#whether or not he retires after this year just let him win one more racing gods

[sortanonymous]

Now ain't that the most freaking Truex way to finish a race. At this point I kind of hope he retires this year just because of how deflating all of this is for all of us. Just end your and own frustration and let us all mark our calendars for the HOF Class of 2028.

[kei-maki]

Carstober Day 21: Crash

Literally only me and @secretly-larry-daley know the oc I’m writing this for, so this isn’t necessarily intended for everyone but please feel free to read anyways. But this is going to be very self indulgent as it’s about a Lightnesco fan child I made so yeah

Warning: humanized cars, near death experiences, kind of panic attack?, Francesco chokes god (/hj), making scenes more dramatic than realistically possible for the sake of writing, this is probably cringe but I’m free and don’t care, swearing, not beta read lol, I think that’s it?

————————————————————————

There had been a collision with another racer on the Circuit of the Americas track.

Whether it was intentional or not, in the brief moment she had before she found her and her car rolling over at beyond rapid speeds after quickly losing control of the wheel, Isabella didn’t know. And she couldn’t really find herself to care as she found herself frozen in the air.

She’d felt her heart seize and drop to the pit of her stomach in an instant- the feeling causing her body to grow numb under the gravity of the situation.

She’d known it would likely happen eventually. A crash. And she’d witnessed many in her time, both before and after she started racing.

She’d even been there when one of her dads had gotten into one of his own back in 2017- McQueen. She was seven at the time.

She was there when they’d rushed him to the hospital, the first to curl up by his side when they began to accept visitors as he lay in bed unconscious for what seemed like ages- waiting as her papà, Francesco, rushed over from wherever he’d been in Europe; attending his own Grand Prix Season.

That was the year he’d retired, his career already having begun to come to a natural close. But the event had triggered his need to be there for his family, only having gone back to win one last time after both her and Lightning had assured him he’d be ok. They both had wanted him to go out with one final triumph at the very end of the season before he came home to them…

Huh.

So this is what it was like. To have your life flash before your eyes, then.

The memories were cascading over her mind as they tried to soothe the one thought still prickling her, causing an even more urgent panic to arise in her. An almost primal fear threatening to engulf her completely.

It had filled her then with her dad as it did now, even if she knew it couldn’t be true.

Miles Axelrod.

She knew he had been killed years ago for his grand orchestration that was the World Grand Prix, but she couldn’t help it. Even if she’d been far too young to remember the exact details of watching each racer blow up, she could still remember the way the Lemons had cheered around her at each one. It was so overbearing, the memory of yelling that rattled her body at the time. She couldn’t seem to scrub away the colors of the tv they watched as each racer was engulfed in a raging red and orange because of that damned camera.

What if he’d finally found her? What if he was his doing as a way to take her away from everything and everyone she’d ever loved?

The panic in her heart increased as she felt herself grow more and more numb in the milliseconds passing. Her lungs seemed to fail her and the piercing fear was unbearable.

She couldn’t be taken away from them.

She loved them.

She loved them so much for all they’d done for her. How they’d made her life worth living despite its ugly start. She couldn’t let go of that. Not now, not ever.

Just then, she heard both their familiar voices begin to call out in a frantic yell in her earpiece, but she could barely process it as she was still stuck in her paralyzing fear. Still stuck midair.

It was strange, the way that even if they too were panicked by the situation, she found herself calming just the slightest bit by their presence in what she assumed to be her final moments.

God, there was so much she wanted to tell them. Just how much they meant to her, how they’d saved her, and how they deserved a proper goodbye.

But even stuck like this, seconds away from darkness she knew she had to say something.

So as she saw the ground grow closer, and she barely found the strength to say it in her state, but she needed them to hear her say it if this turned out to be the end.

She finally felt the tears that had been rolling down as she choked out the words,

“I love you guys.”

Goodbye.

And then the world turned to black as time finally unfroze and her car crashed into the ground.

…

It had been McQueen’s turn to crew chief that day, with Fran right there next to him giving his own input here and there.

Both of them got protective of their girl during her races, regardless if they knew she was one of the best. Especially after McQueen’s own crash, the last thing he ever wanted her to experience was the same thing. Her getting hurt in any way. But it was also because of the way his mind drifted off to that one fateful day in the garage with Doc.

She had such a love for the sport, even if it had kept him and Francesco on other sides of the world for a while, it was truly something that was just in her blood. He couldn’t bear the thought of her getting sidelined from her biggest passion after all that pain just for someone new to step into her spot. The way Doc had been. The way he himself had almost been.

Which is why when Isa and the other racer had been fighting over second position on the course, the closeness of the two vehicles had put McQueen in that familiar spot of full alert as he watched from the pits.

That’s why when he saw the other racer practically slam into her car, causing her to go tumbling across the track, everything stopped.

He felt his throat seize up as time seemed to slow in that moment.

Memories flashed by in an instant of when Finn had first introduced him and the young girl after he’d found her on one of the oil rigs a few months after the World Grand Prix. She’d been so scared, hidden behind the spy’s leg as they stood in the cool air of Doc’s museum. It had ran so long to get her trust him because she was so scared that he’d hurt her, her arms bandaged from being grabbed to hard by Miles.

Memories of how once she got settled in she began to shine like a star in the night sky, how vibrant of a person she became. So colorful and over expressive was her personality. So mischievous, so bold, so sweet, so perfect. And yet one to lock away her fear of it meant not worrying those she loved.

He began to let out an eir piercing yell in that moment, tears already streaming down his face as he heard a similar scream shatter the air right next to him.

He couldn’t imagine how scared she must feel in that moment, knowing better than anyone who she might think was behind this even if it was just a simple collision. She’d been beyond terrified for the same reason when he’d been in his own crash.

Which is why it broke him when he heard one more voice join the fear stricken harmony for just a second, one last fleeting moment-

“I love you guys.”

The world felt truly silent after that as her car came to a stop. And for only a moment longer was McQueen still frozen in place until he felt himself take off running towards her as medics rushed to get in the scene.

He barely felt his own feet take off running as he was still trying to process the whole situation.

He needed to get her. Right now.

But he felt arms pull him back, multiple arms. The arms of his team- his family- trying to get him to act rationally even if they knew what he was feeling in that moment.

Wrong.

They had no idea what kind of pain he was in right now. Not even close.

Their words barely passed through his ears as he let out more incoherent yells of desperation, thrashing harshly in their hold. It was almost animalistic, the way he was reacting right then.

“YOU HAVE TO LET ME SEE HER!” He cried.

“You have to- please you have to let me see my daughter… PLEASE!”

The tears that covered his face were scorching hot, almost enough for it to actually hurt.

This was a nightmare- no, this was hell. Being held back by the people he’d grown to love as they tried to keep him from doing something rash as his kid could be dying in that moment.

It was too bad for them that Francesco had a similar reaction.

He felt some of those hands leave him to go help stop the Italian, only realizing now that Sarge had taken after the man by himself first.

Now only Luigi, Guido, and Mater held him back now. And by using all of his strength, he finally broke free and broke back into that sprint.

He felt them call his name as he passed Francesco and dodged all the cameramen and staff coming to report on the tragedy as well as stop him from going any further.

But he wouldn’t let them.

He had to get to her.

He just had to.

…

Francesco remembered when he’d first been introduced to Isa as well.

How hard it’d been to grapple with the fact he was a father- it had been so sudden, her discovery. Did he want this? He still barely knew McQueen, what were they to do about taking care of her if they lived on other sides of the world? Did he even want to take care of her?

Yet when he found himself looking down at the little girl, taking in the way she looked at him cautiously with those little brown eyes of her, he knew he would do everything in his power to be the best father he could ever be for her. For Isa.

He took off running as well, except for him it was immediate.

The second he’d heard the mic cut out his legs started gunning down the side of the track as fast as physically possible, the adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream giving him the push he needed to get to her.

But he too met resistance, from Sarge and soon all those from Radiator Springs were pulling him back now as McQueen shot past him. Reporters came flooding to the pits as well as body guards trying to stop the blonde American from getting any closer to the scene.

It was no use. He wasn’t going to get through.

He felt his muscles loosen as he slowly stopped trying to resist everyone’s hold on him. Lights and cameras surrounded his clouded vision, loud voices of everyone bombarded his ears.

He was finally frozen. Barely able to take anything in anymore as grief consumed him.

Key word: barely.

The only thing he was able to process was the sheer amount of publicity the event was receiving. The way people fought to get the devastation on Francesco’s face captured perfectly, the way they tracked the quick movements of McQueen as he tried his hardest to dash across the road to get to Isa, and the way they lingered on her totaled car, trying to find ways to make it seem as damaged as possible- this was a story for them. Not reality.

They all saw this as their moments to shine- in the presence of another person’s life in danger they saw it as an opportunity to leach the money off the assholes who found this shit entertaining. The same assholes who used this to define the art that came with racing.

It was beyond sickening. Maddening. And it made Francesco’s blood boil. A dangerous thing for a helpless man with a short fuse.

Francesco’s eyes locked onto one of the many cameramen before him, who was getting dangerously closer than the others dared. He was spouting bunches of questions he couldn’t be bothered to listen to as he grew closer to his breaking point.

A fool he was, to forget exactly how violent Francesco could get.

But soon enough, the man was reminded of that fact as Fran’s rage overtook him full force and he tackled the man, sending them both toppling to the ground as he quickly straddled the cameraman’s hips while he grasped his esophagus. Fuck him. Fuck them all and fuck the scandal he subconsciously knew this would start. It didn’t matter right now and he couldn’t be bothered to care at all.

Gasps then filled the air around him at the sudden attack, but once again, Francesco didn’t register it all nor care.

Hot tears rolled down his face as his fingers tightened around the camera man's throat as all the emotions he’d been feeling finally crashed into him full force- pure anger, terror, and agony. Who gave him- gave ANY of them- the right to watch and record his entire world falling apart for the sake of their own sick entertainment. He'd kill them. He'd kill them all. He'd kill anyone who didn't turn off their screens right now and minded their own fucking business.

He felt a heavy weight slam into him then, knocking him off the cameraman as he was then pinned to the ground by a group of body guards came in to clear the area.

And thus he was helpless once more, and as he was unable to do anything he let out a scratchy scream as the agony settled in place of his anger- a sound that was sure to affect his vocal cords from his strained and rough it was and its volume-

Francesco’s tears pooled around his face on the ground as he saw McQueen had been caught in a similar situation.

Fine.

They may be able to hold them down for now, but once they were free again, they’d rush to Isa with full force and never let her go again. That was, if she was even still-

No. She was fine. She’d be ok. She had to be.

