just wasn't working out, and didn't show any signs of improving.

Her first words were “I knew it” with tears rolling down her face...

I didn't want to do it, but I made a choice... Based on the past, for the present, to better my future.

Honestly I don't know if she wanted to recognize any of those times I tried to talk to her. She didn't want to see the signs. When she got frustrated and yelled at me, and I sat quietly listened and did my best not to raise my voice back. When I tried to talk sense to her she'd react like I was talking crazy.

Maybe she was scared? After all, change is a scary thing.

I changed a lot in those years since I started therapy and stopped drinking, always hoping Grumpy would come my way a little... For several years I was a huge contributing factor to our fights, but as time went on and I learned and grew, I started to de-escalate those fights. (Which generally made things worse!).

Apparently she didn't get the memo...

And she continues to blame me for that mistrust, because that's the way it goes when you don't take responsibility for your actions... It's always someone else's fault... The world owes me...

Even though she's been in a committed relationship since the beginning of 2020, she still hasn't let go of any anger, hurt, or resentment towards me. Her actions clearly show she hasn't processed our relationship, start, middle, or end, and would prefer to block me or stop all communication with me, before dealing with herself. She'd prefer to tell everyone else how bad I was, what I owed her, what I did to her, than think about her actions and how they affected our relationship.

It's like history repeating itself... And I am finding freedom in the fact I am no longer a character in her story.

I'm quite sure she'll keep the narrative within her circle of friends to make her look good, and me bad. But I like my narrative more (who wouldn't?), I feel we both were a mess... We were having a negative affect on each other. How or why, isn't as important as learning that communication, trust, forgiveness and respect are the things that were missing...

In fact, I think she dislikes anyone who has shown personal growth... It scares her... I think she's comfortable in her denial... She blames her Mum or her grandma... She blames me... Not once had I ever heard in all her years of coming home from work, “Oh it was me...”, “I did something wrong...” or “I messed up, I better say sorry...”

So how could I stay with someone who didn't take any responsibility?? How can I love someone who doesn't say “sorry”?

I was heart broken during the time leading up to reading Grumpy that letter...

I went back and forth in my head, could I see a future??? But in the end I couldn't... The one thing I realize, that is so important in my relationships, is good ol' communication. We lost that, when we lost the trust... It all turned toxic... Manipulative.... Twisted...

I wish her all the happiness the world throws at her.

We all deserve happiness... But Grumpy, sometimes you gotta work at it...

I could spend my time blaming her for so much of it but in the end, it was down to me. I am the one master of my fate... Just as she is... Then and now...

Thanks for reading,

Josh

[davebuckleslefthand]

Martial LAW ??? LOGISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.. 

there are not enough troops in these USA to go                                                and attempt to implement Martial law over OUR United States.

June 30, 2013 at 4:06am and still the rumble under                                                                                    the table makes one think:  “What if?”

EVEN IF THE RUSSIANS AND THE CHINESE AND THE ENTIRE                      UN MILITARY FORCE SHOWED UP...

So many of you have been fed disinformation that the Obama Cabal                are waiting for us to act so they can declare Martial Law. This becomes          the reason you use to permit yourself to be in bondage now. Its like a slave  who thinks 

“I cannot rise against the master because                                                            he is just waiting for a chance to whup my ass."

Anyone who feels that Revolting and exercising our rights to resist Tyranny,    will give the Government the reason to impose "Martial Law" read this; carefully.

I am telling you unequivocally...

"That line of thinking is exactly what they want you to think!"

It's a RED HERRING"

NATIONAL MARTIAL LAW? 

LOGISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE IN A COUNTRY OUR SIZE....

"NATIONAL MARTIAL LAW"?  IMPOSSIBLE TO IMPLEMENT! 

Do not use that as the excuse to exercise your rights!

IF WE TAKE UP ARMS AND FIGHT AGAINST TYRANNY... 

OBAMA WILL IMPOSE "MARTIAL LAW". 

The "cowardly nay sayers" say. "Do not do that"; "Let them fire the first shot".

Good grief how many times have I heard these pathetic lines. Too many times.

Patriots. 

Lets rationally analyze this OK ?

What is Martial Law ? It is the exercise of Government and Control by Military authorities over the civilian population of a designated territory.

"Designated Territory" get it. There is no army in the world that can impose Martial Law over all of AMERICA. The country is too big. It is logistically impossible. Some cities? 