For now, as the two lay pinned on the scratchy surface of the ground, paying the price of their rash decisions driven by pure parental instincts, all they could hope and perhaps even pray for was that their little girl would be ok.

~~~

Ty for reading :)))

Also hehe get it? He chocked god because it’s camera man? Hehe…

[lestappenforever]

So, if Lewis to Ferrari is literally one step away from happening, I have a few takes, which tbh might not be up everyone’s alley, but honestly they are crucial in the sense (both from an engineering-ish and psychological perspective) (engineering-ish because I’m supposedly an engineer who is one semester away from graduating with my Engineering Bachelor’s?!)

So Engineering wise, let’s look at the car preferences. Charles likes oversteer, he prefers the limit of it. Lewis however, prefers understeer. And this could be quiet a problem because in the case if Lewis joining Ferrari, they would have to again do the equation of who to prioritize in car build, over or under, Lewis or Charles

Another thing to look at is Strategy. We all know Ferrari is the biggest fuck up when it comes to their strategy calls, they down right have no sense in it. And yes, while Mercedes have had this kind of shit show going in last year (COTA was a damn clear example) I don’t think Ferrari are suited enough for the type of shitshow that would happen if they have 2 number 1 drivers.

Additionally, we all know that after Micheal, Mercedes was kind of revolving around Lewis. Yes they’ve fucked up in 22 and 23, but let’s not forget the years prior, where lewis was DOMINANT (I’m looking at you haters of max and RBR dominance).

Now to a more psychological side of things. Ferrari have just renewed with Charles, it’s literally been 1 week. In their renewal, they stated that Charles is the team leader, he is the number 1 driver, he is the one who will lead and guide Ferrari. Which we saw in this week, with the contract announcement video, the shift in momentum in Ferrari, Arthur becoming one if Ferrari’s development driver AFTER he was dropped by the Ferrari Drivers Academy. You can’t say that Charles had a hand in this.

If Lewis were to join Ferrari, this shift that Charles is the number one man in the Scuderia would mostly collapse. I mean, if you have a 7-time world champion in your arsenal, you would do everything to give him what he wants. Whether that would be car preference, priority, the better strategy, etc. And Ferrari IS a messy team in that sense. They focus on politics and sponsorships A-LOT, I mean, the Santander backup for carlos and how the sponsors have played a part in the build of the car and the priority Carlos was very prominent. They would shift from “Charles is our man, our number 1 driver” to Lewis in MERE SECONDS.

In addition, Lewis KNOWS how to play these political games. I mean, going from McLaren to Mercedes, after Micheal retired to today, where you had multiple teammates and YOU had the priority (let’s not look at Brocedes rn, I’ll still get to it) and you had the team do EVERYTHING you want, in order for YOU to Dominate. Yeah, Lewis knows how to play the games. And let’s not forget what he said when rumors that he was going to Red Bull were like. He clearly said that he won’t leave, he’ll stay in order to re-build the team back up to its glories, etc etc. Or was it his way to jsu say he’s ONLY opposed to energy drink vroom vroom team not red prancing horse vroom vroom team?

As for Brocedes, again, it was a game if politics. PURE POLITICS within Mercedes. Lewis is continuing his games and kind of building a team to his liking, but he was met with one who’d known his games, who’d known how to play them (que Nico aka Britney). The fact that Nico was a factor that brought Lewis to Mercedes, yet left after winning, leaving the entirety of the sport, just shows that there was something within the team, and maybe Nico wouldn’t have had the way he’s had in 2016 ever again in the team, where he wouldn’t have been able to race or do what he did in 2016.

So, from engineering and psychology, the Lewis signing to Ferrari wouldn’t make sense, and Lewis and Charles would be okay team mates, they won’t be the best of friends because of the fact that they both are number 1 drivers. Of course only time would tell, but brainrot has been brainrottinh since last night and I just needed to get this off my chest (que more that you know playing in my head rn) (I did Not realise how long this is until rn and I’m extremely sorry fir this long ass ask

These are all very good points, without a doubt. And it's really interesting to read your take on this situation from an engineering standpoint especially, so thank you so much for sharing your thoughts! ❤️

But I honestly can't agree or disagree with any of them for two reasons:

There is no guarantee this rumor will actually pan out and prove to be true.

We have no way of knowing, one way or another, how this would all play out should it turn out to be true and Lewis does end up joining Ferrari for the 2025 season.

The 2024 season still hasn't even started, and so many things can - and likely will - happen long before any of this even comes into effect, if it does at all.

Whatever may end up happening in the future, only time will tell how it will all go down. And it will be very interesting to follow the development of this whole situation, if the rumor has any real truth to it.

[keepthedelta]

this ended up way longer than I anticipated lol

the answer is definitely no, the team and toto definitely did not favour nico.

as misa pointed out, nico obeyed team orders in Malaysia 2013, staying behind lewis despite being faster and ultimately costing him a podium (even lewis admitted that nico should have been on the podium). afterwards toto wolff praised nico’s commitment to the team and his handling of the situation.

in 2014, lewis received team orders to let nico, who was both faster than him and on a different tyre strategy, past but he refused. this fucked nico’s race, which was already somewhat fucked by the safety car and mechanical failure, and handed the win to ricciardo. afterwards, niki lauda said that team orders shouldn’t have been issued, and supported lewis’ decision.

in 2016, the team ordered nico to let lewis past in Monaco because he was slow. nico did, and lewis ended up winning the race while he finished 7th. afterwards, the response to the media was that nico was just not handling the car well, but there also rumours in the paddock that nico had had some mechanical faults and merc just never addressed that.

also in 2016, lewis got team orders to speed up in abu dhabi when he was trying to back nico into max and seb. whether you think he was justified in doing that is up for debate, but either way, the team gave lewis orders which he ignored and was ultimately not punished for. (personally I’m of the opinion that he would have been punished had nico not retired because toto, niki, and paddy were furious, but when nico retired they had to invest all of their energy into lewis as a championship contender).

as far as team orders go, they did not favour nico, and even though they got a roughly equal number of team orders (there were probably a few others over the years but these are the most important ones) lewis rarely followed them, and was either never punished or was actively defended for ignoring them.

then come the crashes and punishments for those. nico and lewis had three major collisions over their time together. in 2014, nico made a mistake when trying to overtake lewis at spa and caused a collision that resulted in lewis dnfing. nico accepted responsibility and had to pay a significant fine (I have since seen articles that suggest that nico wasn’t fined, he just offered to pay for the damage, but even if that is true, the team never made any public suggestion that it was anything other than a fine).

in spain 2016, lewis caused a first lap crash that took the both of them out and ended nico’s streak of wins. lewis apologised to the team but refused to accept responsibility, and even though niki lauda openly and correctly said that it was lewis’ fault, the press and public have generally sided with lewis and blamed nico. lewis was never fined for the crash, despite it causing more damage than spa 2014, and cost the team a lot of points that day. this may be because he threatened to quit and Mercedes were genuinely worried about what they would do if he did. esteban ocon was a junior Mercedes driver at the time and was scheduled to do tests for them, but after the Barcelona crash they pulled him from the test and put pascal wehrlein in instead, claiming that they just wanted someone more experienced (they did, not for testing purposes, but because they thought they may have to put pascal in the seat at short notice).

then we get to how the team treated them publicly. this is the hardest and probably most subjective part, and I will fully acknowledge that I am biased here. in my personal opinion, the team were publicly a lot more supportive of lewis than they were with nico. I don’t think there was much difference in 2013-14 but I think things were different in 2015 onwards. lewis absolutely dominated 2015, and he fully deserved the support that he got from the team. I don’t think there was any way nico was ever going to win 2015, but there were several moments where he could have won, or scored highly, and the car failed. he lost two engines in a single weekend in monza, had more engine issues in japan, and had a broken throttle in Russia. lewis won in monza and the team talked about how much of a step forward they had taken in terms of engineering (even though nico’s second engine of the weekend literally blew up during the race), and in Russia, when nico dnfed from the lead, they just celebrated winning the constructor’s title. also, in Monaco 2015, lewis made a mistake, believing for some reason that nico and seb were going to pit behind the safety car, and demanded to pit. he came out of the pits behind nico and seb, and turned a win at Monaco into a third. afterwards, the british media absolutely savaged Mercedes, and they took responsibility, apologising to lewis, even though they had tried to persuade him not to pit. in contrast, nico had to serve a penalty in Germany 2016, and the team held him for twice as long because their stopwatch wasn’t working. at the end of the race, they acknowledged the issue, but I don’t think they ever apologised, even though it was their fault.

over the course of the hybrid era, nico had more bad luck and mechanical issues than lewis. often, nobody is to blame for these things, they just happen as the price for speed and performance is usually reliability. when they happened to nico, they were usually shrugged off, but when they happened to lewis it became a public debate (from the press) and a public apology (from the team).

early in 2016 lewis had a few reliability issues in qualifying that left him starting the race from further back, while nico took pole. this was usually portrayed in the media as lewis exclusively having bad luck to the point that people were suggesting as early as the third race of the season that the team were trying to fix it for nico, and Mercedes spent a lot of time publicly apologising to lewis for not giving him adequate equipment (I don’t necessarily disagree with the apology, but they often acted like it was solely lewis’ car that was having issues, when nico frequently had issues in free practice.

lewis spent a lot of time in 2016 suggesting that his car was being sabotaged. he would say that his was the only Mercedes engine having issues (not true, nico frequently had issues in practice and occasionally in the race although it’s true that it rarely affected him as badly in qualifying, and the other teams who ran Mercedes engines did occasionally have some issues), or that it was because his engineers and mechanics had been swapped with nico’s (relatively few of them were actually swapped and it was a decision that toto made, not something that nico demanded). and because sky uk are such wonderful journalists (read: incompetent and biased morons) they fuelled these conspiracy theories, and Mercedes had to work very hard to show their support for lewis. they literally did an entire piece with sky about lewis joining the team and how he’d made it so much stronger. they talked about how beloved he was, and how honoured they were to be part of lewis’ spiritual journey. they even made nico join in and talk about how much the team loved lewis more than anyone else (slight exaggeration, but only slight). now they may have done a feature like this for nico with a german channel, but I doubt it.

after lewis crashed out of qualifying in baku (and nico got pole) lewis reportedly destroyed his driver’s room. niki lauda told the Austrian press this, and then Mercedes made him retract it and pretend that he was lying for some reason. merc worked incredibly hard to be publicly supportive of lewis and never extended nico that courtesy, even when it was clear that he was struggling.

while I think it’s pretty obvious that nico was not favoured, I will say that I think there were a few moments where nico had slightly more power (possibly just more than he’d had previously, not necessarily more than lewis). specifically, I think that in the period after the spain crash, nico had a bit more leverage. he won the first four races of the year (and the three the previous year) and lewis was not making life easy for merc after spain by crashing them both out, publicly suggesting that the team were working against him, and then threatening to quit. nico had been meeting quite seriously with Ferrari due to the internal tension at Mercedes (and because Ferrari were trying to get Adrian newey to come over to them – they got incredibly close to signing him) and was heavily favoured to replace kimi. so when he resigned his contract with merc, he signed a two year extension for more than 100 million euros. that’s the equivalent of what lewis gets paid now, as a seven time world champion.

if there was anyone at merc who did genuinely favour nico, I would say that it was probably paddy lowe, who was mercedes’ technical director (he was the “Valtteri, it’s james” before james vowles). paddy and nico got along very well, and paddy was probably the only person from Mercedes who ever suggested that the issue was lewis and not the car (in singapore lewis really struggled throughout all three practices and qualifying, and toto told the press that he’d had some mechanical issues on the car, while paddy literally just said that the issue with the car was a set up issue, and that lewis just needed to get on with it).

also, as a sidenote, paddy got really annoyed at some of the things lewis said and would occasionally “anonymously” go to journalists to disagree with the merc pr response.

Okay maybe a bit random but I’m currently exploring the whole brocedes lore more deeply and something I’m curious about, and I wondered if you had any thoughts, was do you think Toto had a clear favourite during the 2013-16 era and if so who? Front what I can vaguely remember at the time as a casual viewer, almost every Lewis fan was convinced Toto was favouring Nico and giving him preferential treatment but I always put that down to their whole victim complex of thinking everyone’s working against Lewis. There were times when Toto gave Nico a proper public bollocking (such as Spa 2014) which definitely wouldn’t indicate he was in any way favoured.

When I look at Toto and Nico now (side note, their podcast together gave me WAY too many brainworms), Toto does seem pretty fond of Nico and definitely lets him get away with so much shit that he wouldn’t let other journalists. However I don’t know if that still necessarily means he ever preferred him over Lewis?

To me it was pretty clear that Niki favoured Lewis imo but I’m still not sure on Toto. Do you have any opinion on that?

short answer to did toto favour nico over lewis? lol no.

longer answer: look at the merc team orders in 2013, where lewis -- who had yet to win a wdc w/ merc yet or establish himself within the team as First Driver and was equal w/ nico -- was favoured over nico for the podium. nico who has been the the team since it's return to f1 in 2010, scored their first points, podium, and team.

longer longer answer: CC'ing @keepthedelta

[jimblejamblewritings]

the flip side | part 1.

Summary: (Y/N) has always been one of the stronger Alphas. Which is saying something when the Avengers is a team overrun with Alphas. A mission gone wrong changes her entire world and when everyone starts treating her different, she doesn’t know if she can cope. Change hurts and (Y/N)’s not sure it’s a pain she cant bear.

Warnings: THIS IS THE DARKER VERSION! IF YOU WANT THE LESS DARK/ANGSTY VERSION CHECK OUT CHANGES HURT

Warnings for the Series: strong language, angst, fluff, assault, a/b/o dynamics, sexual content (18+ readers only)

Pairing: Stucky x black!reader

Word Count: 6.9k

(Series Masterlist) 

“Tony, stand down!”

Your voice rose past its normal speaking tone, verging on the authoritative Alpha command. The young Beta, Peter, clung to the back of your shirt after you yelled. You were trying not to be too abrasive and scare the young boy.  

“(Y/N), he—”

“No, Tony! You brought the kid in to fight on your side at the airport. You don’t get to turn your back on him now. He just wants to help.”

“Peter is in over his head.”

“You should have thought of that. The Beta is yours so step up like an Alpha.”

You and him were engaged in a stare-off, both slightly growling and neither moving. Tony relented first like you knew he would. At the end of the day, he had respect for you. One of the few female Alphas that chose to fight and work in SHIELD.

Most female Alphas took the chance to live the most lavish and relaxed lifestyles they could, their nature affording them that luxury. Especially since the patriarchy throughout history had tried to deny them their Alpha nature because the past saw more female Omegas and Betas until more modern times. You didn’t blame them. Sometimes, you thought about retiring and living the good life as well.  

It never happened though. Not for you, Nat, or Sharon. It was that respect for choosing the hard, macho life that made Tony and Steve eventually sit down and work out their differences with the Accords— everyone came back to live in the compound only a few months later. You were a team again, a family. Tony snorted but finally lowered the Iron Man suit to stand on the ground with you and Peter.

“You know having a pack isn’t my style, (Y/N).”

“That’s a lie, what do you call the Avengers?”

“A team with more Alphas than it knows what to do with. None of us are the leader of that pack.”

“Then what about Happy?”

“Happy is my bodygu—”

“A bodyguard you stopped paying three years ago yet he still manages to afford everything and lives with us? You already have one member, take another damn Beta and get it over with.”

“Why don’t you take him?”

“I didn’t recruit him to a dangerous life in the first place. Peter’s on the team, he’s an Avenger, and he’s your responsibility.”

Tony closed his mouth, knowing he would never win the argument, and nodded. Peter’s grip on your shirt relaxed and he finally moved to be beside you instead of behind you. You gave the awkward boy a smile and pat on the head. He just wanted to help and whether Tony liked it or not, Peter was a superhero not some helpless high schooler. You put a hand on Tony’s shoulder.

“And if he threatens to take away your suit again, Peter, just let this Alpha know. I’ll set him straight.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, kid. Now, go drop him off at home Tony so he can finish his homework.”

Diffusing any tension that might have still been there, you gave Tony and Peter hugs before jumping into your car to race back to the tower— Tony finally renamed it from Stark Tower to Avengers Tower after several months of persuading.

The team gagged when you walked in and you gave them a look of confusion. T’Challa and Okoye, both Alphas, just chuckled and patted your shoulder as they left the compound having only come to discuss a mission before heading back to Wakanda. Sam— the Beta with an Alpha mouth— decided to speak up.

“Tony? Really, you hooked up with Tony? Thought that was the only line you wouldn’t cross.”

If it was any other person, Beta or Omega dynamic, that spoke to you or other team members like that they would face death stares. But Sam was Sam. And his words were never a challenge but always jokes and quick jabs— he was never invested in challenging an Alpha to try and become a pseudo one by force.

“Take another sniff geniuses.”

You walked further into the room with your arms purposefully open wide. The team grimaced but did as you said. Everyone could smell the hint of Peter that had been hidden underneath. If Peter was there, it wasn’t possible in any way that you and Tony would be hooking up at the moment.

“You really thought I’d sleep with Tony?”

You propped your feet up on Bucky’s lap and placed your head in Bruce’s. The stoic Alpha pushed your feet off of him as Natasha snarled. Without missing a beat, you switched positions and propped your feet up on Bruce— the Omega scientist taking a lunch break before going back to the lab— earning a second snarl.

“Relax, Nat, you’re so uptight today. I don’t want your men. Would’ve taken Brucey a while ago if I did.”

You leaned back to lay your head in Bucky’s lap. “But… we can still have a go, Buck. Didn’t you and Nat end it, when, in the 80s?”

You chuckled, not getting a laugh back but instead the sound of Natasha’s fist slamming the table. It was always fun to mess with Bucky since he was another Alpha and could hold his own. His Winter Soldier days were starting to become less sensitive and he didn’t mind jokes about them. Steve walked away from where he and Sam were cooking for everyone and tapped Bruce on the shoulder. The scientist sighed in relief as he took the seat closest to Nat and Steve replaced him.

“Stop threatening her,” he said as he put your feet back to rest on his lap.

“Threatening? I’m just messing wi—”

You stopped as the smell finally hit you. You turned your head, earning a third snarl as your face was too close to Bucky’s stomach and crotch for Nat’s comfort. His scent was more musky than usual, and then Nat and Bruce’s smells hit you. They were about to be in their ruts and heat, respectively. You immediately sat up from Bucky’s lap with your hands up in surrender. They weren’t together but as long as he was unclaimed, Nat felt some way about others approaching Bucky when she was in a rut. Bruce, on the other hand, was very much Nat’s and you didn’t mean to cross that line at all.  

“I swear the only stink I could smell was Stark and Peter. I was joking, not a real threat. Bruce is all yours.”

Everyone relaxed. Nat muttered a quiet sorry for assuming you were declaring a real threat to Bruce, blaming it on the upcoming rut having her on edge. Everyone knew you would never take Bruce from her. But even rational Alphas like them found it hard to take your jokes when ruts were involved. Steve pulled you fully into his lap so Sam could have a seat at the table— some of the chairs were still missing from Tony’s last party, probably on the deck. You gave him a snarl, more playful than anything, to which he just rolled his eyes.

“Can’t just manhandle me like that. I’m not one of your little weak Omegas, Captain.”

Steve huffed out a laugh. “Thank God for that. You’d be the worst, you don’t know how to listen.”

“She’d be getting punished every other damn day,” Bucky finally teased and everyone laughed.

The rest of dinner was rather calm. The team actually enjoyed your jokes after it was verbally put out that everything was just a joke, you were just your usual obnoxious Alpha self. It was nice to have Clint home for the weekend, he was usually at the farm with Laura especially since their third child was born. It would have been nice to have Thor as well but Asgard requested him home for something so you only had Clint.

Wanda was enjoying messing with him. When it came to Wanda, and Pietro when he was alive, Clint was such a weak Alpha. They were his adopted kids for all intents and purposes and found themselves in his pack with no difficulty— well one. Vision struggled to accept Wanda being his Omega but also in Clint’s mini pack even if it was purely familial.

He almost commanded Wanda to leave the pack but was soon talked to and brought to an understanding. You were glad that you were able to convince him to back down. You might have been an Alpha but the entire concepts of dynamics bothered you a bit. You were lucky enough to always be in control of your own destiny but you felt bad for Betas that sometimes had to bow down. You felt even sorrier towards Omegas that had no agency at all. They never seemed bothered by it but they didn’t know better— they didn’t know what power was like to know that they should be bothered by their lack of it.  

The elevator doors dinged and instead of being greeted by Tony and potentially Peter, a smell you didn’t like rolled out. It wasn’t hard to miss the lavender, ocean breeze, and cranberry scent of Sharon Carter. Not many people that weren’t officially on the Avengers had access to the residential floors of the tower, but Sharon was one of the few since she was a high level SHIELD agent. Sharon had files in her hand, you assumed for the next mission that was due any minute now. She stopped dead in her tracks, growling viciously at the sight before her. It wasn’t hard to miss that she was in a rut like Nat and Bucky and you were currently sitting on her property.

Steve and Sharon weren’t together in the same way that Bucky and Nat weren’t together. However, you and Nat were at least friendly with each other even when she got mad about your jokes about Bucky. Sharon just hated you and the feeling was mutual. You never understood why she was so insistent on being pissed whenever you talked to Steve during a rut. It wasn’t like she had a real chance with him.

Steve didn’t feel drawn to other Alphas in a bonding way— only seeing them as there for a good time. But he— and Bucky— hadn’t found an Omega he was willing to bond to by pure choice or felt inclined to bond with on instinct alone. So they slept around to solve ruts, switching between Alphas, Betas, and Omegas. Steve usually went to Sharon if he was choosing an Alpha. And she did the same with him. Sharon glared and you had half a mind to wiggle around on Steve’s lap just to mess with her.

As if he could read your mind and knew what you were about to do, Steve gripped your upper arm tightly to stop you. Just like with Tony, the two of you were in a stare-off with gentle snarls at each other. If Sharon wasn’t right there, Sam would have joked that you two should get a room. But no one was joking, only watching the tense scene in front of them. Tony submitted to you, Nat tended to submit to you, Clint and Thor submitted to you. Hell, even Bucky and Vision. But not Steve. Ever the Captain, he was the most dominant Alpha on the whole team— not using Alpha command very often and rejecting becoming leader of a pack, instead choosing to just be the best captain he could be of a team. And not once did he lose a stare-off to you.

“Stand down, (Y/N).”

“Make me,” you said with a smirk.

Any other moment, Steve would have laughed or snarled more but with his eyes playful. Not now though because you weren’t toying with him. You might have been staring at him but your words were purely to set off Sharon and right at the moment, during her rut, it wasn’t funny to him. He preferred if the team was a family or at least cordial with each other. Steve’s grip on your arm loosened as he growled, no longer settling on quiet snarls.

You relented and jumped off of him with a quickness. The growl from Steve made a spike of fear run through you, causing your scent to roll off slightly, making both him and Bucky turn their heads before looking away abruptly to not get caught staring.  

“Do you want me now?” Steve asked Sharon.

The blonde nodded and he stood up to follow her. He took the files from her hand and shoved them towards you, knowing you were as thorough as he and Bucky were with reading them and informing the team. Steve’s hand found Sharon’s waist. It slowly snaked down to her butt as they walked off.

“We’ll be back later,” he said as they entered the elevator, not really caring if you guys had heard.

The tension settled as the elevator went up to his suite. You sat back down and began to flip through the files, sipping the beer Steve left. One thing you appreciated about both him and Bucky was that the two of them were warm as hell so Steve’s seat was nice and toasty.  

“You’re going to get your ass beat one day,” Clint said with a shake of his head and a smile.

“Sharon could learn to back off of (Y/N) a little,” Wanda said, feeling free to speak without the other Alpha in the room. No one ever scolded Wanda if she was defending you. Usually Omegas always got away with things if they were defending an Alpha— it was one of the few times that they had power over people higher up than them in the hierarchy.  

“I agree,” Nat sat back in her chair. “She’s had it out for you for no damn reason. Just mad you made the team and not her. She’s got to get over it, you were the better one. Not SHIELD’s fault, a better Alpha came in.”

“Probably mad about that time Steve helped you out too,” Sam chimed in and you choked on the beer.

“I’m sorry who helped me with what?”

“Steve. Was a while ago, right before Germany, remember?”

You shook your head. The only thing you remember about Germany, aside from the fight, was you, Sam, and Bucky averting your eyes when the two blond Alphas inconveniently started their ruts and felt the need to have one last go in the parking lot and had their hands down each others’ pants in front of the car. You had wanted to hit both of them with the car.  

“Well I remember damn well, she came storming in talking about how you could mess with anyone in SHIELD but picked the one teammate no one touched.”

“I’ve never asked Steve to help me with a rut.” You set the beer down and the whole team looked in surprise. “I’ve never gone to him for help or anyone for that matter.”

“You haven’t?” Sam prodded, knowing he’s heard noises from your room a few times before.

You fished the little pill bottle refill out of your pocket— the reason you had been out and able to respond to Peter’s frantic call about Tony forcing him to quit earlier that day. With a quick toss, you threw them across to Vision who caught it with no problem. He read off the little label stating the dosage and instructions of your suppressants.

“You use those?” Nat asked.

“Unclaimed Alpha, not taking a chance going into a real rut and riling up some Beta or Omega while I’m sleeping with them. Don’t need kids right now.”

“Women?”

“Sometimes just don’t work for me in a rut.”

“Just sleep with an Alpha then,” Bucky suggested. “Not like you can’t feel that one coming and stop it before it’s too late.”

“Aww, are you offering, Buck?”

He scoffed. “Fuck off.”  

Vision tossed the pill bottle back to you and you stashed it back in your pocket. Done with talking about your sex life, you picked up the files Steve had given you before he and Sharon left. The team became alert as you did a casual debriefing and began to organize the mission.

“FRIDAY!” You called out while everyone read the papers you handed out.

“Yes, (Y/N)?”

“When Tony gets back, tell him I need a new bo staff before the mission. The other burnt to a crisp.”

“Of course, (Y/N). Mr. Stark has been working on that problem for you.”

It was the fourth bo staff in a month that you had gone through. The collapsible staff was your main weapon because of your powers. You had heating abilities but had not learned to fully master them. The most you could do was heat up yourself, not able to shoot the laser like heat from your body. However it was enough that just like normal heat, whatever you were touching would eventually conduct that heat. To keep yourself at a safer distance rather than hand to hand combat, you used a bo staff and heated up like a makeshift lightsaber— giving enemies third degree burns.

“Thank you, FRIDAY.”

The AI said something but you missed it as the alarm on your phone rang, reminding you there was only one hour left you had to take your suppressant for the day before it was considered a missed day. The team, who had been staring at the new mission notes, looked up at the sound. They all watched you pop open the pill bottle and toss a pill in your mouth. Your face scrunched up in disgust as you bit down on the pill and chewed it until it was dust.

A second alarm rang. Your rut, much to your gratefulness, had a pretty routine schedule. Always right after your period which was also extremely routine. It rarely varied. You stood up, taking Steve’s jacket from the back of the chair. Bucky didn’t make a protest when you suddenly lifted his arm and took off the hair tie around it. You walked backwards to the elevators, facing the team as you talked and shrugged on the big leather jacket before starting to tie your hair up.

“Duty calls, rut’s about to start. If you need me. I’ll be at that one bar downtown and then some little Omega’s bed. Do me a favor… try not to need me till at least two am, mmm no scratch that, four am.”

The doors closed with various snorts and guffaws from your teammates. Your nose upturned now that you were by yourself, the scent of Sharon and Steve overwhelming. You leaned your head down and sniffed the jacket. It smelled too strongly of him— would be hard to get someone at the bar. The doors opened and you entered the lobby, taking off the jacket.

“Roseanne?” you called the Beta receptionist who was almost always working night shifts.

Her head popped up from where it was hunched over the keyboard. You tossed her the jacket. Without missing a beat, she reached down and grabbed a different jacket— black leather instead of brown but the same size and style as the one she was just given. Roseanne threw the jacket to you.

“Captain Rogers is going to wonder where these are eventually,” she said with what you couldn’t determine if it was worriedness for you or nervousness just because.

You laughed and fixed the jacket collar.

“He knows these are my favorite to steal, needs to learn to stop stinking them so much and I’ll stop hiding them from him. Catch you later. Don’t work too hard, you should have fun.”

“Is that a command?”

“Don’t test me, Beta,” you said with a growl.

Roseanne laughed, knowing your threat was of pure jest— you two were friends after all. You gave her one last smile before heading out for the night, ready to catch an Omega to make you feel better.

“That mine?”

You jumped at the sound of Steve’s voice making him smirk at the fact he actually startled you. The entrance to the duplex suite you had was on the floor with Steve, Bucky, and Sam’s rooms. Technically Steve and Bucky’s rooms was just one suite with an office and a kitchenette— the separation was needed though for nights when one of them had someone in bed and the other person was relegated to the smaller pull out couch in the office turned guest room.

It was late enough when you came back, almost all the lights in the tower were off, that you thought no one would be up. He had only been up to grab some water. A huff sounded from behind Steve and you rolled your eyes. Sharon was clearly still there and not pleased at your sudden scent that invaded past the open doorway and into his room.

She got up and stood behind him, wrapped in just a sheet. You were on suppressants and had just come from satisfying your rut with a very nice Omega but the scent of what Steve and Sharon had been doing all night was beginning to start yours up again. Some sweat beaded on your forehead.

The two other Alphas watched the sweat with intensity and two separate emotions. Sharon felt her rut start up again filled with pure spite as her eyes narrowed at you. Steve felt his come back but his eyes weren’t narrowed at all. Instead, fully dilated pupils followed the sweat down the side of your face and neck disappearing behind his leather jacket that didn’t smell right. He growled, sniffing the air again to see if he could identify the presentation of the mysterious stranger.

“You let an Omega rub his scent all over my shit?”

From behind him Sharon scoffed on his behalf. You crossed your arms, not appreciating her input.

“Needed my little problem solved, found a willing body. Didn’t mean to get it on your jacket, Stevie, my bad,” you said, nonchalantly.  

“Next time control your Omega.”

“First of all, not mine. Second, chill. I’ll just replace it with my scent. Good?”

“Yeah, whatever.”

You rolled your eyes. “Have you ever considered suppressants? They make me much more pleasant on my ruts. You could use the help.”

Steve laughed. “Please, you’re still unbearable.”

“Just a thought, hothead. Goodnight, Stevie. Sharon.”

“Night, doll,” Steve said much to Sharon’s annoyance while she muttered goodnight.

You continued down your intended path to your room and up the stairs to the bed and bathroom area. Stripping off your clothes, you stepped into your shower. You didn’t shower at the Omega’s place, not wanting him to get some idea that you were considering him as a claim by sticking around past the sex. Once you smelled only like you, you slipped on underwear and headed to bed.

Late morning came and you stretched with a complaint to FRIDAY— the AI greeting you back as she turned on the lights in your room. You tugged at your suit and met everyone on the helipad where the quinjet was up and running, waiting for everyone. Tony handed you the new bo staff before walking into the jet and sitting at the driver’s seat. You threw it up in the air and caught it, the weight making your hand drop more than normal.

Your palms glowed a bright red and slowly the staff did as well. The minute you stopped, the glowing did as well and the staff stayed intact. Knocking the staff against Steve’s shield that was sitting on a seat, you smiled hearing the sharp clanking noise. The staff was vibranium, it had to be. Hopefully it would be the end of you having to get a new weapon every other mission.

The rest of the team piled in, Peter smiling at you and giving you a hug in thanks that he was on the mission. The team chuckled, he was like a little brother to you. Clint once tried to say he was your child but was swiftly met with a boot to the chest as you told him not to accidentally curse you with kids before you were ready or wanted them. The jet ride was silent. Not uncommon when a mission came after most of the team had been in some form of rut or heat. No one liked to talk because they were tired and opted to take the concentration they had to focus on the mission.

You decided on teams for once you got deep inside the base and snuck into the old castle. You grumbled that if it wasn’t the enemy that killed you it would be the falling rocks from the ceiling of the dilapidated structure— the comment making the rest of the tired team smile.

“One of you smells,” Steve and Bucky said at the same time.

The entire team stopped and did a test. You shook your head.

“This might be your supersoldier senses, no one else smells. Everyone took the shot before we left.”

The shot was a masker engineered by Bruce and used by most intelligence agencies either using his formula or a replica once they learned they could make their own. It never lasted long and was carefully tracked but it masked scents from wafting too far past a person, making spies able to do their jobs properly. Of course, the SHIELD ones were Bruce’s secret formula that lasted long enough to complete a day mission without fear.

“One more check, to be safe,” Steve said.

Everyone sniffed again. Peter stiffened beside you.

“It’s not us,” he whispered.

Bucky and Steve took over completely and worked to find how far the scent was from where you guys actually were standing. The supersoldiers returned with a new plan and new teams. Stepping up to the plate, Tony took Peter under his wing to head down the south hall. You were with Bruce, one slap to his bicep with your heated up hand and Hulk would activate no problem. Nat and Clint were paired up along with Vision and Wanda. Steve, Sam, and Bucky were the famed trio to no one’s surprise.

This mission was worth going in standard teams you guys knew worked. With a final look at everyone, Steve nodded and you all split— turning on the comms and walking with a new alertness. The fighting sounded through your ear piece. You and Bruce looked at each other, it was coming from Nat and Clint. They couldn’t get you an exact location in reference to them. You whisper-yelled for Sam in your comm.

“Can Redwing get Bruce and I to you guys?”

“On it, give me a minute… stairwell straight ahead and go to the right. We’re… three flights down.”

You and Bruce started to book it. The team needed all the help they could get. You narrowly avoided getting hit by a guard that just got knocked out from Steve’s shield. Heating up your palm, you slapped Bruce and Hulk roared to life. Your staff got hotter and hotter until it was bright red. Men screamed as the staff burned them and you spun it with expertise.

“You’ll never get it,” one man said.

He was dressed differently than the others and you knew he was in charge. A beaker was in his hand. This was a fragile situation. You knew that HYDRA had the formula. There was no way that it wasn’t written down. But you also knew that the formula was probably not in the building anymore. If you couldn’t successfully get the beaker then Bruce and Tony wouldn’t be able to analyze it.  

“You’re the only one still standing,” Nat said as she slowly inched towards him.

He held the glass with little regard and you couldn’t risk it spilling by ambushing him.

“And this is the only formula successfully completed. I can tell when I have lost a battle… but a battle isn’t war. Think quickly.”

He threw the glass. Everyone watched in horror and screamed for someone to grab it. You were the closest and without thinking dove for the glass— hands still red hot from fighting. The beaker burst in your hands, cutting the skin and causing the substance to seep into the wounds.

“Shit!” you yelled.

“Bruce, get her back to the tower and into medical now. Tell Rhodey to send us a second jet,” Steve commanded. “Everyone else clean sweep the place, we need to find files or something.”

Your hand started to burn before going numb. Bruce, no longer in Hulk form, rushed you back to the quinjet. Your whole body had started to go numb and Bruce worried it was going into shock. Dr. Cho was already waiting with a gurney to take you into the private wing reserved for the Avengers team. The last thing you remembered was Bruce saying everything was going to be okay before the anesthesia or poison, you weren’t sure which, took over and you went unconscious.

~~

Dry. Your throat felt very dry when you woke up. The coughing startled Bruce who had been sleeping in the chair next to your hospital bed. He rushed to grab you water and held the cup up to your lips as you drank. He set the cup down and moved from the chair to sitting on the edge of your bed.

“How are you?”

“I feel like I got hit but a goddamn bus, Bruce.”

He chuckled. “At least that mouth of yours hasn’t lost any bite… (Y/N), there’s a problem.”

“Yeah, I almost died.”

“No, but you might wish you did.”

You raised an eyebrow. “What the hell do you mean?”

“I want you to know, before I say anything, no one else knows but you and me. I was the only one that studied the compound of the substance. And aside from Dr. Cho, no one else worked on you. She only pulled out the glass and helped drain the wound.”

You looked down at your left hand. It wasn’t damaged but you could see where there was a cyst that must have been drained. Oh well, just another scar to add to your list of scrapes and bruises.

“And no one else has been allowed in here but me. You’ve been out for a week.”

“A week?! Bruce what the hell?”

“The substance they were working on was a changing component.”

“Change how?”

“Presentation. It’s meant to mutate presentation cells… you’re no longer an Alpha.”

You shook your head. “Brucey this isn’t funny.”

“I’m not joking. The cells were either destroyed or mutated into producing Omega dna to eventually replace them.”

“You’re lying! You’re fucking lying to me!” You screamed before Bruce slapped a hand over your mouth.

“If you don’t shut up, someone’s going to barge through that door and smell it on you.”

He tilted his head to the frosty glass windows. You could see outlines and shadows of the entire team on the other side. Three heads moved slightly and you stilled— obviously Peter, Steve, and Bucky could hear the movement. You looked Bruce in the eye and nodded slowly in indication that you wouldn’t shout. Bruce handed you the file and talked as you flipped through it.

“I’ve destroyed all the files but one locked in my nesting stuff, it’s illegal for Nat to touch that box. This isn’t on your medical record either. I’m going to lock this up with the file as well when you’re done reading it.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

Bruce poured you another glass of water.

“That’s why I destroyed everything. I know this can’t be easy but it’s still your decision, (Y/N). We can find a way to get you out of here until I’m able to see if it can be reversed. Alpha?” Bruce asked gently when you seemed to stare into space.

You almost recoiled, the word seemed to scorn you as you looked at the file that said otherwise.

“How long can I hide it?”

“They’ll know the minute you change clothes. Roseanne gave me a jacket, said it would help… I lied, I told her. Three of us know.”

“It’s okay, I trust Rose.”

You sniffed the jacket, it smelled strongly of Steve. You looked at the clothes at the end of the bed, the undergarments were yours but the shirt and sweats belonged to Bucky. You thanked Bruce for having some sort of foresight to help cover up all the new Omega scent of you.

“The maskers,” you said with delight thinking of the pre-mission shots.

“Are highly monitored by the system to stay within the intelligence community.”

“Bruce, please. I can’t be this. My nature got changed by force. This new one is not mine.”

“I can possibly fake the numbers.”

You shot over to give him a hug. Bruce set you back.

“You’re on these for the rest of your life you know. Or at least until I can try to change you back. But if I can’t,” he faltered.

“I understand.”

“Okay, I’ll bring you the first batch of injections after dinner. Don’t shower before then.”

You nodded seriously and Bruce helped you out of the bed. You were forever grateful to the good scientist. The team rushed you when you stepped out of the room and you froze up in fear.

“Back off guys, she just woke up,” Bruce came to your rescue.

They all suddenly apologized and gave you space. You secretly sniffed the air as the team talked about the bullshit lie Bruce told them about the serum that got you. Something about it eating at part of your nerves and they’d have to be a bit gentle with you for a little bit or some shit like that. Your foot tapped nervously as the elevator slowly made its way up to the residential floors. You forced yourself to stop tapping, not willing to give in to the nervousness of the Omega cells trying to take over.

Dinner was a tense affair on your part and you only breathed when Bruce finally knocked on your door to deliver the masker injections. He patted an extra box on top of the injections informing you that he had gotten himself a prescription for Omega suppressants for you to use. You couldn’t thank him enough. He was taking a huge risk. As a claimed Omega, his Alpha normally had to sign off on things like suppressants. If Nat found out then Bruce was risking a punishment for you. You showered and sat on the edge of your tub.

Normally you were wild with the injections, everyone was. But now you wanted to make sure that it was perfect, that every drop entered your bloodstream. You pulled the band tight around your thigh, holding it taut between your teeth until the faintest semblance of a vein appeared. Carefully— and rather painfully because of the slow speed— you sunk the syringe into your thigh and pushed the top of it until all of the injection was gone.

You took a tentative sniff. Nothing. Opening the box, you ripped one of the pills from the package and chewed it harshly. You grabbed underwear, ready to slip into bed when you thought about pajamas. If you had put on more clothes that smelled like you— Alpha you— then maybe it would help. Instead of grabbing fresh clothes, you reached into your laundry basket to pull out pajamas. They absolutely reeked of your scent and you smiled. It would probably mean you could never wash your clothes again but as long as you didn’t spill something on it, you would be fine, you hoped.

It was hard to fall asleep at first. You tossed and turned in attempts to figure out why, eventually sitting up straight. The second laundry basket stared at you. It smelled like all your teammates and too many pieces were invading your personal space. It was uncomfortable. Grabbing the basket, you tossed any other stray pieces from the other team members into the basket and headed out on your mission to return their stuff.

Thor and Clint weren’t there so you left the piles at the door. Tony and Pepper didn’t even question the return. Wanda was just grateful to have her sweater back and you laughed when she got mad that it had some of your smell on it. She jokingly glared before digging out Vision’s stuff and giving you a hug goodnight. Bruce answered the door to his suite and with an understanding face took his and Nat’s stuff from you without a word.

You returned to your floor to give the last bit of clothes. Sam didn’t complain that his shirts smelled a bit like you and threw the clothes behind him without a care. He was telling you funny stories about the week you missed making you laugh. The next door swung open, both Bucky and Steve walked over.

“Heard you were giving back our stuff,” Steve said with a chuckle. “Can I get that one shirt back? You’ve had for like two weeks.”

“Your too tight shirts? I’m doing you a favor.”

Sam snorted at your retort and Steve rolled his eyes as he and Bucky reached into the basket and started grabbing their clothes. Their piles and Sam’s pile were significantly bigger than the others. You couldn’t help but growl when Bucky’s hand went to touch the large silk scarf. The growl was Alpha but the reason behind it was pure Omega which only made your growl harsher from your frustration at that.

“What? It’s mine.”

“You don’t even wear it.”

“Tony makes me wear it sometimes at those events.”

“I use it to tie my hair at night.”

You ripped the scarf back from Bucky’s hand and dropped it in the basket. He looked down in some surprise at the fury with which you grabbed it. His fingers reached for other pieces and your eyes watched his movements like a hawk. Anytime you growled, Bucky or Steve’s fingers would drop the fabric and just grab something else. Steve grabbed his leather jacket. You growled, expecting him to drop it. Steve only gripped it tighter.

“No, I’m not letting you have this one.”

The snarling started and it was another stare-off— only Steve meant it in jest and you were being serious with him for once.

“Stand down,” he said.

“No.”

“It’s my jacket.”

“I wear it better.”

“I don’t usually do this but Stand. Down.”

Steve used the Alpha command and your eyes tore from his gaze. He thought it was because he won, you knew it was because you were smothering a whimper and hoping it died before it escaped your lips. Sam cleared his throat.

“If you two are gonna bang, not outside my door please. And take metal man with you.”

That snapped you both out of it. Steve added his jacket to the pile in his arms and you bit back a whine. Steve shook his head.

“Thought the rut was over,” he said like it meant nothing.

Bucky’s nose upturned. His eyes moved slightly past Sam’s door, not able to actually see inside.

“You got an Omega in there?”

You tensed.

“Yeah,” Sam said as he pulled the door closed.

Steve shrugged after taking a sniff— Alphas didn’t know how to respect personal boundaries and they weren’t required to. “It’s normally that secretary isn’t it? Smells different.”

“Not bonded to any one, Cap. Can take a different partner if I want.”

Steve agreed and adjusted the pile in his arms. He and Bucky gave the two of you smiles and retreated back to their rooms, content that most of his clothes were returned to him. Before you could take a step, Sam grabbed the scarf from the laundry basket. You turned to him. He held it delicately in his hands.

“Tell me why the fuck I just lied for you before I mark this all over with my scent.”

You growled and made a move but the basket blocked you from reaching fully. Sam gripped it tighter and held it close to his face.

“Stop.” It came out a whine instead of a command. “You can’t tell anyone. I’m serious, Sam. Swear it to me.”

“On my life.”

The scarf dropped from his hands and back into the basket as you finished your story. He sniffed the air aggressively.

“Be careful, (Y/N). And stay in your room until morning before you start to smell up the place.”

You nodded and headed off before Same called your name.

“This doesn’t change anything,” he said. “I don’t see you as any lesser. Understood, Alpha?”

You wiped at your eyes, feeling tears already start.

“Thanks, Sam. But it’s just you. We know what will happen. Let any of those Alphas get a whiff of me and we know exactly what’s going to happen.”

He swallowed with a nod and you retreated back to your room. Bucky’s scarf smelled sickly sweet as you tied up your hair with it. The room was clear of everyone else’s smells. Only yours, Steve’s, Bucky’s, and the two things from Sam that he let you keep to try and calm you down filled the room. It was better that way. You drifted off to sleep with a very tired command to FRIDAY to lock your door and bar all entry until you woke up in the morning.

(Part 2)...

[formula-what]

Brocedes time line for a very patient anon

Lewis quotes in orange, Nico quotes in pink, everyone else is blue.

okay first some background knowledge:

Nico is rich as fuck. only child, born in Germany, brought up in Monaco. son of world champion Keke Rosberg

Lewis was born on a council estate in Stevenage and his dad had to work multiple jobs for him to start karting

Honestly I think the difference in their backgrounds is one of the things that pushed them together, they were both isolated from the rest of the kids, but I’m keeping this purely facts rather than speculation.

2000

They’re both 15 years old and are karting teammates for MBB (Mercedes Benz McLaren) in Formula A

Robert Kubica: “there was always competition. But they didn’t fight. It was friendly competition. There was always laughing afterwards.” // “they would even have races to eat pizza”

They often shared hotel rooms at the races which was a “scene of many wrestling matches between them”

Dino Chiesa (their karting boss) – “many times I was called by reception about some problem in the room. It might be noise, or they might have broken something. They would never sleep so they were always tired the next morning”

“they both liked ice cream so much, particularly vanilla. During the night they wanted to eat ice cream always, so I had to go out everywhere to find some and keep them happy”

Lewis would often persuade Nico to buy him sweets

They would have competitions over LITERALLY EVERYTHING

Lewis: “we always had great competition whether on the racetrack or computer games or playing football”

“probably the first bit of competition we had was when Nico used to ride a unicycle everywhere so I thought, ‘I’ve got to learn how to ride this unicycle. Ive got to be better than him.’ I spent all my time outside the go-kart learning to ride this unicycle”

Apparently it only took Lewis 2 hours to teach himself how to do it

In maybe 2013 ish (when they were still friends) Lewis reflected with– “I have never laughed so much than when we were racing together. Nico was kicking everyone’s butt at that time. We had so great races together and built a great relationship”

“we were just arriving and enjoying go-karts and eating pizzas every weekend, fighting all the time and just having fun, whereas now it’s all business.”

many times they would talk about what they would do when they got to f1, made plans hoping to be teammates and become world champions together.

“Nico would say ‘when I’m in formula one’ and for me it was always ‘if I ever get to formula one’. Because obviously Nico’s dad was a formula 1 driver- he knew he was going to make it.”

F1

Nico joined f1 in 2006 with williams, Lewis 2007 with McLaren. And man I WISH I knew what went down with this two when Lewis nearly one his rookie season (missing out by one point to mr fernando alonso) and then WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP in his SECOND SEASON (again by one point thank you mr alonso)

2008 Australia

Nicos gets his first podium, and ofc Lewis is there (he won it) and they are jumping around in the cool down room. Just, two kids who are literally living the one thing they have spent their whole lives dreaming about together. Lewis won the championship that year and oh wow I can only imagine their celebrations together.

2013

They’re teammates in Mercedes!!!

Nico: “every other day there are moments or things that pop up and I can smirk and thing, ‘that’s exactly the same as it was 15 years ago’”

2013 Malaysian Grand Prix gets an honourable mention. This is the race with red bulls good old multi 21 but merc also had their own team orders, stopping nico from fighting for his first merc podium, but Lewis disagreed with it so it didn’t really spark that much tension between them- more the team.

2014

the start of the turbo-hybrid era so y’all know this was good in terms of performance.

2014 Bahrain Grand Prix

They were both fighting for the win and had a collision which prompted a “mock fight” in parc ferme after the race (which I really hope there’s a video of).

Turns out, Nico won because he had used engine modes banned by Mercedes to get a power advantage in the closing laps. which kinda pissed Lewis off

2014 Spanish Grand Prix

Lewis’ fourth win in a row and took lead in the championship. They were fighting till literally the last second and Lewis crossed the line 0.6 seconds ahead of Nico, who says he could have passed him with one more lap.

Lewis defended using the same banned engine modes that Nico had used in Bahrain. Yeah.

2014 Monaco Grand Prix

This is IT. This is peak petty bitch. This is the one people still cry about.

It’s the end of Q3, both of them are out on a lap, Nico ahead of lewis. Nico’s already on provisional pole but Lewis is pretty close.

And then,, Nico just,, parks his car?? He says he made a mistake but the guy doesn’t even crash he straight up just,, rolls to a stop into a slip road. So the yellow flags come out forcing Lewis to abort a lap that was in the makings of pole.

The stewards say it was a-okay but Lewis was convinced it was intentional (and let’s be honest, yeah it probably was) and he even claimed that merc’s data proved it. (low key surprised he didn’t just tweet out the telemetry but I guess he got a stern telling off from mclaren last time)

But *this* is when Lewis tells the world that they aren’t friends anymore. An iconic interview.

Nico then wins the race too, ending Lewis’s four win streak and putting Nico in the lead of the championship.

2014 Hungarian Grand Prix

Lewis has an engine failure in quali meaning he starts from the pit lane, but he does good to make his way up the pack but THEN there’s a safety car which puts him ahead of Nico but on a different strategy.

Nico asks if Lewis can let him past as he needs to pit again before the end of the race, which will give him the place back anyways. Lewis straight up refuses, he’s on a role here. He started from last, and Nico started from pole, why should he slow down to let his title rival through.

Mercedes strongly suggest that his blocking fucked up Nicos race but Niki Lauda is on Lewis’ side so he doesn’t get punished (We stan a supportive father figure) even though he did blatantly refuse to be a team player.

And guys, this is the last race before the summer break so you know Nico was left seething for four weeks.

2014 Belgian Grand Prix

Second lap, Nico attempts a clumsy move and there’s contact, giving Hamilton a puncture and knocking him out of the race.

There’s a lot of controversy but basically it turns out he crashed with him intentionally, not backing out of the corner to “prove a point”. Nico ended up finishing second but was punished by the team, forced to apologise, and even booed on the podium.

2014 Abu Dhabi

For some reason it ran for double points?? The first time in History??? But idk???

Lewis had a perfect start and went on to win it and take the title, Nico had a problem and was told to retire the car but he kept going anyway and finished 14th. Nico went into the cool down room to congratulate Lewis on the championship win, which. cute.

Lewis claimed his second championship. Which not only was huge because of the inter team rivalry, but also because of the large gap between his first win. This guy had lost out on winning the championship in his ROOKIE season by ONE POINT, and then WON it in his SECOND season, and then there was like a FIVE YEAR gap before he won it again.

2015

Damnnn this car was fiiiinneeeeeee.

They do more laps in testing than any other car AND do it on a single power unit. And then. Australia. They take a one-two THIRTY FOUR seconds ahead of the third place Ferrari.

2015 Chinese Grand Prix