Yes... 

a large area? Maybe.

They will delay Martial Law if it ever comes until they have confiscated your guns. Do you know why they want gun registration and then gun confiscation?

So that they can control large areas. Right now it is IMPOSSIBLE.

Why ?

1. 100% of the Military will not go along with Obama's illegal declaration. There will be a mutiny in the military. So about 70% will take their arms and munition and join the American Citizens... creating huge holes in the logistical supply chains for the remaining enforcers. 2. The PEOPLE will be against them so there will be limited safe havens for the enforcers and they will have to move in large convoys reducing their tactical ability to control large sections or land. 3. The most important point is that there will be return fire. 

Patriots have guns. LOTS OF THEM.

Here are some consoling and awesome statistics. There were 13.7 million hunters in the United States                                        over age 16 -- 12.7 million of whom used rifles, shotguns                                  or handguns for hunting, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

That means hunters constituted only 15.9 to 18.1 percent of the estimated     70-80 million gun owners in the U.S. in 2011 --- the latest year for which statistics are available.

In a Dec. 28 national report, USF&W said 13.7 million individuals over age        16 self-identified as hunters, and that 12.7 million used guns (shotguns, rifles    and or handguns) while hunting.

Another 2.9 million hunters used antique muzzleloaders to hunt, but according to USF&W, there is overlap between this figure and other figures due to them reporting.

Around 4.5 million hunted with bows and arrows.

The National Rifle Association (NRA), meanwhile,                                    estimates there are between 70 - 80 million American s                                    gun owners as of the January 2011 stats; these are over a decade old.

Those 70-80 million gun owners had in their possession almost 300 million firearms, about 100 million of which were handguns.

America's Hunters:  The Entire World's Largest Army.

The state of Wisconsin has over 600,000 hunters that got permits this (2o11)

Allow me to restate that number: 600,000

Over the last two months, the eighth largest army in the world - more men under arms than Iran; more than France and Germany combined - deployed to the woods of a single American state to keep the deer population under control.

But that pales in comparison to the 750,000 who are in the woods of Pennsylvania this week. Michigan's 700,000 hunters have now returned      home. Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia, and it is literally          the case that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the    largest army in the world.

And that is just FOUR states.

The total population of registered hunters in America today ranges from 23 million to 43.7 million individuals. (Based on annual data provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.) As long as the American Hunter retains his right to Bear Arms, America will forever be safe from imposition of Martial Law and a Military tale over if we all stick together.

AN OBAMA FORCE STANDS LITTLE CHANCE TO BE ABLE TO IMPOSE MARTIAL LAW GIVEN THESE STATISTICS.

So cut the crap that Obama wants us to do something so he can impose Martial Law. We must not be afraid to act when the time comes.

Some additional stuff to consider:

Strategically... be prepared for the Government to shut down the internet and possible all cell service. In retaliation Patriots will knock out all Cell towers and TV Towers so the State Run Media will not be able to transmit their propaganda.The News paper printing presses will be destroyed and so in the end ham and shortwave radios that will be used by Patriots. I hope most of you guys have ham radios. The Government will have their emergency broadcast system so they will be able to communicate very effectively. Patriots will require undercover "runners"!

The Government does not have the man power to put more than 5 -6 Major Metro areas under Martial Law... and since 55% of the Law Enforcement Officers are Oath Keepers, Count on them coming over to our side.

Strategic highways into the cities are needed to truck food into most concrete jungles in the inner cities since food can only be trucked in. The Government will spend a lot of resources trying to make sure the population who is still supporting them are provisioned. When their provisions run low... they will riot against the government too demanding more resources and this will spread their resources even thinner.

UN and foreign troops may move in but they have less skills in the US countryside and while they may be effective in the cities they will not be sent out into the suburbs.

The African American troops will only venture out into the countryside on suicide missions since even if they are not loyal to Obama they will be perceived to be due to to the extensive race baiting by the cabal and as such are pretty much useless except in the urban areas. They will be kept out of the standard confrontation theater.

So who will be fighting then ?? A limited Military force with a lot of very high tech weaponry... but we are not in uniform so Patriots will be very difficult to distinguish from the population. They will be in uniform because they have to stay together and ID each other.