Nico is second in a one-two but claims that Lewis kept backing him up into Seb, trying to compromise his race (and help out his boyfriend).

Lewis gave zero shits: "It's not my job to look after Nico's race, it's my job to manage the car and bring the car home as healthy and as fast as possible. That's what I did."

2015 U.S. Grand Prix

If Lewis wins here he could also claim the title with three races to spare (you have to remember back then the title fight often went up to the last race so this was pretty cool)

Lewis very aggressively forced Rosberg wide at Turn 1 to claim the lead, and then there was some sexy fighting between the Mercs and Redbull all race. Nico led in the closing stages but made a mistake, running deep into a corner and letting Lewis past with only a handful of laps to go.

Nico finished P2 and had not only lost the race but the championship title. Nico was fuming, saying Lewis’ move at the start was “one step too far”.

This is the infamous cap throw in the cool down room. Lewis throws Nico his P2 hat, Nico straight up yeets it back at him. I tear up just thinking about it. They grow up so fast.

2016

Nico had came so close to winning and I guess this was just, the last straw. All or nothing. This year he literally gave it everything he had. Lewis and him stopped speaking, Nico gave up literally the rest of his life and even stopped sleeping in the same bed as his wife and taking care of his kids, instead spending every moment trying to get into Lewis’ head. Honestly, I think he might be the only one that could beat Lewis. Just because he knew him *so well*. He literally threw away like 16 years of friendship. But also it’s like, he had to be world champion. He *had to*. His dad was champion and his whole life he’s been preparing to win it too. Tough luck that he raced in the same era as Mr. Best Driver The Sport Has Ever Seen.

Nico won the last few races of 2015, and the first four races of 2016. Lewis had a couple car problems and Nico had a good lead on him in the championship.

2016 Spanish Grand Prix

Gentlemen. A short view back to the past. Nico had made a switch error on the formation lap causing the car to go into the wrong engine mode. So he was running a lot slower than Lewis, who was fighting to claim back the lead.

Nico closed the door to keep him back, and Lewis lost control on the grass, and spins into Nico and taking them both out of the race in the first lap. This is probably one of the most iconic crashes. I’m pretty sure there’s a clip of this somewhere in black and white with the titanic music over the top.

Niki Lauda blamed this one on Lewis (I guess even a supportive dad has to be critical sometimes) "Lewis is too aggressive. It is stupid, we could've won this race".

2016 Austrian Grand Prix

Nico had been struggling with a brake issue all race but was still on the way to win it. But in the last lap Lewis had caught him up and gone in for the overtake.

Typical Nico not taking any shit, refusing to be the guy that backs out and they collide. Lewis took the win and a damaged Nico dropped to fourth. From first. In the last lap.

Both of them blamed each other and tired dad team boss Toto Wolff threatened team orders in future races.

The stewards blamed Nico for the incident, issuing him two penalty points for failing to allow "racing room" and causing a collision.

2016 Abu Dhabi

In the final laps of the race, Lewis ignored team-orders from his race engineer and the technical director.

He deliberately slowed and backed Nico into the pack hoping they overtake him, and there would be enough of a points difference to win the title.

Nico finished second and won the title by five points.

And then,,, Nico announced a surprise retirement during the FIA prize giving ceremony.

Lewis’ response:

"This is the first time he's won in 18 years, hence why it was not a surprise that he decided to stop.” (We stan a petty king)

“But he's also got a family to focus on and probably wants to have more children. Formula One takes up so much of your time."

“In terms of missing the rivalry, of course because we started karting when we were 13 and we would always talk about being champions. When I joined this team, Nico was there, which was something we spoke about when we were kids. So it's going to be very, very strange, and, for sure, it will be sad to not have him in the team next year."

And now they are kind of on speaking terms but not really, they are both pretty private but I think they are at the ‘awkward small talk when we run into each other at the supermarket’ stage of the break up.

[enamoured-x]

Exceptional

Sonny Carisi x Reader 

Summary: After a few harsh words thrown at Sonny, you decide to make him feel better. 

Warnings: NSFW, 18+, oral (male receiving) 

Word count: 3.5k

a/n: It feels good to be writing for Sonny again! I got inspired for this right after the most recent episode, Sonny did not deserve to be talked to like that so here’s a little relief for him. Enjoy! 

*Not my gif

Stress didn’t even begin to cover what you had been feeling lately with your most recent case, so you couldn’t imagine just how heavy it was all coming down on Sonny. After your team decided to take on the infamous Judge Gallagher for rape allegations from his past at Harvard, you had all been running around talking to vics and trying to get Sonny a solid case. But from where you were standing, you had the easy job, Sonny was the one who was taking the harder hit. 

You and Sonny had been dating for a little more than a year which you two deemed it was time for the next step. Moving in together. It was a big change but one you and Sonny found was most definitely the right move. You got to see each other every night and go to bed in his arms, there was no way around how good it felt to finally share a home with him. Which is why you knew just how much pressure he was under with this case. It killed you to see him in such distress, chugging copious amounts of coffee to stay up late to string together his case. You offered to help in any way you could, whether it be something as little as making him lunch or getting him coffee. You were always there to offer your support, always standing in Sonny’s corner, which is why when you finally had a sit down with Gallagher and his attorney, Rita, you were about to explode. 

You were all there to talk about a plea. Although you could sense Rita and Gallagher would not be easy to persuade into a deal especially if it meant dropping out of the attorney general race and resigning from the bench, which was exactly what you wanted him to do. Rita was up in arms right away.

“No deal. Absolutely not. This is a personal and political attack.” Rita expressed, in utter shock with Sonny’s offer. 

“This isn’t personal and it isn’t political, your client is a rapist.” You spoke up, sending daggers at his smug face. He reeked of arrogance and abuse of power and it disgusted you entirely. 

“Take the deal, counselor. Your client could walk.” Sonny said. 

“Respectfully, pass. Judge, let’s go.” They both went to get up and Gallagher laughed.

“You people have no idea what you’re up against.” He said to all three of you and then turned to Sonny, “you keep this up and I’ll see to it you're disbarred. If you’re lucky, the NYPD will take you back doing traffic stops on Staten Island.” His words stirred an anger within you at his threat but Sonny laughed it off at the mere absurdity of it all. Of course he would make a threat, it’s how guys like him operated. Once again trying to abuse his power because he didn’t like to hear the truth. Rita and Gallagher were leaving when Gallagher turned back around. 

“Something they can’t teach you at Fordham, how to belong. The people who nod at you on the eighth floor, they can smell the flop sweat and the garlic coming off your cheap suit.” You were boiling with rage now and you went to say something before Liv pulled you back. 

“Keep going, Judge.” Was all Sonny said. You could tell now that the Judge’s words made their mark. Your heart ached terribly and you tried to step forward but Liv pulled you back again and shook her head. 

“Yeah? What do you want to hear you dumb dago.” Your heart fell into your stomach. You’ve heard that slur before, a derogatory slur for Italians. You were going to kill him and this time you yanked yourself out of Olivia’s grip but Sonny was the one to get in Gallagher’s face.

“Fine, I’ll take you right here.” Sonny argued, trying to step closer to the man but Liv pulled him back and Rita was ushering Gallagher out the door. 

“You’re so far in over your head you don’t even know your career’s dead and buried.” Gallagher’s threat were the final words to watch Sonny slowly start to unravel. 

“Are you okay?” You asked him, placing a reassuring hand on his arm. 

“M’fine, screw him.” Is all he said before he grabbed his briefcase and walked out. You and Liv shared a look, stunned at what just happened. Sonny was relatively quiet that night. You didn’t know what to say to make this better without sounding like you were saying it just because you were his girlfriend and you were ‘supposed’ to comfort him. You knew Gallagher’s words struck a chord with Sonny whether he admitted it or not. 

You had dinner ready for him when he came home, wanting him to relax after the long day. He had thanked you with a kiss and dug into his meal without another word. 

“Sonny, do you want to talk about it?” You asked your boyfriend as he looked over his papers once you two retired to the couch after dinner. 

“No, doll. I’m fine.” He didn’t even look up at you as he sorted through his stuff. You grabbed his hands and laced your fingers with his. He sighed and his eyes met yours. 

“Baby…” You tried but he shook his head.

“I’m embarrassed. I don’t want to talk about this right now. I want to get my bearings together and take this son of a bitch down.” You bit your lip and nodded. You knew Sonny would talk about it when he was ready. The fact that he even admitted to being embarrassed was sign enough and it also made your heart ache something fierce. 

“Okay. I’m going to go to bed but I need you to know there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Especially not with me. His words weren’t true. Don’t let him get to you, baby.” His face was flushed pink and in that moment you wanted to find Gallagher and knock him out. But he’d pay, he wouldn’t get away with this. You had complete faith in Sonny’s courtroom abilities and he wouldn’t go down without a fight. 

“Thanks, doll.” He gave you a half smile and you pressed your lips to it. You put more effort in this kiss. Wanting him to know just how much you loved him and that you were there for him. 

“I love you, Sonny. We’re going to get him.”

It was a rough few days in court to say the least, of course when you thought Sonny was winning over the jury, Calhoun would come in and tear apart Sonny’s pull on them. And vice versa. You didn’t know what to think anymore and as much faith as you had in Sonny, you were worried that the jury may just let Gallagher off the hook like he always had been. But after another ADA, who testified against Gallagher, recorded him admitting to what he had done, it was game over. Rita came to a deal with Sonny and they took it in front of the judge. You weren’t all that happy with the outcome, the fact that he would be free of his own accord within an ankle monitor's limits… it wasn’t fair. It was disgusting honestly. And just when you were about to cut your losses and count this as a win, the judge spoke up. Not liking the deal that was offered, she demanded that Gallagher spend his year of house arrest in a jail cell. To say you were all relieved and emotional over the verdict was an understatement. Was one year enough for a man like Gallagher, not even close, but for now it would do. Sonny was happy with the outcome as he told you he’d see you at home after he finished up at the courthouse. 

You were more than eager to get home before Sonny, an idea formulating in your head of how you could celebrate this win for him. He deserved something special after such a stressful week. When you got home you received a text from Sonny alerting you he was on his way. You excitedly slipped on a lacy little number you had bought just last week and threw your silk robe over it. Sonny deserved some stress relief and you were going to give it to him. You heard the jingle of the keys in the lock and then he walked in. You walked over to him, a smile on your face. You wore the robe all the time so it wasn’t odd that Sonny didn’t think anything of it. He definitely didn’t know what was hiding underneath. 

“You did it, baby. I’m so proud of you.” You pulled him into you for a hug and he wrapped one arm around your waist and buried his other hand in your hair. 

“Team effort.” He said, pulling away. You rolled your eyes at his humbleness and placed a small kiss on his lips. 

“It was all you. Go sit down, I’ll get you a beer.” You patted his chest and he nodded, placing a kiss to your temple and sitting down on the couch. Taking off his jacket and loosening his tie. You went to the kitchen and to the fridge to pull out one of Sonny’s favorites, you twisted the cap and then walked over. Handing it to him from behind the couch. He took if from you and you placed your arms around him from behind. “Hey,” you whispered in his ear. Placing a kiss on the shell of it and lightly tracing your way down his neck with your lips. He hummed and when you ran your hands down his chest he set the bottle down on the table. 

“What’re you doing, doll?” There was a hint of amusement in his tone and you smiled. 

“I thought you deserved a little stress relief after this week. Figured you deserved a little something for all your hard work and dedication.” You whispered in his ear, he shifted slightly. 

“What’s this little something?” He asked, sounding out of breath already. You giggled and withdrew from him. Going around the couch to stand in front of him. He waited and when you started to undo your robe his brows lifted. The real treat was seeing his face as soon as the robe fell to the floor in a crimson heap. 

“Jesus christ.” Your red lace was a bit more scandalous than others in your collection and even had a garter belt which Sonny was eyeing appreciatively. 

“Now, Sonny, I thought you weren’t supposed to take the lord’s name in vain.” You crawled onto his lap. His hands immediately grabbed on to your waist and ran down to your thighs, getting his hands on whatever part of you he could. It felt comforting and you hummed in response. 

“Doll, this is…” He shook his head, not being able to find his words. You smiled and leaned down, pulling him in for a kiss. It was slow, and wet, and everything you both were needing. You could feel the tent in his pants as you sat comfortably in his lap. 

“Put this on just for me?” He asked, leaning forward to nip at your neck. You tightened your grip on his shoulders as he grabbed your ass in his hands and squeezed. You rocked forward on him making him groan as your clothed center slid across him. You let out a little whimper at the contact and continued to slowly grind down on him. Both of you needed this intimacy after a long week of work and barely any interaction. 

“Mmm, Sonny. God, you get me so wet without having to do anything.” It was true. Just one look from him and your thighs would clench. He had this air about him. He let out a groan at your words. 

“Listen to me,” You told him, taking his chin between your thumb and pointer finger to get him to meet your eyes. His were filled with need and you were going to give him what he wanted but first you needed to make sure he knew how important he was. “You, Dominick Carisi Jr. are one hell of a lawyer. One hell of a man. So damn intelligent. So fucking kind.” 

You rolled your hips as you spoke, keeping his gaze locked with yours. 

“I’m so proud of you. You should be proud of yourself. You’re exceptional, Sonny. No less.” You leaned down to place a soft kiss on his lips, “no less than exceptional.” When you pulled back his eyes were not just dark with lust but a gleam of love and appreciation. His eyes sparkled as he teared up. You knew your words got through to him, you knew he understood just how much he was loved and cared for. 

“I love you, curore mio.” My heart. You smiled and pulled him in for another kiss, letting it get away from you as your tongue met his. Eventually you had half a mind to pull away, still trying to stick to your plan. An exceptional man deserved something exceptional. 

“Gonna make you feel good, Sonny.” You said and slipped off his lap. He was confused at your withdrawal until you placed your hands on his thighs and got down on your knees, pushing his legs open to make room for you. 

“Fuck…” You smirked at his speechless state. You bit your lip as you undid his belt and unbuttoned his pants. He sat up to help you ease them down along with his briefs. He was already hard and leaking, his cock now pressed against his abdomen. You licked your palm and then placed it on his member, starting to slide it up and down. He groaned but kept his eyes on you. You leaned forward to have a taste, your mouth watering at the sight of him. You licked the precome off the tip and he let out a curse. He was always so sensitive and it only turned you on even more. The tang of him stayed on your tastebuds and you wanted more. You licked the underside of his shaft all the way back up to the tip, his hand tightened on the couch. 

“My handsome man,” you licked again, “so sexy, sonny.” Then another, “all mine.” 

“Shit, doll. So beautiful like this. Always so good to me.” He groaned as you took the head in your mouth and sucked. You flicked your tongue into the slit as you sucked a little harder and his hand flew to your hair as he moaned. You smirked around him and then pulled off to talk. 

“Want you to come down my throat.” Is all you said before you took him down your throat. He threw his head back as you encased him in your mouth. The warmth and weight on him on your tongue only made you wetter. But this wasn’t about you. 

“F-fuck, baby. That feels amazing, just like that.” He tried to control his hips and the hand in your hair as you bobbed up and down on his length. Taking him all the way down to the base and swallowing. He particularly liked that and had no control over his hips as he bucked deeper down your throat. You gagged on him but made no movement to stop which looked like he was about to suggest. As much as Sonny loved this, you loved doing it. Seeing him come undone above you, it was a heady kind of thrill and you only wanted to keep it going. You kept the fast pace, his cock now messy with your spit and his precome. You knew he was holding back, not wanting to hurt you as he simply kept his hand on your head, not pushing or pulling. But you wanted him to push, wanted him to let go and use your mouth. Wanted to see him come completely undone. You pulled off him and placed sloppy kisses down his cock and took his balls into your mouth as you stroked him.

“Oh god, doll. Fuck yes.” He panted as you sucked his balls and made them wet. 

“Don’t hold back, Sonny. Fuck my mouth.” You mumbled against his sac, mouthing at them and then sliding back up his cock to take him back into your mouth. 

“Are you sure?” He asked, worry evident on his face.

“Yes.” Is all you said as you take him back down again. He took a firmer grip on your hair and then bucked into your mouth, making you gag as he pushed you down with his hand. You encouraged him by not pulling off. He did it again and again.

“Oh, fuck. I like that. So good for me, so good…” He trailed off as he threw his head back and kept using your mouth to get off. Tears were rolling down your face and drool hung from your chin but you had never been wetter. You and Sonny we're no strangers to certain debauched activities but you two had never done this. It was making your center throb as his tip met the back of your throat. The sounds were obscene as he got off on your mouth. 

“Stay down on it, doll.” He breathed out as he held you down, your lips at the base of his cock. You placed your hands on his thighs and dove further into him making him yelp as he went farther down your throat. You then opened your mouth wider to stick your tongue out to lick right at his balls.

“Fuck, I’m gonna come. Keep doing that. Jesus christ, look at you.” He had his eyes on you again, as he had his cock down your throat and your tongue on his balls. You hummed around him and he started to come undone. 

“I’m coming.” He said before he started bucking fast into your mouth, you choked but tried to breathe through your nose as best as you could in order for him to get off. You reached up to fondle his balls. He let out a loud groan as his seed painted the back of your throat and he held you down as spurt after spurt of come was released. It was enthralling to watch him let go, powerful to know it was because of you. He loosened his grip in your hair once he came back down from his climax and you slid off him to swallow what you had. Sonny looked wrecked, not that you probably looked any better. You placed a kiss to his tip before wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. 

“That was… fuck that was amazing. Are you okay?” He asked, tugging at your arms for you to slide into his lap. You complied and placed your hands on his chest. 

“I’m fine, that was hot.” You said biting your lip. Your panties were definitely ruined with how wet you had gotten. 

“Yeah? Enjoyed that just as much as me?” He asked, against your neck as he trailed one hand down to your panties and slipped his fingers in. 

“Jesus, you did.” He said as he ran his fingers along your wet folds. You whined and bucked into his touch. You were already so close. 

“Like that, Sonny.” You moaned and arched your back as he rubbed at your clit and slipped two fingers inside you. You were already burning so damn hot with need it wasn’t going to take much to come just from his fingers alone. 

“Let me get my mouth on–”

“No, I’m not gonna last long. Just stay like that.” You held his hand in place with your other hand gripping onto his shoulder. You rode his fingers fast, so close to the edge after having your mouth on him.

“Fuck, doll. Look at you. So fucking needy. Want you to come for me.” He put more pressure on your clit and curled his fingers inside of you and you were done for. You let out a cry as your orgasm crashed into you, arching your back as Sonny continued his ministrations through your high. Your head clouded and your eyes grew heavy at the relief of your orgasm. You pushed his hand away once you came down, your clit now extremely sensitive. The build up of being turned on while going down on Sonny worked you up really well. 

“That was hot.” Sonny said as he brought his fingers to his mouth and sucked them clean. You groaned at the sight and leaned your forehead against his. You two were quiet as you gained back your breath and he pulled away to take your face in his hands.

“Thank you. For this but also for what you said.” He whispered, eyes staring right into yours. You knew the judge’s words hit a spot within Sonny, but so did yours and you knew they overpowered what was thrown at him the other day. 

“Exceptional, Sonny. Exceptional.” 

[renegadewangs]

Van Zieks - the Examination, part 2

Warnings: SPOILERS for The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. Additional warning for racist sentiments uttered by fictional characters (and screencaps to show these sentiments).

Disclaimer: (see Part 1 for the more detailed disclaimer.) - These posts are not meant to be taken as fact. Everything I'm outlining stems from my own views and experiences. If you believe that I've missed or misinterpreted something, please let me know so I can edit the post accordingly.  -The purpose of these posts is an analysis, nothing more. Please do not come into these posts expecting me to either defend Barok van Zieks from haters, nor expecting me to encourage the hatred. - I'm using the Western release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for these posts, but may refer to the original Japanese dialogue of Dai Gyakuten Saiban if needed to compare what's said. This also means I’m using the localized names and localized romanization of the names to stay consistent. -It doesn't matter one bit to me whether you like Barok van Zieks or dislike him. However, I will ask that everyone who comments refrains from attacking real, actual people.

It’s time to take a close look at Episode 3, The Runaway Room!

Episode 3: The Runaway Room.

We're skipping the first two cases, as they have no relevance to Barok van Zieks, and starting off here.

So Ryu is tossed into the deep. The Lord Chief Justice tells him that he’s basically the defendant’s only hope; if he doesn’t at least try to fight in court, McGilded will lose the trial and die for sure. (HAH… Good one, Stronghart.) So Ryu falls for this would-be motivational speech and heads for the courthouse where he finds out why McGilded doesn’t have a defense attorney to begin with; it’s because of the prosecution. No one dares to go up against Lord Barok van Zieks, also known as the Reaper of the Old Bailey, because all who he prosecutes are damned. This should sound familiar to anyone who’s played an Ace Attorney game before. ‘The prosecution has never been defeated before’ is the implication, which would initially lead us to believe Van Zieks is another one of those prodigies. Sure enough, Susato points out he must be very talented, to which McGilded replies that Van Zieks is not talented, rather, he’s cursed. This sets the mood even further. With words like “Reaper” and “curse” being tossed around, we’re sooner reminded of a prosecutor like Simon Blackquill, who was a convicted murderer wielding psychological manipulation techniques. Either way, with the grim atmosphere set, Ryu is ushered into the courtroom before he can ask any more questions.

As a sidenote, McGilded really scored some negative points with this remark:

Feels a bit softened compared to how fan translations tackled that line, but a nasty jab all the same.

So anyway, entering the courtroom we get our first look at Van Zieks and if the foreshadowing in the Defendant Antechamber wasn’t already bad enough, he honors his eerie reputation.

So far, he’s meeting the requirements then. He’s intimidating and as a wealthy white man, he’s perfectly juxtaposed to Ryu, the rookie from another country. Meanwhile, the first micro-aggression of this trial is actually uttered by the judge:

Which also makes narrative sense. Ryu’s more practical goal isn’t to win the prosecution’s trust. Heck, he could get through any trial just fine with Van Zieks’s dislike. No, what he needs is to win over the judge and the members of the jury. For them to also hold prejudice but put that aside in order to side with the truth is another important end-game here. So let’s continue. Van Zieks also has something to say here:

Initially, the remark about Ryu’s eyes might read as a typical racist jab towards someone from the East, but he is in fact referring to the way Ryu’s eyes are ‘swimming’ when he’s nervous, as evidenced by the next lines. “They shroud your fear, your doubt, your trepidation… They run wild, clinging to some phantom notion of courage.” Van Zieks is saying that while Ryu puts up a brave front, his swimming eyes betray just how nervous and unsure of his cause he really is. So really, he’s targeting the fact that Ryu is new to the courts. He did, however, make a point of tossing the word “Nipponese” in there when he didn’t need to, drawing attention to Ryu’s race in a derogatory fashion.

After the jurors are introduced, something else of interest happens. The judge points out that Van Zieks hasn’t been seen in the courtroom in a number of years. The judge had assumed that Van Zieks had renounced his fame, to which he replies with the following:

This is a very telling line. We learn several things. Firstly, Van Zieks had retired, and secondly, he doesn’t seem to think too highly of his title of Reaper. If he did, he would have gloated. To describe his reputation as infamy implies negative associations with this ‘curse’ that McGilded spoke of. Putting these two things together, one might conclude he retired because of this curse. When asked why he’s returned to the courts, he says that he’ll leave that to the judge’s imagination. So there’s hints of a backstory already being tossed in before the trial’s even properly kicked off.

Which it does now. So the opening statement happens as always and witnesses are brought in, but once it’s done Ryu interjects to say that he doesn’t understand the circumstances. ‘How could the witnesses have seen the inside of a moving carriage’? It shocks the entire courtroom and Van Zieks is the one to speak:

“-But you’re here in London yourself. Are you really so ignorant about our omnibuses? Tell me, my Nipponese friend… Have you even travelled in an omnibus?”

I have to be honest, I struggled to pinpoint just how I felt about these remarks. Sure, I can overanalyze this, looking at how the words “I’d read-” imply he doesn’t know the following sentiment to be true and therefore doesn’t feel confident enough to say something like “I knew-”... But it doesn’t change that he’s being scummy here. In a roundabout way, he’s still saying Japan is far less civilised than Britain and that Ryu is extra ignorant for not knowing about omnibuses when he’s in London. So basically, he gets scumbag points for this. But then there’s…:

Which is just a basic jab at Ryu’s intelligence. It’s the sort of remark we’d get from every single prosecutor. I think even Klavier would say this sort of line with a smile on his face.

But definitely more scumbag points here, because this was a direct attack in more ways than one. Particularly the word “stray” was uncalled for. CEO of Racism, indeed. Something very interesting happens when the knife gets pulled into the story halfway into the first cross-examination, though. When Ryu asks about it, Van Zieks replies with this:

He’s… actually being civil? (I doublechecked with Scarlet Study, and they are in agreement on the timid nature of this line, translating “yes, Counsel” as “Quite so”.) Instead, Van Zieks turns his attention to the fact that there’s an M on the sheath, directing all his offensive attitude towards McGilded. It gets even more curious when the last juror refuses to cast a guilty verdict, instead talking about what a good man she believes McGilded to be. Van Zieks says:

So he’s not only frustrated with McGilded now, he’s frustrated with the people of London for not knowing what sort of person McGilded really is. Van Zieks reveals he’s a dirty money lender who gained his fortune through corrupt means. He even takes the time to inform Ryu of this with the words “Your client is a shylock, sir!” Edit: I feel a need to address this: shylock is a word with antisemitic roots. It originally came from a Shakespeare play involving a very bad stereotype. It later evolved to have a more broad meaning basically synonymous to loan shark and I think that’s the context the localization means to use it in. There’s absolutely no indication of McGilded’s religious beliefs and even if there were, I highly doubt the localization would use that sort of slur. Still, it’s a very unfortunate choice of words and is sure to accidentally sour Van Zieks even more with some players.

With that, the last juror votes, the scale tips towards Guilty and Van Zieks assumes the trial to be over. He thanks the jurors for their work. Unfortunately, once Susato brings up the Summation Examination, Van Zieks gets very frustrated again. This happens:

IIII don’t know what to do with this line. On first glance, I didn’t think much of it and was even willing to consider it was a compliment. Then I thought it must’ve been passive aggressive somehow; that it’s the sort of thing he wouldn’t believe until he’d seen it with his own eyes. A friend directed me to the notion that it might be referencing a stereotype that ‘Eastern women are fierce’ because they were associated with, well, certain ‘paid services’. I don’t think I need to explain, I’m sure you understand what I mean. And if indeed that’s what Barok is insinuating, that’s a new low I never thought he’d reach. However, when you’ve finished the games and know that Barok was friends with a married Japanese man, it’s entirely possible that he’s remembering a story once told to him by Genshin Asogi. So this is either a bittersweet reminiscence or the most scumbag association he ever could’ve made, but I’m not sure we can ever prove which it is. Edit: As another option, it’s possible he’s referring to the Yamato Nadeshiko stereotype, if indeed it already held the ‘touch of iron’ aspect to it back in 1900. He proceeds to toast his hallowed chalice to “the enigmatic East” and to be honest, I’ve once again got nothing. All I know is that he once again drew attention to the defense’s race when he didn’t need to, so… Scumbag point. As a sidenote, in regards to the wine… I don’t count this as a humanizing trait. The same applies to the leg slam. These are animations meant to add some more lighthearted air and breathe more life into Van Zieks, so he doesn’t just stand there like a statue. They’re just quirks meant to have him stand out from other characters. So yeah, fun as the wine and leg slam animations are, they don’t count in the redemption requirements. Anyway, Van Zieks mocks the age of Susato’s book, saying that judging by its bindings it must be fifty years old. Considering the context of the conversation, this isn’t out of bounds. The defense is using ‘outdated’ information on the law, so he points that out. Any prosecutor would’ve done it like this. Simon Blackquill likely would’ve offered to shred that outdated tome to bits for Susato. Van Zieks does toss in a “Hmph, typical Nipponese” later though, which earns him one more scumbag point. Van Zieks continues to dismiss the Summation Examination, but the judge overrules him and allows it. Law is law, after all! And this is what I meant in my previous post when I said it’s satisfying to see Ryu use actual British law against Van Zieks. Ryu is using a perfectly legitimate technique to win the jurors over, and as Susato tells him, he can only do it by turning the jurors against one another with facts. He can’t appeal to them, he can only have them see sense. Which is difficult, because some jurors are more prejudiced than others:

… Yeah. Uh. Calling Ryu a “Dark Jinx” is pretty awful. Scumbag points for Juror No. 1! Meanwhile, Juror No. 4 keeps us updated on Barok’s actions throughout this trial:

Wow. Typical prosecutor behavior, though. Regardless, Ryu manages to win them all over in the end. With enough of the scales set back to not-guilty, the trial is allowed to continue, which leads to this:

Bye, hallowed chalice. A fun animation to keep things fresh and show us that the trial is about to take a turn. Once again, nothing new. We’ve seen prosecutors lose their patience before. What does interest me, though, is that Barok doesn’t direct physical frustration towards the defense. Remember: Franziska snaps a whip at Phoenix, Godot throws coffee at his head, Blackquill sends a hawk to attack the defense or uses that aijutsu slicing move, Nahyuta throws restricting beads… These were all direct physical attacks. Van Zieks, much like Edgeworth and Klavier, directs his frustration more inward and as a result he destroys his own property.

He succeeds in intimidating Ryu, though. Van Zieks explains that he kept silent, as is the norm during Examination Summation, but makes it clear that he considers it a charade all the same.

Van Zieks has been a pretty good gentleman towards the jury up until now, speaking to them politely despite that one remark about having their head in the clouds. Now that he’s seeing them ‘buy into Ryu’s stories’, as one might describe it, he’s getting frustrated with them. Maybe he’s even frustrated they’re choosing the defense’s side over his own.

He removes his cloak, entering what he says to be the next round of their ‘battle’. More typical prosecutor behavior, this. I’m not sure there’s an underlying thought to this, other than to indicate to the audience that ‘things have gotten serious’. When the next bit of testimony is going on, I noticed something odd. Both Fairplay and Furst testify to having seen blood on McGilded’s hands, to which Van Zieks says:

“... Reported that there was no trace of blood on Mr. McGilded’s gloved hands.” So in a way, by establishing this fact, he’s helping the defense and going against what the witnesses are saying. It doesn’t help the prosecution in any way at all.

The trial continues on, with Van Zieks uttering things like “My Nipponese friend” and “my learned friend from the East” and lord knows what else… I suppose to soften the harshness of the original wording a bit and make Van Zieks just a bit less dislikable? Edit: Tumblr user @beevean​ has pointed out that “my learned friend” is an actual term used in courts of law. There’s a tradition (also employed in British courts of law) that when addressing either the court or the judge, a barrister refers to the opposing counsel using the respectful term, "my learned friend". Of course, it can be said with an air of passive aggression and pretending to be respectful to the court while shamelessly disrespecting it is something Barok has always done, so the addition of “my learned friend” to the localization text is amazingly in-character. Then of course we have:

This is both a scumbag remark and foreshadowing. Naturally, those playing the game for the first time won’t recognize it as the latter and therefore take it as nothing more than a harsh blow. Things spiral even further out of control when he starts talking about how people who claim the island nations of the Far East have a learning and culture of their own use those terms ill-advisedly. He also uses the words “artless backwater” and really, this is the low point of the trial right here when it comes to prejudice. Van Zieks is just plain lashing out with these sort of jabs.

Eventually, McGilded is dragged onto the witness stand to testify about whether or not there was another passenger aboard the omnibus. McGilded admits that there was, and Van Zieks snaps at him some more for using convenient excuses. Ryu is forgotten here for a moment. The whole smoke bomb thing happens, Van Zieks confers with McGilded and Gina in his own chambers, then the trial resumes. McGilded testifies, then Gina testifies… The jury votes not-guilty, buying into McGilded’s story about protecting a poor young pickpocket and Van Zieks loses it. He slams his heel down on the bench, pointing out that this is why he doesn’t like the jury system; because emotions are ruling where evidence and facts ought to be paramount. He points out while the cubbyhole Gina had been hiding in was empty now, it had been full of the coachman’s belongings during the police investigation. Someone tampered with the omnibus. This is where things get interesting, because Van Zieks addresses Ryu:

He’s giving Ryu the benefit of the doubt here. He’s offering an option for Ryu to be truthful about this matter. And that’s curious, because any defense attorney would naturally say what’s best for his client- or so it’s assumed. It puts Ryu in a difficult position for sure, but for some reason Van Zieks put the question forward anyway. The game responds as follows:

For the sake of argument, I attempted all three options. So when Ryu says he didn’t look, Van Zieks says: “Hm… Perhaps I credited you with too much intelligence.”

So when feigning ignorance, Van Zieks is kind of a scumbag about it. He is correct in his expectation that any attorney worth his badge would thoroughly examine the details of the evidence, but he didn’t need to be such a jerk about it. Now, when outright lying and saying it was empty, Van Zieks instead says:

The lines are very similar, which is an interesting note. It adds a feel of these responses being 'rehearsed', in a way. Just a default for him to fall back to. But the real kicker comes when Ryu tells the truth and says it wasn’t empty. Van Zieks is actually speechless at first with no more than a “...!” Clearly, he wasn’t expecting Ryu to respond like this. Everyone in court is baffled, McGilded gets angry… Van Zieks is a bit rattled now.

“Your task is to defend the man in the stand. Why would you say something to compromise his position?”

So really, it seems as if Van Zieks had only ever offered the question to Ryu with pessimistic intentions. He too had assumed there was only one answer the defense could give and was prepared for just that with his silly little wine analogies, only to be shocked when Ryu defies his expectations. Ryu confesses that he’s not entirely sure on where he stands in the matter, to which Van Zieks replies with “... Interesting.” 

So now the jury members are doubting themselves again, with some offering guilty verdicts. Van Zieks decides to honor the ‘Scales of Justice’ once more now that they’re back in his favor, like the hypocrite he is. Gina testifies, Ryu points out an inconsistency, Van Zieks takes that opportunity to turn the tables back in his favor by implying Gina is a liar… He passive aggressively thanks Ryu for saving him considerable trouble and whatnot with some more “my learned Nipponese friend” remarks in there… Ryu turns the tables once more by insisting the victim came into the omnibus through the skylight, Van Zieks demands evidence and points out that furthermore, if indeed such a thing had happened, the witnesses on the roof would’ve seen it. McGilded hops into the conversation to imply that the witnesses themselves were the killers, which sends the court into a frenzy. Both Van Zieks and the judge shift the responsibility of the accusation towards Ryu, even though he never said a word to directly accuse the witnesses. Kind of a douchey move. Barok even states that Ryu’s ‘command of the English tongue must be wanting’, since

Yeahhh, that's pretty unfair. McGilded was the one who dropped that implication. However, since the judge basically accuses Ryu of the same thing, it’s a narrative choice to warn Ryu he needs to anticipate where his reasoning will lead him. Fairplay and Furst testify, pandemonium ensues. McGilded eventually gets what he wants when it’s revealed the skylight can open and there’s blood in there. Van Zieks once again turns his attention to McGilded:

He knows McGilded is at the root of all this tomfoolery and evidence manipulation. McGilded is the real enemy here, in Van Zieks’s eyes. The conversation shows this by having Van Zieks point out that he’s well aware of McGilded’s involvement in dubious matters and that evidence is often ‘adapted’ to suit this guy’s stories. And now, once again, he turns his attention to Ryu. Once again, he’s giving the defense the benefit of the doubt:

The game gives you the illusion of choice here. If you choose to say it’s ‘out of the question’ that the evidence was tampered with, Ryu will refuse to say it out loud. If you say it’s entirely possible, Ryu will admit to that.

This is probably baffling to Van Zieks. It would’ve been so easy for Ryu to insist the tampering couldn’t have happened, but he doesn’t. The game won’t even let him. No matter what you choose, Van Zieks is clued in on the fact that Ryu doesn’t condone the deceit that McGilded is resorting to. But it gets even better, because a short time later, we get:

Another option to either draw attention to forgery, or to feign ignorance. Once again, I chose both options for argument’s sake, but having Ryu say he has no idea doesn’t get us anywhere. Susato will instead object to say it for him. With “I have an inkling”, Ryu says it himself. Van Zieks once again confesses, in his own words, that he’s caught off guard.

Ryu clarifies that he thinks the blood stain inside the omnibus is decisive evidence, but he can’t say for certain whether it’s genuine. McGilded loses it and by this point, is outright branding Van Zieks an enemy. Since the player at this point doesn't know whether McGilded is guilty or not, it leaves Van Zieks in a bit of narrative limbo. One might think: 'if the prosecutor is so intent on taking down a murderer, shouldn't we be on his side? Is he perhaps not as bad as he seems?' Unfortunately, McGilded points out that recollection and memories don’t matter, only evidence does. And… Well.

Which means they can’t rule on a guilty verdict and will have to let McGilded go. Van Zieks admits that he has no more witnesses or evidence to present. He’s out of options. As a formality, the judge asks the defense’s closing statement and we get one last option. Do we believe him to be guilty or not-guilty? When claiming he’s innocent, Van Zieks says:

It seems he means “abject” in the sense of “without pride/respect/dignity for oneself”, which… You know, is fair. By this point it’s very clear that McGilded is guilty, and since Ryu has already admitted that the evidence may be forged, insisting otherwise is indeed pretty spineless. Scumbag points to Van Zieks for continuing to draw attention to the fact that Ryu is from Japan, though.

Let’s instead just admit that we can’t say for certain McGilded is innocent. Unfortunately, we don’t see Van Zieks react to this, which is a bummer because this could’ve been very telling. The judge questions Ryu’s sanity (no joke) and McGilded laughs because it doesn’t matter; it was just a formality anyway. The judge scolds Van Zieks, saying that his case was flawed and it was his job to keep the evidence secure. Instead of objecting, Van Zieks just outright takes the blame for this and apologizes. Very interesting reaction, here. He stops pointing the finger to McGilded, he doesn’t attempt to accuse anyone else… He just admits his performance was flawed. Ryu tries to interject here:

(A badly-timed screenshot if I’ve ever seen one.) Ryu is making an attempt here to defend Van Zieks, the guy who has built up like 20 scumbag points by now. Ryu sincerely doesn’t hold a grudge against him. That’s very interesting. It doesn’t matter, though. The judge won’t hear of it, Ryu thinks it’s unfair, Van Zieks warns McGilded that this isn’t over and then we get the not-guilty verdict.

Hurray??? Profit??? It’s a victory that’s bound to leave the player feeling conflicted and jarred.

But after all’s said and done, we get one last cutscene to establish just how ominous Van Zieks really is. The omnibus is on fire, someone is inside and we know McGilded went into the courtroom earlier to investigate the omnibus in question. So really, by putting two and two together we can already guess what’s going on here. Van Zieks approaches the scene and watches silently.

It’s a good reminder to us that every defendant he prosecutes is ‘damned’ and he’s called the Reaper for a reason. Really puts the finishing touch on the eerie undertones of his character.

All in all, a pretty typical first time against a new prosecutor. Now I just want to draw attention to the fact that the first time we face Van Zieks in court… he’s actually on the right side of the courtroom and Ryu is not. Van Zieks presumably specifically returned to the court after those five years to target McGilded, as he knows about this guy’s shady reputation when it comes to ‘adapting’ evidence. Barok is 'cursed' in such a way that every defendant he faces is damned. So long as he stands as the prosecutor, McGilded can’t get away with his crimes. No matter how much forgery is done, the Reaper will go after McGilded and it seems Van Zieks was banking on this happening.

He likely also expected Ryu to have been bought off by McGilded; to say whatever’s convenient for his case. Turns out, Ryu is actually a man of integrity who’s invested in the truth and near the end of the trial, Barok has seen evidence of this. So what will happen next? We’ll have to play The Clouded Kokoro and find out! Stay tuned!

[hotchley]

where he's been

I did it!

I wrote the happy ending/second part, in which he makes the deliberate choice to show her and there is healing and there is joy and there is love <3

Everyone say thank you to the anon on tumblr that asked me about this when I did the WIP game, because without them we wouldn't have gotten here...

But we did! I finished a multi-chapter thing!

Trigger Warnings: scars, intrusive thoughts, trauma, references to the events of the Foyet and Doyle arcs, mild sexual content, surgery, medical things (Route 66 references mostly)

read on ao3!

previously: part one

Part Two: He Shows

The first time Aaron shows Emily his scars, she smiles.

He shows her deliberately. Because he wants to. Because he loves her, and he loves himself. Because he trusts her. He wants to be vulnerable with her in a way he could only ever be with Haley. He wants to do this, for her, and for himself. He knows they are not beautiful, that she may flinch at the sight of his humanity as everyone seems to do, but he needs her to see them. Properly. In a way that is right.

His body feels more like his with every day that passes now. He will never forget the pain his fathers emotions brought, or how he felt completely paralysed and pinned in place by George Foyet and his knife. His mind may never recover. But he's been making progress, and despite the emergency surgery, his body is recovering and he's proud of it. He's proud of himself.

And he's proud of Emily too. When she was in Paris, and he was too consumed by grief to do much more than look through the files they had on Doyle, he would feel a sense of pride in her, and all she had overcome. In all she had accomplished. In all she had survived, and continued to survive. But most of all, he was proud that she never let Doyle win.

Even when he tried to scar her body forever as a punishment for everything she had done, even though she had been right, she had always been right, she didn't let him win. She wore that scar with the same pride everyone on the team did. Because those scars made them human. They reminded him they weren't untouchable, but they were stronger than anyone gave them credit for.

It took a while for her to get there. There were still days where she would scrub the area till the skin went red, as though enough force would remove it. There were days where she would think of how far plastic surgery had come, and wonder- if she was given the chance- whether she would keep the marks. But there are other days, where she doesn't even hesitate before wearing shorts. Before wearing something with a lower neckline.

It's different for Aaron. Not for any real reason, he's just a different person. The scars that cover his torso, the scars that match the killer of his first love, of the first woman to teach him that when the poets said love hurt, they did not mean like the pain that came with smashed glass or belt marks, they meant a pleasant hurt, were almost impossible for him to accept.

The ones on his back became easier with time. Because they healed, and they faded to silver lines. He can still feel it, and can still tell when someone has touched him there. He no longer flinches, as the touches placed there are warm and gentle. Neutral. And he was a child, who deserved to be safe. A child, who shouldn't have known how to fight.

The ones left by Foyet were harder to come to terms with. He cannot feel there properly. The few times Emily has touched him- over his shirt, only ever over his shirt- he has either winced at a phantom twinge of pain or stared at her blankly because the area was numb.

He used to feel like he should've fought back. Properly. His gun was on the table, he could've grabbed it. He knows he could've because he dreams of that night more times than he doesn't. Being exhausted wasn't an excuse. Elle told him it was, but he remembers how she was- so unforgiving of herself. He wouldn't extend himself the courtesy she hadn't.

Foyet’s scars were just different. He hated having the same marks as a killer. He hated how, every time he walked into his apartment, he would remember. Vividly. The moments from his childhood still haunted him, but some of them were starting to blur together. But the feeling of the knife plunging in- he would always remember each and every single one.

The stitches tore during his thirty-four days off. He had sent everyone away, not wanting them to see just how much he needed them, because he needed to convince himself they still believed in his invincibility. The irony of his situation, especially as Derek held his hand from the bed to the wheelchair, was not lost on him. But then he regained his independence.

Then the damage done almost became irreversible. Collapsing in the conference room had been terrifying for everyone, but waking up had been the hardest thing he'd ever made himself do. During one of his brief moments of consciousness, he realised it was the damage Foyet had done when he scarred him that had led him to the abyss he'd visited once, and only once before.

When he finally gained the courage to look in the mirror, he broke. The scars were never going to heal properly, he'd realised that right before the pain became overwhelming. Foyet's hadn't. No matter how careful he may have been the second time round, the scars were never going to fade. They were still red, just less angry.

Seeing them after the surgery, in the same apartment, with the same mirror, sent him back in time. They were too red. They were too deep, too much and he couldn't look at himself, couldn't go through the pain of realising just how strong one man's hold on him was. Not for a second time.

Emily found him like that. She didn't walk in, knowing he would never recover if she did. But when he emerged thirty minutes later, wearing Haley's college hoodie that had always fit him perfectly, she took his hand. She kissed his forehead, and played with his hair as they watched one of Jack's cartoons. A part of her felt guilty for not saying something, but he felt more grateful for that than she would ever know.

They had sat on the couch until they fell asleep then. They were sitting on the couch when she touched the biggest scar, causing him to wince and run out, leading to her seeing them for the first time.

Because sometimes, the world is cyclical, they're sitting on the couch when he shows her.

This time, Jack is at a sleepover. There had been a gala, and he had looked so happy as he accepted his reward. Shocked beyond belief when Strauss announced her retirement. But so incredibly happy when she named him her successor, especially when he realised there was no reason he had to become a paper-pusher. There was no reason for him to change.

He looks so perfect, cheeks glowing and genuine smile overpowering everything else about him that she can't help but kiss him the moment they get in the car. If they seemed like love-struck teenagers to everyone that drove past then so be it. He looked handsome in his suit, but happiness suited him even more and she wouldn't let anyone dampen it.

So they're sitting on the couch, and his hands are running up and down her arms like he still can't quite believe she wants him. Her dress matches his tie- of course it does, because Aaron pouted and stared at her till she told him the colour- and she looks so beautiful that all he wants to do is watch her. She doesn't even have to do anything, so long as he can admire her.

Just like before, she touches his torso. Before he looks down, she pulls her hand away like he burnt it. A silent apology starts to pass her lips, but he kisses it away before it gets the chance to escape. Tonight, there will be no apologies. There will be no sadness.

Only them and the love they fought so hard for.

"Aaron," she says. "What's going on?"

He cannot tell her, his heart suddenly racing. He knows that he's ready to do this. He knows he wants to. He knows that there will be no shame or judgement if he suddenly stops halfway through. He knows all of that, but the traitorous, self-sabotaging part of his brain wants nothing more than to throw her out.

Before she sees his humanity. Before she gets too close and gets hurt. Before she decides that he is too damaged, and too messy, and too ruined for her to love.

But there is a piece of his brain that is stronger than that. A piece that knows she has seen his humanity every moment since she met him, all those years ago. That knows she has already gotten too close, but with her eyes wide open to all the danger that could come. She loves him. She loves him knowingly and deliberately.

He isn't ruined. He never has been. And yes, he is messy, but everyone is. She knows him. Perhaps better than he does. So she won't leave. Not this time.

He's not said anything for a while, and she's starting to worry. Then he takes her hand, as he has done a thousand times before, and the weight of it grounds her. She trusts him. Whatever he is going to do, he will do because they both want it.

"Close your eyes. Please? I'm not going to touch you, but I can't- if I say it, I'll back out," he whispers.

She realises suddenly, randomly, that the lights are still on. "Okay," she whispers, and complies. Talking feels too loud.

"You can open them now," he says, a few minutes later.

She does. And for a moment, she has no idea what's happening.

And then she sees. Properly. He's taken his shirt off, and his scars are completely visible to her. All of them. She's never loved him more. For trusting her enough to show her who he is. For loving her enough to be so vulnerable without fear. For being so brave that she no longer feels afraid of anything.

"My darling," she says, because Aaron feels too casual. But she has no words.

He takes her hand again, and presses it against his chest. She can feel his heart racing underneath it.

"This belongs to you. Whatever is left of it, however long it may beat for, it all belongs to you. Because I love you. And I trust you. So break it if you must, but carry the pieces with you because they are yours, now and forever."

Emily can't help the tears that start pooling in her eyes. She understands where this is coming from. He thought that this would be the thing that made her hesitate. One day, he will realise that this is the thing that convinced her that it was right. She had known for a while that she was going to spend whatever portion of her life that he wanted her for with him, but now she was so sure that the thought didn't fill her with dread.

There are no words in a language she speaks to tell him how much this means to her. So she settles for the ones that will do. "It won't be the pieces that I carry. It will be the whole thing. For as long as you will allow me to. I love you, Aaron Hotchner. I love you, I love you, I love you." She smiles as she says the words, not once moving away from him.

He smiles, as he always does, before he kisses her. He smiles through the kiss.

It is perfect. It is beautiful. Standing there, with him so vulnerable and her so irreversibly in love, it is hard to believe that the place they are creating their happy ending, is the same space where he was once stabbed in. The place where she set off that chain of events not so long ago.

They go to sleep, in the same bed, wrapped in each others' warmth. It feels perfect. The photo of Haley they keep on the dresser seems to glow even brighter, like she too is so proud of who they have become.

The first time Aaron shows Emily his scars, she smiles.

And Aaron does too. Because now he's shown her. Properly. And he saw her face, full of love and admiration and pride in how far he has come. She's seen them. But it was his decision. And that, more than anything, heals the final piece of his soul that Foyet destroyed.

[filmwuju]

[TRANS] Character Introduction: People around Seongyeom & Mijoo

Ki Jeongdo | Yook Jiwoo | Ki Eunbi | Kim Wooshik | Kwon Young-il | Kim Hyunjin | Park May

Ki Jeongdo (Male, late 50s) Seongyeom's father / Four-term assemblyman

A politician who was an athlete. Back then, he was renowned as the nation's thief for snatching actress Yook Jiwoo, who was the nation's first love, at the prime of her youth. Rising to fame, he threw his hat into the political ring, as if he was waiting for this. Him moving into his wife's family home as a live-in son-in-law was also for the campaign fund.

Managing a family that can be recognized by citizens during elections was also Jeongdo's long time plan. As a man, Jiwoo was his trophy; and being the father of siblings who are national athletes, he was able to bear national sentiment. Seongyeom's home becoming a show window family was entirely Jeongdo's volition. Family means gathering together when needed and taking a harmonious photo, that's it. Just one is hard enough already, how incredible is it to raise two national representatives of South Korea? He regards fatherly love as an instinct, and thinks what he's doing to his children is true love. Not knowing that for the person receiving the unwanted love, that love can become violence.

He has always been privileged with vested rights, and since he's in the upper class, he always lived with pride. He has never doubted his capability of going higher, higher up. Most politicians are likewise, their final goal is running for the presidential election. And since they're running, naturally, they want to win. But Seongyeom, who used to be an obedient chess piece, keeps causing trouble. So he's contemplating on how to quash him.

Yook Jiwoo (Female, late 50s) Seongyeom's mother / Actress

A top actress hailed as the nation's first love. If there's Suzy in the 2000s, there was Yook Jiwoo in the 1980s. During the early days of her career, she went by the stage name Jiwoo, without the Yook, because her last name comes off as stubborn. This was her agency's policy. Later, Jiwoo saw her name on a movie poster and threw a huge fit. Since then, she goes by her full name that sounds stubborn for a "female" actor.

She's a perfect actress named as the Queen of Cannes; but she's a born actress who, in pursuit of her career, is far from even the letter M in the word "mother", much less be an excellent one.