Coins and "barterable" items need to be stocked because paper money will become a semi useless in most areas. Understand that there will be retaliation so families need to be kept in safe haven areas. They will consider cutting of power and water supplies to Patriot Enclaves but they will have difficulty controlling the RED STATES.

The Blue State Metros areas will riot on their own because they will be in short supply of all basic requirements since all their stuff needs to be trucked in.

Its going to get hot but we will win once we get started. Martial Law or not!

The Command and Controls for Patriot zones are already in place and all that will need to happen is the "Link up"

Additional Info from @John A Brown:

The country has 4 million square miles of land, 4 million miles of paved roads, 150,000 miles of railroads, thousands of miles of navigable rivers.

What is their significance? Every bite of food, every drop of fuel . . . not to mention every single electronic communication of every kind . . . has to pass along these routes and EVERYTHING in that inventory of needs and services either originates in, or must pass through our States... the so called "Flyover Country", i.e. red states and red counties.

WE WILL STOP THEM IN THEIR TRACKS!!

Stay alert Patriots. SHARE AND KNOW THAT WE ARE ALL NOT ALONE... 

THERE ARE OVER 100 MILLION LIKE US...

BEHIND EVERY BLADE OF GRASS!

[lovinlikeloki]

The Lone Wolf

Masterlist // 01

Warnings: Swearing

Word Count: 2.7k

Orlaith and I get off the bus and start walking down the road.

"Where are ye going?" Orlaith asks me.

"I'm away de Saint Marie's, ye wanny join me?" I tell her.

"Aye, sure why not?"

"I finished a job last night and didn't get de give Eoghan the card," I say, brandishing a gold colored card, "I need to get paid and get me next one."

"Why do you do this?" Orlaith asks, shaking her head at me.

"Eoghan's letting me stay in one of the rooms at Saint M's. I'm earning my keep, besides, the money's good."

"If you say so," she shrugs.

We keep walking and then I pull her sleeve, to show her the alley we need to walk down. We reach the end and I pull off my school blazer, shoving it in my school bag and exchanging it for my green and grey striped hoodie. I push open the door to the old Catholic school, I see that people are already in, clearly people like to start drinking early, well, if 5 in the afternoon is early to you.

I pull Orlaith to the bar and I slam the gold card on the bar, making Eoghan look at me. He takes the card and puts it in the out box, he then lifts a wad of cash and gives it to me. He begins to tell me that someone called for me, someone who called me 'Malen'kaya Volchitsa.' Only two people have ever called me that...and one's... not here anymore, so I know exactly who's after me. And just in case I didn't, the name she left, 'Cáileach,' was a nice hint. The witch is a smart one, I'll tell you that much.

(Little she-wolf) (Witch)

I take the number she left and smirk at the gold card.

"We'll take two cokes Eoghan," I tell him before going to the corner table by the door, my table.

Orlaith follows me to the table and sits across from me, "Why's a witch looking for you?"

"Because after leaving me for two years she's finally reaching out," I reply.

"Okay...and what the fuck does that mean?"

"What it means is that I'm gonny be leaving for a bit. My sister needs me, and I can't leave her hanging, 'sides, I owe her."

"You have a sister? Since when?" my confused friend asks.

"Not by blood, not by law she's... emotionally? my sister. Yeah, let's go with that. Basically when I went missing two years ago she was there, we bonded, and she saved me. That's all you need to know," I finish.

Eoghan brings us our drinks and we thank him, I hand him back a tenner, he tells me that he'll be behind the bar if I need him and that we'll talk about this job later.

Orlaith and I stay at the table for a bit while we finish our drinks, talking about our day and how much we hate our math teacher. Then Orlaith gets a text from her mam saying that she needs to head home to do homework and have some family time, whatever that is. I wouldn't know, it's been a while since I was at 'home'. It doesn't matter though, this, Saint Marie's the mercenary job fair of a bar, this is my home now.

When Orlaith leaves I head up to the bar and sit on a stool. I look up at the dead pool to see who's been picked this week, the dead pool is fun for me because as a minor I'm not allowed to get picked, I can just sit and watch the chaos. Only downside is that I can't pick anyone, so... I mean it's a two-way street, so I guess that's fair.

"So, what's this witch after?" Eoghan questions.

"Not sure," I reply honestly, "But whatever it is, it must be important. We haven't spoken in two years, and last time we spoke, he was still alive."

"Him as in-" Eoghan begins.