Ki Eunbi (Female, 30) Seongyeom's sister / Pro golfer

She doesn't know how to love in an ordinary way, because she's never lived an ordinary life. The world's number one female golfer. With that title alone,  men—regardless of their skin color—approached her, not knowing how Eunbi is like after falling in love. There are no exceptions—whether they have a strong build, or got a straightforward personality. By the time they realize how scary Ki Eunbi is not as the queen of golf, but as a lover, it's already too late—so accept your fate. Once she takes a bite, she does not let go until she gets sick of it. There's no place to escape unless you go to the edge of the world.

Of course there's an exception. When their love for her dies down, she lets go without hesitation. It was always easier to figure out separation than love. The same goes for her family. The time she spent with them in her whole life wouldn't amount to even one year because of her trips abroad. They always separated the moment they met, and she felt worried at the thought of Seongyeom, who would be alone in the huge house. My poor little brother. Their father, who likes to rank, compares them frequently; the media, who likes to chatter, bashes him regularly. My little brother Seongyeom. Seongyeom, whose sin is getting born as my little brother.

Of course she worked hard, but Eunbi's talent played a bigger part. Her sense of distance is more outstanding than others, and she's exceptional in controlling her strength. They said the only thing left for a first placer to do is to fall downwards, but Eunbi didn't know how to fall. If she didn't have talent, would it be a different story? While having these thoughts, she saw Seongyeom and thought, hmm.. it would be stressful to have no talent.

She's even sick of the first place now. Feeling bored, she was thinking whether she should retire and rest a bit, but her beloved little brother caused big trouble. What can I do? My little brother wants to do it. It's an older sister's duty to act as his shield, and I won't die from doing it for a few years more—so just for a bit longer, I'd have to stay in the first place for him.

Kim Wooshik (Male, 20) National track and field athlete

He lost his parents at a young age and was raised by his grandmother. Unlike someone his age, he believes in superstitions. But rather than saying he believes in them, it's more like he's familiar about life and is treated as a precocious child. His self-sufficient grandmother clothed him in cleanly washed clothes even though they're old, and did everything she can so that Wooshik can grow up as a bright and optimistic person. Wooshik, who grew up just like how she raised him to be, was perfectly kind and honest. He wasn't good at studying but he was smart; his hands were slow but his feet were fast. Naturally, Wooshik chose track and field. It was also a sport that he could do even with no money. He fell in love at first sight after watching Seongyeom's race, ran all the way with Seongyeom as his goal, and became a national athlete. It's his wish to run a relay race in the same competition with Seongyeom before the latter retires. No records or competition, just as Ki Seongyeom and Kim Wooshik.

He once saw a passage that said forgiveness is the biggest revenge. That's like saying the powerless can't do anything but to forgive. Ever since his days in  sports high school, he experienced countless assaults and abuse under the force of power. And you say that's the biggest revenge? It was a day when he got beaten by his seniors as usual. He roughly wiped the blood from his nose using his sleeves. The superstitions Wooshik believed in were of no help at all in the face of reality. The one who offered Wooshik practical help was Seongyeom. He told him that forgiving is the victim's right. He told him that he doesn't need to forgive if he doesn't want to. As the only person who told him that, how could Wooshik not admire him.

Kwon Young-il (Male, 29) National track and field athlete

South Korea's track and field record holder. As the best sprinter, he lives up to his reputation of South Korea's No.1 track and field athlete who receives unconditional support from track and field fans. He's a narcissist who cares about nothing but himself, but takes an interest only in Seongyeom. It's because he's jealous.  Whenever he's free, he picks a quarrel with the forever runner-up Seongyeom and ends up saying foolish words. I'm the real first placer, but why does it feel like I'm being pushed back by Ki Seongyeom every single time?

But still, as Seongyeom's long-time colleague, and as a sportsman, he's a friend who supports Seongyeom for the path he's going.

Kim Hyunjin (Male, early 40s) Assemblyman Ki Jeongdo's aide

Would there be another expression that puts a limit on Hyunjin as much as the phrase "aide by nature" does? However, he is a capable aide—to the level that everyone would agree in unison—who grasps everything about the Ki family, including Assemblyman Ki himself. He's machine-like, making one wonder if his heart is made of steel; he does not feel things like conscience and warmth.

Park May (Female, 35) CEO of imported film distributor May

Her name was originally Maehwi. Was it her dad's poor hearing, or her mom's poor pronunciation? Her dad, who heard Maehwi as May, registered her birth with the name "May". For a long time, her mom called her Maehwi and her dad called her May. To May, the actual party concerned, it didn't matter whatever they called her by. What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

May believed in fundamental things. This was also due to her peaceful and cool nature; is it because of that? Entering a translation and interpreting university at the top of her class and finishing her studies in a graduate school of the same expertise, she was walking the so-called elite course. But then she set aside her career path and went into foreign film translation. The reason was simple. Because films are fun, but film festivals are freaking fun. She was in Busan when she first met Mijoo. At the Busan International Film Festival, which she skipped her class for, their sharing of the same bed at the guesthouse was the beginning of their relationship. After getting to know her, she found out that she's a distant junior of hers under the same department in their university. Mijoo was 21.

There is no bad Mijoo in this world. This is the pet theory of May as the dog owner of Mijoo. Mijoo—rough and clumsy, which makes her cute and pure too—was like a dog sometimes, she had no hesitations in baring her claws at arrogant things. From then on, May took it upon herself to be the dog owner. She was worried. If Mijoo meets a good person, it feels like she'd overcome her struggles and become extremely successful*, and if she meets a bad person, it feels like she'd get stabbed with a knife in the midst of selling drugs in a backstreet. All or nothing—Mijoo, who has no in between, didn't have a lot of things. She said she's never met a nice adult in her 20 years of life. Ah... I'm stuck. No choice, I'd have to be the nice adult for Mijoo, she decided**. Just like that, she spent around 10 years of time with her, as a senior and roommate.

She had more curiosity and energy before compared to now, but she feels no excitement nor interest in whatever she does these days. When she was young, she simply felt that her older seniors were cool, but now that she's at that age, she understood. There's just no fun in doing anything. She's done them all, tasted them all; the energy she used to pour out without reservation had been exhausted since long time ago.

Around that period of ennui in her life, an unsavory incident broke out in the translation industry she's been working in. She left translation behind and set up an imported film distributing company. As a small company that mainly imported independent films and art films, it involved a lot of legwork, so business trips is a norm. Her dream was to be a salaried employee for a lifetime, but why'd she become a CEO? CEOs like salaries too.. she didn't know of this fact until she became one herself. Is this, depressing? May, who was mentally healthy, immediately began her visits to the psychiatrist. Antidepressants help people who help themselves, and May wants to help herself properly. And since she's on it already, it's better to be bright and healthy.

T/N: * The idiom used in the original text is 개천에서 용 난다, which literally means "a dragon rises up from a creek." Often translated as "rags to riches," it is used to refer to someone from a humble background who overcame their hardships and became extremely successful.

** A longer translation that would more properly express the nuance of the original sentence would be:  May decided that: I'm not the best choice, but since there's no one else to do it, there's no choice but for me, at least, to be the good adult for Mijoo.

(orig post link from writer Park Shihyun’s DC gallery post)

[flatspot]

okay confession, i'm not going to watch the entire season because i won't have enough time before spa so i have hand picked 7 more races from 2008 to complete my rewatch

fair warning, my criteria was very much 'did lewis win' and/or 'did something mad happen'. and with that, we move on to

monaco (can't believe i am voluntarily rewatching another monaco race this year, i think this is the 5th)

it's raining, we're off to a good start. kovalainen has stalled on the grid, he's not off to a good start

"teams have to anticipate things, anticipate safety cars if they can" - ominous music starts playing as we flashforward to singapore 👀

10 grand for a front wing back in 2008. today's prices have just inflated slightly then

the leaders are ten seconds a lap quicker than the midfielders. insanity

.........lewis hits the barrier and gets a rear right puncture?! this is. not how i saw this race unfolding knowing the result

very annoying that they didn't have a permanent timing tower graphic back then because i literally have no idea where anybody is

and right as i speak it flashes up and lets me know lewis only dropped to 5th

fernando goes into the wall and also gets a right rear puncture followed immediately by coulthard going into the same spot and bourdais ramming into the back of him

and now we pause for some footage of a car flying over the streets of monaco

back to the race, raikkonen is under investigation but nobody knows what for. standard

alonso's been sneaking around heidfeld for a couple of laps now and, somewhat predictably, has t-boned him at the hairpin with webber running into the back of them both. "that's another £10,000 for that front wing" "yeahhhh, run over it, go on!" martin came for the destruction and the destruction only today

and now in the ensuing traffic jam kovalainen has run over someone else's front wing. ah it was rosberg. can't be upset about that.

massa runs straight on at saint devote and kubica gets through for the lead - when they do the 180 spin in the run off there, hot

i haven't said anything for 10 laps but, and bear with me here, a ferrari once again runs straight on at saint devote and kubica gets through (raikkonen this time)

admittedly i'm only on race two (although i did do a quick check up on the ones i skipped) but ferrari this year seems to very much be "we probably should have won but if it's not one of our drivers having a shit show, it's both of them"

and there's the trulli train 🥰

lewis takes the lead around lap 35 and everything has quietened down into the usual level of boredom round monaco. rain expected in 15 minutes so we might get some more excitement yet

and right as i type that glock drops it into the barrier and loses half the back of his car. and a surprise fisi retirement for something we don't know about (this seems to be a common theme)

lewis absolutely flying, gaining 1-2 seconds per lap on massa behind him, almost has a pit stop in hand but nobody knows what tyres to put on because it's still meant to rain again

"what do you think about dry tyres, fernando?" "no thanks" - well, whether he wanted to or not, alonso goes in as the guinea pig putting the slicks on. let's see how badly this backfires

well alonso's okay but piquet comes out on slicks as well and goes straight into the barrier

kovalainen sends button spinning across the chicane but gives him a nice wave to say sorry so i'm sure jenson won't mind at all

rosberg does some pinball machine maneuver down the swimming pool complex and we're now behind the safety car. goodbye lewis's 30+ second lead

this is quite funny actually, to keep us entertained through the sc they're playing a montage of carnage best hits!

they get going after the safety car and raikkonen goes over a damp patch and shimmies all the way down out of the tunnel into the chicane, collects the back of sutil just for good measure, and both of them have to pit. sutil in a force india is out of the race from 3rd place

lewis wins and takes back the lead of the championship and i mourn the fact that it took me 22 hours to watch this one despite my best intentions because f1tv decided it simply wouldn't play this race from lap 40 onwards and i had to go find another copy of it

all in all quite an enjoyable monaco grand prix, definitely one of the better ones and definitely couldn't be called processional.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

1960: John F. Kennedy/Lyndon B. Johnson vs Richard Nixon/Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.

1964: Lyndon B. Johnson/Hubert Humphrey vs Barry Goldwater/William E. Miller

1968: Richard Nixon/Spiro Agnew vs Hubert Humphrey/Edmund Muskie vs George Wallace/Curtis Lemay

1972: Richard Nixon/Spiro Agnew vs George McGovern/Sargent Shriver

1976: Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale vs Gerald Ford/Bob Dole

1980: Ronald Reagan/George H.W. Bush vs Jimmy Carter/Walter Mondale

1984: Ronald Reagan/George H.W. Bush vs Walter Mondale/Geraldine Ferraro

1988: George H.W. Bush/Dan Quayle vs Michael Dukakis/Lloyd Bentsen

1992: Bill Clinton/Al Gore vs George H.W. Bush/Dan Quayle vs Ross Perot/James Stockdale

1996: Bill Clinton/Al Gore vs Bob Dole/Jack Kemp vs Ross Perot/Pat Choate

2000: George W. Bush/Dick Cheney vs Al Gore/Joe Lieberman

2004: George W. Bush/Dick Cheney vs John Kerry/John Edwards

2008: Barack Obama/Joe Biden vs John McCain/Sarah Palin

2012: Barack Obama/Joe Biden vs Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan

2016: Donald Trump/Mike Pence vs Hillary Clinton/Tim Kaine

2020: Joe Biden/Kamala Harris vs Donald Trump/Mike Pence

The same candidates tend to show up year after year. Not just President running for re-election, but Vice Presidents running for the top slot themselves, incumbents or candidates, successful or not; Richard Nixon (1952, 1956, 1960, 1968), Hubert Humphrey (1964, 1968), Walter Mondale (1976, 1980), Bob Dole (1976, 1996), Al Gore (1992, 1996, 2000)

I would expect John Edwards (D-2004) to try and make a comeback, though he was only a one term senator from North Carolina, so that’s looking increasingly unlikely. The state swung for Obama in 2008, but hasn’t voted blue since (except for governor, but he has no power because the Republicans control the state legislature)

Paul Ryan (R-2012) will be back for sure; he retired from the House in part over of disagreements with Trump, but one doesn’t just give up being Speaker and slink away into obscurity (just look at Newt Gingrich, he refuses to shut up or die), so I think Ryan is just biding his time and hoping the whole Trump thing blows over in the next decade. If the party shifts away from Trump, he might offer himself as a slightly more moderate (“moderate*”) alternative.

Or maybe Sarah Palin (R-2008) will try and reclaim the presidency for herself; she’s a hardcore right wing nutjob, she was a Bush supporter AND a Trump supporter, and she’s still relatively young, so I could see her stepping back into the spotlight to try and “being the country back” to the traditionalism of the early 2000s. Nostalgia is cyclical, so I figure around 2028 or 2032 people will start looking back fondly on the Clinton and Bush years (Clinton more so than Bush, what with 9/11 and the wars and such)

Tim Kaine isn’t even one of the famous senators; there are some senators that everybody knows, even if they’re not from your state, like Chuck Schumer, Joe Manchin, Lindsey Graham, Bitch McConnell, big names with big reputations. Tim Kaine is a nobody, just a bland and inoffensive white dude Clinton picked to be as uncontroversial as possible (she couldn’t pick a woman or a black person because then the ticket would have been “too diverse”). He’s not the future of the Democratic party, but I could see him trying to become part of the Senate leadership. Maybe the whip (vice leader), I don’t think he has what it takes to be leader outright.

I don’t think Mitt Romney (R-2012) will run for president again; that ship has sailed. Moderate Republicans are critically endangered, extinct in the wild, with single specimens in captivity (in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maryland). After back-to-back losses in 2008 and 2012, I don’t think Republicans will run a moderate candidate ever again. Romney could maybe just maybe become the whip if he so desired, he’s a big enough name with support enough to become their presidential nominee, though he’ll never be the leader; McConnell was their golden goose, he gave hem exactly what they wanted and changed the game to give them an advantage even in minority. They will only ever elect hardliners like him from now on. Romney is too soft; he cares too much about the other side (he’s not liberal by any stretch of the imagination, he’s a Mormon for Brigham’s sake, but he voted to impeach Trump twice which means he may as well be a liberal in the eyes of the public)

Mike Pence has committed political suicide. Democrats hate him for his homophobia, sexism, racism, classism, and weird relationship with his wife who he calls “mother.” Republicans hate him because he didn’t break the law to re-elect Trump. Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. He’s ultraconservative and super religious, so under normal circumstances he’d be a shoo-in for the nomination, but after breaking with Trump in January he’s dead in the water (he didn’t even really break away, there was literally nothing legal he could do; if he had tried anything it would have been struck down by the courts). And besides that, Pence is boring as hell. He’s milquetoast, he’s a saltine cracker without the salt because it’s too spicy, he orders plain hamburgers with ketchup on the side, all his steaks are cooked well done, he gets a boner when he sees a woman’s ankle and has to self-flagellate for penance, he sends back water if it has too much ice because it makes his teeth hurt. He’s the sacrificial lamb they’d nominate specifically to lose so they can save a stronger candidate for later when there’s no incumbent.

Kamala Harris is basically president-in-waiting (or rather nominee-in-waiting; who knows if she can actually win?) Biden ran on the unspoken promise that he would step down in 2024, making her the front runner, but he has recently walked this back and says he plans on running for a second term himself, pushing Kamala back until 2028 at least. She has good PR and has convinced half the country that she’s a progressive instead of a cop, so if she runs she’ll definitely have an edge over Democratic challengers. The media picks the nominee, and in 24 or 28 they’ll pick her for sure.

It’s becoming increasingly harder for people to stay relevant over multiple decades. I can’t imagine any 2004 candidates running in 2024, but Bob Dole managed to get on as Ford’s #2 and come back as #1 himself twenty years later (he lost both times, but still). Richard Nixon beat the odds and actually got elected in 68 after losing the presidency in 60 and the governorship in 62; he was pretty much coasting on Eisenhower’s legacy, selling himself as the anti-Goldwater, who lost in 64 to LBJ in a landslide.

Trump is acting like he’s going to run again, but whether or not he’ll fully commit is up in the air. On the one hand, his least insane niece says that he doesn’t want to put himself in a position where he could lose again, his ego couldn’t take it, he’s so embarrassed he can’t even admit it happened the first time. On the other hand, he’s too proud to accept defeat and just let some other candidate take his spot as leader of the Republican Party; the Republicans haven’t had a leader since Eisenhower, every other president has disappeared after leaving office.

Nixon resigned in disgrace

Ford was elected out

Reagan disappeared in the 90s because he didn’t want the country to see him deteriorate from Alzheimer’s

Bush Sr was elected out

Bush Jr was despised with approval in the 20s (record low), and could potentially have been tried at The Hague if Obama had balls

Now Trump wants to stick around, even though he’s older than Reagan and FAR less healthy. He’ll probably be dead in 15 years anyway; no way he reaches 90. His mind may already be going, but unlike Reagan he isn’t self aware enough to know it, so he might try to stay in the spotlight even after the dementia sets in. Wo knows?

What his niece says, and what I think is most likely to happen, is that he will pretend like he’s running in order to scam donors out of millions of dollars to pay his exorbitant legal fees, but then bow out of the race before the primaries. Whichever candidate he personally endorses will become the nominee and go up against Biden. Biden will win the popular vote, but I don’t know if he’ll win the electoral college; if this happens for the third time in a quarter century, I expect nothing less than chaos in the streets, perhaps even civil war (well, I expected civil war after 2020, and we’re still standing, so again, who knows?). All I know is that congressional Democrats will throw a hissy fit but do nothing to stop the Republicans from sneaking their way into office without a mandate AGAIN.

The last Republican to legitimately win the presidency was George Bush Sr in 1988. Jr lost to Gore, and only got re-elected in 2004 because he invaded Iraq the year prior. Democrats have won 7 of the last 8 elections, including the last 4 in a row. There are more Democrats and left-leaning independents than Republicans and right-leaners. If the Republicans lose-but-win AGAIN, I don’t think the county could take it; there would be phony calls for secession on TV and legitimate whispers behind the scenes, there would be lawsuits, there would be an even bigger assault on the Capitol than January 6, people would riot, the National Guard would attack brown people with impunity while peacefully corralling the white ones with shields and loudspeakers.

There hasn’t been an assassination since 1963, and no assassination attempt resulting in injury since 1981. Someone threw a grenade at Bush Jr in 2005, but they wrapped a handkerchief around it so the lever didn’t release. I think multiple politicians on both sides of the aisle might be targeted in the event of another electoral college screw up.

Trump could face jail time for his tax crimes, though given his high profile I think he’d get off with a slap on the wrist. He has never faced consequences before, so why would they start now?

[techgoddessdeluxe18]

SidGeno Parent Trap AU!

Will someone please write this i stayed up till 1 aimlessly typing this, ive already fleshed it out for you pleaseee

So Sid and Geno played together as Rookies for the Penguins in the 2005-2009 seasons, lighting up the NHL world as they had done always, slowly finding love and happiness together (after the Me 3 years Super league convo, you saw how blushy Sid was), quietly getting married in an discreet court house somewhere in Pittsburgh, having blissfully unprotected sex before and after the 2009 Stanley Cup win, just happy and in love and their life and success was just beginning to blossom.

But Sid finds out that he’s been pregnant with twins for some time now, having been nearly 12 weeks pregnant already by the time the final round was played. Geno finds out that there are some legal issues from escaping the KHL in order to play for the Penguins, and so to settle some ruffled governmental feathers, it would be best if Geno went back to Russia to fulfill those duties. Sid is extremely worried about the awful timing of the pregnancy and the sheer amount of alcohol consumed during the Cup celebrations, and Geno is worried about Russia ever letting him out of the country, or worse; finding about his relationship with Sid.

They hole up in a remote corner of Canada for the off season, just trying to soak in the time they have together before Geno goes back to Russia. Days are spent going to doctors visits, holding hands as they walk around the lake, cuddling on the couch at night, Geno’s big hands rubbing Sid’s belly, little feet kicking as hard as they can, while Sid giggles and twists round to kiss Geno.

Sid safely delivers the babies, two identical adorable boys, who have thankfully have not had birth defects as Sid was fearing, and so the rest of the off season is spent trying to decide what to do, how they could go back to their respective corners of the world and try to raise their kids. They agree to split the kids, and keep silent on where they came from.

Geno returns to Russia with a little baby boy, who will mostly be taken care of by his mother and father. Sid does the same, heading back to Cole Harbor more often than he would during the season, always glued to his phone and even taking phone calls from his mother on game days.

So then the actual story goes, 16 year old Daniel Patrick Crosby and Dimitri Evgenevich Malkin meet at Worlds to play for their respective countries, and like a random dinner clash between Russia and Canada find Daniel and Dimitri really confused because they look exactly the same; dark curly hair, strong solid bodies, angular doe eyes. Their teammates chirp them, saying they wouldn’t know who was who if they switched sweaters before the tournament.

They meet up again after Russia wins, meeting in Daniel’s hotel room while his roommate is away. They’re like 

“oh when were you born? September 1st, 2009”.

 “Oh shit me too”. 

“ oh who’s your parents?” 

“Evgeni Malkin, big KHL superstar” 

“Sidney Crosby” because duh who doesn’t know the greatest player ever. 

Maybe they have a ripped picture like in the movie, like with Sid and Geno holding the Stanley Cup like they did in 2017. Daniel has Sid, and Dimitri has Geno, and they’re like “ yeah Dad never talked about who Papa was, but that he loved him, but they couldn’t be together”. So they whip out the picture halves, stashed in their wallets, and tada they fit. They’re twins!

Since the tournament for them is over, Russia with the gold and Canada with silver, they have a few days to themselves to watch the rest. On a midnight run to Tim Hortons, sharing a box of Timbits, they agree to swap places to meet each other’s dad, and then switch back during the Olympics, let say it’s somewhere in America, in a few months time. Daniel and Dimitri spend the next precious days coaching each other on how to be each other. Daniel is conveniently mostly conversational in Russian and can understand better than he speaks, but Dimitri is a quiet kid so it works out. Dimitri works hard to soften his Russian accent and worm eh into his normal syntax more. They get haircuts together, the barber laughing at these rambunctious twins and their beautiful curly hair, and they laugh at the ridiculous stripes they agree to shave onto the sides of their heads.

Before they separate at the airport, they exchange necklaces, a #45 from Daniel and a cross from Dimitri.

Dimitri flies back to Cole Harbor, and finds his dad waiting for him. He looks older than the picture he has, more lines on his face, Definetly shorter and grey-er hair, and sad eyes. If Sid notices his son hugging him tightly and for longer than he normally does, he doesn’t say anything. They chat through the drive home, to the lake house that Daniel told him about. Dimitri can only stare and try and absorb who this man was, the man who birthed him. Sid asks him if he’s ok as they eat dinner on the dock, bare feet dipping into the cold water. Dimitri can only mumble “you’re the best”, as he snuggles his head into his fathers chest. Sid can’t help but think that his son’s voice sounds different; the way he pronounced best sounded just like Geno.

Daniel manages to not say too much on the flight back to Russia, desperately trying to memorize more vocab and grammar before landing and being picked up by his grandparents. The cooing and lecturing is the same in either English or Russian, so he smiles and just lets it wash over him. He tentatively asks where his Papa is, and Grandmama Malkin says he’s probably wining and dining his latest girl. They go home and Daniel is stuffed full of food, everything Grandmama could have possibly made for his arrival. Geno comes home later that night, tired but eager to congratulate his son for winning Gold for Russia. He notices that his son perhaps looks a little different, ruffling the funny haircut that he had gotten, but more at the expression of awe on his face; a similar expression Sid had on his face when he told him he usually went out last before a game, many many years ago.

So yadada ya, they’re enjoying the time that they have with their respective dads, occasionally wringing out a small story or a sad look of their faces whenever they mention anything about each other. So the Olympics are rolling around, and they’re all going to be in one place (lets just say that Sid and Geno had never attempted to make contact whenever they played against each other, afraid that they might get caught) But Daniel has frantically been calling Dimitri over Geno’s new girl and how he might propose and would ruin their plan to get their parents back together.

Shenanigans during the Olympics, one groups disappearing before the other can see them, until Geno is in the elevator shmoozing his girl until he sees THE ASS tm across the room by the front desk. Sid turns around and just smiles sadly as the elevator door closes.

Then the scene where Sid is walking down the hall and Dimitri and Daniel open the doors at the same time and suddenly Sid is confronted with what he thinks is the son he hasn’t seen in 16 years. They pull him into a room, and explain the whole swicheroo, and Sid is mad because there’s nothing they can really do, he’s prepared to let Geno move on and do what’s he needs to, but resigns himself to being alone.

Then the pool scene, where Geno and his girl are lounging with his parents, and Sid walks his fine ass down the stairs and Geno falls in, scrapes up his nose a bit, Sid bandages him up a bit. Daniel and Dimitri reveal themselves to Geno.

Some time in between tournaments, with Russia and Canada on the rise to be competing for the Gold Final, Daniel and Dimitri bully their fathers into a family dinner at a nice restaurant. They cut a handsome swath at dinner, good looking men in good looking suits. Geno instinctually files in last, whether it being his remembered deal with Sid, or merely to ogle a bit as he pushes in Sid’s seat for dinner. For fun, after dinner, they find a nearly empty outdoor rink, equipped with rental skates. Daniel and Dimitri take off, chirping each other and racing and checking each other into the low boards enough for Dimitri to flip over and out of the rink, Daniel wheezing with laughter as Dimitri hefts himself back over. Sid and Geno skate around at a sedate pace, both having played a round that day and simply watching their sons fool around. They don’t say much. They can’t really. They can only quietly enjoy each others presence, wondering where had all the time gone, all the plans they had had.

The final round for Mens Ice Hockey has arrived, Russia vs Canada for Gold, and Daniel and Dimitri can only watch and wonder to see who will come out on top, and what will happen with their parents, watching as Geno checks Sid into the boards. Sid refuses to give up, and so Canada ends up winning the Gold. Like the 2014 picture where Geno and Sid hug after the game, what the camera doesn’t see but their sons see from behind the glass is the shaking hands of Geno and the single tear from Sid.

Like in the movie, before everyone hops onto their respective planes to their respective corners of the world, Sid and Geno make sure their sons aren’t faking this time, and that they go back to who they belong to. It’s how it has to be.

Cue the rain sequence, the sad music, the umbrellas.

Sid and Daniel return to Cole Harbor, still down pouring and quiet. They don’t say anything in the car ride back to the lake house. They finally arrive at home, and take some time to unpack and get comfortable. They silently look at each other, each longing for their other halves. Daniel had become so close to Dimitri, finding out who he was and planning the whole quest to meet their fathers. Sid just missed his husband, and playing against him after fighting so hard to play with him just made him wish for retirement sooner. They hug, and with Daniel under Sids arm, quietly wander down the bank of the hill towards the dock.

Although there seem to be two people already sitting there, with their feet in the water. Geno and Dimitri turn around, identical smug looks on their faces. Dimitri says, his accent hovering somewhere between the hard Russian accent and the rounded Canadian pronunciation, “hey Dad, did you know the Penguins still have those private jets?”

“Ye-yeah, they do bud”, Sid murmurs, still looking at the tall Russian slowly making his way towards him. Daniel duck out from under his arm to sit with his twin and watch the two goofballs that are their parents figure it out.

“I made mistake of not coming for you once, Sid. I’m not do that again, no matter how brave you are.” Geno says

“And I suppose you expect me to go weak at the knees and fall into your arms, and cry hysterically and say we’ll just figure this whole thing out, a bi-continental relationship with our sons being raised here and there, and you and I just picking up where we left off, and growing old together and… And, c’mon G, what do you expect? To live happily ever after?” Sid warbles, his tired eyes welling up with long withheld tears.

“Yes—to all, except you don’t have cry hysterically.” Geno murmurs, cupping Sid’s face and wiping a lone tear as it falls.

“Oh, yes I do—” Sid is cut off as he is kissed (AKA THE BEST KISS SCENE EVER, CUE THE MUSIC)

Daniel and Dimitri can only grin and fist bump as their parents finally kiss after 16 years apart. They put and end to it when Geno starts to dip Sid into a deeper, more lurid kiss and some major groping, and they push both of them into the water.

During the epilogue with This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) by Natalie Cole, scenes flash by of Geno and Sid holding hands in front of a press conference, their sons standing by their sides, as they announce their retirements from both the NHL and KHL after 20 years, and their relationship and their sons to the hockey community.

Another scene where Daniel and Dimitri attention Shattuck St. Mary’s to finish up high school before inevitable being drafted when they turn 18. It would be the first and only time they play together on the same team, Crosby-Malkin proudly spelled onto the back of their sweaters.

Another scene where they’re all playing shinny on a frozen pond somewhere, Geno getting distracted and just sweeping Sid into his arms after he scores a goal, kissing and swinging around until they both fall into a snowbank, their sons launching themselves at them at top speed.

Another scene where Daniel Crosby-Malkin from the Chicago Blackhawks and Dimitri Crosby-Malkin from the Dallas Stars face off for a Stanley Cup final

And finally, a small wedding held in Sid’s backyard in Nova Scotia, where Daniel and Dimitri stand with Flower and Tanger and Kuni and Duper and Talbo and most of Geno’s Russian buddies as their parents finally get married again, kissing happily under the sunset and the lake shining behind them.

Bonus scene: A few months after the wedding and a few days before the season starts up again, with everyone home, Sid comes down the stairs for breakfast with a strange look on his face and something in his hands. He’s a graceful 43 now, grey hairs really pushing now, so when he says “you boys up to being big brothers?” Geno spits out the tea he had been drinking and jumps up and envelops his husband.

[lady-of-the-lotus]

Fractured Ice - Ch. 2/7

“Xiao Xingchen,” says Lan Xichen, trying to infuse his voice with as much of his old gentleness as he can, “there is no contacting this man’s spirit.”

“Try again!”

“Daozhang—”

Xiao Xingchen is on his feet. “Try again!”

Relationships: XueXiao & XiYao - Rated M

Read on AO3!  Tumblr: Chapter 1 Chapter 3

Ch. 2 - I’m well acquainted with villains that live in my head

Lan Xichen is alone when he wakes, pierced by a headache that could stun a tiger.

His body is heavy and sluggish, but his mind races from the moment he opens his eyes.

Last night. Last night he—

The things he had said! To someone he’d known three months! Things he'd only told—

Told A-Yao.

“A-Yao,” he says out loud.

It’s been almost a year since he’s heard himself speak that once-familiar name fully out loud, and it’s like stabbing himself in the chest.

“A-Yao,” he says again, more firmly this time.

Another stab, but he survives it. Survives the pain. Sits up, washes his face in the basin. Gets out of bed. Allows a servant to shave him. Takes medicine for the headache. Drinks some tea.

A-Yao.

Something has changed, but he’s not sure what.

He’s more alert than usual at the daily status meeting, and when he asks a question about the upcoming tax conference, Lan Qiren shoots him a surprised look.

Pleased? Displeased? Lan Xichen can’t tell, but finds he doesn’t care. He feels more grounded than he has of late, almost completely certain that he’s awake.

He remains behind to meet with Lan Qiren privately.

“About that matchmaker,” he starts, opening the discussion in the middle of a conversation, exactly the way he’s been taught not to. “I won’t be needing her.”

It’s almost pitiful, the spark of hope he sees in his uncle’s eyes. He crushes it before the Grand Master can ask any awkward questions about whether he’s found a wife on his own.

“I won’t be getting married.”

Lan Qiren stares blankly at him.

“I won’t be getting married,” he repeats, louder. The words sound foreign, as if his words are in a language he once knew but has since forgotten. He repeats them one more time, just to be sure he is in fact speaking Chinese.

“I heard you!” Lan Qiren’s face is bright red. “What do you mean by this?”

Lan Xichen is on his feet, as if the gently expanding air in his chest has floated him upright. “I mean that you need to look for a wife of your own, Uncle,” he says, bowing deeply.

“Such insolence!” Lan Qiren has quite a temper for someone who is supposed to be a paragon of virtue. Hypocrite, something deep inside Lan Xichen hisses. “What do you mean by this?”

Lan Xichen feels like he’s hovering several inches off the floor. “That Uncle needs to meet with the matchmaker and let her know what he is looking for in a wife.”

Lan Qiren is on his feet too, fists clenched. “You have a duty to the Lan—”

“ ‘Do not argue with your family, for it doesn’t matter who wins.’ ”

“Stop talking!”

“ ‘Be easy on others.’ ‘To lose one’s temper is to lose one’s self.’ ‘Equanimity in all th—’ ”

“Get out!” Lan Qiren is gripping his inkwell as if getting ready to throw it, ruin Lan Xichen’s beautiful blue robes. “Get out this instant!”

Lan Xichen half-floats from the room. Spends the rest of the day playing Liebing until his fingers cramp up. There’s something inside him that he’s trying to get rid of, though he doesn’t know what it is, or how to expel it from his body.

Joy? He’s suffused by an odd sense of glowiness. Is that it? It seems to be coming from outside him, entering him, being magnified inside his chest and radiating back outward.

He’s been lying in bed for an hour that night when he suddenly leaves his chambers to rouse the very surprised sword instructor, urging her out to the training ground so he can spar for the first time in months.

He retires to his room sweaty and panting and feeling as if he might be halfway there—hallway where he doesn’t know—but first thing in the morning Uncle is there, wearing the same look he’d worn when finding him sleeping naked in the grass, chilling him, and suddenly Lan Xichen is having green tea gently pushed on him and he’s being bundled off to the library to sit and quietly paint—something he used to enjoy—while a disciple plays soothing music for him.

He shoos the disciple out around noon. As if waiting for this, Xiao Xingchen ducks into the library soon after, bows at Lan Xichen, and settles himself down across from him.

“What are they saying?” Lan Xichen asks without looking up from his brush.

“Gusu Lan is the most rumor-proof clan I’ve ever been to,” says Xiao Xingchen. Lan Xichen can’t tell if he’s being tactful or if he’s telling the truth, that Lan Xichen’s frantic midnight sparring match isn’t common knowledge. “I didn’t see Zewu-jun yesterday, and wanted to make sure he was all right after the other night.”

Lan Xichen feels his old half-smile back on his face. He’s not sure if it’s fake or not. “He is all right. More than all right. And I think much of it is thanks to you.”

Xiao Xingchen ducks his head, granting Lan Xichen a smile of his own. “An honor, then. May I ask what I said?”

“Many things were said.” Lan Xichen glances down at Xiao Xingchen’s hand. “How is your arm? I would love to spar with one of your famed skill someday.” All day he’s been itching to get back out there with his sword, but Shuoyue was missing from its usual spot beside the bed that morning—taken to be sharpened, the servant said.

Sharpened. Of course.

Xiao Xingchen touches his hand bandages almost unconsciously. They’re not as bulky as they used to be, but the hand is still fully covered in thin white strips. Rumor has it that he’s self-conscious about his injury, not even letting the physicians near it. “I don’t think I’m quite ready for that, Zewu-jun.”

“Was the wound truly that terrible?” Normally, Lan Xichen would never ask such a personal question, but he feels like he can to Xiao Xingchen.

There’s something new in Xiao Xingchen’s eyes. “Far worse than Zewu-jun can imagine,” he says. He smiles again, with his teeth this time. Then the smile winks out and reappears, soft and toothless.

“Will you be able to use it again someday?”

Xiao Xingchen’s eyes drop. “I wanted to speak to you about that, actually. I was wondering if perhaps there was a remedy in the secret library of yours.”

He drops this so casually that it takes Lan Xichen a moment to register what he said. “Secret library?”

Xiao Xingchen nods. “I know it survived the Wen’s fire. I know it exists.”

“…How do you know?”

Xiao Xingchen smiles again. Again no teeth this time. “Perhaps Gusu Lan isn’t so rumor-proof, after all. To be quite honest, I wasn’t sure it existed at all. I’ve spent years trying to heal my hand, and nobody has been able to give me anything but false hope.”

“Is it paralyzed?”

“It’s gone,” says Xiao Xingchen. “Gone, but still here, and I need it back.” He touches his left sleeve, as if not wanting to touch the bandages themselves. “And I will get it back.”

“I have some experience with medicine. Perhaps if you showed me your hand, I can look through the medical texts—”

“No! I mean—” He ducks his head. “I thank you, Zewu-jun, but…” Xiao Xingchen’s eyes drop again. “I can’t show it to anyone.”

“Injury is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I’m not ashamed!”

“If I can help—”

Xiao Xingchen is on his feet. “I’ll take my leave, then.”

“Please understand, only Family and clan elders are allowed into the Forbidden Chamber—”

“I understand perfectly.” Xiao Xingchen seems to be struggling with himself, as if fighting to keep a grip on his temper. A surprise, all this. Lan Xichen could have sworn the gentle, pleasant rogue cultivator hadn’t a temper at all. “Outsiders be damned, am I right?”

Rule 14: Foul language is strictly prohibited.

Lan Xichen suddenly remembers Su She’s words in Guanyin Temple. Remembers the Wen invasion of the Cloud Recesses, the outside disciples being left out in the open to die while the inside disciples sheltered in the Cold Pond Cave.

Su She had been a murderer, and misguided, but he hadn’t been wrong.

A sudden surge of emotion buffets Lan Xichen at the memory of Su She’s denunciation. It’s been so long since he’s felt anything so intense outside a panic attack. It’s fear, but a fresh fear, the fear of Xiao Xingchen taking umbrage and leaving Cloud Recesses forever.

“If there is anything else I can possibly do to, daozhang—”

Xiao Xingchen eyes him evenly, tilting his head, then relaxes his shoulders and reaches up to toy with the long tendrils of hair framing his face.

“I heard that Zewu-jun was practicing his flute again,” he says. “I was glad to hear it.”

Lan Xichen gives a small nod, forcing a smile onto his face, hoping that Xiao Xingchen sees it, sees how sorry he is that he can’t allow him into the Forbidden Chamber.

“Have you taken up your guqin again as well?”

Lan Xichen’s hands tremble so hard that he completely ruins the tree he’s painting, the brush wobbling off the side of the paper and onto the table.

“I’ll take that as a no, then.” Xiao Xingchen gets back down on his knees across from him. “A shame.”

“Rules 32 and 27; I know.” The large blue-and-white banners emblazoned with the Lan rules hang all around him, with Rule 32—Maintain your own discipline—directly behind the rogue cultivator.

“No, I don’t care about any of that discipline and training the mind and body business. I mean because of this.” A shower of orange qiankun sparks above Xiao Xingchen’s left forearm, and suddenly there’s a brown pouch in the young man’s hand.

“Do you know what this is, Zewu-jun?”

Spirit-trapping pouches are nothing unusual, but Lan Xichen instinctively knows these are the kind that can capture and transport a person’s entire spirit, not just the faint whispers left behind by ghosts. He’s heard of them, but never seen one. Baoshan Sanren took the secret of making new ones with her to the mountain, and there are only a handful left in the world.

“One of my master’s spirit-trapping pouches,” says Xiao Xingchen slowly, as if relishing the drama of it all. He sets it down on the table, keeping his hand on it as if afraid to let it out of his grasp. “Inside this bag, Zewu-jun, is the man who can heal my hand.”

“And you want me to communicate with him?”

“Zewu-jun is the foremost cultivator of his generation. I believe he can succeed where others have failed.”

“Failed how?”

“Empathy, for one. They’ve all told me there’s not enough left of his spirit to communicate with. Frauds! Liars! They—” Xiao Xingchen breaks off, gets himself under control with difficulty, and shoves a fixed smile on his face. “They failed. Everything for the past seven years has failed. But Inquiry…nobody I’ve met has been skilled enough. Only the direct Lan family members are taught the technique, I have heard.”

A subtle accusation: Only the inner circle. Only those deemed important enough to have such a valuable tool in their arsenal. To hell with the rest.

“Why did you not ask my brother?”

“I met him but briefly, and had no wish to extend our acquaintance.”

Lan Xichen frowns, and Xiao Xingchen hastens to add, “Frankly I found him rather intimidating. The man is a living legend. I couldn’t ask the Chief Cultivator to help me with my petty problems.”

“I can try,” says Lan Xichen. A part of him is afraid that this is the sole reason Xiao Xingchen befriended him. Then he remembers how he, Lan Xichen, was the one to bring up the hand and offer his help. How Xiao Xingchen had taken care of him the other night. Of all their walks—

And yet—

Was this all he had wanted from him from the beginning?

No. This is his paranoia speaking again.

Xiao Xingchen smiles, a genuine smile this time. “When?”

“We can…tonight, I suppose.”

“Where?”

“My mother’s house.” He had taken him there once, to see the crane. Ridiculous, in hindsight, to take someone all that way just to see a crane that may or may not have been there at the exact moment of their arrival, but that crane had been his sole company for—for however long he’d lived in his mother’s home, and it had been there, and Xiao Xingchen had appreciated it, so… “Two hours after curfew.”

“All right, then.” Xiao Xingchen doesn’t look overly grateful, something Lan Xichen appreciates for reasons he doesn’t quite understand. “Enough of that, then. Have you eaten today?”

“I had tea.”

Xiao Xingchen sighs, shaking his head. “On your feet, Zewu-jun. I’m taking you to Caiyi Town for a proper meal.”

“There is plenty of food here in the Cloud Recesses, and Gusu is closer, besides—”

“If you consider that unseasoned rabbit food to be edible. Get up, my friend. When’s the last time you’ve left the Cloud Recesses? The Grand Master never leaves, and look at him. I know the perfect place in town. Quiet, with the best pastries you’ve ever had.”

It’s all overly familiar, but Lan Xichen embraces it. Nobody has ever dared to treat him this way before, so there are no bad memories tied to it, unlike everything else in his life.

They eat an early supper at the Flowering Begonia Teahouse. Xiao Xingchen’s meal consists of dumplings in sweet wine and pastries. Lan Xichen can’t bring himself to stomach such a horror, but he finds himself eating every bite of his steamed rice and vegetables.

“Zewu-jun prefers simple foods,” observes Xiao Xingchen. He’s been watching Lan Xichen eat as if he’d been thinking about something else and forgotten to glance away at something neutral.

“We eat simply at the Cloud Recesses.”

“I know; I’ve been suffering.” He smiles as if this were a joke. “Zewu-jun’s order reminds me of someone.” He glances off towards a waiter, as if trying to change the subject. “Shall I order more wine?”

“You know it’s—”

“Against the rules. I know, I know. As is speaking during meals. Has Zewu-jun never been drunk?”

Lan Xichen winces. “Such a thing doesn’t interest me.”

“Me, neither, to be quite honest. I’ve found that it’s dangerous to be impaired in any way.” Xiao Xingchen starts to lick his fingers, then catches himself and instead daintily dips them in the bowl of scented finger-water. “I like the flavor of sweet wine, though, and I know when to stop.” He pushes his cup towards Lan Xichen.

Lan Xichen takes a few sips of the wine. He’ll rid himself of the alcohol with his golden core, he tells Xiao Xingchen, but for once he doesn’t.

He doesn’t quite like how it makes him feel. Too hot, too blurry. Normally he’d be happy to be outside himself, to feel like something other than what he is, but as always this past year, alcohol just makes him feel heavy and queasy. He immediately eliminates the alcohol, but a brightness remains in his chest, a strange airiness.

Xiao Xingchen launches into a discussion of the various wines he’s tasted. Even Lan Xichen can tell that he knows nothing about wine, but his commentary on the various places he’s drunk that wine is entertaining. An idiotic, completely pointless conversation, but Lan Xichen welcomes it. Welcomes Xiao Xingchen taking him on a walk through the town afterwards, welcomes him taking him back to Cloud Recesses by the longer route, all on foot, no suggestion of riding their swords and ending their excursion. There’s warmth in his limbs for the first time in a long time, from the exercise or conversation or wine he doesn’t know.

They part outside the Family Courtyard.

“Two hours after curfew, then,” says Xiao Xingchen, bowing, and Lan Xichen nods.

This is not the right thing to do, he somehow feels. He doesn’t know why. Just a little prick in the back of his mind.

He disregards the feeling. There hasn’t been anything this past year that he hasn’t second-guessed.

Lan Qiren summons him as soon as he steps foot in his room. The entire Cloud Recesses he learns, has been turned upside-down looking for him. He gets the idea that his uncle thought they’d find him floating face-down in the Cold Spring.

The image makes him smile for some reason, and Lan Qiren’s worried frown hardens into a disapproving one.

Lan Xichen starts to feel cold again.

 *   *   *   *   *

He’s late to his rendezvous with Xiao Xingchen.

“I was beginning to give up,” says Xiao Xingchen. He’s sitting on the stairs to the porch, tossing white pebbles into the grass, ruining the perfect green turf. He’s changed into what Lan Xichen recognizes as the best of his three outfits. Green with black trim, gold accents, and a black inner robe. “Despite Rule 892—” Do not break promises “—and Rule 17.” Be punctual in all things.

“People were…interested in me.” He doesn’t mention that he’s ninety-percent certain that a watch is being kept on his room. He knows how that would sound. But he’s not crazy. It’s the rest of the world that’s gone mad. All he’d done was slip away for a single afternoon—

“Where shall we do it? Inside? Outside?”

“Inside. Can’t risk anyone hearing. I won’t be able to spare any spiritual energy on a silencing spell. That’s why I chose this place.” Lan Xichen unlocks the door, locking it again behind them.

It’s been five months since he’s last been here. Someone has been in to clean, but everything is exactly as he left it.

He takes a certain comfort in that. This is still his sanctuary, despite being violated by whomever came in and dusted.

He leads Xiao Xingchen into the main room, gesturing at him to sit down at the low table across from his. He kneels before his own table and produces his guqin from its silky white-and-blue qiankun bag.

It’s been a long, long time since he’s so much as lain eyes on the instrument. He runs his fingers down the lacquered wood, grounding himself in its solidity. He is here, now, in the present. All the bad memories of the past belonged exactly there: in the past.

But…

He gets to his feet. “Switch places.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Sit here. I’ll sit there.” He seats himself in Xiao Xingchen’s vacated seat.

That’s better. He’d always sat on the right while playing for Nie Mingjue in the Unclean Realm, but here he’s on the left.

Different. Entirely different.

The music he will play now will be good. Will help, not harm. He will be in control. Nobody else will be playing. Nobody else is here to harm his new friend…

He has Xiao Xingchen set the spirit-trapping pouch down on the table. Soft brown felt-like material trimmed with black, with a black tassel and symbols written in what looks like blood. Xiao Xingchen is reluctant to let it go, sitting leaning forward as if readying himself to dart across the room and grab it at the first sign of trouble.

“What exactly do you want me to ask?”

Xiao Xingchen doesn’t seem to hear him.

“Xiao Xingchen?”

The rogue cultivator’s head jerks up. “What?”

“What do you want me to ask the physician’s spirit?”

Xiao Xingchen swallows. There’s a smile on his face, but it’s one of his fixed ones that looks uncomfortable to wear. “Ask him how I can bring him back.”

“What about your hand?”

“Ask him how to bring him back! But not his name,” he adds. “He’s extremely private. Won’t respond at all if you ask that.”

But, name or no name, the spirit doesn’t so much as twitch.

“It’s too badly fractured,” says Lan Xichen. “I can barely so much as feel it.”

“Try again.”

“Xiao Xingchen,” says Lan Xichen, trying to infuse his voice with as much of his old gentleness as he can, “there is no getting information from this man’s spirit.”

“Try again!”

“Daozhang—”

Xiao Xingchen is on his feet. “Try again!”

“Complex questions are always a shot in the dark, daozhang. Qin language is not—”

Xiao Xingchen heaves the table across the room, sending it tearing through a delicate screen painted with blue cranes. “Try again, fuck you!”

Lan Xichen remains completely still. “Xiao Xingchen, this spirit is mere powder.”

Xiao Xingchen turns on him. There’s madness in his eyes. “There has to be something left! There has to be! I felt it! It’s been too long since you’ve last tried, you’re out of practice—there has to be something left, there has to be—”

Lan Xichen summons all of his spiritual energy, pours it into the guqin, plucks the strings with more concentration than he’s given anything in eleven months. The simplest Inquiry question, the first he’d ever learned: Who are you?

The response comes faintly, as if from across a vast gulf. The merest quiver of the guqin strings, the slightest brush of air:

Xiao Xingchen.

***

Up Next: Lan Xichen decides that solipsism and nihilism make an excellent combination. 

Or: The joys of library research are many and varied.

Chapter 3  Read on AO3!  

[meaningofmotorsport]

GMR Grand Prix Review

We got our third new winner in the first five races at IMS today, however it was not the driver that everyone thought could do it! Instead, a young star of the sport, finally got a well-deserved win!

Veekay’s time in IndyCar did not start well, as he crashed twice on the first weekend, but since then he has gradually improved, including getting his first pole last year! So, it was just a matter of time before everything fell into place, as it did today, to get his first win! With a perfect strategy of starting on blacks, to get them out of the way, then he was fast all the way to the end! He may have been fortunate with other drivers struggles, but he drove his way to the win, passing Grosjean and Palou! For ECR this is a real big boost, as they get their first road course win since Newgarden was in the team! What can the team and Veekay do in the future?

Finishing 2nd should a terrific result for Grosjean, in his 3rd IndyCar race, although given he led so much of the race, and was so quick, you wouldn’t blame him if he was disappointed! He did get unlucky, with other ex-F1 drivers especially, fighting him hard to stay on the lead lap, which undoubtedly cost him time. Whether he would have won, who knows, as the black tyre stint did cost him, however he is now a true threat for the rest of the non-oval races this year! Palou was right there with the other two at the front, but he played it safe, by running blacks instead of worn reds during the last two stints, which may have cost him any chance of a better result. Nevertheless, he is now 2nd in points, looking really consistent, how will he do at the Indy 500?

For a car which has been one of the fastest all weekend, 4th is not what Newgarden wanted from today, the car just didn’t have the pace, which you could see straight away when he couldn’t pass Harvey on blacks. It was then compounded when he pitted early off the reds, which forced him to do a long stint on blacks, where he dropped back from the leaders, and was never able to recover! On a day like today though, where all his rivals were behind him, he at least gained in the points, and is now 3rd, pretty good after how Barber ended!

One of the drives of the race, was by Rahal, who was forced into an audacious strategy, of doing a 2 stop from Lap 3, which he doubted himself. He was able to pull it off though and bring home P5, which is a nice recovery, and sets him off into the Indy 500 on a good note, where he could be really fast! Pagenaud just sort of held a top 10 position all race really, not really able to go any better. The same could be said for McLaughlin, who is adapting really well to open wheel cars!

Rossi and Dixon did make some progress from where they started, although it wasn’t anything spectacular, as they just seemingly didn’t have the pace of the front runners! Given Rossi had engine issues, it really is a solid drive for him today! Herta had similar issues, and dropped out of the top 10 late in the race, as his season is beginning to look shaky!

Hunter Reay was another driver to battle up through the pack, gaining 7 places, whilst Jones fell back, not able to hold a light to his more experienced teammate! McLaren really had nothing this weekend, as their best finisher was Pato in 15th. Having struggled at the Indy 500 before, let’s hope that Texas was a sign of improvements!

Motorsport can be so cruel, which Daly and Harvey found out today, with first lap contact, and pit issues respectively! Looking at what Veekay did, in the same car as Daly, on the same strategy as Harvey, who were both ahead of him of the grid, they will really see this as a missed opportunity! At least it is better to have pace and retire, than be slow and always finish, so I am sure they will get their chances later in the year, as they both deserve something better than this!

One thing that I do want to comment on, is the effect of Grosjean on the interest level in IndyCar, especially after getting pole. You see F1 twitter was lighting up during the race, as they watched Romain driving well, and be in with a shout of winning. Hopefully they have now seen how good the sport is, as IndyCar does struggle with its exposure!

Today’s race was by no means a classic, however it gave us both plenty of on track passes, and intrigue with strategy. Best of all though, it has tightened the championship up further as we head into the biggest race of the year!

-M

[mirkwoodshewolf]

The city kid and the horse whisperer; Charles (Joe Mazzello Wooly boys) x reader

*Author’s note*

Okay let me first start off by saying I have NEVER WATCHED WOOLY BOYS SO IF YOU HAVE AND I GET ANYTHING WRONG, I AM SORRY!!! There’s just no way for me to watch this film unless I buy it. But I figured I give this a shot, hopefully you all like it and I’m planning on one more Charles fic in mind but until then I hope you all enjoy this one.