"Yes, he as in my grá cáilte. She didn't even call me then, so whatever this is has de be big. It better be, or I might just hang up."

(Lost love)

"You won't. The stories you've told me- you wouldn't leave her. If you did you'd hate yourself. You can't bring do stóirín back, he's gone, but you can still help her."

(Your darling)

"You're right, it just breaks my heart, I had to find out they escaped from rumors and stories, but I found out that he died by watching it, live on tv. We had so much potential, he had so much potential, but now I'll never know. Glac siad a anam ró-ghasta."

(They took his soul too soon)

"You're right. But now she needs you. So go find out what the witch wants, and try your damndest to deliver," he says.

"I will," I say, smiling at him sadly, "Thanks, E."

"Not a bother," he assures me, smirking, "Mactíre."

(Wolf)

° ∆ -------- ••• ------- ∆ ° ∆ -------- ••• ------- ∆ °

I dial the number, she picks up after a single ring.

"Wanda, it's been a while," I say, trying to stay happy even though I know hearing her voice again will probably bring tears.

"Fianna, it has," she says, and I inhale sharply. No tears, not now, not yet at least.

"So, what do you need me for so urgently?" I begin to cut the shit.

"I need help. I need a friend, I need a soldier. Are you available for some last-minute travelling?" she says hesitantly. Clearly I'm a last resort, a "break glass in case of emergency" type help.

"Of course, when and where?" I ask.

"I need you to get to Leipzig-Altenburg Airport asap. We'll get you where you need to be from there," Wanda explains.

"Yeah, uh, when exactly do you mean by asap?"

"I mean, like literally buy a last-minute flight and get on it, within the next two hours. It'll be a two-hour flight, I'll pick you up and we'll get where we need to go."

"Alright, fine. I just need to know, what I'm up against. You said you needed a soldier? I need to know what I'm fighting for before starting a war."

"This is... the fight of a lifetime. You'll be fighting for truth and... safety. Who you'll be up against? Some of my closest friends and some of the deadliest assassins in the last thirty years. Now are you in or are you out? I don't blame you if you're out, but it would really help."

Wanda sounds... more than desperate, she's hopeless, she needs me, more than she ever has. I've fought many's a fierce foe in my time, but Avengers? Deadly assassins? That's usually more than a smidge above my paygrade. But she needs me, she's calling in her last favor, she clearly thinks I'm up for it. I hesitate for a second, weighing my options before making a life-changing decision.

"I'm in. I'll be there in four hours, max," and with that I hang up.

Guess I'm going to Germany.

I walk back into the bar and go through the side door that brings me to the lodging. I go to my room at sit on my bed. I'm leaving. I begin to pack my shit, I pull my kitbag out from under my bed and begin filling it with clothes. Leggings, t-shirts, hoodies, leather jackets, everything I might need. I pack all the essentials and then begin to think of how I'll smuggle my brass knuckles through security. I lift my mattress and take out a couple hundred pounds in cash, shove it in my wallet and keep packing.

When I'm all packed I begin to forge a note from my 'mother' for the school so that I can get time off without them calling up people who haven't seen me in over a year and a half. I make a simple excuse of appendicitis, was rushed to hospital late tonight blah blah, they won't really care, the school year's nearly over. I just need something for show so that I don't get called out.

I text Orlaith, letting her know I'm being called out of the country. She questions me at first, but when I explain that Wanda needs me, and I can't let her down she lets me be. She says she'll drop in and pick up the note tomorrow morning before getting on the 212 to Coláiste Feirste.

(Belfast College {It's an Irish speaking high school})

Now I've just got to talk to Eoghan. I tell him to come to the lodging hall, behind the bar. He serves the last couple of drinks that were ordered and joins me in the back.

"I have de go de Germany," I tell him, "It seems above my paygrade, but she needs me and I gotta be there for her."

"Okay... do ye have enough for the flight?" he simply asks.

"Aye, I've got all I need, me kitbag's packed an' everythin'."

"Ye said above yer paygrade. What'd ye mean by that?"

"I'm not just fighting with Wanda's friends. I'm also fighting against a couple o' them."

"What? Naw- What the fuck Fianna!"

"Look, she needs me, Eoghan, I can't just leave her."

"You're not fighting them assholes."

"Yeah, I am, Eoghan."

"Naw you're not."

"You can't stop me. I tol' her I'm in, and I'm going," I say, standing up and throwing the strap of my kitbag over my shoulder.