Warnings: drowning (just vague scene of it, not really any major details), some flirting, playful banter, teasing (platonically), and a writer who has no idea about this film other than from what she’s seen in the trailer and a clip or two of the movie.

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things​

@waddles03​

@ixchel-9275​

@psychosupernatural​

@simonedk​

@dancingcoolcat​

@queensdivas​

@queendeakyy​

@kairosfreddie​

@geek-and-proud​

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels​

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I watched from afar as Charles was struggling to get onto Whiskey and I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.  How could someone that is related to the great AJ “Stoney” Stoneman, and not know how to ride a horse? Guess city folks really don’t get it.  I stood there with Stoney’s white stallion ‘White lightning’ as I continued to stroke his mane.

“He really is trying isn’t he boy?” he grunted as he turned his head towards me and nickered softly.  “Oh come on he’s not that bad.”

“I swear every time I hear you talk to them, it’s almost like you do have witch-like powers.” Stoney’s voice soon spoke up.  I turned and smiled at the old man who’s been the only real positive male figure in my life.

“Just call me one with Mother Nature’s creatures.” I joked.

“You know; you are the youngest rider out of Shuck and I. And Charlie there won’t really listen to a bunch of old geezers like us. Why don’t you give him some tips on riding?” I chuckled softly.

“That’s funny.” When I heard Stoney not laughing nor chuckling along, I looked back towards him and said, “You’re being serious?” his brow raised. “Stoney, he won’t listen to me. You know that right?”

“Well he’s pretty pissed off at me and Shuck doesn’t really believe he can be a Wooly boy. Besides no one else is a better rider than you. Remember how you bested them Spratt boys last year at the rodeo?” I grinned smugly, “You lasted longer than either of them arrogant little assholes did on the bull ride, a full 20 seconds.”

“Yah those boys hadn’t let me live it down ever since. Always challenging me to a rematch or claiming I was cheatin.”

“My point is, I think my grandson could do better with some company around his age.”

“You sure this is about letting your grandson learn to ride? Or are you just avoiding him?”

“He’s getting no better teacher. Hell might be good for you too.”

“What are you talking about you ole coot?”

“I maybe old and sick my dear but I know when a mare is interested in a stallion. And sweetheart you’ve been eyein my grandson the second he arrived here.” I punched his arm which made him groan.  “Didn’t I ever teach you about respect for your elders?” he teased.

“Yes but I counteract that when said elder person decides to be a busybody towards young one doing the ‘disrespecting’.” I teased back to him.  I looked back towards Charles who was finally up on Whiskey but was struggling on trying to keep him calm.  “Alright, but only because if I don’t then Whiskey’s gonna piledrive him to the ground.”

I walked right over to the riding ring and I leaned up against the fence as I could hear Charles say to Whiskey.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy. Easy. Just—hold still…..”

“He can sense your uneasiness yah know?” Charles suddenly turned towards me which made Whiskey nicker nervously.

“No offense but I have ridden a horse before, okay?” I raised my brow at his arrogant attitude before he suddenly deflated, “Okay. It was—virtual saddle. And I—don’t remember it being this high.”

“City kids and your fancy tech. You can try to make it as easy as you can or make it seem you’re really doing it but all that crap, doesn’t even come close to what people like us do.” I hopped over the fence and placed my hand on Whiskey’s strong neck and took one of the reins and whispered soothingly. “Easy big guy, steady young buck, steady.”

Whiskey’s nervous pacing soon stopped as his head touched my shoulder and the only thing that moved from him was his tail, whipping every now and then.

“Good boy Whisk. That’s a boy.” I patted his neck before giving it a gentle and soothing stroke.

“So it—it is true.” I heard Charles say.

“What’s true?” he tried to get down with ease but his foot got caught up in the stirrups.  As he tried to wriggle it out, I couldn’t help but softly smile and try to hold in my laughter.

“That you really can talk to the horses.” He said as he finally got himself free.

“Well it’s not really talking. I mean yeah it is but it’s also showing respect. These creatures have been around and helping mankind for literally millennia’s. They gave us speed, power, and companionship in a way. Cowboys in the wild west had no one but their posse, if they had one, and their horses. One thing that mankind seems to forget is how to respect those that have helped us. That’s why I always treat any horse of Stoney’s with respect and dignity.”

“But—aren’t they just animals?”

“Just because they’re animals doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings too.” I sassed at him. The two of us stared at each other as I unhooked Whiskey’s saddle. “Your grandad wants me to help you learn how to ride. So be ready tomorrow at dawn.”

“Can’t we start after breakfast?”

“No can do Yankee-doo. Besides, I needed to go out hunting anyways for Shuck, might as well give him his winnings before he nags me to next month.”

“Winnings for what?”

“Oh last month he and I had a bet on whether or not Stoney would actually have the guts to go see yah in the city. I bet he wouldn’t, so—you can pick the story from there.”

“Am I supposed to be insulted that you lost a bet because of me?”

“Don’t kid yourself city boy.” I laughed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put Whiskey up before you do anymore further trauma to him.” I took the reigns and led him toward the barn.

“I didn’t—”

“Loosen up Yankee I’m kidding again!” I laughed as I turned my head towards him before grinning and turning my head back to continue to the barn.

The rest of the day was just helping Stoney around the farm and by the time the sunset we all sat around and had dinner before I finally decided to retire for the day.  I showered, brushed my teeth and put my hair up in a bun before finally falling asleep.

Early the next morning as soon as the rooster crowed, I woke up and stretched myself out.  I got on the first pair of clothes I could find before heading downstairs to the kitchen to see Charles asleep on the couch.  I grabbed an empty vase and filled it up with cold water.  I walked over to Charles and shook him.

“Oi get up.” He groaned tiredly and turned away from me.  Okay but don’t say I didn’t give him a chance.  I then dumped water on his face which immediately woke him up.

“What the hell!?”

“Oh good you’re awake. Get up and get dressed.”

“For what?”

“Oh don’t tell me you forgot about our riding lesson.” He groaned again as he almost went back to sleep. “You know I can dump the rest of this water right? Or would you rather have me hogtie you till you scream uncle?”

“Didn’t know you were that kinky.” He teased as he peeked out from underneath his pillow.  I blushed and turned aside before dragging his butt out of the couch.

“Just get dressed and meet me in the stable!” I didn’t once look back at him as I raced outside and ran towards the barn.

I had just finished saddling up Whiskey and now I was saddling up my stallion “Tornado”, a pure black mustang.  Few years back Stoney and I came across him after he had a nasty encounter with a mountain lion.  After chasing the demon cat away, Stoney and I took Tornado to the farm and I stayed with him and healed him up.

Now if I told you it was all trust and immediate connection between us, you’re wrong. Tornado definitely proved himself to be a pure, wild stallion.  Hell if I didn’t know any better I’d say he was the leader of his herd.  He wouldn’t even let me anywhere near him for 3 days till finally his injuries got so bad I feared he was gonna die.

So it was then I stepped in and cleaned out the injected wounds, wrapped him up and stitched him.  Every now and then I gave him peace offerings of apples and water which he gladly took. Weeks passed and he showed great improvement, of course his wild nature still stayed (and of course I was dumb enough to think I could try to ride him, got my ass whooped a few times)

Finally I knew that I wouldn’t be able to ride him so I let him go.  He raced off and never did I think I would see him again.

Until one day seven months after Stoney and I had rescued him; I was out alone scouting for the annual hog trails when the Spratt brothers tried yet another of their failed attempts to flirt with me.  After I had denied them, the youngest and most relentless one Billy got so assertive that he had the nerve to cup a feel of me.  Well I’ll have you know I didn’t take that sitting down, so I gave him a right hook so hard, I heard a crack of his nose.

Pissed and beyond angry that I had the nerve to attack his brother, Owen took me to the edge of the cliff we were on that overlooked the river and he pushed me down off the 10ft cliff.  I fell into the river and was dragged down the rapid miles away from the trail.

As the river overtook me and forced me down underneath its rapid current, I thought I was dead for sure.  But the next thing I see running up along the side of the river was a large black creature. I almost couldn’t believe it myself but I recognized that shape and pure black stallion anywhere, it was him.  The wild mustang.

I watched as it jumped into the river and actually swam after me.  He put himself between me and the rest of the current as I reached out and grabbed onto him.  He then swam with all his might against the current to get us to the shoreline before the river could sweep us away further downstream.

I almost doubted it but Tornado proved to be one strong mustang.  He reached the shore line and got me out of harm’s way. Exhausted from traveling down miles of strong rapids, I collapsed on the river’s edge and instead of him abandoning me. Tornado knelt down and stayed with me till I woke up around nightfall freezing cold.

When he noticed that I had woken up after passing out, he adjusted himself so that I could not climb up onto his back and actually ride him.  He stood up and trotted back the 20 miles back to Stoney’s farm.

Now three years later, Tornado has not left my side.  I saved his life and he repaid me back by saving mine.  After that debt was paid, we had this—incredible bond, and that is something that no one can ever take away from us.

Once I hooked him up I said to him.

“I don’t know Tornado, maybe I’m just going crazy.” He nudged shoulder and gently nibbled the ends of my long hair.  I giggled and shoved him away from my hair.  He nickered at me as he moved his head towards mine so that he and I were staring at each other eye to eye.  My forehead touching his muzzle. “You Mister are as much of a busybody as Stoney is.”

“So, are we doing this or not?” Charles’ voice suddenly rang out.  I backed away from Tornado and I said.

“Well you seem eager.”

“Not really. I just didn’t want to get water dumped on my head again.” I scoffed softly as I grinned.

“Normally I’m a bit easier when it comes to wake up calls. But you’re still not getting the hang of being here on the farm are yah? Here we wake up as the sun rises and go to sleep as soon as it sets. If not for us you wouldn’t have any of those vegetables or fruits. Nor your wooly sweaters at Christmas time, or even the milk and eggs you eat every breakfast.”

“Alright, alright I get it. So—is the black one mine?”

“Not unless you wanna get kicked across the barn. Tornado don’t let anyone but me ride him.”

“Is he picky or just clingy to you?” Tornado huffed at Charles and I saw him stomp his front right hoof in a challenging gesture.  

“Steady Tornado, steady. For your information smartass, he’s a pure bred wild stallion. He’s only ever really trusted me.”

“Why’s that?”

“That’s a story for another time. You’ll take Whiskey again, but before we ride; I’m gonna teach you the proper technique on how to mount him cause let’s face it, after yesterday—you’re gonna need it.” I walked up to him and he and I stood beside Whiskey.

I told him the proper way on how to mount a horse on the left side, how to hold the reins and which foot to step onto the stirrup before shifting your weight to fully mount the horse.  I mounted onto Whiskey so that he could properly see how it was done before I got off of him and stood on the right side of him now.

“Okay city kid, your turn. Like I showed you, hold the reins first and foremost before you even think about stepping up.” He took hold of the reins and waited a bit for Whiskey to get used to him before he used his left foot to get on the stirrup.  He counted down softly to himself before finally hauling himself over with ease and as soon as he was on Whiskey, Whisk started acting up again, this time circling around nervously.

“Okay, okay now what—hey, hey what do I do now?”

“Take hold of the reins and even them out. Don’t grip them though. If you hold them too tight, it’ll show Whiskey you’re nervous. Ease and loose.” He did as I told him and Whisky immediately calmed down his nervous circling. “Now with your legs, don’t tuck them inward. Let them come outward. Have you ridden a motorbike or anything?”

“I once went boat racing with some friends of mine one summer.”

“Okay that’s good. You know how you have your legs relaxed and your knees pointed outward?” he nodded. “Do that.” He adjusted his knees and for the first time Whiskey didn’t react at all.

“I did it. I did it!” Charles laughed happily.

“Great kid don’t get cocky yet. You just got on the horse. Now you need to learn to ride.” I grabbed my hunting rifle and wrapped it around my shoulder before I mounted on Tornado and urged him outside with both my right foot and clicking my tongue.

Charles followed awkwardly behind me, I could hear him nervously telling Whisky to slow down.

“Telling him to slow down will only make him speed up. Try not to have your legs kick him every time too, that’s a sign to him that you want to go faster. And keep those reigns even.”

“Maybe we should just give this up. There’s no way I’m ever gonna ride a horse in New York City.” Charles whined.  I stopped Tornado and turned him around and I said to Charles.

“Listen Charles; I know you think this is pointless. But out here, this is life. Best way any of us get around here is through horseback. Not everyone is automatically born a horse rider. We all had to learn, your grandad, Shuck, the Sheriff, even me. Hell I was worse than you were when I first started. But how bout I give you a little piece of advice my teacher gave me.”

“What?”

“He told me ‘(Y/n), life is like a horse itself. Somedays you’ll be riding freely like a bird in the sky. Other days it’ll haul you off and slam you smack down into the ground it’s like all your insides are busted. But it’s up to you to get back on that horse and ride on. Cause if you don’t, then you’re just sitting there in the dirt watching life go by without you. And only the dead need to do that’.” Charles looked at me in awe and he said.

“Damn. That’s—that’s deep.” I nodded. “Who was your teacher?” I smiled softly and said.

“You’re living with him.” We continued onward the trail and didn’t speak another word to each other for a while.

As the day got brighter and the sun moved higher into the sky we finally reached the entrance to the forest trail, the perfect place to get Shuck a deer.

“We’ll tie off the horses here and continue on foot.” I urged Tornado onward closer to the forest.  Charles urged Whiskey behind me, suddenly a bunch of birds suddenly flew out from the bush which startled Whiskey and the next thing I heard was Charles exclaiming as he was knocked off to the ground and Whiskey running into the forest.

I steadied Tornado and got off his back and raced towards Charles and stood over him.

“Can you move?”

“I think so.” I held my hand out to him and he took it.  I helped him up and groaned in pain as he rubbed his head.

“You don’t have a concussion do yah?”

“Yeah, my vision isn’t blurry or anything.”

“Good. Well most likely Whisk ran about several yards into the forest. He usually don’t stay scared for long when something startles him, especially if he finds something to eat.” We walked towards Tornado and I grabbed his reins and we walked into the forest.

Low and behold we soon found Whiskey standing beside a tree eating some grass and wild flowers not even a half mile as soon as we entered the forest.  I walked up to him and grabbed his reins and said to him.

“A bunch of sparrows Whiskey and you go running off like a big fat ninny!” he raised his head and allowed me to tie his reins to the tree.  I whistled for Tornado and he came up to me and allowed me to take the saddle off of him to lighten him up.

“Aren’t you gonna tie him up too?”

“He gets restless is he stays tied up. So I allow him to just roam around a bit whenever I go out hunting or we go for a ride. But he knows to stay close so that he can hear me call out for him when I need him. Like I said, pure blood wild mustang. You can take him out of the wild, but you can’t take the wild out of him.” I took the reins off of him and he happily spat out the metal bars between his teeth and shook his head.

I smiled and stroked up his muzzle as he nickered in gratitude before turning around and trotting off deeper into the woods.  I hung the reins over a thick branch right beside where Whiskey was tied up and took my hunting rifle off my shoulders.  Standing there for a bit I looked around and said.

“This way.” We walked Northeast for about 10 minutes till we finally reached a good rest stop near a small creek where animals would be coming for a drink. Charles and I perched up against a tree and waited.

“So—how did you become part of my grandfather’s farm?” a slight smile came at the corner of my mouth.

“That is a long story.”

“I think we got time.” I adjusted myself to fully turn towards him.

“Your grandad has been with me since all before I was born. My father used to help him out when he was growing up before he met my mom. Sadly when I was born, my mama died. Complications from the birth or something like that. After that, my dad was ruined. He drank—a lot. Then when I was—six, maybe seven my dad got the final strike when he and I got into a car accident when he was drinking and driving. After that, Sheriff put him away and Stoney actually stepped up and took me in.”

“I’m—I’m so sorry (y/n) I……”

“Didn’t know. It’s fine. I…..really don’t like to talk about it much. Never went to see my dad cause let’s be honest he never really was a father to me. I was just a visitor to him. Sometimes he’d get so drunk he’d get confused and just call me ‘little tenant’. So Sheriff did me a solid and I hold no grudge against him. Until I was told when I was 14 that my dad died in prison. I never really cared to ask how he died. But Stoney’s been good to me, as have Shuck and the Sheriff.”

Suddenly the sound of a twig snapping alerted me.  I cocked my gun and raised it up to my eye as I aimed forward towards the shrub.  Only to see a mother deer step out and a second later, her baby.  I lowered the gun and smiled lovingly as the mother deer and her baby walked towards the creek to get a drink.

“Do you—ever miss your mom?” I heard Charles ask.  I looked up at him and that’s when he said, “Sorry stupid question.”

“No it’s not stupid. And yeah. I wish I got to know her, that way I could decide for myself whether we would get along or just end up hating each other.” The reason why I mostly said that was cause I knew how Charles was towards his mom. His face immediately turned to regret as he said.

“Guess I should really rethink about how my mom’s been treating me lately.”

“Take it from me Charlie boy. Never take life for granted, cause you never know when you got something that someone else doesn’t. Be thankful that your mom is still in your life and is doing what she does because she loves you. Yeah it may seem cold at times but that’s tough love. And coming from your grandfather’s bloodline no doubt she’s a Wooly girl, just in a city environment and adapting as the times and laws change.”

It was then we both heard the chittering of squirrels just nearby.  One squirrel had a surprisingly good sized nut all to himself but there was another squirrel slowly creeping up on him wanting to steal it.

“You know if you wanna hear something really stupid. When I was a kid, sometimes I used to commentate on what an animal might be thinking in a situation.”

“Seriously?” he chuckled.

“Yeah, yeah go on laugh it up.”

“No I’m not laughing. I think it’s—kinda cute. What do you imagine those squirrels are saying right now?” I chuckled and said.

“Well the one with the nut is probably saying ‘hmm I lucked out today. Got me a really big nut. This’ll last me till winter time for sure.’ Now the one coming up behind him is saying, ‘that nut will be mine. Bucky always gets the big nuts, well not this time’.” We then watched as the squirrel behind quickly stole the other squirrel’s nut and took off running.

As the squirrel who had the nut previously chased after the thief squirrel I continued to commentate the chase scene.

“Oi Daryl that’s my nut give it back!”

“No way Buck finders keepers!”

“I found it give it back you thieving rodent!” Charles softly laughed hearing my ‘squirrel’ voices as we watched the two squirrels chase each other up and around the tree they were standing near.

Unaware that the mother deer and her fawn had left and that another deer was coming in for a drink.  This time an adult male one.

Charles and I continued to watch the squirrel’s chase each other and I continued my commentary till I stopped when I heard a twig snap.  I turned my head and that’s when the large buck and I met eye to eye.  Slowly and carefully I raised my gun back up to my eye as the buck soon took off running.

“Cover your ears!” I said to Charles as I fired the shot and the buck immediately dropped to the ground mid run.  After a few minutes of it not moving, we walked towards it and I handed him some leather gloves. “Put these on. Never know with bucks, I heard of one case where someone took a 8 pointer buck without gloves and ended up with lime disease.”

I put my gloves on as well and the two of us worked together to carry the 6 pointer buck back towards Whiskey.

After getting him tied onto the Whiskey’s back, I whistled for Tornado and within minutes he came trotting back towards us.

“Hey big guy, have a good time roaming?” he nodded as he nickered happily. “I’ll bet you did. Unfortunately though, we’re gonna have to saddle you back up boy. But we’ve done what we needed to do. Come on boy let’s get you hooked up.” I walked back to get his saddle up ready for travel.  Once he was good and ready, I mounted onto him and said, “Alright, let’s go.”

It was roughly mid afternoon when we were about 3/4th of the way back to Stoney’s farm when I stopped by the river and I said.

“Hey Charles,”

“Yeah?” I got off of Tornado’s back and I said as I grabbed the pail bucket from one of the tacks I had on him, “I just remembered I promised the Sheriff some of Stoney’s fresh river water. Think you can fill this pail up to that I can take it to him?”

“Why can’t you do it?”

“Yeah and leave you to watch Tornado? Please he’d snap you like a twig.” Tornado gave a proud huff as Charles submitted.

“Fair enough.” He got off of Whiskey and took the pail from me and jogged towards the river.  As soon as he went down, I smirked and got off of Tornado and whispered into his ear of my devious plan.  I saw Tornado blink one eye at me, like he was winking at me before he silently walked towards Charles.  Oh man was this city kid gonna get a surprise.

Tornado finally stood over Charles and he still had no idea what to expect.  Next thing he would know was something shoving him into the water.  As he fell into the river, I couldn’t help myself from laughing, while Tornado reared up and whinnied what sounded like a laugh.

“Did you tell him to do that?!” I walked towards the river’s edge wiping a tear away.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist. You’re just too easy. Here, let me help you.” I reached my hand out for him.  He took my hand before he said.

“No, let me help you.” next thing I knew, I was pulled into the river right next to him. I resurfaced and saw him now laughing at me.  I splashed some water in his face to shut him up and soon it escalated into a water fight between the two of us.  

After our water fight ceased, Charles and I stared at each other exhaustedly.  The way his auburn hair shined under the sun reminded me of the reddish tint that the sunset makes especially during the summer time.  And the way his pale skin gleamed off of the water’s reflection, it was like looking into a fresh pail of milk.  The two of us continued to stare at each other till he finally broke the silence.

“(Y/n)?”

“Uhh—yeah?” I whispered softly.

“Do you……uhh….I mean has anyone t-told you—” he stammered nervously.

“Told me what?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you have really pretty—”

“So there you two are. I was beginning to think you both decided to hit the trail and take off out of the state line.” We looked up and there on their horses were Stoney and Shuck.

“Sorry Stoney, we were just……” I started off before Stoney once again said.

“No need to explain. We can see what’s going on here.”

“It’s not like that you old coot!”

“Seems our horse whisperer has finally gotten on the horse after all.” Shuck teased. I groaned and got out of the water as Charles followed behind me.

“Here Shuck, I got you yah damned deer. My debt has been paid and now I bid you all adios.” I said as I unhooked the deer from Whiskey and dropped it at Shuck’s horses feet before going on Tornado and riding off back to the ranch.

As the day went on I avoided Charles or anyone for that matter.  I kept myself busy around the farm, caring for the sheep and of course taking care of the horses.  Currently I was brushing Tornado’s mane when I heard the voice of the boy I really didn’t want to hear right now.

“Hey (y/n).” I circled around Tornado to hide my face from him as I kept brushing Tornado.  “Are you really not gonna talk to me anymore? You’ve been avoiding me all day.” I bit my bottom lip as Tornado looked right at me with a slight huff.  He lowered his head and nudged me away from his side before finally nudging me outward so that I now stood in front of him, but also in Charles’ line of sight.

“Damn you stallion.” I muttered to my horse as he bopped his head up and down nickering and whinnying.  I turned towards Charles and I said.

“Okay. You’ve got me now. Now what is it?”

“Well when you talk like that it almost makes me not want to say it at all.” He grouched.

“Well sorry I wasted your time then.”

“What is wrong with you?” I scoffed.  “No seriously, ever since the lake you’ve gone back to the cold-hearted girl that I first met when I came here. Did I do something wrong? Cause I swear I didn’t know Stoney or Shuck would come looking for us.”

“No it’s not something you did per-say.”

“Then what is it? Tell me cause right now I’m completely……”

“I LIKE YOU OKAY!?!?”  There was dead silence in the air.  Charles’s eyes turned from anger to shock in the manner of a second.  His mouth slightly dropped as he just gawked at me.

“You….. you like me?”

“Please don’t make me say it again Charles. I—I’ve never really been interested in any of the boys in this town, but then your grandad drags you here and……I don’t know you made me feel things I’ve never felt before. But I didn’t want to be all smoochy-gooey-goo about it. That’s just real sissy stuff but I—” I was interrupted by feeling Charles grab my arms and shutting me up with a kiss.

I froze right there on the spot for a moment not even believing what was happening till finally I succumbed and kissed him back.  I wrapped my arms around his neck as I felt his wrap around my waist bringing me closer.  After awhile we separated for air, our breaths mixing in together in a warm dance.

“I—I’m sorry. I’m sorry I….I didn’t mean to do that. I mean not the kiss that I mean kiss you so suddenly, I was just….” This time I interrupted him with a kiss. This time, it was much more softer and meaningful.  I separated from him and he whispered. “Your eyes.”

“My what?”

“Back at the lake. I—was going to say you have really pretty eyes.” I smiled happily and leaned my forehead against his.  

“Thank you. No one’s….ever really said that to me.”

“I’m more than happy to say it to you as many times as you want. Hell I’ll say you have a pretty foot if you want me to.” We both laughed and I said through my giggles.

“Please don’t though. I’ll just take the ‘pretty eyes’ compliment.”

“Hate to break it to you angel, but I’m gonna add more cute body parts to compliment.”

“Such as?” he cupped my face in his hands and just stared into my eyes.

“Well I love this pretty nose,” he kissed my nose. “And these pretty cheeks,” he kissed both my cheeks, “Especially when they get red from either the sun or from you blushing.” He teased.  I poked his side which made him curl inward for a brief moment before he continued, “And those pretty lips.” He gave me a soft and ginger kiss. “I especially love your lips. They’re not all poofed up or overly coated with lipstick like the girls have back home. It’s natural, with a hint of cherry chap stick.”

“Farm work can cause chapped lips. And the cherry was the only flavor available when I first started working here. Guess it just kinda stuck.”

“Well I love it, please keep getting that flavor.” I nodded as he leaned in and captured my lips one more time in a passionate kiss.  This time I was now pinned up against the wall and I felt Charles’ hand slowly slid down my side, to my hips and slowly back around.

But before I could feel his hand go any closer towards my butt, that’s when Tornado let off a warning neigh.  Not just any type of neigh, it’s the type of neigh that almost makes a horse sound just like a demon.  Charles immediately backed up as Tornado huffed through his nose and glared at him. I laughed softly and said.

“Oh you mind your own business Tornado. I’ll bet you were way worse with the mares of your herd.” I playfully swatted him with my cowgirl hat and he walked back towards his stable but kept his eyes on Charles.  After locking him up in his stable, I turned back towards my auburn city boy and took his hand and the two of us walked out of the stable together.

“Is he ever gonna warm up to me?”

“After seeing that, probably not. But no worries, I think the only approval you’ve got to face and already gained was your grandad’s and Shuck’s.”

From that day on, Charles and I continued to grow closer and closer with each other.  He slowly improved on his farming skills and dare I say, he went from city boy to Wooly boy in a matter of a few weeks.  Never have I been more proud to call that city kid my boyfriend.