"Fianna, ye can't just leave to fight those dickheads," he stands up.

"I'm away," I say firmly, walking out the door.

"Get your arse back here, now!"

"You're not my da, Eoghan. You can't make me stay."

"I might not be your da, but I'm the closest thing to a father you've had these past years. You better treat me with a bit more respect."

"Maybe," I shrug, "But I'll stick with this for now," I say, throwing up my middle finger before leaving the bar. The taxi I called beforehand pulled up and I got in.

"The airport," I tell the driver.

"Right," is the simple reply he gives me.

I get a text when we're about halfway to the airport.

I click my phone off and look out the window at the familiar city I've grown up in. All my life except a year was spent here. When I wasn't here I was with the twins, me becoming who I am, them becoming who they are... or were, and then I left them. Not by choice. Not on purpose. But I still left them.

But now I've got Wanda back, and while I don't know how long I'll be with her for, it will be good to see her. If only I could've seen him one last time before I left, spoke to him one last time, made sure nothing was left unsaid. Instead I'm here, he's gone, and I'll never know how things could've gone if perhaps I never left.

The driver stops at the airport entrance and lets me out, I pay him the fare and he takes it with a smile. I grab my bag, close the door, and go into the airport. I go to the desk and ask if there are any last-minute tickets to Leipzig-Altenburg I could get on. While there was a seat I could take, it cost a little more than a pretty penny. Luckily I had enough to buy it and went through security immediately. I opted for a pat-down rather than the metal detector and thanks to my damn good hiding spots the woman didn't find my brass knuckles.

I wait for the half hour before my flight and board along with the others. I get to my seat and sigh. A two-hour flight isn't long, it's just boring to sit through, no one to talk to and not long enough to sleep through. I just sit there messing on my phone for a bit, making faces at the baby looking through the gap between the chairs a couple rows in front of me.

When the plane finally lands I prepare myself. This is it. I have to fight Avengers. I have to fight deadly psycho assassins. But first. I have to see Wanda. For the first time in two years. For the first time since he died.

° ∆ -------- ••• ------- ∆ ° ∆ -------- ••• ------- ∆ °

When I leave the airport I scan my surroundings and all the cars parked there. I stop when I come across a van that could be owned by no other, a white panel van with what I'd consider an iconic license plate: L: T34MC4P, I know that it's gotta be my ride. I go to the passenger side and knock on the window, the door opens, and I'm promptly enveloped in a hug.

"Someone order a conriocht?" I sat into my sister's shoulder.

(Werewolf)

She laughs and hugs me tighter, "I did, you little volk."

(Wolf)

I look at her with tears in my eyes, smiling sadly. She looks back at me with a similar expression and we just stay there in the embrace for a moment.

"Okay," I say, finally pulling away and wiping my tears away, "So who's ass do I have to kick?"

She laughs, wiping away her own tears, "No one's just yet. We gotta get there first, so get in the back."

"Back of a van?" I quirk an eyebrow, "Are there seats of does this look like a kidnapping?"

"There are seats, but they're laid down. Scott is sleeping on them, and I thought you'd want to stretch before we get there, human or not."

"That's fair, but the second I shift I'm gonna be stuck with Lu, you know that."

"I can get her to ease up, but you're stuck with her, you have to learn how to get along with her, okay?"

"Yes mom," I mock, "I'll see you on the other side."

I salute her before opening the back door, seeing a middle-aged man sleeping on the seats. Must be Scott. I climb behind the seats and lay down, shifting to the Mactíre, and as expected I hear Lu.

Lu is like a voice in my head, she's the canine and lupine instincts that got transferred during the experiments. She talks to me, mostly degrades me for my logic and emotions, planning things out rather than acting on instinct and figuring it out on the fly.

"So, she returns," Lu mocks.

"Yes, I've returned. Wanda needs help, she needs me, needs us to work together," I reply.

"Wanda? Wanda needs us?"

"Yes. And we're gonna work together. Right?"

"Yes. Of course. Anything for Wanda."

"Good. Now we're gonna be driving for a bit, so what do you suggest we do?"

"Sleep. Sleep is good. Sleep builds energy."

"Okay Lu, we'll sleep. But when we're fighting I need to take control, okay? I need to be able to focus."

"Okay Fi, you take control."

"Thank you."

And with that I begin to drift out of consciousness.